"May we meet again," Clarke whispers against Bellamy's shoulder. She steps away from his embrace and meets his eyes for only a moment, before abruptly looking away from the pain she could see plainly on his face. She turns around and walks towards the woods before he can change her mind.

Clarke can hear her pulse, a steady thrum in her ears. Her heartbeat is fast, pounding even, gaining speed with each step she takes away from Camp Jaha.

Each step further away from her friends.

From Bellamy.

I bear it so they don't have to, becomes a mantra in her head.

So they don't have to, with each step.

So they don't have to, another stride further away.

She thinks of Octavia; her overwhelming curiosity when they first landed. Her stubborn defense of Lincoln before anyone else could see the good in him. Her determination and perseverance to become the warrior she was clearly meant to be.

She thinks of Monty; his ingenuity and his optimism. The way he refused to give up on Jasper after he got speared, so long ago on that very first day, even when his death seemed inevitable. His pained reluctance in Mount Weather, as he set up the radiation flush that enabled her and Bellamy to kill over 300 people.

She quickly shakes those thoughts away.

She thinks of Raven; the fierce girl who had saved them all, time and time again. The girl who loved others so fiercely and intensely, because she never had the love she deserved growing up. She thinks of her strength, her will to live that was stronger than even a bullet that lodged itself into her spine.

She thinks of Jasper; and remembers the way he looked at her after she pulled that lever, so different from the affection that he used to show her.

She remembers the way her father smelled.

She remembers the face of Wells, relaxed in death.

She remembers the feel of Finn's final breaths on her neck while she held him as he died.

How many more of those she loved would die if she stayed?

Clarke swallows back a sob and continues forward.

"Together," he'd said.

"What we did," he'd insisted.

"Please come inside," he'd pleaded.

Her foot catches on a wayward root and she falls into a crumpled heap on the floor of the forest.

"Together," she thinks, and tries to push the thought away.

Clarke thinks of Bellamy's hand on hers, steady and reassuring, as he brought their joined hands down onto the lever.

She thinks of his hand encircling her wrist, all those months ago, when she fell into the grounder trap trying to rescue Jasper.

She recalls the feeling of his arms wrapped around her, so tight she could barelybreathe, when they were finally reunited at Camp Jaha after the grounder attack at the dropship.

She remembers the gentle pressure of his hand on her back, in the supply depot, as he taught her how to use a gun.

"Ready to be a badass, Clarke?"

Tears pricking at her eyes, Clarke pulls herself off the ground and leans on the nearest tree. She breathes deeply. In. Out.

Her mind takes her back to what happened later that night, to the rough bark of the tree against her back as she caught her breath, Bellamy beside her, and Dax lying dead at their feet.

"You want forgiveness? Fine, I'll give it to you- you're forgiven, okay? But you can't run, Bellamy. You have to come back with me. You have to face it."

Her mind goes, unbidden, to the clutch of his hands on her arms just minutes ago.

"If you need forgiveness, I'll give that to you. You're forgiven." He had said, repeating the words she had spoken to him months earlier.

Oh, she thinks.

Oh.

It all becomes clear to her then, what he was saying at the gates. What we did. Together.

Together.

Clarke turns around and faces towards the shining gleam of the arc.

And she runs home.