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"You promised you'd save him," Raven screams, her voice cutting across the camp.
“Raven,” Clarke manages, her voice small and unsteady. She’s all hollow and scraped raw and she wants to scream, and Raven. Raven’s staring at her, all hurt and angry, with tears streaming down her face, and Clarke can’t help but think she’s never seen her cry before, not even after she got shot. And she did this, she did this, she killed Finn.
She closes her eyes, and tries to swallow the nausea climbing up her throat. All of her reasons seem so far away.
“Raven,” she tries again, and starts to reach out for her, before she remembers and switches hands.
Not quick enough. Raven’s hand catches her wrist, fingers just barely brushing against the blood soaked into her sleeve.
“Is that his blood? His blood is literally on your hands.”
Clarke thinks it’s a miracle she’s not still holding the knife. She must have dropped it somewhere on the way back, and god. She wrenches her hand away. She’s going to be sick.
“I have to,” she says, voice hoarse, “I need to,” throw up, scrub my hands, burn this shirt. She walks quickly towards the med bay. Raven falls into step beside her.
She doesn’t speak, just watches as Clarke attempts to wash away the blood, until, “He was all I had, all I had left. And you took him from me. How could you, Clarke? How could you?”
Clarke shakes her head, because she’s asking herself the same thing, and she’s not sure she trusts herself to speak right now.
It’s not. It shouldn’t be this hard. Finn is not the first person she killed. And if he’d burnt outside the dropship she’d be more responsible for his death than she is now. But it’s. It’s hard to focus on that when she can still see flecks of his blood staining her hands.
“You promised,” Raven continues, “You promised me, and you… And now I don’t have anyone.”
“You have me,” she says at last, “You have me.”
Raven takes a step back, “No, no I don’t.
“Raven,” she reaches for her. Raven flinches when she touches her.
“How can I have you,” she asks, voice cold and hard, “when you’re the reason I don’t have him?”
“I… Raven,” she starts.
“No.” Raven says. “No. You killed him, Clarke.” She takes a step forward. “Before you ever pulled the knife.” She shoves Clarke backwards. “He killed himself for you.” She takes another step forward. “He died for you.” She shoves Clarke backwards again, and she backs into a gurney. “He was my family.” Raven continues, unrelenting. “And he died for you.” Clarke’s knees give out. Raven crouches down to her level. “What the fuck is so special about you?”
Nothing, she wants to say. Nothing. I wouldn’t have asked him to do it. But Raven’s hand is gripping her chin, and her name is running on loops in her mind, and all she wants is to some how make this better, and she can’t, she can’t, but at very least she can try not to make it worse.
Raven lets out a ragged sob, “What the fuck is so special about you?” she asks again, softer this time. Then she leans forward and kisses her.
It's hungry, and desperate, and searching, and Clarke can taste salt. She runs her hands through Raven's hair, pulling her closer and closer, and she's hungry too. She pulls Raven onto the gurney, and Raven's teeth catch her lip. Bright and vicious and angry. Clarke kisses the tear tracks running down Raven's face. Soft and gentle. Forgive me, forgive me, I’m sorry, forgive me.
“I couldn’t,” she breaks off, draws a shaky breath, and starts again, “There was no way to get him out of their alive. If I’d gone for her, they’d have killed us both. This way,” she swallowed, the words dried up.
“This way, at least it was quick,” Raven finishes for her, crying in earnest now. They both are. “It’s just. God, Clarke, it feels like you’ve saved the hundred a thousand times over. I just thought, if there was anyone you wouldn’t let die, it’d be Finn. And you, you…”
“I shouldn’t have promised. I shouldn’t have, I should have known. I just, I wanted a miracle for him too.”
“I didn’t get to say goodbye,” she says quietly. “You did.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, but it’s not enough. It’s never going to be enough. She presses her lips to the base of Raven’s throat, and maybe they can say what her words can’t. Raven pulls her face up to meet hers, and the kiss is softer, slower, this time. Can you taste it, can you taste how sorry I am, can you taste how much I wish I could make this right?
“Let me,” Clarke says, and she pulls Raven up onto the gurney, and Raven lets her, and lets her push her down, lets her straddle her. “Let me show you.”
“Clarke,” Raven’s voice is thick, her eyes are wide, and she looks.
She looks like a mess. Eyes red and puffy, tears all over her face. And it’s her fault. It's her fault, and this isn’t going to make any better.
She laughs. It’s a broken sound. Raven stares at her.
“I’ve wanted this for so long,” she explains, “But not like this, never like this.”
Raven makes a small sound in the back of her throat, “I, yeah,” she says, voice rough and uneven, “Me too.”
Clarke laughs again, and she’s verging on hysterical, “God this is so fucked up. Can we just…?”
Raven nods, and pulls Clarke down beside her, and they just lie there, arms pressed together, Raven curling into Clarke.
“I'm so tired of losing people,” Clarke says softly, “I was so scared I’d lost you too.”
“Same,” Raven replies, and Clarke’s hand finds hers and holds it tight. “But we’ll, we’ll make sure we don’t.”
Clarke turns her head and presses a kiss to Raven’s cheek.