1. Thank you so much! On behalf of all of us, we really appreciate it!
2. Yes, yes I can!

They say seeing it coming makes it easier, but Clarke knew how wrong that was. When you could see it coming, you did everything in your power to put off the inevitable. 

She knew what was happening- it was her job to know- and she had looked at the situation as professionally as possible for as long as she could: her dad was a patient, and this was nothing she didn’t deal with any other day. 

So why did watching her nurse, Octavia, covering her father’s head knock the air out of her? Maybe it was her shaking hands still holding the AED paddles, or the constant, ringing sound of a flatline, but she was suddenly hyperaware of everything wrong in the room.

“Off,” she gasped, feeling parched, unable to swallow, as if all of the moisture in her body was pooling elsewhere. Like behind her eyes, where it felt like her eyeballs were going to burst out of their sockets. “Turn the monitor off.”

Obediently, Octavia complied, and it was silent. Too silent. Clarke couldn’t think about anything other than the fact that the body under the blanket was just another cadaver that the medical school would use. Future doctors would spend endless nights putting words in a book into real life situations. They would make up stories about his life. One of those future doctors would go home on Christmas and tell her dad all about the viscosity of the abdominal cavity her cadaver had. Would he laugh and grimace as her dad had? 

Now all Clarke could see were her father’s chest cut open for autopsy.

Because he was dead.

The paddles fell from her hands, and Octavia hovered in the peripheral of Clarke’s vision. She wanted her gone. She wanted the whole room around her to be gone.

“Dr. Griffin,” Octavia spoke, her voice soft and uncertain. “Clarke?”

That got her attention, and Clarke’s eyes focused on her friend’s face. The same look Octavia had given countless patient families was now turned to Clarke. Sympathy in the form of sad eyes and a small sigh that said ‘I did everything I could to help, but it’s over,’ would have soothed anyone, except now Clarke knew how wrong it was. She was the doctor. She fixed things. She saved lives.

“Clarke!” Octavia yelled her name, and Clarke realized she was hyperventilating, digging her fingernails into her palms. “Breathe,” Octavia commanded, placing her hands on her shoulders, guiding her to the recliner in the far corner of the room.

Breathe? Clarke couldn’t even remember how to swallow- if she could, the lump in her throat would be gone and she could see past the blurriness in her eyes.

“I- I- I-” she tried to get the words out, but what was she going to say? Nothing would make it okay. Everyone she loved was gone. Her mother had died two years ago, alongside her brother Wells, in a fiery car accident that luckily she had been off call for and hadn’t had to see their last, pained gasps for air. 

Octavia stepped away from here, and towards the wall, picking up the phone and talking quickly to someone on the other end.

Holding her hands before her face, Clarke watched how they shook, representing everything that would make a bad doctor. She knew she was crying, and that Octavia whispered something to her, but what about her dad? Was he still around, lingering? What was she supposed to do, knowing that he would soon be transported downstairs, where he would live the rest of his stay as a body in a small, metal cabinet. Then he would be ash in a ceramic pot, and she would hold him, like he was supposed to do her. 

Clarke had never felt more like a little girl, completely lost in the world. The last time she’d hugged her dad was weeks ago. The last thing she said to him was that she was ordering some blood work and that she’d see him in a few hours. Did he know how much she loved him?

Completely shattering, Clarke folded into herself, wrapping her arms around her torso and curled into the fetal position against the back of the chair. Every tear she had kept herself from shedding erupted from her, berating her lungs and her chest, sending aching spasms through them. Minutes passed this way, with Octavia attempting to make some sort of communication, and Clarke dissolving. 

Footsteps sounded from the doorway, and before Clarke could look up, she was pulled into a pair of arms she would recognize anywhere. 

Bellamy.

He smelled of scrub wash and hospital-issued scrubs, and Clarke breathed him in, hoping his familiarity would calm her.

“Princess,” he urged softly, running his fingers through her hair, holding her to him as he knelt before her, “we need to go home now, okay?”

When she didn’t respond, Bellamy gripped her face in his hands and held her head away from his body, forcing her to look at him.

“Dr. Griffin, pull yourself together.” The sharp tone he used was one he reserved for the interns, not her. This made her angry- it made her stop crying.

Before she could snap at him, he kissed her forehead, and she felt him lean into her scalp with eyes squeezed shut: she wasn’t the only one mourning.This snapped her into gear, and she hugged him as hard as she could, fighting the sobs that hiccuped out of her. 

“Brave princess,” Bellamy cooed, running his fingers through her hair. 

Clarke knew, then an there, that she would be okay. Her heart was a gaping hole- and how on earth was she supposed to say goodbye and leave this room?- but Bellamy… he would help her fill it in.