a/n Hello and welcome to an idea kindly donated by a lovely new friend on Twitter. Madi convinces Clarke to turn back and save Bellamy, but she gets injured in the process. Happy reading!
Clarke never thought she'd live to see the day when she'd regret saving Bellamy's life. She saved planet Earth into the bargain, of course – or at least, one modest patch of green – but it wasn't worth it.
It wasn't worth anything, because Madi is as good as dead.
…...
She should have followed her own advice.
That's the thought that stays with her, as she sits, and watches her daughter's unmoving face, and tries not to cry.
She should have used her damn head and stuck to that plan she made, the plan where Madi was in the rover and they got out of Polis safely, and no harm came to her precious girl. Sure, Bellamy died as part of that plan, and she's not sure how she would have survived that. But she knows, with crushing certainty, that if Madi doesn't pull through, she won't survive this.
She just can't believe she let Madi talk her into going back there. Sure, after six years living together her daughter knew all the best arguments to influence her. But she should have been stronger than to give way – she was stronger, once upon a time, she likes to think. The Clarke who killed Finn for peace would not have turned back for a Bellamy who had betrayed her.
Then again, that Clarke was kind of a monster.
She can still hear the words Madi used to win her over, echoing eerily through her thoughts, reminding her of everything that went wrong only yesterday.
"We could still turn back, you know." Madi said, as they were a good three hours into the desert.
"We're not going back."
"If it were you, there, Bellamy would go back for you. You know he would – no matter what you'd done." She was about to bend when she remembered the handcuffs, she recalls. The handcuffs he set on her when she needed him all those years ago, the handcuffs she was wearing for his more recent betrayal.
"That's not actually true, Madi."
Madi was silent for a bit, then, but Clarke knew the fight wasn't done. She knew there was more to come. And then -
"You love him."
"What?" Why should that have anything to do with the matter? Killing people she loves is basically Clarke's greatest talent, by now.
"Isn't that the moral of all those bedtime stories you always used to tell me? That you love him, no matter what? That the two of you are always better together? That you love him so much you'll always forgive him?"
A heartbeat of stunned silence, and then her resolve crumbled at Madi's final argument.
"What difference does Echo really make to all that? So he's kissing her – and what? You know you still love him."
So that was that. Just as Clarke had lowered a gun out of love for him six years ago, so she found herself powerless to do anything other than turn the rover around and drive back to Polis. Somehow, it seemed that Bellamy Blake's life would always be where she drew the line, would always be the one thing to ruin her carefully ordered plans.
One thing led to another, after that. They made it back to Polis, and Madi was proclaimed Commander and saved the day. Clarke can still remember the way she rejoiced too soon, starting to relax as they negotiated a peaceful surrender with Diyoza and presumed that all their troubles were behind them.
One thing led to another, still. Disaster after disaster seems to be the story of Clarke's life. Deposing Octavia didn't mean she would go quietly. No, just as they thought they were safe, she came springing out of nowhere, wielding a sword and heading for Madi or Bellamy or Clarke – or perhaps all three. It wasn't clear.
What was clear was the sharp red gash opened up in Madi's stomach. What was clear was that she was losing blood, so much blood, too much blood.
And it was clear, too, that neither Polis nor Eligius had the medical resources to treat the wound.
So it is that turning that rover around led her here, to the Eligius ship. To watching over Madi as she lies in a cryosleep pod that holds her, barely clinging to life, while Clarke figures out what the hell she should do now.
…...
She knows she can't sit by Madi's pod all day. She's still a logical woman, for all that the last day has not seen her at her most sensible. So she knows that the only way she will be able to help Madi, and heal her, is by leaving this room and getting on with things.
She needs to find a suitable anaesthetic. That's her main concern, right now. Neither Eligius nor Wonkru have anything she can use to put Madi under for surgery, and that's an issue because it's going to take several hours of complex procedure to stitch Madi's insides back together after an injury that substantial.
She needs to do a bit of research and check that she knows what she's doing when she gets to the operating table, too. She's more confident on that one – her knowledge of anatomy in general and stab wounds in particular is more extensive than she might like, but that will serve her well on this occasion. And she will ask Jackson and her mother to help her out, too. They're both excellent surgeons, and she supposes it's possible that operating on her own daughter is not altogether wise.
She needs to remember to eat and sleep, too. She can't afford to be tired or distracted or shaky when it's time for surgery.
With that list of priorities decided, Clarke summons all her self-control and pulls herself to her feet. She will start by choosing a bedroom, she decides, and setting down her small pack. And then she will find a datapad and look at the medical library so that -
She pauses, shocked, half way to the door of the cryosleep room. The figure in the doorway looks distinctly like Bellamy, but no way can that be true. No way would he have the audacity to show his face here, not after her little girl was hurt trying to protect him. He must be a figment of her imagination, like that episode she had after killing Finn.
Figment of her imagination or not, he starts to speak.
"Clarke, hey. How is she?"
"What are you doing here?" She asks, instead of answering his question, because she's pretty certain he has no right to ask after Madi's state of health.
"I'm here in case you need any help."
"What help could you be?" She is spitting and incredulous. "You're not a doctor, Bellamy, or a pilot. You're a soldier who fancies himself a hero, and I'm telling you, you're not the hero today."
"I know that, Clarke. I'm so -"
"Don't you dare. Don't you dare tell me you're sorry this happened to her. It's your fault, and you know it, and if you think being sorry is going to make it right -"
"Clarke. That's not what I was going to say." She's vaguely aware that he seems to be crying, but she decides that doesn't matter to her, now. He can cry all he likes, but he still as good as killed her daughter.
"I don't care what you were going to say." She decides, marching straight past him and heading for her carefully curated list of planned destinations. She has things to do, and she damn well intends to get on with doing them.
"I was trying to do what you asked me to." He cries out to her retreating back. "I was trying to use my head and make the smart choice for once by putting that chip in her head. One life for many – isn't that a choice we've had to make before?" His voice is thick with tears, now, and she allows herself in a moment of weakness to turn and take in the sight of him, absolutely wrecked, slumping against the nearest cyropod. She can't believe he could possibly look at his decision in that way. That was certainly not what she had in mind when she told him to use his head – she meant he ought to use it as well as that caring heart of his, not instead.
And then he goes and ruins everything even further. "Admit it, Clarke. If she wasn't your daughter you'd have done it yourself in a heartbeat."
Something inside of her snaps at that – another bad day for her self-control, it seems. She'll work on being level-headed again when her daughter isn't at death's door. Now she simply lashes out at Bellamy with the words she knows will hurt him the most.
"You know, you were right, back at the beginning, when we first became friends." She bites out the word as a curse. "Your mum would be ashamed. You are a monster."
To her eternal shame, he simply flinches and agrees with her. "You're right. She'd be horrified. Nothing was more important to her than her family, than her daughter. I know what I've done, Clarke. I know I'm a monster."
Clarke doesn't reply to that. She doesn't reply, because she knows that if she does, she'll tell him that she wants him dead, or that she loves him, or maybe some horrendous combination of both.
She simply hoists her pack higher over her shoulder, and strides down the hallway to her plan.
…...
Clarke doesn't make much progress with the hunt for a suitable anaesthetic in the days that follow. She needs something that she can make with the very limited range of chemicals Eligius and Wonkru can provide between them, or she needs something plant-based. She supposes she ought to get in touch with Monty and ask if he can think of any plant that might be suitable, but that sounds a bit too much like speaking to someone for her current state of mind.
She's had one real conversation since she got here – she's not counting the hours she's spent talking to Madi. The one person she has actually exchanged sentences with is Raven. She called her that first day on the lazer comm, and asked how the hell Bellamy came to be on the ship. And Raven explained that he insisted on stowing away on the transport ship, and then hiding on the mothership until she'd taken the transport ship back to Earth and it was too late for Clarke to make him leave.
Clarke found herself grudgingly admitting that it was one of Bellamy's better plans. It was effective, if nothing else. She found herself, too, yelling at Raven that she couldn't believe she would let this happen, that she must have known Bellamy was the last person she wanted to see. And then Raven yelled back, something about how Bellamy honestly wanted to help and make things right, and then Clarke hung up on her.
So, yeah, conversation isn't exactly her strong suit, right now.
She's built a good routine in the silence. She sleeps, long enough to keep her functioning, and then she wakes up and does her research on the datapad. She takes a couple of breaks a day to go see Madi, and tends to spend a particularly long time with her in the evenings, just before bed.
She eats meals, too. That seems to be what Bellamy meant by helping. He produces rations from goodness only knows where, and turns them into edible food, and deposits bowls before her without words.
Sometimes she wonders about thanking him. But then she remembers why they're here, and she finds herself seriously tempted to smash the bowl against his forehead instead.
…...
Four days in, Clarke's routine is growing almost comfortable.
That's when Bellamy ruins everything, again. He doesn't even try to speak to her. He just shows up in med bay, and takes a seat as far away from her as possible, and opens a book.
It's the smallest change, but it really troubles her. She frets for some minutes on the question of what he means by it, and on the difficulties of trying to concentrate while he's right there and she can feel her anger burning in the air between them. She frets even more because, in the depths of her soul, she likes it. She likes the company, and despite what he's done she has to admit she likes the quiet, steady company of Bellamy in particular. And she figures that makes her at least as much of a monster as he is – what kind of woman still feels that way about a man who has left her baby girl hanging at death's door?
He stays for a couple of hours, and it only hurts more with each passing minute. There is something so Bellamy about the way he sits and reads while her world falls apart, reliable to the last, here to feed her and support her even when she doesn't want his help.
Then she remembers why she doesn't want his help, and she remembers above all that he is not always so reliable. That he has been known to disregard her most important requests, before now.
It's a mess. It's a mess, and she's sick to her stomach of it, and she wishes he would just go away and leave her to mourn her near-dead daughter in peace.
So it is that she speaks out when he eventually stands up to leave.
"Don't you need to go back to Earth sooner or later?" She asks, voice harsh with anger and unshed tears and with everything that is wrong with this whole screwed-up situation. "Don't you need to get back to your family? Don't you want to get back to Echo?"
"Echo's not in the picture any more. I'll be here as long as you need me." He explains calmly.
Her head is still spinning with that news when he shows up with her supper two hours later.
…...
They've been on the ship a week when the despair sets in. It's been coming on for a long time, she knows. It's been brewing for years, and it's certainly reached boiling point in recent days. But on the morning that marks seven days since their arrival on the ship she finds herself slumped at the side of Madi's pod and weeping uncontrollably.
Clarke doesn't think she's ever felt this low, this hopeless. Not even that time in the desert when she held a gun to her own head. She just can't face the fact that it's beginning to look like she won't be able to find a way to save Madi.
She feels lonelier than she did in that desert, too. Sure, she was actually alone then, and there are technically two people here with her, now, but it feels worse. Back then she knew that there were friends and family who loved her, and that she might see them again one day, if she could just hang on. But right now she's trapped in a metal box in the sky with the two people she loves the most in the universe, and one of them is dying because of the other's betrayal.
She figures life doesn't get much worse than this.
She's determined to keep breathing, though. She needs to, for Madi's sake. She's not going to give in until she knows for certain sure that all hope is lost and Madi is dead. In the meantime, she just has to keep ploughing through her routine, even though it feels like she's choking on helplessness.
Of course, her timing with Bellamy has always sucked. This is not news. So it shouldn't surprise her that he chooses this morning of all mornings to try to initiate conversation while they sit and read in med bay together. He has a worn hardback – she can't see the title – and she has her datapad, and she is almost comfortable before he goes and unsettles her by speaking.
"We got a call from the ground." He informs her, gently, as if breaking bad news.
She does not choose to reply.
He presses on. "A lot of people are asking after you. I told them I'd pass on their good wishes but that I thought you probably didn't want to talk."
"Thanks. You were right."
"My sister wanted to speak to me, too. I – I heard her out. She apologised, Clarke, for everything that happened, and it sounded like she meant it."
She doesn't answer that. She can't. All she can focus on is the idea that Madi's injury can be reduced, in Bellamy's mind, to just another fragment of everything that happened, as if her daughter's life is simply one more item on a shopping list of sins.
"I didn't know what to say to her. I still don't." He continues. "I wanted to talk to you about it and follow your lead. I wasn't sure whether you'd want me to work on forgiving her because that's the reasonable thing to do, or whether you'd want me to tell her I'm still angry on Madi's account. I told her I needed some time to think about it."
"I don't know what I want you to say."
If there is one thing Clarke is absolutely sure of, amongst all this uncertainty, it is that. She doesn't know what she wants Bellamy to say to his sister, and she doesn't know what she wants Bellamy to say about Madi, and she doesn't know what she wants Bellamy to say to her.
All she knows it that, hate him though she does, she still needs him by her side. She still needs him, in her deepest despair, to say something, anything, and for the warmth of his voice to bring her back from the brink. Somehow, that's what he's done for her this morning. She didn't want him to speak to her, but she has to concede that hearing his voice has made her feel less alone.
So that's another exhausting paradox in her relationship with this exhausting man.
…...
Clarke thinks about Bellamy's message from Octavia a lot, in the days that follow. There's not a lot else for her to do up here but think, and thinking about surgery is certainly not getting her anywhere. She's no closer to a solution on that front than she was a week ago.
So, yeah, she dwells on his words, and on the question of forgiveness. And of course that cursed word takes her right back to a different time, when the two of them sat beneath a tree and passed that word between each other. And it takes her back, too, to a time only ten days ago when she threw that unforgivable comment about his mother into the mix.
They're a mess, the two of them. A messier mess than they have ever been before.
She doesn't know how to tidy things up between them, and she certainly doesn't know if she wants to tidy things up. Madi is still cold as death in that pod, and it's still Bellamy's actions that have landed her there, and until that changes Clarke doesn't see how she'll ever be able to forgive him.
So she starts somewhere else. She starts by forgiving Raven, and begging her forgiveness in turn. She calls her on the lazer comm, heart in her throat, wondering if it is healthy to be this anxious about talking to one of her closest friends.
"Clarke?" Raven sounds confused beyond belief when she picks up.
"Yeah. Hey. I wanted to talk. I wanted to tell you I'm sorry for snapping at you the other week, and that -"
"Clarke, take a breath." Raven says, voice soft in a way Clarke does not associate with her most prickly friend. "It's OK. You're going through something horrible at the minute, and I don't hold it against you."
"You don't?"
"No. I was worse to you when – when Finn..."
"I remember that." Clarke acknowledges, and it hurts, but in a good way. The kind of pain that comes with cleaning up a deep and slowly festering wound.
"So we're good, you hear me?" Raven sounds like her usual fierce self again. "We're good, and you let me know if there's anything at all I can do to help."
"Thanks. I need to thank you for – for Bellamy. For sneaking him onto the ship. I'm still so angry with him, Raven, so angry. But it's better that he's here." She acknowledges with difficulty.
"Of course you're angry with him, Clarke. That's only natural. He hurt you badly. But try to remember that he wasn't the one who was actually holding the sword."
She's been trying to forget that all along. She has been putting so much effort into pushing that thought out of her mind. Because she knows that dwelling on it too much will only make this more complicated.
Instead of responding to Raven's point, she changes the subject. "How's Octavia?"
"I don't know. She's odd. Intense, and cries a lot, and apologises about some things but is completely unapologetic about others. I can't make sense of her." A pause. "She's missing Bellamy. She talks about him all the time."
"It seems like he's chosen to be here with us instead of with her." Clarke notes, tone carefully noncommittal.
"That's exactly what he's chosen." Raven confirms. "And I think you know why."
…...
He wasn't actually holding the sword.
Now that Raven's gone and said it out loud, Clarke finds that it has become much harder to push that thought out of mind. He wasn't actually holding the sword, just as he was not the one who drained the oxygen from section seventeen. He wasn't actually holding the sword, just as he did not personally blow up Mount Weather when he left it unguarded, just as he did not mean to condemn hundreds to death when he used that hydrogenerator to free those slaves.
When she looks at it like that, it's just another mistake with unforeseen consequences. One lapse of judgement, one poor decision which he never intended to bring death and destruction in its wake. Their relationship is built upon moments like that. From the day they sat under that tree together, she has always forgiven him for the unintended consequences of his actions.
And what is Madi's injury, but an unintended consequence of Bellamy's actions?
She knows he's positively drowning in remorse. She marvels yet again at the strength of his guilt – it must be firm as iron, to convince him to leave his friends and spend days trapped in a spaceship with a woman who hates him. What kind of man goes through that for the sake of making amends?
Bellamy Blake does. She knows that. He's always been a martyr to his own guilt, and in the past she has always been there to offer him forgiveness.
She can't forgive him for Madi's injury though, not yet. It still hurts too much – she knows that's illogical – but this is her baby girl and if she's going to be illogical about anything, she figures she's allowed to be illogical about this.
She decides, instead, to help him make his peace with someone else.
"You should talk to Octavia." She tells him, out of the blue, one afternoon as they sit in med bay together.
"What?"
"You should call Octavia and tell her you'd like to work things out between you. Forgiveness is important." She stutters out, almost choking on that magic word.
"Yeah. It is." He agrees, meeting her eye with an expression she supposes she would probably have been able to read, once upon a time, before the world burned and their partnership burned with it.
…...
They talk a little more after that. Nothing of consequence, but it is nice all the same. Sometimes he tells her what he's made for supper, rather than silently depositing it before her. Sometimes she thanks him for cooking, or bids him goodnight when he leaves the room.
She thinks a lot about unintended consequences. She thinks about that almost as much as she thinks about medicine – she's still not making much progress with anaesthetic, but she thinks she might be getting there with forgiveness.
One morning she smiles at him, and he looks about ready to pass out in shock.
So they talk more, and they smile occasionally, but one of the unwritten rules of their feud stays very firmly in place. They do not visit Madi at the same time.
Clarke knows Bellamy has been going to sit by the pod, too. She's even caught him there once or twice, whispering something she couldn't hear. And she can see no other explanation for the way he disappears for vast swathes of each afternoon with no good reason. Sometimes she catches herself wondering what he talks to her about for so long. But they don't visit the pod together, because her grief and his guilt are both private things.
They don't visit the pod together, until one time they do.
It's straight after breakfast, and Clarke meant to wade through a paper on the applications of some particularly rare herb but she got distracted by a memory of Madi picking flowers. So here she is, telling this cold case that might as well be a coffin the story of another time, when a rather livelier Madi wove flower crowns for them both.
"That sounds like a lovely memory." Bellamy mutters, walking up behind her, taking her by surprise.
"It was." She admits, in a mad moment of honesty. "I – I miss days like that."
"You'll get her back. I know you will – you're Clarke. You can do this."
She feels her mood lift at his confidence despite herself. "You think so?"
"I know you can."
She lets that sit for a while, and lets him crouch on the ground by her side. She's not entirely comfortable, but yet again she finds that Bellamy's presence makes her feel less alone, so the slight prickling of anxiety she feels at his nearness is worth it, she decides.
"Why are you still here?" She asks him, at last. "I know you love the ground despite everything, and you must be sick of space after the last six years."
When he murmurs his answer, it doesn't even come as a surprise to her. Somehow it seems like the most obvious explanation in the world after all they have been through.
"Because I love you more."
…...
Clarke has grown used to nightmares in the last couple of weeks. They are usually about Madi, bleeding, Madi, dying, Madi, dead.
This is the first nightmare she has about Bellamy. He's in the pit, fighting for his life, because she and Madi have arrived too late to save him. He's losing, badly, blood soaking his side as she finally manages to reach him.
"Why are you doing this?" She asks, and his opponent fades into the background as such unnecessary details tend to do in dreams.
"Because I love you more." He tells her, half a smile playing about his lips.
And then he dies in her arms. He dies in her arms, before she can forgive him for giving Madi the flame.
Before she can tell him she loves him more than she hates him, too.
It shouldn't be possible to love a man who would bring such harm to her daughter, she thinks, as she wakes up and lies panting in the darkness. It shouldn't be possible to still love him when she hasn't found the strength to forgive him yet, and it shouldn't be possible to love him when Madi's future is still so uncertain.
But she's always had an unfortunate talent for achieving the impossible.
It's still the middle of the night as she rolls out of bed and gets to her feet. And she knows that people are less logical in the middle of the night, and she's certainly feeling far from rational in the wake of that bad dream that reminded her so painfully of losing Lexa before she had said everything she wanted to say to her. So she knows that she's not thinking straight, but she decides to go and see Bellamy anyway.
She's made so many poor decisions lately that she figures one more can't hurt.
She doesn't throw caution to the wind and throw herself into his arms when she arrives at his room. She knocks carefully on the door, and when he calls out in welcome she enters and stands at a sensible distance from his bed.
"Clarke?" He sounds confused, even though it can obviously be no one else.
"Bellamy. Hey." She swallows silence, and wonders what to say next. Maybe that's something she ought to have thought out on the walk here.
"What's wrong?" He asks, with a tenderness she's pretty sure she doesn't deserve.
"I had a nightmare where you were – you died. I needed to see you and check you were OK. I know that's silly but -"
"Clarke. It's OK. You don't have to explain yourself to me. It's normal to be more anxious when your kid is in danger. I should know."
"The way you always acted about Octavia makes more sense to me now." She acknowledges carefully, taking a seat at the foot of his bed. "I'm glad you're OK, anyway. I just – I needed to see for myself that you were still here."
"I'm fine." He confirms softly. She hears him take a deep breath, as if considering whether his next words are wise. "I'm surprised that you care so much whether I'm OK."
"It surprised me, too." She admits, with the kind of candour that she suspects she is only capable of in the middle of the night. "But – I definitely do care. I need you to be OK, Bellamy, otherwise I wouldn't have you or Madi and I don't know how I'd cope with that."
"You'll always have me." He promises fervently. "I may screw up all the time, but I'll always be here for you."
She hugs him. Of course she does – it's the middle of the night, and her precious judgement is at an all-time low, and he's not dead and she's only just realised she wants it that way. So she hugs him tightly, and for a long time, and his cheek is warm against her neck and his arms are tight around her waist and it feels a lot like home.
…...
They don't talk about the hug, the next morning, or about the midnight conversation. But they do talk about everything else imaginable so Clarke figures that's a success. They talk about breakfast, they talk about calling Raven that afternoon. They talk about Murphy and Emori growing back together and they talk about Bellamy forgiving Octavia.
They talk so much that Clarke gathers her courage and asks a question as they sit in med bay together.
"Why are you always in here reading, Bellamy? We've got the entire ship to ourselves, and when you started sitting here I wasn't even speaking to you."
"I wanted access to the medical library." He says with a shrug.
She gapes at him, open-mouthed, for fully five seconds.
"The medical library?" She asks, when she has gathered her wits.
"Yeah. Only the datapads in this part of the ship have access to it, and the physical books live on these shelves, so I figured it made sense to stay here."
She knows where the medical library is located, of course, but she is nonetheless struggling to get her head around this development.
"Why did you want access to the medical library?" She asks, still flummoxed. Confusion is not her natural state, and she doesn't like it.
"So I can help." He explains, as if it is obvious. "You were right, I'm not going to be much help healing Madi while I know nothing about medicine. I'm a soldier who likes telling stories about heroes, not a doctor. But I figure she can stay in cryosleep indefinitely if she needs to so I've got the rest of my life to teach myself medicine."
She is sorely tempted to laugh. It is the most Bellamy idea she can imagine – the combination of big heart and bookishness - and it makes her want to give him another hug, for all that she's still at least a little angry with him. It's completely illogical yet utterly thoughtful, and she's not entirely sure how to go about responding.
"You realise that's a ridiculous plan?" She asks him in the end, trying not to sound too critical despite her choice of words.
"Of course I do. I'm not actually an idiot. But I figured it was about the only way I had of showing you I'm serious about earning your forgiveness. And if I do end up learning anything useful, that's even better."
"Have you learnt anything useful?"
"Nothing. Nothing at all." He spreads his hands in a gesture of despair. "I've learnt a lot about the structure of a skeleton, and about ways to treat malaria, but I'm no closer to knowing how to perform complex surgery than I ever was. All I've got is the idea that we start by putting her under with Monty's algae, but after that -"
"What did you just say?"
"Ways to treat malaria?"
"No, Bellamy. About algae." She shakes her head as realisation dawns. She cannot believe she missed this for so long. "Monty's algae. We can use it to induce coma."
"Yeah. Of course we can. But after that -"
"Don't worry about after that." She cuts him off. "Jackson and my mum and I are more than capable of dealing with what happens next. I've spent weeks trying to find an anaesthetic and of course it was right there all along."
"That's great, then." He leaps to his feet. "I'll go tell Monty to start brewing a batch."
"Thanks." She says quietly, still grappling with the fact she failed to come up with that idea herself.
"What is it, Clarke? Why don't you look happier?" He asks, reading her mood like one of his books.
"I don't know what's wrong with me." She admits, to her shame. "I used to make sensible choices. I used to be able to solve problems like this. And I don't -"
"She's your child." He reminds her, tone firm but warm. "Of course you're not at your best while her injury is upsetting you. But you're still you, and just as soon as we patch her up you're going to be your usual self."
"I'm upset because her injury involves you, too." She concedes, eyes fixed on the floor. "I never think straight when you're involved. Remember that bunker door?"
"Of course I remember that." He agrees, crossing the space between them and crouching by her side. He's not touching her, not quite, but he's close enough to make her feel less alone.
"Yeah?"
"I'll always remember it." He swallows. "I hate being at odds with you like that. Like this."
"I hate it, too." She tells him.
Then she flees, and calls Monty, and leaves Bellamy squatting by her empty chair.
…...
Her despair eases a little after that. She can breathe again, knowing that they have a plan, that they will be able to operate just as soon as Monty's first culture algae is ready and Raven ferries it up to them. Raven promises she'll bring Jackson, too, explaining haltingly that she thinks Jackson will be better able to help with surgery right now than Abby would, and that Clarke should speak to her mother when all this is through.
Clarke files that odd message away for consideration at a later date. She has quite enough things to fall apart over, right now, without falling apart over her mother's mysterious absence, too.
She's holding it together better than she was before, though, so that's something. Most of all she can feel that conversation she had with Bellamy slowly sinking in, as she accepts that losing her head every now and then is not tantamount to losing her identity. She's still a leader, even if there's no one to lead right now, on this deserted spaceship in peacetime. She's still a solver of problems, even if that one problem passed her by in a moment of distress. She's solved problems whilst distressed before now, of course, but in all fairness she has never previously been this distressed.
And she still loves Madi - and Bellamy, too, even if they're going through a rough patch just this moment. That's always been one of the things that makes Clarke who she is, and she feels a lot more secure in herself now that she's remembered it.
She feels a lot more secure, too, now that she's on better terms with Bellamy.
"Thanks for breakfast." She greets him, this morning, as he arrives in med bay. She's not sure why they still base themselves in this part of the ship, now that the anaesthetic problem is solved, but there is comfort in the familiarity of this chair that has become hers.
"No problem. Monty called while I was up that end of the ship. He says the algae is doing well. He thinks it'll be ready in about five days."
"That's great news." Clarke feels herself truly smile for the first time in weeks. "I'll call him later and say thanks myself."
"Yeah, do that. He said Raven wants to tell you some news, but he's pretty certain that it's just to say Emori moved back in with Murphy at last."
"You just ruined her news." She points out, feeling strangely buoyant.
"I know, but I'm happy for them so I wanted to tell you." He concentrates hard on eating his porridge for a moment, and her heart goes out to him. It's not easy on either of them, she knows, this regret that lingers heavily in the air in between them.
"Thanks." She murmurs. "It's good to know they're happy."
He nods, with visible difficulty. She wants to do something about it, but she doesn't know what. She's not ready to talk about forgiveness, yet, and she knows that's what he needs to hear. So it is that they eat in oppressive silence for the rest of the meal.
It is Bellamy who stands up first. He heads for the door, cradling his breakfast bowl with more care than she thinks is really required, gaze fixed on anything and everything that isn't her.
That's why she decides to say it.
"We'll be happy one day, Bellamy. I promise."
He keeps walking, but she knows he heard her. She can read it in the way his shoulders grow limp in relief, and in the way he brushes a hand across his eyes as he goes.
…...
He wasn't actually holding the sword.
She's still stuck on that sentence. She fixates on the way he takes every mistake he ever makes to heart, the hours she has spent in the past trying to help him bear the guilt he feels for the unintended consequences of his actions.
Madi's injury was an unintended consequence.
Somehow it seems that, these days, her thoughts constantly revolve around that.
She always presumed that she'd forgive him when Madi was better. But she realises now that it is not true forgiveness, if she does that. If she only forgives him because that unintended consequence has been erased, then is she really forgiving him?
The more she looks back over their history together, the more she realises it is always like that between them. She forgave him for the culling, after he helped find the radio, and set of the flares, and it had become yesterday's news. She forgave him for the massacre of the grounders, because he handed over Pike.
She's tired of it. She's tired of forgiving him only after the problem has been solved. It rings hollow, somehow, and feels cheap, to say that he's only worthy of forgiveness once each mistake no longer has relevance.
This time, she resolves, it will be different.
Jackson is due to arrive with the algae in three days. Then there will be several hours of surgery, and then there will be a positive outcome. She is absolutely determined that Madi will survive this, and is not interesting in considering any other outcome.
She has three days, then, to forgive Bellamy.
"We should talk." She tells him, taking a seat by his side as he watches over Madi's cryopod.
For once in his life, he does not argue with her assertion. "Go for it."
"I don't want be angry with you any more." She tells him, in an uncanny echo of conversations they have held in days gone by. "I want to understand. Can you tell me why you did it?"
He sighs, and leans back on his hands, and she gets the impression that his explanation will not be brief.
"I wasn't much good at being you, Clarke. I'd spent six years trying to take your role in the group as well as my own, if that makes sense? And I couldn't do it. I couldn't balance out the head and the heart. Whenever I tried to use my head, I ended up shutting off my feelings altogether." He takes a shaky breath. "I spent a lot of time shutting off my feelings when I thought you were dead. It was – it was hard." She reaches out to lay a hand over his, and he continues speaking. "When I had the choice to put the flame in Madi, that's what was happening. I thought it made sense, because it would save everyone. And I was desperate for a way to save you. I'd only just got you back and I couldn't lose you again, but I guess that's what I ended up doing anyway."
"You haven't lost me." She reassures him quietly.
"No?"
"No. I really do want to understand."
"I genuinely thought I was doing the right thing." He tells her helplessly. "I thought it was the only choice, and I thought it would solve all our problems. I didn't realise it would create more. I think that's what makes me a monster most of all – I was so convinced I was doing the right thing I barely stopped to consider that she's your daughter. I'm so sorry for the way things turned out, Clarke, and for betraying your trust."
She keeps silence for a while, but she knows she owes it to him to say what's on her mind eventually.
"Thanks for explaining, Bellamy. I'd like some time alone before we carry on this conversation."
"Of course. Want me to leave you with her?" He asks, with a gesture at Madi's sleeping form.
"Please." She nods, brushing away the tears that are beginning to fall.
He squeezes her shoulder once, and then he is gone.
…...
She reflects on his words for a while, but not for very long. Now that she's actually managed to hear him out, it doesn't take her very long at all to acknowledge that he really is sorry, and that he genuinely did think he was making the right choice. And as for him being a monster - well, she dismisses that idea out of hand.
It takes her much longer to decide what to say to him. So she just sits with Madi for the evening, and tells her a few more stories of the Bellamy she used to know on the ground, and wonders why she still visits her daughter like this. She used to do it to keep herself sane, she's pretty sure, and to have some semblance of human contact while she couldn't bring herself to speak to Bellamy.
She gets it, then. It comes to her, in a rush, all at once – she knows what she wants to say to him.
He brings their supper to Madi's bedside, because of course he does. They sit side by side, and eat, and Clarke prepares to bare her soul.
"It wasn't just because it was Madi." That's how she decides to start, in the end.
"What do you mean?"
"I wasn't only hurt because she's my daughter. I was also hurt because you're you." She takes a steadying breath, and sets down her spoon, and clasps her hands for strength. "It really hurt, because I couldn't believe someone I cared about the way I care about you would betray my trust like that. It hurt because – because you got me through those six years, Bellamy." She's starting to feel dizzy with fear, now, but she forces herself to keep speaking. "I called you on the radio every day. Those calls were what kept me sane, and gave me hope for the future. And then you came back and – and did that. And it wasn't just what you did to Madi, it was more than that. Everything about the way you came back with a new family made me feel like you weren't the Bellamy I remembered, and that made me overreact and lash out."
"I always was the only person who could get you to overreact." He muses quietly, pulling her into a hug because he's a mind reader, it seems, and knows that's what she needs even though she never said it.
"Apart from Madi." Clarke corrects him with a damp smile.
"Of course." He squeezes her a little tighter. "Thank you for telling me all that. I don't know what to say, Clarke, except that I'm sorry."
"I forgive you." The words slip easily off her tongue and into the crook of his neck as she embraces him.
"Clarke." He pulls back, surprised and a little annoyed, by the sound of it, and looks her in the eye. "You don't have to -"
"I'm not saying it because I have to. I'm saying it because I want to, and because it's the truth. I forgive you, for all of it. You didn't mean for anything to happen to Madi, so we're good." She tells him firmly.
"We're good? Just like that?" He looks completely incredulous, and she can't say she blames him.
"We're not back to normal." She acknowledges reluctantly. "That'll take us a while. But I forgive you, and I want us to be good."
"I want that, too." He murmurs.
In the interests of them being good, she figures there's something she needs to get off her chest. "I'm sorry for what I said on that first day here. About you being a monster, and about your mum. I crossed a line. But most of all, I was wrong. Your mum would be so proud of the lengths you go to for the people you love."
"Family is important to me." He mutters.
"And you're the furthest thing from a monster." She concludes, as he pulls her back into his chest.
They sit like that for a while, and it's pretty lovely, Clarke decides. It's been too long since she had a proper Bellamy hug, and this is one of their best, she thinks - it has a feeling of victory snatched from the jaws of defeat about it. She knows that her supper still needs eating, but that can wait for another time.
At last, he breaks the silence.
"There's something that I never understood. Would it be OK if I asked about it?"
She nods a yes against his neck.
"How did Madi ever convince you to turn back for me? Driving off into the desert and keeping her safe was obviously the smart move. You didn't know whether you'd be able to save me and you knew it would be dangerous. Why come back?"
Clarke genuinely considers not answering him, but only for half a heartbeat. And it certainly never occurs to her to lie about it.
"She reminded me I loved you." She says, not quite sure whether that's the right tense.
She feels him let out a long sigh. "Then I'm sorry I screwed that up."
"You'd already given her the flame at that point." She reminds him cautiously.
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that you'd already given her the flame by then, but I still loved you enough to turn back for you. I think we can work this out."
"I hope so."
"We will." She promises him. "We're going to be happy, remember?"
…...
The surgery is unpleasant. Of course it is. But she's Clarke Griffin, and with Bellamy's help she's starting to remember what it really means to be Clarke Griffin, so she rolls up her sleeves and sews up her daughter's stomach and her hands do not even shake.
She's proud of herself, and it's a long time since she felt that way.
Bellamy's proud of her, too. He tells her that as they sit at Madi's bedside and wait for her to wake up. Jackson and Raven stay as well, and this is the closest Clarke has felt to happiness in years, she decides. The operation went to plan, and Madi is set to make a full recovery.
Her relationship with Bellamy is also set to make a full recovery – or perhaps they are already half way there.
They hold hands as they sit and watch Madi. Raven quirks an eyebrow at the sight of it, but she asks no difficult questions. She simply gets on with telling them news from the ground. Jackson is quieter, because he is Jackson, but he smiles plenty and says that Miller is well and Abby will be glad to see them in a few days, so that is worth hearing, too.
When Madi starts blinking, Clarke drops Bellamy's hand and shoots to her bedside.
"Madi?"
"Clarke." Her daughter is already wearing that grin she has missed so much. "You're here."
"Of course I'm here. I love you."
"I love you too." Madi rolls her eyes only slightly, then looks beyond her shoulder. "Bellamy? Is that you? Are you OK? Did it work? Did we -?"
"Madi, calm down. You've just been through surgery." Clarke cautions her gently, as Bellamy gets to his feet and joins them.
"I'm fine, kid." He reassures her. "I'm sorry I dragged you into this."
"It's OK. We saved you, that's what counts. And now you're here!" Madi crows, plainly ignoring her mother's medical advice. "Are you guys good again? Are you staying, Bellamy? Did you confess your love and get together properly at last?"
Clarke ignores the sound of Raven and Jackson smothering giggles in the background at Madi's overexcited impertinence. She concentrates, instead, on the warmth of Bellamy's gaze as she meets his eyes and he gives her a tiny nod, silent permission to answer the question however the hell she wants to go about it.
"We're working on it, Madi. It's not as simple as that. But we're going to be very happy together."
"Of course you are." Madi shakes her head, as if deciding her mother has lost her mind. "That's obvious. That's the moral of all those bedtime stories, remember?"
For the first time since she changed her mind in that desert, Clarke allows herself to believe that her daughter might be right.
…...
There was a moment, there, in those darkest days, when Clarke lost hope. She thought she would never live to see the day when she'd forgive herself for turning back to save Bellamy's life.
But she knows better, now. She knows that she can survive anything the world might throw at her, as long as the people she loves are safe and well. She knows that they will have a fresh start, in this modest patch of green, and that they will flourish in their new life together as a family.
And she knows, better even than she knows her own name, that they will be thoroughly and absolutely happy.
a/n Thanks for reading!