AN: For every coin has two sides.
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Life without Clarke had been hard, especially since Bellamy spent the first few weeks of it in an absolute rage. Just because he understood why she had to leave, even why the grounders had wanted her in the first place, didn't mean it tempered the injustice of the situation in the least. He'd lost a medic and a friend (the only one who had been there to understand how hard this all was, who knew about his mother and his sister and who held him accountable to his actions, but who also supported his decisions, who empathized with the difficulty of making the awful choices) and most importantly he had lost the one person in the camp who could help him do the impossible.
Lead.
Clarke had been the one to bring him back down when his anger went too far, but now she was gone and that was infuriating and she wasn't there to tell him to suck it up and get over himself, (she had already made the hardest decision of all, she was too fucking self-sacrificial and ideal and she was probably already dead dead dead, because there was no way a softie like Clarke was going to survive the grounders).
-sometimes he remembered the supply depo, how Clarke had held a gun and felt power, how she had attacked a man to defend him, and he thinks she might be alright-
And then, as always, life went on. Octavia become proficient with what she had been left, and guards had always been required to take basic first aid so Bellamy taught others some of that. With winter around the corner, the group had stuck to hunting within their range and stockpiling supplies, because there was no other option except to buckle down and hope for the best.
(every time they passed near the river, Bellamy stood on the banks of the shore and stared over to the other side)
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The found their rhythm, that first winter, the careful balance between protesting when things were wrong and accepting when things were just tough. Sometimes, when Bellamy had a really difficult decision to make, he sought out his sister or Jasper (who had turned out to be a really good second, although perhaps not as charismatic as Miller) or even Spacewalker, just to try and get a feel for what to do (because Clarke had trusted them and had taken their advice, and it became a thing, among them, when decisions were hard, they'd play the what would princess do and try and follow in her footsteps).
Her departure had changed camp somewhat, and it had become quieter, and that was what that first winter had been all about, accepting that silence and moving on.
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Spacewalker had never been the same though (and good, thought Bellamy, why should he) and spent most of his time volunteering for the more reckless missions, scouting into territory they hadn't explored yet, or tracking down wildlife that was a bit too dangerous to be taken down alone.
Bellamy hated him most of the time, because he was even more idealistic (unrealistic) than the princess had ever been, but they'd been friends (or more) so he always made sure to send someone with him and bring him back alive.
(it wasn't until the first signs of spring that Raven finally moved in with Finn, because Clarke wasn't coming back and Spacewalker was on a downward spiral, and oddly enough it worked for the both of them, dealing with that grief, and they become inseparable)
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Communications with the Ark came back up in summer, a full six months since they'd believed themselves to be the last of the space-age on Earth, and although it would take decades to rebuild a ship capable of making the descent, it meant that they weren't alone out here.
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(councilwoman Abby was alive too, not that Clarke would ever know)
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In summer they began building, and it wasn't just tents and a wall (which was obsolete now that they had no one to worry about, but Bellamy made sure there was still a perimeter in the new landscape) but also houses made of wood and cloth and permanence. They spread out as far as they could without losing sight of one another, and without breaching any territory lines, and then set up their new home. It would take all of summer and autumn, and likely even the early signs of winter, to finish, but this was where they lived now.
They refurbished the drop ship to make it into a more official medical bay, and since Octavia needed to live there, Bellamy made sure his place was right next door. It became the official meeting place for the one hundred (less fifteen now), a political discussion board, and they become less of a dictatorship and more of a public forum whereby Bellamy had final say, but everyone else had some too.
-they believed in second chances, punishment never again took the form of banishment, and if Bellamy was to be the new king, he used to voice of Clarke in his head as the queen
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A sickness came in late fall and took two of their own, but Octavia and Murphy (and who had seen that coming, a reintegrated asshole becoming the right hand medic) had fought tooth and nail to make sure it wasn't any more than that, and it could have been worse but it wasn't, and although fourteen became sixteen (maybe seventeen, although no one would ever suggest anything out loud) they were still surviving.
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Every time he thought of peace, made a speech about gratitude for being on Earth and being alive when so many other things could have gone to shit, he thanked Clarke, even if only in his head, for seeing far enough into the future to recognize what they could be.
And when they decreed it time to have another party, to celebrate before the next winter blasted through, he found his house occupied by all of the drunks who had known her (Jasper, Monty, Finn, Raven, Octavia, Murphy, Connor, hell, it was pretty much everyone) and realized that his family had changed once more, shrunken from father mother to mother to mother sister to pretty much just Octavia, and then grown to encompass all of the people who had flown down with him. And together they talked about everything and nothing and sometimes Clarke, and this was how they found peace.
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Winter came (again) and it seemed harsher than the last, so Bellamy set off with Jasper at his side to hunt for some real food to keep his people warm; they had already shut down half of the houses that hadn't been finished yet, and stockpiled everyone into the ones closest to the med bay, because bodies generated heat and it was all they had at the moment. Meat would go a long way that berries and nuts couldn't.
The snow fell all around them, and it was different than last year, when living through the cold hadn't been a guarantee, so Bellamy breathed in and held on to the taste of life captured under his tongue, drifting softly onto his face.
It was peaceful until it wasn't, because Jasper had found footprints, and was anything but quiet about pointing them out. It had been so long since the threat of grounders had been heavy on his back, and true to his word Bellamy had never led anyone over the river line.
-that perhaps the grounders were no longer keeping their word made him spiral.
Before he could turn back to Jasper (to say what he didn't know, because sure they had stockpiled weapons just in case but none of them were with them, just some low-grade ammo guns) a shape fell from the sky, pure white wrapped in silver, coiling down on their feet and then straightening up in the next instant (to lessen the impact, Bellamy knew). The person – woman – was wearing leather and fur, had a pack on her back and a wooden mask of a bird on her face, carefully carved, and had blonde hair so achingly familiar that Bellamy was tempted to shoot on sight.
Then she smiled (her) and took off the mask, tucking it into the breast of her outfit, never taking her eyes off of them.
"Hey," Clarke grinned at them "you miss me?"
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