MLN Pt 3
Madi sits on the step outside the house flipping through the pages of Clarke's sketchbook. She smiles at a group portrait of everyone. Clarke drew this right after everything happened with Praimfaya. She wanted to have a picture of everyone that she could look at when she was feeling down. Madi continues to flip through the book with worn out edges due to so much use. She got close to the section that was blocked off. As Madi thumbed the tied pages, she realized she desperately wanted to know about Lexa. She did, however, know Clarke would tell her when she was ready. Hopefully with her friends back, it would be sooner rather than later. Madi dreams about who Lexa could have been until she sees the rover pull up and a frantic Clarke come rushing out.
"Madi! Are you okay? What was that crash?" Clarke demands answers as she moves Madi from side to side to check for any injuries.
"I didn't hear anything." Madi says coyly.
"What do you mean!? There was a huge crash! I heard it an hour away." Clarke exclaims.
Madi shrugs and responds, "I don't know. I really didn't hear anything. Maybe a tree fell and you were there to hear it."
Clarke looks to the side of Madi and sees the emergency gun, "Why is the gun out?"
"Oh… right," Madi forgot about getting the gun out. It fell as she was leaving and she didn't notice until later," Um I just wanted to do some more target practice. I'm sorry Clarke, I know it's supposed to be for emergencies."
"Madi, you could have gotten hurt or even killed yourself! I can't lose you! You are all I have." Clarke says sternly with tears welling up in her eyes. Madi starts to feel extremely bad. She never expected Clarke to react like this.
"Oh let up on the kid, Clarke. You have us too." Raven says as she leans in the doorway.
Clarke stands there stunned. Out of all the theories that went through her head, this was not one of them. Noticing that Clarke wasn't going to move any time soon, Raven went outside and wrapped Clarke into a huge hug as the others start to come outside as well. Clarkes eyes widen even more, if that's possible, when she sees them. "You are all here. You are really here." Clarke says with even more tears threatening to come.
"We sure are, princess." Bellamy smiles and changes places with Raven.
"I see you have met Madi." Clarke says to everyone as she wipes tears from her eyes.
"She attacked me." Echo frowns.
"Yeah she tends to do that with new people." Clarke looks Echo up and down, "Frankly, I don't blame her."
"Clarke, Echo is on our side." Bellamy defends.
"She is a spy, Bellamy. She betrayed us. She tried to kill your sister!" Clarke argues back.
"It's no different than when Lexa betrayed us." Bellamy counters.
"Oh that was a low blow." Murphy comments.
"Don't you dare bring her into this. She did what was right for her people." Clarke says as she steps back from him slightly.
"And Echo was doing what she thought was right for hers." Bellamy replies calmly.
"Guys stop. Clarke, I am sorry for what I have done. We have all done things that we regret but who we are and who we have to be to survive are very different things. It's been over 6 years Clarke. None of us are the same person anymore." Echo tries to explain.
"Obviously." Clarke says and looks Bellamy up and down.
"Well if that confrontation is over now, like Echo said, its been over 6 years. Nice to see you again Clarke." Monty redirects and gives Clarke a hug.
Clarke chuckles, "It's nice to see you guys again too, all of you." Raven gives her a look and Clarke continues, "Really. I'm glad you aren't dead Echo. Let's go inside. You all must be hungry." Clarke smiles and gives her a hug.
"Is it just me or did Clarke do a complete 180?" Murphy remarks.
"Shut up Murphy." Emori says and walks past him to go inside. The others start to follow her.
"Trouble in paradise?" Clarke asks Raven as they trail behind the rest of them.
"You don't even know the half of it." Raven says and shakes her head.
"So what have you guys been up to for the last 6 years?" Clarke as she sits down with everyone inside.
"As much as you can do when you are confined to the Ark in space." Murphy deadpans.
"Well John decided to go off the deep end-"Emori starts but gets cut off by Murphy.
"Oh I did not. You guys decided to turn on me. I wasn't even appreciated." Murphy says while rolling his eyes.
"You were just upset that you couldn't be the hero anymore, so you could feed your ego." Emori says as their argument gets more heated.
"Guys! Stop arguing. Clarke doesn't want to hear about your relationship woes." Bellamy intervenes.
The room stayed silent for a few minutes until Raven finally speaks up," Bellamy stared out the window the whole time thinking about you."
"That was only in the beginning." Bellamy defends himself.
"However long it was, he looked like a lost puppy." Murphy smirks.
"Well I succeeded in making Monty's famous Green's green goop." Monty announces proudly.
"It was disgusting." Echo gagged.
"At least it kept us alive." Harper defends but then turns to Monty and says, "It was really bad though."
Clarke looks around at everyone around the room with a huge smile. She still can't believe they were back. She would never admit it but she was starting to lose a little bit of hope. "I am so glad you guys aren't dead." She says to everyone.
"We are really glad you aren't dead too Clarke." Raven says with a genuine smile.
"So what did you do for 6 years down here?" Bellamy asks.
Clarke smiled at all the memories running through her head. She begins her story when she first stepped outside and then continues into how she met Madi. Madi and her went through so much in the past 6 years. Clarke told them about the little milestones she had with Madi and about when they struggled to stay alive. "I don't think I would have made it without Madi by myside. She gave me a purpose to keep going." Clarke says as she puts her arm around her adoptive daughter.
"Madi showed us your sketchbook." Bellamy says.
"I drew most of those pictures within a few days after everything happened." Clarke says while looking at the sketch book in Madi's hand.
"Why did you tie the pages of Lexa together?" Raven asks.
Clarke visibly shuts down a little and softly says, "It's just too hard. It took me forever to accept the fact that she was gone." Clarke looks over to Madi and sees that the little girl is listening intently. Clarke lets out a deep sigh that is filled with sadness and acceptance and then offers to Madi, "Would you like to hear about her?"
"Yes please, Clarke." Madi says with hope in her voice that Clarke wouldn't shut down again and avoid telling the girl about the mysterious Lexa. The others watched as everything happened, no one daring to speak because they knew how hard this topic was for Clarke.
Clarke takes a deep breath and begins," You remember how I told you about Finn?" Madi nods and Raven shifts slightly at the mention of her former boyfriend. Clarke noticed and gave a slight smile towards Raven. They had gotten past it but it didn't mean that they would ever forget what happened.
"Well Lexa was the only other person I have ever fallen in love with." Clarkes continues but then stops for a few moments trying to keep in her tears and collect her thoughts. "I watched her die. It should have been me, but she was hit with the bullet instead." Clarke says as a tear falls from her eyes. She quickly catches it with her hand. Madi holds Clarkes slightly wet hand that contained the tear drop. They always knew how to comfort each other. Clarke takes her hand away and slowly opens the tied pages. Her hands shake as she fumbles with the string. She takes a moment after the pages are untied before she begins to open up to the first drawing of Lexa. It took Clarke a long time to actually open the page but Madi didn't mind because she was finally getting answers to the questions she had been asking herself for 6 years. Clarke opened to a drawing that was a replica of the one she drew while she watched Lexa sleep on her couch. Clarke brushed her hand over the drawing thinking about that moment all those years ago when she is interrupted by a loud gasp from Madi which pulled everyone out of their own thoughts.
"What's wrong Madi?" Clarke asks her.
Madi's glistening eyes meet Clarkes and she says, "That's my mom!"
"What?" Clarke asks with confusion and a heavy feeling in her heart.
"That's my mom. I remember her face from when she used to come visit me. I always remembered thinking about how beautiful she was." Madi says as her eyes begin to tear up as well. She never understood why her mom stopped visiting her.
Clarke runs her hand through Madi's hair and caresses the child's cheek with her thumb, "You're Lexa's daughter?" Clarkes voice was very timid, and she seemed like she would fall apart at any minute. Madi nods slightly and Clarke pulls her adopted child in for a hug. This hug is different than all the ones before. This hug was as if both of them were getting a piece of someone they lost back. Clarke held Madi tightly out of fear that if she would let her go, she would lose the child as well.
"You loved my mom?" Madi asks as her voice breaks.
"Very much." Clarke says as she pulls Madi away from her to look her in the eyes.
Madi wipes her tears from her eyes and asks, "Can you tell me about her? Every day it feels like I forget more and more about her. I didn't actually know much though, except things she would tell me when she visited."
"She was a badass." Murphy says interrupting the moment between Clarke and Madi. Emori hits his shoulder so he would shut up. "What? She was!" He continues as he rubs his shoulder.
Clarke smiles at Murphy and then turns back to Madi, "She really was a badass. Lexa was strict and powerful as Heda but I got to see the soft side she hid from everyone else."
Madi's eyes went wide, "Woah woah woah! My mom was Heda?!"
"You didn't know that?" Clarke asks inquisitively.
"No. All I knew is that she gave me to a nice couple who took care of me and she would visit every once in a while. She didn't tell me much about her but I remember loving it when she would come visit because she would play games with me the whole time." Madi says as she smiles thinking about her visits with Lexa.
"Do you know why she didn't keep you?" Clarke asks carefully.
Madi crinkles her nose and says, "I asked her why right before she left and all she told me was that it wasn't safe for me to be with her. She also told me to watch out for the Fleimkepa and never let him find out I was a nightblood."
"That was wise. If Titus would have found out you were a nightblood, you would have been taken to Polis and trained to fight in the next conclave. There would be a greater chance that you would have died and I know that is obviously something she wouldn't want and I think it would have killed her on the inside. She always told me love was weakness, but I convinced her she was wrong. Maybe she was always trying to convince herself love was weakness. She may have been trying to separate herself from loving you too much, so she wouldn't feel as bad about having to give you up." Clarke tried to find an explanation she could tell the young girl was craving.
"I remember mom talking about someone named Titus. She said he kept her on a short leash, so she couldn't visit me as much as she wanted to. I resented him for that and I never even met him." Madi recounts.
"I'm surprised she could get away at all. Titus' job was to keep Lexa safe and he couldn't do that if he wasn't always watching her. Come to think of it, she would sometimes disappear on me as well and whenever I asked her what she was doing, she would just say 'business' " Clarke says. Everyone around the room just stares at the two while they converse. No one, not even Murphy this time wants to interrupt this beautiful moment of the two getting answers they didn't know they desperately needed.
Clarke looks around the room, at her family who has finally came back to the ground and her, basically, adopted daughter who she just found out is her love's daughter, "This may just be the best day I have had in a long time. Madi kept me going these 6 years but now knowing that she is Lexa's daughter makes me feel even closer to her which I didn't even think was possible and having my family home after all this time is something I was wishing for, for a long time. I don't want this feeling to ever go away."
The next, and final, chapter is a flashback to when Lexa became pregnant with Madi and the aftermath up until her death. I hope you are enjoying this mini story!