More S2/S3 goodies! And also an explanation as to how Abby knows how to use a gun…
Allusions
Marcus found her in the medical tent, packing up supplies with Jackson. They had decided to move Medical back in the station so they could gain space outside to expand with more solid building. Abby looked up and smiled when she spotted him. It was such a spontaneous response that he felt something flutter in his chest, something that had been tugging at his heartstrings more and more lately.
"Can I help you?" she asked, suddenly all business. Her frown wasn't entirely disapproving but there was a clear warning there. "So help me if you and Miller broke another kid…"
"We don't break them, we train them." he argued.
Several beds in the tent were occupied. Some patients were still recovering from Mount Weather, others were there because guard training was difficult and he refused to have a militia of sixteen years old on his hands. Bellamy had seemed glad at the opportunity to resume his training, he had beamed in a show of uncharacteristic happiness when Marcus had handed him a jacket, and had convinced the others to follow that plan. It had gone more or less well.
Mostly, the kids who had volunteered to join were good recruits and he was very satisfied with them but injuries still happened. He wasn't training them to keep order on a closed space station, he was training them for a potential war he and Abby were trying their hardest to avoid. And Mount Weather was still too close. He didn't want to live through another one.
The kids were receptive. Future leaders were already emerging, kids he knew he could trust to lead parties and mission: Bellamy, Nathan Miller… Teaching them discipline and a sense of hierarchy was more difficult though.
Harper proved that, right then and there, by waving at him from her bed as if he was a long lost friend instead of her superior.
And yet he found himself waving back because Harper was a good kid with too much sass who always doubled back to help other trainees who were in difficulties. She would make a good leader too eventually, once she would have broken out of the habit of blindly following Bellamy's orders.
"That's what you claim." Abby snorted, going back to sorting the box on her desk since there was obviously no emergency. "But I always end up having to fix one of them."
"Sixty percent of our patients come from your training sessions." Jackson confirmed.
"They're learning." Marcus insisted.
"And I had to redo your stitches how many times?" she sighed, shaking her head at him.
Jackson had taken them out two weeks earlier but before that there had been some accidental popping them off when he was a bit too rough during training. Lincoln's help when it came to hand to hand combat was irreplaceable but the Grounder didn't understand the concept of taking it easy when they were simply demonstrating a particular technique.
"Are you busy?" he deflected. She looked up again and lifted an eyebrow as if to tell her what do you think? And it might have been an idiotic question. She was their only doctor and she was also Chancellor, Abby was always busy. He rolled his eyes. "I need you on the firing range."
"Did one of the kids shoot themselves in the foot?" she asked with fatalism, already reaching out for her emergency bag.
"No. Miller took the kids in the woods for some practical exercise." he shrugged. "It's for you."
"For me?" she repeated flatly, dropping the bag back where it came from.
"We talked about this, Abby." he said, sounding firm.
"No." she retorted. "You talked about this. I said maybe which was a polite way to tell you it was never going to happen."
Jackson's eyes darted from his mentor to him and wisely rushed to Harper's side to check on her even though the girl didn't look in any discomfort.
Marcus folded his arms in front of his chest, staring her down. He didn't care if he looked like a jerk. She would learn how to defend herself.
"I will get you there if I have to toss you over my shoulder." he warned. She glared, pursing her lips tight in annoyance and he just knew she was going to dare him to do it. He shook his head. "Don't try me, Abby."
"I could have you arrested if you tried to grab me, Councilman." she hissed.
"I'll arrest myself once we're done if that's what it takes, Chancellor." he snapped.
Her jaw clenched. "I have work to do here where I'm useful. Guns are your thing, Marcus. We both know I will suck at it and…"
"I can handle Medical, Abby." Jackson offered from the other end of the tent. "It's calm."
"See? Jackson can handle Medical." Marcus triumphed. "Now come on. Don't make this difficult. I won't back down."
"When do you ever back down?" Abby muttered, tossing a dark look at Jackson on her way out of the tent. Traitor, her eyes said.
Marcus followed her, automatically lifting the flap of the tent for her and guiding her out with a hand on the small of her back even though it was unnecessary. Her limp was almost gone now but he had spent so much time watching her like a hawk in the last month that he could still see the slight tinge of pain with every step she took. It was why he hadn't insisted too much about doing this before, he wanted her fully healed.
"You know, this is really unnecessary." she said as they walked along the station's metallic outer wall to reach the makeshift firing range. "You won't let me go collect herbs right outside of camp without two guards. And when we meet with Grounders you are right next to me the whole time. I am as safe as can be."
"No, you're not." he countered. "I will protect you with my life, Abby, and so will the other guards. That's our job. But what happens if I get killed?"
"I will bring you back to kill you myself." she deadpanned. "Because you are not dying on me, Kane."
His last name was a shock and he briefly stopped walking, trying to recall when was the last time he had been Kane and not Marcus. She went on. Looking straight ahead and with her jaw clenched, anger radiating from her in waves.
It only took one long stride to catch up with her. He coiled his hand around her elbow to slow her down but she refused to look at him.
"I won't go through another Mount Weather." he told her quietly. "I won't have you grabbed and taken away just because I'm too weak to protect you."
"You were not weak, you were hurt." she snapped. "Have you forgotten the building that collapsed on you already?"
He hadn't. His memories were a bit jumbled but he did remember. He remembered how she had stubbornly refused to leave his side, how she had held his hand and promised they would be alright…
"They still took you." he shrugged.
"And we were fine in the end." she reminded him with a soft sigh as they reached the deserted firing range.
He had sent the kids away with Miller on purpose. He didn't think she would want an audience for this. First because he knew she would probably not be great at it and it wouldn't do to have the whole camp seeing their Chancellor fail at something and, second, because he just knew one of the kids would joke – probably Bellamy – and he liked them. Abby would have chewed their heads off for mocking her.
"I'm not willing to take any chance." he insisted. "Look… If you don't do it for yourself, do it for me. Or for your daughter." He added that last part hastily because it made more sense than Abby randomly learning to shoot for his sake. "Maybe one day you will find yourself in a situation where you will have to protect her. And you will be happy to know how to hold a gun then."
She studied him for a long time, mulling that over. She didn't say what they were both thinking. Abby having to shoot someone to protect Clarke was unlikely. Clarke would more probably do the shooting herself. But Abby having to shoot someone to protect him because he would have been stupid enough to go down fighting to make sure she was alright? That was a scenario that looked more plausible at the moment.
He tended to be on the overprotective side when it came down to her safety and not only because she was their Chancellor.
"Alright." she surrendered. "But I'm a healer, Marcus, not a warrior. I don't like this."
"Dutifully noted." he answered.
A smile stretched her lips, slightly strained but an obvious testimony of goodwill. "And I bet you I will be hopeless at it."
"I will teach you." he promised. "You'll get it in no time."
It was an optimistic take.
Abby was, in fact, rather hopeless at shooting.
She tried but her heart wasn't in it. She followed his instructions to the letter, at best managing to hit the target but never where it counted. He corrected her position several times, standing close behind her with his hands on her hips, sometimes nudging one of her legs with his foot so she would widen her stance.
"If you want me to spread my legs wide, you should say so, Marcus." she grinned at some point.
He almost choked and then started spluttering denials only to stop when her laugh rang clear and joyful. He stepped closer, pressing his chest against her back and she abruptly stopped laughing when his hands covered hers, aiming the gun at the correct level.
"Focus." he chided her, his voice low in her ear. He felt her shivering and smirked to himself. Two could play that game after all. "Now take a deep breath and when you breathe out, pull the trigger. Don't over think it." She hit the target right where it counted and he stepped back, giving her back her space. "See? I knew you could do it."
"Well, your teaching methods are… effective." she teased. "I understand why you wanted to give me private lessons."
He rolled his eyes at her, a fond smile on his lips. "Are you done?"
"I don't know." she snorted. "Are you? Do you want to tell me more about spreading my legs or how to keep a firm grip on the gun but not too tight? Oh! Do I need to know more about the importance of breathing through it because…"
"I swear you're five years old." he mocked, unable to stop himself from laughing. "You're worse than the kids."
"If you give them that sort of speeches, I'm surprised they manage to focus at all." she chuckled, handing him the gun back carefully. "I'm starting to understand why I have so many injured in my tent at the end of the day."
"It's not because your mind is in the gutter…" he argued.
"Marcus, you talk about guns like you talk about sex." she interrupted him.
"How would you know?" he challenged. "I never talked about sex with you, did I?"
She waited until he had put the gun away and they were well on their way back to Medical before she spoke again – her voice was a mix of teasing and grief. "You do realize I was friend with Callie and girls talk, right?"
He hadn't thought about Callie in a while. He wasn't sure he had thought about her at all since hitting the ground, aside for a fleeting thought when they had found Alpha and she had been missing. He suddenly felt guilty about that, about forgetting a friend they had both shared even if his own relationship with her had been more than complicated toward the end.
He could have replied he had been friends with Jake and that boys talked too but he was a little classier than that and he didn't want to bring Jake in this conversation.
"She never seemed to have any complains." he smirked, probably looking too smug.
"No. Not about sex at least." Abby confirmed with open amusement. "She used to say you had some great moves."
He licked his lips, the discussion sliding into dangerous waters. Talking about sex with Abby wasn't something he was entirely comfortable with. They were friends, yes, but something had been shifting between them lately and… The whole conversation felt less like harmless friendly banter and more like… He didn't know what exactly… Except that he wouldn't have minded showing her some of these moves she was talking about.
"Abby…" he hesitated.
"All I'm saying is… Maybe try to keep it PG for the kids." she hurried in saying, flashing him a bright smile that barely covered the sudden panic he could feel underneath. Maybe she had been taken aback by were her thoughts had led her too, maybe she wasn't ready for this shifting. He didn't want to push her on this. He was too painfully aware he didn't deserve her.
"I'm still saying you're seeing innuendoes where there aren't." he insisted.
They were back in front of the medical tent and she shrugged with a smile that let him know she was simply humoring him. "If you say so. Dinner tonight?"
"Sure." he agreed readily.
It was only much later when Miller had brought the kids back and he was going over the watch duty schedule with Bellamy that he cleared his throat.
"Do you think I talk about guns in a weird way?" he asked the boy.
Bellamy looked puzzled by the abrupt change in conversation and then shrugged. "No? Why?"
"Never mind." he mumbled, not willing to explain their Chancellor had seen sexual allusions in every sentence he had uttered while teaching her how to shoot.
He was right and he knew it.
She was the one whose mind was in the gutter, not him.