21 – 6

For a single moment, I bear witness to Clarke's heart breaking. It shatters like the bottles, crystalline shards rolling wetly over her fingers. Beneath her hands, her mouth – once shock-slack – trembles. A sob wracks her shoulders, leaving her in a shuddering breath. I did that to her; in leaving like I did, in coming back like I have. I'm not the reason for all of the pain in her blue, blue eyes, but those tears and that sob are mine.

They're also all she allows herself to give, gathering the rest of it up and hiding it away. She ignites the piece of ice at the hollow of her throat with a tap of her finger, curling its pale power around her wrist as she hurries to Milo's side. Her breath catches when she sees the blood, the sluggish flow of it from the hole in my side, where a crossbow bolt was once deeply buried. “What was it?” she asks.

“Crossbow bolt,” Milo answers. She falters. How could she not? He notices. How could he not? “Stabbed, not shot. She pulled it out clean, we think, but...can you look?”

Clarke nods, the muscle in her jaw flexing. Her magic centers in her palm, swirling like river water behind a stone, and she looks to me, makes sure to meet my eyes. “If you feel – anything – other than my magic, you –” she swallows. “say something. Please.”

“Yes,” I manage, my second word in as many minutes. It's little more than a woozy whisper, but it's enough for her to begin; she breathes in sharply and puts her hand over the hole in my side. There's a short, sharp stab of pain, followed by a rush of cold. Clarke's magic dives to the bottom of my injury, sealing sundered veins and numbing screaming nerves. I hadn't realized how much pain I was in, how much was hidden beneath it, until it was gone.

Now that it is, everything else comes forward: satisfaction that I'd gotten two Windrunners tonight; regret that one had gotten away; determination to run him down; and gratitude, to so many people for so many reasons.

Jeremiah let me into his home, into his shelter from grief. He cared when he had no reason to. He saved my life, twice over tonight and at least once before.

Milo opened his home to me again, even this late in the night, even when he had every reason not to.

I've no idea how to express how grateful I am to Clarke. It's a feeling too vast to be explored, let alone explained.

Clarke frowns, purses her lips. “No splinters,” she reports, “but there's something...I think it's a piece of her shirt. The bolt must've pushed it in.”

Milo nods, unsurprised. “Can you get it out?”

“Yes," Confidence smooths her brow and unlocks the press of her mouth, “but I'll need both of you to help to hold her still.” They start to move as directed; Milo to pin my legs to the table, Jeremiah to hold my shoulders down. She brushes a filthy hank of hair from my brow with her free hand. Her blue eyes are bright, aglow with her magic's reflection and the heartbreak she's failed to completely hide.

“This will feel...strange,” she says, “it shouldn't – it won't hurt, I won't let it, but if you move, I might really hurt you. so...” She tilts her head at Milo, whose dark eyes worry, and at Jeremiah, whose hands smell like blood. “Ready?” I nod. She breathes in. Her star flares. “And... – now –.”

She's right. It doesn't hurt, and it is strange.

Very, very strange.

It feels like grass' itch on bared skin, only inside and moving. It feels like a menstrual cramp, only with less blood and no pain. It feels like Clarke's fingers inside me, only wrong. Every instinct I possess is screaming at me: get away!

I bite down on the urge, grind it between my gritted teeth. It's a losing battle, defeat starting in the unwilling curl of my hands into trembling, pale-knuckle fists. My legs spasm next; heels drumming, table rattling. A keening whine builds in the back of my throat.

“Keep her still!” Clarke's voice snaps through the air. “I've almost got it!”

Milo adjusts his grip, pinning my ankles under one hand with the other covers my knees. Jeremiah plants his forearm across my sternum, putting his other hand on my head. The whine escapes. “Almost,” he says, “Keep it together, kid, just a bit more.”

I nod as best I can, my jaw locked so tightly I would swear my teeth start to crack. Don't you move, I command of my traitorous, writhing body, not one muscle. It doesn't listen, the losing battle lost. Milo and Jeremiah hold me still as the table shakes from my unwilling efforts to escape.

It ends as suddenly as it began. I feel the bit of cloth worming out from underneath Clarke's palm, hear it splat down as she releases it from her power. With a relieved and victorious breath, she says, “Got it.”

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Milo squeezes her shoulder, gives her a small, proud smile. The one she returns to him is fragile, wavering under the onslaught of all those feelings she could no longer hide away. “I – I need to...”

“Go an' clean up,” he says softly, “We got it from here,” and before I can say a word, before I can at least thank her for saving my life again, she whirls away. She doesn't look at me as she goes. “You too, Jer,” he goes on, “Get changed an' come on back.”

Jeremiah seems only now to notice that he is soaked in my blood from nave to knee, that it covers his hands and spots his face. “Alright,” he says, patting my head before stepping away, “won't be a minute.”

“Take your time,” Milo says, reassuring, “Hard part's done.”

Jeremiah believes him, leaves with a wave. Jeremiah didn't see his eyes.

- - -

Milo cleans up first, digging out a roll of fresh bandage and that white powder he clapped to Lavinia's leg those long, long days ago. “Powdered danna root,” he explains, “helps with infection an' bleedin'. Stings like all hell,” he warns, “so grit your teeth.”

I do, and it does, but it fades fast, leaving room for the duller pain of being stabbed to return. After that, he helps me sit up – a different kind of misery – and has me lift my shirt to wrap the bandage around. He snugs it tight and leaves to fetch some clean clothes for me to change into, though it quickly becomes 'for him to help me change into'.

It'd be embarrassing, mortifying even, in any other time or place; here and now, there's just no room for it. I'm tired, I'm hurting, and I want to sleep. Every step I take, even leaned heavily on his shoulder, sends ripples of agony up my side. Spots swim across my sight. They clear when I settle onto the sofa. I want nothing more than to sleep, but Milo pulls a chair over.

He scrubs a thumb over his knuckles, thoughtful and hesitant. “I've been thinkin' about what I was gonna say if I saw you again,” and how that quiet, uncertain if hurts, “tryin' to – to find a way t'make you understand how much you scared us, hurt us, by runnin' off like that. You broke Lavinia's heart, you know? She worshiped you. Might still, I think. An' Clarke didn' sleep that first night, not a wink. Kept insistin' you'd be back, wanted to be there when y'did.”

Only now he looks at me, dark eyes worn and weary. “I've been in some sad places in my time. I never thought my own house'd be one of 'em.”

My voice cracks around the knot in my throat. “I'm so –”

He stops me there, hand out. There're flecks of danna root stuck to his palm, dark and tacky with blood. My blood. “I don' wanna hear your sorries. I know you are. What I want – right now, more than anything – is to hear you say you'll stop. You'll stop hurtin' yourself an' – an' alla us who care 'bout you. You'll stop killin' people. You'll...you'll let it go.”

I don't know if I can.

I do know I don't want to.

“I don't think you will,” his eyes are on his hands again, thumb tracing the grooves of his knuckles. He's soothing himself, I realize. “Clarke doesn't, either. Lavinia does, but...I guess it's – it's good she learns about how people can let y'down now, rather'n later.”

Crying hurts.

His voice turns harsh. “I don't wanna hear you cryin', either. I want to hear you say 'I'll stop'. Anythin' else, you keep t'yourself.”

I swallow the knot.

Blink away the tears.

And say nothing.

Milo breathes in, short and sharp. “Come mornin', I want you outta my house. I want you t'stay away from me an' my family. Hell, if y'care about Clarke half as much as yourself, you'll stay away from Clarke, too.” He stands, looks at me from the corner of his eye. I've broken his heart.

He leaves, but not before I hear the first sob escape him.

Coda

Four days on the run.

Three without food.

Two without rest.

Three to go.

He's fucking exhausted.

It was supposed to be easy; it was supposed to be simple: scare those stupid hicks enough that they fork over all their valuables and shit, sell them down the river without telling anyone, and get filthy, stinking rich! It was a foolproof plan, and it was working!

Until they all went and ruined it for him. Connall wouldn't stop chasing every skirt that flashed an ankle at him. Bailey wouldn't stop disrespecting him, jawing off and talking back. Loren wouldn't stop them, keep them in line like he was supposed to. They were going to be rich. Look at 'em now: dead, every last one.

Not him, though. Not Garland Fuckin' Fischer! He's alive, he got away, which means he was right all along, and it was him that were the brains of the –

What was that?

He stops in his tracks, straining his keen senses to catch it again.

Crunch.

There it is: footsteps on snow, heavy ones. Probably some merchant or traveling family, people who have something to lose. His favorite kind of people.

He scurries off the road, shoving himself into the wall of frozen cattails on the lake-shore. He curses aloud as he sinks up to his ankles in freezing, clinging slime. The footsteps stop, and he holds his breath.

Then, “Hello?” A woman's voice, high and scared. He grins wide. His second favorite kind of people is women with something to lose. “Is anyone there?”

Should he keep quiet, or play the hero? Footsteps start up again, getting louder and closer. He'll have to decide soon.

“Please, I – I'm scared!”

Play the hero. Maybe he'll 'comfort' her before he robs her blind. He struggles out of the muck, scraping his boot-heels on the ground and straightening his clothes. Pushes back out of the cattails, and there she is.

She's a pretty little thing, slender and young, swaddled in a traveling cloak he can already feel warming him up. Can't see her face, but that doesn't matter. She's sat astride the biggest damned draft horse he ever saw, which'll do nicely as a mount or – if it won't listen to him – dinner. “Hi, there,” he says, charming as hell. “What're you doin' out here all 'lone?”

“I'm looking for someone.”

“Huntin' yourself a man?” he offers, stepping a little closer. Her huge-ass horse stomps a huge-ass hoof.

Her hooded face turns to follow him. “I am,” she answers, and that puts more than a little swagger in his stride.

“Well,” he says, his smile charmingly winsome, “you caught me.”

“I did,” she says, and he sees the flash of her smile. She's got good teeth, which he prefers. Breath stinks, otherwise. “it took me a few days, and I was afraid I wouldn't, but I caught you, Fishy.”

What was that?

The cloak shifts, parting to reveal a crossbow. The hood falls, showing the face of the girl who knifed Bailey. Her eyes are cold.

They're the last thing he sees before the crossbow bolt punches through his skull.