Chapter Text
The lab felt small with all of us crammed into it. It wasn't small, had plenty of space for all of us, but it had just been us two for all those years, just me and Murphy and our stupid machines that barely kept us alive. I kept reminding myself that this was what I wanted, all of my friends home, even if the word friends had to be used loosely. The truth is, it was what I wanted, but part of me wanted Murphy more.
Jasper had already parked himself in the chair Murphy had always sat on and it made my stomach twist. He'd thrown paper at the wall from that chair while I worked, nearly fell of it when he was sick, curled himself up right in that spot when the world felt like it was collapsing in on us. It was Murphy's chair, mine and his, not Jasper's. Monty had started exploring the place like he'd never seen it before, like it was all brand new and strange. It probably was, in a way. More lived in than it had been the last time he'd seen it. Harper followed him around like she was lost. Bellamy was stomping around all loud and exasperated. Emori was still attached to Murphy like he belonged to her. I wanted to scream. The lab was used to Murphy's breathing and my swearing. Everything else was extra, too many boots and heartbeats and voices that I'd missed and missed until it hurt.
"Alright," I said, because if I didn't I was going to cry. "Enough wandering. I can't do this. Just everyone sit down so we can talk." Murphy shot me a look that said what's wrong, and I shot him one back that said you. It was selfish. He'd just gotten the love of his life back, and I'd been reunited with my friends, and all I could think about were his hands and his mouth and every single promise he'd ever kept, every promise he'd ever broken. No one else questioned it.
"Table," Bellamy said, his best guard voice at the ready, like it was normal, like he'd never stopped telling us all what to do and who to be.
Monty moved first, already halfway in meeting-mode. Harper followed him, sitting close enough their shoulders brushed like they were still kids on the Ark and proximity meant safety. Echo didn’t sit. She leaned against the wall by the door, arms crossed, eyes tracking everyone’s positions like she was assigning threat levels without a second thought. Jasper dragged his chair away from Murphy’s and dropped into a different one with a theatrical sigh, like he wasn’t affected at all. Like he wasn’t shaking on the inside. Emori guided Murphy into a seat beside her like she was afraid he’d stand up and disappear. She kept one hand on his forearm as he sat, fingers curled like a clamp. Murphy let her. His posture was stiff, like his body didn’t know how to sit in a room full of people anymore. Bellamy took the head of the table without asking, because of course he did. He didn’t look like he was trying to take over. He never did. Leadership just clung to him like dust.
Monty unfolded a rough map on the tabletop. Pencil lines, smudged edges, little notes written too small. It looked fragile, like paper shouldn’t be allowed to hold that much hope.
"Okay. So we're here, right?" Monty said. He looked up, but no one responded. "Right. And we dropped... over here. Everything between here and there is dust and rubble."
"Could you not have started with the good part?" Jasper whined, eyes closed, forehead on the table.
"Alright, alright. So the good part is we're alive. And we think Clarke might be, too."
"Clarke?" I said, because I had to contribute something and Clarke had somehow become probably the only person on this planet that understood me. She'd been my sister, in a way. I wanted her to be that again. "You've spoken to her?"
"No, we- We lost track of her four years ago, but listen. There's a valley, a part of the world praimfaya couldn't reach. It's green, Raven. If anyone's still living there, it's going to be Clarke."
"Right, so we're doing this on nothing but vibes. Awesome," Murphy said, and Emori slapped his arm. I wanted to tell her off for it, wanted to say he didn't deserve that, that she didn't get to touch him that way.
"How far is it?" I said, leg twitching, fingers wanting to reach for my pills already. Monty didn’t answer right away. He looked at the map like he could bargain with it, like if he stared hard enough the distance would get embarrassed and shrink.
“Weeks,” he said finally, and the word landed heavy on the table. “Depending on terrain. Depending on what’s out there. But… weeks.” Harper’s hand slid to Monty’s wrist, thumb pressing once like a pulse check. Jasper made a noise that might’ve been a laugh if it hadn’t sounded so tired.
“Weeks,” Murphy echoed, and something in his face tightened, subtle. He looked at me again. I wished he hadn't. “Cool. Love that for us.”
Bellamy leaned forward, elbows on the table, the leader in him snapping into place like a click. “We don’t have a better option,” he said, not defensive, just factual. “Clarke’s out there. We go.”
Echo pushed off the wall a fraction, eyes narrowing at the map. “We go smart,” she said. “No unnecessary stops. No unnecessary noise. We move like we want to live.”
“We move like we want Clarke to live,” Bellamy corrected, and his voice roughened on her name in a way that made my chest feel too tight.
Monty swallowed. “From the Ark we could see it. Not clearly, but enough. A valley with consistent vegetation signatures. Water. Lower particulate. Lower radiation. It’s… not safe, but it’s survivable.”
“Survivable,” I repeated under my breath, because my brain needed the word to mean something it didn’t. Survivable meant my leg and my straps and the skin under the socket and the nights that got cold enough to make bones feel like glass. Survivable meant rationing. Murphy’s gaze flicked to my hands, to the way my fingers were curled too tight on the table edge. He knew that twitch. He knew what it meant before I did sometimes. I hated that. I hated him for knowing me. I hated myself more.
“So,” Jasper said, lifting his head off the table and blinking like it hurt. “We’re just… leaving.”
“Yes,” Bellamy said, like he’d been waiting for permission to say it. “Tomorrow. We sleep, we plan, we move at first light.”
“At first light,” Monty echoed softly, like a prayer.
Bellamy scanned the table like he was taking inventory of his people, the way he used to. “Monty,” he said. “You give me the cleanest route you can. No hero shortcuts. I want terrain we can actually cross.”
Monty nodded quickly. “Yeah. Yeah, I can do that. I… I already started mapping likely paths based on elevation and-”
“Good,” Bellamy cut in. His attention shifted, sharp now. “Murphy.” Murphy’s posture went straighter, like being addressed by Bellamy still pulled him into some old, reflexive state. Emori’s hand tightened on his forearm again, possessive.
“You and Raven pack anything from the lab we can take with us,” Bellamy said. “Filters, tools, radios, medical supplies. Anything that keeps us alive. Nothing we can’t carry.” Murphy’s eyes flicked to mine at the sound of our names paired together like that. My heart jumped, traitorous. I stared at the map like if I looked at him I’d say something ugly. I probably would have.
“Fine,” Murphy said. “I’ll pack the miracles and the pond scum.”
Emori slapped his arm again, lighter this time, almost affectionate. “Stop.” I bit down on the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste metal. Bellamy’s gaze moved on.
“Emori,” he said, voice gentler without trying. “You stick with Jasper tonight. Keep an eye on him.” She looked at Murphy like Bellamy had kicked her, but she didn't say anything. That was something, at least. I wouldn't have to spend the night thinking about them curled up in a corner, or sleeping together in the bed that had become mine, his, ours.
“I can keep an eye on myself,” Jasper muttered.
“Historically,” Harper said softly, “you can’t.”
Jasper’s mouth twitched despite himself. “Rude.”
“Accurate,” Harper replied. A tiny, brittle laugh bubbled up around the table, not quite real, but close enough to remind me we were still people and not just survivors with names.
Bellamy’s eyes landed on me last. “Raven.” I hated that my throat tightened at the sound of my name in his voice. I hated that it felt like coming home when all I wanted was for him to go back to space and leave me here with Murphy so I could pretend that the last few months had never happened.
“I’m fine,” I said automatically, because I’d been saying it since I was a kid and it had never once been true. Bellamy didn’t argue. He just nodded like he understood the language of lies that kept people moving.
“You’re going to rest,” he said, and it wasn’t a question. “Not work. Rest. You can help Murphy pack whatever you think we'll need, but then you go to bed.”
“I can-”
“No,” he cut in, soft but firm. “We need you tomorrow. We need you with a clear head.” And legs that work. My fingers itched toward my pocket again. The bottle was there like a weight, like a countdown. I forced my hand away from it.
“Fine,” I said, because fighting him would make my voice crack and I refused to let that happen in front of everyone. “Rest.”
“Good.” Bellamy pushed back from the table and stood like the meeting was over because he said it was. “We eat something, we sleep in shifts, and tomorrow we go get Clarke.”
Chairs scraped. Boots shifted. The room broke apart into smaller conversations and murmured plans, like the map had been a spell and now it was wearing off. Echo and Harper drifted toward the hatch, already talking watch rotation in low, clipped phrases, as if there was actually anything out there to keep watch over. Monty gathered the map like it was glass. Jasper wandered off muttering about how this was insane, which was the closest he got to ever saying anything sensible.
Murphy stayed seated for half a second too long, eyes tracking the room like he was counting exits, because he’d been doing that for six years and couldn’t stop now that there were real exits to count. Emori leaned in toward him, murmured something I couldn’t hear. Murphy nodded, expression unreadable, and then his eyes lifted once, just briefly, and found mine. There was something in his face that made my chest ache, something like an apology he didn’t have the right words for. Something like are we still anything? Can we be? I gave him nothing. I couldn’t afford to.
My hands needed somewhere to go that wasn’t his face, so I went to the only thing in the lab that had a job you could do without thinking too hard about your life choices. Food. The algae tank sat in the corner like a joke that had gone too far. It burbled quietly, smug in the way only something that keeps you alive while tasting like pond water can be. The light inside it made the room look sickly, like we were all already ghosts and the lab was just humoring us.
I yanked open the storage cabinet beneath the counter and stared at the stacks of bowls. Real bowls, not the mismatched metal cups Murphy and I had been using when it was just us and there was no point in pretending. The bowls had been collecting dust for years because there was no occasion worthy of them. Apparently the occasion was everyone comes back and immediately asks you to walk across the planet.
“Dinner?” Harper’s voice floated from behind me, tentative, like she didn’t want to be the first one to say it out loud.
“It’s algae,” I said, like that explained everything.
The ladle dipped in, green sludge clinging to it like it didn’t want to leave. I poured it into the first bowl and tried not to think about how many cups I’d filled in silence over the years, how many times Murphy had sat at the table and made gagging noises on purpose just to get me to look at him instead of the wall. Now the table was full of people. Now Murphy was full of Emori. Now I was full of thoughts I didn’t want.
“Raven.”
Bellamy’s voice, close, and I almost flinched because I was too tired to be approached gently. I turned. Bellamy had come over without stomping, which was how I knew he was worried. He looked at the algae with a kind of baffled respect.
“That smells… healthy,” he said.
“It’s a miracle,” I replied. “A disgusting, slimy miracle. Eat it or die.”
“Love that for us,” Murphy’s voice cut in from behind Bellamy, too casual, too familiar. I didn’t turn fast enough to look like I cared. I didn’t look slow either. Murphy stood a few feet away with a stack of bowls in his hands. He’d washed them all. Of course he had. Emori hovered near his shoulder, like she wasn’t sure she was allowed to let him do things without her.
“I didn’t ask you,” I said. Murphy’s mouth twitched.
“You didn’t have to. You were about to start serving our guests out of beakers.”
“That’s efficient.”
“That’s unhinged,” he corrected, and then he shifted the bowls onto the counter beside me like he’d done it a hundred times, like he belonged in my space. He did. That was the problem.
“Thanks,” I managed, and hated myself for it. Murphy’s eyebrows lifted a fraction like he’d just heard a rare bird sing.
“Wow. Manners.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
Emori watched us with an expression I couldn’t read. She wasn't jealous, or angry. The dynamic we'd been projecting probably didn't allow for that. She watched us like she was filing things away for later, making herself a list of questions to ask Murphy, like was she like that the whole time? I pretended she wasn’t there and kept ladling algae into bowls.
Monty hovered uselessly, then finally grabbed a cloth and started wiping down the table like cleanliness could ward off apocalypse. Harper took bowls from my hands and carried them over to the table one by one, quiet, competent, the way she always was. Echo sat down only long enough to eat quickly, already half in watch mode, watching for monsters the death wave had destroyed. Jasper slumped into his chair and stared into the bowl like it had personally betrayed him. Bellamy took his and sat at the head of the table like he’d been born there. He lifted the spoon, paused, then looked at me like I was about to poison him.
“It won’t kill you,” I said.
“You’re saying that like it’s not up for debate,” he replied, and then he took a bite. He chewed. His face did something complicated, like he’d expected horror and gotten… not horror. Monty watched him like it mattered, like Bellamy’s reaction would decide whether this moment got to be real. Bellamy swallowed, eyes widening a fraction.
Jasper’s head lifted. “What,” he demanded, suspicious. “What is it? Does it taste like regret? Does it taste like feet?” Bellamy looked at him, then at Monty, and a slow, terrible grin started to spread across his face. Oh no.
“Raven,” Bellamy said, solemn, like he was about to give a eulogy. “I can’t believe I’m saying this.”
“Don’t,” I warned, because I already knew what was coming and I still couldn’t stop it. Bellamy ignored me, because Bellamy always ignored me when he thought it was funny.
“This,” he announced, holding up his spoon like a trophy, “is actually better than Monty’s.”
Monty made a noise that sounded like a wounded animal. “Excuse you?”
Harper choked on a laugh. Jasper barked out a loud, ugly sound that might have been joy if the world wasn’t ending. Even Echo’s mouth twitched, just barely, like her face forgot how to be a weapon for half a second.
“My food had personality,” Monty protested, affronted. “My food had… texture.”
“Yeah,” Murphy said, taking a bite and immediately making a face like he was suffering. “Mostly resentment, probably.”
“Resentment is flavor,” I said automatically.
Murphy pointed his spoon at me like I’d just proved a point. “See? Chef’s kiss.” My laugh surprised me. It came out sharp and quick and real before I could stop it. It made my eyes sting, which was stupid, because laughing shouldn’t feel like grief.
Bellamy leaned back in his chair, still smiling like he’d won. “God,” he said, shaking his head. “I missed you guys.”
The words hung there, soft and awful. The smile on his face didn’t vanish, but it thinned at the edges. For a second, the lab wasn’t too small. For a second, it was just a room with a table and people eating dinner. For a second, the world stopped ending. Then someone’s spoon clinked against a bowl and the sound brought reality back like a slap.
Echo stood. “First watch,” she said, already turning toward the hatch.
Harper stood with her. Monty’s smile faded, but he nodded anyway, already slipping back into the thing that kept him moving. Jasper slumped again. Emori’s gaze flicked toward Murphy, reluctant to leave him even though Bellamy hadn’t asked her to move yet. Bellamy wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked around the table, the leader sliding back over him like armor.
“Eat,” he said, voice steady. “Then pack. Then sleep. We move tomorrow.”