Disclaimer: Primeval does not belong to me, this is fan fiction, not for profit.
Any references to people, places, businesses etc is entirely fictitious.
109.5
Back to the library…
-x-x-x-x-x-x
The first thing Danny noticed when he stepped through the anomaly was the grass. He was standing on lush green grass, not a barren broken patch of earth and not pavement. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and the scent of roses came from the trellis near the door to the library.
All around Danny there were people moving. Students were carrying books, walking between the buildings. In the distance, a boy could be seen chasing after an older adult calling "Professor… Professor." Danny had never seen the library like this before. He climbed up three broad stone steps and pushed the door open.
In the library, the polished wooden floor reminded Danny of his first visit to this time and place, but the neatly stacked bookcases and students crowding study carrels were different. The wingback chairs were the same he realized. And in the chair closest to him, a girl with long brown hair cascading over her shoulders looked up at his entrance. She stared at the gadget in his hands in recognition.
"Oooh," she breathed, her dark brown eyes lighting up in delight, dimples showing as a grin spread across her face "where did you get the antique anomaly opening device from?"
-x-x-x-x-x-x
"Dolores?" asked Danny.
"Who?" asked the young girl, woman really Danny realized as she stood up. She was tall for a woman, at least five foot eight inches without her heels. The elegant young woman smoothed down her classic black sheath dress and spun on her stilettos.
"Come on," she called "Mum said to bring the man with the antique anomaly opening device back to her office when he showed up… by the way, my name's Vivian."
-x-x-x-x-x-x
Danny followed after the young woman.
"Who's your Mum?" he asked as Vivian led him into an office, but then he saw her. The woman with the honey colored hair. She had been here, in every variation of this future, every time Danny had come to the library. Some people just don't change.
This time, the woman looked up at him in recognition. "What took you so long?"
-x-x-x-x-x-x
"What do you mean," asked Danny in confusion. "You've been waiting for me?"
"Of course," replied the woman "I'm a historian. I've been waiting for you for nearly twenty years… ever since I read my daughters name in a history book."
-x-x-x-x-x-x
Danny listened as the woman explained, he needed to take Vivian back in time with him. There were some things she had to do.
"No, no," said Danny shaking his head for emphasis "I won't take her back, she belongs here… in her own time. Whatever it is she needs to do, just tell me, I'll fix it."
"You can't do everything on your own," said Vivian's mother softly "everybody needs a friend."
-x-x-x-x-x-x
Vivian was shoving files into a messenger bag. Identification documents, she was going to be a student in the twentieth century. Her mother handed her three more files.
"You've got at least three things to do," her mother reminded her "sit at a bus stop and hold on, shoot a triceratops, and stop an explosion."
Vivian's mother looked at Danny with an expression of concern. "Stopping the explosion is going to be the hard one… the time line keeps fluctuating… all the known data is in the files, but it changes… paradox theory you know."
"No," said Danny in frustration "I don't know what you're talking about. What do you mean paradox theory. "
The woman looked at Danny in amazement. "Surely you've read the books on temporal science," she exclaimed.
"What books?"
Vivian's mother rolled her eyes, and started handing him books from her shelves. "Paradox and Beyond, Infinite Universes," she paused looking at two additional books. Putting one book back on the shelf, she handed him the other "Practical Temporal Theory, 4th edition… don't mark it up now."
The woman gazed at Danny for a moment.
"You need to read these," the woman told Danny "quickly now."
-x-x-x-x-x-x
Vivian's messenger bag and Danny's rucksack were packed. It was time to go.
"Remember, it's your time now," said Vivian's mother to her daughter "love, laugh, live your life…"
"Yeah Mum," Vivian replied. The tall slender brunette reached over to take the anomaly opening device out of Danny's hand. She made some adjustments, the air shimmered, fractured and an anomaly opened.
"Love you Mum," said Vivian as she turned and pulled Danny through the anomaly with her.
-x-x-x-x-x-x
0.4
Danny pulled his jacket collar up. It was starting to rain and he was standing in front of a bus stop with this young woman from the future.
"What are we doing here," he asked.
"You're leaving," she said as she handed back the anomaly opening device. "I'm going to sit and wait."
Vivian sat down on the bench and looked down the street. A woman pushing a pram, a little girl holding on to the side, and a man Danny recognized were coming towards them.
Danny remembered. His first day on the job, he was a rookie patrolman, there had been a horrible accident. The man he had yelled at that day was a young Philip Burton he now realized.
"Go on now," said Vivian.
"But," Danny said "we've go to stop this…"
"Danny," said Vivian sadly "we can't save everybody."
As she watched Danny disappear through the anomaly, Vivian reached into her messenger bag to squeeze the anomaly opening device she had inside. Her mother had given it to her, just in case, but she knew she really shouldn't use it. Practical Temporal Theory, she thought, the first theorem if you go back in time, something will change. And Vivian was here to help change the world.
The little girl sat on the bench opposite her, swinging her legs. The little girl's mother had told her to watch her brother, while she moved towards the man now crossing the street.
Vivian smiled at the little blue eyed girl, her own brown eyes warm and friendly, a small dimple showing in her cheek.
"Abby," said Vivian "is that short for Abigail?"
-x-x-x-x-x-x
6.2
"Yes, we have a reservation for Mr. and Mrs. James Lester and guests," sniffed the host.
Danny grinned. "Be sure to add one more," he told the snooty restaurateur.
And later that evening, Danny ordered the most expensive meal on the menu, then left without eating it, but he had the Temple-Maitland case file in his hands, all fourteen versions. And if Vivian hadn't recognized him, or was merely very good at playing her role, he didn't know.
The important thing was he knew he had someone to help him when needed, a friend he could count on. He also had some reading to do.
-x-x-x-x-x-x
10.5
And when Danny showed up on a street in London, he knew that an explosion was not going to happen.
He couldn't prove the expected explosion was due to something Helen was doing, and his friends would surely think he was paranoid if he said it was her plotting again. Danny didn't know why the gas line was turned so high that night, or why Connor's Mum forgot the kettle, or why the pilot light chose that night to quit working.
Danny was just glad that he had friends to help. Becker was there to keep Connor and Abby away from the home. Vivian and Matt were there to keep a team guarding the home. Danny was going to turn off a stove, and Jess was there to turn the gas off for a whole city block.
Lester was right, the future needed to be saved every day.
-x-x-x-x-x-x
31.5
For twenty years, Danny travelled back and forth through time lines.
He had tried to save Patrick a few more times, but when the blond haired man with a Scottish accent stopped him from getting run over for the third time, Danny realized he couldn't save Patrick.
Danny checked on his friends, he read the reports at the ARC and fixed what he could. Finally, he returned back to an anniversary party.
And when Connor asked him if he'd been mucking about in time, Danny wasn't sure how to answer him. Was it mucking about in time? Or destiny? Or something else?
-x-x-x-x-x-x
35.5
When Danny and the rest of their friends helped Abby with packing the London flat up, he found the second anomaly opening device.
Until that moment, when he held the second device in his hands, he hadn't really thought about Connor's prototype. But he should have known there were two of them… after all, he, Connor and Abby had used the second one once to follow Helen.
That horrible future no longer existed, but Danny knew the device in his hands still had a use.
"Abby," he asked "which box should this go in?"
She looked at the anomaly opening device in his hands.
"That goes in Tommy's box," she replied distractedly "he wanted something his father had made."
"Right," said Danny with a smile. He had some files and the annotated copy of a book that he was going to add to that box. Someday a historian with honey colored hair was going to open the box and need the information.
-x-x-x-x-x-x
The time stream wobbled, and settled. Life, love and laughter went on.