“He was worried, but he’ll be fine. He’s with your dad.” Imogen clears her throat and turns her head, looking across the room to where Umeko is still in a healing pod, asleep. “She’s all right, too?”
“She will be.”
“No family here?”
Clarke looks over at Umeko. The Medical ship at an F0 paddock isn’t very big, just two healing pods and a couple cots with equipment-lined walls. If someone needs more advanced care than the pods can provide, the whole thing picks up and flies to the nearest hospital. “I don’t know. She doesn’t talk much.Her team will take care of her, though. Enclave’s good like that, Thierry says.”
“Enclave is the team Rafferty St. Sebastian came from,” Imogen says, injecting more disdain into the syllables of Raff’s name than Clarke might’ve thought a name could hold. Raff said some unkind things at dinner last night while Clarke was in the room, and she wonders what else might’ve come out of his mouth when she was outside with Julian.
“You can’t blame Enclave for Raff,” Anders says unexpectedly. “He’s just…like that. Always has been.”
Huh. Clarke’d been assuming that Raff learned his bad habits and attitude from Anders, but maybe that’s not the case? Not that Clarke’s willing to take Anders at his word, but it’s something to think about.Anotherthing to think about. Clarke’s getting pretty full up on things to think about.
“I don’t recall asking for your opinion,” Imogen says to Anders without looking at him. If there was disdain in her voice before, there’s ice in it now. Needles of ice, maybe. Anders doesn’t reply, just keeps watching footage.
Clarke doesn’t think she’s ever been alone (unconscious Umeko doesn’t count) in a room with both of her biological parents before. It’s like a glimpse into an alternate reality, one where Imogen and Anders stayed together. Except Clarke probably wouldn’t be in F0, because Anders doesn’t think she’s good enough to be here, and if she’d grown up living with him she might not have had the strength to go against what he wanted. He would’ve crushed the dream out of her.
“Do you need anything?” Imogen asks Clarke, knocking her out of her musings.
“My cuff?” Clarke asks hopefully. “The doctor said I have tostay another hour for observation. It’s in the garage, in my prep room.”
Imogen stands, pressing a gentle kiss to Clarke’s forehead. “You got it.”
She drags Anders with her when she goes, leaving Clarke alone with the steady beeps of the monitor array and the whooshing of Umeko’s healing pod. Clarke matches her breathing to the whooshing, letting the rhythm of it keep her steady as she replays the collision in her mind. Crash recovery protocols advise a pilot to relive the moment until they’re desensitized to it. To acknowledge the fear and the helplessness, and decide to keep going anyway.
“What repetition are you on?”
Clarke rolls her head to the door. “Twenty-seven.”
Julian is leaning against the doorframe, still in his racing suit. He’s drenched, a combination of sweat and the champagne they spray during podium ceremonies. “Is it helping?”
He must’ve come here right after getting off the podium. It warms a spot behind Clarke’s ribs that he prioritized checking on her even when he’s absolutely supposed to be somewhere else right now.
“Does it ever?” Clarke wiggles into less of a recline. “Congratulations on P2. Would’ve been P1 if you stopped letting Delphine beat you on straightaways.”
“Anders told me the same thing when we passed in the hall.”
Clarke shudders and makes a face. “Don’t compare me to him.”
“Come up with better commentary, then.” He looks her over, eyes dragging from head to toe and back again. “You’re okay?”
“I’m okay.”
“I can’t stay.”
“I know.”
Julian scans her again, then does the same to Umeko. “I think about Connor. Every time.”
Clarke’s heart climbs into her throat. “Me too.”
Julian winces and pries his earpiece out of his ear. “I really have to go. Val’s threatening to drag me to debrief by my hair.”
She doesn’t want him to go. The hollowness that took up residence in her when they fell out of each other’s lives doesn’t ache when he’s next to her, and she feels it all the more acutely now when he’s not. But it’s important, that they continue to be able to do their jobs while they navigate their new normal. Part of Clarke is deeply worried that the closer they grow, the higher the likelihood they’ll lose the ability to prioritize the work the way they have to in order to stay true to who they are. In order to not resent each other for the eventual consequences of putting something or someone other than winning at all costs first.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, right?” Clarke says, squeezing the words out around the flood of feelings. “Beach day?”
His smile looks like home. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
