After the End [ The 100 ]

11. The fourth grave

murphy's law

[eiden]

I stare down at the makeshift shovel — some drop ship metal connected to a long pipe. I suck in the sides of my cheeks as I slowly look over at Clarke.

My head shakes on its own. "Clarke?" I ask.

"I shouldn't have—" she chokes back a sob. "Let him."

I can't tell if she said let or left. It pangs my heart anyway, eyebrows drawing in. "He was looking out for all of us," I say quietly, my eyes drawn to the ground. "Look, you should come back inside, it's not—"

"He came down here for me. He got arrested for me," she says. Her gaze drifts up to me. "What do we do with this?"

My jaw clenches and I kneel beside her. "Things happen."

"How are you keeping yourself together, Eiden? Wells was your best friend too," she says the last part almost silently. It's gotta be hard to even say his name. If it's impossible for me, it's gotta be about the same for Clarke.

"Because... it's easier to hate the grounders than to... miss him." When I close my mouth, it's completely dry. My throat too. I look back at the camp, knowing the others had collected water yesterday in response to what happened to Wells three days ago.

"You don't have to be strong about this. There's enough down here we have to worry about," she says, wiping her tears. Clarke finally stands up, looks up into my eyes.

It's hard to hold eye contact but I fight the urge to look away. "If we'd done something about them sooner, we wouldn't have to."

Her eyebrows crease, and I easily pick up on her look of disappointment. Inside, I know that I don't care. At all.

[...]

A grimace takes over my face as I hold out my arm in front of Finn. "What do you think you're doing?" I ask in agitation.

A defensive look crosses his face as he gestures forward in confusion. "Going to check on Clarke. Her boyfriend died."

"Yeah," I nod once. "Wells. Her boyfriend. What do you think you're going to do — swoop right in?"

He keeps acting like he's confused, giving me that look as I stare him down with crossed arms. "No, Eiden. Why are you acting like this?"

I don't respond. I only continue blocking his path to Clarke who's by Wells' grave behind camp.

"Look, just... they got Wells right outside the wall. So don't let her be out there that long, okay?"

I continue scrutinizing him, and he actually thinks that I care about a thing he's saying.

"And — if you don't mind — can you please give this to her?" He has some century-old art pencil he's trying to hand over, his eyebrows raised.

I take it, failing not to snatch it. My head nods repeatedly to get through to him, "You're not Wells."

Finn's eyebrow crease stays there. His eyes drift behind me as he looks at Clarke. Then they're on me again. "Eiden, I'm sorry about Wells. I know you guys were close too."

And it's like finally my body gets a release. My throat starts to close up as I feel my eyes itching with tears. I start looking into Finn's eyes, mouth slightly agape as I struggle to catch my breath. Finally, I inhale sharply and take a step back. "I'll give it to her."

With that I turn and walk away. My feet quickly take me to Clarke, but all I do is lean down to gently place the pencil in her lap before walking away and leaving her there.