"Just relax, I'll wash your hair for you."
Abby sighs, resigned. She can't really relax but at least she lets him take the brush from her hand, frustrated. And he starts untangling her braid, not pulling and breaking like she was doing, but more gently, starting from the bottom.
It was hard at first, letting go. She could barely stand on her own and Clarke was gone, winter was clawing at their feet and the handful of kids they brought back from that dreadful mountain were sick, tired and traumatized.
It took her long enough to acknowledge that she was, too.
He helped. As he'd always done since they landed, standing back, but standing close. And at least he was still standing, she thought one day seeing him come back from the morning hunt with his ears and nose red from the cold and his fingers blue.
"Where are your hat and gloves?" she asked limping to the gate. Warmer clothes were in short supply even in Mount Weather deposits and they'd been divided among those leaving camp for daily duties.
"Lost," he said scooping her up and carrying her back to medical. On Monty and Harper, told her Bellamy two hours later.
When she stopped limping, he didn't stop carrying her to bed, and by the time spring rolled around, they stopped pretending they shared a bed just to keep warm.
It hit her one morning in the middle of March, as she splashed cold water on her face and he carefully reshaped his beard by the small mirror, how domestic they really were. And how natural it felt.
So now that she's covered in blood and guilt and her face is clean with tears, she lets him, and only him, take the brush as she sits in the basin in the shades of their room with chattering teeth.
She's lost many patients before, losing Clarke just as she was finally back was never an option. But there was so much blood and everyone was screaming and rifles were shooting and when finally everything was over and Clarke was resting, barely alive, but home, she looked around and her nerves gave in.
"Just breathe," he tells her, carefully peeling her bloody clothes off. It's not hard anymore, it's second nature, to hold her hand out and feel his, to move in synch, to let him take control when she can't bear the burden on her own. Just relax, I'll wash your hair for you.
He wipes her skin with a wet towel, then soaks her hair and brushes them clean from her daughter's blood till her teeth are not chattering anymore and she's stopped shivering. She couldn't love him more than when he wraps her in a blanket and drops her in a cot next to Clarke's, kissing her nose goodnight.