i suppose i should warn you that just because i managed to update rather quickly with the last two chapters doesn't mean it's gonna continue. i'm just not a consistent person.

now, read, ponder, and enjoy!

It almost seemed like nothing changed. She still had her job. There were still patients coming in and out in the ER. As a matter of fact, with the absence of Marcus and Finn, there was more to do for every doctor – the interim chief certainly didn't appreciate her taking so many days off at such a terrible time. The routine remained the same: going to work, going home, binge some Netflix, sometimes even hanging out with her friends.

It almost seemed like nothing changed, and yet, somehow everything changed. She was talking with her mother again, albeit tentatively. Marcus had been demoted to a general attending, while Finn had his license definitively revoked. And she hadn't realized this before, but Lexa's appearance had changed her life completely. She hadn't realized how boring her life had been before the princess, how grey and dull everything was.

And now, she was back to square one.

"Stop it." She lifted her gaze from the tumbler to find Bellamy mulling her over, unimpressed. She raised a brow in question. "I don't know what happened to you. Neither my girlfriend nor my sister wants to tell me anything. But this is a night of fun for friends, and your face is dragging everyone down with you," he said as he lifted his own eyebrows in return.

At his words, she cast her gaze across the table. While their friends were all happily indulging one another, there was definitely no missing the way their eyes kept flitting at her every once in awhile, especially from Raven and Octavia. There was certainly no missing the way Raven kept nudging her boyfriend's thigh, causing his thigh to nudge into hers, while engaging into a conversation with Wells.

She closed her eyes and allowed herself a moment to ground herself, but it didn't work, because images of Lexa were just swirling behind her eyes. Despite the loudness of the bar, she could hear the piercing notes of Lexa's voice, laughter and sadness and anger and mischief all overlapping, cacophonic in her head. She could see Lexa, clear as day, so beautiful in her regality despite the sadness that enveloped her like a blanket.

I don't want you to keep loving me.

Right, well, this obviously wasn't working. Clarke opened her eyes and stood up abruptly, smiling apologetically for ruining the groove her friends had caught themselves in. "Sorry. I just –" She kept a whimper in and made to pinch the bridge of her nose. "Sorry," she repeated. "I'm a bit tired from the rotating surgeries I've been in today, so I'll just head on home. See you guys soon." She made sure to kiss Monty and Harper on the cheeks before hightailing out the door.

The bar was just a couple of blocks away from her place, so she figured she could use the walk home. Maybe some fresh air could help clear her head. She had only rounded a corner when she heard someone shouting her name, and she turned out to find Wells jogging towards her, his lips pinched.

"Wells?"

"I'll walk you home," he said, gently clutching her elbow to drag her along.

"What? No, it's okay. My place is just a couple of blocks away. You should join them. We haven't seen Monty and Harper in quite some time," she said, trying to bat him away.

"Exactly." Clarke blinked when the look on Wells' face had transformed into one of concern. He sighed and wrapped an arm around her shoulders to walk in the direction of her apartment. "Look, there's something wrong with you. You've only had two surgeries today. Raven and Octavia wouldn't tell us anything, but I'm gonna assume that it's got something to do with the princess."

She snapped her gaze towards him, alarmed. "What are you –"

"Clarke," he pronounced succinctly with a raise of his brows. "I'm the son of a politician. I've learned how to read between the lines since before I could read words."

"Le – The princess has got nothing to do –"

"You don't have to tell me anything," he interrupted again, shrugging. "Let me just walk you home, because I'm your friend and I'm worried about you, okay? I don't need you to tell me everything or anything at all." He tightened his grip around her elbow and started dragging her gently again, his other hand in a pocket. "Come on. Let's go."

Understanding that there was no point in fighting, she relented. Her place really was just a couple of blocks away, so it didn't take long for them to reach the building. It was a quiet walk, where neither of them spoke, but throughout the walk, Clarke's thoughts were warring inside in her head, struggling between questions and curiosity and ultimate heartbreak.

She just missed Lexa fervently. And she couldn't help but think about that time when Lexa had waited for her outside the hospital, all dressed up in a sweater and a winter coat, with a baseball cap for good measure. It hadn't been much of a special walk, but it was a loud bleep in her memories because that was, to be very honest, the one moment of normalcy between the two of them. Just a walk home between two girlfriends who were obsessed with one another.

Clarke and Wells stopped just by the entrance to her apartment building, and he had on an exceptionally pleased smile, as if managing to walk her home was a success. In what, she didn't know.

"The numbness is going to stay, an unfortunate side effect of cardiac arrests, I'm afraid. But it only extends up to her knee, so she'll still have some sort of mobility, all things considered," he said, deliberately not looking at her, like he was only spouting off common facts, like it had nothing to do with her apparently obvious concern for Lexa. "She's refusing physical therapy. Professionally, I advised against it, because I'm a doctor and we're supposed to look for solutions. Personally, I think it's for the best, because there's really nothing much we can do."

She wanted to pretend like the things he was saying were just that – facts about a patient they shared, never mind that the patient was one she could no longer touch or even see. "And her heart?" But she couldn't, was the point.

"Her heart is…" He squinted at the moonless sky for a bit, worrying his lower lip. "It's weak, I can tell you that. It's certainly – the royal administration's requested for me to visit the palace for a weekly checkup. Privacy and all that, you know. I have a feeling I'm gonna have to do that for the next year or so."

She blinked and sucked in a deep breath, nodding to herself at the new barrage of information. She couldn't really tell if they were good news or not. The Lexa she knew was strong and unbelievably athletic, always seemed to be full of life, despite some of the shit that life had served her. Sometimes, Clarke wondered if life was jealous of Lexa – her upbringing, her beauty, everything about Lexa – that it decided to be mean to the princess in her still short life.

"Lucky for her though, the numbness seems to be the only side effect. Usually, people who suffer from cardiac arrests will end up memory loss and their intelligence taken down a notch or two."

Well, okay, maybe life wasn't so mean in that regard. Then again, Clarke would bet half of her life's savings that Lexa would probably want to suffer from memory loss.

"One last thing before you go in – and I'm saying this merely as a friend who has no idea what's going on," he added with a pointed look in her direction. "It's true, you know, when they say heartbreaks can really do things to your heart. And recent – shall I say – emotional events certainly haven't been kind to hers." Clarke clenched her jaw, her curious stare easily turning into a glare. He raised a finger at her. "Then again, like I said, I'm just a friend who has no idea what's going on, so what do I know?" It seemed like he'd gotten all the information necessary – even some unnecessary ones – dispensed with, as he deflated and smiled a little sadly at her. "Goodnight, Clarke."

She stared at his retreating figure, exceedingly lonely under the streetlamps. A politician's son, indeed.

She entered the ER as a state of bedlam, which she supposed she should have expected, because she'd only come in after her pager had buzzed incessantly. She remembered grumbling about deserving the two-day break after the shift she'd had, but she could understand the necessity now as she watched doctors – a lot of them not even trauma specialty – running amuck, yelling instructions like banshees and sweating waterfalls down their forehead.

The sleepiness from before had dissipated quickly as she was thrown into alert mode. A fellow ER attending had given her cliff notes as she pulled on the emergency scrubs. There was seven-car pileup down six blocks away, and this was the closest hospital they'd gotten. They still weren't sure if there was more coming. Clarke didn't wait and just threw herself at the first patient she saw, dragging the cot into a trauma bay and starting to do her job. She'd ended up with three back-to-back surgeries well into late afternoon.

In a sense, she was kind of grateful for it, even though she ended up losing a patient on the table. The situation had been mind numbing enough for her to not think about anything else but her job, and honestly, she would take any respite she could get. At the end of it all, she'd taken off the OR necessities, wiped the sweat off her face, and went down to the basement for some quietness. She was tired enough to just close her eyes and not think of anything, thankfully.

Well, that was, until she heard heavy footsteps coming from far down the supposedly empty hallway. Her eyes widened when she saw the three bodyguards slowly escorting Lexa. Gustus was also there, though he seemed unharmed apart from the bandage around his head and the slight limp to his gait. Anya was there too – Clarke suspected there was probably more undercover bodyguards strolling upstairs. And Lexa, well, Lexa was trudging down the hall equipped with only a cane, no wheelchair whatsoever.

Clarke wanted to leap out of the discarded cot that she'd chosen to sit on, but Clarke also wanted to stay as invisible as possible and watch the love of her life pass her one last time.

And, well, the universe made a decision for her, because in between shuffling her numb leg and adjusting to her newly lost mobility, Lexa had raised her head with an expression of complete frustration and exhaustion to land on Clarke. At the same time, they froze where they were. Lexa's freezing was almost comical, what with how her entourage had frozen along with her, walking into one another and grunting a cacophony of noises in this otherwise peaceful basement.

The only one who didn't lose their composure at all was Princess Anya, first in line for the throne. Clarke resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the cliché-ness of it all. Plus, she didn't think she'd end up anywhere good if she really did roll her eyes, judging by the steeliness of the gaze with which Anya had decided to pin her down with.

"Dr. Griffin," Lexa greeted cordially. Right, only two people in her entourage knew the true nature of their relationship.

Clarke stood up from the cot and nodded at her. "Your Highness…es." Her gaze flitted guiltily to Anya, who'd only managed to narrow her eyes more, imagine that.

Lexa visibly blanched at that, which made Clarke kind of blanch at well. And their blanching had Gustus rolling his eyes upwards to the ceiling, while Anya was just trying to hide her confusion of it all. Apart from that, it almost felt like they were alone with each other, and the others were just…ornamental.

Badly, so badly, the blonde wanted to reach out and brush that stray lock of hair that had escaped Lexa's hastily pulled half ponytail. But in front of these bodyguards, in front of a visibly angry sister and a bodyguard who was probably think that he was right to be wary of her, Clarke knew there was no way. She took brief comfort in the fact that she could see the similar longing mirrored on Lexa's face.

It was minute, the transformation, but to Clarke, it happened in slow motion, starkly and so much like Lexa. She steeled herself with the way her shoulders kind of broadened and her leg kind of straighter. Her eyes had misted over somehow, like a barrier that Lexa had spent years to build up. She tightened her fingers over the top of the cane and nodded at Clarke furtively, and without another word, she just started trudging away again.

Anya didn't outwardly react or anything, but Clarke was pretty sure that under all that mask, she was sneering at her. Clarke thought about the things that Wells had told her only last night, and found a broken figure trying to make it through the rest of the hall. She collapsed back onto the cot and buried her face in her hands, letting the waterworks free.

"You know you're my best friend," Octavia told Clarke.

"Hey!" Raven protested.

"I'll always love you more," Octavia reassured the engineer.

"Wow, thanks, O," Clarke deadpanned, her eyes half-lidded in an unimpressed manner at her two friends.

Octavia swerved around and aimed her fork in the blonde's direction. "Hey, it's not my fault that your life's such a mess." She reached her free arm around Raven's shoulders and smacked a loud kiss to the side of her head. "Raven, on the other hand, has never disappointed me."

Clarke tilted her head, chewing her chicken pensively. "Isn't Raven the one sleeping with your brother?"

Raven cackled, getting almost every head in the restaurant to swivel around and look at her. Unashamedly, she raised an arm in the air and nodded confidently. "Yes, yes, I am. And I daresay that he's a very good lay."

They hadn't seen each other after the last rare reunion with the rest of their friends, the one where she'd escaped early because she kept hearing Lexa in her head everywhere she turned, which had been a little over a week ago. And that was definitely Clarke's fault.

All she'd been doing since she witnessed what was apparently Lexa's discharge – unrecommended by Wells, after a pointed look in his direction later on – was burying herself with work. It seemed that seeing Lexa again had done something to her physique, where exhaustion was no longer a concept recognized. Okay, maybe it was a concept she recognized, perhaps a little too well, but she'd somehow managed to transition all that exhaustion into…something else – she didn't quite know what, but it had definitely worked in her favor of keeping herself busy.

In between, she'd hide away back home or in an on-call room in the pediatrics wing, where Raven, Octavia, or her mother would never find her. Raven, because the engineer detested children and would never be caught dead near them, especially sick ones. Octavia, because she was a nurse and wasn't very adept with children, so Sydney would never station her there. Her mother, well, Clarke wasn't even sure if her mother knew pediatrics existed. The only way they knew she was still alive was her daily texts in the morning.

Miraculously enough, she'd managed to avoid her best friends while actually doing her work, which was something she appreciated. She wasn't sure she'd be able to handle their…presence in the meantime. It wasn't until yesterday, when she'd woken up in an on-call room and saw that her phone was devoid of texts, that she realized enough was enough. No more avoiding people who genuinely cared about her. No more pretending she was the only heartbroken person in the world.

She picked up her phone and texted Raven and Octavia, suggesting a dinner tonight. She also called her mother, suggesting a breakfast during the weekend at either of their hospitals.

And here they were.

Octavia retracted her arm from around Raven's shoulder and chose to pillow her face in that very hand, her groan loud but still pretty loud to attract disapproving glances from their neighbors. Clarke looked around the room with a tentative smile and a two-fingered salute, mouthing her apologies over and over again until they all looked away.

She turned immediately back to Octavia with a self-satisfied smile, flourishing her hands in Raven's direction. "I rest my case."

"You know it's not working, right?" Raven said after she'd gotten over her bout of self-pride for simultaneously getting her version of a good lay and embarrassing Octavia Blake, raising her brows pointedly at Clarke.

Clarke hummed, deliberate in her obtuseness, digging back into her dinner. "What's not working?"

"The asking us out to dinner as if you're good enough an actress to pretend that you're fine," Raven replied, smiling humorlessly at Clarke. She steepled her fingers with her elbows angled on the table, while Octavia had propped her chin in her palm.

Oh, good, two against one, just what Clarke needed.

"It's not working because it's not a thing I'm doing," Clarke lied cheerfully, chewing obnoxiously at her chicken.

Raven and Octavia shared a look, a look that seemed to speak multitudes but also nothing at all. Clarke supposed this was what she got for having distanced herself from them so much that she'd forgotten about their shared body languages. Since when did she become so bad at the friendship thing? She used to have it in spades.

"Okay, ask me how things are with Lincoln," Octavia challenged, her eyes narrowed in preparation.

Swiftly, Clarke's eyes darted away from them, and she knew right then that she had lost this little battle. But she wasn't ready to give up, so she carefully edged her finger around the lip of her wineglass while asking, "How are things with His Highness?" She forced herself not to swallow or recall the banter he and his sister had shared when they were first introduced.

"Say his name."

She clenched her jaw. "How are things with Lincoln?" She forced herself not to think about the semi-confession she'd made on the beach while Octavia had been frolicking around with her future beau and puppies.

"Now look at me while you ask."

Okay, now she was kind of regretting texting them at all. She was maybe also regretting the decision to not extend her shift, having thought that it was time to see her best friends. Obviously a terrible decision, given that they'd basically become experts of torment in their week of not saying each other.

Clarke inhaled sharply and obeyed half of Octavia's instruction by lifting her gaze. But as she opened her mouth, no words came out. She could find the words; they were right there. She just couldn't get them out, because in some way, asking about Octavia and Lincoln seemed to be the gateway to more waterworks that she had thought were done with. Her brows knotted at the bridge of her nose at her own weakness.

"It's okay," Raven said, having reached out to gently lay her fingers around Clarke's forearm. "We know it's totally a thing you're doing." Ironically, she didn't say it in a teasing way, but in a sympathetic way. "So, are you ready to talk now?" she asked gently.

"No."

Raven and Octavia exchanged a look again, reminding Clarke that she'd gotten a little offbeat with her friendships in recent times. She'd really got to change that. And then they both nodded simultaneously before turning back to her, with creepily mirroring smiles on their faces.

"Okay," Octavia said.

"Finish your dinner," Raven supplied. "You're not working tomorrow, right?"

"No, I'm off for the next two days. Why?"

"Oh, not much." Raven shrugged and dug into her own food.

Well, Clarke had learned enough about Raven Reyes and Octavia Blake to know that it wasn't just 'not much'. But she also hadn't sufficient energy to argue further. Truthfully, she was only grateful that they'd chosen not to pursue the subject further.

Goddamn it, she should have argued. She should have argued and maybe she'd have been home by now, demolishing yet another brand-new tub of cookies and cream ice-cream. And yet, here she was, completely failing to gain control of her motor functions and needing a tall buff man to carry her home.

Inwardly, she was well aware that she was three sheets to the wind and this was no safe way to be going anywhere. Physically though, she was absolutely done for and there was nothing she could do about it. Her filter was definitively gone and her brain was spazzing in all sorts of direction, much to reminiscent of her party days back in the once upon a time.

The only way that she knew she was relatively safe was her brain's recognition of her best friends' voices, blurry in their coherence. Maybe they were as drunk as she was, but they didn't seem to be carried by anyone, so perhaps she was just drunker that she'd like to admit.

She forced her eyes open and took a sniff at the shirt of the man carrying her and frowned, unable to recognize the scent. Well, to be fair, the only scents she could undoubtedly recognize were the hospital, a trustworthy bottle of vodka, and Lexa. Oh, god, no, not Lexa. Sniff, sniff again. She could do it. She could use her superior sense of smell to recognize her chariot.

"I think she's sniffing me," her chariot said, probably to Raven and Octavia.

"Yes, I am!" she exclaimed, pulling back on her arms that were hooked around his neck.

Following that was a flurry of protests and a mild choking noise from the man whose back she was on. Raven was chastising in her ear while Octavia was apparently struggling not to laugh. She settled back onto her chariot and sniffed again, but he didn't say another word, perhaps worried that she'd accidentally suffocate him again.

She really wouldn't put herself past that. Before her relationship with her mother had deteriorated, they'd taken part in some self-defense classes. She'd learned some shit that she could never forget. Mount a man, choke a man. Though, now, she was kind of wondering why she hadn't choked Finn Collins in the first place; would have saved her quite a lot of trouble.

Okay, this chariot was not terrible. Maybe she should close her eyes and just enjoy the rocking motion. After what felt like a minute, she opened them again, and somehow, she was on her back and Raven was patting a wet towel over her forehead and Octavia was taking off her shoes. Far away in the doorway, Bellamy Blake was there, leaning against the door panel with a concerned look on her face.

When did he get here? She wanted to speak, but found her vision a little unfocused and her throat just a tad parched. Wow, everything was so heavy. Oh, was he her chariot? A little too tall, a little too wide. Not at all like the lithe and slightness that she had gotten too used to in just a short time. God, so pathetic.

"Seriously, what is wrong with her?" he asked as quietly as possible.

"Can't tell you," Raven said furtively, brushing Clarke's hair back in the meantime.

"The last time she was like this, Jake had just –"

"Don't say his name, Bellamy. My god, what is wrong with you?" the Latina hissed, momentarily taking a break from tending to Clarke's hair.

He looked to his sister, who had just shrugged with an innocent look on her face, having taking Clarke's shoes off and settled on Clarke's other side. "Don't look at me. You chose to love her," Octavia remarked, gesturing at Raven. "Get used to it."

Raven passed the wet towel over to Octavia and slid out of the bed to pad over to her boyfriend. Clarke watched as the woman lovingly cupped his cheeks with her hands and muttered a few quiet words to him, to which he replied with an annoyed but loving smile tugging at his lips. They shared a tender kiss before Bellamy shot Clarke one last look and left.

"Oh yeah, I can't believe I forgot to give my brother the shovel talk," Octavia murmured once Raven had sidled back to Clarke's side.

There was a moment of silence. "Shouldn't you be giving me the shovel talk?"

"You already have a bum leg. Plus, men are stupid, they're always the ones doing shitty stuff."

"Amen."

More silence, in which Octavia had proceeded to lay the towel over Clarke's forehead and massaged her scalp, while Raven was just sitting there, holding her hand and massaging her joints. And then Raven heaved a sigh and asked, "You think she's gonna be okay?"

And somehow, amidst her alcohol addled mind and barely coherent thoughts, those were the words that had her going again. And simply because she'd lost her filter, she hadn't kept to the quiet that she had maintained over the past week, instead opting to wail her ugliest cry she could muster, dragging onto Raven's hand, then arm, then shoulders to wrap herself around the woman.

Raven had immediately wrapped herself back around the blonde and muttering 'are you okays' into Clarke's ear, hushing her at the same time. Octavia – no, Clarke didn't know what Octavia was doing, and she didn't much care. She just wailed into Raven's shoulder, expelling all her grief and sadness in a prolonged horrendous cry.

"I miss her so much," she hiccupped.

Her best friends were pensive for awhile, before Octavia placed a kiss on the back of Clarke's head and wrapped herself around Clarke as well, creating a sandwich between the three of them. Not another word was spoken, as they allowed Clarke to succumb to her drunken grieving.

Angry whispers woke her up. Angry whispers from her best friends. Angry whispers that were only making her head pound more. Angry whispers that subsided when she groaned aloud and threw her arms in the air in complain before she collapsed back into the comfort of her back, determined to fall back to sleep, preferably never waking up in this hellhole again.

God, when did she become such a bad drunk?

"We can't tell her," Raven angrily whispered, as if the low volume of her voice was supposed to keep her down, given that they were standing in the same room as her and it was proving to be a quiet morning.

"She's gonna find out eventually!" Octavia angrily whispered in return.

"Look at her! She's a mess!"

"She was already a mess!"

Okay, so she wasn't going back to sleep. Sighing and resisting the hammers that were gleefully pounding away in her brain, she dragged herself to sit upright, glaring at the women who'd gone quiet again. She eyed them, taking in the wariness and tension gripping their facial expressions and entire bodies. She narrowed her eyes and zeroed in on the phone clutched tightly in Raven's hand.

"Give me that," she demanded, extending her arm sluggishly in their directions.

"Um, just go back to sl –"

"Well, I'm gonna find out eventually, right?" she slurred, pointedly looking at Octavia. "So just give me it."

"Everything's fine, Clarke. No need to worry," Octavia offered with a pensive smile, so pensive it almost seemed like she was scared.

"You guys are too noisy and I can't very well go back to sleep now, can I? Not with me wondering what is it that you don't want me to find out eventually," she grumbled and wiggled her fingers. "So just give me the damn phone before I really blow up at you. You know, hurricane Clarke, as you used to call it."

Octavia nudged Raven, warranting another nudge back. Raven was still clutching tightly to her phone, unwilling to let go, but apparently, Clarke's patent glare still worked scarily well, because Octavia just snatched the phone out of Raven's grip and threw it at Clarke. Raven yelped in protest, before she crossed her arms and looked up at the ceiling, her lips mouthing words like prayers.

Clarke frowned at them. What could be so bad, really? It wasn't as if her life wasn't already a mess, as they'd put it eloquently. Rolling her eyes, she reached for the phone and looked at the screen, freezing in the process when she saw the Polis Sentinel headline. See, this was why she hated life.

Old flames reunited? Princess Lexa spotted in palace garden with ex-girlfriend, Costia Greene

i just love wells, even though we didn't really get to know him enough on the show. expect to see more of him. oh, and yeah, costia too. BUT IT'S NOT WHAT YOU THINK...probably, maybe, perhaps, probmayhaps