Clarke watched as her mother opened the door to her old room.
"We always believed that you would find your way back to us, so we didn't want to change anything." Her mother said
Clarke just nodded and took careful steps, eventually she had walked through the threshold into her old room. It was as if she had stepped into a time machine. As her mother had said. Everything was completely unchanged. Everything looked exactly the way she remembered. All the details were hauntingly similar. It looked as if not a single soul had stepped within these four walls for all those years. But she knew that somebody had, because the room looked spotless, it was clean and entirely free of dust. The familiar grey walls and the soft carpet felt comforting. She could see several of her unfinished paintings leaning against the wall on one side of her room. One of the first thoughts that crossed her mind when she laid her eyes upon the paintings was that she could now finally paint and draw with real material. Not just the occasional shitty pen or piece of charcoal she got when she had been a good girl.
Drawing was probably the only thing keeping her sane during all those years, although considering her current predicament she found that statement debatable. Because she didn't feel especially sane at the moment.
Her feet took her further into her old room and a picture on the white desk caught her attention. It was a picture of three young girls. Two of the girls in the picture were brunette's and the one who stood in the middle was blonde. They all had their arms around the others shoulders. All three wore smiles that reached from one ear to the other. The look of pure happiness. It was a picture from their first ever soccer game together, of course they had one it as well. She remembered her father's proud smile after she had scored the first goal of the match.
"That's my girl!"
Clarke picked the photograph up and drew her finger over their faces, as if she could feel the memory when the touched the glass protecting it. Two names broke through the thick fog that was her brain, Raven and Octavia. Raven and Octavia, her best friends. Did they even remember her? Probably not, there wasn't much to remember anyway. She knew that she used to be a happy child, that was a fact her brain refused to let go off. She didn't use to have all of this pain. But she had drastically changed, she was no longer happy, no longer an innocent and naive. She was without a doubt damaged beyond repair. She was useless, she had been gone for 10 years and the rational part of her brain registered that she had missed 10 years of school, 10 years of crucial education and the other part of her brain remembered that she had missed 10 years of living. She'll never get those years back.
She was broken.
A steady stream of tears flowed down her cheek, she didn't care to wipe them away. Clarke just let them flow. Silently hoping that the pain would follow them, but she knew, it wasn't that easy. It never was.
An hour after the Chancellor, her husband and their childhood best friend had arrived at the Griffin's household, Raven and Octavia arrived. Raven had picked Octavia up after Octavia had left her car at her apartment. Then they had done a quick stop at Grounders to buy some burgers, because neither of them had eaten anything for hours, and their bellies was beginning to revolt over not being fed. They also thought that they should let Clarke have some time to get settled back home before they barged into her life once more.
The gate was closed, no shocker. Raven pushed the familiar numbers in and the gate let out a quiet beep before slowly opening.
The Griffins were like a second family to both Raven and Octavia. They had been close before Clarke's disappearance, but they had gotten even closer after. Maybe they found solace in each other. The Chancellor and her husband were used to Raven and Octavia coming to their house at all hours. They didn't usually hang out that much, Abby usually offered to cook them some dinner when they were there and they would eat it together. But other than that they didn't spend that much time together, just being happy that they were close by. Raven and Octavia always walked up to the blonde's room, sitting in her bed watching movie after movie. It was both comforting and heartbreaking to be in Clarke's room. It was heartbreaking because of the obvious reasons. Clarke was gone, it was an inevitable fact.
But it was comforting because they somehow felt closer to the blonde being where they were. Sometimes they pretended that Clarke would walk through that door any moment after yet another bathroom break. Seriously, who needs to go to the bathroom three times during a 2 hour movie? But pretending always came with a hollow feeling in their chests. Because in reality Clarke was not going to be stepping through that door and reality sucked.
As they slowly rolled up the driveway they noticed that a few things were different. People liked the Griffins and they didn't usually have any sort of guards outside, unless there was some big event or something. They usually only had a few monitored cameras there and there. But now there was 4 massive guys stationed outside their front door.
"Why are there 4 huge dudes standing outside the door?"
"Well, why do you think, O?"
"Oh, right. Sorry."
"I love you, O. But sometimes you really are dense."
"Yeah, yeah. Shut it Reyes."
They watched as the men outside the front door got tenser the closer they came. Raven stopped and parked the car a bit farther away than she normally did when she visited the Griffins. Raven gave a quick glance towards the other person occupying the car, after a synchronized nod they opened the car and stepped outside at the same time.
"Hello gentlemen. Name's Raven Reyes and this is Octavia Blake. We're old friends of the Griffin's."
The biggest one of them all, a muscular redhead took a few threatening steps towards then. Raven, however, stood tall.
"Sorry ma'am, but no one is permitted inside the house today." Raven let out a loud snort at his reply.
"Alright, first of all, I'm not nearly old enough to be called ma'am, and second of all... Alright, there is no second of all but seriously, if you could just call the Chancellor or her husband out so that they could tell you that we are welcomed here at all hours."
The huge redhead looked at Raven suspiciously for a moment, but after a few seconds of intense scrutiny, he spoke into the radio situated on the left side of his chest. Just a few moments later the Chancellor herself stepped through the doors. Raven could only describe the look on her face as a mix of surprise and "of course they are here."
"It's okay, Josh. They can come in."
The redheaded guard nodded towards the Chancellor and walked back to his post. Both Raven and Octavia followed Abby into the house.
"I'm guessing you heard about Clarke."
"Yes, we saw the news and we just had to see for ourselves." Answered Octavia.
"She's in her room right now, Jake's with her. She... She's different. I know that you can't just come back after 10 years and not have changed. Especially not after where she has been. But it's disconcerting non the less. She is easily frightened and she barely speaks. She has not said a single word since we left the hospital. She barely said a word there."
"Can we see her." Asked Octavia, Raven was standing right next to her. Silent for the first time in her life.
"Yes, just... Be careful, we don't really know what sets her off just yet. But fast movements and loud noises seems to be the major causes."
"Okay, we'll be careful."
They walked up the stairs together and as they got closer to their destination they got more and more nervous. When they finally stood outside of Clarke's room they looked inside and saw a blonde, fragile looking figure sitting on the bed. She had her back turned towards them and she was holding the photograph of them from when they were kids in her hands. The blonde could sense the presence of someone other than her father in the room with her and turned around. She laid her eyes upon another set of faces she never thought she'd ever see again. She cautiously and slowly stood up from her spot on the bed. Without looking she gently let the photograph fall to the bed.
The trio was completely frozen, neither of them believing what they were actually seeing. Both Raven and Octavia took one cautious step forward.
"Hello, Clarkey." It came out as a hoarse whisper from Octavia. But no one cared.
"Hello, princess."
Raven immediately knew that she had said the wrong thing because Clarke got a hollow and far away look in her eyes. Tears flooded in her beautiful baby blues.
"Alright, let's see how well you remember your lessons. Tell me girl, what is your name?"
"I have no name."
"Then who are you?"
"I am whoever you want me to be."
"Good girl. I'm going to call you Princess. Now who are you?"
"I am Princess."
The memory progressed and Clarke fell down on her knees, her father tried to keep her from falling but his movements only caused Clarke to become more and more agitated.
A hard punch landed in her stomach. She doubled over in pain, and fell to the floor.
"You will obey me Princess." A leg smacked into the back of her head.
"ANSWER ME." The leg once again found it's place in the back of her head, her head was throbbing in pain and she had trouble coming up with a single coherent thought. Luckily she was able to form the words she so desperately had to.
"Yes, Master. I will obey you."
A hand grasped harshly around one of her breasts and pulled hard. She gave out a sharp yelp.
"You do well to remember that Princess, or you won't like the consequences, you do remember what happened to that slut Allison? I'm sure you don't want that to happen to you."
Clarke was laying curled up on the floor screaming at the top of her lungs as if physical pain, holding the back of her head with her hands in a protective gesture.
Nothing they did had any effect on her, everything they did only seemed to make her even more agitated. As her screams got louder. Abby pulled out her phone.
"Kane, I need you to get Special Agent Alexandria Woods on the phone NOW!" She shouted into the phone. Desperately trying to convey the gravity of the situation and the importance of her request.
"Right away Abby." He didn't ask any questions, he just forwarded her to the agent in question's phone.
Lexa had just stepped outside the shower when her phone rang. Exhaling a loud and long sigh she walked over to her bedside table and answered the call.
"Lexa Woods speaking,"
"Miss Woods, this is Chancellor Abigail Griffin speaking. I need you to come over to my house right away, my daughter is having a major panic attack and nothing we've tried is working. You're the only one who has been able to reach her."
'Clarke, Clarke was hurting' Lexa thought.
"Yes, ma'am. I am on my way."
She quickly hung up the phone, ignoring the fact that she had just hung up the phone on the Chancellor. The only thing that mattered was that Clarke was in pain. She quickly discarded her towel and threw on a pair of worn out jeans and a black T-shirt. Lexa ignored her wet hair as she burst out the door of her apartment and into her car. She put the keys in the ignition and quickly drove off. Going well above the speed limit she reached the house within 15 minutes.
She parked behind a red range rover look alike and ran to the front door. The men posted outside had been informed of her arrival by the Chancellor, one of them, the redhead said:
"Upstairs, third door to the right." She answered him with a quick nod.
As she walked through the front door she heard the desperate screams of the blonde. Lexa sprinted up the stairs and down the hall to where Clarke was. What she saw tore at her heart. Clarke was laying on the floor, clutching her head as she screamed at the top of her lungs and let out devastated cries. She was lost in her own mind. Promptly ignoring the other people in the room she walked straight to the woman laying on the floor. Lexa sat down on her knees taking the distraught Clarke into her arms. Holding onto her so that Clarke's head rested on her shoulder.
"Shh... Clarke. It's me. You're safe. Shh..."
But Clarke was so far gone that she barely noticed that the brunette was there. So she did as she had done before. Started singing.
Our love was strong as a lion
Soft as the cotton you lie in
Times we got hot like an iron
You and I
Our hearts had never been broken
We were so innocent darling
We used to talk 'til the morning
You and I
As her voice reached the blonde's ears, Clarke sank into her embrace, and the screaming abruptly stopped.
You were my September song, tell me where have you gone?
Do you remember me, we were only fifteen
And I, I remember the chorus, they were singing it for us
You were my September song, tell me where have you gone?
She felt the blonde in her arms slowly come back to reality, her arms were no longer slack in her lap, now they reached around her and held on tight. Clarke nuzzled into her neck, trying to take deep breaths.
And I, I remember the chorus, they were singing it for us
You were my September Song
I remember the chorus, they were singing it for us
Lexa drew comforting circles on Clarke's back, pressing a comforting kiss on the top of her head.
"It's okay Clarke, I'm right here. You're safe. I'm right here."
"Please don't leave me." Clarke croaked into her neck.
"Never, Clarke. Never."