Disclaimer: I don't own The 100. Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.

Authors Note #1: This is my first work in this fandom, so I am really just testing the waters. – This is the sequel to: "Ineffable," basically telling the story of what happened next and this time told in Abby's point of view. Set in the realm of 1x11 when the camera pans out after Kane found Abby after going through the shaft to see if there was anyone left in the Service Bay after the Exodus ripped away from the Ark. – This part goes off into AU territory where there was more time between the end of 1x11 and the start of 1x12 and the events of this fic take place between the race to save Abby's young patient and the re-running simulations to save the Ark and get to Earth.

Warnings: Please keep in mind this story deals with the alpha/beta/omega universe, featuring alpha!Marcus and omega!abby. Expect extreme sexual content, heat/rut sex, contraceptives, adult language, dub-con to be safe due to freaky biology and the consent issues that come part and parcel with this trope.

Aquiver

Chapter Three

She jerked her eyes up, caught red-handed as she tipped her chin and found his eyes glowing down at her. Expression a trenched-up mess of want, need, desperation and something so much more. Visibly holding himself back as the shower switched off automatically. The last drops plink-plinking down the drain like all the words that remained unspoken between them.

"Did it help?" she asked curiously, changing the topic with as much grace and speed as possible. Giving him at least a modicum of privacy as she held up the towel until he was forced to take it. Holding it up against him, bunched and useless as he stared down at her, uncomprehending. Every fraction of his attention focused on her and her alone until she sighed and took it back from him. Using gentle, hesitant strokes as she started to pat him dry. "The water, I mean?"

"It did in the beginning," he answered slowly, like the words themselves were hard. Wavering in place as he inhaled throatily, making no effort to hide his interest as water streamed freely from the dark, wet-plastered curls of his hair and down his chest.

She wasn't unaffected.

Not by a long shot.

"I could almost freeze out the feeling. Make the burning stop. But I couldn't get deep enough," he added after a long pause, attention so divided he kept trailing off before he could make his point. It was so unlike him that it made her chest tighten uncomfortably. "It's like my body doesn't recognize itself anymore. Everything is different."

She nodded, already miles ahead as she shook herself free from the ever present fog of rut hormones that her body couldn't help but respond to. She didn't know if it was Marcus or the situation but she could already feel the start of her heat flushing through her. Building up to answer the call of her Alpha's rut as every cell in her yearned to lean in and soothe.

"You're still coming off the suppressants. Your body is trying to make up for a couple of decades of chemical changes. I am not going to lie to you, if we can't find a way to make more suppressants, you're going to be feeling these changes after your rut. Muscle growth. Endurance. Increased testosterone. If worst comes to worst, you're going to have to figure out your new normal," she remarked carefully, reaching up on her tip toes to smooth the corner of the towel down the curve of his cheek.

She got caught up in it. Trailing the damp towel down the jut of his jaw and the tense line of his neck until he surprised her by capturing her hands in his. Turning them over gently. Large palms threatening to swallow them completely as the towel slumped forgotten on the floor between them. The moment making tracks towards a stuttered, honest sort of intimacy she didn't quite know what to do with.

"How do you feel?" she asked cautiously, quiet and a little uneven despite the double meaning behind the words. Marveling a bit that he was allowing her this. This stolen little moment of off-kilter intimacy despite how much he was hurting.

"Terrible," he admitted, nostrils flaring as he brought her hands up to his nose and inhaled. Rubbing the soft of her skin against the stubble-rough of his upper lip. Self-soothing and sensual as liquid warmth pooled thick and savory in her belly. Not seeming conscious of the act itself as a tremor she could actually feel against her, wracked through him.

"But I feel- I feel alive. Maybe even for the first time," he continued, shaking his head to clear it as he thumbed the bottom flare of her hair like he could feel a difference in the texture. "It's like there's a whole other world I've been blind to all this time and now I can- now I can almost grasp it."

It made her think about something David, her old mentor, had said before she'd completed her training. Marcus had been one of only three Alphas to present in just under two generations across the entirety of the Ark. Thus, unbeknownst to most, they had access to his files for teaching purposes. She had seen the footage more than once. The clips of him being wheeled into a cordoned off section of the infirmary. Viscerally aggressive with his sweat-stringed hair threatening to curl, the tendons in his neck violently tight. Snapping his teeth and pulling wildly at the restraints – all textbook Alpha behavior. Eventually quieting to muted little churls and when they found an Omega orderly in to sooth him with his scent.

It was always right at that point that David would pause the feed and tap at the screen with his stylist. Shaking his head and muttering to himself until she finally took the bait and asked him what he thinking about.

"Abby, you can take the rut out of an Alpha. You can suppress it to Kingdom Come, but that doesn't change what they are. Who they are. People like that will only really be at peace with themselves until we find a better way," the man always said, spinning this way then that in his desk chair.

"We are more than our natures," she'd pointed out. Fresh from advanced Sociobiology and more than ready to make a name for herself during the last portion of her residency before her final exams.

"Being an Alpha is one facet of their personality, Abby, yes. But it is tangled up and engrained too deep to be rid of completely. Take Mr. Kane for example, our station's rising political star."

"Marcus? You can't be serious! He is uncompromising, power-hungry," she started, forever hot-headed when it came to this particular argument. "He follows the law to the letter and is almost pathologically detached, logical to a fault and-"

"He is using politics and command as an outlet. As he should," David countered, rewinding the video clip back to the beginning and stabbing play with his stylus. "I know you and I disagree on this, my dear, but he is right more often than he is wrong. And lord knows these days, if there weren't rules – consequences for our actions - we would have gone the way of Station 13 a long time ago. I fear we are going to need that kind of pragmatism more and more in the coming years."

She hid the amused tilt of her lips at the memory.

In hindsight, even with the suppressants, Marcus had always been unmistakably Alpha.

Strong. Unyielding. Pig-headed. Dogged.

Completely fucking impossible.

But it wasn't until recently, very recently in fact, that she'd let herself internalize the idea that he had to be. It was who he was, afterall. It was one of the few ways left that he could express himself from the genetic level up. Because underneath all those layers of chemical plugs and hormone blockers, the Alpha in him was still there. Muted, shallow and suppressed, but undeniably alive.

She stayed silent as he shuffled a couple unobtrusive steps closer, thinking it through. Pebbling her skin with the odd drop of water as the warm, butter-rich tones of his rut washed over her. It threatened to pull her off topic – reminding her how every Alpha's scent was different. Like an echo of their personality as her keen nose began to recognize the odd scent melded in with the primaries – but she held firm.

Because looking at him now, feral and real and more than a little bit breathtaking as he looked down at her like she was the center of god damned everything, she was suddenly struck by the rightness of it. Maybe it was time. If the ground was habitable and one hundred young people could survive down there unaided, maybe it was right that Marcus Kane's first steps on the ground were exactly like they were meant to be.

Naturally and unashamedly Alpha.

Just like their ancestors had been before they'd scorched the skies and fled into space.

She considered it all over a series of shared breaths. Hyper aware that they were still standing there, half in the bathroom, half in the hall. Stalled. She licked her lips, unable to resist the open tell. Knowing that his eyes were following.

"You shouldn't be here," he tried, voice raspy, rough and just a little bit wounded as a patch of wet seeped through the damp of her underwear. A heady counterpoint to the way he was still rubbing the very tips of her fingers against the plush of his lower lip. Memorizing each nick and crease.

Something in her vigorously celebrated that lie.

Because the truth was in what he wasn't saying.

That he wanted her to be.

He'd chosen her for a reason – for something that existed beyond the burn of his rut.

It was the man and the Alpha working in tandem.

She swayed on the very edge of it as his other hand reached forward and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Smoothing it into place before resting his palm on the curl of her shoulder. Delighting her with this new, tactile part of him as his thumb rubbed soothing circles into the joint.

It made her think of maybe just a few minutes into her own future and how those same hands might feel against her skin. Dragging down her sides, cupping her breasts, slicking down towards-

She mentally shook herself.

She'd come here with something to say.

And this was the moment.

Before anything else, she had to give him at least this.

"I'm here," she started, correcting herself in real time as his blown pupils blinked slowly. "I wanted to be here before-"

"Before I lose all reasoning power and cannot consent?" he offered plainly, rumbling like loose bolts vibrating through a decaying bulkhead as the words welled up slow. Like he'd practised them in the hours that'd kept them separate.

It was very Marcus.

The line of her lips tightened a fraction. Hiding the shiver of arousal and relief as she recognized the ghost of his usual tones underneath the rich, dark quality that was threatening to take over. The signature Alpha burr every Omega knew like breathing.

"Yes," she agreed, taking a moment to choose her words so that he would understand. Needing to prove it to him in real time so that there would be no doubt. Already knowing full well what his reaction would be before she put the rest into voice. "But Marcus, if you wanted- it doesn't have to be me. There are more than enough Omegas who would-"

The negative was immediate. Accompanied by a violent jerk of his head as his hand tightened around hers instinctively. Like nothing would be worse than having to let her go. "No. There is no one else. I don't want- I've made my choice. There has never been-"

She felt her face flush – pleased and pink – as he visibly reigned himself in. Looking like this was costing him everything he'd never expected would be so difficult to willingly give up as he forced the rest out in a rush between gritted teeth.

"But I don't want this if you don't. If you don't feel it- Abby, I can't, I wouldn't-"

Her smile was a trillion watts strong, like what she figured the sunrise must be like from the ground as she reached up and ran her hand down the curve of his cheek. Shushing him when he leaned into it, muscles tensing and releasing as she broke the tension with an assenting little hum.

"Shhh," she murmured, thumbing at the corner crease of his lips like the equivalent of a hesitant, opening kiss. "There's nowhere else I'd rather be."

He wavered in place, shell-shocked.

So relieved she could taste it on the air.

But she wasn't done yet.

"I woke up and you were still here," she said quietly, looking up at him as she used the hand he still had captured to press against her breast. Letting their hands mingle together against her heartbeat as he sucked in a breath without filter. "It wasn't just your scent or your rut. It was you, Marcus. That was when I knew."

Because that was thing, wasn't it?

Just like with Alphas, every Omega could tell.

Mate.

You could feel the rightness of it underneath skin and sinew. It was a song with a familiar chorus. And looking up at him now, breathing in his scent and wanting him desperately for her very own, for the first time in her life, she finally understood why people shed blood to keep that feeling alive.

"I wish we had more time," he croaked hoarsely, reeling her in until she had her arms around his chest and he was resting his chin on the top of her head. Allowing her to bury herself deep as his scent surrounded her like a balm.

She jerked, surprised. Because while he'd said it out loud, crossing that bridge soundly to reveal his cards without censure or hesitation – bold and unashamed - she'd been thinking it. Coveting it close to her chest as she tasted his stale. Inhaling when he exhaled like she just couldn't help herself.

She wanted-

"Abby."

She looked up, separating them as his chest heaved. Eying his clenched fists and lingering stance as his cock thudded heavily against his thigh. Eyes dark, feral and promising as he took a half-step forward, following her.

And all at once, she knew what he needed.

Because while some things had changed. Other things – things like instinct and the heat of the answering howl that was warming through her blood – always remained the same.

A/N: Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. – There will be one more chapter.