#jon keeps making Decisions so hard that by dance hes just like. FINE FUCK. WHATEVER. ITS JON TIME

[celosiaa]

i can almost see you

Summary: Tim says his final farewells.

Martin refuses to leave his side.

(for a prompt from @nebulousowl requesting an exploration of Tim saying his last goodbyes, and being comforted through it all)

CW: suicidal(ish) thoughts, discussion of death wish/martyrdom, heavy angst

this is a bit of a dark one--definitely heavy on the angst, but I’ve got the comfort here too, never fear. Though I would not classify Tim as suicidal, I could see how this piece could potentially be triggering for folks who struggle with those things.  Please please please be careful!!! Love to you all! <3

“Honestly, I hope that John learned something from her because—because I don’t expect I’m going to be coming back from this. I don’t know if I want to. And if he needs to pull the trigger, to use me to stop it… well, he’d better have the guts to do it.”

Tim stops briefly, the faint flicker of compulsion fading away to nothing as he says these words.

My last words.

He knows it as sure as anything—this had been his last statement for the archive. Whether that means he escapes, or he dies, Tim can’t even find it in himself to care. Just for it all to be over.

He’s just got to end the tape.

“Timothy Stoker, August 4th, 2017.”

It’s so very like an obituary that he cannot help but laugh.

“Statement ends.”

Clicking off the recorder, Tim buries his face in his hands, rubbing at eyes that have seen no rest for days now. He hasn’t been able to sleep, able to eat, able to—anything, really, now he thinks of it. And what would be the point anyway? He’s only got to last a little bit longer.

“Tim? Are you alright?” a timid voice asks from the doorway.

Of course it would be Martin.

Of course.

“Well, isn’t this just the icing on the cake?” he says with as much vitriol as he can manage, pulling the corners of his mouth into a wide and terrible grin.

To his surprise, this does not seem to intimidate Martin in the slightest. Certainly, the man of a few years ago would have balked at this behavior, so worried even to look at someone the wrong way that he would rather just run out of the room. The expression he’s directing at Tim right now, however, speaks volumes as to just how much they’ve all changed.

“Look, you can—you can be nasty to me all you want,” he says, stepping into the office and closing the door behind him. “It’s not going to stop this conversation from happening.”

Bastard.

Wiping the grin from his face, Tim leans back in the wooden chair, which creaks a bit as he crosses his arms tightly across his chest. Martin absolutely refuses to look away, his eyes just boring into Tim’s with a steadily-building intensity—until he finally bursts.

“What? What do you want, Martin? Just spit it out,” he shouts, slamming a hand against the table and returning the stare with equal force.

“I heard what you just said,” he says quietly, refusing to match Tim’s outlandish volume.

“Great, thanks for eavesdropping then! Really appreciate it,” Tim spits, tipping back even further to stare angrily at the ceiling.

“Well, I’ve already heard it, so tough. And to be honest, it fucking terrified me.”

What?

Taken so completely aback by this language, his eyes immediately snap back to Martin—who is staring at him more seriously perhaps than ever before.

There was time I would have loved this, he thinks dimly, just a flicker of memory of teasing and laughter dancing across his mind—gone as quickly as it had come. It makes his head ache.

“Yeah—yeah, I mean it, alright?” Martin continues, straightening up even taller, firm in his determination not to let this go.

“What you said about not expecting to come back, and—” he breaks off to inhale a quick, shaky breath. “—and not wanting to. That bit. That terrified me.”

Seeing the fear written all over Martin’s face, knowing that he had put it there, that this might be the last time he saw him—

Tim can’t think about it—he won’t.

Just get out just get out just get out

“If this is your idea of an intervention, Martin, it’s very sad,” he says, standing from the chair with a wooden creak and crossing the room quickly.

A firm hand grips his upper arm before he can make it to the door—and it’s been so long since anyone has touched him that he cannot help but freeze in his tracks, briefly overwhelmed by the sensation. He stares down at Martin’s hand on his arm, frozen in shock.

“I know, alright?” Martin says, clearly fighting with his own voice to keep his tone gentle. “I know this probably won’t help, and you probably won’t listen to me at all, and that it might all be rubbish.”

Tim can’t help but huff out a derisive laugh at this as he tries to move away again—but Martin’s grip remains firm.

“But I also know you, Tim.”

You don’t know me you don’t know me you don’t

“I know you, alright? And I know what you’re trying to do—be a hero, be a martyr, sacrifice yourself for the sake of vengeance—"

“You know fuck all about me,” Tim hisses, cutting off whatever ridiculous nonsense Martin was about to say at once, trying yet again to shoulder past him.

And he’s stopped again—this time by a gentle hand on his shoulder. It’s warm and soft and…and kind.

Something is coming back to Tim now, scratching at the back of his mind like some half-forgotten dream.

“That’s not true,” Martin says, sharp and low. “That’s not true and you know it.”

…I do know.

Clawing to the surface of his thoughts, of his memories, of everything that he’s tried to shut down or block out for the last few months are pictures—small scenes in flashes, colors all faded and running together, yet still somehow so vivid it makes his head spin.

Martin on their first day of work together, chasing a dog around the archives while Tim tries to stop laughing long enough to catch it.

The two of them seated at the breakroom table with ice cream, Martin listening to him pine after Sasha with a small smile on his face.

Martin staying at his apartment for a bit after his mother decided to move out, watching telly and eating pizza and just taking comfort in each other’s presence.

Martin sitting with him on the floor of the archives bathroom, rubbing his back and listening to him pour out his grief on the anniversary of Danny’s death.

Sasha and himself sharing food and wine with Martin after he’d ended up staying in the archives—and Martin confessing his crush on Jon at last, blushing fit to burst.

Martin driving him to physical therapy after the worms had injured his shoulder, trying to make up for having left him behind, though he has insisted over and over that it’s not Martin’s fault.

The two of them trudging through the tunnels under the institute, with Martin supporting his weight after he’d turned his ankle.

Both of them together, sharing their grief over Sasha—until Tim had begun to pull away.

Even now, Martin still reaches out to him, still checks on him, knowing he’s been so full of despair and anger and sorrow that he’s drowning in it. Even now, he still continues to throw him a lifeline, and Tim knows he’s been so nasty, that he’s been cutting everyone out and everything is just so wrong—

Someone gasps—and Tim quickly realizes it was himself.

“Tim?” Martin’s hand moves from his shoulder to behind his elbow now, his brows furrowing in concern. “You okay?”

“Fine, fine,” he manages to mumble, his voice coming from somewhere far beneath the earth.

The room begins to spin.

“Woah, okay, just—just sit down, alright?” Martin urges, guiding him quickly back toward the chair with hands clasped behind his elbows. “I’ll get you some water.”

Sit down? But—

When he looks up again, he is already sitting, head buried in arms he’s crossed over the table in front of him. He lets out a soft groan at the movement, the office around him pitching sickeningly—and promptly folds over onto his arms once again.

God, how did I get here?

How did I become this?

He stays quiet for several moments, rubbing his forehead miserably into his arms as he begs his vision to stop swimming. Even now, he’s considering running, overwhelmed by everything that’s just flooded his memories, hoping that if he runs again he can just ignore ignore ignore until it’s all finished. Until he’s finished.

“Tim? I’ve got you some water.”

Once again, Martin is there to stop him, bringing a bit of comfort with him in the process.

God. He shouldn’t even care about me at this point.

I’ve done everything I could think of to make him stop.

Chest twinging with the weight of it, Tim raises his head slowly, unfolding his arms to prop himself up to sitting braced against the table. Martin pulls the chair around from the other side, setting himself catty-corner to him.

“You alright?” he asks in a near-whisper, tilting his head to try and get a better look at Tim’s face.

The gentleness with which he asks this question is enough to bring a lump immediately to Tim’s throat, and he reaches out for the glass set in front of him—swallowing the tears and the water down to the last drop.

“Alright, that’s good, that’s—that’s great,” Martin praises, though it does not sound at all like he thinks so. “When’s the last time you’ve eaten?”

Tim cannot bring himself to reply. He’s quite certain Martin already knows the answer to that question, anyway.

Is this really how I want to leave this?

How I want to spend the last of our time together?

To leave without even an apology, after everything.

In a moment, he makes a decision, gripping every foul thing that has forced him to hold his tongue and casting it all away.

“I’m sorry, Martin,” he mutters, hanging his head. “I’m sorry for yelling.”

“It’s alright,” Martin says, because of course he would.

“It’s really not.”

Turning to face him now, Tim is greeted with hazel eyes full of worry, lines creasing between eyebrows that have shot up past his fringe. He can’t help but smile sadly at the sight—knowing that Martin will never understand, how hurt he will be over whatever happens tonight, how hard he’s tried to make friends in this world, only to have them all stripped away till none remain—barely Jon, and not even Tim anymore.

He deserves to know. He deserves to have a place to visit her.

The smile Tim offers him now only furrows the lines of worry on Martin’s face closer, and Tim knows he must really look rather frightening at this point.

“Look, I—I want to show you something,” he says, standing carefully from the table. “Something you should know about.”

“What do you mean?” Martin asks apprehensively, standing with him, arms hovering near Tim’s elbows, just in case.

“It’s not far,” Tim assures, grabbing his keys from the table and making his way toward the door. “We’ve got some time yet.”

“Wait, Tim, where—?”

He turns back to face him, meeting him with an expression that begs for his trust, however unearned it may be.

“Just follow me, okay?”

“O…kay?”

Though his fears are far from disbanded, Martin follows Tim out of the office, flicking out the lights out behind them in a final farewell.

---

Upon reaching the cemetery, the one where Danny has been buried for nearly four years now, Tim leads them quickly down the earthen path, straight toward a patch of trees and brush on their left. Behind him, Martin stammers a bit in confusion.

“Tim, I thought…I thought Danny’s was over—oh.”

Tim has stopped now, a few yards back into the trees, where he has erected a small monument. It’s not much, really—just a stake in the ground, sanded and stained cherry with his own hands, and a bit of carving at the top.

Sasha Eloise James

4 August 1985 – 29 July 2016

“The Best”

“Oh,” Martin chokes, a bit wetter this time.

Turning at the sound, he looks Martin over—finding him rapidly blinking back tears.

“Just thought,” Tim starts, his voice coming out hoarser than he’d expected. “Just thought you should know this is here.”

He pulls his eyes away from Martin to give him some privacy, as well as to allow himself to breathe through the memories—all distorted by the face of the Stranger, now. After a few deep inhales, it seems Martin finds the strength to speak again, his voice wobbling only a bit around his tears.

“You made this?”

“Yeah,” Tim replies, brushing his thumb over the carving to scrape away some dirt that has built up there. “Probably not exactly legal, but…I didn’t really care.”

“It’s beautiful,” Martin whispers, stepping forward at last to stand at his side, his simple act of camaraderie pulling a wry smile to Tim’s face.

“She was beautiful,” Tim says, the constant hollow of his chest flooding with something both aching and lovely as he speaks. “I can’t…I can’t remember her face exactly, but I remember that. And so smart. And—”

“And kind,” Martin finishes, reaching an arm across his shoulders, the warmth of it seeping deep into his back. “Always kind. And always willing to stick up for you.”

“Yeah,” Tim’s voice breaks properly now, and he hangs his head to hide the tears stinging in his eyes.

Martin notices, of course. As always.

“And bossy, a bit,” he continues with a smile, pulling Tim into a proper side hug now, running a hand comfortingly over his upper arm.

Tim can’t help but laugh roughly at this, the sound of it more choking and wet than anything.

“Yeah a bit,” he whispers, the tears at last spilling over his cheeks.

It’s too much, it’s all too much, and it aches aches aches—he can’t help but double over, overwhelmed by the sheer weight of it all, biting back against the sobs threatening to burst from his throat.

“Hey, hey,” Martin soothes, rubbing his back, gentle as ever. “Are you alright?”

No, he wants to say more than anything.

I don’t think I ever will be.

“Just…just give me a moment, would you?” he asks, scrubbing a hand down his face.

“Oh—yeah, erm…I’ll just be at that bench, okay?” Martin says at once, stepping back and thumbing in the general direction of a park bench they had passed.

Tim merely nods in response, and then Martin is gone—leaving only him, the quiet, and the birds singing above. He lets it lie there for a moment, staring down at the curving letters of her name, trying desperately to remember her face, her true face. But nothing comes to him—nothing save the rising static and the cold and the dark.

I’ve got to tell her. She has to know.

“I haven’t forgotten you, you know. Never could do. You’re—‘unforgettable,’ as you put it. Thought about carving that on your post here, but I could hear your voice in my head saying it was ‘too on-the-nose.’”

He can’t help the smile that spreads across his face now, the memories feeling closer to him than perhaps ever before.

“I…I think I’ll be seeing you soon. Really soon, in fact—you and Danny both. And I just want you to know that it’s alright, that I’m not scared, and that I’m going to see justice done. I won’t stop until it’s done, I promise.”

Crouching down in front of the post now, he rubs his thumb back over her name again and again, memorizing the feeling of it in his hands to tide him over for however long he has left on this earth.

“I promise, sweetheart. I know you hate when I call you that, but it’s just the truth, isn’t it?”

With a soft smile, he rises back to standing, knees aching in protest as he brushes them off.

“Can’t wait to see you, Sash. We’ll have a laugh at the whole thing soon, I’m sure.”

As he starts to turn away, his heart shatters with the thought that this can’t be it this can’t be it this can’t be it—

And he turns back, laying his hand to rest on top of the cherry wood.

“Tell Danny I’m coming, okay?” he whispers—before looking away at last.

What more could he say? What more could he say that she doesn’t already know, that Danny doesn’t already know? He’ll be there soon, and he’ll say it all again, hundreds of times, thousands even, if they have the time—

“You alright?” Martin asks, standing from the bench as Tim makes his way back through the trees. “You look pale—maybe we should sit a little.”

“I’m fine, Martin,” he lies easily, and with a smile. “I promise. We can go, unless you want a moment.”

Martin seems to consider this briefly, gazing over Tim’s shoulder at the trees behind him, worrying at his bottom lip.

“No, I…I don’t think I’m ready for that just yet,” he replies at last, voice low and rough.

“That’s alright. Let’s just go then.”

As they walk, Tim tries not to hear Martin’s muffled sniffling, tries not to think about him coming back here, utterly alone in his grief—when he’s reminded of Jon.

God, Jon.

…he deserves to know too.

Even after everything.

“Tell Jon about this after, alright?” he says, turning toward Martin as they walk. “So he can come here if he wants.”

“Tell him yourself,” Martin mutters wetly, eyes firmly fixed on the ground in front of him.

He knows.

He knows that this is the end.

He just doesn’t want to see it.

“Martin.”

Tim forces them to stop, turning Martin towards him with a hand on his shoulder. The tears welling in Martin’s eyes, wild with repressed panic and sorrow, are like knives in Tim’s chest.

God, Martin.

I’m so sorry.

“Promise me. Promise me you will,” he begs in earnest, grabbing Martin lightly by the folds of his jacket.

At this, the pools in Martin’s eyes begin to run over, unbidden and so full of hurt Tim could choke on it.

“I will. I promise,” he murmurs, voice thin enough to shatter.

Good man.

Quirking up a half-smile at this, Tim reaches on hand up to rest on his cheek, thumbing at the steady flow of tears.

“Thank you, Martin. Thank you for—”

--lovingcaringlaughinglisteningcryinggrievingholdingreaching—

“—for being with me.”

He pours as much meaning as possible into these words, broken and small and fragile—and suddenly he’s being hugged—properly hugged, wrapped up in a warmth that makes him sigh in relief from the comfort of it all. A proper Martin hug.

Not a bad way to end things after all.

“Just please try to come back alright?” Martin begs, voice rumbling in Tim’s ear where he’s got it pressed into Martin’s chest.

“Martin—”

“Just try. That’s all I ask. Try to make it out. It’s what they—it’s what Sasha and Danny would both want.”

He doesn’t understand he doesn’t understand he doesn’t understand.

Biting back against the lie with all the strength he has left, Tim reassures him of a falsehood too dreadful to bear.

“I’ll try,” he whispers.

“Thank you.”

At last, Martin pulls away—eyes still brimming and swiping his nose desperately against his sleeve—but offering a gentle smile all the same. He’s choking it all back, and Tim knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s for his sake—and can’t help but return the favor.

“Come on then,” he says, shoving Martin’s shoulder good-naturedly. “Plenty to do before it’s dark.”

#tma #the magnus archives #tma fic #tma fanfic #hurt/comfort #angst #cw suicidal thoughts #martim if you want it mayhaps #timsasha as well #and some background jonmartin #my writing #for real though be careful with this one #it's the saddest thing i've written so far i think

[laboratorioautoral]

Lol i got hit me with your best shot stuck in my head now, so how about a chance meeting at a club with it playing? Preferably with missing each other and not instantly realizing who they are dancing with?

I guess I got a bit too excited about this plot and things got…Hotter than I expected. So…This is M rated for security reasons. Not sure if that’s what you wanted, but I hope you’ll enjoy it nonny.

Itwas claustrophobic inside the club, but she wasn’t going home thatnight without being completely wasted. Arya grabbed a shot of tequilabefore she could try to reach the stage and listen to whatever bandwas playing.

Ithad been Myrcella’s idea and it was surely a bad one. Cella’sbreaking up with Trystan wasn’t even something unusual, but she haddecided she would have a girls’ night and picked the lamest club intown.

Thesongs were old rock’n roll. Something nostalgic and loud, all aboutrebellious youth and booze. It reminded Arya of one of those musicalsSansa was so fond of. Rock of Ages or something…Well, at least TomCruise was worthy of her time and patience, and the music was dope,but Arya honestly wished Cella had a better sense of fun than a GunsN’ Roses cover, or something just as bad.

Tequilawould have to help Arya to get through the night. Maybe she couldfind a cute boy and have some fun. Preferably forget what Robb hadtold her earlier that day. This is not the time nor the place foryou to think about him! Her mindscreamed over the noise in the room.

Jonwas back in town. That was no big deal. He was just a guy. One ofRobb’s mates and surely not better than Theon…Just another guy,except that he wasn’t. Not for her.

Somecrushes are embarrassing, but that in particular should have turnedto smoke a long time ago. It was ok for them to be friends. When Jonleft town Arya was probably too young for him to think about her asanything but Robb’s little sister. She was probably in the friendzone – if such a thing existed – or maybe in an even morefrustrating position. Arya was probably placed in an altar among anydeities he might worship. Some genderless being.

Thatwas probably why they kept talking along the years. It was harmlessand Jon missed home. They had always been close and they talked abouteverything, until they didn’t talk anymore. Since he found anotherto date. A real woman for sure and a red head to make it worst. Thatwas too much for Arya to bare and she had been the one avoidingcommunication for most of the time.

Ithad been a good decision and she was fine with it. She even datedsome guys along those years. IfJon appeared right in front of her, Arya wouldn’t even recognizehim at that point. She was incollege now and she was way more confident than she had been in thepast. Nothing could possibly make her lose her cool, or so shethought until that morning when Robb told her that Jon was in townand had asked about her.

Shewas a mess ever since and at least Cella, the loud music and thebooze would keep her away from doing something stupid…As long asher cellphone was out of herreach.

Afterthe second shot Arya decided that she would need more than alcohol tokeep her entertained. She need a guy. Someone to flirt with and havesome kisses. Casual sex was also a possibility but she doubted thatshe would be in the mood since the only thing inside her head inbright neon lights was Jon’s name.

Aryalooked around and tried to find someone worthy of a second glance.Like a she-wolf sniffing the air looking for a prey, Arya tried todistinguish between the shadowy figures all around. A dark and smokyroom surely didn’t make it easy and the alcohol seemed to improveeveryone’s looks around her.

HitMe With Your Best Shot wasplaying and at least that song spoke to her soul in a very particularway. Arya couldn’t help moving her hips a bit as she walked aroundthe club and leaving Myrcella behind. It was a discreet attempt atdancing, but she wouldn’t give away her talents so easily andcertainly not in that place full of guys dressed in black leather.

“Hey!”Someone shouted behind her, trying to call her attention, but Aryacouldn’t hear until the guy touched her shoulder. “Hey, you!”

Aryaturned to face whoever it was. Maybe something had fallen from herpockets and the guy was trying to return it to her.

Ohmy gods! It was the only thingher brain managed to process about the stranger standing in front ofher. Dark curly long hair,a full and well cut beard,lithe and elegant even all wrapped up inside black jeans and leatherjacket. Oh baby…You had to be exactly my type, hadn’tyou? I think we could be friends tonight.Her mind at this point was roaming among all of her wildestfantasies.

“Hi!”Arya answered simply. “Can I help you?”

“Maybeyou can.” He said before flashing a sly smile at her. One of thosemeant to start that game she liked so much. Small talk, sensuousmoves, slow hands and clothes falling all around if she was luckyenough. The guy offered her his hand. “Will you dance with me,Miss?”

“Idon’t dance!” Arya shouted so he could hear her over the loudmusic.

“Ithink you do!” He replied insistently. “C’mon! Just a dance.”

Wellyou’re a real tough cookie with a long historyOfbreaking little hearts like the one in meThat’sokay, let’s see how you do itPutup you dukes, let’s get down to it

It was just a dance. It couldn’thurt and he was handsome like the devil. She had a thing for a shortaffairs with tall dark strangers and that guy was surely her type oftrouble.

Arya accepted his hand and theystarted to dance in the middle of the club. Nothing too complicated,only some random moves dictated by the alcohol and the lust. He was aterrible dancer, but she could overlook that as long as he made it upfor her with a mind blowing kiss.

Hitme with your best shotWhydon’t you hit me with your best shotHitme with your best shotFireaway

Aryaspin around and turn her back at him. That certainly felt like aninvitation for him to come and chase her and at least the guy got thehint. His arm held her by the waist and pulled her body closer tohis. Arya swayed her hips in the rhythm of the music, just to teasehim a bit.

Heburied his nose in the curve of her neck. His beard tickling hersensitive skin and making her shiver in anticipation for a kiss thatdidn’t come for a while. His hips tried to follow hers and hesmelled of cigarettes, bear and post shave cologne. Something in thatsmell was inviting and familiar, but Arya couldn’t tell why.

Youcome on with it, come onYou don’t fight fairThat’s okay,see if I careKnock me down, it’s all in vainI get rightback on my feet again

Thatguy was a gentleman through and through. He teased, he provoked, butnever once tried to cross a few lines, like kissing her neck orsliding his hand under her pants. He was waiting for her to make upher mind and go down that road with him. She had the wheel, she wasin control and the gods knew she loved it.

Aryaturned around again and looked directly at him. His hand restedagainst the small of her back and pulled her closer once more. Theyforeheads touching and their breath entwined as they flirted with thepossibility of making of that dance a one night stand.

FuckJon! I already have company tonight!Her mind finally decided and Arya threw her arms around his neck andkissed him hard. That guy wasn’t much of a dancer, but with a kisslike that she couldn’t care less.

Hishands got bold and grabbed her ass covered by her tight jeans. Thatwas a kiss you only get to experience once in a life time, when youeither think you are gonna die or when you are so high that the worldaround you might be ending.

“Wannago somewhere quiet?” He asked in a low voice close to her ear.

“Can’tgo for long. My friend is waiting for me to take her home.” Aryaanswered lazily. Why did she agree to give Cella a ride?!

“Wecan be quick.” He replied sensuously. “Or she can take an Ubberback home.”

“I’ma good friend, ya know?” Arya grinned at him. “You’ll have togive me one good reason to leave Cella behind.” The guy smiled ather as if he was the catthat just ate the fucking canary.

“Iwant to suck you until your toes curl.” Oh gosh! If that wasn’t areason good enough for her to tell Cella to find another ride backhome, than Arya had no idea of what it was.

“FuckCella! You lead the way.” Arya answered.

Theywalked out of the club and got inside an old black Camaro that wasparked outside. He pressed her back against the car and Arya closedher eyes to receive another kiss. His hand unzipped her jeans andslid under her pants to rub her clit.

Hewas good. He was verygood.

Herbreath became labored as his fingers played with her body. He kissedher neck as Arya got half way to paradise. If that was just theforeplay, she could barely wait for the real deal. It was only fairthat she would repay his gesture and to feel him hard, thick and hotin her hands made her feel the most powerful creature on earth. For amoment his fingers stopped as he gasped for air.

Heheld her wrist after a few strokes, making her stop completely.

“I’mnot doing this in a parking lot.” He said with difficulty. “I’mstaying at a hotel a couple of blocks from here. Not fancy, but ithas a nice bed.”

“Ifwe are doing it tonight, you should at least tell me your name,stranger.” Arya grinned at him.

“Ladiesfirst.” He insisted before getting his hand out of her jeans andtry to recompose himself.

“It’sArya.” She said lazily.

Fora second there was utter silence between them as they stood in a darkparking lot. Arya sensed a change in the air. Something between shockand panic.

“AryaStark?” He asked breathlessly.

Hitme with your best shotWhy don’t you hit me with your bestshotHit me with your best shotFire away

Thatwasn’t what she had expected to hear. Yes, there was somethingfamiliar about him, but Arya was pretty sure she had never seen thatguy before. Long hair, full beard, leather jacket…He looked likemost of the guys inside the club, exceptfor the white wolf emblem on his chest.

“Jon?”Her eyes were suddenly wide open and she thank the gods for thatfucking parking lot being too dark for him to see her bright redface.

“I…Ican’t believe it.” Jon was clearly in panic at that point. “How…?You are a kid! How did you get inside this place?!”

OHGREAT! After getting his hand under her panties now he wanted to giveher drive license a look! Arya was pretty sure that some deity up inthe sky was having a great laugh at her expenses.

“I’m21.” She said as a matter of fact and pretty annoyed by his suddendistress. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a grown woman.”

“No!You are Arya!” He insisted in the middle of his panic attack. Thatcouldn’t get any worst, could it? “You are Robb’s little sisterand I should…I should probably take you back home before eitherRobb or Ned come for my head.”

“Gosh!I forgot how dramatic you can be at times!” She rolled her eyes asshe tried to straighten her shirt and fix her hair. “It has beenwhat? Seven years? I wouldn’t stay frozen in time waiting for youtocome back and mess up with my hair.”

“Arya…Idon’t…I don’t know what to say!” Jon answered exasperated.“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”

“Well,guess what?” Arya looked directly at him and this time the tequilaand the sheer need for him took the best of her. Sometimes all thatyou need is five seconds of insane courage. “I’m not and I’mstill waiting for you to suck me until we both forget our names andI’ll not pretend that I haven’t dreamed of this for most of myteens so…You either get your shit together so we can continue withwhat promises to be a hell of a ride, or you go joying the church andembrace celibate, but if you turn your back on me you’ll have tolive with your conscience and all the “what ifs” inside your headforever.”

“Whatthe fuck, Arya?” He looked at her scandalized for a second.

“Youwere with your hand inside my jeans to not say something moreintimate, so…We are going to hell anyway.” Arya said as a matterof fact. “It’s up to you to decided if you are going to enjoy theride or not. Robb doesn’t have to know what we do in dark parkinglots.”

“Fuckit!” Jon growled and Arya prepared her spirit to turn around andpretend that night never happened. She just wanted the ground to openand swallowed her whole so she wouldn’t have to look at his faceever again. “Get inside the car.” Jon commanded angrily andkissed her one more time before the night got wild.

#jon and arya #jon x arya #jon/arya #jonarya #suppleassin #needleheart

[oktorpg]

Stop sleeping on the job - Storyline 3 - Together - Part Two

Continuing on from...

= Raven =

Pulling at my hair, the pain was so much more than I remembered it before. Had it gotten worse or was it that they had waisted too much medication on me when it could have been kept for somebody who needed it more than I did?

#Jackson had given me something, but how long ago had that been? ‘Stop worrying about them, they are nothing to you. Nobody to you. You are an orphan with a brain that is melting. They don’t care about you. You need to work this mess out for yourself. Unless you are just waiting for them to kill you?’ I wanted to scream and tell her to Fuck off, but with every word I said out loud it was proving them all to be correct about my inability to take care of myself. I wasn’t going to let her win, #Becca was not going to take my willpower away from me.

“If I am not a liability than why am I being treated like one?” My voice was rough, it didn’t even sound like me to my ears. I knew there was something else that had pushed me over the edge, but right now. I needed out. I needed to get out of here and I needed to do it now.

Grabbing a hold of the brace I pushed the blankets off me, and my hands reached out to pick it up. I saw John and #Luna both step back away from me and I watched the door to the bio lab being opened. There was a sign in my head flashing EXIT, RUN!! And I wasn’t going to stop until I could feel the freedom from within me.

“Beja hod op Reivon, dison laik nou Yu! “ (Please stop Raven, this is not you!) #Luna’s eyes never once leaving me as I started to strap on the brace. “Yu get in ha Oso gifa in gon Yu” ( You know how we care for you ). She moved around to stand in my eyeline. “Yu are yuj, gon daun Disha!” ( You are strong, fight this! ).

But that was exactly what I was doing here, I was fighting. “I know what I am doing, your role as the Babysitters is over. Go do something that could help the world, this here—” I moved my hand around the lab.

“—This is not helping; this is a waist of your time and mine. You are a leader Luna, and John, you are skilled in more ways than you let on in front of the others. Go and Do something with it!”

= John =

I watched her tugging at her hair, and my mind raced... what did it feel like to have something eating its way through everything that made you who you were? How intense was the pain that it was driving her to try to rip her own hair out? “Raven, please. You’re going to hurt yourself.” I tried to keep my voice even, but it shook.

“That’s not what I meant. The only reason I think you should tell Abby what’s happening is because she’s the doctor. She’s trying to keep you alive, Raven.”

She wasn’t even listening to #Luna now; she was the embodiment of the voice of reason. I stood at the end of her bed, gripping the cold metal with clammy palms until my knuckles turned white. Her words stung despite the fact she was only telling me I could be of more use somewhere else. She wanted me gone, and why wouldn’t she?

“I’m not here to babysit you, Raven. I’m here to try and keep you alive! And I plan on doing it for as long as I can.” My hands started to ache and my jaw too, from clenching it. “If you go out there like this, you know they’ll put you right back in this bed. You can’t keep fighting everyone that’s trying to help you, Rey. I’m sorry for what I said… I won’t say anything. You can make that decision. Just please, stop and think before you go running out there.”

= Raven =

The brace on, I jumped out from the side of the bio bed, regretting it the moment my feet hit the ground and pain shot up my leg, hip and spine. “Hells!” I curse, leaning back into the bed to wait for the dark dots of pain to stop dancing before my eyes. His voice was right there, and I knew what he was saying. The way his voice shook, made my hart sink. This wasn’t what I wanted. All I desired was to be out of this room, to be out from under the microscope with them all looking at my every move.

Even with my eyes closed I could feel #Luna was so close and yet the two of them couldn’t see that I was trying to do this for them as well as for myself.

“John you have nothing to apologise for. You have done so much. Too much. When did you last close your eyes? When did you sleep? The longer I stay up here the madder I will feel. You know I am somebody who needs to keep moving, keep working, on the next thing, then the next and then the next until there is nowhere for me to go and then again I will find something.” I finally opened my eyes and turned to face him. I saw how hard his hands were holding onto the bed.

“Abby is doing what she needs to and that is to work out how we save everyone. Me laying in this bed means I am not doing what I am meant to. Which part of this can you both not understand?” I tapped the side of my head. “Abby is treating the symptoms not the problem. There is no Fixing the problem, and I know. I know—” I caught #Luna before she could stop me. “—I know that you hate it when I say this. But you need to understand that hope is not the answer. Me down there, using whatever knowledge I have in this brain left over from A.L.I.E could hold the answers to saving the world and all our people.”

I pushed off the Bed and my head spun.

= John =

I winced like the pain on her face was my own. “Please slow down Raven! You were almost dead a few hours ago.” Why was this woman so determined to hasten her own death?

I couldn’t even try to answer her question. I think the last time I slept was when I fell asleep at the foot of Raven’s bed in the mansion. Maybe a ten-minute doze here and there. But just the thought of it had exhaustion creeping into all my raw edges.

“Don’t worry about that right now. I get it… you want to be up and moving fine. But not like this, if you go charging out there with this attitude. You’ll make yourself sicker and Abby will sedate you or something. You can help without killing yourself.”

I moved around the bed and put myself in her eye line but keeping out of her space and making sure to place myself out of the way of the door. “We understand, Raven. But why can’t you understand that… I don’t want you to die!” I said the last part of that too loudly, too fast. “We…” I corrected, quickly and quietly pointing to #Luna and then myself. “We don’t want you to die… Is it so bad that we're trying to give you a longer life?”

The way she talked about herself like she was a disposable asset made me feel sick to my stomach. I felt it swirl a little. But then I saw her eyes go unfocused when she pushed herself to stand on her own. I moved close enough to catch her; still too afraid to touch her in case I set her off for the second time tonight. “Hit me if you want, Raven. I can’t watch you fall again.” There was a lump in my throat trying to hold the words in but they squeezed past it, painfully.

= Raven =

“What? No!” What was he talking about? My eyes focused themselves on him and I didn’t look towards the dancing shadows at time. I needed to remine here in the now and not become lost in whatever the Hells was happening in my head. Hearing him say those things felt like a bucket of ice water had been splashed over my head.

“I don’t want to hit you John. Hells!” I dragged my fingers through my messy hair again, it wasn’t going to help it look any better, but somehow it helped to calm me a little.

“You… No…” It stung, to hear him say that. I wasn’t sure why it stung the way it did. Then again, I was starting to see and understand why. “John you are family. I know we had crap in our life and the past has been rocky, but being down here, and now. The way you and #Luna have put your life on hold to keep me going… That is a lot for me to carry. That’s all.”

I could feel the hardness in my voice dissipate, and I leaned back on the side of the bed. It was like he had knocked the wind out from inside my lungs. For a moment I couldn’t even remember what had caused the anger to flare up the way it had.

“I may have been close to death John, but I fought and clawed my way back. And I didn’t do that just to be stuck up here on a bio bed. Do you understand? Every minute I am up here, is a minute I am not working, or helping to find an answer. The Death wave isn’t going to stop because Raven Reyes needed a ‘Break’, it is still coming. And when it does arrive, we will be no more.”

I knew I didn’t need to tell him this, he knew it all. But there was a need for me to repeat it for myself, to help strengthen my own resolve. Because in all honesty with one sentence ‘Hit me if you want, Raven’, he had just taken my legs out from under me.

Moving towards the chair, I sat down. Leaning forward I closed my eyes. How did I keep hurting him and #Luna repeatedly?

= John =

I saw the flash of hurt in her eyes when she heard me and I was instantly sorry, but I didn’t say so. Then there it was again, that word.

Family.

It still made me uneasy. Family was something you could lose. But it was already clear to me that losing Raven was going to be unlike anything I had experienced since we landed on this hellish planet. "Family trusts each other, right?" I fixed my light blue eyes on her.

"We sat here, Raven. and watched you almost die. We saw you collapse and convulse on the floor. We carried you up those stairs with no sign of life in you at all, other than Abby telling us you had a pulse. None of us wants to do that again. Can you understand that? This isn’t a case of ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’ Do you really want to fight that fight again so soon?”

#Luna’s hand was on my shoulder and squeezed it, guilt raged through me. I hadn’t been here… not the whole time. I walked away. I told myself it was because I had to get Marcus. But I had more than enough time to wait longer; once she was stable I just left. I sat in that boat for hours waiting on Kane’s radio call. I could have been here instead.

“Jon, wan daun. Reivon ste klir.” (John, stop. Raven is safe.) She said quietly, but the ball in my chest was expanding and threatening to break open my rib cage.

“I –“ I started again, Brushing #Luna off as casually as I could. “We understand that you want to help. But you need to calm down. No one is keeping you locked up, the more stressed you are the worse things will be. We need you alive, Raven.”

I stepped back and watched her take a seat. “When you’re ready... We’ll go down with you. We won’t let them stop you.” I knew I was probably leading her to an early death, but how could I keep her here and tell her not to do what it was, that made her the best of us all? The ball pressed harder into all the walls of my chest, pushing all the air out of my body and forcing me to suck in a long breath.

= Raven =

Once again, he knocked all the air out of my lungs, I didn’t dear to look up at him. Letting my head fall forward and closed my eyes ‘Family trusts each other’ those were words I hadn’t forgotten, but there was something about the way he said them that made me feel about an inch tall.

When I finally dared to lift my glance up, I found his baby blue eyes looking right back at me. My chest was closing in around my heart and there was pain and discomfort unlike anything I’d felt in weeks. Listening to him explain what it had been like for those who had to watch and act once I was in the land of ‘naps’ wasn’t something I thought I would face. Hells I wasn’t even sure I had it in me to know what was happening here in the labs while I was finding my way back from the blue forest. But there it was, he laid it all out for me. There was no running from it now.

“I am sorry you both had to witness those things. I am sorry!” My voice was cracking, and I pulled my eyes free from his. looking down to the ground I dragged my fingers through my hair and pulled at it. “I can’t let Clarke and Bells down. Hells I can’t let any of you down. I have too little time and too much to do.”

Becca’s words were looping in my head. ‘You are not worth it for them. They are better off without you. You need to work out your plan of action.’ So much for me to fight and I didn’t want them, any of them to know I was losing my grip on things.

“You don’t think I am ready? To work, to help find a way out of all this mess. Then I have a question for you John.” I looked back up at him, #Luna was stood beside him, her hand on his shoulder the way she’d held me so many times. “What good am I to anyone now?”

= John =

I hadn’t told her all that, so she’d feel sorry for us. She was the one near death… and she was apologising? “No… Raven.” I dragged my hand over my face. “I’m not telling you this, so you’ll feel bad for us… I need you to realise that were minutes… seconds from death. Hours ago…” My chest started to tighten as I blinked away the images. The shake in her voice tore something else inside me that I never knew existed.

Then I felt everything crumble. ‘What good am I to anyone now?’ I didn’t know why… but they hit me like a boot to the chest. A feeling I wasn’t unfamiliar with. It took me a long moment to recover, too long.

#Luna stepped between us, while I blinked…. Blind-sided by what she had said and how hard it hit me.

“Raven.” She crouched in front of her. “You are valuable to us all, you know that. But not just what’s in here.” She touched her temple and slipped her hand away. She glanced over her shoulder eye’s bulging for a second, screaming silently for me to say something but I felt… Sick. That had to be it, I was exhausted… hungry… unwell. It was bound to all catch up with me at some stage. My eyes hadn’t left Raven.

“You’re the best of us… We say Kane is our leader, but we all know its Clarke. We say that Bellamy is the one that puts his people first but won’t compromise his morality…” Leaving out the whole debacle with Pike.

“But that’s you, Raven, you kick arse and save the day, but you shine a light on the dark shit and keep us all from going down the wrong paths. When we don’t have you to guide us too many people die. Octavia is the fighter, Abby is the healer, #Monty is the idealist, and #Harper is the true soldier. You’re the moral compass, you make yourself accountable… you make all of us accountable. You keep us on a better path and you’re the only one that’s Never stepped off of it.”

= Raven =

I closed my eyes; I really didn’t want to hear this. None of it was true when it came to what John had said about me. He of all people should know better, both he and #Luna had witnessed my so-called moral compass failing.

“If I am the ‘Moral Compass’ of this group then we are screwed. You of all people John? How can you say and believe that? After what I did to Adria? You were the one to take the meds and give them to Abby, or have you forgotten? Because I have not. And I never will. If it weren’t for you—” I couldn’t keep on that train of thought, because the girl had died, but if I had given Abby the drugs before. Could she have lived? Would she be here sat with us now?

“And Luna—You? Hells you forgave me too easily, but I will never forget my shortfall there.”

I sat up and pulled back from the touch from #Luna, seeing her eyes on me and the way John was holding back sparked another light of anger in me. ‘They think you are weak, that you are a pushover and that you will follow their will. You need to show them. Show them all that Raven Reyes doesn’t need ‘Saving’, that she is strong, and she will not be side-lined.’

Rubbing the side of my head, I pushed the building anger down as far as I could. At this time, I didn’t know who it was towards. Them? Or towards myself for showing my weakness in this time? ‘It’s you, you aren’t as strong as you once were, and they can all see it in you. Have you even looked in the mirror? You are not even a shadow of the girl you once were.’

Closing my eyes again I gritted down the necessity to scream out. To tell #Becca that she could go and fuck herself, but then again it would prove to all of them that I was most definitely losing my mind.

“I’m going to head down there now. I’m okay. I can do this.” Again, I didn’t know if I was telling them or myself.

= John =

She did it again; she stole the air from my lungs with her words. #Adria… I’d never forget that kids face. I staggered forward a step. “Raven… I stole meds for a kid that couldn’t be saved… And when we’re in the bunker that’s one more life that can’t be saved if something goes wrong.” I sucked in a breath. “I stole those meds to prove to myself that my father dying for me wasn’t a waste… and all it did was prove that it was all for nothing. Because, I knew you were right… I kn—“ My eyes darted to #Luna and they stung and began to swim.

“I knew it wouldn’t work.” I staggered back the step that I had taken and dragged my hand through my hair and over my face. “We all knew.” My eyes still on #Luna “We all knew, Luna… I’m sorry.”

I looked back to Raven. “You were saving lives that had a chance and we were throwing them away! It had less to do with saving that kid and everything to do with me saving my own skin… Like I always do. I knew Abby would keep me around after that. I… I took a life when I stole those pills, Raven. We just don’t know who it is yet.”

I stepped back and there was a dull thump as my back hit a metal cabinet; both my knees started to give as I slowly sank towards the floor. I managed to brace my hands on my knees and leaned into the cold metal, stopping my descent halfway to the floor. I inhaled deeply through my nose like I could pull the threatening tears back where they belonged.

I heard her say she was heading down, I needed to gather the strength to follow her. But no matter how deeply I dug I couldn’t find any.

= Raven =

‘Reivon—’ It was the soft and calm voice of #Luna, with the light touch of her hands on my cheeks which pulled me back out of the dark hole #Becca was pulling me into.

‘—Der ste eintheing biyo gon Yu, Oso Ogeda don trana gon kep klin em, ba em nou bilaik.’ ( There is nothing to say to you, we all tried to save her, but it was not to be. ) She lifted my head until my eyes were on hers. ‘Ai nou gaf biyo eni kom Disha gon Yu. Yu get in Ai laik ait’ ( I do not need to say any of this to you. You know I am right.)

But I didn’t know it. or if I did, I wasn’t willing to let myself off the hook as easy as she has let me off. John’s voice pulled me back towards him and my eyes widened. I had no idea that he had felt this way. But then again there was a part of me that wondered why he had taken the drugs when my back was turned. Had it been something to do with his father? We all knew that John’s father had been floated for stealing drugs, because John had been sick.

I dropped my eyes again to the ground, listening to him. “I hadn’t saved anyone John. I am failing.” But then the thudding sound had both me and #Luna turn to look at him.

‘Jon?’ #Luna called out, she was on her feet and running over to his side before I was even out of the chair.

When I stood, I glanced to the door, maybe it would be best for me to leave? I was the one who was making him feel this way, why would he want me to stay here and check up on him? But there was something that had my feet moving across the lab towards him. Seeing him hunched over himself, his back up against the metal cabinet and he was bracing himself. I knew that look so well.

Moving to stand before him. “John—” My voice was lighter now; the anger was there but it was towards myself and not him at all. “—Stop this. Stop taking on the burden which belongs to others on your own shoulders. Whatever the reasons at the time, whatever the outcome of your actions, you did it in the hopes to save Adria. There is no taking away from that fact.” I wasn’t sure what was happening, but the words were fighting a lump in my throat. And my eyes were burning and stinging with hot tears welling and ready to fall.

= John =

#Luna's words sank in but, all the empty places inside me started to fill with blackness. There was too much in my head now. The defeated look on Abby's face when she begged Raven for the meds, the horrible hopelessness as the kid... as they all got worse and worse. Raven's face when she found out I had stolen from the stores she had been put in charge of; after everything, we had gone through getting the chip out of her head.

I looked up at her when she told me I had done it in hopes the kid might live… by some miracle. And, yeah, deep down I hoped that the child would survive, but I knew that nothing short of a miracle would help. Raven's face when she realized the #Adria was gone. It was all too much.

"None of this is anyone's fault... Praimfaya was inevitable. Actions set into motions over a century ago." There was a pathetic quiver in my voice. The last time I felt this weak there had been a rope around my throat. "Those reactors were always going to meltdown. The Radiation killed #Adria, there was no stopping it. The radiation is coming and there is nothing we can do to stop that either. All that’s left to do now is run and hide." I straightened myself up.

"You didn't fail, Raven. You solved it. You and Abby. She worked out the Nightblood solution. You figured out how to get to and from space to make it work. There's no one to blame for the lost fuel. Clarke and Bellamy did everything in their power to get it all here." I lifted my heavy hands in a sign of defeat and dropped them against my sides. "There's nothing left, we have nothing left but the bunker."

It was time to move on to the next plan, it was time to save the ones we knew could be saved, get them in the bunker and hope we lived long enough to find our way back to the surface. I had no idea what they were planning downstairs. But I couldn't do it anymore. I had nothing left to fight with… all I wanted was to get Raven, #Luna and Emori into the bunker so I could finally sleep.

= Raven =

I knew it, I knew every word that came from his mouth. I’d told myself these things time and time again. I was the logical one of this group of misfits. And yet when it came to #Finn and #Adria, their faces still haunted me at night. My sleep was never perfect, but the reminder that I could have, should have done more to save them was right there plaguing my nightmares.

Taking a few steps back away from him, I hadn’t meant to be stood so close. But seeing him standing up right again and looking me in the eyes. It knocked me again. ‘Praimfaya was inevitable’. I shook my head.

“There is my point. If Praimfaya was inevitable, which it is. Then why didn’t I see it coming? After everything we learnt from Mount Weather, with everything we learnt about Earth on the Ark, why hadn’t it all clicked into place for me? This was coming, and I should have been working on finding a solution weeks and weeks before Luna and the others came to us.”

#Luna’s hand was on my shoulder again. ‘You are trying to do the same as you asked John not to. Taking on the blame for everything that is going wrong, when John is showing you the good you have done.’

Biting down on my lip, I tried not to snap back at Luna, she was right too. But it wasn’t taking away from the frustrations of failing to see the plan all the way to its end. “I am not running. I may agree with you that the next plan needs to be pulled together, however I’m not ready to give up.”

My eyes felt the sharp pain of the stabbing once again, and I could tell the medication #Jackson had given me was working its way out of my system. And the voice in my head was back.

‘It’s time to think of yourself, time to plan for your ending. How is Raven Reyes going out? With a sizzle or with a Big Boom?’

= John =

‘Why didn’t I see it coming?’ The minute she asked I wanted to shake her. I wanted to scream at her to stop finding things to blame herself for. We had no way to know that nightblood would metabolise radiation until #Luna got better.

Raven knew this. Maybe if we’d known sooner; then we could have had the time to find a way to get the rocket into space, maybe the fuel would have arrived safely if we’d gotten here before Trikru and Azgeda went to war in Polis. Maybe.

What good were maybe’s?

“Stop.” My voice was a feeble whisper now.

“Stop blaming yourself, Raven. For one hundred years our people planned on the return to Earth, do you ever remember anyone mentioning a second wave from the nuclear reactions? Was it ever included in any of the calculations? You’re the smartest person I know, probably of our entire generation and the one before. But four generations of environmental scientists, engineers and who fucking knows what… couldn’t predict this, and you think you failed?”

There was a quick surge of strength and I raised my voice, I spun to face the door. “They failed!!” I hoped my voice would carry through the doors and into the lab below. “They failed to keep the Ark in the Sky. They failed when they dropped us all down here to die for their sins!! Then they drop all the responsibility of surviving in this world on the kids they abandoned to die like rats!!! On a planet that was about to catch fire!”

I slammed a fist on the metal cabinet I had been leaning on only moments ago, the sudden swell of strength ebbed as fast as it had come; taking what little energy I had left with it. I turned to face the girls, knowing my outburst had crossed a line. “If you still want to fight Raven, then… I’ll make sure they let you.” I glance over my shoulder catching a glimpse of her in the corner of my watery vision. “But you might want to start thinking about living… while we can.”

= Raven =

“You? You of all people are telling me to stop blaming myself? You John Murphy are going to tell me that I couldn’t have foreseen this, any of this coming our way?” I knew he had a bloody good point, but the anger at myself was eating me from the inside. My hands fisted by my sides.

I knew my own voice was raising as the words were tumbling out of my mouth. “Not all the people who were dropped were meant to be there. I was.. I was meant to be on that drop ship, I was meant to be one of those one hundred but instead an innocent boy was there, he was sent down here to face it all. And then when I did find a way down here, what did I do? I was meant to help Clarke, help Finn but I watched as he was killed, and I watched as Clarke was broken!! Me with my so-called knowledge and intelligence, and look where we are now? Stuck at a bloody dead end with what answers? All that time I wasted on the pod ship and now what? It’s all fruitless, and you are all still going to die!!!”

I jumped at the punch of his hand into the metal, and I knew right away that was going to hurt him. What was he doing? Why was he fighting me on this? What was with the survivor in him? #Luna stood watching, as if she knows that we needed to get all this out into the open. But even she took a step towards John when he hit his hand. When I saw his eyes teared up, it stung. He had always been the one to keep us strong these past weeks. But he was breaking too?

“We can blame them out there for it all we want John, but now is not the time. Right now, you stood here calling them out is not helping to save anyone. They know what they did wrong. They Know!!”

The tears I was holding back had started to roll down my cheeks. “I know I’m not making it out of here, but I Need all of you to make it. I need this more than I need air in my lungs right now. I need to know that I could help with my last breath to make sure you and Luna and the others are save. Be it in space, as nightbloods or in that god dam bunker!!”

= John =

I’d always known there was something off with the Spacewalker’s story and with the way he talked about Raven and Her job… I wasn’t hard to guess who he’d taken the fall for. But he never faltered in his story. He protected her to the end and gave himself a bit of a reputation while he was at it. But he’d kind of earned that in my book. He saved the woman that saved us all.

I knew I could have fought harder to stop Finn at the village. Maybe if I’d have put a bullet in his leg when he started shooting in the village; he’d have been there in Arkadia, maybe Raven never would have taken that damned chip without carrying the pain of his death. Maybe if I’d let her turn me over instead…

That fucking word again! Maybe! Maybe! Maybe!

I turned to face her when she raised her voice. I didn’t interrupt; #Luna had let us rant. But my eyes were glued to Raven now. I was terrified she’d drop again; she couldn’t take that right now. I knew if she had another fit that would be it, I – we would lose her. The idea that the last time I’d see her alive would be yelling and with a tear-stained face made something inside me snap.

Two long strides were all it took until I could throw my arms around her and the tears flowed immediately and freely, almost lifting her off her feet in the flurry. “I’m sorry.” A shaky unrecognisable voice squeezed past the lump that threatened to choke me. “I’m sorry I couldn’t stop him… I tried…” I was cut off by a sob but it couldn’t possibly have been mine.

Her words rattled in my mind ‘my last breath to make sure you and #Luna and the others are safe.’ What about what I needed? What did I need?

I needed her to live. The only person I had ever saved, the only person I ever took a risk for. If she died it meant nothing, if she died… I failed.

‘I need you to survive.’ I screamed inside my head. But I couldn’t form the words, it wasn’t something she could do, she was dying. I couldn’t let her die with those words still in her head. I wouldn’t put this on her already burdened shoulders.

( Music: Everywhere Ghosts Hide · Erin McCarley )

= Raven =

I froze, he moved into me. His eyes locked onto me as if he was on some mission but then his arms pulled me into him. I felt my feet lift off the ground as he held me. My hands still fisted, and my body had started to shake from the anger that I was releasing without even knowing that I needed too. But it was his words. The sob and those words.

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t stop him… I tried…’ I closed my eyes as the tears ran freely. I knew he held himself partly accountable for #Finn’s death, for not doing more in the village to stop #Finn. I held myself accountable for #Finn being down here in the first place, and then his face flashed before my closed burning eyes. And a deep sob escaped my chest. I had failed so many times. The want to help, to protect and to save those I called family was strong within me. But who was I kidding here? I couldn’t save my mom and I couldn’t save #Finn. The two people who were family before I came down here.

I stood there my face buried into Johns shoulder and I had nothing to say. Nothing, not a word I could share right now would take away whatever this was that had built up inside of him and me. But it was all flowing out for now.

‘Yu na nou hod op chit ste bilaik’ ( You cannot stop what is to be ). It was the soft whisper of #Luna coming from the far side of the lab now. But I couldn’t move, I couldn’t look up to find her. ‘Em na kom op, eintheing na hod op em’ ( It will come, nothing will stop it ).

But these were words that didn’t give me salvation from my sins. How was I even going to try to save those I called Family now?

= John =

My arms locked around her, my hands balled into fists when I heard the sob that expanded her chest for a second. I wanted to spill it all out; that I should have just let her hand me over in his place, and maybe then she wouldn’t be days… or less; away from death. But I knew that wouldn’t make her feel better. She’d never said, but I knew Raven would have hated herself if that’s how things had happened. She’d have saved #Finn and given up everything that made her Raven.

I felt her bury her face in my shoulder and there was a completely new, unexpected and totally inappropriate (for the moment) rush that flooded through me and made everything so much more confusing.

But the memory of #Finn trying to stop the other delinquents from hanging me was playing in my memory. Hunting #Charlotte through the woods when the truth came out and he protected her too. The look on the face of the terrified twelve-year-old when she stepped off the cliff flashed before me. I squeezed Raven tighter and shut my eyes against the image, but it only became clearer. Then #Finn… was dropping me a knife before he walked away. The only thing I was left with after they exiled me to die alone in the woods.

“I’m. So. Sorry.” The words trembled and caught painfully in my throat; I didn’t know who I was talking to… Raven? Finn? Charlotte? Or all of them… Connor, Myles… Even Bellamy? I’d strung him up too. I held a knife to Clarke’s throat and a gun to Jasper. It all flooded in and I swallowed another strangled sob, causing my chest to heave.

But if she survived…

I heard #Luna’s words but they could have been miles away they were said in such a whisper. I wasn’t sure exactly how long I stood there like that. But at least a full minute past, which doesn’t seem all that long… but at the same time, I knew it was far too long. I sucked in deep, ragged breaths until I didn’t feel like I was inhaling shards of glass.

“Ai giv ai op gon nemiyon, kom lanik-de.” I whispered the words, involuntarily pressing my cheek against her hair. I repeated the words. It was the first time I said them for myself, but if they calmed Raven too then all the better. I loosened my hold and pulled back, my hands settling on her shoulders and my watery blue eyes on her hazel ones. There was a pull there, her tear-stained face fractured the shards that made up my insides now.

“Let’s get you back in the fight, okay?” The lump had shrunk still made my voice gruff, or maybe that was the screaming from before. I didn’t have the will or energy to work it out. I pulled one of my sleeves over my hand and brushed the tears from her cheek.

= Raven =

Voice in my head was getting louder and louder, all my fears were being listed by her one by one.

1 You will not save the world

2 All those who you call ‘Family’, they will all die, and you will not save them

3 They know you are useless to them now

4 You have nothing left to give them

5 You have failed.

She kept repeating it , trying to break me and my resolve and it was starting to work. I could feel it within me, something wasn’t right. Something had changed since I woke up. And again, I saw #Finn stood in the blue forest asking me to stay with him.

Johns arms pulled me in and hugged me tighter, making my chest heave as the tears rolled down my face. It felt cathartic in a way to let it out and not to bottle it up inside of me. But at the same time, I remembered that I wasn’t alone. That these tears and sobs were being witnessed by John and by #Luna.

My eyes opened and I shook my head a little, my forehead was still on his shoulder. I couldn’t believe how things had changed between us since we first came here. Those were the days I’d have punched him for touching me. And now he and I were consoling one another? How had this friendship grown? Then he was apologising again. I didn’t know who he was saying it to, but it felt like he needed to say it out loud to the world and even maybe to the universe?

My lips moved with the words as he said them, and I heard the echo of #Luna’s voice saying them too. ‘Ai giv ai op gon nemiyon, kom lanik-de’ ( I give myself, to the miracle, of the sea ). Those were just words for some, but for me, for him and #Luna these simple words were a lifeline now. I pulled back away from him at the same time as he did, and his baby blue eyes found mine.

“The fight is what I was born to be in the middle of. It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” My voice was hiccupping, as I fought to keep the tears at bay. ‘Enough is enough’ I told myself, about to lift my hand to wipe my face but he did it for me. I froze looking at him, after all I’d said and done to him over the last few weeks. He was starting to really feel like a friend.

“Keep this up John and I may start thinking you actually care for me.” I tried to joke and break a smile, but it wasn’t to be. Instead I dared to look around towards the door and then to him.

= John =

Her words made me stop in my tracks. No one was born for a fight like this, I was still convinced that the only plan left was to leave, get into the bunker and hope we get back out in five years. But she needed this. I didn’t know why… She had done everything she could. But if this was what she needed to do, I’d go down there with her and make sure she had her chance. Even though everything in me was screaming to just turn and run. The urge to stand by her was stronger.

"None of us were born for this. It's just... where we landed. We fight or we die. It’s not exactly destiny fulfilled." I mutter the words; the urge to scream at the ceiling was coming back. But I didn't have the energy anymore, I just felt... defeated. Like there wasn't anything left to fight for. But she was convinced there was some slim hope. I always knew I'd die fighting... If I had no fight left, why not die for hers?

The next words out of her mouth stunned me. I knew it was hard for any of them to believe I cared for anyone but myself, but that wasn't true. Not always, at least, not anymore. Raven's survival had been high on my list of priorities since I took her from the chipped army in Arkadia. I owed Emori my life a few times over, after all the time we spent surviving in the wilderness together, I was damn sure going to make sure she got her place in that hole in the ground too. Then there was #Luna and Abby who for whatever reason saw some good in me, I knew better... trying to ease my own guilt wasn't exactly noble.

But Raven... When she hurt, I did. I was afraid for her when she was too stubbornly strong to be afraid for herself. Every step she took closer to death... I felt like I was only one step behind. But I didn't say any of this, instead, my eyes found hers, her fight was inching back into them. I was like that once too... I never stayed knocked down for long, but it took longer and longer to find that will each time. I stepped aside, gave her a weak smile, raised my hand to the door and said through a still raw throat. "C'mon then. Stop sleeping on the job, Reyes."

I waited for her to pass and followed her, but a hand on my shoulder pulled me back. “Yu gifa in em, Jon.” (You care for her, John.) #Luna whispered close to my ear. “Taim’s buken au. Em bes get in, yu seintaim.” (Time is running out. She should know… and you too)

I rolled my shoulder to shrug her off. “Wan daun, Luna. Beja.” (Stop, Luna. Please.) I whispered back and stepped away to follow Raven to the lab, I heard her follow after a few steps but, I didn’t look back.

= Raven =

I took a few steps back away from him again. My eyes were still on him and I wasn’t sure if he genuinely believed what he had just said or not.

“I have to believe that we all have a destiny to follow John. Some higher power in the stars has a plan for this world and its people. Otherwise what is the point of all of this?” My eyes moved around us, and then I lent down to tug my brace up higher.

I didn’t always believe in a ‘Higher Power’, that was more #Finn’s thing. He would tell me stories of mythology from centuries ago which were nothing more than just myths and stories for children. Things told to children before bedtime by those who were lucky enough to have parents who could or cared to be by their children before sleep. My mom was normally drunk and falling off the couch and stumbling by the time I should have been in bed. Leaving me to be the one having to set her down for the night. So, the freedom of breaking away into one of #Finn’s stories made it possible for me to dream. To make it so that I wanted to achieve my potential he saw in me. And now, he was gone but his belief of a higher power was something I would hold on for all he had sacrificed for me to be here and alive.

“You don’t have to tell me twice.” My throat was raw and my voice was still heavy with emotions, but that didn’t stop me from standing up straight, pushing my shoulders back, holding my head up high, and stepping out of the bio lab as if I was ready to face anything this world had to throw at me.

The sounds of whisperings were coming from behind me as I pushed through the glass doors and stepped out onto the platform looking down on the main lab. And I could see them all lost in their own worlds. ‘It’s time for you to start listening. They will do what they must, to live. But you need to make a choice and fast. Are you going to die like a cabbage or are you going out with a Boom 𝘽𝙤𝙤𝙢?’

I shook my head, moving around to the steps and holding onto the side bar and hopping my way down. She was back in my head, but I stopped half way down the steps when I saw her stood at the far side of the main floor beckoning me to follow her.

This was Becca, in her light blue lab coat, her glasses pushed high on her nose and her jet-black hair pulled back into a ponytail. This was not A.L.I.E. That bitch only ever showed herself with the blood red lipstick and the red dress. This version was simpler, intelligent and there was empathy in her eyes. Just as she’d shown me in the blue forest.

‘We are running out of time Raven.’ She called out and my eyes darted around to all the others. But of course, they didn’t hear her. They couldn’t see her. She was a figment of my imagination after all.

= John =

As we came to the top of the stairs, I watched Raven’s head sweep over the room, and even though I couldn’t see her eyes I knew they settled on an empty part of the lab. I pressed my lips together and tried not to let the irrational fears back in. ‘She’s going to die…’ I thought to myself. ‘At least you can let her decide how.’ The ball in my chest expanded again.

“Hey!” I heard #Jackson’s voice from behind us. He hadn’t been downstairs with the others. What was he doing up here… alone? “I knew this would happen.” He scoffed and tried to pass me on the stairs to get to Raven. My first instinct was to block him by planting my hand on his chest, not hard but still… passive-aggressive. Instead, I turned and grabbed both railings, blocking his path.

“Relax!” I rolled my eyes. “We’re just taking a little walk. She’s been in bed for almost a day. She needs to move around a bit.”

#Jackson rubbed his face, exasperatedly and leaned into me, stopping to examine my face clearly noticing the signs that I had cried. “She’s going to kill herself.”

“Yeah.” I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth. “Well, we’re all on a clock now, anyway right? So why don’t you get back to finding a way to stop those clocks. Before all of our brains melt.”

#Jackson looked horrified, maybe a little hurt. His jaw clenched and he glared. He almost started to speak a few times before he waved us all off and stormed off in the direction he had come. “Jon!!” #Luna moved to the step #Jackson had just left; her face was stern. “Daun’ nou gaffou! Hakom mou jofri?” (That was unnecessary. Why so cruel?). The momentary relief I had felt ebbed away. Maybe I was a sociopath after all.

“He’s gone, isn’t he?” I shrugged and turned back to Raven and moved a few steps away from where she had stopped. “So? What’s the plan, Reyes?”

= Raven =

‘Are you just going to stand there looking at me or are you going to get over here?’ She moved to stand next to the workstation I’d turned into my home. Biting my lips my hand tightened around the rail I had to hold to stand still.

How was this even possible? What was the meaning of it if she was here stood in my reality and not just in my head? ‘It means that your brain is disintegrating and now there is no wall between what you class as reality and imaginary.’ She was answering my questions? ‘It also means that you are hallucinating, but then you knew that part didn’t you Raven?’

I rubbed my eyes with my free hand and moved my head from side to side to loosen my stiffening neck. I was watching her sitting down on the stool and telling myself. “This cannot be real. She is not real 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡.” I told myself, my voice was lower than a whisper.

The sound of movement in the steps, and then John’s voice drew my attention back. I turned to look at him. “Huh?” It took me a moment or two to pull my head free from the thought I was lost in. “Oh. Hmm. The Plan?” My eyebrows pulled together as if he’d just spoken in another language to me.

‘Reivon? Ste Ogeda ena kom Yu?’ ( Raven, is all well with you? )#Luna moved down the steps too. My eyes moved between the two of them. Johns eyes still red and a little swollen, sure that mine were likely to be the same.

“Sha, sha. Ogeda ste ku” ( Yes, yes. All is fine. )I whispered and turned back towards the main floor. “Now. the plan is to find out how we save your arses. And what comes next for me.” The last part was a whisper to myself, looking over to Becca standing up off the stool and waving me over towards it.

= John =

My brows pinched together, she seemed confused. And confusion was one thing I had never seen on her face, she always knew her next step. On top of that, she said nothing about how I’d just spoken to #Jackson, she didn’t look annoyed… Almost like she’d not heard it.

I examined her tear-marked face and the aches started all over again. She had been so keen to get out there and start being a hero but, it seemed like she had no idea where to begin. I tried to distract from that fact, I was worried if she lingered on it for too long, she’d start to get angry again. “You’re getting the hang of the language. Finally!” I teased her, knowing she was picking it up faster than I had.

I cleared my throat and glanced around the space when she did. A few eyes were moving to us, but nobody made a move towards us, they all just tried to act like they hadn’t noticed the three of us lingering on the staircase. Maybe she just needed a few minutes to organise her thoughts.

“Why don’t we go up top for some fresh air? Just for a few minutes, you’ve been stuck down here for too long.” I tried to catch her gaze with blue, presumably red-rimmed eyes. “The stars will be out… heroes’ choice?” I smiled at her, making sure it sounded like a suggestion.

Trying to tell Raven what to do never worked out so well and there was nothing to be gained by getting her up to the surface for a few moments. Other than not being trapped underground as we would all be for the next five years, then the ball in my chest expanded again, pushing air out of my lungs. Those were five years Raven wouldn’t see.

= Raven =

My eyes were back on the main floor, and my feet were still rooted in place. I was willing them to move but there was something in me holding them in place. The glances from the others from time to time telling me they weren’t sure what was happening, but at the same time they weren’t worried seeing me stood here with John and #Luna at my side.

Her voice came echoing from across the lab. And it made me wince back a little at the idea that she was so loud. What if they others could hear her? Why was she so loud in my ears?

‘Stars? Stars? He wants you to go and look at stars? By Hells Raven, I’m not a violent person by nature. But even I want to punch him.’ Becca looked unhappy at the suggestions.

But her saying that, saying she wanted to hurt him it made my stomach heave at the thought. I could still hear the sound of my fist hitting his face and how he’d looked shocked and hurt all at the same time flashed before my eyes. I was never going to do that again. Not to him, not to anybody.

“I— I need to get—” A different whisper shook me. This one was a memory? Or was it my mind playing tricks with me again?

‘Go on Little Bird, you know you want to go take a look. This could be the last time we have the chance to search the sky for the stars. Go see if you can find Orion's belt. You always liked seeing the huntsman.’ It was the soft whisper of #Finn this time, and I turned my head towards the elevators.

‘Don’t you dare Raven, we have too much to do and not enough time to do it all. Come here and let’s get to work!’ Becca was furious. And she failed to understand that I didn’t take well to being ordered to do something when I wasn’t ready for it.

“Yeah, air, sky, stars. Who knows when we will next get to see them again?” I turned to look at John and #Luna.

= John =

Her eyes stayed fixed on an empty portion of the lab, empty of people at least. From where I stood I couldn’t get a close look at her face but I could see her gaze was shifting. The tiniest jerk of her head when she looked from one point to another. The swaying of her ponytail was giving her away.

I couldn’t deny that her agreeing to go topside and take a few minutes of a breather was a shock. I knew that despite my efforts to make it so, being stuck in that bed was not her idea of restful. I swallowed the shock and moved a few steps ahead and glanced back up at her. “My point exactly.” I jerked my head toward the lift. “What are we waiting for then?” My eyes locked on #Luna’s and there was an instant, silent communication. She followed behind Raven and we crossed the open space of the lab.

I didn’t make eye contact with anyone as #Luna and I took a place either side of Raven. Me slightly ahead, and her slightly behind, the message was clear.

‘Stay away. We’ve got her.’ When we reached the work station that held the weapons I grabbed the gun I was becoming attached to. I saw #Luna grab the axe that was #Nyko’s and I felt a twinge of pain for her.

What the hell was wrong with me? Maybe I really was getting sick.

I tried my best to avoid the area Raven had been staring into, even though I knew that wasn’t how hallucinations worked. I hit the button and waited for the doors to open. Then I turned my attention back to Raven again, even though I was completely aware of where she was every second my eyes were off her.

= Raven =

I followed John with #Luna beside, no behind me. It was hard for me to gage where she was from the shouting. Okay not shouting but there were unhappy huffs and snips coming from my workstation, where #Becca now sat with her arms crossed over her chest.

‘Go ahead, take your time. Why don’t you go back to the mansion and take a few naps and have a swim? It’s not like there isn’t a death wave coming.’ I tried to keep my eyes forward and not look, but it was hard for me to not glance over to her.

‘While you are up there. watch the sunrise or the sunset. Whatever it is that will be coming. Because it’s not like you even know what time of day or night it is. But you go ahead. Star gazing is a thing we do when the world is coming to it’s end and we have no escape plan at all.’

“Hush up, it’s not like I’m going forever. Five or ten minutes. I need to clear my head. I need to think and see straight without seeing you.” I mumbled under my breath. My head was starting to hurt again, the lite thudding and that pulse on the side of my head was making itself known to me.

‘Weapons, they think those things are going to help you?’ I wanted to snap back at her, why was she making this so hard on me?

My eyes kept darting back towards where she sat giving that look. And I chastised myself for giving her the power. Telling myself and remembering that she wasn’t here. My eyes low and looking ahead now as we came close to the elevator doors, it felt like the doors were never going to open. I saw John hit the button, and I could see there was nothing more to do. But I moved around him and hit the button a few more times, until the doors parted, and I half skipped, and half ran into it.

“What is the time right now?” Fine I’ll admit it, she got to me.

= John =

It was impossible not to pick up on the tension rolling off of Raven, and with #Luna being the Zen Master she was I knew she would have easily sensed it too. Her impatience when hitting the button repeatedly was out of character.

Impatience was becoming a more and more common occurrence with her, but it was for understandable things. Like being kept in a bed for hours, being poked, prodded and studied or being told what she could or couldn't do. But something like this, it just didn't make sense for her. She was the one that wanted to get out here so badly and now all she wanted was to get out of the lab entirely.

I told myself this tiny detail as perfectly normal to notice. This was what I did. This was how I survived, paying attention to the details. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of those around me, lack of patience was not on Raven’s list of weaknesses. In fact, I wasn’t sure hers counted as a list at all. Stubborn and hyper focused. Both of which were also strengths in their own way. Were two things really a list? The latter being the one that allowed me to steal from under her nosed in Arkadia.

I stepped into the lift with her and #Luna. I checked the watch I'd kept in my pocket since stumbling across it in the Mansion, wearing the thing felt weird. I sighed heavily; it really had been nearly a whole day. "It's ten-thirty." I said to her, I would have clarified morning or night if we'd not been talking about seeing the stars. Being underground screwed up the days and nights.

No one was keeping a regular sleep pattern. Sleep. Damn. How long was it since I slept now?

I hit the button the hum and of the lift started, there was the perfunctory ding, then doors slid closed and it started to move.

"Don't worry about that, everyone is just sleeping when they can. Day and night are kind of gone out the window right now. We'll just get some air and head back when you're ready. We could all use some fresh air. We've been stuck down here too long."

The lift stopped and we moved out, I punched in the code to deactivate the drones. I clicked the signal of ‘drones down’ into the radio to let everyone know, but I knew everyone was in the lab. It was surprising how fast a habit like that became ingrained in you.

"After you." I turned to Raven and swept my free arm in the direction of the doors. I could see #Luna breathing easier already.

= Raven =

My eyes were not moving from the display on top of the door showing that the elevator was moving up. The initial jerk of the box starting to move had me stepping back into the wall. It had been too long since I’d been off my feet, with my head, ears and eyes playing tricks on me I felt unbalanced by the movement under my feet. #Luna shifted right up by my side and without touching me I could see she was giving me the option to use her body, or her shoulder beside me as leverage. I gave her a wistful smile and then my eyes were back up on the display.

My brows pulled together when John told me that another day had passed with me in that bloody bio bed, that I have lost another day where I could have been trying to help Abby, Clarke, Bells and Marcus to find the next approach out of this mess we were all landed in.

“We are running out of time.” I whispered Becca’s words. “Maybe this isn’t a good idea, I should be getting back to work.” But I needed to get out. To get away from Becca so that I could think for myself.

The doors opened and the cool fresh air breeze kissed my skin. I closed my eyes and felt my messy strands which had come down from my ponytail blowing back. I dared to take a sideways glance at #Luna and she was smiling, her shoulders relaxed even more so than they had been before. And again, this made me realise how much these two were doing for me. There was nothing keeping #Luna or John down there under the ground in the lab, bar for me. They were taking their roles of my protector and carers so seriously that they were forgetting that they too had the ability to be free and do as they wanted and needed.

‘Ai mema we Disha’ ( I missed this ) #Luna whispers and she stepped out into the night with me. But she was on guard. The Zen master was always there, and yet there was the Warrior Leader of the Floukru too.

Once John exited behind us, he got to work going through the motions of bringing the drones down, telling the others and then we were free to step out into the night.

I walked out of the shadow of the grand entrance way of the lab towering up into the vast open space at the top of the hill on the island. The darkness only lit by the flood lights on the top of the door and then the moonlight itself. I walked without thinking until a hand took mine halting me in the process.

‘Kamp raun gon yumi hir beja’ ( Stay close to us here please ). #Luna asked and I had to think slowly what she was asking or telling me. She saw that I was working it out. ‘We shouldn’t go too far out Raven. We will stay close to the door.’ And I just nodded.

Moving to find a spot to sit my legs were still shaking. “This feels good.” Sitting down, I was looking back out over the clearing and then I closed my eyes.

= John =

I saw Raven give up the idea of heading right back down to the lab, to start working, the moment she saw the look on #Luna’s face when she smelled the unfiltered air. The nights were still cool; I wondered when that would change. The closer the death wave got the warmer it was going to get.

There was another failing of mine, I knew #Luna didn’t need me to look after her; she was better now. But there was something in me that was driving me to protect her too. Because she protected Raven from the things I didn’t know how to. I couldn’t take care of her alone, not in every way. I should have made sure #Luna got out of the lab a little more. She was a grounder, she needed to be outside.

I reached out and squeezed #Luna’s arm when she tells Raven to stay close; telling her to let her wander. We could protect her. Raven found her spot and took a seat on the grass. #Luna and I kept our eyes on the treeline. I still didn’t trust this place. I watched for a long time just letting her sit there. Until #Luna elbowed me in the ribs and I silently mouthed. “Chon ona skafa?” (What the hell?)

She nodded to Raven; she wanted me to sit with her and I pinched my brows together, pressing my lips into a hard line. Why would Raven want me to sit with her? #Luna’s eyes rolled; she was spending too much time with the mechanic. Then she mouthed to me. “Hai Skaiskat” (Stupid Sky Boy.)and she went to sit with her.

A few more silent minutes passed, and I just watched the girls sitting there. Then I sighed, scanned the treeline one more time and moved to sit on the other side of Raven. I shrugged out of my jacket and laid it out on the grass behind Raven then plonked down and laid flat on my back looking up.

“Okay then, genius.” I adopted my most mocking voice. “What are we looking at here?” I figured she knew the names of all the constellations. Not that I could correct her if she did get it wrong… but Raven was never wrong; it was annoying.

= Raven =

Not really thinking now. I put a stop to all the madness Becca’s words had set into Motion inside of me. Finally, I opened my eyes, looking up to the sky. The stars shining down on us with not one cloud in sight.

My lungs had been screaming for air for so long and I’d not even known it. But it all felt so good now being out here, with the cool breeze hitting my face, and the cool grass under my hands as I leant back, lifting my chin to make it easier for me to search the sky for the stars.

It didn’t take me long to place where I was right now, and a small smile played over my lips seeing Orion. He was the one I always found first, even with the missing stars I could still make the Huntsman out in the dark cloudless sky.

I allowed my body to fall back. It wasn’t until my head felt the fabric under it did, I realised that I was laying on a jacket. It was John’s I knew it because #Luna even now didn’t wear one. I turned my head towards his voice, and I knew he was trying to egg me on. But not in the same way he’d done before, there was no malice in these words, mocking sure. But no malice at all.

“Are you asking because you believe I don’t know what I’m talking about, or are you asking because you want to see the nerd in me shining brightly?” I half joked, moving my eyes back up to the sky.

I felt #Luna finally relax just enough to look up to see what it was I was looking towards.

“Lay down the both of you. If something was going to come for us. It would be here by now.” Of course, this wasn’t true, if something or somebody was coming for us, they would wait until we weren’t looking. But I needed them both to relax as much as they were trying to make me.

“Remember I told you that all the stars have a story attached to them?” I didn’t wait for them to answer when I pointed out to the northern most part of the sky hoping they would follow my gesture.

“There can you see the wavy line of stars, with the triangle head to the left? That is the Dragon Draco. There are several ancient stories which could be about Draco the Dragon, but the one which best seems to fit with Greek mythology is the story about Cadmus and the Dragon of Thebes.

According to this story, Zeus had stolen the young woman Europa from her home country of Phoenicia.

Her father ordered her brother Cadmus to go and search for her, and not return until he had found her and brought her back with him. Cadmus wandered over the whole world looking for Europa but could not find her. He knew he would never find her because no one can find someone that Zeus has hidden. He decided to look for a country in which to build his city, Thebes, because he knew he could never return to his home in Phoenicia without his sister.

Following Apollo’s advice, Cadmus found a suitable site to build his new city. However, while searching for water, Cadmus’ servants were killed by a large dragon named Draco.

Cadmus went to fight Draco, and upon finding the dragon in a cave, was able to kill it with his spear. Cadmus was told by Minerva to plant the dragon’s teeth in the ground. From these teeth grew warriors who fought each other until only five were left. With these five, Cadmus was able to build his city of Thebes, and they became its first residents.

Because Draco had been so faithful in guarding the caves and their contents, Zeus placed his constellation in the northern sky, where, because his constellation never sets, he can guard all the treasures of Zeus forever.”

The story had a life of its own and memories of me telling #Finn about them when we went to look at the stars. Of course, the stars all looked so different from the Ark than they do from earth.

“The easiest way to find this constellation is to search Ursa Major and Ursa Minor and see the gap between them.” My fingers pointing along the skyline as I spoke, pointing out the Big Bear and the little bear.

“Another way to spot it is to locate Vega who is known to be one of the brightest stars in the sky.” Again my finger moved to the star so bight that it looked like it was winking at us even from down here.

“Draco is the 8th largest constellation in the night sky, and it is placed in the third quadrant of the northern hemisphere. Constellations nearby are Boötes, Camelopardalis, Cepheus, Cygnus, Hercules, Lyra, Ursa Major, and Ursa Minor.” And again, I pointed each of them out as I spoke of them.

Smiling I let my hand drop and rested both hands on my stomach still lost in the sky above us.

“I know nerd.”

I didn't know why I told them these things. #Finn had always told me to keep them to myself, so I didn't get bullied as a kid. And here I lay on an Island in the middle of nowhere, openly sharing it all with the one person who would never let me live it down.

= John =

Raven lay back and I kept my eyes on the stars, laughing when she asked me if I was trying to catch her out. I wouldn’t have any clue if she was wrong anyway. “There is a chink in that intelligent armour of yours, Rey. I will find it someday.” Acting like I would know if she screwed up. My skills in astronomy ended at locating the North Star. And that, I had learned from Emori when we were surviving in the wild together.

Astronomy lessons on the Ark always seemed like a massive waste of time. I never thought I’d need it to survive.

I glanced sideways just in time to see a shadow pass over Raven’s face as #Luna lay back. It wasn’t like she needed her eyes to know if someone was approaching.

She had her Zen Master super senses. I followed the line of Raven’s arm and found the triangle she was talking about, but not easily. My first thought when she started telling the story was. ‘Geez… sisters are hard work!’. I thought about everything Octavia put Bellamy through and everything she still was putting him through. It didn’t matter how strong she got… he just seemed to worry more and more.

Then I thought that this wasn’t at all what I was expecting from her. I was expecting her to tell me what the stars were made of, how far away they were, how they were made and died. But she was telling a story. I pulled my eyes from the sky and looked at her as she spoke; the only light was from the floodlights on the Lab entrance so far away that all it was really doing was casting shadows, and the light from moon and stars she was talking about. I smiled. She started pointing again but I didn’t look back up, not at first anyway.

There was something different. Whatever she had been seeing before was gone now. It had to be… she was too focused and content. There was no flitting of her hazel eyes to unfixed points, or those quick pauses when something she knew wasn’t there caught her eye. The hallucination was gone. For now, at least.

I tried to follow her hand when she started pointing the constellations out in quick succession but I gave up fast and turned back to her. I grinned again when she called herself a nerd.

“Completely hopeless nerd.” I teased quietly and without nearly enough sarcasm. Turning my gaze back up to the sky in case she turned to look at me when I spoke, something strange stirred in my stomach. Or was it my chest?

Common sense told me it was all in my head. No… I was definitely getting sick…. Radiation? How long before everyone else felt it too? But if that was true the drones would have detected it… Right? Maybe I was just going crazy.

= Raven =

“A chink? In my armour?” Hells how was I meant to tell him that my armour had fallen apart days ago. The day I started to fight A.L.I.E. was when the cracks started to show. Now the girl who was left was nothing more than a shell of her past self.

“Nah, you can try but there’s no way in past my armour.” I gradually turned to look at him as I heard him laughing. Trying to recall the last time I saw him this easy going that he laughed. And I couldn’t put my finger on it. This made me frown because I knew I was losing moments, memories not just from the past, but from the now too. And yet the nightmares were never far away.

When my glance settled on him, his eyes were on the sky and I wondered if he had even listened to a word I’d said or if it was all covered by a roll of his eyes and with his sarcasm. There was only one way to find out, but I wasn’t one to throw out a pop quiz.

I moved my head to the other side and #Luna was lost looking up at the stars, and her lips were curled into a smile. I knew the sights she would have had of the stars from the ocean must have been breathtakingly beautiful. And the knowledge that we were the ones to take that away from her hit me like a stab in the heart.

Gazing up to the sky again. “Guys! Look!”

I moved to sit up a little on my elbow and pointed up to the sky to our west. There was a shooting star moving around the night sky. “In the 20th Century. They used to believe you could ask a shooting star a wish and it would come true.”

It was beautiful to witness. “I know there is no way it will work. Logic would state that there is clearly no way for a dying ball of gas to grant wishes. But hells it’s a good dream to live by right?”

= John =

The cool air was soothing; there was moisture in it too... I had forgotten how dry and odourless the highly filtered air in the lab was. It didn't exactly smell good out here, but it wasn't unpleasant either. The closer the death wave got the more it seemed to sap the life out of everything around us. Even though we couldn't see the water past the tree line I could still smell the saltwater mingling with the distinct smell of trees and fallen leaves. It was eerily quiet, no bugs or nocturnal birds like I had gotten used to after we landed.

I hadn't the heart to tell her I was watching her armour crumble all around her, she was putting up a fight regardless. It was like she'd said; she wanted to go out fighting. Even though there was no fighting for her. Her last win would be for us... or would it be the release from her constant suffering?

I thought about her story... All of those people that had died searching for one woman. Did they all love her? Or were they slaves following orders? A brother who lost everything fighting an unwinnable war. And for what? He still lost his sister... his whole family. And his home. Maybe it was best to have none of those things, homes, families... they were things to lose. There was nothing you could do about it, all they did was chip away at your armour when they were taken away.

I spotted it at the same time as she had pointed it out, I tried not to let it but it brought a smile to my face. I had heard about wishing on shooting stars. I may not know much about the working of space or stars, but I knew that this was not a thing to grant wishes, just a random inconsequential cosmic event. But it was beautiful.

"When has logic ever saved our arses in the past?" I chuckled. "Make a wish, Stargazer?" I turned onto my shoulder, watching her watch the star. God knows she earned one. That I didn't say out loud.

‘Natstraka.’ (Shooting star) I heard #Luna whisper. ‘Strik nemiyon.’ (Little miracles)

In that exact moment, I found myself looking back at that same so-called miracle and the thought formed in milliseconds. A wish that Raven would have one moment before she died, just one... with no pain, no fear, no waiting for death. Without the weight of the world on her shoulders. Not right before she died, not because she knew it was finally over. Just because she deserved to be happy, genuinely and really happy; even if it was only a fleeting moment. Just once more in her short, brutal yet amazing life. She'd saved us all. A lot.

After a few minutes of quiet, I asked. "Why did he do it?" I lay flat again. "Cadmus... if he knew he would never find his sister? Why did all those people follow him and die? What was so special about Europa that they were all willing to die for her?"

I wasn't expecting her to answer any of them. They waged an unwinnable war... like we were doing. For what?

= Raven =

He turned to face me and #Luna and I found my head jerk towards him. “Stargazer?” My voice was low, as if anybody or anything out here could be disturbed by me speaking too loudly.

“Logic has it’s rightful place too Watcher, the Wise one here will tell you there are times when Logic has gotten us out of tight situations. So, don’t wash your hands of logic too fast.”

#Luna’s whispers took a hold of my attentions "Strik nemiyon." (Little miracles) I repeated.

Smiling, and turning my attention back to the sky, the tail of the falling star still visible to the naked eye. Could it hurt to make a wish? Of course, it was foolish to do so, and yet I closed my eyes and let my mind think of something to wish for. But it was my heart who had something to ask for.

‘Keep them all safe. My Fam let them all make it to the other side of this death wave and for them to not just survive, but to thrive once the new world is ready for them. Let this fight be over for them, let the new world be nothing but happiness for them all. Let them be free from the pain and the nightmares. Let them 𝙗𝙚 happy and together.’

With a deep sigh I finally opened my eyes to the sky again. I felt him move and I let my head fall back, still staying up on my elbows. He had been listening to me before. That was kind of surprising, but I didn’t let it on.

“Europa? She was the only sister of three brothers. Cadmus, Cilix and Phoenix. Cadmus being the eldest was the protector. The one to look out for his younger siblings. His sister the light of all of their eyes had been kidnapped by Zeus on the back of Taurus.” My gaze moved to find him and then pointed up to the sky at seeing bull.

“Taken without her will, hidden from the world and nowhere to be found? I can imagine she was holding on knowing that her brother would come for her. That he would move heaven and earth looking for her. It would maybe become a reason for her to live each day? And there would be that understanding in him too maybe? Cadmus would know that Europa was waiting for him to find her?”

It was hard for me to say. “I know I don’t know much about these things, not gowning up with a family and now being alone. But the way I think of it. Well. I guess.. Well… Look at how Bellamy is with Octavia. There is nothing he wouldn’t do to protect his younger sister. They are blood, they are family.”

I fell back down into the fabric of the jacket behind me. My arms crossed under my head. “And we all may not share blood, but our dysfunctional FamJam now. We would all go to the ends of the earth to save one another?” Looking around at the island we were sat on right now, trying to find a way to help everybody survive. Where we any different to Cadmus and his army?

= John =

I smirked folding my hands under the back of my head. “Yeah, yeah.” I casually dismissed her when she spoke about logic. I watched until the streak of light faded away into the dark and the distance.

I listened to her talk about her story again, I hadn’t expected an answer. My first thought was that Zeus probably just killed her; unless he had a use for her… but that was more disturbing than the murder thing. I wasn’t about to say either of those thoughts out loud and pop the bubble of heroism in the tale.

I pressed my lips together into a hard line when she said she was alone. I didn’t turn to look at her but I said, “You’re not alone Raven.” In a quiet voice. “It was you that told me family wasn’t just blood.” I knew she was just trying to make me feel like part of the team. I knew I wasn’t, but the fact she wanted me to be was oddly comforting and I wanted her to believe it was true.

“Seingeda ste mou yuj, ogeda.” (Family is stronger together.) #Luna whispered from the other side of Raven, just loud enough for me to hear it.

“Taim yo biyo bilaik, Briy’non.” (If you say so, wise one.) I scoffed, more mocking than condescending.

The longer we lay her the heavier my eyes got, I had gone without sleep for so long that staying still was getting dangerous. I could probably sleep standing up right now. I sat up slowly; pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes. Telling myself to wake up, we still had work to do. I didn’t say anything. I would let Raven decide when she was ready before heading back into that dungeon, that’s all it was really; a dungeon, jus all spruced up with white walls and shiny machines.

= Raven =

I kept my eyes on the sky, keeping the end of that story to myself. What was the point in telling them that Zeus had raped Europa to make her mother his children, all so that he could ensure a prophecy for told came true? The point to the story was the Dragon and how he came to live forever in the sky above us.

“I know. Now I’m not.” I whispered in answer to him saying I wasn’t alone. There was a time before Finn and after him that I felt lost and alone, where I didn’t think life was worth living and I at some point had a death wish attached to my forehead. On the Ark with a mother who was more interested in her next fix than the daughter she had given birth too. And then here on the ground after Finn was—.. Well Killed.

“Luna is right John, we are stronger when we are together. When we stand together.” I turned my attention Towards him and he was lost in the sky and his own thoughts. “I wouldn’t be here today if you hadn’t stepped up for me. If you hadn’t carried me off that med bed. That is what ogeda (together) means.” Or at least it did to me.

We all fell silent for a while and I closed my eyes to let my mind rest, I wasn’t sure how long we’d all been out here. But I knew we/ I could hide away here forever. John shifted to sit up and I slowly followed to do the same.

“We should head back down. Or at least I should. You guys should stay up here.—” I knew how much happier #Luna was up here in the open.

“—Take in the air or even head back to the mansion? It looks like you’ve not slept at all John.” His eyes were in the dark, but I remembered how bloodshot they looked in the elevator on the way up here.

Moving to angle myself, leaning on my side. My braced leg outstretched, I managed to lift myself up onto my feet, and stretch my back and body out. “Thank you” I whispered to the both of them.

“This was something I needed.”

= John =

I bit the inside of my cheek when she started talking about me taking her from Arkadia; after A.L.I.E had completely hijacked her mind and body. Shudders ran through me, her bloodshot, teary eyes despite all the physical signs of pain and fear they were blank, emotionless. Her voice and not her voice all at once, rang in my memories still. The sickly-sweet smile and the robotic way she moved.

It had never dawned on me to leave her there. I don’t remember consciously deciding to take her. I just did it. I didn’t think that the act could kill me until the first bullet pinged off the wall behind me. Then it never dawned on me to leave her. They wouldn’t have killed her, they needed her. But still, I carried her to the Rover. I shook away the images of her dull skin, the tightly wrapped bandages on her wrists. I refused to let my eyes move to her wrists where the scars still stood out starkly.

“I couldn’t leave you there…” I started, then stopped myself. “You wouldn’t have left me.”

I should have told the truth about Jaha’s miracle KEY when I got back. I should have told them all that A.L.I.E. launched the bombs. Maybe she wouldn’t have swallowed the damned thing in the first place. I’d had this internal battle with myself too many times, it would never be resolved, whether it was me, the loss of #Finn, or the explosion at the dam… and everything after that. My stomach heaved at the thought of them drilling into her while I was stuck in that hell hole.

I smashed the thoughts down as she stood up and forced a laugh. “What happened to being stronger together?” I stood up too and brushed off the back of my jeans. What I should have said was ‘you’re welcome… you needed to get out of there. Breathe real air and remember you still have some life left in you that isn’t just a struggle to save everyone you know.’ But of course, I didn’t say that.

“Jon yu beda rid op?” (John, you should sleep?) #Luna stood up now too, I knew she was right, and I knew Raven’s trig was good enough for her to understand that now.

“I will… There’s a couch in the office. If it’s good enough for the Zen Master, it’s good enough for me.” I nodded reluctantly. But I was fading, I knew if I didn’t go willingly, I’d either be knocked out or pass out on my own.

= Raven =

Standing there I watched him closely, listening to him. I didn’t comment on anything he’d said about the escape from Arkadia. There was nothing I could have said that, A. I’d not said to him before. And B. He was making a great point, there is a part of me who would like to believe that I would have saved him. But I still had a gut feeling that he was giving me way more credit with this hypothetical save than I deserved. There had been times in the past that I’d have gladly handed him over for the greater good. Was that not the same thing? He could have left me to get away for himself, but he didn’t. He carried me out of there with bullets flying at his head.

“She is right now you. You need to sleep John. And the being together thing.. I believe you are safe on the Island. Unless you need Luna to hold your hand while you sleep? ”If he kept this up, he would be the one in the bio bed next.

#Luna smiled at me when I agreed with her, and she was right. And then she laughed holding her hand out towards him. ‘Ai na kep in Yu klir’ ( I will keep you safe. )

Shaking my head, I started to make my way back towards the towering entrance of the Lab, but I stopped and looked up to the sky one las time. Taking it all in, slowly I turned on my feet lowering my glance as I moved around in a full circle. The last time I was up here I didn’t take the time to enjoy the beauty of it all. I didn’t stop to take in what this Earth had given to me, because my mind had always been on what it had taken away from me. But now that I knew my seizures were becoming more frequent, and it was taking me longer to come back from them. The Blue forest with #Finn trying to tell me my fight in this life was over. I didn’t know if this was going to be the last time, I saw the sky, the trees, or feel the air on my face.

“One for the memory bank” I whispered to myself, stepping back in towards the elevators pushing the button to open the door.

= John =

I kept my gun close and looked around one last time, and looked down at my feet when Raven spoke. “I will, when we get back down there I’ll leave you in the capable hands of the Zen Master.” I then turned my attention to #Luna as we headed inside.

“Stomba ai op taim em granen thru oda.” (Wake me if she’s working too hard.)I said, not worried if Raven understood it or not. She knew she needed to take it easy and it wasn’t like I had been pussyfooting around the issue.

“But I think I’ll manage to tuck myself in. But thanks for offering her services.” I rolled my eyes at her last comment. Considering the irony of my having put her to bed the previous night, taking off her brace and basically tucking her in… or was it the night before? Ugh! Who even cared? … Whenever it happened.

“Kep Reivon klir.” (Keep Raven safe.) Was all I said back to the Nightblood. She nodded sombrely.

I didn’t step inside the entrance until Raven did; not wanting her to rush her moment, there was a deep, nauseating sinking feeling, like being in the lift and it was descending too fast. She stepped in a slow circle. Like she thought it would be the last time she saw tree’s or smelled the air; like she’d never see the sky again. I reactivated the drones while we waited on the lift door and I stepped inside with the two girls. The sudden sleepiness replaced with anxiety again.

= Raven =

I didn’t say a thing when we were inside the elevator and it started to descend. I just stepped back and kept going until my back hit the cold wall and I couldn’t go any further. As I saw the levels starting to count down, I closed my eyes.

The sky and the stars were still there, I could still see them all there locked away in my mind. “Small wins” I whispered to myself as the doors opened and #Monty was standing there waiting for us.

“Hey, what’s going on?” I asked him. He didn’t look worried but there was something in his eyes that wasn’t his normal self.

‘Rey. It’s one of the drones.’ He started. ‘It’s gone black. I mean it went out when John set the code. But it’s not showing anything.’ He started to move backwards away from the elevator, beckoning for me to follow behind him.

I started to make my way out after him but came to a stop and turned to face John. “Sleep. Now. We don’t want to see you for the next six hours at least.” I gave him a look to say. ‘Don’t test me, I make 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘮 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘬𝘴 for fun.’

Turning back on my feet I went to follow #Monty, he had set things up on my workstation to show me what he’d been seeing while we’d been out top on the ground.

#Luna moved to pull herself up to sit cross legged on the desk beside me. “You know I’ll be fine here Luna, why don’t you go and grab a drink or some food? When was the last time you had something to eat?” I asked her as I got to work on recalling the drone in question.

‘Oso na choj op ogeda’ ( We will eat together ) #Luna replied closing her eyes and going into her meditative state.

#Monty and I exchanged looks and I shrugged my shoulder. There was no telling what she would be working on in her state of calm. I couldn’t explain why, but I turned to look and follow John as he moved. I wanted to make sure he did indeed go up to get some sleep.

= John =

I couldn’t make out what she said to herself in the lift, but it sounded… positive. I heard #Monty mention drones and I stiffened. “Green.” I hissed, but Raven’s words stopped me. I couldn’t shadow her every second; that was ridiculous. “No coding.” I spoke to #Monty as I moved towards the red staircase. The urge to glance back when I reached the top step was too strong to fight.

#Luna was close to them. #Monty had seen the seizure too; he knew how serious this was. He wouldn’t let her do anything stupid. When I stepped into the office, I heard the soft sucking sound of the door closing behind me. The room was almost completely soundproof. And right now, I couldn’t hear a thing, the lab was quiet. I briefly considered wedging the door open just a crack.

I rested my gun against the arm of the couch and sat down; pulling the handgun from my waistband; tucking it back in at the small of my back. I grabbed the cushions and put them at the end of the couch where I had left my gun, to form a pillow. I rolled my shoulders and stretched out my back; then reached into my right boot and pulled out the knife I kept there. Instinctively patting my pocket for the utility knife; that was more of a tool than a weapon, but it was nice to know it was there.

I lay down pulling my knees up onto the couch; keeping my boots on… of course. I mean, what if? Right? I curled one arm under the cushions; my fingers curled gently around the handle of the knife and closed my eyes.

Sleep.

Easy… Natural bodily function, like blinking… breathing. Sleep. I was exhausted. Sleeping would be easy. Or so I told myself, over and over.

= Raven =

We had to wait for the drone to come back from its flight and then the docking to be completed before I could run the diagnostics on it. My glance moved back up towards the steps seeing Johns back just as he disappeared in towards the office.

‘He has changed, hasn’t he? Or is this a means to a new way for him to survive the next big bang we are facing?’ My head jerked back to find #Monty looking up towards the steps too.

“Does it matter? Can we blame him for wanting to live? Isn’t that what we all want and are doing here? Whatever his reasoning. He is here, he is pulling his weight, actually he’s been going over and above what is necessary.” #Monty had no malice in his question, I knew he’d just not have time to talk to me before now. He, #Harper and Jasper had come to the island after us. But I knew they had seen the same changes in John that Abby, #Jax, #Luna and I had. I couldn’t blame #Monty for asking the question.

“We all deserve to be judged on who we are today, and not who we were yesterday.” I whispered, my eyes moving to #Luna and I saw the Wise one’s lips curls, as this had been advice, she gave me only days ago.

‘I like it. It’s good to see him this way. It’s back!’ And like that #Monty had forgotten about everything else but how to find the fault in the drone and fix it.

I got to started on pulling up the diagnostics of the drone in question, checking to see if there were any corrupted lines of coding. Frowning as I started to move the code up the screen, but found my stool being pushed to the side.

“Hey!” I exclaimed.

‘John said No Coding, tell me what we are looking for.’ #Monty moved before the screen and lent into it, as I rolled my eyes.

“Even when he isn’t here, he knows how be become a pain in my arse!”

Sighing, I started to explain the coding sequences to #Monty and how each line of data needed to follow the other.

I still managed to look on over his shoulder.

= John =

< Dreaming >

I was running, I was always running. My legs were burning like I had been moving for days without pause; my lungs ached with every breath I took. I was being chased; I was always being chased. Something… or someone was hunting me.

My hands were cut and sliced from crashing through low hanging branches and scrambling up ridges thick with thorny undergrowth. I could feel blisters popping on the soles of my feet. The forest behind me filled with lit torches and yelping. I ran into something solid. Something I could swear wasn’t there a second ago. The torches closed in on all sides, I was trapped.

My hands moved desperately over the wall in front of me, it was covered in moss and ivy but beneath that was solid metal. I ripped the ivy and the vines away until I realised what I was revealing. It wasn’t possible. There was no way this many grounders could have made it to the island. No way!!

I staggered back away from the Lighthouse Bunker Door. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be here. There was no ocean and the trees were too thick. There were too many grounders here. This was something else.

I tripped over my own feet in my hurry to get away from the door. I’d rather be captured by the hoard behind me. I hit the ground hard and cried out with pain as something sliced into the flesh of my thigh. What was the use of being quiet? They knew I was here. I tried to sit up to see if I could stop the bleeding, the forest around me got brighter and brighter with the flickering torchlight. A boot hit my chest and forced me back down to the ground. A masked grounder leaned over me with a dark chuckle that was familiar but I couldn’t match it to a face.

Until he peeled off the mask and leaned over my chest, resting his arms on his knee and pressing his full weight into my chest with one foot. The pressure was so intense I thought my heart would stop. “Well, well, well.” He spoke slowly, viciously. “John Fucking Murphy.” He laughed.

My own face hovering above me, stomping all the air out of my lungs until the world folded in on itself and went dark.

Instantly I was awake, the familiar stench of stale wine and weeks old sweat and vomit hanging in the air. “No!!!” I sat bolt upright and was instantly yanked back by familiar cuffs; chaining me to a metal beam that wasn’t here the last time. But everything else was the same. A laugh penetrated the room. My laugh.

“Why!?” I screamed. “Why did you bring me here!?” I tugged on the restraints and they bit painfully into my skin.

“You belong here, John. We both do.” A smug grin slipped across his features. “But only one of us is staying.”

“No! I got out! I… went back. I… helped.” My lungs were on fire.

“Did you?”

“Why didn’t you just kill me?” I cried and slumped back against the metal beam.

“Don’t worry… Death will come.” He crouched in front of me and pressed his fingers into the wound on my leg, smearing my own blood all over my face. “Eventually.” He smiled evilly.

“Why are we like this!? We can be better!?”

“Ha ai na biyo moba hashta wukripa ai gon bilaik? Non don biyo moba gon ai kos em teik ai gon kom emo.” (Why should I apologize for the monster I’ve become? No one ever apologised for making me one) He stood up and headed to the stairway that led to the door.

Terror struck me to my core. He was going to leave me here to starve to death, chained to this bloody beam. I tried in vain to squeeze my hands free of the cuffs; peeling away layers of skin. “NO!!” I screamed. “No!! Don’t leave me in here!! Just kill me! Please!! KILL ME!”

(Music: Startset - Carnivore )

= Raven =

“Right forget this. If you’re not going to let me do anything here I’m going to go grab the drone and bring it back.” Standing up off the stool, but I stopped at a cup of hot coffee being place before my nose.

‘Why don’t you drink this and I will go and bring the drone back for you. You’ve been out topside today. I haven’t. I could do with stretching my legs.’ #Harper stood handing a cup to #Luna who took it into both of her hands. Taking in the aroma of the drink before she sipped on it.

“Harper I can come with you.” #Luna raising her eyebrow shook her head at me.

‘Not happening Raven. You are not going to walk around up there in the dark.’ #Luna gave me that look which said 𝘿𝙤𝙣'𝙩 𝙩𝙧𝙮 𝙢𝙚 ( Don’t try me )

“Harper can’t go alone.” I was pushing my luck. But sitting here watching #Monty do my work wasn’t my idea of a good time.

‘Ai na gyon au kom em’ ( I will go with her ). Taking another few sips from the cup, #Luna uncurled her legs from under herself and climbed down from the desk. Making sure she didn’t spill even a single drop from the cup.

Both the girls grabbed a radio, and Harper grabbed her gun and then made their way towards the elevator. My heart sunk at the sight of them leaving without me. And I chastised myself for feeling this way. I wasn’t a child who needed to sulk. “Don’t Break him! He is fragile” I called out and Harper just smiled as the doors closed.

‘Rey! I found the corruption in the code.’ #Monty called out pointing to the screen for me to see it too. Before I told him what to do next, he was following the steps I’d documented and was well on the way to fixing the part of the issue.

Looking around I saw that everybody had been getting on with things, and I stood here with a cup of coffee in my hand. Biting down on my lip, my eyes moved to the steps and up to the office which sat up there.

I’d given John strict instructions on not wanting to see him for the next six hours, but was he even listening? Giving #Monty on last look I started to make my way up the steps. The undrunk cup of coffee in one hand as I hop slowly and carefully up the red metal steps. I came to a stop at the tall glass wall and door separating him from the rest of us.

At first when I saw him stretched out on the couch, I smiled. He looked at peace with his eyes closed. That voice in my head telling me to leave him alone to sleep and go back down. But at second glance I saw the things most would miss. He was asleep, his gun beside his head. It was in close reach of him. One hand under the cushion and I wondered if there was some weapon under there too? But the thing that struck out the most was that he was asleep with his boots on. To normal eyes this may not register. But for some reason it was something I’d noticed about him. He never slept with them off. Which meant even when he was asleep, he was ready to get up and run. To make a dash to get himself free. There was so much more to such a small thing which didn’t seem to go unnoticed with me.

I took a couple of steps back; he was fast asleep. Finally, he was getting some rest too. As I was about to turn to leave the jerking of his body caught my attention. “John?” I look, closer this time and his lips were moving but I couldn’t hear him.

“Hells it’s sound proof!”

Slowly I pushed the door open and stepped inside, letting the door close behind me softly. My hazel eyes were locked on to his sleeping frame and he jerked again. I set the cup down on the desk to the side before closing the distance just as he screamed out.

‘NO!!’

“No!! Don’t leave me in here!! Just kill me! Please!! KILL ME!”

Rushing over to his side I stopped shy of him, my hand outstretched but paused unsure if I should wake him. That voice in my head saying. ‘He has been there for you Raven.’ And I lent into him as well as I could. Whispering and shaking him gently.

“John? John? Hey. It’s only a dream. You’re safe!”

= John =

All of a sudden, I jerked awake, the sound of the containment doors sealing shut was still ringing in my ears. I bolted up from the couch, still expecting the restraints to yank me back, but I was freed. I scrambled wild-eyed to the far end of the couch, I was panting, and my throat was raw like I had been screaming for real. It took what seemed like forever for my eyes to focus and settle on Raven, in reality, it was only a few seconds.

“Raven!” I gasped in surprise. “What—“

I looked around, trying to ground myself in the real world again. I caught sight of the knife I was now white knuckling. Fuck! I uncurled my fingers, they ached from the impossibly tight grip I had on the hilt and the metal clinked on the polished floor. “Oh my god… I’m sorry.”

I pressed my fingers into my eyes and words replayed in my head. ‘It’s only a dream. You’re safe!’ Raven’s words. “Fuck!” I muttered it out loud this time; I knew I’d been screaming, my throat stung. I tried to steady my breathing and looked back up at her. Her warm hazel eyes looked down at me from next to the couch. Why was she here? She didn’t need to see this.

“I’m so sorry… I didn’t…” I didn’t what? I didn’t think anyone would come up here. I knew what happened when I fell asleep. Didn’t think that my sleeping in a lab full of people would go unnoticed? Then again going unnoticed was one of the perks of being John Murphy. I shook my head; it was a dream. Get over it. “I didn’t think you’d—Are you okay?”

I tried to force the tension out of my body, by rolling my shoulders and uncurling my legs from underneath me to place my feet on the floor. I couldn’t stop myself from dropping my hands into my lap, just to double-check the wound really hadn’t happened, I masked it by rubbing clammy hands on my pants.

= Raven =

I scattered a few feet back as his hand wielding the knife grazed right past my abdomen. My hand outstretched towards him as he jolted up from his nightmare and I could see that fear, pain and bewildered look in his blue eyes. It was a sight I was well aware of; I just hadn’t thought that anybody else had those. But if I truly thought about it, it would be a question of when not if they all had the same nightmares when they closed their eyes.

“John?” I said his name again softly, this time taking a few steps forward towards him, once I saw the knife loosen and then clatter to the ground. Using the edge of the couch I leant down and tried a couple of times before the knife was in my hand, and I set it to the side out of his reach. If he was still in his dream state, the last thing I wanted or needed was for him to take a hold of it and go to work on me. Sure, I had enough scars on my body, and a few more wouldn’t make a difference. But being cut hurt like a Bitch!

“There’s nothing to apologise for. You did nothing wrong. It was just a dream, a nightmare. It’s okay you are safe in the lab.” I moved to stand, my eyes on him as he started to ease himself back down from the fearful stance he’d curled up into.

“I’m fine, I—” What did I come here for? I couldn’t tell him that I wanted to check he was okay and sleeping. Raven Reyes was not the kind of girl who babysat and checked up on the sleeping. Rey’s was the girl who walked in on you and told you to get your arse up and working.

“— Coffee. Uhm. The guys made coffee, I just wanted to bring you a cup if you were still up. That’s all.” It was a lie, but I knew how it felt when somebody witnessed you in your dark place. Hells John had been there to witness mine in the past few days.

= John =

I couldn't blame her for taking the knife and setting it as far from me as she could. ‘Nothing to apologies for’ She said... I could have killed her! What the hell was I thinking? Did I really need the blade to fall asleep here?

My eyes scanned her, searching for any signs of damage I could have done. She looked okay... if a little stunned, or was it concerned? I started to get my breathing under control. "A dream." I muttered. "Just a dream." This island was messing with my head. My blue eyes fixed on hers again, why wasn't she just leaving... or afraid? Hell... Why wasn't she pissed off?

"I could have hurt you..." The words rushed out in one breath. "I'm sorry... I shouldn't have... I should’ve thought... I mean who was going to..." I couldn't finish a sentence because I couldn't finish a thought. Especially that last one. Who was going to try and hurt me here? Raven's answer would have been no one; but what was mine?

I wasn't so sure. I'd tried to kill Jasper before... though he was so delirious at the time he didn’t even know what was happening. I'd hung Bellamy... of course, no one cared that he had hung me first. I held a knife to Clarke's throat. They all said the past was past... but was it ever?

"Coffee." I repeated, starting to feel less like a terrified child and more like me again. I rubbed my palms on my thighs one more time. "Yeah, coffee sounds good, thanks." I paused and looked around the room. "Um, how long was I up here?" I asked trying to figure out if I had, at least, some sleep before this... Maybe I had, maybe once the shock and tension wore off, I'd feel the benefits of it.

= Raven =

His breathing was ragged. He was still lost in whatever world had taken a hold of him. His hands rubbing repeatedly on his thighs, and his eyes darted over me, before they came to find mine. I moved to step back again. The last thing I’d have wanted if I were in his place was to have somebody in my face as I tried to pull myself together. I wasn’t sure what to do. Do I stay here, do I turn and leave? What had John done for me? And the answer was a lot.

Once again, I took in the room and how I saw him when I came in. and the realisation hit me like the G force. He didn’t feel safe. He was a sleep when I got here sure, but it had taken the gun and the knife in his hand for him to be able to sleep in the first place.

“Could have means nothing. You didn’t do it and I am fine, that’s all that counts in the end.” I wasn’t sure I would have believed me if I was him, but it was the truth at this point. Nobody had seen it happen, I was unharmed, and he was awake and in the right mind now.

“John. Look. Stop apologising. Really it’s all okay for now.” I took a deep breath in and then looked toward the cup sat on the desk by the door.

“You were only out for an hour, maybe an hour and a half. Which is nothing. You need to get some more sleep.” I was going to say to him, ‘You sleep. I will sit guard over you’. But something told me that it wouldn’t go down well. So, I would need to change tactics on him.

“Everybody down there are busy, and I’m not allowed to do anything. So, I was going to sit in the next office to rest my leg.” I went to pick up the coffee and bring it back. I saw the chair beside the couch and went to sit in it. Setting the coffee on the side table, I started shrugging out of my jacket.

“No coffee for you, you need to get some more sleep. And I heard Luna say you snore when you drink coffee.” She didn’t say it, I was hoping to take his mind off the fact that I saw him the way I did, and that he could have hurt me.

I put my jacket to the side. Sitting myself down into the chair. “Your good at staying hushed when I need to think. So, here I will stay.” Taking my brace off I set it to the side of the chair and rubbed my leg. My eyes glanced over to him again.

“Well? don’t just sit there glaring at me. Go to bloody sleep Watcher.” In my mind I said. ‘I got you.’

= John =

I couldn’t wrap my head around how she was so calm about this… sure, maybe not angry when you knew someone was having a nightmare. But I had basically swung a knife at her and she was trying to comfort me about the situation? That made no sense.

I remember her state when she woke up in the lab. But she only injured herself; yes she struggled when I grabbed hold of her, but to free herself because she hadn’t fully to her surroundings yet, not to try to hurt me. Not that I was trying to hurt her, I wasn’t even trying to defend myself. Last I remember I was alone and tied up… The knife was just in my hand when I woke in a panic.

When she said it had only been about an hour and a half I groaned and dug my clenched hands into my eyes. The lingering exhaustion pressed in on me, confirming her words. So much for my theory… an hour or two of sleep would do the job some of the time. But I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept more than a few hours.

I was only vaguely aware of what she had said about coffee… but I picked enough of it to know she had rescinded her offer. The thought of coffee was suddenly making my stomach twist itself into knots. Anything that would take me further away from sleep… even the demon-filled sleep I was prone to; was better than this feeling.

Her next words perplexed me… Was she really going to sit here and watch me sleep? She hadn’t said that… but I was pretty good at reading between the lines. Honestly, right now I couldn’t disagree with her; we were on equal footing. We’d witnessed each other’s waking terror; what did it matter if she saw it again in another hour? Hell… I’d told her about it before she’d seen it, hadn’t I? I had almost forgotten. It was some futile attempt to make her feel better.

I sighed, not at her or at anything she had said, but if she was staying I needed to make sure she wasn’t going to end up my victim again. I lay the rifle flat and pushed it away with my foot, it slid across the floor with a scraping noise, stopping just short of the wall next to the door. It suddenly occurred to me that I should have pushed it the other way… If shit hit the fan it would likely come at us through that door and I would need to move towards it to get the gun. The notion was, of course, ridiculous. I flopped back against the couch and felt the hard lump of the handgun against the small of my back.

“Shit!” I muttered to myself. I hauled myself to my feet, pulled the gun from my waistband and walked over to the desk, setting it down on the table next to her. “You might want to hang onto that. Just in—“ I trailed off finishing the sentence with incomprehensible sounds. I made my way back to the couch, barely lifting my feet.

I lay back onto the couch resting my head on the cushions and curled my still booted feet up onto the other end.

“Raven?” My eyes were heavy already. “Have you ever died? In a dre—in a nightmare? What do you think happens to someone if they don’t wake up before they die?” I knew there was no way if you died in a dream you wouldn’t wake up, life wasn’t an old sci-fi movie. But that had to do something to your brain, right? Like dying and being resuscitated or something… That fucked people up sometimes.

= Raven =

While he shifted about, I leant back into the armchair, my head on the back of it and I closed my eyes. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy for him to have me here. Even if since we got to this island, he’d not left my side for long.

My first night in the mansion flashed before my closed eyes, it wasn’t as clear as my memories used to be. But I recalled the bedroom, with me connected to the ECG, and him at the foot of the bed trying to stay watch over me. This wasn’t payback per say, but it was the least I could have done for him.

I yawned and two tears trickled out of my closed eyes and down the side of my face and into my hair line past my ears. I wiped them away with the back of my hands, and I hear her voice. At the same time as something went across the floor. ‘Are you seeing this? It’s like he is going to war.’ It was #Becca’s voice shrilling in my ears.

I didn’t jerk forward, I just stayed where I was opening my eyes and letting them follow his actions. The gun now lay on the ground by the door, he lay back and then cursed. Standing he closed the gap between us, and he placed the hand gun beside me.

This. Witnessing these actions, seeing what it took for him to close his eyes made my chest tighten and close. Even now, here on the island, forget about me, but with #Luna, Emori and Abby here. He still was in fear when he closed his eyes? ‘I told you War.’ #Becca was stood by the gun on the ground, leaning down over it, looking closely. I wanted to tell her she didn’t understand what we had seen, what we had been through. Hells what monsters came to us in the dead of night.

“In case?” I asked but I didn’t expect him to answer it because I knew what he meant. ‘In case I come at you again.’ Which I knew was a possibility.

A memory from what felt like months ago, but it was only days ago of him rocking me and holding me in his arms on the floor close to him. Telling me that having nightmares was normal. His voice rang in my mind now.

‘After my first stay here, I almost crawled right into a campfire.’ That was what he had said. John told me that he too had the nightmares, but this was the first time I was witnessing them for myself.

I closed my eyes and rested my head back again when he finally curled up, and I noted that his boots were still on. It couldn’t have been comfortable for him. But if that was what it took.

I heard him say my name, his voice low. “Hmm?” I didn’t look at him, but I listened. Dreams? Nightmares? The line was so thin between the too. One you would wake up from smiling, and the other left you wishing for death. But did he want me to answer him? Or was it a Rhetorical question? His voice was heavy with the weight of sleep trying to pull him down.

“I’ve come close more times than I would like to remember John.” My own voice was low, and I tried to keep the fear of those nightmares away.

“Back in the 1900s to the 2000s it was said, that if you didn’t wake up from your dream before you died there was no coming back. But then there were several hundred cases where people had said that they did die, and then they woke up and life was fine.” I bit my bottom lip, still not looking at him as I thought.

“There were others who believed that to die in your dream symbolised inner changes. Some kind of a transformation or self-discovery. They saw it as a positive development that was happening within the person or their life. They said that the person who dreamt of their death were undergoing a transitional phase and were becoming more enlightened or even spiritual. So, some said dreaming of death is the end, and others said dreams of experiencing death usually meant that big changes were ahead. New beginnings and leaving the past behind. Those changes don’t necessarily imply a negative turn of events.” I knew I was rambling, because I myself hadn’t decided which of the two I believed in.

Now I tilted my head and opened my eyes, seeing him curled on the couch. “Is that what you saw? Were you dying John?” I wouldn’t push him to tell me. But I was willing to listen if he wanted.

= John =

I wasn’t sure if she was asking "In case?" or if she was just finishing the sentence I couldn’t.

My eyes were closing, and I strained to listen to what she was saying about dreams, that warmth that sleep brings started to wash over me. Easing out the tension in my shoulders as much as possible, for someone as tightly wound as me… at least when it came to the risky business of sleep.

Maybe that was the problem… maybe if I could stay asleep until I died things would change. That was a weird feeling. It went against my core being. Awake or asleep… I survived. To give in to death like that… My train of thought cut off.

Damn. That really would signify change. But could accepting death be a good thing? What if the change brought out the sociopath in me entirely?

What if it was him that died? Could I really get rid of that part of myself? What if he was the only thing that kept me alive? What if he was my survival instinct? There were too many thoughts in my head. I squeezed my eyes shut and pulled my knees up closer to my body.

Too many thoughts.

So. Very. Tired.

I made an affirmative sound; my eyes were still closed. The world around me felt fuzzy… I knew I must be dreaming. I could answer that… It was a dream. I would wake up and this would all be imagined.

“I was going to.” My voice was soft and mumbling. “I was going to die… slowly. And alone. I don’t want to die alone. My mother died alone.”

The rest of the world ceased to exist, and I remembered how I felt… not when I found her. When I heard Abby talking after I woke in the med-bay. I’d had to be sedated… or so I was told. Sixteen hours. Sixteen hours she was alone and cold on that floor. I despised her… but she was alone. I missed that hateful bitch.

= Raven =

Now I sat up. My eyes wide and burning at what I heard him saying. He was alone? He was alone and dying? With nobody with him? My chest started to tighten again, and I didn’t know when or how It happened, but I was holding onto it, my hand gathering the fabric of my shirt. Fighting that roar of pain that was building inside of me.

I didn’t know what this boy had to do with my life, if anything at all.. But in the times, I had been teetering on the edge of death, he had always somehow shown up. ‘I don't want to die alone.’ He had told me in the past, but it was I who was at the gates of death. He didn’t have to be there. He didn’t have to come back. That was just the first of many. And now?

Leaning to the side I grabbed my brace and put it back on. My thigh and leg pulsing from the throbbing pain as I clasped it together. Standing up trying to keep the sound of the chair as low as possible, pulling it across the office I moved it next to the couch. He was drifting to sleep now, I could see his eyelids closed and his knees pulled into him.

“You are not alone John, I can’t promise you that I will be there for you the day your eyes close forever. But for tonight. Sleep. I am here Watcher. I will watch over you.” My voice was soft and low, the pain was heard in the words as I spoke them. But knowing that he may not have heard them made it easier for me to say it.

I sat back in the chair, again, I wasn’t thinking about my actions until I saw my hand reaching out. Stopping as my hand hovered close to him. I was resigned to the idea now. I placed my hand on his head.

“You are not alone tonight.” Taking a deep slowing breath, I closed my eyes.

He wasn’t going to be alone. It was the least I could do for him after all he has done for me.

"Ai gada yo en, Swega kiln" ( I got you, I promise )

= John =

I dreamt of my mother, at least of the woman my mother used to be. I remembered how she cried when #Jackson told her they had exhausted the medical resources they were legally allowed to expend per patient. I already knew this; having heard Doc Griffin arguing with Kane earlier that day while my parents worked. Dying kid or not; there were no days off on the Ark; other than the mandatory rest day per week.

I wasn’t sad though… I knew how this ended. Though my medication had been stopped I was still on fluids and being fed the stuff the Alpha kids eat. They couldn’t let a minor dehydrate to death because he couldn’t lift his head enough to take a drink. But withholding medication was justifiable.

I didn’t remember too much about my last few weeks in the med bay. I slept most of the time; I didn’t even remember feeling horrible. I had gotten to a point where I was numb to the pain and fever. I accepted that I was going to die here.

I remembered how she cried entirely differently when she came to see me and my fever had broken in the night… Somehow my body had beaten the infection.

My mind skipped over the whole part in the middle about my Dad.

I still wasn’t so sure why she was happy I wasn’t going to die… when just weeks after I got home her hatred of me was clear. Then the dream shifted again. The moment the dropship door opened. Every time Bellamy gave me that approving look when I had done well… at least by his standards.

Meeting Emori.

The moment Raven woke up after Clarke cut the chip out of the back of her neck.

Abby’s Face in Arkadia when I handed her the meds for Flokru.

Raven thanking me on the beach on the island when I helped her run from the drones.

Raven and the statues near the mansion.

And then something weird I didn’t understand at all. Roses and Rabbits… and Raven again.

Nothing was clear, but the thing that stood out the most was… no running. My muscles started to beg to be move and be stretched out. I extended my legs until they met the other end of the couch. The dreams started slipping away but I didn’t try to cling to them… they didn’t make any sense. My eyes fluttered, taking in the room in small bursts until they adjusted to the new unfamiliar feeling of not burning or stinging.

I propped up on my elbow with one of those stereotypical waking up groans. My eyes flitted immediately to the form next to me. Raven. She had pulled her chair closer. Why? Had I been screaming again? I didn’t think so…. My dreams had drifted too far away to pinpoint them right now.

“Shit…” I muttered. “Was I dreaming again?”

= Raven =

I was on edge for a while after he had drifted off into the land of sleep again. His words were still on a loop in my mind. ‘I was going to die… slowly. And alone. I don’t want to die alone. My mother died alone.’ ‘𝙄 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙜𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙤 𝙙𝙞𝙚… 𝙨𝙡𝙤𝙬𝙡𝙮. 𝘼𝙣𝙙 𝙖𝙡𝙤𝙣𝙚. 𝙄 𝙙𝙤𝙣’𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙙𝙞𝙚 𝙖𝙡𝙤𝙣𝙚. 𝙈𝙮 𝙢𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙙𝙞𝙚𝙙 𝙖𝙡𝙤𝙣𝙚.’ Those words rang true on so many different levels, that I still had a feeling of closeness to it for me. He had done so much in the past days for others, to show us there was so much more to him than what our actions or lack of actions had turned him into. And Yes, I classed myself into that group of names too. I hadn’t expected much from John, I didn’t hold him to a higher standard. Maybe if I had, maybe if I had shown him that I was watching him, needing more from him, maybe, just maybe he wouldn’t have been lost from his people for so long?

“Hindsight is most definitely a bitch.” I whispered to myself.

My fingers moving softly in his hair. I wasn’t even sure I was doing it at the time. I watched over him, watched his body relaxing after a while with my hand on his head. I watched him whisper in his dreams, but I didn’t try to listen to him. That just felt like a betrayal for some reason.

I wasn’t sure how long had passed when the sound of footsteps coming up the metal stairs made me look back over my shoulder. #Monty stood with is hand on the glass door ready to push it open, the knock of the door on the gun John had slid across the ground cracked and I put my finger on my lips making the 𝙎𝙝𝙝.. sound.

‘Sorry. What is the gun doing down here?’ He picked it up and set it down on top of the desk by the side of the door. Keeping his voice down low as he brought the tablet in his hand closer.

“Don’t worry about that. What’s going on?” I reached out for the tablet from his hands. As he lent down by my side.

‘The drone had some code missing and scrambled in it. So, I did as you told me and reset it. There are a couple of wires that are burnt out too, I’m not sure if you want to fix those or tell me how to do it?’ My eyes were on the code scrolling up the screen.

“You did a good job on the code Monty.” My glance moved over to John’s sleeping figure. Biting down on my lip I handed the tablet back to him. “You take care of the wires, if you need me to give it a once over call me.” I told him thinking about it. “You know what, just don’t send it out. We are fine with the one in the air, fix the wiring, set it to charge up and then I’ll test it later before we let it out again.”

Once #Monty left, I slunk back into the chair. The murmuring had started from his lips again.

‘Flokru’ then he called out ‘Abby’, I reached out and placed my hand on his head again. And the words were softer, and I could swear he said ‘Rabbits’? I closed my own eyes and rested my head back. I didn’t sleep, but I drifted in and out looking at him and then closing my eyes again.

The movement under my hand, made my eyes flicker open. My lips stuck together, and my throat was dry. I blinked a few times before I saw him looking at me.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, how do you feel?”

= John =

When she spoke that was when I realized she had her hand resting in my head... I must have been dreaming if she was this close and trying to comfort me while I slept. I had noticed that she seemed to calm in her sleep when #Luna or I took her hand, or when #Luna stroked her hair. I'd done it a few times, but I always felt like I was invading her space, but she always seemed to relax. I didn't pull away from the unfamiliar sensation of her touch.

I stretched out my legs again and lay my head back down; now that I knew where I was; I might as well let myself wake up gently for a change. "Better." My voice was still thick with sleep, I cleared my throat. "A lot better.” I sighed with relief. I stretched my arms up over my head linking my fingers together and pushing them up towards the ceiling, until my knuckles popped. I was grasping for the pieces of my dreams that hadn't fully slipped away.

I knew I should say something... thank her for staying here, no matter what excuse she'd made up about resting her leg. But I had no idea how to say it. I looked up at her and those hazel eyes of hers caught my attention again. "I really needed that. I can't believe I went that long without sleeping."

I finally turned over onto my side, swung my legs over the couch and sat up. I eyed her curiously for a moment.

"Have you ever seen the rose garden in the grounds of the mansion?" I had no idea why it was on my mind. I hadn't been there since we'd arrived, but I had discovered it after I was let out of the bunker and was waiting to find some way off this island.

= Raven =

I slowly moved my hand away from his head as he started to relax and come to. I didn’t want him to feel like I was in his space. And with the realisation of where he’d woken up, the touch was no longer needed. Shifting back in my chair again I pulled my ponytail to the side, resting my head back. But I didn’t stop watching him.

The way he was moving to wake his body up, the click of his knuckles made me cringe a little. I’d always hated that sound, and the feel of my jaw when I heard it. I didn’t understand how people, well guys mostly did it.

“Good, that’s a good thing. You really need to take better care to get some rest. Down here without the daylight. We lose time and days without meaning to. You need to start listening to your body before it is at a stage of giving out on you.”

Leaning down I picked up the bottle of water and tossed it at him. “Think fast.” I smiled and then sat back and closed my eyes. Part of me thought I should get up and leave, give him time to come to, to wake up and to be by himself. And then there was the other part telling me that he’d not have just gotten up and left if it was the other way around.

It was slowly starting to occur to me. Things with us all here in the lab were changing. The FamJam were most definitely growing and changing for the better.

“Hmm?” His question brought me back to him in the room and I shook my head. “I don’t believe so. I’ve seen that pond, lake thing. And the line of statues.” I paused trying to work out if I had drifted away from the mansion itself. “I tend to stay close to the mansion. Are they alive?”

Roses. The definition of the flower came to me right away from the botany classes on the Ark.

“A rose was a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus Rosa, in the family Rosaceae, or the flower it bears. There were over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They formed a group of plants that could be erect shrubs, climbing, or trailing, with stems that are often armed with sharp prickles.” And I had to laugh. “Of all the things this head could have remembered over the time. Hells. This is useless information.”

= John =

I laughed, but she had a point. It’s not like I didn’t have people I could have asked to sit with her while she slept… it’s not like I couldn’t have slept while she slept. She was hooked up to machines after all… if something went wrong, they’d have alerted me. Then I remembered the way she launched herself out of the bed after her nightmare and winced. The idea that I might not have been there was… well, I couldn’t really describe it but; I didn’t like it. Even though I knew someone else would have been there, maybe someone that could have gotten to her faster.

“There was just a lot going on… I guess. I overestimated my limits.” I did not think fast at all. I almost managed to grab the bottle but only knocked it to the side and it landed on the couch next to me. I laughed. “One minute I wake up ready for war and the next I can’t catch a bottle of water.” I rolled my eyes at myself and picked up the bottle. I took a drink and the minute the liquid touched my tongue I realised how thirsty I was. I raised the bottle higher and drank half of it in one go.

I half-choked on a mouthful of water when she spouted her Wikipedia article. I laughed and wiped my mouth on the back of my sleeve. “Or you know… pretty flowers that smell good?” My eyebrows shot up and I fixed onto her hazel eyes “And you know you shouldn’t be doing that.” It was pretty clear in her voice when she was reciting information from A.L.I.E.s database. I didn’t even try to mask the concern in my voice anymore.

I noticed that the gun was not where it had been when I went to sleep. “Was there someone in here?” I was baffled; there was no way I slept through someone coming in here while I was sleeping.

= Raven =

Moving to sit up, I reached over to the other side of the chair and Picked up the brace. He was awake now, and the nightmares he’d lived in the night were gone. He was looking better in himself, and I could see from his blue eyes no longer ringed with the red that it had done him some good.

“I told you Watcher; this Island is turning us soft. But you were the one who disagreed with me. Sleeping in big comfy beds, hot running water. A personal Chef at our beckoned call.” I was looking at him and watching as he drank the water. “What did you expect was going to happen to us?” But then I pointed to the gun on the far table and then the knife beside it, so he didn’t think that I had stolen them away from him. “Well, at least some of us are getting a restful night’s sleep here one way or another. I just like my sleep to come in the form of a nap, and I like the bio beds more than the rest of you.”

Leaning over my legs I pulled my pants down and start to clasp the brace up. My gaze lifting over to him again, I gave him a small shrug of my shoulder. “Yes, Monty came in for some help a few hours back. Why?” I wasn’t sure what it was I was seeing on his face. But he must have known that the others would come and go. Even if I wished that Monty hadn’t. I didn’t want John to had been disturbed with the off chance he’d be woken up. But then again, Monty out of the rest of them was most likely the best too come up here to see me. I was sure the others would just bang the door open with a ‘I have arrived’ sign on their forehead. ( okay fine I knew this was a slight exaggeration on my part. But it would be funny. ) I shook my head free of those images.

Pushing my legs down and then pulling it up again, checking to see that the brace was in its rightful place and wouldn’t hurt me too much.

“Shouldn’t do what?” I started but I knew full well what he meant.

“It just happened sometimes. Like the statues in the garden of the Mansion. I blink and the information is just there for me to use.” Pulling my hair up in to a ponytail I smiled across at him.

“John Murphy, are you truly worried about me?” I had to tease him now that he had laughed a little.

= John =

I laughed, wiping my chin on my sleeve again. “Soft?” I shook my head. “No chance, Reyes. I’ll bounce back in no time, I always do.” We all did, always. We had no choice; since we were pulled from our cells on the Ark we jumped from one life-threatening situation to the next. Just like she did the second she started rebuilding her pod ship; one wrong move and she’d have been floated before she ever finished. Never mind actually surviving the drop, which was a miracle all on its own.

“You’ll sleep soon, Raven. Really sleep… not… well, unconsciousness. Or sedation.” I forced a dark laugh and glanced at the weapons on the table as she started clasping the brace to her leg. There was something in the way that she looked at me that made me wish I didn’t need to take them back. But, I did. I had to. I took another mouthful from the bottle, crunching the plastic a little in my hand and made my way to the table. I arched my back and felt the tension stretch out of my spine.

“It’s just not like me to wake up when…” I sighed and slipped the knife into my boot; pressing the tip of the blade firmly into the groove I made in the sole, to make sure I didn’t take a bad step and accidentally stab myself in the foot. “I’m normally on high alert; even when I’m asleep.”

I didn’t go for the big gun, but I shoved the handgun into the back of my waistband and sat back on the couch. I didn’t dignify her with an answer to her ‘Do what?’ question. She knew. “You’re making #Monty look bad. You can’t outshine him in everything; just let the guy have the plant geek title. You don’t really want it anyway.” I teased.

I shook my head again. “I think that ship has sailed, hasn’t it? Yeah, I am.” I swigged the last of the water and pressed my wrist to my lips for a second like I could unsay the words. “And I’m sorry again… about earlier. I really wasn’t trying to hurt you.”

= Raven =

Shifting back in the chair, I rested my chin on my hand. Watching him pull himself partly together again. The knife, the handgun, the rifle. Raising my eyebrow when his hand just hovered over the rifle and then he left it there. Was he starting to trust in the others a little now? Then that voice was there saying. ‘If the alarms were going off. The Rifle is the first thing he would go for.’ But who could blame him? It’s the first thing any of them would go towards in a moment of panic.

My lips curled up a little. “Did you just make a joke about my death bed? That’s a first. You and #Luna normally roll your eyes at me when I say something like. ‘I’ll sleep well when it’s my time.’ Or if I joke about death becoming my best friend.” Letting out a short burst of laughter. “You know what John; you should get a betting ring going. You may win enough to do something good with. You know supplies, rations etc.” I was sitting up now as the idea was coming into light. “I’m sure Jasper would be in on that deal too.”

For the people around me, there saw it as the end coming for me, but me? I saw it as inevitable. There was no stopping it. So, why not have a laugh about it?

I shook my head. “Monty is safe with the knowledge he holds and then some. I’ve shown him the archives here the Becca had as well as something about purifying farm thing with algae. If I didn’t know better, I’d have said he was way too enthusiastic about it all.” Tapping the side of my head. “It’s not going to get much use if I keep it all up here and not share it with all of you guys.”

I was stunned for a few moments looking at him. I’d never expected him to confirm that he was worried about me. What I had expected was some joke or retort about how I wished, ( which I really didn’t ). But still. I pushed myself up off the chair and stood as he went on to apologies to me again. Waving my hand.

“Hey, I pulled the trigger on you in the past, you don’t see me going on about it. Also, you were too far out, and coming from the wrong angle. Even if you got me, there wouldn’t have been much damage man. We’re even now. “

= John =

My eyes shot back to her when she asked if I had joked about her death bed, something ruptured inside of me. “What?” I gasped, horrified it had sounded like that. “No… Rey...” I clenched my teeth and swallowed whatever it was that was bubbling up in my chest, forcing myself to sound calmer. “No… I meant real sleep, a full night’s rest. Even a bloody nap that wasn’t plagued with nightmares… I wasn’t… that wasn’t what I meant.”

I couldn’t comprehend the rest of what she said. But I wasn’t going to make her feel bad for saying it. She was trying to cope with the countdown to her final moments too… Honestly, I’d probably be making those jokes if it was me with the proverbial sword hanging over my head. She knew no one here would make a bet on how much living she had left to do. I hoped.

I shook my head, now she was justifying the fact that I had almost stabbed her, by telling me what a bad job of it I would have done. I had to laugh, it was a dark laugh. “I’ve actually shot you… drugged you, kidnapped you and drugged you again. I’d rather not add stabbing to the list… Even if it’s just a nick. And I hurt you when I was trying to calm you down earlier…” I squinted and tilted my head. “Or yesterday… I don’t even know anymore.”

My chest burned a little, my head felt full and busy. I wasn’t sure what it was about these conversations with her. But she was getting far too much out of me. Whatever normally stopped me from sharing too much didn’t seem to work on her… or #Luna sometimes. I wasn’t really sure how I felt about it. But the loudest question in my head was pushing the rest of my thoughts to the back of my mind. Why could I sleep when she was here with me and woke up screaming when she wasn’t?

= Raven =

I froze in my spot again. Once again, a reaction from him that was unexpected. What was going on with him today? Or was this a build-up of the time we’d been spending together on this island? Whatever it was, it was clear that I was seeing him as a friend, in my eyes he was no different to Bells, or Clarke.

“Hey, hey—” I held my hands up to show him I came in peace. “—It was just a joke. John, I know.. You of all people. Well you and Luna. You both take this mess in my head far too seriously for me to even joke about it. case and point.” I pointed towards him and his reaction now.

“If looks could kill, I’m sure I’d be floated with the look you are giving me right now.” My cockiness was short lived at all he said, and I rubbed my hand over my face. He was back on this again?

Walking over to him, I placed my fingers under his chin and lifted it so that he could see me. And I meant really see me.

“I’m not sure what it will take for you to understand this John—” My hazel eyes moving to lock his baby blues in place. “—That list of things you are holding onto in your head, your heart, weighting it heavy on your soul? It’s not necessary. We both did a lot to one another in the past, and now my life is too short for you to hold on to all that. Here and now. John Murphy. I’m telling you. Raven Reyes is saying this of sound mind.. There is nothing in our past that I am holding onto. None of it matters to me. Not now, not last week. So please just let it go.”

I dropped my hand from his chin, taking a couple of steps back before I stopped and leant down again.

“But, let me make this clear to you too. If you ever Reaper Stick me again… I’ll cut your balls off. That I will promise you. Are we clear?” I raised my eyebrow, making sure he could see I wasn’t joking now.

= John =

I pinched the bridge of my nose, I knew I had reacted too strongly. But the idea of her thinking that I was talking about her death like it was a good thing, was unbearable. When she tilted my face to hers, confusion flooded through me. Why would she come closer to someone that just swung a knife at her... even if it wasn't intentional?

Her hazel eyes were locked on mine, I couldn't look away. I didn't want to look away.

"I know, Raven. But I've said the same thing about you pulling that trigger in the dropship..." I sighed. "But you're still carrying that around with you." I could have pointed out that she had brought that up first but, with the way she was looking at me I just couldn't. I caught her wrist when she dropped her hand and looked up at her. "I'm working on it, I swear. But... you have to do the same. Deal?"

It really wasn't that easy, the weight she was talking about... I don't think she had any idea how heavy it was. It wasn't just her I had wronged, even if it was possible for her to forgive me for what I had done to her -and I didn't think it was-, what about everyone else? I had taken Jasper hostage, then Bellamy and shot her while she tried to rescue him from my attempted hanging. And that wasn't even the worst thing I had done that day. How could I just let it go?

I dropped her hand and laughed at her comment about the Reaper stick. "Okay... next time I promise to let you choke on your own tongue, instead of trying to save your life." Of course, I didn't mean it... If something happened and I needed to sedate her again, I would. But I couldn't deny the fact that I was really hoping I wouldn't have to. I knew she really, really hated the grogginess when she woke up after that particular drug.

= Raven =

“What can I say? Call me a hypocrite, say I have double standards? Use that old saying, you know the one. ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ Whatever it is that makes you see that I may hold myself to a different standard, but that is what being an overachiever is all about.”

I was about to step away from him, when he took a hold of my hand and my eyes moved to the hold and then back to his eyes again. What was this all about? What was happening with him? I stepped back into him, looking down at his sleepy face. My eyes darting over his.

“Work harder and faster John. Time is running out. Don’t let my eyes close believing I am still a burden on your soul. I’m not sure I will be able to carry that weight into the next life or place. Where ever it is we end up.”

I wasn’t sure where that had come from. But I had to question was this selfish of me? Did I want him to forgive himself for him, or for me?

“If that’s what you need to let go. Sure. We can do it together. Deal.” It had been the easiest deal I’d ever made in my life. And for some reason, I didn’t feel hard done by, by agreeing to it with him.

When he dropped my hand, I took those steps back again, I was becoming more aware of being in his personal space the longer I stood there looking down at him.

“See, that’s not so hard is it?”

I knew he was being a wise arse with those comments. He’d not stand by and watch me choking. Hells #Luna would jump off a cliff to save me as I would her. But still.

“As long as we are clear. I warned you, and you heard it. Now, are you planning on going back to sleep. Or are you going to come down wash your face and make me something to eat?”

On que my stomach started to growl. “A girl could die of starvation in these parts here Watcher.”

= John =

I shook my head and dropped my eyes when she mentioned her double standards. But I knew that was how she saw things. She was dying… and all she cared about right now was the people she was leaving behind. She viewed her burdens as less than others’ because she wouldn’t have to carry them much longer.

“I know you’ve moved on Rey… But I did a lot of bad shit that day too. I guess it’s all just tied together in my head.” I pinch the bridge of my nose and screwed my eye shut for a second, then turned them back on her. “But it’s not on you. You don’t need to carry this… I heard you when you said…” Really she’d said she’d forgiven me, but for some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to say the words.

A strange feeling washed over me when she agreed to my deal, a soft smile turned up the corner of my mouth. It was like the releasing of tension in my chest, making it a little easier to breathe… even though I hadn’t realised the tightness that had existed there. My smile widened when she mentioned food, and my stomach growled on cue. “Food and coffee definitely sounds good to me. And a shower.” I laughed. “I’ll have to settle for cleaning up in the bathroom sink… But it’s a whole lot better than a river or a lake.”

I stood and headed for the door. I picked up the big gun but only so I could bring it back downstairs to keep it with the rest near the lifts. I held open the door for Raven. “Age before beauty.” I teased her and waved her out first. She was barely a year older than me, it made me smirk.

= Raven =

“—Forgiven you!” I finished off the sentence for him. Why was I so hard? “Why is it so hard for you to believe me when I say it?” I took a few more steps back, tugging at my shirt and then combing my fingers through my hair.

“I would kill for a shower and a change of clothes. I have to say we should start looking at the other levels of this place. We maybe sitting on a gold mine” tugging on my shirt again, it felt different. Keeping in mind that I was used to not changing for days. But being here on Becca’s Island I was now used to showering and washing every day. New clean clothes and a belly full of food that John would cook for us.

I stopped watching him pick up the gun from the table, and again found myself wishing he didn’t feel the need to carry that with him when he was sleeping. I followed him to the door.

“Don’t you mean Beauty before the Beast? I’m sure you do.” Passing him I tapped his cheek playfully. “See, I got you there little Beast.” I stepped out of the office into the main metal landing, the sounds of talking, carrying up to my ears, but I couldn’t make it all out. They were all busy below, I knew they would have had a lot to talk about and do while I was sat watch over John. But I didn’t regret my choice. After all, he’d sat watching over me time and time again.

“John?” I stopped and turned to look at him. My hazel eyes found his baby blues right away.

“You know that I’m not against you and Emori right? When it comes to the grounder? I just want us all not to become the animals the others had become. We all have been through hell and then some. We shouldn’t become like those who wronged us.”

= John =

She said those words so easily… How was that possible? I shook my head. “It’s not that I don’t believe you. I just…” I wanted to say I didn’t believe that I deserved it. But that wasn’t entirely true I knew I didn’t deserve it.

“I guess I just don’t understand how it’s possible.” I didn’t want to believe it was. If it was possible to forgive the people that tried to kill you then I killed those kids when there was a better path to walk… At the time there wasn’t… not in my head. Fuck… Everyone was right about me.

I was a sociopath.

That ball of pressure started to build up in my chest again.

“Yeah, we really need to take a proper look around… considering #Becca created the thing that destroyed the world I bet she has some pretty dangerous toys around here.” I instantly regretted the words and the tone I had said it in. I knew she admired Becca… That probably wasn’t a strong enough word, but idolized was too strong. Raven was somewhere between the two; closer to idolizing her than admiring her.

I shook myself from my thoughts when she tapped me on the cheek and followed her out of the room. I was sure I looked a mess right now… or I would have defended my undeniable good looks. My eyes found hers easily when she turned back to me. I pressed my mouth into a tight line.

“I know, Raven. I don’t like it either. But it has to be someone.” I locked my gaze on hers. “But I will not let it be Emori. If it comes down to it… I will fight to get her out of here.” I dropped my eyes and took a breath.

“But… we don’t have to agree on absolutely everything to be on the same side, right?”

= Raven =

I didn’t want to start a disagreement with him, not right now and not about the past. Why could I forgive so easily? It wasn’t easy that was for sure. A hell of a lot had happened to me, to all of us for me to reach this point. The determination that I was going to change myself. It was simple in my eyes now. Now that I could see my end coming, I realised that nothing could change the choices we made. The paths we picked and the mistakes we made. But, we could learn from them. Grow from them and make ourselves better in any way we could. If we continued to make the same mistakes repeatedly, without learning, without growing. Then what right did any of us have to survive?

“Don’t you start on Becca. You know I won’t defend A.L.I.E, but you know that Becca’s attentions were never what happened. She wanted to help others; make the world they live in a better place. She just underestimated her own creation. She was too talented for her times; she made the mistake all creators made back then. Becca believed only good could come from having A.I’s in world helping along side humans. And when she found out what her mistake was, it had been too late for her to stop it. And yet, here we stand because of her counter measures. So, Really John Murphy.. You can thank Becca for making it possible for your and my birth and life in a way.

“Emori?” I was confused, my eyes searching his face. “What the hells are you talking about?” I found my hand in my hair tugging at it a little. “I mean sure. Yeah, we don’t have to agree on everything to be fighting the same fights John. But what the hells do you mean by Emori being tested? Nobody is testing Emori, who told you that? The Nightblood, now if Abby feels like she has it down with out us needing to go into space, Great! If anybody can do it, Abby and Jax can. But there’s only one person here in this lab that should be tested and will be tested. Only one person.”

Turning away from him I took a few steps forward to bring me to the handrail, and I looked down over the main lab floor below us. People whom I called my family going about their time, all of them trying to do their part for the resolution we needed to find. And the grounder who I wasn’t sure about. The scared man who didn’t know what he’d walked into, or by mistake had shown up to a place where his past was coming to ask for pay back.

“I’m the only one here with a melting brain. The team can’t lose anybody, but I’m on the way out as it is.” My voice was low as the realisation hit me. I had to step up.

= John =

I held my hands up in surrender when she started to defend Becca. “Okay, okay… There’s no denying the woman was a genius. But clearly, she either overestimated her ability to build a self-aware A.I. and that underestimation of her creation cost billions of lives… And then went on to enslave thousands and murder hundreds a century later.”

I was puzzled by her declaration that I should thank Becca for making my life possible. I knew what she meant… but there was no way Raven would trade the lives of billions for the thousands that lived and died on the ark. The tens of thousands I could easily imagine died at the hands of the Mountain men in the name of saving their people, the children left to die in the wasteland because the radiation mangled their genetic code.

And honestly, after everything I went through even before we landed on this godforsaken planet… I wasn’t sure the idea of never being born was such a bad thing. My eyes were on the back of her head as I followed her down the staircase, the idea of her never being born though; that was… painful? Why?

I was glad when Emori’s name broke me from my thought. I let out a derisive snort. “C’mon Raven!” I shook my head and a sarcastic smirk slipped across my features. She was searching my expression for something. “We all know she’ll be next on the chopping block. When did human trials ever work the first time? They did medical research here, right? Let’s search the computers for a successful human trial.” I tried to keep my voice even I wasn’t mad at her… I was just afraid for my friend.

“One thing I always knew was that people would do anything to save THEIR people. The council did it when they dumped a load of kids down here and culled three hundred people… Lexa did it at the mountain; Clarke did it at the mountain… Bellamy did it when he slaughtered a sleeping army. And all of that was at the expense of the lives of others, its human nature. Emori isn’t safe here when this first test fails; she isn’t one of us… not to them. Unless Marcus convinces them to use him. If they come for her; I can’t promise people won’t get hurt if I have to get her out of here.”

I had to; she was only here because of me. I had convinced her to stay, At least I knew Raven would be safe with them and Luna was too valuable to them to risk.

= Raven =

I found myself rubbing my forehead, that spark of pain triggering the anger in me when I knew this was not a valid reason for it.

“Hell John! I’m not saying the murder of people was justified. I would hope that you knew me by now to know that I don’t.” My voice was getting louder and the anger could start to be heard as the words came from my lips.

“All I am saying is.. That some people a born to do great things, to move their generations forward. To build for the generations to come. You see all she created that killed the world, and I see that too. But all I am saying is, look at her… Look at all she created that did good for those to come? Because if you can’t see past her mistakes, then do I have the right to face death with all the bloody, murderous mistakes I have made in my insignificant life?”

And I froze. The realisation of what I was saying, the meaning behind the words dripping with anger. It wasn’t towards John not seeing the good in #Becca, it was towards myself and all that I had done to cause the death of people. Some innocent and others not, but all their blood was on my hands. I closed my eyes, one hand on the railing and the other rubbing my forehead. There was a sensation of something wet and sticky on my hands, I opened my eyes and lifted my hands up before me palms front and then back. And I gasped falling back into the railing.

Blood dripping from my fingers, coating them and down my hands. The warm, wet, sticky feeling as it trickled down my wrists and into the cuffs of my shirt. I was horrified, my lips parting with no sound coming out of them, trying to wipe them on the body of my clothes. I needed the blood to be gone. I closed my eyes tight and I wished it away. Pleading for my mind to please stop these games. I couldn’t do this anymore. I couldn’t fight this darkness inside of me anymore.

‘Reivon? Chit's skechi kom yu?’ ( Raven? What is wrong with you? ) When I dared to open my eyes again, I saw #Luna at the bottom of the steps looking back at me with her eyes full of concern.

“Ai laik ku” ( I am fine ) I replied, finding my voice once again. “Ething's ku” ( Everything’s okay ). I shook my head, evening my voice out the best I could with the deep breathing #Luna had shown me. But I could see she didn’t believe me.

I didn’t turn back to John, I just kept my eyes on the grounder, pulling myself back together. Looking at my hands and there was no blood to be found now.

“I wanted you to see that there is no Them or Us John. In this life of ours it’s all we were taught to do. Stations fighting and becoming rivals with other stations. We all thought we were better then the next. But down here, it all meant nothing. Oso Ogeda Yuj Ogeda (We Are All Stronger Together ). The grounder will be tested by the sounds of it, no matter what I say, I know I can’t stop it. But if I can’t stop him from being test subject one, then I can step up and become test subject two. You all have lives to live, I am the only one here who is on a timer that will go BOOM sooner rather than later.”

My eyes were on #Luna, who stood with her hand wrapped around the railing with her knuckles white as clouds, her eyes locked onto mine as each word I said started to fall into place in her mind.

‘Nou!’ ( No! ) is all she said.

= John =

I knew she would defend her. I watched her rubbing her forehead. I shouldn’t have said anything, I didn’t want to trigger her pain any more than it was now, and every time she sat in front of a workstation was bad enough.

I put my hand on her shoulder. “Raven… you never hurt anyone that wasn’t trying to kill you and your people. I mean literally, they were at our door with weapons and killing us. It’s nothing like what A.L.I.E. did.” I didn’t think I had much right to say us… I was gone before the grounder surrounded the dropship.

She was staring down at her hands. “Raven?” Something was happening… was she hallucinating again? Then #Luna came over and I was glad. I scanned the main lab for the seizure kit; I always left it in plain sight. It was still on the station next to the one that held the weapons. ‘There is no Themor Us John.’ She said… but that wasn’t true. Even here we were fragmented. There was #Luna who was too valuable to anyone to kill. Emori… the outsider, I at least, could call myself Skaikru but she couldn’t even really call herself Sangedakru; not that it would do her any good here. As much as Raven wanted that divide between us to disappear but, that wasn’t human nature.

My stomach lurched when she said she’d offer herself as a test subject. I staggered back a step and bumped into the stair’s railing, almost dropping the rifle in my hand. “No!” I blurted out at the same time as #Luna. “No! Raven… you can’t!” I caught myself before my voice rose because I wouldn’t be shouting at her, it was just to vent everything I was feeling right now. “That guy is a monster… I’m not saying he deserves to be a human lab rat but, if he was tried for his crimes by us or the grounders he’d be sentenced to death. If there’s anyone here that deserves to be thrown into that death machine it’s me… Not you?” That was not my way of volunteering. But I was hoping her hearing that, would make her see what it was like for us to hear her say that.

My stomach was still swirling and felt like I might actually throw up.

(Music: Walls – Walking on Cars )

= Raven =

I shifted from under his hold. He was talking rubbish now. “You? You are saying that you deserve to be microwaved alive? What good would that do?” I dismissed the notion before it could even sink in. I didn’t have it in me to really dissect the emotions that came to the surface with his words.

We all have done something in our past which would mean we didn’t have a leg to stand on if we were brought to trial. That grounder man was not the only guilty person in this lab. I took a few steps down and #Luna was blocking my way.

“If you would both just listen to me, and set your sentiments to the side. Let me go and talk to Abby, Marcus, Clarke and Bells. They will see that this is the only way. We don’t have time to mess about. One or two tests is all we can do. And they all have made their minds up about the Grounder. But Marcus? Or what John is saying and believing Emori is the next in line? Why? What good would that do? Me—”

I pointed to my chest and turned so that I could see John now and I lost my words for a moment. Seeing his face so pale, there was a look of horror in his blue eyes. Like he had seen the end of the world, and all the air had been pulled out from his lungs with the realisation that there was no going back.

Finding my voice again, I bit down on my lips. My frown deepening as I said the following. “I am already sentenced to death, so why are we risking the others? Why is Emori walking around this lab worried that we will betray her? Why are we thinking about testing anybody but the one person who is walking a thin line between life and death as it is? Why the Hells hadn’t I thought of this before? This isn’t even a plan, it’s the way the testing should go!”

My eyes darted from John to #Luna and then past her looking for the others to talk to, to get them on board with this idea because it was the right way.

= John =

“Hell no!!” I replied to her. “That was not me volunteering. That was me showing you how crazy it sounds!” She was trying to reason us into Them, I was trying so hard to do this part of the team thing. It wasn’t easy.

“If you knew how she lived Raven… you’d understand. She doesn’t feel safe anywhere. Feeling safe gets you killed.” It was true. I knew how Emori felt; it was how I lived too. I had gotten too comfortable, relying on Bellamy’s protection at the dropship camp and that ended with me, swinging by my neck from a tree.

Her eyes locked on mine, they were stinging from how wide they’d gone and the dry filtered air circulating in the room. “None of it matters… you’re sick. The stress alone could kill you before the radiation does. The results wouldn’t be reliable. You have that brain lesion thing from your seizure.”

I pointed across the lab to where the scan of her brain was rotating. I couldn’t make out the black spot on the image from here, but we all knew it was there. I was a little shocked I’d even considered that argument. Though trying to stop Raven from stressing out and overworking was becoming my life’s main goal.

I planted my hands-on Raven’s shoulders and locked eyes with her; giving her no choice but to look at me.

“Raven you cannot go to Abby with this… She’s barely holding on. Her daughter and boyfriend just offered themselves up as sacrificial lambs. If you do it she’ll go to pieces, she loves you like family. Clarke and Kane are martyr’s… who’s going to put the Doc first if they can’t? It’ll kill her. You can’t do this.”

= Raven =

I parted my lips and then froze. My eyes moved over to follow his and #Luna glance to the brain scan. I wished to hells that Abby and #Jackson would take that thing down. With each scan they had completed the black mass has grown. I was dying, my brain was backfiring. I didn’t need that thing up there as a reminder of the ticking time bomb in my head.

“I don’t have to know how she lived John; all I have to do for now is understand. And I understand how I am willing to step up and be there for her, for Luna, hells even for you. And you are a jack arse where as Luna and Emori aren’t. I get that it’s hard to trust, me of all people understands that part of humanity.” Wishing I knew where I was going with this, with a blink of my eyes I’d lost my train of thought. And then it hit me, him last night, sleeping with the gun, the knife. The nightmares...

“Are you saying that you don’t trust us? The team, the family that we are? Luna… Me? So all this time.. When you have been here helping to keep me alive, what was that all about? Cooking in the mansion for everybody, what was that all about?”

I rubbed my head, for some reason it pinched to hear him say that. ‘Feeling safe gets you killed.’ Was that how he truly felt?

‘Raven, are you okay?’ #Luna took a couple of steps up to stand closer to us. Even she was shocked into silence right now.

“I am fine, I’m just… Nothing. I’m fine.” I told her before John had his hands on my shoulders and pulled me around to face him.

My eyes locked onto his, and I was stunned into silence now myself. He did it. He played the Abby card. That woman had been more of a mother to me in the short time I’d known her than my own mother had been. She’d trusted me, she’d stood by me, she’d given me the one thing I wanted the most, and that was to make it to the ground. And now. with her mind following in my footsteps. “I need to—” I was lost for a few moments. I needed to find an answer for Abby. I may be past helping myself, but Abby, I needed to find a way to help her. And stepping into the microwave wasn’t going to help me or her.

= John =

"But that's you, Raven, that’s what you do. That's who you are; you protect people that deserve to be protected. That’s not how most people work, they protect themselves or they protect their people... at all costs. Emori will trust you... but it will take ti--" I stopped myself because I knew it was unlikely Raven would live long enough to see that. It stung more than it should... why was it so hard to accept this?

I wasn't expecting to be happy about it... but I wasn't expecting it to be this hard to come to terms with. Was it more guilt? I had rescued her from Arkadia and that is what led to her being EMPed. Which was what eventually led to this... maybe she'd have been better off if I left Arkadia with Emori when I had the chance. No. I squeezed my eyes shut. No. She was resisting ALIE, she wanted to be free, and she wanted her memories back. Right?

When she asked if I trusted her... and everyone else here; I froze. "It's not that simple Raven... Just because you trust the people around you doesn't mean you're safe, it doesn't mean they are safe. I trust you, and Luna and Emori... Maybe even Abby to a point. But it's complicated..." What could I say? I'm damaged. I haven't lived a moment without fear since my father died. I have no idea how to even start trusting someone 100%. Of course not, how could you tell that to someone whose life had literally been in your hands as many times as hers was in mine.

But there was no doubt in my mind that I trusted Raven. She never put on any airs; you got what you saw with her. And Luna... She had a way of catching you off guard and getting under your skin, there was a purity about her that just screamed 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙨𝙩𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙝𝙮. But neither of those were conscious decisions, it was just something that had become a reality before I knew it. Then there was Emori... She had earned it... and I had earned hers.

I waited for her to finish her sentence, but she didn't. A type of silent terror struck me, and in an instant I was ready to call out for Abby and #Jackson, to catch her if she fell or seized again. My eyes flickered to #Luna's; she was calm... prepared, but calm and I took a breath. The last thing Raven needed was the Doc poking and prodding at her right now.

"C'mon." I took one hand back and turned her gently to face back down the last few steps. "Let's see what we can scrounge up to eat around here, we can talk about it with full stomachs."

= Raven =

“Time.” I said it for him. “It will take Emori time to trust, and Time is the one thing that I don’t have.” I saw from the side of my eye how #Luna stepped back wincing at hearing me say it. But it was true. Not everyone could close their eyes and jump into a pit of fire on blind faith. Trust was something that needed to be developed over time.

“I didn’t know I was over simplifying the need to trust those who are standing by your side.” My voice was lower now as I spoke. Why was it so easy for me to believe and to close my eyes in this blind faith for all those I called family now.

Complicated. Now there was a word with so much meaning attached to it in so many different ways. There wasn’t one person I knew who couldn’t understand the meaning of this word, and be able to tell you a story or ten about how their world, their life and those they loved were Complicated .

I rubbed my head as I took the last few steps down to stand beside #Luna. She leant in, taking my face in her hands and smiled at me. ‘Oso yu don Disha raun meika’ ( We have this in hand ) She said turning to follow along with John and me.

“Food? You are thinking of food after all we have been talking about?” As I said the words it occurred to me, that I had been the one to tell him to come down here and get something to eat. “Dammit John, you are trying to distract me aren’t you?”

I followed behind him, with #Luna to my side.

‘Did somebody say food?’ Monty jumped up from my workstation, rushing to fall into step with us. ‘I could eat if there is going to be a meal on offer.’ He was smiling again and looked a lot happier than he had been last night.

“Why am I not shocked?” poking his shoulder as we walked towards the breakroom.

‘Like you would say no to anything John cooks.’ He teased me, and my eyes were back on John, even if I could have lied just to save face, I wasn’t going to do that. Not now, not after all I had said about trust and believing. It was something small in the gran scale of everything. But it was the principles of it all that mattered to me now.

“Yeah. So? Who doesn’t like to eat, and whatever he makes tastes okay.. good even. Why not make the most of it while I can?”

= John =

It felt like a fist had clamped down on my windpipe when she finished my sentence. This wasn't news but still... it stung but not nearly as much as her next words did. "No Raven... that's not--" Fuck! every time I opened my mouth lately things came out wrong.

"We all need to eat... and it's supposed to be my job to look out for you. This starts with basics... like eating?" I was glad of the subject change. I had no idea how to talk about trust, I didn't trust people... people didn't trust me. Not normally, how these three women came to the people I felt no doubt about was still beyond my comprehension.

I shook my head at #Monty, hoping that I had shaken off the intensity of the conversation and it wasn't showing on my face. "I wouldn't get your hopes up guys, I have no idea what I even have to work with here. The kitchen in the mansion... totally different from this place. Again, she twisted the conversation back to the limited time she had left and I saw #Luna flinch. #Monty took a little longer to make the connection and he dropped his eyes.

I walk past them and headed towards the break room. "C'mon guys. Let's see what we can scrounge up."

I made my way right to the coffee machine and pulled out the filter, tipping the last batch into the trash and set about refilling it and brewing a new pot. I had no idea how we survived on the Ark without coffee. Then I started looking through the supplies we had brought from the house to see what I could throw together.

My mind was still on the conversation with Raven on the stairs. She was talking about trust... I wondered how she could possibly count me among those people that she trusted and yet she had said time and time again that she did. After everything I did to her... and to these people. The ones she expected me to trust... the people I knew I needed to trust to survive but how? How could I after everything they'd done to me? How could they ever trust me in return?

My eyes moved to Raven. How did she do it?

= Raven =

I followed behind them all. The time upstairs had helped me more than I had expected it to. I didn’t want to be sat there with nothing to do but to think about the past, the now and where my path had taken me. And yet the down time, watching over the man I nicknamed #Watcher had been of some help. The headaches which would normally make it hard for me to keep a train of thought in focus, was nothing more than a dull thud in the back of my eye. My leg and hip weren’t screaming out for me to get off them and to rest. My body was listening to me when I asked for it to react to my needs and wants. So, yet again. John Murphy had ended up helping me when I was trying to be the one to help him.

‘Rey? Did you hare what I said?’ #Monty asked with a soft nudge of his elbow into my arm.

“Sorry?” I shook my head and turned my attention to him as we stepped into the breakroom. “What were you saying?” I asked.

‘The drone. I managed to fix the dark screen, I was flying it around the lab and the footage is clear as day. So, if you are happy. After food, we can set it free again?’ #Monty looked so proud of himself, but my eyes kept flickering back to John as he set to work on feeding us all. #Luna went to stand by him and I knew it was the coffee that had her attention. I could swear the woman was addicted to it.

“If you are content that the code is fixed and that the camera is fully functional once again. I am happy with you setting the drone free.” I told him, but my mind was on that key word that I hoped John believed in now. Trust.

Was this something he could come around too? To the basic need to make it in the bunker if the Nightblood didn’t work out. Could he manage to live underground with the rest of this family of ours without feeling like he was trapped? Those eighty-six days in the island bunker alone was something that could help him. But how that ended wasn’t how I wanted it to end the next time he was underground. And for that he had to feel a connection to the others, the sense of belonging.

When I looked back across towards him, I found his baby blue eyes looking right back. Raising my eyebrow, I flicked my head up in a question asking, ‘What’s up?’, without using words.

= John =

I barely paid attention to Raven and #Monty's conversation; I wasn't too worried. I knew fixing Drones was something Raven 1.0 could do in her sleep, she didn't need to use the information ALIE downloaded into her skull. But my ears perked up a little when I heard the word coding , but it seemed like that was resolved so; I didn't say anything about it.

My head was too full of the conversation with Raven. I rooted through the canned food; pulling out what I needed; I had no fresh meat, so it was vegetarian today. The break room wasn't even close to the kitchen in the mansion… honestly, I could probably do better with a fire and a frying pan, but luckily for me, people in the twenty-first century loved coming up with lazy ways to cook. I filled a plastic tub with a sticker on the side reading "Microwave rice steamer" and set it into the machine. While that cooked, I prepared a makeshift curry with tinned coconut milk, various spices and a tin of plum tomatoes and chickpeas; on the tiny electric hob sitting on the counter.

When Raven’s eyes met mine, she gave me a look that seemed to speak to me; words flooded the tip of my tongue, but none of them made it past that point.

I trust you, Raven, you know that don’t you? I have no idea why or how.. but I want to trust them too. I don’t want to spend what will be a short life waiting for the people around me to turn on me, but I don’t know how to be any other way.

I tore my eyes from hers but didn’t completely look away, I stirred the simmering pot absently as the smell started to fill the room. “I’m sorry that you think I don’t trust you, Raven. And everything else…” I sighed, my eye’s flitting the #Luna and #Monty. “I’m trying… I am.”

= Raven =

‘Wich na na der taim Yu gaf in em bilaik’ ( Trust will be there if you want it to be ) #Luna placed a hand on his shoulder as she spoke, then walked back over to sit herself down beside the table. But it was what his eyes were saying before his words followed which had me thinking.

Those blue eyes of his were full of so much more than he ever let on, but we ( #Luna, Abby, and I ) had been seeing glimpse past the armour he seemed to disappear behind.

The hays over my eyes had evaporated some time back now when it came to John Murphy, but then I found myself questioning if I was overthinking it.

‘I don’t know what you are making but it smells really good John.’ Monty had stood to go look over his shoulder.

There was more to it than what John was saying. His voice sent a rush of the unsaid through me. That spark of energy that flared up and turned into something dark flickered on, it was so unexpected that when I felt my jaw clenching, I knew I needed to get out of here. Something had registered without my knowing, without my mind clocking onto it. Was it the message in his eyes? Something was off that was for sure.

Pushing back from the table I stood up and moved past the counter top. Grabbing a protein bar as I walked out.

“Don’t be sorry John, and don’t just try. Make it happen one way or the other. If you can’t trust in the people. Trust in something that will ground you, keep you alive, and not make you walk alone in the long run.”

‘Reivon Choj op fou Yu gyon au” ( Raven eat before you go ) #Luna moved to get up and I held my hand out to stop her.

“You stay and eat. I’ve lost my appetite for some reason.” Rubbing my head with the back of my hand I stepped out of the breakroom to walk right into #Harper.

‘Hey. Something smells good in there.’ She looked over my shoulder.

“Yeah, John is cooking something up, go get yourself some.” Stepping to the side I let her pass as I stepped to the elevator. This was the only escape I could get with all those who watched over me in breakroom I could slip out to finally be alone.

‘You know you aren’t alone, I’m right here.’ #Becca stood looking up at the numbers as the elevator came down and the doors opened.

“How could I forget; you’re never too far away are you?” I hit the button to ground level and stepped back closing my eyes and resting my head on the cold metal walls. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I needed air. Real fresh air.

= John =

It was hard not to stiffen when #Luna put her hand on my shoulder, but I managed to quell the impulse. I knew she believed her words, but it didn't come that easily for me. These people had all turned on me before; with near deadly consequences for me... but then again, there were others here that could say the same about me.

Raven was giving me that look now, the one that was trying to decipher the words I’d said, from the ones I wanted to say. The ones I might have said if we were alone, it was so much easier being around her, there were very few things I felt I couldn't say to just her.

I looked back to the pot, turning heat down to let everything simmer while I took the rice out of the microwave and began dishing it into bowls and whatever we had on hand to eat out of. When I looked back; Raven was leaving. "Fuck!" I muttered almost silently to myself and Luna was at my side again.

‘Osir beda mafta em op?’ (Should we follow her?) #Luna asked. I shook my head, spooning the curry into the dishes on top of a bed of fluffy white rice.

“No… I said something stupid again.” I sighed, trying to figure out exactly what it was. I watched #Monty out of the corner of my eye; trying to pretend he hadn’t heard me. I appreciated the pretence. “We should… um, eat... and give her a minute. Then I’ll... eh.” I cleared my throat; my chest was feeling tight again. “I’ll save her some for when she’s back.”

#Harper made her way into the break room and stopped short at the door. ‘What’s going on with Rey—‘ She stopped short again, mid-sentence this time. ‘Are you okay, Murphy?’ She narrowed her keen eyes and studied me.

“Fine.” I switched off the burner and gathered a few of the bowls. “Everyone dig in, save a bowl for Raven… I’ll pass these out to the others.” I squeezed by #Harper who was still in the doorway and headed into the main lab to find the others and give them their food.

= Raven =

The doors to the elevators opened, as did my eyes. When I looked around #Becca was gone, allowing me to really be alone without somebody looking over my shoulder always. I stepped out and went to deactivate the drones, but they were already down. Turning my attention out to the main door, I stepped slowly to see who had come up.

Just out to the far edge of the opening I could see that Jasper and Emori sat speaking to one another. “Now, I never thought I would witness this.” I mumbled to myself, pushing the door open I slide out of the lab entrance. Keeping myself close to the towering arch of the lab I moved out of sight, and out of their way. I wasn’t in the mood to speak to anyone in this moment. My mind was spiralling out of control and I needed a way to think through it all.

The night sitting watch over the Watcher had given me the most time I’d had in so long to think, to try to understand and to react to all that was being done to me. The list was never ending in my mind.

1 A.L.I.E

2 #Becca

3 The call with Octavia knowing she is in Polis and asking for help.

4 The grounder who we had killed. So much blood on our hands, so much pain that had been felt by not just me, or us but by all. How were we any better than any of the people who had wronged us since we’d landed on this earth? So far if it wasn’t us destroying everything and everybody we came across, it was people who were constantly trying to take us down. “When is enough, 𝙀𝙣𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝?” I wanted to shout it out. I knew this man was evil, he did things to Emori and her brother that I could never understand. But even so, did that give us the right to become Judge, Jury, and Executioner?

5 The knowledge that Marcus had a daughter. “The Hells!” I stopped walking looking up at the greying sky. “A daughter! In Polis!” Closing my eyes, I tugged on my hair and then rubbed my face with my hands. Who was it? did she know about him? Was she there with Octavia? Would she help O with all that needed to be done?

6 The Slap Abby had given Marcus was enough to ring in my ears even now. And I wondered how much of that was her brain melt taking a hold and how much of it was the fact that she didn’t know about this secret.

7 There was John… John Murphy… His nightmares and the fact that the man was about to take me down because I’d come too close to him when he was scared during his nightmare. I didn’t hold it against him, not at all. He like most of us had been fighting his nightmares. I wasn’t somebody who could be calmed when I had lost myself to them, so there was no way I expected him to react in another way to the rest of us.

“The hells, they messed us up good and proper.” There was no sugar coating how messed up we all were.

= John =

I passed out the bowls of food and tried my best to avoid any conversations, all the while trying to think of an excuse to get out of eating with the others. There was this sudden sinking sensation in my stomach. But I knew slipping away somewhere by myself to eat wasn’t going to A: Be possible with #Luna’s eyes everywhere, and B: Help convince Raven that I was trying. I couldn’t explain why but I really needed her to know that I was. Maybe it was because I needed her to trust me… how could I expect her to trust someone who trusted no one else?

The conversation stalled in the break room the second I came back in. #Monty, realising how obvious they had made it that they were talking about me; swallowed the food in his mouth and started talking again.

‘Great grub, John.’ He said filling his fork again. ‘You really have a knack for this cooking business.’

I offered him a half-arsed smile and I took a seat at the table with my meal. Still not saying anything as I pushed the food around the bowl. It smelled really good… and yet the last thing I wanted to do right now was, eat.

I picked slowly at the food. As soon as #Harper was done she got up to wash the dishes and pots. They all seemed to linger a lot longer than necessary. I heaved a sigh, now I knew how Raven felt about being babysat. But eventually, someone in the main Lab called out #Monty’s name and he left. “#Luna you really should go and get some sleep before they try and take more blood or something.”

‘I think they are done with that now.’ #Luna answered. ‘I should see where Raven is and make sure – ‘

I cut her off. “No, you go get some sleep. I’ll bring her something to eat. I’m sure she needs a little time alone, now that she’s feeling better. She hasn’t had a moment of peace.” I offered a smile hoping it would assure her it was okay for her to rest.

‘Daun nou ste ridiyo. Em dig em au chilnes kom yu.’ (That’s not true. She finds peace with you.) #Luna said, causing #Harper to furrow her brow. I just sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose, twisting the spoon around in the food, saying I ate half of it would be an exaggeration.

‘Maybe we let Murphy have the same.’ #Harper said to #Luna. I lifted the bowl as Harper passed and held it out to her.

“Give this to #Jackson, will you? He’s always up for seconds.”

‘What about you?’ She asked.

“I’ve been eating like a king here for a lot longer than you guys. I’m fine. I just miss my real kitchen back at the mansion.” I forced a chuckle. She just nodded with a small pout and headed out… followed a few seconds later by #Luna.

= Raven =

The air all around the forest changed, I was looking out into the nothingness of the green moss and the browns of the trees. Something was different in me now, #Becca’s whispers weren’t as loud up here, as they were down there underground in the lab. But even so, there was this tug at my spirit, my soul that was telling me that I was giving up without the true Raven Reyes fight.

‘I never took you for a quitter Reyes. You know that Becca really isn’t as smart as she would have you believe.’ My head jerked up and then looking around I found him. My boss, my mentor, the man who’d taken me under his wing #JacapoSinclair sat on a fallen log, tapping his foot on a bolder on the ground before him.

“Sinclair? I’m not a quitter...” I walked towards him; my leg heavy as I was tired, I took a seat beside him.

‘Then why are you blindly following, when we all know that the Raven Reyes, I know would be blowing up a new path for herself. Not following one set out by a woman who died over a hundred years ago. No matter how much you admire her and wished you knew her.”

He had a point. I wasn’t one to follow the 𝙣𝙤𝙧𝙢 but wasn’t that exactly what I was doing now?

“It’s time to blow up the old plans and build our own path!” Standing up I looked down to him.

“I'm not sleeping on the job anymore... Let’s go and show them what I am truly made of!”

( Music – Katy Perry Fireworks )

#The100 #The100RP #OKTOrp #RavenReyes #Rey #Stargazer #JohnMurry #Murry #Watcher #AU #Stories #WrittingRP #Youtube

[myrish-lace-love]

"I can’t believe we’re actually doing this" - Jonsa

Jon was furious.

“Sansa! This is not a beginner class!”

Sansa had talked him into the “four weeks free” offer her dance studio had for salsa classes.

He’d agreed because his Wednesday nights were open, now that his LSAT class was over. He could “use the break” as his gorgeous, red-headed, completely platonic roommate kept reminding him.

Also, honestly, because the thought of being close to her made his head swim.

In the good way.

At least he thought it was the good way, until he’d stepped onto the “floating bamboo floor”, whatever that was. He heard the teacher rattle off a rapid-fire eight count and realized he was coming in at the middle of a four-week session, not the beginning.

And these people definitely knew how to dance.

The teacher was a stunner too - a lithe and striking man with muscles defined in places Jon didn’t even know existed.

Sansa nudged him. “See, the teacher’s as short as you!”

“You are not helping,” he hissed.

Read more below or on AO3

The teacher invited all of them to face the mirror, and Jon got a look at how out of place he seemed. T shirt, black jeans, sneakers with rubber soles the teacher had let slide for today. All the girls were in skirts and strappy heels and the guys were wearing dress shoes. Jon had heard some mention of “crepe soles” and knew he was in way over his head.

The teacher was joking that “as you all know, I had to learn how to dance to make up for the fact that I’m short and ugly.”

Jon got the sense it was a line he used a lot. All the girls in their skirts and high heels tittered. The guys did not.

Actually, you’re handsome as fuck, plus you can dance, asshole, Jon thought.

Sansa squeezed his hand discretely. “Stop glaring at the teacher,” she whispered.

Jon felt genuine fear when the combos started. Cross body leads with inside turns. Multiple spins into “C” dips, whatever those were. The class took it all in organically and couples started to move.

“Sansa, really, I can’t-”

“You can, Jon.”

“But I don’t how how to lead!”

“So I’ll back lead you,” she said with a shrug that made her cotton shirt drop off one shoulder.

Not helping my concentration here, Jon thought.

“What does that even mean, Sansa?”

“You get to pretend you have all the experience. You’ll look like you’re leading. But just pay attention to the tug of my hands.”

“Is this that rubber band stuff the teacher mentioned when the class started?”

“Jon.” Sansa had her Serious Face on. “Try it. Give me your hand.”

They finally found the right level of tension. They weren’t yanking each other across the room. They didn’t have what the instructor had called “noodle arms” either  - no connection at all.

“So you feel it?” Sansa looked at him shyly.

Her hands were warm and soft in his and he did feel it, that level of give that was enough for him to figure out what she was trying to get him to do.

He nodded. His mouth was dry.

“All right, when I step back you step forward. It’ll look like you’re leading me.”

The class thankfully started with a slow number and he got the basic rhythm down. He still had to count under his breath, but Sansa didn’t mind.

It might have been his first class, but it was Sansa’s second year of dancing, and she did, in fact, make him look like he knew what he was doing. So much so that some of the other girls were giving him approving glances.

She felt good, too, this close to him. Very good. He had to focus on counting to keep from getting wrapped up in how beautiful she was when she danced. She was flushed, with a few strands of hair clinging to her neck. Her blue eyes were a shade darker when she concentrated and-

“Ow! Pay attention, Jon!”

“Sorry,” he muttered. He’d managed to step on her foot but she gave him a decisive tug and soon they were into the flow of the dance again.

Sansa had told him she loved following, because it gave her a chance to let go of her “usual bossy self” and just feel the music. The guy did all the work of planning the next moves.  Jon felt bad that Sansa had to play both roles here - leading him while looking like she was following.

The teacher clapped his hands at the end of the song.

“Okay everybody rotate!”

Jon froze as people started to mill around.

“Sansa, there’s no way-”

“Let me handle it.”

The next guy came over for her, a tall, blond fellow who’d seemed adept at spinning his partners. He was ready to take Sansa’s hand.

“Oh I’m sorry,” Sansa said over her shoulder with a smile. “We’’re a dedicated couple, can you skip over us?” The guy didn’t look happy but he walked on.

Dedicated couple.

“What does that mean?” Jon asked cautiously.

Sansa shrugged. “Just that we’re a couple who goes out dancing together and we’re here to practice with each other.”

Jon wasn’t quite sure what to say to that.

“Are you complaining, Jon?” Sansa looked irritated.

“No, no,” he said, though he had a dozen questions running through his head. The music began again.

Before he knew it, the class was over and everyone was swigging from their water bottles. Sansa offered him hers and he took it gratefully.

When they stepped into the hallway, Sansa greeted dancers she knew who were on their way to other classes.

There sure was a lot of hugging and kissing on the cheek in the salsa community, Jon thought.

The two of them finally made it to the lobby. Jon sat on the red velvet couch next to Sansa while she changed her shoes. She knew what crepe soled shoes were, and owned a pair.

Apparently they came with their own bag. 

Jon felt a twinge of inadequacy as she gracefully slipped on her sandals. He still had the same old sneakers on.

“Why bother Sansa?” He blurted. “Why bother with this?”

She looked up at him. She seemed genuinely hurt.

“We don’t have to come back, Jon. I just thought you might like it.” She’d slung her bag over her shoulder and looked perfectly at home in the lobby of the studio.

“I mean, why bother with me? There’s a bunch of guys in there ready to dance with you, really dance with you, they’re naturals at this.”

Sansa busied herself with the strap of her sandal. Jon tried not to notice how long her legs were.

He failed. Miserably.

“Maybe I’d rather dance with you,” she said.

“Even if you have to lead me the whole time?”

“You got better at the end,” she murmured.

He had. He’d even spun her around a few times all on his own. He’d felt inordinately proud of himself.

“But why?”

Sansa pushed strands of hair away from her forehead.

“God, you’re stubborn. Fine. Because you’re frustrating and annoying and you bug the crap out of me sometimes-”

This is not headed where I thought it would go, Jon thought.

“But…” She bit her lip. That was even more distracting than her shirt slipping off her shoulder.

“I trust you, Jon. You won’t get grabby, the way these guys sometimes can. You won’t yank me too hard. It’s tough, to find a partner who respects you. Who isn’t just out to spin you around a zillion times and leave you dizzy.”

“I’m not sure I could spin you around that many times.”

Sansa smiled at him and he saw it, then, the softness in her eyes. He’d missed it before but there it was, plain as day. His stomach did a slow flip.

“I know,” she said. “Not yet. But you could, eventually. And you wouldn’t, because you’d stop first. Which is why I trust you. Like I said.”

She was going out on a limb for him here. And he probably owed her an answer.

“I’d come back, if you wanted, Sansa. I’d try.”

“You promise not to complain about me pretending we’re a dedicated couple?”

“No. I can live with that.” More than live with it, he thought. I like it. But he didn’t want to get ahead of himself. Or her.

Or them. If there was a them now?

“Jon, you’re overthinking. I can hear you from across the couch.” Sansa smirked at him.

“Hey, I’ve got an exam in a month. I’m entitled to overthink.”

Sansa hesitantly took his hand. “Can you…not overthink here? Maybe we could just dance?”

He swallowed. He wasn’t sure there was any “just” dancing with Sansa. At least not as far as he was concerned. But he wasn’t going to spoil the moment.

“Sure. Yeah. So this is every week?”

Sansa nodded. “Same time, same place. You might have to do a little catch up. It’ll be a good breather for you when you’re studying. We can take five minutes and dance in the kitchen. You know. For practice.”

Of course. Like completely platonic roommates do. “Right. Sounds like a plan.”

***

Three weeks later, he mustered up the courage to tuck her hair behind her ear, at the end of a “practice” session next to the dishwasher. As she leaned in to kiss him, he decided he was grateful, after all, to the short dance teacher with the bad jokes. Because if it weren’t for him, Sansa Stark wouldn’t be sighing into his mouth and holding onto his shoulders.

Then he forgot everything except for how soft her lips were and how he had the chance, again, to see her eyes turn that darker shade of blue. Turns out, he’d learned, the change meant she was happy, not just that she was concentrating.

And that was, by far, his favorite fact of the year.   

#jonsa #my fic #prompt fill #zyllah #jonsan fic