Kissing Julian, Clarke thinks, is rather like flying through a wormhole. You know that time keeps passing normally, but does itreally?
He breaks the kiss after some indeterminate period of timethat may or may not violate the laws of relativity but keeps her close, the hand on her neck and the one that wrapped itself into the soft, hospital-issue tunic not letting go.
“I’m not complaining,” he says, ragged and unsteady, “but are you going to tell me what that was for?”
You trusted that I could take care of myself. I’ve been scared that one or both of us would be compromised if we tried to do this, but you proved that you can do the job even if my outcome’s uncertain. You came, as soon as you could. You’re here.
“You won the race,” Clarke says, just as ragged and unsteady. “Congratulations.”
“I amveryon board with this as a rewards system.”
“I thought you might be.” Clarke relaxes back into her pillows. Julian helps. She lets him even though it’s not necessary (she’s feeling better with every minute, only the headache and a faint soreness through her ribs remaining) because she likes the way he puts his hands on her body like they belong there. “How are things looking for this weekend?”
Julian plants a palm on either side of her. “I’m more concerned about next weekend, if we’re being honest. Bring me up to speed on the plan for the gala?”
Clarke does, talking through the individual threads of ideas and grateful when he offers suggestions that help weave them into something coherent. He gets visibly angry when she mentions that Yves may have upgraded to deliberately causing problems with Clarke’s ship (if she’s right about how her air source sequence got switched, which she can’t prove yet), and for a second she expects him to leap out of bed and go after Yves with his fists because if you come for someone Julian loves, he’s going to do his level best to make you regret it. But that physically aggressive, reactive streak he had when they were younger—whensome asshole got handsy with Clarke and wouldn’t take no for an answer, when some other asshole was harassing Connor over beating his kid in a Juniors championship, when some megaasshole used a slur for women from the Galilean colonies in reference to Julian’s mom—he’s tempered that, now. He stays. He talks it through.
They run out of words sometime later, and shuffle around so that Clarke’s curled into him with her head on his chest. His fingers go automatically to that place in her shoulder she gets knots and start working the tension loose. His voice rumbles under her ear. “What else do you need?”
They pull up footage of Wonderland so Clarke can start the repetitive viewings recommended during crash recovery. She was too disoriented when it was happening to feel much fear or confusion, but she does remember the overwhelming sense that something waswrong, and she was in trouble. When she feels that again now, she makes herself face it and move past it.
And if she cries, there’s no one here to see but Julian, who just holds her with steady arms and reminds her she survived with each beat of his steadfast heart.
39
Clarke is released from thehospital Saturday afternoon. To her mom’s dismay and resignation, she heads straight for the paddock.
Olympic City is a night race, and the qualifying sessions happen at night, too. Clarke arrives a few hours before Q1, and it takes the better part of an hour to make it from the paddock entrance to the Elemental building—not because she’s moving slow, but because everyone she passes wants to tell her how glad they are she’s okay and ask how she’s feeling and if she’ll be back for Abu Dhabi.
Thanks, me too,she says a million times.Feeling good as new. Still a couple tests to pass before I’m officially cleared, but it’s looking good. I’m happy to be here supporting Matthew.
Yves is there to greet her at the door of Elemental Hospitality, a big smile on his face. “Clarke! We can’t tell you how happy we are to have you back.”
I am going to destroy you, Clarke thinks, and shakes his hand while people applaud. “Thanks, Yves. That means a lot.”
Clarke makes a preplanned loop through the hospitality and garage levels, seeing all the right people and saying all the rightthings. Sara’s cameras follow her every step. There’s been an outpouring of support in Clarke’s favor since Wonderland that shows no sign of slowing now that she’s up and about. All of Clarke’s flaws, both real and perceived, have been smoothed away by her near-death experience.
Clarke really screwed up Yves and Anders’s plan by surviving.
After filming a bunch of awkward canned media bits with Matthew and Raff, Clarke is turned loose. She’s supposed to head back up to the hospitality level and schmooze.
She does not. She has a lot to accomplish and not a lot of time in which to do it.
Everyone’s too busy to pay her much attention. Matthew is flying Clarke’s ship, staffed by Clarke’s crew. The amount of work they’ve done in the past five days—physically, to repair the ship from the Wonderland crash and modify it to account for Matthew’s style and preferences, and strategically, to adjust the game plan for supporting a different pilot—is insane, and that rush isn’t over yet. On top of that, it’s expected that she be here, in and around Elemental’s garage. No one gives a second glance when she grabs Amira for a quick chat, and everyone’s used to seeing Clarke and Sara walk off together. Clarke’s at the engineering station, reviewing the spreadsheet of known issues? She’s done that every weekend this season.
Maki’s the hardest to get a minute with, because the start crew has a lot to do before qualifying. But qualifying starts from the pit lane, not the grid, so there are a few minutes after Matthew heads through the veil when Maki’s free.
He comes to her. “Is that weird for you?”
She’s standing at the edge of the box, watching Matthew flyaway. “Seeing someone else fly my ship? SeeingMatthewfly my ship, when the ship that’s supposed to be his is one stall away? It’s not my favorite. Got a second to talk?”
They talk.
Matthew gets eliminated in the second round of qualifying, and will start at P13 tomorrow. Raff will start at P7. Delphine edges Julian out for P1 by a handful of hundredths of a second. Thierry’s sitting at P4, and is hoping to keep that spot tomorrow so Martian Motors can’t pull further ahead in the race for third.
Mistakes that would barely have mattered at the beginning of the season now feel like they’re make-or-break moments. Friendly asides between teams are at a minimum. Tensions are high, patience is thin. Small disagreements turn into blowouts behind hastily shuttered garage doors. The team principals’ meeting that wraps up qualifying day is full of sniping comments.
“Is it just me, or do they get more immature by the minute?” Imogen asks when Clarke arrives at the hotel later that night. She’s insisted on staying for the weekend, and Clarke didn’t argue.
