Chapter Text
Bellamy stares at her.
"I'm not your Clarke," she repeats. "That is, if you even have one."
Pain flickers across his face and he swallows hard. He drops her hand and folds his arms across his chest. "Ah," he says, voice brittle as a reed beneath the light tone, "I kept wondering when you'd get bored."
“What? No, no.That’s not - I’m not...” She waves him off and takes a breath. “What I’m going to tell you sounds insane, but… Can we sit down?”
Still guarded, he nods and heads toward the small table along the back wall. She darts a gaze around the room with its sparse furnishings - she’s never been inside a Factory flat before - as she takes a seat across from him. He clears his throat and she whips her gaze up to his. Closing her eyes for a second, she nods and then stares at the table top.
“A year ago,” she says in a slow, careful tone, “my dad discovered a flaw in the Ark life support. A fatal, unfixable flaw, that would only give us a few months of air at most.” He sucks in a shocked breath, but Clarke continues, undeterred.
“When he tried to tell the entire population, he was…” Her throat catches; spending time with her father has made this wound fresh and raw once more. “He was floated. And because I knew about it, I was arrested for treason.”
She looks at him then, seeing the confusion knitting his brow as she says, “Until a few months ago, when 99 other juvenile offenders from the Sky Box and I were sent down to Earth. Including Octavia.”
“But your dad is alive,” he says, sitting forward. “And I just saw Octavia! She was in the Sky Box, like normal.”
Clarke licks her lips and gives a small nod. “In this reality.”
“What?”
“In this reality,” she repeats, a little stronger this time. “Or universe. Or dream. Or whatever. I haven’t been able to figure it out yet. All I know is I went to sleep on Earth and woke up back here, and everything was different. Bellamy, I don’t belong here; none of this is right.” She catches his hand, squeezes it, and locks eyes with him. “Some of them - the changes - are great, but it’s not… It’s not right.”
He watches her closely before leaning back with a humorless laugh, pulling his hand free. “You’re not joking.” Bellamy stands, looms over her, before he spins on his heels, stabbing his fingers through his hair. He absorbs the information for a quiet minute and turns back to her. “You believe that there’s, what, an alternate reality where all of this happened?”
“I know it sounds - I sound - crazy. That’s why I didn’t say anything before! Think about it,” she presses. “Haven’t you thought something was off with me the past few days? Little things, changes of behavior, that you justified?” She sees him consider it, his jaw flexing as he works it out. “It’s because I don’t belong here. This isn’t my… my place.” She shakes her head. “If you can’t trust me, then trust that the Clarke you know would never try to pull something like this.”
She knows the instant that Bellamy realizes she’s right. His face hardens as he drops back into the chair and folds his arms on top of the table. “Start from the beginning.”
She tells him everything - everything - ignoring him when he grumbles about Octavia’s short-lived romance with Atom, when he gets up to pace like a caged animal as she describes her relationship with Finn, when he buries his face in his hands as she explains Lincoln’s torture, when his breath catches as she talks about closing the Dropship door and finding him again later.
She only falters when she gets to the missile at TonDC, the one thing she’s convinced Bellamy would never forgive.
Staring down at her fingers knotted in her lap, she doesn’t notice him coming closer until his hand is on her shoulder. She looks at him through her lashes as he crouches down to see her face, without saying a word. His eyes when they meet hers aren’t accusing or angry, but gentle. In a way, Clarke’s not surprised - her actions have no impact on this Bellamy; his sister is safe in her cell. Regardless, at his tacit forgiveness, the knot in her stomach she’s carried since that day uncoils bit by bit and she breathes deeply, nods, and continues.
Bellamy returns to his seat, not dropping his hand from her shoulder, but sliding it down to sit on her arm where it lay on top of the table, his grip loose right above her wrist. She draws strength from that contact to get through the Mount Weather massacre and walking away from Camp Jaha.
They sit in silence while he digests her story. They’re so still, in fact, that the lights start to dim at the lack of motion. She feels him stir and tenses beneath his hold. “Don’t,” she says, as the room grows dark enough that she can no longer see the finer details of his face, just the shine of his eyes.
“What I don’t understand,” his voice rumbles, “is why now?”
“Octavia. And Wells.” When he doesn’t respond, she hesitates. “You should see your sister on the ground, Bellamy. It’s where she belongs and she’s blossomed into a-”
“A murderer,” he says, voice flat. Clarke flinches at the accusation. If that’s how he saw the Octavia she’d described, what must he think of her?
“A warrior,” she defends fiercely. “One born out of necessity. And one so loyal to you that she’d give up any semblance of belonging - either to the people of the Ark or to the grounders. One who takes no pleasure in what she’s doing, but who does what needs to be done when no one else will - or can.”
He leans back, pulling his hand from her arm, and the lights in the flat snap back on in a startling flash. Clarke’s heart sinks, until she chances a look up at his face and sees the quiet satisfaction there. “Now, if you can see that about Octavia, why can’t you see it about yourself?” he asks with quiet reason.
Something thick and hot presses against the back of her eyes and she shakes her head in a feeble rejection of his neatly laid trap. “It’s different,” she manages to rasp out.
Bellamy doesn’t respond to that, just makes a noncommittal sound. “And Wells? How does he factor in? Obviously he’s not better off on the ground.”
She clears her throat. “I saw him before my shift and he reminded me of who I am: a leader. I walked away from that role, to try to figure out how to reconcile my decisions and their consequences. To figure out how to live with what I’d done for my people’s survival. But that’s not what I’m doing here. I was enjoying the reprieve instead of-”
“Doing penance?”
Clarke doesn’t respond, doesn’t know how to. How can he - this Bellamy she doesn’t know - see through her just as clearly as the one she’s left behind?
He sighs, jaw flexing. “And I suppose it never occurred to you, Dr. Griffin, that being here, enjoying this, is exactly the kind of healing that you need? No,” he says, wryly answering his own question, “no, you wouldn’t. Because you want to suffer. You think you deserve it.”
“The things I’ve done, Bellamy…” She eases out a shaky breath. “They’re so hard to live with. They press down on me, weighing on me, to the point that I can barely breathe when I think about them. But I need to, do you understand? I need to think about them. Because if I don’t, what does that make me, that I could perpetrate such vile acts and then move on with my life?”
He stays quiet, digesting that, before asking carefully, "Do you want forgiveness? Is that why you're telling me this?"
The words are so close to those he'd echoed before she'd walked away, her stomach swoops. "No, I don't want or need forgiveness. I don't deserve it. I don't deserve this, this happiness I have here in this life. I deserve to be miserable and alone."
"Clarke," is all he has to say, voice throbbing, and the pressure behind her eyes overwhelms her defenses and a single tear escapes.
She swipes at her cheek and struggles to regain some balance. "And I know that as soon as I figure out the- the lesson or the moral or whatever, this reality will be gone, all of it. And I'll be on my own again."
He leans forward at that. "You think there's something you're supposed to learn here?"
"Of course," she says with a nod.
"Why?"
She stares at him, nonplussed. "What do you mean, why? You know how this goes, how every story about a journey goes. Once the greatest conflict is dealt with, the protagonist-"
"Hero," he interrupts, mouth twitching.
"Protagonist returns to every-day life, changed for the better or ready to improve the world." She shrugs. "Ergo, I'm here to either learn something to correct the circumstances in my reality or to learn something about myself." He's smiling a bit as he watches her and Clarke's face heats, but she holds his gaze. She's never backed down from Bellamy Blake; she's not going to start now.
"Which do you think it is?" he asks, dark eyes pinning her in place.
She hesitates. "The latter."
“Why not the former - correcting the circumstances?”
“What’s done is done; there’s no undoing it,” she says, her firm tone belied by a tinge of regret.
He’s quiet for a beat, before asking, “Would you? If you could?”
If Clarke were a good person, the kind of person she wanted to be, she knows her answer would be an unequivocal yes. Yes, of course, she would undo it, she’d say without hesitation, and maybe some of the weight would be lifted. But Clarke says nothing instead - to undo one thing would be to undo everything, and that’s not a cost she’s willing to pay. The silence is damning.
At least it is to her, because Bellamy just nods. “Okay, how do we get you home?”
They hash out a plan and somehow migrate to the small single bed as they discuss, Bellamy stretched out on his side while Clarke sits cross-legged with her back against the wall at the foot of the bed.
When he takes too long to open his eyes after a blink, Clarke smiles - and it doesn’t feel false for once tonight. “I should go. You’re tired.”
His eyes open at that and Bellamy reaches for her hand. “Stay,” he says, tugging until she’s lying on her side facing him.
“Bellamy, you know I’m not - and we’re not…” She clears her throat, pulling back a little. “I’m not her, you know. Your Clarke, if you have one. That is, assuming this plane of reality is, well, real. And my Bellamy and I… We’re not - not like you and your Clarke.” When she stops rambling long enough to look up at him, she sees his amusement and huffs out a breath. “Shut up,” she says, rolling over to turn her back towards him.
He laughs softly and drapes an arm over her waist. The light gradually dims until they’re in darkness once more. “What happens,” he asks carefully after a few minutes of silence, “if the plan doesn’t work? If you’re stuck here?”
“It’s going to work,” she says with quiet desperation. “I’m going back.”
“What if there is no moral to the story? What if this is just… how it’s meant to be? You here, with me.” His hand comes up to brush the hair from her nape and Clarke shivers as she feels his warm breath against the bare skin. “What if there’s no ‘why’ and this is just how things are now?”
She turns again to face him. “Be serious. I can’t stay here; I have to go back, no matter how long it takes, no matter what it takes. I have a responsibility.”
“Clarke.” He cups her jaw, tracing the dimple of her chin with the tip of his thumb. “I don’t want to see you drive yourself crazy over something that may never happen. Couldn’t you be happy here? With your family? With Wells? Living the life you were meant to live before you were arrested and sent to the ground?” Vulnerability flashes through his eyes. “Couldn’t you be happy with me?”
“Bellamy,” she breathes, gripping his wrist to hold his hand in place, “I’m not her. I’m not even the Clarke I was before the ground. I couldn’t even begin to remember how to be her beyond what I’ve done the past few days. To live this life day after day, after what I’ve done… I owe my people more than that. I owe every person I hurt, every person I… killed more than that.”
He rolls onto his back, the movement of the mattress knocking her into his side. She's about to move back when he curls one arm around her waist, hand palming her hip. It's too familiar and her nerves jangle, but she doesn't move. Instead she settles against him carefully, heart pounding. They lie in tense silence until his breathing evens out and Clarke knows he’s finally asleep.
“If I thought I deserved it,” she whispers against the fabric of his shirt, “I could be happy here. With you.”
After a few sleepless hours, Clarke sneaks out of Bellamy’s flat. The hallways are dim, telling her it’s not quite time for the circadian circuit to begin its own version of dawn, the gentle brightening of the lights that in no way compares to the majesty of the original.
For all of the horror and agony living on the ground has brought, it has provided profound moments of beauty, too, and Clarke yearns for those quiet comforts nearly as much as she yearned for the security of the Ark while she was on the ground.
The grass is always greener, she thinks with a wry grimace as she quietly unlocks the the door to her parents’ flat with her thumb. She’s surprised to see that the lights are already on, though not to their full wattage, when she glances over to find her dad scribbling out something on his tablet, preferring to make his notes longhand instead of typing them, in a way that always baffled Clarke.
“Hey,” she says softly, trying not to look as guilty as she feels. Had she ever broken curfew before? Ever snuck back into their home in the early morning? If she had, she couldn’t recall it now.
“Clarke,” he says, relieved, as he turns in his chair to face her. “You cut it too close this time, kiddo. I was seriously worried your mother was going to wake up before you got back.”
Apparently this Clarke led a far more interesting life than she ever had. Clarke struggles to keep the pang of something - envy? - off her face as she moves further into the room. “I’m sorry, Bellamy just looked so peaceful, I didn’t want-”
“Nope,” Jake says, climbing to his feet and cutting her off with a gesture, “the deal was I’d help you as long as you let me pretend that you were just studying late or catching another shift.” A pained look crosses his face. “Anything but the truth.”
She laughs at his obvious discomfort, though it catches on the ball of grief in her throat. How is she going to give this up again? How will she survive it a second time? “Sorry,” she says again, then crosses to him, stretching to peck his cheek. “You’re sweet. And a great dad. I don’t tell you that enough.”
“I could stand to hear it more,” he says in genial agreement, before grinning. “The only thing I ask is that you leave me my delusions. You’re still my little girl.”
Her heart squeezes. “Always,” she promises, then clears her throat. “Did you ever get a chance to look into the oxygen supply?”
He sobers up and pulls back to look at her. “I did. You’re still worried about that dream?” He shakes his head, then folds her into his arms. “Everything’s fine, honey. This old boat will outlive us all, right up until the day where she takes us home.”
At the wistful tone in his voice, the words come bubbling up to her throat, the need to tell him about Earth a physical ache, but she swallows it all down. Nods. “Good,” she says. “That’s good.” Even if she can’t stay, at least she’ll know he - and everyone else - will be safe.
“Why don’t you get some sleep?” He steps back and walks toward his desk. “I’ve got an early meeting and your mom is having a working breakfast with the council, so you’ll have the entire place to yourself on your day off if you want to” - he shoots her a pained smile - “study.”
She smiles gamely at his joke but stands there watching him as he turns back to his work, strands of hair falling into his eyes as he squints in concentration. She memorizes everything about him, the way the light catches his hair to make it shine as bright as her own and the way he rubs his jaw in frustration when something obviously doesn’t work out to his liking, his stubble rasping in the early morning silence.
She knows this is goodbye, that if everything goes according to plan, she won’t see him again before waking up back on Earth. And she forces herself to be okay with that. This version of her dad deserves the daughter he knows, not the pale imitation Clarke is struggling to be.
It doesn’t make it hurt any less, though.
“Dad,” she says before she turns away, waiting until he looks back at her, his face clearing as he shifts focus, “I love you.”
“Love you, too, kid,” he replies, like always, his smile loving, like always.
Clarke makes it to her bedroom just as the tears start in earnest.