"I'm sure there's a good reason for why they're not here yet."

Her quiet voice drifts over to Clarke, just loud enough to be heard over the crackling of their dying fire. Madi had insisted they sleep outside tonight, undoubtedly in an effort to ease the weight that's been building inside Clarke's chest, trying to hush the fear that grows in volume with each day that passes and her friends are still not back.

Clarke looks over at her and gives her a small smile; Madi doesn't need to know that it's not working.

"I bet Raven is doing something about it right now," the girl continues, the hope in her tone unwavering, full of a confidence that Clarke doesn't feel. "And Bellamy is making sure everyone is working together. Emori and Murphy are probably fighting . . ." Her words taper off and she takes a deep breath. "They just need a little more time."

Time.

Clarke bites her lip against the heat that word piques, quenching her irritation like the fading embers she lies beside, and focuses on something else. Like how a little girl who saw her parents die and was left alone at the end of the world can still have a hope that carries into the stars. "You're quite the optimist, aren't you?"

She hears Madi shrug. "You taught me how to be."

A simple statement, and surprise lights inside Clarke, chasing away some of the weight. She turns more fully to the girl, staring into her big eyes, the color of navy at night. "I'm not feeling the most optimistic right now."

Madi doesn't hesitate. "That's okay. That's why when you're not, I am." She stares up at the starlit night, a determined look flickering between her brows. "They're still out there, Clarke. I know it."

Clarke follows her gaze to the plethora of lights above, like white paint splattered across a black canvas. Five and a half years . . . five and a half years, and despite the nightmares that wake her and the weight that pulls on her, the radio stays close by, and Clarke stays waiting.

"We should sleep out here more often," says Madi, her voice thickening with exhaustion. She yawns. "It's better than being inside."

Clarke doesn't say anything, keeping her eyes on the brilliant display above.

The sight of it used to bring her a strange comfort, but that comfort has since broken into something sharp. She doesn't remember the moment it happened, she just knew it started with the shooting stars.

When Clarke had first come to the ground and had seen them for the first time from this perspective, streaking across a charcoal sea like stones across the water, she had found them undeniably beautiful.

Now their beauty makes her ache, because shooting stars, she's found, look a lot like ships breaking into the atmosphere.

______________________________________

Bellamy stares at her, waiting for a punchline that doesn't come.

"I'm sorry, can you repeat that?" says Murphy, wearing an expression that mirrors Bellamy's own. He makes a show of clearing something from his ears. "Because I could have sworn you just said that you wanted to wake up the pilot."

Raven doesn't blink, her eyes wide, gleaming with a confidence that Bellamy does not feel. "I did."

"That time in simulations has cracked something all right, but it wasn't codes," mumbles Murphy, leaning back resignedly in his chair.

"Would you just do us all a favor and let her talk?" Emori snaps at him, arms like crossed wire against her chest.

Bellamy shakes his head, struggling to follow the tracks of Raven's plan, but they don't seem to lead anywhere, disappearing like footprints into water. "And that's supposed to help us how, exactly?"

"Because I think we can land this thing with him."

Bellamy appraises her, unable to keep the grimace from his lips. It's certainly not the first unorthodox solution she has had, but it is the one she's been the most animated about. Still, uncertainty weighs, heavy, in Bellamy's gut. "That doesn't sound like much of a plan."

"And orbiting endlessly does?" Raven fires back, her voice ringing with impatience. "Look, in case nobody has noticed, this is a big ship. And if I haven't said it enough already, it's ancient. It's like asking a jet flier to land a Wright brothers plane. From space." She lifts her shoulders. "And those are just the mechanics. As Murphy so kindly pointed out, I've only cracked a few of the codes this ship has, only to find that none of them involve actually landing. This is Becca's program after all, and she has installed firewall after firewall." Her eyes sweep over all them, resting on Bellamy last. "Like it or not, if we want to land, we need him."

"Not to add to the negative side of this plan," begins Monty who sits in another chair by the monitors, eyes running over the language of numbers that Bellamy will never understand, "But what if we wake him and he refuses to help us?"

"That's when we get creative," Murphy says. "The guy's been frozen for decades. You really think he's gonna be so eager to go back?"

Monty nods. "I mean, this is a prison ship. What allegiance could he really have to a bunch of other frozen criminals? He might not even know any of them."

Bellamy inhales slowly through his nose, weighing the odds. Then he thinks better of it; their odds have never favored them and yet, here they are, still alive. Still breathing borrowed air. "And if he does?" he asks, because they need to know. They need to be prepared. "What then?"

Raven purses her lips. "Then we stuff him back inside, we refreeze him, and we hope Monty and I break the codes before we all die."

_____________________________________

"Who gets to do the honors?" asks Emori, her voice a disturbance in the quiet the hall seems to demand.

It is cold in the chryo hall, but a different cold slips over Bellamy, the kind that reaches inside and slows everything down. Below them, supine on a slab, rests the pilot, his dark skin painted in a bluish hue, eyes closed. Peaceful.

Envy pinches him, but Bellamy brushes it away, eyeing the screen next to the slab. The mechanism that will unfreeze this man doesn't look threatening, but the thought is of no comfort. His fingers tighten around the rod in his hands, a device capable of sending out an arm of debilitating voltage. With the armory's entrance among one of the codes left uncracked, no one had argued against him bringing it.

"I nominate Raven," quips Murphy, eyeing the stranger in ice with a look of mock indifference, one hand gripped loosely around another tasing rod. "This inglorious idea is yours, after all."

"Suit yourself, Cockroach." Raven straightens her backs, an action that Bellamy would've once misinterpreted as diplomacy if he didn't know her better. No. He recognizes that gesture as preparation, as if she can will this stranger's cooperation by just the set of her shoulders and the blaze in her eyes.

With deft fingers, Raven inputs a log number. She presses a button.

He is not the only one holding his breath as a quiet hum ensues, the effects slow and a bit anticlimactic. Good. Bellamy's restlessness has subsided some over the years, and he's not as eager for action as he once had been.

"It might take awhile," says Monty. "An hour. Maybe two."

Bellamy nods. He might be rusty, but he can still feel the kick of old instincts once more. They lock him in place. They make his hands like iron around his weapon, and Bellamy watches the screen until his eyes go dry.

After twenty minutes elapse, he moves to the far end of the wall and rests his back against it, trying to recall the last time he ever felt as at peace as this stranger in ice seems to be.