Work Text
Lorraine Wickes was not quite the inexperienced Fast Streamer Ryan had been expecting. At least, she had a good read (and a firm grip) on the motley group of scientists running around the Forest of Dean. Clearly annoyed to have been crowbarred out of London, and quietly disapproving of a tyrannical boss even Ryan knew by reputation, she seemed like she had every intention of handling this situation as briskly as possible and bringing it to a discreet end. It wasn’t that she was unsympathetic - she and the tiny zookeeper had reached a negotiated understanding over the green lizard thing, and the handsome Dr Hart seemed grateful to have another adult in the area - but she was rather antiseptic. Not the kind of person you could joke around with.
Ryan watched her talking to Dr Hart and Professor Cutter, and noticed that Professor Cutter was deferring to her. Grumpily, but he was deferring to her. And Professor Cutter was the sort of little shit who thought he always knew best. It didn't matter if Lorraine Wickes was easy to get along with, she was clearly the kind of professional who could make her authority felt, and she'd get the job done. Dinosaurs or no bloody dinosaurs.
Miss Wickes introduced the professor (definitely convinced he knew best, Ryan thought), and then lingered, watching Cutter walk away to talk to Miss Maitland with slightly narrowed eyes.
"Be careful of that one," Miss Wickes said, unprompted. "He has a mania about his dead wife. He's expecting to find her on the other side of the... portal. Bring him back, if at all possible."
"I think I can manage him." Ryan followed Cutter with his eyes. "You think he's important?"
"Yes," Miss Wickes said. "And to be perfectly honest, when it comes to dinosaurs, portals in time, and unsolved disappearances, I'm wondering exactly how dead Helen Cutter really is."
There was a brief, thoughtful pause.
"Of course," Miss Wickes said, tucking her hands into her pockets, "we could all be seeing things."
Ryan let himself smile slightly, and was rewarded by the faintest of breaches in Miss Wickes' perfect poker face. "Well, I won't let the professor run off."
"Thank you, captain."
The Permian was bright and hot and there was no more evidence that Helen Cutter was dead than there had been yesterday. Additionally - and Ryan felt he should have expected it given Miss Wickes' warnings - Cutter was a pig-headed fool.
Ryan whacked Cutter over the head and dragged him back to safety, and when that didn't work long enough, he treated the idiot like a child.
Why couldn’t he have been stuck with Hart? Hart was a man of few words, but at least he was more pliable than his boss.
The debrief happened in a quiet corner of the pub. Dressed in civvies, they might look like they were on a date, though Miss Wickes looked surprised and disconcerted when the bartender hinted at it, and sounded so awkward when she offered him her first name that the bartender had probably swiftly changed her ideas. But either way, no-one would listen too closely to them in this environment, and Miss Wickes had earned her glass of wine as thoroughly as Ryan had earned his beer.
Miss Wickes - Lorraine - went bright-eyed with amusement when Ryan told the story of hitting Nick Cutter over the head, and Ryan had to stop himself laughing as Lorraine explained her original interaction with Nick Cutter, which likely meant the entire neighbourhood had set her down as a spy when she was probably only socially awkward and very businesslike.
Ryan summarised the contents of the camp, handed over the camera he had abstracted from the ruins, and asked Lorraine if she knew what would happen next.
"Depends on Sir James," Lorraine said, pocketing the camera so smoothly it might as well have not existed. "He's not very pleased about all this."
Which was a delicate way of saying, Ryan thought, that he was infuriated that a bunch of bloody dinosaurs had landed in his inbox and would now be scouting around for someone he disliked to inflict the problem on.
"Wants to make it go away?"
Lorraine grimaced a little, but nodded.
"And you?" Ryan said. "Do you think it's going away?"
Lorraine hesitated, and looked down at her drink. Ryan waited while she thought, and watched her move the stem of her glass in absent circles so that the base painted circles of condensation on the stained wood of the table.
She wasn't exactly pretty, he thought. She was a good-looking woman but she was too serious to be called pretty. It was an adjective for more fragile, less formidable women. Lorraine Wickes had run from the gorgonopsid when it had charged her, but she hadn't fled blindly: she had ducked out of its sight and made for a car as fast as she could. And it didn't matter how loudly Sir James Lester shouted down the phone; she never looked intimidated.
After the gorgonopsid had been killed Lester had bawled so loudly Ryan could hear him, even though he was standing feet away. Lorraine had talked Lester down, shuffled him gently off the phone, and hung up - and then she'd caught Ryan's eye and raised one eyebrow just slightly, with such crushing disinterest in her boss's tantrums Ryan himself had almost winced. He hoped Lorraine never pulled a face like that at him.
"I don't," Lorraine said, and Ryan blinked at her. "I don't think it's going away," she clarified. "There's something funny about all this."
"And you think you know what the key is," Ryan said.
"I do."
Ryan followed her gaze to the bar, where Nick Cutter had taken a seat with Stephen Hart. Hart was ordering drinks; Cutter had pulled a frame from one of his capacious pockets and was looking at the picture it contained. Ryan couldn't see it in any detail, but he could just about pick out the image of a woman against a sunny background.
"He had that picture on his desk," Lorraine said, "according to Connor Temple. It's of his late wife. And nobody ever found Helen Cutter's body."
Ryan looked back at her. "Do you think she's alive?"
"I have no reason to believe she isn't, and I don't like coincidences." Lorraine finished her drink, and Ryan wondered whether to offer her another one. "It seems too big a coincidence that all this should start happening just where she disappeared."
Ryan grunted.
"I think we'll need to keep an eye on Nick Cutter," Lorraine said. "He would do anything for his wife."
Ryan nodded. That much was obvious. Ryan himself had knocked the man out in order to stop him doing a fair degree of 'anything' on the very faint hope that Helen Cutter was still alive.
"Stephen Hart, too."
"Why Hart? He seems much less enthusiastic." And much more sensible, Ryan didn’t add, knowing Lorraine already shared his opinion. Hart was practical, as was Miss Maitland. Connor Temple was a well-meaning nuisance. The professor was probably well-meaning, but he mostly meant well towards himself and his research assistant, and Ryan was not making any progress in demolishing the my-way-or-the-high-way attitude.
"He'd do anything for the professor," Lorraine said, getting to her feet. "And maybe that includes stopping him from doing something stupid - provided he knows somebody's watching." She tilted her head slightly, and gave Ryan a very small smile. "Can I buy you another?"
"If you're offering," Ryan said, surprised, and watched as Lorraine made her way to the bar and took a place next to Stephen Hart. The man looked startled, and a faint tension made its way into his posture, but he nodded to Lorraine politely enough and their small talk seemed normal.
Message obviously received.
"You know what you're doing, don't you?" Ryan said when she came back, letting the fact that he was impressed bleed into his voice.
Lorraine's smile was a little broader now. "As well as you do." She clinked her glass against his.
"Cheers." He raised his glass to her slightly. "It's always a pleasure to work with a professional."
From the bar, Stephen Hart watched them - half in confusion, and half in envy.