Disclaimer: Obviously, I don't own Primeval. I mean, come on, the site's called FanFiction.

Prologue:

Forest of Dean. 1 week after the Dartmoor anomaly.

Katherine "Kathy" Monroe, age 15, was having a fairly ordinary day, up until the point where she met a dinosaur face-to-face.

Kathy and her friends Alice Morgan and Taylor Craig had somewhat intentionally gotten themselves separated from their fellow students on a field trip from the Cecil Windlock St. John Nobbs School for Gifted Children. The "Gifted" in the Nobbs School's name meant that all of the students either were freakishly brilliant or had preposterously wealthy parents—in the case of Kathy and her friends, it was the former. Kathy herself was a budding computer scientist—and, unbeknownst to her teachers, spent most of her time at school hacking various government websites with her specially modified smartphone, under the hacker name "Hijack". Alice was an incurable math nerd, and had the unique ability to reenact, from memory, every single episode of Star Trek (including the animated series and the movies).

Taylor—well, Taylor was special. She had a deep understanding of astrophysics, paleontology, and animal behavior, despite having had no formal training in any of these areas. She was unusual, often leaving school in the middle of class or disappearing on weekends, which would have gotten her expelled were it not for the fact that she always got her homework done with preposterously high scores (and in one particularly memorable case, with several pages of corrections to the calculations in an intentionally impossible question on space-time warping that the science master had put into the physics exam to "prove that that irritating little girl is an overblown braggart with no actual physics knowledge whatsoever"). Taylor also moved incredibly quickly and was tremendously strong—she had once accidentally broken two of Alice's ribs while giving her a hug—but had a permanent excuse letter for PE because of a "heart condition". She ate more than anyone Kathy knew, but was still a wiry size 2. The oddest part was that she always wore large, opaque sunglasses and an ankle-length trench coat buttoned all the way up, regardless of the weather or her own (often obvious) discomfort. Taylor never gave a straight answer when asked about the coat, but Kathy suspected that it had something to do with Taylor's chest, which was malformed in some way, with massive pectoral muscles, a central bony ridge running down Taylor's midline and no apparent breasts.

Taylor never talked about her body, either.

The three girls were walking along about four hundred meters away from the school group when Taylor suddenly stopped stock still and bent straight over at the hips.

"What the hell?"

"What? What is it?"

"A freaking cycadoid. A bennitalacean flower. Holy crap—these things've been extinct since the Jurassic period—which means…oh, shit."

"What?"

"C'mon. There's something out here, and I need to report it."

"Does this have something to do with that freaky job of yours," asked Alice.

"Yeah. Now stay quiet—we're probably close."

"So what are we—what are those?"

Kathy stopped dead. Alice almost ran into her back. Taylor had frozen, and her entire body was tense.

The animals—two of them—were about fifty meters away, hidden from the girls' earlier position by a bank of willow saplings. The animals were about twenty feet long and bipedal, with spiny quills coating their bodies. They looked vaguely like reptilian kangaroos to Kathy, with a pair of slim crests on their heads and hooked-tipped, vicious-toothed jaws. One looked up, and hummed, alerting the other. They started to stalk forwards, separating to flank the girls. Predators. Kathy felt her blood run cold.

"Dilophosaurs," hissed Taylor. "No sudden moves. Back up slowly. When you get around the willows, run. I can take them, but you'll just get yourselves hurt. Get to the teachers, tell them to evacuate everyone. Say that you saw a lion or something—there'll be enough noise for that story to work. Don't let anyone come back for me—my boss has contacts in MI6, they'll help me if I need it. Five steps now…four…three…two…one…now!"

Taylor leaped just as the larger creature's hum deepened as it realized that its prey was escaping.

Kathy wasn't proud of what she did next. She grabbed Alice and ran, breathless with terror.

Part 1:

Anomaly Research Centre. Two hours earlier.

Captain Hilary Becker came to work with a massive hangover. He really shouldn't have drunk quite so much beer while out with Connor and Matt. The movie had, at least, had a large number of impressive explosives and a sweet array of firearms and incendiary weapons—Becker was particularly impressed by Black Widow's automatic pistols. Unfortunately, Connor had come to the theater in full nerd regalia, complete with imitation Captain America shield. Sitting next to the team geek had sort of taken the fun out of the movie, because he kept giggling and gasping at every single nerdy joke or reference (which seemed to be every joke and/or reference in the movie), and because he had dumped his entire Caf-Overload Big Chug on Becker's lap when Ultron (played by James Spader, to Becker's delight) revealed itself.

He was certain that his date last week with Jess had been better—he just wished that he could remember more of it. He remembered the missile test, the target shooting, and the dinner—but nothing after that, except in bits and pieces. He had one crystal-clear memory of Jess standing over him in black lace underwear, but the rest of his time at her apartment was a blur.

Becker sat down in the armory and started mindlessly cleaning his EMD.

Becker was pretty sure that taking Adderall before his date had been a bad idea. It was good for keeping himself awake and on point, but it had nasty side effects if overused and tended to react badly with alcohol. He should have been paying attention to the dinner, not to Jess's face. Too much champagne, combined with stimulants—bad combination.

He still hadn't worked out the new status of his relationship, but Abby had wolf-whistled when he came into the menagerie to ask her to sign some requisition forms two days after the date, and then had made a few vaguely disconcerting cracks that seemed to be extremely funny to her while Becker waited in silent, embarrassed agony.

On the plus side, Jess seemed to have a new habit of throwing herself into Becker's arms every morning (except today, because he had gone straight to the armory). Things could be a lot worse, he supposed.

Becker reached a final decision (ask Emily what happened) exactly three point four seconds before the anomaly alert siren blared. He shook off his musings, rapidly reassembled his EMD, and ran for the car park.

ARC car park. Thirty seconds later.

The Russian was in the car already when Matt Anderson got to the car park.

"Zdrastvitye, Anglitsz tovarishch. Where are the others?"

"Becker's on his way with the security team—he'll be right behind us. We'll be picking up Emily on the way—she had an optometrist's appointment which should be done now, and the doctor's office is on the way. The anomaly's in the forest of Dean."

"Maitland and Temple?" asked Tanya as Matt pulled a one-eighty turn in full reverse just to show off.

"Abby's got her own car. Connor's at their flat—something about his socks and a toaster explosion? Abby'll pick him up on her way out. You have an EMD?"

"Da. I picked up a rifle model and a pistol model on my way up."

"Good. I don't know what you Russians see in us—you seem pretty competent."

"I am the only one of our team who has survived for more than six months. Normally, my superiors would not care, but our life insurance is expensive."

Matt smirked grimly at that. Russians.

There was something creepy about Sholoshkova, though—it wasn't just her scars, the ones on her forearms that she didn't like to talk about, or her disconcerting smile, or the stereotypical "Commie Ruskie" mannerisms; something about her suggested that she was far more powerful than she let on, and woe betide whoever got in the way of her raw power.

As he pulled out of the car park, Matt decided that he would run a background check on the Russian.

Abby Maitland's apartment. London, England.

"Come on, Connor!"

Abby Maitland was currently standing outside of the door to her apartment, which was open and leaking clouds of smoke.

"I'm sorry, Abby!" Connor's voice was wheezing and somewhat faint. "I just put me socks in the toaster by mistake…"

"How on earth do you mistake your socks for toast?"

"It was an accident! I was groggy, I'd just woken up! I put me socks on the countertop, and I forgot about them…"

"Honestly, Connor, if it weren't for me, I don't know how you could possibly survive! Now come on, there's an anomaly in the Forest of Dean again, and the traffic's heavy. We need to leave, now!"

"What about me socks? And the toaster's still on fire!"

"I'll get Lester to deal with it—hang on, Jess says that she's got the fire department on their way, and she brought Delta team on duty to hide Rex from the firemen. Now come on, or we'll never get out there!"

Connor Temple, still a little puffy around the cheeks from his little toxin adventure the previous week, burst out of the doors covered with soot and coughing heavily. He had his black box and his coms unit, which was good—maybe forcing him to go to bed with them on was a good idea, after all.

"Good. Now get in the car, and for heaven's sake brush some of that soot off! You look like a Victorian chimney sweep!"

Forest of Dean.

Captain Hilary Becker brought his truck to a dramatic, screeching, burnt-rubber halt, slammed the transmission into park, and positively propelled himself out the door, swearing about idiot motorists, moronic highway architects, and incompetent police officers. Matt, Emily, and the Russian were already armed and ready to go.

Otis, MacFarlane, Williams, and Smythe (blame his parents, the nutters) got out of Becker's truck and waited with remarkable patience as Becker grabbed his EMD from the back and passed out their weapons.

"Let's go," said Becker, and he vaulted the amusingly stereotypical little white plastic fence that stood between the cars and the forest.

"Where are Connor and Abby?"

"They said they'd catch up, Matt. Give them another fifteen minutes or so."

"Pardon me, tovarishch," said the Russian, "But were we not supposed to use nonlethals only?"

"It's a birthday present from a teammate. I just got it last week, and I've been dying to try it out. Anyone who makes a comment gets a black mark on their mission report."

Matt had the good graces to restrain himself to a smirk. Private Smythe snickered, but Becker decided to cut him a little slack.

"Now, I'll be pairing us up, because this is a known Permian site with a history of future predator incursions. Security leader's privilege—that's a new thing, Ms. Sholoshkova. MacFarlane, Otis, you're with Connor and Abby when they get here. Until then, stay by the trucks and stay alert. Williams, Smythe, you're with Matt. Matt, take Tanya with you, show her how we do things. Emily, you're with me."

"Hang on, how come I can't be with Emily?"

"Because if there's one thing I've learned from having Connor and Abby around, it's that when there's a couple on a mission, working together, the situation is exponentially more likely to experience a critical failure or a major hitch. Besides, I want three squads, and Emily and I are the best shots; we've got better individual odds than the rest of us. Now, one locking device per squad, and coms on at all times. I don't want any accidents."

Matt looked at Becker like he was about to say something. Becker shot him a quick pleading expression. Matt caught the look, looked puzzled for a moment, and then nodded slightly with a wry smile.

"Alright, let's go."

AN: Bonus points to anyone who spots the outside reference and gets the joke. Some slightly spoiler-ish notes:

Taylor is an augment. Her employers—will be revealed later.

No, the anomaly is not to the Permian. It is to the early Jurassic of Connecticut, a rather peaceful period of Earth's history. The dilophosaurs are about the largest predators on Earth at the time. Other hazards include smaller ceolophysids (such as Megapnosaurus, formerly Syntarsus, and cursed with a name that literally means "big dead lizard" by some jerk of an entomologist).

Bothered by the bit about Becker's missing night? Look, they are two young adults (Becker's about 26-30, Jess is about twenty), they like each other, and they're both more than a little intoxicated at the time. Plus, given that they were both rather uncertain and afraid of doing the wrong thing…let's just say that things didn't go as Becker suspects.

I am expanding April quite a bit from her cannon role, as she always seemed a little…out of place, as if she wasn't who she claimed to be (even when she was fighting Abby with her silly glasses off). Canonically, she behaves like an intelligent psychopath—she clearly has no remorse for her actions, and she behaves a little inconsistently, but the fact that she recognizes Abby as an obstacle and tries to get her away from Connor despite only meeting Abby occasionally indicates that April is highly intelligent.

This story assumes stably unstable temporal dynamics—basically, if you go back, then you have already been back, and so all changes you make are already being felt. However, it is possible to use temporal shenanigans to create, delete, and move between multiple potential near-identical universes. (c.f. Cutter and Claudia/Jenny)

If you like the story, please review. I welcome constructive feedback. Flames will be used to cook s'mores (and if you're a racist sexist homophobic troll, I will send you a reply that (a) links you to Manboobz, the Internet's biggest anti-sexist site, and (b) call you out on your RSHDness in traditional John Scalzi fashion).