Chapter Text
Clarke:
“...I’m sorry,” he says, but he isn't apologizing to her. He isn't even apologizing to their friends, whose chance at escape he just ruined. He's apologizing to Bill Cadogan, his Shepard.
The world around her tilts. She doesn't realize that it's not the ground beneath her, but her own numb limbs giving out until hands are grasping her, keeping her upright. She doesn't know who they belong to. She doesn't care.
All she notices is that it isn't Bellamy. He doesn't even look back.
Words are exchanged, and guards are seizing them, but Clarke fails to process it through the roaring in her ears and the pain that makes it difficult to breathe as she tries to wake up from the nightmare that was the last few minutes. She blinks, looks over her shoulder, but the sight doesn’t change. Bellamy still stands tall, his eyes firmly on Bill.
Just the echo of the words coming out of his mouth makes her stomach roll and her throat burn, and she forces herself to look away.
They’re moved from Cadogan’s quarters to some type of holding cell. It’s nice, as far as these places go – certainly better than any of the cells she experienced on Earth – with two beds and decent lighting, but she isn’t truly able to process it through the shock. She doesn’t head for the beds, though some of the others do, nor does she pace like the rest. She tucks herself into the corner, ostensibly watching the room, but stares unseeingly as she tries to ground herself and find purchase.
For minutes or for hours, she can’t say for sure exactly how long, she tries and fails. What sense of the world that was returned to her when Bellamy appeared - a little rougher for wear, but alive - crumbled to dust and left her in a perpetual freefall with nothing to anchor herself. She can’t make sense of it; if there is one truth, it is that Bellamy Blake protects his people at all costs, yet the man wearing his face just destroyed whatever chance they had, the one chance she had to protect them.
She drifts through the physical realm, but her mind is still trapped in that moment. It stretches indefinitely, that fraction of a second in which everything she thought she lost was returned to her only to be ripped away just as quickly.
The indefinite moment stretches until a warm hand on her cheek and a familiar voice instantly calling her name forces her back.
When her eyes focus, it's painful.
Octavia sits before her, green eyes boring into hers and expression so reminiscent of her brothers that it feels like being kicked. It's a struggle to breathe, taking in the raw determination and reassurance in Octavia's expression, as well as the clenched jaw that belies her stress, a look that Clarke associates so strongly with Bellamy, but she manages.
“Clarke,” she says again, gentle but firm.
“Yeah,” she croaks in response, her throat dry. It hurts, whether she's been crying or if it’s simply from disuse, she doesn't know. Quite some time must have passed, maybe all night; beyond Octavia, Niylah and Miller sleep in one bed with Hope and Jordan in the other, while the exhausted forms of Echo and Raven pace the room like caged animals.
“I need you to focus,” Octavia says intently.
And stars, is she trying. But it's so hard. Bellamy Blake is the rock that keeps her tethered, and he's gone.
He was right in front of her, looking a little worse for wear, but there.
Except, he wasn't. Not really. And she doesn't know how to exist in a world where Bellamy isn't a safe place.
Even after the world ended and she had no one, she had a shitty, broken radio and the hope that he could hear her, he could still be her safe place, even from a million miles away.
Whoever came back is not the man she prayed was listening.
Octavia's gentle hand against her face turns hard, nails digging into the softness of her cheek.
It helps.
“I’m listening,” she whispers.
“Good. That's good,” Octavia says.
As Clarke focuses, she notices the other woman's pupils are blown wide with urgency, though she keeps her tone soothing, as if Clarke is a cornered animal at risk of being spooked. It's absurd. Clarke’s beyond such petty things now, but she doesn't say so. There's little point. Instead, she waits.
Sensing she has her attention, Octavia continues. “They're going to take you to m-cap, to look at your memories.” Octavia swallows thickly – Clarke can see her throat working, and she knows that there are things Octavia isn't telling her about that, but she can't bring herself to ask – but her tone remains that strange mix of calm but urgent. “They'll try to find your memories of the flame.” Clarke nods. It makes perfect sense, after all. Octavia's grip changes, both hands grasping Clarke's shoulders hard enough to bruise now as she stressed, “No matter what, you cannot let them.”
Clarke blinks in surprise at the sudden change.
“If you let them, they'll follow whatever memories you give deeper, but that cannot happen if you want to protect Madi. If they find the flame, they'll eventually find her. Do you understand?”
Madi. The name lodges a stone in her throat and brings tears to her eyes.
Madi, her beautiful, brilliant daughter who never should have had the flame in the first place. The one bright spot in her life since the world ended. The one thing that still matters.
She has to protect her. Nothing is more important than that.
It hurts. Everything hurts in the present moment, but most of all it hurts to know that protecting Madi will probably be the last thing she ever does. That she'll be leaving her daughter behind, just like Madi's parents left her, and Clarke’s parents left her too.
“What do I do?” she asks, fierce determination settling over her and pushing away the last of the fog.
Octavia smiles sadly as if she knows what this is costing her. Perhaps she does.
“Pain,” she says with a grimace. “You can fight it by focusing on something else as hard as you can, but it hurts. It will drive you to the brink of insanity, but they need you, so they shouldn't push too hard.”
“And if that doesn't work?” she asks. It's hard focusing now, even with Madi as a focal point, but she won't be able to do that when they take her. She needs to keep her thoughts of her daughter far away from them and their equipment, but she doesn't know how to focus on anything else right now. She won't bet Madi's safety on her unstable mind.
“Physical pain. Diyoza dug the spikes of the machine into her temple until she bled and they gave up,” Octavia answers quickly, but with a grim expression that belies her true feelings.
Clarke nods. She can do physical pain. She's lived through plenty of it.
Octavia hesitates only then, before carefully adding. “They won’t give up on you, though. You have to know that.”
“I do.”
“And if they come after the rest of us?” she questions, her gaze never wavering.
“I have to protect her,” Clarke admits, broken by the admission. She forces back the memory of her mother speaking ALIE's words, saying her friends are her weakness. Nothing can be her weakness this time, not if she wants to save her daughter.
Octavia doesn't look disgusted. If anything, she looks pleased. “Good,” she says firmly. “We cannot let Cadogan win. Not after all he's done.”