Murphy

Fucking finally.

Murphy helped Emori sit up against the cushions Jackson had set up on the medical table. She was still sore, but she was awake for long periods now and – mostly – sane.

Two weeks she'd been completely unconscious.

Two months before that she'd been conscious, but delirious with pain

His eyes soaked her in, tracing the lines of her tattoo and each small crease next to her eyes as she winced, adjusting herself.

'So, was I completely hallucinating for the past week, or is Clarke somewhere here?'

He smirked at her. 'Start with the easy questions, miss, why don't you?' He held his hand out, palm up, and she slid her smaller one into it without hesitation. 'Somehow, Clarke survived the absolute chaos that ended the world. Except for her and some trees, I guess. Not sure whether that says more about her or nature.'

Emori frowned at him. 'And where are we right now?'

'Arkadia.' He pressed a kiss to the back of her hand. 'You sort of lost consciousness completely after re-entry. Clarke had already been here several times over the years, knew med bay wasn't looking too shabby. So we brought you here.'

She looked around, eyes already examining the tech. Murphy snorted, knowing exactly where her mind was. Old habits died hard. 'Can't steal anything from here, unfortunately. It's kind of needed in case you get bad again, or the girl crashes. Or anyone else from the Bunker needs help and decides to make the trek over here.'

He shrugged, settled himself better in the chair he'd pulled up to her beside. There was no point waiting.

'So. Can we have a chat? Maybe about how and why you decided that the perfect time to send me across the Ark on some stupid errand was the exact time we got hit by an unexpected asteroid shower in the exact area we were?'

He felt her muscles tense up, saw the quick, hesitant glance she gave him from beneath her lashes. He steeled his face as the bottom of his stomach dropped with realisation. 'You knew.'

'Yes.' Her voice was soft, and she slid her hand from his. 'You have to understand, John, I was happy – I had you, and we were going to have a kid together.' She rubbed at the base of her deformed hand, and Murphy pursed his lips. 'A little you running round causing chaos on the Ring.'

She looked away, wetting her lips. 'Then I heard Harper and Monty talking. About how they weren't sure whether a pregnant person should go through the atmosphere in a spaceship they couldn't guarantee was safe, to a world they couldn't guarantee was radiation free. And then how they couldn't send a baby, either, for exactly the same reasons.'

Murphy crossed his legs, and the sunken feeling in his stomach deepened. He knew, without her having reached that part of the story, where she was going.

'I knew they were right. Knew that the second Raven got the backup power in the rocket working, I would be the one holding us up. I did think about just not going. You and me, staying up there, with the baby.'

He could see it in his mind's eye. The entirety of the Ring, belonging to the two of them and their kid. Plus any more they squeezed out, of course. No more bullshit rules about one kid and one kid only.

No one at all to rule them, just the two of them keeping whatever order they wanted.

A home, right where his had been cruelly ripped away years before.

'I couldn't do it to you.' He'd almost forgotten Emori was still talking, and switched his attention back to her. 'One rocket. One chance to get back to Earth. And we had to be on it if we wanted to survive – at least our best chance.' She laughed without humour. 'What do I know about keeping a weird ass spaceship going for more than five minutes without Raven's genius mind telling me what to do?'

'About as much as I do, at a guess.' He didn't share her fake humour, voice darkly serious. Emori's dark eyes flicked up to him for just a moment until she looked away again.

'Exactly. So I started thinking … and I knew that the problem would always be that I was pregnant. So somehow, I had to not be pregnant.'

'How did you know about the asteroids, Emori?'

She turned her head away, cheeks flushing in embarrassment. 'I was in Raven's office. Saw the alert flash up on screen. I've spent enough time around tech, thanks to A.L.I.E., to know how to disable it so none of you knew.'

He dropped his head, deep in thought, as she continued. 'It was just a case of making sure nobody else was on that side of the ship.'

'So, you decided to potentially risk all of us because we couldn't prepare, just so you could do what, induce a miscarriage, killing our child?' He scoffed. 'Of course. Makes perfect fucking sense considering my life.' He shook his head. 'You could have at least talked to me first.'

She didn't answer, and when Murphy raised his head, he could see the tears slipping down her cheeks. 'You know I'd have done absolutely anything for you, and you didn't even consult me before trying to kill yourself.'

'I wasn't –'

'Don't, Emori.' He didn't care that his voice had gotten harsh. 'I can't … not right now.'

'John!'

He kicked his chair back as he stood up. 'You landed on a goddamn shelf of scraps. You have three that we had to remove without medical knowledge just so we could stitch you up and stop you bleeding. You had one that got infected after we landed and could have killed you. And you had one pressing against a blood vessel to the point it was starving you of oxygen.

'Do you get it, Emori? You didn't just kill the baby. You nearly killed yourself many times over.' His hands clenched into fists at his side. 'Remember when we were escaping the fucking Earth that was trying to kill us, I was relieved I wouldn't have to watch you die?'

He waited until he just caught her nod out the corner of his eye. 'You made me watch you nearly die five times. Five times. Your heart stopped three times before we got the worst of the scraps out of you. And then after we crash landed, and Clarke wasn't sure what the hell she could do for you – if you'd even last until we got to Abby and Jackson. And then you started deteriorating with infection and she wouldn't fucking let me see you.'

'John –'

'No, Emori.' He shook his head. 'No.' He spun, putting his back to her. 'I need some air.'

He left her shouting his name.

I felt so bad writing this, poor Murphy 3

Not as bad as I felt writing the next chapter though ... fair warning, you're going to want tissues for chapter 39. Like, a fair few of them. (And probably for chapter 40 but it's not quite as emotional).

Also - named character death alert for the next chapter ... and the chapter after.

Yeah I'm going to that stage of two named deaths in two chapters.

Be interesting to see if anybody works out who I'm killing off before the chapters are published!

Publishing a few hours early because I know for a fact I won't be on until stupid o'clock tomorrow and the updates would be way too close together otherwise.

Sneaky edit - I'm so sorry about typos, my brain hates finding them and Word is rubbish!