#raveric

Abandoned by her assistant, Abby’s gaze drifted to the man sitting in a chair on the opposite side of Octavia’s cot. Marcus had tried to find things to do in Medical for the past few hours as the sky darkened, for what Abby guessed was a two-pronged reason: to spend time with her and to be there for Octavia. The majority of his day had been spent in meetings; time with Clarke, Jaha, and others. Now, it seemed, the steady flow of duties had slowed to a trickle, and he had time to spare in awaiting Octavia’s recovery.

He hadn’t had time to tell her the specifics of what happened, but it was obvious enough that he and Bellamy had thought she was dead. From the weight in his tone and the regret in his eyes, she guessed their last conversation hadn’t been a pleasant one. It was a sharp, white-hot pain Abby knew all too well; when she had been in space and her daughter on the ground, regret and grief had almost swallowed her whole, sanded down the edges of her will to keep fighting for what was right.

Thankfully, she thought, they managed to salvage their relationship and come to an understanding about what happened to her father. To realize Marcus had gone through a similar stage, all while being captured by Azgeda…it was almost too much for her to bear. Octavia might not have been his daughter, but he certainly loved her like one: his relief at seeing her alive was enough to prove it.

As if her soft stare was enough to wake him, Marcus blearily lifted his head and found Abby looking at him from across the room. Instinctively, they both smiled. In the past she might have been embarrassed for him to find out she’d been watching him sleep. After all, it was an intimate thing – in sleep, he appeared weightless, unburdened, calmness and tranquility having filled in gaps where stress and anxiety vacated – and while she couldn’t say she’d never done it before they were together, it meant something different now. Every touch, every glance, every word was a treasure.

He meant something different now.

Marcus stood slowly, wincing, and Abby gritted her teeth. She wanted to tell him to stay in the chair, but doing so would require her to shout from across the room – a sound that wound undoubtedly wake Bellamy, who hadn’t been roused from his slumber by her gaze. Thankfully the moment passed quickly, and Marcus made his way over to her with no more outward indications of a pain she hoped he no longer felt.

Wordlessly, he opened his arms and she moved into them. Faintly, Abby could hear Jackson and Raven deep in their discussion. They had moved out of view: the potential for embarrassment was low. Not, she thought, that embarrassment was something about which they needed to be worried. Not after their reunion.

She nearly laughed when she remembered how she’d greeted him, half her heart limping and twisting and barely beating since he hadn’t answered his radio a few days earlier. All pretense of decorum evaporated, she’d sprinted toward him and all but thrown herself into his arms, all sounds of hammers on metal and buzzing conversation drowned out by the loudness of his presence.

His arms felt like home, his heartbeat a symphony, and she’d leaned away just enough to kiss him – passionately – in front of an unwilling, clueless audience.

She could still hear John yelling at them to “get a room.”

The memory brought a muted giggle from between her lips as she leaned into his embrace, composed more of a sigh than emotion. But Marcus knew her well enough to know what it meant, his steady hands stilling on her back.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked softly, still holding her close. Honesty, she decided, was the best policy.

“What I’d do if anyone walked in on us now,” she said. “Then I remembered…” she trailed off, and it was his turn to give a sigh of a chuckle.

“I don’t think we need to worry,” he said. “Unless you’d rather we didn’t-“

There was no way in hell she’d let him finish that sentence.

“Don’t you dare,” she murmured, pressing herself more fully to his solid form, and earned a real chuckle for her trouble.

A loud chorus of laughter shattered the intimacy of the moment, and Marcus pulled away to look in the direction of the explosion.

“Raven and Jackson?” he said, his tone asking a question his words hadn’t. Abby shook her head.

“I don’t think so. Not that I know of, at least. But you’re assuming they’d tell me.”

“Jackson would.”

Abby considered for a moment, decided he was right. Spending five years as someone’s assistant gave them an all-access pass into one’s personal affairs, whether or not you wanted them to have it. Jackson had known about the two of them long before the rest of Arkadia, had been aiming knowing smiles in her direction every time Marcus wandered into Medical. It was only fair, she thought, that she could make the same conjecture about him and Raven. If there was a conjecture to be made.

“Probably,” she admitted. “But for now, I’m just happy she’s happy.”

Marcus nodded. “I haven’t heard her laugh in…” he trailed off, the sound of Raven Reyes’ laughter falling outside the parameters of his memory. His sentence was finished by another source: a quiet groan from across the room.

“Octavia,” he said, every muscle in his body stiffening at the sound. Abby removed herself gently from his arms, and he all but sprinted to the cot. Naturally, Bellamy had awakened at the moment a sound came from his sister’s cracked, dry lips.

“O,” the boy said said, leaning over her as her eyelids opened, desperate to be the first thing she saw when she returned to the world of the living. “Octavia. Octavia.”

Marcus approached slowly, placing a hand on Bellamy’s shoulder as the girl before them took a deep breath. His posture revealed his emotions, the stiff line of his back and slump of his shoulders betraying guilt. He truly hadn’t thought he’d see her again.

She mumbled something Abby could barely understand from her position in the room, barely able to make out “was nothing,” and “had worse days.” Her sentence must have been fully formed from where Marcus and Bellamy stood, because she heard them both give low chuckles.

Reluctant to intrude on the moment but knowing her duty required her to do so, Abby slowly made her way toward her patient and her visitors.

“I need to check on her,” she said, her tone conveying the depth of her understanding. Marcus stepped back first, and reluctantly, Bellamy followed.

Octavia regarded her wordlessly, moving to sit up: a motion Abby halted by placing a gentle, but firm hand on her shoulder.

“You need to rest,” she said. “Lie back down, Octavia.”

The girl gave her a glare that said she’d certainly attempt the same maneuver later that night, and Abby wondered if she’d have to spend the night in Medical to keep Octavia Blake from further injuring herself. If she had to, she would.

She asked the girl questions about how she was feeling, each of which were answered with a short, “fine.” She was feeling fine, her head felt fine, she felt fine now that the painkillers had worn off.

As satisfied with her answers as it was possible to be, Abby stepped away. Tempted to aim her words at Marcus – as she was always tempted to do whenever he was in her proximity – she instead turned her head to regard Bellamy.

“Not too late,” she said. “She needs to sleep so she can heal.”

Abby couldn’t be certain, but she thought she heard a snort from the direction of the girl’s cot. Bellamy was less obstinate in his response, giving her a nod before practically sprinting to his sister’s side. Marcus lingered by her side a moment longer, pressed a chaste, quick kiss to her temple.

“I could say the same for you,” he said, reminding her Octavia wasn’t the only one who needed sleep. There was an offer in his gaze, a question in the softness of his touch that made her skin buzz and her stomach flip. She knew where his room was, and sleeping without him after Polis would feel too empty, her old room too dark to let her close her eyes.

She had always needed a little light to fall asleep, and Marcus Kane was that light.

“I’ll see you later,” she said, meaning every word. He beamed, the clouds of guilt and remorse lifting for a moment as his brown eyes shone. For a man who had spent the better part of nine days holding her, exploring her, making love to her in Polis, he still acted as though she were a breakable, fragile thing. As if assuming too much might shatter her and render everything between them useless. Abby knew that no matter the height, no matter how steep the fall, what was between them was unbreakable.

Watching him with Octavia – the gentleness in his voice, the tremor in his apology – it was profoundly private, and she turned away.

***

“Doctor Griffin?”

Abby had been on her way out of Medical for the night, handing control over to Jackson for the next few hours so she could get some sleep. She had asked him if he wanted her to take the late shift, but he vehemently denied – and it was hard to keep her brain from making a connection between Raven’s hours in Engineering and the overlap they shared with the late-night Medical shift. Probably nothing, she decided, but it was nearly impossible not to speculate.

She’d been set to leave, hanging her lab coat on the hook next to the sliding doors, when Monty Green appeared. To her observation, he didn’t look injured: that said, his expression was ashen.

“Monty,” she said, doing her best to hide her chagrin. “Can I help you?”

Marcus was waiting for her, and although they likely wouldn’t do anything but sleep tonight – she thought he was likely too weary from his latest brush with death – she reminded herself she also hadn’t thought he was the type to make her late for meetings by kissing his way down her neck, her stomach, and burying his face between her thighs. The uncertainty made her all the more eager to go to him, and Monty was…well, getting in the way of having her questions answered.

“I, um…” he trailed off, fidgeting a little under her gaze. “I’m not injured or anything.”

“Is it Jasper?” she asked, her brain defaulting to the next most likely alternative. While Monty was careful about avoiding anything that might be affected by radiation, Jasper was…less so.

“No. I’m here to talk to you, actually,” he said.

Abby couldn’t help herself: she frowned. In all their time on the ground, Monty Green had spoken all of perhaps ten sentences to her, many of which involved either Clarke or Jasper. What could he possibly have to tell her, and why did it need to wait until midnight?

He looked so uncomfortable her heart was swayed to pity him, and she invited her young guest to step inside.

“Octavia’s asleep,” she said, regarding the unconscious brother-sister duo at the other side of the room, “so we need to keep our voices down.”

“Right,” Monty said in something that was decidedly not a whisper. “Understood.”

He was nervous, and Abby felt her stomach clench. Had they found a problem with her Nightblood?

“What did you want to talk to me about?” she asked, waiting for the blow that would send the rest of her perfect night reeling. Would it have been too much, she wondered, for her to go to Marcus and curl up in his arms without drama finding its way back to them? Was one night too much to ask for?

“It’s about Clarke,” he said, then backed up a step, shook his head. “Well, it’s not really about her. It’s about the list.”

The frown that had recently vacated her features returned in full force. “The list?” she asked, struggling to keep her voice down. “What list?”

“Oh. Shit,” Monty breathed. He shoved his hands into his pockets, looked vaguely as though he were considering sprinting out of Medical and abandoning the conversation for good. “She didn’t tell you.”

“I don’t know anything about a list,” Abby said, nausea making her stomach sink lower and lower as the gears of her brain turned.

“You…you might want to sit down, then,” Monty said.

Abby remained standing as he explained what, exactly, “the list” was – a group of 100 people whom Clarke had deemed the Ark would keep safe from the nuclear radiation when the time came. She sensed Monty’s frustration through the tightness in his voice, the stiffness in his posture: for good reason, she thought. Her daughter had no right to play God in that way. To determine who lived and who died. They’d done that in space, and to this day her memories of that time left her weary and exhausted.

He also explained that they’d come up with an alternative. Now, at Jaha’s suggestion, they’d be holding a lottery to determine who stayed on the ship when the time came. It was fairer, he said, and it had gotten everyone working again.

“Clarke put your name down first,” Monty said, conflicting Abby’s emotions even further. “Which makes sense. You’re our best doctor, and her mom. But…”

He trailed off, swallowed hard.

“What is it, Monty?” she asked, already half-enraged with her daughter and half-exhausted by the thought of seeking her out to have this conversation at well-past midnight.

He looked at her with an apology and said the words she hoped she wouldn’t hear.

“Kane wasn’t on it,” he said quickly, as though the sentence burned him as he spoke. “I’m sorry, Doctor Griffin. I just thought you should know, in case you wanted to talk to her about it. I just-I saw you guys today, and-”

The world faded in and out of a blurred haze, her lungs shrinking in her chest as she struggled to breathe. There was a ringing in her ears that came from no specific source.

Marcus wasn’t on it.

Part of her wanted to believe it was a joke – apparently Jasper and Monty had taken to reviving some of their antics now that the world was strapped to a timer – but there was nothing but sincerity to be found in the boy’s gaze. Abby prided herself on her ability to read people, and what she saw in Monty Green told her he was giving her nothing but the truth.

How could Clarke do this to him? Even if that paper was now null and void, if those plans were long-gone, how could she have…after everything Marcus had done for her, for their camp, for their people…

A vision of him stumbling through black rain, choking in the poison fumes, shoved through the jumble of her panicked thoughts and she tasted bile. She hadn’t let Pike execute him, and she sure as hell wouldn’t let her daughter do the same.

“Thank you, Monty,” she said sharply, hoping the boy knew her tone wasn’t directed at him. “I’m happy you told me.”

***

She found Clarke in the Chancellor’s office, sifting through a stack of papers that dwarfed her tiny frame. Under typical circumstances, Abby would have felt a twinge of pity, of sadness: she was only eighteen, but the world wanted her to be so much older. Her people wanted her to be so much older.

Now, she felt only a white-hot ball of rage in her chest, a squirming, pulsing thing that she didn’t know what to do with. Being angry with her daughter was a thing foreign and strange to her – they’d rarely argued on the Ark, and even here their disagreements had always reached a timely and decisive end. But this felt like a betrayal in more ways than one, and Abby reached for words that were well beyond her grasp.

How to ask her daughter why she’d condemned their Chancellor, their former Ambassador, the man she loved with her whole heart, to death? How could her lips even begin to form those words?

The absence of her wedding ring and the ring around her neck felt palpable now, a weight on her being that shortened her steps and slumped her shoulders. Part of her hoped Clarke would deny everything, tell her it was a joke from Monty and Jasper’s twisted imagination, that Marcus had been on the list just below her name.

And part of her knew that would be a lie.

“Clarke,” she said, using all of her willpower to keep her voice even. Her daughter turned to her, the look in her sea-blue eyes – her father’s eyes – expunging her last hope.

Her daughter knew why she was here.

“Mom,” Clarke said, her voice wavering in a way that split the rage in Abby’s heart down the center, gave part of it over to sadness and left the rest to fester. “I can explain.”

Abby took a deep breath. “Can you? Can you tell me why you wouldn’t think our Chancellor is worth saving? The man who saved my life?”

She rose from her chair then, shadows crawling across her youthful face in the dim light. Her eyes were already red-rimmed, and Abby wondered if she’d been crying long before she entered the room. Caught between drawing her into a hug and walking away, she found a middle ground in remaining where she was.

Clarke bit her lip. “You and Jaha were both Chancellor before Kane,” she said. “Jaha has experience in Engineering and could help if anything went wrong before five years was up. You’re a doctor. Kane…” she paused again, looked away as though summoning every last bit of her strength. “Kane’s a guard. We have plenty of guardsmen. I didn’t-“

“Marcus,” Abby said, feeling the need to emphasize his first name, to make him more than just the authority figure her daughter knew by last name and last name only, “is the head of the guard. He knows the position better than anyone else. He’s more than just a guardsman, Clarke.”

“I know,” her daughter said, every word a nail through her heart. “But at his age…I weighted the list toward younger, experienced members. People with his knowledge who could help us for-“

His age? She’d condemn him for his age?

And suddenly, every bubble of anger she’d been keeping intact within her chest burst.

“Enough!” she shouted, far past the point of caring whether anyone else could hear them now. Her voice trembled, a quiver marring her exclamation as her heart shattered. How could the person she loved most have changed into one of the coldest she’d ever known? “Clarke-“

“Mom, please just listen-“

“How could you?” Abby snapped. “After everything Marcus has done for us, all the lives he’s saved, you’d leave him to die because of his age?”

“Mom, I…I didn’t…”

Suddenly, with a sickening click, all the pieces fell into place. There was a reason her excuse felt flimsy, foreign, slipped away when she tried to make it stick to her daughter. Age had nothing to do with Marcus qualifying for her list.

“Clarke,” she said, taking a shuddering breath, “tell me this had nothing to do with your dad.”

Her daughter remained silent, tears slipping down her cheeks. Each drip of water fractured Abby’s limping heart further, but her words were free now. Unbidden, they continued to flow past the dam of restraint she imposed upon herself.

“This is because of us?” she said, hardly daring to believe it. “Because of Marcus and I? Because I took off the rings?”

She stopped, nearly gasping for breath under the weight of her realization. All this time…Clarke had seen them in Polis, seen Marcus stroking her cheek, told her to go to him after the battle in the Throne Room. Could she have really despised their relationship all that time? Could she have been nurturing a hatred so sharp that she’d cut a man’s life short with it?

How could she be so cruel?

Abby was openly crying now, her own tears splashing down to the carpet to accompany her daughter’s. She couldn’t believe it.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispered, and something inside her daughter broke.

“I can’t talk about this,” she said, turning away and sitting down in her seat with a thud. “Mom, I can’t do this right now. Bellamy and I-“

“You’re not doing anything at one in the morning, Clarke,” Abby snapped. “Tell me why your father’s memory gives you the right to condemn the man I love to die.”

“I know you love him!” Clarke exclaimed, her voice breaking all over again. “I know! I didn’t want to do this!”

“Then you didn’t have to!” Abby said, stressing every syllable, matching her daughter in both emotion and volume. “You didn’t have to play God, Clarke!” She turned away, wiped a few tears from her cheeks with the cuff of her sleeve. When she turned back to her daughter, her voice was shakily measured. “I just wish that if you had a problem with Marcus and I, you would have told me. Then he could have made your list and lived.”

Clarke took a deep, rattling sigh, one that shook her frail shoulders and quelled her sobs for a heartbeat of a moment.

“Mom, I…” she trailed off, wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her stained gray shirt. “This isn’t about you and Marcus. I promise. I just – he made me promise not to tell you-“

Abby felt her pulse quicken, her stomach lurching all over again.

“Who made you promise? Jaha?” she asked.

A few seconds passed, magnified by the roaring of her blood through her veins and the white noise of machinery.

Clarke shook her head. “No.”

A few more seconds of quiet.

“I’m so sorry, mom. I didn’t want to leave him off, but he told me it was better that way…that I should give the spot to someone who deserved it more than him. He made me promise not to tell you…he didn’t want you to worry about him…please believe me.”

Her blood ran cold.

“Marcus,” she breathed with the little air that was left in her lungs. “Marcus told you to leave him off.”

Her daughter nodded vigorously. “I tried to keep it a secret, but you were so upset, and I didn’t want you to think…” she stopped, her voice in danger of breaking again.

“I just…couldn’t stand you thinking I didn’t want you to be happy.”

Abby felt her tears flow anew, and knelt down to be even with her daughter’s chair. Wordlessly, she gathered her into her arms, placed a comforting hand on the back of her head.

I couldn’t stand you thinking I didn’t want you to be happy.

“It’s okay,” Abby reassured her as guilt and anger formed a toxic weight in her stomach. She focused on Clarke as much as she could, rocking her back and forth as best as their position would allow. “It’s okay. I believe you, honey. I believe you.”

But apparently, Marcus could stand her thinking he didn’t want her to be happy. Apparently, Marcus loved her enough to cement her unhappiness for the rest of her days.

***

The knock on her door was hesitant, soft, questioning. It could only belong to one person, and it was for that reason she felt no urge to rise from her bed and face its owner.

“Abby?” he said, his voice as gentle as the rapping of his knuckles against the cold metal. She turned over in bed, grimaced as the linen sheets twisted and clung to her sweaty legs.

“Go away,” she droned, her voice a soulless monotone.

He was quiet for a few moments, his shadow darkening the light beneath her door and evidencing his presence. On some level, she knew he knew what she’d learned.

“Abby,” he said, his voice considerably quieter. “Please let me in.”

She gave a long, soft, drawn-out sigh in a bed that no longer felt like hers.

“Fine.”

The door had been unlocked the entire time, but naturally, Marcus Kane wouldn’t enter until given express permission. He stepped into her room gingerly, closing the door behind him with a barely audible click.

“Can I turn on the light?” he asked.

“What do you think?” Abby snapped, throwing off the covers and moving to sit on the edge of her bed. She couldn’t handle being any closer to him right now. He had a kind of magnetism that would pull her in, his brown eyes rendering her logical thought useless, losing her in a maze that would lift the shroud of anger over her words, her thoughts, her entire being.

She couldn’t be close to him knowing he hadn’t wanted to be close to her in less than two months.

The light shone, revealing a Marcus that looked no better than she felt. His gaze was rife with guilt, his eyes lacking the spark they usually had when he regarded her. They were both empty, she thought, this news having hollowed them out in every way imaginable. And he had to know it was his fault. He had to know that if he valued their relationship more than his ever-present need to sacrifice himself, that she’d be sleeping with him instead of yanking sweaty sheets around her trembling body in a bed too big for one.

“Abby,” he breathed. “I’m so-“

“Don’t bother.”

He sighed. It was three in the morning, her body ached, her head pounded as though she were being hit with a sledgehammer. She wanted him to go away. She wanted to run into his arms. She wanted to slap him. She wanted to kiss him.

She wanted everything to stop.

“I can explain,” he said, and she gave a snort the likes of which she hadn’t heard from herself since their days on the Ark. It stung for him to hear, and she knew he recognized it.

“Can you?” she asked. “Tell me, Marcus. Tell me why you would let me believe my daughter didn’t put your name on her list. Tell me why you’d commit suicide instead of-“ her voice had strayed into dangerous territory, and she swallowed hard.

“Clarke and I discussed it together,” he said. “She told me there were only a hundred spots, said Raven insisted she make a list, and…there were people more deserving than me, Abby. People without three hundred lives on their hands. People who I thought should see the future of this planet, when the storm ends.”

He looked small standing by the foot of her bed, shrinking under the weight of his confession.

“So Polis meant nothing to you,” she said, hoping that pouring her pain into her words would get some of it out of her chest. “Everything we did…everything you said to me…it was just a way to pass the time until Roan needed you to get to work.”

Marcus took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “It wasn’t, and you know that. Abby, please don’t question whether or not I lov-“

“Stop.”

She couldn’t hear him say it like this. The first time couldn’t be the last, marred forever by his willingness to throw himself into radiation and leave her, the Blakes, everyone who cared about him behind.

“But it’s true,” he said, a note of pleading creeping into his tone. “Please, Abby. Everything I said in Polis, everything we shared…those were the best nine days of my life.”

She felt a tear trickle down her cheek and realized she’d been crying without realizing it. How long had her eyes been betraying her? How long had her heart been breaking loudly enough for him to hear?

“If that’s true,” she said, exhausted and broken in places she hadn’t known were whole until they shattered, “then you wouldn’t have asked my daughter to end your life. I shouldn’t have been surprised. You’ve always been determined to be a martyr, Marcus. Don’t let me stop you.”

He blinked, the harshness of her words taking him aback.

“Abby,” he said, taking another step toward her, reaching out to touch her. She recoiled.

“I need to go to sleep,” she said.

He understood her dismissal without an explicit statement, realized his presence was no longer needed nor wanted. Defeated, he moved toward the door with his shoulders slumped. Even in the darkness after he turned out the light, he appeared a shell of his former self. Of the man who kissed life into her in Polis, the man who electrified her with a thousand feelings she didn’t know she could still have.

“Goodnight, Abby,” he said.

She didn’t answer.

***

Dawn broke coldly over the horizon, yellow light chilling her to the bone. She hadn’t gotten a minute of sleep thanks to the constant buzzing of her thoughts and the weight in her stomach, a kind of pain caused only by a careful mixture of regret and desolation. A glance at the clock told her her alarm would ring in an hour, and she leaned over to switch it off anyway. Sleep wasn’t coming. It had never been invited.

A long, slow sigh brought her into the land of the living and she slid out of bed, wincing as her feet collided with cool metal. The discomfort seemed to shake off the few cobwebs that had formed around the edges of her memory, and her pain returned stronger than ever.

He had really been willing to let himself die. And he had convinced her daughter to go through with it, convinced her it was necessary, remained stubborn in his insistence to keep Abby in the dark. His expression last night – the genuine regret in his eyes, the haunted lull in his voice when he told her goodnight – there was a remorse inside them that couldn’t be faked.

That didn’t mean it was able to be forgiven.

Moving around slowly, as though the memory sapped her of her strength, Abby picked her tank top, henley and jeans up off the floor where she’d tossed them last night and began pulling them on. Her muscles felt sore for no apparent reason, and she winced as she raised her arms above her head to dress. Her breaths were ragged, uneven, and a lump had formed in her throat.

No more of that, she decided as she swallowed forcefully: no matter how she was feeling, she had a duty to her people. There were bigger things at stake than her relationship with Marcus.

A knock on the door startled her as she brushed her hair, and she decided not to acknowledge it. If he thought night would sand down the edges of her fury, he’d thought absolutely wrong. If anything, hours of consideration had sharpened it. What he’d done…it approached a line she thought she’d never see him cross again. And it sickened her to know perhaps he’d never really left it behind.

Another knock, harder, echoing through her tiny quarters. He was determined. But so was she, and of the two of them she wholeheartedly believed her will was stronger. Marcus Kane wouldn’t get a single word out of her this morning. Loudly, so he knew she was inside and in no mood to talk, she slammed her hairbrush down on her dresser and pulled her chair out from her desk for no good reason. There. Good morning, Marcus.

“Mom?” a voice at the door asked, and Abby flushed red with shame. “Are you in there?”

“Clarke,” she said, realizing her assumption couldn’t have been farther from reality. “I’m here.”

She crossed the room in three steps, pulled open the door to reveal her daughter standing in the Ark’s early morning white light. Her fingers curled around a single sheet of worn paper, and Abby could only guess as to what was on it. There was no desire within her to see the document he hadn’t requested to be on. The document that could have – and still very well might, in a different manner – separate them forever.

“Mom,” Clarke said, sounding relieved, “can I talk to you?”

Abby smiled, combatting a wave of self-hatred for the way she’d behaved toward her daughter the night before. Emotion had gotten the better of her, erased her clarity of thought, but she should have known Clarke wouldn’t try to sabotage her happiness.

“Of course,” Abby said, inviting her in and closing the door behind her. The chair came to good use, then, as Clarke seated herself in it and unfolded the document, spreading it and smoothing the creases on the solid wood of Abby’s desk. The yellowed paper did indeed contain a list of a hundred names, starting with her own: just as Monty had said.

Abby Griffin.

Eric Jackson.

Thelonious Jaha.

Raven Reyes.

The list meant as much to the future of her relationship with Marcus as it did nothing to the one between her and her daughter. Although Abby felt it had been wrong of her to create it, it was apparent from the guilt in her eyes that she saw the error of her ways: a lecture wasn’t what she needed. A lesson had been learned.

“I thought about what happened last night,” Clarke started, her voice even and measured. “Jaha had the list, but he gave it back to me. I wanted to show you this.”

Abby followed her pointer finger to the final spot on the list, a name written in capital letters. A name decidedly not printed in her daughter’s hand. CLARKE GRIFFIN.

“I know you’re mad at Marcus,” Clarke started, and Abby interrupted.

“You don’t think I should be?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. Of all the things she thought Clarke might have come to her an hour before her shift in Medical to discuss, her relationship with Marcus Kane hadn’t made the list. “He was going to sacrifice himself, Clarke. He didn’t tell me, and he left that burden to you.”

Clarke shook her head. “Let me explain,” she said.

Her finger still resting on the name that was both hers and foreign, she continued. “I wasn’t going to put myself on the list. That last spot…it was going to go to one of our people. I hadn’t decided yet whether it would be a guardsman, or an engineer, but it wasn’t going to me.”

All the breath drained from Abby’s lungs. Not only could she have lost Marcus, but she could have lost her daughter, too? Why bother putting her on the list, then? Why offer her salvation when her heart had already been destroyed?

“After the things I’d done…the pain I’d caused…I didn’t think I was worthy of a place here,” she continued. “I had every intention of being outside the doors when the end came. Just like Kane.”

Her hands shaking, Abby clung to that name as a reminder her daughter would have been indoors. Somehow, she’d made it onto the list. The image of Clarke trudging through black rain, suffering through ARS, her pale skin marred by lesions and lumps…she couldn’t even consider it.

“You deserved to be on the list,” Abby insisted, all thoughts of Marcus expunged for the time being. “Honey, you’ve saved us all more times than I can count. You should have been first, not me.”

Clarke shook her head. “I didn’t come here to talk about me.”

Abby frowned, tempted to interject, but let her daughter keep going.

“If Bellamy hadn’t been with me, my name wouldn’t be on that list. And it didn’t mean I don’t care about you, or Raven, or him. I do. But I made a choice for my people, and I was determined to see it through. Even if it meant sacrificing myself for them.”

“But Bellamy was there,” Abby said, all the pieces of the puzzle falling together. “And he wrote your name.”

A nod from her daughter’s golden blonde head, painted with streaks of white in the early morning sun. “And if things had been different…if it had been you and Kane making the list…you would have written his name in capital letters, too.”

Understanding washed over her like a ray of sunlight, illuminating her questions about her daughter’s presence.

“You think I should forgive him,” she said.

Clarke was quiet for a few moments, her gaze transfixed on the list of names that meant everything and nothing.

“He made the same choice as I did,” she said. “And I understand why. He didn’t do it to hurt you, mom.”

Abby hadn’t often considered the parallels between her daughter and Marcus, although now they appeared in ink before her eyes on that yellowed piece of paper. Both she and him suffered over their past deeds – things they’d done for the greater good – things that resulted in losses of innocent lives. Neither of them had yet found the strength to fully forgive themselves. And it was her duty, then, to support them until that blossom of self-forgiveness could stand on its own.

“But he had to know,” Abby offered. “He had to know how I would feel.”

“I knew how you would feel, too,” she said. “But I hoped you’d understand. And so did he. If you can forgive me for not writing my name, you should forgive him for telling me not to include his.”

Taken aback, Abby stared at her daughter while she tried to come up with something coherent to say. And to think she’d thought this was because she didn’t approve of Marcus – that she harbored resentment because of Jake. How wrong she’d been, only mere hours ago.

“Of course I forgive you,” she said finally, moving closer as Clarke stood from her chair. “I’ll always forgive you, Clarke. You’re my daughter.”

Clarke smiled, a brief flash of sunshine-infused joy that reminded her of her father. Abby moved forward to enclose her in an embrace, and Clarke held her back just as tightly.

“So you’re going to forgive him, too,” she said, her tone making it sound as though a conclusion had been reached. “You can’t forgive me and not him, mom. Not when we made the same choice.”

Abby’s shoulders rose and fell in an exasperated sigh, knowing she’d been backed into a corner by her daughter’s logic. Yet another thing that reminded her of Jake: their ability to win an argument by sheer, solid, foolproof reasoning. As annoying as it was, it was hard to keep yelling at a damn good point.

Clarke stepped away, a question in her blue eyes.

“We’ll see,” she said. Clarke gave her another short nod, unwilling to push her further. Only once she’d left did Abby notice the list remained on her desk: a reminder of what the two people she loved most had almost done out of another kind of love: a love for their people. It was an aching kind of poignant, one that forced her to fold up the paper and shove it in the crack between her wall and the desk. She had no desire to look at it again.

When all was said and done, she looked at the clock.

We’ll see.

***

Abby stood in the hallway, hesitating as the hum of machinery whirred around her. There was no reason, she told herself, to be this timid. Discussions like this could go one of two ways, and there was no point in delaying the inevitable.

That said, her stomach felt like it was being squeezed in a vise.

Banishing her uncertainty to a dark corner of her head, she raised her knuckles and slammed them against the door. Her heart wouldn’t be able to handle a non-response, so she added her voice for good measure.

“Marcus,” she said, knowing fully well she might not have been the only one who rolled out of bed this morning in no mood to talk. “Are you-“

The door was yanked open before the end of her sentence.

It was as though he’d spent the whole night waiting, she thought. He didn’t appear to have removed any of his clothes or attempted sleep, his bed perfectly made and his jacket zipped. He looked at her with a mixture of hurt and regret, sending shockwaves of emotion through her as she stood before him in the Ark’s snowy light.

“Abby,” he breathed, as though her name pained him. After last night, she couldn’t blame him if it did. “Come in.”

She walked through the door and heard it close behind her, felt his gaze on her as she leaned back against his metal table. They both began talking at the same time, words flying as he made his way toward her.

“I’m so sorry-“

“Clarke told me-“

Then they both stopped, aware of what they were doing.

“You first,” Abby said with an ember of a warming smile, curious as to what was on his mind. Her heart would forgive him, as it always did, but it would do her good to hear him apologize.

“Abby, I’m so sorry about the list,” he said. “About everything. I should have told you from the start what was happening – not only what I was thinking, but what Clarke and Raven were thinking, too. We’re a team, and it wasn’t right of me to leave you out.”

Abby nodded, took a step closer to him. “We work better together,” she said, remembering the long nights when the chancellorship had been a burden shouldered by them both. “But that’s not…” she paused, struggled to find the words that best conveyed the swirl of emotions in her chest. “Marcus, just promise me something.”

“Anything,” he blurted, his brown eyes wide.

“Promise me you won’t do this again,” she said. “I’m not talking about sharing everything with me. You’re the Chancellor. You don’t have to tell me every detail of every negotiation. But the thought of being without you…that you could want that…your penchant for self-sacrifice doesn’t just affect you.”

He nodded so vigorously Abby thought she heard his neck crack. “I won’t,” he said. “I don’t want to be without you, either. I never want to leave your side again, Abby. Those weeks when we were separated…they were hell. And the decision I made regarding that list was wrong. I hope you can forgive me.”

She smiled, a real, full one then, stepping forward to close the distance between them. Their proximity was practically intimate – she could feel the heat radiating from his skin, the tension his question wove through the air between them.

“Clarke came to talk to me this morning,” she said. “She told me she wasn’t going to put her own name on the list, either.”

Marcus frowned. “That’s absurd,” he said. “Clarke should have-“

“It doesn’t matter now,” Abby interrupted, firm. “Bellamy was there, and he wrote her name. And she made me realize you two are more similar than I thought. You have the same tendencies. Her name wouldn’t have been on the list, but Bellamy wrote it down. In the hundredth spot.”

Marcus appeared relieved, although they both knew the list was no longer meaningful. “Of course he did,” he said. “Anyone would have. Clarke deserves to survive.”

“Her point was, Bellamy wrote her name,” Abby said, “and I would have written yours. Her choice wasn’t made to hurt the people she loves, and neither was yours. I understand that now.”

He looked at her as though seeing her for the first time, dawn breaking through the gloom of his features. As if he knew, for the first time since she stepped through is door, that there was a chance he’d be forgiven. That everything would be okay.

“Although I do wish you’d given me a little more consideration, Kane,” she said. His surname was accompanied with a wry smirk, a gesture that made it clear she was joking. He breathed a laugh, wrapped his arms around her as she pulled him close and buried her face in his shoulder.

He smelled like home.

“Abby, I…” he whispered, anchoring her to him with his hands pressed against her back. His voice shook, and she felt that all-too-familiar tightness in her chest that threatened sobs. “Thank you. I won’t do it again.”

She pressed her lips to the tiny expanse of his collarbone exposed by the neckline of his shirt, suddenly overwhelmed by how deeply she’d missed him. How empty her life had felt, even for those few hours, knowing there was a fraction of a possibility everything could end between them. How dark things had been then, how light they were now.

She leaned away, reaching up to brush a soft curl of dark hair away from his forehead.

“I missed you,” she whispered, tilting her head to the side as she leaned forward again. He met her in the middle, brushing his lips against hers in a gesture that was half apology, half yearning.

“I missed you, too,” he said when they broke apart, their mouths still only inches from each other’s. “I didn’t sleep at all last night.”

Abby grinned. “Me either. I think we formed a habit in Polis.”

Her laugh was contagious.

“Good or bad?” he asked.

“Good,” she answered. “Except for when you make me late to important meetings.”

She leaned in again, giving him a kiss that was decidedly less gentle. The shape of his mouth betrayed a smile, and when they parted there was a familiar gleam in his eye. A laugh worked its way up her throat before she could stop it. She knew that look.

“Marcus, I’m supposed to be in Medical in ten minutes.”

The look remained, tantalizing and reverent and adoring all at once.

“Then we have ten minutes.”

His fingers found their way beneath the waistband of her pants, teasing her, skimming her sensitive skin and forcing a gasp from between her lips. Already heat had begun coiling low in her stomach, and she realized she’d missed more than just his comforting presence beside her in bed.

By the time he stepped forward to kiss her again, his mouth insistent and hungry, she was already lost.

“You…” she started as they moved in the direction of his bed, shedding clothing in graceless piles as they went. His kiss cut her sentence short, and she felt the smoothness of his comforter brush against the back of her knees.

“Are a terrible influence?” he finished for her as she lay down with her head on his pillows, amazed by how comfortable his bed was. It was smaller than hers but softer, a true threat to the luxury they’d experienced in Polis.

“The worst,” she murmured, sighing as he peppered hot, slow kisses to the pulse point of her neck and worked his way toward her lips again. There was no way she’d be on time to Medical, but as she had the morning before she was called to meet with Roan, she couldn’t quite locate the part of her mind that was responsible for caring. “The absolute worst.”

***

And so that night, right after she’d said goodbye to Jackson and Raven, Abby made a beeline for her quarters. Naturally, she and Marcus would be sharing a room – publically because it created more space, and privately because they found they couldn’t sleep without each other now – and she threw open the door to her room with a sense of urgency.

Tonight was the do-over for last night, a reset button for all the rage and anger that had been shoved in the place of love and tenderness, and she intended to do it right. But she’d still need her clothes in the morning, her things…she had no intention of being taunted by Monty and Jasper when they saw her making her way back to her quarters after spending the night with Marcus Kane.

The simpler solution, then, was to just move in with him. Which was exactly what they intended to happen.

Thankfully, her possessions were meager: a few shirts, a pair or two of pants, the only other tank top in her possession. Things that could fit in a bag, at least for now. For tonight, she’d take what she could carry. This was only the beginning, she thought with a smile.

She reached up to grab her favorite book – a cheesy romance novel with a revealing cover that she knew would earn her a playful ribbing from the man she loved – and threw it in the bag. Clothes, book, toiletries…it was enough for now. The rest she could come back for later, if she felt the need.

In the process of turning away from her desk, Abby’s gaze fell on that familiar space between wall and wood: a space she knew held something more than open air. It was unimportant, and altogether preposterous, and part of her knew it would be better to burn it and put the list to rest once and for all. At some point, she thought, she might ask Marcus what he thought they should do with it – how best to dispose of it.

Fishing around for it in the darkness, her fingers finally closed against the smooth paper. She pulled it out and slammed it on her desk, as if intent on making it feel the pain it had caused her, her daughter, her love. Such an outpouring of emotion for such a small, meaningless, irrelevant thing.

For now, though she was thankful it was no longer their solution to the apocalyptic problem at hand, she had unfinished business where its black-inked page was concerned.

Rummaging through her drawers, her fingers scraped wood and various office trinkets until she landed on what she was looking for: a pen. Pulling it out from the blackness, she slid the drawer closed and uncapped it in one fluid motion.

They might have only planned for a hundred, but Bellamy Blake had been a stowaway.

It was only fair, she thought, that the same rules should have applied on her daughter’s list: intended for a hundred, given an extra one. So, on the bottom of the list beneath her daughter’s name, Abby Griffin wrote one more in bold, swooping letters.

They’re from the same location as Dorfic and Mata Nero and work as their assistants