Imperfect Pieces

24. interlude

this isn't really an official day/chapter, but while vacationing i wrote a short cheesy fanfic about bellarke from the 100. if you're currently watching the show or are planning to, don't read on bc this will prbly contain some spoilers.

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Clarke stopped to rest at the foot of the lake. It lay before her like a silver disk, smooth and glittering and breathtaking. Green foliage surrounded it, tall trees that reached up to the sky and that towered over the woods like kings of the forest. The sight of the sun rays touching the lake was a beauty to behold. However, Clarke payed no attention to it. All she wanted to do was get away. And the best way to do that is to just put one foot in front of the other and keep on walking. So she walked and walked and walked, with only a small pack of supplies and weight in her heart. It had been over a week since she turned away from the gates of Camp Jaha. She knew that running away from her people was selfish, but she had been selfless long enough. She was tired of always putting others before herself, tired of caring so much. Besides, the camp would just fine without her- Bellamy, Raven, and her mother were there to lead them. Thinking about them sent painful pangs of longing through her heart. It made her regret her decision and the only thing she could think of was how much she wanted to head back home, where Raven and Wick would be playfully bantering about who was better, where Octavia would be sitting with Lincoln, where Monty and Jasper would be coming up with new mischief, and where Bellamy would be watching all of them with a radiant smile on that precious face of his. She would run straight through the gates and launch herself into Bellamy's arms, letting herself be embraced once more, and oh how wonderful that would feel.

But she couldn't. Not after what happened in the mountain. Clarke Griffin is never going back to Camp Jaha. Even if she ever did return, things wouldn't be the same. And so Clarke sighed once more and stood up, brushing the dirt off her pants. She had a long journey ahead of her.

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"Hey Bellamy, we need your opin- oh, I'm so sorry! I didn't know you were sleeping."

The boy with curly hair looked up from his slumber to see Raven standing standing at the entrance of his tent. He climbed out of the warm sleeping back and yawned.

"It's fine, I should have been up hours ago anyways."

Raven nodded, and gestured for him to follow her.

"Basically, we've been having problems with the outside gate and yeah the mountain men aren't a threat anymore but it can never hurt to be too safe and...."

Bellamy's mind wandered off. It seemed to do that a lot recently. He blamed it on his lack of sleep, or rather, the pictures he saw in his sleep. During the day, Bellamy Blake was a fearless leader. He was a spy, a brother, a conqueror. And yet in the darkness, fear consumed him whole. Blood, screams, and monsters lurked in his dreams. He once told Charlotte to slay her demons, but he couldn't even do it himself. How was he supposed to lead his people? All of them were depending on him, including Clarke.

"...Monty and Jasper. I don't know, they've been best friends for so long, but Maya's death really broke Jasper. Plus I think Jasper blames Monty for letting you guys kill all those people. I'm worried about them. Another thing is Abby is getting too stressed out. There are still lots of people injured, mostly grounders. Usually she has help, but...." Raven faltered, looking down at her clipboard uncertainly, but she raised her chin just as quickly as it fell. Bellamy had noticed that Raven avoided uttering her name out loud.

"We'll be fine without her."

Though Raven was trying to convince herself, Bellamy wasn't so sure.

●

He watched from afar as Monty approached Jasper with a tentative smile, holding up a lunch sack. Jasper stared at the sack for a moment then shook his head, turning away to resume tinkering with his battered goggles. He watched as sadness and pain crept onto the Asian boy's face, and continued to watch as Monty tried his best to hold himself together. Bellamy watched and watched and watched as the people he loved, his friends, his family, remained shattered pieces that would not be put back together for a very long time. He wished that he could take each pile of shards and glue the bits together so that they would never fall apart again, but how could he do so if he himself was a pile of a million pieces of glass?

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Raven wanted to bang her head on the table in frustration. She was a fixer, a mechanic. She knew how to observe broken things and figure out how to fix the problem. So what was the solution to this one? Though Bellamy tried to hide it, she saw the black bags under his eyes. She saw Monty's fake smiles. She saw Jasper fiddling with his googles every day, silently and solemnly. She saw Abby crying for her lost daughter. She saw the other kids from Mount Weather scream in their sleep.

Fix this, she told herself over and over. Fixthisfixthisfixthisfixthis. But she just couldn't figure out how.

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She didn't know where to run anymore. Trees, trees, and more trees. One blown out campfire after another, sleeping under a starry blanket of darkness every night, living on berries and the occasional deer. She had no more provisions left in her pack. Clarke felt the dread pool in her stomach as she surveyed her situation. It had been over 6 months since she had left the camp. Though she was still scared- no, terrified- it was the right thing to do. She had been running away long enough. It was time to go back.

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Raven was organizing her tools when she first heard the news.

"She's back."

"Clarke is walking towards the camp!"

"No way. Let me see!"

"I can't believe this."

"After all this time? Where's she been?"

Heart racing, she immediately ran to go find Bellamy. He was talking with Octavia, who was mumbling something about how she hoped Clarke was back for good. She didn't know the details, but for a long while Octavia refused to even mention Clarke. Apparently she was over the ridiculous grudge she had on the blonde. Raven stopped, huffing, in front of the Blake siblings.

"I guess you've heard."

"Yeah. Our princess is coming back."

While Octavia seemed a bit excited, she couldn't read Bellamy's face. It was as blank as the white cell walls of Mount Weather. But before she could think more about it, Harper yelled from the watch tower: "There she is!"

Almost everyone in the camp trailed over to the main gate. Newcomers who had just woken up were tiredly rubbing their eyes, wondering what all the commotion was about, but they figured it out soon enough, because there she was. Clarke Griffin, the prodigal princess. Her blonde hair was messily cut to her shoulders and she was carrying a small backpack, as well as a handgun strapped to her belt. She looked exhausted, but she stood in front of the gates and gave everyone a small, brief, but beautiful smile. The people remained silent, unsure of what to do. Clarke's smile wavered, and Raven shoved Bellamy, who was standing transfixed in the middle of the crowd.

"Do something, you idiot!"

Bellamy stumbled to the front and ordered Harper to open the gates, his gaze still locked with Clarke's. The iron door slowly creaked open and soon there was absolutely nothing in between Clarke Griffin and Camp Jaha except for one very broken Bellamy Blake.

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Clarke wanted to run back to the woods and hide somewhere under a rock where no one would ever find her. She ran her eyes over the familar faces that were still staring, her gaze landing on Bellamy, who had stepped in front of the crowd. It was as if someone had frozen time and she was moving in slow motion She put one foot in front of another, moving towards the right direction for once. Then she was no longer walking, and Bellamy was no longer standing, and their pace got faster and faster until they collided in a tangle of limbs and hair. Their arms were around each other and Clarke breathed in his scent, not caring that everyone was looking at this intimate moment. It was only her and Bellamy in this timeless picture and as her lips crashed into his, she thought to herself, This is where I belong. Not out in the woods, not by the sea, but right here at home.