alone

hawthornewhisperer:

Based on a twitter discussion of Clarke maybe having hallucinated Bellamy before he really came back, making her doubt whether or not the Bellamy of 503 was real. Mildly spoilery for 504.

Clarke hadn’t realized it was possible to still get sick when there was only one other person on the planet.  She should have, of course— germs were literally some of the first organisms to evolve— but she hadn’t really given it much thought.  Besides, for the first three years after Praimfaya, neither she nor Madi had gotten sick from anything that wasn’t poorly cooked food.

So when Madi caught the flu, she really should have seen it coming.  But she was so caught up in worry about Madi, in her fear over her fever and chills and how limp she became in Clarke’s arms, that she didn’t even think about what might happen next.

But two days after Madi was back up on her feet, demanding to be in charge of checking the snares, Clarke felt a tickle in the back of her throat.  By nightfall she was unaccountably chilled, considering it was only early fall, and she told Madi to leave her food at the door to the church and not come any closer until she said it was okay.  Madi should be immune, theoretically, but Clarke wasn’t sure what sort of supergerms could survive Praimfaya and she didn’t want to risk it.  So she barricaded herself in the church and hoped the worst would pass quickly.

But even as she drifted into a restless, trembling sleep, she knew it would be bad.

The next morning she woke drenched in sweat but somehow shivering, and she stumbled twice on her way to the door.  Madi had put blueberries in her porridge but even those tasted like chalk on on her tongue.  Clarke choked it down as best she could and refilled her canteen blearily.  She staggered back to her bed and tossed a few more logs on the fire, despite the fact that part of her brain was telling her it was already stifling inside.

She buried herself under three blankets and a panther skin and watched the fire until her eyes blurred and she once more tipped over into sleep.  Her dreams were unsettled and indistinct, vague terrors rising and evaporating before she could make heads or tails of them, and when she woke the church was pitch black.

It took her far too long to realize the fire had gone out, and even longer to realize her legs were so fatigued and shaky she couldn’t stand long enough to rekindle it.  She plucked blindly at the blankets that were now tangled around her legs, trying to bring them back up to her chin, and noticed movement out of the corner of her eye.

“Madi?” she croaked, squinting.  “Is that you?”

The figure didn’t respond and she struggled to sit up, a sudden spike of fear pulsing through her.  “It’s just me,” a low, familiar voice said.

“Bellamy?”

“Looks like you managed to get yourself sick,” he replied, emerging from the shadows.  He looked just like he did on the day they left her behind, vac suit unzipped to his waist.  That familiar henley stretched across his chest and he sat down on the edge of her bed, eyes soft and comforting.

“When did you— how did— it’s not long enough,” she murmured.  Her brain was like a puzzle with the pieces missing, and she kept trying to jam the ones she had together even though they didn’t quite fit.  “You have to wait five years, the radiation—”

“The radiation wouldn’t keep me from you, you know that,” he chided.  He had that half-smile on his face like he always did when things weren’t really funny but he was trying to make her smile anyway.  He helped her wrangle the blankets back up over her shoulders, their weight settling across her body like an embrace.

“How did you get in here?” Her throat felt like gravel and she fumbled for her canteen, sipping slowly.

“Don’t you worry about that yet,” Bellamy said gently.  “You get some sleep and let me take care of you for awhile.”

Tears sprang into her eyes.  It had been years since anyone fussed over her, since anyone had been there to help her shoulder the burden.  “Madi—”

“I’ve got her.  You get some sleep and we can deal with it in the morning.”

The tears were hot on her cheeks despite her fever, and she shivered.  “Together?”

“That’s the deal, isn’t it?  You and me.  Together,” he agreed.  He brushed her hair back, featherlight, and she let herself fall back asleep.

Because she wasn’t alone anymore.

The next morning dawned grey and chilly.  Clarke woke to Madi piling wood into the firepit in the center of the church.  “Madi? I told you to stay out of here,” she said, looking around.  There was no sign of Bellamy, and a warning bell went off in her dulled, muddled mind.

Madi didn’t turn around, too busy with the flint.  “And I would have, but you let the fire go out,” Madi said.  “It’s cold, and you said that’s bad when you’re sick.”

Let Bellamy do it.  The words were on the tip of her tongue, but then the world slid back into focus.

If Bellamy really had come back, he would have already lit the fire.  He never would have sent in Madi, and Madi would be bubbling with questions.

If Bellamy really had come back, he’d stay where she could see him.  He wouldn’t leave her side.  Not now, not after so long.

And besides, there were still two more years to go before he could step foot on the earth without burning up from the inside out.

Reality hit her like a boulder crashing down a mountain.  Together was a distant memory, that’s all.  Her brain was trying to comfort her when she was ill, and the fever had made it seem real.

Bellamy was in space— or dead— and Clarke was alone with only a determined nine year old for company.  Madi got the fire going and Clarke blinked back her tears, because she wasn’t alone— not really.  She had Madi, and Madi was everything.

But as she fell back to her pillows she closed her eyes and tried to remember how his fingers felt threading through her hair.

And a tear slipped down her cheek.

---

The bench was cold.

No, cool, or maybe she’d warmed it up some since they dumped her here.  It was soothing against her heated skin, at least. There was a faint hiss of recycled air and the hum of an engine, foreign in her ears after all this time.  Clarke blinked, the yellow-orange glare of the lights stinging her eyes, and decided to just keep them closed.

Footsteps came and went outside of her cell and every few minutes her muscles would jerk involuntarily.  When they brought her in she thought her leg muscles would never stop jumping, that her hands would never uncurl, but now it had faded to the occasional twitch of a limb and a burning sensation in her throat.

At least it was better than the collar, which was pain like she’d never felt before.  It shattered the world into jagged shards and turned her muscles to stone, and when she collapsed to the ground it made her dig her face into the dirt and wish she’d been buried under it six years ago.  They laughed at her and the world splintered further, until there was nothing but pain and fear and screams that might have been hers.

It had happened so fast.  One minute she was burning, her nerves screaming in agony, and then the next he was walking into a bright circle of light to demand her freedom.  Diyoza had ordered her dragged out of the circle of her tormentors so quickly she could barely get a glimpse of him.

Bellamy.

Alive.

Bellamy had come for her.

Or maybe he hadn’t.  Maybe the shocks had done to her what that fever did— unlocked the part of her brain that wanted to ease her suffering.  She could keep it at bay usually, but maybe now, weakened from her torture and the suffocating fear of what would happen if they found Madi, it was trying to give her peace.

Maybe she was dying, and her mind had given her the one thing she didn’t dare to hope for.

Footsteps paused outside her cell and the door swung open.  It took everything in her to twist her neck but she had to be sure, wanted to face whoever was coming for her if it was the last thing she did.

He was hidden by shadows but his shape was achingly familiar.  He stepped into the light, brow furrowed in concern, and then he was jogging across the cell to her bench.  She struggled to sit up but his arms were there, wrapping around her and lifting her up so lightly she still thought it might be a dream.

His eyes found hers, cloudy with fear and disbelief and something else she couldn’t quite read, and she surrendered herself to the hallucination.  She melted into him.  It was solace, sweet relief and peace and closure at what had to be the end. His chest was solid, warm; his arms clutching her against him strong and steady.  She breathed him in, metal and pine and the tang of smoke, and felt his lips come to rest on the curve of her neck.  

But her hallucination hadn’t had weight when he sat down, had only touched her so lightly it could have been the breeze.  He didn’t hold her tightly; he didn’t have a smell that unlocked something deep in her belly. He’d looked the way she remembered, not like this— older and a little weathered, with a beard that scratched softly at her skin as he rocked her back and forth in his embrace.

Clarke let her eyes flutter closed.  “You’re really here,” she murmured, and felt his chest rumble against hers in recognition.  That, more than anything, made her certain.

Bellamy had come for her.

And another tear slipped down her cheek.