Chapter 2

A sigh eschewed from pink lips, as the blonde leaned her head back against the back of the couch, her thumb pressing the side of her phone to turn the screen to black. She had done a quick, uncomplicated Google search for lost items on the metro and read a few posts on various forums from people who had been in her shoes: different people with different items lost but who obviously shared her feelings of loss. None of the many questions and answers she had read had been very hopeful, nor helpful.

Her eyes fluttered closed for a moment before she opened them again and ran her blue depths across the ceiling, unconsciously tracing the cracks in the white surface as her thoughts whirred and short-circuited at the same time, racing in too many different directions without following a specific path with a specific end goal. The squeamish feeling in the pit of her stomach that had been born and only grown since the horrible discovery that her sketch book was gone was only amplified by the eery quiet in her dorm room, the soft cracks of the wooden door frames as they set and yielded to their old age and soft but insistent whizzing of the warm water passing through the radiator and warming the apartment to a comfortable inside temperature. The absence of her two room mates was nearly tangible, but she couldn't say that she didn't understand Octavia and Bellamy's wish to be with their grandmother post-surgery on the one hand and Raven's desire to be with her new boyfriend on the other hand. Either way, none of them could have possibly known in advance that the blonde doctor-to-be would lose her sketch book on the metro today and might want to drown her misery; not she, and most definitely not her friends.

Lifting her heavy head up from the back of the couch, Clarke pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and chewed it absentmindedly, her eyes falling upon a picture of Bellamy and Octavia on the low closet on which their shared television stood. The picture had been taken last summer and showed Octavia on her older brother's back, her hands covering his eyes. The sickening feeling that coiled in her stomach prevented the picture from raising a smile to her face as it usually did. While Bellamy didn't share a dorm room with the three girls, they spent a lot of time together and he and Octavia, his little sister, were inseparable in many ways even though both of them were stubbornly independent as well. Oddly enough, their relationship sometimes reminded her of how her own relationship with her father had been.

While the pain of losing him wasn't as all-encompassing as it once had been anymore, for it had had seven years to settle, whenever her mind filled with memories of him and of old times where they hadn't even thought about the brevity and fragility of life, she often wished that she had spent more time with him when she had the chance. In that regard, she completely understood that Bellamy and Octavia wanted to be with their grandmother now. While she had never met the eighty-three-year-old woman in the flesh, she had seen her and talked to her through Skype calls a handful of times −− Mrs. Blake insisted on seeing her grandchildren regularly even if that meant that someone always had to come over to help her set up the call on her end (mostly Octavia and Bellamy's mother or aunt), since she had no clue about what she called advanced technology. Clarke knew that the old woman had been a beacon of safety and a rock both Octavia and Bellamy had been able to rely on when their parents got divorced and that she meant a great deal to them. She had been due to get a hip replacement that morning, and it had gone without question that her grandchildren would be there when she woke up.

Raven's reasons for not being home were undoubtedly more selfish than that, but Clarke also couldn't blame her for that. While she couldn't rightfully say that she had ever been 'crazy crazy' about anyone in such a way that she had wanted to spend every waking second with them −− and preferably alone −− herself, it wasn't the first time she had seen her room mate like this over a guy. She had to admit, though, that she had never seen her be this crazy over someone. At least someone would reciprocate Finn's feelings then. She hadn't been that person, despite the fact that Finn has started out showing particular interest in her at first. They had met at a bar through mutual friends' mutual friends, and they had flirted a bit back and forth for a few weeks, especially from his side to hers, but she hadn't been interested enough to pursue what he intended further. When her response to his flirting had lacked significantly, Raven's outgoing and suggestive, barely subtle, nature had caught his attention and seemed to have rubbed off on him. They had hit it off and had been lip-locked an overwhelming portion of the time they spent together since. She wished them all the best, despite the fact that she had difficulty seeing any kind of future perspectives featuring them as a couple.

Blinking, Clarke averted her gaze from staring unseeingly at the pictures on the closet and inadvertently glanced down at the phone in her hand, acutely aware of the cold metal laying heavily in her hand. She had taken pictures of a few of her pieces, and some of them were online on the blog she inconsistently kept, often forgot about and picked up again, but it couldn't replace the real sketches she had made, especially since she had nearly filled it entirely by now and it wouldn't just be two, three pieces, but her work of the past year.

She pressed her thumb against the side of the phone briefly so that the screen would unlock and she could check the time without necessarily unlocking it. It was just after eight-thirty. She considered calling Octavia or Raven, perhaps even Wells, and tell them what had happened so that she could share her feelings of loss even if they wouldn't have a solution either or feel the hole that had seemingly been carved in her being at the knowledge of having lost one of her dearest possessions. She decided against it, though. Raven wouldn't appreciate being interrupted, if she even noticed that anyone was attempting to reach her, and she didn't want to intrude on the grandparent grandchildren time between the Blakes and their recovering grandmother either. Wells was a valid option, since he hadn't mentioned any plans for the evening and she thought he would understand or at least try to understand how upset she was, but she decided against contacting him as well, even though she couldn't explain the reasons why.

The next time that she pressed her thumb against the side of her phone, she did press long enough to unlock it. Picking it up, she drew on the spark of determination that had jolted through her veins in the brief seconds before she took action and slid her thumbs across the virtual keyboard once more, slightly altering her search function in an attempt to find the answers she hadn't found earlier. She couldn't have been the only one who had ever lost anything precious on the metro, and she couldn't believe −− tried not to believe for sure −− that no one had ever had their prized possession returned to them. Scrolling through the results, she clicked on the few she thought might hold good suggestions, most often to click back in disappointment. As the minutes ticked by, the amount of unresolved situations she had read about grew and the shred of determination that had formed in her died out nearly as soon as it had originated, she quickly gave in to her despondency again.

The best suggestion that she had come across, from someone who had apparently gotten his phone back that way after losing it on the metro, was to send a tweet to the Metro DC Twitter handle and explain what, where and when very specifically, so that the staff could check if the item had been left behind on the metro at the end destination and if not, so that it could be noticed by as many people as possible. Tapping her foot against the carpet rhythmically yet unconsciously, she tried to make up her mind if it was even worth the effort. Figuring that she should take any chance she could to get her beloved sketch book back, she closed her browser and opened her Twitter app, beginning to type furiously and doing her best to be succinct yet clear in the limited amount of characters she was allowed. If it lead to nothing, so be it, but at least she would have tried, she told herself.

She left her WiFi on after she had sent her Tweet, throwing her phone on the couch next to her before getting up and moving towards the kitchen, in search of that bag of chips she knew was hidden somewhere in the back of the closet despite her and her room mates' deal with each other to eat healthy. It was the best option at comfort food that she had to her availability without having to go out −− which was the last thing that she wanted to do right now. No, she would empty that big bag of chips all by herself while seated in front of the TV in her favorite pajamas, watching some old reruns of The Big Bang Theory and hoping for the best, hoping against all hope that something fruitful would come forth from her 137 character block of text to Metro DC.