#considering she had to amuse herself on the ark somehow

[dunkinbublin]

Hiya! First of all just want to say I absolutely ADORE your art, the way you draw the lil silly guys makes me wanna scream and put them in my pocket! :,)

Saw you were taking requests and kindaaaa vague but Tails reminding Shadow of Maria always makes me crazy if that’s something you’d be interested in or have any ideas for! <3

AHHHH ty ty. i think about that a lot too.

(for u too @myyla-x)

[blessed-but-distressed]

Basket Case: A @cssecretsanta2k18 AU

For @lifeinahole27, with my apologies for the delay. Happy New Year!

also on ff.net and ao3

Basket Weaving for Beginners.

It wasn’t exactly Emma Swan’s idea of a wild Thursday night. Spending an evening cooped up in an elementary school classroom, taking instruction from an aging hippie about how to craft ugly home furnishings from twigs. But it was on the list. And this year, Emma was sticking to her list.

New Year’s Resolution #3: Take up a new hobby.

Okay, so maybe it hadn’t exactly specified that she take up basket weaving, but it had to be something. It wasn’t Emma’s fault that by the time she’d fished the Adult Education brochure out from the random assortment of junk mail she had piling up, it was the only class left in the course catalog that still had available spaces.

Not unless she felt like taking up Fly Fishing for Beginners, and frankly, she didn’t.

New Year’s Resolution #9: Stop leaving junk mail piled up on the hall table.

So. Basket Weaving. For Beginners. How bad could it be?

Her first impressions weren’t bad. It was just it had been years since she’d been in a proper classroom, and she’d forgotten how colorful they could be. Laminated charts and drawings covering every wall, each eye-wateringly brighter than the next. The papier-mâché solar system strung from the ceiling. Even the list of kids who made detention this week was scrawled in a vivid purple.

She tried to conjure up the memories from her own elementary school days, but they were flat, muted. She couldn’t dredge up anything with half of this… effervescence. Maybe it was just the 90s. Maybe it was just her, and her crappy childhood.

She was relieved to find that rather than the Woodstock Wannabe she’d imagined, the instructor was actually young, perhaps even younger than her. A pretty, dark haired woman in a fitted tweed jacket, and heels so high Emma winced reflexively just at the sight of them.

“You must be Emma,” the woman said warmly, reaching across the table to shake her hand. She was Australian, maybe. Or possibly South African. Emma never really had an ear for accents. “I’m Belle. I’ll be leading the class. Glad you found your way. We’re just about to start, so if you could find somewhere to sit…”

A quick scan revealed that every table was already occupied, everyone paired up like it was Noah’s Ark or something. All except the table at the back, its sole occupant leaning back on his comically small chair, a sardonic smile curling his lips as Emma turned his way.

New Year’s Resolution #1: STAY AWAY FROM KILLIAN JONES!

Fuck.

Her first instinct was to flee. The natural response, when confronted with a predator. And mark her words, everything about Killian Jones in that instant was entirely predatory. The leather jacket. The devil-may-care slouch. And above all, the familiarity sparking in those dangerous blue eyes, that threatened to swallow her whole.

She did turn to go, but by then Belle already had her by the elbow, and was practically manhandling her down the aisle of desks. “Oh, look,” she said, her blithe tone a contrast to her iron grip. “It seems like Mr Jones is in need of a partner.”

Everyone was looking at her now. The retirees in their matching jogging suits. The J.Crew moms chugging down their mineral waters. The new age waifs in their tie-dyed T-shirts. Every beady eye, turned in her direction.

“Great,” she said, rescuing her arm from Belle’s vice-like grasp. And took a seat.

He didn’t speak immediately, just watched as Belle trailed back down to the front of the room, taking the attention of the class with her. But she could tell he already had an opening volley prepared. Could practically feel it vibrating inside him, as his elbow oh-so-accidentally brushed her own.

“So who was it?” Emma asked, keeping her voice low and emotionless. “Ruby? Mary Margaret? I bet it was Mary Margaret, wasn’t it?”

She chanced a sideways glance at his expression, trying to catch him out, but his face was inscrutable, if kind of smug.

“I have no idea what you mean, Swan. I’m just as surprised as you. I’m just a simple man, going about his day, eager to learn the ancient and noble art of basket weaving.”

“You have one hand!” Her voice rose a little higher than she intended, drawing a few odd looks their way.

“Well,” he shrugged, turning her way properly at last. “You know that’s never really been an obstacle when it counts.”

The look he shot her was knowing. The same look he’d worn the morning after, before she’d thrown his jeans at his chest, and told him to lose her number.

God, her list was going straight to hell.

It wasn’t even February yet.

It hadn’t mattered. The one-handed thing. He wore a prosthetic, usually. And when it was cold like this, he wore gloves so you could barely even tell that much. Not unless he wanted you to. He hadn’t worn the prosthetic with her. Hadn’t bothered to hide what he was. Who he was.

He was struggling now though, tool poised to create a split in the willow reeds, per Belle’s instructions, but slipping every time without the proper leverage.

“Hey,” she said, her touch on his shoulder enough to still him. “Hand me the screwdriver.”

“It’s a bodkin, Swan,” he corrected, but gauging Emma’s unimpressed face, handed it over anyway.

Emma had never tried to split a willow reed before, but a quick glance at the neighboring tables showed that no one else seemed to be finding it all that difficult. How hard could it be?

“Now remember what Belle said. You’ve got t- Careful!” he warned, but it was already too late, Emma’s first attempt had already snapped the reed clean in half.

“Shit.”

“And that’s why there are spares,” Killian sighed, dropping another near identical reed onto the tabletop.

“Maybe I should be the one holding it?” Emma offered.

But Killian shook his head, his weight already braced at either end, waiting. “You can do it, Swan. Just remember not to push it through right away.”

A beat. The flicker of a smile. The innuendo shimmering silently between them, before he coughed, and nudged her hand. “Again.”

This cut was more centered, and as she lifted the reed, the bodkin, or whatever it was, poked through the other side. A perfect split, to feed the other reed through.

Killian leaned close, inspecting her handiwork. “Not bad, love. And only two more to go.”

He shouldn’t be smiling at her like that. Encouraging her. Sneaking in his accidental terms of endearment.

She set down the tool.

“Why are you here?” It caught him by surprise, a little, the shift in her tone. “And don’t give me any bullshit about the ancient and noble art of basket weaving. We both know you set this up... somehow.”

He didn’t speak right away, as if weighing his words carefully. “I set it up a little,” he admitted. “Though there was a certain amount of providence involved.”

 He paused again, considered something, eyes shining with some unnamed emotion. “You were so quick to reject me, I thought I would give you an opportunity to reconsider.”

Hurt. That was the emotion.

She’d hurt him. The knowledge of it was a cool knife inside her chest, quelling her indignation. Not just because she’d rejected him, but because she hadn’t even given it a second thought before doing so.

Not because she didn’t like him. Not because he wasn’t a good man. Not because he wasn’t pretty damn spectacular in bed.

But because it was safe.

New Year’s Resolution #2: Go see a therapist for your stupid abandonment issues.

She felt the tear fall, but was powerless to stop it. A single escapee trailing down her cheek before she could get herself completely under control.

The sight of it unnerved Killian, and so well it might. Emma was not a crier.

“Christ, Swan,” he said, his good hand coming up to wipe her chin. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I just-”

“No,” she said, a hand closing over his wrist, plastering on a watery smile. “I’m fine. You’re right. I was… callous. And that wasn’t fair to you.”

Releasing his wrist, and at a loss for what to do with her hands, she picked up the bodkin again, and lined up the next reed.

“I don’t mean to trap you, love,” Killian said softly, leaning across to hold the reed steady. “Or force you into saying something you don’t mean. I just wanted you to know you have a choice. And that I’m prepared to be patient…” Their eyes met briefly. “...if you need time to make that choice.”

It was all she could do to nod, when she had more tears threatening to spill over.

Steadying her hand, Emma punctured the reed, a perfect perforation. She held it up for Killian to inspect.

“Not bad, that,” he whistled.

“Only one more to go.”

The third reed snapped. The fourth was a success. She let Killian thread the others through, until they formed a perfect cross slath.

“Great!” Belle clapped from nearby, making a close circuit to assess their progress. “Now grab your two longest rods. They are going to be your weavers. Today we are going to be doing a pairing weave…”

She was barely out of earshot before Emma dissolved into sniggers.

“Longest… rod…” Emma spluttered, her emotions already all over the place. “Sorry. I just- I’m fine now. I’m mature. I can hear the word rod without dissolving into teenage giggling.”

“You sure about that, Swan?” Killian asked with an amused look, before one of the J.Crew crowd turned around to shush them.

Chastened, he passed her the rods in question, and let her take care of the more finicky task of securing the slath.

It wasn’t long before they had a rhythm going. Her weaving clockwise. Him holding the spokes apart as he slowly rotated the disk anti-clockwise. It wasn’t really a two person job, but it worked as one.

And it did kind of look like a basket. Or the base of one. A bit like a laundry hamper Emma used to have. The beginnings of something not too bad.

“Great work, guys!” Belle said admiringly, as she passed by their table. “Now that’s about all we have time for this week, but next week we’ll move onto the sides, where we’ll use a randing weave...”

Killian rose a suggestive brow.

“I swear she’s doing it on purpose…” Emma grumbled, packing away their tools and brushing away the debris. After a while, it became clear she was stalling more than anything.

“It was Graham,” Killian said, smiling at her confused frown. “Who ratted you out. In case you were wondering.”

Graham. That traitor. She should’ve known.

“Same time next week?” he asked, rising to his feet. The tone was light, but the question was not.

A choice.

“Yeah,” she said, rapping her knuckles against the table, trying to play it cool, even as she saw the grin spread wide across his face. “Sure. Next week.”

[chrisemrysfics]

Hello dears!

A little bit late, but here we have my contribution for the last day of @3-days-of-lenalove on the theme of Romance!

This has four parts, they are still written as Lenalee’s thoughts; and each part is indepedant. The first is about the OT4, which is my main ship I have with Lenalee (though I left it purposefully unsaid if the boys are also dating/will also date). The second is Lou Fa/Lenalee, which I blame one of my friend for making me think of this couple. The third is Road/Lenalee, as I always more or less wondered about this ship. And the last is, as I named it, “No Romance”. I wanted to also celebrate that she might not want or need romance in her life, and I left it vague purposefully whether it is because she is aromantic (and/or asexual), or simply not looking for it.

Fun fact: I also ship Alma/Lenalee, but I did not find inspiration to write something. I can see them bonding by sharing a friendship with Kanda (which can also make an OT3).

I hope you enjoy!

Romance

Kanda, Lavi and Allen.

Part of Lenalee had not believed she would have the heart to feel romantic affection, and yet she had been proven wrong. Three times.

The first had been Kanda, however, she could not tell if it really was romantic, and neither could Kanda. In fact, it had never truly occurred to them to wonder, up until Lavi entered the picture. While Kanda and Lenalee grew up together, they soon realized siblings did not apply to them, and yet their closeness did not feel romantic.

They had never truly spoken about it, but Lenalee could still recall all the times she sought safety in Kanda's dojo. She could still recall the first time Kanda held her in his arms, soothing her from a break down after she first saw a friend die.

She could see in her mind, how it became something they both sought, to simply lay together, or sit so close their side touched. The first time they kissed, it was chaste, Lenalee had seen something in Kanda's eyes that betrayed he was thinking hurtful thoughts, and she had placed a hand on his cheek, and a kiss on his lips.

It was another little habit they shared after this day, cheek kiss and forehead ones, chaste kisses when they needed reassurance someone cared.

When they met Lavi, and Lenalee started to feel fondness for the red haired, she had not been certain what to do. Should Kanda and her speak, define their relationship? Should she even act on the warmth that was forming when she was with Lavi?

However, for a while, nothing happened. Lavi slipped himself, expression softening, one hand on a shoulder in comfort, even one arm around her shoulders. Compliments would sometimes leave his lips, just soft enough to convey genuineness.

In the end, none of them had the courage to take a step forward, not when they all knew death could await them. Yet, an understanding formed between the three of them, and sometimes, when it felt really hard, Lenalee would find herself laying between Lavi and Kanda, feeling safe and protected with the casual closeness.

It was Allen that unpurposefully prompted her, and all of them, to fully communicate. Mutual fondness had formed between he and Lenalee, however as she realized how much she was growing to care, she also noticed that Allen seemed to backtrack whenever he showed something that was not simple friendship.

One day, Lenalee could not help it, and rather than let it slide when Allen walled himself after giving her such a soft smile and warm look, she touched his cheek with her hand, watching the wall fall back right away from the surprise.

I care about you, Allen; she had admitted in a soft voice.

Emotions had swirled in his eyes, and then hesitantly, a little lost, he told her, Aren't I coming in between you and Lavi?

The surprise had soon shifted to understanding, and then Lenalee had breathed out a laugh. I think it's time I speak with him and Kanda, and with you.

The shocked look on Allen's face when his mind seemed to make sense of what she suggested had been lovely, Lenalee decided, especially mixed with the light hope in his silver eyes.

And then it had all fallen into places. Lavi and Kanda had not been blind, and they had long ago accepted they were both important to her. Allen had already fallen into their dynamics without realizing, but now, he knew he did not need to restrain his affection. Just like Lavi. Kanda did not change, they had always known it was not quite romance between them, but he was still her partner.

Still, Lenalee had hoped Komui had more or less guessed, he had always seemed to eye the three boys in a way that made her think he had realized.

They were proven wrong when they were laying down for a bit, all cuddled, and heard the shriek. Or maybe he had thought it was unsaid affection, not acted upon.

Somehow, Headquarters stayed standing after the Komurin of that day.

Lou Fa.

Their first interaction happened when they arrived from the battle of the Ark, and even if it had been brief, there had been a surprise in Lou Fa's eyes as Lenalee smiled at her, both feeling a certain comfrotableness as two young women watching the silly boys. Lenalee had thought the small blush on the scientist's cheeks had been from Allen, but later, she would realize it had not been the case.

They met more often, as the Asian Branch helped Headquarters more. Lenalee would find Lou Fa sweet, and Lou Fa would feel she understood why Bak had a crush on Lenalee.

Lenalee had more than once offered reassurance to Lou Fa, noticing when the young woman would get uncertain of herself; but their relation changed the day Lou Fa saw Lenalee walk off from a room with a look that made the scientist's heart hurt.

She had followed, and Lenalee had stopped when she noticed, Lou Fa had hesitated but when teary eyes glanced her way, wide but hesitant and longing, Lou Fa had rushed the little distance that separated them to hug Lenalee.

Lenalee had almost crumbled into her arms there and then, but she gathered the strength to lead them to her room.

And it had been once Lenalee had calmed down, that she realized how much she loved the hand brushing her hair, the warmth close to her; it had been them both who realized how much they loved having the other in their arms.

That was the day they shared their first kiss, and the day that marked the start of their romance.

Road. note: it is left unsaid if Road has mentally played with Lenalee or not, but I do consider Road didn’t, meaning that Lenalee’s feelings are not planted by Road, but really Lenalee’s. Still, if you are really sensitive to dub-con, Lenalee’s own thoughts can seem as if she is victim of manipulation, so be warned!

As much as Lenalee's mind had not been there until Miranda's Time Record had healed her mind, she had always remembered the feeling of Road's hand brushing her cheek, the soft voice murmuring, such a pretty doll.

Lenalee felt Road had done it on purpose, and many times, she wondered wih a shiver of fear, if she had fully been released from the Noah of Dream's hold.

Why else would she think more of this memory that should not be, rather than the fight that followed? Why else would she feel annoyance when Road kissed Allen's lips, the Noah's eyes meeting hers subtly after?

Oh, Lenalee had tried to tell herself it was because it was Allen, but she could not feel herself. She knew that she did not feel this way for him.

Tried as she might, Lenalee could not ignore the pang of sadness when Allen exorcised Tyki-or so they thought. She could not ignore how similar Road felt to herself, when she watched the apparent young girl grow dangerously protective, how she knew that if anyone harmed Komui, Lenalee could not deny for sure that her own reaction would not be unffiting for an Exorcist.

Maybe, Road had sensed that long ago. Maybe Road had seen Lenalee's mind better than Lenalee herself, seen all of it to destroy it better.

Maybe Lenalee's dreams that she could not share, that sometimes left her waking with her body still burning, were not quite dreams after all.

No romance

Lenalee watched with amusement as Lavi once again tried to steal Allen's food, her gaze sliding to Kanda, her fork finding her mouth faster so she could take a bit and muffled the giggle she felt rising at the twitching eyebrow from the swordsman.

It did not help that Link looked like he both wanted to be out of here and to bonk Allen's head, or that Marie did it for him, not sparring Lavi either. Poor Miranda though, but Lenalee could see the amusement that made its way into the woman's gaze, just like Krory's hesitant look had a little smile with it.

Lenalee wished for more of these moments, of these days they could laugh and enjoy life, no matter how hard it was, no matter how they fought a war.

Sometimes, she felt blessed to have found so many people that she wanted close, that grew to be part of her world. She felt that she had earned more than she dared to hope for, and that was why Lenalee fought so hard.

She had so much, and she wanted to protect it, to keep it.

And sometimes, it amused her that the one thing her brother seem to fear most, was not part of her world.

Lenalee had wondered, at times, if her heart had swayed toward someone. After all, love could form whether someone wanted it or not, even in the middle of a war. Or maybe, even more so in the middle of war.

Yet, even when she knew some could have captured her heart, it did not happen. Whether it felt more platonic, or simply that it never developped past friendship, Lenalee simply did not find anyone who truly brought romance to her heart.

And Lenalee felt she didn't look for it, either. Whether she did have crushes, or it had been a desire for platonic closeness, she could not know. Whether it was because she did not feel it, or because she felt she did not need it, romance was not part of Lenalee's world.

Not because it was impossible, but simply because Lenalee held no desire to look for it.

Love was in her life anyway, not romantic, but no less meaningful. And that was all that mattered.

[wellsjahasghost]

the world is quiet here

A/N: for Alice. prompt: ‘clarke tells bellamy he makes her happy’

This takes place in the weeks between 4.03 and 4.04.

Clarke overhears that Bellamy has returned from his hunting trip, and she immediately drops everything to go find him.

It could probably wait— it could definitely wait— but she’s been stressed the whole day. Seeing and talking to all the people she hasn’t put on the list has taken its toll. Knowing that she put herself on that list instead of one of them has made her increasingly distressed as the hours went by. Somehow, she just thinks if she catches a glimpse of Bellamy right now, she’ll be calmer. She won’t feel as alone. That’s all she needs— a glimpse. She’ll just drop by to say hello and then be on her way.

That’s all she needs. Really.

Clarke finds him helping Niylah and Raven in one of the storage rooms, where they’re busy preparing meat for storage. Bellamy has unloaded all the game from the day’s trip, and currently has his arms submerged up to the elbows in a bucket of sudsy water.

He glances up when she enters. As always, she feels a little wave of comfort when his dark eyes find hers. 

And all her plans to keep this to a ‘hello’ go out the window.

“Bellamy,” she breathes, taking a few quick steps forward before remembering Niylah and Raven are here too. So instead, she teeters on the balls of her feet a few times before settling to stand next to him, not touching him. He inclines his head in acknowledgement, eyes trained on the water he’s washing up in. There’s no real reason she should be here, so she flounders for a moment before asking, “How was the hunting trip?”

Bellamy shrugs a shoulder. “Not enough game anymore.” He pauses, glances at her out of the corner of his eye. “We were just talking about the possibility of going into the fringe of Azgeda territory next time. They always seem to have more to hunt.”

She crosses her arms and frowns. “You’ll do no such thing. That’s too dangerous.”

“We have an alliance,” Bellamy points out.

She doesn’t answer. She might have allied with Roan, but she doesn’t trust any random Azgeda soldiers Bellamy might come across.

She realizes that he’s watching her frown, his own mouth twisted into a wry smile as if he’s guessed what she’s thinking. “I brought the herbs you asked for,” he merely says, nodding his head to a basket on the table, filled to the brim with greens.

Clarke blinks, having completely forgotten she’d even asked him to bring them. “Oh. Thanks.” She walks over to it and pokes through the assortment of plants Bellamy has brought. They’re all very cleanly cut. She’s just amusing herself with the imagery of Bellamy carefully examining and plucking herbs from bushes when her hand brushes against a pretty bunch of small white flowers on stems in the corner of the basket. She rubs the velvety petals between her fingers and frowns. They don’t look medicinal. She plucks the bunch out and turns to Bellamy. “What are these?”

He pulls his arms out of the water and wipes them on the towel that Niylah hands him. Then he glances her way, eyes focusing on the flowers she’s holding out. He goes very still for a moment before he reaches out to take them from her. “Nothing.”

“Nothing,” Clarke repeats, holding the arrangement close to her chest so he can’t reach them. His hand drops to his side in defeat after a moment. She looks down at the flowers again. “They’re not medicinal, are they?”

“No,” Bellamy says. He sounds reluctant at the admission.

Clarke stares at him, at a loss. If they’re not useful, then what could he possibly have brought them for? Unless...

Raven walks by her just then, giving the flowers in her hand a cursory glance. “The man’s trying to give you flowers, Clarke. It’s not that difficult.”

Bellamy jumps in right then. “I didn’t give her anything. She took them out of my basket.”

“Whatever.” Raven rolls her eyes, tone blase, but the corner of her mouth ticks up.

Clarke feels her cheeks heating up for no real reason. “You brought me flowers?” she asks Bellamy.

He grabs his jacket and heads for the door. “They were in a bush beside some of the other stuff you asked me to get,” he says, still avoiding her eyes. “So I brought them. That’s all. You don’t have to keep them.”

She grabs the basket and hurries after him, ignoring Niylah and Raven’s heavy stares on her back. “Of course I’m keeping them. They’re nice.” She brings them to her nose and smells them as the two of them walk down the hall. They’re sweet, but not overpowering. “I’m going to put them in my room.”

He doesn’t look at her as they walk, but she thinks he relaxes a bit. She follows him as he heads straight to his quarters. He opens the door and pushes it open, letting her into his room first. She steps in first, him close at her back. He tosses his jacket on the back of a chair, closes the door and falls in an exhausted sort of way onto the edge of his bed. Clarke almost smiles. He’s so... boyish behind closed doors.

Then she remembers the reason she came to find him. “When did you get back?” He’s been gone since early morning.

“An hour ago.” He yawns, stifling it into his hand.

“I told you to come find me as soon as you got back to camp.” She can’t help her voice from becoming just a little stern.

“It was the middle of the day. Figured you were probably busy.”

“I’m never too busy for you.”

“Had no idea that you were that eager for herbs,” he says dryly, looking up.

“Eager for you,” Clarke retorts, and then realizes how that sounds and hastens to correct herself. “Eager to see you.”

“Slow day, huh, Clarke?”

She huffs, coming closer to sit beside him on the bed. He makes room for her as soon as she sits, making sure there’s a healthy few inches between them. Clarke isn’t having it; she scoots close to him, drawing one of her legs up so she can turn and face him. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she replies. “I missed you.”

Bellamy stares at her for a moment, silent, expression softening just a bit, the way it does just for her. Again, it sets her at ease. It always does. Everything is quieter, calmer when he’s there. She brings the flowers back to her nose and smiles at him.

“You make me happier, you know,” she tells him quietly, impulsively. “Just by being around.”

Bellamy blinks, eyelashes fluttering, jaw working. He glances away— or at least he tries, but Clarke knew he would do this, and her free hand is ready there to catch his jaw just as it’s turning away and pull his gaze back to her.

“You know that, don’t you?” she whispers, just to watch the way his breathing quickens and shallows, the way his pupils expand, the flush that works its way from his cheekbones to his throat.

Quite suddenly, he pulls away from her to scrub his hand vigorously over his face and release a shaky breath. It’s not the reaction she wanted. She was hoping to get a smile out of him.

“Hey,” she asks, worried, “you okay?” Maybe she overstepped. Maybe he sees her words as an obligation. To always be there and make her happy. Which isn’t what she meant at all. “I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s nothing,” Bellamy interrupts gruffly, finally dropping his hand. He’s staring into the space in front of him for a second, blinking rapidly.

And then he admits, “I did bring those flowers for you.”

A beat. Clarke knows it’s his way of saying it back. You make me happy, too.

“Oh,” she says softly, warmth blooming in her chest. “Thank you.”

He nods once, eyes flicking up hesitantly to hers and then away, as if shy. It’s so endearing that Clarke sets her flowers to the side and rises onto her haunches, opening her arms to him. He immediately leans into the hug, arm wrapping around her back to draw her in close and lean his head against her stomach.

She sighs happily at the contact, at the feeling of his breath against her shirt, warming her skin underneath it. “And today was not a slow day, by the way. It was… stressful.” It feels good to admit it aloud.

“People giving you a hard time about something?” he asks. He says it lightly, but there’s an undercurrent of tension. Clarke wonders how he could possibly know. Maybe the same happens to him when she’s not around, she realizes.

She lets her hands curl into his hair, running one down to his neck. “It doesn’t matter,” she says softly.

She feels him turn his head, and— it’s so quick she thinks she might have imagined it— his lips press into her stomach for half a second before he finally leans away from her hug. But his hand is still on her lower back, running in soothing circles.

He’s looking up at her from under his mess of black curls. “You sure?”

Clarke considers him. But she doesn’t want to talk about the people who blame her for all her horrible choices. She doesn’t want to, because they’re all right, and it can’t be fixed. There’s nothing he can do. In fact, she should probably head back to helping with overseeing the sealing of the Ark, but she can’t bring herself to leave. She wants to hang onto this quiet moment with him just a little longer.

Bellamy’s hand runs up her back, to her shoulder, and pauses. “You know what I saw when I was out there today?” he says suddenly.

She blinks. “What?”

“A black panther,” he tells her. “It ran in front of the Rover and we nearly hit it.” His eyes sparkle. “Thought of you.”

The tension eases and she snorts. “Very funny.” She pokes at his shoulder. “Maybe if you hunted panthers like me, you’d catch more game.”

“Clarke Griffin, panther hunter,” he says quite seriously, “Teach me how it’s done.”

She giggles and it’s loud, louder than any laugh she would’ve thought she could possibly be holding inside today. It surprises her, and she tries to turn it in his shoulder. But just like she did to him earlier, Bellamy stops her, tilts her jaw towards him, like he’s committing the image of her smiling face to memory.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asks softly, thumb caressing her cheek.

Clarke nods, wishing she could bask in this moment forever. Wishing she had the words to express the entirety of what he means to her. For now, she just tells him in the simplest way she knows. “I am now.”

[madisonsclarks]

Calling it Hope - Chapter 5

Author’s Note: It’s been forever and a day since I updated, and I’m sorry about that. Does it make up for it that this update is close to 7,000 words? :D Promise I’ll be better about timely updates in the future.

Summary: After learning some unexpected news, Abby Griffin struggles to hold the weight of the world on her shoulders while separated from the man she loves. Canon-compliant S4 Kabby babyfic.

This chapter: Arguments! More Raven Reyes, because I know what I’m about, son! :P Angst! And, perhaps most importantly, the Raven/Abby rocket trip the show deprived us of. 

Thanks to @shefollowedfires and @skaihefamarcus for being awesome betas and making sure I sound semi-coherent!

On AO3      Chapter 1     Chapter 2      Chapter 3     Chapter 4                    

The next day began promptly at seven in the morning, when Abby was stirred from sleep with stomach cramps so intense she briefly wondered if she’d somehow slept through the next six months and was currently in the process of giving birth.

Pregnancy, she reminded herself as she kicked off the silky sheets, taking stock of her symptoms and deciding which were relevant to mention to Jackson (naturally, none of them were). Not brain damage.

Not five minutes later, she had – much as she suspected she would – thrown up in the wastebasket next to her bed. At least the stomach cramps were gone, replaced by a slowly waning nausea.

Wondering if it was worth it to try for the last half-hour of sleep before her alarm blared, Abby reclined in bed and placed both hands on her growing stomach, her lips quirking upward in an amused smirk.

“You’re not making this easy on me,” she whispered as she closed her eyes, running her fingers up and down the smooth skin beneath her tank top.

And, as if father and child were joined by some cosmic connection, it was at that moment that Marcus’ voice sounded over Abby’s radio.

“Abby?” she heard him say, the back of her name clipped by the faulty reception in her room. Generally she would have tried to go to the hallway for better clarity, but right now – half asleep and her stomach still performing slow somersaults – she decided she might be able to live with hearing 80 percent of his words.

“Marcus, I-“ she started, but he was too quick.

“I can be there tomorrow,” he said in a rush, sounding almost panicked. “Bellamy and David Miller have agreed to keep the camp in line while I’m gone.”

Her stomach sank as the puzzle pieces of panic fell into place.

As far as she knew from Clarke’s conversations with Bellamy, everything was fine – or at least survivable, for the time being at Arkadia. Which meant -

“Jackson told you.”

With silence devouring the other line, she swallowed hard.

Because of course Jackson told him everything, probably the moment Abby left the lab. Because if her assistant knew he didn’t have enough emotional weight to swing her decision, he also knew how to contact someone who had enough to send her careening through space, to knock her permanently off-balance.

Because for all the arguments she thought she and him had resolved, he was still, at his core, completely and unreservedly devoted to her safety.

Damn him.

Damn them both.

“He radioed earlier today,” Marcus admitted, sounding equally bold and sheepish over the airwaves.  He knew this wasn’t information to which she would have wanted him to be privy, but at the same time, now that he was…God, they were headed for one hell of an argument.

Her head pounded, and her words tumbled out accompanied by an involuntary little wince. “He wasn’t supposed to do that. We agreed he wouldn’t do that.”

“I know,” Marcus said. “But I’m happy he did. I never would have left you if I’d known what was going on. What was happening to your-“ he broke off, seemingly unable to validate the rest of the sentence by finishing it.

“Abby, please don’t do this,” he said, and the piercing sensation of her teeth against her lower lip was suddenly the only thing keeping her from crying. He sounded so lost, so small, so defeated; a shell of the man he’d been in Polis.

“I have to,” she said, wondering when the yelling would start. He’d try begging first, probably. Then, when that failed, they’d revert to earlier methods: screaming and yelling at each other until every breath and swallow radiated pain through hoarse throats. “Marcus, my injury isn’t fatal. If I get some rest, it’ll heal.”

“And have you been resting?” he asked, a pointed edge at the end of his question. He knew. She knew he knew.

And because she knew how well he knew her, she decided not to respond.

“No one else can go with Raven but me,” she said, determined to change the subject. “Jackson doesn’t know how to make Nightblood. I don’t have time to teach Clarke or any of the others. It has to be me.”

Her justifications fell on deaf ears.

“Have you been resting?” he repeated, that same pointed edge sharpening into something like anger.

“Yes,” she lied. Lying to Marcus wasn’t something she considered lightly – or typically, at all – but for now, it needed to be done. If she could undo the damage Jackson had done to his frame of mind and convince him he needed to stay in Arkadia, it would be a lot easier to keep going with her trip to space.

Abby didn’t know if she could leave the ground if she had to stare out the rocket’s window as they blasted off, taking in the tears on his cheeks as the countdown ended. That, she thought, might shatter her heart beyond repair.

“No, you haven’t,” Marcus countered. Now she was certain – his tone had morphed from casual attempts at convincing into flat-out rage.

And that realization was the final straw.

“Okay. You’re right. I haven’t,” she spat. “How could I? I’m trying to figure out how to make Nightblood. and how much of it we need after Raven and I come back from space. I’m trying to figure out how to save everyone. Is that what you wanted to hear? You were right?”

“Abby, I didn’t say you-“ he started, but she was nowhere near finished. It was as if his tone had opened a wound deep inside her, ripped stitches from a gash that formed on her heart from the moment they realized they had less than half a year to live. There was nothing to do but let the words pour out, unbidden, draining liters of discomfort and pent-up frustration into the open air.

“I can’t sleep because every time I close my eyes, I see my daughter with radiation burns and wake up in a cold sweat. I can’t sleep because I see you out there in black rain. I can’t sleep because I start thinking about how the next few hours might mean life and death for everyone I love, but I’m laying down in bed instead of working in the lab. So no, Kane, I haven’t been resting.”

Using his surname was risky, but validating. She knew it would hit him where it hurt – and right now, that was all her aching mind and heart could aim to do.

“Just for once, I wish you would do what you know is right,” he said, his words somehow both warm with emotion and frosted with anger. “That you’d let yourself heal. You know what to do, Abby. Jackson told you, and yet you’re not-“

He didn’t understand. Of all the things they’d shared, of the numerous similarities between them…how could he stop seeing eye-to-eye with her now? When she needed him most, where was the common ground they’d found?

Drowned under black rain, apparently.

“I’m trying to save everyone,” she interjected, uninterested in the rest of his sermon on self-care. “When the Nightblood is made and our people are safe, then I’ll rest.”

The other line was eerily quiet, and Abby realized she had no clue what was going on in Arkadia. Was it raining there? Had the signal been disrupted?

“Marcus?” she said, her feverish rage breaking into a blurry, foggy sort of fear. If her last words to the man she loved – the father of her child – had been an argument, she’d never forgive herself.

A few more seconds passed as Abby rested with one hand on her stomach and the other on the walkie, holding it to her ear with trembling hands. Then,

“I’m here.”

And just like that – like a flash of lightning – her anger was ablaze once more.

“Have you decided to stop lecturing me?” she snapped.

Another few seconds of quiet.

Had he really started giving her the silent treatment already? It had never worked on the Ark, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to work now. No matter what he did, she was going to space.

“I wasn’t trying to lecture you,” he said, returning her tone with bitterness manifold. “I apologize for worrying about your safety, Doctor Griffin. If my concern isn’t welcome, I won’t voice it in the future.”

The use of proper terms wasn’t quite as amusingly incendiary when used against her, and Abby found herself biting her lip and resting the back of her head against the cool wall panels. Arguing with him in the past had been as easy as breathing. When had she forgotten how to inhale?

She knew the answer: when she started falling for him, she forgot how to breathe.

Thoughts muddled by anger and logic broken by pain, her next few words tumbled out in a desperate attempt to win the debate. It was a sentence she’d dwell upon in the hours to come, a double-digit distraction from Raven’s prattling about the rocket. In those desolate moments, she found herself wishing she could go back and snatch those words from midair, wished she could disrupt the signal between their radios so her statement never reached his ears.

Unfortunately, at the present moment, the sentence seemed all too viable, too perfect, too guaranteed to close his mouth and hand her a title she’d find later she never wanted.

“Are you worried about me?” she said, seething, “or are you just protecting the baby?”

And just like that, the whole world stopped.

With nothing but static on the other line, Abby was left with naught but her frenzied, half-coherent thoughts. She knew it wasn’t true almost as decisively as she’d known she had to say it. It seemed like the most sensitive spot to aim a punch – a desperate swing at knocking the argument asunder, a chink in his otherwise logical, foolproof armor – but now, she realized she’d made things worse than before.

“Marcus,” she said, dropping his surname in favor of a hushed, apologetic plea. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I’m-”

“It was very clear what you meant,” he said, an even emotionlessness replacing the rush of warmth that usually accompanied her name.

Heart sinking, Abby reeled from the impact of his reaction.

“I shouldn’t have said it,” she apologized, sick with the understanding that she’d gone too far and would pay for it for the foreseeable future: likely for as long as they were separated.

So she said the only thing she could really say – the two words that usually left her with a sour taste in her mouth and a splitting headache. As fate would have it, by the time her lips formed them she had already long ago developed both: a side effect of their argument.

“I’m sorry,” she said, begging him without words, imploring him to understand that it was rage – not earnestness – that had driven those words from her tongue.

“Bellamy needs me,” Marcus droned, frighteningly measured in spite of his simmering rage. “He thinks a storm might be coming.”

Abby heard nothing in the background, but realized now wasn’t the time to debate his claim.

“Okay,” she said, swallowing hard with blurry vision. “Okay. Stay safe, Marcus. Please.”

“You, too.”

The line went quiet.

Her alarm went off.

 ***

“Go to bed, Abby.”

Raven’s voice carried across the lab, and although she was inside the rocket she heard her as clearly as though the mechanic had been standing next to her.

“I’m not tired, Raven,” she retorted, hoping the girl would press the matter no further. Unfortunately, her hopes went unanswered.

“We’re going to space tomorrow. You need to get some rest. I can’t have you passing out on me in the middle of our flight.”

“Raven, you’re piloting the ship. You should get some sleep.”

Raven emerged from the rocket, practically skipping down the stairs. Abby wondered how much of her good humor came from her brain’s exertion-caused imbalances and found irony in their exchange: both of their brains suffering, showing symptoms in different ways, but both insisting on the same thing.

The girl was by her side in less than a minute, her ponytail swinging as she ascended the stairs in a rush.

“I’m not tired, Abby,” she said, aiming a wink her way. Abby sighed, realizing Jackson would have to handle this particular obstacle. There was no way they’d be able to go into space with a pilot who had stayed up all night the night before.

“Even if you’re not tired,” Abby said, “you still need rest. You need energy and sleep to get through tomorrow. Your brain might not handle the exertion otherwise.”

Some tiny part of her thought that advice might also apply to her – heard Marcus telling her, not for the first time in the past ten hours, that she knew what she needed to do to help herself and voluntarily chose not to do it.

“Are you kidding?” Raven grinned, spun in a circle with her arms wide. “I feel great! Abby, we’re going into space. Not gonna lie…it’ll be nice to see it up close again.”

Abby frowned, buried her gaze in her microscope, and Raven seemed to sense something was off.

“You okay?” she asked, moving closer, her peppy grin replaced by concern and furrowed brows.

“I’m…” Abby started, focusing the microscope as she spoke, “fine.”

“Bullshit,” Raven said. “It’s Kane, isn’t it?”

She went rigid, tearing her gaze from blood cells and blurry lines.

“Marcus and I are fine.”

“Doesn’t sound like it to me.”

“Raven.”

The girl put her hands up in mock surrender, feigning intimidation.

“I’m just saying, he’s the only one who can get you pissed off like this. I could tell all day that you weren’t acting like you. Jackson thought-“

Abby bit her tongue, reminded that Jackson, in a roundabout way, was the reason for their argument. At some point, Abby had been planning to tell Marcus about her brain – it just wouldn’t have been until long after she’d healed.

“Here,” Raven said, holding out her radio. “Take mine. The range is better on it, so you’ll get reception in your room.”

Abby raised her eyebrows. “Why would I need reception in my room, Raven?”

“Because you’re going to bed. Right now. And you’re gonna talk things out with Kane in privacy.”

Abby spun in her seat, directly facing the girl. The offer was tempting – Raven had programmed her radio to get a better signal, and it would be nice to not have to migrate to the hallway every time Marcus tried to contact her. But at the same time…the thought of talking to him again made her stomach lurch, given the way they left things before they day started. And it was Raven’s radio…

“Marcus and I don’t need to-“

“Yeah, you do,” Raven interjected. “I really don’t want to go to space tomorrow with you if you’re just gonna be lovesick over Kane the whole time. Better if you guys make up now than trying to do it tomorrow over our comms link.”

Well…she had a point.

Out of the corner of her eye, Abby glimpsed Jackson making his way back to the lab from a brief nap. He would soon begin pressuring her to go to bed, and although she could handle one or the other, there was little chance she could hold her own against both her assistant and her future pilot.

“Okay,” Abby said, reaching for the radio with one hand while removing hers from its place next to the microscope.

Raven’s eyes widened. Apparently, agreement had been the last thing on her mind.

“Nice!” she exclaimed, turning Abby’s radio over in her hand as if trying to get a feel for the new device. “See ya in the morning. Go make up with your boyfriend before we blast off.”

Abby gave her one last look before descending the stairs, reminding her it was just as important that she get some sleep, too.

The journey to her room lasted less than five minutes, and Abby barely made it inside the door without collapsing. Exhaustion, it seemed, seeped into her bones only when she stepped through the threshold of her quarters.

Refocusing her energy, she carefully set the radio down on her dresser in the same space her old one had occupied. She then removed her shirt and jeans – Becca’s lab had many things, but not pajamas – and with a quiet promise to shower in the morning, she slid beneath the covers and closed her eyes.

She knew she should radio Marcus. Sleep wouldn’t visit until her apology was accepted, and the argument was festering into a nasty, aching infection that seeped into her every thought. Going into space without clearing the air between them was unthinkable, but right now, so was picking up that radio.

Then, it did something she never thought it would do – something that saved her quite a bit of trouble.

It hummed with white noise.

“Marcus?” she breathed, reaching over to retrieve it. almost unwilling to let herself hope. If it wasn’t him and she’d gotten her hopes up for nothing…

“Abby,” he said, his voice considerably calmer, and she let herself exhale as guilt stretched inside her chest.

“I’m sorry for what I said earlier,” she said, hoping that time would make him a more receptive listener. “I didn’t mean it. I know you’re trying to help, and I know you care what happens to me. I’m just…” she paused, gritted her teeth as a throbbing in her head marred her words into a wince. “I’m a little stressed.”

When he spoke, he was a different man than the one who hung up hours ago. This Marcus – her Marcus – was kind, soft, gentle, remorseful.

“I’m sorry for what I said, too,” he murmured – even the slight interference, the brushstrokes of static, couldn’t paint over the regret in his voice. “You know me better than anyone, Abby. And you have every right to be stressed. I shouldn’t have made it worse.”

She laughed. Of course, of course Marcus Kane would find a way to blame himself for something she had said.

“You didn’t,” she consoled him. “I made it worse. You were trying to help.”

She could see him shaking his head, although he was miles away and her eyes were fixed on her bedroom ceiling. “I went about it the wrong way,” he said. “Instead of trying to discuss it, I made the decision for you. That’s not what…” he paused, searching for the right words. “That’s not what I want us to be. And I’m sorry I put you through it.”

And there it was, hidden between those seven words: we are equals.

Marcus would never make her choices for her, no matter how much it pained him to think of the consequences of her decisions. And she would do the same: allow him to walk his path, so long as their journeys intertwined.

Truthfully, she’d always known if he found out that he’d try to stop her. But she hadn’t counted on the rage he’d displayed, the outward defiance he fired her way. It occurred to her that this wasn’t the closest he’d come to losing her – they’d had several run-ins with dangers that threatened to part them permanently.

But this was one that he could do nothing about, and that likely terrified him to his core.

At Mount Weather, he’d been able to yell and delay the guards. In the City of Light, he’d been able to help the kids – at least until he was forced to take the chip himself. But Marcus Kane couldn’t distract her brain from breaking down. He couldn’t take a pill to save her, he couldn’t yell and beg to keep the hallucinations at bay. It was then that she realized where his uncharacteristic anger had originated: a place of helplessness.

“I don’t want that, either,” Abby said softly, wishing she could hold him instead of running her fingers over the weathered, scuffed plastic of the radio. “But it’s not who we are. Parents fight, Marcus.”

She stopped, the next few words lodging in her throat as her left hand came to rest on her belly. The place where their child grew each day, safe despite the danger pushing ever closer to their doorstep, living in a world that was slowly being ripped from its grasp.

And in spite of it all, she’d still said that one word – the one little word that betrayed every ounce of hope that still glimmered inside her confused, scared, directionless heart.

Parents.

When he spoke, she could tell his thoughts orbited the same territory.

“Parents,” he said, a smile warming his words. And in all her time at the lab – just when she thought it couldn’t get worse – the pain of needing him in her arms grew tenfold, blossomed into something beautiful and agonizing and wholly uncontrollable inside her chest. “Abby, we’re going to be parents.”

There was something shifting in the space between his words, nightmarish doubts she knew his words dredged up in the back of his mind, a plea for her to stay safe. For her to rest so her brain could heal. For her to hold on long enough for him to make it to the lab, so he could hold her and kiss her and reassure her that everything was going to be all right as long as they were together.

God, how she wanted to be able to obey him.

But for just a little while longer – for a few more days – she’d have to rebel. Once the Nightblood was made and distributed, she would let herself take a nice, long nap: preferably in his arms.

Her fingertips grazed the smooth skin just below her navel, where a solid bump was beginning to take shape. She smiled, knowing her expression matched his.

“We are,” she said firmly, as though the strength behind her words alone might stave off the impending doomsday. “We are.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m okay with arguing,” he said, his voice small and soft – a creature so far removed from the man she’d known on the Ark that they might as well belong to a different species. “These past few hours have been hell, Abby.”

A laugh wormed its way up her throat and shoved her lips open. She figured the noise must have translated well over the radio, because Marcus responded to it.

“What’s funny?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “It’s just…if someone had told me a year ago that Marcus Kane would be torn up over arguing with me, I would have told them to float themselves.”

It was his turn to laugh, then. “Things have certainly changed, haven’t they?”

How she wished she could kiss him, pull him close, let the sound of his heartbeat drown out the drumbeat of war moving closer. “They have. We have.”

Quiet for a few moments, as he contemplated. Abby took the opportunity to slide beneath her sheets, thankful that Raven’s radio had better reception than hers. It would always be a mystery as to why her own hadn’t been able to reach Arkadia from her room, but she was thankful to the young mechanic for trading. It must have been obvious, she thought, that she needed it.

Her bedsheets were lukewarm with muted body heat, a luxury partially taken by her comforter and partially absorbed by the open air. Abby didn’t mind the coolness on her bare legs, the softness of the threads smoothing at least a few of her worries about the day ahead.

She’d never known comfort quite like this on the Ark, and the only thing that came close – their shared bed in Polis – was now naught more than a treasured memory. If only Marcus were here, she thought, it would be every bit as indulgent as their quarters in the tower had been.

Resting her head against the soft pillow, she gave a faint sigh. Tomorrow would come, as it always did. She would go to space with Raven, and make the Nightblood. Certainly, there were hypotheticals – questions to lead her weary mind deeper into the labyrinth of uncertainty that comprised their lives on Earth – but for now, the man she loved was on the other end of the radio.

“I won’t tell you not to go,” he said, his voice a broken echo of his earlier insistence. “You know what’s best for our people. What’ll help us survive. But Abby…please be careful.”

“I will,” she said. “I promise.”

Relief resounded through his response. “And you’re sure nothing would happen to the baby? Jackson said it wouldn’t. He tried to explain it to me, but…”

She smiled. For all his good qualities, Marcus Kane would never be a doctor or a scientist. 

“We were born in space,” she said, condensing the science to give him the gist of what the medical explanation meant. “That means I’m strong enough to carry the baby back into orbit without taking any extra precautions. In theory, I could even give birth there.”

His quiet showed his discomfort at the idea, and she decided it was best to keep the conversation moving.

“Everything will be fine,” she said, doing her best to soothe his fears while keeping the edges of her own sanded down to a dullness that at least allowed her to sleep. “I shouldn’t be up there for longer than five hours. That’s all the fuel we have.”

She knew, even without him saying it, that those five hours would be some of the longest of his life.

“I love you, Abby,” he said.

“I love you, too,” she responded. 

If something went wrong, if she and Raven couldn’t make it back…she needed to say it.

Most importantly, she needed him to hear it.

***

“So, you’re pregnant,” Raven said. Her tone left little room for debate, and Abby instinctively checked to be sure she wasn’t broadcasting their conversation from space back to the entire lab, and subsequently, the rest of Arkadia.

How had she found out?

Had it been Clarke? John? Neither of them would have told her, which left only one culprit. But Jackson, as close as he was with Raven…it was unlikely he would have allowed such sensitive information to spill forth, especially considering Abby was his oldest friend and mentor.

Raven looked back at her from her perch among the shining, almost iridescent monitors that lined the far wall of the ship. Abby realized her expression must have been something approaching terror, because Raven gave her a pitying smirk and changed her approach.

“Don’t freak out on me, Abby,” she said, idly swinging her legs back and forth below the countertop.

Far easier said, Abby thought, than done.

“Who told you?” Abby said, equally amazed and mortified.

For a split second, she wondered whether for all the pain the mechanic had been through, her brain had really been given an upgrade. Could the City of Light still connect them, even though the chips had long ago been fried?

Because she hadn’t begun showing, really – whatever tiny bump existed was easy to camouflage behind her regular clothes – and to the majority of their people, Abby’s pregnancy was still a well-guarded secret. No one but Marcus was close enough to see the faint lines on her abdomen at the end of the day, glaring red marks where the waistband of her pants dug in a little tighter than usual.

That would be another problem, eventually – maternity wear and where to find it – but one problem, she thought, at a time. She could deal with the absence of suitable maternity clothes once everyone had been injected with Nightblood.

“No one told me,” Raven said, sliding down from her seat to join Abby by the microscope. “I figured it out on my own.”

Abby looked away, quirked an eyebrow. They didn’t have much time left for this kind of banter – in less than ten minutes, they’d be in position to begin manufacturing the Nightblood. Conversations like this were well and good now, but Abby didn’t want to start anything that couldn’t be finished when they were in position.

“You’d be the first,” Abby muttered, focusing her energy on relocating a tray of materials to the space between her microscope and a rack of test tubes.

“I usually am,” the girl said with a wink, leaning against the table with a smirk.

Abby couldn’t take it anymore. With eight minutes left on the clock, she had to know.

“Really, Raven. You looked at me and decided I was pregnant?”

Raven shook her head. “No, not right away. It took me a few days to figure out why you were acting weird.”

“I was not acting weird,” Abby said, defensive. Because if Raven thought she was acting different – acting strangely – then who was to say Emori or Luna hadn’t thought the same thing? Who was to say others at Arkadia might not have thought the same thing? Could her secret already have gotten out, and she and Marcus were too blind to notice?

Raven snorted. “Whatever makes you feel better.”

They stared at each other for a few moments, each daring the other to give in. Abby almost wondered if Raven’s estimation came from a link between their brains – something caused by the EMP damage and residual ALIE interference – but it was a theory at best, a possible explanation for something that had likely been guesswork and a bullseye at a moving target of mood swings.

“Kane will be a good dad,” Raven said at last, giving Abby a small, genuine smile. Surprised by the tenderness in her statement – a softness generally removed from Raven Reyes’ bravado – Abby’s response was nothing but instinctual.

“He will,” she agreed.

“I mean, he’s basically everyone’s dad already. What’s one more kid on the list? He already has at least ten.”

Abby couldn’t quite shove down a laugh. Raven’s number was an exaggeration, but the core of it was true, she knew. Marcus was already a father in all but blood to Bellamy and Octavia, and it was clear from his interactions with Clarke before she left that he’d practically adopted her as well. She’d seen him often enough with Nathan and Harper to assume they were close, and recently, she’d glimpsed him talking to Monty.

But the baby she carried would be different. This would be their child, not a delinquent they’d sent to Earth. This would be a child they brought into this world not because they needed to test its survivability, but because they wanted to be parents. Because they wanted him or her in their lives.

“I don’t know if he has that many,” Abby countered with a knowing smirk.

“Between the two of you, you sure as hell do,” Raven said. “I mean, he has Bellamy, Octavia, Harper, Miller, and Monty. You have me, Clarke, Jackson, and Murphy-“

“When did I adopt John, Raven?”

She laughed. “Yeah, you’re right. I think he adopted you.”

Abby hardly thought John Murphy would allow himself to be adopted – he tolerated her, certainly, but to go so far as taking care of him and Emori would be a hugely difficult task. Not to mention they were entirely self-sufficient; they didn’t need her, or Marcus, watching over them. The rest of the kids…well, they’d become a family by default, almost.

She smiled as she remembered a particularly poignant memory from before the City of Light, before the current crisis, when they’d had a few precious months of calm.

“You agree?” Raven said, returning her smile. Abby shook her head.

“No, just thinking about something else.”

She had gone to see him after a long night of working in the Chancellor’s office. Dawn had only just begun crawling over the treetops, sprinkling the navy sky with streaks of orange. It was easy to forget her workload when she was with him – to ask him how his night had been, to inquire about the guards and the kids – and easier still to forget how far her daughter was from her embrace. With Marcus, even then, everything had felt right.

She’d knocked on his door twice before realizing it was open – it took her a few seconds longer to realize he wasn’t inside. Eventually she’d ended up wandering aimlessly around a sleepy, barely-moving Arkadia in an attempt to find him, to have a few moments of quiet solitude with the man who had become her rock, her constant.

Her feet took her to the common area, just beyond the piano. She thought he might be there, working at one of the tables; not quite what she found.

Surprisingly, Marcus was fast asleep on the couch in the far corner of the room – a brand new piece of furniture from Mount Weather that hadn’t yet found a more suitable home – with his head lolled back, snoring soundly. But the true shock came in looking to his left and right, where two young members of the guard had curled up beside him.

Harper had fallen asleep with her head on his shoulder, her blonde braid trailing down his upper arm, while Nathan had simply flopped over into Marcus’ lap, laying face-up across his legs. It was a wonder, Abby thought, that he hadn’t fallen over. They must have been discussing strategy and been overtaken by exhaustion; or rather, as she suspected, Marcus had fallen asleep with the kids by his side, and they had fallen asleep trying to decide whether or not to wake him.

Her smile widened as she remembered contemplating whether or not to wake them. Ultimately, she chose to let them sleep – although the kids might be embarrassed later, the image was too sweet, too innocent, to tarnish. Instead she’d walked away and headed to Medical for her morning shift, expecting a visit from Marcus that came an hour later.

“Hey, Abby,” Raven said, startling her from her reverie. “Five minutes on the clock. Just letting you know.”

“All right,” Abby said. She cleared the cobwebs of memory from her mind, refocusing on the task at hand. “I’m almost ready.”

Raven explained that they’d have a half-hour to make as much Nightblood as they could, and then she’d be forced to begin the descent process as to not engulf them into a fiery, painful crash landing. Abby figured she could manufacture quite a bit in that time – enough to save everyone – given that nothing went wrong or malfunctioned. With any luck, she thought, they wouldn’t have any trouble.

Then again, when was the last time their plans had gone smoothly?

“Seriously, though,” Raven said, raising her voice to be heard from across the room. “If you were going to get knocked up, I’m happy it was Kane.”

Abby smirked. Who else would it be, Raven?

“Me, too,” she whispered to herself, assembling materials on the countertop and waiting for Raven’s order to go ahead. Their communications with the ground would be disrupted until they were in position, but all things considered…Abby thought it might not have been the worst thing that she couldn’t talk to anyone there.

Abby glanced at the clock: two minutes until she could start bonding the elements.

“Do you think it’ll work?” Raven asked suddenly, her voice oddly tremulous, a chink in her usual bravado. Abby knew this was the result of her brain damage – the stroke she’d had only days ago – and knew that for the two of them, this trip meant something other than just survival.

Because they both knew, on some level, that survival wasn’t guaranteed for them; even if the Nightblood protected their people, allowed them to walk in black rain and breathe radiation-soaked air, that they might not live much longer than the onset.

There was a minute and thirty seconds on the clock, and as much as Abby wanted to comfort her, there was little to be said in such a short amount of time. So, in lieu of getting up and giving her the hug she so desperately wished to bestow, Abby simply responded, “It has to.”

It does, she thought. Without the Nightblood, they were doomed. Everything rode on the next half-hour and how many doses she could make during that scant, easily-withered timeframe.

Her hands started shaking, and she took a deep breath.

One minute on the clock.

As if on cue, her head started hurting.

Pain blossomed slowly throughout the first ten seconds – a gradual throbbing centered at the space that joined her head and the back of her neck. At first she mistook it for stress, as she always did – told herself the lie she needed to hear.

Fifty seconds on the clock.

The pain radiated upward like a sapling stretching its branches, encompassing the entire back of her head. Abby winced and gritted her teeth against the sharpening, steady waves of agony. Her fingers clenched around the metal of her seat, closing with enough force to part her skin.

Forty seconds on the clock.

The pain stopped, if only for a moment, but something felt off. Wrong, as if the world were still spinning, still moving, but backwards. Her lungs felt as though they’d shrunk to half-capacity, burned like they’d been set on fire.

And yet, from somewhere, she heard a voice that wasn’t Raven’s.

Thirty seconds on the clock.

“Hi,” the voice said, and Abby spun in her seat as though she’d been spun around by forces larger than herself, dropping both hands to her sides as she searched for their phantom intruder.

It’s not real, she reminded herself. There’s no one here but you and Raven. Focus on what needs to be done.

But try as she might, she couldn’t tune out the voice. It was small but insistent, quiet but determined, and grew louder with each agonizing pulse of pain that spread throughout her head.

Twenty seconds on the clock.

Abby felt a tug on her hand and jumped, looked down to find the source of the gesture. Her head now felt as though it had been clamped in a vise, each second tightening the mechanism until she found herself barely able to choke back screams. The simple gesture of looking down – tilting her head in the process – made tiny stars shimmer at the edges of her vision.

Ten seconds on the clock.

Abby looked down and finally found the voice – the source of the commotion. When she did, every muscle in her body stiffened.

It was a little girl – she could be no older than five or six, according to Abby’s estimation. Her skin was pale, but not sickly, sprinkled by a youthful pinch of redness at her cheeks. She wore a simple shirt with a patch on the elbow and well-worn jeans, clothes not dissimilar to the ones Clarke might have worn in her childhood on the Ark. Her thick, dark brown hair was pulled back into a braid, and expressive chocolate eyes stared up at Abby, radiating innocence and wonder.

Five seconds on the clock.

Abby found herself unable to let go of the girl’s hand, perhaps because her brain no longer responded to her commands. There was a world outside this child, she knew, but something held her transfixed in this moment, cemented in place as the world moved on around them. Her heart raced, and she felt her fingers twitch against the warmth of the girl’s skin.

Four seconds on the clock.

Abby heard someone else’s voice in the background, but no longer remembered whom she was with. Was there anyone else here? All around her objects began to look foreign, strange, as though the lights of the shuttle were dimming around the little girl by her side.

Three seconds on the clock.

On a logical level, she knew the pain in her head was agonizing. But emotionally, she no longer responded to the torture: it was as though somehow, this child had broken the connection between her pain receptors and the rest of her being. Everything hurt, but everything was numb.

Two seconds on the clock.

The girl smiled – a sweet, careless quirk of her lips that accentuated the brilliant spark in her eyes - and Abby felt an instinctive sort of warmth blossoming through her chest. Her own expression mirrored the child’s, as though her heart gave her no other option than to share in her companion’s apparent joy at seeing her.

One second on the clock.

“Hi, mommy,” the girl whispered, her voice a tinkling bell, the sound of a gentle rainstorm.

Then everything went black.