Finally, I've gotten around to writing this. Thanks for all the support and hopefully I'll be better at updating from now on.

**

Your name can be said in many ways during your lifetime. In can be cried out in joy or screamed in despair. It can be used to ask a question or to answer another. It can be said by a friend, a relative, an enemy, a lover, or a long lost acquaintance who has just found you again. But today, Abby's name was mumbled by a sleeping Connor, and it barely registered against his loud snores.

He'd been asleep for two days now. As a result of his injuries he'd gone into shock, and that could make you sleep, a lot. But being Connor, he seemed to sleep rather more than the average shock victim. Abby had prepared herself for this when she decided to sit by his side until he woke up; curling up in a musty old armchair and watching him sleep to pass the time away.

She had no idea what had compelled her to sit here, with her head on her knees and her arms wrapped around her legs just watching him sleep, but she knew she couldn't leave. He'd mumbled her name three times now, and that was just in the last few hours, so that had to mean he would wake up soon. Right?

After another hour of mumbles and snores, Abby decided this was in fact wrong and that Connor would probably sleep a lot longer yet. Idiot. Not waking up when she was clearly sitting there waiting for him. Wait; why the hell was she waiting for him and why was she annoyed he was asleep? He was just a friend and he was always sleeping. But then things had been happening recently, and they were closer than just friends now, weren't they? If this was Sarah or Danny, she'd have popped her head in the door to see how they were getting on and then leave again. Why was Connor so god damn different?

She was rescued from her musings by Sarah in the doorway of Connors hospital room. She had said something to Abby, but it sounded far away and unclear.

"What?"

"…Anomaly alert, you coming?"

"Wh- oh yeah, 'course."

She took one last look at Connor before following Sarah out of the hospital wing of the ARC. She barely registered getting packed up to leave or even driving to the anomaly site. The city passed in a blur of green and grey as Abby rested her forehead against the window of the van, her mind still in the hospital room, watching Connor sleep. Being out on an anomaly mission without him would be weird, too weird to fathom. He was always there to mess things up, and possibly even shoot her in the leg. Abby smiled to herself, she and Connor were the only two left who knew about that, the rest of the old team and gone, in one way or another. But that didn't mean he got to forget about it.

Suddenly the car lurched to a stop outside of a cinema. Groups of worried looking people were slowly gathering outside as the cinema employees did there best to hold them back. Abby watched as Sarah approached an official looking man standing outside the main cinema doors on his own.

"Hi…err…" she very subtly checked his name tag before continuing, "Clive. We're from animal control. What seems to be the problem?"

"Aren't the guns and armour a little heavy for animal control?" He had a broad Yorkshire accent and seemed quite dim. Abby sniggered before tuning back into the conversation.

"…just a precaution. We see some pretty big animals now and again. So if you could just tell me what happened?"

"Yes, of course, well this strange light appeared in screen four and then all these….rodent like things appeared. And as manager of this facility I told everyone to get out. There are hundreds of those things running around now!"

"Hundreds?"

"Well, maybe I've exaggerated a little, but they've moved beyond screen four now though."

"Thank you for your help Clive"

Sarah turned to the group and motioned for them to follow her in. she quietly turned to Danny and said "now wasn't that better than going in all guns blazing?" He just grunted in response before leading the group into the cinema.

Screen four wasn't hard to find from the main entrance and the group silently entered. The anomaly was flickering peacefully at the very back on the cinema screen and it lit up the whole room magnificently as the film continued to play. It was Ice Age 3. Abby smiled as she remembered how annoyed Connor had gotten that the dinosaurs we're still alive in the film, when really they shouldn't be at all. It had taken her all afternoon to remind him it was just a kid's movie and that it didn't have to follow any actual time frames.

She was pulled from her thoughts by a cry. She wheeled around the see Becker, arms wide, holding a rodent in one hand and his other shaking madly.

"The little fu…"

"Language, Becker!"

"…er bit me!"

"Let's hope they're not poisonous then. Sarah, you lock the anomaly. The rest of us'll round these things up. You alight there Abby?"

"Oh, err, yeah Danny. Fine."

"Good, start looking for rodents then"

When Clive the manger had said that there were hundreds of rodents he had indeed been exaggerating. After three hours of searching they had found ten, and no sign anymore had escaped by burrowing through any walls. The bite on Becker's hand and swollen up and turned a horrible purple colour and he kept vowing "from now on, I'm wearing gloves" along with the odd "why oh why did I ever take this job" thrown into the mix for good measure.

They slowly packed up leaving a few of Becker's men behind to watch over the anomaly, and headed back to the ARC. Abby tried her hardest not to race back to Connor's room, knowing he'd still be asleep, and instead decided to comb through his creature archive to find out if Becker was suffering from a poisonous bite.

With no clue where to start she soon got lost. Kicking the door frame in frustration, she left Connor's office to visit him in the medical bay. Praying that maybe he was finally awake and could tell her what the creature was. Danny had taken a picture of the one that bit Becker to stick up on the wall in an attempt to mock him. Stupid alpha males, Abby thought to herself, always trying to be bigger and better than each other.

As she turned into Connors room a wide smile spread across her face. He was sitting up in bed, reading a Doctor Who magazine, with half a bacon sandwich hanging out of his mouth. He turned slowly to see Abby, smiling back.

"hmm ahhs, wumph uhh"

"Con, you need to take the sandwich out first."