Chapter Text
Clarke ran as hard as she could, the air burning in her lungs. She could hear the radiation wave closing in and pushed harder, faster, finally seeing the door to the lab. She pushed more but faltered on her last steps seeing a slumped body sitting against it. Confused and desperate to get inside she shook herself, doubting anyone exposed to the radiation would survive even if she managed to get them both inside. What she didn’t expect was two familiar blue eyes to look up at her before they rolled back in his head.
“Roan?” Clarke gasped, glancing behind herself and forcing her body back into motion. “How-“
It didn’t matter. Not now. If they survived this, she could ask questions. Clarke used the last reserves of strength she had in her to pull the door open, looking up at the radiation wave as she grabbed Roan’s shoulders and dragged him inside. She screamed out in frustration as she tugged the heavy body until they finally made it far enough inside for her to close the door. She needed to get them as far down as possible but she doubted it would do enough. She pulled Roan further inside, jostling a moan out of him as she dragged him down a couple of stairs before she collapsed beside him, her face burning, hands searing and heart racing. Her vision got cloudy as she turned to look over at the king, a thick line of black blood oozing from his forehead. She tried to reach for him but her arms refused to cooperate before her vision blurred entirely until she was sucked into the dark void of unconsciousness.
~*~*~
Clarke woke slowly, her head pounding and a sick wave of nausea ripping through her stomach making her curl up on herself.
“Fuck,” she swore as she opened her eyes, memories flickering through her mind.
Bellamy. The gun. Raven stuck in the lab. The antenna. A blinding streak of light through the apocalyptic red sky as the shuttle left her behind. Running. Burning air in her lungs. Blue eyes. Pain. So much pain.
Her eyes focussed and landed on the body beside her.
“Shit, Roan?” Her voice rasped hoarsely as she struggled to get herself upright. “Roan!”
The man didn’t answer as she moved over to him, pressing her fingers to his artery. She felt a weak but steady pulse to her relief, amazed that he was here. She thought he’d died in the conclave. She remembered the painful lurch in her heart when it was Octavia’s voice not his on the other side of the door. If it had been Roan- she shook her head.
“Roan?” she whispered, trying to force her hands into motion. She’d need to see how extensive his injuries were.
“Come on, Griffin,” she said, pushing herself to move, even as her muscles screamed in pain. “Think it through. You can do it.”
She pulled herself onto her feet and stumbled through the room, trying to figure out what worked and what didn’t. The lights seemed to be holding out by some miracle. They were flickering and out in several rooms including the kitchen but she found the cupboard and grabbed a couple of bottles of water. She thanked Emori’s boredom before they left for filling them all because if the filtration system was gone she only had whatever water had been pumped into the tanks and even that may already be compromised.
“Food,” she sighed in relief, pulling open the next cupboard revealing a whole slew of cans and dried food. “Okay we have water and we have food. Now where did they keep the medical kit?”
Clarke grabbed a flashlight, rubbing at her eyes to keep her focus as she walked down to the living space of the lab checking the bathrooms and hallway cupboards until she found a large metal medical case.
“Jackpot,” she smiled, opening it and finding a couple of bags of saline along with everything else she may need.
Raven must have had the foresight to stock all this. Either that or Becca was just some sort of magical being but Clarke wasn’t about to question it as she took what she’d need immediately and moved it to the room nearest the top floor of the lab. She stripped the mattress of the bed and put down a couple of towels in hopes of protecting it from whatever treating the king may bring. Now to the problem of how she was going to move a man several inches taller and many pounds heavier than her, in here so she could treat him, when her body felt like it was about to give out at any second.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she swore as she searched the lab. There must be something .
“It’ll have to do,” she said, looking at the wheeled office chair.
“If I can get you into it,” Clarke said, speaking to Roan’s unconscious form as she positioned the chair beside him. “Then we can do this. Just help if you can.”
She squatted down over his waist and pulled him into a sitting position, knowing that this was the easy part. She braced herself and pulled him onto his knees. Clarke focussed entirely on getting her shoulder under his as best as she could before she shuffled him over to the chair, muscles screaming and head aching but finally she managed, dropping him heavily, his head rolling back on his neck.
“Shit,” she swore, checking him just to be sure but he didn’t make a noise. She pressed her fingers to his pulse finding it still weak but there.
“Alright, one more lift then we’re good,” she said, straightening and finding her arms covered in black blood. “Fuck.”
She hurriedly pushed the chair into the bedroom, stripping him of his leather jacket and ripping off his shirt. It would be easier to do this now.
“Okay, Roan,” she said as she checked his torso, finding several small abrasions but nothing major on his belly. “I’ve got to strip you and then move you again. I don’t know who thought they’d killed you but they must have done something that looked like you were done.”
She unlaced his boots and tugged them off, deciding to deal with his pants once he was on the bed. There was less body to move around that way. She ran her fingers over a dark band of bruising around his neck. Someone must have tried to strangle him. Maybe they only made him unconscious rather than killing him. Obviously. He was still here. He had small burns all over his face, long trails that looked like rivers down the side meaning he must have been caught out in the rain at some point. He certainly looked like he’d been through hell. She cupped his cheek, running her fingers softly over his cheek.
“Okay, let’s do this,” she whispered and forced her protesting body back into action, managing with only a little trouble to get him into bed.
“Right,” she sighed when she saw a long, shallow cut over his back, blood glistening in the low light. “That’s where the blood came from. I must have reopened the wound.”
Clarke settled in beside him, cleaning the wound on his back thoroughly before stitching it closed and covering it in a bandage. It should heal just fine and was far from fatal. There was a smaller cut on his side that she dressed before turning him onto his back. She cleaned and dressed the few larger wounds on his chest and arm before she took his pants off, revealing one large incision on his right thigh. She sighed, glancing up at where he still lay unconscious and pushed herself to finish, the stitching on his leg a little less perfect than the others.
“All done,” she said, pulling a blanket over his hips. “I’m going to give you an IV which I’m sure you’ve never heard of but it will give you fluids. I have no idea how long we were out for, or I was out, but you’ll need fluids. Lots. We should be compatible blood types now and I’ll give you some if you’re in bad shape. I’m sorry, it’s the best I can do.”
By the time she had hooked the IV full of saline to his arm she was shaking from fatigue but Roan was comfortable. Or as comfortable as he could be given the circumstances. She’d done what she could for now. Now she just had to wait until he woke up. If he woke up.
“Alright, rest now,” she whispered, pushing the hair back from his forehead. “I’m going to clean up and then see if I can drag another mattress in here. I may have to lie down in another room for a while but I’m here, Roan. I’m here.”
*~*~*
It had been four days and Roan was still unconscious. Clarke sat by his bedside watching him sleep, wishing she knew what to do. She’d done everything she could think of. Maybe he just wasn’t going to wake up. She sighed, rubbing her eyes forcing herself to keep going. It wasn’t absolutely desperate yet. He could survive a couple of weeks without food. He’d be weak, but he could do it.
“Time to wake up, your highness,” she said, running her fingers through his hair. “Talking to you like this is starting to make me look insane.”
He didn’t do much more than shift a little in his sleep and that was the one thing that gave her hope his body was just using all its resources to heal.
Clarke ran her fingers down the scar framing his right eye before standing and moving into the kitchen area. She had searched the lab from top to bottom and done her best to work out how their supplies would hold out. They had enough food to last them maybe a couple of months if they ate the bare minimum, but more likely about one. Water wasn’t abundant but they had enough for a couple of months even with the occasional bath. She had found the generators responsible for running the filtration and bore pump but they weren’t working and she had no idea how she was going to fix them. If she could.
“I need you Raven,” Clarke grumbled as she moved into the control room to make the radio call.
“Hi, Bellamy,” she started as she had from the first day. “Day four. Maybe five from what I can tell. I don’t know how long I was out. Roan is still unconscious but he’s stirring more so I’m hoping that means he’ll wake up soon. His wounds are healing well so I’m guessing it’s just the trauma from the radiation and the Conclave.”
“We have enough water and food to last us for a while,” she said, looking into the dark screen that once showed her information about the world. “After that though – I don’t know what we’ll do. Or what I’ll do if Roan doesn’t-“
She stopped, clearing her throat as emotion clogged her vocal chords. She took a breath and started again, imagining Bellamy’s words of comfort.
‘Roan will wake up, Clarke’ he’d say calmly, hands warm on her shoulders. ‘You just have to give him time.’
“You’re right,” she whispered into the handset. “He’ll wake up. It hasn’t been that long. It took Luna time to assimilate the radiation. Along with the other injuries, it’s not surprising he’s still sleeping. Considering the amount of pain I’m in and my injuries are nowhere near as bad as his, he just needs time.”
“I plan on going to see how bad the blockage is today,” she continued. “I’ll wear the suit just in case, but it’s more for temperature protection at this point. It’s hot. Not unbearable, but hot. I guess I’ll be complaining about the cold soon enough. Well, I hope it doesn’t look too horrible from up there. That we’ll be able to get out when we need to. Just know that I’m okay. We’re okay. We will be.”
She turned off the radio, hoping that even if they couldn’t respond, they could still hear her. Still know that she was okay. That they didn’t have to live with her death on top of everything else. But there was no way of knowing. Clarke took a deep breath, steeling herself before she looked in on Roan once again. She wouldn’t be away long but she needed to see if anything had changed. What they would be facing once they ventured out.
*~*~*
“I guess not much else has changed,” Clarke said, staring out into the quiet lab, the blue low-wattage lights she preferred to leave on for the minimal amount of light making the area eerie. “The generators stopped working today. I have to see if I can fix it. Right now it just means I don’t have lights but there’s nothing critical that doesn’t work except the water pump. So I’ll have to read the manuals and try and figure it all out. Maybe it’s a blown fuse. That’s what it always was in the movies we used to watch as kids.”
Clarke laughed a little humorlessly, wiping at the tears of frustration that leaked out. She took another deep breath, knowing she needed to get back to it.
“I’ve got to check on Roan,” she continued, voice going soft and a little hollow. “I don’t know, Bellamy. I- I’m trying to keep being hopeful but- if he doesn’t wake up in the next few days- I can’t- God- if I can’t save him, how am I going to make it five years? Sorry, I don’t mean to leave on a sad note but it’s hard to keep thinking he’s about to wake up and then nothing. Like these calls. I just hope you can hear me.”
“Really hope,” she added, taking a deep breath. “I’ll check in again tomorrow. I’m going to see if I can get some sleep. Deal with the generators. Shake Roan until he wakes up. Maybe kiss him like in the fairy tales?” She laughed bitterly, releasing her thumb from the radio, before she continued. “Probably kill him from shock if I do that. Maybe turn him into a frog with my luck. I’ll let you know tomorrow. Stay safe.”
Clarke put the radio back down, standing and leaving the lab before wandering through the dark hallway into Roan’s room, eyeing the mattress she’d put beside his bed. Instead of laying down there she sat down beside the sleeping king, looking at his chapped lips and debating the wisdom of her fairytale strategy but pressed a kiss to his forehead instead, resting her own against his.
Six days. Probably a week. He needed to wake up soon. Clarke attached her second bag of saline to the IV in his arm. Once this bag was done she’d have to read the manuals and see if she could make more. Likely she wouldn’t be able to test it and at that point it may be too dangerous to guess. Fuck. She’d have to rely on his swallowing instinct if nothing more and that wasn’t promising.
“Come on, Roan,” she whispered next to his ear. “What can I do?”
She watched his face, eyes moving behind his lids the only indication that there was something happening inside that sleeping body. She laid down beside him in the bed, but she felt like a trespasser. After the way they’d left things- she didn’t know what he’d think of her once he woke. If she was still worse than a traitor in his eyes. Clarke closed her own against the sting of tears.
“I’m sorry, Roan,” she whispered. “I’m sorry and I’ll do whatever you want if you just wake up. I shouldn’t have cut you out. I should have asked you- you deserved more. Please just wake up. Please.”
She let the tears fall against his pillow, her fingers weaving through his. The hands that had been gentle when they could have, should have even, hurt her. Hands that had done everything they could to keep her safe. And how had she repaid him? By betraying him. Cutting him out of her plans. Maybe she’d known that he’d call her out. Tell her it would never work but she had been so desperate. And it had all been for nothing.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered over and over in his ear, hoping that he heard her. Hoping that he came back. Even angry and refusing to speak to her. If he was here it was something.
“Please wake up,” she whispered desperately, finally allowing her body the rest she’d been denying it.