Shards

Starting Clean-up

Shard half drags and half carries Octavia back to her cell. He makes stops along the way to ensure he and Octavia have supplies to clean blood off themselves and attend to Octavia's arm. Its injuries are not that severe but requires some attention. The Blue Coats that treat these sort of injuries aren't as warmed-up to Octavia as he is and aren't as diligent as the Emergency Unit and they're needed more for Tex and Mindy. He doesn't want to risk or jeopardize anything else. 

Shard sits Octavia on her bunk. The items he requested sit on the table.

He grabs a towel from the bag on the table. "You gotta clean yourself up." He holds it up to her.

Octavia ignores it to stare at the caking blood on her hands. Words won't reach her. He knows this.

Sighing, he wets the towel in the sink and wipes the blood off her hands. The towel turns pink as he scrubs away.

With each finger he cleans, Shard anticipates her to snap out of her trance and fuss at him for 'fondling' her hands. But she doesn't. She says nothing. She looks at nothing. She emotes nothing. The single change in her is how pale her face has become.

As he cleans blood off Octavia's arm - both hers and Mindy's, her arm twitches, but Octavia says nothing nor fights. Does she not feel the pain? Why do these damn brats never get to feel pain? They always get it easy.

A sudden wave of rage comes over him. The same wave that suddenly comes and goes. He can crush her arm. Snatch her out of her trance. Make her scream in pain. Make her feel it for once. Kill her. Why shouldn't he?

He stops and breathes for a moment before resuming his care. His hand moves from the alcohol bottle on the table to a cloth in a bowl of warm, clean water treated with an antiseptic. Luckily, the scrape on her arm isn't very deep. No debris is in it. The worst looking thing about her arm is the bruising. It could be sprained.

Shard shouldn't hurt her because she isn't responsible for any of his pain nor others. None of the brats are, yet. Octavia herself has never done anything truly bad to anyone. The worst she has done is spout idiocy on Winters' NetChannel. This is something she's been trained, or more accurately raised, to do just like he was, but she had it easier. Not easy. But much easier. She only lost her sister. Everything else has been handed to Octavia.

Another wave of rage is swallowed.

Shard also has his promises to keep. Intentionally harming or killing Octavia would shatter those promises. Too much rides on these promises for him to break them.

He finishes bandaging her arm. The blood cleaned off her visible skin and arm tended to, he turns his attention to the blood spots on her clothes. Octavia can't wallow around in her friend's blood.

Shard holds a fresh change of clothes in front of Octavia. "You need to change."

Octavia blinks at nothing.

Shard puts a hand on his hip. He waves the clothes around. "You want me to change you? I will."

Octavia remains silent.

"Did you hear me? I will change your clothes."

Silence.

Shard flicks Octavia's forehead. "Earth to Sweethart. I will remove your clothes if you don't say anything."

She doesn't say anything.

He grits his teeth. "YOU'LL BE NUDEY."

Both Tam and Marque glance at Shard from outside the cell.

Octavia blankly stares at the floor.

Shard runs a hand through his hair. His head shakes and shoulders slump. A groan turns into a frustrated sigh.

If anything is going to pull her out of her trance, this will, Shard thinks.

He puts the change of clothes next to Octavia, takes the bottom of her shirt, and pulls-

SMACK