Welcome welcome to my new collection of one shots focusing on the bunker! They will go back and forth chronologically and they can probably all stand alone. Ratings will change depending on the os but I will mark the collection M to avoid problems. I will aim for one a week =) I hope you enjoy them and thanks to akachankami for the beta!

A Dot Of Light

2 Weeks, 4 Days

The bed is small and his side is plastered to her back.

She knows if she moves her head just a little, she will bump in his elbow because his hand is under his skull.

She knows it means he's likely staring at the ceiling the same way she is staring at the wall.

The bed is small, that's the thing. She's grateful for that much, of course, the clans leaders have been granted private quarters and maybe they're not much bigger than cupboards but it beats piling up in dormitories with everyone else – that's temporary, in time they should be able to make sure everyone has a place to themselves but the priority is still fixing everything they need to survive in the long run. She's grateful Marcus is willing to share if only for the ridiculously tiny bathroom attached to it. But the bed is small and there is no avoiding touching each other.

She can feel the round bone of his hip where it digs in the small of her back. She can feel his thigh against her butt. His calf against her ankles.

If she just moves an inch back, she could have felt his arm against her nape.

The darkness is complete with the lights turned off and she listens to the quiet hum of the generators that seem to always reverberate around the whole bunker. It's so similar to the Ark, she forgets sometimes. But when the humming of engines used to be comforting, this one is like a buzz impossible to ignore at the back of her head, suffocating.

It's difficult to adjust back to living in a box after living on Earth even for a while.

She finds it ridiculously odd sometimes, when she lets herself think about it, how a few months of living on the ground can overpower a lifetime of living trapped in metal. How quickly what was natural and familiar has been forgotten for something that's in their lineage. Humans aren't meant to live trapped in a box, no matter the size of the box.

She thinks about Mount Weather sometimes too. She has a new perspective now.

The faint humming reminds her of the Ark but it's not the only thing. Being here, sharing a bed with Marcus when things are so weird between them, when resentment and anger cloud their relationship… It reminds her of the last few months with Jake. Of the nights spent awake, not talking because that would have only led to fighting, of the sad certainty that something was broken.

She can't get over the fact she didn't want to survive and Marcus took that choice out of her hands.

They talked it out – fought it out really. She cried. She explained. He promised it would get better. They hugged. He held her hand when Jackson stopped her heart – rebooted her brain. They soldiered on. Focused on what comes next, together, one day at a time.

What came next turned out to be pretty much every day of the same though. She is the head of Medical. He is Skaikru's Chancellor. She heals and he mediates the numerous problems between the different clans. She slowly betters her Trigedaslang and he mentors Octavia. She tries to remember she is a doctor and he tries to pretend the weight of the people they sacrificed – twice now – doesn't crush him right into the concrete of the floor.

They share a room.

They don't share much more than that.

She remembers the days in Polis, the sweet bliss of being so in love they acted like teenagers desperate for another taste of the other, the sparkling joy of experimenting something new, something rare at their age, something precious. She remembers every kiss. She remembers every touch. And she wonders how they ended up sharing a bed with her hugging the wall and him sticking as close as he can to the edge of the mattress not to invade the other's space.

A lack of oxygen and disagreement on how to handle the problem reduced her marriage to that same state once but she had decades of good memories before that.

She only had a few days with Marcus and it's unfair. Or maybe it is fair, maybe it's the price she has to pay for all she's done. She's not sure.

They're off kilter, that much she's certain of.

And she doesn't know what they're playing at keeping up the pretence.

They're adults, they're friends, they love each other… Maybe they made a mistake. Maybe one of them has to come out and say "hey, maybe you and me trying to have a romantic relationship wasn't a great idea and we should go back to how it was before". Maybe it's…

The mattress shifts when he turns, the move putting an end to her train of thoughts. He doesn't usually move – not unless he's asleep or he thinks she is and maybe she always fights to keep awake until that moment when he reaches over in his sleep and wraps his arm around her waist, maybe; maybe she lives for that perfect second in the morning when she wakes up in his embrace and she forgets everything but the weight of his arms, the smell of him and how good it feels to be loved.

She tenses for a moment and then gives in and rolls to her back, reversing their positions. She can't see him at all, it's too dark, she can barely guess at his shape, but she knows he's propped on his elbow, on his side, facing her. She knows because now she can feel his torso pressed against her arm, his shirt is frayed on the stomach, made rough by too much washing.

"I don't know how this works." He murmurs the words but he might as well have shouted them. It's so silent outside their door. Nothing but the ever present hum and the occasional footsteps of guards patrolling the corridors. "Do I have to push or do I have to give you space? I tried giving you space but…" His voice trails off. "I don't know how this works, Abby. You need to tell me."

There's a hint of despair in his voice, the same despair she feels deep inside. The urgency to salvage what they can before it's too late to be mended.

"I'm lost in the dark." she confesses.

It's nothing she hasn't said before. What she did on Becca's island haunts her. It devours her from inside. It shatters her into tiny pieces she's afraid are too scattered for her to ever become whole again.

"Then let me show you the way out." he begs. His hand finds her cheek, his thumb strokes her cheekbone… She can't remember the last time he touched her like this. They've been so careful not to push since the second Culling… The thing between them feels so fragile they're afraid to break it for good. "I love you."

"I know." she answers because she does. Because she wants it to be enough but she's not sure it can be.

"Then it's a step in the right direction." he chuckles but it's not amused, it's not even cheerful, it's… Sad. Everything is sad. "Do you love me?"

"Yes." she offers without hesitation because there are none in her heart. She covers his hand with hers, presses it a little more against her cheek… "I'm sorry, Marcus. I'm just…"

It has been a lot. There hasn't really been time to come to terms with the City of Light before she has been forced to turn into a Mountain Man and that, that wasn't her. That person. The things she has done. It isn't her. Not who she wants to be, not who she used to be. Emori's screams haunt her in her sleep. John's accusations. The face of the Grounder she killed. The people she sentenced to death when she opened the bunker's door and for what? Because Marcus was on the other side of it. It comes down to that in the end. Not because it was the right thing to do – he can tell her that as many times as he pleases, she knows better – but because they had locked him out. And Clarke. Clarke most of them all. Clarke who is lost to her now when she could have kept her with her safe and sound if only she hadn't opened those doors.

She exchanged her lover for her daughter and now she has to live with it.

And she doesn't know if she can because it poisons everything they have.

Her guilt.

"I know." he whispers.

And he does.

Ultimately, he's the one who has closed those doors for the final time.

If anyone understands, she supposes it would be him.

"Do you think Clarke is alright?" she asks, frantic like she always is when she thinks about her daughter.

She doesn't ask if he thinks they made it to space. They never allow themselves to doubt that. Not him. Not her. Not Octavia. If they consider it, it will kill them. She may have lost hope about everything else but she refuses to abandon this one. Clarke must have made it. Clarke must have survived.

But when she thinks about her baby – no matter her age her daughter will always be her baby – once more trapped in the cold of space… She wonders if being trapped is made easier or worse by the fact the box is familiar. She wonders if she would have felt better back on the Ark instead of down there. She wonders if Raven found ways to make the Ring more homey.

She doesn't wonder if there are seven corpses floating in a dead metal shell.

"She's Clarke." he snorts with fondness, his hand trailing up to brush her loose hair back. "She's your daughter. As long as she has people depending on her she won't let herself fail so, yes, I believe she's alright."

There's such certainty in his words that she lets herself relax.

It's true, what he says. Their people need Abby and that's what keeps her going in the morning. And Clarke is very much the same way. Abby has never been good at neglecting her responsibilities. She made an oath when she was elected to the Council and she has always tried to honor it: serve their people first and foremost. She still does.

"Five years is a long time." she comments, yearning to hold her daughter again.

Five years without contact… They tried reaching out to the Ark but communications aren't working. The theory is that the building collapsed on the bunker when the death wave hit, that it knocked down something… Jaha might be their chief engineer now but she misses Sinclair almost as much as she misses Raven.

"I bet you Raven will have figured out how to go home by year three." Marcus teases, leaning in to rest his forehead against hers. "You will see her again. You need to have faith."

It's easier said than done.

Faith isn't something she is very good at now.

Tables have turned, she supposes.

"I don't want us to be like this." she confesses in a whisper, closing her eyes even as she brushes a hand up his arm and to his nape. "Pretending everything is fine just because…" Just because what? It would be too hard to lose him? She doesn't want to lose him. She wants to go back to that place in Polis when it was new and easy. They've been robbed of the new and easy to be tossed right into domestic and difficult. "I need you, Marcus. I don't want this to die but we can't go on like this either…"

She can't remember the last time he kissed her.

She thinks it was right after the death wave, when they were fighting. There were pecks after that but nothing real, nothing that has woken up the ache in her belly.

They're walking on eggshells and it's time they break some eggs.

"You're angry with me, Abby." he sighs. "You blame me for saving you."

"Yes." she confirms, unwilling to lie. "But instead of giving me space, you should remind me why it's a good thing."

"I've been trying." he argues.

She tangles her fingers in his hair, brushes her lips against his. "Have you?"

His whole body tenses as he gulps in a shuddering breath. The hand that was still in her hair is propped behind her head as he rolls a little more fully over her.

"You're angry." he insists. "I didn't want to push."

Sometimes, it's painfully obvious that he never had any serious relationship. Callie came close, she figures, but it was nothing like a real partnership, nothing like what she used to share with Jake, nothing like what they have. He doesn't know the rules, doesn't know the tricks to make it work, doesn't know there are times in a marriage when boundaries have to be tested.

"In situations like this, you have to push." she counters. "I'm pretty stubborn, remember?"

He chuckles and, this time, it is definitely amused. The kiss he presses against her lips is hard and she responds to it immediately, hooking a leg around his thigh, encouraging him to completely lie on her. He's still propped up on his elbows though and she tugs on his shirt to get him down only to think better of it and shove the fabric out of the way.

"You're not just stubborn. You're impossible." he accuses, slipping the shirt over his head and tossing it away from the bed. His lips find her neck and she gasps quietly when she feels the familiar hitch of his beard on her skin. She missed this. She craved this. He nips the spot under her ear and she slips her hands inside his sweatpants in retaliation, gropes him. "I love it." he murmurs in her ear and she thinks he's talking about her being impossible but she's not quite sure and she doesn't quite care because she has more urgent preoccupations – like getting him naked and inside her. "I love you."

Something in her melts at those words murmured into her neck with calm confidence, with certainty.

He's right, she realizes.

It is a step in the right direction.

And, a while later, when she tosses her head back, blissful pleasure washing over everything, she thinks that maybe, she sees a distant dot of light in her darkness.

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