Echoes of the past wage war with Abby's perception of the present. Other times she has lain awake— another woman, Reyna, sleeping on her chest, pregnant, needy— but now she indulges her own neediness, safely, in private, in the luxury of looking. She absorbs Raven's hollows and curves— during daylight she can never be caught looking, not longer than she'd look at anyone else— especially not by Raven, who would immediately find something urgent she needed to do elsewhere and fade into the shadows.
Jake had come to her soon after Reyna had given birth— and fled, so far as she could within the Ark, with the baby girl— people leave. Jake was beautiful, and bright, and kind. For the greater good, for his and for hers, she had accepted him. Not long after, she married him. Jumpcut to her betraying him, for the greater good. Jumpcut to his execution. People die.
Night after night.
Jumpcut to Clarke as her father was sucked into endless night. Jumpcut to Clarke before the Council sent the Hundred to their deaths, to Earth. Losing Clarke was, after all, Abby's penance, Abby's responsibility. For the greater good.
Then Raven, respected colleague, fixer, innovator, partner in crime, dropping in that archaic capsule toward the ground. It could never be all business again. Seeing her again, touching her face—
Slicing into her flesh while she screamed—
Witnessing her refusing to scream for as long as possible as she was tortured, again—
Raven displaces the distress, for a while at least. Raven can be a beast. A feast. And then she's gone. But… people leave.
Yes, Abby's been here before, remembering her daughter and her husband and countless other sources of heartache. Countless other responsibilities. But this time, instead of spinning out into all the could haves and should haves, she brings her attention to the sensations of Raven's hair and skin touching her own skin, the sensation of Raven's breathing synchronized with her own breath. She resists the urge to stroke her face and instead enjoys the luxury of gazing at Raven without worrying she will flee, without worrying what anyone will think.
It's a bit tricky for the Chancellor to date anyone, to show favoritism, let alone to someone her daughter's age. Raven seems to want to keep everything beyond discreet, and that works for Abby. For now. Leadership— responsibility— is easier to shoulder as an ice queen.
At least she won't be having to float anyone.
Her eyes won't stay open any longer, so with her last moments awake she brings herself back to the present, the physical sensations, knowing that she will wake, again, alone.
Because people leave.
Abby rouses slightly when Raven's weight shifts the bed, but she keeps her eyes closed, willing herself to go back to sleep. It's better this way, she knows it is, but she can't pretend that waking up solo doesn't feel— empty. Disappointing. Maybe shameful. But that doesn't matter, does it? What matters on the Ark is duty, getting things done, making it so that the most members of the community survive. Being responsible for, and to, the people of the Ark. And if getting some release is all on the down low, that's what it takes. Now, sleep is of the essence. Raven leaves.
(Some release? That's hilarious. Raven gives at least as good as she gets, and she gives it willingly, deliciously, enthusiastically, repeatedly. And she— Abby doesn't want to think how close to worship it feels to put her hands, her mouth, on Raven. The sounds she makes, the way she moves—)
That brilliant girl, that beautiful, driven, brave woman takes up much more of Abby's waking moments than is strictly appropriate. Abby finds her eyes drifting her way at breakfast and finds her feet drifting her way as soon as her morning rounds are done. There's a hole in her heart where Clarke used to be, where Jake once was, and really she should fill it with something other than love or family. Camp Jaha is her family now. There are so many to care for. But Raven's leg needs extra care, she rationalizes, and at Bellamy's prompt goes to Raven's shop.
Raven's drawings, while technical, take Abby's breath away. Clarke's drawings always have, too, but they are so different. Different worlds, different children— no— different women.
Sometimes the many hats she wears get confusing. She'll be barking orders and then catch a glance from Raven and just blush, feeling like a teenager again. Sometimes, in private, she'll pull her lips away from Raven's shoulder and cradle her like a child. Leader, doctor, mother, friend. Who is she this time?
After the Mountain, it's miraculous any of them connect at all. It's miraculous they feel anything.
When they returned, Abby had spent the night by Raven's side monitoring her as she shivered, as she cried out in her sleep. Abby found that she settled best when Abby sang songs she'd sung to Clarke in her infancy, softly, close to her ear. Days later, she realized Clarke had left. Without saying goodbye.
Abby is the reason Clarke is gone.
Abby is the reason Raven is here. The reason Raven got shot. In a way, she's the reason Raven was captured and tortured. Her schemes, pressed onto a very young adult, resulted in hell beyond her imagining. And considering they both grew up on the Ark under threat of floating at all times, living on the edge of survival throughout, there's a lot they can imagine. But after the Mountain, they have more in common than they ever thought possible, possibly more than Raven knows. They drift inexorably toward each other.
As she and Clarke have drifted apart.
But Raven, Raven is no substitute for her daughter, no daughter at all, but face it, they both need to face it, not just a colleague either. Just because it only happens between the bookends of dark and dawn doesn't mean they aren't… actually… lovers.
(Reyna had been clear. It was nice, but it was temporary. Abby's heart took that in and closed some windows and closed some doors, and let her go when it was time. Mostly. People leave, people die.)
Kane approaches Abby daily, like he knows her, so protective of her, and it perplexes her a little and disgusts her a little and amuses her a little, and the Politician part of her utilizes it, and the Raven's Friend-Lover-Whatever part of her resents it, and the Jaha's Friend-Betrayer part of her appreciates it, because it is an alliance that will further the greater good.
And she notices Raven noticing them. And disappearing again.
But Abby notices Kane noticing Abby going along with Raven to hunt for the compressor that will enable their heating system. He protests. She isn't necessary for the mission. Abby insists and does what she does best— what she feels she must. Raven's going to save their asses again, getting warmth into the Ark for winter, and Abby's going to make sure she's safe. She makes him give her a gun. Adrenaline begins to make its way through her as she and Raven pass through the gate, her senses opening up, vigilant.
The mission is clear. No talk is necessary as they walk to the Mecha wreck. The firearm in her pocket, once Clarke's handgun, smacks repeatedly against her hipbone. Where is Clarke now? What is her mission? Is she bound for revenge? Bound for atonement? The woman Clarke has become is a mystery to the mother of the Ark's princess.
Abby measures her gait to Raven's in their companionable silence. She wonders how Raven thinks of Clarke— and whether she thinks of Clarke. The smell of breeze over water brings her attention back. And then they see the wreck. Raven hesitates. Abby stops at her side, her hand automatically going toward the small of Raven's back— and then she retreats before she makes contact— because it isn't professional, and it is kind of motherly, and whatever it is that they are to each other, it's not really that, either.
(But neither is pulling her hand back really right.)
Something's wrong. Something about Raven's rhythm, something about her timing. The moment they saw Mecha, something inside her ducked out, leaving the rest of her to catch up. Abby registers all this in her periphery and lags behind a bit to work it out.
Raven goes on at length about why the station is relatively intact, and Abby suddenly has a notion she's never had before.
"How come you never applied for the engineering program?"
Raven helps Abby up on top of Mecha. She wears a peculiar expression.
"People from Mecha don't get picked for the engineering program."
As if that's that.
But that's not how it was supposed to be. That was never the intent of the Ark. Everybody was supposed to have the opportunity to do the job best suited to their abilities. How could Abby have been working for everyone's best interest and not know there was a caste system in place? And how now, having become aware of it, could she work to right it?
Abby has to refocus. Raven hesitates at the hatch, her sweat laced with the scent of iron filings, then grips her way down the ladder. Abby waits until she hits the bottom, then follows her into the dark.
Something about the dark, something about the smell of the station disorients her for a moment, and she reaches for the nearest support— Raven's backpack. Raven gets the light working and reaches back for her hand.
For her hand.
Abby needs to focus on the mission, but her focus, for the moment, is all on the sensation of their two hands together. Sweaty subrosa interludes never led to hand-holding. It's altogether new and riveting, simply how well their hands fit each other.
Raven leads Abby through Mecha, through her home, Abby realizes, weaving their fingers together, maximizing contact. And then, Abby realizes, Raven starts talking about her home and her life and the people she used to know.
Talking. In the dark.
About herself. Her mother. Her father.
"He got floated for murder," she says, not knowing that Abby knows, not knowing that Abby knew such a long time ago. Abby is grateful she had nothing to do with it, and only met Reyna afterward.
One day. One day she'll tell her. But not today.
Abby searches a bin of odd bits for anything that looks like the picture of a compressor Raven had drawn her. Nothing. She waves her light around in hopes of finding a more likely place to look, and flashing out of a corner something catches her eye.
Not part of the mission, certainly. But part, she's starting to understand, of another mission, maybe just as important as keeping Camp Jaha warm.
A bang alarms Abby, and she finds herself at Raven's side. Raven tries to put her body between Abby and what she's holding, but finally gives in and shows her everything. It's a treasure trove. Medicine. Jewelry. A compressor, yes, and other parts. Raven really is a genius. They are stashing the cache when they hear a distinctly non-mechanical not-too-distant rumbling growl.
Breath stops. And then they move in concert as if they had trained together, Raven leading the way.
Until she falls.
Abby scrambles, her focus interrupted, tuning her ear to the wild animal sounds, and interposes herself between the beast and Raven. Raven, ever the mechanic, is gathering the items spilled from her backpack. Leave, thinks Abby, Don't die. Abby struggles with the gun in her pocket, it won't come out, the safety won't come off, she's not controlling her breath, this isn't like her.
Raven must sense it. She's strapped the pack on, struck a flare and pushed past Abby to rush the bear. Contact. Its angry anguished scream. And Abby is pulling her backward, beyond her power to resist, backward toward the light at the hatch, toward the way out.
Don't die.
Abby's coordination and strength returns just in time to shove Raven up the ladder, up the ladder and into the light. Leave, she thinks again, louder, Don't die. But Raven, braced on top of Mecha, grabs her and pulls her up the last four rungs, barely missing the bear.
They have to leave, they have to get to safety. Abby helps re-fasten Raven's brace. A roar shudders Mecha's outer skin, and they slide down the side, slide down the boulder. Abby takes Raven's hand, and they walk, as fast as Raven can, all the way home.
There's never any rest on this planet, this place they've always desired, planned for, dreamed of. There is no rest for the Chancellor and the camp's best mechanic. Raven assesses the gleanings of the other teams and starts to work right away. As the sun sets, Camp Jaha gets colder quickly. Abby knows better than to distract Raven from her work. The compressor from Mecha she broke requires atonement. Raven needs rest. Abby needs rest. Camp Jaha needs heat. Raven likely won't eat or sleep on her own before she's finished, so Abby brings her food.
And invites her to her room. Later. When she's ready.
It's not like Raven ever needed an invitation. Abby's never invited her before. Raven had just appeared once, late, after Finn's pyre, sick, bereft, guilty, relieved, furious. She just stood there, filthy, needy, staring in the doorway, and Abby, a foot in each of two different worlds, two different times, touched her cheek then drew her into the room and wrapped her into her arms. Raven hung on then, a girl, a woman, a girl, a woman, until sobs shook them both. Abby pulled a little away and began wiping away the tears with her thumbs, then kissed her forehead, the corner of her eye, her cheek— then Raven abruptly turned, and their lips met.
Surprising, intoxicating, habit-forming. Raven would come to her room, once in a while, at first, slowly working up to nightly, wordlessly, sometimes frantically, they would go at each other, untamed, and then Raven would leave. That's what people do, they leave.
When Jake had left her, when Jake had died, he'd left something else behind. Something that Raven might find interesting, or maybe useful. His journal. He was always a few steps ahead, his eyes on the ground, looking forward to a time when air was plentiful and gravity natural. Abby had treasured his handwriting in that notebook, and after his death, she read it through several times just to feel close to him.
Abby unfolds the sketch Raven had made of the compressor and smoothes it out on her tiny table. It's that sort of connection she wants to make. That, and an acknowledgement of her past and of her desire to move forward.
So it is with care that she waits up for Raven, lights on, reading Jake's writing for the last time. It's a benediction, it's a prayer. It's a plea for a different trajectory in her living, and working, and playing, with Raven.
(Maybe she's asking for his blessing... Not that she believes in that sort of thing.)
When Raven arrives, at last, Abby takes her in for a moment. Then simply presents the book to her, inviting her to peruse it while she examines and treats and cares for Raven's leg. And they fall into their habit, but it's a beautiful fall— followed, yet again, although she'd invited Raven to stay, by a barren awakening.
After breakfast, Lincoln's stew redux, still tasty, redolent of wood smoke, and some hot tea-like beverage, she takes Kane aside for a moment to debrief and to ask if he can be on point for the day. Because she has something pressing, something she really must tie up today. He nods, and she returns the gun, and she meanders toward Raven's shop.
Which is empty.
Which is just as well, since Abby has a job to do.
She holds the wings up to the light, re-imagining the necklace Raven had inherited from her father, the simple chain with a nut hollowed out to form a wedding ring looped over it. She re-imagines the raven necklace Finn had made for her. She thinks of how Raven had tucked away her father's inside Mecha— and left it there. She wonders if Raven has tucked Finn's away here in the Ark somewhere, so she knows where it is but doesn't have to look at it every day. She wonders if what she's about to make will meet the same fate. For a minute she wonders if Raven will one day think of her as she thinks of her father, of Finn, as a murderer. Or worse. She could. She certainly could.
It doesn't matter. What matters is the offer, the hope, the vulnerability, the intimacy. Raven is what matters.
People leave, people die. If not now, when?
She's grateful when Bellamy sticks his head in moments later and refreshes her on using the tools she needs.
"Bellamy," Abby says, "would you please find Raven and take her some lunch?"
Raven, as expected, powers through until the heat system is ready. And, as expected, it works perfectly enough that the one leak can be sealed with tape. Once Abby has fed Raven again, she leaves her to find her Not-Christmas gift— the zero-G wings necklace—and the carefully composed note with it— in her tent.
In a way, Abby is slowly slicing herself open. Because it's a short life. And here, life can be shorter than anyone wants to know. That bear— not just the bear. That capsule, this war, these wrecks, those explosions, the gunshot— so many, many flukes by which they are both still alive— and for how much longer? In a way she is opening herself to Raven, for Raven, because— because it's the truth. Abby loves Raven. And Raven deserves the truth. All of it.
(And if Raven could love Abby, all the better. She hopes. She prays...)
Raven knocks at her door.
Abby calls for Raven to enter, and when she steps in, wearing her wings, staring, Abby cautiously looks up.
Raven begins the sort of banter she always does when she is uncertain, and so to put her at ease, Abby answers in kind. But when Raven becomes unresponsive, Abby takes the lead. She steps in close, takes Raven's face in her hands and gives her, with a kiss, all the love she has, all the love Raven deserves, just all her love.
And Raven kisses her back.
And this time it is different— not the silent desperate needful kisses of their recent secret trysts, but calm, giving and taking, call and response, questioning and answering. Breathing, kissing, whispering, kissing, listening, kissing.
Raven steps back, hungry but hesitant, Abby sees it, always amazed that someone so bright and self-assured in public can feel so unworthy in private. Whatever path this may take from here, Abby is determined to undermine the voices of whoever undermined her in the first place.
There is some back and forth about worthiness, station, background, criminal history, and, yes, Clarke, and yes of course, age. Abby winces, never really trusting that it doesn't matter to one so much younger, because surely one day it will. But for now. Now is good. They're a good fit. They've been partners in crime, partners in bed, partners in engineering the survival of their people.
Could they be? Partners?
Abby takes Raven by the hand and leads her to sit on the bed, side by side, quiet for a moment. There's something else, and it could be a deal-breaker. She is as prepared for that possibility as she can be. She untangles her fingers from Raven's.
"There's one more thing, Raven, and I hope it doesn't change things for you."
Raven turns to face her and shifts back a little, knowing it's not easy for Abby to focus on her too close. A crease forms between her eyebrows.
"You— you deserve everything you want, Raven, and you deserve the truth."
Abby pulls a photograph from her pocket.
"I love you, Raven, and... a long time ago... I cared for a girl... named Reyna."
Abby shows her the picture. Raven's mouth goes slack. She looks at Abby. Abby nods.
"This makes it too weird, doesn't it?"
"No... Yeah? I don't know?"
Abby pulls her arms around herself, giving Raven some space to feel it through, puzzle it out, knowing it could take quite some time.
Raven blinks a bit, thinks a bit.
"Cared for her? Like took care of her?"
Abby swallows, caught. Raven deserves the truth.
"Took care of her, yes. And also loved her. She stayed with me until you were born, then she took both of you away. She liked me well enough, but she didn't love me."
She stops, feeling the chill of desertion drop through her limbs.
Raven takes her time, staring at her palms. Then her lips open.
"My mother had problems."
Abby takes a breath, resigning herself to another round of heartbreak. It gets easier with time, right?
"Well," says Raven, "I'm glad she left."
She notices the lines around Abby's eyes harden, so she twists her mouth up on one side and teases, "Cuz I'd rather be your lady than your kid."
"I'd rather be your old lady... than your... old... lady?
Raven takes the lead this time. She takes Abby's hands and brings herself close and very, very softly brings their lips together. Then she moves a little apart.
"Abby, I tried. I tried so hard not to love you, not to attach. But the fact is, I couldn't stop myself."
"I am irresistible."
"Well, you can be immovable..."
"And you're so easy..."
"Only for you..."
"...to love, liar. You are. So easy. To love."
For what seems like a long time, they look, simply look, into each other's eyes. They've been under siege, underground, underwater so long, that this long, long look, naked and true, seems like taking breath where there was none. They've been where the tide has taken them, they've drifted into each other, becoming entangled, gasping, and now they're coming up for air.