Clarke Gets Her Brother Back
Clarke had had hellish shifts at the hospital recently. She had been working 30-40 hour shifts before going back to her car, only to be called back in either to the hospital or to Jaha. Because she was in the USC Trauma Center, she was placed in the emergency room a lot. Downtown Los Angeles was a hub for medical emergencies almost as much as it was for wannabe stars.
About a week after she went out with the crew, she was in for her shift one night, at the tail end of a 38-hour night shift when a nurse came into her on-call room and told her that there was an officer in with a gunshot wound. The medical intern groaned. Stitches were always the most tedious things to do, especially on someone who didn’t want to be in. Law enforcement officials were almost as terrible patients as other medical officials were.
Pulling the chart off the nurse’s station, Clarke walked into one of the curtained-off sections towards the back of the emergency room. She didn’t look up from the papers as she pushed the curtains out of her way.
“Good morning Officer. My name is Dr. Griffin and I’ll be helping with your – “
“Hey Clarke.”
The blonde’s head shot up, eyes wide and mouth open. She realized she probably should have looked at the name on her paper before walking into the room.
“Lincoln.”
Lincoln was sitting on the bed in front of her, black tank-top tucked into his uniform pants. He had a gash on his upper left arm from where a bullet had grazed him, with plenty of dried blood caked on the rest of his torso. Brown eyes bore into her face, but Clarke kept her face impassive. She knew that, when she was working, she couldn’t afford to have any distractions. It was how she managed to keep her wits whenever she got too stressed.
Once they were both adjusted to the fact that they were actually standing in a tiny area together, just the two of them, Clarke cleared her throat and made her way to the bed. She smiled softly, hoping to show Lincoln that things weren’t going to be awkward from her side. When he smiled back at her, she felt the rest of the tension leave her body and she set to work getting her supplies out.
“So, Officer,” she said with a smirk, “What brings you around today?”
Lincoln felt his heart soar at the joke he heard in her voice. “Well, Doc, you might have missed the bullet hole in my arm, but I’m sure if you read the chart in your hand it’ll be right there.”
Clarke shocked herself with the laugh that made its way out of her chest. She hadn’t had this sort of easy banter with anyone in years, and it was definitely something that was going to take some getting used to. If she decided to keep in touch with this family, that is.
Lincoln settled himself into the bed while Clarke got everything set. He watched her work in comfortable silence. She looked up at him with a grin when he let out a whimper at the sight of the needle.
“Don’t worry, Lincoln. You’ll barely even feel the prick. It’s a local anesthetic that I’m going to inject right around the wound so that I can stitch you back together without too much pain.” When the look of fear remained on his face, she let out an exasperated sigh, “Come on! You can sit around for over an hour with a bullet wound on your arm, but it’s the needle that scares you? Really?”
“Needles are scary! They’re not supposed to go in someone’s skin!”
“Yea well neither are bullets.”
Lincoln scoffed at the tone she took and stuck his tongue out at her, relishing in the small laugh that left her lips once again. Secretly, he had on problems with needles anymore. He would do anything to hear that laugh, though. It had been too fucking long.
As the medical intern set to work closing the graze, he watched her. She looked so much older, smaller but more solid at the same time. He knew plenty of what she had been through; Octavia had a hard time staying quiet when she was pissed off and everyone in a five-mile radius of either of their apartments knew that she was furious at her brother.
Thinking about everything Octavia had told him, and the conversation he had had with Anya, he looked back at the blonde with pain in his eyes. He could see that she was completely and utterly focused on making sure that his wound was treated perfectly, and he felt himself grow sadder, remembering all of the times they had talked about helping each other reach their goals.
Clarke may have been closest to Lexa within their group, but she had always had a special bond with each other member too. Lincoln had initially wanted to be a doctor, much like Clarke. Throughout all of the four years that they had together, they would look up different procedures and information and always talk about it. They had intended to go to school together.
When he learned about Clarke’s past and the things she had gone through, Lincoln realized that he didn’t necessarily want to become a doctor – he just wanted to help people. He wanted to be able to help people get out of homes like Clarke had had to go through. When Clarke left all of them, he spent so long trying to figure out where Clarke went or what was going on with her or why she had left them like that, and he hated every moment of it. At that point, he resolved to try and help other people not have to worry about whether or not their loved one was still alive. He just wanted to help other people get the closure he never did.
Clarke eventually finished the stitches and looked up at the face above her, leaning back on her stool slightly. She studied Lincoln’s face, noticing how much older and serious he looked. She knew pretty well how harrowing a police officer’s job could be and just how easy it was for officers to lose any easy-go-lucky attitude they may have had. Clarke couldn’t help but feel pain at the idea of Lincoln losing any part of his personality.
She could feel his brown eyes looking as deep into her as they could go – which, admittedly, wasn’t very far. Clarke knew how to keep a cap on her emotions and not let anybody see anything she didn’t want them to see. Considering she still wasn’t sure how long she was going to stay in their lives, Clarke didn’t want to let any of the crew back in just yet.
Lincoln could see the walls up and he knew that he wouldn’t be getting any access. He could feel the emotions flitting across his own face, knowing that Clarke would be able to see them too. The officer had never really been any good at hiding his emotions from those close to him.
Clarke sighed, knowing that the joking was over for a time. “Lincoln, I know that there is a lot we have to talk about. The way I left was wrong and I didn’t talk to any of you and I’m sorry. We will talk, I promise. I’m off work in a few hours, and I don’t start until 6 again tomorrow evening.”
“Clarke, you have nothing to apologize for. You didn’t do anything wrong with what happened. I do agree, though, that we’ve got a lot to talk about. Maybe here isn’t the best place. Why don’t you text me a time and place that works for you and I’ll meet you then?”
Clarke could feel the stress double on her shoulders at the thought of having to plan something. She had always hated making phone calls or having to be the one to make plans when everyone was hanging out.
Lincoln quickly realized his mistake, remembering how much she hated calling people, and amended his statement, “Or you can give me your number and I’ll let you know when we can meet up.”
Clarke gave him an appreciative smile before giving him her information. She left the area after that to go give the nurses his chart and to pull up his prescription for painkillers.
As the medical intern was standing at the counter, talking to the nurses, she heard a voice next to her, “Hi I’m looking for Officer Green?”
She turned her head and saw a shaggy-haired man standing next to her, wearing a polo shirt and slacks. He had his detective’s shield in his hand and was showing it to the nurse behind the desk, telling her about his connection to Lincoln. Clarke wasn’t really paying attention to what the man was saying, she was more focused on trying to make sure she stayed calm and didn’t give away the fact that she knew him.
Bellamy must have felt her looking at him because he turned his head and met her eyes immediately. A scowl crossed his face and his brown eyes immediately hardened. He stood up tall, squaring his shoulders and trying to make himself seem as big as possible. Clarke nearly scoffed at his attempt to seem all macho.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
“You mean, other than the fact that I work here?” Clarke sneered.
The nurses around them froze. Never once, in the last year-and-a-half, had they heard Dr. Griffin talk to someone in such a tone. Whether she had someone puking on her or peeing on her or calling her names or even trying to punch her, she remained the epitome of cool and professional. But here she was, being snarky with a patient’s family, and a detective, no less.
Bellamy could feel everyone’s eyes on them, and immediately backed down. The last thing he wanted was attention brought on them. Clarke seemed to agree and closed her chart before saying, “Officer Green has been stitched up and should be ready to go in a minute. He was just putting his uniform top back on when I walked out. I have his script right here and I’ve explained it to him already.”
“Here, I can take it for him so – “
“Actually, Detective, we only give this information to family members.”
Bellamy glared at her, and the nurses around them could feel the fury rolling off the man in waves. The detective had been nothing but polite to them so they had no idea why Dr. Griffin would be showing him the kind of attitude she was. Considering the fact that they knew next to nothing about the intern other than her name and age, they couldn’t even judge if she knew the guy or if she was just in a mood.
“Well, I’m his partner so – “
“Considering he’s a police officer in Missing Persons and you’re a detective in Narcotics, that’s not actually true, is it?” Clarke stood up at that point, matching Bellamy’s stance. “Lying to get what you want isn’t the way you want to do things, Detective Blake.”
Lincoln walked out at that moment, feeling the tension as if he had walked into a wall. He could see the standoff that was obviously going between his girlfriend’s brother and his pseudo sister. Noticing the looks on the nurses’ faces, he quickly moved forward and grabbed Bellamy’s arm. “Bellamy, we should leave now. I’m fine and we still have to get back to the precinct.”
Bellamy barely acknowledged Lincoln, shaking the bald man’s hand off of his arm and stalking out of the hospital.
Lincoln turned to look at Clarke, seeing the tension written plainly on her face and smiled wistfully at her. He moved closer to her, trying to judge whether or not he could give her a hug. Considering she was at work and seemed to have already broken the nurses, he assumed that might be going too far. Instead, he reached his arm out to grasp her forearm.
“Bye, Clarke. I’ll call you in the morning.”
]Clarke gave him a small smile and grasped his forearm. “I look forward to talking to you, Lincoln.”
As he left the hospital, Clarke turned back to all of the nurses. Seeing their mouths open and eyes wide, she had to resist the urge to laugh. Steeling herself quickly, she said, “Should we keep staring at nothing or are we going to get back to the patients?”
That seemed to get them all back into motion and they all went back to their work. Clarke knew that this interaction would be around the whole hospital by the end of the night, either way.
It was almost 9:00PM by the time Clarke got off her shift at the hospital. Sometimes she would be lucky enough to stay in an on-call room, but she needed to be in her car if Lincoln called. She was fixing her shirt and pulling her keys out of her pocket when she noticed a figure against the wall. Recognizing the person standing there, Clarke steeled herself and started walking towards it.
Bellamy pushed himself off the wall as the medical intern got closer to him. He stood tall and proud, shoulders squared and head tilted up. He stood as the epitome of an alpha male and Clarke wanted nothing more than to kick him where it counted.
Clarke stopped a few feet away from him, standing tall and confident, showing the older man that he didn’t scare her. She stood silently, refusing to speak until Bellamy started saying anything.
“I thought I told you to stay away from my family.”
She stayed quiet.
Bellamy could feel his blood boil. Who the fuck did she think she was to so blatantly ignore him?! “Are you going to say anything or just stand there like an idiot?”
“You didn’t ask me a question. I have nothing to say to you.”
Clarke got a small bit of satisfaction from the way Bellamy seemed to get even more furious at her lack of an answer. She could tell that he was the kind of guy that wanted to instigate things with people, and she was resolved to not giving him that satisfaction.
“You realize that you have no right to talk to me like this, right? I could ruin you so easily and you’ll have nothing. You’ll be – “
“Look, Detective, I understand that this might be tough for you to grasp in your pea-sized brain, but you really don’t have any power over me. Besides, I’m fairly certain your sister told you how she felt about it pretty well with her fists.”
Bellamy’s blood boiled. “Listen here, bitch, I swear to God. You stay away from my family or I’ll bring every charge that’s ever been brought up against you and make sure you spend the rest of your life behind bars.”
Clarke laughed at him. Like, straight up laughed in his face. “Bellamy, is that really the best idea? You realize that if you decide to say anything about me, you’ll have hell to face too, right?”
The blonde took a step forward, directly into the detective’s personal space. “What do you think your buddies at the precinct are going to think when they find out you’re a regular customer? What do you think your captain is going to think when he finds out that you’re one of the LEOs that is in Jaha’s pocket?”
Clarke took another step forward, coming almost chest-to-chest with the detective. “What would Lincoln think of you, huh? He may be your sister’s boyfriend, but he’s also a fellow officer. He’s a member of that family that you claim to care about. You really think he’s going to give any fucks about any of that when he finds out what kind of scum you really are? What’s everyone else going to think about you? I already know the others can barely stand you – they put up with you because you’re Octavia’s brother. You’ll have no sympathizers in that group.
“What do you think your sister will think? Your sister’s been in almost the same position that I’m in. I mean, she got a look at your true colors when you first saw me in her apartment, didn’t she? The shitdick who doesn’t know how to respect anyone but expects everyone to respect him. Tell me, Bellamy, what do you think your sister is going to think of you when she finds out that you’re no better than the fuckers you put away? In my opinion, and I can almost guarantee she will agree with me, you’re worse than them. What is she going to think when she finds out that you actually don’t give a fuck about their safety, but that you’re just trying to save your own skin. That you’re as bad as, if not worse than, the assfuck foster fathers she had when she was younger. You want her to believe that you’re doing this to protect her? Bull-fucking-shit. You’re doing this to save your own skin. She’ll never trust you again.”
Clarke cut herself off then, knowing she wouldn’t be able to stop herself if she kept going.
Bellamy didn’t seem to care much about that, though. Clarke looked at him for a second before turning to walk away. The older man stalked forward once her back was turned.
“Who’s going to believe a useless whore like – “
As soon as Clarke felt his hand touch her arse, she whipped around and decked him across the head. The man fell like a sack onto his backside, holding his face to cup some of the blood.
“Lay a hand on me one more time, and I will personally end you. If you think I’m not willing to spend time in jail to get your ass out of everyone’s life, then you know nothing.”
Clarke looked at him one more time before turning back around. She remained aware of her surroundings, but even if she hadn’t she still wouldn’t have been able to miss the growl from behind her or the feet running towards her. She moved at the very last second, letting Bellamy stumble right past her.
The tall man ran back to her. Clarke chuckled to herself. Bellamy had to have had an incredible amount of training throughout his years between the academy and ranking as detective. It seemed as though his only real approach to getting her down right now was just tackling her. He was acting as no better than the brutes she ran into when she met Octavia and Raven.
As Bellamy came up to her one more time, Clarke merely swished to one side and stuck her foot out, letting the detective trip and fall on his face. As he jumped back up and ran at her one more time, she braced herself. The medical intern brought up her knee and got him right in the gut. He doubled over, but he brought her down with him. They ended up in a heap on the floor. He landed a single punch into her gut, but he was already so out of it that it barely did anything. Clarke managed to bring a knee up and get him in his jewels, causing Bellamy to lose his grip on the young blonde.
Clarke pulled herself up, looking down at the man groaning on the floor. She didn’t bother keeping the disdain out of her voice as she spoke next, “You may not give two shits about the shield that you wear on your uniform, you may not give a fuck about the oath that you gave when you got that shield, and you may not give a damn about your sister, but I do. I took an oath to protect the people that I come into contact with, and I’ll be damned if I don’t protect my family from a shitdick like you.”
Clarke stood there for one more moment, staring into brown eyes looking up at her – brown eyes with blood running rivers around them, and fear swirling through their depths. Bellamy Blake may have thought he had his ass covered when he decided to work with Jaha, but Clarke wasn’t going to let him get away with thinking that he was justified in anything that he did. Everything about the man’s actions screamed an abuse of his power and complete lack of thought or understanding, and he didn’t deserve to be in the position that he was in. If Clarke had to go down with him to bring him down, she would.
She walked away, eventually, leaving him splayed out and bloody on the floor. The medical intern hadn’t been lying when she said she was always going to uphold her oath, but she didn’t believe Bellamy Blake warranted any of her attention.
In her car, Clarke made her way to one of her favourite parks. She sat in the parking lot, thinking about all of the things that had changed for her over the last many months. Her mind was still running wild trying to understand what it all meant for her life now. The medical intern had been comfortable with how her life was going, and she was fine with thinking that she wouldn’t see Lexa or Indra or Lincoln again, because she still knew that they were all doing well. They were back, though, and she didn’t know what to do anymore because that didn’t fit in her plan.
Clarke sat there for some time, contemplating and reminiscing and coming up with a new plan. Eventually she checked the time and realized that it was already almost midnight. The medical intern had no work until the next evening and the only other thing she might have to do was talk with Lincoln. She decided to get some sleep, knowing that it was too precious of an activity to pass up.
At 1:00 the next afternoon, Clarke made her way into a small bistro a few blocks away from the USC trauma center. Lincoln had texted her earlier that day and they decided to meet up for lunch.
Walking into the small bistro, Clarke could feel the homliness in the air. She hadn’t been in a place like this in a long time. She very rarely – if ever – went out with people and she would never come into a place like this on her own. She recognized Lincoln sitting in a booth towards the back and made her way there directly.
As she got closer, the medical intern noticed that the officer was rubbing the strip of hair in the middle of his head and she smiled to herself; that was always his tick when he was nervous about something. She hoped that the afternoon wouldn’t be too stressful for the two of them.
Lincoln stood up when he noticed the younger girl standing at the end of the table. He could feel his heart pumping in his chest. The man had no idea what this conversation was going to be like or where it was going to go. All he could do was hope that it wouldn’t go too poorly.
They were settled down, eventually, and they started talking about whatever small things they could come up with.
Surprisingly enough, Clarke started, “So, how’s working with LAPD?”
Lincoln gave her a small smile. “It’s good. There’s a lot more paperwork than I had hoped there would be, but ah well. We all have to start somewhere.”
Clarke smiled back at him, glad to see that he was actually enjoying where he was. “You seem to have finally gotten a girl to stick around you, huh? Octavia is pretty hardcore.”
“Yea, she really is. God, she’s so amazing and I honestly couldn’t have done better if I tried to make her myself.”
Clarke really felt her heart warm at that. Lincoln was really in a good place, and that was all she had ever wanted for any of them. She couldn’t have been happier if she wanted to.
“How did you get into USC for residency? I didn’t know that you had stayed local.”
Clarke could hear all of the implications behind that single statement. She had no idea what kind of information she wanted to give her pseudo brother and how much she wanted to tell him. Her entire goal the last so many years had been to keep them all unaware of just how poorly she was doing. Seeing the look in his eyes and remembering all of the times that they had all vowed to never lie to each other, no matter what, she knew she had to tell him. She sighed, “I know. I actually had no idea how I was going to be able to continue with my clinicals or residency or anything, and I had kind of resolved to staying an EMT and maybe moving on to become a paramedic. I was out one evening, though, just walking around and I saw something going on. Long story short, there was a shooting and I happened to be there when it happened. One of the victims was the lead trauma surgeon at the Trauma One and Trauma Three centers of USC, Dr. Deidre. We got to talking and I told him that I was in medical school and he told me to get in contact with him for my clinical rotations.
“It’s a struggle for me to be there, of course, considering USC is one of the most expensive campuses on the West Coast, but Dr. Deidre has me working with the East LA Enrichment Action, or ELAEA. It’s a local organization that helps kids with gang affiliations get out of the lifestyle that they’re living and it puts them through schooling and stuff. Because a majority of their kids are related to gangs, there’s a lot of ridiculous violence that they see as well, and the USC Trauma Centers have a sort of business agreement with them where they can bring students in for treatment in case of emergencies. I’m kind of a liaison between those two and kids in the foster system. Since I have experience there, they thought that I would be a good person for outreach. Dr. Deidre said that, if I agree to work with ELAEA, he’ll help me out with my tuition for rotations and residency.”
Lincoln looked at the girl in complete shock. This was not what he was expecting in the slightest. Of course, he wasn’t at all surprised that Clarke was still working to help people in the worst of situations, but he didn’t expect it to be something like this. He knew a lot about ELAEA since he had to work with so many of their students on occasion, but he didn’t know about their ties with USC. It gave him a special kind of hope that these two groups were working in tandem to make life better for kids who were just born into shitty situations.
They talked about other things for a while; like different cases they’ve worked on, what Octavia and Raven are like, small things that have been going on in their lives. They stayed in the bistro for a little while after eating their meal and then decided to go for a walk nearby around 2:20. Clarke was very conscious of her car, of course, and asked if Lincoln would mind if she moved it to a parking lot with more security.
As Lincoln sat in the car, Clarke turned it on and he felt his heart soar. He looked over at the blonde with complete wonder in his eyes. “How the hell did you make a car this old sound so amazing?”
Clarke looked back at him with a smug-ass smirk on her face, “Aw, Lincoln, a magician never reveals her secrets,” and made her way out of the parking lot.
She drove them over to a park where she would be able to keep an eye on her car herself. They got out and walked over to a bench that was within eyesight of the car but still relatively secluded from people.
As they sat there, Clarke realized that it was time for a conversation that she had been avoiding for half a decade. “
“Lincoln, I know you have a lot of questions, and I’m sure there’s a lot that you want to talk about. Go ahead and ask what you want and I’ll answer whatever I can.”
The bald man studied the younger girl for a moment, taking everything that this moment meant. He thought that he had lost his sister years ago, that he would never be able to see her again or interact with her again, but here she was. She was sitting in front of him with so many new experiences and now a completely different story, but she was still there. Lincoln could reach out and grasp her hand, or touch her hair, or see the way her chest expanded with ever breath that he took, which was something he never thought he’d see again. The light shone through her hair, causing it to look like strands of gold that would bring the biggest dreamers across the world to that one spot, and he thought about the wonder and beauty that she truly held within her but kept so completely guarded.
Lincoln looked at his lost sister and just smiled. “Have you been okay?”
Whatever she expected Lincoln to start with, she definitely didn’t expect him to start off that easy. She couldn’t keep the initial mix of shock and relief off of her face, but she did manage to swipe it off eventually. “There’s a lot of that story that I can’t really tell right now, but I don’t want to hide it from you. I’m sure Octavia will be more than happy to share with you everything she’s learned about the last five years.” Seeing the immediate look of hurt on Lincoln’s face, she quickly added, “I didn’t tell her anything! It seems that her brother has done quite a bit of research to make sure I’m okay to keep around his sister.”
Lincoln’s eyes narrowed and he could feel himself get agitated at the mention of his girlfriend’s older brother. He had been doing his best to avoid the older man and anything he might have to say. Bellamy had tried to talk to Lincoln about Clarke after they ran into her at the girls’ apartment, and again after the night at the bar. He had never had anything good to say and Lincoln was completely unwilling to listen to anything.
He moved on to the next question. It might have been wise for him not to dive in head first, but he knew that Clarke appreciated candor, even if she might have liked it to be a little more lowkey. Also, because he had been waiting five years to be able to ask these questions.
“How could you just leave? You left, and it seemed like you didn’t even look back. As if – almost like we didn’t matter.”
“Linc, you have to know that that’s not possible. There hasn’t been a single day that I haven’t looked back on what happened.” Clarke took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a second. The medical intern had to make sure that she remained calm and collected for this conversation and that she had her inhaler handy. She couldn’t take any risks with an episode since she had to work later.
“I don’t know how much of the story Lexa’s told you. I don’t know how much she told you about what was going on before I left and what all happened between us. I don’t know how much of it she wants you to know or how much she’ll be comfortable with me telling you.”
“She told us everything, I think. We know about what happened with Wallace, we know about your birthday, and we know about what happened after her LSAT. If anything else happened, then I don’t know about it.”
Clarke gripped her inhaler tighter. She hated these memories coming up again and again, but she didn’t think that she could avoid this conversation with Lincoln much longer. Truth be told, she didn’t really want to, either. As much as she would deny it to herself and everyone around her, she had actually missed her pseudo family.
“Well, it seems like she told you everything.” She took another deep breath, steeling herself before she got to the hard part. “Lincoln, I messed up. Yea, we were growing distant and it was getting hard, but we both wanted to work on it. We were both willing to put in whatever effort it took to stay together. When Cage showed up again, I fucked up. I got freaked out and I ran and hid, but not before scaring the shit out of her.” She let out a sigh, “We both grew even more distant after that night and I pushed her further and further away. My birthday should have been enough of an indication, yea, but I’m an idiot and didn’t get the hints she was giving me. I pushed her right to Costia and I should have known that she would want to go to someone normal and not fucked up like me and – “
“Clarke stop.” Lincoln reached forward and wrapped both of his hands around her upper arms. “Absolutely none of what happened during that time was your fault. Sure, you pulled away, but that’s because you got scared. That wasn’t the first time that you pulled away from any of us, and it wasn’t the worst reaction you’d ever had either. You did absolutely nothing wrong.”
Lincoln could see the the younger girl wasn’t really grasping what he was saying, but he knew that it was something she needed to hear eventually. He sat back down in his seat, but grabbed her hands in his, hoping that the light contact still provided her with comfort.
“Lexa reacted to what happened in the worst way possible. You can argue all you want that it wasn’t her responsibility to have to take care of you or whatnot, but she did know what she was getting into when you guys got together. She knew what your situation was all throughout high school and she knew what living with you was going to be like. Nothing – absolutely nothing – that you did would ever warrant how she reacted to it. Nothing will ever excuse how she treated you in the months after your run-in with Wallace, or what happened on your birthday, or what happened with Costia. You don’t need to play the martyr with us, Clarke. We all love you too much to see you throw yourself in the flames for something that wasn’t your fault.”
Clarke kept her eyes closed and she breathed deep through her nose. These were words that she had never truly let herself hear. The haunted blonde had been raised to accept blame for absolutely everything that had ever happened to her; she had no idea how not to hold herself responsible. The only common factor for everything that went wrong in her life was, well, her. It made sense.
Anya had tried to tell her these things, but Clarke had scarcely listened. Sure, Anya was her sister, but she was Lexa’s sister too and the younger girl didn’t want to cause any problems within their family. Maybe the soldier hadn’t been lying when she had said that family was more than just blood.
Blue eyes eventually opened again, and met brown looking intently back at them. Lincoln didn’t have any sort of judgment or contempt written across his features, and Clarke could feel the genuine care and compassion rolling off of him in waves. Maybe she would actually allow herself to think about what all he had said.
The two eventually had to split. Clarke offered to drive Lincoln to wherever he had to go, and the officer asked her to drive her back to the bistro as he would be meeting Octavia nearby later.
When they pulled up back to the parking lot, Clarke killed the engine and looked at her passenger. Lincoln made the first move to get out of the car and walked right over to Clarke’s side. He opened the door for her and held it open expectantly, wearing a giant grin on his face.
Clarke was 100% unable to deny the way he was looking at her and pulled her seatbelt off. As soon as she had her feet on the ground, the stoic girl felt herself be pulled into a full-on hug. She was almost surprised to find that the touch really didn’t set her skin crawling as it usually did.
By the time she made her way to the hospital for her shift that evening, Clarke was in one of the best moods any of her coworkers had ever seen. She may or may not have leverage to bring down Jaha – or at least some corrupt cops, she had reconnected with her brother, and she might be on her way to getting her family back.
Clarke was in such a good mood that she absolutely didn’t mind any of the careful teasing she received from her coworkers about the hot police officer from the previous day. They didn’t need to know he was her brother or anything – and, hey, it was great to see the looks on their faces when she mentioned the hot female officer she’d seen around. The wink she threw their way definitely almost enough to give a few of them heart attacks. Good thing they were already in a hospital.