I Got This
"You want to weaken the enemy? What's weaker then an enemy at war with itself?"
Raven's words hung in the air for a few brief moments as each of her friends looked back and forth at each other, Murphy shooting yet another final look over his shoulder at Shaw. The young pilot looked back at all of them tensely, his eyes narrowed and if Murphy didn't know any better, there was also fear written all over his face. Sighing quietly, he turned back towards his friends and nodded, breaking the silence.
"All right."
"All right?" Echo repeated with a raised eyebrow,
"You mean-"
"I mean, we're not gonna kill him," Murphy interrupted, looking over at Raven who was staring at him,
"Raven's right."
"Of course she's right, didn't I already say that?" Emori snapped at him, narrowing her own eyes in his direction.
Murphy turned away from her, choosing to ignore her words and her glare,
"We're not going to kill him, Echo," He repeated, meeting Echo's worried gaze,
"He could be of use, alright? Besides, Raven seems to know him; we might as well give him a chance..." He paused briefly,
"And he did save both of our lives from McCreary." He nodded in Raven's direction as he spoke.
Closing her eyes and shaking her head in irritation, Echo finally let out a long sigh and replied,
"Okay." Turning back to Raven, she growled under her breath,
"But if anything happens to the rest of our friends because we chose not to kill him, that's on you, because this was your idea."
"Enough, Echo," Murphy hissed, sensing Raven tense up next to him and glanced at her just in time to see her scoot closer to him,
"Enough. Now's not the time for us to be arguing, to be fighting-"
"Never stopped you before, John," Emori interrupted, her eyes still narrowed at Murphy as she was unable to hold her tongue,
"Since when do you care anyways?" His face paled at her choice of words, but before either of their friends could interject, she added,
"I mean, this is all coming from the guy who shot Raven-"
"Shut up, Emori," Raven finally snapped, her voice the harshest they had heard from her during the entire time they had been talking,
"Just shut up." At Emori's widened eyes, Raven glared angrily at her,
"You have no right, no right at all."
An uncomfortable, tense silence filled the air between the four of them, nobody knowing exactly what else to say now. Emori's words hung in the air until finally Echo spoke up, her voice now quieter and not as harsh,
"Okay. We all need to get a grip here," She shot a look beside her at Emori, directing those few words specifically to her, before turning back to Murphy and Raven, the former looking away from all of them,
"Murphy."
Silence.
"Hey." Reaching over and touching his hand lightly, she waited until he finally turned back to face her,
"We need to get a work on this if we want to escape." She waited until he acknowledged her words with a nod of his head, and watched as he sucked in a sharp breath, silently pushing back his emotions, and finally spoke with the same authority as before...but Echo could still sense the hurt and pain radiating off of him even as he built his walls back up.
"See if you can get Shaw to talk to us first," Murphy finally spoke again,
"He's a prisoner here now, just like us, so it shouldn't be hard." As Echo and Emori each stood up to walk over to him, Murphy sighed softly and was just getting to his feet too when Raven's hand on his arm stopped him and he looked down at her before sitting back on the bed beside her.
"Are you okay?" He whispered, bumping her shoulder with his.
Snorting, Raven looked up at her friend,
"I should be the one asking you that, Murphy-"
"I'm not the one who has been her for days with a shock collar around my neck," Murphy interrupted, frowning.
"Murphy, what Emori said..." She started to interject, but stopped as Murphy shook his head sharply. She knew him well enough to know when he didn't want to talk about something, when something was hurting too much to discuss; and now was one of those times.
"Let me see your neck, Reyes," He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, silently asking her permission for him to take a look. Nodding her head silently, Raven moved her hair and all the loose strands out of the way and tilted her neck to the side, letting Murphy's hands touch the shock collar and examin the red welts that decorated her tender neck.
Anger unlike any other churned in Murphy's stomach as he tenderly touched one of the red marks, but quickly removed it when he felt Raven visibly flinch,
"Sorry...sorry-"
"No, it's not you," Raven interrupted,
"I'm okay, Murphy-"
"No, you're not," He shook his head hard,
"What the hell-Who the hell did this to you?"
Rolling her eyes with a sigh, Raven turned back around to look at her friend's face,
"Whoever I pissed off, and whoever felt like I deserved it...and..."
"And?" Murphy repeated, arching an eyebrow,
"And what?"
Feeling the familiar sting of tears well up in her dark eyes, Raven whispered,
"Abby...Abby also did it last night..."
Murphy felt like he had been punched in the gut at Raven's admission,
"What?"
"She-She's on drugs, Murphy," She continued, glancing around them to make sure that neither Echo or Emori where around to hear this confession. When she saw that they where with Shaw and where able to get him talking to them, she looked back at Murphy and continued,
"She lied to me about the cure..."
"What are you talking about?"
"She told me that Diyoza threatened her if she didn't find the cure; which was why I agreed to help...I mean, it's ABBY, Murphy, I couldn't let her get hurt, you know?" Tears rolled down her cheeks as she spoke,
"But then I found the pills..." She met Murphy's eyes and he silently urged her to continue,
"I thought she had overdosed on them at first...but when I confronted her about it, and found out Diyoza only threatened to not give her her next fix if she didn't find the cure...I was going to destroy it, when she-when she..." She was unable to continue and just like the night prior, when she had broken down in front of Shaw, she felt the dam inside of her break.
"Hey, hey," Murphy whispered and without any hesitation on his part, moved his arm and wrapped it around her shoulders, pulling her to him. Raven instantly rested her head on his shoulder and circled her arms around his waist, clinging tightly to him as she cried. He didn't attempt to try and tell her that it would all be okay, that she was okay; because right now, that was not true. There was no guarantee that any of them would be okay.
But Raven needed a friend. And he knew better then anyone what it was like having a mother who had hurt them with being a drug addict. His mother had drank herself to death, and so had Raven's; and Abby was like a mother figure to both him and Raven, and knowing now what Abby had done to herself in the 6 years since he had seen her...what she had done to Raven of all people...
Closing his eyes tightly and attempting to reign in the anger he was feeling towards Abby, Murphy tightened his arm around Raven and leaned down to lay a small kiss on the top of her head. Feeling her own arms tighten around his waist, Murphy rested his chin on the top of her head and mumbled,
"I won't let her do that to you again. I won't let any of them hurt you again..."
"How are you going to stop it, Murphy? If we can't get out of here-"
"We WILL find a way out of here, I promise you," He growled,
"Over my dead body will they hurt you again-"
"Don't you dare risk your life for me, John Murphy," Raven interrupted harshly, pulling away slightly to look him straight in the eyes,
"I won't allow you to do that." As he opened his mouth to object, she stopped him,
"Look, what Emori said to you...that was uncalled for and I'm going to talk with her about that later because she had no right. And I know that you feel like you still have to make up for what happened to me at the Dropship, and I know how much you hate yourself for it-"
"Raven-"
"Shut up, I'm not done yet," Raven shot back,
"I know that you haven't forgiven yourself, but I have. I forgave you years ago, and as your friend, I will not allow you to sacrifice yourself for me-"
"Raven, believe me, I'm going to do my damndest to try and stay alive with the rest of you; just like you, I want to get back to Bellamy and Clarke and the rest...but I made you a promise on the Mother Ship a couple of days ago, remember that? I told you that I got this, and that still holds true now."
"Murphy-"
"This has nothing to do with Emori, or what has happened with her and I, this has to do with you. I won't let anything happen to you, and when the time comes for me to step up and make that sacrifice, I will."
"Why?" She whispered.
"Because I happen to care about you a lot, Raven. You're my best friend, besides Bellamy, and I won't let Abby or McCreary or any of these sick bastards hurt you." He reached over and wiped a tear away from her cheek,
"We're getting out of here tonight."
Nodding her head, but still feeling the weight of guilt that she had put Murphy in this position, Raven leaned forward and rested her forehead on her friend's shoulder again, winding her arms around his neck tightly,
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be."
"Thank you." She whispered into his shoulder,
"For coming back."
"I got this, Reyes," He replied, hugging her back just as tightly.
He had no idea how they were going to pull this off; he didn't know how Shaw was going to react when they told him Raven's idea. But he knew one thing, and that he was that he was going to protect Raven Reyes with his life.
Even if he had to die doing it.