Chapter Text
*** Clarke***
At first, Clarke had only missed her mother, her friends, her (no not hers never hers ) Bellamy but then she'd begun missing her enemies. The loneliness was so pervasive that even people trying to kill her would be better than this constant emptiness.
There was only silence unless she was talking into her ever present radio. There was never a response no matter how often she called hoping for his deep voice, there was only silence.
No matter how much she told him about her days. About the Earth coming, slowly, back to life. How she asked questions in the hopes of hearing her radio spark to life. There was only silence, just so much maddening silence and the echo of her words in her ears.
She never told him the words she feared or let him say it. But he knew. He had to know just how much she cared for him. Everyone else knew.
Her weakness was Bellamy, always had been. Because she loved him.
Everyone she loves dies. By not telling him, she’d hoped to spare him that fate.
She couldn't get to her mother and others buried underneath so much rubble in the bunker.
She couldn't reach the ark in space. She didn't even know if they had made it.
Were they dead? The Earth had been safe for more than a year but there had been no sign of every one or even anyone.
Hope, already a dwindling commodity, because just because she was still breathing, didn't mean he was, died.
“You’re all dead. I keep calling and hoping but you're all dead and I'm alone! I'm all alone!” She shouted.
She was sobbing. She readied her gun and prepared to join him in death.
“I can't. I can't do this anymore! Why am I talking to you still? You're just a worthless radio, they are dead. That's why no one's coming! Bellamy is dead.”
She was weeping as she checked the radio. It landed in some grass and didn't break. Unlike her heart which was shattered into millions of pieces.
If she changed her mind, she could keep up her calls to no one.
She wouldn't change her mind. She was so tired of living alone. There was no one. Friend, stranger or enemy, there was no one but her above the ground.
Her and the ghosts that haunted her sleeping and waking hours. The nightmares, the emptiness, the things she could have done better so that more people survived, all of that haunted her day and night.
She pressed the cold metal to her temple and steeled her resolve.
She couldn't continue like this.
The only one still breathing.
Her finger was on the trigger.
She took a deep breath.
***Bellamy***
The thing on his face wasn't a smile but he tried.
Smiling wasn't familiar to him anymore. Not since he'd left Clarke behind to die.
In space, he'd watched the fire consume the planet and felt like it was consuming his heart and soul as well. But on Earth he was breathing the air she'd never breathe, walking on land her feet would never touch upon, his grief was worse, a more tangible pain in his body. A constant screaming pain of her name.
He'd never allowed himself to grieve her. Not like he wanted to.
She'd told him to use his head, would have wanted him to protect everyone, and he'd done his best. Forcing himself up and through the motions every day, when all he wanted to do was rage at the universe, for bringing such an amazing person into his life, the person who believed in him, and saw him and understood him and then ripping her away.
He'd loved her. He would have followed her anywhere, done anything for her. He'd never told her but she'd had to have known.
His co-leader, his best friend, his partner,
his… Clarke. No not his. Never his. That was the tragedy.
She'd referred to him as being all heart while referring to herself as all head but she'd been his heart.
The one to believe that he wasn't a monster. That he could be a good man and leader. The one who had always trusted him and believed in him.
And he'd left her behind to die. Had she known that sting of betrayal before the radiation and fire burned her up? Did she die hating him?
He didn't want to be back on the ground. He didn't want to be in space.
In his heart of hearts he wanted to be where Clarke was. In any form of afterlife or alternate universe as long as they were together.
She'd want him to go on, to look after the few of their people who remained. So he forced a terrible facsimile of a smile on his face and pretended to care.
There was noise in the distance. They headed towards it cautiously. They were a year and a half late, had his sister and the others in the bunker made it out?
Would they find a thriving society? Would they even fit in after this many years away. Maybe they wouldn't need him to be strong. Maybe they wouldn’t need him at all. Maybe he could set down this mantle of leadership and then he could go as far away as possible and grieve.
He could scream and rage at the world. That brought him his soulmate and then killed her. The world they'd been born into was dangerous and deadly. It had shaped Clarke into a warrior, taking away all sense of peace, then it kept on taking away their family and then it took her away.
The universe was cruel and never kind.
It was a woman screaming.
His heart stopped. He knew that voice.
It sounded like Clarke but it couldn't be. Because Clarke was dead. He'd killed her. She'd burned to Ash and dust six years ago.
“You’re all dead. I keep calling and hoping but you're all dead and I'm alone! I'm all alone!” The woman shouted.
Her voice sounding even more like Clarke. He wanted to run forward. He wanted to run away. If it was Clarke he wanted the space between them to be non-existent as soon as possible. If it wasn't Clarke, his already broken heart would hurt worse. He wasn't sure he could take the disappointment.
He inched closer with his friends.
“I can't. I can't do this anymore! Why am I talking to you still? You're just a worthless radio, they are dead. That's why no one's coming! Bellamy is dead!”
He took off running. Heart coming back to life even as it lodged in his throat.
It didn't just sound like Clarke. It was Clarke. A hurting and sad Clarke.
Alone for six years. He needed to reach her. He needed to see her face. He needed to hold her. To let her know she'd never be alone again.
He heard Murphy, Raven, Harper and Monty exhale. As they too realized, the miracle through the trees just ahead.
His heart lodged in his throat and his breath was stolen away at the sight before him.
For the first time in six years, Clarke was in front of him.
Pointing a gun at her head. Sobbing and facing away from him.
His heart was alive, right in front of him, but ready to take her own life. Having given up hope, just as he returned home. The universe was crueler than he'd thought.
“Clarke,” he choked out, “no.”
He didn't dare move closer. Attempting to knock the gun out of her hand would just lead to it firing.
“Bellamy hallucination again?” She murmured.
“Please go away!” She shouted.
Her voice got softer and pleading as he slowly walked towards her.
“You're not real, you're not real. He's dead. If he was still alive he would have been down a year and a half ago… you're not real. You're never real.” Her voice was full of tears and tears leaked down her face.
Bellamy's heart broke. Clarke was going to kill herself. Clarke had hallucinations of him. Six years alone with only hallucinations that appeared? How could he help her? How could he keep this fragile miracle alive?
The others, including Echo and Emori we're stopped frozen in the distance. The four that knew her best and Emori looked terrified. Echo looked uninterested and uncaring.
“I'm real,” he choked out through the lump in his throat.“I'm really here, I promise…” his voice trailed off willing her to believe him.
“You always say that and then you fade away and I'm alone again,” she cried.
“I called you every day for six years and you never answered or came down,” she added.
“I just have to accept that you are,” her voice broke as she continued, “dead.”
“I'm here, Clarke, I'm right here. Just put the gun down and take my hand. I'm here, Princess, I promise,” tears dripped down his face, as he willed her to take the trembling hand he offered her.
She set the gun down and grabbed his hand.
“Bellamy,” she breathed in wonder, tears still streaming down her face, blue eyes bloodshot and red but still the most beautiful sight he'd ever seen.
She threw herself into his arms and clung to him tightly. Clinging to him like she'd never let go. He clung to her just as tightly. Momentarily considering spending the rest of his life literally tethered to her.
“You're real.” She breathed.
“You're alive,” they breathed together in harmony liked they had been once upon a time.