this dreaded hour

[Hunter Solomon]

It had been just over three weeks since the explosion that had left Hunter with burns all along his right arm and a gash on his forehead, not to mention making him an orphan. The boy had barely said a few words ever since, mostly talking to Bellamy if at all. His sleep was haunted by nightmares that left him waking gasping for breath and covered in sweat and he'd taken to roam the halls of Arkadia whenever he could slip past his new older friend who seemed almost annoyingly skilled in seeing the pain in his eyes even if he assured him he was fine.
It wasn't like he wasn't used to experiencing bad dreams, since his father still spooked around his head many days and nights. But ever since losing his mother and being injured himself during the terrorist attack on the Mountain Men's former dwelling, he'd barely been able to get a few hours of rest without waking up panting, sometimes tears streaming down his face.

One of the more irritating parts was, that he still had to go for check-ups at least once a week, often even more than that. He would have been happy to miss those appointments, but Bellamy always made sure he didn't bail on his examinations. If he couldn't be there himself to push the boy, he'd make somone else do it. Hunter couldn't understand what the fuss was about – he felt fine, physically at least and that was what the adults were worried about, wasn't it?
The Arker let out an annoyed sigh when he sait down in one of the chairs reserved for waiting patients outside the infirmary.
He'd hoped that since Dr. Griffin was probably busy with all of her Chancellor duties these days, there would be noone on his back about making sure he was healthy and wanting to examine his injuries. But he hadn't counted on Bellamy taking his self-proclaimed role as his protector so seriously and nurse Jackson also was a froce to reckon with. Of course he'd often assisted Dr. Griffin when she'd treated him and knew the young patient quite well.
It wasn't as if he disliked the doctors themselves, but his past experience with the pressure of having to keep secrets, being asked uncomfortable questions that he couldn't answer without getting into trouble, had made him hate medical appointments alltogether.
Hunter kept looking at the door and rubbed his sweaty palms on his thighs as he waited to be called in. Hopefully, this would be over quickly enough.

Tag: @shiloh

[Deleted]

It was a busy day in the infirmary. Not that Shiloh minded. She’d been training for a few months now, so she knew just enough that she was starting to feel legitimately useful. Less inventory and more tending to actual patients. All minor cases, of course. The bigger things were far better left to the real doctors. But still. It gave Shiloh something to fill her hours and kept her from thinking about everything happening on the ground. Like her mother’s death, for example.

She had just finished up a set of stitches, something Shiloh was getting rather good at, and now there was some kid waiting for a checkup. A nurse who had seen the kid before had just enough time to give Shiloh a summary. And the details tugged at her heart. The boy had been caught in the Mount Weather explosion. His mother was dead, and he had suffered some burns all along his arm. Hence the checkup. An orphan boy who didn’t talk much. It sounded a little too familiar, to be honest.

Shiloh headed out into the makeshift waiting area and looked around. “Hunter Solomon?” The boy who responded only looked about five years younger than she was. And he was rubbing his hands nervously on his pants. He definitely didn’t want to be here, and not just because he had better things to do with his time. Shiloh gave him her best warm smile. Maybe it would help. “I’m Shiloh.” He might respond better to a first name than the title of medical apprentice. “If you come with me, we’ll get that arm looked at.”

She led Hunter into the infirmary past a person having a broken foot looked at to a makeshift exam table in the opposite corner of the infirmary. “I’ll try to make this quick,” she told the boy over her shoulder. “I used to hate the infirmary too.” It was ironic, really. She had gone from avoiding the place at all costs to spending most of her time in it. And mostly for the same reasons that had first kept her out.

Shiloh motioned for Hunter to take a seat on the exam table. Once he was settled, she pointed at his arm. If they were as extensive as the nurse had indicated, just rolling up his sleeve wouldn’t be enough. “You mind taking your shirt off so I can have a look?” That was why he was here, after all. To see if the burn had finished healing. But it suddenly felt terribly important that Shiloh ask him instead of telling him. That she let him be the one in control here. She couldn’t put her finger on why, exactly. It just seemed right.

Hunter Solomon

[Hunter Solomon]

When his name was called out, Hunter looked up and to his surprise, he saw neither Dr. Griffin nor Dr. Jackson but a young girl that didn't seem much older than himself. He hesitated for a moment, a deep frown showing the confusing he was feeling, but as she kept looking at him expectantly, he got up from his chair to follow her into the infirmary. His arms were folded in front of his chest, each hand wrapped around the opposite arm. It looked like he might be holding on to himself for warmth, but it was more like a shield, sort of a protection as he guarded himself and his feelings that were usually buried under thick layers of armor. He kept looking around as the girl led him to a free examination table, somehow convinced that everyone they passed was staring at him.

He could tell that the young woman was trying to make him comfortable, being extremely friendly and that sentence about not liking infirmaries either was meant to show him that she could relate. Hunter remembered reading something about it in a psychology book, but he wasn't too sure it worked. Now that he came to think of it, he wasn't sure that he wouldn't prefer Dr. Griffin to be the one examining him after all. Sure she'd always been persistent with her questions, but she also knew him and although he'd never really talked about it, she probably knew much more about his past than most people. The boy wasn't too fond of another person drawing their own conclusions about the things that had happened to him.

He inhaled sharply when she asked him to take off his shirt and he felt a lump form in his throat. His torso was still littered with bruises and cuts from the explosion, some more advanced in their healing process than others. But the lash marks all over his back, red welts that shined slightly when the light hit them, couldn't be mistaken for scars of accidental injuries. For a moment, he wasn't sure if he should actually comply with her request, but he figured that it would just cause a scene and for other doctors to gather if he refused.
Finally, the boy slowly pulled his shirt up over his head, wincing as the burns on his arm stretched with the movement. He didn't say a word as he folded the piece of clothing next to him on the exam table and looked down at his fingers, picking at his nails to keep himself busy. He made sure not to look at the girl as he didn't want to see the expression on her face when she saw the ugly scars and wounds all over his body.

Tag: @shiloh

[Deleted]

The boy looked almost scared at the idea of taking off his shirt. That was worrying. But then the shirt slowly came off, and Shiloh began to understand why. His torso was covered in scars. And some of them looked old. Shiloh stepped to Hunter’s side, bringing her closer to the injured arm while also letting her steal a quick look at his back. The scars were even more plentiful there. And at angles that seemed highly unlikely to be self-inflicted. Some might be from the explosion, but the others… Someone had done that to him. Shiloh could feel sympathy tearing at her heart, but there was also anger, although she kept it off her face. How could people do this to children?

She made a point of not staring, instead carefully taking hold of his arm so she could get a good look at the healing burns. “You know,” she said, her voice carefully casual and directed at Hunter’s arm rather than his face, “some people think scars are something to be ashamed of. But I think scars tell stories.” She tilted his arm just a little so she had a better view of the scarring without pulling too much on the healing skin. “They show we’re fighters. That we’re stronger than what hurt us.” She wasn’t just talking in the general sense of mankind here. She specifically meant both herself and Hunter. Hopefully her tone conveyed that.

There was so much more Shiloh wanted to say, so much encouragement she wanted to give, but she didn’t want to scare him off. Better to give him a little room. See if he wanted to know what might have hurt her or if he would rather keep to himself. Besides, it was possible she was completely wrong here. Not likely, but possible. So instead she let go of Hunter’s arm and looked up at his face. “The skin looks like it’s healing well. Can you move your arm for me?” She rolled her own arm to demonstrate. Seeing his range of motion would give her a better idea of how his body was recovering beneath the surface.

Hunter Solomon

[Hunter Solomon]

Hunter was surprised by the girl's reaction, or rather the lack thereof. He always expected people to at least contort their face in an initial grimace of disgust. He remembered one nurse that checked out his injuries after the explosion starting to croon over him, telling him what a poor little boy he was and that he'd probably keep all those scars to remind him of his past for life. Dr. Griffin had made sure to get her out of the room quickly enough and tried to make up for what she'd said. It wasn't like he didn't know himself that he was probably stuck with those physical reminders of his abuse and the day he lost his mother, but hearing somebody say it made it sink into his stomach like a stone.

Slowly, he dared to look up at Shiloh, but couldn't exactly read her expression. The boy felt like there was a micture of pain, anger and sympathy, but he wasn't sure if he read that just from her face or the way she acted.
„But...I got them when I was at my weakest!“, he finally spoke his first words to her, even though they were hardly audible. He wasn't even sure why he said this to her.
Usually, he would have just listened to her talking and kept quiet, but she sounded like she knew what she was talking about. He still had that expression on his face that everyone had always told his mother was way too serious for a boy his age, but his clear blue eyes also reflected a bit of the pain he was feeling. He rotated his arm the way she'd shown him to do, but he wasn't able to make as wide a circle as she had, wincing a little as his healing skin stretched over the burns.
„Do you have any scars?“, he dared to ask, his voice still barely more than a whisper, still doubting that she could understand what his scars really meant and what story lay behind them.

Tag: @shiloh

[Deleted]

Shiloh was pleasantly surprised when Hunter spoke, even if his voice was quiet. Maybe she was actually getting through to him. She glanced up from his arm with a serious expression of her own to be sure he heard her next words. “And even at your weakest point, you were still strong enough to pull through. Not everyone is." Her mother was a prime example. The woman had cracked under the pressure of her life, dissolving into depression and willingly retreating from the world. Granted, Shiloh felt she bore some of the blame for that. But the point still held. Not everyone was strong enough to endure the things this boy obviously had. "I know it may not seem like it, but you are strong. Those scars prove it."

She watched closely as Hunter rotated his arm. His range of motion still wasn't quite back to normal, as evidenced by a small grimace. But it was progressing well given how bad the initial burns had been. "Good. That’s healing up nicely. Try to move it a little every so often. Get the new skin used to the feeling." At this rate, Shiloh gave it about two weeks tops before he was back to normal. Well, minus the new scars.

That brought her to the other minor injuries from the explosion. She was about to get a closer look at some in his chest when the boy spoke again, this time without any initiation on her part. They were making progress. Shiloh nodded in answer to his question. "Some." Might as well start simple. She rolled up one of her sleeves, revealing a thick line of scar tissue on the outside of her upper arm. "That was a graze from a Grounder arrow. I got lucky. The boy in front of me didn't." She could still remember with crystal clarity the heart-stopping sight of Drew crumpling to the ground. It was honestly a miracle any of them had made it out of there alive. But they had.

She rolled her sleeve back down and turned her head to the side, pushing back her bangs to show a scar on the side of her head. “That was from a door.” Next she pushed up her other sleeve to show a cluster of small scars near her elbow. “That was glass from a broken light.” She turned her hand to the side so Hunter could see a line of scar tissue from the bottom of her pinkie to partway down her arm. “That was a very sharp piece of metal.” It was a miracle she hadn’t nicked an artery in the fall. Her tone had been fairly factual, but it turned more serious as her finger ghosted over the scar. “I broke my arm once too. Almost broke my collarbone. Definitely cracked some ribs a few times.” Not to mention all the sprains and bruises. She sounded like some kind of walking hazard.

“I used to tell people I was clumsy. I guess it was less scary than the truth.” She looked up at Hunter with deep eyes that had seen too much pain for someone of her age. Time to take the plunge. “I’m betting you weren’t clumsy either.” The knowing tone in her voice made it a statement rather than a question. She didn’t want to say it outright. Not yet. Even just getting this close might be more than Hunter wanted to deal with. But he needed him to know he wasn’t alone.

Hunter Solomon

[Hunter Solomon]

The boy had never heard anyone speak of his scars as a sign of strength. Then again, he'd barely ever let anyone close enough to get a chance at seeing the marks that told stories of pain and suffering. He could hear that Shiloh really meant those words, but he felt like she was saying them as much for her own benefit as for his. Still, he wasn't quite ready to believe in that strength she seemed to see in him, not yet anyway.

Although he was such a closed up young boy, he was as eager as any other kind to impress adults and get their approval, probably even more so. So he drew another circle with his injured arm, trying to make it wider than the last one, but he let out a groan of pain and hugged his wounded limb close to his chest. He felt frustrated at himself and at his injured arm for not being able to move properly. The burns all along his side were a constant reminder of how his mother was ripped out of his life and most days he couldn't even bare to look at them.
Hunter watched the young woman as she revealed her own scars to him, telling the boy what had caused them. Judging by her age, she could be one of the Delinquants who had been the first of his people to set foot on this earth since making their home up in the sky long ago. If that were the case, her wounds would be easy enough to explain, but it had never been very common for kids to get injured up on the Ark. There were no trees to climb or bikes to ride so getting into accidents was quite rare.

But the way she acted and her knowing attitude towards him made him almost rule out entirely that her scars stemmed from accidents.
Hunter took a deep breath and then rolled up the legs of his trousers, revealing sets of thin cuts on both of his knees. „These come from shards of glass.“, he stated, his voice shaking a little as he remembered how his father had made him kneel down on the pieces of a vase he'd broken. He then showed her a paritally faded burn mark on the palm of his left hand. „This is from the stove of our apartment back on the Ark.“, he goes on, as if he was reciting something. His mother had asked him to watch a cake for his dad's birthday that had been baking in the oven. She had been saving extra points for this small luxury for months but he'd only been seven years old and hadn't paid attention and so the extra treat had burned to a black brick.
Next, Hunter pointed at another faded cut, this one thicker than those decorating his knees right next to his bellybutton.
„This one is also from a piece of metal.“, he explained, the memory of how his father had found some of the parts he'd burrowed from Mecha Sation to experiment on and had stabbed him in the stomach still very present in his mind.

Showing each other their respective scars had almost felt like a game, like they were just telling stories. But now that Shiloh came closer to actually approaching the subject of somebody having hurt him, Hunter retreated back a little to being closed up and serious. He just shook his head in response and looked down at some rust on the exam table he began to scratch at.

Tag: @shiloh

[Deleted]

Most people weren’t too thrilled with rehabilitating injured limbs, but Hunter went ahead and rolled another circle with his arm. His small groan showed how much pain it caused. “Don’t push it too hard. You’re doing really well. Seriously.” She smiled warmly to back up the words. “Another week or two, and you probably won’t have to come back here anymore.”

Talking about scars had been a good move. Hunter began showing Shiloh scars of his own, and while her suspicion of where they had truly come from caused an ache in her chest, the fact that he was talking to her was no small matter. Besides, showing each other scars was almost more a game than a true admission. Show me yours, I’ll show you mine. “Between the two of us, we certainly keep the infirmary busy.” Shiloh smiled like it was some kind of joke. It was easier to discuss the pain when it was being shrugged off. “Maybe we should get a sign with our names on it.”

She had pushed too hard too fast. Hunter was drawing back into himself now, his gaze dropping away. But then he shook his head. Shiloh glanced around the infirmary at the handful of other people being looked at. She hadn’t seen any truly serious injuries out in the waiting area. With that in mind, she grabbed a stool nearby and tugged it over so she could sit down in front of Hunter. Somehow she had a feeling Dr. Griffin wouldn’t mind her taking a minute to talk to this particular patient.

Shiloh’s voice was quiet as she started talking, her eyes on her hands in her lap. Just because Hunter needed to hear this didn’t make it easy to tell. “My dad drank. And when he drank, he got angry. He would throw things. Hit me. He hurt my mom too. I was too scared to tell anyone. I thought it would just make things worse.” Her finger traced the scar on the side of her hand, remembering the feeling of her head smacking against the floor and the sound of her mother screaming. “One night he got more drunk than usual. He started throwing my mom around. She was crying…” Just thinking about that night made Shiloh’s throat tighten up. She had to swallow before she could keep talking. “He started hitting her, and he wouldn’t stop. I was scared he was going to kill her. So I shoved him off. That just made him mad. He pushed me up against a wall, and I couldn’t breathe. Somehow I got hold of something and hit him in the head.” She couldn’t remember what with. So much of that night was burned into her memory, and yet she couldn’t remember what she had used to hit him. “I wasn’t trying to kill him. But he fell and didn’t get back up. So they locked me up for murder.”

She looked up from her hand to see if Hunter was listening. “I know people are always saying they understand. Most of the time it doesn’t mean anything, but I really do understand. And not just the bruises. My mom came down with farm station like you. She was killed by the Ice Nation.” A fact that still stung heavily. “So when I tell you that you’re strong, it’s because I’ve been where you are. I know what it takes to survive what you have.” She leaned forward a little to be sure she had his attention. “You are strong, Hunter. And you’re not alone.” Shiloh stopped there to give him room to process. If he wanted to keep talking, she would. And if not, she would go back to finish his examination. It was up to him.

Hunter Solomon

[Hunter Solomon]

The boy was glad to hear that his arm was healing nicely and that his mandatory trips to the infirmary could soon come to an end. He formed two or three more small circles in the air with his arm, but his shoulders and his burned skin soon felt sore and so he let it sink back to its usual position.
Hunter chuckled a little when Shiloh joked about them getting a sign with their names on it for their frequent trips to the medical ward. It was true that he'd kept Dr. Griffin and the other staff pretty busy back on the Ark, but he didn't really want to be reminded about that.

Hunter could feel his heart beat faster when Shiloh began to tell her story. It just sounded so familiar and he wasn't even sure he wanted to hear it. So far, they'd just played this game of showing each other their scars, something boys his age also did with usual, innocent marks – battle scars of brave warriors in the eyes of a young boy. Now she was actually talking about getting hurt, of being treated cruelly the way his father had always treated him.
The boy was tempted to press his hands over his ears and block out the girl's voice that caused more and more memories of his father to appear inside his mind. He started slowly shaking his head as Shiloh created this picture of this evil drunk who had tortured her and her mother. Yes, his father had been a drunk and he had been cruel to his son, but he still felt some differences.

„It was me...“, he whispered, with his eyes down on his fingers, which were wringing around one another. „I always did...something.“, he continued. His bottom lip trembled as he remembered how there had always been something that had made him deserve the punishment he'd gotten. At first, it had been the mere fact that he had been born at all, dooming his father's best friend, who'd defied orders by using more medication than allowed to bring him into the world, to his death.
Even with so much time having passed since his father had died, Hunter still believed in most of the man's talk about him deserving being treated the way he was.
After all, he must have done something wrong to deserve being hated by his father, apart from causing his best friend to be floated that is.

Tag: @shiloh

[Deleted]

Shiloh actually managed to get a chuckle out of Hunter. It wasn’t much, but it Shiloh had a feeling it was more than most people had gotten out of him lately. She smiled at him in response. If only she could keep that humor going. But the conversation turned serious, and that fleeting moment was gone.

She could tell he understood. It was there in his eyes. For a moment she thought he was going to deny it, but then he spoke. The quite words that left his mouth tore at Shiloh’s heart. She shook her head in response. “It wasn’t your fault. No kid deserves this. No matter what they did.” Her tone was firm but not harsh. Hunter needed to understand this or the guilt would crush him.

It was one thing to say those words though. But believing them… That was something else. Shiloh still blamed herself for not defending her mother sooner. It was hard work coming to grips with the fact that maybe it hadn’t been her fault. She looked down at her own lap, her fingers still lingering on the scar on the side of her hand. What would she had wanted to hear in his shoes? “Some people…” Her throat was tight, making it hard to talk. She swallowed and kept going. “Some people are just broken. And the only way they know to deal with that is to hurt others. But that’s not your fault. No matter how much it seems like it is.”

She looked up at Hunter with a hint of moisture in her eyes. The rest of the infirmary had faded completely from her awareness, leaving only herself and Hunter facing each other. “What happened was not your fault. Yours or mine.” She wasn’t sure if she was talking more to Hunter now or to herself. Maybe they both needed to hear this. “People are supposed to protect kids. No matter what. And when they don’t…” Goodness, this was hard. Admitting her father had been a horrible person was coming easier to Shiloh now. But admitting her mother had been complicit through lack of action? That she had let down her child? That stung. “When they don’t, that’s not the kid’s fault.” Her voice broke a bit over the last word. She turned her head to the side briefly as she took a deep breath and let it out. Now was not the time to start crying over her own parental issues.

Shiloh swiped at the corners of her eyes before looking back at Hunter with a weak smile. “Sorry. My mom, she um… I found out pretty recently that she died after she got to the ground.” It had been about a month now, but it still hurt. Both from the loss and because of everything Shiloh was trying to work through in her mother’s absence. “I guess I’m still working through that.” She paused for a beat, waiting to see if Hunter wanted to touch that subject or if she should just drop the more emotional material and get on to checking the rest of his healing injuries from the explosion.

Hunter Solomon
(Good grief, the feels in this one!)