I Can't Wait for you Anymore

Hiraeth

Here's a secret that Clarke was determined to take to the grave: She never wanted children. Not back when she lived on the Ark - though she might of had one out of a sense of duty - and definitely not after she was sent down to the ground. They always seemed like a recipe for disaster; much too delicate and helpless in some ways and quite too loud and determined in others. Growing up on the Ark, Clarke never got the chance to be a child, not how it was portrayed in books and movies from before the first apocalypse at least. She never got to run around outside or to go swimming. She never got to wonder what she'd be when she grew up. She never got to dream of being a princess or a warrior or a ballerina. She knew from the first day of school that if she had a talent for medicine, she'd become a doctor. That she'd marry someone who she loved but also happened to be a good genetic match with. She'd wait till her request with the Chancellor was approved and then she'd have the one allotted child she was suppose to have. She was taught from before she could remember that her life wasn't her own. She wasn't suppose to live for herself or the other people around her. They didn't matter. She didn't matter. Only the generation that came far after her's, the one that would finally make it to the ground, mattered. Maybe that was why Clarke was always okay bearing the burden of survival in place of others. Because even after making it the ground she still didn't truly believe she and furthermore what she wanted mattered. And how was she suppose to teach a child that they mattered when she herself couldn't figure out that lesson? So no, she didn't want children.

And that didn't change when she found Madi.

Of course, she loved Madi. Madi was her heart beating in another chest. She was proof that no matter how terrible the world could be, it also could make wonderful, unexpected miracles. The day she found Madi was the best day of her life. And being Madi's mom was a honor that Clarke would die before giving up. But that still didn't change that fact that Clarke would never have chosen motherhood if given the choice. She would never choose to purposefully fail her child and she knew that she would fail her child. Just look at Madi.

All of that to say that the night she found out that she'd be a mother, again, she cried herself to sleep and back awake again, on and off until the suns had started to rise. She was gripped with a paralyzing fear that wouldn't leave her be. She laid in her bed shaking, plagued with thoughts of all the different ways this could go wrong, of all the ways she could fail this child.

After Gabriel had broken the news to her and she had burst into tears, he had climbed into bed with her and held her long into the night. He had kept his arms around her through her three back to back panic attacks, whispering to her that it'd be alright and that he was here for her. In between her freak outs, she found herself so grateful that it was him who was here with her and not anyone else. Somehow empty platitudes sounded a lot more reassuring coming from him. As the suns crept higher and higher into the sky, Gabriel's yawns started coming closer and closer together until it sounded like one endless stream of yawns.

"You should go home, Gabriel. You got work in a few hours and you haven't gotten any sleep," Clarke sniffled out.

Gabriel tried to protest but a big yawn cut him off and Clarke started pushing him from her bed.

"Fine, but if you need anything - anything, Clarke - you come and get me."

"Okay," She promised.

"I mean it, Clarke. And you should really go to the clinic. I know a pregnancy follows Occam's razor but we won't know for sure that its just that and not something more serious until you get checked out and-"

"Gabriel, I know," Clarke cut him off gently. And honestly she did know. Looking back, she must have been trying very hard not to recognize the cause of her symptoms.