"Mom! You have to help!" Clarke's tears cracked the request. "Johnny's sick! And you're a doctor! You have to help him!"

Abby sucked in a breath. "Clarke, darling, I can't do that. We used all the medication we could on him. There's nothing I can do."

Clarke ran off, near blind from sobbing. Somehow she made it to the Murphy's cabin. Sniffing back her tears she forced herself to smile. Taking the turtle shaped ocarina out of her pocket, she plopped down next to John on his bed. Assuming his parents were getting him something to try and make him feel better, she nudged his shoulder. "Hey! I made you something."

John's hair stuck to his forehead and his eyes while glassy, lit up when he saw her. "Hey, Art." Turning the turtle over in his hands a couple times, his forehead creased in confusion. "Why's it got holes?"

"It's an instrument, an ocarina. You like music and you liked the turtle I drew last week, so I thought you'd like it."

"Neat. I can't breathe, though." And the truth of that made evident with the subtle wheeze with every inhale.

"It's for when you get be-"

Mr. Murphy rushed through the door, something in his hand, but before he got to his son, the Guards grabbed him. "Alex Murphy, you're under arrest for theft."

"He didn't do anything!" Clarke tried to pulled Mr. Murphy away from the Guards.

"Let my dad go!" John, as weak as he was, tried as well, only to be tossed aside, his head striking the edge of a shelf. Panicked Clarke abandoned Mr. Murphy to help her best friend.

"He's hurt! Help my son!" The guards ignored Alex Murphy and continued to drag him away. "I love you, John! I love you!"

Holding John while he coughed and sobbed, Clarke cried with him. "I'm sorry, Johnny. I wasn't strong enough. I'm so sorry."

2 years later

Clarke heard her dad answer the door. "Clarke?" Was that Murphy? He never called her Clarke. He only ever called her Art, a double entendre on her art skills and her namesake.

"In her bunk."

Murphy walked zombie-like around the divider, his face slack, worrying her. "What's wrong?"

"She said I killed him." His voice sounded hollow and foreign.

"Killed who? Who said?" Clarke turned his face toward hers, as she brushed his always messy hair back.

He met her gaze with emptiness. "My dad."

"Your mom said that to you? Oh, John! She's wrong." She pulled him into a hug that he didn't return. "I'm going to bitch her out. How dare she say something that awful and untrue."

"She's dead." He fell out of her arms and onto her bed. "I, ah, I found her - on the floor. Um, she'd puked again -"

Once again Clarke wrapped her arms around him. "I get the picture. You should get some rest. Lie down and get some sleep."

Nodding like his head wasn't quite attached, he did as told. Clarke covered him up and went to talk to her parents. John wasn't going to get some family assigned to him at random. He was going to live here. Her parents would be okay with that, and if they weren't she'd make them be okay with it.

5 years later

The dropship felt like it would explode any second as they entered the atmosphere. A boy with long hair and a cap floated in front of Clarke and Murphy. "Hey, you're the traitors who've been in solitary for a year."

"You're the idiot who wasted a month of oxygen on an illegal spacewalk."

"Come on Art, you're being way too nice to this guy. I think calling him a fucking moron would be more fitting."

"Of course."

"I wonder if there'll be turtles."

"Not that you can play music on." She grabbed John's hand as they plummeted to Earth.