From The Ashes | The 100 S5 [Bellarke]

|1| May We Meet Again

1 day after Praimfaya

Every breath hurt.

Clarke's eyes were blistered shut, and her skin burned. She felt like she was roasting over a relentless fire, heat and pain licking at every inch of her body. Her heartbeat sounded in her ears, slow and struggling.

She had often wondered what her death would feel like. Since most of those imaginings were filled with pain, it was a relief to learn that death was the absolute absence of the trials of life. It was the final rest, and she welcomed the black that hovered at the edges of her being with open arms.

She wanted that soft, silent embrace. She wanted to let go.

Her fight was over.

But death didn't listen to her wish. Clarke survived.

***

A flame of hope had been rekindled by the fact that she was still alive, and it stirred Clarke into action.

She blinked, the blisters on her eyes bursting in sharp, wet flashes of pain. The ruined skin hung in shreds across her vision, and her sight was blurry. Every little movement was laborious, and she whimpered at the white-hot agony that rippled across her burnt skin and stiff muscles.

If she could get herself to the medical cabinets of Becca's laboratory, Clarke could find something to dull her suffering, clearing her mind from its pain-induced haze. She had to treat the radiation burns that covered her skin in lumpy red patches which cracked and seeped, the sensation like a thousand cuts received simultaneously, over and over again.

The lights were out in the laboratory except for one flickering panel to her left, which seemed to be on the last legs of its battery connection. Silence hummed in her ears, broken only by the muttering clicks of the dying light and the harsh rasp of her breathing.

In that moment, she truly felt alone, and the weight of it loomed dark and ominous above her. But Clarke couldn't let her emotions cripple her. She had to focus – on her recovery, figuring out what supplies she had left to her, establishing radio contact with both the bunker and the Ring.

Anything else could and had to wait.

3 weeks after Praimfaya

It was dark outside when Clarke dared to step outside the relative safety of the laboratory, the night sky tinged red from the radiation that seethed in the atmosphere, bathing the planet in death. Her breath burned in her throat and lungs, but her skin stayed smooth, touched only with the healing burns from Praimfaya. Since the laboratory doors had been breached during the death wave, the concrete cracked from the force of the storm that had raged overhead while Clarke waited for her expected death, it wasn't like she was taking a great risk now.

The air seemed alive, wind swirling around her and sending stray strands of hair into her eyes. It was like Praimfaya had awoken something dangerous in the Earth, and Clarke couldn't shake the sensation that she was being watched. Even though she knew her solitude was absolute.

She swallowed, tasting copper from her still-healing throat, and looked up at the starless sky. Her view of the Ring was blocked by the clouds of radiation, but past the ruined atmosphere her friends were alive.

Bellamy was alive.

Clarke couldn't let go of that hope, no matter how many doubts assailed her. She refused to believe that their efforts had been in vain, even if her attempts at contact were met with radio silence.

"May we meet again," Clarke told them, both a hope and a promise.    

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While this is not 100% in-line with my hopes and predictions for season 5, I still hope you'll enjoy this fic of mine! I'm really excited to write and share it with you, but I will beg your patience because, yes, there will be Bellarke in here . . . but it will be a little while before it actually happens.

I've written a one-shot Bellarke reunion in my collection, Stronger Together, if you want Bellarke feels RIGHT NOW.

Anyways, let me know what you think! Comments and votes are highly appreciated, since I've thrown this into the Wattys just to see what happens. It would be super awesome if a Bellarke/The 100 book won again, wouldn't it???