a/n I know, I know, I don't update this story very often. In my defence, I've written better things. But a lovely guest reviewer reminded me that some people like reading this so here goes. Happy reading!

John Murphy still couldn't believe his luck. He'd had six months to adjust to the idea of being a father, now. Six months of being amazed by little Charlotte's smile, and being amazed most of all by the fact that Emori actually wanted a family life with him. Six months, and he still couldn't believe it was real.

Something odd had been occurring, on and off, during those six months. Often Emori slept in later than him – even though she'd always been the early riser of the pair of them – and today was one of those days. John knew she'd been up half the night with Charlotte, and the guilt that he felt at that was something he hadn't got used to, either. He knew it made sense for her to be the one awake and nursing the baby at all hours of the night – after all, she was the one who was actually lactating – but he still thought he ought to find a way to make it up to her.

He was perfectly happy to admit it – fatherhood had turned him soft.

"John?" She murmured sleepily as he left the bed.

"Sleep." He urged her, reaching across to press a kiss to her hairline. "I'll bring you some breakfast."

That shocked her into wakefulness, and the next thing he knew, she was wide-eyed and staring at him. "Who are you and what have you done with John Murphy?"

"I'm trying to be a good boyfriend. You were up all night and you should get some more sleep." He grumbled, insecure and uncomfortable. He liked to think he'd always gone out of his way to take care of her physical well-being, even if he hadn't always been the most romantic of partners. So he was a little hurt, he decided, that she seemed surprised by the idea that he might want her well-rested and well-fed.

"Thanks." She said, with a smile more sweet than any former career thief should have any right to wear.

Murphy threw on some clothes, kissed Charlotte good morning, and headed out, easing the door shut as quietly as possible behind him. All that time he spent practising being a sneak was serving him well, now, when it came to ensuring his two best girls were not disturbed.

Bellamy was the only person in the dining room when he arrived. His friend's nose was buried in a book and he was wearing that careless smile that seemed to have been permanently etched on his face since they made contact with Clarke and Madi almost a year ago.

"Morning." Murphy offered, a little louder than necessary, because he was still something of an ass at heart and didn't get much chance to practise his piss-taking skills on his girlfriend, these days.

Bellamy jumped, then tried to pass it off as a stretch, then gave up and laughed. "You're a creep, you know that, Murphy?"

He gave a sarcastic bow and then took a chair. "It's what I do."

Bellamy was looking at him with an expression he couldn't make sense of. "I'm not sure about that, you know. Your girlfriend accused you of being sweet the other day."

"Yeah, that was a mistake." He picked up a coaster for something to do, turned it over in his hands. "I don't know what I did to deserve her, you know? And Charlotte as well. I never expected to get this lucky."

"I know the feeling. I don't know what I did to deserve Clarke and Madi."

That, Murphy decided, was an idiotic statement. "Are you out of your mind? You've been showing that woman you deserve her for years. How many times have you saved her life? Or made her smile when the world turned to shit? And both her and Madi know you'd do anything for them."

Bellamy looked annoyed now. "Are you for real, Murphy? You've just described exactly what you do for Emori. I've heard the stories of the time you got locked up in Becca's lab and tried to protect her. And even before that, at Polis when ALIE was in her head and you still wouldn't hurt her."

"You know, sometimes I think this is all some big conspiracy – having a girlfriend and a baby and this damn space family. You're all just trying to get me to become some signed-up member of the good guys' club."

"Is it working?" Bellamy asked, smirking that infuriating smirk.

It was working. It was working only too well, but Murphy had no interest in admitting that. He simply played with his coaster, and looked forward to breakfast, and waited for Bellamy to wipe that smug look off his face.

…...

Clarke was excited about girls' night. She made a point, these days, of radioing each of her friends rather than only Bellamy, but there was something very different and rather special about the idea of having all of them brought together around the radio at once. Apart from anything else, she still spent more time talking to Raven and Harper than to Echo or Emori, and she figured it couldn't be a bad idea to get to know them better.

So Clarke was excited – but Madi was positively bouncing off the walls. She'd never been invited to a girls' night before, but she'd been asking Clarke what one was, and so Raven had seen fit to extend the invitation to the eight-year-old as well. Clarke had to admit that she wasn't sure it was the most sensible idea Raven had ever had. Conversation at Spacekru girls' nights tended to consist of an odd combination of comparing movies, innuendos about their sex lives, and reminiscing about violent dangers of days gone by. On top of all that, the women on the Ring tended to get through quite a lot of moonshine. But Madi was desperate to be included, and Raven had promised they'd keep it clean, and so it was that Clarke found herself sitting at the radio with her daughter and waiting for the evening to get underway.

"This is Clarke and Madi, calling the Ring, anyone there?"

"Hey. We're all here." Raven greeted her, and sure enough, Clarke could already hear muffled laughter in the background.

"Thanks for inviting me. I can't wait." Madi piped up.

"You're welcome, Madi." Harper said warmly. "How are you?"

"I'm great. I'm excited!" The girl was fidgeting in her chair. "What do we talk about?"

There was a heavy silence, and Clarke found herself regretting that they hadn't actually sat down and planned suitable topics of conversation. She'd even suggested that, but Raven had laughed and said something about how ridiculous it was to try to plan fun.

"Sometimes we talk about movies." Harper offered cautiously. "Have you watched any movies?"

"No. But Clarke's told me about some. And Bellamy even does scenes from movies for my bedtime stories sometimes. He does different voices and everything." Madi enthused.

"Of course he does." Raven said through a snort. "Tell us, Madi – what's Bellamy's best movie scene?"

"He's good at Shrek." Madi informed them eagerly, while Clarke sat back and watched her chatter happily away. "He's really good at making the ogre sound scary. And he says Shrek is an important movie to learn about because it's all about fairy tales."

"His educational priorities are interesting." Raven laughed, not unkindly.

"Remind me not to let him teach Charlotte." Emori agreed.

"I'm going to teach baby Charlotte all of Bellamy's stories when she's older." Madi informed them firmly. "Stories are important."

This whole conversation was making Clarke very proud and a little emotional, she had to admit. "We should ask our friends about their days." She prompted Madi gently.

"Yes! Yes we should. How were your days?"

"We had a good training session." Harper offered.

"What did you do?" Madi asked, all curiosity.

"We learnt some wrestling moves from Echo." Harper explained. "It was pretty fun watching Murphy and Bellamy get beaten. Don't tell them I said that. But it was cool to see Echo pull some moves where skill mattered more than strength."

"That does sound cool." Madi agreed. "Can you teach me when I'm older, Echo?"

There was a heartbeat's silence. Echo and Clarke were still far from close, and Echo had never really struck her as the teaching type.

"If that's OK with your parents." Echo answered, with every appearance of calm. "Wrestling isn't really my best skill though. I'd be better at teaching you archery."

"It's OK with me." Clarke joined in eagerly, keen to encourage this overture of friendship. "Thanks for offering, Echo."

"Any time. What else are aunts for?"

This might not have been the family Clarke ever expected, or even asked for. But she realised, now, that it was quite the best family she could ever have.

…...

Bellamy was proud of his self control. He'd made it all the way to their usual evening appointment without giving in and calling Clarke. But he was only human, so he did start jogging to the radio the moment he'd finished the last of his supper.

"This is Bellamy, calling Clarkadia."

He heard laughter as someone picked up the radio at the other end. "You must be in a good mood if you're calling this Clarkadia again." Clarke observed. "How many times is it now that I've told you it's a stupid name?"

"Thirty-seven."

"You made that up."

"Yep." He grinned and added another one to his mental tally of kisses he owed her when he reached the ground. That was something he'd started doing a couple of months ago – every time he wanted to kiss her, he'd add another one to the list. He was already well into the thousands, but he figured they'd have a whole lifetime for him to find the chance to make good on his debt.

"What's got you so excited, then?" Clarke asked. "Is it something Madi will want to hear about? She's playing outside at the moment, but I can fetch her."

"I don't think she'd be excited." He conceded. "But I'm excited."

"I think we covered that. Are you going to tell me what this is all about?"

He paused a moment for dramatic effect. "Lettuce."

"What?" Clarke sounded confused, and he added yet another to his kissing tally. She didn't often sound confused, and he could just imagine the way she'd be scrunching her nose up to match and -

No. That wasn't the point of this conversation.

"Lettuce." He confirmed. "We had lettuce at dinner."

"Oh my god." He could here Clarke growing excited, now, as she realised what that meant. "Lettuce isn't algae."

"I know. Monty's been experimenting with using the wastewater from the algae as fertiliser for other crops. He said he started with lettuce because it's so easy, and because there was lots of lettuce seed left behind up here. But yeah – it works. He's been working on it a few weeks but he kept it a secret till just now when he surprised us with lettuce." He made it to the end of his enthusiastic ramble, and waited with baited breath for Clarke's response.

"You know what this means?" She asked, and he felt his heart swell with affection. Typical Clarke – already she was moving on from excitement over a bit of lettuce and thinking of the bigger picture.

"Fertiliser." He confirmed, grinning broadly.

"We might be able to convert some of the desert back into usable farmland. We could turn the Earth green again."

"All with Green's green goop." He added, wondering if anyone in the history of humanity had ever been quite so happy about lettuce before.

"That's such good news. Thanks for telling me, Bellamy."

"Was it a decent anniversary gift?" He asked, trying to keep his tone light. The question was almost a serious one – it wasn't like he could give her much while there were so many miles in between them.

"It's not our anniversary." She reminded him.

"It's nearly our anniversary. Tomorrow's a year since Raven fixed the radio. And I know we're having a big party then with everyone crowding in here and drinking but – I thought telling you that news might be a way for us to celebrate together tonight." He cleared his throat noisily. "Just the two of us."

"You're right. It was a lovely gift. Thank you. We can find a way to celebrate just the two of us when Madi's gone to bed, if you want to take your portable radio back to your room tonight?" She suggested coyly.

"I'd like that a lot. D'you want to go fetch her so I can tell her a bedtime story?"

"I will do in a minute. Just as soon as you tell me why you've decided that tomorrow is our anniversary. Because now I think about it, I'm pretty sure no one said anything about a relationship that first day." Clarke's voice was teasing, and somehow it made him miss her all the more.

"Is there another day you'd like me to use instead?"

"No." She conceded, and he could hear that she was on the verge of laughter.

"Great. In that case – happy anniversary, Princess."

a/n Thanks for reading!