13 – 4

She looks small.

She's not supposed to look small.

It's the bed, I should think. Hull and Turner were insistent their captain be given the largest they could find; an insistence indulged by Interim Mayor Merigold. It took both knights and all three of the young men, the brothers Cooper, to carry her. The pile of blankets covering her rise and fall with her steady breath. Her hand is warm, heavy, and utterly slack in mine. They left us here: her, Clarke, and me; not staying long enough to see how ill-suited it is. They'd have moved her if they had.

I peel the summit from the hill of blankets that covers her; the next one, too. Fold them one by one and stack them on the room's only chair. It's the blankets, I should think. There's far too many of them. Put me in her place and I'd disappear beneath them; it's no wonder they've made her small, made her less.

One of the quilts is more thickly woven than I expected. It slips through my fingers, rustles to the floor. It's frustration that stings my eyes and blurs the sight of that rumpled mound of cloth. My eye throbs and burns with swollen heat. Swallow the knot in my throat and bend down to pick up the quilt. The cracking scab that runs the length of my back pulls awfully at the tender skin it clings to. With all my new injuries I'd managed to forget it was there. I should've knelt. I should've left it alone.

End up on the floor, on top of the damned quilt. Let my head fall back against the side of the bed. Blink a blurry, bleary eye at the ceiling, gold-washed by the hearth's light; I can't see at all out the other. The knot comes back, all bramble and thorn. I try to swallow it back down, pulling in a shaky hiccup of a breath, but it won't go. It digs in and it hurts, just like everything else. I take another shuddering breath. It catches in my chest; in the same place Flint pinned me with his knee. My eye throbs. It burns with swollen heat.

The first sob comes as a surprise. It heaves up and tears through the knot, leaving me in an ugly, rasping sound. I catch the next in my palm, tasting salt and silt on my lips. I heave with them; shudder with them. They nearly choke me as they come. All I can do is tell myself, again and again: it's over, he can't get to me here, and she won't be hurt anymore. I say it until I start to believe; until I start to feel safe. It is over, now.

They start to taper off, leaving behind a stung-eyed, locked-jaw breed of calm. I swipe away lingering tears and scrub their salten trails from my cheeks. Pinch the snot from my nose. It won't last, it can't; I've plenty more tears to shed over this; but for now, I can breathe.

Take long, slow breaths; pull them deep, let them out smooth. Drop my head back, squint one-eyed at the ceiling. Listen to us, to Juliana and me. Our rhythms match, rising and falling together. I close my eye and drift, following the quilt's neat stitching with my fingers. A wry little smile pulls across my mouth.

It's the bed, is it? Or maybe the blankets? Both?

Of course. It can't be anything else; it's just not possible.

I snort. Crack my eye open and lay it on that stupid stack of blankets. What was I thinking? Probably the same as Hull, Turner, and Meri. They'd ran around like chickens; snatching up near-to every blanket in this place, arguing the whole time about how and where to drape them. There was nothing helpful we could do, so we all did something and pretended it was. Fools, every last one of us.

Footsteps in the hallway. Clarke, coming back from the baths. I should move; she's going to hit me with the door. Trouble is, I'm not sure I can. I am weary, down to my very bones. Filthy as I am, I might just sleep here. I may have already. There are a few stretches of time I can't account for. She stops outside the door and doesn't open it. Were it not so quiet, I wouldn't have heard her rest her head on the door; nor the sniffling breath she'd done so well to hide.

I find my way to standing, then to the door. Pull it open. There are tears unshed in her eyes, exhaustion and lingering fear in her every last inch. “Hi,” she whispers, voice breaking. “It's...the baths are free.”

Oh, Clarke.

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She flinches when I reach for her. My arms drop. I can't breathe anymore. I taste salt and silt on my lips; feel bramble and thorn when I swallow. My eye throbs and burns with swollen heat. Tears spill as a wretched sound leaves her. “No,” she gasps, “I didn't – I'm sorry, I just –”

She stops. She has to. There's a knot in her throat, all bramble and thorn. I sniff and in a trembling voice ask, “Can – Can I?” She nods. Falls into my arms. Shatters.

- - -

Clarke's legs are in my lap, her face in the crook of my neck. She's sobbing. They sound like mine had felt; wretched, choking things that leave her gasping for breath. I press my lips to her brow and close my eyes; pull her to me and hold her tight. This is torture. I'm here, I promise. I mouth the words into her heated skin. I'm with you. Offering anything else would be false; pretense, like me with the bed or the others with the blankets. She fists her hands in my sleeve and the back of my shirt, clinging to me as if I were all that kept her sane.

My heart hurts. It keens with every sound that's wrenched from her throat, every tear that burns a trail down my neck. We sit on top of the damned quilt and rock while Juliana sleeps on above us.

I could really use her help right now.

It goes on. This is torment. It's worse than the magi at the gate, than the smoke and heat of the Valdenwood fire. This is agony the bramble-beast would've been proud of. “I'm here,” I whisper them aloud this time, breathing the oath into her hair. “I'm with you.”

It's all I have. I'll give it gladly, again and again, until my voice gives out and I'm back to shaping silent words with cracked, silt-stained lips. I tell her when her choking sobs gentle into weeping, when she gets hiccups from all her gasping for breath. I tell her when the last of her tears fall and she nuzzles her nose into my neck.

“I know,” she whispers, and her voice is wrecked. “I'm sorry.”

“What for?” I ask.

She's quiet for a moment. Breathes. “I don't know,” she confesses, “I just – I feel awful.”

“It's alright,” I say. I kiss her hair and rub her back; let my fingers bump down her spine. She relaxes into me with a sigh. Her clawing hold on my shirt and sleeve loosen, arms falling to loop around my waist. This is a moment of slow, gentle warmth. Clarke snorts. I stir. “What?”

Her smile curves on my skin. “It's hasn't even been a week since we left Amberdusk.”

I crack my eye open. No idea when I'd closed it. Peer down at the crown of her head. “It hasn't?” She hums, shaking her head. Her lashes tickle. It makes it hard to count back. I manage. “It hasn't!” I drop my head back and groan at the ceiling. She laughs into my neck. “This isn't funny!”

She shrugs. “It's a little funny.”

“It is not,” I grumble.

Clarke pushes up to shelve her chin on my shoulder. Her blue eyes are bright. “No?”

“No!”

“Alright,” she concedes, and drops back down. She drums a rhythm over my hip; plays it a little way down my leg, then back up again.

I sigh. “Clarke?”

She kisses my shoulder. “Hm?”

“Maybe it's a – little – funny.”

Coda

Maybe being dead isn't all that bad. She's warm, comfortable, and hardly anything hurts. It even smells nice; a kind of mix of wood-smoke and soap. She'd been led to believe in an altogether more dramatic hereafter, the kind with golden halls of endless sunlight for the good ones and naught but freezing darkness for the bad. A little room in a cozy cabin didn't exactly line up.

Not to complain, if Anyone's listening.

She didn't think it'd be so tiring, either. It's only been a little bit and here she is, wanting to go back to sleep. Maybe spending it napping is what makes all that eternity pass a little quicker. What does she know? She's new to this.

Rolls onto her side and finds where some of that hurt's been hiding. Bruised ribs, it feels like. She could've sworn that she'd plain broken them when she died. There's no mistaking how it feels.

Come to think of it, she was pretty sure she'd had on her armor. Didn't it go that she was to move on in what she died in? Isn't that how it works? It'll be nice to not spend eternity in armor, mistake her not; she's just confused. These nightclothes are much more preferable, if a little small.

Again, if Anyone's listening, she's not complaining.

She finds some more hurt. It's in her arms this time, from shoulder to fingers. They feel like pulled muscles and broken bones. There's no mistaking how that feels, either. Being dead is weird. Maybe it'll make more sense if she has a look around.

She opens her eyes and breaks her heart. There's another bed across from her. This one's got the girls in it; all sweet and wrapped around each other. Clarke's got Zira's head tucked up under her chin, mouth open and snoring away. They're not supposed to be here. They're supposed to be alive.

If Anyone's listening; they're supposed to be alive.

She can't help the little sound she makes. It's been a long while since she had a proper cry, and this seemed an appropriate thing to have one over. Zira stirs, rolling over onto her back to scrub at her eye. Just the one. The other's this huge, swollen mess; all purple-black bruise and scabbed cut.

Something hits Juliana. It strikes her mind like a bolt; tells her she's being an idiot with all this death stuff. Kid looks over at her. Takes her in. Joy shines in her eye and her smile. “You're awake,” she says; breathes it out in pure relief.

“Guess I am,” Juliana answers. She can't help but smile back. This is good. Someone's going to pay for that bruise, just as soon as she finds them; but for now, this is good. Only thing that could make it better is a hug. Kid all but throws herself across the distance to give her one.