Archive of Our Own

Clarke knows her mother tricked her the moment Abby walks out the gates, and she hates herself for falling for it.

What’s she to do now? Sit here and wait? Wait for someone to need her?

Clarke doesn’t wait. Clarke does, Clarke takes action. She knows now that that’s most likely why her mother made her stay behind. No matter how much Clarke protests, Abby still tries to shelter her daughter. And on top of that, no one really doubts that Clarke wouldn’t do something stupid if she was out there, if she was able to help. Even Clarke knows it’s true. She’d step in front of a bullet for her friends when all she was meant to do was aid the wounded.

She hates that her mother was right.

There is nothing for her to now, locked inside the camp, just waiting for people to bring back the injured. She’s checked the storeroom about fifteen times, sterilized her few tools at least seven times, unwrapped and rewrapped bandages for hours... And no one’s come. That’s probably best, she knows. It means that no one was hurt badly enough that they had to be brought back to Camp Jaha.

Everyone else is out there, beyond the gates, fighting a war. It’s sad really, Clarke’s nearly forgotten what they’re even fighting for. A chance to live in peace? A chance to thrive? She doubts that’s even possible, but they still fight on.

She hears footsteps approaching and turns to see Raven walk into the med tent.

“Do you need something?” Clarke asks.

“Yeah, I need a reason to not kick the asses of everyone in this camp,” she says bitterly, jumping up onto one of the cots.

“I’m afraid that is something I cannot give you. I’m still looking for that myself...”

Raven scoffs, “It’s almost funny, really. After all the shit we did to make it possible for them to get here, and they won’t even let us fight for what we made.”

“They said they need us here... Bullshit...”

“You could be out there, patching people up so they don’t have to be brought back here. And I could be out there with a gun and my incredible wits,” Raven says and Clarke laughs. “We could win this war, Griffin. Just the two of us.”

“If only they’d let us out the gates,” Clarke sighs.

“If only they’d let us out the gates...”

---

Things start taking a turn for the worse when night falls.

Soldier after soldier is brought in and Clarke needs all the help she can get. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen this many arrows all in one place, let alone lodged in body cavities. There is a lot of blood. And it’s everywhere. It’s chaos, but it’s also where Clarke thrives. She was about to go out of her mind just sitting and waiting. Now she’s helping. She can’t save everyone, that she learned a very long time ago, but in the heat of the moment saving one person is worth the rest she can’t. She’ll deal with the guilt later, after they’ve won.

Things get even worse when the armies come back.

Kane and her mother are the first through the gates and of course they are both relatively unharmed, Abby wouldn’t have it any other way. But then more come pouring in and everyone talking about a cease fire. Clarke knows it won’t last, it never does.

She keeps an eye on Raven after everyone returns. They may not be the best of friends but Clarke can still pick up on the other girl’s emotions. She’s pissed, rightly so, that she was forced to stay. Raven is the most determined woman Clarke’s ever known. And yes, she does have a slight disadvantage to some of the other people fighting for their side, but she’d never let that slow her down. But not everyone knows that. No one takes the time to stop and listen to any of them, they’re just kids and apparently that invalidates their experiences. Not everyone knows how much it angers Raven to be cast aside because of an injury she had no say in. Not everyone knows that Jasper has to sleep with his back to a wall or the piece of fabric he keeps tucked away in his sock because it makes him feel close to Maya. Not everyone knows that Bellamy’s habit of cracking his knuckles is because he can’t stand silence.

But she and Raven were stuck with the short end of the stick today. And not everyone knows how that will add another rock to the baskets inside them that weigh them down.

Things start to get better when Bellamy’s team shows up in the med tent. Miller’s got a nasty cut on his forehead but Clarke assures him that he’s fine, reminding him that head wounds bleed a lot and to keep pressure on it. Jasper comes in with a broken nose that someone horribly set in the middle of the battle. So she has to rebreak it just to set it again.

And then Clarke notices the grim looks on their faces and her heart drops to her stomach.

“Why do you guys look like that?” she asks, wiping her hands off on a towel.

They all look at each other, as if daring someone to be the first to talk. In the end it’s Jasper who speaks up. “They told us not to tell you...”

“Who told you that? And what do they not want me to know?” she asks.

“Your mom,” Miller says quietly, like he doesn’t want the words to come out. “And Kane.”

“Are you guys going to tell me? Or am I going to have track them down and find out myself?” she’s shouting now. Frustration taking over all other emotions.

Miller takes a deep breath, “It’s Bellamy. We couldn’t find him after- after it was over.”

“What?” she asks, hating the way her voice makes her sound mousy and fragile.

“They told us not to say anything,” Jasper adds quickly. “Something about not wanting you distracted...”

“Right...” she mumbles.

And with that she storms from the med tent, looking for her mother or Kane or whoever she can yell at right now.

Every time she said it, she believed it. Her people before herself. The goods of the many over the goods of the few. She’s lived up to that everyday on this godforsaken planet. But right now, as she feels her blood turning to fire and her words turning into bullets, she’s never heard a bigger lie in her life.

Emotions are clouding her brain, that’s why she’s being so rash. This much she knows but by this point she is too far gone to stop it. No one gave her the choice. The choice to freak out about the fact that the only person who can calm her down when her breath catches in her throat is MIA. Were they ever going to tell her? Or did they plan on just letting her hear it with the rest of the camp gossip?

Raven finds her first, before she reaches her mother. She grabs onto Clarke’s arm to stop her.

“What happened?” Raven asks. “You’ve got that look in your eyes, the one that says you’re about to do something stupid.”

“I know we were trying to make ourselves feel better earlier, telling ourselves that we are useful even if they don’t see it. But what if that’s all they see, Raven? What if I’m not even a person anymore, just the thing that can heal them when they hurt themselves? I thought she was trying to baby me and keep me out of harm’s way, but I don’t think that’s what she was doing at all...” Clarke clenches her jaw, taking a moment to compose herself before she starts screaming and drawing attention to herself. “My own mother is using me. And I have no say in it.”

She tries to pull away, but Raven doesn’t let her go. “We both know you can’t just waltz in there and demand change. What did she do this time?”

“Bellamy’s gone. No one knows where he is, he could be dead for all I know... And my mom told everyone not to tell me about this. She didn’t want me distracted.”

“Well isn’t that a good thing? You helped a lot of people, Clarke.”

“Of course I did,” Clarke says, her voice cracking as she looks up at the stars. “But I couldn’t help him.”

When she looks back at Raven, something has changed in her expression. It’s grown softer, in a way. More understanding.

“Someone is doing something to help him. You helped someone else’s Bellamy so they could help yours, okay? Don’t go doing something stupid because you and I both know that Bellamy is too damn stubborn to leave you,” Raven says, finally letting go of Clarke’s arm.

That shouldn’t be as comforting as it is. But Clarke knows it’s true. Bellamy always comes back. And Raven is right, he would never leave her. Their dependency on each other may seem strange to other people, but they balance each other out in every way. When she is ready to storm the fucking castle, he calms her down. When he is ready to start a goddamn revolution, she talks some sense into him. She is light when he is dark, and he is strong when she needs to be weak.

She’ll admit this to herself, but no one else; she needs him. He’s all she has. He is the only person she’s wronged who has actually put it behind them, who has actually moved on and placed his trust in her again.

She hates that she loves him. She hates that she loves him and he’s always off putting himself in danger to help someone else. Maybe she does that too, maybe that’s why they’ve made it this long together.

---

It’s the next morning before she realizes it, the guards following her around. Of course, what an Abby Griffin thing to do. It’s the passive aggressiveness behind the action that really gets under her skin.

Her mother is scared she’ll run again, a lot of people are. That part is understandable. It is also understandable to assume Clarke would do anything to make sure Bellamy is okay, even leaving camp without notice. But no one bothered to talk to her about. Again, she’s left out of these big decisions.

No one's doing anything. They all just assume he was killed in battle or. They all just assume they won't see him again. But she can't do that.

She can't let herself think he's gone, even for a second. She knows that if she did she would shut down. And he wouldn't be here to hold her and tell her it'll be okay. Because it wouldn't be. Nothing would be okay if he was gone.

Miller and Raven sit with her in the mess hall when she's trying to eat lunch. The food is bland and she doesn't want to eat it.

“There's a pack near our section of the fence,” Miller says, his voice unusually quiet.

“And the guards are easy to distract,” Raven adds, just as quiet.

Clarke suddenly understands. They're offering her an out, a chance to go get him.

“You'll have less than a minute to get past the fence, but if anyone can make it it'd be you,” Raven tells her.

“One hour,” Miller says before he and Raven get up and walk outside.

Octavia would be right beside Clarke if she could. But she's off with Lincoln, having adventures of their own. She doesn't even know her brother is missing. Probably best that way. She doesn't need to worry. Clarke can do that for her.

When Clarke sees Raven walking towards the guards, she makes a break for it, getting to the fence as quickly as possible. She throws a stick at the wires, hearing it sizzle as it bounces off. A few seconds later she throws another one. It's silent this time. She ducks under the fence without looking back and runs.

If Bellamy managed to get away, which she's hoping he did, she has a pretty good idea of where he would be. It's a hike so she scrapes her hair into a ponytail and ties it back with a ribbon.

She walks east for the better part of three hours before starting north.

The sun has set by the time she makes it to the road, or what used to be a road. It's mostly rubble now but it will lead her to him. Hopefully.

She should sleep, but she can't. Her mind is too loud to allow that luxury. And if she keeps up this pace, she'll make it there by first light.

The house makes her heart race when she finally sees it in the distance. It's where he found her hiding all those months ago, throwing knives at a tree to forget the tears rolling down her cheeks. He'd held her to his chest and waited until she stopped shaking. They didn't go back to camp for a few days after that. But he finally convinced her. This is where he would go. This is where he would hide out if he wanted her to find him.

He has to be here. She's tired. Tired of feeling lost and tired of searching for something she's always had right in front of her.

When she hears a low groan she starts running. It feels like her feet aren't even touching the ground.

It's an old, hollowed out thing, and that's why she had stayed there. She could stare out the window and watch the sunrise, feeling the cool concrete floor under her feet. One wall is cracked. She'd ran her finger along it so many times that parts of it had become smooth. There's no door either, so she sees him as she gets closer.

“God you're such an asshole,” she tells him as she crashes into him. He's sitting on the ground and she causes him to lay back against the concrete as she hugs him.

“Good to see you too, Princess,” she can tell he was trying to go for a teasing tone but he's in pain and she can hear it in his voice.

“Where are you hurt?” she asks, scanning him bloodstains or purple bruises. She lets out a relieved sigh when she sees his foot twisted at a weird angle. “Only you would escape battle with just a sprained ankle.”

“I was headed over to Jasper, I heard his scream so I went to help and,” he turns his head and she sees his hair is matted and tangled and covered in dried blood. “Fuckers threw a rock at my head and I fell. I guess my body forgot to tell my ankle that and it just, twisted.”

“How did you get here?”

“I walked,” he says, nodding to a walking stick resting in the corner of the room. “They were gaining on us and I lost sight of everyone. I could fight with my ankle so I got away. I didn't want to stay and leave myself and my guys to die.”

She touches his ankle and hears him hiss in pain. “I'm going to wrap it, okay?”

He nods and she digs around in her pack, hoping Miller and Raven put some bandages in there. A small smile tugs at her lips when she finds some. She lifts up the bottom of his pants and wraps the bandages around his ankle. There's not enough to make it as tight as she would like, so she tries to think of something else she can use. A t-shirt maybe, that's all she can think of. Except the only shirt she can find in the pack is too thin to do the job.

Fuck it , she thinks as she removes her jacket. She pulls her own shirt over her head and Bellamy looks at her like she's crazy.

“Hope you've got a pretty good reason for taking off your top, Princess,” he says.

“I thought seeing my boobs would help with your pain,” she says sarcastically. “I'm using it as another bandage, you idiot.”

“I don't see why we can't do both.”

She just stares at him for a moment, her face telling him that she is not impressed. He just smiles back at her.

She wraps her shirt around his ankle and ties it before pulling on the other shirt.

“Remind me to kick Raven’s ass when we get back to camp,” she says, looking down at the shirt. Lord knows where they found a white shirt that hasn't been stained with blood and grime, but they did. And it's see through. Her dark grey bra is completely visible.

There has to be something else she can do. He looks terrible so maybe she’ll start there. With a grunt, she hauls her pack across the room and sits closer to him. After getting out her canteen, she rips a strip of fabric off the bottom of this useless shirt.

“Geez, Princess... I don’t think a strip tease will fix anything right now,” he says.

“Remind me why I’m friends with you?”

“Because you love me.” More than you know...

She carefully pours some water onto the cloth and starts washing the blood out of his hair, trying to see how bad the cut is.

“You have too much hair,” she complains. “I can’t even see where you were hurt. It’s just all curls.”

“They’re sort of like a helmet.”

“And yet you still got hit in the head with a rock... I found it! I found the cut and, wow Bellamy...”

“What? Is it bad?”

“It’s about a half an inch long. They basically threw a pebble at you and you nearly broke your ankle,” she says with a laugh.

“Remind me why I’m friends with you?” he echoes her words.

“Because I am healing you,” she dabs at the cut with the cloth and he winces. “See this is me healing you.”

“Clarke?” he asks after a moment.

“Yeah?”

“Why did you come looking for me?”

She sighs and sets the cloth down, moving to sit in front of him. “There is no universe where I wouldn’t come after you. And besides, you came after me. This is just what we do...”

“I’m not letting you leave again,” he tells her.

“I know,” she says, placing her hand on his knee.

“I’m sorry I left you this time.”

She'd been so happy when she found him. So relieved. All that she felt before, all the anger and sadness and despair, it was gone. It was gone because she got to hug him and help him because that's her job. She helps Bellamy. But now she's looking at him, and she sees the pain behind his kind eyes. It's in her own eyes too, and Raven’s and Octavia's and Miller’s too. They pretend it isn't real and pretend they can move on. It's just something that's there, like the scar on Bellamy's lip or the hole in the knee of Clarke's pants. There, but not a flashing neon sign that demanded their attention.

Now she's staring at Bellamy and she realizes she was wrong. She could live without him. It would be an awful existence and she would hate every minute of it. And soon he would be something that was just there. She realizes as she watches him that he's not her entire world, she just wants him to be. And that's enough. She wants him to fall asleep with her at night and she wants to hold his hand in her own as they walk through camp. She wants him to be hers and she wants to be his.

“I know.” She sighed, looking down at her lap before meeting his eyes again. “Bellamy, I'm sorry. I know I say that too much, but I have a lot to be sorry for.”

“Clarke-”

“Let me finish,” she insisted, her voice sounding shaky. “Please.”

He nodded and placed his hand on top of hers.

“When Jasper and Miller told me your were gone I- I lost it. I was ready to, I don't even know. I was practically blind with rage until I realized I wasn't mad. You're the person I talk to in the morning since we're both up before the sun. You're the person I look for whenever something happens and you're the only person who can wipe my tears away. I didn't know what I would do if you didn't come back..” she bites her lip before clearing her throat. “I just hate you sometimes because you're always getting yourself hurt or putting yourself in dangerous situations. But you can't do that anymore. It's not allowed.”

“It's not?” She shakes her head. “Why?”

“Because I love you, Bellamy,” she whispers.

“You love me?” he asks, his voice no louder than her own. She nods and chews on her bottom lip. “You love me.”

“I do. And I know it's stupid because we're us and our luck is terrible but, I love you. I have for a long time. I just could never say it out loud because if I did, and something happened to you, it would hurt even more.” Tears sting her eyes and she does nothing to hold them back, letting them roll down her cheeks.

“Princess?”

“Yeah?” she breathes.

“Shut up,” he says. “And kiss me.”

She lets out a watery laugh before leaning down to press her lips against his. He taste like tears and relief and she sighs when he cups the back of her neck with his hand and brings her closer. It never occurred to her that kissing him would feel this good. She never wants to stop. She just wants to stay in this old house that somehow outlived the fucking apocalypse. Sort of like we did , she thinks to herself as she pulls away to rest her forehead against his.

Together they've fought wars and together they've won. They'll probably fight more wars and they're not impervious to damage. But maybe that makes it better. She'd crashed into him the moment she saw him back at camp, after she thought she'd killed him. Somehow the cuts on his face made everything worth it. Because he was bleeding, but still there with her.

Outside there is violence; there are spears being thrown at them and guns being aimed and giant fucking swords being swung. And that’s just the harsh reality of where they are right now. But one day they will thrive and all this bloodshed will be just a memory. Something to warn their children of. Something to hope never happens again.

This world is chaos and in him she's found an escape, a shelter.

“Just for the record, I love you too,” he says, his voice light and joyous.

She slaps at his chest and he lays back against the ground. “Way to ruin the moment, nerd.” She moved her hand up to her face, planning to dry her cheeks before Bellamy caught her wrist.

“Only I get to do that, remember?”

His thumb brushes across her cheek and she leans into his touch.

The sun is shining brightly now, light pouring in through the gaping holes that used to be windows once upon a time.

“Who do you think lived here all those years ago?” she asks, laying beside him on the concrete.

“The third pig obviously.”

“What?” she raises an eyebrow and he chuckles.

“The three little pigs?” She's still confused. “The first two built really shitty houses,” he explains. “And because of their shitty craftsmanship, the wolf ate them. But the third pig was smart and made a house that would last. So the wolf didn't get to eat him.”

“So if this is a universe where pigs can do construction, couldn't the wolf just open the door?”

“You seriously are the lamest person on earth. Don't you know not to spoil a good kid’s story?”

“I always liked the one with the itsy bitsy spider,” she tells him.

“That spider almost drowned, Clarke!”

“Well two pig got eaten in your story! You're the lame one with your 33% success rate. 66% of your pigs would die, Bel. My spider would have been perfectly fine. Ever heard of a thing called surface tension?”

He laughs and turns his head to look at her. “Are you really using science to make your argument about a nursery rhyme?”

“I'm sorry if I don't want to scare children with stories about murder. Children should be innocent for as long as possible.”

“So that's why my mom read so much mythology to me, Princess? To maintain my innocence?” he teases.

“You're a terrible example,” she says, shifting to lay her head on his chest. “I can't imagine you ever being innocent. You're like a walking sexual innuendo.”

“I can't really argue with you on that one...” he sighs. “After O was born, that's when I stopped being innocent. Before that I thought nothing bad could ever happen. And then I saw the fear on my mom’s face when O would cry, and I knew that innocence has no place in section 17.”

“I don't think innocence has a place on the ground. Babies born here are born into fighting. They're born into fear...” She paused, taking a moment to pull his arm around her and cuddle closer into his side. She thinks back to Raven, pounding her fist against a cot while they rambled about staying in camp. She thinks about Monty who was stuck in the greenhouse, also told he couldn't fight. Apparently he was needed to grind up plants for medicine, something Clarke could have done herself.

His parents are gone, so are Raven’s. Most of their parents aren't with them on the ground. And still people are forcing innocence upon them. It's hard to go from the little girl who thought she would marry her father one day, to the woman who shoots a gun without hesitation. That's hard, but it's impossible to go the other way. Because her father is gone- she watched him die- and guns are nothing new to any of them.

It's the harsh reality of war. It's the thing that sent them up into space in the first place, and the thing that greeted them when they returned.

“I wouldn't take it back,” she says. “Any of it. It sucks, but it's the reason I'm here with you. And I don't want to be anywhere else.”

“Yeah? You wouldn't rather be back at camp, laying in my tent when I don't have a fucked up ankle and blood crusted in my hair?”

“I got the blood out, thank you very much. And your ankle will be fine in a few days. I might make a splint later, but we should be able to head back in a few days.”

“So I get to stay here with you until then?”

She props her chin up on his chest so she can look at him, smile at him. “Yes. Would you rather be at camp now?”

“Hell no. Way too noisy there, much too many people to distract us,” he says with a shake of his head.

“Distract us from what?”

He smirks at her for a moment before he kisses her.

---

She checks his ankle later on in the day when they're snacking on some of the jerky Raven and Miller had shoved into the pack. The bruising is getting better, fading from the blue it had been earlier to a darker purple.

“Why did you come alone?” he asks.

She's trying to fasten a splint for his ankle out of some small branches she found outside. She doesn't look up from her work but she can tell the cogs are turning in his mind, wondering why no one is with her. “I had to sneak out,” she explains. “My mom had guards watching me, making sure I wouldn't leave. Raven and Miller distracted them long enough so that I could get out the fence.”

“And you knew I'd be here?”

“If you were okay, I knew you'd come here.”

There’s a pause after that, long enough that she looks up from her lap. Bellamy is smirking at her. “So we’ll be in big trouble when we get back?” he asks, sounding rather smug for a man with a sprained ankle and a head wound.

“I assume so,” she shrugs. “Actually it just might be me...”

“I can always act more injured than I am so they go easier on you.”

“How do those two things relate?”

“If you left for a few days and came back with a severely injured and handsome man such as myself, no one would blame you. They’d think you were honorable for helping me.”

Clarke sighs, leaning back against the wall. “Me disappearing again? That’s not the only reason they weren’t letting me leave...”

“What do you mean?”

“They wouldn’t let Raven out either and we were complaining together because it sucked that everyone else was out there fighting for what we’ve started, and we were forced to stay inside the gates doing nothing.” She takes a deep breath, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “I knew they weren’t letting Raven out because of her leg, and I thought they weren’t letting me out because of those three months, but... I’m not important to the camp as a person, just as a doctor.”

He pushes himself up onto his elbows, “Clarke that is not true-”

“It’s not?” she replies, raising her eyebrows in challenge. “Because I am good with a gun, I am good in combat, I am good in a war. And I was sitting in the med tent, waiting for people to heal. They knew I would do something stupid if I was out there, and I would have. I would have done whatever was necessary to make sure we won. Just like I’m doing whatever I have to so I know you’re okay.”

The way he looks at her, she knows he understands.

“I’m glad you made sure I was okay,” he says.

She smiles at him before taking the t-shirt off his ankle and using it to fasten the splint on.

They stay two more days in the house. Clarke has to leave a few times to get them some more water and more food. Bellamy’s ankle looks a lot better and with her help, he’s able to walk.

They leave in the morning on the third day, Bellamy using his walking stick as well as leaning on Clarke as he hobbles along. He starts slowing down as they get closer to camp and it’s evident that he’s doing it for her. She doesn’t want to go back, and the only reason she is is for him. She hopes it will be different now that he knows how she feels.

“They’ll be happy to see us,” he says. They can see Camp Jaha in the distance and they both stiffen the closer they get.

“We can only hope so.”

“So you’ll be avoiding your mom for a while?”

“Oh definitely,” Clarke says easily. “I’m hoping when she sees how happy I am with you back she’ll forget about it.”

He smiles before kissing her temple. “Let’s do this then.”

When the guards spot them, they open the gates and Raven and Miller are the first people they see once they’re inside.

“Bellamy’s tent,” Raven whispers. “Go, your mom is in medical hopefully she won’t notice until after you get there.”

Clarke nods, looking to Bellamy.

“Glad you’re okay man,” Miller says, clapping Bellamy on the shoulder.

“Don’t know any other way to be,” he replies.

They give each other that guy nod, the one that can take place of an entire conversation, and then Clarke and Bellamy are rushing towards his tent. Clarke helps ease him to the ground once they get inside, checking his ankle again to make sure he didn’t totally fuck it up by walking all day.

“I think you’ll live,” she tells him.

“Oh I’m glad,” he says, ducking down to kiss her. “Because I definitely want to do that at least ten more times before I die.”

“Just ten?”

He shrugs, “I could be persuaded for more.”

“That’s good because I was thinking twelve.”

He’s laughing as she moves to straddle his hips. She reaches to tangle her hands in his hair but stops herself at the last minute, remembering the still healing wound on the back of his head. She settles for placing her hands on his shoulders instead.

She rests her forehead against his for a moment, allowing herself a little bit of calm while she’s sure she can have it. Her eyes close and Bellamy’s nose brushes against hers before he kisses her.  She lets herself be consumed by this kiss. All the stress and anxiety of the past week draining away and all that’s left is Bellamy. At some point they’ll have to leave the tent and face the consequences of what they’ve done, but she wants right now to last. The warmth and the contentment, she wants it so stay a while longer.

When they finally pull apart, Clarke rests her head on his shoulder and buries her face in his neck.

“So does that count as one or...”

“I hate you,” she mumbles into his skin, nothing but a smile in her voice.

“You love me,” he says.

“I really do.”

“Well I really do love you too.”

She smiles, wrapping her arms around his waist.

She hears the flap of the tent being thrown open and knows without even looking that her mother is standing there with the angriest expression. When she turns her head, however, she sees how slumped her mother’s shoulders are. It’s like she’s realized this is a fight she can’t win. Clarke can see it in her eyes, the fight she had come here to start leaving. Clarke can’t bring herself to say anything either, she just keeps her cheek pressed against Bellamy’s shoulder and hopes that her mother understands. She sighs and Clarke knows she does. At least a little bit. She understands.

“Please come talk to me later,” Abby says, her voice sounding smaller than Clarke has ever heard.

In response she just offers the smallest of nods, and Abby leaves the tent.

“It’s going to be okay,” Bellamy says quietly.

“Yeah, it is.”