Clarke

Mornings had become her favourite time of day.

Mornings meant new beginnings, the start of a new day full of promise. Clarke had counted nearly six hundred mornings inside the sterile walls of Becca's lab, too scared to spend more than a few minutes outside.

When she'd finally got that nerve, finally gone out before dawn and remained until dusk, she'd found peace.

Now, sat on the dropship ramp, watching the sunlight begin to filter through the trees around her, she found even more joy in the simple pleasures.

With this morning, with this new start, she could get to know her friends again. Find out what had happened to them in the six long years they'd been in space. Find out who they were now.

They were not the same people who had left her behind, she knew that. They couldn't be. It was too long a time to remain exactly the same.

Monty and Harper had remained together, that much was clear; since she'd unloaded the injured into the cave, they'd been practically inseparable, Harper grasping at his hands and Monty pulling her close. But she could see a tightness in his gaze that had not been there before, not really. A hesitance, almost, and a depth she'd not seen in him.

Jasper's death had hit him hard, but it hadn't truly sunk in during the chaos of survival. He would have dealt with his grief on the Ark, and it had clearly deeply affected him. Harper, too, she reflected. She was more open, and from the little she'd conversed with her, she seemed to look for the joys in life now. Every time thing to be appreciated.

Raven hadn't changed much, not that Clarke could tell yet. She was still sassy, still confident to the point of being cocky. Still amazing and loyal and one of the best friends a girl could wish for.

Echo, she'd had little time with. She'd helped bring Bellamy from the truck, and then helped support Harper on her sore leg, but she'd retreated into herself afterwards, staring at Clarke with an almost reverence. That had unnerved her a bit, but beyond that, she couldn't quite peg Echo's personality now. She hadn't truly pegged it before, if she was honest, except that she had been exceptionally loyal to Roan and to Azgeda. That would clearly have changed, but where would her loyalties now lie?

Murphy was vastly different. The rude, insufferable boy he'd been when they'd first landed on Earth had morphed in front of their eyes into a man capable of affection. Now, he was loyal and determined and would not leave Emori's side for anything. He had made no wisecracks about anything, not yet, and Clarke doubted he would.

Not until Emori was awake. Not until she was safe.

The trials she'd been told they'd gone through on the Ark ran through her mind. They would surely change a man beyond recognition. But there was nothing she could do for him. Not here. Not yet.

Her thoughts turned now to Bellamy. To his breakdown in her arms, realising she was alive. She hadn't cried, but she had been close. She had been afraid for him too. She had tried so hard to contact him, to know that he – that any of them – had survived.

She had called out to him every day for one thousand, six hundred and twelve days. She'd never missed a check in, not once she'd found that satellite and radio and paired them up.

She had needed to know that he'd changed, that he wasn't leading them with just his heart – that he was doing her bit, leading them with his head as well. As she'd begged him too, knowing somewhere deep down that luck was against them. That things would always go wrong, and something would happen.

Things never went right for them.

She wiped away the lone tear that escaped at that thought, and stared up into the leaves above her. They were brown, and curling, but they were stubbornly clinging to the trees even as a bit of a chill took to the air. It was well into December, but ever since Praimafaya, the seasons had been weird. Snow fell in February, and plants sprouted year round – the ones that had survived, had survived a wave of nuclear radiation. A frost wasn't going to kill them off anymore.

She bit her lip. The same could be said for her, and for Madi, she supposed. They'd survived the radiation, and everything that came with it – but they were mortal, they could die by a bullet or a blade without a moment's notice.

That turned her thoughts to the prison ship, the one she hadn't seen since it came to the ground on day two thousand, one hundred and ninety nine. Her last transmission to the Ark, for fear they were being overheard.

They'd been careful ever since, but there was no guarantee they wouldn't be found – and that the people inhabiting it wouldn't be hostile. That had been her fear. She hadn't wanted to expose Madi to any threatening people, wanting to keep her safe.

Motherly instinct for a child without a mother.

Speaking of … she roused herself, realising she'd come out not only for the medical supplies still in the dropship, but for replacement food. Berries, nuts, mushroom. Anything they knew was edible. She'd already picked the leaves of the red flower that they ate, and the bitter mushrooms they brewed into soups with some of the meat from the boars and panthers she took down on the rare occasion they found them.

It was the berries she wanted to make sure she got, though, and for that she needed to return to the graveyard.

She thought for a long minute. She and Madi had made a mission, when they had found and partially restored the Rover, to retrieve whatever was left of those who stayed behind in Arkadia and bury them in the dropship graveyard.

Especially Jasper.

It had taken them nearly a month to cart all the remains back – the fire hadn't gotten inside the remains of the Ark, so their bodies had been mostly intact – and then another week to dig all the graves.

She'd taught Madi their funeral prayer, and Madi had left little bundles of flowers on each grave. There'd been no markers. None of the dead had grave markers, and besides, she didn't know the names of every single person who'd chosen to take their own life instead of facing Praimfaya.

She'd buried Jasper with a bottle of Monty's moonshine just sticking out of the ground, and then she'd counted until she found Wells' grave and carefully wedged another one there. They were the two graves that mattered to her most, here.

There was others, to be sure, but here, her best friend and a boy she'd grown to love almost like a brother lay in their eternal rest.

She needed to bring Monty here, she realised. Give him some time, let him pray over his friend's grave. And then thank him for the life his death gave.

She'd been surprised to notice it, but a little after the vegetation had begun growing again, berry bushes had begun springing up over the graves of the recently buried. Bushes that, with the radiation, had mutated to grow quickly and often.

The berries were delicious. She couldn't quite place them. They looked like strawberries. Some bushes grew black, and they had a grape-like taste but very, very sweet. Some bushes grew blue, and they tasted more like apples – but with less sweetness. And then the green ones, they were a taste she'd never had before.

She and Madi had stripped them bare one day, intending to fill themselves on something that wasn't mushrooms or nuts, and then take the rest for sustenance on their journey to what was left of Polis. But Madi had come down with a version of the flu that evening, and they had ended up remaining at the dropship – where, they discovered after just four days, the berries had completely grown back.

They'd been amazed, but they hadn't touched them, and the berries never grow larger than two inches in diameter.

Clarke wanted to take some with her to the group, but she didn't want to disturb the graves until Monty had seen them. And she supposed the others would want to pay their respects too, eventually – but when they were well enough to walk.

With that thought in her mind, she made her way back to the cave entrance, and to her friends.