Clarke watches Bellamy and Echo wake up the rest of their friends: Echo helping Raven jump down from her pod, stabilizing her when her bad leg gives under her; Murphy winking and asking for âfive more minutesâ; Emoriâs amazed âit cannot have been ten years alreadyâ as she sits up, mindful not to knock her head on the glass cover of her pod.
They notice the lack of Harper and Monty almost immediately, their easiness automatically replaced with vigilance as they turn to Bellamy for answers. He looks distressed: eyes shiny with tears and a distinct tension around his shoulders. Echo intertwines her fingers with his. Nobody notices Clarke standing by Madiâs still closed pod, watching.
Bellamy sighs: âCome with me. Thereâs something we need to talk about.â
It comes to absolutely no surprise to her when itâs Murphy the one who digs his heels in, refusing to comply, even though, the Murphy she knew didnât much care about Monty. âWhat the hell? Why arenât we waking them up?â
Bellamy opens his mouth, but Raven beats him to it, her hand falling on his un-injured shoulder: âCome on.â
None of them notice her as they walk out of the cryo-pod chamber. She wants to join them, but canât this isnât her place, and the longer she watches, the more evident that becomes: theyâre a closely-knit group, a family. And she isnât part of it. Still, she follows them at a distance as they enter the bridge.
Clarke longs to embrace Madi, still blissfully asleep, to find some sort of respite and human contact. Her skin still burns where Bellamy touched her a few hours ago in this same bridge where he now stands next to Echo, her hand firmly clasped in his. Clarke canât help the bitter jealousy gnawing at her heels at the ease with which he has replaced her, the nasty feeling entwining with her longing and sadness.
Bellamyâs voice carries a particular authority, even with his shoulders curled in tiredness and sadness, even with his eyes bloodshot and still wet with tears. He explains the situation matter-of-factly: Harper and Monty didnât go to sleep, deciding to stay awake for ten years to get a respite from all the fighting, to sort themselves out after the horrible things they had to endure. Their plan went awry when the Earth didnât come back.
Clarke watches Bellamy softly easing the rest of the group into the news that theyâve been asleep for over a hundred years and that their friends are dead.
Murphy leans forward, eyes burning and a nasty expression on his face: âYou are lying,â he growls showing his teeth like a rabid animal.
Echoâs hand is white-knuckled around Bellamyâs, that being the only sign of distress on her, Bellamy turns his head upwards, blinking rapidly. Raven swallows, turns to the controls and keys in the sequence to open the big window. The new planet hangs in front of them like a beautiful gem.
âYou are lying.â Murphyâs voice is shriller now as he pulls away from the group, shaking his head.
Bellamy swallows twice, taking a tentative step as he says: âI wish I were.â
Emori sits down on a stool, her breath coming in short gasps. Murphy keeps backing away from the group, his eyes wide and terrified and hurt like Clarke has never seen him. âNo. We were safe. We were ok. They canât be dead.â
Raven turns slowly away from the bay window like itâs taking every ounce of her willpower to do so. âDid they suffer?â her voice is soft, almost kind.
âNO!â shouts Murphy and is about to stomp out, but Echo is suddenly there, an unmovable wall of slender warrior. When her arms come around the younger man, he collapses into the hug, clawing at her back. She bows her head to his shoulder, one hand rubbing soothing circles on his back, the other cradling the back of his head. Murphyâs sobs are loud and ugly, a harsh contrast to the spyâs silent tears. Emori moves to join the hug a second later, burying her face between Murphyâs shoulder blades, her mismatched hands resting on his on Echoâs back. Bellamy throws an arm around his girlfriendâs shoulder, his head resting on the younger man. From where Clarke stands she can barely hear him whisper. âItâs ok, John.â
Raven is the last to join the group in their grief; she buries her face into Bellamyâs chest, pressing herself into Emoriâs side.
Clarke doesnât know how long spacekru stands there, pressing themselves as close to each other as they can possibly get, but she cannot stop looking at the pile of bodies, at the way they share their grief and find comfort in each other.
She longs to belong so much, it physically hurts.
For a moment she thinks she could join.
She swallows it down and turns around, letting them grieve their friends as a family.