A/N: This chapter is intended to be short – more of an introduction rather than a complete chapter. The second chapter is complete and will be uploaded shortly.
You want to know something about demons?
Everybody has them. In one form or another.
Me? I have a lot of them. For as long as I can remember, I've been plagued by my past.
Once you recognise your shame, your regret, your fears… your temptations… your demons start to develop faces. Features.
Sometimes names.
Sometimes demons are so beautiful, so endearingly dangerous, they cannot be slain.
If you can't slay them, you at least need to make peace with them or eventually they will destroy you.
But sometimes, destruction is what we deserve.
Sometimes, destruction is what we crave.
The battered, leather-bound book slid from her lap, colliding with the thin mattress on the hospital bed.
Ending up here had been an accident.
But she'd needed some kind of release. An escape.
The blade scraping over her skin had been involuntary – an impulse that she couldn't control.
It wasn't done with the intention of hurting herself. Not really. She'd just needed something physical to compensate for the mental torture she'd been experiencing over the past few months.
It had all happened so fast.
Being listed as a criminal had never been on her agenda. But people often received things they didn't want in life.
But, she'd paid back her debts.
As best she could, anyway.
She'd just had her 18th birthday and was one step closer to becoming a free woman. At least, that's what they'd told her.
Pfft, yeah right. Free woman, my ass.
The truth was, in Ark Academy, you didn't get to be free. Gifted people were selected from both juvenile and adult prisons to undertake high-level training to eventually become a part of the undercover government agency. A lifelong contract. Once you turned 18 and had received sufficient training, you had to prove your worth out in the mission field. Clarke had been given that opportunity. She was lucky the mission had even been completed. Her mistakes had almost cost the lives of her entire team. She didn't feel worthy of qualifying as an agent, but yet here she was, preparing for her final ceremony in a stupid hospital bed.
The mission was something she didn't want to talk about. Not yet.
Anyway, it was a shady business working in the government's academy, but many – not all – of the top high-functioning successful icons in the agency had initially been criminals.
Criminals had skills, knowledge, and balls.
Balls to do things regular citizens wouldn't.
Sure, the government was messed up.
But what in life wasn't?
Yet, the stress of the training in multiple areas on top of dealing with her own crimes weighed heavy on her chest.
To be honest, she was lucky she'd been selected for the academy. Her mother, who was a doctor herself, had serious connections and the ability to pull whatever strings took her fancy.
But as mentioned before, ending up in the public infirmary had been a mistake. A slip of a blade over her wrist whilst on transitional leave from the academy.
She'd just wanted to forget. Forget about her demons. Just for one minute.
"Hi there. Do you prefer Clarke, or Miss Griffin?"
"Clarke is fine." She responded, easing up into a more comfortable position. This practitioner was new. Clarke could tell by the way she shifted awkwardly by her bedside as though she didn't quite know which ward she was supposed to be on.
"Well, Clarke, I'm Eliza, a trainee nurse, and I was wondering if I could have your consent to check–"
"–My blood pressure, right?"
Eliza smiled, "Sure, if that's okay with you."
Clarke nodded and rolled up her sleeve. Honestly, she could have just done it herself.
"Okay, everything's fine for now – although your blood pressure is a little on the low side. Have you eaten today?"
Clarke shook her head.
"Mind if I do your BMs – uh, test your blood sugar levels?"
She avoided a smirk at the jargon slip-up and just held up her finger. It was common knowledge that healthcare professionals weren't supposed to use slang around patients, and it was possible to get in trouble for doing so.
After the prick of the needle in her fingertip, Clarke watched her blood trickle onto the strip and feed back to the monitor.
"Okay, 3.4… That's pretty low, Clarke. Would you like some juice and a sandwich bringing to you?" Eliza asked, chewing on her lower lip as she gauged her patient's evident disregard for her own wellbeing.
"I'm good." Clarke pulled the IV drip from her arm and pressed her fingers down on the pinprick needle wound.
Every trainee nurse's worst nightmare; an uncooperative patient.
"Actually, I'm afraid I can't discharge you until you've finished your dose." She indicated to the bag hanging by Clarke's bedside, "Would you mind hanging on an extra half an hour? I'll bring you some lunch in the meantime."
Clarke sighed. She knew overpowering the trainee nurse would be all too easy, but as such, she just smiled, "I'll just have the juice. You can put this back in when I've come back from the bathroom, okay?"
Eliza worried at her lower lip once more before she shook her head uncertainly, "Right. Okay, I'll be two minutes."
Take your time.
Eliza bustled from the bay and left Clarke with the brief window of time to grab her bag and sling it over her shoulder. She sidled from the ward and headed towards the main entrance, pulling her buzzing phone from her coat pocket, "Hey, Octavia."
"Clarke, hey. Where are you? I've gotten like six missed calls from your mother. She says you're not picking up."
"Yeah… Yeah, I've not had chance to return her calls yet." She left the gates of the infirmary and headed towards the garages a couple of blocks away where she'd been keeping her pride and joy.
There was a baited silence on the other end before Octavia sighed, "Clarke… tell me you're not in hospital. Please. Because this happened last time. Nobody could reach you for hours."
"I'm not." She muttered, pulling her keys from the front pocket of her bag, tucking the phone between her ear and shoulder, "I'm about to set back off now, so chill, O. I have a mentoring session in half an hour."
She knew her friend was unconvinced, but she'd deal with that later.
"Right. Well, see you soon then, I guess."
Once she'd hung up, Clarke swung one leg over her black Triumph Daytona after pulling her motorcycle helmet from beneath the seat. She was sure she'd be fine to drive. She'd spent longer in hospital than she'd felt necessary, and she'd always healed quickly anyway.
The wind whipping past her body as she soared along the roads to hit the highway helped. It helped cleanse her mind of the reservations she felt about keeping Octavia in the dark.
It wasn't that she didn't trust her.
She did.
But Clarke was used to betrayal from friends and people she thought she could trust. She spent most of her time around thieves, assaulters, hackers, drug-users… and murderers. Trust wasn't something that could be gained or given easily.
The thing that hit hardest was losing the few friends she did have.
Sometimes through fault of her own. Sometimes through theirs.
She'd lost too many people in her life to face losing another. Especially a friend and colleague as strong as Octavia Blake. Disappointing her wasn't something she felt ready to do. Not right then.
Not after last time.
…
"So, how do you feel you're getting on, Charlotte?" Clarke was sitting beside a young girl – one who looked like she'd barely hit her teenage years, "Are you settling in better since last time we talked?"
Charlotte shrugged, the determined set of her jaw refusing to loosen up. She was almost as stubborn as Clarke. That was probably why she was both infuriating and fascinating to her.
"You've not had any more issues with those boys?"
Charlotte shook her head slowly, "Not since you spoke to them. I'm doing okay. I think. I just… never mind." She muttered.
"Hey…" Clarke moved one hand to rest on the girl's shoulder gently, "It's okay. You can tell me. I'm not exactly in a position to judge, am I? We all make mistakes."
Charlotte shrugged once more, refusing to meet her eye.
"You know, I found it hard to make friends when I first came here. I didn't know where I fit in. I'm not saying it gets easier, you just get stronger."
"I'm trying to get stronger. But I keep waking up in the night, crying. So, how am I supposed to be strong when I look so weak?"
Clarke nodded slowly, "The nightmares are still happening?"
"Every time I close my eyes."
She chewed on her lip in thought before continuing, "What you witnessed before you came here was terrifying. It's enough to give anybody nightmares. The way I see it is that you need to learn that sometimes, it's okay not to be okay. It's how we learn and grow."
Charlotte processed this before she gave a nod of her head, fiddling with her braid to occupy her hands, "I just keep seeing my parents over and over. Every time I fall asleep, I see them getting shot. It's like a repeat. How can I get that to stop?"
Clarke shrugged lightly, her eyes landing empathetically on Charlotte's as she finally glanced up to her, "I still sometimes see my Dad die. The images don't ever go away. Not properly. But I learned how to accept it. Your journey here is about learning to stare your demons dead in the face and say 'I'm not afraid'."
Charlotte nodded, "That's what Bellamy said too."
Of course. He had been Charlotte's mentor before he'd fully qualified. The blonde nodded, "Bellamy's a smart guy. You know, he had a lot of demons too. He faced all of them. Just like I know you can."
"You really think I can?" She asked, the fear finally becoming visible behind her eyes.
"Yes. You know what Bellamy taught me? That it's okay to be afraid. Just don't let it stop you from doing what you need to do."
The girl stood up, brushing down her trousers, "Thanks, Clarke. See you next time."
"Sure." She allowed herself a half smile, both out of encouragement for Charlotte, and fondness for Octavia's older brother.
Octavia had been a criminal long before her brother. He'd followed her into prison once she'd been selected for the academy. He scored a solid 11 on the 1-10 overprotective brother scale… They'd managed to all make the same cohort for training and even though they'd all had their ups and downs, somehow, they'd stuck together. Bellamy was a little older and had therefore qualified a little sooner than both Clarke and Octavia.
On her way back to the dorms, Clarke stuck her head in medical to check up that her fellow medic had everything covered, "You okay in here, Lincoln?"
The tall mass of muscle glanced up with his heavy brown eyes and inclined his head, the stethoscope in his hand pressed against his patient's chest, "Just started. I'm all good so far. Keep your pager handy, though. You know how things can change. Say hi to O for me."
Clarke inclined her head in agreement, grabbing a bandage and some med tape from the trays above the sink, "Sure." She ducked her head back out from the clinic and scanned her key card by the door that lead to her dorm, finding herself immediately confronted with the afore-mentioned brunette herself the second she entered her room.
"You're back."
Clarke nodded.
"You're bleeding."
"I'm on it." Clarke sidled past Octavia, inwardly cursing her ever-observant roommate, and went to perch cross-legged on her bed, rolling up her sleeve. The wound on her forearm looked worse than it actually was just because it had qualified for stitching. She fully intended on taking them out herself once the five days were up.
"What happened, Griff?" Octavia had permitted herself a space next to Clarke on her bed, leaning over to examine the damage.
"I was playing with knives and I got careless." She shrugged, "Nothing serious, don't worry." She began to wrap the bandage around the injury, holding the tape between her teeth, "Oh, and your boyfriend says hi." She managed to mumble around the obstruction in her mouth.
"He's not my boyfriend." Octavia quipped, her eyes flipping up to Clarke's.
As she taped the dressing to her skin, Clarke smirked and returned Octavia's stare, "Fine. The tall and ridiculously handsome man you exclusively sleep with on a regular basis says hi. Better?"
She rolled her eyes, "Much. Now stop changing the subject. What really happened to your arm, Clarke?"
"Nothing. I was just being careless, like I said. It wasn't intentional." Not exactly.
"Good job Linc stitched it up for you real quick, right?" Octavia asked.
Clarke creased her eyebrows, "He didn't. I was on leave when–"
She cut herself short, realising her blunder.
"I knew it, Griffin! You were at the damn public hospital."
The blonde just exhaled, "Not when you rang. I'd already left…"
Octavia clipped the back of Clarke's head with her fingers, "You could've told me, Griff. Had me worried."
And pissed off by the looks of it. Clarke noted the flash of irritation behind Octavia's eyes. But she couldn't blame her in the slightest.
"Is this a… a Commander thing?"
Clarke's eyes flickered over hers for a hard moment, "No. This is a Clarke-got-careless-and-forgot-she-was-holding-a-knife thing. The commander has nothing to do with this."
Her roommate leaned back against the headboard, pulling her knees upwards as she studied Clarke briefly, "Griffin, I know you. I know you're not the best with short range weaponry… but I also know you aren't stupid enough to slice your arm open just like that. Not unless it was intentional."
She looked away, feeling the deep blue of her irises cloud over with tears. She said nothing.
Octavia sighed and ran a hand through her hair in mild exasperation, "You need to talk to somebody about this. Even if you won't talk to me."
"What is there to talk about?" Clarke's head spun towards Octavia's, her temper getting the better of her self-control in an ever ongoing fight, "What, should I talk about the way I watched her betray me? Or should I talk about the way she turned her back on me without a second-glance, leaving me exposed in the field? Maybe I should talk about the way she let me see her the way nobody else did. You know, the way she let me in… the way she made me believe she wasn't the enemy."
"But she was, Griff." Octavia couldn't seem to help herself.
"I know. Goddammit, I know." Clarke stared at the floor, pulling at her sleeves, "But it doesn't matter now. None of that does. Look, I'm going to get some sleep while I can. I'm on-call for medical. I need the cash."
Octavia just sighed and pushed herself to her feet, "Right, I'll leave you in peace." She headed over to her own bed and grabbed her jacket from the pillows, shrugging into it, "Just… you know where I am if you need me."
"You mean banging Lincoln on some unoccupied hospital bed in medical?" She managed a smirk, despite herself.
"You said it." Octavia sent her a wink, closing the door behind her.
Clarke just dropped down onto the pillows, closing her eyes once she'd set the pager on her bedside table.
The Commander.
The one demon Clarke could neither make peace with nor slay.
The one demon who would forever taunt her. Forever haunt her.
The aftereffects of the pain medication sedated her into a drowsy state of sleep, thoughts of pale green still in the forefront of her mind.