a/n Thank you lovely people who have left lovely comments on this fic so far, and thank you to Stormkpr for all this betaing! Happy reading!

Clarke is trying not to freak out.

She knows there's no reason to freak out, not really. Bellamy was near a small bunker, so that should be fine. He and Octavia should be able to shelter there with all their supplies while the death wave burns. And the radio cutting out isn't worrying news, exactly. The engineering team did warn her that such technology would start failing as the death wave approaches.

She can't freak out, anyway. She hasn't the time to freak out. She has people to lead, meetings to chair. An alliance to hold together with hopes and prayers and her own bare hands.

But she's freaking out all the same. She thought Bellamy would be here to help her through all those things. But that's not even the half of it – more than anything else, she's freaking out because she doesn't absolutely know he's safe. Sure, he said he was near the bunker and that he thought he'd make it, and he's not in the habit of hiding the truth to spare her feelings. But now the radio has cut out, she has no way of checking whether he's actually reached safety in time.

She won't know until next month, presumably.

She swallows down tears. He's fine. He's probably fine.

He has to be fine.

He has to be fine, otherwise the last words she said to him were some peevish reprimand for him not coming back when he said he would. And there's no way that's happening. It's simply not acceptable. She has other last words in mind for him – words of love, to be shared at the end of a long and happy life together when this mess is over.

She wonders what his last words were trying to be, before they got cut off. It sounded like another one of those moments where he was trying to say something important about his feelings. Why on Earth did she always cut him off on those previous attempts, anyway? Sure, feelings are frightening. But nothing like as frightening as being locked in a bunker without him, with no idea if she'll ever see him again.

With no idea whether she'll ever be able to tell him she loves him after all.

She gives herself a shake, tries gamely to paste her leader face back on. She can't freak out, and that was starting to look a lot like freaking out. She needs to get back to the dorm and tell her friends the news.

She tells Miller first. She walks into the dorm, checks that Madi is not panicking. She's not panicking so much as snuffling softly, so Clarke squeezes her shoulder and heads over to Miller. It's strange, she thinks, how quickly it has become natural to share a little physical reassurance with the child, even if she still doesn't feel comfortable enough to try to talk about the loss of her parents and her people.

Miller is sitting on his bed. He looks up at her expectantly, clearly reading that she has something to say.

She sinks onto the pallet at his side.

"Bellamy's stranded." She mutters stiffly.

All at once, Miller jumps to attention. "You mean he's not going to make it? You mean -"

"He says he can get to that small bunker Finn found near the dropship." She soothes. She should have broken that news more gently, she thinks. Miller and Bellamy are close, and that probably sounded rather brutal. But in her defence, she's a bit too emotionally wrung out to think of such things right now.

Miller nods heavily.

"He found Octavia. She's got bad radiation sickness but with the serum, who knows what might happen?"

"So the best case scenario is that he spends a month trapped in a tiny bunker with the sister who tried to beat him to a pulp a couple of months ago." Miller summarises darkly.

"Yeah." Clarke has to acknowledge that, put like that, even the best case scenario is pretty grim.

"At least he has something to look forward to." Miller tries for some brightness. "At least he knows we're all looking forward to seeing him again. At least he knows he's going to have a long life raising chickens with you."

Clarke gives a startled laugh. She rather wonders how that chicken rumour has got around so quickly. She supposes she has either Raven or Roan to thank, and her money is very much on Roan.

Her conversation with Miller concluded, she heads back over to her pallet and to Madi on the other side of the dorm. It's evening now, and Madi is sort of half-napping, evidently exhausted by a long couple of days. Clarke doesn't blame her, but there's no way she herself will sleep any time soon. She's too busy wondering whether Bellamy is dead, and whether her mother is dead, and whether anyone she loves is still breathing outside of the precious few friends she has for company in this damn hole in the ground.

She's pleased she broke the news to Miller first. Miller is a guy with cynical humour, who always tries to look on the bright side if there is even the slightest bright side to be found. So of course he cheered her up ever so slightly with a joke about chickens. That's a good thing, she decides.

Maybe he'll tell the others. Maybe she won't have to tell Raven or Jackson or Indra.

Clarke wonders about taking a shower. That might help her relax, although she imagines there will be a long queue for the washrooms with this many people crammed into the bunker. Considering the matter, she reaches for her backpack and pulls out some clothes. She pulls out, too, the bottle of shampoo Bellamy gave her when he left the camp.

Yes. A shower would be a good idea. She always finds that there's something comforting about being able to smell the shampoo on her hair. It's like a reminder of the depth of their friendship that she gets to carry around with her all day.

Friendship? Who's she kidding? Platonic friends don't gift each other scented shampoo in the midst of a nuclear apocalypse, she's pretty sure, and nor do they try to babble out important confessions over a radio at the end of the world.

Before she can take her shower, Madi interrupts. Clarke supposes that is something she had better get used to, now that she has care of a child. Young children do not arrange their schedules according the the convenience of adults.

"Clarke? Why are you sad?"

Clarke shakes her head, startled. She didn't realise her emotions were so easy to read on her face. She must try harder, if she's going to convince everyone she has things under control, for this next month.

"I'm not very sad." She says, and it might be a lie. "I'm just worried about Bellamy."

Madi frowns. "Bellamy is your partner, yes? The one that bed is for." She says, pointing.

Clarke hesitates. She wasn't expecting to have such an emotional conversation with Madi right now. So far they have kept to lighter topics and to logistics, more or less – whether the girl is hungry or thirsty, for example. Clarke trusts herself to keep a child fed and warm and dry, more or less. But she's not sure she trusts herself with conversations about who she counts as family, and not when Madi has so recently lost her own people.

"It's complicated." She says, in the end. She used to hate that answer from adults when she was a child, she recalls unhelpfully.

"Why isn't he here?" Madi asks, suddenly tearful. "If you love each other, why isn't he here with you now?"

Clarke considers her answer for a long moment. She gathers that they are no longer talking only about Bellamy.

"We do care about each other a lot, even though he's not here. He would really want to be here, but he had to go look for his sister. He felt that he had a duty to be with her." She takes a deep breath, gathers her courage. "It's kind of like your parents. They must have loved you a lot, but they thought they couldn't come here with you. Their faith was too important to them. And it's like that for Bellamy – he thinks he's not allowed to be here as long as his sister needs his help."

Madi nods, weeping softly. Clarke thinks that's probably a good thing in some ways – they've managed to have an open and meaningful conversation about what's happened, for the first time ever.

Clarke steels herself again. She can do this. She can help this child heal, as well as keep her fed.

"I've been wondering, Madi. Why aren't you a novitiate?" After all, she must be a natural born nightblood.

"My mother and father would always hide me from the flamekeepers." She says, as if it is the most obvious thing in the world.

Clarke starts a little. She doesn't know what she was expecting, really. If she'd put any real thought into the matter she should have been able to reach that logical conclusion, but in her defence she's been rather preoccupied of late.

Madi's story seems even more tragic now, she decides. To think that the girl's parents hid her and protected her for years, only to leave her to face Polis and Praimfaya and the rest of her life alone because they couldn't bring themselves to accept synthetic nightblood. She can well imagine the conflict between faith and love and duty that they must have been living for all the days of Madi's life.

She can well imagine the mixture of hope and horror with which they must have sent her away to safety here.

"It must have been really hard for them to say goodbye to you." Clarke offers quietly.

"It was. They cried a lot." Madi offers with childish simplicity.

"It's OK if you have to cry too." Clarke tells her. "Really. It's normal to cry when you lose people you love. I lost my dad not so long ago." She swallows. "And if you want to talk to me about it I can try to help."

Madi looks at her, considering. "You lost him? You mean he died?"

Clarke nods with difficulty.

Madi hugs her, small arms coming up around Clarke's waist, burrowing into her embrace. It's nice, Clarke decides, in a way she hadn't anticipated. It makes her feel needed and valued and like there's someone important in her life who's still breathing.

…...

Bellamy is trying not to freak out.

He's trying to do things sensibly, and efficiently, and in a logical order. That's what Clarke would tell him to do if she were here, and he's going to need every bit of her sense and strength, every clue that she's with him in spirit, if he's going to make it through this death wave.

He drives to the bunker quickly, but not so quickly that he is in any danger of having an accident. He opens the door, checks the place out briskly. Yes, this will do. Fortunately that grounder's body was removed and the place cleaned somewhat after Mount Weather. At the time Bellamy thought it wasn't Kane's most logical order, that he was trying to clean up messes that had stained too deeply to be forgotten. But now he's glad of the safe haven.

There's not much here besides a couple of lanterns and the odd item of stationery, but at least it's a sealed hole in the ground which should stop them from burning to death.

He carries Octavia from the rover to the bunker, and then all their supplies. Again, he tries to do it quickly, but not so quickly he runs the risk of hurting himself or breaking anything. On impulse, he takes the radio with him, too. He seems to remember that the radio was always expected to fail when the radiation levels rose, but he supposes he might as well have something to fiddle with during his month trapped underground with the sister who sometimes hates him.

By his calculations, he still has almost an hour before the death wave hits. He's starting to feel pretty ill himself, now, despite the nightblood. But he knows that's normal, and that his symptoms should improve again once his blood has started processing the radiation.

He makes a choice. He hops into the rover, drives it back through the trees. He recalls that there was a cave not so far away, and he figures it's a good idea to leave the rover there. That way, he hopes, there is some chance of it still being functional after the death wave. He might be able to jump straight in it and drive directly to Polis the moment the flames die down.

Clarke would be proud of him for thinking of that, he's pretty sure.

Sure enough, he finds a shallow cave and stashes the rover inside. He hopes it will offer some protection, at least. And then he leaves it there, jogs briskly back towards his new home.

He only has to stop and vomit once.

And it's only a little bit of vomit, anyway. It's black and sticky, which is somewhat concerning, but he hasn't the time to be concerned. He'll be fine. The nightblood will work. Clarke promised it would, and he trusts Clarke.

He wonders whether it will be like this for the whole time he's stranded here. He wonders if he will spend every minute of every day thinking of Clarke, what she's doing now, what she'd say if she were here. He wonders how on Earth he ever functioned, before he had the thought of her to keep his spirits up.

He wonders how she's coping without him, now. He wonders how much of his love confession she heard before the line went dead.

He wonders whether she'd say the words back to him, if she could.

He arrives back to the bunker, shuts the door tight behind him. He ought to breathe a sigh of relief, he supposes – he's now safe in here, and his sister is safe too. She hasn't woken up yet since he gave her the serum, but she doesn't seem to have got worse. Her pulse is holding steady.

But he doesn't breathe a sigh of relief. How can he, when he's staring a month of misery in the face?

He gets on with practical things. He unrolls the blankets Clarke gave him, makes up a bed for himself and one for Octavia using the rather thin mattresses the original owners of the bunker left behind. He lifts his sister and places her in her bed, and is relieved to find she fidgets lightly in his arms.

He sorts out their food and water stores, next. He puts all their supplies away neatly, checks and rechecks how many rations they are allocated for each day. He even finds a bucket for them to use as a makeshift toilet. He's not looking forward to having to store their waste for the whole month – he supposes the empty water barrels will have to be repurposed. It sounds gross, but it doesn't strike him as being the most wretched thing about this whole experience.

At last, he runs out of things to do. He supposes he could learn how to draw, or else make a radio call to no one. He could check Octavia's pulse again, or he could -

The death wave hits all at once. He can actually feel it – the sudden jump in temperature, the force of it shaking the walls despite the yards of earth that protect them. He can hear it, too, roaring and crashing around above them like some furious one-eyed giant out of Octavia's bedtime stories.

It's not too hot. It's maybe more warm than he'd like, and he supposes the temperature will only keep rising. But they'll be OK. They have to be OK.

Clarke needs him to be OK.

He shakes his head. He can't worry about that. He ought to find something to distract him. He could set up a few more lanterns – that would make it feel marginally more like home.

He never does get as far as the lanterns. He makes it as far as the bucket, vomits up more sticky black blood.

But at least this time the sudden noise makes Octavia groan loudly and roll over in her bed, so he supposes that's progress. He just wishes it didn't leave such a bitter taste in his mouth.

…...

The first couple of days are grim, but Madi gets Clarke through it.

Maybe that's not terribly healthy, Clarke wonders. Maybe it's not ideal that she's battling on largely because she's needed, and more specifically because she's needed by a young girl who is desperately mourning her parents and her people. Maybe it would be better to keep breathing through hope or love or joy.

Yeah. That's a naive dream.

She wonders, sometimes, whether this is how Bellamy feels about Octavia. That it is necessary to get up every morning, whether she's ready or not, because there is a human being who depends on her. Sometimes, in her lower moments, she even wonders whether this is how he feels about her – this pressing kind of protective obligation.

No. That can't be right. He was on the verge of saying something about love when the radio cut out. She would stake her life on it.

In a funny kind of way, she supposes that staking her life on it is more or less what she's doing. His interrupted confession is what's keeping her going, the one bright spot that's lighting the way ahead. That and the hope that she'll see Bellamy again, that they'll have a future together, that they will raise chickens and live at peace.

In the meantime, there is a bunker full of tension and sadness and even horror.

"Clarke?" Right on cue, Indra sticks her head around the door. "We need you in the atrium. Delphi and Blue Cliff are at each other's throats again."

The first time Indra used that phrase, Clarke thought she was joking, or exaggerating, or using it metaphorically. But now she understands that Indra is serious – this really is a situation with swords drawn and violence on the edge of breaking out.

She glances at Madi. The girl is sound asleep. It's late evening, and most of her roommates are resting quietly.

"Madi's safe with me." Jackson promises quietly, firmly. He's been a very reassuring presence, since they locked the door.

"I'll come with you." Miller volunteers, jumping to his feet, heading towards the door where Indra waits.

Well, then. It seems like it has been decided. A peacekeeping force of three, to defuse the tension between two whole clans.

The three of them run to the atrium. There isn't a moment to waste. They clatter down the hallways, breath ragged, hearts racing. Clarke wonders if she will ever stop feeling afraid. Even more than that, she wonders whether she will ever stop having to pretend she isn't afraid – it's exhausting, putting a brave face on things all the time. She thinks that might be what she misses the most about Bellamy, actually. That at least when she's alone with him she can take a moment to be simply herself, and not the leader of her people.

Sure enough, on arrival they find that swords are drawn and angry words are being exchanged. It's not clear what the disagreement is about – Clarke's Trig is pretty fluent, but it sounds like the Delphi and Blue Cliff warriors are shouting for the sake of shouting, more than conveying any actual content.

Indra strides right into the middle of things, Clarke and Miller hastening to follow.

"Silence!" Indra yells, in firm Trig. "Be quiet and stop your bickering."

A restless sort of quiet falls. And then Indra turns to Clarke.

Right. Yes. That's how this works. Indra and Miller are here to look forceful, wave weapons around if necessary, and shout for quiet.

Clarke is here to turn quietness into peace.

"Can I speak to one person from each clan? I'd like to know what happened here." She says mildly.

More restless quiet. One burly Delphi clan warrior steps up. One much smaller woman from Blue Cliff, with a sharp light to her eyes.

Clarke allows herself to become slightly optimistic.

"What's the problem?" She asks.

"They stole our blankets." The Blue Cliff woman spits out immediately.

"They stole our beds." The Delphi man counters.

Clarke sighs. "Everything is in short supply here. Indra and her team did a great job of allocating the supplies as fairly as possible."

She pauses to allow the warriors to agree that Indra has been incredible. They do not choose to do so.

She continues smoothly. "Let's count your supplies out again and check you have the right amount. I know it's tight, but it's only for a month. And then we will have our freedom back on the ground."

"Freedom?" Spits the Delphi man. "Some freedom. What will be left? The world is burning. We will argue about the same blankets up on the ground."

Aha. So it seems this is the real issue. This is nothing to do with blankets or beds, not really. This is violence born out of fear of the unknown, lack of hope for a brighter future. This is fighting because these people know how to fight better than they know how they will live in a nuclear wasteland in one month's time.

"We don't know what will be left." Clarke admits carefully. "But we have our best people on it. The agriculture team in Arkadia have a plan for fertilising the wastelands. We will have plenty to eat. And yes, you're right, it might take a while to build our homes or make new blankets. But we'll be safe and well, and that's the most important thing of all."

She pauses a second, lets them take in her words. It's moments like this where she wishes Bellamy was by her side. He used to do a good line in inspirational speeches, she seems to remember, back when they first landed.

There are a couple of nods. Good. She presses her advantage.

"In the meantime, try to look for the good. This is an opportunity to make peace with your new neighbours. Honour the wishes of Lexa kom Trikru, the last true commander. She called for peace not war." Clarke swallows down the tears that threaten to rise in her throat. "Seek common ground. I've invited the Broad Leaf people to come to Arkadia and learn more about our religion when all this is over. Do your people have things in common like that, too?"

There are a couple more nods, but a number of sceptical expressions remain. Clarke takes a deep breath. What is left to say? What on Earth can she try now?

Then Miller saves the day.

"It's like me and Indra." He says, cheerful, with that friendly, open expression he wears so well. "We were on different sides at first, weren't we? But now we stand together." He slaps her heartily on the back to punctuate his point.

Indra stands there and takes it, wearing a half smile. Clarke almost grins in spite of herself – she and Miller will both owe Indra a favour, she thinks, for taking this brotherly back-slapping in good humour now.

That wins it for them. That has more people nodding – they respect Indra. It has the Blue Cliff woman sheathing her sword, reaching out a hand towards the Delphi clan representative.

He clasps her hand, shakes it cautiously.

And finally, Clarke allows herself to relax somewhat.

The peacekeeping trio hang around a little longer. They mustn't leave before they know that the crisis really has died away. They wait for the Blue Cliff warriors to wander out of the atrium, with many promises to return the items they accidentally borrowed. Delfikru head out through the other exit, muttering something about no hard feelings.

It's late by the time Clarke heads back to her room. She thinks that's a good thing – there's some hope of her being exhausted enough to fall asleep rather than lying awake all night and dwelling on her worries.

Madi is sound asleep when Clarke arrives. Jackson is half awake, watching over the child, and gives Clarke a sleepy nod when she appears, before turning to greet Miller with rather more enthusiasm.

Huh. It looks like she was right. It looks like there might be something going on there, and she is happy for them.

She's sad for herself, though. It brings her loneliness into even sharper focus. She prepares for bed swiftly, then settles onto her pallet. She tries to ignore the sounds of a couple of dozen friends and strangers shuffling restlessly in the darkness. She tries to ignore their breathing, snoring, and occasional muffled weeping.

She tries to ignore the way that all these damn people make her feel even more lonely.

She fidgets a little, unable to get comfortable. She forces herself to take long, slow breaths, but it doesn't really help. She counts on her fingers the things she has done today, the things she has yet to do tomorrow.

None of it helps.

She reaches for her backpack, eases the precious radio out of its safe hiding space. She knows there is no point speaking into the radio, because she knows it has cut out. She knows Bellamy can't hear her. But she just needs to do it, OK? She just needs to wish him goodnight. It's a part of her daily routine, a ritual that keeps her sane, and it's been torn away from her now Bellamy's stranded outside.

"Sleep well." She whispers into the silent radio. "And – may we meet again."

She sleeps after that. She doesn't sleep soundly, not really. But at least she sleeps.

…...

Bellamy supposes he ought to use this time to catch up on some sleep. He's had precious little of it in recent weeks, after all, and he's still feeling pretty groggy from the radiation. So this should be a great opportunity – he's trapped in a small bunker with absolutely nothing to do except care for his sister. And even that is hardly demanding much of his time – she's still sleeping, for the most part, occasionally blinking her eyes open drowsily and accepting a sip or two of water.

He hasn't caught up on much sleep, though. He's too anxious to sleep.

For the most part he has been playing with his radio. He knows that's stupid, that Clarke can't hear a word he says. But it's like a comfort blanket, or a familiar snippet of routine, that makes him feel grounded and like he has some connection to the world outside this hole in the ground.

Sometimes he even admits defeat and has a fully-fledged one-sided conversation.

"Hey, Clarke." He whispers now. "I know this is dumb, OK? You're going to tease me so badly when I tell you about this. But I haven't got anyone else to talk to, have I? O's still asleep, pretty much. I think she's doing a little better today though. Her pulse feels stronger and she's breathing more evenly. That has to be good, right?"

Clarke doesn't reply of course. She never does.

He's just gathering his thoughts to keep speaking when a different voice catches him by surprise.

"Big brother?" That's Octavia, and she sounds incredulous.

He spins around, and sees her lying on her bed. That's where she's been for the last three days since they locked the door. But this feels different, somehow. She looks more alert and interested as she blinks up at him.

He sets down the radio and dashes to her side.

"Hey, O. How are you feeling? Can I get you some water?"

She frowns, hard. "You got me water before. When I was really sick – it's a bit hazy."

"Yeah. Yeah, you were really sick."

"And you've been taking care of me?"

He nods. He doesn't see why she sounds so surprised. He hands her a drink of water, and it seems she is strong enough to reach out and take it.

"Where are we?" She croaks, then raises the water to her lips and takes a sip.

"In a small bunker on Trikru land. Finn found it, back when we first landed."

"How did we get here?" She asks, eyes narrowing. "Did you – you found me? You came looking for me?"

He nods. Obviously he did.

Octavia doesn't seem to think it's so obvious. "After everything, you came looking for me? After I beat you and hurt you? In the middle of an apocalypse you came looking for me?"

"Of course I did." He swallows. "You're my sister."

She starts weeping, then. She starts gulping out noisy sobs, tears streaking down her cheeks. He's a little surprised by that – he doesn't mind admitting it. He thought he was in for a month of animosity or even outright anger and violence. He never expected Octavia to lie here crying.

"O?" He reaches out tentatively towards her, concerned, but not sure whether she wants any hug of his. "O? Are you -"

She throws herself at him, but not to hurt, this time. Rather there is something very healing about the way she pulls him tightly into a hug, rests her head on his shoulder as she weeps into his shirt.

"I'm sorry." She gasps as she sobs. "I'm so sorry, Bellamy. I can't believe you would do that."

He's a little hurt by that comment. He pulls gently away, looks somewhere off to the left. "Of course I did that. It's what I do. I – I take care of my family."

She sees right through him. Of course she does. She's known him almost his whole life. She leans back towards him, clasps a hand around his forearm.

"But you wish you didn't have to." She concludes softly. "You wish that for once in your life you could do what you want, rather than running around after me. I knew that, and I made you do it anyway. And I'm sorry for that."

He looks at her sharply. He wasn't expecting her to address the topic so baldly. That's not what they do, in his experience – they tread more tentatively around the things that actually matter.

"I was in a bad place." She continues. "I know that's no excuse. But I – I lost Lincoln. I didn't know how to handle it. And when I got sick I knew it was the radiation." She swallows noisily. "I thought I was going to die. I had a long time to think, while I was getting sicker. About how I'd hurt you, and about how knowing you, you'd spend the rest of your life blaming yourself."

"I would have done." He admits easily – not because it's a comfortable idea, but because it's the truth.

She shakes her head fiercely. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Bellamy. You deserve better than that."

He snorts. He's pretty sure that's not true, really. He picks at a loose thread on the leg of his trousers, then forces himself to leave it. He'll be wearing these for the next month, after all. He casts around his thoughts for a new topic of conversation, but none presents itself.

No. There are some far more dangerous words threatening to fall out of his mouth.

He tries to hold them in. Really he does. But in the end it's a lost cause.

"I just wish I was enough to make you stay." He chokes out, and finds that he is crying himself, now. "I wish I was enough to make you stay in Arkadia. I wish I was enough to make Clarke stay after Mount Weather. I just wish -"

"That's not on you." Octavia informs him harshly. He gets the impression she'd be brandishing a sword to make her point, if she happened to have a sword to hand. "That's on me, big brother. I didn't run because I didn't love you. I ran because I didn't love myself."

He frowns. He supposes that could make sense. But it's such a challenge to his lifelong worldview that he doesn't know how to process it.

Octavia keeps speaking. "I can't speak for Clarke. But I guess I always thought it was similar for her. She's always running away from her demons, and duty calls her away a lot. She was leaving Lexa to go back to Arkadia when the blockade came in, you know."

He blinks, startled. He didn't know that, actually. In his mind, there was always something significant about the way she would leave him but stayed with Lexa. But this could change things.

Again, Octavia ploughs on. "Have you tried talking to her about it?"

"We've been talking a lot these last few weeks. But not – not about that. Not about... what we are."

Octavia snorts. It's not a very amused sound – they've both been crying too much for genuine humour. But it's an acknowledgement that his words could be funny, were they not weeping in a humid hole in the ground.

"You're both idiots, is what you are. Maybe that's how I should pay you back for coming to find me. Maybe that's how I can show you you're allowed to worry about yourself instead of me, now. Yeah, that's a plan – when we get out of here I'm going to lock you and Clarke in a room together to talk about how you feel."

This time, it is his turn to snort. He has to admit she's got a point. If there's one thing he's learnt, in the last five surprising minutes, is that locking two people in a confined space together is a very effective way of forcing them to talk about their relationship – both the wonderful parts and the deeply dysfunctional.

a/n Thanks for reading!