Chapter Text
When Clarke Griffin opened her eyes, she was surrounded by bamboo.
She jerked up. Her heart and her lungs were racing and laboring in her chest like they were catching up on the time she had no recollection of. There was a sharp pain in her back. It felt wet. Something tingled in the back of her neck and when she turned, she saw a white labrador stalking towards her. He stopped short, regarded her with dark eyes and jogged on.
With great effort she pushed herself to her knees and then to her feet. She found a small bottle of vodka in the pocket of her blazer, before she reached underneath it. When her fingertips came back they were red. She felt the blood running down beneath her black dress.
This was the moment when the noise reached her, a deep roaring and muffled screams. With weak limbs and clinging from tree to tree she followed them, first staggering, then jogging and finally running towards the cacophony of sounds. She lost her high heels somewhere on the way, and she felt the sand between her toes before she saw the beach.
It was a nightmare become reality.
Flames.
People ran around confused and disorientated.
Torn pieces of metal.
Blood.
A black man staggered away from the wreckage on weak legs, supporting a younger man on his shoulders.
Smoke.
A pregnant woman, clutching her belly, just stood there and screamed.
The jet engine was still running, causing the uproar that carried inland.
A dark-haired girl performed CPR on a woman in the sand.
The plane’s wing was reaching upwards, and the waves of the ocean rolled towards it.
This was when Clarke understood.
She had been in that plane.
Then, she fell from the sky.
With a snap, Clarke started to move, the pain in her back forgotten. Her feet carried her to the first body lying on the ground, a middle-aged man. He was dead. She moved on, but most people on the wreckage site were beyond help.
She reached the pregnant woman. „You have to move her away from here, you are too close!“
Clarke had to shout against the sound of the jet engine and when she turned around, her eyes fell on a lanky guy in a band shirt and broken sunglasses in his hand: „You! With the sunglasses, come here! Get her away from the wreckage, bring her to the trees in the shadow, sit her down.“
„It … we crashed.“ He stammered.
„I know. Look, do you feel any pain?“ Clarke checked the woman for major injuries. The girl had stopped screaming and just shook her head.
„We survived“ The man continued.
„I know that, too. Go, help her go to the trees. Stay with her. Do not leave her side, you understand me? If something happens, call out for me.“
She turned, ready to run to the next person, when he asked: „What’s your name?“
„Clarke. I’m a doctor. Stay with her!“
When she was sitting next to a man with a torn thorax, someone walked too close past the running engine, and got sucked in. An explosion erupted, and Clarke was pushed back by the shock wave, hitting her head hard against a suitcase on the sand. For a moment she thought her stomach would recoil. She moaned in pain when someone grabbed her shoulders and shook her.
He had long dark hair and a bloody gash on his forehead: „Are you all right?“
She just nodded, pushed herself up and went on.
People were wandering around the wreck aimlessly and Finn shielded his eyes from the bright, tropical sun. The gash on his forehead had stopped bleeding and miraculously he had no other, major injuries from the crash.
A few meters away a brown haired man with a hard face and cold blue eyes lighted a cigarette, walking back and forth over the wing of the plane.
A young woman with dirty blonde hair and a leash in her hands, asked everyone if they’ve seen a dog.
An asian man was sitting close to the water, his arms thrown around his knees, and two dark-skinned men, one older, one younger, were involved in an emotional debate, gesturing and pointing.
Finn guessed, that is was almost four hours since they crashed. First the tail section broke away, people were sucked out of the broken shell of the plane, screaming. Than the front section broke away too. When he woke up in the middle of the crash site, he had been alone.
People have been helping others to get away from the plane, sometimes they just stood and stared. She was not among them. The tail section of the plane was nowhere in sight.
It was hard to draw in the next breath of air.
He sighed. He could still feel the warmth of the fires hot against his skin and the smoke thick in his throat.
It would be dark soon, people would need a fire.
Finn started collecting wood.
It felt like hours but it might just have been minutes until she was a little further in a secluded corner up the beach, alone, with the small bottle of vodka in her hand. She had found a travel sewing kit in one of the hand luggages.
Slowly Clarke took of the blazer. With careful movements she reached for the zipper underneath her left armpit and slowly slipped out of the upper part of the black etui dress. Her fingers probed the flesh where she suspected the cut and she hissed in pain, realizing she could not reach it to stich herself up.
Suddenly, the pain in her back became too much and the insanity of the situation hit her hard.
She fell from the sky.
She survived. So many others died.
She fell from the sky, when hours before all she wanted was to be dead, too.
Tears were flooding her eyes. It was too much.
„Hey … Are you the doctor?“ a voice called out.
Clarke turned and saw a tall man with curly hair standing in the beach and looking towards her. His clothes were caked in bloodied sand.
Clarke blinked against the sun for a few times. „Are you hurt?“
He shook his head, „No. Nothing major. But there is this man, shrapnel in his chest. A guy told me some blonde woman said she’s a doctor. Is that you?“
Clarke licked her dried lips and nodded.
„You ever used a needle before?“ she asked.
He looked at her, aghast. „What?“
„Have you ever sewed? Patched a pair of jeans?“
He started laughing. Clarke furrowed her brow and started to feel self-conscious in her partial state of undress. „Thats … not really funny …“
„Look, I’m …, it’s just … Yes, I can sew. My mum was a seamstress, she showed me.“ He smiled and it did something to his face. Clarke nodded.
„I … I could use a little help here.“ Helplessly she turned and showed him her side.
He became somber immediately. „Never sewed something like that before.“
„Look, I would do it myself but I can’t reach it. You can do this, I’m telling you.“
He nodded. „No, of course. I'm helping you.“
They sat down in the sand and she gave him the vodka: „For your hands. But safe me some for the wound.“
„Any color preference? Or is standard black all right with you?“
Clarke couldn’t help herself, now she laughed too and then winced when it resonated painfully in her side.
„Sorry“ the man said, and she felt his hand touching her back to support her. „You want a sip of the stuff? Before?“
She nodded and it burned her throat. It went immediately to her head, but it didn’t matter much. When he poured the rest over her, her fingers were clutching into the sand and a gasp escaped her that turned into a sob when the needle pierced the skin.
„It’s impossible!“
„But it’s happening. I can move my feet, my legs! I’m standing in front of you, son!“
„It must be the shock.“
„I’m healed.“
„Dad …“
„Wells, look at me. I’m standing right in front of you, I pulled you out from underneath a piece of the wreckage myself, walked you to safety …“
„I know, Dad, but …“
„We survived a plane crash with just a few scratches. This … is fate.“
„Vincent? Come here, boy. Come here! Vincent!“ Harper called out and walked along the edge of the jungle, flicking the red dog leash against her thigh. She did not dare to go in. Not yet.
„Who is Vincent?“, she turned around and saw a dark, broody-looking man with a beanie standing behind her. He handed her one of those airline-meal trays.
„My dog.“
„You think he made it?“
Harper looked at the food and handed him the tray back. „I’m sorry, but I’m not hungry.“
„Might be a while till the rescue party is coming.“
„Thanks, but … I don’t think I can eat right now.“
He just nodded. „Good luck with your dog.“
Then he left and Harper saw him passing her tray to a red-haired girl at the crash site. She turned around again, and went back to where she had found the empty transport kennel.
„Count.“
„What?“
„Count. It helps to concentrate on something else. Trick I’ve learned in the army.“ The needle pierced her skin again and she was breathing hard through her nose.
„You don't seem afraid at all“ she said.
„Neither do you.“
Clarke hissed. „I am. I haven’t felt this afraid since the start of my residency."
He was silent for a moment. Then … „What happened?“
Clarke hesitated for moment. But then it poured out of her. It was easy, because he was sitting behind her. She could not see his face.
„I had to do my first solo procedure on a sixteen year old girl. She almost died, because after 13 hours of surgery I accidentally cut a nerve sack. It ripped open. I didn’t knew what to do. My mother was there, in the gallery. She is a surgeon, too. She called my name through the intercom and … I snapped back in. Went to work, fixed it. The girl was fine. But … now …“ her voice wavered.
„Fear is a demon“ he said, his voice having a calming effect on her, „The terror is so real, so close. My mum always used to tell me to slay my demons. But at the start of my first tour, I was so terrified I could not function anymore. I messed everything up. So my commanding officer said to me that sooner or later I’d have to deal with it or go home. So I made a choice: I’d let the fear in, let it take over, let it do its thing. But only for five seconds, thats all I was going to give it. I started to count … one … two … three … four … five. And it was done. I had two more tours after.“
His fingers ghosted over her skin, she felt him leaning towards her, a short, painful strain when he bit the yarn.
„You okay?“
She nodded.
He helped her back into her dress, than offered her his hand.
„I’m Bellamy.“
„Clarke.“
It got dark, but Jasper did not notice. He had found a pen in the wreck he now used to color his taped hands.
L O S T
„Hey you, … Whats your name?“
Jasper looked up and saw a man with a few long logs of wood standing in front of him.
„You built that fire?“, he asked.
„Yes.“
„Amazing!“
„Whats you name?“
Jasper scrambled to his feet and pocketed the pen. „Me? Jasper … I’m Jasper.“
The man extended an arm, offering him one of the logs. „Jasper. Why don't you help with it, keep it running? No one will see it if it isn't big.“
Jasper looked at the timber in his arms, feeling the energy of a sense of purpose with this new task. „Okay. I’m on it, I’m on it. What’s your name?“
„Finn.“
„Finn? Okay, Finn, I’m on it.“
The man clapped his shoulder in, what Jasper found, camaraderie and went away, probably to find more wood.
Jasper stood there for a moment, flabbergasted. How does one attend to a fire?
Then he just threw the log into it and the flames erupted for a second, sparks flying away with the wind when he saw the pregnant girl again, Maya, with her feet in the water, and thought for himself, that this must really suck for her.
Somehow Bellamy found her a small flashlight.
Clarke was kneeing next to the man who had a big piece of shrapnel sticking out of his chest. There was blood, but not so much as to have Clarke getting nervous about it already.
A woman was standing next to them, her hands in her waist and a dark look on her face. „Is he going to live?“
Bellamy looked between the woman and the man on the ground: „Do you know him?“
The woman, Anya, answered with careful voice: „He was sitting next to me.“
Clarke sat back on her heels, and wiped away some stray locks of hair from her damp forehead: „I’m not sure. If the rescue team comes quickly, and if they have a chance to airlift him to a hospital … yes. I think he can made it.“
Bellamy focused on her. „And if not?“
Clarke thought about this for a long moment.
„I don't want to know.“
It got dark. No one came.
That was when they heard it the first time.