#cryo sleep

He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers, that’s all. She curled her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck and when he pulled back, she was smiling too. The tears still in her eyes just made them brighter. “Okay,” she said, “We can do this, right Bellamy?”

He winked at her and took her hand again. They stepped to face the techs, who took their robes and gestured them to take their places. They moved slowly and smoothly, as if it were a dance, and their shiny black hair was pulled back into intricate designs. The older one, a woman, had streaks of silver running through it, almost punctuating the elaborate weaving. Clarke was staring.

The woman helped her into the tube, and Clarke grabbed onto her strong arm.

“Will you be here when we wake up?”

The woman smiled soothingly. Everything about her was soothing.

“I? No. I will have passed onto the journey.” Her voice was even, and calm, even talking about her death. “My grandson will be here when you arise.” She nodded towards the other tech, a young man with broad shoulders and a slightly less elaborate hair design. He smiled. It was not nearly as comforting as hers had been, but it was sincere. He reached out a hand for Bellamy, and helped him into his cryo tube. He had a strong grip.

Bellamy lay down. He held onto the man’s elbow. “What’s your name?”

He smiled and looked at his grandmother who nodded her head for him to continue. “I am Kyoto. Grandmother is Yoko. When you arise, I will introduce you to my grandchild, too. We will be watching over you until then.”

The weight of this passage suddenly hit him. They weren’t just traveling through space, but also time. Life was about to change, change utterly.

“Bellamy?” Clarke said from the other chamber, panic in her voice. Bellamy took a deep breath, it was shaky when he released it. He reached out his hand and she stretched out. His fingers barely brushed hers. Their eyes met.

“Clarke,” he said, with no other words left.

“Be at ease,” Yoko said. Her voice soft. “When you wake it will be as no time passing at all.”

Clarke’s breath shuddered. “When we wake,” she said, her eyes never leaving his.

“When we wake,” he agreed. Yoko took her hand and folded it on her chest. Kyoto did the same for him.

“Be at ease,” he said and a hissing sound began. He could smell the lavender infused in the air. It was the first stage of cryo sleep. Meant to calm the sleepers. Bellamy glanced over at Clarke, her face was already relaxed. Her eyes slipping closed. He felt his own shutting. He was only barely aware of the tube sliding shut and sealing. ***

Mint. Grass. Sunshine. Images fluttered on the inside of his eyelids. The scent of growing things.

“Bellamy?” Clarke said, and her voice was deep and rough. It did things to him.

He tried to call her name but his words wouldn’t come. He coughed. Swallowed. A straw was placed between his lips. “Drink.” He did. Clean water. Cool. He was so thirsty. He drank it all until it was removed. “Clarke,” he said. The word came out. He stretched and tried to sit up but his muscles weren’t working.

“Be at ease,” the voice said, as an arm went around his shoulder to help him up.

“Bellamy, you’re okay,” Clarke said, he turned his head to her only then realizing that his eyes were still closed. He dragged them open, gritty and stiff.

“Clarke.” She looked like an angel, with her blonde hair haloed around her head in the light. A cloth ran over his face. It was cool and smelled of herbs. He felt himself waking. “Clarke,” he said again.

He could see her, sitting up, her bare legs stepping out of the cryo tube, wearing that utilitarian underwear that just served to show how soft and luscious her curves were. He wanted them.

“Bellamy,” she said.

He sat up and threw his legs over the edge. He wanted to hold her. He wanted her. She was his.

The man with the white hair tied up in knots on his head put his rough, aged hands to Bellamy’s shoulder. “Be still, Bellamy Griffin-Blake. Let your body adjust slowly.”

With one hand still on his shoulder the man pulled a wheeled chair up to his tube. He helped him up, and then down into the seat. He could only stand for a moment before his legs folded beneath him. He sat. The old man smiled and Bellamy knew that smile.

“Kyoto?”

He nodded in assent. “Good. Your mental faculties are returning. Positive recovery. This is my granddaughter, Okyo.” He gestured to the young woman attending Clarke. She seemed almost nervous compared to Kyoto’s serenity. He had not been so serene before Bellamy had slept. He had not been so old. His broad shoulders now slightly stooped. “Okyo, how is Clarke Griffin-Blake faring?”

“Well, grandfather. She would like her husband.”

“Reactions within normal ranges?”

“Above average, grandfather.”

Kyoto nodded. “Is she ready to go to her stateroom?”

“Yes grandfather.”

“Proceed.” Kyoto continued to wipe down Bellamy with the scented cloth, attaching sensors to his pulse points and taking readings as he went. Bellamy watched Okyo wheel Clarke out of the room. He felt a profound sense of disorientation and loss.

“Clarke!” he called, too weak to be a yell but he wanted to yell. ‘I need my wife. I need her. I need her.”

Kyoto smiled broadly. “Yes. That is lovely. You shall have her. One moment. I must finish the readings. All seems well.”

But Kyoto didn’t seem to understand. He NEEDED Clarke. He needed to run his tongue down her pulse to make sure she was there, he needed her ass under his fingers os he could feel her muscles clench. He needed his lips on hers. He needed to be inside of her. “What is wrong with me?” His throat was dry. He swallowed heavily.

“Do not worry. You have been asleep for forty years. You are open right now to your most essential desires. All normal. You love your wife. You feel the need for her to be around. It is beautiful to see that your prime instinct is to be with your wife. This is not so for everyone.” He pressed his lips together briefly but then blinked and was again serene and unshakeable.

“I need Clarke,” he said again although it wasn’t what he meant to say at all. He made to get out of his chair but Kyoto held him down.

“We go. Allow your levels of consciousness to wake up slowly. The id comes first. The rest follows. All it takes is time.” And with that, the chair began moving. Kyoto wheeled him through the halls and they were both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.

“I’m dizzy,” he said.

“Normal. Time is needed.”

And then they were in his state room and his wife was reclining on their bed among the soft pillows. Her hair was loose now and she was running her fingers through it. He sighed in relief and when Kyoto wheeled the chair up to the bed, Bellamy threw himself out of the chair and onto the bed.

It was very soft.

“Bellamy,” she said, and her voice was gravelly and low and he wanted to taste it. Her hands reached for him, clutching at him, he climbed his way up the soft bedding to his softer wife. His soft Clarke.

He pressed his lips to her flesh above her heart. “Clarke,” he murmured into her skin.

“Rest, allow time to revive you.” Kyoto said. “We will return on our rounds. We have other sleepers to wake.” Okyo had already wheeled Clarke’s chair out the door and Kyoto smiled as he closed the door behind them.

He knew they were gone. He didn’t care. Nothing else mattered but Clarke. He pressed his ear to her heart. “Your heart beat is strong.”

“I missed you,” she said.

He laughed. “You couldn’t have. We just woke up.” He trailed his lips up her chest, up her neck, behind her ear. He pressed a kiss into her temple and pulled her into his arms. She wrapped her arms around waist and nuzzled against his mouth.

“I missed you my whole life. Who are you?”

His heart broke open like a ripe fruit, the seeds spilling out and he took her lips in his and kissed her deep. Deep. As deep as his love. “I’m yours,” he said when he couldn’t breathe any more and had to pull away. She pulled him back in.

“Fuck me.”

He didn’t need any other urging. He stripped off her horrible sexy underwear and his own and although he was disoriented and the room spun, this was clear and right. He slid into her and she gasped and clutched at him and they rocked together against the universe. He felt complete. Their fingers interlaced. He didn’t think he would ever let her go.

“Bellamybellamybellamybellamy…”she cried over and over again into his ear, softly as she fell apart around him and he fell apart into her and they were stardust and light and meant to be.

When he came back to himself, he wasn’t sure how long it had been that he’d lain, softening inside of her, petting her every where, kissing her silky sweet skin. She panted beneath him, murmuring how she wanted to touch him how she wanted to know him to feel him.

Her hair was golden and soft. She still wore her bra. It hadn’t mattered. Her panties were gone and his underwear was gone too. The room was slightly chill. He rolled off of her and lay on his back next to her feeling on the edge of something. He pulled the blankets up around their shoulders.

Her breath was normal now. “That was the first time we did that.”

“I think this was the disorientation they warned us about.”

She chuckled low and the sound snagged something inside of him and nearly made him growl in response. “I think that was our primal desires, Bellamy.”

He clenched his teeth to keep from sucking on her lower lip and learning the way she felt under his hands, everywhere. “I thought we agreed to take it slow, Clarke.”

“I think your id had other ideas,” her laugh this time was bright and happy. It pulled the happiness out of him too. She spread her hand over his chest. “Come on, Bellamy. We’re committed. We’re married. We’re obviously attracted to each other. We don’t have to be in love to do that again.”

Her ran his hands through is hair. It was tangled like crazy. The thing that disturbed him was that he definitely felt like he was in love. He felt in over his head. “But we said we were going to get to know each other first.”

She took his hands out of his hair and began working through the snarls. “We are. And sex is a bonding activity. It connects two people. We can get to know each other better, and this can help. Look, I’m grooming you.” She ran both hands through his hair and he felt like melting into her. “Interpersonal development. It wouldn’t have happened without the sex.”

He had to laugh. “Clarke, do you have a one track mind?”

She raised her eyebrows. “With you naked in my bed I do.” She took a deep breath and sat back. “Okay. I do. I want you. You’re beautiful. But I like you too. Oh these levels of consciousness must be waking up because I’m remembering why we didn’t do that before.”

He liked the way her breasts pushed up against her supportive bra when she did that. He kind of wanted to see them. He really wanted to see them. He clenched his jaw. “Why didn’t we?”

“Because I respect you and you are not my possession or whore or employee or anything. I want you but I don’t want you if you don’t want me.”

“I don’t think the cryo sleep is totally worn off yet, because I’m pretty sure you never would have told me that if your defenses weren’t lowered.”

“Maybe we should be honest with each other. Or maybe we got lucky again. Bellamy, when I said I wanted this to be a real marriage, I meant I wanted this too. I can wait if you need to, but now I know how you feel and how you taste…” she gasped. “No I don’t think it’s worn off yet. I’m finding you so hard to resist right now.”

“Okay,” he said. He was more awake. He knew the reasons he’d had before why they shouldn’t do this, but they didn’t seem like very good reasons anymore. “Don’t resist.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” He slid up to her and kissed her again, this time he knew what he was doing, he wasn’t drunk with her, but god she felt so great.

She smiled under his lips. The kiss faltered. But that felt great too. “You ready to go again so soon? After being asleep for forty years?”

She shook his head. “I kinda just want to make out until we get to Eden. That okay with you?”

She hummed an agreement then reached behind her to unfasten her bra. She slipped it off and tossed it to the floor. “That okay with you?”