a/n Thanks so much for your lovely reviews on that last chapter. More fluffy family dynamics here - happy reading!
Raven's pretty sure she will never get used to seeing Echo across the breakfast table.
It's stupid, really, because they've been sharing a breakfast table for five years, ever since that breakfast right back in the beginning where Echo reached out to Harper and Raven first realised that, in fact, beneath her cold exterior this woman was actually capable of kindness. But there's a world of difference, it turns out, between sharing a breakfast table with her entire family and sharing it with this one woman who threatens to turn her life upside down. Not that her life tends to be on an even keel at the best of times, she notes. Really, the last thing she needs is another thing to go wrong. Another person to get too close to, then watch them walk away. Because they always do walk away, in the end. Finn walked away to meet his fate. Wick walked away to find some other woman who could give him what he wanted. Echo will, surely, walk away the moment she realises that they aren't in space any more. The moment she realises that a beautiful, deadly young woman can have her pick of whoever the hell she wants, on the ground.
But, in the mean time, it seems she will lean back in her chair and dust away the crumbs of the leftovers Bellamy sent them home with the night before and start a lighthearted conversation as if they are not living here together like some couple. For the thousandth time that morning, she regrets the moment of optimistic weakness that made her think it a good idea for the two of them to take this house together.
"Any plans for your first day back on the ground?"
She shrugs and plays with an apple, twirling it between her fingers.
"I'm amazed you're not already out there ripping apart all that tech Clarke and Bellamy took from Becca's lab and making it your own. It's five years since you've had anything completely new to play with."
"I don't play, Echo. I fix things." She bites out, tone sharper than it needs to be.
Echo sighs loudly at that and stands up, wordlessly taking their dishes to the sink. Raven curses herself and wonders what to say now. Surely there would be nothing wrong with at least allowing herself to enjoy Echo's company, until such time as she does, in fact, realise that she can do better? She sets aside the apple and makes her way across the room.
"Hey." She reaches out tentatively and places a hand on her shoulder, forces herself not to run her fingers along that line where her shirt ends and her skin begins. "I shouldn't snap at you. I guess I'm just worried about coming back to the ground."
"You were really happy in space."
"Yeah. Aside from not knowing whether everyone in the bunker was alive or dead."
Echo offers a weak smile at that and continues work on the dishes.
"So I'm not sure what the plan is for today. Somehow now we're back here I'm presuming Clarke and Bellamy will tell us what we're supposed to be doing, whether we like it or not. But – well – if we get some free time, I was thinking I'd go for a walk in the woods. Just a short one, of course – it's going to suck being back on the ground with this leg – just to explore a bit and enjoy being back. And – I wondered if you wanted to come with me?"
"That sounds like a plan."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. It'll be good to see a forest again."
"I mean, we won't see much forest. You know – walking not being my best thing, and all. Sorry."
"Will you stop apologising for that damn leg? I can't think of anyone I'd rather go on a very short walk with."
…...
Harper cannot repress the mixture of broodiness and pure curiosity that she feels on meeting these two children that her friends have acquired in the five years they've been gone. It's not that it's surprising that Bellamy and Clarke might have a child together, of course – she'd have put money on that, if money was a thing that was still of any use to anyone – but it's at least noteworthy that they have two. Gus is frankly adorable, she decided this yesterday, with his babbling enthusiasm and his dark curls and eyes that resemble his father's so strongly, and he makes her rather keen on the idea that she and Monty might nurture a new life themselves, one day. It hasn't happened yet, but they're still young, and she still has hope.
The girl, though – Madi – well, there is a puzzle she cannot quite solve, a question she cannot quite answer. Because she's no cheeky toddler and no babe in arms, situated as she is rather closer to the verge of young adulthood than her age might suggest, and Harper can't entirely make sense of the way that she is so obviously theirs and yet, at the same time, so obviously independent. This child has, she thinks, the potential to be rather intimidating, if ever she so chose.
Well, then. Apparently she really is Clarke and Bellamy's daughter in the truest sense, if she's got intimidating as part of her skill set.
"So they're your parents, but you call them Clarke and Bellamy?" While the girl teaches them how to gut fish she broaches the topic, with a false casual air which clearly does nothing to fool Monty.
"Mostly, yes. But yes, sometimes I call them mother and father." Madi shrugs, waving the fish-gutting knife she is holding in a disconcertingly careless fashion as she does so. "What we call each other never seemed to matter as much as getting on with being a family."
This isn't something Harper can quite get her head around, knowing full well that their stories will never really do justice to everything they have been through on the ground together, so she makes what she hopes sounds like an agreeing noise, reaches for another fish, and waits for this odd child to continue speaking.
"And... I had a nomon before, so that's different I suppose. But my notu died when I was very tiny, so Bellamy's the only father I've ever had." She feels her heart soften at that, and thinks that, perhaps, that's the first clue she needed to start to get the hang of this complicated new addition to their extended family.
"You seem very close with him."
"I'm very close with both of them." She declares fiercely. "And Gus. We're all close with each other." Yes. If there is one thing that has been obvious from the moment they landed, this is it, she thinks.
"That must be lovely." Monty comments warmly, squinting at a trout as if it is beyond his comprehension. That's impressive, Harper thinks, because he really is quite an intelligent man.
"You don't have children." Madi states, slightly too perceptive as her gaze flickers between them.
"No. It's... not happened for us." She returns her gaze to the fish before her. She is certain that Madi can read the whole story in her tone, but it seems there is little to be done about that.
"Yet." Monty says, squeezing her shoulder with fish-gut-stained fingers, and she feels herself falling in love with him all over again.
…...
Bellamy knows that he ought to feel happy, but at this moment, he finds that doing so is a little beyond him.
His friends have been here for scarcely a day – friends whom he loves, for the most part, and whom he has missed beyond belief – and yet he finds himself heartily wishing that they would get back in their rocket, and fly to space, and stay there. For another five years, give or take a week or two. It's just all a bit overwhelming, after so many months with only his family for company. The way they all rush about, making noise, and laughing, and pestering his daughter and even the ducks, he just can't get his head round it. Why can they not keep their curiosity to themselves, just a little? Why have they not even a smidge of respect for the peaceful family life they have built together?
Of course, it's not just that, as a treacherously truthful little voice in the back of his head likes to remind him whenever he can hear himself think over the racket of Raven's pride and Murphy's sarcasm and Emori's joy. He knows what this means, the safe and healthy return of half a dozen people whose blood runs red.
It is time to open the bunker. Time to see his sister, alive or dead. Time, too, for Clarke to see her mother, and them all to see their people, and that peaceful family life to be thoroughly and irrevocably shattered. Time, probably, for the woman he loves to remember how to be the leader he sometimes hates, and for him to remember how to be the hot-headed warm-hearted lieutenant who screws up at every possible opportunity. And then, of course, he's now the father of a pair of children whose blood type places them firmly on the ultimate shortlist for an early death.
He decides it is necessary to catalogue their collection of weapons, not because any such thing could ever be at all necessary, but because he thinks the task sounds sufficiently mind numbing that no one will interrupt him while he sits in the shed holding a notebook and worrying about what the future might hold.
"You planning on telling me why you're here?" Clarke asks from behind him, barely ten minutes into his fictional task, her soft tone rather at odds with her aggressive words.
He doesn't bother dissembling. They gave that up years ago. "Hiding. Also worrying."
"I don't blame you. I'm pleased I found you, it feels like I've barely seen you all day."
"Yeah. I've missed you. It's weird, after all these years, suddenly having to share you." He grins at her, feeling himself relax in her company as he always does.
"Raven definitely didn't actually need me to show her how to connect the generator to that old computer. She just wanted an excuse to ask me how we eventually got together."
"Oh, definitely. What did you tell her?"
"I told her it was all about the ducks. I missed out the month of soul-searching and spontaneous weeping. I thought maybe we'd keep that just between us."
"Yeah... Is it wrong that I don't really want to share all of that time with them? It's just... that was about us, you know? Not for Murphy to make smug jokes about."
"To be fair, he is less smug these days."
"You know what I mean."
"Yeah." She agrees softly and takes a seat by his side and he instinctively wraps an arm around her. She leans in and begins drawing circles on his thigh. "Want to tell me why we're sitting in the shed?"
"It's time to open the bunker, isn't it?"
"Yes. I think it is. It'll be OK, Bellamy, whatever we find. I think we've proven by now that we can do anything together. Whatever we happens with your sister or my mother, we'll deal with it."
"Of course." He says, trying and failing to sound confident. "Do you think they'll go for commanders and conclaves again? Providing they're alive, of course."
Clarke being Clarke, she hears the question he is really asking. "The kids will be fine, Bellamy. They've got the most insanely protective father in the world on their side. Besides which, there's no point speculating on what we'll find until we've found it. Whatever we do find, we'll just have to get on with facing it."
"I love you." He tells her, because that seems like a pretty convenient shorthand for how remarkable she is, how much she inspires him, how grateful he is to have her by his side.
"I love you, too. And nothing we find in that bunker will ever change that."
…...
Raven keeps expecting Bellamy to bring up the idea of opening the bunker that currently holds his sister and she can't quite work out why he's being so reticent on the subject. She can't quite work out why he's being so reticent at all, really, now she comes to think of it. He is obviously blissfully happy, what with Clarke and the children and those apparently romance-inspiring ducks they seem to keep as pets, but she doesn't think that she's imagining that he's grown quieter than she remembers, doesn't think she's inventing the way he turns the conversation aside every time anyone mentions anything that could possibly touch on the topic of Octavia.
In the end, she decides it's time to be Raven Reyes and have out with it. She accepts a portion of fish and vegetables and opens her mouth.
"So, when are we going to Polis?"
Bellamy chokes a little and Madi pats him robustly on the back while shooting her a death stare that is, she feels, a little too advanced for an eleven year old. Clearly the offspring of the commander of death has to start practising early.
"We thought we'd aim to open it five years to the day since Praimfaiya. That's the day they'll be expecting to open it, after all." Clarke cracks on in her usual confident way. "We've cleared the rubble that was directly above the door, but the city itself still isn't habitable. So they'll have to make their way here once they've packed up and prepared themselves."
"If they're still alive." Bellamy adds under his breath. It seems, from the carefully blank faces of her friends, that she is supposed to pretend she hasn't heard him, but she's never made tact a priority before and this does not seem to be the moment to start.
"You'll see." She says bracingly. "I thought you were dead, you know. Emori insisted you weren't but I thought she was delusional. Then I saw the flares and knew I was wrong. And so now I'm practising having hope. You should try it."
"Wow." John starts speaking before Clarke can snap at her to leave Bellamy alone, as the expression on her face clearly indicates she wishes to do. "Raven admitting she was wrong. You see, Bellamy? You've got to think that's worth hearing."
"So we're opening the bunker in six days." Monty interrupts smoothly, employing his talent for peacemaking.
"Let's go there the day before, give ourselves time to scout out the city." Echo suggests, ever the spy.
"I don't think there's going to be much danger hidden in a stack of rubble we've visited a hundred times." Clarke doesn't even pretend to hide the scorn in her voice. It's funny, Raven thinks, remembering that Clarke has no reason to like Echo beyond the fact she has lived with them for five years. She missed all that forgiveness and forgetting.
"But if we go the night before, we could camp!" Madi jumps at the idea, and Raven finds herself rather reassured to realise that this child is capable of being straightforwardly childlike after all.
"You hear that, Clarke?" Bellamy asks with a chuckle. "We could camp. I think that's decision made."
Clarke cracks a smile at that, and Raven finds herself wondering at the fact that, it seems, this terrifying young leader can now be swayed by pleading children and camping.
"Well then. Five days here for all you Spacekru to remember how to live on the ground, then it seems we're going on a camping trip."
a/n Thanks for reading!