The fact that there had been no anomaly call-ins since Friday was the only saving grace the past weekend had had, Abby grumpily reflected to herself. It had rained every day, and it wasn't even a fun sort of rain, like a thunderstorm. It was just wet, windy, dreary and miserable. The days were grey and cloudy and dark.

If Connor had been around they could have watched a movie or two or three. They could have made popcorn and tea. They could have had a candlelight dinner and danced, they could have… Well, there was no use dwelling on what could have been, she scolded herself. And besides, she could have watched a movie on her own. In fact she had, but it wasn't the same without him.

She had seen Connor over the weekend, briefly, for a few moments here and there. He was always busy these days with projects from Phillip and she wondered sometimes if he even remembered she existed. She could only hope that this was a brief stage in their lives, a phase that they would look back upon and remember, happy it was over, but she feared that maybe it wasn't so temporarily and she wasn't sure how much longer she could handle living with a boyfriend she never saw.

And now it was Monday. Abby trudged into ARC, her thoughts werre gloomy but she was relieved to be back to work. At least at work she could surround herself with company and distractions. The first of those distractions was the anomaly alert she could hear blaring even as she entered the building. She hastily dropped her purse and keys into her locker and picked up her pace to an almost-sprint as she headed to the ADD. She didn't full out sprint because she didn't want Lester yelling at her to stop running in the corridors. The rest of the team was already there, looking at the co-ordinates on the screen in front of them. All except Connor that was. Lately he'd even been ignoring the anomaly alerts he was so busy with Philip. He said that Philip wanted the others to handle them while he did "bigger and more important things."

"Where is it?" Abby asked, as she peeked over Becker's shoulder at the screen.

"Aberdeen," Jess replied, the surprise in her voice clearly evident.

"Scotland?!"

"Yes, Abby," Becker responded, sarcastically teasing her. "That is where Aberdeen is."

Abby rolled her eyes at him. "Well, alright, I guess we're going on a looong car ride then."

"Actually," Matt spoke up, "Emily and I need to work on finding Ethan. Right now that is of utmost importance."

"That's fine," Abby smiled, "Becker and I can handle it, can't we, Becker?"

Becker shook his head. "Sorry, Abs. You know all the ARC staff needs to be military trained now, except those of you who were grandfathered in, and… well, let's just say with the influx of anomalies lately, we haven't completed our mandatory annual training update review stuff. It's due today and we could lose a lot of funding if we don't finish."

Abby frowned, "Well I know Connor's out, so what? I'm on my own?"

"I'd spare a couple of soldiers, but they all need to be retrained…"

"Seriously? You expect me to drive out to Aberdeen on my own, haul up the equipment and deal with who-knows-what could come through and the closest back-up is nine hours away? You at least gotta give me Jess."

Becker instinctively and immediately stepped in front of her chair. "Jess is not properly trained to be out in the field."

"No but she can keep me company and keep a lookout."

"I can keep a lookout better from here," Jess pointed out, gesturing to the ADD.

"Fine!" Abby threw her hands into the air, not sure if she was more angry or frustrated. "Fine, I'm going. Toss me an EMD will you? If I'm not back in three days maybe one of you can send Connor to find me, yeah?"

"Relax, Abs," Matt said. "We're not going to send you off on your own."

"Where the bloody hell is my bag?" James Lester thundered as he loaded the EMD Power Pack into the boot of an ARC SUV. "I am not going on this road trip without my bag!"

"Relax," Jess giggled. "The back seat lifts up for storage and I put it in there already."

"Relax?!" Lester turned to her incredulously. "Jess, do you have any idea how this creature-hunting thing works? Should I sleep at the wheel? Or wait until we find the creature and then just let it eat me? Trust me, relaxing is not a part of our job descriptions here."

"As far as we can tell, there hasn't even been a creature incursion," Jess pointed out.

"Well we've got another nine hours of driving time for one to come through before we arrive. Why aren't we flying again?"

"Because Scottish officials are unsure what the anomaly is and suspect some form of terrorism. They have closed all air-travel in and out."

"We know that's ridiculous," Lester pointed out.

"Yes we do, but they don't and unless you want to tell them truth, we aren't flying in. And if we do tell them the truth, we're still not flying in, but we may become the laughing stock of the Scottish Daily. So we're driving."

"We?"

"You and Abby," Jess allowed the correction. "I'm staying here."

Lester sighed and took the driver's seat and Abby climbed in beside him.

"So," Connor asked nervously as he looked up from his project to glance at the rest of the team. "How mad do you think Lester and Abby are going to be when they find out we faked the anomaly?"

Stay Tuned for More.