Chapter Text
My head is filled with ruins/most of them are built with you/now the dust no longer moves/don’t disturb the ghost of you
The new planet is nothing like the old one and almost exactly the same. It’s more like the time before the bombs, which Clarke thinks makes sense. The first settlers here were from that time and they started with what they knew. And yet, even though it’s a world she never really knew, it feels like she does.
The place they’ve settled reminds her of the place the dropship landed. It’s on the edge of the woods and has the same feeling. In fact, in her quiet moments Clarke thinks she might be loosing her mind because sometimes it doesn’t just remind her of the dropship site but she swears she can still see them there – a hundred kids in their makeshift tents just trying to survive.
She doesn’t tell anyone though – there’s no one to tell. Madi’s too young. Her mom is still fragile and concerned with Marcus and helping their new neighbours. And the others, well, they don’t need her anymore.
Raven won’t even look at her, so she’s out.
And she hasn’t seen Murphy since they landed. He took the news about Monty harder than she expected. Though maybe she shouldn’t be surprised, six years is a long time.
She thinks about talking to Octavia, they were something like friends once. But Octavia already sees too many ghosts and Clarke doesn’t want to add anymore.
Miller is an option. They were never close, he was Bellamy’s guy, but she trusted him. She can’t quite make her feet move towards him though. He seems to be trying to stay in the present, trying to keep Octavia standing and playing intermediary for the Blake siblings, a role that Clarke thinks is probably hard enough without her bringing up the past.
She knows who she wants to tell. The one who was next to her building that first settlement, the one who kept control when she couldn’t, who kept her steady when she needed it. But she can’t tell him. Bellamy’s busy keeping someone else steady now.
So she doesn’t say anything. She keeps going, getting up every morning and going to bed each night. She spends time with Madi and her mother when she can. She keeps going and doesn’t think about all the worlds before that have crumbled behind them, the bodies they never got time to bury. The people she never said goodbye to.
And if occasionally she catches his eye and it seems like he’s thinking about it too, she doesn’t let herself stop. Doesn’t go to him and ask him about the broken places of their past. Doesn’t ask him if this new place they live in now makes him think of all the places they had before, all the times they thought they were safe before. All the times he kept her safe so she could keep them safe. She doesn’t ask that.
Instead she keeps Bellamy away, because that way he won’t be another ghost living in her memory.
I’m gonna miss you/i’m still there/sometimes I wish we never built this palace/but real love is never a waste of time