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Clarke woke up in the middle of the night by gasping for air. Clenching the sheets on either side of her body, her eyes closed tightly and her jaw tightened. For the next ten minutes, Clarke tried to pull the focus away from her pained body and grinding teeth and push it towards the sounds of what she believed to be a cello piece by Bach. Although the sound quality was awful, spending her little money at the Arkadia market on it was the best decision. It helped her when no one else could.
Finally as the pain subsided, Clarke opened her eyes to stare at the metal ceiling above her. It was roughly two in the morning and she was still recovering from the nightmare she just had. Without glancing beside her, she began to recount it.
“Bellamy I just had another awful nightmare. You were sitting beside me, outside Arkadia. The sun had just began to set and despite the fact that you were holding a gun – because you were on the Guard still in my dream – I lay my head on your shoulder and was in so much peace. We had rebuilt the coalition, just as we had in real life, and nothing had gone wrong in so long. And then, out of nowhere, bombs started flying at us from the sky. The first one dropping miles from Arkadia, but we could see it.
“So we ran inside the gates and towards Kane’s quarters and Raven was running up to me crying and spouting nonsense about a woman named Alie who had launched the bombs and that it was Raven’s fault, which didn’t make much sense to us at all.
“We heard another bomb drop, this one seeming a little farther away, but still making the ground shake. Sinclair was in the operations room, trying to find out where the threat was coming from. When we spoke to him, he kind of seemed shocked to tell us that it wasn’t coming from anywhere near Arkadia. Fire took to the forest and everyone was screaming. Raven did something and the bombs stopped and we were all so relieved that we threw a party in her honor.
“Azgeda and Trikru were invited but they thought the bombs were our doing, as they had landed near and on top of a lot of clan villages. We sought out each clan’s Heda, but after a tiring long journey to begin speaking about the incident, Azgeda attacked us. The whole thing was a trap and Trikru had never known we were to meet anyway.
“All of a sudden we were at war. For months on end, we fought tirelessly. Men were lost on both sides of the battle, the fields covered in blood of many men. I was so worried about you, because when you went off to battle I had to stay home and heal the sick, operate on the wounded. Abby and I both spent nights together, missing you and Kane. We didn’t know what we would do without you.
“Weeks went on during one of the last battles, where you and Kane never came home. The nights we spent waiting for you to return were agonizing. Breathing became harder, sleep became impossible, and Abby and I were working on no sleep at all for multiple days. Octavia, Nathan, Bryan, and even Jasper had gone with you to battle, so all I really had as a friend was Raven. But I felt bad a lot because any time I’d see her I’d ask if she heard from you. She was in radio control and all that, so she would be first to know. You were radio silent for weeks though. I suppose maybe somebody broke your radios and you had no way of contacting us.
“I really missed you though. And we worked really hard here to try and help our people and their people, to show we really meant no harm on any of the nations. Sometimes Abby and I would go out to the forest and look for people who had gotten caught up in the fights and try to help them. We would take trips out to visit grounder villages and speak with them and show interest in learning about their culture more than we already had,” Clarke chuckled at herself as she thought of the next part of her story.
“I’m pretty sure one of the little boys that Abby and I were training said he was going to write books on grounders. He was so cute.
“But... then you all came back. The war was over, and we hadn’t won but we hadn’t lost, just as wars should end. And Kane came running into Abby’s arms and he picked her up into his like he was carrying his only life source. Bryan and Nathan were hand in hand walking into camp, visibly relieved it was all over: Octavia and Lincoln, riding her horse through the gates. People cheered. Everyone was hugging everyone.
“And I stood, staring at the gates, searching through the crowd for you. I asked everyone, and they would just look at me without saying anything. The gates closed behind the fighters and I stood there in confusion.
“Kane walked up to me, holding Abby’s hand, and had the most solemn expression across his face. I knew instantly what happened. My world just crumbled before me. Jasper saw and knew and he ran to me to hold me because he could understand how I was feeling. Kane didn’t know what to say, but I didn’t want to hear anything. I didn’t want to know how yet, and I didn’t want to breathe or think or speak,” she paused. Then, she wiped her tears and smiled.
“But it’s okay because I woke up just after that and now that I know it was just a dream...”Turning her head, she went to grab Bellamy’s hand and was met with an empty space beside her. The smile on her face dropped and the pain in her gut returned, twisting her insides and clenching her jaw once more.
Of course, it wasn’t just a dream. It will never be just a dream.