a/n Here's another chapter, and here's some more gratitude for Stormkpr's betaing skills. Happy reading!
Content note at end (with spoilers).
Bellamy feels somewhat better when he's showered and shaved, and is wearing a clean change of clothes. He imagines having that long overdue catch up with Clarke will make even more of an impact, but for now, this is a start.
He wonders about doing something with his hair, too. As he looks self-consciously in the bathroom mirror, and tries to ignore the strangers staring at him as they come and go from the showers, he doesn't much like what he sees. Sure, he still looks more or less fit and healthy. But he looks tired and worried, not at all like that confident young guy who first landed here. He used to feel pretty smug about his looks, he seems to remember.
He can't imagine feeling smug about much at all any time soon.
This T shirt fits him pretty well. He's almost annoyed by that – he likes them to stretch a little bit over his arms, used to take pride in being well-built around the shoulders. But maybe that month in the bunker hasn't been great for his muscle mass. And yeah, the hair is annoying him most of all. Even freshly washed, it sort of hangs there, long and limp, not curling the way he's used to seeing.
He shakes himself. It doesn't matter. He's supposed to be surviving a nuclear disaster, not worrying about his appearance. But it's an odd experience, reuniting with the love of his life after an emotional month apart. It's much easier to fixate on wondering whether she finds him attractive than to dwell on the guilt he feels for abandoning her to cope here without him.
He forces himself to leave the bathroom and head down the hall. The sooner he finds Clarke, the sooner he can figure out what's wrong.
It's late evening now, since the journey took most of the day, so he heads to the dorm he has been told his friends are sharing. That seems like a sensible place to look for someone just before bed time. Only Clarke's not there when he arrives – Madi is asleep with Miller watching over her, and Raven is reading something on a tablet whilst lounging on a nearby bed. He doesn't recognise anyone else in the room – he thinks they might be Podakru, based on the tattoos.
"Is Clarke about?" He whispers in the general direction of Raven and Miller.
Miller shrugs apologetically. Raven shakes her head.
"She's in the office. End of this hallway then turn right. It's not far."
Typical Clarke, he thinks wryly – living in a dorm that's so close to her workplace. It's as if she can't bear the thought of taking longer than ten seconds to respond to an emergency.
He nods, and wonders about getting on his way. But it occurs to him that this is a good chance to start finding out what he's missed, and from the two people in this bunker who know Clarke best, probably. If anyone has any idea what's going on with her, surely it is Raven or Miller?
"Do you know what's up with Clarke?" He asks, trying to keep it light, as if he's just asking about a grazed knee. "She seems a bit distant."
Raven nods, frowning deeply. "It's been tough, Bellamy. You've seen how crowded it is in here. And she's had fights to settle every other day – she's always on edge and pretending not to be. I tried talking to her about it, but she wouldn't let her guard down. Not to mention she's adopted herself a grieving kid." She concludes in a whisper, looking fondly at Madi.
Huh. Even Raven is fond of Madi. Bellamy never thought he'd see the day when Raven would gaze so softly at a friend's child.
He supposes Raven has said more or less what he expected her to say. It's been incredibly stressful, and tense, and Clarke has been trying to bear it all alone whilst simultaneously turning herself inside out to take care of everyone around her. That sounds about right.
But Miller has one more thought to add.
"I didn't try as hard as I should have done to talk to her. There didn't seem much point. We all knew it was you she wanted to talk to – she's still sleeps with that radio, you know."
Bellamy blinks, startled. That must be an exaggeration, he thinks. Sure, she might have held onto the radio for the sake of comfort and nostalgia. But the idea that she sleeps with it? That's ridiculous. It defies sense. And Clarke is all about good sense.
He needs to get out of here. He needs to go find Clarke and help her out. He shucks his pack from his shoulders, grabs one of the blankets Clarke gave him back at Arkadia before his misadventure. He lays it gently over Madi, because he figures they're basically family now – and besides which, he doesn't like the thought of a young child shivering with only one thin blanket.
And then he sets out down the hallway in search of Clarke.
…...
Clarke tries not to stare too hard when Bellamy walks into the room.
She mostly fails.
She understands the phrase a sight for sore eyes, now. The sheer relief she feels on seeing him is almost as bright as what she felt when he first came down that ladder earlier this evening – she's still adjusting to the fact he really is here. And this time he's clean and looks heart-lurchingly good, too. He's shaved and he's smiling at her broadly and yeah, sure, he looks a little tired and has lost a bit of weight, but in this moment she could swear he's the most beautiful sight she's ever seen.
She stops staring and starts hugging him. That seems like a more useful idea. She flings her arms about his neck, buries her nose in his chest, toys with the ends of his hair with her fingers.
"You could use a hair cut." She thinks out loud.
He stiffens in her arms. "Yeah. Sorry. I wondered -"
"Why are you sorry?" She asks, but she doesn't wait for him to answer. "I can try trimming it while we talk, if you like?"
He pulls away and frowns at her, hard. "Have you cut hair before?"
She shrugs. "A couple of kids back at the dropship. And my own the other month."
He hesitates a moment longer. He's staring a little too intently at her face, and she's not sure she likes it.
And then all at once he's shrugging and sinking into a chair.
"Go for it. I trust you."
She grins. But then the reality sinks in, and she finds herself biting her lip instead. Does she really trust herself to do this? Does she have the self-control to touch Bellamy's hair for the next ten minutes without letting her emotions show on her face?
No. It's OK. That doesn't matter. This is Bellamy – she's allowed to let him see how she really feels.
She grabs a pair of scissors from the desk, puts an ugly throw from the couch round Bellamy's shoulders. If there's one thing she finds odd about Bill Cadogan, it's his taste in decor. This bunker has an odd mixture of cultish symbolism and strange fashions that feel too much like cultural appropriation, and she's not at all upset at the thought of ruining this particular throw. She has a feeling that Cadogan was probably a rather unlikable guy, all in all. But she supposes he did accidentally save the human race, so maybe she shouldn't speak ill of the dead.
She combs her fingers through Bellamy's hair for a few moments before she gets to work. That's a highly necessary place to begin, of course – she needs to work through any knots. But she thinks that maybe it's doing them both good just to have this quiet moment together, too.
Sure enough, she can feel him relaxing beneath her fingertips. He starts leaning into her hands a little more, and she can hear his breathing slow down.
"You OK?" She asks softly.
He chuckles self consciously. "Yeah. That just feels really good."
She grins, pleased with his honesty. She can think of other ways to make him feel good, later tonight, if they manage to find a moment's peace and privacy. But for now he needs a haircut, and then she needs to go check in on her daughter.
She catches that thought a moment too late. It's as if she's just gone ahead and presumed they're getting together, now. It's like she's taking it as a given that they are a couple, and that sex is on the cards, and that they're going all in.
Whatever. It's probably true anyway. She lets it slide.
She takes her scissors and gets to work on the haircut, deciding that moderately sharp desk scissors will have to do the job well enough. But even now, she keeps combing through his hair with her fingers frequently, sometimes pauses to rub lightly at his scalp.
"I thought you were offering me a haircut, not a head massage." He teases.
"You looked like you needed someone to take care of you for a minute." She admits honestly.
He jerks his head a little, but she doesn't cut his ear. She's not totally incompetent at this. She gives him a moment to collect himself and decide what it is he needs to say.
"Thanks, Clarke." He opts for in the end. Just that – simple and honest.
She hums a little, keeps working on his haircut. This is really lovely. It's the quietest moment she's had this month by quite some margin. And it's so reassuring to have her hands on Bellamy's hair like this, feel him solid and warm beneath her fingertips. It makes her believe once and for all that he really has come back to her alive.
"What's it been like here?" He asks her the question plainly, but his voice is too soft for it to sound abrupt.
She considers her answer. She knows she can tell him the truth – or rather, she knows that there is no problem with him hearing the truth. She's just not sure she has the words to make a good job of it.
"Difficult." She says, in the end.
"Yeah? Which parts were difficult?"
She gives a hollow laugh. "All of it. All the people. It's like I'm... on call all the time. No, it's worse than that. It's like I'm on display all the time. I can't ever just let my guard down and be human like – like I can with you."
"I'm sorry. I'm back now. But people will probably get suspicious if we keep holing up here so you can cut my hair."
She laughs, and she knows that was his intention. "I think it's a bit late for that, Bellamy. Everyone in this bunker already seems to think we're a couple."
"That doesn't surprise me." He says, and he sounds completely unconcerned.
Huh. So he's in no hurry to deny the idea. That's an interesting development, she thinks. Maybe she was right – maybe this really is happening.
Whether it's happening or not, their friendship comes first. Supporting him will always be her priority. So as she keeps snipping carefully through his curls, she asks her own question in turn.
"How was it with your sister?"
"Really good, actually." He answers at once, voice warm. "I know we're still not perfect. We don't fit together as comfortably as we did when we were kids, you know? I guess probably we never will. But she's trying. And she seemed more... self aware about the screwed up parts of our relationship."
"Yeah? How do you mean?" She prompts, moving round to make a start on those curls that ought to fall across his forehead.
He sucks in a breath. "I mean she realised I want more than to spend my whole life driving round in circles after her. That maybe I want my own life, rather than to always be protecting other people."
"I want that for you too." She says simply.
"I know." His eyes flicker up to meet hers from beneath his too-long curls. "Thanks, Clarke. I think – it's you who made me see that was OK."
She smiles at him, gives up on pretending this conversation isn't making tears gather in her eyes. She feels a couple of them trickle down her cheeks – no very surprising consequence of learning how to let her feelings show again after a month of holding them bottled up inside.
Bellamy's there, of course. He's always there when she needs him, apart from on those horrific occasions when the Earth conspires to keep them apart. But he's here, now, hand cupped around her cheek, thumb wiping up those stray tears.
"You're OK." He whispers fervently.
She nods, because actually, she is.
"Yeah. Thanks, Bellamy. Thanks for reminding me I'm allowed to be only human."
He laughs gently. "I think you're more superhuman, actually. But if ever you need a break, feel free to invite me for another dodgy haircut."
"It's not dodgy." She protests ineffectually. "It's looking pretty good, actually. I think I'm about done."
"Looking pretty good?" He prompts.
She flushes. "You know how you look. Don't make me say it again."
"Don't worry. I think you -"
The door bursts open, then. Of course it does – the pair of them can never catch a break. Clarke spins on the spot, glad that she was finished cutting Bellamy's hair and didn't hurt him with the scissors when she jumped. She hears Bellamy sigh loudly, and tries not to wonder what that means.
She doesn't have time to wonder what that means. Indra is standing on the threshold, with Jaha of all people at her shoulder.
"What's going on?" Clarke asks, flustered and over half way to alarmed.
"Jaha has news." Indra says darkly.
Yes. Clarke imagines it must have been pretty damn important news, to make him come over here to a bunker full of grounders who are still suspicious of him for his role in the City of Light. She notes at least that it can't be news about the destruction of Arkadia – he's alive, and appears perfectly well.
"Clarke. You might want to sit down." Jaha says softly.
She does. She does sit down, because she knows what that sentence means. She knows that means something has happened to someone she loves – something bad.
And the only person in Arkadia that she feels that strongly about? It has to be her mother.
As she sinks into the couch, she notices that Bellamy seems to have shrugged off his haircut throw and taken her hand. That's kind of him, she thinks in a detached sort of way. He's a good guy.
Sure enough, when she is sitting comfortably, Jaha breaks the news.
"Your mother isn't well, Clarke. It's serious, but she's alive and stable right now. I came here because I knew you would want to know, but also because we don't have a doctor to treat her when she's the one who's sick. Niylah's doing her best."
"Can you tell me more about her condition?" Clarke asks, trying to sounds more pragmatic than panicky. "What's wrong with her?"
"I couldn't say. I'm no doctor." He says, eyes sliding away in a move that leaves Clarke pretty convinced he's lying. And really, she thinks, he wouldn't need to be a doctor to be able to give her just the name of an illness to prepare her for what she's dealing with.
So it's something serious, but that he doesn't want to tell her here and now. What on Earth could that be?
She tries to think this through. Bellamy's still here, still at her side, still squeezing her hand. Kind. He's a good guy.
"I'll come back to Arkadia and see what treatment she needs. Maybe I can advise Niylah. Because we can't have Jackson go – he's needed here. And – and I want to see her."
"I'll drive you in the morning." Bellamy offers at once. "We can't drive now – the battery won't last the whole way in the dark. And you shouldn't drive yourself while you're worrying about your mum."
"Clarke can come with me. I brought the rover." Jaha counters.
"Bellamy's right. We should bring a second rover otherwise we'll be stuck at Arkadia without transport back again." She says, hoping against hope that this situation will be easily resolved and they will be able to get on with settling their people up on the surface.
That's not the only reason she thinks Bellamy should drive a second rover, of course. She also thinks that going to visit her sick mother might be rather more bearable with him by her side.
She forces herself to think a little more deeply. There's more going on here than just her family and one illness.
"How are things at Arkadia otherwise? How's the fertiliser project coming along?"
"We're all alive and well. Monty's team say that they're making progress, but it's not ready yet."
She nods. That's about what she was expecting. A few more weeks or months struggling on in their various refuges. And now a sick mother to worry about, too. How the hell is she supposed to -
"Let's get this office cleaned up." Bellamy says gently, gesturing at the hair clippings that have tumbled to the floor where he dropped his makeshift shawl. "Clarke and I can do that. Indra, could you find Jaha something to sleep on? And then we'll be on our way in the morning."
She's never been more grateful for him in her life than she is in this moment – and that's saying something. She watches, silent, as Indra herds Jaha back out of the room. And then she turns to Bellamy with a shaky smile.
"Thanks."
"No problem. Figured you might want to take a quiet moment. I'll get the rubbish."
He gets started right away, sweeping hair up with his hands and into the bin. They've made a real mess, Clarke notes, but she's not sure she cares. It was worth it for how much that haircut straightened out the mess in both of their minds, she's pretty sure. She doesn't sit around and watch, because she thinks that keeping moving, being useful, will help her out right now. So she combs the hair off that ugly throw as best as she can, then leaves it folded in a corner with a vague notion of putting it in the laundry.
"I think I'm OK. I think we should go to bed." She says when they've run out of chores.
"Sure." He nods, squeezes her to his side in a quick half a hug.
She's doing OK, really, she decides as they walk down the hallway. Yes, she's very worried about her mum. But at least she can let that worry out, now, by talking to Bellamy about it or taking a quiet moment with him in the office. She doesn't feel like she has to bottle it up inside. And she finds that she's actually looking forward to getting back to the dorm, seeing her friends and Madi most of all. Madi is a person she loves who is alive and well, and that's a comforting thought.
The dorm is even more cramped that night. Indra seems to have produced a few more sets of bedding from goodness only knows where, such that the floor is a near-continuous mess of blankets and mattresses. Jackson appears to have given up his real bed to Jaha, and opted to join Miller on a cramped pallet on the floor. Clarke grins at that – the pair of them seem only too happy to share a confined space.
Madi has spent the last month sleeping on the mattress that ought to have been Bellamy's. Clarke wonders if she's supposed to move things around, share a bed with the girl. Or are they all just supposed to squish up together on this mass of adjoining bedding that Indra has laid out?
"Where do you sleep?" Bellamy asks her softly, voice pitched low so as not to wake up their sleeping roommates.
She points at her bed.
He nods. He steps over Miller's left leg, dodges Octavia's outstretched hand. And then he simply sinks straight onto her bed, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.
She stares, stunned, for a second or two. Is this it? Do they share a bed now, as they have been edging towards sharing a life for the last few months? Is she supposed to just slip under the blankets at his side without comment?
He must sense her hesitation.
"Is this OK?" He checks.
"Yeah. Just – uh. Do you ever wish we could get a drink together first?"
"Yes." He says, short and decisive. "Definitely. That's what I've spent the last month wishing for. But for now let's focus on sleep and your mum. We'll get that drink sooner or later – I'll make sure of it."
She allows herself a small smile. She believes him, when he says it like that. She believes that there are good things in their future, no matter how grim the present may be.
She heads over to join him on her bed. She leans over to stroke Madi's hair for a second, checks in on the sound of her daughter's breathing. That's one of her biggest comforts, these days – to listen to this little girl her life now revolves around taking steady breaths.
And then she simply lies down and tugs the blankets up, as if sleeping next to Bellamy is a perfectly normal occurrence.
He seems to think it's nothing to make a fuss about. He appears completely calm as he arranges the blanket to his liking, and wriggles a little to get comfortable. Clarke has never tried to share a pillow with anyone before – it's hardly been a feature of her hurried hookups or brief teenage relationships. But it turns out there's not a lot of space on a pillow, and she can feel his warm breath on the back of her neck.
She can feel his arm settling around her waist.
"Go to sleep, Clarke. Stop thinking so hard." He whispers against her skin.
She huffs out a noise, somewhere between a giggle and sigh. She relaxes right back into his embrace. She even gets brave enough to reach down to where his hand is sitting politely against her stomach and cover it with her own fingers.
"It's so good to have you back." She murmurs into the darkness.
"You, too."
She thinks that's an interesting response. As far as she can see, he never really lost her – he knew for almost certain sure that she would be physically fine, in this bunker. But it warms her heart to think that he still considered her missing, as long as she wasn't by his side.
There are all sorts of reasons why she should be tense, tonight. Her mother is seriously ill, and Jaha won't say what's wrong with her. And there are still the everyday tensions of leading all these people – fights and rations and the question of what the hell happens next.
But she's used to not knowing what happens next. That's life on the ground. And suddenly it all seems rather more bearable, with Bellamy here to share the load.
That's her last thought, before sleep claims her.
…...
Bellamy is briefly confused when he drifts into wakefulness with the smell of floral shampoo in his nostrils, and soft hair tickling his face and neck. This doesn't seem much like the tiny, stinky bunker he lives in.
Then the events of the previous day catch up with him, and he sighs in relief. This is real. He's here in Polis, and Clarke's doing OK, more or less. She's certainly making good use of the present he gave her, and that thought warms his heart. He's worried about how she'll cope with her mother's illness, but compared to some of the crises they've faced on the ground, things are looking almost good.
He knows they need to get up and face the day. He doesn't much want to, though. He didn't sleep at all well, that last night separated from Clarke.
She makes the decision for him, in the end. She's stirring in his arms, now, rolling over to face him.
Huh. Her lips are really very close, when they lie together like this.
No. This is not the moment he kisses her. He wants it to be their moment, damn it. He doesn't want some desperate messy snogging on the floor of an overcrowded dorm, with a bunch of friends and strangers looking on. He wants it to be all about treasuring Clarke, as well as taking something good for himself. They both deserve that, after so many months and even years of being taken for granted.
"We should get going." She points out, rather unnecessarily he thinks.
"Yeah."
He hesitates, just a heartbeat. He lets his hand linger at her waist for one last second.
And then he pulls away, sits up, prepares to face the day.
They make short work of grabbing some breakfast and packing their precious few personal belongings for the journey. He notices her slipping her small radio into her pack, and grins slightly. Maybe Miller wasn't so far wrong. Maybe he'll ask about that on the drive.
At least – he'll ask her about it on the drive if he gets to ask her anything. He's not so sure it'll turn out that they chat much, now he's really seen her interact with Madi while the girl is awake. She talks in Trig at a mile a minute while they get ready for their journey, and it's all a bit too much for Bellamy to follow. He can more or less get by in the language, but this is beyond his capabilities. And it makes him feel very left out and stupidly jealous.
He knows that's absurd. His closeness with Clarke is not really threatened by her having a child now. And anyway, he likes children and Madi seems great. He just needs to show Clarke that he still wants her in his life even if she comes with a kid in tow.
And he needs to practise his Trig. That too.
He acts on that resolution promptly. When they are in sight of the rover, he tries to make conversation with Madi.
"Have you ridden a Mountain Men horse before?" He asks, rather embarrassed at his stumbling for words, pointing at the rover and hoping she gets the picture.
She does get the picture. She grins at him, apparently delighted to have been asked the question. "No. Never. I want to see everything."
He's not sure whether she means she wants to see the view as they drive, or wants to know more about how it works. But he's on a mission to show kindness to the girl, and showing her around a rover seems like it will be easier than holding a protracted conversation.
He therefore gives her a quick tour, pointing out the solar panels and the steering wheel, the shifter and the brakes. He doesn't know the word for any of those things in Trig, so he uses it as an opportunity to teach her a little English, too. Between the two of the, hopefully they will meet in the middle sooner or later.
He wonders what Clarke is making of all this as she stands back and watches them. Maybe he'll ask her later – again, if he gets chance to ask her anything.
Eventually it seems Clarke decides they have spent enough time learning about rovers. She starts speaking to Madi again in full-speed Trig, and this time he picks out a question about who will sit where.
"I'll drive." He reminds her.
She nods, but clearly the question was not really for him. The question was for Madi, who chooses to sit in the back of the rover and lean out the window so she can see the world.
"You can't sit like that while we move. It's dangerous." He explains.
The child frowns.
"We'll go quickly."
She frowns more. Clarke bails him out, explains that it really is true that she mustn't hang over the back of the rover like that. Madi agrees with a great show of reluctance, and sits somewhat more sensibly.
Good. Co-parenting: step one achieved.
Bellamy goes to the driver's seat, leaves Clarke to choose where she will sit. He won't object if she wants to sit in the back with her daughter – he knows she feels protective of her.
Needless to say, he's thrilled when she chooses to sit up front with him instead.
It turns out to be a lovely drive, in as much as any drive through a post-apocalyptic wasteland can be lovely. Jaha parked his rover a little way away, so they do not even try to drive in convoy with him. They'll see him when they arrive at Arkadia. So it is just the three of them and the rover, as they drive steadily through the desert.
Bellamy makes the most of the opportunity to catch up with Clarke, after they were interrupted last night. And yes, sure, it's different, because she doesn't have her hand in his hair or her eyes on his lips right now.
Actually – she is staring at his mouth. He notices that when he peeks across at her.
But the point is, this is not such a physically intimate moment. It's an opportunity to catch up on a month's worth of missed conversations and unanswered questions. She tells him that the food in the Polis bunker was surprisingly good, he laughs with her about the toilet bucket in the bunker he shared with Octavia. He ends up mentioning almost everything that happened in the time they were apart – the workouts, the pencil collecting, the petty arguments and heartfelt reconciliations with his sister.
Everything except the radio calls.
She's the one who starts it, in the end. She's the one who raises the topic.
"I even tried the radio a couple more times after we got cut off. Crazy, huh? I just didn't want to face the fact I wasn't going to be able to speak to you for at least a month."
"It's not crazy." He says easily, because he knows how utterly essential it feels to do a thing like that. He knows, because he's been there.
"You don't think so?"
"No. I did the same thing a few times, I guess." He has his eyes fixed carefully on the road as he gathers his courage. "I noticed you packed the radio this morning, too. I guess it's only fair I tell you I've got mine on me as well."
"Really? You have? Even though they still don't work?"
"Yeah." He swallows. "It stopped being about whether it would work, and started being about keeping myself sane."
He sees out of the corner of his eye as she turns her head to look at him. He takes a risk, glances up, sees her thoughtful expression.
"It was like that for me too." She admits cautiously.
"Yeah? That seems fair. I hope it helped?"
"Better than nothing."
"Yeah. I actually called you just yesterday morning, you know? We couldn't get this thing started at first and I was losing it a little." He tries for a chuckle, but it doesn't quite work out for him.
"As recently as that?" She asks, and her voice sounds funny.
He nods, jaw tense.
All at once, she's letting out a relieved laugh. "I called you yesterday morning, too. When we couldn't get the door open. I – I might have told a bit of a white lie, just now. I think I've called you pretty much every day since we lost contact."
"Me too. Don't know if you figured this out yet, but you're kind of important to me."
He turns to look at her, brows raised. She's rolling her eyes slightly, but she's also reaching across to rest her hand on top of his where it sits on the shifter, so he figures he can't have overstepped too badly.
The moment is broken, of course. That's the story of their lives, isn't it? It's not Jaha and Indra this time. It's a large crow taking off right in front of them, startling Bellamy and making him swerve six feet to the left.
He rights his course. Clarke gives a relieved sigh, although he's disappointed to note that she seems to have reclaimed her hand.
Madi gives an incongruously delighted laugh at all the excitement. She seems like a game kid, that one.
…...
Clarke goes to see her mother almost the second the rover stops moving, asking Bellamy to take care of Madi while she's gone. She knows he will do as she asks, trusts that her daughter will be safe with him while she worries about her mother's health. She watched him trying to make conversation with her this morning, after all. He couldn't have made it more plain that he's happy to spend time with the child.
The scene in med bay is as she expected from Jaha's warning. Her mother is unconscious, but her vitals don't look too bad. They don't exactly look good either – but she's not dying this minute, and compared to your average Earth disaster, that's basically a success story.
Niylah's there, and Clarke gets on with asking her questions.
"What happened? What's wrong with her?"
Niylah doesn't beat about the bush. Clarke has always liked her plain-speaking manner. "It's those painkillers she was taking for her headaches. She kept taking them. And then she overdosed three days ago. I didn't really know what to do – Kane suggested that we should keep giving her a lower dose. We were worried about withdrawal."
"You did the right thing." Clarke assures her right away. "I'll have to figure out how fast to wean her off them. That's safer than stopping them all at once."
Niylah nods. "Apart from that I've just kept her on fluids and – and hoped for the best, really."
Clarke pulls her old friend into a warm hug. Niylah looks pretty frightened, and that's something Clarke hasn't often seen before. She supposes that the pressure of trying to keep alive their only doctor is not a light burden to bear.
"You did good here, Niylah. Really. Go get some rest."
She watches as Niylah flees from the room, looking both exhausted and relieved. And then she sets about figuring out what the hell she's going to do.
The first part is the easier part, really. She did enough of her medical apprenticeship to be reasonably confident in weaning her mother off the drugs and keeping her safe and comfortable. At least, she knows how to do that in a way that will keep her physically safe – she has much less idea whether her mother has the mental resilience to stay clean, amidst all this chaos and loss, or how she will feel in herself when she is off the medication.
Those are problems for another time. The point is, she has a plan for handling her mother's addiction. That's one thing accomplished.
The next thing is much harder. Clarke needs to solve a few logistical problems. The way she sees it, she's going to have to stay here and care for her mother. Addictions are dangerous and complicated – she can't just leave Niylah with some instructions and then disappear back to Polis, without a working radio link. And anyway, the people of Arkadia are without a doctor while Abby is laid low. It's not fair on Niylah to expect her to deal with any other medical emergency that might arise in the meantime, and not fair on the people who would be left here with inadequate medical expertise to call on.
So Clarke needs to stay here. But she can't stay here, because she needs to be leading things in Polis.
She does what she instinctively wants to do. She talks it over with Bellamy. She finds a quiet moment with him, and blurts out all the possibilities in one nervous rush.
"I need to stay here, but I should be in Polis. I wondered about going back to Polis and taking her with me, but then there's no doctor here. And anyway, it doesn't seem fair to separate her from Kane when she's so sick. And he can't come with us, because Jaha shouldn't be left to lead here on his own. But then -"
"Clarke. Stop." He lays a hand on her arm. "You know what the answer is."
She thinks she might, actually. She thinks she might well know the answer, but it's an answer she doesn't much like.
She leaves it to Bellamy to say it. "You stay here with your mum. I'll go back to Polis. Between me and O I know we can cover for you well enough. We both work well with Indra, the grounders respect O. And our people there will follow me. And – we're not the worst team in the world."
She smiles sadly. "That's a good thing that's come out of all this. You and your sister working better together."
"Yeah." He squeezes her arm. "We'll be OK. Really. I know you feel like you have to do everything and take on the weight of the world. But this is something I can do for you, OK? Let me worry about the politics. You take care of your mum. That's your priority right now – I know you don't want to be worrying about the alliance."
"And you don't think it's cruel to separate us again?" She asks, thinking of what she just said about her mum and Kane.
"Of course I do. But we've faced worse, haven't we? And it won't be forever. Just until you're confident your mum can manage without you."
She nods. She leans into his side, and he understands that it's a wordless request for a hug. He wraps an arm tight around her shoulders, welcomes her into his embrace. She's pretty sure she could live a thousand lifetimes and never deserve this man. He's so steady and warm and supportive, and she thinks they balance each other perfectly.
Then again, she's probably a bit biased on that.
There's one last thing that's bothering her. She gathers her courage, takes strength from the weight of his arm around her.
"I want you to have a choice. That's all I've ever wanted for you, Bellamy. For you to be free to live your life as you choose. And this sucks, because I feel like I'm burdening you with my duty, too."
"I think I missed the meeting where we made the survival of the human race your duty." He says lightly. "You've ended up doing this because you're good at it, and because you care so much. But your people are not solely your responsibility, Clarke."
She leans closer into his side. She needed to hear that. She sort of objectively knew it was the truth, but she'd allowed herself to forget it, until she heard Bellamy say it, just then.
He's not done yet, though. "I'm choosing to do this. I promise. If I'm going to choose what to do with my life, one of the things I want to choose is making you happy. Or at least making you less sad."
She snorts without humour. He put that well, she thinks.
"I'd like to try that for you sometime. You know, I really can't wait to get that drink."
"Same."
The silence sits. And they sit comfortably in it, and practise being less sad together.
a/n Thanks for reading!
Content note: addiction and overdose.