If you can read this from fifty feet away, you don't need glasses. Or maybe you really, really need glasses. I don't own Primeval.

Chapter 4

Abby sighed, looking at Connor. He was driving; it was something she had to get used to as he refused to let her drive in her condition. He kept insisting 'it would just be nothing and then pop!' which made her laugh every time.

He was driving about as fast as Abby could walk, which despite her resilience was a rather slow pace. Abby supposed she should consider herself lucky to have a man with such a predisposition to paternity, but sometimes it was a little scary. When they finally reached the ARC--at four-thirty, Abby realized with horror--Connor helped her out of the car and took her hand to walk her into the building.

"Are you sure you're alright, Abby?" he asked. She sighed in exasperation.

"Connor, you asked me twice at the hospital and half a dozen times on the way here. When I'm on the floor screaming 'Peaches!' you can start worrying."

Connor seemed little comforted by the reference to what had become one of his favorite animated movies. "Abby, I just want you to be safe. With what we do, safe is a pretty steep thing to ask."

They entered with a flash of their credentials and retinal scans. Connor led Abby by the hand to the interrogation room, where Becker, Jenny, Lester, and Sarah were standing. On the other side of the wall, they saw Danny questioning Helen.

"That's just spooky," Abby murmured. "He watched her die, isn't this sort of like a ghost for him?"

"Working on this job, half the things you deal with are ghosts," Lester shrugged. "The others haven't even existed yet."

Abby and Connor nodded and continued watching, although Danny was almost done. After several minutes he stepped out, shaking his head.

"The same answers she gave Jen, to the letter," he said, dissatisfied. Abby noticed he looked to Jenny and glanced away again dismissively. "We're not getting anything out of her if we stick to the questions thought up by the hacks."

Jenny laughed contemptuously at his comment and shook her head. "Okay, Danny, go home. I don't want you questioning Helen again."

Abby and Connor looked at one another in surprise; something must've happened in their absence. Danny didn't seem dejected by Jenny's order. Rather, he looked at her venomously and shook his head.

"Fine."

He left the room in a wake of silence that was only broken by Jenny's businesslike tones.

"As long as Helen is still willing to listen to questions, Becker, I'd like you to take up the role." She made it sound like she was asking but it was an extremely thin veil to cover an order. The captain nodded silently and entered the room.

"Temple, you work on the ADD2," Lester ordered, and he obeyed as silently as Becker.

Sarah smiled at Abby. They managed to escape watching the interrogation by going to get some coffee and straying a little long in the hub of the ARC with Connor. They knew they wouldn't be missed as they did nothing to help the interrogation anyway.

"How soon do you think it is, Abby?"

She shrugged. "Like Connor says, it could pop out any minute. But I tend to think I've got a little while yet."

"It's just around the corner," Connor said from under the ADD. He was adjusting wires and flicking switches on and off. "I still think you should be waiting in the hospital for it, Abby."

"I know what you think," Abby snapped brightly back at him. Then she returned her gaze to Sarah, lowering her voice. "If it were his choice, I'd be bubble-wrapped in the maternity ward with every soldier in the ARC guarding me and ready to get me anything I'm craving at a moment's notice."

Sarah smiled gently. "You've got a pretty good guy, Abby. You're lucky."

"What about you and Becker?" Abby asked, and Sarah's eyes darkened.

"Oh, you know," she said, looking away. "Some things work out, others don't…I don't know, Abby. I thought everything was perfect, and we kind of fell apart--I screwed it up."

"How?" Abby asked, disbelief etched in her face. Sarah sighed.

"I seem to have upset him," she said, glancing in both directions before leaning in and whispering. "He gets jealous easily."

Abby nodded sympathetically, cocking her head to the side. "I know that type--but Sarah, you and Becker go together like toast and jam. You've got to try and keep it going."

"Yeah, we're trying," Sarah lied quickly, crossing her arms. "But it's hard. I mean, we went to see Clash of the Titans--his choice, mind you--and he got a little miffed because according to him I looked at one of those bronzed-up Greek guys the wrong way."

"Can't blame you," Abby said thoughtfully. "Connor used to get jealous, but I think he figured somewhere along the line that he's the only guy for me."

Sarah smiled. "I wish I had your optimism." She grabbed her coffee cup, which she had ignored so far, and took a tentative sip. Connor let out a happy yelp and the girls looked to him silently. He got to his feet and smiled up at them happily.

"I think she's about done."

"Oh, don't get me too excited dear," Abby said lazily. "I might just….pop!" She popped her 'p' and Connor frowned.

"Not funny then, not funny now," Connor said, referring to something Sarah wasn't privy to. He walked to them and grabbed each of their wrists to pull them to the machine. Sarah took her seat, where the desk was adorned with pictures of the team, including Cutter and Stephen--she figured they needed to keep a little sentimentality around the place. Connor's seat had two pictures of the team--one from a field mission involving pteranodons near the beginning of the operation, with Leek's picture blackened out by sharpie, the other more recent with the entire current team smiling out at him--and a few dinosaur models, which he pushed aside with a quaking hand.

"All right, let's get you working, you bastard," Sarah murmured, typing away beside Connor. "It will work, right, Connor?"

"Pretty sure," Connor shrugged. "At least, the scanner will work. The security is a different story."

Sarah nodded and opened a file on the right-hand screen. "Okay, try to access this file off the main hard drive, Connor," she said, looking to the other. Connor restarted the computer and logged on as a separate guest account. He opened a window and typed in all the necessary information and…nothing.

Abby clapped a hand on Connor's shoulder before leaning forward and planting a kiss on his cheek. "You're a smart guy, Connor," she said happily. Sarah bit her lip uncomfortably and looked away.