S3, post the fungus creature episode. connor hasn't told abby exactly what happened that day, he edited him nearly freezing to death right out of it. abby has the idea for some team bonding - dinner out!

Abby closed her lab behind her, listening to the hiss as the door shut all the way while she walked down the corridor towards the main ops room. The large double doors at the end of the hall swung open when she pushed, and she smiled as she entered. Connor was poking at the artefact again, Sarah was there too, as usual, both suggesting ideas and trying them out. Abby's grin faded a little. The ARC was, in a way, quieter, with the death of Cutter, and Jenny's resignation.

Suddenly Danny dashed through, laughing about something, and exited through the same doors she'd just let swing behind her. A few moments later, Captain Becker followed, clearly annoyed about something. Abby chuckled. Then again, the ARC was rarely quiet, with Danny around. Her thoughts wandered.

Her old lab had been compeltely cleaned by a biohazard team, but she'd been uncomfortable with the idea of working in there, and Lester had given her one of the spare labs. She'd spent most of the day setting it up, since there hadn't been any anomaly calls. Connor, she knew, had been fussing with the ADD again that day, something about upgrades to make sure it caught the anomalies the exact nanosecond they opened. Sarah had suggested somethign to do with the artefact, now that she'd cleaned it up. Instead of it lyign on the table in Sarah's lab, it was now in something Connor had thrown together, a sort of base for it. Abby had only noticed since she'd been in and out of her own lab multiple times, and Connor's made sure to clue her in.

Danny was making it his 'thing' to check the security, and he and Becker had turned it into a sort of game - Danny finding all the cracks in security, and trying to 'break in', and Becker doing his best to catch him. Then they would go over it all and find out how to tighten the security system up. Abby knew that, because one of the ways in had been through the ventillation system. Danny showing up in her lab out of the blue, followed by Becker enterign through the door like a normal person, had spurred the two men to explain it to her, lest she kickbox them to kingdom come.

Connor looked up and saw her, and waved cheerily, setting down the tool in his hand and bouncing over. For the most part, her former flatmate was at least outwardly the same naive, childish boy as ever. But she knew that beneath the playful grin and his general cheer was a much less naive man. Cutter's death had hit him hard. She'd heard him mumbling, "not again", when they'd thought they'd lost Jenny. He was a little broken inside, and as much as he was less unflinchingly cheerful, Abby wasn't at all sure she liked the changes. It was all Helen's fault. Abby pushed the thoughts away and smiled at him, meeting him halfway.

"Hey, Abbs! How's the lab comin' along?" He asked her. Connor was easy to read, his expressions and his eyes giving away whatever he was feeling or thinking nearly all the time - he was worried about something. There was a tiny crese between his eyes and he was biting his lip.

"I'm basically done, for today at least." She told him, shrugging a little.

"Were you able to get more seedlings of those plants that were in your old lab?" That! He was worried she was upset at him over the loss of the plants? He looked at the floor and then back at her.

"Conn, you're not still worried over that? I said it wasn't your fault that the fungus and the cold killed the plants off."

"I guess..." She swatted at his arm, smirking a little. "It's fine, Connor, really. I've got a few of them, and I'll be able to contact the people I got them from to replace the rest soon enough. After all, I did tell you to take the sample in there, and then Christine's idiot really ruined everything."

Connro nodded, much happier now. It was true. He didn't want to talk any more about the other day, though - he'd nearly died, and then Jenny really had, and then right after they'd managed to bring her back, Jenny had quit. Wasn't his favorite day on the job. He hadn't told Abby exactly what had happened with her lab - he'd edited it. With Jenny dying for a whole minute, his near death experience seemed nothing in comparison. It wasn't worth mentioning.

"Alright, alrigh', just don't hit me again, yeah?"

"I can't make any promises." She told him mildly, grinning. He chuckled in response. "Anyway, I wanted to see if you and Sarah, and Becker and Danny, wanted to go out for dinner? I mean, we can't really talk about work at all, but it should still be fun." Abby suggested, tilting her head slightly. "Since it's almost the end of the day and there isn't much reason to hang around here."

"Erm, it's fine by me!" Connor planned on getting there as early as possible so he could make sure he got a seat next to Abby. They'd gone out as a team once in a while, in the past, but not often, and not at all since Cutter's death. He hope Abby would pick a different place to eat. They usually went to the pub, but he had a feeling that Abby wanted them to actually sit down and eat dinner around a table. He was looking forwards to it - mostly because he wasn't used to not living with Abby.

It was weird, living at Lester's place. He'd lived in Abby's flat - their flat, as they'd moved to a different one and he was paying an equal amount of the rent now, or was until he'd made room for Jack - for the last 3 years of his life. Sarah was eager enough - and Connor would bet she wanted to sit next to Captain Becker... or maybe Danny? Connor wasn't compeltely sure. The other two members of their team had agreed. Connor was practically bouncing with excitement for the next hour after Abby retreated to the break room, and Connor and Sarah had gone back to trying to figure out the artefact.

TBC in part 2

AN: I have a question for readers, actually... should I use the trope of an anomaly interrupting dinner? Or just see where this takes them? hmmmm I'm quite torn between the two, and I'd be afraid of the anomaly being an easy way out.