Title: The Anomaly Within - I had a terrible time coming up with a title for this story. I did some reading on the importance of titles and how to go about deciding on one. This is a play on words. There is a very famous book called The Enemy Within (also the title of another story I wrote BTW) It seemed to fit quite well given the nature of the internal struggle of Connor Temple in this story.

Author: Alice I

Betas: Kes Cross, Wild Force Ranger

Spoilers: Up to and through Series 5 of Primeval

Summary: New Dawn is over, or is it? Connor Temple has gone from the lowest point in his personal and professional life to the highest point, but something just isn't sitting right with him. Every time he looks at Matt, his stomach churns uncomfortably. He knows he is missing something; something huge, something important, something so obvious that he simply can't see it, but it changes everything.

Warnings: None; now that the Lemon scene has been deleted from the story.

Disclaimer: It's fan fiction - standard disclaimer. All characters belong to the creators of Primeval. No original characters in this story.

A/N: I wrote this story a year ago after watching the final season of Primeval, but was going to wait to post it, wanting to finish other WIPs. Well a year has past and I don't want to wait any longer.

This story takes place immediately following the last episode of series 5. It is written as an open ended story much the same way a series premiere episode would be. This is my take on what would happen next, so I guess you could say this is Episode 1 of Series 6 as told by me. This story is complete and I will be posting chapters every couple of days after a final read through.

The Anomaly Within

Chapter One

The New Dawn anomaly was closed, but the clean-up after the convergence proved to be an ongoing task that would keep the ARC teams busy for some time to come. So many anomalies had opened during the convergence and the creature incursions occurring all over the country, let alone the rest of the world, were still wreaking havoc everywhere. Great Britain had a distinct advantage in that respect having consciously dealt with the issue for the past six years. Abby couldn't help but feel some concern for all of the other countries who would be reeling with the after-effects of this phenomenon. Connor had quipped that it would be strange to have life go back to normal when it was considered that Phillip's machine had closed the anomalies for good. Even if that had turned out to be true, which of course it hadn't, there were still hundreds of creatures roaming the country displaced in time that needed to be rounded up and dealt with. It occurred to Abby that her job working with the menagerie was about to become a lot more difficult and time consuming.

She wished that such simple thoughts continued to occupy her mind as she drove back to the ARC after the team dealt with the first anomaly to open at Kings Cross after New Dawn. Instead her thoughts remained a jumbled quagmire as she tried to understand what had changed so dramatically with Connor's mood in the space of a couple of hours. When they left for Kings Cross he was almost jubilant, but that had changed and she didn't really understand why.

They had to go through the anomaly at Kings Cross to find a passenger train that had disappeared into thin air only to end up in the late Cretaceous era. It didn't help that a herd of Giganotosaurus' decided to charge the new arrival, throwing the engineer into a state of paralyzing fear and disbelief.

The train had veered to the side as it crossed through the anomaly, no longer having any tracks to follow. The passengers were making the situation far worse as they screamed hysterically which Abby was sure assured the attention of the G-rex herd. Connor had obviously realized the gravity of the situation and didn't even hesitate. He ran back through the anomaly and moments later a black SUV came crashing through at high speed headed straight for the heard. Abby thought that her heart would fail right then as she watched Conner charge the heard of predators blaring the horn. Becker took advantage of the distraction and he along with Matt and Emily began herding the passengers back toward the anomaly.

Abby, however stood in abject horror as she watched Connor. When he was only a hundred yards from the leader of the pack, he veered sharply to the left bringing the vehicle up on two wheels. A scream ripped from her throat as she watched, terrified that the vehicle to roll and trap him, but he turned the front wheel still on the ground and righted the SUV as it peeled off away from the train with the heard of G-rex's changing direction and following him.

Abby lost sight of the SUV after the heard turned in pursuit, and it took her several long moments to respond to Matt's calls.

"Abby! He's given us a chance to save these people! Let's not waste it, yeah?"

Casting one last look at the retreating herd of G-Rex's Abby turned toward the panicked crowd of passengers helping to get them back through the anomaly. It took nearly half an hour to get everyone off the train and back through to Kings Cross, all the while Abby kept glancing back toward the direction that Connor had led the herd of Giganotosaurus' hoping against hope that she would see the black SUV re-appear over the horizon.

Once the last of the traumatized civilians were back through the anomaly, Matt took hold of Abby's arm. "It's time to go, Abby."

She yanked her arm away from Matt angrily. "I won't leave him here, Matt. You should know that."

Matt sighed. "I know, but you can't stay here. What if the herd comes back?"

"I'm not leaving!"

Becker walked up to her with a hard look on his face. "We're leaving now. You know the rules, Abigail."

"I don't give a damn about the rules. You can go back, I'm waiting for him."

Becker made to grab Abby to force her back through the anomaly, but she anticipated the move and stepped lithely out of his reach, bringing her EMD up and pointing it at him. "I don't want to shoot you, Becker, but so help me I will if you come one step closer."

Her actions brought the soldier up short. He raised his hands in the air and backed up a step. "Abby, please, be reasonable."

Before she could answer Emily stepped back through the anomaly. "What's going on? We have a crowd of traumatized..." her words died away as she took in the view of Abby pointing her weapon at Matt and Becker.

"I'll not leaving my fiancé here to die alone. I've survived here before, I will again. I... Am... Not... Leaving... Him!"

"I'd listen to her if I were you."

Abby spun around dropping her weapon at the sound of the voice behind her.

"Connor!" She launched herself at him wrapping her arms around his neck. "What happened? Are you alright? Where is the herd? How did you get away?"

Her rapid fire questions were interrupted by Becker's voice. "Where's my truck?"

"I led the Giganotosaurus' to a herd of Brachiosaurs. Sorry Becker, the truck was a lot more interesting than I was. As your truck and the Brachiosaurs kept the G-rex's busy I was able to slip away."

"Two trucks in one day. That must be some kind of record!" Becker complained as he threw his hands up in the air.

It was then that Abby noted the thin trickle of blood running down the side of Connor's face from a cut along his hair line. He was dirty, and bruised, but alive. A roar from not too far away brought their attention to their immediate surroundings.

"Can we please go now?" Becker intoned in a long suffering voice.

The others didn't need any further prodding. They moved through the anomaly and stepped out onto the tracks at Kings Cross. Connor immediately turned his attention to the locking mechanism while the rest of them began shepherding the stunned passengers into an organized group.

Abby found herself torn between being impressed by her fiancé's selfless bravery and angry with him for taking such a foolhardy risk with his life. As the adrenaline drained away, it left her feeling slightly shaky. Working beside Emily to calm a young mother clinging to her two toddlers, she kept glancing over at Connor who was staring at Matt with a strange, faraway look on his face. Something about the way he was staring at the team leader made Abby feel anxious.

Emily noticed Abby's distraction, nudging her shoulder. "I've got this. Go check on Connor."

"Thank's Emily." Abby didn't need to be told twice.

When she walked over to him, he seemed distracted as he squatted down, his eyes focused no longer on Matt, but on the ground. She didn't miss the fine tremor along his jaw and it began to concern her.

"You should get that cut on your head seen to by the medic."

Connor didn't answer her as he stared blankly at a puddle tracing, with his eyes, the ripples that appeared when he tossed a small pebble into the center of it. Abby squatted down next to him.

"Hey, you feeling alright?" She asked, as she gently traced her fingers down the side of his face.

He turned toward her as though he had just noticed her presence. Becker gave up trying to calm the frightened passengers, leaving that task to Matt and Emily as he stepped over to Abby and Connor.

"You about ready to pack it up?" he asked them. "I've got two men watching the anomaly until it closes. Lester's already dispatched a team of social workers or some such thing to debrief the passengers and make sure they're seen to for shock, and you should get that head looked at, Connor."

Connor stood up slowly but his eyes never left the puddle as the ripples began to die away. He tossed a second pebble into the water and again stared at it in rapt attention. Abby and Becker exchanged a confused glance at the odd behavior of their colleague. Abby moved closer to Connor and could see the shining light from the closed anomaly reflected in the water, giving the ripples an odd sort of life as they in turn reflected the shimmer. Connor tossed yet another pebble into the water not far from the center of the existing concentric ripples, causing new ripples to form that intersected with the established pattern. He tossed a fourth pebble in, causing even more ripples. Abby could see his mind working. He hadn't been staring blankly at the water at all; he was working out some complicated idea or possibly a mathematical equation.

Becker watched the process, but unlike Abby he didn't cotton on to what Connor was thinking.

"What's he doing? How hard did he hit his head?"

Abby didn't actually know what Connor was on to, only that he was trying to piece something together. "He's thinking," she replied, trying to sound confident, but the look on Becker's face told her that concern was showing in her own face.

"Hey, Connor. You ready to head back?"

The only response Becker got was Connor tossing another pebble into the puddle. Abby could see Becker's patience wearing thin. She stepped up to him and touched his shoulder, feeling the tension in his muscles like a taut bow string vibrating, not unlike the ripples in the puddle.

"Connor, it's been a long day. What's say we head back, yeah?"

Connor tore his eyes away from the water to look at Abby, clearly struggling to get his head out of whatever train of thought had captured him. "Yeah... uh yeah."

Whatever Connor was thinking about drew his mind back to his internal puzzle and his eyes moved back to the puddle. Becker had clearly reached the end of his patience. He was ready to get the group moving back to the ARC. It had been an impossibly long day and there was still more to do. None of the teams would be going home until the creature incursions had been dealt with. Any paperwork and reports concerning the convergence and the destruction of the Prospero power plant could wait until another day. He stepped into the puddle cutting off the path of the ripples in the water and got right into Connor's face.

"Time to go."

Connor snapped out of the almost trance like state he was in and looked up at Becker as if seeing him for the first time.

"Oh... uh, yeah. Sorry. Just thinkin'."

Connor glanced over at the closed anomaly and caught sight of Matt, his face clouding with confusion mixed with a healthy dose of uneasiness. Abby had the very distinct impression that there was something about Matt that was upsetting Connor down to his core, but for the life of her she couldn't imagine what that could be. Suddenly Connor nodded his head as if coming to a conclusion. "Right." He grabbed his gear and moved off toward the vehicle leaving Becker and Abby to stare after him in stunned silence.

Becker raised his hands up, clearly baffled. "What was that all about?"

Abby never took her eyes off Connor. "I wish I knew," she said, turning to follow him to the vehicles.

Considering the emotional and physical scope of the day it wasn't surprising that everyone was tired and completely spent. Connor was quiet, but something about his mood was bothering Abby. He had reached the lowest point in his professional life as well as the highest over the course of the day. Earlier that same day the lost look on his face and the utterly defeated tone of his voice telling her and Matt to go back through the New Dawn anomaly without him still gave her chills. He had been ready to give up, to accept defeat, and that was not the Connor she knew. The guilt he felt for his part in nearly destroying the world was a raw wound across his heart and showed vividly in his eyes. The spark that always resided there had flickered out.

In contrast to that was the hope that dawned in him when she whispered to him that they would get married once they fixed this. It was like seeing new life breathed into a dying man. He drew the strength he needed from that promise to get up and make it out of the dismal future that New Dawn had created and come back to the present to try and put a stop to what they had all seen.

It was Connor that was finally able to reach Phillip and make him understand what New Dawn had done, but by then it was too late. Destroying the machine that created the anomaly would no longer save them. New Dawn had grown so powerful that it was self sustaining. Phillip implemented a self-destruct command but it did nothing to stop what he had started.

It was Connor who had come up with the plan that saved them all from Phillip's machine. He figured out a way to destabilize the New Dawn anomaly and cause it to collapse. If it hadn't been for Connor, they would all have died along with the future of the human race.

Connor Temple had really and truly saved the world.

She felt her heart swell as she remembered the joy radiating from his eyes when she asked him to marry her. As they drove from the ARC to Kings Cross, the excitement of her proposal had him almost jittery. Finding the passenger train in the late Cretaceous era and his near suicidal actions to divert the herd of G-Rexes was enough to push anyone over the edge. Connor's odd behavior after they were safely back and the anomaly locked was occupying her thoughts now.

What was puzzling Abby was that the change in Connor's mood seemed to begin when he looked at Matt. She knew that Connor cared about Matt. He had saved Connor's life on more than one occasion. It was Matt who went through the New Dawn anomaly into the future to bring him back from that world of desolation and death. Connor had told Abby many times that he respected Matt as the team leader and trusted his judgement. But when Connor looked at him now, he seemed to stare through him as if he were trying to see something not quite visible. His expression growing serious and pensive, and his normal chatter had ceased altogether.

Connor had not spoken a single word since they left Kings Cross. Matt had brought a frightening thought to the forefront of everyone's mind and Abby wondered if that had something to do with Connor's strange mood. During the convergence so many anomalies had opened all over the world that there could easily have been another raptor wondering around 18th century London, or terror birds reeking havoc during Shakespeare's debut. After the events of the last couple of months, no one was going to take anything for granted with any of the anomalies, least of all Connor.

Abby looked over at him only to see Connor was a million miles away. His brow was slightly furrowed and his eyes seemed to be moving as though he were reading equations across the light board in his lab. Whatever was bothering him was consuming all of his thoughts. She reached over and placed her hand on his arm.

"What is it?"

Conner didn't respond, lost in the world inside his mind.

"Connor?"

Abby shook his arm gently to bring him back to the present. The far away look in his eyes faded and he turned his gaze to her. "Huh?"

"You okay?"

A small smile turned up the corners of his mouth, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Uh, yeah, just thinkin'..."

"I can see that. What is it? What's got you so rattled?" Abby felt the tingling of fear begin to creep up her spine.

Connor seemed to mentally shake himself and smiled more naturally. "It's been a long day, that's all."

"Yeah, but a good day though. You saved the world and got engaged all in one go, yeah?"

Abby felt the fear recede as his face lit up. Mentioning their engagement was just what Connor needed to bring him out of his head and back to her. He got an odd sort of smirk on his face just then and asked, "Would you really have shot Becker back there?"

"I wasn't going to leave. If I had to shoot him to stop Becker dragging me back through the anomaly without you, I would have done, without hesitation."

Abby pulled the SUV into a spot in the ARC garage and shut the engine down. "We are in this together, no matter what. That's the deal."

Connor leaned over, holding her face between his hand and kissed her. "Deal."

Connor's improved mood lasted until they walked into the command center and he caught sight of Matt talking quietly with Emily and Becker. Suddenly his pensive moodiness returned in full force. The captain's vantage allowed him to look at Matt and Emily while still able to observe all the other people in the command center. Abby noticed Becker's stance change slightly and his focus was intense, but not on Matt or Emily. She followed his gaze and saw him looking at Connor who was in turn looking at Matt. Becker's attention shifted back to Matt before returning to Connor. If Becker was sensing the same thing that she was, that not only validated her instinct, it worried her. Something was very wrong and she needed to know what it was.

TBC

Preview chapter two:

Connor looked at Matt trying to will that uneasy feeling to go away, but what unsettled him more than anything else was the fact that he clearly saw the same uncertainty reflected back in the older man's eyes.