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"I remember everything."
Life and loss had taught Abby an awful lesson: the human heart was capable of breaking without a sound.
When she was younger and just beginning her internship in medical, a woman had come into the Ark’s medical bay complaining of chest pains.
“My heart is broken,” the woman had insisted.
Abby had scoffed at her - what a ridiculous thing to say - but her mentor had taken the gentler approach.
“I’m sure it feels that way,” her mentor had said. “Certainly all the great love songs and poems want you to believe that, but I’m going to tell you a secret: the heart is a muscle. Muscles don’t break. They bruise, and bend, and ache, but even that goes away eventually.”
Abby had lived long enough now to learn, over and over again, that her mentor had been wrong.
Hearts didn’t just break, they shattered - and they were capable of doing so in perfect, haunting silence.
Piece by piece, Abby’s heart had been floated, and then rocketed to Earth, and now … now it had not only been crucified, but it had been crucified by her own hand.
Hands that had delivered babies, and set broken bones, and stitched wounds - hands that had spent decades healing had been turned into weapons, and those same hands now shook at the very idea of touching another living being.
She had led her people straight into the jaws of hell. She had done unthinkable harm. In the face of it all, Abby’s decimated heart was nothing.
And yet, her broken heart was the heaviest thing Abby Griffin had ever carried.
Maybe, she reasoned, it wasn’t her heart that was broken at all; maybe it was her.
Her reverie was broken when someone knocked on her door. Abby stared at it and considered not answering.
“Abby.”
Marcus.
She didn’t move from her spot on the bed.
“Open the door, Abby.”
“Please, Abby,” Raven added.
Abby’s surprise and concern motivated her to get off the bed. She was no help to anyone now, and her hands trembled when she tried, but that instinct - to stop the pain, to make it better, to heal - would not be silenced.
When she opened the door it was to a whole array of faces. Marcus was the closest to her, but Raven was there, and Jackson, and Jasper, and Monty …
“What’s wrong?” her voice cracked on the first word, whether from fear of strain she wasn’t sure.
Jackson broke free from the group and grabbed Abby up into a fierce hug. She gasped a little, stunned, and then hugged him back.
“You saved my life.”
She furrowed her brow. “What?”
“You saved my life, Abby. When my mom died I was so angry, and so lost. I didn’t know what to do. And then you were there. You gave me direction. You gave me hope that things could be good again.”
When Jackson released her and stepped back, there were tears in Abby’s eyes.
“When I was eight,” Monty started, “I broke my arm. Well, Jasper broke my arm-”
“Hey! You’re the one that took the dare, man, I told you you’d hurt yourself.”
“- and my mom brought me into medical,” Monty continued. “I was in so much pain and I wouldn’t stop crying, and my mom …” the word came out so thick that he had to swallow before going on, “my mom didn’t know whether to yell at me or cry.”
Abby cleared her throat and nodded. “I remember.”
“You talked to me the whole time. Told me what all of the instruments were, and how you were going to fix my arm, and that everything was going to be okay. You were so calm. You told me that being reckless wasn’t the same as being brave. That’s the only bone I’ve ever broken.”
Jasper rubbed a hand through his hair as he spoke. “I know that I’ve been awful lately, but even at my worst, even when I was lashing out at anyone and everyone I could see, you were still looking out for me. I guess I just wanted to say thanks for not giving up on me.”
Abby swiped uselessly at the tears that were tracking slowly down her cheeks.
Raven stepped forward and grasped one of Abby’s hands with her one good one. Her eyes were shining, too.
“When I found Clarke, I told her that I had never seen anyone love someone the way you loved her. I was so jealous. I wanted to be loved that way, too. And then you gave up everything to save my life. I know what that cost you, Abby, and I won’t let that price get any higher. ALIE took so much from us. Don’t give her anything else, okay? Don’t let her win.”
Raven hugged her, and Abby closed her eyes and cried.
When the kids had all gone and only Marcus remained, strong and silent in the doorway, Abby turned to him.
“What was that?”
He considered for a moment. “Let’s call it hope.”
Her face crumpled as a fresh wave of sobs drove her into his arms. Marcus caught her easily, and for a long time there was nothing beyond the two of them as Abby fell apart in his embrace.
When she’d finally regained control of herself enough to be aware of her surroundings again, the first sensation that she noticed was the comforting brush of Marcus’s hand as it passed over her back in circles. She could feel his fingertips through her shirt, but his palms were nonexistent under the bulk of the bandages that hid them.
“Stop it,” she chided dryly. “You’ll rub your wounds raw.” She turned her head so that her cheek was pressed over his heartbeat.
“No I won’t,” he countered, but his hand stopped moving.
“I remember everything.” The truth was a knife in her side, a pestle that ground against the remains of her aching heart. “I remember everything: what happened, what I did …”
Marcus sighed. “You took the chip to save the life of someone you loved, Abby. ALIE knew that you wouldn’t let Raven die. She used your heart against you. Everything that happened after that … that wasn’t your fault.”
“I don’t know how to do this, Marcus. I feel sick, like my heart is broken - like everything I’ve done has been for nothing. I swore to do no harm, and then I drove nails through your hands.”
He was quiet for several minutes. Then, with infinite compassion and love, Marcus said, “We’ll do it the only way we can: together.”
Later, when they lay naked and content and safe in each other’s arms, Marcus brushed his fingers through the silk cloud of Abby’s hair. She sighed against his chest.
“If it had been you,” he told her softly, “if it had been your life on the line, I would have taken the chip.”
She said, “I love you, too, Marcus.”
When she did fall asleep, Abby dreamt that she was back in the medical bay on the Ark. Her mentor smiled at her from where he sat on a rolling stool.
“Muscles don’t break,” he said. “They only bruise, and bend, and ache.”