entitled; a heavy heart to carry
summary; 'the moment it's done, a heavy weight is dropped on her shoulders, her chest—the simple act of breathing has become a chore in just a matter of seconds.'
rating; t
disclaimer; let's be honest, if i owned anything, this would be a worse show.
word count; 2,965
notes; spoilers for the episode 2x08 if you haven't watched, obvi. otherwise have this painful thing i wrote at 2:00 in the morning.
a heavy heart to carry
.
The moment it's done, a heavy weight is dropped on her shoulders, her chest—the simple act of breathing has become a chore in just a matter of seconds. She turns away from him, away from his lifeless form and turns to her people, facing the Grounders, facing her people and Raven's screams close in on her like ice, wrapping themselves around her in a vice like grip.
She can feel Commander Lexa's gaze on her; disbelief and utter surprise quickly fade into a sort of admiration and respect and Clarke feels like she's going to throw up.
Her fingers are still curled around the blade, Raven's blade—-covered in Finn's blood—but she can't seem to loosen her grip on it as she slowly trudges through the large group of Grounders that make way for her as she heads back to her people.
A part of her wishes they would attack, be outraged that she had stolen their kill.
Their justice.
But the looks they give her are something she doesn't have the energy to read, though some warriors give her the same look of respect that Lexa had given her and she has to keep herself from meeting their gazes.
The first one to greet her is her mother; she's wrapping her arms around her, clinging to her and whispering soft, comforting words that only leave her feeling all the more empty inside.
Kane comes up beside her mother, who has pulled back and is holding her by the shoulders, trying to catch her gaze.
"You did the right thing—"
She doesn't get to finish hearing what Kane has to say, because Raven has escaped Bellamy's hold and has made her way towards her.
She expects the blow, and doesn't put much effort into stopping the collision between herself and the floor. She brings herself back up to her knees though, her hand coming to rest on the cheek that had taken the hit more out of reflex than anything.
"I trusted you!" Raven shrieks, and Bellamy is there, moving to help her mother keep a hold on Raven.
Clarke really wishes they wouldn't. "You promised me nothing would happen to him!"
And those words are like a slap to the face, but she finds that she's mentally scolding herself for ever making such a promise.
"Say something!"
She wants to—to explain, to comfort, to apologize, but anything she might possibly get out is lodged in her throat.
Clarke catches Bellamy lean over to her mother, watches Kane take his place and help her mother lead Raven away and the weight grows heavier.
Bellamy comes over and helps her to her feet again, leading her away from the still ogling mass of their people. He doesn't ask, doesn't blame, doesn't utter a word and she can't even be grateful. She finds herself wanting him to hate her, too.
They make it to Medical, an isolated area of work she would normally find comfort in suddenly feels like it's closing in on her, and she wants to weasel out of Bellamy's grasp and get away.
"Clarke—"
She lets him sit her down, eyes darting up to meet his confused gaze and suddenly everything is that much worse because she knows he wants her to talk. Wants her to explain, to justify her actions when they had agreed to protect him, when it was Finn and how could she have just killed him?
The weight is crushing her.
"Damn it, Princess—-"
'Thanks, Princess.'
She jerks to her feet so fast, Bellamy is caught off guard when she shoves past him and runs as fast as she can. She hears him call her name, she's terrified he'll come after her but when she's come to a stop in the middle of a cluster of trees, she is alone, and she lets out the scream she'd been holding in all that time.
.
The next few days pass by in a blur.
She doesn't speak to anyone.
Though, it's not for lack of trying on their part.
Her mother is constantly pressing her, trying to help and comfort her, but she fades her out.
Bellamy always looks like he wants to say something, wants to speak to her, but he settles for small gestures, for trying to aid her as best he can without scaring her off again.
The weight starts to feel like it's suffocating her.
Even Murphy tries, and she can't even bring herself to push him away, she simply moves along, his effort not affecting her one bit.
And then Raven—
She acts like Clarke doesn't exist, and Clarke is positive the weight is going to break her.
.
The Grounders send a man, who says something about a meeting, to solidify their truce—the truce that was only possible because of Finn's death and she finds herself standing tall.
Finn died for this truce, and she's not going to let it slip through her fingers.
.
The invitation is limited, and she doesn't pay her mother a single mind when she tries to tell Clarke to stay behind and Bellamy takes this as his invitation to tag along. In turn Raven refuses to stay behind, Kane doesn't want to let her mother deal with the three of them alone and somehow Murphy ends up in their little ragtag group.
She tries to focus when Lexa speaks. Tries to keep a level head, a sound mind because this could not fall apart but from one moment to the next, there is chaos.
Bellamy is knocking a glass out of her hand, a hand snaking along her waist and pulling her back as the Grounders turn on them, ready to attack.
Her actions are automatic, hand flying to the knife in her boots, but she sees Finn in every single face she looks at and she's reminded of what would be thrown away if anyone else were to die tonight.
"This wasn't my people." She calls out, and everyone's eyes are on her. She feels like she's about to break under this weight that she has been carrying, "Finn gave himself up willingly, he died for this truce—" I killed him. "—we wouldn't risk that truce falling apart. I wouldn't allow it."
She finds it strange, the look some of these people are giving her. Finds it strange that Bellamy stands beside her, on her right, Murphy on her left, and even Raven, still burning with rage directed towards her stands tall right behind her.
Her mother and Kane stand by them as well, but they're more surprised than she is, she thinks, that the one in the position of power is her, and not the new Chancellor.
She finds the weight reminding her that this is another thing that she does not deserve.
.
The night ends abruptly, their truce stands on a thin line that she isn't pleased about, but she gives Lexa the opportunity to speak to her people, to figure out what is to be done and pass judgement on her own terms.
When they reach camp, her mother kisses her forehead and heads to bed, Kane pats her on the back and she watches them walk away, speaking among themselves.
She wonders when things between them had changed.
"That's an interesting pair, aye Princess?"
She tenses up, every muscle stiffening and she turns, pushing past Murphy without a word.
She doesn't make it far before she hears Murphy call out, "Hey, what did I do?" Followed quickly by Bellamy shouting, "Clarke!"
She doesn't respond, but she finds herself slowing down and turning to face him as he catches up with her.
"You can't keep doing this, Clarke." He mutters, and for whatever reason, that simple phrase strikes a nerve.
"Can't keep doing what, Bellamy!?" She shouts, "I killed Finn, I killed him."
"Clarke—"
"No!" She finds herself giving him a shove and the weight just grows and grows, "I promised Raven nothing would happen to him! I told him he was capable of being saved! But I put the knife in him myself. I did it. I. Killed. Him."
She's pushing him now, shoving and the weight seems to close in on her.
"Clarke—Princess, stop!"
The word does her in; her throat closes up and suddenly she's gasping. Instead of pushing Bellamy away, she's holding onto him for dear life, fingers curling into the fabric of his jacket and the look of absolute panic in his eyes is the last thing she sees before the world goes black.
.
Her dreams are things she can't remember, even as they're happening.
There are words, there are warnings, there's Finn but it all fades to black.
She wakes up more than once.
She sees her mother, more worried than she's ever seen her.
She sees Octavia, hears her talking about Lincoln and his recovery.
She sees Bellamy, who is always there.
She sees Raven, who looks more conflicted and broken than Clarke can bear.
She even sees Murphy, looking somehow paranoid and worried at the same time when he pokes in to check on her before popping back out.
.
When she finally comes to completely, Bellamy is asleep in the seat beside her and Raven is sitting at the foot of her bed, facing away from her.
"I think I'm done being mad at you." She breathes out, and it sounds as broken as Clarke feels. "It hurts. I trusted you to save him, but I think somewhere in me I knew that there was no saving him. I could see it in his eyes. The guilt. The pain. The way he gave himself up like that. He was already dying inside and you were the only one brave enough to put him out of his misery before they could spend the night torturing him in front of all of us. So can you please, wake up and be okay so I can yell at you for being so stupid."
"Can we hold off on the yelling?" Clarke manages to get out, voice cracking the slightest bit.
Raven's head spins towards her, and from one moment to another, the girl's arms are thrown around her neck. "You idiot."
Clarke's arms snake around Raven's waist and she buries her face in Raven's dark hair as she mutters, "I'm so sorry I couldn't protect him."
Raven tenses a bit and pulls back, meeting her gaze with her own tearful one. "You did what you could, Clarke."
Clarke could sense there was more she wanted to say, but Bellamy's voice rang in her ears, interrupting their moment.
"Nice of you to join us again, Princess."
Her body's initial reaction was to tense up and bolt, but her entire body was sore and she didn't have the energy to run anywhere. Instead, she forced herself to relax and meet Bellamy's gaze with the faintest of smiles.
"Did I hear someone say Princess?"
Murphy's head poked in through the flap and he catches Clarke's eyes, giving her a small nod and a bit of a smirk.
"Nice to see you, too, Murphy." She mutters, deciding it wouldn't kill her to acknowledge him politely for once.
Surprise flashed across his features for a moment before his smirk grew and he stepped inside completely.
"Maybe I should go tell Abby you're awake—"
"No!" Clarke shook her head, "Not yet. She's not going to let me move a muscle the second she realizes I'm awake. Let me breathe for a while longer."
Raven and Bellamy shared a bit of a laugh, Murphy snorted, but it was at that moment that Clarke realized that the weight had lifted some and she could breathe again.
.
The days that followed came and went much quicker than she'd expected.
Her mother refused to let her do much on her own, but she had Bellamy, Raven and Murphy there to help her get through it.
Their truce with the Grounders wasn't easy, but they worked at it.
They learned from each other and trained together and plotted together and sooner than they expected, were able to save their friends from the clutches of the Mountain Men.
The weight lifted some more.
.
"Did you love him?"
Raven's question takes her off guard and for a moment she's back to that night, standing in front of him and she feels the weight threaten to suffocate her again but Raven's hand is in hers and she finds it easier to think things through.
"I cared about him, loved him like I love you and my mom and the rest of our people." Clarke mumbles. "And honestly, I found it easy, the thought of falling in love with him. But I didn't know Finn the way you did. I couldn't love him the way you did, and I think, when I told him I loved him at the end…. I told him more for you, than I did for me."
Raven's eyes were watering for the millionth time, but she simply leaned closer to Clarke, resting her head on her shoulder and muttered a soft, "Thank you, Clarke."
"For?"
"For letting him know that he was loved, at least."
She gave Raven's hand a squeeze and the weight was almost gone.
.
She's worked through things, but occasionally the nightmares come back, the weight grows heavy again and she feels that emptiness inside again, but she always has someone there.
She has Raven and Octavia, who have become now, more than ever, the sisters she never had.
She has Monty and Jasper, with their little tricks and jokes and their ability to always make her smile.
She has Murphy and Miller, a strange pair that occasionally get on her nerves, but cared about her and were more than willing to protect her.
She has her mother, and Kane, the parental figures she'd never expected to have, lingering in the background whenever she needed them.
And she has Bellamy.
Every bit the knight to her reluctant princess.
.
"Something wrong?"
She's not surprised he found her; it was easy communication between the two of them even before Finn's death the previous year.
"Not… really." She answers with ease. It's been a while and speaking to anyone about her feelings was never easy, but somehow Bellamy was the only one who could get her to open up without much effort. "Just thinking. Feeling. Remembering."
"It's a year today, I know."
She nods, shooting him a look as he sat beside her. "Yeah. The closer today got, the more nightmares I had."
"Figured as much. Raven said something about you not sleeping as much." He mumbles, and Clarke makes a mental note to smack Raven for saying anything to anyone. As if reading her mind, he grins, "Don't be too hard on her, I ask her to keep tabs on you for me."
That surprises her some. "You do?"
"Clarke, you had a panic attack in my arms. You weren't breathing. I'm allowed to worry about you." He tells her, and for the first time she really thinks about that night, and how these people that she depended on so much now must have felt when she broke down.
"Sorry." She finds herself telling him dumbly, almost like she really couldn't believe anyone was capable of worrying about her after what she'd done.
"Don't be. No one blames you for that, or for what you did, so you know." He's looking at her head on now, but she finds she can't meet his gaze. "We understand why you did it and how hard it was."
She recalls wishing they would yell at her, hate her, hit her. Recalls wishing Bellamy had been a bit too late in knocking that cup of poisoned drink from her hands the first night they met for the truce. She recalls how much she hated herself and she realizes that she had to go through that all to get here.
She finds she isn't all that bothered by it, because she's grateful for this place far more than she's ever been grateful for anything.
"Thank you." She tells him, "For being there for me. I know I was… Pretty much dead inside, and made it that much more difficult, but thank you for standing by me."
"No, thanks for not pushing me away." He tells her, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. "Thanks, Princess."
The shock of the words starts, it steals the air from her lungs and she's terrified it's another panic attack stirring, but the space between them is closing and she realizes her breathlessness isn't so much because of the words that burned themselves in the back of her mind. It's because of Bellamy, and how close he is, and how badly she's terrified of closing the space between them and possibly ruining all they've built between them.
But she thinks of Finn, and that night, and Raven, and how much she loved him. She thinks of her mother and Kane, and the spark that she'd missed initially, before it erupted into this wildfire before her eyes. She thinks of Octavia and Lincoln and their shameless, selfless love, a love that happened right in the middle of a goddamn war.
Finally, she thinks of Bellamy and the way he spent the passed year and so many months caring for her, and protecting her and following her lead without any hesitation. She thinks of the warmth that takes hold of her every time he's around and how the weight she's been carrying around completely vanishes in his presence.
He pauses just before their lips meet, giving her the chance to pull back, but she presses forward instead. Her lips meet his and for the first time in a long time, the weight is gone, and she's positive it's never coming back.
end.