Author's Note: Pre-Series, set up prequel for my other Wash/Taylor fics. As with the others, this was previously published on livejournal. Just as a heads up, the rating will become M at Chapter 3 – my first, and very possibly only ever foray into BAMF smut. Disclaimer wise, I just wrote this because I enjoy writing, no copyright infringement intended, and I certainly do not own Terra Nova.
"Son of a bitch!" Alicia Washington is beyond pissed off. The scientist currently cowering in front of her is entirely aware of that fact. "It has been one hundred and sixteen days. How much more damned time do you need?"
"Lieutenant, the portal should reopen any day now. That's as precise as I can be." The scientist being questioned tries to sound authoritative, not easy, given that his survival instinct is screaming at him to wet himself and flee.
"Well, Doctor whatever the hell your name is, that isn't precise enough. And since you can't give me any useful information, that means the rest of the pilgrimage group and I have to camp out right here until the damned portal is open again."
"Westin." The scientist makes the mistake of speaking again.
"What?" Alicia's eyes narrow at him, her hand going to rest on her gun in her thigh holster.
The man visibly flinches, giving her more satisfaction than it really ought to. When he speaks, his voice comes out as a very undignified high-pitched squeak. "Westin. My name is Dr. Westin."
She gives the man a look that could peel the paint off the walls. "Noted."
He literally scurries out of the control area for the portal. She smirks, thinking that Nathaniel will laugh his ass off at the story when she tells him. A moment later, her face falls. Nathaniel has been alone, millions of years in the past, for one hundred and sixteen days. The thought makes her want to rip her hair out, so she's been channeling her frustration into keeping the pilgrimage group ready to go and into browbeating the scientists.
"Wash?" A voice sounds behind her, and she turns to see Guzman, a member of the pilgrimage group and their security specialist. "What's the verdict?"
She snorts. "The best they can tell us is that it could be, and I quote, 'Any day now.' So, we're camping out here. Can you get everyone here with their packs and supplies?"
"I imagine we can have everyone on site and ready to go in a couple of hours."
"Thanks, Guz." She turns back to her own pack to go through it and make sure it's got everything she expects to need. "Can you also make sure we have a least a couple of extra med kits? I have no idea what we're going to find when we get there." She knows he'll understand her barely veiled reference to Nathaniel.
She jumps when she feels a strong hand grip her shoulder and squeeze. "Wash, Commander Taylor's the toughest, most resilient person I've ever known. He'll be there, and he'll be in one piece. I'm sure of it."
She nods stiffly, and he lets go and leaves. After she hears his footsteps retreat, she whispers, "I hope you're right."
Standing up, she drags her pack over to the wall and then sinks down next to it to wait for the rest of the group to arrive. She leans back against the wall and pulls her knees to her chest, and then she wraps her arms around her legs. She closes her eyes, thinking about Nathaniel, from becoming his field medic when she was still just a teenager, to putting each other back together after the murder of his wife and Wash's own near-fatal shooting, to the last year spent preparing to lead and be second in command of an expedition to the past to help save the human race.
It isn't hard for her to acknowledge that she feels far more for him than she ought to. He's certainly her closest friend and the person who has known her longer than anyone else, but it's more than that. As his second in command, it certainly shouldn't be more than that, but that doesn't change the fact that it definitely is. If nothing else, the last one hundred and sixteen days, not knowing if he's OK or not, have made her face just how deep her feelings for him run.
In moments when she's being entirely honest with herself, she admits that she is completely in love with him. She has no idea if he feels the same way about her, but at this point, it doesn't really matter. All she wants, all she needs right now is for him to be all right. Without him, none of this that they're trying to do makes any sense to her. Hell, she definitely wouldn't be going if it wasn't for him asking her to. She has no idea what she'll do if he's not OK.
Shaking her head, she opens her eyes. "Stop it, Alicia. He's OK. He has to be."
*****
Two days later, they are all still camped at the portal when one of the scientists runs into the room where they've been waiting. "It's opening. We think it's opening!"
Alicia immediately jumps to her feet, grabbing her leather jacket and throwing it on. She picks up her pack and shoulders it as she exits the room, hot on the heels of the scientist. Guz stays behind and gets everyone else ready to go, knowing they'll have to go one at a time. They decided long ago that Alicia would be the first one through. As the ranking member of the remaining group, it was never really even up for discussion.
As she catches up with the scientist, she sees a flash of light in front of her, and she recognizes it as the same light Nathaniel vanished through almost four months ago. She looks at the scientists assembled nearby, taking readings. "We think it'll stay open this time, right?"
Most of them are afraid of her, but one speaks up. "Yes. We can't guarantee it, of course, but we're pretty sure that most, probably all of you will get through. But likely just one at a time, and there will be a lag between you, not sure how long."
She nods. "Good enough for me. Let me know when I have a green light."
Staring at the light, she waits. A few moments later, the same scientist speaks again. "Lieutenant, you're good to go. Good luck."
With no hesitation, she walks forward and steps into the light. Though she doesn't know how long it actually takes, it feels like it's just seconds later when she steps through on the other side, stumbling a little on the uneven terrain. She moves clear of the arrival area, immediately on alert for any predators or signs of Nathaniel.
A moment later, she has to stop walking, as she's overcome by a wave of lightheadedness. She's not surprised by it; they were warned that the clean air and abundant oxygen would likely make them dizzy when they first arrived. She drops to her knees and takes some deep breaths, trying to clear her head.
After a minute or so, she feels better, more steady, and she rises back to her feet. Tapping her radio, she says, "Commander, do you copy? Come in." She waits a moment and tries again. "Commander, it's Wash. If you're hearing me, please respond."
When her calls are met with silence, she shoulders off her pack and reaches into it for something she truly hopes she won't need, a med kit in a messenger bag. She throws the kit across her body, and she checks her guns and knife, and, leaving her pack behind where she knows Guz will find it, she heads out to try to track Nathaniel.
As she looks around, she tries to put herself into the mindset she goes into when she's doing sniper work, looking for any telltale sign of life. Of course, in this place, separating out the kind of life something might be is so foreign to her that the going is slow.
Not far from the portal, she finds what appears to be a lightly worn trail. It makes sense to her that Nathaniel would, even if he set up a camp elsewhere, return regularly to the portal to see if anyone else had arrived. At least, that's what she hopes. She doesn't really want to think about what else might've created the trail.
Taking a deep breath, she follows the trail deeper into the rain forest. As she looks around, she can't help but smile in wonder at how green and alive everything is. She knows she'll have time to really appreciate it later, so she keeps moving at a decent clip.
She's so focused on the trail and looking for any signs of life that when her comm crackles to life, it startles her. "Washington, this is Guzman, come in."
"Guz, this is Washington."
"Hey Wash, I take it he wasn't nearby and didn't answer radio calls?" Guz's voice sounds in her ear.
"Affirmative, Guz. I found what looks like a trail, heading northwest from the portal. You stay put and do your best to establish a perimeter and wait for the others." She trusts Guz to keep an eye on things there at the portal, and she has no intention of leaving off her search for Nathaniel.
"Yes, ma'am. I found your pack, and I'll be hanging out here. Be careful and stay in contact, OK?" He sounds concerned but not overly so.
"Copy that, Guz. I'll check in every half hour."
She hears his voice once again. "Then I'll talk to you in 30, Lieutenant. Happy hunting." She can't help but chuckle at that.
A few minutes later, she comes to a small clearing, and up ahead along the trail, she can hear what sounds like moving water. Thinking that it's very likely that some of the local fauna might be likely to congregate near a water source, she draws her sonic weapon and holds it at the ready as she approaches the sound of the water.
About fifty feet down the trail, the path widens out more, and she can't help but gasp. A large river lies ahead, the likes of which they probably haven't seen in 2142 for about fifty years. The water moves over rocks, swirling and eddying into pools of whitewater and clearly treacherous currents.
Suddenly, she feels as though she's being watched. She turns quickly, gun up and powered, only to be greeted with the sight of a small dinosaur. She points her gun at the creature but doesn't fire, rapidly sorting through mental images of dinos that were considered dangerous to humans.
This one is small and birdlike, no more than three feet long, and she realizes that it looks like a small, herbivorous dino she read about in one of the hundreds of plex pads she reviewed in the last six months, though, for the life of her, she can't remember what it's called. As if to confirm her recollection, the small creature cocks its head and lets loose a caw, and then it turns and rips a leaf off of a nearby plant, chewing and watching her.
She lets out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding, and, after putting her gun back to safe mode, she returns to scanning the area for signs of Nathaniel. As if on cue, she feels another pair of eyes on her, and she once again powers her gun and starts to turn. Before she can get turned, she hears another sonic weapon power up.
She freezes in place and before she can stop herself, she quietly speaks his given name. "Nathaniel?"
A wave of relief rolls through her at the sound of his voice, though it is far more gravelly than she's ever heard it. "Alicia?"
She powers down her weapon and holsters it, raising her hands where he can see them and turning around slowly. Her eyes widen at the sight of him. His hair is longer, as is his beard, and both look pretty wild and unkempt. He's relatively clean, but there is something wild in his eyes that speaks of almost four months of complete solitude.
His eyes follow her movements, but he powers his gun down and lowers it almost immediately. She approaches cautiously, waiting for him to speak again. Eventually, when she is less than two feet from him, he quietly rasps out, "Are you real, or have I finally lost it completely?"
The raw hope and emotion in his ghostly-looking grey-blue eyes almost break her heart. She stops within a foot of him and reaches her hand up to his face, gently cupping his cheek. He closes his eyes and leans into her touch, and the relief she feels just from touching him almost takes her breath away. "I'm real, Nathaniel." After a beat, she can't resist teasing him, if only to ease the moment. "As for whether or not you've finally lost it completely, well, I'd say the jury is still out."
He opens his eyes and lets out a laugh at that. His face remains serious, though, and after staring at her as if he's trying to memorize everything about the moment, he grasps her hand on his face with his and pulls her to him. He brings her so close to him that she's honestly not sure if there is even a millimeter of light passing between them. "I cannot tell you how happy I am to see you, Alicia."
She's slightly tense at first, but then she relaxes, wrapping her arms around him and letting out a sigh as she presses her face into his neck. Time seems to slow down as they stand there holding on to each other, so much so that she's once again startled when she hears Guz's voice in her ear. "Wash? You copy? You missed your check in, is all OK?"
Blinking, she leans just far enough away from Nathaniel to pull one arm free and tap her radio. "Sorry Guz, I'm here. I have Na-, I have the Commander, and he seems all right."
"Thank God. A few more men have arrived, Wash. Does the Commander have a suggested site for a camp?"
She looks up at him. "I'm not sure, Guz. Let me talk to him, and I'll get back with you shortly."
"Copy that, Wash. Take all the time you need and tell him I said I'm glad he's OK. Guzman out."
She tries to pull further away from him, to re-establish some professional boundaries, but he appears completely uninterested in either of those things. His arms tighten around her. "Just give me another minute or so, Alicia."
There is a pleading note to his voice she just can't ignore. To be honest, she is enjoying his closeness and being wrapped in his arms far more than she probably should be, but in that moment, she realizes that she doesn't give a damn. He's here, he's alive and he's holding her. Everything else can wait.