Archive of Our Own

When the battle is finally over, Clarke doesn't know where to go. She looks at Cadogan's dead body, feet away from the Stone. It's funny. She thought killing him might make her feel better. It doesn't. Clarke doesn't feel anything except a distant sense of relief.

Levitt is dealing with the rest of the Bardoans. She barely heard him when he told her to leave it to him to put the peace back together. Good. Clarke doesn't even know what that looks like anymore.

So here she is. She's saved humanity. Again. But there's no celebration. There's no one left. For a moment, she considers ending things here. The gun is still in her hand. It would be so easy, and it's not like she hasn't thought about it before. Everyone she knows has left the planet days ago. For all she knows, they've already presumed her dead. And besides, who really is left to mourn for her?

In the end, she doesn't do it. Not because of her will to live still raging inside her like all those other times, but because the idea suddenly seems absurd. She's not a soldier or a leader. She's not a martyr or a victim. She's not even Wanheda. The only thing she had ever been, she realizes now, is a survivor.

It would have made sense to be killed in battle, to give that one final sacrifice to her people. She would have welcomed it. Dying here, now, by her own hand, wouldn't make any sense at all. Besides, she thinks, eyeing the black blood spilling out of a wound on her torso that she doesn't even feel, maybe she'll die anyway. Cadogan wasn't quick enough for her gun, but he managed to at least reach for his knife.

Clarke isn't sure where Raven took everyone. The whisper of Earth pulls at her for a moment. But then she remembers why. She remembers her mother's hands on her cheeks, holding Bellamy under the moonlight on the beach that night, and Madi, oh god, she remembers Madi. She remembers the bear trap and the berry dye, the bedtime stories and the swims in the creek. Her daughter. She remembers her daughter.

So, yes, maybe Sanctum holds bad memories. And maybe that's not where her people went when she sent them away. But she's never going back to Earth, whatever happens. She presses the coordinates for Sanctum, and for the first time in her life, she hopes she doesn't find her people there. She hopes she'll be alone.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

But she's not. When Clarke sets foot back on Sanctum, her people are bustling all around her. No one she recognizes, not really, not yet. She feels a strong wave of light-headedness, strong enough to tell her that even if she can't feel pain, it doesn't mean her wound isn't doing any damage.

She presses a hand to it and sees stars, stumbling to a large tent she instinctively recognizes as the med tent. For some reason, it's Octavia she sees first. Octavia, leaning over a man, tending to his wounds. It reminds Clarke of the first few days on the ground, when Octavia was her apprentice. Every time Clarke was worried she'd be killed, she'd think to herself, they'll be okay, they have Octavia, I've taught her enough. Of course, then the Ark came down and Octavia became a warrior and none of that mattered anymore. Still, the image, and the wave of nostalgia accompanying it surprises her for a moment.

And then Octavia stands up straight and Clarke sees who she was tending to.

Bellamy. And he's looking right at her.

He looks as stunned as she feels. He's saying nothing, but his eyes are open, his chest is rising, and he's alive, how is he alive?

But before Clarke has time to figure out whether or not she's happy about that, the pain hits her all at once like a punishment and a kindness, pulling her down, down, down into a darkness from which she hopes never to emerge.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Bellamy says nothing as he watches Clarke hit the ground. He says nothing as he watches Raven and Octavia run to her. He says nothing as Raven cries out, "We need to stitch her up right now, she's turning white! How much blood has she lost?" He says nothing. Oh, but his traitorous heart – the heart she tried to shoot, missing by half an inch, barely – is pounding so hard he can feel it in his mouth. Why does he feel like he always does when she's in danger, like the world will stop spinning if she doesn't make it through? He thought he'd hate her this time, once and for all, but the minute they locked eyes, he knew he didn't. Why can he never hate her?

Bellamy doesn't say anything until the moment his sister's panicked eyes meet his, and then he says, "What's wrong with her?"

"She got stabbed," Octavia says tensely. "She'll be fine."

Then she tugs the curtain between their beds closed and Bellamy tries to pretend he doesn't care. He really does.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

An hour later, Raven pushes the curtain open, and Bellamy, who isn't even pretending like he wasn't anxiously waiting for news, simply says, "Well?" They'd gone quiet a while back and he assumed they'd at least tell him if she died. Still, he's prepared for the worst.

"I think she'll be okay," Raven says shakily, wiping her sweaty forehead and unknowingly leaving a streak of black blood above her left eye. Bellamy steals a glance at Clarke over Raven's shoulder, and though she isn't conscious yet, there's color in her cheeks again. "We'll know when she wakes up." Raven collapses heavily in the chair between their beds and it leaves Bellamy wondering what side she's on.

He knows they were all against him, that Clarke carried them all through battle yet again, and he's starting to understand that maybe he was wrong. But was he really wrong enough to deserve what Clarke did to him? Does Raven think so? He's not ready to ask that question, so he asks another one, one he's been wondering since Clarke's return. "Hey, where's Madi?"

Raven looks at him, eyes soft, shaking her head. "Madi didn't make it."

And Bellamy doesn't even have to ask. He knows exactly what happened.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Clarke wakes up half a day later, nearing midnight. Raven is at her side in an instant. "What happened? Who stabbed you?"

"Cadogan," Clarke says. "Right before I shot him."

She ignores the sharp intake of breath coming from her left that she knows belongs to Bellamy, horrified to learn of the death of his beloved shepherd. Clarke can't think about him right now, about how she can feel this guilty towards someone she's so angry with, that she can be so relieved he's alive when he got the person she loved most in the world killed. So she rolls onto her side, facing away from him.

"Does that mean –?"

"Yeah," Clarke says thickly. "It's over. We won." Then she cries and cries and cries until she's out again.

They won. But Clarke lost everything.

She doesn't wake up for two more days.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

As Bellamy watches Clarke cry, her sobs quiet and choked as if the mere act of expelling them was painful, he wishes he were anywhere else. But Octavia told him he had to stay in medbay a couple more days at least, and besides, he's scared to make a sound, make his presence known, intrude upon her grief.

When she finally stops, Bellamy thinks she's fallen asleep. It's not until Octavia comes in to check on them both that he realizes something is wrong. "She's burning up," Octavia yells to Raven, rolling Clarke over and sure enough, there's a thick sheen of sweat on her forehead. "Clarke, can you hear me?"

"My baby," she mumbles, the sorrow in her voice practically unbearable to listen to, "my baby."

"She's delirious," Octavia says to Raven who's just come running in. "What do we do?"

"We break the fever," Raven replies, jaw set, determined, "You're gonna be fine, Clarke." She places her hand to Clarke's forehead, smoothing her hair. "We're gonna take care of you."

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

He sticks it out as long as he can. He stays in the med tent while Clarke calls for her dead child. He stays while she yells for her mom, for Monty, for Lexa, for Wells. He stays as she mumbles words he's heard before, words that have haunted him for years. It's when she opens her eyes and looks at Raven, whispering, "Please, I want my dad," that he can't take it anymore.

He stands from the bed, practically running from the tent. "Bellamy, wait!" his sister shouts.

"I feel fine," he says, pushing the tent flap into the bright Sanctum sunshine. He doesn't. He feels woozy and clumsy, like he might pass out at any second. But he couldn't stay there.

(Clarke calls for him next, but of course, he isn't there to hear it.)

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

In the end, she gets better. Bellamy isn't there when it happens, but he gets better too. Everyday he can breathe a little clearer, walk for longer without getting tired. After a week, he starts running again. Eventually, he starts to feel strong, to feel like his old self again. If it weren't for the scar or the horrible nightmares, he could almost pretend it never happened.

He doesn't see Clarke once as he recovers, which takes three weeks. He hears about her, though. Sitting ten feet away at lunch, he would overhear Raven and Octavia talking. "I haven't seen her at all," Octavia says.

"I have," Raven replies, but there's no reassurance in her voice. "I've been following her. Just long enough to make sure she doesn't throw herself off any cliffs."

Octavia is silent for a long moment. "You think she might?"

"No. Not anymore. We have a lot to worry about when it comes to Clarke, but I don't think we need to be worried about that."

Bellamy feels lonely most of the time. Echo won't even look at him and Raven has been cold since she realized he wasn't going to die after all. Octavia, for what it's worth, forgives him right away.

"I know what it's like to lose yourself, big brother. We'll get through this."

And Murphy and Emori haven't kept their distance either. "You're not trying to turn us into beams of light anymore, are you? Then we're good," Murphy told him, and they hadn't talked about it since.

The day he finally runs into Clarke, it's a complete accident. When they lock eyes, he flinches, in spite of himself. He thought it would get easier, but when he sees her now he just sees her then, her gun firing and the roaring pain, back when he thought she was going to be the last thing he'd ever see, her betrayal the last thing he'd ever know.

The flinch doesn't go unnoticed by Clarke, Bellamy sees that right away. "You've been avoiding me," she says simply.

"I thought that's what you'd want… Is it?"

"Maybe," she says, her face impenetrable as ever. "Is that what you want?"

"Maybe," he admits, and they stand there in silence for a long time. She turns to go and suddenly he realizes he doesn't want her to leave yet. So he says the first thing he can think of and knows instantly it's a mistake. "I'm sorry about Madi."

"Don't," Clarke says, voice sharp and brimming with emotion all at once.

"What happened?" he asks, and he knows asking is unfair, even cruel, but he's overpowered by a sudden desperate need to know, to know once and for all how guilty he is.

"Ask Octavia," Clarke says without turning around. "She was there."

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

He does. He asks her. For a long time, he wishes he hadn't. His sister, as always, is blunt. "Cadogan tortured her until she was braindead. There was nothing Clarke could do."

"What happened?" he asks, voice barely a whisper.

"Clarke shot her," Octavia says, and Bellamy knows it then. It doesn't matter if he can find it within himself to forgive her. She'll never forgive him, never. He's not sure he'll forgive himself.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Raven has become the de facto leader as Sanctum struggles to put itself back together. No one's going to look to Bellamy for anything anymore, Octavia's off the table and Clarke is nowhere to be found. So everyone looks to Raven. And Raven is busy as ever, working in the lab, making adjustments to the Eligius ship. Over time, it becomes clear that a new plan has been brewing on Sanctum. Whispers of a return to Earth reach Bellamy, even in his isolation.

One day, he point blank asks Raven what she plans to do. "We'll go back when I'm sure we won't destroy it," she tells him without looking up from her work.

"How will you know?"

"I just will." A beat and then, "If that's all, you can go."

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

No, it's not until nearly a month has passed that Raven finally starts to thaw. She sits down across from him during lunch one day. "I get to be mad," she says.

"Okay…" Bellamy responds, not quite sure where this is headed.

"Maybe if it was me who shot you, I'd walk around punishing myself like Clarke, but I didn't, so I get to be mad at you because I did nothing wrong."

"No," he says, placing his hand over hers. "You didn't."

Raven's eyes fill with tears. "I'm just saying, an apology would have been nice."

"I thought you knew," he says. He thought everyone knew how sorry he was.

"I did. But I got tortured, Bellamy. It would have been nice to hear it from you."

"I am sorry, Raven. More than you know." She nods and for a second they almost leave it at that, but of course, he can't help himself. "Clarke's punishing herself?"

Raven sighs, and she sounds tired. "That's what it looks like." But she softens when she looks at him. "Hey, it might not be about you. I think we both know Clarke has a lot of reasons to be miserable right now." It's nice of her to say, but whether it's about him or Madi, they both know it's his fault.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

The day Bellamy asks Clarke what happened to Madi, she waits until he's gone, then she empties her stomach in the woods. How dare he? she thinks, panting on hands and knees. Then, how can he even bear to look at me? How am I still alive when there's nothing left inside of me? Octavia told her to get looked over if she felt sickness of any kind, but Clarke is the doctor and she knows this is a sickness that will never go away.

She spends that first month wandering the woods of Sanctum. "It's dangerous in there," Raven says one day, undoubtedly remembering Shaw, but Clarke pretends not to hear. Sometimes she even spends the night under the stars, out in the woods. The solitude feels familiar, an empty comfort. It's almost like the first few months of Praimfaya, only this time, she doesn't even have the solace of the radio.

She still misses Bellamy, misses him like she would a piece of her soul, but she has no right to him, not after what she did. Besides, every glimpse she gets of him feels cruel. He looks so much like the old Bellamy – not just the Bellamy before Bardo, but before Praimfaya, when he was the most important person in her life. He always had Octavia, but there were times when all she had was him. But this is not that Bellamy. This is the Bellamy who betrayed her; this is the Bellamy she betrayed. She can't face him. She can't face anyone.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

She doesn't bother much with eating or sleeping. She does these things when she feels like it. She returns to the land of the living when compelled, which isn't often. At night, she dreams of Bellamy. She dreams of Madi. She dreams of Earth.

One day, Clarke is doing what she normally does, wandering around the woods aimlessly, when Raven stumbles upon her. Clarke says nothing, just stares blankly. "There you are," Raven says. "I've been looking for hours." She pauses, stepping closer to Clarke. "Will you come back with me? I need to talk to you."

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

"I'm sending a crew up to prep the ship for mass transport. They'll be orbiting around Sanctum for months… I think you should go with them."

Clarke's face remains impassive, but her mind is foggy with confusion. "Why? It's not like I'll be able to help."

"I thought it might be good for you. To have a change of pace."

"A change of pace," Clarke repeats uselessly.

"I just think wandering around the woods by yourself for weeks like you don't have anyone who'd care if something happened to you isn't really working," Raven blurts out. Clarke is stunned by the look of hurt on her friend's face. She's barely given Raven a second thought, truth be told, but it seems Raven's been spending plenty of time thinking about her.

"I'm sorry."

"You don't have to be sorry. But you have to understand. You have your entire life ahead of you, Clarke." Clarke knows this. She's waiting for the day this doesn't feel like a nightmare. "You've got to figure out how to spend it, because what you're doing now is not going to work."

Clarke says nothing, but she knows Raven is right, and that truth is written all over her face.

"So. Will you go?"

"Okay," Clarke says, without allowing herself too much time to think about it.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Bellamy finds out about Raven's space crew from Octavia. He thinks about it for a few days, but in the end, it's no decision. He could stay on this planet where half the people hate him and keep being miserable, or he could go back to space and maybe be useful for a change. He leaves behind a note for Raven:

Went with your crew into orbit. Needed to be away from it all. I know you'll understand. See you soon. – Bellamy

Raven misses him by mere seconds. She watches the ship blast off, Bellamy and Clarke both trapped inside, and she hopes she hasn't done something very, very wrong. She hopes that when they touch down months from now, she won't have to see one – or both – of them destroyed.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

They almost make it through the entire day before running into each other. Bellamy's on his way to his assigned sleeping quarters (which of course end up being right next to hers) when they see each other at the exact same time. Clarke's eyes are wide and wild as she takes him in. Part of Bellamy wants to be happy to see her and the other part is remembering the tears spilling down her cheeks as she pulled the trigger, the fiery pain roaring through his chest, the devastating knowledge that he was going to die at the hand of his best friend. The other part of Bellamy is scared.

"I didn't know you'd be here," he says.

"No," Clarke agrees. "Neither did I."

"I'm sorry," he says, though he's not sure what for.

"You don't have to be sorry. Not for that, anyways." Then she opens the door to her quarters and closes it behind her, leaving Bellamy alone in the hallway.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

"I'm sorry," Raven says that night on the radio. "I didn't – he snuck on, I tried to stop him."

"You have nothing to be sorry for, Raven."

"Clarke. Are you gonna be okay?"

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

That night, she dreams about Madi, about putting her in cryo, about kissing her forehead, preserving her, keeping her safe. For the first time in a long time, when she wakes up, she cries.

(Bellamy hears her. He even heads into the hallway, his knuckles hovering over her door, almost knocking. In the end, he lowers his hand, goes back to bed, and doesn't sleep at all.)

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

The next few days pass almost apathetically. Clarke finds herself missing the leafy shelter of Sanctum's forest, which she takes as a good sign. Maybe this means she still has the ability to care about life without Madi. Maybe. She and Bellamy avoid each other, at least somewhat successfully.

She's not sure what Bellamy wants. She's certainly never going to ask him, not when she doesn't know how she would answer the very same question. It's all so tangled up inside her, the guilt and the anger, the betrayal and the longing, the love and the terror. It hurts to look at him. So it's easier not to.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Five days in, Bellamy calls his sister on the radio. For a while, Octavia lets him pretend he just wants to say hello. She tells him about Hope, catches him up on camp. Then, she sighs. "Bell, I know Clarke's up there. Are you okay?"
He takes a long time to answer. "I don't know." There's a long static silence while Bellamy works up to the courage to say, "How did you deal with it after… after everything that happened on Earth? You felt guilty, but at the same time, we'd betrayed you. So you were angry too."

"Yeah. I was."

"How did you deal with that?"

He can hear her sigh. "I guess I stopped being angry when I realized I was wrong. Then, there was only the guilt. All I had to do after that was make amends." Bellamy thinks about this for a moment. But Octavia continues. "But Bellamy, that took years on Sky Ring. It's only been a month. And besides, what happened with Clarke was different." He nods, wanting to believe her. But he remembers that Octavia had been on Clarke's side, that before he was shot, they'd been a united front against him. His sister loves him, but maybe she's lying.

Then he remembers his betrayal. He remembers lowering Octavia to the ground, her lips sweet with chocolate poison he had given her, all to save Clarke. And his traitorous mind flashes in a moment to Clarke's gun pointed at her best friend, just to save Madi. No, he tells himself. Clarke shot to kill. He never intended to kill Octavia. And before he can follow this train of thought any further, Bellamy turns out the light and goes the fuck to bed.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

About a week and a half in, Clarke starts to feel restless. On the ground, there was always something to be done. She was always planning or strategizing, hiding or running, fighting or preparing to fight. Even after Praimfaya, in the monotony of what came after, there was finding food and water. In her life with Madi, there was hunting and cooking, preparing the valley for their friends. There was the radio.

Up here, there is nothing. Most of the crew Raven sent up weren't even Clarke's people. All there was to do was wander around alone, which at first, was just fine with her. All she wanted was to be left alone. But now, it's starting to feel like those days in solitary, before the dropship was sent down, when she was merely waiting to be executed.

So when she overhears a couple of crew members discussing a mechanical issue, she volunteers her services. "Maybe I can help," she says, emerging from around a corner. She's gotten good at passing through places unnoticed. It's funny. Eyes used to track her every move. "What's the problem?"

The two crew workers share a glance, but no one is up here that Raven Reyes didn't authorize. It's hard to learn to trust each other again. It's hard to remember that they can. Finally, the taller one says, "We need someone to spacewalk with this." He holds up some sort of device Clarke doesn't recognize. "We can't get a proper reading from here."

"Only problem is none of us are trained to do that," the other one says.

"I can do it," Clarke says, shrugging.

The tall one narrows his eyes. "You know how?"

"Raven Reyes is my closest friend." And only friend, she thinks, but doesn't say, "I know enough."

Within ten minutes, she's suited up. It feels good to be acting towards a purpose, in service of a greater good. It reminds her of the best days before Praimfaya, when being a leader allowed her to forget herself. In this moment, she doesn't matter. In this moment, it's not about her at all. Clarke Griffin couldn't matter less. She's not Clarke Griffin, no. She's the woman who's going to get them this reading.

So she's not thinking about how she has no idea how to do this. It hasn't even occurred to her that it could be dangerous. "Are you ready?" they ask, and she nods, without even wondering if that's true.

It all happens very quickly. One moment she's in the airlock, the next moment she's out among the stars. She sees why Raven loves this so much. Clarke wishes she could stay out here forever, untethered, floating away until there's nothing left of her, until there's no one left who remembers she ever existed at all.

About 30 seconds later, she realizes she can't breathe. There's a distant panic at the back of her mind. She feebly tugs the tether tying her back to the ship, but she doesn't feel the tug pulling her back. It's a matter of seconds, not minutes, Clarke knows this. She's not thinking of Madi or Bellamy, not Lexa or Wells, not even her mother. No. Clarke is thinking of her dad. This is how he died. Maybe there's something poetic about that. Maybe this is the closest she'll get to peace.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Clarke doesn't remember drifting off, but when she comes to, her cheek is kissing cold metal and she can hear Bellamy's voice. Her breath comes quietly. She doesn't yet open her eyes.

"What the hell were you thinking?"

A panicked voice answers him. "She said she knew how. She said Raven Reyes taught her!"

"If you'd waited five goddamned minutes and radioed Raven, she would have told you that Clarke can't be trusted to do anything that could put her in danger right now!"

Clarke knows she should open her eyes. She knows she should. But she's so tired and she doesn't want to face him. And right now, with her eyes closed and Bellamy all riled up on her behalf, it feels like it used to. It feels like his protectiveness is a blanket, always there to wrap herself inside. They both knew that they couldn't really protect anyone, not really, not on the ground. But he always made her feel safe and cared for and protected anyway.

If being a leader made her forget herself, Bellamy always made her feel like a person again. Not a leader, not Wanheda, just Clarke. Just who she was. Everything's different now. It will never be like that again. She doesn't deserve or want his protection. Not when she didn't protect him. Not when he wouldn't protect Madi.

But with her eyes closed, listening to him without seeing him, she can pretend. Just for a few moments.

"We didn't even know her name, she seemed to know what she was doing."

"Of course she did. She's Clarke." There's a brief silence, then Bellamy says, "Look, next time you have a problem, have Raven walk you through it and do the damn thing yourself."

"We will. We didn't – we didn't mean…" They trail off.

There's silence again, then Bellamy's voice bursts out, panicked and bordering on desperate, but still restrained to anyone who doesn't know him. Clarke is probably the only one who can really tell how worried he is. "She should've woken up by now, why isn't she waking up?"

So Clarke opens her eyes, only to watch Bellamy's face harden back into a mask of hatred and anger. She pushes herself off the ground and her knees nearly buckle, but she catches herself. Bellamy twitches to go to her, but it's just instinct, and he catches himself too.

She wants to breeze past him, but he grabs her arm. It's the first time he's touched her since… since. "What the hell, Clarke? You can't spacewalk."

"I was just trying to help."

"You nearly got yourself killed. Why can't you ever just let someone else handle it?"

Clarke decides to be mean. "They all have someone waiting for them on Sanctum. I'm expendable. No one cares what happens to me." She was trying to make him feel bad, but she realizes miserably that this is true.

Bellamy lets go of her arm. "I care what happens to you," he says, sounding hurt and embarrassed at the same time.

Clarke feels a slight thrill at these words, followed by a hot burn of shame and a sudden flare of anger. "We both know you shouldn't."

Then she leaves before he can see that she's crying.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Bellamy forgot how quickly you lose your sense of time in space. He misses the sun already. He's not sure if he regrets his decision to come up here, though he wouldn't have if he'd known Clarke was coming. All he knows is after the day he's had, it would be nice to sleep under the stars instead of among them.

It was awful seeing Clarke like that, awful. And worse, it was like everything that had happened had faded away, not as if it didn't happen, but as if it didn't matter. She was Clarke, being reckless with her life, putting herself in danger again. And he was Bellamy, always trying to save her even when he knew he couldn't.

He's angry that he could revert back to his old self that easily. It should matter. What happened should matter. If it didn't, then was there no line he wouldn't let her cross? And what about what he did to her? To her child? Who's to say she'd even want his forgiveness? Who's to say she even wants him around at all?

These are the thoughts circling around Bellamy's mind when he finally falls into a fitful sleep.

And then there are his dreams.

He dreams first of Clarke's body floating out there forever, blue and pale and lifeless. He wakes with a start, breath coming heavy and quick. But he's used to these dreams. He had plenty of them those six years on the ring.

It's his next dream he can't stand, the one he's been having practically every night. In this dream, he dies.

It's like reliving it again, the burning, clawing feeling in his chest, the breath that won't come, the color fading from the room. It's almost exactly as it was on Sanctum. Almost. Except this time, right before she pulls the trigger, Clarke smiles.

He wakes again, bolt upright in his still unfamiliar bed. The clock in the corner blinks 2:43. He needs to get out of here.

Bellamy emerges from his quarters to a quiet, empty hall. He doesn't know or think about where he's going. He just walks.

Straight into Clarke. He flinches when he sees her face, feeling the dying pains in his chest, feeling scared of her for just a moment. He tries to ignore the hurt that briefly passes through her eyes.

"What are you doing up?" she says tentatively.

"Nightmare."

"Me too."

In an instant, they both know they dreamed of the same thing. Funny how that doesn't go away, Bellamy thinks, the ability to read each other so easily.

Slowly, without acknowledging it, they begin walking in the same direction. "Are you feeling okay?" he asks, his voice gruff. He'd wanted to take her to the medbay to get her checked out, but she'd disappeared and he wasn't about to chase after her. But now he wishes he'd swallowed his pride and taken her anyway.

"I'm fine," she replies, and he knows that would have been her answer regardless of whether or not it was true.

He's struggling to think of something to say, a feeling he's unaccustomed to when it comes to Clarke, when she suddenly blurts out, "I'm sorry."

He blinks, stunned. "For what?"

"I'm sorry for shooting you. I wouldn't do it again."

"Really?" he whispers.

"Really."

Bellamy shakes his head. He feels a lump in his throat, but he quickly swallows it down. He's not sure what he's going to say next, so he surprises both of them when what comes out of his mouth is, "Why?"

Clarke looks stricken by the question. She opens her mouth to answer, then closes it again. Then, a shadow passes over her face. She looks at him, tears flooding her eyes and says, "Because you said before I did it that you'd protect her, and maybe you were lying, but I'd give anything, anything for her to be alive."

Before he can say anything else, she turns and runs down the hall, leaving Bellamy standing all alone.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Clarke lies in bed, on top of her sheets, crying again. She feels drained, empty. All she does anymore is cry and sleep and eat. She beats back the thought that always comes to her at night: What's the point?

She wonders, though. When she looks at the rest of her life, her long, long, too long life, Clarke can only imagine a black, indistinct blur of more of the same. No point. No point at all. The memory of Bellamy's face looms in front of her. Just tonight, they'd almost gotten somewhere. Baby steps.

Seeing him again, in the hallway, looking just as he did before Praimfaya, she felt that overwhelming, familiar urge to make amends. She shot him. She was sorry. She would never want him dead. Simple.

So why'd he have to go and remind her why?

Clarke had never wanted to kill Bellamy, but she had been willing to do it, so the distinction didn't matter. She would have done it to save Madi, and she couldn't save Madi, and it's his fault. She wanted to take back what she did to him, because seeing him in front of her, she was stupidly relieved that he's alive. Now she would take it back, simply because what good did it do?

(Maybe both are true, but she's not ready to admit that to herself yet.) It doesn't matter, she thinks, drifting off to sleep. It doesn't matter how she feels about Bellamy. She lost her claim to him the moment she pulled that trigger.

And when he turned Madi in, well. Maybe he lost his claim to her too.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Days pass. Clarke barely leaves her room. She doesn't see Bellamy once. She sleeps all day. At night, she tries something new. They're on a spaceship with endless halls and corridors. So she puts on the proper clothes and waits until everyone is asleep. Then she runs.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Does Bellamy leave his quarters with the specific purpose of running into Clarke? Maybe. Maybe somewhere, subconsciously, he hears her door open and feels curious. Maybe he still feels bad about the other night.

Either way, he doesn't think about it. When he sees her, though, he knows he was always headed here. Whether on purpose, or by fate, something Bellamy doesn't even believe in, there's a reason they're both on this ship and everyone they know is on the planet below.

Clarke stops running when she sees him. There's a light sheen of sweat on her forehead and her face is flushed and pretty. She's wearing a sports bra and joggers. Her hair, which she has been letting grow out, trails down her back in a braid. There are no bruises or scabs that he can see.

He's suddenly thrown by a false feeling of deja vu. This is what it would've looked like if Clarke had made it to the Ring. She should've been there, his heart still says, and he is overwhelmed by how much they've both lost.

"Another nightmare?"

"Couldn't sleep."

They stand there for a long, long minute, just staring at each other, undoubtedly remembering what happened last time. Bellamy breaks the silence. "Going for a run?" She nods. "Mind if I join you?"

Clarke blinks, surprised. "Okay," she says.

They don't say anything. But it's a start.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Clarke thinks about what she could have said to Bellamy when he asked her why. She spends all of her free time exploring these fantasies, alternate endings to a conversation she probably shouldn't have been having in the first place. She doesn't wonder what would have happened if Madi hadn't died or if she hadn't shot Bellamy. She keeps her fantasies as small as her world is now. It's the only way she can bear to go on.

She finally settles on the real answer she'd give, the truthful one, when he asked why she was sorry.

Because you and Madi both died, and both times I pulled the trigger.

But I didn't die, the Bellamy in her head responds.

No, but I killed you, she says.

And then she stops imagining because really, how can you ever come back from that?

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Every night since the first time, Bellamy has joined Clarke on her midnight runs. They don't say a word to each other, not so much as a hello or a goodbye. But it's something they are doing together, on purpose, just the two of them. If Clarke doesn't think about things too hard, it feels promising. Like a fresh start. Like such a thing could still exist in a world as fractured as this.

It begins to be the only thing she looks forward to anymore. Though, truthfully, that isn't saying much.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

They've been running together for a week before Clarke stops suddenly and sits down on a ledge along the spaceship's wall. Bellamy stops too, eyeing her warily. "You okay?"

"Why did you do it?" she says without warning. "Why did you follow him?" She's been wanting to ask for weeks now, since the moment she found out he was still alive, back to the Bellamy she recognized.

Bellamy looks at her a moment, then sits down next to her. "I guess I was just tired of fighting." He thinks that'll be enough, they'll end the conversation there. It's about as much conversation as Clarke seems to be able to handle between them these days anyway. But she says nothing. She waits for him to continue. So he does.

"It felt like it would never end. The wars. The death… The pain." He feels so ashamed to say this. To admit that more than anything, it was the selfish desire to alleviate his own pain that led him astray. "When I was in the cave, I started wondering if there was any happy ending we were working towards, or if we were only fighting because we didn't know how to do anything else."

He takes a breath. He can't look at Clarke. If he does, he won't be able to finish. And he suddenly needs to finish. He hasn't explained any of this to anyone yet, he hasn't even really explained it to himself.

"So I guess… I guess the idea of a world without pain or death sounded pretty good to me right then." He wishes he had a better excuse, but he doesn't. This is all he's got.

"The same reason Raven took ALIE's chip," Clarke says quietly. "I figured as much."

Bellamy looks at her, stricken. "I never thought of it like that before."

She looks at him too. It might be the first time she hasn't avoided his gaze since everything. "I can understand that part. But why did you forsake us?"

Right. The For All Mankind part. It's hard for Bellamy to explain, because it doesn't even really make sense to himself. "It was something Doucette said. My - my friend." There's a hushed moment in which they both remember that Clarke killed him too. But Bellamy swallows the memory down and continues. "He said every bad thing that happened to us was a product of our selfish ties to each other. And it got me thinking. I shot the chancellor to protect Octavia. I killed 300 sleeping guards to avenge Gina. I poisoned my sister and put the flame in Madi's head to save you."

He sighs, running a hand through his hair. "I guess I realized all the bad things I did, I did for love."

Clarke is quiet for a long moment, shaking her head. Then, she places her hand over his, gently, like a whisper of a touch. "All the good things you did were for love too."

There's an instant where Bellamy wants to hold her, thank her. She shot you, a voice in the back of his head says, but it feels entirely besides the point. It feels so, so far away.

Until she pulls her hand away quickly like she's been burnt. He has no idea what she's thinking, he almost never does anymore. She's on her feet running away again before Bellamy has a chance to take another breath. So he does what he hasn't since before, what he hasn't even thought about doing since before. He is faced with the inexplicable urge to stop her, to make her stay, and this time, he acts on it. "Clarke," he says, standing and following her.

She turns around, tears in her eyes. "I should have told you sooner, but I'm so glad, so glad you're alive." Then she turns and keeps running, and maybe Bellamy would have followed her if he wasn't too stunned to move.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

When Bellamy gets to his room only a short while later, he can't sleep for hours. Her words keep circling through his head. She's glad he's alive. What does that even mean?

In some ways, he knew that. But hearing her say it is another thing entirely. She's glad he's alive. Which, essentially, means she's glad she failed.

But how can she be glad when he –

Oh.

He gets it now.

It takes only a moment for all his anger to melt away and his guilt to mount. Bellamy knows why Clarke did what she did, and he also knows why she had to. He sees things more clearly than he ever has, and he spends a long, moaning minute wishing he could go back in time and do things differently.

He has spent so much time mourning what he had with Clarke that he barely spent any time mourning Madi. He remembers holding her after they found out Clarke died. He remembers how she had trusted him.

The guilt feels bottomless, but he knows it's nothing compared to Clarke's grief. He presses a finger to the bullet shaped scar just above his heart. He'll probably always feel those phantom pains. The memory will probably always hurt. But even with all of that, even amongst the guilt and the grief, he feels the closest to at peace as he's been for months.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

He can't wait until their evening run. Bellamy can't even wait until the morning. It can't have been more than three or four hours since he last saw her, but he can't sleep and knows he won't until he gets this off his chest. He knows he shouldn't be waking her up.

But Bellamy finds himself knocking on Clarke's door anyway.

She opens it and he can immediately tell she wasn't sleeping either. "Bellamy? Is something wrong?"

He speaks without giving himself a chance to second-guess. "You don't have to respond, but I need you to know something. I don't know if you'll ever forgive me." She opens her mouth to speak but Bellamy holds up a hand, stopping her. "But if you're wondering if I'll ever forgive you, you should know that's already done. So the day you're ready, if that day ever comes, I'll be waiting. You know where to find me."

Then, before she can even think of responding, he's opening his door and sliding back into his bed where he sleeps better than he has in years.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Clarke, on the other hand, doesn't sleep. She tries to. She tosses and turns for a while. But Bellamy's words circle around and around in her head until she realizes sleep is futile and gives in and starts to think.

She feels so stupid. For some reason, she really thought it was over between them for good, that he couldn't possibly forgive her after what she'd done to him. But it's Bellamy. She should've known he'd get here eventually.

But where does that leave her?

She moves to the empty desk where a radio sits. Without even thinking too much about it, she picks it up. "Raven? Raven, come in."

Thirty seconds pass before a sluggish voice answers her. "Clarke? It's the middle of the night. Is everything okay?"

"When can I come back?" she asks. She doesn't mean for her voice to sound so small when she says it.

Raven instantly sounds more awake. "Not for at least another month, I'm sorry." There's a long pause before she says, "Clarke, what happened?"

Tears slip down Clarke's face and she knows it's showing in her voice. "Bellamy forgave me."

"He did?" Clarke nods, knowing Raven can't see it, but can't bring herself to speak. "Well, that's a good thing, right?" Raven says gently.

Clarke wishes it was. She so badly wants it to be. It's not like she wanted Bellamy to hate her. But it was easier that way. Easier because she deserved it after what she did. And easier because it made it easier to hate him.

And maybe because there was no demand on her. "I don't know," Clarke whispers into the radio. Because now she has to decide whether or not she can forgive him. And she doesn't know if she can.

And it's breaking her heart.

Because she looks at him and it is Bellamy, it is, that same bounding heart, that effortlessly readable face. The same man who's always been closer to her heart than anyone else. The same man she sacrificed TonDC to save, the same man she would have died for over and over again if he had only asked.

The same man she forgave effortlessly and immediately time and time again.

And when she can bring herself to look into his eyes, she knows without question that his heart is good. She knows that he regrets what he did, that he'd take it back if he could, that he'd give his own life to take it back. What happened was horrible, awful, but if she were anyone else, she could see it for what it was: a good man's mistake.

But she's not anyone else. She's a mother without a child. And all she has to do is think of Madi. Madi, whose nightmares she soothed when she was five, who taught Clarke how to fish when she was nine, whose small body Clarke had curled around every night, her beautiful, brave, terribly young child.

Who had trusted Bellamy. Who had been so excited to meet him. He wants to take it back, but he can never take it back, she is gone forever, she is nothing, she is nowhere. She died screaming. She died scared. She died alone.

He said he'd protect her. He said he'd keep her safe.

"How could he forgive me?" Clarke cries into the radio. Because maybe if she knew, it would tell her how to forgive him.

"I don't know, Clarke," Raven says. "Maybe you should ask him."

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Bellamy is surprised to see Clarke in the mess hall the next day. Usually, he only sees her at night. He kinda got the impression that she stays holed up in her room all day. She looks terrible, he thinks. Pale, dark circles under her eye, like she got no sleep at all. Bellamy wonders if that's his fault.

Her eyes scan the room, searching for something, until finally her gaze lands on him. He feels briefly pleased that he was the one she was looking for. But he also knows that it couldn't have been anyone else. She sits down across from him and just looks at him for a long minute. Just when he starts thinking she isn't going to say anything, she finally asks him, "How did you forgive me?"

Bellamy blinks. "What?"

"I killed you," Clarke says bluntly. "How could you forgive me?"

The question hangs there a moment. Bellamy realizes she's not just asking because she feels like she doesn't deserve it. She really wants to know.

So Bellamy tries to answer. "It happened when I realized that if it had been anyone else standing in my place, you wouldn't have even hesitated. And you sure as hell wouldn't feel guilty."

It's simple, too easy, but it's true. What had hurt more than the betrayal itself was the familiar fear that maybe he'd never mattered to her at all. So when he put someone else in his place, he realized in a flash that he did matter, does matter, that it's only because he matters to her that she would burden herself with so much guilt over something she would never have regretted doing to anyone else who would jeopardize Madi. But that's not all.

"Then I realized that if it were me, if I had never gone to Etherea, I would have done the same damn thing. Because it was the right thing to do."

Clarke's eyes widen, filling with tears that she quickly blinks away. He's not really saying it was right to shoot him – him, Bellamy, her best friend. But he had never judged her before for taking out the enemy. And he made himself the enemy, he sees that now. For all his talk of selfishness, he was the selfish one. Because he wanted transcendence so badly he was willing to put everyone else in danger, ignore everyone else's wishes. He watched Clarke get tortured. And he got Madi killed. He didn't want those things to happen, but they happened and he let them. In the end, it wasn't hard to forgive her. Because she was right. She told him that day that if he did this, Madi would die. And she did.

He's coming out of this conversation even firmer in his conviction to forgive her, but Clarke is shaking her head. "You would never have shot me."

And he knows this is true as well. "No, I wouldn't have." Clarke looks away. "But then again, I was never very good at listening to my head."

She looks up at him, eyes red-rimmed, and for just a second, she smiles and it dazzles him. Then, wanting to give her space, he gets up to go. "Bellamy," she says, stopping him. "I don't know either. If I'll be able to forgive you. But if it was me instead… If it wasn't Madi and it was me… it wouldn't have even taken five minutes."

And hope blooms in Bellamy's chest. Maybe she won't be able to forgive him. But she wants to.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Bellamy isn't sure if their nightly runs will continue or if Clarke needs space to figure things out, but there she is that night and the next and the next. They so deliberately don't talk about anything that happened on Bardo that Bellamy can feel the subject floating around the room like a ghost. But they're talking and Bellamy likes that. He gets to see Clarke smile. Sometimes she even laughs.

There's a distance between them, though, that he can't ignore. There's a line they just can't cross. It's hard because he misses her and she's right in front of him. And it's not just the Clarke from before Bardo. It's also the Clarke before Praimfaya.

It's unfair. He knows this. But he does, he misses that girl, that hopeful, world-weary, stubborn girl. Her firmness. Her beliefs. But Bellamy also doesn't know if it's her he misses or the intimacy they once shared. That once upon a time, years ago, had come so easily to them. And he believes that all those things are still inside her, all but maybe the hope. He can't see it, though, not from arm's length away.

He feels so ashamed for this, for this longing for the past, because Clarke can't go back to who she was, even if she wants to, even if she tries. Neither can he. But he stops feeling ashamed when he realizes she feels exactly the same way.

"Do you ever…?" she says one night, as if she doesn't know how to begin. Then, she decides to just say it. "Do you ever wish Praimfaya hadn't happened?"

Bellamy's first instinct is to say yes, of course. But then he realizes what she's asking. He wouldn't have his family. Echo certainly wouldn't be part of it. Murphy might still be kept at a distance. But Monty and Harper would still be alive. Jasper. Kane. So much of the 100. "All the time," he says.

Clarke breathes a sigh of relief. "After ALIE, I kept thinking… If it hadn't been for Praimfaya, we might have had a real shot at peace. It felt so close." She looks at him. "Couldn't you feel it too?"

Bellamy thinks for a moment, then nods. He felt it when he was alone in the car with Roan. Weeks earlier, he'd hated that man. His clan had attacked countless of Bellamy's people. But they were allies now. A shame it had to happen at the end of the world, he remembers thinking.

"I wonder where we'd be now."

"You never would have met Madi," he says quietly, after a moment's hesitation. They haven't brought her up in days, and he knows her name might be off limits in his mouth. He also knows that they need to be able to talk about her in order to get anywhere.

Clarke tenses. "No," she whispers. Then, she melts. "But maybe she'd still be alive." And as she cries, Bellamy pulls her into his arms and holds her. And for once, Clarke lets him.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Clarke doesn't leave her room for three days. She opens the door only to get the long-gone-cold plate of food someone leaves outside, and only after checking that no one is around to see her. (She dimly wonders if Bellamy is the one leaving the food and decides that he probably is.)

Apart from that, she lies in bed, thinking. Just thinking. Near the end of the second day, she hears a tentative knock on her door. But she can't muster the energy to answer it.

An hour later, it comes again. "Clarke?" Bellamy says gently through the door. "I just want to make sure you're alright."

She opens her mouth and she wants to say something, but she's not alright. And she doesn't want to lie to him.

After a minute, he quietly goes away. She watches his shadow disappear from under the door. The truth is, she just can't stop thinking about what Raven said all those months ago. That the rest of her life is ahead of her. That she has to figure out how to live it.

The thing is, Clarke can't do this anymore. She feels part of herself dying every day. She can't do this for the rest of her life, she'd rather die. And not in the way she felt holding the gun in Sanctum, but right down in the core of her. Clarke has nothing. Unless she takes something back.

And it's hard, because she doesn't want to. She feels guilty just thinking about it. She would rather feel guilty forever than get over Madi.

Maybe it's not about getting over it. Maybe it's about getting through.

Clarke thought she'd survived everything that's happened to her, but she hasn't. Not any of it. Not yet.

Not unless she does what she really wants to do, even if she hates herself for it. It takes another full day of grappling with herself.

But after the third night is over, Clarke takes a deep breath.

And knocks on Bellamy's door.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Bellamy knew it couldn't have been anyone else, but he still breathes a sigh of relief when he sees Clarke standing at his door. "Clarke?" he says softly. It's his way of asking if she's okay.

"You said I'd know where to find you if…" She looks down, unsure. "If the time ever came…"

It takes a moment to realize what she's saying and it sends his stomach to the floor. His voice is hoarse when he speaks. "How could you just…?"

Clarke shrugs. "I don't know. I just did."

He thought he wanted her forgiveness, but he realizes in a moment that he doesn't. It's too much. He can't bear it. "I don't deserve it," he says, matter-of-factly. He does not say this to win reassurance. He says this because he knows it is true.

Then Clarke surprises him. "I don't care about that. I mean, that's not why I…"

"Why then?" he asks, needing an answer, needing to know what she could possibly still see in him.

"Because I miss you," she says simply, and it floors him. "And I need you. And I can't do this without you anymore."

Oh. Well, if that's what it is, then of course. He takes her into his arms and they stand like this a long time. When Clarke finally falls asleep that night, it's in Bellamy's bed.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

For a few nights, things go on like this, but no farther. They spend a lot of the day together, talking sometimes, in silence usually. They are getting used to each other again, after all the betrayals and distance, but after six years too, all that time apart, all that time alone.

They both know they're still standing on shaky ground. Clarke let Bellamy in, but who's to say that will be enough? Four nights after she shows up at Bellamy's door, Clarke has a nightmare about Madi.

In this dream, Madi is falling. Clarke has her arms out to catch her. She's had this dream before. Most times, Madi slips through her grip. This time, Clarke catches her, has her child firmly in her arms. Except Madi's too heavy. Clarke drops her. Because she wasn't strong enough.

The floor drops out from under her and Clarke is falling too until she wakes up, gasping and sweating in Bellamy's bed. He wakes with a start and instantly his hand is on her shoulder, but she doesn't want it.

"Just a nightmare," she breathes out.

"It's okay. I get them too." He hesitates. She can hear the hesitation. "Tell me about it."

She looks at him. His eyes are so open, so earnest. He would listen. He'd let her say whatever it was she had to say. He is waiting for her – he's been waiting for her.

Clarke opens her mouth with every intention of trying, but what comes out is, "I can't do this." She pulls herself out of his bed and is out the door and back in her own quarters before he has time to do anything more than call her name.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Bellamy didn't think Clarke would come back so soon, but there she is the next morning, with her sketchpad and charcoal, as if nothing ever happened.

Part of him wants to talk about it, but most of him doesn't want to push. Besides, he figures they have time. For the first time maybe ever, they have the rest of their lives in front of them.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

But when it rains, it pours. That night, Bellamy is the one with the nightmare. It's the same one he always has. Back on Sanctum, Madi's sketchbook in his hand, Clarke's gun. The bullet, the pain, and again, her terrible smile.

Bellamy wakes with a strangled cry. The first thing he sees is Clarke's face, thrown into shadow, and he can't help it, he flinches.

Instantly, she moves to get out of bed and he reaches for her wrist. "Wait," he says.

"You're scared of me." Her back is to him.

"No, I'm not."

"Bellamy –"

"Look at me. Do I look scared?"

She turns, and her face is so unsure, she's halfway gone already.

So Bellamy tells the truth. "Please, Clarke. I don't want you to go."

And that's what does it. "Okay," she whispers, and she slides back under the covers and wraps herself around him and holds him tight until he falls asleep.

He doesn't have that dream again.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Clarke doesn't tell Raven about the new developments. She doesn't know why. Maybe it's because she likes that this thing between her and Bellamy, whatever it is, is theirs and theirs alone. Maybe it's because she's still figuring things out. She just wants time to think. But she figures she actually has time.

Until Raven calls and changes everything. Again.

"Good news," Raven says, and Clarke can hear the radiance in Raven's voice. She can practically see the gleam of triumph in her eyes. It's been a very long time since she and Raven were close, but Clarke can tell her friend just made a breakthrough. "I can bring you guys back in two weeks."

Two weeks? Clarke thinks. Only two weeks? It's been three months and she has only just barely made progress with Bellamy. It's not good news, but Raven has been more than patient with Clarke and deserves some reward. So Clarke musters up an, "Oh, wow."

Raven is so excited she doesn't even notice how half-hearted Clarke sounds. "And that's not all. I found a way back home."

"What do you mean, 'back home?'"

"The ship is ready, and so is camp. Clarke… it's time." There are tears in Raven's voice. "We're going back to Earth."

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

When Bellamy opens the door to greet Clarke, he knows exactly what the look on her face means. Raven told her then. And Clarke is conflicted. Bellamy knew she would be.

"She told you?" Clarke asks quietly.

"She did."

Clarke sighs, slipping past Bellamy and sitting heavily on the edge of the bed. Bellamy silently sits down next to her. "What did you tell her about…?"

"About us? Nothing. I wouldn't even know where to start."

Clarke laughs at this, and he laughs with her. For the first time since Bardo, it really does feel just like old times. Here they are, laughing about their fucked-up lives, with probably the only other person in the world who could understand.

"What do we do?" she whispers.

"We spend two more weeks together here, and then we take it a day at a time."

Clarke shakes her head. She won't even look at him. "I don't want to go."

"I know."

"Raven told me to think of my future, but I can't picture anything that doesn't look or feel exactly like this." She looks at him then, and her eyes are red. "I'm so tired of feeling pain. I'm so tired of feeling numb."

"It will fade," he says urgently, and he presses his hand to hers and holds it there. "You'll feel so many other –"

"What if you're wrong? What if this is all I get?"

"It's not," he says, but he knows what she's thinking. She's thinking every good thing that could happen to her has already happened to her. He's felt like that before. But she convinced him he was wrong; she gave him hope. He knows good things lay in store for Clarke Griffin, so many good things she won't even be able to see beyond them, they'll extend so far into the horizon.

And screw it, he believes in good things for himself too.

This might be the worst thing he could possibly do. He might be blowing up everything they've only just started. But this is how he proves to her – to both of them – that life is not over. He holds her face with one hand, his palm against her cheek. And slowly, giving her time to pull away if she wants, he pulls her to him and kisses her.

"There's this," he whispers. "There's this feeling."

Then she does what he always hoped she'd do, so many times he can't even begin to count them, and she kisses him back.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Later, when they're sweaty and exhilarated and stunned, and Bellamy is wondering how he went from bleeding out on the Sanctum ground to lying in bed with Clarke Griffin, her voice, small but sure, breaks the spell. "I'm not going back to Earth. When the ship touches down, I'm staying behind in Sanctum."

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Bellamy says nothing to this, not at the moment and not for the next two days. He thinks about it all the time though. He figures she's scared, he figures she'll change her mind. But then he remembers that it's Clarke and she really might not. He knows they need to talk about it, but he can't bring himself to mention it when there's so much good going on.

The sex happens again the next night. This time, when she pulls his shirt off, her eyes catch on the dime-sized scar right above his heart. "It's okay," he tells her, "it doesn't hurt anymore."

She smiles sadly. "I'm a doctor, Bellamy. I know that's not true."

"It's a scar. Just like all the other ones on my body."

The next night, she kisses it and Bellamy almost cries.

Bellamy really believes that if things keep going like this, she'll change her mind all on her own. But very quickly, something happens to make Bellamy realize he can't take that risk.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Bellamy is walking back to the rocket, his whole life crumbling around him. As he shuts the rocket door, he hears behind him that one, fateful sound. "Wait!" Clarke cries.

But it's too late. Raven has already initiated the launch sequence. And try as Bellamy might to bang on the door, all he can do is watch as the fire sweeps over the room and Clarke collapses, dying, as the rocket pulls away, taking him further and further and further from her.

He feels a distant tugging at his shoulder, but he can't bring himself to look away until suddenly he's crying out, sitting bolt upright in bed, drenched in a cold sweat. He hasn't had that dream in a year, he thinks, panting. Not since he came down from space.

Distantly, Bellamy realizes that the hand on his shoulder belongs to Clarke. "Same dream again?" she asks stiffly. He looks at her, and she's so sad, so broken. She wants to run, but she's not running. And, despite it all, she's still alive. "No," he says, then he pulls her to him and buries his face in her neck.

He remembers having this dream and waking up alone, or waking up next to Echo which felt worse. He wouldn't admit to himself why that was for a long time. It is a relief to hold Clarke now, to know that this dream isn't true. He never had that comfort before. His life had become that nightmare, and the only thing that changed day to day was that it got marginally easier to live within it. But he doesn't have to do that anymore. Not anymore.

After a long moment, he says, "I'm not going to Earth either. I'm staying on Sanctum with you."

Clarke pulls away abruptly. "No, you're not."

"Why not? You are."

"I am making that decision for myself."

"So am I."

"So you're not staying behind because I am?" she challenges him.

"I didn't say that."

"What about your family? What about your sister? Do you really never want to see them again?"

He should have known this wouldn't be easy. "Of course not. But I know they'll be okay. They'll have each other. Do you really think I'd be happy knowing that, by the time I get out of cryo, you'll have been dead for years already? That you'd have been all alone? Or are you forgetting that I already left you behind once before?"

Clarke's face falls. "That was different."

"Yes," he says, "it was, because I didn't have a choice then. But I have a choice now."

She shakes her head and she looks miserable, truly miserable. "But you want to go to Earth."

"Yes. It's home. But not without you."

"You're just trying to get me to change my mind."

Bellamy doesn't want to screw this up, he really doesn't, but in this moment, he decides to be honest. "Of course I'm trying to change your mind. Is staying on Sanctum really what you want?"

"Yes!"

"Really? Because I think you're punishing yourself."

Clarke lets out a small, hollow laugh, avoiding his eyes. "For what?"

He takes a deep breath. "For not being able to save Madi. Or Lexa. Or Wells. Or… any of them."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"Maybe I don't. But either way, you're damn right I'm gonna be trying to change your mind until the second the ship doors close. But if the time comes and you're on the other side, then I'll be on that side too."

He looks at her for a moment, then brushes his hand against her cheek, forcing her to look at him too. Just as he's about to kiss her, she pulls away with a shaky breath. "This isn't fair," she says, sliding out of his bed towards the door. "You can't ask that of me." The door shuts behind her, hard and final.

But Clarke, he wants to say, the image of her burning still fresh in his mind, what about what you're asking of me?

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Clarke would love to keep away for days to think about what Bellamy said or to make him change his mind or maybe just to punish him, as petty as that is, but they're running out of time so she waits just a day before knocking on his door to plead.

"Please just let me do this. Please just go to Earth with the others and let me do this." Her voice is small. She almost never begs.

Bellamy, standing in the doorway, looks so sad – so sad and so sure. "I can't, Clarke. I can't do that again."

Clarke sighs, and her heart hurts, an almost physical pain. "I know." She walks into the room and sits down heavily in his chair. He sits on the bed, his head in his hands.

"It's not that I'm punishing myself," she says and Bellamy lifts his head to look at her.

"Clarke –"

"I'm not. It's just that – All day, every day, I feel like I'm at the bottom of this black hole. And I don't have the strength to even try to crawl out of it. And then, if I think about Madi too hard – and I'm always thinking about Madi, even when I'm not – it's like I'm drowning, or suffocating." Clarke exhales sharply after saying this, like a purge. But she isn't finished. "The only thing I can think of that would be worse than feeling this… is not feeling it." She looks at him and she is asking him to try and understand how she feels and he does, he tries. And he knows what she's telling him.

"You aren't going to Earth because you don't want to start over."

"I don't want a new life if it's not with Madi. I don't want to move on. I don't even want to get better."

"Why not?"

"How could I?"

In those words, she says everything, and Bellamy hears her. Her grief is the only thing she has left of Madi. If she loses that, she loses everything. And happiness, any happiness, feels like a betrayal when you thought the world would stop turning the day you lost that one person.

But the next day, you wake up, and the world has kept turning and you can't do anything about it except stop your world. Bellamy knows because that's exactly how he felt when Clarke died. After Praimfaya. So he could tell her that she will have good days, happy days. That those days will make her feel angry and guilty until one day they don't. He could tell her that the grief never goes away, never abates. That it doesn't get lighter, just easier to carry.

But Clarke has lost friends and family and lovers. She knows all this. She has been through it over and over. Instead, he simply asks, "What would Madi want?"

Clarke's anger is hot and flashing and immediate. "It doesn't matter what she'd want! She's dead!"

Of course it matters, Bellamy thinks. Instead, he goes somewhere he doesn't like to think about. "What if you were the one who died that day? If it wasn't Madi and it was you, is that what you'd want for her?"

It's a cruel thing to ask. It is cruel because, though it breaks his heart, he knows she wakes up every day wishing with all her heart that that world was real and this one was merely a nightmare. (He's right. Truth be told, no matter how many years pass, no matter how much joy she allows into her life, Clarke will never stop wishing she was the one who died that day.)

Clarke looks at him from across the room, so much pain in her eyes. "I'd want her to live." Tears slip down her face, and as she lets out small sobs, Bellamy crosses the room, kneels down in front of her and takes her hands.

"It matters what she would want. It matters. You know better than anyone that the best way to honor the dead is by living in the peace they died to create."

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Later, she tells him that she'll go to Earth on one condition. "You put me into cryo and you wake me up. Okay?"

"Okay, Clarke," he says, and kisses her.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Bellamy and Clarke's last week in space passes by with their usual routine of nightly runs, sex, and soft-spoken conversations. Bellamy's not sure what she's feeling. Clarke's not sure what she's feeling either. He keeps having that nightmare about leaving her behind. He knows it's because he's secretly scared she'll change her mind again, but he figures it'll go away once they're safely back on Earth.

And he has been so worried about Clarke that he's put off figuring out how he feels about the whole thing. He's excited, he thinks. But it's also true that everything has always been so hard there. And it's not like it was easy up here, not by a long shot, but it was a break. It was time for them to figure things out, work through it all together. How did they know there wouldn't be another war the second they set foot on the ground?

But then, he doesn't see the use in this fear. They're going to Earth. Whatever will happen there will happen. The bravest thing he can do now is the opposite of what he did on Etherea: believe that things will be okay.

As the ship breaks through Sanctum's atmosphere, Bellamy grips Clarke's hand tightly in his. When they land, she drops it.

The plan was they'd stay on the ship and let the others deal with the preparation process. At another time, they'd be at the front, running the show, but as it stood, they wouldn't know what to do and would likely just be getting in the way.

Strangely, there's something in that thought that makes Clarke sad. She has wanted to be rid of the burden of leadership for so long that she is surprised to miss it now. Maybe it's just that she thought she'd have the chance to lead during a time of peace. To lead when her decisions were building toward something good instead of escaping something evil.

Still, she doesn't want it back and she's glad it's over. But sometimes it feels like another loss, all the same.

"What should we tell them?" Bellamy's voice sounds next to her. "About us?"

Clarke opens her mouth to say she doesn't know when Raven is upon them, pulling Clarke to her feet and into a hug. "I'm so glad you're coming with us," Raven says into her ear, even though neither Clarke nor Bellamy had told her about Clarke's doubts. But of course she had known. It surprises Clarke. It feels strange to be known and missed and loved, yes, loved, she admits that now.

Her eyes are stinging. Because she suddenly wants to tell Raven everything – and that's what she wants to tell Bellamy too. That even though things are hard and messy and confusing, she is not ashamed of what is happening between them. It was never meant to be a secret. That if people ask about them, they tell the truth, the best they can.

But when she turns to tell him this, he is already gone.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Bellamy heads down the hall, wanting to give Clarke and Raven a chance to catch up in private. He turns the corner and runs straight into his sister, who jumps back, and then, upon realizing it's him, pulls him into a fierce hug he didn't know he needed until now.

"It's good to see you, big brother."

"You too, O," he says, pulling away and looking at her. Older than him in years, but forever his little sister, Bellamy is proud, in spite of everything they'd done, of how far they have come.

Close behind her is Murphy and Emori. They're smiling, and Bellamy finds himself strangely touched. Having Clarke back is worth everything, but it was easy to forget up there that he had a family on the ground, that he hadn't lost everything, either, even though it had felt like it for a while.

"So, you guys kill each other up there or what?" Murphy offers in lieu of a hello.

"John," Emori chastises, shooting Bellamy an apologetic smile.

"What, too soon?" Murphy says, grinning. "I just figured, all that time alone, you'd either come back dead or boning."

Bellamy must freeze at this because suddenly the look on everyone's faces changes.

"Holy shit," Murphy says. "Miller owes me half his rations for the next month."

"What happened between me and Clarke is no one's business but ours," Bellamy says and he tries to sound stern, he really does, but there's a persistent feeling gnawing at him that he's surprised to identify as joy. He likes this. He likes being teased for being stupidly in love with Clarke. He likes the idea of their relationship becoming as familiar as an inside joke among the people he holds dearest. Of Murphy, who had seen Bellamy on the floor destroyed over losing Clarke, able to share this happiness with him now.

Clarke appears from behind him – he notices quickly because Octavia immediately moves to wrap her in a warm hug. He knows that Clarke can see it on all of their faces, that he's already given them away. An apology hovers at the tip of his tongue, but Clarke quiets it with the sweetest smile he's ever seen. She takes his hand in hers and for the first time in months, years maybe, Bellamy can see their future, see it unfolding in front of them, years and decades and longer. He sees it and he believes in it.

"I'm ready," she says, and when she says it, he believes that too.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Clarke is among the first to be put in cryo and true to his word, Bellamy is the one to press the button. Raven sets it up, shows him how, then gives them their moment alone. Clarke lies there, looking at him, eyes so blue. "You scared?" he asks.

"No," she says. "I'm okay."

"It'll feel like a few minutes, and then I'll be right here."

"Bellamy, really, I'm okay."

Bellamy nods. He doesn't know why this feels so hard. Maybe it's because last time he was in cryo, he woke up without two of his best friends. This won't be like that, he tells himself. "Ready?"

"Almost." She leans over and kisses him, slowly, sweetly, in front of everyone. "Okay."

He pushes the button, watching her pull away, watching the glass crack with frost until only her face is visible.

He will see her in five minutes and a hundred years. She can't change her mind now.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Bellamy had forgotten what it's like to wake from cryo. In his mind, it felt like no more time than a breath. But in the stiffness of his limbs, he could feel the years that had passed. Raven stands over him. "Hey, Sleeping Beauty, welcome back."

With a small grunt, Bellamy sat up. "Did everything go okay?"
"Of course it did. You think I stranded you in space for months for fun?"

Bellamy rolls his eyes, standing. "Glad to see your ego is still intact." He looks down the hall at the row of pods, half empty now. Around him, people he recognizes are milling about. After a moment, his eyes land on the pod he was looking for. "Let's wake up Clarke."

Raven's arm stops him. "Wait. I was thinking." Bellamy turns to her reluctantly. "What if we didn't wake her up right away?"

Obviously, Bellamy hates this idea immediately. "What? Why?"

"We both know she's gonna have a hard enough time as it is. Why not wait until things are a bit more settled?" Clearly, she can tell by the look on his face that he's not convinced. "All I'm asking for is a week."

He still doesn't like it, but he sees her point. "Okay," he concedes.

"Good, because I wasn't asking permission."

And so begins his life on the new world.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

By the end of the third day, Clarke is the only one still in cryo. Every couple of hours, Bellamy goes and checks on her. It doesn't do much good, it's not like he can check for breath, not like he can really check for anything other than her continued existence, but then again, after all they've been through, it's reassuring to know she's still there.

By the end of night four, he's ready to let her out, but camp isn't really ready yet, and Raven is insistent that she needs more time. Murphy finds him standing in front of her chamber. "Should've known you'd be here."

"What do you want, Murphy?"

"Thought you might want a drink. It's not as good as Monty's moonshine, but it'll get the job done."

So that's how he ends up sitting around a campfire with Murphy, something they'd never really gotten to do on Earth now that he thinks about it. And he'd been too busy with his thing with Clarke to really talk to him after they all got back from Bardo, and after Bellamy got back from death's doorstep. There's something about Murphy that makes everything feel simple and unserious. It's a nice change of pace from Clarke who can probably make eating breakfast feel like a life-or-death decision.

"So," Murphy says, in that tone of voice that makes Bellamy just know that he's gonna pull some shit. "You and Clarke?"

"Shut up, Murphy."

"I had to sit through six years of you whining about her and I don't even get one lousy detail?"

Bellamy laughs, taking a swig from his drink. In the distance he can see Raven, Echo, and Emori drinking a bottle themselves, laughing about something Bellamy wishes he could hear. "Do you think Echo will ever forgive me?" he says softly. She still hasn't said a word to him, not since Bardo.

"For fucking Clarke? I don't think she cares. I'm pretty sure she's fucking Hope, actually."

"No, not for that, for…" Bellamy trails off, sighing.

"Oh, for betraying her and letting her get tortured and all that. Right." Murphy takes a long drink, screwing up his face. "This stuff is rancid. I love it."

"Murphy," Bellamy says.

"Yeah. I think she will."

"You do?"

"C'mon, man. We're still a family. And we survived Bardo. We made it back to Earth. Besides, you were too busy having hate sex with Clarke in space –"

"It wasn't hate sex –"

"You don't know what it's been like on Sanctum the last few months. I think it's real this time. I think we made it."

"We've said that before."

"No, you've said that before. I've never said it." Murphy sits up, leaning towards Bellamy. "There's like seven hundred people left in the human race and they're all tired of fighting. Plus, people like Raven. Way better than anyone who led us on Earth the first time. I mean, no offense. I'm just trying to say things are going well."

"I hope you're right." Bellamy looks back at the ship where Clarke is sleeping soundly.

Murphy follows her gaze. "You know, I'm glad Clarke gets to see this. I mean, if she hadn't shot Cadogan, who knows where we'd be now?"

Bellamy nods. He wonders if he'll ever be able to hear Cadogan's name without feeling guilty. "I'm glad too. Hey, Murphy?"

"Yeah?"

"Why weren't you surprised when you… when you found out about me and Clarke?"

"Are you kidding? I'm surprised you didn't get there sooner. You've been circling around this for years."

"I know. It's just that… after everything that's happened. Everything we did to each other."

Murphy sighs, finishing his drink. Bellamy knows that he must be a pretty exhausting friend to have sometimes, but he and Murphy have always been more like brothers than friends. And Murphy is the only one Bellamy can really trust to be honest with him. "I saw her after she thought she killed you. She was a mess. I'd never seen Clarke like that before, like some part of her just shut off. Like she'd snapped. If you hadn't survived, Bellamy, and she'd lost you and Madi both, I don't know what would've happened to Clarke."

Bellamy takes a drink, still looking off toward the ship.

"Guess it's a good thing she missed," Murphy says. "For all of us."

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

When Bellamy finally gets to wake Clarke up, he sees Raven's point. She has a bed, a tent, rations have been figured out, and Bellamy is as sure as he can be that war isn't going to break out in at least the next week or so. He pushes the button, but this time, he doesn't do it alone. Murphy, Octavia, Raven, and Emori are standing with him. Bellamy isn't sure if this is what Clarke would want, but for once, he thinks it doesn't matter. They're not alone in space anymore. And they don't have to be alone on the ground either. She's been alone since Praimfaya, one way or another. Bellamy doesn't want that for her anymore.

Clarke's chamber opens, and when her eyes flutter open, she smiles at him softly. Then, she takes in all the faces around her. "You're all here," she says.

"Thought you could use a little extra support today," Octavia says.

Clarke surely sees that all other chambers are empty, but she says nothing about it. If she was angry about being kept in longer, Bellamy knows her well enough to know she wouldn't hesitate in letting them know, so he figures they're in the clear on that one.

He watches her carefully, when they lead her to the open door, as she blinks away the sun in her eyes, a hand held out to shield her from the light. When she drops it, there are tears in her eyes. At first, she's smiling. But it fades. He knows she's thinking of Madi, wondering if they're walking the same ground she once walked with her daughter. Wondering if they're halfway across the planet. Wondering which option would be worse.

The woods are all around them. It would be so easy to disappear into them. That's what Bellamy thinks about as Clarke starts walking away from them, through the trees. He wants to follow her, but Raven's hand stops him again. "Let her go," she says. "She'll come back."

Two hours later, she does.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Clarke finds Bellamy roughly where she left him. She feels bad for walking off without saying anything. She's sure that brought up any number of bad memories. Truthfully, she was barely thinking about Bellamy as she disappeared into the distance. She knew that she needed to be reacquainted with this ground, with this Earth, to come to terms with it as her home, and not as her home with Madi. As soon as she was out of view and out of earshot of the others, she fell to her knees, ugly sobs wracking her body.

It smelled like Madi. It smelled like her best and worst memories. It felt like home. Nowhere else has ever felt like home. She was so happy to be back. She was so stricken by her grief she felt paralyzed. And she was touched by her friends being there, after all those years on Earth dreaming about a moment like that, after her months in space thinking all she wanted was for everyone to stay far away from her. The truth is, she felt more in her first minutes back on Earth than she thought she was capable of feeling ever again.

And now she is here with Bellamy. She feels shaky, she feels sad, but in that dull, distant way she always feels since losing Madi. "How are you holding up?" he asks her.

"I'm… I'm feeling okay," she says. She thinks she means it. "I'm tired. I slept for one hundred years, but I'm tired."

"Cryo takes it out of you. Follow me."

Her skin feels electric. His touch feels so near. It's like those times on Earth before Praimfaya when she wasn't sure if she wanted to punch him or kiss him, when her skin felt tingly at his proximity alone, at just the vague chance that he might touch her, even if only by mistake. He seems nervous, and she's not sure if that's because he's worried about her or if there's something he isn't telling her.

But it turns out his reason for being nervous was a lot more stupid than that. "I told Raven that we, uh, probably needed only one tent. I should've asked, I just… I can probably bunk with Octavia for a while if…"

"Bellamy," Clarke says softly. The setting sun has turned him golden. His freckles have faded during his time in space, but Clarke knows within days they'll be bright and bold. He's so beautiful. "This is perfect."

And she kisses him and kisses him and pulls him into their tent – their tent, a home they share together – so she can do more than just kiss him. It's the first time she's kissed him on Earth. But it won't be the last.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

Cryo makes some people sleepy. For Clarke, it has the opposite effect. Though she's exhausted right down to her bones, she finds herself staring up at the ceiling of her tent long after Bellamy started snoring. Her brain won't shut off. Maybe it's not cryo. Maybe it's everything. Maybe it's because she feels guilty for feeling any happiness today at all. Maybe it's because she doesn't know what dreams she'll have when she closes her eyes.

The truth is, she's never been a particularly good sleeper. Not for seven years, anyways. Careful not to wake Bellamy, Clarke slides back into her clothes and slips out of the tent. The cool night air is soft against her skin, raising goosebumps. The moon is nearly full. The stars go on forever. Sanctum was very beautiful, but it never quite measured up to this. Off in the semi-distance, Clarke can see only one tent with lanterns still lit. It's bigger than all the other tents, so she has a feeling she knows who it belongs to.

Sure enough, it's Raven, still up working on schematics for something or other. Leadership really suits her. Clarke never would have guessed it, but then again, it's not like she did such a great job during her go of things. Maybe it was always meant to be this way.

"Clarke," Raven says, smiling when she sees her.

"Hey. Sorry, I couldn't sleep."

Raven nods, setting the papers in her hand down on her makeshift desk. "I'll make you some tea."

It's a nice tent. A makeshift mattress in the corner, stuffed with leaves and grass like everyone else's, but also a small couch she clearly stole from the ship, a rudimentary desk, and something resembling a kitchen counter. It's the sight of this that tells Clarke things here might not be as temporary as they feel to her.

Raven has clearly kept this place well-stocked. She has a selection of herbs sectioned off, a small stash of meat, and two jugs of fresh water. In spite of herself, Clarke feels questions bubbling to her lips. She wants to know how things are run here, if she can help, if they can be better. Instead, she peers over Raven's shoulder, watching as Raven pours water into a small cup and starts a fire on what impressively looks like a makeshift burner. But what catches Clarke's eye the most is the herb Raven portions out.

"We used to use that as anesthetic at the dropship." She catches Raven's eye. "With the one hundred."

Raven smiles. "I know. But if you dilute it to a weaker strain, and add it to hot water, it becomes more of a sleeping aid. You taught me that."

"I did?" Clarke thought she remembered everything about those days, but this part escapes her.

"After Finn died, I had these really bad nightmares. I couldn't even make it through one night. And even though you were trying to infiltrate the mountain, preserve the alliance with the grounders, and maintain contact with Bellamy all at once, you still took the time to learn how to make this tea for me. So I could sleep."

"That's right," Clarke says softly. She remembers getting some poor delinquent to let her test the strains out on her for a week before she got it right.

Raven shakes the crushed herbs into the mug and lets it steep, then turns to face Clarke. "You know, after Praimfaya, Bellamy walked around like your death was his cross to bear. But he wasn't the only one who left you behind. I made that decision too."

"Raven…"

"Don't say I did what I had to do, because I know that. And I'd do it again. You would have done the same thing. But he wasn't the only one who had a hard time after you died. I wanted to say that because… I know we haven't always been good. After losing Monty and Harper, and after losing Shaw… I think I wanted someone to blame."

"Raven, you really don't have to -"

"Just let me finish. I thought I knew what you were going through, but… Everyone's looking to me now, and it's harder than I thought it would be. And I'm not leading us through a war like you were. All I can think about is whether we landed in spring or in summer, how long we have to get proper shelter ready before it gets too cold. Or I'm thinking about whether assigning living quarters is the only way to ensure we don't all revert to our former peoples and create another breeding ground for war." Raven sighs. "That's all to say that, even while I'm dealing with all of that, I'll still find the time to make you tea. Whenever you need it. Just like you did for me."

Raven presses the mug into Clarke's hands. It's warm. It smells amazing. But Clarke is too stunned to drink it just yet.

"I know you feel like you lost everything. And you did. You did lose everything. But I'm here. Whatever you need, I'm here."

There's a silence between the two of them as they look at each other. Clarke thought Raven would never forgive her after killing Finn, after the mess with Diyoza, and especially not after Shaw died. But they made it somewhere she never thought she'd be. She's been too grief-stricken to notice this, and not just this, but everything. Before she met Madi, this life, this life she has right now, was all she wanted. It doesn't fix things to know this. It doesn't make the pain go away. But Clarke takes a moment to be grateful for it, just the same.

She doesn't know exactly what to say, so instead, she does what she does best. "Don't assign living quarters. The best part about peace is getting to spend it with the people you love. Everything else will fall into place."

Raven smiles, that wide grin that Clarke missed so much, then she turns to clean the minimal mess she made from the tea. As Clarke drinks it – it's so sweet, had she really never tasted how sweet it is? – Raven says, "Hey, that stuff is pretty strong, so if I were you I would wait until I got back to my tent to…" She trails off, turning around just as Clarke finishes the cup. "I swear to god, Griffin, if I have to carry your ass."

Clarke starts to laugh when a sound catches both their attention. "Clarke?" A voice is calling. "Clarke?" Already, a wave of sluggishness is coming over her, but she knows that it's Bellamy.

"Stay here. I'll handle this."

Clarke sinks down onto Raven's couch as she hears them talking outside. "Jesus, Bellamy, are you trying to wake up the whole camp?"

"Clarke's missing."

"No, she's not. She's in my tent."

There's a silence.

"Okay, fine. I'll prove it to you."

Clarke's eyelids are already drooping shut when Raven slings an arm around her and helps her out. She wants to say she can walk, but on a second evaluation, the tea seems to be as efficient as Raven said it would be.

Bellamy is standing in front of the tent, hands on his hips, looking so stern, Clarke almost wants to laugh. "What's wrong with her?" he says, a small edge of worry in his voice that makes Raven roll her eyes.

"I drugged her. Look, I have a couch, she can just sleep there."

"It's fine," Bellamy says gruffly. "I can take her." Before Clarke gets any say in the matter, he's leaning over and sweeping her off her feet.

"Good night to you too, then," Raven says.

Clarke doesn't remember how far her tent is from Raven's. She wonders if Bellamy is mad. "Sorry for scaring you," she says into his chest. Her eyes are closed in spite of her attempts to keep them open, and already she's half-dreaming.

"I woke up and you were gone. I thought… I thought something bad had happened." He's quiet for a moment, and then he admits, "I thought you left."

"I would never leave you," Clarke says. "Never again, at least."

The last thing she remembers before finally surrendering to sleep is Bellamy's voice saying, "Very funny," as he carries her through the dark.

-::-::-::-::-::-::-

If you ask her about it, all these years later, Clarke would never tell you it was easy. The first year without Madi will always be the hardest year of her long life, and there was little anyone could do to soften it. But Bellamy was right, in the way he usually is about these things. She will find her way out of numbness. She will find her way back to joy.

Even if she will never be the same, even if she carries that broken part of her around forever, when Murphy and Emori welcome their first child, she is there to assist in the delivery, and she is there to feel her heart beating with joy, and she even manages to be glad that she lived through all she had to live through just so she could see this herself. She is there to watch Hope and Echo officiate their love with a beautiful grounder ceremony. She is there to do the same with Bellamy, though what they do is quieter, a bit of what used to be practiced on the Ark, a bit of what they learned on the ground, and something just for them.

Five years after Madi's death, Clarke will realize that she's pregnant. It will be the most terrifying moment of her life. Can she do it again? Can she risk losing what can't be lost? Raven has remedies, Clarke knows this, and Bellamy would understand if this isn't what she wants.

In the end, she has the baby. They name him Marcus. When she holds him for the first time, Bellamy knows that the tears running down her face are not just tears of joy. She is a mother again. But she never stopped being a mother. She will always be a mother to that beautiful girl of hers, when she counts her children, there will always be three – yes, three, for two years after Marcus is born, they have a little girl named Lexa.

And one day, when they're old enough, Clarke will sit them down by the window seat of the home they've built, and she will tell them about their sister. She will tell them that she fought until the end, that Clarke couldn't save her, and Bellamy couldn't stop it, but that she will always be with them. She will tell them of the bear trap in the woods, of the army led into battle, of the berry-dyed hair, and the time she caught her first fish. She will answer any questions they have. She will show them all the pictures she drew. She will tell them that she was brave, and kind, and funny, and above all of this, Clarke will tell them that she was, and is, loved.