She holds the radio with tight fingers, the weight of the receiver oddly heavy in her palm. It's become that way it seems, growing heavier and heavier with each passing year, the weight of anticipation like a stone in her hand today.

Because today is arrival day.

And they are not here.

She lifts the receiver to her lips. "Day one-thousand, eight-hundred, and twenty-six. Guess you know what makes this one special." Clarke pauses, the lightness in her voice falling under the weight of her words. She swallows. "But since when do we ever make it on time? Trust me, if anything's certain, it's the delays. I'm sure Raven and Monty are doing all they can. If something's happened . . ." she clenches her teeth. Her grip on the receiver tightens. Clarke closes her eyes for a moment, as if to clear away the plethora of images that try to crowd to the forefront. The endless possibilities of what could have gone wrong.

She blows them away with her exhale, opening her eyes to stare at the sky, purpling with early morning. "I know you'll figure it out. All of you will figure it out. Until then, . . . you know where to find me."

_________________

He has the dream again.

It always starts and ends the same, with few things different in between.

He finds himself in a box, and someone is pouring ice water on him. Each time, Bellamy opens his mouth to tell whoever it is to stop, but his words always drown in the water, until everything is submerged, and it is too late to speak.

He can't see. But he can hear. And Bellamy listens as somewhere above the box is sealed shut. He listens as footsteps fade away, and he is simply left, alone, in the freezing dark.

Bellamy wakes with a fit of gasps. His shirt is wet, sticking to his back. He sits up and rubs his eyes, as if trying to scrub the remnants of the dream away. He's accustomed enough to shake it off quickly and leave his room.

Or, what he's taken as his room.

It's not so much as a bedroom than it is a private corner in the back of the ship, complete with an old sleeping bag and a few articles of clothing knotted together for a pillow. Bellamy didn't want to take a bunk in the ship barracks, those quarters a little too cramped for him. Five and a half years, and he still finds himself needing a modicum of personal space.

Bellamy walks down the dark corridor, dim, circadian bulbs the only thing to light his way. By Raven's definition, their wiring is ancient, she was almost surprised to find they lasted as long as they have.

"Morning, sleepy head," Says Raven, manning her usual spot before the motherboard in a chair so large it seems to swallow her. Bellamy gives a curt nod, throwing a cursory glance up at the screens.

He didn't think it could get more claustrophobic in space. But when he stepped onto this ship after allowing it to dock, only to find it utterly devoid of life, he found out that yes, yes it could.

"Any update?" he asks, eyes scanning the monitors, lingering for a moment on the current stats of a hundred unbeating hearts.

Raven shrugs. "Murphy repaired the soccer ball. Found some tape in one of the storage closets."

But she knows what he was really asking. It seems cruel, how the comms failed the moment they docked the ship. "Jammed frequency," Monty had called it. 

Bellamy didn't care what it was called. All he needs now is for it to be fixed, because each day that slips by without any message from Clarke is another day he spends in radio silence and questions that continue unanswered.

"Riveting," he says, only half-paying attention as he settles into one of the other chairs, frustration gnawing in his stomach.

Bellamy settles into one of the other chairs, frustration gnawing in his stomach.

Six months.

It's been six months since they were due to land. Seven months since Bellamy learned that the Polis tower had fallen on the bunker door, trapping everyone inside.

The thought has grown more loud inside him, until his blood rings with it.

Are they still alive? The question hits him, again and again, as cold as the ice water in his dream. Has Octavia-?

No.

His sister is alive. She would've found a way. Somehow. He reminds himself for the umpteenth time how long she managed to survive, trapped beneath the Ark floor. He reminds himself that if Clarke could still have hope after five and a half years, so can he.

It doesn't make it easier though. And it doesn't make him want to punch a wall any less.

"I'd ask if you had a rough night, but I think I already know the answer to that question," says Raven, breaking him from his thoughts.

Bellamy looks to find her eyes on him, scrutinizing him with raised brows. "And why's that?"

"You look like crap."

He grimaces. "Thanks."

"Look." She turns her chair around to face him, elbows on her knees. She runs a hand over the top of her head. "I get it. This is . . . taking a lot more time, and I know each of us are running on a fuse that gets shorter each day."

"We're doing everything we can," Bellamy says. His voice sounds a little flat, even to his own ears, but he knows they are true. "You are doing everything you can. We'll make it back. You'll find a way. You always do."

Raven blows out a long, quiet breath, gaze flickering back to the screens. "No pressure or anything." She refocuses her attention on him. "Should I ask what the dream was about?"

Her words unsettle him. She knows. They all do. It's understandable, as they've all had them, now and then, over the years. Each has learned to be discreet in their own way, and everyone knows enough of their own nightmares not to ask questions about another's. It's the normal, in the stars.

It was normal many nights on the ground, too.

Bellamy lifts a shoulder dismissively, as if shrugging off the question. "Sounds like you asking to me."

"I mean it makes sense. Being this close."

This close to going home.

Bellamy bites the inside of his cheek. "Yeah." He stands, the recycled air suddenly cloying. "Keep running the sim tests. I'll go make a round in the freezer."

He doesn't need to look at Raven to know she understands. She drops the topic like a stone. "Send up Emori on your way out, will you? We've gotta clock more test landings."

"That sounds more optimistic than crash landings," he says.

"That's me," she mumbles. "Just a ray of positivity."

______________________

The freezer has always felt to Bellamy how space must be like, without the protection of the walls around him. He's found himself wondering if sleeping in ice feels the same as sleeping in the stars. He's wondered if that's what it felt like for those floated, but that's an answer they will never be able to give him.

As soon as the door slides open, a gust of cool air envelops him. Small circadian bulbs light up across the walkway, illuminating the spacious room. Once in Earth Skills, a lifetime ago, Bellamy heard of burial sites carved beneath the earth, where those who had passed would be placed on slabs of rock.

This is what that reminds him of.

Rows of tables protrude from the walls, holding an individual encased in a block of ice. The only difference is that these people are not dead.

Bellamy has yet to decide if that's better or worse.

He's never felt as at ease walking through here as some of the others, but he's grown accustomed to it. There's just something unsettling about walking a hall containing 285 living, yet incapacitated, criminals who have been that way for over 100 years.

A gentle hush sounds, the whisper of something against the floor.

A shadow beneath the tables flickers.

Bellamy releases an unamused breath, the air visible in the cold. He stares at the crudely salvaged soccer ball that has come to a halt at his feet.

"Knock it off, Murphy."

From around one of the tables, appears Murphy, hands crammed into his pockets, a sullen expression on his face. "Sorry for trying to make a little entertainment for myself," he says sardonically. "Maybe I should take it out to the front-" he raises his index finger in a display of faux surprise. "Oh, wait a minute . . ."

"Emori's still not talking to you, I take it." They've been in a disagreement long enough for the rest of them to have heard of it. Then again, Bellamy's found that when either of the two are agitated at the other, news of it carries quickly, because even after six years, they still have yet to master the art of arguing quietly.

Murphy smiles without humor. "Nice code-cracking skills."

"Give it time."

"Last I checked, we were running out of that resource now, too," he muses.

"Raven's working on the solution."

"Raven's been working on the solution."

"So you think kicking a ball around up here is helping anything?"

Murphy shrugs. "It's certainly not making our problems worse."

"And this is the attitude of a survivor?" Bellamy asks, looking between the man and the partially deflated soccer ball. "I'd think a cockroach would have a better sense of self-preservation."

"I'm a realist, Bellamy. Five and a half years taught me that. Besides," he shrugs. "What do I have to go back for, anyway? It's not like anyone on the ground is that eager to see me."

Bellamy appraises the man who has somehow managed to become like a brother to him. It's weird, how things can change. Sometimes Bellamy forgets how they even started. This Murphy is not the same Murphy who was banished from the camp, so long ago. Bellamy is not the same Bellamy who banished him.

At least, his wish is that he's not.

"Hey," Bellamy places a hand on Murphy's shoulder and looks at him intently. "We're going to the ground. We're a family, Murphy. And when we get back, we'll still be one there." He smirks. "Unless you really want to spend the rest of your life living on Monty's algae."

Murphy gives him a look of disgust and scoffs. "You're right. To die trying sounds like a better alternative by far."

Bellamy claps him on the shoulder. "That's the spirit."

__________________

She wonders if this is the time to stop.

Stop the calls. Stop the waiting. Stop all of it.

And for the first time, Clarke truly considers doing just that. Because after five and a half years of talking, she can't seem to find any more words, as though she's finally emptied herself of them all.

The thought is a crushing weight in her chest, pressing like a stone against her heart. Her calls have become as habitual as anything else, and Clarke knows that if she stops, it means she must accept that Bellamy and the others are gone.

Two thousand-seventeen days spent hoping, only for it to come to this.

Clarke fiddles with the receiver, eying the black sky above her, stars scattered across the darkness in a dust of light. Slowly she lifts the radio to her lips. She presses the button. For a long time, there's silence.

"I'm not going to say how many days it's been," she breathes softly. "It's today. And today . . . I'm still choosing hope."

______________

Some victories come dramatically. Like a war, they build, step by step and brick by brick, until it is something seen on the horizon.

Others come suddenly, in the quiet and the seemingly mundane.

"Guys . . . I have it."

Today is one of those days.

Bellamy almost doesn't register Raven's words, stirring the bowl of algae with listless fingers and a hunger that hasn't been quelled for six years. But then her voice comes into focus. Her words sharpen to a blade that pierces through the fog.

Bellamy looks up at her abruptly, her eyes as wide as his feel. He can see that light in them.

"You have it," he repeats.

Raven smiles slowly. "I have an idea."

Before he even realizes it, he is standing and all eyes are on her.

"You sure this time?" Murphy asks, a little hesitant, worried to get his hopes up. "Some other ideas haven't exactly panned out."

Raven crosses her arms. "I mean, it's not exactly risk-free."

"By risk free, you mean likely fatal, right?"

That light in her eyes doesn't dim. "Right."

Murphy actually smiles, and this time, it's real. He pushes his own bowl far enough away from him that it's in danger of falling off the table. "It's about time, Reyes. When do we start?"

"Before we get into technicalities, there's one thing we'll have to do. And none of you will like it."

"Come on, Raven," says Harper, leaning across the table. "You can give us more credit than that."

"Yeah," injects Murphy. "I'm sure that there's a lot more than one thing about this we won't like."

"What is it?" asks Bellamy. He doesn't care one way or the other. He'll spacewalk if he has to. He would walk through the stars if it meant getting back to the ground.

Raven looks at him, brown eyes grim. "We're gonna have to wake the pilot."