a/n Huge thanks to everyone who has said encouraging things about this story so far! And thanks as ever to Stormkpr for betaing. Happy reading!
Something has changed in Bellamy's life, these last couple of days. It's been a pretty sudden change, and if someone had suggested such a thing to him last week he'd have been absolutely shocked. And yet, it has happened.
He's started dreading Clarke's radio calls.
It's not that he doesn't love her, or treasure her concern for him, or enjoy listening to the sound of her voice. It's just that she's started getting more overtly panicked about his wellbeing, as the death wave draws closer. And as a result she's started asking him to come home at least once most calls, and he can't really deal with that. Apart from anything else it scares him to hear Clarke, who is usually so controlled in her emotions, fretting over him so desperately. There was one call last night, as they were both heading to bed, where she even started weeping noisily as she told him she needed him in Polis.
That's something he was not prepared to deal with, to say the least.
As he wakes up this morning and prepares to face the day, he knows today's good morning call will be worse than any he has shared with her so far. The death wave is due tomorrow night, and time really is running out. If he knows Clarke half as well as he thinks he does, this will be the point where she breaks down and tries to order him to go safely to the Polis bunker.
He can't do that.
He can't give up now, because his sister is still out here somewhere. He's been searching Trishanakru land carefully since he got that clue in Polis, and sure enough, he has heard more whispers about Octavia's location along the way. Ever more people are telling him he's on the right track, pointing into the woods and telling him she's just beyond the next river crossing.
He makes a snap decision. He won't call Clarke, this morning. She'll call him in her own time, but there's no sense in inviting her anger and anxiety any sooner than he needs to.
He starts driving, tries not to think too much about that decision. He understands why Clarke is worried, of course he does. He'd be at least as frantic if she was out here. And clearly he's frantic about his sister – that's why he's still driving around this godforsaken patch of gradually irradiated woodland. He supposes it's kind of flattering or even moving that Clarke cares about him so much as to be pestering him to come home. No one has ever put his physical wellbeing above every other concern in the world quite so firmly as that before.
Sure enough, he's barely been underway an hour when she calls.
"Bellamy? Are you awake?"
"Yeah." He keeps it short, honest.
"Are you avoiding me?" She guesses, audibly hurt.
"Yeah." It's the truth, but it pains him to say it. "Not because – not... yeah. I don't think it's doing us any good to talk when I know all you'll say is some order to come back to Polis."
There's a heavy pause. He wonders if she's angry, whether maybe he shouldn't have put it so bluntly as that.
But then she breaks the silence.
"I'm not ordering you. I'm begging you." She chokes out the words.
He gasps in a shocked breath. He wasn't expecting that. He didn't mean to upset her so very much. "Clarke -"
"I get it, OK? I get it, and I said I'd support you. But I can't support this, Bellamy. I can't support you throwing your life away for her. Come back to Polis, please. I need you here. Maybe that's selfish of me, I don't know. But I think you deserve to live for yourself for once, too, rather than die for your sister."
He stops driving. He has to. He just stops the rover, right there, in the middle of the track, and rests his forehead tiredly on the steering wheel. He can't do this. He can't listen to Clarke mourn him when he's not even dead yet. And he can't talk, damn it, because there are tears in his eyes and clogging his throat.
"I'm sorry." For some reason Clarke is now apologising. "I know that – that was a lot. And last night, too. I know you never asked for me to be this... clingy."
With that, he finds his voice.
"I'll come back." He promises, shaky but sure. "I promise. I'll be there before you lock the door. I'm less than a day's drive away. I can look for her today and still make it back tomorrow. And then – then I'll come back to you." He swallows thickly. "Just – don't aplogise for caring, OK? It's – it means a lot. We're good."
"We are?" She echoes, sounding less than convinced.
"We are. I'll see you tomorrow. I promise."
He can almost taste that it's a lie the moment he says it.
…...
Clarke knows these will be the most hectic thirty-six hours of her life. That's probably a good thing, she figures. It means she cannot entirely fixate on worrying about Bellamy.
She starts with adjusting the lists of residents for each shelter. The nightblood has all been distributed now, so they have their final numbers and she can alter the lists accordingly. There will be significantly fewer people than she was allowing for, because so many of the grounders chose not to take the synthetic nightblood.
She tries not to take that personally. Faith is important to people, she knows. And it's something that a young blonde woman who fell out of the sky is not going to be able to change at short notice. So it's not a failing on her part that most of the religiously conservative residents of Shallow Valley did not choose to take the serum, for example, nor that there were a number of Sangedakru who refused. They will save everyone who wants to be saved – or everyone who was willing and able to rethink their religion quickly enough to be saved. In another life, she thinks, she would have liked to have had enough time to talk at length with those who refused the serum, try to understand their worldview and see if there was another way to save them. She knows that Indra and Gaia did a lot of work discussing the issues of synthetic nightblood with the grounders, and that it's largely thanks to them that so many will be saved.
She sighs. It can't be helped. She crosses hundreds of Liwouda Kliron Kru off the list for the Polis bunker.
Once she's fixed the list, there are the last few boxes to load into the rovers and ship to Polis. She goes to help with that right away, because it's urgent.
Also because she's not feeling brave enough to call Bellamy again.
No. There's no sense in dwelling on her concern for him, or her worry that she might have damaged their relationship with her excessively emotional displays in the last day or so. She's ashamed of herself for losing her cool with him. She's supposed to be capable of remaining calm and seeing her people through a crisis.
She meets Miller in the hangar bay, evidently already almost finished with loading the rovers.
"Bellamy's still out there?" He asks. She supposes he must read the worry on her face.
"Yes." She says shortly.
"He'll be back. He always is. You know him – loyal to a fault. He won't let you down."
That makes it worse, somehow. It makes her feel even more guilty for burdening Bellamy with her anxieties. But Miller is a good friend, and means well, so Clarke nods. She notes that the business of loading the rover appears to be all but done – in fact, it looks as though they will be ready to set out at any moment – so she goes to take her leave of her mother instead of hanging around to help.
She's not looking forward to saying goodbye to her mother. They've had a complicated relationship, since that oxygen fault was discovered. Sometimes on the same side, sometimes at odds. Sometimes doctor and apprentice, sometimes chancellor and rebel, sometimes leader and disapproving protester.
And yet always, somehow, mother and daughter.
Clarke knocks on the door of Abby's quarters, enters when she hears a call of welcome.
"Mum. Hey. We're about to leave."
Abby nods, carefully calm. Clarke supposes she must have been preparing for this moment. "Stay safe." She says, tone level.
Clarke nods in turn. "You too."
There's a pause. That wasn't a great goodbye, Clarke thinks. Is there more still to come? Or is this typical of the kind of dysfunctional relationship a mother and child have on the ground?
No. There's more. There's her mother falling forwards to wrap her in a fierce hug, holding her tight, voice heavy with emotion as she says something rather more personal.
"I love you, Clarke. I love you so much."
"Love you too, Mum." It's harder to say it than it ought to be, she thinks.
"You'll be OK. This isn't like sending you to the ground was. That bunker is safe and this time I know that your friends will take care of you." Clarke thinks she sounds like she's trying to convince herself more than anything. Or maybe it's a peace offering – an attempt to explain that she gets it, now. She understands that the younger generation are ready to take care of each other and their people through any crisis the ground can throw at them.
"We'll be fine." Clarke says, as she pulls away from the hug. "I hope everything runs OK here."
"I hope the structure is up to it." Abby says darkly.
Clarke grits her teeth. She can't think about that, now. She can't think about her mother under a flimsy, fire-damaged roof, nor Bellamy out in the woods. Above all, she can't think of the substantial risk of losing both of them, in the next few hours.
"I should go." She says. That's what she does, right? She runs when the going gets tough.
"Of course. Take care."
With one more hug, Clarke sets out for the hangar bay once more.
The rover is loaded and ready to go, so she hops in the back. Miller drives, and Jackson is in the front seat alongside him. They're taking the last rations and medical supplies to Polis today. Everyone else – and everything else they should need – is already there.
She doesn't enjoy the drive. It's only a couple of hours, but that's a couple of hours sitting still when she feels instinctively that there are other things that still need to be done. They are all things that will have to wait for her arrival in Polis, though, like helping Jackson set up med bay, or meeting with the other clans' ambassadors, or simply finding a bed to sleep in tonight.
She's surprised when her radio crackles into life.
"Clarke?" It's Bellamy, of course.
"Hey." She greets him, uncharacteristically nervous.
"Are you in the rover? Did I time it right? I don't want to bother you if you're working on something." She smiles slightly to herself at that evidence of his thoughtfulness, that he's been waiting to call her until he knew she wouldn't be trying to do anything else.
"I'm in the rover. Great timing." She assures him.
"That's good. How's the view?"
She looks out of the back window. The view is crap, but she's not sure how to go about telling him that. The sky is glowing with an odd rusty tint she doesn't like in the slightest. It would make a novel and interesting painting, she thinks, were that novelty not outweighed by horror.
"Very orange." She offers in the end.
"Yeah. Same here, too."
Silence falls. She doesn't like that. They've been chatting to each other a mile a minute almost every moment since he left Arkadia last week. So it hurts that they are silent now.
As if he has read her mind, Bellamy speaks up.
"I'm not trying to hurt you." He mutters, short. "I just – she's my family."
Clarke hesitates. She gathers her courage. She opens her mouth to speak. "I'm your family too." She says, hoping against hope that it's true.
There's another beat of silence, somehow less horrifying than the last. She can virtually hear Bellamy thinking, processing.
"You are. That's right." He sucks in a loud breath. "You're – yeah."
It's not the most encouraging response he could have given her in that moment, all things considered. But it is, she supposes, better than laughing out loud at her unaccustomed neediness.
…...
They are greeted by chaos on their arrival into Polis.
Clarke knew they would be. That's what happens when you try to move thousands of strangers temporarily into a bunker built for twelve hundred. If it's this busy in the city up topside – people literally falling over each other as they try to flood towards the bunker with their belongings – she hates to think how frantic it will be inside. Indra has charge of settling everyone in, and Clarke knows she has the pragmatism and no-nonsense attitude to do a great job of it. There's no one else on this Earth she would have trusted to cram extra bedrolls into every dorm, and cram too many people into those makeshift beds.
For the first time, Clarke wonders what her own sleeping arrangements will be. In all the madness of making sure there are enough supplies for everyone, she never took a moment to consider where she might live this month. But she's got used to having her own private room, and no doubt this is going to be quite an adjustment. Probably she'll be with her friends, she supposes. Indra has likely allocated her a room with Bellamy and Octavia and Raven. And probably Jackson and Miller and Murphy and Emori and half of Podakru, she thinks wryly. That's the only way they'll all fit in their temporary sanctuary.
Clarke jumps out of the rover the moment Miller draws to a halt. That's partly because she wants to go help, and partly because he and Jackson have been deep in conversation since they left Arkadia and she doesn't want to get in the way. If there's any chance of them finding happiness together while the world is ending, then good luck to them.
She heads for the bunker door, then weaves her way through the throng crowding the atrium as best she can. It's not just people, either. There are items of furniture, the occasional goat, and even what appears for all the world to be a small tree.
Yeah. That's probably not such a good idea. She approaches the two burly men who are carrying the tree and tries to decide what to say.
"Hello." She begins, cautious.
They look her up and down, evidently assessing. Perhaps working out who she is.
"This is our tree." One of them advises her, a warning in his tone.
Yes. She can see that. "Your tree?" She tries to sound more curious than rude.
"Trees are sacred to the Broad Leaf people." His companion contributes, slightly less aggressive. "We couldn't bring the oldest ones. But we carried this one all the way here. A young apple sapling."
Right. OK then. This is, it occurs to her, a unique moment. This is either the perfect moment for some excellent diplomacy, or a dangerous opportunity to ruin the alliance and burn a bridge or two.
"Is there anything I can do to help?" She offers brightly. "I'm stronger than I look."
They both frown at her, unconvinced.
"We had a holy tree on the Ark." She tells them.
That helps. There are nods, although not many of them. There is, she thinks, the beginning of common ground, and perhaps even of understanding.
She tries one last time. "Kane's mother was the keeper of the tree. You know Kane? Our Chancellor? The one who bears the brand of the coalition? He used to tend to our holy tree when he was a boy."
"He did?" The marginally friendlier of the two men sounds interested.
"He did. It was very important to him." She exaggerates, but only slightly. It has been important to him since then as a way of remembering his mother, after all. "I know he'd love to talk to you about it. Let me introduce you to him when we're all living on the ground again."
"I'd like that."
"Great. You sure I can't help you carry it?"
"We carried it this far." The more brusque man reminds her, proud.
Well. That's that settled, it seems.
Time to see what can be done about those goats.
…...
The goats aren't sacred, it turns out. And seeing as they don't have the resources to feed them, they are slaughtered to feed the population of the bunker instead. Clarke used to find the animals she saw in old Earth footage and photos cute, she's pretty sure. But these days she's too preoccupied, too pragmatic, to worry about the death of a cute – and very nutritious – goat for long.
She's having a good day, here. She's achieved a good deal. A couple of minor crises averted, more food supplies procured. She feels like she's on a roll, as she goes to put her small backpack in her new room. Sure enough, it turns out she will be sharing with pretty much everyone she knows from Arkadia, and a handful of strangers to boot.
But on the plus side, the pallet next to hers has been allocated to Bellamy. So at least they'll live through this overcrowded hell side-by-side.
She's full of confidence as she leaves the dorm again and sets out down the hallway. Her next stop is a meeting with the ambassadors of the other clans in the head office of the bunker. Everything's going about as well as could be expected, she thinks. Everything's going to be OK.
That's when she hears the child weeping.
She follows the sound, finds the strangest sight. There, in the hallway, a young girl crouches, crying, curled in on herself as she slumps against the wall. All around her, people are moving, lugging their belongings around, chatting and shouting, as if they haven't a care in the world.
As if they haven't noticed the girl at all.
Clarke hesitates for a moment. She doesn't consider interacting with young children to be her calling in life. But there's no way she can leave this girl alone and weeping. Maybe it's because she remembers what happened to Charlotte, or maybe there's something about this child in particular that pulls at her gut. Either way, it takes her scarcely a second to start moving towards the girl, fighting her way through the crowds, elbowing people aside.
She doesn't have much of a plan. If Bellamy were here, she thinks, he'd probably have some useful advice to offer about dealing with crying small children. But he's not here – he's outside, being a stubborn self-sacrificing idiot – so Clarke picks the girl up bodily and carries her a little way away from the crowds.
Huh. She's heavier than she looked. She's maybe five years old or so, scrawny and a bit bedraggled. But it turns out she's not particularly light.
Clarke's not sure whether carrying a kid who's breaking down is the right thing to do. She's just acting from some instinctive feeling that leaving her crying in a crowd is probably a mistake. She finds a much quieter room – some kind of workshop, she thinks – and finally sets the girl down.
Wow. Much heavier than she looked. Clarke is pretty strong after all these months on the ground, but it turns out that carrying children around a bunker at the end of a long few days is something of a challenge. Clarke stretches out her back, frowns down at the girl.
She's still crying.
"I'm Clarke." She offers. She chooses Trig, because she very much doubts this child has learnt any English yet.
The child does not answer.
"I'm Skaikru." Clarke continues, tenacious. "I like drawing. Oh, and trees. You know the Broad Leaf people have a sacred tree with them? I like that. Part of the forest will survive."
The child is unimpressed. Also crying.
Clarke is becoming slightly exasperated now. It really should be Bellamy dealing with this situation. Could she call him, perhaps? Could he talk to the girl over the radio?
She gathers her courage and tries one last time. "I'm sorry you're sad. I know we don't know each other. But I'd like to help if I can."
"You can't help." The girls speaks at last. "I'm Shallow Valley Clan."
Ah. Shallow Valley. Where no one accepted nightblood, where everyone was determined to die in the faith. This girl is, presumably, one of very few survivors. She's about to lose everything she's ever known, and she's only a young child.
Sometimes, Clarke thinks, Earth really sucks.
"I can try to help." Clarke offers feebly. "I like helping people." It's almost the truth. She feels compelled to help people – is that the same as liking it?
The girl looks up at her, frowning. She's still crying, but a little less frantically, now she is out of the crowd of people.
"I'm Madi." She says.
Well, then. It looks like Clarke is taking a small child with her to this ambassadors' meeting. Because there's no way in hell she can leave Madi alone now. There's no way she can just put her in the dorm, sit her next to her bed and promise to come home soon. This girl has been abandoned by her own parents, Clarke realises, who chose their faith over staying with their daughter.
All at once, Clarke decides something. She sets aside her usual pragmatism in favour of making a frankly impulsive vow to herself.
She is never going to abandon this child. She swears it.
…...
Clarke hasn't called Bellamy as often as usual since she arrived in Polis. The combination of settling everyone into the bunker and finding Madi has absorbed all of her time. But she makes a point of calling him first thing the following morning, because time is running out. The death wave will hit this evening. He needs to drive to Polis now, otherwise he simply won't make it.
Everything will be fine, she tries to tell herself. He promised he would come home in time. She just needs to remind him of that now.
She checks that Madi is still sleeping, then takes the radio and slips from the dorm. She wants to be private for this conversation – or as private as possible, in this overcrowded bunker. She finds a small supply room, lets herself in and sits on the floor.
"Bellamy? Are you awake?" She asks into the radio.
"I've been awake since before dawn." He replies immediately. "Gotta make the most of the time."
She frowns, confused. "Time? You still have plenty of time to get here if you leave now."
There's a pause. Clarke can hear her pulse in her ears.
"No. I mean – time to look for O. Time to find her before it's too late."
Clarke takes a deep breath. She lets it out as slowly as she can, but not slowly enough. She kicks her booted toes hard against a shelf, seeking desperately for some way of exorcising her sudden frustration.
Then she has a go at speaking.
"You said you'd be here in time." She reminds him, firm.
"I know. I will. I just need to – just let me find her." He sounds desperate, she thinks, and it scares her. "I swear I'm so close, Clarke. I've definitely found her trail. I just need to -"
"Bellamy. Please. Use your damn head – do you hear yourself? You're desperate to find her, and I get that. But you don't know you're close, that's just the desperation speaking." She can hear her voice rising, feel her anger and frustration and utter horror spiralling away from her.
"Clarke, I am. I'm telling you. I'll find her this morning and then – then we'll be back in time."
"You promised you'd come back." She reminds him, aware she sounds peevish. "You promised me you'd be here with me. You can't – you can't -"
"I will come back." He bites out. "I will. I'm not going to – to leave you, OK? I'm not making you do this alone."
She tries to remember how to breathe. Bellamy promises he will come home, and she's never known him break his word to her before. Maybe he's right. Maybe he really can find his sister this morning and then drive back here in the nick of time.
Or maybe she was right, and that's just desperation speaking.
She chooses her next words with care.
"Please stay safe, OK? Please do everything you can to stay alive. I want us to meet again in this life."
"We will." She hears him suck in a breath. "But if we don't -"
"We will." She tells him, not willing to hear him talk about any other possibility.
"Yeah. We will. I'll see you tonight."
He concludes the call, then. He just sets down the radio, she imagines, as if it was nothing. He keeps driving, presumably, entirely occupied with the business of finding his sister.
Clarke does not keep moving, though. She does not carry straight on with the business of normal life. She sits in her supply closet, kicks at that same shelf. She cries – not loudly, or messily, but just sadly. She cries at the idea of losing the only person who has ever truly understood her, supported her, and mostly even seems to like her. She cries because losing him suddenly seems like a very real possibility, in this moment.
And then she wipes her eyes, puts her leader face back on. She leaves her hiding place, and goes to learn how to be an ambassador and a foster mother and a thousand other things she is ill-qualified even to attempt.
…...
Bellamy hates himself quite a lot, as the morning draws on. In fact he sinks deeper into self-loathing with every minute that passes. It's not a new feeling, of course – he's always been his own worst enemy. But never before has he felt failure on quite this level. He's failed in his essential mission to find his sister. He's failed Clarke along the way, and feels ever more worried that he might fail her in the worst of ways and find himself stranded out here when the death wave hits.
But he simply cannot turn back without finding his sister.
That's why he doesn't call Clarke again. He cannot face their usual regular check-ins, when he knows he has nothing but bad news to offer her. He cannot endure another horrific conversation where she begs him to come home and he cannot say yes.
Midday comes and goes. He half expects Clarke to call and mark the time, pointing out that this really is his last chance to turn for Polis.
She never does. That hurts, somehow. It's stupid, because part of him doesn't want her to waste her breath, but part of him is awfully upset that she doesn't care enough to be counting down the seconds till he reaches the point of no return.
It's a funny feeling, as it becomes afternoon. He supposes this means he's going to die. He supposes there is no point turning back now, because he won't reach Polis in time. He supposes he might as well stay and follow his sister's trail a bit longer.
And why hasn't Clarke called?
He drives a bit longer.
He can scarcely believe it when he finally does find his sister. All these days of searching, and it turns out she wasn't so far away after all. She's actually on Trikru territory, just about, in a shallow cave. She's in a bad way, radiation sickness already well-advanced, unconscious and breathing shallowly as she lies in a pool of vomit.
He radios Clarke.
"I found her." He says without preamble. "She's really sick. What do I do? Do I still give her the serum?"
"Yeah. It might well still help her. It has to be better than not trying at all."
And that, right there, is why he loves Clarke. He's spent the morning ignoring her, spent the last two days ignoring her wishes. And yet here she is, calmly and pragmatically and compassionately issuing medical advice about his sister all the same. Dependable and loyal to the last, no matter what he does to hurt her.
"OK. Thanks."
There's an awkward silence as he gives the injection. And then he's busy scooping Octavia's limp body up in his arms and carrying her back to the rover, so he can't talk to Clarke then, either. He cannot even begin to say everything he's thinking. He's so sorry for everything she must be going through right now, so horrified that he's found his sister too late so neither of them will make it back to Polis. He simply doesn't know what the hell to do or say, in this heartbreaking moment.
Clarke helps him out, of course. She always does, even when he least deserves it.
"What will you do now?" She asks, voice too quiet. "Have you got a plan?"
He swallows. "There's no point me driving to Polis, is there?"
"No." She admits. It's a short word, followed by a long silence.
He starts driving. He's not sure where he's driving, barely taking in the familiar landscape around TonDC as he barrels along the road to nowhere.
"Where are you?" She asks, still sounding rather small.
"Trikru land. Near TonDC."
She gasps. He's not sure whether that's a good thing or not. It's hard to be sure of such things, when the sky is stained orange and he's staring death in the face. When his sister is unconscious in the back of the rover and Clarke is unhappy in a hole in the ground.
"The art supply store." She suggests in a rush. "That small bunker Finn found. Could you get there, Bellamy? Could you make it there in time?"
Yes. Yes he could. He will make it there in time if he has to run and carry Octavia the whole way on his shoulders. If there's a way for them to live, for him to see Clarke again, then he's damn well going to make sure it happens.
"Yeah. That's a good call, Clarke. We'll make it. And I still have all the supplies you gave me in case this happened."
"I know you too well." She muses sadly.
He laughs, a hollow, hysterical sound. "Yeah. God, Clarke. I – I -" He swallows, tries again. "Thank you so much for suggesting that. We'll be OK, I promise. We'll see you again next month."
"You promised you'd see me tonight." She reminds him. It doesn't sound like a reprimand so much as a regret, he thinks.
"I know. I didn't mean to – yeah. I know you're going to tell me you don't want to hear it, but there's something I need you to know, OK? There's something I need to tell you before the radiation hits. I love you, Clarke. I'm so in love with you. So I swear I'll find a way to survive this and see you again when it's through."
He gets to the end of his speech, surprised. He rather expected Clarke to interrupt him before he could confess his love for her. That's what she's always done before now, every time he's attempted to broach the subject.
It takes him a second or two to realise it. She didn't interrupt, because she's not saying anything. She's not saying anything, because the radio has cut out.
a/n Thanks for reading!