The Appeasing Virtues Of Baths

The relief Marcus felt when the front door of his house closed behind him was immediate. It didn't matter that he hadn't been living there for more than three months or that the transition hadn't been as smooth as everyone had wished, Abby's house already felt like home to him.

The moment he shed his jacket and placed it on the coat rack, the moment he slipped off his shoes and aligned them by the door with the others, it felt like finally letting go of the wrongness of his day.

It was late and the house was very quiet. He had missed dinner for sure and he felt a pang of regret because both he and Abby had said they would try to limit missing dinners as much as possible and it was the third time this week it had happened. It wasn't entirely his fault, being a Detective was time-consuming – as time-consuming as being a highly qualified general surgeon and the previous week it was Abby who had missed more dinners than she had wanted.

Marcus headed to the kitchen because he couldn't hear the rumble of the TV in the living-room. He found Clarke perched on the stool at the central island, already in her comfortable PJs, her blond hair pulled back in a high ponytail.

"Hey." the teenager greeted him distractedly, barely looking up from her books. "You're back late."

It always felt a little like he was walking on eggshells around Clarke, she tended to get defensive sometimes when not outright resentful. He didn't want to take a space that wasn't his to take, he cherished the memory of Jake too, but it was difficult when his own kids had adopted Abby so easily.

"Work." he mumbled, too tired to think of a proper sentence.

He opened the fridge and stared, trying to find the strength to put a sandwich together.

"We kept some lasagna in the oven for you." Clarke offered suddenly, finally looking up. "It should still be warm."

He thanked her and fetched the dish. It was more lukewarm than anything and it could have done with reheating but he didn't remember if he had stopped for lunch and he was starving so he ate it like that, still in the main dish, sitting on one of the free stools.

"Where's everyone?" he asked, once he had some food in his belly and his brain accepted to work properly again.

"Bellamy went out with his friends." she hummed. "Octavia is somewhere upstairs and Mom is taking a bath. I'm stuck with homework."

He glanced at the books, noticed it was History and perked up a little. "Anything I can help with?"

"Thanks but I'm good and you look like you're about to crash." Clarke half-mocked half-teased. "Did you catch the killer?"

His face fell and he took a forkful of lasagna to delay his answer. It tasted like ashes in his mouth. Just like that, the events of the days came back in his mind and his home was invaded with the unwelcomed violence of the outside world.

That case was testing his faith in humanity.

"Not yet." he sighed. He shook his head. "You and O are being careful, right? Don't go alone anywhere."

Clarke rolled her eyes. "Buddy system. You said that a hundred times already. We got it."

He hoped they did. He couldn't think of anything more terrible than ever finding his daughter or his stepdaughter's bodies.

He really wasn't hungry anymore so he put the lasagna away, wished her good luck with her homework and headed upstairs.

He stopped at Octavia's closed door, unable not to smile at the music coming from inside. It wasn't a normal day if he didn't ask the girl to lower her music. Not unlike Clarke, Octavia barely greeted him, too focused on whatever she was doing on her computer.

He wished her goodnight, closed the door and finally headed for his own bedroom, wondering if they had finally reached the stage when the kids didn't need them anymore. Bellamy was already working, the girls would graduate from high school soon enough and leave for college…

It all went too fast.

Far too fast for him to keep on missing dinners…

The master bedroom was empty but the lights were on. He took the time to place his gun in the drawer of his nightstand, and then discarded the tie, the shirt and the belt before making his way to the bathroom.

As Clarke had promised, Abby was in the bathtub. There was a glass of wine abandoned on the floor and the same novel she had been trying to finish for a whole month propped open on the edge of the tub. She had been staring at the wall but lighted up when she spotted him, her eyes roaming over his bare chest with amusement – and a little hunger.

"That's not a bad view." she teased.

"Mine isn't terrible either." he replied, his lips stretching into a smile. The foam had mostly disappeared and he could guess at the shape of her body in the water. "Is there enough room for two in there?"

She relocated the book to the sink and shifted forward so he could sit behind her. It took a few minutes but they managed to make it work well enough. Eventually, she relaxed back against his chest, trapped between his thighs and Marcus took his first real breath since he had left the house that morning. His arms wrapped around her stomach and she gently stroke his forearms in a way that could lull him to sleep very fast.

"I lost a patient." she whispered.

He tightened his embrace a little. "I'm sorry."

She squeezed his arm but left it unacknowledged. There was nothing else to say. The same way he couldn't save all the victims, she couldn't save all the people who came to her for surgery. Not everything was fixable in life.

"How was your day?" she asked, turning her head to nuzzle his neck.

He couldn't help the bitter chuckles. "Terrible." He didn't want to think about it again. About the blood, the gore, the violence. He liked the peacefulness of the moment, just being there with Abby. "It's getting better though."

He felt her smile against his skin, then there was the brush of her lips against his Adam's apple.

"I love you, you know." she reminded him.

He pressed a kiss on the crown of her head, narrowly avoiding the jaw clip that kept her hair up. "I love you too."

And, somehow, that was always enough.