Hello, guys! This is just a stupid one-shot future fic I wrote bc I'm so tired of the crushing angst in the show. Hope you'll like it. Please, leave comments, comments leave my crying from happiness. ( warning: I'm not a native speaker. Please forgive me my mistakes, I'm trying my best)
At last, the wheel comes to a full circle.
- Clockwork Princess, Cassandra Clare
At first she doesn't believe it, because doesn't let herself; she doesn't want to, she refuses, she just won't. There are more important stuff going on than her stupid delusions, so she focuses on them instead, throwing herself in the fire of the fight. It's just impossible, she keeps on repeating to herself. I had a shot. It was one time thing- okay, maybe two times thing. Or three. Not a lot, though. She is a good liar, so it takes her some time until she can no longer be blind to all of the changes in her body. It's almost the end of the summer, when she realizes that ignoring something doesn't necessarily make it go away… at least not in this case.
She approaches Abby carefully, casually asking about their shots and she almost gives poor woman a heart attack. She hears Oh my god, I forgot about it, we have to figure something out and yes, it is indeed possible for them to get pregnant now. Raven's hear freeze in her chest, as Abby stops her rant in the middle and shots her a look Are you-
No. she says, way too quickly, trying more to convince herself than the older women.
Such a good liar she is, isn't she?
Monty is next on her list. Poor Monty; still not all healed up, his eyes slightly darker than they used to be, screaming at the top of his lungs every night because of nightmares- but not broken. Raven has to admit that she underestimated him; he is an iron forged in fire, literally and metaphorically. She doesn't play games with him, she just tells him straight on what she needs and sweats under his heavy gaze. He looks like he is feeling for her, but there is no pity there and she's grateful for that. She can't stand being pitied. He doesn't question her either, like Abby did; just names two plants and tells her to go and ask Clarke for them.
Clarke is literally the last person on Earth Raven wants to deal with right now. It seems that she has no other options, though.
She knows where to look for Clarke; wherever Bellamy isn't. After that night in Mount Weather she is distancing herself from everyone, but for Bellamy she has built ten feet tall bulletproof walls. And Octavia can call it cruel and heartless, but Raven knows what Clarke is truly doing- punishing herself with loneliness, with the absence of talking to him, being around him, touching him. Punishing herself for her own mistakes. Raven finds it really hard no to pity Clarke, even though she knows Princess hates it as much as she does.
Clarke doesn't try to talk her out of the idea and she is surprised by it, but maybe this fully shows how hard this girl has become somewhere along the way. She stares right into her eyes for a moment, then hands her the cup filled with hot liquid and delicately squeezes her hand in reassuring way before she goes back to the medical, leaving her alone near the fence.
Raven tries to drink it. She tries very hard, she tries until the sky turns black and then rosy and blue again, she tries long after the tea is cold.
She can't.
She just can't.
Love is weakness, indeed.
Wick is good for her. She pulls out all of her thorns, every single one, and stabs people who dare to come closer and comfort her, but Wick is just different. He knows where to put his hands on her as he holds her, he knows how to make her laugh when she's crying, he knows how to sooth her in pain without making her feel weak and pathetic.
And she's grateful for that.
When they leave Camp Jaha at the early fall, he holds her hand and helps her to carry on, another hand on the small of her aching back, her swollen baby bump hidden under his jacket. People stare- of course they do- and she tries not to care, but she does.
She has never understood what people see in babies and now she understands it even less. So there are people who willingly go through this? All this pain and humiliation, this torture, god and sometimes they go through it again, more than once?
People are so stupid.
She pushes one last time and collapses on the sweat-soaked mattress, closing her eyes and frowning as baby's first scream pierces through her ears. She doesn't want to see him ( him, because, well, she kinda just knew it would be him). Yeah, she couldn't get rid of this baby but it doesn't mean it's wanted. It doesn't mean she wants it. She's not ready to be a mother, the mother of the first sky people baby born on the ground, what a fucking honor. She has no idea how to do this; it's not like her own mother was great at taking care of her and she has somebody to look up to.
She hears Clarke humming something softly, because Clarke is a born mother of course and then, suddenly, she has her son placed in her arms and she has to open her eyes not to drop him.
He is tiny and pink, still covered in blood and other substances she doesn't want to think about. He isn't a cute newborn; he looks like half-formed clay figure. And still, as he stares at her with those big, big eyes and then closes them and falls asleep, she cannot not feel something inside her shattering the thick layer of ice around her heart. Not like it was with Finn, not slowly- it's a sharp, hot feeling.
She gently sways Finn's son in her arms and kisses his forehead; her lips stained with blood, her t-shirt completely soaked by sweat, feeling lighter than ever before.
He remains nameless for two months until she decides she has enough of calling him ''the baby'' and asks Bellamy, this big history nerd he is, to tell her a good story about a great man so she can use it. Bellamy looks shocked by her plea, but he does as he's asked ( his eyes keep on coming back to Clarke, who is constantly around, making sure the baby is fine. Raven thinks that's because of the fact, that if Princess wasn't a bit luckier than her, this baby could as well be hers. And they are both well aware of that.)
Bellamy tells her about Perseus and Achilles and Julius Caesar, he tells her about Robin from Sherwood and Alexander the Great and Peter Pan, about Noah and king Arthur, he keeps on and on until fiction twists with facts and he runs out of stories.
And then she hears the last story. This one story isn't happy; this is a story about blood and God and sacrifice, but the boy's name means ''happiness'' and it's a strangely comforting thing. She isn't an idealist herself, but she has a feeling that Finn would want their kid to believe that happiness can be found even in the darkest of times.
She isn't a great mother. That's why she lets Clarke stick around.
She has no idea how to change a diaper or spot the signs of illness. That's why she's so grateful that Bellamy's sticking around.
But Isaac doesn't seem to mind. She places him somewhere in her storage room and he watches her as she works; his big eyes locked on tiny bolts and screws, his fat, small hands reaching for everything around him. It's hard not to laugh when he looks around stunned, so clearly in love with the sound of clinging metal .
She isn't a great mother. But she keeps on trying, for him.
Wick adores Isaac and Isaac adores Wick. There is nobody else who can put the baby to sleep so efficiently as him. Actually they end up asleep beside each other – all three of them- more often than not. Raven would be lying if she told she doesn't love this. And she's kinda done with lying. She's kinda done with hatered too; Clarke comes back to her old self and the both of them come back to their old terms surprisingly quickly. And one day she watches Clarke destroying her walls and letting Bellamy in, and she feels an actual satisfaction oh, see, these two idots finally get together, took them long enough
She's also kinda happy; there is hardly any ice around her heart anymore and the remaining icicle is melt with Isaac's first word
''Mama''
He looks like Finn. More and more, with every passing day.
She always marvels about this, about his hazelnut eyes and too long hair and the striking innocence he has inside of him. She's also a bit bitter; deep down in secret, she wishes he would have at least one thing after her, she wishes she could see more of herself in him, the way other mothers can reflect in their children faces. She's bitter, but not surprised; Finn was always the one to take and consume and leave you with him only him and nothing else.
And though Isaac is way too alike to his father in a physical sense for her to feel good with it, his mentality is a completely different matter. Then again, it's Finn's personality; but Finn - before, Finn-on-Ark, Finn-before-the-Ground, Finn-before-Clarke. Innocent, joyful, flirty Finn. It's impossible not to love him. Her son is a charmer, a heartbreaker; she's glad because of that, cause she hopes it means he won't let anybody break his own heart.
And then there is Aurora.
Beautiful, strong-willed, golden-haired, freckled Aurora, the princess of the camp since the very beginning, slipping into her mother's old title with such an ease and wearing it around with such a grace and dignity, that Raven thinks it suits her way better that it has ever suited Clarke. Aurora is what Raven prayed Isaac would be; a mix of her parents features, of Bellamy's passion and loyalty and charisma and Clarke's strong will, sharp intelligence and bravery. Clarke's toughness smoothed by Bellamy's compassion, Bellamy's irresponsibility swallowed by Clarke's intuition.
Raven watches Isaac running around with her, both covered in mud, all missing teeth and tanned skin. The became friends more by fate than by choice; Rory's two years younger than him and other children are way younger than them, so when they come, they easily fit in the roles of humble subjects of Princess Aurora Blake, The Second of Her Name ruling with her intense dark eyes and soft locks and Prince Isaac Collins, The First of His Name, not so interested in ruling and deep lost in staring at her, when he thinks she doesn't notice it. And maybe she doesn't , who knows. Raven thinks it's quite possible for Rory to resemble her mother in this particular feature- ignoring adoring stares, not being able to spot that another person worships you with every fibre of their being.
At first she hopes (prays) that it's just a child's crush and he will grow out of it. And not because she doesn't love Aurora, because she does, thank you very much. But she knows, knows it so well, how destructive it is to love a person like Aurora ( Clarke) to a person like Isaac ( Finn). Rory burns too bright, there is too much in her to be handled by the good-willed peacemakers, self-made arsonists, gold-hearted innocent boys who live their life and then they see a forest fire and they just stop on their way, because they're too fascinate to let it go.
No, if Aurora is even half as alike to Clarke as Raven thinks she is, she will need somebody else; she will have to find her own Bellamy, her gasoline, the one strong enough to endure the flames she keeps inside of her.
He doesn't let go. Of course, he doesn't. She was stupid to even think he would.
She wasn't there the first time around when it was Finn falling for Clarke, but she supposes it must've been alike to what she sees now every day. Her son, her sweet boy, trapped and captured by her every gesture, enchanted by her smile, awe written on his face as she laughs, his hear so painfully visible in his sleeve. And she keeps on saying to herself that Aurora is not Clarke and she doesn't hold her mother's actions on her shoulders and she is a new soul, not old, but it takes one glance on her hair to go back in time again.
And she's not the only one to do this. One night they are all sitting around the fire; somebody has a guitar and they are all singing some stupid song they still remember from the Ark, moonshine is circling around, she's sitting on Wick's laps and she is truly having a great time, when she spots Clarke staring somewhere on her left, her hand holding Bellamy's one so tightly, that her knuckles are turning white. She traces along with her eyes, until she sees it; god, well.
Aurora is all contrasts; cheekbones sculptured by the shadow of flickering flames, a wild mess of golden hair pulled up, her dark eyes flickering as Isaac gently puts a long necklace oo her neck, his eyes locked on her lips, fingers of his left hand loosely entwined with hers.
Raven feels her heart shrinking in her chest. It's an actual, physical pain of seeing the present holding the past in tight embrace and repeating its mistakes.
And that's when she realizes how selfish she is. Isaac is her son, he has a right to make his own choices; Aurora Blake can be gentle and sweet and she loves him, even Raven can see that. Maybe not in a way he loves him… but it's only a matter of time. The true reason why she can't stand the thought of these two being together are hidden so deep down in her, that it took a necklace ( she still remembers the warmth of her own) to bring it to the surface.
And she has to look at it and feel bad, feel small, feel pathetic.
Because some part of her doesn't want him to love Aurora simply because it's like losing Finn in favor of Clarke all over again. And she knows that Clarke didn't take Finn away from her, the Earth did it, and he was long gone a lot earlier.
But that's the way it feels.
Everything goes to hell two weeks later
Go away! Just go away, I don't want to see you, okay?
Why?
Because I don't love you!
Aurora's voice is all ice and sharp edges and Raven swears she can hear her son's heart being broken.
It turned out she was right all along but she doesn't feel good with it. Not at all. She caresses his hair as he sleep and feels a heavy rock in her stomach as if she was the one to cause him pain.
Isaac goes missing the next day.
She is going crazy; actually bat-shit crazy, running around and shouting at people. But what Aurora does is way more quiet and way more disturbing. Steel determination written on her face, she is searching through the forest, fury buzzing under her seemingly cold and calm exterior.
And when Raven sees her now, it hardly matters that Rory has a constellation of freckles spread on her sharp cheekbones and that her eyes are brown, not grayish blue. She doesn't look like Clarke; she is Clarke ( because Raven still remembers Clarke's face when she saw whet the mountain men did to Bellamy ; she thinks this image will haunt her dreams till the very end) . Rory brushes away her mother's soft pleas and her father's desperate commands; she just looks at them, shakes her head and leaves with a gun in her hand and a knife in her pocket. She comes back two day later, alone, her face cut and bruised and she throws herself in her mother's arms, screaming and crying and it's all my fault mum and how could I tell him, how could I tell him this? It wasn't true, it wasn't Clarke holds her tightly, quietly caressing her hair so alike to her own and damn, if she doesn't understand better than any other person on this stupid planet ( and everybody knows it).
When he comes back, on his own, not even hurt, Raven is too relieved to even shout at him. She is just about to hug him, then the blond lightning passes near her, her voice high-pitched, small fists landing on his chest and face and wherever she can reach
You – fucking- idiot!
She slaps him. Hard. And again. And after the fifth time Raven thinks, that's it, she is going to stop her somehow, when Isaac catches her wrists in motion.
Princess, I'm so sorry, okay? I'm sorry.
You should fucking be.- she sniffs .- Leaving me like that
Well, you wanted me too?
I need you. I lied okay? I was just scared, and… Fuck, damn it, I- I love you.
And something breaks inside Rory and suddenly she's standing on her tiptoes, grabbing the front of his shirt and kissing him furiously, his hands wandering on her back, tangling in her hair. They are both crying and maybe laughing a bit too.
Raven looks around, until she spots Clarke and Bellamy standing still, his arms around her, her back pressed to his chest and both of them watching Aurora and Isaac just like the actors would watch the recording of their old performance after many years and also, just like they were people shown how the future could look like if things were a bit different. And Clarke looks up and she finds Raven's gaze and she smiles, very, very slowly; and Raven smiles too, because Aurora Blake loves her son and if she's even as half alike to her mother as Raven thinks she is, she will never let him get away from her ever again, knowing how painful it is to go on without him. And, above all ( Raven sees it now, clearly and brightly) Isaac in not Finn and maybe he isn't wonderstruck as his father either, maybe he's stronger, strong enough to endure the flames and not let them swallow him whole ; maybe he's just enchanted, like Bellamy was and still is. And maybe their children aren't them and they don't carry their sins on their back or the old blood on their hands and maybe they have their own path to walk on and their own mistakes to makes. Who she is to stop them?
Isaac wrapps his arms around Rory and they are spinning around in circles, girls's golden hair twirling around her face as she's laughing. Raven doesn't think she has ever seen her son that happy. And strangely, maybe she's yet a again a woman scorned for a princess but she's happy about it. Really happy. It's like closing the circles; it's like coming back to the start, but this time, doing it right.
And for Raven, that's enough, so she kisses Wick's cheek and limps to Isaac and Rory to hug them both.
After all, nobody's heart is pierced through, isn't it? You can call it a progress.