I was asked to write Clarke/Wells and came up with this instead. Title and last line belong to Lee DeWyze Blackbird Song.
Enjoy!
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Her body is numb as it lies on the damp cave ground. She thinks it might be shivering but she can't really tell anymore, her conscious mind feeling as though it's no longer a part of the flesh and bone that weigh her down.
She watches lethargically as a beetle shuffles its way across her field of vision, trying to find food, warmth – trying to survive.
"Which is what you should be doing."
She knows he's kneeling behind her, looking down at her inert form with worry. But it still doesn't motivate her to move… to live.
"You haven't eaten in days."
She doesn't reply, refuses to allow him to win, to suck her into another conversation which will eventually end up with her doing what he wants.
"It's what you want."
Her eyes roll in her head but it's the only movement she's capable of, unable to even give him an irritated sigh.
"Clarke."
It doesn't make sense, his constant prodding. There's no longer any point to it and he should know that. She'll soon be like him, after all. She's practically there already. Mud is lodged beneath her jagged nails, dirt and filth covering her skin and filling every part of her soul. Her tongue is swollen with thirst, and her body feels so weak she's sure she would collapse if she even tried to stand.
"So you do feel what's happening to you." He waits a beat, the silence floating in the air, light as a feather. "You can feel yourself wasting away. Feel the cold as it invades your bones."
With that, she shivers, the muscles in her body becoming suddenly tight as they tremble beneath her slowly freezing skin. Damn him.
"Too late."
Her eyes close with frustration, clenching her fists, holding them tightly to her chest as she drags her legs up to her stomach so she's in a fetal position, trying to conserve the warmth in her body.
"See, you do want to save yourself. Even if you don't realize it-"
"Shut up," she mutters, hoarsely through her trembling jaw.
It hurts, speaking. Her throat is dry and honestly it's been so long since she's had a conversation outside of her head.
"You need to do something… soon."
It's quiet once again as he waits for her reaction but receives none.
"Clarke, you're dying."
She knows she's dying, knows she's slowly wilting away into nothingness. But that's exactly what needs to happen because it's what she deserves.
"No, it's not," he whispers, emphatically.
She hadn't left just to die but that's what's going to happen, and she isn't going to change the course of fate.
"This isn't fate, Clarke."
Shut up.
"This is you wallowing in self-pity."
Shut up.
"This is you being selfish."
With a swiftness that she never would have thought herself capable of in her current state, she grabs the rock that she's been staring at for eons, and quickly turns to throw it at her tormentor. They both watch as it smashes harmlessly against a cave wall and falls to the ground, rolling towards the entrance.
Slowly he turns to her, dark eyes begging to meet hers, and she can't help but give him what he wants, just like she knew she would. And she just feels so… broken.
He tilts his head. "Clarke," he says, full of pity, "you're not broken. You're not done. You're not dead."
She begins crying, sobbing, but there are no tears and somehow that makes the situation even sadder. She leans over, head bent before him as waves of utter despair that have been rolling within her, finally crash to a head.
Her cries escape her throat, feeling like hot coals, burning and scratching their way up.
He sets his hand gently on the crown of her head, and it's so miserable because even though she knows it's there, there's no weight to it, no warmth.
"I'm not really here, Clarke."
Her head falls lower as she rests it on her fists. "I know that," she cries out, "I know."
"But that doesn't mean you have to be alone."
"I do."
"No. There are people who care about you. People who are worried about you."
She looks up at him through her dry lashes, and his eyes look down at her so full of warmth and wisdom. Because that's how you want to remember him.
"I don't- I don't deserve them," she heaves.
He shakes his head slowly, like she just doesn't understand, but she does, because he does. She just doesn't want to admit it.
"What you did was horrific, and it's always going to haunt you. Which is exactly why you deserve to live. You know what you did, the 300 people you killed, you feel them… everyday, and you always will."
Her sobbing has ceased and she stares, unmoving, at nothing, mind filling with all the faces she remembers from her time in the mountain. "They can't live. They aren't alive, because of me."
"Yes," he replies, gravely. "You killed them. You made the choice to stop them. Just like they made the choice to live off the deaths of others, to kill thousands of grounders, keep them in cages like animals and bleed them dry, so that they could live." He shakes his head again. "They are the ones who don't deserve to live. You were put in the impossible situation of having to choose between causing the death of their deaths or allowing the death of your own people."
She closes her eyes because he's right, she knows he is, but it's still so unbearable. It's unbearable justifying the genocide she committed, and she can't do it.
"You don't have to justify it, you just have to live with it. You just have to come to terms that it was necessary if you wanted your people to live."
"I know that already."
"Do you?"
Her eyes flash to his but her anger quickly dissolves in the face of his conviction.
"Because if that's true you should be able to go home right now, watch Raven as she heals and feel relief that she's even alive, not the burden of guilt for doing the only thing you could to save her."
She swallows hard, the emotions heavy in her throat, in her body. The same body that she's allowing to die in a filthy cave. What happens when the guilt is all I'll feel?
"Then you'll lean on them because-"
"I'm not alone."
He doesn't smile at her acceptance of the truth, only nods his head solemnly.
"Wells-" She's unable to speak as she looks at him, finally sees him, and there's a reason he's here and not her father, there's a reason that she chose him to stay with her above anyone else that she's lost. He is her logic, her understanding, her forgiveness. His gift to her. Allowing her to be a better person.
She desperately misses him, and everything he was to her, and he's shown her what she has to do now. But she's so afraid.
"Don't be scared, I'm still here. No more time for crying, Clarke."