Archive of Our Own ^beta

Raven doesn’t give much thought to the birds on her breast.

The idea of a soulmate is ridiculous to her, and it always has been.  Most people on the Ark agree with her, because considering the limited population, it’s more of a ‘least objectionable potential partner’ mark than a soulmate mark.

Raven has always been in love with Finn anyway, and it’s hard to imagine a world where she doesn’t want him, and he doesn’t want her.

In so many ways, he’s her savior, her best friend, her family, her—well, he’s the closest thing she can imagine to a soulmate.

And so Raven ignores the birds on her breast and the interlocking squares on Finn’s left index finger.

It’s easier to ignore it than admit that there’s a possibility that the careful safe haven she’s built for herself might crumble at any moment.

~~

It all falls apart.

First, there’s Finn, who sleeps with Clarke—who loves Clarke, somehow. Raven never asks if their marks match. Clarke’s isn’t in plain sight, and so Raven never wants to know, and she never has to.

It’s better this way, she thinks. She can pretend, she can move on.

She is Finn’s, and Finn is hers, soulmate crap be damned.                                                              

(It was easier to pretend before Clarke, before the ground, before their lives changed so monumentally that she could never imagine a happy ending again, and she’s never been very good at that to begin with.)

~~

Raven’s at the river, trying to get as clean as humanly possible, and of course Clarke is the one to come across her.

Raven can’t hate her, not really. It isn’t Clarke’s fault. She didn’t know, and as much as Raven wants to hate her anyway, it’s too hard.

Clarke stares at her in shock for a moment.

“Are you okay?” Raven asks.

Clarke shakes her head, and then closes the distance between them. “The mark—I—uh, recognize it.” Raven looks down, and realizes she's talking about the supposed soulmate mark.

Clarke looks so stunned that, for a moment, Raven wonders if she is Raven’s soulmate.

It would be hilariously ironic, Raven thinks.

But then Clarke says “My friend Wells—“ and Raven feels instantly numb, because that’s the name of Jaha’s kid.

The one that’s dead.

Yeah, hilariously ironic, Raven thinks. She blocks it from her mind, because it's not like it really matters.

~~

Raven breaks up with Finn.

He doesn’t love her the way she wants to be loved, and he never will.

She doesn’t think about their marks, about the way hers feels like it’s burning against her skin, viciously laughing at her for thinking anyone could love her like that.

Maybe no one will, she thinks, but for now she can only focus on what she can do, on what she has to do to survive.

This, she knows, is her life now, and she can only try to make the best of it.

~~

Soulmate crap is weird anyway.

You’ve got Lincoln and Octavia and their paired dragons—Octavia's on her cheek, and Lincoln's on his chest, though it's covered up by grounder camouflage.

You’ve got Clarke, who seems intent on ignoring her mark, because she’s too busy trying to save the damn world from itself. Finn and Clarke don’t share the same mark(at least, according to Finn), which is some sort of saving grace, Raven thinks, even though she might have preferred if it were destiny.

Does she even believe in destiny, she wonders?

Monty and Jasper share the same mark, but they’ve followed that path as friends, even though it’s clear to everyone but them that Monty’s in love with Jasper, and Jasper is never going to be in love with Monty. Raven hopes Monty finds someone else one day, if they ever manage to survive all this crap.

It’s not fun to love someone who just can’t love you the way you want. It's not their fault, but it still hurts.

Raven tries really hard not think about the mark of a dead man across her breast, so close to her heart, so close to meeting her, but no.

She probably wouldn’t have liked him anyway, she tells herself.

Anyway, they've got a battle to fight, and their lives are on the line. There's no time to worry about such things.

~~

Raven doesn’t believe in fate.

The fact that one day she wakes up, and her leg is paralyzed, and her life feels like it’s completely falling apart is evidence that life is crap, and always will be.

One day, Clarke shows up, and she’s not alone. Raven recognizes the person, though she's never met him before.

Raven feels her heart skip a beat, which is pointless, because he’s supposed to be dead, and she doesn’t even know him. She has no claim to him, not even those three little birds, which go from between her breasts across the left one.

Wells is alive.

Raven doesn’t know him though, so it’s not like it matters(not like she cares).

Raven goes back to working on fixing some piece of crap from the Ark, and tries to ignore the fuss about needing to save their friends from the Mountain Men.

They have to save them, of course, but there’s no way they’re going to get any sort of plan going unless Raven manages to fix the communication issue they’re having.

She’s pretty sure Mt. Weather’s jamming them, which pretty much sucks.

She heads into the makeshift infirmary to see Abby, and is surprised to find Clarke and Wells.

“I’m okay,” Wells tells Clarke. “I promise.”

Clarke puts a hand on Wells’s shoulder and looks into his eyes—and of course, yes, even Raven’s soulmate is in love with Clarke, of course he is.

Raven reminds herself that she doesn't actually believe in soulmates. But still.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Clarke says, unshed tears in her eyes, and a smile Raven has never seen on her face before.

“Don’t mean to interrupt,” Raven says suddenly, because if she stands there much longer, she’s just being awkward, and she doesn’t have time for that. “I’m looking for Abby, have you seen her?”

Clarke shakes her head, and for a rare moment she actually looks nervous for a moment.

“Wells, this is Raven. Raven, this is Wells.”

Wells looks over to greet her, and Raven feels frozen in her steps.

It’s not some sort of weird ‘love at first sight’ crap, no, because she's seen him before, even if they hadn't spoken, but it’s—well, there’s an awareness.

She’s not sure she likes it.

She stiffens slightly. “Hey,” Raven says, not really giving him a chance to do much more than say hello, and she turns to Clarke. “If you see her, can you tell her I’m looking for her?”

“Of course,” Clarke promises, and Raven makes a quick escape.

~~

“May I sit here?” Raven hears, and she nods, not even bothering to look up to see that it’s Wells.

Clarke, Bellamy, and Octavia have all wandered off to find Finn and Muprhy, and hopefully they’ll all come back alive.

These days, that’s all she can manage to hope.

She’s so tired.

“People are afraid of me,” Wells says conversationally, and Raven looks up at him.

“Why?” Clarke has to have told him about their shared marks by now, right? He has to know. Or maybe—Raven wants to shake herself free of this entire thing—it’s much more likely that she’s simply too busy, like they all are, trying to survive.

It doesn’t matter anyway, Raven reminds herself.

“The Mountain Men had me. They thought I was dead. Who knows what they’ve done to me?” Wells shrugs slightly.

“I heard about the reapers,” Raven says. “The Mountain Men are pretty damn scary.”

“So maybe they have a reason to be afraid,” Wells finishes. “Are you?”

Raven shrugs. “I’m afraid all the time. I don’t have time to worry about it though. We’re busy people, Wells Jaha, just trying to get through every goddamn day. There’s not time for things like that.”

Wells is quiet then, and Raven feels awkward staring at him, so she looks down at her food instead.

“There’s almost always time for human emotion,” Wells says softly. “We haven’t stopped being people. We still feel things deeply, there’s just not always time to deal with things properly.”

“I guess,” Raven says.

“We still fear, we still dream, we still love,” Wells says, his voice catching slightly on love.

Raven looks back up sharply. “Well, well, Wells.” Raven smirks slightly, because the opportunity was there, and she took it proudly, goddamn it. “How’s that unrequited love of our princess going for you?”

Wells tilts his head to the side and studies her carefully. “Better than you’d expect,” he says.

She’s not quite sure what that’s supposed to mean, but whatever. He smiled slightly at ‘well, well, wells’ so he’s got a sense of humor, probably, underneath of all that trauma.

Soulmate or not, she thinks, maybe they could almost be friendly.

~~

Finn’s back, and he’s different now.

Raven doesn’t know what to tell him, doesn’t know what to say—doesn’t know how to slow down long enough to worry about anything but immediate needs.

She can’t let herself anymore, because if she stops swimming, she’ll drown in it all.

He’s her family though, so she does the best she can, tells him to build a brace and just get through it.

If they can just get through it, then they’ll be okay.

She’s very wrong.

~~

“We won’t let them take Finn,” Bellamy tells her, and Clarke promises, but they’re both wrong.

Clarke kills him herself, his blood seeping onto her hands, his life slipping away.

There is no forgiveness for this, she wants to scream.

She's wrong, of course.

~~

Later, when she’s still grieving, still falling apart, but starting to understand that things have to be the way they are, Raven sits with her radio, wondering if she’s ever going to feel okay again.

“I’m sorry about Finn,” Wells tells her, and Raven looks up lethargically. She feels dull, and empty inside.

Raven nods her head slightly in thanks, and it feels like it weighs a ton.

“May I sit?” Wells asks, and Raven shrugs.

“I don’t want to hear how Clarke did the right thing,” Raven croaks out. “We should have left.”

“And abandoned our people at Mt. Weather?” Wells asks simply.

Raven feels her heart sink in her chest. “I don’t know.”

She wants to say yes, but can she? It should have been her that died. None of this would have happened if she’d just taken responsibility for her actions back on the Ark, or if she’d just been able to say no.

She rubs her palm, where she and Finn had both cut similar symbols into their flesh—soulmate marks or not, they’d said, they would always have each other.

It’s almost funny now, because Finn’s dead, and Raven’s never been more alone.

“When I first got back,” Wells starts softly, and Raven refocuses on him. “I thought my dad was dead. I was wrong, and I was lucky. But I remember how those days felt. And I can’t compare that to seeing someone you love die in front of you, I promise I’m not trying to do that.”

Raven nods, she understands that.

“But I remember how it felt, and the idea of that being true every day, of having seen it and knowing that he was gone forever—I can’t imagine it. I can’t imagine what you’re going through, and I just want you to know that even though I don’t really know you, if you need anything, I’m here for you.”

It’s very kind, Raven thinks. Maybe guilt, maybe related to some weird soulmate sense of responsibility. “So Clarke did tell you,” she says.

Wells looks confused, and Raven narrows her eyes in surprise. “What did she tell me?”

Raven shakes her head. “Never mind,” Raven tells him. “It’s not important. I’m fine. I’m going to be fine, I don’t need anyone. I just need—“

She’s crying again, she realizes.

She can’t seem to stop crying.

When she’s not crying, her heart feels so heavy she feels like she’s being crushed under the weight of it.

She wants to lie in a ball on the ground and never get up again, she wants to—she wants to go back, and change things, but she can’t.

She buries her head in her hands, and sobs, and she can’t seem to stop.

She wonders if Clarke understands how this feels at all—she may not have been Finn’s family, but she’d loved him, and he’d died by her hand.

She wonders if this is how Clarke felt when her father died.

Finn was Raven’s family, the only person that she’d really had.

These people here are hers, but it’s not the same.

It’s life and death, survival of the fittest. Clarke just sent Bellamy off on some horrible idea of a mission, and he might die, but Clarke said that the risk was worth it, and those two have been thick as thieves lately.

There’s not time for real connections, not when the survival of their people is so important, not when there’s so much on the line.

Clarke is wrong, and Raven can feel it down to her bones.

Raven can’t blame her, because grief—well, it’s overwhelming Raven, so how can she blame Clarke for twisting and turning and making poor choices like sending Bellamy off with little to no planning?

Raven can’t blame Clarke for becoming so cold, for being so focused, but Raven knows it can’t end well.

Raven feels herself coming apart at the seams, and though she knows it’s not quite the same for Clarke, it’s still dangerous.  Clarke is the de facto ambassador to the grounders, and Raven worries.

Part of Raven wants to reach out to Clarke, and part of her wants to scream that they should have left, that it wasn’t worth it.

Part of her, however, is just lost in the ache in her heart, in her soul, in every cell of her being.

Raven’s lost Finn, and she’s never going to get him back, and now she’s completely alone.

It’s her fault that Finn is dead too, which only makes it worse.

Maybe she deserves this.

This is hers to carry now, and she can’t ever forget that.

Wells pats her shoulder slightly, like he’s trying to comfort her, and she spasms, shrugging his hand off of her.

Wells sits there still for some reason, still trying to comfort her.

Raven manages to calm her tears and breathe through the anxiety that’s tight in her chest. She looks back up at Wells.

“Shouldn’t you be comforting Clarke?” Raven asks.

“I will,” Wells says. “I’ve tried. But she has her mom, and you seemed like you needed someone too.”

“Oh,” Raven says. “I’m fine.” She's not.

“You don’t seem fine,” Wells says.

“Oh, that was me lying,” Raven laughs. “But if I were you, I’d be more worried about Clarke.”

Push people away, Raven thinks, harden your heart.

It’s better this way.

~~

Bellamy’s gone, and Raven feels his absence more sharply than she'd thought she would.

Octavia’s nervous about both Bellamy and Lincoln, and Raven worries for her.

“Lincoln should be back tomorrow,” Octavia says, and she’s trying to be calm, but Raven sees her tapping her leg anxiously, and she keeps getting up and pacing because she can’t seem to stay still. She’s already brought five different guards she’d sparred with to their knees, and now no one else will help her burn off her excess nerves.

Raven just focuses on her work, letting Octavia’s nerves take their proper course.

“They’ll be okay,” Raven says. At least, she hopes so.

“I can’t believe Clarke told Bellamy to go like that,” Octavia practically hisses. “After all that he’s—“ Octavia taps on her leg a little more angrily now. “It just seems like an ill-formed plan.”

“He’s Bellamy,” Raven points out. “He’ll do whatever’s necessary.”

Octavia nods her head and sighs, and then stops tapping.

Finally, Raven thinks. The tapping starts to get to you after the first few hours.

“At least Lincoln will be back soon,” Octavia says. “I’m worried about him.”

“He knows the woods,” Raven points out, even though she knows that’s not what Octavia’s talking about.

“He’s been through so much, and I just want him to open up to me, so that I can help him—“

“But in the end, we have to shoulder our own burdens,” Raven finishes, but Octavia shakes her head.

“Some of it, yeah, but some of it you can share,” Octavia says softly. “If I can make his burden lighter, then I need to. I have to.”

Raven thinks about her own burdens, and can’t imagine being able to share the load with another person. Some people are not meant for that, she supposes.

At least, not anymore.

“It’ll get easier,” Raven hopes aloud, for both of them. “I never would have guessed you two would have made it this far. No offense.”

“I love him,” Octavia says simply.

There’s such clarity there, Raven thinks, and she’s almost jealous of it. Raven feels muddled and lost most days, and it’s all she can do to charge forward in a general direction.

“Hold onto that,” Raven says firmly, her hands shaking slightly. She puts down her tools and breathes deeply. “It doesn’t always last. Hold onto it as long as it feels right, as long as it makes you happy.”

Octavia comes closer to the work bench and sits across from Raven. “Did Finn make you happy like that?”

Raven shrugs. “He did once,” she grabs for her tools again, because she can’t talk about this and not have something to do with her hands.

“I wonder,” Octavia says wistfully, “When I was back on the Ark, living under floorboards, I dreamt of life being more than that. I always wanted more.”

“You deserved more,” Raven says firmly.

“I don’t know about that, but I wanted it,” Octavia admits. “I always wanted to see beautiful things, and live my life, and fall in love. So far I’ve—well, it hasn’t turned out quite like I’d wanted, but I’ve gotten all of those things.”

Raven can’t wonder if she’s happier now, because it always comes back to Finn.

Earth, she thinks, has taken more than it has given to her. Octavia's lucky that earth has been fairly kind to her, Raven thinks.

“Lincoln will be back tomorrow,” Raven says finally. “And one of these days you guys can have little grounder babies.”

Octavia snorts with laughter. “I don’t know about that,” she makes a face. Octavia runs her hand through her hair and frowns.

“What’s wrong?” Raven finishes what she’s doing, and places her tools back on the table.

Octavia hesitates, like she’s wondering whether or not she should say something. “Do you know anything about braiding hair?”

~~

Of course, they can’t just braid her hair. Instead, they grab some soap and sneak off to a nearby river.

They both need the distraction.

It’s a bright, sunny day, so they take off their clothes. They quickly wash them in the river, setting them on some nearby rocks to dry, and go for a dip. Raven places her brace carefully where it can’t get wet, and Octavia helps her the last few feet over to the water. She could get there herself, of course, but maybe there’s something to be said about the helping hands of friends.

The water isn’t that deep, so it’s actually pretty comfortable just to sit down and let the water rush over you.

Raven rubs at her skin, like she’s trying to clean off more than just the dirt and sweat on her skin.

“Careful there,” Octavia says gently. Raven scrubs a little more for good measure and then stops.

“So, I thought you could braid your own hair,” Raven says, letting hers out of her pony tail and going to work on cleaning it.

“I can,” Octavia says. “It’s just easier to get other people to do it. Bellamy’s really good at it.” Somehow, that doesn’t surprise Raven. She can picture a younger Bellamy braiding his little sister’s hair, and it makes her feel warm inside.

There’s something about that kind of love that overwhelms Raven.

“Bellamy’s a good guy,” Raven says. “I didn’t think so at first, but he’s—he’s loyal, and he cares a lot.”

Octavia nods slightly, then sighs, looking up at the sky. “I’m really worried about him.”

“Me too,” Raven admits.

Octavia looks back at her and narrows her eyes. “That mark on your chest, what is that?”

“Birds,” Raven says with a shrug. “I guess someone in the universe knew how trapped I’d feel.”

“I saw—“ Octavia pauses, then pushes on. “I saw Finn’s mark once. It wasn’t the same as yours.”

“It wasn’t the same as Clarke’s either,” Raven tells her. “I don’t know what hers is, but I know that. Finn said—“ Raven’s breath catches in her throat and she coughs. “Well, I didn’t ask for more details.”

Octavia touches her hand to her mark on her cheek, caressing it slightly. “Some people don’t believe in them.”

“Do the grounders?” Raven asks curiously.

Octavia frowns. “Some of them do, some of them don’t. And some people think they mean different things—some that it’s simply about mating, others that you’ve just found the one person who might ruin you.  Lincoln’s people tend to tattoo and paint over them. Love is weakness, they say.”

“Maybe they’ve got the right idea,” Raven muses. “Why let the person you love be so easily used against you?”

Octavia bites her lip, thinking over her words. “I understand that,” Octavia says. “But why deprive yourself of that possibility?”

“People used to kill over these marks,” Raven reminds her. “Love isn’t a guarantee of happiness anyway.”

“I wish it were,” Octavia admits. “Sometimes it’s so hard with Lincoln, but then he touches me, kisses me, or just—he looks at me, and I feel that rush of absolute joy.”

Raven isn’t jealous, exactly, but she wonders what that would feel like.

Octavia rubs at her face again before grabbing the soap and washing her own hair. “We should get back soon.”

“We should,” Raven agrees.

Octavia looks back at her for a moment. “Do you know who your soulmate is?”

Raven bites her tongue. She means to shake her head, but instead she just freezes.

“You do,” Octavia says, sounding excited. “Who is it?”

“I can’t,” Raven says. “I can’t—“ she’s too messed up for this, she’s too tired, too busy, too heartbroken to want anything more than what she has now. She can’t let herself open that door.

Octavia’s smile fades, and she nods, reaching out and patting Raven’s shoulder.

Raven air dries herself while Octavia rinses her hair. Raven tries to focus on what really matters.

Like, say, the fact that she needs some sort of comb before she can braid Octavia’s hair properly.

And thus, Raven forges ahead, as she always does.

~~

Lincoln returns, and Octavia rushes into his arms, and for a moment Raven can't help but smile. There's something sweet about them, and it gives her hope, even though she doesn't want it.

Raven wanders away from Lincoln and Octavia’s reunion and heads back to her work bench. Sinclair left her more crappy stuff to work on, so at least she’ll have something to do.

She’s surprised, however, to see someone already there.

“Clarke,” Raven says, surprised.

Clarke's been so busy lately, Raven rarely ever sees her. If she isn't with Kane and Abby, then she's with Lexa, or the other grounders, or off by herself.

Raven can still feel the tension between them. Raven’s anger, Clarke’s pain, Raven punching Clarke, Clarke killing Finn. Clarke saving the alliance(and Raven too).

Raven carefully sits down across from Clarke at the workbench and picks up a broken radio just to have something in her hands to fiddle with.

“What do you want?” Raven asks as nicely as she can manage.

Her anger isn’t exactly directed toward Clarke anymore, so it’s more awkwardness and the reality of their situation that make it hard to know what to say to her.

“Bellamy is going to start sending us messages within the next few days hopefully,” Clarke tells her. “We need a group of people to take turns listening at all times.”

“Okay,” Raven says. “The radio works.”

The smaller, shorter-distance radios get broken every time anyone gets in any kind of scuffle, but the long range radio? Raven keeps that safe and sound.

“I know,” Clarke says, and Raven really looks at her for a moment.

She looks tired, empty.

She looks how Raven’s felt before, maybe even a little like how she feels now.

“I want you to check in on them every once in a while in case there are any problems.”

“Of course,” Raven says.

Clarke nods her thanks. “I’ll get you the schedule.”

Clarke makes a move to leave, and Raven’s hand reaches out and grabs her hand before she can get up.

It’s instinctive, and clearly a bad idea from the look on Clarke’s face.

“Are you okay?” Raven asks.

“I’m surprised you care,” Clarke says, but she doesn’t even sound angry, exactly.

“I don’t know what kind of weird emotional trip you’re on,” Raven says, “But you need to get it together. You need to remember what’s important.”

“I know what’s important,” Clarke snaps. “I’m protecting the people I care about, and trying to save the rest of them.”

Raven shakes her head. “That’s important, but—“ Raven closes her eyes for a moment, trying to sort through her thoughts. “Don’t forget why it’s important.”

“I—“ Clarke starts to say.

“You’re acting like you don’t care about anyone or anything, like any sacrifices don’t matter. And we all know that the old Clarke wouldn’t have sent Bellamy to die, at least not without a better plan.”

“I’m doing what’s necessary,” Clarke says firmly, but Raven sees the chink in her armor and the guilt in her eyes.

“The Mountain Men think they’re doing what’s necessary,” Raven says. “They’re willing to do whatever they have to do in order to survive, in order to live. Even if it means trapping and draining the lives of innocent people. They don’t care about anyone but themselves.”

Clarke looks shocked, like Raven just slapped her across the face.

“You can’t just keep going around like this,” Raven says more softly. She squeezes Clarke’s hand. “Holding all that pain inside—“ Raven hesitates. “We all need people. Our people make us strong.”

“And then they die,” Clarke says, and Raven feels her pain.

“Not always,” Raven says. “Sometimes they live. And when we forget that we care about them, sometimes that’s why they die. And we can’t take that back.”

“Raven—“Clarke starts to talk, but then she stops. She looks stunned.

“I know what it’s like to be alone,” Raven admits bitterly. “It never ends well. And at the end of the day, if we want to survive, we have to remember why, or else we’re just repeating the mistakes of earth’s past.”

“You—“ Clarke pauses, then clears her throat. “I’m trying to stay strong for all of us.”

“I know,” Raven says, meeting her eyes and punctuating her words with another gentle squeeze of Clarke's hand. “But we can help shoulder the burdens. You’re not alone.”

Clarke isn’t the only one who’d needed to hear that, Raven thinks.

Raven holds those words in her heart, trying to imprint them there.

Clarke breaks down crying, and Raven holds her hand.

“I couldn’t save any of them.”

“But we will,” Raven tells her.

“I sent Bellamy to die,” Clarke’s voice cracks, and Raven hopes that’s not true.

“He’s very resourceful. And bull-headed. He’ll be okay, and so will the rest of them.” Raven hopes so, anyway. "You wouldn't have sent him if you didn't believe that."

Sometimes, such lies are a kindness.

~~

“This stuff is amazing,” Raven says, sliding in across from Wells and Clarke at a table. “I've never seen this fruit thing before.”

“The grounders showed us how to tell the difference between the poisonous and the safe ones,” Clarke tells her, taking a bite of her own.

“Cool,” Raven says.

She understands the need for the grounders, and for their alliance, but even now—well, she’s reluctant to believe in it too deeply.

“We’ve been trading all kinds of knowledge with the grounders,” Wells tells them. “I’ve been working with some of the others, and we’ve been gathering some of the more useful plants, especially the medicinal ones.”

“I’m sure we’re going to need them,” Raven cocks her head to the side. “After all, there’s a war coming, I hear.”

“No,” Clarke says softly. “The war’s about to end.” Clarke nudges the food on her plate around, clearly distracted.

Raven watches Wells give Clarke a light nudge and a smile, and Clarke looks like she’s ready to argue, but then she acquiesces to Wells’s silent request, and keeps eating.

“So, did you two ever bone?” Raven asks, and Clarke sputters, covering her mouth to avoid spitting out her food.

“Raven!” Clarke looks scandalized, which only makes Raven smile.

Raven looks at Wells, who is just staring down at his food, pretending like he didn’t hear her question.

Raven wants to tease further, but the Octavia shows up and drags Clarke away, so Raven just shrugs and takes a bite of her food.

“The grounders are really into seasoning,” Raven comments. Her food has actual flavor, it’s amazing.

“On the Ark, we were so focused on necessities, we didn’t really grow spices,” Wells explains, and Raven rolls her eyes.

“I know,” she says. She never knows quite what to say to Wells.

Maybe she just needs to come out with it, and ask him about his soulmate mark.

Does she even care?

Her heart’s a mess, certainly not ready for much of anything, but maybe—Raven sighs.

“Something wrong?” Wells asks, and Raven just shakes her head.

“Just tired,” Raven lies.

“We’re not involved, by the way,” Wells says, and Raven tilts her head curiously.

“Why not?” She and Finn had fallen together once hormones had entered the equation, and she’d never questioned it until they’d arrived on the ground.

“We don’t want the same things,” Wells explains, and Raven doesn’t feel particularly enlightened.

Raven narrows her eyes and pushes her tray off to the side. “Not even on the Ark?”

Wells shakes his head. “It’s never been like that between us. I mean, I—“ Wells trails off.

Raven feels like someone thumped her on the head. “Ah, you love her, but she doesn’t love you.”

Wells shrugs. “I couldn’t tell the difference, for a while, and in the end it doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it does,” Raven spits out.

His eyes widen, and Raven bites her tongue. Bad tongue, bad tongue.

“I’d still do anything for her. I don’t have to be in love with her for that to be true.” Wells has a point.

Raven nods. “I get that.” No one has ever felt that kind of loyalty to her, but maybe that’s okay.

“Yeah,” Wells sighs, and Raven takes a really good look at him.

She usually tries not to look at him too much—she’s not sure if it’s just what he represents, or who he is, but there’s something that’s a little too much for her.

She’s seen the way he’s always the first to volunteer for any kind of crappy duty, the only person who seems able to remind Clarke to do things like eat, and sleep and breathe.

Knowing that he could be her soulmate is messing her up a little, because she thinks she could be friends with him—easy, simple friends—if it weren’t for this knowledge.

She doesn’t want to know.

She’s not even sure she believes in this soulmate crap anyway, but godfuckingdamnit.

Wells looks up from his food to see her watching him, and she coughs awkwardly. “Um, anyway, I have to go,” Raven says, her food still half uneaten.

He raises an eyebrow, and she shovels a huge chunk of it into her mouth and chews as quickly as she can. “See you later,” he says as she gets up and leaves.

~~

Raven believes in doing what’s necessary to save the people she loves, and she stands by those decisions.

This doesn’t, however, stop a twinge of guilt from getting to her every time she’s in the vicinity of Lincoln.

She remembers vividly those emotional, violent moments when she would have killed him with her bare hands in order to save Finn.

That hectic, terrifying love scares her sometimes.

She’d told Finn once that she’d wanted that love from him, but then she remembers that Finn slaughtered a village in the name of that feeling. She knows it had been more complicated than that, but it makes her wary anyway.

Maybe, she thinks, that isn’t quite what she wants.

The point is, she feels mildly guilty whenever she’s around Lincoln, but she can’t say she’s sorry, because she protected Finn.

Finn’s gone now, but Lincoln’s still here, and thus he's still a source of guilt.

When Raven goes to check on the radio during a shift where they have it, they’re sitting together. Octavia’s head is on Lincoln’s lap, holding the radio in front of her like it’s going to answer all of her questions. And hey, maybe it will.

“Hey,” Raven says, smiling slightly. “Am I interrupting a little rendezvous?”

Octavia pops up, sitting up straight. “Nope, just waiting for the next message.”

“You heard the first one,” Raven points out. “He was okay then, he’ll be okay now. He’s going to make it through.”

Octavia shrugs. “I certainly hope so—“ Raven hears someone walk in behind her, and she turns to see Wells.

Raven walks forward and grabs the radio, sitting down and testing it out for good measure.

“I can wait a little longer—“ she hears Octavia say, but both Wells and Lincoln immediately say no.

Raven is pretty sure she did that with the last two people who came for the radio, because when Raven had gone to check in on one of the guards who was supposed to have it, they’d directed her to Octavia, who hadn’t even been the last person on the list who was supposed to have it.

“He’ll take care of it,” Lincoln assures Octavia, placing a hand on her back. “In the meantime, you need to get some sleep.”

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” Octavia says with a shrug.

“And if you don’t get any sleep, you'll be tired and careless, and that could be exactly what does happen.”

Octavia groans again, but she gives in.

Raven sets the radio back on the table and shrugs, since it’s fine.

“Hi,” Wells says, sitting down next to her.

“Hey,” Raven says. “Do you, uh—want some company?” Raven’s not even sure why she’s asking, she’s just in a mood, and maybe she wants to get to know him a little bit better.

“I’d like that,” Wells says, and Raven nods her head.

“Cool,” she replies. She leans back against the wall and turns her head to see him. “So what was it like being the Chancellor’s son?”

Wells leans back too, laughing slightly. “About what you’d expect.”

“Tell me about it,” Raven says, because his childhood is a much better topic than her own.

Raven closes her eyes and listens.

He tells her about the mildest shenanigans she’s ever heard before, and it explains so much about him and Clarke.

He tells her about his mother, who died so long ago that he doesn’t have anything more than a picture in his head and a few stories from his dad.

He tells her what he and Clarke used to do for fun, and Raven isn't surprised at all.

 “You guys just sat around and played chess all day?” Raven snorts. “Wow. I knew I was right about you two.”

“Hey, we did exciting stuff too,” Wells insists, and Raven’s eyes flicker open to see him smiling slightly and looking down, like he’s remembering something.

“Sure you did,” Raven teases. “I’m sure you did all kinds of spontaneous, fun things.”

“I was happy enough,” Wells admits. “Most of the time, anyway. I wanted—I don’t know, I always wanted something more, but I could never figure out how to ask for it.”

“None of us did,” Raven says. “And anyone who did probably ended up dead.”

“True,” Wells says, wincing slightly.

Raven feels a sudden urge to trace his face with her fingers, because he’s so close to her she can feel his breath when he turns to her.

Instead, she reaches out a hand and places it on top of one of his, patting it gently, like she’s trying to be friendly and comforting.

He turns it over and grasps her hand in his own, squeezing it gently.

“So what about your family?” Wells asks, and Raven grimaces. “Sorry,” he says softly, and she knows he is.

She shrugs away the apology, it’s not a big deal. Or, at least, she tries to believe it isn’t. “I had Finn, and I had mechanics. My family wasn’t really—well, it wasn’t the posterchild for normalcy.”

Wells holds her hand firmly, but not harshly, and she tells him a little about it.

She doesn’t usually talk about it, because it scares her. Not just to open up, but to remember.

Before Finn, she can only remember hunger, and fear, and loneliness, a blur of hazy memories she’d rather leave buried in her subconscious.

Somehow, she doesn’t feel like less of herself, or like Wells is judging her, or pitying her.

He just holds her hand, and listens.

Raven squeezes his hand back, and lets herself enjoy the sensation.

~~

It’s time, they say.

The stars have aligned, and it’s time to get their people back from Mt. Weather.

It feels a little like a suicide mission, but Raven tries to focus on the positives, she tries to focus on the fact that it could work, that they need it to work.

Raven stays behind, and she’s not happy about it, but what is she going to do? She’s not a warrior, she’s a goddamned mechanic. But if it weren’t for her leg, she wouldn’t let anyone stop her from going.

Instead, she’s stuck behind, helping prepare for the wounded who return.

Octavia, Wells, Lincoln—well, they’re all gone, and she’s here.

She’d turn to Wick from something predictably annoying to distract her, but he’s too uncharacteristically quiet right now for her needs.

They’re barely surviving as it is, and the last thing they need is for this war to continue.

From what Bellamy’s managed to tell them, there’s no possibility that the Mountain Men will simply sit idly by, or accept any kind of truce.

Raven wonders what the difference between any of them is—are her people any better than the Mountain? Are they really?

They used to kill their children in order to survive. Then, they’d been ready to kill random people on the Ark so that the rest of them could get a little more air.

The Mountain Men are using and killing the grounders, and now Raven’s own people, but she wonders how different they really are.

Where do they draw the line?

Raven thinks they’ll need to decide once this is all over. If they’ve gone too far, then there’s no going back, only moving forward.

Raven ignores how heavy and tired her body is, and she keeps working.

She can't let herself stop now.

~~

Everyone’s loud and emotional—between the injured crying out in pain and families being reunited, and others who are just celebratory and happy to be alive, Raven can barely even hear herself think above the din.

She wanders a bit, and comes across Clarke and Bellamy having an intense conversation.

Raven stares for a moment, and sees that they’ve been completely left alone, seemingly because they’ve scared off anyone foolish enough to get close to them. Then, because she’s also not foolish, she spins around on her heel and walks off in the opposite direction.

Raven’s not sure if they’ve been arguing the whole way home, but she has a feeling that they have.

And that is definitely not her problem, or her business.

She searches desperately for the faces of her friends, because she needs to know that they’re okay.

“Monty—“ she says in surprise, and he pulls her toward him in a tight hug before she even has the chance to pull away. “Glad to see you’re okay.”

“Me too,” Monty says. “For both of us, really.”

Raven nods. “Yeah, I’m pretty fond of the whole ‘being alive’ situation,” she says. “Where’s—“ She looks around and sees Miller, and some super pale girl who looks like one of those vampires from those old TV shows.”Who is that?”

Raven reaches for her knife, because that girl certainly doesn’t look familiar to her, which probably makes her one of the Mountain Men—“This is Maya,” Monty explains, “She helped save us.”

Raven begrudgingly puts away her knife. “I’m Raven. Thank you for helping my friends.”

“I was happy to help,” Maya says, but she’s crying.

Monty gives Miller a look, like hey, comfort the girl, you’re closer, but Miller just gets a scared little deer in headlights look and shakes his head. Monty rolls his eyes and moves toward her, patting her shoulder.

“Did we lose—“ Raven starts to ask, but then her voice catches on the words, and she can’t seem to get them out. Maybe because she’s afraid of the answer.

She still has friends she hasn’t seen, and she can’t lose them.

“We lost people,” Miller says gruffly, and Raven feels her heart sink.

Jasper shows up then, and Raven watches him take over comforting duties. Monty steps away toward Miller, and something about the way they’re standing has her raising an eyebrow, but that’s a thought for another day.

“Is Octavia okay?” Raven finally can’t help but ask.

“Yeah, she and Lincoln are trying to—“ Monty gets distracted, and Raven holds back her impatience and just walks off.

She wanders over to the infirmary, because she can't find anyone in all of this chaos anyway. She sees Wells, and makes a beeline for him.

“Ouch,” she comes up right beside his bed. “That looks painful,” she keeps it light, even though part of her wants to stress and worry and fuss.

“Clarke patched me up okay at Mt. Weather, but it seems to have gotten infected on the way back,” Wells says, lifting up his blanket and showing her the full injury.

Raven hisses sympathetically, and looks around for a chair. Not finding one, because of all the people milling around, she plops down on the bed Wells is on, trying not to disturb him too much.

“I’ll be fine,” Wells says. “It just sucks about the birds. I liked them.”

“Birds?” Raven looks more closely, and there they are—three birds in a row, three different sizes, from the smallest in the center of his chest to the largest right above his heart. Hers curve around her breast a little more intensely, so their marks look a little different, but the birds themselves are exactly the same as far as she can tell.

Raven’s world spins around a little, and she dizzily reaches out and places her hand over the one bird that doesn’t seem to have an injury over it. “Maybe the others won’t scar,” she says lightly.

His is even in the same place as hers. She wonders if that means something.

“Hopefully,” Wells says, and Raven nods.

“Yeah. So do you want some company, or should I go?”

She's sure there's plenty she could be doing right now.

At least, she’s sure she can find something. There’s always something to be done.

“I’d like the company,” Wells says. “Dr. Griffin said she’d come by with another poultice later, so I—“

“Enough said,” Raven says, pulling the curtain around the bed so that it closes nicely, separating them from the other injured people, most of whom seem pretty well off.

Raven imagines anyone too badly injured must be dead by now. She says a mental prayer for them.

She shakes herself free of the thought. “So, tell me what happened,” she claps her hands together. “Everyone else is too busy doing—I don’t know, whatever they’re doing.”

Wells smiles slightly, and Raven settles in.

~~

Raven is drunk.

She’d stolen a bit of Monty’s moonshine, and she really thinks they all need a party pretty soon, but instead she’ll have to enjoy drinking alone.

It’s peaceful, actually.

She’s very delightful this way, she thinks.

She gets sad for a moment, remembering Finn, remembering the life she’d once wanted on the Ark, remembering what could have been.

But then, she remembers now.

Most of her friends are alive, and she’s—well, she’s alive.

She’s grateful for that, she is, even if she’s not happy about a lot of other things in her life.

It’s only the third day since all of this ended, and she’s not really sure what to do with herself, so all she can do is focus on her job, and try to stay productive.

If she stops, she feels like she won’t be able to get going again. And so she doesn’t let herself think too much about how much her heart aches, and how goddamn tired she is.

But at this moment, she can’t quite remember all of that.

Instead, she’s barely able to actually feel—everything is light and distant, and it’s easy to forget.

She presses her hand to the little bird necklace Finn had made for her, and she tries to remember how she’d felt when he’d first given it to her.

Full of hope and love.

She closes her eyes, remembering the sensation. A knock at the door of her little room derails her thought process.

“Yeah?”

She’s not in the mood to get up, so whoever it is will just have to deal.

“It’s Clarke,” she hears, and Raven laughs.

“Come in.”

Clarke walks in, and her eyes widen in surprise when she sees Raven.

“I'm drunk," Raven explains. "I guess it’s obvious though, isn’t it?” Raven asks. “I’m just, you know, relaxing.”

Clarke nods her head and plops down next to Raven. “May I?”

“Go ahead,” Raven says with a snort, handing the bottle over. “I love Monty’s priorities.”

Clarke takes a long drink and hisses from the burn. “Me too.”

“So how’s it going, princess?” Raven asks, tilting her head as well as she can to almost meet Clarke’s eyes.

Well, she’s facing the right general direction, that’s good enough.

“Pretty great,” Clarke says with a sigh. “I’m the official liaison to the grounders, but thankfully since we’ve rescued our people and dealt a major blow to the Mountain Men—well, I’m able to sit back and do absolutely nothing.”

“You’re not very good at that, are you?” Raven asks, fighting off the desire to laugh.

“I used to be. I feel so old sometimes, like we’ve been on the ground for years.”

“Me too,” Raven admits. She feels heavy, and exhausted all the time. “Maybe it’ll be better in a few days, once we finally get used to not having to worry about most of this crap.”

“That’ll be nice,” Clarke muses, and then she smiles slightly, but it fades quickly.

It’s almost sad how fleeting this all feels—happiness doesn’t last, smiles are so temporary.

Maybe it’ll be better, Raven tells herself, but really?

She’s not so sure.

“You were right,” Clarke says, and Raven grunts a questioning noise.

Or, at least, as questioning-y as she can manage at the moment.

“About what?” Raven finally manages.

“About me,” Clarke says softly. “I lost myself.”

“Then find yourself again,” Raven tells her, and it may not be the nicest thing to say, but—well, at this point, that’s all she has. Raven hasn’t lost herself, exactly, just her purpose, her focus, her happiness.

And more literally, her family.

“I don’t know how to do that,” Clarke admits.

Raven thinks there’s a reason Clarke came to her, of all people.

“What do you want?” Raven asks. “Start there.”

“I don’t know,” Clarke says. “I don’t know what I want, or what comes next, or—I don’t know anything anymore. I can’t tell the difference between the choices I’ve made because I had to, and the choices I—the mistakes I’ve made.”

Raven reaches out and pats Clarke’s shoulder. “Admit it. Accept it. Now, how are you going to be happy? Who do you want to be?”

Clarke is silent then, and Raven can see the pensive look on her face.

“You’ll figure it out,” Raven tries to comfort her.

“I hope so,” Clarke says, turning her head a bit more toward Raven. “What do you want?”

Raven shrugs. “You know what? I don’t know either.”

Clarke is quiet for a moment. “Do you believe in soulmates?”

“I don’t know,” Raven replies honestly. “I didn’t, but I’ve also seen the way some of those pairs are together. I wonder if it’s just because they’re meant to be together, or if it’s because they think they are, and it just--happens, you know?”

Clarke nods, then takes another swig out of Raven’s bottle. “Yeah.”

Clarke turns herself around so that she’s fully facing Raven. “Can I tell you something?”

“Sure,” Raven says, taking the bottle back and taking another drink, even though she really shouldn’t.

“I don’t have a mark,” Clarke admits, and Raven’s eyes widen.

“Really?

“Yup,” Clarke says, shrugging slightly, but there’s a look on her face, and in her eyes. It bothers her, even though she doesn’t want it to. “I think it means I’m meant to be alone.”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Raven says automatically. “It means you’re free to love whoever you love.”

Clarke winces. “I guess.”

Raven wonders how that must feel.

Good, she imagines.

“Does knowing bother you?” Clarke asks. “Because Wells—well, he doesn’t know.”

“Please don’t tell him,” Raven pleads. “I can’t handle anything like that, especially not now.”

Clarke nods her head. “I won’t. I just wonder how that level of certainty feels.”

Raven considers her words. “I think, mark or not, soulmate or not, if you know, you know.”

Love should be that simple.

“What if you aren’t sure?” Clarke asks. “What if everything is just so muddled that you just don’t know how you feel anymore?”

Raven shrugs. “I have no idea.” She wonders if Clarke is thinking about someone in particular, but doesn't ask.

Clarke sighs, and leans back against the wall. “I wish—“

Raven's actually curious about what Clarke's about to say, she really is, but then a knock at Raven’s door distracts them both.

It’s Octavia.

“Hey, join the party,” Raven says. “Drink a little, spill your guts, almost start crying—wait, that’s just me.”

Octavia looks befuddled. “Um, sorry. I just needed—are you drunk?” she asks. She looks a little amused, which only serves to make Raven laugh.

“Possibly.”

“Okay,” Octavia says. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

“No, stay,” Clarke says. “Drink with us.”

“Bemoan the future,” Raven says, but then she remembers that Octavia’s got Lincoln, and she actually seems like a fairly well-adjusted person.

Octavia hesitates, then shrugs. “Screw it,” she says, grabbing the bottle and wincing as she takes a long drink. She opens her mouth wide after, squeezing her eyes shut. “Everything’s burning.”

“Just keep drinking,” Raven suggests.

And they do.

There’s something peaceful about this, Raven thinks.

In one drunken, epitome-driven moment, she realizes—“We’re friends.”

“Yes, we are,” Octavia says, clearly bemused. She’s sitting on the floor, and Raven’s pretty sure that if she keeps drinking the way she’s drinking, that’s probably where she’s going to end up sleeping.

“Yup,” Clarke says. They're both so matter of fact about it. Raven sniffles for a moment, then wipes away a tear.

She’s fine, she’s fine.

But the tears keep coming, and she keeps trying to force them back, but it isn’t working.

“Aw,” Octavia says, jumping up and tackling her in a hug.

Clarke decides to join in, and Raven feels at home for the first time in a long time.

~~

Raven needs sunglasses, like the people in those old movies and TV shows used to wear.

She winces at the sunlight, and barely manages to get over to a table in the makeshift mess hall.

Octavia’s still asleep, curled up next to Clarke, who is currently drooling on Raven’s favorite jacket. Well, her only jacket, but they’re sisters now, according to drunk!Octavia, and so it’s apparently okay.

Raven had let them sleep, because they’d needed it, but Raven had woken up early out of habit, and here she is. She’s possibly still a little drunk, and possibly hungover.

“You look—“ she hears, and she looks up slightly to see Wells sitting down across from her.

“Yup,” she says, because there’s no way he can finish that sentence that’ll end well. “I know.”

Wells smiles sympathetically. “Was it worth it?”

“Absolutely,” Raven says, stabbing a potato and lifting it into the air.

“Good,” Wells says, and he lets it be.

“You’re really sweet,” Raven says, and yup, she’s definitely still a little drunk.

“Um, thank you?” he replies, and Raven snorts.

“I’m not a very good person,” Raven whispers softly.

“You seem to be pretty great to me,” Wells says, and Raven looks back up at him sharply.

“I’m not,” she assures him. “Do you want to—“ she almost impulsively asks him to—actually, what? What could she possibly ask?

People don’t date on the ground. There’s not even a place they can go to play old and worn board games.

“What?” Wells asks.

Raven shakes her head. “Never mind.”

“Oh,” Wells says, and he almost sounds disappointed.

Raven looks at him carefully, still squinting a bit. “Yeah,” she says, because she doesn’t know what else to say. She takes a bite of her potato, and lets him fill the silence with meaningless chatter.

~~

She doesn’t quite have feelings for Wells—or at least, not anything beyond friendly, that is—but maybe she could.

Not all soulmates are romantic, of course, or anything in particular, but Raven almost hopes that theirs is.

She starts to seek him out more, mostly out of curiosity.

She tries to bond with him, and he’s a surprisingly easy person to get to know.

She feels—well, she feels calm when she’s with him, like everything’s easy.

This isn’t what she’d wanted out of love, but it’s also not quite like what she’d had with Finn either.

Finn had been so familiar, so—so much like a brother, she realizes now, which only makes her feel the loss more deeply.

Wells is simple, straight-forward.

He’s logical, and smart, and sweet, and loyal.

She doesn’t love him—she barely knows him, but maybe she could.

It occurs to her one day to wonder if he could be attracted to her, if he could love her.

At least, if he could do it without knowing that they’ve got some silly soulmate marks on their chests.

She wonders if she’d want him if she didn’t know, and in all honesty, she’s not sure.

She’s not even sure if she does anyway, so it’s a moot point.

~~

She keeps seeking him out, because she’s a glutton for punishment, and she feels drawn to him now, and she’s not sure why, or what it means, but she’s curious.

She figures that if she can just work through it, she can determine whether it’s real or not.

It feels nice to be around him, but there’s nothing abnormal about nice—it’s nice to be around Clarke, and Octavia, Bellamy, and some of the others too. It’s nice to be around friends, which she thinks they might all finally be.

Raven doesn’t like to hesitate, she doesn’t like to pull back when there’s something to be done, and it’s bothering her that she can’t just blast her way through all of this indecision and insecurity.

She tries to remain patient though, because she’s waiting for something.

She’s not quite sure what—some kind of moment, or maybe a feeling.

“Hey,” she comes up alongside Wells. “I heard you needed someone to go with you on your little outside adventure for medicines.” It’s supposed to be a short walk, and that’s not bad at all.

“Who told you?” Wells asks, then realizes it can only be one person. “Ah, Clarke.”

“She said she was supposed to go with you to keep you company, but then something came up.” Clarke’s loss is Raven’s gain.

“I’ll be fine,” Wells assures her.

Raven scrunches her nose. That won’t do at all. “You shouldn’t go by yourself,” she points out. “And it’s better not to have to. I’ll go with you.”

Wells looks at her for a moment, then nods.

It can be really hard to read him sometimes, Raven thinks.

She’s not entirely sure he’s happy about the company, but he’s Wells, and she’s pretty sure he wouldn’t tell her even if he were.

~~

“Do you ever just stop and realize how incredible the earth is?” Wells asks as they amble along.

“Don’t have a lot of time for that,” Raven says, “But yeah, I do. We’re all so used to be in a metal box in the sky, it’s—it’s freeing. And being here isn’t so bad, minus all the people who have tried to kill us, of course, and the two-headed deer.” There are a lot of those around, and they're pretty freaky.

Not to mention the bunny with six legs, which had actually been way creepier.

“I feel like I can finally breathe,” Wells admits.

“Yeah,” Raven says. “I know what you mean.” Raven frowns. “What are we looking for, exactly?”

Wells holds up a piece of paper with a drawing of a flower. “I don’t actually know where it is,” he admits. “I just wanted to look for it.”

“What does it do?” Raven asks, because it doesn’t seem familiar to her.

“Apparently it can be made into a calming tea,” he says.

“I’m sure a lot of people could use that,” Raven says. “It has to be better for the body than Monty’s moonshine.”

“Or Amalya’s,” Wells comments, and Raven winces.

“It’s nice that Monty has some competition,” Raven says. “He seems to be stepping up his game, but the process of doing so involves a few too many vomiting fools for my tastes.”

Wells smiles, and Raven feels something in her chest go warm and bright and fuzzy.

“I’m sure it’ll be worth it in the end,” Wells says, and Raven nods her agreement.

“What do you do to relax?” Raven asks.

“I read,” Wells says, “Or, well, I used to. Now I—“ he hesitates. He turns to her slightly. “Can I trust you?” he asks, and he seems partway serious, but he’s also smiling, so maybe he thinks he can.

“Absolutely,” Raven replies, and he takes her hand, which sends goosebumps along her arm and makes her breath catch in her throat.

“I’m going to show you,” Wells tells her, and minutes later, there it is.

They’re back in the area where their people are trying to put together a garden, and there’s one specific patch that looks incredibly well-taken care of.

“Wow,” Raven says. “Impressive.”

“It’s an entirely different kind of gardening from the kind on the Ark,” Wells tells her, and his excitement is infectious. His eyes seem brighter, and he sounds so incredibly happy.

“I’ve never been a plant person,” Raven admits. “I like machines, and figuring out how to fix them, how to make them work.”

She looks down at the plants, and it seems . . . magnificent. “But I see the appeal,” she says softly.

Her hand is still in Wells’s, and she should take it back, but she doesn't. It feels nice.

He squeezes her hand gently, and she looks sideways at him. He meets her eyes, smiling slightly.

Her heart pumps furiously in her chest, and this is the kind of moment she’d been waiting for, she thinks.

~~

He’s not a mechanical genius, that much is clear, but she shows him what she loves, because he says he’s curious.

He doesn’t seem to understand it, exactly, but he looks at her across the work bench and says, “I understand why you love it. It’s like a puzzle,” and her insides do that gooey, warm thing again.

She’s not sure what to do with it, or how she feels about it, but it feels nice, so she just  . . . lets it be.

“Do you want to go eat together?” Wells asks a little later, standing up. Raven nods, getting up a little too quickly and almost toppling over to the floor.

Wells quickly closes the distance between them, barely managing to stop her from hitting the ground.

Raven grunts in pain from the pressure being put on her back, and Wells helps her straighten up.

“Thank you,” she says, and she goes to push him away, but then she looks up at him, and freezes.

Wells doesn’t seem like the impulsive sort, but she is, and so she gently launches herself at him, kissing him quickly and then pulling away.

They’re both silent for a moment, and then, “I’m sorry,” Raven apologizes. “I saw the moment, and I took it.”

Wells keeps looking at her, like he’s not sure quite what to do, and then he kisses her, and this time it’s like being hit over the head with a large rock, except not painful at all.

It’s—it’s light, and airy, and—completely different than kissing Finn or Bellamy, the only two people available for comparison.

Bellamy had technique and passion, and that was great, and kissing Finn was a lot about knowing. She knew every curve of his lips, every move his tongue would make, and she knew exactly how his hands felt on her body.

This is different—it’s like some sort of adventure. His hands have moved to hold her even closer to him, and she can feel his heartbeat racing against her own, and it's like a rush of pure joy.

She pulls away, and looks deeply into his eyes.

It’s like she’s never seen him before. He looks completely different now, his breath uneven, his eyes dark with emotion she knows is reflected in her own, and—this is not just Wells, a nice friend and possible soulmate.

This is Wells, a guy whose lips should already be pressed against hers again, who is kind and compassionate, and who talks to her and listens to her, and who shares that same mark(scarred as it is) right next to his heart.

She breathes a little shakily. “Wow.”

“Yeah,” he says.

“I should go,” she says, and the words pass her lips even though she wills them back in. She can't, so instead she forges forward, untangling herself from Wells and running off without an explanation.

~~

As is often the case in such situations, Raven focuses her energy in on a goal, and once that goal is completed, she seeks another, and another.

It’s not really making her feel better.

She tosses aside something broken beyond repair, which only serves to irritate her more. Then Wick walks in, and she glares at him without a word until he backs away slowly.

About twenty minutes later, Bellamy shows up, which could be a coincidence or a conspiracy, but either way Raven doesn’t much care.

“What’s going on?” Bellamy asks, wandering over to where she’s sitting, and planting himself across from her.

“Nothing,” Raven lies, and she winces, because even she can tell that that sounded far too angry. Even for her.

“You know,” Bellamy says. “I am, on occasion, not a terrible listener.”

Raven scrunches up her nose in irritation, then rubs at it. “I don’t like that there’s a next,” she tells him, and she knows it doesn’t make sense, but how can she explain?

“A next?” Bellamy repeats, clearly hoping for a little more detail.

Raven rubs her fingers against the wood grain of the table. “I thought it would never stop hurting,” she explains, and Bellamy nods.

“Finn,” he says, and she nods. “Loss lasts forever, but grief—“ Bellamy sighs, and Raven’s reminded he knows what it’s like to lose family.

When Raven’s mother died, she barely felt anything other than a pang, because that woman didn’t much raise her, or love her, or treat her as her daughter.

“It comes back, sometimes,” Bellamy says. “Like a boomerang. Every time you throw it, you get a little stronger, and then it comes back and hits you in the face. Then you find the strength in yourself to throw it again, and it takes a little more time to come back and bite you in the ass.”

Raven frowns. “But I—“ she stops, because she’s not sure what she was going to say.

“But sometimes,” Bellamy says softly, reaching out and patting one of her hands awkwardly, “We start to feel guilty about how long it takes between throws—and then life just keeps going, and we’re juggling things, and we’re—“

“Please stop with the vague metaphors,” Raven teases slightly. “I think they might be doing more harm than good.”

“It’s okay to move on,” Bellamy says. “But we don’t for

get, ever.”

“I’m not ready,” Raven says, and she feels small, tiny, like a particle of dust floating along in the air. She's not ready for what comes next, for what comes with moving on. It used to be easy, but now? Now she's afraid.

“I know,” Bellamy says, and Raven gives him a careful look.

“What do you want?” Raven asks suddenly. “What do you think your life is going to be like in six months, a year, two?”

Bellamy looks down at the table. “Maybe I’ll be alive,” Bellamy says lightly. “Hopefully, anyway.”

Raven narrows her eyes, because he has to want more than that.

They all do.

There has to be something more than survival.

They need hope, and love, and friendship, and so much more.

They need to dream.

She knows these things, but it's harder to believe them.

~~

Raven plops down at a table with Wells, Monty, and Miller. “So, children,” she says cheerily. “What are your hopes and dreams?”

They stare at her, because that’s kind of a strange question to ask, especially in that way.

“Raven, are you okay?” Monty asks. “Did you get into the stash of special nuts?”

Raven makes a face. “Of course not,” she shakes her head. “I just think it’s time to start wanting things again. Time to start living instead of just surviving.”

Raven’s pretty sure that Monty and Miller were playing footsie under the table when she came over, so maybe they’re already pretty happy with their lives, who knows.

“I want to hybridize plants,” Monty says suddenly, and . . . okay, whatever makes him happy.

“I want to protect people,” Miller says. “Maybe be a guard, like my dad.”

Raven turns to Wells. “What dream is sneaking around in that head of yours?” she asks casually, pretending that she hasn’t been ignoring him since their kiss.

“I’m already doing most of the things I want to do,” Wells says. “I have my work, my friends, my father. My dreams are all coming true.”

“Well, good for you,” Raven says, turning back to Monty, who is staring across the table at Miller and making goo goo eyes.

She fights the urge to roll her eyes, possibly because it’s almost cute.

“What about you?” Wells asks her, and Raven bites her lip, and wonders how to possibly express her dreams.

“I just want a home,” Raven says. “Friends, you know. Happiness. The simple, but ever so complicated things in life.”

“You have a home,” Monty tells her.

Raven smiles slightly. “A home’s more than just a place where you live.”

“It’s where you love,” Wells says, and she doesn’t look at him now, because he’s right.

“Well, we love you,” Monty says now, nudging Miller. “Don’t we?”

“Of course,” Miller agrees, though it's clear he'd say anything if Monty asked him to, but Raven feels her heart warm anyway.

“They’re right,” Wells says quietly. “Your friends are your family. We’re all your family, Raven.”

“Thanks, you guys,” Raven says, and she makes herself look each of them in the eyes in turn.

It’s nice, she thinks, to not feel alone.

And maybe they’re right—maybe they’re her family now, and dreams she’s kept deep in her heart since she was a child might actually come true. Maybe she can hope again.

Who knows, she thinks.

Stranger things have happened.

~~

Raven sucks it up, because that’s what she does.

Suck it up, move on, get through it. It’d make a great t-shirt, Raven thinks, if they were still capable of mass-producing clothing, but those days ended a long time ago, and she’s stuck here in the same goddamn clothing every day.

Okay, so, apparently there are some people trying to find some good material to make new clothing, and the grounders have been mildly helpful, but Raven’s not going to get her hopes up for that shirt.

The point is, this is who Raven is.

This is who she has always been.

“Hey,” Raven says, popping around to visit Wells at his little space at the community garden they have going. “How’s it going?”

“Pretty well,” Wells tells her. “There’s something really satisfying about getting your hands dirty--“ and those are words that have a surprising effect on her, and she feels herself flushing slightly.

“Huh,” Raven says. “Doesn’t really seem like the right time of year for this kind of thing.”

“Not really,” Wells says, “But some of these little plants are very resourceful. They always find a way to survive.”

“Nice,” Raven says with a smile, leaning slightly to one side to avoid putting too much pressure on her leg. “So anyway, I wanted to apologize for kissing you.”

“Okay,” Wells says, and Raven doesn’t quite know what to do with that.

“Okay?” she repeats, framing it as a question. “Um, really? I kind of mauled you with my mouth,” which is not an entirely accurate representation of what happened, but she wants a little more than okay from him.

“We’re fine,” Wells says. “You had a lapse in judgment, then changed your mind. I get it. You’re free to do whatever you want.”

He doesn’t sound angry, or even really disgruntled. Just . . . very sure that that’s how she feels.

Because she’s ridiculous, and stubborn, she immediately flies over to another approach. “Fine, I take it back.”

“You take what back?” Wells murmurs, clearly not paying much attention.

“I take back my apology,” Raven declares, then shrugs as if she doesn’t much care. Wells turns back to her and then stands up, pulling off his gloves, which were definitely not meant for gardening, she imagines.

“You can’t take back your apology,” Wells says.

“Sure I can. Just did,” Raven dares him to challenge her.

“I already accepted it,” Wells points out. “We’re past the point of no return.”

Raven shrugs. “I don’t remember you accepting it. I remember you saying ‘okay’ like it was the most irrelevant thing going on in your life right now.”

Wells opens his mouth to speak, but then no words come out. He closes it, then smiles slightly—almost knowingly, or even teasingly, and that gives her a bit of a thrill. “Are you upset that I wasn’t more upset?”

“Of course not,” Raven says, immediately taking defensive measures. “I was simply—“ and she means to say more, she does, but she’s completely forgotten her point. Wells doesn’t close the distance between them, but Raven sort of leans a bit closer despite herself.  “I was apologizing, because friends don’t just kiss friends and then walk away and ignore them for like two days. That wasn’t very nice of me.”

“Thank you,” Wells says. “But I get it.”

He’s leaning a little closer to her now, and with a few more feet worth of tilting, she could probably kiss him again.

Under the guise of redistributing her weight, she gets closer, and just keeps looking at him like—like, she thinks, she wants to kiss him again.

“Are you sorry that I kissed you?” Raven asks.

She’s pleased by a simple, quick, “No,” and a nervous, sweet smile.

He kisses her now—or maybe she kisses him, who knows?—and somewhere between wrapping her arms around his neck and him cupping the sides of her face like she’s precious and important, Raven wonders if maybe, just maybe, this good feeling might last.

~~

The good feeling persists.

She can’t stop smiling, and she’s not the only one, and people like to comment on it(no one seems to have figured it out, though Raven has a sneaking suspicion that Clarke knows).

They comment, at least, until she glares at them and then they shut up really quickly.

It’s fun to be a badass, Raven thinks. Makes things easier sometimes, and it gives you a little leeway in situations like this.

She’s intense, she’s scary, she’s focused.

That’s how she likes it.

This, however, is happy.

She’s floating by, barely feeling the ground beneath her much at all.

Wells plants flowers, and tells her they’re for her, and Raven kisses him so hard her lips feel bruised from the power of it.

She tries not to think too much about everything else. She’s tired, and she needs this.

She’s not saying it’s love, or even puppy love, but it’s sweet, and nice, and fun.

She’s going along pretty well until they’re progressing a little further, and clothing starts coming off.

Raven freezes, and Wells delivers some spiel about waiting, about making sure she’s comfortable, and that’s not it at all.

She likes sex, and there’s something burning intensely inside of her, and she just wants to throw him down on a bed, crawl on top of him and mount him.

That, however, is a pretty bad idea, because she hasn’t told him about her soulmate mark, and if she tells him now, she’s not entirely sure how he’s going to react.

He knows that she’s seen his, pain medicine or not, and he’ll put two and two together if he sees hers, and he’ll realize that she lied.

Or, well, omitted the truth, but she tends to think she’s not going to get off on a technicality.

It’s foolish, anyway.

They can’t keep going on like this forever, of course, and she can’t seem to make herself stop wanting him, and so she accepts the truth, which is that she needs to tell him.

A part of her is afraid.

Maybe it’s just fear that he’ll be angry, or hurt, or that he won’t understand why she didn’t tell him.

It’s a lot more than that though.

What if it changes things?

Well, she thinks, she needs to tell him before things go too far.

Raven has a sinking suspicion that it won’t end well.

(She should have listened to it, because she’s right.)

~~

He kisses her hello, and she almost loses her nerve.

But she’s Raven Reyes, and she does things even when she knows she doesn’t want to.

“I—“ Raven pulls away, holding up her hands to stop things. “I have something to tell you.”

Wells looks curious, which only makes Raven feel worse.

It’s not a big deal, she tells herself, it’s just a mark that doesn’t even mean anything.

(It made her curious, yeah, but this fire in her belly, and warmth in her heart have nothing to do with it, of that much she wants to be sure.)

“What?” Wells asks, and now he looks a little worried, which only makes this harder.

Raven opens her mouth, and tries to force the words out, but she comes up empty, so instead she shrugs off her jacket, and pulls up her shirt, pulling her bra out of the way a little so that he can see the birds making their way across her left breast.

“Wow,” Wells says, stepping back, and Raven feels her heart clench painfully in her chest.

It’s as good as a rejection.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Wells asks, and his voice is very carefully controlled.

He doesn’t look angry, exactly, but hurt is coming off of him in waves.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Raven tells him. “It’s just a stupid mark. When Clarke first told me, I didn’t even know you, and I thought you were dead, so—“

Wells shakes his head. “Clarke knows?” he asks, and Raven nods.

“I wasn’t entirely sure how to tell you,” Raven explains. “I mean, at first, I had no intention of feeling much of anything about you, and then I was curious, and I—I do care about you. That’s why I had to tell you before things went any further.” She reaches out for him, and he steps back again, shaking her off gently.

“I don’t—“ Wells seems stunned, like she’s nudged him off a cliff or something.

And the farther he backs away from her, the more she feels like she’s taken a dagger and twisted it into her own heart.

“Wells—“ Raven hesitates. “It’s not really a big deal,” she says. “I mean, you like me, I like you, and that’s what matters.”

Wells closes his eyes and breathes in deeply. “I understand why you didn’t tell me,” he says softly. “And I don’t blame you, though I wish you’d told me earlier.” Raven’s pretty sure she’s gotten Clarke in a bit of trouble too, but she’ll fix that later, she promises herself.

She feels hope again, like she can breathe. See, he’s not taking this too badly. It could be better, but can’t it always?

“Was this real?” Wells asks, not unkindly.

“Was what real?” Raven asks. Something about his question doesn't sit right with her.

“Us,” Wells asks. “Or is it just some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy?” The worst part is that he doesn’t sound angry, just . . . defeated.

“I thought it was real,” Raven says. “I thought—“

The knife is back, twisting again, and she doesn’t know what to say to that.

“I know I care about you,” Wells says. “But can we trust this?”

“Does it matter?” Raven asks, and she’s surprised at herself. Before, she’d thought it had, had thought you needed to choose your own destiny, make sure that those choices were all your own.

But maybe it’s okay to not be so sure. A part of her hopes so.

“I don’t know,” Wells answers, and Raven nods her head, disappointed.

“So you don’t trust my feelings for you,” she says. “Great.”

“That's not what I meant,” Wells says, and Raven’s not in the mood for this anymore.

“I guess that answers my question,” she mutters. Apparently they can’t get through this.

She walks away, and doesn’t look back.

~~

She runs into him constantly, but they don’t talk.

He tries a few times, but she can’t seem to even hear him over the buzzing in her ears whenever she’s near him.

All she can think about is his doubt, and how sharply that had skewered into her.

There’s an ache in her heart, too, where the beginnings of something had started to grow.

And now, there’s nothing but pain.

~~

She’s hacking at firewood, even though it’s not exactly her job to do so.

She’d scared away one of the guys doing it with a glare, and had grabbed the ax right out of his hands.

There’s something comforting about it.

“If I’d known you were going to mess things up, I would have told him myself,” Clarke says, and Raven turns to see her.

“You’re quiet. I didn't even hear you,” Raven says. “Grounder lessons?”

“Just self-preservation,” Clarke smiles slightly. The smile fades quickly, and she clears her throat loudly. “So, you and Wells.”

“There isn’t a me and Wells,” Raven says, and that much is true. They’d barely gotten started, barely had the chance to even try to be much of anything.

“I see,” Clarke says. “He’s scared.”

Raven whacks another piece of wood with such force it nearly knocks her on her ass. She regains her balance and gently sits down on a makeshift seat. “He was right,” Raven says. “He wondered if I’d feel what I feel if it weren’t for the marks, but the truth is—“ Raven hesitates. “The truth is that I don’t know.”

It had taken her a little while to come around to that very simple truth, but there it is.

And that’s why she can’t talk to him, and can’t bear to see him. She’s reminded of that doubt that’s in her own heart, and his, and she needs time to erase it, or to at least ignore it or pick at it until it scabs over, and she moves on.

That’s what she does, especially now. She moves on, and tries not to worry about it.

“Why don’t you just tell him that,” Clarke suggests gently. “Maybe you guys could—“

“It’s not a big deal, Clarke,” Raven says. “It was a slight friendship and a few kisses. That’s easy to move on from.”

Clarke stiffens, and Raven tilts her head to the side, studying her carefully.

“If you care about someone,” Clarke says, “Then it’s never easy. Sometimes it’s necessary though, and this isn’t one of those times.”

“What do you know?” Raven asks. “You’re not exactly a shining example for healthy relationships right now.”

Clarke nods her head slightly, acknowledging that there’s truth in that. “We should be brave,” she says. “Both of us. We should—we should talk about how we feel, and work through the stuff that’s hard. We have to at least try.”

“What do you have to work out?” Raven asks.

Clarke shakes her head. “Doesn’t matter. The point is, Raven, be brave.”

“I don’t see how a few measly words are supposed to make a difference.”

Clarke sighs. “At least they’d be better than just never talking to him again,” and okay, Raven sees her point.

“Fine,” Raven says. “But you have to promise that your thing is comparable, and when it’s all over, you have to tell me how it went.”

Clarke hesitates, but Raven glares, and the blonde acquiesces.

And thus, it’s time to actually act like a mature adult.

~~

“Hey,” Raven says, wandering up to Wells while he sits at a table, staring down at a map.

“Hello, Raven,” Wells says, looking up at her, making eye contact, and immediately looking back down.

“So,” Raven says. “I’m sorry for being a little weird lately, I’ve just been going through a lot.”

“A little weird?” Wells repeats, and it sounds like he’s warring between upset and tired, and in the end the latter wins out, and he just sighs, looking back up at her now. “You ignored me for a week.”

“That’s true,” Raven acknowledges. “I needed the time.”

Wells considers her words, and for a moment Raven worries, but she should know better, because this is Wells. “I understand that,” he says. “I just wish you’d said that.”

“I thought the ignoring you thing kind of explained that,” Raven points out.

Wells smiles slightly, and there they go, that’s proof, right there, that he doesn’t completely hate her.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Wells says. “I just—I was upset, and I needed to know.”

Raven nods. “Do you still need to know?” Because the truth is, she doesn’t know.

“I only need to know if you want to keep being friends,” Wells says.

“Can we be friends who still make out?” Raven teases, and Wells laughs, and the tension is gone.

“Sure,” Wells says, “And maybe more later,” and she feels surge of excitement.

But first—“The answer, by the way, is that I don’t know,” Raven says honestly. “I was curious about you initially, but I think I would have been anyway. I’m not entirely sure what I feel, or what I’m capable of feeling for you, but—“ this isn’t supposed to be so hard, is it?

She hopes it isn’t always this way.

“That’s enough,” Wells says. “It’s enough that you can tell me that. If we can start fresh, maybe that’ll make things easier.”

“Okay,” Raven agrees. “Start fresh.”

She propels herself toward him, taking his hands gently, and leaning over to kiss him softly, just the barest of lips against lips.

She slides against him like she belongs, and she’s suddenly away of how much she’d missed this.

~~

They’re very tentative.

Raven has the feeling Wells is often tentative in situations like these, so she tries not to read too much into it.

They kiss here and there, and they try to talk and strengthen their friendship too.

It’s nice, she thinks.

There’s something comforting about the way that he smiles at her, and the sensation of his skin against her own.

Raven is a physical person; it’s at the very core of her nature.

She’s used to simplicity with touches—with knowing what they mean, and how they’ll be perceived. She’s not used to not knowing.

She can be careless, or casual, and there are times when she feels like she can’t quite get enough of touching him.

As they meander down their little quasi-relationship path, Raven takes off his shirt, and caresses his scars, feeling her way around his body carefully, through the nature and nurture of his skin.

He presses his lips gently between her breasts, kissing each of her birds in turn, and she feels something growing in her chest, intensifying with every day, every moment.

~~

They’re all growing used to the ground. Not just its ways, or its people, but simply being.

It’s nice to be able to breathe for once, to just keep living. They're establishing a home here, and there's something incredibly comforting about that.

They’ve heard of other groups on the ground who will feel even less friendly towards them than the people of the woods, so in the meantime they can only try to stay aware and be ready for anything that might happen.

Now that there’s time, people are finding ways to make Camp Jaha seem like a home, instead of just their camp.

They’re working on building permanent homes in an area they’ve negotiated for with the grounders.

They’re making homes, and creating gardens and clothing, and—well, it’s not perfect, by any means, but it’s more than they’ve had.

Clarke, who seems to have gotten through her own little emotional turmoil just fine, even seems genuinely happy, though Raven has a private theory for why that might be, and Clarke won't admit to it. At least not yet, but Raven's patient.

In the meantime, however, this is good.

~~

The rains come, and they’re pretty nasty, but it leads to a very chilly and cold Wells in her bed, so Raven thinks it’s a bit of a mixed bag.

She promises to warm him up with a smile, and then kisses him, rubs him, curls herself around him.

He’s warming up, and she’s a little cold, but she can barely feel it through the heat of her core.

When she looks at him now, she burns.

She can’t quite explain that to him, or try to move things along more quickly, even as he slows her down, and begs her to be more patient.

They lie together, and he presses his forehead against hers gently, and she feels her heart aching in her chest, even though she’s happy.

She loves him, she thinks.

She’s brash and stubborn, and shameless, and he’s kind, and loyal, and level-headed, and maybe that makes sense for them, make it’s good that they’re so different.

She pulls him along, pushing him, making him keep up with her, and he slows her down when she’s going too fast, and shows compassion when she has tunnel vision.

She kisses him now, her heart in her lips, waiting to spill into words, but she holds back.

Wells’s hands hold her firmly against him, keeping the heat between them molten and slow and heavy.

Sometimes she just wants to burn, to ramp the heat up between them until it’s explosive, but he pulls back, and keeps it slow and lazy.

She appreciates that, she does, but something inside of her fears it.

She feels vulnerable when he takes the time to look at her, when she’s so aware of every little nervous fiber of her being pulsating with want and sometimes fear.

She likes her sex hard and fast, and this is the opposite of that.

With Finn, it had often been frantic and familiar, and this is the opposite of that.

This, she thinks, isn’t even sex at all, which is the real problem.

She wants him, and she worries, sometimes, that he doesn’t want her in that same way.

And so she pushes, and he pulls back, until she says something about it.

“Do you not want to have sex with me?” Raven asks, pulling away from a kiss that didn’t seem to be going anywhere.

“Raven—“ Wells hesitates, and Raven can’t help but read into the look on his face.

“You don’t,” Raven realizes. “You don’t want to have sex with me.”

She’s trying to climb over him now, and get off this damn bed and out of here as fast as possible.

“Raven,” Wells says gently, and Raven freezes, because there’s kindness in the way he says it, and she suddenly has the urge to cry, but she won’t, you know.

She won’t shed tears over this.

“What?” Raven demands.

“I don’t want to have sex with anyone,” Wells says. He's quiet then, and she thinks he might be nervous about what she's going to say.

“Oh,” Raven says, and her anger and hurt leave her. She moves back into her comfy space, and props her head up on her hand. “You could have said that.” She’s so used to the Ark, and the way there hadn’t been very many choices, but now they’re on the ground, and they can be who they’ve always been struggling to be underneath of all of the restrictions.

“It’s not that I don’t care about you,” Wells says, and Raven nods slightly.

“I get it,” Raven says, and she tries not to think about the burning between her legs or how much she wants him. Now that she knows, she can satisfy that need for herself. People want different things, and in order to be compatible, you just have to figure out if your wants and desires can line up.

This isn’t a problem, she thinks.

After all, she loves him, even if she hasn't said it yet.

“We don’t have to have sex,” Raven says with a bit of a shrug. “Can we still make out?”

“Of course,” Wells says, frowning slightly, like she’s taking this too well.

There’s a closeness between them, an intimacy that she’s enjoying, that she loves.

Raven kisses him now, smiling against his lips.

~~

“I’m in love with you,” Wells says against her neck, and Raven feels blissful.

“You’re just distracted by my brilliance, and how pretty I am,” Raven teases.

“Probably,” Wells says. “But since it doesn’t seem like either of those things will fade anytime soon, I think we’re okay.”

“Wow, Wells, I’m impressed,” Raven laughs. “Was that a backwards attempt at flirting?”

Wells laughs and kisses her cheek, then rolls onto his back.

“Hey,” Raven calls to him, and he tilts his head slightly to meet her eyes.

“I love you too,” she says.

His smile is a reflection of the joy in her own heart.

~~

“I can’t believe you two are getting married,” Raven says, watching as Clarke does Octavia’s hair.

It’s a grounder hand-fasting ceremony, because Octavia is a woman of the ground more than a child of the Ark these days, even though Lincoln has received little forgiveness from his people.

Octavia looks radiant—she looks beautiful, and happy, and confident, like she’s completely and utterly sure about committing herself to Lincoln for the rest of her life.

It’s sweet, actually.

Octavia rubs at the dragon on her face gently, and Clarke starts to look a bit misty-eyed.

“I’m ready,” Octavia says. “I’ve found a home, and I’ve found my love,” Octavia says. “I couldn’t ask for anything else.

Raven thinks about that for the next few hours while they prepare for the ceremony.

She wonders if she has everything she wants, if she’s living the dream, if she’s content with life carrying on much the same as it is.

She heads over to stand next to Wells, sliding her hand into his, and he smiles sideways at her, and she has her answer. She looks at Lincoln and Octavia, who are looking deeply into each other's eyes, and Bellamy and Clarke who are standing so close together they might as well be one person, and Monty and Nathan, and Jasper and Maya, and the individual but very happy people all around her.

This, she thinks, is a home. This is a family.

She’s made her choices, and she’s pretty happy with how things are turning out.