The noir hero is a knight in blood caked armor. He's dirty and he does his best to deny the fact that he's a hero the whole time. -Frank Miller
Part One
The minute Lexa hits the pavement she knows she's fucked.
She can feel the bones crunching underneath her weight, hears the sickening pop as her shoulder is forced roughly from its socket, and she would have screamed had she not trained herself enough to push it to the side, compartmentalize it. Instead she just grunts, and thanks whoever is up there looking out for her that she just took a tumble off a goddamn roof, and there's no way Mr. Tall and Brutal is going to jump down afterward to continue the tussle. Lexa's surprised, honestly, because she never expected one of Wallace's numerous lackeys to actually be able to hold their own in a fight, let alone get the upper hand for the split second he needed to kick her right to the ground. Lexa tries to move, but she only ends up with a sensation of piercing agony instead. Great. This is exactly what she needs right now.
She lets her head fall back down against the cool ground below her, and feels blood pooling behind the dark mask that covers her face and conceals her identity, seeping from the littering of cuts that pierced through the fabric of her shirt to the flesh beneath. She should realistically invest in some form of body armor, but with the measly salary she just about manages to live off of, that hardly seemed like a viable option. Not to mention the added weight would more than likely slow her down, make the practiced movements of her body slower and by definition easier for her opponents to counter, to predict her next blow. That, she truly couldn't afford.
She allows herself one more moment of respite before she grits her teeth and hauls herself up off the concrete, feeling bones shifting angrily underneath her skin, grating against one another in a way they were decidedly not meant to do. She manages to hobble forward a bit, the walls of the alleyway she'd landed in providing a source of support, before the pain in her shoulder becomes an issue. She leans heavily against the wall behind her, boots scuffing and pants stretching awkwardly as she slides into a crouch, the tired muscles in her legs trembling with the effort.
She hates how weak she feels.
Clenching her uninjured fist, she puts the pain behind her, screws her eyes shut and pushes off the wall without another thought to the contrary. Lexa's been doing this for a long time-one might argue too long-but she does what she has to, and she tries to pretend that there haven't been such a horrific amount of casualties, a trail of bodies following her every move, the blood of innocents coating her entire body that no amount of showering or cleansing could ever wash away.
Lexa has never been a religious person, but it is times like this, when she feels the heavy weight of her crusade pressing down on her shoulders, her body aching with the effort to hold it all up, that she has flashbacks to her childhood; her mother attempting to soothe the hysterical curls of her flyaway hair with a wet brush, smoothing the edges of a bright sundress Lexa never quite felt comfortable in, ushering her into a pew, telling her the importance of Christ, of his sacrifice, and of all he did for humanity, all he continues to do. (Lexa wonders where He was when she'd needed Him, when she was begging and pleading and He did nothing, He did nothing, all there was was silence and silence and her screams into the dark as she desperately tried to understand the meaning behind this, where the reason for this was. She never found one, not even to this day. She doubts she ever will. It is something she will never forgive Him for). It is times like this that she wishes she had even a modicum of faith, something to grab onto, something to tether her, give her some sense of purpose, something beyond the myopic visage of her crusade. She is human, after all. (Atlas had an advantage; he was a Titan. She does not share that fortune).
She still remembers the day she decided to do this, to do what she'd only ever thought about before. Her father had been a lawyer, her uncle a cop. They believed in the law and the rightness of it, despite everything they saw that could sway them they still held firm in their convictions. That was something Lexa admired. (Her mother had always said she got her stubborn streak from that side of the family, and Lexa found that something she couldn't contradict). But Lexa was not as deluded, no, Lexa was not as naïve. Lexa loved her city, loved her family, but she saw the grimy underbelly that no one else seemed to want to acknowledge. She saw the corruption and the bullying, the dark desires that guided people down the wrong paths, that kept people who didn't deserve it in positions of power, calling the shots. It enraged Lexa, made her doubt that the law was always the right answer, that the law could always solve the problems, if only you gave it a chance to work. She'd been training since she was ten years old for this, mastering the skills she'd need to make those who sought to enrich themselves at the expense of those who couldn't stand up for themselves pay dearly for the sins they commit, all in the name of progress; some false, dangerous idea that hid behind charismatic men and women who flashed placating smiles and words dipped in honey that all the media and the public ate up, took at face value because they had no desire to see things for how they really were, to see the manipulation behind the masks of kindness and generosity. She remembers the day she'd had enough.
It wasn't easy, in the beginning. It still isn't easy now, but she has a reputation, a name. One that people fear; that they run from. Sometimes she barely has to do any punching before her target is mewling on the ground, begging for their life, telling her everything she wants to know. Because they know. They know what she is capable of. (Beatrice Haas found that out the hard way). She is the Commander of this city, and she will never stop until those who seek to take advantage of it have finally been knocked down so many times they will no longer have the strength or the will to get back up. (It may be a goal she dies for, a goal she will never see come to fruition, but she has prepared herself for that. She knows this will not be easy, or simple. She is ready for it, and she will die if she has to. This is all she has now. It is all she is anymore, and she will not stop fighting, not until she takes her last breath).
She has come a long way to this, to a figure who is known throughout the city, a whispered name under the breaths of those who fear her wrath (as they should), a name demonized more times than she can count by the media and by her enemies, but she has never stopped fighting. She is not who she was when she first took to the streets, and she is not surprised by that. She knew she was sacrificing a lot by risking her life, painting a target on her back as the maniac running through the city at night, basking in the shadows and beginning to etch herself into every visible inch of the city in the dark tint of blood, the flurry of fists, the anger building to an overflow inside of her, breaking through the walls she controls her life-by-day with, and scorching with its heat. She knew the things she would have to do, the humanity she would lose. Sometimes she wonders if it was all worth it, if she is even making a difference, if this is just a foolish pipe dream destined to end in blood and death and loneliness. But she does not dwell on thoughts like that, because if she did she might break down, and there are people in this city who count on her to stand up for them, to do what they cannot on their own. That is what pushes her through, every time. That is why she does this. She will never let another person be stomped on by the heel of a person who fancies themselves a God. Too many have suffered already.
She recalls the overexcited boy who helped her develop her outfit (others call it a costume; but she does not see herself the way that they do, some Spider-Man wannabe or whatever else they want to call her, so she does not say costume, because even though it might be a little over the top, its main purpose is to make her stand out). She is no longer the shadowy figure in the dark anymore, and she owes some of it to that boy, whose name she always seems to forget. The mask was all him, and he'd pulled some aspects of her original attire for the job, and she's grateful for it, because every time she dons it, it serves as a reminder of where she began, so she never loses sight of it, never strays so far over the edge that she loses contact with it. It is people like him, with his floppy hair and optimistic outlook that she fights for, that she wants to protect.
(This bout of nostalgia almost makes her want to seek him out again, to thank him properly for what he did for her, and maybe learn his name).
(She shuts that down almost as quickly as the thought flitters through her mind. That is weak of her, and she is ashamed. She has not been weak since…and she has no intention of being weak now. She will not entertain thoughts like that. They have no place, not here. The Commander cannot afford any weakness).
She only wants to make her city better, to make those who seek to ruin it pay for their crimes in the only way she sees fit, the only way they may be forced to face justice, because the law cannot touch people like that, she has come to learn. She does not know what will happen tomorrow, and perhaps that is the life she lives, the path she has chosen. She lives for this city now. She is Lexa Forrest, yes, but she is more the Commander than Lexa nowadays, and she does not like to dwell on what that means, the ramifications that may have on her life and the ripple effect it may no doubt cause. She prefers to feign ignorance. (Sometimes it is bliss, she thinks). The origin of the name the Commander never fails to make her grin, and she might dwell on that again once she handles the sorry state she currently happens to find herself in. She rarely smiles anymore. (Not that she can really blame herself for that, not with everything she deals with on a nightly basis).
(She can barely keep her two lives separate anymore; she was better at it towards the beginning, but she had been young and foolish then. Now, aspects of her alter ego's life bleed into Lexa's own, and what was once a fine line between Lexa Forrest's life and that of the Commander is rapidly blurring. She is learning that the Commander is not simply a mask and an outfit that she can slip into, switch between as she pleases, no, it is a part of her, whether she conceived it that way or not. She can no longer neatly differentiate, and it might be a problem if not for…but that is no more, and Lexa no longer has any meaningful ties to anyone in her life, and that only makes the job easier).
She's not quite sure where she is anymore, only that she's no longer in that alleyway anymore and her vision is starting to blur at the edges, a faint twitch as the pain begins to take its toll. Her head feels clouded, like there's a veil being drawn over it and she tugs her right arm closer to her side, hissing at the pain the movement brings, pinpricks shooting bullets up and down her arm from the point of the break. This is worse than she originally thought when she fell; she knew it wasn't pretty, but now it feels really bad, and she's sagging a little to the side, and her breathing is coming out in short, punctured spurts, and that's when she realizes there's a deep cut running from just underneath her bound breasts, across her left ribcage, ending right at the curve of her hip, and there is blood soaking her top. She reels a little as the swirling and pounding in her head intensifies as she finally acknowledges the extent of her injuries.
She has a strict no hospital rule. She has never once broken it. She's had other rules, of course, but somehow she always manages to screw up and go against her better judgment (it never ends well, either), but this is the one thing she has never once veered away from; she has never once found herself in a hospital for her injuries, even that one time when she was sure she was going to die. She shudders at the memory.
Hospitals are unpredictable, and Lexa hates unpredictability. There is too much at stake for Lexa to risk going to one, especially because she doesn't know what will happen. She prefers to handle things herself, she always has, and what if she passed out at the hospital? The doctors would no doubt be stupid and she couldn't risk them taking her mask off, seeing her face. She can't afford anyone to have seen the person behind the mask; she can't have anyone knowing who she is really. That would put both her and them in unnecessary danger. That's why she avoids hospitals. She doesn't know what could happen. But right now, Lexa thinks she needs one.
She hates herself for caving in, for thinking that she needs someone else to help her, but the reality is that she does. She can't stitch up the cuts with a broken arm, and she can't tend to the arm while she's bleeding like a stuck pig. Something has to give, and it's either possibly her own life, or the rigid adherence to her rules.
She chooses her own life.
She takes a deep breath, and looks upward, trying to orient herself quickly.
She knows every inch of this city like the back of her hand. She knows all the streets, all the buildings, all the roads and all the sewers, where they lead, entrance and exit points, the subway lines, the fastest way to get from point A to point B, every back alley and every shitty warehouse where drugs and contraband are stored before distribution. She could navigate this city even if she was blind, and she needs to be able to do that because of what she does. She couldn't get the upper hand if her enemies knew her home better than she did, so she spent years memorizing city plans and methodically walking her entire city from end to end. She prides herself on it. She has to cool it in real life, however, because she admits it would look a little strange if she could rattle off every subway access point within a four block radius to one of her coworkers who asked. So it only takes her a mere moment to recognize her surroundings, and calculate the best possible way to get to the nearest hospital without attracting attention.
One of her favorite things to do, on crisp fall nights, especially, is to jump from rooftop to rooftop. There is nothing more exhilarating than feeling the wind whipping around her, filling and expanding in her lungs, her body airborne in a perilous leap before her boots hit the ground and she tucks her torso into a roll to soften the landing. The city looks beautiful from high above, and she loves to stand on the ledge of some of the tallest buildings and look out at the smattering of cars and people all over, lights gleaming across the horizon and painting a picture of serene hustle and bustle that quiets the anger and the strain in Lexa's heart, even if only for a moment.
(She remembers someone else who loved the view too; remembers trembling hands clutching onto her hips and breathless laughter in her ear, squeals of delight and terror as Lexa dangled them just a little too close to the edge, the beauty of the expansive city twinkling in the twilight before them paling in comparison to the wonder etched into the brown eyes beside her).
As much as Lexa wants to, she knows she can't travel by rooftop right now, her current state of haze and agony would prevent her from being able to predict her trajectory, let alone allow her to scale a wall to get onto one in the first place. She can barely stand right now, and though it's fast, she'd more than likely end up dead if she tried. So she settles instead for weaving her way to the closest hospital through scattered alleyways and streets barely traveled except for the occasional pedestrian at night.
Lexa barely makes it to her destination, and she can feel her breath coming out in grunts now, and the pain in her shoulder and arm is causing the blurred edges of her field of vision to close up even more. She's starting to wonder if something in her leg is broken too, with the way she's started limping on her trek here.
The hospital looms in front of her now, and the main lights come from the ER and the reception areas through the front doors. It's quite a few stories high, but most of the lights are off, and those she assumes are the offices of doctors and clinicians who were either not on duty this late or had finally given up and went home for a much needed break from their no doubt hectic lives.
Lexa knows she can't climb, not with the way her head is spinning, and she sure as hell can't just stroll in the front door and plop down in the ER. So she settles for an office on the first floor, whose light is still on despite it being almost two thirty in the morning, shimmering through half closed blinds and an open window to let in some of the cooler night air. Lexa tugs her arm tighter to her side, and climbs in over the sill, wincing as the wound across her ribs stretches with the effort, blood dripping onto the carpeted floor as she grits her teeth, steadying her twitching limbs as she sinks into the corner of the room, relishing in the support pressing sturdily against her tired shoulders. She can feel the knots of tension in them.
Lexa takes in the empty office, the door ajar, as if its occupant had only stepped out a moment ago. It smells nice; a warm, comforting vanilla, with a hint of something else that Lexa can't identify. It's neat, but not as neat as Lexa normally likes to keep things. There are food wrappers littering the top of the desk, papers and patient charts strewn around the room, a jacket discarded on a chair by the door, a corkboard on the left wall, pinning up photos and x-rays, various other little notes scribbled next to things on multi-colored post it notes. Lexa notes a name placard on the desk, but the corner she's currently in is behind the desk, and she can't see the name written on it, and she doesn't think it would be very wise to move anymore in her current state. Her aching body protests at the mere thought of moving anywhere.
She cranes her neck slightly to the side, and the desk lamp just about illuminates the various picture frames on edge of the brown desk; backyards and college parties, birthdays and concerts, all featuring nearly the same group of seven individuals in glittering degrees of happiness, smiles adorning their faces in every single one. She is drawn to one picture in particular, set apart from the others, a handsome boy with shaggy dark hair throwing his arm over a blonde girl, her face flushed and happy, looking up at him in awe, laughter in both of their eyes.
There's a sense of comfort Lexa finds in their lives, and she knows none of them outside of these snapshots of moments sitting on a strange doctor's desk, but it is nice to know that somewhere out there, in her city even, there are people who live happy lives, lives untouched by horrors and torment, loss and anger. It is nice that there are people who are not burdened by their lives and can find the time to enjoy it. It makes Lexa feel as if maybe this is worth it. She gets up to fight another day so that there can be people like this who can live in some semblance of happiness, untormented by the machinations of the greedy and powerful of the city.
She feels pain shoot up her arm again, and it distracts her from the tiny prickling in the back of her subconscious that is telling her that the boy with the ski goggles on his head, grinning as he hangs on the back of an Asian boy in one of the photographs, looks eerily familiar.
Lexa's ears pick up the scuffle of shoes against a stairwell at the end of the hallway with ease, and hear them coming closer and closer to the office Lexa's bleeding in. Good.
The woman who enters is the blonde in the photographs on the desk, and Lexa blinks quickly in an attempt to take her in.
Her hair is soft and wavy, tips curling over her shoulders as she slams the door with a huff, face scrunched up in concentration. She looks beyond tired, and the bags under her eyes are only Lexa's most obvious clue. She is hunched, like she's carrying something heavy around on her shoulders (Lexa can relate to that) and the languidness of her strides speaks to a bone deep exhaustion that Lexa sympathizes too much with. She's small, but she takes up space, and she seems a strong presence despite it, like she's taking up Lexa's whole field of vision just by standing still. She runs a hand through her hair, and she's dressed in crisp white sneakers, a lab coat, and wrinkled blue scrubs, and when the woman looks up, Lexa is taken aback by the deep shade of blue her eyes are. They're intense, but they have that same forlorn tiredness she seems to carry around in her gait.
(She doesn't look like that smiling, carefree girl in the pictures now that Lexa's met her).
Lexa emerges from the shadows now, and the blood curdling scream the doctor lets out would have been funny if Lexa didn't feel like her head was splitting open.
"Holy shit!" She yells, hands coming up to cover her heart as she nearly jumps out of her skin, feet propelling her backwards towards the door she'd shut only mere moments previously, "You're…" she trails off, astonished look replacing the shock as she stares wordlessly forward, mouth agape, looking not unlike a fish out of water. She looks like it's the goddamn second coming.
Lexa grunts in response.
"Can you help?" She asks, voice at least an octave or two deeper thanks to the voice changer she always carries with her. She'd never let anyone hear her real voice, lest they accidentally stumble across her out of Commander-mode and know.
The doctor only stares in response, mouth opening and closing a few times like she's desperately trying to find the right words to say but can't. Lexa might find it cute, or funny, or even ego-boosting that she's managed to render a stranger completely speechless with only her mere presence if she wasn't seeing stars across the backs of her eyelids and dripping copious amounts of blood on the floor.
"I'm injured," Lexa clarifies. She thought that was kind of obvious, but the fact that the doctor isn't acknowledging that, or moving to help in any way, has Lexa a little concerned.
"Why me?" The doctor finally asks, shock out of her system as she begins to step forward curiously. She's in better lighting now, and Lexa can see the name stitched in black cursive lettering, standing out against the stark, pristine white of her lab coat: Dr. Clarke Griffin. The woman doesn't look much older than Lexa herself, so she figures she must be looking at some kind of pure bred doctor, considering the youth and the fancy office and the title.
"The light in your office window was on," Lexa replies, nodding to the desk lamp vaguely illuminating her from the shadows, trying to get the doctor to move the hell along and do something about the fact that there's a giant gap in her side, and Lexa's not quite sure how much longer she can keep herself upright before she collapses, or worse, passes out.
"Right," Dr. Griffin breathes, wonder shining in her eyes as she takes another tentative step forward.
(That look in her eyes is making Lexa decidedly uncomfortable and she's not entirely sure why. It's unnerving, and not in a good way).
"So can you help me or not?" Lexa prompts when the doctor continues to stare, shuffling her aching body forward, a grimace sliding its way across her lips.
Dr. Griffin jerks as if she's coming out of a daze.
"Yes, of course, sorry," she says, a pretty red flush creeping up into her cheeks as she springs into action, "come sit." Lexa hesitates for a brief moment, wondering yet again if this is really worth it. She could just leave, back out the window she came from and attempt to stitch herself up before she bleeds out in some alley and then ram her shoulder up against the wall of her shitty apartment (maybe it'll be loud enough to wake up her stupid neighbor who likes to have shouting matches with his sister about her behavior and her boyfriend at three A.M. almost daily) to pop it back into place, but she can feel the rough edge of displaced bone grating against other parts of her elbow, and she knows it's broken. She's dealt with plenty of dislocated shoulders before, but the broken arm is definitely going to put her out of commission for a while, not to mention many of the cuts littering her torso will more than likely need stitches, which will only serve to restrict her movements even more, and she'll have to be extra careful if (when) she hits the streets again before she's completely healed.
(She shudders to think of the things the people in this city will get away with when she isn't there to stop it).
She wasn't on top of things tonight; she let herself get too distracted, her carefully crafted focus breaking for just a moment too long, and it cost her. She'll have to live with the consequences.
Instead of running, she obliges instead, head pointed down at the ground (out of habit from her pre-mask days when she ran around with paint smeared over her eyes and a hood hanging over her forehead which reminded her too much of that idiotic superhero from the comic books and that show she'd tried to watch a few years ago when it aired but couldn't-Oliver Queen-and she'd never been much of a Green Arrow fan) as she lowers herself into the chair the doctor had pulled out for her.
Dr. Griffin crouches down next to her, and Lexa groans with the effort it takes to fold her body into a sitting position. She feels the soreness of her muscles, the tension knotted all over her body, the pain, and perhaps most acutely the fatigue washing over her all in the quick moment it takes to rest against the back of the chair. Lexa tries to ignore the way Dr. Griffin smells; that strange mixture of vanilla and something that had tinted the air of the office and intrigued Lexa from the moment she'd stepped into it, mixed with sweat and a sort of crispness that Lexa usually only equates to autumn evenings.
Dr. Griffin hovers around her, poking and prodding, gauging the extend of her various injuries with a frown, her face scrunching up in concentration, the lines creasing her forehead accentuated by the downward quirk of her lips. She gasps when she comes to the gash over her ribcage, fingers reaching out to touch in a concerned, almost reverent way, before she retracts them quickly, without ever actually making contact, fingers curling into a fist instead.
(Lexa's eyes follow her every move).
"My God," she says, "What did you do?" She pulls herself up from her crouch and rummages around in the desk behind Lexa, beginning to pull out supplies and kits. At least she's prepared; all this stuff in her personal office already. Lexa doesn't answer her question. She supposes it was rhetorical anyway, more of a question for the doctor herself than Lexa. She's surprised, however, when she looks back up and finds Dr. Griffin looking at her expectantly as she lays out a medical kit on the ground next to Lexa's chair.
Lexa's not used to people asking her questions and actually expecting answers, especially not about things like this, especially when she is the Commander. As the Commander, she asks the questions, and God help the person who chooses not to answer. No one ever asks her things, and she's taken aback by the forwardness of the doctor, and how unafraid she is. She's not shaking in a corner, eyeing her warily, wondering what she could potentially do, looking at her like she's something volatile liable to explode at any moment given the right provocation. No, she's fierce eyed and determined, and there's not a hint of fear in any of her movements.
Lexa's never met someone who isn't afraid of her.
It's refreshing in the best way possible, something she didn't even know she wanted until it was presented to her.
Lexa actually contemplates answering the question, before the doctor speaks to fill the awkward void of silence between them.
"Okay never mind," she says, another warm flush creeping up the side of her neck as she fiddles with the edge of a needle, "you're a hardcore vigilante you'd never actually tell me what you were doing. Gotta keep up the air of mystery, right?" Lexa feels a flicker of a smile beginning to form. She can't decide if she finds the rambling endearing or annoying. (For the sake of her sanity she settles with the latter).
Dr. Griffin threads the needle between her fingers and sets it to the side, ears still a bright red.
"I need you to hold still, okay? I'm gonna clean this wound." Lexa nods, and only grits her teeth as the doctor takes a water bottle and wets a strip of cloth, pressing it gently but firmly to the bleeding and torn flesh over her ribcage.
"Sorry," she mutters, dragging the cloth as quickly as she can over the cut, and Lexa can feel her head swimming with pain.
She doesn't make a sound.
(She's been through much worse).
Lexa barely realizes that the doctor is now pressing a firm hand against her chest, holding her back as she begins to thread the needle through her skin. Lexa closes her eyes in exhaustion, letting her head fall back against the back of the chair as she lets the doctor continue her work. Some part of Lexa realizes that she should in fact be in pain right now, but this pain is a nice distraction from the pain from before, and she's dealt with worse. A little needle is nothing to her anymore, even if it is stitching quite a large and expansive cut on her abdomen closed.
"Almost done," the doctor says reassuringly, and Lexa gives a brief nod in acknowledgment. She feels the needle pulling through the final end of the cut, and she sighs as Dr. Griffin runs the washcloth over her skin again, cleaning off some excess blood, before she prods her stitching job a few times, satisfied with the hold.
"Take your shirt off," the doctor demands, and Lexa lifts her head up off the chair to stare, one of her eyebrows rising in response. Forward, indeed. She starts to blush under Lexa's gaze, and drops her eyes to the floor as she realizes exactly what she said.
"I didn't mean…" she trails off, ears a bright red again, and Lexa finds she likes it when the doctor is all flustered, "I just meant so I could get better access to some of your other cuts." Lexa smiles slightly before tugging her tattered shirt up and over her head, leaving her torso exposed to the cool air filtering in from the open window. Lexa glances down, and takes note of the rather ugly stitching of her rather ugly cut, and resigns herself to adding that to her growing list of scars.
(Lexa doesn't miss the way Dr. Griffin's eyes roam over the muscles in her chest; lingering on well-defined abs and the curve of her biceps).
She clears her throat, sterilizing another needle before getting to work, and this time Lexa observes her concentration and the way her blonde head bobs as she works.
These take a decidedly less amount of time, and the doctor is throwing out various needles before she knows it, taking another wet piece of cloth and beginning to swab it over the newly stitched cuts, cleaning as best as she can. Her fingers dance over Lexa's skin, a barely there touch, and Lexa can't help the fact that she feels them, every time they brush her flesh. Her fingers stall over the bicep of her injured arm, and Lexa watches as Dr. Griffin fingers the intricate tattoo there.
"Wow," she breathes, running the pad of her thumb over the design, "This is so beautiful." The way she says that, so softly and full of meaning, almost makes Lexa forget that she's now seen something that could be a potential identifying feature out in the real world.
Almost.
Lexa jerks away like the doctor's fingers burn, and Lexa tries not to be affected by the hurt look that passes quickly over the blonde's face before it's replaced with a tinge of anger. She backs away now, standing up and brushing her hands over the front of her scrubs, heading for the door.
"Don't move, okay, I'm going to get some material to make you a cast for that arm," she says, and Lexa doesn't miss the colder tone of her voice as she walks from the room.
Not that she cares.
She doesn't.
The feelings of some random doctor she'll never see again once this is over don't concern her. She needs to get fixed up, and this doctor is merely a means to an end. She doesn't care if her feelings are hurt. She doesn't care at all. Not about anything and certainly not about this.
Dr. Griffin comes back with what she needs before offering her hand to Lexa.
"Gotta get you an X-Ray so I can determine how to set the break," she says, and Lexa sighs before grabbing the proffered hand, hoisting herself up and allowing the doctor to hold onto her with one hand while the other comes to rest on the small of her back.
(Lexa is acutely aware of the fact that she is still shirtless and the doctor's hand is soft and warm).
Lexa stiffens at the contact. She almost jerks away again because how long has it actually been since someone's touched her without ill intent?
"Sorry," she mutters, quickly removing her hand.
"S'okay, Doctor Griffin," Lexa grunts, and she sees Dr. Griffin smile out of the corner of her eye before she feels her hand return to her back as they begin to maneuver down the hallway.
"Clarke," the doctor says after a stretch of silence. Lexa looks sideways at her questioningly, noting the soft smile gracing her features.
"You can call me Clarke."
"Clarke it is then." Lexa replies, testing out the name. She likes it.
"Don't suppose I get to know yours, do I?" Clarke pries, a hint of something almost playful in her tone as she directs Lexa towards a darkened room, flipping on the lights as they walk through. Lexa is shocked, by the way Clarke is just…talking to her. As if she isn't a battered, shirtless, bloodthirsty vigilante with most of her outfit still on her person. Like she's a real person.
Lexa doesn't talk to many people anymore, apart from some coworkers when she absolutely has to, and the tall, nice guy who frequents her boxing gym and sometimes asks to spar with her. (She always wins).
She's always been more of a loner, even when she was younger she never had many friends, and taking up the role of the Commander has only isolated her more from other people; given her an excuse to always keep people at arm's length, or, preferably, even further away, which is fine by her. People don't really seem to want to know her anyway, outside of her overall reluctance for any kind of relational intimacy. Except, apparently, for Clarke, who is asking for her name, something she must know she can't possibly give her, but she asks anyway. Lexa doesn't understand this woman, who seems like a muddled mass of contradictions in human skin, an enigma and a puzzle, waiting to be solved. Lexa is intrigued, that she cannot deny (though she tries).
"Yeah, that's what I thought," Clarke says to her silence after adjusting Lexa under the X-Ray machine, throwing a lead covering over her torso and telling her to stay put, leaving the room. Lexa hears the whir of the machine, and suddenly desperately wants to be out of here. She needs to get out of here, and go home, crawl under into her bed and sleep off the night's shit and forget about nearly everything that's happened to her in the last twenty four hours.
Clarke comes back momentarily, helping her up and taking her back down the hallway to her office. Lexa revels in the silence between them, and watches their shadows play on the walls as they walk, illuminated from the sparse overhead lights in the hallway and the moon casting its luminance over them through the windows.
"Those should be ready in a little while," Clarke comments, once again attempting to fill the space between them with idle conversation. That's something Lexa never understood. If there wasn't something to say, why go out of your way to say anything at all? That only made it more uncomfortable for everyone involved, and Lexa was fond of the quiet herself. But not Clarke. Clarke seemed outgoing by nature, incapable of not talking when she felt there needed to be something said (which apparently applied to every stretch or lull of silence that happened to dangle between them).
"Do you want me to snag you some scrubs to wear?" Clarke asks once she's sitting in a chair again, arm still cradled against her side, the doctor nodding to both her topless state and the rather ratty and frayed shirt on the ground next to the medical kit. Lexa nods.
"Okay," Clarke says, jumping to her feet again, "I'll run to my locker and see if I have another top in there and if not I'll just steal some from someone else, they won't miss it. And I'll check on your X-Rays on the way back and then hopefully we can set that arm of yours and send you on your way." Lexa doesn't respond, and Clarke takes that as her cue to leave, and Lexa listens to her go, feet clacking against linoleum floors as she rounds a corner and begins to climb a flight of stairs.
Lexa sighs. This was taking longer than she expected, and she can feel sleep tugging at her eyelids, begging her to close her eyes and give herself over to the bliss of unconsciousness. She's had a rough day, a rough week, a rough month, a rough everything and maybe being injured is exactly what Lexa needs. She needs to stop her breakneck pace, even if only for a little while; just slow down and take a few well deserved moments to breathe. She is one woman, attempting to carry the weight of two lives, one that requires her to be in top physical shape, around with her. She sometimes feels like it's too much; too much for one person to handle.
(That is weak, and she should feel ashamed for even allowing the thought to cross her mind. There is no one else to do this. She is all there is, and this is her calling, her crusade, the path of life she chose to walk down. It does her no good to regret that now; to cower or back down. That is weak. She will eradicate weakness).
Lexa sits in silence, attempting to quiet the hurried thoughts of her mind, giving in and closing her eyes behind her mask, sweat and blood a strong scent surrounding her. It was comforting. Lexa, unlike many other people, never felt horribly disgusted or like she needed to immediately get into a shower after a workout or a run; she quite enjoys the smell of sweat and hard work. It reminds her that she is alive, that she is doing something and pushing her body, and she always associated the scent with her uncle; scooping her up in his arms as a five year old, smelling of his worn leather jacket, sweat and metal after a long day at work.
Clarke finally returns after an indeterminate amount of time. Lexa had stopped paying attention to how long she'd been gone for right about when she closed her eyes. Clarke smiles briefly, handing her a dark green scrub top, which Lexa barely manages to get her arm through, while she turns on the light box hanging next to the corkboard on the left wall and slides Lexa's X-Rays into the top, checking them one last time before turning to her.
"It's definitely broken," Clarke says, eyes softening with sympathy, "but it could've been worse. You have what's called an Olecranon fracture." Lexa has absolutely no idea what Clarke is saying. She hasn't stepped foot in a biology class since she was a senior in high school, in what seems like a different lifetime all together.
"Basically what happened is, and I'm assuming you fell on it," Clarke elaborates, pressing forward and crouching down next to her chair, fingers reaching out to brush softly over the injured elbow in question, pointing to the tip, "is that this tip, called the olecranon, is relatively unprotected, and when you fell on it, it broke easily from the impact. The most common type of this fracture usually requires surgery, but your fracture looks like a type I, so all you'll need is a cast and a sling. You can move your hand, maybe squeeze a stress ball or something every day, and you might need physical therapy afterwards, just to get your range of motion back. You should have the cast for at least a month, though."
Lexa sighs. It's better than she expected it would be, and at least she doesn't need surgery. She can live with the rest of it.
"Alright." Clarke looks like she expects her to say something else; to react in some way besides her noncommittal agreement, but Clarke doesn't know her. Lexa prefers not to use words whenever possible, and she really wants to get out of here. She hates hospitals, and she wants to go home. When she says nothing, Clarke just sets about setting her arm, wrapping it in gauze and starting on her cast.
Lexa allows her mind to wander while the woman works again.
"All done," Clarke murmurs after what seems like forever, fiddling with a gray sling for a moment before slipping it over the material of the cast and helping Lexa's head through it, palms grazing the edges of her mask.
"You're all set," Clarke says, stepping back to let Lexa haul herself rather ungracefully up from the chair that has become her best friend over the last few hours.
"Thank you, Clarke," she says, and she hopes Clarke knows she truly means it. The doctor shoots her a bright but tired smile in return.
"You're very welcome." Lexa nods in return, before slowly making her way back towards the window, picking up the tattered remains of her old shirt as she goes, noting with a hint of guilt the bloodstains in pools all over the carpet. Her foot barely manages to touch the sill before she hears Clarke call out to her.
"Wait!" Lexa freezes, turning back around warily. She takes in the flushed appearance of Clarke's face and the way she's worrying her lip between her teeth. Lexa raises an eyebrow that Clarke can't see.
"I just wanted to say that I know you do a rather thankless job, you know, running around protecting people without letting anyone know who you really are," Clarke spits out, crossing the room to stand closer to her, hand reaching tentatively out, almost as if she is about to touch her shoulder or her wrist, and Lexa almost flinches away from the contact but it never comes. Clarke instead thinks better of the gesture and chooses instead to retract her hand, fingers closing into a fist, reminiscent of the way she'd pulled her fingers away when she'd been examining her cuts before.
"I want you to know that there are people out there who appreciate everything you do." Lexa is almost physically propelled backwards by the force of the kindness of these words. She truly doesn't know what to say in response, and all she can see is Clarke's small smile and her blue eyes, and Lexa wasn't aware that there could still be selfless people in the world. (Maybe she's getting a little too cynical, but who would blame her?). There's a strange sensation in her stomach and a prickling of what might be tears in her eyes, and she is suddenly so overwhelmed by the emotion she keeps so carefully bottled up all the time, she can't breathe. She needs to leave. Now. She can't be here anymore.
Lexa nods curtly before turning swiftly on her heel, trying to stop her heart from racing and trying to ignore the look on Clarke's face she gets a quick look at before she hops up onto the window sill and shoves her body out onto the street a few inches below her feet. She lands sturdily, and she fights a feeling of nausea before pushing forward.
She doesn't look back.
She decides to break into her boxing gym to grab the duffle bag she always keeps inside her locker in case of emergencies. She normally just scales the side of her apartment complex in her outfit, slipping into her apartment through the window and undressing once she gets inside. Tonight, however, with her broken arm, dislocated shoulder, and various stitches, she thinks she should just walk in the front door and take the questionable elevator up to her floor. She strips off the rest of her outfit and changes into the jeans and sweatshirt she keeps in the duffle, shoving her mask, pants and boots into the bag, zipping it up before tugging her hair out of its disheveled braid and letting it hang in loose curls around the side of her head. She'll have to figure out what she's going to do with her hair tomorrow, because she hates wearing it down, but she can't exactly braid it or tie it up with only one working arm.
She heaves a sigh before shutting up her locker, hurrying to the nearest subway stop to get to her destination with as minimal walking as she can possibly come up with. She has no desire to walk anymore, and she just wants to sleep.
Upon arriving to her building, she nods at Ethel behind the counter, who looks like she'd just woken up herself. Ethel scowls in return. Lexa doesn't take it personally. Ethel hates everyone.
Lexa doesn't think there's been a day in the recent past when she'd felt so thrilled to be back home. She tosses her bag to the side and locks up her door, not bothering to turn the lights on or change into her pajamas; she just collapses on top of her bed, eyes closing almost as soon as her head hits the pillow. She can feel the exhaustion rapidly pulling her into its embrace, and she can feel sleep coming on quickly. She's never needed it more than she does right now.
(She definitely doesn't dream about Clarke).
A/N: feel free to come shoot me a message on tumblr (cap-carter dot tumblr dot com)