~CLARKE~

Of course she'd thought about the moment she would cease to exist. Death was natural, it happened, so didn't everyone think about their own from time to time? Lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by family after living a full life would have been ideal but Clarke never expected it. After all the tragedy and lack of people in her life it almost seemed fitting that she would die painfully and alone. She would have let out a bitter laugh if she could have forced anything but smoke from her lungs.

She wondered if this was how death approached her father. Wondered how long he had spent in that upturned and mangled car before his life finally left him. Was it seconds? Minutes? Hours?

Did he have time to ponder everything he was leaving behind? Who he was leaving behind. Was he able to think about how this would crush not only his wife but also the daughter who depended so much on him? That the mother and daughter's relationship would become nearly indiscernible in the after math. That the moment he disappeared from existence not only would Clarke lose a father but every person in her life. Her father died, they left, and her mother mentally checked out. She was alone in every aspect of the word but it didn't bother her as much anymore or even now because she had more than enough time to adjust to it. She never made a fuss about what she was feeling because who was she going to tell with no one around? And honestly there were bigger problems in life than wanting somebody to talk to. Clarke wasn't the only person to ever feel alone.

No, because Jake Griffin had died alone. Had he wished someone had been there in his final moments or was it easier to pass on without someone trying to make you feel better about whatever was eventually going to happen? Maybe her dad hadn't even had the time to think about anything. Maybe when the car had flipped over and his skull smashed against the window that was it. The hit was hard enough that he never had the chance to regain consciousness. She didn't know and she never would. The fact that she had no clue what had happened to her father in that accident, that there hadn't even been a body left for them to bury still bothered her. The closure never came and so the insanity of not knowing stayed. The weight of it, the pain, it almost buried her alive.

She guessed none of that mattered now considering she was literally about to be buried alive. What was she leaving behind? There were no friends and especially no boyfriend to mourn her when she was gone. She would never finish college. Never get married. Never buy her first house. Never have children to call her own. All she had were a few final essays due next week, some dishes in the sink ready to be washed, and a mother she saw all of five minutes every other day. A mother who would come back to see a house she had dedicated half of her life to in shambles with her only child beneath it. What would she think when she saw those blue shutters in pieces or the white entry door tinged with black soot and burn marks or when the police told her that her daughter was gone? Would she cry? Would she yell? Would she completely break apart?

Clarke suddenly wished that she had made more of an effort to spend time with her mother, had forgiven her for being so blind to how her father's death had affected her, or at very least had said I loved you before Abby had left for a weekend work trip.

Yelling reached her ears and she assumed that the people outside are staring up at her house with pity while others are frantic to stop the engulfing flames. She wanted to pull herself off the floor and scream for help but there was a vice grip around her lungs, forcing all her energy into taking little gasps of clouded air. There would be no use anyway because she didn't have enough time left. There's a pounding in her head, so loud that it was surely going to cause and aneurism while her heart felt like it was going to explode. Something crashes and the panic gets noisier but she doesn't pay any attention because she's floating, drifting onto something softer than the debris covered hardwood floors of her house.

Then she hears crying and it takes her a second to realize that she isn't floating. She's being moved. Someone had tried to rescue her and someone had failed because there was no coming back from this. She was so close to blacking out.

"Clarke! Clarke!"

She knew that voice and she selfishly wished that she were already dead so she didn't have to think of him. It wasn't unexpected that he'd make an appearance in her final thoughts because he had always found a way to surprise her when she least anticipated it. Even after all this time she knew that the reason he in particular comes to mind is because he's still one of the most important people in her life. And she hated it because he doesn't deserve to be. He messed with her head, he ripped her heart to shreds, and he left her to deal with it all on her own. She should hate him and yet even in her last moment she couldn't bring herself to. All she really wanted was to see him one more time.

There's a weight on her chest and heaviness on her lips. And all at once she's suffocating and choking and having air forced into her lungs. They're trying to save him but it wouldn't work with her so close to death. She's heard the stories about how people have survived just an inch from death but Clarke had never believed herself to be lucky. She didn't even believe that she deserved a second chance. The end was so close and so she pried open her eyes, ignoring the burn it caused, for one concluding glimpse at something beautiful one this screwed up planet.

She gets her look in the form of a man's face hovering above her, and not just any face but his face. Strong jaw, whiskey eyes, and a scatter of adorable freckles. He's even more handsome than she remembered and it doesn't shock her at all. He has that worrisome look mixed with a little relief and its so normal, so completely him that her lips raise at the corners. The hallucination is enough to give her the final push to just let go, so she did.

Her eyes fluttered closed for the last time and darkness consumed her mind, but she okay with it because at least she was able to see Bellamy Blake in the concluding chapter that was her life.