between the pain and cost
I hold myself alive
I love you
but I'm lost
Sharon van Etten.
++++++++++++++++++++
It had been around midnight when Clarke decided she simply couldn't take it any longer. She dreaded it, but it looked like tonight was going to be one of those nights after all.
Tonight she would have to sleep.
The fire had burnt down to all but glowing embers that lay scattered on the ground, flickering like dying fireflies. Autumn was in its prime and she could feel the cold night air stinging her skin, making a home in her bones. She shivered. Three weeks had passed since she had killed for that final time (or so she likes to think). Three long weeks filled with anger, with pain and with resignation.
Ironically enough, much like her last days on the arc and her first days in the mountain, her first nights back at camp Jaha were spent in a holding cell. Bellamy had betrayed her, told on her. He had snatched her out of the forest, thrown her over his shoulder and carried her all the way back. Not even an hour after she had gone off. There were no discussions, no fighting. Kane had been the one to suggest a holding cell the second she was brought in. Her mother was more important, after all. So why waste people on keeping guard when they could just lock her up until she abandoned those silly notions of leaving? Her friends visited her the following days, some expressing their concern, their gratitude, others practically begging her to stay. Jasper brought her a cup of moonshine. For relaxation, he had said. Clarke never touched it. Octavia just sat with her for a while. They didn't need to speak. There was nothing to be said after all. Her brother stayed away. In fact, she hadn't talked to him at all unless she had to. But he was watching her every step, quite blatantly. Whenever she caught him staring at her, he would just look at her until she became uncomfortable and went about her day.
From a certain point of view, Clarke understood them all, could empathize. But she was not like them. Not anymore.
I am become death, she mused once more. It rang true.
She felt like autumn leaves these days. Losing color, crumbling, inevitably falling. And yet she couldn't do a single thing to stop it from happening. She would disappear eventually. Her dreams were at fault, she knew. And how she feared them. Those ferociously vivid horrors, hiding behind her eyelids. They were quicksand and she had already lost her footing. She could see herself from a distance, a wounded animal, separating from the herd. She analyzed herself the same way she analyzed her patients and saw her problems with perverse clarity. Yet she was paralyzed. Fear would do that to you.
She knew she had problems with discerning dreams from reality. Lately the two melted somehow, fusing into each other and it seemed impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. Even in broad daylight she would hallucinate. She'd see the faces in that mountain, sometimes they were alive, talking to her, asking her to save them. Most of the time they were silent, their eyes accusingly empty. Other times she saw her people in their place. She couldn't say which was worse.
On her fourth day, when Kane came to sit with her and talk about her mother's progressing health (as he usually did in the evening), she promised him that she would stay. She intended to honor that promise, to be there, if only to make all her friends happy, to make her mother happy. He seemed wary at first, but she could see the relief in his eyes. He drew her into his arms then, told her, how brave she was, how glad he was just having her with them. Clarke knew his concern was sincere, but it reminded her of the last time her father had hugged her, held her that way. It hurt.
She generally kept to herself once she was released, getting out of everyone's way. They had given her her own small tent to sleep and live in and she was perfectly content with that. She constantly volunteered for the kinds of missions that required going out, but was denied every time. They still didn't trust her to come back, she figured. Realizing that the best she could do for camp was to help and learn as much as possible from her mother, she began to work at their new medical unit they had set up in the Arc.
Her eyes had long since adjusted to the darkness when her gaze swept over their new home. A home of make-shifts and inconvenience, most of all: a home of compromise.
She realized that they still had a lot of work ahead of them if they wanted to survive this winter. And that included communication and working as a unit. A new set of rules was needed. Even with the support of the Arc, things weren't progressing quickly enough. They needed those houses. Real, sturdy houses, and soon. Plans had already been drawn up and people were probably working on it, but to Clarke it all seemed to be going too slow. Their tents wouldn't work much longer and they all knew it. Then again they probably didn't have enough rations to keep them from starving anyways. Suddenly their future sleeping arrangements seemed secondary. Clarke frowned. She made a mental note to go ask the new council about plans and the general progression, but deep down she knew she wouldn't. Wasn't ready.
Her head was starting to spin again. She was used to feeling dizzy and exhausted. Clarke tried not to sleep for as long as she could possibly put it off. She would spent her nights wandering around camp, watching over them in her own way. Sleep was the enemy. To be avoided at all costs.
But for tonight, she had lost her battle. Her eyelids were too heavy, her body exhausted. She knew she couldn't go on much longer without at least a couple of hours. She at least had to try or else she would perform even poorer at her new job.
She made her way to her tent through the dark, her feet carrying her as if they had a mind of their own. She wondered how long it took for muscle memory to work. Yet another thing she would ask her mother, hopefully she wouldn't forget that one. She changed into a loose-fitting shirt and got under heaps of blankets and furs, her heart beating rapidly, fearful of all that was to come.