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39 weeks 6 days October 26, 2155
If you had told seventeen-year-old me that in seven years I would be on Earth, alive, and on my third baby with the love of my life, I wouldn’t have believed you.
Life works out so strangely. I didn’t expect the tiny little speck that turned my life upside down just weeks after landing on a hostile planet would be playing with his brother on the floor in front of the fire tonight. I didn’t imagine I could love someone so much.
Bellamy digs through the box of books wedged between the crib and the boys’ beds. I don’t know why he bothers pretending to look. Ever since the rest of the Ark came down five years ago, he’s held that book like it’s gold. It’s the same book his mother read to him and Octavia all those years ago – Roman Myths retold by Geraldine McCaughan. It’s the child’s version of the books on his nightstand, which somehow he manages to read and reread a thousand times over. I can’t really blame him. While he may near six-feet tall and have a beard now, deep inside he is still a little boy missing his mom.
They crawl up in his lap, though between the both of them they fill it and then some, and his arms barely manage to reach together to hold the book open. I know the days of them all piling in his lap are limited and few, so I sit quietly in the rocking chair, listening to the story too, though I have heard them all so many times I could probably recite the entire book from memory.
“What will it be? Romulus and Remus? The Aeneid? Or what about Erysichthon?” Bellamy asks playfully, pretending to chew on Apollo’s shoulder at the last suggestion, making him squeal with laughter.
“Ah, ah,” I stop him. “Not Erysichthon. They’ll eat me out of house and home. I’m too tired to keep up with all the snack requests.”
"Mama acts like she doesn’t eat us out of house and home on a daily basis,” he whispers to the kids.
“I heard that.”
“Romulus and Remus,” he says loudly, stealing a quick look out of the corner of his eye. I press my lips together. He knows I’m a sucker when he does anything with the boys. “The twin brothers who founded Rome.”
By the end of the story, August is passed out in the crook of his arm, his head leaned back comically, and Apollo has his head leaned against Bellamy’s chest, eyes closed, breaths even.
“Which will you take?” Bellamy asks.
I stand up, which at this point in pregnancy, always comes with a sound. “The little one.”
I scoop August up in my arms, though at two years old, he’s getting heavy and his legs hang over my arms. He doesn’t even seem to notice being picked up. I wish Apollo had been this deep of a sleeper.
I carry him over to his bed and tuck him in, pressing a kiss to his forehead and brushing his hair back with my fingers. Something about a sleeping child is so irresistible. I try to be gentle so I don’t wake him, but I know the days of him being my baby will be over any day now. I want to soak up every second with just the four of us so I’ll never forget this phase of life.
“Come on. He’s not going anywhere and neither are we.”
I stand. “I know.” I look back at his sleeping form. “But he’s about to not be the youngest anymore.”
“I hope he’ll like being a big brother,” Bellamy says, pulling off his shirt.
I pick up a clean gray long sleeve of his and change into it. “Me too. Remember how long it took for Apollo to get adjusted to having to share us?”
He climbs in bed. “August has always had to share us, so I don’t think it’ll be that bad. Apollo already knows the drill, so I’m not too worried about him.”
I crawl in next to him, taking in the silence, watching the firelight cast shadows over my sleeping children and the empty crib next to them, the mobile Miller made hanging over it, waiting to watch over the next Baby Blake. Though he’s been dead for close to six years now, I still feel him here, his presence carved into the planets that dangle above my babies’ heads.
“No one ever really dies,” I muse. I recount the names of each planet in my head, remembering the silly sentence Miller and I made up when we were learning about them as eight-year-olds. “Their memory still lingers. Miller is in that mobile.” I nod to his nightstand. “Your mom is in those books.”
He’s quiet, the memory of his mother always a tender subject. “I suppose she is.” He picks up one of the books – Metamorphoses by Ovid. “I’m not sure if it’s my favorite because I like it or because Mom read it to us so much.” He runs his thumb along the soft, worn pages, touching memories as his fingertip passes over them. “Sometimes I dream about her walking in our house and meeting all our kids. I know she’d love that we kept the Roman theme. Her parents named her after the Roman goddess of the dawn, did you know?” He puts the book back. “It’s a shame she never got to see one.”
I snuggle up to his chest, settling in for the night. “But her babies get to see them, and I can safely say that there is no greater mother’s dream than for her children to see a better life than she did – and you have.” I run a hand over my belly, soaking in the last of the baby kicks. “She’d be overjoyed to know that you don’t have to hide your children, that they can play freely and run and scream, and that you have no limits on how many you can have.” I reach up and touch the side of his face gently, brushing away silent tears. “She’s so proud of the father you are, Bellamy. Please don’t cry.”
He pulls me in a tight hug, and even though I can’t breathe with a fully grown baby in my ribs, I just let him hold me and I hold him back. It’s taken me years to understand, but I know now that this is how he expresses his love, and that touch is more comforting to him than words could ever be.
He leans his head against mine, his choppy voice a whisper in my ear. “I know we don’t speak of it –”
I swallow. There’s only one thing we don’t speak of.
“– but can you tell me if it’s quick?”
I force my eyes shut, trying to block out the muscle memory of injecting syringe after syringe of pentobarbital into that boy, of tearing open his throat with a knife, of the heart-pounding fear that drove me to do it. “Yes,” I stammer. “Yes, it’s quick.”
“Does it hurt?”
I don’t know how dying could be truly painless. “No. It just makes you fall asleep. You never know the difference.”
His face still in my hair, he doesn’t sound any older than Apollo. “Okay.”
I whisper back. “Okay.”
Eventually he falls asleep, his hands still clinging to me, as though if he lets go, I’ll drift away into space too.
40 weeks 0 days October 27, 2155 4:14 PM
“August Blake,” I growl through gritted teeth, trying to keep my sanity among the ruckus that is having two little boys.
August stops pulling clean diapers out of the basket long enough to flash a sneaky grin, then pulls out another and stares at me, waiting for a reaction.
Althea shakes the wrinkles from a freshly washed one and pins it on the line running the length of the ceiling. They’ll never dry outside in this cold, so we’re resorting to the only thing resembling an indoor clothesline – the drying lines in the pharma cabin. “He’s just trying to get a reaction out of you.”
I shake the dirt from his grubby fingers out of the diaper with a snap of the fabric. “Where’s the sweet little angel I used to have? I thought I had this parenting thing figured out. He used to be such an easy kid.”
“It’s called the terrible twos for a reason. It’s got nothing to do with parenting skills.”
I snatch another diaper out of his hand, both disappointed in myself for being cross with him and too frustrated to care. I almost froze my fingers off in the cold water trying to get these clean. I could have only days left. I could have only hours. Nothing is ready and he’s slowing me down. “Go. Sit.” I order.
He stands his ground, looking at me defiantly.
I take a deep breath. “You can go sit with your brother or in the corner, August. Your choice.”
Iris, perched on a stool at the workbench while she flips through my plant book to admire Clarke’s handiwork, says, “He only picked up a diaper.”
My child or not, I whip my head around and snap, “Iris.”
“Okay, okay,” Althea steps in front of her. “Both of you need to cool it.”
Iris sits there open-mouthed. “Both of us?”
Althea leans in and whispers to her. “Just let it go, okay?”
“Hey, Mom?” Apollo pats my leg to get my attention. “Can you help me?”
Apollo had started school as one of the two Skaikru school age children at the beginning of the fall, and quite frankly, between a two-year-old, a pregnancy, and a too small house, school has been the tipping point of my sanity. Clarke got off lucky adopting Madi, now eleven, as an orphan at six, whose parents had already taught her a lot before she ever started school. Apollo’s well versed in everything mechanical thanks to being stuck to Raven’s side since he could walk, but when it comes to school, he’s not quite so gifted. It doesn’t help that they have him trying to learn both English and Trigedasleng at once, but Pike insists this is the best age to learn, and living down here, he needs to know both.
“Okay,” I give in. “Show me.”
He holds his sheet of paper up for me to see. “I don’t know what this word means.”
It’s a sentence in Trig. Of course it is.
“Um,” I rub my forehead, trying to sound out the words. Trig has some English roots, so some words are easy to guess, but others are just completely out there. “Trilipa choj op hef.”
Althea shares a look with Iris. “Deer eat men? Who wrote that?”
Apollo blanches. “What?”
I close my eyes, trying to keep it together. “Pike.”
She shakes her head. “He’s hardly qualified to teach Trig. Especially to a five-year-old kid. What about ‘Deer eat grass’ or ‘The deer jumps’?”
He clings to my leg, easily frightened. “Mama.”
I pat his back. “That’s not true, I promise. Deer only eat grass. You’ve seen them.” I squat down, eye level with him. “Don’t worry. I’ll fix this.”
I take his paper from him and set out in search of Pike, far too pregnant to deal with a scared kid with nightmares tonight.
My eye catches sight of Bellamy, working on building our new, larger house, all bundled up, his breath turning to steam in the cold air.
I march up to him. “Have you taken a look at our son’s homework lately?”
He turns around and rubs his hands together, trying to stay warm. “No. Why?”
I hold up the paper. “This is his Trig lesson. Trilipa choj op hef. Deer eat men.”
He takes the paper from me and looks it over himself. “Deer eat men? Deer don’t eat men. They’re herbivorous, even now. They’re no threat to us.”
“Tell that to Apollo, who is now scared to death.”
“Maybe you just translated it wrong.”
I shake my head. “I didn’t translate it. Althea did. And Iris, by the look of it.”
He nods, folding the paper and putting it in his pocket. “I’ll take care of it. How are you feeling?”
“Aggravated,” I admit. “Apollo needs help every five minutes, my back is killing from leaning over so long trying to wash baby clothes, and August keeps pulling out everything clean and putting it on the floor just to spite me.”
He grins a little. “He’s two. He’s not trying to spite you.”
I give him a sharp look.
“Okay maybe he is. Look,” he puts a hand on my shoulder. “Why don’t you go take some time and rest?”
“I don’t have time to rest. At this point I’m praying he or she will be late. I’m so far behind in getting things ready.”
“You’re not. We have enough. Everything else we can sort out later. This is nesting talking.”
I huff. “Fine.” I rub my back, trying to rub the soreness out. “Maybe I should go sit down for a minute.”
“Go.” He kisses my cheek, then at the last second just as I’m about to pull away, licks my ear.
“Ew!” I push him away, trying not to smile, but it tickled. “No one asked!”
He laughs. “No, but I thought it might make you smile.”
I press my lips together, forcing down a grin, which only makes him prouder. “Hush.”
40 weeks 0 days October 27, 2155 7:52 PM
Althea pops a walnut in her mouth, watching the show. “He’s really letting Pike have it, huh?”
I lean over and grab a handful out of her bowl for myself. “He deserves it. Kid’s five years old. He doesn’t need his head filled with scary nonsense that isn’t even true.”
Across from us, in the shadow of the outer edge of the fire, Bellamy holds Apollo’s homework in his hand, and though I can’t hear every word he says, I am able to make out a “What the hell is wrong with you?” as he gestures angrily at the paper.
Just to the right of us, Iris and Madi whisper to each other and start giggling, then run off to the dropship in pursuit of who knows what.
“Two nightblood children getting to be children,” I sigh. “Such a beautiful sight.”
Althea smiles. “It’s all I ever wanted.”
“I do kind of wonder what will happen when Lexa dies,” I muse. “I worry what will happen to the clans when they have no Commander and no Commander coming to take her place.”
“That’s their own problem,” Althea says. “We’ll go live on an island somewhere if they want to go to war. Iris will not be Commander, ever.”
“Neither will Madi.” Clarke sits down beside us with a cup of tea and a blanket around her shoulders. She turns to me. “I came to check on you. You missed your forty-week appointment today.”
“I did? That was today?” I put my hand on my forehead. “Sorry, today’s been so hectic between washing baby clothes, dealing with August, the stupid homework Pike assigned. . .” I shake my head. “It’s been rough. Wait – did you just say forty weeks? It’s my due date today?”
“Yes, Morgan,” Clarke laughs. “It is.”
I lean my head back against the log behind me. “I think nesting just kicked into overdrive.”
Clarke grins into her tea. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired. My back hurts. The usual.”
She tilts her head. “Is it hurting constantly or does it come and go?”
I think back. “I’m not really sure. I haven’t been paying attention. Why?”
“It’s probably just your busy day.” She puts her cup down. “But at your last appointment I thought the baby might have been posterior, and that tends to make labor felt in the back rather than the front. Just be sure to let me know if you have any more back pain or if it’s coming and going, okay?”
“Is posterior bad? Does that mean it’s butt first?”
“That’s breech,” she clarifies. “Posterior means the baby’s back is lying against your back instead of facing your back. Sunny-side up, if you will. And it’s not necessarily bad, babies can be born that way, but it tends to be more difficult and painful.”
I close my eyes for a moment, trying to keep it together. Just what I need. The icing on the cake. “This baby’s going to try me, isn’t it? It’s not even born yet.” I look down, the shape of his or her face concealed in my belly, but I know they can hear me, and in my head I imagine they can see me too. “Don’t even think about coming tonight.”
“Discipline before birth,” Althea grins, amused. “Now that’s good parenting.”
Bellamy comes over, a tired August rubbing his eyes in the crook of Bellamy’s neck. “I’m going to put August to bed. He’s starting to get fussy. Here, take this.” He dumps a pile of shredded paper in my hands. “That’s what’s left of Apollo’s homework. I, uh,” he looks over his shoulder at Pike, “might’ve got carried away.”
I look down at the remnants of Trig in my hands. “You don’t say.”
He shrugs. “It’s stupid. You know what? He’s stupid.”
“Bellamy.”
“He shouldn’t even be teaching Trig. A Grounder should.” He turns to Althea. “Like you. You should teach it.”
“Me?" Althea looks around, as if he could've been talking to someone else. "You know I have an entire village to keep in medicine, right?”
“Oh yeah. Sorry.” He shakes his head. “I’m just getting a little worked up about it. That’s my baby, you know? No one’s going to hurt my baby.”
I take his hand. “Go put the both of you to bed before you set fire to his cabin or something.”
He waves me off. “Yeah, yeah, alright."
40 weeks 1 day October 28, 2155 12:40 AM
Despite my best efforts to sleep, it never came.
No number of pillows seemed to settle the ache in my back, and eventually I got fed up with it and slipped outside into the cool night air, leaning over the porch railing.
There is peace in the deep of night. Save a few guards in the watchtowers and someone across camp putting out the evening fire again, which has decided to reignite by itself, I am the only one awake, my skin prickled with goosebumps, my breath dancing in the cold air.
I feel another ache in my back. Deep inside, I know what’s happening, but part of me simply isn’t ready to face it. Motherhood is learning to let them go from the very moment a child is born. As they grow, you must also teach them to leave you. I try to focus on the memory of August’s birth, as my memories of Apollo’s are blurry, and remember how the separation allowed Bellamy to touch his son’s face and hold him to his chest and get to know and love him. Every step toward independence is worth it, I know it is, but when you’ve been the only one to hold a child for nine whole months, every step they take from you stings a little.
I close my eyes and try to breathe the pain away, focusing on getting through it and not on the ache in my heart.
“Can’t sleep?”
I open my eyes. It’s Octavia, coming home from who-knows-where, a rare night spent in Arkadia. I wince as the last of the pain fades away. “No.”
She comes up on the porch, barely managing to navigate the boys’ toys sprawled out on the floor, and leans against the post beside me. “Are you okay?”
“I think we’re getting close.”
She tilts her head. "How close?”
I stand up straight, my hand on my back, stretching. “Like tonight or tomorrow close.”
“Do you need me to take the boys?”
I shake my head. “Not at this moment, no, but you should probably stay close by.”
She nods. “I will. Have someone come get me, any time of the day or night. I’ll crash in Cabin Three tonight.”
“Thanks.” I lean over the railing again, no position comfortable to be in for longer than a few minutes. “Physically, I’m ready for this to be over and done with. I miss being able to get comfortable at night, not having to pee all the time, not having someone sleep in my ribs. I miss being able to snuggle up to Bellamy at night, and really be close, not pulled apart by the child in the middle. I know he’s right there but he feels so far away.” I look up at her. “Sorry. That’s mushy and that’s your brother.”
“No,” she smiles in the dark. “I think it’s sweet. He deserves someone like you.”
I look down, blushing. Sometimes I worry I’ll never be able to be enough, give enough, love enough to match what he gives me, but hearing his own sister approve makes my heart swell. Maybe I am enough. “Thanks.” I bite my lip, trying to figure out how to put the feeling into words. “Emotionally though, I don’t want it to end. I want this baby to be my own little secret forever. And I know that doesn’t make sense, it’s not a secret and I don’t know this baby any more than you do. But I’ve seen the outline of their foot through my skin, and even though my brain doesn’t know what they look like, my body does, and only my body does.” I shake my head, trying to laugh off the depth of it all. “I guess I just don’t want to share.”
“Oh,” she tuts, opening her arms. “Come here.”
I lay my head against hers and try to wrap my arms around her, but it’s no easy feat.
She strokes my hair gently. “Take all the time you need with just the three of you. This baby isn’t going anywhere. We can wait.”
Between the hormones and the kindness of the gesture, my eyes start to well up and my lip quivers. “Thanks, O.”
40 weeks 1 day October 28, 2155 10:54 AM
After two previous babies, with one birth being traumatic, I can easily say this is the worst labor I’ve ever had.
I overheard Clarke mention to Abby – who sits quietly in the corner for backup – that I’m on hour fourteen of labor. I know Apollo went on for twenty-six, but all the pain was in my stomach, not my back, and somehow that was more bearable. Althea has graciously spent most of the night and all of the morning boiling water for the tub we dragged into the house, filling and refilling it, keeping the water hot and keeping crying to a minimum.
“Morgan, you’re pushing.”
I let out a deep breath. “No I’m not.”
“I told you,” Clarke wraps an arm around mine. “You can’t deliver in the water with the way this baby is laying. I can’t see in there to help you and you will need help.”
"Just a few more minutes.”
“No.” I’m always surprised by how strong Clarke is despite her stature. She forces me to my feet, dripping water everywhere. “Get her a towel, Bellamy.”
“But it hurts,” I whine.
She helps me over to the bed. “I know.”
I can’t even bear to sit on the bed, much less lay down. “No. No. I can’t.”
“Then stand, Morgan,” she says, exasperated. “I don’t care what position you’re in, I just can’t help you in a tub that small.”
Bellamy takes my hands. “Hey, look at me.”
“Look at you? Are you joking?” I drop his hands. “I can’t stand to look at you. You did this.”
Clarke pats my leg from her seat on the floor, her body bent in an odd shape in order to see. “Hey, hey. Save your energy. You can yell at him later.”
“I’m going to kill him later,” I grumble. The dreaded tension in my back returns, dropping me to my knees, my head resting on the side of the bed, the blanket knotted in my hands.
I hear Althea come to sit at my side, wringing out water. “Let’s try a hot cloth. Best of both worlds.” She spreads a hot washcloth over my lower back, but the touch of it is too much, and I smack it away.
“I think we should just leave her be,” Clarke says. “There’s only one way through this now, and she knows the way.”
The pain receding, I say the only two words I can muster. “Shut. Up.”
Time marches on so long life begins to feel like nothing more than back pain, hurling insults at Bellamy, and the uncontrollable urge to push. Was there ever life before this?
“Head’s out,” Clarke says triumphantly. “That’s the worst part.”
I pant, trying to catch my breath. “How would you know? You adopted Madi.”
She ignores the jab. “Almost there.”
Somewhere to the side of me something falls, heavy.
Abby jumps up. “I’ve got this one.” I can see her out of the corner of my eye, crouched down over something. “Bellamy? Wake up.”
Between pushes I manage to ask, “What’s wrong with him?”
Clarke glances over her shoulder. “I think he caught sight of everything happening over here. I don’t think he has the stomach for this kind of work.”
I roll my eyes. “Men.”
“There you go,” Clarke coaches. “There you go. There!” she squeals. "11:44."
I gasp. “Is it over?”
“It is,” she assures, reaching the baby up to me through my legs. “Here she is.”
“She?” I stammer. “A girl?”
“Yes,” Clarke promises, scooting up to sit beside me. “A girl.”
“Althea.” I turn to face her. “You had a girl. Is this really what they look like?”
“Yes, Morgan,” she laughs. “That really is a girl.”
I look down at her, at her tiny little mouth screaming her lungs out. She wraps her entire fist around my finger. “I didn’t know I could make girls.”
Abby helps Bellamy sit up. “Slowly, slowly. You have a daughter to meet.”
“A what?”
Absolutely giddy, I hold her up for him to see. “Look.”
He looks up at Abby. “I missed it?”
She pats his shoulder kindly. “Not all of us have the stomach for childbirth.”
He half crawls over to our spot on the floor, wincing, and that’s when I notice the giant red knot forming on his forehead.
I reach up to touch it. “I think you got some floor on your face.”
“Yeah,” he shudders. “That was quite the sight.”
“I’m sure it felt worse than it looked.”
He looks dizzy again. “I’m not so sure.”
I hand the baby to him and reach for Clarke and Althea’s hands to help me up. “Enjoy that one. It’s the last you’re getting from me. I am not doing this again.”
“That’s fair.” He kisses her forehead.. “I’ll love her always.”
Once I’m settled on the bed, Clarke calls over her shoulder, “Hey Mom? Can you go get the suture kit? She’s torn quite a bit and needs some stitches.”
I grimace. “Stitches? I hope someone’s bringing some willow bark tea or a tranquilizer or something because absolutely no one is going down there without some painkillers.”
“Don’t worry,” Abby winks. “I still have a vial of lidocaine saved back.”
My eyes widen. “You’ve had lidocaine all this time?”
She grins. “Don’t worry about it. Thank me later.”
After I’m all stitched up and clean again, Bellamy leaves to retrieve a hard earned lunch. Clarke comes in with a pan of warm water, gentle soap, and a washcloth. “How about we give this young lady her first bath?”
I start unwrapping her from her blankets. “Nothing like a clean baby, is there? We have to wash all that gunk out of your scalp, Missy. Big brother Apollo is the only one who actually had any baby hair to wash.” I hand her to Clarke. “It still blows my mind that she’s a girl. At this point I just expected another boy.”
Clarke takes her and starts running the washcloth over her tiny body, making her shiver despite the fire. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’ll be quick, I promise. Then we’ll get you all snuggly again with Mama.” She looks up at me. “It’s always a fifty-fifty shot, you know. Do you have any names picked out?”
I shake my head, laughing. “Do we ever?”
Bellamy comes back in, holding a plate of wild turkey and corn, along with the teapot and cups from that matching set we found all those years ago. I’m not sure if it’s special because it’s beautiful china or because they only show up at a baby’s birth, a tradition entirely our own. “A well-deserved hot meal, milady,” he bows.
I take the plate from him, laughing. “Stop. Come up here with me.”
He sits crossed legged to the right of me on top of the blankets. “What’s in the teapot is a gift from Octavia, who’s outside trying so hard to be patient and respect you and the time you need, but who is also really excited to meet her niece.”
“She can wait with the rest of them. Maybe later this evening.” I hold my cup out. “What did she bring us?”
He tips the pot into my cup. “Apple cider.”
“Really?” I take a sip, and sure enough it is. “I’ve only ever had cider once.”
“I think she was hoping for a bit of a bribe,” he grins, putting the teapot aside. “But you’re right. She can wait with everyone else. We have a lifetime to enjoy this little girl.”
“Hey guys?” Clarke smiles, rinsing the baby’s hair over the tub. “She’s not bald.”
“She’s not?”
Clarke runs a towel over her head and hands her to Bellamy. “No, she’s not. Take a closer look.”
I gasp. Now that blood and vernix have been washed away, several thin copper strands lay softly over her whole head. “She has red hair!”
Bellamy taps her gently on the nose, making her scrunch up her face. “An absolute beauty, just like her mother.”
A girl? Red hair? Maybe the whole ordeal was worth it after all.
Listening to her little newborn noises, a sound that seems lost to memory between children, I’m sure it was.
“We should give her a name,” Bellamy says, “but I have no idea what to call her.”
“I have to say, I’m drawing a blank too.”
“Part of me wants to call her Julia, because Octavia had a niece named Julia, but we already have an August, and it just doesn’t really make sense. Julia was Augustus’ daughter, not his sister.”
I tilt my head. “I don’t think she looks like a Julia anyway.”
“We could’ve named you Julian or Julius if you were a boy,” he says, rocking her gently. “But you surprised us.”
He’s going to laugh at where the idea comes from. “What about Juliet?”
“Juliet? Like Romeo and Juliet?”
Oh yeah. Shakespeare wrote about a Juliet. “Uh, well, yeah, sort of. I was actually thinking of Juliet from Lost, but let’s go with the idea that I’m educated in the classics and not a nerd who watched a hundred-and-fifty-year-old TV shows in her spare time.”
He gives me the side eye. “You told me you didn’t have any spare time on the Ark. That pharma was your life.”
“I said I didn’t have any time for boys. I never said I didn’t have time for iconic TV shows. Miller and I used to watch it.” The memory of being curled up with him on worn out couches, staying up too late to finish an episode flashes in my head, making my chest ache with longing for another episode with him. “He used to say that strangers who were so different wouldn’t come together so quickly, even in a situation like that, but he was wrong. We do. We did.” Another memory floats to the surface and makes me smile, remembering all the playful, passionate arguments we would get into. “He was also convinced Kane had to be a direct descendant of the actor who played Desmond. I never could see it.”
Bellamy tilts his head. “It is a variant of both Julius and Julia. Still along the Roman theme, which Mom would love.” He looks up at me. “And it honors Miller. I like it.”
I lean into his side, the anger faded (mostly), and run a finger lightly over her copper hair, fine as silk. “Welcome to the family, Juliet.”
1 day old October 29, 2155
I will live and die by the notion that there is not much a hot shower and clean hair cannot fix.
While Juliet slept for a few minutes in her crib, I had the chance to wash yesterday away. Bellamy was outside with the boys, giving me a rare moment to myself to comb out my wet hair in the mirror above the fireplace.
I hardly see the seventeen-year-old girl who was thrown out of society for murder.
This woman has seen the highlights of life, and she has seen its darkest horrors, the two overlapping too often to count.
She has killed more than once. She has been cruel. She has been stubborn. She let her best friend die instead of owning up to the mistakes she made.
She has given life more than once – three times to be exact. She has nursed babies, changed diapers, held unsteady hands as they learned to walk. She has stopped at nothing to fix problems that she didn’t cause. She has reunited families. She has made one of her own.
She stands here now, with broken blood vessels in her cheeks, dark rings under her eyes, and a deflating belly in clothes that don’t fit. Her reflection is in this mirror, but it is also in the crib behind her, and riding on his father’s shoulders, and peeking in the window, waving at her.
I turn around and wave at Apollo, who proudly shows me a pretty leaf he’s found, then runs off again, always trying to keep up to avoid missing any of the fun.
The door opens slightly, and at first I think it’s Bellamy or one of the boys, but instead it’s Clarke, holding something behind her back.
“I have something for you,” she says proudly.
“Is it something to put on these chapped nipples? Juliet won’t leave them alone and the cold air is doing a number on them.”
It’s clear it wasn’t the request she was looking for, but I’m only half joking. “Not at the moment, but I can get you something.” She holds her closed hands out in front of her, the edges of paper sticking out. “Here.”
I open her hands.
Families on the Ark, especially those from Alpha station where the wealthiest lived, could sometimes afford pictures, though they couldn’t be printed. But they could be saved in a virtual album, where, barring any computer crashes, they could be cherished for generations.
There are a few computers down here, but they aren’t for personal use. I’m sure with time, we’ll learn how to make cameras again. But for now, we have Clarke and her talented hands.
It’s a drawing of the moment all the living Blakes met the newest member of the family. I sit in the middle of the bed, Juliet in my arms, my boys all around me, curiously looking in at their new sibling as I pull off her hat, showing them her hair. Bellamy rests on the edge of the bed, watching the two of them, his hand resting on my shoulder. Clarke even included the detail of the bruise on his forehead from passing out, a memory that will surely be laughed at in the years to come. Octavia sits on the other side, next to August, smiling from ear to ear at her niece.
“Thank you,” I say earnestly. “You have no idea what these mean to me.”
She smiles, always happy to indulge in her favorite pastime. Medicine and healing have its joys, that I know, but nothing beats those quiet moments to yourself, when you can indulge in your own wants and not the needs of others. “You’re welcome.”
I place it on the mantle, propping it up until Bellamy can make a picture frame for it. It joins the photo of Apollo, the disembodied hands reaching him up to brand new parents, terrified and excited to take hold of this new life. It joins the photo of August, the new little thing wrapped in a blanket, blood and sweat and vernix covering my chest and bra with Bellamy in front of me, his eyes only existing for us, his pride and joy. The trio is complete.
Clarke folds her arms in front of her, admiring the pictures. “I’m not sure if these days are my favorites because I get to help welcome new life into a once dying world, or if it’s because once everyone is together and safe, I get to spend time carving love and hope into paper. It reminds me that despite everything we’ve had to do since coming to Earth, it truly is possible to live, not just survive.”