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Alexandra's Evolution Chapter Eleven: Monsters and Sea Serpents - Part Three

Fandom: Primeval Wordcount: 5k Warnings: Near-drowning

Helen Cutter makes contact through a flooded basement and changes the trajectory of the anomaly operation

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The library café is always the busiest cafeteria on campus, but that makes it the easiest place to discuss state secrets while also consuming a half dozen cinnamon rolls. Alex has just torn their third pastry in half, licking her fingers clean so she can open a textbook she’d lifted from Nick’s office. The library seems to have forgotten that the palaeontology department exists - the biology school at large really - so she’d raided Nick’s office while Connor’s booted up his laptop.

“Okay. Okay, I admit the website is useful.”

“Say it again.”

“Don’t make it weird Connor,” Alex tells him, despite the fact that when Connor opens his mouth she voluntarily posts a chunk of cinnamon roll in, “Show me the Cretaceous, if this guy comes back we need to know what else could come through.”

“Oh, pretty much anything. We can’t really determine what part of the world it came from, the ocean was pretty warm all over. If we could’ve sent that seaweed to your algae guy that would have helped.” Connor explains as he clicks through the relevant pages. Lester hadn’t let Stephen send their seaweed samples off to Dave.

“So we hope it doesn’t open in the Thames and let through a whole pod of grown mosasaurs. Pod? Is that the word I want?”

“A group of sharks is called a shiver.”

“I like that better, a shiver of mosasaurs.” Alex decides.

“Roll me.” Connor says. Alex posts a fresh lump of cinnamon roll into his mouth before taking up her own orange juice. Connor’s friend Duncan, having located them in the café, takes the chair across from Alex.

“Ooh, roll me.” Tom says in a gravelly voice, poking his head between Connor and Alex’s, the latter of which turns and hits his shoulder,

“Oh you are so not funny.” Alex snaps her book shut for punctuation and rescues the remaining pastries before Tom can nab one. Rejected by cinnamon rolls, Tom moves Connor’s bag to take that chair and still be able to see Connor’s screen.

“Mosasaur, huh? Cretaceous era marine predator, anything from two to twenty metres in length and two tonnes in weight. Extinct sixty-five million years ago.” Tom pulls a face, raising his eyebrows. Alex pulls one back.

“What’s with this new dinosaur obsession, anyway?” Duncan asks from across the table.

“Duncan, we’re studying palaeontology,” Connor reminds him, “Dinosaur obsession is sort of an entry requirement.”

“Thought you were doing your project on the Nessie cover-up?” Duncan asks, sounding genuinely confused.

“Believe it or not, Cutter didn’t like that idea.” Alex tells him, then asks, “You got rainbow shoes to match that shirt?” It’s a genuine question, the rainbow-converse patterned shirt intrigues her.

“I do, actually.”

“Oh cool.”

“Have you seen a mosasaur? Is this another gorgonopsid?” Tom asks.

“Drop it, Tom.” Connor tells him, closing his laptop despite Tom’s protestation. Duncan sips his tea while his counterpart keeps prodding,

“You can’t say you’ve seen a dinosaur then sick the police on us, Con, that’s not cool-”

“We didn’t sick the police on you, you were reported by the groundskeeper for trespassing on private land.” Alex corrects.

“No one owns woods.”

“The Crown owns the New Forest, Tom, the professor found that out while he was talking to the police to get you out of the charge,” Alex reaches across Connor to poke Tom, “We were almost talking treason.”

“They wouldn’t have done us for treason for bein’ in the forest.” Tom rolls his eyes and Alex rolls hers back. Duncan snorts a laugh into his tea. Connor’s watch beeps an alarm and in a unusually fluid movement for him he wedges his laptop and his books under his arm before folding his jacket over his elbow,

“Andy, we’ve got to go.”

“Andy?” Duncan repeats.

“Alex, Connor, it’s Alex.” she wraps the last two cinnamon rolls in a napkin, screws the lid back on her juice and shoves it in her pocket. Connor’s already standing as she reaches for her bag to slide her own textbooks in.

“Woah, hey, what’s the rush?” Tom asks, adding when Connor's expression remains blank, “It’s DVD night? Battlefield Earth, director's commentaries? Your turn to get the pizza?” Connor thinks for a moment, Alex can see him processing, and she shrugs when he looks at her. With his free hand he digs into his trouser pocket and brings out some intensely scrunched up paper notes to press into Duncan’s hand.

“Have it on me, we’ve really got to get to work.” Connor finds Alex’s elbow and guides her to turn away from the table and their friends.

“Why are you avoiding them?” Alex whispers, pulling her elbow free and taking Connor’s jacket so he can put his laptop in his bag.

“Same reason you’re avoiding your boyfriend.”

“Connor.” Outside the library now, Alex turns for the car park and stops to make Connor look at her, “It’s not the same. They’re your friends and you bolt every time you see them.”

“I’ve already gotten them in trouble. And Abby. And Cutter, I don’t…I don’t want him to think I can’t do this.”

“Do you think you can do this?”

“Jeez, Mr Motivator-”

“Connor,” Alex repeats to regain his full attention, “He doesn’t think you can’t do it, but this is as new to him as it is to you and he’s not exactly the easiest person to get along with. You’ll figure him out.”

“Doesn’t feel like it.” Connor mumbles, disheartened. Alex links her arm with his and starts walking again, dragging him along with her.

“When I turned twelve, I put him in charge of my birthday party. He was twenty-five, had no idea what kids like, still doesn’t. We ended up with a dozen kids crammed in his flat, buried in about a ton of Pom Bears because that was the only snack he knew I liked and watching Children of the Corn because it was the only movie he knew that came out the year I was born,” Alex lets go of her friend to slide her arms into her jacket, “He’s trying, Connor. Now come on, tell me where we’re going.” Having arrived at her short-term destination, she picks up her helmet and offers it to Connor.

“What?”

“You said we had to go, you don’t have a car, and I’m not taking you on the bike without a helmet.”

“On that?” Connor asks, gesturing to the motorbike he seems to have forgotten Alex owns, cherry-red to match the helmet.

“Some respect for Stella Vittoria, please.”

“Who?”

“The bike, Connor, obviously the bike.” Alex tells him, taking her seat on the old motorbike. Connor examines the helmet which is quite badly scratched.

“Who’s Adrian?” He asks, finding a name tag inside.

“My dad,” Alex answers, strapping her bag to the back of the bike. She jerks her head, patience wearing, “Come on, now, tell me where we’re going.”

***

“I’ll tell you one thing right now,” Alex announces, staring down into the flooded basement, “I’m not getting back in the water, ‘m still pruney.”

“No, you’re not.” Stephen agrees, sweeping light over the water. He’d been thrilled when he’d been trusted to wield the industrial torch. Less thrilled when the team had to pass two body bags to get into the house. One is the plumber the owner of the house had called upon finding an indoor pool in her basement. The other is the diver that had swam through the anomaly at the reservoir. No one is permitted in the water alone. There had been a creature here when the soldiers arrived, but it had been scared back through the anomaly by all the noise they’d caused. Some sort of bird, as far as they could tell. Alex shifts her weight further to one side to get a better view of the anomaly. Under water, its light isn’t as bright. Less crystalline, more…blobby. Gelatinous?

“You know, you’re a lot heavier than you were when I met you.” Nick groans dramatically and pushes Alex off him.

“I was nine.” Alex pushes back. Nick moves down a step and she falters, almost tripping into the water. He turns back when he hears someone calling his name at the top of the steps, and Alex shoulders her way further down the steps for a better view. Stephen catches hold of her hood when she crouches to lift something from the water: a rag doll tangled in the same purpley seaweed they’ve been analysing all week. Stephen presents her with a bag to drop the toy into. His hand tenses, pulling Alex’s jacket collar tight around her neck. Still holding the hood, Stephen moves up the steps to follow Nick, pulling his niece by the hood like a reluctant kitten. He nudges her in the direction of the front door, through which Connor and Abby are taking turns carrying equipment, and Alex splits off from him to take the sledgehammer Connor’s visibly struggling with.

“What’s this for?” She asks. Connor shrugs, trying to disguise the action of rolling his wrists to relieve them,

“Someone was worried the anomaly was behind a wall or under the floor or something.” They sidestep to let a soldier through with floodlights, “What’s going on?” he nods towards the conservatory, where Nick, Leek and Stephen are in conversation.

“Dunno. Think they found something, but I guess we’re at the kids table.”

“Rude.” Connor complains. Alex grunts an agreement, propping the sledgehammer on her shoulder. Leek’s holding an evidence bag. An official police one, not the freezer bags the scientists have been using. Neither of them can tell if it’s the bag itself or the evidence that’s white. Leek’s speaking quietly, probably hoping to avoid locking antlers with Nick again. He’s got a bee in his bonnet about this anomaly. Nick, that is. Leek shakes the bag at them. Nick’s leaning against a door, calm but with eyebrows raised. Stephen’s head turns towards the door and Connor and Alex scatter, but not quickly enough. He calls them back to him, towards the stairs that lead to the next floor.

“We just want to know what’s going on!” Connor jumps in, “It’s not fair if-”

“Connor, shut up.”

“Shutting up.”

“Al, do you remember Auntie Muriel?” Stephens asks, turning so his back is to the conservatory door and effectively blocking Alex and Connor’s view.

“Yeah, she had, like, old-lady blue hair and she gave us all those monogrammed napkins.” Alex still has them, in a box under her bed at Nick’s house that holds birthday cards and trinkets from Nick and Helen’s families.

“Handkerchiefs.” Stephen corrects.

“And she died in 1998 after-” Stephen’s expression has hardened, his mouth a firm line. Alex’s frown softens with understanding, “She’s here. Or, or there.” her gaze is drawn to the basement door, to the blackhole

“Auntie Muriel?” Connor asks, once again out of the loop and confused.

“Slackers!” Abby calls from the front door, trying to heave a wooden pallet that must weigh almost as much as she does across the threshold, “A hand, anyone?” She blows her fringe out of her eyes, and then squints outside, “What’s Lester doing here?”

It takes a tight two minutes to assemble the team in the Dexter family’s living room. It’s rather like being pulled into the headteacher’s office, wherein Lester’s the rector and Leek’s the secretary that had rounded the children up. Abby and Connor stand with their hands clasped in front of them, intently watching the floor. Alex is a few steps behind them, trying to crack the meaning of Tom Ryan’s expression but the man’s a rock. A pair of soldiers guard the door behind them while. Nick leans against the piano, cool as a cucumber. Stephen watches him, hands unnaturally still at his sides.

“The revelation that Helen Cutter’s alive changes everything.” Lester starts. It sounds like a strong start to a royal telling off, but Connor interrupts him anyway, looking up from the floor,

“Wait, she’s still alive? How did I miss that?” he twists to look at Alex, who grimaces “Oh. Auntie Muriel.”

“All three of you knew?” Leek asks, somehow surprised that Nick and Stephen had effectively kept a secret from him.

“So, eight years she’s been living in the past?” Connor checks, “My god…how are we going to explain Celebrity Love Island to her?”

“Really?” Alex asks. When Connor looks at her she widens her eyes and shakes her head. He closes his mouth and takes a deliberate step backwards, and Lester takes a second crack at his speech,

“She’s eight years ahead of us in terms of understanding the anomalies. Her knowledge could be priceless,” the s sounds almost whistle through Lester’s teeth, “and we have to share it.”

“Which is fine if she were here, but she isn’t.” Stephen points out. Alex glances from him to Nick and back before returning to her inspection of Tom Ryan’s eyebrows. Personal history is liable to boil over here if Lester doesn’t tread lightly.

“Which is why we’re going to go and find her.” Lester counters. There’s surprise all round. “We know she wants to make contact. She’s to be brought back here. By force, if necessary.”

“By force?” Alex echoes.

“This is a person you’re talking about,” Nick reminds Lester, pushing his weight off the piano, “She was my wife.”

“Which is why I want you to go through the anomaly and bring her back,” Lester tells him. Alex breaks her focus on Tom Ryan to watch Stephen’s reaction to unfolding events. He’s chewing the inside of his lip. He doesn’t like this, “You will of course have a military escort.” Lester adds.

“To do what,” Nick asks, “Shoot her if she won’t come back?”

“To protect you. Both of you. The alternative is you sever all ties with the anomaly project with immediate effect, and we’ll go and find her ourselves.”

***

Alex moves down the stairs to the basement, carefully feeling out each step. When she reaches the bottom she sets down the plate she’d been carrying on a shelf high above the floodwaters. A cabinet, padded with the pallets Abby had been bringing into the house, sith just high enough for the team to stand on and use to monitor the anomaly. The anomaly, and the line that strings through it attached to Nick’s scuba tank.

“Forty-seven-fifty,” she says before Stephen can ask. He’s been counting the seconds himself but if anyone comes within eyeline he double-checks with them, “Take a break, Steve, cuppa upstairs for you.” He hesitates before passing her the rope, but he does it. Alex’s hand stays on his shoulder until he’s out of reach. She settles onto the wooden pallet, bringing her plate with her.

“‘S wet.” Tom Ryan warns her. He’s been down here with Stephen the whole time, squatting so as not to get his civvies damp. It’s the first time she’s seen him out of uniform.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got the wetsuit on.” Alex quips. He stares at her, trying to figure out if she’s joking or not. “Take your tea, Tom Ryan.” In truth, she’s simply accepted the inevitable fact that she’s more likely than not to end up in water today so she might as well get ahead of herself. She wraps the orange line around her wrist to not lose grip of it and passes Ryan a mug of tea. It must belong to one of the Dexter kids, it's printed with Thomas the Tank Engine. Alex retrieves her chosen mug.

“Who gave you permission to use their stuff?”

“I’ll clean them, don’t worry.”

“Not my concern.” Ryan assures her. They sip their tea in silence. Alex adjusts the wire of her earphones so it doesn’t get wet. Her knee bounces. “How well do you know her? Helen Cutter?” Ryan asks after a few minutes. Quiet on his part, soundtracked by Queens of the Stone Age on Alex’s part.

“I only knew her for three years…but they were the years between eleven and fourteen. She was influential. I didn’t know many women, so she was the coolest thing since…”

“Since the Spice Girls?”

“Oh, nothing was as cool as the Spice Girls,” Alex assures him. Ryan’s tea threatens to spill when he laughs, “But Helen was pretty up there. She’d take me to the dentist, she paid for fencing club.”

“Fencing?”

“It was how the Cutters met Stephen, through fencing,” Stephen got a free ride to the university on a sports scholarship, and the only way to keep that after taking subjects like Chemistry and Ecology was to enrol in a bajillion extracurriculars. This is where fencing came in, “So she paid for me to go to the kiddie division of their old club,” aiming a finger at Ryan she adds, “Which means if we ever duel we’re going swords.” Ryan frowns and gives a little shake of his head,

“Duelling?” he says, with the distinct air of wondering how he got to this point in his life. Another toy gets caught up by the gentle waves of the water. Ryan leans forward to save it with his new partner, the litter-picker. Alex sips her tea.

“I don’t know what to say to her,” she admits quietly, staring into the anomaly as it ripples, “Nick wouldn’t let the funeral go forward for so long. We had to look for her. Spent weeks worth of hours in that forest,” Alex’s eyes meet Ryan’s, “She really fucked them over when she left. Both of them,” a small, regretful smile, “Turns out she wasn’t that cool.”

“Fifty-eight thirty-two.” Stephen clatters down the steps with this update. He’s found a sleeve of Jaffa Cakes.

“Guys, we can’t just steal their food.” Ryan sighs.

“We’re not stealing, Tom Ryan, they’re from the emergency stash in the car,” Alex shushes him, shaking a hand in his face, “Nick said we were out of those.” She puts her mug down and makes grabby hands in Stephen’s direction until he donates some sweets to her.

“They were under his seat.” Stephen explains, taking up a stance leaning against the wall rather than sitting with Alex and Ryan. Nick’s favourite hidey holes are always under places he sits.

The tiny waves are turning the basement into a cave that echoes back every glug of water hitting brick wall and magnifies the sound of the three people breathing. The sound flows in and out depending on whether the listener actually notices it, rather like the ticking of a loud clock. Alex shifts her sitting position so the wire of her earphones is less likely to dangle into the water when one of the buds inevitably pops out of her ear.

The three sit in a rather tense silence for about forty minutes. It’s not entirely uncomfortable, but each of them is just a little unsettled. Stephen gives the impression of being carved from rock, totally still, while his niece fidgets, unwrapping and rewrapping the line that connects her to Nick around her hand. Stephen doesn’t try to take it from her. Ryan shifts position every ten minutes to prevent cramp, glancing at Alex every time he does. When songs fade from one to another, Alex’s feelings are being torn trying to come to a conclusion. What does Helen think she’s coming back to? Has Nick forgiven her? Has Stephen? Should she? Alex has become an adult since Helen left, what if her childish memory had been even more faulty than she already knows it is?

“Stephen?” Connor, upstairs. The floorboards above them creak, following Connor’s path through the living room to the basement door. Stephen touches Alex’s shoulder as he stands, and she passes the orange line to Ryan to follow her uncle up the steps. It’s Abby that meets them at the top, not Connor.

“How long has he been?” Stephen asks, the cue for all of them to check their watches.

“Ninety-one minutes, forty-one seconds,” Abby answers. Alex agrees. Stephen nods. “He’s in here.” Abby takes them through the living room, to the kitchen where Connor has spread out the blueprints and maps Nick had had the ARC people find for him.

“I’ve been looking at the drains,” Connor pulls his fingers along the map, “in theory, a creature could make its way along the sewage system all the way to the river.”

“Mass hysteria,” Alex echoes Leek’s words from the morgue, “How probable a theory?”

“More likely than I’m comfortable with, anything could have come through before we got here. Good news is the size of the drains rules out anything bigger than a small mosasaur.”

“How small?” Abby asks.

“Not small enough.”

“Fuck,” Stephen takes a deep breath, hand on hip, “Where’s Leek?”

“I thought he was in the living room.” Connor says, pointing at Abby.

“I thought he was in here with you.” Abby frowns.

The front door snaps open with the sound of a crackling walkie-talkie. Expecting Leek, they wait to show him that he was right to be concerned for the Thames, but it’s not Leek they see first. A group of men, halfway into wetsuits. The Special Forces divers that had been working with them at the reservoir.

“What’s going on?” Stephhen wonders aloud. Leek comes into view. He’s taken his jacket off and folded it over his arm. The phone is glued to his ear but he gestures to the divers, who move into the living room. Leek catches sight of the team gathered in the kitchen. He reaches out and closes the doors. “Basement.” Stephen grabs Alex’s elbow and pulls her towards the other door. They slide down the steps to get there before the divers. Stephen yanks the line from Ryan’s hand and sits firmly on the dresser.

“Ninety-six minutes exactly.” Ryan says, brushing off Stephen’s abrupt manner.

“What are army divers doing here?” Alex asks. She stays standing, glancing up the stairs. Ryan pushes to his feet, joins her at the base of the stairs. They look up to the wetsuited men moving past the door.

“I didn’t know about this,” Ryan says. Alex looks at him, head tipped to the side, “I didn’t.” he repeats. Alex rights her head.

“You guys really need to decide if this is a science thing or an army thing.”

“How much power do you think I have here?” he asks, very seriously. Stephen checks his watch again. And then again, as though it might have been lying to him. Ryan glances from him to Alex. “I’ve got enough to find out what the plan is. I’ll send Ethan down to watch with you.” Ryan’s hand glances off Alex’s shoulder as he turns to climb the steps, two at a time. Alex watches him go, and then moves to crouch next to her uncle.

“What’s the plan with Nick?”

“We wait,” Stephen answers, “Can’t pull him back early, he’ll have untethered to go on land, if we pull he’s lost his way back.”

“What’s the plan with Helen?”

“We hope she’s less of a bitch.”

When Ryan comes back, he’s got company. Two divers, and Leek. He flashes an apologetic look Stephen’s way but doesn’t say anything. No one does. They are frozen for ten minutes. When Abby pokes her head through the door and shouts that her stopwatch says a hundred and sixteen minutes, that’s when Stephen moves. Shifting into a crouch, he passes a length of line to Alex who in turn stands and tosses a handful to Ryan.

“Is the ambulance on site, sir?” Ryan asks.

“Minutes away.” Leek replies.

“Pull!” Nick had a mile of rope and he’s used almost all of it. They can’t afford to wait until the last second. Wet rope passes from Stephen to Alex to be coiled by Tom Ryan and wedged underfoot. Alarms on watches start going off before there’s any sign of Nick. Muscles are tightening, cramping, the only breaks being when each of the Harts stop their watches with their teeth, refusing to let the rope go entirely. The ripples are turning into small waves as the rope disturbs the surface, the sound of them drowned out by laboured breathing and one of the divers counting how far past the two hours Nick is.

When they see him, there’s only relief for a split-second. Nick is limp in the water, the rope secured around his body instead of any of the equipment he’d gone through with. He’s lost his oxygen tank and there’s no way of telling how long he’s been without air. Stephen drops into the water without hesitation, not hearing Leek shouting at him, not hearing any of the shouting from anyone. Ryan quickly follows Stephen to pull Nick towards the solid surface of the dresser. They’d both shoved the remaining rope at Alex, who throws the orange line away and goes down on her knees to reach out to Nick. Between the three of them, Nick is soon up on the wood on his back. Alex unhooks the rope, Stephen pulls his goggles off, Ryan’s hand finds a pulsepoint. It occurs to Alex that she doesn’t know what to do when someone almost drowns.

“I’ve got a heartbeat, but he’s not breathing,” Ryan braces his hands over Nick, “Stephen?”

“Do it.”

Ryan’s hands push into Nick’s chest. Again. Again. Again-

“Alex, upstairs, get the paramedics.” Stephen gives her a task to do, distracts her. She trips up the steps. Connor catches her at the top, hands clamped on her shoulders before she can fall into the wall.

“Is he alright? Is Helen here?”

“Where’s the ambulance?” Alex doesn’t even hear his questions. Connor’s eyes move from hers to the basement door, to the shouting coming from below. A hand slides from Alex’s shoulder to link with her fingers and pull her outside.

“Stretcher!”

***

The team form a tableau outside the ambulance they’ve been evicted to. Connor stands nervously, feet dragging on the tarmac when he moves. Alex sits on the ground nearby, leaning against a wheel. Abby’s inside the ambulance, periodically rubbing Stephen’s shoulder. They’re both watching Nick, who’s still unconscious. Alex and Connor are watching the house. The precious seconds where Nick was conscious had been seized by Leek demanding to know if Helen had in fact been on the other side of the anomaly. Once this was confirmed, the scientists were pushed out of the house in favour of the Special Forces divers. Lester had brought in the military after all. Almost an hour has passed.

“I’m going to tell you what you need to know about Helen now,” Stephen says, quite suddenly. Alex rolls around onto her knees so she can see into the ambulance. He sighs. He looks from Nick to the leather bracelet around his wrist and she knows what he means, “Helen is cleverer than you and she knows it. She’s manipulative and she’s selfish-”

“Woah, hang on,” Connor cuts in, hands up to accompany his words, “She was his wife, and he…he’s not like that.” He indicates Nick.

“And she cheated on him…” Stephen lets this sink in, “with me. Her student. Her husband’s friend.” Abby’s hand retracts from his shoulder. “She wasn’t the best person in the world but she still matters to us, alright?” He looks at his niece, and she taps her fingers together in silent applause to indicate her pride at his openness.

“Still matters to me.” Alex adds, making herself a little echo and pulling some of the attention off her uncle. It’s a difficult situation with thorny feelings and it’s better for Connor and Abby to hear it directly from Stephen now than a mangled version from somewhere else. Or when those feelings prickle out of control.

Nick groans. Abby’s mouth closes so tightly her lips go white. Connor pulls himself up into the ambulance.

“How long have I been out?” Nick asks. His voice is surprisingly clear, his hand reaching for Stephen’s. Abby and Connor’s eyes track it like it’s a bomb.

“About an hour.” Alex tells him. Stephen moves from one side of the ambulance to the other to keep a steadying arm supporting Nick’s back as he sits up. Nick frowns when he sees the expressions on Abby and Connor’s faces, and Alex can’t blame him. There’s some weird cocktail of confusion and anger and surprise and other things on there. “Stephen told them everything.”

“Ah. Aye, a bitty complicated.”

“A bit more complicated,” Stephen tells him, “Lester and Leek brought in the army divers as soon as you got out.”

“What?” Nick grinds a swear between his teeth and makes like he’s about to stand. Connor tries to stop him, but Abby instinctively reaches out to support the side Stephen’s not on and helps Nick towards the door.

There’s a commotion at the house. The front door bangs open. Black uniforms pour out, Lester and Leek marching solidly ahead of them. Nick lurches forward, trying to get out of the ambulance, but Connor manages to stop him. There’s a ring of soldiers around them too, their guns incredible contrast to the civilian clothes they’re wearing. If Nick leaves the safety of the ambulance, their guns will be trained on him. They’ve already had to corral Alex and Connor, they tried to get back into the house.

When the soldiers pass them, they can finally see what’s at the eye of the storm. A woman in a green jumpsuit, soaked through and hair hanging in ropes. She had really been dragged through the anomaly backwards. Her hair is the same length it was when she left. The shirt under the half-buttoned jumpsuit is the last shirt she was seen in. Her face looks thinner than it was even in the photos from the Permian camera. The eye contact she maintains with Nick as she’s manhandled towards Lester’s car and pushed into it like a police vehicle has an edge to it that it didn’t used to have.

Helen Cutter is alive.

#rae's writing #alexandra's evolution #primeval #primeval fanfiction #primeval fic #primeval oc #rae's ocs #original character #alex hart #stephen hart #nick cutter #connor temple #abby maitland #oliver leek #helen cutter #james lester #tom ryan

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