a/n Thank you, fabulous people who reviewed that last chapter. I find it harder to update this story than my others, so your encouragement really means a lot to me. Here we have Emori getting jittery about the approaching birth, and a cheerful dose of Bellarke fluff. Happy reading!
Emori was getting nervous, now, she didn't mind admitting it. Somewhere between six and seven months pregnant, and somewhere between the size of a horse and the size of a pauna – at least, that was how it felt – she found herself realising, rather abruptly, that she was going to be giving birth before too long.
There were various ways she could approach this nervousness, she figured. She could sit alone in bed and stew, and wait for John to get worried about her in his turn and then, before long, the whole Ring would be anxious. So that hardly sounded like a good idea. She could help Raven with her pointless mission to fix the door to the viewing platform on Deck C, but procrastinatory engineering didn't sound like the most productive way of dealing with her concerns.
The answer was obvious, really. She should call Clarke.
She'd become somewhat closer to Clarke in recent weeks, and not just because she was the closest thing she was going to find to a doctor to see her through this pregnancy. She supposed it had all started with that day in Becca's lab when Clarke had decided to inject herself with the nightblood, rather than Emori. It was difficult, somehow, not to become friends with her, after that, now that the opportunity had presented itself. And if Emori knew, from what Bellamy had said at John's party, that a bit of friendship would be appreciated by Clarke, too, at this point – well, then. That was all to the good. Everyone was, for once in this life, a winner.
She set down the tablet she had been ignoring, on which she was supposed to have been reading some long-outdated text about what to expect from motherhood, and headed to the radio.
"Clarke? You there?"
There was a brief pause, then a bit of a scuffling sound, then a worried voice.
"Emori. Hey. Is there a problem?"
"Not really." She rushed to assure her, cursing the fact that she hadn't realised Clarke would jump to that conclusion if she called in the middle of the morning. "I just wanted to chat, if you've got a moment."
"Sure. Of course I have. I'm just about to take Madi hunting but we have a minute."
"Thanks."
"How's things?"
"Not bad." She began carefully, wondering how to go about explaining herself. "I guess I'm a bit nervous."
"About the baby, you mean? That's understandable."
"Yeah."
"Any particular part of it I can help you with?"
"I don't know, really. It's just – there's a lot to think about. And I don't know how to do any of it. And it's a bit overwhelming, really." Emori admitted carefully. She wasn't used to being overwhelmed, let alone admitting to it, but she supposed she was only going to get help if she asked for it.
"That's OK, Emori. I can see it would be. Let's think of some ways to break it down a bit into smaller parts that we can work on."
"Have I told you that you're the best pregnancy doctor I've ever had?"
Clarke laughed aloud at that. "Thanks. And I think that's the best compliment I've had all week."
"I'll tell Bellamy you said that."
"Please do." Another burst of laughter. "So, let's decide where to start. Have you thought about the setup for the actual birth? Where you'll be, and who will be with you? I recommend Bellamy, seeing as he's the only person with you who's ever actually helped with a birth before."
"Because having my friend's boyfriend watching me give birth isn't going to be at all weird."
"You're sounding more and more like John, you know."
"He is a bad influence, isn't he? This little one is so screwed." Emori found herself giggling for, she reckoned, the first time that day. "OK, so next I need to work out where I'm giving birth, and get that ready, and choose who I want to have with me. I can deal with that. Thank you."
"No problem."
"I'm going to go tell John he needs to do something useful, then. Speak to you later."
"Bye. Good luck!"
Yes. Calling Clarke had very much been the right answer.
…...
If there was one thing Raven was looking forward to about their eventual return to Earth, it was getting to eat some decent food again.
She was looking forward to seeing Clarke again, of course. And Abby. Friendship, and all that.
But, yes, she couldn't really have been more sick of algae if she tried. With a mournful sigh she stirred her lunch and waited for something, anything, to distract her from the fact that she was actually eating green goop. Hopefully, she mused, the conversation would be decent at this particular mealtime.
"Do you think we could paint the walls with this stuff?" That was Murphy. Well, then. So much for decent conversation.
"Why would we want to?" Bellamy asked, confused. "I don't want green walls."
"Might be something to do." Murphy shrugged. "Maybe my kid likes green."
"Our kid needs us to focus on more important things than redecorating." Perhaps, Raven hoped, Emori might be about to bring the discussion back to something rather more sane. "We need to start making arrangements for the birth."
That shut Murphy up promptly enough, as he started choking on a spoonful of algae, visibly alarmed.
"The – the birth?"
"Yes, John. That's the thing that happens between pregnancy and raising a child."
"Yeah. Of course." He swallowed, carefully. "So what do we need to do?"
"I need to decide where I'm having the baby, and who's going to be in there with me. If it's OK, Bellamy, I'd like you to be there? I guess I should ask you as you're the only person here who's ever delivered a baby before."
"Sure." Bellamy agreed with that easy smile he had been wearing rather a lot of late. "I'll ask Clarke for some tips."
"He's not." Echo said, so quietly that Raven almost did not hear her.
"What?" It was Murphy, of course, who asked. "What do you mean, he's not?"
"He's not the only person here who's ever delivered a baby." Echo clarified with infinite calm. "My mother had a younger child, just before I left to train with Queen Nia. My brother, and I helped deliver him. He's dead now. They both are."
"I'm so sorry." It was Harper who got there first. "I never knew."
"Why should you? I never told you." Even Raven found herself blinking rather rapidly at that. But not crying, of course, because she wasn't in the habit of crying over the dead relatives of people she was less than close to.
"Echo, I'd be honoured if you'd be there, too." Emori asked, apparently apprehensive.
"If you want me there, I'll be there." Echo agreed with a nod and an expression which was almost warm.
"And Raven, obviously. And Harper. Got to have all the aunts there."
"I hope I'm invited to this occasion?" Murphy asked, sarcasm doing a poor job of masking his genuine anxiety.
"Obviously." Emori scoffed, giving him a peck on the cheek for his trouble.
"Great stuff, guys." Monty piped up, from his seat at the end of the table, and Raven realised that she had rather forgotten he was there. "So I guess I'll just hover outside this delivery room alone."
Emori laughed at that, not unkindly. "You know what, Monty? I think you should be there as well. Let's just have the whole family invited."
"Sounds like a rave." Murphy muttered into his algae bowl.
Raven wasn't convinced that this would have all of the stereotypical features of a rave. She suspected that there would be screaming, sure, but not of the overexcited partying kind. And she was expecting the moonshine to be in use more for sterilising hands than soaking stomachs. And, really, all things considered, she thought that probably, the excitement of the birth would be tinged with quite a lot of concern.
But it couldn't be denied – she was looking forward to it all the same.
…...
Bellamy still hadn't learnt the art of patience when it came to waiting for his evening radio call with Clarke. He'd had a good few months, now, to work on it, to adjust to the idea that she wasn't going anywhere, yet he was fantastically poor at passing each day without counting down the seconds until he could hear her voice again.
He'd been working on the art of doing other things at the same time as that, of course. He could now speak passable Trig, and could give Echo a decent match in grounder-style hand-to-hand combat, and could recite from memory half the books on the Ring. But day in, day out, during these worthy activities and beneficial lessons, he continued to wait impatiently for his next chance to get to the radio.
It wasn't just Clarke, of course. He was growing increasingly attached to Madi, as well, and their odd long-distance family life was falling into something of a comfortable routine with each day that passed. And the next step of the routine, as he bolted his supper and half-jogged to Earth Monitoring, was to ask after his foster-daughter's day and tell her a bedtime story.
"Madi? Are you there?"
Barely seconds passed before he heard the reply. "I'm here! I'm here. But I'm still doing chores so can we try again in ten minutes?"
"Sure we can, kid." He went to put down the handset. There must be something in this place, he thought, worth reading for ten minutes.
"No, hang on." Madi piped up again. "Clarke says I can speak to you while she does the chores, as a treat."
"Does she? Are you sure about that? I wouldn't want you to be telling me a little lie to get out of your chores."
Clarke's laughing voice came over the radio at that. "It's fine, Bellamy. You two have story time and I'll do the dishes. Madi's got a bit of a surprise for you today, she's been excited about it all afternoon. I'll speak to you when she's done."
That, he thought, sounded intriguing. "Great. What's the surprise, then, Madi?"
"I want to tell you a story, today, Bellamy. I'm going to tell you the story of the hunting trip we went on in the snow this morning."
"That sounds great. I can't wait."
He sat back into his chair, and listened with unfeigned enthusiasm to the tale of his two favourite people going on what was, by all accounts, a deeply exciting adventure through winter weather in pursuit of a deer which had – shocking development – only one head. It wasn't, perhaps, actually the most interesting story he'd ever heard, but hearing Madi's evident delight, and laughing at her childish attempts to impersonate Clarke, and imagining himself actually by their sides through her detailed description, had him genuinely enthralled by the tale.
At length, Madi finished her account. The deer was slain, and hauled back to their home, and it seemed that they had spent the afternoon dismembering and preserving the carcass.
"And they all lived happily ever after, the end." She concluded brightly.
"I'm not sure about that, kid. It sounds like the deer didn't live happily ever after."
"Please, Bellamy, do not upset her." Clarke's voice joined the conversation. "She'll never eat venison again if you carry on like that."
"Will too. Deer don't look as cute as bears." Madi argued straight back, and he found himself rather distressed to learn that this little girl he felt responsible for thought that dangerous carnivores were cute. "I'm going to bed, now, Bellamy. Night night. Can we have Achilles for the story tomorrow?"
"Sure we can, Madi. Goodnight. Sleep well."
There was a moment's silence, during the course of which Clarke presumably said goodbye to Madi several thousand miles away, and then he heard her familiar voice once more.
"Have I ever told you that you're ridiculously good with children?"
"You may have mentioned it once or twice." He chuckled. "It's just as well. Apparently I'm chief midwife when Emori gives birth."
"Yeah. Sorry, I think I set you up for that one."
"No worries. It can't be the most frightening thing I've ever done."
"What is, do you think?" She asked thoughtfully.
"Huh?"
"What is the most frightening thing you've ever done?"
He gave a rather empty laugh. "God knows. I lose track. Arriving here without you and realising I was supposed to somehow survive that? Leaving O in that bunker? Going home to that empty apartment the night they arrested my mum?"
"Sorry." She sounded a bit sheepish. "That was a stupid question. I didn't mean to upset you."
"Hey, it's OK. There are no stupid questions between us." He reassured her, meaning every word. He wanted to know everything about this woman, and he wanted her to feel she had permission to ask him about anything in her turn.
"OK, then. What's your favourite food?"
"Now that is unfair. How can you ask me that when I'm stuck on algae for the next three years?"
"So you're saying that is a stupid question."
"I'm saying it's a bit cruel, but you're forgiven. Probably apples, I think."
"Apples? You've got the choice of anything and you go for apples?"
"I like apples." He shrugged, then realised she couldn't see it. Ah well. Knowing her, she could probably hear it, somehow, in the tone of his voice. "They're practical but they taste good. What would you pick?"
"Not fish." He could practically hear her wrinkling her nose in disgust. "We eat too much fish here. It was a relief to get that deer today."
"I can understand that." He took a careful breath, wondered how to go about saying exactly what was on his mind. "Clarke?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you for asking me a stupid question."
"You're welcome." That was definitely her confused voice, he thought.
"It's just – when we were on the ground, it felt like we were always trying to solve a problem or fight to survive. It sucks that you're so far away, and I can't show you everything that you mean to me but – it's so great to have this time just to get to know you, if that makes sense." He finished, bit his lip, and waited for her to tell him he was being a bit of an idiot.
"I know exactly what you mean." She exceeded his expectations, as always. "It feels like we did it backwards, doesn't it? I fell in love with you before I really knew you."
"I knew the important stuff." He argued firmly. "I knew that you're brave, and kind, and all the stuff that really matters. We've got the rest of our lives to learn each other's favourite foods."
"And the rest of our lives for you to show me everything that I mean to you." She teased. "I wonder what you meant by that, exactly?"
"You know exactly what I meant." He reprimanded her affectionately, because, actually, she always did know exactly what he meant. "You annoyingly beautiful woman."
"Was that a compliment?"
"It was." He confirmed easily. "But apparently not a very good one."
"It was good enough for me." She was fighting giggles, he could tell. "I'm going to go to bed, now, Bellamy. Dragging that deer around was exhausting. Speak for a bit longer tomorrow?"
"Sure. I'll prepare a list of stupid questions."
"Me, too."
There was a pause, and he wondered if he was supposed to fill it, perhaps by saying goodbye or wishing her a quiet night's sleep.
"Bellamy?"
"Yeah?"
"Can I ask you another stupid question?"
This was an odd development, he thought. She was supposed to be going to bed, but she was still asking about asking stupid questions, rather more nervously than she had been only moments ago, and he couldn't quite work out why.
"Sure."
"What do you think our first kiss will be like?"
He felt the air rush out of his lungs, wondered whether there was any such thing as a good answer to that. Wondered how to go about telling her that he didn't actually care, so long as he was kissing her, without sounding like he was belittling her evident concern.
"I don't know." He told her honestly, in the end. "But I know that I love you, and I know that it'll be great because you're you."
"I don't want you to be disappointed. After all this waiting, what if it's not as great as you imagined? What if – what if you're not attracted to me, after so long apart?" He'd been worrying about that, too, actually, but the other way around. And the more he thought about it, the more he decided that it was stupid. And the more he thought about that – well, then. The more he thought she needed to know what was going on in his head, too.
"Clarke. Believe me when I say that I'm a bit more in love with you than that." He gathered his wits, prepared to tell her that difficult truth. "I've been worrying about that, too, though. What if I'm not how you remember me? I didn't always take good care of myself at first, up here. What if I don't get back in shape again, like I was when we first met?"
"I'm a bit more in love with you than that, too." She murmured, and he felt his heart do something of a victory dance inside his chest. "Shall we try to stop worrying about that, then?"
"I would." He agreed easily. "That seems like the sensible choice, and I know you like sensible choices. Get some sleep."
"Yeah. Sweet dreams."
"You too. And, Clarke?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm looking forward to that kiss."
a/n Thanks for reading!