“Wait, Murphy.”
She’s been watching him out of the corner of her eye, bottom lip worried between her teeth. He hadn’t looked just disappointed. No, there was something else there in the way he’d sucked in a quiet breath that drew in his cheeks and made them stand out sharper. How his shoulders hunched forward in defeat as he shrugged and turned on his heel to leave because what the hell, right? The decision has already been made. How typical.
“I want to know what you think.”
He stops in his tracks and turns. He looks pissed.
Before that might have set Raven off. Before she might have snapped back at him that he didn’t get a say in it, it didn’t matter if he liked it or not, this was the plan and that was final.
Once upon a time it didn’t matter what he said to anyone, let alone her. His opinion was invalid and brushed off to the side.
She feels guilt pool in the pit of her stomach at the thought of that.
He hadn’t been a good person those first weeks on the ground. He was cutthroat and selfish and he’d done horrible things that had led to her giving him the nickname “Cockroach” in the first place. It hadn’t always been said with such a fondness as it is now.
She looks back and forth between Bellamy and Murphy and just catches the way Murphy’s jaw is clenching as he struggles to keep his face indifferent. He can’t get hurt if he doesn’t care, right?
She tries to quickly ignore the pang of hurt for him in her heart. It’s been happening a lot more lately, along with finding herself starring for no apparent reason.
“I think it’s a risk,” Murphy answers.
“You’re right,” Bellamy nods.
“It is. But Clarke didn’t die just for us to go back to the ground and make the same mistakes.”
Murphy’s eyes drift ever so slightly to gage her mood and she hopes he sees how conflicted she is about this all. Because yes, she agrees with Bellamy. In a way the Death Wave had been a sort of clean slate for them all. What did it say about them if they set foot on the ground and immediately began spilling blood again?
And on the other hand... The six years and Space hadn’t been all roses and sunshine. They were living in a tin box with not enough food and not enough air, having to spend every waking moment roaming the halls of a place that screamed of the prison it once had been. It’s suffocating and Raven understands his need to ensure that when they get to the ground they will actually be able to just live.
No more just surviving.
No more just existing.
They were going to go down there and live.
Really live.
Murphy smirks then with a small lift of his shoulders.
“What the hell? Let’s be good guys.”
There’s a light buzz of laughter as Bellamy turns back to start talking to Echo and Murphy shoots her a smile before he turns to leave again. Not knowing what’s come over her, Raven finds herself calling to stop him once again.
“Thank you,” she says softly. Her hands aimlessly twist in front of her and she wonders just when she became a girl who fidgets.
Murphy shoves his hands in his pockets and looks indifferent.
“Really wasn’t much of a choice.”
He means it didn’t really matter what he chose in the end. That either way everyone would have eventually vetoed his vote or his take on the situation. Not cared. She knows what it cost him to say he agreed with them.
“It sucks,” Raven voices, desperately wanting him to know that she understands him.
“I don’t know if we’re gonna be right or if we’re going to be wrong, but I know that I would feel much better if it happened this way.”
Her hands are scrubbed clean but she imagines the constant state of blood that metaphorically covers them.
Raven hobbles forward, hand reaching out of its own accord and ruffling the spiky tufts of his hair. She pretends not to notice the way his eyes briefly close in peace as her fingers scratch lightly against his scalp.
“Thank you, Murphy. Really.”
She presses a kiss to his cheek, the hand in his hair sliding down to cup the other side of his face.
She leaves for the bridge without looking back at him.
If she’d have stayed she would have seen the way the corners of his mouth lifted up. The breathless, surprised laugh that passed through his lips. The way he ducked his head ever so slightly to hide the pink in his cheeks.
If she would have stayed, she would have seen that John Murphy did not mind that she had kissed him one single bit.
