AN: Just a oneshot I've been working on. in 2 installments. Takes place shortly after a Clarke & Lexa reunion in Polis. Rated M for graphic references (not sexual). CONTENT WARNING: for graphic reference to anecdotal violence/rape/torture, and suicidal sub-theme. This is primarily anecdotal drama, but consider it rated 'Game of Thrones' to be safe. Thoughts, feedback, or reviews always appreciated.

EDIT: Ooop...I slipped and made this a series.

'MEDICINE'

—X—

Part I

i

.

It was the third time she'd seen a guard pull Lexa aside and mutter something into her ear, and the second they were interrupted.

"What was that?" Clarke said with a scowl, her chin jerking in the direction the guard had just disappeared. "What aren't you telling me?"

"Nothing important." Lexa was still level and composed, though in Clarke's presence, the practiced hardness of the Commander had never fully returned to her eyes. She swallowed. "It's personal."

There was a pause and then, "Seriously?" Clarke's eyes flashed and she took a step toward her across the room. "A second ago you were trying to convince me your 'personal' feelings even remotely matter—now in the same breath that whatever you're lying to me about doesn't? You want me to trust you, after everything you did: and that's your tactic?" She laughed ruefully. "What is going on," she demanded. She wasn't about to stand there, captive against her will in The Capitol, and be treated like a child while Lexa found a way to grovel for her help in her off-time from secret, tactical exploits.

Lexa's chin tucked, still rigid. Her eyes darted away. "My mother is dying."

Clarke faltered, the steam knocked out of her.

Lexa's eyes stayed glued to the corner of her vision at the wall, anywhere but at Clarke.

"What?" Clarke was thrown. With the way Lexa had acted, and the grounder culture, she'd assumed Lexa's family was already gone.

There was a long silence between them. The grating defensiveness had slid off of Clarke and it was too late to get it back. She could read the subtleties in Lexa's eyes and movements now, even with what she didn't say and do.

"She has an infection." Lexa sured back up from what little slack the confession had allowed. "As I said, it is none of your concern." She was about to start pressing about the war again, like none of this mattered.

But Clarke could tell it did. She hesitated at first, but the healer within her took over. "Let me see."

Lexa was surprised. An hour ago Clarke had a knife to her throat. Her voice remained steady, "There is nothing that can—"

"Take me to her."

"Why?" Something flashed through Lexa's eyes. "It isn't your problem, Klark."

Clarke didn't know why.

Maybe being a healer at all made failing to help an act of violence in itself, and she couldn't handle any more blood on her hands, however far removed. In the middle of war and heartache, with wolves at the gate, when you'd already lost everything else: she knew what it was like to think you were going to loose your mother. Her voice was tight but clear, "Maybe I just don't want anyone else to die if I can stop it."

.

"She does not know about the war," Lexa said over her shoulder at the door, "please do not change that. She deserves peace."

The woman was propped up in a comfortable bed of furs by the wall of the room the entered. She was younger than Clarke expected. Maybe even a decade younger than Abby, which was a little jarring. She looked like Lexa, only worn, older, scarred. Her hair dark and wild. A deep scar ran through her brow over an eye on one side of her face, but it somehow suited her. It looked like her skin was normally darker than Lexa's, but right now she was incredibly pale.

Clarke noticed the rags in the corner of the room were covered in dried blood. She moved forward but Lexa's hand shot out, unbridled, and firmly gripped her upper arm to stop her from getting closer.

"Nyko, em ste klir?" (Is she safe?) Lexa addressed the healer that had opened the door to them. She still hadn't let go of Clarke's arm. He nodded.

Clarke noticed the thick leather straps by the woman's feet and wrists, as if to bind her down.

Lexa used the resolved tone that she summoned when attempting to keep things emotionless. Clarke wasn't sure if Lexa's defenses were wearing thin or if she was just better at reading her now. "The Mountain People took her years ago. She has been a reaper."

Clarke's lips slid open and she stared at Lexa blankly. Lexa had said it simply, not looking at her, but it threw Clarke's internal axis sideways and twisted her belly; the implications of it hung in the air and began to filter into her consciousness one by one, with the speed at which she was able to process them — When Clarke came to her with a cure for Lincoln, Lexa's mother was a reaper — When Lexa went to the Mountain, her mother was in it.

When Lexa took the truce for her people, her mother was one of them.

"I…thought they only did that to the men."

Nyko nodded. "Nanje caused problems in the bleeding chamber. They made an example of her."

Lexa moved quickly past Clarke, kneeled by her mother and touched her arm. "Nomon?" (Mom?) Her voice and touch were softer than Clarke had ever seen her with someone else, almost as if she and Nyko weren't in the room, her focus entirely on her mother as she spoke. Lexa seemed to know her voice was the only thing pulling her mom back into the world.

Her mother's eyes slowly flitted open, still hooded, over her rising and falling chest as she filtered back enough to register Lexa's presence. "Leksa..." Her fingers reached towards Lexa, her voice was a shallow, strained breath that was still half somewhere else. "Ai gada..." (My girl…)

Lexa slipped the cooling cloth off her forehead with a careful touch and swept around her temples, holding her hand as she dipped it in the bowl of fresh water by the bedside and wrung it. "Skaiheda-de ai tel yu op ste hir. Em laik fisa. Teik em chek yu au." (The sky leader I told you about is here. She is a healer. Let her see you.)

Her mother's eyes remained half open with difficulty in response, a barely present nod. She didn't seem capable of looking much further past Lexa.

Clarke stared at them as Lexa kneeled on the floor, a soft numbness and tension of sympathy turned in her gut at the implications of all this. "You didn't tell me they had your mother," she said quietly.

Lexa, still at her mother's side, wouldn't look at her. "I had to assume she was dead."

Clarke forced her mind back to solving things she could control. She looked at the straps again, there was a deep mark on the woman's wrist where she clung to Lexa. "She must be detoxed from the Red by now…?"

"She has been away a very long time," Nyko supplied. "The fever has taken her back before." Clarke was familiar with the look in his eyes. He believed it was time for her suffering to be ended, but was staying silent.

"What's causing the infection?" Clarke asked, nearing the bed to examine her better from afar.

"Her demon teeth," Nyko said. "It is rare, but this happens sometimes. She was unlucky. Was too long without medicine. We have already tried everything that we can."

"Her teeth?" Clarke asked blankly. She moved towards the bed. "What's her name?"

"Nanje," Lexa said, looking distant.

Clarke extended her hands to Nanje and hesitated midair, before she carefully reached forward and felt the lymph nodes in her neck. The one on the right was visibly swollen. Even before touching her forehead, her skin was so warmClarke could tell she was deep into a fever.

"Nanje…?" Clarke appealed to her, fishing into her own pockets. Nanje was so out of it, it didn't have much of an effect. "I need to see her teeth." Clarke fisted the small flashlight she kept on her for emergencies. She reached towards Nanje's mouth but Lexa grabbed her wrist.

Lexa looked up at Nyko and jerked her head. He complied, wrapping a cloth around his thumb and gently tugging Nanje's jaw open. Fortunately he wasn't met with any resistance. Clarke clicked the flashlight on and peered in, as the other two looked on, eyeing her apprehensively. Nyko pulled her jaw wide open and tilted her head back as Clarke craned to see anything.

The entire back of her upper gum and throat were swollen and inflamed. Clarke could see the recent spot in front of it, still plum-red and soft, where a back molar had been pulled, which probably accounted for the bloody rags in the corner of the room and the deep bruises around Nanje's wrists.

"What is that?" Clarke surveyed what looked like a yellow-brown paste clinging to patches of Nanje's gum.

"A resin," Nyko said. "Antibiotic."

Behind the pulled tooth the skin on her gum was angry, ruffled and red; it was barely visible but it was also septic. Her wisdom tooth was impacted. She was dying of an impacted wisdom tooth.

Clarke pulled back with a scowl, a queasy feeling settling in her gut. "My mom can fix this."

Can. She said can instead of could. Clarke got a little more lightheaded. What was she doing? It was like she was acting on autopilot. Her own mother was tortured and almost killed because of what Lexa did.

Lexa and Nyko both stared at her in question.

She nodded. "My mom can fix this. All she needs is antibiotics and a simple operation."

Lexa responded slowly. "We do not have either of those things." She straightened the hope out of her chest, her chin beginning to level again. Nyko was looking carefully between the two of them.

"That seaweed?" Clarke asked him. "You use it to treat infections."

"She has been taking that. It is not strong enough."

"Then give her more. Make it as concentrated as possible, with an extraction of that resin, and try to get her to drink as much water as you can. Make sure it's been boiled." She turned back to Lexa. "We need to get her to Arkadia."

Lexa looked back at her for a moment. Clarke registered surprise somewhere under the cloak of her eyes but she wasn't sure what else. She wet her lips, pushing down a subtle swallow. "This is not what I need your help with."

"This is the only thing you are going to get my help with."

"Why?" Why would you even try?

"Because I'm not gonna let your mom die from an impacted wisdom tooth!"

Lexa was silent

"I can fix this," Clarke said.

Lexa stifled her own words with a glance at her mother—she stalked away from the bed, gesturing for Clarke to follow her back out the door.

When Lexa looked at Clarke she straightened her back. Something similar to what had been there at Mount Weather filtered into her eyes, though it wasn't quite as intense as it had been there. "No." It was unbreeching and definitive.

Clarke shook her head in confusion. "What…?"

Lexa's voice was hard and cold, fortified by the sharpness of her chin, and mimicked in her stance. But her breath was tight. "We are at war," she said simply. "We do not have the time. Or the resources, to attempt something like that."

"But—"

"It is not a possibility." Lexa's voice was so stern and cold Clarke thought maybe she was commanding herself.

"This may not be common among your people, but it is common among mine. It's a simple procedure my mom has probably done it a hundred times—I might even be able to do it if I had to. But stronger antibiotics, she needs them now. If the infection reaches her brain…" Clarke sucked in a chafed breath. "Lexa. If we don't move her now, your mother is going to die."

Lexa swallowed. Still rigid with a gentle sheen in her eyes, though they were sharp and steady. "Then she must die."

Clarke stared at her for a long moment. When Lexa began to turn away she snapped out of it. "I—I have supplies. That I hid at different points in the woods, there is a bag at one of them that has antibiotics, maybe…six or seven hours from here. With the herbs you have, that would be enough. I could be back by morning—I can save her."

Lexa's eyes softened, deliberating this. They bored into Clarke for a fleeting moment, as if Clarke were a light so bright she wouldn't have been able to look back at it any longer. She hardened again. "No."

"Wh..Why?"

"We are at war outside. It is too dangerous."

"I can handle it, myself. You think i'm just looking for a way out of here away from you, send as many guards with me as you want."

"You are not to leave this compound."

"Why, because I'm your prisoner now?" Clarke spat.

"If that is what it comes to."

There were guards in the hall, and Clarke had to stifle the fury coursing through her teeth. "Your mom is—"

"I said no." Lexa's eyes widened at her.

Aside Clarke's seething bitterness, she was even more sure that the bite in Lexa's words were for herself. But the cold, dominant authority there was still enough to send a chill over the nub of her neck and make her forget it.

"Do not force me to have you restrained. If you attempt to leave, you will be." Lexa turned abruptly and stalked away. Leaving Clarke staring at her, ready to punch a hole through a wall. The sharp eyes of the armed guards that were trained on her already acted as her chains.

.

An hour later Clarke left the room that served as her cage to pace the halls. She had too much pent up energy inside of her to stay put without loosing it and tearing the room apart, or doing something stupider, and she had to get it out.

She stalked in circles through the corridors. Her energy crackled through tightened muscles and into the ground with every step, her frustration taken out on door handles unfortunate enough to meet her touch. She clenched her hands at her side to keep herself from ambushing Lexa. She didn't have anything left to say to her, and that left little logical recourse.

It wasn't long before she ended up in front of the door to Nanje's room. She stopped in front of it and stared at the handle, her forehead almost touching the door. She would just check on Nanje again, to see if there was anything else she could do. She reached her hand out to the door nob and then froze, and pulled it away, shaking herself.

Just as Clarke was about to leave she heard a crash on the other side of the door.

Clarke wrenched the door open and barreled in. Before her, Nanje was clinging to a table on the far side of the room, half collapsed on the floor.

"Nanje—?" Clarke rushed over and grabbed her without thought, supporting her body and dragging her up. "What are you doing, you shouldn't be up…" Clarke struggled to keep her upright: for someone so small and feeble looking, she was surprisingly dense.

Nanje's breath was heavy, and she was hot to the touch, still grimacing as if pissed to be so incapacitated.

With difficulty, Clarke lead her back to the bed. Nanje was sweating and out of it enough that even laying down was a bit of a struggle. As she got settled, Clarke noticed she was only using one of her hands, the other still balled into a tight fist. She assumed at first it was balled against pain, but the way she was holding it was different.

Nanje searched absently to stuff her fist under something as she grimaced over the pain of settling her body.

Clarke reached out and pinned down Nanje's wrist, her eyes stony. Nanje gave her what resembled a glower. "What's in your hand." Clarke asked, hard and even.

"Medicine," Nanje said, softening, she opened her clasped hand. Her voice was rasp from lack of use and a swollen throat. "For pain."

Nanje allowed Clarke to pick up the vial and examined it. She unscrewed the cap, reaching it up to her nose to sniff it—

"NO," Nanje snapped, "do not touch that!"

Clarke froze. She knew the coloring, something about it, looked familiar. She scowled. "This is poison."

Nanje stared back at her, she didn't even blink to refute it. "I know about the war," she said. "My fight is over. Yours isn't, neither is Leksa's." She reached for the vial.

Clarke snatched her hand shut around it and backed away. "No…I'm not letting you do that..."

Nanje's weight fell back against the bed, her eyes shut. Under the strained breath she was focusing on, it almost sounded like there had been an aggravated sigh. "Klark," Nanje said crisply. Her voice was suddenly clearer and more definitive than Clarke would have expected.

It threw her, as she turned back to Nanje. "You know my name?"

"My daughter is in love with you. I know your name."

-x-

(i of ii)