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They were falling. Crashing. Burning up. Returning to Earth, hopefully for the last time.
Bellamy’s been here before, practically seven years ago when he had different motives, was brash and naïve. He thought he would live the rest of his life on earth, be on the run, but it would have been peaceful for the most part. Oh, how wrong he was. He loved and lost harder than he thought any human being could handle, yet here he was returning to earth, preparing himself for what will lie ahead.
Seeing his sister. Building new camps. Telling Abby the truth. There’s so much to be done on earth after a six-year break.
Raven begins to count down to when they should be crashing in the water. They look out the window and all they see is desert. Shit. “Five.” Emori and Murphy hold hands. “Four.” Harper squeezes her eyes shut. “Three” Echo starts to mutter some grounder prayer. “Two.” They crash. The rocket tumbles knocking them around, causing them all to go unconscious.
Bellamy’s not the first to come to. Murphy is shaking him and calling out his name. He takes off Bellamy’s helmet. He almost sounds like he’s underwater but Bellamy can’t get to him. Maybe if he died now he wouldn’t have to deal with all the pain the comes with living, but he can’t do that now. There’s work to be done.
“Bellamy! Bellamy! Time to wake up we’ve got to get moving! Bellamy!” Murphy tries to shake him awake.
Raven shoves Murphy out of the way. She slaps Bellamy right across the face, waking him up, ready to fight. “Time to move Blake.” She gets out of the rocket to meet the others. Murphy gives him a nod and follows. He unbuckles and tries to gather his thoughts before meeting with the rest. They’re back.
This was the last place she was, where he left her to die. This barren world is her grave when she deserved to be up with the stars or amongst flower beds. Somewhere beautiful and alive, unlike her. He takes a shaky breath and gets out. The sun is brighter than he remembers.
They already have everyone’s pack made, he picks up the last one on the ground.
Everyone looks each other over recognizing how tough it is to be back, but also how relieved they all are as well. No more cold and cramped space station or allege soup. They get to see everyone, all the people they haven’t talked to in six years.
Bellamy is the first to speak, “Everyone’s okay after the landing?” They nod their heads. Murphy and Echo seem to have some scratches and Raven seems to be limping worse, but that could just be because of gravity. “Good. Raven?” She looks over at him from the map she’s been holding. “Which way?”
“To be honest I don’t know. We were supposed to land in water, but that didn’t happen.”
Monty walks over and takes a look. “Well if we were supposed to have been here, we should head that way.” He points west. “We should come upon what used to be the shore. That’s if we’d even recognize it.
They all start walking in the ocean desert. Murphy gets some of the conversations started. “Emori, remember this was how we first met. Crossing a desert to find the city of light?”
“I also remember holding a knife to your throat and threatening your life.”
“True love, what can ya say?”
Everybody starts to reminisce about some of the happier times on earth, though they were few and far between it made the walking more bearable. Each person had their turn and after Monty and raven had a few good laughs about when they first found the jobi nuts, though it ends on a sour note. It was the reason they lost Jasper and so many others.
After a beat, Raven speaks up, “Bellamy? Any good stories?”
It’s so hard to talk about, but he has to remember the good with the bad. “Remember that first unity day?”
He gets some grunts in agreement and Murphy says, “No! Because you banished me from camp!”
Raven’s the one to respond, “Like you didn’t deserve at the time?”
“Maybe so…” Emori just grabs his hand to calm him down. They really love each other so much.
“Anyways, it was great to see everyone let loose for a bit getting drunk and laughing. Also one of my favorite memories of Clarke. She was so worried about the Grounders attacking but I convinced her to have a few drinks. Her smile could outshine the sun. It was beautiful, she was beautiful.”
Raven only whispers, “Yeah, she was.”
Bellamy will never be over her death because it’s always filled with “what if’s” but he’s come to terms with it. Just like he came to terms with living with Echo, the girl who helped kill Gina and tried to kill his sister. He deals and adapts and moves forward with life. He uses his head just like she wanted him to.
He doesn’t know how long they walk for telling ridiculous stories from Earth and on the Ark (both times). The sun starts to set and eventually Raven’s leg starts to really hurt and they have to stop.
They don’t know how much farther there is to go. They also don’t want to stop because they don’t know the terrain anymore. Either they keep going and risk wearing themselves out, or they make camp and risk the elements.
They make camp.
They build some makeshift tents out of the parachutes from the rocket that were salvageable.
Bellamy looks up at the night sky, staring at the stars. It’s been so long.
They wake up and it’s extremely bright. He doesn’t know how long it’ll take for him to get used to that, or if it’s just this ocean desert.
They pack up again and begin walking. Monty can only estimate where they are since the map isn’t accurate to what the earth looks like anymore.
After hours upon hours of walking and slowly sipping the water, they had the sun starts to set again. But before it goes completely away there appear to be trees in the distance. Burnt down and rotting trees, but that means they’re back on land. They want to start running there but they can’t waste that energy or leave Raven behind. So they keep at the same pace, but more determined to get there.
When they finally reach the trees they are all so happy. Emori and Harper are jumping for joy. Echo actually smiles in relief. Monty and Murphy to their secret handshake that no one but them can seem to learn. Raven and Bellamy just smile at each other, giving a side hug to one another. They made it. They’re one step closer reuniting with everyone else.
Echo is able to make a fire with all the dead tree wood to keep them warm.
After a while, it seems like everyone goes to sleep except Bellamy. He figures someone should stay up and watch over just in case there is someone out there. Just in case someone from the bunker finds them.
The night is quiet and all he has is his thoughts to keep him company and right now, they are his enemy. He’s been so focused on making sure everyone was okay and that they’d reach land he hasn’t had time to process any of the memories and thoughts he’s had since the crash.
He cannot wait to see Octavia. He hopes she’s tapped into what was there all along and become the leader he knows she can be. He’s missed her so much.
He’s dreading telling Abby that her daughter is dead. That he made the choice to leave her behind on earth while they all survived. She trusted him and he betrayed that. He betrayed Clarke. He was supposed to have five years with her. Five years for them to finally understand what had been brewing all those months. She was his person and he’s the reason she’s gone.
He sucks in a shaky breath. He will not let her memory be in vain. He’s moved forward with his life and made sure they stayed alive. Now he’s going to make sure the human race survives and they will remember her.
He messes with the fire a bit to keep it going. “Bellamy?” He whips his head over and sees Raven awake, sitting there watching him as he sorts through his mess of memories. There’s a beat before she says anything else. “I miss her too.”
All he can do is nod. “You know she loved you right?” He doesn’t say anything. “I’ve told you this before, but you made the right call. You did what she would have done.”
“I know. Doesn’t make it hurt any less though.”
Raven thinks for a moment before she whispers, “I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this. But you remember when she sent you into the mountain?”
“How could I forget?”
“She wanted to prove herself as a leader, like Lexa.” Bellamy snots. “She wanted to prove that she wouldn’t let love get in the way of the higher goal. At that moment for her, she really thought it was a weakness. Even all the way at the beginning she loved you.”
“Love was her greatest strength. She cared so much, and that was what made her a good leader, even if she made the hard decisions.”
They sit in silence for a moment letting the crackling of the fire wash over them, reminiscing in the memory of Clarke.
Bellamy breaks the silence, “I was going to tell her.”
“What?”
“The day we were dropping off all the hydrazine for you I was going to tell her how much she meant to me. I feared I might never see her again. But she stopped me, not saying it but believing we’d see each other again. Then Roan announced that one of the barrels was gone.”
“From what I’ve heard sounds just like Roan to mess up a good romantic moment.”
Bellamy smiles. “It really was.”
“She knew Bellamy. She knew how much you cared, still do. She was-” A twig snaps from the fallen trees. Both of them are on high alert now.
Bellamy hopes it’s his sister, but knowing her she would have run right up. So this is something else. He doesn’t have a gun. They don’t really have anything to protect themselves besides some swords and makeshift knives.
He grabs his knife from his pack and gets up as quietly as he can, trying not to make a sound. He motions for Raven to stay down. She reaches for her own knife. Everyone else is still asleep.
There’s some more rustling and a girl pops out of the darkness and into the light. She can’t be older than 14 and has long dark brown hair.
Bellamy stays where he is still ready for a fight. She’s just a kid but they don’t know who she is. She should be from the bunker.
She stares at him a moment and it’s almost like she remembers something. Before he can say anything though she asks, “Bellamy? Raven?” She has to be from the bunker.
They both nod. She starts spouting stuff in Trigedasleng. Bellamy’s a little rusty even after lessons from Echo. All he can catch is “mother” “Space” and “here.”
He hears more noises coming behind the girl who seems overly excited. Bellamy finds his voice and asks, “Who are you? Are you from the bunker?”
Some of the others start to wake up from hearing Bellamy. “Huh, what’s going on?” “Bellamy?” “Who’s the girl?”
The rustling stops. Someone new is here. Everyone goes silent. Bellamy takes his eyes off the girl and looks over to see her.
Clarke. Her hair’s cut short. She looks like he imagined she never would. She looks older.
It’s like all the air has been knocked out of him. Everything he’s known for the last six years is gone. He breaths out, “Clarke?” Everyone else is talking but he can’t hear them, all he can focus on is her.
Her eyes light up and she runs towards him just like she did all those years ago but this time he’s ready for her. He drops the knife he’s holding and takes a couple steps to meet her. He scoops her up in his arms. She wraps hers around his shoulders. He practically pics her up.
She’s real. Alive. And here.
He buries his head in the crook of her neck, her hair tickling his nose. There are tears streaming down his cheeks, he’s so happy.
For just a brief moment nothing else in the world matters. Not the other people around the fire. Not the girl who’s with Clarke. Not even his sister. This girl who he thought he lost forever came back as a woman.
He almost worries for a second that she might not be real and it could have been the radiation messing with his head. But he couldn’t care less.
He mutters into her hair, “You’re here?” He sets her back down on the ground.
She pulls away looking at him like he’s the moon and stars. She’s crying tears of joy too. She smiles, lighting up his whole world.
They both look each other over, seeing how time has aged them, who they’ve become over the last six years. She’s beautiful. And alive. She touches his beard and giggles. Through her emotions she manages to get out, “You’re late.”
“I know.” He squeezes her into his arms again never wanting to let go. She squeezes him right back. He whispers into her ear, “I’m so sorry.”
She whispers right back, “It had to be done.”
He felt like he was falling all over again like he did six years ago.