AN: Another chapter without waiting months? I'm as shocked as you are. The writer would like to apologize for being a general disaster of a human being, much less a writer.
Chapter 19
Don't Forget About Me – Cloves
Azgeda
The single cry was too weak to carry beyond the corridor.
The floor was ice, and so was she down to her bones. The half melted snow cascaded down from a bucket. It tore wretched whimpers from Clarke's throat when it engulfed her. Her limbs jerked away from her center, but there was nowhere to escape. Her stomach was bare against the freezing ground.
Not an inch of the cell was dry or warm or clean. The torch had not been lit in longer than Clarke could figure out. Pain fogged her memories. She'd lost count of how many times she'd been woken. How many times had her surrender been demanded.
She would not bow.
They'd have to kill her. Soon, if they wanted the pleasure of it. It'd have to be soon. The Ice Nation would bury her either way. That eventuality was the last comfort left.
She would not bow, and she knew somewhere deep that death would grant her only escape.
The scorching flares in her gut, and the mangled, dirty open wound that was her back meant it'd be soon.
Mt. Weather
Mary paced the narrow, maternity corridor slowly.
"I want Derek, and Clarke," she repeated again. Her whisper wasn't audible to the others. As she stumbled wearily forwards, Mary's head bent towards the ground. She kept her eyes just open enough to keep from running into the wall her hand trailed against.
All those gathered for her waited spread throughout the maternity ward. Mostly they were sitting quietly to stay out of her way.
Nyko had bluntly told them the best way to help her was to leave her alone as long as she was moving around. Though nervous about the too thin, too young girl's endurance, Jackson was satisfied with her progress. He had to admit her stubbornness was helping.
"The ultrasound measurements were inconclusive, but she is within the time range for a safe birth. Perhaps slightly early, but not catastrophically so. We've got the NICU prepared just in case," Jackson assured them quietly.
Hours passed, and Mary grew ever more exhausted. Still she managed on. Just as Nyko said that women had done since the beginning of time.
With Gina and Fox supporting her on either side, Mary squatted down slowly. Behind her, Collette stepped up to brace Mary's weary frame. As she strained, her limbs trembled. She panted heavily. Patiently, Jackson knelt in front of her in wait as she fought to bring the first skaikru child into the world.
With his help, Mary caught her own baby, and pulled him up to her chest as Nyko stepped in. The healer helped her carefully up to recline on the waiting bed, moving her as easily as she weighed nothing.
"He's definitely to be named for Clarke," exclaimed Mary tearfully.
"Little Clarke." agreed Collette gently, looking both awed and overwhelmed, like the rest.
"John Clarke kom Skaikru." whispered the new mother decidedly.
"The first baby born after the Fall," beamed Gina.
"Go let everyone know," Jackson directed.
Handing the baby over to Collette, Gina washed her hands again, pulling off her drape, and rushed out to announce the birth. Jackson had locked the doors of the maternity ward, and so Gina crossed the empty waiting room to unlock the doors.
When she pushed them open, she grinned at the sight.
Nathan Miller came deliberately to his feet from his spot just across from the ward's doors.
Lining the hallway in either direction sat most of the Skaikru in residence, along with quite a few women of the other clans. She couldn't even see everyone as the rows continued around the corners.
"A boy!" she announced eagerly.
Miller grinned, his mouth stretching slowly, as his shoulders fell in relief. "The first Skaikru born since the drop!" he yelled.
A cheer went up, and she had to wait to continue, bouncing on her feet.
"Alright, alright!" she cried, laughing.
"He's little, but stable and nursing well. Mary's exhausted, but Jackson and Nyko both say she's doing fine."
"What's his name?" yelled Raven, from half-way down the corridor.
Gina sobered up, shifting uncertainly, but she forced another smile. She didn't really understand the way everyone in the maternity room had reacted to the name, but she knew it meant something to these kids. She'd heard the story, of course, of John Murphy the boy murdered in the grounder's city. No one could overlook the way all the kids from the dropship thought about Clarke. She was princess, and protector, and leader to them, all rolled into one.
"John Clarke kom Skaikru," she forced herself to announce steadily.
Miller's jaw clenched, and Gina chanced a sweeping glance to either side.
Named for a dead Skaikru boy, and their missing leader who might be dead too, nobody said outloud.
"A good name," Kyle Wick offered, a little too loudly in the suddenly quiet hall, and beside him, Raven nodded.
"A strong name," Miller agreed, his words stiff as his shoulders, but it let the rest relax enough to crowd closer, pelting Gina with questions.
The aftermath of the first Skaikru birth was uncertain and anxious, but by mid-day, mother and child were both deemed to be in good health. The firstborn Skaikru baby weighed just at six pounds, Jackson discovered. Between Jackson and Nyko, they traded positions to assess the child in turn. Together they found him breathing on his own, and nursing, slow, but steadily. Longer than his weight would indicate, the odd pair deemed the newborn stable.
Tucked in to a fresh hospital bed the new pair rested, and nursed by turns. The others bringing in water and food, and someone always sitting with them quietly.
Jackson sat quietly at the desk, first handwriting, then adding to the computer records.
Name: John Clarke
Jackson hesitated. Protocol would demand adding the mother's surname, as the father's was unknown, but it was not what Mary wanted. She'd asked him... Clarke would let her name her child however Mary liked. John Clarke kom Skaikru, Jackson finished. This wasn't the Ark. The old protocols didn't matter much anymore.
Place of Birth: Mt. Weather Sanctuary
Birth Weight: 6lbs2oz
Birth Length: 19inches
Attendants of Birth: Dr. Eric Jackson, and Healer Nyko kom Trikru
Mother: Mary Padma Eng, born Argo Station, the Ark, 4th generation
Father: Name withheld. Arkadian, 3rd generation, died pre-Fall
His notes completed for the time being, Jackson leaned back in the creaky old chair. Nineteen hours was a quick birth, but he was exhausted anyway. On the Ark, doctors had worked in pairs on six-hour shifts. It was deemed the upmost importance to keep only well-rested physicians in attendance for a critical situation. Abby Griffin had been known to send her assistants out at four hour marks if they showed any signs of weariness. When every birth counted, and every resource was measured, allowing a mistake in maternity or neonatal care was a doctor's greatest failing. A child deprived of oxygen during birth, or other such birth accidents, was a drain on resources that they'd never be able to repay.
Here, beneath the ground, there was no doctor to hand over care to. There was no trained medical assistant. Much less a second and third shift.
There was also no law restricting medical resources. No keypad locked medicine cabinet tied to patient's ID number. Only the silent knowledge that as the highest medical authority in residence, he must use his best judgment to allocate... wisely.
Eric Jackson had never imagined being the Chief Medical Officer before he was thirty. Here he was heading a staff of willing, but untrained assistants. With only practiced healers whose medical knowledge was at least three centuries out of date to depend on. The facility was top notch, at least. He leaned forwards onto the desk to rest his strained eyes a moment.
The young doctor was asleep before anyone even noticed he'd laid his head down.
Unpacking the bundle from Nyko onto the exam table, Gina tried to sort out the items. There was an entire stack of thin cloths, a small leather square, a small fur, a few thick baby gowns, and a long, wide unbleached, woven cloth. Blinking at them, she looked up at Nyko hesitantly. Her smile was weak, and her uncertainty obvious.
The Trikru man sighed, and without comment, scooped up the newborn easily. He laid the child on the table. Nyko opened up the small fur he'd been wrapped in, and deftly swaddled the child's bottom first in one of the huge, thin cloths. Then the thin leather wrap followed. A tiny little gown was slipped onto the child by Nyko's great hands, and then the tiny fur was wrapped around him. Red faced, with scrunched nose and eyes, little John Clarke was whining by now. Nyko simply picked him up from the exam table. That done, the healer pressed the freshly swaddled babe into Gina's arms.
Automatically snuggling him against her, Gina nodded in thanks, but Nyko wasn't finished. He grabbed the massive long woven cloth, and began wrapping it around both Gina and the baby, effectively tying the child to her. The moment he'd secured it, Nyko stepped back to eye it critically.
"For keeping the child warm, and close," explained the healer softly, tapping the cloth wrap.
"Thank you." murmured Mary sincerely, her sleepy eyes gleaming up at the giant bear of a healer from where she watched on the raised bed.
Nyko's expression did not soften as he looked down to her, but Mary still believed she saw warmth in his dark eyes.
"Jackson wants the baby to stay in the isolette overnight except while nursing. Just for the monitors," Gina reminded.
Mary's eyes drifted closed again.
The new mother nodded sleepily, and allowed Gina to carry the baby out of her room. Nyko took a seat again, near the cabinet, and waited silently to be relieved of his watch.
Azgeda
The queen's men had fallen behind, and Roan spared a thought in gratitude that his mother had not wasted the best of her army on his watch.
And that the healer could out ride any third-rate queen's guard. There was no need to slow his pace on her behalf.
Then men on the gates above the palace let them pass without a word, but Roan knew they'd send a messenger running to the queen. He rode his foam covered mount all the way to the palace steps. Swiftly dismounting, he abandoned it, hurtling forwards.
Not a single man stopped their progress.
There was no one barring the entrance to the dungeons, and when Roan threw the door open, he swore.
It was pitch black below.
Seiku pivoted, yanking a torch off the wall a few feet away, and returning to lead the way down.
Down.
Down.
Not only the torches, but the fires had been allowed to die. Or been killed.
If outside was frigid, then this was a frozen hell.
Roan's boots skidded on the wet steps, and he faltered.
He did not dare order Seiku to lower the torch enough so that they might determine what liquid remained only half-dried beneath their feet.
Prisoners whined, and cried out, but as they passed by, Seiku only held the torch still long enough at each cell to see their faces.
There was no one else below.
Not a single guard or second.
Not even at the grate of her cell.
At the end of the first crooked hallway, Seiku drew his heavy ring of keys, and unlocked it.
Roan stepped around him, moving into the gateway.
No, there was no guard at her door.
You did not have to prevent a corpse's escape.
Roan fell to his knees in the foul dampness just within her cell.
Blackened with dried blood, and bruises, she lay face down at an unnatural angle. One knee bent oddly, her bare arms spread out as if she'd been tossed down already dead. Her back... nothing left but a bloody ruin. Bloody, weeping, infected mess that it is. Vomit, and piss surround her, but nothing more so than black blood. So much for sacred nitblid. The torchlight glinted dimply on the knotted tangle of black and gold.
He could not move forwards. He could not touch her. Not like this.
Roan's eyes shuttered.
Seventeen, and unblemished, her face smooth and clean, eyes like a summer's twilight, tossing back her hood to reveal a gold braided crown... mischief and intrigue sparkling in every bit of her face... that sullen mouth curving invitingly by turns. That was how he remembered her in Polis.
The sky princess, his last dream.
The queen would fall for this.
Remy touched his shoulder, but he ignored her.
He'd brought his favorite healer for a dead girl.
She'd stopped screaming yesterday, they'd said, and it'd been hours more before he'd reached her. He'd taken too long. Never should have left the capital. Roan should have known there would be more to his mother's plotting than the fires.
Prisa. Wanheda. Clarke kom Skaikru.
Remy shoved his shoulder to pass by him, and still Roan ignored her.
Her footsteps squelched on the wet stones.
Whipped and beaten and doused with water to die alone. This was a traitor's fate.
"Not an ounce of mercy," Remy swore.
She'd only been a slip of a girl. Not even a year on the ground.
Roan didn't hear the cry that erupted from himself.
"Seiku, lower that torch," Remy's voice was distant.
Blowing out a hard breathe that came out loud in the cavernous dungeons, Roan fought to center himself. He did not open his eyes, or acknowledge the thick slime seeping into his pants. He did not wish to watch the healer, and whatever she felt compelled to do after edging towards...
With the light lowered, Remy eyed the pool of black blood upon the floor. The grate in the floor was covered by a thick, soaking horse's blanket. The sodden wool slowed the drain to a trickle. It ensured that a prisoner would have no relief in time.
Remy crouched above the girl. The water thinned blood that had covered her had dried above the waterline. It made it impossible to determine her identity, other than that she was a pale skinned, blonde girl. The prince was certain, and so was Seiku, so Remy did not doubt. The dousing had cleared enough of the blood away to see the stripes cut into her flesh with thick, raised edges. Bruising covered her from the nape of her neck, her head was turned away, to the ragged, soaked riding pants. The little Remy could see of her face was blackened with the thinned blood.
Putting the girl back together again would have been a miracle.
The healer glanced back at the prince. On his knees, his world in pieces. Then back to what remained on the floor, and Seiku, crouching down. The warrior brought one hand to the face of the body between himself and Remy. She met his eyes, and they held the answer.
There only one solution that could make sense. If Roan did not touch her... did not come closer, nor wipe away the grime and blood from the girl's face... it did not have to be her. Just another of his mother's manipulations. The pitiful mess could be taken away and dealt with before their prince recovered his senses enough to check.
It was folly, but...
Remy touched the girl's head slowly. It really was such a bright gold where the water had washed away the sins done to her. She must have been a beautiful girl, though she wasn't much more than a child, for the way the prince had waxed over her these past weeks.
"Sire," Remy began, choking on the lies, but Seiku spoke up instead.
