omg, can you believe i'm updating this in a week? i can't remember the last time i updated a fic so fast.
and you're gonna hate me for this, but this is also my brand.
now, read, ponder, and enjoy!
She would have loved to work – she would. Work was a perfect distraction, something she was good at. When she was in the ER, she knew she was being put to good use, and more often than not, she was saving more lives than one would have expected, even though those weren't the lives she wanted to save at the moment – no offense to her patients.
But her mother learning about her current state of mind meant she would intervene, no doubt. And Abby Griffin had a lot of influence in this hospital, even though she didn't even work here, for the love of god. Much of her influence came from her relationship with Marcus, but now that Marcus was out of the way at least partially, people still respected Abby purely because she was a damn good doctor.
So with a call and a stern look, Clarke was put on indefinite sick leave and dragged back to the house her father died in. Her mother dragged her up the stairs to her childhood bedroom, tucked her in, and made a gentle promise that everything would be okay soon. She hadn't heard her mother spoke to her like that since she told Clarke that Jake had passed away.
And it wasn't that she didn't appreciate it, but she was sure that Abby was just lying to her right now, because no one knew better than her the loss of a significant other, especially a significant other whom she'd loved with all her heart and was promised the rest of her life with. Not that Clarke was promised the rest of her life with the Polisian princess, but one would get the picture easily. But Clarke only nodded meekly and cuddled deeper into the cotton blanket that her paternal grandmother had knitted for her years ago, if only to not have to see that look in her mother's eyes a moment longer.
It lasted four days – maybe even five, she'd lost count – where she'd huddle in her childhood bed, shower, eat the meals her mother had cooked, and keep calling and calling and calling the SAT phone that had gone out of service. It was a cycle of self-torment, and she couldn't stop herself. This was why she would do better at work.
Being here like a useless shell was the last thing she wanted, or needed, as a matter of fact. Because in between being a useless shell who had a mother to coddle again, her brain began to come up with the endless possibilities between here and a Libyan warzone. She'd seen enough bodies and detached limbs during her time as an army doctor, but the thought of Lexa as one of those people had her stumbling out of bed and throwing up in the toilet.
But on the fourth morning, she realized she couldn't take it anymore. It was too quiet. Too calm. And it shouldn't be. She looked out the window and realized that the sun was barely there, hovering only an inch over the horizon. Things were not quiet or calm, and she felt a pull in her chest that she couldn't ignore.
She got up and didn't even bother showering the stench off her body before she pulled on the next most decent shirt and jeans she could find. She got out of her room and pretty much bulldozed downstairs. When she was heading out the door, she could vaguely hear her mother calling for her name from upstairs.
She didn't even know where she was going, but the pull was there, directing her to drive to wherever she was supposed – it could very well be directing her into the middle of the ocean for all she cared, but she just couldn't ignore it. But luckily enough, it wasn't. Just as she was pulling up to the parking lot of Silver Hill Hospital, her phone rang, showing a blocked ID. Somehow, she just knew.
"Where? Where is she?"
"Your hospital, bizarrely enough," Anya reported with a disbelieving laugh. Clarke fumbled out of the car, cursing at the seatbelt. "You – they're saying they need you."
"What?" she panted as she jogged towards the entrance. "Who needs me? For what?"
"The surgery, Clarke. She needs surgery. Fast."
The blonde came to a startling halt in the ER, where literally a whole area had been cleared out for the royalties and their bodyguards and holy crap, she didn't even realize this hospital had that many doctors. She could see Gustus sitting on one side, getting his vitals checked by a shaking resident. She could see the suits and the glasses and trembling doctors. She could see the hospital's president wiping sweat off her brows. She could see the king, the queen, the princess, and the prince.
She could see her princess in the bed they're surrounding, tended over in a kaleidoscope of panic by the Head of Cardio and Head of Ortho. Beyond the cacophony of an injured princess in their hospital, she could hear it – the flatline. It was the worst fear she could ever encounter in her life – this was scarier than finding out that she was saving the princess' life in a warzone, because this was Lexa.
"Dr. Griffin!"
She rushed into action.
"I heard that I have you to thank for saving my daughter's life not one, but twice."
The blonde opened her eyes and blinked away the tears to see that Queen Storme had exited Lexa's room. The bodyguards were lined down the hall, determined to make sure that their charges were safe, save for Gustus, who was still in recovery despite his protests.
Clarke would stand up, but it had been a wild morning; not even coffee could save her. She sat out here, not only because she didn't want to disturb the family reunion inside, but also because she was too scared to look at the beautiful sleeping face and wonder. She did what she had to do today, but there were just some things that could amount to too much, at some point. And having to save her girlfriend's life twice? Yeah.
She managed a weak smile at the queen and nodded. "Your Majesty."
The woman smiled back at her and sat next to her on the bench. For some reason, Clarke wasn't appalled at all at the fact that a queen was sitting right next to her. "Given that you've saved my daughter's life twice now, I think it's fair for you to call me Storme. I think my husband's thinking of appointing you a dukeship."
Clarke wanted to balk, but she could only laugh. "I was just doing my job, ma'am."
Storme hummed and leaned against the back of the bench. "You might be right, but I suspect any parent would be grateful to anyone who saved their child's life."
"I had selfish intent."
"All the same."
"I remember –" Clarke gulped and leaned back as well, looking sideways at the queen. "When I was a kid, in the history books, they taught us that King Richmond II had a brief stint in the army."
A look of realization dawned across her companion's face, who nodded. "Yes, yes, he did." But before Clarke could inquire further, Storme interjected. "He was a pilot. But he wasn't – he'd never been in any real danger, not like – not like Lexa has. He got in and out. He was home almost all the time."
"Right."
She had so much to say. Well, not much to say, because she was, to be perfectly, quite at a loss of words for what she had been put through for the past few days. But she had so much in her chest and in her head, so much to unload and unpack, and the mother of her so much definitely wasn't an ideal person to unload so much on.
No one could really understand what it was like. To go through days of thinking your girl had died, and then on a random, feel this pull to come to the hospital of all places, and then be put into surgery on your girl, like you were supposed to be this emotionless robot. But then again, no one working in this hospital – save for two – knew about the true nature of her relationship with a princess of the country.
She didn't know if her mother knew; she hadn't found the energy to call her yet. Technically, Clarke was still on leave, so she should have gone home after the surgery, but instead, she had just chosen to sit outside Lexa's room and…well, she didn't quite know what she was doing out here, really.
Was it weird that even though she knew Lexa was back, there was still pain?
"I wouldn't pretend to understand what you're going through, but I need you to understand that it's not her fault," Storme said, whipping Clarke out of her thoughts. Clarke raised her brows and nodded slowly, to which Storme pursed her lips. Not in anger, but with guilt. "She's a princess, Clarke."
"I –" Clarke closed her mouth abruptly and squeezed her eyes shut. She abruptly stood up, folding her friends in front of her, and faced the queen. "Will you excuse me a moment, Your Majesty?"
Storme seemed surprised at her sudden movement, which was fair, since Clarke had pretty much resembled a bag of bones only moments earlier. She gathered herself and sat upright. "Storme," she reminded. "And of course; this is your hospital."
"Thank you, Your Majesty."
"It's Storme!"
Not that Clarke was really listening. She just needed to…not be here right now.
"Hey," Niylah greeted as she approached Clarke's quiet corner in the cafeteria, sitting down opposite her and frowning at the look on the blonde's face. "What's going on?"
Clarke eyed the cup of coffee in her hands, long gone cold and not a sip drank. She raised her eyes to gaze around the room, only to find that everyone else's gaze on her. It wasn't surprising to find herself the subject of a gossip hype, especially when literally everyone in this hospital – patients, staff, even those who were not working – had been made to sign an NDA the second Lexa was rolled into the hospital.
These people had only each other to talk with, and Clarke was at the epicenter of it all, because she was supposedly the magical hands of it all, the woman who served as the key to saving Princess Lexa's life – the doctor who only came in because of an undeniable urge pulling at her heart, but they didn't know that. And this doctor had run away from the queen of the country to talk to her daughter's therapist, because who else could she talk to?
"Lexa is…" she drifted off, narrowing her eyes a little to fend away the moisture that welled up almost immediately.
Niylah raised her brows. "Did you guys have an argument? I'd think that connection over there would have been terrible."
Clarke huffed a sarcastic laugh, throwing her head back to blink rapidly at the ceiling. Oh, if only the other woman knew. "Lexa's in an executive room on the eighth floor right now, having just survived a cardiac arrest from sepsis." And because she wasn't made to sign an NDA, miraculously enough, Clarke shouldered on, ignoring the shock Niylah's displaying. She told Niylah everything, from her scratchy phone call with Lexa to the moment she exited the operation theatre and threw up in the nearest trashcan. "I don't even know how Anya got my number, honestly."
"Is she okay? Lexa?" Niylah asked.
"She's stable. Still in a coma."
"Are you okay?"
"I don't know."
Niylah was quiet for a moment, sitting back in her chair with her hands folded in her lap. She observed Clarke with astute eyes, the eyes of a therapist. Clarke squirmed and returned her gaze to the cup of cold coffee, which had probably already gone stale, given that she'd bought it an hour ago.
"Clarke, why did you call me here?" her friend finally asked, subtle but still kind of a blow.
"I don't know."
"Yes, you do," Niylah scoffed. "Clarke, we're both doctors. Let's not pretend we're dumber than we deserve." She cracked her knuckles and tilted her head at Clarke. "And of course, I wouldn't dare to pretend like I know what you're going through. Hell, I think if I found out a royalty's falling for me, I'd turn the other way and maybe even flee the country." Clarke's lips twitched at her friend's remarks. "And I think the fact that you didn't, and after everything you did today, is enough to prove that you are one brave individual."
The doctor raised her brows and squinted at the therapist, tilting her own head in return as the sourness in her chest refused to leave her alone. "Am I though?"
Niylah took a long look at her, and then the assessing look in her eyes disappeared, replaced by the gentleness of a friend. She leaned forward and carefully took one of Clarke's hands in hers, gripping it in a reassured manner. "As your friend and someone who's seen many cases of burnouts, I think that you should take a break if you really need it."
"But what if it means –"
"Lexa's my patient, but you're my friend. It means what it means."
The doctor considered her friend's advice, slowly lifting the cup of coffee to her lips, only to grimace and deposit it on the table quickly. It was stale. Her pager buzzed.
Clarke was most definitely not a runner. She despised physical activities unless it was her standing guard over an operating table and moving scalpels like a dancer. If anything, her experience of hiking with Lexa before her world kind of blew the hell up was great testament to how much she was not a runner.
But when her pager buzzed with a singular room number as the message, she swore she'd beat Usain Bolt's record. Giving Niylah a hasty hug and a rushed thank you, Clarke had bolted past the growing queue for lunch and towards the elevator. When the elevator didn't come fast enough, she'd taken to the fucking stairs and actually ran up until she'd reached the eighth floor, sweating profusely and panting like a puppy, but not at all relenting as she pushed through the door and sprinted through the weaving hallways.
Throughout the run, there were only two things in her mind: either Lexa hadn't made it or Lexa had woken up. She was desperately hoping for the latter, but the skeptic in her – the medical practitioner in her who'd seen Lexa's innards twice – didn't exactly rule out the former. When she reached the door, she could see down the other side of the hallway the rest of Lexa's family and a whole army of bodyguards.
She didn't hesitate this time and just opened the door, one arm already out of her coat because of how goddamn hot it was. She froze where she was when she saw the sight in front of her, the sourness in her heart reducing by many fractions and her bones not so heavy anymore. In her mind, there were fireworks and echoed sighs of relief.
"Hallelujah," Lexa breathed with a burgeoning grin, eyes locked onto hers.
Hallelujah indeed.
Clarke finished shedding her coat and threw it to an unsuspecting Lincoln, and she just wrapped her arms around her girlfriend, careful with her back but not at all careful with the glass of water pinned between them, spilled to oblivion. She put her face in brown hair and breathed in the antiseptic and the chemical cleanliness of it all.
Lexa heaved a sound of surprise in her ear, and Clarke wanted to bottle that sound up in a tiny jar and play it all the time. She wanted it to ring in her ear forever – proof of life. It only got better when Lexa only put her own arms around Clarke's shoulders, not speaking a word, because that was who she was, in the end. Lexa might enjoy making inappropriate jokes at inappropriate times; sometimes she was smugger than most, but when the time came, she always knew.
The blonde didn't let her arms loosen from around Lexa's shoulders even though she heard the door open behind her and the relieved noises from the royal family. Instead, she only buried her face deeper into the crook of Lexa's shoulders, inhaling deeply. And Lexa, thankfully, didn't relent either, and just let Clarke embrace her for as long as she wanted, giving only perfunctory greetings to her family.
"I don't ever want to see you in a hospital bed again, you hear me, Lexa Woods?" Storme's voice rang out throughout the room.
For a moment, Clarke felt anger rise within her chest at the statement, because who sent Lexa out to Libya in the first place? Really, if it was any other family, she probably would have already given them a piece of her mind. But the truth was that this wasn't any other family, and any other family wouldn't have just sent their daughter out of a warzone because it was her duty.
And that was the crux of it all, wasn't it? Lexa, a princess bound to her duties, before anything else.
At that, Clarke finally let go, stepped back, and allowed Lexa's family to have her.
After an hour of coddling and million apologies that Lexa waved away tiredly, the royal family finally thought they had had enough and shuffled out the door dutifully, though Richmond promised that he'd still be around the hospital. He seemed to be the one whose shoulders looked the heaviest. Before he left, he made sure to place a lingering kiss on his daughter's head, which the brunette accepted with a soft smile.
Clarke remembered Lexa telling her that no man had ever made her feel as safe as her father, and how ironic it was that he had then decided to send her to one of the most volatile warzones in the world out of a sense of duty. That was during happier times, when they had to decide to not give a shit about everything else and skipped off to the mountainside for a camping trip.
"You've been awfully quiet," Lexa said, smiling gingerly and extending a hand in Clarke's direction from the bed.
The blonde looked at the extended hand and considered her future, her options, because she supposed this was where the crossroads lay. This was that point in the choose-your-own-adventure games, where a single decision could impact the rest of the journey. And for the life of her, she wanted a future.
When she looked back up at Lexa, the look in the brunette's eyes was telling enough. Lexa was a smart person, incredibly intelligent, a coyote in a warzone. If Clarke was to take a guess, she guessed that Lexa might have already understood that this would happen eventually. She'd probably already understood that fact longer than Clarke had, judging by the melancholy in Lexa's eyes – the brunette didn't dare to hope.
"These past few days," Clarke started, her voice hoarse. Her heart panged painfully at the glint of delight in Lexa's eyes at the sound of her voice. "I didn't think I was capable of feeling the things I felt until Anya came here and told me the news." She inhaled shakily and stood by Lexa's bedside, finally tangling their fingers together. "I've always wondered what it was like for my mom when she found out my dad was dying; I think I know now."
"I'm sorry."
Clarke frowned and rolled her eyes a little. "I'm not mad at you, Lexa." The brunette raised her brows questioningly. "I've known from the beginning that it's not your fault. You didn't go there because you wanted to. And hell, I don't blame you for joining them on patrols, because they're your brothers and 're a soldier; you're also a princess." She licked her lips and made sure that they made eye contact. "But that's the problem, isn't it?"
"Is it?" Lexa asked, but not hopefully. Actually, she sounded angry herself. There still no hopefulness in her eyes, but the melancholy had transitioned into something else, something like…betrayal. "You knew from the beginning –"
"I knew that. I know that," Clarke added, her voice rising along. "But you –" She licked her lips and relinquished her hold on Lexa's hand, running her fingers through her hair. "For four days, I thought you were dead!"
"I'm here now."
"Now," Clarke reiterated and started pacing the floor. "You're the most dutiful person I've ever known, either as a commander or a princess, and I love that about you. I love everything about you. But –"
"But you don't love who my family is," Lexa interjected, cold and detached.
"I didn't say that."
"You implied it."
Clarke clenched her jaw and released a suppressed grunt. In her heart, there were all kinds of emotions warring for dominance – sadness, anger, betrayal. Honestly, she wanted to just forget about this whole thing and climbed into bed with Lexa. She wanted to just hold the girl that she was sure she would love more than anything or anyone else, now or in the future.
But she was a doctor, and as a doctor, she'd seen and heard too much to not be a realist at all times. And this was a moment to be realistic, because there was no way that things could go on the way they were before, regardless of how short their time together had been. It wasn't healthy for her, and it certainly wouldn't be healthy for the princess in the long run.
She stopped pacing at the foot of the bed and said, "I love you. I've never officially met your family except on the newspapers and just now, though they seem like kind people. But they sent you to Libya and I don't know how to forgive them for that."
"They didn't –"
"Jaha made a mistake, but your parents went along with it because they're the monarchy and you went along with it because you're the princess." Clarke took a deep breath and didn't even bother to let the tears stop rolling down her cheeks. "And you will always be the princess. And you will always do what duty tells you to. You'll go to Timbuktu if that's your duty. You might even go spacewalking, for all I know. And like I said, I love you for that, but I also love you too much to put myself through that again."
After her rant, there was nothing but a long stretch of silence. Both of them stared at each other, tears flowing, and both of them knew that this was it. She was a commoner and Lexa was a princess; there was no changing that. Clarke was weak; there was no changing that as well.
And then suddenly, the vitriol in Lexa just dissipated, leaving her sagging in the bed, weaker than Clarke had seen her. She offered a weak smile and chuckled to herself.
"I'm sorry." Clarke frowned. "I promised myself that I would let you go if you wanted to go, because I love you." Clarke's knees went weak, and the only thing supporting her was the bedframe. "It was you, you know."
"What?"
"It was you that got me home. The thought of you."
"Lexa."
The brunette sucked in a sharp breath and furrowed her brows. "I'm strong, I know that, but I'm also tired. You were – you are the one thing that kind of made this world make sense again. It's a stupid world, but it's a world with you in it, and that makes sense." At that, Clarke squeezed her eyes shut, a whimper fighting hard to break out of her clamped up throat. "If it hadn't been for you, I think I would have just given up."
"You can't say that. You can't guilt me into staying with you."
"I'm not. I would never do that, Clarke. It's kind of offensive that you'd think that." Lexa's laugh came out shaky at that. She inhaled deeply, exhaled noisily, and nodded at Clarke. "You are the one thing that makes sense in the world for me; you will always be the one thing that makes sense in the world for me. And you can't change that, because you exist." She gulped and took one long look at Clarke. "I promised myself that I would let you go if you wanted to, but can I ask for one last selfish thing?"
Clarke blinked and nodded.
"Can you kiss me?"
There was no hesitation in the way Clarke launched herself away from the foot of the bed and strode towards Lexa's bedside. She cupped Lexa's face in her hands and leaned down to press their lips together, slotting as perfectly as the first time they'd kissed, which would always remain the most perfect kiss in Clarke's entire life, and this would always be the most heartbreaking one.
Softly at first, and then with a swift escalation of intensity that made Clarke cling to Lexa like she was the only solid thing in a dizzy, stupid world. Clarke supposed Lexa was for awhile, and would probably always be that. Into this kiss was a flowing red thread – everything that Clarke had to offer was knitted into this thread, and she was giving it to Lexa, because who else deserved something like this other than Lexa?
"Go, Clarke," the brunette whispered brokenly against her lips.
Clarke disobeyed by staying there for a prolonged period of time, taking both of their breaths away. And when Lexa whimpered pleadingly, the blonde withdrew and turned her back to the princess, doing her very best to not look back as she walked towards the door. If she looked back, she would never leave. And where would that leave them?
what? angst is my brand, y'all know that
