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The reason for bringing a member of the Guard on the mission to Becca’s island was to ensure that the party arrived at the lab in one piece. Miller likes to think he was in fact instrumental to that happening. But now that they have arrived, and the drones are disabled, and everyone is safely indoors, there isn’t a lot for him to do. Raven, Abby, Jackson, and Luna are doing their science thing. Murphy and Emori have each other (often, and sometimes loudly). And Miller…is left to himself, mostly to stew in morose thoughts about his boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend, or whatever Bryan is to him now.
After a couple of days, Jackson joins him in the spare bedroom he’s turned into his home base, because, he says, “Abby’s lost her mind, maybe literally, and Raven is even worse.”
That sounds dire, but Miller just arches an eyebrow and asks, “What does that mean?”
Jackson’s so stiff with coiled up tension that his fist could turn coal into a diamond, and as he takes a deep breath Miller knows he’s gearing himself up to explain it all, a disastrous vomit of words and feelings, all at once. But then he bites down, bites it all back, and just says, “Nothing.”
Miller doesn’t press because he knows what Jackson means. Whatever’s happening down in that lab, it's not a problem either of them can solve. They could talk it out, but talking won’t change anything. It'll just draw away energy until one or both of them is hollow and so it’s better, easier, safer, just to let it drop.
“Yeah,” he answers. “I got a lot of nothing going on myself.”
*
They start spending a lot of time lying next to each other in bed, because the spare bedroom isn’t very big and the bed’s the only real piece of furniture in it, besides a hardbacked chair and an empty chest of drawers. The space is soft and comfortable and intimate, and they find themselves asking each other the sort of probing, personal questions that should be barred to them, that should be far beyond the bit of friendship they’ve only started to carve out.
"I gotta know,” Miller says, as they lie side by side on their backs, staring up at the ceiling, “have you and Abby ever...?" He wiggles his eyebrows, which maybe isn't very mature, but this is Dr. Griffin he's talking about. He's not actually going to say the word "sex" in the same sentence as her name. But he’s too curious not to say anything at all. Everyone knows how close she and Jackson are, and he's sure he's not the only one who's wondered.
The idea is apparently shocking to Jackson himself, though. "What? No—gross, and no." He shakes his head and tries to explain, "She's my boss. My...mentor. Like a second mom. So no, that would never happen."
"Okay, okay."
They're both silent for a few moments, and it should be awkward, especially after that misstep, but somehow it's not that bad.
"Did you have someone else, then? On the Ark?" Miller asks.
“No. I mean—I used to. A while ago.” Jackson’s silent for a while, as if that were the end of the story. And maybe it is, and that would be okay. Then he starts talking again, faster this time, like he planned out these words in advance, lined them up in his mouth and now he’s just letting them go. “I was dating another apprentice. But we were both too busy, and we never put each other first. We broke up before the Ark came down. He was originally from Factory, so I think he—he was on that station when we launched."
Bellamy told Miller, after Mount Weather, about finding Factory smashed to bits on the rocks and only one survivor, so he knows what must have happened to Jackson's ex. All he can say is “I'm sorry.”
Jackson just shrugs. "I'm sorry, too," he says. "About Bryan."
Bryan isn't dead but Miller understands what he means: Jackson is sorry that they broke up; that they loved each other, but not enough; that the Earth hardened them both, broke and reshaped them so they didn't fit together anymore. He's sorry that theirs was a young love and that, after everything that’s happened to them both, neither of them is young anymore.
"Thanks," he mumbles. And then, "I don't want to talk about it."
"Me neither. I mean—"
“Yeah. Let’s not talk about any of it.”
The room is very quiet, no Earth sounds from outside, no sounds from the other rooms, either. Unnatural, almost. Disturbing.
Jackson starts to move, like he’s thinking of turning on his side, maybe, and looking at Miller face to face. But he doesn’t.
“Good idea,” he agrees.
*
Miller stops by the lab once, but its unnatural bright sheen and the pinched desperate look on Raven's face both turn his stomach, and he can't bring himself to stay. Jackson still needs to put in his hours, though, running his calculations and his simulations, being a voice of reason as the world crumbles, which is why Miller ends up wasting away hours in the spare bedroom, alone. He spends the time sleeping, mostly, because they're up late most nights watching the moonlight shine in like it used to on the Ark and talking, or not talking, according to some inner calculation, or some innate knowledge of each other, which Miller doesn't really want to name.
One late morning, he wakes up and tries to gauge from the angle of the sun what hour it is, and can't, and doesn't care. Jackson's sitting in the window seat with his knees up against his chest and his arms wrapped around his legs. He’s staring out at the slope of grass and ancient trees leading down to the water's edge.
Miller watches him for a long time. Wonders what he's thinking. The way he's sitting makes him look like a little boy, lost and alone, which would touch something in Miller's heart if he hadn't already seen too many real kids just pretending to be adults, dead before they made it past pretending, to still be moved by such moments of quiet fear.
Still. He does want to get up and put his hands on Jackson's shoulders and ask him what's on his mind. He does want to know. He does care. But he can't bring himself to move so he just closes his eyes, and only later, when he hears Jackson moving again, does he open them and pretend to just be waking.
*
At night they always start their discussions with "Are you awake?"
The first night, it seems like a stupid question. Jackson's voice murmuring low and uncertain next to him is almost a joke, because he's been moving restlessly and sighing and pulling at the blankets for a half an hour now—he's most obviously not asleep—and he doesn't recognize yet that this to become a refrain, or a code.
"Yeah."
"Can't sleep or don't want to sleep?"
"Both. You?"
He's lying with his back to Jackson but from the movements next to him, the quiet sounds of limbs rearranging, the shifting of weight against the bed, Miller can picture him moving from his side onto his back.
"It just seems like a waste of time, when we don't have that much left."
They've never talked before about the radiation. In this room, sometimes, it's like it doesn't even exist. Nothing that has ever happened exists, nor anything that ever will. Outside, the leaves are still because there's never any breeze. Inside, water flows from the taps and cupboards open without squeaking because nothing ever rusts.
"If you're going to think like that, you'll never sleep. And then tomorrow you won't be rested. You won't be able to do your work, you'll make a mistake, and we really will all be fucked."
He wanted the words to be a joke, didn't even sound mean when he spoke, but the long silence makes him wonder if maybe he should have just kept his mouth shut. Maybe the middle of the night is only for quiet voices and quiet thoughts.
But then he hears an unexpected snort and, "I'm so glad you're not putting any pressure on me," and he smiles, because it's all right.
"Wouldn't dream of it."
Miller lies still for a long time after that, daring himself to be quiet, counting his breaths so he won't be too tempted to speak. But he's picturing Jackson lying next to him, maybe watching him. Staring at the shadow outline of him on the other side of the bed. They could continue joking. Except too much time has passed for that, they’ve dug down too deep into the silence, and now they can only sleep, or pretend to sleep, or start to talk about something else, something quiet and serious that he won't want to remember in the morning. Those are the options left and the third is too real and too close, like the heat of another body next to him or the itch in his fingers, which want to grab on to fingers or arms or shoulders or hips.
"Do you believe we're going to find a solution?" Jackson asks, finally, and just like that the three options narrow down to one and Miller takes in a sharp breath and closes his eyes tight and wills himself somewhere else.
But answers anyway.
"Yes."
"Really?"
"Yes."
Maybe that's enough. Maybe his belief, which needs no explanation, which needs no defense, such is its strength, is enough.
"I want to believe it," Jackson answers.
A pause, the space of two careful breaths, follows.
Then Miller half-jerks to the side like he's going to turn around, but he doesn't, because he feels the mattress depress again and hears the sounds of Jackson's body turning, too, away from him this time. He feels the blanket they share being pulled up. And he knows that Jackson's curled in on himself with the blanket right up around his shoulders and his back to Miller, and he knows they aren't going to talk anymore, tonight.
*
Twenty seconds into their staring contest, Miller wishes he'd argued for an arm-wrestling match instead, because he's never lost a contest of strength yet. He's pretty sure he's going to lose this. The rules are no blinking and no laughing and no looking away. It sounds simple but he can't stand it, the burn at the edge of his eyes, the utterly straight face Jackson is making as he stares, matching Miller straight gaze for straight gaze.
Jackson's lying on his back and Miller's next to him, propped up on one elbow, looking down. The whole world has narrowed down to Jackson's eyes, which are brown with flecks of gold; and his eyebrows, how the right one arches up just a little more than the left; and his cheekbones, and the hollow beneath his eyes, and his nose. From this distance, Miller can make out each eyelash. He stares at them and knows he won’t last long. He hates the idea of blinking, not because it means losing, but because then their game, their moment’s distraction, will be over and he’ll have to sit up and look away, and he’s not sure when he’ll next get the chance to watch the afternoon shadows play over Jackson’s skin.
He needs to break. He needs distance. But he wants—
"You're cheating."
The corners of Jackson's lips are starting to twitch.
"You're cheating," Miller counters. "You're smiling."
"You're looking at my mouth. Eyes only. That's the rule."
"No smiling, that's the rule."
It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter; they're both grinning. They’re both staring to laugh a little, that type of laughter that bubbles up when you’re trying your hardest just to keep it down.
If he were younger, and this was the Ark, and they were just out of class, in Miller's quarters with his dad off on patrol and on his narrow one-person-wide bed, and every bit of closeness with another boy was still enough to set his heart off like a racehorse with amorphous adolescent desire and deep stomach-rattling nerves, he might find some excuse to poke at Jackson's side or pin his wrists, might try to turn this into some overwrought bit of wrestling, like boys can get away with, like he used to get away with all the time. But this is different. He’s lived through that; he’s felt that way. This is something else.
So he just looks down and smiles and Jackson looks up at him and smiles, for so long that the expression fades from each of their faces and then they're just staring, as intently as if they were stuck in their contest still. Except that one or the other will blink, every now and again. Each waiting for the other to really break, this time, in a way that counts.
*
Miller is not afraid. He's never been afraid of anything. He wasn't afraid of kissing Bryan outside the Alpha Station door, for the first time, ever in his life, and he wasn't afraid of the Sky Box, and he wasn't afraid of going to Earth. He wasn't cowed by the Grounders or the Mountain Men. And he won't be broken by heartache either, or beaten low by radiation, by this last betrayal of the Earth herself.
He survives and he sheds the past like an old skin, and he moves on.
*
Jackson's been quiet all evening, which is how Miller knows it was a bad day, a set-back day, but he doesn't ask for the details. They don't talk about the lab in here. Except for that one night, they don't talk about the future either.
Miller sits on the bed, hunched over his knees. He rubs his palms together, slowly, back and forth, and listens to the paper-thin sound of skin on skin. Jackson's standing by the window, shoulders square and arms crossed and his back to the room, watching the sun sink lower and lower toward the ground. Another day ending.
"If this really is the end," he says quietly, and then fast, before Miller can even open his mouth, "and don't say you know it's not, I just want to ask you this. If this is the end, what do you want to be doing, in your very last moments?"
"You're assuming there will be some sort of choice, besides just 'dying painfully'?"
"If you could choose. Anything at all."
It doesn't seem like it should be a hard question, but it is. He stops the movements of his hands and just stares down at them, where palm touches palm, where fingertip touches fingertip. Like he’s staring down the line of his life as it stretches on, no longer into the far distance, but toward some fixed and immovable point beyond which is nothing at all. He doesn't answer for a long while, and Jackson doesn't ask him again. Still the question hangs in the air, waiting for its resolution with the patience of an eternity they don't have.
"I'd be fucking," Miller says, at last.
Jackson glances at him over his shoulder. He looks like he's about to argue, annoyance starting to shade across his features—like he thinks Miller isn't taking this seriously, except really he's serious as death itself.
When Jackson sees the unfiltered, fearless honesty in his face, he turns away again.
"Really?"
"Yeah. The way sex makes me feel, that’s how I’d want to feel at the end. That's how I'd want to go out."
"You just want to feel good? That’s all?” His tone is so neutral, Miller knows he's judging, or trying to hide his disappointment, like he was expecting something deep but he shouldn’t have been. This is all he should have counted on, a shallow answer from a prisoner, a shooter, a guard. “Through some mindless animal fucking?”
"No. It's not mindless. It's—beyond the mind." He waits, licking his lips to gather the words there, then holding them steady in the pocket of his mouth until he knows they've formed just like he wants them to. "And it's not animal. It's human. It’s…it’s knowing you’re as close as you can possibly be, like you’ve reached that peak, you know? And it should be terrifying to be that exposed and raw and honest with him—” He’s never honest. He never lies but he’s never honest. Not with most people. His voice cracks up but he pretends that it didn’t. “But it’s—not. It feels right. Somehow. Being connected to someone else. So that amazement overwhelms you." He pauses. His mouth is dry; he swallows and runs his tongue across his lips again but it does no good. "It’s the most alive I’ve ever been.”
The words feel inadequate and shallow, mere syllables stretching to give form to memories of such intensity they shiver like ghosts along his skin. He stares at Jackson and wonders if he feels it, too. An empty ache in his chest like longing and regret.
“I’ve wasted so much time,” he continues, his voice lower now, like this is the real secret he’s been trying to share all along. “I’ve wasted so much time just waiting.”
“You were hopeful.”
“I’m just stubborn.”
Jackson shoves his hands in his pockets and hunches his shoulders up to his ears. Miller can almost hear the words he starts to say, but cannot form. The silence stretches on until what's left is, “When I asked you—it’s not that I’ve given up.”
I should hope not, Miller thinks, but out loud, he just says, “I know.”
*
Some mornings he patrols the perimeter, just to feel like he has something to do. But the drones do not return, nothing moves behind the tree line, and the waves lap up against the shore with a hypnotic regularity that makes even Miller, forever on his guard, want to sit right at the edge of the grass and stare out at them. Slowly losing all sense of time itself.
He expects that when he returns to the guest bedroom, Jackson will be there. Waiting, and ready to say he’s tired of waiting. But the room is empty so Miller only lies down on his side of the bed and looks up at the ceiling. He tries not to think about how long he spent, last night, listening to Jackson’s breathing and wondering why he never turned his question back at him.
When the door slams open with no warning, only a clattering of tripped up footsteps rushing down the hall, a sound he did not even register above the hum of his own silence, he’s startled. Of course he’s startled. He sits up and swings his legs over the side of the bed but before he can say a word or even make a sound of surprise, Jackson’s pulled him up to his feet.
This is new. They don’t do this. Miller has memorized the shape of Jackson’s upper lip and heard the thoughts that keep him awake at night but he’s never felt Jackson’s hands gripping his arms or seen him smile, bright and excited, this close up. He’s never seen him smile like this before at all.
“I take it you have good news—?” he asks, with a slight rise of his eyebrows, pretending he’s not confused and like his palms aren’t beginning to sweat.
Jackson opens his mouth to answer and again Miller finds himself waiting for a cascade of words to come. And again they don’t. Instead Jackson’s hand grabs him by the back of the neck and yanks him forward without any grace at all, before he can take a breath, before he can prepare himself to kiss back. Still he does. They crash together, lips and teeth and then tongue, breathless, open-mouthed, fingers getting caught in each other’s clothes and feet almost tripping over each other as they pull and pull back, grabbing for each other and for balance and because they do not dare to let go.
When they pull away, at last, breathing hard, Miller lets his forehead rest against Jackson’s and his own eyes close, just for a moment.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said," Jackson murmurs. "About your last moments.”
Miller blinks his eyes open again. His fingers are tangled up in the fabric of Jackson’s shirt. “Is this you telling me that we’re all going to die?”
“No.” He shakes his head slowly. The tremors in his voice sound like the beginning of giddy, delirious tears. “I’m telling you we’re going to live.”