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thirty six . . . forever gone ( may 4, 2281 — alpha )
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HAD CULLEN KNOWN Murphy would be joining herself and Jade on their venturing through the woods to find Josephine, she mightn't have gone — not out of hostility towards Murphy's actions, but because she didn't know what to say to him. She hadn't planned on saying goodbye; she'd return Josephine to Russell, have her mind erased, and then she'd be a Prime. It felt easier that way.
But, there Murphy was. He hadn't strayed from her side as Jade led them out of Sanctum and into the woods, though he hadn't said anything to her, either — he was waiting for her to talk. He was waiting for a scolding, because that's all he ever received from their people. His actions were always picked apart and deemed the worst of the worst, and he was waiting for Cullen to do the same, and she knew that, but she wouldn't. She couldn't.
"I don't know what you want me to say, Murphy." She said after fifteen long minutes of walking. "You don't have to justify your actions to me. Ever."
"Can you tell that to everybody else? They're looking at me as though they wouldn't have done the same thing."
"They wouldn't have." Cullen shrugged when he glanced her way, and labelled herself a coward when she still couldn't meet his eyes. "People survive in different ways, so who am I to judge your technique? It's gotten you this far, hasn't it?"
Really, how different were they? Murphy saw immortality and couldn't find a fault, whereas the last thing Cullen wanted was to be alive forever. She pinned her survival thus far down on sheer luck, and the blood that ran through her veins. She should've died that day with Jakob. She should've died when the lever was pulled in Mount Weather. She should've died during Praimfaya, and possibly during the third ending of the world. She had skipped out on death defying situations multiple times, but only Murphy had actually died and come back. Only he had the right to judge himself on how he chooses to live from now onwards.
"I wanted it for all of us." He confessed moments later. "Immortality for all of our people."
"None of them would've gone for that. Have you ever met Bellamy?"
