The Slowest Burn - Bellarke

Bellarke season 7 ending AU- "If you need forgiveness"

*Bellamy Blake survived Clarke's attempt on his life and returns to Earth with the others, but it takes a while for him to forgive her*
***

Clarke had expected their reunion to be one of the ages. As they often were. She had expected, as she had received with the others, a tearful and happy reunion. An acceptance that they were finally safe, finally free to start the life they had been promised centuries ago. But when she saw Bellamy Blake for the first time, after days of mourning him, he could barley look her in the eye.

The others had rushed to her, hugging her, thanking her, apologising for their past wrongdoings, while Bellamy hung back, watching her with tearful eyes.

Clarke knew she deserved it, his anger, but she couldn't take the silence that had grown between them.

He had been the person she told everything to. Her darkest fears, her hopes. She had oftentimes felt like they shared one body. One head, one heart, working in perfect harmony.

She couldn't help but remember just one week earlier, Bellamy bringing her back from the dead, holding her like she'd never been held in her life.

How had she messed it up so quickly? And what could she do to get it back?

Weeks passed. Their little camp became more like the settlement they had imagined the hundred would form.

Tents became log cabins, crops began to grow and the sense of peace, that they always longed for appeared to be there to stay.

Despite his icy silence, Clarke had been observing Bellamy. She still couldn't believe he was alive.

She couldn't believe what she had done. Her thoughts drifted to Madi. Her daughter. God she ached for her, to hold her one last time.

The girl had reminded her, in the days after Praimfaya, so much of Bellamy. Headstrong and tough on the outside, but desperate on the inside to be seen, to be heard, to be loved.

Now it seemed that she had lost both of them.

Bellamy had spent most of his time away from the group. When he'd found out that both Echo and Octavia had accepted Clarke's actions he had felt betrayed. He had broken things off with Echo and fled into the forest. He had his own tent out there somewhere. He only returned for clean drinking water.

Everyone worried for him but no one dared make a move. Their peace was so fresh. No one wanted to be the person to disturb it.

It had been almost six months when Murphy emerged from the woods, triumphantly carrying a bottle.

Raven and Clarke were sitting around the fire, watching a bird as it cooked.

"What have you got there, cockroach?" Raven queried, glancing up at the boy.

"A present. Remember what Monty taught us on the Ark?" He wiggled his eyebrows playfully.

"No way." Raven laughed, standing from her seat by the fire.

"No way!" She exclaimed again, taking the bottle into her hands and pulling out the cork.

"What is it?" Clarke asked, concernedly.

If she were honest, being one of the few who hadn't been on the Ark, or trapped on Penance for years, made her the odd one out.