Author's Note: This takes place after the season two finale. Abigail and Will both live to see another day and this is their first conversation. (One shot)
Rated: T
If They Live
It took months for Abigail to recover from the wound on her neck. Will stayed by her bedside every day until she woke up, much to the nurses' chagrin; he had opened the deep wound in his stomach three times now, from sneaking out of his hospital room in the middle of the night. He had been surprised when he had opened his eyes the first time, to find he wasn't dead. He was even more surprised to find, when the doctor's came in to talk to him, that Abigail wasn't dead either. Though, she wasn't quite alive. She had been in a comatose state since they brought her in. The doctors weren't sure she would ever be whole again.
However, within two months, Abigail had started to shift slightly; a twitch of her hand here, the bending of a knee. At first the doctors assured him that it was just the body doing that; there was no mental activity of the brain whatsoever. Will had reached for her hand the first time she had moved, squeezing it, begging her to open her eyes. She hadn't and he had cried; but no one was around to see that.
Then, after three months of waiting, she was awake; sitting up, eyes open, breathing. He hadn't been in the room when it happened, the nurses had ushered him back to his room to sleep properly for awhile, but he hurried his way back when he had been told.
She was pale and her face was sunken, but all he saw was the most beautiful girl in the world. His daughter. Because that's what she was to him, the only other living person who he could rightfully place a label on. He had been awake for three days before representatives of the FBI had delicately informed him that Jack Crawford and Alana Bloom had not survived that night. He had mourned alone.
For a moment, he stood in the doorway of her room, just staring at her. She stared back, silent. Without an invitation, he made his way into the room and sat in the chair beside the bed that he considered his own.
"I'm glad to see that you're awake," he said. He had reached his hand out to hold hers, but she had drawn away from him. He tried not to notice. "How are you doing?"
She shook her head. "I thought you would die."
"I thought we would both die," he tried to make it sound light but nothing could conceal the pain. She stared off at the wall for a time. "Abigail…what…" he tried to get his bearings on his words. He breathed in and out. "How are you alive?"
" He kept me alive in that house…" she whispered, her voice dry, "…for a very long time."
"Why did I never see you?"
"I was a secret. You weren't supposed to know. I stayed in his basement…" her eyes clouded over for a moment, remembered. "Everything the two of you did…I saw. I saw him dismantle that FBI agent and cut her into thin slices. I saw that…monster of a man." As she spoke she watched the clock tick by second after second. "He said that it had to be done."
"Did he…hurt you?" he asked aloud. He then realized the mistake of the question and added, "While you were his prisoner there?"
"I wasn't his prisoner," she responded, turning her head, slowly, to look at him. Every movement she made was slow. "I was his gift."
"To me."
"To both of you," she corrected. "We were going to be a family, like we were before. Every meal he made, everything he did, was for your future together – our future together. You should have heard the way he described the way our lives were going to work once you left with us," she shook her head.
Will leaned forward, his elbows resting on the bed. "I did hear him talk about our future together, near the end..."
"You heard nothing." Her whispery voice had become harsh, her eyes hard. He didn't want to admit what he obviously saw. Hatred. "He was willing to start over with you. He wanted to know everything you were thinking, relish in everything that you did. You threw away a good life. A life with him and a life with me."
Will couldn't believe what he was hearing. "He almost killed you Abigail," his face contorted in angry confusion. "He killed Alana and Jack."
"I killed Alana," she hissed.
"Under his instructions! You've been lead on by a psychopath."
She shook her head. "You don't know anything. We were going to be happy together. We were going to be a family. He talked about you like you were a breath of air, like the both of you were the Gods that collapsed churches on its worshiper's heads. About-"
"What about that gash on your neck, Abigail?" he interrupted angrily. "What about that?"
"You only have yourself to blame for what he did to me," she responded. "You threw me away like you threw him away."
"I would never-"
"-but you did. Even through all of what has happened, you are still so blind."
He was silent then, thinking. She turned back to stare at the clock. There were no tears in her eyes.
Finally, Will spoke. "He took you away from me," he stated. "He took you away from me the first time and made me believe I had killed you. I thought that, that would be the worst of what will ever happen to me. To have my…my child taken away from me." She wasn't looking at him. "But then he gave you back to me," he reached out again, taking hold of her hand and putting it to his forehead. She didn't pull away this time as he closed his eyes, tears slipped out of them. "He gave you back to me only to take you away again."
"You were the one who didn't want me back, Will," she whispered hoarsely. "Things would have been different if you would have wanted me back."
"I wanted you back more than anything in this world. I dreamt of you every night, I escaped to the thought of you when things got hard. If I would have known-" she pulled her hand away from him and his throat caught. She stared down at him, her eyes cold. He opened his eyes and looked at her through his streaming tears. "He forced the two of you together as a package deal so that, when I turned on him, he could hurt me in the only remaining way possible."
"Congratulations on letting him succeed."
His pushed away from the bed and stood.
"Goodbye, Abigail," and left the room.
Thank you
