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Death did not feel right.
It feels like a hospital bed and sounds like med bay on the Ark. One shuddering breath later — smells like med bay too.
“Clarke.”
Ignoring whoever is calling her name seems like the best idea ever. Because if her senses aren’t lying then she is not dead and that is not possible. Call her crazy but between death and any other fucking possible explanation in the universe, well, Clarke Griffin picks death.
“Clarke Griffin.” There’s a sigh. “According to your vitals, you are awake.”
Dead is just never a damn option for her.
“I don’t,” she stutters.
“Griffin, you have completed the simulation experiment.” The uniformed man standing above her smiles broadly. “Every single member of this space station is excited to welcome you home, finally.”
“Finally?” Clarke takes in the medical unit. It’s a lot like the Ark only shinier.
The officer relaxes his stance and sits on a stool by her bedside. “While there are no signs of physical damage to your brain, Doctor Jackson expects the trauma of your experience may cause confusion, and other possible issues.”
“Jackson?”
“Yes, Jackson – the same and not the same.”
Clarke takes a slow breath in and then out, nods once. “Tell me.”
“This is Space Station Alpha and you have just finished a six year simulation study.”
“By myself?”
“No.” He squirms a bit. “A number of people went into the simulation to study the effects of re-introduction of the human species to the planet Earth after catastrophic nuclear events. Among other things.”
“Which never happened?”
“Oh, it happened. But unlike the sim, it’s been over three hundred years and while the ground hasn’t been livable we’ve managed to recover resources from the surface as well as work with other stations, satellite communities, to survive.” He grins a bit. “To thrive.”
“Okay,” she says softly, sitting up a little more. To thrive. Is this idiot quoting her?
“It began with a four year scenario, one year off before returning for another two years in the simulation in order to prevent excessive trauma to our participants.”
“I don’t remember a –“
“Something happened to your cryo-sim chamber.” He stands back up, straight and formal in manner. “Clarke Griffin, you’ve been in the simulation for seven years.”
Her eyes flood with tears. “None of it was –“
“During the first four years there were four stations with active participants – although non participant characters were mixed in as well.”
“The 100, the ark, the grounders and Mount Weather.”
“Yes, while different participants ended up in either the bunker or up on the ring – we really never saw that coming, it was a genius move on all of your parts – they all came out of the sim for a year.”
“Not me.”
“No, as I said, there was a malfunction and we couldn’t figure out how to retrieve you without damaging the –“
“Experiment.”
“Yes, and you, of course. We did however manage to slip in some code to help you.” He eagerly leans toward her. “The data derived from your time on earth after the event you know as Praimfaya is priceless and no other space station has managed to collect such honest – “
“Slip in some code?”
“Oh,” he squeaks and looks away from her. “Well for your mental stability, we managed to create a companion – the girl Madi. While your attachment to her influenced every scenario for the second half of the study, the results while compromised were not without worth. Our psychologist theorized that her addition kept you focused on surviving than relying on your self-preservation instinct after you experienced such, um, trauma.”
Clarke chokes on her next breath and tears fall down her face but it doesn’t seem to matter to this man.
“We were able to isolate what we thought was the problem with your cryo-sim chamber and re-enter participants into the sim to complete the last two years of the study. After the fall of Sanctum, you were again expected to naturally exit the simulation but” – he coughs – “there must have been another malfunction.”
“So everyone had another round in the –“
“Well no, everyone else came out.” He shakes his head sorrowfully but she doesn’t buy that he feels anything, let alone sadness for her. “The travel through the anomaly stone, Cadogan on Bardo – I’m afraid you were on your own for that portion.”
“How…”
“The simulator ran an old test storyline and then, well, everyone was an NPC – relying on, I’m afraid, older data and the system wasn’t built to learn so it may have felt..” He pauses searching for some exact term.
“Repetitive and out of character for who we had become, the lessons we learned.”
“Exactly,” he says with the same damn wide smile and enthusiasm. “I know that your sense of reality is a little foggy but it will get better. It’s good to have you back Griffin. I wish we had a better explanation but it seems when you finished ‘the last test’ – you can see why that storyline was scrapped from the original project – you let go of the simulation yourself.”
He pats her leg and turns to go. “Rest up, you’ve earned it.”
Let go of the simulation herself. Clarke closes her eyes and wills her body back to sleep, death remaining out of reach.
For now.
The parade of officials and doctors doesn’t ever really stop nor does the bad news.
Clarke’s preference for the malfunctioning sim world just grows stronger.
Her mother has passed while she spent another round in ‘the experiment’. She doesn’t trust anyone enough to ask if there is any real relationship between her and the others before or after everything. What her life was like before is truly a blank. It isn’t just a preference, the fucking sim is all she knows. The doctors, Jackson, insist that her memories will come back naturally and refuse to allow her to read her own file. Jackson, unfamiliar still, has it locked down tight in his office. Apparently, he doesn’t trust her not to take matters into her own hands.
Someone was paying attention to who Clarke Griffin became in their little simulation.
No one she recognizes visits. No Raven, no Murphy or Monty or Octavia or Jasper or Lexa or Bellamy…well, it’s a long list isn’t it. No one comes and those who do, wouldn’t be able to answer her unasked questions. Those who do stare at her like she’s a virus in a petri dish, or gush about what an excellent program it was. Apparently, every mistake, triumph, and tear was broadcast throughout this space station and others – like a goddam TV show from the 21st century.
Some of them call her Wanheda.
“How are you doing today Clarke?”
It takes a great deal of restraint not to kill this Jackson, to not to roll her eyes. She spends the rest of her energy pretending to be okay.
“Okay.”
He coughs and shuffles his feet and tries to look her in the eyes. He fails. He always fails. “You have visitors.”
How oddly formal, normally some relative of a space station VIP just marches their way in and confronts her like she’s an opponent they’re dying to prove they can beat. “That’s nice.”
He coughs again and motions to someone behind him.
It isn’t just someone. It’s kind of everyone.
Monty, Harper, Jasper, Finn, Raven, Murphy, Miller, Octavia, Lincoln, Luna, Roan, Echo, Lexa and Bellamy. It’s everyone and everyone looks so fucking uncomfortable and guilty.
It’s everyone and it’s no one she knows.
Clarke smiles politely and slowly releases the air she’s holding in her lung so she doesn’t stutter or cry or get emotional over people who are probably at best her coworkers. “I’m sorry, I don’t know – “
There is nudging and nodding and probably some finger pointing and Bellamy steps further forward Echo’s hand clasped around his arm in support.
Some relationships remain. Huh.
He’s frowning, brow creased with a familiar look of concern. “They wanted to debrief you and then, um, they didn’t want to over stress you, but we asked for just a moment, maybe we could you know…”
“For the love of all that’s holy,” Murphy groans and pushes through to flop down on the side of her bed. “Does she looked freaked out to you? This is still Clarke Balls-of-Steel Griffin.”
She stares at him blankly. “Do I know you?”
Everyone else continues the awkward shuffle and Murphy fucking grins at her. “You bet your ass you do.” He shoots a glare across the room to Jackson who’s desperately avoiding Miller’s gaze. “Did they tell you nothing? The simulation didn’t make us characters – we’re us, just tweaked to fit the real facts to the story.”
“Interesting.”
“For fucks sake Murphy.” Bellamy steps closer. “He’s not wrong. Most of us – we’re from other stations.”
“Unwanted dregs of society,” Murphy announces and he salutes Clarke. “Delinquents.”
Bellamy pushes his hand to the side and moves closers to Clarke. “Kind of. Participation was incentive based – we get to live here on the nicer station now.”
She has to ignore his closeness and all eye contact with anyone. “How lucky for you.” It’s hard to know. How to react, how to behave. The sound of Jackson making his way back draws everyone’s attention.
Bellamy and Murphy glare over their shoulders. Miller sighs and moves to intercept him.
“They won’t let us stay long.” Bellamy reaches out to place a hand on her shoulder but she pulls away. “We didn’t know. We thought in the sim, you died in Praimfaya and when we came out –“
“Reality takes a bit to set it,” Monty pipes up and Clarke should find it hard not to smile at him, but there’s plenty of trauma keeping her in check.
“We all thought we’d see you but they told us you left with your mother immediately. We didn’t know you were still in there.” Bellamy finishes and looks to the group for support.
Octavia nudges Murphy to the side. “We didn’t know.”
More useless facts. Facts that don’t mean anything to her. Clarke features never go beyond blankness – but there’s this one thing that penetrates her frozen heart. “You were all together, that year off – here on Alpha, knowing everything that happened wasn’t real.”
“It was real enough,” Bellamy barks back at her. “It wasn’t a damn vacation!”
“No, I imagine dealing with all that happened – the trauma of the experience – was hard. Thankfully you did it together.” Her voice is soft and gentle as she speaks. “How special that you all got that. How typical.”
Jackson is still distracted by Miller and these people are awkwardly shuffling around her bed.
Fuck them. She doesn’t need them, their guilt or their friendship. After all, she never really had it.
“Thank you for visiting.” Her voice is even, still gentle and now utterly cold. “I’m tired now, please leave.”
The group remains quiet as they twist and turn through the space station. The people born on Alpha point and twitter and wave. The Delinquents are famous to them, but more important is the bonds formed by the shared experience. Without a word the group splits into their smaller family crews – each to their own slice of the Alpha station.
Without a word, Bellamy leads as they all walk faster to their common area. A section of the space station repurposed for the victors of the sim – their own personal mini-ring.
Once the door whooshes closed behind them Bellamy punches a wall.
“Not helpful, man.” Murphy flops down onto a squishy. “Medical’s not about to let you sneak in to see her again.”
“That wasn’t –“ Bellamy leans into the coolness of the wall and the pain in his hand. “What the fuck are we supposed to do?”
“Do? Do about what?” Murphy sneers. “We went into their game, played hard and won a nice life here on Alpha. Clarke will find her own way or…”
Raven nudges Murphy’s shoulder with her knee. “Or what?”
He doesn’t look up at her and doesn’t look at any of the other around the room. Harper and Monty snuggle together, Miller and Jasper sprawling out across the room. “Or die trying.”
Bellamy scoffs and lets the words settle into the room before he turns to beat Murphy’s ass. “I’m not sure if you missed it – but she just did. She got left at the end of the world and her solution was to blow her brains –“
Octavia and Lincoln jump in between the two men. “Hey now, Big Brother. We don’t kill Murphy just ‘cause he’s an asshole anymore, remember?”
“You know their trauma specialists aren’t all that special.” Bellamy sags against his sister and brother-in-law. “We had each other, we had the others and Abby and Kane –“
It’s a whisper into the hum of space station. “I know better than you what it’s like to find out the people you love aren’t real.” Murphy blinks a few times and shakes it off. “Worse, I’m not exactly an expert but how many times have you put a gun to your head Bellamy?”
“Murphy.”
He shrugs. “Because the real problem is how many times has Clarke?”
Bellamy backs away, digging his hands into his hair. He knows it’s in his head but he can hear a the ticking of a clock counting down and he doesn’t know what happens when it runs out. “Stop with the bullshit,” he hoarsely spits into the room. Maybe there’s a different question to ask. He straightens and moves to the center of the room – capturing the gazes, demanding their attention silently. Jasper, Monty, Miller, Raven, Harper, Murphy, Octavia and Lincoln. Delinquents and outcasts – his family. “The question is – how do we save Clarke.”
Murphy raises one brow.
“From them – and from herself.” He crosses his arms. “Who’s in?”
They can’t keep her locked up forever.
Well they could, Clarke supposes but it doesn’t look good. Bragging about your champion then keeping them locked away. So these people in charge ask so many awkward questions – did she wish to live with Lexa’s group or Bellamy’s or Finn’s or Well’s….
No. No thank you. She presses her forehead against the cool glass looking out at the stars. Her decision played right into whoever runs this madhouse’s hands and here she sits in a small corner of the station, tucked away from the rest of humanity.
If she closes her eyes sometimes she can feel the wind blow, hear the trees creak as they sway. Clarke can stay in the dark and forget for large pieces of time that Madi isn’t down by the water fishing for dinner. Madi isn’t there and she isn’t dead and it only feels like Cadogan tortured her child to fight the last war, to transcend.
Too many feelings. Too many sins that are so fucking real to her that never even existed. Clarke still chooses death.
Clarke fogs up the glass with a sigh and turns her head. The earth looks as green as she remembers. Again the feel of the wind and the sounds of the forest haunt her – how green it is.
Why isn’t she there?
Pulling away from the glass, she frowns. Why aren’t any of them there?
It’s been over three hundred years...
Bellamy jerks back behind the corner.
He’s found her. He’s found Clarke. With a quiet shuffle he peers at her and jerks back quickly at her expression.
Hell, she has an expression for once. Not that blank façade she dismisses them with every time one of them has tried to break through to her. Clarke stonewalls every overture while the clock in Bellamy’s head keeps ticking down.
Monty went with sweet and kind, Harper concerned, Murphy brought the snark and Jasper brought booze. They tried Lincoln’s quiet presence and Octavia’s non-stop talking – nothing. Raven even tried blunt words and a pissy attitude.
Bellamy for all his talent with persuasion can’t find a single word when he looks into her blank face.
But right now, Clarke’s frowning so maybe…
In his rush around the corner he forgets to be quiet and now he’s cursing himself but he finally gets a word out. “Clar—“
“Why are we still living in space stations?”
“I –um- I- what?”
“Three hundred years have passed – what are the radiation levels on the ground?”
“I don’t know…”
“They managed to scavenge supplies after it all went nuclear but after three hundred years why are we still in space?”
“Hell, Clarke – what makes you think I know?”
Her head tilts to the side as she frowns at him now. “You haven’t wondered?”
“I’ve been preoccupied.”
She snorts. “With what? Your little space family?”
He crosses his arms and leans back against the wall in disgust. “With you. I can’t imagine why at the moment.”
“I only know the simulation and I can’t imagine why either.” Clarke shrugs and turns back to the window.
Bellamy lets the wall hold him up. Maybe he is an idiot, but how could she not know how important…fucking NPC Bellamy and transcendence. The damn simulation programmers and their need for “even playing fields”.
“Just forget whatever you think you learned after praimfaya – the programmers messed with a bunch of shit.” He tosses away being polite or giving her space and straddles the bench she’s sitting on. “They partition your memories – so sure Murphy had a year of knowing Emori wasn’t real but when he went back in the game she had to be there and he had to believe she was real. To be fucking fair.”
She stiffens beside him but doesn’t leave, but also doesn’t stop frowning. “Do they lack an imagination – she could have died on the ring. Seems traumatic enough to satisfy them.”
“You’d think,” he agrees and considers and continues. “Sometimes the sim overwhelms either way. I think Echo had the worst bit for a while. Roan meant the world to her before and now, but memory makes her reach out to me. They’re working it out though.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Clarke turns away from him. “Nothing does. I don’t know what you, any of you want from me but I have nothing left after – no feelings, no thoughts. The sim took everything I am and now I’m empty.”
“No.” It’s a flat declarative statement and she glares at him. Bellamy smirks – disagreeing with Clarke lights him up. “That’s temporary. You’ve gotten to the end of your rope before and you kept going –”
“There were reasons to—”
“No.” He’s still smirking and now he knows what to do, what to say. He moves quickly – knowing this isn’t going to be welcome but it’s his turn to run to her. He scoops her up into his arms and holds on tight. “Those feelings, they’re temporary. This one isn’t.” Bellamy buries his face in her neck and breathes in Clarke. “This is the last place, the last time I felt safe and hopeful.”
Her arms don’t close around him but she isn’t pushing him away either. “Did you forget everything that happened after this?”
“No. I haven’t forgotten.” He sighs. “After a year break, even after therapy sessions and winning their damn stupid game – none of us have forgotten, none of us want our old lives before the sim back. We just want to be with each other.”
Her words don’t travel beyond their embrace. “I don’t know.”
He squeezes her quickly and relaxes without letting go. “Because we never told you everything you were to – when you escaped the mountain, showed up in Arcadia when we were desperately looking for all of you – there. Right there is the first time in my life, the sim or this one, where I felt safe and hopeful about the future, about being alive. That moment with you in my arms.”
Bellamy can feel the wetness of her tears sliding down his neck. “That’s awful.”
“Hell, Clarke.” He laughs. “Sim or no sim – life ridiculously sucks.”
“I wouldn’t mind all the bad memories being fake but it means all the good ones are too.”
“I’m sorry about Madi, Clarke. Sorry that idiot me in that last round was like it was with Pike.”
“I’m sorry I shot you.”
“Even fake, stupid me?”
“Even him.”
Progress. He lowers her back onto the bench and crouches in front of her. It’s not the best time even if countdown in his head has slowed but its past time for this particular conversation. “I know we asked so much of you, every crisis, every instance in the sim. We asked you to solve impossible problems and live to impossible standards. And I know asking you to hold on – till the nothingness in you passes – is kind of more of the same. I know this isn’t the right time but I did learn from something from the sim, even the last one. Especially the last one, watching from the outside. You listening?”
Clarke tilts her head to the side.
“There’s never a right time and you have to fucking use your words.”
Tear streak down her cheeks and the weight of her despair lifts a little in her curiousity.
“I thought, I thought everything I felt was so obvious to everyone – you included.” He shakes his head. “I thought I knew everything that happened and why and I thought I didn’t have to say it or that you didn’t want to hear it because it wasn’t like that for you. Doesn’t matter.”
“Bellamy Blake, are you about to tell me you love me in the middle of a personal crisis.”
“Clarke Griffin, yes.” He laughs and settles back on his heels with a smirk. “I love you Clarke, the part of you that fights to save everyone, the part that does bad things to accomplish miracles.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not saying it back.” She grunts. “I just shot you about – well however long ago it was.”
“I know, about six months now.” He stands and settles next to her on the bench.
“And I’m not going to go and live with you and your delinquent friends and family.”
“Suit yourself.” Bellamy slides an arm around her shoulders.
“Idiot.” She rests her head on his shoulder. “I’ll consider your words – not the really stupid ones – and let you know.”
“Okay.”
Her head tilts to look up at him. “Think you and your kru can find out why we’re still living in tin cans in space?”
Bellamy looks down and the ticking countdown in his head stops. There’s this crease down the middle of her forehead that he remembers well. “We do possess numerous skills and lack any respect for authority – so yeah, we can do that.”
“Good.”
When she looks up into his eyes that look is there. That glow in her eyes when they first got off the drop ship, a small spark of the fire inside her when she stood toe to toe with him to fight for whatever she thought was right. There were still cracks as well but Bellamy knew this, knew her.
“Fuck, princess…”
“Like you really wanted to live under the thumb of scientists who think torturing their research subjects is how you science.” Clarke stands and stares down through the stars at the beautiful green and blue planet below.
Fighting a grin, he gets to his feet beside her – facing away from the new windmill she wanted to tilt at –“This isn’t going to fix you.”
She snorts. “There’s no “fixing”. But it’s a hell of a reason to keep moving” – she leans into his side – “it’s enough hope. So. I’ll keep breathing till I find the next bit to grab on.”
“I’ll take it.” He nudges her back and heads down the hall away from Clarke, stopping at the corner. “You coming?”
One slow breath and she walks his way with one quirked brow. “Together.”