Marcus Kane had stayed up for hours trying to plead with Thelonious to save Jake. Any threat to the Ark, no matter how trivial, was punished with floating. But, Jake was Thelonious' friend, he was Abby's husband, and he was Clark's father. Marcus never thought there would come a time when he would be trying to save the life of the man whom he considered to have stolen everything from him, but it was happening. "We could just talk to him, try to plead with him." But, Thelnious had already tried that, as had Abby. "What if we just lock him up? We don't have to float him." But, that would be showing favoritism and wasn't something that was tolerated on the Ark. They both wished they could do just that, but it was cause a riot. People would want to know why their loved ones couldn't have had the same fate. So, after hours of talking, both men realized there was nothing left that they could do. The information Jake was wanting to share was too dangerous. Yes, there was a chance that the people of the Ark would ban together and find a solution, but there was also the chance that it could turn into a full uprising, causing panic and chaos. "Whatever you suggest at the Council meeting tomorrow, I will stand behind you." With that, he went to his room to try and get some sleep before the voting that was going to take place in the morning. But, he couldn't sleep. All he could do was think about Abby. He had fought with her all these years, tried to hate her, but now he wished he could do something to save her family. Marcus knew that Thelonious' mind wasn't going to change, there honestly didn't seem to be another option. He knew that after the meeting tomorrow, the woman he loved who had everything in her life, was about to have nothing. Her husband was going to be floated and her daughter was going to be sent to live in a solitary cell until her eighteenth birthday, when she too would be floated.
When morning finally arrived, Marcus threw on his guard uniform and headed for the door. At the council meeting, no one seemed to want to talk. Everyone seemed fixated on staring at their hands, or looking around the room, but no one dared to look at Abby, except him. She wasn't paying attention to him, but he could see the pain she was going through. She had chosen to turn her own husband in, hoping that Thelonious could talk some sense into him, but everything had backfired. When the Chancellor finally asked for the vote, whether or not to float Jake, everyone quickly said their answer. When it came to Abby, she couldn't even speak, only shake her head no. But, it hadn't mattered. Two nays against five yesses meant that Jake was a dead man. When everyone hurried out of the room, she caught Marcus' eyes, giving him a look of betrayal and pain that he hadn't ever seen from her. He had always failed in hating her, he never could fully do it, but with the look on her face, he found himself very able to hate. Not her, but himself. He left the room without saying anything, leaving Thelonious to comfort Abby.
After Jake's floating and Clark's imprisonment, Abby wasn't herself. She was distant to everyone, completely throwing herself in her work. Marcus worried about her, but tried to never show it, knowing she would only take it as him thinking her weak. She barely seemed to care about the Council anymore, never arguing about things. She only voted what the group wanted. That was until she had come up with an idea to send the 100 children down to Earth. He hadn't seen her that passionate in a long time. Marcus had argued that it was a death sentence, but she had managed to persuade most of the council.
Not long after, they started fighting again. She was getting more and more to the Abby he remembered. She was passionate and stubborn; unfortunately it was to a fault. When she used more blood than allowed to save Thelonious, he honestly thought he had no choice in having her floated. She had thought he wanted this, to cause her as much pain as possible, but that was the farthest from the truth. Callie had come to him, trying to reason with him. "She's my best friend, Marcus." She had said and when that didn't work, she had resorted to a tactic he had never seen his friend use. "Do you really want to float the one person that you love more than anything in this world? Do you think I don't know? I see the way you look at her. You have never stopped loving her, Marcus. If you do this, you won't be able to forgive yourself." The process had already been sent into motion, though, and he couldn't think of a logical reason to stop it. Luckily, Thelonious had come to his rescue and stopped him from doing the one thing he would have never been able to live with.
Everything seemed to happen so quickly after that. Abby was arrested, again, for sending a mechanic to Earth. What had she been thinking? Was she really that determined to prove him wrong? He kept listening to her pleas of hope, but every time he would find himself starting to listen to her, he was reminded of where hope had gotten him the last time. Hope was never something to let yourself get caught up in. It only caused more pain and sorrow.
When his mother died right in front of him, she had placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. He had wanted to break in that moment, but there was too much going on, too many lives that were going to be lost. He didn't ever have time to fully grieve the death of his mom. Not before he had sent people to their deaths, not before he had found himself on Earth. Abby had been right all along. Earth was survivable and it was more magical than he could have ever dreamed of. It didn't take long for him to start making a mess of things there, too. When he had made the difficult decision to have Abby shock lashed, everything had changed for him. He had thought watching her marry someone else was hard. He had thought that sending her to get floated was hard. But, he could have never imaged how hard it was to watch her writhe in pain because of him. Every time her body shook from the pain of the lashes, his mind shot back to a time when he had held her close and promised that he would never do anything to hurt her. He could still remember every second that Abby had loved him. That was when he decided he was going to find her daughter for her. He needed to make it up to her in some way. It was also when he decided that he didn't want to be Chancellor, he didn't want to hurt her anymore than he already had.
Ever since then, they had formed a bond. He protected her and he didn't argue with her nearly as much. He supported every decision she made. If possible, he had fallen more in love with Abby than he had ever been before. Then, TonDc happened.