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Clarke came home two hundred and sixty two days later.
(Bellamy had been counting, of course, marking the days with tallies on one of the walls protecting the camp, but so had Clarke, so - fair’s fair.)
That day was warm and bright, a dusting of clouds meandering across a clear blue sky, and a slow, hesitant smile tugged at her lips when she saw what they had built (what he had built) while she had been away. The camp structures were tall and looming and sturdy, and there were armed sentries at even post intervals, and she could hear the noise and laughter and life bubbling inside the walls.
She wasn’t even thinking when she stumbled her way out of the woods, eyes drinking in the entirety of what had been created in her absence, but then she heard the guns being loaded and the loud bellow of someone telling her to stop right there and put her hands up, and the grin grew impossibly wider, because they were learning.
“Wait,” a voice murmured from above, and she wished the sun wasn’t so bright so she could see the guards’ faces, so she could pick out which were her delinquents and which were the other Arkers. And the voice was familiar, if nothing else, but it had been so, so long, and -
“It’s Clarke!” the same voice shouted, and then the doors were swinging open. Clarke sprinted, now, too ready to simply walk her way back home, and she collided into a pair of arms the moment she reached the gate. She laughed a bit at the shock, curling her arms tightly around her assailant, and when she pulled back a strong fist was slamming into her right arm.
“Christ, what was that -” she started, but stopped abruptly when she was met not with Monty or Miller or Bellamy, but with Raven, tears clinging to her lower lashes and an exuberant smile pulling taut over her lips.
“For leaving, you bitch,” Raven said, swiping at her eyes and somehow managing to sound formidable even with the glowing expression and teary face. “Welcome home,” she added in a whisper, and Clarke hugged her again, clutching her close, because after everything (after unknown betrayals and kisses pressed to a dead man’s lips, after plunging a knife into the only family Raven had ever known), this was her best friend, and she had missed her, damn it.
Raven released Clarke from her grasp, winking, and then suddenly Clarke was being drowned in hugs and cheers and much more crying than she had expected. Monty clung to her for at least five minutes before she pried herself away, and Miller offered her a tentative - but genuine - smile and a clap on the shoulder, and Harper sobbed into her chest, and her mother stared, inspecting her for injuries, babbling on about eating right and bandages and really, Clarke, could you not have spent some time on this gash right here?
Lincoln gave her a rare smile and a nod of his head, and Octavia was stoic, arms crossed over her chest as she leaned ever so slightly into Lincoln for support, but she murmured, “I’m glad you’re okay,” and Clarke had nodded and said, “You too,” and that had been enough.
Raven came back around after everyone else had their own turn, linking her arm through Clarke’s for support, and said, “Let me give you a tour.”
They walked all throughout the camp, Raven pointing out the new cabins - “Bellamy had insisted they get up before winter, and, whaddya know, they were,” she said - and the brand new med bay, its own building, fully equipped and well-broken in - “It was the first thing Bellamy wanted built,” Raven added - and then they saw the cafeteria, with so many tables and benches and so much food (more than Clarke had seen in… well… in two hundred and sixty two days) - “Bellamy was a fucking nightmare while this was being built,” Raven said with a roll of her eyes, “because apparently he’s a little temperamental where his food is involved.”
Yes, Clarke knew all about what Bellamy had done while she was away. He had listened to her, heeded her last-ditch plea to take care of them for me. He had done more than that - they prospered under him, shined, transformed into more than mere survivors.
But she hadn’t seen Bellamy yet.
She tried to sound casual when she brought it up to Raven. “Speaking of Bellamy,” she said, her voice a pitch higher than normal, although Raven was kind enough not to comment, “where is he?”
Raven sighed and stopped walking, forcing Clarke to look at her eye-to-eye. “Give him time, Clarke,” she said, not unkindly, but firmly. “He… he was a wreck, when you left, so… give him time.”
Clarke nodded, and tried to force a smile, and Raven showed her around the rest of the day.
Clarke had been home for seventeen days.
And she was going to lose her fucking mind.
It had been seventeen days, and she still hadn’t even seen Bellamy. Seventeen days of wandering around the camp feeling useless, of hearing the ceaseless whispers and awed tones when people said her name, of having to look the other way whenever she caught Jasper or Octavia glaring daggers at her.
She was so glad to be home (and that’s what it was, with her people - home), but she couldn’t deal with the stares or the murmurs or the legends they attached onto her name like she was a deity from long ago, like she was a goddess or a warrior or a myth, not a teenage girl.
And so, on the eighteenth day, she told Raven she was going out to find some medicinal berries her mom had been asking about (and she had had to practically beg her mother to even allow her to do that much, but Raven didn’t need to know that). But Raven gave her a knowing smile anyway, chasing her off and telling her to be back before dark or else everyone would begin to panic.
(There were storm clouds brewing, too, but she needed to breathe.)
Of course, those storm clouds that had been merely on the horizon just thirty minutes earlier were then directly above her head the moment she had gotten just a little ways into the woods, and by the time she had collected the berries and began her trek back home, she was soaked to the bone, the berries wrapped in a plastic bag she was clutching in her left hand.
Clarke stopped at the sound of snapping twigs and crushed leaves, and she put her hand on the small gun she kept by her side, ready to pull and aim if necessary. The noises got closer, and she barely breathed, waiting for her attacker (or potential attacker) to reveal himself, but then -
Bellamy.
He skidded to a stop when he saw her, and he was soaking wet, too, his curls slicked down to his forehead (he got a haircut, she noticed), gun slung over his back. He was panting, eyes wild and a little relieved at seeing her.
Neither of them moved. Neither of them spoke.
“Is everything okay?” Clarke asked, finally, because he really was out of breath, and maybe something was wrong, or -
“No,” he grunted out, rubbing the back of his neck.
“No?” she repeated. She stared at him incredulously, but also - she also wanted to look at him, to take him in , because it had been two hundred and seventy nine, at this point, without even seeing him.
She took a step closer, and he didn’t move (she didn’t even now if he was breathing, for fuck’s sake), and her eyes mapped his body slowly, memorizing and remembering: the scar on his cheek had healed nicely, and there was a new one on his left hand, a nasty looking thing that he probably hadn’t treated properly because he was Bellamy, and his freckles were even more prominent now from the sun. He looked healthy, and good, and it made Clarke smile, a bit.
But then he cleared his throat and took a step back, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck again, and nodded to the berries in her hand. “What’s that?”
Clarke shook her head and looked at the bag in question, meeting his eyes again and holding it up as she said, “For my mom. They’re medicinal.”
She watched him visibly sag in relief, and that - that didn’t seem right. And suddenly she remembered he had been full-on sprinting through the woods just moments ago, and that didn’t seem quite right either. “Bellamy, what were you doing out here?”
Bellamy stood very, very still. “Clarke,” he said, and he sounded pained, “let’s just get back inside, it’s pouring out here.”
She crossed her arms. “You’re avoiding the question,” she bit out, and, yeah, he was right, of course, and she was fucking freezing, but that was not the point. “What were you doing out here? Like you said, it’s pouring rain, and -”
“I thought you were leaving again, okay?” Bellamy near-shouted, throwing his hands in the air, and Clarke’s mouth dropped open just as her arms fell to the side. “I…” He sucked in a deep breath. “Fuck, Clarke, I saw you walk out, and… and I thought you were… were leaving camp… leaving me again.”
Her hair was taped to her face from the rain, and she couldn’t see because there were tears blinding her eyes, now. Because… fuck, she’d missed all of them, but… she had missed him. And she had left him, before.
Take care of them for me.
We did this.
(Together.)
“Bellamy…” she tried, taking a few steps closer, but he shook his head.
“No, no, forget it, it was stupid, let’s just go back -”
“Bellamy.” She was right in front of him now.
“Clarke, please -”
“Bellamy Blake, for the love of all things holy, look at me.” Clarke grabbed his face in between her clammy palms, forcing their eyes to meet each other. She was overwhelmed by his constellations of freckles, by the dark, dark eyes that were so fucking vulnerable right then. She was drowning in him, in all of it, in words unspoken and far too many almosts for her heart to take.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she whispered. Her thumbs rubbed soothing circles on his cheeks, and she felt him relax beneath her touch. “I’m not going anywhere, and I’m not leaving you again. I promise.”
“You can’t promise that,” he muttered, eyes falling to the ground instead of her face, and she took one hand and gently guided his gaze back to hers.
“I promise,” she reiterated firmly.
And then, suddenly, his lips were on hers.
He tasted like rainwater and black coffee, like a hello, like a new beginning. Bellamy was clutching at her like she was his lifeline, the single thing tethering him to the earth at that one moment, like she was all he could possibly need.
(His lips tasted like home, and his arms felt like a shelter, and the rain was cleansing her of her final sins.)
When they pulled apart, he dropped his forehead onto hers, warm breaths ghosting across her flesh. Clarke bit her lip and closed her eyes, smiling a bit to herself. And then she shivered violently, because, yeah, still fucking freezing, and Bellamy’s laugh echoed across the forest, and Clarke was certain it was the most glorious thing she had ever heard.
“C’mon, princess,” he managed around his laughter and her half-hearted slap to the chest, “let’s go home.”
“Yeah,” she murmured, sliding her arm around his back as they walked. (His arm fit perfectly around her shoulders, and he dropped a kiss to the crown of her head, and she smiled.) “Let’s go home.”