Yay, this is the chapter I have been so excited to write! Because I hadn't read this concept anywhere else so that was cool. But I love this chapter. Please review!
The stars were waiting for her. They seemed to always be waiting for her. Clarke stared out of the air lock window, her breath clouding the glass. She'd put on the helmet when Bellamy had gone into the chamber and now she was beginning to feel suffocated and smothered inside it.
Twenty four. Twenty four seconds Bellamy had been out there, drifting through space. She'd watched as it had dragged him out, picking him up as if he were nothing more than a speck of dust.
But he was, in a way. They all were.
"Bellamy?" Clarke asked after she'd reached thirty. There was silence on the other end and fear clamped a hand around her throat, making it hard to breathe. He was dead. And if he was dead, she was as good as dead herself. Soon this room would be flooded with guards; they were already on their way.
Clarke forced herself to remain calm. "Bellamy, are you there?"
"I'm still alive, if that's what you're asking," his voice chimed back, echoing inside the helmet. She let out an audible sigh of relief. "This has to fall on your list as one of the stupidest things you've ever done," she said.
"Right beneath shooting the Chancellor, yeah. Now it's your turn, Princess."
And just like that, the humor died.
Clarke felt the suit grow more restrictive, as if the very helmet itself was becoming smaller, crushing her temples. She suddenly felt dizzy as she opened the airlock chamber and forced herself inside. Her breathing grew shallow and more rapid, leaving her lips in sharp gasps. She stopped in front of the last opening.
Just beyond it lay an ocean of stars, some clustered, others scattered in isolation. It was poignant and haunting, with an appetite so voracious that not even infinity could sate it.
"When you come out, grab the rung on the right side of the ship, okay?" Bellamy instructed and even though he couldn't see it, Clarke nodded. "Okay." Her reply came out breathy.
"You'll be fine," he added after a second and though he seemed uncomfortable extending reassurance, it sounded sincere. As sincere as it could, given the circumstances.
"Right. It's just an illegal spacewalk without any prior experience or proper training," she muttered. "No big deal."
"I did the hardest part. This should be nothing for you."
Clarke couldn't even think of a smart reply. Not when images of her father bombarded her, the memories of his death replaying in her mind. She would be seeing the last thing he had seen. She would be floating over the same stars he had, as the galaxy claimed him as its own.
She would die, in the same way he did.
"I hate to rush you, Princess," Bellamy snapped. "But we're on a tight schedule."
Clarke froze. Her muscles locked, and she could have sworn that even her heart stuttered to a halt. She couldn't explain it and tried to beat it down like she usually would in any other situation, but this wasn't like viewing a surgery or holding down a kid for an injection.
This was something else entirely.
"I..." I can't do this, Clarke thought. But she had no choice. It was too late. Now, she could either float in a suit, or float without one.
"Just press the button on the inside of the airlock," Bellamy said. "That's all you're doing. Just press the button."
But there was nothing nonthreatening about these buttons. Nothing kind. They took parents from their children, loved ones from their families, fathers from their daughters. They only had one purpose, and that was to send living things out to where they didn't belong.
Bellamy hissed in her ears, "Get moving."
On shaky legs, Clarke stepped towards the button beside the next door. The ocean of stars grew impossibly bigger, expanding endlessly downwards. She raised her hand, just as Clarke felt the hairs on her neck prickle.
Clarke shot a glance over her shoulder, and was met by a familiar face, eyes a frosted blue. Dark. Angry. She knew them as well as she knew the drawings in her cell.
Soren.
The chill of his presence hit her like cold water and Clarke gazed back at him, only for a second. Then she turned away and slammed her hand down on the button.
The door parted and the weight of her body disintegrated. The lifeless color of steel turned to a dust of stars swirling around her like tea dregs. On instinct, Clarke reached for the side of the ship as Bellamy had said, but she was moving too fast, tumbling away form the Ark. Panic bubbled up her throat and Clarke groped the empty air, but there was no purchase to grab. Nothing around her besides a blanket of stars that spun and spun and spun.
Clarke tried to right herself, but she had no sense of direction. Up and down didn't exist in space. Just emptiness.
She felt a scream build in her chest, pressing painfully against her ribs and before she could let it out, her body suddenly snapped back. The spinning stopped. Pain laced up her spine, hot and sharp and a coppery taste filled her mouth. She swallowed it.
Heart hammering, Clarke looked down, to the cable that extended from the harness. The wire of it was taut, her only lifeline keeping her from disappearing farther into space. Clarke looked from it to the Ark. Her fear instantly gave way to awe, maybe even admiration as she stared at the ship. It was all whirring metal and orbiting beams that turned and shifted. It was massive and strangely mesmerizing as Clarke watched millions of small pieces move together in sync. She'd seen images of the Ark's exterior, of course, but she knew pictures were never as good as the real thing.
"Clarke?" Bellamy's voice appeared inside the helmet and the spots exploding over her vision reminded her to breathe.
"I-I missed," Clarke whispered, voice rocky. Maybe she had screamed.
"that's okay. Just use the cable to pull yourself back in."
Air sawed between her lips but Clarke listened, latching onto the cable. She pulled, moving forward with surprising ease and though Clarke had never floated in the water, she imagined it would feel something like this.
When she made it a few meters ahead, she glanced back to see the excess cable coiling behind her. To increase speed, Clarke tried hooking her legs around for leverage. The action did little to help and instead, her body drifted upwards, pulling the cable with her.
An annoyed breath tickled her eardrums. "Raise your skirts and pick up the pace, Princess," Bellamy mumbled and Clarke ground her teeth in frustration. "I'm going as fast as I can," she bit out, focusing every unit of attention on the cable sliding between her fingers. She was getting closer though. Already she could make out the exterior of the outside of the chamber, comically small in comparison to the sheer size of the rest of the Ark.
She felt the guards before she saw them, leering behind the doors in wait. But this was a place that even the Council couldn't reach its gluttonous hand.
Almost subconsciously, Clarke counted down the seconds, how many precious breaths of air she'd wasted. Who would pay the price of it? A sick patient? Someone's grandfather, whose empty days were already seen as filled?
Faster, Clarke chided herself, yanking more forcefully on the cable. She tried not to picture it detaching from the ship, sentencing her to the embrace of the infinite shadows around her.
Yet when she was finally close enough to see passed the chamber to the guards inside, that thought vanished as Clarke picked out Soren. Cold, submissive Soren, who wanted nothing more than to be recognized for his uncompromising loyalty, with the end of her cable clutched tightly in his hand.
Clarke stopped. Everything stopped. The million movements of the Ark ceased and all she could see was Soren and the glint of wire cutters that he raised to show her.
Clarke was no novice to fear, but she was to terror and she knew that's what she felt now. It cut to the bone and sang in her veins. It spurred her by fear but kept her frozen in panic as both instincts warred against each other, as if she were two persons trapped in the mind of one.
"Bellamy," she mouthed, but her voice died in her throat.
That image resurfaced, of her drowning, choking in the endlessness of space. Clarke saw herself falling and drifting farther and farther away until the Ark disappeared and she was left alone in the darkness.
So much darkness.
"Bellamy," she said, louder.
"Just shut up and climb," he snapped.
But he wasn't seeing what she was seeing and for one, beautiful moment, nothing happened. Then Soren brought up the wire cutters and Clarke's vision turned red.
"Bellamy!" she screamed, coming to life and scrambling down the cable as fast as she could.
"Clarke? Clarke!"
"The cable!" she cried. "They're cutting my cable!"
Another thing about terror: no reason existed within its grasp.
All logic flew from Clarke's mind and in its place fell something almost manic, a screaming desire to get away that overrode everything else.
"Move faster, Clarke!" Bellamy shouted at her. "I'll pull you in!"
She tried, working every muscle in her body. Her arms ached and Clarke kicked out her legs uselessly. She kept her eyes on the airlock, and watched as only a couple dozen meters away the doors of it opened, and out floated the severed end of her lifeline.
"Daddy?" Clarke's younger voice rang out as she came beside her father's lap, leaning into it and peering up at him curiously. "What are the stars made of?" She asked.
He smiled, pulling her onto his leg. "The stars?"
"Wells says there's one star for every person. Even people you know, like your friends. Is that true?"
Her father's smile turned into a grin and he chuckled. "I don't think that's true, but I do think every star is special like every person. It's unique, and carries its own light."
"Then why are they there?" Clarke raised. "What do they do?"
He wove a finger around one of her loose curls and tugged on it playfully. "I like to think that they're there to remind us we are never alone. And that even in the darkest times, we still have reason to hope."
The flashback faded. Clarke was left in the dark. And she was close enough now to find that her father had been right.
The stars were not her friends.
"Bellamy!"
Clarke barely registered his curse in her head as she fumbled forward faster and faster, pulling the end of the cable closer to her. She couldn't die here. Not like this. Not yet.
Please, Clarke begged. To her Dad, to God, to the cable coming too close too fast. But she knew she wasn't going to make it. Despite her best efforts, Clarke was going die in the dark, with innocent lives following soon after.
"It's-it's too far!" she gasped, unable to swallow back her tears. "I can't..." I can't. I can't. I can't.
"Just hold out your hand!" Bellamy ordered and Clarke tore her eyes away from the cable, just in time to make out his suit, a point of light heading straight for her. She did as she was told, stretching her hand out, deeper into the shadows.
Clarke could just make out the features in his face,- his brows knitted in panic, sweat glistening on his forehead- when he suddenly jerked back, his own cable tight behind him.
He reached his hand out to her and Clarke made a grab for it, but she was being pulled in the opposite direction, the darkness lapping hungrily at her heels.
"Come on, Clarke," Bellamy's voice hissed from the strain and now, Clarke could see his eyes, big and brown and desperate. The sob that had been mounting in her chest tore up her throat and Clarke forced her hand farther, until the joints popped. She didn't even feel it.
"I can't," she whimpered, closing her eyes. "Please..."
Her fingertips brushed his.
I'll see you soon, Dad.
"No!" With one final swipe, Bellamy's hand reached for hers and latched onto her fingers.
Clarke gripped him back, even as his cry of pain echoed through her head. "Don't let go, Bellamy," she murmured, as she pictured herself drifting again, careening through nothingness.
"Clarke! Look at me, Clarke!" His voice crackled in her ears, and Clarke pried her eyes open, meeting his again.
"I won't let you go," he promised. "Okay? Just do as I say. Can you do that?"
Clarke took a deep breath as a shudder ripped down her spine. But she nodded. "Yeah. I'm fine. I can do that." She said it in a feeble voice that belied her words but she looked at him determinedly.
"Good. Now I need you to reach up and grab me with your other hand."
She complied, letting out a muffled sound of relief as his grip grew more firm, securing around her arms.
"Now hurry up and get to the cable before they float the both of us."
Her momentary relief vanished and Clarke maneuvered around him, sliding under his arm and towards it. She didn't let go of him until her hands were securely around the thin wire.
Bellamy passed her and took the lead. He tugged on the cable, drawing them back to the Ark in quick bursts of movement. That cold fear still simmered inside her and Clarke cast a cursory glance towards the airlock. She wondered if Soren was still there but if he was, he was out of sight. If he or any of the other guards had seen Bellamy, his cable would've already been cut. If they'd seen him helping her, they had seconds before it would be.
It must have only taken a couple minutes, but it felt much longer for them to come up to the ship. As they did, Bellamy released the cable and made for a rung, secured on the underside of the Ark. He turned back to her and nodded.
Clarke followed suit, and grasped at the metal bar. The fear of disappearing into the void behind her faded, knocked out of place by the new fear of oxygen. The reminder of lives.
Bellamy began climbing up the rungs and Clarke mirrored his actions, shoving away thoughts of dying people and hands stained in red. They were so close and she forced herself to stay right behind Bellamy, as they traveled across the Ark's hide and towards Mecha. She recalled the blueprints she'd studied of it once. A short phase in which she'd taken an interest in engineering, and she couldn't deny herself the fleeting moment of relief as one of Mecha's airlock chambers came into view, dropping a few meters down.
"It's there," she said.
The chamber itself would have seemed identical to the one in Tesla if not for the large marker MS-2 printed above it. On the left side of the doors was the button and Bellamy reached for it, flipping over the cover before pressing it down.
The doors separated and Bellamy went inside first. Clarke brought up the read, using her legs to launch herself into it.
The stars disappeared as grey steel returned. Clarke felt Bellamy grab her arm again and tug her few feet forward, pulling her closer just as his fist connected with the second button. The doors shut behind them and gravity returned with a vengeance. Her body became a deadened weight and they slammed against the floor, the impact sending Clarke rolling to the side. Her arms and legs screamed in pain and there wasn't a part of her, no muscle or bone, that didn't hurt. The inside of her helm pounded with the strength of her heartbeat.
Clarke sat up, feeling the weight of the suit resettle over her, heavy with the pull of gravity. But she still felt suffocated, like the air was being squeezed from her lungs.
She stood, ignoring the dizziness that made the ship tilt. Her hands went to the sides of her helmet and Clarke tried to undo it, wanting it off. She distantly noted the fiery pain in a couple of her fingers as she tried to pry off the helmet. Even through the thick fog in her mind, she was able to deduce that at least three of them had to be dislocated.
The prying turned to scratching and against her will, a tear leaked out her eye. Her breathing once again turned to gasps, but she refused to go into shock. They had no time for it.
"Hey," Bellamy's voice suddenly broke through to her. "Hey, calm down, I've got it." He raised his own palms to her helmet and twisted it off.
The familiar smell of metal returned to Clarke, laced with something tangy and she took in lungfuls of the air, suppressing the urge to both cry and laugh. She didn't have the energy for either, and instead she folded over herself, resting her hands on her knees. She basked in this single second of peace, at the prospect of being where she was. Here. Alive.
She had come so close to death. Had looked it in the eye. Had taken its hand and danced with it in the suns.
When the moment ended, Clarke looked over at Bellamy, who was twisting off his own helmet. He let it clatter to the ground and leaned his head against the wall, still breathing roughly. He didn't say anything and neither did she and a silence filled the air around them, quiet except for the sounds of discordant breaths.
Clarke was the one to break it. "You saved my life today," she said softly.
Bellamy scoffed. "Don't sound so surprised. You saved mine. I saved yours. That makes us even."
"I didn't know anyone was keeping score."
Bellamy's gaze hardened and his eyes narrowed at her. Clarke struggled to place the emotion she saw in them, but she could make out anger. Prominent in the tightness of his jaw.
"We're not," he said. "So don't take that as an invitation for a repeat."
Clarke pursed her lips and her gaze dropped to her lap, to the set of gnarled fingers on her right hand. It wasn't three fingers that had been dislocated. It was four.
She couldn't reset them yet, not here at least and she looked back at Bellamy. "How's your shoulder?" She asked, remembering how he'd grabbed her with his injured arm. He'd also used it to drag them back to the Ark. It would've been stupid if it hadn't been so necessary.
Bellamy turned away from her, too deliberately, but she didn't miss his grimace of pain. "How do you think?" He mumbled. But then he just shook his head, walking towards the end of the vacant room that was littered with gears and gadgets. "It's fine. Come on."
Clarke went after him and though they were still dawned in spacesuits, she reached for his shoulder."I need to check to see if the wound reopened."
He swatted her hand away. "You can do it later. But right now we have to focus on getting someplace safe. I don't feel like waiting around for the Guard's warm welcome."
Clarke sighed but silently, she agreed. She stopped behind him as he peeked through the window of the thick door that led from the room. When it was cleared, he gestured for her to follow as he slipped through the exit.
Before doing the same, Clarke paused, as some invisible pull drew her attention behind her. She looked back at the airlock, passed the clear doors and into the stars that sparkled like jewels. Alluring. Innocent. But she wasn't fooled. It was the most beautiful things that often proved the most deadly.