Connor was the first one to react to the situation, he stifled out a "oh, that's good," then he shuffled away from the group.
Abby wanted so desperately to follow after him, to try and comfort that disheartened look on his face.
"Well, appears we're not the only one who had an eventful night." Cutter laughed, looking over at Jenny.
Jenny gave him a cross look, advising him to shut-up if he wanted to live. She then walked away in a huff, her heels clicking behind her every step.
Cutter shrugged his shoulders and chuckled once more before chasing after her to apologize.
In a second, Abby drew her fist back and punched Stephen in the arm. "Why on earth did you do that?"
"What?" Stephen defended, rubbing the spot Abby had punched. She was tough for being so small.
"That!" She motioned with her hands around the area where the entire team had been standing only minutes ago. "Why would you do that? And in front of Connor?"
"Connor? Abby do you like Connor?" Stephen raised an eyebrow at her, "If so, you really-"
"Shut-up! You know Connor is-" Abby trailed off looking for a word.
"Sensitive?" Stephen offered.
"Yes!" Abby hissed, "That was completely unfair to him."
"Abby," Stephen took a step closer to her, so now he was standing in front of her. "He is fine. Remember Caroline?"
Sadly, yes, she did. Abby hated the woman with a passion. How Connor could even associate with her was beyond Abby's comprehension.
"Yeah." Abby admitted.
Stephen held back his comment for a minute, allowing Abby to fully remember the situation.
"Abby. . . do you still fancy me?"
Abby's mouth opened and closed, unable to come up with a response. Yeah, of course she still fancied him.
Finally she nodded.
"Wonderful. I'm bored with being single." Stephen made it all sound so easy.
Or was she just making it complicated. She didn't have a boyfriend, well now she does. Kind of.
"If this is some stupid joke Stephen, I'll kick you into the next open anomaly. I'll do it without a second thought too." Abby warned playfully.
"Well I consider myself warned." Stephen smiled down at her.
0O0o0o0o0o0
Awkward wasn't really the word Abby would use for being in a relationship with Stephen. It was. . . different. They saw each other everyday. Nothing had changed much in their relationship except...well the additional kissing and whatnot. Abby rather enjoyed that part to be honest. Stephen was fairly good at make her swoon.
The one downer to this relationship is that Connor had been cross with her ever since it started. Ever since the day Stephen announced them a couple, Connor and Abby's friendship has lost its 'carefree' essence. He spent much more time with that awful Caroline, irritating Abby when he would bring her over to the flat. Seems like every time that witch came around, Abby and Connor would argue. After each argument, Abby would leave the flat in a flight of fury and go straight to Stephen's. Where she would proceed to cry as he comforted her in his own way.
"Don't you ever get mad that I come over here to cry over Connor?" Abby asked, leaning her head against Stephen's chest.
They hadn't even made it out of the doorway, this time.
Stephen rubbed her back in a loving way, guiding her into his flat, so he could finally shut the door.
"No, he is your best mate. Its natural to be sad when you and your best mate fight." She could hear a smile in Stephen's tone, making her mind ease.
"Its that stupid Caroline! I hate her! I know it was her that locked Rex in the fridge! She is so-sooo-Horrid!" Abby's tone was still frustrated.
"Shh, love, this is Connor's choice." Stephen reminded her.
Abby's mind stewed on that for a bit. True it was. But that didn't mean she had to just let it happen! Caroline was awful! How Connor could-Abby would never know and she was frankly tired of thinking about it. She was here with her boyfriend.
"Thank you for understanding."Abby finally sighed, hugging Stephen back.
Stephen opted to stay quiet, instead of responding.
0O0o0o0o0o0
"Stayed with Stephen again did you?" Connor asked upon Abby's entering the main lab of the ARC the next morning.
"Yeah, I stayed with my boyfriend. I suppose your girlfriend stayed over as well." Abby tossed her jacket onto her desk.
She was starting to grow extremely grateful for her stash of clothes over at Stephen's. Since Connor was bringing Caroline over almost everyday, Abby had been hiding out over at Stephen's a lot. It wasn't her usual behavior, but her life wasn't the way it used to be.
A bonus was how good a a cook Stephen was, she was even putting on weight from eating so much.
In fact, of late, she had been getting irritated very easily.
"No, she didn't." Connor defended, "We're not so young and rash with our relationship that we need to have constant physical contact."
Abby drew in a breath, "More like she won't let you!" She snapped back.
Connor narrowed his eyes at Abby, "That's really mature, Abby."
"Would you two quit arguing like old hens!" Cutter broke into their argument.
Both Abby and Connor silenced their argument, turning of their heels to make sure their back was to the other.
"Abby, where is Stephen?" Cutter asked.
"He said he be in late. Some sort of meeting with a mate." Abby's tone was sour.
"Doesn't even know what her own boyfriend is up too." Connor scoffed.
"Yeah, well, Caroline doesn't either does she?" Abby bit back.
"That's it!" Cutter's voice over-powered them, "If you two don't stop this bloody arguing, I'm going to lock you in a room until you get over whatever it is!"
"Connor is still dating the devil-STILL!" Abby retorted.
"Yeah, well at least I don't skip out on missions for fake doctor's appointments when I really want to go off and have sex with me boyfriend!" Connor spun around to face Abby once more.
"Connor! That was only two times and I did go to the doctor! The first time there was no anomaly or anything!" Abby spun around to face him as well, heated glares radiating between them. "You have no idea what you are talking about! So just shut-up! "
"Both of you shut-up! Look at you! Used to be the best of mates you did!" Cutter interjected, throwing a bucket of water on their argument.
Abby's mind clicked off the rest of the lecture, focusing all her attention on keeping the vomit rising in her throat down. She did her best to suppress her gagging, as she slowly turned to run for the locker room.
"Connor, you had better cool your jets before-Abby?" Cutter noticed Abby abandon his speech and run for the double door entrance. "Abby?"
Stephen was coming in just as she shoved on of the doors open, with her hand still clamped firmly over her mouth.
At first, he tossed a questioning look over to Cutter and Connor. Cutter's expression was confusion, while Connor looked worried and mad at the same time.
"Abby?" He backed out the door to chase Abby down the hall.
"Happy now Connor?" Cutter's voice tore Connor's stare away from the door.
"I didn't do that to her!" He defended himself.
"No, but you are acting like a complete fool!" Connor was taken back at Cutter's accusation, "Why is it that you keep shoving Abby away?"
"Me? She is the one acting like a bloody lunatic, always making snide comments to me girlfriend."
"Well, after everything that has happened I can't blame her. You're lucky she hasn't kicked you out for being such a pain." That was Cutter's last statement before heading back to his own office.
0O0o0o0o0o0
"Are you sure you're okay?" Stephen asked as he and Abby walked back out of the locker room.
"Yeah, just a bad bout with some food poisoning." Abby smiled, now she had another thing to be grateful for. Having a toothbrush and toothpaste in her locker!
"Awful stuff." Stephen said with a smile of his own, throwing his arm around Abby.
"Yeah." Abby agreed as they were once more entering the ARC's main lab.
"Come on you two!" Cutter urged, brushing past them, with Connor right on his heels. "We've got an anomaly!"
"Where?" Stephen asked as both he and Abby turned on their heels to follow after Cutter and Connor.
"That seems to be the problem. We don't know. All we know is that we've got a missing boy on our hands." Cutter explained.
"Well, that's extremely unhelpful." Stephen added.
The trip to the site was uneventful and quiet. Stephen and Cutter did fill in the silence with banter about what could be happening. Being at the site was just about as uneventful; though Stephen did make Abby's time pass a little bit faster. When they caught a break, he would come over and strike up a very entertaining conversation with her that usual ended up with them kissing.
By nightfall, when they could really start searching, they'd found out a few things. It was a water creature and it was in the canal. Much to Abby's dismay, she was sent off with Connor and Jenny, while Stephen and Cutter went in their own boat. It would be soon after that, that Jenny fell into the water and almost got eaten by one of the creatures. Lucky, for her Stephen and Cutter came up in time to save her.
"Good job Stephen!" Abby yelled.
After all, he'd shot the beast before it had a chance to get to Jenny.
"You okay?" Stephen called over into the other boat to Abby.
"Yeah, yeah, is Jenny?" Abby was trying to calm her heart down, after all, she thought she was going to have to watch her teammate get eaten.
"I'm fine." Jenny panted out.
"Get the body back to the ARC ASAP." Stephen said into his walkies-talkie, before jumping over to Abby and Connor's boat.
Instantly, he engulfed Abby in a hug. "I was so worried about you."
"I'm fine, honestly, I mean, poor Jenny." Abby hugged him back briefly.
Once they got back to the ARC, Connor high-tailed it back to the flat, while Cutter, Stephen, and Abby all stayed to study the 'shark'. All they gained from this experience was that this might be the future evolution of the shark and that it didn't have the boy.
"Are you coming over tonight?" Stephen asked as they watched a team of professionals depose of the shark's body.
"No, I'm going to head back to my place for a nice long shower. I feel horridly gross after just watching that." Abby shuddered in disgust.
"Well, okay, we're dragging the canal again in the morning, so I'll see you then." He kissed her gently.
"Yeah, then." Abby smiled.
0O0o0o0o0o0
Abby's morning could have gone better. She woke-up with the feeling of needing to vomit, rushed to the bathroom and was in so much of a hurry she forgot to close the door. So when Connor walked by and saw her convulsing over the toilet, he of course had to stop and watch. He started pestering her with all sorts of stupid questions about 'anorexia' and 'self-image'. Finally she had to snap at him to go away, that he had no clue what he was talking about.
Finally, once the nausea went away, she removed herself from the floor and managed to brush her teeth. Her mind was swirling so fast she couldn't pick a thought to stick with. Maybe she was coming down the flu. That would make sense. The doctor she had seen was stupid to suggest she might be-no. Couldn't happen. Well it could, but it didn't. No way. She was far too irregular for that to happen.
After an hour's time, she and Connor were finally ready to leave. The entire time he talked about how he would never pressure Caroline into feeling she wasn't good enough. And other things Abby didn't care to listen to.
Once they arrived at the canal, she was forced to go with Cutter and Connor. This in addition to the headache she felt coming on, were the toppers on her morning.
She and Connor stuck up their usual bickering, while out on the boat. Cutter got irritated once more, and told them to shut-up again.
Abby put a lock down on her temper. No use getting mad at them if she was going to be stuck on a boat with them for hours.
"Somethings going on, we're being watched." Cutter said, while pressing the headphones to his ear.
"Lester?" Connor offered to their conversation.
"Maybe." Cutter shifted his focus towards listening to the noises coming from under the water.
"We should get Stephen." Abby suggested halfheartedly.
"Shh!" Cutter silenced her instantly, making her role her eyes and look the other way.
Connor glanced back at her for a moment, swelling in victory like a child that got out of a scolding. She rolled her eyes at him as well and crossed her arms over her chest.
Abby did her best to ignore the rest of their conversation.
Men, she thought icily.
She did manage to keep to herself while they changed positions. Cutter dropped the speaker into the water to play their recordings and she did her job of watching the water for whatever it was she was supposed to see. Well did so, until she saw some sort of creature's face in the water staring up at her.
She whipped back instantly, "Guys."
Both men looked at her.
She then realized her imagination could be getting the best of her, "Nothing."
With that, they went back to their headphones.
They moved to a new area again, this time Abby decided to just stand aside and try to clear her head.
"We should be helping Stephen search the canal!" Connor's tone was frustrated.
For once today, Abby would agree with him. She would rather be with Stephen. Things would be a lot more fun if they were with Stephen. For her they would be at least.
"Its not in the canal." Cutter countered.
A smile formed over Abby's face. Stephen had sent her a text last night saying that him and Cutter were in a bit of a disagreement. At least they weren't asking her to pick sides, because she really could never choose between the two. One is her boyfriend and one is like her father!
Suddenly, Abby's body was being jerked backwards, off the boat. Before she knew what was going on or could scream, she was under water. She kicked and fought against whatever had a hold on her, but it was proving to be a useless task.
Her mouth released the breath of air she had been holding when the creature, dragging her down, squeezed her against it's body. Panic was setting in. She knew you were supposed to remain calm during this type of thing, but she couldn't find it in her to. For all she knew, this was the end of her story. The inky blackness that surrounded her might be the last thing she ever see's. The freezing water might be the last thing she ever feels. And memories of the last year, might be the last ones she'll ever recall.
She didn't want to die mad at Connor, as brilliantly daft as he might be, he was her best mate. She hated that they'd spent the last few weeks fighting. She didn't want to fight with him. He really meant so much to her. For a while she'd been on the verge on fancying him. Then Caroline and all the fights happened. Nonetheless, she didn't want it to end like this.
She didn't want to die without really getting a chance to really be with Stephen. He was the first real boyfriend she'd had in a while. He was a much better boyfriend then she expected him to be. So to be losing her relationship just as it was beginning, was heart wrenching. Not to mention: What if what the doctor's said was true?
Abby lost all feeling after that question crossed her mind.
0O0o0o0o0o0
"What are we doing? We've got to find Abby!" Connor commanded the people around him.
"We are trying Connor, you acting like a lunatic isn't helping anything." Stephen stressed, pacing up and down the pier.
"She's your girlfriend! You should be raking this lake like crazy!" Connor yelled.
"You don't think I want to? We were ordered to stay here!" Stephen argued back.
"That thing has taken Abby and you're worried about orders?" Connor's voice was thick with venom.
"Well, I don't see why you care so much! You've spent the last few weeks making her life hell with that Caroline!" Stephen stopped his pacing and faced Connor.
"I'm not the one pressuring her into making herself sick! You know how Abby spent her morning? Hm? Do you?" Connor was on the verge of tears while spoke. Bravely, he shoved Stephen back by his shoulders, "Vomiting! That's how! She must have vomited six or seven times!"
"Connor, you had better calm yourself down." Stephen fumed, "And what are you going on about her vomiting for? She has food poisoning!"
"For a week straight? I don't think so." Connor countered.
"Would you two kindly shut-up? Neither of you are helping to get Abby back." Cutter stepped between the two men.
"Right, so now the girl is dead? This is a recovery effort?" Lester's voice entered the conversation.
"She's not dead!" Stephen and Connor both yelled.
And Boom! Thats all for now! I hope you can't figure out what I'm doing quite yet! Do hope you enjoyed though! Connor wants to fight with everyone. I wonder why? Misery loves company I suppose. THANK YOU IMJUSTANERD!
Thanks for reading!
RAWR