Chapter 2
As I slid the scalpel into Clarke's chest, I awoke with a start. I tried to sit up, but Marcus's arms inadvertently restrained me. He'd woken when I jumped, but he was taking longer to come to alertness.
"Abby?" He murmured, sleepily. His hand ran down my back reassuringly and I shivered. We'd fallen asleep holding each other but that was as far as it had gone. There was so much still between us.
"Go back to sleep, Marcus," I said. I said his name almost as a talisman; a way to ground myself in my current reality and a way to soothe away some of the nightmare.
I sat up, and he let his arms fall back but he sat up as I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and got to my feet. My head swam and I realised how long it had been since I'd eaten.
There were crackers by the bed, and the waterbottle from my pack still had a few mouthfuls left, so that was my breakfast.
Marcus sat on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands. I put the crackers next to him and he looked up at me with raised eyebrows.
I put my hand on his cheek, and he covered it with his own.
It was a new day, and the heavy task of healing lay before us.
"I have to visit Clarke," I said.
"I know." He sighed heavily, and put a hand on either side of his legs.
Arkadia was eerily quiet. The route to the hospital was empty. When I got there, it was abandoned except for Jackson.
"Abby," he said, getting to his feet, "Clarke told me not to let you worry. She didn't want to feel like an invalid, so she's moved back to her room."
"Thank you, Jackson."
"You should have shot me," he said, so quietly I almost missed it.
I strode over to him and put my hand on his shoulder. "You have your memories back, and your pain. Most importantly, your passion. Don't let A.L.I.E take away who you are, Jackson." He turned away.
It would have to do. I grabbed my kit and headed back the way I'd come, in search of Clarke.
A few more people had stirred.
Clarke was in her room, as Jackson had said, but not alone. Raven was in there with her.
"Don't wear her out," I said to Raven, who actually smiled as I came through the door. The smile looked almost obscene.
"Mum?" Asked Clarke. She still wasn't focused on the outside world. I wondered again what had happened in the City of Light.
"How are you feeling?" Clarke sat up in her bed, and Raven sat on the chair, so I sat beside Clarke. I checked her pulse and her temperature. Both seemed, miraculously, normal.
She glanced at Raven, and didn't speak. Raven didn't know what I'd done.
"Can I check your chest?" I asked. I didn't want to keep secrets anymore.
"It's fine," she said, but she stripped off her shirt anyway. I'd put makeshift bandages on them when I'd done it, but the blood had seeped through.
I filled the basin in the corner with water, and used a clean cloth to clean them.
"What happened?" Asked Raven.
"A.L.I.E." said Clarke, like that was an answer. Which it was, in Raven's books.
"Through me," I said. Raven only nodded sadly.
"I'm sorry," she said to me. Her compassion washed over me unbearably.
"What happened here, Raven?" I asked. "Jasper took the key?"
"Yeah. I don't know how. But he's… fine… now."
"As fine as the rest of us, I suppose."
"Something like that."
"And how are you, Raven?" I asked, as I pressed new bandages down.
"Glad to have our Chancellor back."
"I thought I sucked at it."
"Ok, then, doc, glad to have my friend back." She smiled at me.
"Well, after what you did for all of us in the City of Light, you can tell Sinclair that he takes orders from you now," I joked. Her face froze and tears collected in her eyes. "Raven?"
"No one told you," she whispered. Clarke came back to the present at Sinclair's name, too.
"Sinclair's dead, mum," said Clarke. "Emerson killed him."
"I'm so sorry," I said, to both of them. My heart, already filled with death, seemed to expand a bit more. I felt sure it would burst with all the tragedy. Sinclair had been a good man, and fought alongside Marcus and Lincoln to get rid of Pike.
I was done with losing good people.
A knock on the door brought us out of our introspection. Clarke still looked distant, but Raven wiped the tears from her eyes and tried to hike her smile up.
It was Bellamy.
"Chancellor Griffin," he said formally. "Kane wants to see you."
"I'm not the Chancellor," I said.
"You're the closest thing we have." Raven nodded her agreement at that.
I looked at Clarke. As far as I was concerned, it was her decision. I wasn't going to make any more decisions for my daughter.
"You've got to keep us together," she said, nodding her own agreement at Bellamy's words.
"But you're still in charge, right?" I asked wryly. She widened her eyes in terror. She never wanted to be in charge. My beautiful daughter had only ever wanted to protect people. It was in her nature, and she would never be able to get rid of that part of her, but it ate her up inside to make decisions that cost us all so much.
"When you three have found something to eat, I want you to meet me in the Chancellor's rooms." I said.
"We've got to work this out as a team. And I think Clarke needs to tell us something." From the look on Bellamy's face I knew he knew as well, and Raven seemed to suspect the same thing I did. Clarke had come out of the City of Light looking more scared than she'd gone into it. Something was wrong.
"Kane's in the mess," said Bellamy.
"Alright, meet me there."
As I walked into the mess, I saw what looked like the entirety of Arkadia there having breakfast. People were serving, and it looked almost normal.
I walked between the packed tables and people greeted me with smiles. I heard many greet me with 'Chancellor'. It made my throat close up. They still had hope.
Marcus was sitting with Harper, Jasper, and Monty. Miller wouldn't have wanted to leave Brian's side, and I didn't blame him.
"How are you, Jasper," I asked as I sat with them.
He looked down, away from my eyes. He'd wanted so desperately to escape his pain, and he'd finally succumbed. I couldn't fault him for that.
I laid my hand on his shoulder instead. "It's good to have you back with us."
Monty smiled at his friend, bleakly. There was so much I needed to get caught up on.
"We need to start rebuilding this place," said Marcus, jumping straight into it. "It's not going to take the Grounders long to blame us for the City of Light."
"I say we give them Jaha," said Harper. I flinched at the harshness in her voice. For her part in rescuing Marcus and the others, I could never be thankful enough, but her anger seemed out of proportion here.
"I say we punish him ourselves," added Monty.
"He was just as much a victim as us," I said.
"Victim, my arse," said Jasper. "He left looking for the City of Light, and came back to destroy us."
That was true. He'd been just as obsessed by the City of Light before he'd even been chipped.
I stood. "I have to find him." On the trek home, most people had ignored him, but as people settled, there would be backlash. I couldn't let him be killed before we decided what to do with him.
He was outside.
I almost turned around and walked away when I saw him. He was, unbelievably, smiling. He was sitting cross-legged on the ground outside the gate, meditating. It looked like his chip had never been disconnected. I knew that wasn't the case; I'd seen him wake up when the rest did, but he looked exactly like A.L.I.E's minion that I'd been fighting.
"Thelonious?" I asked tentatively. His face opened like that of a sleeping man wakening.
He smiled wider when he saw me and the placid look did not leave his face. "Abby," he said, "what can I do for you?"
I wanted to kill him myself. I even reached for the gun I'd carried home, but I'd left it behind. Luckily, or I might have shot him then.
"And Kane," he said, looking behind me. Before I could turn, Marcus's hand was on my arm.
"Thelonious," said Marcus, his voice full of the shock I had felt. "You look… well."
"You have looked better, Kane; are you finally learning the downfalls of leadership?" Marcus's hand tightened on my arm and I felt his whole body tense.
"We need you to come with us, Thelonious," I said.
"You need to lock me up so they don't kill me," he said, knowingly.
We marched him back into Arkadia. I felt better as soon as we closed the lockup door on him. He, on the other hand, seemed perfectly at ease the entire time. He smiled as we left him in lockup.
"If I didn't know better, I'd say he was still chipped," said Marcus, as we walked away.
"Marcus," I said slowly, though I knew we didn't really have time for this. The others would be waiting. "I don't know what to do now."
He stopped and turned me to look at him. "Whatever happens, we're in this together, remember?" He smiled; that smile that told me I was the most important person in the world.
The mess was emptier when we got back, but one table contained Clarke and her friends; Raven, Bellamy, Monty, and Jasper. All people I trusted.
I took one look at Clarke's face and made a decision. "Chancellor's rooms, now."
Once there, people started taking seats. Some sat on the table, some on the couch, some sprawled on the floor. Clarke stayed standing.
"Alright, what is it, Clarke?" I asked.
She started crying. Bellamy held her hand, and I stood to wrap one arm around her shoulders.
"A.L.I.E told me something in the City of Light." She took a few deep breaths and then said it. "The nuclear reactors are melting down. We're all going to be dead in six months." There was dead silence for a few moments.
"That's not something we can survive," said Monty, his face a mask of fear.
Jasper started sniggering, with a hysteric edge to it. I could see tears running down his face at the same time, though.
"Should have kept us in the City of Light," he said, almost snarling at Clarke. Monty had to grab one of his arms to stop him leaping to his feet.
"That's enough, Jasper." I knew Jasper had been keenest on disappearing into a world without pain, but I was still shocked at his reaction.
"What are we going to do?" Asked Raven. I could already see the cogs working in her brain as she tried to come up with an answer to her own question. With Sinclair gone, I trusted no one more than Raven and Monty to come up with the answer.
"We're all gonna die! Or weren't you listening?" Spat Jasper. He stood, yanking his arm out of Monty's grasp, and stormed out. Monty leapt after him.
"Don't worry, I'll make sure he doesn't spread it," said Monty as he left.
"Maybe he should," said Marcus, quietly.
"And cause mass panic?" Asked Raven. She looked at me. "Doc, is there a way to survive critical radiation?" She asked rhetorically.
"Is there a way we can hide from it?" I countered.
She smiled. "I'm on it." She was, too. Her eyes were focused inward, where I'm sure ideas for radiation proof bunkers and elaborate filtration systems were already occurring to her. "I've just got to check a few things," she muttered, as she too left.
"We need the other Stations," I said, "Raven could work so much better with all that equipment."
"As long as that equipment isn't a pile of ash by now, or decorating a grounder's armour," muttered Bellamy.
Marcus gave me a look that I interpreted immediately. I should have had her make this announcement in private. He didn't know her like I did, though. Bellamy already knew; I was willing to bet the others would have known by the day's end. Miller, Bryan, and Harper would know, too.
Everyone would have to know eventually. I could feel Clarke's fear. I wanted to take the burden from her shoulders but I knew she wouldn't relinquish it.
"You need more rest, Clarke; what you did in the City of Light was too much."
"I had no choice," she said, but I sensed she wasn't answering me.
"You were right to bring us out of the City of Light," said Marcus, stepping up to where Clarke swayed slightly under Bellamy's supporting arm and grabbing her hands. "It's better to die free." She smiled tentatively up at him. He was so earnest, it was hard not to believe him.
"Rest," I said, "doctor's order."
She nodded. Bellamy steered her out of the room, and the door slid shut, with an eerie silence.
The room suddenly felt twice as small, and I was only too aware of Marcus standing behind me.
I turned around and looked up at him.
His eyes met mine with a searching look. "We can't let this keep coming between us," he said.
"Easy for you to say," I said in a low voice, but I knew it wasn't the case. This wasn't easy for him to talk about at all. The Kane from the Ark had been a man of little sentiment, and he still retained that discomfort for emotions.
"I just," I started, but didn't know what I was going to follow it up with.
"Did I make a mistake?" He asked, desperately searching for some kind of answer in my eyes.
"No," I cried, looking him straight in the eyes.
He leant down and kissed me. It had the same desperate edge as our parting kiss, but this time I could feel it all. I realised how little it resembled the kiss in Polis and how stupid I was to let that come in between us.
"Abby," he said, and the need in his voice was worth a thousand words that he could never say.
"We shouldn't be doing this now," I said, but my heart wasn't in it.
"When else? I should never have left you behind."
It didn't matter. We both had so much to make up for, but none of it mattered. Marcus's head in my hands, his lips pressed against my skin, were all that mattered. He was kissing me like he felt the same.
I pushed him down onto the couch. An echo of my manipulation in Polis tried to intrude but I shoved it back. This wasn't the same.
He kissed me desperately, holding me close on his lap.
I was meant to be a leader, and here I was acting like a 15 year old. It felt wonderful.
A knock on the door made us jump apart. Marcus reached out, like he would keep the moment together, but it had been broken.
It was Sergeant David Miller, who brought the entire weight of responsibility with him.
I looked at Marcus, who had squared his shoulders. He was ready to take it on. I wasn't. I wasn't ready to be the good example he thought I could be. I wasn't ready to combat a threat to our lives again.