a/n I'm sorry it's been a while - I shall try to be less distracted by other plot bunnies in future. Enjoy!
Murphy was sadly unsurprised to find Emori long gone by the time he woke up. This had been normal for some time now. He wasn't sure when the balance had tipped to his disfavour, to her spending more time with Raven than with him, but it had happened so gradually that she was spending almost all her waking hours with the engineer before he had realised quite what was happening. Of course, she was still sleeping with him, and for the old Murphy, the one who'd first landed on Earth a little over two years ago, that would have been enough. And they were still using the L-word plenty, but he was beginning to fear it was out of habit rather than honesty – or, at least, it might be that way before long.
But then Clarke had got through to them and everyone was so damn happy and Bellamy's permanently awestruck expression was starting to make him feel like, maybe, minor problems like his girlfriend having a new best friend were not so insurmountable after all. And Madi wanted to talk to him because he'd once declared his love for Emori in the middle of Becca's lab, and that reminded him that actually, they were a little bit essential to each other after all.
And so he found himself wondering, in a most un-John-Murphy-like way, if perhaps he needed to practise romance a little bit. Maybe, he mused, it was time to take Emori on a date. He was a little apprehensive at the thought, because he didn't want her to think he was clingy or sappy or in any way not the insufferable cockroach she had first fallen in love with, but he figured it was worth a try. He was beginning to fear that, if he did nothing, she might just slip away from him anyway.
He was expecting to have the leisure to continue this train of thought over breakfast – no doubt Monty and Harper would be wrapped up in their own little world, and Emori and Raven would be discussing something he couldn't even hope to understand, and Echo wasn't much of a conversationalist at the best of times. He was used to spending the majority of the day in his own company, so it had been fun to spar with Bellamy yesterday. Maybe, he thought, he could try that again. There was no rule that being a generally insufferable human meant he couldn't at least try having friends.
He was taken by surprise, therefore, by the sound of someone calling his name as he walked into the room where they usually ate. He looked up, and there were Raven and Emori, and they even looked at least a little happy to see him.
"Morning." He offered. "What are you doing here?"
"Bellamy's on the radio." Raven explained. "We thought they might appreciate a little privacy."
"I don't know." He smirked a little. "I think it might be quite funny to eavesdrop on them working so hard at not being in love."
"Don't, John." Why was Emori snapping at him? What had he said wrong? "They've had a row of some sort. Could you try not being ridiculously insensitive for once in your life?"
Well, so much for his plan to romance her.
"Oh." He knew he was probably supposed to say something sarcastic, but he wasn't sure he could. Because he didn't like thinking that Emori had a low opinion of him, and if he was being honest, he didn't like the idea of Bellamy being upset. That man was one of the closest things he'd ever had to a friend, after all.
"So, Raven, back to the fuel, what are your thoughts?" Great, he thought. This was the moment where they were going to start a conversation from which he was thoroughly excluded.
"I just don't know. I mean, we have no hydrazine, obviously. But I don't think we have anything else that would be a viable substitute. A couple of centuries ago, the big space travel organisations used to use hydrogen and oxygen. Sure, we've got oxygen, but not to spare, and we simply don't have the power supply to produce hydrogen by electrolysis on the scale we'd need. We have literally nothing." He was sick of this. Sick of the long words Raven was using, sick of the long silences between him and Emori.
"We've got plenty of algae." He let the undisguised anger show through in his voice. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go in search of what passes for breakfast round here."
"John!" That was Emori again, no doubt telling him that he'd offended her in some other way. "That's brilliant. You're a genius, John. We've got plenty of algae!"
"Yes, Emori. We have plenty of algae. How, exactly, could you please explain, does that make Murphy a genius?" Raven was clearly as confused as he was. At least, for a moment, he didn't need to be the chief idiot in the room.
"You remember that study you recommended I read? About a month ago? Biofuel!"
"Wow. That's absolutely crazy, of course, I mean, the rocket is designed for hydrazine for starters, but I suppose we've got three and a half years to work out how to convert it. And we'd need a huge amount of fuel. But Monty would probably love for us to tell him he can make more algae." Even he laughed at that, finding the increasingly buoyant mood in the room infectious. "I'll go suggest it to him now. This could be so good!" She grabbed him into a fierce hug and then ran from the room, as fast as her leg brace allowed her to. He scowled at that thought, and wondered if he would ever forgive himself for firing that shot.
He took a deep breath and walked towards Emori. Maybe, if he was such a genius, she might be up for allowing herself to be romanced after all? Slowly, carefully, he took Raven's recently vacated seat.
"Hey." He began, because he had to begin somewhere. She looked up and met his eyes, and he found himself wondering how to introduce the subject. "So I was thinking that, you know, with you and Raven hanging out we've not seen each other much recently." Ah. That was not how he had meant to start, and she did not look happy. "Not that that's a bad thing, of course! It's great that you two have hit it off and... I'm proud of you, really I am, for being so great at all these... clever mechanic things."
"You are?" She sounded strangely shy.
"Of course I am." She looked surprised by the vehemence in his voice, and he decided that this was a good moment to risk reaching out to take her hand. "Anyway, so I was wondering, do you want to spend some time together, just the two of us? Maybe watch a film or eat our evening algae next to that big window with the nice view of Earth? I mean, I get that you're busy with Raven, obviously we can fit it around your plans. I just thought it might be... nice?" He could feel himself trailing off awkwardly, and fixed his gaze on the floor. He should have realised that asking beautiful women out on dates was not a John Murphy thing to do.
Having talked himself into this negative frame of mind, he was rather surprised to find that Emori was flinging her arms around his neck.
"Yes." She whispered, somewhere near his ear. "I'd like that. Today?"
…...
Monty had responded with cautious optimism to the idea of fueling the rocket on algae, and Raven took that as validation of her improbably perky mood. They were going to find a way to get back to Earth, and judging by the atmosphere as she'd left them only moments ago, Emori and Murphy were going find a way to actually speak to each other, rather than just sleeping together. Bolstered by all this optimism doing the rounds, she made the mistake of agreeing to be the one who went to fetch Bellamy for breakfast. Everyone else had made it to the table, and was sitting waiting for the doling out of the porridge, when Emori tentatively suggested that they should probably check whether he and Clarke had managed to sort things out and maybe get him to eat his algae.
She was half way out of the door before she cursed herself and decided she would send Harper next time. Why was it always her who had to be on Bellamy-sitting duties? She'd hoped looking after him would get easier since they heard from Clarke, but at this rate, he was going to be even more devastated if the pair of them kept arguing all the time. With a heavy sigh, she opened the door to the Earth Monitoring Station. She had been braced for awkwardness so robust she needed a hacksaw to cut through it, but was met instead with Bellamy's booming laugh. Utterly bemused, she got on with her task.
"I hate to interrupt, but we're waiting on you for breakfast." His face fell at that, as if the idea of leaving this only link to Clarke for so much as the five minutes it took to get a bowl of algae down him was unbearable.
"Clarke, I'm sorry, Raven's telling me I have to go. She wants me to remember to eat or something."
"How dare she take such good care of you." She could hear the undisguised joy in her friend's voice. "Go on, I should let you get on with your day. I'll be here tonight, I promise."
"Yeah, I'll speak to you then." She watched him take a deep breath, as if unsure whether to say what was about to come out of his mouth. "And remember that I... care about you a lot, yes?" She wasn't sure whether to well up at that, or to snigger into her sleeve at how completely emotionally inarticulate these two wonderful people were with each other.
"Only if you remember that I feel the same way about you. Take care, speak later."
"Yeah, speak to you this evening." With that, Bellamy sighed deeply and put down the handset.
"It's OK." Raven murmured, walking over to him. "She knows. And you heard her say it herself, she feels exactly the same. And she'll be there tonight, and the next night, and the next. You're not going to lose her again. And in three and a bit years you'll be able to tell her in person."
a/n Thanks for reading!