a/n Thank you, people who read and review! Particular shout out to ebwalker, who somehow seems to find the time to review everything - truly, you are a legend. Happy reading!
Harper marks the end of one month and the coming of the next in much the same way as she has been doing for the last couple of years, now.
She sits on the toilet and weeps. And it's not just because the toilet is a convenient place for weeping, the one location in this picture-perfect cottage in this bustling village where she actually has absolute privacy. No, it's because every month, without fail, almost to the day, her body presents her with crystal-clear evidence that she is, in fact, not pregnant.
She's only young, she tells herself, just as she does every month. They have years ahead of them yet, her and Monty, to have a child. That's something she tells herself every month, too. And Monty loves her just the same, fertile or not. Another thing that, of course, that she tells herself every month.
This month, at least, there is something new. This month, she has friends with beautiful children, and she has the opportunity to be something approaching an aunt to them. She has, too, the chance to help train the Wonkru novitiates. Goodness only knows how Clarke engineered that one, she thinks, with a wry smile to herself through her tears. She hasn't said anything about it, of course, but the whole situation just smacks so strongly of Clarke's influence that she cannot see another explanation. There is no one else of her acquaintance who would find a single solution to so many issues, while all about her are still counting up the problems. And it is a good single solution, she cannot help but feel, that means Gaia has a bit of support with training the next generation, and Harper has the chance to feel useful and to work with these young people, so many of whom are parentless.
She's not clear on why, exactly, so many of the Wonkru children are orphans. There seems to have been a disproportionate amount of death in that bunker, and she's pretty sure there's more to it than the occasional criminal being sent to the fighting pits.
She files that thought away for another day, as she hears familiar footsteps in the corridor.
"Harper?"
"Hey, Monty. I'll be out in a moment."
"Great. I want us to have time for breakfast together before you go to help Gaia."
"Sounds good."
She finishes up in the bathroom, opens the door. Monty is still there, somehow, loitering just beyond the threshold with a concerned crease to his brow. She is about to open her mouth, to say something perky and inconsequential about the plan for the day ahead, when he pulls her into a tight hug, her head cradled against his collarbone.
That toilet may have absolute privacy, but it seems she would need more than absolute privacy to prevent this kindhearted man from knowing everything that is on her mind.
…...
It isn't until the graffiti that Octavia becomes truly concerned.
A few whispers here and there, the odd sideways glance, those things she was coping with. But the four foot high letters daubed across the wall of her cottage that proclaim no Bloodreina no more, those are rather more alarming. They are alarming, of course, because they constitute a bold and direct threat to her safety, and because they are a very visible indicator that someone wants her gone.
But there's more to it than that, really. Because this isn't just a sign that someone wants her gone, she is quick to realise. No, vandalism on that scale implies a team working together, a decent number of people. Add in the fact that most of those who were formerly known as grounders cannot write, even after five years mingling with the remnants of Skaikru in that bunker, and it becomes clear that some of the considerable number plotting her destruction must be those she used to share air with, for the first seventeen years of her life.
Of course, it's also alarming because it's there. Because it's big, and ugly, and scrawled all over her home, for goodness' sake, and because she cannot walk in or out of the cottage without seeing it. Or past the cottage. Or across the other side of the village, if she's being honest.
But she's not panicking. Nor despairing. No, not at all. Because she is a fearsome warrior, beloved of some of her people, still, surely, even if she is no longer beloved of these particular re-decorators.
But, for the record, if she were panicking a bit, she reckons that would be understandable, just now.
So it is that she does what she has done in times of crisis for as long as she can remember. She seeks out her brother.
"Bellamy." He's striding about the place as if he has somewhere to be, but surely whatever it is can wait. She is his sister, after all.
"Octavia. Hey." He keeps walking, so she supposes she had better fall into step beside him.
"Have you got a moment?"
"Can we walk and talk? I said to Clarke that I'd get some supper caught before I go see Murphy about the -"
"Sure." She cuts him off smoothly. She's not particularly interested in his schedule of chores. "Did you happen to see the – the writing, on my house?"
"Of course I saw it." He says dismissively, still taking those brisk steps towards heaven only knows where. "Each letter's the size of a child and it's been there all day."
"Right. Yes. Well, what do you think?"
He's staring at her as if she's lost her mind. Well, maybe she has. It's not been the easiest twenty-two years, her life.
"I think someone has decided to write a death threat on your wall."
"Yes. It seems that way. What do you think I should do about it?"
He seems finally to understand, now, she notes, as he stops abruptly and turns towards her.
"I don't know. I'm sorry, but I don't know. You're Bloodreina, I think you need to be the one to figure this out." He pauses a moment, his jaw twitching unhappily. "I am sorry, O. And if there's anything I can actually do to help, you let me know. But they're your people, and I don't know them like you do."
"I don't think I do know them. Not any more." She feels like a child as she struggles to fight down tears.
He takes pity on her at that, just as he always did when she truly was a child. "Do you want to come over for supper? A nice quiet evening with me and Clarke and the kids might take your mind off it."
"Or Clarke might do her thing and help me fix this mess."
"I'm not sure she does that so much, any more, O. But yeah, you'd be very welcome."
That is, she thinks, the first time she has been welcome since she got to this damn valley. And about time, too.
"Thanks, big brother. I'll be there."
…...
Madi loves her mother, of course she does, but she's a bit pissed off with her right now.
She discards that phrase, carefully. Her father would be mortified if he found out she even thought in vocabulary like that.
She loves her mother, but she's a bit annoyed with her right now. That's better. She just cannot for the life of her understand the instruction you need to make sure you suck at training. She's been training her whole childhood, for crying out loud, preparing diligently for the moment where she might meet other actual human beings and be able to train together with them. She's learnt how to use a gun, and a spear, and her fists, and she's pretty sure she could even kill a man with a fishhook, if ever there were any actual use in doing so.
So no, thank you, she's not going to bother trying to suck at training. No daughter of Clarke Griffin and Bellamy Blake is ever going to suck at anything, if she has any say in it.
She's particularly keen not to suck at her first training session. She's been feeling so welcomed by all of these friendly folks of Wonkru – which is a little odd, now she comes to think about it, given this was her home first, and they are, in fact, the newcomers – and she's rather liking being liked. So she wants to give it her best shot, this afternoon, when she is allowed to spar with the Wonkru novitiates for the first time.
She wants to impress Gaia, too. She's only known the young woman for a couple of weeks, of course, but she seems so confident and strong-willed, yet somehow also warm and kind, and really, that is everything Madi rather thinks she might like to be, when she grows up. Along with being the perfect child of Clarke Griffin and Bellamy Blake, of course.
It seems she does have rather a lot on her plate, perhaps.
So, really, it is completely unreasonable of Clarke to have tried to give her an extra thing to worry about by asking her to suck, and she has absolutely no intention of doing so. And anyway, she notes, as she walks into the session and hefts her very-slightly-blunted sword, her mother isn't here. And what she doesn't know, won't hurt her.
…...
Clarke understands the wisdom in this plan of Bellamy's, that they should make it clear to Octavia that they are overtly on her side and have no intention of rebelling, but that doesn't mean she actually likes it. If she's being truly honest with herself, she doesn't like much, since that bunker opened, but she supposes there's nothing to be done about that. She reckons that, after the last five blissful years, she has probably exhausted her lifetime supply of good luck.
That thought sticks with her, as a tyrant whose face is painted with either blood-coloured makeup or actual blood shows up at her door and makes herself at home in her living room. It echoes, perhaps, even louder in her thoughts as that very tyrant asks carefully after Madi's training session, and her precocious girl makes no attempt to pretend that she is not a competent swordswoman. She makes even less of an attempt, Clarke notes with concern, to pretend that she is not wildly popular already with Wonkru, has not already won the love of dozens of these newcomers with her infallible combination of bubbly enthusiasm and impressive talent. They need to do something about this, she frets. Only this afternoon, Gaia took her aside after Madi's first session with the novitiates to say that she is an exceptional young woman.
She's not a young woman, Clarke seethes internally. She's a child, and she's her little girl, and she will damn well keep her safe, whatever it takes.
At last, thank goodness, Bellamy announces that the food is ready, and they take their places around the table. This is better, Clarke notes immediately, than the tense chatter of earlier. They exchange polite conversation about the meal, and laugh with only slightly staged cheer at the challenges of convincing Gus to eat his supper.
But then, of course, Octavia ruins it. Clarke is beginning to suspect that, actually, Octavia ruins everything.
"I wanted to ask you about the graffiti."
"You did?" Clarke knows she is being unhelpful, that this is not in keeping with Bellamy's plan, but it's a struggle, just now, to appear happy at this change of subject.
"Yes. You're supposed to be good at solving problems, aren't you? What do you think I should do about this?"
Clarke tries very hard not to remember the last time Octavia threw a suggestion like that at her, some years ago, outside a locked door, outside Mount Weather. While Bellamy was, at her bidding, stuck very firmly inside.
"I don't know." She says mildly, now. "I suppose you'll want to find out who did it. Round them up, imprison them until you can get your death pit set up again."
For the first time in five years, Bellamy actually kicks her under the table. She doesn't know why he bothered. She can read perfectly well in his expression, in the glare he is sending her way, that he is angry that she has not stuck to the plan and is instead being rude to his sister. But somehow she finds that she cannot really help it, that she is furious with this woman who, despite being family, has somehow managed to ruin her family life with her very presence.
"Wouldn't it be better to find out why they did it?" Madi pipes up, quite uninvited, and Clarke has to resist the temptation to kick her under the table, in turn. "If you know why they want to get rid of you, you can put it right. Reconciliation is always better than revenge. That's what these two taught me, anyway."
Octavia's eyes are narrowed, but she's not got a sword to Madi's throat, so Clarke supposes she had better take that as a win.
"Sorry about this one." Bellamy ruffles his daughter's hair affectionately, wades in with the most staged of jovial smiles. "She's spent a bit too much time in our company, I think."
"Well, big brother, it doesn't seem to have done her any harm."
Clarke waits for Octavia to add a yet to the end of that sentence, but somehow it never comes.
Bellamy, of course, continues down the path of determined good humour, asks after Miller's injured thumb and Kane's less-than-groomed hairstyle. And Octavia seems willing enough to go along with this, to join in his senseless gossip until such time as dinner is eaten and she sets out on her way.
The door closes behind her, at last, and Clarke breathes a sigh of relief.
"I'll get Gus to bed." Madi offers, already taking her little brother by the hand.
"Hang on, Madi." Clarke raises her voice, stops her in her tracks. "I think we need to talk about what you just said, over dinner."
"What did I say?" Her daughter pivots on the spot, turns towards her with a distinctly teenaged expression, Clarke thinks wryly, for all that she is still a couple of months shy of twelve. "Was it that gossip about Echo and Raven?"
"No, Madi, and you know it. Although, while we're on the subject, gossiping about family friends isn't very kind."
"They're not always very kind to me." Madi snaps straight back at her. "So I think I'll keep gossiping."
"Madi. Please, stop." Bellamy's quiet voice cuts through the rising tension. "I think what your mother is trying to say is that she believes we have reason to be worried about you. About what Octavia might do to you, if you have a high profile in the village and she sees you as a threat."
"She can see me as whatever she likes. I am what I am, and I'm not about to pretend to be anything less because it doesn't suit the person in charge. Isn't that what I learnt, from you two?"
They neither of them have any answer to that. Or, at least, Clarke infers so much, from the fact that neither of them make any response to Madi's outburst.
"I'm going to put my brother to bed now." Their daughter states mildly into the ensuing silence. "Goodnight."
She has been gone some moments before Clarke hears Bellamy's voice.
"She's right, you know. That's half the problem. I think we probably did teach her to follow her own convictions regardless of her safety. It might not be what we meant to teach her, but it's happened."
"It seems so."
"We're terrible role models." She seems to remember that she always rather liked the way Bellamy could summon up a desperate joke in desperate times, but this evening, she just finds it infuriating.
"This is not funny, Bellamy. She might die."
"Clarke. Sit down, and follow your own advice for a moment. Use your head." He takes a place on the sofa, and gestures to her to do the same. "If Octavia was going to kill her, she'd have done it by now. The rebels are already making it quite clear where they stand, and it's obvious who their preferred candidate is. The very fact that she's still alive, and that O is coming here to ask us what she should do, shows that she wants to fix things, not kill our kids."
"You think so?" She allows herself to hope, just a little.
"I know so. She might have changed in that bunker, Clarke, but she's still my sister. Please, trust me when I say that I understand what's going on here, and that Madi has nothing to fear."
"I do trust you." She murmurs, allowing herself to lean against his shoulder.
"Thank you." He wraps an arm around her, holds her close as he continues to speak calmly. "I told you, didn't I, that Octavia reached out to me this morning, not the other way around? She obviously wants to align herself with us, as much as we want to make it clear we're not revolting against her. And you saw her, when Madi said what she said. She didn't show any sign of anger or violence, did she? She just looked like she was thinking about something."
"Is that what that look was?"
"She's my sister, Clarke. Trust me when I say that's her thoughtful face, not her angry face."
"You've made your point, Bellamy." She says, a little short, but voice warm. "I trust you. You know your sister. All of that."
"Thanks." He presses a kiss to her forehead, takes an audible breath. "Do you want to watch a movie?"
"What?" She cannot quite keep up with this change of subject.
"A movie. You know, moving pictures, accompanying soundtrack. We watched a lot of them before we had children. Well, before we had Gus."
"We still do watch films with the kids." She reminds him, thinking of their monthly Lion King afternoons, and the frequent other cartoons.
"But I was thinking that perhaps we could watch something, just the two of us." He sounds nervous, now, she thinks, and somehow that makes her fall in love with him all over again. "I know that it's getting late, and that we have things to do tomorrow, and the kids to look after but – I thought it might be nice to watch a film together."
"That sounds lovely." She assures him warmly because, really, it does. "It's been too long since we had a date night."
"Right." He rushes to agree with her. "And I figure if ever there was a time you needed a quiet date night, maybe today would be it."
"You might be right." She acknowledges, giving his thigh an affectionate squeeze. "Does that mean I get to choose the movie?"
"Go on." He chuckles. "I know you'll only complain if I choose, no matter what I go for."
"You know me too well." She agrees, and fires up the TV. It has served them well, she thinks, this old Earth relic that has lasted the duration of their relationship and still shows no sign of giving up on them. And if ever it does start to waver – well, then. Raven will simply have to fix it. Eden would fall, if the Griffin-Blake family couldn't have their movie nights together.
She selects Pride and Prejudice, of course, in part because it is actually one of her favourite films, but largely because it is one of her favourite movie nights. There is a distinct difference, there, she thinks, in that much of her love of this particular work of cinema stems from her memories of watching it with Bellamy all those years ago.
On this occasion, then, as she presses play, she curls up on the sofa with her head in his lap. And sure enough Bellamy takes the hint, and rests one hand on her waist, and strokes her hair a little with the other, and starts whispering some adorably sentimental nonsense about how this film is part of their love story, and it is, without doubt, the most relaxed she has felt in days.
So relaxed, in fact, that before she quite realises it is happening, her eyes are drifting closed. And the next thing she knows, the credits are rolling, and she is being scooped up into a familiar pair of sturdy arms, and carried towards the bedroom.
"You can put me down." She murmurs drowsily against his chest. "I'm awake now. I can walk."
He doesn't answer that, just tightens his hold on her. "Why does one of us always fall asleep whenever we watch that film?"
She doesn't answer that, just loosens her hold on consciousness, and drifts back into sleep once more.
a/n Thanks for reading!