It was another week before Connor was well enough to be discharged from the hospital. In that time, none of the team had spoken to him. Not out of their own volition, of course; whenever they tried to visit him, they were met with angry swearing and sometimes thrown items. Not even Abby had gotten through to him. It was going to take a bit more than simply saying sorry to ease away this kind of animosity. Sorry was stepping on someone's foot in a theatre. Sorry was bumping into someone and spilling their drink. Sorry was not leaving a teammate alone in a carnivore-infested forest without even noticing he was gone. Sometimes Connor didn't even know why he was so angry at them. It wasn't like him. But whenever Cutter or Stephen or Abby came to him, trying to apologise, a feeling of outright fury boiled up from somewhere in the depths of his chest, only satisfied with throwing things and cursing a blue streak. A vicious little voice in the back of his head that hadn't been there before whispered that if he simply bowed out, just up and forgave his "friends" like that, then they'd probably never learn their lesson. He was going to make these thick bloody sods realise that he was just as important as any of them and not just creature fodder to be chucked aside. The only one spared from the young man's wrath was Jenny. Though nobody admitted to telling Connor that she'd been the one to realise he was missing at all and subsequently mount a rescue mission to find him, he seemed to simply know it.

Of course, none of them, not even Connor, knew that the unprecedented aggression was one of the earliest symptoms of the infection beginning to work its way into his body.


Abby was waiting for him outside of the hospital when he left, standing beside the Bug, fingers twisting around the hem of her jacket. She wore a short tartan skirt with black leggings underneath, her black Doc Martens, a graffiti-covered t-shirt with a grey undershirt, jacket tied around her waist. She looked as if she hadn't slept much, dark shadows under her eyes, a weary air about her. As he came towards her, he saw a flicker of slight trepidation in her eyes. She was still afraid of his anger, and for good damned reason. He could still feel that little coal of fury under his breastbone, never quite burning out, always simmering. It'd take a good while before it went away.

He didn't say a word as he got in the car, and the ride back to the flat was frigidly silent. All things aside, Connor was happy to be home. He hated hospital food, and he missed his bed and his comics and his loft. As he walked in the door, Rex fluttered down from the rafters to land on his head, tiny claws pressing into his hair, chirruping excitedly. Sid and Nancy wove in and out through his ankles, huffing and squeaking with delight at the return of their other favourite human. "Yeah, yeah, I'm home. Don't hurt yourselves," he chortled, carefully stepping over the diictodons as he made his way into the kitchen for a proper meal.

Abby followed after him, uncertain and nervous. She wanted to find some way to apologise to him, some way to make up for what she'd done. But how could she? There were no words that could ever fix this. How exactly did one say sorry? We left you behind in a prehistoric forest full of carnivores, and you almost died because of it. Sorry about that, mate. Yeah, like that would ever work. He was already mad at her, and she couldn't blame him. How had she not realised just how horribly she'd been to him? But still, she felt like she had to say something. "Connor, I – "

He went still at the sound of her voice. "Abby, if you are going to say something trying to apologise for what you did, don't. I don't want to hear it. Just…don't," he said stiffly.

"Please, I-I'm trying to – "

"To what? Make this better? There is nothing that you can say to fix this, alright? This, this isn't something that you can fix with words. So just…stop. Apologising does nothing but get very damn irritating," he answered. Kicking the fridge shut, he picked up the plate he'd stacked full of food. "I'll be in my room. Leave me alone."

He brushed past her, and she heard his footsteps ascend the steps into the loft. Abby put her face in her hands. Oh, my God, what have I done?


Cutter sat at his desk, holding a fossilised hypsilophodon skull in his hands; he used it as a paperweight. God, what a bloody mess he'd made of this. There weren't many situations in which he was at a complete and total loss as to what to do next, but he definitely was now. There wasn't any way to simply apologise in a way that would make up for what'd happened.

He was so absorbed in his own miserable thoughts that he didn't notice Jenny walk into his office until she sat down across from him and spoke quietly, "You look a thousand miles away, Nick. What are you thinking about?"

Glancing up at her, he set the fossilised skull back on the desk. Jenny was the only one that'd been spared from Connor's fury. He supposed he understood why: she was the one to go after him, to even realise he was gone. If it hadn't been for her, they would've left him alone in the Cretaceous and wouldn't have found him until he was already dead. Or might not have found him at all. He let out a heavy sigh. "Connor," he answered at last.

Jenny sat back slightly in her chair, and he saw the shift in her eyes. "Connor," she echoed softly. An entire world of understanding was contained in that one word, that name. "What about him?" she asked, voice decidedly guarded. She hadn't quite gotten around to forgiving Cutter or the others just yet either. Maybe it wasn't fair, but she didn't really care about that.

She was a little surprised, though, to see the Scotsman swallow hard and look towards the floor. When he glanced up at her through his lashes, there was a miserable regret in his pale blue eyes. "He hates me, doesn't he?" Cutter asked in a voice that surprised her both with the softness and pain it contained.

Even if she was pissed at him, it pulled at something in her to see him look so forlorn. Leaning forward in the chair, Jenny reached out and placed one hand over his. "Connor loves you, Nick," she corrected in just as soft a voice, and a flicker of confusion passed through his eyes. "Trust me, it'd be easier if he hated you. Hate is an emotion that can be handled a hell of a lot easier than love can. Especially when it's disappointed love," she explained; he winced slightly at that. But it was the truth. Connor loved the professor like a father, and he loved the team as if they were his family. He loved them still. That was just it. He loved them, and they'd disappointed him in a terrible way. It hurt a lot more than simple anger or hatred could, and it lasted a lot longer than either. Connor was hurt and he was angry, but he didn't hate them. He still loved them; it would just take some time for him to get back to it.

"What do I do?" he asked, sounding more like a lost child than anything. "This isn't something you can just say sorry for, but – "

"Give it time," she replied gently. "You're right. You can't apologise for this with words. Just...give him time. Show him that you really do care, because that's what tears him up so badly. He thinks you don't care. Show him that you do and give him time. He'll come around, Nick." Jenny doubted that he believed her, but she knew it was true. Connor was too good of a person to allow him to hold onto anger like that, not for too long. He would come back to them.

Cutter shook his head slowly, looking up at her through his pale lashes once more. He moved lightly to wrap his hand around hers. "How do you always know how to make things better?" he asked quietly. His thumb lightly stroked the inside of her wrist.

Jenny leant away from him, sliding her hand out of his own. "It's my job," she replied, and she didn't miss the slight flicker of hurt that crossed his face. It would take time for Connor to forgive the team...and it would take time for her to forgive Cutter as well.


"I still think that we ought to kill him. It's not too late for it," muttered the irritable Hunter under his breath as he reloaded his weapon.

"Shut up," hissed his brother in a low voice. "The decision's already been made. The kid stays alive until we know if he's infected or not. Enough with this talk about killing him already." He returned his attention to the long, curved knife in his hands, carefully drawing the whetstone along the razor edge, the blade reflecting the kitchen light in slashes of pale silver. "Besides, from what I've seen of him, he's not half-bad. Definitely smart. You should see some of the stuff the kid's put together. It's more advanced than the time. He'd fit right in," the man added after a moment of silence, not addressing any particular person in the kitchen where they were working.

"Another male. How delightful," remarked the curly-haired Huntress dryly, and the younger girl beside her snickered. "Perhaps soon we'll have another Huntress. Or maybe one of you will die from testosterone poisoning and make all of our lives easier."

A snort of laughter escaped the man, even as his brother only gave her a dark scowl in response. "Come off it. You couldn't live without us and you know it," he chortled.

"Oh, I'm sure that I could," she murmured back softly, not missing the cold glare she was getting. The brothers were the only siblings in the entire Adonai Initiative, but the differences between them were vast. Simply looking at them, nobody would believe they were brothers at all. They were so different from each other. The elder of the brothers was tall and broad, with a shock of ginger hair that stood up everywhere. He rarely showed emotion to outsiders – none of them did – but when he smiled at them, it was warm and friendly, and his laugh was infectious, as was his peculiar and sometimes inappropriate sense of humour. He embodied the very name Elysian – light. The younger, however, was Charbydion through and through, different even from the others who shared the same strand. He wasn't as large as his brother and was instead lithe and wiry, reminding her of a weasel or a stoat. His eyes and hair were both dark, nearly black, and his hands were quick to cause pain. She had known him for nearly four years and could never claim to have ever seen him smile, or heard him laugh. He frightened her, in honesty, and she did not scare easily.

"What do you have against this boy anyways?" asked the girl sitting at the Huntress's side. "I think he sounds alright. He is very smart – "

"Not smart enough to get away from a Predator," he snarled back.

"No human can just get away from a Predator, Ethan," his brother scolded. "You know that."

"And he's strong," continued the girl, ignoring the siblings entirely. "There's not many humans that could go through what he did without giving in. Not to mention, did you see all the comic books he had? I could finally talk to someone about Marvel and DC without getting nothing but blank stares in return. And all the things he built, we could – "

"You just want someone to geek out with, don't you?"

The youngest of their number sat back defencively. "Maybe. But he'd still be good for us."

Setting down his gun, the dark-haired brother shrugged. "I still say we ought to kill him."