AN: sort of companion piece/sequel to chapter 11, from a tumblr prompt different point of view
Abby Griffin, he learns, doesn't need anyone's help. All she needs is Clarke Griffin, safe and well, and no one can give her that except Clarke herself.
Marcus watches her drag herself through the day, week after week, burying her fears and her sorrow under everyone else's. There is too much to do at camp to ensure they don't starve or die of exposure during the winter, all he can do is try not to burden her further. He doesn't know exactly what to do to help her so he does what she asks, but even he can see that's not what she needs.
It takes some adjusting at first, on both sides, but it works, and even if her insistence they talk about camp issues while walking seemed like a terrible idea since she was still in recovery, now he understands when to take her hand if she barely flexes her fingers, or when she needs to sit and rest but won't say it out loud, or when she just wants to not be alone with herself.
Abby Griffin doesn't need a friend, but he tells himself he'll be nearby just in case.
Thirty-seven days after the mountain fell, came the snow.
They have a stable, and horses, and walls now, and there is a module they salvaged from the standing wheel of the crashed ship they repurposed as a watchtower. Most nights, you'd find Marcus Kane in the new meeting room, working on maps and reports till Abby comes by to say goodnight, or to share a cup of tea over council's decisions to be made; some nights, when the chancellor sleeps early, he trades shifts, and you'd see him up in the watchtower, looking out to the dark woods covered in snow. Which is where she finds him now.
"What are you hiding from?" she questions a little out of breath, a little chidingly.
"I'm not, I'm on duty," he replies with pursed lips, knowing too well she wouldn't believe him.
"Really, night shift at the watchtower mid-winter?! And you chose it..." she teases. She's still only halfway up the ladder, and it must have cost her to even climb that far – because she's doing better with her injuries, but the snow brought a whole different chill in their bones, he feels it in the wrist he broke as a kid.
"Why are you here?" he counters propping his rifle up against the parapet to help her up, "I thought you went to bed."
It's so cold their breaths come out in visible puffs and the silence up there is eerie, disturbed only by the seemingly too loud ruffling of their clothes as he lifts her up for the last few steps, almost effortlessly. She's lighter than she has any right to be, and he mentally notes to make sure she doesn't forget to eat her meals in the next few days.
"I did, but I couldn't sleep," she says earnestly, "Miller told me you were here."
He shifts on his feet as they both look out to the silent woods, shoulders bumping gently every so often.
"Anything interesting?" she enquires softly.
Marcus wonders if she can guess he picks the watchtower shift instead of ground patrol hourly rounds in the hope one night he'll be the first to see Clarke coming home. He doesn't tell her, but the wistful look in her eyes as they sweep the darkness beyond the wall tells him she might know anyway.
"Nothing."
She shivers. She doesn't have a coat on and she shouldn't be out so late with only a cardigan and the shawl she keeps on the meeting room couch (for those times she doesn't feel like sleeping). He fusses over her, brushing hands up and down her arms muttering under his breath and offering herbal tea from his thermos, but she smirks at him almost amused and suggests unperturbed: "A gentleman would give me his jacket."
He snorts, disbelieving. "It's cold for me too, you know," he retorts.
But he still unzips his coat and watches her eyebrows raise in surprise and her hands fly at his lapels. "Marcus, I was joking, I don't want your jacket!" she yelps as he pulls her against him and zips up the coat again behind her back, lifting her hair in a ponytail to avoid catching strands in the clutch.
"Better?"
She giggles softly against his chest and he can feel her eyelashes on his collarbone when she snuggles in, sneaking her arms around him inside the coat. "Better," she confirms.
He marks the date in his mental calendar because she never giggled before, not since they landed on Earth, not since they sent the kids down, probably not since Jake...
Abby Griffin only cries behind closed doors but even her giggles sound heartbroken.
It doesn't last long anyway, she is serious when she speaks again: "Housing will be a problem soon enough."
"Did you crawl out of bed and in the snow to talk about building?"
He's not sure which one of them started swaying, but the motion is lulling and her body is warm against his, gradually releasing the tension of the day with steady, tickling breaths mingling and dissolving around them. It feels like they're wrapped in a bubble of darkness and silence, with his arms around her small body and her heartbeat synchronizing with his, and he's suddenly aware of the danger that lies within when she doesn't answer.
What else should they talk about, bundled up in his coat, watching the woods with mixed hopes? Not the way she grips his shirt, not her lips ghosting on his throat, not how everything about her affects him.
She sighs instead, burying the cold tip of her nose in the hollow of his neck. "I don't want to sleep, but Jackson banned me from Medical till dawn," she admits quietly after a while.
Abby Griffin doesn't need a lover, she needs a night of rest without nightmares about her daughter.
"You haven't slept in at least twenty-seven hours," he reminds her.
She lifts her head to look at him with a little huff: "Are you tracking me, Kane?" she asks barely concealing an impudent, knowing smirk.
He chuckles at the familiar phrasing and mocking tone, not daring to look down at her tired eyes and pursed lips. Someone has to, he thinks holding her closer. She doesn't even have time or energy to neatly braid her hair since they crash landed, she just lets it fall on her shoulders in a tangle of untamed frizzy curls. Like Clarke did.
When the snow melts, they start building huts and cabins and draw a patch for growing vegetables. They even figure out a project for communal showers.
Marcus tries not to make it a distraction, but whenever she sits at his desk to go over reports in the meeting room he can't help lingering near, enjoying the perfume of chamomile that she seems to carry. She started washing her hair with it, because it's supposed to make it blonder, lighter – like Clarke's – but she doesn't let herself have time to dry it out in the sun like everybody else and hastily ties it in a ponytail when it's still wet to go back to work.
Abby Griffin is desperately grasping at the dreams she once had, burying the realities of what they are living with exhaustion, and Marcus sometimes tries to imagine a life where Jake Griffin made it to the ground instead, and Clarke is back home in her mother's arms, because that's the only image of a happy, smiling Abby Griffin he can concoct.
He can only watch her dance around him at her pace, stealing glances and whiffs of chamomile from time to time, trying to make it up to her for not being the one she wants by being the one she needs.