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She tells him that she and Jake are engaged quietly, like if she says it too loudly something in him might break a little.
(Or maybe it’s her that might break a little, she can’t really be sure right now.)
“Congratulations,” is all he can muster up. “He’ll be good for you.”
She thanks him, and moves to embrace him but he catches her arm and holds her there, keeping her at a distance. He leans down and presses a kiss to her cheek, and then releases her. It hurts, but she understands.
He looks sad, and she desperately wants to make it better but the only things she can say to make it better are lies. She cares about him too much to feed him lies, so she avoids his gaze and stares anywhere but at him until the silence between them becomes too much.
“I’m gonna go,” she tells him when the wistful look in his eye starts becoming unbearable. “I have work to do.”
He nods, knowing she finished her shift hours ago and it’s nothing but an excuse. There was a time in their lives where they would make excuses not to leave each other, but now… everything has changed. He wonders if she remembers those times as fondly as he does.
As she’s walking out, her name slips from his lips in a hoarse whisper, and she stops in her tracks.
His tone tells her that this is going to be The Conversation, the one they’ve been dancing around for a while, the one that was inevitable, the one that she dreaded.
She closes her eyes, unwilling to turn around and face him for this: “Marcus… you know we would’ve never made it work.”
“We never had a chance.” She hangs her head. He’s right. She never gave him a chance.
She can feel him move closer, because something in her ignites whenever he’s in reach and she’s about to go up in flames. She won’t – can’t – turn around and face him.
“Look at me, Abby,” he pleads. “Just turn around and tell me you chose him because you were scared of what we could’ve been.”
He’s fighting to keep his temper at bay because Marcus Kane on any other day would have let his anger take over, but they’re already on shaky ground and he might lose her forever if this goes badly. He might lose her forever anyway, but he is going to try like hell to make sure it’s not by his hand.
She can feel his breath on her neck and she knows that when she turns around, he’ll be right there, right in front of her, and she can’t pretend everything they never talked about doesn’t exist anymore. She draws a shaky breath and turns to face him, and she’s somewhere between terrified to finally be talking about this and also enraged because how dare he bring this up now?
She’s fighting back tears for a hundred different reasons, but she doesn’t let any fall. “Please don’t do this, Marcus. Maybe when we were younger. But we’re old, and we’re stubborn now. We’d never make it work.”
He tells her he would’ve liked to try, and she bites back “I would’ve liked to try too,” because she can’t say that now. She missed her chance. So instead, she tells him that he’s too late. “I love Jake,” she says with as much confidence as she can, “I chose Jake.”
“You chose safe,” he counters, and the brutal honesty of it hits her square in the chest. She wants to scream that he’s not allowed to say these things to her, he’s not allowed to be this person to her because she loves Jake and she wants to marry Jake, but he’s right. She knows, she knows, they would have been beautiful and he could love her in ways Jake could never even dream of.
“I was scared,” she admits, still unable to steady her voice. “We would have been a goddamn human tornado, and you know that. We would have wrecked ourselves and everyone around us.”
He’s towering over her now, dangerously close, but she doesn’t back away. “I would have loved you more than he ever would have. But you never even gave me a goddamn chance.” His voice is barely above a whisper, and the devastation in it is absolutely shattering her heart.
Her heart is breaking, but her resolve cannot. It takes every ounce of strength she’s ever had, but she maintains her composure and decides to end this. “I’m sorry, Marcus.”
“That’s all?” he asks, narrowing his eyes at her. Like he knows he deserves more than this.
“That’s all,” she repeats. She knows he deserves more than this.
--
When she leaves that night, it’s the beginning of the demise of their relationship. They see each other professionally, of course, but anything resembling a personal relationship they had is gone. He calls her Doctor Griffin, and she calls him Councilor Kane. They disagree on almost everything now, and the tension and passion between them is now only channeled through their arguments and their anger. Their fights become explosive, and Marcus starts to believe maybe Abby was right about everything.
There’s a time Abby really thinks he hates her with every fiber of his being, and she’s right.
He never really forgives her, and she knows that.
She also knows that she doesn’t deserve to be forgiven.
--
When they make it to Earth, things start to change.
It takes time – a lot of time – but Marcus starts allowing her close again. He thinks it probably has something to do with the fact that everything they’ve been through together - everything they overcame together - and all of the anger and resentment he held onto doesn’t seem matter as much as it used to.
Their past slowly becomes the past, and in working together and learning to balance each other out, they begin to work out differences in a healthier manner. They learn to compromise and trust, and their friendship begins to blossom.
But one night, Abby is curled up against Marcus by the fire. She’s had a long day on her feet, and she revels in the comfort he gives her. They do this a lot, this thing where they kind of blur the lines between friends and something more but tonight, it’s different.
“Abby?” he asks, staring straight ahead at the flickering flames.
She lifts her head up from his shoulder. “Mmm?”
“Do you really think we would’ve been a goddamn human tornado?”
His question catches her by surprise, and she shifts so she’s able to look directly at him. She studies his face for a moment in an attempt to figure out where the hell that came from. “You’ve carried that with you all these years?”
“No,” he lies, “but I think we’re miles from the people we used to be. I don’t think we would be that anymore.”
She murmurs in agreement, and her head returns to its place on his shoulder, and she links her arm with his.
“I think what I’m trying to say is…” he pauses to choose his words carefully, “that I don’t hold it against you anymore. You were right, Abby.”
“I know,” she whispers. “But that doesn’t mean I’m any less sorry.”
“I know,” he echoes. He understands, and in understanding, he learns to forgive.
They may not be past goddamn human tornado quite yet, but she starts to believe that maybe one day they could be.