Chapter Text
Jasper twiddles his thumbs and watches Clarke with bitter anxiety. He's been gnawing on the inside of his bottom lip so regularly it's raw and painful; he continues, of course, tasting copper briefly before swallowing it down. The teenage boy has never handled anxiety very well - getting speared in the chest unexpectedly when trying to impress a pretty girl really helped him out with that, he'd brag, only he doesn't brag anymore, either. Bad things happen when he gets too cocky.
That's what Monty always told him, anyway. His half-drunk best friend whose head is drooped against Jasper's shoulder. In Monty's defense, the night had started off with a pretty decent drinking fest, and would have ended that way, too, if Jasper hadn't gotten a little too curious about a girl who was missing the party.
There's a crash, suddenly, and both Jasper and Monty lift their heads to look over. There's a low-risen table, and Clarke is examining Octavia, who's laying flat on the top of it. Her hair is dark, and it's long - it's draping over the side of said table and it's sprawled on the ground. Octavia is sick, and Jasper was the one who had found her in her tent, practically unconscious; crying from internal pain and laying next to a pool of her own vomit. He isn't too sure what the blond medic had done to her, exactly, but it must have hurt the younger woman. She hisses in pain and slams her elbow against the table once more, which, oh, that must have been what the earlier crash was, Jasper nods to himself. Good job figuring that out, Jas, he thinks. That's what's really important here.
Clarke looks mildly irritated and takes a step away from the examining table in the Drop Ship. She sighs, "I'm just trying to check your pulse - why do you keep doing that?"
"Because it hurts when you move my arm," Octavia hisses. She's pale and irritable and Bellamy holding her down by the shoulders isn't making her attitude anymore approachable.
"Just moving it hurts you that bad?" Clarke's interest is caught, then. She gestures towards Octavia's arm with her eyes, silently asking the younger woman if she could try to move it one more time. Octavia doesn't look like she's very thrilled with that unspoken suggestion. "... I promise I'll be gentle; and if it hurts, I'll stop, okay?"
Bellamy lightly squeezes his sisters shoulders. She rolls her eyes to look up at her brother who is standing by her head, looking down at her with a face that is practically insisting that Octavia should just go ahead and listen to Clarke. The younger girl shakes her head and sighs in defeat. "FIne."
Clarke nods to her and keeps to her word by gently taking Octavia's arm; flipping it over to feel her wrist for a pulse. No issues with her heartbeat, Clarke notes to herself. But when the younger woman's sleeve rolls up, the blond sees something that looks like the start of a rash. She reaches to pull the sleeve up, but Octavia hisses and pulls her arm back and away from the blond.
"Pretty sure you won't find a heartbeat up there, Doc," Octavia gripes.
"Octavia, is that a rash that you have on your arm?"
Bellamy furrows his brow and, without asking permission like Clarke had, pulls the sleeve of Octavia's shirt up her arm to reveal a very peculiar looking rash on her upper forearm. The younger woman glares up at her brother because that hurts, you frickin' jerk!, but she doesn't push it. Bellamy looks distraught enough as it is, and despite the tough persona he likes to think that he's established, Bellamy is just another lost boy who wants nothing more than to protect the ones he loves. Lucky for the bunch of them, Bellamy considers most of the people in their camp his family, now. Even Finn, the boy he argues with the most, (now that he seems to be on good terms with Clarke), has turned into the stupid kid brother Bellamy never knew he had wanted.
"Bell--!" Octavia protests; pulling her sleeve back down.
"Clarke?" Bellamy definitely doesn't miss how Clarke's making that face she makes when things start to make sense to her again.
"Joint stiffness, nausea, irritability,... And then the shape of that rash,..." It looked a lot like a red target was painted onto Octavia's arm. Clarke would have easily mistook it for that, actually, since the younger woman seems to be buddies with the Grounders, who are definitely not afraid of war paint,... But it jogs a memory of two or three years ago, when she had been flipping through one of her mother's medical books and landed on a peculiar sounding Earth disease.
The blond looks up to Bellamy after a moment's pause. "I think it's Lyme disease."
"Is that bad?"
Jasper speaks up, and it startles both Bellamy and Octavia, since the siblings sort of forgot that the stoner-duo were even in the room anymore. The brunette's eyes widen - he hadn't meant to scare them, obviously, and silently apologizes to them with both a half-shrug and a small grin.
Jasper steps up to be beside Bellamy; Monty directly behind him, his eyes just as curious as the boy in front of him. Bellamy looks from Jasper to Clarke, generally wanting to know the answer to Jasper's question.
"Well, that depends on how long Octavia has had it," Clarke crosses her arms against her chest.
Bellamy looks down to his sister. "How long have you had the rash, O?"
Octavia takes a deep breath and sits up - her head sort of pounding hard against her skull as she does -, and slowly lets the air whistle between her lips. She shrugs, "I don't know - maybe a couple weeks after we got here?"
"And you didn't say anything to anyone?" Clarke asks with disbelief that someone could actually miss a huge, red rash on their arm of that size. It looked like it practically took up her entire skinny forearm.
The younger woman looks at Clarke hard; suddenly feeling a little interrogated. "What? I thought it made me look like a badass."
Bellamy rolls his eyes - at Octavia's reasoning, and at Jasper and Monty sharing a little strangled laugh next to him. Octavia smiles at them, and Bellamy just hopes that the duo doesn't drag his sister down to their depths of stupid.
"Okay, so she's obviously had it for a while, Clarke, what's going to happen to her now?" The older brother asks.
Clarke looks down and thins her lips. "I'm not really sure, to be honest; I only read the chapter about Lyme Disease once, maybe two years ago..."
"But you still remember something about it, right? You'd know if she was gonna --" Monty says; eyes shooting between the five of them and trying not to say the word they were all quietly thinking about. Die. "-- Y'know?"
Clarke shakes her head, "From what I can remember, Lyme Disease won't cause - y'know - even without the antibiotics, however..." The blond stalls, avoiding Octavia and instead looking to Bellamy. "... It can develop side effects that can."
Jasper looks at the back of Octavia's head. He can't see her reaction since she isn't facing him, but he can tell by the way she noticeably stiffens that shit just got real. "S-side effects?" He asks, worried for her. He looks to Clarke for answers.
"If left unattended, the Lyme Disease could maybe effect her motor skills enough where she won't be able to walk without falling over, or worse case scenario --"
"Oh god, that was the best case scenario?" Monty almost coughs. Jasper makes a face to him that says, 'yikes'.
Clarke licks her lips, a quick nod to Monty before jamming her thumbs into her pant pockets awkwardly. " -- Octavia could develop serious heart problems. It could even lead to heart failure."
Bellamy and Octavia share a worried glance. He breaks it, after a long moment, "Obviously, okay, we don't have the antibiotics here. Is there any other way we can get it out of her system?"
Clarke wants to say no. She can't remember if there was a cure for Lyme Disease from when she'd read the book so long ago, but she tries to remain hopeful; she doesn't think she could handle the face the Blake's will make if she were to tell them that all hope is lost.
She sighs. "The only thing I can think of is using the same seaweed that we'd used to fight off Jasper's infection could maybe help the one brewing inside of Octavia. And in the same book, the one with the chapter about Lyme Disease - I remember reading that some tree honey's can help cure certain diseases."
"Great. So, seaweed and honey is the answer?" Octavia questions; raising an eyebrow in Clarke's direction.
"It could be," Clarke shrugs. "It was for Jasper."
Octavia nods and looks back to Jasper, who shoots her a little awkward grin. She almost smiles back at him, but her stomach knots and it feels like someone is literally shoving their hand into her gut and squeezing her organs. She wraps an arm around her aching torso and leans forward, "I think I'm going to be sick --"
The three boys take a step back on that note - and just in time, too, because just as Octavia finishes her sentence, she's hurling all over the floor where they were just standing. Clarke steps forward to quickly pull Octavia's hair back.
Bellamy reaches around to tap his hand in comfort on his little sisters back as she dry heaves, "It should only be a half of a day trip. I'll leave in the morning --"
"No," Octavia looks up at him immediately; tears running down her cheeks. She grips the front of his shirt, "Please, Bell, don't leave me, you're all I have..."
Jasper watches how Bellamy bites his lip and nods before wrapping his arms around Octavia. She's crying - muffled, but still loud sobs rock against Bellamy's chest, and it echoes throughout the entire drop ship. She's feeling so nauseous and shitty again that she can't fake being strong anymore; there are no more jokes, no more sarcasm... Just her wailing cries as her big brother holds her close. Jasper can literally feel something break inside of his chest as he watches her.
He looks back at Monty, who is looking back at him; already knowing what Jasper was thinking, and nodding his head in silent agreement. The brunette boy smiles, because man, when God was handing out best friends, he sure was lucky that he got Monty Green.
"I'll go," Jasper turns to tell Clarke his bright idea, because obviously Bellamy is too preoccupied with trying to calm his panicking sister down. The brunette hooks his arm around Monty's shoulders and pushes him forward to stand next to him. "-- Me and Monty. We'll go."
Clarke doesn't really have words. It was nice of them, yeah, but... They'd probably just get lost out in the woods and die themselves. "Jasper, that's a really kind offer, but..."
"You idiots would get killed out there by yourselves," Bellamy says bluntly. Monty purses his lips and nods, silently agreeing with the older Blake, while Jasper opens his mouth in mild resentment. Octavia doesn't seem to be crying anymore, but instead is just breathing heavy; face still hidden by her brothers chest. "Finn will go with you."
It doesn't sound like a bad idea, except --
"Yeah, about that,..."
Clarke turns swiftly to the sound of a new voice and Monty, Jasper, and Bellamy look over to the drop ship entrance where Raven is now standing; Finn leaning against her side with his arm slung over her shoulders for support. Clarke curses under her breath because Finn looks like he's about to fall over and he's just as pale as Octavia.
"Finn's sick too," Raven says, dryly.
Monty helps Raven bring Finn into the drop ship and they let him sit on the floor; against the wall Jasper and Monty had been sitting earlier. Clarke crouches down to eye level with him to go over the symptoms, in which Finn just nods his head until she mentions a rash that looks like a big red target.
Instead of replying, Finn moves his leg out and lifts his pant leg; revealing a mark almost identical to Octavia's on the back of his calve.
"How long have you had this?" Clarke asks; blue eyes peering into his so powerful that he has to look away.
Finn stiffens when Clarke lightly grazes the rash with her cold fingertips. He swallows, "I don't know. Raven noticed it, last night, when I was taking off -- " He stops abruptly so Clarke looks up at him.
Finn is definitely kicking himself for letting anything about his night with Raven slip out. Clarke can see the intense guilt in his eyes when he looks at her, and so she looks back down when she figures out what he was about to admit to her. Clearly the two were being intimate when the rash was discovered.
" -- We didn't know what it was," Finn shrugs, feeling intense pain in his shoulder immediately after. The joint stiffness had obviously kicked in. Finn and Octavia must be at the same stage of the sickness. He grips his shoulder with his other arm, "Raven finally talked me into coming to talk to you when I started to feel sick. That's when we heard you talking to Octavia..."
Clarke fills Finn and Raven in completely; about the symptoms, what it can cause, and what their only options were as far as a cure went.
"Well, obviously Finn isn't well enough to leave camp," Bellamy shrugs. Clearly he was not happy about the recent chain of events. "I'll have Miller lead you. He hasn't gone far away from camp before, I'm worried he won't be able to find his way back, but--"
"Don't be stupid, Bellamy," Raven glares. Sexist asshole. "I'll go with Jasper and Monty."
Clarke stands and turns to the group. "Raven, no, we need you here. I found the seaweed with Finn and Wells when Jasper was sick, I should be the one to --"
"And lose our only sort of doctor?" Finn raises an eyebrow at Clarke when she turns to look down at him. He gestures to his girlfriend with his eyes, "It's just a six or seven mile walk up the stream, Raven knows what she's doing; she used to help me study for Earth Skills up on the Ark. She'll be just as useful to them as I ever would have been."
Bellamy huffs out a condescending laugh in Raven's general direction. She turns to him with crossed arms her brows furrowed tight, "Something funny to you, Blake?"
"Unless the forest has cables and wires for you to hotwire, I don't see you finding your way around it," The older Blake sibling admits. Raven kind of wants to smack the stupid little smile off of his face. "No, I don't trust it. You're more useful here."
"Listen here, Bellamy -- " Raven points her finger against Bellamy's chest. Her other hand is in a tight fist at her side and her tone grows tall and fierce, " -- I'm leaving first thing in the morning with Jasper and Monty. We're going to get your seaweed crap and we're going to come back to help Finn and your sister. If you have a problem with it, well, that's your problem to deal with, not mine."
Clarke shares a look with Jasper, Octavia and Monty, 'whoa'.
Bellamy's eyes slim and he glares at the girl in his face. Neither of them stand down, and it's a long few moments before the Blake brother looks away from Raven's hard stare. He terribly wants to show his authority here and let her know that no one talks to him like that, but... She's right, and he's a little desperate to help Octavia at this point. To everyone else's surprise, he nods his head, eyebrows raising, "Fine."
"Good. I'm glad you could come to your senses so easily," Raven's lips thin as she playfully slaps her hand against his shoulder. She ignores Bellamy's grunt as she does. She then looks over her shoulder; back at Jasper and Monty who are still in a little shock at how quickly and calmly Bellamy caved against Raven. "Pack your bags, boys; we leave in the morning."
Jasper and Monty nod to her and she shoots them a toothy grin before walking out of the drop ship and towards her tent. Monty would even swear that she was humming as she strolled out. Man, was she ever proud of herself, he thought.
"Bellamy? Clarke?" Jasper calls for their attention. Raven had made orders, yeah, but ultimately, Bellamy and Clarke were still the head of their camp. Despite how scary Raven sometimes became when she was angry, he answered to them first.
Bellamy sighs; his stare stuck on the direction Raven had gone. He turns back to the boys, "You two should go get your things together. You leave first thing in the morning."
"Alright, boss; you've got it," Monty salutes to Bellamy playfully before reaching back to grab Jasper by the sleeve of his jacket. He starts to drag his friend behind him and towards the exit, "C'mon, Jas - "
"Wait - " Octavia calls. She's sitting on the edge of the table, now, her legs dangling off. She raises her head to look up at the two boys who are watching her carefully. Her dark eyes shine as she smiles, "Thanks, guys; I know you don't really leave camp too often, Monty-- And Jasper,... I know how much you -- how you're still..." She shakes her head after tripping over her words, "I know how big of a deal this is for you. It means a lot to me, too, so thank you."
Monty looks to Jasper and can't help but grin at how red his best friends face had become. Wow, he's got it so bad. The Asian boy looks back to the younger Blake sibling with a shrug, "Of course; you'd do the same if it was Jasper or me --"
"I'd do anything for you, Octavia -- " Jasper blurts out, and hears Monty choke on air next to him. Oh dear god, Jasper thinks and bites his tongue in clear regret immediately. His face scrunches in embarrassment, and he tries to play it off as best he can, " -- Monty and me, I mean. We would do anything for you. Because you're our friend. A-and a person, nothing really special, we'd do it for any person, because that's. just. that's what people do, you know, for other people --"
"Wow. Okay, so, we're going to leave now," Monty covers Jasper's babbling mouth as quick as he can and starts to drag his idiot best friend out with him. He shoves a red-faced Jasper in front of him before looking back at the group; "You guys'll be at the gate tomorrow - to send us off?"
Clarke looks from Octavia to Monty with raised eyebrows and an amused smile. "Yes, Monty, we will be there."
"Cool."
---
Raven is the last one to show up -- a little over fifteen minutes after the time they had originally planned on. Or, well... The time Raven had agreed on. She'd be lying if she said that she didn't show up late just to get under Bellamy's skin. She'd tell you that the jackass had deserved it.
She approaches the group with a backpack; her hands gripping the straps securely. Raven grins, her shoulders rising in excitement, "You guys ready to head out?"
"We were just starting to think you'd bailed out on us," Jasper smirks.
She shakes her head, her ponytail flopping from side-to-side as she does. "Yeah, sorry; I wanted to say goodbye to Finn before I left."
"Oh, Jasper - you sure you don't want to say goodbye to Octavia? You know, how people do for other people--?"
Jasper doesn't hesitate before punching his friend in the arm as hard as he can. Monty grunts but can't help but still laugh at Jasper's obvious reaction.
"Here, take a walkie with you," Bellamy steps between the two friends to hand Raven the device. He ignores the previous conversation; mostly because Jasper's crush on his sister grosses him out, and,... He'd just really rather ignore it?
Raven turns the walkie talkie on and clips it to her belt. She looks back at Bellamy, "I don't think they reach too far; probably only a mile or two."
"Still better than nothing." He responds, in a matter-of-fact kind of way. He eyes her carefully. "Did you pack anything to arm yourselves with?"
"No, I'm a total and naive idiot and expect to survive out there without any weapons," Raven says sarcastically and lifts her shirt enough to reveal the holster with a knife in it strapped to her belt. She watches as he nods, and then puts her shirt back down.
"I brought my gun, too, Bellamy," Jasper says; revealing his weapon which was tucked under his arm and held up with a red shoulder strap.
Raven eyes the older Blake. "Anything else you got for me?"
He gives her a sideways grin. "Yeah, hurry your asses. And try not to die."
"Be careful, too, alright?" Clarke intervenes when she sees how Raven's nostrils flare in regards to Bellamy's attitude. She puts her hand on her friends shoulder and gives her a reassuring squeeze. "-- You guys will be okay, just stay alert - don't let your guard down for one second."
"Is that some kind of code for don't get speared?" Jasper grins. Clarke laughs, a little unbelieving, and the two share a quick hug. She's his savior, after all. He'll always have a bond with Clarke after everything she'd done to protect him when he couldn't do the same for himself.
The blond medic grins, shaking her head as she pulls away from Jasper. "If it makes you feel any more confident, I don't think you'd get speared again. It's like lightning - it never strikes the same spot twice."
Monty hugs Clarke, too. He tells her, "I know Jasper and me aren't the toughest guys in those deep, dark acres of woods - but I'm fairly certain Raven can take down any Grounders who messed with us."
"Yeah, but who says I would?" Raven smiles and playfully bumps her shoulder against Monty's.
Bellamy signals for Harper to open the gate. When it starts to creak and open, he looks back at Raven, "Make sure you bring as much back as you can. Right now Octavia and Finn are the only ones infected, but by the time you come back, half of the camp could be sick with the Lyme Disease."
"Got it."
The group shares one last glance between each other before Jasper, Monty and Raven turn to head out. It's still a little dark - maybe around four or five in the morning, and there aren't enough toes and fingers in the world to count the amount of stars that are twinkling above them in the night sky.
"Hey - " Bellamy calls. The three stop to look back at him; Raven, a little unnerved. She expects some kind of rude ass comment about how she's going to lead the two to their deaths. Bellamy clicks his tongue. " -- Watch each other's backs. Come home safe."
Jasper and Monty share a look of surprise while Raven just nods back to him.
"Got it."