The 100

Broken

Clarke became aware of shaking.

Her entire body moved with silent tremors and she dug her nails into the ground, ignoring the bite of pain that resonated up her arms. When she lifted them, burnt remains came away and she watched numbly as the wind sifted them through her fingers. Her breathing quickened and Clarke tried to do what she always did, to put herself back together and carry on, until she could spare a few moments to grieve for the dead.

But not this time.

It was as if everything inside her, every action, every reason she had for committing them, every horrible things that her hands had wrought came crashing over her.

Someone reached a hand out to her and she cringed back, holding up her hands as if to ward him off. "Don't touch me, Bellamy," she said, her voice coming out as a gasp. She couldn't be comforted by anyone, wouldn't be. She didn't deserve it.

He crouched down beside her, but Clarke couldn't look at him; she continued to stare at her hands, at the eddies of ash that swirled there. "You didn't know, Clarke," he said in a small voice. "There was nothing that could be done."

"They're dead," She whispered, allowing only that one reality inside, that one undeniable truth no words could soothe.

Bellamy didn't try to sugar coat it. "Yeah," he agreed. "They are. But this isn't Mount Weather, Clarke. And you didn't kill them."

Not directly, no. But couldn't he see the hand she'd played in it? The possibility of this having been avoided if only she'd just stayed away? Let them assume her dead? Because this was the good she brought to them alive.

Clarke stood up, so quickly her head spun.

Bellamy kept his eyes on her, understanding and subtle concern marring his features.

"I'll be right back," she said, and without waiting for a response, began walking towards the woods. Only was it when she was sheltered by them did she let the pieces finally break. Her breathing sawed through her lips and she bent over, splaying her hand on the trunk of a tree. Then came the tears, accompanied by a torrent of guilt that flooded through Clarke until she felt as if she were drowning.

"Why?" She asked no one, anger instantly accompanying the grief. "They didn't...they didn't do anything. They didn't do anything..."

Her rage piqued and she smashed her fist against the tree, bark cutting her knuckles. Clarke did it again, harder, and again, only stopping when her fingers and palms were reduced to a bloody mess and the exhaustion made her sink to the forest floor.

She had tried to be strong for as long as she could; had attempted to separate emotions from actions, but without them, she really was no better than Dante. No different from Cage who'd spliced her own people open. But a part of her understood why. Because emotion and action placed together formed a catalyst. A dangerous thing that once started, could rarely be stopped. It consumed. It burned. And consequently, it would either change the person who held it into something they didn't recognize, or destroy them completely.

******************

Bellamy remained on the sidelines of the ruins, allowing the people to mourn without his intrusion. His wound still throbbed but he'd get something on it soon enough, paying the nag little attention.

A part of him knew it wasn't smart letting Clarke go off into the trees, but she needed the space. This wasn't something he could help her with-had no idea how to, which was something new. Clarke had always been a person who was solidly grounded, in what she believed and the decisions she made. From the start, Bellamy had underestimated her, and realized it only when she'd helped Atom that there was a strength to her he himself didn't possess.