Authors Note: Clarke muses on going home and seeing Bellamy again after Lexa leaves her chambers. (3x04)

She feels…okay.

For the first time in a long time, Clarke doesn't feel the need to run. Okay, maybe a part of her still wants to but the beast that dwells in her mind that usually demands the act has been much more quiet than it has in months. As she sits down on the duvet in her room, her hand absently stroking through random knots in her hair and warm candle light illuminating her skin, Clarke ponders why.

Maybe it's because her people finally have a solidified promise of peace. Relations had been shaky since Mount Weather and understandably so. Clarke still remembers the event with a bitter taste on her tongue and an incurable pang of guilt in her heart. But now, her people are the 13th clan and the threat of Ice Queen gone. The Grounders and the Sky People no longer have any need for hostility between them. At least, not technically. Of course it will take time to heal the deep wounds between the two people, lots of time and effort to build trust. But it will happen. If not in her lifetime, than in someone else's but what she and others helped do today will be the foundation for that inevitable peace.

Or maybe it's Lexa. For so long, Clarke could only feel hatred towards the young woman who had left her in the dark of the night with nothing but a whispered "May we meet again". It was a betrayal Clarke could not forget and certainly not forgive. But now here at Polis, despite it all, Lexa has somehow wormed her way into her good favor. But how could she have not with all she has done for Clarke and her people? She made them the 13th clan, saved Clarke from the clutches of the Ice Queen, taken the kill order off Lincoln, bowed down to Clarke, begging for forgiveness and promising her loyalty. And now she sent 300 warriors to protect Arcadia, a great show of strength and good will.

But even with that in mind, Clarke still feels there is something else.

Yes, things are better with Lexa but they could never be what they almost where. Even with forgiveness, even with all these acts of kindness and recompense, Lexa is the Commander of the Grounders and Clarke a part of Skycrew. Their people-now despite being the same people-would always be the divide between them.

She will always put her people first. You should come home to yours.

A small gasp escapes Clarke's lips at the remembrance of the words. And now she knows. Why the need to run has lessened, and a small peace has calmed her mind. It's Bellamy and her people. It's the promise of going back to them and trying to fix the damage she left by leaving them. She had been so afraid for so long, so guilty, that even when Bellamy had asked her to come back that awful day she could barely tell him why she couldn't.

I'm sorry.

Clarke cringes at the memory. Such a pitiful and weak excuse. No wonder he had looked at her so angrily and left with a grimace on his face. She had been afraid then, had stayed because she still couldn't muster up the courage to return home. But now was different. That past few days and all that was accomplished has given her some sense of security-a sense of promise. That things could be better, that she could be better.

And more than anything, she wanted to show Bellamy she was sorry.

Of all the wrongs she had committed, her sins against him has always been the most painful to face. His hand had laid on top of hers when they killed all those people in Mount Weather. It was he who begged her to stay, to come home, and share the weight of what they had done together. But she had walked away, not even giving it a second thought, and left him with nothing but a kiss on the cheek. Clarke recalls so vividly the elation that filled her heart when Bellamy had found her in the cave with Roan. She didn't realize how much she missed him till he was there, right in front of her, his hand stroking her cheek and a smile lighting up his face.

He had looked so beautiful in that moment.

But just as he rose her up with so much joy, he just as quickly brought her down so low with their last encounter. There had been so much anger and disappointment on his face, Clarke still feels tears heating up her eyes.

She wants to go home and make it better. All of it. To see Raven again, and Monty, to make amends with Jasper and Octavia, even her mother. And Bellamy. To make everything-everything-absolutely right between them after she has so royally screwed it up.

To just see him smile like that at her one more time.

She can come home with the defeat of the Ice Nation under her belt, with their honored peace treaty with the Grounder nation. It's still not enough, Clarke reasons, to amend what she has done in the past. Nothing she can do will ever erase that. But it's something and Clarke holds onto that for dear life.

Bellamy will understand, Clarke hopes desperately. He always understands her more than anyone else ever has. He has to.

Clarke goes to bed that night with such dreams to hold onto. And his smile. She goes to bed remembering that smile.

Somewhere else in the dark of the night, Bellamy thinks of Clarke just as she thinks of him. But his mind is full of anger, not promise, with resentment, not hope. And he has no desire to see the light of the next day. Not with the gun in his hands and the blood staining his skin.

Things will most certainly not be okay.