Author's Notes:

Hey guys! So I'm SUPER sorry that it took so long to get this chapter up. There are two reasons: first off, last week was my birthday, so yay! I was really busy celebrating and seeing family so I haven't had time to edit this as thoroughly as I wanted to until now. Secondly, I started watching Sense8 on Netflix and got IMMEDIATELY ADDICTED. If you haven't started watching it yet I suggest you finish this chapter and then binge watch the whole thing. Seriously amazing. Also, if you have watched it let me know in the comments or a personal message so I can geek out over it with you.

Anyways, here, at long last, is chapter 4. Only two more after this until Episode 1 is complete!

Primeval

Eric Reddington couldn't resist stealing a glance at the woman beside him as he drove to Heathrow, taking in as much about her as he could in their first silent moment together. Sam, Alex, and Peter were all in the back seat muttering to each other about their most recent incursion, which left Eric and Emily to talk alone.

"So…" Eric said, already off to an awkward start. "It's fine if you don't want to talk about it, but just what happened to get you demoted from the Core Team to Team Three?" The question sounded a lot meaner than he intended it to, but there really wasn't a way to put it nicely. If her face wasn't so damn hard to read…

"Someone new came. Evidently they decided I was the least valuable team member," Emily responded, staring straight out the front window and speaking dispassionately. Eric slowed the car as they passed through the open gates of the airport and pulled onto the tarmac. He smirked a little at all the officials fussing here and there to keep the area secure; usually Team Three got handed the really boring anomalies.

"Well for what it's worth, I'm glad to have you," he said. Emily nodded at him and, though he knew he could never really know what it meant, he liked to imagine it was a grudging sign of respect… or at least acceptance. He killed the ignition and swung open the door cavalierly, his ears meeting a chorus of shouts and screams.

"What the hell…" Peter questioned, pointing to the air traffic control tower off to their left. Eric followed his gaze to see a giant prehistoric bird… thing ripping at the roof. It appeared as though half had caved in already and the other part wouldn't last long.

"If I know Connor, that's where he'll be," Emily said, charging up her EMD and marching off towards the tower without waiting for Eric's command. He shook his head and ran after her, grabbing her arm to stop her.

"On this team we like to talk through things before we run off," he said gruffly, his friendly tone disappearing.

"Listen, Mr. Reddington, my friend is up there… dead for all I know. I'm not waiting to go help him," she said, shaking off his arm. He growled again, running off after her. "Sam, we're gonna need something stronger to take this thing down. Peter and Alex, get our communication with the Core Team back up!" Eric shouted behind him as he and Emily ran towards the control tower.

As they ran, Jess' voice broke through over comms. "Eric, have we restored communications with the Core Team yet?"

"Uh, Peter and Alex are on it. We've got sort of a… uh… bigger issue on our hands," as he said it he had to leap to his side to avoid a piece of shrapnel that the bird creature had thrown off the roof. "What the hell is that thing?" Eric asked Emily, ignoring Jess for the moment.

"Terrateladont. We figured they were somewhere in the evolution between a pterodactyl and modern bird," Emily explained, pointing out the enormous creature's wings, which were six feet long each and were covered in feathers.

"Who's 'we'?" Eric asked. He'd read through all of the ARC field reports and never had any of the teams encountered a creature like the one they were facing down now. Emily's face contorted in a mixture of pain and determination.

"It's a long story," she said noncommittally. Before Eric could press the matter further they were at the door to the control tower. He smashed the handle with his gun and it broke off, the door swinging in. "Graceful…" she said, pushing through the door and hitting the stairs in a run.

The run up the flights of stairs left them breathless, a fact that Eric was sure Emily was glad of. He wanted so badly to like her, but he couldn't help but suspect she was keeping things from him… and he wouldn't stop until he found out what.

For now, however, it would have to wait, because he and his new team member had just arrived at the top of the stairwell. They were standing on a small landing with a ladder on it. His eyes followed the ladder up and saw a small rectangular hatch in the ceiling; he guessed this was the entrance to the control tower operations room.

Emily wasted no time, climbing the first few rungs of the ladder and slamming her fist into the panel. "Connor! Are you in there?" Emily said. She shared a nervous glance with Eric. He waited for a response, really not wanting to have to watch her beat down a door… well, another door.

A few tense moments passed before Jess''s voice cut in through the comms again. "Eric? Emily? What's happening out there? Give me something!"

"Jess, this thing's called a Terrateledont. Huge bird-like creature. I estimate its wingspan at about 12 feet total. Partially covered in feathers."

"How's Connor?" Jess asked. Even over comms Eric could hear her fingers smashing the information into the computer she was almost surely seated in front of.

"I've been better!"

Eric and Emily shared a confused glance as Connor's voice buzzed in over comms. He sounded rattled, but unharmed.

"Connor! Are you alright?" Emily asked, her tone shifting slightly. Eric took note; that's how she sounded when she cared about someone.

"We're fine… but if you wanted to get us out of here that'd be great." From above them Eric and Emily heard the sound of the creature shrieking and metal being torn away.

"We need to get in there now," Emily said. Eric was about to respond when they heard someone else pounding up the staircase. A moment later Sam came into view carrying an almost comically large gun and a small metallic box that Eric didn't recognize.

"I think I can help with that," Sam said, flashing her winning smile and tousling her fiery red ponytail. Emily leapt down off the ladder, catching Eric's shoulder for support; to his knowledge, that was the first time the two had actually touched. It was… odd.

"What are those things, Sam?" Eric asked, pointing to the two objects in her hands. She raised the gun up first.

"This is for the creature. Modified EMD. If I'm right it'll shoot a blast of microscopic electromagnets. The polarity should bind them together at a distance, but not with enough strength to pull them all together."

"So it's like an EMD net?" Emily asked.

"Exactly." She handed it off to Eric and raised the small box in her other hand. "This is just a glorified skeleton key. It should get us up into that control room." Without another word she climbed up the first few rungs of the ladder and attached it to the panel. Eric waited impatiently until finally they all heard the faint "ding" that signalled the lock had been undone.

"After you," Sam said, motioning to Eric. He handed the gun back to her and she tucked the key back into her bag.

"Alright you two, be careful. We don't know what we're going to see up there and - " Eric's planned inspirational speech was cut short by Connor's scream. "Nevermind. Let's just do this thing." He caught Emily's amused smile as he leapt onto the ladder and crawled up into the control tower.

"Watch out!" Eric found his world turning in circles as soon as he climbed through the hatch when something hit him from the side and sent him flying across the room. He smashed into the wall a moment later, his vision slowly returning to normal… just in time to see another piece of debris flying at him. He grunted and rolled to the side, the object barely missing him.

His heart pounded as he took in the scene in front of him, one eye still watching for anything else he might have to run away from. A shelf lined the room on all sides with various computers and monitoring devices on them. He spotted Connor and another man - he guessed it was someone who worked for the airport - hiding underneath that shelf. A large section of the tower had been torn away, leaving only about one half of the room with a roof. If one wasn't careful it'd be easy to fall out the other side.

"Connor, get him out of here," Eric's attention drifted to the hatch in the floor, through which Emily and Sam were climbing. Emily was shouting orders at Connor, who grabbed the hand of the younger-looking employee and began pulling him towards the hatch. Emily held her EMD ready, watching vigilantly out the side of the tower that had been torn away… which, unfortunately, meant that she couldn't react fast enough when the creature tore through the wall behind her.

Eric watched in shock as Sam grabbed Emily's ankle and knocked the girl to the ground, the Terreteledont's teeth missing her by just inches. The beast's talon managed to sink into Connor, throwing him and the other man across the room. Eric watched out the exposed side as the creature did a loop in the air and circled back towards the tower.

"Everybody out now!" Eric shouted, leaping to his feet and assessing himself for any injuries. He was fine - at least, he was fine enough. "Sam, have you got that device ready?" He watched as she flipped a switch on what Emily had referred to as the EMD net.

"Ready," she said, staring out the side of the tower. Eric followed her gaze and was horrified to see that the creature was no longer in sight.

"What the hell…" he asked, sharing nervous glances with the other members of his team. Suddenly the tower began to shake as they heard a deafening shriek and the sound of tearing metal.

"It went…" Emily began.

"Under us," Eric finished. "Damn thing is bringing the whole tower down." He could feel the ground beneath him beginning to shift even as he said the words. They needed to get everyone out of there before there was no tower left to get them out of.

"Connor, go!" Emily shouted. Connor pushed the young man - Eric thought his name tag looked like it said Nate - towards the hole, but before they could reach it the entire tower lurched violently. It tipped towards the left, the floor lifting up to become the wall and vice versa. Eric watched as the earth tipped around him, desperately grabbing for something to hang on to.

He didn't find it. Instead he flew back, falling across the room and slamming into the glass panelling. He heard a sickening crack. His stomach lurched. He threw up. The world finally stopped spinning and he took in the damage.

"Everyone alright?" he asked, looking around the lopsided room.

"Fine," he heard Sam and Emily say in unison. Sam was hanging safely above him, her hands having managed to find the hole in the floor and grab onto it - at least she'd be able to make it out safely. Emily was off towards the left, lying against one of the control panels that was mounted to the wall.

"Temple?" Eric asked.

"I'm… alright, mate," Connor sounded like he might be on the verge of tears. Eric's eyes swiveled around in his head until he found Connor lying on the glass panel next to him. "Nate… the, the guy… he, uh, didn't make it. He's gone."

"Shit," Eric said, wanting to slam his fist against something but unable to because before he had time to react the glass underneath him was breaking and he was falling through space.

Ryan Hunt had learned, during a rather unfortunate kidnapping situation years before, that you should always keep your eyes closed when you first wake up; it was a skill that had come in handy many times over the years, saving his life on more than one occasion… Still, when he woke up with his head pounding like he'd downed seventeen margaritas the night before all his training went out the window.

Above him on either side he saw chairs rising up from the ground and a curved roof about ten feet over his head. He was lying on his back, and as he swiveled his head slightly he saw the pilot - Jo - and Captain Becker - nursing what looked like a severely broken hand - standing over him.

"Don't try to move," Becker said, wincing slightly. "We don't know the state of your spine just yet." Ryan cocked an eyebrow at him and sat up - he knew well enough what a spinal injury felt like and he decidedly didn't have one. What he did have was a massively bad headache and only patchy memories of what was going on.

"I'm fine. Just get me some damn Advil and tell me what happened. We… crashed, right?" Hunt asked. A woman beside him fished some painkillers out of her purse and handed them to him. He smashed the cap off and downed a few, waiting for someone to explain.

"We crashed and the chopper exploded," Jo said, filling him in on what he'd missed. "Abby got us all to safety before she passed out. Some of the passengers from this flight found us a few minutes later and got us to safety… or, at least, out of the exposed jungle. We're in the plane now."

"I guess we can thank them for that," Ryan said gruffly. "Now where's the rest of our team? Don't tell me they got eaten."

"We're alright." Hunt craned his neck around and saw Abby walking down the aisle towards him looking relatively healthy considering she'd just literally fallen out of the sky and been in an explosion. "Matt's leg is broken and Becker's hand is trashed, but we're all alive and in one piece," she said. Hunt could tell from the way she was speaking - the cold, detached, almost clinical tone - that this wasn't her first jungle survival trauma.

"Great," Hunt said. All things considered, really, the whole situation could be a hell of a lot worse. "And what's the status of this plane?"

"Actually pretty decent," Jo said. Finally some good news. "The pilots landed it safely."

"And where are they now?" Hunt asked, sensing bad news ahead.

"They took a small group to go get help." Hunt's attention turned to another passenger who'd suddenly taken over explaining the story.

"And they're not back yet?"

"No. They left about an hour ago," the passenger said, sharing a nervous glance with the man seated next to him. "Is that bad?"

"With our luck?" Abby said, matter-of-factly. "Probably."

"Thanks for the support," Hunt retorted, turning his attention to problems he could solve. "Jo, if we don't get the pilots back... can you fly this plane?" Jo's face seemed to turn a sickly shade of green as she considered the possibility.

"May… maybe? If it's fully operational…"

"Jo, I need to know if you can do this. One way or the other, I need an honest answer." Jo shared an almost imperceptible glance with Becker - Hunt made a mental note to keep on an eye on those two - before responding.

"Yeah, I can do it." Without another word she turned and entered the cockpit.

"Perfect. Now we'll just have to wait and see what disaster comes next," he said, trying to add an element of comedy to the situation. It wasn't too successful.

"I can't just sit around here waiting for bad news. I'm going to find the group that left," Abby said, throwing a wrench into the peace that Hunt had been feeling.

"Miss Maitland, I can't allow you to do that. Those men left of their own accord and -"

"Those men have no idea what's happened to them, where they are or even when they are. I'm not just going to leave them out there to die if I can help it!" Abby shouted. Hunt could practically feel his blood pressure rising. No wonder Lester seemed so stressed out all the time.

He locked eyes with Abby for a long moment, waiting for one of them to back down, for one of them to blink; but he had worse injuries and Abby had five years of experience on him, so he knew the battle was over before it had begun. "Fine," he conceded, noticing Abby's slight smirk. "One hour. You've got one hour to find them and get them back here or we're leaving them behind… and you too if need be." Hunt registered surprise on everyone's faces at this comment, especially his own. He hadn't been planning to say it but, well, there it was.

"Fine. See you in an hour." Abby heaved the door open with a grunt and slid out of the craft, disappearing into the jungle beyond.

"Well," Hunt said, rubbing his hands together nervously and looking at Becker. "This is going roughly as well as I expected it to."

Over the years Abigail Maitland had gotten used to being alone; as a child she'd often had to play games by herself when none of the other kids would play with her. Even into adulthood she'd been a bit of a loner, preferring animals over people and acting a bit stand-offish with other humans… until she met Connor Temple.

It was funny, she thought, the connections people made between two things. Like how she had this toaster at her house that her aunt had given her after a house fire, and now whenever she made toast she thought of insurance claims. Or how Rex's cage had been stolen once and she now associated cages with chasing down a robber on a bicycle. Or how being alone in a dangerous jungle made her think of Connor because they'd spent a year trapped in one together.

Abby had always prided herself on being strong, but as she exited the clearing and disappeared into the jungle, out of sight of the airplane, she felt more profoundly alone and afraid than she had in a long time… probably because, for the last five years at least, she'd always had Connor there to back her up. Connor made sure she was never alone.

"I wonder what he's doing right now…" Abby said to herself as she pushed large palm leaves out of her way and scanned to her left. Her head was always swiveling, always moving and checking for dangers. A year in the cretaceous had taught her that you really could never be too careful… which made it especially ironic when something leapt through the trees at her right and tackled her to the ground.

Instinctively, and it was only due to her years of working with predators, her right hand snapped up in front of her and wrapped around the snout of whatever creature was attacking her, effectively locking its jaw shut. Having it right on top of her made it difficult to get a good idea of the size, but she guessed from the pressure on her legs it was at least six feet long and over 400 pounds.

Her left hand searched the ground at her side, her fingers finally wrapping around a rock. She brought it up with as much force as she could muster into the head of the beast, a snarl answering her attack. It seemed to weaken a bit, giving Abby enough leverage to wrench her leg out and throw it off of her. She rolled to the side, pushed herself onto her knees, wobbled back to a standing position, and took off running. She could hear the creature regrouping and starting to chase her, the telltale sound of grass being crushed by massive feet growing uncomfortably loud. she risked a glance back; a second later she wished she hadn't.

Abby couldn't be sure, but it looked to her that the creature was an Epicyon: a prehistoric wolf that was about three times bigger than any currently living and about one hundred times more vicious… and could run about twelve times faster than Abby could. She knew in that moment that she wouldn't be able to outrun it, at least not once it had fully regained its senses after Abby's attack. She only had a minute or two to figure something out…

It was moments like that that made Abby wish Connor was there. He was a goofball, but he always came through in a pinch. She had no doubt if he was there he'd have already created some sort of device to immobilize the creature with palm leaves and a coconut or something… something clever that Abby could never think of.

But then, of course, Connor wasn't there, and Abby wouldn't be able to solve it his way; she didn't have his skill set so she'd have to rely on her own.

Abby's mind raced back through every class on predatory behaviour she'd ever taken: make yourself big, travel in a pack, find something to scare them… No, that wasn't it. You shouldn't try to scare them, you should show them that you're not scared.

Damn. Abby remembered too late that you weren't supposed to run from a wolf. You had to show them that you were the alpha, that you could take them on if you had to. It was all about having the illusion of power. Suddenly Abby knew what she had to do.

She sprang up as she passed under the next tree in her path, pulling off the biggest branch she could manage. Landing and spinning quickly on her heels Abby brought the branch around, watching as it connected squarely with the Epicyon's jaw. It howled as it fell to the side, looking more annoyed than ever… which was ok, because now Abby could reassert and change the balance of the relationship.

Don't make eye contact, she remembered, looking at the creature's ear and standing up as straight as possible. It stared her down, looking for any perceived weaknesses, any place to attack, but it appeared not to find any. And so it continued to stare, and so did Abby, and all that remained was to see who blinked first.