Title: Easy Like Sunday Morning
Author: alyse
Fandom: Primeval
Pairing: Abby and Connor
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: For
deinonychus_1, a belated birthday present. Sorry it's late, honey, but I'm a bit out of practice with this pairing. Thanks to
aithine for the beta.
Summary: Because it's easy, easy like Sunday morning.
-o-
Sundays had always been Abby's favourite day of the week. Even when she'd been younger, back before she had to think about working all hours for a living, it had been the only day she'd felt legitimately able to lie in. Once she'd started work, however, it was a whole different kettle of fish - or fishlike prehistoric creatures anyway. She couldn't work nine-to-five at the zoo - the animals didn't have a day of rest and so neither did their keepers - and it wasn't like the anomalies exactly respected the sanctity of the weekend. Sundays, like many other things, had been sacrificed to her love for her job and the creatures in her care, no matter what era they came from.
But sometimes, like today, she lucked out and got to wallow in long, lazy Sunday mornings, when the day stretched out in front of her with nothing to do but sleep and lay about. There was no hurry to catch the train or beat the rush-hour traffic. No bustling around town or fighting her way through Tesco's to make sure she got all of her errands done before the weekly grind began. Nothing but a long day of inactivity and enticing boredom stretching out ahead of her, hours filled with nothing in particular. Anomalies permitting.
God, she was really looking forward to it.
She was slipping back into another hour or two of dozing when at loud crash from the living room startled her awake, setting her to swearing under her breath as she shot upwards and banged her elbow on the bedside table.
Connor.
She was going to swing for him one of these days.
She should probably get up, see what the hell he was up to and exactly what it was that he'd claim that Sid and Nancy had made him break. She was under no illusions that he'd be quite happy to blame the Diictodons for whatever havoc he was leaving in his wake, but at least he'd stopped blaming Rex for it.
On the other hand, it was Sunday and her bed was so warm and comfortable. Maybe if she ignored him he'd go away. Maybe if she stayed here long enough, all tucked up and snugly underneath the inviting sheets, he'd actually tidy up whatever mess he'd made, at least enough for her to live with, and then she wouldn't be confronted with it when she finally emerged from her lair.
She wasn't holding her breath.
It wouldn't do any good to wish for it, anyway. It wouldn't occur to Connor to clean up after himself, because he didn't need hints so much as clear instructions handily delivered by the firm application of a two by four.
She was still dithering over whether to get up and see if he'd broken anything important when there came a soft tapping out the door. Soft by Connor's standards, anyway, which meant it was bloody loud and annoying by anyone else's.
"Abby?" The knocking came again, and she shuffled down the bed, pulling the covers up over her head. Maybe if she kept really, really quiet he'd think she was still asleep and he'd bugger off back to destroying their flat.
No such luck.
"Abby? You up?"
Abby sighed, flinging the covers off again. "Yeah," she said, less than graciously. "What do you want?"
"Um..." She shouldn't have been able to hear it through the door but she'd swear that Connor was shuffling his feet sheepishly. "I've... um... Look, can I just come in?"
Well, it could have been worse. At least she didn't sleep in the nude.
"Fine," she huffed, pushing herself upright and folding her arms across her chest, waiting for him with a scowl on her face. "It's not like I'm doing anything important."
As expected, the sarcasm flew straight over Connor's head. Thankfully, there was nothing else in reach when he finally poked his head around the door or something else might have flown straight over it. Or not.
He looked as sheepish as he'd sounded and she opened her mouth, ready to say something so sarcastic that not even Connor could miss it, when he finally stepped through the doorway and the words died on her hasty tongue.
He was clutching a tray in both hands, peering at her hopefully over the top of it. "I... er... Well, you've been working so hard that I thought you might like..." He flashed her a little twitch of a smile, a hint of nervousness in his dark eyes and she couldn't blame him for that, not when she'd snapped at him already. "Um... breakfast in bed."
Abby swallowed, absurdly touched and trying to hide it. And then she swallowed again when Connor moved closer and she caught sight of the red carnation that was wobbling in the small, white vase that Connor had dug up from somewhere.
He'd cut the crusts off her toast, and cut them into neat little triangles. And those triangles were already neatly buttered.
"There were scrambled eggs, too," he said chattily, in a better mood now that he knew she wasn't going to bite his head off. "Only, well, I kind of tripped over Sid, and... I think he and Nancy are busy eating them."
Abby swallowed again, her eyes prickling a little, which was a stupid thing to do over some toast and scrambled eggs, no matter who ended up eating them. But Connor was there, looking so thrilled that he might actually have done something to make her happy, and that... That tightened up in her throat, rendering her momentarily speechless.
She stared down at the tray as he laid it carefully across her knees. There was a smear of egg on one handle, and the plate holding the toast was chipped at the edge. It was one of her best ones, as well. Her mum had given her the set when she'd moved into her first flat.
She looked back at Connor and he beamed at her, pleased as punch to have made her happy, even for a moment, and not bothering to hide it. She sighed, and shuffled sideways, patting the bed beside her.
"There's far too much toast here for just me," she said, because at the end of the day there were far worse ways to spend a lazy Sunday than curled up in bed with Connor.
The End