DAY 52

Bellamy was riding on a high. It could just be, he considered, the fact that they'd narrowly escaped death once again, or possibly because they really hadn't anything substantial to eat in days and so even the smells wafting from the vulture were the most tantalizing, scrumptious thing Bellamy had ever tasted. He felt like he looked like an idiot with a grin on his face.

Or, he considered as he turned to Clarke, it could be because of her.

Because he'd kissed her and she'd kissed back.

Part of him had hoped Clarke would be wearing the same stupid grin on her face. He hoped that as they traveled through this green forest, which felt unreal and like a utopia he could have only dreamed of, he hoped her mood would improve. He hoped once they'd eaten - and boy did they, they picked every morsel of meat from that bird- her mood would improve. He hoped as they traveled further in and found no enemies, only lush plants and cawing birds, she'd start to smile.

She hadn't, though, not yet.

He tried not to take it personally. He was a romantic, so sure, he hoped that one day he could be her moon and sun and the stars, but mentally she was pretty rough. He'd talked her off the ledge, so of course, she didn't bounce right back. But seeing Clarke so quiet, still, was worrying to him.

He'd admit that he wasn't used to having to be this way, not around Clarke. He was the grumpier one and she was the smiling sunshine. He knew their roles. Still, he tried to get her to crack a grin.

Anything.

They came down a rocky cliff a couple of hours after their meal, Bellamy using a large log to brace himself and help with his legs as he clambered down. Clarke stood at the edge of it, hands on her hips, sighing.

"Fancy a swim?"

"Here?" Clarke furrowed her eyebrows, "Now?"

"Well, why not? We're both sandy. I have sand in places there shouldn't be sand," Bellamy shuddered and took a shoe off. He deposited an impressive pile of dirt on the banks before dipping a toe in, "Not too cold."

"Maybe…" Clarke considered.

"Come on." Bellamy prodded. He hoped that perhaps once she felt clean again because he always felt more human when he was clean, that she'd start to feel better.

He fished things from his pockets, dropping them into the soft edge of the lake before wading in in his clothes. They could use a good wash too. He turned, about to tease Clarke, but saw her stripping down to just a bra and underwear and all his words caught in his throat.

"What?" Clarke said, the first hint of humor returning to her face, "Who's gonna see besides you?" She teased, diving under the water like a fish.

Bellamy barked out a laugh and reached for her, pulling her down into the water. She climbed on his back, dunking his head. It felt so playful, so carefree that for a second, Bellamy was not himself anymore. He couldn't even claim that he'd ever done this as a child because there weren't wide pools of water on the ARK, and as soon as Octavia was born, he all but grew into an adult.

No, it was something more. It was like, just for that time in the water, he and Clarke transcended themselves, splashing and making enough noise to summon any animals left around, but nothing came. No sea monsters, no wolves, no apes that could tear them limb from limb. It truly seemed like they were the biggest and baddest things in this forest. In fact, he hadn't seen a mammal bigger than a rabbit.

For the first time ever, Bellamy felt truly safe and utterly blissful. He wondered if this was how life was always supposed to feel? He honestly couldn't think of a higher high than right now; the moments that start with kissing Clarke.

As the sun beat down on them, they floated in the water together, side by side. Their fingers were clammy and wrinkled and he'd inhaled more lake water than he'd had in his entire life. He felt at ease with the universe, and at ease with Clarke.

As the sun crept below the horizon, Clarke swam back, "We'd better find a place to make a fire."

Okay, she still had the will to live. Good?

However, as soon as she exited, that scowl was back on her face. It only deepened as he stoked a campfire for them near the shore. He managed to catch a few minnows by the shallows and roasted them over the fire. It was probably for the best; overeat too fast and too soon, and they'd just barf up whatever they just had. Still, more protein could never be denied.

Clarke hardly ate. No, that wasn't true. She ate the first fish with the same gusto she'd devoured the bird. It was as she reached for her second that she became quiet, nibbling, and looking ill. When he offered Clarke the third minnow, and she refused it despite the way her stomach growled, he had enough.

"Okay, what the hell?"

"What?" Clarke asked, her voice monotone.

"We survived Clarke. We're alive in this incredible forest and you're just...just…" He couldn't even find a word to describe her, "I don't expect you to be jumping for joy, but would it kill you to smile? Or try not to starve yourself?" He said. He was more than a little frustrated. They were the only ones left. He couldn't do this without her. He didn't want to exist with a shadow of a person for five years, he needed his partner who fixed every problem without so much as a blink.

He needed Clarke back.

Clarke looked at him, face unreadable. He wondered if he'd gone too far until she started to speak quietly, "I used to think that life was more than just surviving. I had to on the ARK, down here. I had to think there was something more, something bigger that I was reaching towards."

"Okay?"

"I'm not so convinced anymore," She gave a grim smile, "Animals don't feel guilty when they kill. They just do it. They kill, or they get killed. And I told myself that every life I took was for a reason, but the truth is, the other side had reasons too."

"You're not an animal, Clarke. We're human."

"You are. I'm not sure I'm…" Clarke bit her lip hard, "Even the days leading up to this were just survival, nothing more. And for what? What happens after this?"

"Well, the Grounders and Octavia come out from the bunker and our friends return down here and-,"

"And there's more fights over this area? More wars? For what end?" Clarke demanded, "It's all I've known. The Grounders, the Mountain Men, even A.L.I.E. Their reasons they wanted us dead were the same as ours. And they're all gone and I'm not."

"Yes, we're still here."

"They're gone because I became death," Clarke said, twirling a bone from a fish between her fingers, "It's what I learned to do. I wore it like a badge, even if I pretended I didn't want to. I killed so many," She raised her eyes to meet Bellamy, "What becomes the Commander of Death when there's no one left to kill? I'm not sure if I know who I am or what I want out of life anymore, Bell."

Bellamy was silent for a long time. He was torn between wanting to shake her and remind her that he helped her kill most of those people too, that she was doing it for her people. Still, he understood. Now that Octavia was gone, leading her own people, Bellamy could admit that there had been brief moments he'd felt astray too. His entire identity had been tied to keeping Octavia safe. He was the Big Brother. But she was far below the ground and he was up here and there was no one else to lead.

Who were two leaders left when the world was empty?

"I know what I want," He finally spoke. Clarke tilted her head, waiting for him to continue. It was the truth. His own desires were the same as they'd always been, perhaps more finely tuned with fewer options as it were. Or, perhaps he'd just let himself ask himself what it was he too was looking forward to.

"I want to explore the world, or what's left of it. I want to watch the sunrise and set and eat good food and learn how to cook. I want to build a house for myself and probably fail a couple of times, but be proud of it. I want to prepare this place so when our friends do come back, it will be so good for all of us. When the five years are up, I want to make a community. I want to…" He swallowed hard, unsure if it was worth saying so candidly to Clarke, but in the pursuit of honesty, he couldn't help to include it, "I want a family. I want to be a father and be a good dad. I want to plant flowers, metaphorically and literally, and do good for all the bad I have done. It would feel terribly unfair of me to have caused so much heartache and not try to fix it somehow, you know?" He asked.

Clarke didn't reply, but as it was, he'd just dumped a lot to unpack on her. He didn't include it yet but he wanted to add that he wanted to do all those things with her.

"If you're feeling unsure, that's fine," He said, "And you can make my dreams yours too, I'm not selfish about them," He said with a chuckle, "But stars, Clarke, don't waste it. Not now. That would feel rather foolish, all things considered."

He did not expect an answer right now, nor the rest of the night. He found a bundle of leaves to help make a pillow with his pack and curled up next to the fire, his intention for sleep clear. It was a few moments, but he heard Clarke do the same.

He hoped she'd feel better in the morning.

DAY 53

Clarke woke at the crack of dawn. Bellamy was sleeping on his side, snoring. He had a little bit of drool on his lip and one arm was thrown out in what seemed like an incredibly uncomfortable position, but he looked like he'd never slept better.

When he woke, she'd have to tell him that the slap to the face he'd pretty much given her last night had been...incredibly needed.

For some ungodly reason, she had been spared. Thousand times over. Now, Clarke wasn't sure if she truly believed in a greater power out there, but she was more inclined to believe it. If she wasn't meant to still do something great, why was she still around?

She might not be sure what she wanted by the times her friends returned, three years from now, or even what she wanted tomorrow, but she was at least interested in exploring those choices, unlike last night.

She shuddered to think what she might have done without Bellamy. Humans weren't meant to be alone, she decided.

She found some blueberries and hoped he'd understand it was more than a peace offering, but an apology of sorts. She hadn't quite found the right words to express her gratitude for all Bellamy had done for her, but she would. Eventually.

They ate before setting off again, searching for that great unknown something.

"I'll know it when I see it," Bellamy said. Since it seemed he had a much clearer picture of what he wanted in this life, Clarke allowed him to take the lead.

In the middle of the woods, he paused, "It's a path." He said, pointing. Clarke squinted and saw a place where, though the plants had begun to grow over the ground, there was a place with much less foliage than the places surrounding it. With a quick exchange of glances and a shrug, they followed to see where it would lead. Along the way, Clarke found places where tree bark was rubbed smooth, thousands of hands passing, and touching the trees as they traced this route. She was just about to suggest that perhaps there had been an organized group that had existed here when they came upon a wooden sign from the old world, marked over by the Grounders.

"Shadow Valley Clan," Clarke said, tracing the lines of the etching. At least she knew where they were now. She'd only met a handful of these types of Grounders, none of which she knew well enough to feel strange to be walking through this area. It didn't feel like they were raiding a house, it felt like they were going through a place where before others had existed.

"This could be good or bad," Bellamy said but didn't reach for his gun. There was no one left anymore.

As they came to an area where the trees thinned, Clarke looked up at the sky. She saw the clouds rolling past and gave a quirk of a smile.

"They'll never believe this," Clarke said, speaking of the ones who went back to the ARK, "It's like...like the Death Wave skipped over this entire place. A glitch." She giggled, a warm laugh filling her for the first time in days.

Bellamy gave a soft smile her way but was distracted. Clarke followed his gaze to see a flicker of something bright blue out of the corner of her eye. They ducked under an arch of intertwined branches to find the home of the Shadow Valley Clan. They both stood in awe for a second; a perfect collection of buildings curled with nature. There were ribbons and tie-dyed scraps flying everywhere; a cheery welcome. It felt homey and natural and inviting. Polis had always felt a little dirty and dingy and Luna's barge had felt industrial, but this had been what Clarke had imagined when her mother told her they were going down to the ground all those months ago. This is what she hoped they would have gotten to one day.

It seems, in a roundabout way, she still got her to wish.

They moved slowly, in a sense of reverence and awe, like they were treading on hallowed ground. There was something ethereal about this location; about the stillness of everything and the emptiness. It felt too empty...unsettling so.

As they came upon the main structure, Bellamy suddenly shielded Clarke. She bumped right into his chest.

"We should explore that way." He said in a rushed tone.

"Bell-," Clarke huffed, trying to duck under his arm. He was resolutely against it, which just made her try harder. After a few seconds of a scuffle, she came around his side, evading him, and came face to face...with the body of a child.

"The Death Wave skipped, but the radiation didn't," Bellamy said quietly.

He'd been trying to spare her of this sight, as though she had not seen the faces of those that past before this. As though she had not caused death before this. It was still a touching gesture, deep down, but an unreasonable one. Plus, if he'd been planning on bearing the weight of having to depose of this body alone, he was being stupid.

"Together," Clarke said out loud, and perhaps from Bellamy's expression, he understood what she meant.

Clarke knelt down. He was so young. Painfully so; maybe only six. He had curly blond hair and freckles across his face, his face that was slashed with boils and burns. He seemed almost peaceful here.

In Polis, there had only been bones.

It was both a blessing and a curse that it had only been the radiation to reach deep into the forest here.

The door to the main structure was locked. Bellamy shouldered it open. The first room was filled with furniture and items and was empty. The second door, even before Clarke opened it, she got the feeling of something awful.

The moment the doors pulled the air toward them, both Bellamy and Clarke gagged into their hands as the stench of decay filled their nostrils. Clarke's eyes burned as she stared up hundreds of Shadow Valley members in this room.

It was like Mount Weather all over again. They looked like they'd just been gathering for a meal, or perhaps Clarke could pretend that. That they were just frozen in time, not dead.

The lingering smell begged to differ.

"We should bury them." Bellamy's voice cracked.

"That will take days. And if there's still lingering radiation…" She swallowed hard, "No, it would be better to burn the bodies. We'll bury the ashes." She said, taking charge. Bellamy's face was pinched with sorrow as he stared upon the bodies of those who hadn't made it into the bunker. He came upon a pair of grounders holding hands, embraced in a firm grip, with a small child sitting on the mother's lap, burrowed into her chest.

"I know," Clarke whispered, reading his expression. It seemed wrong to have to move them to burn the bodies, to interrupt this, "But they're dead. They died altogether and hopefully their spirits are in a better place. It's just bodies now."

In a different structure, they found some clothes that were untouched. They tied shirts around their nose and found a pair of gloves. They worked the rest of the day ferrying bodies out to a fire a mile away from the camp...it was no use to burn them where they planned on living, not when this was so perfectly offered for them.

Clarke tried to tell herself that these people were dead, so she should feel no shame in taking their homes. She had not come in to kill them. Still, she wondered if ghosts would haunt the grounds, faces of those past appearing just on the edges of her dreams.

The burning was grueling, difficult work, especially for two underfed individuals. It took all of that day and the next before it seemed that every body was found and given back to the earth. Two-hundred and sixty-five in total, ages ranging from old and frail to young and fat-faced.

As they put the last body on the pyre, they stood in silence, shoulder-to-shoulder. Bellamy leaned on his shovel, which he'd been using to dig small and shallow graves for the bones and ashes, biting his lip.

"It's bitter work," He murmured.

Clarke nudged him, offering only a tiny smile. Much more would have been inappropriate for the circumstance, "Not with you."

Bellamy's eyes cast upwards. His eyes flickered among the stars and she knew he was hoping to catch a glimpse of the ARK, as impossible as it might be, "It would be easier if I knew they were alive. That they'd made it," He murmured.

"Positive thoughts," Clarke said, though her chest constricted at the idea because it was quite possible, "We'll see them again. And when we do, it will be beautiful here. We'll make a home for them, for all of us."

"Yeah?" Bellamy asked, turning. Clarke nodded. She didn't say it explicitly out loud, but she'd decided what she wanted the rest of her life to be. Bellamy's plan sounded pretty good.

"We have a lot of work to do before they arrive, but maybe tonight, we take a break. I saw a few books that survived." She offered, reaching her hand out for him to take. His palm was sweaty from work but so warm in hers, "I could read it out loud or you could read it out loud or we could both read separately or-,"

"All of it sounds fantastic."