Reaching Out | The 100

Chapter Eleven: Double Crossed

Raven's POV
My mind struggles to process all that has happened. We escaped thanks to a little girl, who was the adopted daughter of Clarke, the same Clarke that we had left on the ground because they couldn't spare any more time to wait for, otherwise Praimfaya would have killed us all.

The guilt that had been weighing so heavily on my heart for the last six years was gone, i felt like a huge burden had been lifted off of my shoulders. Clarke is alive.

I never really admitted it until she died, i never told her how much she meant to me. She was my best friend. Yeah, we had a rocky start, with me coming to the ground a few days later and finding my boyfriend - who was in lockup because he took the blame for my illegal birthday spacewalk - had fallen in love with a different girl.

I knew that he didn't think that he would ever see me again, besides it is somewhat challenging to breakup with your girlfriend while she's still in space and you're on the ground. Still he broke my heart, because while he remained faithful to me, once discovering that i was alive, i could clearly see that he loved her more. And i wanted him to be happy, even if i was miserable. I wanted someone who would love me with their whole heart.

He's dead now, but I've forgiven him. He will always be my family, and i know he will always be with me.

Somewhere along the way, Clarke became my best friend. I wanted to hate her, but i never could. She felt awful about the whole thing, and she was a straight-up good person. She had to make the hard choices a lot, and she had to carry the weight of that around with her. Life isn't always black and white, a lot of it takes place in the grey area. We quickly became allies.

Somehow in the year that we spent on the ground, she became important to me, and losing her crushed me.

I moved forward and healed eventually, but finding out she was still alive made me so happy. It was life-changing. Especially to Bellamy, who was in a pretty fragile state after losing her.

He had just ran off, I didn't understand any of what had happened, all i know is he had taken off running. I call out his name, my voice echoing in the distance.

Echo looks up at me from the bottom of the hill, and i stride over to her. "Any luck?" She asks, and i shake my head. "Nope." I say shortly. Echo casts a side glance at me. "You okay?"

For some reason i start to cry, "It's so different. Earth feels so... empty now. I thought it would feel like coming home, but it doesn't." I tell her.

She then puts her hand on my shoulder, "Don't forget that you lived most of your life in space Ray. Being on the ground must have been like a magical dream, but don't forget that it had its challenges too. We tend to make our memories seem better than they are, and then we get disappointed when they don't match up. It's going to take time to adjust again. Don't be so hard on yourself, ok?"

I nod and wipe my tears with the hem of my shirt. She holds her arms out and i step into them, it's hard to believe that we used to be enemies, she is now one of my best friends.

We step apart and i smile at her, "Thanks Echo, who knew you were a softie." She smacks my arm and mumbles, "Shut up."

I hear Clarke yelling out to us and we run over, trying to follow the sound of her voice. We finally catch up to her at the top of the hill, surveying the stream, with Madi by her side.

Clarke's hair is sticking out in every which way as she squints her eyes in the bright sun, looking for Bellamy. She looks to me and says, "He was here, i just know it."

I step down on to the bank of the stream, crouching down and reaching out to touch the red liquid on the rocks, it's blood. Bellamy's blood.

I straighten up and we all share a glance, then silently proceed to follow the trail of blood. We follow it through the trees, through creeks and hills. It's fresh, he can't be too far away.