Chapter Text
This is the closest Clarke has been, the signs on the highway reading 150 miles to her alma mater. Well, not exactly, as she left after freshman year. But she hasn’t been back in - well, just over a year and a half.
And she feels a sudden urge to go back, to see everyone again - to see them again.
But she can’t - she left for a reason. And she can’t just throw away everything she’s worked for, everything she’s done. To have it all be for nothing.
She left in the middle of the night, packing up only the essentials and taking off in her dad’s tiny hybrid. She might have made fun of him for buying it, but now she’s glad her dad stood by his environmental beliefs and bought the ridiculous car. It won’t use a lot of gasoline. Which is good considering her mom cuts Clarke off after only being on the road for a day.
She makes it all the way to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina before her gas tank is on empty. She manages to pull into a surf shop, its entrance in the shape of a shark’s head. She doesn’t know what to do, looking at the random merchandise haphazardly on display in the store. She is out of gas, and money, and ideas.
So Clarke stands in an aisle of cups, magnets, and teeshirts all plastered with palm trees and crescent moons. She racks her brain, trying to come up with something when a couple comes up to her and asks for some assistance. It shocks her that they think she actually works there, but she ends up helping them - so what she’s been in the store long enough to know the bathing suits are on the second floor.
Then she notices the store is actually quite busy, filled with families and couples on vacation. And thats when she gets the idea, marching up the manager and asking for a job. The man, his name tag says John Murphy, just gives her a once over before giving her an application. He calls her later that night, telling her to be back at the store the following morning.
Thats how she ends up in South Carolina, living out of her car for awhile until she finally breaks down and rents a room at a roach motel. Ok, it isn’t that bad. But it does have some questionable customers, and there are some strange stains that Clarke doesn’t even want to think about - instead she sleeps fully clothed and changes in the morning after showering.
She stays for a few months, till the end of the summer season. When all the tourists head home, Murphy finally lays her off, telling her to come back next summer if she’s in search of a job.
So she checks-out of the motel and moves on, thinking that maybe tourist attractions are her best bet for employment. Clarke makes it to Kissimmee, Florida before getting another room in a slightly better motel. After putting together a pathetic resume, she heads to Downtown Disney looking for a job. She applies to every store and restaurant, even the stand that sells ice cream sandwiches in the shape of Mickey Mouse heads.
Thankfully she doesn’t have to work at such a stand. However, she does have to suffer through the interior of Rainforest Cafe, and the music, and the hyper kids, and the grumpy parents. The fact that it’s across the street from an ice cream stand makes it that much worse, as she starts getting a Mickey shaped treat everyday.
But it pays well, and she manages to get pretty good tips. For the first few months, she is clueless as to why - even after utterly messing up an order, she still gets twenty five dollars.
Then one of her coworkers, a guy named Miles who Clarke is fairly sure has a crush on her, lets her in on a secret.
“You look like a princess!”
“W-What?” She stutters, her throat feeling tight as she remembers him - the only person who has ever called her Princess.
“You do! Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel... You know, you should really audition.”
“Audition? For what?”
“To be a princess. You know, some times I play Peter Pan. Maybe you could be my Tinker Bell.”
Clarke just laughs him off, not interested in anything close to an actual job, or any kind of commitment.
She left home for a reason, wanting to escape her past. And getting a full time position at Disney World would be the opposite of that - or thats what she tells herself. That she is finding herself, and not just continuously running away.
She keeps the job though, earning herself enough money to fill the jewelry box her dad gave her, stashing it in the trunk of the car.But Miles keeps pressuring her, until one day he brings her an application to audition for the part of Alice in Wonderland.
“They have an opening! All you have to do is fill it out!”
“Miles...”
“Come on Clarke, for me.”
She takes the application, gives him a smile, and quits at the end of the day.
She’s on the road again, heading back north in search of a big city this time. She stops when she gets to Atlanta, taking a break for the night. And by some miracle, the guy at the bar next to her sees the doodle on her napkin - it seems he likes her work. Next thing she knows, she’s got a job at the front desk of a tattoo parlor that Finn and Raven own.
She mostly answers calls and manages the register. But sometimes, Finn asks her to draw up a design for a tattoo.
And Clarke loves it.
She tries not too, she really does. But Clarke gets to be creative, and Raven is awesome. Plus Finn has a positivity that almost makes Clarke sick; but thankfully, Raven’s cynicism levels everything out.
Clarke hardly even stays in the disgusting motel she’s paying for, as Raven and Finn let her stay at the parol when she works late, which is most night.
It isn’t long before Clarke gets a tattoo of her own. A tree that starts at her hip and spreads across her back with the branches reaches cross her shoulders. It’s in memory of her dad, the environmental engineer who wanted nothing more than to eliminate air pollution and ironically died from lung cancer.
Or thats the explanation she gives when Finn asks if there is a meaning behind her tattoo, while she tries desperately to ignore the pain of the needle and the feeling of Finn’s hands on her back.
Not that she’s attracted to him. Sure, he is good looking. But he has a girlfriend - Raven, who is badass to say the least. And he’s her boss. And for the first time since she’s left, she has found somewhere that might be worth while - a place she can be herself without being that “poor Griffin girl”.
And like she said, she isn’t attracted to him.
She’s just starved for human contact.
So when Finn finishes the tattoo, Clarke makes her way to the local bar to find someone she can go home with for the night. She successes rather quickly, getting the attention of slim man with light colored hair. She lets him buy her more than a few drinks, feeling slightly woozy when she climbs off her barstool.
They only make it to street leading to the parking garage when the man - Clarke thinks his name is Dax - pushes her to the wall. His hands wander while his lips fervently press against hers.
Clarke leans into it, her body flush against the man. But when she closes her eyes and lets her hands rake through his hair, she doesn’t see Dax.
Instead she imagines her fingers getting tangled in curly dark locks, while perfectly tanned skin presses into her. She can feel the large, warm, and calloused hands gripping her hips. The same hands that held onto her at her father’s funeral. He hadn’t offered her words of comfort, knowing that there were none to give. Instead he stands behind her like a statue, acting as her own personal guard. So he just held onto her, pressing her back to his chest and gripping her shoulders tightly.
And it is then that Clarke’s eyes snap open, forcing herself to acknowledge that the man before her is not him - is not Bellamy.
She pushes the man away, hiding in her car for the rest of the night.
She only says in Atlanta for another two weeks. Because despite Finn and Raven’s demands for her to stay, she suddenly feels suffocated by the city. And the ghosts that are following her every move.
So she tries to out run them, this time ending up in Charleston.
She works in a bookstore during the day, while manning a laundromat at night. She doesn’t interact with anyone, doesn’t seek any connection. She doesn’t bother getting a motel room, instead she lives out of her car and uses the laundromat bathroom as her own. But despite this, she still manages to cling onto someone - a small girl named Charlotte who comes to the laundromat with her mom every Friday night
Charlotte asks Clarke for help with her homework. Which turns into Clarke being a participant in Charlotte’s science fair experiment - the young girl proudly winning a 1st place ribbon. Soon Clarke is playing boardgames with the girl while her mom folds clothes.
And Clarke wants to push Charlotte away, but she can’t. Instead she keeps an eye on the girl, noticing how thin both Charlotte and her mother are. So Clarke starts buying them dinner, the three of them eating takeout food while watching Jeopardy.
But then Christmas comes around. And Clarke is seized with the desire to buy the girl a present. One for Charlotte’s mother too.
And thats when Clarke knows she is in to deep - that she has to get out now, while she still can.
So she has dinner with them one last time before leaving, yet again heading out on the road.
And now she’s the closest she can be to her past. The closest she can get without driving to the edge of the east coast. Without going back to her family home, which is the last place she wants to be.
But despite her desire to run, to remain unattached and independent; she is desperate to see them - see him. To know that they are ok, that they have gone on perfectly fine without her.
Not that she wants them too. But if they have, maybe then she can finally let them go.
Whatever the reason, she has to see them again.
So Clarke picks up her phone, knowing exactly who to call.