Disclaimer – Don't own it.

Note – This story will be updated at the start of each month.

Celebrating the Connor Way

By E is for Idiot

January 1st

What a New Year!

"What are we looking at here, Connor?" Becker asked, turning a corner with his EMD held towards the ceiling. Searching for the flying thing that had swooped past their heads as soon as they'd gotten to the school.

"Archaeopteryx. Jurassic Period. Flying carnivore. About the size of a magpie with a wingspan of roughly 50cm. Said to be a mix between a bird and a dinosaur."

"Strengths and weaknesses?" Becker asked.

"Scientists think it was a weak flyer, and its diet was mainly insects and small creatures however unlike a bird it had jaws and claws on its wings. The second toe could be stretched more than the rest, a bit like a Raptor's retractable claw." Connor replied as if he was reading out of a textbook.

"Great." Matt said sarcastically "I did not foresee having to spend my New Years Eve chasing a flying raptor wannabe."

"Why? Have other plans do you?" Becker asked, looking back and forth between Matt and Emily, raising his eyebrows suggestively.

"Raptors are from the Cretaceous Period and so came after the Archaeopteryx." Connor mumbled to himself.

"No." Matt hissed, more than slightly embarrassed. Especially now Emily was looking at him, not having understood the double meaning in Becker's words. Suddenly, Matt got an idea. "You're in high spirits today Becker, nothing to do with the mistletoe in the Main Ops room, is it?"

It was hard to tell by the dim light in the closed down school but Matt could've swore he saw the tips of Becker's ears go pink. "No." The soldier said.

"Right. Whatever you say." Becker glared at Matt.

In the end the team managed to herd the three Archaeopteryx back through to the Jurassic era before locking the anomaly.

It was five minutes to midnight.

"If you hurry, you might still have time for you plans." Becker said to Matt as they left the school for the cars. Two soldiers had been left to guard the anomaly.

"Shut up, Action Man." Matt shot back. Becker grimaced at the name. Damn Connor.

"What are your New Year Resolutions then?" Connor asked, successively breaking up a would-be fight, as he climbed into the ARC cars.

"Mine is not to nearly cause the end of the World." Connor said with a guilty look on his face.

"To learn as much as I can about this time and become an independent woman of the 21st century." Emily grinned. Abby started driving back to the ARC.

Four minutes to midnight.

"Becker's is to finally ask Jess out." Matt smirked. Becker glared at him.

"To control his obsession with guns?" Connor asked innocently.

"To stop feeling guilty about things he can't control?" Abby asked.

"To stop being so moody?" Emily smiled at Becker's frowning face.

"To wear less black." Jess' voice came through the comms unit.

"What is it? Pick on Becker Day? I'm not going to tell you now." He paused, then grinned "I think Jess' should be to eat less chocolate."

"Never. Mine is to keep more contact with my family, I haven't spoken with them in about half a year and to get Becker to wear an outfit with nothing black what-so-ever."

"Good luck on that last one, Jess." Matt said, watching the determination of resistance in Becker's eyes. Then again, Jess had him wrapped around her finger.

Three minutes to midnight.

They pulled up at the ARC and went up to the Main Ops room to hand in their black boxes.

"What's your New Year Resolution, Matt?" Connor asked.

"To plant as many trees as possible." Matt said quietly.

"Plant Man to the rescue, eh?" Connor grinned. This time Matt grimaced at the nickname while Becker laughed.

Two minutes to midnight.

They all walked over to the ADD where Jess was closing surveillance over the school and opening a video feed of the countdown. "Were you watching that during the mission?" Matt asked.

"You guys were my priority; this was just in case the mission overran into the New Year. I always watch the countdown."

One minute to midnight.

Connor deviously shouted "Everyone grab someone to kiss for the New Year!" Then quickly ran over to Abby. Matt stood next to Emily. Leaving Becker stood next to a blushing Jess.

5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

"Happy New Year!"

Abby and Connor kissed. Matt and Emily kissed. Becker stood there awkwardly. Jess rolled her eyes at him and stood on her toes to kiss his cheek.

"Happy New Year, Becker." She whispered.

"Happy New Year, Jess." Becker grinned.

There was a beat of silence.

"Abby, we never heard what you resolution was." Emily looked questioningly at Abby.

"Not to be chasing dinosaurs on the next New Years Eve."

January 4th

When will I ever need to know this?

It was a quiet day at the ARC and the main team were sat around in the lounge area, waiting for something to do.

"This is your fault Abby." Connor said teasingly. "You said you didn't want to be chasing round dinosaurs and now look what's happened! We haven't had an anomaly since!"

"It's only been four days Connor." Abby rolled her eyes "And besides I only said I didn't want to chase them on New Years Eve. And maybe my birthday."

"Don't forget Christmas!" Jess chimed.

"I don't think anomalies can be scheduled." Becker drawled.

Everyone lapsed into boredom again.

"Did you know that ants never sleep?" Connor said.

"No." Matt replied, not really interested.

"Ever year, kids in North America spend close to half a billion dollars on chewing gum."

"Fascinating." Becker said sarcastically to the young scientist.

"During your lifetime you eat about 60,000 pounds of food, that's the weight of about 6 elephants."

"You eat about that much for breakfast, Con." Abby said.

"Ernest Vincent Wright wrote a novel with over 50,000 words, none of which containing the letter 'E'."

"So in the About the Author bit he just didn't write his name?" Jess asked. There was no answer to that.

"The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle."

"What are you doing, Connor?" Becker asked.

"Telling you guys facts."

"Yes, but why?"

"It's National Trivia Day."

"But we're never going to need these facts, ever." Becker emphasized the last word.

"Fine, then." Connor screwed up his face in concentration and then started reciting facts, almost off by heart. "Did you know that the name dinosaur comes from the term Dinosauria, which means terrible lizards, the name was coined by the English anatomist Sir Richard Owen in 1842? Around 65 percent of the dinosaurs were herbivores and around 35 percent were carnivores. The names of dinosaurs are made up from words in the Latin and Greek languages, they tell something about the characteristics of that particular dinosaur. The largest dinosaurs were over 100 feet long and up to 50 feet tall. The smallest dinosaurs were about the size of a chicken. Blue whales are bigger than any dinosaur found so far..."

"Yes, okay! You've proven a point. I don't think I need to know anymore dinosaur facts." Becker held his hands up in defeat.

"You know he's going to go home and memorise every fact he can find for next year." Abby smirked.

"I know." Becker sighed.

January 8th

Maybe you could...

"What are you doing, Temple?" Connor had been working away at his computer quietly and it was starting to unnerve Becker.

"Stuff."

"What kind of stuff? I thought your resolution was not to cause the end of the World."

"Ha. Ha. Ha. Very funny." Connor glanced up at Becker before looking back at his screen "I was looking up National Holidays."

"And?" Becker asked, hoping he wasn't going to get a repeat of National Trivia Day.

"Happy Bubble Bath Day!"

"Bubble Bath Day?"

"Yep."

"Why the hell is that a holiday?" Connor shrugged.

"Dunno. Maybe you could use it as a chat up line for Jess, you know, 'Hey Jess, I heard it was National Bubble Bath Day, care to join me? We wouldn't want to ruin tradition.' Ow!" Becker had slammed the top of Connor's laptop onto where his fingers had been resting on the keyboard and then stormed out.

With sore fingers Connor grabbed his phone out of his pocket and dialled. "Abby? Care to honour tradition with me?"

January 20th

Say CHEESE!

Connor was skateboarding through the ARC again, this time with a camcorder in his hands. He had arrived at the menagerie; Abby was standing with her back to him, filling out some papers.

"And this is my sexy fiancé, Abby, we're getting married in April!" Abby smiled when she heard Connor say that and then frowned when she realised that he was filming her.

"Connor, put that away!"

"Hopefully she won't say that on the wedding night." Connor smirked and then skated off before Abby could throw something at him.

"And down here are the training rooms where I'm sure Becker is killing his men." A laugh echoed from behind Connor. It was Mark Roberts, one of Connor's favourite soldiers, he wanted Jess and Becker to get together as much as Connor himself.

"No, I think the Captain's up in the Main Ops room with some chocolate." The soldier smirked.

Connor laughed "But Captain Becker doesn't usually eat chocolate, I wonder what's wrong?" Connor said in a voice that was clear he knew exactly what Becker was doing. "I better go check on him!" As Connor zoomed off, Mark thwacked him on the shoulder for encouragement.

"Don't get yourself killed!" Mark called.

Connor rolled his shoulder. The soldiers clearly didn't realise just how strong they were.

On his way to the Ops room Connor heard a giggle. It was coming from an empty office in the hallway. He decided to go and investigate.

Emily had her hands on one of those fake steering wheel, the kind of one's children had to play with in the car, and Matt was standing behind her with his arms wrapped round her, hands on hers, guiding her.

"Turn right. What do you do?"

"Turn the wheel to the right." Matt laughed at the tone of her voice.

"Indicate."

"But this is a toy wheel, I can't indicate on this!"

"Pretend."

"Fine."

"They're sickeningly sweet, aren't they?" Connor spoke to the camcorder.

Two sets of eyes turned on Connor. Matt strode forward without a word and slammed the door on Connor's face.

"Hope your driving lesson goes well!" Connor called through the door. He set off laughing and was one turn away from the Ops room when he nearly ran down Lester.

"Oh! Sorry, boss." He went to carry on but Lester stopped him.

"What do you think you're doing with that recording equipment?"

"Recording?" Connor asked in a quiet voice.

"Not anymore." Lester held out his hand for the camcorder.

"But it's National Camcorder Day!" Connor whined.

"I don't care."

"Fine." Connor handed the stuff over and went to skateboard off.

"And no skateboarding in the halls!" Lester called as Connor ignored him and skated to the Main Ops room.

He would get Lester back for this.

January 21st

Revenge is a dish best served cold

Connor had gone round asking everyone to help him for his revenge on Lester. Jess got all the techs and scientists to agree, Emily agreed, Abby and some of the menagerie crew agreed, Matt and Becker refused but Connor persuaded Mark and four other soldiers to help. Even some of the kitchen crew agreed. Now was the time to start Operation H.

At 8:30 Lester strolled in. Jess immediately walked up to him and hugged him. Lester was shocked; Jess of all people knew he didn't like people in his personal space. So he was a little surprised that after Jess Lucy, one of the techs came up and hugged him. Followed by Corey, Aaron and Jamie. What the hell was going on?

At 10:00 there was a knock on Lester's office door, there was a group of scientists stood there. Eight of them to be exact. Lester started panicking. What had Connor blown up now? But no, no news of the World ending, no explosions, not even a broken test tube. They had all calmly walked up to him and hugged him. Each and every one.

Then at 1:00 Lester had gone for his lunch. Only to be hugged by every person serving lunch and even some of the chefs. Lester was getting irritated. What was with his staff? Why were they all hugging him? Did they not know his rules of personal space? Lester was not happy; he went searching for Connor, as he was probably the root of all this trouble. He usually was. Lester stormed off to the labs, he was even angrier because his suit was creased because so many damn people had hugged him today. Connor wasn't in the labs, he went to the menagerie to ask Abby but ended up getting hugged by every person working there, even Rex had snuggled his shoulder.

And then used the back of his suit a toilet.

He marched back to the Main Ops room, intent on finding Jess to ask her to track down Temple. On his way he passed Emily. Who had hugged him. When he got to the ADD there were five soldiers there.

"Roberts, Richardson, Thorpe, Jones, Moran. What are you all doing here?" They didn't reply but one by one walked up and hugged him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Becker and Anderson making their way over.

"No!" he shouted, red in the face, hair out of place, suit creased. "No more bloody hugging!"

Just then Temple ran up to him, gave him a hug and quickly retreated.

"Happy National Hugging Day!" the boy cheered.

He was going to kill Temple.

January 24th

Um... Thanks?

(1)

"You look nice today, Jess."

"Um... thanks Connor?"

"No problem.

(2)

"I like your top, Emily, it suits you."

"Um... thanks Connor? Jess took me shopping yesterday."

"No problem."

(3)

"You look stunning, Abs."

"Um... thanks Con? But you saw me this morning."

"No problem. You still look lovely."

(4)

"Is that a new tie Lester? It looks expensive."

"Um... thanks Temple? My wife got it me."

"No problem"

(5)

"Is this a new type of plant?"

"Yes."

"Wow, you're very clever, Matt."

"Um... thanks Connor?"

"No problem."

(6)

"You're very brave."

"Pardon?"

"You're very brave, Becker. I trust you with my life."

"Um... thanks Temple? I think."

"No problem."

(7)

"Okay Temple, what's going on?" The team and Lester stood around him.

"Nothing."

"Why are you complimenting everyone?"

"It's National Compliment Day!"

"I should've known. I think Temple's New Year resolution is to be as annoying as possible."

"Hey!"

January 28th

CONNOR!

"Hey guys! Happy Fun at Work Day!"

"Fun at work? Is that possible?" Matt asked.

"It is today! We're celebrating!" Connor cheered.

"No you're not." Lester said as he walked passed.

"But..."

"No. This is revenge for that hugging spree you arranged." Lester stormed off into his office.

"Uh-oh."

"What do you mean 'uh-oh'?" Becker asked.

"Well, I kinda thought he'd say yes so I've already set it up."

"Set what up?" Jess asked, not sure if she really wanted to hear the answer to this.

"You'll see." Connor gulped.

Ten seconds later a massive bang! went off in Lester's office, Lester was sat there being showered in bits of colourful confetti because one those giant tubes of the stuff had been rigged to explode when he logged on to his computer. Lester calmly stood up, he had bits of confetti stuck everywhere, hefaced the ADD where Connor stood, clearly visible through the glass walls and shouted:

"CONNOR!"

"Bye, guys!" Connor made a mad dash for the exit.

Hoped you like it, I'll update Celebrating the Connor Way again with February's holidays at the start of Feb.