Authors notes: hello again, everyone (If anyone is reading)! Did you have nice day? There's probably some course work or homework or something I need to be getting on with, but hey! Who cares! My cousin was my inspiration for this story, she's terrified of lifts, but not for the same reason as in my story. To my cousin, Carrie.

Disclaimer: Believe me, if I owned primeval, you would know! :'(

Claustrophobia

Ring, ring, ring

Ring, ring, ring

Ring, ring, ring

Jess groaned and rolled out of bed. It was a Saturday who the hell was calling her at 7:45 in the morning. She picked up the phone and it was Matt.

"Uhh, what do you want" she asked grumpily.

"Lester wants to talk with us" Matt replied, equally as tried. He obviously been woken up by Lester and wasn't happy about it.

"Ok" she answered, "But please don't make me tell Becker, I would like to start the day without a bullet though the head"

"He wouldn't hurt you and besides, Lester already woke him up!" Matt said before hanging up. Jess got dressed and drove to the A.R.C. She got there just as the others were arriving, just the 5 of them, which Jess though was odd. She could see that they were not happy. She walked over to them, well mainly Becker, but he was standing with rest of them. When she reached them, she was surprised to see that Becker wasn't angry at all.

"You not tired?" she asked him.

"Nah, I'm a soldier, I'm used to being woken up early" He smiled back

"You guys coming" Connor shouted over is shoulder. Jess and Becker caught up with the rest of them, and then they all piled into a lift. Jess hesitated for a second. She hated lifts, especially packed lifts. When she was 9 she was on a school trip and was left in a lift when she didn't know that her class had got out, on top of that she had severe claustrophobia, she still took the stairs most days, even in her heels. She didn't want the rest of the team to find out, so, reluctantly, Jess got in the lift next to Becker.

Half way down the lift stopped with thud.

"Come on then let's see what Lester wants." Abby said heading for the door, but it didn't open. There was another thud and all the lights went dead leaving only the dim, back up lights on. Jess yelped at the noise and clung on tight to Becker's arm, not wanting to let go. Even when the team gave her funny looks she still held on to Becker for dear life.

"Jess, are you ok?" Becker asked. Jess shook her head and tried her best to stay calm while she told them about how terrified she was of lifts, she even added her best puppy face for effect, but that was mainly so she still had a reason to cling on to Becker.

"Don't worry we'll find a way out of here" Becker said reassuringly.

"What do you mean all we have to do is open the doors" Connor said proudly.

"Connor don't…" Becker started, but before he could finish Connor had pried the doors open to reveal a slab of concrete.

"We really are trapped" Jess squealed, burying her head into Becker's shoulder and crying. He shot Connor the death glare.

After Jess had calmed down a bit and smeared make-up all over Becker's shoulder Matt said "Ok, but we still do need a way out of here. I think there's a safety manual in that compartment."

Connor grinned and hastily took it out, "Uhh, one problem Matt…"

"What is it Connor?" Matt said, frustrated.

"It's all in Chinese!" everybody sighed and threw their heads back in frustration. Then Abby had an idea.

"Well every few metres, there's a ventilation shaft, used to cool down the machinery if we could find it and pull the panels off the wall then we can climb through and find our way out." Abby said thought fully banging on the wall to a hollow spot.

Ten minutes later and the whole team had their ears pressed against the walls banging loudly.

"I found it" Matt exclaimed trying to pull the panel off. Soon everybody had a grasp and was pulling on it hard. Ping! Jess heard one of the screws fly off.

"That's it! How could I've been so stupid" Jess thought to herself. She reached up to the back of her head and pulled out a hair clip, and then she crouched down and started using it to unscrew the screws.

"Jess you're a genius!" Becker exclaimed as she undid the last screw. The vent was too high for them to get to.

"Jess you're quite small could you clime up and see if we could all fit though that gap. Are you going to be able to do that?" Matt said thoughtfully.

"YEAH! Its lifts I don't like. Air vents, I can handle." Jess said reaching for the vent, her fingertips just missing it "It's a bit high. Becker could you give me a boost."

"Umm, yeah, sure" Becker said helping Jess up. From where he was, he could almost see up Jess' skirt. He mentally cursed himself over and over until Jess was in the vent.

"It's big enough, there's defiantly enough room" Jess' voice echoed as she helped Becker up. One by one the climbed into the vent and started crawling. Then Becker mentally cursed himself for going after Jess.

"Is now a bad time to mention to your friends that you have severe claustrophobia? Yes" Jess thought to herself, when she said she could handle air vents she was just thinking about what she was getting out of and not what she was getting into. Air vents just reminded her of when she was 6 and she got stuck in a tunnel maze in an indoor play area, to took the staff hours to find her and when they did she was curled up in a ball sobbing.

A creaking brought her back to reality and she realised the noise was coming from beneath her. She knew what was about to happen but before she could scream the vent collapsed and she fell through head first. Jess closed her eyes and waited for the crash. When it never came she opened her eyes and looked up, to see Becker smiling down at her his hand grasped tightly around her ankle. At that moment she regretted very much about wearing a skirt. Carefully they lifted her back up, before lowering her down the right way up. Jess took a minute to look around while the others were following her. Great. They were in a storage cupboard. This was defiantly not Jess' day. She wasn't scared of storage cupboards but she really didn't like them. When she was 14 some of the older, meaner girls in her school had locked her in one at break and left her there until the caretaker found her at the end of his shift, which was 7:30.

"Jess, are you ok" Becker said, noticing that she was staring into space.

"Umm, no, I, err, get very, very claustrophobic! And this place brings back memories" Jess said blushing.

"It's ok, we'll get out of here" Becker said, trying to open the door, but it was locked. All of a sudden there was a crash as Connor used his shoulder to smash the door. It didn't work. "Connor just leave it"

"No. I just need a better run up." Connor said walking backwards, unfortunately the room was very small and Connor tripped over Abby. "Nope. That isn't gonna work, can any body pick locks?"

"I can" Jess said, suddenly happy again.

"Once again, Jess, you've never thought about becoming a bank robber?" Matt chuckled, as Jess pulled out another hair clip and started fiddling at the lock.

After half an hour of Jess trying to get at the lock the door final opened…

… To revel a concrete wall.

"Come on… I mean… what are the chances of that happening!" Connor said, looking like he did as a kid when he found out that star wars wasn't real. Only this time he wasn't on the floor crying. Ok he was crying a little bit, but only Abby noticed.

Jess looked at a sign on the side of the door that was facing the wall. 'Storage room 15'. Now that Jess thought about it she remembered being told that this room was being shut off, because…

"The ventilation shaft above it is unstable and could be a danger to anyone who goes in there" Philip had told the team.

"Back in the vent then" Jess said "Becker can you help again".

Becker rolled his eyes and sighed which caused Matt to say "It's alright Becker I've got it." Becker wasn't sure if Matt knew why he was reluctant to help Jess, but even so Becker didn't want to take that chance.

"Don't worry Matt its ok" Becker said lifting Jess up. This time Becker could see and was so shocked he almost dropped Jess right on top of him, "Get a grip man" He told himself over and over, before climbing into the vent after Jess "damn it, you did it again. You could have gone last, but, no, you went after Jess!"

It felt like they had been crawling forever and Jess was sure she wouldn't be able to wear short skirts for a while because of the bruises on her knees. Becker had to close his eyes for the whole time they were in the vent and kept hitting himself to stop Jess from popping into his thoughts. Connor was just bored and kept humming, which was very annoying in vent that echoes loader than the mammoth can trump. Abby had decided it was her job to stop Connor from humming, which involved slamming him into the wall multiple times. Matt was occupied with thoughts about where he could get a discount toaster after blew up the last one, he wasn't angry, he thought it was cute how useless she was at using modern technology, although he was still puzzled of how she did it "It's a toaster, I can understand how it can be hard it could be for her, but how do you BLOW UP a toaster?" He kept repeating in his head.

Matt's thoughts were interrupted when he heard a creaking coming from underneath him "Not again". This time the whole thing caved downwards and the team landed on top of one another. They looked at their surroundings. They had landed in Lester's office on his desk, which, because of their combined weight, had broken completely half.

Matt was slightly away from the desk and was led on his front. Connor upside down at Lester's feet. Abby was led on her back, right in the middle and was probably what broke the desk.

Jess' fall was mainly broken by Abby, but she defiantly hit the floor hard with her shoulders.

Becker was more shocked, than he was in pain. He had landed top of Jess and he didn't really seem mind.

There was silence for a second before it was broken by Becker saying to Jess "See? I told you we would get out of there, didn't I."

Jess giggled and then her face turned more serious realising the situation "Umm, Becker, you can get off me now."

When everyone had final stood up and walked over to Lester, he began talking. "I just wanted to let you" he said pointing at Becker Abby Connor and Matt "know that the lifts are strictly off limits and let you," pointing at Jess this time "as you always take the stairs, know that I did want you to call someone in to check the ventilation shafts, but it seems you did that yourself, so just make sure you sent someone in to fix this"

"Couldn't you have just phoned us" Matt said, raising his voice slightly.

"What? And waste my minutes, no of course not." He said, his face still expressionless.

The team stood there for a minute with their mouths open, before slowly making their way out of Lester's office. Jess tripped on a piece of broken desk and Becker helped her up, but then forgot to let go of her hand.

On the way back Jess had noticed that he was holding her hand and that he knew that he was holding her hand and said "This is going so awkward tomorrow"

"Could be worse" he simply replied.

"Nope, I don't think tomorrow could be more awkward"

"In that case, you won't mind me doing this" he said leading down to kiss her briefly "sorry but my car's that way." With that he let go of her hand and walked off in the other direction, not looking back.

"Well, you proved me wrong" Jess murmured under her breath, before turning round and walking towards her car. Abby and Connor were waiting for her with massive grins on their faces; they had obviously seen what had just happened. She loved Becker, but she hated how much she was going to get teased about loving Becker, she hated how awkward tomorrow was going to be, she hated the pain in her shoulders, she hated the fact that she had wasted her Saturday, but most of all…

…she hated lifts.

So? Did you like it? Please review.