A/N: Is anyone still alive after the Season 4 Finale? Nope, me either. Just my ideas about how the first episode might play out in Season 5. I'm ready for the feels and counting down the days until that Bellarke Reunion. Feel free to read and review if you like what you see! :)
"Clarke Griffin," the voice boomed out over the roar of the rockets powering down. Clarke peered out from the trees where she and Madi were hiding. Madi looked over at her with wide eyes, How do they know your name?
Clarke shook her head and put a finger to her lips, Stay here.
She stepped out from behind the trees and took in the scene in front of her. The earth around the ship was already scorched from the hot metal of the ship. It would take months to grow back, Clarke knew that. Four figures emerged in radiation suits, the memory of the Mountain Men suddenly fresh in Clarke's mind. Her heart raced as they stepped towards her, but she held her ground.
"How do you know my name?" She shouted out. Her heart thudded against her chest, Bellamy, Bellamy.
The leader of the group reached Clarke first, and she instinctually took a step back. Clarke was careful to step in the direction away from where Madi was still hidden.
"Why are you wearing the suit? The air hasn't been toxic for over a year," she said to him, still keeping a cautious distance.
"Not for us, ma'am. That's why we need you," he motioned to his group and they began running towards Clarke, taser guns pointed out. Clarke's hand flew to her side where her gun was and quickly fired two shots at the men. She turned and began running towards the abandoned bunker. If she could get to the boat to the island, they wouldn't be able to follow her. She hoped Madi remembered their contingency plan should anything happen to one of them. She heard screams from one of the men she had hit. She looked back and saw that his face was already turning blotchy from the radiation still in the air. Her mind didn't have time to figure out the problem while she was running so she took a deep breath and pushed herself to run faster.
BANG
The shot rang out through the trees and Clarke fell to the ground hard. Her body shook with the electric current. Her vision began to fade as the group's leader approached her. He leaned over her, a smile showing his missing teeth.
"They did say you would run," was all Clarke heard as she slipped into darkness.
Clarke woke up to hissing sounds and cold metal beneath her. A sack covered her head but even in her confused state she knew: she was in space. She was back in space. Heavy footsteps sounded behind her and she back away from the sound.
"I don't think so, missy," said the gruff voice. He grabbed her arm and hauled her up to her feet.
"Where am I?" she yelled as the man began to drag her forward, "I demand you release me, I've done nothing to you!" Clarke's head spun, How was this happening? All these years, (i) nothing, no wars, no hard choices, no nothing. How was this happening to her again?
"Natblida! Natblida!" she called out and the words bounced off the metal walls back to her.
"None of that," the man said, pulling her along more forcefully. Clarke strained to hear if Madi had called back to her. She didn't hear anything and Clarke breathed a sigh of relief: Madi was still, hopefully, on Earth. She quieted down and began listening to the sounds of the ship around her, trying to get a picture in her head of where she was. Goosebumps trickled down her arms, she had forgotten how cold space was. The hissing sound she remembered as the air lock opening up. They were docking with another ship.
Clarke heard sirens begin to sound. Wherever they were, they were not supposed to be there. "Connect to the speaker system," the man said who was holding her arm. She heard a second man grunt beside her.
"I gather by now you're trying to dislodge our ship from yours," the man said into speaker. Clarke could hear his voice echoing down the halls of the ship they had locked onto.
"I would think twice until you come and greet us, sir," he spat out the word, "Time to see if you were telling the truth."
Clarke heard the sound of running feet down the hallway.
"Open the door," the man said, "No? I don't think so," he pushed Clarke down to her knees and ripped off the sack covering her head before he shoved her forward. Her body slammed into the thick glass wall separating the two ships. Heavy black boots stood on the other side of the glass and she looked up, trying to right her body. Her heart lurched.
"Bellamy," she breathed. Bellamy was on the ground in seconds, his hands pressed against the glass, "Clarke!" his voice was muffled through the glass, but it was his voice. Tears sprang to Clarke's eyes and rolled down her cheeks quickly, "Bellamy! Bellamy!"
The man grabbed Clarke from behind and pulled her to her feet again. Clarke gasped in pain from how tightly he held her. "So this is someone you know," he chuckled lowly. He wiped a tear from the side of Clarke's face, "Someone you...miss?"
"What do you want, Grims?" Bellamy's voice sounded over the speaker once again. Clarke stared at him through the glass, amazed. Monty, Murphy, and Echo stood behind him on the other side. They too wore looks of shock.
"It's time to see if you were telling the truth," Grims said. He pulled a knife from his boot and sliced through the zip tie binding Clarke's wrists together. "You were supposed to take me with you!" Bellamy shouted. His eyes shifted to Clarke's quickly and for a spilt second, Clarke saw fear flash through him.
"Plans change," Grims grabbed one of Clarke's hands and sliced the knife across her palm. Clarke cried out and her friends through the glass shouted out in protest with her. Red blood spilled to the floor beneath Clarke and Grims. Grims growled and dragged Clarke to the wall again. He slammed her hand to the glass, smearing the blood. Clarke winced in pain.
"Liar!" Grims yelled. Bellamy's eyes found Clarke, worry and anger filling out his face. He focused back on Grims, "Let her go, Grims. Release Raven. We'll figure this out!"
Grims spat on the floor and shook his head, "That's what you would like, isn't it?"
The wheels in Clarke's head were spinning and before she could even process that Raven had been captured, the pieces suddenly connected, "You need nightblood to go to earth, don't you?"
Grims came up to her, leaning in real close to her face, "You want to tell me how you survived that destruction," he nodded back to the port window where the image of earth floated beneath them all, "without 'nightblood'? According to your friends that was the only way you could've survived."
"I was a nightblood. It was manufactured in a lab by my mother before Primfaya. After a month it cycled out of my system." Grims eyed her suspiciously. "Explain."
Clarke glanced to Bellamy. He and the others were listening intently too. "The Death Wave had passed, but radiation levels were still too high. I tried to recreate the nightblood serum, but too much of my lab's equipment was destroyed during the Death Wave. I lived inside the bunker and a radiation suit for the first year."
Bellamy shook his head, guilt racking over him. Clarke swallowed and continued, "After that first year, radiation levels had subsided to where I could go outside every few days with the help of radiation sickness medicine. I learned how to manufacture the medication and used that until the it was bearable to go outside for longer periods of time."
"And how do I know you're telling the truth?"
"You don't," Clarke said, "But I'd be dead if I wasn't."
Grims threw the knife at the glass wall, yelling out in frustration. Monty and Murphy jumped back, but Bellamy stood his ground. "I wasn't lying to you, Grims. We've had no contact with earth, I didn't know."
Grims was pacing back and forth, Clarke wasn't sure he even heard Bellamy's words. Bellamy looked at Clarke again, "Grims. Please."
The man guarding the speaker system cleared his throat, "Uh, sir, what about the other girl? The smaller girl in the woods?" Clarke's heart sank. Almost imperceptibly she shook her head at Bellamy. But it was too late, Grims had seen.
He smiled lowly, "Yes, the other girl. She will be much easier to find." He nodded to the other man who hit some buttons on the console and the glass wall opened up.
He pushed Clarke through the door where Bellamy caught her.
"As a sign of good will, Bellamy. We'll be back with the little natblida." Grims began disengaging their ship from the ark. Clarke broke free from Bellamy's grasp and pounded on the door, "No! She won't be able to help you! Take me!"
"Don't worry, Clarke," Grims soothed her, "You'll see her again...if she survives the trip." He sneered as the ship pulled away back into space.
"No!" Clarke cried. Tears rolled down her face and she collapsed to the ground. "Clarke," Bellamy leaned down beside her and took her face in his hands, "We'll get her back," he promised. Clarke through her arms around his neck, her body wracked with sobs, "Bellamy." Bellamy glanced behind him, "Monty, go get some bandages. Murphy, catch Emori up. Echo, I need strategy and maps prepped. Everyone convene in the mess hall in 15." They all nodded in unison. Murphy and Echo started down the hallway but Monty lagged behind, still in disbelief at the sight of Clarke. "Go!" Bellamy yelled at him. Monty collected himself and ran down the hallway.
Alone in the air lock Bellamy squeezed Clarke tightly and let out a deep breath., "It's okay, Clarke. Everything is going to be okay." A moment or two passed and Clarke's breathing evened out again. She became aware of the pain in her hand again and winced in Bellamy's arms. Bellamy took her hand gingerly, examining the wound.
"It won't need stitches," he assessed, "Let's go get you cleaned up." He helped her to her feet and began to guide her down the hallway. She used her good hand to pull him back and he turned to face her, "Clarke?"
Her eyebrows knitted together and she lifted her hand to his face, brushing some of the hair away from his eyes, "You're alive," she breathed out, "After all this time." The corners of her mouth pulled up every so slightly and tears began to form in her eyes again. Bellamy smiled down at her, "So are you."
A few hours later, Bellamy found Clarke sitting in front of the port window. The bottle of whiskey labeled "Baton" in her hands. She tilted the bottle back and forth, watching the liquid move from one side to the other. Her bandaged hand laid across her lap. Bellamy settled in beside her.
"It almost looks like it's still one fire," she said quietly.
"It does," he said, "For a while, we didn't know when the Death Wave actually ended."
Bellamy wasn't looking at the earth though. His heart hadn't stopped racing since he first saw Clarke staring back at him through that glass wall.
Clarke turned her body away from the window to Bellamy and tightened the bandage around her hand.
"The last time I saw you, you had bandages around your hands, from when I locked you up."
Bellamy took her hand in his and placed it on his lap, "None of that matters now, Clarke," he hesitated for a moment, "Clarke-"
"No," she said quickly, her eyes downcast from his, "I haven't heard from the bunker, from Octavia. When you spoke to Octavia was the last we heard from them. Madi and I-" Clarke's voice wavered as she said her name, "Madi and I tried to dig them out, but there was too much rubble."
Bellamy let go of Clarke's hand and ran his fingers through his hair. He turned away from her, not wanting her to see the tears welling up in his eyes. Clarke took his hand again, "Octavia is still alive, Bellamy. I know it. Just like I knew we'd see each other again."
Bellamy squeezed her hand, "How can you be so sure? Six years is a long time, Clarke." He had been so diligent in keeping his thoughts on the present. Allowing himself to think about Octavia, about Clarke, only brought him pain. And pain did not help them survive. But now that Clarke was here, it was all he could think about.
"I still have hope. You taught me that," she told him. For a second, Bellamy saw the girl he had left behind: the Commander of Death who walked with confidence wherever she went, the girl he thought he couldn't live without.
A long moment passed between them before Clarke carefully lifted his hand to her lips. She kissed his fingers softly. She looked up at him and was struck by his closeness. Even after all these years, she was still drawn to him.
"Despite everything," she said, "It's good to see you." Bellamy's face broke into a smile.
"We'll get them back, Clarke. All of them." For a moment the sadness filled Clarke's face again, but she nodded in agreement. She turned back to the port window and laid her head on Bellamy's shoulder. His arm wound around her waist.
"May we meet again," she said softly.
Bellamy pulled her closer, "May we meet again."