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It occurs to Clarke, on the first anniversary of the treaty, that people might celebrate this day for decades, maybe centuries to come. Hopefully, at least – stability isn't a given on the ground, few people would know that better than she does. But this could be their new Unity Day, retold into a full flourishing narrative told by future generations. The very idea makes her heart beat faster, and it's not with pride.
Their settlement is awash with people, buzzing around, taking care of last minute preparations. She feels her pulse speed up so much her breathing follows until both have reached a wild staccato that makes her light-headed. She doesn't deserve this. She doesn't deserve being part of this celebration. Even more so, she wouldn't deserve being part of that legend.
There's too much blood on her hands; she spilled too much of it to make this happen.
Her throat closes up as she watches a couple of children help hang up flower garlands over the gate that still separates the inner circle of Arkadia from the huts that have accumulated all around the fallen space station. Later today, there will be speeches and music and dancing, and she's on the new council, she's supposed to be here but... she raises her hands in front of her face and all she sees is red.
She can't be here, not today. She can’t be a part of this.
She runs.
***
Save for the giant metal carcass in its middle, the area around the dropship almost looks like it did when they first landed. Summer has the grassland lush with green, large white flowers dotting the line where their fence used to be, ranking around its ruins. Wells would have known what they're called, and at the thought Clarke almost feels nauseous. His grave is out here, and she could go have a look. She probably should. His blood was the first shed on her watch. But if her mad dash from Arkadia established one thing – today, she's not capable of being brave or doing the right thing. If she were, she'd be in her hut, getting dressed in something light and pretty, practicing the traditional greetings of their new allies.
But she's not. She's running away.
The tarp that wafts from the dropship door is tattered now, the rich red it used to be lightened to a faint pink. She pulls it aside to climb into the actual ship, the metal under her feet strewn with old leaves, overgrown with lichen in places. It smells moldy and earthy, and she smiles to herself. This is the vehicle that brought them here, and now it’s being assimilated into this place, woven into its matrix, just as they are.
Clarke sits down in a corner, leans her head back onto the metal, cool despite the heat outside, and closes her eyes. She breathes, in and out. She tries to remember the version of herself that climbed out of this hull more than three years ago, and fails to conjure up the image, the mindset, the mere memory.
Her eyes fly open, because she hears the tarp move, footsteps echoing in the empty room.
Against the sun streaming in from the outside, she can only see Bellamy's silhouette. She recognizes it; his shape is one of the few she’s come to memorize after all this time. She exhales, sudden tension flowing out of her as quickly as it had risen. He pauses when he sees her, shoulders pulled back and frowning, so briefly that most people might not even have seen a change in him at all. But when he steps fully inside, he does sit down next to her, close enough that their shoulders almost touch. That’s a rare thing these days, ever since they... broke up would be overstating it, since it could be argued they never got quite as far as being together in the first place. If they had, if they’d managed to keep on with it, this would have been their anniversary as well. As it is, they hardly see each other except for council meetings and social calls. With good reason, Clarke knows – it’s also the same reason why neither of them wants to be celebrated today. The reason why she ran.
“Here we are,” he says, and she can't quite read his tone, can't decide whether he's glad for her presence or annoyed or merely stating a fact. There was a time when she wouldn't have had any trouble with that, but nowadays, he's gone back to being a riddle.
***
The bond they used to have was forged by fire, and Clarke used to think it would last forever. And it's... not broken, exactly – if push came to shove, he'd still be by her side, the unmovable force he always has been, she's sure. But when the tide rolls back and they're not surrounded by flames anymore, it turns out, they don't know what to do with one another. They look at the other's faces and see the echoes of nearly a thousand ghosts, a reminder of decisions they made together during times of war, and it's too much. In the light of that, it's easy to forget that what they had was worth fighting for, too. Right now, glancing at him out of the corner of her eyes while he stares straight ahead, hands clasped together over bent knees, she misses him more fiercely then she has in months.
“Do you think they’ll save us some cake?” she asks, trying to keep her voice light and conversational. But it comes out too quiet, cracking on the second word already.
Bellamy looks up and turns his head towards her, surprised and appraising, and Clarke realizes she's not the only one who lost the ability to read the other at a glance. “When they figure out we bailed, they might keep any leftovers just to smear them in our faces.”
His words tug at a yearning in her that never quite went away. Her first instinct, she learned after mere weeks on the ground, is to run. Not from a fight, but from the fallout, the calm after the storm. She has every intention to return, this time. The celebrations will last a day, maybe two, and then she'll take her mother's disappointed glances and the vague look of betrayal in her friend's faces. They should have expected it, really. A few of them might have.
She, on the other hand, sure didn't expect to find him here. He doesn't back down. He stands his ground and he doesn't run, even if it kills him. Ducking out from a few dances and speeches at a holiday feast isn't like him.
“Why are you here?” she asks, the words spoken before she can think better of them. “Why did you bail?”
He stares at her, then, a bit incredulous, like the answer should be obvious and the fact that she can't work it out is almost a personal slight. Sucking a breath in through his teeth, he reaches for a small tree branch laying on the ground by his thigh and begins to pick it apart, one tiny twig at a time. He flicks the pieces across the room between two fingers.
Clarke watches each of them land, some close by, others in the parts of the room the light doesn't reach, swallowed by the shadows, and it seems like his silence is the only answer she’ll get.
***
Arkadia is too far away for any of the music or the voices to waft over, but she thinks she can hear them regardless, an echo reverberating just beneath her skin. Grounder pipes and random songs from outdated music players, her friends singing along badly, joking and laughing.
The dropship heats a little with the sun as the day prowls on, making it marginally more comfortable, and all she hears is birdsong and Bellamy's even breathing beside her. He's finished dissecting his tree branch and has gone still, and if she hadn't spent a couple of nights with him before in the last year, she might've thought he'd fallen asleep. But she watched him do that, then, trying to memorize what his face looked like when he'd drifted off, finally relaxed and somewhat peaceful. Right now he's tens and guarded, the same way he has been for years. She didn't know him up in space, but with the secret he carried, she's not sure peaceful could have been an apt description of what his life must have been like on the Ark either.
“Stop,” he says, and she startles.
She inches away from him for fear she crossed some boundary she wasn't aware of – trying to figure out what's appropriate, between them, was actually easier before they started and then stopped having sex. Back then it was toeing a line that neither of them was sure would be wise to cross, but now... it's like scratching a scar. Worry at it too much, and it'll start bleeding again.
He sighs and stretches out his legs, turning towards her with his whole body, and rolls his eyes. “I didn't mean... It's just, I can hear you brooding from here. Stop. Don't do that.”
“I wasn't – “ she begins, then stops. They never lied to each other, not about anything that matters, and she's not going to pick up the habit now. They're here, they're alone. She shifts to mirror his pose, so they're aligned to each other. “Sometimes I think about it. Why we didn't work.”
His eyebrows go up, mouth falling open a little, and she realizes that's not the topic he'd figured she had gotten stuck on. Just when she thinks he isn't going to acknowledge anything, he looks down at his hands and inhales. “I don't think I'd have worked with anyone, back then. Not for long.”
“Me neither,” she says, and he glances up to meet her eyes again, a crooked smile forming on his lips. “What?” She glares at him, leaning over for a shove, which he halts effortlessly.
“Well,” he says, a hand wrapped around her forearm, gently, pressure letting up just as soon as he's made his point. She could swear he hesitates before he lets her go completely, but that might just be wishful thinking. “You don't say.”
And yeah, between the two of them, she's always been the open book. Her emotions are painted all over her face, there to see for everyone who pays attention. And he does; whatever else happened between them, she knows he still cares that much.
***
In hindsight, running away on a whim without rations or even so much as a flask for water may not have been the greatest idea she ever had. Hunger she can ignore, but by early afternoon her throat is dry as sandpaper. Give it another hour, and there'll be a headache looming. She can do without that.
“I'm going to the river,” she announces, and stands up. He glances up at her with the expression he used to throw her a lot in the early days, halfway between amused and offended, like he knows perfectly well what she expects him to do but wouldn't dream of making things easy for her. It's still more charming than it has any right to be.
He waits until she turns on her heels, ready to storm off on her own, before he rises to his feet as well, walking past her. Tarp already drawn to the side, he stops, backlit by the bright sunlight. “You coming or what? It was your idea.”
She catches herself thinking that the sight of him, here, just the two of them, is somewhat surreal. Like they stumbled into a pocket in time, where none of the people they loved ever died and the war ended before it started. But it did happen; they both carry the scars to prove that, visible and otherwise.
She huffs and marches past him, not looking back to see if he follows as she takes off in the direction of the river.
***
They sit near the riverbed for a long while, side by side again, close enough to feel the other's presence but not quite touching. The place where their bubble of peaceful life on the ground first popped isn't far. In spite of all the blood that got spilled in their name later on, she's never going to forget the sight of Jasper, driven through by that spear.
On their way here, they walked past where Atom died. A little ways in one direction, and they'll find the cliff Charlotte jumped off of, and in the other, there'll be the trap Trikru set with Jasper as live bait. Every inch of this ground is soaked through with blood and death and loss. And yet it feels like home in a way Arkadia still doesn't. It makes her feel younger, a little lighter, and maybe that's what makes her brave.
She taps him on the arm to get his attention, waiting until he meets her gaze, then asks, “Do you think it'd be different now? Us, I mean. Do you think we'd work now?”
“I don't know.” He narrows his eyes, but it's thoughtful, not hostile. “I try not to ruminate on that.”
Clarke has to grin. “Ruminate. Did you read that somewhere?”
“Hey,” he complains, glaring. “Don't make fun of me.”
“It's a holiday,” she says. “We're supposed to have fun.”
The scowl he gives her is reply enough, and they lapse back into silence for another couple of minutes. She listens to the sound of cicadas and the gentle splash of the river. The rest of the world feels miles away, and strangely unimportant. What's important, right now, is him. Them. Not like that ever ceased to matter; it just got out of focus.
“Do you want to try again?” she asks, and her heart doesn't start beating out of her chest until after she's said the words. The next couple of seconds, though, waiting for an answer, stretch endlessly.
He cocks his head to the side, considering, and it's her nerves that keep her from noticing the mischievous edge to his expression until it has bloomed into a full-on smirk. She shoves him. He evades that too, and she playfully pouts.
He puts a hand around her neck, drawing her in, thumb brushing the skin at her nape and making goosebumps spread out from where they touch. “Yes,” he says. “I think I do.”
And then he kisses her.
***
Soon after that, they walk back to the dropship – the safest place to spend the night – and she stretches out on her side next to him, shirt riding up so the moldy metal surface sends shivers along her skin. They're curled into each other, and she lies still, eyes closed, breathing him in, and suddenly, just like that, it all makes sense.
She unbends so she can prop her head up on one arm. She looks at him, and he looks back at her, quirking an eyebrow.
“What?” he demands, and she smiles.
“You didn't bail,” she says, nodding roughly in the direction of the fallen Ark. “You're not here because you couldn't stand to be there, but because you knew I'd run.”
Bellamy holds her eyes for a few moments longer, then sighs and shifts onto his back. “Bit of both. Don't be too smug about it.”
“I won't tell. Your secret is safe with me.” She inches closer and pokes him into the side until he lifts his arm so she can snuggle.
Outside, it's gotten dark, and through the withered flaps covering the entrance to the dropship, she can see colors illuminating the sky, signal flares re-purposed as fireworks. Raven read it in an old book somewhere, recruited Monty and Jasper to figure out how to make that work and pushed her idea through the council despite the potential fire hazard.
Because that's what they do. All of them. After everything they've been through, they stick together and don't give up until they make things work.