A/N Story dedicated firstly to Sallad who provided the prompt, and then also to SveaR and TheSingingPterodactyl and DrGiggles for being generally awesome. (And Sallad is generally awesome too of course.)
"Con-nor!" Abby protested as he stopped the movie mid-scene. If it'd been his night to choose, she wouldn't have minded, but this was her movie and she was actually quite into it, thank-you very much.
"I'll put it back on in a moment, Abs," he promised her. "Lotto's on now though, innit?" He fetched his ticket out of his pocket and grabbed a pencil off the desk, ready to check his numbers.
It'd been going on this way for several months now. They'd stopped the movie one night in order to order some more pizza, and the screen had switched to the National British Lottery. Abby had barely paid attention as she phoned in the order, but Connor had suddenly become quite excited.
He'd told Abby that he was sure he could win, and Abby had laughed in his face.
"Oi, but Abby, what if I came up with a formula?" he'd asked.
"Connor, you're smart and all, but you aren't the only genius out there. If there was a formula that guaranteed lotto wins, someone would have figured it out already."
"People do win, Abs; maybe they have."
"Connor, there is no lottery-winning formula, and there never will be."
"Well, maybe not," he'd admitted, "But I bet I could increase my odds. I'll go through the winning numbers for the past five years and take all the numbers that come up at least fifteen percent of the time and those will be the lucky numbers. Then, whichever seven numbers from that list haven't shown up in the longest time, well those will be due to appear, and those'll be my numbers for the next week. See, Abs, it make sense. It'll work."
"Yeah, right," Abby had scoffed sarcastically.
"C'mon, Abs. Play it with me? It'll be fun!"
"Uh-uh, no way, it's stupid!" She hadn't known then why she was being like that. He'd been right, it probably would be fun to play it with him, but she was stubborn and there was no way she was going to admit that now.
"Fine," Connor'd retorted playfully, but obviously disappointedly too, "Then you can't move into me new mansion when I win."
"Wouldn't want to anyway, would I? This place is plenty big enough. I can't imagine having thirty extra rooms to pick up after you in."
"We could hire a maid."
"Oh sure, because I really want someone else rummaging through my belongings."
Connor'd sighed, "Fine, be that way then, but I'm gonna go win me a jackpot."
Abby'd rolled her eyes and walked away.
Abby excused herself and went to get a second cup of tea for them both while she waited for Connor to check his numbers so they could get on with their movie again.
"Got the first number!" Connor shouted to her from the living room.
"That's nice," she replied without enthusiasm, just loud enough for him to hear that she'd responded at all.
"And the second!"
Abby ignored him this time as she poured the tea and a spot of cream into two mugs, yellow for Connor and green for herself. Other than the colour, the mugs were identical. Abby'd casually mentioned she needed new mugs one day and Connor'd gone out and bought her the set as a surprise that evening. She'd not admit it, but they were somewhat special to her and she never used any others any more.
From the silence in the living room, she assumed that Connor hadn't had any more matching numbers. She carried the mugs of tea out and set them on the coffee table where he was staring at his ticket silently, his brow furrowed as if puzzled by something.
"That's not right," he muttered under his breath to her, "Shouldn't be possible."
"What shouldn't be possible?" Abby asked.
He looked at her, his eyes shining a bit and the puzzlement on his face suddenly turned to excitement. "Abby, I actually won!"
Abby knew from the look in Connor's eyes that he wasn't joshing with her, but her brain told her that he had to be. She plopped herself down next to him on the sofa and grabbed the remote to switch back to the paused movie. "Nice try, Con, but the trick to a good prank is to come up with something believable."
"Abs, I'm not even kidding!" Connor protested, shoving the ticket into her face. "Look, I actually won!"
She gave him an obviously fake smile, "That's nice. Congrats then. Can we watch the movie now?"
He frowned, looking more than a little bit hurt by her reaction. "Seriously, that's it? You can't even be a small bit happy for me?"
"Look, Connor, I said congrats, didn't I? I guess money just doesn't mean that much to me. I have a bit of trouble caring about it, is all."
"But Abs, we could build my dream house! Move into a mansion! Aren't you excited about that?"
"If you want to live in a mansion, Con, that's up to you, but I've already told you how I feel about them."
"Only that was back before I'd actually won, Abs. I figured you'd feel different when it was real."
"Well I don't. They're too much work, too much to clean, and I don't want some housekeeper poking about in my business. Besides, how would I hide the pets from the maid? I'll stay put here in the flat thank-you very much. And now, what I really want to do is to finish this movie that we started."
He pinched his lips together, obviously upset, but he gave her a curt nod and sat back down again. "Fine, press play."
The next few days, Connor avoided talking about his winnings in front of Abby when they were at the flat, but it couldn't be avoided at work. Sarah, Danny and Becker all showed proper enthusiasm for his newfound riches and began to badger him with questions about what he was going to buy first. Each time they started up, Abby quickly walked away and, while he noticed it, he couldn't help but to enjoy planning with his other friends.
"Hey, Con!" Becker as he sat down across from Connor and Abby in the cafeteria at lunch. "I was thinking, when you build your dream home, you should definitely include an armoury."
Connor replied that he didn't know about that one, he thought it might be excessive, but a video game room with plenty of shooting themed games was a definite possibility.
"Men," Sarah complained as she and Danny joined them at the table. "Connor, listen to me, what you really need is a swim pool, and perhaps a spa. Abby will agree with me, won't you, Abs?"
Abby glared at her and got up, which didn't surprise Connor at all. "I don't really care to be honest. Excuse me, I have to go check on the mammoth." She walked away quickly.
Danny glanced at Connor and asked, "What's wrong with the mammoth?"
Connor rolled his eyes, irritated by what he felt was a stupid question, and shook his head. "Nothing, Abby's just… never mind, we shouldn't talk about her, so can we just get back to planning my dream house, please?"
The others exchanged puzzled glances, but decided not to push the matter. Sarah quickly changed the subject back to the house as requested. "Have you bought any land for it yet?" she asked, pulling out her laptop, "Because there're a number of lots for sale right now, huge properties with great views in your price range. Beach front if you like. We could make an offer right now!"
Connor froze, "Uh, no, thanks Sare, but that's alright. It's, it's fun to dream and all, but not so sure I'm going to actually build the place, you know. I mean, I could, I've got the money now, but, well…" he shrugged and trailed off, leaving the others staring at him
"But… why not?" Danny sputtered, and Sarah and Becker nodded that they wanted to know too.
"Well, I mean, it's fun to think about and all, but I dunno, guys. I kinda think I'd prefer to just keep living with Abby."
"Well yeah, obviously," Danny said. "We sorta thought she'd move in with you."
"She don't want a big house, she's said before she'd hate it. Too much to clean and she doesn't feel comfortable with someone else going through her stuff if we hired someone. Wait, what did you mean by 'obviously'?"
"Oh c'mon, Con, it's obvious you like her."
A panicked look came over his face. "Really? You could tell?"
Becker looked amused, "Connor, everyone can tell. I'm sure even Lester knows."
Connor glanced over to where Abby had disappeared down the hall a few moments earlier, "Does she know?"
Sarah shrugged, "Now that we haven't figured out yet. But c'mon, about this house, let us help you design it anyway. You've got loads of money, so much you don't know what to do with it! It'd be amazing fun to design your dream house! And just think, you could just, give it away! Give it to some poor person for free! Change their life around. How fun would that be?! You get to design your dream house, feel good about something, and still live with Abs if you want to."
"I'm poor!" Danny offered eagerly.
Sarah elbowed him in the ribs, "Danny, I've been to your flat, many times, you've got a Jacuzzi! You're not poor."
Becker raised his eyebrow at the pair and leaned back in his chair, amused. Danny scowled at the soldier, warning him with a look to not say anything as he responded to Sarah, "Shut up, Sare, or I won't let you use the spa Connor's gonna build me."
Connor's face had lit up with a grin though, and he barely noticed Sarah and Danny's banter as an idea crossed his mind. "Sarah!" he announced suddenly as he stood up. "You are a genius!"
She looked up at him, pleased, "You're going to build the house?"
"Yes, why not? I'll leave you in charge of finding me a lot. Something big, huge, and secluded, no nosy neighbours or anything like that, yeah?"
He started to walk off as Danny called to him, "Is the house for me?!"
"No!" Sarah and Becker both answered together.
Abby didn't leave the menagerie for the rest of the afternoon, but it didn't stop the rumours from reaching her, via one of the vets, that Connor had put an offer on a large piece of acreage just outside the city. She shrugged, pretending that she'd already known that, as she wondered why he hadn't told her first, and then silently willed to vet to hurry up and leave her alone again.
She closed her eyes, fighting back the tears at the prospect of losing Connor, and wished with all her might for the chance to go back in time, to change her stubborn answers she'd given so that she might be invited to live with him still. She wondered what he's say if she told him she'd changed her mind, that she wanted to live with him anyways. She did, really, but much preferred to stay put. She hadn't been kidding when she'd said all that stuff about not wanting to live in a big house, she hated the idea, but she was realising more and more that she hated the idea of not living with Connor even more.
But she couldn't tell him that. If she told him that she hated the house idea, but wanted to be with him, well, that'd just make her sound needy and pathetic and desperate, especially since he obviously didn't care if they lived together or not. He'd been pretty quick to place an offer elsewhere. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand to hide any tell-tale traces of tears from the mammoth as she concluded that Connor seemed pretty happy to have the chance to be rid of her, actually. She couldn't blame him really; she was always nagging at him and calling him an idiot, she never let herself have fun with him and hadn't even let him talk to her about his exciting lottery win. It was just, she was scared is all, scared that if she got too close, it'd hurt more when he left.
"It's better this way," she whispered to the overgrown prehistoric elephant. "If I'm this messed up now, imagine how I'd have been if I had let him get close to me."
"Ahem," a voice interrupted. Abby quickly got a hold of herself as she plastered a fake smile on her face and turned to greet Lester. "Everything okay in here?" he asked.
"Sure, yeah, everything's fine," she nodded, overly-eager to appear that way.
Lester hesitated and then sat down beside her on the large cement block she was perched on. "And how's our mammoth? Danny told me that he needed some extra attention today from you?"
Abby chuckled at Lester's concern for his favourite creature. "He's fine, just thought I might give him a bit of company, is all."
"Ah, I see," he replied, watching her carefully. Then he pulled a bag of something out of his briefcase and handed it to her. "Thought he might like some of these."
"Mammoth Treats" Abby read the bag incredulously. "Dare I ask?"
Lester shrugged, "It's a brand name, but when I saw it online, well, it was hard to resist. All natural ingredients, and they are vegetarian, so I thought he might like them. They're actually made for kangaroos in Australia, go figure."
Abby laughed and tossed a few to the mammoth, who did indeed appear to enjoy them.
"So, what about you?" Lester asked suddenly.
Abby turned to him. "I'm not hungry enough to try them," she teased, though clearly puzzled about what he was asking.
He rolled his eyes at her. "I meant, how are you? You've been shut up here for hours instead of socializing with the rest of the team. I do notice these things, you know."
Abby blushed, embarrassed, but also a bit pleased by his concern for her. "I'm alright," she said, and then found herself surprisingly confessing, "I'm worried that Connor's money will come between us, you know. I feel bad, but I wish he'd never won it."
"Ah," Lester nodded. "I thought it might be something like that. Well, I have some information that may make you change your mind about that wish."
She looked at him, curiously, but kept silent, so he continued. "The man's barely kept a penny for himself, would you believe? He came and saw me about an hour ago and wrote a cheque. Donated half the winnings to ARC research. The other half he used to buy a giant property. Said he's building a dream menagerie for the creatures that get stuck here, something about them needing a place with plants and fresh air. It'll be outside the city, away from prying eyes and he's working with Danny and Becker on ways to disguise it. He's also working with Sarah on building some sort of dream house on the property, something about hiring someone who really needs a job and giving them the best house and job one could think of. To be honest, I think the pair are thinking of pulling someone in off the streets, but I'm gonna have to discuss that with them, can't have some druggie working with my mammoth here, but I'm sure we can find an honest worker that needs the job if we interview enough people."
Abby stared at Lester in disbelief throughout his speech and when it was clear that he was finished, she shook her head. "He, he didn't keep any of it?"
Lester chucked dryly, "He'll kill me for telling you this, but he's kept only enough to, as he put it, pay you next month's rent and buy you something nice so you won't mind putting up with him for longer just when you finally thought you'd gotten rid of him."
Abby just shook her head, both laughing and crying visibly now with relief at the same time and Lester, looking slightly awkward at the sign of her tears, silently patted her back.
Abby paced back and forth in the living room while she waited for Connor to arrive home. Lester had excused her from work early, mostly, she figured, to avoid any more awkward comforting on his part, and she hadn't seen Connor since Lester had told her his plans.
She was a bit nervous about seeing him, oddly enough, because she really wasn't sure how to properly express her gratitude towards him. Gratitude for the fact that he'd spent the money on her creatures, and gratitude that he wasn't leaving her. She's been abandoned so many times before, that she'd never stopped to consider that maybe she wouldn't lose him. Here she was the past few years doing everything in her willpower to not get close to Connor so that it wouldn't hurt when he left her, and suddenly it turns out that he had no intention of leaving her, ever, because if he had, he'd have done it this time for sure.
And if Connor wasn't going to leave her then maybe, she grinned to herself, maybe it'd be okay to loosen up around him, to let herself fall head over heels for him, to let herself trust him.
The way she saw it, she owed him a pretty big thank-you. She'd already cooked his favourite meal, French toast (and she didn't even care that it wasn't breakfast time), but it wasn't really enough, she thought to herself. She just hoped he hurried up and got home.
Connor stood outside the door to the flat, pacing back and forth as he tried to get up the courage to go inside. He thought that Abby would probably be happy he'd given the money to the ARC, especially the menagerie, but it was hard to be a hundred percent certain. After all, he'd had the chance to finally move out from under her nose, and he hadn't taken it. She might be upset with him for just assuming that he could stay. Also there was the fact that she'd been mad at him lately, which was normal, she got in moods like that all the time. She'd said it was because he was too wrapped up with silly things like money, and he hoped that by donating it all, he'd prove to her that he wasn't, but it didn't change the fact that she'd been mad at him and probably even more eager than normal to get him out of the house than when she wasn't in one of her moods.
He knew she'd have heard by now, news always got around the ARC faster than he could say 'flying anomalies', and he also knew that she'd gone home early. Lester had muttered something vague about crying and he was probably in pretty huge trouble if she'd cried when she found out she had to put up with him for longer.
He stared at the door and took a deep breath, his shoulders heaving, as he summoned up all his courage and walked in.
Finally, after what seemed like hours worth of pacing, Abby heard the front door click and a moment later, Connor's sheepish face appeared at the top of the stairs.
It was in that moment that she finally figured out what she wanted to do, and without hesitation she rushed at him, flinging her arms around his neck and kissing him rather passionately.
Connor froze in astonished surprise and she'd already pulled away again before his brain caught up and told him to respond. She hadn't gone far though, she stood a couple feet away, staring at him with a look of pure happiness in her eyes that he'd never seen from her before.
Of course, he'd seen her happy, but there's always been some sort of deep sadness that stubbornly lingered behind it in her eyes and, right at this moment, it was gone, and for that reason he suddenly felt happier than he could ever remember as well.
He stood silently grinning back at her until she started to laugh and playfully punched his shoulder. "Connor, you dork, why didn't you tell me you gave the money away."
"Was kinda a last minute thing, actually. Sarah's idea, sorta, but the menagerie bit, that was mine. I thought you'd like that part."
"Course I did! But what about your dream house, Con?"
"Oh come on, Abs," Connor replied. "What on earth am I gonna do in a great big house like that on my own? Be bored to tears, wouldn't I?"
"Would you? What about all that talk about the giant telly and the game systems and the spa and…"
"Be fun for a day maybe, but it'd get pretty lonely on me own, and it wouldn't never be home. To be honest, Abby, I never was all that into the money, I mostly just wanted to play the lotto so I could prove that I was genius enough to win it. And the dream house stuff, well, that was fun to talk about and plan, but the flat here, now that's my real dream house, ain't it?"
Abby moved to sit down on the sofa, beckoning for Connor to join her. "I was scared, you know," she admitted. "I thought you were going to leave me. Did you mean what you said? About this being your dream house?"
"Course," he whispered, even more in awe at her confession than he was about the fact that she'd most definitely kissed him at the door.
"Would you prefer it here over the mansion, if I'd have agreed to live with you there?"
Connor shrugged, "Yeah, Abs, you were right, you know, all those things you said about big houses and stuff, you were right. But I'd rather live in a big house with you, than here without you too. I just wanna be with you, don't I?"
"Good, 'cuz Con, I just wanna be with you, too."
He hesitated and shuffled a bit uncomfortably before asking, "Abby, do you think we could try that kissing thing again at some point?"
Abby laughed and nodded, "As often as you like, Con. I'm not gonna run from you anymore, not if you're not planning on leaving me."
He grinned, "Never, Abs. I got you a gift, you know, to help make up for the fact that you'd have to put up with me longer. Guess I didn't need to, but I want you to have it anyways." He reached into his pocket and pulled out an unwrapped necklace, letting it dangle from his fingers.
Abby reached out and Connor let the delicate silver chain slowly pour down into her palm, the charm landing last. She turned it over and found it to be in the shape of a dark purple rose. "I heard you tell Sarah once that it was your favourite because it was unique. I was gonna get you a bouquet of them, but thought this would last longer," he explained.
Abby couldn't find the proper words to thank him, so she simply reached up and kissed him again.
"Connor, there is no way you're gonna win twice," Abby laughed as she sat on the sofa beside him a week later, leaning against his side.
"How do you know, Abs? My formula worked once, didn't it? Really, you should have used my numbers for your ticket too."
"I didn't like them! Anyways, Rex's birthdate is bound to be lucky!"
"Only you don't know Rex's birthdate, so your numbers are all wrong, Abs."
"Well the date he came to live with me then, whatever, Con, don't be so technical," she laughed.
"Shhh!" he said suddenly, turning up the telly, "It's on!"