( 59 一 REPARATIONS. )
Clara woke to the steady beep of machines. She was flat on her back, her whole body radiating pain. Something warm was pressing against her palm and she squeezed it tightly. In a flash a body moved above her, their face creased in worry.
"Clara?" Chubs asked, looking deep into her eyes. "You're awake! Are you in any pain?"
Clara moved her head up and down slightly, trying to communicate the agony coursing through her. Chubs pushed a button into her hand, closing her finger over it.
"It released morphine. Press it whenever you need," he told her. Clara did as he said and before long she felt herself relaxing, the pain ebbing away from her like the tide.
"Is—" her words were choked off, her throat dry and scratchy. Chubs jumped forwards, a cup of water being pushed up to her lips. She took deep gulps, enjoying the feeling of the cool liquid soothing her throat.
When she could finally talk she began again. "Is everyone okay?"
Chubs took a weary breath, collapsing back into his chair. "Well, Ruby is pretty banged up. They shattered her fibula but she's healing up okay. She's in the room next to yours," he said, pointing at the wall joining the rooms. "Everyone else is fine. Tired, but fine."
"Did it work?" Clara asked quietly. She wasn't sure if she was ready to hear the answer.
Finally, a small smile graced Chubs' stressed face. He nodded proudly, reaching out and grabbing Clara's hand. "It worked. You and Ruby did it."
Clara let herself close her eyes for a moment. They'd done it. They'd liberated the camp. The win was so hard fought for and it felt so bittersweet because Clara knew all the lives they'd lost in the process.
She was snapped out of her thoughts by a hand sharply slapping her wrist. "But I swear to God if you or Ruby ever pull a stunt like that again I'll kill you both myself," Chubs said, a familiar scowl on his face.
Clara chuckled weakly, "Deal, Chubsy."
The click of a door being pulled open drew Clara's attention. In the doorway stood Vida, two bottles of water in her hand as she walked into the room.
"You'd think this place was run by fucking zombies. Not a single person could tell me where to buy a simple bottle of goddam water," Vida complained loudly, her eyes focused on closing the door.
"Um, Vida..." Chubs trailed off.
"What?" she questioned, spinning to face him. When she did her eyes locked on Chubs before panning to Clara.
With a quick drop of the water bottles on the floor Vida was racing towards her, "Fuck's sake, I leave for ten bloody minutes."
When she reached Clara's bedside Vida didn't waste a second. She grabbed the girl by her jaw and smashed her lips into hers. It was hard and full of love and Clara was acutely aware of Chubs's presence but she found it within her to forget him for a moment. She allowed herself to be completely consumed by all things Vida. The smell of her hair, the softness of her bitten lips, her hand on her face. Everything Clara had prayed for had been gifted to her.
A sharp cough from behind drew the girl's attention. Chubs was sitting with an awkward expression on his face, clearly waiting for them to finish.
"What?" Vida asked, unimpressed that they had been interrupted.
Chubs rolled his eyes, "Do you mind? You couldn't just hug like normal people?"
Vida sent him a scathing glare, turning back to kiss Clara all the more passionately. Clara had the sneaking suspicion that it was just to spite him. Still, she laughed gently against Vida's lips, feeling the girl smile.
"If you get shot again, I'll gut you," Vida told her once she pulled away.
Clara smiled up at her lovingly, "Don't worry about it, Chubs already has that covered."
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Doctors and nurses regularly checked on Clara. She found it irritating but Chubs made her promise she wouldn't snap at any of them. Reluctantly, she agreed.
She was soon allowed to take short walks through the hospital, some variation of her friends always sticking by her side like glue. It was refreshing to get out of her room. What wasn't refreshing was the swarm of journalists always trying to speak with either her or Ruby, who had woken up not long after Clara did. They were like buzzing bees Clara couldn't swat away.
All across the country kids were being reunited with their families and apparently the people wanted to know who was behind it. Plastered all across the front pages were pictures of Ruby and Clara and happy families. There was no mention of the children who weren't picked up by their parents, of the riots or crimes committed against the country's children. The injustice burned inside Clara like a fire.
She knew there was a good chance the government would never truly own up to their crimes. There would be no reparations for the lives destroyed, hers included. There would likely be no memorial or recognition for the Orange's they murdered or the kids tortured in lab trials. Their names would be buried with their bodies.
Chubs was advocating fiercely for all PSI children at the coming press conference. The emerging government was trying to enforce the procedure on all PSI but Clara knew she could trust in Chubs to set them right. Pride was overflowing from her when he bashfully told her Senator Cruz had asked him to speak.
Despite her insistence, she wasn't allowed to attend and so she settled for planning to watch the event on the tv. Her friends had all left the hospital hours in advance and Clara was left bored out of her mind. She'd been mindlessly tapping a plastic spoon when there was a knock at her door. The familiar face of her nurse appeared, a smile pulling at her face.
"You have a visitor, Miss Thornton," she said, pushing the door open wider. Clara sat up in her hospital bed, surprised. Everyone was supposed to be at the press conference by then.
A figure with sunglasses and a red cap over their head entered the room. Clara tensed, she knew immediately who it was that had entered her room.
The nurse closed the door behind him and Clara was overwhelmed by the intense feeling of being trapped. She watched his every move like a hawk. It wasn't until he was seated in a chair, with his sunglasses off that she finally began to relax slightly.
Clancy looked sickly pale, his face sallow and tired. It reminded her that he couldn't hurt her, not again. He'd had his powers stripped from him.
"It's not easy, is it?" Clara said after a long silence. "Being completely dehumanised back to your ten year old self," she said calmly, repeating the words he'd said to her weeks ago from his cell.
Clancy didn't respond to her taunt. He stared out of the hospital window, a clouded look on his face.
"Why are you here, Clancy?' Clara asked tiredly. She didn't have the energy for their games anymore. The way they'd twist and carve at each other's greatest fears. It was too exhausting. She got the impression that Clancy was feeling the same way.
"I keep losing feeling in my right fingers. They said it was a complication they'd never seen before," Clancy finally responded. He held the hand gently in his left as if it was a delicate object. One wrong move and it would shatter. Clara felt the same way sometimes.
When Clara didn't say anything he finally looked at her. He studied her for a long time, just long enough for Clara to feel the need to shift uncomfortably.
She figured she was supposed to be feeling pity, guilt perhaps, but she couldn't will the emotion even if she tried. The world was safer without Clancy's power, it was safe from him.
"You look almost as bad as me," he said, a humourless smirk on his face.
"You tend to look a bit shit after a gunshot wound. I imagine you'd know that better than most," she said, hinting at his own experience. Clancy rolled his eyes in response.
They settled back into an uneasy silence and Clara found herself itching for him to leave. She wanted Vida there, to scream at him and throw him out of the room. She also felt like she needed this. She and Clancy had such a complicated and warped relationship. She needed closure. Wanted it, maybe.
"Nico?" Clancy asked. He didn't elaborate, but Clara knew what he meant.
"He's okay," she said quietly. "Cate's looking after him, so will I as soon as I'm out of this bed."
Clancy nodded to himself like he needed the reassurance.
Clara found herself opening her mouth again. She didn't even know what she was going to say until the words slipped out. "Are you sorry? For any of it?"
Clancy looked at her strangely, "No. But you already knew that."
She did know that but it still shattered her heart to pieces. She swallowed thickly, refusing to cry in front of him.
A long silence ensued. Both were stuck in their heads, thinking over everything that went wrong. They had very different perspectives on that.
"I want you to leave," she told him eventually. Clancy didn't move a muscle. He stayed in his seat, watching her.
"Get out," Clara said more forcefully. Still, he sat still like a statue.
Clara couldn't help snapping. He'd caused her so much pain and she wanted him gone, out of her life for good. "Get out!" she screamed, throwing the tv remote on her bedside table at him.
"Get out! Get out! Get out!"
Clancy finally stood, swiftly exiting the room before a nurse could berate him or worse discover his identity.
Clara didn't stop screaming. She wailed and cried and shrieked until the nurses finally had to sedate her so she didn't pull her stitches. She was sobbing heavily as she drifted off, her nurse brushing her hair out of her face and whispering to her to calm down.
That was the last time Clara ever spoke to Clancy Gray. She was erased from his mind, her scars on him blissfully wiped clean. He would never leave hers.
There was a chance that Clara would always walk the tightrope between sanity and madness. She was standing atop a needle, watching as it swayed closer one way before the wind blew it the other. It terrified her to her very core.
Despite it all, everything she'd done and had inflicted upon her, she also knew to her very core that there would be people to love her through it. They'd pull her out of the depths of her mind if they had to. They'd do it because they loved her, and she loved them.
To the moon and back.
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It's just the epilogue left 💗