Chapter Text
James Lester would like to believe that nothing could surprise him anymore. He’d once had a lovely normal job with good pay and reasonable work hours, but then he’d been dragged into this chaos of holes in time and long-dead creatures come to life and he was in charge of a bunch of scientists and animal experts and special forces men that he really didn’t know what to do with and his lovely work hours had gone down the drain and good luck getting a decent budget from the minister for all of this.
With everything that had been happening lately he really didn’t think anything could surprise him.
Except while they were all stood watching this anomaly, waiting for the team to come back, a dinosaur of all things had come charging out with two of his Special Forces men on its back like some kind of prehistoric rodeo, and now James was very confused and he didn’t like that feeling.
The dinosaur looked around for a second before walking forward slightly away from the anomaly. It crouched low to the ground and Ditzy and Kermit slid off its back. Kermit was clearly wounded and Ditzy waved over their other medic hanging around at the back who very nervously came forward and helped him with Kermit. The Dinosaur hovered nervously nearby, shuffling its feet and watching carefully, not really paying attention to the two men behind James now slowly raising their weapons, nor Hart and Abbigail creeping closer to James.
Before anyone could do anything else the anomaly flickered a few more times, disgorging the rest of Ryan’s team and Cutter, though his awful wife was nowhere to be seen.
The dinosaur turned its head and let out a series of chirps. It then let out a louder chirp, then another.
“I’m here,” Blade spoke up from where he’d slipped around to the creature’s other side. The creature turned its head and chittered at him. “Sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean to worry you.”
The creature let out another sound and turned back to Kermit.
“Would someone mind telling me why you brought a dinosaur back with you?”
Cutter, Ryan, Ryan’s whole team including Ditzy and Kermit, and the dinosaur all looked up at James who now found himself quite uncomfortable.
Cutter frowned. “What do you mean, Lester?”
“I thought the whole point of this was that you wanted everything to go back to where it belonged? That is why you took a whole team through there, isn’t it? To take those future creatures back to the future? Why then, have you come back with a dinosaur?”
The dinosaur in question was now sniffing the air and looking around.
Cutter looked confused as he glanced between the creature and James. “This is Connor.”
“You’ve named it. Of course, you have. That didn’t answer my question.”
Ryan shook his head. “Lester, this is-” he cut himself off and he and his men all grabbed their rifles, looking around cautiously. The dinosaur’s feathers were all stood on end and it was hissing slightly but the soldiers seemed to be putting their backs to it rather than considering it the threat. “Connor?”
The creature let out a sound and all the soldiers looked around again.
Cutter stepped forward. “Where’s Claudia?”
“Who?”
“Claudia Brown.”
“I have no idea who that is. And what does she have to do with that?” James gestured to the dinosaur.
Stephen stepped cautiously next to James. “We don’t know anyone by that name, Nick.”
“No, we’ve been working with her every day for months.” Cutter seemed to be getting quite agitated now, and so did Ryan and his men. The dinosaur… barked? It barked a few times.
Cutter shook his head and turned to the dinosaur. “We must have changed something. We must have done something in the past and changed something.” The creature barked at Cutter. “I don’t know.” It barked again. “I don’t know, Connor! I don’t know! But something. We changed something!”
Cutter looked over at the anomaly that was glowing brighter and swelling up. “Oh god.” He tried to dart forwards but Lyle grabbed him. “No, let me go! Let me go!” Ryan joined Lyle, restraining Cutter. “No!”
The creature took half a step back and took a deep breath before screaming very loudly in Cutter’s face. The two guards behind James raised their weapons, as did Stephen, but Ryan and his team seemed completely not bothered that a huge creature-with-many-many-sharp-teeth-and-claws-and-could-easily-kill-all-of-them was now screaming threateningly at Cutter’s face.
It did stop Cutter though.
Cutter hung limply in Lyle and Ryan’s arms looking up at the creature. “Claudia’s gone and they don’t know who you are, Connor.” The creature chittered and barked at Cutter who shook his head. “How can you just… accept this? Connor, we need to fix it!” The creature shook its head and turned around to look at the anomaly which took that moment to close. It turned back to Cutter and barked at him a bit more. “Oh, don’t you take that tone with me, lad!” it chittered and barked again. “How- You can’t just…” Cutter stood up straight and threw his hands into the air. “What are you… I don’t even…”
Ryan shook his head and reach out, petting the thing on the nose. “You’re taking this a lot better than I would have expected.”
The creature… oh to hell with it he may as well call it Connor, seeing as it looks like the thing was going to be staying around. Connor barked and chittered and Ryan. Ryan and his men all looked uncomfortable between themselves for a moment. Blade shook his head slowly. “I… hadn’t thought of that.”
James shook his head slowly. “Would one of you mind filling the rest of us in on whatever it is that… Connor here is saying? Not all of us speak dinosaur.”
Finn turned around. “Oh, he’s saying that… oh…” he looked perturbed for a moment. “It only just now is occurring to me that we can speak dinosaur.” He looked around the rest of his team and Cutter who all looked equally surprised.
Connor tipped his head back and let a sequence of noises it took James a few moments to realise was laughter. The bloody dinosaur was laughing at them.
James could now officially say this was the weirdest cay he’d ever had.
And it only got weirder when the damn dinosaur turned into a somewhat scraggly young man in a t-shirt under a waistcoat and a trilby balanced precariously on his head. What…
How?