a/n Hello and welcome to yet another variation on the S4 time jump. This one diverges from canon at the end of "The Other Side". Thanks so much to Stormkpr for betaing, and for Daydreamer-bleachlover for giving me this idea in the first place. Happy reading!
Clarke has had a lot of practice with guilt. If anything, she thinks that by now she ought to have discovered a more effective way of overcoming it. But she hasn't figured that out yet, so today she finds herself doing exactly what she did all those months ago after Mount Weather.
She runs away.
There's a bit more to it on this occasion, to be fair. She's taking Emori and Murphy – the only other people desperate enough to volunteer – on a crazy mission to fetch Raven from the island. So it's running away with a purpose, sure, but it is still, in essence, running away. Because she cannot work out how else to deal with the fact that mere hours ago she pointed a gun at Bellamy to save the human race.
She is even less able to process the fact that she couldn't actually shoot him. That is gnawing away at her yet more, somehow, an odd combination of love is weakness and you'll have to make it a kill shot echoing through her mind until she reckons her internal screaming is loud enough to give her a migraine.
So, yeah, she's running away to the island to rescue Raven, and Bellamy's not coming with her.
…...
The stupid thing is, Bellamy knows it's the wrong decision. Raven is his friend, and rescue missions are basically his calling in life, and Clarke is – well, she's Clarke. So he knows that staying safe down here with his sister while the rescue party sets out without him is a mistake. But he's just so hurt and angry and all-round mixed up that he cannot convince himself to raise a hand and volunteer.
He has time to change his mind, too. It takes a while to put on a hazmat suit, and a while to get the rover ready for their journey. He has almost an hour to think better of it and go with them after all.
But he can't. He just can't. Not after Clarke locked Octavia out and damn near condemned her to death. And not after she waved a gun at him, to boot. Sure, she didn't actually shoot him, but it hurts just as deeply as if she had put a bullet in his brain. To think that he honestly believed they were – well, whatever he thought they were. Partners, maybe. And to think that he'd so nearly told her he was a little bit in love with her that day on the shore with the hydrazine.
He feels like the biggest fool in the world. What kind of idiot goes and thinks he's in love with a woman who would do all that Clarke has done in the last twelve hours? He doesn't even have enough fingers to count off all the ways she's done wrong today, from breaking her word to the other clans right through to standing by while he was shock-lashed.
As betrayals go, he reckons it's a pretty all-encompassing one. So Bellamy stands by the door, and watches them leave, and doesn't say goodbye.
…...
He never even said goodbye. That's the one thought that Clarke cannot shake on the drive to the island, the one thought that haunts her even while she fights off frantic grounders and then waits for Monty and Harper to arrive and rescue them. She knows her mind ought to be on higher things – quite literally, if this rocket plan of hers is going to work – but somehow she is stuck very firmly on the fact that she ruined things with her closest friend so badly that he didn't even bother with a brief farewell.
She swallows down tears as she wonders whether she'll ever get a chance to apologise to him, now. Sure, he didn't realise the rover would break down, but even without that he must have known there wasn't a great chance of them getting back in time. He must have known that it might have been his last chance to say goodbye.
To think she was starting to suspect she might have gone and fallen in love with him. She feels like such a fool, that she's somehow managed to go and throw all that away.
But the world is ending, whether she likes it or not, so she supposes she had better concentrate on that.
The world is ending, with Bellamy's best wishes or without them.
…...
He should have said goodbye. That's the thought that haunts Bellamy in the coming hours. He knows that it is dangerous beyond belief out there, what with the disgruntled grounders who didn't make it into the bunker as well as the time limit of the oncoming death wave. He knows, therefore, that there is a decent chance of Clarke never coming back.
Obviously, he's still convinced he doesn't really love her so much after all. He's still angry and disappointed with her for her cruelty and cold efficiency. But all the same, he ought to have at least shown her the basic respect of a goodbye.
He gets on with helping Miller out. They wander round the dorms, checking everyone has a bed. Giving out ration packs, and blankets, and the like.
It doesn't help.
As the hours pass, he stops thinking he should have said goodbye. He starts thinking, instead, that maybe he should have gone with her. He's always been by her side for the dangerous stuff before now, even when he's been a bit annoyed with her. Obviously, he's not just a bit annoyed on this occasion – he's absolutely furious, and has he mentioned hurt beyond belief? But yeah, he figures that it's only his duty to back up his leader on a difficult mission, so really he should have gone with her. And he supposes that it would have been the decent thing to do, if they found themselves side-by-side in the front of the rover, to at least hear her out if she made any attempt at an apology.
He can imagine that, actually. He can imagine finding it all too easy to accept it, and forgive her. And then he'd probably have tried to lighten the mood with some stupid joke or something, and then if they died out there at least they'd have died on good terms.
He shakes his head, and resolutely ignores the funny look Miller gives him for the action. Bellamy doesn't need to think about the world ending with him and Clarke on good terms, because she's the one in the wrong, here. And because she'll probably be back soon, and then they'll have five years to practise being on good terms.
"Go on." Miller's voice interrupts his train of thought. "Get out of here, Bellamy. You're not fooling anyone. Go see if they've heard from her."
"I don't know what you mean."
Miller laughs in his face. "You're a terrible liar, you know that? Always wearing your heart on your sleeve. She's probably half way home by now, go ask Abby."
He's still angry with Clarke. Obviously. But he figures it can't hurt to go check that he's going to get a chance to forgive her before too long.
He arrives at his sister's headquarters, and spares scarcely a moment to muse that it's pretty damn odd that his baby sister is now the leader of over a thousand scared people. He'll get back to helping out with that just as soon as he's checked that a former friend of his – with whom he's definitely no longer in love – is safely on her way back home.
"Abby?" To his surprise, the doctor is sitting hunched over the desk, head in her hands, not setting up the med bay as he might have expected.
"Bellamy." She looks up and meets his eye with visible effort. "We've not heard from them. I'm so sorry, I know how worried you must be."
He nods, not allowing himself to overthink the gesture. "They should be on their way back by now, right?"
"They need to be on their way back by now if they're going to make it." Abby agrees. "They've only got six hours left."
He swallows with difficulty. Six hours isn't a lot of hours, he has to admit.
"OK." The word barely makes it out of his throat, so he tries again. "OK. Well, I'll go see what I can do to help. Let me know if you hear from her."
He seems to remember he was supposed to say them, but he's not sure he can talk right now. He flees the room, and prepares for the longest six hours of his life.
…...
Time is playing funny games today, and Clarke does not like it. That rover journey has to have been the longest of her life, but now that they have arrived at Becca's lab there is somehow far too much to do and not enough time to do it.
She does take a few moments, though, to call the bunker and say goodbye. She offers the same option to the others, too, but no one else has a mother under the ground in Polis.
Murphy stifles a chuckle and points out that no one else has a Bellamy in Polis either, but Clarke does not rise to that. She's going to say goodbye to her mother, first, and then she's going to ask to speak to Bellamy. Her mind is made up on that front – even if he's still angry with her and doesn't want to hear her apology, she needs to at least try to make things right before they spend five years apart or die trying.
She picks up the radio handset and gets started.
"This is Clarke on the island, calling Polis."
There is barely a heartbeat of silence before her mother replies. "Thank God, Clarke. We've been so worried. But you said you're on the island? You'll never make it back in time -"
"Mum. It's OK, I promise." She interrupts her panicked rambling. "We've got a plan. We're going to take Becca's rocket up to space and survive on the Ring. Raven says it'll work."
"Well if Raven says it'll work, I guess we have to trust Raven." Abby says weakly, sounding less than sure of the idea.
"It's the only choice, Mum. We'll be alright, I'm sure of it. We've got each other, and Raven's brilliant. We'll work it out."
"Yeah."
"So I wanted to tell you that was the plan. And say goodbye and – and may we meet again."
"We will, Clarke." Abby says, audibly weeping. "You just promised me that. We will definitely meet again."
"Yeah." Clarke brushes impatiently at her tears. She doesn't have time to cry – they're on the clock. "Is – is Bellamy there?"
"He will be soon. Kane ran to fetch him as soon as we heard your voice, he's been here a couple of times to check whether there was any news."
"He has?" Clarke cannot quite fathom this, not from the man who refused to bid her farewell. "But he's mad at me. He didn't even say goodbye."
"I know, honey. Believe me, he's annoyed at himself for that. He'll be glad to say goodbye to you properly now."
"I hope so." She is crying in earnest now. "I just don't want the world to end with him hating me, Mum. I know that's stupid. I just want to tell him I'm so sorry for everything and that I – you know. That he's important to me."
Her mother never does reply to that. The line is already dead.
…...
They have definitely been the longest six hours of Bellamy's life. Other people in the bunker have been sleeping, but he cannot even bring himself to contemplate that idea. He needs to keep busy, needs to keep moving.
Needs to keep useful.
He has to admit it – he's getting worried about Clarke, now. And he's starting to realise that love isn't something to throw away in a moment of anger. Sure, she screwed up yesterday. But set against the months she has spent trying to do the right thing, he supposes she's still one of the good guys.
Maybe that doesn't matter, anyway. Maybe he can still love her even if she's sometimes on the wrong side. Maybe love is complicated, and maybe sisters and doors and shock-lashing do not have to be the end of it.
He holds tight to that thought, as the clock counts down, and as he makes a handful of fruitless visits back to headquarters to check in with Abby.
Still, he mustn't be disheartened. He's got himself convinced, somehow, that she's safe and well and on her way back, and that there must just have been a problem with the radio in the rover. And the radio on the island. And that she's cutting it a bit fine. She has scarcely minutes left, now, but he believes in her.
He will always believe in Clarke.
He is half way through counting a stock of tents for no good reason when Kane stumbles in, breathless and distinctly overexcited.
"It's Clarke." He gasps. "She's on the radio."
Bellamy doesn't wait to be told twice. He sprints along corridors, jumps stairs three at a time, and practically breaks down the door in his urgent flight. After all, the quicker he runs, the less time he has to wonder why she's on the radio when she should be knocking on the door and getting herself safely back inside, by now.
He stumbles into the room, and stops dead at the sight of the silent tears coursing down Abby's face.
"What?" He chokes out the single, broken syllable. "Is she -?"
Abby shakes her head, although what information that is supposed to convey he's not quite sure. Marcus, meanwhile, is falling through the door behind him, having run surprisingly quickly for an older man who's not motivated by love for anyone on the other end of that radio.
"Abby?" Marcus asks gently, approaching her and placing a hand on her shoulder. "What is it? What's happened?"
"She's not coming back." Abby gasps through her tears, and Bellamy feels his chest crumple.
"What do you mean?" Marcus asks the question Bellamy is too broken to formulate. "Why isn't she coming back?"
"There's no time. She's there on the island now. They're going to space."
"Space?" Bellamy manages to ask.
"Space. In Becca's old rocket – Raven thinks she can make it work. Clarke was calling to say goodbye."
"They're going to space?" Kane asks, for good measure.
"They're going to space." Abby wipes at her eyes and attempts to regain some composure. "It – it might work. Clarke thinks it will work."
"Or she was just being strong for you." Bellamy whispers, knowing Clarke rather better than even her own mother does.
"Maybe." Abby agrees with a weak nod. "I'm sorry, Bellamy. She wanted to say goodbye but – but the radio cut out."
Of course she wanted to say goodbye. Of course she did, after he was so petty and stupid as to deny her that earlier. And now she is gone, and she might never come back, and they might never get to say goodbye.
He sinks into a chair, weeping unchecked, trying desperately to pretend in front of these two adults he sometimes respects that his world is not falling apart.
"Bellamy." Abby tries again, voice soft and eerily reminiscent of her daughter's. "When we lost the signal, she was just telling me that she wanted to say goodbye to you. She wanted to put things right before you were separated for years."
He nods with difficulty. "I wanted that, too."
"I know, honey." He's not sure when it happened that he and Abby started to be on such familiar terms, but as she walks over to him and gives him an awkward half-hug he cannot find the energy to complain. "I know you did. But I told her you'd been asking after her, and I told you she asked after you so – so things have been put right, in a way, haven't they?"
Things haven't been put right. There is no way things have been put right. But he nods his head, because he knows that is the answer he is supposed to give.
He swallows down a sob, and asks a question he knows is beyond pointless. "Can I try? On the radio? I know you said it cut off but – I just need to hear it for myself."
Abby nods in understanding, and shows him to the radio, and sits by in helpless sympathy as she watches him repeat Clarke's name into the emptiness. She's a patient woman, it seems – more patient than her decisive daughter – but even she asks him to stop after the eleventh attempt.
"Bellamy. That's not doing any of us any good, is it?"
He clenches his jaw, not willing to admit defeat. He lets slip another pleading Clarke, though he knows it will go unanswered.
"Bellamy, I think it's time to leave that. Do you – do you want to know exactly what she said to me? Just before we lost contact?"
He nods, jaw still clenched, handset still clutched in his shaking fingers.
"So I told you that she said she didn't want the world to end with you hating her. But then she said – she said 'I want to tell him I'm sorry for everything, and that I -'. And that's when the radio cut out. But I'm pretty sure you know how that sentence ends, don't you?"
He cannot look up into Abby's concerned gaze, cannot appreciate Kane's gentle smile. He doesn't deserve sympathy from these people, not after what he's done.
Clarke loves him, and she's out there, fleeing the death wave, without him.
…...
Clarke sees the rocket take off, and knows that this is the start of a most important countdown. She's not racing against the clock to save herself, not any more, but she is racing against the clock to save her friends.
Well, her friends and Echo. She allows herself a wry grin at that. She hopes that the spy will earn her place on that rocket over the next five years.
She keeps climbing, because she has to. She keeps climbing, because she cannot let anyone else die on her watch. She keeps climbing, because she's still trying to atone for her sins of yesterday.
And then she finishes climbing, and aligns the dish, and then there is only falling, and running, and burning.
…...
Bellamy hates himself. He hates himself with a passion that burns in his stomach like acid. What kind of leader – or vice-leader – leaves his friends to flee to space without him, while he stays safe and sound in this concrete coffin? How is he supposed to look himself in the eye when he shaves in the mirror each morning, after not even saying goodbye?
He isn't supposed to, he decides. That is the answer. He cannot look himself in the eye, so he cannot use the mirror. He cannot use the mirror, so he cannot shave. Simple.
He throws himself into business, and most of all into usefulness. He figures he has to atone for his sins somehow. He helps to settle everyone into their new life, and he takes his place at his sister's right hand. In an odd contrast to the moment of their arrival on the ground, he finds himself acting as her moral compass, now. She doesn't know how to lead people, so when a new dad is found to be hoarding water three weeks in, she is all for corporal punishment. It is Bellamy who pulls her gently aside, and suggests that a bit of community service might be more the thing. It takes a while to convince her, but he gets there. Of course he does. He knows what it's like to live with regret, and he doesn't want that for his baby sister, even if she is tough enough these days to win a conclave.
He keeps himself occupied, from dawn until dusk and often well beyond, with physical activity and problems to solve and decisions to help make.
But when night comes, and the bunker is still with sleep, he sneaks into his sister's headquarters. And he double checks, every time, that there is no one there to hear him.
And then he reaches for the radio, and speaks to the silence, and he calls the silence Clarke.
…...
Clarke doesn't remember much from the first few days. She remembers blood roaring in her ears, remembers silent screams of pain issuing from her parched throat. She remembers vomit, and the thick stickiness of black blood, and she remembers soiling herself, too exhausted to make it to anything resembling a bathroom.
It gets better. That's the good news. At some point she regains control of her limbs.
It doesn't get much better, though. There is sand to be swallowed on the wind, a rover to be dug out of the dunes. Arkadia is full of ghosts, and a waste of her time.
The bunker is buried, and a waste of her effort.
She perseveres with it for hours, because she's not as rational as she likes to think she is, apparently. She doesn't really know what else to do but persevere. There are human beings down there, and food and water and medical supplies. There is her mum.
There is Bellamy.
But between Clarke and all that lies tonne upon tonne of rubble. It isn't until it nearly crushes her to death that she gives up, and sits on a chunk of concrete, and weeps.
She's not going to spend five years with her mother. She is not going to spend five years earning Bellamy's forgiveness.
She is going to spend five years alone.
…...
Bellamy hears a rumbling noise above his head, above the door of the bunker, but he doesn't allow himself to think anything of it. They have heard many such noises, starting with the loudest of crashes during the death wave itself, followed by many smaller impacts since then. Their best guess is that some parts of the city collapsed, and that the rubble is still settling, shifting from time to time.
He therefore finishes checking the contents of the armoury and sets out to find his sister.
That does not prove difficult. She is sitting at her desk and reading some technical report that he's pretty sure she cannot understand, given he was hardly capable of educating her in engineering. He will make sure to praise her for giving it a try, though. He's pleased that she's trying to be level-headed about this new responsibility that has come her way. He's not sure that even he could have managed it so well, without Clarke to keep him centred.
"Hard at work, I see." He nods at her task.
"Yeah." She stretches. "Did you want something?"
"Just to check in with you, and tell you I'm happy you're safe and well." He feels his face grow tight with embarrassment, still, even after six weeks of trying to show his sister how much he loves her.
"You don't have to do that all the time, you know." She tells him mildly. "I get it. You feel bad that Clarke's not here, so you have to tell me all the damn time how happy you are that I am here. But it won't bring her back any sooner."
"I know." He swallows painfully. "But I really am glad you're OK."
"I know." She echoes. "What have you been up to all day?"
"Checked the armoury. Helped Gaia coach a combat class."
"Sounds good." She says, her eyes already straying to the report again.
"Yeah. So, listen. I've been thinking, could I set up a school? Or at least a history group or something? It seems wrong that all these kids are learning how to fight but they know nothing about their people's story."
"You can set up what you like." She tells him, with a shrug that is more unconcerned than careless. "You're my brother. You can do whatever the hell you want."
That's great news, obviously. He can set up his school.
But he can't do whatever the hell he wants, because he can't tell Clarke he forgives her.
…...
Clarke spends a lot of time telling Bellamy she forgives him. She knows that is stupid, because she's the one who has done the most that needs forgiving, but she needs him to know that she's forgiven him for not saying goodbye.
Somehow, she has herself convinced that he does know, even though she's pretty sure he's not hearing a word she says. He's certainly not replying. She's made several attempts over the last few weeks, and tinkered uselessly with the radio, swapping in different handsets and dishes and wires whose purpose she cannot hope to understand.
She sets up for her daily call, starts talking loving nonsense about berries and birds and sunshine and serenity.
And then she stops abruptly.
There, in the trees, is a girl, with wild curls and a frightened look in her eye. Clarke jumps to her feet and starts running after the child, calling out in excitement as she goes.
And then she stops abruptly.
There, in the grass, is a bear trap. And Clarke falls to the floor, in agony, feels the metal bite against bone and wonders if her leg will ever be the same.
Somehow she gets herself back to the village and stitches the wound. There follows five of the most unpleasant days of her life, lying in feverish agony, watching the child from hell steal her food and clothes and even her charcoal.
But somehow, when those five days are past, the child from hell has grown a bit less demonic. And little by little, days accelerate into months, as she throws herself into motherhood.
…...
The minutes pass more quickly, once Bellamy has his school. Rather than wading through time with pathetic slowness, counting down the moments until Clarke comes home, he finds that he is at least swimming against a strong current, now.
He knows that the amount of energy he invests into his new school is neither sensible nor sustainable. But Clarke was always the sensible one, so he cannot be blamed for that, and he only needs to be able to sustain this effort for five years.
Or until he forgives himself for letting Clarke leave quite like she did. Whichever comes sooner.
So, yeah, he loves the school, which teaches science and art as well as history and literature. It teaches everything, because he wants to create level-headed and balanced young people, just as Clarke would want if she were here. But she's not here, so he finds himself running it single-handed, even though he's hardly a specialist in all of those fields. And that's not all he's doing, oh no. He's also acting as his sister's deputy, and certainly as her speechwriter. She's a bit inclined to try to solve things with a sword since Lincoln died – which he can almost understand, if he's being honest – but if they're going to get out of this alive he thinks a bit of inspirational rhetoric might be a better approach.
He's got a lot on his plate, in short. Well, a lot on his metaphorical plate. The contents of his supper bowl are pitifully meagre, but they're not actually on the verge of starving to death. There was a bit of a scare on the soybean crop, the other month, but they caught it early and they're going to make it.
Abby's taken to making a fuss of him, recently. She keeps saying he's working too hard, and that Clarke will never forgive her if she comes home to find him ill and exhausted. He brushes her aside, but he has to admit he's somewhat moved. She's been very maternal, since they found themselves stuck here, and it's actually kind of pleasant.
He prefers to move his conversations with Abby on in a different direction, away from the state of his health.
"What do you think she's up to, up there?" He asks from time to time.
"Thinking about us, that's for sure." Abby tends to say something like that, with a hug often thrown in for good measure.
"I wonder if she's throttled Murphy yet." He might wonder, or perhaps "Do you think Echo and her are friends now, or something?"
He never asks Abby if she still thinks Clarke loves him, though. His guilt won't let him, that guilt he has carried since the day he didn't say goodbye. He wonders, sometimes, if it's actually just an extension of the guilt he's carried around since they floated his mother, and if the truth is that it only felt lighter when Clarke was around. As if the warmth of her presence makes guilt less of a burden.
He does ask Clarke if she still loves him, sometimes, but she never answers, of course. That's the thing about talking to no one on a radio whose antenna has long since been burned into oblivion. He asks her other things, too, about the life they will live when she gets back and about whether she would be proud of him, if she could see the way he leads with his sister now. About whether her pride might outweigh his guilt.
He tells her things, too. And just occasionally, in the dead of night, when no one else can hear, he tells her the biggest secret of all.
He's tired.
…...
Clarke is tired. She is tired of being alone but for the company of a small child. She is tired of having to be mother, teacher, leader, doctor and friend, and tired above all of trying to work out which one she ought to be at any given moment.
And she's tired of doing all these things without the support of her right-hand-man at her side.
It's been years, now, since she saw him last, for all that she still radios him every day. So she should be used to the gnawing loneliness, to the simmering fear that he might still not have forgiven her. She likes to hope that he has, because she clings to the memory of her mother saying that he'd been asking after her well-being, but she's never been great at hoping.
She used to have him for that.
She brushes that thought aside and makes Madi some breakfast. They are to go on a trip to the berry fields, today, and then they will have a brief Maths lesson and some story time.
This is what passes for happiness, round here.
…...
Bellamy wonders whether he will know happiness, one day.
Abby likes to hold onto hope, smiling weakly at him and saying that Clarke will be so happy to see him safe and well when she returns from the sky. Marcus is optimistic enough, in his quiet, dignified way. And Octavia tells him loudly and often that she is handing the reins back over to him and Clarke just as soon as ever they can open the door.
Bellamy's struggling to see it the way they do, if he's being honest. He can think of a thousand things that could have gone wrong up there, a thousand things he could have helped with if he'd just been a decent friend or dependable partner and gone with them. A thousand times she might have died, without him by her side.
A thousand fates he should have shared with her.
He still sneaks to the radio, late at night, when there is no one in the corridors to see his shame. He knows he ought to share this habit with the three people who are essentially his family – Abby and Marcus have certainly welcomed him into their lives with open arms since Clarke closed that door. But these conversations are something he needs to hold close to himself, somehow, something he cannot reveal to anyone. Because these three people respect him, and he fears that, if they knew all of his guilty secrets, they wouldn't respect him any more.
"Clarke." He begins one day, as he always does. "It's been a quiet day here. I – I can't stay long. There's not much to report and I'm just so tired." He sighs deeply. "Your mum thinks I'm working too hard. But I think she just likes to say that because – because she's fussing over me since she can't look after you. I hope someone's looking after you up there, Princess. Because if I know you, you're looking after everyone else, and not letting anyone take care of you. I hope Raven might do it anyway."
"Bellamy?" He jumps in shock. The voice is not Clarke's, though, much to his disappointment.
The voice is Octavia's. She's standing to his side, lurking in the shadows, looking slightly ashamed of herself.
"Octavia." He sets down the radio, wonders where to begin.
"It's OK, Bellamy. You don't have to explain. I know."
He shakes his head. "You know?"
"I know you call her, and I get it. I still – I speak to Lincoln in my head all the time, Bell. At least Clarke's still out there somewhere."
He nods, mute.
"I just wanted to tell you I knew." Octavia says sadly. "I know you've been doing this for years now, and I just – I needed you to know you're not alone."
"I am alone." He grinds out, because that is what it always comes down to. He will always be alone, in a sense, whenever Clarke is not by his side. "I'm here on my own, because I let her go out there without me. I let her go out there without even saying goodbye to her, O, in the middle of an argument. And now she's thousands of miles away and I might never get to tell her I forgive her."
"It doesn't matter." Octavia tells him, and he is sorely tempted to kick her in the stomach, sister or no. How could she say something so heartless?
"It matters." He snaps, dashing away tears.
"No, Bellamy, it doesn't. I'm telling you it doesn't matter that you were separated in the middle of one particular argument on one particular day. She's still Clarke, and you're still Bellamy. Forgiveness is still what you two do best. You know she's forgiven you, just like you've forgiven her. And she knows you've forgiven her, I'm sure of it, no matter where she is. And maybe when you see each other in two years' time you can skip all the arguing and forgiving, and get straight on with telling her how important she is to you."
He nods, thoughtfully, bids her goodnight and settles into his cold bed with her words echoing in his mind. It makes a lot of sense, he decides, and it leaves him thinking that maybe there might be grounds for just a hint of hope after all.
Only then he doesn't see her in two years' time.
…...
Clarke knows that she will not be able to open the bunker on her own. She resigned herself to that fact long ago, so as the day that marks five years since Praimfaya approaches she knows there is no point driving to Polis and expecting to see Bellamy.
No, she has a different plan in mind. She reckons that once her friends who made it to the Ring land back on Earth, between the lot of them they might be able to figure out some way to get into the bunker.
She tells Bellamy as much, on the radio, that night.
"Bellamy, hey."
She pauses. She cannot help it – she has to give him a moment to reply, just in case.
He doesn't reply, of course, so she moves on.
"So I've been thinking about how we're going to get you out of there. I'm never going to manage it on my own, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She swallows an errant sob. "Enough of that. Yeah, so I think Raven's the answer. When she gets back down here in the rocket I'm sure she can think of something. Maybe she can adapt the rover somehow, or maybe blow everything up? I don't know. But my point is, we'll get you out of there. I – I promise, Bellamy. We'll get you out of there, and then I'll finally be able to apologise to you properly. And then -"
"Clarke?" She jumps in shock at the sound of Madi's voice.
"Yes, honey?" She shoves the radio handset behind her back instinctively, but she's not sure what good it will do. Madi must have seen and heard what she was up to.
"Why does he never reply?"
Clarke frowns. "What do you mean?"
"You radio him every day." Clarke gulps a little and realises she has not been so subtle as she hoped. Or perhaps this is just a very perceptive eleven-year-old. "You have done for years. But he never replies. And I don't get that, because when you tell me stories about Bellamy he always seems like a good guy. He always seems like someone who would reply."
"He would reply if he could." Clarke explains, willing herself not to cry. "I promise you, Madi, he is a good guy. The best. And just as soon as my friends get here we're going to go dig him out and then he'll be able to reply."
Madi nods thoughtfully. "Praimfaya took him away from you? Like it took my nomon?"
"A bit like that." Clarke nods, because really it is not so far from the truth. Praimfaya has a lot to answer for. "Only – only I'll get to see him again. He's not really gone, he just can't talk to us right now."
"That's good." Madi says with conviction. "It's good that he's not really gone. It sucks to lose people you love."
Clarke offers her a hug. "You're right. It does. But I'm not going anywhere."
…...
Bellamy will be the one to open the door of the bunker. Of course he will – he has a lot of history with that damn door, after all, and apart from anything else it might be dangerous topside and he doesn't want to send someone else out there to face that.
His people, his responsibility.
Octavia makes him wear a hazmat suit, just in case. It's the first time anyone has used one since he watched Clarke and the others suit up to go to the island, and it hurts his heart to think about that one too hard. He simply pulls the stiff rubber angrily over his limbs, tugs it up around his torso and zips in.
"Ready?" Octavia asks him, over the radio link from her office.
"Ready." He confirms, excitement fizzing in his chest.
This is it. Five years, done. And within moments he will be standing outside in the sunlight. He won't be able to feel the fresh air on his skin, not quite yet. The engineering team reckon he should just stay suited and collect data on this first visit. But he will be able to see the outside world, and that's better than nothing.
Of course, he cannot help wondering whether his friends who fled to space have already landed. He cannot help wondering whether he might see Clarke, back on Earth right on time, ready to tell him that they're OK even though he was an absolute idiot and let her go to the island without him all those years ago.
He's becoming increasingly convinced that she will tell him they're OK. Not because he's forgiven himself – it will be a lifetime, he thinks, before he manages that one. But because Octavia was telling the truth, that time she pointed out that Clarke will always forgive him.
So, yeah, she will tell him that they're OK, and that she missed him, and if he's lucky she might even get straight on with telling him that she loves him. And whether she does or not, he intends to waste no time in pulling her into an all-consuming hug and making sure she knows that she means the world to him. He won't be able to kiss her, of course, because he's wearing a hazmat suit, but he reckons it'll be a beautiful reunion all the same.
In short, he's got it all planned out. Hugging, and a few well-chosen words, and the happy ending he has hardly dared to dream of all these years. But he dares to dream, now, because the moment is so close, and he can practically smell the sunshine scent that clings to her hair.
He's got it all planned out. But then he can't open the door.
…...
Clarke tries to be more honest with Madi, now, ever since that night they spoke about the radio. So it is that, on the exact day that marks five years since Praimfaya, there is something she reckons she needs to get off her chest.
"It's safe for them to come out, now." Clarke explains over breakfast. "And it's safe for my friends in the sky to land, too. We should get to see my sky friends soon, but the people in the bunker will be trapped for a bit longer until we can get some help digging them out."
"Do you think Bellamy's annoyed?" Madi wears a thoughtful frown.
"Annoyed?" Clarke asks, puzzled.
"Yeah. You always said he'd reply if he could, and that he would never let you down. I think he must be annoyed that he's still stuck there and can't come and see you."
"Maybe." She doesn't know what to make of that idea. Sure, Madi's words have some merit, but Clarke cannot forget that this is a man who was so angry with her before the death wave that he couldn't even face saying goodbye to her.
Then she forces herself to remember her mother's words, too, that last conversation and the promise that he was desperate to speak to her.
Suddenly, she cannot keep it in any longer. She has carried this secret around with her for five years, and she can feel it clawing at her chest, threatening to rip her heart in two if she doesn't just come out and say it.
"I love him." She gasps, wondering why her old rationality has chosen this moment to desert her. "I love him, Madi, and I hope he's OK down there. I hope he's not – not too annoyed."
Madi does not look impressed. "Obviously you love him. Duh. Why else would you speak to him every day for five years?"
Clarke supposes that Madi might have a point, there.
…...
Bellamy knows that Octavia has a point, but he doesn't want to hear it.
"There's nothing we can do, Bell. Punching the wall isn't going to solve anything. All we can do is sit tight and wait for Clarke and the others to come down and dig us out."
"If they're even still alive." He slams his fist into hard concrete once more for good measure. He may have been taking orders from his little sister for the last five years, but this is one point on which he cannot obey her will.
"They are, Bell. I'm telling you, Raven and Monty will have worked out the technical side of things. And there's no way Clarke would go and die when she knows you're waiting for her down here."
"She doesn't know that." He points out, with another passing blow at the wall. "She doesn't know that, because I never told her."
Octavia sighs, and she reaches out to catch his fist as he goes in for one more attempt. She cradles it in her fingers and makes a point of meeting his eye.
"You know what the answer is, don't you, big brother? Next time something goes wrong between you, don't let your emotions get the better of you. You were angry, so you let her go alone, even though you knew it would be dangerous and you might be separated."
"You saying this is my fault?" He is beyond angry. He is livid. How dare she voice out loud the guilt he has been drowning in for all these months?
"Yes." She confirms, unflinching, hand still wrapped around his fist. "I am saying that. I'm saying that when she gets back you had better have the sense to tell her how you feel before something else gets in the way."
"What if she doesn't get back?" He chokes out, anger quickly forgotten.
"She will. You should have more faith in her, Bell. She always has faith in you."
"Look at the thanks she got." He mutters, with a guilty gulp and a frown at the floor.
"You can thank her by telling her you're head over heels in love with her the moment she gets us out of here."
"Yeah." He agrees, with a damp smile. "Maybe I should."
…...
Clarke wants to get them out of there. She wants to get them out of there more than she wants anything in the world, wants it so badly it hurts, a nagging physical pain nestled deep in her chest.
But she can't dig out the bunker alone, and Raven and the rest of her friends haven't made it back, yet. She's beginning to wonder whether they will ever make it back, if she's being entirely honest. Did something perhaps go wrong with her sending of that signal? Or did they fall into one of the many thousands of other traps along the way, with the oxygen scrubbers or the algae or the water recycler?
She sets that thought aside and calls for Madi.
"Time to go, yongun."
"Berry time!" Madi chimes in, skipping down the corridor in evident delight. "I can't wait to see if they have those pink ones, Clarke, and can we dye your hair?"
"We'll see." She tells the girl with a smile.
"I want to dye your hair." Madi insists. "Then when your friends get here they'll tell you it looks great."
"Maybe they won't even recognise me." Clarke tries to summon a teasing grin to match that remark, but she finds that she cannot quite manage it.
She cannot quite manage to do anything more than stare at the heavens and wonder what's taking them so long.
…...
Bellamy knows it's pathetic, but he's adopted something of a habit of going to the entrance chamber, and standing on those stairs, and staring up at the door. He doesn't know what he's looking for, exactly, but he's pretty sure he'll know when he finds it. The sound of rubble shifting above them, maybe, or the sight of the door miraculously bursting open to reveal Clarke's long-overdue face.
He wonders what's taking her so long. He's had to wait around for her before, of course – he remembers all too well the agony of waiting for her when she ran away after Mount Weather. But on this occasion he's absolutely certain that there must actually be something causing her delay. He cannot believe that she would keep over a thousand people waiting, and he hopes that she wouldn't keep him waiting, either.
Abby likes to tell him that she'd be here if she could. She seems to think that it's encouraging, to remind him of that last radio call and claim that Clarke will be here just as soon as ever she can. He doesn't find it encouraging at all. Because if it's true, then there must be a good reason she's not here yet.
A good reason like a shortage of fuel, or an excess of enemies.
A good reason, he fears, like death.
He forces down both that thought and the rising nausea that follows in its wake, and he gets on with staring fruitlessly at the ceiling.
…...
Clarke has spent a lot of time, in recent months, staring fruitlessly into the sky. She has spent a lot of time, too, speaking into that radio in vain, but she cannot bring herself to regret it.
She thinks it might be the only thing keeping her sane.
She tells him that, today. She tells him that this is her way of remembering who she used to be, but she doesn't dare to add that it's also her way of remembering what they used to be to each other. She doesn't know if they will ever get to be that pair again. She doesn't know if they will ever get to be anything, other than separated, and lonely, and then dead.
But then, just as she is losing hope, she sees the ship descend from the sky.
…...
Bellamy is beginning to lose hope. He doesn't mind admitting it, and he has even hinted as much to his sister before now. But she is a bit preoccupied, at this precise moment, with trying to deliver a motivational speech to her people to soothe the unrest that builds as they pass six years under the ground.
He wrote the motivational speech, of course. That is still part of his job description, even though he finds himself sadly lacking in motivation, these days. If he's being truly honest, he finds himself sadly lacking in anything besides guilt, and loneliness, and tired toleration of his well-wishing little family. In fact, as he listens to the words about pulling together and mutual support echoing around him, he begins to realise that they hold more of the platitudes Abby and Kane like to offer him than of his own state of mind, these days. There is some irony in that, he thinks, after the clash of generations when the adults first landed all those years ago. He remembers facing that time with Clarke by his side, and he remembers them as the idealistic youngsters who believed the Earth could be a better place.
He doesn't know what he believes, any more. He's not even sure he believes in Clarke, at this precise moment, and that loss of faith scares him more than anything.
He raises his eyes to the ceiling, because that's what he does in times of trouble. He thinks he can hear a noise up there, but that can't be right. Or, at least, if it is right it must just be the rubble shifting yet again.
But then he realises other people are looking above them, too, and his sister has stopped speaking to gaze at the roof in rapt fascination.
And then, just as he is beginning to hope, he sees Clarke descend from the sky.
It takes him a long moment to decide it is real. He's had dreams like this, obviously, but in his dreams the situation tends to be too perfect. She always looks like he remembers, for one thing, and she tends to actually open the door rather than rappelling from a hole in the roof.
But it's the hair that finally convinces him. The Clarke of his dreams still has those long, flowing waves, and this Clarke wears her hair cropped close with streaks of pink.
He leaves his sister's side at a run, and quite literally catches Clarke in his arms. What else is he to do, after so long without her? And then her arms are around him, too, and she is whispering his name into the sensitive skin of his neck and he is burying his face in her hair and he doesn't even care that it doesn't look the same any more, because it still smells the same.
That's when it hits him. This is definitely real.
"Clarke." He gulps a little, swallows down the sob that tries to tumble out alongside her name. "I knew you'd come."
She snuggles herself more deeply into his arms and speaks to a space somewhere near his collarbone. "Of course I came." She agrees, with a brave attempt at levity. "I'm sorry I kept you waiting."
"You have nothing to apologise for." He tells her, and he means it.
…...
Clarke still has things to apologise for, and she doesn't know where to begin. They are back on the surface now, standing around and waiting for Diyoza and her men to lift the rest of Wonkru to safety, and she's not quite sure whether this is the right time to try for a meaningful conversation. There are people everywhere, for a start, and it's been scarcely minutes since she and Bellamy were reunited and she's not sure if he's ready to get on with the serious stuff, yet.
He's not left her side since she got into the bunker, though, so that's encouraging. In fact, if she's being entirely honest, he hasn't let go of her since then. He somehow managed to hold her hand through the journey back to the surface despite the impracticalities of such a situation, and right now he's got an arm wrapped around her shoulders as if he'll never let go.
Still, she knows there are things she needs to say. And based on their track record, she thinks she'd better say them now or she might not get another chance.
"Bellamy?" He hums a little in response, and draws her ever closer. "I just wanted to say how sorry -"
"I love you." He interrupts, and she feels the breath rush clean out of her lungs. "So don't you dare apologise. I love you, and I let you go out into danger without me and then had six years to sit around and regret it. So if you think I'm about to sit here and listen to you apologise just because we had a bit of an argument before you -"
"A bit of an argument?" She asks, incredulous. "I left your sister to die, and stood by while you were shock-lashed, and then had you locked up. And then I waved a gun at you."
"OK. It was a big deal." He acknowledges, bringing his other arm up around her too and cradling her close. "But I forgave you pretty much as soon as you left. I'll always forgive you, and I need you to know that."
"I know. But I spent six years practising this apology and I want you to hear it." She murmurs, not quite sure where to go now he's ripped the rug out from under her feet so decisively.
"Really?" He asks, with a hollow chuckle. "That's what you spent six years practising?"
She catches his meaning, of course. She thinks that probably she always will, now that they do not have metres of merciless concrete between them. She therefore discards her apology and gets on with some more useful words.
"I love you, too." She tells him instead, then takes a deep breath and prepares herself for a significant confession. "So much that I spent the last six years calling you every day on the radio even though I knew you couldn't answer."
He freezes, his hands stilling at her waist, and she wonders what she has done wrong. There is no other way of understanding his I love you, surely? She cannot have misinterpreted that particular phrase. So why on Earth has he stopped stroking her back and started shaking slightly?
"Funny story." He murmurs at last, his words lacking any discernible humour. "I did that, too."
She squeezes him tight, and is relieved to find that his embrace softens once more. "Great minds think alike." She says, striving for a light tone.
"Thinking had nothing to do with it." He tells her with a sigh. "I didn't do a very good job of thinking while you were gone."
She reaches up and presses one solitary kiss to his jaw. It's not the same as the jaw she remembers kissing, all those years ago after Mount Weather, when she left him with scarcely a goodbye and ran away. It is softer, now, and the wiry hair of his beard feels fascinating under her lips and she can't wait to explore it a bit further.
She can't wait, really, to stay by his side and see what the future holds.
"It's a good job I'm staying right here, then." She tells him, pausing for a moment as he bends to brush his mouth ever so lightly across hers. "You don't need to use your head any more. You've got me for that."
a/n Thanks for reading!