I Am This

Title: I Am This
Fandom: Primeval
Characters: Connor
Words: 648
Rating,Warnings: PG, Not Denial friendly
Disclaimer: Nope, don't own Primeval.
Spoilers: None
AN:  This was written as an exercise in writing from the first person at a suggestion from x_bellaitalia_x who gave me the prompt Connor and "walking a fine line" (which I barely adhered to, sorry). Thanks to lukadreaming for a lovely, patient beta. I of course then fiddled, so all remaining mistakes totally my own doing.

 

( I worry sometimes about this job; about me and this job. )

I worry sometimes about this job; about me and this job. I should have been a lackey somewhere, a techy lackey in a lab somewhere.  I’d start as someone’s research assistant, helping them, letting them take all the credit. Maybe I’d move on to work with someone big and famous with any luck.  I’d do all their hard graft but maybe get to see the world as they speak at conferences, delivering papers I wrote.  I’d hang on their coat tails and meet all the people I’ve grown up admiring. 

I’d be surrounded by the dead; fossils and bones and theories. But it would be okay. Maybe we’d make new discoveries; maybe my name would be a footnote in a paper someday. Maybe one day I’d finally break out, get my own research assistant, make my own discoveries, publish my own papers and be respected in my own right. 

But probably not. No one ever listens to my theories. 

Even Cutter laughed at me. Well, to start with anyway. 

Then…well, then all this happened. And I started to think it was coming true. I was Nick Cutter's assistant. Well, never in so many words and Stephen was always his lab assistant by name. But Cutter talked to me, trusted me. He shared his theories with me and let me go on and develop them. I would have let him take the credit in a heartbeat. But Nick would never have done that. He was never that man. He always gave credit where it was due, and sometimes it was due to me and it was amazing. 

Maybe that’s why I would have let him take it, just knowing he never would.

And the things I’m dealing with are very alive; too alive sometimes. And the only dead I am surround by are the ghosts of Nick and Stephen. They haunt the corridors, they haunt the labs and they haunt me.

I miss Stephen, I do, but the hole Nick left is so much harder to fill. He’s gone, but he left the work to me. He trusted me with the artefact and to carry on his work. Overnight I’ve gone from not-really-research-assistant to very-really-lead-scientist.

I’ve never been so scared. 

I know I spend too much time in the lab now. Abby tries to make me leave, so do Jenny and Sarah. Even Lester has been down and tried to make me move. He shouts health and safety regulations at me until I leave. But I think he knows I come straight back in. And his heart’s never in his little rants any more. 

Everything I am is focused now on this artefact. I need to understand it, I need to make it work, I need to unlock its secrets. Nick knew it was important, so important he gave…he gave his life to protect it and I can’t let him down. It’s not a job any more. Why am I even pretending? It stopped just being a job a long time ago. 

It’s consumed me. Sometimes I don’t know where I end and the work begins; it’s such a fine line. Sometimes I don’t think there is a difference. I am the work, the work is me. I wouldn’t be anything now if I didn’t have this. If I didn’t have this job, this responsibility, I would be nothing. Just Connor the tech lackey. And without me? Without me this project would be nothing. I can solve it. I will be the one to solve it. I will be the one who unlocks this. 

I will solve the mystery of the anomalies because no one else can. No one has my mind, no one has the information Nick and I shared together. 

No one. 

It is all down to me. There is no difference, there is no line; one does not end and the other begin. 

I am this.