Chapter 4
“Why hasn’t she woken up yet? Are you sure she wasn’t hit with one of those darts too?”
“For the tenth time, yes I’m sure. She probably just needed rest. She’ll wake up when her body’s ready.”
“But she practically got blown up with the wall. She probably has a concussion. Aren’t people with concussions supposed to like not be allowed to sleep right after?”
“Do I look like a fucking doctor to you, Raven?”
Clarke groaned as the voices next to her got louder.
“Clarke?”
That was Raven. Her eyelids felt like sandpaper as they scraped over her eyes, and the light was blinding at first, but soon enough her friend came into focus.
“Hey Princess, how are you feeling?”
Bellamy’s face took form over Raven’s shoulder. Clarke swallowed and tried to respond but her mouth was so dry. Thankfully, Raven seemed to understand what she needed because a cup filled with water was held out for her a moment later.
Clarke drank greedily. It felt as though she hadn’t consumed water for weeks and had spent that time in a desert. The liquid wasn’t even close to cold, but it felt like heaven running down her parched throat. Once she had taken as much as she could stomach for the moment, Clarke passed the cup back to Raven and struggled to sit up.
“Easy there, take it slow,” Bellamy reached out to help her, “You’ve been out for a bit. Just take your time.”
“I’m alright. What happened? How long have I been out? Are we still under attack? Who all made it in?”
“Whoa, slow down there. One question at a time.”
Clarke just glared at Raven until she relented, holding up her hands in surrender.
“Jeesh, okay. Should have known even getting nearly blown up wouldn’t unwind you one bit.”
Bellamy tried to mask his snort of laughter as a cough. Clarke raised an eyebrow at the pair. If Raven was making jokes and Bellamy was standing here letting her, then things must at least be okay for the moment. She made to stand up but was quickly met with Raven’s hands pushing her back down.
“Oh no you don’t. You’re not going anywhere until we make sure you’re actually okay.”
“When did you become a doctor, Ray? Oh wait, you’re not. But I am, and I say I’m fine.”
Clarke’s voice was sharp. She moved to stand again, and this time Raven didn’t do anything to stop her. She seemed frozen in shock by the harshness of the blonde’s tone. Clarke couldn’t bring herself to worry about that now. She turned her gaze to Bellamy who was glancing between the two uneasily.
“What’s the status report, Blake?”
“Um,” he glanced towards Raven before meeting Clarke’s hard gaze. “Right, so we’re no longer under attack. You were out for about 32 hours. We stopped hearing any movement about 8 hours after sealing ourselves in here. We waited for another 4 to be sure and then opened the door. The Grounders were long gone. But so were all the people who’d been knocked out.”
Bellamy looked away. It was clear that the loss of so many was tearing him apart. Clarke felt sick just hearing it. But she needed to know where they stood, even if the answers were harder than the questions themselves.
“How many?”
Bellamy couldn’t meet Clarke’s eyes as he swallowed before taking a deep breath. His voice was quiet, but the break in it was still detectable as he spoke.
“63. There’s 63 of us left.”
Clarke schooled her features at his answer doing her best not to flinch or react in any way. Her subconscious counting must have been off, which wasn’t surprising considering she definitely had suffered a concussion. Still, she could have sworn that there had only been 59 bodies in the dropship before she passed out.
Despite her efforts to maintain a steady facial expression, Clarke’s confusion must have shown through on her face. Raven cleared her throat and took over explaining exactly what had happened in the 32 hours the blonde had been out.
“There were 59 of us that made it onto the dropship during the attack. Like Bellamy said, it took about 8 hours until no movement could be heard outside. We waited another 4 before opening the door just in case. There was no one to be seen once we got back out there. All of the bodies of the kids who went down… they were just gone.” Raven swallowed hard, her throat bobbing in her effort to maintain a business-like manner as she gave Clarke the information she knew her friend wanted.
“How are there 63 of us? You said only 59 made it inside?”
Raven glanced at Bellamy to see if he would be taking over briefing Clarke and answering her question, but the older boy was still standing there avoiding eye contact, his gaze fixed pointedly at the floor. She knew that he was struggling with losing so many of the 100. Their safety had somehow become the responsibility of himself and Clarke, and the loss of so many was a failure that felt like an unbearable burden. Raven sighed before turning back to Clarke.
“Yeah, 59 of us made it inside, but another 4 were outside the wall when the attack happened. It was 2 couples. They had snuck out earlier in the day. Something about the rain and romance. I honestly didn’t care to hear their reasoning. We were just glad to have them back with us safe. I don’t know how the people who attacked us missed seeing them out there.”
Clarke nodded. 63 accounted for. Which left 33 of their people gone. In just one day they had lost a third of their group. She didn’t want to think of them as dead. Only lost. Missing. Taken. While it may not have been a completely realistic hope to hold on to, Clarke reasoned with herself that the attack against them had been mounted with non-lethals. Sedative darts and some sort of knock-out gas. If the goal had merely been to kill them, more deadly means could have been used in the attack. The group clearly had no real means of defending themselves aside from hiding in their dropship. No, death wasn’t the goal. Which meant that those who were gone could still be alive. They had to be. And that meant that they needed to be rescued.
Feeling her resolve strengthen now that she had a goal of sorts to focus on, Clarke stood up, surprising both Raven and Bellamy who had still been standing silently in front of the hammock the blonde had been in. Raven took a step back to give her more space, and that’s when Clarke noticed the limp and makeshift splint on her friend’s leg. Her newfound focus immediately shifted.
“Raven, what happened?” Clarke’s voice was sharp. Raven shifted her weight in discomfort under the gaze of the blonde and then promptly flinched at the resulting pain of the added pressure to her injury.
“It’s nothing. Just tweaked my ankle a bit during the rush. Don’t worry about it, it’s all good. Splinted it up and keeping it elevated when I sit or lay down. Injuries happen when you get surprise-attacked, ya know. There are plenty of others who you should probably check in on though if you’re looking to go all doctor on someone’s ass.”
The attempt at lighthearted humor was met with an unimpressed glare. Clarke wasn’t stupid. Raven was carried onto the dropship by Bellamy after being hit with the dart. Which would mean that in order for her ankle to have been hurt during the attack it would have had to happen either on her initial rush onto the dropship, or during her stupid hero act when she ran back out for Clarke. And judging by the mechanic’s attempt to blow it off, Clarke had a pretty good guess as to which it was.
“Sit down and let me see it.”
“Princess, really, it’s fine. It’s wrapped up all nice. I’m good.”
“Raven Reyes, sit your ass down right now!”
Clarke hadn’t meant to snap. Seeing Raven flinch again, and this time not from physical pain, twisted her stomach. But if the brunette had gotten herself hurt while trying to get Clarke to safety then there was no way that she was going to not make checking the injury her first priority.
Raven stepped carefully past Clarke and sat down on the hammock. Bellamy cleared his throat.
“Once you’re ready Clarke, we really could use your help with a few others who got banged up. I’ve done what I could, but, well, you’re the doc.”
Clarke spared a moment to study Bellamy’s face. She could see that he was shaken up over everything that had happened, and Clarke couldn’t blame him. She reached out and gripped his arm, waiting for him to actually look her in the eyes. Channeling her inner doctor, Clarke spoke soft and gentle.
“Hey. This isn’t on you. I’ll be out in a few to do what I can. But I’m sure that you’ve already gotten things sorted. And once we’ve all recuperated a bit, we’ll get our people back. Yeah?”
Bellamy’s eyes seemed to search hers. The browns were filled with pain and Clarke had to work to not let herself react to them. Seeing others in pain always triggered her need to fix. But she only knew treatments for physical pain, and the eldest Blake was clearly feeling a different kind of pain. So the best that Clarke could do for him was to be calm and collected even when the weight of everything felt like it was suffocating her. She had to stay focused. Raven’s injury. The other injuries of the 63. And then getting back the 33. That was her plan. Raven’s injury. The injuries of the 63. Getting back the 33. She repeated it like a mantra in her mind. It would keep her standing. Moving. Not paralyzed by reality.
Bellamy seemed to find whatever he was searching for in her gaze. He straightened and nodded once, seeming to steel himself in her resolve as though he could sense it.
“I’m glad you’re okay, Princess. We need you. I- I need you.”
He leaned to kiss the top of Clarke’s head, and then Bellamy spun quickly on his heels and walked swiftly away, exiting the dropship entirely.
Clarke was shocked still for a long moment. By both his admission and the kiss. But she quickly shook herself out of it, deciding it was almost brotherly, something he would have done with Octavia. Her focus shifted back to her friend and she turned back to face Raven, who was still sitting on the hammock.
Under different circumstances, Clarke would have noticed the almost angry set to the mechanic’s face and the way that her eyes seemed to have tracked Bellamy’s departure. But now that they were alone and Clarke’s mind had returned to Raven and her injury, her own anger rushed to the surface.
Stepping forward so that she was right at the edge of the hammock, Clarke punched her friend in the shoulder.
Raven fell to lay on her back and glared up at the blonde.
“Hey! What the-”
Her exclamation was cut off by Clarke yanking her back up and almost off the hammock entirely to wrap her in a tight hug. Raven wrapped her arms around the blonde in return. They stood, Clarke practically holding Raven, wrapped around each other for a long moment. Then just as abruptly as it started, Clarke released the mechanic, letting her fall back onto the hammock, and glared angrily at her once more. Raven held up a hand in surrender.
“Please don’t hit me again, Princess. The assault to hugging to dropping is giving me whiplash. How about you use your words, yeah?”
Clarke had to fight to not crack a smile hearing the quip out of her best friend. Her lips twitched, but the glare remained. Raven sighed. This wasn’t going to end well.
Clarke bit her lip, eyes narrowed. It was clear that she did have words to say. Lots of them. And maybe a few more punches if she was being honest. And probably another hug or two as well. But all of that would have to wait. She was going to be a doctor first and an angry friend second.
Releasing a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, Clarke dropped to her knees and gently lifted Raven’s injured leg into her lap. The brunette slid forward to the edge of the hammock and looked down at the blonde, watching as Clarke slowly and carefully undid the makeshift brace Raven had rigged up for herself. She then loosened the laces completely on the older girl’s boot and gently pulled it off with one hand while using her other to stabilize the leg to try to keep it from being jostled. With the brace and boot out of the way, Clarke tugged up on the leg of Raven’s pants and pulled her sock down to expose her ankle.
Even with years of working with her mother in medical, Clarke was unable to stifle the soft gasp that escaped past her lips at the sight of her friend’s injury. The area around her ankle was bruised and swollen. But it was the obvious fracture that tore the sound of shock from the blonde. She didn’t understand how Raven had even been up and walking around, brace or no brace. Scratch that, of course she understood. The brunette was the most stubborn person Clarke had ever met, surpassing even herself. But bone clearly needed to be reset if it was going to heal properly. Something that Clarke knew was going to hurt and would require that Raven kept herself immobile in the aftermath. Raven, who didn’t know how to stay still for longer than a moment unless she was sleeping. It was going to drive her mad to be told that she was essentially going to have to be on bed-rest for even just a few days. A week would be preferable. That would probably seem like an eternity to the mechanic. All for an injury that she never would have gotten if it weren’t for Clarke.
Raven swallowed hard as the blonde looked up from her ankle. Blue eyes were filled with pain and guilt. She knew that Clarke had done the math and realized that the injury had occurred when Raven had raced back out from the dropship to help the younger girl to safety. And she could see now the blame that Clarke was placing on herself. The pain in her eyes, caused by the belief that it was her fault that Raven was in pain herself.
“Hey,” Raven reached down to cup Clarke’s cheek in her hand. “It’s not that bad. I’m okay.”
Clarke didn’t pull away but slowly shook her head, tears springing up to pool in her eyes.
“It’s broken. I’m going to need to reset it. And that is going to hurt as if it’s being broken all over again.” Her voice was nothing more than a whisper.
Raven’s lips tilted into a small smile. “I’m a tough cookie. I can take it. It’s just a little break, Clarke. I’ll be back up and running in no time. It’s okay, Princess.”
There was a moment of silence as Raven continued to hold Clarke’s gaze, searching those blue eyes she’d come to know and read so well. Well enough that she saw the moment that her friend tipped over the edge. But it still wasn’t enough to keep her from jumping at the sudden increase in volume as Clarke began yelling.
“Okay? Okay?! Are you kidding me, Raven?! Nothing about this is okay! Yeah, it’s just a break. A break that is bad enough that your bones need to be pushed back into the proper place in order to heal! A break that is going to take weeks to fully heal! A break that is going to leave you vulnerable which is the last thing anyone can afford to be here on the godforsaken ground! A break- a break-'' Clarke's voice finally broke, her final words coming out as barely a whisper once more. “A break that never would have happened if you hadn’t been stupid enough to run back out into danger for me.”
Raven had tears of her own threatening to spill over. Of course, that was the root of it, just as she had known it would be. Clarke was tearing herself to pieces because in her mind Raven was hurt because she tried to save her. She thought that if Raven hadn’t done what she did then she would be fine. But that’s where she was wrong.
“Clarke,” Raven waited until Clarke’s eyes locked with hers once more. “I would take every bone in my body being broken over losing you. Yes, my leg hurts and recovery is gonna be a bitch. But it is nothing compared to the pain that I’d be feeling if I’d just stayed in the dropship and left you out there to be taken. You’re my family, remember? You and me, we’ve got each other. We’ve lost everyone we love in one way or another, but we still have each other. That’s what you told me. You’re all I’ve got, Clarke. So yeah, it is okay. Because we’re both still here. A little bruised and banged up, but here. Together. Okay?”
Both girls had lost the battle to hold back tears. Clarke was shaking in an effort to maintain some semblance of composure. She knew that what Raven was saying was the truth. That the mechanic meant it when she said she’d take broken bone after broken bone over losing Clarke. The blonde knew it was the truth because if the situation was reversed she would be assuring Raven of the same thing. But that didn’t lessen her guilt or anger. Because Raven had risked so much more than just a broken bone by running back out into danger. And that terrified Clarke. More than her own death or capture did. And so while she understood exactly where Raven was coming from, she also couldn’t just let it go.
“I need to reset this now. Before it starts to heal wrong. You may want to bite down on something.”
Clarke couldn’t meet Raven’s eyes as she spoke. She was angry. And her guilt over the injury was being compounded over the guilt of not being able to tell her friend that it was okay and that she understood. Raven was someone who was constantly joking and making jibes. She so rarely let her walls down. But she just had, and Clarke knew that her own inability to get past her anger and guilt to tell Raven that it was okay was going to hurt the brunette almost as much as what she was about to do to her leg was going to.
“Clarke…”
“Just bite down on something, Raven.”
The mechanic swallowed hard. She clenched her jaw and looked away from the blonde at her feet who refused to meet her eyes or acknowledge what she’d said. Her eyes landed instead on a rag laying on the hammock next to her. She grabbed it and shoved it between her teeth.
Clarke carefully positioned her hands around the break. She didn’t glance up at Raven again, knowing that it wouldn’t make this any easier. Instead, she took a steadying breath and when she spoke again her voice was devoid of all emotion.
“I’m going to count to three and then reset it. Try not to tense up, it’ll make it worse. One. Two.”
Clarke pushed and pulled in one swift motion, manipulating the bone back into place. She whispered three to herself once it was done. But it couldn’t be heard over the sound of Raven’s muffled scream.