Disclaimer: I don't own Primeval but I do adore the show!

Summery: Everyone leaves someone behind. When Christine Johnson falls out of an anomaly three years later it's Lester's turn to try and clean up the mess he thought was dealt with. James/Christine eventually

Rated Will be T eventually for some language and personal time.

A/N: This story is a stand-alone from all my other and was only supposed to be about ten pages long. I've no idea how it expanded to this...

Spoilers for season 1-4.

*****No good deed goes unpunished*****

James Lester was catching up on a veritable legion of paperwork when the anomaly alarms went whooping off and completely threw his attention off. There really didn't need to to be so loud did they? Surely an announcement over the speakers would suffice.

With a sigh he left his office and called out to Jess, "Where's it at?"

"It's a repeat," as the young lady rattled off the address the computer gave her Lester felt his blood run cold. "That's Christine Johnson's facility."

"That anomaly goes to the future ARC!" Connor blurted out. "We've got to get there!" He ran out of the operations floor, following Captain Becker who was only a step ahead of him.

"Let me know if something comes through-" Lester started to say to Jess when she hit her earpiece and told everyone, "We have an incursion."

"Damn." He felt like cursing. "Send the other teams as well. Those future Predators are nasty creatures. Make sure they don't escape the building."

Orders given, he tried and failed to focus on his paperwork.

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Half an hour later his phone started ringing. It was Captain Becker.

"Yes?" He snatched it up and snapped.

"It's locked, and a predator didn't come through, we found Christine Johnson passed out just on this side of it."

He knew those words but that sentence made no sense. "I beg your pardon?"

"Johnson." Becker repeated. "She alive. She's torn up pretty badly, the ambulance has already taken her away. She doesn't know how long she'd been gone."

Lester felt a panic rising in him, "You said she was passed out?"

Becker was a bit puzzled why his boss was trying to catch him out, "she regained conscience briefly when we moved her. She said that Helen shot the predator and she jumped back in the anomaly." He took a deep breath, "She thought it had been ten seconds. She didn't understand why Connor had a beard now."

"Oh no." Lester rocked his head back and felt the beginnings of a really nasty migraine building. He knew this was going to blow up in his face. That's what he got for being nice to a lonely old lady.

"Sir?" Becker was confused. "I realize you two didn't get on, but isn't her being alive a good thing?"

"Not for me it isn't." Lester snapped. "What hospital did they take her to?"

"St. Mary's." The head of security thought that it was very selfish of Lester to care more for his rivalry with the woman than for her life even if she was a power hungry, ambitious, backstabbing bitch.

"I'm heading over. Is the anomaly locked?"

"Yes sir."

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All the way over to St. Mary's Lester tried and failed to come up with some easy to believe lie he could tell her for the events of the past three years. Nothing came to mind. He felt like beating his head against the steering wheel. It all started with those damned lilies and his bad sense to attach his name to the damn card at her damn funeral. It was all her fault, as usual.

Putting it off wouldn't make it easier. He growled and shut off the engine. By the time he reached the information desk he was in full control of himself. He inquired after her and was given a room number by a polite young man in blue scrubs who checked quickly to see if anyone had thought to enact any privacy barriers on the information. No one had. Lester corrected that oversight and made a mental note to have Becker send someone to accompany anyone who needed to go to the hospital in the future.

This was rapidly falling in the category of putting it off and he never put things off. Not even difficult and unpleasant things like this. The elevator ride was too short for his liking but he got to her floor without any extra delay, until he got to the nurses station.

An older nurse with dark hair looked up at him. "Can I help you?"

"I'm looking for room 34B, please."

"The doctor is in there now. You'll have to wait." She nodded to some chairs set out in the hallway.

"Of course." Lester parked himself and tried to figure out how he would want his worst enemy to tell him that his only remaining parent had passed away more than a year ago. There wasn't an easy way to do it and the doctor taking his sweet time coming out wasn't helping him settle his nerves.

Eventually, he emerged and Lester rose to his feet. "How is she?" he asked, trying his best to play a concerned family member. "Who are you?" The doctor wasn't going to give private information away to just any bum sitting outside the room. "Family?"

"Yes. We're family. She's my step-sister. I'm the only family she has left." Lester lied smoothly.

"She was asking for her mum?"

"She passed away recently, Christy isn't taking it well."

The doctor nodded, "She has a concussion, that would explain the memory loss. The car crash caused a lot of contusions and blood loss. We've given her a transfusion and I just finished stitching her up. We'll be keeping her overnight for observation but she can go home tomorrow if someone stays with her for a few days."

Wonderful. "Can I see her?"

The doctor moved out of his way, "Of course. Stay as long as you like. Visiting hours don't end for immediate family."

Lester walked into the room. She looked up instantly when he entered, and her face fell when she saw it was only him. "What do you want? Come to gloat?" She rasped out. She sounded as if she had screamed herself hoarse.

He took a second to survey her. Her whole face was swollen, like it had been bashed into the ground and there was several lines of stitches trailing along her arms to disappear underneath the pale gray hospital gown. Her hair was wet, like they had washed it to get the blood out and another line of stitches crossed her forehead all the way around to below her ear.

Lester realized that he just had to get this over with. "I didn't come to gloat. I came to tell you that we thought you were dead."

She scoffed. "I was gone less than a minute. I already told Becker, Helen shot the creature and I jumped back in while it was closing."

"No." He pulled a chair over beside the bed. "You were gone three years."

"No." She denied that immediately, "I couldn't have. You're lying to me."

"I'm not lying to you, you were gone three years. You were declared dead-"

"Oh no, give me your phone, I've got to call my mum and tell her I'm in the hospital-" She saw the look on his face and froze. This was why he came.

"Christine, I'm so sorry, she's gone."

"What do you mean she's gone? She can't be gone. I talked to her this morning..." Her voice trailed off as she read the sorrow in his face. They went way back. Nearly two decades. She knew when he was lying, and the one time he should be, he wasn't.

"I'm sorry, so sorry." Awkwardly, he patted her hand as she crumpled into tears. "Do you want me to leave you alone for a bit?"

"I don't know." She gasped out. "I don't know."

So he stayed, patting her hand and feeling supremely uncomfortable while she grieved. Eventually, she pulled herself together and he passed her his handkerchief.

"There's more." He said while she wiped her eyes. She issued a bitter laugh.

"Of course there's more. What?" This was the worst part. He decided to just begin at the beginning and let her find out for herself that he totally did not intend for everything to happen. He sighed and started to explain.

"I sent flowers to your funeral. Your mum rang me to thank me for it."

"That was mum, always polite. I expect she sent you a little card also?"

"Yes. She did. We had a nice chat and she was having some trouble with the office getting your death benefits. I helped her out a little and I told her if she needed anything else not to hesitate to call." He recalled how surprised he had been that such a lovely woman managed to raise such a conniving daughter.

Christine smiled through her grief, "You shouldn't have said that."

He smiled ruefully, "Yes, I figured that out rather quickly, but I couldn't really say no to her. She was the epitome of a feisty old lady, but she needed help with some things."

She was quite suspicious. "Like what?"

"Like getting your manky incontinent cat to the vet when he was ill. I have a scar on my hand from the grumpy bastard." James held his right hand up and showed her the faint line down the back of it.

She was so surprised she laughed through her tears. "I'm dead. This is a parallel universe. There's no way you helped my mum take my cat to the vet."

"That beast had to weigh a stone. She couldn't exactly carry him. She couldn't even get him into the carrier. I had to throw a towel on the creature and shove him in."

Lester frowned as he remembered it, crouched down under a table armed only with a pink towel with little roses embroidered on it facing down the angry, vicious monster that was making the appropriate noises for a horror movie soundtrack. He had been tempted to summon Captain Becker or Abby to subdue the creature, but that would mean the rest of it getting out.

"Who's got him now? If mum's gone?" Her lip trembled a little.

"He's gone too. He passed away peacefully, in his sleep about two years ago."

"My cat's dead too then? What about my horse?"

"That fat pony you call a horse is alive and well and just where you left him. Your mum kept him at that stable."

"Until she died." Her practical mind corrected him, "They wouldn't have kept him after no one was paying the board for him."

Lester kept silent and looked at the ground and she looked at his guilty pose for a minute before saying, "I've been struck in the head. They said I had a concussion. Are you really not telling me that you have been paying for my horse?"

"He's not a horse. He's an obese pony with a nasty carrot addiction. Anyway, she left him to me and I never got around to calling the knacker man."

"My mum left you my horse? I think I'm dreaming. These pain drugs are really kicking in."

"It's complicated." Lester noticed how her eyes were starting to unfocus, "You've had a lot of shocks today. Why don't you rest? I'll be around to talk to you tomorrow." He didn't give her a chance to protest before he rose and left the room.

This was going to get more awkward tomorrow. He just knew it. On his way home he thought about taking Mrs. Johnson out to that stable to visit the 'horse' for the first time.

When she explained that Christine had a horse Lester expected it to be some poncy thoroughbred or warmblood with a five digit price tag. He hadn't expected them to walk right past the pens with the fine examples of refined breeding to a small pasture on the edge of the property.

"Where's the horse?" He asked her as a few muddy ponies come up and started to nosing about for treats. "That's him, that's Star." Mrs. Johnson had pointed out the dirtiest one, also the pushiest.

James was extremely skeptical. "That's Christine's horse?"

Mrs. Johnson spun her walker around so she could sit on it while she explained. "Her father got him for her when she was a child. I think he was five or six then, of course ponies live a long time. He's...let's see...thirty two? He may be thirty three. I'd have to look at his papers. She showed him in pony club until she was too big for him."

Lester took a good look at the pony. He was just a little scrubby pony that the Christine Johnson he knew probably wouldn't bother to pat as she walked by. But this little pathetic example of a pony had been hers for most of her life. Who knew?

"Do they ever clean him up?"

"Every few days they catch him and the others and give them a good scrubbing down." Mrs. Johnson explained. "We would come out here once a month or so together and feed him carrots. Christine would brush him off or bath him. She was so busy with work she didn't really have time here lately." Her voice got a bit wistful at the end, at the time they lost together.

James didn't tell her that her daughter had been occupied trying to get him sacked. It would only make her feel bad.

That had been the beginning of the end. Between prying the cat into the carrier and transporting him to the vet and driving an old lady out to visit with her daughters pony he became entirely too involved in Mrs. Johnson's life. But she didn't have anyone else to care. He felt badly for her. His own parents had an army of children and grandchildren to look after them in their later years but Mrs. Johnson was totally alone. He thought a few acts of attention and kindness wouldn't hurt anything. That was until Christine came back from the dead.

Tomorrow was going to be even more awkward than today.

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The next day Christine woke up in the hospital with a memory that made absolutely no sense at all. She tried to chalk it up to a bad drug interaction, but the crumpled handkerchief on the bedside table wouldn't let her.

It was mid morning before Lester skulked back into her hospital room.

"I had the oddest lucid hallucination last night." She said without preamble, pinning him with a stare, "and my mum's number has been disconnected."

"Yes. It wasn't a hallucination." Lester sat down where he had been the night before. "I'm sorry."

"She's really gone then?"

"Yes."

The doctor coming in with a nurse trailing behind him cut off their conversation. "Mrs. Johnson, good morning. How are you feeling?"

She hated perky people. "Sore, and my stitches hurt."

He made a note in the chart, "We'll send you home with a prescription for some drugs, I notice you're allergic to most things so watch for any side effects on this one. Now, is someone available to stay with you for a few days? I can't send you home if you'll be alone."

Christine lied to him, "Yes, I have someone. When can I leave?"

"There's no set check-out time, I can have the nurse bring you some paperwork and you can leave whenever you feel ready."

"Wonderful." She said dryly. With a few more perky comments about how she'd be right as rain in a week or two, the doctor left.

"So who's staying with you? And where are you staying?" Lester asked her as soon as the door shut behind him.

"I expect I'll get a cab to a hotel. Why are you still here?" She snapped at him, supremely annoyed.

"With what money?" He countered. "That's what I didn't get a chance to finish telling you last night."

"My accounts are closed? My bank card?" She leaned back and considered the implications, "I've got no money at all?"

"No. Your mum donated most of your stuff to charity or sold it."

"What happened to her estate when she died?"

"She left it to me."

Christine gawped at him and thought that he had never before managed to truly shock her, "I beg your pardon?" She looked all about the room like the answers would be written on the walls, "Why on earth would she do that?"

"I told you, I sent flowers at your funeral and she needed help. She was lonely and rang me about once a week just to chat. Then that beast got sick and I helped her take him to the vet, and she wanted to go visit your fat pony-"

"I'm not hearing this! This isn't happening!" She burst out. "You...were friends...with my mum!"

"She didn't have anyone Christine." He snapped at her. "Your mum was a sweet lady and she was grieving and I couldn't kick her to the curb." He tried to explain. There was no explaining. He had just had to get through this.

"When she passed away I found out she'd changed her will to leave me the largest portion of her estate." It was quite a chunk of money, "It's all tied up in investments now. It's yours, since you obviously aren't dead, but I can't get it out of the investments without the bulk of it going to early withdrawal penalties and taxes."

Christine closed her eyes and counted to ten. "So to sum up, you're telling me, I have no money, no resources, no home, and everything I and my mother had now belongs to you, my biggest rival?"

He thought about it, "Yes. That's accurate. I'll give it back, you are her daughter but if I do then the government is going to take most of it."

"Early withdrawal penalties. Right." Lester watched her rub her face tiredly.

She made a quick decision. "Fine then. I'm staying at your place."

Now it was his turn to gasp. "I beg your pardon?"

"You heard the doctor. I can't be alone for a few days. I can't hardly walk and unfortunately I do have bad reactions to drugs. You have everything that was mine, so I don't see why I should stay in a hotel if you have to pay the bill when I can stay at your flat. I know you have one with a second bedroom."

"I- what- how do you know I have an extra bedroom?" He demanded, as he couldn't really argue her other points. "I could put you up in a very nice hotel and hire a nurse to stay with you."

"I hate nurses. They're too fussy. I don't expect you to hover over me. I just need a place to stay while we get this sorted."

"Back to the second bedroom question..."

She laughed, "Please. You are not the cramped one bedroom type."

He groaned and thought about the last time someone stayed with him. "I know I'm going to regret this."At least this one didn't bring pets. Scratch that, this one did but technically, he owned her pony. Did that make it better or worse?

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Back at the ARC Abby's phone rang. It was Lester. She had seen him come in this morning, but he only gathered some files up and left again. He had seemed to be in a very bad mood, worse than usual, and she had steered clear of him for the hour or so he was around.

"Hello?"

"Abby, I need a favor." He said. "I can't get into it now. Can you get away?"

"Yeah. What's going on?

"I need you to buy some things for me."

"Okay? Why? Are these legal things?"

"Of course they're legal things." He snapped, "Listen, this whole Christine Johnson situation has gotten very complicated."

"Yeah, Becker told me you sounded upset she wasn't dead. What's up with that? Hasn't the poor woman been though enough?" Abby lectured him.

"Abby you have no idea. Can you go buy her some clothes? The hospital threw away the ones she had and since she was declared dead," He hissed into the phone, "something you should be able to relate to," he had to play the trump card, "she hasn't got anything else."

"Of course. What's her size?" Abby perked up immediately at the thought of a shopping trip on the offices' dime.

"I haven't the foggiest. You'll have to phone the hospital. She's in room 34 B on the sixth floor. I'll meet you at the mall on fifth to give you some money. Don't bring Connor. Don't even tell Connor either."

"All right, I'll be there in a bit." She grabbed her purse and headed out.

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Lester was sitting right where he told her he would be, on the bench outside the south side entrance. He jumped up when he saw her. "There you are."

"Got here as quick as I could." She told him cheerfully, "we had a nice chat on the phone. It's so generous of you to let her stay with you while she recovers." She actually gave him a hug.

Lester went pale. "What else did she tell you?"

"Just that." Abby shrugged, "The doctors told her she shouldn't be alone for a few days and you volunteered your flat, like when Connor needed a place for a few days."

"Please Abby, don't let this get out. I have my reputation to think about." He looked panicked. She didn't understand why he didn't want people to know he was a nice person, underneath all the gruff and grumpiness.

"Your secret's safe with me." She crossed her heart with her hand while he dug through his wallet and to her shock passed her his personal visa credit card. She thought he would give her expense account cash or something.

"The pin number is 8472, don't go crazy." He said a bit desperately, "I've got to get to a meeting with my lawyer but I'll be back to pick her up around one so don't take all day either."

"I won't." Abby grinned at him, "I'll see you there."

The mall and someone else's money! If only it wasn't her boss she might have had a lot more fun. With a sigh she consulted the list Christine had given her of sizes and got started.

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Lester dashed into his lawyers office with a bare minute to spare. The bloodsucker charged the same whether he was there or not. "Well? Is there a way out?"

"Nope." The older man told him succinctly. "The mother left you the money legally. You invested it legally. There's no way to give it to the daughter even if you didn't know she was alive and out of the country."

Lester leaned back and buried his hands in his head. "Can I at least transfer the appropriate amount into her name?"

"Nope. Changing anything gets a penalty. The only exception would be if you married her, then she would be entitled to half-"

"Absolutely not! I detest her. How Mrs. Johnson managed to raised such a vindictive conniving woman is beyond me." Too worked up to sit he started to pace around the office. His lawyer who had known him since university and had never seen him this flustered couldn't keep the amusement out of his voice as he gave into curiosity.

"If you loath her so much why are you so concerned about giving her part of her mothers estate?"

Lester waved his hands about helplessly, "It's what she would have wanted."

He couldn't explain that a sweet old lady's wishes were important to him. He couldn't even explain to himself why it was important that Johnson get her proper inheritance. He didn't even like the woman.

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Abby walked into the hospital room laden down with bags. "I got everything on your list."

"Thank you." Christine pushed the lunch tray she had been picking at away from her and started looking through the bags. "Did you bankrupt James?"

The younger woman giggled. "No. But he told me not to go overboard." Abby took a moment to examine Christine while she was distracted by the clothes.

She had seen her yesterday, bloody and collapsed in a heap next to the anomaly. Today she was very pale but only the thin lines of stitches and some bruising along her arms and face gave notice that she was actually pretty seriously injured.

Christine quickly made a pile of clothes and swung her legs out of the bed. She eased out and Abby grabbed her as she nearly fell. "Careful there." Abby kept a firm hand around her waist as she helped her walk slowly to the bathroom. "You all right in here?" She asked worriedly.

"Yeah. I'll be fine." Her hand clutching the railing by the sink belied that statement but Abby didn't want to push it. "Let me get your clothes." Abby grabbed up the pile that Christine had made and set it in the bathroom. "I'll be right outside if you need help."

"Thank you."

Abby was sitting in the chair waiting on Christine when Lester arrived, looking flustered. His eyes zeroed in on the bags on the bed. "Good grief, I thought you were going to get her something to wear out of here, not a whole new wardrobe."

She rolled her eyes and brushed it off, "She's going to need clothes for tomorrow also, and some pajamas and underwear and socks and shampoo-" Lester waved at her to stop. "Fine, fine." Abby gave him his card back. "I better be getting back to work. You two kids have fun." She shot him a humorous glance as she walked out.

Christine struggled into a long black skirt and short sleeve button up shirt while Abby and Lester bantered back and forth outside. The fabric dragging over her stitches made her gasp and bite her lip. There were more slices on her legs and torso that the others couldn't see, not to mention the bruises from that creature tossing her about before Helen killed it.

Thoughtfully Abby had selected things that fastened in the front. Christine emerged from the bathroom to find Lester busy texting someone on his blackberry and a nurse waiting with a wheelchair.

"No." Christine said firmly. "I'm not being wheeled out of here."

"Hospital policy. I push you or he pushes you. We can't have you falling down." The nurse was not put off by her brisk manner.

She started to argue again and Lester cut her off, "Christine, get in the damn chair. I've already missed nearly a whole day of work because of you." She thought seriously about arguing with both of them, but her legs were starting to tremble and the dizziness never really subsided. Maybe the nurse had a point.

"Fine." She snapped and sat down in the chair. "Bring the bags." She ordered regally and was pleased to hear what could be his teeth grinding behind her when they left.

She didn't say much on the way back to his place and thankfully she was able to walk up to the apartment. When Connor stayed here Lester had to resort to notes everywhere to keep the place habitable. For some reason he didn't think he would need to do that with Christine. If he was lucky she would stay in the second bedroom and as soon as he could get convince her bosses to approve some back pay, she could be out of his hair.

"This is it." He announced. "Your room is down this way." Lester refused to give her a tour. If she couldn't work out where the kitchen was and so on then she would just have to cope. He dropped the bags he was carrying on the bed of the guest room.

Amused, she stood in the doorway and surveyed the room. It was about as personal as a hotel room. It was decorated tastefully in neutral colors and a had a few nice pictures hung on the walls. There was a wooden dresser opposite the king size bed with a television on top. It looked exactly like a hotel room.

"Well, I'll leave you to it." He brushed past her to leave.

"Wait." She dug through the bag of paperwork from the hospital.

"What? If you expect me to bring you dinner in bed then think again."

"Not that, my prescriptions. Will you get them filled- since I don't exactly have any money...or a car...or a legal existence..."

"Fine. I get the point." He plucked the papers out of her hand and left. "My whole day is ruined." Christine listened to him complain on his way back out of the flat.

Once he was gone she sat down and took a good long around what was going to be her home for a the next little while. She stretched out on the bed and buried her face in the pillow. Thoughts of her mother and her stupid mean cat filled her mind and she started to sob.

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A/N I'm going some interesting places with this story. I haven't seen any on the 'net that force these two mortal enemies to get along. If you like it please review.