I HAD to, okay? So here's wishful thinking of what I would like to see next time :p Thanks to akachankami for the beta!
Chosen
Her eyelids slowly flutter open. There is a bad taste in her mouth and her body feels heavy. Something is wrong and, for a second, a terrible terrifying second, she's unable to say what. She first thinks of damaged brains, seizures and strokes. Then her doctor training kicks in and she recognizes the symptoms for what they are. Drugs.
She remembers the sudden fog, remembers reaching for Jackson, remembers…
She's lying on a couch but not the one she's woken up on a hundred times before. This one is smaller and smells like dust and stale air. She can hear noises, the faint buzzing of people talking, walking, living, in the distance, behind walls and closed doors… The echoing noises of life in a sealed off space and, for another second, she pricks up her ears and listens for the familiar hum of the Ark's engines.
She hopes against all odds this is just a dream.
She knows better.
The office is just as she has left it earlier, down to the brooding Chancellor standing in front of the desk. Marcus isn't doing anything. He is just standing there as if he forgot what he was about to do. He's staring into space. Too calm. Too sad. Too guilty.
She doesn't need to look for a clock, doesn't need to make sure, because… She knows him too well. She looks at him and it's the Culling all over again. That weight on his shoulders making him look that little bit smaller, that weight crushing him down and pushing him to extremes just so he could find his salvation.
You saved me.
That's what she does, isn't it? Save people. Fix people.
Or it used to be, at least.
He knows she's awake just like she knows what he's done.
But as long as she's not moving they can pretend, remain in that limbo of not-knowing. It can last forever, really. Him staring at the wooden desk and her watching him. Forever frozen in a suspended breath.
She waits. She waits because she's tired and she made her point clear and he had no right to take the decision away from her. She waits because she doesn't really want to know what happened. She waits because she's not ready to learn who didn't make the cut.
He still doesn't move. Coward, she wants to shout and it's not her, not really, it's the old Abby, the one from the Ark, the one who refused to compromise when it comes to human lives… Staying alive… Deserving to survive… They keep stumbling upon those two concepts as if it even makes sense, as if they have any right to call the shots… As if…
She sits up slowly.
Her legs first. Her feet touch the floor with a soft thud. She uses the back of the couch to prop herself upright.
"Clarke is safe." he says without glancing at her. "She's… She's not here but… She's alive."
She decides she's in shock because the news just ripples and slides off her. Of course, Clarke isn't here. She played at being a Mountain Man and that's her punishment: being estranged from Clarke again.
Five years is a long time to be estranged, a voice whispers.
I probably won't be alive in five years, anotheranswers.
She ignores them both, forces herself to forget her nightmarish vision of Clarke…
"What happened?" she asks.
"Their rover broke." he explains, still staring at the desk. "They have a plan. You won't like it but…"
"What happened?" she interrupts. She will ask about Clarke later. She is alive and that will have to do for now.
Marcus lets out a deep sigh and finally turns to her. And here it is, the pain in his eyes, the weight making his shoulders slouch, the souls of hundred of people crushing him down. "They were going to fight the Grounders. It would have been a slaughter. Jaha and I used gas to knock everyone out." He licks his lips, averts his eyes. "They were probably still asleep when…"
He adds it as an afterthought, a small mercy, but he cannot even finish his own sentence.
"When the death wave hit." she supplies slowly, brushing her hair back to rub her face. "I slept through the end of the world."
"Not the end." he corrects in a whisper.
"Not for us maybe." she snaps and immediately regrets it.
"It was the best way to save them." he almost pleads. "The only way." They already had that argument, she wants to point out, a hundred years ago. "Abby…"
"I know." she says because she does. She understands. There is no good solution and they are not good guys. They cannot be. Not when they are the ones who choose. "Why am I here?"
And that's the real issue, the one he has so obviously been dreading to address.
He has the nerves to look unapologetic as he crosses his arms in front of him, forcing her to look up at him instead of taking a seat to level out the height difference, looking every bit like Chancellor Kane and nothing like Marcus.
"We used Clarke's list." he states. "Your name was there."
She studies him and then shakes her head, refuses to think about who might not have been on that list. "I told you what I wanted. I told you…"
"And I told you no." he cuts her off.
She doesn't even try to curb her anger before it brings her to her feet. There has been salvation to be found in leaving her spot to someone else and he has robbed her of it. He has robbed her of her chance to right her wrongs, to save lives instead of…
"Who do you think you are to tell me what to do with my life?" she hisses. "Who do you think…"
"I'm the man who loves you." he spits right back, striding toward her with some anger of his own - or maybe it's just pain, it's hard to say. He grips her shoulders tight, tight enough to bruise. "I'm the man you love. That's who I am. And you don't get to quit on me, Abby. We do this together."
"You don't understand." she accuses. "The things I did… The people I sentenced to death just because…" Because of him. She didn't open the doors because it was the right thing to do, she opened them because he was out there and she was done watching the man she loves agonizing on the other side of an airlock. Her motives were selfish. Purely selfish. And there must be a price to pay for them. There must be… "We have to answer for our sins. We…"
He tugs her into a brutal hug before she can finish her sentence. His left arm sneaks around her waist, his right hand cradles the back of her head and it's all she can do to cling back, melt in his embrace and wonder if salvation feels as good as this…
"Not like this." It is a harsh whisper in her ear. "That's not the way to redemption, Abby."
"Someone else could have lived." she argues.
"Two of them could have lived." he counters against her hair. "I told you. Together. Together or not at all."
He would have come with her. He would have walked through that door into fire with her… Of course he would have.
"But they need you." she protests, drawing back to glare at him.
"Exactly." he shrugs. The tears in his eyes tell her it would have been much easier for him too if staying outside the bunker had been an option. "They need me. And I need you. And maybe… Maybe that's how we make sure we deserve to survive. We acknowledge the sacrifices. We never forget. We come together. We find the way out of the dark."
She cups his cheek, closes her eyes and leans in again. He bows until their foreheads are pressed together.
It reminds her of another time. A time he begged her to let him go to his death and she refused.
They've never been really good at letting the other sacrifice themselves.
"I'm out of hope." she confesses softly.
He presses his lips against her brow in a long peck. His beard is soft against her skin and she aches for him because she loves him too much and she's not sure they can afford it, she's not sure they should when they're responsible for taking decisions that kill a lot and save a few.
She can sacrifice a lot but not him. Never him.
And that quiet certainty pulsing under her skin makes her think about Jake and the guilt just keeps on piling…
"Salvation comes at a price, Abby." he reminds her, bumping his nose against hers, brushing his lips against her mouth. "It will get better. We need to have faith."
"Do you have faith?" she asks in this kiss that isn't really a kiss. He used not to. She remembers him scoffing at his mother and dismissing the tree. She remembers his disappointment after Pike was elected. She remembers the dark moments after ALIE.
"I have faith in our people. In humanity." he whispers. "I have faith in us."
"I love you." she answers.
And she's not young or naive enough to believe it's everything but maybe it's a start.
Maybe that's where hope lies.
In the belief that there's something worth living for.