This is based on herardentwish's awesome Pompeii manips (that you should totally check out as well as the rest of her work on her tumblr) but I'm afraid I didn't do justice to the pics haha! Well… I tried! Thanks to Cami for the beta!
Through Fire And Ash
Abby ran from one end of the atrium to the other, trying to attend to all the wounded who had taken refuge in her house. Rich or poor, everyone knew they would find help there, her house was always open to those who needed it.
She kneeled next to an old man who had been crushed by a cart during the earthquake and pursed her lips when she realized it went beyond her competences. She gave the man a reassuring smile and placed a hand on the shoulder of one of her slaves. "Make sure he is comfortable, please."
"Yes, domina." the girl whispered.
People kept stumbling inside her house, looking for water or help. It wasn't the first time the ground shook and she knew it wouldn't be the last but still… She tended to a little girl… It was hot that day, entirely too hot. Her white and blue stola was sticking to her skin in some places. Abby impatiently brushed her long brown hair back behind her shoulder wishing she had had the foresight of having it braided that morning instead of letting it loose with only a few strands pinned back to clear her face.
She had just finished stitching up the child when a hand hovered in her line of sight. The hand was calloused and scarred, a warrior's hand, and she guessed who it belonged to even before her eyes trailed up the muscular arm and to the leather armor. She took the hand anyway and let him help her to her feet if only to not give him the satisfaction of letting him know just how much his presence rattled her.
"Abby." Marcus nodded.
She studied him. He looked a bit dirtier and more disheveled than he usually would allow himself but she attributed that to the earthquake. She could see no obvious injuries and if he was not injured, he had no business being there.
She snatched her hand back.
"Marcus." she greeted him coldly.
He looked pained by her tone but it was gone in a flash, hidden behind the soldier mask he always showed the world. She hated this. By any account, she should have hated him. It was him who had had her husband executed for treason and it was because of him that her daughter was in exile. Of course, none of that would have happened in the first place if she hadn't run to Thelonious hoping he would reason with Jake but that was besides the point. Marcus had arrested her husband and Marcus would have arrested Clarke if Abby hadn't run interference long enough for her daughter to flee. The fact that Marcus had delayed giving chase just long enough to allow Clarke to slip through the soldiers' fingers was beside the point too.
She should have hated him but it would have been an easier thing to do if she hadn't been certain that everything he did, he did out of duty for Rome and the empire.
Hurting her family had brought him no pleasure. He and Jake had been friends, as friends as a plebeian soldier and a patrician could be anyway.
It was Jake's folly that had precipitated everything, Jake's certainty that Pompeii was in danger and should have been abandoned. Jake had been a respected man, a scholar everyone trusted, his insistence that Mount Vesuvius was a danger would have triggered a panic reaction. Pompeii was an important city and the empire would have suffered from its loss. She had gone to Thelonious hoping he would convince Jake of the errors of his ways. She had betrayed Jake's intentions of addressing the people to Thelonious and Thelonious had betrayed her by sending Marcus and his soldiers to her home in the middle of the night.
That had been a year earlier.
"What can I do for you?" she asked him briskly when he simply stood there and stared.
He glanced around them and guided her further away with a hand on her arm. Once he was sure nobody could hear them, he let go and she pretended she didn't miss the warmth of his palm.
"You need to leave the city right now." he declared in a low voice, sounding dead serious. "Go to Misenum."
"Misenum?" she frowned. Misenum was a peninsula not too far from the city where a fleet was stationed.
Marcus licked his lips, his eyes darting over her shoulder to the growing number of people in her atrium. "Jaha left. He took his son and most of the garrison with him. He thinks…"
His voice trailed off but she didn't need him to finish his thought. "He thinks Jake was right and the mountain is about to explode."
He gave her a brief nod. "If Jake was right… There is no time to waste. I will get you out of the city."
"Not only me." she argued. "We need to sound the alarm. We need to…"
"People will panic and I don't have enough soldiers left to safely deal with an evacuation right now." he cut her off. "I have my orders and my orders are to get you out of Pompeii. They will need all the healers they can get there."
"They will need them here." she hissed. "You will have to arrest me, Marcus, because I am going to warn those people." She tried to turn around but he held her back, his fingers firmly coiled around her arm. His grip wasn't tight enough to bruise but it was tight enough that she had no other option but to stand there and listen. Unfortunately, she was not good at listening. "You know, it's not right. You know."
He searched her eyes for the longest time and then his jaw clenched and he looked away. "Warn them. Tell them to spread the word. Tell them to head for the fleet but you're not waiting for them. A horde will be slow. I need to get you out of Pompeii. I'll come back to help them once I'm sure you're safe."
Compromise didn't come easily to Marcus and thus she didn't push for more.
Convincing people to leave the city was more difficult than she had planned. Earthquakes were a common thing, nobody took it seriously. Her slaves and guards listened to her at least, and promised to rouse as many people out of Pompeii as possible.
"I will come back and force them to leave." Marcus promised, firmly guiding her out of her house. She barely had time to look back over her shoulder for a last glance at a home where she had been happy for years before it had all turned sour. "I've hidden a cart on the outskirt of the city. I'll take you to it."
"You're not coming with me to Misenum." she deduced and then shook her head. "No, Marcus… We can convince people to leave together and then…"
"Abby." he cut her off, gentle but firm. "Salvation comes at a price."
His death might not be a price she was willing to pay.
The thought was fleeting, drown in the deafening noise and the tremor that made everything shake. Holding on to the wall of a nearby house, they looked up in the direction of Mount Vesuvius, eyes growing wide in horror when they spotted the dark pillar of smoke rising high in the sky.
In a matter of seconds, the sky turned dark despite the fact it couldn't be much later than noon. Suddenly, it was night. And in the night it was only too clear the mountain was on fire.
"We need to go. Now." Marcus ordered when the tremor subsided. He grabbed her hand and this time she followed blindly after him. They ran through the streets, sidestepping collapsed building and rubble… People were screaming and she would have stopped to help, to heal, but Marcus' hand was like steel around her fingers and he urged her forward, always forward…
Madness had taken over Pompeii. People were loading carts with their belongings, others were trying to run with no clear idea of where to go, some were fighting, looting… Marcus' free hand regularly fell on his gladius sword when men looked too threatening but he never paused long enough to draw it out.
It must have killed him to see the city in this state of disarray. For every robbery they ran past, his face closed up a little more. For every fight they ignored and didn't break, he looked more and more pained. She knew why he never stopped. She knew because he kept telling her to go faster despite the steady pain in her side and the fact she hadn't run that long or that far since she was a little girl. His orders were to protect her and Marcus was a good soldier. He would die before he failed.
She had no idea where the cart he had mentioned was hidden but it couldn't be much further.
Then death started falling from the sky.
Ash and stones.
A downpour of ash and stones…
Marcus grabbed her and pushed her under a porch, her back against the wall, his body a rigid shield in front of her. Theirs was a pitiful refuge. The ashes were hot and burned where they landed on their skin, it was impossible not to breathe them in. Abby started coughing and buried her face in his shoulder, wrapped her arms around his waist and hoped for the best.
She was acutely aware she was embracing the man who had arrested her husband, a man she should have hated and loathed.
She was also acutely aware of the long looks and lingering touches that had kept happening over the last few months every time their paths met. He had never said anything and she hadn't either of course but she was not the naïve young girl she had been when she had married Jake, she knew men's gazes now. She knew the way Marcus was watching her was far from simple friendly concern. She knew the way she was watching him betrayed more than she would have liked.
His hand found her neck as he pressed his own mouth and nose against his arm.
Smoke rose from different spots in the city, everywhere people screamed and cried, calling for help, calling for their loved ones… She heard a mother desperately wailing for her child and she thought that at least Clarke was safe. Safe from the fires from hell.
"We need to get to the cart." Marcus coughed in her ear. "It's our only chance." She nodded her understanding but didn't let go of him. His fingers coiled around her nape and squeezed gently. "Abby…"
She drew back and brushed her hand against his cheek, searching his eyes. "We can do this."
"Yes, we can." he answered without a second of hesitation.
She nodded again and bent down to tear parts of her dress off. It was soiled with soot, sweat and dirt but it would have to do. The fabric would help them not to breathe the ash in but it wouldn't protect them from the flying stones.
The ashes were heavy and some roofs caved in, adding to the general chaos. It was pitch black outside, the only light piercing the night was the fires and the glowing red of Vesuvius in the distance.
She clung to Marcus' hand, trusting his instincts more than she did hers.
Her skin was on fire, burned from the ash rain. It itched and tingled.
"We're not far!" He shouted to her over his shoulder.
That was when the nearest building collapsed, sending them both flying in the middle of the rubble. She laid there in the ash piling in the street, disorientated, and for a moment she almost gave up. For a moment.
She scrambled up, lifting a hand to her throbbing forehead, not surprised to find her fingers sticky with blood.
"Marcus!" she screamed, joining the thousands of voices in the city calling for someone. She felt tears prickling her eyes but she didn't let that stop her. She searched around the rubble, ignoring the pain, until she finally found him, half trapped under a pillar. "Marcus." She shook his shoulder relentlessly. "Marcus."
His eyelids fluttered open and he started coughing. She tried to shield him from the falling debris as much as she could but it was a hopeless task. When his eyes finally focused properly on her, she was already trying to estimate the damages his body had suffered. His thigh was bleeding, that much was clear. She tore more fabric from her dress and worked on securing a tourniquet.
"Abby…" he breathed out between two coughs. "The cart's just two streets away. Go."
"No." she replied, looking around to find something she could use as leverage to get him out from under the rubble.
"Abby…" he insisted.
"I'm not leaving you here." she snapped. She found a long piece of metal. It was hot and it burned her hands but it looked solid enough and she thought if she could lift the stone just a little, he might manage to crawl from underneath, then she would support him to where the cart was hidden and they would leave together.
That plan didn't go so well.
The stone wouldn't budge. She tried and tried until her palms started to bleed, until she slipped and fell and cried out in helplessness. Nothing did the trick. She wasn't strong enough.
"I'm going to find help." she told him, shaking his shoulder because he had closed his eyes at some point. "You need to stay awake, Marcus. Do you hear me? You need to stay awake."
"Abby…" he coughed out, reaching out for her face. "I lied. Nobody ordered me to get you out… I just… I couldn't…"
I couldn't let you die
The words hung between them, unvoiced but clear.
"And you think I can?" she hissed, covering the hand on her cheek with hers. "I forbid you to die, do you understand? I will go get help. Stay alive."
She got to her feet and then dropped back on her knees in the dirt, to frame his face in her hands. There was no finesse or technique to the kiss she planted on his lips, he barely had time to respond to it.
"What was that?" he mumbled as she got to her feet.
"Let's call it hope." she answered. She refused to think it was goodbye.
She darted away quickly because she knew otherwise she would have never been able to leave him. She wandered in the surrounding chaos, keeping the crook of her elbow over her mouth, coughing when she wasn't crying out for help, lost in a world of ash and fire.
She wondered briefly if that was how the end of the world looked like.
She lost any sense of time.
She roamed in that nightmare without meeting another soul. Everyone had either left or had taken refuge inside. It was probably wise.
Her mind kept drifting to Marcus, lying alone in the rubble, trying not to think he might already be dead…
She didn't know how long it had been when she finally spotted a dark figure in the falling ash. She wanted to shout but her throat was swollen and it was barely a croak. "Please, help me." The man was a gladiator, the outfit made that obvious. Not that it mattered anymore. Nothing mattered anymore. "Please…"
The man was kind or she looked exceptionally pitiful, either way he accepted to follow her. She was lost. It took her a while to find the spot where she had left Marcus, even with the gladiator's – Lincoln, he offered – encouragements.
Marcus looked like a fallen statue made out of dust.
"No!" she muttered. "No, no, no…" She skidded to her knees next to him, cradled his head on her lap, quickly passed her hand over his mouth and nose to wipe the ashes away and let her fingers roam on his neck for a pulse. "Please… Please… I can't do this again… Don't…"
"Still here." he mumbled, turning his head aside and coughing his lungs out.
She almost doubled over in relief. "I was afraid I wouldn't see you again."
"I had those fears myself." he tried to joke.
With Lincoln's help, they managed to get him out from under the pillar and to drag him in what was left of the building. It wasn't much but it provided some needed shelter while she worked on stopping the bleeding in his leg. Infection would be a concern for another time.
"We have a way out." Marcus offered the gladiator. "You should come with us."
Lincoln shook his head. "I am looking for someone." His dark eyes darted to Abby and back to Marcus. "Hold on to her."
Marcus nodded with gravity and they both watched Lincoln wander back in the ash rain.
"How far from the cart are we?" she asked, tying up the makeshift bandage. And would it still be there?
"Two streets." he answered before licking his lips. "You would be faster on your own." She glared at him and despite the seriousness of the situation his face softened and he smiled. "I had to try."
She shook her head at him and carefully helped him to his feet.
"We can't rest." she declared. "If Jake was right…"
"Yes." he agreed but when she forced his arm around her shoulders so that he could lean his weight on her, he surprised her by drawing her against his chest. This kiss had no point of comparison at all with the previous one. This one was real. Desperate, violent, but real. Her fingers tangled in his hair, angling his head the way she wanted it and he groaned in her mouth, automatically tugging her even closer…
Damned volcano.
Eventually, the kiss slowed down to something akin to yearning. His thumb stroke her cheek, retracing the line of her cheekbone and he rested his forehead against hers. "Abby…"
"I know." she murmured. "You will tell me later. When we're safe."
He kissed her again. A brief peck that was a promise of things to come.
Their progression was slow.
They were only a few feet away when rocks started falling from the sky, not stones but rocks that destroyed everything on landing and quickly piled in the streets. They pressed forward, running as fast as Marcus' hopping on his good leg would allow.
The building he had left the cart in was still standing, the horse was stamping the ground, its eyes wide. Marcus talked to it in a soothing voice, leading it out of the box and reaching for the saddle.
"What about the cart?" Abby asked.
"It will be quicker this way. And easier to maneuver." he answered with enough confidence that she didn't argue.
It wasn't ideal for his thigh but the alternative was probably a slow death so she decided the pros outweighed the cons and helped him get on the horse. When he was settled, he outstretched a hand and pulled her up in front of him. She was scared of falling for a moment but Marcus' arms were strong around her and his chest was solid against her back.
"Close your eyes." he advised, right before he spurred the horse.
She didn't close her eyes.
She kept them wide open.
Outside, the world had definitely turned into a nightmarish hell. It was terrifying. Marcus guided the horse with skill or maybe the horse guided itself. It avoided flying rocks and rushed straight ahead in a primitive instinct to seek safety… But there was no avoiding the stench of the fires or the sight of their beloved city collapsing on itself.
Ash hit her straight in the eyes and mouth but she didn't dare move to bury her face in Marcus's shoulder or neck, she didn't want to disrupt the fragile balance.
The ride felt as if they were free falling on earth.
They were weightless and heavy at the same time, suspended in uncertainty.
It got a little easier when they left the city behind but not by much.
The time it took to reach the shore was unquantifiable.
To Abby, it lasted a lifetime.
The horse was foaming in the mouth when they got the first glimpse of water and the ground was trembling without rest. Dead animals were scattered along the shore.
The fleet was there, rescuing refugees, trying to keep afloat.
Abby and Marcus got on the very last boat. Two more minutes and they would have been stranded.
The galley they boarded was already full of people and started its slow retreat to safer water. It would take them to Naples, someone told them.
She couldn't begin to care where the galley would take them. She leaned against Marcus' chest and, just like the rest of the refugees, they watched the raging mountain in the distance. She thought about all the people still stranded in Pompeii, people who were dead or would be very soon, and she fought the urge to just sit down and weep.
"In peace, may you leave the shore…" Marcus whispered when the galley was far enough away that all they could see was the glowing tip of the volcano and the dark cloud it was spitting out. "In love, may you find the next…"
"What's that?" Abby croaked, her throat still sore despite the water that had been passed around.
"Something my mother used to say." he shrugged. "I don't know exactly."
She looked up at him, scraping her nails in his beard to brush the ash away. "We're alive."
There was a touch of surprise in her voice.
"We're alive." he echoed, his lips stretching in a slow smile.
Suddenly she was laughing, perhaps with a small tinge of hysteria. He muffled it with his mouth and she gave herself completely to that kiss.
That kiss was a beginning.