Disclaimer: I do not own Primeval, I merely enjoy playing with the characters (because honestly, who wouldn't want to play with Connor? Or Danny? Or Becker? Or Matt? Mmm). I make no money off of this and don't mean to infringe on any copyright.
Summary:What if neither Emily nor Danny had gone through the anomalies? Emily/Danny pre-romantic feelings.
A/N:I was very surprised to find no fics concerning Danny and Emily. Episode 7 of Season 4 made me realize how awesome they would be as a pair. The brief moments they were together in the show demonstrated some real potential, at least in my eyes. So this is my "what if" fic for them.
- text - = flashback
Chance Encounter
Lady Emily Merchant lay on the too firm mattress in the glass room with opaque walls, trying to fall asleep. But it was hopeless. Her mind kept running in circles. Ethan. Matt. Henry. Home. Ethan. Shuddering, Emily remembered what had happened earlier that day.
- "Emily,youhavetogo," saidMatt,reachingoutandgentlytouchingherarm.Emilynodded,notsurprisedbutstillhurtbyhisblank,unfeelingexpression.Butthenshelookedcloser.Therewasatightnessaroundhiseyesandtheblue-greenorbsseemedhollow.Thiswashurtinghimasmuchasitwasher.
Ignoring the fact that no proper young woman should embrace a man other than her husband or family member, Emily threw her arms around the Irishman, burying her face in the side of his neck. She breathed deeply, drawing the smell of him, a combination of earth and leather. After a few moments Matt wrapped his arms around her as well, burying his face in her dark, curly hair. Emily felt a single tear slip from the corner of her eye and wend its way slowly down her cheek. She didn't want to let go, not of this man nor of this time, which was the one place that she had made friends.
An inhuman shriek rent through the air. Matt spun Emily around, placing her firmly behind him and reaching for his EMD. The anomaly that led to the Promethean era surged. Something was coming through. Matt tensed, ready to fire.
"Don't shoot!" yelled a voice from inside the glowing orb of shattered light fragments. "It's Danny, don't shoot!" Matt eased his finger off the trigger, letting the gun hang down at his side. Danny Quinn stumbled out of the anomaly, a dark shape in his arms. It was Ethan.
"Terror-bird," the ex-cop gasped, staggering under his brother's weight. "It attacked him. It's bad, really bad. I couldn't just leave him."
"I know, mate," Matt said, stepping forward and pulling Ethan out of Danny's arms before gently lowering him onto the floor. Danny dropped to his knees beside his brother, his knobbed stick falling to the floor with a clatter as he brushed his brother's dark hair, so unlike his own, away from his bloody face.
It was bad. Emily could see that. There was blood everywhere and where there had once been Ethan's stomach was now a mass of torn flesh and thick, slimy looking tubes that Emily realized were his intestines. Emily didn't know how the man was still alive.
"Shh, easy Patrick, don't worry, I'm here, you're going to be alright," Danny murmured, holding his brother's head while Matt surveyed the damage.
"Danny, I need your shirt," he said, taking on the voice of team leader. "I need something to bind the wounds with, to stop the bleeding." Danny didn't reply, merely shucked off the dirt-smeared outer plaid layer and pulled off the long-sleeved white shirt underneath, handing it to Matt. The shirt had clearly seen better days, but it ripped easily.
Emily nearly gasped when she saw Danny's back. It was crisscrossed with scars, some so old they had almost faded, some new enough to still have a tinge of redness to them. Some were short, others long. Some looked not like claw marks, but burns. Emily wanted to reach out and touch them, to ask how Danny's skin had come to look like a patchwork of mounded scar tissue. But she didn't.
Suddenly the anomaly surged. A terror-bird ran through, its beak wide, letting out a terrible screeching sound that Emily knew would haunt her dreams. Everything slowed down. Matt tried to grab his EMD, but he was hampered by the bandage he was now pressing to Ethan's stomach, trying to keep his guts inside his body. Danny curled protectively around his brother, gripping the younger man tighter as he shielded him with his own body. The bird stretched up, ready to strike the feral-looking man.
Lunging forward, Emily grabbed Danny's stick off the floor. Grasping the solid wood with both hands, she swung with all her might at the head of the terror-bird. The blow connected with a satisfying crunch. The bird reeled, dazed by this unexpected attack. Emily struck it again, this time in the other direction. Reversing the stick, she shoved the sharpened end into the base of the neck with a fierce yell, driving it deep into the giant bird.
The terror-bird screamed, thrashing back and forth. Emily yanked her weapon out and watched as gallon after gallon of blood poured from the wound. The beast tried to stay on its feet, but one more solid strike from Emily knocked it to the ground where it laying twitching before it went still.
All at once Emily was aware of the rest of the world around her. Men in black uniforms were rushing down the stairs of the old prison, weapons at the ready. A team of medics shoved by, making for the wounded man on the floor. Everything was a blur after that. Ethan was carried away on a stretcher, Danny grasping one of his brother's hands in both of his own. The Promethean anomaly was locked.
But it didn't matter. Both anomalies flickered, flared briefly, then collapsed in upon themselves, winking out of existence. Emily stared at the now empty space that had once held her way home. She tried to feel heartbroken, but she couldn't. She wasn't sorry the anomaly had closed. Now there was no chance of them sending her away.
"Emily," Matt said, coming up behind her. "I'm sorry."
"I'm not," Emily replied, turning and looking at the man who she had come to care for. "Now I cannot leave, no matter how much of a distraction I am. You're stuck with me."
"It's not like that," Matt began, but Emily cut him off.
"Yes, it is," she said, smiling gently up at the stoic Irishman. "I know you have this great burden on your shoulders. I know that, until that burden, the quest, is lifted from you, you have no time to think of other things. And that is how it should be. What you're doing is so important. And I care too much about you to see you fail."
Matt lips curved up in a small smile. Emily reached up and gently traced her fingers along his cheek. Matt sighed, pressing her hand against his face. She could see how hard it was, how much of a burden his charge placed on his shoulders. But she also knew that if she tried to get close to him, to help him carry the load, everything would fall, for he would be looking only at one person instead of the millions he was destined to save.
"You should stay at the ARC, at least for tonight," Matt murmured, his accent coming through stronger, looking at the beautiful woman in front of him. "If you came home with me… I don't think I could give you up in the morning."
Emilynodded,understandingperfectly.Steppingcloser,shekissedhimgently,thebarestbrushoflips,beforeturningawayandfollowingthedark-clothedmenupthestairs,refusingtolookback.Shedidn'twantMatttoseehertears. -
Snapping back the present, Emily thoroughly berated herself. There was no point in dwelling on the past. She couldn't change it, nor did she wish to. It was just hard to accept that even though she was here in this time, she had lost Matt.
Sick of lying there like a moping sop, Emily jumped out of bed and opened the door of the room without bothering to throw anything over the thin shirt she wore as a nightgown. Deciding a hot cup of tea was exactly what she needed, Emily strode through the quiet halls towards the tearoom. She smiled to herself, thinking of how Captain Becker, who personally reviewed every security tape each morning, would react to her wandering the halls in a shirt that barely hit her mid-thigh.
I'msurehe'llturnawonderfulshadeofred, she thought to herself, grinning at the idea of the stern captain choking on his coffee as she wandered onto the screen. With that cheerful thought in mind, Emily continued her journey towards the tearoom, barely resisting the urge to wink at one of the cameras.
At last she entered her destination. She filled the kettle and put it on the stove. As she waited for it to heat up, she looked through the teabags, shaking her head. They were woefully supplied. She'd have to speak to Matt about that, or maybe Jess.
The kettle let out a piercing whistle. Emily took the steaming pot off the stove and took a cup down from the shelf. She had just begun to pour the water when she heard a sound behind behind. Instincts honed by three years of living in worlds where everything wanted to eat her took over. She whipped around, swinging the kettle at the intruder, which ducked her first attack. Emily wound up for another.
"Easy, easy, it's just me!" a voice said. Emily froze. She recognized that voice. Danny Quinn stepped into the pool of light cast by the lamp over the stove.
"I'm sorry," Emily said, blushing as she lowered the kettle. She couldn't believe she had nearly bashed the poor man's head in with the thing.
"It's my fault, shouldn't have snuck up on you like that," Danny replied, stepping forward and leaning against the counter. "If I had been one second slower you would have nailed me with that thing. That's pretty impressive."
Emily shrugged, not answering. Instead she looked at him. He had obviously showered, for his hair was no longer a greasy, muddy mess, but instead a collection of long coppery strands. His skin was scrubbed free of mud, leaving it lightly tanned from the sun. He was dressed in black pants that looked a little too big for him and a black tank top with a too-big flannel shirt thrown over it. His eyes were a strange amber color and gleamed with intelligence.
"I know, I look different without the dirt," Danny said, smiling at Emily, who blushed, realizing she had been staring.
"I'm sorry," she began to say, but Danny waved it off, grinning at her.
"I can't say anything, I was doing a bit of observing as well," he said, his voice good-natured. "You look different devoid of bird blood and without the fancy get-up you had on before."
Suddenly Emily remembered that she wasn't wearing anything but an oversized shirt. Blushing, she wrapped her arms around herself, sure Danny must that she was some kind of shameless street trollop.
"Cold?" Danny asked, shrugging out of his over-shirt and handing it to her. Emily thanked him quietly, glancing up at him. There was an understanding look in his eyes and he smiled at her. Emily slipped the garment on. It fell almost to her knees and the sleeves covered her hands, forcing her to roll them up. She looked at the shirt, puzzled, for Danny wasn't much taller than she was.
"It's Becker's," Danny said, answering her unspoken question. "All of these clothes are. Soldier Boy is built a lot bigger than me, but he dragged me to his house. Nearly had to fight Connor and Abby for me."
"Is – is Ethan – I mean, is Patrick...okay?" Emily asked, unsure if she really wanted to hear the news. She was torn. On one hand, he was Ethan, the man who had tried to kill her by locking her in a coffin. On the other, he was Patrick, Danny's little brother who Danny obviously loved very much.
"He's dead," Danny said bluntly, looking away from her for the first time, his eyes fixed on the opposite wall. "Died on the trip to the hospital. I knew there wasn't any hope, not with a wound that bad. I'm just glad he died here, in his own time."
"I'm sorry," Emily whispered, reaching out and hesitantly placing a hand on the man's shoulder. She was actually sincerely sorry, she realized with surprise. Ethan may have been a monster, but he hadn't always been like that. And she remembered the way he had been with Charlotte, who had been as close to her as a sister.
Danny reached up and covered her hand with his own. His hands were rough, hardened by months living in a world where he had to scrape and dig to find things to eat. The skin resembled sun-dried leather, but his hand was warm and comforting against her own. He smiled at her. It was a nice smile, genuine and unaltered.
"You knew him, didn't you?" Danny asked after a few moments of silence. "Matt told me you traveled with him, jumping through the anomalies." Emily nodded.
"There were about ten of us," Emily replied, unsure of where this was heading. "We traveled through the gateways, keeping on the move so we wouldn't become the meal of the next predator."
"Could you – could you tell me about him?" Danny asked, his voice hesitant. "I – I lost so much of his life. I only remember him as my pain in the ass little brother. I want to know who he was."
"Danny..." Emily said, unsure of how to go on. She didn't want to tell him about Ethan. The man had been dark, twisted, broken in some way. Danny didn't deserve that knowledge, the knowledge that his brother had turned into a killer.
"Please, Emily," Danny said, taking her hands in his and looking at her pleadingly. "I need to know." Emily understood. Danny knew what his brother had become. But Ethan was still his brother and Danny still loved him. He needed to know everything he could, just in case the man that Patrick could have become appeared sometimes under the mask of Ethan.
"Alright," Emily said, nodding and squeezing his hand. "Come to my room and we'll talk there." Danny smiled at her, his eyes showing her how grateful he was. Emily led him out of the tearoom and back to her gloried storage closet. She sat down on the hard bed and patted the spot beside her, motioning for Danny to join her. Then she began.
"Ethan was one of the first ones to join us," Emily began, her eyes glazing over, lost in memory. "It was just Charlotte and I in the beginning. I found her in the world on the other side of the first gateway I stumbled through. She was a year younger than me, but she seemed far older. There were ghosts in her eyes. She had obviously suffered deeply. We banded together, hunting for food and trying to stay alive. Something was hunting us, I do not know its name, but it was after our blood. I had injured my ankle, leaving me incapable of running, so we were hiding in a shallow crevice. The thing had almost managed to get to us when something made it scream and pull back.
"It was your brother. He had stabbed it with a tree branch. The thing turned and tried to kill him, but he was fast and vicious. He stabbed its chest with the stick, hitting the heart. The thing screamed and collapsed. Charlotte and I crawled out of the fissure, amazed to see another human being. But he didn't look human. His hair was long and matted and he growled at us when we approached. There was a mad light in his eyes and he looked completely feral.
"Then he was gone. He moved incredibly fast, almost like an animal himself. He was gone into the trees before we could even think. We looked for him, but there wasn't any trace, so we moved on. We were moving slow because of my ankle. It was a day or so before we realized what was going on. Something was stalking us. It wasn't that big and moved too quickly for us to get a look at it, so we decided to set up a trap to catch it. And catch it we did."
Emily paused here. She looked at Danny, unsure if she should go on. He sat there, one hand balled up in a fist on his knee and the other entwined in the bed sheets. His usually expressive face was blank. It worried her more than if there had been rage or sorrow in his eyes. Danny noticed she was looking at him with concerned and smiled, unclenching his fist and patting her hand reassuringly. Emily took a deep breath, then continued.
"It was your brother. Apparently he had been tracking us. I don't know what his intentions were. It may have been pure curiosity, but I doubt it. Your brother was… wild. Savage even. It seemed that he was intending to… remove us from the area so we didn't use up all of the resources.
"We decided we couldn't leave him to roam free and come after us again. So we tied him up and took him with us. He didn't speak, merely snapped and growled. I wasn't even sure if he was really human or so strange new monster. But Charlotte wouldn't give up on him. She spent every night talking to him, even when he tried to rip out her throat with his teeth. Eventually he calmed down a little. He even began to speak again. Bits and pieces at first, but Charlotte was ecstatic. She spent even more time talking to him, just chattering, telling him about where she had come from and her life and her dreams for the future.
"Charlotte was a gentle, loving person. She was the one who tamed your brother, who brought out the human in him again, instead of the monster. And he loved her with all of his heart. He was gentle with her, tender and loving. But with the rest of us… he mostly stayed away. Or rather, Charlotte kept him away. Others had joined us by this point, and he didn't react well to strangers coming into the group. He nearly broke the neck of one young man before Charlotte was able to talk him down.
"After that he became… Well, not really our protector, but more of our guard. He and Charlotte would travel a few hours ahead of us, Charlotte finding food and Ethan killing anything that came in his path. We ate well. Roasted raptor is actually quite good. They would usually join us for the night. Or rather, Charlotte would. He would roam around in the darkness, keeping watch. I don't think he slept very much. I plucked up my courage and asked him once. He looked at me, and there was nothing but emptiness in his eyes. 'I would rather spend an eternity in this waking torment then rest for even a few moments in that slumbering hell,' was his reply.
"After Charlotte died… The monster that had been slumbering for so long inside him rose to the surface again. Only this time the monster was able to think and process like a human being. He was twice as vicious and ten times more deadly. But I don't think he enjoyed it, not anymore. When Charlotte died, she took his heart with her. He was empty, far emptier than when we had found him. Every emotion was gone. I do not think he intended to live once he entered the world of the terror-birds. He would not kill himself, he was too proud for that, but he would simply stop trying to live. He wanted to return to her, the one who had saved him from his inner monster. And he has."
Emily finished her tale and looked over at Danny. Tears streamed silently down his face. He made no effort to hide them, merely looked at the wall, silently weeping for the brother he had lost. Emily's heart ached for the poor man. Biting her lip, unsure of whether or not what she was doing was right, Emily wrapped her arms around Danny, leaning her head against his.
Danny returned the embrace, sliding his arms around her warm waist and pulling her tightly against him. Emily stroked his hair with one hand and rubbed his back with the other as he sobbed silently into her shoulder.
She had never seen a man cry before. The men in her time saw it as a weakness, while the men in this time viewed it as unseemly. But Danny seemed unashamed. He grieved openly and Emily was moved by the raw emotions trembling in his body.
At last the sobbing ceased. Danny made no move to pull away from her embrace, so Emily simply held him, one hand still stroking his hair. She felt his body relax and suddenly he was leaning heavily against her. Taking a peek at his face, Emily saw he was asleep.
Smiling softly, she gently lay him down on the bed, pulling off his boots and covering him with a blanket. Danny whimpered slightly when she tried to move away, clutching more tightly onto her nightshirt, but she soothed him, assuring him that she wasn't going anywhere. Then Emily sat down on the bed and looked at him.
Danny's face had relaxed in sleep. The lines of care were almost gone, leaving him looking younger. But what he had seen and done still weighed heavily on him. Danny was not a handsome man, at least not in the classical sense. He was not beautifully handsome like Becker, nor endearingly adorable like Connor, nor even modernly attractive like Matt. Danny's appeal lay not in any polished lines, but in his rough, natural beauty. Like a log beat by the waves against the shore, he was not handsome until you really looked him.
His hair, which could easily be mistaken for merely a reddish brown, was actually made up of a kaleidoscope of hundreds of different shapes of red, bronze, and copper. His eyes, though they looked merely solid brown at first, were shot through with streaks of amber. He features were rough, but there was an unapologetic honesty about them that made Emily want to reach out and touch him. He was a little rough around the edges, but that only added to his charm.
There was a soft knock on Emily's door, breaking her out of her reverie. Getting up, she opened the door, not wanting the knocking to get any louder and wake Danny, for he obviously needed the sleep.
"Emily, have you seen Dan–," Becker broke off, taking in the scene before him. Emily suddenly realized what this must look like, her answering the door clad only in a short nightshirt and Danny's over-shirt, him tucked into her bed with his boots off slumbering peacefully.
"I – I didn't mean to interrupt…" the captain said, trailing off, his face turning a brilliant shade of red.
"That's not what happened!" Emily said quickly, stepping outside and closing the door so the talking wouldn't wake Danny. "We met in the tearoom. He wanted me to tell him about Ethan, so we came back here and talked, then he fell asleep, that's all I swear."
"Sorry," Becker muttered gruffly, tugging at his collar and looking rather uncomfortable. "I didn't mean to, you know, assume anything. When I woke up and saw he was gone, I figured this was where he would come. I didn't want you to hear people sneaking around and decide to do to us what you did to the terror bird, so I came to ask him if you had seen him. I had figured I'd find him in some ventilation shaft somewhere."
"Ventilation shaft?" Emily repeated, puzzled.
"That's how he gets in and out of the building without setting off the alarms," Becker explained, rolling his eyes in a good-natured way. "Now that he's back I'm going to have to triple security. But I should really take him home. He needs to rest, and if he stays here, he'll being trying to get back to work the moment he wakes up."
Emily nodded and stepped aside, letting Becker open the door. She heard Becker say something quietly and Danny groggily reply before there was a rustling of sheets and a grunt of effort from Becker. He emerged a few moments later, Danny cradled in his arms like a child. Becker smiled at Emily, who smiled back in return before she walked into her room.
It was only after they had left that she realized that she was still wearing Danny's shirt. She started to take it off, but then stopped. It was warm and comforting, like being held tightly in an embrace. Wrapping the flannel material more tightly around herself, Emily slipped into bed, pulling the covers up.
She laid her head against the pillow, breathing deeply. It smelled like Danny, a warm, rich smell that she couldn't quite name. Smiling to herself, Emily buried her face in her pillow, inhaling deeply as she drifted off to sleep.
A/N: Hello all. For those of you who have already read this, sorry, I was in such a rush to put it up before I passed out that I didn't put an author's note at the end. For the new readers, hello and thanks for reading the story! For those who have read my other work, don't worry I'm not giving up on my story Rebellion, I'm just a little stuck right now. This is the point where I send out my desperate plea for reviews. I love hearing from people. I'm considering making this into a series of one-shots, but I'll need some love to keep it going, so please review! Likes, hates, pet peeves, mistakes, anything, I want to hear it all. So thanks!