fragile | clexa

chapter thirty two

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Lexa wasn't a fan of spurs.

Still, her heels were digging into the horse's sides forcefully, the metal on the back of them making the horse go quicker and quicker and yet it wasn't fast enough. Several guards had tried to hold Lexa back, but she had not listened to a single one of them as she had ridden her horse out into the darkness.

The forest at night was dangerous. Not only because the horse and the rider needed absolute orientation and care on the narrow parts of the road- any part of the road, to be honest- but also because of countless thiefs and assassins that hadn't been caught yet.

Lexa's mind was on none of these things as she dashed past more and more trees and she seemed to grow insane over the time. It took a dayride to TonDC if one rode normally. With her speed, it still took several hours and several breaks for her horse too long until she finally, finally saw the village in the morning light.

Surprisingly, neither her nor her horse were harmed in ways that were worth to be named. The guards that stood at the gate had their weapons drawn as soon as they heard Lexa's horse, shouting out, but Lexa still had hundred percent speed to the last meter. There, she stopped the horse so abruptly if she hadn't hold on well enough she would have flown right over the animal's head.

She jumped off its back, pulled off her hood for the guards to let her in and then Lexa just rushed down the empty streets towards the healers tent. Her mind was exploding at that point, her body too stressed to form any coherent reaction other than tearing at the hem of the shirt she'd quickly thrown over.

Lincoln stood in front of the tent with an unreadable expression. Maybe it wasn't unreadable and Lexa was just too unfocused to pay attention to it.

"Lincoln."

"Heda," the man bowed respectfully and there was something to his voice that Lexa didn't like.

"Where is she? How is she? Is she alive?"

"She is in the tent. The healers haven't talked to me about her condition."

It sounded like a nicer version of 'there's no condition to talk about' and Lexa stumbled over her own feet on her way into the tent. There were a few patients, some asleep, some awake, and the latter turned their head at her entrance.

Lexa's eyes were only searching for Clarke.

And finally, fucking finally she saw the reason of the panic buried in her. (Why exactly she felt so anxious and sick about Clarke and the possibility of her death, she hadn't figured out yet)

Her body was bare, only her legs covered up with a cloth and although the candle light made everything look warmer, her skin was as pale as a ghost's. The bit of muscle and fat covering up her arms, sides and stomach that Lexa had been so, so proud of seemed fallen in. Around her lower stomach there was a bandage, her arms looked stiff and her face- with all of her willpower, Lexa made herself look at Clarke's face.

Clarke's eyes were not open.

Or rather, her one eye wasn't, because the other one was, together with half her face, hidden beneath another bandage. Lexa felt her knees go weak, her legs tremble too much to hold her bodyweight. Her head wasn't working as it should've anymore and suddenly, there were white dots everywhere.

She hadn't noticed Nyko in the tent at all, hadn't known that he was in TonDC, but she felt his hand hesitantly on her shoulder. "Heda," he bowed. It wasn't allowed for him to just touch her, she thought, and then her eyesight went black again. "Heda," Nyko repeated a little more forcefully and let his arm slide around her waist to keep her steady. "Sit down. I'll let a glass of water be brought to you."

Lexa slumped into a chair. When Nyko was gone, she found Clarke's face again, the new bruise spread over her visible bit of face that made Lexa feel impossibly guilty for leaving. What had happened?

Was Clarke alive?

It seemed to be the only question she needed to know the answer to that moment. "Clarke," she just managed to say when Nyko was back. "Clarke."

Nyko knelt down in front of the chair, handed Lexa her water making sure she could hold it and then said six words that made Lexa drop the mug regardless.

"The girl is in a coma."

Oh thank God.

Relief flooded Lexa and it felt like a stone was taken from her heart, only to be smashed back with doubled force. "How? What happened? When will she wake up? Will she? Nyko, will she wake up?"

"I cannot tell, Heda. She is harmed badly and some coma patients die from lack of air, nutrition or simply because their brain is too weak and injured to properly fix the injuries on the body that need it. If she wakes up, the duration depends on the patient and the injury. It varies between several days and several years."

"How bad is she hurt? Does she feel that she's hurt? Is she in pain?" Lexa rushed, pushing the possibility of 'several years' to the back of her head.

"No, a coma patient is entirely unresponsive due to the brain injury they suffered. In some cases, the patient might recognize sounds like footsteps, familiar voices and even stories they have heard before, but that doesn't always count."

"Why is she in a coma Nyko? Why does she have a brain injury?"

"As far as we can tell, it's an injury in the range of being able to recover fully, so I suppose it might have been a hard hit to the head or her falling in an inconvient way. What happened exactly is unknown to me, but I can ask the healers that did first-aid. Lincoln brought her here, so he should know too."

"What's with her other injuries? Will they heal?"

Nyko only barely supressed a frown. His Heda never sounded so panicked or so worried. Did she possibly need medical attention too?

"I'm not sure, Heda. She has a cut over her face that's just barely shallow enough to have allowed her survival. Another healer took care of it, so I do not know whether or not her eye or something important is damaged beyond repair. There are some bruises over her body and one of her ribs is broken. She has an injury over her chest and a very light cut on her belly."

"And what's with her leg?"

"Uh- her legs. Yes. That's... another pair of shoes," he said, scratching his neck.

"What do you mean?"

"She has very weak legs naturally, Heda. I read her record and she apparently has struggles with her bone already, so I don't know whether or not she will recover from her broken leg. There was a nasty cut on her thigh that made her lose a lot of blood too, together with a cut on her back."

"What does her back have to do with her legs?"

"A cut bad enough to damage her nerves might cause her not to feel or move her legs again. We can only tell whether or not that has happened after she wakes up."

And with that, Lexa eventually did black out.

The only question that seemed to never leave her mind even as she was unconcious was what had happened? What or who was at fault for this? and it was the most restless nothing Lexa had ever fallen into.

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