"What if I'm a terrible mother?"
My voice shakes and I close my eyes when emotions overwhelm me. My contained sobs, the result of fears that have been buried for too long, strangle me - choke me. I'm just a whirlwind of overwhelming feelings and swirling anguish. The fact that I haven't slept for almost 48 hours doesn't help me to calm down. The fact that the contractions are getting closer and closer, ever more intense and painful, doesn't help either.
A damp, cool compress wipes away the drops of sweat that bead on my forehead while a deep, warm voice gently replies:
"You'll be a great mother, Clarke."
Of course, I should have guessed that, of all the things to say and do, Bellamy would choose to comfort me. Perhaps this is exactly why I only succeed in letting my barriers down when I'm by his side. Because I know that, no matter how hard and how high I stumble, no matter what dangers await my fall, he will always be here to catch me.
Nevertheless, I sniff, stubborn even in the most absolute pain I have ever known, and answer:
"You don't know that. I'll probably recreate all the horrible patterns I've seen in the past."
"Don't talk like that. You had good parents, you-"
I cut him at the nonsense of what he just said.
"Of course, my mother was a model of perfection. Do I have to make you a list of everything she's done wrong before or after she comes to assist me with the birth?"
I see him holding back a tired sigh and I'm suddenly feeling a little bit of guilt. After all, he hasn't slept much in the last two days either.
"Please, no", he answers. "No more lists."
His words - surprisingly - succeed to tear a smile from me, before he continues:
"Your mother loves you, Clarke. Everything she's always done, she has done it for that very reason, she has done it for you, to protect you, to keep you safe and sound."
"Well, she failed."
"She did her best, and that's what really matters, isn't it?"
I would like to argue again, confront him as I always do and prove him that he's wrong and that I'm right. Even better, prove him that my mother was wrong. But a new contraction rises and I suddenly feel my uterus hardening completely for what seems to be an endless minute.
I don't know if I'm the one who grabs his hand, or if he's the one who grabs mine, but I hold on to his fingers as if my life depends on it. As the pain subsided, I gave him a sorry look and try to free my grip, but he refuses to let me go and gently put his other hand on both of ours.
I finally admit:
"Okay, you're right. I know she loves me and has always done her best. And I love her too for that reason."
His victorious smile is dazzling when he answers:
"Was it that last contraction that made you see the truth?"
"Don't get cocky, it doesn't look good on you at all."
This is a blatant lie. That's one of my favorite expressions of him. I often draw it in my spare time. It reminds me of the Bellamy I met, the one I learned to love despite our differences, the sassy boy from our landing on Earth, the one who butted heads with me, bold, and was exulting simply because he could shut me up, the one who called me -
"All right, Princess."
The old nickname brings back such old memories, most of which are not pleasant. Memories that make me whisper, after a few minutes:
"He'll probably hate me before he even knows how to walk or talk."
I want my voice to be light and free of the seriousness that my words hide, but exhaustion is killing the game I'm trying to play and Bellamy, as always, sees right through me. Before he can reassure me again, I continue to unfold the thread of thoughts that have haunted me for almost nine months now. The thoughts that also haunted me every hour of every day that I had to raise Madi alone after Praimfaya.
"Come on, Bellamy. You know I'm right. All the choices I made to survive. All the horrors I've committed for my people. All the mistakes I made to save the ones I cared about... When he'll find out- when he'll see who I really am- there's no way he wouldn't hate me."
"Clarke-"
That's all he answers, and this time I don't think he really has anything to say to comfort me about this sad truth. But it wouldn't really be Bellamy if he didn't try.
"Clarke, look at me."
I comply and immediately understand my mistake when his dark eyes gaze into mine. I could spend hours painting the exact color of his irises. Hazelnut, under the sun. Wooden, on grayer days. Black as night when anger overcomes. Glittering with stars in the intimacy of our embraces. Tonight, the fire burning in the fireplace behind us gives them a golden glow full of determination and passion. For a few seconds, I think I just melt under the tenderness and warmth of his gaze, but it's nothing compared to what I feel when he says:
"You can't be more wrong. You're amazing, Clarke. Stubborn, fearless, courageous, reckless, but also kind, selfless and-"
He stops when my fingers squeeze again around his palm, a sign that another contraction is about to strike. I close my eyes and clench my teeth, concentrate on his voice as he continues:
"When he'll learn all that you've sacrificed for the survival - not only of the people who were close to you - but of all mankind, he will only admire you and love you more."
I breathe in, then breathe out through my nose as I come to my senses. This time, tears flow freely on my cheeks, and I cannot say what caused them: the pain of my imminent childbirth, the anguish that frightens me, or Bellamy's reassuring words.
"Madi didn't think so at the time."
"Things were different. You learned from the mistakes you made, like all of us. Madi finally understood and accepted it. She still loves you today."
"Everyone was so angry with me... He'll be too. I'm not sure he'll be able to forgive me for my past sins."
I remember only too vividly our first weeks on Sanctum, the weeks when my friends hated me with every fiber of their being. Only Bellamy had been able to remain loyal to me. Only Bellamy had stayed by my side. Only Bellamy had kept me going.
"Forgiveness is the very nature of who you are, Clarke. If he gets just a little bit of you, he'll have that quality in his blood. And if he doesn't and inherits your stubborn and daring side-"
Hoarse laughter escapes from my throat at these words and Bellamy follows:
"I'll be there to remind him of who you are. We'll face this side by side, Clarke. Together, as always. I promise."
"You promise?"
My voice is fragile, as are my hopes for the future. I have faced many dangers, war, grief, loneliness, the end of the world... I've been at the brink of death so many times that I've stopped counting and yet, I've never been so terrified than today when I'm about to give birth.
The idea of this tiny human being, so innocent, so frail, so pure, ready to enter this world under my responsibility, paralyzes me more than all the dangers I've had to face.
My thoughts and doubts pass me by at the same time as a new contraction holds me back.
What if I'm not worthy? What if I can't teach him the difference between right and wrong? What if I can't show him how to walk on that thin line between the two, where all the qualities that make us human are? What if the commander of death could only give life to a monster able to create even more chaos and destruction?
"You're a good person, Clarke. And you won't be alone. Your friends, your family, me- we'll all be there to help you. This little boy will have a whole village to raise him."
I open my eyes when I hear his answer. Either he can now read my mind or I've been thinking out loud without noticing. The pain has passed, but I already feel that another wave is about to rise before striking.
"I think we should call my mother now. She said to wait until the labor intensifies and gets closer and that's the tenth in an hour."
"I just called her. She's on her way."
Once again, he applies the compress to my forehead and I let the freshness of the water soothe me. I don't know when he took the time to send the signal we agreed to Abby, but I appreciate it. In a few hours at most, it will be over and I will hold my little boy in my arms.
I'm trying to focus on that image. I see myself smiling although tired - and if there is one thing I know for sure, it' s that I' ll be tired - with my face tilted towards the figure of my newborn. I imagine the peace, joy, and love that will surround us. I see the bright face of Madi who meets her little brother for the first time. I see Bellamy who-
"Clarke?"
His deep voice takes me out of my reverie and I look up to find a worried face immersed in reflection.
"Do you want me to go get-"
His voice chokes and breaks before he can go on and I guess what he wants to ask me before he even finishes his sentence. However, I don't have time to answer him before he tries to pronounce the words that - I know it - make him suffer in spite of himself.
"Do you want me to go get his father?"
Bellamy suddenly refuses to meet my eyes and my heart breaks in front of his obvious pain. I answer his question right away:
"No, he's probably asleep by now and I've already warned him that I don't want him to be there for the baby's delivery."
I watch him swallow with difficulty and put the hand that is not trapped by mine on his cheek, in an attempt to chase away its expression, as if he could hide his own worries and sorrows from me while mines are bare in front of him.
"Okay. If you want, I can leave and let Abby and Niylah take over."
A burst of sadness and anguish overwhelms me. Anguish because:
"What? No! No, Bellamy. I need you. I want you here, by my side. I don't want you to go."
And sadness, because of my statement - as I thought - does not appease the one I can see on his features.
It's our curse. Bellamy and I never managed to get our timings right. In nine months on Earth, how many times had we crossed paths without reaching each other? How many times had we been torn from each other before we could confess our feelings? Coincidence, Karma, bad luck... Everything had always been against us.
So it shouldn't have surprised me that he broke up with Echo the same evening that I decided to give up on him.
It shouldn't have surprised him to see another man answering my door the very morning he decided to tell me how he felt.
And, after weeks and weeks of turning around each other, we should've known that I would discover my unexpected pregnancy on the exact day we exchanged our first kiss.
My gaze never leaves his. Regrets darken his eyes and his eyebrows are frowned upon. I can't bear to see him like this, not when we've spent so much time in pain. I'd like to erase the hurt from his expression. Annihilate it like you eliminate an enemy.
I'm about to speak, but I'm cut off by a new contraction. Through my pain, I sense his palm caressing my forehead and his breath near my cheek. I focus on his presence to get through this moment, focus on him and what I want to say to him before the contractions are so close from one another that it becomes impossible for me to talk, before this baby is born, before-
"Bellamy-"
I swallow and draw his face in front of mine so he can read the truth in my eyes- so that he can understand everything that my words cannot say, the way he has always done.
The contact of his fresh skin under my burning palm surprises me. The roles are reversed. Usually, it's always his touch that electrifies me, always his hot skin that warms mine, always his body that burns mine.
"This child-"
I can hardly find the right words, so I guide the hand that always holds mine on the curve of my prominent belly. There, his palm gently caresses the place where my son is hiding. In a habit, his fingers are drawing an absent motion of soft comings and goings, as they have done every night since I found out about my pregnancy.
"You're already a part of his life, Bellamy."
And, gods, how true this is.
The storm of his gaze softened as doubts faded. So I'll keep going:
"From the beginning, it's your voice he's heard."
Every night when he tells stories to my son to ease the blows he gives me and that keeps me awake. Every moment of intimacy, every nap under the sun of Sanctum, every awakening in his arms. His deep and sweet voice that vibrates on the creamy texture of my skin. His warm breath that makes me shiver.
"It's your touch he's looking for."
From the first flickering to the last of his kicks, nothing has ever caused the movement of the child I'm carrying better than Bellamy's palm on my womb. How many times has he followed the path of his hand on my skin and responded to the pressures of his pressure while he persisted in remaining still when others wanted to feel him move?
"And when he'll be born, it's your love he'll need. As I needed it all of these years, as I need it today, as I'll need it tomorrow and every day after. I need you, Bellamy. We need you."
"And I need you. I need both of you," he replies with a trembling voice.
I wipe away with my fingertips the tears that run down his cheeks and make his eyes shine with thousands of stars, the same stars that I spent six years looking at and hoping to meet him again. His forehead rests on mine and, for a second, our breaths mingle, our lips brush against each other as they have already done tens, hundreds, thousands of times, but never enough, no, never enough.
Our kiss is interrupted when a new contraction forces me to roll my head back and clench my teeth. This one is shorter, but so much more intense that, for a moment, I think I'm about to pass out.
"Clarke?"
Bellamy's voice resonates beside me, but I hear nothing but my staggering breath. I know the importance of keeping it equal and measured, but I can no longer do it because I am so exhausted.
"Clarke?!"
The anxiety in his voice is almost as powerful as the iron grip he holds around my fingers.
"I'm here."
That's what I want to answer him, but nothing comes out of my mouth except a moan of pain. Fortunately, the suffering slowly fades away, at the very moment when two knocks ring at the door of our house. In the distance, my mother's voice echoes and immediately Bellamy shouts at her to come in, not daring to leave my side, even for the few seconds that would have led him to the gate.
Suddenly, two news fresh hands frame my face and I stare at my mother's eyes when she asks for my attention. I listen to her instructions carefully, now more awake than ever.
The blankets are pushed at my feet, a basin of water and towels are provided. I am seated a little straighter and my feet are placed on two stirrups provided for this purpose so that my legs are open and my hips slightly elevated. I see Niylah in my mother's shadow and feel reassured by this friendly presence. To my right, Bellamy hasn't moved an inch. His eyebrows are even more furrowed than before and his grip on my hand hasn't decreased in intensity.
I continue to stare at him as his brown eyes remain fixed on my mother when she explains that my cervix is now fully dilated and that the next time I contract, I'll have to take a deep breath, block, then start pushing.
"Hey."
My voice is only a whisper, but he hears it anyway and his anxious gaze leaves Abby to turn to me. When his dark irises meet mine, he seems to soften. A half smile appears on his face and illuminates his features.
"Hey," he answers.
"Don't worry, Bellamy. I can do it."
A little strangled laughter gushes out of his tight throat before he assures me:
"Of course you will, brave Princess."
Still, I can guess what's torturing him under the surface. I see the little boy frightened and helpless in front of his mother's suffering. I can see the tetanized but courageous child hugging his sister. My heart breaks for him.
"You're not alone. My mother and Niylah are here, and I'm sure Jackson isn't far away in case we need help."
My mother nods at this statement and weight are removed from Bellamy's shoulders.
"And when this baby comes out, he can cry as loud as he wants, be as noisy as he can, no one will be there to stop him."
This time, Bellamy's smile is more genuine, though full of never-ending grief, the one we carry with us when a parent leaves us forever. He holds my hand to his lips and kisses it.
"I love you, Clarke. You're going to be the best mother the new and old world has ever known."
My mother interrupts our exchange and answers for me.
« She's already the best mother this world has ever known. And to be one again, you're gonna have to push, Sweetheart, okay? On my count."
The contractions and minutes pass by, painful, long and at the same time fast, misty and blurry. Bellamy's words reassure and support me, as does the cool, damp cloth with which he wipes my forehead. My mother's encouragement gives me the strength to continue, to never give up, until finally...
"It's a boy."
Instantly, an unbearable need grabs me despite my exhaustion. The need to see him. To hold him. To feel him. The few seconds Niylah spends making sure he's okay and wrapping him up before entrusting him to me are torture.
My prayers are answered when I am given a baby wrapped in a blanket.
The first thing that surprises me is his calm. I always heard newborns was screaming as soon as they came into this world, but my baby is silent in my arms.
The second thing I can see is the brown curls already gathered on the top of his head. This vision tears me a sniff and a look at Bellamy whose eyes are fogged with tears despite a bright smile that lights up the whole room and warms me from the inside, I, who suddenly feel so cold.
I have no idea where this child is getting that hair. His biological father is almost as blond as I am. His mid-long hair is smooth and silky. One might almost think that this baby is more Bellamy's than his.
"You'll look like your father, at last."
I'm barely aware that I speak out loud when the words come out of my mouth against my son's forehead.
A strangled sound reaches me and I look up at Bellamy, whose tears flow freely this time on his cheeks. I won't say it out loud yet, not now, but he's the father of this child much more than his progenitor is and never will be. He's a good man, sure, but my affection would never have been enough compared to the depth of my feelings for Bellamy.
Of course, I will never stop this relationship from developing. However, I know intrinsically that the one who will be there to get up at night when he cries, the one who will change his diapers, wash him, feed him and raise him - I know this man will be Bellamy.
The latter touches the newborn's cheek with his fingertips, as if afraid to break him, and whispers:
"You did so good, Clarke. Look at this little one. He's so beautiful. You' re beautiful, I' m-"
And perhaps he's even more affected than I imagined, or I'm more tired than I thought because his words come to me as muffled and distant, distorted. My eyes close in spite of myself and unprecedented exhaustion engulfs each of my muscles until finally embracing my heart and soul.
Half-word, I ask:
"Can you hold him, Bellamy?"
He stops and his smile fades away. I don't hear him answer, but I think I can read his agreement on his lips. I no longer have the strength to lift my arms to entrust him with him, so he delicately takes him between his own and makes him rest thereby gently rocking him.
There.
That's the image I want to see every minute until I die. That's the image I want to take to the afterlife with me. This image I want to engrave under my eyelids to continue to see them even in my darkest hours, even in an eternal night.
"Bellamy?"
My voice is so weak that I can barely hear it.
"Clarke?"
I can hear my first name as if my head had disappeared underwater and Bellamy was calling me from the surface. However, the anxiety that overwhelmed him a few hours earlier seems to have returned and pierced through his voice, suddenly thousand times more intense.
"Take care of him for me, okay?"
"Clarke- I will always be there for you but- you will take care of him yourself- each and every day."
This time, it's my turn to feel the panic invade me, like that day in Polis. That moment when Bloodreina's security guard came to arrest me and sentenced me to death for the murder of Kara Cooper. That day when I thought my life was over and the thought of leaving Madi behind had terrified me until Bellamy promised me he would take care of her.
Some might say that he had broken his promise, but I had long since forgiven that mistake. Long ago understood his reasons. Maybe I knew why all along.
"Promise me."
My words are the same as before.
"I promise."
And like a century ago, my heart lightens at his words. Lightens and lightens again, as my body relaxes and my mind flies away.
Also, when Bellamy shouts my name a few seconds after that promise, I don't hear him anymore.
Nor do I hear my mother echoing, panicked.
I don't understand anything of my Abby's explanations about the bleeding that's slowly taking my life, but I'm grateful to disappear like that. I wouldn't have dreamed of a sweeter death.
"Clarke? Clarke!? CLARKE!"
I remain deaf to Bellamy's calls by my side.
"Don't even think about it, Clarke. Niylah, take the baby!"
My eyes close and take away his image before he hands over my - our - baby to Niylah.
"I forbid you to die, Clarke. I will not let you leave us now, do you hear me?"
I ignore his pleas.
"Please, please, stay. Stay... You didn't even name your son. You- we haven't lived yet."
I don't see any of his tears.
"Don't leave me. I can't- I won't survive it. Not again."
I don't feel his warm hands on my cold skin starting the cardiac massage that Abby is ordering.
I am no longer here when his burning lips land on my mouth to try and bring back air and life in me.
Maybe in a few seconds, when I will be gone for good, he'll give me a last kiss?
This is my last wish, just before I forever fall into oblivion.
Ai gonplei ste odon