"You're clear."
He shifts uncomfortably on the examination table, darting his eyes around the floor in what looks almost like panic, although I'm not sure what could possibly be the reason for it. I just told him he's fine. I take in a breath and step back a foot or so, trying to be patient for him to get off the examination table so I can get to my next patient…you know, someone who's actually sick.
"I just…but what about-"
I shake my head at him just a little, trying to get this across to the apparent hypochondriac in front of me. "You're lab tests are normal, your lungs are clear, your eyes and ears looks great, and your heart sounds perfect. There is nothing wrong with you, okay?" I reach forward to pat him on the shoulder, hoping it feels reassuring to him enough to get him to leave. His eyes don't meet mine, they just get huge as he stares at the ground. He looks like he's ready to puke…though I know it must just be a stress response, since his white count is perfect and he doesn't have any viruses or infections…despite his claims.
Finally, he moves, looking so grave everyone he passes is likely to assume I just delivered him a death sentence rather than a clean bill of health. I look back down at his chart on the screen of my tablet. Bellamy Blake. Guard. 22. Factory Station. I wonder if I should add possible hypochondriac to his file, but hold back. Once I add that in he'll be pushed to the very back of the patient priority list permanently. On the off chance he does get sick, that world could easily cause such delay in treatment that it could turn into a death sentence.
Continuing with my day, I forget all about him…until it's five hours later and I find him waiting for me as I lock up for the night. Shifty and uncomfortable and wild eyed…great. Maybe I should have sent him on for a psych evaluation. The hall is empty, otherwise too. Of course. Just great. "Doctor?"
"If you need an appointment, come back during office hours tomorrow." I state, much calmer sounding than I feel.
"It can't wait and I don't need an appointment. I'm not the one who's sick." I can feel my eyebrows scrunching at him. This is odd.
"Then who is?" Impatience is leaking into my voice, but this guy is acting weird and I just want to go home and veg and watch sports reruns with Wallace. As long as he doesn't bring up his dad pressuring us to get married again, he's the guy to chill out with. He's also just about the only person who might still be awake this late.
"I can't…just…come with me. Please." His big brown eyes are begging. I look down at my tablet. 11:20 p.m. I was already the last one out the door for the night, since one of my jobs as the low doctor on the totem pole is inventory and that was such a mess. It's really no wonder Dr. Williams was forced to retire. I didn't even finish. I already know I'm going to have to stay up half the night again tomorrow just to get it all completely straight and put into the system in correct quantities. I'm not going down an empty hall with some random guy from Factory Station to god knows where when no one would even see me leave. That's like signing up to get raped or murdered or something horrible. Even in space, that kind of thing still happens, just blessedly not often.
"I'm going to need more information if you expect me to help you." I say, remembering how mom taught me that it's best to reason instead of outright refuse someone who may be unhinged until they can be transferred to psych.
"Please. Look I'll do anything you want. Just come with me now." Slowly, I begin to take a step back. I could always go back into medical and seal the door…but his guard status will still give him access anyway…damn it.
"Look, whatever you think princess, I'm not going to hurt you. I just…I know you're the only one who might listen…" He sounds so sincere, but what the hell could possibly justify this shifty behavior?
Intrigued, I feel myself moving forward again, like an idiot. "This better be real and it better be important. My mom and dad are both council members. If anything happens to me, they will tear the whole ark apart until they find the person responsible."
The man's fists clench, even as he nods in acceptance and begins to move quickly down the maze of hallways towards factory station. "Believe me, Princess, everyone on the ark already knows who you are. Trust me, no one would dare touch you…but I'm out of options, so I'm hoping your royal self has a soul."
"If this is your idea of buttering me up to help you, you're doing a terrible job. What's so important that it can't wait for office hours tomorrow? Does your granny have a cold or something?"
"My granny's dead. Look it's an emergency. I can't tell anyone."
I stop dead in my tracks. "What kind of an emergency?"
Bellamy doesn't meet my eyes, he just waits for me to catch up and stares off dead eyed as we start up again and pass windows and more long hallways. Whatever is going on here must be really serious. I don't know this guy at all, but I've never seen anyone look so defeated. Finally, he stops at a door that must be his living quarters and looks up at me. "Just…try not to judge too quickly, okay? If you report this, you'll be murdering three innocent people."
He opens the door, only partially, and scrambles quickly inside, pulling me in behind him and closing the door again quickly. A older woman is sitting on the edge of the bottom bunk bed built into the side of room. Her eyes go huge at the sight of us.
"Bellamy, no!" She starts, panic flashing through her features as she jumps up and drops the wet cloth she was holding to the ground.
Bellamy reaches up, shaking his head at her, grabbing her upper arms to hold her still as she shakes in pure, unadulterated horror. Then I see the other hand on the bed she had been sitting on the side of and all the pieces begin to come together.
She's a tiny thing. Maybe twelve or thirteen based on size? Hard to say. Definitely a girl though. I touch her arm and try to do a rudimentary check up without my supplies. If I had taken Bellamy seriously, I would have brought a bag with me, but as it is I only have my own senses. I reach to her neck and forehead with the back of my hand. She's feverish…dangerously so. Thready heartbeat. Clamy skin. Completely unresponsive to touch. God, he wasn't kidding when he said this is an emergency. Behind me, there's a fight going on in whispers, but I'm too zeroed in on the critically sick patient in front of me to pick up or really care about what their yelling at each other in those low, angry tones.
I flip the thin blanket they have on her back and try to get a read on the full picture here. The smell of urination makes me wrinkle my nose a bit. She's in a soiled gray dress that's soaked through with sweat. This has all the markers of sepsis. Wasting no time, I go to work pulling her floppy upper body to lean on mine and start pulling at her clothes, needing to strip them away so that I can look for the source. There must be a wound or a cut somewhere…
"What are you doing?" Bellamy asks, finally disengaging in the fight he's having with the older woman I assume to be either he or the girl's mother to look over at me in bafflement. The door clicks shut behind him. She must have left.
I pull the bottom of the dirty, wet dress up and over her stomach and start trying to thread her first arm through. "I have to find the source of infection. Help me get her clothes off."
"Umm…"
I look over to him. "Want her to die?" I ask, a little more severely than I meant to. He's just standing there awkwardly, looking like I just asked him to undress his own-
Oh.
OH.
My eyes flash back to the girl's face and I see it. The resemblance. The reason he's so desperate. The reason for the shiftiness and the fight with what must be both them's mother. The girl in my arms is an illegal second child. Okay. Take a breath in. She's still a patient and I still need his help.
"Look, I get it, but I still need to strip her of her clothes. You can be grossed out later. Right now, we need to focus on saving your sister's life."
Wordlessly, he moves forward to take her weight from me so I can remove her dead weight limbs from the dress. "Hold her upright." He does, even though it means supporting her naked torso against him while I scan her back and arms. Nothing. I tell him to lay her back down and repeat the process with her chest and stomach. There's a bruise on her collarbone the dress had covered up, but it's not the culprit.
I wave him off to move down and pull off her nasty, thin wet pants and underwear, a little annoyed that her mother had apparently just left her in them. I notice marks on the thighs…fingerprints? Ugh, that doesn't bode well, but I can't worry about that yet. When I roll her onto her stomach I see it. Bingo. There's a puncher wound. Small. On her right buttock cheek. Definitely infected and septic.
"She's septic." I say aloud, for his benefit. He isn't looking, turned around to stare at the wall. I roll my eyes. "You're going to have to help keep the wound clean even after the antibiotics and fever reducers kick in. She won't be able to do this herself. May as well look now."
His eyes glance downward with a serious expression, as though looking at his sister naked is a cardinal sin…though probably, to be fair, it is. I watch his eyebrows scrunch, face contort. Anger and concern war across his features as he takes it in.
"What is that?" He finally asks, concern for his sister evidently overriding his aversion to seeing her naked.
"That's an infected puncher wound. Would have been caused by something small and circular…maybe a couple of centimeters by I'm going to guess an inch long and metal. Any ideas what that might be?"
He shakes his head, but moves closer, focuses on the bruise on her hip. It's nothing serious, but it's larger and elongated. "I don't…this doesn't make sense. She tells me. She always tells me if she gets hurt going under. She didn't say anything about this."
"Going under?"
"The floor. She…we put her there during inspections. She's gotten cut under there before. Some of the metal is sharp, but I always watch it close. The one time one of them started getting infected I cut myself and rubbed garbage to it so they'd prescribe antibiotics. She was fine. Why didn't she tell me?"
I shrug, already planning my long trip back to medical to retrieve the high powered antibiotics, saline, fever reducer and something to cut away and drain the infected tissue. She needed treatment way before this and, honestly, I'm not sure if even all that will save her, so I start to move.
His hand shoots out to grab me by the shoulder before I can even make it away from the bed. "Where are you going?"
"To get medicine." I tell him like the idiot he is. "She won't make it through the night without me throwing everything I can do at her."
His grip tightens "If you tell, they won't just float me. They'll float my mom and Octavia too. Please. Im not accustomed to begging, but-"
I pull away from his grasp. "No begging needed. It's not her fault she was born." I'm out the door before he has time to reply.
When I come back, it's nearly one a.m. Bellamy Blake has no concept of how lucky they are that I had to do that inventory and for how grossly inaccurate it is. For the one time in probably the entire history of the ark's medical center, stealing medicine isn't really a problem. I can take practically anything I need without worry of it being noticed. It's a good thing too, because saving this girl is going to take way more than what would normally be allowed.
I waste no time getting back and don't bother to acknowledge Bellamy as I quickly set up an iv bag and pump the girl full of fluids and antibiotics. She's cleaner now and in what must be their mother's extra dress, since it's clearly too big for her. The smell of urine is gone and fresh sheets stripped from the other bunk are on the bed under her. Whatever danger he's putting me in, clearly, this man is dedicated to his sister.
"Will she be okay?" His voice is near desperate as he watches her lifeless body. For the first time, I notice how tired he looks, hunched over at his sister's bedside holding onto the pale clammy hand attached to the iv arm with both of his much larger hands. Now that I know he isn't a hypochondriac or creepy predator, it's easy to see how handsome he is.
"Do you want an honest answer or do you want me to make you feel better?" I sigh at his fractured expression. "I'll do everything I can, but it could go either way. It's going to be a long night. I'm going to have to cut out the infected tissue and drain the infection sight. Go ahead and turn her over to her belly again." Wordlessly, he does as I say, taking obvious care to be as gentle with her as possible and fix the blanket to cover up her bare legs up as far as he could to under the wound to keep her warm. He walks to the other end of the room as I get to work on the dirty bit.
He's pacing behind me, but I've logged enough hours as a medical intern at this point to not let it bother me much as I inject the numbing agent and get to work with the scalpel. It doesn't take long. The wound isn't large. Unfortunately, it doesn't have to be to kill her from infection.
"You said her name is Octavia?" I ask as I drain the small wound, trying to distract him from the reality of the situation as best as possible.
Bellamy nods, and I only see it when I turn. "So, since I could get floated for not reporting this, not to mention stealing the medicine I just gave her and treating her with no authorization…tell me about her."
Bellamy stops pacing then, coming around to just stare at me, bug eyed instead. "She's uh…she's sixteen and she's only been outside this room once. She likes listening to me read to her about mythology. Hates sewing, but does it anyway. Wants to wrestle and dance and anything else she can think of to wear us both out all the time. She's strong. She's…she's the most important person in the world to me."
I nod at him, considering my options. Obviously reporting her is out of the question. If I did, it'd be like I murdered her…and her mom and maybe her brother. I might be able to avoid being floated myself if I said I only took the medicine and treated her under threat to my life, but that would also guarantee Bellamy's death.
I pull out my tablet and message my parents. "Sleeping at a friend's. See you both tomorrow before shift." They'll probably assume it's Wells, but there are enough other options in case they ask him to make the excuse work regardless. It wouldn't be super unusual for me or any of my friends to pull late movie nights and nod off in one another's quarters.
A moment later, my mom messages back. "Thanks for letting us know. Have fun! Love you"
"Love you too." I type as Bellamy openly stares at the screen and reads all the messages I type over my shoulder in suspicion. I just barely manage to keep from rolling my eyes at him. I'm not accustomed to people being so openly rude to me. On the other hand, he knows that one wrong word from me could end his entire family and it's not like we know each other.
"I'm not going to report you…or her." I tell him, trying to fight my own annoyance at being doubted to comfort the agitated man. "If I told my parents the council would float your mom and probably her. Maybe even you for abetting so long."
"Why not? Both of your parents are on the council, princess. How can I trust that you won't get us all killed?"
"You can trust that I just committed a capital crime myself to try to save her life. Why would I do that just to get her killed later? We are going to have to tell my parents about you though."
His whole body tenses. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that it's a little odd that I'm sleeping over in your quarters in factory station or that I'll be coming and going here every day if she pulls through for a while."
"Every day? If it's an infection, won't the antibiotics-"
"If it's not already too late, they will, but it's not like I can just leave her like this. This girl's never had any medical care." Raising myself up I gesture to her tiny unconscious form, trying to get the obvious across to him. Even if she makes it through tonight, which is not at all a guarantee right now, there's no way I can just forget she exists, miserable and alone other than her immediate family. I would never forgive myself.
"She's a sitting duck for all kinds of things you might be immune from becoming sick with, but not from carrying to her. She needs to be caught up on vaccines. She also needs more rations and vitamins if she's this size at sixteen. I'm going to need to steal a lifetime of medical, not to mention the amount that I'll need to stash somewhere for the next inevitable time she gets sick or hurt somehow. I can manage, thanks to the mess Dr. Williams left before retiring, but-"
"What do you want from me?"
"I need a good excuse to be here, a lot. Something people won't question too hard if I'm late. Telling them we're dating would be the easiest excuse. Do you have a girlfriend?"
His head snaps back and he looks…shocked. "Nobody is gonna believe that their little perfect princess is dating a guard from factory station." The accusation and anger in his tone is obvious, but I'm not sure why he's directing it at me. We don't know each other. I've never done anything to him and my parents have never been stuck up about their positions.
I just glare at him, trying to unclench my jaw enough to spit out a reply. "They will if I tell them we are. Unless you have a better excuse." Where does he get off acting like I'm the enemy instead of the person trying to save his family?
"Bell?" A weak voice rasps out from beside us. Immediately, Bellamy is knelt down by her side, pushing the sweaty strands of hair away from her eyes with gentle hands.
"Hey O. You're okay. You're okay."
The girl takes in a ragged breath and looks like she's fighting just to keep her eyes open, but she manages to turn her head to the side to stare at me. "Who?"
"Clarke." I fill in for her as cheerfully as I can, slipping back into professional mode. "Clarke Griffen. I'm a doctor and I'm here to get you well."
Her face scrunches, either from pain or confusion, but I can't tell which. Bellamy keeps staring at her and caressing her hair like a parent would for a tiny sleeping child. "It's okay, O. It's safe. Nothing bad is going to happen. Clarke's on our side."
She's too weak to say anything else, though it's clear she's trying. The only sound the girl manages is a quiet moan. Stepping forward, I gesture for Bellamy to move aside and reach for my stethoscope, only to see her eyes grow wider. It occurs to me then that she's never seen a stethoscope. She's never seen any medical equipment. She's never even seen another person, likely. For a moment the situation feels overwhelming. How on earth have they pulled this off for sixteen years? How has this girl survived? Mentally and emotionally, she must be a basket case.
I take in a breath and slow my movements, showing her the stethoscope. "I'm just going to take a listen to your breathing. This is a stethoscope. It won't hurt." I carefully pull her blanket down far enough to get the scope where I need it and listen. Her heart is still thready. I put the stethoscope back down into my bag and get her temperature. 103.3. Only down a degree and a half from before. Damn. Okay, more fever reducer then. It's a good thing this isn't documented. I'd be going over the allotted amount to save her even if she was a normal citizen.
"This is going to pinch just a little." I say before injecting the arm not connected to the I.V. If she feels it, she doesn't react at all…which is in and of itself a little concerning for someone who's never had a shot.
"She's good with pain." Bellamy rushes to explain as he notices my reaction. "Mom's a seamstress. O helps with the sewing and gets stuck with needles all the time."
"Oh." That makes sense. Of course; she'd have to do something with her time.
Bellamy moves back to his place beside her and covers her back up to the shoulder. Octavia looks up to her brother and then back to me. She looks like she's struggling hard to keep her eyes open.
"Want me to keep reading to you from where we were last night?" Bellamy asks, settling onto the side of the bed with his back propped up against the wall and his sister's head in his lap. I watch as she blinks her eyes up at him and fails her attempt to nod. It feels like an intrusion to be here now. The moment between them feels private with the older brother petting his little sister's hair and reading her a literal bedtime story from his tablet. I can't leave though. This girl is at death's door. There's little more I can do for her, but I certainly cannot leave until I know she isn't going to die before morning. I shift my weight from one foot to the other and walk around to sit at the desk in the middle of the room.
"You can take the other bunk." I hear Bellamy say in the middle of his story about ancient mythical gods and goddesses. It almost makes me jerk in surprise to realize that he's speaking to me again and not still reading the myth of Helios to my patient. I look over to them and turn off the my tablet I'd been fiddling with while half listening to the story myself. He's a good narrator. His voice is rich and easy to listen to, even if the story he'd been reading wasn't meant for me.
"Mom won't be back until tomorrow. I've been sleeping like this." He gestures to his upright position sideways across the head of the narrow bed with his little sister's head in his lap like he's a pillow and his free hand on her shoulder. It seems odd for a moment until I realize that it's probably his way of making sure she's breathing. All at once I feel both touched and incredibly sad. How does it feel to love someone that much? How must it feel to hold someone's entire existence in their hands? Not just their life…I've held dying people, both ones I've saved and ones I couldn't. Bellamy though…he doesn't just hold Octavia's life in his hands. He holds everything about her life…almost all the interactions and memories she's ever had. That's…it's kind of mind-blowing.
Then I see it from Octavia's end and it's even more heartbreaking. How does a person live their entire life hidden away in one small set of rooms? No new experiences. No new places or people ever. Nothing to look forward to or to work towards. Nothing to live for except her mother and brother. Silently, I climb up to the bunk above the two siblings with the bare mattress. There's no blanket either, with both of them pilfered for Octavia's use, but it doesn't really matter. I'm pretty dead on my feet and I'm pretty sure Bellamy will alert me if there's any change. Sleep comes easily from exhaustion.
When my alarm sounds, I'm up instantly to turn it off and climb down from the uncomfortable mattress on the upper bunk. Brown panicked eyes meet mine and, even as he blearily blinks awake, his hand is flying to Octavia's pulse point on her neck. From my vantage point, I can see her breathing, so I already know she's still alive for now, at least. When he also comes to that realization, his whole body visibly relaxes.
Stepping forward, I repeat last night's check on her breathing and heart rate with the stethoscope and temperature check. It's down a lot from last night, though still a little feverish. That's one point in the right direction. I have about three hours before I'm expected anywhere, leaving two max before I need to leave and head home to shower and eat and change.
"I'm going to replace that empty I.V. bag with a new one before I go, but if you'll go ahead and carry her to the bathroom now, I can help her use the restroom and get her bathed beforehand. I'll have to go soon and your mom won't be able to bathe her once I hook her back up to the I.V."
"You're going to give her a bath?" Bellamy asks, looking incredulous.
I quirk up an eyebrow at him. "She's had a lot of fluids, so unless you want another mess to clean up she'll need some help. She'll probably also just feel a lot better clean." It can't possibly be comfortable to be covered over with all that dried sweat and general nastiness from being so sick. "You're welcome to do it yourself, if that'd be more comfortable."
"No…that's okay. She's gotten a little old for her brother to see her naked. Besides, it's probably better to have another girl do it since… you know…you won't take an interest."
I'm half tempted then to tell him that I happen to appreciate girls as much as guys, but basic professional decorum is enough to stop me considering what I'm about to do. I doubt it'd make him trust me more to get her bathed and cleaned up if he was worried that I could be attracted to her. Instead I only blink at him and say nothing, waiting for him to move before I detach the empty IV.
She's only half conscious while we're in the bathroom. After she uses the toilet and I half carry her the two feet over to the small shower/tub, I get to work undressing her as quickly as I can while adjusting the water temperature. I go ahead and wash her hair first, noticing that while it looked sweaty and oily and gross before, it's actually really pretty…dark brown, shiny, and naturally has lots of volume. Her face is striking too. Like her brother is unusually handsome, she is unfairly beautiful. Their genetics must really be something to produce two siblings that are both this attractive.
Quickly, trying not to really notice anything about her naked body that isn't my business in the sense that I'm her doctor, I wash the rest of her down with a soapy washcloth to remove all traces of dried body fluids and then return to her hair to condition it.
She's awake, but so weak that she's limp anyway and keeping her bright leaf green eyes mostly closed.
It occurs to me that, under normal circumstances, I'd find both siblings incredibly attractive. If she wasn't hidden away, she'd have half the guys (and some of the girls as well) fighting over her. What a waste.
"There we go." I say in a gentle voice as I wring out the excess water from her long shiny hair and drain the water from the tub before wrapping her in a towel.
"Got anymore clean clothes for her?" I call out to Bellamy, knowing that he'd probably prefer carrying her back to bed clothed.
"SHH!" I hear him hiss outside the door. "Be quiet! Do you want the neighbors to hear you? It's bad enough that you know now. One more mistake and she and my mother are both dead!" His yells come in whispers, but there's venom to his voice that's sharper than mere volume could manage. Shit. How do these people live like this?
Gently, I lean the younger girl's naked body back up to the wall and try to manage a smile at her when her bright green eyes open again to look at mine. "Blue. I've never seen…eyes…"
I smile at her again, mentally filling in the rest of the sentence for her. "I'll be right back." I stand up from my crouched over position and crane my head through the open crack in the doorway. Quietly, this time, I ask "So…clothes?"
Bellamy looks singularly unenthused. "Here. She can have my extra shirt." He hands me girls' underwear too without comment.
I don't bother with the bra he handed me. Her breasts aren't so big that they need support just for laying down and she'll be more comfortable without it. Silently I pull the shirt on over her head, and help her pull her arms through the short sleeves. It's huge on her and covers her well down to mid thigh.
"Alright." I call out quietly to him and move aside for him to come in and carry her back to bed. As soon as he gets her settled, I go right back to work, attaching a new IV with more fluids and a special mix of vitamins for those that come into the clinic suffering from malnutrition or vitamin deficiencies. Hopefully, that'll be enough to give her body the push it needs in the right direction to heal itself and pull through this. Since I'm leaving and will be unable to keep a temperature check on her while I'm at work (which will be at least twelve hours with the …creative… inventory I have to come up with), I go ahead and give her another dose of fever reducer as well, just in case it tries to spike again. Once all the medications have been hooked up and injected, I move onto to applying topical medicine to the wound and bandaging it up with gauze and tape. It's already looking better today than it did last night. I smile at the positive progress and help her into the clean underwear Bellamy had provided earlier.
Just as I'm about to give Bellamy my final instructions and head out the door, it opens from the other side. Instinctively, Bellamy positions himself to hide his sister as best he can from anyone who might be entering, but it's only the same woman who'd been here last night. Beside me, I watch as Bellamy tenses and then relaxes as soon as he sees his mother. I honestly don't understand how these people can live under this kind of stress.
The woman looks at me as if I could be a viper, ready to poison her. "Good morning. How is my baby?" Already walking her way around us, she wastes no time kneeling beside Octavia and looking her over.
"She's still not out of the woods, so to speak, but there is some improvement. If she wakes up enough and seems able to handle it, try to get her to eat as much as she can. Otherwise, just let her rest. The IV will prevent dehydration until I can come back to check on her."
"When will that be?" Bellamy asks, nervous even as he also begins pulling on his guard uniform for his own work shift.
"Late. I have a ten hour shift and then I have to deal with covering all these missing supplies up in inventory. I'll come back as soon as I can afterwards though."
"Will you…" Their mother starts, but seems to go speechless for a moment before managing to continue. "I know who you are, but please. She's my baby and she's done nothing wrong. This isn't her fault. I can-"
"I'm not going to tell anyone." I reassure her, just managing force myself to sound comforting for her sake despite feeling like a broken record after all the times I've already had to tell Bellamy as much in the last 12 hours. Wordlessly, the older woman steps forward to hug me in relief.
I look over her shoulder at Bellamy, who's also openly staring at us. This is awkward. I smile at her as best as I can before I leave.
When I make it back around 10:20 that night I can tell that the Blakes are really not used to visitors knocking on their door. Sighing, I pull out my tablet and look up Bellamy Blake to message him. "Just me." Then, remembering that our messages are always open to search if there's any suspicion of crime I add "You promised me a movie if I came over tonight."
There's still a long pause before the door finally opens halfway with Bellamy blocking any view inside with his large frame. "Hey."
His mouth turns up in a half grin and he moves aside to let me in before closing the door silently behind me. Octavia is still lying in bed, but I can tell before even getting close to her how much better she looks. She's conscious, for one, and peering at me in interest from her position propped up into a half sitting position with the two pillows from the bunks.
"How's my favorite patient?" I ask, talking to her this time instead of Bellamy.
She smiles brightly at me, even if she must still feel like shit.
Bellamy comes over and leans against the wall with his arms crossed, also smiling. "We'll see how long that lasts, now that she's conscious and can start hounding you with questions." His eyes are alight in joy, even as he teases her. She scrunches up her face and sticks her tongue out at him in return. I can't help but chuckle a little at the easy exchange.
"So my brother tells me you're a doctor. What's that like?"
"Tiring, most days. I'm still in training and they always like to give medical students all the worst work- inventory, people coming in to complain about everything from a headache to a stubbed toe, headaches like your brother coming in trying to convince me he's in dire need of medicine when he's totally healthy…though I'll forgive him of that, in this case."
"Do you like it?" She presses, reminding me a little of the young children I've occasionally seen that are endlessly full of questions.
"Yes. I like the challenge and I like helping people. Now why don't you tell me a little about you?" I try, wanting to get a sense of this girl as a person now that I'm one of the three other people in existence who knows about her. I've already committed a crime I'll be floated for if anyone finds out about her, so I might as well try to make the best of the situation.
Octavia actually looks confused for a moment, almost as if she didn't understand, but then I realize that she did. She's just confused for what to say. She looks over at Bellamy, as if to ask his permission silently before she says anything and he nods at her encouragingly.
"I- well I'm a second child like I guess you know. I've never been out of this room…so I'm probably pretty boring to you."
"So far you've been definitely not boring. Here-" I reach forward to detach the empty fluid bag I had hooked up this morning and rescan her temperature before pulling out the stethoscope. "I'm going to need to be coming to visit you a lot over the next few weeks to get you all caught up. I don't want you to get sick again because you didn't get your vaccines. I thought, maybe if it's okay, we could hang out a bit too. I have a zillion movies I haven't had time to see yet from my parent's downloads over the years we could watch if you like movies. Books too…though I don't think I have any mythology ones like Bellamy was reading you…mostly medical and engineering and art history." I ramble on, trying to fill in the awkward silence while I go about turning her over to inspect the infection site and re-bandage it.
Once again, I notice the odd bruising there on her hips and the front of her thighs and can't help but wonder how they came to look so much like finger prints, even though I know that isn't possible. Everyone who knows about her besides me are her direct relatives and they wouldn't abuse her…would they? I chance a sideways look at Bellamy. Surely he wouldn't have… "Okay, all done."
"I'd love that…any, no, all of that! We haven't gotten to buy any new movies in months. Thank you." She tells me, bright green eyes meeting mine again and snapping me out of my unhappy thoughts.
"So, when you aren't almost dying from an infected cut, what do you usually do all day?" I ask, trying to get some sense of what is going on here.
She shrugs. "I help my mom with the sewing…read whenever there's anything I'm not sick of yet…exercise…play around with Bellamy…that's about it. I told you. Boring. I've never seen someone with hair like that." She reaches out and picks up a strand of the hair resting on my shoulder, feeling it with her fingers and inspecting it as though it's some sort of wonder. Bellamy looks a little uncomfortable, as though he's trying to decide whether or not to correct her odd behavior. "It's pretty."
I feel my cheeks involuntarily blush at the random compliment. I suppose everything new is kind of a wonder to Octavia in her tiny, confined world. I do my best to ignore her as she continues playing with my hair. Bellamy smiles apologetically at me as he watches.
"Well, I told my parents that I'm staying out late again tonight. Will your mother mind if I stay awhile and we can pick a movie you haven't seen?"
At this, Bellamy tenses back up a little. "Our Mom will be away again tonight…might not be back until morning." There's something there that he isn't saying and he and Octavia share a dark, knowing look. "Put on whatever you want. Some company would be nice for a change as long as you're sure no one will come looking for you."
I shake my head. I've always been pretty responsible. My parents have always loved bragging about how level headed I am. If I tell them I'm doing something, they take me at my word. I'm not really lying to them anyway…I really am staying over at a platonic friend's house watching movies…even if they are a very new friend.
I set up the tablet to show the Griffen movie library containing all the movies and shows my parents had bought with their extra credits over the years and hand it over to Octavia to choose one. Seeing the number to choose from has her eyebrows shoot up in shock and she squeals in excitement, spending several minutes just scrolling through them all and reading the descriptions. A lot of them are old recorded sports games, but there's bit of everything in there to choose from. I settle in next to her and Bellamy sits on my other side, the three of us using the narrow bunk like a couch which, for them, I guess it doubles as that too.
Factory station quarters certainly are a major downgrade to what I'm used to, but I don't tell them that. The last thing I want to do is make them feel even worse about their situation.
Eventually, Octavia settles on an old action movie from the nineteen hundreds and smiles like a maniac when it starts playing. I reach into my bag in front of me and pull out the apples and bag of popcorn I brought to share with them only for both of them to whip their heads around and stare at me as though I had two heads.
"What is that?" Octavia asks, eyes alight as she stares at the apples and popcorn both in turn.
"We've had to…conserve rations. We usually stick to the bars." Bellamy rushes in to explain, clearly a bit embarrassed. That makes sense, I guess. The bars are cheaper and can be stretched to sustain a person much farther…but they also taste like cardboard. I suppose when you're trying to feed three people, especially when one is a big guy like Bellamy, on two ration cards, the strategy would make sense. The system is a ridged one and doles out the same amount for everyone regardless of size. Between both me and my mom being built as small as we are, there's always tons of leftovers, even after taking the more expensive fresh picks.
I hand her the best looking of the apples and sit the popcorn down beside her. "Here. Try it."
She does, but only after inspecting every millimeter of it, mouth agape as she caresses the red skin with her fingertips. I never realized an apple could be sensual, but watching her take her first bite, the juice running down her chin a little as she presses her eyes closed and tilts her head back at the taste…well…just damn. Honestly, she looks more like she's having an orgasm than like she's enjoying a simple piece of fruit. From his position beside me, Bellamy takes a loud crunching bite out of his apple as he watches the movie with his eye glued to the projection.
I chuckle a little at the realization of how uncomfortable he must be locked up with his sister in her innocence when she doesn't know better than to act like this. His strategy seems to be to just ignore it as resolutely as possible. I wonder how much her mother's explained to her. As the movie plays and she gobbles up her apple with Bellamy only just stopping her in time before she eats the seeds and stem too, I find myself watching her more than the movie. Even pale and overly skinny, she's beautiful.
"I want to do that." I hear her say as the end credits role…a seemingly never ending list of dead people who all lived lived a hundred times better than any of us could ever hope for without ever knowing how good they had it. She continues, looking over past me to Bellamy with a wistful smile "If I were on earth. I'd want to be like that."
"What, like Lara Croft Tomb Raider?" I chuckle with a smile.
"Like a badass fighter. I want to be adventurous and run…be free."
Bellamy's smiling too. "It's a game we play. All the things we'd do on earth."
"What would you do?" I ask him, amused.
Bellamy chuckles. "Probably whatever she is. Try to keep her out of trouble. Explore. Maybe do something more important than just standing around guarding things."
"If you don't like being a guard, why'd you do it?"
His mouth presses into a hard line and he glances quickly over to Octavia before shooting me a look.
Octavia answers first. "He did it for me. So he could know the inspection schedules and stuff. Pretty much all he and mom do is try to keep me from getting caught." The guilt in her tone is unmistakable…regret at what her existence has cost her family.
"Wouldn't change a thing." Bellamy says cheerfully, if a little strained. The air is tense around me.
"Well, I'd better head home and try to get some sleep. I'm glad you pulled through. Just be careful not to strain yourself for a few days until you get your strength back."
"Yeah…I'll try not to run any marathons or go on any spacewalks, I guess." The brunette quips.
I grin and turn to Bellamy. "We should avoid being seen together until she's well enough to hide quickly, just in case it draws any attention. I won't come back until then. It isn't worth the risk. In a few days, you should come around the medical center around lunch. Introduce yourself to my mom and be seen going on a walk with me. That'll be enough to give me an excuse to come here without it being suspicious."
His face is serious again, no doubt considering all the ways this could go wrong and get his whole family killed. I understand why. He's had nothing short of a lifetime to obsess over making sure no one ever found about about her. Now, he's had to bring me into the biggest secret possible to have on this ship and blindly hope I don't sell them out or slip up. The safest thing to do for both of us is for me to leave and try to forget the whole thing. Never come back. Pretend I don't even know Octavia Blake exists.
As I look up to meet his eyes I can tell he knows that I could never do that. Now that I know, she's my responsibility too, for better or for worse. I can't abandon her to live out the rest of her life without a single friend. I can't abandon Bellamy to bear this all on he and his mother's own anymore either. With me on board, Octavia has a much higher chance of staying alive for longer…not to mention medical care (at least to some degree), my extra rations, a friend to talk to that isn't a direct relative.