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They move back to Arkadia because it makes the most sense.
It feels weird, moving back into her room, since she only really stayed here for a few days before Mount Weather. She runs her fingers across the drawings on the walls, the ones she did in the middle of the night while everyone else slept but her mind wouldn’t turn off. Rolling hills and starry skies, oceans she had only ever seen in books or her dreams.
There’s a knock on her door barely fifteen minutes after they get back and she knows who it is before they even speak.
“Come in,” she calls instead of getting out of bed because she’s exhausted and she knows Bellamy will understand.
Sure enough it’s him that pushes through the door, his hair too long and falling over his eyes as he closes it quietly behind him.
“How are you doing?” He stands awkwardly in front of her door, his arms crossed over his chest, and Clarke chuckles and pats the bed next to her feet. She can practically see the wheels in his mind turning before he rolls his eyes at himself a little and comes over to sit on her bed.
“I’m okay,” she says after a minute. “Feels sort of bizarre being back here, doesn’t it?”
Bellamy doesn’t look at her when he says, “I was here for months, remember?” He must notice her cringing because he looks at her with apologetic eyes. “That’s not what I meant…”
“No, its okay,” she says. “You’re right. I’m the odd man out here.”
“Clarke,” he starts but then he pauses like he’s changing his mind on what to say. “It’s going to get better.”
She nods and pulls her feet up so she can rest her chin on her knees. “I know. What about you? How are you?”
Octavia came back with them but Clarke knows that she hasn’t spoken to Bellamy since Polis. Clarke also knows that it’s probably killing him.
“I don’t know what to do about O,” he admits, his eyes a little glassy as he stares at the wall. “She’s like an entirely different person.”
Clarke reaches over and puts her hand on his where it’s sitting between them on the bed. “We’ll figure it out.”
Bellamy doesn’t say anything, just brushes his thumb against the underside of her wrist in a silent thank you that Clarke knows he’s probably too shy to say out loud.
He’s there when she falls asleep but when she wakes up a few hours later he’s gone and the throw blanket from the end of the bed is covering her.
It smells like him a little, warm and spicy and comforting, so she wraps herself up tighter and falls back asleep.
***
Arkadia falls into a rhythm easily over the next couple of months.
Everyone has their jobs to do, there is still the A.L.I.E.’s threat looming over them but Clarke’s not even sure if it was a legitimate threat to begin with.
She runs the clinic with her mom, sits at the council table next to Bellamy, and helps out around camp wherever she’s needed. Raven insists on a girl’s night every week so they sit at the bar and drink moonshine until they can’t see their feet and give Harper a hard time when she calls it a night early so she can see Monty.
It’s a nice life, for the most part. Their people are together and happy and, so far, safe. There are plans to travel further to investigate A.L.I.E.’s threats but she decides not to go, she’s spent too much time away from her mom as it is.
She’s also scared to death because Bellamy is going.
He’s fight training the afternoon before the team is set to head out and Clarke finds him, shirtless and sweaty, as he swings at a makeshift punching bag hanging from the ceiling.
“Hey,” she says, her eyes flitting over his body quickly before settling on his face. He smirks a little and she flushes but he’s nice enough not to say anything.
“What’s up?” he asks as he grabs his water from the table. “Everything okay?”
She loves that his first instinct is to make sure that everyone else is alright.
“Yeah, of course. Everyone’s fine,” she says absently. “Look, Bellamy…”
He sighs and runs his hand over his face as if he already knows what she’s going to say. “Clarke, I have to go.”
“I know, that’s not why I’m here.” She laughs a little when he raises an eyebrow. “Okay,” she concedes. “That’s why I’m here but not for the reason you think.”
“Then why?”
He’s just staring at her and there’s a split second moment where she questions everything but then she just whispers, “Fuck it,” and surges up to capture his lips with her own.
He stumbles back a little with the force and she stiffens a little when he doesn’t kiss her back right away. She’s about to pull away when he shakes his head, like he’s telling her not to go, and reaches down to her waist so he can hold her against him. They stay like that for a few moments, her hands resting on his still slick bare shoulders, and when they finally pull away he rests his forehead on hers.
“Was that you asking me to stay?” Her breath is ragged and uneven, his chest rising and falling rapidly under her fingertips.
She shakes her head and looks up at him fondly. “That was for good luck,” she says, her voice lighter than her heart, and they both know it’s more goodbye than anything else. Only this time she knows that this goodbye isn’t forever, not even close, and he’ll be back before she knows it.
The next day before the team leaves he kisses her again, in front of everyone, and she blushes when everyone starts hooting and hollering around them.
“You did that on purpose,” she says with a laugh, pushing his shoulder playfully.
He just shrugs and drops a kiss onto her forehead. “Just wanted something for you to remember me by on those long, lonely nights.”
Like she could ever forget.