two weeks isn't too bad, right?

now, read, ponder, and enjoy!

She used to care about the time and the day and the month and the year. Okay, maybe it wasn't that she actively cared; it was more like she bothered looking at the calendar, checking out her watch, or ask someone what day it was. Heck, she didn't think she cared more about the seconds ticking away during the time she was missing in action, desperate to return home to the woman who'd promised to wait for her.

Well, the funny thing was she did. Lexa had lain there in that rundown den in the middle of a village teeming with insurgents, as they had found out, and apparently, she had been suffering internal sepsis, so much so that the poison reached her heart and gave her an epic cardiac arrest. Honestly, nothing in this world disrespected her more than her own body. And from the looks on her family's faces earlier, it was highly probable that she died on the flight over here.

But she didn't. She came back, she kept her promise, and she had her heart broken anyway, regardless of her heartbreaker's efforts in saving it. And now, she didn't care about the time. She counted the days to come home to Clarke, and there was no point in counting anyway, as she'd recently discovered.

The door to her room opened and she swung her gaze to it.

"I know you."

A black man who just walked in paused in his stride, door halfway open, blocking the entrance for her father. Oh right, the king had mentioned that he'd be sticking around. The stranger blinked a few times, mouth open, like he couldn't fathom the idea of the princess in the bed acknowledging his presence and claiming to know him. He cleared his throat and offered a gentle smile after gathering his composure.

"Good morning, Your Highness. I'm Dr. Wells Jaha, Head of Cardiothoracic Surgery here at Silver Hill." He opened the door fully and walked all the way to the foot of Lexa's bed to retrieve her chart. Richmond followed, but she avoided eye contact with him and focused all her attention on the doctor. "I operated on you yesterday."

She froze at the name, suddenly remembering where she'd seen him before. A few years ago, there was a gala just a few months after her accidental coming out, and he had been there.

"Jaha," she remarked with a bitter smile. "Right, I forgot you're a doctor."

He returned a smile, similarly bitter, as he tucked the chart under his armpit and tilted his head. "Yes, I think we were both too distracted to focus on anything else."

Distracted was one way to put it. Lexa was sure that gala was the first moment when she felt the urge to kill someone, specifically Thelonious Jaha. Her sexuality had become a public spectacle at that point, but Jaha, ignorant as he was, kept trying to set her up with his son, making comments like they'd grown to like each other soon. Lexa and Wells had decided to just escape to the balcony, with the latter profusely apologizing for his father's behavior.

"How is your father?" she asked, pointedly still ignoring her father. She didn't really need to ask that question; she didn't want to know about the man at all if she could.

"Oh, we're not talking," Wells offered nonchalantly. "Now, I'm just here to do some follow-up checks on you. You've been through quite the ringer, Your Highness." Lexa hummed in response. "Dr. Griffin's stuck in a surgery right now, so she can't make it."

Lexa's heart ached at the mention of her girl – ex-girlfriend. She gulped and nodded. "Right."

"I watched her save your leg in Libya," Wells said as he took out his stethoscope and excused himself before placing it on her chest. "That was only six months ago, wasn't it? Can't believe you'd send yourself back into the warzone that soon with your condition."

She hummed again, the bitter smile returning when she finally saw the look on her father's face. She made sure to wait until Wells had finished with listening to her heartbeat and was able to make eye contact with her again. "I think you can ask your father about that, though I'm pretty sure he's signed an NDA as well." Richmond was determinedly staring at his feet now.

Wells blinked at her mentioning his father again, seemingly confused for a moment before he seemed to have remembered Jaha's position in the government. And then for a moment, she thought she saw a hint of frustration on his face before he returned to his professional outlook. Well, maybe she didn't dislike him quite as much.

He sighed and cleared his throat. "Your Highness, you suffered a cardiac arrest from a sepsis reaction, and Dr. Griffin and I had done our best to make sure that poison doesn't damage your heart any further. But given that you've only arrived to our hospital in the middle of a cardiac arrest, and if I may be so bold, you were really hanging by a thread at that point, there is unfortunately some permanent damage to your heart that we couldn't salvage as much as we wanted to." Huh. How ironic; actual damage to her heart. "And in that, there are some side effects that we couldn't avoid, but might be able to fix partially through physical therapy."

She figured. Since the moment she'd woken up, there was something about her left leg that felt…much less than it had before. She could still move, but it was stiff and hardly flexible. Plus, there were times in the middle of the night when she could feel her left arm and leg jumping without her meaning to.

These things, she didn't tell anyone, not even Clarke. After all, seeing Clarke in that state when she'd visited yesterday evening, putting more weight to her worries was the last thing Lexa wanted. And now, she still didn't want anyone else to know, despite her growing anger at them during her time to stew the night before, so she just hummed and widened her eyes a fraction at Wells, hoping that she'd be able to pass her message to him quietly.

Wells was quiet for a moment, his eyes narrowed slightly, before they returned to their normal sizes and he adjusted his weight. He nodded and started scribbling in his chart.

"I'll have to send you up for a CT scan to make sure everything is in working order before we proceed," he said. Smart Wells, he was – no wonder Clarke had become friends with him. He replaced the chart in his armpit and grimaced a little. "And while I'd like to apologize for whatever my father's done, I can't really choose my family, as they like to say."

At that, Lexa laughed, stopping abruptly at the pain blooming beneath her ribs. She grimaced and slacked back against the pillow, fire searing up her chest with no signs of stopping. She panted at the ceiling, her ears buzzing, barely feeling Wells' hand on her shoulder.

She clenched her jaw and went through the list of weapons that she had memorized, breathing as deeply and slowly as she could. The pain eventually subsided, but she supposed she could attribute that to Wells administering morphine through the drip. She grunted at the lingering ache from suddenness of earlier and laughed again, softer and gentler this time.

"You can say that again, Dr. Jaha," she said.

Wells had left after scheduling her CT scan that would happen in the morning, leaving her alone with her father, which, honestly, was the last thing she wanted right now. Earlier, she had hugged and smiled and talked with them because she was much too happy to be home to be able to see their faces once again to think about anything else; to think about a certain pretty blonde doctor sitting in a corner of the room quietly.

But watching the door close behind Clarke and knowing that it was the last time she would ever kiss the best woman that would ever enter her life, it somehow stirred something inside Lexa. Something vicious, something unkind, something heated but not the good kind, something that made her want to throw things at the wall, something that she had only experienced when she woke up one random morning to find out that her sexuality had been exposed to the world.

And the truth was if she had time, she would have suppressed it all down and ignored the direction it was taking, pretending everything was okay. But just her emotions were boiling, almost spilling over the pot, the door had opened and she saw her father behind a kind-looking black man, and it was game over. There was no turning back.

And it seemed that Richmond managed to sense it, the waves of negativity just rolling off her skin right now – maybe that's the irony of it. Among the royal family, no one knew Lexa better than her father, her sister a close second. Her mother was too much of a…mother to truly be able to understand the things that went through Lexa's mind at times. Richmond had always managed to sit there quietly and take one long look at Lexa and knew.

He shuffled his feet on the cheap tiles and cleared his throat, taking a seat in the chair by Lexa's bedside. He looked around searchingly and asked, "Where's Clarke?"

She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, shaking her head. "Don't say her name," she whispered, still reeling from the lingering ache. She opened her eyes and directed her gaze at him, stern and narrowed. "Don't you say her name."

"Lexa –"

"How'd you find me?" she asked, because as angry as she was right now, she still wanted to know.

He blinked at her and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, sighing in resignation. "I was a soldier myself, you know. I know how things work."

"As a pilot," Lexa pointed out, steadfast at the offended wince he took.

It was true. In their family lineage, there was no one as active and involved in the military than the founder of the royal family and herself. Her siblings had refrained from that line of career, and her father was only a peripheral pilot. At this rate, she didn't think there was any point of lying or sugarcoating anything.

After all, they didn't sugarcoat the fact that they needed her to go Libya because of the optics. They certainly weren't very concerned about the optics when she had first told them that she'd joined the army. She supposed some stuff said about the people in power were true; they always learned to take advantage of any given situation.

The fucking optics.

"I was missing in action, and it's not easy recovering those who're MIA. I know, because I'd been involved in a few of those operations myself. And I'm pretty sure Jaha – Thelonious Jaha – wasn't much help either because he's just a bloated figurehead who doesn't know shit about how things actually work on the field." Her voice was becoming increasingly deep and strained as she spoke. "So how did you find me?"

"We worked with the Americans." Lexa raised her brow, skeptical. "They may be a stronger country, but we're still a royal family. And you went missing while on a joint patrol with the Americans. They couldn't exactly just leave you alone. The ramifications would have been catastrophic."

"The ramifications," she scoffed.

"Yes, Lexa, the ramifications," her father hissed, slapping his thigh and sitting upright, staring at her with wide and sincere eyes. "You're my daughter." She looked away. "Even if we hadn't worked with the Americans, I would have flown here and looked for you on my own. In fact, your mother was prepared to do that the moment we found out that you went missing."

"It was for the optics."

"Lexa."

"What?" she snapped, turning to glare at him. "What, dad? That's what you said. You and mom sent me there and told me it was for the optics, and I had no choice in the matter because it's my duty."

"And it's true!" He ran his fingers through his hair and extended an arm at nowhere in particular. "Did you think we wanted to send you there? We just got you back and you were just getting better. Honestly, if we could, we would have kept you in the palace so we could see you all the time, because you have no idea. No idea how much we worried about you while you were gone. But we didn't, because you're an adult and you are so stubborn. And being an adult means you have responsibilities. And unfortunately for you, you were born into the royal family."

She still couldn't determine whether having the Polis palace as her home was fortunate or unfortunate. There was truth to her father's words, and it wasn't as if she didn't know that she was loved; that her family loved her to pieces. But there was also fact that their unconditional love occasionally came with conditions as well, because of their names and the house they lived in.

Deep down inside, the rational side of her understood where he was coming from, understood that they had their difficulties too. And she wasn't blind to the fact that she hadn't made things easy for them since she was honorably discharged from the army. They had tried their very best to gel with her and make sure she was as comfortable as possible, but they still failed at getting why she went out for walks at night or swims early in the morning or avoid sleep as much as possible.

They couldn't possibly understand that, and she wouldn't want them to, anyway.

"If you ask me again whether I'd send you to Libya knowing what happened to you, I'd be selfish and say no, maybe even fire Jaha on the spot while I was at it. But I didn't know what would happen to you, and I have my own duty as well to our people, and that includes our people over there." He hesitated, but reached down to take her hand anyway, slack in his grip. "A thousand apologies wouldn't be to make up for this, and your mother and I are really sorry, kid. We just really hope you'll understand that."

As much truth as there was to her father's words, Lexa felt like she was being pushed into a corner. There was supposed to be options. Well, there was, unless one was a princess and born into the world with unexpected responsibilities on their shoulders.

Back in the day, she would have just gone along with everything, because she wasn't just a dutiful person; she liked her duties. She liked the impact her status had on the world and what she could do for her people. It was undeniable that she had made a mark with her current pet project, a pet project that was well on its way to go further than it was now.

But the fact remained that she never asked to be born as the daughter King Richmond II and Queen Storme I, and she was sure that she would have been just as happy had she been a commoner. Maybe she'd be a lawyer. Maybe her ex-girlfriend wouldn't have broken up with her so easily. She kind of understood what some people meant when they joked about suing their parents for having them without their consent now.

She took her hand away from her father's grasp and ignored the disappointment that just exuded from him. "Clarke left," she answered his previous question, looking into his eyes. Clarke left and she would never come back, she didn't say.

She hadn't cried when she realized that she could never fight another battle again. She hadn't cried when she came back and realized that she was pretty much disabled. She hadn't cried when she woke up in a dilapidated den, realizing that she was in the middle of nowhere. She hadn't cried when she watched Clarke's figure disappear through the door. She certainly wasn't going to cry now.

While Lexa wasn't sure how exactly she was looking at her father, but inside, there was a bubbling cesspool of boiling resentment. It didn't matter how sorry her parents were or how much they apologized; it didn't matter how right Richmond had sounded or how much she recognized the position they were all in, each and every one of them, from Richmond down to her.

None of those mattered. Not now, anyway.

She didn't have to say much else after that. Her father's expression was remorseful and lost. He'd barely met the blonde, but he knew from what little she told him how important Clarke had been to her. Still was. Probably forever would. The masochist in Lexa wanted Clarke to stay with her forever.

At last, all he could offer was a slow nod and a whisper that he'd return tomorrow morning, asking her to take care of herself in the meantime. She watched as he lifted his hand to her face, hesitating inches away, and shook his head to himself. As he walked out, his shoulders were slumped and his head was low. Well, she was the same.

Like father, like daughter, as they said.

"This is quite unexpected, isn't it?"

Lexa hummed as she laid still in the machine for it to do its work. "What is?"

After her father had left, she didn't sleep. Her chest hurt. Her leg felt numb. She almost wanted to go for a walk, maybe even had a look at the Avicenna bust in the garden, if the wheelchair wasn't so far away and she literally couldn't move her leg at all. So instead, she spent many hours going through her photos with Clarke, as little as they were, until she finally succumbed to sleep.

"For you to end up in the same hospital as I am, years after my father tried to set us up," Wells stated. She couldn't see him because she was stuck in the machine, but he sounded like he was very amused; she wasn't. "I guess it's more unexpected that you ended up in the same hospital as Clarke and was operated on by her as well."

Lexa clenched her jaw. This was what she got for yearning to be with Clarke so much that she ended up being sent to the same hospital that Clarke worked in. Goddamn manifestation or whatever the crap they called it. She inhaled steadily, making sure not to move too much – she'd been through this before, she knew how it worked.

"So I think it's time you tell me what it is that you've been hiding from your d – His Majesty yesterday," he corrected himself quickly. "Do you call him dad?" She smirked a little. "That's kind of weird, finding out that there are people who call the king dead, but I guess that kind of comes with family. You probably call Her Majesty mom too." Her smirk only widened. "Actually, I don't think I'm supposed to talk to you like this as well," he muttered into his mic, probably not even meaning for her to hear it.

"You played a part in saving my life, Wells. I think that gives you the right to talk to me any way you want. Respectfully, of course," she added. Not everyone could get the privileges Clarke did; probably no one ever will.

"Right," Wells murmured. "So…"

She heaved a quiet sigh and wondered briefly how long had passed since she'd gotten into this machine. "My left leg…" she trailed off, focusing on aforementioned limb, as if extreme focus could get her some feeling left. Manifestation, right? Otherwise, she wouldn't be in the hospital. And yet. "I can't feel a thing."

Before she knew it, there was a clatter and a surprised sound by Wells. And if they weren't in a hospital and she was stuck in a CT machine and she didn't know that her father had posted two extra guards for her while Gustus was still decommissioned, she would have leaped up and held up her fists. That probably meant that Niylah's probably going to have to see a lot more of her from now on. Plus, this room wasn't exactly soundproof, so if anything had happened, they would have heard it earlier.

But that didn't mean she wasn't still wary. Being missing in action did things to a person. Well, the events before going missing in action did things to a person. But they were all the same. This place may be infrastructurally sound, the beeping may not mean a bomb getting ready to go off, and people in white may mean they were lifesavers; it still didn't discount the fact that she'd been through the things she'd been through.

"Lexa, you need to calm down," Wells hurriedly said into the mic. "We're almost done. Just another minute to go. We can't scan anything with your heart going haywire like that. Just calm down."

She closed her eyes and did what she always did: reciting weapons and imagining them in her head. "What was that?"

"Oh, uh, just –" He was interrupted by three beeps. "Oh, hey, you're done. Yep."

As she waited for the machine to slide her out, she heard the door to the room open, followed by steady footsteps approaching her position. When she opened her eyes, she sucked in a sharp breath and moved to sit upright, her left leg dangling over the edge.

Clarke's gaze roved to said leg and focused on it for a long time, so long that Wells pointed a finger over his shoulder and slipped out, so long that Lexa was feeling pinpricks on her ass. The blonde had her hands shoved into her coat pockets and her lips pursed into a thin line. Lexa wanted to appreciate the view in front of her, but she wasn't going to lie; she was kind of scared right now.

"Why didn't you say anything yesterday?" Clarke asked as soon as her eyes came up to meet Lexa's again, storm swirling inside those baby blues.

Lexa raised her brows. "You were breaking up with me."

"I'm also your doctor."

"Clarke, we both know that you weren't my doctor yesterday."

"And what? You were just gonna let me leave without telling me about this?" Clarke exclaimed, her voice verging on frustration as she gestured towards the leg.

"Frankly, yes."

"Lexa –"

"Dr. Griffin," Lexa muscled her way through, pursing her lips at the hurt that flashed across the blonde's expression.

She licked her lips and stared mournfully at the wheelchair that had been pushed into a corner of the room. As if sensing what she'd been looking, the doctor rolled the wheelchair over to the princess, but the latter waved her away when she tried to help her get into the wheelchair. While Lexa was struggling to find stability in the chair, she could hear Clarke huffing next to her.

"It's time I learn to do these things myself," Lexa said, quiet but loud enough for her ex-girlfriend to hear.

"You've been learning to do things yourself since the day you were born," Clarke replied.

"Then why not another?"

The blonde moved to get behind Lexa, except she couldn't as Lexa had quickly spun the chair around, almost a little too much that she skidded to a stop diagonal towards Clarke. Her fingers tightened around the wheel.

"I can do it." At this point, Clarke was frowning heavily, her entire face set in an expression of confusion and lack of understanding. "In the interest of our…professionalism in your workplace, I think it'd be best if you're no longer on my case."

That took a lot out of her, because, to be very honest, Lexa would love for Clarke to stay with her, to be there for her in the middle of the night where they would tell each other more stuff about each other. But this wasn't six months ago, and they certainly weren't in a war hospital at the edge of Libya – god, were they not – so Lexa needed to let go.

And this was the first step.

"That's not professional, especially not for me," Clarke retorted, her face seeming to be getting redder with anger as seconds passed. Lexa didn't like to see that look. "It's not that easy, Lexa. When the interim chief catches wind of you kicking me off your case, he'll need to know why. And then I'll be joining Marcus and Finn in front of the council."

Lexa nodded. Having her personal stuff with Clarke aired out and being the reason for the possible end of Clarke's career was the last thing she wanted. She adjusted the wheelchair to face Clarke fully. "Okay, then you're not off the case –" Clarke nodded "– on paper. I don't –" Lexa closed her eyes, because how could she look at Clarke and not want to kiss the living daylights out of her now that she knew what it was like? "You walked out yesterday, and I don't want you coming back in. Ever." She refused to open her eyes, pretending to not hear the quiet gasp that Clarke released. "We broke up. We're done. I need to let go, and I can't let go if I keep seeing you; seeing that you still care."

"I do care."

"But do you want to?" Lexa shot back, eyes opening, vigorous in their intensity as she pinned Clarke down with her stare. "Because I don't want you to." She gulped at the tears that started welling in Clarke's eyes. "We had a good run. We were happy. Let's leave it at that. Let's be a beautiful part of each other's lives and let's move on, Clarke, please," she tacked on. "I don't want you to care about me. I don't want you to worry about me. I don't want you to think about me. I don't want you to keep loving me."

"You can't say that –"

"Why did you break up with me, Clarke?" Lexa interjected, her chest rising with the fervor of her words. She gestured at the empty room, wanting to smack the CT machine so it would just stop humming. "Look at where we are. Do you honestly think that you continuing to love me will do you any good?"

"What about you?" Clarke sobbed.

"I'll be fine," Lexa said curtly, nodding to both herself and Clarke. She didn't tell Clarke that she had to. "Let me just tell you right now, Clarke, once and for all. I'll be fine. I'll be great at my job. I won't be flying to another warzone if this leg's any implication." She emphasized with a tap on aforementioned leg. "I'll live a long life. And so will you." She raised her brows and mustered a smile.
"I love you."

With another nod, Lexa spun the wheelchair around, using all her strength to wheel herself out of the room. Wells was waiting outside, and his face told her that he was beyond curious; she supposed that was the nature of a doctor. Well, the CT scan was kind of a waste, because her heart was gone regardless, tucked safely in Clarke's hands for the rest of her life.

i'm not apologizing