AP Exams coming up extremely soon. Lots of studying, lots of crying to do. This will be my last update for a while (not only for this story, but for all the others) so I tried to make it worth it :)
Happy reading!
Disclaimer: Refer to the Pilot. Also, not a perfect human being and I want to be a lawyer after college so this medical stuff that's in here could be completely wrong and I wouldn't know but I did some extensive research and it should be correct...still, not a hundred percent sure so bear with me.
Resurrection
Two Years Ago
Alessia sat in the waiting room (rather, a room with chairs and a desk for the principal's assistant), her leg shaking nervously as she thought about what her father would say. Something along the lines of "I'm so disappointed in you, Alessia" or "You know what, Alessia, I'm done giving you second chances" or simply "You're grounded...for the rest of your life" or maybe, even, he would say nothing and just walk out. Nevertheless, she didn't have any more time to dwell before someone opened Principal Sanderson's office and her father stepped out, turning just long enough to shake hands with Sanderson, or whom she liked to call "the Snake". Even when she didn't do anything wrong, the Snake was always on her ass, no doubt because her father put him up to it.
Of course, this time she did do something wrong. But that was none of their business.
The Snake gave her a look with his beady eyes before retreating back into his office, whereupon her gaze finally shifted to her father, who stared at her with disappointment, anger, and anything else she could imagine. She sighed.
"Dad—"
"Do you actively try to embarrass me, Alessia?"
She frowned at him pointedly. "Yeah, Dad. It's a favored hobby of mine." He scowled at her, unimpressed with the sarcasm, but she just threw up her hands and scoffed. "Come on! It was barely an infraction! Some punk freshman was harassing me during lunch, so I slugged the kid. What's so bad about that?"
Kane crossed his arms over his chest defensively. "What's so bad about it was that it was Sanderson's son! Are you that desperate to get back at me that you would go after the principal's son?"
Alessia abruptly stood onto her feet to face her father square in the eyes. "I told you dad, he was harassing me. It's nice to know that you care more about your reputation than you do the safety of your own daughter!"
Kane stood there for a moment, completely taken back by her rough words, but before he could say anything, someone cleared their throat a few feet away from them. Alessia and Kane both turned to see one of Kane's guards standing with an awkward look on his face, realizing that he had interrupted.
"Mercer, what is it?" Kane barked. Calix stiffened.
"S-Sorry, Sir. It's just...they need you down in Farm Station ASAP."
Kane nodded, but just before he turned to leave, he looked back at his daughter and pointed a stern finger at her. "We're not done talking about this. You've been suspended for three days, so go straight home and start catching up on your work. I'll try to make it home early."
She watched as he walked out, but scoffed to herself. Like he would actually make good on the promise. As Kane left the room, the guard who had come to fetch him stayed for a moment longer, his eyes fixated on Alessia. When she had realized he was staring, her eyes snapped up to hm angrily.
"Take a picture, it'll last longer," she barked. The guard flinched at her abrupt cruelty, and she had realized that perhaps she had been just a bit too abrasive. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair before beginning softly. "I...haven't seen you before. What's your name?"
"Calix," he replied, straightening as if he were just told an order. "I'm Kane's new trainee."
"Good for you, Calix. Word to the wise..." She grabbed her bag from the chair next to her and began to move towards the exit as she looked at him sincerely and nodded, "Quit while you still can. It's not worth it."
Calix took her words to heart and watched while she left the room, stomping both gracefully and angrily. She didn't know what made her do it, but she found herself looking over her shoulder, almost pleased when she saw that he had been staring after her as well. When she turned back, something strange came over her lips. A smile.
"No!" Alessia shouted as she dug her fingernails into the wood of the fallen tree and struggled to lift it off the ground. Tears started to form in the corners of her eyes. "No! No, this can not be happening! Goddamn it, please!"
"Alessia..." Calix trailed off, but it was no use. She stopped trying to lift the tree and instead scrambled to her feet, slipping in the haste. Alessia slid over the dirt to the edge of the forest that overlooked the village and cried as loud as she could.
"Help! Help, someone! Please help!"
But that was no use, either. Tondc was showered in wails, screams of the near-dying villagers that begged to be saved. No one could hear her, or even if they could they would hardly know where she was. Alessia's only choice was to go down into the fiery pit and find someone herself. She wiped a tear that had fallen out of her eye involuntarily and reached down to grab the gun at her feet.
"I'm gonna go find help," Alessia determined through a short breath. Her eyes were wild and crazed with blood, the realization that Mount Weather had been responsible for this finally dawning on her. But before she could leave, she felt Calix wrap a hand around her ankle to prevent her from leaving.
"Alessia," he whispered softly. She looked down at him and, though it was dark, she could see his green eyes begging her to stay. "Don't leave me. Please."
Her lip trembled and her eyes swelled with tears. Carefully, she lowered her knees to the ground and set the gun to the side, taking Calix's hand off her ankle and instead placing it in hers. His hand was so cold, but she didn't know if that was because hers was warm with rage. He closed his eyes, and she could see a tear fall down his face as his will to fight started to drift away. He sighed, and she sniffed back her feelings and attempted to keep him distracted.
"You slept with Zoe," she began, a scratch in her throat. "Why? Do you still love her?"
"Of course not." He almost sounded offended. "When I told you I didn't have feelings for her anymore, I meant it. But it's been so...hard, with everything happening between us. I needed...I needed a distraction. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. It was unfair."
Her lips twitched, but not angrily. Instead, it was out of sadness. "I forgive you, Calix. And I haven't been fair, myself. I understand why you needed her."
It killed her to say the words, out of the most selfish part of her soul she hated to say them. She didn't understand. She didn't want him with her. But she was starting to realize that this was the way Calix felt about her and Bellamy, and she was starting to realize what her indecisiveness was causing him. It was painful to have to deal with something like this. She didn't blame him for seeking aid in another woman.
She could feel his grip on her hand tighten. "I love you, Alessia. I never stopped."
Alessia choked back the tears in her eyes and the tightness in her throat. But as she started to say something, a goodbye of some sort, there was a sudden whoosh so close to her that she flinched. When she looked down, she realized that whatever it was had grazed her arm, leaving a painful scrape along the edge of her left bicep. A bullet graze.
And then came another. She ducked, falling on top of Calix to shield him from the bullets that were flying in the air in their direction.
"Son of a bitch!" she screamed as the bullets landed closer and closer to her. Calix grabbed her neck and pulled her up slightly so that she could look in his eyes. They were wild and crazy, just like her own.
"Alessia, get out of here," he demanded. She hesitated, confused. "Run! Now! There's a spotter in the woods and he'll keep firing until you're dead!"
"But—" she began, but he didn't seem up to it. She stopped herself and looked between Calix and the flying bullets that inched dangerously close to his head. If she left, he would no doubt be eliminated due to those bullets. Even if he could evade them, he would still die if neglected treatment—that was for sure. She was about ready to let him go, about ready to save herself, when she realized something.
"Alessia, go!" Calix snapped at her. She shook her head and suddenly lifted herself off of Calix's chest and moved towards his hips.
"Like hell." He watched as she began to dig, her fingernails scraping at the surface of the dirt right beneath his thighs. She wiped away a bit of sweat that was beginning to form on her head. "I am not leaving you here. You are not dying on me today!"
The bullets still came at them, but they only made her dig harder. She could feel the blood start to spill from her fingertips as her nails were ripped off and all that was left on top of them was the dirt that she pulled from the ground, creating a ditch that she could use to slid Calix out from under the tree. She dug so hard that she started to cry heavily, but it didn't stop her. Calix tried to get her to go continuously, but she ignored him and barked at him to keep his head down. At last, about fifteen minutes later, she had gotten enough dirt out to slide him underneath the fallen tree that did not sink into the ground any more than it already had.
"Come on!" she demanded as she crawled over to Calix's head and grabbed his hands, pulling them above his face as she used all the strength within her to pull. Calix cried out in pain, but she didn't care. She could feel his legs dip underneath into the ditch, and when she pushed his body out of the ditch further, staying clear of the bullets that kept flying at her, he was finally safe. Rather, safe from the clutches of a fallen tree, that was.
She could see the bloodstains on his pants, right where the tree had fallen on him and crushed his legs. She couldn't worry about that now, all she had to do was get them out of there.
"Can you walk?" she barked. He shook his head.
"I-I'm not sure."
"Fine. Then drag." She lifted his arm onto her shoulders and pulled him up with her. Sure enough, his legs were limp enough that he had to drag his feet on the ground wherever they were going, wincing in pain the entire time. She hated to see him like that, but the more the bullets flew past them, the more she needed to get them out of there and behind somewhere safe. She managed to drag them at least fifty yards away from there the spotter had spotted them, and pulled Calix behind a bush and a thick tree that she was sure would hold up for a little while. Alessia breathed heavily, wiping her forehead with her dirt-covered, blood-soaked hands.
"You're okay," she whispered to herself, but that was far from the truth. She looked down at his wounds and saw the blood that poured from him and the paleness that was now his face. Alessia took a deep breath. He's not okay.
She did this, Abigail Griffin thought to herself as she desperately searched the ruins of Tondc, attempting to find whoever it was that was making the noise down in the wreckage to signal his survival. My daughter did this. My daughter is responsible for this. What has she done?
As the words haunted her mind, she continued mercilessly through the wreckage, passing over dead bodies that had been blood on Clarke's hands. Clarke. Her daughter, who had been so innocent once. Who had seen the good in others, who tried to change people for the better. She did this. How could her sweet, innocent daughter cause all this bloodshed?
She could hear the metal clanking again, the signal that the person who was alive kept sounding over and over again to lead her closer. She followed the noise, desperate to find whoever it was that needed her help.
"Hold on!" Abby shouted. "I'm coming!"
I have to do this. I have to save them. This is my fault. Clarke was her daughter, Clarke was her responsibility. And Clarke did this.
Abby's light shined on, searching relentlessly for the survivor. And at last, her light came upon a debris-covered hand that reached out lifelessly and pulled on a lever that made a clanking noise when released. When the light was on his face, she could see him clearly.
"Marcus?" Abby breathed slowly, and although she felt relieved that she had found him, and that he was alive, she couldn't help but realize that he was in danger. The debris had fallen on top of him, trapping him underneath the wreckage unable to pull himself out. Quickly, Abby rushed over to him. "Marcus, it's okay! I'm here." But he still had his hand on the lever, as if it were a reflex. She could tell that he was barely alive, holding onto whatever last strength he had left. She reached forward and grabbed his hand from the lever and looked down at him with tears in her eyes. Clarke did this. I did this. "It's okay."
"Abby?" He stared at her, his eyes wide open but not seeing. "It's my leg."
After a breath, she turned to his injury and began to assess. She could hear the creaking of the wreckage above them and felt extremely weary of their situation. At any given moment, everything around them could collapse and they would be just as dead as the hands that had fallen out from under all the debris around them. Every second that passed by was a miracle.
But she tried not to focus on that. She shined her light on his injury and assessed it quickly.
"You're bleeding, but not bad." She watched him wince at the pain. "Can you move your toes?"
"Yeah."
"Good. I don't think anything is broken. You're lucky." Abby stared at him for a while, seeing the pain on his face. Her heart pulled at her chest as she realized the consequences of what her daughter had done. If Marcus died, he would leave behind Alessia. She would never be able to forgive that. In an attempt to make him feel better, she added heatedly, "I'm gonna get you out of here."
But there was one small problem. The leg he complained about, the one that had been injured by the wreckage, was trapped underneath a solid metal beam that was too heavy for her to move. She tried, but no one was that strong. She couldn't lift it off him, no matter how hard she tried, no matter how hard she screamed. At last, Kane sighed.
"Not that lucky."
Before Abby could say anything, the both of them listened as there was a sound of a woman sobbing in the distance, not too far from them. Another survivor. Kane's breath hitched.
"That could be Clarke..." he trailed off.
Abby's jaw tightened. "I'm not leaving you here."
She turned back to the beam and, although she could see the lack of hope on Kane's face, Abby screamed out as she tried yet again to lift the heavy beam off Kane's injured leg. When she realized that her strength wasn't enough to pull the beam off of Kane's leg, she searched around the debris to find something to act as a mediator. She found a metal rod that she stuck just under the surface of the beam and, with every ounce of strength within her, pushed the rod up and away from her face. The beam, to her delight, began to raise off of Kane's leg, and all she needed for him to do was slide out from underneath it. But it was right when the weight of the beam was completely off of Kane's leg when she saw it: the blood that spewed out from his wound. Abby's eyes widened.
"Don't move! Don't move!" With no other choice, she had to drop the beam back down on his leg. Kane screamed out in pain, gritting his teeth so hard he was afraid they'd crack. Abby turned to look at him with wide eyes.
"Your femoral artery is lacerated. The weight of the beam is the only thing keeping you alive."
Kane, still breathing heavily from the pain, scoffed to himself. "Heh. Hell of a bandage."
Abby ignored his sly comment and turned back to the injury. "I'll figure it out."
"Abby..." Kane looked over at her while she desperately looked around for something that could help her keep the pressure on Kane's leg so that they could lift the beam off of him. But he brought her attention back to him with his hand on her shoulder and swallowed thickly. "Just...go find your daughter."
"If I can get a tourniquet around your leg, it buys us more time."
"Go find Clarke."
"She's not here!" Abby whispered at him through her teeth. Kane set his head back on a pile of debris and looked at her, confused. He could see the distress in her eyes. "She's...fine. Lexa, too."
Kane was entirely at a loss, but before he could ask her what she meant, they heard a loud creak, and then it happened. Piles of debris that had been held up by the weight of flimsy concrete had collapsed, and Abby went down with it. Both Abby and Kane screamed aloud as the debris toppled over them, burying them beneath the wreckage.
Her hands quickly ripped at her shoulders, tearing off the fabric of her long-sleeved shirt to make two rope-like strands of fabric that she could use as a tourniquet. Near her, she found a stick and put it by her side until she needed it. Calix's eyes widened, although he was hardly in a place to judge based on the fact that he was as pale as a ghost.
"Les, what are you doing?"
"Dr. Griffin taught me once. I think I can do it. I have to try."
She leaned forward and wrapped one of the handmade tourniquets she scrounged up close to his wound, using the stick beside her to tie and tie overhand knots until there was nothing left to tie. Quickly jumping over his body, she did the same on the other side, scrounging around for another stick she could find. The bleeding slowed, but she knew that tourniquets were only a temporary solution. If she didn't find a more permanent one soon, they would have to amputate his legs. Calix would never be able to handle it.
"Shit...I think..." She turned to him suddenly with wide eyes. "Tell me you have feeling back in your lower legs. Tell me, Calix!" Alessia shouted. He placed a hand on her arm.
"Relax, Alessia. I can feel them. I can move my toes, too. I promise."
She let out a sigh of relief. "Good. Good."
Silence washed over them for quite a long time, all the while Alessia finally relaxing against the tree she had pulled up against while Calix stared at her distressed face and shook his head. "Being down here changed you, didn't it? I've never seen you fight for something that much before."
She opened her eyes slowly and stared down at him. "I would never let you die, Calix."
"I know that. I wasn't saying—"
"I love you," she said quickly, even sternly. He stopped and listened to her as she roughly barked, "No matter what has happened, that never changed. No matter what I feel for Bellamy, I never once stopped caring about you. Don't you dare think otherwise."
He stared at her as she leaned her head back against the tree and took a deep breath, attempting to collect herself.
Three days of hell. She would have to spend three days locked up in her home as if she were a caged animal. Kane made it clear she was not to go anywhere or do anything except the classwork that her teachers had given him to have her do while she was suspended. Again, three days of pure, uninterrupted hell.
And to make it worse, Kane got her a babysitter.
"Mercer will be here from the time I leave for work until the time I get home, whenever that is," Kane informed Alessia as he slipped on his uniform for the day. Calix stood off in the living room with his hands respectfully crossed behind his back while he watched the family altercation before him. Alessia threw a darted glare towards the sandy-haired lapdog of her father's, her arms crossed defensively over her chest while her father roamed around, getting ready for work while demanding things from her. "No one comes in, no one goes out. Get your work done, Alessia. I mean it."
"Whatever." She scowled at him and turned on her heel, walking back to her room. Kane stopped at the kitchen, nearly flinching when he heard the door slam behind her. After a deep breath, he looked over at Calix.
"Good luck," Kane murmured under her breath. "You do this and you get to lead patrol for a week. Make sure she stays in line."
"Yes, Sir." Calix nodded respectfully as Kane neared the door, grabbing his jacket. On his way out, he turned and looked at Calix with a slow nod.
"You know, Mercer..." Calix turned to look at him. "You'll make a fine guard one day."
Calix smiled, barely visible for Kane to see but it was there. Kane nodded towards him one more and then walked out, leaving Calix alone with the demon he called Kane's daughter. She was beautiful, but she was even more dangerous than Kane himself. That was enough to earn her 'demon' status.
"You're still here?" Alessia asked him as she finally walked out of her room around an hour or so later to get a glass of water. Calix was sitting down at the center island, unmoving. He gave her a nod.
"I'm here on Kane's orders."
She scoffed. "Doesn't it bother you? Taking orders from the World's Greatest Jackass?"
Calix looked up, slightly offended. "Your father is one of the greatest Commanding Officers of all time, Alessia."
"He's also the worst fathers of all time, Calix." She snarled his name, as if it were an insult just for her to say it. He cocked an eyebrow at her. "You don't know what it was like to grow up with him. Imagine your childhood. Now erase it from your memory, and that's only remotely what it feels like. I never got the chance to grow up because I was never allowed to be a kid."
He sighed. "I'm sure he comes from a good place."
She frowned at him and sullenly moved to her room. "I doubt hell can be classified as a 'good place', but you get points for trying."
Light dawned on them quicker than she had expected. She wanted to move toward the village, but she realized that with the spotter out there, it would be easier for him to see them and they would never make it. She was trapped, and there was nothing else to do but wait. She hated waiting. She wanted to go find help before it was too late, but she couldn't.
"I should have let you go," Calix whispered under his breath as he closed his eyes. Alessia looked over at him with knotted eyebrows, confused.
"Excuse me?"
"Kane told me that if I loved you, I should let you go." She watched him as he opened his eyes gently and looked up at the clouds, as if they were entertaining him. Again, he repeated, "I should have let you go."
Alessia was quiet as she listened to the words out of his mouth, but when he was done, she realized the gravity of what he said, and it pissed her off. She got onto her knees and moved over to his side, and when he turned to look at her, he was surprised that she looked so angry. And then, before he could stop it, her hand came out and slapped him across the face—lightly—but it still stung.
"What the hell was that for?!" Calix demanded, snapping out of his daze to look up at her. She frowned at him.
"We're not in a Jane Austen novel, dumbass. Love isn't something you...fold neatly and shove into a drawer someplace, it's pain and it's hard and it sucks. But it's worth it. Kane told you to let me go because he was an overprotective dick who wanted to control every aspect of my life, but he learned from his mistakes and, you know, it's unsettling that you haven't."
Calix frowned. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"It means that when I told you I slept with Bellamy, all you did was ask me if I loved him." She stared at him blankly and Calix tried to understand what she was saying. "And then a few days later, you show up at the drop ship and start beating the shit out of him because of it, but why? As much as you might have resented the fact that I didn't stay completely faithful to my dead boyfriend at the time, you confronted him because you needed someone to defend. Because you always need someone to look out for, someone to rescue. I'm not the goddamn Princess of this story. I don't want to be."
He was silent for a moment as he realized the truth behind what she was saying. "Les—"
"I can love two people at the same time, Calix," she told him sternly. He looked up at her and watched as she scoffed. "That doesn't make it right. That doesn't make it fair. But it's the truth. And I know what that makes me, okay? I know that makes me the whore who's dragging two guys along in the mud with her. I understand that completely. But imagine the predicament I'm in when I finally find someone that I care about again only to find that the one I lost was never lost at all, but pretending to be dead because my dumbass father told him to stay away!"
"I was doing the right thing by you," he argued.
"No one asked you to." Under normal circumstances, maybe she would've yelled it, but this time, she said the words calmly and with as much compassion as she could muster. Calix sighed as she looked up at the trees and inhaled heavily. "You've always had to do the right thing, Calix, and that's what I loved about you once. But when push came to shove, you gave up on us. I don't know if I can ever get past that. I will always love you, but what kind of a relationship can we have if I can't trust you not to fight for us when it matters?"
He hesitated. "How can you say that I never fought for us? All I've done since I've gotten down here is fight for us."
"There wouldn't have to be a fight if you didn't forfeit the first time!"
"Would things have changed if I had?" Calix asked suddenly, a small flare in his eye. "Would you have been able to prevent yourself from falling in love with my best friend?"
"I can't know that."
"We're playing in hypotheticals here, Les. You told me that if I hadn't given up when Kane told me to, we would still be together. You still would've come down here anyways. Bellamy would've still been on that drop ship. Would things be different if you did know that I was alive and that I still loved you?"
It was a valid question. She knew it, he knew it. She just didn't know how to answer it. But she realized quickly that she didn't have much of a choice.
"I would've tried a hell lot harder to stop it," she admitted.
Calix's expression shifted as he realized what she was saying. Alessia leaned back against the tree. They were completely at a loss. Two, three minutes went by of pure, uninterrupted silence before Calix turned his head away from her and squared his jaw.
"Then I guess that's it, then."
She scoffed. "It's not that simple—"
"Why not?" He snapped his head back to look over in her direction, and she stiffened at the hardness in his eyes. "You keep overcomplicating this, Alessia. It's not complicated. You say you love me, but that's not true. You're in love with a memory, not me. You're in love with what we had and you keep trying to hold onto it like that's going to fix everything. But you said it yourself, I gave up on us, and you don't know if you'll be able to get past it."
Alessia frowned. "If I tried, I could."
"Do you want to try, then?" he asked suddenly, and she realized how quickly this conversation turned south. His eyes were laser-focused on hers as he prompted her again, "There's a difference between being able to try and wanting to try. Tell me, Alessia. Do you even want to try?"
She stared down at him, but here mouth didn't move one inch. It was set into a hard, thin line as she looked down at the man that she used to love and tried to figure out where it had gone so horribly, horribly wrong.
Abby stirred after a while, finding it extremely difficult to breathe. She was trapped under something, something heavy. She grunted to try and get out from underneath it, but the entire left side of her body was incapacitated. When she realized it was no use, she breathed softly and looked around.
"Marcus?" she asked into the darkness, desperate to find him again. She could still feel the flashlight that had been in her hand before the collapse, and so she brushed over the on button with her finger and the stream of light glowed to life so that she could search for Kane in the darkness. She found him, unconscious and covered in dirt.
"Marcus! Marcus, wake up!" He stirred, which was a good sign. "Open your eyes. You have to wake up, Marcus, open your eyes!"
He didn't open his eyes, but he rolled his head and whispered, "Oh, I'm so cold."
Abby's heart squeezed at his soft tone. "I'm right here. I'm right here."
He could sense the worry in her voice. "I'm okay."
"I'm sorry, Marcus. I'm so sorry."
"It's not your fault, Abby."
"It is my fault. She's my daughter."
Kane's head turned, and he saw Abby's guilt-ridden face in the darkness. He didn't know what she meant, but he knew that it was serious. Did Clarke have something to do with the bombing?
"What are you talking about?" he inquired. Abby tried to hold back the tears, but she couldn't. Her eyes locked on Kane's, and she chose to tell him the truth. Her voice was nothing but a whisper.
"She knew."
"Clarke escaped? Before the attack? She knew it was coming?"
Dr. Griffin's breath caught as she nodded and, through her tears, choked out, "Yes."
Kane was quiet for a long time, and after a few moments, he finally asked the one question that was on his mind. "Alessia. Did she know, too?"
"She wasn't with Clarke. I don't think she did." While Abby sniffed back her tears, Kane thought about where his daughter was, and his heart began to race thinking about whether or not she was okay. What's more was that he couldn't even begin to fathom how Clarke could do something like this to them. To Alessia, even. He heard Abby whisper his own thoughts. "How could she do something like this?"
Kane knew the answer before she even had to ask. "Because she grew up on the Ark. She learned what to do from us. They both did."
"Clarke let this happen. She could've stopped it."
"She made a choice. Like executing people for stealing...food from the rations room to feed the underprivileged. Like imprisoning your own daughter because you were scared you'd done something horribly wrong." Kane swallowed thickly. "Like sucking the air...from the lungs of...three hundred parents so they could save their children because you couldn't save yours."
Abby fell silent. "Like floating the man you love to save your people."
"Yes." Kane stared at Abby from across the debris, a pain in his eyes that she could make out from the glint of the light in her hand. "We have to answer for our sins, Abby."
"After everything we've done..." she began lowly, a newfound hardness in her voice. "Do we even deserve to survive?"
He didn't know how to answer that. Truth be told, he wasn't sure that they did.
"Alessia?" Calix called out from the kitchen area as he poured himself a glass of water. He had spent two days at the Kane household, mostly from early in the morning to late at night. Those two days had been pure hell having to deal with Kane's daughter, who barely talked to him. When she did talk, it was mostly a sour comment in the form of a rude insult directed towards him or her father. But the strange part was, he hadn't heard a word from her since he'd gotten into the house in the morning when she yelled at him to go away after he tried to bring her some juice.
Hearing no response to his call, Calix set his water down and went over to her bedroom, where he knocked on the door and waited outside for her to answer it.
"Alessia, what are you doing?" he asked, starting to get alarmed. No one answered the door, and when he tried to open it, he found it locked. He tried the knob a few more times to break the seal, but it wouldn't budge. Angrily, he twisted the knob as hard as he could and shoved his shoulder into the door once, twice, and a third time until it finally broke the lock and he stumbled through the doorway. No one was inside, and to his left, he saw an open vent that most likely served as Alessia's escape hatch.
"Son of a bitch," Calix muttered as he left her room, grabbed his Guard's jacket, and left the Kane household to find the pain-in-the-ass teenager.
It took him a while, time which he didn't have, but he finally found Alessia Kane, who was messing around in Farm Station with some sixteen-year-old douchebag in a janitor's closet. When he'd opened the door in the middle of the handsy teenage boy groping Alessia's ass like it was money, Alessia was both impressed and furious.
"How the hell did you find me?!" she demanded. Calix didn't answer her. Instead, he looked at the horny teenage boy and jerked his thumb out of the room.
"Get lost," he warned. The teenager, slightly peeved and mostly fearful of what the Guard would do to him if he stayed, grabbed his shirt off the floor and scurried out of the janitor's closet like he was a mouse released from its trap. When he was gone, Calix gestured to her shirt on the floor. "And you. Get dressed, Alessia. We're leaving."
"You can't tell me what to do. I don't want to go back. I'm not going back." She crossed her arms over her half-covered body and gave him a pointed look. Calix looked to the left and right at him to make sure that no one was watching and then stepped into the janitor's closet, pulling the door shut behind him. She flinched at the slam of the door and watched as he fumed.
"Do you realize what you're doing right now? This isn't about you! I could care less what you do in your free time as long as it doesn't affect me. I have a lot riding on this. If I screw this up, Kane will have me excommunicated and I'm gonna have to go back to being a mechanic!" Alessia watched as he threw his hands up in the air. "I suck at being a mechanic!"
"That sounds like a personal problem."
"No, it's not. It's your problem." He bent down and grabbed her shirt from the floor before tossing it at her. "Now put the goddamn shirt on."
She stared at him for a long time, a time that made him extremely weary—so much so that he started to avoid her strange gaze. After a moment of hesitation, Alessia whispered, "Are you sure you want me to?"
Calix shifted uncomfortably. "Yes, Alessia. Put the shirt on, we need to get back to your house. Now."
"We don't have to go...right this second." She inched forward. Calix stayed in his place, but it was more because he was frozen than anything else. It was as if he'd suddenly become extremely aware that Alessia Kane, one of the most beautiful girls he'd ever seen, was standing in front of him half-naked with a gleam of lust in her eyes. He swallowed thickly.
"Yeah, we do." It came out weaker than he intended. She had gotten so close to him that she was able to reach out her hands hesitantly and softly brushed her fingers along his guard's jacket, lifting it off his shoulders and setting it on the floor. Calix didn't move as she lifted herself onto her toes to get closer to him. Her breath was intoxicating, like she had charmed it with something that made him lose all his thoughts.
"What makes you think you have the right to boss me around?" she whispered quietly, so close to his lips that if he moved just the slightest, they would be touching. Calix's breath on her skin made her shiver, and he could feel it.
"I have a feeling you don't particularly like being bossed around that much," he said softly. Her lips stretched into a smile and a small breath of air in the form of a laugh clouded his judgement.
"Not unless it's under the right circumstances." Her eyes dipped down to watch her hands as her fingertips brushed over the hem of Calix's shirt and softly landed on the hot skin underneath, right at his waist. "God, you''re so—"
Whatever she was about to say, she didn't get the chance to say it. He couldn't help himself anymore. He kissed her so hard, her head was spinning, and she involuntarily buckled into his body and he caught her breathlessly, molding them into one. His fingers tangled into her hair and she moaned in ecstasy in his mouth, and it sent him over the edge. He flipped them around and pushed her back to the door, where it aided in letting the space between them become virtually nonexistent. She lifted herself onto his body and her own hands came up to run across his hair, pulling his chin up to meet her level so that she could kiss him harder. His hand supported their weight on the back of the door, and within merely a few seconds, he'd forgotten all about Kane's orders.
They hadn't talked much since their argument. Alessia wanted to say something, but she couldn't, because she knew that if she said something that would require changing the subject, she would have hell to pay for it later.
Takeo was right. She had to choose. And it sucked.
She'd gotten the entire silence to think about her actions, but she was snapped out of it the second she heard Calix start to groan as he lifted himself up onto his elbows to look at his legs. Alessia looked over at him quickly.
"What is it? What's wrong?"
"I don't know. I just...I can't feel my legs." His eyes snapped up quickly to look at Alessia, alarmed. "Alessia, I can't move my toes."
"No..." she breathed and quickly got onto her knees and went to his legs. "No, no, no, no. This can't be happening."
"What?"
She stared up at him. "I used to spend time with Dr. Griffin when I was a kid in the medical center. There was this guy who'd gotten into an accident in the Earth Station repairs. Abby put a tourniquet on his leg while she assessed some of the other patients who were more severe, but later he complained that he couldn't feel his legs. The internal bleeding caused so much pressure it was cutting off blood circulation."
Calix's eyes widened. "What did she do to fix it?"
Alessia swallowed and shut her eyes trying to remember. "Um...a...a...I can't remember the name of it, it was where she cut into his leg and—"
"Cut into his leg?!"
"Shhh!" Alessia snapped at him, realizing that Calix's exclamation was so loud that it was going to attract attention from the spotter. He shut his mouth instantly and she panicked, looking back at the leg. "She cut into his leg. I think I remember where."
"You think?"
She threw a look that could most certainly cut right through him. "Yes, I think. Does it matter? Would you rather me do nothing and sit by while you become paralyzed or would you rather me try and save you?" He fell silent. "Yeah, that's what I thought. Hold on."
Alessia reached into her boot and grabbed her knife that she always kept in it for safekeeping. She reached into her jacket and pulled out a canteen and spilled some of it over her knife before taking a long sip. Calix scowled.
"Are you sterilizing your knife with water? That's not how it works, you know."
"It's not water. It's been a tough week." He raised his eyebrows at her, but she only shot him a bitter smile quickly and then dropped it, becoming extremely serious. Never once looking at him, she ordered, "Now shut up and stay still. This is gonna hurt."
From the corner of her eye, she could see him grow apprehensive, and although she wanted to apologize for the lack of subtlety, there was just no time. With a deep breath, she tried to remember one of the many, many traumatic events of her childhood. The good news was, Dr. Griffin's profession interested her, and therefore she remembered it more than she would one of the endless traumatic events bestowed upon her from Kane. But it had been so long, she didn't know if she could do it. She remembered vaguely where the incision was, but she didn't know how long it was or what complications could arise if she did something wrong. When Calix realized that nothing was happening, he looked over his shoulder and saw her struggling, her eyebrows knotted in that specific way that had always accompanied her focus.
He lifted his dirt-baked hand and set it gently on her forearm, causing her to break her intense focus and look over at Calix. In that moment, he saw the vulnerability that he hadn't seen since they had found each other at the massacre. She looked scared. Scratch that, she looked terrified. He nodded at her slowly.
"You can do this," he assured her gently. The words seemed to give her a sense of comfort, although she knew that Calix would trust her with his life if it came down to it—which it had. He let go of her arm, relaxed on his back, and dug his nails into the earth as he anticipated her incision. Alessia inhaled deeply and sat forward. I can do this.
Playing the distant memory of Dr. Griffin's procedure in her mind, she pressed her knife into the outer portion of his thigh and cut. He screamed so loudly, but his scream was masked by the distant sound of a fog horn. She would've cared to think about what it meant, but she couldn't stop. Once the incision was made, there was no going back. Everything from there was chaos, and to be honest, she couldn't replicate it again even if it were for the life of her. All that continued to play in her mind was the procedure she watched from afar, where Abby had then cut into the fascia lata to relieve the pressure on the man's leg. She felt herself panic, physical pain resulting from Calix's high-pitched shrills that could be heard a mile away, but it would be over once anyone got to them—assuming there was anyone still alive. She made another incision to release the pressure at last, all the while holding back any thoughts of disgust that she felt would have been appropriate. Although she felt like her entire body was on fire and that she was so nervous she was shaking in her heels, her composure was surprisingly clam in the midst of the storm she was under. When the incision was made and Calix finally relaxed, she let out a sigh of relief.
"I did it. I did it." She resisted the urge to smile, not because it was inappropriate but rather she didn't have enough energy to do so. She looked over at Calix to watch his reaction, but she found that he was not rejoicing—instead, he was just laying there blankly. An alarm immediately triggered in her head, and she scooted over to his chest and grabbed his face in her hands, despite the fact that they were covered in his blood.
"Calix?!" she shouted in his face, shaking him violently. It was as if she could hear the morbid blank line of the old EKG machine on the Ark. When she looked back at Calix's exposed leg, that's when she saw it—the small tear made by her incision that was gushing out blood that she didn't recognize was excessive because she was so inexperienced. In hindsight, cutting him open wasn't a good idea. The reality was, they didn't have many options.
"No, no, no, no," Alessia hissed to herself before rushing over and placing her hand firmly on the bleeder, knowing that the second she took her hand off, his blood pressure would plummet further. Thinking chaotically, she tried to come up with a solution. She needed sutures, but where the fuck would she find a needle and threat out in the fucking wild? Think, Alessia, think! She didn't have much of a choice at that point. Her only options were a stick and the clothes off her back, which she semi-successfully managed to hurriedly split apart the spread from the hem of her shirt into smaller threads. Still keeping a hand on her wound, she soaked a bunch of small sticks in her alcohol and made the tip of the stick so pointed that it would prick her if she tried. Though quite difficult one handed, she managed to get what she could done with her operating hand, including tying the end of her thread onto the makeshift needle. When she turned back to Calix's leg, she knew there would be consequences. She knew something would be wrong with what she was doing. But she needed to save him and she had no more choices left.
The sutures took a few minutes, as well as a few tries, but eventually she managed to get them all to stick in their places, and the bleeding was temporarily stopped. She attempted to stitch up the rest of his wound, but in the end she had to tear off a part of Calix's shirt (for she was dangerously low on her own fabric) and do the best she could with the makeshift stitches that would hold them over for a while. After she finished some time later, she turned back at Calix and looked at him with wild eyes.
"Come on. Come back! Come back! Please," Alessia begged, but he wasn't waking up. She could see a gleam of sweat on his forehead, but she didn't know if that was from the pain or from an infection that she was positive was possible out in the wilderness as they were. When he didn't move, she sucked in a deep breath and a tear or two before clamping her hands together and lifting herself onto her knees and over his chest. With her hands over his heart, she pressed down as hard as she could, over and over again until the tears came out of her eyes and she couldn't stop it. She lost count at how many compressions she had given him, until at last he reawakened with a painful groan. Alessia stopped her madness and looked down at him, her face tomato red and her eyes gleaming with fresh tears. "You didn't die. Thank God, thank God, you didn't die."
He watched her curiously as she continued crying, even after she realized he was okay. It got worse. She buried her head in her hands and sat back on her knees and cried more. She cried and cried and cried until she was sure she would never have to cry again in her entire life. He had only ever seen her cry once, when Clarke was taken into confinement and when Clarke's father had been executed. He had only ever seen her cry that one time when she realized her life was rapidly changing. And now, as he watched her cry more, he knew it was the same.
"Tell me," he whispered quietly, but she heard him even through her weeping. And she had already planned to.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," she said through her sobs, hiccuping a few times as she looked down at Calix with eyes as red as the sky. He said nothing, but only watched her as she cried until her tear ducts were empty. "I choose him. I choose him."
Things had gotten awfully quiet. Too quiet. Abby didn't feel like talking after she and Kane both fell silent at the idea that they were the people who didn't deserve to survive, rather than their daughters, but after a while, the silence grew so cold it was alarming. With the light still on Kane's face, Abby could not see his eyelids open to indicate that he was alert and functional. She began immediately to panic.
"Marcus?" she tried, but there was no answer. Her voice got louder. "Marcus. Marcus, wake up! Marcus, wake up! Wake up!"
She had to get to him. If he died, she wouldn't know what to do. What would she have left? Her daughter was a traitor, a murderer, even, and she was the Chancellor who didn't have any authority. What would she do if he died? Who would she have to console her or tell her she was making the wrong decision? In an overwhelming rush of adrenaline, Abby fought so hard she was sure she would have serious pain later on because she managed to lift the moderately heavy debris off of her long enough so that she could crawl her way over to Marcus, still trapped underneath the beam. She could feel the tears threaten at her eyes as she panicked more and tried desperately to find a way to get him out. He wouldn't survive. But he deserved to survive. But when there was nothing left to do, all she could was let herself have a few tears and laid her head on his chest to comfort him as long as she could.
Then, a few minutes later, she heard something. A horn of some kind, a commotion outside.
"Marcus!" she exclaimed, attempting to wake him up. She shook him again. "Marcus. Do you hear that?"
Abby coughed as she could feel the dust and dirt settle in her lungs, but after a moment of commotion and shifting of the atmosphere, her eyes pained when she saw a sliver of light in the dark pit. A figure emerged in view of that light, and Abby blinked a few times to finally come to see that it was Octavia squatting down a few feet in front of them at the opening. Abby sighed in relief.
"Abby! Kane!" Octavia breathed heavily. "We'll get you out of here."
Octavia climbed down the opening to retrieve them, and Abby turned to look at Marcus, who was starting to rouse with the natural light shining in his face. Abby smiled down at him.
"We're gonna be okay."
He nodded to her and Abby tried not to cry again, this time out of joy.
"You did an excellent job, Mercer." Kane clapped an approving hand on his protégé back in support of his endeavors. He even received one of Kane's rare, proud smiles—one that he had been assured were kept under lock and key. Calix eyed Alessia out of the corner of his eye, who was standing to the side with crossed arms and a slick smile on her face. He felt extremely, irrevocably guilty for what had happened between them before and had been avoiding her at all costs, but she had done nothing but make him remember the pain he had for violating the sanctity of his boss's daughter. "First shift starts tomorrow. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a Council meeting. You can make yourself at home, or you can leave. It's up to you."
He gave Calix a nod of approval and then brushed past him. Before he left, though, he turned around to Alessia and pointed a stern finger at her. "No trouble, Alessia."
She smiled innocently. "Of course not."
Kane threw a look of suspicion, and even disgust, at her before exiting their home onto his daily duties. With Calix and Alessia alone, the air grew stale. Alessia stared at him, but Calix tried everything he could not to look at her. Eventually, he inhaled and turned to leave.
"I should go."
"Or," she prompted without moving an inch. He paused halfway through his turn and listened to her as she said, with an obvious smile in her voice, "You could stay. Don't worry, I know where all the cameras are. There's a blindspot."
Calix turned around sharply and looked her square in the eye. "Alessia...this can never happen again. It won't happen again. Do you understand that?"
She frowned. "Why can't it happen, exactly?"
"Because."
"Because...?"
"Because...you're Kane's daughter!"
"Yeah, and I'm assuming you have a father, too. So what?" She stepped closer, but it was hardly close enough. "This isn't about my father, Calix. It's about us. And I like you." Alessia smiled, but it was strange. He saw the smile, but it was different from the wall that she put up. The smiles she gave were vindictive, more manipulative than anything. This one was genuine, or so it seemed. "I like you a lot, actually."
"You like the idea of me," he warned. "You like the idea of sneaking around with someone who's close to your father because you want to get back at him. You like the adventure."
"What's so wrong with liking the adventure?" Alessia propositioned. "Besides, didn't I just say I liked you? Because I do, Calix. You're interesting. You're not who I usually..." He watched as she stopped herself and bit down on her lip to indicate her choice of words. "...associate with."
Calix scoffed. "Yeah, that's because you associate with teenage asshats—"
"Do I detect jealousy?"
"Try disdain."
"Disdain because you caught me about to have sex with some...teenage asshat." She smiled. "And then you had sex with me. So what's the problem?"
"The problem is, Alessia..." he trailed off, unsure of why he was arguing with her, but he knew it was for the best. "The problem is that I like you, too. But I can't date you because you're Kane's daughter and...he's the type of father to float a man for getting involved with his daughter."
"It's a risk I'm willing to take," she admitted while trying to hide her appreciative look. "But did you just say 'date'? If we're sneaking around, I don't think we can really 'date'."
Calix smiled softly. "I have some ideas."
Alessia grinned back at him and laughed under her breath. "Oh, do you, now?"
"I do."
"Well, then, I guess I'll have to amend my rule." He cocked an eyebrow at her and she shrugged. "No falling for one of Kane's minions. I've had it since I was ten."
"Oh?"
"I had a crush on one of his Lieutenants. Older, obviously. Broke my heart."
"Really?" Calix chuckled under his breath and shook his head for a moment as he reached out for the door, knowing that—although he was willing to start something with her—now wasn't the time. He turned his head to look at Alessia and gave her a playful look. "Well, if it's any consolation, I have a feeling that one day, you're gonna break mine."
She smiled gently. "There's only one way to find out."
Calix and Alessia hadn't said a single word to each other since Sinclair and others from the Ark found them in the woods and helped them make a makeshift gurney for Calix so they could go down and see the wreckage. The air was entirely stale, however, with her words hanging in the air with a giant, neon sign to accompany them.
I choose him.
She didn't realize that words could cause so much pain, both to him and to her. It was selfish, she knew, to think of herself in this situation, but she had come to realize when trying to save Calix's life that the only reason she was fighting was because she didn't want him to die without having a fair chance at finding someone who would love him unconditionally. Who would love him despite the fact that she thought he had died. She blamed him for ruining them when she knew it was her fault—if she loved him, she wouldn't have given up on them, but she did.
But her troubles—at least those ones—had been wiped out of her mind when she saw her father also being carried on a makeshift stretcher, barely awake. She abandoned Calix's side, who had then been accompanied by Dr. Griffin to look at Alessia's surgical procedure, to run over to her father to make sure he was okay.
"Dad!" she exclaimed as the men holding his stretched came to a halt to let Alessia talk to him. Kane groaned under his breath, but his head rolled up to see his daughter. She had no more tears left in her, so she didn't cry. Instead, she reached out and grabbed his hand. Then, she whispered, "Daddy, please tell me you're okay."
Kane was quiet for a while, but he could see a small smile on his lips start to form. "You called me 'daddy'," he whispered quietly. She scoffed and hung her head, pressing her forehead lightly against his chest, thankful that he was okay. "You haven't called me that since you were five."
She sniffed and looked up at him with a sad smile. "That's because you didn't make me fire my first gunshot until I was seven."
He laughed, but after a moment, she watched as a look of nostalgia wiped over his face. She waited and noticed him thinking, and after a while, he finally looked over at her with tears in his eyes, something she had never seen before. She gripped his hand tightly and listened as he choked out, "I'm so sorry for everything I've done to you. I wish I had been a better father."
"Dad..." She looked down at their hands for a moment and thought about her words. She felt as if the ten thousand pounds of weight that had been on her shoulders before the bomb had only intensified, and she felt like it was beginning to have its effect on her. She finally looked up at him and nodded. "Everything you've done has made me who I am. Don't apologize for it."
Kane watched as she gave him a small smile, and he nodded along with her to indicate that he agreed. At last, he squeezed her hand as tight as he could and whispered, "I love you, Alessia."
"I love you, too, Dad."
She finally backed away and let the guards take her father to a secure location for transport, and from out of the corner of her eye she could see Abby as she demanded, "I need to get Calix and Kane back to the Ark. They need blood right now."
Jackson tried to stop her, to get her to be examined herself, but she ignored him and walked over to Alessia, who rubbed her face to get rid of the puffiness so that she could face Abby with a level head. With an outward sigh, she crossed her arms.
"Are they going to live? My dad and...and Calix?"
"Yes." Abby reached forward and touched Alessia's shoulder cautiously. "You did the best you could, Alessia. I'm surprised you remembered that procedure."
"Some things tend to stick with me, I guess."
Abby was about to reply, but before she could, there was a sudden rumble in the crowd of Grounders. They all began to chant "Heda" as Abby and Alessia looked up to find Clarke and Lexa standing above the bomb site, tall and proud. Abby stiffened and Alessia knotted her eyes at Clarke, who stood without a scratch. How? She didn't have a chance to think about it.
"What happened here will not stand," Lexa announced to her crew. "The Mountain will fall. The dead will be avenged!"
The crowd erupted into excitement, but Alessia realized that this only angered Abby. She flinched when Abby screamed out over the cries, "Enough! Enough!" When they finally subsided, she stared up at Lexa and Clarke with hard stares. "There are still others in the wreckage. We heard them. Go to work!"
Almost immediately, all of the guards from the Ark began to flock to the wreckage site to pull out the survivors with the aid of the Grounders. Alessia watched as Clarke and her mother exchanged a cold glare, and at last Abby stepped off to help those in need, just like she always did. But the wheels in Alessia's head began to turn around and around and around as she looked between Clarke and Abby to fill in the blanks left behind by their conflicting presence.
Clarke found her way down to the wreckage after a moment or two, and after conversing with Octavia, she found Alessia watching as some guards pulled Calix and Kane away so that Abby could tend to them. Clarke watched them as well and exhaled heavily.
"I'm so sorry about what happened to them. I heard you had to do a surgery in the woods."
Alessia crossed her arms, but didn't look at Clarke. Her wretched words stung in her ears again. I choose him. She decided not to relay this information to Clarke, finding it irrelevant and emotion-provoking, two of the things she didn't have time for.
"We do what we have to do to survive." She turned to Clarke. "Isn't that right?"
Clarke could detect a double meaning to her words, and she panicked. Did Alessia know that she escaped before the bombing? Did she know that she left her there to die? Did she know that she was responsible for all the bloodshed? Clarke gulped nervously.
"That's right."
Thanks for reading! Please review!
diakappers: Haha he's not going anywhere! At least, for now. I was considering letting him die, but that would a) be too easy and b) kind of mess things up with Bellamy/Alessia so it was a tactical decision. Thanks for the review!
RHatch89: Lolol everyone is! Alessia/Bellamy all the way:) Thanks for reviewing!
caymanislands: Thank you! Here's the update. Um, if I'm not mistaken, I think Raven accidentally slipped up and told him but I just didn't write that part, but eventually it will probably come up again.
HALEBTRASH: Two words: super. pissed. We saw at the end of this chapter that she kinda/sorta knows, but once Octavia finds out and once Alessia really understands the danger Clarke is putting her and her friends in, she's not going to be happy about it. Thanks for the update!
Samantha: He's not dying, but there will probably be some repercussions and complications. Alessia's gonna be extremely pissed next chapter, just you wait. Thanks! Here's the update.
UnraveledGhoul: He's not dying! He's surviving, but like I said, there may be so complications. Thank you so much! Here's the update!
Guest: Nope, he didn't die! I mean, something bad happened to him...lol Alessia basically crushed his heart, but he'll get over it. We'll see some happy Calix in Season 3 :)
Audrie-13: Barely alive/severely injured, yes. I wouldn't make him die, that would be too easy! Plus, Calix deserves happiness. Not with Alessia, though haha. Here's the update!
RosaSilvermist: Lol pretty much sums up the entire situation. Thanks for the review!
Give me my love: Thank you so much! Here's the update!
Guest: Same. She'll get better (maybe). Here's the update!
justinegeib: Here's the update!