Clarke is alive.

It was stupid of Bellamy to ever doubt it, really. But of course, a big part of him never let go of that hope. Couldn't. He'd already thought her dead once before, and he wasn't willing to accept that so hastily again. Yet whenever that fear struck its usual cord, Bellamy would remind himself of the many times he buried her too quickly. And though the years have tried that hope, they never extinguished it. Now he's grateful for holding on, because she's alive.

And it is that realization that has Bellamy suddenly moving, his sore muscles forgotten. He sprints, boots slamming against the grate flooring, heart pounding like a jackhammer in his chest.

She's alive.

"Raven?" he's calling before he's even reached the bridge, an old fire back in his blood.

She's still at the motherboard, but she's standing, eyes pinned to the screen. "I know," she says. "I hear her." There's a smile in her words, but it's drowned out by her focus.

Bellamy doesn't feel himself move, but he's suddenly standing beside Raven and pressing down the button the larger speaker head. "Clarke?" he asks. It's the first time he's said her name aloud in months. "Clarke, can you hear me?"

The static breaks.

"We're . . . heading back to Polis later. Mad-has gotten the hang of the rover, so-will be driving part way."

Raven shakes her head and sighs. "She can't."

All the frustration Bellamy left in the training room comes screaming back and he locks it inside of him, until it is a fist over his heart. But some anger still manages to leak through. His hands knot until his fingers clip his palms. "Why am I not surprised?" He doesn't take his eyes off the motherboard's speaker head, afraid that if he does, her voice will disappear again.

"Wait," Bellamy risks a glance at Raven. "'We'?"

That's when the others begin to filter in, interrupting. First it's Monty and Harper, already asking questions that Bellamy can't think clearly enough to answer.

"That's her, right?" Monty exhales something short of a laugh. Harper smiles as he pulls her into an embrace. "She's alive."

"I must've tapped into the right frequency when I while repairing the comms," he says.

Then Murphy enters with Emori, and even his usual could expression is a look of surprise.

"Does this mean the radio works?" asks Harper, but Bellamy holds up a hand. "Everybody, hold on. Raven," he looks at her, and she reads his message with ease, as if he's spoken the words out loud. He can't think beyond the sound of her voice and the chorus of she's alive echoing in his head.

"The radiofeed is still one-way." says Raven, hands blurring over the keyboards. "The rest I might be able to figure out if everyone could just be quiet for a minute."

" . . . -lants are starting to appear again. The crops we've . . . harvested are small, but-"

"What does she mean by 'we?" Monty's surprised voice repeats Bellamy's question.

Everyone shares a glance and for a moment, there is silence.

"Isn't it obvious?" asks Murphy. "She's lost it."

Bellamy is already shaking his head, though the same notion had entered his mind only moments before. He flicks it away like a bug. "No, that's not what happened."

"Oh, come on, it was bound to at some point." Murphy shrugs. "But at least we know she's alive."

"That's not what happened!" Bellamy says again, louder. "Maybe it means she got the others out of the shelter."

"A year early? They'd be roasted, Bellamy."

"Maybe not."

Murphy shoves his hands into his pockets. "Judging by the radiation levels-"

It is Raven's turn to hold up her hands. "Enough! Murphy, you're not helping, though . . ." she shares a look with Bellamy, and though he knows she can clearly see his wish for him to tell her otherwise, Raven won't cushion the truth, no matter how far the fall might be. "Radiation levels are still high. Exposure could be fatal."

A grim look crosses Murphy's face. "It's not like I want to be right about it."

"That doesn't mean she's lost it," says Bellamy, his jaw set. And even if she has, it's still better than her being dead. It's a selfish thought, but he has it nonetheless.

Murphy is smart, because he knows not to say anything else.

"What I most want to know is why tapping into another of our frequencies would re-establish the radio feed," says Raven. "The connection was first severed from her end, right?" She looks at Bellamy.

He clenches his jaw around his anger. Or maybe it's desperation. Probably both. "Yeah. She warned me that she might break the connection because she was going out of range."

"So why now?" mumbles Raven, mostly to herself. She swings around to another part of the motherboard. "Why this frequency?"

"Maybe she altered it," says Monty, coming to stand on the other side of Raven, "and only now we've switched to the same one."

"Yeah, maybe, with a decent radio. But not her box of bolts."

"What about Becca's lab?" Belly asks, attention torn between Raven and the static emanating from the speaker in broken pieces. "Could she have figured out how to work the radio there? Or restore it?"

It's Monty who shakes his head, fist under chin in thought. "Wouldn't matter. The lab's radio and Clarke's may be one and the same. Since the Ark was constructed, frequencies were coded. Plus, taking the amount of radiation into account, it doesn't make sense. We've tried the other frequencies." He looks at Bellamy. "You checked them for months after the connection went dead."

Bellamy meets his gaze pointedly but says nothing. It might not be something he's shared, but that doesn't mean it's escaped the rest of the group's notice. He's not as good as keeping secrets as he once was.

"So for us lesser-known technicians, mind explaining what this means?" Murphy asks, the irritation clear in his voice, along with impatience. He wants to know too.

Raven takes the torch. "Frequencies now, between the Ark and other stations are coded, meaning they have to be identical. So, for Clarke's frequency to match ours now, she'd essentially have to be emitting an entirely new frequency that aligned with ours, which means equipment that, last I checked, the end of the world didn't provide."

"So how'd our apocalyptic princess come by this new frequency?"

Raven presses her hands to her temples in frustration. "I don't know! Like Monty said, it shouldn't make sense. It could be bouncing off something else, but in order for that to happen, that something would have to be active. This doesn't..." she stills, eyes locked on the screen. Bellamy can feel the shift in the air, like tectonic plates beneath his feet. Suddenly his torn attention joins, and it all centers on Raven. "What is it?"

"Her frequency hasn't changed. It's just on another's that Monty tapped into, without the radiation levels to interfere with its transmitting."

"Another frequency outside of the irradiated zone?" Bellamy asks, not really understanding. "That would be the whole world, and we're the only ones out here."

"Maybe not," mumbles Raven, brow creased, hands stilled over the computer board.

A coldness creeps into Bellamy and though he doesn't want to ask, he has to. "What?"

Raven shuts her eyes for a moment before turning to them all. "When Becca went to space to create Nightbloods, she needed to be able to run tests on someone to make sure that it would work, so she used subjects she had cryogenically frozen."

Bellamy stares with wide eyes, trying to grasp what it is Raven is telling him. Clarke's voice seems farther away. He shakes his head. "Why? Who were they?"

Raven hesitates. "Just . . . criminals."

That silence dominates the room again, like a blast of cold air.

"Of course," quips Murphy.

"Criminals," Bellamy repeats. And then he scoffs in quiet disbelief and finds himself echoing Murphy; of course there is another problem. Of course it was stupid to assume there lay peace in the stars.

"So what you're saying," he speaks slowly, "is that we're intercepting the frequency of a ship containing cryogenically frozen criminals?"

"Who's to say they're still frozen?" Proffers Murphy unhelpfully. "Maybe now they're just a bunch of pissed-off delinquents looking to settle old scores." He rolls his eyes, sarcasm dripping from his words. "Now where have we heard that one before?"

"Wait, just . . . hold on," Bellamy holds up a hand to silence Murphy. He looks back at Raven. "If that is true and we really are intercepting their frequency, why are we hearing Clarke?"

Raven purses her lips. She stares back at Bellamy, letting him put the pieces together. It hits him in a cold blast. "Because that's where her feed is going," he realizes. He shuts his eyes. "We can hear her because they can."

"But . . ." Monty pipes up, sounding uncertain, "doesn't that also mean they're -"

"Within a three-thousand-mile radius?" finishes Raven before nodding. "Yeah, it does."

Bellamy glances between the two, losing the exchange of conversation they continue without words. "And so that means we should . . . ?"

Raven looks at him, slender brows furrowed, her expression grim. "We need to go dark."

For the first time in one-thousand, four-hundred and sixty-four days, Bellamy's tactical instincts kick into gear. "If they're a threat, we should be ready for an attack."

"Right, because it's not like we don't have any weapons," says Murphy, cutting him a dour look. "C'mon, Bellamy. Do you really expect us to charge at them with Monty's wrenches and screwdrivers?"

Bellamy blinks back his glare. "We could do something." He looks at Monty. "Didn't you stop the grounders when you launched the dropship and burned half their army?" He looks at Raven. "Weren't you the one who once made a bomb out of some gun powder and a keg?" A lifetime ago.

But she shakes her head. "Murphy's right," she says. Four years, and it's still a surprising thing to hear from their mechanic. She pins her attention on Bellamy. "Look at us. It's hard enough just trying to keep ourselves alive without also plotting battle strategies. We power down the ship and we wait. If they spot us, then we'll make a plan of defense, but like Murphy said, they may not even be awake."

"And if they are?" Asks Bellamy. "What if the nightblood worked? There's nothing keeping them from going down there. Clarke-"

"Is more than capable of taking care of herself, just like we have to." She turns away from him and refocuses on the rest of the group. "Monty, you're up. I need you to-"

"Manually power down the generator, got it." No less has he spoken it that Monty is gone, slipping through the door and out of sight. His footsteps disappear down the corridor.

"What about the rest of us?" Asks Bellamy, walking over to her until he's practically hovering, waiting for her to tell him what she needs him to do, because he needs to do something.

But Raven just glances at him from over the control board. "The rest of you can just sit tight. Maybe grab some blankets if you don't like the cold."

The radio crackles and both of them snap to attention. " . . . Took the Rover a ways S...outh before hitting the r...ver. Or what us...d to be a river..."

A lance of pain shoots through Bellamy's chest and his eyes bore into the radio. He tries not to think of Clarke down there, vulnerable and exposed. He tries not to think of her words being listened to by someone else, and fails.

"Raven . . ." It's a question and a plea folded into one.

The brunette looks up, her dark gaze both sad and unrelenting. She grits her teeth.

There are times when this woman says the wrong thing, and times when she's the only one who knows what to say at all.

Today is the latter.

"It's because of Clarke that we're able to know what to do here," she tells him softly.

Something in him loosens. He let's out a quiet sigh, recalling what Clarke told him, a hand pressing to his chest. A fingertip brushing against his temple. "You have to use this, too."

Raven flips open a metal pad where a transparent button lies. She glances first at Bellamy before removing her hand; a silent offer to him.

At least it's not a lever.

Bellamy swallows tightly before placing two fingers over the button. They linger there, limp and heavy. "She's still saving us," he whispers.

Raven gives him a small smile, a little sad, a lot proud. "She's still saving us," she agrees.

And with a final deep breath, he presses down, and they both listen as the static of Clarke's voice fades away.