Chapter Text
Emori reached out in bed, trying to feel for John, opening her eyes when her hand touched his spot and the area was cold. She sat up in bed and saw that it was still dark outside, a few hours until dawn. Glancing over to the en suite, she saw that the light wasn’t on under the door so he wasn’t in the bathroom.
Curious, Emori got up and walked downstairs to the living room and smiled when she walked in and saw John sitting on the couch with Clarke curled up next to him. She had tear tracks on her face and Emori could guess that something had upset Clarke and John had woken up to take care of her.
“Hey. Is everything ok?” She asked, when both John and Clarke looked at her.
“Ehh.” Clarke whined, untangling from John and reaching out to Emori.
“Hi Sweetie.” Emori whispered, sitting down next to Clarke and pulling her into a hug.
It’s been two years since Gabriel was able to remove Josephine’s mind drive from Clarke’s head and bring her back. Unfortunately, after taking her to Jackson for a brain scan, it was revealed that the prolonged presence of Josephine’s mind in Clarke’s brain was disastrous, with Clarke suffering very severe brain damage. She could no longer care for herself or function like she used to before Russell tried to kill her.
For murdering Abby and attempting to murder Clarke, all of the Primes were executed as a punishment, with all of the mind drives destroyed to make sure that nobody was coming back. The people of Sanctum and the Children of Gabriel shared the first compound, creating a society that benefited all that lived there. A second compound was built, where Wonkru and the Eligius prisoners lived, and a small neighborhood was also constructed by the farm house, where all of their friends lived.
Murphy and Emori stayed in the farm house, since it’d be a waste to abandon such a lovely home, and Murphy, feeling incredibly guilty over what happened to Abby, insisted that he and Emori be the ones to take care of Clarke.
Due to her brain damage, Clarke could no longer take care of herself. She definitely could no longer live alone, and during her waking hours, she needed someone by her at all times to help her with anything that she needed.
She couldn’t talk anymore, making various sounds to get people’s attention, and Murphy and Emori made the discovery that giving Clarke choices and letting her point to what she wanted worked better than guessing what her various noises meant. The only two noises they for sure knew the meanings to were ‘Ehh’ and ‘Muh’ which were the names she called them.
Luckily, the language disconnect was only one sided. Clarke seemed to understand both English and Trig in somewhat the same capacity that she did before she was body snatched, so there was no need to dumb things down for her or talk to her like she was a child. All Murphy and Emori really had to do was give Clarke choices when asking her questions and be patient enough to wait for Clarke to answer them on her own terms. Sometimes she’d take longer than usual to answer them, but no matter how long it took, the two never wavered with their love and understanding.
“I can’t get her to stop crying.” Murphy said quietly, and Emori could feel Clarke tremble as she clung to her.
“Did she have a bad dream?”
“I don’t know. I woke up and something just felt wrong so I went to her room to check on her and she was sitting up in bed crying. I figured some cuddles wouldn’t hurt the situation so I brought her down here, but no matter what I do, she won’t stop.”
“Clarke, Sweetie, can you look at me?” Emori asked, smiling when Clarke shifted backwards to look at her friend. “Good job Clarke. Are you crying because you have a headache? Yes or no?” She asked, holding out her right hand for yes and her left for no. This was their system when asking Clarke a question. Right was always yes and left was always no. Clarke would then point at whatever hand her answer was and Murphy and Emori would take it from there. They couldn’t use head nodding or shaking because Clarke sometimes mixed the gestures up, and if she was having a headache or migraine, the sudden movement could cause her motion sickness.
When Clarke pointed at Emori’s right hand, she exchanged a look with Murphy. Because of the trauma her brain went through, two long lasting side effects that Clarke suffered from were headaches and migraines. Headache days were bad for the family, and migraine days were worse.
“Alright Clarke, is it a migraine, yes or no?”
Clarke again pointed at Emori’s right hand and the other woman sighed while getting up. “John, take her up to our room, I’ll be up in a moment.” She instructed, going to the kitchen to get Clarke some water and pain medicine. Now that they knew what was wrong, they could take care of it and hopefully help Clarke feel better.
As she was getting the medicine out of the cabinet, she heard Clarke gag from the other room, followed by Murphy cursing.
“Son of a fucking………No Baby. Not at you. Never at you.” He said after Clarke whimpered, and Emori knew that he was reassuring Clarke that his anger and cursing were not directed at her.
“Is everything ok in there?” She called, filling a sippy cup with water.
“Emmy, she threw up. I’m gonna take her upstairs. The floor’s been hit.”
“Don’t worry, I got it. Take care of Clarke.”
After cleaning up the floor, Emori went upstairs and brought Clarke’s water and pain medicine to the master bedroom. Now that they knew this migraine was causing nausea, she didn’t want Clarke sleeping alone in her room.
Murphy was in the en suite, while Clarke was curled up on the bed, face against her pillow, belly down.
“Clarke, can you sit up for me?” She asked gently, dimming the lights in the room so Clarke wouldn’t be as bothered. Bright lights made her migraines worse so the blonde was probably hiding against her pillow to spare her eyes the pain.
“Mmphh” Clarke mumbled into the pillow, a familiar noise that told Emori that she didn’t want to sit up.
“I know, Sweetie. It doesn’t feel good. But you need medicine.” Emori reasoned, rubbing Clarke’s back.
Hearing the word medicine, Clarke rolled over and sat up, holding out her hand. Emori placed two pills in her palm and handed Clarke the sippy cup of water. Clarke downed the pills immediately and drank half of the water before handing her cup back to Emori and rolling onto her stomach again.
“If you want your water throughout the night, let me know.” She said, placing the cup on the nightstand table. Another problem that Josephine caused was that her presence damaged the part of Clarke’s brain that contributed to her hand eye coordination. Clarke couldn’t use regular glasses or cups anymore, making a mess and spilling everywhere. They also became a safety hazard when she dropped a glass and later in the day broken shards cut her hand when she crawled in the kitchen, hidden under the chairs by the counter. Even if they were seen as dishes made for children, Murphy and Emori had to utilize plastic bowls, and plates, along with sippy cups, to make sure Clarke was safe while eating.
Along with not being able to talk, or have proper hand eye coordination, Clarke also wasn’t able to walk or stand for long periods of time. She could only take at most five steps before stumbling and falling and pulling herself into a standing position was often too tiring for her. In order to move around the house, she either crawled or scooted around on her butt with Murphy carrying her as a last resort. Raven had built a wheelchair for when Clarke went out in public, but her most used modes of transportation were scooting or crawling. Because of her mobility issues, it was rare for Clarke to be alone during her waking hours. The only time she was always guaranteed to be alone was when she had to go to the bathroom, with Murphy or Emori leaving the room once she was situated, to give her some privacy while she went about her business. Other than that, though, one of them had to be with Clarke at all times from the moment she woke up until the moment she went to bed.
“Here, this might help.” Murphy said, appearing from the bathroom with a cool damp washcloth folded in half. He placed it on the back of Clarke’s neck and smiled when the blonde relaxed against the pillow, her tense, hunched form disappearing.
“That’s it. Try and sleep.” Murphy said gently, pulling the covers up around Clarke. “You too. You have work in a few hours.” He said to Emori, who shook her head.
“It’s Saturday. Raven only needs me for four hours. I’ll be fine.”
“You won’t be any help to Raven if you’re sleep deprived. You have to wake up in like four hours anyway. If Clarke needs someone, I’ll help her.” Murphy insisted, giving Emori a knowing look. “Some sleep is better than no sleep.”
“Fine, but when I get home for lunch, I’ll take Clarke for the day.” She said, getting into bed and rolling on her side to prevent Murphy from arguing. Murphy smiled and got into bed too, happy that there was plenty of room despite Clarke being sandwiched between them.
“John?”
“Yeah?”
“I wish we could see if she knew how much we love her. With this second chance, I don’t want her to feel how I did growing up. I just don’t know if I’m doing it right. I never grew up around enough people to know how to take care of someone, how to do it right.”
“Emori. You’re doing a wonderful job. I mean, you haven’t killed Clarke yet.” Murphy joked, and he could hear her laugh. “Besides, everything you’ve done for her is already a million times better than what your parents did for you. The fact that you love and care for Clarke no matter what shows that you’re doing something right.”
“Thanks.” Emori said after a few moments of silence.
“For what?”
“For knowing the right things to say.” She finished, before going silent, listening to Clarke’s breathing. She was happy that Clarke wasn’t aware of the conversation, the pain medicine Jackson gave them for her migraines tended to knock her out quickly.
“No problem, and remember, Clarke is a team effort. You can come to me if something is bothering you.”
“I know. I just worry about her.”
“I do too, but we must be doing something right because she’s been living with us for two years and she’s finally happy. Now you should go to bed, or Raven will be pissed if you can’t help with coding tomorrow.” Murphy added, before Emori nodded in agreement and eventually fell asleep. He stayed up a little while longer to watch out for Clarke, but eventually he fell asleep, happy to have both of his girls by his side.