Chapter Text
He comes to her for the first time in the middle of the day, on her way back from the mess hall. He looks just like Wells. But it's not him. Clarke knows that right away. She's on her way back to her parents, her bed, her home, where she's always had a safe place to land. She is not yet seventeen and she has known nothing but love.
"Wells?" she says anyway. But Clarke does not like to waste time. So she shakes her head."You're not Wells."
The dust motes are frozen in the air. "No," he says.
"Who are you?" She wonders if she should be afraid. She's not.
"I'm the Pillowman, Clarke. And I'm here to tell you a story."
-::-::-::-::-::-::-
He does not tell her who he is. Not yet. She does not ask and she does not interrupt. Her eyes grow slightly wider and her lips purse, just a little. That is the only sign that she is listening to what he has to say.
This is the story he tells her: he tells her how tomorrow she will wake up and overhear a conversation her father is having with her mother about the oxygen supply on the Ark. He tells her how her father will die, her mother will turn him in, she'll be sent to isolation, and she will blame the only person who has always been on her side. It does not take long to tell this story. Clarke keeps wondering if someone will walk in and interrupt. But nobody does.
For a moment, Clarke wants to ask this person who wears Wells' face but is not Wells, why she should believe him. But somehow, she knows he is telling the truth. She can see, in his impassive, inexpressive face, that he draws no pleasure from telling it. Perhaps it is because she knows her friend's face so well, can read every quirk of the eyebrow, every twitch of the mouth.
There is a silence when the Pillowman finishes. Clarke looks away. Her father. Her mother. Her best friend. The only people in the entire world who mean anything to her, gone, in one fell swoop. And the Skybox is a death sentence, and nothing more. She shakes her head, trying to reckon with the magnitude of a future like that and falling short. She won't be able to reckon with it until it happens, and even then, it will take time. Instead, she asks, "Why are you telling me this? So I can stop it?"
"No, Clarke," he says, and her stomach sinks. "You can't stop this."
"Then why?" she demands, her voice shaking, her stomach sinking.
The Pillowman is quiet for a moment. Then he simply says, "I'm offering you a way out."
Clarke wants to laugh - she almost does - but Wells' face is grave and so she says, "A way out? What does that mean?"
"Perhaps the oxygen vents from your living quarters while you're asleep. Perhaps you fall and hit your head on the corner of a table. Either way, it will be accidental and it will be painless. You won't even know it's coming."
Clarke's breath quickens. She never expected a decision like this. It wouldn't be the only impossible decision she would have to make, but Clarke does not know this. She only knows her life is about to end one way or another, and though she can't imagine bearing all this pain, she takes fifteen seconds - no more than that - before she looks the Pillowman dead in the eyes and says, "No. I don't want that."
"If you're sure," he says, and she's not, but she nods anyway.
One moment later, she is in the hallway alone with a strange pit in her stomach. She does not know where it came from. She does not know why there's a slight sadness draped over her shoulders. But it is gone by the time she reaches home.
-::-::-::-::-::-::-
Months later, Clarke emerges from the Commander's tent, more hopeful than she has ever been since arriving to the ground, until she comes face to face with her old friend, Wells. Only it isn't Wells. "It's you," Clarke says. The leaves on the trees are frozen in midair and the wind has died all around her, everything stopped and quiet, and she would be surprised if she hadn't felt this feeling before.
"Hello, Clarke Griffin."
She swallows thickly, unable to suppress the smallest burst of joy upon seeing the face of her friend, her best friend, Wells, who she never thought she'd see again. But it's overwhelmed by the feeling of dread. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm here to tell you a story," he says simply.
Clarke shakes her head, backing away. "I don't want another story. I want you to go."
The Pillowman steps closer to her. "That's not how this works. First, you hear my story. And if you still want me to go, then I'll go."
Clarke was silent for a long moment. Then, very quietly, with such naked emotion on her face that even he felt shaken, she said, "I didn't see you before I killed Finn. I'm trying to think what could be worse than that."
No, Clarke had not seen him. But Finn had. The Pillowman came to him in the form of Raven Reyes, a person Finn had trusted, whose faith in him he could count on. It was the night before the massacre, before the blood on Finn's hands would be impossible to wash away. Finn had not chosen the way out. Instead, he had said, "My death will bring peace with the grounders?"
"Yes."
"And… and Clarke is the one to do it?" His eyes were wide and wet.
"She doesn't let you suffer. She kisses you before you go."
So Finn decided to stay. By doing so, he had damned Clarke to kill him. But the Pillowman doesn't tell Clarke any of that. Instead, he says, "I couldn't help you then. But I can help you now."
"You show up on the eve of war offering me a way out, and the only reason I could think of is that… we lose, don't we?"
"No, Clarke. You win. Your people escape and the grounders are set free."
She shakes her head, confused, scared. "Then what? What can be worse than last time I saw you?"
So he tells her. He tells her of burning skin, of tortured screams, of children dying in their parents' arms, of their own allies dying inside the mountain.
"No," Clarke says stubbornly. "This is a rescue mission, that's not…" Then she trails off, hit with a sudden and terrible realization. "I'm the one who does it, aren't I?"
"Yes. You pull the lever."
"But what goes wrong? We have a plan. A good one."
So the Pillowman tells her of the deal Lexa makes with the mountain, of her parting words as she leads Clarke's army away. Clarke keeps shaking her head, battling with despair and denial.
"No, Lexa wouldn't do that, she's my ally. She's my… she's my friend." The words sound pathetic even to her own ears. But she knows he's telling the truth, so he remains silent, his story over, a choice waiting to be made. "How would you do it?" she asks.
"You're a leader, Clarke. Anything could happen."
Clarke looks at the Pillowman, at Wells, and there is a kindness in his face. What a horrible job this creature has, but what a kind one too. She is struck by that for a moment. Then she looks up at the sun, at the ever-expanding blue sky, the still trees, leaves mid-tremble in the time-frozen wind. Last time they met, she had almost taken her way out. But she is glad that she didn't, despite every hardship the ground has thrown her way. She looks at him again. "If I had listened to you last time, I never would have seen earth. I never would have met Raven or Monty… I never would have met Bellamy."
The thought of Bellamy ripples through her, and another idea takes its place. "If I'm dead, the alliance will collapse. My people will die. Bellamy will die and I sent him in there. I'm right, aren't I?"
"Your guess is as good as mine."
It is only a guess. But there are people who are counting on her. Jasper's face, with his shy smile and bright eyes, hovers in her memory. She looks at Wells, ready to tell him her decision, but she can tell he already knows.
"Good luck," he says.
"Don't take this the wrong way," Clarke replies, "but I hope I never see you again."
He smiles, gentle now. That flash of kindness in his eyes. "Rest assured, Clarke Griffin," he says before vanishing, "the feeling is mutual."
And then he is gone and Clarke is alone, but only for a moment before Lexa settles into place beside her. She rests a hand on Clarke's arm and Clarke flinches away from the touch. But, for the life of her, she cannot understand why.
-::-::-::-::-::-::-
It is months before Clarke sees the Pillowman again, but it might as well be years, for the girl he saw before is almost unrecognizable. The Pillowman knew this was coming, but when Clarke's hand fell on that lever, part of her was almost sure that there would be some last-minute redemption, that something would happen to save everyone, to save her.
Then, Bellamy's hand fell on top of hers, and she knew that this was the best she would get. Still, it was no small thing. In fact, as she curled up in the woods those three months alone, under trees or in caves, and occasionally in Niylah's bed, she would often think about him, the boy who wouldn't let her commit that last terrible act alone, the feel of his hand on hers, the knowledge that in some fundamental way, she would never truly be alone.
And now, she is running in the snow and the ash and the radioactive air. There is a wall of fire raging behind her, and she knows that she can't outrun it, but goddammit, she's going to try. And then she falls, breaking her helmet. For a moment she thinks that she is dead already. The roar of the wind has gone quiet, the snow frozen at her feet. She pulls her hand away from the hole in terror, but nothing happens.
And then she looks up. And there is Wells, standing in the same outfit she last saw him in, unblemished by radiation boils and unfazed by the apocalyptic landscape. And just because she can, just because she wants to, Clarke Griffin laughs.
Wells approaches, reaching his hand toward her to help her off the ground. "Hello, Clarke," he says calmly, and the laughter dies in her throat.
"Why are you here? I'm dead anyway," she says, tiredly, and god, is she tired. "Besides, I've lost everything already. There's nothing left." She wants to ask him where he was when Lexa died, where he was when she lost Jasper's love, where he was when she found out the whole fucking world was going to end and somehow it was still on her shoulders. But she has no more questions, not really.
"You're not dying, not if you don't want to."
For a moment, Clarke feels a brief spark of joy. Somehow, after everything, her heart has the deep desire to keep beating, beating, beating, as long as it is able to. But if the Pillowman is here, then there is no reason to rejoice. "You have a story?" Wells nods. "I'm ready for it."
So he tells her. He tells her about weeks of black bile, skin that burns at the touch. He tells her of a diet of bugs and dead leaves, of lips so dry they crack and bleed with every movement. He tells her of a tower collapsing, a bunker she is locked out of, loved ones she can never reach. Mostly, he tells her of a radio that never works and a gun that she will look at more times than once.
Clarke listens quietly, as she always does, frowning slightly. "You'll be alone," Wells finishes. There's a damnation in that sentence. Clarke closes her eyes, breathing in the dead, radiation-addled air. "If you want, it can be over before you make it back to the lab."
She doesn't respond to that sentence. Instead, she asks a question. "Bellamy and the others. Do they make it?"
She is prepared for him to say what he usually says, that he doesn't know or can't tell her. But a very slight smile tugs at his lips. "Yes. They make it." Maybe he thinks he's giving her peace, letting her know that she can die with the knowledge that the people she loves are safe. But that isn't why Clarke asked.
"So maybe they'll come back. I'm going back to the lab. And if I die in two months from dehydration, at least I died trying." For the briefest moment, she grins. Then she looks behind her at the wall of fire breathing down her neck. "Think you can give me a head start?"
-::-::-::-::-::-::-
When she remembers the day of Praimfaya, she will remember falling and breaking her helmet. She will assume she blacked out from the pain, from the radiation. There are any number of explanations for why, the next thing she can remember is running as fast as she can to the lab, the briefest of silences surrounding her, the face of her dead best friend in the reflection of her helmet, smiling in the strangest way.
-::-::-::-::-::-::-
When six months after Praimfaya Clarke finds Madi, the Pillowman is watching as he has always been watching. He is surprised. There is no method to what he is and is not allowed to see. He was not able to tell Clarke of this future with Madi, this incredible little girl she would find and love. But the moment their hands meet, the Pillowman sees it all: the whole future unfolding in front of him, six years of love and laughter and family, even when it's hard, even when it's impossible.
He didn't see Madi coming. But a strange feeling comes over him, and it is not merely one of surprise, but happiness. Sometimes it feels as if Clarke Griffin can see much more than he can.
-::-::-::-::-::-::-
He waits a very long time before he sees her again. Anyway, he's busy. He spends six years visiting people in the bunker, but only a few of them take the way out, no matter what horrors lay in store for them. It never fails to astound him, the human desire to continue, to survive, to endure. He is tempted, more than once, to visit Octavia, but he made a promise many years ago, and he always keeps his word.
Every now and then, he watches Clarke Griffin. He watches as she grows happier and happier and lonelier and lonelier. He watches as she bathes in peace, in safety, as she whispers into a radio to a boy she suspects may be dead. By the time the Pillowman visits Clarke Griffin again, a century has passed and she has sailed across the sky.
The Pillowman has followed her across the universe, all the way to Sanctum with its binary suns. Clarke is wearing a borrowed blue dress and she is on her way to the first party of her life. Before she spots him behind her in the mirror, the Pillowman sees an unmistakable gleam in her eyes. Hope. But it's gone by the time she notices Wells in her periphery.
"I knew it was too good to be true," she says, walking over to Delilah's bed and sitting down heavily. "So what's the story this time? What do I have left to lose?"
The Pillowman does not sit. He does not move. Instead, he simply replies, "Your mother."
Clarke's mouth falls open for a second and then shuts tightly, her jaw working, her eyes watering. But she doesn't let any tears fall when she asks, resignedly, "How?"
So the Pillowman tells her. He tells her about Cillian, his hand leading her up to his bedroom, to her doom, about Russell's face looming over her as everything goes dark, about Murphy's betrayal, and finally, about Clarke's hand pulling the lever, watching as her mother is sucked into space, just like her father.
Clarke is shaking her head. "Why would I do that? They got Josephine out of my head, so they could get Simone out of hers."
"You had protection. You had ALIE."
For a moment, Clarke is confused. Then, the Pillowman watches as the realization passes over her. The memory of her mother's EMP. It had saved her, then. It would kill her now. "How do I do it?" she asks. "How do I get rid of Josephine?"
"Not alone," the Pillowman says. And it is almost pleasant to tell her this part, the part where Bellamy, stubborn as ever, brave as always, fights tooth and nail to bring her back to him. He tells her of his chains in Josephine's bedroom, his leap of faith at the barrier, his hushed voice in the cave, and his breath of life in Gabriel's tent.
Clarke almost looks confused again as she listens, but her eyes are shiny with tears. "Bellamy does all of that? Why would he do that?"
"I don't know," the Pillowman says, but he has a working theory. "What do you decide, Clarke? Will you stay or go?" But he has become better at guessing her answer and he knows what her decision will be.
"I'll stay. For Bellamy." She says this as if she is telling him a secret. In some ways, he supposes she is. And in other ways, it is far more simple than love. It is her deep desire to save him from any more pain, even if it means she will suffer instead. But then, the Pillowman thinks for a brief, brief moment, perhaps that is what love means to Clarke.
But he is not here to guess at motive and reason and emotion. She has made her decision. He is gone before the shape of Bellamy's name fades from her lips.
-::-::-::-::-::-::-
When Clarke makes her way dizzily to the dance floor, she sees Bellamy. For an inexplicable moment, she feels the need to go to him, to let him save her before she needs saving, to reach out her hand and have him take it and rid themselves of all the pain and distance and death that awaits them. But before he can look her way, Cillian is pulling her onto the dance floor, towards her inescapable, unforgiving fate. Lightyears away, the earth keeps turning. And the Pillowman sits and watches.
-::-::-::-::-::-::-
The Pillowman had waited years to see Clarke Griffin once he left her in Praimfaya. But this time, he merely waits weeks. Does he know, as he approaches, that this is the last time he will see her? That this time, Clarke Griffin will take the way out, at long last? Deep in his bones, he does. It's a feeling unfamiliar to him. He comes, he tells his story, and asks a question. He does not try to guess their answer.
Most of all, he does not feel dread when he sees them. He does not feel sympathy. At most, he feels a distant sense of pity. But this changes when he sees Clarke Griffin this time. And part of him thinks she knows it too. She emerges from one of Sanctum's many rooms, dark circles below her eyes, exhaustion lining her step, and the unmistakable cloak of grief draped over her. The trembling leaves have frozen still and there is no one outside except for her and Wells.
She looks at him. "Hello," she says softly.
"Hello," he says, just as quiet. Silence hangs in the air between them.
"There's another story for me." This is not a question. She senses that there is something in the air, something different this time.
"I'm sorry, Clarke. I'm so sorry."
She blinks, fear in her eyes, but only for a moment, before calm resettles over her. "I'm ready."
So, the Pillowman tells her. He tells her about the last war, which turns out to be the last test. He tells her that she fails, he tells her that she is alone. He mentions the beach with her friends, and he wants to make it sound reassuring, but the Pillowman does not know how to do that, and it would be wrong to try if he could. He tells her everything, exactly as it happens.
Clarke frowns, but there is more confusion than sorrow in the expression. "Transcendence or death?" she asks. The Pillowman nods. "That doesn't sound like transcendence, that sounds like extinction. That creature, whatever it is, doesn't need to be avoided, it needs to be stopped. How did I not see that?"
"It may have been easier to see had they not been using Lexa's face to convince you." Then, the Pillowman smiled with Wells' lips and said in Wells' voice, "But perhaps I am not one to talk."
Clarke shakes her head. "I don't buy it. I don't care how much I loved Lexa," she says, voice trembling a little on the name, "that's not enough to get me to doom all of humanity. What aren't you telling me?"
The time has come, the Pillowman knows, for the end of the story. "You were tired," he says simply.
Somehow, Clarke senses what this means. She has known exhaustion, she has wanted to give up more times than she could count. But somehow, through her old friend's mouth, this word holds darkness in it. "Why?" she asks.
And he tells her. He tells her of a gun pointed at the man she loves most in this world. He tells her how her hand shakes but her aim is true. He tells her how it feels to watch him fall. He tells her how many bullets were left in her gun anyway: not enough. Then he tells her of Madi. Of the emptiness in her eyes. How Clarke will kill the person most important to her in the world to save her child and how she loses them both anyway.
He has never seen that look in anyone's eyes. But he does not stop until the story is done, until they're back on that beach with all her friends, at the end of everything, doomed to a life without anything greater than themselves to believe in, doomed to watch each other grow old and die one by one, leaving nothing behind but a whisper that once, a long time ago, they were here.
"When? When does all this -?"
"Tomorrow, you find out that your friends are missing. From then, it's only a matter of time."
And it is this moment that Clarke dares to ask him for something, a desperate plea that she knows is just that: a plea. "No, Clarke," he says softly. "You know that's not how this works."
"Then I want out," she says. No hesitation. A steady, firm voice. "I can't lose that much. I want out."
There are no words left to say. The Pillowman places his hand over Clarke's. She softens at the touch. "It won't hurt," he promises. "It will be just like I said it would."
He turns to go, but Clarke catches him in the moment before he disappears. "Wait," she says.
For a moment, he wonders if she has changed her mind. But then she is flying at him, wrapping her arms tightly around his shoulders. It is the first time that he has ever been touched by anyone else. It is the first time anyone has ever held him.
"This might sound pathetic," Clarke whispers, "but I think you're my oldest friend."
"I'm just wearing his face, Clarke."
"I'm not talking about Wells."
The Pillowman blinks, stunned. Then he wraps his arms around her and hugs her back. He has never visited anyone as many times as he has visited Clarke Griffin. So in some ways, she is his oldest friend too.
-::-::-::-::-::-::-
Clarke does not know that she has but an hour left to live. How could she? The Pillowman promised she wouldn't, and he always keeps his promises. He always tells the truth. But still, as if she senses that her fight is finally over, at long last, after so much pain, she has not felt peace like this in a very long time. Her touch lingers on her daughter's shoulder, her eyes connect with Raven just a beat longer than usual, she laughs at Murphy's joke just a little bit louder.
Raven is quietly relieved. After Abby's death and Bellamy's absence, Clarke had been shut off the past few days like a ticking time bomb. Bellamy can't get back quickly enough. Raven knows he would be able to help. But suddenly, it seems as if there is no need anymore. Clarke smiles at her on her way out of the tavern, and Raven, glad that their troubled past is finally behind them, grins back.
Then, Clarke winces. She stumbles.
"You okay?" Raven says, warily.
"Fine," Clarke replies automatically. But she stumbles a bit. She looks up at Raven one last time, the briefest moment of fear, and then she falls. Raven only just manages to catch her before she hits the ground, but she does not yet know that it is already too late.
"Jackson!" Raven screams. She screams for him until her voice is raw, but it does the trick. He comes running across camp. Him, and half of Sanctum. Murphy falls into place beside her, his hand on Raven's shoulder, kneeling next to Clarke. Raven is worried, concerned, but she has not yet realized what has happened. She looks at Murphy, saying, "She must not have been eating today. She's exhausted."
But then Jackson flinches away from Clarke, stunned, and Murphy reads the truth in his eyes before Raven does. "There's no pulse."
Raven's eyes widen. "What do you mean there's no pulse?"
And for the next fifteen minutes, they move her into Sanctum's medical centers, trying compressions, trying the breath of life, the same thing Bellamy had done only weeks earlier. But she grows paler and paler. Finally, Jackson emerges with unimaginable news. They never could have saved her. "Aneurysm."
Raven shakes her head. She knows that word, but she is still confused.
Jackson sighs, wiping his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand. Miller, with red-rimmed eyes, places a gentle hand on his shoulder. "There was a risk. Gabriel mentioned before leaving. He said it was low, but… After Josephine, and with all the stress…"
There is the longest silence. It could last minutes, hours, perhaps days. Raven would not have noticed. Neither would Murphy. Clarke had escaped certain death more times than they could count, and yet, in the middle of a mundane afternoon, during peacetime, it was over. It had happened right in front of their eyes.
Miller breaks the silence first, his voice hoarse, but unwavering. "I'll put Indra in charge for now. We'll talk about arrangements tomorrow."
"No," Raven says. Perhaps it is instinct that makes her say what she says next. Perhaps it is the Pillowman blowing a thought into her ear. Or maybe it is just the memory of Finn, of Lincoln, of Sinclair. "No, we have a grounder funeral. And we do it tonight." The pyre will be built and Clarke will be burnt and Raven will not cry until it is over.
Miller and Jackson nod, heading back into the room to do the unthinkable. An hour ago, she was laughing. Now she is gone. Raven sits alone with Murphy in silence. "Someone is going to have to tell Madi," she says quietly, looking at him.
Murphy's face mirrors her dread, but it is not for the same reason. "Someone is going to have to tell Bellamy."