a/n Thank you so much to the people who left reviews on that last chapter! I'm so excited that there are people who enjoy this story and want to keep reading it - I shall do my best to keep writing it. Your encouragement has definitely given my enthusiasm for writing this a new lease of life. Happy reading!
Bellamy tried very hard to concentrate on the task before him. He was supposed to be making a crib for the much-anticipated baby, of all things, despite his protestations that a career as a cadet, a janitor, and a coordinator of teenage delinquents did not exactly leave him qualified in carpentry. And incompetence wasn't even the biggest problem, here, if he was being honest. No, the biggest problem was quite how distracted he found himself by thoughts of Clarke.
He often found himself distracted by thoughts of Clarke. For the most part, they were reasonably innocent thoughts, about what she might be up to, and how her day was going. Sometimes they were just a little more personal, thoughts of the curve of her lips, or how it felt to enfold her in a hug.
But with increasing frequency, since that question she'd asked him about the kiss a couple of weeks ago, he found himself distracted by thoughts of Clarke that were rather less innocent. It was a special kind of sweet torture, he thought, to be so physically distant from her at the start of this new relationship that had been so many years in the making. He wasn't quite sure how he was going to last three and a half years without feeling the warmth of her skin beneath his fingertips.
No, only three years and a month, now. That had to count as progress.
He sighed deeply, and tried to convince himself to refocus on the task before him. He wouldn't want the newest member of their extended family to be without a crib when they arrived. And he wouldn't want the newly driven John Murphy to kick him in the guts for letting the side down. He hammered a nail into place with no great enthusiasm, and wondered when it was that he had become Raven's dogsbody. He seemed to remember that he had been considered a leader, of sorts, once upon a time.
He jumped, startled, when a voice drifted through the open door.
"Bellamy?" Thank goodness. That was Echo, and hopefully she could provide him an excuse for giving up on this project, at least temporarily.
"Hey." He got to his feet as she appeared on the threshold. "What's up?"
"We need to go beat up Murphy. He's bugging Emori."
"I'm hoping that you mean we need to go train with Murphy?"
"Isn't that what I said?" She asked with a laugh. It had taken him a while to adjust to Echo's sense of humour, he had to admit, but he liked to think he was getting there, now.
"Something like that." He dusted his hands off and the two of them set out towards their improvised gym. "What's he been doing?"
"The usual. Following her round. Asking if she's OK several times an hour."
Bellamy found himself grinning. "I think I'd be as bad, to be honest, if it was Clarke."
Suddenly it seemed Echo was looking at him as if he had lost his mind. "You are as bad about Clarke, and she's neither here nor pregnant."
"What do you mean?"
"You are at least as obsessed with whether she and Madi are OK as Murphy is with Emori. Even when you're not on the radio we can all tell you're thinking about them."
He supposed that might be true, actually. "Can you blame me? I spent all that time thinking she was dead."
"None of us blame you at all." She assured him, with a sort of fleeting half a hug that felt a lot like an attempt at friendship. "Now come on. Let's go give Murphy a hard time."
…...
Murphy had to admit that he might, in fact, have been starting, just ever so slightly, to lose the plot.
OK. That was a lie. He had lost the plot a couple of months ago. Now, he was in serious danger of losing his head completely. But, really, he didn't think anyone could blame him for that. It wasn't exactly an everyday occurrence, to end up accidentally becoming a father, at the age of twenty, whilst living in a tin can floating above a burning planet. And he couldn't help panicking rather a lot at the idea that he was supposed to be parenting a small child, in the imminent future, when he knew precious little about parenting.
He knew that this panic hadn't passed unnoticed by his sickeningly chirpy new family, as the crew of said tin can seemed to have started calling themselves since the news of Emori's pregnancy got out. It couldn't be a coincidence, surely, that Bellamy and Harper and Echo kept finding themselves in need of a training buddy, and Monty kept finding himself in need of an extra pair of hands on the algae farm, and Raven and Emori kept finding themselves in need of someone to run errands. It had not escaped his notice that those errands always seemed to be trivial and long-winded in nature, and mostly revolved around fetching something small, obscure, and evidently useless from some distant part of the Ring.
He supposed he ought to feel supported by all these attempts to keep him calm and distracted and useful, but he had to admit that he was also finding them a little patronising.
He stifled a sigh, and wandered into what passed for a common room on this space station, and sagged into an uncomfortable chair that was, he suspected, an Old Earth antique.
"You OK?" He jumped a little at the sound of Monty's voice, not having expected to find anyone else here. Emori had gone to bed early, of course, and Bellamy was likely on the radio, and he had to admit that he wasn't entirely sure what the rest of his neighbours tended to get up to in the evenings. He just knew it didn't generally involve him.
"Yeah." He lied cheerfully, with a careful shrug. "Just thought that I should leave Emori to get some rest. Thought I might play cards or something."
"You thought you might play cards alone?" Monty asked, a little incredulous.
"Never heard of Solitaire?" He bit back, disproportionately annoyed to be called out on being a lonely loser.
"You're a month away from fatherhood and you're spending your evening playing Solitaire?"
"What's wrong with that?"
"Nothing's wrong with it." Monty said, surprisingly calm despite his own rising anger. "I just wondered if you'd prefer some company. Or to chat about the baby, or whatever."
If he wasn't John Murphy, he thought he might actually have felt touched at that. "No, it's OK. I get that everyone else has other things they'd rather be doing."
"I don't have anything to do, as it happens." Monty informed him conversationally. "Harper and Raven decided that Echo needed to learn about the concept of a Skaikru girls' night, and Bellamy's obviously with Clarke. So if you did want some company, I don't have much else on."
He remembered, with those words, why he didn't used to like Monty. The old, pre-fatherhood Murphy used to find it a bit annoying that this guy was so infuriatingly good and kind all the time, he recalled.
But he remembered, too, that he was practising doing a little better, these days. That he was hoping to become the kind of father Alex Murphy had been.
"D'you think it's normal to be a bit worried about having a kid?" He asked, concentrating carefully on shuffling a deck of cards. He did come here to play Solitaire, after all.
"Of course it is." Monty shrugged. "It's just because you want to do a great job of it."
"I'm not sure I know how to. I didn't have a dad for very long."
"I don't think that matters. From what you've said, he was a great example while he was around." Monty paused for a moment, a thoughtful frown on his face. "My father was great, and he was there right up until I went to lock up, and I could always rely on him. But I'm pretty sure I'd still be nervous if I was about to have a kid."
"Yeah. It's weird. I always thought that – having kids was something that happened to other people. Older, more respectable people, who had their shit together."
Monty laughed at that, loud and long. "Murphy. I never thought I'd say this, but I think you and Emori have your shit together better than any of the rest of us."
The worrying thing was, Murphy thought that might just be the truth.
…...
Clarke had enjoyed today more than most. There had been decent weather, and a sense that spring was coming. There had been, too, rabbit for supper, and anything that wasn't fish was basically a victory as far as she was concerned. And then Bellamy had called, right on schedule, and told Madi some really quite insensitively bloodthirsty bedtime story about a duel between heroes who were now long dead - if indeed they had ever existed at all – and Clarke had his undivided attention for the rest of the evening.
Overall, she was starting to think that she might survive the next three years and twenty-six days. Not that she was counting, or anything.
Who did she think she was kidding? Of course she was counting the days. There were some nights when it was all she could do not to count the seconds.
"How was your day?" Bellamy asked her now, as she waved Madi off to bed and settled into her favourite chair.
"Pretty good, actually. I'm really starting to believe that I'll make it to your landing day without completely losing my mind."
"Yeah. I realised today that it's nearly six months since you got in touch and it's flown by so quickly. Or quicker than when I thought you were dead, anyway." She hated the sorrow she could still hear in his voice every time he so much as thought about those long months.
"I owe Raven for fixing that radio." She told him, trying to inject a bit of levity back into the conversation.
"I don't think you do, not any more." He disagreed with a laugh. "She's had me making this damn crib for the baby. I don't think we owe her anything after that."
She tried not to be too touched at the idea he reckoned their debts were shared, now. "And how's that going?"
"Badly. I'm no good at woodwork and you keep distracting me."
"I'm sorry." She giggled, not really sorry at all. "I take it that's another veiled compliment?"
"Of course." She could hear him chuckling too. "It's so good to speak to you, Clarke. I mean, I know we do this every day but – I just needed to tell you that."
"I get that." She murmured, hoping he could hear the caress in her voice. "It's always good to speak to you, too. Is it your turn to ask a stupid question, today?"
"Yeah." He paused, and she could practically hear his hesitant frown. It looked like today's stupid question might be an uncomfortable one, then.
"Whatever it is, you know you can ask me." She reminded him gently.
"OK then. Here goes. If – if you were at the gates, on the way home from Mount Weather, all over again, would you still leave? I know that probably sounds stupid. I just wondered – if you got another chance, would you choose differently?"
She sighed deeply. She had to admit, she had wondered when they would talk about this. And she supposed that she ought to have spent a little time, in the last couple of years when she'd had precious little else to think about, planning what her response to a question like this might be. But she hadn't done that, and so it seemed she would have to make do.
"Honestly, Bellamy, if I was in exactly the same situation all over again, I think I would have left every time. That was just – it was the only option I could see, back then. But if I found myself in a situation like that, now, with the benefit of hindsight, and knowing that you'd be there with me, I'd choose differently. Does that make sense? That I couldn't have chosen any differently back then, but I'd choose differently now?"
He was silent for a little too long. "Yeah. I guess."
"What is it? You don't sound very happy with that answer."
She heard a noise in the background that sounded suspiciously like someone kicking a heavy article of furniture. "I'm not."
"I'm sorry. I was trying to be honest."
"No, I'm not unhappy with you. I just – I'll always blame myself for not being enough to make you want to stay. And not making you feel like I'd be there for you if you did stay."
"Honestly, Bellamy, it was nothing to do with you. That may sound harsh, but it was to do with me, and Lexa, and all those deaths. There was nothing you could have done about it."
"You mean that?"
"I'm sorry you've spent all this time blaming yourself."
"I'm sorry we've never talked about it before."
"Good job we've got the next three years to do nothing but talk." She said, trying to sound upbeat.
"Speak for yourself." He said, matching her cheerful tone. "I'm going to be practising my crib-making. I'm telling you, when I get back and we give Madi that little brother or sister, they are going to sleep in style."
She laughed a little, and wished there was a way to reach out through the radio and kiss him senseless. "I love you."
"I love you, too." He told her, sounding bemused. "But you really do say that at the strangest moments."
a/n Thanks for reading!