Disclaimer: if you recognise it, someone else invented it.
A/N
Lack of Connor in the chapter: personally, I find Connor a very nice character that's good for the series, but there is no Connor in action scenes of episode 2 for this story's sake, because, for starters, I don't think that the Home Office employees had nobody else to turn to in search of info on that Arthropleura. I mean, seriously, it's the Home Office. Besides, even if Connor was asked for help, he didn't have any information to give quickly, without searching for it first himself, because he told Stephen in episode 1 that he's built a database that's got vertebrates, and this creature is an invertebrate, if I'm not mistaken about the database. If I am, well… I'd say the Home Office found somebody else to give them information.
Story title: I was looking for adjectives for a story title that got a Scottish side or two. Yep, wanted to write something that had Nick Cutter in it. And Abby. And Stephen Hart, of course. A friend suggested using this word, heartsome. So, here goes…
Heartsome Legacy
1. Heirloomin'
- What did I say?
Stephen didn't remember a thing.
Or maybe he did and deserved an Oscar for his acting skills? Abby Maitland didn't know. Wasn't sure that she needed to know or wanted to, for that matter. Still, it hurt. Professor Cutter and the captain, not to mention all the other special forces' men, of course… They did the right thing. Brave hunters they were, and they saved his life, but not his memory of… her. She wasn't about to cry.
It was a warm and very-very nice day as one woman or another kept on writing, in those stupid romance novels she wasn't reading! One of the nurses moved there, behind her, in the adjoint room, doing her nursely work, and Shephen Hart was oh-so-close to her, closer than… On his hospital bed, in the normal clothes, not the local horrid stuff, reading… So close!
Abby braced herself.
He asked her a question, right? She might as well answer. Not really a big deal if she happened to dislike his reaction, not a big deal at all! Guys paid her attention 24/7, they did, and she wasn't really hopeful for yet another one to do that proverbial sweeping-off-the feet thing… He wanted to know, fine! She'd tell him.
- You asked me to have dinner with you.
Now, why could her throat get so dry all of a sudden? Abby coughed. The nurse kept moving in the background.
- And I… I said I wanted to have coffee at your place later. I mean, after that d-d-dinner.
Abby was kind of aware of the fact that she sounded a little like he did, poisoned.
- And… and I wanted to stay for breakfast, too.
- Oh.
That was it? "Oh"? Abby wasn't about to cry. She wasn't!
The nurse. She'd better go and ask something of the woman, and just get an excuse, any excuse to leave. She'd better…
- Abby, do you still want any of these?
- Wha?..
- The dinner, the coffee…
He was putting the book down, he was taking her right hand in his, he was smiling, his face – a dream, his voice – another dream to die for, just like those dreadful books used to tell her.
- …and the breakfast. What d'you say, Abby Maitland?
The door was fairly easy to shut, the nurse turning a blind eye to them and tiptoeing into the corridor, bless her. The clothes… Stephen was nearly down to his underwear, his chest bared for the world… no, for her to see, and – boom! She saw it.
On that wonderful chest of his, dangling, scaleful… It looked disturbingly familiar.
If sort of older and well-worn, but so much like her own snake pendant, the one she got from her First Big Crush. Looking at the snake, Abby felt awkward. That tiny blemish on its aluminium tail and all, no… Not when her dream was right there, almost naked, it wasn't fair! It simply wasn't.
A coincidence… Right? This… this thing had probably sold everywhere by the dozen since forever. Right?! Abby swallowed. Her throat was too dry.
- Where… where did you get it?
Stephen touched the pendant with his gorgeous left hand, gently. His expression softened, too.
- The snake, you mean? It belonged to my mother.
He let out a breath, and the pendant moved when his chest did. Abby swallowed again. It didn't help, of course.
- A long time ago, before she… disappeared. Abby? Abby, what's wrong?
It was her cue to disappear, that's what!
Stephen Hart had never seen a girl dress so quickly. Doctors and nurses there, in the corridor, hadn't seen one running so fast either. As for the girl… She just ran.
Abby Maitland had a mission to accomplish. The kind that meant a long-distance call aimed at her baby brother and a search for an ages-old snake pendant on a chain.
She had it, somewhere in the flat… Right?
She'd soon find out.