Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Raven was panicking. They had one hour before they had to launch themselves into space to save themselves from the fiery inferno that was praimfaya. One hour to get the rocket ready to go for eight people when it was a pod designed for two. One hour to make sure they have enough oxygen and supplies to get them through the first week on the ring before Monty could get his ‘algae farm’ set up to sustain them for 5 years in orbit. Echo was nowhere to be found, so she sent Bellamy to search for her, since he was the only person who apparently got through to her.

“Clarke, Murphy, you two have to go and align the satellite. Sat-Star-1, remember? Make it back, you have 55 minutes to get there, align the signal and get back here before we all get lit up. Got it?” Raven barked.

“Yeah, Raven, we’ve got it. Don’t sweat. If we’re not back in time, go without us. Don’t you dare wait.” Clarke replied.

“Hang on, I’m not spending 5 years in space without John, why can’t Clarke go on her own!?” Emori growled. Raven glared at her.

“Because, they both have nightblood, the only two with untested nightblood, thanks to Abby,” Raven said, snorting at the grounder. “They are the best people to possibly survive down here if they don’t get back, and I doubt Clarke would want to be on her own, so I’m nominating the other cockroach. If you have an issue with this, you can stay, too, however you don’t have the nightblood, and you might die, instead of waiting five years to see your boyfriend again. Anymore objections?”

Emori just scowled, and carried on doing whatever she was doing with Harper. Bellamy came down the stairs with Echo in tow, and Raven sent him out to retrieve the oxygen scrubber with Monty whilst Clarke and Murphy suited up for their suicide mission.
They said their goodbyes and promised to try and be back within the 50 minute time allocation they had set, and off they went.

The sky was a sepia orange colour, and they could see the satellite tower within the distance. Murphy looked at Clarke and smiled, almost as if they knew they were on an execution to their inevitable deaths. They ran in silence, just sharing glances to one another to make sure they were both keeping up with each other. They reached the satellite with half an hour left on their clock. They stopped for a millisecond to stare up at the monstrous tower above them, before nodding to themselves to start trying to fire the signal. It doesn’t work, trying to set the signal from the ground.

“We have to climb.” Murphy states.

“I will. You go back, be with Emori, you deserve it.” Clarke replies, shaking her head.

“Absolutely not. We came down together, we go back up together. Team cockroach, Clarke. Now get climbing.” Murphy urges, and Clarke laughs, despite the circumstances. They start climbing and the wind rattles them, knocking them off their balance, making them slip on their footing. Clarke makes it to the top first, Murphy following only seconds later. They start realigning the dish, only for it to keep failing each time they move it a centimetre. With what seems like their final surge of energy, they move the dish and it aligns, just as they hear the rocket take off, and an overwhelming heat engulfs them, and they realise they have a very small amount of time before they burn to a crisp.

“We have to move, now!” Murphy cries.

“I’m aware of that, start descending! We can make it back to the lab before it hits, I saw a door that looked like an airlock at the bottom of the room! Maybe it leads to the lighthouse! Let’s go, Murphy!” Clarke orders, and they start climbing down.

They reach the bottom, and they grab each other’s hands and run. They run like they’ve never run before, and the lab comes into sight. Clarke laughs, they’re on the home straight. All of a sudden, Clarke falls, and hits her helmet on a rock, causing the glass to smash, and she screams.

“No, no, no! Clarke, come on we’re literally almost there, two more minutes, I promise!” Murphy pants, grabbing her arm and pulling her along with him.

“It burns, Murphy! It fucking burns!”

“I know, princess, I know. Look we’re almost at the door, I’ll get some anti septic on it and you’ll be okay I promise, you’ll be okay.”

They reach the entrance of the lab bunker doors, and they pull it shut as the flames tumble towards them. Clarke collapses on the floor, gasping for air as Murphy removes her helmet to assess the damage to her face.

“First degree, barely even a sunburn. You’re gonna be good, Clarke. You’re gonna be okay.” He reassures her, trying not to focus on the fact they’re the only two human beings left on the surface of the earth.

“I need a nap, Murph,” Clarke sighs.

“Show me that airlock first, and then we can both get some rest, okay?” He smiles, pulling her up into an embrace, “We made it, we’re safe.”

“Murphy,”

“Yeah?”

“We’re stuck with each other for five fucking years.”

“Try not to fall in love with me, Emori will be pissed.”

Chapter Text

Monty and Bellamy went out to retrieve the oxygen scrubber from the lighthouse bunker, following Murphy’s.. specific directions. “Jesus man, how does Raven think we’re going to make it in time?” Monty gasped, slightly exasperated.

“She believes in us, not sure how. Is that the bunker over there?” Bellamy replied, a little distracted.

“Yeah, this way. I hope I can reach it properly, these gloves are so thick and rubbery, it’s almost impossible to do anything with them.”

“You’ve got it, and I’ve got your back don’t you worry, Monty, we’ve got this.” Bellamy laughed.

The two boys worked their way to getting the oxygen scrubber from the bunker, but not with ease. Monty couldn’t reach it correctly and had to pull off his gloves, resulting in minor radiation burns, so Bellamy had to carry the scrubber back practically by himself so Monty didn’t pass out from the pain.

They returned to the lab, where everyone except Clarke and Murphy were packing up the essentials for the 5 year stay, such as shampoo, toothpaste, a random box of condoms that Emori had found in a drawer somewhere, and as many rations as they could fit in their backpacks, purely so they could go as long as possible without eating algae. No offence Monty.

“Why aren’t they back yet?” Bellamy asked.

“I don’t know, but we can’t think of that yet, Bellamy. We have to focus on who is here and what we have packed. T-minus 10 minutes everyone, get everything ready. If it’s not in the rocket, it won’t be coming with us and I can’t have you complaining for 5 years because you forgot your toothbrush.” Raven barked.

Bellamy kept looking to the doors every chance he got. He needed Clarke to come back, he couldn’t survive knowing they left her to her death. Especially since he hadn’t been honest in how he felt with her.

“Bellamy, stop pining. They’ll be back, they have to be back. John wouldn’t leave me.” Emori urged, and Bellamy wasn’t sure whether she was trying to comfort him, or comfort herself. Either way, he did what she said, and kept his small glances to himself, praying he would see the two of them stumbling through the door at the last second.

“Okay, everyone. Time to strap in. We can give them another two minutes, but that’s it. Put their oxygen tanks in the pod, we may have lost two people but we have two extra full oxygen tanks which is a blessing in case they don’t get the electricity on in time and we’re stuck in limbo.” Raven ordered.

Bellamy wondered how she was so calm about this, she was about to leave her best friend on Earth to die in a fiery heatwave.

Emori’s bottom lip trembled, “What about John? He promised he’d be back.”

“Emori, I know it’s super hard right now but we cannot think about that. As soon as we get onto the ring, we’ll get communications set up and see if we can hear from them. They’re survivors. They got this. Now come on, we really have to go.” Monty smiled softly, knowing that potentially losing the man she loved would be tough, and he tried to be sympathetic, but this was John fucking Murphy they were talking about. If anyone could survive this, it would be him.

The six of them piled into the rocket, and Raven started the launch sequence. Bellamy couldn’t keep his eyes off the doors to the lab, willing them to open at the last second. Echo grabbed his left hand, and Harper grabbed his right one. They both squeezed as Raven closed the rocket door, and Bellamy closed his eyes.

“Yu gonplei ste odon,” Echo mumbled, and they felt the ground around them shake as they set off, leaving only a burning planet in their wake.

If any of them saw Bellamy shedding a few tears, they didn’t comment on it, and Emori seemed violently calm about the situation.

‘Maybe she hasn’t let it sink in, yet,’ Bellamy thought to himself. The rocket shook as they impacted the atmosphere, and Echo’s grip on Bellamy’s hand only tightened. Monty went to undo his seatbelt, so he could float in zero G once again.

“No, Monty. No space walks just yet, your heart rate will be elevated and you’ll waste oxygen purely because you’re excited. We need to save as much oxygen as possible.” Harper stated, and Monty pouted, but listened to her all the same.

“Hey, guys. We should be getting our first view of the ring in about 20 seconds, are you ready?” Raven could hardly keep the smile off of her face. The two grounder girls weren’t sure what they were supposed to be expecting, but it certainly wasn’t what they saw. Their mouths dropped open in awe, as they could see the dark ring just floating in suspension.

“It’s dark.” Bellamy pointedly spoke.

“They didn’t do it,” Monty sighed.

“We left them, for nothing!?” Emori exploded.

“Guys, look.” Harper mumbled, as she stared at the ring and lights were flickering on the outside, as though they were waking up from a year long sleep. They flickered one last time, and turned on permanently.

“Holy shit, they fucking did it,” Raven laughed.

“Ready to go on a space walk, Reyes?” Bellamy stuck his tongue out at her, smiling.

“You bet I am. How’s all your oxygen levels?”

They all checked their tanks and came to the majority conclusion that they had around 50% left between them, not including the spares that were Murphy and Clarke’s.

Raven suited up into the space suit, and tied the tether to her. She opened the latch and flung herself out towards the door on the ring. “Can you guys hear me okay?” She spoke into the headset.

“Yeah, how’s it going out there, spacewalker?”

“Bellamy, it’s incredible. I’m nearing the outer door now. They did a good job, getting the signal to align, they really saved our asses again.” Raven sighed, as she pushed the button to open the hangar bay so she can go back and dock them in. She floats back and starts to merge with the ring, and Bellamy gets the oxygen scrubber ready whilst Monty and Harper grab the extra oxygen tanks to share with the others if needed.
Monty directs Bellamy to set up the device so that oxygen can start pumping through the vents around the ring, and he gets it done with oxygen to spare.

They all sit in a clump around one of the vents, laughing at the fact they escaped a burning planet in a tiny rocket.

They’re home.

Chapter Text

“It’s over here, underneath this tool box.” Clarke motioned to a chest of drawers on wheels.

“You think it leads to the lighthouse bunker? You do know it’s not stocked, and I’m guessing those guys took most of our rations..” Murphy faltered.

“Either that, or it leads to an underground bunker under A.L.I.E’s mansion, I say we should explore. How about you?”

“I say let’s get it opened!”

The two of the delinquents had shed their radiation suits and were stood in their underwear, Clarke was clad in some booty shorts and a tank top, and Murphy in a t shirt and his boxer shorts. They pulled the seal open, and it revealed a set of stone steps. Murphy smirked at Clarke.

“Reckon there’s a dead body of the previous A.L.I.E down there?” He laughed.

“Shut up, Murphy.” Clarke giggled, and followed him down the stairs. She was brushing her hands alongside the wall on the way down and her hands gripped a light switch. She pressed it and all of the visible hallways were immediately illuminated. What she saw was magnificent.

The floor was a beautiful marble, leading into a huge open plan kitchen, colour scheme white and grey. There was a kettle, a tap, a microwave and an actual oven. There was a huge double fridge freezer, and the freezer was stocked with non-perishables that seemed to have lasted through the first whole nuclear disaster. She tried the tap to see if it was functioning and by some miracle, both hot and cold water were flowing.

“Clarke, get a load of this!” She heard Murphy shout, a little distant away from her. She moved away from the kitchen reluctantly, as she wanted to explore the cupboards more to see what was available to them. She walked towards where she heard Murphy’s voice, through a small opening in a wall, like a doorway without an actual door. The sight in front of her was like no other, and her mouth dropped open in awe.

White leather sofas contrasted the dark hardwood flooring, complete with brown, fluffy pillows and the fuzziest looking blankets she’d ever seen. The sofas were shaped in an L shape, seemingly surrounding a medium sized table, with little circular mats that looked like they were there to protect the table from condensation from drinks. Opposite the table on the wall was a glorious fireplace, next to it a stack of wood that looked like it had been untouched for years. Above the fireplace was a television she could’ve only dreamed of, which spanned the whole length of the wall.

Murphy was already playing with a pool table at the rear end of the room, surrounded by bookcases filled with books that Bellamy would absolutely die to read.

“Oh my god, Murphy! I feel like we’ve walked into one of those old DIY shows where people decorate your house!”

“We’ve definitely hit the jackpot, team cockroach coming in winning during this radiation period. Did you see the size of the kitchen!? Man I can’t wait to cook.” Murphy sighed, seeming content.

“I just want to find a bedroom, or a bathroom, so I can shower. And a change of clothes wouldn’t go amiss, either. Those sofas look so comfortable, and huge enough to fit us both on one. Even if we don’t find a bedroom, or two, I think we’ll be cosy enough.” Clarke smiled, moving to explore a little more. She approached another empty doorway, that lead to a hallway with three doors.

“Huh,” she thought, “there are doors down here. Maybe the previous occupant did enjoy some sense of privacy.”

She walked down the hallway and went towards the door on her left, she opened it and laughed. This was a room Murphy would love for sure. The colour scheme was a deep ruby red, a red bed, red lampshade, red photo of a strange looking car above the bed. Black electric guitar, television on the wall, and a black door that apparently led to an en-suite bathroom. She backed out of the room and closed the door, leaving that treasure for Murphy to unveil himself.

Clarke turned on her heel and went towards the door directly opposite what would be Murphy’s bedroom, and opened it, and again was speechless. A gorgeous dusty pale pink and gold themed room, with a huge bed, again with cream coloured furry blankets over the covers. There was a desk, in front of a mirror with lights she’d only ever seen in old movies, it looked like a movie star makeup station. The layout of the room was the same, en-suite bathroom, television on the wall and a huge photo of pink and white roses above her bed. She saw a closet and decided to explore, and was so happy with what she had found.

“Murphy!” She called.

“Yeah?”

“Go into the hallway, first door on your left!” She directed him, and didn’t expect an answer. She just waited for his exclamation.

“Holy shit!”

“I know!”, she laughed, “let’s both shower, change and continue exploring and figure out what we want for dinner.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice!” She heard before she heard the door shut. She went to do the same, until her curiosity got the best of her, and she couldn’t take her eyes off of the door at the end of the corridor. With a deep breath, she inched towards it.

Clarke went to open the door, but alas, it was locked, and she just wasn’t strong enough to break it down herself, so she had to wait for Murphy. She decided to indulge herself in a warm shower, hoping there was shampoo in there at least. The small blonde padded back to ‘her’ room, and into the bathroom where she struggled to figure out the shower settings but eventually got it right. She allowed the room to steam up, and she shed the small amount of clothing she had on, stepped into the shower and allowed the heat of the water to warm her in many ways the sun could not.

She took some rose scented shampoo and started lathering it into her hair, closing her eyes as she felt her fingers massage her scalp, and all thoughts went straight to Bellamy without her even wanting them to. She remembered how his fingers felt in her hair, as she would caress his arm as he lazily kissed her shoulder. Their relationship was a secret to everyone around them, even his sister. Things were just.. too volatile to allow something to bloom, so they just kept it to themselves, and that is how they liked it. Sneaking kisses around Arkadia when no one was watching, the lingering looks and touches, it was like a forbidden love, and she just wondered whether he made it onto the ring okay. She hoped he would, she hoped she would see him again in 5 years, alive and healthy.

She hoped he wouldn’t give up on her, and what they could have been, otherwise this would’ve all been for nothing.

She finished her shower, and wrapped a warm towel around her body before stepping towards the closet and opening the drawers inside. She grabbed a hoodie that looked to be at least three sizes too big, some underwear and some shorts. Socks too, weird ones that didn’t even cover her ankle. She refused to put a bra on, she wasn’t running anywhere or fighting anyone, her breasts needed a rest, and Clarke be dammed if Murphy felt she needed to wear a bra in front of him. She’d just tell him to fuck off, kindly of course.

She roughly towel dried her hair and exited the bedroom, to see Murphy shirtless on the sofas, wet hair tousled, wearing what seemed like sweat pants and the same weird socks, just flicking through what looked like channels on the television.

“Enjoy your shower?” She asked, plopping herself down onto the sofa next to him.

“Oh god, so much. I had so much dirt, grime and what felt like death on my body I just had to wash it off.” He turned to look at her.

“You know what will be weird?” She asked.

“No, what?”

“The fact that for the first time in 5 years, we won’t be beaten to a bloody pulp unless we beat each other,” she laughed.

“Well, I can only say I get angry when I get hungry, so how about we stick two of those frozen pizzas in the oven, raid the cupboard for snacks and stick a movie on from the early 2010s?” He suggested, and Clarke smiled.

“Reckon there’s any alcohol like in the lighthouse bunker?” She smirked.

Murphy got up to go prepare the oven for the pizzas, find the snacks and he waved a bottle of wine around, “I found this, good enough, Princess?”

“Absolutely perfect, John.” She smiled, she could do this. She could totally live 5 years with John Murphy.

Chapter Text

It had been a few hours since they’d all caught their breath and showed the two grounder girls around their new living quarters. Raven was already trying to work on some form of communication device, and by what Bellamy could hear; it wasn’t going great.

“Bastard!” Raven cried out.

“Hey, hey. What’s going on, Reyes?” Bellamy approached her as she sat surrounded by scrap metal.

“The comms are down, I’m trying to make a radio so we can try and contact the cockroaches to see if they’re alive, but it only receives, it doesn’t transmit. It’s driving me crazy, especially as they haven’t tried to contact us. I can’t even tap into the bunker to see if there’s any communication there! Damn it!” She shoved the metal off the table onto the floor, in a strop.

“Raven, calm down. We’ve been here a few hours, this is a 5 year problem. How about you try and rig up a sound system, see if any of the old ark songs are still on the ark’s hard drive? Monty has gone to his and Jaspers old moonshine brewery to see if he can scrounge any ingredients to whip up a few batches before he can brew more, what’s a party without music, huh?” Bellamy smiled at the girl, who was calming more by the second.

“Bellamy, you’re a genius! We made it onto the frickin’ ring in a hundred year old rocket, that’s cause for some celebrating! I’ll get right on it. Thank you, Bell. Hopefully, if they find a radio and manage to contact us, you’ll hear from her soon. Even if we can’t respond, it’ll be good to hear her voice.”

“Thanks, Reyes. Get cracking, yeah?” He winked, trying not to look solemn about the situation at hand.

“Bell?” Raven called, drawing back his attention from walking away.

“Yeah?”

“You love her, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” That was that. It was out in the open and he had finally admitted it to himself.

“I’ll get you talking to her soon, I promise. Plus, I’ve got Emori riding my ass about getting Murphy on the radio and I’m not sure any of us want to hear his voice over the sound system on the ring,” Raven laughed, trying to lighten the mood after feeling the heavy vibe. Bellamy gave her a soft smile, and walked away.

He walked around the ring a few times, passing rooms where Echo and Emori were sparring, Harper was napping, Monty was studying old books, it was peaceful. He just wished he had his best friend to ride this out with. He made his way back to Raven with the idea of a rec room on his mind, asking her if she had any spare bars he could set up so they could all keep their strength up by doing pull ups, and anything heavy so they could substitute it for weights. He needed to keep active, because who knows what they’re going to end up facing when they go back down to Earth? 1100 grounders with 100 skykru, with Octavia in charge? Who the fuck knows.

Raven handed him some poles and heavy lumps of soldered metal, along with other things to create some dumbbells and and pull up bars.

——————————————

“So, you wanna play 20 questions?” Murphy laughed.

“Jesus, Murphy, what are you, 12? How much have you drank already?” Clarke takes the bottle from the boy.

“Don’t worry about me hogging it, there’s a whole rack filled with different bottles of alcohol, we’ve got enough for years of 20 questions. Let’s play, I’ll go first. Tell me about Wells,” Murphy took a bite of his pizza.

“What do you wanna know?” Clarke raised an eyebrow.

“Well, you acted like you hated him, and then all of a sudden you were hanging me because you thought I killed him, I’m just curious,”

“I thought he killed my father, I thought he was the one who turned him in and got him floated,” Clarke sighed, thinking of how it was almost a year ago, “I figured out it was actually my mother who turned him in, and I apologised to him. 12 hours later, he’d been murdered by a depressed 13 year old.” She took a swig of the bottle.

“Oh man, I’m sorry. I should’ve paid more attention.” Murphy stretched as he got up, taking their plates to the kitchen and retrieving another bottle.

“Well what about you? What’s your biggest regret?” Clarke smiled softly as he sat back down, this time he turned to face her, his back against the side of the couch so their feet were touching.

“I guess it’s a tie between following Bellamy as soon as we touched down, or shooting Raven. She didn’t deserve that. I ruined her life, ruined her leg and almost killed you all in the process.”

“If we got a chance to have a do over, with the memories of before, but just the two of us, would you change anything?”

“I would not start that fight with Wells, I’d tell you that. I wish I could say I wouldn’t go with Jaha, but then I wouldn’t have met Emori. I suppose I wouldn’t run away after shooting Reyes, I wouldn’t leave you guys vulnerable like that. I’d run from the guys at Mount Weather, though. Fuck being drilled for my bone marrow. I’d try my best to save you, to stop Finn from going crazy. Maybe you guys would’ve been able to start something if he didn’t go batshit,” Murphy took a huge swig of his drink, starting to feel the warmth of the alcohol spread around his core.

Clarke laughed at his response, “Finn and I could never be anything, I couldn’t hurt Raven like that. Wells loved me in a way I couldn’t reciprocate either. Lexa was different, though. I loved her. I like that you’d change how you started, maybe we could’ve become friends instead of just acknowledging one another.” She sipped at her bottle.

“Aren’t we friends now?” He asked, shifting his body as though we was uncomfortable with being vulnerable.

“I suppose we have to be,” the blonde winked at the man opposite her.

Murphy laughed, “What about Bellamy, though? You two have a strange relationship. The sexual tension between you both was so thick you could cut it with a knife,”

Clarke sighed, “It’s.. complicated. We’re two warm bodies that share a bed sometimes, he makes me feel some way Lexa never could, but I don’t know if he feels the same. We never put a label on it or anything, so we’re not together, but we’re not, not together, does that make sense?”

“Yeah, it does. God, I miss Emori,” he chuckled, “you know she tried to kill me when we first met?”

“Yeah, didn’t she steal all of your water and rations? What a catch,” they both laughed.

Murphy nudged Clarke with his foot, causing her to spill some wine on the hoodie she found, and she kicked him back, causing them to end up in a heap on the floor laughing.

“You think we’ll manage 5 years together?” He asked as she blew hair out from her eyes. His eyes widened as he realised she was straddling him, but he didn’t say anything.

She sighed and pushed herself back up onto the couch, “Unless you try to kill me in my sleep, I think we’ll be okay. I might even learn to like you.” She stuck her tongue out at him, holding out her arm to pull him back onto the couch. Instead of sitting opposite her, he leaned his back against her propped up legs.

“I’ve never had a best friend before, Clarke,” Murphy slurred his words, clearly drinking half of a bottle of age old wine in less than half an hour was a sure fire way to get you buzzed.

“You haven’t? How come?”

“Poor old Murphy, dead dad, alcoholic mother, locked up at the age of 15 for setting a guards quarters on fire, causing trouble in earth skills and nearly dying by Pike’s hand in a room full of criminals, yeah, who’d wanna be that guys friend?”

“John, you’re pouting. Stop this ‘poor’ kid act, you’re so strong. You literally never die no matter how many times you should have. You’re pretty much invincible, I can most likely assure you if I wasn’t locked in solitary, I would’ve never let Pike treat you like that, friends or not.”

He flashed a warm smile at her, “I’m sick of being vulnerable, can we do something fun?”

“Sure,” Clarke grabbed the television remote to see if there was any music stored on there. It turns out there was a music channel from the early 2010s that had a load of songs. She shuffled one of the playlists called ‘party’

‘Wake up in the morning feeling like P-Diddy’ blasted out of the sound system and Murphy laughed. “What on earth is this crap?”

“Who knows? Wanna dance, cockroach?” She stood up and held out her hand. Murphy started at it before shaking his head.

“You’ll be the death of me in this bunker, princess,”

Chapter Text

Clarke woke up with Murphy’s foot in her face and an empty bottle in her hand, accompanied with a strong pounding in her head. She tried pushing Murphy’s foot off her, but he only pressed it back into her nose.

“Murphy, get off.” She mumbled against his heel, tempted to bite him.

“Can you not talk so loud? I have monkeys bashing symbols in my head.”

“Why did we think it was a good idea to drink a bottle of wine each?” She mustered up the strength to push his foot off her face.

“If this is what a ‘hangover’ is, I never want to drink again.”

Clarke sat up and rubbed her eyes, slowly blinking and realising where she was. “Murphy, how strong are you?”

“Why, you can’t walk?” He teased, sitting up alongside her.

“No, there’s a door at the end of the hall, it’s locked and I just wanna know what’s in there. Call me curious, I guess.”

“Curiosity killed the cat, Clarke,”

“Where on earth did you hear that stupid phrase?” She laughed before grabbing her stomach and groaning.

“Don’t throw up on me, Clarke. I am not holding your hair back and stroking your back, you’ll shower me yourself.” Murphy threatened, although moving to move his hand up and down her back in a soothing manner. “You want a drink? Water? I can see if there’s any juice around?”

“You don’t have to wait on me, John, that’s not how this is going to work,” she said, standing up and taking a step forward, but she stumbled back into Murphy’s arms.

“Nice try, sit down, I’ll get you some water.”

“How are you feeling fine and I’m feeling like I’m literally dying?”

“You’re tiny, you can’t hold your liquor. Especially one that’s been stewing for 100 years. I’ll get you some water and then take a look at this door you’re talking about. Sit.” He plopped her down on the sofa and covered her with a blanket. He walked towards the kitchen and opened a few cupboards before finding ones with glasses, filling the glass with water before returning to Clarke. “Here, drink up,” He handed her the glass and moved towards the door.

“The one at the end of the hall?” He called back to her.

“Yeah, it’s locked. I was thinking we could break it down but again I don’t know what’s behind there.” She faltered off.

“You think someone’s hiding behind that door waiting to kill us?” He joked, rattling the handle. “Needs a key, you seen one anywhere?”

“No, but this coffee table has drawers, let me take a look,” she opened the drawers and the middle one had a ring filled with what could be like 50 keys. Good thing all they had was time. “Hey Murphy, catch.” She called before throwing the keys down the hall. Murphy caught them one handed and started fiddling with them, seeing which one fits in the lock.

It’d been silent for about three minutes before she heard a click and then: “Clarke..” She stood and shuffled towards where Murphy was stood, holding the doorknob.

“You found the key?”

“It’s unlocked. I wanted to open it with you.” She moved towards it, looking at his hand. She closed hers over his, and together they opened the door.

They were faced with a ladder that lead up a cylinder shaped tube. They looked at each other, before smiling. “Ladies first?” Murphy suggested.

“You just want a view of my ass,” she laughed.

“Well, can’t blame me for being a dude. Those shorts fit you well,” he smirked before motioning her to climb. She was a few rungs above him and he was about to start ascending before she looked down and said “grab the rest of the keys, something could be locked up there,” he nodded, she was smart.

They climbed for about 5 minutes, Murphy making comments about the view he had pretty much the whole way up before he caught sight of her legs. “Clarke,”

“Yeah, Murphy?”

“Your legs are super hairy,”

“I know, Murphy.” She sighed, she hadn’t had a razor in a few months, her armpits and pubic area were worse but she wasn’t about to tell him that.

“I have some razors in my bathroom if you want, I found them in the cabinet under the sink.” She smiled at the gesture.

“Thanks, John, you little egg,” and he laughed. She reached the top and there was a ledge, filled with a desk full of old computers and radios and old blocks that looked like phones she had seen in the old movies. She turned around to pull Murphy up and they both looked around in awe.

“Reckon we can contact the ring with this stuff?” He moved towards a light switch, and in turn he turned all of the plug switches to what he thought was on. He pulled a chair from a corner and motioned her to sit down.

“All we have is time, we may as well try. Is there another chair?”

“No, just the one. I’m good standing, please, sit.”

“John Murphy, being polite? Never thought I’d live to see the day. Sit on the chair, I’ll sit on your lap, we’re both hungover and we deserve to sit down.”

“If I’d have known any better, I’d have told you to keep it in your pants,” he laughed as he pulled her to sit on his lap. She felt his chest stutter as she shuffled to get comfortable, but the thought was fleeting.

“You excited to tell Emori you’re alive?”

“Yeah, she’d kill me if she came back down and found out I was alive and didn’t tell her,” he fiddled around with some of the radios, whilst Clarke told him the frequency.

“Remember when you call them, to repeat a saying over and over so they can lock in the signal before you start talking.” She reminded him as he rolled his eyes. 

“Calling Space-Kru, is anyone there? Again, calling Space-Kru, lock in our signal. Calling Space-Kru, this is.. what should we call ourselves? Like a funky nickname, but something cooler than Team Cockroach,”

“Murphy I really don’t think they care. Bunker Humpers? Grounder Pounders? Oh! I know! What about that group from that movie we watched, with all the singing.”

“I’m not calling us ‘Donna and the Dynamos’, neither of us are named Donna for Christ’s sake!”

“Oh okay, either way, this is Clarke and Murphy, reporting from an underground bunker under Becca’s Lab, we’re alive, and we hope you are too— MURPHY, THAT TICKLES STOP IT!” Clarke screamed into the radio as Murphy jabbed her in the hips because she was talking too much.

“You were talking too much. Raven, hope you’re alive, Echo, try not to kill anyone. Monty, Harper, don’t have any babies up there. Emori, I’m alive, I love you, and Bellamy, I won’t kill the princess. Turns out, she’s actually tons of fun,” he stuck his tongue out as Clarke giggled.

“Can we go back down now? You have a super boney lap,”

“Stop wriggling or it’s about to get bonier,” he joked.

“This is team cockroach, signing off. We’ll figure out a nickname soon. According to Murphy, I need to shave my legs. We’ll check in again tomorrow. Stay safe guys! See you in 4 years, and 363 days. This is day 2 of praimfaya, peace out.” Clarke ended the transmission as Murphy shoved her off his lap.

“You go down, I’ll see if I can find a way to bring this down so we don’t have to come and freeze up here,” he rubbed his hands up and down her thighs, trying to warm her up so the goosebumps would disappear.

“Got it. Hey, Murphy?” She said as she was descending down the ladder.

“Yeah?”

“I think you’re best friend material.” She said softly, before retreating down to the place they had quickly accustomed to calling home. Murphy smiled, before shoving as many of the hand radios into the pockets in his sweatpants, he really should’ve put a shirt on at least. It was freezing. He grabbed some of the phone like things and started his own descent down the ladder, and he heard Clarke turn on her shower. His stomach rumbled and he realised neither of them had eaten, so he decided to explore the untouched areas of the bunker, and opened a tough cupboard door that turned out to be a walk in, air locked fridge/pantry. They’d hit the jackpot, he found frozen sliced bread that he took out to defrost, frozen apples and some peanut butter. He would die for some eggs, but for now he’d just wait for the packaged frozen bacon to defrost along with the fruit and bread, and then he’d make them breakfast. He laid out his findings on the counter before going back and finding a whole section filled with confectionary that he had never even seen before, and a rare delicacy that only the privileged had on the Ark. Chocolate. He felt his mouth water but he was determined to wait for Clarke to show her his findings.

Murphy retreated back into the living space and put the radios and phone-like items on the coffee table. He played around with one of the phones, pressing and holding a button to see if it would turn on and it did, and he opened the camera. He thought it would be cool to see if he could somehow rig up the camera and the phone to send photos to the ring, but again he would wait for Clarke to return to tell her what he thought.

“Hey guys, I know Clarke signed off but she’s in the shower and I’m strangely lonely. I just wanted to drop by and let you know how we’re doing. Obviously, we’re alive, but I swear to you guys, we’re living like royalty down here. If you would’ve seen this, you wouldn’t have had to go into space at all. There’s a huge TV here, filled with movies and music, actual music! I’ve just found a walk in pantry filled with food to last about 10 years, I swear if Clarke and I aren’t 100lbs heavier than we were when you left, god knows. There’s so much alcohol, so much better than Monty’s moonshine, no offence, Monty.” He started to walk around whilst talking into the radio.

“Emori, I hope you’re doing well up there. Maybe bug Raven and see if she’ll let you help with all of the mechanical engineering shit, you’ve got a good brain. I just.. I don’t know if you can even hear me, but I need to tell you something. I have to let you go, I know you’ll hate me for this, but when you come down, I don’t know if I’ll be the same man. I don’t have to fight for my survival down here, I’m not running away from anything. I just, I need to let you know that it breaks me, but I have to let you go. You deserve better than me. I’ll see you in.. 4 years, 363 days I think she said? Anyway, stay pretty, and again, I’m sorry.” Murphy shut off the radio with a deep sigh. Somehow he knew he wouldn’t hear from them, but it wouldn’t press the hope away from the pit in his stomach.

“You talking to our friends again?” Clarke padded into the living space, this time dressed in a baby pink over sized hoodie and grey shorts that really showed off the curve of her ass.

“Yeah, just needed to tell Emori something. It’s all good, though. I did what I needed to do. You find the razors okay?” He smiled at her as she was running a towel through her hair.

“Oh god, Murphy I could kiss you! I shaved and then moisturised my whole body and I’ve never felt cleaner,” she sighed, walking towards him and enveloping the taller boy in a hug.

“What’s this for?” He hugged her back, and spoke into her hair.

“I haven’t hugged anyone in a while. It’s more for me than you.” He chuckled and she felt his chest vibrate against her cheek.

“I need to show you something,” he said, motioning her towards the sofa. “I found these phones, they have a camera and I think, if they can hear us up there, they might be able to rig up a way for us to send photos to them, I’m sure there’s some of the old tablets left behind, plus it’ll be fun to send them photos and videos of our time down here.”

“Murphy, that’s genius! Maybe there’s a way we can send them real music, too, so they’re not bored out of their minds. They deserve dance parties just as much as we do.”

“I found a pantry filled with things, more frozen food, and candy.” Her eyes lit up when he said candy.

“Candy?” She inched towards him.

“Yeah, but I ate it all whilst you were in the shower, sorry.”

“Don’t be a bastard, Murphy! Was there chocolate? Oh god the amount of periods we had and didn’t have chocolate,” she moaned whilst he fake-gagged.

“I don’t need to know, my dude,” He laughed as he pulled the chocolate out from the drawer he’d hidden it in, and right before his eyes, Clarke turned into a demon and demolished half of the bar before handing it back.

“Eat. I’ve just realised you’ve never had chocolate before. Oh! Wait! We need to get this on camera.” She grabbed one of the phones and went to video record. “Hello, this is Clarke Griffin and John Murphy, Murphy here has never tasted chocolate before and I wanted to record it for my own amusement.” She turned the camera towards him and he laughed, and placed a piece in his mouth. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and she was sure she just witnessed a John Murphy orgasm.

“If that’s what you look like when you climax, I feel sorry for any girl you’ve ever slept with,” she laughed as he went to shove her. She stopped the recording and just looked at him.

“What’s up?”

“I changed my mind. You’re 100% best friend material. You’re my best friend, if you’ll have me.”

He laughed, and grabbed her legs so they were swung over his lap, and he delicately rubbed his thumb up and down, “are you friend-zoning me, Clarke? I’m so offended.”

She scoffed, but scooted closer to him nonetheless. “Hey, I’m kidding,” he tried reassuring her for whatever hole he’d dug for himself.

“Murphy, it’s okay, we don’t know what will happen. Let’s see if we hear back from them.” She put her head on her his chest, listening to his heartbeat. She ignored the brief second it sped up. “You’re comfy, Murphy,” her speech was slurred, she was falling asleep faster than she wanted to.

“For what it’s worth, princess, I’d pick you as my best friend, too.” He stroked her hair as her breathing slowed into a steady pace, and he waited until he was sure she was out before he picked her up bridal style and placed her in her bed, covering her with the quilt. He decided that he’d get breakfast, or lunch ready by the time she was awake again.

He played some quiet music as he danced around the kitchen and recorded some more video diaries to send to the ring when it was up and running. He made toast sliced into thin strips, apple sticks and peanut butter, and he laid it on the small table next to her bed. He stood and watched her sleep for about 5 minutes before he realised he was being extremely creepy, and went to clean up the small mess they’d made in the living area.

Once he’d finished cleaning, he stuck on the movie Clarke was talking about, and once it had finished he heard her walk into the living space again, rubbing her eyes.

“Nap well?” He asked, taking the plate from her hands.

“Yeah, you didn’t have to put me in the bed though!”

“Was it comfy?”

“One thing boys will never understand is the feeling of fresh sheets against freshly shaved legs. It was beautiful. It was like sleeping on a cloud. The food was amazing, too. How’d you know that apple and peanut butter went together so well?”

“I read it somewhere,”

“You read?” She walked over to the big bookshelf near the billiard table.

“Only when I’m super bored. Want me to teach you to play?” He gestured towards the snooker balls.

“You can play?”

“Taught myself when the bitch in the red dress locked me in the lighthouse. Here, grab a stick.”

They spent the next few hours like that, playing snooker, listening to music and joking around. Their friendship was a fast formed one, they were aware, but they realised they could either form a lasting friendship, or be at each other’s throats for the next 5 years, and they both silently preferred the former.

~ meanwhile, on the ring ~

“Raven, can you hear the static? It’s coming from all over the ring!” Monty called.

“Yeah, I need to lock in whatever signal is trying to reach us. It could be the Polis bunker.”

“Calling Space-Kru, is anyone there? Again, calling Space-Kru, lock in our signal. Calling Space-Kru, this is.. what should we call ourselves? Like a funky nickname, but something cooler than Team Cockroach,”

“Is that.. Murphy?” Harper placed herself down on the table next to Raven.

“Yeah I- I think so? I’ve locked in their signal, let’s wait and see if anything else comes through.”

“Murphy I really don’t think they care. Bunker Humpers? Grounder Pounders? Oh! I know! What about that group from that movie we watched, with all the singing.”

“I’m not calling us ‘Donna and the Dynamos’, neither of us are named Donna for Christ’s sake!”

“Oh okay, either way, this is Clarke and Murphy, reporting from an underground bunker under Becca’s Lab, we’re alive, and we hope you are too— MURPHY, THAT TICKLES STOP IT!”

“Bellamy! Emori! Echo! Get in here, we’ve got company!” Harper shouted and the three of them came running.

“We heard it all over the ring, can they hear us? Can we talk to them?” Emori babbled.

“Not yet, I don’t have the communication line up yet, we can just hear them.”

“At least they’re alive, and getting along. I didn’t know if they would work together, but they actually sound like friends,” Bellamy smiled at hearing Clarke’s laugh over the speakers.

“Yeah, I can’t imagine anyone getting along with Murphy, no offence, Emori.” Monty laughed.

“None taken, he is a handful.” She smiled along with them.

“You were talking too much. Raven, hope you’re alive, Echo, try not to kill anyone. Monty, Harper, don’t have any babies up there. Emori, I’m alive, I love you, and Bellamy, I won’t kill the princess. Turns out, she’s actually tons of fun,” they heard Murphy’s voice come through the speaker a lot clearer now Raven had patched them in to the mainframe.

Harper laughed out loud, “can you imagine any of us having children up here? I couldn’t think of anything worse,”

“Can we go back down now? You have a super boney lap,”

“Stop wriggling or it’s about to get bonier.”

The six of them were stunned as they heard Clarke’s faint laughter. “She was sat on his lap?” Emori mumbled.

“It’s been two days, neither of them would do anything like that to you, Mori,” Echo reassured her fellow grounder.

“This is Team Cockroach, signing off. We'll figure out a nickname soon. According to Murphy, I need to go and shave my legs. We'll check in again tomorrow. Stay safe guys, see you in 4 years and 363 days. This is day 2 of Praimfaya. Peace out!" The signal went dead and they were met with silence again, although this time the silence wasn’t as deafening as before.

“They really are alive. We just heard them have a conversation. They’re safe, they love us and they’re alive,” Raven was beaming.

“This calls for celebration.” Monty announced as he left the room to get his moonshine.

They all hugged each other and none of them realised they were crying until they looked at one another and laughed as they sobbed with happiness.

It had been about 10 minutes before they heard the familiar static, and they all gathered around on a table with their cups of moonshine, waiting to see what the next check in would be.

“Hey guys, I know Clarke signed off but she’s in the shower and I’m strangely lonely. I just wanted to drop by and let you know how we’re doing. Obviously, we’re alive, but I swear to you guys, we’re living like royalty down here. If you would’ve seen this, you wouldn’t have had to go into space at all. There’s a huge TV here, filled with movies and music, actual music! I’ve just found a walk in pantry filled with food to last about 10 years, I swear if Clarke and I aren’t 100lbs heavier than we were when you left, god knows. There’s so much alcohol, so much better than Monty’s moonshine, no offence, Monty.” They heard some shuffling and they assumed Murphy was walking around as he spoke.

“As if they’re living the luxurious life and we’re stuck with Monty’s algae. I should’ve taken that damn nightblood treatment when I got the chance,” Emori scoffed, clearly giddy to be hearing her boyfriends voice.

“Emori, I hope you’re doing well up there. Maybe bug Raven and see if she’ll let you help with all of the mechanical engineering shit, you’ve got a good brain. I just.. I don’t know if you can even hear me, but I need to tell you something. I have to let you go, I know you’ll hate me for this, but when you come down, I don’t know if I’ll be the same man. I don’t have to fight for my survival down here, I’m not running away from anything. I just, I need to let you know that it breaks me, but I have to let you go. You deserve better than me. I’ll see you in.. 4 years, 363 days I think she said? Anyway, stay pretty, and again, I’m sorry.”

They all held their breaths as the static cut out once again, and Emori felt like her heart had been ripped out.

“First Finn, now Murphy? Clarke has a habit of sleeping with peoples boyfriends after two fucking days.” Raven said as Emori silently left the engineering room, clearly needing to come to terms with whatever she’d just heard.

“I’ll check on her, I’ll make sure she’s okay. You guys work on being able to contact them back, we need to find out if anything actually happened between them and we’re not just assuming.” Echo said bluntly as she walked out, following Emori.

“2 days into 5 years on the ring and one of us has already had our hearts broken. Anyone else miss earth?” Harper joked.

Chapter Text

It had been a few weeks since the message Murphy left that had devastated Emori. She understood, though. She really did. 5 years apart was a long time, she didn’t expect Murphy to hold out and wait for her.

She sighed, and fell backwards against her pillow with a huff. She waited for the familiar crackle of static that usually came around this time of day, and waited for the familiar voices to come wailing through, it was usually Murphy who started the messages, however this time it was Clarke.

“Hello, Space-Aliens,” Emori rolled her eyes as Clarke laughed, the two on the ground had started calling them space aliens and apparently they both still found it hilariously endearing, whereas those actually in space found it grating.

“Murphy has informed me that he has not yet told our little birdy of his impeccable idea,” Emori left her room and walked towards the newly dubbed ‘common area’ where they all sat to listen to their daily check-ins.

“Is Clarke drunk?” She heard Echo ask, as she rounded the corner to join them all on the table.

“Clarke just tell them so we can get back to our game,”

“Fine, fine. Anywhore-“ Clarke cut herself off by snorting with laughter, “that’s a phrase from my new favourite movie, ‘Mean Girls’”

“Give me the radio,”

“What? No! I’m talking! Murphy- give it-“ they heard shuffling and then Murphy’s voice was clearer whilst they heard Clarke whining in the background, occasionally breaking off into peals of laughter.

“What Princess was trying to say, was that we have these things called phones down here, we learnt from watching movies. There’s not much else to do. Anyway, Raven? Here’s looking to you, if you can hear me. On the tablets on the ring, there was a way for the council to set up ‘emails’ so they could contact one another late at night.” Murphy paused, and cut off the radio presumably to help Clarke with whatever she was whining about in the background.

“Is that true?” Harper asked Raven.

“Yeah, yeah it is. Pass me a tablet, please,” Raven gestured towards the one that Echo was currently playing with. She took it and went onto the small icon that had an envelope. She was about to sign in using Sinclair’s email when the radio cut back in.

“Sorry, Clarke needed help opening a bag of chips, she’s totally bombed, by the way. Anyway, Raven, see if you can set up an email that can receive. We have a way of sending emails to you, if you can hear us, that is.” Raven looked giddy.

“Does this mean we can talk to them!?” Bellamy suddenly broke out of his silence.

“I- I think so, I don’t know. Everybody shush, I need to see what email he needs me to use.”

“See if you can set one up using the name ‘[email protected]’ I don’t know what org is but Clarke said it sounded cool, so, try that. That’s if you can hear us, if not, we’re talking into thin air as it is. Peace out, I need to go before Clarke hogs all of the good flavours. Toodle pip!” The radio cut out and they were met with old music they’d managed to find on the Ark system.

“Did you do it? Did you set it up?” Echo asked, not knowing what any of it meant but being intrigued all the same.

“Yeah, I- I did. I don’t know if it will work, whether they have internet down there or if we have it up here, I don’t know. It’s a waiting game. They don’t even know if we can hear them, so..” she trailed off as a notification came up on the tablet.

“Murphy trying chocolate for the first time”

Hi guys, here’s hoping you can read this and it isn’t going into a spam folder anywhere. You know, I don’t even know what these words even mean, I’ve been watching too much TV. Anyway, here’s a video Clarke took a few weeks back, please respond if you can.

Murphy.

Raven opened the attachment and was immediately met with a giddy looking Clarke, looking clean and warm and unharmed. Freshly showered, she assumed. “Guys, come look! It’s Clarke!” She called to the others and immediately they were all surrounding this small tablet.

“Hello, this is Clarke Griffin and John Murphy, Murphy here has never tasted chocolate before and I wanted to record it for my own amusement.” The camera flipped around and showed a shirtless Murphy, also looking clean, unharmed and giddy.

Emori held back a sob, for seeing the man she was so undoubtedly in love with without even a hairline scratch on his freshly shaved face was something she’d never witnessed before. She felt Harper grab her hand gently, as they all watched the video with baited breath.

They watched as Murphy laughed, and placed a piece of chocolate in his mouth and immediately saw his eyes roll back into his head whilst he smiled like a mad man. He swallowed the piece of candy and opened his eyes, and Emori could’ve sworn that that piece of chocolate had singlehandedly placed the softest stars in his eyes.

“If that’s what you look like when you climax, I feel sorry for any girl you’ve ever slept with,” Clarke’s voice took over and Murphy went to lift his foot, assuming to kick her and the video froze in that frame, leaving a play button in the middle.

“Can we respond?” Emori heard, and figured out the voice was coming from her, although she didn’t recognise it.

“Not yet. We need to establish a full connection before we send something down to them, it’s easier for them to send something to us, as the old world sent satellites up into orbit, and with just one person using the satellite and its signal, luckily they have the strongest bandwidth, however we don’t have that. We aren’t connected to that satellite, we only have the Arks, or what was left of the Arks small WiFi system.” Emori nodded, even though she only understood a small handful of what Raven was saying.

“We do, however, have a printer. So I can take a picture of the video and print out that photo of Murphy for you, Emori, if you would like. And same with you, Bellamy.” Raven smiled as they both nodded their heads, unable to speak at that moment.

“I’ll help you figure out the connection issue, Reyes,” Monty smiled at the mechanic.

“Me too, although I have no idea what you said at all.” Echo said bluntly, before lifting herself away from the table. “I’m gonna go exercise, anyone wanna join me?”

“I will. Can we spar?” Harper asked softly, following the grounder into the hallway as their conversation faded as they got further away.

Emori also turned to leave, and she heard Bellamy catch up with her, softly touching her arm. “Are you okay?” He asked, tentatively.

“Not really, there was something I needed to tell John, before we left, and now he ended things to be with Clarke and it’s hard.”

“You can tell me, if it would help you in any way.”

Emori took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut, before exhaling and looking at Bellamy.

“I’m pregnant.”

•••••••••••••••••••••

Clarke and Murphy had been drinking for hours, their game of truth or dare turning into just truth.

“Are you in love with him?” Murphy asked, taking a swig of his alcohol, not entirely sure what he thought it was, but the label said tequila.

“I don’t know, in all honesty. I don’t think I know how to love. I loved my dad, he died. I loved Wells, he died. I thought I loved Finn, and he died. I know I loved Lexa, and she died. Maybe me loving someone is just a curse and it cuts their life shorter than it should be.” She took the tequila off of Murphy before taking a long sip, the burn having long died off now.

“You’re supposed to ask me a question.”

“Do you love Emori? You don’t talk to her as much as you do the others. You barely mention her name,” she took another sip and gave the bottle back to Murphy.

“I did, I do, I don’t know. I ended it, at least I think I did. I don’t even know if they can hear us for me to tell her I ended it. I ended it because.. no that’s stupid, I ended it because I had to.” He hiccuped before taking another drink and shaking his head, clearly still feeling the sting of it going down his throat.

“Tell me you didn’t end it because you thought we’d end up hooking up.” She blurted out without thinking.

“I didn’t end it because of that, although I wouldn’t be opposed to keeping each other warm in a bed,” he winked and she threw a lime slice at him. They were supposed to drink this drink with salt and lime, and they both got bored with licking salt off of their hands.

Clarke scoffed, blushing at an idea in her head that she pushed away.

“What you thinking, princess?”

“How come you all called me princess? Finn did, Bellamy did, now you, why?”

“Ark princess, obviously.” He rolled his eyes before licking his hand to make it wet before putting salt on it. Clarke grabbed his hand as the salt was falling. Murphy looked at her face and could see her eyes were a shade darker than they were.

“What’s.. going on?” He said as she moved closer to him, her tongue darting out and licking a small, wet strip up the side of his neck where his jugular was prominent. He hissed as she tilted his head to the side and poured salt on the damp patch. She dipped her head back, retrieving the salt, swallowing some tequila before sitting back and sucking on a lime slice.

“Out of any one of the hundred they sent down, who would you sleep with?” She spat the lime out before licking her hand like a cat, setting up for the next shot of tequila.

Murphy opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water, before finally acknowledging what had just happened before surging forward and pinning Clarke’s shoulders down against the squishy leather of the couch. “You,” he growled, before mirroring exactly what she did only a few moments before, salt, tequila, lime, and then sat back, before reaching onto the coffee table to grab an unopened bag of chips and tearing into them.

Neither of them noticed, or they both pretended not to noticed the slight bulge in Murphy’s grey sweatpants, and the small darker patch that had appeared on Clarke’s tight grey shorts.

They resumed their game, with more lighthearted questions like “who do you think would’ve won the conclave had Octavia not turned up?” and “do you think Luna and Raven would’ve ended up hooking up?” and Clarke’s personal favourite “what are the odds of Octavia getting a girlfriend whilst in charge of Wonkru?” Murphy betted on Gaia, whilst Clarke was convinced it would be Niylah.

“Hey. Do you think Indra and Kane would’ve ended up together had he not fallen in love with your mother?”

“Oh 100%. They had some form of weird friendship that stemmed from her wanting to kill him and him being weirdly turned on by it.” They both cackled, and Clarke stumbled towards the kitchen to their newly dubbed ‘drinks cabinet’ where they had moved their favourite wines, liquors and beers into a glass cabinet so they could see what they were running low on, and had to retrieve from the airlock pantry. She grabbed a bottle of her new favourite, vodka and a big bottle of something called lemonade. Those two mixed with ice was her ultimate favourite drink. She made herself a huge glass of the concoction and sat back down.

“Should we sleep soon?” Murphy asked.

“Are you tired?” She counter questioned.

“Not unless you are.”

“I’m not, not yet. Plus I don’t want to sleep yet,” she sipped at her drink before sighing in relief. No burn.

“Why not?” Murphy asked, pretending he didn’t know the answer.   

“Nightmares,” She burped, “they won’t leave me alone. I see their faces every day.” He knew the faces she was talking about, the first time he heard her scream he ran into her bedroom and tried to rock her back to sleep whilst she was inconsolable.

“Well, I mean, I could.. sleep with you? If you wanted?” She looked at him with a tilted head.

“Only if you want to,” she smiled.

“Sleeping alone is overrated.” And with that, she kicked him and he fell backwards off the side of the sofa.

“Should we record another video?”

“We’re so drunk, princess.”

“That’s what makes it FUN!” Clarke got up and set one of the phones up to record on its side, whilst pressing the speaker button so music blared out.

“No not this song,” Murphy grumbled as Clarke started the recording.

“Come on! We even made up a dance! Shorty got them apple bottom jeans!”

“Boots with the fur, with the fur!” Murphy laughed as they both shook their asses at the camera.

Clarke tripped over an abandoned couch pillow on the floor and fell forwards into Murphy and he caught her, but also lost his balance and they both fell onto the sofa, Clarke landing on top of Murphy. They were both panting, clearly out of breath from dancing, and they both just stared into each other’s eyes, before Murphy moved his hand to place Clarke’s hair behind her ear.

That was enough for Clarke, and she dipped her head down and her lips crashed against Murphy’s, hungrily searching for something he knew she could give her. He grabbed her ass and sat them up so she was on his lap, and he picked her up as she nipped at his neck, went towards the phone and stopped the recording. He vowed to himself he would never let them see that, and went to delete it. As soon as he was satisfied, his lips met Clarke’s ones again and her tongue brushed against his bottom lip, begging for entry. He allowed it, and he was walking whilst her tongue greedily explored the inside of his mouth before he realised he was in one of the bedrooms and his legs hit a bed. He softly threw her against the mattress and crawled on top of her, his hands exploring her whole torso without touching her in places she might not want him to. He kept to her sides and stomach, before she was clearly frustrated and moved his hands to her breasts.

He bit back a moan as his hands massaged the pillowy flesh she had been hiding under those huge hoodies, and his body automatically jerked forward for some friction against her. He was nipping at her collarbone before he lifted the fabric that was stopping him from looking at whatever she was hiding, and he threw it against the wall, pausing to take her in. She was laid underneath him as his legs straddled her hips, her hair forming a golden halo around her head. Her breasts were perfect, moving up and down slowly as her chest rose and fell with every stuttered breath she took. Her lips were plump and bruised, and her eyes were dark and glistening in what he realised must be candle light.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered, before climbing off of her and lifting her up. She whimpered, clearly mourning the loss of his weight above her as he removed the bed cover and laid her back down on the bed. She gave him a quizzical look as he laid next to her and pulled the quilt over the top of them, and pulled her closer to him, tucking her just under his chin, his arm under her neck and the other snaked, around her waist massaging one of her breasts at her silent request.

“Not now, not like this.” He said softly and she hummed in response, turning slightly to kiss his jaw.

“Goodnight, John,”

“Goodnight, Princess.”

Unfortunately, Murphy sucks with technology whilst inebriated, and it turns out, he sent the video instead of deleting it. Silly Murphy.

Chapter Text

Murphy woke up to Clarke wrapped around him like a baby koala, (they’d been watching a lot of animal documentaries which is how he knew what one looked like) and he smiled softly. He slowly and carefully removed her grip and got out of the bed, ignoring the pounding in his head. He’d gotten used to the feeling of hangovers considering the only way to have fun was to drink. He heard Clarke whimper at the loss of his body heat and chucked. He found himself becoming more attached to the petite woman during their time in the lab bunker.

Memories of the previous night started flashing in his brain and he cringed at second hand embarrassment, before remembering the video they’d recorded. Thank god he’d deleted it. He walked towards the living area and winced at the mess they’d made, before shaking his head and starting to clear it up, putting the pillows back on the sofa and putting the throw blankets back where they should be. He gathered up the empty bottles and put them in the blue box he’d found with a recycling symbol, knowing there wasn’t anywhere to recycle them other than washing them out and filling them with water for their inevitable journey to the bunker in Polis when they both felt confident enough to test their nightblood outside.

He had just finished sweeping up the chip crumbs when he noticed the phone on the tabletop. His own curiosity had gotten the better of him, knowing there was a ‘recently deleted’ folder in the photo gallery, and he was masochistic in the way he wanted to make himself embarrassed by watching the video. He went into the photo gallery and was confused to see it hadn’t been deleted it all, and then his heart sank. He was never the best with technology, and alcohol had just made his brain worse, and he knew he had to check his sent emails, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it just yet. He placed the phone back down and walked into the kitchen, retrieving a packet of bacon and sausages from the fridge, before setting up a pan on the oven top. He let the pan heat before putting the meat in the pan and allowing it to sizzle, not having to do much except flip the pieces of bacon over and rolling the sausages over to make sure they were cooked through.

Clarke awoke to the sweet smell of cooking wafting into the bedroom, and sat up, ready to leave the room before realising she was half naked, leaving her breasts exposed. She blushed at the memory of last night filtering into her mind, and she bit her lip. She retrieved her hoodie from the floor, and walked into the adjoining bathroom and looked at her appearance. Her hair was a mess, and her mouth felt like fur. She ran her fingers through her hair before grabbing a toothbrush and cleansing her teeth. Finally satisfied with her appearance, she wandered into the kitchen where she found a shirtless Murphy standing by the oven, clearly being the cause of the scent that was slowly filling the room.

Silently, she walked over to him, and snaked her arms around his waist, making him jump slightly. She pressed a small kiss on his shoulder before he turned face her, embracing her in the hug.

“Good morning, little one,” he sighed into her hair, before pulling back and looking at her.

“Good morning, Sir,” she giggled and Murphy’s heart stopped. Could she read his mind? He hadn’t meant to call her little one, it had just slipped out. Him and Emori had explored certain nicknames once Emori figured out that Murphy quite enjoyed being dominant in bed, but he wasn’t sure where Clarke stood on that fact. A conversation for another day, he decided.

“You hungry?”

“Always,” she hauled herself up onto one of the kitchen sides, dangling her legs as Murphy served up breakfast.

“I’m thinking a pasta for dinner? I haven’t properly cooked in a while and I would like to treat you to a meal. How does that sound?” He handed her a plate of sausages that he had cut into tiny disks, and sliced bacon, before grabbing two small waffles that the toaster had popped up. He drizzled some form of syrup over the waffles and bacon before placing a small piece of waffle in her mouth. She smiled and hummed in content before jumping down to meet him over on the sofas.

“That sounds like a date,” she winked and he froze mid-chew. “I’m joking, Moph, it sounds perfect.”

“Moph?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Murphy has too many syllables,” she said pointedly.

“You know, you can call me John, if you’d like.”

“I like your name, but you constantly give me nicknames and I want to give you one, too. I’ll just go through a cycle of them all until I find one that sticks.”

“You could call me daddy,” he winked and she faux-gagged.

“Bellamy tried getting me to do that, once, and I just was not into it,” he faltered at her tone, and if she noticed, she didn’t say anything. “It just didn’t stick, I loved my father and I couldn’t call anyone else that even if I wanted to. I ended up calling him ‘Master’, man was a freak in the bedroom if you know what I mean.” She nudged him whilst giggling.

“Well, we like what we like, can’t blame us, we’re men.” She stuck her tongue out at him and he laughed at her reaction.

“If it’s what you’re into, I can’t say I’m opposed, John, I’m a controlling person but I don’t mind handing over control to a person I trust. Lexa was my queen in and out of her bed, there’s always room for a king in mine.”

~ meanwhile, on the ark ~

Late at night, Raven was awoken by a chime on the tablet. She groaned and rubbed her eyes, silently cursing the two on earth for waking her up. She went into the emails and saw an attachment that had no description, or message, or anything, and she was confused. She opened the video and grinned at what she saw.

Wasted Clarke and Murphy singing to a stupid earth song and wiggling their asses at the camera. She stifled a giggle, knowing Emori and Bellamy would love to see this. She contemplated stopping it, so that they could all watch it together, but she was selfish and wanted to see it for the first time herself. She watched as Clarke stumbled over something that was out of frame, pummelling into Murphy as if he was the only stable thing to hold her up, and of course, she was wrong. She loudly laughed as Murphy fell backwards onto the sofa with Clarke atop of him.

Raven’s breath hitched as even she could tell the atmosphere in the bunker had changed at that moment in time, and she watched as she saw Murphy’s hand move in slow motion to tuck Clarke’s hair behind her ear. She held her breath, leaning in to the tablet as though she couldn’t get enough of what she was watching and was anxious about what was coming next. She noticed the tequila on the table, surrounded by limes and salt, and looked back at Clarke just as the blonde girl dipped her head in to Murphy’s and kissed him. She paused the video, knowing there was at least 15 more seconds but she had to figure out what to do with this information.

If she showed them, Emori and Bellamy would be crushed, but if she didn’t, that could be the last video message they ever receive. They could lose the communication, things could go wrong, and Raven would’ve been the last person to see something. Raven also begrudgingly admitted to herself she was awful at keeping secrets. She shook her head and pressed play to watch the last little bit. She watched as Murphy grabbed Clarke’s ass and strongly hauled them off the sofa, and he strode towards the camera, picking it up as Clarke was clearly nipping at his neck, and the recording stopped as Murphy hissed out a barely audible ‘oh fuck-‘, she had to turn the volume right up to hear it.

Sighing, she placed the tablet down and started pacing in her small room, before deciding to silently walk to Monty and Harper’s room. She knew that Monty was a light sleeper, whereas Harper was dead to the world almost immediately. She reached their door and knocked gently, whispering ‘Monty, it’s Raven,’ she heard shuffling and then the door opened, revealing a tired Monty rubbing his eyes.

“You okay?”

“I need to show you something, immediately.” She gestured for him to follow her back to her room, and flicked the light on. She grabbed the tablet and motioned for Monty to sit on her bed. As he pressed play, she grabbed the pull up bar that Bellamy had installed above her door and started a set of pull ups. Monty placed the tablet back down and started pacing as Raven did only minutes before.

“What do we do?” He asked and she sighed.

“I hoped you’d know the answer,”

“They were clearly drunk, like extremely, uncomfortably drunk. They’re lonely, they don’t even know if we’re alive, they are allowed their time together, surely.”

“It’ll crush Bellamy and Emori, Monty,”

“I know, but what if that’s the last message we receive?”

“That was my thought exactly.”

“We prepare them. I’ll start on a batch of algae moonshine, it’ll be ready by the time everyone’s awake. We keep it a secret until it’s late enough to drink, and then we start a game of 20 questions. Mark the email as unread, and pretend you haven’t seen it. Can you do that?”

“You got it. We soften the blow with alcohol, and we play truth or dare. Not just 20 questions.”

“Why truth or dare?”

“You’ll see,” she ushered him out of her room so she could get as much sleep as possible before the impending storm that was bound to erupt. The two of them were certain their plan would work, however Emori was about to throw a huge wrench in the cogs, because she couldn’t drink.

A few hours had passed before all the lights on the ring had automatically turned on, signalling that it was time to wake up, and Monty had breakfast ready.
Everyone sauntered down to the cafeteria area and Emori waited for Bellamy to arrive before asking for everyone’s attention.

“Guys, I have something important to tell you all,” and everyone looked at the grounder, and she immediately faltered. Bellamy noticed and grabbed her hand softly, signifying his support.

“You and Bellamy?” Harper enquired, and Bellamy chuckled.

“Not that she isn’t my type, but I’m still holding out for Clarke, sorry, Harp,”

“No, but he’s the only one who knows so far. This is going to come as a shock to you, but, I’m pregnant. It’s John’s.” Raven choked on her algae and Monty rubbed her back, silently cursing John’s dick, clearly it would still be causing problems even when he wasn’t here.

“Oh my god, congratulations, Emori!” Harper cried, standing up to walk around the table to hug the girl.

“Raven, if there’s a way for us to contact them on the ground, now would be a great time to start,” Bellamy said, reaching towards the tablet.

“No!” Monty shouted.

Bellamy raised his eyebrow but pulled his hand back. “Ravens been trying. None of us can use the tablet yet, she’s got things downloading that can’t be disturbed.” Bellamy held his hands up in surrender “alright, I get it, vultures.”

“Boy or girl?” Echo finally voiced.

“I uh, I don’t know yet. I don’t know how far along I am, I just know it feels like hiccups in my stomach,” Emori smiled, her hand drifting to her belly.

“I want to be an aunt.” Echo said as she removed herself from the table. “Auntie Echo,” she nodded towards Emori.

“Uh, alright?”

“Good. Don’t name it Echo, I’ll have to fight you.” She sauntered into the hall leaving the 5 of them stunned and laughing.

“Think we’ll ever get more than 10 words out of Echo?” Monty smiled.

“Probably not, but I say this announcement calls for celebration. Moonshine, Monty? Water for the mother to be, of course,” Bellamy nudged Emori who pouted in his direction.

“Should be done in a couple of hours, go get everything situated.” Bellamy nodded, saluting the boy with an “aye aye, captain,”

Everyone left the room, leaving just Raven and Monty. “Well that sure throws a wrench in our plans.” Monty sighed.

“We can all get drunk, including Bellamy which softens the blow for him. Only now, it’s much more complicated for Emori’s feelings to be numbed, damn it.”

“We’ll figure it out. We always do.” Raven smiled at his response.

A few hours passed and everyone gathered in the common area, donned with some couches and blankets with a small speaker system with an old iPod left over from the Ark. Raven and Monty entered with a huge batch of moonshine, and some water for Emori, and some tiny cups Raven had fashioned.

“Who’s ready for a party?” She declared and everyone whooped.

“I want to be the music player.” Echo demanded.

“Okay, you know how?” Harper asked.

“No, but I will learn.”

“Okay, let’s get this party started,” Bellamy laughed, and Echo played an old song from the Ark, Monty recognised it as the techno song played at the masquerade party where Octavia was arrested. They all sat around on the old sofas and saggy bean bags whilst Raven passed out the small cups and put the big tank of moonshine in the middle.

“I thought we could play a little game of truth or dare, what do you say?” She smiled.

Bellamy filled up his cup before downing it in one and wincing at the burn in his throat. “I’m game,” he coughed, and everyone nodded in agreement, also taking a drink.

“Let’s start easy, Harper, truth or dare?” Raven grinned.

“Truth,”

“Is it true that you and Wells dated on the Ark?”

Harper laughed, “we were 11, we held hands for like a week. It was my claim to royalty. Bellamy, truth or dare?”

“Truth,”

“Is it true you and Raven slept together back in the dropship days?”

Raven choked on her drink and laughed, “Yeah she used me to get over Finn. Didn’t work though, did it, Reyes?” Bellamy winked.

“I can’t say I’d be opposed to doing it again if the offer was there,” Raven winked back at him.

“Anyway, Raven, truth or dare,” Bellamy asked.

“Truth,”

“Tell us your biggest secret.” Raven made eye contact with Monty, and he discreetly shook his head.

She took a deep breath, “Sinclair was my father.” She heard audible gasps, knowing no one but her and Sinclair knew that information. “Nygel hinted it to me when I was asking for a pressure regulator when I was coming down in the pod, but Sinclair confirmed it when I came out of surgery when Abby removed the bullet from my spine. He had a brief relationship with my mother, and he wasn’t aware I was his until I was recruited into engineering. He was a great father figure up until his last breath, telling me repeatedly to stay in the rover over and over, using his last moments to keep me as safe as possible. I loved him, and he loved me.” She smiled, taking another drink.

“I’m sorry, Raven, I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay, it wasn’t something that was widely broadcasted. Anyway, Emori, truth or dare?” Raven smirked.

“Dare, truths are boring.”

“I dare you to kiss Echo.” Raven grinned, making eye contact with Monty.

“I’m not sure she’d want to, I don’t want to make her uncomfortable, I am, after all, a frikdreina,” Emori faltered.

“I’m down, my hands are getting boring in here.” Echo said bluntly, before moving to kiss Emori passionately. The others cheered and hollered as the kiss went on longer than expected, and Monty reached out to Raven with a discreet fist bump.

The girls pulled away and Emori looked flushed whilst Echo still had that stoic look on her face, except her eyes were glistening a little more. Echo took another drink and Emori spoke up, “Monty, truth or dare?”

“Dare, this is getting fun,” he could feel the warmth in his stomach from the alcohol.

“I dare you to give Bellamy a lap dance,” the pregnant woman laughed.

“Deal,” Monty rose from his seat and walked towards Bellamy, swirling his hips before taking off his shirt, before straddling Bellamy, over enthusiastically grinding his hips against Bellamy’s whilst everyone erupted in laughter. Monty finished by giving Bellamy a sloppy kiss on his cheek before retaking his seat next to Raven.

“Echo, truth or dare?” He laughed, taking another drink. Echo wiped a tear from her eyes, a smile etched onto her face.

“Dare,” she grinned.

“So you do smile?” Raven laughed and Echo glared jokingly.

“Only when I’m drinking. What’s my dare, Monty?”

“I dare you to sit in nothing but your underwear in Emori’s lap for the rest of the game,”

“Done,” she stood and started stripped, swaying as the alcohol went to her head and everyone laughed.

Raven realised the alcohol was effecting everyone in some way, even Emori who couldn’t take her eyes off of Echo.

“Bellamy, truth or dare?” Echo asked.

“Dare,”

“I dare you to kiss Raven. With tongue.” She winked and Bellamy complied.

Raven wasn’t sure whether it was the inebriation or if she actually felt some electricity when Bellamy kissed her, but either way she enjoyed the kiss to its fullest, leaning in to his every movement, her hands finding the curls at the bottom of his head, moaning when he gripped her hip.

“That’s enough, you two. Keep it PG, there’s a baby here,” Harper laughed, leaning into Monty’s shoulder.

Raven whined at the loss of contact when Bellamy pulled away, but he pulled her up with him to lean on his legs when he sat back up.

“Should we check the tablet? See if there’s anything from team cockroach?” Harper asked and Raven nodded, standing up to retrieve it.

She stumbled down the hallway, giggling to herself as she got the tablet from her bedroom. She wandered back to their common area and played the video for them, laughing at Clarke and Murphy dancing. She almost forgot about the ending until Clarke tripped, and then realised what was about to come. She moved to sit in Bellamy’s lap, twiddling with the curls at the top of his neck as he leant into her touch. She felt him freeze as Clarke kissed Murphy and heard Emori sob as Murphy picked her up and ended the video.

“Oh shit,” Echo stated, taking another drink.

“I need some air,” Bellamy said, and everyone knew he couldn’t go anywhere to get air but they let him leave anyway. Emori stood up to leave, and Echo followed her.

Raven slumped in her seat and just stared at Monty and he gave her a soft smile, at least they didn’t have to keep it a secret anymore.

Chapter Text

“Clarke. Clarke, wake up. I need you to wake up because you’re about to murder me.”

Clarke heard the voice faintly in her dreams, and she shook her head, burrowing her face deeper into the pillow.

“No,” she mumbled. “No more murder, no more death, away with you.” She swung a hand out, swatting at whatever was trying to rise her from her comfortable slumber.

“Clarke.”

“Oh my god, Murphy, what!?” She sat up, her hair a mess around her face, and glared at him through the strands.

He didn’t answer right away. Just held out the phone like it was a loaded gun. His face had that too-calm, slightly pale look she’d seen once before - when he finally started to allow the guilt to sink in about shooting Raven.

She took it warily. The Sent Mail screen stared back at her.

No subject.

One attachment: VID_0518.mp4 .

Recipient: [email protected] .

Her stomach flipped. “You didn’t.”

Murphy ran a hand down his face. “I thought I was deleting it. I swear. Only apparently, I clicked ‘send’ instead of ‘delete.’”

Clarke’s eyes stayed locked on the address. “That’s the account we made Raven make, if she could hear us.”

“I know.”

“That means…”

“That means if it got through, she’s got it. And if Raven’s got it—”

“She’s shown the others.” Clarke’s voice was flat, but her mind was already listing the names: Bellamy. Emori. Monty. Harper. Echo. All six of them, trapped together on the ring, very possibly now the unwilling audience to the worst drunk decision either of them had ever made.

She closed her eyes for a beat, but it didn’t stop the memory of the video: the two of them swaying and laughing in the bunker, music blaring tinny in the background… and then the laughing had faded, the swaying had slowed, and somehow their mouths had been on each other’s, urgent and reckless. And then the camera had slipped sideways, cutting off in a way that strongly implied the kissing hadn’t been where it ended.

“Oh, god.”

“Yup,” Murphy said. He was pacing now, fingers twitching. “Bellamy’s probably staring at the ceiling wondering how his life turned into a bad soap opera, and Emori-“

“-Will kill you.”

“-Will gut me,” Murphy corrected. “And not cleanly. I’m talking slow, poetic justice level gutting.”

Clarke rubbed at her temple. “We don’t even know if it sent. We haven’t heard back from them, we’re just speaking into blank space hoping that they can hear us.”

Murphy’s expression was grim. “Yeah, or it went through instantly and they’re watching it on loop right now because there’s literally nothing else to do up there.”

She looked at the date stamp. Sent 02:47. No confirmation. No bounce-back. No proof either way.

“I can’t-” she started, but stopped, chewing on her lip. “If Bellamy saw that…”

Murphy stopped pacing. “If Bellamy saw it, he’s in his head about it. If Emori saw it, she’s..” He trailed off. “If Raven saw it, she’s probably making a copy in case she wants to blackmail us later. And if Echo saw it-”

“She’s telling Bellamy to get over himself,” Clarke muttered, though the thought didn’t make her feel any better.

They both went quiet for a moment, the only sound the low hum of the bunker generators.

Murphy finally blew out a breath. “So… now what?”

Clarke didn’t answer right away. Her eyes were still on the email screen, the little paperclip icon burned into her vision like a brand. There were only six people in the universe who could have seen it - and if even one of  them had, the fallout would be nuclear.

She sniffed and then locked eyes with Murphy. “Do we really think Raven would show the others? Maybe she could figure out a way to crop it down where it’s just us dancing, and keep the secret to herself?” She chewed on her lip, trying to convince herself more than Murphy. 

“I mean, it’s Raven. Unless..”

“Unless what?”

“She wants to get back at you for Finn.”

“That was literally years ago!”

“Raven holds a mean grudge, princess.”

Clarke sighed, her head falling into her hands. “Murphy?”

“Yeah?”

“Coffee?”

“On it.” He pushed himself up away from her bed, and once he reached the door, he looked back at her. “Clarke, this is a 5 year problem that we can fix.” Clarke didn’t say anything back, so Murphy left the room.

A few hours went by with them both keeping their distance in their separate rooms, until Clarke broke the silence. She walked to Murphy’s bedroom door, noticing it was ajar, and knocked quietly. “Yeah?” He answered through the door, and she let herself in. She sat on the edge of his bed, as he moved his legs to accommodate her and she faced him, blushing slightly as she took in the sight of his slightly wet, dishevelled hair and his shirtless form.

“I’ve got a plan,” her voice croaked, a little raw after not using it in a while.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Let’s talk to them.”

They both walked towards the radio room, keeping their distance from one another as though one slight touch might cause the entire earth to combust. Again. Clarke climbed the small ladder and Murphy followed, the phone in hand, gripped tightly as though it might run away and cause them more problems.

The silence in the room stretched until it felt heavy. Clarke kept staring at the phone like maybe, if she glared hard enough, the sent email would vanish. It didn’t.

Murphy finally crossed his arms. “We could just… ask.”

She looked up. “Ask who? We’re the only ones here, genius.”

He gestured toward the radio console in the centre of the small room. “Ask them . I mean, worst-case scenario, nobody’s listening because they’re all dead and we look like idiots talking into dead air. Best case… we find out if they saw it.”

“And if they did?”

“Then we know we’re screwed, but at least we’re not waiting around to be surprised-screwed.”

Clarke hesitated, then pushed herself up and crossed to the console. She sat down, adjusted the frequency to the one Raven always insisted on monitoring, and thumbed the transmit button.

There was a long pause before she spoke. “Hiiiii, Spacekru.” Her voice came out overly bright, too high-pitched. Murphy smirked behind her.

She powered through. “Monty, I hope you know that I miss your moonshine more than ever, as this alcohol down here creates the hangovers from hell and I am not doing well. I barely remember anything from last night, and I have a bruise on my shoulder which Murphy insists wasn’t him pushing me off the sofa and into the side table.”

“Wasn’t,” Murphy called in the background, loud enough to carry over the mic.

Clarke rolled her eyes. “Anyway, if you are up there and you are listening, I hope things are… you know… less apocalyptic than down here. We’re still breathing, still… fine. Mostly.” She coughed into her fist. “So, uh. Yeah. That’s it.”

She let go of the button and immediately slumped forward, face in her hands. “That was awful.”

Murphy leaned on the back of her chair. “Awful, but vague. Which is good. We don’t want to sound like we’re fishing to see if they’ve seen anything.”

“You think they bought that?” she asked.

“If they’re listening?” Murphy shrugged. “Not a chance.”

They waited, the static from the speakers filling the room like white noise. No reply. Not even a click.

Clarke leaned back. “Maybe they’re not there.”

“Or,” Murphy said with a grin that was all teeth, “maybe they’re just letting us sweat.”

~ meanwhile, on the ring ~

The mess hall smelled faintly of burnt algae and recycled air. Six tired faces were gathered around the narrow metal table, each with a steaming bowl in front of them.

“This is worse than usual,” Harper muttered, poking the greenish mush with her spoon.

“It’s not worse,” Monty said defensively, though his eyes were bleary. “You’re just hungover.”

“I’m not hungover,” Harper insisted, wincing as she pushed her hair back. “I’m… mildly poisoned from last night’s moonshine.”

“You’re both wrong,” Raven said, squinting at her bowl like it had personally insulted her. “This stuff tastes exactly the same as it always does 1 like bad decisions and regret.”

Across the table, Echo rubbed her temples, clearly avoiding everyone’s eyes. Bellamy sat beside her, methodically eating in silence, though the tension in his jaw was hard to miss.

Emori was the only one who didn’t look wrecked. She was leaning back in her chair, one hand absentmindedly resting on her stomach, absently stirring her algae without ever taking a bite.

The hum of the ship’s systems filled the quiet until the comms unit in the corner crackled to life.

“Hiiiii, Spacekru,” Clarke’s voice rang out, bright and chirpy enough to make everyone at the table flinch.

“Oh god, she’s yelling,” Raven groaned, shoving a spoonful of algae into her mouth to block the sound.

Bellamy’s eyes flicked upward, his hand tightening on his spoon.

“Monty, I hope you know that I miss your moonshine more than ever, as this alcohol down here creates the hangovers from hell and I am not doing well. I barely remember anything from last night, and I have a bruise on my shoulder which Murphy insists wasn’t him pushing me off the sofa and into the side table.”

In the background, Murphy’s distant “Wasn’t!” made Monty choke on a laugh - until Emori’s gaze slid toward him, sharp enough to shut him up instantly.

Clarke rambled for a few more seconds before the transmission cut out.

For a long moment, nobody spoke. The only sounds were the faint scrape of spoons and the hum of the ventilation system.

Finally, Harper said, “Well… that was awkward.”

“No kidding,” Raven muttered. Her eyes swept the table, catching on each face. “So, are we all in agreement that was an ‘I hope you didn’t see that’ broadcast?”

Bellamy didn’t look up from his bowl, but his jaw flexed. Echo stared into her food like she was counting the flecks of green. Monty glanced at Harper.

Emori was the only one who answered. Her tone was calm, even, and made the room just a little colder. “We saw it.”

Nobody argued. After all, they’d opened the email together the night before during a half-drunk game of truth or dare. The video had started with Clarke and Murphy laughing, swaying to music in the dim light of the bunker… and ended with the two of them pressed together, kissing like the world wasn’t ending; before the camera tipped, cutting off whatever happened next.

Now, at breakfast, she was back - sitting in her usual seat, one hand absently resting against her stomach, spoon dipping lazily into the algae without ever lifting it to her mouth. She wasn’t looking at anyone, and no one was looking at her, but the memory of her leaving last night hung in the air like static.

Clarke’s overly-bright voice on the radio only made it worse.

When the transmission ended, the table stayed silent. Monty cleared his throat but didn’t speak. Harper poked at her food. Echo’s eyes stayed fixed downward.

Bellamy kept eating like nothing was wrong, though the muscle in his jaw jumped.

It was Emori who finally broke the quiet, her tone flat. “She’s covering.”

Nobody disagreed.