Chapter Text
The biggest misconception about peacetime is that everything is always easy. Of course, there's some truth to that; it's how these things get started. The end of war means that they don't have to spend every day preparing for battle, strategizing when to move, rationing hours of sleep. It's easier to live day to day without worrying about betrayal and death. Instead, they can focus on living life.
That's where it's hard.
*
(nulla.)
The first thing she does after she puts Madi to sleep, claiming a corner bedroom that brings back memories of the Ark itself, is find Bellamy. She hasn't seen him since they all gathered together to decide on what to do next. There's a lot she wants to say to him, a lot she needs to tell him, starting with an apology that she's owed him for a week now, and it's been long enough that he shouldn't be busy. None of them should be that busy, not for a year or so yet, while they wait for the Earth to become livable again. It does occur to her that this is what she could've had six years ago, if timing had worked in her favor. A life in space, before they descend back to Earth.
It takes a full circle around the ship before she sees him, coming out of the control room, in conversation with Echo. Her heart gives a lonely pang at the sight of them, but she has to ignore it for now. Echo spots her first, stepping forward slightly as if to shield Bellamy from Clarke. At the movement, he looks up and his face changes entirely, shifting from its previous relaxed state to something more guarded, suspicious. It's not like she has any right to be upset about it — she'd done this to him, after all — but she still is.
"Hey," she says hesitantly, managing a small smile that isn't returned.
"Hey," he says back. "Is there a problem?" A full second passes before she realizes he's asking about the ship.
"Oh, um, no," she answers, ignoring the way Echo glares at her. "I was just—wondering if we could talk."
"Go ahead," he says, disinterest evident in not only his voice, but the way his eyes slant away from her.
It takes the wind out of her sails a bit. "But if you're busy, it's—"
"No, it's fine."
"Okay." Clarke pauses, looking at Echo, waiting for her to leave. She doesn't. "Can we talk alone?"
"Like hell I'm letting you near him after what you did," she snarls, and if it was some other time, Clarke would've laughed out loud at that statement, flipped on its head.
"Echo," Bellamy puts his hand on her shoulder, gives her a look. "Go check and see how Raven's doing." A brief wordless argument passes between them, one that Clarke looks away from, focusing on the floor instead. Finally, Echo leaves the two of them, giving her a warning look that would mean anything if it came from anyone but her. "You wanted to talk?"
Startled by his brusqueness, she stumbles over her words. "Yeah, I—you know, I should've, I don't—" A deep breath, then, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have left you behind like that. I was just so mad and I didn't think about it, I just acted, and I had a lot of reasons to believe I was doing what I needed to do, but the truth is, and I'm sorry about how long it took me to understand it too, I—"
"You could've just trusted me, Clarke," he interrupts, shaking his head. "I would've never hurt her."
"But you did," she says before she can stop herself. This is supposed to be about her apology, not about defending herself. But he did and he'd promised and what if Madi had died— "No, I don't want to rehash this."
"I think we have to."
With the go-ahead, she does. "You promised me you'd protect her, but you gave her the Flame anyways."
"I didn't just give it to her," he interjects. "Gaia and I gave her a choice and she made that choice herself."
"And how did you explain it to her? That it'd stop the war? That it'd save everyone?" She knows from the look in his eyes that she's not far off. She also knows that Madi would've done anything to help out. "She has been running from the Flame for her entire life and I never wanted her to know what it was like to have that in her head."
"It was the only choice," he shoots back, the words bringing to mind a different conversation with those exact words. Now's not the time to go down memory lane. "I'm sorry that had to happen but she was the only one who could've stopped Octavia and she did and now the Flame's out and it's gone, so—"
"So it's fine because she's not dead."
"I didn't say that."
"You practically did."
"If you hate me for what I did, I understand that." His jaw ticks. "I knew that you'd never forgive me for that, but I also knew that if it was what it took to save the people I care about, then I had no other choice."
The people I care about.
She stays quiet for a long time. Then, tiredly, because that's all she can be now, she says, "I don't hate you. I don't have any right to."
He knows what she means by that. "You left me to die in Polis."
"I know."
"That was your only choice too."
"I don’t know." She doesn't know if it was or not. All she remembers is the fury coursing through her veins, the fear that almost paralyzed her when she saw Madi still on that table, the betrayal that rocked her body. "I didn't come back for you and I should've. I don't know how to fix that."
Bellamy's eyes on her set a path that burns. It's almost too much, to look back at him, and see something unfamiliar in them. "If you want forgiveness," he begins, his voice deep, but not comforting. "I don't know how to give that to you," he finishes. "I don't know if I can just get over it."
"You don't have to," she hears herself say, amidst the ringing in her ears. "All I wanted was for you to know that I am… so sorry for everything I did to you. If you can't accept that, that's on me."
"It isn't that I don't accept your apology. I know you mean that."
"I do."
"Everything else… I don't know. I don’t know if we can just act like everything is the same."
Her smile is weak and more of a grimace. "I know. I don’t think we can pretend nothing happened.”
Six years and it came down to this.
"But we've got time now." An undefined number of years of time. What if he never forgave her?
"We do, don't we?"
Bellamy nods, sticking his hands into his pockets. "It's what we've always wanted."
But not like this. "Yeah."
He nods at her again, a smile on his face that doesn't seem to reach his eyes, oblivious to the way her heart breaks and breaks and breaks again. "I'll see you around."
He walks away and Clarke lets out a shaky breath that hurts. "'Course," she says, to no one.
*
(intermissum.)
Time is something she's used to, but time in space is entirely different.
Time in space is people, and tasks, and schedules. It's the incessant worry of who will talk to her, how she can respond, whether or not they mean what they say. It's the persistent knowledge that everyone hates her and it's just a matter of how much they do, the never ending worry about how much better off they all are without her. It's how much she can handle Bellamy's distant eyes, Raven's judging snarl, Monty's disappointed shoulders, Echo's words rattling in her mind. Traitor, traitor, traitor.
She thought it would get better, removed from the pressure cooker of war, from the mountain of mistakes she'd accumulated, but it hadn't. It got worse. Six and a half years ago, Clarke would've given anything to have them back, and especially to have Bellamy back in her life, but now, she flees the room every time she's trapped with them for more than five minutes. There are apologies she has to give, ranging from the most important to the incidental, but each of them terrifies her. Bellamy had said he'd accepted her apology, but his chilly reaction to her, no matter what she's doing, says all she needs to know.
So she runs, or she tries to. There aren't many places she can go, trapped up in space with hundreds of people around every corner, surrounded by the most important few that are reminders of what she did wrong and what she'd given up, and lost, and lost and lost again. And now, without Madi, who thrives in space, finally around all the people she's always wanted to know, it's a regression beyond square one, a removal of all the progress she'd made in being able to survive around people, because she doesn't know how to try with them anymore and she knows they don't want her to.
It isn't so bad. She gets a lot done. She has her mom back and she's stronger every day, even if she spends most of the time worrying about Kane. She still has Madi, who bursts with excitement about the people she gets to meet and talk to, who regales her with stories (a change in role) before they fall asleep.
After six years of it, being alone is almost preferable. She certainly knows how to live in it better than she knows how to live with other people. She's gotten pretty good at figuring out people's schedules and working around them, but she'd be lying if she said it wasn't debilitating, the kind of loneliness that lives with her.
But she'd managed before so she can manage it now.
*
(i.)
Clarke likes the early morning because no one else is awake yet.
It's the one time she fully feels comfortable with herself, free from the people she can't be around and the guilt that resurfaces every time she's with them. It's the only time she escapes the constant reminders of all the ways she fucked up and all the ways she'll never make up for it. It's the only opportunity for her to stop measuring the distance between her and her friends and to stop wondering if they could ever consider themselves her friends again.
It's not hard to wake up early. She doesn't sleep much anyways, plagued by thoughts and dreams and nightmares, followed by years of habit. Madi sleeps better here than she ever did in Eden, which she's glad about, even if she doesn't benefit from the same thing. It's practically a relief when she can get out of bed and tiptoe out of her room at 4 AM, knowing that she won't have to run into anyone on her way to the kitchen or the den or the space they've designated as a common area.
She's settled into a routine by now: wake up, get something to eat, maybe read a book or two, maybe watch a film, maybe run for a bit, grab some provisions for the rest of the day and then head back to her room before the day really starts. In the two months she's done this, no one has ever interrupted her, so of course, when someone does interrupt her that morning, her first reaction is to jump up and drop her book in shock.
Her second reaction is to stare at, and then avert her eyes from, Bellamy, who's shirtless, sleep-mussed, and confused. There's a reason she tries not to look at him too much. There's multiple reasons, actually, but one of them is that she never seems to be able to look away.
"Clarke?" His voice is scratchy with sleep.
"Yeah?" Her voice squeaks.
"What are you doing out here?"
"I—" She points to the book on the floor. "Reading."
"Reading," he repeats, coming closer. It's not her fault she can't stop looking. "At five in the morning?"
Defensively, she asks, "What's wrong with that?"
"Usually people are sleeping at that time."
Usually people can sleep, she retorts in her head. "You're awake."
"I went to the bathroom and then I noticed the light in here."
"Oh." A pause, then, "I'm sorry it bothered you."
"It's fine," he waves off, jerking his thumb behind him. "I'm heading back anyways."
She nods, her mouth dry all of a sudden as she grapples with the need to be alone and the desire to keep talking to him, to keep seeing him. When was the last time they'd actually talked? Was it her apology? She'd seen him a few hours ago, passed by him in the hallway, but he'd been with people, talking to them, laughing with them. It seemed too much to bother him. But it was just the two of them now and if she could just—
He thinks of her silence as a response, smiling briefly at her before he turns around and starts walking. Her voice finally returns, a near panicked, "Bellamy!"
Bellamy stops, turns his head to look at her.
It's unbearable, being there, in the same space as Bellamy and not knowing what to say when she had six years of practicing just what to say to him. But that was the difference between then and now — they were different people, incompatible people, maybe, and it wasn't the same talking to the Bellamy she remembered and talking to a Bellamy that was a near stranger to her.
"I—" I miss you, she almost says, because it's the only thing that she can think about right now. "I—um," (when did this become so hard), "Good night."
"Good night, Clarke," he says back, and she listens to the sound of his steps until they fade into nothing. She lets herself think about the way he looks just once and the way he sounded just once and then forces herself to focus her attention back on her book.
She reads two pages before she gives up.
*
(ii.)
Clarke doesn't get her hopes up. She's smart enough to treat Bellamy appearing the other day as a one-off, a happenstance. After all, for two months, her mornings went unnoticed. So, it doesn't surprise her that he doesn't show up the next day, or the day after that, or the day after that, or the day after that.
(Maybe she had hoped.)
But he does show up on the fifth day, carrying a pillow and blanket and trudging into the den. She doesn't see him until he's already situated on the couch so it doesn't stop her from yelping when she enters the room. At least she's not carrying anything this time.
Bellamy's head shoots up, whirling around for the source of the noise. "Clarke?"
"I didn't mean to intrude," she says quickly, intending to leave but unable to stop herself from asking, "What are you doing here?" Maybe he's about to leave and she can have the room to herself again.
No such luck. "Echo's sick and she can't sleep with me in the room," he answers, embellishing with an eyeroll. It's always jarring to hear her name coming from Bellamy, even though there's no reason why it should be such a shock. She'd made peace with his relationship months ago. She knows they're still happily together, that they share a room, that they head to bed together. What matters to her is that Bellamy is happy, and he is, and yet, it still hurts.
"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that." Bellamy gives her a strange look and it makes her wish she'd already left. She hates this, not knowing how to read him anymore or how to behave around him or how to look at Bellamy without thinking that he wishes he was anywhere else, like she's just someone who used to know him. Then again, that's what she is. It's just hard to understand sometimes, how he used to be her best friend and how he doesn't talk to her now unless he crashes her mornings, and even then, he probably doesn't want to. "Well, I won't keep you." She starts backing up, out of the room, her words rushing out of her mouth. "Good night."
*
(iii.)
She disrupts her routine for the next three days, fearing that Bellamy will be there when she wakes up. She hates herself for not knowing how to deal with this like a normal person, for avoiding someone she used to think about (and still does) every day of her life. But her hands tremble when she's around him, the guilt bubbling in her chest, the apologies tripping over themselves to be said. I'm sorry for hurting you, I'm sorry we're like this, I'm sorry I don't know how to talk to you.
She's used to Eden, the wide expanse of the land, and the dozens of places she and Madi could run to when it got to be too much. Back on Earth, no matter how awful it had gotten, she always had the safety of space. Up in space, sharing a ship with a couple of hundred people means that there's only so many places she can go.
By the fourth night, she figures he has to be back in his room. Echo had looked fine last night, for the few minutes she had seen her.
Her hopes are dashed when he enters the living room, carrying a mug and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Bellamy stops short, quirking an eyebrow at her. "Let me guess," he says, "you're reading." It's a poor joke, given the fact that she actually has a book in her hand, the book she hadn't finished since that first night, but it kind of makes her smile anyways.
"Almost done with it," she says. "You're up early."
"Echo woke me up for some water," he motions to the mug.
"Right." It'd have to be something like that. "Is she still sick?"
"Just a bit, yeah."
She bites her lip, weighing the pros and cons of what she's about to say. "I can take a look at her, you know, if you want." At the look on his face, she quickly adds, "So you don't have to keep waking up and not getting enough sleep."
"Oh, uh," he shifts uncomfortably on his feet, "I think she, uh, saw Jackson already."
"As long as she saw someone," she says lightly, though she understands his meaning. She probably wouldn't let her near her. It's not much of a loss for Clarke. She doesn't know what possesses her to keep talking, except maybe that same sense of guilt that drives all of her conversations with Bellamy, like she has years to make up for and thousands of mistakes to atone for. "I, um, I'm really glad you're happy with her. That you have her."
His face softens a little, touched, probably because of what he had to go through with his sister's disapproval. She can't bear to tell him that it isn't exactly an approval she's granting. "Thanks, Clarke."
"Yeah, of course," she mumbles. An impulse overtakes her and the words are out before she has time to regret them. "But can I ask you something?"
Bellamy dawdles in the hallway, debating with himself, coming to a decision when he walks into the room, sitting down at the table across from her. His foot accidentally knocks into hers and she nearly jumps in her chair. "Go ahead."
"Um, why—how— how," she settles, biting the inside of her cheek hard, "how did you forgive her?"
"Have you been talking to Octavia?"
She knows she sounds offended when says, "No. I was just curious. Because I know it was a while ago, but she, you know..." Clarke trails off to a stop. What right did she have to cast any judgement on Echo's actions? The deaths at Mt. Weather, the near-death of Octavia, the multiple times she'd tried to kill Clarke, all the times she'd put Bellamy in danger… all of those seemed to fall away when she thought about the things she'd done. She'd done horrible things too, worse, even, because she'd succeeded. There were more deaths on her conscience than Echo had on hers. And she'd hurt Bellamy too, numerous times, so many times, that it was laughable to think she had an upper hand here. She averts her eyes down, focusing on an indentation in the wooden table.
"It'd been three years and I came to terms with what she did. I didn't want to go around holding a grudge forever," he says, sounding like he's gone through this a million times before, "and she's changed a lot since then. She deserves a second chance."
She tried to kill me, she wanted to kill me, she would've killed me.
It rings loud in her mind, a chant that begs to be released. It doesn't really matter, though. Clarke had betrayed her friends and Echo was just trying to avenge that. She'd deserved it.
Her hand clutches the spine of her book too tightly. "That makes sense," she says, lying without much effort behind it. "You must've been a good influence on her." And vice versa.
"I don't know about that," he says wryly.
"I do. And it's a good thing. You obviously really care about each other. I mean, you fought Octavia for her—"
"I would've done that for any of us," Bellamy corrects and it's that innocuous statement, delivered with the ease of someone who doesn't understand the impact of his words, that hits her hard. Once upon a time, she wouldn't have had to guess at whether or not that included her. She would've known that it did. She's not going to delude herself to think it's the same now and it's just another reminder of that wall between them, between Clarke and the others, between Clarke and Bellamy, between Clarke, the girl who stayed behind, and her friends, who went to space. The girl who betrayed her friends and left him to die and the boy who only wanted to save the world.
"Yeah," she says instead, though it sounds too hollow to be sincere. "And she'd do anything for you. I mean, she was really upset about—" a deep breath, "—me leaving you behind. She was—I'm glad you have her." Now you care about Bellamy. Hadn't Echo been right?
"Where's this coming from?"
"I guess I just… remembered I hadn't said it to you yet." If she could make his life easier at all, she wanted to do that. "And I'm still—sorry. About everything I did to you." It's just instinctual excuses that come to mind next, so she swallows them down.
"I've already accepted your apology," Bellamy says gently, but it means as little as it did the first time he'd said so. How could it, when he didn't mean it? How could she tell him that she didn't believe him?
She couldn't. "I know. I just… had to say it again, I guess." Clarke inhales sharply and pushes her chair back, standing up with her book clutched to her chest. "Good night, Bellamy."
Another scrape of her chair against the metal floor and she's out of the room, her heart thumping in her ears to the beat of he's never going to forgive you, as she runs away.
*
(iv.)
"Do you ever sleep?" Bellamy's voice comes in, not particularly loud, but loud enough in the empty kitchen space that it booms. She drops the sponge she's been using to clean up the leftover plates from last night with a gasp. She had been sure that Bellamy wasn't awake yet.
"I fell asleep early last night," she answers evasively, although it's a lie. "Do you sleep? You're always up lately."
"I couldn't sleep," he says, and within a few steps, he's beside her, his hands dipping into the water to help her with the dishes. Clarke freezes, quite noticeably. Bellamy notices, at least. "What's wrong?"
"Um, nothing," she mumbles, staring at a difficult spot on the plate in her hand. "Why couldn't you sleep?"
"It's not very comfortable in the den, is it?"
"I don't think it's meant to be for sleep. Why were you—is she still sick?"
"No, she's fine now." He hands her a rinsed plate. "We had a fight so I was taking some time away."
"I'm sorry," she says automatically. "Do you… I don't know, want to talk about it?" The thought of doing so makes her anxious, but if he wants to, then she can't say no.
"No, it's okay," he dismisses with a wave of his hand, splashing water onto her shirt. "Oh, sorry." She shrugs it off, returning to her dishes, which are, thankfully, disappearing quick. The faster she gets this done, the faster she can leave. Bellamy's voice shakes her out of her thoughts. "How often do you do this?"
Frowning in confusion, she asks, "Wash dishes?"
He huffs out a laugh. "No. Wake up this early. It's not even five yet and I have a feeling you've been up for a while."
She hadn't thought he'd noticed enough to catch on. "Not often," she lies. "I set the alarm for the wrong time, so—"
"I thought you fell asleep early last night," he points out and she almost visibly winces at how stupid she'd just been.
"You don't have to do these, you know," she takes the plate from him, "I can finish these up and you can go back to sleep."
"Clarke," Bellamy cuts in, sternly. "You're not getting enough sleep." He almost sounds like he cares.
"I'm getting plenty of sleep."
"You're up too early—"
"I'm not up this early all the time, it's fine—"
"Are you making this a habit? It isn't healthy, Clarke." Her hands still in the soapy water, held hostage by the burning behind her eyes. How could he not get it? How could he not know?
"I have trouble sleeping," she finally says, quietly, her head pointed towards the water, avoiding his gaze. "I just—I don't sleep well. I know it isn't good for me, I just don't know how to fix it. I don't think it's possible."
"How long has this been going on?"
"A while. Since we got here."
"And you didn't say anything?"
If she thought anyone would listen, she would've. "I figured it'd go away."
"And it hasn't."
"No." She scrubs hard at a spot and gives up. "But it's okay. I like starting my day early."
"This is earlier than early."
"I like that too."
"Clarke," he tries, exasperated. "Be serious."
"I am. I've gotten used to this. I'm productive and I like having this time to myself."
"But you should sleep—"
"I have nightmares, Bellamy," she interrupted, briskly, finally meeting his eyes. It's not so daunting to look at him now, to challenge him at his words. "I can't fall asleep without thinking about all the shit I've done and all the people I've hurt and lost. How am I supposed to sleep through that?"
He closes his mouth shut. Then, "Does waking up early help with that?"
"It's time that I don't have to spend sleeping, so a little, yeah." It's more than that; it's the time she gets to unwind, it's the time she has for herself, but talking about that opens up a new discussion she doesn't have the energy for today, or maybe ever.
They go back to the dishes, but neither of them move to finish them up. The silence stretches before them. Finally, Bellamy says, "I get them too."
She wants to touch him, to comfort him. "I thought it was supposed to get easier."
"It will," he says firmly. "We're starting something new."
Clarke thinks back to the Earth, destroyed but not gone. "Maybe it'll last this time."
"Something's gotta stick eventually, right?"
Her snort is more of a laugh. "This is why no one comes to us for positivity."
"Yeah, they've got Murphy for that."
That elicits a real laugh from her. "I'm sure he'll be happy to know that he's serving a great purpose."
"Just don't tell him and he'll be good."
This was nice, being able to laugh with Bellamy and smile with him, even joke with him a little. She remembers all the times she'd made up conversations in her own head about it, but the real deal is a lot better. "Hey, Bellamy?"
"Bellamy." Clarke turns around, the smile dropping off her face at the sight of Echo, who looks pissed, which is more of a normal sight these days. Every time she sees her, that seems to be her expression. "I thought you were sleeping."
"I was," Bellamy says, back still turned to her, "but I woke up."
"And you didn't want to come back to bed?"
"We're fighting, Echo, so not really."
"So you're just going to stay out here and what, talk to Clarke?"
Echo's voice is getting louder the more Bellamy rebuffs her attempts to talk and it's too much happening at once for Clarke. All she wanted was to wash the dishes. All she wanted was to talk to Bellamy.
"I'm busy," he says calmly. "We left a lot of dishes in the sink and they're not going to wash themselves."
"I'm sure Clarke can handle it."
There's a ringing in her ears. "It's okay, Bellamy," Clarke says, trying to control the panic in her chest. "I can finish this up."
"No, I want to help—"
"Bellamy," she says, just as Echo snaps, "Bellamy."
"There's only a few dishes left. Don't make a big deal out of it," she keeps her voice low, knowing that Echo's behind them glaring at her. A moment later, he sighs and wipes his hands dry, leaving her side to walk towards his girlfriend. Clarke ignores the sting in her chest. She'd encouraged him to, after all. Her back stiff and straight, she returns to the dishes, the water way past cold, listening intently for the sounds of them leaving before she finishes them up.
After, she slumps in the chair and takes several deep breaths.
*
(v.)
Raven limps into the medical center one day and scowls so deeply Clarke thinks it might stay etched onto her face like that. Her dislike of Clarke has been broadcast loud and clear ever since they arrived onto the ship. She can't blame her, but it's the fact that Raven's anger is an extension of Bellamy's that upsets her the most.
"I thought it was Jackson's shift," she says, but despite her clear displeasure at who's the doctor on call is, she pushes herself onto the exam table and swings her bad leg around, stretching it.
"He's looking after Kane right now, so I'm covering for him." Pulling the sleeves of her shirt down, she approaches the table. "What seems to be the problem?"
"I'll just wait for Jackson." Raven crosses her arms at her. "I don't know how I feel about someone who's willing to let everyone else die look at my leg. Who knows what you'd do."
Raven wants a reaction, so Clarke won't give her one. "What's wrong with your leg?"
"You'd try to cut it off, I bet," she sneers at her.
"Is it just an ache or is it a more lasting pain?"
"That's what McCreary threatened to do to Shaw." Her voice gets louder, more belligerent. "And he wouldn't have gotten that chance if you hadn't sold us out to him."
"The sooner you tell me what's actually wrong with your leg, the sooner you'll get out of here," Clarke reminds her, though it falls on deaf ears.
"Maybe you shouldn't have killed him. The two of you actually had a lot in common. If you think about it that way, it makes sense that you'd be on his side."
"Do you really think I'd do that?" Clarke snaps, her patience gone.
Smug about the reaction, Raven shrugs defiantly. "Let's see… You were ready to shoot the second you saw us, so I think it's right up your alley."
"You were kidnapping my daughter—"
"Not to mention the fact that you allied with McCreary over us, which meant you were willing to let us die—"
"He was threatening Madi—"
"And of course, we shouldn't forget about how you abandoned Bellamy and left him to die in a fucked up version of a gladiator fight," she finishes, eyes, dark and cold, fixed on Clarke. She doesn't know what it is that bursts through, whether it's the combination of each successive volley at her or just the very last one, but whatever it is, it hits her hard.
"I'm sorry ! I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry that I could've hurt you and that I got you hurt and that I made the wrong decisions!" The volume of her own, shaky voice takes her aback. "What was I supposed to do? Madi was in danger, you wanted to put her in danger, all of you wanted her to go to war—and she's twelve ! She could've died, what if she'd died and you tell me, what would you have done? What would you have done if you were me?"
The answer is delivered just as loudly as the question, but harsher, more unforgiving in its judgement. "I would've stuck by my friends! I would've trusted that they knew what they were doing and that what they were doing was right—" Raven hops down from the table and swats her hand away when she tries to steady her. " That's what I would've done!"
"You weren't right! Any scenario that has Madi as an acceptable loss would never be right!" Her bottom lip trembles at the thought of it and she has to squeeze her eyes shut to stop herself from going further. "She is all I have."
"You have us! We would've never let anything bad happen to her!"
"No, I don't!" Clarke screams, and it's this that finally brings in a number of people rushing into the room, including Bellamy, Echo (why is she always around), Harper, and three of the Eligius prisoners whose names she doesn't know.
"What the hell is going on?" Bellamy demands, looking from Raven to her, waiting for an answer.
"Nothing," she somehow manages, a feat considering how badly she's shaking with anger, how hard she's digging her nails into her palms.
Raven shoves at her, shoving her aside, causing her to stumble stalking away. "Get me the hell away from her," she spits, and it's a scramble of Harper and Echo hurrying forward to guide her away. With the fight over, the Eligius prisoners leave too, grumbling about the lack of entertainment. Bellamy's the only one left in the room and it makes her all the more cognizant of how she behaved — how she'd let Raven get to her, how she should've just sat there and apologized instead — and before she knows it, she's sucking in a breath and letting out dry, wheezy sobs as everything crashes into dizzying reality. She sinks down onto the floor, hands covering her face, back digging into the side of the table.
"Clarke?"
"I'm fine," comes the automatic answer.
"That didn't sound fine."
"I'm fine."
She hears him take a few steps. "Will you tell me what happened?"
"Why don't you ask Raven about it?"
"Because I'm asking you."
"Raven's mad," she says, after the pressure on her chest subsides into something that doesn't feel like she's going to die any second now. "I don't blame her. But I wish," and maybe it's not fair to tell him this, when he hasn't forgiven her either, when he's obviously still angry with her, "I wish people cared about my reasons too."
"You know how she is."
She doesn't; that's the problem. "Sure."
"Look, I think she just needs some time," and Clarke could almost laugh at that. It was always about time. "She'll get over it."
She peers up at Bellamy, who's offering her a reassuring smile. She wishes it did reassure her, but it's hard when she doubts the veracity of his words. "Like you have?"
"That's different."
"Yeah," she says, dully. "I don't know why I asked. Except you forgave Echo so easily and you won't even think about it for me."
A thick silence fills the air. "That's different," he says again. "And it wasn't easy."
"I'm sure it wasn't." It still didn't erase the fact that he had.
Quietly, Bellamy says, "I thought what I was doing was right."
"I know."
"I wish you'd just talked to me about it."
She looks up again, letting out a disbelieving breath of air. "You didn't talk to me about your plan. In case you forgot, I was chained up. I thought you were going to get me out and you didn't."
"I regret that," he insists. "I knew you wouldn't see why it had to be done, so I made a call—"
"That wasn't yours to make."
"No, it wasn't," he agrees. "But we exhausted every other option."
“Are you even sorry?” She demands, looking up at him, trying to pick out reason in his impassive expression. She's run it over in her head a million times. She knows how few options there were for them. She knows he thought the best choice was the one she could never agree to. “All I hear is that you had nothing else you could do. That no matter what happened, you needed to do this.”
“We had to save everyone.”
But are you sorry? "Bellamy, you don't need to tell me that. In the end, your plan worked and mine didn't. You had your reasons and I had mine. You lied to me and I almost got you killed. I know what I did was worse. But you hurt me too. And you’re not even sorry about it.”
"It's not like we're keeping track—" The scratch of static interrupts him, springing to life from the radio clipped to his belt.
"Bellamy," Echo says, "we need you in Raven's lab."
"I can't right now," he says back, looking at Clarke. The interruption sobers her up fast, makes her get herself together.
"I think whatever you're doing can wait," she retorts. "We need your help with Raven."
Into the radio, he replies, "Really?"
"Yes."
He sighs, runs a hand through his hair. "All right, all right, I'm on my way." The radio quiets. To Clarke, he says, "I'll find you later."
Clarke shakes her head, knowing that he won't. "Don't worry about it. Let’s forget this happened, okay?" She walks over to the medicine cabinet and pulls out a bottle of pills, opening them and transferring a few into another bottle. When she's done, she walks over to Bellamy. "Here. For Raven. Painkillers, which should relieve some of the immediate pain, but she needs to stop exerting herself too much. If it's still bothering her, Jackson will be here in about an hour."
He takes the bottle from her and nods in thanks. "I'll let her know."
"Good."
He picks up the radio again to tell them he's on his way. She goes back to the cabinet and fixes up the mess.
*
(vi.)
It's late and Madi's gone.
She's usually back by this time — she knows her curfew and she knows it freaks Clarke out to not know where she is, but even with that knowledge, Madi is nowhere to be found. She's checked everywhere, asked around even, and no one has a clue. It works her into a frenzy that only stops when she turns the corner and sees Madi perched on Bellamy's back in front of their room.
"Oh my god," she breathes out, running towards the two of them. "Where was she? Is she okay? What happened? I was so scared, I didn't know—" Her hands run over Madi's hair, her cheek, rousing her from her sleep.
"Clarke?" she asks, drowsily, blinking slowly at her.
"Hi, sweetheart," she says, "I'm sorry I woke you."
"'S'okay," she mumbles, resting her head back on Bellamy's as she closes her eyes. "I'm going back to sleep."
"Hold on, let's get you into bed," she says hastily, her head turning towards Bellamy when he chuckles low in his throat. It strikes her that this is the closest they've been in a while, maybe since that first time she hugged him after six years, and up close, she can see the freckles she dreamed about, the beard that still looks out of place on him.
"I can take her in," he offers, shifting Madi slightly so that she doesn't fall when he gestures towards the door.
"Oh!" Clarke rushes to open the door. "Sorry about the mess, I haven't had time to clean up yet and it's—" There's clothes tossed haphazardly into the makeshift laundry basket, books sweeping the floor, even the blanket that Madi had thrown aside sprawled across a desk somehow. "Sorry."
"It's okay," he says, making his way over to the shared bed. Crouching down next to it, he carefully deposits Madi onto the bed and smiles at her sleeping form. Clarke's heart aches so suddenly at the sight in front of her, a reality of her wishful dreams. He stands up and turns to her. "She was at Gaia's and fell asleep. I think someone was going to get you, but I passed by on the way back here, so I figured I could just bring her back too."
Clarke walks over to the bed, sitting on the edge so that she can tuck Madi in. She's going to complain tomorrow about sleeping in these clothes, but there's no use in trying to get her to wake up to change now. Pulling the blankets up over her, she smooths down her hair and listens to her breathing before she looks back at Bellamy. He's still standing there, observing her.
"I forgot she was going to Gaia's," she confesses, feeling embarrassed about her overreaction earlier on. "I was scared that something had happened."
"At Gaia's?" Bellamy starts moving, walking around the room like there's anything to really take in. It's just a lived in space, full of things that she and Madi had accumulated over the past few months, but none of them particularly meaningful.
"Anywhere. I'm just always scared that something bad's going to happen to her." She looks over at Madi, peaceful in her sleep, and her heart lurches in concern.
"Nothing's going to happen here."
"We live on a spaceship populated by actual criminals," she says, giving him a pointed look. "I don't think it's necessarily that unlikely."
"We saved their lives," he argues, stopping in front of the desk, "so they know they can't do anything like that."
"You can't possibly believe that. And all it takes is one person," she argues back. "What if she runs into the wrong person and they hurt her?"
"I think it's much more likely that she'll hurt them first," he says with a laugh. She frowns. It's not funny to her. "Clarke, when we first ran into her, she killed the two guys that were there in like three seconds flat. She saved us."
It's not that she's not capable of it. "I don't want her to have to do that," she explains, upset at the thought of it. "She's just a kid. She should be having fun and not worrying about anything.”
“You can’t protect her forever,” he says, a truly ironic statement coming from Bellamy Blake.
“But as long as I can, I will. I know that she can take care of herself, but it isn’t something… she is twelve and no matter how capable she is, she’s still a child. The fact that I asked you to protect her meant that I trust you with her,” a pause, “because I knew, I thought that you would, completely. That if anything happened to me, that she would still have someone."
"Neither of us wanted to lose you," he says, low and pained. "We weren't going to take that chance."
"I would've died," she exclaims, volume rising before she remembers Madi's asleep, and dropping, "before I let her get hurt!"
"That's what we were trying to prevent!"
"That wasn't your choice to make."
He doesn't respond to that. In fact, he just turns around and stands still, before he starts tapping his fingers along the desk, quiet and in thought. His silence unnerves her and she feels awkward all of a sudden, knowing that Bellamy's in her room for the first time, and it's nothing like how she wanted it to happen. Clarke turns back to Madi and focuses on her breathing instead.
When he speaks next, she jerks out of her daze by the shock of his words. "I am sorry," he says, turning back around so that he meets her eyes.
"I'm sorry?"
"No, I am," he says and she's not used to the teasing in his voice, but what she's more confused about is what he's sorry about and why he felt like he had to say it now. "You asked me before if I was sorry about what I did. I am. Because I hurt you and I broke your trust. You're right. I shouldn't have made that choice for you and I should've listened to you."
Oh.
"I thought I didn't understand your reasons. I didn't get you," Bellamy continues. "But I do…" A nostalgic look crosses his face. "I would've done anything to keep Octavia safe. I did do everything to keep her safe. I don't know why it took me so long to make that connection."
"She's all I have, Bellamy."
He passes a hand over his beard. "I should've known." Bellamy closes his eyes and lets out a weary breath. "I'm so sorry for not keeping my promise. I was so busy thinking about how to fix things, how to save everyone that I completely disregarded what you would've wanted. and I’m so, so sorry that I blamed you this whole time without thinking about what I did to you. You shouldn't have forgiven me, I don't even know why you did."
"Because you were thinking about what needed to be done to stop the war," she says, briefly glancing back at Madi. Madi, who had led hundreds of people into war. "I honestly meant it when I said I understand your reasons."
"Even though it directly contradicted your wishes? It put Madi in danger?"
"You've forgiven me for worse things." The bomb on Tondc when Octavia was there, the betrayal in the bunker that locked Octavia out, the leaving him in Polis at the hands of a bloodthirsty dictator. "So much worse."
"That's not how it works," he says. "It's not something to keep track of."
"I don't know about that."
"I do. Is that why you forgave me?"
She takes his words in, her mind rolling in questions, the most prominent of which concerning what it meant for them now. “I forgave you because I wanted to. Do you—forgive me?”
He says the words easily. "I forgive you. I don't know if you ever needed it."
Relief floods her, relaxing her shoulders, easing her mind. She hadn't known how much anxiety she was physically carrying in waiting for those words. "I did. I do." Managing a small, real smile, Clarke takes him in, finally and fully. This Bellamy that has always forgiven her. "Do you think we'll ever break this cycle of doing horrible things and forgiving each other for them?"
He cracks a smile, laughs a little. "I hope we'll at least move past the doing horrible things part."
"Yeah," she breathes, slightly watery from the tears that she's holding at bay, "I hope so too." Their eyes lock on each other for a long few minutes, but it comes with a new ease in it. It's not completely better, but it's a start. It feels like a start.
Bellamy drums his fingers against the desk once more. "It's getting late. I guess I should go."
She doesn't want him to. But it is late and he probably shouldn't be here. "Thanks for bringing Madi to me."
He looks around her, at Madi. "I'm glad you had her. She's a good kid."
"Yeah, she's pretty cool."
With that, he holds a hand up in goodbye, pulling the door open to head out. The tension in the room dissipates.
Clarke finally gets a good night's rest.
*
(vii.)
She really should've known that Bellamy's forgiveness doesn't fix everything.
It doesn't fix Raven's refusal to speak to her, it doesn't fix her uncertainty over her place in their lives, it doesn't fix her unhappiness. It lightens the burden on her shoulders, but everything else remains. Clarke encounters this every time she sees Raven, who seemingly goes out of her way to ignore her while drawing attention to the fact that she's ignoring her. She finds this in the meetings Monty calls, where at worst, her presence is met with hostility and at best, they forget she's there. They come to an agreement and don't consult her. They back each other up and she flounders for footing. Bellamy doesn't help much; he smiles at her in apology and repeats platitudes ("they just need time,") that sound more far-fetched the more time passes.
She doesn't belong with them and Clarke is cruelly reminded of that truth at lunch a few days later.
Formerly the third floor of the spaceship, most of it had been repurposed as the cafeteria to accommodate the number of people now residing on the ship. Clarke usually stays away during the peak busy times, because she had wanted to avoid running into everyone there and because the number of people there tends to alarm her. She's still not great with large groups of people. The same feeling hits her when she enters the cafeteria and it subsides only when she spots Bellamy sitting at a table towards the center of the room.
"Hey," she says nervously when she reaches him, a tray in hand. He looks up at her in surprise and her heart sinks.
"Hey," he says. "Lunch break?"
"I was supposed to eat with Madi, but I think she's still with Gaia." She has half a mind to tell him about how that makes her feel (cast off, unwanted), but she knows it's irrational, and she isn't sure she and Bellamy are at that kind of conversation level yet.
He gestures for her to sit down, so she does.
"She's really liking her lessons, huh?"
"It's honestly a surprise to me too. Madi, um, she used to always be late to her lessons," she remembers, wistful in the delivery. Some days, she misses the times when it had just been her and Madi. They had built a home together. They had survived, lived. They had a lot of nice memories. "I'd give her a thirty minute reminder and she would still turn up late."
"I guess this means she's growing up," Bellamy says.
"Oh, that's a scary thought."
He laughs, a real laugh, one that makes her want to chase that sound and tease it out of him again and again and again. "You have to be prepared. One day, you're going to look at her and realize that she's not the three-year old who just wanted to play hide and seek."
"She never liked that game."
"Octavia did." His eyes move over to the table she's seen his sister occupy before, surrounded by former members of Wonkru who walk around shellshocked most of the time. His attention shifts back. "There weren't many places to hide, of course."
Suppressing the urge to apologize, Clarke says, "If we tried to play hide and seek, I wouldn't be able to find Madi for hours."
"She is deceptively sneaky."
"I'm going to tell her you said that. She'd love it."
"I'm only telling the truth," he says, so happily that it throws her off for a second or two. He's never sounded like that before. Before she can comment on it, Raven comes over, knocking her elbow into Bellamy's arm. She's with Echo, and Murphy isn't too far behind.
"You owe me a shift in the control room tonight," Raven announces, seemingly unaware of Clarke's presence. Then again, with Raven, it's just as likely that she'd seen her and decided she wasn't there. "I picked up your last one and I've got plans with Shaw tonight, so it's all down to you. And before you say anything—Clarke?" Her brows furrow in confusion, then harden in displeasure. "What are you doing here."
"Eating," she says mildly, hoping that this will deter another confrontation.
"Why are you eating here?" Echo interjects, tossing a glare in for extra effect. "Do I need to remind you that none of us are exactly happy with you?"
"I'm not that bothered, actually," Murphy says, and at that moment, Clarke's just happy that someone doesn't hate her that she actually gives him a grateful smile. He takes the seat next to her and shrugs. "It's just lunch."
"Stop it," Bellamy says, decisively concurring with Murphy. This seems to settle the matter, even if Raven and Echo don't look any happier about it. Clarke unclenches her fist and breathes out. "And yeah, don't worry, I'll take your shift."
"Thought you would," Raven says triumphantly, waiting until Echo takes her seat and then taking the seat next to her. Warily, she casts a look at Clarke, but must decide on ignoring her, because she doesn't look at her the rest of the time. It hurts, but at least they're not arguing again.
Once they're all at the table, a flurry of conversations starts up. Clarke tries to keep up with them but they jump from topic to topic as they catch each other up on their day so far. If it's not about Raven's battle with the ship's temperature control unit, then it's Echo's argument with the woman who's in charge of the guards. Sometimes, she forgets that they spent six years together, trapped in a space with nowhere to run, so they can talk like this, so they know each other so well that they can predict each other’s responses, but there's no forgetting that now. She's not even sure they remember she's there.
Finally, the multiple topics cease when Raven gets all of their attentions. "Okay, we need to be serious now," she starts, very gravely. Clarke's immediately worried. Nothing good comes from that tone. "It's Bellamy's birthday in a few months and we need to figure out what we're going to do, so that we can avoid what happened last year."
Murphy groans. "The way we avoid what happened last year is if we stop bringing it up every few months."
"Isn't it the other way around?" Bellamy asks.
"It's definitely the other way around," Echo agrees. "But let's avoid what happened the year before that too. If you haven't forgotten, I'm still scarred by it."
"You're always scarred," Raven says, eyes rolling. "That was a mistake and I already said I was sorry."
They keep at it, bickering over what happened last year and what happened the year before and let's not forget, the year before that as well, actually maybe your birthday's cursed, Bellamy, yeah, I've been saying that for years which is why I don't want to celebrate it again.
Clarke hears all of it and sits paralyzed by it. She doesn't know what happened the year before, or the one before that, or the one before that — she didn't even know that it was Bellamy's birthday soon. Frantically, she searches her memory, tries to remember if she ever knew that about him and comes up short. It's not just the way they talk to each other, or the way they behave around each other, protective and knowing, it's this— the stuff they all know about each other, the tiny things, the big things, the everything in between, all resulting from six years in space together. All this time, she's thought of Bellamy as her best friend and all this time, she's never known anything about him that everyone else does. His birthday, his middle name, his favorite color. All the simplest things to know about someone. It's not enough that she has his forgiveness, not if all the outstanding issues stay the same.
Their friendship had been forged by war, and of course there was no denying they had been friends. At one point, they were the only ones who understood each other. She could look at him and immediately know what he was thinking, how he was feeling. She trusted him more than anyone, she loved him more than anyone. But it's clear that she's been stupid enough, in denial enough, to think that those few months they had together meant something six and a half years ago, that they mattered more, that they mattered at all, compared to six fucking years.
She hears herself speak, a whisper that grows louder as she repeats herself. "I'm sorry. I think, I think I need to go find Madi." Clarke picks up her tray and pushes her chair back, only barely registering the way it scrapes against the floor.
They stop talking, turning their heads towards her, but she doesn't heed their looks. Bellamy says her name.
"Sorry," she says again, her grip on the tray so tight that her knuckles are white. "I'll see you around."
*
(viii.)
"Clarke."
On her worst days, when nothing could get her out of bed, not even Madi, when she was so deep in the depths of despair that she couldn’t see, she had clung to the hope (because it was never a certainty, she never knew, she only hoped) that Bellamy and the others would come back to her. Sometimes, it wouldn't be enough, but she could still think about it, imagine the looks on their faces when they saw her again, envision the way Bellamy would hold her when he finally came face to face with her. It never made things better, but it helped the day pass.
"Clarke, can you slow down?"
She wishes she could live in that fantasy again, to undo the past few months, and do it right this time, so that she wouldn't be here, lonelier than ever, surrounded by people who were so different from what she remembered.
"Clarke!"
She stops in the middle of the corridor. Bellamy's been calling her name for the past five minutes, following her from the cafeteria, and his presence is the final thing that pierces the balloon of pressure weighing her down. This Bellamy is a stranger to her, a man she thought she loved, but doesn't know, a man who has lived an entire life without thinking of her. It'd never occurred to her that this would be how it turned out.
"Tell me something," she cries, whirling around to face him. His face contorts in worry when he sees her, so she must look even worse than she feels. "How much better would your life have been if I had just died?"
"What the hell?"
"Just be honest, Bellamy. If I had died all those years ago, wouldn't it be better? Wouldn't you be better off?"
"Clarke." Sharper this time.
"I can't stop thinking about that," she continues, unbothered by his rebuke.
"Well, you should stop," he says, roughly. "We wouldn't be better off if you were dead."
"Wouldn't you though?" She laughs with no joy in it. "From the sound it, you had a great life on the Ring. You were happy finally. You didn't have to worry about anything. You had a family."
"Stop it," Bellamy commands, voice tight. "I thought you were dead for six years. It didn't make my life better."
But she keeps going, too upset to stop, the words just rolling out one after the other. "And ever since you came back, it's just, it's just been awful for you. I put you guys in danger so many times. I almost killed you. I made a mess out of everything—"
"Clarke." He's much closer now, grabbing a hold of her hands, and it makes her cry out in guilt, the sound of which startles him enough that he drops them. "How could you say that?"
She doesn't even hear him. "And there's this wall between us, because, because you have your family, you have your friends, and I'm not a part of that, I don't have that history with you—" She hiccups and chokes on the sobs that rise up in her throat.
"Clarke, please, you have to breathe—" Panic underlines his words. "You are a part of it, you are—"
"Are we even friends anymore? I mean, can you honestly say we are? Before we were trapped up here, before you had literally nowhere to run from me, you never talked to me, you refused to trust me—" her breath catches, "you wouldn't even look at me—" She can feel the desperate climb of tension in her chest, clawing its way out.
"I'm sorry," he says, over and over, until it blurs together, or maybe that's her vision, obscured by the steady stream of tears that escalate and roll down her face.
She doesn't notice him pulling her into him, wrapping his arms around her, until she's crying into his shoulder, her words slightly muffled by it. "I don't know anything about you! Back there, they, they talked about your birthday—they've had six years of birthdays with you! I didn't even know when it was! I don't know your favorite color! I don't know your favorite book, I don't know what you went through on the Ring, I don't know anything! I called you every day for six years," she cries, "and I know nothing about you!"
"What?" He pulls back, searching her face. "What do you mean?"
"I thought that—" Clarke wipes furiously at her face, though it does nothing to stop the tears that keep falling. Her nose is runny and her eyes hurt and she's left a wet patch on his shirt and it, inexplicably, makes her feel worse about everything. "I thought I just needed you to forgive me, that if I got that, everything would fall into place, but it's not enough—"
"Clarke," Bellamy says, pleads, really. "I didn't mean to. I really didn't, I didn't even know I was—let me get you back to your room, okay?"
"No," she says, pushing out of his hold and reaching the wall behind her, closing her eyes and holding her breath. "Thank you, but no."
"You can't stay here like this. Lunch is almost over."
"No," she repeats. Her arms go around herself, clutching at her biceps.
"Please, Clarke—"
"Just," she sighs, "I want to be alone right now."
"I'm going to get Madi," he pushes and her eyes widen.
"No!" Wiping at her face again, sniffling, she continues, "I don't want her to see me like this."
"You shouldn't be alone right now and if you don't want to see me, fine, but someone should be with you," he insists, stepping closer, halting when she puts her hand up.
"Madi doesn't need to know about this."
"What about your mom?"
She snorts. "Yeah, even if she cared, she's got enough on her plate."
"What about—"
Clarke cuts him off. "Stop. This isn't your problem. I shouldn't have done that, I don't know what happened." A blatant lie, if there ever was any. "It's not even your fault—I mean," she shakes her head, more at how foolish she had just been, "compared to how long and how well you know everyone else… you barely knew me. It's stupid of me to think that nothing would change after six years."
"It's not stupid," he says, his forehead creasing. "And you are a part of us, Clarke, why wouldn't you be?"
"I don't want to do this again." She pushes off the wall and ducks out of his way, not quick enough to miss the hurt that's written on his face. "Please don't tell anyone about this. Especially Madi."
He catches her by the elbow, keeping her in place before she can walk off. "We should talk about this."
"No, we shouldn't," she replies, yanking her elbow out of his grasp, trying to look past his eyes, which could convince anyone to his side. Maybe that's what makes her give in, just slightly, and place her hand over his. He immediately clasps them together and looks hopefully at her. "Tell me you won't tell anyone."
"I…" his hand tightens on hers, "I won't."
"Thank you," she says, before she pulls her hand away and leaves.