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STARRY NIGHT
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"YOU NEED TO toughen up, buttercup."
Laughter wreathes Bellamy's voice as he traipses back from the end of the corridor where he'd displayed a blood-red tapestry with a sloppily scrawled X in the centre. He seems rather pleased with himself as he pops a few nuts into his mouth, but horror brews on Lyra's lips.
Her eyes are tenacious as she examines the plethora of gun. "I have a bad feeling about this."
"About what, guns?" Bellamy just grins, his eyes roaming them gleefully. "This changes everything. No more running from spears - ready to dance with the devil, Angel?"
She presses her palms to her eyes. "Bellamy - "
"We're lucky the rifles were packed in grease. The fact that they survived means we're not sitting ducks anymore."
"Bellamy," she says again, chest heaving.
Maybe it's the way her octaves wobble a little too much, maybe he can somehow feel the anxiety rolling off her like an icy sea of torment, but regardless, she feels him touch a fingertip to her bare shoulder and graze pale fire down her arm.
"We need these. You know we do."
That was what their ancestors had said about bombs, about nukes, wasn't it? And look at how that turned out. All for survival. Every single terrible thing they ever did was all for survival.
She stays quiet.
He curls his hands around hers, tugging them from her face. "C'mon. You need to learn how to do this."
With every fibre of her being screaming at her to stop, faulty gods howling that this is not who she is, Lyra takes the onyx gun he offers her. It's heavier than it looks, like a leadened weight. Like a tombstone. When she glances up, she can hardly meet his eyes, the colour of them reminding her of the way coal smoulders in the forge before it is crushed to diamonds. He's close to her now. He's really close to her.
"How do I do it?" She asks, her voice completely too quiet in the emptiness.
"Over your shoulder. Here, let me help."
Bellamy lifts one hand, grazing it against the terracotta skin of her bare arm (her jacket is discarded in the corner) and the intimacy of it makes scarlet ash sweep inside her lungs. There's a strange furnace burning her alive. An odd heat crawling up her neck.
He clears his throat suddenly. "Uh, that's good."
She tugs away from him. Fumbling with the gun, she tries to lift it up and match it with the target.
"Those spiders won't stand a chance," he says, grinning at her.
But her heart drops into her stomach.
Lined up through the spoke, all she can see are faces of phantoms she'd hoped to be free of. Her moms shadowy figure waltzes by, followed closely by a giggling Charlotte utterly drenched in scarlet. God, she can almost smell the blood. Atom's disfigured corpse drags a pockmarked finger down her face and she shudders. Pike. Jaha. Great expectations.
Do you not have the heart for this, Miss. Jupiter?
"Are you - "
"I can't do this," says Lyra, setting the gun delicately onto the cargo. "I - I can't."
Sucking in a sharp breath, she does her best to ignore the walls crawling towards her. One blink and she'll be back in solitary again. One false movement is all it will take. Caged in that box as she sits and waits to die. Alone with nothing but the voices.
"I'm an engineer, a physicist," she says as lightly as she can, though she is horrified. "Not a soldier."
"Hey, it's all right," he says gently. His hands hover over the trigger of his own gun, the edges of his mouth tugging up more cautiously now. "It's not so bad. All you need to do is trust me."
Cradling it in one hand, he shrugs it over his shoulder. Cocking it easily, he jabs its onyx snout through the air, his nose scrunching in concentration as he adopts a casual stance, feet in perfect parallel. Lyra waits in trepidatious anticipation as he pulls back the trigger.
Nothing happens.
He reloads, clicks it once more.
Again, nothing.
"Don't worry," Lyra teases. "I still trust you."
"Shut up," he mumbles.
Taking her gun, he copies his previous motions only this time, when he fires, a shot rings out and explodes just centimetres off from the dead centre of the target. X marks the spot, thinks Lyra dryly.
But she cannot deny how the deafening ring makes her stomach curdle. Guns, bullets, war. . . she always has been a star girl, more cosmic than human, head to high in the clouds of dreams for her feet to touch the ground where harsh reality burnt all who walked there. Wreathed in the mist of phantoms, walking with ghosts at her hands, death at her back, and starlight in her eyes.
The stars cannot exist in a universe of black holes, in a sky void with ash. She could never condone violence.
(And she will not create death. Not again.)
Desperate for some sense of solace, she tries to think of what's happening at camp. She wonders if Octavia's made any contact with the Grounder prisoner yet.
"You left Miller with the Grounder, right?" She asks Bellamy cautiously.
Flicking on the safety of the gun, he nods.
"You trust him a lot, then," says Lyra, though she's hoping not too much.
"He's a good guy. You should keep him close. The others listen to him."
"Why would I keep him close?" She asks, baffled.
He doesn't answer at first. Instead he looks away, as if unable to meet her eyes. She dreads his next words, heartbeat rising as the pause seems to stretch infinitely, his jerky movements betraying him. And then, at last, he admits:
"I'm leaving."
Shock clogs her throat. "Wha - what?"
"I'm leaving," he repeats, eyes like frigid stones as they finally look at her. "Every day, the Ark gets closer and closer to the ground. I'm running out of time."
"The rations... " Lyra begins slowly, laboriously, observing his anxious face. "That's why you took so many. And that's why you came with me. You were just going to take everything and run."
His voice is controlled, but a shadow of remorse drapes him. "You're all better off without me."
"What about Octavia?" She asks, in utter disbelief of what she's hearing. Bellamy Blake running? "You're seriously just going to leave her?"
Leave all of us?
It's weird. When they first got to the ground, Lyra doesn't even think she'd have noticed if Bellamy disappeared. But now. . .
"Octavia hates me," he says harshly. "She'll be fine."
"She could never hate you - "
"I shot a man - I shot the Chancellor, Lyra!" Each syllable shudders, torture roaring beneath. "They're gonna kill me. Best case scenario, they're gonna lock me up with the Grounder and there's no way in hell I'm giving Jaha the satisfaction. It's like you said earlier, a hell of a place to live."
That is not what she meant, but Bellamy's already turned his back on her.
"I need some air."
Not knowing how to skirt around the thunderstorm looming between them, the enormity of everything he's done stretching between them, Lyra watches him. If there's a way to soothe him instead of stoking the flames, she doesn't know it.
His irate footsteps echo against the stairs and then he's gone.
Lurching across the stone, she sucks in a sharp breath before collapsing into the wall for support. The world around her seems to spin and a nausea simmers in the pits of her stomach. She's so dizzy.
Wait. . .
What?
"We should play lily pads - first one to touch the ground loses."
Whirling around, Lyra forgets how to breathe. Fragments of the past two years shatter like glass inside her brain. Her heart bounces in her throat. She skirts forward only to stumble into a tumbling halt and some part of her collapses.
"Mom?"
Looming in the threshold is her mother. Ark walls materialise all around, as if building from nothing, and Lyra knows at once where they are. Mecha Station. The airlock sector. Rows of spacesuits dangle to her side and standing before her is the airlock, a gleaming window into the molten wonders of the universe. Her mom stands before it, draped in moonbeams, drifting between worlds.
Rubbing her wrists as a distraction, Lyra resists her primal urge to dart forwards. She wants nothing more than to tuck her arms around her waist and bury herself in the safety of her mother's arms.
Somehow it feels like only one day since they've been apart. It's been one long, long day.
But she believes if she touches her, her mom will dissolve, dissipate like a wisp of smoke and leave her alone all over again. So she keeps her hands close to her chest.
"You're in my head," she whispers, trying to convince herself. "You aren't real."
"Come on, Star-Girl," her mom says in an amused voice, ambling closer, eyes molten as the heavens. "You know that doesn't make me any less real."
"No - no," says Lyra, squeezing her eyes shut. "The Ground. That's the dream."
"Not your dream."
Her mom's voice is impossibly close to her and Lyra peels open her eyes to see her close the distance between them completely. Before she can protest, her mom's fingers fleetingly brush against her shoulder and then Lyra surrenders completely, collapsing into her mom.
Her mom holds her closely as Lyra nuzzles her cheek against her shoulders, one hand scratching up through her sleek braid. She holds her daughter close, feeling her torrid tears spill onto her spacesuit.
"Your destiny is in the stars."
"I know," the girl pushes in, her cheeks sodden. Her mom's hold tightens, tracing constellations onto her shivering spines. "I know, but... but I'm down here. And... and... "
She blinks, stumbling back with a strangled gasp.
"You shouldn't be here."
"I shouldn't," her mom agrees sadly, looking remorseful. "But we both know why I'm here."
The girls shakes her head adamantly.
"We do," her mom countered softly, coming forwards again, but Lyra nearly throws herself back. "My time has run out, Star-Girl. You need to let me go."
"No - no," Lyra splutters fiercely amidst her tears. "No. You told me I had to take your hand - "
"We are out of time - "
"No, I just need more time," Lyra declares rashly, wiping furiously at the starry tears that glisten across her cheeks. "I just need - I just need more time! Just give me your hand, mom - I just need more time!"
The next part happens suddenly. One minute, she's rushing towards her mom and the next, she's slamming into something solid. She stumbles back just as time slows down just enough to feel the rough bark of. . . a tree?
Something blisteringly glacial presses against her forehead and Lyra dissolves back into reality. . .
. . . and finds herself held at gunpoint.
Her bones freeze into ice and they rattle violently beneath her skin as she stares into the malicious mouth of the gun. It sits directly between her eyes and she almost goes cross-eyed and dizzy trying to look at it. It's black sheen glints malevolently in the soft honey-hued afternoon, like a hideous disfigurement that does not belong. Aggressively poised to send her to an untimely death, ready to send her back to whatever false reality she had crawled up from.
And it's in Dax's hand.
"Naive to the last breath," drawls the boy. "So innocent, unassuming, so trusting. The Ark's Angel. She can do no wrong, can she? Naive until the very end."
There has to be a logical explanation for this. There has to be.
Terror in her throat and treacherous cracks twisting through her glass heart, Lyra slowly and shakily shifts her eyes back and forth. Bellamy is crumpled on the ground, several shallow slashes marring his forehead and cheek. Dusty red bubbles at the surface and he is slumped over in defeat. He doesn't seem to be moving.
Is he dead?
There has to be a logical explanation.
"Dax," says Lyra uncertainly. Her voice is shaky and wobbly and wrong. She tries again. "Dax. Tell me. What's going on?"
"Needs be, Storm Walker," he said as he pressed the gun further against her forehead in the dying afternoon sun. "My mom is on the Ark. If there's another culling, she'll be next. She isn't Privileged. I have to help her."
No sudden movements. Lyra is stiff as she listens.
"We'll do whatever it takes for our people and sometimes... well, sometimes sacrifices have to be made."
He plays with the trigger carelessly. "Shumway gave me a job. I'll carry it out, even if it means killing both of you now."
A serpent seems to have unfurled inside her chest and it coils around her vital organs incessantly. Constricting. Compressing. Crushing. Fracturing her heart and mind until she thinks they will erupt. A chill engulfs her body but she tries not to shake, terrified that the sudden movement will jolt Dax into action. She needs to figure this out. She needs to fix this. She can fix this.
She just needs a little more time.
"Shumway," she manages. "The Commander of the guard?"
"He set it up," grouses Bellamy, rumbling to life. Her heart leaps. He's alive. He's alive. He's alive. "He gave me the gun to shoot the Chancellor."
"Walk away now, and I won't kill you."
Dax's attention is so ensnared on her that he does not notice the jerky and cautious movements behind him. Wanting nothing more than to curl up into a ball and cry, Lyra forces herself to look directly into his blistering eyes. She can buy time for Bellamy, at least. She can get him out of here.
What makes a monster a monster?
She remembers Charlotte, covered in Wells' blood. Sobbing for her parents as she drowned in the blood of the son of the man who killed them.
You cannot create a monster and then blame it. Hate its twisted words, condemn its blistering actions. When she thinks of a monster, she thinks only of all the monstrous people that made it.
Monsters are made, not born, she tells herself as she lifts her hands in the air and stares steadily at Dax. Take his hand. Save him.
Absolute and utter belief glitter in her eyes like one-hundred determined stars.
"Dax, let me help you - "
"Help me? You can't even help yourself," he sneers at her. "A golden girl, a hero to the Ark. How wonderful she is. But look at you now, standing here, begging for your own life."
The gun flashes in the honey sunlight. Dax leers.
"May we never meet again."
"Good idea."
Bellamy.
Throwing himself forwards, he slams his boot into Dax's chest and the taller boy staggers backwards. The gun goes flying from his fist and thuds to the ground. Both boys lunge for it at once, toppling to the soil. There's an animalistic scowl crawling across Dax's features as he pins Bellamy to the grit, ensnaring his throat in his fingertips.
Dread slithers down her spine and then Lyra explodes forwards.
"Get the hell off him!"
Lunging for Dax, she manages to grasp his arm and as Bellamy kicks both his legs into his chest, she and Dax go tumbling backwards and into the soil. He's atop of her now, face contorted in such a rage that she almost forgets how to breathe.
"You shouldn't have done that, you bitch - "
Blood splatters through the air and soaks through Lyra's clothes, drenching her to the bone. Her knees tremble and then she collapses to the ground like ashen stardust, her bones bursting from her skin in fright.
Dax is on top of her, slumped and unmoving. His eyes are void of light. Malevolent ruby oozes from his chest and Lyra feels frozen, lips agape, rooted to the ground. Then she feels a hand tugging at her arms, a voice speaking in her ears. The unidentified light at the end of the tunnel. Bellamy.
He'd stabbed him in the back.
Hauling herself out from beneath the dead body, Lyra shivers in. . . in what? Terror? Horror? Despair? She doesn't know if words exist to describe what just happened. All she knows is that there doesn't seem to be enough air in the world as she breathes raggedly. She can't get far enough away from the body. She can't get far away enough. She can't.
She slumps against a tree shadowed with beastly purple as the sun sets.
Bellamy collapses beside her.
Her eyes snap to him in a new panic. "Are you OK? Did he - are you - " she calms as she realises Bellamy's panting not heavily from a wound but from distress, every bit of her sagging in relief. "You're OK."
"No, I'm not."
She looks up at him cautiously. His chest is heaving erratically.
"My mother... if she knew what I've done, who I am... she raises me to be better, to be good - "
"Bellamy," she mumbles, uncertain of what to say. All her words feel wrong. "You - "
But that flickering wildfire from within the bunker explodes now, chewing away at him incessantly. He lifts his eyes to hers, dark as the starless night and black with torment, his pupils blown and hazy with despair.
"All I do is hurt people," he chokes out the words like they're corrupt, like they're poison bleeding through his veins. "I'm a monster."
And then he seems to break. Like glass shattering, a web of cracks splintering like a spiders web unravelling. His features seem to dissolve. Tears shake from his eyes like molten silver.
Lyra is by his side in an instant.
"No," she bursts as she seizes his hand in hers. "A monster wouldn't feel like this. You feel everything. You're human - what you feel is human."
His cheeks are sodden, eyes damp, but he does not pull away from her touch as he faces her. "I've killed people - "
Her heart beats with the force of one hundred thousand supernovae.
"You've saved people," she insists, grasping his calloused hand in her soft one as tight as she can. "Everything you've done has been to help people. That's who you are."
He seems bitter still, warped with anguish, so she keeps trying.
"Is forgiveness what you need? Because I'll give it to you, OK? I forgive you. For everything you've done. I forgive you, Bellamy Blake."
(There would never be a more forgiving heart than hers.)
"I've seen monsters, Bellamy. I know what they look like. I see one every day when I look at my reflection, but I don't see one when I look at you."
"What are you talking about?" He asks slowly, excruciatingly.
Words die in her throat. Her grasp on his hand loosens as she tries to pull away, but he feels this at once and this time he seizes her, urging her to look at him.
"I... " she stumbles over her vowels. "I... I can't tell you. You'll hate me."
"I seriously doubt that."
She sucks in a shuddering breath. Then ━━
"I killed someone."
Bellamy raises a hand and smears his thumb with her tears, cupping her splotchy face. There is no hatred burning in his gaze.
"Tell me what happened."
So she does.
Every word is a bullet, slick with despair. She is shaking all over, glass stretching over her irises as she tries to hide her cheeks hollowed with torture. Each syllable that leaves her is another gunshot wound exploding through her veins corrupted with arsenic, and she hiccups and coughs and staggers over the story. But she gets it into the sticky twilight air, every last detail of that torturous night, down to the most minute breath.
When she finishes, she is almost too afraid to look at him. But she does, and still he doesn't hate her.
"It wasn't your fault."
She breathes hysterically. "I - "
"No, listen to me, Lyra," he orders as her chest heaves sharply. "You didn't do that, OK? You did not kill your mom. You didn't. You are many things, but you are not a monster."
Such conviction snarls beneath his words that she almost believes him. Almost.
"You don't - "
"You said you trusted me, didn't you?" Bellamy asks and when she nods tearily, he gives a wry smile. "Then trust me on this one, Angel. OK?"
At last, blearily, she whispers, "OK."
Time passes. She's not sure how long the two of them lay there, something strange blossoming and swelling between them. She waits until her heart is no longer stampeding, no longer torn into shreds, but until when the cracked pieces merge back together to open her mouth to speak again, but Bellamy beats her to it.
"They probably need you, back at camp."
"They need you," she counters lowly and when he swallows, she continues, "I won't go back without you."
Bellamy seems submerged in thought, shadows flickering over his features as he surveys the cosmos. When he notices Lyra tilting her head to the side to observe him, he dips his eyes to hers, a strange sort of softness glimmering there in the same onyx that stretches between the stars.
"We don't need to go back now, do we?"
"Nah," she murmurs softly. "We have time."
She tilts her head back to the stars. They shimmer beautifully, constellations dazzling legions above them. A warmth spills from her bones, all the way from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. Bellamy merely rubs a calloused thumb against the soft back of her hand and she raises her chin a little. The stars twinkle like shattered diamonds and a part of her drinks it all in like it is liquid childhood, sinking into forgotten freedoms.
Laying here, his hand in hers, feels like she is drowning in their own small but perfect corner of the universe. Untouched by time. A fleeting eternity.
"Stars don't twinkle in space," she whispers.
"There's no atmosphere up there. When the light from a star comes through the atmosphere, it bounces through different layers and the light bends. Hot and cold layers keep the light moving, and they bend its too, which causes starlight to wobble or twinkle."
He doesn't say anything and her smile weavers.
"Sorry." Embarrassment filters through her voice and she turns away. "I just... that kind of stuff is really cool to me. I'm sorry - "
"Don't be," he says quietly and when he looks to her, glowing in the cosmic shadows, she sees understanding there. "Keep talking. It's... it's nice."
"Really? Well... there's all the constellations. Like Orion," she murmurs, giving life to the billions of dreams she has spent a lifetime conjuring. They swirl in the darkness all around them, a universe singing with all the colours of stars.
"That one?" He lifts his hand, pointing a finger up.
"No, over there." She raises her own finger to correct him.
"There?" His fingers brush against hers as they collide, with him trying to pinpoint the constellation.
"Um... yeah."
There's such a natural element to the way their fingers intertwine, something so electric with fizzling heat, that a rosy pink blooms across her cheek. She's glad for the darkness; Bellamy can't see her blush. She's never been this close with someone else before. But it's all innocent ━━ she'd taken his hand as a source of comfort earlier, now his fingers are firmly interlocked with hers because... because he's trying to comfort her.
"Artemis, the goddess of hunting put him in the sky," he confides. "She loved him, but her twin brother Apollo didn't want her to give up her vows of chastity for him. So he tricked her into killing him and Artemis, devastated by his death and what she'd done, put him among the stars."
Lyra lets out a soft gasp. "That's so sad."
"Yeah. But it's also... kind of beautiful, isn't it?"
"Yeah, it is," she agrees. There's something strangely poetic about turning your fallen lover into gleaming starlight. And then, curiously, "How do you know that?"
She can hear the embarrassment in the earnest words that stumble from his lips. "Um... my mom. She used to tuck me in at night and tell me the stories of Greek gods and goddesses. Every night I'd beg her to read me a page from the Iliad."
A wild giggle leaves her lips and then another. "Bellamy Blake, King of Dirt. Who would've known he's such a softie."
"No one will ever believe you," but he's grinning all the same.
"What, that you're secretly a nerd?" She laughs. "Don't worry, my King. Your secret is safe with me."
"I am not a nerd," he insists, only for her to laugh even harder, much to his chagrin. "I mean it. If anyone here is a nerd, it's you. You're the one going on about layers of the atmosphere."
"Stars are cool," she says adamantly and it's his turn to chuckle.
"All right, all right," he says, sounding amused. He squeezes her hand. "Keep going."
"Well now I don't know if I want to."
"Oh, come on. For me?"
"OK, OK," she surrenders, a choir of thoughts singing in her mind as she spirals. She blinks hazily up at the heavens hanging above them. "Our Galaxy is a spiral, right? That means it's disk shaped with dusty, curving arms of stars that just... spin 'round and 'round outwards. . . "
As she keeps going, her voice shimmering in the onyx bliss like starlight incarnate, Bellamy watches her, his chest suffused with an emotion he's too afraid to put words into. Surrendering helplessly to the sweet and lilting tilt of her voice. Lyra's eyes are so luminescent as galaxies spiral inside her irises that he thinks he might drown in them.
But, strangely enough, that doesn't scare him.
͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙
AMBER BONFIRES BURN across the camp, smoke wafting through the air. Lyra huddles beneath a blazing orange blanket as she faces the fire with a soft smile, listening as Octavia and Jasper and Monty recount the terrors of the day.
But, more often than they should, her eyes flicker to the communications tent.
"And then I ate the pine cone," finishes Monty.
"What did it taste like?" Jasper asks curiously.
"A pinecone."
Lyra shakes away her anxious thoughts to give Monty an amused smile, though that's the best reaction she can muster. Anxiety is churning inside her stomach and her fingers keep bouncing up and down against her thigh. She can only imagine what's taking place in the communications tent that's taken Bellamy, Clarke, and Wells prisoner for the past thirty minutes. Anything could be happening to Bellamy in there.
She feels restless. She feels ━━
She explodes from her seat without so much as a goodbye as the canvas of the tent shifts and reveals Wells stepping out first. Clarke is close behind him and then emerges Bellamy.
"Goodbye to you too!" Monty shouts after her in mock offence.
She skids to a halt in front of the trio, observing them breathlessly.
"What happened - what did Jaha say?"
Bellamy grins at her. "Pardoned. Of all my crimes."
"That's - that's incredible," she breathes, her eyes shining. "I mean, of course I knew it would happen. Like, how could Jaha not? But it's still nice to actually hear it out loud, you know - "
"I know," Bellamy cuts her off fondly. "But uh, they need you in the tent."
"Why?"
"Always with the questions," he says, torn between exasperation and amusement. "Trust me on this one and just go."
"OK, OK!"
Sweeping back the canvas and ducking inside, she slides in front of the camera and jams the headphones over her frizzy braid. The screen shimmers a brilliant blue for a spell and then it hums. An image splits through the static, slate-grey and brumous, lacking the vibrant colours that surround Lyra in her new home.
She blinks once. Twice. A third time and she finally finds her voice.
"Dad?"
Noah Jupiter is facing her on the screen. He looks a lot different than when she'd last seen him, just as she was dragged through Alpha Station in handcuffs. He looks. . . nice. Not smeared with vomit, no alcohol dribbling from his mouth. Even his crumpled shirt is free of stains. He looks not quite how he used to when she was little, when he raised her by saying It's better to be overdressed than underdressed, but he still looks. . . good. Clean.
"I've imagined this moment a million times," he says at last. "And now... now I'm worried I'm not going to say the right thing."
He worries a lot. He always did. It makes sense. The fact that the Ark is run by draconian laws while his wife used to walk deaths doorstep hourly every time she went on a spacewalk must not have helped. And then humans have jumped from conflict to conflict ever since 1914, and he grew up with a grandfather who experienced Earth's final days. When she was really little and before the alcohol, he'd been so overprotective that sometimes it made her giggle.
"Dad," repeats Lyra again, hoping she doesn't burst into tears. She doesn't want to cry in front of him. "I - I need to tell you something."
He closes his mouth with a snap, looking at her expectantly.
She takes a deep breath. Opens her mouth. Hesitates. Closes it. Then she rakes her bangs backwards and, before she can stop herself, blurts out ━━
"I didn't do it."
Her dad stares at her.
She rushes to continue. "I didn't - "
"Oh, Lyra," his features dissolve as he wrings his hands together. "Lyra, honey, I know. Ever since you got arrested, I've been trying to get clean again so that I could stand trial when the council reviewed you. I wasn't going to let them kill you, and then you got sent to the Earth and... I started helping that girl, Rolanda - "
"Raven," says Lyra, hiccuping with laughter despite herself. "I thought you hated me."
"Hate you?" Her dad echoes and then a long breath twists through his teeth. "I know I wasn't the best dad, and I missed a lot of your life... but I never hated you. None of it was your fault."
He halts for a minute, wiping at his eyes. A weight seems to surge from Lyra's chest.
"You know," he continues, lurching through the syllables. "Not a day goes by where I don't regret starting to drink. It was like falling down a rabbit hole and it destroyed everything. It ruined my life and... and I know that if I had just been a little stronger... then you... then you wouldn't be in this mess right now... "
He takes a ragged breath. Then, quietly, "I'm so sorry, Lyra. I'm so, so sorry."
Three words. Three terribly beautiful words that she's spent her whole life waiting for without even knowing. Something warm bubbles like honey inside of her heart, as if a flower is blooming after an endless winter storm, and she feels good. She feels good.
It's all she ever needed to hear.
Colourless water billows in her eyes, blurring her vision. Her heart is soaring.
"Dad," she chokes. "It's OK. You did your best. And I'm proud of you."
He sniffles. "Look at us. I should be telling you that - you're the one who was sent hurtling towards a radioactive planet. And that Barnaby boy tells me you've been quite the problem solver."
She gives a startled laugh. "Bellamy?"
"I was close."
"Sure," she says and then she almost winces. "I've been in, er, quite a few kerfuffle's."
He frowns. "You know how I feel about kerfuffle's."
"I didn't cause them!"
He gives her a look.
"OK, maybe some of them I encouraged slightly. Very slightly."
"I - " he's cut off from some distorted side voice and his lips purse as he turns to face her. "Sweetheart, our time is up. Just know that I wish I could be there with you. I want to keep my little Star-Girl safe, you know."
Something plucked at her hearts strings and she gulps. "I'm OK, dad, really."
"I'll be there soon," he promises. "Chancellor Jaha said I could have a seat on the Exodus ship as a guard if I helped run extra security during the Unity Day pageant. It's almost ready, so I'll see you soon. I promise."
"Really?" Lyra hardly dares believe it. "That's great news, dad."
"And look!" He says quickly, casting a wary glance at something out of view of the camera. "Your moms old NASA jacket, I'm gonna bring it with me for you - "
Her mom's old NASA jacket? An anticipatory shiver rockets up her spine and her breath catches in her throat. Her mom's old NASA jacket had been her prized possession, a jet black bomber jacket with a NASA emblem and description emblazoned over the left side, the logo stitched above the collar, and a thin wrap around band the same orange color of the sunset running around the back with NASA in rounded lettering. Her mom loved that jacket more than life itself.
"Jupiter!" A sharp voice calls off-camera, suspiciously sounding like Councilman Kane.
"Ah, shit," her dad mumbles. "I love you to the stars, baby."
She swallows thickly. "I love you, too."
Then her dad vanishes. Lyra swallows again; it feels like the earth has caved inside of her throat, and she pushes back out of the chair, removing the headphones. Maybe it was the familiar soothing coolness of his voice, maybe it's that Lyra misses her dad more than she thought, maybe it's because she needs her dad while the world around her gets tougher and tougher because she's just a kid. She swallows again and pushes herself back into the soft darkness.
Myles is waiting. It must be his turn in the tent next. "All right, Jupiter-Franko?"
"Fine. Good luck in there," she says kindly, and then pauses. "And... just Jupiter is fine."
It's time to let her mom go.
͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙
the stargazing think was a last minute addition. I hope it's not boring or anything.
not me sitting here and debating w/ myself
to see if lyra and bellamy r moving too fast
✋😭
pleaseeee it's literally been 16 chapters
and they literally just held hands
also bitches w/ daddy issues, how we feelin' tonight⁉️⁉️
(it's me. im bitches.)
4.9k words
also, also, also,,, the l o v e i feel for Clarke Griffin truly is too much. She's so precious this whole episode. The 100 has its faults, but i think the writers did a beautiful job w/ Clarke and she will forever be one of my all time favourite characters.
it rly hurt to write her out, but i hope nobody hates it 😭😭
(My Bellarke heart was SCREAMING as I wrote this.)