CHAPTER 2

~Clarke~

This Blake guy was getting on her last nerves. Throughout the car ride, Bellamy had endless amounts of criticisms of her from the way she dressed, the way she talked, the car she drove… he was lucky that her job was to heal people and not kill them.

What had been the final straw was when Bellamy found out at the hospital that Clarke was a resident.

"What do you mean that you sent some amateur to take care of my sister?" Bellamy demanded of the overseeing doctor.

"I would like to point out that this amateur did a pretty damn good job of taking care of your sister," Clarke reminded him sternly. She was so tired of his crap.

Bellamy looked like he was about to say something but his sister, who was sitting on the medical bed between them, stopped him, "Oh come on Bell. You're being absolutely ridiculous and you know it. If you wouldn't mind, I would like it if you would cool it before I have to go under for surgery." Because of the kind of fracture, Octavia was going to have metal in her wrist to keep her bones together. Clarke looked at her thoughtfully. Octavia looked to be around her age with thinner frame and long, straight brown hair that framed an incredibly gorgeous face. It was clear that Octavia carried the same determined personality that Bellamy did but in a way that was a hell of a lot less offensive. Clarke could imagine herself being good friends with Octavia. With Bellamy? Not so much.

Not wanting to disturb her patient further with useless banter, Clarke left the room promptly, walking down the halls of the hospital. She had already had a pretty bad day without Bellamy rubbing it in her face that she was a lowly resident. Residents weren't treated well by the hospital as doctors to begin with so it was a low blow to be criticized by the family of a patient. It didn't help that her mom was the chief of surgery here and was constantly pushing her to be the best.

Clarke sighed heavily at the thought. It didn't matter that Clarke had gone to preschool a year earlier than everyone else or that she had gotten through undergrad at Princeton in 3 years instead of 4; she would always be pushed to be better by her mom.

Clarke was so lost in the awful mood that Bellamy had put her in that she nearly walked straight into a set of shoulders that just barely reached her nose.

"Oh! I'm so sorry- Oh hey Finn!"

The man in front of her boyishly grinned down at her, "Hey Clarke! How are you doing today?"

Finn was an art therapist who had been assigned to help with the reconstruction of the children's wing in the hospital. His easy going and charming nature had Clarke's heart fluttering in her chest, no matter how much she tried to quiet it.

Clarke's love life had not been easy. When Clarke was at Princeton for undergrad, she met and fell in love with another student there, Lexa. Lexa was part of the New York elite: beautiful, strong and born to be a leader. When Clarke met her, Lexa was about to inherit a business that had been around for centuries; Lexa's family had been one of the first immigrants to New York.

At first, Clarke was put off by Lexa's determination to push aside feelings in order to pursue her dreams of being one of the most influential leaders in corporate America. However, that was before Clarke learned why; Lexa planned to change the business into something that could make the world a better, safer place.

With Lexa, Clarke too began to dream on a more global scale. She tossed around the idea of becoming involved with medical legislation instead of medicine directly as a doctor. She dreamed about standing with Lexa as global leaders, making a huge difference. She also dreamed about the electric glamor of the New York blue blood elite. Of summers spent in the Hamptons and shopping sprees in Manhattan. And doing it all at Lexa's side.

But that was before Clarke's father died, leaving her mother all alone in a small town outside of Austin, Texas. A town that she grew up in, a town surrounded by ranches and farms that didn't have the proper medical support they needed to do more than just survive. The hospital, named the Ark, was falling apart and Clarke's mom Abby, the chief of surgery, and the head of the Ark's board Thelonius Jaha were struggling to meet the needs of the community due to lack of resources and willingness of new doctors to come out to the middle of nowhere to help better the programs. In the end, Clarke realized that her true dream was to come back to her people, to make a difference with them. It was a more humble dream but with each step that Clarke took to get closer to it, she realized that this dream suited her better.

When Lexa and Clarke parted, it was bittersweet. They both knew they couldn't be together but they were proud and full of love for the other. Clarke hadn't spoken to Lexa since graduation but from what she could gather from Facebook, Lexa had acquired full control over the company she had worked so hard for and was currently improving working conditions for her workers in Asia.

Even 5 years later, Clarke could still feel the invisible pull towards Lexa. And when the Ark's children's wing was anonymously financed for reconstruction, a fierce dream Clarke had only talked of once while lying in Lexa's arms, Clarke knew that Lexa felt the same way. Despite it all, Clarke hoped that her connection to Lexa would never change.

It felt almost serendipitous that Clarke would meet Finn through the very project that Lexa had commissioned, as if there was hope for a new love. Clarke doubted already that Finn would ever be replace Lexa but she hoped that his gentle kindness would give her heart something new to think about. Over the course of the last month, Finn and Clarke had gone on several dates but often had to work around Finn's busy schedule which was, oddly enough, seemingly busier than hers as a first year resident.

"I'm sorry about ditching last night," Finn said, as if reading her thoughts. "I got called in for an urgent matter with a patient and had to go."

Clarke looked at him. The truth was that it had hurt a bit to wake up in bed alone. Clarke had never been in any kind of relationship where she would have been in that situation before there had been alarms firing off in her head all day about what that could mean. But this was Finn we were talking about here. There was no way that this smiling face in front of her would lie to her so Clarke brushed the doubts aside.

"No problem! Just let me know with a text or something next time? To be honest, it was really weird."

"You are completely right," Finn said smiling as he leaned down to kiss her forehead, "Open and honest communication from now on."

After Finn walked away to head up some terrible mural mishap in the children's wing, Clarke decided it was time to head back to the battlefield. AKA: Octavia's hospital room.

The scene she walked in on was not what she was expecting in the least. Octavia was fast asleep (delaudid tended to do that to you) but Bellamy was not. His chair was pulled up closely to his sister's bed and his elbows were propped up against its side as he stared at her. The look was full of genuine concern, love and fierce protection. For a minute, Clarke wondered what must have happened to the two of them to cause such a look.

It was even more disorienting when Bellamy looked up at her as he realized she had walked into the room, the look in his eyes showing vulnerability that was not unfamiliar in the hospital.

"Look. I'm sorry about being rough earlier." Bellamy's apology was quick and to the point, no added fluff needed.

"It's okay," Clarke said. "I get it."

The door opened suddenly, and Abby walked in surrounded by a few of Clarke's colleagues. At her entrance, Octavia woke up, groggily looking around her.

"Good evening," Abby said quickly as she flipped through a clipboard "Ms. Blake. I am Dr. Griffin, chief of surgery here at the Ark, and I will be handling your surgery tomorrow morning. I have delivered a set of instructions to your nurse for pre-surgery prep and I need you to follow them carefully. From this moment forward, for example, you must make sure to abstain from food."

"Why is that?" Bellamy asked, curiosity leaking into his voice. Abby turned to him as if just then realizing his existence.

"And who are you? I saw no husband in Ms. Blake's charts and you are clearly not old enough to be her father." Clarke winced at her mother's curtness. Bedside manner was sometimes a struggle with Abby who was a great doctor but also all business.

Bellamy puffed up his chest a little before standing up and reaching out his hand. "My name is Bellamy Blake. I'm Octavia's older brother."

Abby looked at Bellamy's offered hand before reaching out and shaking it. "So, I am assuming you are the one we will need to turn to for a few of our missing documents. It says here that we haven't gotten your sister's insurance card… do you even have insurance?"

Bellamy stiffened, "Of course. I just stupidly left the card at home. I can run and get it after the surgery."

Abby frowned at him, "Well, I suggest you get it now, sir, if you do indeed have it." With that, Abby turned on her heel and walked out the door, her gaggle of residents following her taking notes.

Clarke turned to the Blakes, "You'll have to excuse my her. She gets very tense when she prepares for surgery. She is, however, an excellent doctor, and your sister couldn't be in better hands."

"Dr. Griffin." Bellamy's response was icy, his eyes unreadable.

"Yes?" Clarke asked, confused.

"As in related to the Dr. Griffin who just walked out of here like the Sith Lord on his way to kill jedi?" Clarke wanted to laugh at the reference but couldn't under his steady glare.

"Bell. Did you just seriously make a Star Wars joke? You are so lame." Octavia looked at him and stuck her tongue out.

"Well yes, I am Dr. Griffin's daughter." Clarke responded to Bellamy's question, admittedly a bit nervous about what response it would illicit.

Bellamy smirked. "Huh. Figures. Nice car, nice job. Must help to have mommy as the chief of surgery. Wonder what daddy does? Let me guess some stuck up lawyer."

Now that was way too far.

"Having your mother breathe over your neck as a resident, if you must know, is nothing nice. Also, I get that my mom was rude but she is about to heal your sister. Not only that, if it weren't for my mom this hospital, the only one between your ranch and the hour it takes to get to Austin, I'll remind you, would not even be in existence. Also, my father, for your information, is dead." Clarke spat out the last sentence as if it left a bad taste in her mouth.

At the shocked looks on the Blake's faces, she knew that it was her time, to once again leave the hell hole that was slowly becoming Room 112 in the hospital. As she opened the door, she turned to meet Bellamy's eyes one more time before saying quietly, "My father was a teacher."

She left then to hurry off to her other rounds, trying to forget the last look of Bellamy's eyes, a look that she had craved for 5 years since her father's death and the loss of her best lover and friend. It wasn't sympathy or empathy, pity or apathy.

It was the look of understanding.