Chapter 4
“Day 178. I’m feeling happy. Everyday means it’s closer to your return.” And another big arrival, she thinks rubbing her growing belly. She is already in her third trimester- 28 weeks. Though, she is already over being pregnant. She is still dealing with morning sickness, and the back pain that started in the beginning of her second trimester has only gotten worse. She can never find a comfortable position. She even has a hard time getting up for her normal hunting and gathering. Even with all of that, she’s happy. She can feel her baby changing position getting ready for the birth in a few months. She’s ready to meet her child. She often worries, though, about the birth and how she's going to do it alone. She has seen a lot of emergency c-sections and women in very dangerous situations when in labor. It makes her scared, but she puts that in the “to worry about later” section. Already there is how she is going to get her people out of the bunker in five years. She tries to focus on the positives. “I found some old books, recently. I think they may be children's books,” she laughs, “but it’s keeping me busy. One of the stories about this grounder warrior from Shallow Valley. She reminds me of you, Lexa. A young warrior who goes on to lead her people. Her name is Madi.”
The rest of her pregnancy is relatively easy. The morning sickness subsides around the 29th week. The feeling of the baby moving and kicking is her motivation to continue each day. Her labor and delivery is less good. She is in labor for 30 hours. A few hours before the birth, Clarke begins bleeding. She struggles to remember what to do. None of her training prepared her for giving birth alone, without any medical equipment. At some point she makes herself to the lake. She knows that even on the Ark, some women choose to have a water birth. At the time she didn’t understand why anyone would have a natural birth when they had the technology and ability to give birth without pain.
At the lake, is where her little warrior is born. At the ready, she has her hazmat suit, just in case. Almost as soon as the baby is born, Clarke pricks the baby’s little finger.
“My little Natblida.” Clarke coos when she sees the dark blood spill out. “My sweet Madi,” she says kissing her daughter's head.
None of her updates refer to Madi. She knows that they would be down as soon as they knew. She’s convinced herself, some months ago, that they can hear her, but are unable to communicate back. Clarke knows, deep down, that it’s probably not true, but it makes her feel good thinking that they can hear her. Her communications continue daily.
Infancy is trickier than Clarke had imagined.
Firstly, and the longest phase, is the make-shift diapers Clarke makes. Her original design has failed completely. Clarke needs to clean both herself and Madi, as well as all their clothes. Her second design is a little better, but hardly holds much at all. Clarke is constantly needing to change diapers, even throughout the night. Her third attempt works the best, and is the final product.
Secondly, and the most frightening to Clarke, was that Madi had a hard time latching. Down here, there was no other option. On the Ark, there is formula, and even donated breast milk, but down here there’s only one. For two whole days, Madi refuses to eat. They are both exhausted and sob for the entirety of the those days. Until, miraculously, Madi does it. She latches successfully and feeds. Her belly is full and is finally able to sleep.
The potty training stage is also difficult. It is around the time when Madi turns two and half, that she shows signs of being ready. And honestly? Clarke was tired of changing, washing and making diapers. The biggest issue Clarke has, is trying to teach Madi to use the toilet, without an actual toilet. Little Madi needs to squat behind a tree, just like Clarke does. They have a few initial accidents, where Madi hasn’t yet learned how far she needs to squat, and ends up wetting her clothes. “Sorry, mommy,” Madi tells her mom as she washes off the wet clothes in the lake.
Clarke just nods. “Accidents happen.”
“Yeah, accidents happen,” Madi repeats with her little lisp and a smile. Later that day, Clarke drops some of their food after tripping over one of Madi’s toys. “It’s ok mommy,” Madi tells her, helping her clean up, “accidents happen.”
The hardest, though, is when Madi is three and a half, and she asks where the people are in her mommy’s stories. Clarke does her best to explain, but she doesn’t know how much her daughter understands.
“So my daddy is up there?” Madi asks, pointing at the stars. Clarke nods in affirmations. “Like Uncle Wells and Grandpa?” It does make Clarke laugh to herself, though, to think of her mom being “down there.”
She needs to explain the difference between space travel and the theory of Heaven to her three old, and Clarke wishes for someone to tell her if she’s doing this the right way.
After Madi’s fourth birthday is when she starts being homeschooled. She’s taught practical life skills like fishing and collecting crops, but also traditional education, like her letters and numbers. She catches on quickly, like Clarke knew she would; Madi is very smart. She starts reading and writing a few months later. Not too much longer, when she shows proficiency in those, Clarke begins her with math and science. Madi announces that they are her favorites, just after art, just like her mommy. Though Clarke does see a lot of Bellamy in her as well. It makes her smile, but it also makes her sad to think he’s missing all of this.
Madi turns five and Clarke realizes something must be wrong. It had been five years and three months meaning that her friends could have come back down to the ground by then. Madi’s fifth birthday comes and goes and soon she is five and a half. Clarke decides to teach her how to drive the rover. She’s a little girl now and Clarke thinks that it’s as good a time as any. She attaches a plank of wood to Madi’s foot with a strap to attach to the top like a sandal. At first, Madi is really bad. Like dangerously bad and Clarke wonders if it was the right choice at all to teach her to drive. She wonders how long it will be before she will seriously injure herself, or Clarke, or even kill them. But, like Madi does, one day she just gets it. She drives as well as anyone, but Clarke continues to worry about her focus.
Clarke wakes up, she gets right on the radio, like she does everyday. “If you can hear me, if you’re still alive, it’s been 2,199 days since Praimfaya. I don’t know why I still do this everyday. Maybe it’s my way of staying sane, not forgetting who I am,” she pauses. “Who I was. It’s safe for you to come down for over a year now. Why haven’t you?” She asks pausing again. “The bunkers gone dark. I tried to get them out for a while, but there’s too much rubble. I haven’t made contact with them either.” Clarke pauses again. “Anyway, I still have hope. Tell Raven to aim for the one spot of green and you’ll find me. The rest of the planet from what I’ve seen, basically sucks.” Clarke looks up at loud noise from above. “Nevermind, I see you!” Clarke runs to the rover.
“Wake up my little Natblida,” she says, gently waking up her daughter. “Time to wake up.”
“No lessons today Mommy.” Madi argues, and rolls over. The loud noise of the dropship falling to Earth, makes Madi shoot up and run outside. Clarke busies herself with getting the rover ready to drive to wherever they drop.
“I thought you said it was a small ship?” Madi asks, waving her hands frantically at the incoming ship.
“What?” Clarke asks, assuming everything looks big to a little kid. She finally looks up. “Madi go get mommy’s rifle.”
“But you told me not to touch it.” Madi reminds her.
“Madi, go.” Without another word, Madi goes.
“Here,” Madi hands the weapon over. Silently, Clarke takes it and looks through scope. It definitely wasn’t their ship. Eligius Prisoner Ship. Clarke looks back at her little girl. This isn’t good. The only threat Madi has ever faced was two winters ago, and what seemed like the never ending freeze. Madi didn’t know about prisoners and the only bad people were those in her mom’s stories. Clarke carefully left out certain details when telling stories to her daughter.
“Madi listen.” Clarke kneels down next to Madi to get on her level. “That’s not your daddy, or my friends. Those are bad people.”
“Bad people?” Madi asks with eyes blown wide.
“Yeah, mommy thinks so.” Clarke takes a second to think. “Come Madi.” She runs with the little girl on her hip, not trusting her little legs to go as fast as Clarke needs them to. Clarke runs.