Earth kept its word. They rescued the 47 and imprisoned Grounders without a single loss of life. It shocks everyone. A miracle, they say, a goddamn miracle. The word is bitter in Clarke's mouth, because a miracle is supposed to be a pure thing, but this one is covered in blood (Finn's blood), blood that she still sees on her fingers no matter how many times she washes and whispers to herself that it is not there anymore.
On the way back to camp, cheers and tears consume the group as loved ones reunite and they celebrate this enormous victory. Clarke has been hugged so many times she's lost track of the faces. Her arms go around them, but with each embrace her grip gets looser. There is a gnawing feeling in her stomach, as if something is scratching at her insides. As they get closer to camp (it's not home, never home), the scratching turns to scraping and the hole it is creating grows bigger.
Panic rises in her chest as their group reaches the camp entrance. Falling back from the front, she stands by the gatepost, watching her people go by. She counts heads, making sure all of the 47 have made it back. It would be just like Earth to release them untouched from the mountain to only take them from her on the return. Earth is never fair.
They file past, and she counts: forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven. All in, and she can breathe again. She watches Harper hobbling to the medical tent with her parents, and she sees Miller's dad hugging him tight, both with tears in their eyes. She looks for Jasper and Monty—where are they? Turning rapidly, she looks and looks but she can't see them. The panic is back and she had counted them and they were here and they were supposed to be safe and oh god where are they—
Hands cup her shoulders and she spins. It's Jasper. Clarke lets out a choked sound and crushes herself into his chest.
"Woah, Clarke. Glad to see you too, and for the second hug." He squeezes her in return, hands patting her back gently. She parts from him reluctantly, seeing Bellamy and Monty approaching behind him.
Bellamy's face tightens in concern when he sees her panicked face. "Clarke," he says, voice low and soft. "We got 'em, and they're safe. It's done."
The scraping in her stomach now claws up her chest, tearing at her lungs and she feels emptiness filling the space carved out inside her. The month of days since Finn had died had been occupied with tense truce talks and even tenser strategy meetings, with weapons training and gathering of medical supplies. In those days, Clarke was always needed, pulled in so many different directions, and she liked it that way because it filled the hole in her heart that had been there since he had whispered, thanks princess. The goal had always been freeing the 47, and now they were free, and safe, and she has nothing with which to satisfy the void in her. Clarke swallows, forcing it back down into her stomach, holding it together like she has been since they landed on the ground.
Then Monty says the two words that break her: "Where's Finn?"
The emptiness explodes inside her, and she runs.
Bellamy yells Clarke's name as he chases her into the forest. The gate had been closing as they had left, a loose wire catching on his jacket as he squeezed through. It had taken a minute to untangle himself, so he can't see her anymore, but he knows her destination. Clarke is heading to the dropship, to the place they always go when they need to feel safe, when they need to go home.
He speeds past moss-covered trees and soggy logs, hopping over boulders and fallen branches, gun banging against his back. His feet never once betray him because he knows this forest like he knows the freckles on Octavia's face and the scars on Clarke's hands. As he scans the landscape rushing at him, he can sometimes see a flash of yellow and blue among the green and brown. Though he knows where she's going, his breathing eases a bit when he sees that little glimpse of her. She's there, she's safe.
They are almost there, almost home, when he hears it. It nearly stops him in his tracks, and his heart stutters in fear. His skin prickles and his throat catches at the sound of Clarke screaming, a scream he knows will haunt him in later nights. He runs faster.
Clarke is running, running, running, until green and brown turn into grey: grey of ash, grey of metal. She is in front of the dropship and her pace slows. She stands staring at the structure where she once saved Finn's life, where he told her be careful (he really meant I love you, I'm sorry), and tears well in her eyes. She hasn't cried for him since that night. There were too many other things to do, too many other lives to worry about. Her breath comes in heaving pants, exhaustion and grief closing in around her throat. Slowly, she turns, taking in the trees and broken fence and scorched skeletons, until she's facing the gate, and she sees him there again, hands up and I'm sorry (sorry for what I did, sorry for what I'm doing now) etched on his face. This time, though, no Grounders appear to take him. He just stands there, hands up: I'm sorry.
Suddenly, a dark spot appears on his stomach, expanding outwards, staining his shirt crimson. Clarke cries out, steps forward (help him), but when she reaches out her hands are covered in blood and holding the knife again. She trembles and looks at him. I'm sorry, she mouths, and he smiles, sadly, hands slowly lowering. Then he's gone.
Unable to move, Clarke stares out the gate into the forest, at the trees and leaves and rocks and branches and moss, at the Earth that has cost her so much. The 47 are safe, the Arkers are safe, all of her people are safe and alive and well but Finn is not and her heart breaks as the dark thought of anyone but him crosses her mind.
Anger and grief bubble up inside her, filling the emptiness, a tidal wave that rages up her stomach, crashes across her chest, surges through her dry and scratched throat until it erupts out of her lips in a scream. The knife is still in her hand: she raises it and sinks to her knees as she strikes the ground, driving the blade deep into its ashy, dirty flesh.
No blood spurts out, her hands are clean and the wave rolls again, this time coming out in a sob. The tears that she held at bay before pour out. They run across her face, down her clogged nose, slip over her cracked lips, onto the ground. It must be fed somehow.
Footsteps echo from the gate, and Clarke looks up, desperate for another glimpse of him. A boy is there, brown hair flopping, in his ragged blue jacket, with a gun at his back, but it's not Finn. She cries harder.
When Bellamy gets to the dropship, Clarke is kneeling in the dirt, hands clutching a blade sunk into the ground. She stares at him blankly, and he doesn't know what to do. Her sobs tear at him, and he doesn't move, can't, until he sees her mouth his name: Bellamy.
With sure, quiet steps, he comes, taking the gun off, kneeling in front of her. The knife is between them, and her fingertips are white from holding it so tight. His hands rest on her shuddering shoulders, and she drops her head, dry and ragged sobs echoing from her. Slowly, Bellamy slides his hands down her arms until he reaches her fingers, pries them off the blade and intertwines them with his own. Tugging gently, he guides her arms around his waist, and she falls into him. He closes his eyes and they sit in the dirt, in the ash, in the blood and death that is the ground, and he lets her grieve.
Clarke cries and cries, releasing the anguish he has watched her bottle up for the past month. He has watched her hide her anger when she strategizes with Lexa, her grief when she talks with her concerned mother, her guilt when Raven ignores her in the mess hall. So many walls up around her, even he couldn't manage to break through. This was coming, he knew it, dreaded it. Not knowing what else to do (there isn't anything to do), he simply doesn't say anything, just lets her be.
When she starts to speak through the sobs, he still remains silent. The words pour out of her, not making sense: it took so much from us, it's always hungry, the debt was paid, they're safe but he's not, I don't know what to do anymore, anyone but him. He tenses at that last one, and Clarke hiccups in surprise, at her words or his reaction, he doesn't know.
When she suddenly pulls away from him, Bellamy opens his eyes. She's not that far away, her face is all he can really see, but there's a distance between them that he can feel, almost touch. He stares at her, with her shocked eyes and parted mouth and brow furrowed in confusion. Her face shifts and he can sense how hard she's thinking and then he's the one with the confused expression when her hands reach up to grasp his face, eliminating that distance, breaking down the walls. Her blue eyes capture his and he can feel her breath on his lips as she whispers, "Except you. Anyone but him, except you."
The two of them stay like that, intertwined, face to face, as the grief and acceptance rolls over her in waves, and she slowly, slowly, slowly adds more names (Raven, Abby, Octavia, Jasper, Monty, Miller, Harper, Murphy) to her list of exceptions. He holds her tight as he brings her back to herself, just like she has done for him (I need you, you did good here, 82 alive, I'm sure that had to be done too), each other's anchors in this sea of dirt and blood and death and life that is the ground.