[open]

[wrackful]

CHARACTERS: Murphy & OPEN
WHERE: Red Coast
WHEN: DAY :028 - :032 (see headers for specifics).
SUMMARY: Seviilia goes into a coma, Murphy is left as the last Elnath
WARNINGS: Most likely mentions of past violence and death.

NIGHT, DAY :028 | OUTSIDE THE BARRACKS | CLOSED TO LEXA

[It's late. Most of the other hosts are asleep, and Murphy was heading that way himself when he'd caught sight of the ocean again. The change in the water had already been pretty during the day, but now with no other light to compete against the bioluminescence, it's even more beautiful.

No other light, that is, except the bonfire. Where the brish might be alien to him, the fire lit high in the cliffs has a sharper tug of recognition: the grounder encampment outside Camp Jaha, waiting for Finn's execution. He doesn't let his thoughts stray too far that way, but there's a sense of foreboding all the same. The village is waiting for something, an atmosphere which is almost too quiet, heavy, and even as he stays watching the swirls and eddies of bright colour out in the water, he can feel it pressing down. He doesn't know that he wants to see what they're waiting for.]

DAY :029 - DAY :032 | THE BARRACKS | OPEN

[It isn't a vigil. He doesn't sit at Seviilia's bedside to watch over her, make any hopes or prayers about her wellbeing or recovery. He occupies a space opposite her bunk, hunkered down against the wall, and it's more about not really having the strength to leave. She'd torn a hole in him. All his broodmates had, one by one, but Seviilia had been the last, and now there's no one left to try and hold the edges closed with. The remnants of her ice in him are already fading, but after the first day what's left doesn't even really feel like pain anymore. A numbness, instead. Fatigue carved bitter down into his bones.

He's been left alone again. He really shouldn't have expected anything different.]

Comments

[wrackful]

We haven't. We'd be dead already.

[He doesn't say it like it's a matter of opinion or theory. Simple, plain certainty rings through the words. Cathaway had shown him her fear, told him the future she'd seen for this mission. There wasn't any leeway, any space where they could screw up but still have a chance to survive, if not fix it. Being found out, that was an absolute.

She should understand that. It was how Grounders operated, most of the time. Like thinking killing everyone here was their best option for getting out of this. He can't argue that she's wrong on the mission going sideways. He's expecting the same. But he hasn't been worried about the morals of the genocide option for a while.]

And that alternative isn't an alternative, by the way. Everyone's been too busy accusing and justifying about it to think about whether we can even do it. [A slight tip of his head, corners of his mouth pressing down beneath the veil.] I don't know about you, but I haven't seen any nukes sitting around up on the station.

[And nothing so far on the surface that'd do the same, either.]

[adamance]

I assumed it was suggested as an option because it was available. If we can be rescued from various different versions of our own universe, then I assumed that the next would be possible. [Assumptions. Lexa's unaware of the phrase that's connected to those assumptions, as it hasn't been said to her or around her during her time here. Then again, her confidence typically leans on the need for an assumption before she switches gears. If anything, that's the Grounder way.]

You think that the means doesn't exist. Even if it was originally suggested as an option. [That's not stated as an accusation. To Lexa, and in her mind, it's more like a revelation: why would Rhan produce an idea that can't be accomplished? To create tension? Problems? Create desperation among those that would be opposed to it? Motivate them?

Truthfully, it's not unlike something she'd do, but perhaps on a much larger scale.]

[wrackful]

[Murphy shrugs.]

You say suggestion, I say mentioned in a maybe example once and never brought up again by the people who'd know where the big "launch bombs" button is.

[Whether it had been intentional to stir everyone up or a casual turn of phrase taken way too literally, he couldn't say. He hasn't spent much time or thought on the senior hosts. They haven't been all that present, and he's been distracted.]

Cathaway thinks--

[He doesn't get any further. Whatever the thought was, it's gone. He's buckling, falling to the ground as a hole rips open inside him. Impact ringing his head empty in shock, his next breath a desperate, choked gasp of air.]

[adamance]

[The shock of separation from one of the other Hosts is something that she's accustomed to by now. She's been here the longest in this "batch"—she's felt her own brood slip away one by one since the very beginning, forced to create a void within her where she can't sense anyone around her. She has felt alone, without direction, for weeks, for months—a feeling that she doesn't welcome and she actively resents. She recognizes the loss of someone in the Nest now (loss but not death; they are separate things).

Lexa moves swiftly, hand falling on Murphy's bicep.]

( She's still here— ) [But barely. Not alive but comatose, with a major unknown factor as to whether she would ever return.] ( Focus on what can be. ) [As if that would help.

It may not help.]

[wrackful]

[She's still here means nothing against the convulsing pain of his symbiote that howls she's gone. He's managed - through luck, more than anything - to hide the effects each loss of his broodmates has had on him, but there's no chance of that here. Seviilia can't brace him through the worst of it. He can't climb into one of the pods and let the Nest soothe his brainbug quiet. Lexa's grip on his arm is a touch he'd normally shrug out from under, but right now it's a desperately needed point of contact, and his hand comes up to grasp her elbow without thought. The only thing he can focus on.]