DAY 47

Bellamy has always appreciated Clarke's tenacity, but it's not until right at this moment that he realizes just how unique and crucial it is.

Clarke is bright like the sun. She does not falter. As soon as she was given the direction to Arcadia, she packs up and makes the plan to go.

Bellamy knows that even if Clarke were alone, she would still survive this. Even if everything had gone wrong in a different universe, one where he went with the others to space, even if Clarke still collapsed the building, she would survive this.

It is not in Clarke's DNA to give up.

She would nearly never admit defeat.

Bellamy felt it. He'd been trying to keep himself together the entire time. He kept thinking, well, if he had Clarke, it would all be okay. He kept thinking about the warmth of the bunker and how these years would be good. He'd get to truly meet his sister in a way he'd never gotten to before. He'd have the chance and all the time in the world to explore his feelings for Clarke, hopefully with Clarke. He'd be able to relax, knowing that the bunker was in the hands of others, and he could- for the first time in his life- let someone else plan it all.

That moment when they both realized that they weren't getting in, when they looked at their meager food source when they'd been inches away….the energy around them had been electric, like sparks in the air.

He'd been close to kissing her.

Even now, Clarke is still going.

Bellamy feels like he's being tugged alone, unwittingly, his brain scattered and his mental facility spent.

If he were the one alone, he is not sure he'd make it to Arkadia, even with the idea of seeing his sister again.

Life for him has been one awful event after the other. If the roles were reversed, and he was unsure he'd ever see Clarke or his sister again, he can't be certain he wouldn't just cut his own losses and hope for a better afterlife.

Clarke doesn't even have the thought in her mind. She will continue to push against the odds until they are undeniable.

He is alive because of Clarke in every sense of the way.

"We're not getting in," Bellamy finally finds his anxiety and says, "We could dig for years and...I don't think…"

"We have to figure something out," Clarke said, "They'll be trapped otherwise. True, we won't live with them."

The words don't seem as black and cruel from her lips as they feel to Bellamy. To him, this is like a death sentence. It is the loss of hope. It makes him feel so alone, so tiny in this wide world where they may be the only survivors, and he cannot understand how Clarke can just keep her chin up.

Stars, Clarke was made for this world.

Not for the first time, he considers that he most obviously was not.

Clarke throws the car into park and throws herself across the seat, hugging him tightly.

"We will be fine," She says.

"Can you promise?"

"I will," She says, though it's impossible to assure something of this magnitude. Still, when she says it, he wants to believe her.

"I just feel so alone," He admits. There's no use hiding feelings from her.

"I do understand," She says, her lips cracked from the heat and her face slightly sunburnt, "Everyone we love is just from our reach. At least we know that Jasper and Octavia and my mom are alright," She says, her voice perking up.

No one mentions that they have no idea if the other group made it to the Ark.

They could be floating out there in space, dead for over a month now. Like all the ones before them, having returned to the universe as space dust.

Clarke takes the key, hopping from the car.

The ruins of Arcadia snuck up on Bellamy. Of course, he recalled that they'd been surrounded by a lake and dense forest, but that's all gone now. Not a leaf left nor a drop of water remained. It was just a collection of metal clattering in the wind.

"It's like we were never here…" Bellamy mutters, following Clarke, his feet crunching across the remains of the camp.

"Maybe we shouldn't have been," Clarke says, hands rubbing her arms. It's too hot for her to feel a chill, but Bellamy gets it. Finding the bones in Polis had been sobering, but walking through their former home was something worse.

Bellamy starts to sift. He knows if he lets himself pause, that darkness will eat him up inside. That feeling of loneliness will swallow him.

He's always been able to persevere if he has a goal. This goal is not quite so tangible, but it's something.

Look for useful items. Anything, and load them in the car.

"We can't stay here either," Clarke clicks her tongue, as though she thought that perhaps they'd be able to set up in this area. The entire place is just pieces of metal, though. Not even a form, just shells of a memory.

"No. Feels ghostly." Bellamy agrees. He has started a pile.

Clarke starts to move things around too. She'd brought that long stick with her, and Bellamy couldn't deny her it. Her fingers tighten around it, like a life-line.

"Okay. Okay," Clarke plants it into the ground, leaning against it, "Jasper said that the box is buried near the entrance. But, fuck, where is the entrance anymore?"

Bellamy pauses. His eyes scan. "Well, there's a shape that sort of looks like the door. Maybe." He's not sure about anything. Clarke seems to see it too, though, for she starts digging, her hands upending the ashy dirt, shoving away bits of coil, wire, and metal to clear her path.

"Six feet under," Clarke muttered, "God, I hope that was low enough."

Bellamy does not move to help her. He is glued to his spot, watching her, lip quivering.

How the hell will they make it five years?

It seems almost too easy that Clarke finds it on her 'first go'. Sure, it takes about two hours of digging a large pit, but they'd found the 'entrance' without much effort.

The box is not destroyed, so it bodes well for the seed packets inside. Clarke sighs in relief, but Bellamy is not convinced.

"Okay, we have seeds," He hisses, "We can't eat seeds."

They have to find soil that will take the seeds. And wait for those seeds to grow. And harvest them. They have months, at the least, before those seeds are viable. And that's if they weren't ruined by the radiation anyway, and maybe by that chance, it will be too late.

"Bell, have some faith," Clarke sighs, "It's more than we had yesterday."

She is too smart to not have thought of those same issues, but somehow, she is still smiling.

Bellamy slumps off, too tired to argue and too sad to use possibly his last moments fighting with Clarke. But at the same time, if he stays, he'll yell, and he just needs a second alone.

He chuckles to himself. Ironic; he has all the space in the world, literally.

In the back area, as he's half-heartedly kicking around, he finds what he thinks might have been the bunks of the people who had lived here.

Most things were taken in the hopes of utilizing it in the bunker or destroyed by the fires.

He does come across a locked box though.

Curiosity wins him over, so he takes a rock to the lock and whatever strength he has to open it.

When Clarke finds him, he's sobbing.

He should have known that coming to a place like this would only bring forth ghosts.

"I should have...we should have done more…" Bellamy shudders, guilt having settled across his shoulders like a heavy blanket. He always heard the stories of Atlas, but it's not until right now that he thinks that he's always been that great but haggard hero, holding the world on his shoulders.

But not right now. He's dropped it entirely.

Clarke kneels next to him, her face painted with sorrow as she dips her hands inside of the box.

Back when they'd been sent to earth, along with their arm trackers, they'd all been given vintage and antique dog tags. In case something ate someone's face and on Earth, they had to identify a body, which had happened, or in case they were all stupid and took off their trackers...which had also happened.

He didn't know someone had been collecting the tags. In all his efforts to keep these kids, fucking children, alive...he'd missed the fact that whenever someone was buried, they were not wearing their tags.

It was a box of everyone they'd lost. Everyone he couldn't save. All the people that they'd failed.

Was there a better way? Could everything have been avoided? If they'd landed elsewhere or if they'd been less foolhardy or if they'd focused on staying alive instead of tasting freedom...then just maybe…

Bellamy being the oldest had placed him in a position of power, but it wasn't until now that he realized how much he'd felt like a father to all of the children, and how losing each one had felt like his own children were dying.

A child shouldn't die before their parents. He and Clarke should have done more.

"Fuck," Clarke whispers, palms coming up with a handful of little metal chains, all clinking together. She turns one over; Fox's. She'd had such kind eyes and the quickest hands, "Who...who's was this?"

Bellamy opened his own fist to show one tag, one that had been taped to the top of the box, along with a note that said 'I'm sorry. Life has taken me down.'

"Al Cozens." Clarke says. He'd been part of the 100 sent down; a stringy little Asian kid. There had been rumors he'd been involved in a treason attempt, but no one had ever gotten out of him why he was truly there. He'd been meticulous and extremely organized, so it made sense he'd been collecting it.

But like everyone, there had been a shadowy part to him. One Bellamy understood well right now.

"He committed suicide. I heard it from Monty. There was a big group of them; Riley had accidentally overdosed, and before we got to the bunker, people just figured…" Bellamy shrugged.

"Oh."

They laid them out. Fifty in total; though they both knew that there was less than 50 of their first group remaining. Some of the bodies had likely been impossible to find, or their tags had been taken. Some kids had gotten rid of their tags the moment they stepped off the ship. Still, it was an impressive, but horrible, array.

"We'll be taking this," said Clarke, "And tomorrow we'll keep going. Alright?"

Bellamy had no reason to argue.

Fuck. He hoped she was right.

Day 51

What did it take to break the spirit of a truly positive person?

This, Bellamy realized, this is what it took.

Clarke's hopeful mantras and smiling face had been slowly fading away in the past couple of days. It was hard to notice at first; she might have seemed a bit duller as they continued on, aimlessly driving through the never-ending sands, but at first, Bellamy thought he was imagining it.

But he was not. Clarke was no longer as sure as she once was.

The truly frustrating thing was that she started by dropping her determinism only when she thought Bellamy was not around to see it. She'd be grabbing something from the back of the van, she would pause before waking him up to drive, or it would be when they were both supposed to be sleeping and Bellamy would just see it. He'd see the unsureness flood her and her entire body quake, but whenever he was around, she was back to a version of herself that seemed annoyingly chipper.

That's when he realized that she was putting on his show for him.

Bellamy was torn between furious and embarrassed. Furious that she was being so insistently sure about the situation, giving him that hope, when he was no longer sure that she believed that. It was the end of the world, Clarke could stand to be truthful with him, couldn't' she? But as all that faded, he was just left with unyielding embarrassment. Embarrassed that his disposition was so gloomy and despondent that Clarke felt like she had to over-compensate to assure the mood in the rover did not surpass hopeless.

Stars, was he that obvious?

But her mood was all but gone now. As they staggered through the desert, she looked close to shattering at the slightest touch.

This was Clarke's breaking point.

The last time either had food or water was the night in Arkadia. Clarke had just said, "Well, I suppose we'll have to find what's out there for us," as though it were a puzzle map, a treasure trove waiting just for them.

Bellamy had gone days without food, that wasn't unusual. Upon the Ark, he usually gave his food to Octavia, even though his mother didn't like him doing so. They were stretching it thin as it was.

But without water…?

Bellamy was intelligent. He'd been the star of his classes. It was the one place a day where he could empty his mind of Octavia and those worries and just focus on the learning at hand. Teachers lauded him and everyone was so excited to see what he'd become.

So, he knew full well that they would not survive much longer without water. Their days were numbered, literally.

No, not days.

Day. Singular.

Their rover had gotten caught in some sand a bit back. They'd both drove and drove and drove until they literally could no longer. At this point, neither had the energy to be up much longer than a few hours, so they switched off drivers while the other slept in place of meals.

When the car had hit a place where it seemed the sand swallowed it and they knew that they surely would not be able to dig it out with their reserves of strength, Bellamy had been the one who suggested they walk.

"Maybe we just need to go over that ridge," He'd said, voice warbling at Clarke's completely empty face.

So now, here they were, walking to nowhere.

If there was green anywhere, they weren't going to find it.

Bellamy knew this somewhere deep in his chest, but he did not want to be the first one to give in. Not after all Clarke had done for him.

That's what someone did with a person they cared about. They took turns building the other up. Clarke had done so for all the days leading to now, so it was only fair that Bellamy- despite his good sense- tried to do the same for her.

The sands whipped around them as they stumbled through the landscape. They were down in a valley, where the winds were not as harsh and there were little slices of shade from the places where the large figures of rocky mountains towered above them. They had packed on most of the gear from the rover, confident there was no one to steal it and had fashioned protective gear from the sun and sand the best they could.

There was a change in Clarke's walking. Before, it had been measured and paced. Bellamy saw her stumble a bit and then, her next few steps were wide leaps, as though she were jumping over crevices.

Then she began to shed.

"Clarke?" Bellamy asked, frowning.

Clarke moved as though she did not hear him. She unraveled her head-wrap, her backpack, her walking stick. She took off all the protective layers and all the items they'd hoarded, littering them behind her. It was as though she were possessed, her eyes glassy and her face unreadable.

She took three more steps forward and collapsed.

"Clarke!"

Bellamy dived for her, rolling her onto her back and patting her face. Her eyes stared up at the sky without seeing, the light flickering away from her...slowly, inch by inch.

"Clarke, no," Bellamy whispered, unclasping his canteen and shaking the last three drops of water between her lips, shaking his head.

Something covered the sun, just for a moment, and before Bellamy could process, a bird was swooping down and pecking at Clarke's leg.

"Fuck you! Get away!" Bellamy hissed, lunging for the carrion beast, but the knowledge that Clarke was inches from death terrified him.

Clarke groaned, squirming as the bird bit at her exposed ankle. She groggily lifted her head, but when she saw the animal, it was like a fire was lit underneath her.

"Shoo!" Bellamy spat one last time, and the bird took off.

"No! Wait! Show me where you live!" Clarke said, scrambling to her feet, a burst of strength given to her, as though some god placed it within her, "Bellamy if this thing is still kicking…" She didn't finish before she was frantically running after it, her fingers clawing up the side of the basin.

Stars, Bellamy was an idiot. Clarke was right!

He followed after her, a sureness in his chest that if they just made it to the top…

His breath left him.

Even on the top of the world, all around, there was still nothing for them. And the bird was long gone.

"No...no, no, no." Clarke began to murmur, "It can't...be. It cannot be." She said, grasping Bellamy's wrist so hard he thought she might break it.

Clarke stepped forward, but the sand swiftly moved beneath her. She was still gripping Bellamy, and despite his best efforts to stop them, they went tumbling down the dune. Bellamy still had some control over his body, whereas Clarke was like a rag doll, hitting the rocks that jutted out and only managing a limp groan as she came in contact with them.

Bellamy hit his chest hard as he landed, knocking the wind out of him. As he sputtered, spitting up more dust and sand than air, he tried to find Clarke. His vision swam and his head felt it was being split in two.

The first thing he heard was a buzzing. No, not a buzzing, a caterwaul. For one second, Bellamy was sure that it was the feral screech of an awakened spirit, something so piercing and so horrible to his ears that he felt his vision ebb.

It was Clarke, he realized, watching her mouth open and hearing the sound. It wasn't perfectly synched up, like some of the old movies on the Ark that were just a beat ahead of the video.

My god, Clarke's gone crazy…

"I'm done!" Clarke pushed herself to her knees, lifting the sand and watching it sift through her fingers. Bellamy rolled to sit, his mind lagging. He felt like he was having some sort of strange out of body experience, one where he was experiencing this happening, watching Clarke break in front of him, but not quite reacting to it. Or, as he was realizing what she was saying, she was long onto her next words.

"Do you hear me? I've lost everything. I've lost my friends...my father...my mother...I'm about to lose Bellamy too…" She looked back, her voice crackling off from her yell to the universe, hardly above an audible whisper, "There's nothing left. There's nothing left." She was looking at him, but not in his eyes. Just at his figure, as though trying to capture it in her memory forever. Bellamy was still hazy, and he wanted to comfort her, but his mind was working half-speed.

Everyone came into a jarringly sharp focus, however, as Clarke took the gun from the holster on her belt and checked that there were still two bullets.

"Bellamy," She whispered, absolutely no emotion behind her voice, "It's...time…"

Bellamy stumbled on his knees to her. He was done fighting. He had no reason left to. He didn't think there had been anything in this dusty land, and he'd been right.

He'd been hopeful as long as he could, and then some.

Clarke lifted the gun, brushing aside the hair of his temple, fingers pausing to knit in his hair for just a second.

The gun was shaky in her fingers.

"Let me," Bellamy said.

He sighed, taking the gun from her fingers. He'd been about to kiss her the last time they were at death, but at this moment, he could not. How awful would it be to finally kiss Clarke, to know what it felt like, and never get to again? To always wonder, to always wish there had just been more time.

It was the kinder thing that they remained an unasked and unanswered question.

However, he hoped that she knew that offering to be the one to kill her was his way of saying he loved her. Killing her so she did not have to live with that guilt, however brief. Killing her first so she'd never have to live without him, even if he would be seconds behind her.

Clarke leaped for him, but not for a kiss. Just for a hug, one they'd shared so many times before. They held on for what felt like forever, shaking in each other's arms, neither wanting to cut this moment short. They both knew what was on the other end of it, as right in nature as it was.

Clarke pulled away first. Bellamy did not think he'd have the strength, so he was grateful. She took the gun, guiding his hand, placing it right up to her temple.

"Make it clean."

Make it clean because there are only two bullets. Make it clean so that it's immediate. Make it clean so I do not linger, so there is no pain. Make it clean, Bell.

He could see the resolve in her eyes. Just as she had set out days ago to find salvation, she was not set on their death. If he chickened out...she would not.

He started to pull the trigger and then...something cut across the sky.

Bellamy threw the gun before Clarke could do something stupid.

"It's back!" He gasped, "The vulture!"

"Bellamy-," Clarke curled into a ball, "No...no…"

"Clarke, c'mon, just another hill. Please. For me." He said. Something was pressing him forward. Something was telling him to follow that damn bird.

Clarke swallowed and nodded.

He grabbed the gun; he knew if there was nothing over that ridge, they surely would not have the mental strength to go on.

Hand in hand they follow it over the bowl's lip, throwing themselves forward, clawing and shoving sand down behind them. And over the next, and the next. Neither said that they'd gone far longer than Bellamy had said, but Clarke's will had seemed to return and Bellamy would follow her to the end of the earth if he needed to.

Just when Bellamy felt ill enough that he was throwing up bile and felt his muscles tighten and his mind starts to fuzz, Clarke helped to pull him up over one more ridge.

Over the edge, on the top, the world was washed in green.

Bellamy and Clarke stood for a moment, staring.

"Are we hallucinating?" Clarke whispered.

"You see it too?" Bellamy asked, and at Clarke's slow nod, he gave a gasping, half-sobbing laugh, "Then we can't be. We both see it. We both see it."

Bellamy had seen many beautiful things but this beat out all the rest.

They were going to survive.

Clarke turned, and before she could say a single word, Bellamy grasped her cheeks. His hands were calloused and rough, both of their lips were chapped, their skin was peeling from sunburns, their breath smelled, and their bodies were worse...but kissing Clarke was the second best experience in his entire life, second only to the moment that had preceded this.

Clarke surged up into the kiss, pulling on his hair, arms curling around his neck as she pulled him down so she could stand on both feet. Every time Bellamy thought he was going to pull away, he found himself going back in again, unable to stop.

Above them, the vulture cawed.

Bellamy finally did extract himself, pulling the gun from his own holster. With the aim of a true marksman, he held the gun squarely and fired.

The vulture fell a few yards from the entrance to paradise.

"Thank you," Bellamy chuckled, "You bloody, annoying, amazing bird."