Title: The Fall
Chapter: Just Once - Connor & Abby (5 of 5)
Author: Winter Ashby (rosweldrmr)
Disclaimer: Primeval © Adrian Hodges & Tim Haines
Rating: M
Warnings: M Rating is for sexually explicit situations - for realsies.
Time Line: Post Season 3 - Pre Season 4. The lost year.
Summary: She wished she could explain what he meant to her. But she didn't know how or was too afraid, words had always failed her. But she could show him. So she said, "I need this, Connor." When what she meant was 'I need you.' [Connor/Abby]
Authors Notes: This is a joint chapter POV, where Abby has to make a decision, is she going to put herself out there, to try and win Connor or stay quiet and let things stay as they were?

JUST ONCE - CONNOR & ABBY

"That can't happen again." Connor spoke down to Abby, who'd just emerged from the nest. He sat in the split between branches. From his perch, he could just make out the blush on her cheeks, and the pink swell of her lips. He ached to touch her again, even so soon after, he hungered for her. Her hands and lips and the way she looked when she... Okay, so this whole 'be strong' thing wasn't working like Connor was hoping. But with the advantage of distance, it was easier to appear calm and even.

"And what if I want it to?" Abby asked, as she put her hands on her hips. She knew, from the way he'd nearly tripped over himself to get away, that she'd done this all wrong, again. Her plan to show him with actions what she couldn't say with words had failed, and she'd only succeeded in pushing him away. He was hidden in the lush green foliage of the tree just outside their nest. And just the sound of his voice was enough to start her trembling. Her legs were still weak and she could almost hear him saying her name while he pushed into her. Oh, she wanted it to happen again, of that, she was sure.

"I can't." He called down to her, all false bravado and tempered anger. He knew, there was nothing that he could do to stop himself from wanting her. And there was nothing he could do to make her see, to force her to love him. He'd condemned himself to a lifetime stuck with the one person he love and cherished and always held him at arm's length. "I'm sorry, Abby." It was a sad fate. He would die alone, he realized, and almost crumbled from the weight of his own grief. "Maybe it's best if I move to the cave." His voice shook and he fought to keep the tears from his eyes.

"You can't!" Abby surged forward at hearing his plans. Her hands shook with what she could only assume was a mounting panic attack. He was going to leave her, the way they all did. And she would be trapped and alone and she would die without him. She could see that now, and with a terrible twisting in her gut, she admitted that she needed him. "What about me?" she asked, forlorn and spotted his foot through the leaves of the tree. Her eyes trained on the way his leg swung and bounced while he took a moment to respond.

"It's for the best." Connor answered past the lump in his throat and tried, desperately, to remind himself that this was for the best.

"And what gives you the right to make that choice for both of us?" She sighed, feeling weary. She was too exhausted to fight this, and him, and herself anymore. She could feel her resolve, her wall of 'don't get too close' crack from the pressure. But hadn't this been what she wanted? Didn't she want to move this - whatever this was between them - forward. Didn't she want him, all of him? The sex had been a mistake only in her silence. It spoke when she was unwilling or unable to. But what it said, she hadn't considered that it was the W-R-O-N-G thing to say. It only ended in more pain and heartache and now she was staring at his foot trying to think how she could ever make this right.

"It'll be better if we aren't around each other all the time." Connor reasoned and tried not to take the anxiety that was in her voice as a validation for his continued presence. It was also his own mind, his own heart, the 'what if's and 'maybe's that got him into these situations. He couldn't just leave well enough alone, couldn't accept what he was to her at face value. Not when he had hope. It was a vile, awful thing, to hope. To kiss her and confess his deepest held thoughts and fears and have her pull away just enough that he was tantalized with the possibility that 'someday' it would be different. In that way, he was his own worst enemy. it was his own selfish, delusional, hopeful thoughts that cut deeper than any implied rejection she'd ever shown him. It might have been easier if she did reject him, if she squashed what little hope he had. It was the ambivalence, the 'never quite sure what she really wanted' that tore at him.

"Come down here. I want to have a proper conversation without straining my neck!" she yelled, and shit, this was going really poorly. Why was this so hard? Why did he have to take everything she said and twist it against her? He was too smart for his own good, sometimes. He was so sure he was right, when really he was wrong. Wrong about her, about them, about what this was.

"I can't be around you, Abby. Whenever I am, I can't help myself." He pulled his leg up and scooted farther back into the fork of the branches, trying to draw into himself. As if distance could cure him of her. As if not seeing her face as he confessed would make it less real, less true, less devastating. "I love you and I don't know how to stop. I would if I knew how, but I can't." He could hear her intake of breath at his declaration, and it was like being thrown into the Thames in January - pins and needles, burning kind of chill that shot through him.

Abby gasped, at hearing him admit what she was too damaged, too broken to be capable of. Why could he say it and she couldn't? She was brave and strong and faced certain death and danger and always did it without a second thought. But the 'L' word had her quaking in her boots. Just the thought of saying it made her break into a cold sweat. "Damnit, Connor!" Abby screamed up at him in a huff and resigned herself to climbing the fucking tree. She thought, wildly, stupidly, maybe - if she were closer, if she could whisper it to him across an inch of space between their lips, his eyes closed and his hands on her shoulders, she might be able to do this. She might be able to say all the things she hadn't, but should've and couldn't out loud.

He saw her through the leaves reach for the branch at the bottom of the tree, and 'crap, she will be the death of me' was the only thing that kept him from screaming. "Don't come up." he yelled down to her, but without another way down, except jumping and probably breaking his leg and dying, he was trapped. He ran his hands through his hair, frustrated and completely incapable of squashing the tiny voice of 'maybe she wants this too' that was always just below the surface.

"You can't stop me, and don't you even think about jumping or so help me, Connor, I will knock you out and hang you upside down until your head explodes!" She warned when she saw his eyes darting around, looking for a way out. 'I'll be damned if I climb all the way up there to tell him how I feel and he kills himself trying to get away from me.' she thought and pulled herself into the foliage. She could make out his legs, straddling a thick branch, and his naked wrist and tattoo visible just past a smaller branch he held on to. His eyes trained on her so intently, she almost felt naked, exposed. But it was the hopeful way that he watched her that made her turn away. She'd done this all wrong, and fucked it up, and still - he wanted her. If he was capable of that - then certainly, she was capable of telling him she wanted to be with him.

"Fine. Fine!" He yelled, unsure really, why he was so mad. "Have it your way!" He crossed his arms over his chest and tried, really, really tried not to pout like a child. But he could think of no better way to respond to her emotional bullying that to act like one.

Abby pulled herself up the smaller branches, using them as foothold and handholds. She'd done this a million times before, but her limbs felt too heavy, her knees too nobby and wobbly from sex and she knew she'd made a mistake a second before her the branch she was clutching snapped.

There was a crack.

Connor heard the snap and her soft gasp of shock before the top of her head, which he had been using to monitor her progress abruptly dropped from view.

The branch toppled from her opened palm, and tumbled down the 20 feet she'd managed to climb. And in that second that it took for the branch to break, Abby's foot dislodged from the groove she'd been using as a foothold before she slid down the tree, she gave up trying to run. She clamped her legs around the trunk and 'eep'ed as she closed her eyes and held on tight. "Connor!" She didn't even mean to, she didn't make a conscious decision to call out to him or reach up to him, it was all instinct. Her body, she knew, loved him long before her head caught up. And almost crashing to her death, or at the very least a painful injury was enough to push her brain past whatever blockade was keeping her from him.

Connor felt his heart leap to his throat and there was nothing for it - he through himself after her. His legs tangled around the trunk and he flung his arms out, fingers grasping and tangling in the fabric of her shirt just as she called his name. "Abby." He called to her, through the haze of terror that chipped away at his 'this is best' plan.

But when she looked up at him, eyes locked and fingers intertwined, Abby knew she was safe. He wouldn't let her fall.

She held on for dear life as Connor hauled her over the branch he'd been straddling and immediately, she was on him. He was lost in the feeling of her cheek pressed against his chest, hair tickling his chin, her breath hot and deep across his shoulder, nails ripped at the fabric of his shirt. He held her to him, and 'fuck it' he thought. What did it matter that she only wanted him for sex. Sex was better than nothing, right? And at least he'd be there. He always wanted to be there, to make sure she had a hand when she needed it, to make sure there was always someone watching her back.

They breathed heavily and all Abby could think was 'Don't leave me.' It echoed through her mind, bounced off the confines of her self-imposed 'push them away first' mentality.

"Don't leave me." She said finally, whispered it into his chest and Connor felt like he'd slipped into an alternate universe. "I pushed you away, all those times, because I was scared. Everyone always leaves me, in the end. Stephen and Cutter and Jenny and Danny and my parents. I always end up alone, so I pushed you away because I was scared."

Once she'd opened the floodgates, Abby couldn't stop. The truth, the horrible, desperate truth of who she was came tumbling out of her mouth like some kind of terrible word vomit and she couldn't stop because for the first time in months, she admitted that she couldn't do this alone.

"I can't do this alone. I can't do it without you. And I didn't sleep with you just because I was horny. Well, I mean, I was, but only because I think about you all the time, and I wanted you because... because..."

Abby was rambling, like he'd never seen her do before. He was pretty sure she was crying into his chest, but all he heard was what she still wasn't saying. "Because, what, Abby?" He asked and touched her hair. He pulled her face away from him and made her met his eyes.

"Please, don't make me say it." She asked, begged. She hated feeling weak, hated admitting that she was wrong, and that she needed him. She hated the fucking 'L' word, because every time she'd ever heard someone use it, it heralded the end.

"I need to hear it, just once." Connor asked, hoped and begged and wished and wanted. "Just once, I'll never make you say it again I promise. But I need to know. I need to hear you say it, just this once." He tried to coax it out of her, and it felt like he was so close. So close to winning this battle, at last.

"Because I'm pretty sure I'm in love with you!" She yelled, and she wasn't even sure why. Why was admitting that so difficult, and frightening? Why did admitting it feel like losing?

"We'll, it's about damn time." he laughed and crushed her to him. He kissed her, deeply, breathlessly, with everything he had in him. He realized he was crying. Rivers of tears streamed down his face, and he didn't care. God, he really didn't care. Because he was happy. He was whole and complete, and it was more than he'd ever hope for, wished for, longed for.

As Abby clung to him, she knew she'd finally made the right decision. She tasted the salty tears on his lips and she laughed and wound her hands around his neck, pulling him to her. It felt right, like nothing else before. It felt like home, like loving Connor meant going home.

And as they stepped through the anomaly another six months later, tired and worn and in desperate need of some twentieth century marvels like toilet paper and soap, she knew that loving him had led them there. So she held fast to his hand and waited, waited for the world to leap forward, for whatever was waiting for them, because as long as they were together, as long as she loved him (because she knew he would always love her), they could make it through anything.

Z End.

I want to thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed it. I also tried to give some sort of reasoning behind why you never really see Abby and Connor say they love each other in the series. It's implied or whispered or said with meaningful looks and kissing/embraces. But they don't say it. This is my theory.