A Commander and a Princess

The Procedure

Lexa's POV

"Okay, Clarke, sweetie?" Abby said, entering the room. It had been a few hours or so since they went out looking for a possible donor, a few hours after Clarke had asked Lexa to stay with her while she slept. Abby saw that Clarke was still asleep and motioned to Lexa, "Can you wake her?"

"Clarke," Lexa said, tightening her grip on Clarke's hand. Her eyes opened slowly; Lexa could tell Clarke was getting back into the stages of withdrawal. She'd used the thermometer (it was a fascinating object; you placed it into the subject's mouth and it told you their bodily temperature. Lexa had never seen such an object) to check her temperature every once in awhile like Abby showed her. "Clarke."

"Lex.." She coughed out.

"Shh," Lexa ran her fingers across Clarke's forehead, smiling down at her. "They're going to do the procedure now. You need to be awake for the first part."

"I'm so tired." She said, voice groggy and thick.

"Just stay awake for the first part." Lexa reassured her. "Dr. Tsing said that's all you needed to be awake for."

"That doesn't make sense." Clarke said, her head rolling off to the side.

"I know- hey, look at me." Lexa placed her hand on Clarke's cheek, lifting her head so she was looking at her. "You can do this."

"Okay." Clarke nodded. When Lexa moved to go across the room, she grabbed her wrist. "No, wait. Please."

Lexa looked to Abby, who just nodded over at her. She sat down, trying to move out of the way of everyone in the room that was helping Clarke. Whenever Lexa saw her begin to close her eyes, she squeezed her hand and woke her up.

"Alright." Dr. Tsing said, "Let's begin."

---

Clarke's POV

Clarke felt needles poking into her arm, and voices around her ordering others around... The only thing that stayed consistent was Lexa's hand on hers, helping her keep awake even when she felt she couldn't go on- and it was certainly more than a few times. Clarke's eyes were so heavy, and she just wanted to sleep... but the transfusion...

Her eyes started to close again as she lost her train of thought. Lexa's hand squeezed hers, and she felt her eyes shift open. What was she thinking about before? Something about the procedure...

"Clarke," Someone said above her, "Clarke. Wake up."

Why were they saying that? She was awake, sort of...

She let out a moan to let them know she wasn't asleep. How long would this transfusion take? She knew they took a long time depending on how much blood you needed... Clarke needed her entire body cleaned of the Red. How long would that take? She was so, so tired.

And the way they kept poking and prodding her with needles (at least it felt like they were... but maybe that was just her imagination), she felt like a lab rat. And maybe she was; she was pretty much the first person to have gone through something this drastic when it came to the Red. And she was sure the Mountain Men had never tried to save someone that had consumed large amounts of it.

She wasn't sure how far into the procedure they'd gotten when she could no longer keep her eyes open, and fell asleep.

---

For the first time in what felt like ages, Clarke woke with no headache... no pain, no nothing. She didn't feel the need to tear off her restraints in search of a vial... She felt fine.

Well, maybe not so fine. She was extremely hungry and thirsty. How long had she been out?

Slowly, Clarke opened her eyes and looked around; there was barely anyone in the room. Just Raven, who was curled up in the corner asleep since the only other chair was being occupied by Lexa, who was beside Clarke. She had her head pressing against Clarke's thigh, and her mouth was dangling open no more than a centimeter. Clarke found it extremely cute, especially the way a strand of hair fluttered over her nose when she breathed.