Disclaimer: Primeval does not belong to me. This is fan fiction, not for profit.
Any references to people, places, businesses, etc. are entirely fictitious.
Something?
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Monday back at the ARC, the leading temporal expert on the planet went looking for the foremost authority on dinosaur care. Connor didn't agree with Jack's assessment of the situation, but the scientist did agree that he should talk to the woman. Connor found Cerys in the menagerie. The blonde was holding Rex, feeding the little green lizard tiny bites of mango.
"Things are weird," blurted out Connor, "but I know you're not Abby Maitland or my wife Abby."
The blonde looked up from brushing the mammoth's hide.
"Everything is just different," continued the dark haired man, "you know."
"Yeah, everything's different."
"We can still talk to each other. We're still friends," reminded Connor. "That hasn't changed, right?"
The blonde inhaled sharply and turned away from the scientist. Being friends wasn't exactly what she wanted, but it was better than arguing or pretending they didn't know each other.
"Yeah, Temple, we're still friends."
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Saturday, the blonde was waiting at the gym for Jack to show up for kickboxing, but Connor arrived instead. The scientist was dressed in loose fitting gym clothes and trainers.
"Jack, he uh… sprained his arm somehow," stammered Connor. "He offered to stay home with Sarah and Tommy, sent me instead… thought you would be disappointed to miss out on your practice… said I should come, but if you don't want to… we don't have to… really… it's up to you…"
The embarrassed babbling was so familiar. She turned to hide her laughter.
"Grab some wraps," ordered the blonde. "I don't want you getting injured."
The scientist padded his arms and then moved to follow his sparring partner to the mats.
"Are you any good?" asked the petite woman.
A sudden high kick followed her question. Connor blocked it with his arm and responded with sweeping low kick that knocked the blonde backwards. She reached for Connor's arm. The fall pulled him down on top of her.
"I was trained by the best," remembered Connor.
The dark haired man flushed. The blonde remembered his body's involuntary reaction the last time they had been in a similar position. She couldn't tell if the same thing had happened now or if he was blushing for some other reason. Connor rolled quickly off the blonde. He scrambled to a stand and extended a hand towards her. She clambered up to her feet.
"Well I'm better," replied the blonde with a smirk. "Knocking me down then was just a fluke, I can take you any time I want."
Connor's dark eyes flew open wide and he started to cough. Or maybe he was choking. The blonde didn't understand his reaction, but she began to pound him on the back.
"Temple," hissed the blonde, "don't you dare die on me now."
"Just a little..." gasped Connor, "a little tickle in me throat."
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After they finished sparring practice, the blonde walked back with him to Connor's home. Leaves were falling from the trees and crunched beneath their feet as they cut through the park. They hurried in the crisp fall air.
"Just, please excuse the mess," said the scientist as they reached his home.
"Connor," laughed the blonde, "I've seen your home before, no excuses needed I'm sure."
Connor gulped. When she had visited for the Saturday barbecue, the children had been playing outside. Her Friday visit had been after the children were asleep and the place picked up.
"You've never been here when the children were playing inside," reminded Connor.
"It couldn't be worse than having Sid and Nancy running around trying to chew on everything," smirked the blonde. "Could it?"
The genius had no idea how to answer her question. Connor opened the green door to let the blonde enter first. She stepped inside to hear the sound of children's laughter. The front room that had looked somewhat familiar to the blonde on her last visit now looked utterly alien.
"Daddy!" squealed the little girl. "Help us, we're battling Jabba the Hutt."
The child wore a white bathrobe over her play clothes and carried an empty cardboard cylinder. The cylinder might have held wrapping paper or paper towels at one time. The one year old beside her had a plastic bowl on his head as a helmet and carried another cardboard cylinder. The children appeared to be beating a rounded blanket covered mound on the sofa. An arm reached up and waved.
"Help me," called Jack, "I'm Jabba."
Connor unwound the green blanket covering his brother-in-law. The children were now gathered around the woman sitting on the floor by the toy basket. Tommy was trying to put the plastic bowl over her white blonde hair.
"Jack," said Connor, "Cerys wanted to see how you were doing. She was concerned about your sprained arm."
Connor frowned in confusion as the rest of Jack's upper body came into view. The arm that now appeared wasn't wrapped. Jack seemed fine.
"I thought you said you sprained your right arm," said the scientist.
"My other right," replied Jack with a cheeky grin.
"You mean the arm you were just waving?" asked Connor.
But Jack didn't answer. He turned towards the woman seated on the floor.
"Hey Sis, do you want to stay for dinner?"
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Jack and the blonde did the washing up after dinner while Connor got the children ready for bed.
"That curry you whipped up was really great," complimented Jack.
The blonde had offered to cook dinner. Whether it was a ploy to get away from Star Wars role playing or she truly enjoyed cooking as she had said, Jack didn't know.
"Try not to sound so surprised," smirked the woman.
"My sister didn't cook much when she was your age, mostly just made tea, sometimes boiled potatoes and carrots," replied Jack with a chuckle. "Abby and Connor took a couples cooking class together after they got married."
The blonde reached for a glass and began to dry it off.
"Really?" she asked. "Where?"
"Someplace down by Central Metropolitan University," replied Jack.
"Do you mean Mr. Walter's class?" asked the blonde. She turned to Jack excitedly. "Cooking For All Thyme?"
"Maybe," replied Jack.
"That's where we first met," confided the petite woman.
Jack stared in confusion at the woman he'd come to regard as his baby sister. Abby hadn't gone to the costly London university but to a smaller local university near their home town south of London. A work study program placed Abby in a position at the Wellington Zoo. He didn't exactly know when Abby had first met Connor, but was sure it was later.
"When did you and your Connor meet?" asked Jack.
"My sophomore year at uni, his senior year," sighed the blonde with a happy smile. "Love at first sight."
"Really?" said Jack in surprise.
One more thing to add to the different list, but then Jack smiled. He remembered Abby's first couple of boyfriends with distaste. Jack was glad to know that in some other universe there were a couple of jerks who never got a chance to date his sister.
"When did your sister and Temple meet?" asked the blonde. The question snapped Jack out of his reverie.
"You should ask Connor," replied Jack. "I wasn't around much back then."
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Connor inserted the DVD into the machine. The monitor lit up and the movie credits began to roll across the screen.
The blonde was sitting on the sofa, a bowl of popcorn was waiting on the low table in front of her.
"Jack," called Connor. "Hurry up, we're ready to start the movie."
Footsteps came down the stairs. Jack appeared, but he was now dressed in black slacks and a button down shirt. His sandy hair was slicked back.
"Sorry," replied Jack. He held up his cell phone. "It's Saturday night, I'm going out. Unlike you two, I've got a hot date."
In a flurry of motion, the sandy haired man departed, before Connor could say anything more. He turned toward the blonde.
"Saturday nights are different for parents," remarked Connor. "You don't have to stay and watch the movie... if you'd rather go out."
The blonde made a show of stretching and yawning.
"No, it's been a busy week at work Temple, I'm happy right here," insisted the blonde, "I want to watch this second Wall-E movie you told me about."
She reached for the bowl in front of her, "But you're making the next batch of popcorn."
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Jack returned home after midnight. There had been no date. Jack had spent the evening playing darts at the local pub in hopes of giving two people some time to watch a movie, or talk, or something. He entered the Temple home to see the end credits of the movie frozen on a scene of two robots holding hands beneath a tree. Laughter sounded from the kitchen. Jack quietly moved forward. The kitchen was a mess. Pots, spoons, flour, butter, an open egg carton and a container of milk were scattered across the counters. Connor and the blonde were sitting at the table with what looked to be a pudding in front of them.
"My favorite part in the first Wall-E was where the robots were dancing," said the blonde.
She lifted up a spoonful of the pudding and took a bite. She closed her eyes.
"Mmmm, this is so much better than popcorn," sighed the blonde. "I do believe this is the best hasty pudding ever."
Connor heard Jack then and turned his head.
"You're back," greeted the scientist. "Great, I was beginning to think you were going to stay out all night."
Brilliant idea. Jack wished he had thought of it, but he was happy enough with the way this Saturday had turned out. Jack remembered Abby telling him once that it was the little things in life that were important. Jack hadn't appreciated how true that was at the time.
"Will you watch Sarah and Tommy while I drive Cerys home?" asked Connor. The scientist pushed his chair back and moved to stand.
"Sure," agreed Jack as he stepped forward into the kitchen. It had been a really great day, but Jack was always the type of person to push his luck. "We should do this again, I didn't get any pudding."
And just like that Saturday movie night started. That was a little something. Right?
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The last Friday in October, the blonde brought ice cream to Jess and Becker's home. There was a party planned, even if Connor said he didn't want to be reminded of his thirty-ninth birthday.
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Jess returned to work in late November. The vivacious woman and her colorful orange and yellow dress lit up the hub. Even Lester smiled to see her return.
"Welcome back young lady," greeted Lester.
"Don't call me that," objected Jess.
"What?"
"Young lady," replied Jess.
The field coordinator put her hands on her hips and smirked.
"I'm not the youngest team member anymore. Cerys is only twenty seven," reminded Jess with a smirk. "I turned thirty this past May."
"Both of you, children really," huffed the director, but he was smiling. The director didn't call either Mrs. Becker or Miss Maitland young lady after that. It might be a harassment issue.
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Connor insisted he be allowed to rejoin the field team.
"The field team has been shorthanded for ages," reminded Connor, "you said so yourself."
The argument lasted almost an entire week. Connor insisted over Lester's repeated protests that he needed to take onsite anomaly readings to provide the detailed information needed for Sarah's special project.
"The electromagnetic frequencies fluctuate..." began Connor for the umpteenth time.
"Fine," agreed Lester grudgingly.
The sharp nosed bureaucrat stalked into his office.
"But remember Becker's in charge of security," added Lester as he shut the office door with a resounding thud. "Do whatever he says and don't go getting yourself killed."
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