#that buck and his search for happiness throughout the last season has only one constant - the 118

[grapejuicegay]

Sometimes I just start thinking about this moment - paired with Maddie's "I just think that maybe you're not sure of your own feelings yet. And if there's something that you need to tell Eddie, you will. Just, in your own time" - and then don't stop thinking about it.

Maybe I'm just reading into it but the way this moment moves. Eddie steps forward, Tommy steps up to exactly where Eddie was, Buck turns to look where Eddie was, doesn't find what he was looking for but still finds something good. It's not just ep 4 and 5 where the focus on Eddie blows me away, it's also this.

[shefollowedfires]

Kabby reluctant soulmates season 1 AU!

Okay I hope you know I literally went “OH SHIT” when this popped up in my inbox. This is amazing.

So, Vera has always known.

She knew because she had the unique ability to discern every pair of soulmates on the Ark. When a match would cross paths, she’d see a flash of light, almost like a halo or aura, momentarily surrounding the duo in question. But a soulmate is far from a rare thing - there are tons of them to be found, to varying degrees. This, Vera discerns by colour and quality of that aura. A short flicker of red, they might be good friends. A pulse of yellow, they’re almost certainly suited for marriage. With the minimal population of the Ark, married couples tended to settle for being somewhere around amber - anything higher was rare. And that’s if they bothered to ask.

Many people, like her son Marcus, considered the whole thing to be a sham.

When Vera married, she married a man who radiated a sunny gold. He was the brightest match she’d seen thus far, and she considered herself impossibly lucky to have found and kept him. He was a passionate man, artistic - a dreamer. But life on the Ark wasn’t easy for dreamers. And so, the parts of him that didn’t quite fit with her, the parts of him that kept him from being an even better match, began to show through. While Vera chose to cling to her faith, Marcus’ father decided he didn’t have that kind of strength, and slowly succumbed to any coping mechanism he could find to deal with the pain of dreams that will never come true. He drank. He slept around. But Vera, knowing he was her finest match, stuck by him. She had to believe in the parts of them that they shared, and the parts of them that complemented each other.

She had to believe, because as they watched her husband’s humiliating fall from grace, her followers dwindled, and whispers travelled quickly throughout the Ark that she was little more than a pathetic madwoman.

For an attentive child like Marcus, these whispers were difficult to ignore. He was helpless as he seemingly watched his family destroy itself. When his father was ultimately floated on charges of forgery - a crime he’d tried to justify to his wife and young son as “trying to build a better life for us” - Marcus told himself he should have been surprised. Shocked. Devastated. He should have felt fucking anything at all. But as the breath was sucked from his father’s lungs, there was only white noise. And, sickeningly, a whisper of…. relief.

Maybe now, without his father, he and Vera could rebuild themselves. Maybe they could emerge stronger. Maybe she would finally give up her delusions.

She nearly did.

Marcus, already a naturally-intelligent kid, threw himself into his schooling, determined to find a better - more legitimate - way to make a better life for his family. And he did: he was easily selected for the private post-secondary academy that would put him on track towards a leadership role on the Ark, on full scholarship. But he largely kept to himself about his studies, and those he met along the way - and so, it wasn’t until his graduation that she finally saw her.—The ceremony had been cold and somewhat alienating, Vera painfully aware that she sat alone amid a crowd comprised almost entirely of Alpha Station elites. Marcus had already received his certificate as part of the Law Enforcement division, which had gone first, being the largest class; but she was forced to wait through all the others as he returned to the wings for the award ceremony that would follow. He was to be recognized as the top of his class. She had never been more proud. But the more time went on, the harder the anxiety was to quell.But as soon as Abigail Walters’ name was called during the Medical division, the effect was instant. She set foot onstage, and Vera was flooded with a supernatural, overwhelming calm.The girl had an easy smile as she crossed the stage to receive her license from the Head of Medical, immediately foregoing formality to throw her arms around the older man in a grateful embrace. Cheers erupted from a multitude of friends and family. There was something truly special that effortlessly radiated from her, and Vera made a note to herself to ask her son if they’d ever crossed paths. At the celebration that followed the ceremony, Marcus insisted sternly that it didn’t matter, that she didn’t matter, that “please, mom, you’re starting to sound like… like you used to”. And Vera tried, really, she did. She tried to put away those thoughts that were pounding inside her skull like sledgehammers, tried not to search out the girl’s beaming, beautiful face in the crowd while Marcus chatted up his peers. But this was a task not easily done while the girl was politely dismissing herself from her entourage - congratulating her on her own award as top of her class - and pointedly making her way over to Vera’s son. He instantly stiffened. “Abby,” he greeted.“Kane,” she returned, a coy smirk on her lips. So she did know her son. “Just wanted to offer you my congrats,” she cheered, extending her hand. Marcus pursed his lips before reaching out to complete the shake. There was a flash. No, this was a flood of light - almost blinding, a swift crescendo from red to gold, and then right to a white so pure it was almost blue. It swept through the entire room before Vera’s eyes, casting their surroundings in a bright, ethereal glow for what felt like an eternity.It vanished with the sound of Marcus’ voice, and Vera had to blink away the onset of tears as she introduced herself. “Are you alright?” Abby inquired gently, her warm smile edged with concern.Vera nodded.“I’m just so happy for Marcus,” she answered, with a truth she knew none of them could possibly know. —She knew better than to confront him right away about the matter. It was years later, in fact, when she realized just how hard he was bucking her attempts to nudge him towards Abby, that it finally slipped out. She didn’t even mean anything by it, really. She was tired, and frustrated with the way his new relationship with Callie seemed to be hitting wall after wall, and she really just meant it as a way out. That’s all. He erupted. He was furious that after all this time, after how hard he’d worked, after everything they’d been through - she still held onto the beliefs that had almost destroyed them. She wanted to let go, for him, but this was impossible to ignore, and her son’s stubbornness wasn’t just inherited from his father. So they parted ways. He went to stay in the Guard barracks, she stayed in their family quarters alone. We’ve seen how it played out after that. He became Head of the Guard, the Chancellor’s lieutenant, with his own quarters in Alpha Station. He’d built what he thought was a better life for himself. But Abby was still there, closer in orbit to him than ever before, a constant reminder of what had torn his family apart - and what he’d now done to contribute to that.And Vera was still there, quietly watching from the sidelines, praying over her son’s life. Only God could help him now, for certainly she could not. Should not.The sudden reality of Earth awoke something in her, however, that promised redemption not only for her, but for her son, for her husband - for the dreamers inside each of them that had been mercilessly buried in their own ways by life on the Ark. It felt right, somehow, for Abby to be the one to rush over to her and make the prognosis that this was, indeed, the end for her. It felt right to have that calming presence by her side. It felt right that the driving force behind their mission to the ground, the source of Vera’s every hope, would be the one to close this chapter of her story.It felt right that - as her son looked into Abby’s eyes with a raw, open vulnerability she herself hadn’t witnessed in decades - Vera got to see that bright, beautiful flood of light one last time.And so, a new chapter began.