a/n Thanks, awesome humans, for the reviews last chapter - they were so thorough and detailed which always makes my day. Happy reading!
Autumn turned to winter and a bright, crisp dawn saw Clarke perched on a rock overlooking the river, sketchbook in hand as she attempted to capture the waterfall quite literally frozen in time. It had not been an easy couple of months, she reflected as her pencil picked out the eerie form of the tendrils of ice where the water usually flowed, but it had at least not been as difficult as she might have foreseen. Clearing the debris burying the bunker in Polis had turned out to be an exercise in following Raven's painstaking instructions rather than a feat of physical strength, and through the magic of explosives the door would be clear when the time came.
She missed her friends, of course she did, she missed them so much that it hurt, even thought she knew they were alive, even though she could speak to them. She pushed that thought away through sheer force of will and decided she was supposed to be joyful. She was very much looking forward to the birthday party for Murphy that was to take place that evening, for example. He didn't seem like a very birthday party sort of a person, she thought, but from what he'd said to her at Emori's last radio check-up, he'd allowed his friends to persuade him that surviving twenty years with everything the universe had thrown at him was an achievement worth celebrating.
Bellamy had told the story rather differently, she remembered with a smile. He'd said that Emori had told him outright that he wasn't allowed to be a father without attending a birthday party at least once, so that he knew how to spoil his child silly on their birthday in turn. It seemed that all anyone had to do to get John Murphy to agree to anything these days was to remind him that his girlfriend was six months pregnant. It was a little bit humbling, Clarke thought, realising that all along this man she had so easily misjudged because of his brash attitude and survivor's instinct was actually capable of being so caring.
She frowned at the scene before her for a moment, contemplating how best to capture the swirling patterns caught within the ice where the tumbles and eddies had been fixed in place. There was something about the phenomenon that reminded her uncannily of the curls of hair that fell across Bellamy's forehead.
No, that was a ridiculous thought. She needed to get a grip on this new and rather pathetic lovestruck side of her personality, she resolved. Just because her lover was thousands of miles away did not give her permission to moon over him to the extent that she saw him in a waterfall, for goodness' sake. Had she called him her lover? Well, she thought that was what he was. They loved each other, that much they'd established, but with their current geographical situation it was less than clear to her whether he loved her in exactly the way she loved him. She hoped more than anything that he meant it in the making love sense, because that was certainly what she was thinking about him – more often than she cared to admit, actually, and more often when she was lying restlessly awake in bed at night than could possibly be good for her sanity. They'd talked a lot in recent months, of course they had, and shared an I love you at least once a day, like clockwork, but they hadn't broached that.
She jumped a mile at the rustling sound behind her, flustered at the thought of being caught in the midst of such thoughts by her young daughter, and felt her cheeks heat immediately. Distracted by her embarrassment, she missed her footing on the icy rock and teetered forwards, arms flailing, sketchbook flung away into nothingness.
Her cheeks cooled down rather abruptly when she fell straight through the ice and into the freezing water below.
…...
Raven enjoyed having someone intelligent around the place, she decided, as she and Emori found themselves engaged in a rather cheerful and completely pointless early morning debate about how, exactly, they might fix the door to the viewing platform on Deck C without wasting any of their precious stock of scrap metal. No one had actually shown any interest in visiting the viewing platform on Deck C, but they could both agree on one thing: there was nothing they liked better than an utterly unnecessary project.
She hoped that their early morning Earth-monitoring brainstorming sessions would not disappear when that much-anticipated baby appeared.
"You're so narrow-minded." Her friend told her with spirit and a broad smile. "Get out of your mechanic-sized box and think about -"
She was interrupted by a panicked voice on the radio.
"Hello? Hello? Is anyone there? It's Madi. Please. I need Bellamy." Raven felt the air rush out of her lungs as she reached for the handset.
"Madi? It's Raven here. What's wrong?"
"It's Clarke. She fell in the river and now she won't wake up. Please, I need Bellamy."
At that, Emori made for the door but Raven moved to intercept her even while the girl carried on babbling in distress in the background.
"What are you doing? I need to go fetch Bellamy." Emori looked ready to push her clean out of the way as she reacted to the crisis.
"Don't. He'll only panic. Let's find out what's going on first."
"Raven. Get out of my way. The woman he loves won't wake up. I think he has a right to be here." At that, she stormed straight past her and out of the door, before Raven even had chance to acknowledge that, perhaps, she might have a point. Loving relationships were, apparently, still not her best thing.
"OK, Madi." She got back on the radio. "Tell me what happened."
"Clarke fell in the river and it's frozen and I managed to get her out and drag her back here but she won't wake up."
"OK, Madi. It'll be OK. Is she breathing?"
"Yeah, she's breathing but that's all. She's not moving or anything."
"OK, but she's breathing, that's really good news. Do you know if she hit her head?"
"I think she did. There's a bit of blood and she has a big bruise round her eye."
"OK. And the river's very cold? Is she soaked through?"
"She was. I got her wet clothes off and she's wrapped in blankets and she's next to the stove."
"You've done great, Madi. You've done all the right things. And you were right to call us."
"I just want her to wake up. And I want Bellamy."
"He'll be here soon, I promise. You just sit with Clarke and keep her warm and keep talking to me."
"What do I do if she dies, Raven? I don't want to be on my own."
"She's going to be OK, kid. And you'll never be on your own, we're all here for you too."
Right on cue, Bellamy burst through the door, half dressed and breathless from running.
"Is she – what's – how?" He panted incoherently as he crossed the room.
"She's alive. You'd better take a few deep breaths before you speak to Madi or you'll panic her even more."
"What happened?"
"Hypothermia and a knock to the head. It sounds like it's probably not as serious as it could have been."
"Thank goodness." He visibly crumpled with relief and she noted gratefully that Emori at least had the presence of mind in a crisis to offer him a chair. "What did -?"
"Raven?" Madi's voice piped over the radio, and she realised that she must have missed something from the girl in all the noise of Bellamy's arrival.
"I'm still here. And Bellamy's just got here, I'll pass you over."
She might not have been the most tactful woman in the universe, or even on this space station, but even Raven Reyes realised this was a good moment to leave the room.
…...
Bellamy had faced some pretty frightening things in his life, but the realisation that the woman he loved was unconscious and hypothermic several thousand miles away, and he was unable to do anything at all about the situation, was, he thought, easily the scariest of the lot.
He forced himself to take some deep breaths and at least pretend to be calm, for Madi's sake.
"Madi?"
"Bellamy!" With that, his daughter burst abruptly into tears. And if he'd thought long-distance parenting was challenging before, that paled into insignificance beside his vague attempts to make comforting noises over the radio while his little girl wept at her unconscious mother's side.
He just wanted to get back to Earth. Soon, preferably, and in one piece, to be reunited with his family.
"It'll be OK, Madi." He soothed as she grew a little quieter. "Just make sure she stays warm, and keep talking to me. What happened, anyway?"
"She fell in the river. I surprised her and she jumped and slipped and fell in." Madi sounded inconsolable at the idea that she had somehow caused this.
"Hey, it's not your fault, kid. It was an accident. And Clarke will tell you the same thing just as soon as she wakes up." She had to wake up. She had to.
"I hope so. She just went out to draw and I wanted to join her and I didn't mean to scare her. And I think she dropped her sketchbook, too, and I don't want her to be angry with me."
"Don't worry, Madi. I think a lost sketchbook is not the end of the world just now. She'll be really proud of you for looking after her so well."
"You think?" She asked quietly, and Bellamy could have sworn he heard a groaning noise in the background. Maybe it was just some cruel optimistic streak in his mind playing tricks on him.
"Yeah. Madi, did I just hear a noise?" There it was again.
"Yeah. It's Clarke. Why is she making those noises? Is she sick? Is she hurt?"
"It's OK, Madi. It's a good sign. It probably means she's waking up."
"You think?"
"Yeah." He knew it was at least a little crazy, but he started speaking to her all the same. He'd always been a little crazy where Clarke was concerned. "Clarke, can you hear me? Please tell me you're OK."
"Bellamy?" He wasn't crying with relief. Not at all. His eyes were just a little moist.
"Clarke. Thank god. You had us worried there." He sighed into the radio even as he could hear Madi babbling excitedly in the background.
Clarke let out another loud groan.
"You OK? What's wrong?"
"My head hurts." He heard her splutter as if clearing her throat. "A lot."
"Oh, sorry. We should probably stop talking at you so loudly. Just – yeah – relief." He finished less than eloquently.
She let out a slightly stilted chuckle. "I'm sorry for giving you a fright."
"It's hardly your fault."
"I don't know. Pretty sure it is my fault that I was an idiot and got distracted and then accidentally jumped into a river."
"What distracted you?" He asked, presuming she meant that some wild animal had given her a fright or something.
There was a beat of silence before she responded. "Missing you."
"Clarke." He was aware even as it was happening that groaning her name was probably not attractive, but seemed powerless to stop it. "I'm going to be there before you know it. And we can be a proper family and... and that brother or sister for Madi that we talked about once? I'm looking forward to that bit especially. I'm sure they'll be just as beautiful as their mother."
"I don't feel very beautiful right now." She whispered. "I'm pretty sure I have a black eye from hitting my face on something. Certainly feels like it."
"Pretty sure you're still the most beautiful woman on Earth." He told her warmly.
"Nice compliment to pay the only grown woman currently technically on Earth." She said, tone light, but he couldn't help feeling their was something else lying beneath her flippant response. He wondered what was going on in her head while she was down there almost alone and decided a bit of heartfelt honesty was in order.
"Clarke. I'm pretty sure I'll always think you're stunning, no matter how recently you've fallen in a river. But I'd rather you didn't fall in rivers too often, because I love you, and it scares me when I can't hear your voice."
"I love you too." He heard her suck in a slow breath, as if putting off the question she was about to ask. "What are we, Bellamy?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean... our relationship. What are we?"
He sighed, long and low, and reminded himself that he couldn't know what it was like to be down there, all alone but for the company of a small child. He had no way of understanding quite how isolated and insecure she must be feeling.
All the same, it seemed like a damn idiotic question, and he wasn't used to Clarke Griffin being an idiot.
"We're Madi's parents." He began slowly, deliberately, wanting to be absolutely clear. "We're also going to be the parents of Madi's siblings, so use your imagination to understand how that's going to work – and yes, I'm looking forward to that bit of the process quite a lot. But, above all, we're a team, aren't we? Or at least, I always thought we were. Partners, in every sense of the word."
"Partners. Yeah, OK. That sounds about right."
"Clarke?"
"Yeah?"
"Will you be my long-distance date to Murphy's party?"
She laughed at that, and the sound warmed his soul. She had not drowned, nor died of hypothermia, and she was laughing at his lame jokes again.
"I would be honoured."
…...
Emori had grown used to the concept of a miserable breakfast table over the last couple of years, but that morning's had been, she decided easily, an all-time low. So it was that, as soon as Bellamy had returned, looking troubled but no longer entirely frantic, and told them Clarke was well, she had resolved that they all needed to get on with happier things.
This party was going to be the best night of John's life.
She told him that as they were setting up the music system and waiting for Monty to appear with the moonshine and the rest of the crew to show up with – well, with whatever it was they were contributing. Company. Friendship. Family. All those kinds of things the pair of them were still getting the hang of.
"The best night of my life? I'd like to see you try."
"No need to be so sarcastic about it, John." She snapped, fed up of his propensity to shoot down everything that was nice in the world. Or even in space.
"If you'd let me finish you'd realise there was going to be a compliment in there."
"There was?" She asked, at least a little incredulous, because compliments were, in her experience, not a very John Murphy thing.
"Yeah. I was going to say that nothing could beat the evening of the day you told me you were pregnant."
She felt tears springing up at that, and reminded herself that high emotions were a natural part of pregnancy. It was obviously nothing to do with the fact that she'd just been witness to what was, without doubt, the sweetest thing her distinctly un-sweet boyfriend had ever said.
"OK, then. But it's still going to be pretty great."
And it was.
Raven hit the moonshine perhaps the hardest of all of them, and started saying various unexpectedly sappy things about how much she was looking forward to being an aunt. But Echo, too, more than pulled her weight on the drinking front and before she could quite work out how it had happened, the pair of them were playing some game that involved flipping small pieces of metal into cups. It was remarkable, she noted, how much Echo had come out of her shell since John and Bellamy had first invited her to join their sparring sessions.
Clarke's radio calls had made a lot of difference to all of them, it would seem.
Even Monty and Harper were rather more outgoing than usual, less wrapped up in each other and more inclined to include the rest of the world in their conversations, such as their current discussion with John and Clarke about the farm. She had never thought she would see the day when John was inviting Monty to tell him more about his algae production. Nor, for that matter, had she expected to see her friends quite so enthusiastic about what their designated chef was calling algae crackers, not after Raven's previous insistence that algae snacks did not make a good party.
Only Bellamy continued to look distinctly troubled, she thought. And probably, she decided, that was not unrelated to the fact that Clarke had fallen into a river only that morning, but really, as she now seemed to be right as rain it wasn't clear why he was still frowning all over the place. It killed the mood a bit, she felt. But beyond that, she was also worrying about him, and wondering whether perhaps something was wrong between him and Clarke. Had he made some ill-thought-out declaration of love while she was on her sickbed, only to be rebuffed? It hardly seemed likely. She didn't know Clarke well, but one thing she did know was that she was devoted to him.
She decided that she ought to practise this family thing a bit and ask him what was wrong. Apart from anything else, she was certainly the only person sober enough to be a stable source of emotional support just now.
"Bellamy? Are you alright?"
"What? Yeah." She was less than convinced as he continued to stare at the radio with a distinctly bothered crease to his brow. "Yeah. Great party."
"Thanks. Is Clarke doing OK? You said she was fine from her fall this morning."
"Yeah. Yeah, it's not the fall." He continued to stare at the radio, and she thought maybe that was it, maybe they weren't quite on sharing and caring terms yet.
She sipped her cup of water for something to do. After all, she didn't have anywhere else to be.
At length he started to talk into the empty space in front of him, eyes averted from hers.
"I'm worried about Clarke." He murmured, as if not sure he was allowed to admit that. As if he thought he was supposed to pretend that everything was perfect, now that the radio was working.
"You are?"
"Yeah. She's – I don't know. She seems low. And lonely. And insecure. And I know she's still upset over what she found at Arkadia. And I'm thousands of miles away and I can't fix it." He punched a closed fist into his palm in frustration. "I just want her to be OK."
"That's understandable. I can see why you're frustrated. But Bellamy, you're doing everything you can."
"I should be doing more."
"I'm not sure there's any more you could do." She frowned a little, and wondered how the words that were gathering on the tip of her tongue would be received. "I'd like to talk to her more. I know that sounds stupid, we've never been close. But - she's been so kind and helpful about the baby. And you did say she was lonely. Maybe... I know the two of you are great together, but maybe it would be good if the rest of us were in her life more, too? If it wasn't always only you and her and Madi."
"I do think she'd like that. She asks after everyone else all the time but... she doesn't like to bother you. She'll only talk to Raven if she's got an engineering question. It's like she thinks she needs an excuse for people to want to speak to her."
"She needs to remember we're all family, now."
"Yeah. I think she still feels guilty for everything she's done to wrong you all, in the past."
"That's stupid. She's done worse to you than to any of us, and she understands that you've forgiven her."
"Yes. But she knows I'm in love with her." He pointed out with a chuckle. "Thanks, Emori. Really. Your kid is going to be lucky to have such a sensible mum."
"Flatterer." She laughed. "Look, go enjoy the party. I'm sure you could teach Raven a thing or two about that stupid cup game. I'm going to go accidentally join in the conversation with my friend Clarke."
"You're too tactful to be dating John Murphy."
"What can I say? He makes up for it." She threw over her shoulder as she made her way to the radio, leaving Bellamy looking at least a little horrified at her insinuation.
a/n Thanks for reading!