Assuage
The walk back to Camp Jaha seemed to take ages, the heavy weight that now resided within Clarke's heart having seeped into her every movement.
The gates opened when she approached and no one said a word as she passed through. Her eye scanned the crowd of people around her, unable to register any familiar faces. Distantly she thought she could hear Raven wailing in grief but she was unable to determine if it was currently taking place or just echoes in her mind.
She continued moving, unsure of where she was headed, when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Clarke turned to face her mother who had unshed tears glistening in her eyes. They were tears full of grief for her daughter, herself and all of the events that had led them to this moment in time. Carefully, deliberately, Clarke placed her own hand over her mother's, but not in an acceptance of comfort from the woman who had given her birth. She pushed Abby's hand away from her, noticing the streaks of dried red on her hand as she did so.
Without warning, the open space around her seemed to be closing in. Her feet carried her, quicker than they had during her entire trek back, toward the fallen Ark's medical bay in the hope of some sort of solace. Something, anything, to take away the searing numbness that seemed to steal her every breath from her body.
Clarke closed herself off in a small cubicle and moved to a basin of water that sat on a table beside the bed. She dipped a clean cloth into it and began to furiously scour the blood from her hands, as though it would somehow erase what she had done. To her horror and dismay, no matter how hard she rubbed she couldn't seem to remove the filth.
Giving up on a seemingly impossible task, Clarke stopped and just sat on the bed. The bloody, wet cloth dangled from her hands; hands she seemed to be unable to look away from. Dirty hands. Evil hands. A killer's hands.
Not knowing how long she sat like that, numerous vilifying thoughts churning in her mind, Clarke started when a darker set of hands appeared in her line of sight and gently removed the cloth from her fingers. Knowing who the hands belonged to, she allowed her gaze to follow them up a pair of arms to Bellamy Blake's familiar, stoic face. She watched in silence as he dipped the cloth into the basin of water before moving back to her to soothingly wipe the hands she had not long ago been trying to scrub the skin off of.
After a minute or two of cleaning her hands, Bellamy went to dip the cloth back into the water but this time when he brought it back Clarke broke the silence, her tone soft and matter-of-fact.
"It won't come off. It won't wash away."
Bellamy stared at her in a lingeringly pensive silence, taking in her words, before continuing his tender ministrations.
"Give it time," his strong voice seemed to echo in her ears with a tenor of compassion she'd never heard before.
It was that kindness that broke her. The quiet tears she had let fall moments after ending Finn's life were nothing compared to the tortured keening and rivers of tears that now made themselves known.
Without rush, Bellamy placed the cloth on the table and took a seat beside Clarke. He pulled her into his arms and softly stroked her hair. Not once did he whisper words of comfort or tell her she would get through the pain she was in now because soft words of that sort weren't who he was. Instead, he encouraged her to do what she needed to do in that moment.
"Let it out, Clarke. Let it out here with me. I know you need to be strong for everyone else so you do what you need to right here where no one can see."
He spoke these words because, in addition to knowing who he wasn't, he knew who Clarke was. There was a strength forged in blood and fire that existed within the young woman, but there was also a vulnerability that he knew she would want kept away from the public eye. So, in the closed off cubicle, he held his co-leader as she cried for a lost lover...a lost friend...a lost innocence.
Not too long after her tears had started they stopped and Clarke extracted herself from Bellamy's arms, wiping the remaining tears from her eyes.
"You should get some rest. I'll make sure no one bothers you for a couple of hours, then we'll discuss our next move," Bellamy said and stood from the bed, sensing that she needed some distance between them.
Clarke nodded, appreciating the way he knew her well enough to give her space and not let her waste too much time before getting back to the responsibilities that lay before them. Responsibilities that would help distract her from the emotional turmoil swirling within her.
Lifting the blanket, she slid beneath it as Bellamy made his way to the curtain that separated the cubicle from the rest of the room. Before he pulled it back to leave he turned to look at her over his shoulder.
"You did the right thing," he said, his tone the same as when he'd told her 'it had to be done' after they'd been reunited. The tone laced together with words to release her from any guilt she may have felt about making the decision to close the drop ship doors on him, leaving him for dead. However, unlike the first time they'd had a conversation like this, her guilt could not be even a little bit assuaged.
Clarke looked him in the eyes for the first time since he had entered the cubicle, revealing for a brief moment all that she was. The moment ended when a wall slammed shut over her eyes, cutting herself off from the outside world. From him.
"Now I get to live with it," she replied.
Clarke turned on her side, effectively shutting him out physically, mentally and emotionally. Bellamy took the hint and left her to herself.
As he walked further and further away, his determination to make sure what had happened would not define the brave princess for the rest of her life, took root deep within him.
The first step would be getting the rest of their people out of Mount Weather, in essence giving her an important mission to focus on. The next step would be helping her to move on. He would take apart that wall she had erected brick by brick, no matter how long it took. Something that required that much effort may have seemed daunting to a lesser man, but Bellamy had no doubt he was just stubborn enough to do it.