soulmates

the 100 farewell week: Day 3 - love is not weakness - favorite ship or friendship

the 100 episodes » God Complex (4x08)

Made a script version of this short fix-it fic (with a few minor tweaks/differences) for the ending scenes of the show. I just thought that what I previously wrote would work better as a script instead. TLDR; The fans deserved better than the trash we got. And perhaps most importantly, Bellamy Blake deserved better. 

-

When Clarke arrives at Sanctum, she’s greeted only by Picasso. She rummages through the palace, the farmhouse, looking for any signs of human life. She knows she won’t find any— there was never any person who even came close to committing as many atrocities as Clarke has. And to those who come close, well, they’re already dead.

She finally gives up and goes back to the throne room. She slumps against the wall, sinking to the floor with Picasso at her side. Her eyes follow the ground to the spot she was last time she was on the planet, and a pang aches in her chest.

The blood is gone. She’s assuming they took him to Nakara. She heard that the planet was a graveyard— Gabriel had mentioned it in passing.

“Picasso, stay. I’ll be right back,” she scratches the dog behind the ears and puts on the helmet. She takes a deep breath and punches in the code for the ice planet.

*****

Nothing much has changed since she last left Nakara. The cold air bites at her cheeks immediately when she takes her helmet off, but it doesn’t bother her. She won’t be long.

“Bellamy, if you’re somewhere on this planet, if you can hear me…” she starts, feeling a lump unwillingly form at the back of her throat. “You were right about transcendence… You just wanted peace— I’m glad everyone got that, and I hope you did, too.”

She bites the inside of her cheek, letting her tears fall into the fresh snow. “I killed you. I killed you and you didn’t deserve that. You saved me from death— brought me back to life— and that’s how I repaid you. I understand why I failed the test. But you— you would have passed it. I know you would have.”

“I don’t deserve forgiveness. I know that. Even if you can somehow hear me, I want you to know I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’m just here to say I’m sorry. I’m paying the price for it now, aren’t I? The only human left in the universe,” she laughs bitterly. “There’s part of me that wishes we ran away when you asked me to. Maybe we would have been incinerated by Praimfaiya, but I know we would’ve been happy. We could’ve been so happy, Bell,” her lip quivers as she shakes her head. “But I don’t regret anything. I wouldn’t have met Madi.”

“You know, I don’t think I ever told you just how much I loved you. Finn knew, Lexa knew… But you? God, Bell. I loved you so much. And you never knew. That’s one of my biggest mistakes— never letting you just how much I loved you.”

She’s unsure if she’s shivering due to the cold, or if it’s just her body responding to the raw emotions pulsing through her blood. She kneels to the ground, letting her fingers brush the snow.

The last of her tears fall as she takes one deep breath.

“In peace, may you leave this shore. In love, may you find the next. Safe passage on your travels, until our final journey to the ground. May we meet again.”

—

Picasso’s gold fur disappears down the ravine, out of sight from Clarke. Earth is green and lush again, free to breathe without the threat of human corruption.

“Picasso, come!”

She follows the brief flashes of gold through the forest until it clears, revealing the shoreline of a vast lake. The air is clean, water is clear, and she can even hear the singing of birds in the distance.

Then, she sees them.

Her friends.

Her heart jumps.

The first to hug her is Raven, then Murphy. One by one, she embraces them, tears threatening her eyes.

“But you transcended,” Clarke says in disbelief, tears threatening her eyes.

“They told us transcendence is a choice, Clarke,” Raven says, holding her hands firmly. “And we chose to live.”

She gives her a shaky smile before they finally envelop her in a group hug, and, god, she’s so relieved that she isn’t alone. Not again.

But even though she feels the love from her friends, it’s bittersweet. There’s no hope for humanity. Life is supposed to be more than survival, but she can’t help but wonder if that’s true when every person she’s ever loved is no longer in her reach. For the first time, she’s not sure what to live for. Her friends share different bonds to each other than she ever had. Different types of connections. Familial, romantic. There’s a piece of her missing without Bellamy, without Madi. All that was left of her family— gone, because of her.

“I know you never felt like we were family, but we are now,” Murphy whispers low in her ear. She doesn’t know how he knows exactly what she’s thinking, but she accepts it. “We’re all we’ve got to live for now, Clarke. Humanity be damned.”

She lets out a weak laugh, ignoring the ache in her chest. “Thanks, cockroach.”

Her friends release her from the hug, a mess of limbs untangling in her periphery, except for Octavia, who lingers by her side.

“Madi’s not in pain anymore. She wanted to stay… She likes the peace,” Octavia reassures her, rubbing her back lovingly. “She was the key to transcendence and she made her choice. She wanted me to tell you that she loves you, Clarke.”

Clarke nods, devastated, but she understands. “Thank you— for everything, Octavia.”

“You know, I didn’t see Bellamy there,” Octavia says, eyes dropping to the ground. “He was right about everything. It doesn’t seem fair that he never got to transcend,” her tone is wistful, somber. “I just hope that he’s proud of me, wherever he is.”

Clarke hugs her again, this time longer, feeling the weight of her friend’s words fall on her shoulders. She makes a mental note to take Octavia to Nakara to say a proper goodbye just like she had. Then, they can make a proper memorial.

She can accept Madi’s choice, knowing that she’s happy, but she never gave Bellamy the opportunity, and that’s something she has to live with forever. She knows one day she’s going to have to stop the guilt from consuming her, but she has the rest of her life to learn.

When they part, she sees a speck in the distance coming towards them from the horizon. Her first instinct is to draw her gun, but she doesn’t have one.

Instead, she squints her eyes and looks on, until finally the object comes into focus, and suddenly, her knees buckle, voice caught in her throat.

Disbelief.

“Bellamy?”

Her legs carry her forward until finally she sees him— all of him, clean shaven, curls wild atop his head, pretty freckles like stars on his skin, brown eyes warm and beautiful. This doesn’t feel real.

“Clarke.”

In his arms, she heaves a sob, trying to catch her breath like her lungs are fighting for air. He tightens his hold on her, letting her cry into the crook of his neck. She has so many questions, but for now, she decides at this moment that she wants to stay in his embrace forever, even if he isn’t real.

“You’re not real, are you?” she sobs, burying her face into his skin.

For what feels like forever, he just holds her, gently rocking her against his body. He breaks apart eventually, wiping her tears with the pads of his thumbs. “Look at me, Clarke.”

The warmth in his eyes confuses her. She wants to confess everything— everything she said on Nakara, every damn thing she radio’d him for six years. Like time is running out.

“It’s okay, I forgive you,” he whispers.

“I don’t understand, Bellamy,” she shakes her head, “I don’t deserve forgiveness, especially from you.”

“I have every right in the world to be mad at you,” he admits. “But I choose forgiveness. I choose you, Clarke.”

This time, she musters a smile of relief, tears streaming down her cheeks as she throws her arms around his neck.

She inhales his smell, and her heart aches. She can’t remember the last time she felt this happy, and she's desperate to cling onto this feeling for as long as she can. “Please let this be real. I love you, Bell, I can’t let you go again.”

His lips meet her temple, and his voice, deep and full of trust, promises her one thing.

“I’m not going anywhere. Can’t get rid of me that easily, not this time.”

She can feel the quirk of his smile press against her skin, and for the first time in a long time, she starts to feel like everything’s going to be alright.

Behind them, Octavia’s voice breaks up their reunion, and Clarke’s heart soars because that means Bellamy really is real.

Finally, there is peace.

it actually still actively pisses me off (and i think that’s one of the reasons i stopped watching in s4, i kept waiting for clarke to get the fuck over her two second romance and move on and the show refused to let her), because they shoe-horned in a badly written romantic arc just to make lexa’s death more impactful and it was 100% unnecessary, and in the process it fucked up clarke’s arc and cast a pall over the rest off the season and the next.

but because lexa was dead, literally everyone stopped giving a shit. it didn’t matter that she manipulated clarke into a relationship with her, or that clarke was forced by the narrative to get over the fact that lexa was directly responsible for her being forced to murder an entire mountain full of people to save her own after like five minutes of righteous fury, all so they could roll right into some happy sex and kill lexa immediately afterwards.

and then never. let. clarke. move. on.

But then - as soon as Bob and Eliza got married - JRoth explained that we “misinterpreted” that Bellamy’s season 6 storyline was about saving Clarke specifically, and then season 7 suddenly snd inexplicably did a sharp left turn.

Season 7 Clarke first spent a couple of episodes mourning her mom, which made sense; then spent several episodes as a blander version of the classic Clarke who would do anything to save her friends, and then suddenly changed into an extreme version of the Murderous Mamma Bear from her lowest point in S5, this toxic version of motherhood, so she could murder Bellamy is the OOC moment of the entire show, tacked on at the last minute, because JRoth really had it in for Bob. Bellamy’s importance to Clarke and everyone in the show was quickly retconed, as the rewrites were so poorly done that no one seemed to give a shit about him anymore.

Clarke continued to be Murderous Mamma Bear and even said she would be nothing without Madi, and then almost killed Madi when she got paralyzed,,before becoming a revenge-driven killing machine (a completely new development for her - she never killed for revenge).

Then they had the judge -alien appear to her as Lexa - because she is supposed to be her greatest love or something. Which was not set up at all, since Clarke hadn’t even mentioned Lexa in the previous 21 episodes, didn’t give a shit or have any reaction when the Flame was destroyed in the season 6 finale or when Gabriel repaired it and then shot it and destroyed it again in 7x13; and the one time someone else mentioned her (Gaia in 7x01), Clarke’s response was “It seems like another world”. (And even in her mindspace episode, Clarke’s trauma over Lexa’s death was simply given the same weight as her trauma over Finn’s death.)

It’s out of nowhere - especially since Clarke told Madi in 5x12 that the love she had for Lexa was NOTHING compared to how much she now loved Madi (said she while sending Madi to the battlefield to save Bellamy). If that was supposed to mean “greatest romantic love” - well, since S7 tried hard to hammer it home that Bellamy was her “best friend” without any additional feelings (which makes one wonder what the point was of the S5 repeated shots of a heartbroken Clarke watching Bellamy and Echo kiss), that would just mean that she loves Lexa more than Finn? Is that really a reason for her to be the face of the alien-judge? Does it nean alien judges appear only as your romantic love - since it’s canon that Clarke loves Madi so much more than she loved Lexa?

There is no way to find logic in this. I suspect that the original plan was to have the alien wear Abby’s face - but after JRoth had punished Bob by erasing Bellamy from the narrative and spiting Bellarke fans, he had to court some fans who might watch his prequel. So, he tried hard and got Alycia for a fake Lexa and a pseudo-Clexa pseudo- reunion, mercilessly baiting another shipper group till the end. While Paige got to appear to Raven instead. (Why? Was she her greatest love? I doubt it. Her greatest teacher? That would be Sinclair. Her greatest failure? Eh… I’m not convinced.) He may have actually expected brownie points from a portion of the CL fandom that would be, at least in his hopes, willing to forget about the Bury Your Gays trope (and the fact that Lexa is still 100% dead and doesn’t get any “transcendence” nor is her spirit now in the Flame, since there is no Flame) if they can say they “won” the ship war.