Chapter 15 - "Reminiscing"

AN - so it has been months... my bad, life has gotten in the way, season 6 ended, and now the show has it's own end date in sight... BC season 6 is now out, this is now FULL AU. I have been trying to find a season 7, but i just ahve no idea what the last scene will mean for the future... so that gives me time to come back to this.

Please Read and Review.

It was very boring over the next month. Clarke slowly got better, and started walking around.

Clarke, always the independent one, got herself into trouble a few weeks into what they started to call 'the second sleep'. Wondering by herself, she lost her balance, and tore open some abdominal stitching, while hitting her head pretty hard. It was by mere coincidence that Jordan found her unconscious on the floor of the library. Immediately he called for help, and they got her back to med bay. Luckily, it was only a mild concussion, and then Abby was able to stich her back up without an issue, after getting her blood replenished from Octavia of course.

Abby started a new blood bank after the incident with Clarke. She really berated herself for not staring one earlier. Every few days, someone new was picked to donate blood. That way next time someone needs a transfusion, they wouldn't have to do live transfusions. Eventually even Clarke was added to the rotation, once she was mostly healed.

Abby also made a rule. Clarke could not wonder around the ship alone, someone always had to stay with her just in case something happens again, much to Clarke's chagrin.

After six years of only having Madi by her side, Clarke thought that she would have welcomed the adult companionship, but they all quickly got on her nerves. It was the little things that truly bothered her. In retrospect, going from the company of one child to the company of five adults required an adjustment period. The problem for Clarke is that there was no problem or issue for her to attack, so boredom and annoyance were an issue. There was no peace or quiet for her, as someone always needed to stay with her.

In the few weeks that they all reunited on the ground, there was not much time to catch up on. So most of them asked Clarke how had she done it? How did she survive practically alone for six years? To avoid the questions, she started to pick up Octavia's pastime, reading books. This was far too passive hobby for Clarke.

Jordan noticed this, so when he found a stack of notebooks, he gave them to Clarke. "You could start drawing again" he said as he handed the notebooks to her. This lifted Clarke's spirits. It wasn't just the radio call that kept her sane, it was drawing everyone and everything she remembered. "Didn't you say that a books of your drawings was Madi's most prized possession?" Jordan asked.

"When did I say that?" asked Clarke.

"During your radio calls" Jordan responded.

"Yes I did say that… I guess I should start a new one." Clarke said. Immediately thinking that she would start two, one for Madi, and another for Jordan. In a week she had a bunch of drawings in one book. She had found Bellamy and Jordan eating in the mess hall. She showed Jordan what she was working on.

"This is going to be yours, I am not done with it, but I wanted to show you" she told him.

Jordan opened the book. The first page was Jasper. Jordan's namesake. "I drew the last time he was somewhat happy, eating chocolate cake in Mount Weather."

Jordan was speechless. "My dad told me about this, he said that while everyone was enjoying the food, you were looking for a way out."

"Yea, I knew it, in my bones that something was off, I didn't want to be right" Clarke remembered.

"What set you off about them?" asked Bellamy.

"Honestly, it was waking up somewhere alone, in clean clothes, which meant someone changed me, even my underwear. It was the invasion of privacy, and then they told everyone from the Ark was dead. I couldn't believe that, no way. So I played along for a while, I wanted to believe in it, but I am way too stubborn to leave things alone, saw the cages, and escaped. Did I never tell you this?" Clarke reminisced as she told them what happened.

Bellamy said "You told me about chocolate cake, and upside down blood draws… Turn the page Jordan"

So Jordan turned the page. The second drawing was Monty and Harper, on the rover, coming to rescue them from Pramfyre. "They should have gone directly to the bunker, but Bellamy, told them that we were in trouble, and they didn't hesitate." Clarke narrated again.

"But you could have gone to the bunker, they were saving a spot for both of you." Jordan said.

Bellamy smiled. "That was not a hard decision in the end."

"I guess it was not, we chose to let our fate be that of our friends" Clarke responded.

"The day I went into cryo sleep, my mom said that was the day she knew she would pick the two of you as godparents, it's why you were woken up first" Jordan said to the pair of them.

Both Bellamy and Clarke were floored by this "We're your godparents? Kid you're screwed" laughed Bellamy, trying to break the tension. Clarke just hugged the guy.

"Of course, it is weird, 'cause I'm technically older than you" said Jordan as Clarke hugged him.

Raven entered the mess hall, she had just woken up from her nap, as it was her turn to babysit Clarke. "Whoever I am relieving, good night, I am here".

Jordan turned the page, practically ignoring Raven. The next drawing was the rocket leaving in front of the satellite tower, with someone half way up the tower. "I thought I would die that day" Clarke said.

"What's this?" asked Raven. "Is this what you have been drawing all week?" she asked

Clarke nodded, the mood in the room turning. "By the time I got to the tower, I had less than 12 minutes. I thought perfect, just enough time to plug it in and get back, but of course, things didn't work out as planned. Turns out the dish was misaligned, and needed manual operation. There was no way I could climb the tower in time to make it back. I radioed, told you to go, leave without me." Clarke looked at Bellamy. "I started climbing. The wind was so strong, and it was stronger the higher I got. I realigned the dish, and I plugged it in. Until you waked into camp six years later, I never knew if I got it in time, before the radiation killed the electronics."

"You got it in time, like the very last second, thirty more seconds, and we all die" said Raven, remembering their last minute scramble to the ring.

"You meant to die, on the tower, didn't you?" asked Bellamy, understanding the subtext of the story.

Clarke shook her head "I don't know, honestly, I saw the wave, and then I didn't want to die. I climbed down, and ran back to the lab. I had no plan, I was just in panic mode. I lost my footing, the helmet cracked. Not that it mattered because my hour was up. I made it back to the lab, and then I wished I was dead, it felt like I was burned alive. If I had any energy, I would have ended, but I couldn't move for days, weeks it seemed. Lucky for me I had collapsed near the radio. Turn the page, next one is a better story"

It was Monty and Raven, in the dropship, with a radio.

"That's how I remember your dad, always helping, always trying to find a way to fix things" Clarke said. "The detail on this one is not finished.

Jordan could only smile. Raven said, "This feels like it was a lifetime ago."

"That because this was like 130 years ago, when we first landed on the ground…" said Bellamy, looking the picture.

"Unity Day, I think it was before that, because we lost comms afterwards." Clarke said.

"Can you draw Finn?" asked Raven. "It's been so long, I can barely remember the sound of his voice.

"I can, I will." Clarke nodded. "Do you want to keep it?" She asked Jordan.

"No, not yet, once it's finished." he said giving it back. "Thank you Clarke."

After a couple of weeks, Clarke found a firing range. Putting her drawing book down, she started taking practice every day. Once Jordan saw her shoot. He organized a tournament. Apparently the range was built for the officers to keep up their shooting accuracy. This was a hobby that Clarke could get behind. Another surprise for Clarke was that they didn't actually use bullets, but only bb guns. After six years of having to hunt her own food with guns, Clarke had pretty good aim. Octavia was the only other person that could keep up with Clarke.

"How did you learn to shoot like that" asked Octavia. She was standing next to Clarke. Behind were Abby, Bellamy, Raven, and Jordan. With the exception of Abby, they had all shot at a target, and had failed to keep with the sisters.

"Your brother taught me." said Clarke, as she shot and matched all of Octavia's shots.

"I taught you how to shoot a gun, not how to aim, if so I would like to teach myself to aim like that" Bellamy joked.

"I could not be shown up by a six year old now could I?" Clarke laughed as she remembered trying to teach Madi to shoot.

"Really, Madi was a good shot?" asked Abby. Abby for the most part spent her days researching way she could fix Kane, she almost wanted to wake up Jackson, just for a sounding board. But she could not bring herself to do it, he wanted peace, and after everything, it was the least that she could do. Clarke tried to be a sounding board. At first it was successful. But as talented as Clarke was for her experience, she needed a veteran doctor to collaborate with. She had a couple of apprentices in the bunker, but they were on par with Clarke and probably won't be able to help.

"Not with a gun, with a spear she was deadly." Clarke replied. Octavia and Clarke had called it a draw. Winner got to skip a specific chore, like cleaning the bathrooms. Both of them put their guns away as Bellamy asked. "But you eventually taught her?"

"I did." Clarke hesitated at first, but then she said. "I got sick, really sick, I think it was pneumonia, but it's not like I had any instruments, so I don't know for sure. I couldn't hunt, I could barely walk, it was our third winter together, if Madi had not taken care of me, I don't think I would have made it. The problem was the lake was frozen, couldn't really fish. We were down to a couple of days of dried meat, before I finally turned the corner. We ventured outside of Eden looking for bugs in the dessert, where the forest used to be. It is where I first found something edible in my first year. Coming back after one of these day trips we saw them, a herd of deer. By now I was low on ammunition. Very few materials had been found to make more. I knew that my aim had to be perfect. I was able to kill two deer before the rest of the herd ran away. We spent the rest of the night dragging and cleaning the deer. We went to Polis not too long after that, and found and armory in the city, from before apocalypse one. That's where most of or guns came from."

"I'm glad you didn't die" Jordan smiled when he said this.

"Me too, I don't like to think of leaving Madi on her own." Clarke responded.

Abby and Clarke called it quits and went to their stateroom, next to the med bay.

As they settled in for the night, Abby said "tell me more about Madi, I'd like to know about her, how did you meet?"

"Now that's a story" Clarke smiled at the memory. "It had been 58 days since everything, I had finished cleaning up the church, and I found some berries, they weren't sweet, but after what I went through, it didn't matter. Then I heard it, rustling in the background" Clarke stopped, to get more comfortable on the bed, and Abby finally sat down on the end of the bed.

"There was a girl, very unkempt, wild hair, and dirty. I was so shocked to see anyone else. I had already resigned myself that I would be alone for five years, yet there she was. Then she took off into the woods, and I ran after her. Finally she stopped running and I kept asking her questions, like 'are you alone, are there others?' when she finally let me get close I asked if she was a nightblood, she took a few steps backwards, and I followed her right into a bear trap." Clarke finished.

"A bear trap?" asked Abby, somewhat alarmed. At Abby's question, Clarke rolled up her pants, and showed her the nasty scar she had from where she had stepped into the bear trap.

"Once I was in the trap she came at my with a knife, and said 'die flamekeeper die', she only stopped when she saw I too was a nightblood" Clarke laughed at the memory.

"Based on the drawings, I would have thought you meeting would have been much different" Abby mused as Clarke continued her story.

"I don't remember much about what happened next. Somehow I got myself out of the trap, made it back to the church, and stitched myself. I must have been out for at least a day, when I woke up, most of my useful supplies were gone." Clarke smiled at the memory again, realizing how quickly the girl came to trust after that.

"It didn't take long to gain her trust, at the end of the day, she was as relieved to have me around as I was, just to see another face after all that isolation was comforting." Clarke said.

"You were in isolation for a year, was 58 days harder?" asked Abby.

"When I was in the box, I could still hear people, someone brought me food and water, and you visited every so often, no, my stay in the box was not one tenth as hard as what I lived through during those 2 months.

"More difficult than anything that happened on the ground?" Bellamy asked. He had been at the door for a minute now, During this entire time Clarke wouldn't say a word about life before Madi, he knew that whatever happened, it was difficult to talk about.

"Even when I went away, I knew you were alive" Clarke said to Bellamy. Then she turned to her mom "I thought you both were safe, and I traded with the grounders for supplies, so I was never really alone."

Abby could tell that Clarke was fighting sleep now, so she said "We'll talk more tomorrow, you rest now" as she left the room.

Bellamy came into the room and sat by Clarke. "Whatever happened out there, I am so relieved you made it, and if you ever need to talk, I am always here.

Clarke just smiled "you never would have said that to me when we first landed."

"No, you were a princess that didn't know her place anymore, or so I thought, I learned my lesson quickly" Bellamy chuckled as he got up. Clarke then said "If you think about it, we've had the weirdest relationship".

"What do you mean?" asked Bellamy, his heart beat increasing.

Clarke started rambling "Well, in the beginning you were an ass." Bellamy just nodded. "and I couldn't have been great to deal with, We bonded over killing Dax, Then I helped you get a pardon, you helped me control the masses, you inspired the 100 to fight. We never gave up on them through Mt. Weather. I, well, we committed genocide, I betrayed you, you betrayed me, But then ALIE forced us to band together, then there's the whole bunker thing, choosing between the bunker and space, not knowing the other was alive for six years, you betrayed me, I betrayed you again. Madi reminded me that you are family, that you have always been family, and you forgave me so easily. Why did you forgive me?"

Bellamy looked stern for a second, then he had a sad smile "I thought you didn't think of me as family anymore, that's what hurt the most really. But then Madi told me about the radio calls, you can't make a call to someone everyday if you don't care about them. I was trying to find a way to save everyone, I'm sorry if you feel like that was betraying you."

Clarke sighed, "I did at the time, I don't anymore. I'm sorry it took me so long to take off the blinders I had when it came to Madi"

"We don't need to rehash this, I've forgiven you, you've forgiven me, let's leave it like that." Bellamy said this trying to end the conversation.

"We can't do that, if we do, someday we could end up resenting each other." Clarke responded.

"Not possible, not long term anyway." Bellamy hunched over to give Clarke a kiss on her forehead, and left before she could say anything else.

Clarke now was awake, and for the first time since her time in the valley, she felt content.