The wind howled worse than it did in winter, and rain was driven into every crevice, showing where buildings needed to be sealed and reinforced. The storm's ferocity stunned Skaikru, who thought they'd seen the worst possible weather during winter's blizzards.
It was felt even deep in the Ark. The wind was audible in the Medbay, and the lights flickered. Before the storm, Nyko brought in lanterns as part of his preparation. He still didn't trust Skaikru technology and took every opportunity to remind them that it wouldn't last while conceding that Skaikru had advantages, especially with X-rays. The overhead lights fading in and out made his point.
Abby, Nyko, and Jackson took advantage of the quiet days to further refine the course and plan the second installment. The next set of healers would come from further away, but Nyko assured them everyone would arrive when expected. Heda ordered this, he reminded them, and that was enough to get cooperation. "Also, word is starting to spread. Wanheda is not the only Skaikru with a reputation."
"Does Abby get a catchy nickname, too?" Jackson asked to tease Abby.
"We will see. It would be interesting, no?"
"Clarke has a nickname?" Abby asked.
"Sha."
"What is it? I've heard her referred to as Skai Prisa and Skai Heda."
"Clarke is Wanheda."
"What does that mean, anyway? The commander said we aren't allowed to say it."
Nyko sighed. He knew Abby, especially, would not really understand its significance or power. "Wanheda is commander of death."
"Oh," Abby said, thinking, 'My poor baby.'
"It upsets Clarke, so Heda said we must not use it. It is not an insult. Clarke has great power. She freed us from Maunon. To enter Maun-de was certain death, yet she forced them to surrender all our people imprisoned there. She brought Reapers to you, and returned their lives so they would not die in the dark, their souls trapped underground. And then she brought her people out of there. In one day, she saved hundreds."
"And killed hundreds more," Abby said softly.
"Sha, that was the price, but thousands of our people were slaughtered there. They dumped their bodies like trash, left their souls trapped."
"Can we do anything about that?" Jackson asked.
"I do not know. When Heda returns, we will ask her."
"How long do you think it will be before they come back?" Abby asked.
"Not long. There are things Heda must do here before she settles in Polis for winter." Nyko grinned. "Bonding."
"No," Abby said.
"Sha," Nyko and Jackson said together, and both laughed.
"You're not blind, Abby. Clarke and the commander only have eyes for each other. Almost everybody in Skaikru and a few Trikru tried to get her attention before and after she met the commander. Once Clarke met her, it was game over."
"Clarke will not find a better houmon," Nyko added. "Heda has been devoted solely to Clarke since meeting her."
Abby thought about what Octavia told her about Clarke, and tried to remember Clarke and Lexa together during their visit. Lexa was extremely protective of Clarke, and Abby translated that as possessiveness, not affection, just as she did when she saw them having sex. Seeing them together in the Medbay was different, but not enough to change her mind, not even when she found them wrapped up in each other asleep. The confrontation with Lexa in the mess hall only solidified her dislike of the commander.
Jackson and Nyko chatted while Abby tried to think of an instance when she didn't automatically dislike Lexa. She didn't like the commander when she stood in Abby's office and said the things Abby would expect of any suitor, and the flare of temper on Clarke's behalf did nothing to improve her view of the young woman. She sighed and recalled the cave. Those images kept her up some nights. Abby didn't think Lexa had been there when Clarke cut her arms, but she had so many questions for both Clarke and Lexa.
The lights went out again, and it was nearly a minute before they came back on.
"Don't light the lamps until we have to," she instructed, and hope it wouldn't come to that. The wind roared and howled, and Abby hoped Clarke was someplace safe and dry.
100 – 100 – 100
The water was cold and impossibly rough. Lexa came to the surface and saw the ship moving away, and a moment later caught a flash of Clarke's blonde hair. She set off toward it, and found Clarke struggling to stay afloat. Lexa took one last look toward the ship and pointed to her left. The wind was too loud for them to hear each other, but Clarke nodded and gamely started swimming.
They didn't know how long they'd been in the water when everything calmed. Lexa stopped for a moment to look around and saw red cliffs topped by trees in the distance. "We must go there, Klark," Lexa said, and pointed again.
"Is the storm over?"
"No, this is a brief reprieve. It will start again very soon."
Clarke nodded, and Lexa saw the determination in her eyes. They began swimming again, but it felt like their destination got no closer. The wind began to pick up again.
They finally got a bit of luck in the form of a tree moving in their direction from the shore. Lexa grabbed a branch and Clarke's hand. They both worked themselves into the branches so they could hold on without too much effort.
Lexa was more worried for Clarke's safety than her own. She could tell that Clarke was tired. She wasn't completely recovered from being poisoned, and worked harder than she had to while swimming. Lexa resolved to improve Clarke's swimming skills when they returned to Polis. Lexa was surprised that Clarke came into the water after her, even though she would have done the same for Clarke.
The wind and waves drove them away from the shore, but they needed to rest. Lexa moved so that she and Clarke were close. Sharing their body heat was important. The cold water, combined with the wind, would drop their body temperatures, and that would kill them faster than the water.
The storm raged for the rest of the day. They held onto the tree and each other and didn't give up.
100 – 100 – 100
Raven was the only one to venture outside during the storm. The guys sat around and speculated about what was going on outside, but Raven was the one who went out to see what was causing the terrible racket. She stood in the street while the wind howled. It drove the rain at sufficient velocity to sting her skin. There wasn't much loose in Polis, but she saw the few things that were tumble past.
It was exhilarating. She missed space so much, missed the joy of being weightless outside the Ark, knowing every second that the tiniest error could be the one that sent her to her death. She loved coming back into the airlock after fixing whatever piece of shit failed. She missed her confidence, but more than that, she missed her freedom.
Horseback riding was the closest thing to spacewalks she'd experienced yet. Soaking in the tub was really nice, too. It didn't matter for the minutes in the water that her leg didn't work. Getting in and out, though, made her depressed. Miller was a perfect gentleman. She didn't know what he said to Wick, but Wick had stopped being a complete asshole. He helped her into the bath and kept her company without any pervy comments. He'd even begged off the one time she invited him to share, which led to a surprisingly deep conversation about what he wanted from life on Earth that started and ended with her. In between, it turned out he was actually a good guy. He was trying to figure things out, and he was helping her because he wanted to spend time with her. They'd get horizontal sometime in the future, but these days in Polis wore her out, especially climbing up and down the ladder and struggling to maintain her balance on the library's pitched roof.
She wanted to see whether their equipment was holding, but knew it wasn't safe. Instead, she turned into the wind and laughed. She closed her eyes, and for one moment felt like she was accelerating. It felt awesome.
She thought Miller would come out to insist she come in, but it was Wick. She gestured for him to join her, and her smile got bigger when he did.
"You're outta your mind, Reyes," he told her, but he was smiling, too.
She laughed again.
100 – 100 – 100
Shad was the first to notice they were gone. All their guards were seasick and abandoned their hammocks, as Clarke had, to wedge themselves into places on the floor that minimized their motion. Shad checked on them every few hours, then went to check on Wanheda.
Wanheda wasn't in her cabin. Neither was Heda, but Heda and Cap were friends, and Heda knew her way around the ship. She checked Cap's cabin, which was empty, too, and began systematically searching the ship.
When she couldn't find either woman, she found Cap Jonah. Together, they searched again, and when they finished, Cap Jonah looked sicker than all Heda and Wanheda's guards combined. The only reason for their absence was that they went over the side without being seen.
Cap Jonah rushed to the helm and turned the ship around. They tacked against the weather, even though he knew it was futile, and put all the crew on the deck to watch for any evidence of them. Bodies. No one could survive in this water.
Futile or not, he continued the effort and rotated the crew through brief stands on the deck. They made a little headway when the eye passed over them. Cap Jonah searched with his spyglass, and his first mate searched with his, but they saw nothing. When the storm returned, he kept them headed into the wind. Once it was over, they would backtrack to the last place he spoke with Heda. He would search the entirety of Chesby until he found them.
100 – 100 – 100
They took turns resting, and did whatever they could to get warm. Clarke reminded Lexa and herself not to swallow too much water. It wasn't as salty as the ocean, but it would still make them ill and eventually kill them. There was a brief break in the clouds, and Lexa saw a small patch of starry sky. There was nothing around them except rough water. The tree blocked some of it, but they stayed soaked and shivered against each other.
They made it through the night, and Clarke woke Lexa to watch the sunrise. They got into the water and used the tree as a kick board. It was large and unwieldy, and progress was slow, but they needed it to rest.
It was nearly midday when Lexa saw trees in the distance. She poked Clarke and pointed. Clarke nodded tiredly, and they continued to work as a team, pushing the tree forward for a few minutes, resting for fewer before moving it again.
100 – 100 – 100
When the lights stayed off for five minutes, Abby sighed. She was on watch tonight, and sent Nyko and Jackson to rest in the empty beds. She checked her flashlight, then went into the passageway. She lit the lantern they left there so anyone coming in could see where they were. She didn't think they would have any customers until the storm passed. As far as she knew, everyone was hunkered down in their living quarters, making do with bread, dried meat, and water handed out before the storm got bad.
Her thoughts went to Clarke again, and by extension, Lexa. The more she talked with people about her daughter, the more she heard about Lexa. It wasn't Clarke, but Clarke and Lexa. Even people who weren't close to them saw that they were a couple and were going to stay that way.
Clarke never talked about her love life with her mother. That was always one of Jake's things. She remembered the night he told her that Clarke liked girls as well as boys. She cried that night, and he told her Clarke would be fine. They gave her a good example of love and marriage, and when Clarke chose her partner, it would be for life. Until she heard he was dead, Abby rooted for Wells to be that person for Clarke.
Abby wondered what other secrets Clarke shared with Jake, but not with her. He told her almost everything, but Clarke was always a daddy's girl, sometimes a tomboy and sometimes a princess. Even though Abby was a doctor, Clarke took her small injuries to Jake. Abby loved seeing them together. No matter what was happening around them, when Jake and Clarke were together, they were happy.
Losing Jake was the worst thing ever in her life until she saw Clarke's monitor screen go black. She couldn't give up on her daughter then; Clarke thought like Jake did and there were any number of reasons other than death for her screen to go blank, especially after so many did within moments of each other.
When she got down to Earth and saw her daughter again, Abby thought everything would be all right. It wasn't, though. Clarke and the thug who shot Thelonious Jaha had the unwavering trust and support of the surviving delinquents, and openly rebelled at every attempt to re-impose civility on them. After the initial rush of happiness that the other was alive, Clarke's attitude was combative. Abby thought it was typical, albeit delayed, adolescent rebellion. In retrospect, every one of her daughter's actions made sense, even leaving after she got everyone safely back to the Ark.
What she didn't understand was everything since then. Clarke wasn't saying anything, but Abby heard about her panic attacks. She went willingly with her daughter's friends when they asked, even though she was furious at Clarke over the non-conversation they had before Lexa joined them, and for the humiliation of being removed from the meeting by Clarke's guards. When Raven came to ask her to come with them, Abby initially declined. Raven's detailed description of her experience with Clarke the night before, and knowing Clarke spent the night alone and unarmed outside the gates changed her mind. She wasn't happy that their intervention took place around the bed where it was obvious that Clarke and Lexa were nude together, but she didn't look at or speak to Lexa, who afforded her the same courtesy in return.
Abby supposed she would have to apologize to Lexa when they returned, if only to keep the peace with Clarke. She wanted to be part of Clarke's life again, and fighting with Lexa would guarantee that would never happen. That was a conversation she didn't look forward to, but if Lexa loved Clarke the way everyone said she did, then she would accept Abby's apology so they could both move forward with Clarke.