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Clarke was used to taking leadership, being the head of the group, and sometimes that meant telling others off for doing stupid shit and making sure no one ends up dead. But she wasn’t a mom. That was more Bellamy’s thing.
It started off that way with Madi. The girl was competent enough to keep herself alive for two months before she found Clarke. If anything, she was the one helping Clarke survive by teaching her how to fish and showing her how to lay traps. That wasn’t to say she didn’t need Clarke’s help.
The first time she came to her was when she hurt herself after sliding on a sharp rock. It was a week after their first encounter and they were maintaining their distance, only meeting up once a day for a shared dinner which Madi caught and Clarke cooked. On that day, she showed up ahead of schedule, cradling a bloody hand to her chest with her bottom lip caught between her teeth and her eyes welled up with tears which she refused to let run as she put up her brave facade and marched over to Clarke, thrusting her wounded hand at the woman.
“ You’re a healer .” She pointed out in Trig, stating it as a fact and not a question, her eyes briefly dropping to look at Clarke’s still bandaged leg before coming back up to meet the woman’s concerned gaze. “Help?” She asked this time, in English, and that was the first time Clarke ever heard her speak the language. She sounded so small and uncertain of herself, and it pushed Clarke straight into action mode.
Fixing up her hand proved to be difficult. For one, Madi was still distrustful, and she flinched every time Clarke moved which made cleaning the wound hard.
“Stay still.” Clarke said a little too firmly after the fifth time Madi retracted her hand from her hold. She heard a sniffle and looked up from her work only to find the girl staring at her with hardened eyes but tears were running down her cheeks. Clarke’s features softened at the sight as guilt overtook her, and she tried a gentler approach after being reminded of the girl’s age. “Just a few more minutes. I’m almost done.”
Disinfecting it with her homemade ethanol was the hardest bit. When Madi hissed at the pain, Clarke was quick to blow on her palm and the stream of cool air seemed to do the trick as she felt the girl relaxing. If she’d looked up, she would have seen Madi’s curious gaze looking back at her, but she was too focused on wrapping her hand that she missed it.
“All done.” Clarke announced, giving Madi her hand back and letting the girl look over the bandage as she gathered her things and cleaned up the black blood that was already drying. “You were a brave girl, but I need you to be more careful, okay?” She told her softly, trying to gage if she understood what she was saying. She didn’t know the full extent of their language barrier since they didn’t speak much.
Madi gave a short but firm nod, jutting her chin out to look more tough, which Clarke had to admit was kind of cute. She ran off before Clarke could say anything else, only coming back later with her day’s hunt.
After dinner, Madi left a palm sized piece of cloth between them, and inside was a handful of the berries Clarke used to paint. She must have seen her collect them and got some for her as a thank you gift. She got up and left before Clarke could properly thank her, but she didn’t go far, only moved to the other side of the fire so she could lay down and sleep.
When she woke up the next day, she found a sketch Clarke had left of her sleeping.
Madi preferred sleeping outside while Clarke took over one of the houses and made it her own. But then winter came and it got too cold to stay out. Madi didn’t get the memo.
One night, when it was pouring out, Clarke had taken shelter in her home and was working on a fire, wondering how Madi was holding up, but she’d assumed the girl had taken shelter. To say she was surprised when she looked out the window and found the girl sitting at their usual spot with two caught fish next to her would be an understatement.
Clarke rushed to the door and stood on the porch, trying to shield herself from the rain as she called for the girl.
“Kid!” She called out loudly, startling the poor girl who jumped in her place. She hadn’t meant to frighten her but she was still in shock that Madi was sitting out in the rain, probably soaked to the bone, and she didn’t even seem bothered. She was going to catch a cold.
“ Come inside!” She said in her broken Trig.
Madi seemed to weigh her options for a moment before finally getting up and walking over to Clarke. Her bounty hung by a string and dangling from her hand. She walked up to the porch and handed it to Clarke, looking at her expectantly. Clarke didn’t really understand that Madi was trying to offer a trade for shelter, all she cared about at the moment was getting the girl inside and drying her, so instead of going for the fish, she placed a hand on the girl’s back and ushered her in.
“ You will get sick.” Clarke tried to explain as she left her by the entryway and went looking for a towel. She found a ratty old one but it was her biggest one and she quickly wrapped it across the girl’s shoulders, bending down to be closer to her height as she started rubbing her hand up and down her thin arms over the towel to speed the process and warm her up.
Madi merely shrugged in response, but dropped the fish in order to hold the edges of the towel and bring it closer. Clarke took over one edge and started toweling her face dry, washing away some of the dirt there as well. No matter how many times Madi got in the water to fish, she never seemed to get properly clean.
“Live outside.” Madi said in means of explanation, her English more broken than Clarke’s Trig.
“Well, you will live here until the storm is over, understood?” Clarke spoke firmly, but her actions contrasted her tone as she was nothing but gentle as she warmed the girl up. When she had done her best to get the job done, she draped a guiding arm across the girl’s boney shoulders and led her over to the fireplace which she was already making use of.
“Thank you for supper.” Clarke added as she returned to get the fish, limping back to the fireplace so she can start the cooking process. “Now let’s get you fed.”
As usual, Madi slept straight after eating, getting as close to the fire as it was safe for her to do, but she still shivered and wrapped the towel closer around her in her sleep, her brows furrowing as the cold threatened to wake her up.
Clarke grabbed the thicker of the two blankets she had off of the bed and used it to cover Madi, tucking the sides under her to help the girl maintain as much of her body heat as she could.
Her hand unconsciously went to brush away a stray strand of hair off of her face and tuck it behind her ear, the action automatic and without any thought put behind it, but that had probably been the closest contact she had with the girl that wasn’t initiated due to an emergency like fixing up her hand or directing her to a heat source. Madi, still in her state of sleep, leaned closer to the palm still near her cheek and nuzzled it, and Clarke took a sharp inhale of breath as she froze in place.
She never looked younger to her than she had at that moment, and it was then that Clarke realized that despite her competence, Madi was still just a child, a baby really. Clarke herself had only just reached the cusp of young adulthood but now she was responsible for the wellbeing of this child. She was literally the only other person on the face of the Earth, which made Madi her responsibility, and that was not the same as looking over the delinquents, the youngest of whom was probably twice Madi’s age and Clarke had still failed her.
But she couldn’t fail Madi. She was not only hers to protect but hers to nurture and educate and-
She was her responsibility, and Clarke would not fail her.
Clarke would soon after learn that by the day, it was very difficult to keep Madi in one place. The girl valued her newfound freedom and she kept wandering off unconcerned by the level of anxiety that brought Clarke.
She gathered enough to learn that the girl was previously kept hidden by her parents who did not want the fate her birthright gave her for their little girl. She was isolated from the rest of the world and now that there was no immediate threat concerning her life, she had more than a healthy dose of curiosity and spent her days exploring their little patch of green paradise.
But by night time the girl’s fear seemed to finally catch up to her after she spent the whole day running from it. And now that they shared a room with Madi’s bed being a cocoon set up at the bay window and Clarke’s bed being just feet away, it was hard to miss the signs of distress the girl gave when she was plagued by nightmares.
The recurring theme seemed to be abandonment. Madi was compartmentalizing their new reality of being the last two survivors on the face of the Earth through her dreams. Clarke herself was scared at the fact, so she couldn’t imagine what the poor child was going through, especially given her history.
She’d been too busy during the day to radio, so she stayed up a little later one night to catch her friends up on her latest progress building a life for herself and her charge as she stood on the porch.
A scream coming from the house made Clarke hastily drop the radio and run inside. She found Madi sitting up in her bed with no signs of threat but she was clearly distressed.
“What happened? Are you okay?” Clarke asked as she rushed over to her side, kneeling by her bed as she repeated the questions in Trig.
Madi’s lower lip wobbled in a tell-tale sign that she was about to cry, and sure enough it was only a matter of seconds before she burst into tears.
Clarke felt her heart clench at the sight as she tried to comfort her, raising her hand to brush back Madi’s hair out of her face and brush away her tears as she soothed her, “Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay, it was only a nightmare. You’re safe.”
She didn’t know the words in Trig to translate, but they didn’t seem to be working either way. Madi just kept crying.
Clarke moved to sit on the edge of the bed beside the girl so she could rub her back, and when her whispered reassurances seemed to fall on deaf ears, Clarke laid them to rest and just focused on waiting it out while Madi cried out her sorrows.
Exhausted, the girl slumped against her and mumbled something that was too muffled for her to hear.
“What was that?” Clarke asked as she tried to pull the girl back a little so her face wasn’t pressed to Clarke’s side and she could maybe make out what she was saying.
“We’re- we’re all al-one.” Madi said between sniffles, burrowing closer to Clarke as if she’d just realized she was all she had left and the touch starved child needed her.
Clarke didn’t know how to comfort her. She couldn’t lie and tell her her claim wasn’t true. They really were all alone, and the thought was scary, so Clarke just draped an arm over her shoulders to bring her in for a hug and used her other hand to rub the girl’s back.
“Only for a while. One day there will be others.” Clarke promised, because that was the hope she was holding onto. She couldn’t yet open the bunker on her own, but her friends will come as soon as it was safe and if anyone was going to figure out how to open the bunker it would be Raven. And seven pairs of hands were better than one digging up the bunker from under the rubble.
“How?” Madi asked and pulled Clarke out of her head long enough to realize the girl didn’t know about her friends or the bunker. They didn’t talk much, after all, but now would be the perfect time to tell her about them.
“There’s a bunker, a big house under the ground, and it has a thousand people inside. Once it’s safe, my friends in the sky will come down and help us bring them out.” Clarke explained in simple terms.
“ You have friends in the sky?” Madi asked in Trig, her eyes shining with curiosity and disbelief. She might have been too little, or her village too isolated to hear about the sky people.
“Mhm. They’re not natblidas, so they couldn’t stay because of praimfaya, but once its safe for them to come down they will, and they will help us. We just have to wait.” Clarke explained to her.
Madi went quiet for a moment, and Clarke assumed the girl had a million questions for her, like how her people survived in space, or how they got up there in the first place, or how would they know when its safe. Clarke waited patiently for Madi to gather her thoughts and ask.
“Why did they leave you?” Madi finally asked, and her concern touched Clarke. The girl had a frown on her face, and she seemed genuinely upset at the idea of Clarke being abandoned despite the woman being little more than a stranger to her.
“They had to. Someone had to stay behind, and I had nightblood, so I had a good chance of surviving, but they didn’t.” Clarke was quick to explain, hoping Madi saw the logic behind it, if she even understood her. She really had to learn Trig, but the only one who could teach her was Madi, and they were stuck with a language barrier.
The girl still seemed troubled, and she took a moment to formulate her words in English, but she eventually spoke: “But you would have been alone. That’s not nice of them.” Madi pointed out, crossing her arms to display her annoyance at Clarke’s friends, and Clarke couldn’t help the amused chuckle that bubbled out of her.
“But I’m not alone. I have you.” Clarke reassured, gently poking the girl’s side, delighted when Madi squirmed away while fighting off a grin. She was ticklish then. That was good to know.
That seemed to do the trick, since Madi didn’t look as upset as before, now she just looked sleepy.
She surprised Clarke by leaning against her once more, this time getting comfortable as she laid down so she had her head on Clarke’s stomach and draped her arm across Clarke’s waist.
“Tell me about your friends.” Madi said in a soft whisper before yawning so hard Clarke heard her jaw click.
Warmth spread all over her as she took the girl in. She hadn’t realized just how touch starved she was until Madi cuddled closer to her, but now that she had, Clarke just wanted to hold her, the girl bringing her comfort just as much as Clarke was giving her.
So she rested her hand on the side of Madi’s head, curling her fingers in her hair, which still needed a wash, as she combed through it gently while telling her all about the seven people in the sky.
Realizing that Madi is her responsibility coincided with realizing that for being the only kid on Earth, Madi seemed to get into a lot of trouble.
Clarke blamed it on the aforementioned new sense of freedom that did not come with a sense of risk.
So before she broke any bones jumping off of high rocks so she can cannonball dive into the river, Clarke sat the girl down and set down some rules, and she continued to add to them whenever prompted.
No wandering out of earshot.
No messing with the rover.
No eating of foreign berries or wild mushrooms not tested by Clarke.
No messing with weapons. She was only allowed her gutting knife and a spear for fishing.
No jumping off of anything at a distance higher than her height.
No climbing of rocks.
No hiding unless they were playing hide and seek.
Don’t go on the roof of the rover without Clarke.
Don’t go on the roof of a house without Clarke.
Do not climb trees.
That last one didn’t sit well with Madi.
“But he’s fun!” Madi argued when Clarke added the rule after Madi jumped out of a tree to scare her as a prank, crossing her arms over her chest and giving her a pouted frown that only succeeded in making her look cute.
“ It’s fun.” Clarke gently corrected, “It’s also dangerous and you’re not allowed to do it without my supervision.”
“ You’re not fun.” Madi retorted, making Clarke roll her eyes as she ignored the girl, sticking the piece of paper with the rules back on the window after she’d made the last addition in charcoal.
Madi tried to show her annoyance by sticking her tongue out at Clarke, and the woman made to grab for it, which prompted Madi to quickly stick it back in her mouth and Clarke laughed at the startled look on her face. That was one way to get her to quit the pesky habit.
“Why do we have the rules?” Clarke asked in what sounded like something they recited a million times.
“To keep me safe.” Madi replied back obediently, but she didn’t quite manage to keep the whine out of her voice, giving her all the attitude of a teenager that didn’t match her seven years of age.
“That’s right.” Clarke affirmed, kneeling down to match the girl’s height as she took hold of her arms, “You’re my responsibility. I need to keep you safe, and I wrote these rules to do just that.” Clarke explained for what was definitely not the first time, or the tenth.
“I knowww.” Madi whined, dragging out the last syllable as she pulled her arms out of Clarke’s gentle hold.
“Promise me you won’t go climbing trees again. I can’t have you falling and getting hurt.” Clarke drilled her point, hoping Madi got the warning.
“I promise, Clarke.” Madi’s tone softened as she said it, and Clarke actually gave her the benefit of the doubt and believed her.
After a year of looking after the girl, she should have known better.
For being the most isolated adult on Earth, Clarke actually kept pretty busy.
At first it was the cleaning of the bodies and any signs of the radioactive sickness, but that took two days and she had the village cleared. Then she had to actually make it livable. The little village was self-sustaining in many ways. They had a water source, there was the surrounding forest with wild animals to hunt -though a lot of species didn’t survive the sickness-, there was even some farm land. Clarke just had to learn how to upkeep all of those.
She had a system, and after a year of learning the ropes, she had most activities downpat, with challenges that came every once in a while which she had to deal with.
When she had a little bit of extra time, Clarke built things. Resourcefulness was the name of the game.
She also tried to give Madi as stable of a childhood as she can, which meant making sure the girl was fed, clothed, and loved. She sat her down for lessons every morning, played games with her in the evenings, fascinated her with stories at night, and tried to make Madi feel less lonely by keeping the girl occupied. But there was only so much she can do.
Sometimes, she just had to leave her to her own devices and hope for the best. Besides, she was working on a birthday present for the girl and she wanted to keep it underwraps.
Madi didn’t exactly know when her birthday was. She just remembered that her parents always gifted her colors made from the petals of the newly bloomed flowers, so it had to be during Spring.
Clarke chose the first of March, and Madi’s upcoming birthday would be her second one with Clarke but only the first they’d celebrate. They were too busy playing cat and mouse to get to know one another when Madi’s first birthday came around.
Clarke was making her a doll from scrap cloth and stuffing she got from a pillow that was no longer salvageable. For someone with no sewing experience except for human flesh, she was doing a great job!
“Ow! Son of a-“
Okay, maybe she was doing less of a great job.
Clarke put the tip of her index finger between her lips to soothe the sting of getting jabbed by a needle for the fifth time. She was quickly growing frustrated and when she looked at the doll all she could think of was that it looked pathetic and maybe she should gift Madi some paper and a set of colors like her parents did.
But Madi was lonely. And Clarke wanted her to have someone to confide in. With her imagination, it was easy to picture Madi playing with her doll as if she were a real person. And wasn’t that basically what Clarke was doing with the radio?
After two years, she was sure they couldn’t hear her by now, or maybe they were …
She didn’t like to think about that. And she kept radioing just in case, and mostly because it brought her comfort having one sided conversations with another adult. Madi needed something similar or else they’ll both go crazy.
With newfound determination, Clarke reached for the doll once more. She’d no sooner held it before a cry had her throwing it and jumping up to her feet.
“CLARKE!” Madi’s distinct voice cried out to her in distress, sounding too far away for Clarke’s comfort.
“Madi?! Madi, where are you?!” Clarke called back, sounding equally as distressed.
“Clarke! Please! Help me!” Madi called out as her voice got closer and closer.
It was seconds before Clarke had left their clearing and reached deeper into the forest, finally finding the little girl in a heap on the ground with leaves all around her and what was clearly a branch that had snapped off. It was not hard to put two and two together.
Clarke was by her side in a blink, cupping her face in her hands and tilting it upwards to look her over for any injuries, hands moving from her face to her shoulders then arms, patting her down gently but expertly. “What hurts, strikon ?” She asked softly, because she already knew the answer to what happened?
“M-my le-g.” Madi managed to whimper an answer as fresh tears ran down her cheeks. “ Sis ai, Klark. It hurts.” She said with a sniffle.
Clarke looked down at her legs and inched one pant leg up, wincing when Madi hissed in pain. She tried to be as gentle as she could while running her hands over her calf, prodding her ankle that was already starting to swell and apologizing when Madi yelped.
“Sorry. I’m sorry. I need to make sure it’s not broken, sweetie.” Clarke explained, praying to God that Madi’s leg wasn’t broken because setting it would be painful and the recovery will also be painful and she didn’t have anything to give her that would help with that.
It wasn’t broken, but her ankle was twisted, turning a shade of angry red. Clarke couldn’t do anything right now, but she had to take her home.
Standing up again, Clarke reached down for Madi and the girl instinctively held her arms up, latching onto her as soon as Clarke had her in her arms. Clarke felt little arms wrapping around her neck in a tight grip as her good leg hooked around Clarke’s waist, the other hanging limp at her side. Madi buried her face in the crook of Clarke’s neck and promptly started sobbing.
“Shhh, it’s okay. It’s okay, baby. I’ve got you. You’ll be okay.” Clarke soothed as she took a moment, gently swaying them in place to calm Madi down because if she kept crying then Clarke was going to start as well and they couldn’t both have a breakdown simultaneously. At least Madi had a reason to cry, but it felt to Clarke like the girl’s pain was her own, and it physically hurt her listening to her sobs and knowing she was hurting and not being able to do much for her.
If she could take it away, if she could take on her pain as her own, she would.
“Let’s go home, baby. M-..I’m going to make it better.” Clarke promised, feeling her throat tighten at the slip up.
Madi just burrowed closer to her, prompting Clarke to start their trek home, which was quiet since Madi wasn’t in the mood to talk, her cries calming down to sniffles, and Clarke was silently having a crisis of her own.
Mama’s going to make it better .
She almost said it. The title was about to roll off her tongue instinctively if it hadn’t been for a last moment of hesitation when her brain finally caught up to her mouth.
Mama’s going to make it better.
Mama.
Was it just a slip up? Or had Clarke been subconsciously thinking of herself as Madi’s mother for some time now? When had the line blurred? When did Madi go from being her responsibility to being her daughter?
Maybe she hadn’t. Maybe it was truly just a slip up, a role she adopted in the moment to comfort the girl, a subconscious realization that mothers brought more comfort to their children than guardians and a good intention. Or an echo of a reassurance given by her mother years ago, when Clarke had similar mishaps and needed the same comforting Madi needed now.
She felt Madi’s little fist clutch the back of her shirt, hitched the girl higher on her hip, and realized it wasn’t a slip up.
There was no telling when Madi went from being the stranger child she had to look after out of necessity, to the daughter she cherished out of love.
Mama.
Clarke mouthed the word, knowing Madi wouldn’t be able to make it out without looking at her face, testing it. It felt right.
Clarke carried her daughter home.
They didn’t have ice. Winter was ending and it had all melted away and Clarke couldn’t store it. They didn’t have freezers like they did on the Ark. but the water was still cold, and Clarke had a basin full of fresh water from the river kept in the shade so it was cool. It will have to do.
Madi hissed from either the temperature or the pain when Clarke wrapped a water soaked towel around her ankle, the closest form of icing it she could get.
“It will help with the swelling.” Clarke explained, adjusting her leg so that it rested on top of a pillow, slightly elevated from the bed. Clarke had set her down on her own bed because it was bigger and if the water soaked through the mattress then Madi wouldn’t have to sleep in it. She used a strip of old cloth as a form of binding, wrapping her ankle up so the pressure will help keep the swelling down.
When she was done, she sat next to Madi, bringing the girl to her side. Madi wasted no time in burrowing closer, pressing her face to Clarke’s chest and wrapping tiny arms around her waist as the woman brushed back her hair and rubbed her back.
“We had a big storage unit up on the Ark. They kept all sorts of things there. Books, games, boxes and boxes of clothes and blankets and old electronics.” Clarke started telling her a story, hoping it would distract her from the pain. Madi loved stories of the Ark, she was fascinated by the space station.
“The boxes were kept on the lower shelves while the games were kept higher. We were allowed to rent them sometimes, but we had to bring them back, and adults had to sign off on whatever was taken from there.” She went on, imagining that Madi knew where the story was going. “My mom finally had some time off from work to come with me so we can pick one out, but she was stopped by a friend and they started talking and I got bored so I rushed ahead, thinking I’ll just make it easier for her by bringing the board game and she just had to sign off. She warned me not to climb the shelves, because it wasn’t my first time there and she knew I tended to do that instead of ask for help, but of course I didn’t listen, so I scaled those boxes and I was probably four feet up, just out of reach, but I stretched out my hand and tried to grab onto the edge, then you know what happened?”
“You felled?” Madi guessed.
“I fell.” Clarke confirmed, stressing the word gently to correct Madi’s grammar. “I tried to break the fall with my hand and I ended up breaking my wrist, and it was the worst physical pain I had ever experienced on the Ark. I hadn’t yet had the pleasure of knowing what walking into a bear trap would feel like.” Clarke teased, poking Madi’s side and earning herself a smile as the girl tried to squirm away from her prodding fingers.
“I learned then that I should listen to my mom. She didn’t tell me not to climb the shelves so she could ruin my fun, but because she knew I could hurt myself and she wanted to keep me safe. She was looking out for me, that’s what parents do.” Clarke continued. Even though that wasn’t the last of her rebeling acts, that was still the first time she actually realized that maybe her mom was right sometimes. “That’s why we have our rules, Madi. That’s why I don’t want you climbing trees. It’s my job to keep you safe, and next time you might not be so lucky and come out with only a twisted ankle.”
Madi was quiet for a bit, thinking through what Clarke said. When she realized that she couldn’t really argue with her logic, she dejectedly admitted defeat.
“I’m sorry, Clarke.” The words came out muffled because she had her face pressed against her, but Clarke made them out nonetheless and gave her back a comforting rub.
“I know you are, baby. But I hope that means we’ve learned our lesson and there won’t be anymore tree climbing in the future. This time, I’ll let it slide since that ankle will make sure you’ve learned your lesson, but next time you break a rule there will be consequences, understood?” Clarke said a little firmly, knowing she had to be more strict with the girl or she’ll walk all over her.
Madi seemed to get the message, since she felt it more than saw as the girl nodded her agreement.
Clarke smiled, counting that as a win despite the day being an overall disaster. Her kid was hurt and it will take time to get better, but it wasn’t like there was any rush. Life was slow in Eden, and Madi could just rest and allow her body to heal, and in the meantime Clarke will take care of her like she’d been doing the past two years. It will just be a little more work, nothing she couldn’t handle. After all, she was a mom now, had been for some time actually. It just took a while to realize it.
“We have some time for one more story before supper. Which one will it be?” Clarke asked, leaning back against the headrest as she got more comfortable, taking Madi with her. The girl got situated on top of her, careful not to move her injured leg. Once she settled, Clarke started playing with her hair as Madi loved.
“Tell me about the games you had on the Ark.” Madi requested.
“Well, there was one game called Monopoly..”