Part II
The first time Murphy woke that night, was by the cries of nocturnal birds. He still wasn‘t used to the sounds of the ground. He still mistook leaves rustling in the wind for quiet whispers in a strange language. Maybe he should get Emori to teach him her tongue, so the winds murmur wouldn‘t wake him at night. But what use would it be? He still had his nightmares and he woke up, because he was freezing or hungry or because he dreamed of being tortured by Emoris people, except they weren't her people, weren't they? As he lay awake for the second time of the night, he looked at Emoris back and wondered if she got night terrors too. But for now, she slept peacefully and the night was dark and cold so he willed himself to sleep too.
He woke two more times that night, freezing because the fire was no longer burning and with a dry mouth. He was pleased to notice the sound of falling rain from outside the cave. Murphy got up and put the hood of his jacket over his head before heading out of the cave. He put his head back and opened his mouth to catch the falling raindrops with his tongue. That was how Emori found him seconds later. She was a stealthy little thing and he was tired still, so he hadn't noticed that she followed him. She did what he did and side by side they drank from the rain, until they were soaked but sated.
They went back inside and sat down a few feet apart from each other. Outside it was still mostly dark and his clothes clung to his skin. He put his arms around his knees but couldn't stop his teeth from chattering. He was really fucking cold. Murphy remembered growing up on the ark. Often times it was cold there too and he had been a rather sickly kid. After puberty hit, he didn't get sick that often but he still felt the cold in his cell more heavily than most of the other inmates he knew. Mbege did laugh at him but when he got really bad and his teeth would chatter at night, he sometimes threw him his own blanket, so Murphy would shut up and let them both go to sleep. Mbege was an asshole but Murphy missed him.
“You’re freezing“, Emori stated. "We can‘t start a fire right now. The wood‘s to wet.“
"Yeah, no prob“, he said through still chattering teeth.
"Right“, Emori huffed and Murphy would have thought it was sweet, if he wasn‘t freezing to death. Going out for a drink in the rain was a dumb decision. Murphy put his forehead to his knees and closed his eyes.
"It‘s January, right?“, he murmured. They came down in first half of September he remembered.
"I don‘t know“, Emori answered and he heard how she stood up and walked over to him. „Winter is almost over.“
Emori sat down next to him, he even felt a bit of her body heat. How she could be soaked to the bone just like him but still radiate such warmth was beyond him. Must have been because she was desert born.
"Look, I have a plan“, she told him quietly, "When the sun comes up we walk to where the forest is not that thick. There are roads to Polis. Lots of people go there day by day. Merchants if we are lucky. You and I, we can steal from them. Maybe get you some warmer jacket. Even a blanket or some furs.“
"Sounds good“, he said, a little sleepy again. Her body heat and the sound of her voice lulled him back to sleep.
"Great John, than it‘s a plan“, he heard her say, before he drifted off.
oo oo oo oo oo oo
The road to Polis was just a trail but not long after he and Emori hide behind some bushes, they saw the first merchants with heavy loaded carts walk by. When they were out of earshot, Emori took the glove off of her badass hand and picked into her own finger with her little knife. She held his chin with the fingers of her right hand and touched his cheeks and forehead with the bleeding badass one. It felt rough and he wasn‘t sure if she felt comfortable touching him like this. He thought it was pretty intimate but crazy too, because soon he had her blood all over his face.
"Take off your shirt“, she ordered and he did as told. He took of his jacket and his shirt and gave it to her.
"Okay“, Emori said, „now you lay down there. Just like I told you last night.“ He must‘ve been half asleep when she told him the rest of the plan. But he got it. He was to play bait and hopefully no grounder walking by would kill him for real just to get his shoes.
"I‘ll protect you“, Emori promised and Murphy was agitated by how easily he placed his trust in her.
"Yeah yeah yeah“, he murmured just get a point but he lay down on the slightly damp pathway, willed his body to slack and closed his eyes. Hopefully he looked dead enough.
While he lay there, waiting for anybody to cross the road, he wondered where he would be right now if he never left camp with Jaha. Most probably scrubbing floors again because he couldn‘t contain his tongue. Murphy was almost certain he would‘ve never been a guard or whatever they‘ll choose to name their soldiers on the ground. He might know the ground, maybe even better than most of the others, he was young and kind of fit, he might even learn to handle a gun the right way, if taught accordingly. But he wasn‘t like Bellamy or Miller, who could follow orders if they were in the right environment and he wasn‘t like Octavia or Clarke either, who could give them and be heard in the right circumstances. He supposed he would have been considered a loose cannon back in camp, nobody would ever give him a weapon and most probably he would not leave the insides of the camp very much. Maybe he would have gotten other assessments by now, could have learned to pull his weight by like kitchen duty or something. He wasn’t a genius like Raven and Monty, so no to engineering or machinery. Either way, Murphy knew who he would have been, if he stayed back when Jaha asked him to come along on this suicide mission to find the freaking city of lights, and who he was now were two completely different persons. He just hoped he made the right decisions by the means of survival. Murphy, still with his eyes closed, willed himself to visualize Emori crouching behind the bushes, her knife in the smaller of both hands and her gaze on his half naked and dirty body. He might have been more than wary of the friendship Kane and Octavia wanted to build with the grounders, but maybe now he got them. He was reliant on Emori protecting his body. With her he was safer out here. Maybe Kane and Octavia just understood this earlier than him. God, Murphy thought, listen to his voice of reason. And it only took one ground-born girl to get him to realize, that maybe where you were born didn‘t define if you were friend or foe.
It felt like the waited for hours, until he heard the heavy footsteps of someone approaching him, while in fact in might have been more like one hour tops. His body felt cold from lying on the slightly damp ground and his muscles hurt, because it took him a lot of self-control to stay relaxed like this. His whole instincts told him to run, but he willed himself to stay where he was. Emori was there, he told himself silently, she was there, she was there. His pathetic mantra distracted him from the nearing grounder. Much too soon he felt hands on his neck, checking for pulse, but before the foreigner processed, that Murphy wasn't a corpse, Emori had the guy at knifepoint. Man, she was really badass.
"Sorry", he heard her say, "this one's mine."
Murphy felt the grounders hands leave his neck. Instantly he jumped up, his heart beating like crazy and he felt like throwing up. What he did just now, laying there instead of running, instead of fighting, instead of everything his most primal instincts where telling him to do, was close to the stupidest thing he had ever done. Fuck, Murphy thought, he trusted Emori to watch out for him. He trusted her. How dumb could he be. Murphy didn't do trust. His heart was beating even faster, he started to feel dizzy, but then there was Emoris voice, clear and determined.
"Take his bag", she told him, while lightly shoving the guy. "And his coat. Come ona. Teik em off." The grounder, bigger and almost twice as heavy as her, did as told. He took of his long coat and he didn't put up a fight, when Murphy grabbed for it and took his bag. He stepped back, slinging the strap over his shoulder, just as Emori knocked her elbow hard against the grounder-guys temple.
"Run, John", he heard her say, as the man slumped down to the ground.
oo oo oo oo oo oo
It really was beyond him, how someone so little as her, could be that fierce. They had run through the forest, until his legs hurt and he had trouble breathing. He leaned against a tree and dry heaved. He felt Emoris gaze on his still naked back.
"Come on, John. I know where we can get some water", she said and suddenly the fingers of her small hand where touching his. He grabbed at her, just to steady himself and because it felt like an offering. It was so long ago, that somebody had to offer him something worthwhile. As he followed her, with their hands intertwined, he was almost certain that whatever she had to offer him, was worth every risk he took that day.
They found a small stream just over half a mile away. Right in front of the water both of them sunk down to their knees. Instantly they cupped their hands and drunk the clear and cold water. It did wonders to his still rebelling stomach and his heavy beating heart. Murphy remained kneeling, the fingers of one hand still in the lightly streaming water. It was soothing.
"You good now, John?"
"Yeah", he said quietly and them stronger, his usual waggishness almost fully back again, "Never been better."
"You're a bad liar", she huffed and got up. She grabbed at the bag, still slung over his naked shoulder. "Let’s see what we got." She opened the pouch and retrieved dried meat, slung into some linen cloths, some big nuts, a loaf of bread, a leather bottle, a rather big knife, just a tang smaller than hers, and two dozen small sacs with strongly flavored spicery.
"He was a spice merchant", Emori said and Murphy couldn't contain his laughter. He almost shit his pants because of a freaking marketeer.
“I have a plan”, Emori told him, exactly like last night. Murphy sat still, his hand was still playing with the water and his heartbeat was almost back to normal. It was stupid, but sitting here, across from Emori, made him feel calmer. Her presence was as soothing as the cold water on his fingertips. “We can eat the nuts. And we rest for a bit. Then I want to follow the stream to a deeper part. We can wash there. On the way let’s find some more nuts and berries. We need to find firewood and a cave for the night. But that will be easy. There a lots around here.”
Murphy and Emori shared the nuts. They were only slightly bigger than the ones she brought yesterday and tasted more bitter, but they were filling. After their little meal Murphy put his upper clothes back on and followed Emori along the shore until they reached the part, where the stream turned into a small lake. Emori took of most of her outerwear and walked into the water in just a thin top and some small trousers she wore as undergarment. She did a quick job of cleaning her body and when she emerged her former light brown skin seemed now more olive. Her dark hair was wet and open. She looked older without her bandana and tamer. Her facial tattoo screamed grounder and her deformed hand was a telltale sign of a destructed world but in fact, she only looked like a woman. A hot woman, clearly. But a woman, small and petite, with subtle curves and a serene look on her face. In space Murphy always thought water was a wild thing. He remembered reading a book about the ocean, about sharks and other sea animals. The water was constantly moving, ebb and flow and then there were waves, wild and heavy until the water reaches the shore and maybe left shells in it‘s wake. Murphy never thought that water could have a calming effect. But while he looked at Emori and still felt the phantom-cold water on his fingertips he knew how soothing it could be. Murphy really would‘ve liked to join Emori in the lake, but it was cold and he was afraid of drowning, so he stayed behind by the shore and watched her emerge from the water.
She took one of her many layers of clothes to dry her skin before clothing herself again. She tied her bandana around the wrist of her small hand and used her fingers to comb through her hair.
Murphy sat next to her, after he did a quick job of cleaning his face from the remnants of her blood and debris from the ground he lay on.
“When the weather is warmer, we can go swimming”, Emori said and she sounded so young. Like she really needed a friend. She looked at him, not from the corner of her eye, like he would, but fully, her face clean and clear. She was really beautiful. And she said spring, which was a few months away, like she wants him to stay. Murphy, in a moment of courage, took her small hand in his.
“Yeah”, he said. Murphy learned so much about surviving on the ground and he was pretty sure, she wouldn’t let him drown, when they went swimming in spring. So for the first time in forever he was pretty enthusiastic in what the future could hold for him.