AN: tumblr propt Abby being comfortable around Kane and how he's grown to be her safe place
This could also be read as a sort of sequel to chapter 10
For the first week she's bedridden and sulky. But there is too much to do and too much to think about during her waking hours to pretend she's not exhausted by dinner time.
She tries not to feel crowded, but between Jackson watching her like a hawk and Marcus coming to Medical with an excuse or another every few hours, on the fourth day she snaps.
"I'd rather you were out there looking for Clarke!" she mutters that morning. She knows Bellamy volunteered to go after her daughter, she knows Marcus let him take Monroe and Miller to the dropship, she knows Marcus scheduled a mission to Mount Weather for supplies, and she knows everyone leaving camp has orders to report about any trace of Clarke. But she's forced in bed, she's alone and in pain, and she's still chancellor...
Marcus leaves her with his pad and a list of topics to discuss in the next meeting to ponder on, then graciously bows out of her space.
She doesn't see him until after sunset for a disappointingly short briefing.
The next morning he shows her a preliminary map of a bigger settlement he must have worked on the previous night, with notes gathered from different departments on improvements to be done at the crashed Ark and entire new structures to be built, then leaves her to think about it for the rest of the day, which strangely makes her uncomfortable and peeved without her being able to pinpoint it on anything. She blames it on the ache but she looks at the meagre amount of painkillers they brought back from the mountain, and refuses to take any.
Marcus doesn't show up after dinner. Nor the next morning.
Jackson doesn't comment on her subtly veiled annoyance, but lets her grab crutches after lunch to step outside and follow Sinclair to see what the hydraulic system he designed would look like.
Still, Marcus is nowhere to be seen. Something inside of her is still seething in the late afternoon, but she's not sure it's anger anymore. Was she ever angry? She asked him to leave her alone and he did, the cheek of him... What was she expecting?
If she's angry it's at herself.
Following Sinclair's train of thoughts is hard; harder with the persistent pang of pain in her bones and the feeling she's gasping for air. They're nose to the sky, discussing the possibility to strip down what they can reach of the standing part of the Ark wheel before the weather turns to worst, when she hears his voice at the gate. Turning to look at him makes her grit her teeth and blink tears away. It's only slightly anticlimactic to have Sinclair standing there, or Bellamy and Miller a few feet away, or dozens of other people around; he stops in his tracks, ears and tip of his nose red with cold, but still fails to correct the look of worry on his face to something more neutral. He shakes his head woefully.
She didn't even know he was out there looking for Clarke. Her breath catches. Because she asked him to. Stupid, stupid man.
It doesn't matter. Because the pain in her knees is making her nauseous, the chilly wind gave her a headache and the force with which she's gripping the crutches, paired with the cold, cracked the brittle skin at her knuckles and she's sure she'd be embarrassing herself if he weren't there to collect her once again.
She must wobble because Sinclair reaches for her as Marcus does, and she excuses herself back inside the Ark where he follows.
"Don't tell Jackson," she admonishes leaning against the wall, out of breath, "He'll never let me leave the bed again."
"Maybe you shouldn't," he snorts.
"Shut up Marcus." It comes off harsher than intended and her cheeks flush with frustration when he obeys, looking at his boots.
She's never made a secret of her wishes, but she's never had anything granted before. She took it. And now that someone – he, of all people – is trying to give her what she wants, it's... unsettling. It feels wrong. This is not how they work, he should be holding her back, talk her out of nonsense, challenge her...
She feels tears prickle at her eyes. All she has to do is ask. But she's been vocal about space she doesn't need, and silences she doesn't know how to fill, instead.
"I can't take another step," she confesses meekly.
Noting about this feels right. His hands are icy and he's stiff, almost mechanical in his movements, his stubble stabs her cold sensible skin and his breath tickles her, but when he lifts her up she knows she'd never let anyone else do it. She buries her nose in his neck and memorizes the rich smell of earth and mist and the miles he covered for Clarke.
He doesn't carry her to Medical, her room is closer and it has a door, and once it's shut behind them she lets her tears soak the collar of his shirt as he holds her, swaying lightly, till she's drained and lightheaded and limp.
"You'll never find her," she sobs, trying pointlessly not to sound desperate.
His arms tightens around her and he says something that she didn't even consider: "You think we're not looking hard enough." It's a statement she hears from his rib cage, only slightly louder than his heartbeat, and it sounds like defeat and resignation. A failure she has no intention to burden him with.
Abby sniffs and lets out a suffered breath. "No," she answers softly, "She doesn't want to be found."
And she'll have to live with it if it means he'll stand by her side.
A week later, Raven stomps out of the new Medical room on her own two legs with the attitude of someone ready to take over the world (which Abby makes a goal for her own recovery). She comes back to camp after two days, with Monty and Miller, on a humvee, and Marcus draws a bigger map of the area on the meeting room board.
Two weeks after that, there's still no news on Clarke, but there's a piano in the hangar and a couch in the meeting room.
"At least you won't have a crick in your neck next time you fall asleep working, like yesterday," he tells her only half joking.
Instead, she purses her lips and instructs him and Bellamy on which point of the wall exactly the couch should be.
A month later, there's a flu outbreak and she sleeps in Medical most nights, but when she leaves, exhausted, her feet drag her to the meeting room more often than her own bed.
Tonight the light is on but no one's there. The table is scattered with old maps and books and the board is filled with new names and numbers. The kids came home from sector four before sunset. No news.
She spent a whole year living alone, in their quarters up in space, after Jake's execution and Clarke's detention. A whole year surrounded by memories only and the ghost of a life she wanted to bury on the ground. Instead, she's left slowly digging her own grave, working impossible shifts to meet the demands of a community that doesn't feature the only person she's done all of this for. All in all, she doesn't see much improvement.
Abby sits on Marcus' chair and trails her fingers on the pages of an open book on minerals with doodles on the margins and handwritten notes she recognizes as his. Arkadia, she reads, and for some reason her sleep deprived mind lets her toy with the idea of a mythical peaceful and prosperous place. She smiles wistfully, when her nostrils fill with peppermint.
"Too cliché?" He's standing in the doorway, sipping herbal tea from the mug he went to refill.
"It's a nice utopia for a radioactive wasteland," she concedes turning to look at him.
He sighs, stepping in her space to set the mug next to hers.
She doesn't have to wonder why this is her favorite room, her blanket is neatly folded on the couch, his jacket is draped on the chair, her mug is still on the desk where she left it in the morning, boxes of medicines to arrange are mixing with the flora samples the kids took back so far. And it smells like peppermint whenever he's around.
It's their space. A lived room, not a dead one.
"Should we expect genetic anomalies from the next generation on the ground?" he asks cautiously.
She shakes her head. "I don't know." She can feel the warmth from his body, standing as close as possible without touching, comforting and familiar. "But it's a concern for another day," she says at last, leaving his chair for the couch. She loosens her boots and tugs her legs up under her, lazily browsing the book library on her pad.
She'll be asleep in minutes, swallowed by memories of another time, and he'll cover her with a blanket, letting her rest and pretending not to know why she's not in her bed. He's getting better at that.
She should be careful, she thinks just before falling asleep, he might realize she needs him more than he needs her.