CHAPTER ELEVEN

Abby had fallen behind so much in her exhaustion soon she was following the sound of the Commander's wheezing rather than the sight of the nameless giant. He stops several times and turns and waits for the doctor to catch up before continuing.

The window is still illuminated when they finally arrive at the hut. Abby awkwardly shuffles in front of the man and enters the building, holding the door open for him to stoop and bring the Commander inside. She takes quick inventory of their new safe house.

It's simple, to say the least. One room, a fire in the hearth bright and warm and welcoming, some pots and pans and oddities on a wall of shelves, a small but ridiculously tall wooden table and single matching chair; on the opposite wall a single bed and a row of barrels, as tall as they were wide. It smells like leather and something Abby can't place.

The man is still in the threshold, holding the bundled Commander, where he steps on the heels of his lace-less boots and steps out of them so that he is barefoot. Using one foot he pushes the boots neatly together so that they sit beside the door. He then casts a look down at Abby and waits.

"Would you like me to take off my shoes?" The doctor asks in total bewilderment.

When he just continues to stare she takes it as a 'yes' and kicks off her boots, then picks them up and aligns them with the man's. He nods, seemingly satisfied, and moves towards the bed.

He lays Heda meticulously and slow. He stands up straight, then, task complete, walks to the table, draws the chair, faces it towards the wall opposite the bed, and sits down with his back to the women. Abby watches him with an addled expression as he settles into the chair facing the wall.

It occurs to her that this is his attempt at providing them privacy. Unsure of what to say she settles on not saying anything at all and then moves into action, dropping her backpack and bundle of weapons, leaning over the Commander.

"Commander, can you hear me? Can you open your eyes?" the doctor asks, a hand on either side of the girl's face. Her features are strained; jaw clenched, forehead wrinkled, eyes darting under closed lids. In the quiet of the hut, the only noise other than her heavy breaths and the soft pops of the fire, it was now evident that Lexa was making soft groans and pants of distress. The doctor unwraps the cloak that she is enfolded in, and then the jean jacket, and discards them on the floor. The Commander is still incredibly feverish, and now, to Abby's dismay, not sweating. She needed to figure out a way to get the girl hydrated. Her pulse is still much too fast, too. Dammit, the doctor thinks, "Um, excuse me?" she says to the man's back, "Do you have any water?"

He stands and collects a clay cup from the shelving and points to one of the barrels. She can finally see him in the light of the fire. He has a lot of hair, that's the first thing she notices. It's dark in color and tied in a single braid that is twisted into a neat knot on the top of his head. His face is broad and, though still covered by a bandana tied ear to ear, Abby can tell he has sharp angles in his cheeks and nose. His eyebrows are thick and wild, like insects above his unnervingly blue eyes; crow's feet at their edges mark his age. He's also very tanned, his skin dry and wrinkled from what was probably a lifetime of working in the sun. The low ceiling of the hut made him seem even taller still, and his shoulders were wide and heavy, but his middle was not. He was also wearing nothing but different tones of brown. Brown trousers, brown hemp shirt, brown cowl, bare feet. He had no armor, and apparently no weapon.

Abby tentatively takes the cup and lifts the lid from the appointed barrel—finding it full of water. It takes everything she is not to dunk her head into the barrel. On the Ark, a reservoir of water like this was not a thing. Water was—like everything—a resource, and was monitored and rationed. Since landing on earth she had been somewhat spoiled with its availability.

"Thank you," she says, dipping the cup in and moving back towards Lexa, noting how the man kept his eyes anywhere but the bed as he moved to the hearth and started shuffling through items on the shelf. Abby wonders if there is some rule against seeing the Commander in such a condition.

She tries and fails miserably to get the Commander to drink. After three tries ending in Lexa gurgling and drooling water all over the place, Abby resigns to think of another plan. In the meantime, she checks her wounds.

She does not unbind the girl's broken ribs, but pulls the elastic away enough to inspect the open wound underneath. The tail end of the cloth that hangs from the packed wound is saturated with blood and mucus, but can stand a few more hours until it needed to be changed. Around it is still inflamed and stiff and hot to the touch, and it still smells putrid, but maybe it was a tad less swollen than several hours ago. "Hmmhm," Lexa whines in her sleep as the doctor prods her abdomen. Abby considers giving her another round of pain medicine, but decides to try and get her lucid so she can get down some fluids. She replaces the bandages and moves down to unlace the Commander's boots.

Once Abby is beside the door depositing the Commander's boots into the line of others she looks up to see the silent man pointing to the table, to a plate of unrecognizable food and a cup of hot tea. She stares blanking between him and the table until he rolls his eyes and moves the single chair in front of the plate and points again. "For me?" The Chancellor asked. He nods in return. Abby glances back to the Commander and then again at the table, feeling her body moving forward before her mind was made up. As she sits, she feels like her muscles unravel; like she's a string that's been wound so tight she was on the verge of snapping, and then someone let the ends loose. She is suddenly aware of how bone-deep exhausted she is, like she could lay on the wooden floor beneath her and sleep until she couldn't sleep anymore.

She's also starving. She looks at the plate of food, unfamiliar with the assortment of meat and berries piled high, and then to the unfamiliar face. She can't explain the tears that come to her eyes, "Thank you."

He nods and leaves her alone. He walks to where Abby had deposited Lexa's weapons, shirt, and his cloak, gathers them all into one arm, and moves to walk out the door. Abby did not care that he had all of her means of defense, or where he was going, or what he would do with the Commander's belongings—she was too relieved at the inexplicable kindness she had so far received, for the first time meeting a Grounder—to ask. Instead, before he walks totally out of the door, she calls out to him, "My name is Abby."

He pauses, looks back to her and stares quietly for a second or so, then nods again and walks out.

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