AN - Everyone writes that it could happen, no one writes that it does. I didn't name a father. Usually I'm a major Bellarke shipper, but in my mind I saw this as being either Bellamy or Finn. The father wasn't important though.
I'm still working on 'Eighteen' and '101', but busting out oneshots in between homework assignments to make myself feel better. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
She has Clarke's eyes, and he thinks they all thank God for that every day. When they're set in that hard way, wide and unfaltering, ordering someone to rest and relax, or get back to work, it's like Clarke is back in camp. Or it would be, if Clarke was three feet tall and wore her blond waves in pigtails.
Charlotte - Charlie - is four years old now. She wasn't the first child born to the Ark survivors on Earth, but she's the most precious. Already her hands are developing the same healing gift as her mother's, and most afternoons she can be found in the med hut, shadowing Octavia with a roll of grass-woven gauze and a thermos of seaweed tea. Everyone remembers Clarke, and they smile when her mirror-image daughter wraps their cuts and bruises - even when her excitable mind is distracted, and the bandage is loose and slipping and they know Octavia will have to redo it later, they can't bear to let the little girl down.
She grins and it's like the sun is shining among them, she cries and it's worse than any storm their camp has weathered. Her laugh is more beautiful than the breeze on a summer's day, than the field of flowers over the East ridge where she loves to play. Watching her breathe at night, so alive and so much like her mother, is more inspiring than the first time he'd glimpsed Earth through the open dropship door. He can't imagine ever being angry at her, his angel. Can't imagine that he'd ever wanted to hate her.
But he had, once.
Clarke was dying. With her screams radiating through camp, the constant running of Jasper and Monty to get more water, more blankets, more mint leaves for her pain, he'd known the exact moment she'd given up. It was when she called his name, beckoning him into the tent, and he met her eyes over Octavia's head.
Her eyes, the same hard, stubborn eyes that little Charlie turned on him whenever she refused bedtime, framed by sweaty, matted curls and hung with dark circles. They were resigned, accepting, and shining with love. In his dreams - his nightmares - he hears himself croak out her name, and she reaches a hand for his.
"We're going to save her." She tells him. "Octavia is going to save our little girl, okay? I need you to take care of her for me."
There's a flash of white hot anger through his gut and he clutches her hand tighter. "No, Clarke. No. There's got to be another way. We can try again." He's whispering now, or whimpering, he isn't sure. "We can try again."
She shakes her head 'no'. "I've lost too much blood, I am going to die anyways." She's so clinical, so Clarke, trying to be strong for him, even when she's so weak her hand only flutters around his when she tries to squeeze. Her voice breaks, and she chokes out a sob. "I can't let her die, too."
They are both crying, and he runs his hand over her hair. "Don't leave me, Clarke. I need you… so much." Her murmurs of love for him and for their child are broken by another scream and she jolts forward, back lifting from the bed. Behind him Octavia is trying to staunch the renewed flow of blood. Clarke is pale, ashen, the color from her lips completely gone.
"We're running out of time." Octavia says, sounding harried, frustrated… scared. Clarke settles back down. He leans his cheek into the hand she places on his head.
"I love you."
Then there is a blur. He remembers a knife, and Clarke's screams. So much blood. Most of all he remembers her eyes, shining with tears and with love, even as she cried out in pain. And he remembers them closing, finally, and her cries quieting only to be replaced by the baby's.
At first he won't look away from Clarke, he won't let go of her hand. This is his fault, if she hadn't been pregnant… God, what had he done? But then Octavia is at his shoulder, prodding him, saying his name.
"Look at her." She says, "She's beautiful." He doesn't want to look, because looking would mean taking his eyes off Clarke, admitting that she was gone. He can't help himself. He looks, and he sees her eyes again - Clarke's eyes - looking back at him.
He didn't put Charlotte down for the next five days, even keeping her with him when he slept.
Four years later, she's running to meet him at the gate. "Daddy!" He bends down to pick her up, twirling her.
"Hey there, Princess." He says into her hair. Someone's been letting her use Monty's rose shampoo, and it reminds him so much of Clarke that his eyes prickle. "What have you been up to, huh?" She leans back to look him in the eye, prattling on about Monroe's broken wrist and John's vegetable garden and the butterflies she saw outside her window last night, updating him on all the goings on. It's just like Clarke used to do when he'd return from a trip, though his daughter is much more exuberant about it, and shares more about rabbits and squirrels than building status and tactical reports. He nods at all the appropriate places, just like he did then.
She's not the first child born to the Ark survivors, not even the first of the hundred. She's the most precious, though. Because she's Clarke's, and she's just as important to their survival as her mother was.