a/n Thank you so much to those who reviewed the last chapter! Thank you also to the enthusiastic folks who've been recommending this story on twitter - I'm beyond excited about that particular compliment. Stormkpr is the greatest beta and you should read their stories too. Happy reading!

Clarke leaves Octavia to tell Bellamy the news about her being cleared for missions.

No, that's not quite right. Leaves implies a certain amount of carelessness, of not putting in the effort. And that's not what's going on here, not at all. Clarke makes the deliberate decision to have Octavia be the one to tell Bellamy her news, because she thinks that a serious conversation about a dangerous mission might be the kind of thing that will help the siblings to close the door on their unhappy past once and for all.

She hopes, though, that she does not end up closing the door on her current happiness with Bellamy along the way. She hopes that he will understand her decision, both when it comes to sending his sister out into danger, and when it comes to keeping it from him. So it is that she engages in a little well-meaning subterfuge, the following evening, once Kane has confirmed that he has given Octavia the news.

"You should go see you sister tomorrow." She suggests, tone carefully light, as the film they have been watching together draws to a close.

"I just had lunch with her today. And I thought we were going to watch the sequel to this tomorrow evening?" He replies, sounding somewhere between puzzled and hurt, as he gestures at the credits of the movie.

"I'd like that." She reassures him, adding a kiss on the cheek for good measure. "But I think it might be a good idea for you to pop over and see her first."

He works it out, then. "There's something that you're not telling me."

"Yeah. Sorry. But – but I think it's her news to tell."

He frowns for a moment. He doesn't seem angry in the least, she is relieved to note, only deep in thought. "OK. Sure. As long as the news isn't that she's decided to take up cannibalism again I guess we're good."

She's supposed to laugh, she thinks. She's heard enough of those desperate half-jokes of Bellamy's in her time, to understand that this is her cue to help him smile as he teeters on the very edge of falling apart. But she can't help feeling that it will always be too soon to laugh about that.

…...

"I don't know what you were so worried about."

Clarke looks up as Bellamy walks through the door, returning home from his visit to his sister, and tries not to frown at him too fiercely. It is, she thinks, an odd selection of words that he has chosen to announce his presence.

"What do you mean?"

"It's not a big deal, is it? She was training to be a field medic. Now she's going to go be a field medic." He gives a shrug. "Why all the secrecy?"

"Because I thought you'd want to hear it from her. So you could tell her you're proud, for a start."

"I told her that." He agrees easily.

She swallows, with difficulty. "And because – because it might be dangerous. I thought that maybe you should speak to her so you could tell her you forgive her."

He's staring at her hard, now, brow furrowed, the lightness with which he came through the door quite forgotten.

"What are you saying?" He asks, walking over to take a seat on the sofa at her side.

"I'm saying it'll be dangerous."

"Yeah. I get that. But – we've all been in danger for so long, Clarke. Just because this place is mostly safer than Earth doesn't mean I've let myself get too comfortable. I get that it's dangerous, and I'll be worrying about her while she's gone." His voice seems to be rising in pitch, increasing in volume, and she finds herself rather confused.

"OK then." She tries to say it in a calming tone, but is apparently not successful.

"But what are you on about, telling her I forgive her? You were trying to set that conversation up to force me to – what – just suddenly make everything OK? We're getting there, of course we are, but you think everything's suddenly going to be better just because she's going out on a mission? You think you have some kind of right to interfere between us? You know nothing about our relationship, Clarke, nothing about what it's like to have a sister, and -"

"Bellamy." She places a hand on his arm, tone beseeching him to listen to her. "I wasn't trying to interfere, or to force you to do anything."

He deflates slightly at that, but does not entirely soften.

"I was trying to suggest something, based on my personal experience." She swallows thickly. "I didn't make things right with you before you went out on that mission and got stuck in the snow. And I thought you were dead, Bellamy, and I thought you'd died with things still unresolved between us and – and I don't want you ever to feel anything like that."

That seems to win him over a little more, she notes, as he relaxes against her shoulder somewhat.

"So maybe you're not ready to just let go of everything with Octavia." She continues. "Maybe you can't forgive her completely, yet. But – but do you think you could maybe try making your peace with her? Just because I don't want you to go through what I went through when I thought I'd lost you."

She brushes away a small shower of tears, and turns to take in his face, tries to gauge his reaction.

It's quite difficult, really. He's gazing down at his lap, his fingers twined together, his mouth set in a firm line, and he's not exactly giving her many clues to work with.

"I'm sorry." He murmurs. "I'm sorry I ever put you through that. And I'm sorry for snapping at you about this. I don't know why I'm finding it so hard to let go. I'm just so disappointed in her, Clarke. I spent years of my life trying to bring her up to be good, and to care about people and it just feels like – like I wasted my time. Like I wasted my love."

"I get that." She murmurs, reaching an arm around his broad shoulders, encouraging him to relax a little further. "Or I get why you would feel like that. But I don't think it's true, Bellamy. She is good, and you've seen how much she cares about Madi, and about healing people. And about trying to fix things with you. Six years of mistakes don't wipe out a lifetime of trying to do the right thing."

"Are you sure? They were some pretty big mistakes. She ate human beings, and tried to have me - her own brother - put to death, Clarke."

"They were massive mistakes." She agrees. "So were yours. So were mine. But I'm telling you, none of that time and love you put into raising her was wasted. She's going to save a lot of lives, Bellamy. And if that's not good, I don't know what is."

He nods, just a little. "Yeah. I see what you mean."

She lets the thought settle a little longer, kisses the crown of his head absently. Holds him close in the silence.

"I'll go speak to her alone again before she goes." He decides, at last. "I'll tell her that – that she's doing a good thing. And that I love her."

It's not the same thing as forgiveness, Clarke knows. But it is, at the very least, progress.

…...

Clarke sits by her daughter's bedside, a sheaf of papers lying ignored in her lap, and watches the summer pass them by beyond the windowpane. It looks to be quite a fine summer, she cannot help but notice, the sky consistently cloudless, the bustling Sanctumnites apparently pleased with the state of the weather.

Her daughter should be out there playing, she thinks, heart full of flashback to that horrific moment so many months ago when she sat and looked out at the snow and tried to find the words to suggest that Bellamy might be dead. Madi should be in the world beyond these walls, swimming and throwing and catching, keeping those cadets on their toes. But as it is, she is lying in her sickbed, ever more exhausted, ever less alert. And Clarke knows that this is just how it is, and how it has to be, until such time as baby Madi is born, really she does. But it hurts all the same.

There will be other summers, she tries to tell herself. There will be other summers for picnics at the beach, and other summers for welcoming Madi's new friends wholeheartedly into their loving family. There will be a lifetime of summers, for her little girl, as soon as this illness is past.

She will make sure of it.

She hears Madi groan slightly and forces herself to snap out of her melancholy mood. Her daughter needs a reassuring presence, right now, does not need to see her struggling to hold it together. At least struggling to hold it together is better than failing to hold it together, she reminds herself, pasting on a careful smile.

"Mum?" Madi's eyes blink open, a frown marring her brow.

"Hello, honey. How are you doing?"

"I feel sick." She says plaintively, sounding rather younger than her years.

"I'm sorry, Madi. But you can't have any more medicine for a couple more hours yet. And I'd offer you a hug but – but I think that'll only make you feel sicker."

"Yeah."

"But your dad will be home later, and he's good at hugs. And your grandma Abby might come over, too."

Madi brightens a bit at that, mouth curving up at the corners ever so slightly. "Can we watch a movie when they get here?"

"Of course we can watch a movie, honey. We can have whatever indoor adventure you want."

She nods a little, sits up slightly. "Can we draw until then?"

Clarke is, of course, only too happy to agree to drawing until they get back. Apart from anything else, it does her good to be occupied with a piece of charcoal rather than only with her own increasingly worried thoughts about her daughter's health. And things are much better, really, now that Madi is awake and comparing sketches rather than asleep and deathly pale.

All in all, by the time Bellamy gets through the door, Clarke thinks her smile might almost be approaching her eyes. At the very least, it certainly reaches most of the way up her cheeks.

"Hey." He greets them both with a grin which looks only a little forced, his pack still clutched in one hand even as he pulls Clarke in for a kiss with the other. "What have you been up to today?"

"We did drawing." Madi announces proudly.

"She also did some napping." Clarke murmurs, aware that such excessive drowsiness is far from good news.

Evidently understanding her point, Bellamy keeps hold of her hand as he speaks to Madi. "Drawing sounds like fun. Some of your friends at the cadets have been practising drawing, too."

"They have?" Madi asks, all curiosity. "Why would they be drawing? Maps or something?"

"Not quite." He disengages his hand to rummage in his pack, and Clarke tries not to feel too bereft. "Here you go. We hiked out to the East today and there was a waterfall. Yan thought it was a shame you didn't get to see it, so he tried to draw it for you."

Madi reaches out for the precious gift, a crumpled piece of notepaper which she smooths carefully across her knees, an expression of pure wonder on her face. "He drew this for me?"

"You've got some pretty great friends, kid."

She nods, apparently struggling for words.

"I have to say, though, it's not the most realistic waterfall I've ever seen. Maybe you should give them some drawing lessons when you're better."

"Yeah." Madi agrees quietly. "I'd like that."

Clarke moves the conversation along, then, to discussion of which film they might watch that evening, and Madi argues with spirit in favour of some cheesy musical. Clarke objects, naturally, and protests that they might at least watch a movie with some artistic merit, and of course, Bellamy kisses her into silence and insists that their little girl should get to choose.

By the time Abby arrives, Octavia in tow, with a picnic supper to boot, there are five genuine smiles in the room, against all odds.

…...

Bellamy does go to see Octavia, the night before she leaves, and Clarke sits at home and reads and worries.

It seems that worrying is what she does best, these days. Worrying about Madi, worrying about Bellamy, worrying about Octavia.

No, damn it, she won't think like that. She's doing much better, now, at not falling apart. And yeah, sure, she's worried, but she's not disproportionately worried, and her anxiety is not taking over her life. All the same, she does breathe a substantial sigh of relief when Bellamy walks into the living room with a cautious smile.

"How did it go?" She asks, when it becomes clear that he doesn't quite know how to begin.

"I told her I've forgiven her." He says, and she finds herself rather confused. Because she was pretty sure that the argument they had last week stemmed largely from the fact that he hadn't forgiven his sister, so she can't really see any grounds for going around saying it now.

"You have?"

"Yeah. I didn't think I had. I mean, I don't think I had, until I got there. And she started saying all these things about how she wanted to make things right with me before she left and – and she told me that she hasn't forgiven herself yet. She reckons she won't forgive herself until she's healed more people than she's killed. She worked it out, she said, and at the rate she's going that'll be ninety-four years."

It shouldn't be amusing in the slightest, Clarke thinks, an issue this serious, a life sentence of guilt. But somehow, there is something so very Blake about it, that she cannot help the small smile that plays about her lips.

"She reminds me of someone else I knew once." Clarke murmurs, walking over to take Bellamy in her arms. "She reminds me of you, that day we first teamed up and Dax tried to kill you."

"Yeah." He agrees softly. "That's what I thought, too. So I told her I forgive her, because I remembered how much it meant to me to have someone to forgive me, then. But also because I realised that I do. How can I not forgive her, when she's that desperate to atone for her mistakes?"

"I'm proud of you." She tells him. She always is, of course, but she doesn't often go around saying it.

"I'm proud of you, too. For how you're coping with worrying about Madi. And somehow running Sanctum at the same time."

"Thanks." She says, not keen to take that conversation any further. Not keen to reveal the fact that, she suspects, she might not be a million miles away from not coping.

"I've been thinking that it's not fair how you've ended up taking care of her all the time, just because your work is more flexible than mine. It feels like you volunteered the first couple of days and now you've ended up doing it all the time since she's been in bed every day. I've asked Echo and Murphy to take the cadets tomorrow so I can stay with Madi for a change. And I think you should go out for lunch with Raven and Emori."

Sometimes she wonders how it is that he is quite so fluent at reading her mind.

"Thanks, Bellamy. That would mean a lot to me. I love her, and of course I want to be here for her but – it's not doing me any good sitting at home all the time and fretting about her."

"I guessed." He mutters, nuzzling into her hair a little. "Sitting still has never been your best thing."

She lets out a reluctant laugh. "I'm working on it. Pregnancy makes sitting still look like a more attractive option."

…...

They try to split the time spent at Madi's bedside more evenly, in the days that follow. This is good, of course, in that it means Clarke gets to enjoy fresh air, and gets to go out, and speak to people, and feel somewhat purposeful in getting on with helping to run Sanctum. But it is better, too, in that Madi is becoming increasingly sensitive to the proximity of baby Madi with each passing day, and for all that she loves her mother, she breathes a sigh of relief and rests a little easier when it is Bellamy who is to spend the day by her side.

Of course, that pushes Clarke somewhat nearer to losing the plot. It hurts beyond bearing to be unable to hug her sick daughter, and the idea that, by the end of this pregnancy, she might not even be able to occupy the same room as her little girl is absolutely heartbreaking.

She ought to tell Bellamy, she supposes. The last time she bottled up heartbreak like this, she ended up pushing him away, and nearly losing him altogether. And she knows, now, that the way to avoid being sent unhinged is to share things with him in honesty, and let him help her to lighten the load. But her anxiety is starting to feel too heavy to expect him to bear, and besides which, he has his own concerns about his sister to deal with. Octavia has been out on her first mission for a week, now, and all is going well so far, but Clarke of all people knows that things can go wrong very quickly out there.

So it is that she finds herself keeping her concerns close to her, does not seek out an opportunity to share them with him. Doesn't seek out Raven, either, or Abby, busy as she is with being in charge, and with being a mother. And there's nothing suspicious in the fact that she takes herself off to bed increasingly early, and does not sit up to chat with Bellamy. She's eight months pregnant, now, and exhausted, and it is all she can do to keep her eyes open in security meetings.

Tonight, then, as she has done every other night this week, she closes Madi's bedroom door behind her and offers Bellamy her apologies.

"I'm going to head to bed." She tells him, eyes averted. "I'm so tired."

"That's fine." He agrees, reaching out to take her hand. "Can I come with you?"

He does this sometimes, of course, but since she has essentially started going to bed straight after supper it is becoming an unusual occurrence to say the least. "I guess."

"Great." He squeezes her fingers gently and leads the way to their bedroom.

They get ready for bed in silence, seamlessly slipping past each other to take turns in the bathroom, wordlessly shedding their clothes and climbing beneath the bedsheets. And Clarke thinks that it is a comfortable silence, really she does, but she's beginning to struggle to gauge these things, if she's being honest. She's started to find it a bit tricky to read such situations.

That is when the panic sets in.

Because in that moment, she realises what an idiot she's been. She's started to do it again, it appears, started to cut herself off from the rest of the world. Started to hide herself from Bellamy, and been less than honest about her feelings.

She doesn't realise she's started crying until she feels his gentle fingers wiping away her tears.

"You're OK, Clarke. I'm here, and I love you so much."

"I'm sorry." She chokes out the words in between sobs. "I'm so, so sorry."

"You have nothing to apologise for." He tells her, tone fierce, as he pulls her into his arms. "I've got you, and I love you. And I'm not going anywhere."

He keeps holding her, and loving her, and telling her so, until she feels the sobs slow and thinks that she might have a go at explaining herself.

"I'm sorry." She repeats, wondering whether this is making any sense to him. "I shut you out, Bellamy, and I didn't mean to, and I'm so sorry. It just – Madi – I couldn't -"

"I know." He murmurs against her hair. "I know this is tough for you, Clarke. And I know it's not easy for you to talk to me about it, and it means so much that you're trying to talk about it now."

She shakes her head a little, although she's aware that he probably can't understand the gesture. "It was so stupid of me."

"I think it was pretty understandable. It's a really frightening situation. Hell, Clarke, I'm terrified. But you get me through it. And I'll try to get you through it, too, if you'll let me."

"I didn't want to burden you with another thing to worry about." She mutters. "Not when you're already worried about Madi, and about Octavia. I didn't want to give you another person to depend on you, another responsibility you didn't even ask for."

"I'd ask for you any day of the week, and you know it." He tells her, squeezing her tight.

"How can you even say that when we only got together because the universe forced us to? You'd never have wanted to start this with me if Madi hadn't got us in that situation."

"That's not true." He sounds angry, she thinks, and she curses herself for making this day even worse. "I won't deny that the situation with Madi gave us a push in the right direction but – you must know that I'd have found my way back to you eventually. I'd have fallen in love with you again sooner or later."

"You would?"

"Yeah." He still sounds annoyed, and she can't for the life of her figure out why.

"OK then." She says, and now she is the one aiming for a soothing tone. "Well, thanks. I'm sorry for losing it just now."

"No worries." He pulls his arms back, puts a little space between them. And that is quite strange enough, but then he actually rolls away, actually turns his back to her, and she finds herself beyond confused.

"Bellamy?" She reaches out, lays a tentative hand on his arm in the darkness. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." He tells her, and it is blatantly a lie.

"Honestly?" She asks, rubbing her thumb against his warm skin.

There is a beat of silence, and then the words start to tumble out of him.

"I'm sorry the universe forced us to." He mutters, so quietly she has to strain to hear him. "If – if you don't really want this, I don't want you to stay with me out of some sick sense of obligation or whatever. I'll still be here for Madi no matter what and – and I can be there for you in any way you want me to be. If you don't want to stay in a relationship you feel like you were forced into, I get it, and -"

"Bellamy. Stop." She cannot believe that she did not see this earlier, cannot believe how close she has allowed herself to drift, once again, to that edge of unhinging. "I should have said sooner, but I thought you knew. I'm sure I'd have fallen in love with you again sooner or later, too. And I want to stay with you, for as long as you'll have me."

He softens somewhat at that, melts a little back into the space between them. "You mean that?"

"I mean that. I really am sorry about the last few days. I've just been overwhelmed with worrying about Madi and with being exhausted from the pregnancy and I've not been coping very well. I'm still not used to having someone who's always here for me, but I do know that you are."

"Damn right I am." He shuffles back a bit further, closing the gap, inviting her to wrap an arm firmly around his torso. "I'm sorry for overreacting, there."

"It's OK. I get it. I hurt you, without meaning to, and I'm sorry."

"Stop apologising." He recommends, bringing her hand to his lips and pressing a kiss to her palm. "If you spend the rest of our lives apologising every time I have a stupid emotional overreaction to something, we'll never get anything else done."

She laughs a little at that, and feels him relax against her completely as she presses her lips to the back of his neck. And she sort of wants to stay up a bit longer, really, and chat about something a bit more cheerful, like their future life together or which adventures they might try with Madi when she is well again.

But somehow it seems, as she drifts into sleep, that her body has other ideas.

…...

Clarke does better, after that, at being honest with Bellamy about the state of her heart. And it's amazing how easy it is, actually, just a quick mention that she didn't sleep well over breakfast, a passing squeeze of the hand when she murmurs that she needs to go and get a breath of fresh air. And it works the other way, too, in hearty kisses when she beams at him and tells him she's having a good morning, that Madi is cheerful and the sun is shining. In laugh-out-loud moments when he presents her with a drooping yellow-blooming weed and tells her that he realises he has never brought her flowers.

Her definition of happiness is a complicated one, these days. When she was a kid she thought happiness was flawless parents, and a best friend, and drawing, and chess.

Now she understands that happiness can be messy, too. It can be a chaotic, cluttered, ever-evolving kind of a thing, where substantial setbacks happen too, but they do not cause her life to fall apart. Where challenges can be overcome, albeit slowly, and with a generous dose of support from her friends and family. That in a happy life there is even a place for tears, as long as there is a shoulder to cry on, and as long as there is laughter to balance them out.

Octavia is due home today, and Clarke has to admit that her joy at the prospect has her gazing out of the window for any sign of the team's arrival rather than reading the book in her hand. Madi is sleeping, but peacefully, and Bellamy is due back within the hour, too. And then they will have a family reunion, and even if her little girl is rather frail just now, they will make the best of it.

She's feeling rather optimistic, really, all things considered. She's even starting to think that, perhaps, the universe might not hate her after all. Perhaps the universe has never hated her, and was just doing what had to be done, just as she has always done, in order for this all to turn out for the best.

That is the moment that she hears the knock on the door.

She's not concerned, not right away. People knock on the door sometimes, friends or relatives, stopping by to ask after Madi. No, she isn't concerned until she opens the door, and reveals Ivon and Murphy panting on her doorstep, eyes wild with panic.

So much for her truce with the universe.

"What is it?" She asks, fearing the worst. "Is it Bellamy?"

"No." Murphy huffs out the syllable, still breathless from running. "Octavia."

She doesn't wait to hear more. "Right. Murphy, stay with Madi. Ivon, go fetch Bellamy. Did they take her to Medical?"

"Yeah." Ivon is regaining control of his wits. "It was a Titan, and it's bad. Miller's with her now, but none of the doctors are -"

Clarke does not wait for him to finish the sentence. She is already out of the door, jogging as fast as her heavily pregnant state will permit. Because Octavia cannot die, not now, not when Bellamy has only just forgiven her. She needs to live, damn it, so they can all enjoy their happy family life together, and take Madi out on adventures, and practise the art of peace.

She arrives in Medical to the sight of Miller up to his elbows in blood, and Octavia motionless and pale on the table. And, sure enough, it is bad, an ugly great slash running across her torso. She is lucky, to be sure, to still be clinging onto life. Apparently no major organs have incurred too much damage, but she is losing blood all the time.

Miller has a blood transfusion in progress already, she notes, and that is probably the only reason this body that is scarcely recognisable as Octavia is not dead yet.

"Clarke!" He exclaims on seeing her. "Thank god. Can you get the Jacksonia?"

Yes. Of course. Jacksonia. That is their best hope of stemming the flow of blood loss from a wound this substantial, and promoting healing to boot. She dashes to the store-cupboard, and finds it worryingly bare.

"There isn't any." She calls to Miller, panic rising like acid in her stomach.

"What do you mean?"

"There isn't any Jacksonia. Echo brought some in a couple of weeks ago, but not much. And no one's -"

"What do we do?" Miller barely looks up from his preparations for surgery. "She'll bleed to death -"

"I'll go." The decision is an easy one, really. Miller is ready to operate, and has no experience of foraging for medicinal herbs anyway. And yeah, sure, she's heavily pregnant, but this is Bellamy's sister she's looking at.

There's a patch of Jacksonia barely fifteen minutes out of the village. If she runs fast, it'll be ten. It's the best plan they're going to get, really, and certainly the only way she can see that Octavia's going to survive this.

"Clarke, you can't -"

She is out of the door before Miller reaches the end of his sentence.

…...

For the first few minutes, all is well. She runs, surprisingly briskly, panic lending her strength, ignoring the green light on the horizon. She has to succeed at this, because there is simply no other option. The trees grow denser, the undergrowth thickening beneath them, and she knows that she is only a matter of minutes from reaching the first patches of the miracle herb that will save the day.

Then she feels a sharp pain shooting through her belly.

She gasps with the shock of it, and with the pain of it. Staggers sideways, collapsing into a tree. Catches at a low branch, and holds herself upright for all she is worth.

Then she looks down.

With a cold detachment she starts to make sense of the pieces of this particular puzzle. There is a large puddle of blood and fluid at her feet, a gushing wetness slick on the insides of her legs. There is agony, slicing through her innards, pain so brutal and sudden that she grits her teeth until they hurt, too.

And there is the slowly dawning realisation that something is very, very wrong.

The pain intensifies, which she didn't even think was possible until it does so, washing over her in a hot wave of hurt. And there is more blood, so damn much blood, and there shouldn't be this much blood, not when she's supposed to have another whole month before her baby girl is born.

There shouldn't be this much blood even at the birth. She knows this. She's a doctor, sometimes.

Another spike of pain, and the world blurs around her.

When she comes back to her senses, she is lying on the forest floor, half sprawled against that tree she was clutching earlier, legs twisted amongst the mess of moss and fluid, hands fisted so tight that she thinks her nails will probably draw blood. And she knows that she has to get up, has to get that herb, has to rush back to Octavia's bedside, but realistically that is clearly not happening any time soon.

That's when she realises that she is pushing. She doesn't remember deciding to do that, but somehow her body is acting quite against her wishes.

She can't push. She mustn't. She gets another month, damn it.

She's pushing anyway, powerless to stop it. Powerless to stand against the onslaught of pain. Powerless to do anything more than scream, and wait for death to come for her.

It never does. No, time passes in a fog of pain, minutes or days or centuries, and there is new life, instead. A mewling sound, which almost confuses her, because that did not go at all how she expected a birth to go. But somehow, somewhere along the line, amidst all that agony and confusion, her baby girl has made her way kicking and screaming into this life.

Exhausted though she is, her instincts kick in. She cradles Madi in her hands, and makes a start at wiping her clean as best as she can. There is a corner of her shirt, here, that isn't too filthy, and she strokes it gently over her precious girl's face. Reveals the features which are so new yet so familiar. Those laughing eyes, and her father's nose.

She gives up, then, exhausted, her vision blurring again. She leans back, and holds her baby close, and presses a gentle kiss to her forehead.

Then the sky flashes green, and her arms are empty.

And then the darkness rushes up to meet her.

a/n Thanks for reading!