Defining Gravity - Abby/Raven (The 100) - Part 1: Chapter 3
Title: Defining Gravity
Fandom: The 100
Pairing: Abby/Raven
Spoilers: Up until the end of Season 2
Rating: M
Disclaimer: The bits from the show are not mine. The *feelings* and extra bits are...
Chapters 1 & 2
Chapter Three - Inertia
Raven tried to convince herself that Abby was not ignoring her but while they were often in the same room there was no hint of the friendship she thought reaffirmed the night Abby found Clarke's note.
The next time she found herself alone with Abby was in a tent, escaping from the acid fog beneath Mount Weather. As she tinkered with the radio Abby watched her - calling in desperation to Clarke through the walkies although they both knew they would not work this close to Mount Weather. It was like she needed something to focus on, as if she was using her concern for Clarke as a shield.
Her comments about not understanding signal encryption also fell short of sensible for someone with a techie husband and a pretty formidable brain, as if she was distancing herself by putting on a show of being old. Yet in the smile that followed Raven's success clearing the channel there was a glimmer of the Abby she knew. But it quickly vanished as the Chancellor saw the decision she had to make - destroy the signal blocking communication with the hope of finding other Arc survivors or have the ability to listen to the enemy and gain an edge over saving those they knew were trapped.
"I know what Clarke would do," Raven remarked, trying to draw her out, while abstractly referencing the conversation they had about Clarke being an adult whose decisions were just as valid.
Abby told the guard to stand down but made no other remark. It was not until she was telling Clarke about being able to listen in to Mount Weather - stealing complicit glances at Raven - that Raven knew Abby had heard her that night. And yet clearly something had changed between them. She wracked her brain for an explanation but could not figure out why Abby had become so variable.
* *
Raven paced the holding cell, hating the fact that her actions had her in here instead of out out there protecting Finn from being handed over to the Grounders as punishment for the deaths in TonDC.
"Pacing isn't going to help," Jaha commented, seated on the floor by the door.
"Well it helps me," Raven bit back with more force than she had intended.
"Suit yourself, but you may be here for a while," Jaha pointed out.
Raven's instinctual response was that Abby would get her out and while she hoped that was true she could no longer be certain of anything where Abby was concerned.
She tried to sit down but found that she was unable to sit still and had gone back to pacing when Abby finally came through the holding cell doors.
"Abby, let me out of here, please. It was stupid, I'm sorry," she said in a rush, knowing she was begging but she was beyond caring.
"No, I don't want to hear it," Abby's voice was stern in a way that was rarely directed at her. It was her Chancellor persona to a T and Raven fought to find her friend in those eyes.
"He was ready to throw Finn out of the gate," Raven pointed out.
"And you think I would let that happen?" Abby asked pointedly. And for a moment she was there - the Abby she knew. The Abby she missed.
Raven remained silent for a moment. How could she say that while she trusted Abby, The Chancellor made her suspicious? "I don't know," she responded.
Abby stared her down, her eyebrows raised.
Raven avoided her gaze, unable to face the searching of this person who was both friend and possible enemy.
"No," she finally admitted, staring at the floor.
"The only way we are going to make it through this is if we trust each other," Abby counselled and Raven's confusion bubbled to the surface. She wanted to trust her but she could not. Not yet.
"I'm trying," she responded, a pained expression crossing her face.
"She's free to go," Abby called to the guards without taking her eyes off Raven. "You do anything like that again you will be back here and you will stay here. Do you understand me?" she reminded in her authoritarian voice.
Raven could only nod as she exited hastily.
* *
Raven and Bellamy stood outside the meeting room door, waiting. They knew Kane was inside, speaking to Abby and Jaha about Finn and the impending Grounder attack.
Abby came out first and Raven and Bellamy plied her with questions but she refused to answer anything directly. Surely if he was safe she would say something other than 'we're all trying to find a way out of this.'?
"They're going to give him to the Grounders," Bellamy stated when Abby had pushed her way past them and, although Raven did not want to believe it, that did seem a real possibility. As much as she wanted to trust Abby she knew that if she was wrong it would mean Finn's death. She could not let herself be wrong.
* * *
They ran to the drop ship, split up to avoid detection. When Finn arrived he was carrying Clarke, unconscious and bleeding from a gash on her head. They lay her on the floor, making a pillow from whatever they could find and Raven sat beside her, tending to the wound, wondering what Abby would do to her if anything happened to Clarke.
Finn sat beside her, staring down at Clarke, "I never meant to hurt you," he remarked, referring to the fact he had fallen for Clarke while they were still together.
Raven nodded, "I know. Truth is things change," and they had for her too, "Maybe it is for the best."
"Don't let me off the hook so easily," Finn joked.
Raven smiled, "We'll always be family," she asserted.
"Always," Finn agreed.
And with that Raven let go of the anger she had not realised she was still holding on to, her eyes falling to Clarke as she woke up.
* *
Finn had given himself up to the Grounders to save her, Clarke, Bellamy and Murphy. And here she was, hours later, watching the Grounder camp from behind the fence of Camp Jaha, desperately wishing she knew what to do to stop his execution.
Clarke and Bellamy left the fence and she followed them. Clarke was going to try again with the Grounder commander. It was a desperate act but Raven was happy to accept any chance. She gave her a knife, concealed on her wrist, and told her to kill the Commander if she could not free Finn. Clarke left and Raven went back to the fence, watching her hope turn to blood as Clarke used the knife to kill Finn. If she had not trusted her, if she had not armed her.... Her thoughts swallowed her into darkness.
The next few days were consumed by anger and pain as she proceeded with the motions of life yet existed only as a shadow of herself, cloaked in an all-consuming hate-driven guilt.
But as she stood watching Gustus, second to the Grounder's commander, suffer the pain of hundreds of wounds she understood what Clarke had done. The darkness ebbed and she looked back at Clarke, 'This would have been Finn,' she muttered to herself.
"Yes," replied a voice beside her and she recognised Abby, tending to the wound on her arm from when she had been accused of Gustus's treason. "She loved Finn too," Abby added softly, still focused on the bandage.
Raven's eyes began to water and she sniffed in the attempt to hold them back. Abby looked up at her and caught her eyes, searching for a moment as if needing confirmation of what she saw, "You're back," she said with a soft simplicity as she held Raven's cheek momentarily.
Raven nodded as Abby's fingers withdrew, the simple touch melting the barrier to her tears as they rolled down her face unbidden. She wiped at them uselessly as Abby's right arm wrapped around her and pulled her away from the crowd.
Abby sat them on log at the edge of the trees and Raven felt hands move from her back to her head, fingers brushing the edge of her scalp in soothing patterns. Raven squeezed her eyes shut as Abby's touch chipped away at the force that was holding her together. She felt the tears leak through her clenched eyelids and redoubled her efforts but she knew it was too late to hide her tears from Abby.
"It's okay to cry honey," Abby said soothingly, turning to kiss the top of her head before leaning her cheek against it.
But it was not okay. Not like this. Not when Abby's touch was making her feel in ways it had no right to.
Raven disentangled herself from Abby and sat up straight, shaking her head.
"Okay," Abby replied calmly, trying to read Raven, "Do you want me to go?" she asked.
Raven nodded, although her expression had softened.
Abby nodded and stood, walking from the log and into the crowd as it dispersed.
* * *
Abby sat on her bunk staring at the small glass vial of Finn's ashes. Clark had refused a similar vial but she had not yet approached Raven with the one she had collected for her. She hoped it would help the younger woman's barely contained grief but the episode earlier left her second guessing all of her intentions. She knew that she cared for Raven and that comforting her had come from that caring but she was worried that her feelings for her may have also played a part. She could not separate her desire to be close to her from simple compassion and the last thing she wanted to do was take advantage of Raven's grief.
She had tried to shut down her developing feelings and tried to stay away, but when Raven was injured it had all been forgotten. She had still been patching her up when Gustus's punishment pulled her from the abyss that had haunted her since Finn's death. Raven had almost broken down in front of everyone and Abby could never have walked away then.
She should have realised when comforting her felt too good but it was not until Raven pulled away and she felt the emptiness of that loss that she remembered why she was supposed to be staying away.
Abby exhaled. She would not be getting sleep anytime soon and just because she did not want to see Raven did not mean she should deprive her of a way to let go of Finn.
She put the vial in her pocket and left her tent.
* * *
Raven came back to her tent to find a small glass vial and a flimsy.
'I took these from the fire, thought they could help you say goodbye. - Abby'
She smiled in spite of herself, her insides warming. She recognised the feeling as explicitly connected to Abby but was not sure what to do about it. Yes, she liked Abby, respected the hell out of her, really enjoyed being around her but what she was feeling was more than that. It was as if they had some connection that they alone shared. But there were times, even when she was not being Chancellor, that Abby was distant, cold even, and Raven was never sure if she should trust that this feeling between them was anything more than her imagination.
She held the small glass vial up to the dim light, "Who am I supposed to talk to about this now, eh Finn?" she asked the vial before her expression clouded over. "I wish we had spoken earlier, that I had forgiven you earlier. I wasted so much time being jealous when we could have been being friends," she said to the un-hearing glass, hoping that somewhere Finn was watching. Her eyes began to water but she let the tears flow. "I miss you," she said as the world blurred, releasing the pain she had been holding. The raw bite of it twisted in her gut as she grasped the vial in her hand, crying into the night until the tears exhausted her.
* * *
Chapter Four: Momentum
Fandom: The 100
Pairing: Abby/Raven
Spoilers: Up until the end of Season 2
Rating: M
Disclaimer: The bits from the show are not mine. The *feelings* and extra bits are...
Chapters 1 & 2
Chapter Three - Inertia
Raven tried to convince herself that Abby was not ignoring her but while they were often in the same room there was no hint of the friendship she thought reaffirmed the night Abby found Clarke's note.
The next time she found herself alone with Abby was in a tent, escaping from the acid fog beneath Mount Weather. As she tinkered with the radio Abby watched her - calling in desperation to Clarke through the walkies although they both knew they would not work this close to Mount Weather. It was like she needed something to focus on, as if she was using her concern for Clarke as a shield.
Her comments about not understanding signal encryption also fell short of sensible for someone with a techie husband and a pretty formidable brain, as if she was distancing herself by putting on a show of being old. Yet in the smile that followed Raven's success clearing the channel there was a glimmer of the Abby she knew. But it quickly vanished as the Chancellor saw the decision she had to make - destroy the signal blocking communication with the hope of finding other Arc survivors or have the ability to listen to the enemy and gain an edge over saving those they knew were trapped.
"I know what Clarke would do," Raven remarked, trying to draw her out, while abstractly referencing the conversation they had about Clarke being an adult whose decisions were just as valid.
Abby told the guard to stand down but made no other remark. It was not until she was telling Clarke about being able to listen in to Mount Weather - stealing complicit glances at Raven - that Raven knew Abby had heard her that night. And yet clearly something had changed between them. She wracked her brain for an explanation but could not figure out why Abby had become so variable.
* *
Raven paced the holding cell, hating the fact that her actions had her in here instead of out out there protecting Finn from being handed over to the Grounders as punishment for the deaths in TonDC.
"Pacing isn't going to help," Jaha commented, seated on the floor by the door.
"Well it helps me," Raven bit back with more force than she had intended.
"Suit yourself, but you may be here for a while," Jaha pointed out.
Raven's instinctual response was that Abby would get her out and while she hoped that was true she could no longer be certain of anything where Abby was concerned.
She tried to sit down but found that she was unable to sit still and had gone back to pacing when Abby finally came through the holding cell doors.
"Abby, let me out of here, please. It was stupid, I'm sorry," she said in a rush, knowing she was begging but she was beyond caring.
"No, I don't want to hear it," Abby's voice was stern in a way that was rarely directed at her. It was her Chancellor persona to a T and Raven fought to find her friend in those eyes.
"He was ready to throw Finn out of the gate," Raven pointed out.
"And you think I would let that happen?" Abby asked pointedly. And for a moment she was there - the Abby she knew. The Abby she missed.
Raven remained silent for a moment. How could she say that while she trusted Abby, The Chancellor made her suspicious? "I don't know," she responded.
Abby stared her down, her eyebrows raised.
Raven avoided her gaze, unable to face the searching of this person who was both friend and possible enemy.
"No," she finally admitted, staring at the floor.
"The only way we are going to make it through this is if we trust each other," Abby counselled and Raven's confusion bubbled to the surface. She wanted to trust her but she could not. Not yet.
"I'm trying," she responded, a pained expression crossing her face.
"She's free to go," Abby called to the guards without taking her eyes off Raven. "You do anything like that again you will be back here and you will stay here. Do you understand me?" she reminded in her authoritarian voice.
Raven could only nod as she exited hastily.
* *
Raven and Bellamy stood outside the meeting room door, waiting. They knew Kane was inside, speaking to Abby and Jaha about Finn and the impending Grounder attack.
Abby came out first and Raven and Bellamy plied her with questions but she refused to answer anything directly. Surely if he was safe she would say something other than 'we're all trying to find a way out of this.'?
"They're going to give him to the Grounders," Bellamy stated when Abby had pushed her way past them and, although Raven did not want to believe it, that did seem a real possibility. As much as she wanted to trust Abby she knew that if she was wrong it would mean Finn's death. She could not let herself be wrong.
* * *
They ran to the drop ship, split up to avoid detection. When Finn arrived he was carrying Clarke, unconscious and bleeding from a gash on her head. They lay her on the floor, making a pillow from whatever they could find and Raven sat beside her, tending to the wound, wondering what Abby would do to her if anything happened to Clarke.
Finn sat beside her, staring down at Clarke, "I never meant to hurt you," he remarked, referring to the fact he had fallen for Clarke while they were still together.
Raven nodded, "I know. Truth is things change," and they had for her too, "Maybe it is for the best."
"Don't let me off the hook so easily," Finn joked.
Raven smiled, "We'll always be family," she asserted.
"Always," Finn agreed.
And with that Raven let go of the anger she had not realised she was still holding on to, her eyes falling to Clarke as she woke up.
* *
Finn had given himself up to the Grounders to save her, Clarke, Bellamy and Murphy. And here she was, hours later, watching the Grounder camp from behind the fence of Camp Jaha, desperately wishing she knew what to do to stop his execution.
Clarke and Bellamy left the fence and she followed them. Clarke was going to try again with the Grounder commander. It was a desperate act but Raven was happy to accept any chance. She gave her a knife, concealed on her wrist, and told her to kill the Commander if she could not free Finn. Clarke left and Raven went back to the fence, watching her hope turn to blood as Clarke used the knife to kill Finn. If she had not trusted her, if she had not armed her.... Her thoughts swallowed her into darkness.
The next few days were consumed by anger and pain as she proceeded with the motions of life yet existed only as a shadow of herself, cloaked in an all-consuming hate-driven guilt.
But as she stood watching Gustus, second to the Grounder's commander, suffer the pain of hundreds of wounds she understood what Clarke had done. The darkness ebbed and she looked back at Clarke, 'This would have been Finn,' she muttered to herself.
"Yes," replied a voice beside her and she recognised Abby, tending to the wound on her arm from when she had been accused of Gustus's treason. "She loved Finn too," Abby added softly, still focused on the bandage.
Raven's eyes began to water and she sniffed in the attempt to hold them back. Abby looked up at her and caught her eyes, searching for a moment as if needing confirmation of what she saw, "You're back," she said with a soft simplicity as she held Raven's cheek momentarily.
Raven nodded as Abby's fingers withdrew, the simple touch melting the barrier to her tears as they rolled down her face unbidden. She wiped at them uselessly as Abby's right arm wrapped around her and pulled her away from the crowd.
Abby sat them on log at the edge of the trees and Raven felt hands move from her back to her head, fingers brushing the edge of her scalp in soothing patterns. Raven squeezed her eyes shut as Abby's touch chipped away at the force that was holding her together. She felt the tears leak through her clenched eyelids and redoubled her efforts but she knew it was too late to hide her tears from Abby.
"It's okay to cry honey," Abby said soothingly, turning to kiss the top of her head before leaning her cheek against it.
But it was not okay. Not like this. Not when Abby's touch was making her feel in ways it had no right to.
Raven disentangled herself from Abby and sat up straight, shaking her head.
"Okay," Abby replied calmly, trying to read Raven, "Do you want me to go?" she asked.
Raven nodded, although her expression had softened.
Abby nodded and stood, walking from the log and into the crowd as it dispersed.
* * *
Abby sat on her bunk staring at the small glass vial of Finn's ashes. Clark had refused a similar vial but she had not yet approached Raven with the one she had collected for her. She hoped it would help the younger woman's barely contained grief but the episode earlier left her second guessing all of her intentions. She knew that she cared for Raven and that comforting her had come from that caring but she was worried that her feelings for her may have also played a part. She could not separate her desire to be close to her from simple compassion and the last thing she wanted to do was take advantage of Raven's grief.
She had tried to shut down her developing feelings and tried to stay away, but when Raven was injured it had all been forgotten. She had still been patching her up when Gustus's punishment pulled her from the abyss that had haunted her since Finn's death. Raven had almost broken down in front of everyone and Abby could never have walked away then.
She should have realised when comforting her felt too good but it was not until Raven pulled away and she felt the emptiness of that loss that she remembered why she was supposed to be staying away.
Abby exhaled. She would not be getting sleep anytime soon and just because she did not want to see Raven did not mean she should deprive her of a way to let go of Finn.
She put the vial in her pocket and left her tent.
* * *
Raven came back to her tent to find a small glass vial and a flimsy.
'I took these from the fire, thought they could help you say goodbye. - Abby'
She smiled in spite of herself, her insides warming. She recognised the feeling as explicitly connected to Abby but was not sure what to do about it. Yes, she liked Abby, respected the hell out of her, really enjoyed being around her but what she was feeling was more than that. It was as if they had some connection that they alone shared. But there were times, even when she was not being Chancellor, that Abby was distant, cold even, and Raven was never sure if she should trust that this feeling between them was anything more than her imagination.
She held the small glass vial up to the dim light, "Who am I supposed to talk to about this now, eh Finn?" she asked the vial before her expression clouded over. "I wish we had spoken earlier, that I had forgiven you earlier. I wasted so much time being jealous when we could have been being friends," she said to the un-hearing glass, hoping that somewhere Finn was watching. Her eyes began to water but she let the tears flow. "I miss you," she said as the world blurred, releasing the pain she had been holding. The raw bite of it twisted in her gut as she grasped the vial in her hand, crying into the night until the tears exhausted her.
* * *
Chapter Four: Momentum