fredbassett (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fredbassett) wrote2014-06-05 08:16 pm
fredbassett) wrote2014-06-05 08:16 pm
Fic, Within These Walls, Part 30 of 30, AU, 18
Title : Within These Walls, Chapter 30 of 30
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 18
Characters : Nick, Lester, Ryan, Stephen, Connor, Danny, Abby, Jenny
Disclaimer : Not mine (except the OCs), no money made, don’t sue.
Word Count : 59,000 words in 30 chapters of approx. 1,500 – 2,500 words each
Spoilers : None
Summary : Ending up in Dartmoor prison for refusing to recant their belief in evolution is only the start of the problems facing Nick, Stephen and Connor. And Sir James Lester soon ends up with other problems on his hands than just an over-crowded prison population.
A/N : For acknowledgments etc lease see Part 1, but just as a reminder, special thanks go to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fififolle for her wonderful beta help. She brought order out of chaos. This is the final part, so I'd like to say a very big thanks to everyone who has stuck with this story!
With the acrid stink of the burning cars still sharp in his nostrils and raw in his throat, Nick Cutter held his head high as they passed beneath the prison’s iconic outer archway. He’d never in his wildest dreams imagined walking back in voluntarily once he’d managed to leave, but then again, his wildest dreams had never encompassed rips in time, and dinosaurs alive and walking the earth of a country where believing in the truth of deep time earned you a place in a prison cell with little hope of reprieve.
He’d made a promise to Lester not to abscond, but he would have had to have been a good deal more oblivious than even he was usually given credit for not to have seen the look of longing on Stephen’s face only a short time ago. His friend had watched the diplodocus marching steadily back to a time some 150 million years before the current crop of madmen had come to power and he had clearly been very tempted to follow it.
Nick had never wanted to lead Stephen and Connor into such a situation, nor had he expected them to follow his stubborn lead and refuse to espouse the beliefs of the young earth creationists. Not if the alternative was incarceration, but they’d both stood at his side and accepted the sentence, heads held high. And he knew that they were as unlikely to compromise their beliefs as he was, despite the prospect of remaining in the over-crowded hell-hole masquerading as a prison.
Evidence of the riot was everywhere. Guards and soldiers hurried in all directions, and Nick could see smoke rising from one of the brick built wings, although there was considerably less smoke in the air than there was hanging over Princetown after Danny and Lyle’s efforts.
As they went in through the doors of the induction wing, Nick saw a gaggle of children being fed chocolate bars by one of the prison cooks, while a couple of members of the medical staff dealt with what looked like some minor cuts and abrasions. Stephen had given him edited highlights of his activities on the moor with Captain Ryan and the other soldiers. Nick’s mind was already working overtime to process the information that they’d had no less than three anomalies in the vicinity at the same time.
The Andrewsarchus was from the Eocene, roughly between 45 and 36 million years ago, with the diplodocus from the Jurassic, maybe 154 – 150 million years ago, whereas the scutosaurus and the gorgonsopsid were from a much older era, the late Permian, almost a 100 million years earlier. It was almost impossible to get his head around what had happened. When Nick had been writing papers on creatures like those, he’d never imagined actually getting a chance to see them, maybe even study them, before Lester arranged for the corpses to be disposed of.
As they walked, Nick heard various soldiers giving reports to Ryan. It seemed that all of the anomalies within the prison had closed. Two had disgorged some kind of Terror Bird, phorusrachos, gastornis, or maybe even a creature unknown to the fossil record. The other had produced – if the story one wide-eyed guard had gabbled to Ryan was to be believed – a triceratops. That provided another piece of information to take into consideration. Nick needed to sit down with a computer and start making notes if he was ever to try to make sense of any of this.
The question currently burning a hole in his mind, though, was whether they stood any chance of using what had happened on the moor as evidence against the lies being peddled by those in power in Westminster. Surely they couldn’t ignore a combination of eyewitness accounts and the dead creatures on the moor?
His brain was whirling with possibilities, and Nick could tell from the amused look on Danny’s face that the former policeman knew exactly what was going through his mind. Danny had proved to be brave and resourceful, joining forces with Lieutenant Lyle to create ordered chaos, if such a thing could exist. The pair of them had hot-wired cars where they could, and broken into them and just shoved the vehicles into position when dealing with newer models. Putting together his theoretical knowledge with Abby Maitland’s practical animal handling skills, and Danny’s madcap ability to throw himself into a situation and work out the details as he went along, they’d ended up with a team that had immediately gelled under pressure, just as Stephen had done with Captain Ryan, from what he’d heard.
As they approached Lester’s office, the door was open and Nick could hear the sharp and uncompromising tone in the governor’s voice as he said, “Yes, Prime Minister, we are doing what we can to contain the situation. I am reliably informed that the largest of our little embarrassments is no longer creating mayhem in Princetown. The situation in the prison itself is also under control. There’s nothing like a murderous ostrich from several million years ago to assist in making even the most mutinous troublemaker thankful for men with large guns.”
As Lester uttered the words several million years ago, the prison governor met Nick’s eyes and gave a small smile of satisfaction, betraying for the first time where Lester stood on the draconian laws he had to help enforce. Lester listened for a few minutes, his smile fixed unwaveringly on his face, while Nick took in the fact that Lester was without his jacket and had a slightly askew tie. He began to wonder if some of the wilder reports Ryan had been receiving had any truth in them. The thought of the dapper, somewhat effete man behind the large desk taking on a charging triceratops was probably no harder to believe than anything else at this stage.
Lester’s smile broadened. “So, Prime Minister, if I understand you correctly, you are giving me carte blanche to assume control of the current situation. Personnel and funds no object?” The smile took on a distinctly wolfish edge. “And the freedom to choose my own team.”
The last few words were delivered as more of a statement than a question, and Nick’s stomach gave a slight lurch at the use of the word freedom. During the exchange, Lester kept his eyes locked on Nick’s, as if the words were being delivered as much for his benefit as for that of the duplicitous bastard in Downing Street who was determined to thrust their country back into the Dark Ages, or worse.
“Yes, Prime Minister. I do believe we understand each other perfectly. I’ll keep you apprised of developments.” Lester replaced the phone on its cradle and held Nick’s gaze for another long moment before breaking the contact and staring at each one of them in turn.
They must have looked a motley bunch, with even Jenny Lewis looking like she’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. The air was expectant, almost as if a bunch of unruly schoolchildren were awaiting the headmaster’s verdict on their activities. Ryan stood in a position of parade rest, a not inconsiderable arsenal of weapons slung over his shoulders, as he’d ended up with the ones being carried by both Stephen and Danny. The captain’s face gave very little away, but Nick had noticed the looks that Ryan cast at Stephen as they’d walked along the corridor in step with each other. From what he’d seen of the soldier, Ryan was a good man who hadn’t enjoyed the role of jailer, in common with the other captains and most of their men.
“So, ladies and gentleman,” Lester said at last. “I gather that a certain creativity was used in your dealings with our various incursions. Jenny, am I right in believing that you will have a suitable story ready for the press in the not too distant future?”
Cutter could see a look of indecision on Jenny’s face and Lester obviously detected the same hesitation.
“We’ve got enough evidence to finally take that bunch of madmen down!” Nick said, breaking into their exchange as his anger and frustration came close to boiling point. “We need to be opening this up to science, not closing it all down and hiding everything away!”
“They might be mad, but they currently control considerably more of the army than I do, Cutter!” Lester snapped. “Do you really think that they won’t just lock you all away and throw away the key? Or worse, simply engineer your death. That’s not exactly hard to achieve in a place like this. If that sort of order gets given, there’ll be nothing I can do to save any of you. They’re more than capable of silencing anyone who doesn’t agree with their views. There is another option, Cutter. You heard what has just been said. I’ve been given control of the government’s response to the problem of these anomalies. Work with me on this, and maybe we can bring about change. But it won’t happen overnight.”
“So you don’t believe the lies they peddle?”
Lester rolled his eyes. “Cutter, give me some credit, please. Now, are you going to work with me on this or are you going to throw everything away for a second time? You’re no use to anyone behind bars, and you know it.” The stare he gave Nick would have caused a basilisk to shuffle awkwardly and hide its head.
Despite the now white-hot anger lodged in his stomach as solid as a piece of Dartmoor granite, Nick knew that whether he liked it or not, Lester was right. They could hardly storm Westminster brandishing a dead dinosaur for a mascot. None of them would be allowed anywhere near the press to tell their side of the story and even if Jenny did decide to throw her lot in with a bunch of heretics, they’d be discredited in no time. The government’s ability to distribute draconian DA notices backed up by the threat of a long holiday at Her Majesty’s expense would trump anything they could do to spread word of the anomalies. The internet would be no help, either. Under the guise of stamping out access to pornography, that had effectively come under state control in ways that only a few years ago had seemed impossible.
Whatever deal Lester had brokered during his conversation with the Prime Minister was likely to be the best chance any of them would get to gain some limited form of freedom. He couldn’t take responsibility for keeping his friends here any longer. He’d already seen what had happened to Stephen. The same would no doubt be in store for Connor at some point. Nick knew he had no right to ask them to live any longer with that shadow hanging over them, caged liked animals. Not if there was an alternative.
He drew in a deep breath, trying to calm the riot of his emotions. He owed it to his friends to get them out of prison. The rest was a matter for the future.
Nick exhaled slowly and gave a slight nod.
“Thank you, Professor,” Lester said quietly. “I don’t for a single moment believe that we’ve seen the last of these incursions, and I’m very much afraid that I’ll be needing the services of you all for some while to come. Cutter, I want you and your band of merry men to do everything you can to deal with this situation. Consider yourselves released on licence. Ryan will be personally responsible for your collective parole. Captain, I’ll be drafting in units from elsewhere to assist here in the prison. I’m making Wilder responsible for that side of things. You can have Becker, Stringer and Lyle to assist you, along with your pick of the men. I presume you have no objection to continuing your association with Professor Cutter and his merry band of misfits?”
Nick noted that Lester had dropped any irony associated with the use of his former title. It seemed that a brush with a triceratops had lent greater weight to a chair in evolutionary biology than had previously been the case.
“No objection at all, sir,” Ryan said. “I think today’s teams worked well.”
Lester rolled his eyes. “Yes, Ryan, I’m sure they did. I can still see the smoke from some of their activities from where I’m standing. I want the carcasses of everything left behind moved to Merrivale Quarry for the moment. Jenny, I want you to find and rent a large refrigeration facility. You never know when a dead dinosaur or two might come in handy. The past might yet prove to be the key to unlock the future.”
In the silence that followed Lester’s words, it would have been quite possible to hear a mouse fart.
It was broken a moment later by Connor, in his own inimitable style. “We get to be dinosaur hunters for real? How cool is that?”
Despite his frustration, Nick couldn’t stop the laughter that bubbled up inside him. “Aye, lad, we get to be dinosaur hunters.”
He pulled both Connor and Stephen into a hug and then clapped Danny on the back and firmly shook Captain Ryan’s hand as Abby and Jenny smiled broadly at them all.
Lester pulled a bottle of scotch out of his desk drawer. “Is this a traditional enough way to seal a bargain, Professor?” From the same drawer, Lester produced a collection of glasses and mugs that was almost as mismatched as their new team, poured a large measure of his exceedingly good malt into each one and handed them around.
Danny Quinn downed his whisky with indecent haste and held his glass out for a refill, a huge grin on his face.
Lester pushed the bottle across the desk at him. “Do help yourself, Quinn. On this occasion, I believe the Prime Minister can be personally responsible for the bill for its replacement.”
Danny’s grin got even wider. “I think I’m going to like this job.”
“Would you care to propose a toast, Cutter?” Lester asked, with the closet thing to a genuine smile on his face that Nick had yet seen.
Nick thought for a moment, then lifted his glass in salute. “To the past, the future and to freedom.”
As the same words were picked up by each and everyone in the room, Nick allowed the warmth of the whisky to drive out the knot of anger in his stomach. He’d lived without hope for so long now that it was hard to let it back into his life, but with James Lester on their side Nick started to allow himself to believe that they might just stand a chance of bringing about the return of sanity to a world gone mad.
It would be fitting for the distant past to provide the key to unlocking the future.
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 18
Characters : Nick, Lester, Ryan, Stephen, Connor, Danny, Abby, Jenny
Disclaimer : Not mine (except the OCs), no money made, don’t sue.
Word Count : 59,000 words in 30 chapters of approx. 1,500 – 2,500 words each
Spoilers : None
Summary : Ending up in Dartmoor prison for refusing to recant their belief in evolution is only the start of the problems facing Nick, Stephen and Connor. And Sir James Lester soon ends up with other problems on his hands than just an over-crowded prison population.
A/N : For acknowledgments etc lease see Part 1, but just as a reminder, special thanks go to
fififolle for her wonderful beta help. She brought order out of chaos. This is the final part, so I'd like to say a very big thanks to everyone who has stuck with this story!With the acrid stink of the burning cars still sharp in his nostrils and raw in his throat, Nick Cutter held his head high as they passed beneath the prison’s iconic outer archway. He’d never in his wildest dreams imagined walking back in voluntarily once he’d managed to leave, but then again, his wildest dreams had never encompassed rips in time, and dinosaurs alive and walking the earth of a country where believing in the truth of deep time earned you a place in a prison cell with little hope of reprieve.
He’d made a promise to Lester not to abscond, but he would have had to have been a good deal more oblivious than even he was usually given credit for not to have seen the look of longing on Stephen’s face only a short time ago. His friend had watched the diplodocus marching steadily back to a time some 150 million years before the current crop of madmen had come to power and he had clearly been very tempted to follow it.
Nick had never wanted to lead Stephen and Connor into such a situation, nor had he expected them to follow his stubborn lead and refuse to espouse the beliefs of the young earth creationists. Not if the alternative was incarceration, but they’d both stood at his side and accepted the sentence, heads held high. And he knew that they were as unlikely to compromise their beliefs as he was, despite the prospect of remaining in the over-crowded hell-hole masquerading as a prison.
Evidence of the riot was everywhere. Guards and soldiers hurried in all directions, and Nick could see smoke rising from one of the brick built wings, although there was considerably less smoke in the air than there was hanging over Princetown after Danny and Lyle’s efforts.
As they went in through the doors of the induction wing, Nick saw a gaggle of children being fed chocolate bars by one of the prison cooks, while a couple of members of the medical staff dealt with what looked like some minor cuts and abrasions. Stephen had given him edited highlights of his activities on the moor with Captain Ryan and the other soldiers. Nick’s mind was already working overtime to process the information that they’d had no less than three anomalies in the vicinity at the same time.
The Andrewsarchus was from the Eocene, roughly between 45 and 36 million years ago, with the diplodocus from the Jurassic, maybe 154 – 150 million years ago, whereas the scutosaurus and the gorgonsopsid were from a much older era, the late Permian, almost a 100 million years earlier. It was almost impossible to get his head around what had happened. When Nick had been writing papers on creatures like those, he’d never imagined actually getting a chance to see them, maybe even study them, before Lester arranged for the corpses to be disposed of.
As they walked, Nick heard various soldiers giving reports to Ryan. It seemed that all of the anomalies within the prison had closed. Two had disgorged some kind of Terror Bird, phorusrachos, gastornis, or maybe even a creature unknown to the fossil record. The other had produced – if the story one wide-eyed guard had gabbled to Ryan was to be believed – a triceratops. That provided another piece of information to take into consideration. Nick needed to sit down with a computer and start making notes if he was ever to try to make sense of any of this.
The question currently burning a hole in his mind, though, was whether they stood any chance of using what had happened on the moor as evidence against the lies being peddled by those in power in Westminster. Surely they couldn’t ignore a combination of eyewitness accounts and the dead creatures on the moor?
His brain was whirling with possibilities, and Nick could tell from the amused look on Danny’s face that the former policeman knew exactly what was going through his mind. Danny had proved to be brave and resourceful, joining forces with Lieutenant Lyle to create ordered chaos, if such a thing could exist. The pair of them had hot-wired cars where they could, and broken into them and just shoved the vehicles into position when dealing with newer models. Putting together his theoretical knowledge with Abby Maitland’s practical animal handling skills, and Danny’s madcap ability to throw himself into a situation and work out the details as he went along, they’d ended up with a team that had immediately gelled under pressure, just as Stephen had done with Captain Ryan, from what he’d heard.
As they approached Lester’s office, the door was open and Nick could hear the sharp and uncompromising tone in the governor’s voice as he said, “Yes, Prime Minister, we are doing what we can to contain the situation. I am reliably informed that the largest of our little embarrassments is no longer creating mayhem in Princetown. The situation in the prison itself is also under control. There’s nothing like a murderous ostrich from several million years ago to assist in making even the most mutinous troublemaker thankful for men with large guns.”
As Lester uttered the words several million years ago, the prison governor met Nick’s eyes and gave a small smile of satisfaction, betraying for the first time where Lester stood on the draconian laws he had to help enforce. Lester listened for a few minutes, his smile fixed unwaveringly on his face, while Nick took in the fact that Lester was without his jacket and had a slightly askew tie. He began to wonder if some of the wilder reports Ryan had been receiving had any truth in them. The thought of the dapper, somewhat effete man behind the large desk taking on a charging triceratops was probably no harder to believe than anything else at this stage.
Lester’s smile broadened. “So, Prime Minister, if I understand you correctly, you are giving me carte blanche to assume control of the current situation. Personnel and funds no object?” The smile took on a distinctly wolfish edge. “And the freedom to choose my own team.”
The last few words were delivered as more of a statement than a question, and Nick’s stomach gave a slight lurch at the use of the word freedom. During the exchange, Lester kept his eyes locked on Nick’s, as if the words were being delivered as much for his benefit as for that of the duplicitous bastard in Downing Street who was determined to thrust their country back into the Dark Ages, or worse.
“Yes, Prime Minister. I do believe we understand each other perfectly. I’ll keep you apprised of developments.” Lester replaced the phone on its cradle and held Nick’s gaze for another long moment before breaking the contact and staring at each one of them in turn.
They must have looked a motley bunch, with even Jenny Lewis looking like she’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. The air was expectant, almost as if a bunch of unruly schoolchildren were awaiting the headmaster’s verdict on their activities. Ryan stood in a position of parade rest, a not inconsiderable arsenal of weapons slung over his shoulders, as he’d ended up with the ones being carried by both Stephen and Danny. The captain’s face gave very little away, but Nick had noticed the looks that Ryan cast at Stephen as they’d walked along the corridor in step with each other. From what he’d seen of the soldier, Ryan was a good man who hadn’t enjoyed the role of jailer, in common with the other captains and most of their men.
“So, ladies and gentleman,” Lester said at last. “I gather that a certain creativity was used in your dealings with our various incursions. Jenny, am I right in believing that you will have a suitable story ready for the press in the not too distant future?”
Cutter could see a look of indecision on Jenny’s face and Lester obviously detected the same hesitation.
“We’ve got enough evidence to finally take that bunch of madmen down!” Nick said, breaking into their exchange as his anger and frustration came close to boiling point. “We need to be opening this up to science, not closing it all down and hiding everything away!”
“They might be mad, but they currently control considerably more of the army than I do, Cutter!” Lester snapped. “Do you really think that they won’t just lock you all away and throw away the key? Or worse, simply engineer your death. That’s not exactly hard to achieve in a place like this. If that sort of order gets given, there’ll be nothing I can do to save any of you. They’re more than capable of silencing anyone who doesn’t agree with their views. There is another option, Cutter. You heard what has just been said. I’ve been given control of the government’s response to the problem of these anomalies. Work with me on this, and maybe we can bring about change. But it won’t happen overnight.”
“So you don’t believe the lies they peddle?”
Lester rolled his eyes. “Cutter, give me some credit, please. Now, are you going to work with me on this or are you going to throw everything away for a second time? You’re no use to anyone behind bars, and you know it.” The stare he gave Nick would have caused a basilisk to shuffle awkwardly and hide its head.
Despite the now white-hot anger lodged in his stomach as solid as a piece of Dartmoor granite, Nick knew that whether he liked it or not, Lester was right. They could hardly storm Westminster brandishing a dead dinosaur for a mascot. None of them would be allowed anywhere near the press to tell their side of the story and even if Jenny did decide to throw her lot in with a bunch of heretics, they’d be discredited in no time. The government’s ability to distribute draconian DA notices backed up by the threat of a long holiday at Her Majesty’s expense would trump anything they could do to spread word of the anomalies. The internet would be no help, either. Under the guise of stamping out access to pornography, that had effectively come under state control in ways that only a few years ago had seemed impossible.
Whatever deal Lester had brokered during his conversation with the Prime Minister was likely to be the best chance any of them would get to gain some limited form of freedom. He couldn’t take responsibility for keeping his friends here any longer. He’d already seen what had happened to Stephen. The same would no doubt be in store for Connor at some point. Nick knew he had no right to ask them to live any longer with that shadow hanging over them, caged liked animals. Not if there was an alternative.
He drew in a deep breath, trying to calm the riot of his emotions. He owed it to his friends to get them out of prison. The rest was a matter for the future.
Nick exhaled slowly and gave a slight nod.
“Thank you, Professor,” Lester said quietly. “I don’t for a single moment believe that we’ve seen the last of these incursions, and I’m very much afraid that I’ll be needing the services of you all for some while to come. Cutter, I want you and your band of merry men to do everything you can to deal with this situation. Consider yourselves released on licence. Ryan will be personally responsible for your collective parole. Captain, I’ll be drafting in units from elsewhere to assist here in the prison. I’m making Wilder responsible for that side of things. You can have Becker, Stringer and Lyle to assist you, along with your pick of the men. I presume you have no objection to continuing your association with Professor Cutter and his merry band of misfits?”
Nick noted that Lester had dropped any irony associated with the use of his former title. It seemed that a brush with a triceratops had lent greater weight to a chair in evolutionary biology than had previously been the case.
“No objection at all, sir,” Ryan said. “I think today’s teams worked well.”
Lester rolled his eyes. “Yes, Ryan, I’m sure they did. I can still see the smoke from some of their activities from where I’m standing. I want the carcasses of everything left behind moved to Merrivale Quarry for the moment. Jenny, I want you to find and rent a large refrigeration facility. You never know when a dead dinosaur or two might come in handy. The past might yet prove to be the key to unlock the future.”
In the silence that followed Lester’s words, it would have been quite possible to hear a mouse fart.
It was broken a moment later by Connor, in his own inimitable style. “We get to be dinosaur hunters for real? How cool is that?”
Despite his frustration, Nick couldn’t stop the laughter that bubbled up inside him. “Aye, lad, we get to be dinosaur hunters.”
He pulled both Connor and Stephen into a hug and then clapped Danny on the back and firmly shook Captain Ryan’s hand as Abby and Jenny smiled broadly at them all.
Lester pulled a bottle of scotch out of his desk drawer. “Is this a traditional enough way to seal a bargain, Professor?” From the same drawer, Lester produced a collection of glasses and mugs that was almost as mismatched as their new team, poured a large measure of his exceedingly good malt into each one and handed them around.
Danny Quinn downed his whisky with indecent haste and held his glass out for a refill, a huge grin on his face.
Lester pushed the bottle across the desk at him. “Do help yourself, Quinn. On this occasion, I believe the Prime Minister can be personally responsible for the bill for its replacement.”
Danny’s grin got even wider. “I think I’m going to like this job.”
“Would you care to propose a toast, Cutter?” Lester asked, with the closet thing to a genuine smile on his face that Nick had yet seen.
Nick thought for a moment, then lifted his glass in salute. “To the past, the future and to freedom.”
As the same words were picked up by each and everyone in the room, Nick allowed the warmth of the whisky to drive out the knot of anger in his stomach. He’d lived without hope for so long now that it was hard to let it back into his life, but with James Lester on their side Nick started to allow himself to believe that they might just stand a chance of bringing about the return of sanity to a world gone mad.
It would be fitting for the distant past to provide the key to unlocking the future.
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*purrrs*
But now it has ended :(
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Oh, this has been such a fun and exciting ride. Love that the whole gang will be together now and the sneaky way Lester set it up. By the time he was done, I'm fairly certain the Minister thought it was his own idea. lol
"He’d lived without hope for so long now that it was hard to let it back into his life, but with James Lester on their side Nick started to allow himself to believe that they might just stand a chance of bringing about the return of sanity to a world gone mad." A heart-breaking yet so hopeful moment. Lovely.
**applauds**
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Lester rolled his eyes. “Yes, Ryan, I’m sure they did. I can still see the smoke from some of their activities from where I’m standing. I want the carcasses of everything left behind moved to Merrivale Quarry for the moment. Jenny, I want you to find and rent a large refrigeration facility. You never know when a dead dinosaur or two might come in handy. The past might yet prove to be the key to unlock the future.”
I love this paragraph. Lester is hilarious, and has his head screwed on right.
Congratulations on finishing your Prison fic!!! I feel like I had to wait a long time for it, but it was well worth it :D Hi-5!!
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And thank you for all your stellar help with the beta! You made things so much better.
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*huggles the Hound*
I love this so much!
(I also think I might have missed Chapter 29 - not sure).
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But the sodding thing grew a plot by the end of the first chapter!
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Wonderfful series, with all of them being so in-character.
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Thank you for sticking along for the ride!
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I've really enjoyed this fic - I still remember the conversation that seemed to spark it off. I'm so glad you finished it. There can never be enough prison fics *g*
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I agree. I love prison fics.
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I was wondering how you were going to pull all the bits together, but you did it in fine style. This is the first time I have followed a multi-part story through right from the start, and I have loved it. Great fun waiting for the next part.
“I think today’s teams worked well.”
Lester rolled his eyes. “Yes, Ryan, I’m sure they did. I can still see the smoke from some of their activities from where I’m standing...
Start as they mean to go on, I reckon :)
Thanks, it's been huge fun and I have loved every episode.
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Apart from my massive epic, Silk and Steel, I think this is the longest single story I've posted.
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The stare he gave Nick would have caused a basilisk to shuffle awkwardly and hide its head.
Hee!
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But I never say never where fic is concerned. I even still entertain thoughts of a sequel to S&S....
Thanks for your support through this adventure! I appreciate you reading outside the box, so to speak.
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Squee! What an excellent ending - I had wondered how you were going to manage to wrap everything up in the remaining chapters. This works perfectly - gathering up the team, but not providing an instant fix-it solution to the anomalies or the politics. Whiskies all around.
Thanks for such a lovely, detailed satisfying story.
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I always knew where the story would end and that there would be no fix-it for the world itself. Just the start of the team.
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And of course yay for the hopeful ending. I wasn't sure how you were going to tie things off, but the cautious new beginning was brilliant.
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This one took quite a long time to write, but I was pleased with the way it turned out, and it's been fun to revisit along with you.