Once upon a time
6. the leader
It was an incredibly clear night, that night. Clarke was pointing the radio up to the sky, trying to reach the furthest place possible even though she probably knew those few meters wouldn't have made any difference if there was no tower working. Costellations of stars were shining on a dark ocean, like glitter on night dress, like hints of hope in a deep sea of resignation. It had been years since Praimfaya and months since when the others should have come down, but there she was, alone, again, in that land long forgotten. She was wondering, like every evening, like every morning, hoping, dreaming. But like every evening, like every morning there was no answer, just a silence that was taking away each one of her breaths.
Madi found Clarke on a spot of green nearby, not too far away from the rover, not close enough so that she could have listened to her disconnected thoughts on the radio. She had a melancholic expression, the word "sadness" written all over her face while she was looking up at the sky in a daydreaming moment.
She walked in small steps, trying not to make any noise and when she got to the girl she stared at her with quiet eyes, trying to understand, trying to find a way to fill the huge emptiness of her heart.
"Hey" she said, getting closer "Have you already radioed tonight?" she asked, trying, again, to be part of what she was, of the world she had come from that was so still inside her, alive as nothing down there.
"Hey" she exclamed, seeing the kid who was no longer a kid "I have just finished" she added, hiding the radio behind her.
"What about a story?" she asked then, changing the subject, avoiding the questions. "It's been a long time since I last told you one".
Madi nodded, she had grown up and even though she used to love those stories a lot, they became kind of unrealistic and when no spaceship came down to Earth after five years she even started to doubt them. The only thing that assured her in a way that they were true, was the sight of Clarke radioing every single day to the silence of space despite receiving no answer.
"It's ok, if you don't mind" she answered "You know I love them"
"Ok then" she finally smiled, thinking about something. "Tonight's story will be about a girl-"
She was about to start narrating when Madi suddenly interrupted her.
"No" she said "Tonight's story won't be about a girl" she declared.
She waited some seconds before going on, looking at Clarke's surprised expression getting more and more confused. "Tonight's story won't be about a joker or a human or a monster. It won't be about a doctor or a survivor. But it will be, instead, about a leader. About a man with a name and no voice, about a soul lost in the depth of the universe, unable to come back to the place it belongs to".
"Tonight story will be about-"
"Bellamy" she concluded, staring at her, no confusion on her face anymore; "I will tell you about Bellamy" she finished.
Madi was strangely nervous, as if the thought of finally knowing the man Clarke had been talking to for years, could disappoint her in some way.
"He was a rebel, Bellamy" she started, searching for something in the night sky "He was strong. And kind. And affectionate to everyone" she paused, finding it incredibly difficult to talk about him. He was so important, so meaningful to her that words could have never been enough to describe him, to actually remind of his existence. "He had a sister too".
"Octavia kom skaikru" she kind of answered "The commander of the bunker. The human".
"The commander, yes. They were so bounded, so close to each other they would have given their own life to save the other's. They fought a lot too, but the love they shared allowed them to overcome every obstacole in their way. She was actually the reason he came back to Earth as he wasn't one of the hundred. He was the one hundred-one".
"The one hundred-one? Weren't you just a hundred when you arrived?"
"We should have been just a hundred, but Bellamy jumped on the dropship at the last minute in order to follow her sister here and protect her. He was a rebel, I told you".
"And how come he became the leader?"
"Because he was very persuasive too. He managed to make people feel safe, to make them feel protected even though they weren't. There was one night I tried to make him realise what they were doing, how rules had to be made and he just answered "We do whatever the hell we want" with people choreing for him in the background. He was a rebel leader and nobody could stop him from being so."
"And nothing happened? He remained like that for the whole time you were on Earth?"
"No, he didn't. Soon after he realised it too. That rules had to be made or nobody would have survived. We became the leaders and he let me share that burden with him. Because, you know, my little natblida, being a leader isn't always that easy. Difficult choices have to be made and the weight of their consequences can haunt you for a long time".
"Mount Weather?"
"Yes, like Mount Weather. He was with me when we decided to pull that lever. Together. But even before that we were forced to do things, to kill people againts our will because we had to, we had to protect our guys, our home. One day we had to decide whether to torture or not a grounder and I told him that torturing people wasn't who we were, that we were more than that. But in some situations you have to change who you are, you have to wear a mask and take the pain, you have to endure in order to let your people survive without demons in their neightmares. And do you know what he answered?"
"That you actually were those kind of people?"
"Yes, at the beginning he said that maybe we changed our way of being. That maybe now that's what we were: torturers, murderers. Maybe that was what we had to be in order to protect everyone, that was what we had to bare with, being the leaders. But soon after he changed his mind and came to me with better words, with better thougths saying that who we were and what we had to be to survive, were very different things. It may seem stupid and trivial but back then it was very important for us because it was the proof we were still human, it was the certaincy we needed, the certancy I needed to be strong, to be a leader. We managed to support ourself thanks to those words".
"And then?"
"Then, after Mount Weather, I couldn't bare the pain of seeing my friends every day because it would have always reminded me of the price we had to pay to have them. So I decided to leave and that, my dear, was the worst choice of all. I left them, but mostly I left him. I left him alone to rule, to protect, to be a guide. There were the others too, that's right, but for us delinquents he had always been our leader and he would have been, no matter what. I left him alone dealing with the pain of having lost so many people, I left him with the burden of being the commander".
"And what did he do?"
"He went crazy, in a way. He was overwhelmed by the weight of his past choices and found in a ruler in our camp the guide he needed, the friend he had lost. The point is, he wasn't a good ruler. He was too idealistic and couldn't see the hypocrisy of his plans and it wasn't Bellamy's fault, everything that happened later, it was just my fault".
"But then" she went on "Then he came back to his old self, to the man that wouldn't let me pull that lever in Mount Weather alone and held my hand when I was scared and lost as the black blood was coming through my veins, he held my hand for the whole time I was fighting the city of light and protected me with everything he had".
"He saved my life. He saved all our lives".
"That's why you keep trying to call him everyday, no matter what?"
"That's why, my little natblida, I hope everyday, everynight, he will come back. Because we need him, because I need him. Because I know the moment the Earth will live again, others will come and I won't be able to take the right decisions alone. I need him to tell me what to do when the rational part of me will obscure my feelings, I need his heart to tell me when to risk and when not to, when even a single life is worth the danger, when being human is more important than being right".
"And will he? Will he come back?"
"He will" she answered, without any doubt "He will" she repeated.