Archive of Our Own

The sky is a clear and cloudless blue, the field in the distance lush and bright in the sunlight where the little children play. It’s beautiful, Madi thinks from where she watches at her desk. If not for the twin suns in the sky, it would look like something out of one of her dreams on Earth.

It’s also foreign. She’s never known peace like this. Not even now.
Her life has been saturated in fear, longing, and uncertainty for as long as she can remember.

Sure, there have been some good times. Her parents, what she remembers of them, loved her fiercely, enough to hide her to stop her from being taken from them. Most of her memories of them are blurry at best, but she remembers her mother’s smile, and her father’s laugh clearly. The carefree days in the valley when Earth was coming back into its own, on the rare occasion when Clarke would allow their chores and lessons to be cast aside in favor of a free day spent indulging in whatever Madi fancied at the time. Those memories stick out in her mind like stars, bright and adored, but cast apart and surrounded by vast darkness.

Sometimes, when she thinks about the darkness that has so often permeated her life, she thinks that perhaps she was cursed. When she was young, after Praimfaya but before she and Clarke had developed a rapport, she had clung to her hazy understanding of her peoples’ beliefs about the flame and thought what followed the end of the world as she knew it was her punishment for avoiding the flaimkepa her entire life. It wasn’t until much later that Clarke was able to explain and disabuse her of the notion.

Still, she thinks there might be something to the curse theory. Since the world expanded from her and Clarke to include those underground and in space, it’s been one crisis after another.

How many times can she lose her entire family? Her home? Her life. With her ascension to commander, it felt as if she even lost herself. There was so much information from so many sources that it was difficult to sort through it all. Often, it was impossible to differentiate between her own thoughts and those of the other commanders. Removing the flame had made it easier, at least now she was only contending with her own thoughts, but it didn’t erase everything she learned from it. Not even close.

That’s been the least of her worries the past week, however. Navigating the chaos between the remaining factions in Sanctum, the uproar Sheidheda caused, and the fallout of his death has been exhausting and terrifying enough, but her biggest issue has been her missing people. Clarke is gone, chasing down Bellamy, Octavia, and Echo, and she took nearly all their friends with her. Waiting for them to come home, has been nothing short of agonizing.

But she’s known worse.

At six years old, her parents died before her eyes and left her entirely alone in the world, or so she thought. Even when she did find another living person, she was too afraid to consider doing anything but running. When Eligius came down and Clarke separated them, she felt that same loneliness creeping in, the darkest part of her whispering that Clarke was never coming back to her and she would be alone again. Then Bellamy told her Clarke was dead and someone else was walking around in her body. Easier, on her end at least, had been when Sheidheda was in control and Clarke managed to bring Madi back. This latest separation was nothing compared to that.

Clarke is off on a rescue mission, but she’s not alone this time. She has people – Murphy and Emori, Indra, her new friends, classmates – and she is living her life the way she always dreamed of. Sheidheda is dead, her final act as a warrior was saving Indra’s life by stabbing the bastard with a poisoned blade, and she’s now free of any lingering responsibility associated with being Commander. Now, she’s just a girl, going to school and adjusting to a new world. As far as she knows, there aren't any more insurmountable enemies to face, just restless groups of people trying to learn to live together. They’ve been in worse situations.

She just needs to remember that eventually things always worked out; they always find their way back together. Clarke always comes back. This time won’t be any different.

The call comes when she’s in class two days later, on another sunny day that should make her feel at ease.

She doesn’t.

The sudden buzz of the crowd as the rumors fly during lunch feels like an affirmation of her intuition. Something has happened. Something big.

She doesn’t hesitate – she runs.

When she bursts through the door to the throne room of the palace and sees the woman standing before Indra, she isn’t sure whether she should be relieved or worried.

Gaia has returned.

Alone.

Murphy stands off to the side, leaning against a pillar and wearing a pinched look that only adds to her concern. Emori is there as well, studying a helmet intently before looking at Gaia in confusion. She opens her mouth to ask a question, presumably about the tech, but Madi cuts in. She doesn’t care about the tech – there's only one thing she cares about right now.

“Where is everyone?” she blurts.

There’s a beat of silence where everyone stops and turns to look at her, apparently ignorant of her entrance until she announced herself. Gaia takes a half-step in her direction before stopping.

“I don’t know,” Gaia says softly, her eyes swimming with regret. “I planned to stay behind, but a soldier was waiting, invisible...”

Gaia continues speaking, explaining what happened to her, but Madi can’t hear it through the roaring in her ears. Her heartbeat spikes, her pulse a rapid staccato as she realizes that things are not what she thought they were.

It was supposed to be different this time.

Did Clarke lie to her when she said goodbye? Did she know it was going to be that dangerous? No. She wouldn’t have kept that from her. Clarke likes to protect her, but not at the expense of leaving her unprepared. She must not have known what they were walking into. Clearly, Gaia didn’t, or she wouldn’t have let her guard down long enough to be taken.

She needs to know more, so she pushes aside the panic that threatens to consume her, forcing herself to take a breath, and tunes back into Gaia.

“... but the stone on Sanctum had been deactivated. It only just came back online today.”

“Why would it suddenly reactivate?” Indra questions.

“Because the world hates us,” Murphy answers, sarcasm heavy in his voice, but Madi can hear the concern underneath it, and it makes her skin crawl; the moment that Murphy is concerned is the moment they all need to be terrified.

“I’m not-” Gaia begins.

“Shit,” Emori breathes, drawing everyone’s attention. She’s wearing the helmet now, one hand stretched in front of her touching something that only she can see. “One of the destinations just went offline.”

“Which one?”

“I’m not sure,” she says slowly.

Gaia nods. “They’re denoted by symbols. I had to try all the others before I determined it was Sanctum that was offline.”

“Another one just went down,” Emori says grimly. “And another. They’re going down, one by one.”

“Yup,” Murphy says, clapping his hands, and pushing off the wall. “Looks like we are in for another round of ‘let’s try not to die’. Who wants to rally the troops?”

“What?” Madi asks, unnerved by his shift in demeanor.

“No way is that a coincidence, kiddo. Someone locked this place down and opened it back up before shutting down all the exits, which means someone is headed our way.”

“You’re right,” Indra sighs, calling for her men and beginning to issue orders.

Gaia approaches Madi and places a hand on her shoulder while she watches somewhat mystified by the quick turn of events. She’s been in plenty of battle situations before, but it feels different without the AI in her head helping her reach the right conclusions. She feels different now. Freer, but unprepared. “Come, Madi. We should get your somewhere safe.”

“But,” she protests, “we don’t even know-”

“You’re right,” Emori cuts in, firm but understanding. “We don’t know, which is why we need to be smart about this. Clarke would never forgive us if something were to happen to you.”

Murphy snorts. “Yeah, no thank you. Clarke would go full-blown Wanheda if anything were to happen to you. We’ve got enough death and destruction without adding that.”

She doesn’t get a chance to protest before they hear it – the snap and crackle of the radiation shield falling. From where she stands, Madi only has a moment to see the shimmering outline of the dome as it disappears before Indra begins shouting, and then Murphy is pushing her directly into Emori’s arms, eyes locking with Emori's for a brief second before he takes off running. Gaia joins the crowd headed for the boundary while Emori ushers her through the chaos toward the medical lab.

The sterile lab mocks her. It’s too bright and devoid of anything human. It holds too many bad memories. She doesn’t want to be here.

She wants to be outside with Murphy, Gaia, and all the others, knowing what’s going on instead of hiding, but she’d settle for hiding somewhere else.

The waiting drives her mad. It’s clear Emori feels the same, so she’s not sure why the other woman stayed. Jackson stayed too, even after they told him what was happening, apparently, monitoring some samples that he couldn’t leave unattended, though she’s not sure she believes that. He seems to be her babysitter, though she can’t begin to fathom why she would need another one with Emori already here.

Luckily, they aren’t left to wait long before one of Indra's men returns with the news. They’re not under attack. The others have returned.

Her heart swells, and she shares an unreserved smile with Emori before she takes off running. A burst of laughter escapes her when Emori and Jackson keep pace with her, Jackson edging ahead with his long legs in the final stretch.

The large throne room feels crowded now, with their motley crew reuniting with one another. There are embraces everywhere, their voices swelling over one another as they express their longing and relief.

She catches a snippet of conversation between Gabriel and Indra as she slips through them, trying to find Clarke.

“We had to reconnect the stone, and then find helmets for everyone. It’s part of traveling through the bridge, apparently. They’re needed to retain our memories. Besides, there was some hesitation about leaving-”

She quickly makes it through them, skirting around Jackson and Miller’s reunion kiss. They’re sweet, but she’s not interested in watching.

There’s a crowd, but she quickly takes them all in. Octavia. Echo.
Raven. Miller. Jordan. Gabriel.

As her gaze moves from person to person, a distinctly uncomfortable sensation begins to take root. It swiftly turns to dread when she looks again and confirms that neither Clarke nor Bellamy are among the party.

A woman with short hair that she doesn't recognize makes eye contact, her expression twisting with sympathy and guilt, and suddenly Madi feels like she can't breathe.

“Where's Clarke?”

The words ring out like a gunshot, drawing them all to a stop, answered only by the stillness impending doom can bring.
Octavia is the one to step forward, her stance reticent but determined. She looks to be a beat away from crying.

Madi steps back on instinct. Whatever Octavia wants to say, Madi knows without question that she doesn't want to hear.

“Madi,” she entreaties, reaching out for her tentatively, a request that she halt her retreat. “I'm so sorry. She didn't–” her voice breaks.
A man, another person Madi doesn’t recognize, steps up beside Octavia and touches the small of her back in comfort. The gesture is so reminiscent of Bellamy with Clarke that she feels her throat closing up.

“No. No. She can't be dead.” Bellamy wouldn't let her die. Hasn't he proven that enough times? “Bellamy wouldn't let that happen!”

Octavia's face crumbles. The man she doesn't know speaks up from her side.

“Clarke did everything she could to make it back to you. She just wanted you to be safe,” he says gently. Too gently. She closes her eyes as if the darkness can give her protection from the realization that her mother could really be dead. Because if there's one thing she knows, it's that her mom loves her more than her own life. “But it was complicated. Bellamy– she didn't have a choice."

“No.” Her denial is vicious, primal, as her eyes snap back open. Her mother would die to protect her. She loves her that much. And Clarke loves Bellamy too, but not enough to choose to leave her behind for him. “She wouldn't do that. Clarke wouldn't choose death with him over life with me. She wouldn't.”

“She did choose you,” the man in white says, his tone leaving no room for doubt. “Clarke did everything she could to protect you.”

Madi thinks she might crumble at his words because that’s Clarke. Before she can fully process the thought, the sound of the shield falling again rings out. Once more, she doesn’t wait – she runs.

She takes the most direct route she can to the edge of Sanctum, unwilling to let anyone stop her in an attempt to protect her again. When the shield goes back up almost immediately, she feels some of her tension dissipate, though she pushes herself to run faster, her feet pounding against the worn path in a steady rhythm.

It has to be Clarke. They’re wrong. It has to be her mom.

The others are following her. She can hear them shouting over the wind in her ears, but she ignores it. Because she was right, damn it. She can see Clarke’s blonde hair and Bellamy’s silhouette from the top of the stairs above the orchard, and she’s had it with waiting. It’s been too long already.

They meet halfway through the orchard field.

“Clarke!” she yells with abandon, running to embrace her. Her mother figure looks like she’s been to hell and back, but she’s back, so she forgoes the explanations in favor of offering her some physical comfort. She feels Clarke grip her tightly in return, one hand curling into her hair at the back of her head just like when she was a child. “I missed you. I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“Me too, Madi,” Clarke responds fervently. The tone is too heavy for a victory, however, and Madi pulls back to look at the rest of the group, looking for who could be missing.

She gets distracted almost immediately when she spots Bellamy just a few steps behind Clarke, clean-shaven and wearing the same ridiculous white robe as the man who stood by Octavia, but very much healthy and alive.

“Bellamy!” she jumps at him next, greeting him with the same enthusiasm as she did Clarke. She touches his jaw, commenting, “Now this is what I was expecting when you came down from space. Better late than never.” She laughs, so unbelievably relieved after the afternoon she’s had, before hugging him fiercely and whispering in his ear, “Thank you for bringing my mom home. Again.”

He makes a choking sound that barely registers as she hugs him a bit tighter. She maintains the embrace for a beat longer before realizing his hold on her is weak at best. When she pulls back, she notices the pained look on his face, and let’s go immediately.

“Are you okay?” she asks worriedly, just as the rest of the group catches up to them.

Bellamy’s eyes dart to Clarke, but he doesn’t get a chance to respond before Murphy slings an arm around Madi’s shoulder, pulling her into his side and effectively stepping between her and Bellamy as he inserts himself into the conversation.

“Uh oh, I sense some tension,” he says in his usual blunt fashion, eyes fluttering between Bellamy and Clarke.

“Huh?” Madi asks, reassessing them. This time she notices the way Bellamy is closest to Clarke, but still awkward, and how he’s set apart entirely from the rest of the group. “Oh,” she says quietly, the absurd outfit suddenly taking on a new meaning.

Murphy catches her gaze and nods. “Yeah. Could’ve been a ploy, another Mt. Weather hero mission. I mean, why mess with the classics, right?” Madi flinches and looks at Clarke to see if she’s okay. Her mom never really did get over Mt Weather, not even years later. Murphy continues uncaring of the damage he may have just caused and turns his attention on Bellamy, his voice sardonic but his look razor-sharp. “Except that I nearly got Clarke killed and no one is looking at me the way they’re looking at you. So, come on, share with the rest of the class. What did the great Bellamy Blake do that was so bad that your family can’t stand to look at you?”

“Enough, Murphy,” Clarke scolds tiredly. Bellamy hangs his head in what looks like shame but doesn’t try to defend. A quick survey of the group shows Raven looking away in anger, Echo’s face devoid of any emotion, and sympathy etched into Octavia’s features with everyone else somewhere in between. “We have some things to discuss, but not here, alright? Let’s get back inside first.”

Despite the clear tension in the air, no one questions her and everyone begins the trek back up the hill. Clarke lags behind, her arm thrown over Madi’s shoulder while Madi clings to her waist. The profound relief Madi feels in the moment is beyond words, so she simply snuggles further into her mother’s side as they make their way back. As their journey continues, however, the worried glances being thrown at Clarke become too much for Madi to ignore.

She tries to look back at Bellamy, who has taken up the rear. He isn’t looking at them, however, choosing to keep his head down as he stares at their moving feet, shadowing them. When she looks back at the group in front of them and sees the wide range of suspicious and angry looks cast in her direction, she can almost understand why.

It’s obvious that Bellamy did something bad as Murphy pointed out, but she assumed it couldn’t have been that bad. After all, Clarke came back with him, and she allowed Madi to hug him. More telling is that she is allowing Bellamy at her back when Madi knows he has a gun; she felt it when she hugged him.

It just doesn’t make sense.

What the hell happened?

The answer to her most pressing question doesn’t come swiftly. In fact, she’d be hard-pressed to say it really comes at all.

She finds out in the initial meeting that things went to hell almost as soon as they made it to Bardo, and that Bill Cadogan is to blame. Something about wanting the flame for a lot of reasons, but mostly because his daughter was the one who passed it on after Becca’s death. The information provided is limited at best, but she learns that Bill is now dead. She doesn’t really need to know much else about that.

Things are clearly not quite right within their little family, though. Raven, who Madi adores but also knows has been treating Clarke like shit for far too long, has pulled a one-eighty. The animosity she used to reserve for Clarke has suddenly evaporated and is now being directed at Bellamy. Octavia seems like a new person, more like a mix between who she was in Clarke’s stories and the paternal version of Bellamy that Madi has seen. Echo avoids looking at him entirely. Miller treats him with stoicism, neither avoiding him nor reaching out, but that’s a far cry from before as well. Murphy is antagonistic, but that’s nothing new, while Emori balances him out with her openness.

Meanwhile, Bellamy takes Raven’s derision. He avoids Octavia, but in a way that suggests he’s afraid of her rather than angry with her like before. In the brief moments he looks at Echo, he looks guilty but not wounded. He accepts whatever treatment he is given, except for Emori, whose kindness he avoids as if it pains him to receive it. Mostly, he sticks to the other outsiders. Well, not all of them, he avoids Diyoza’s daughter Hope as thoroughly as he avoids the rest of Spacekru.

When they are all offered homes as a sign of good faith between the Sanctumites and the other groups, he moves in with the man in white, whose name she comes to find is Levitt. Levitt seems friendly enough, in Madi’s opinion. He clearly cares for Octavia, judging by the moon-eyes he gives her everywhere she goes, and the respect Clarke gives him is more than enough endorsement for Madi to accept him.

She can see why Bellamy is most at ease with the man; he’s the most understanding, with a level head and zero expectations of any of them. He’s nowhere near as comfortable with her and Clarke, if she’s being honest, though he spends a significant amount of time with them as well. She’s certain he wants to run from them the way he has their other friends, but neither of them will let him. Madi wants to actually help him, but she doesn’t know how to do that without knowing what happened.

Not that she can fault anyone for not explaining. They don’t seem to be actively hiding it so much as there just hasn’t been time.

In that initial meeting, they were told that Levitt put all the anomaly stones on a timer for their escape. Once the window closed, all six stones went offline to help slow down anyone who might try to follow them while simultaneously causing confusion about where they might have gone. It’s possible to get them back on remotely, but it requires tech that they don’t have set up here in Sanctum. Raven, Jordan, Gabriel, and Levitt are working on it, but the stone needs to be dug out and moved to the palace before they can really begin.

Murphy and Emori, with the help of Indra, filled in the rest of the group about what they missed in Sanctum and the power struggle that erupted. It’s quickly gotten better since then. Miller, Niylah, Gaia, Octavia, Echo, and Indra have been working together trying to figure out what each group needs to feel comfortable while maintaining the peace, and Clarke has been facilitating formal meetings and negotiations between the various groups, but the disquiet Sheidheda fostered in the wake of the fall of the Primes has been slow to settle.

The rise and fall of the Dark Commander in Sanctum clearly had shaken Clarke. Particularly because she missed all of it, leaving Madi at risk. It’s clear to Madi that Clarke is still struggling with the news by her constant hovering and worried glances. Part of her wonders if she would have been included in all the meetings if not for the fact that Clarke doesn’t seem to want to leave her alone for any extended length of time, but she doesn’t let the thought linger. The truth is that after everything, she feels better having Clarke close too. For all that they are together though, they don’t seem to have any significant time alone, so it comes as no surprise when Clarke pulls her aside at the first opportunity.

On the third day following the group's return, Delilah’s parents’ tavern is a hive of activity as they all move their things out of the rooms upstairs and into their new homes. Everyone in their group is there, but so are a surprising number of Wonkru and Sanctum members, even a few Eligius crew members to Madi’s surprise. At first, it seems counterintuitive when Clarke pulls her down the hall that leads to the supply closet to talk, but then it makes sense; amidst all the noise and the people, no one is paying attention to them today. It’s a first since Clarke returned.

“What’s up? Don’t tell me you need a break already. You’re not that old,” she teases, hoping to get Clarke to lighten up.

It doesn’t work. Though Clarke tries to produce a smile for her, it comes out as more of a grimace.

“I wanted to check on you. It’s been a crazy few days. I’m sorry we haven’t really had the chance to talk,” she says pained.

Madi rolls her eyes. Clarke has been busy, but in a necessary and productive way, not in the way that she was before where she was trying to avoid her feelings. “It’s fine, really. You’re here. Besides, I’ve got my schoolwork and my friends, anyway. There’s a lot to catch up on.”

Clarke’s expression softens, a hint of a genuine relief in her eyes as her lips quirk. “How’s that going?”

“Really well,” Madi smiles, not even having to fake her exuberance. “It’s not even hard, honestly. I’m lucky - you were a good teacher.”

For a second, Clarke looks proud, but it quickly peters out, a frown taking its place. Madi sighs, “I’m fine, really. Stop worrying so much.”

“But Sheidheda -”

“Is gone. I made sure of it.”

“You shouldn’t have had to,” Clarke insists angrily, though Madi knows that anger is directed inwardly. It lingers only for a moment before tears glisten in Clarke’s eyes. It startles her; Clarke has always been unerringly strong, except in the direst of times. Without having to think about it, she pulls her into a fierce hug. Clarke’s voice is choked with emotion as she speaks into her hair, “I’m so sorry, Madi. I should have been here. I shouldn’t have left you.”

Her mom squeezes her tighter with each uttered lament and she’d be tempted to complain – it's starting to hurt – but Clarke clearly needs this. Hell, Madi needs this too. She wasn’t the only one in danger.

“It’s okay,” she reassures her. “You didn’t leave me alone. They took care of me.” She hesitates, unsure how to phrase the next part. “It doesn’t sound like you can say the same.”

Clarke sniffles a little, giving a weak attempt at a laugh as she pulls back. “You don’t need to worry about that. I’m here now, and I’m not leaving you again.”

“Clarke,” Madi warns.

“I mean it. We’re staying together from now on, no matter what.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she shoots back in exasperation.

Clarke hesitates, looking out the window.

“What happened with Bellamy?” Madi asks cautiously.

Clarke closes her eyes, looking defeated for a moment, before opening them again slowly wearing a tired expression. The reaction makes her feel terrible for posing the question at all – Bellamy has always been Clarke’s soft spot, and she doesn’t want to upset her – but it’s the only thing she’s garnered for sure. Whatever happened, Bellamy was at the center of it.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s over and done with now.”

“That’s not true and you know it. They’re treating him –” she trips over her words for a beat before going for it, “they’re treating him like they treated you!”

Clarke’s eyes widen before she softens, touching Madi’s arm gently. “Madi -”

“No,” she cuts her off. “I don’t want to hear it. You know it’s true. I saw it, but I stayed out of it. I had to. I was the commander. I couldn’t be the little girl clinging to her mom.” Clarke exhales sharply like she’s had the air knocked out of her lungs, and it’s Madi’s turn to soften and reach out. “I don’t have to do that anymore, and I don’t want to watch it again. You didn’t deserve that. I’d like to believe that Bellamy doesn’t either, but I can’t know unless you tell me about it.”

“He doesn’t,” Clarke admits softly. She wraps an arm around Madi’s shoulders but looks out the window again as she speaks. “It’s not – things aren’t as simple as everyone likes to pretend. There was a line drawn, one I refused to cross, and Bellamy was on the other side, but he didn’t cross it either.” She zones out for a moment, her face twisted with an emotion Madi can’t quite identify, but she doesn’t elaborate.

“I don’t get it.”

Clarke startles as if she forgot they were having a conversation and looks down at her. “We disagreed on what needed to be done, but we agreed on the most important part,” she squeezes Madi’s shoulder for emphasis, “and that’s all that matters.”

Madi takes a moment to consider it. She still doesn’t know anything, but the little bit that has been spoken seems to have exhausted her mom, so she lets her curiosity go for now.

“So, you and Bellamy are fine, then? All is forgiven?”

Clarke hesitates a beat too long before nodding. Madi frowns at the incongruency. Clarke forgave Bellamy for the flame, even though she said she wouldn’t, and she sounded sincere before.

“What is it?” she asks. Madi gives her a minute, but when Clarke chews on her lip instead of responding she nudges her and says with an encouraging smile, “Come on. You can tell me.”

Clarke's eyes flash to her, but the look is gone just as quickly, her eyes back on the window before she seems to shrink in on herself. Quietly, she says, “I didn’t even give him a chance. I know it hurt him.”

Madi’s brow furrows in confusion. It’s not a lot to go on, but it doesn’t seem like Clarke is going to give anything else up today, so she settles for asking, “Did you apologize?”

Clarkes pauses, nodding infinitesimally.

“Then I’m sure he’s forgiven you,” Madi consoles her. The idea that he wouldn’t is ludicrous. “You always forgive each other.”

“Is that even a question?” Murphy’s sardonic voice comes from behind them, drawing their attention. His tone is the same as ever, but the look in his eye is intent in a way that she’s rarely seen. “They always do. You can't reach those levels of dysfunction unless you keep going back." He pauses, glancing at Clarke before looking back at her. “That’s not why I’m here, though. I need to talk to your mom, kiddo.”

“I’m sure I’ll live without hearing whatever it is, Murphy.”

“Yeah? Well, I’m not. And judging by the guilty and concerned looks everyone’s been throwing at you, it doesn’t seem like anyone else is sure either.”

Clarke stiffens, casting a glance at her, before looking back at Murphy and nodding minutely.

Madi isn't sure she wants to know, the sinking feeling in her gut warning her to run, so she doesn't fight it when Clarke turns back to her and says, “Just give me a moment, okay, and then we’ll go home. We can do something fun tonight.”

She forces a smile on her face and rolls her eyes for effect but takes the escape and walks quickly down the hall back to the table to collect her things.

It isn't fast enough to miss Murphy's irritated, “Damn it, Clarke. You can't keep pulling this shit. Do you have any idea what it would do to -"

She walks a little faster, away from discussions of their pasts and back to the hustle and bustle of the tavern as they take the next step toward building a future here.

Moonlight filters through the open window along with a slight breeze, keeping her just cool enough to keep her blanket on while she sketches. She doesn’t want to turn on the light and risk alerting Clarke to her wakefulness. Clarke has enough to worry about. She’s trying to hide it, Madi knows that she is, but there’s no denying the strain of whatever it is between her and Bellamy has only grown in the last few days. And then there’s whatever Murphy said to her. Madi is sure that he meant to help, and hopefully, he did. For now, though, it just seems like Clarke feels even more pressure to be okay even when she's clearly not.

Letting out a sigh, she focuses back on the sketchbook in her lap. Madi often does this, the dreams of memories that aren’t her own are best expelled through her artwork. If she can just get them out onto the page, then they’re quick to leave her alone without her having to think too hard about them. It’s not that she couldn’t concentrate on untangling the web of information that the glimpses provide, it’s just that it’s usually more effort than it’s worth. Most of it is completely irrelevant to the life she’s living now.

Occasionally, like this night, the dreams are more than just glimpses, rounded out into fullness when a relevant stimulus is presented to her. Today, it was DNA. She’d never had much use to learn about it, not from her birth parents and not back in the valley with Clarke, nor had any of her experiences as commander required the knowledge to come forward, but learning about it today had sparked a treasure trove of information from Becca. It appears that almost all of Becca’s knowledge was in the flame and that a great deal of it resides in Madi’s mind now but will only come forth when summoned.

It’s interesting. A neat trick. Only mildly terrifying; the commanders did not live easy lives, and she can only imagine some of the horrors that could be lurking unseen in the depths of her brain. Still, she thinks it will be okay; she isn’t planning on putting herself in any kind of position that would spark the darker commander memories.

It’s not a big deal – not to her at least – but she knows her mom, and she knows that Clarke would worry. Clarke has more than enough to deal with without being concerned about something that Madi has handled. Sometimes, she thinks that Clarke spends far too much time worrying about others and not nearly enough worrying about herself.

She heard Clarke wake an hour ago, familiar as she is with her mother’s patterns. Had she been asleep herself, she probably would have missed it – Clarke doesn’t wake from nightmares with shouts or screams, but rather with a near-silent intake of breath, as if even in sleep she is afraid of being discovered – but as it was, she was awake to hear Clarke make her way out onto the front porch. If Madi were to follow her, she’s sure she’d see Clarke laying back and staring at the sky. Back on Earth, Clarke used to look for the Ring, for Bellamy, but now she thinks it’s just habit.

This has become their routine in the days that have followed their move. Clarke watches the sky, searching for things she cannot find in the stars instead of seeking them out on the ground where they truly lie. Madi lies awake, worrying about Clarke while she expels all her foreign memories through art therapy. It's normal for them, even if it’s a bit sad.

At least they’re calm and safe. No one is on guard waiting for an attack. They’re just... quirky, she decides. It could be worse; they could be dead.

Tonight is not normal, she quickly realizes, her heart rate spiking as she hears the pounding of feet running at a dead sprint toward their house. It wouldn’t be so disconcerting if they weren’t at the end of the row - the furthest from the center of the village and the palace as they could get – there's no reason for anyone to come here unless something has gone terribly wrong.

She’s tempted to run out to the porch and join Clarke, but she forces herself to remain still. If someone has come with a warning, Clarke will come to get her before she leaves. If someone is coming for them, she’ll have the advantage If she’s hidden from sight.

Quietly, she gets out of bed, slipping on her shoes and grabbing her poisoned knife, as she tiptoes to the opened window. From this angle, she can just barely see the porch, but it’s clear enough to let her know what she's facing.

The silhouette at the bottom of the steps is one she recognizes beyond a doubt, and she breathes a sigh of relief. Bellamy. Even if he’s come with bad news, she feels comforted by his presence alone.

He and Clarke are speaking, but she can’t hear them beyond the timbre of their voices. Since she has no reason to hide from him, she returns her knife to its spot on the end-table, planning to join them outside before she hears the front door open and Clarke’s concerned voice.

“I don’t believe you,” she says bluntly. “Now get in here before we wake Madi up with this back and forth.”

His reply is unintelligible, but she hears the soft creak of the floorboards as he walks in.

“Now tell me what happened. You look like hell.” He must look bad; Madi can hear the worry in Clarke’s voice from here.

“Everything’s fine. Really. I didn’t mean to scare you. I didn’t think you’d be awake.” There’s a pause before he asks, “Why are you awake?”

“Why are you awake?” she shoots back.

Bellamy’s voice takes on a teasing note, though it sounds forced, “I asked you first.”

“I like looking at the stars,” Clarke replies dryly. “Your turn."

“What kind of stars?” Bellamy asks, clearly intent on avoiding the topic. Several minutes pass without Clarke saying anything, long enough for Madi to know that she’s gone from mildly exasperated to genuinely irritated. Bellamy must know it too. He lets out a sigh so loud that she can hear it from down the hall and then finally starts to explain, “I had a nightmare.”

Clarke says quietly, “I get that.”

“You too?” he asks gently.

Clarke hums in affirmation. Madi can barely hear it, but she would recognize the sound anywhere, can imagine the feeling of how it vibrates in Clarke’s chest when she would rest her head there when they used to cuddle by the fire in the valley. It’s something that she does to comfort herself when saying the words feels like too much.

Silence descends between them. She thinks that maybe, in the past, they would have known what to say to comfort one another. Or maybe she’s wrong, and they don’t need words. She’s tempted to crack the door open a little further and try to see, but she refrains, removing her shoes and slipping back into bed.

Clarke and Bellamy need this – not only each other but time alone together to sort out all the things that have been keeping them apart.

The truth is that Madi needs them, and they’re better together.

As far as Madi knows, the idea of a dinner where all the remaining members of the 100, and their significant others, of course, was proposed almost as soon as everyone returned and in that time. there has been at least one gathering, if not more, but this is the first time that Clarke must decide to accept the invitation. Madi had tried to get her to go last week, but Clarke had claimed that she just wanted to spend time with her and well, Madi wasn’t going to argue with that. It was nice to have some time with only the two of them.

Still, part of her wonders why they are here now. Especially, when it feels like no one actually wants to be here. Murphy and Emori are sitting beside her, the former eyeing everyone with disdain as he seems to try and avoid the alcohol in his glass while Jackson, sitting beside Miller across the table, glares back at him without restraint. Octavia is across from where she sits, Levitt on one side of her and Hope on the other, alternating between watching her brother subtly and avoiding his gaze. Raven, on the other hand, isn’t attempting for subtle as all, sending dig after dig in Bellamy’s direction.

So far, the entire conversation has been maintained by her, Hope and Jorden, trying as the next generation without a literal century of baggage between them, to add some levity to the room, but if the tense set of Clarke’s shoulders as she picks at her food is anything to go by, it’s not working. Jorden sends her a questioning look and she just shrugs her shoulders, stabbing a potato on her plate with unnecessary force when Raven makes a remark about Bellamy’s silence.

She doesn’t know why they are here, why any of them are here, but especially her and Clarke until she sees Bellamy lean over and whisper something into Clarke’s ear out of the corner of her eye. Clarke seems hesitant, Bellamy seems insistent, both of them in their own little world until finally Clarke lets out a soft sigh, a small smile on her face, and takes what Madi thinks most be her first bite of food.

After that it’s still tense, Octavia is still uncertain and Raven remains moody, but Clarke seems much more relaxed, and that finally explains why they are here to her. They are here because Bellamy is here. The thought brings the first true smile to her face. It’s a good reason to sit through an awkward dinner; probably the best reason.

It’s not until after the meal is over, and she overhears Levitt asking how Bellamy is, remarking his surprise that he showed up after what conspired the night before, that Madi realizes that Bellamy is here for the exact same reason. Where Clarke goes, Bellamy goes and where Bellamy goes, Clarke does.

Shaking her head, Madi leaves Bellamy, Clarke, and Levitt to talk about whatever happened last night. It was good they were here, she decides as she looks around the crowded tavern; being here is part of how Bellamy and Clarke get everyone they love back. She would have been okay though if they had actually managed to talk to each other and agreed to have dinner just the three of them back at the house. She shakes her head again in exasperation as she makes her way over to Murphy, maybe someday Bellamy and Clarke will figure out how to talk to each other, but for now, she’ll just be glad that everyone is here.

Days pass and while she doesn’t hear Bellamy and Clarke again, thanks to a spree of nightmare-free nights for her, she suspects that the same routine has played out each night. She can’t be sure though, until a few days later when she is once again awakened by foreign memories just in time to hear pounding feet once more. Now that she knows who to listen for, Madi can pick out his tread immediately. She smiles to herself, forgoing her sketching ritual for the moment, and silently makes her way over to the window, unsurprised to see Clarke already outside.

“You’re up again,” she hears him say, his steps slowing to a stop.

“And you’re here,” Clarke replies, giving nothing away. She doesn’t invite him inside this time, seemingly confident that he really is fine, in the physical sense at least. “I figured you would be, after what Levitt said.”

There’s tension in Bellamy’s voice, maybe even apprehension, when he responds, “So you were waiting for me?”

“No. I had another nightmare,” she says plainly, but her voice takes on a sadness that Madi is all too familiar with as she continues, “I have them every night. This is what I do when I can’t sleep.”

Madi can’t help feeling a bit proud of her, knowing how much effort it must have taken for her to admit it. She’s not sure she’s ever seen Clarke willingly be so vulnerable. Bellamy, for all that he is good and caring, disappoints her a little by not returning that openness.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Do you want to talk about yours?” she counters.

“Not really.” She can hear the shrug in his voice. “Why do you come out here?”

“I told you, I like to look at the stars.”

“But why?” he presses.

“I used to do it back on Earth. After Praimfaya,” she admits. I used to look for you, Madi knows she isn’t saying, though she hopes Bellamy understands. Apparently, he used to be good at that, hearing the words Clarke couldn’t bring herself to say. “Why do you come here after yours?”

“I needed to know that you were okay,” he says reluctantly.

“Why?” It seems it’s Clarke’s turn to push.

He sighs again, another one of those bone-weary exhales, and says lowly, “You died, Clarke. Strapped down in the chair with Levitt at the controls while I just watched. I didn’t stop it and you died right in front of me.”

Madi’s heart swells and breaks simultaneously. She hates hearing him sound so broken, but she’s glad that he’s allowing himself this and that he’s trusting Clarke with it. It’s progress, for both of them, and she thinks they’ll both be better off for it.

“Hey,” Clarke says gently, “that didn’t happen, alright? You stopped it.”

“But it could have!” he nearly shouts, startling her. Clarke quickly shushes him and she holds her breath when silence falls, assuming they’re listening to see if he woke her.

“I’m sorry,” he says so quietly that she has to strain to hear him now. “I just – it was so close, Clarke. So close. And all those other times? You never should have had to go through that. Alone. Even when I was here, you were alone with that. How did I not see it?”

She hears movement and Clarke hushing him more gently this time, murmuring things she can’t hear. Eventually, she hears her say more clearly, “I’m sorry too. You shouldn’t have had to see that. I wish you hadn’t.”

“Don’t,” he says pained and forceful. “Please don’t apologize. I never should have seen that, but not because of my feelings,” he says it as though the very idea offends him. “Those were your memories, your private thoughts. I shouldn’t have been there, digging through them. I never should have – I'm so sorry.”

“I know. I’m sorry for a lot of things too. We’ve both made a lot of mistakes. All we can do is try to be better.”

“Think we’ll get there?” he questions.

“I still have hope,” she says, and Madi can hear the smile in her voice. “We’re still breathing, after all.”

Bellamy lets out a small huff of laughter. “That we are.”

Madi wonders if either of them realized the way their voices curl around the word “we” like a caress in a way that makes it seem like they’re the only two people in existence. Continuing to listen suddenly feels like an intrusion on something intimate, so she closes the window and slips back into bed again, picking up her sketchbook. Only this time she doesn’t draw a memory from the flame, or even a memory at all. Instead, as she puts her pencil to the paper, she details her hopes for the future, her, Bellamy, and Clarke until finally, she drifts off to sleep once more, a small smile on her lips.

The next day, Bellamy moves his things into their place.

Clarke moves into Madi’s room. That night, hearing her mom’s steady breathing from the cot beside her bed reminds her of years past, those nights spent in the valley with nothing but each other, and helps lull her to sleep. Still, she wakes up a few hours later, unfamiliar people and places alive behind her eyelids.

When Clarke explained the change, Madi had wondered if having her around was going to disturb her habit of sketching out her dreams, or at the very least, mean that she wouldn’t be able to keep the dreams a secret any longer, but when she wakes that first night, Clarke is nowhere to be found.

As she creeps out into the living room, she expects to hear their soft murmurs coming down the hall, but instead, she finds them both upright and asleep on the couch, legs and arms pressed together; their heads resting side by side. Madi slips back into her and Clarke’s room, warmth in her heart and a smile on her lips.

It doesn’t surprise her in the slightest. What does come as a shock is when she wakes the next morning to find they both slept through the night like that. It’s not the position – Clarke looked far more relaxed asleep against Bellamy than Madi has ever seen her – but simply the fact that Clarke made it through the night. Madi wasn’t sure she was even capable of that anymore.

Bellamy’s eyes snap open when Madi steps on a creaky floorboard, however, and she realizes that he must have been awake for some time. He’s certainly aware of the position he’s in if his wide eyes and guilty expression, when he sees her are any indication. She smiles warmly, hoping to put him at ease. He returns the gesture sheepishly, holding up a single finger and mouthing silently, “One minute.”

She nods in understanding, creeping into the kitchen to get breakfast before school while she waits.

“Hey,” he says clumsily when he manages to join her.

Madi peeks around him, surprised to see that Clarke is still asleep on the couch, tucked into a blanket with her face turned into what appears to be Bellamy’s pillow.

“Hey yourself,” she says with a grin.

He’s being awkward, and she just wishes he wouldn’t. This doesn’t have to be weird. It doesn’t have to be bad. She still doesn’t know what happened entirely, but she’d like to think they could all find a way to appreciate the fact that they’re all in the same place for once and that everyone but Diyoza survived their last mission.

They’ve lost enough people to be squandering opportunities like this.

“Look,” she says sternly. Well, she thinks it’s stern, but the amused light that’s been absent since they come back glints in his eye as he looks at her seems to indicate otherwise. When she realizes how she’s standing – one hand propped on her hip with the other pointing at him disapprovingly, she realizes that she probably looks ridiculous, but she rolls with it. At least she has his attention. “I don’t know what happened,” she sees his face fall slightly, but she carries on. He needs to hear this. “But... I know it doesn’t matter as much as you think it does.”

“Madi,” he cuts in. Everything about him, from his pained voice to his slumped shoulders, screams exhaustion and guilt. She’s not sure she can help with the former – she's pretty sure Clarke will take care of that given enough time – but she can help with the latter.

“Nope. Not interested,” she cuts him off swiftly, raising her hand for emphasis. He almost smiles. “Whatever happened – and I’m not saying it wasn’t bad – can't be as bad as you think, because Clarke has been eons better since you all came back.”

The confused, doubtful expression on his face frustrates her to no end – honestly, after the radio calls, how can he not get this? – but she bites it back. It’s become increasingly obvious that both Clarke and Bellamy are blind to the effect they have on one another.

She sighs while deciding how to explain it. It’s not something she likes to think about... her mom was dead, for all intents and purposes. Madi herself was being possessed by the Dark Commander. Abby died. Clarke nearly killed herself to bring Madi back, unable to take any more loss.

Clarke was a mess as she threw herself into leading, trying to hold Sanctum together in the aftermath, but she wouldn’t talk about it. Not to Madi anyway, no matter how hard she tried. And they had fought before Clarke had thrown herself into another mission to save someone else who she loved.

“It was hard on her,” she summarizes weakly. “She wasn’t in a good place, but I don’t think she knew how to face it. She buried herself in taking care of everyone else, but she wasn’t taking care of herself and no one else was looking out for her. I tried, but...” she shrugs. “I’m just her kid. She didn’t want me to worry.”

“You shouldn’t have had to,” he replies pained, “I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”

She shakes her head. “That’s not the point. You don’t – it’s not like – it’s not your responsibility to take care of her or anything. I just meant – you care about her. Her, not what she does or who she is around here. It helps. I can tell.”

“I’m... glad,” he finally settles on, but the thickness in his voice and the tightness around his eyes tells her that he still doesn’t understand.

“Good, because you’re going to screw it up if you keep holding onto whatever this is. You brought her home, isn’t that enough?”

He looks away quickly as if her words have burned him, shaking his head. He stares at the floor for a while, jaw clenched so tight she’s honestly concerned for the state of his teeth before finally letting out a sigh. “I didn’t bring her home, Madi. She brought me.”

He says it like an admission, a shameful one.

“I don’t think that’s actually true,” she replies surely, though it’s tinged with sadness too. “When you weren’t with the returning group, they tried to tell me. I know Clarke wasn’t supposed to make it back, that no one believed she would because she didn’t plan on it.” She swallows thickly, trying to push down the distress she still feels at the thought. “And I believe it because they said she was doing it for me. You’re the only thing that could have stopped her.”

“I -” he stutters, takes a deep breath, and shakes his head. He won’t meet her eyes. “She never would have been in the position to choose if it weren’t for me.”

“I don’t care.” He looks at her in surprise at the venom in her voice. “I don’t care, because it’s over and done and things are better now. We’re getting there, and we’re going to be happy. All of us.”

She grabs her school bag, throws it over her shoulder, and makes to leave. At the last moment, she throws over her shoulder, “She forgave you, just like you’ve forgiven her. You both need to forgive yourselves too.”

With that parting shot, she leaves him to his thoughts. He’s an idiot, but Clarke isn't much better. They need each other, and if they’re unwilling to see it, she’s not averse to pushing them in the right direction.

The tavern is busy when she arrives immediately after school, a cacophony of noise greeting her as she steps through the door. Bellamy and Clarke are probably in meetings, but in case they’re not, she’d rather not talk to either of them right now. She wants them to talk to each other, first, and she’s hoping that they will if she stays out for a bit. (It’s a useless, foolish hope, but she can dream.) It seems at least one of their group is always in the tavern, so she should have someone to hang out with. Sure enough, she spots Murphy almost immediately and makes her way over to join him.

She realizes too late that Raven is also there.

Raven smiles at her when she hesitantly takes her seat, greeting her with a genial, “Hey Madi. How’s it going?”

Madi likes Raven. She respects her genius and knows from Clarke’s tales that none of them would still be here without her brilliance, but she’s been increasingly annoyed with her as of late. Raven is always pleasant toward her, but the same cannot be said for others. It seems like the older woman is always mad at someone, and she never shies away from letting them know. Too often, that someone is a person Madi cares about.

“Fine,” she replies succinctly, still hesitating as she decides whether to sit or to flee.

Murphy eyes her speculatively. “Where’s Clarke? Didn’t think she’d let you out of her sight after the Shady thing.”

Madi shrugs. “Busy, I guess.”

Raven scowls. “She’s probably with Bellamy,” she says with disgust.

Madi clenches her fist, staring at the table.

This is why she doesn’t want to be around Raven right now. The venom is too much. She’s constantly taking stabs at Bellamy, particularly when he can hear her. Madi has watched countless times as Bellamy has withdrawn into himself while Raven twists the knife further and Clarke runs herself ragged trying to fix the damage she inflicts.

Raven begins to speak again, the cruel set of her mouth all the indication Madi needs to know that she’s going to take another dig at Bellamy, and Madi snaps. Her fist comes down on the table as she glares at Raven.

It clearly startles the other woman, who asks with widened eyes, “You alright there, Madi?”

“I’m fine. We all are, so you can stop with all the bullshit. We get it: you’re pissed. Either get over it or keep your mouth shut.”

Raven’s eyes narrow, studying her as if she’s never seen her before. There’s tension in her jaw, words clearly being held back, but she doesn’t retort. She just nods tightly. “Right,” she says tersely, turning to Murphy and bidding him goodbye. “See you later.”

She heads to the bar, to settle her tab Madi assumes, and Murphy wastes no time before prodding her.

“Damn kid, what’s got you so worked up?”

“Nothing,” she huffs, dropping her bag onto the table and sinking into her seat with a huff and pressing her fingers into her temples.
“Right,” he drawls, casting her an appraising look. He raises an eyebrow at her. “Because the frazzled vibe and messy hair scream ‘I’m fine’.”

She immediately checks her braids, but they’re fine. He smirks and she scowls at him. “I’m a teenager. I’m allowed to be moody. It’s expected."

“Nope, sorry, wrong answer, I’ve got the patent on irritable and unapproachable, but sure, whatever you say.”

She glares at him, but he just shrugs, taking a swig of his drink. It’s embarrassing how quickly she caves.

With a sigh, she admits. “Clarke and Bellamy are exhausting.”

“Water is wet,” he replies.

“What?”

“Are we not stating the obvious?” he asks with a raised brow. She crosses her arms at him and purses her lips, entirely unimpressed. “Alright, alright. Fine. What exactly has finally made you catch on to what the rest of us have known for over a century?”

“Very funny,” she huffs.

Just then she catches a glimpse of Raven’s stormy expression as she leaves the tavern, and Madi’s scowl returns. She’s so done with all the unnecessary drama. Murphy notices.

“He isn’t perfect, you know,” Murphy says with a smirk. It isn’t a reprimand, but the look he’s giving her is a challenge.

“I know that,” she snaps, still irritated by Raven’s comments.

“Do you?” he raises a brow at her. “Because Bellamy’s done a lot of fucked up shit, that I’m willing to bet Clarke never told you about.”

“Clarke doesn’t keep things from me.”

“I’m not saying she does.”

“She told me about you and Charlotte, the grounders, the bomb at TonDC, Mount Weather, leaving you all and staying in Polis, the nightblood and Emori, about the bunker and Bellamy-”

“Ah-ah,” Murphy cuts in, holding up a finger at her in consternation. “You missed a bit of history there. Did she tell you about what Bellamy did with Pike? About the massacre?”

Her shock must show because he smirks.

“Yeah, didn’t think so. Clarke’s always had a blind spot when it comes to Bellamy's faults.”

“That’s not true.”

Murphy scoffs. “You sure about that? Because Bellamy massacred hundreds of sleeping grounders and then handcuffed her to a chair when she had the audacity to suggest that following Pike was a terrible idea. This all happened after she left him though so I’m sure she found a way to blame herself for it too.”

Madi flinches. She has heard that story, but not like that. Clarke told her how she left them after Mount Weather, how selfish it was. and how much she regretted it. Bellamy’s part had been relegated to that of a man who had been left floundering, trying to protect everyone without any help, who had fallen under the command of Pike, a man he didn’t realize couldn’t be trusted until too late. She told her that they had disagreed, but not that he handcuffed her and left her behind.

Everything Clarke has ever told her shifts as she tries to look at it through a new light.

She’s told her some terrible and horrifying stories, truth be told. Clarke never seemed to hold back when she told Madi about the things she’d done, telling the long and detailed accounts of every crime she’d ever committed in a tone that was so heavy there was no hiding the burden of guilt she still carried for her actions. Clarke was always brutally honest about the fact that she wasn’t the heroine in her own story, simply someone who did what she felt she had to do at the time.

Until now, she’d never noticed how different those tales were from the ones she told about Bellamy, even though she knew intellectually that he had been by Clarke’s side most of the time.

The Bellamy in Clarke’s stories was a hero; he was a protector, a knight, a revolutionary, fighting back against injustice. He was reactionary and righteous, but he had a heart of gold that couldn’t be matched. Clarke was so unerringly honest in what she shared that it never occurred to her to question those accounts, which seems foolish in retrospect.

Clarke loves Bellamy. Of course, he would be the hero to her villain. Murphy's right - it wouldn’t have even been a lie, in Clarke’s mind. That’s truly the way Clarke sees them.

It’s a sad realization.

Clarke is so much more than she gives herself credit for, and Bellamy is her equal; he’s far from perfect, but still no less worthy.

She lets her head fall to the table with a thump and groans aloud in frustration.

They’re such idiots.

Murphy squeezes her shoulder, the gesture sympathetic but his words sarcastic. “Welcome to the club, kid. We have support meetings every Wednesday at 9.”

Madi resolves to be patient after her conversation with Murphy. Clarke and Bellamy, as it turns out, are a lot more complicated than she thought. And that’s saying something. She doesn’t push them anymore even though their longing stares when they think the other isn’t looking are just as ridiculous as always. Instead, she decides to give them some time to sort their lives out for themselves.

This afternoon, Octavia stopped her on her way home from school to let her know about a soccer game the grounder children were organizing. She jumped at the opportunity to join them, not only because it sounded like fun, but also to give Clarke and Bellamy a little space. Octavia smiled at her warmly when she accepted the offer, clearly pleased, and directed Madi to the proper field, saying she’d let Clarke know where she was.

It was amazing, honestly, and she’s riding the high of her team’s win as she makes her way back home. Her mood dampening slightly as she anticipates what’s probably waiting for her back at the house.

It’s frustrating, borderline painful sometimes to watch Clarke and Bellamy dance uncertainly around each other.

To her intense relief and surprise, however, she’s greeted by Clarke’s light laughter floating from the kitchen when she opens the door. She drops her bag immediately and makes her way toward the sound with a smile on her face, thrilled to hear Clarke happy again. She stops just before the doorway though, pausing to lean around it and observe the two in action.

“Bellamy, stop,” Clarke says, but there’s absolutely no heat behind the command. In fact, the grin she wears as she watches Bellamy is fuller than Madi thinks she’s ever seen, “you’re making a mess.”

“I’m making art,” Bellamy retorts, looking up from whatever he’s working on, and Madi is shocked to find almost no trace of the beat down man she is used to seeing.

“You call that art?” Clarke teases back. She reaches over to grab what it is, but Bellamy moves out of her reach before she’s able. “I can’t even tell what it’s supposed to be. Here, let me see if I can salvage it.”

Bellamy gasps in a truly ridiculous imitation of horror, the hand he dramatically places on his chest leaving a smear behind on his shirt. “How dare you?! They are beautiful. Yours will be done cooling in a few minutes and then we’ll see how you fare.”

“Or you could just give me one of yours to start on, and I’ll replace it after,” she cajoles.

“That’s not how a contest works, Clarke,” he deadpans, putting whatever it is back down on the counter. “You can’t just take my product and then claim it for yourself. That’s called cheating.”

She rolls her eyes, but Madi can tell that she’s trying to bite back a smile, and, for once, it seems like she’s not going to be successful. For once, happiness and joy are going to win out over seriousness and stoicism. Madi watches with rapt attention as Clarke opens her mouth with a retort, intrigued to see what’s coming next, but she doesn’t get the chance.

Before Clarke can say anything, she is hit in the face with a puff of white powder. Flour, Madi wonders briefly before being pulled back to the exchange in front of her. Clarke blinks a few times while Bellamy grins back at her until finally, she lets out a huff, “You did not just do that.”

“Oh, I definitely did,” he says around a grin.

There’s a glimmer in each of their eyes as Clarke reaches behind her to grab something that makes Madi feel an awful lot like an intruder. While she’d love for them to finally figure their lives out and become the couple that she knows they both want to be, she has no desire to witness it happening. She steps back, intending to grab her backpack again and go find somewhere else to hang out for a while, but the unfamiliar floor creaks under her weight as she shifts.

“Madi!” Clarke says looking up, face still covered in flour and eyes still bright albeit in a different way, “Here, come help us.”

“What are you doing?” she asks, making her way into the kitchen feeling slightly torn. She wanted to give them their moment, but whatever they have going on in here seems to be fun, and she can’t say she’s not happy to get to be a part of it.

“Cake,” Bellamy answers easily, lifting a miniature cake off the board in front of him as evidence.

“Cake? What for?” Visions of the beautiful cakes and cookies on naming day flash before her eyes, and she suddenly starts to feel sick. That day started so well, with smiles and sugar, but it ended horribly. Since then, she hasn’t managed to eat any of the sweets from the tavern despite how tasty they looked.

“For your birthday,” Bellamy responds with a smile.

“... it’s not my birthday?”

Clarke cuts in, her smile equally as radiant, “Do you know that for sure? It could be. It can be.”

She looks between the two of them uncertainly for a second. Clarke is right, she doesn’t actually know when her birthday is; she didn’t know it when Clarke first found her, and while they established a day to celebrate it during their years in the valley, taking the day away from lessons and work to do whatever she wanted, she’s completely lost track of time since everyone returned. It might be her birthday, or it might not, but even if it is, does that mean anything special?

“It doesn’t have to be if you don’t want it too,” Bellamy says kindly, looking at her like he can see the conflicting thoughts inside her mind. “We just wanted a reason to celebrate…” he trails off, glancing at Clarke, “but maybe we don’t need a reason. Maybe the fact that we are all here is enough of a reason to spend the afternoon eating cake.”

Can it really be that easy? Can they just choose to be happy? Clarke nudges her shoulder against his, and he grins back at her like they are sharing some kind of inside joke which is enough to get her moving the rest of the way into the kitchen. They are happy, finally. She’s happy. They are all together, and the world doesn’t look like it’s going to end anytime soon. It’s everything she’s wanted.

Bellamy’s right, if that’s not a reason to celebrate she doesn’t know what is.

“Perfect!” Clarke says, bouncing into mom mode, handing her an apron, and then clearing a space for her at the counter.

“Okay,” Bellamy tells her once she’s settled beside him, “We’ve got icing, we’ve got sprinkles and here, take a mini cake.”

“They’re called cupcakes,” Clarke cuts in from across the room with her back to them, the tone of her voice making it clear that they have had this discussion multiple times already.

Bellamy grins at her conspiringly before raising his voice to Clarke, “But the term mini cakes makes so much more sense.”

Letting out a huff of exasperation, Clarke shakes her head fondly as she walks back towards them with another try in her hands, and Madi has to stifle her amusement at Bellamy’s antics. She turns to the cupcake in front of her, adding a swirl of icing loops around the edge so Clarke won’t see the grin on her face. She grabs another bag to give her flower a different colored center and then finishes it all off with a dusting of sprinkles.

“Looks great, Madi,” Bellamy tells her with a smile before turning to Clarke, “Okay, let’s see what you come up with, Clarke. After all that earlier, I expect something great.”

Clarke rolls her eyes, but before she can respond there’s a knock on the back door, and the atmosphere in the room instantly tenses, relaxing only slightly when Octavia pokes her head through the door. Or at least, she and Clarke relax, Bellamy suddenly seems incredible intent on icing another cupcake.

“Hey,” Octavia says slowly, eyes darting around the room before eventually settling on Clarke, “I was wondering what you three were up to tonight... but I can see your busy so I’ll just...”

She trails off and Madi knows that they are about to lose whatever positive momentum they had gained by her showing up. Bellamy has been here for days, and there have been no signs of Octavia coming around to talk to him; Madi’s not even sure that they have even really talked since everyone got back. They have one of those broken relationships that she knows better than to prod at most of the time, but she’s here and Madi knows how much happier Bellamy would be if he had his sister back so she makes an exception, “You should come and decorate with us.”

“You should,” Clarke agrees, and when Madi looks at her, she’s already looking back, a proud smile on her face rather than a disapproving one.

“Bell?”

“Yeah— yes, of course,” Bellamy says in a rush, finally looking up at the uncertainty in her voice, “Come hang out. There are lots of cupcakes. And icing. Sprinkles too. Clarke and I probably went a little overboard.” He stops suddenly, rubbing the back of his next awkwardly, “I would love for you to join us.”

A smile spreads across Octavia’s face as she steps into the room, bigger than Madi thinks she’s ever seen even though she eyes the stuff around them warily like she doesn’t know where to start. It's only then that Madi suddenly realizes that Octavia wasn’t around on naming day and all of this would be completely unfamiliar to her. Bellamy must realize it too because his jaw tightens in regret as Octavia asks, “Where do I start?”

Something must happen between Clarke and Bellamy, she doesn’t know what, they have a language all to themselves that she’s never been able to crack, but whatever it is must help because Bellamy manages to look back at Octavia, holding out his cake as an example, “Just put stuff on it like this.”

“Well not exactly like that,” Clarke adds on with a grin, “The goal is to make then look good.”

Bellamy lets out a surprised huff of laughter and it’s suddenly like before, light and happy; easy. “We can’t all be artists, Clarke.”

Hours later when she bites down on her third cupcake, the sound of not only Bellamy, Clarke, and Octavia’s laughter around her, but also Hope, Jorden, and Levitt, she doesn’t hesitate. They are delicious; they aren’t perfect, they have flaws, but they hers just like the people around her, and that makes them taste a million times sweeter than the ones she had on naming day.

Weeks later, as per her usual routine, she wakes yet again with Becca’s memories floating around in her head. The anomaly stone was finally delivered back to Sanctum and placed in the lab. Madi hadn’t followed it in, but she’d watched carefully as it was marched through the village and carried inside. Apparently, Becca had experience with it. The memories are some of the earliest in the flame before the technology and code became overwhelmed, and the web of thoughts and calculations attached to those memories are so plentiful that it’s nearly overwhelming.

The stone carries with it great possibility and potential, that much is clear, but Madi doesn’t even know where to begin trying to break it down. She isn’t even sure she should try.

Tell Clarke, a voice in her head whispers. Unsurprisingly, it’s the part that sounds like Clarke. She bites her lip as she considers doing so. Telling Clarke wouldn’t be bad, Clarke would absolutely help her figure it out, but it would mean admitting that she’d been hiding this. Not only would Clarke be hurt, but she’d be worried too.

She’s so lost in her own dilemma that she doesn’t catch the sound of their voices until she’s nearly walked in on them, although they’re so lost in their conversation that they haven’t noticed her standing in the hall either. As she catches on, however, she quickly backs up and leans against the wall out of sight.

She thought things were looking up, honestly. These past few weeks have been good, borderline great. They’ve been spending a lot of time doing things as a family, almost – swimming in the lake they found, hiking, playing soccer, even just relaxing in the living room reading and sketching – and they seemed happy, but she should have known better, she thinks, as the words that she hears both break her heart and frustrate her to no end.

“What am I even doing here?” Bellamy questions. Madi feels a pang of remorse; he sounds so defeated. “You’ve got everything handled here. If I had stayed, I could be doing something on Bardo.”

“And you will, when it’s time,” Clarke rebuts. “You can’t get back until Raven gets the stones back online, which can’t be done without the computers. For now, getting things settled here is all we can do.”

“And what then?” he questions, sounding both tired and frustrated. “Do you really think Raven is going to help us figure it out?”

“She’ll have to suck it up,” Clarke says. Her tone leaves no room for argument.

It sounds as though Bellamy is far from reassured when he responds dryly, “Great as if she needs another reason to hate me.”

“Stop it,” she scolds.

“Actually, you might be right,” Bellamy says lightly. She can hear the forced humor. “She’d probably love to get rid of me.”

“Bellamy,” comes Clarke’s response, whip-sharp, like a reprimand.

She can hear Bellamy’s sigh as the joke falls flat and he’s forced to face the problem for real. Softly he says, “None of them want me here, Clarke.”

“Yes, they do. They’re just angry. They’ll get over it. Look at how they are with me.” She can hear Clarke’s struggle to seem blasé, and she knows Bellamy must as well.

“Clarke-” he begins, tone pained, but Clarke cuts over him.

“Besides, I want you here. And someone told me that my life, my happiness matters.”

It seems it’s Clarke’s turn to carry the light between them. Her attempt is more successful, it seems, even if only just. Madi can hear the exasperated fondness as Bellamy gives a half-laugh, half-groan.
“Fine,” he says, trying to sound begrudging. After a beat, he adds, “But only because they sound like they’re pretty smart.”

“He is,” Clarke says fondly. “He’s usually right, even if I don’t always see it at first.”

They sit in silence for a few minutes, long enough that she wonders if it would be okay to reveal herself without giving away that she heard them, but then Bellamy breaks it.

“Do you think I’m right about transcendence?” he asks, his voice small and unsure. She feels a tingle of anticipation, and something more that she can’t place, as he steps into territory that may finally give her some answers.

There’s a weighted pause before Clarke replies. “I don’t know, but either way, we’ll figure it out.”

“How?” It’s not accusatory; if anything, he sounds overwhelmed.

“I’m not sure,” she admits. “We’ll have Jordan look at the text again. He said it reminded him of Korean. Josephine loved languages – there are a ton of old Earth books here about them. There may be something there that could help us translate more clearly. We won’t know for sure until he gets the program running.”

“Which is dependent on Raven getting the computer hooked up.”

“Yeah,” she confirms apologetically.

More silence falls, but this time Madi doesn’t think about interrupting. She just waits, feeling the anticipation in the air even with a door separating her from it. It isn’t long before Clarke speaks again.

“Will you tell me about it?” she asks hesitantly. “About what changed? What you saw?”

I didn’t even give him a chance. I know it hurt him. Madi smiles slightly, proud of her mom for trying to make up for her perceived shortcomings instead of stewing in guilt. Clarke has always been adept at guilt – she's comfortable carrying the weight of it at this point – but she’s always had a hard time facing her other emotions, like vulnerability.

Silence is her only answer, though Bellamy must react nonverbally because the next thing she hears is Clarke asking, “What?”

“Nothing,” he responds quickly. “It’s just – I’m surprised. No one has asked. Not like that, anyway.”

Clarke doesn’t apologize this time – thank goodness, because even Madi is tired of all the apologies – but she does fervently encourage him. “If you’re willing to tell me, I’d like to know.”

Bellamy begins softly, unsure, as though he thinks at any moment Clarke will cut him off and rescind her offer to listen or reject him somehow. Her heart constricts when he talks about his fear when Octavia was stabbed and disappeared into the anomaly, about seeing her only briefly on Bardo and the subtle warning she gave him that Clarke was in trouble, about landing on Etherea and the worry and helplessness her felt there, and about working with Docette even though he resented it, simply because he knew he had to get back to them. About feeling like he was so close when the storm fell upon him, how he would have died of exposure without Docette coming to save him and keeping him safe from the storm that just wouldn’t seem to end.

Then he gets into the subject she’s been waiting for; the teachings of the Shepherd, transcendence, and finding the faith.

She’ll admit, she’s thankful he isn’t watching her listen when he begins to talk about glowing trees because she knows her face screws up somewhere between incredulity and the temptation to laugh at the absurdity. Clarke must maintain her composure better than Madi because Bellamy doesn’t slow in his explanation or become defensive.

“It had been so long, and there was nothing else to do, so I prayed with him. Suddenly, Bill was there, leading me into another cavern, and I - I saw my mom, Clarke,” his voice trembles, overcome with emotion. “She was radiant, and more at peace than I ever got to see on the Ark, and she told me to go to the light, that it was the way...” he trails off as if lost in the memory.

“And what was the light?” Clarke prods gently.

“It was showing me what transcendence could be. It was beauty, peace, contentment... all the weight and burden, the regret and doubt, it was all just gone, in that brief moment until I came out of it. The storm had cleared in the interim, and suddenly I was free again to make my way back to you all.”

“And you did.”

“Yeah,” he says, though the word contains no joy.

“I’m glad you got that,” Clarke says after a quiet moment. “That feeling of peace. The chance to see your mom.”

“You believe me?” he asks, surprise evident.

“I believe you experienced it,” Clarke says firmly. “As for if it was real... I’m not sure it matters. I saw my father in my mindscape, when Josephine was in my head, and it wasn’t really him, but that didn’t change the fact that I got to see him, feel him, talk to him... it doesn’t change that it made me happy or gave me comfort when I needed it. Whether or not it was really Aurora, the way you felt was real.”

“I guess,” he says slowly, clearly mulling it over. “You’re probably right. I doubt I’ll ever know if it was really her, but it was a relief, an amazing experience to feel safe and content for once. That’s all I wanted for everyone.”

“I know,” she responds warmly. “You’ve always tried to take care of everyone. That’s just who you are.”

“It’s who you are too,” he says back with emotion in his voice.

Clarke makes a disbelieving noise, and Madi’s had enough. She steps back into the hallway, in clear view of them, and sees them in an embrace. For half a beat of her heart, she thinks maybe she should step back and let them have this, but Bellamy locks eyes with her over Clarke’s head and she can see the warmth and invitation there. It bolsters her confidence, so she says, “He’s right. You take care of us. Especially me, even when I was trying to kill you.”

Clarke does laugh this time, pulling away from Bellamy with one arm and raising it in invitation for Madi. She doesn’t hesitate to join in the embrace. She meant to speak with them, explain what’s been happening to her, and ask about what’s been happening to them, but surrounded by the quiet warmth, she decides that this is enough.

This is where she belongs. With Clarke and with Bellamy too. They’re a family, in a weird sort of way, struggling to find normalcy after everything they’ve been through but refusing to give up on each other no matter what. For the first time in a long time, snuggled between them, she finally feels at peace.

Madi wakes with a start in her darkened room and launches from bed not caring that dawn is still hours from rising. Given just how late it is, or early depending, Clarke and Bellamy have probably only just talked themselves out and fallen asleep. She feels a twinge of guilt, knowing she should let them have the precious few hours they do get undisturbed, but she can’t contain the information she now holds. She just can’t.

“Clarke!” she yells, rushing out to the living room. “Bellamy!”

She does feel bad, though, when she makes it there to see both frantically trying to untangle their limbs on the couch before rushing toward her after finally extricating themselves. Their panicked voices and hands are all over her, inspecting her for injuries and asking what’s wrong in such a rush that she can hardly get a word in to reassure them.

“I’m fine!” she finally shouts, pushing them both back so she can finally breathe. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

Bellamy’s expression turns from anxious to confused, his hands falling to his sides as he looks her over once more before nodding. Clarke’s hand goes to her chest, sliding almost to her throat as she tries to calm herself, her expression morphing rapidly from panic to relief, to frustration, and finally confusion. The two adults share a look, mirroring one another, concern also prevalent in their gazes.

“Okay,” Clarke says slowly, the slightly breathless quality of her voice making Madi wince with guilt, “what happened? What’s wrong?”

Madi grabs each of them by the hand, pulling them back to the couch with her, one on each side.

“You’re trembling, Madi. Tell me what happened. Did you have a nightmare?” Clarke presses before she’s even fully seated.

It’s true, Madi is shaking, with nerves or the excitement of having answers, or simply with the overwhelming feeling of so much knowledge. “No. Well, yes. A dream. Sort of.”

“Slow down, Mads,” Bellamy says gently, rubbing her back a little.
She smiles at him in gratitude, though it quickly turns into a grimace. She isn’t sure how he’s going to feel about this.

“I’ve been having dreams lately. Pretty much every night. Memories, from the flame,” she begins.

Bellamy’s hand freezes on her back as he stiffens. Clarke’s expression tenses with guilt and concern.

“Oh, Madi,” she practically moans. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I know, I know,” Madi dismisses quickly. “I was going to, but you had enough to worry about, and it was fine. They weren’t scary or anything, not like before. They’re mostly boring, actually. Becca knew a lot about technology and the stuff I’m learning in school.” She pauses, forcing herself to take a breath as she realizes she’s rambling, stalling more like. Maybe she should have stopped to think before she rushed into this.

“Okay,” Clarke says, seizing the break and eying her warily. “So, if it wasn’t a nightmare and this isn’t new, what happened? You must have seen something -”

“It was about transcendence!” she blurts, unable to help herself, and rushes on, “Becca - “

“How do you know about -“ Clarke cuts in to ask, but Madi speaks over her before she can even finish the question.

“I was listening before I came in earlier, obviously,” she says, suppressing her scoff and eye-roll only because she wants to keep going. “That’s not important! Listen, Becca experienced it. She saw what’s on the other side of it.”

“What?” Bellamy and Clarke ask together.

“Yeah!” Madi continues, nodding her head a few too many times. “I couldn’t quite understand it, what she actually saw, but it wasn’t what Bill thought. It was the end, but he was bringing it too soon. Like the ultimate cheat.”

“Cheat?” Bellamy asks, brow furrowed in confusion.

“What do you mean ‘the end’?” Clarke asks, reaching across her to rub Bellamy’s knee in comfort, though she keeps her primary focus on Madi.

“Prophecies and warnings of rapture, reaping, or whatever you want to call it... when a greater power separates the good from the evil, rewarding or damning them respectively, following apocalyptic events.”

Bellamy and Clarke both stare at her strangely, and it takes her a second to realize why. That explanation, while true, was more of an echo of Becca’s words than her own. She shakes her head a little and then continues, trying to understand enough to give them an answer that doesn’t sound like it can out of a textbook.

“The best I could tell, it was the end of humanity. Becca’s knowledge of it was mostly Christian based, but there were countless versions of it before the bombs fell.” she trailed off, sorting through the memories. It was different now. Her brain didn’t really have the capacity to sort through the memories of so many different minds without the assistance of the AI, but the information was there if she tried hard enough. Coming back to herself, she explains, “It terrified her. She refused to help Bill with it. It’s why he killed her. She said he was leading them to ruin.”

“How do you mean?” Bellamy asks anxiously.

This must be hard for him, she thinks, feeling bad that she can’t give him the exact answers he was looking for.

“Well,” she averts her eye and bites her lip, suddenly feeling out of depth. “If you believe in an afterlife, where the people we love move on after they’re gone and are waiting for us... they earned that somehow. What Bill wanted to do was cheat the system. Send one man, him, to take the test for everyone, and all mankind would be forced to move on.” She shakes her head and looks at him. “It’s wrong. All our choices matter, and we should have to face those consequences on our own, regardless of the outcome. Everyone should be judged for who they are and what they’ve done personally.”

Clarke smiles at her proudly, causing heat to rise in her cheeks. “You’re right, Madi. We should all be responsible for our own fates, whatever they may be.”

“We’ve done a lot of bad things,” Bellamy whispers, almost to himself.

“We did what we had to do,” Clarke says firmly.

“So did a lot of other people,” he rebuts.

“You did the best with what you had,” Madi breaks in. “You fought for the people you loved, and so did your enemies. It doesn’t make any of you right or wrong, it just makes us all human.”

She lets him absorb her words without interrupting, able to see in his eyes that he’s mulling it over.

His shoulders slump, the defeat he clearly feels rolling off of him in waves as he says laments, “So, I was wrong.” She struggles to hear the rest as his voice drops even further, “All that... everything I did, it was for nothing. Everyone was right.”

“No,” Madi interjects strongly, placing a hand on his shoulder and squeezing until he looks up at her. She holds his eyes, making sure he understands. “You weren’t wrong. Transcendence offers peace and safety. That’s what you wanted for everyone. What you were fighting for. And had Bill succeeded, that’s what would have been won.”

“But you don’t like it,” he says shrewdly. Madi glances at Clarke, seeing her own feelings mirrored in her expression.

“It doesn’t sound bad,” Madi hedges. She looks at Clarke for help, but she makes no move to speak for Madi, simply giving her a smile of encouragement. Madi takes a deep breath before continuing, “Life hasn’t exactly been great, so I get the appeal. If you’d asked me right after Praimfaya, it would have sounded amazing, but now...” she trails off, feeling a little overwhelmed by all the possibilities. There are so many things she wants. So many things she wasn’t sure they could ever have.

“But now?” Clarke prods gently, lacing their fingers together and squeezing lightly.

Madi smiles at her, squeezing back with more enthusiasm. “Now, I want to live I want everyone to grow up and get married and have kids and explore. I don’t want to be frozen like this, even if it was pleasant. It’s... not enough. I want to do it all.”

Bellamy looks away from her, staring ahead and rubbing his jaw as he considers it. He looks less morose than before, something she’s immensely relieved to see, though he’s clearly deep in thought. She leaves him to his thoughts, turning to gauge Clarke’s reaction.

Her mom is looking at her with bright eyes and a proud smile on her face.

“I agree,” she says brightly, untangling their hands in favor of wrapping an arm around her shoulder and placing a happy kiss into her hair. She pulls back with a suppressed smile and an amused glint in her eye before adding sternly, “but no babies for you yet.”

“Ew, no! What the heck Clarke!” she exclaims in disgust, pushing away slightly and jostling Bellamy in the struggle.

Bellamy guffaws before breaking out into a full laugh, the genuine outburst of mirth despite his distress moments ago. He drops his arm around her now free shoulders, occupying the position Clarke held moments ago, and Madi feels a rush of happiness so profound that she can’t help returning the embrace. Clarke leans into her side, effectively mirroring their earlier embrace. This one is even better, now that they’re all on the same page.

For a blissful minute, everything is perfect as they sit together.

Remiss as she feels to break it, Madi can’t help teasing, “Who said I was talking about me? I meant you two.”

When they freeze in shock, she slips out from between them, throwing a quick “goodnight!” over her shoulder before scampering back to her room, cackling at their mortified expressions.