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He doesn't ask how she found him, only knows that she took a rather ungraceful spill down his stairs one unforgiving afternoon, clearly exhausted beyond functionality, and that he carried her to the couch and maybe offhandedly brushed the sticky with sweat hair from her eyes, and that she was unconscious for all of it so it doesn't really matter anyway.
She doesn't ask how she got there, only knows that she wakes up on a couch more comfortable than she's ever known in all her eighteen years, a blanket lazily draped over her legs and a glass of water on the coffee table. She doesn't ask about that, either.
"Welcome, princess," he drawls around a mouthful of cracker, spinning around in his chair to face her like some cheesy cartoon villain and did he plan that or does he just naturally happen to come across that way? Something within her is hardly surprised it's him she'd find in this dragon's lair, this cave of doom with really nice couches and funky music and really, concerningly clean water.
And yes, he sings along to the funky music.
They don't converse, only say what they absolutely must. He pushes a plate of food in front of her after two days because she's too stubborn to ask and he's sick of finding cracker crumbs everywhere when she thinks she's being sneaky, but for the love of God wash your own goddamn dishes, Griffin.
Her tenacity fades the way you fall asleep or in love, slowly, then all at once. Soon she's pestering him about how to work the shower, and where are the clean clothes, and what do you mean there's only menswear, and okay, fine, you're right, I was never a fan of dresses anyway, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be nice to have a shirt that fits. Don't give me that look, Murphy. How do you work this kind of coffee machine, I've been trying for hours and I'm ready to cry, no, I will not actually cry. You'd like that, wouldn't you, you sadistic bastard?
No, he wouldn't actually, because he gets far too much of her tears when she finally convinces him to pop an old copy of Marley and Me into the television, and at the very end she stares up at him with these big round blueberry juice eyes and asks like a fucking five year old, "Do you think there's any dogs left on earth?"
"Get out, Griffin."
Never mind that he's crying, too.
He tries not to think about how natural and habitual it feels to make breakfast for two nowadays and she tries not to think about how easy it is for her to slip into an old t-shirt she picked up off the ground that he probably discarded the night prior, and he tries not to think about how the couch begins to feel not quite so comfortable without her weight beside him, and he especially tries not to think about how he hardly has to contemplate her absence because there's nary a time when that concept even exists. She tries not to think about how this place she still can't remember how she got to is beginning to feel a little like home, because that's the one thing she was running away from, and he tries not to think about it either because that's the one thing he's ever run towards but he never thought he'd make it, and he doesn't have a clue what to do when he does.
They get drunk and watch old recordings of The Real Housewives of New Jersey because that feels like the only thing either of them maybe know how to do right, really, and probably not even that because Murphy always commentates too loudly and Clarke takes up too much of the couch ("You're like a fucking cat, princess, just move over.")
One night he gives up on getting her to scoot and instead stretches himself out right along with her, their drunken limbs entangling in a mess of blankets and ancient familial feuds and braided hair (à la him, not her; Clarke Griffin can fix a mean half-up half-down do, but she can't braid for shit).
It's that night, in the midst of screaming at Mr. Husband Who's Probably Named Joe to stay the fuck out of it, that Clarke decides Murphy should learn why the Princess of the Sky People is not, in fact, amid her beloved Sky People.
"I fucked up," the alcohol on her tongue says because she would never put it so callously, and it's not even entirely true, though in Murphy's humble opinion he's never heard anything more eloquent come out of her mouth. "I really fucked up."
"Hey, princess, chill out. Remember who you're talking to."
"No, Murphy, you don't understand—"
"No, I think I do, but even if I don't, I don't really wanna hear it if you're gonna sob all over me, thanks. This is a new sweater, freshly scavenged."
It's not that he hasn't wondered from time to time, certainly he has, but it's really not the most pressing matter on his mind at the moment. The truth is, Murphy doesn't have any pressing matters on his mind because in case you haven't noticed, princess, we've somehow managed to stumble upon an endless supply of liquor and a month ago you washed your hair for the first time in forever and there is a motorcycle in the other room, so if you don't mind, spare me the drama, we've both worked too hard to flee from it, it'd be a tragedy to let it all slip now.
Has it really been a month? It feels like only a day ago he found her at the bottom of the stairway like a FedEx mistake, and a year ago at the same time.
The thing is, Clarke doesn't really mind that Murphy doesn't want to hear about Clarke of the Sky People, because Clarke of the Sky People is out there somewhere, burning up on the sandy beach or maybe lost even farther back, drowned in the ocean or starved in the jungle, or maybe just hanging in the closet, waiting patiently like a suit to be donned once more. But in here, with him and all his callousness, she doesn't feel like Clarke of the Sky People, commander, fearless leader, savior of the broken, the beaten, and the damned. She doesn't feel like Clarke Griffin, the A-plus student, the prude, the councilor's daughter, the traitor they locked up in solitary for a year. She doesn't even feel like Clarke sometimes. She just feels like princess, sour and sarcastic between his teeth, and occasionally Griffin.
And she likes that. Maybe not for forever, but for now, she really really likes that.
"Okay, fine, you don't want to talk about why I left, let's talk about you. Why did you drop out?"
He waves her off. "Jaha."
She needs no further explanation to know that whatever happened was probably convoluted and morally ambiguous as all hell itself.
It's three nights later, when the episode ends and the screen flickers to black and neither of them have the energy or fine motor skills to start the next one, that The Question finally, inevitably bubbles up, and it is with no ease or grace that Murphy clips out with measured apathy, "So who's dead?"
Clarke's jaw contracts and relaxes as she swallows the urge to say 'everyone' like a pill. Because everyone's not dead. Her mother's alive, and Raven's alive, and Octavia's alive, and Monty's alive, and Jasper, and the Millers, and Monroe and Harper and all the rest.
"Bellamy," she adds aloud, entirely to herself, which is why she doesn't realize how bad it sounds until Murphy's choking on his scotch. "Is alive," she quickly clarifies, surprised at just how wide his eyes can go. "Bellamy's not dead." And thank whatever deity for that.
"I was about to say," Murphy coughs, still looking nothing short of distraught. He'd try to hide it but he never really learned how, he never thought he'd actually ever feel this way at this point of dead-inside-ness. "I mean, what finally got him. But I guess nothing can, am I right."
"Right."
"Indestructible. Like a damn cockroach." He side-eyes her. "Except when it comes to you, of course."
She side-eyes him right back, and hasn't the heart to act coy, simply utters, "Shut up," because it hurts too badly to know just how capable she is of hurting Bellamy Blake, the ever-loyal, too loyal.
"Hey, don't shoot the messenger."
"I'll shoot whoever I damn please." Something in her voice chips off at the end there and she prays he doesn't notice, but she also knows too well at this point that prayers are rarely answered.
There's a pregnant pause.
"His eyes."
In their drunken haze, it's unclear whose voice wraps around the words. Maybe both.
Clarke throws her head back over the arm of the couch in defeat, smothering herself with a pillow. "Why does he always have to—"
"Look at you like you hung the moon? All the time? Yeah, I know."
She laughs wryly, bittersweet on her tongue. "Don't tell me you're jealous, Murphy."
"Of you, princess? Really?"
"Maybe I should be jealous of you, then."
"And why's that?"
"I don't know. You two tried to kill each other. Isn't that hot?"
He sighs, a long, loud, laughing sigh. What a piece of work she is. But what if he said he really wouldn't want anyone else here with him like this, if he thought about it really hard. It's not that she's better than the rest, she's not. It's just that the rest so happen to be worse. Except maybe him, but she wants him here instead too, so he guesses it's fair that way.
"What an asshole," he muses.
"Who let him? Bitch."
"The hands."
She actually giggles, and it sounds like bells at the gates of heaven neither of them will ever see. "Freckles. All over."
"Do not even get me fucking started, do not—"
She gets him fucking started. They lie there into the deep dark hours of the night, lamenting their woes of the heart, counting off every one of their boy's details that drives them up a wall, makes them weak in the knees, makes their chests swell, gets lodged in their throats and chokes them worse than any noose ever could. They lie there until Bellamy Blake hangs between them like a plea, like a prayer, because that's all he is now, to either of them. Just a prayer.
She cries softly into the crook of his shoulder, teary eyelashes tickling his neck, but this time he doesn't mind, he doesn't mind.
They never really converse. They only say what they absolutely must.
Time passes and, for possibly the first time since they landed on this God forsaken ground, nothing really changes.
Clarke finds art supplies in the depths of their little treasure trove and begins painting in her free time. Murphy refuses to model, but every so often she'll catch him in repose anyway. Murphy refines his culinary skills with what little ingredients they have and Clarke continues to be useless in the kitchen. Winter howls on at their doorstep; sometimes they can hear the wind whistling or feel the cold seeping in through the cracks in the walls at night. Clarke worries. Murphy rolls his eyes. Sometimes they argue, and sometimes they fight, and sometimes things break, but one of them always sweeps up the shards of glass, and Murphy always slides over to her side of the (rebel) king-sized bed they share (like their hearts) and soothes her through her nightmares when they come, which is often, and she always does the same for him when his come, which is often.
Two months later the others barge in, sweating and panting like dogs left in the heat, and they find the two exactly as they were two months ago, or one month ago, or two weeks ago, or last night, except with maybe a few more paintings on the wall and a few more glasses shattered, but still sprawled out on the couch like jungle cats left to lie in the shade, drunk off their asses, watching season five of Gilmore Girls (because bitches get things done when they've got no one but time to kill).
"Don't be such a drama queen, Bellamy Blake," Clarke Griffin greets, and John Murphy snickers into his cup. "You're just in time for episode thirteen."
(It turns out the world's actually been ending, but since when has it not. It's a pressing matter for another day.)