The Grounders (100 Fanfic)

English

Gratitude. Appreciation. Giving thanks. No matter what words you use, it all means the same thing. Happy. We’re supposed to be happy. Grateful for friends, family, happy to just be alive… whether we like it or not.

Maybe we’re not supposed to be happy. Maybe gratitude… has nothing to do with joy. Maybe being grateful means recognizing what you have for what it is. Appreciating small victories. Admiring the struggle it takes simply to be human.

Maybe we’re thankful for the familiar things we know. And maybe we’re thankful for the things we’ll never know.

At the end of the day, the fact that we have the courage to still be standing… is reason enough to celebrate.

-Grey's Anatomy

Everyone told me to take the day off. That I needed to 'recuperate' after the traumatic experience. Though it was the biggest load of bull I had ever heard. I didn't want rest, I needed to be busy. So I went to the med-bay, even if we didn't have any patients, I could at least clean, or crush some leaves... or do something!

I didn't even make it through the med-bays door before Kodiak's voice called out, "Go away."

I walked in anyway. "What if I had been sick?" I asked Kodiak. He just gave me a pointed look.

"Nissa, you need to go home, rest. Take the next couple days off. You don't have to be here." Kodiak said softly, pointing to the door.

"I can't Kodiak. I-I can't." I said my voice wavering. I didn't want to cry again. You would think that at one point you would run out of tears. "I can't sit at home and do nothing, because if I do nothing then I start to think, and as soon as I start to think, I think of him. And I can't. I can't think about him anymore." I rushed out. 

Kodiak gave me a sympathetic look, a look I hated and adored at the same time. I didn't want to be pitied, but I also really did. The contradiction annoyed me, but I let it go, cause I needed something to do.

Kodiak threw me some mandrake roots, and I began skinning them. Just like always, but skinning was a task that only busied the hands, not the mind, leaving it to wander. And I couldn't let it do that.

"Kodiak, can you teach me English?" I asked the wounded warrior. He looked up from his crushing of the blue drop flowers. I knew he was going to ask for a reason, and I couldn't very well tell him that I've been secretly talking to our prisoner of war. So I lied, "Some of the warriors, they were confused, and they were only speaking English." I hastily covered.

Kodiak seemed to believe me, or he just had no reason not to trust me, because he sighed then nodded. "What do you want to know how to say first?" He asked, putting aside his flowers. I did the same with my roots and began asking. 

"How do you say 'I'm sorry'?" Was my first question, cause it seemed like the most important one. I had always been a fast learner, so as he explained the words I nodded, and repeated them, storing them in my memory for when I would talk to Murphy again. 

Kodiak was patient with me, and he even helped me with my pronunciation, which I was bad at, but not nearly as bad as I was with my grammar. He didn't even try to fix that mess, just laughed and said I might understand someday. By the end of the bay, after we treated on patient with a cough, I leaned how to say quiet a lot.

I could now say: I'm sorry. Your going to be okay. What's wrong? What hurts? How are you?I'm good, bad, in pain, or okay, and I also learned, I will help you.

I was quiet proud of myself. Kodiak was too. But he told me to go home, and rest. So I did the natural thing, and waited for him to pee, then grabbed a bowl of water, and the infection fighting salve, then snuck off to Murphy. I went in the back way again, and saw Murphy.

I went to him, and he flinched back, from the puffiness of his eyes, he had been crying. I kneeled in front of him, dipping a cloth in the water, and cleaning the blood from his cuts, he hissed in pain, and I swallowed. He wasn't going to make a sound, I didn't know if it was because he didn't want me to get caught, or if he was trying to be macho, either way I was thankful.

"I'm sorry." I said slowly, the words felt so foreign on my tongue. He looked at me surprised, but I just continued to clean the cuts, now using the infection fighting salve. He then said something to me, but all I understood was "You blah blah English?" 

"I English bad." I responded to his attempts of communication. He laughed and then said something like "I blah blah blah blah." So I just didn't answer.

Some was coming in, so I ran away. Again.