Jack's living with Abby, Connor's moved out and is staying in the ARC. Things are okay between them despite this - connor was just happy to discover that 'jack' was her brother and not a boyfriend - although they both miss living with each other. Heroic!Connor, Balaur raptor, team, and jack's being irritating and troublesome per usual.

Part One: Woops

"Abby, watch out!" She heard Connor's voice and looked up from her mobile immediately, eyes wide. Double overlarge claws on each foot, feathers, sharp teeth, and a yellow, slit-pupiled eye filled her vision. She held her breath, carefully considering her options as she slipped the mobile in her pocket. She silently cursed at Jack; usually she was the observant one, the one who never got distracted at an anomaly call. The Raptor lumbered closer, she took a single step back, eyeing it cautiously. If she didn't make any sudden movements, she might be able to back towards Jenny and Becker, who stood with guns pointed at the creature. The angle was wrong. She shifted to the left a little, one step at a time. It hissed - unlike the velociraptors in the mall, this one didn't have spikes, but it's feathers still ruffled - and its claws clicked against the pavement. She was about to dive out of the way, hoping one of them would get a shot in with the tranq, or at least that it would give her time to draw and load her own tranq pistol.

"Oi! Feathers!" A familiar voice called out. The familiar, dark-haired someone was a blur as he darted between her and the raptor, drawing it's attention and running in the opposite direction, towards the glittering anomaly.

"Connor!"

"Open the anomaly!" He yelled to the soldier standing by the locking mechanism, glancing over his shoulder at the raptor that was now chasing him.

Three hours earlier...

He couldn't get used to this, Connor thought with a grumble as he stumbled out of his makeshift bed and over to the counter in his lab, changing clothes as he walked. Still half-asleep, despite the incessant ringing of the alarm he'd set in the background (and somehow, he'd managed to get up on time today), he poured coffee into his mug and leaned against the counter as he added what Abby always told him was way too much sugar and creme. Connor smiled a little at the thought, of Abby's teasing, fond tone.

"Want a little Coffee with your sugar, Conn?"

Honestly, he'd have prefered to be waking up in the flat, nearly falling down the loft stairs on his way to the kitchen, and talking and laughing with Abby as they got ready for work. But he'd have to get used to this sooner than later. It was supposed to be only temporary, which was a relief - Abby's younger brother Jack had comandeered the loft space, and Connor had moved out.

Anything for Abby.

Connor sighed, finished the coffee, hit the off button on the alarm clock, and left his lab, heading down the hallway to the main ops room.

"Jack! Jack, I'm heading to work!" Abby waited a beat, but heard nothing from the upstairs loft. Frowning, she started up the stairs. She stopped at the landing, making a face. Connor may have been a messy kind of person, but he was at least a great deal better than her brother about cleaning up and the like. Usually, at least. At least Conor responded by cleaning up immediately if she asked him to, and the first time (most of the time). If she asked Jack to clean up around the flat, he gave her this look and rolled his eyes, nodding. It never got done. The only reason she was even letting him stay was because he was her only family - she didn't like his habits, or really like him that much at all, but she did love her brother.

"Jack, wake up. Right now."

The figure buried under his blankets made a groaning sort of noise and slowly peeked out at her.

"I did warn you, Jack. You can get drunk if you want, but I am not letting you laze around because you gave yourself the hangover of the century, yeah? Up!" She told him.

"But Abby!"

"Stop whining, you sound like a five year old!" She tried to keep the irritation out of her voice, she really did.

"Oh, piss off."

"The flat better be cleaned-" She lifted the edge of a pizza box he'd left lying around. "-by the time I get home, or so help me..."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got it, Abby. Now shoo don't want to be late for feeding the elephants, do we?" He said, pressing a hand to his forehead at the headache she knew he had. She smirked a little, nodding.

"Oh, and no parties - I can't stop you from gambling and partying otuside the flat, but not in!" She added as she left the loft.

Now

Jack had called her - twice. And texted her. And called again. She had meant to just check it quickly and then turn her mobile on silent so it wouldn't startle any creatures. But then the raptor they were tracking leapt out of the bushes, and she was distracted by her mobile at the crucial moment.

And now it was chasing Connor - her Connor, her best friend - towards the anomaly. Abby forgot about Jack for just a moment, and gave chase as well. She pulled out her tranquilizer gun, loaded it with a dart, and took aim, biting her lip and steadying her arms against her hip.

The dart hit the raptor, sinking into the Balaur's father-covered skin for a single moment before it dropped out and onto the ground, rolling away.

"Damn it!" Why did the darts always do that on the first shot? She fumbled, stopping for a single moment to load another dart. Sarah, crouched near the anomaly with the locking mechanism, pushed a few buttons and then backed off. The anomaly pulsed once and then the shards of spinning light expanded from the near-perfect sphere of before.

The raptor straightened, seeming more attentive now, watching Connor carefully as the human ran through the anomaly. Connor vanished from view and the raptor followed, hissing and snapping at him.

She was panicking within three minutes.

At five minutes, she pushed her way past Becker and Jenny, who only half heartedly tried to stop her from going after Connor, and stepped through. Of course they were a step behind her, as was one of Becker's soldiers. The anomaly led to the cretaceous, but Connor had gathered from the description of the raptor beforehand that this anomaly didn't lead to the same area of the cretaceous - it led to an island, isolated for so long as to cause the adaptations they had seen in the Balaur. Two sickle-shaped hind claws rather than one, and a relatively large, bulky build for a raptor.

But Abby didn't care about that at the moment. Connor was missing, and her mind kept imagining all the horrible things that could have happened to him. It should have taken him a moment, lead it through and then jump back into their time so they could lock the anomaly. Easy as pie. Obviously not with Connor on the job, however. She shook her head, frowning at her thoughts. She knew why she was being mean to him, and that made her more irritated. She was totally in love with her best friend, and the thought scared her, not to mention that there was a gut-clenching fear that something bad had happened to him. She could only hope that he was kipped up in a tree or a cave somewhere, something like that. As safe as possible in this time.

His head hurt. The first thing he registered as he regained consciousness was not so out of the ordinary for Connor. He was always hitting his head. Regular hazard when your job dealt with dinosaurs.

The second was that his whole body hurt, too. It was dark. No - he amended- his eyes were closed. He opened them, looking around him. He froze. He was sprawled on the ground in a shallow cave, and nearby were two Balaur raptors. One, slightly smaller and a paler coloration, with blue streaks by its eyes, was sitting... Oh. A nest, with eggs.

He was prey, live-caught for the baby raptors' first meal.

Wonderful.

TBC in part 2