Archive of Our Own ^beta

The first time is about five months in.

She’s only fiddling with the comms systems because she’s annoyed with everyone. Monty and Harper got in some adorable little argument and are now adorably making up, all cute and happy and disgusting. Murphy and Emori are predictably banging out their various frustrations in whichever room holds the closest available surface on which to bang. Echo is in the movie room, watching another pre-war sitcom from the archives – it’s normally fun to watch that shit with her, but she asks so many goddamn questions, and Raven isn’t in the mood. Bellamy is probably either sulking in his bunk or sulking and staring out the window in the common area, daydreaming of his sister and his rudely flambéed best friend.

It’s just one of those days. Raven hates all of them.

The sound, the crinkling and the static from the receiver she gave up on weeks ago, scares the absolute shit out of her.

“-and it’s difficult to see farther than that, anyway. Everything’s so blank. It’s really…intense. I was going to say beautiful, but why lie?” A quiet little laugh, and it’s Clarke. It’s so Clarke, all of it, especially the fact that she’s alive despite Earth doing its best to kill her.

“Clarke!” Raven’s voice shakes, and her thumb hurts because she’s squeezing the talk button on the microphone so hard. “Clarke, can you hear me?”

“-just not sure how long I can keep doing this.” Her voice breaks a bit. “Food, water, it’s…it’s not looking good, Bellamy. Sometimes I hope you can’t hear me. Sometimes I think maybe you’re just listening to me die down here, and I know you’d hate that. Not being able to help.”

“Clarke!”

Nothing. Still nothing.

“But I just want someone to know I’m still here.”

Raven rips the damn receiver apart, puts it back together, tries half a dozen frequencies, plugs the mic into every port that might help, but nothing works.

Clarke’s words reach her, but she can’t reach back.

The only thing she can do is record them.

“I’m hungry, but I’m still going.”

“I had a dream about Octavia yesterday. She was in a field. It was so…”

“I think if you opened an airlock with some algae in it, Raven could find a way for it to reach me. I’m joking, but…not really. I need to find food soon.”

I’ll tell him when I figure out how to respond, Raven decides on that first day. Every day after it, she records Clarke’s messages. She sets the computer to intercept them, just in case she misses one. It’s not hard. It shouldn’t be hard to talk back to her, either, but for some reason it’s fucking impossible.

She barely eats for a week because she spends so much extra time tinkering with the radio.

Maybe it’s Clarke’s radio, or maybe there’s something damaged on the outside of the ring that she can’t see. Something in the walls, some connection broken and dead somewhere.

Either way, she’s not going to be able to fix it easily, if at all.

That thing Clarke said sticks with her. About how Bellamy would hate it, listening and not being able to help. Because it was such a typically Clarke understatement. Clarke’s thinking he’s the Bellamy she knew on Earth, and even that Bellamy would have trouble with this. The Bellamy who is still dealing with the trauma of leaving his sister and his best friend on Earth? Who thought he left Clarke to die? Who, given even the slightest taste of alcohol, starts wondering if he should have stayed with her? He would be ruined by this level of helplessness.

He always seems so close to cracking. Monty and Harper and even Emori are all too delicate, trading off on asking him for help with stupid shit just so he’ll have something to do. She and Murphy and Echo are less gentle, but they all have their ways of making sure he stays with them. Making sure he’s not allowed to pull back into himself completely, no matter how badly he seems to want to sometimes.

But despite all their best efforts, there’s still a lack of focus to him in the moments in between, when there’s quiet. When no one has a pressing need for his brain or his muscles or the determination that makes him a good leader. When there are only ghosts left behind, Bellamy comes so close to crumbling, and Raven does her very best to pretend not to notice, because that’s what he needs from her: someone who doesn’t realize how much he is falling apart.

“This would destroy you,” she says to her empty workshop, her fingers wrapped around the small drive she’s been keeping Clarke’s calls on. She pulls it out of the computer, like she does every night, and she hangs the lanyard on it around her neck, tucked under her shirt.  

She will listen every day. She will collect Clarke’s final words, her final moments. She will listen to her friend die, because she can handle it, and because Bellamy cannot. Clarke deserves to be heard, and Bellamy deserves to not have to live through the hope of Clarke’s survival and the agony of a second death.

Maybe Raven will tell him eventually.

Maybe she won’t.

The day she thinks she has listened to Clarke’s last message is the worst day of her life.

Or it seems like it, anyway, the already-creeping devastation of Clarke’s hopeless transmission made even worse when Murphy pushes open the door to her workshop and catches her full-on sobbing at her desk.

“Whoa,” he says, and she sneers at his blurry shape.

“Get the fuck out, Murphy,” she says.

“Jesus,” is his only retort, and he closes the door, but he’s on the wrong side of it.

“Murphy, seriously, just…”

“No, come on, Reyes. Talk it out. What happened?”

He thinks she’s crying because of some mechanical thing she’s frustrated with, and it makes her laugh because it’s so much worse than that, Murphy!  Raven Reyes doesn’t cry over mechanical failures on the ring. She finds Echo and learns some more moves. She punches something until her knuckles bleed. She works on other problems, easier problems, keeping her brain warmed up until she can power through whatever issue she’s having.

Crying isn’t for mechanical frustrations, because those are things that she knows she can fix. Crying is for when she can’t do anything at all. When she’s helpless. When she’s lost.

She’s not even really sure at first why she tells him.

Just…it’s Murphy. If there’s anyone on the ring who will agree with her decision to bear this burden instead of Bellamy, it’s him.

So she lets him listen.

He’s leaning close to the computer, elbows on the table, headphones in. His brow is furrowed with concentration like Clarke’s reciting coded messages and not just telling Bellamy that she’s probably going to die. When it’s finished, he looks at Raven, and for a second his blankness makes her weirdly nervous. Is he going to be pissed about this?

Then he asks, “how long?” And it’s a sigh, like he can’t believe she’s gone and taken on another burden when she already has so much.

So she tells him, because she needs someone to help her carry this, and because he wants to.

She shouldn’t be surprised that he immediately agrees that they shouldn’t tell Bellamy.

Murphy’s brand of worrying is of a slightly spicier flavor than the average person’s, but Raven’s more similar to him in that respect than she’d like, so she gets it. Bellamy holds it together because he thinks he has to, and neither of them are willing to push him any farther. The guilt of leaving Clarke to die is already too much for Bellamy to take, and Raven refuses to make it worse. It’s like a crack in a pane of glass. You hope it holds together until you can reinforce it. You don’t poke at it until it shatters. If that means holding your breath and tiptoeing around the glass and not telling the glass that his platonic life partner is alive and missing him on earth, then, well. Then that’s what you do.

And, besides. Clarke may not even be alive anymore at all.

It’s better if Bellamy doesn’t know how much she has been suffering.

The next time the receiver lights up and Clarke’s voice comes through the headphones, Raven’s nearly sobbing with joy.

The first thing she does when the message is over is find Murphy.

She bursts into the common area with more energy than she’s had in days. Emori and Echo are trying to show him how to play some Grounder game that looks a little like chess but with fewer pieces, but Murphy gets to his feet the second Raven enters, out of breath and grinning.

“Dickhead,” she says brightly. “Need your help with something. Okay if I steal him?”

“Please do,” Echo grumbles, and Emori chuckles.

“He’s not very good at listening to instructions,” she elaborates, and Murphy flips them off with both hands as he makes his way to Raven.

As soon as they’re out in the hall, on the way to the workshop, Murphy hugs her. Hard and impulsive and a little angry. It’s very Murphy.  

“She’s okay?” he asks. It’s a whisper in her ear, like he doesn’t want to risk talking any louder. He’s as protective of this secret as she was, and she’s so glad she told him. She nods, resting her forehead against his shoulder. He squeezes her tighter for a second before letting her go, the moment sparkling and genuine and seriously, how is Murphy her best friend up here? How is that a thing?

“You wanna hear?” she asks.

“Hell yeah I do. Gotta appreciate the game of another cockroach,” he says, and she leads the way.

It becomes their Thing, after that. Emori starts popping up at the workshop when Murphy spends too long hanging out with Raven, and she turns out to be a whiz with all things electronic and mechanical, so Raven takes her under her wing as an apprentice. It’s kind of cool to have someone she can teach everything she knows. And Emori makes it fun, and easy, and when they’re all in one place, the three of them have a friendship that’s easier than it has any right to be. They’re both such refreshing companions to have around to counteract the silence she had become used to on the ring.

Murphy refuses the lessons that Emori blossoms under, but he hangs around the workshop, usually with headphones in, playing old games on Raven’s tablet or listening to music from the archives. If a Clarke call comes in (“Project Phoenix”, they call it privately, when they have to give it a name), the red light comes on quietly, indicating a recording in progress, and Raven and Murphy will exchange a glance and go back to whatever they were doing. Later, when Emori’s gone, they’ll listen.

Raven isn’t sure at first why they don’t tell Emori, or Monty, or Harper, or even Echo. But the burden seems fair, shared between two people, and expanding the net would be dangerous. It’s not that she doesn’t trust them, but not with this. Not like she trusts Murphy.

Which, again, is a lot to handle if she thinks about it for too long, so generally she doesn’t.

She does have this amusing recurring fantasy. She’s not sure what it means, because unlike most of her fantasies, it isn’t remotely sexual. It’s just this funny mental image of Finn popping into existence and witnessing these soft, friendly interactions between she and Murphy or she and Bellamy. The look on his face...

It’s not even in a malicious way, like she thinks Finn would be jealous of the bizarre platonic chemistry she has with Murphy, or the pretending not to coddle that she does with Bellamy. It’s just that both men have changed so much, and Finn wasn’t around to see it, and she likes the idea of him being blown away by how easily she has forgiven Murphy. How easily she has come to consider he and Bellamy her family when before, Finn was the only person she had.

She likes to imagine that he’d be surprised at first, but that it would quickly give way to gladness. Things like Murphy scrounging around in storage closets until he finds a new strap for her brace. Things like Bellamy making her a utility belt so she doesn’t have to make too many trips back and forth when she’s working in the access hatches. Finn would be surprised, but she thinks he would mostly be glad that she isn’t still alone.

When Emori breaks up with Murphy after almost two years, neither of them will tell her what happened, and she feels guilty even though she’s not sure why. Maybe it’s the suffocating quality of the silence around it. It’s not like Emori seems to resent her for it, and Raven has no real reason to think that the breakup was because of her, but she feels almost itchy whenever someone mentions it, like something’s crawling on her. All Emori will say is that “some things just didn’t feel the same in close quarters, and I got tired of fighting it”, and that only sounds like half of the truth. When she asks Murphy, he’s even less helpful. He just looks at her, piercing, and shrugs.

Even though they won’t tell her anything, Raven gets caught in the middle anyway: her time is the one thing neither is willing to give up. It’s always nice to feel wanted, so she probably wouldn’t even mind except for the fact that she has to deal with their passive aggressive bullshit.

She sets ground rules early. Once Emori understands that Murphy isn’t giving up on spending time with Raven just because Emori’s her apprentice, they’re able to work out a schedule surprisingly neatly despite never actually saying that that’s what they’re doing. It’s like some bizarre custody agreement that no one talks about.

Raven spends the bulk of the day in the workshop with Emori, but she works out with Murphy in the morning (usually a light jog around the ring while he shittalks her to keep her from giving up). They hit the showers, the shittalking continuing over the curtains that separate the stalls, and then Raven heads to breakfast with the others while Murphy heads to his new room – literally a storage closet – for one of his many daily naps. She brings him breakfast on her way by as a heads up that Emori will be in the lab and he has free reign of the station until lunch. The same thing is repeated then, except she usually eats lunch perched on Murphy’s bed beside him as she talks about whatever she and Emori are working on. Then it’s back to the lab until Emori leaves for the day, either to sleep or to hang out with some of the others, and then Murphy slots silently into the workshop five minutes after she’s gone to see what Raven’s up to.

After that, work’s usually done, and they just hang out with whoever’s not hanging out with Emori. There’s barely enough work to fill the day as it is. With Emori, Raven spends a lot of time teaching, mostly because there aren’t many actual repairs to make. Things break down, but Raven’s a genius and gets them working quickly, always. Emori loves to watch and learn, and then Raven will set up practice emergencies so she can run through them. It takes a weight off to know that she’s not the only person who can handle these things.

Some nights Emori requests extra time in the workshop, and Raven never refuses her, even if she’s not joining her. Raven used to be precious with her workshop, but she trusts Emori. She just always makes sure to stow away the receiver in her locked cabinet so Emori doesn’t get too curious.

Those nights when Emori’s extra practice time means Murphy can’t join Raven in the workshop as she tinkers are usually when he gets into fights with Bellamy or antagonizes Monty and Harper by pretending not to realize he’s third wheeling. But increasingly he starts joining Echo and Raven to watch movies from the archives. Raven suspects it’s because he can fall asleep on the makeshift couch in the movie room instead of crawling off to his closet, but she doesn’t say no to the company.

She and Murphy are good at antagonizing each other, but over the months that pass it becomes banter that’s sharp and biting but never serious. And when they team up on Echo, use their bantering against someone else, it’s good. Like stretching out a muscle Raven didn’t realize had been locked up. Not since Wick has she had someone to be this in sync with, and it’s refreshing.

Echo has loosened up some, too, though she’s still dry and has trouble with a lot of the movies they watch. Raven and Murphy don’t know much more about pre-war life than she does, but they do their best to explain when they’re feeling charitable, and they mock mercilessly when they’re not. Echo doesn’t mind being teased for asking questions, and after a while Raven realizes that her dry tone is mostly a sarcastic tone, because Echo is exceptionally good at fucking with people.

She comes to this realization when they’re watching some dumb teenager movie, and three girls who look way too old to be real teenagers are at a sleepover. They’re all sitting in a line on the bed, which makes Murphy sit up a little straighter, intrigued at this surprising direction until he realizes they’re just braiding hair.

When he expresses his disappointment, Echo – laconic as ever – says that the girls are carrying out a pre-war version of a tradition that survived in Azgeda. She claims that warriors of all genders would perform the ritual on the eve of battle. One braiding another’s hair was seen as a promise to always watch their back. It was a way of showing loyalty and commitment. A brave vow of protection.

Murphy grumbles a bit but finally barks at Raven from across the couch, “Reyes, come sit in front of me and let’s do this warrior shit.”

Echo makes deliberate eye contact with Raven, lowering her eyebrows and lifting up one corner of her mouth in a quietly incredulous expression, and she shakes her head just slightly, just enough so Raven can read “that was total bullshit and I can’t believe he fell for that” in her expression. Raven covers her laughter with a cough, then plops down on the floor in front of Murphy’s spot on the couch. Echo joins him, helping him out with Raven’s hair despite this being her joke in the first place. And it’s sweet, actually, that they’re both eager to prove their loyalty but covering it up with braids and movie nights and the quiet comfort of friendship. No two people in her life have ever wanted forgiveness so badly without outright asking for it, and Raven has never been so happy to give it.

Bellamy recovers slower than the rest of them, but he does recover. He’s at his best when he’s allowed to mother someone, and they all love him enough to put up with it. After years of taking care of Octavia, and then the 100, and then mostly Clarke, he’s always looking for new people to smother in his weirdo brand of grumpy affection. Murphy becomes his pet project because Murphy was dumped and takes bad enough care of himself that it probably looks like Emori withdrawals in the right light. He likes to help Raven because she can always use an extra pair of hands, and he’s patient with Monty’s new algae experiments for long enough to give Harper some much needed breaks to spend some time with their other friends. Bellamy tries with all of them in various ways, except with Echo. She seems to realize it, and she’s cautious and kind but unobtrusive, which is probably a good call. Bellamy still needs time before he can fully trust her.

The more he recovers, the more often it comes up. Should we tell him?

Clarke’s doing so much better. She found a kid, Madi. She’s living in a little village in the green spot that Bellamy’s so obsessed with. She talks about finding food, water, berries. Hunting and fishing. It sounds like paradise, and more than one awful algae dinner is spent with pointed looks from Murphy to Raven as they wonder what Clarke’s dinner tastes like instead.

And so occasionally it comes up. Casual, sort of guilty. Hey, should we…? But there’s still no way to contact her, and Raven works on it when she can but doesn’t make any progress, and it feels equally cruel to tell him or keep it from him, because either way there’s nothing he can do.

And it isn’t always good for Clarke, anyway.

Like the time Madi breaks an arm and Clarke cries through the entire call about how much she misses Bellamy, and how Bellamy would know exactly what to say to Madi to comfort her.

Or the time Clarke panics because Madi gets angry with her and “runs away”, and even though she radios back when she’s found her, it’s a tense couple of hours for Raven and Murphy, who worry about this little girl they’ve never even met, because they know Clarke can’t afford to lose her too.

Or the time Clarke’s sick, throwing up and feverish for half a week until there’s this awful radio silence. Raven and Murphy are both short-tempered and anxious because Clarke doesn’t call for two days, and then a tiny voice starts begging Bellamy for help because Clarke is sick and won’t wake up and Madi’s hungry but she doesn’t know how to start a fire and the berries make her stomach hurt when she eats too much of them and

Raven works for two straight days on no sleep, desperately trying to cobble something together to get through to Madi so they can help her figure out what’s wrong with Clarke or talk her through building a fire. Anything to get food in her until Clarke wakes up.

On the second night Murphy finds her sitting hopeless and exhausted at her workshop table with her head in her hands, her muscles rigid with fury and self-loathing and despair, and he just stands behind her and hugs her tight, his chest to her back, just like when Luna did it. He doesn’t say anything, and neither does she.

Clarke calls a half hour later, and she and Madi are both okay, and it feels like the first time all over again.

“Bellamy would have lost his fucking mind,” Murphy tells her, after, like she doesn’t already know.

“We can’t tell him,” she agrees.

It’s in the middle of year three that it happens, and Raven’s distracted with a new idea to make contact with Clarke, scribbling equations on a piece of paper that’s wearing thin where she’s written on it and erased from it so many times, because they only have limited supplies up here and they have to make them count. She’s at an increasing level of irritation because Murphy’s snacking on Monty’s experimental algae chips over her shoulder and watching her work, occasionally drawling suggestions that are complete gibberish, because he likes fucking with her.

And it sucks in particular because Raven’s been noticing him lately, in a way she hadn’t before. It would be monumentally stupid to make something of it when he’s still hung up on Emori, so she’s been doing her best to suppress it, and he isn’t helping.

It’s one thing being his emotional crutch. He’s that for her, too. But to bring sex into it would be a colossal mistake, because she doesn’t think it would be just sex for her, and she doesn’t want to take that kind of risk with her best friend. If only her dumbass of a body was as convinced of that as her brain.

She’s so in her own head, trying to solve this radio stuff and trying to ignore Murphy’s presence, and when he grabs her shoulder, she actually jumps.

“Jesus, what? You’re so fucking needy today.”

He points, barely bothering to be subtle. Across the room, Bellamy is smiling. Like, actually smiling. At Echo. She’s telling a story to Monty and Harper, talking with her hands, her eyes gleaming. And, well. It’s been three years. It makes sense that Bellamy might be ready to finally let her in. But there’s something soft about the smile that Raven doesn’t like, and she knows exactly why Murphy pointed it out.

“Shit,” she whispers.

“We can’t let that go anywhere,” Murphy agrees.

It’s an open secret that Echo is a little into Bellamy, in the way everyone is a little into Bellamy. Despite the self-loathing and the weird mixture of anxiety and arrogance he exudes, even he knows what he looks like, and it’s unfairly beautiful. And he’s sweet and gruff and kind and also sort of a dick. He’s a complicated guy to care about, but once you’re in, it’s for life.

And Echo is the kind of person who goes for what she wants, but she’s also the kind of person who is patient and good at waiting. She was a spy. She knows how to read people. If she doesn’t know Bellamy’s starting to consider it, she’ll figure it out soon, and she’ll make a move.

Raven loves Echo. Echo is one of her best friends, because there are only seven of them up here on this ring, for the past three years, and they all have had to learn to love each other. They’re family, and she wants Echo to be happy. But Raven and Murphy have spent years listening to Clarke’s radio transmissions, all of those longing stories and nostalgic rememberings and those gentle hopes of a future in the green spot with Bellamy and Madi by her side. They long ago realized that Clarke is in love with Bellamy in the same way in which he was in love with her.

And so even if Raven can’t help Clarke on earth, even if she can’t keep Clarke alive or give her advice or let her actually talk to Bellamy again, she can at least do this. And if they can avoid letting Echo get attached and then hurt when Bellamy finds out Clarke has been waiting for him, then that’s all the better.

“Team Cockblock?” she asks, glancing at Murphy.

“Team Cockblock,” he agrees, bumping her fist with his.

It starts out rough, like most of their plans.

Murphy thinks the key is reminding Bellamy about Clarke, and Raven tells him he’s a fucking dick and also wrong, but Murphy’s stubborn and starts peppering Clarke’s name in conversations throughout the week. Remember when Clarke said…? Remember that time Clarke…? Bellamy’s face goes all open and vulnerable when he does, and he leaves the room quickly every time, and Raven finally convinces Murphy that he’s going to send Bellamy careening directly into Echo’s arms one of these times, because an emotionally vulnerable Bellamy is probably a clingy Bellamy.

They consider reminding Bellamy of all the harm Echo did to Octavia in hopes of shriveling his libido a little bit, but that would be a dick move all around. It has taken him three years to finally start treating Echo like an actual part of the family. They don’t want to send him backwards, and they don’t want Echo to be hurt.

So it just becomes about timing. Raven starts demanding more practice from Echo, working herself to the bone and learning how to fight, and Murphy pulls away from most of the group, activating Bellamy’s Dad sensors and making him chase Murphy all over the ring, trying to make him feel important. Then Murphy asks Echo to binge watch some of her favorite shows, while Raven has Bellamy crawl around in the air vents trying to find the source of a nonexistent problem.

They get good at making sure Echo and Bellamy never cross paths, but sometimes they fuck up and the targets of their cockblock are warm and glad to see each other, and Murphy realizes that they’re just making them like each other more.

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder, or whatever,” Murphy mutters, probably thinking of Emori.

And before this conversation, Raven barely saw him for the past week, because they’ve been so busy running interference.

“Yeah,” she agrees, wishing she didn’t get it.

It’s an act of total desperation, Raven thinks, when Murphy steps in. Echo has finally gotten bold about it, and she walks up to Raven and just asks about Bellamy’s prowess, because apparently Harper told her that Raven knows. Raven’s pretty sure it’s Echo’s way of asking for Raven’s permission, or approval, or whatever. Murphy inhales and chokes on the algae-infused water he’s drinking (another of Monty’s greatest hits).

Raven takes a second to try and decide if she should lie and say Bellamy’s the worst at the whole sex thing, but Murphy’s the one who answers, saying, “if you’re looking for someone who knows what they’re doing, you should be paying more attention to Emori.”

Raven stares at him. Echo’s head tilts slightly, considering. Murphy takes another sip of water and manages to look slightly casual.

“Your girlfriend,” Echo says.

“Ex of, like, more than a year now. Keep up. And we can’t even talk civilly to each other anymore, so you know this recommendation is an unbiased one.”

“I had kept her out of my mind for your sake,” Echo says, blunt, and Raven’s biting her lip to keep from either laughing or putting a stop to this with whatever shit she has to make up about Bellamy being a selfish lover who hates going down on girls and is terrible with his hands. Murphy shrugs, looking into his cup.

“Me and Emori are done. Shit that worked down there doesn’t always work up here. That’s just how it is. Anyway, if you’re interested, you should let her know. Me and her talked about asking you to join us a few times, so I think she’d be open to it. Just, you know, treat her right or I’ll have to do something stupid like defend her honor and you’ll fucking kill me.”

Echo smiles at him and nods, and she moves off, looking pleased with everything.

Raven doesn’t quite know what to say. She knows that must have been difficult for him, and she wants to acknowledge that, but she and Murphy aren’t the kind of people who talk about actual feelings. So she just looks at him while he continues looking everywhere else.

Finally, she asks, “was that true?”

“I mean, I’m not giving you any details, but yeah. Sex was definitely not our issue.”

“No, I mean was it true you talked about asking Echo to join you?”

“Oh, for sure. Emori was all about it.”

“And you weren’t?” Raven teases, rolling her eyes. So Murphy of him to pretend that it wouldn’t have fulfilled about fifteen different fantasies. She takes a sip to hide the fact that she’s now wondering exactly what the three of them together would look like – hot, definitely. Echo the dominant one, definitely. That’s going to be difficult to stop thinking about.

Murphy says, “not like I would’ve said no, sure, but I always argued for asking you.”

Now it’s Raven’s turn to choke on her water, and Murphy cackles as he claps her on the back.

“You dick,” Raven squeezes out between coughs that are mingled with laughter. “You did that on purpose.”

“I just got great timing,” he replies. Raven shakes her head. “I wasn’t just being a dick, though. We really did talk about it. Asking you.”

“Seriously?” She knows it’s a very telling thing to ask, but she can’t help herself. “Why didn’t you?”

“Emori didn’t think you’d do it. Said Echo would’ve been more open to it. And the three of us had a good thing going at the time anyway. She didn’t want to risk you shutting us out if we asked you and you thought we were weird sex monsters for it.”

Raven lets out a dramatic sigh.

“And here I thought she knew me so well,” she says with mock regret, and Murphy grins. It’s suddenly a bit too close and private, so Raven stands up, draws back. She knows her own limits, as much as Murphy has a tendency to make her push past them. “Well, thank you for your sacrifice. If I can ever talk to our little Phoenix again, I’ll tell her how you fell on your sword so nobly for her. She’ll be glad to know you care.”

Murphy’s face transforms, sort of, into this half-wondering expression, like he’s just figured something out. He looks relieved.

“You know I’m not, like, pining after Emori, right?” he asks. He stands up too, standing in front of her, close, giving her nowhere else to look. “Haven’t been for a long time, actually. Thought I was pretty obvious about that.”

Oh.

And so now Raven’s figuring some shit out, too.

“I thought you were just doing all your crying in private, you asshole,” she replies, exasperation lacing her tone.

And then she takes his face in both hands and kisses him.

It’s not a foundation-rocking kiss. It’s not a kiss that reinvents the way she thinks about kissing. It’s nothing so dramatic. But it feels a lot like home. Like dying together in the dropship because you don’t have anyone else and finding out that you somehow fit, somehow work. It’s an origami necklace, something beautiful made from scrap. A brace that you used to never need, but now you do, and it’s the feeling that someone cared enough to craft it for you. Maybe it’s weird to associate objects and grief and pain with home, but Raven never did have a great grasp on the concept. Her own home was so shitty. She’s gotten good at making new ones out of the wreckage.

“I’m flattered to know that you were the one pining,” Murphy says when he pulls back, and she rolls her eyes as she leads him out of the room.

“Shut up before you make me change my mind.”

“I thought you weren’t interested. Turns out you’re just oblivious.”

“Sounds like I wasn’t the only one pining.”

Murphy grins at her as they reach the door to her bunk.

“Yeah,” he says. “You definitely weren’t.”

Turns out fucking Murphy on the regular is awesome. Raven was friends with both Finn and Wick before dating them, and with both guys there was an easy chemistry and kindness and care behind the snark that eased them gently into love territory, but with Murphy it’s different. It’s like they flipped a big switch, one side labeled “best friends” and the other labeled “in love”. Those feelings igniting and sparkling like a newly connected electrical current, the pathway already built and ready and waiting for a single spark.

Guess that’s what happens when you’re one of seven people in such a small place. Everything just seems so much more intense.

She learns that Murphy has wanted her from the moment he saw her, and he likes that she took half a week to remember his name, because Murphy hates Old Murphy almost as much as the rest of them did. She learns that he still feels guilty for shit from years ago, not just the big stuff but the hurtful words and passed-up moments for kindness too, and she learns that he didn’t realize he cared about her that much until she tried to turn him over to the Grounders and it hurt more than it pissed him off. She learns that he never liked Finn but still wonders if they could have been friends one day the way he’s now friends with Bellamy and Raven and Monty and Harper despite how much he sucked when they first met him. He wonders the same thing about Wells. About the kids he killed in the dropship. About all of them. She already knew that he used snark to push people away, but now she’s allowed close enough to peel back layers of him, discovering the emotional current that runs beneath, and even though it’s not something she thinks he’ll ever let her see completely, she sees enough.

She learns that he likes to be bossed around in bed, which helps her realize that she likes doing the bossing. She learns that acerbic one-liners are his way of showing affection, but he also gets this particular look in his eyes sometimes, and it’s the softest she’s ever seen him, and the power of that feeling is immense. No wonder he and Emori fought so much, she thinks. The force of his feeling when it’s solely focused on her is so heavy. Emori didn’t want to be smothered in it, but Raven thinks she might.

They don’t avoid telling Emori; Raven goes to her directly, that first day. She tells Emori everything, and Emori gives her a sad little smile and a peck on the cheek and says that she wants Raven to be happy, and she wants John to be happy, too. But they don’t tell anyone else, and they don’t make a big thing of it. Maybe they’re a little closer in the common areas, on the couch when they’re watching movies with Echo, and Murphy has a thing about sitting next to her with his hand low on her back, fingers teasing that little stripe of warm skin above her belt. It just doesn’t feel like it’s anyone’s business, is all. And sneaking around is kind of fun, anyway. Ducking into corners and closets and being fast, being rough.

When you’re in such close quarters with people, you have to learn to love them. And loving Murphy has been easy for a long time. It’s the closest to fully happy she’s been since she got to earth.

In a way, that’s what it feels like. That spinning wonder, her arms outstretched. Those first few seconds when everything was perfect and this beautiful blonde girl was smiling at her, and she had made it. Survived because she was smart enough to do it. She’s known Murphy for years now, but everything feels like unexplored territory.

But just because her love life is suddenly revitalized, suddenly full and exciting and actually existent, it doesn’t mean everyone’s is. It’s sort of like having three full time jobs, working on the ring with Emori and fucking Murphy and trying to prevent Echo and Bellamy from following their example. But she hasn’t noticed Echo and Bellamy moving any closer to each other, and so she hasn’t been paying as much attention, and she has been letting her guard down.

That guard goes right back up when she lazily asks Echo one morning, “hey, Emori’s being all coy with me about it when I try to gossip. Did you make a move?”

“Several,” Echo says, and Raven cackles. “And it’s…nice. To be on good terms with her. On the ground, things were…different. I finally have a place here, and she is dear to me. But we’ve both agreed we aren’t looking for anything serious. Which is why I’m keeping my options open.”

Raven feels her entire face smooth over in a blank sort of panic.

“What does that mean?” she asks. Echo looks at her, and Raven is pretty sure she’s not imagining the fact that she looks appraising.

“It means I have enjoyed my time with Emori, but there are other flavors left to sample.”

Which, okay. Interesting. Were this a few weeks back, maybe Raven would give it a shot. She’s definitely curious. And she does laugh, because she always laughs when Echo picks up weird sayings like that from the old movies in the archives. But she’s inwardly scrambling, because one of those other flavors Echo is talking about has to remain off the fucking menu.

“Can I just…” she starts, lurching to her feet and stepping close. “Can I ask you a favor about that? It’s about Bellamy.”

Echo nods, says “of course” so quickly and with so much warmth that Raven instantly feels terrible. She keeps telling herself that it’s to help Echo as much as it is to help Clarke, because no one wants to deal with another fucking love triangle on the ground, but she can’t help the guilty little prickles of conscience as she looks at her friend. Echo is still so careful around all of them, like they’re going to shoot her out an airlock at the first sign of the Azgeda warrior she once was, and Raven hates this whole thing. She really does.

When she gets Echo into the kitchen area, blessedly empty, she rips the band-aid off.

“I’m in love with Bellamy,” she says.

It’s, look, it’s not her finest moment.

“Raven,” Echo says sorrowfully.

“I know,” Raven laughs, uncomfortable already. “Just…you know. I got a taste on Earth and now I want the…full meal?” No, that’s awful. “I just love him…so much. I’m having trouble talking about it?” That seems safe. Jesus. She’s so bad at this.

“I thought you and Murphy were becoming close,” Echo says, and she says it in such a way that Raven can tell that it’s meant to function as an apology, which just makes Raven feel even guiltier, because now Echo feels bad for hurting Raven even though Raven’s the one lying to her face.

“We are close. We just…he knows. He knows I…love Bellamy. And want to, uh, have a fucking family with Bellamy? Or something. I don’t know.”

God, what a disaster.

“I will look elsewhere,” Echo promises, squeezing Raven’s arm, like she thinks that Raven’s regretting having spilled this horrible, deep secret.

“I’m so sorry,” Raven says, and it’s the most honest thing she’s said so far. Echo surprises her by hugging her. It’s an awkward hug, a little stiff, like Echo’s seen it in a bunch of the movies and shows she’s been watching, and now she wants to try it out for herself.

“I believed that I could love Bellamy,” she says earnestly. “That is not the same thing as loving him.”

“We all love Bellamy,” Raven points out, because that’s true too.

“Yes. But I’m not the one in love with him,” Echo says, more wisdom picked up from the archives, and Raven nods, and Raven smiles, and Raven sort of wishes a piece of space shrapnel would puncture the ring and suck her into space or something.

“Oh my God, I wish I could have been there,” Murphy says with another loud laugh, flopping down beside her on his back on their bed. Raven folds her arms across her chest and huffs out a petulant sigh that’s also half-laugh because, okay, it was sort of funny, in hindsight.

“I wish we could clone Bellamy and make enough for everyone,” she says, and Murphy laughs harder, shuddering at the thought.

“Jesus, no. One Bellamy is bossy enough.”

“Thought you liked ‘em bossy,” Raven points out with a teasing grin.

“No, I like you bossy. There’s a difference.”

He runs his hand down her hip, the way he does sometimes, fingers pressing into the divot of her scar and then continuing down to her leg so he can help her ease the brace off. She watches him work with a fond smile. It’s not that she doesn’t want Murphy to forgive himself, but there’s something breathtaking about being the focus of such singular devotion, knowing that there’s something deeper than love tying you together. There’s this horrible thing that happened, this terrible almost accident that should have guaranteed that you never said a single kind word to each other again but somehow drew you together, in the end.

“What are you thinking about?” Murphy asks, now somewhere down near her pelvis, and she arches a pointed look in his direction that makes him chuckle and press a kiss to one jutting hipbone. “You looked a little hazy.”

“Yeah. Just thinking about Bellamy.”

“And on that note,” Murphy says, moving to get up. She laughs and pushes him back down so he can rest between her legs, lying on his stomach, his arms folded over her abdomen as he looks up at her.

“He’s just an idiot,” she points out. “For wasting so much time. That’s all.”

“What does that make Clarke?” he asks.

“Also an idiot.”

“And what does that make us?”

“Idiots,” Raven proclaims with a smile, waving her hand grandly in the air. Murphy huffs a laugh and presses a kiss to the skin directly below her bellybutton. She curls her fingers against his scalp.

“Guess I should start making up for lost time, then,” Murphy says.

“You do all right,” Raven reassures him.

She’s directly in the middle of a pretty fantastic buildup, a litany of you’re so good, you’re doing so good, you’re so good to me, Murphy falling from her lips because she knows that’s what he secretly craves hearing from her, when her door slams open.

“Fuck off!” she shrieks, pulling up the covers with one hand and reaching for a pillow to throw with the other. Bellamy catches it, looking very unimpressed. One hand on his hip. The other hand holding the pillow. Very Dad from the dropship days.

“No,” he says. “Because I need an explanation.”

“About what?” Murphy asks from under the blankets, and Bellamy puts his hand to his forehead and turns around as if to sprint in the other direction before he seems to realize that this actually helps his case, because he whirls back and points at Raven, slamming the door behind him to close out the rest of the ring.

“See, this, exactly! This is exactly what...get out of there, Murphy! This concerns both of you.”

“Murphy?” Raven asks with mock shock, lifting the blankets to look at him as he grumble-crawls out to sit beside her. “How’d you get in there?”

“Echo,” Bellamy says, pointing wildly at the door, his voice a hiss of frustration. “Just told me that I should make a move on you, because apparently you’re secretly in love with me and deserve to be happy so she’s breaking your trust to tell me about it because it’s for your own good. Except I knew that-” Here, he makes a face, and he waves his hand to encompass the two of them. “-this was happening, because I’ve had to change my jogging route twice now because you’re not as subtle as you think you are. So what the fuck?”

Murphy, looking over at Raven, deadpans, “oh my God, you’re in love with Bellamy? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Uh,” Raven starts, trying to think of a way out of this. “I was hoping you’d be down for a three-way?”

“Yeah, that’s not gonna work,” Murphy warns her.

“Why not?”

“Even if it did, it doesn’t solve the problem.”

Bellamy, lips drawn into a thin line of disapproval, has both hands on his hips now, waiting. Raven considers. She can feel resignation settling over her. There’s no way out of this, but she’s been avoiding it for so long.

He’s going to hate her. He’s her friend, her family, one of the most important people ever in her life, and he’s going to hate her.

Murphy’s looking at her, and she can tell that he’s thinking the same thing.  

“Okay,” she says. She steels her spine. She knew what was going to happen when she made the decision to hide the calls. Now she has to live with it. “Give us a second, all right? Meet us in the workshop.”

It’s a funereal mood as Raven and Murphy approach her workshop door. Even though it’s open, they both pause outside in the hall and take a second to regroup. For once, neither of them try to diffuse the tension with a joke or some last minute idea that will postpone this. It actually feels like it’s time. They’ve only ever been delaying it.

Raven leads the way, both because she was the one who intercepted the calls first, and because she’s confident Bellamy won’t kill her but not so confident about Murphy.

“Sit down, please,” she says. It’s this weird professional detachment in her voice, like she’s trying to channel Clarke or Abby, and she’s not sure it’s going to work, except Bellamy actually listens. He looks more guarded than angry now. He probably thought she was fucking with him or just being a general menace with the Echo thing, and seeing how serious she is has made him nervous.

“What is this, Raven?” he asks. “Do you just not want...?”

Whatever soft, self-loathing, tortured bullshit he’s going to say, she doesn’t want to hear it. She’s not sure what reason he could have cooked up, but Bellamy has a unique way with making things his own fault, and she doesn’t want to deal with it because this is so blatantly her fault, and she already feels like an asshole. Doesn’t feel like she made the wrong call, really. But she feels like an asshole all the same.

“Just…” she starts, holding up her hand. “Just give me a second. And I want you to know that I didn’t do this to hurt you. You’re going to be angry, I know. But I made a judgement call years ago, and I will maintain right up until you strangle me that it was the right one at the time.”

She glances at Murphy, who’s worrying his lower lip between his teeth, looking at her.

“Yeah, don’t strangle her, though,” he says, and she tries to smile. She takes a deep breath and goes over to the receiver. It’s blinking: a new message. She takes the drive off her necklace and plugs it into the port. She takes one last look at Murphy and Bellamy, both looking nervous for different reasons. And then she pulls her headphones out of the small speaker.

And then she presses play.

“Hi, Bellamy.”

He sits up straighter, and it’s almost physically painful to watch the way his whole body reacts to her voice, even years later. Two words and he knows exactly who it is, and his dark eyes are hurting and open in a way that brings Raven back to those first few months when tortured thoughts of Clarke and Octavia ate away at him.

“I saw another bird today! Didn’t eat this one.” She laughs, the sound bright and breathy and Clarke, and Raven sees Murphy look down at the ground, swallowing back emotion.

She feels it too. Bellamy thought she was dead thirty seconds ago, and this is the first proof of life he’s had in years, and it’s so…Clarke is so happy, talking to him. Raven’s glad that it’s a good day for her. Madi isn’t sick, Clarke isn’t stressed out or existential or lonely. It’s just perfect. This is exactly how Clarke would want him to find out.

“Kind of wanted to eat the bird, honestly, but Madi stopped me. She said we’ll be better off letting them lay more eggs and hatch more babies so we’ll have more of them around. She’s a smart kid. I think she probably just felt bad for it, though.”

It’s clear Bellamy wants to ask what the fuck is going on, but he doesn’t. He gets up from his seat, his eyes glued in on the receiver, moving closer to the speaker from which Clarke’s voice is crackling. He won’t speak until the message is over. Raven locks eyes with Murphy and keeps them there.

“I wanted to get her on to say hi to you today, but she’s mad at me because I wouldn’t let her drive the rover earlier. Which…” Another small chuckle. “Whatever. It made me think about you. Like most things, I guess.”

Bellamy swallows audibly, and he turns his head to look at Raven. She looks down at her hands, still wrapped up in the fraying wire from her headphones.

“I was thinking about what it must have been like for you on the Ark with Octavia. She was a handful on the ground. I can’t imagine what she was like when it was just the three of you. I imagine she and Madi would have had a lot in common. I guess it’s easier that she can’t stay mad at me for that long. I’m literally her only choice for company. Maybe I should have killed the bird. Limited my competition.”

Murphy’s grimacing at everything, and Bellamy’s hands are braced against the table, his head hanging down between his shoulders, and Raven’s not sure if it’s anger or grief but she’s pretty sure it’s something in between.

“You probably would have laughed at that. Maybe? Guess we didn’t have a lot of opportunity to make each other laugh when we weren’t constantly about to die, but. I don’t know. I like to imagine that you would’ve laughed. Um. I should probably go. Madi’s still sulking, but maybe she’ll forgive me if I make her something good for dinner. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

In the silence that follows, Bellamy wipes at his face, muted but somehow frantic, trying to capture the tears that are escaping from the corners of his eyes.

“I…um. I…When was…?”

Raven checks the readout.

“Two hours ago,” she says softly, and Bellamy sobs.

He has never cried in front of her sober before, and there’s something horrifying about the sight of him breaking down. He falls apart so quickly after the first sob, like a dam bursting, the stonework crumbling as the water pushes through, and he’s hunched into himself in seconds, his hands coming up to his face, his elbows braced on the table, his whole body trying to curl into itself as he cries. It’s quiet, almost soundless, but visually it’s a lot. It’s almost like a panic attack, and Raven wants to hug him, but she can’t move.

Murphy makes a horrified face, flashes her a fucking peace sign, and scrambles. Raven mouths threats after him, but she thinks this will actually be easier once he’s gone. Bellamy crying is such a private thing.

It doesn’t take long for him to pull himself together, though it takes an obvious effort. He and Clarke have both always been so good at compartmentalizing, at forcing down emotions until they have time to break, or until they’re alone, or until they’re literally driven to the point of madness.

And once he’s managed to do it, he turns to her, naked betrayal in his red-rimmed, puffy eyes. She considers apologizing, but it wouldn’t be accurate, so she doesn’t.

“How long?” he asks.

“Since about five months in.” He curses under his breath and lets his head hang down again, but she continues, finding strength. She expected him to be furious, but now that it’s happening, she finds herself feeling defensive. “You were a mess. Hey! Look at me!” When he does, affronted, she continues in a level tone. “The first message I heard, she was talking about food and water. About how she didn’t have any. Every day, she called and talked about how she was barely surviving. I tried everything to respond to her, and I couldn’t figure it out. We couldn’t do anything to help her. And that very first message I heard, she told you that she sometimes hoped you couldn’t hear her because you would hate not being able to help, and she was right. You wouldn’t have been able to handle it.”

“You could have let me make that call.”

“No. I couldn’t have. I made the call because I didn’t want you to have to deal with it on top of everything else. She couldn’t get the bunker open. She was having a really rough time. There were a few times we didn’t think she was going to make it.”

“Who else knows but you and Murphy?”

“No one. It’s been our secret.”

Our burden, she doesn’t say, but she can see the understanding in his eyes.

“I would never have asked you to keep this from me,” he says slowly.

“If you want to think it was selfish, you can do that.”

“Selfish?”

“I made the call without consulting you, and I get that that sucks. And I get that you would have wanted to know. But I couldn’t risk you losing your head up here. Like it or not, we needed you together.

“If I had known she was alive…”

“You would have let it consume you. And if you heard those first few messages the way I did, when you didn’t know where or when she was going to find food, or if you were going to have to listen to her die…”

Bellamy regards her silently for a second that seems to stretch into hours.

Finally, he says, “she couldn’t get the bunker open?”

Raven shakes her head, the tension in her shoulders leaving her.

“No. I’m sorry. She managed to dig out the rover, but the bunker is buried in rubble.”

Bellamy nods, and he scrubs his hand through his hair again, like he’s not sure what else to do. It makes the curls stick up at odd angles, and Raven has never felt so fond of him. She should have known he wouldn’t stay angry about this for long. Sometimes it seems like Bellamy is incapable of being angry at the people he loves if the only person they’re hurting is him.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and it’s truer this time than it would have been a few minutes ago, so she doesn’t feel bad saying it. “I wish I could have made the decision to tell you, but I made a call. And I can’t regret it. You wouldn’t have been ready before. I’m not sure you’re ready now. It can be intense, listening to her calls. She’s not…she’s not in a bad place, anymore. She has a kid with her, Madi, so she’s not completely alone. But sometimes she gets lonely. She misses you a lot, Bellamy.”

“Jesus,” Bellamy says, and he moves into Raven’s empty seat, putting his face in his hands again. “I left her there, and she’s been…she’s had to be…fuck.”

“And there’s the self-loathing I knew was coming,” Raven mutters. She nudges him over slightly so he makes room enough for her to squeeze half her ass onto the seat as well. “Hey. Look at me.”

He does, and she reaches for one of his hands, which he offers willingly. She squeezes it tight.

“Doesn’t she hate me?” he asks.

“Don’t be stupid,” she replies, pretending it doesn’t hurt, sometimes, how Bellamy always assumes the worst.

“I left her.”

“Didn’t you hear her voice in that call, Bellamy? She’s proud of you for that. Now listen, because I’m only going to get this sappy with you once, okay? The reason I told Echo I was in love with you is because Murphy and I could tell that there was something brewing between you, and…Echo is one of my best friends. I love her a lot, and I know maybe you two could’ve had something. And that would be fine. Except I felt like it was my responsibility to make sure that when I get you back down there... Clarke loves you, Bellamy. She loves you so much.” At Bellamy’s slightly pathetic, hopeful expression, she laughs a little and reaches for the drive, her portable tablet, and her headphones.

“The thing from your necklace,” he realizes.

“I record her calls. Every single one. Like half of the first one is missing, because I was trying to contact her and didn’t think to press the record button in time, but…”

He takes the items in hand as he stares at her, and she shrugs.

“How many messages?” he asks. It’s a little breathless, disbelieving.

“Bellamy, she calls you every day,” Raven replies. He ducks his head, and she can see that he’s overwhelmed. To go from no hope to this much. He thought Clarke was dead and had only platonic love for him. To hear that she’s alive and about as pathetic about him as he is about her? “She loves you, Bellamy. The same way you love her. Echo likes you a lot, and maybe the two of you could have fallen in love. I don’t know. But I didn’t want it to happen, because I don’t want you to hurt either of them when it came time to make a choice.”

He nods, and he looks at her like he’s trying to figure something out.

“I still think you should have told me,” he says. “But I get why you didn’t.”

She shrugs, rolls her eyes.

“I can live with that. You’ll thank me when you listen to some of them. They can get a little rough. Just…go listen to them, would you? Jesus, you’re so fidgety and impatient. It’s disgusting.”

Bellamy laughs a little, still teary and confused and defensive, but he kisses her on the cheek before he goes, so she knows he isn’t that mad. Raven stays seated, watching him go. He jars his shoulder against the door on the way out in his rush, cradling the tablet like it’s a fucking baby.

Murphy makes his slinked-in appearance a few seconds later, finding her with her arms folded across her chest and one eyebrow arched pointedly in expectation.

“Once a cockroach,” she drawls.

“We scurry when we see light,” Murphy agrees with an unconcerned shrug. “Or uncomfortable displays of emotion.”

“You know it isn’t my thing either, right?”

“Yeah, but I got to the door quicker.”

“And whose fault is that?” Raven reminds him, which has him huffing a laugh and taking the half of the seat that Bellamy just vacated. He braces his elbows on the table, and she intertwines her fingers with his. He stares down at them, thoughtful.

“You know, I…I’m not really great at this dumb shit either, but…I love you. You know that, right?” When her only response is to lean slightly away from him and blink furiously, he laughs and scrubs his free hand through his hair. “I don’t know, I just…I don’t want to be like that sadsack piece of shit. In case something happens, or we get separated, or…I don’t want to have never said it. Or whatever.”

He’s uncomfortable, and Raven realizes it’s because he doesn’t already know what her reaction is going to be.

“I love you too,” she says, quick, her words uneven and a little too emotional for her liking. She blames Bellamy and Clarke entirely. She covers up her closed throat and nearness to tears by saying, “but if we get separated for five years, you better believe I’m fucking anyone I want to. I’m not waiting for you.”

Murphy laughs loud, relieved, and he leans over to press a kiss to the side of her head.

“Yeah,” he says, fondly. “Me too. But I’d go right back to you when we were reunited.”

Because Raven can hear the truth behind his words, and because she knows that he can hear the truth in hers, she leans her shoulder against his and takes a moment to appreciate that he’s here. With her. As in love with her as she is in love with him.

“Hey,” he says, interrupting the quiet. “You think he’s crying or jerking it?”

“Jesus, Murphy. You can’t let one nice moment stick, can you?”

“It’s just a question!”

“The answer is obviously both, probably at the same time, all right? Fuck you. Get out of here. Let me do my work. You know he’s not gonna rest until I figure out how to talk back to her.”

But she leans in and kisses him fondly, and Murphy doesn’t go anywhere.

It’s a nice day. It seems particularly beautiful.

It’s probably nothing special. She’s probably just in a good mood.

She lies on her back in the grass, and she looks up at the canopy of leaves as the sunlight dapples down, and she wants to draw it.

Madi places a crown weaved from grass on her head and then announces she’s bored, and Clarke watches her head back to the village with a fond smile.

She reaches for another berry.

The sound, the crinkling and the static from the radio she gave up on years ago, nearly stops her heart. She grabs it from the grass beside her, and she waits, holding it, afraid to breathe.

And the voice, so well remembered and so loved, hoarse and deep and disbelieving and alive, comes from between her hands.

“Clarke?”