And, the story runs to a close. Once again, I'm fooling around with timelines; this chapter takes place many months after the last one, but still references some of the happenings at the end of S.3, as well as Jack putting in an appearance here. (Actually, he's just mentioned.) I hope it ties up all the loose ends! Thanks so much to everyone who's read and offered feedback this whole time and took the threesome aspects with a grain of salt. It's perhaps not an entirely realistic ending, but I figured that after everything they've all been through, they deserve a happy ending and realism can go fuck itself.

Thanks also to iEvenstarEstel, without whom this story would never have been written.

o…o

Lester's reaction to the new Connor was best described as 'horrified', but he was resigned. Abby and Connor weren't letting their foundling go and even James Lester knew when a fight wasn't worth it. If he didn't pull the governmental strings and do what the three of them were asking, he knew they'd go somewhere else. At least he could control the situation this way. At least this Connor would be with the soldiers, working with Becker instead of him.

'Drake Church'. That was the name Eye Patch picked for himself, since he could hardly keep the name Connor Temple. It was easy to work out why he picked that surname: it wasn't a stretch to get from 'Temple' to 'Church'. When Abby asked him why he'd chosen the first name 'Drake', he simply answered that it was a badass name and he'd always liked it. Connor thought that was as good a reason as any—though he had tossed out several suggested names from sci-fi and comic universes and seemed disappointed he didn't want to use one of them. The others at the Arc knew him as Drake, but at home he was still Connor. Sometimes they went by 'Red One' and 'Red Two', ostensibly so they would know which one of them was in trouble if Abby was yelling at them.

The first thing they did once they got all of the paperwork done was go out for drinks at the pub. Just because they could. They practically had to carry Eye Patch home with them around midnight and poured him into bed, where he stayed dead to the world until lunchtime the following day.

They did get a bigger bed after all. Two more nights of sleeping crowded together and they decided it wasn't worth knocking each other out of bed in a desperate bid for more room at night. Especially with Abby's sharp elbows—if someone ended up on the floor, it was one of them, and never her.

It was eight months since then. Eventually, the honeymoon period passed and they settled into comfortable domesticity together. It was all trial-and-error, between Connor's inexperience in relationships and Eye Patch's emotional scars and none of them having any idea how a poly-relationship was supposed to work. They figured it out one step at a time, taking the problems as they happened and thoroughly enjoying each other in between.

Eye Patch and Eva got used to working in the Arc; Becker was impressed with the man's marksmanship, considering he had no depth perception because of his blind eye. He was just relieved to be working again, doing the job he'd done and loved a lifetime ago and rediscovering that initial boyish excitement that came with finding dinosaurs in England, rather than dealing with wave after wave of Future Predators. Eva became the Arc's unofficial mascot and had free run of the place whenever she wasn't on duty. Even Lester liked her and would feed her scraps whenever he thought no one was looking.

Their foundling stopped wearing his eye patch in the flat. He put it on if he went out—it was kept on the hook in the front with their coats—but at home he didn't bother.

The two Connors were in bed, exhausted after an extremely eventful day. The herd of angry, rampaging Embolotherium crashing that poor guy's stag weekend was bad enough by itself, but then that Eve character turned up and Christine Johnson and her flunkies got caught up in it…

Really, they owed their lives to 'Drake's dog. Like her master, Eva was getting used to living in a far more peaceful world and, even when she was on duty with the soldiers in her little Kevlar jacket, was fairly even-tempered around anyone she didn't perceive as a threat. But she raised her hackles and growled threateningly at Eve, tail between her legs and ears flattened on her head. This made Connor extremely suspicious; there was only one human being, he said, who scared Eva this badly. That was Helen Cutter.

It was a good guess, a lucky one, and it saved them from goodness knew what kind of danger. When the excitement died down at the end of the day, the entire team went to a pub to drown themselves in large glasses of beer and shuddered to think of the bullet they'd just dodged. To think what could have happened if they'd unwittingly let Helen Cutter into their Arc, unrestricted…

No one wanted to think of what could have happened.

"That's one damn good dog," was what Becker said. "You better let her sleep in the bed after this."

They didn't let Eva sleep in the bed—Eva didn't like sharing with that many humans and preferred the bed in the loft upstairs, where she could stretch out—but they did get her a hamburger, which she appreciated.

Connor was working on the reports and the paperwork, the contents of a huge accordion folder strewn across the bed. Eye Patch was wrapped around his waist, hugging him, asleep and exhausted and still a little bit drunk.

There was the jingle and clank of keys, the front door slamming closed, and the chaotic clatter of dog and human and Rex and the Diictodons all over the front room. Abby was back from Eva's night walk. The dog trotted casually into the bedroom and jumped on the foot of the bed, clearly knowing full well the humans owed her.

Abby followed a few moments later. "Get off my bed, mutt!" She ordered, pointing at Eva and then at the floor. "There's only room for one cranky bitch in this relationship and the Connors take that in turn."

He couldn't help it—he laughed. Eva skulked out of the room and Abby shut the door before stripping down to her underwear and climbing into bed behind the two of them.

"Aren't you gonna be cold stripped down like that?" He asked without looking up.

"Nah. Sleeping with the two of you is like having a couple of fleshy hot-water bottles." She kissed Connor on the top of his shoulder and then on his cheek, reading the piles of papers before him that took up most of the bed. "He asleep?" She asked, reaching down to stroke the other Connor's hair.

"Yeah—he conked out about twenty minutes ago."

"Sounds like a good idea. I can put all the paperwork away if you don't wanna wake him up," she offered.

"Sorry," he said quickly. "I just wanted to read through some of this stuff—not gonna be able to do much with it until Sarah gets that diary translated, but I still want—" he cut himself off in mid-sentence and his whole body went tense.

It took her a minute or two to figure out that Eye Patch was responsible for this; he'd pulled Connor's pajamas and boxers down and was mouthing his cock. That was a good way to shut him up.

"He's not conked out anymore," he gasped.

Eye Patch pulled off with a wet slurp and sat back. "You work too much," he said. "Let it rest for the night, yeah?"

"…okay," he agreed in a small voice.

While the Connors were picking up and putting papers in order, Abby took a phone call out in the hall. When she came back in, her mouth was a taut line and her fists were clenched. She slammed her phone down on the nightstand and sat on the bed with her face in her hands.

"Hey," Eye Patch came up behind her and stroked her hair. "What's wrong? Something happen?"

"My mum wants to know when I turned into a whore."

The room went icy and silent.

"Abby…" Connor whispered, sitting down next to her and cautiously put his arm around her shoulders. She leaned into both of them and sighed heavily.

"God-fucking-dammit, my brother is such a prick!" She cried.

"He told everyone, then, didn't he?" Eye Patch asked, voice practically dripping icicles. "My offer still stands, you know."

Abby's younger brother Jack had turned up a few weeks ago, looking for a place to stay and playing on the 'we're family!' angle to try and get Abby to let him stay. She'd said he could have the loft, provided he didn't mind sharing a sleeping-space with the dog. But the boy had swiftly gone off the idea once he learned that his sister was living—and sleeping—with two men. He'd been disgusted and called her all manner of vile names, which Abby took with uncharacteristic meekness but neither Connor would stand for. Connor threatened to beat the crap out of him; Eye Patch just made a show of cleaning his gun a lot and privately offered to kill Jack and put different pieces through different anomalies.

Within a week, Jack Maitland was gone but apparently he'd gotten in touch with everyone he knew and told them that his sister was a slut and had two boyfriends.

"You gonna be okay?" Connor asked.

She nodded. "It's not like I really care too much what my mum or anyone in my family thinks. Well, we don't like each other and no one pretends we do. But why does she have to break up three years worth of not talking to me just to call and tell me I'm a whore?"

Behind her, Eye Patch took her around the waist and pulled her to lie next to him on the bed; Connor followed, gently stroking down her side and over her hip.

"Don't worry about it, or them," he murmured into her hair.

"I know," she sighed. "It's just… tough."

"We know," Eye Patch said. "But try and remember—they're not living with you. We are. And we both love you."

She turned pink.

"You shameless schmaltz-merchant, you," Connor teased.

He just grinned soppily and leaned over her to kiss him softly on the lips, then bent to kiss Abby.

"It's kind of pathetic how easy I get over something like this just because you're being all cute and sappy," she said in mock-frustration. She pulled them both up close. "Love you," she whispered. "Both of you."

They pulled the blankets up and sorted out the pillows and settled in to sleep. The next few days were set to be hectic—they had Helen to sort out and that clone army she had, as well as that coded diary of hers, and Christine Johnson was going to have to be dealt with. Both Connors were quietly coming up with plans to have Jack humiliated or arrested—preferably both.

But for the time being it was just the three of them, curled up and happily content with their mad, mad, mad, mad world.