They make the landing, just like Raven said: in just under an hour, they manage to get working oxygen flowing throughout the ark, Becca's ship safely docked and locked into the system. They all gather in one of the community halls when it's done, by unofficial agreement, and slump over together, still panting from the adrenaline of the past two hours.
That's when it starts to hit them.
Monty starts to cry, and then Raven joins in, Harper burrowing her face into Monty's shoulder. Emori squeezes her eyes shut and leans into Murphy, his arms tightening around her, jaw clenched to supress some emotion he doesn't want to share. Echo hovers uncertainly, eyes wary as she looks around the steel ship she's going to have to call home for the indefinite future, roving over her companions like she can't believe they're there. Bellamy knows his eyes are red and bleary from the shuttle trip up to the ark, and his hands shake of their own accord, and he wants to go punch things until he bleeds because he worked so hard and now it's all gone but he can hear Clarke telling him to use his head and—Clarke.
Oh, god, Clarke.
It doesn't feel real. She can't be gone. She's saved them so many times, sacrificed so much, tried so hard, and now she's… not there. She should be with them. It feels so horribly wrong, to be here and safe when she's—no.
Monty is still crying, quieter now but sobbing harder, shoulders shaking as he hides his face in his hands. Harper has started to cry too, and she's thinking about Monroe's grave evaporating and Jasper's body disintegrating and Miller buried under Polis and Clarke turned to dust in an instant. Clarke should be here. She should be slumped over next to Bellamy and Raven, sweaty hair falling into her eyes, relaxing only a moment before double and triple-checking the airlocks, setting up places for them to sleep, bandaging their wounds and wiping their tears, and—she should be here. Alive. Safe. Triumphant over death yet again, facing the odds like she always does. Always did. She always fixed things, always saved them, and Harper felt safer with her but now she's gone and what are they going to do without her?
Bellamy is staring into space, his hands sitting on his knees, palms facing up, a blank, dead look in his eyes. Raven grips one of his hands in her own, and she isn't sure who she's reassuring. Her eyes are still dipping slow tears and she knows Clarke would want them to comfort each other, not mourn her, but that's just the thing, isn't it. Clarke can't want anything because she's dead. It feels so wrong, so unfair, that after everything Clarke had to go through for them, after all she did for them, after everything they said to her—she just kept going, and now she's gone. Clarke didn't deserve what she got, Raven knew, despite what she'd said to the blonde, what they all had, what Clarke had done. She deserved something better. She didn't deserve to die in a wave of fire, alone and abandoned, whether or not she wanted it. It's all just so unfair. (And if Clarke was here she would promise to make it right, promise to fix it, and Raven might hate her for it but she'd believe it. But now Clarke is gone and it's so unfair.)
Murphy watches the people around him crumble and quake in their loss and he thinks bitterly that they should have shown her they cared back when it mattered. Then he feels sorry for thinking that. He's still angry with the others because yeah, he knows they had to go, knows it was the only way he and Emori could survive, knows it was the only way any of them could, but—she's gone, now, and now is when they choose to care. He knows they loved her, but would it really have been so hard to put aside their hurts for one second and realise she was hurting too, show them they didn't only hate her? She did a crappy job of being a leader sometimes, sure, but she still did it when no one else would, when no one else knew how, and getting angry with her for the choices she made when she was the only one brave enough to make them wasn't fair. He wasn't a saint and he and Clarke weren't perfect but they understood each other and she listened to him when he lashed out, and she'd sacrificed just as much for him as the rest of her people. They weren't perfect but they knew each other, and he knows they were friends and he knows she knew that too. They'd both been through so much that they didn't waste time trying to deny that, just accepted it and moved on. He liked her. He's going to miss her. He never thanked her.
Monty just keeps crying and this time he doesn't try to stop. He's lost his mom, he's lost Jasper, he's lost—all of them. Of the original group, Jasper and Finn and Octavia and Clarke and him, he's all that's left and it is tearing him apart. Octavia hasn't been Octavia in so long, and now she's even father beyond his reach. Jasper is dead, and their friendship died long before that and so Monty knows what Clarke was feeling when they all lashed out at her. Finn is—Finn would hate what happened to them all. And Clarke, Clarke saved him so many times, and he knows she cared for him, knows she loved him, and he knows he didn't say anything overly horrible but he loved her too and he wishes that he'd told her. He'd just been so overwhelmed by everything else, everything he was going through, and she seemed to make everything worse every time she tried to help, which he knows isn't fair. She saved them more times than he could count and he knows that there are likely plenty of times he doesn't even know about, and now she's dead on earth and he's up in space and she isn't there with him and he can't give her hugs or talk to her about his problems or lay drinking games she'll always win at and get berated when he gets injured for doing something stupid and he can't do anything with her because she's dead, and she's never coming back.
Emori's mind is still reeling from everything. She's felt like she's been stuck in free fall for days now, everything happening too quickly for her to adjust. Wanheda— Clarke— had always been there, though, and now she is not. Emori is in space for the first time in her life and all she can think about is that she wishes she could have spoken more with the girl. She wishes she could have thanked her, wishes she could have learnt from her, wishes she could have gotten to know the girl behind the Wanheda. She keeps thinking about how Bellamy said it was what she would have wanted and wonders if that's really true, how anyone could want their family to abandon them to certain death. She hopes Clarke isn't dead, but she has been in this world for too long to believe that's possible. The only miracles she's ever seen were ones Clarke made, and now Clarke is gone and—miracles just don't happen.
Echo has no idea what to do. Clarke is dead and she feels sorry for her but—she's alive. The people around her are still visibly reeling from Clarke's death and Echo is too, for different reasons. They're shocked that Clarke Griffin died. Echo is shocked that the Wanheda even could. She knows what they say about Wanheda, what even King Roan says about her, and she thinks, slowly, that the reason the Wanheda is dead is because her friends doomed her to death, not because she reached an obstacle she couldn't overcome, and that just feels so wrong that Echo runs a hand through her hair. She doesn't doubt that Wanheda, that Clarke, would fight her way through anything the world threw at her, which she did, but Echo's never been a romantic at heart and she knows that death is inescapable, irreversible, even for the mighty Wanheda.
Bellamy recognises, distantly, that he's gone into shock. He can hear Clarke in his head, telling him he needs to get warm and snap out of it, but he banishes her voice from his head with a horrifying ease. He just—he can't. Octavia is stuck on earth surrounded by grounders who look at her like she's their leader (but for how long) and he can't protect her from anything, and if Clarke was here she'd tell him that Octavia can take care of herself and that they need to focus on staying alive but she's not here. She's dead. He wants to believe that she could survive but he's just—he can't. Clarke gave him hope but now she's gone and he's alone. How—how will he know what to do, now that she's not here? It suddenly hits him that Clarke is (was) only eighteen. That's—she barely even got to live a life at all before it was snatched away from her and that thought sends a tear rolling down his cheek, which he doesn't bother to wipe away. She should be rolling her eyes at the remaining delinquents, tending to wounds, laughing in the sunlight and throwing snowballs at Monty. She should be striking fear into the hearts of her enemies, walking into war councils with her chin up and head held high, she should be angry and flashing her eyes defiantly when someone says something she doesn't agree with. She should be giggling with Octavia and drawing the flowers and sitting with him around a campfire and she should be alive. (He wonders, distantly, why he found it so much easier to ignore Clarke's age and blame her for things when Octavia was only a little younger.) He doesn't know how to lead without her, not anymore. He never really did. He doesn't know how to live without her, how to keep everyone else alive. He misses her like he misses a limb, and he doesn't know how to go on from this.
They end up sleeping all together in the living room, pilfered blankets thrown haphazardly over their bodies and tears on their faces. They don't talk much.
A few days later, they watch the world as it ends. Bellamy finds his own window because he really can't deal with anyone else right now, but a few minutes after he's slid down against the wall and is watching the fire consume the planet, Raven comes into the room and presses up against his side, her eyes misty. There's not a lot of places to hide on the ship, not anymore, so slowly the group trickles in, sitting all together and watching the Earth as it burns. They still don't talk, hands intertwined and heads on shoulders and eyes wide open.
The next few weeks, the numbness slowly, slowly, starts to wear off. Raven tinkers with things in the lab, working to make sure nothing can possibly go wrong. Monty and Harper set things up with the algae farm. Echo and Emori explore every inch of the ship, wariness and curiosity guiding their movements as they adjust to life in space. They're still mourning, missing their friends and family in the bunker, missing Clarke in every step they take, every time they turn a corner half-expecting to see her there. Bellamy gets a jagged gash on his arm from tripping in the lab while carrying equipment for Raven, and they all flinch when Harper and Echo have to struggle through treating it, opting to forego stitches and just wrap it up as tightly as they can, their usual medic leaving a gaping hole in their usual dynamic. They're all quieter than usual the next day, and Raven starts to find books and files on first aid and makes them all read them, her eyes watery but unflinching.
Three weeks after they blasted off into space, while they're scavenging the ark for anything usable and gathering it all together, Raven finds Monty standing stock still in a cell from the skybox. It's from the solitary sector, and Raven walks into the cell with a question on her lips and then stumbles to a stop, eyes wide as she looks around. The cell isn't big, and it's the same grey as the rest of the ark but it's covered from top to bottom in charcoal drawings. Raven knows, instinctively, that this is the cell Clarke spent months in. Monty is on his knees in the middle of the room, and Raven stands next to him with a hand on one of his shoulders, and they stay in silence, drinking in the drawings that surround him.
They hear some of the others start to call their names, wondering where they are, and Raven knows they should call out but she feels like the spell will be broken if they dare breathe too loud, the charcoal will fly off the walls and the drawings will crumble away, taking this one last piece of Clarke with it.
Murphy finds them, snapping "Oh there you are, thanks for answering—" and then he stutters to a stop and takes in the cell, eyes wide, head tilted as he turns on the spot to drink it all in. The others find them quickly after that, irritation fading into awe as they stare at Clarke's many drawings. There's animals, and shining lakes, and mountains, and flowers and plants, and a grey sunset, and—Raven's fingers trail over one of the drawings, tracing the delicate lines without touching them, feelings softer than she has in months, gentle and with a lump in her throat.
"Holy shit," says Murphy eventually, and Harper's lips quirk into a smile but the wonder is still evident on her face.
"Why didn't we get to see her do this on Earth?" asks Raven, trying for humour but ending up just sounding sad. "I feel cheated."
"There was one time in Mount Weather," says Harper, not even flinching as she says the name, walking along the walls of the cell, carefully stepping over the drawings on the ground, staring at the ones on the ceiling, above the cells bed.
"I wish we'd gotten to see her draw," whispers Monty. "I wish we'd had longer to get to know her."
One of the drawbacks of living in a tin can with six other people is that there isn't much opportunity for secrets.
This means that they all know about the nightmares.
Everyone has them, so it isn't really a problem, per say, but it's uncomfortable for people who've spent so long guarding their vulnerabilities to their chests. They don't usually ask what the dreams are about. They don't really want to know.
(Raven dreams of Finn, only now Clarke stands by his side, crying tears of blood, and sometimes they just stand in silence and sometimes they yell and scream and Raven wakes up with a name on her lips and she's never sure who's name it is.
Harper dreams of the mountain, like she always has, but sometimes Jasper is there and he locks her onto the table, and sometimes Monty leaves her there alone, or Monty is dying before her, and sometimes Harper is the one dying and she can see Clarke's face from behind the door, screaming and screaming and screaming.
Echo dreams of her people, the ones she's left behind, the ones she's seen die, and sometimes she dreams of the ship crashing or bursting or exploding while she sleeps, and she doesn't dare to fall back to sleep after those dreams.
Monty dreams of his mother, and Jasper, and Zoe, and Clarke, and occasionally he's frozen while they die or while they kill, but usually they're trying to say something to him and he can't hear their words and he's crying and begging but he never hears.
Emori dreams of silent storms, of angry deserts, of wandering for hours and she knows she has to find someone but she never does, of searching for John and watching him take off into the sky or seeing nothing at all and fearing the worst.
Murphy dreams of lots of things; of Titus as he stumbles into the bathtub behind him with blood rolling down his chin, of a rope tightening around his neck, of Emori with boils on her face, of Clarke as she burns, or Charlotte as she falls, of being floated now or a year ago, and when he wakes he's never sure if he wants comfort or if he wants rejection.
Bellamy only ever sees Clarke. Octavia he trusts, though he worries, and he knows she's safe, because she has to be, but Clarke- she never says anything unless it's his name, and she always sounds scared or disappointed, and he hates both tones both equally. Sometimes she burns slowly with boils on her face and blood in her eyes, and sometimes she burns forever while he watches as she crumbles away, and sometimes he's too late and he finds her dead, and sometimes she just stands there and cries while he's frozen in place. Once she had a handcuff on her wrist, and he threw up the next morning. Sometimes his dreams are of battles, or of better times in the ark, or of eerie days in camp, but Clarke is always there.)
The algae farm thrives and Monty starts to smile, softer and sadder than he used to. Raven tries to touch her friends as often as she can, leaning into their sides when she's standing next to them and bumping their hips with her own, because she still remembers how Clarke would pull her into a hug even when Raven was angry with her. She remembers that she didn't initiate any hugs. Harper reads a lot, watches medical training films and jots down notes. Emori spends an entire day sitting by a window until Murphy finds her, frantic, and then they sit together and Emori stares at her old home pass down below them, burnt out and dry. Echo helps Raven in the lab, after the initial awkwardness and anger and distrust has begun to fade. Bellamy reads, and collects supplies, and explores, and makes sure that they're all doing okay, with just of paranoia keeping him extra alert to all of their well-being.
They watch movies sometimes, or soccer games, with Echo and Emori fascinated by the animated films, and Harper and Raven appoint themselves the official file-openers, going through everyone on the ark's files to search for unseen movies or documents. They find Jaha's folders of files and expect politics or letters to Abby, or blueprints of the ark which Raven can use. They don't expect grainy footage of two little kids.
"So what do you want to be when you grow up, Wells?" His voice is gentle, warmer than they've ever known it, despite being slightly grainy, and Harper stills next to Raven, bundled together under a blanket on Jaha's couch. Raven never knew Wells, but she grips Harper's hand tightly in her own, glancing at Harper to check that she's okay, and Harper's eyes are wide.
"Umm," says the little dark-skinned boy, fiddling with the bottom of his shirt, and the girl beside him bounces on her toes, looking to the side of the camera.
Jaha chuckles, and the camera zooms in to Well's face as Jaha's son thinks. "I know what Wells is gonna be!" The little girl beside Wells stumbles into him, flinging her arms over his shoulders, grinning toothily at the camera, and Jaha shifts the lens so it shows both the kids.
"Is that so?"
"Yeah!" She nods, flyaway braid falling over one shoulder as she grins at Wells. "He's gonna be a teacher! Wells is the best at earth skills, everyone knows that." Little Wells grins at his friend, his arm coming up over her shoulder so that she's got one arm around him and he's got one around her.
Jaha chuckles again, and zooms out slightly. "And what do you want to be when you grow up, Clarke?" The world tunnels with those words. Raven leans forward unconsciously and Harper sucks in a breath as the girls clutch onto this unexpected memento of Clarke.
"She's gonna be a doctor," Wells says proudly, and Clarke nods, her braid moving with her head movements.
"Why's that?" Jaha's voice is fond as he films the two kids.
"So I can save lives," Clarke tells him seriously, "like my mom."
"Clarke's gonna be the best doctor on the Ark," Wells adds, and as the recording stops.
There's silence for a moment and then the next recording starts. It's of Wells and Clarke again, Clarke on Wells' back as they share a whispered conversation, Clarke's loose hair falling over her face and hiding whatever they're talking about. They look to be around nine years old this time, older than the other film, and Raven leans back against the couch and draws her knees to her chest, Harper leaning heavily against her, curling her knees underneath her.
"What are you two up to?" This voice is unfamiliar and Raven tilts her head in confusion. Clarke and Wells look up in unison, innocent expressions somewhat ruined by the slightly mischievous smile Clarke is wearing.
"Nothing, Dad," she says perkily, sliding off of Wells back.
Jake Griffin snorts, and Clarke rolls her eyes. "This wouldn't have anything to do with the chess competition?"
Clarke's expression remains the same, but guilt flashed over Wells' face. "No," Clarke said empathetically, "why would you think that?" She blinked a few times, linking her arm with Wells.
Jake's smile was evident in his voice when he replied, "Because half an hour ago you were complaining that Eva Hernandez didn't think you could beat her, and ever since you two have been plotting?"
Clarke snorted and flapped her hand dismissively. "Oh please, Dad, as if we'd actually do anything! We're gonna beat her fair and square." She blushed slightly a moment later. "Not that, you know, you said we'd do anything."
"Okay, kiddo, what'd you do."
Clarke grinned, giving up the ruse. "Nothing bad, promise," she said, and Wells nodded beside her.
"We're gonna cheat!" Clarke glared at him and elbowed him in his side.
"No, we aren't! We're gonna make our own rules."
"Yeah. Eva always cheats, so we're just gonna start adding rules as we go, so that she gets trapped by her own tricks." Wells grinned, elbowing Clarke back. "It was Clarke's idea."
Jake snorted again. "I'll bet it was. Don't do anything that could get you guys in trouble, okay?"
Wells and Clarke cheered and high-fived and then blinked innocently back at Jake. "Of course not, Dad," said Clarke, still smiling, and then the recording cut off.
Harper laughed quietly, half-smile on her lips, and Raven leaned her head on Harper's as the next recording began to play.
Clarke and Wells looked to be older again, and Clarke was adjusting a paper hat on Wells' head, bouncing on her feet as music played in the background, saying something to him with a smile, and whoever was recording zoomed in closer to the pair.
"It's Wells' thirteenth birthday," Jaha said, "as you can see." He pans over the room, homemade banners with Clarke's loopy handwriting reading Happy Birthday Wells! accompanied with little illustrations.
Clarke comes running over as he says this, dancing a bit, hair falling out of her braid in the front, eyes alight. "Do you like them?" She asks happily, pointing to one of the drawings, a tiny Wells and Clarke sitting in a tree, matching smiles, their likeness captured even then. "It's us on earth."
"Mm," agrees Jaha, "very nice." Clarke beams at the praise, and Wells makes his way to her side, leaning one of his elbows on her shoulder with the air of someone who has suddenly grown a great height in a short amount of time and revels in reminding shorter people of this fact. Clarke doesn't even acknowledge the arm, just grins up at her friend.
"You planning on visiting earth soon, Clarke?" Jaha's voice is teasing but the knowledge of the future makes the joke fall flat on Raven and Harper's ears, and they both grimace, even as Wells snorts.
Clarke laughs a little bit, rolling her eyes. "Sure," she agrees lightly, and Wells laughs.
"Maybe you should be the next chancellor," Jaha suggests, "so you can make that dream a reality."
Clarke laughs again, flushing a bit. "No thanks," she denies.
"Clarke's gonna be a doctor," Wells adds, snagging a piece of bread from the nearby table and chewing on it casually.
"Yeah," Clarke agrees, and smiles apologetically at Jaha. "Being chancellor means you have to save lives by taking lives," she says the words like she's repeating them from someone else, "and I'm not strong enough to do that." She shrugs, moving her shoulder along to the music in the background, "I'd be a horrible Chancellor, because I would be a horrible leader. I want to save lives, not take them or dictate them."
Jaha chuckles, taking no offence from her words, and Wells pokes Clarke's nose. "Big words coming from the bossiest person I know," he teases, and Clarke sticks her tongue out.
There's one other recording, when Clarke's older still and Wells is recording, capturing Clarke'e excitement after her first day as a medical intern. Her face glows and her hands wave as she talks, and Wells laughs at her but his voice is soft. "Sounds like you enjoyed it," he teases, and Clarke grins at him, pushing the camera away with one hand.
"I got to help save someone's life," she tells him, eyes shining, "the surgery was kind of intense but Jackson says I did really well… It was so cool, Wells..." Her voice trails off. "I can't believe one day I'll able to do that all the time."
Harper tells Monty about the films and he tells Murphy who tells Bellamy who tells Echo who tells Emori and Raven shows them the films and they all smile fondly watching little Clarke cling to Wells and drag him around, smiling easily like they've never known her to.
"I miss her," says Monty, when the recordings have finished and they're all sitting in Jaha's quarters, squished onto the couch with Echo perched on one of the arms and Murphy and Echo sitting on the floor, against their legs. "And I miss who she used to be." Before the world changed her, hardened her, before we broke her, before she broke herself. They all hear something different, but they all hear the same thing.
Harper, beside him, takes his hand and squeezes. "I don't think I ever saw her cry," she says, because she hasn't.
"I have," says Bellamy, and doesn't add because I made her.
"I think that the point, though," Raven pipes up, "she wanted to appear untouchable, because the grounders needed to respect her, and that meant losing her mortality in everyone's eyes."
Bellamy nods slowly but Murphy says, "It was before that too, though… delinquents can smell weakness." Emori, beside him, snorts.
"It feels so weird to be here without her," Harper says quietly, and no one contradicts her because they've all felt it too.
Monty disappears for a second and they all trade uncertain glances but he reappears just as Bellamy is getting up to find him, a bottle of alcohol in one hand, shot glasses in the other. Raven half-heartedly cheers.
"Are we getting sad-drunk?" Murphy asks sardonically, "Is that a thing we do now?"
Emori elbowed him. "I say bring on the booze," she announces, reaching for two cups.
Monty laughs a bit. "Yeah, Clarke would say that too. Fun fact: she was scarily good at drinking games." Murphy crows at this revelation, and Raven snickers.
Monty's clearly already had a drink, and he begins to pour the alcohol into outstretched glasses, then he tumbles to the floor and leans against Murphy's side, so that Murphy's sandwiched between Emori and Monty. Murphy rolls his eyes but it's fonder than it would have been once.
Raven throws back her cup and winces as the liquid burns her throat, then reaches out and refills her cup. Harper cheers, already somewhat tipsy.
"I cannot—believe," she says, "that we are back on this stupid ship, you guys." Monty giggles and bumps one of her socked feet with his head.
"This stupid ship is keeping you alive," Says Raven, slightly offended, and Harper waves her cup at her.
"You're keeping me alive," she corrects. "Let me be angry at the ship." Bellamy snorts into his cup and Echo grins. "Like, listen," Harper continues, getting into it, "last time I was here, I was locked up in a tiny-ass cell with three other weirdos, waiting to die." Monty raises his cup in a salute.
"What were you locked up for?" Raven asks, curiously, because she's wondered. She doesn't usually think about it, but yeah: a lot of her fiends, her family, they were criminals. Some of them would have been killed, and Raven would never have shed a tear.
"Assaulting a guard," Harper says proudly, "Same as Monroe. Or, well, Zoe. She was one of the other weirdos in my tiny-ass cell." She sighs loudly, reaching out to refill her cup. "I miss her." Monty's face crumbles in sympathy and he pats her foot clumsily. "Did you know—did you know that Zoe once just decked this guy at camp after he said something really super gross about Clarke? We weren't even friends with Clarke, but she just got so annoyed that she like, gets up, and—" She mimes taking someone down with her hands, twisting her face menacingly.
Monty's expression is sad but the alcohol has reduced the amount of sad, which Raven is grateful for. She's always had a soft spot for Monty… Clarke did too, so she says this, and then gets a few weird looks for her lack of context. "I mean," Raven adds, "everyone knew it. Hell, you probably knew it," she directs this part at Monty who looks partially mock-innocent and partially affectionately-sad. "Because I swear to God you'd ask her permission to do something after Bellamy said no, as, like, the spokesperson for weed united."
Monty sputters, pretending to be outraged. "I would never," he says dramatically, while Echo repeats 'weed united' incredilously, "abuse the friendship I may have shared with our infamously strict leader! Never," he adds for emphasis. "Bellamy, do not believe a word she says."
Bellamy rolls his eyes good-naturedly. "Don't bother; I already knew."
Monty splutters and Raven and Murphy cackle, Harper reaching down to pat Monty consolingly on his shoulder. "If it makes you feel any better, everyone knew," she offers, and Monty sends her a betrayed look but there's no bite to it. (He likes knowing that his friendship with Clarke wasn't one-sided, wasn't secret. He's almost proud.)
"Clarke probably knew too," Bellamy says, softer, smile in his eyes. "She wanted you guys to stay alive, and that meant staying safe, but she wasn't—she still wanted you guys to be kids, to have fun, to relax and unwind." He pauses. "Even if she wouldn't let herself do that anymore."
"She'd be so annoyed," Harper sighs, leaning on Emori, "to see us being sad about her. And also wasting alcohol on getting drunk."
Raven shrugs, leans into Echo, who she admits is growing on her, even after the whole Mount Weather thing. (Bygones be bygones, said no delinquent ever.) "Well, I mean," she shrugs again. "Not like it's a new thing. Us being sad about her." Monty tilts his head at her, confused. "We were always sad when she left," Raven sighs, "but we were always angry when she came back." This sobers the group up, silence reigning, and Raven almost wishes she hadn't spoken but then Murphy pipes up.
"Being sad-drunk sucks." They all look to him, somewhat annoyed. He huffs. "beating yourselves up about how you treated Clarke or how she screwed up isn't going to help anything or anyone. You were all shitty friends at one point or another, so what." He shrugs. "Clarke left, so what. She still came back, every time, even while you were all being shit, even when everything kept going wrong, so she obviously knew that—" he pauses. "Something kept bringing her back, and it sure as hell wasn't just Camp Jaha." Monty snorts. "So, I mean, if you want to keep regretting the things you said or the way you acted, fine, but Clarke wouldn't want that. She knew people screw up, better than most of you." He throws his cup back and grabs the bottle to refill it. "I, on the other hand, am going to get drunk remembering the time I was getting tortured by this bald dude and Clarke came in and started yelling at him, no hesitation."
Bellamy chokes on a laugh. "What?"
Murphy tilts his cup at Bellamy. "Yeah. Called me her friend and everything. It was wild." He takes a sip of his drink. "Also, I got to witness her sassing the King of Azgeda before any of you, even while she was the process of being traumatised further." He sighs wistfully, a twinkle in his eyes when he clasps a hand to his heart nostalgically. "I'd forgotten how amusing it was to watch Clarke snap at people twice her height. Truly, inspiring."
Harper and Monty turn in unison to look at Bellamy meaningfully and he holds his hands up. "Hey!"
"Just admit it," Harper teases, "you guys loved to argue."
Bellamy's mouth drops open. "What? No!" Emori snickers, disbelief plain as day. Bellamy holds up a finger and Monty flings his head onto Murphy's shoulder dramatically.
"Oh no," he whines, "here we go. A Blake Lecture, right on schedule."
Bellamy splutters but then bursts out laughing. "Okay, no, listen—" he holds up a hand again, still laughing. "There was this one time where she'd twisted her ankle, right, so she's sitting down on the medbay table, and this was way back when we still weren't sure who to trust so I thought I'd have to get Miller to make sure she didn't, like, die suddenly because some creep hated her mom or whatever, but just as I'm about to go inside I hear her yelling and then these three guys come slinking out of the tent, hands in their pockets and everything. They were going to steal some of the medical supplies, right, and she just yells them into submission."
"Isn't that what she did to you, too?" Harper asks mischievously and Raven laughs and laughs.
They still miss her. They still miss earth, and all the people they've lost and left behind. They get drunk again, sometimes to talk about Octavia and Kane and Miller and those in the bunker, once to talk about how badass Clarke could be, once just because they could. Once because they'd been in space for six months and the future seemed so infinite and endless that it was overwhelming.
Clarke probably would hate that they're using alcohol that could be used to clean wounds, but the ark is full of things people left behind on their way down, and the earth is full of things they've left behind on their way up, and they're still delinquents, after everything.
They like to think that Clarke would forgive them for the alcohol anyways. They think Clarke probably would have forgiven them almost anything.
(On the bad days, they wish they could have said the same. On the good days, they remember that she wanted this and that cancels everything else out.)
It gets better and it gets worse. Murphy plays music over the speaker systems and cooks meals like they've not had in months. Monty, Harper, and Emori tend to the farm, and Harper teaches everyone CPR. Echo and Raven make sure everything stays stable and secure and safe, and Bellamy helps everyone where he can. No one touches Clarke's cell, but sometimes they go and stand in the centre of the room or sit on her bed and just look, because it's Clarke and it's Earth.
Raven finds Clarke's stash of tiny little charcoal nubs and recruits Harper, Echo, and Emori to help her make a mural, with the names of everyone they've lost inscribed in a messy little field of wildflowers. It's not perfect, but it's something, and it isn't closure but it's—better than it was. (Clarke's name is in the middle of the centre sunflower, in all capitals and slightly bigger than the others. It's not just because she was the last they lost, or that they were so indebted to her, or that she was their leader, though it's all that too, but also because they think she'd like this, to be immortalised in the drawings she loved, on the planet she dreamed of.)
There are so many names, but they're all there, and that's what matters in the end. No name is forgotten. Everyone matters.
It's been eight months, and then ten, and then a year,
and that's when everything
comes
crashing
down.
