AN: Thanks for the reviews! So encouraging to know people are reading and interested enough to leave reviews! Only two chapters left after this for Part I- which will cover up to Day 100. Part II will cover from there until the Death Wave. I'm not sure if I'll add Part II onto this story, or start a new fic for it though. Any preferences, let me know. However, I'm going to be going back to fix some of the mistakes of Part I before I start posting Part II.
As always, if you notice any mistakes, or if there's anything you would like to see more (or less) of, review!
Day 87
Mount Weather
In the main control room of Mount Weather, Raven, Monty, Jasper, and Wick took a break, their "grunts", as Raven cheerfully called the handful of hopeful-apprentices they'd picked at Clarke's suggestion, still at work, currently dissembling the cages of the harvest chamber. The entire room was to be made into an outpost of Argo, as there was more than enough room in medical to ignore that whole space, according to Clarke.
"This place is a fucking nightmare, but you know, it's damn nice." announced Raven as she spun in rapid rotations in a worn, but obviously once-luxurious leather office chair.
"Beats the Ark." agreed Monty hesitantly.
"Not even Alpha was anywhere as nice as this." offered Wick easily.
"If we've got to spend another five damn years locked inside a metal box, least it's a comfortable one." joked Jasper.
Hundred Camp
Bellamy stood at the center of the camp, watching as the mid-day meal break wound to a close, he slowly went through a mental checklist of his people. Skaikru, he mused. There was a group out hunting, and another out fetching ever more water, he'd never realized how much water humans required before they came down to Earth and had it carry it themselves. Then there was a group at Mt. Weather, spending their days there, doing Earth knows what, supposedly on Clarke's orders, and always his sister gone, in Polis, with a few others, and now Clarke and Miller off at thrice-damned Arkadia... too far from his reach to look out for. He wasn't so sure of the idea of leaving their camp unsupervised to go to Polis, but the chance to see the city where his sister, and Clarke, kept disappearing too, was too enticing.
Hundred Camp just didn't feel right to him, not with so many of their number away. He groaned, wondering how he'd gotten so invested, it was only ever supposed to be Octavia and him.
In a flurry of hurried steps and fast-paced chatter, the gates swung open, admitting the hunting party, with Zoe at the lead. Short, and pretty, it was always a thrill to see her, blood flecking her clothes, eyes bright with success, looking like some mythical descendant of Diana, wild and free. Watching her, helping carry in the bounty of their hunt, bow and quiver slung over her back, Bellamy forgot that he'd been questioning how he'd gotten so tangled up in caring about so many people.
Arkadia
Once again cornered by her mother, with Nathan cringing awkwardly at her side, Clarke's nails digging into his forearm to keep him for moving even slightly away.
Not that Dr. Abigail Griffin, Chief Medical Officer, and Counselor could be bothered to notice just how little her daughter was appreciating such ambushes every time she left the relative safety of the worktable she'd arranged in the med bay.
"Letting you go to Earth was the hardest thing I've ever done." implored her mother, leaning as close as she could, because every time she moved closer, Clarke pressed herself even harder against the metal wall of Alpha station.
"There is too much for me to do." murmured Clarke impatiently, feeling increasingly frustrated with her mother's pitifully emotional pleas, even as she was regretful that she couldn't just... give in, to Abby's longing.
"You're my daughter. You belong here, with me."
"I'm sorry, but I don't feel the same way."
Abby's face crumbled past pleading, into the deep ridges of despair, and her shoulders hunched in. The cruelty of hurting such an easily broken target sent spirals of self-hatred swirling through Clarke, but she stiffened her spine, and with the hand not clinging tightly to the silent support of Nate Miller, pushed her mother back with a firm, slow shove. Stepping around Abby, Clarke hurried away, Nate keeping time with her strides easily.
"This is your home!" cried Abby at their backs.
It wouldn't have done any good to remind her mother that she was dragged, handcuffed, from her home, to be thrown first into the Skybox on Go-Sci, and then to Earth. Nor that the very place she landed, at the Ark's doing, was the place she now called home. She'd already said it too many times.
Nate's wrist flexed in her grasp, and she instinctively released it. Instead he slid his hand around her, squeezing lightly. It had been his home too, after all. He knew this as no one could. Not even Wells, who'd plotted for his arrest and drop. Being here didn't feel right anymore. There was a churning of anxiety in her gut, and a tug at her soul- pulling her home to Hundred Camp.
"Leaving soon, right?" asked Nate quietly as they hurried off.
She nodded quickly. "Yeah. Gotta wait for Trikru to get here and introduce them to Kane, but yeah, it's time to get out of here."
Day 88
Late morning, Arkadia
"What's the diagnosis?"
Clarke's question, lowly asked, came even as she steadily worked on the notes, and she looked only for a brief moment to meet Jackson's eyes. The young doctor hesitated, glancing between her and the uninterested boy at her side. The med bay was still and quiet except for the quiet sounds of collaborative study- pens scratched, pages turned, and their voices, low, and intent, as they hustled to pack in as much as they could.
Stiffly, Nathan Miller was likewise making notes, though while Clarke's were from her own memory, to leave with Arkadia, he was combining Jackson's dictation with the knowledge he was skimming carefully from the books, files, and tablet scattered around the tables that had been brought in for them. The three of them had been cloistered in the med bay, working on this exchange on information, for as much as possible the last few days. Too often, Kane, her mother, Sinclair, even David Miller and Jaha, had all been hovering around, asking questions, which Clarke was mainly answering in written form at this point, so aggravated with their repetitive, disbelieving queries.
They hadn't been sleeping well here, even together, with dreams plaguing Nathan, making him wake up over and over. He didn't want to talk about it, and Clarke figured being back here in Alpha's walls was too triggering, and for her... there was just still so much to be done, but every time she tried to meet with Jackson, or Kane, or Sinclair, her mother was there, trying to chat. Only in their little cubicle-style quarters did they have some space from her mother's overbearing concern. Once, Clarke had even seen Kane passing by the med bay, rushed to him, and grabbed his sleeve, dragging him into their temp room to talk about the upcoming summit without her mother, or Theolonious around. To be fair, Marcus had gone along it, confused and blinking, but not even flinching when Nate had quickly shut the door behind them. They'd actually gotten two hours of conference, then, until Marcus had regretfully pointed out that people would be looking for them at lunch. They'd even managed to teach him a few words and phrases of the grounders' language, which he'd picked up easily. Of course, this was man who'd expected to live his entire life in a confined society that had one official language, English, yet had learned Russian anyway.
Deciding to forgo patient confidentiality, since Nathan had literally not left Clarke's side for even a minute since they arrived, Jackson sighed. The patient in question, the oldest man left at Arkadia, was sleeping fitfully in the medbay, far from their table, mostly left alone.
"Spyros Himura. Stage IV lung cancer. We don't know if it was missed on the Ark, or began here on the ground, but it was only stage III when we diagnoses him a month ago. He came in with excessive fatigue, and a lot of chest pressure." admitted Jackson quietly, his eyes back on the book between him and Miller, he pointed out an important line- regarding labor and birth emergencies- that the boy had missed.
Nathan's eyes flicked from the notebook he was uncertainty filling for Clarke, to the old man. With a tug at her heart, Clarke remembered hearing about the head guard's wife dying of breast cancer a few years ago. Jackson remembered her as one of the first cancer patients he'd ever assisted with as an apprentice.
She didn't ask what the treatment plan was. If not for praimfaya, she would have instantly. She would have asked the grounders, beginning with Nyko, for advice. She would have searched the Earth for a cure, or at least a way to slow it down. But a man in his late 50's wasn't going to be chosen for a hundred spots anyway. Personally, Clarke thought that forty-six year old Thelonious, who had no critical knowledge, was pushing it.
"Do you have enough supplies to keep him comfortable?" she asked instead, and Nathan's breathe came out in a harder rush.
Jackson nodded. "He's the only terminal patient we have, so keeping up with his... needs shouldn't be a concern."
"What's the current population here anyway?" asked Nathan curiously, speaking for the first time in at least an hour, thought Jackson.
"148."
Clarke failed to repress a shiver that swept down her spine. One hundred and ninety-four Arkadians, from the survivors of Alpha and Mecha stations, had died in the sweating sickness. Why Arkadia had such a higher fatality rate, she didn't know, and didn't have time to figure out. Dehydration had possibly been a factor, though.
"The low number will at least... make decisions easier." murmured Clarke, her hand pausing briefly, before she continued on- now emphasizing Lexa's orders, and her own recommendations, on choosing the 100 Arkadian survivors. Still, Farm Station was out there somewhere presumably, and who knows how many of those 185 would survive long enough to make it here to Arkadia... Only 63 had before, but things could have totally changed... Perhaps none would.
Jackson flinched openly, looking away from the spread of books, tablets, files, and notes.
"You know what's coming. If Arkadia does not join us, there will be thirteen hundred people, not a single doctor, and I'm the only Ark-trained medic. We need you." implored Clarke, finally setting her pen down to gaze at him.
Abby Griffin only took on the best of medical apprentices. There weren't many on the Ark to begin with, but she'd only taken on three in her career- two of them being Eric Jackson, and her own daughter. Just four years older than her, Jackson was a prodigy, far more than herself, believed Clarke. He'd flown through training, exams, and quickly became her mother's right-hand.
"Kane has agreed to do this, Clarke. Why are you worried about us not joining the rest?" asked Jackson uncertainty, keeping his voice low, and continuing to point out relevant info in the spread of media in front of the dutiful, bored, Nathan.
"Because Jaha and my mother aren't happy, and the three of them have some weird, co-dependent form of tug-of-war going on." blurted out Clarke impatiently. At her side, Nathan's hand froze and he snorted in amusement. She rolled her eyes at him, and kept on pushing at Jackson's resolve.
"I am hoping that you, Sinclair, and David will be able to convince them, but if not... the three of you would be the difference between life or death for hundreds of people."
Jackson tried to point out that they, especially he and Sinclair, would be needed here, but Clarke cut him off firmly.
"My mother could easily manage the one hundred people this station could sustain, and there are two other engineers, and a mechanic here, aren't there?"
Dr. Eric Jackson eyed the eighteen year old girl in front of him, and remembered catching her as she fell into sedated oblivion. He'd wanted, from the very moment he'd done it, to make it up to her. She was a legal adult, a patient, making her wishes clear, and he'd followed the orders to sedate her anyway. It wasn't the first time Abby had instructed him to go against his conscious, but it'd been the first time he'd done so but regretted it anyway.
"Half the population will be under sixteen. That's around six hundred and fifty children, and not a single doctor. There will be plenty of healers, who can assist from the beginning, they are amazing in their skills, and can be taught how to use the medbay to it's full potential. But their medicine is limited to herbalism, there is virtually no surgical knowledge, and treatment of major and low-term illness is extremely limited, mostly to palliative care. There will be some Skaikru to help with adjusting to everything. If there is anyone you want to come with you, there is still a chance for that too.
"Yes." breathed out Jackson impulsively, worn down by her pleas. "Okay, yes." he agreed again, his eyes lowering to the table between them. "If Arkadia backs out of the deal, I'll go with you. But your mother will want to be with you. I'm sure we can keep us all together."
It was... conniving, and manipulative, to steal away one of Arkadia's few doctors, one of her mother's few confidants. Abby would see it as nothing less than betrayal, on both their parts. Not that Clarke was going to let that stop her. Worse, she was already confident that Sinclair would come too, easily defecting to a the promise of a larger, already proven bunker, and David Miller had merely nodded in immediate, silent agreement, ready to defect at a moment's notice to be with his son.
"Gina Martin. She's been starting to assist, just washing up kind of stuff, in the med bay. Might make a good medic, at least, but has no training yet. She... might be interested in coming too." murmured Jackson hesitantly.
"Don't ask her yet, but be feeling her out on the possibility. If she is open to living with the other clans, she's welcome. I will save a spot for her, till we know what's happening. Skaikru has 100 spots, same as the rest, but we actually have less than that to begin with currently." instructed Clarke.
"Thirteen hundred patients would be a massive caseload for even four doctors." pointed out Jackson, beginning to stack up the files Nathan had finished copying from.
"There will be numerous healers because all the clans are bringing their own, and you'll be able to pick apprentices to train as well. It will take delegation, and adaptability, but it can work. " assured Clarke.
She shook out her hand painfully, the days of swift, near constant writing having given her aching cramps, no longer used to holding a pen much. Nathan blew carefully over the paper he'd completed, and looked to her for more orders, but she smiled tiredly.
"That's it, right?" she asked Jackson instead, and he nodded slowly. There was always more that could be learned, but they were out of time, really. He and Nathan had gone through a massive amount of information in the past few days- quite a bit of it on pregnancy, labor, and birth, but also covering what Clarke knew was her greatest weakness in medical knowledge- surgery. With Mount Weather now theirs to make use of, she had the facilities, and supplies, for a greater standard of care, but she was still a medic, perhaps a healer, but not a doctor, for Earth's sake. Miller didn't actually know which was up with any of the info he'd committed to the notebook in front of him, but Clarke knew that Jackson had ensured that as much as possible would be coming home with them.
They all stood, and stretched automatically, working out the stiffness from their morning-long session at the table. When the med bay doors opened, Jackson flinched guilty as Abby hustled inside to join them.