Chapter Seven

Clarke

"So. The memorial is today."

"I know. I'm fine with it."

Clarke and Bellamy are inside the room that is now theirs. Just as Madi had intervened to get Clarke and Bellamy together, she also has decided to cede her place inside the room she used to share with Clarke. They didn't ask her – she simply went up to them one day with the idea. ("Just take it. I'll sleep by the fireplace," Madi had said. "When it gets cold out, I'll have the best place in the whole cabin.") Both Clarke and Bellamy have asked Madi repeatedly if she wants the room back, have firmly stated that they don't want her to feel that she's been kicked out. Madi has gone from rolling her eyes at their comments to saying, "It's my own fault. I put you together."

However the room was built with bunk beds. This morning, Clarke is on the lower bunk and Bellamy is on the floor next to her, atop blankets. They just can't find a comfortable way to both get any real sleep on one bunk bed, so this solution is working well for them right now. Sometimes during the night, Clarke reaches down and gently touches his shoulder. She can't say why she likes making this gesture so much, but she does.

This morning, Clarke decides to press Bellamy a bit on his answer to her question. "Are you sure?" she asks gently. "I know last time we talked, you didn't love the idea of having a memorial."

He sits up and stretches a bit. "I don't know if the memorials we had up on the ring helped me much. But they helped the others," he says firmly. "So that's reason enough to do it."

Clarke notices how he avoids her eyes and seems to be going about his stretching with a fair amount of zeal. Although the group has discussed many past events during their months here, there is one thing they haven't talked about, so Clarke decides to ask it here. "Up on the ring," she begins, again delicately, "you thought I was dead, right?"

He's quiet for several moments though he's stopped stretching. Bellamy looks downward, and then turns to meet her eyes. "I kept replaying that conversation we had right before. The head and the heart," he admits, taking a breath. "So yeah. My head told me that you were dead, but my heart told me you weren't." He pauses. "I just felt a bit numb during the ceremonies."

Clarke waits a bit before replying, allowing his words to resonate. She then asks, "Is that how you feel right now when you wonder if you'll see Octavia again? Your head is telling you that you won't but…."

"But my heart says it's possible," he finishes for her. Bellamy takes another breath. "Maybe not likely, but possible. I'd almost given up hope of ever seeing you again, and then….there it was. Our ticket back down to earth. And then…."

He stops, and Clarke thinks he might be getting choked up. She waits, and Bellamy continues, "Then there was Madi, recognizing me and telling me that you're alive. And then…."

Again, Bellamy stops and Clarke herself feels her heart clench. She remembers it as if it were yesterday. Lying on the ground, every nerve-ending in agony from the shock-collar. Barely able to see in the dark night and against the glare of the rover's lights. "Your voice," she says quietly. "I remember that the most. I heard your voice and instantly…instantly all the pain went away. Like this worry I carried around for six years disappeared."

She's by his side, having slipped from her bed onto the floor next to him. They are holding each other. She grasps him tightly and he clings to her. They are quiet now, and for a second the phrase 'lost in memories' jumps into Clarke's mind, but she knows that's not right. They aren't lost as long as they have each other.

Clarke had wanted to ask him to talk more about how he feels about the memorial, about whether or not it will be awkward or hurtful for him especially given that he still hopes to get back to Octavia someday. But somehow right now, it feels right to just enjoy the silence and enjoy the feel of Bellamy's embrace.

Emori

That same morning, the morning of the memorial, Emori wakes up feeling ambivalent. She's thinking of something Clarke said at lunch the other day. Without the extreme highs and lows they are used to here, smaller events seem to take on more significance. Emori knows that objectively speaking, the memorial is a small thing but here on Skyring it looms large. It feels like a big deal.

Murphy shifts position in bed and makes a noise somewhere between a groan and a sigh. He often does this when he knows it's time to get up and go about the day. And also, Emori guesses, he needs to head for the outhouse.

When they first arrived on Skyring, Murphy had announced that he was going to take his time in the mornings, sleep in when he wants to. Emori remembers then glancing at Clarke who looked as if she might object, but didn't. In any case, after not long Murphy abandoned his desire to sleep late. The group relies on their garden a lot, and that means getting up early to perform tasks such as watering before the sun gets high overhead and starts to evaporate the water, and doing the arduous weeding before it gets too hot. There's also, Emori sees now, a certain pleasure to be had walking through the garden in the morning – the scents from their herbs seem more pleasant and the cool breezes are enjoyable especially when you have a hot mug of tea to counter them. Foraging is a lot easier too when it's not too hot out, and if you finish enough of your tasks early on, you can nap during the middle of the day when Skyring is at its most humid. So Murphy just naturally came around to the idea of getting up early along with everyone else.

After not too long, Emori and Murphy are gathering their towels and the tree nuts that the group uses for soap. They walk to the lake to bathe. As they get closer, they realize that Miller and Jackson are already there, so they keep a respectful distance. Out of the corner of her eye, Emori sees that Jackson is still afraid to submerge himself, still relying on sponge baths taking place while he stands on the shore, even as Miller takes full advantage of the lake, doing more swimming than bathing. Murphy has joked about tackling Jackson and forcing him into the water some day, but Emori reminds him that if he does that, Miller will give him a beating he'll never forget. "Let's not break our record streak of injury-free days," she has said. "We got beat up enough on earth."

"So," Murphy begins this morning, as he splashes around. "Today's the day."

Perhaps it's the simple joy of having fresh water to immerse yourself in, the delicious feel of weightlessness, a joy that they never had on the ring. Even before that back on earth, Emori had spent so much of her life fleeing, working, hiding, and just barely surviving that she hadn't done a whole lot of leisurely frolicking in water back then either, despite the fact that she spent much of her time near an island or on a boat.

"Yeah. I'm glad we're doing it," she says straightforwardly.

"It couldn't hurt."

"The ones on the ring were fine," Emori adds. "But we hadn't lost a baby back then. I just don't want to cry in front of everyone. That's it."

He's at her side in a minute. This is more than she's spoken about it in the past few days. Emori lets Murphy hug her, just relaxes into the embrace. He says things like 'Hey, what's the worst thing that could happen? We feel uncomfortable for a few minutes. We'll live'. And Emori finds his words to be hitting just the right spots now. They talk some more until she doesn't want to discuss it any longer. He cracks a few jokes, makes a few untoward comments, until she smiles and she has a new appreciation for this ability of his.

Emori

In the end, the memorial is nothing to be afraid of. Emori doesn't cry, doesn't even feel the need to, and Bellamy participates in it along with everyone else. At breakfast the group discusses a few last-minute preparations. Most agree that they don't plan to bring up the names of those who passed on a long time ago and have already had memorials in their honor. Emori has already honored her brother Otan, for example, during one of the commemorations on the ring and doesn't plan to bring him up again today. Madi shares that she and Clarke said farewell to Madi's parents in Shallow Valley and she's good with leaving that there.

They discuss someday building a monument to those they lost, some sort of marker that they can lay flowers on. But the group is far more practical than sentimental and they know that right now, they are still spending most of the daylight hours on the tasks that are keeping them alive and they don't have time for side projects. So a physical monument or marker will have to wait.

The group heads for the forest and sits in a circle, knowing that they plan to keep it simple. Murphy reaches for Emori's hand and holds it. The group speaks the names, starting with those who they know are dead. When each name is spoken, members of the group can say a few things about the person if they want to.

Monty, Harper, Kane, Abby.

Emori's had months to adjust to the fact that Monty and Harper are gone now, that they lived a full life, they grew old, they raised a son. But this one still stabs at her. She grips Murphy's hand tightly.

Bellamy talks about Monty and Harper on the ring, how his algae farm kept them alive, how everyone enjoyed Harper's smiling face. Miller goes back further, talking about surviving Mount Weather with them. Clarke says she's glad that they got to live most of their lives in peace.

Emori never spent much time with Kane, but Bellamy and Miller both glow just a bit when talking about him. Both go on a bit too long, and Emori guesses that the group is really putting off talking about Abby. But they finally do get to her. Emori sees Clarke and Jackson exchange a look, and Jackson speaks first. He has tears in his eyes, and he doesn't say much but he keeps it together. Murphy then asks Clarke if he can say a few words, and she nods.

"Abby meant a lot to me," Murphy says. "She never saw me as an outcast. Or as a criminal. She made me feel like I mattered."

Emori has always liked the way John speaks. Whether he's being his usual sarcastic self or trying to go a bit deeper, his words carry weight, and they do again today. She's impressed with him, and she has to admit that she doesn't hang on every word of Clarke's – who speaks next – although it's mostly because Emori knows who is still to come, still to be bid farewell to.

Once Clarke has spoken her words, Emori feels the eyes of others upon her. One of the side-effects, she knows, of living in close quarters like this: everyone knows what is yet to be said. They are waiting politely. Emori takes a breath and looks down towards her midsection. "It's different," she finally says. "Different type of loss. Not a baby. I never got to hold the baby in my arms. But yeah," she says, again exhaling and knowing her voice will crack. "I really, really wanted to hold that baby."

Murphy squeezes her hand more tightly. The group is quiet for a while, and Emori finds it easiest to continue looking downwards at least for now.

After several moments of silence, Clarke then says, "Let's say the names, now, of the people we're missing. The ones who are alive but we don't know when we'll see them again."

Miller and Jackson start by mentioning the names of several people who were part of Wonkru. Indra, Niylah, Gaia. Then Clarke adds Jordan's name, and Murphy adds Echo's. Bellamy speaks Octavia's name, and Emori speaks Raven's. As others reminisce about Raven, Emori closes her eyes. If she could magically bring one person to Skyring, it would be Raven. That is one loss that truly stings. As the group talks about those they are missing, Madi adds that she wishes she'd gotten to know the others better. She had such limited time with them before being brought here.

Thinking about Jordan is painful too. They were supposed to take care of him. Emori has come to accept that there are many things she will never know, but she wishes she somehow could be told how Jordan is doing. Last time she saw him, he was in a bad way. Is Raven grooming him to be an engineer, the way she did with Emori herself? She remembers Jordan saying that his dad worked with him on that; maybe Raven is helping him take it to the next level. Maybe, Emori wonders, some of the ex-Wonkru folks are making an effort to spend time with him. Miller always speaks highly of Gaia, so maybe they are bonding. Damn it, Emori thinks again. We'll just never know, will we?

Their ceremony feels like it is winding down, and the timing is fortuitous since clouds are forming in the sky. The group knows from the humidity in the air that rain is likely.

"Got any more of that hard cider, Miller?" Murphy asks. "We've all earned a drink. And a toast to those who aren't here."

Clarke

Clarke, Bellamy, and Madi are spending the morning foraging. Their buckets are filling up nicely with mushrooms though Clarke wishes more acorns were to be found. They may be a pain to process, requiring a lot of work to get rid of their bitterness before they are edible, but they have a lot of calories and are good at filling bellies.

"I think I'm done with the dives," Bellamy says to Clarke. She's startled to hear these words from him, and whirls her head around in surprise. Madi is out of earshot currently. "Done with trying to get back to Sanctum that way."

Clarke quickly takes his words in. Bellamy's timing on the last few dives has actually decreased; he's backtracking. Not that anyone thinks he has a shot of actually succeeding. His time could be cut by a third and he still wouldn't make it. Did the memorial a few days ago cement things in his mind, Clarke wonders?

"Was that a hard decision for you to make?" Clarke asks, meeting his eyes.

"Been thinking about it for a while. I know it's time to stop even though it feels like I'm giving up."

Clarke tilts her head to the side. "You could always…take a break from them and go back to doing them if you feel that you need to."

He smiles and reaches to hold one of her hands. "Hey. I appreciate how supportive you're being," he says softly. "You've always been supportive even though we all know there's no way I'm getting back to Sanctum the way we came." He glances upwards towards the sunshine, muted behind a couple clouds. "It's so strange. I've been separated from Octavia for most of the time since the day she went into the Skybox. I wish I could be there for her. Talk to her." Bellamy sighs. "Maybe reconciling with her just isn't in the cards for me. Maybe it's just one of those things in life that never gets resolved."

Clarke lets his words hang in the air. She squeezes his hand as she looks at him. There's wisdom in what he just said, she knows. She finally adds, "It might be one of those things that's outside of our control."

He nods and they are quiet again. "What if," Clarke begins anew, her voice tentative now, "the anomaly shows up again?"

Bellamy meets her eyes. "I still plan to go through it. If it appears again." He then asks, "You and Madi….?"

"We haven't changed our minds. We can't risk it."

There's not much else to say right now. They pull each other into a tight hug. This is not the first time they've discussed the anomaly and its possible return, and they remain at an impasse. Neither is going to argue with the other or try to force them to their side. Neither likes the fact that they are at a stalemate either, but that might be another thing that simply cannot be helped. The hug feels just right though.

Dimly Clarke is aware of Madi wandering back into earshot, and then – perhaps seeing the embrace – heading back the way she came. Clarke remains in the hug for a long time and then says, after a while, "I'm making something for you."

"You are?" Bellamy asks, pulling away and looking at her face. He has a hint of a smile.

"It's almost done. And – um, now feels like a good time to tell you about it. It's bark. I'm making a few pieces for you that are just the right texture for writing. I was thinking you could write a letter to Octavia." She pauses. "Or lots of letters."

"But – but wouldn't you rather use it for your drawings?"

She shakes her head. "I have plenty of surfaces to draw on. But I want you to have the bark."

Bellamy smiles and pulls Clarke back into another embrace. "Thank you. I think I'd really like to do that."

She knows she's jumped the gun a bit by telling him about the gift before presenting it, but that's okay. The moment feels right. Clarke is relieved that Bellamy has come to terms with one aspect of his quest to return to Octavia. Will he, Clarke wonders, ever come to terms with the rest of it and abandon his idea of going into the anomaly?

TBC - Please leave a review!

A/N – Earlier in this chapter, I mentioned "tree nuts that the group uses for soap". This is an actual thing, here and now on earth! There is a tree known as the Sapindus mukorossi which produces soapberry nuts, the dried shells of which are used to clean laundry. I use it on my own laundry!