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( eventually the continued shouting will be enough to spurn clarke to her feet, joints cracking from hours of stationary soreness, and deciding it'd be better to have rita shout directly in her face than regal the whole hallway with this monumental fuckup.

but at least for the immediate instant, she doesn't move. doesn't respond. tucks her chin towards her chest and squeezes her eyes shut. hopes — against established logic — that the other girl will give up and stomp off, and maybe when they actually do this clarke'll have something resembling a good answer to that question. )

[The lack of response is even worse than being told to go away. This is the point where Rita would be tempted to blast the door open if she could, but instead is relegated to pounding on it with her fist as she keeps shouting.]

Hey! Answer me! Did you seriously think he'd just stand by and watch you inject yourself with that stuff?! Are you stupid?! Clarke! What the hell did you even expect?!

[Natsuno was an idiot for injecting himself instead of finding some other solution. Clarke was an idiot for trying to inject herself in the first place. Both of them, colossal idiots, but the one currently suffering liquid fire in his body is the most important person to Rita.]

( she's not actively combatting a headache, but the reverberation of those heavy knocks feel like they're tempting one forward. the mental image of people poking their heads out of their cabins to observe rita shouting at her door worms its way into her thoughts, and clarke is not immune to public shaming.

so, a few more seconds, the shout of her name, and she's crawling out from behind the coffee table and standing to rip the door to the cabin open with stiff jointed gusto. )

Obviously. Not. That. ( and she's trying for a biting frustration, but ultimately the creases of her forehead, sunken shadows around her eyes, and raspy tone just look sad. this, with little to no exaggeration, might be the most wretched she's felt the entire time on the ship. )

[Clarke looks wretched, yes, but not anywhere near as bad as Natsuno. She's walking, speaking, not glowing. And Rita finds she has no sympathy to spare for Clarke right now.]

Then what? [She grounds the question out angrily, not a shout this time, but fully backed up with a heated glower and the slam of her fist on the doorframe.] Explain it to me, because I sure as hell can't understand why.

( the shit show is best summed up in that: )

I underestimated him.

( natsuno, though in addition clarke may have underestimated just how apathetic the captain could be. this is an unfortunate realization that had begun as anger in the moment, when he'd stood steadfast and refused to let her turn the needle on herself. it'd then been swallowed with the instant fear and panic that overtook every nerve in her body when natsuno'd started burning. but now, a few dozen hours after the fact, it's had a chance to stew.

the biggest mistake wasn't busting out that vial of sun el and being ready to roll those dice, it was in thinking her best friend would let that happen. )

The most it would have done was kill me. That was supposed to be the ( acceptable loss ) worst case scenario, Rita. Not this.

You-

[For a very brief moment, she's speechless as underestimated reverberates in her mind, and then the rage surges in fresh and hot--she trembles with anger, slams her fist on the doorframe again even as her hand aches.]

You seriously thought he'd just stand there and watch you die?! Again?! Oh, because he was so happy about that the first time, huh?! Were you thinking at all? Did you consider even for a moment how he'd react?! You know just how much he cares!

[When someone I care about is going to get hurt, I stop thinking. Just getting those words out had been so painful for Natsuno, and here's Clarke, claiming she didn't think he'd step in to stop her? Rita wants to scream until she's blue in the face, even as she knows it can't changed what's already happened.

But Rita also feels helpless to do anything else, because it's not a problem that can just be fixed. All she can do is wonder how long Natsuno's going to have to suffer with this, part of her fearful deep down that maybe he won't recover entirely. And there's nothing she can do but scream and demand an explanation.]

( the problem being, there isn't really one. not a good explanation by any means, at least.

everything is wretched, and as deserving as clarke feels it is to be on the tail end of rita's loud dressing down, she can't stop the hot, tight swell in the back of her throat. or the hard pressure of a renewed wave of tears that starts to press at the back of her eyes. it doesn't feel like she's allowed to cry or mourn here; it'd been her idea, and while natsuno had ended up pushing the plunger of the syringe on his own, she could have fought harder to stop him.

ultimately, clarke can't look at rita's face anymore, and drops her increasingly wet gaze to the hallway carpet between them. )

I know, ( is all that's managed. i know he cares, i know i didn't think first, i know i should have never involved him. just: i know. )

[Would Rita have accepted any possible explanation? They'll never know. For a moment, all Rita does is wait for more, but more doesn't come and instead Clarke looks increasingly like she's about to cry. Frustration builds, and her hand throbs from beating the door so many times--but it's a distant pain, nothing compared to how much she hurts thinking about Natsuno. And even that must pale in comparison to how Natsuno himself feels.

Finally, she snaps out-]

That's--that's not good enough! You can't just--forget it as soon as it's convenenient to you and then cry about it later!

( i am doing the best that i can, clarke remembers all but screaming in an empty access tunnel. only to be met by octavia blake's sallow, put-upon face; a picturesque expression of disdain.

well that's not good enough.

and she winces. once in remembrance of an old friend, twice in a sort of belated recognition of old roles being filled by newer faces, and a third time at how deeply that note strikes home. because rita is right. on all counts. and clarke not only has no reason to rebuke, but no desire to. )

quietly, almost as if to herself: ) I know. I know. It isn't convenient...

( then face turned up again, more properly addressing rita. similar to feeling like she doesn't deserve to offer comfort to the likes of ava or darcy in the wake of the lord vile murders, it feels awkward to ask: ) How is he?

[There's an intake of breath, and then Rita bites her lip, quite literally biting back the urge to repeat then why. Clarke is clearly not going to give her a satisfactory answer.

It's as maddening as it is painful.]

How do you think? He's suffering! [She doesn't even word it that way to be vindictive. It's simply the exact description that keeps rolling around in her brain: Natsuno is suffering, and there's nothing she can do to stop it.]

He's in pain, and even if he says it'll get better, I- [She stops short there, but the unspoken worry--that maybe he won't recover, that maybe he could be in permanent pain--is probably clear enough to Clarke.]

( it doesn't have to be vindictive in nature to still sting like a slap across the face.

clarke hears the part of her mind that suggests just killing him. hoping he'd wake up whole and unbothered by the side effects of injecting the sun el. it would be one of the worst things she'd ever done — because, yeah, in her mind she'd caused this mess and would be the one to clean it up — but at least natsuno wouldn't be sickly and hurting the way he is right now.

she shakes her head, as if to clear it. banish the thought. they're supposedly past the point where she'd offered him death in the arcade as a means of escape. )

It'll get better. He'll get better. ( all ground out through tightly gritted teeth. he has to. then, she looks up. )

Yell at me all you need to, Rita. Get it out of your system, but know there's nothing you can say I'm not already thinking. It's my fault, and you should be at his bedside right now.

[Rita hasn't allowed herself to think of death as a potential solution, either. Because...death shouldn't be treated as a way to just get rid of a problem, and also...because deep down she's afraid he might not come back. Is it selfish, to potentially let him suffer longer because of that? She doesn't know--hasn't examined it any closer than dismissing the thought before it even fully comes to mind.]

Don't--don't you think I don't know that already?! [Because she's definitely not leaving him alone like that for long.]

Yelling at you isn't even doing any good!

[A point which she still yells because volume control is hard when she's upset, and she's still so frustrated that she won't get a satisfactory explanation for why it happened in the first place. So, after a moment, she half-turns to head back to 109.]

Fine, but--just don't think wallowing in regret is going to magically undo anything, either!

...I know it won't.

( and this is usually the time when sorrow and hurt fold in on themselves and harden into something akin to determination. this is usually the mid-point of a tearful meltdown where clarke chokes is all down and refocuses on the objective, regardless of the casualties. but instead, as she watches rita's retreating back, all she feels is a hollow sort of grief.

a few more days of wallowing feel necessary. she can't think of any way to move forward without natsuno at her side, and needs to know that's even a possibility before figuring out her next steps. he needs to get better and she — for the first time since venti disappeared — has the urge to get on her knees, prop up her elbows and just pray. surrender that need to control a situation, because obviously things never worked out when she tried.

the door to 108 slides closed after rita disappears across the hall. and for thinking she's all cried out, clarke still manages a few tears. )

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