a ship in the harbor | c. grice

XV. Defeat

a/n: tw for mentions of self harm and brief suicidal thoughts

You were as helpless as a butterfly in a net, waiting for some news to come. Had your plan worked? Had Marley taken the capital? There was nothing, no word from Zeke or the others, no messages of victory, no conveyances of loss. You didn't really care how everything had ended, you just needed to know. It was the ambiguity that you hated, more than anything, the waiting that made you feel so uncomfortable.

Friedrich was locked in his room, and Colt was exercising in an attempt to regain the muscle he had lost while injured, leaving you to pace through the Compound alone like a caged deer.

On your third trip past the infirmary, the door opened and Cordelia poked her head out. Noticing you, she frowned slightly.

"Y/N? Is everything alright?" she said. The concern in her voice was so genuine that you wanted to hurt her for it.

"No. There's been nothing from the capital, and I can't bear it," you said — talking to Cordelia was better than listening to the clamor of your thoughts, at least. She beckoned you in, and you were curious enough to follow her.

"Would you like some tea? It's chamomile, it'll help calm you down," she said.

"Sure," you said. At this point, almost anything would help, and if Cordelia was offering, then you'd be a fool to not take her up on it.

"You like honey?" she said.

"Not too much, if that's alright," you said.

"Perfectly fine," she said, pouring the tea in the cup for you and watching as you took a sip.

"I like it," you said when you realized she was waiting for a response. Satisfied, she smiled at you.

"Thanks," she said. You continued to drink your tea contemplatively. Cordelia was, you decided, a nice girl. You had been a little harsh on her the past few times you had met, but maybe she had not deserved that.

"Could you distract me? I don't want to think about...everything. Tell me about your life. Something stupid," you said. Because the thinking made it worse, made you spiral into thoughts of failure or hopes of success. You wanted to forget, wanted to talk about something so tediously normal that it put you to sleep.

"Alright," she said reluctantly. "Uh. I'm thinking of breaking up with Colt?"

You almost spat your tea out. "What?"

"Don't get me wrong; I still care about him. He's wonderful. I think I could spend the rest of my life and never find another person as wonderful as him again," she said.

"Then why would you give him up?" you said, composing yourself. She shrugged.

"He's too kind to say it, but I know that he doesn't love me. It was alright, when he thought you two were dead or gone, but now that you and Friedrich are back, it's so obvious that I'm not what he wants. It doesn't matter how, whether romantic or platonic or whatever, but he'll always love you more, Y/N. And I — I don't want to be with someone who's only with me out of politeness," she said.

"I see," you said.

"It's not fair, not to him and not to me," she elaborated.

"He does like you, you know," you said, able to reassure her now that you knew she wouldn't try to take Colt from you anymore.

"Yeah, he does. He does like me, that much is true. But, you know, when you were gone...he refused to give up hope for so long, but I remember when he finally did. He cried so much. He hid it from everyone so admirably, but he'd cry and cry for hours on end, every single day — because he'd lost the two most important people to him in one fell swoop. He may like me, but he'd never cry for me like that. So that's why — that's why I know I should end things," she said.