Chapter 39
Lincoln is looking progressively worse and I am getting more and more anxious just waiting and pacing around and watching Octavia try to care for him. Bellamy only looks more calm, but in truth it must be unthinkably worse for him. Nyko just sits there in the corner and keeps silent - I think he thinks himself some sort of prisoner here with us. He isn't, but he's outnumbered and outgunned and probably deems silence and calm his best friends now.
It has to be noon or even past when Finn comes back with Abby.
''Finally,'' I sigh as I give a hand to Finn to climb up - Abby is already down on her knees checking up on Lincoln, ''Any news? Where's Clarke?''
''Trying to stop a war,'' he scowls, ''If this doesn't work, she won't be able to.''
''Then it has to work.''
''Pupils are unresponsive,'' Abby says, ''Tie off his arm! As tight as you can!''
Octavia ties Lincoln's arm hastily, Bellamy making sure it all stands firmly in place. I don't seem to know what to do with my hands; my legs feel like jello. My heart is suddenly too loud for my own thoughts. This has to work. God please make it work.
''Thanks to the supplies your brother found, Lincoln might have a chance,'' Abby explains to Octavia, preparing a syringe. Lincoln looks so bad I just can't seem to believe her. And yet I still hope.
''What's that?''
''This will bring down his fever. Hold him down!''
Lincoln resists, it takes me and Finn too - pressing against him - to stop him from thrashing and squirming about. Abby manages to inject the thing, but then he goes into another seizing episode, only to come to the frightening calm at the end of it once more.
''What's happening? Why isn't it working?'' Octavia panics.
''His heart stopped,'' Abby says, pressing her palms against his chest, pushing, pumping, relentlessly, but he isn't coming back, I have hoped for nothing, my mind was right and my heart was wrong and Lincoln is gone and dead and so are all of us.
''You're their healer?'' Abby turns to Nyko, ''Tilt his head back. Pull his chin down to open his airway.''
Time stretches. Minutes are ages. My face feels numb, like if someone touched me I wouldn't be able to feel a thing. I look at Bellamy. He looks back. Some voice in the back of my mind tries to whisper to me that I shouldn't be reacting like this now when he looks so broken and lost. I need to have it together, the muffled voice insists. But it's too much, the Grounders are coming, and I have just come back, I have just found my people again, and now the Grounders will come back again and kill so many of us and I have only had a couple of days with my dad, only a couple of nights with Bellamy.
''You're stopping,'' Octavia says, ''What's wrong?!''
''I'm sorry. He's gone.''
''No, it's not possible. You're wrong!'' she cries.
''Octavia,'' Bellamy practically begs, but Octavia presses against Lincoln's chest still crying ''Come back! Lincoln!''. Bellamy has a comforting, helpless hand on her back. She can't feel it. For the first time in a while, tears prick at the corners of my eyes.
Then the hatch is open, and Clarke steps in, Grounders in tow. She looks terrified now, coming to this, looking to her mother who has no help to offer her. Octavia is weeping her heart out now, Bellamy still kneeling next to her. I am still in a haze, still shocked, time still half in slow-motion. I am sloppy and unprepared, clumsy when the Grounders pull out their weapons.
Everyone seems to react quickly enough though - because we're at a stand-off. The machete I'm facing from the Grounder whose face is hardly visible through that spiked mask is a little too close to my neck for comfort. I should have trained my arrow at him, and not at the dark-skinned woman, but I guess it's a normal reaction to ''I'll kill them all''.
''Please,'' Clarke says, and the way her voice quivers I could swear she's doing her best not to cry, ''You don't have to do this.''
''You lied,'' the girl whom I finally identify as the Commander speaks, ''And you're out of time.''
Abby moves first, but before I can wonder what she's doing and why she's the first to attack anyone - she presses her baton against Lincoln's chest and shocks him. His body rises - it reacts - and it falls back. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I could laugh hysterically under so much desperate adrenaline. None of the weapons move though; my arms are frozen. If I move just an inch to the left, I'll be able to feel the tip of the machete against the skin of my neck. If I reacted suddenly in any way, I am sure my throat will be cut and I will die suffocating on my own blood.
''Do it again,'' Clarke says.
No one moves. Everyone watches. The Grounders seem to be holding a collective breath, confused and fascinated at the same time. Abby shocks Lincoln again. His body rises, then falls, but this time, he draws a breath. Then he opens his eyes.
''Lincoln?''
''Octavia-''
The machete moves away from my neck.
*
Our walk back to camp seems like a dream, like it isn't really happening. Bellamy and Finn carry Lincoln, Octavia always right next to his head. Clarke has gone with Commander Lexa and her attendance to discuss the terms of the truce. Me and Abby walk shoulder to shoulder, both of us seemingly unable to speak. There is a lump in my throat that won't leave. It's all over now, we're saved, but it's sinking in too slowly for me. I feel tired - both physically and mentally. I need comfort more than rest, and I need to truly understand that we're safe now.
Once we're back, a couple of guards take over and help get Lincoln into medical. We leave Octavia there - she wouldn't have parted with him now even if we tried to drag her away with a rope. Bellamy holds my hand and won't leave it now. Then I see dad coming out of Engeneering, and I literally slam into him for a hug. It has been a long couple of days, and it's only now that I realize I won't lose him now, and he's there to stay.
''You okay?'' he holds my face, scanning me over quickly as though trying to check me for any outward injuries. Usual parent procedure, I guess.
''Dad, I'm fine,'' I shrug it off, ''Anything happened here in the mean time?''
''You mean besides sitting here shaking in fear of the Grounders at our doorstep?'' dad smiles, ''No, not much.''
He turns to Bellamy now, face serious. Bell just stands there behind us a bit awkwardly. ''I suppose it was your idea to sneak away and single-handedly find a way into Mount Weather, my daughter in tow?''
''Sir, I- We had to-''
''That was reckless,'' dad argues, then gives a painful pause, ''... But brave. That kind of initiative is what we need more of around here,'' - I could swear Bellamy's face physically relaxes at that - ''We may not have that passage you tried to find, but luckily, Raven's found a way to catch their frequency. Now we can listen in on them.''
''Wait, what?''
''What?''
''She's still polishing it up. But it's one advantage we didn't have before.''
*
Clarke seems to be taking an eternity there in the Grounders' camp. What more could they be discussing now? What would possibly take them this long? Mount Weather plans already? I don't like Lexa one bit. She gives off a bad vibe, but I don't have to be a genius to understand it's a good thing that Lexa is the Commander and not someone else. I don't think many would be that flexible and that willing to form a truce in the first place.
I use the time to get some food in us; Bellamy has no appetite whatsoever but I make him eat nevertheless. Dad brings us all some drinks, then Raven joins us too and gives us her debrief. She's excited about the whole radio thing, eager to start something, some sort of mission. But now that the threat of the Grounders is gone, and the problem of Mount Weather immediate, it seems like a grey cloud pressing against my forehead. We can't catch a breath.
After lunch Bell goes to medical to check on Octavia and Lincoln and keep his sister some company. Dad has gone off with Wick, and Finn is nowhere to be seen, so I decide to go help Raven around at the workshop the moment I've washed myself. I can't just sleep all of this off just yet, and I enjoy Raven's company more than that of most.
''Oh, crap,'' Raven puts down one of her screwdrivers, ''I need you to do something for me.''
''What is it?''
''In the depository down the hall, there's a small metal locker in the left corner. In it there's a tool-case in the right upper shelf,'' she makes a weird face, like she hates asking this of me, ''I need those tools.''
''Wipe that frown, Raven; does it look like I got anything else to do?'' I laugh, making for the door, ''Might as well keep busy until Clarke comes to put me out of my misery.''
''Wait! The locker key.'' I catch it with the tips of my fingers, before twirling on the balls of my heels and striding down the hallway.
I wouldn't have been surprised to find Murphy mopping the floors there, but I am surprised to find him in the next room down the eastern hall, violently scrubbing his hands in the washbasin. The sight has me oddly petrified; I could swear those hands would start bleeding if he doesn't stop soon, and he seems to be single-handedly draining the entire water supply of Camp Jaha as I watch.
''What are you doing?''
He jump a bit, startled, having been completely unaware of my presence. It doesn't deter him for longer than a moment however - he continues the scrubbing like his life depends on it.
''You better leave.''
''Murphy, you're gonna scrub your damn skin off-''
''Why do you care,'' he says more than asks, still not even looking up.
''Let's just say I'm curious.''
He doesn't reply to that, and seems to be decided on not replying to anything further either, so I just strode up and turn off the water. He pauses, looks up at me, then shoves me away. My back bumped at the wall lightly - the washroom is entirely too small.
''I told you to leave,'' he growls, turning and walking away.
''Murphy! Stop!'' I catch up with him, grab his arm, turn him around. He takes a step back away from me, like I have the plague or something. That's weird.
''When I tell you to stay away from me, you stay away,'' he says, his voice calmer now. But this is worrying, because I've caught him washing his hands the way I wanted to wash mine after I killed that Grounder in the woods. That can't be good.
''Why were you doing that?'' I ask again, patiently - his hands are positively pink now, I realize. He stares me down, looking resigned now, showing no signs of wanting to speak at all.
''Just tell me,'' I say, hoping my voice sounds friendly, ''And I'll leave you alone.''
He coughs once, twice, three times, bringing his arm up on time to block it with his sleeve. He scowls.
''That's why,'' he says, giving me the answer when he didn't mean to.
''What do you mean?'' I ask, still not understanding what he's getting at and what's happening at all.
''Natasha, I'm coughing,'' he says, ''I might be sick. I'm staying away from everyone, but I'm trying not to spread it around in other ways, just in case.''
He used my full birth name again. Everyone always calls me Tasha, or even shorter - T; Natasha is only for either official business or serious stuff or when I'm in trouble. Even though Murphy and I are not what we once were, I still hate the sound of my full name rolling off his tongue. It's instinctive; it works like muscle memory. I seem to still associate it with my best friend being pissed at me.
But then it dawns on me. I understand what the hell is happening with him. And despite everything, it breaks my heart just a tiny bit. I hate that.
''Murphy, you've caught a common cold,'' I say, chuckling almost, ''What you need is some warm tea, not to scrub the skin off your palms-''
''I still don't see why you should care,'' he drawls, ''But either way, I don't want anyone to fall sick because of me so you better move.''
''Murphy, what happened with the Grounders is not gonna happen again,'' I shake my head, though I can't really understand why I argue, ''You're not a- a walking virus! This is ridiculous, you need to figure out what's going on in your head before it gets you, because we have enough problems as it is. You're coming with me!'' I walk on.
''Why should I?'' he drawls again, with that infamous smirk now, feet still planted.
''Because I need to get some tools to Raven, and then we're getting you some hot tea, and I'm gonna make sure it's scorching so it burns that big mouth of yours-''
''Tasha!!!'' I hear Raven shout.
She's running. Or at least the closest thing to it, as fast as she can. She's out of breath by the time she's caught up with us.
''It's Clarke.''