The Arrangement. Chapter Ten: Worst Nightmare.
She hasn't left the clinic in six days, she's exhausted and she can feel a layer of grime and dirt coating her skin. The first person died from the sickness this morning and Clarke knows that's her fault. He was young, seven, and his parents didn't bring him in until it was too late for him to be helped, and the only reason that they would do that is because the people know Clarke is the one running the clinic for now. Nyko is back on his feet, but only barley, taking long breaks as needed and only able to help with basic things as he still loses focus easily (he joked to Clarke on the first day he was up-and-around that it was like they traded places – him fetching things for her now, and she'd laughed). Lincoln had come to help too – had been with her since that first day, it was hard for him, she knew, being away from Octavia but she was grateful for their help. He mostly followed her lead and made sure that the sick didn't try to leave.
There's a quick double knock on the door and she swallows before she knocks back and then counts to twenty in her head. It's the first time in six days she's had to force herself to push the door open. She picks up the waiting tray, food for the people inside, and hands up off to Lincoln, who exchanges a glance with Bellamy over her head before he turns inside to start distributing food. Bellamy looks awful, red rings around his eyes that weren't there this time yesterday, but when she says so he shrugs, "Just tired" he shouts back (he's about thirty feet away to maintain the quarantine, even though she's not sure it's effective – she doesn't have enough experience with this to be sure of anything). She nods, there are a lot of people sick inside and a lot of people in the neighboring tent who have been exposed and are waiting to see if they'll turn symptomatic, and while they focus on getting better, the healthy do their jobs. It's hard on everyone right now.
"We, uh…" she trails off, glancing around. They always gather a bit of an audience for this – she thinks it's a mix of people's general interest in her and their relationship and these meal deliveries being the only real updates they can get about what is going on inside the clinic. She pulls in a deep breath to steady herself and forces herself to say it fast, "We lost Aatto this morning" she says, eyes on the ground in between her and Bellamy. A shockwave of voices and gasps radiates around her and she squeezes her eyes shut before slowly opening them and raising her head to look at Bellamy. He takes a half step towards her, arm raised, and she takes a half step back. He freezes and their eyes lock - he looks sad and worried and she whispers an "I'm sorry" that she knows he can't hear before rushing back inside. Lincoln and Octavia do the evening food drop, so she knows she won't see Bellamy again until this time tomorrow.
Nyko and Lincoln both tell her that what happened wasn't her fault, but she still feels herself pulling back from hands-on care at the clinic. It's a little easier, now that Lincoln and Nyko are both helping and the rate at which people are catching whatever this is has slowed significantly. Nyko had insisted on being the one to tell Aatto's parents that the boy was gone, and Clarke had stood quietly behind him, she didn't even move when his mother lunged for her, though Nyko held the woman in place. Clarke thinks she'd feel better if the woman had been let to hit her.
She goes through her day carefully, not interacting with anyone more than she needs to, even though Nyko and Lincoln spend much of their days trying to coax her out of her withdrawn state. When someone bangs frantically on the side door to the clinic, Clarke is the only one of them not with a patient, so she puts down the bandage she's cleaning and goes to answer it. As soon as the door is open, a little girl, maybe ten years old, is thrust into Clarke's arms. She's coughing up blood, eyes hardly open, shaking and her parents stand in the doorway shouting in a language she's too exhausted to remember the translations for. Lincoln rushes to them, comforting them and leading them to the temporary tent next door. The tent is mostly maintained by people who had the sickness and have recovered, Clarke and Lincoln had told them what to look for and they were lucky in that Ivar, a quiet but commanding presence around Clarke's age, had taken to the idea right away and was able to garner excitement for their ability to help instead of resentment that they weren't able to go home.
She spends all day with the little girl, trying to get her fever down and her symptoms under control. The girl, Tinley, falls asleep after drinking a tea that helps with the pain. And, though she doesn't mean to, Clarke falls asleep in a chair near her bed. She sleeps for three and a half hours (the longest stretch of sleep she's gotten in the six days she's been in the clinic) before she's woken up by knocking on the front door. It's Octavia delivering their evening meals and Clarke sits up as Lincoln knocks back and waits until Octavia has backed up to open the door. She watches the way he waits in quiet excited anticipation and smiles a little, despite herself.
Tinley is still sleeping, so she makes the rounds, checking on everyone as Lincoln steps outside to shout to Octavia. Nyko is half asleep in a chair near a woman who is past the worst part of the sickness, coughing lightly now. Once she's checked in on everyone she leans against the back wall and sighs softly, closing her eyes. She's exhausted and riddled with guilt and almost afraid to have too much hands-on-care with another patient, for fear she won't be able to save them and she'd be overcome with the emotions if she had any time to be. She feels tears well behind her eyelids and wills herself not to let them fall. She straightens herself and lets outs a deep breath before her eyes drop open and she glances around to make sure she wasn't noticed.
She doesn't have a great concept of time in the clinic, so she doesn't notice that Bellamy is late in the morning until the sun hits her face through the window. She asks Nyko and Lincoln to make sure one of them didn't talk to Bellamy, but they're both surprised he's late too, but they all just figure that he'd had to take care of something and would be by when he could. She's annoyed, not for the first time, by her inability to leave the clinic.
Later, when she's crushing berries and flowers for a new pot of tea, the side door to the clinic bursts open and reveals Octavia, Bellamy leaning heavily against her – eyes bloodshot, face pale, body shaking. Lincoln takes his weight from Octavia and helps him into a waiting bed before rushing Octavia back out. Clarke runs over to him, hands on his face then his arms. It's her nightmare that he'd get sick and end up in the quarantine – so of course he's here now.
He's completely out of it, blood drying on his cheek from where he'd been coughing and a thin layer of sweat coating his body. His whole body shakes with the force of his coughs, and he curls in on himself a little. Clarke pulls his hair away from his face and waits for his hazy eyes to find hers. He mumbles something that she thinks it might be her name and reaches for her but she catches his hand and lays it back down. "It's okay. You're okay" she whispers, a frantic energy brewing under her skin that she tries to hide.
Lincoln comes up behind her and she pulls in a deep breath before she turns to look at him, "I don't…I can't…" she shakes her head. Its like she's forgotten everything about how to manage this sickness, even though it's all she's been doing for the past week. Lincoln hands her a cup of the tea that will help with fever and when she takes it her hands are shaking, "Maybe you should…" she tries to hand it back, but he pushes it toward her and tells her she's okay, even if she doesn't feel it and she closes her eyes for a moment before lacing her fingers through the short hair at the back of Bellamy's neck and helping him rise enough to drink a little.
She doesn't have the luxury of spending all her time with Bellamy – there is too much that needs done and too many other people relying on her Nyko and Lincoln, but she finds herself sitting on the floor by his bed at every available opportunity. He's deep into the fever and delirious most of the time. He wakes up at one point to mumble "Do you know where my mom is? Are her and O alright?" in a slur and she puts her hand on his cheek and tells him they couldn't be here and he'd leaned into her touch and asked if O was alright and when she said 'yes' he'd gone back to sleep.
His body is warm, but he shivers violently. He coughs and blood seeps past his lips. It's the first time since Clarke has known him that he hasn't looked one hundred percent in control. Late that night, she falls asleep sitting on the floor by his bed, her legs tucked under herself and her head pillowed on her arms, next to his hip. She wakes up to his hand in her hair, not moving, just resting there and she smiles softly before she sits up.
Later that day, after Tinley's fever breaks and Clarke is handing her a cup of broth, when Bellamy starts seizing. A few of the other patients have done it too, and there isn't much they can do except try to keep them from hurting themselves. But, it is terrifying. He thrashes in the bed for thirty seconds that feel like hours and when he's done he lays so still that it's almost just as scary. Clarke pulls her fingers under her eyes, gathering tears and glancing over at Lincoln, before she goes to sit with Bellamy.
Clarke, Lincoln, and Nyko talk and decide that since the intake of patients has slowed considerably and they only have a few patients left in the Clinic, that they'll end the quarantine. The people in the tent let out excited whoops when they're told and Clarke smiles, despite herself. Nyko goes first, he's gotten a fair amount of sleep so he goes home to bathe and change clothes while Clarke and Lincoln scrub the Clinic. Nyko comes back out and Lincoln goes home. Clarke stays to help Nyko with the patients that are left and to stay with Bellamy.
When night falls, Clarke sends Nyko home. It's silly for the both to stay, she reasons, and she's can't leave with Bellamy still so sick. Nyko makes sure she knows she can change her mind before he goes to his home. The night is mostly quiet, Bellamy only wakes up once, delirious again, and doesn't recognize Clarke. He pushes himself up a little and when Clarke tries to hand him a glass of water his eyebrows furrow together, "Who are you?" he asks quiet, but wary, pushing the glass away.
"Bellamy" she breaths out his name, her voice cracking around it before she pulls in a sharp breath, not sure what to say. Her husband doesn't know who she is and she tries not to let that sting. She remembers being worried she'd forget his name on their wedding day, but she can't find the humor in it now like she could then. "I'm Clarke…I'm…I'm helping Nyko" is what she settles on, and it must appease him at least a little, because despite the way he eyes her like she doesn't belong, he does fall back asleep soon after. She spends most of the rest of the night letting Tinley teach her a game with cards that she found behind the desk, checking on Bellamy between rounds.
Bellamy's fever doesn't break until midday the next day. She notices when she walks by his bed and he's kicked most of the blankets off. Octavia is sitting next to him and lets out a relieved breath when Clarke tells her that the fever broke. He wakes up a while later and he's not better, and he stills look awful, but it is the first time in a few days that Clarke is sure he's going to be okay. He doesn't stay awake long, just long enough to talk to Octavia for a few minutes and drink some of the tea she hands him. He doesn't remember much about the last few days, and she doesn't mention anything.
The next time he wakes up, Clarke is talking to Nyko and Bellamy pushes himself into a sitting position before she notices that he's awake. "Hey" she says, walking over to him.
"Hi" his voice breaks around the word, raspy from disuse. He reaches out and takes her hand, pulling her to sit next to him. "When's the last time you've been home? Gotten some real sleep?" he asks, quiet and low.
She just shrugs but then Nyko's voice rings from the other side of the Clinic, "Too long. Take her home".
Bellamy's laugh turns into a cough and Clarke rolls her eyes. "He's still sick" Clarke protests. If he were anyone else, there wouldn't even be talk of releasing him so soon.
"Well then it's a good thing he lives with a healer, it's it?" Nyko says, his voice light and sarcastic. Bellamy is smirking when she looks back at him and she rolls her eyes before she nods. She turns towards Nyko as she stands, but as she does she gets dizzy and it throws her off balance and Bellamy's hand on her wrist pulls her back down to sit on the bed before she falls over and she presses her hand to her head. She doesn't think she's sick, she thinks she'd know. But Bellamy's hand tightens on her wrist and when she glances over at him to tell him that she's fine he looks worried, so she lets Nyko check her over. "I think you're just tired" Nyko says, low and fond.
They lean into each other when they walk home. Bellamy is still feeling the affects of the sickness and Clarke is exhausted. When they get to the cabin, they fill a bath and Clarke goes first feeling clean for the first time in more than a week while Bellamy heats some soup. They trade after a few minutes, Clarke coming out in long pants and a t-shirt water still clinging to her skin, while Bellamy slips into the bathroom.
When Bellamy comes out of the bathroom, Clarke is sitting at the table, her feet stretched out to rest on the chair across from her, her head tilted back uncomfortably, and her lips parted a little in sleep. He nudges Clarke awake softly and when she blinks at him he smiles softly, "You should eat a little" he mummers quietly, setting a bowl down in front of her. She nods a little as she takes it, stirring it kind of idly and Bellamy sits next to her, leaning forward to cough a little as he situates.
They eat quietly, Clarke eyeing Bellamy when he coughs or shivers. She stands after a minutes, takes their bowls and sets them aside before she reaches out her hand and leads him to bed when he takes it. They sit on the bed, Bellamy leaning back against the wall while Clarke has her feet on the floor. He's tired and still a little sick and more easily affectionate than usual. He thinks that's the excuse he'd use if asked later what made him reach out and touch Clarke's still wet hair.
It's a tangled mess, she probably hasn't brushed it since before the sickness outbreak and she gives a self-conscious smile even as she leans into his touch a little. Bellamy uses a hand on her back and a soft "come 'ere" to get her to sit in front of him, and she lets herself be led, sleepy and a little slow. He puts his hands in her hair and starts untangling it, tugging lightly on locks of hair so they won't pull at her scalp. She leans her head back a little, her head lulling to the side in time with his movements. "I'd never seen blonde hair before you" he mummers and she hums lightly in response. Once her hair is free of tangles, he braids it and ties the end around itself to keep it in place and when Clarke glances back at him she's smiling sleepily. "Go to sleep" he half whispers and she nods and lays back while he pulls the blankets up and lays down next to her.
He's never touched her when they were lying in bed – it always felt like a line he shouldn't cross, but when she reaches out and wraps her fingers around his wrist, already mostly asleep, he pulls her hand into his and laces his fingers with hers. He falls asleep facing her, their hands linked and lying on the bed between them.
Hope you liked it! Happy Memorial Day! Please review!