Chapter Text
At first he isn't needed in Medical, so once everyone in need of care has been moved inside and the procedures necessary to repair them move beyond his painfully basic understanding of it all, he goes. There are answers to give to those who had stayed behind. The sight of Abby being carried in on a stretcher had been enough to have the entire camp buzzing. It's more than a little jarring to leave the inside of the Ark, where he is nothing, and step outside, where half a dozen people flood right up to him. The others snap their eyes and ears in his direction. The questions come slowly at first, and they're generic. What happened? Is Abby okay? Where's my son? He takes a slow breath to steady himself, lifts his hands to quiet them, and sets to work answering what he can.
In the end, they get a lot more out of him than he expected. Their inquiries are mostly harmless and totally earned, and the answers are easy. They don't know to ask about the hundreds of people Clarke killed to save her mother. Many of them have no idea what Mount Weather was, what it could have been for them had the inhabitants not become so warped that coexistence was out of the question.
No, it wasn't, he counters himself, and suddenly his ability to answer their questions wanes. It's just as well; many of them have wandered off again to speculate on their own, his dry and militaristic view of the events not satisfactory to the general public. They want details he won't give, mostly because they are too fresh for him to relive them without much pain on his own behalf.
The drill, mostly.
He cannot stand to think about the drill.
The last of them goes and he watches her retreat. Her name escapes him now, but he remembers how he had begged the man making orders to let him convince his people - his people? - to donate bone marrow rather than forcibly extracting it. Marcus knows little more beyond common sense solutions to wounds, but he can only imagine that the procedure is painful and the side-effects unpleasant. There had been a dead girl on the table before Raven, before Abby... dead from blood loss? From the shock of pain? He couldn't say, and that lack of knowing made his stomach twist painfully. He had wanted to inflict that on his - ... these people in order to stop them from drilling into Abby's leg, and here he couldn't even remember one of their names.
The list of all of his shortcomings is getting long in his head, so he heads back into the remains of the Ark and heads for the chancellor's quarters, though technically that room is no longer his.
---
Perimeter defense. Shifts of guard duty. Examination of the map to plan missions to gather supplies. These are the things he can do, so he spends hours standing at the transparent board. There's a myriad of handwriting on it from those who are contributing. There are about four team leaders he's trusted to make the sketches themselves, those who have good enough spatial awareness to be accurate. The woods are a decent source of protein, though they've been warned against over-hunting. Marcus can sympathize with those who want to go out and drag in as much as they can - they're good with guns, and it's nice to do what one is good at - but the logic is sound. Eat the breeding pairs this season, no food next year.
A quick glance at Arkadia on the map brings a wry smile to his face. Most of that handwriting was at one point his. Now much of it is gone, and in place of what he had wanted to turn into watchtowers and lean-tos for the creation and storage of weapons, there were green squares. Gardens. She had planned a sustainable food option almost immediately; it was one of the first things she did. And everyone had rallied behind her, so he heard. Half a dozen of them were planted in that first day, with people forgoing water themselves to make sure the gardens had enough. (But she had a plan for water collection, too, and that was the second thing she did.) Part of him wished he had been in the camp to see it, but he had left quickly after turning over the pin to Abby.
There's a figure in the door, and his head turns quickly when he becomes aware of him. Bellamy has washed his face and changed his clothes, but he has not rested. There's a haunted look to him, a weight of exhaustion that Marcus knows well. For a moment they simply stand and look at one another, and then Bellamy is the one to speak.
"Clarke's gone," he informs him, and Marcus is scarcely able to keep his facial expression neutral as his stomach plummets through the floor. Confusion fills that hole in him, his mind reeling to know why his first reaction was not quite concern for the young woman but rather her mother.
"If you're looking for permission to go after her," Marcus begins, watching closely to analyze any response in Bellamy's face. After living a lie for sixteen years, though, he's stoic. Hiding a younger sister for almost two decades takes a good poker face, and Bellamy's is impenetrable. Marcus is impressed, but even as his heart warms a little he knows that what comes next is not what Bellamy wants to hear: "you don't have it."
They stand, silent. They look at each other. Again the neutrality in Bellamy's face makes it impossible for Marcus to guess at what he's thinking or feeling, but he has waited out more stubborn people in interrogations. He can wait -
"I wasn't looking for permission," Bellamy says simply, and Marcus's mouth dries. A response eludes him, though his instinct is to scold him. He blames it on their prior roles on the Ark, but the words that begin to course through his mind are not the words of superior officer. They are the words of a father. They carry weight, and love, and Marcus will not say them aloud.
"I was hoping you'd tell the Chancellor."