Abby thinks back to her lost leader, lover, friend, and protector.
Trigger Warning: Talk of character death.

Abby glanced over at the snapshot of the original team: Cutter, his hand on Stephen's shoulder, herself hanging off the lab technician's back, his own arm slung over Connor's shoulder. Connor was beaming at the camera next to Jenny who was wearing her usual PR smile as she stood in between the student and Lester, who was glaring at the camera as Captain Ryan rested his arm on his shoulder without a care in the world. She felt tears sting her eyes as she remembered that Leek, the traitor, had taken the picture, and recalled the people that she had lost from her team and some of the memories she shared with them.

"Abby, are you ever going to ask the poor boy out?" Cutter chuckled as she helped him assemble the model that he was working on to detect the locations and times of the anomalies.

Abby blushed, surprised that the professor had been so blunt. "Well, I'm giving him a chance to make the first step," she told him.

Cutter laughed. "I'm sure you are. You realize if you wait for the poor boy to make the first move, you'll be waiting for a lifetime."

"It's awkward, Nick. He's my flatmate. If it didn't work it…it would be different not having him around. Besides, he's also my coworker I'm pretty sure that Lester has something in his Great Big Book of Rules about interoffice relationships."

Cutter only smiled over at her. "And when do you ever listen to Lester's rules?"

"About as often as you do," she grinned, handing him another ribbon to tie off an anomaly point.

Abby wiped away her tears as she remembered the brilliant and loving professor. He looked out for his team above anything thing else and was the closest thing to a father that she had. She remembered the feeling of her heart dropping into her stomach when she saw Connor caring his body out of the burning ARC and felt the same pain again. She tore her eyes away from the professor to instead focus on the man next to him.

"I still owe you a cup of tea," Stephen smiled, leaning against the lab table that she was working at. He started to flip through one of files, but set them back down hesitantly after noticing her glare.

She set her dosage records to the side and gave him her full attention. "What are you going on about?"

"When I was dying, I asked you out for a cup of tea. We've never gotten it."

"We really don't have to," Abby told him, the slightest of blushes warming her cheeks.

"But what if I want to," he insisted with his signature grin. "Say tonight?"

"Alright," Abby grinned, turning her attention back to her files. "I'll see you tonight then. Seven?"

"Perfect." He leaned over and placed a soft kiss on her cheek before going off to find Cutter.

Abby smiled through her tears, remembering the shock on Stephen's face that night when he saw her in her sweater and skirt. He had blinked a couple of times before telling her how she could definitely do the girl thing before taking her hand and leading her out to the car. The relationship had lasted for a bit, it was fun and reminded her of her teenage years, but eventually work and the fact that Stephen wanted her to stay out of the field got in the way. Still, looking back at it she wouldn't have changed any part of the relationship.

"Jenny, Sarah and I are going out for drinks, want to come?" Abby asked peeping her head into the PR agent's door.

"No, I think I'll jest finish up here and then get home." Jenny waved her off as she finished a text message to a CEO about a bit of damage control.

"Come on Jen, have a bit of fun," Abby told her, entering the office. She nudged her shoulder into the other girl with a smirk. "You deserve it."

"Yeah?"

"Definitely, you keep all of this, the ARC, the anomalies, and the creatures a secret, if anybody deserves a strong drink it's you. Not to mention you deal with the lot of us on a daily bases," she added as an after thought.

"Alright," Jenny nodded after a moment. She grabbed her purse and looped her arm through Abby's. "It's been awhile since we've had a girl's night out."

Abby found herself laughing as she remembered the sight of Jenny Lewis a few shots later. She'd shed the jacket of her suit, let down her hair and was dancing with herself and Sarah as they sang as loud as they could. At first, a few people stared but none of them cared. They were having fun, and that was all that mattered. They rarely had moments like in their line of work.

"Captain!" Abby yelled as Tom Ryan lifted her up and spun her around. "Put me down!"

"Aw, come on Abs, I was gone for a week. Didn't you miss me?" Tom laughed setting the small woman down on her feet.

"It was kind of hard to. You called the ARC every hour on the hour to make sure that nothing happened and all of us were alive." She laughed, giving him a playful slap on the arm.

"Well, I had to make sure that my team was safe without me."

"The safety of this team is in the hands of a big ol' softy," Abby laughed. "Yeah though, we did miss you. Good to have you back Tom," she smiled hugging the man. "Say have you said hi to Connor yet?" she asked a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

"I'm barely back an hour and you're already thinking up ways to prank the poor boy," Tom laughed. "Well, what's the plan then?" he grinned, rubbing his hands together excitedly after a moment.

Abby chuckled remember how Connor had refused to talk to either of them for the rest of the day. They'd stuck with something easy and juvenile, the old bucket of water over the door and of course, Connor had fallen for it. Lester had refused to let the young man go home to change and wouldn't let him get a change of clothes out of the storage closet saying that he should have known that if both Abby and Tom were telling him to go through a certain door, then he shouldn't have realized something was up.

Abby took one last look at the photograph before placing it back on her desk. Sure, those people were gone, but as long as they were remembered they would live on through the memories their friends and families held of them.

Let me know what you think about this one. It got a little bit of a clean up, especially the flash backs.

- Maman Abeille