One moment Clarke had been talking to the person next to her and the next she was in the water, despite attempts to pull her back onto the raft. Everything happened so quickly after that. She saw the shark a split second before it attacked, she heard the screams in the background and was vaguely aware of not being alone in the water, but Clarke’s mind was focused on survival, on trying to get away. There was no getting away, though. The only real mercy here was that the shark killed her quickly.
And then she woke up. The whiteness of the room, the disorientation she felt was almost reminiscent of waking up in Mount Weather, except that her clothes hadn’t been changed while she slept. She was in the same clothing she’d had on in the arena, but it was dry as a bone. She was dry as a bone and she felt fine. Alive. How was that even possible? Clarke didn’t really have the time to ponder that before she found herself in a more familiar space. She was greeted quickly by one of the doctors, who gave her a brief and really kind of confusing explanation of what had happened, at least as much as they could. They told her it had been the same for everyone else who’d been killed in the arena - they’d all just suddenly appeared in medical and they’d all reported waking up in a white room just like the one Clarke had been in moments before.
“Bellamy’s okay?” It was the first question she had upon hearing the news and the joy she felt at getting that confirmation was indescribable. It didn’t lessen the experience, exactly, but after thinking she’d lost him, the relief she felt was palpable.
She consented to the medical exam and to the brief visit with psych, but as soon as they let her go, she went to find him. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe what she’d just been told, but she needed to see him with her own eyes, to know that he really was all right.
Bellamy had spent much of the last few days doing what Bellamy was best at - being mostly broody with a side of ‘yeah you can make me sit in a room with a shrink, can’t actually make me talk to one’. As it was, Bellamy had a shrink, she just happened to not technically be one and happened to still be in that stupid damn arena. Of all the shit Bell had been through, actually seeing Clarke die to the sharks was probably second only to when they’d first actually found out what had gone on in the bunker - another thing that Bellamy was more than content to live and let live about in entire silence. Having been in the first group to die, Bellamy was pretty okay with not going back inside to medical - he didn’t like it. It was so sterile and he didn’t like the idea of being held up somewhere he had no say in whether he got out of or not… ironically not too different a feeling than being in the arena (at least for him).
Yeah, he was good with not going back inside - but it didn’t mean he wasn’t going to perch himself outside of the building and wait on Clarke to come out. The last time he’d seen her, of course, he’d died and he figured she was about as content with just accepting that the others were okay as he was so as soon as she’d come through the doors… “You in a rush to get somewhere, Princess?” He said, arching an eyebrow in her direction.
She’d heard the words, but Clarke hadn’t completely believed they were true until she saw him. She stopped, turning toward the sound of his voice and without answering the question, she threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly. It defied all logic. Clarke had watched Bellamy die. She’d tried desperately to save him. She’d watched the life leave his eyes and she’d closed those lifeless eyes herself. That had felt so real, she knew she couldn’t have imagined it, but so did this.
This was the first moment she’d allowed herself to truly believe that the arena had been some kind of - she didn’t know, a simulation or whatever it had been. That the deaths, however real they had felt, hadn’t been real in the same way this was.
There wasn’t really a part of Bellamy that was good with words. He might give a good speech every now and then when it was needed, when the moment struck - but it wasn’t really something he’d consider a skill overall, just something he happened to be good at in the right moments. This wasn’t one of those moments. And normally, Bellamy wasn’t the most affectionate person either - that’d changed a little bit up on the ark with Echo and the Spacekru gang, but this was Clarke. There may have been a moment of hesitation - but he hugged her back. It was reassuring, in a way that Bellamy wasn’t sure he really had the emotions to understand.
After a moment he pulled back, bringing a hand back up to put on Clarke’s shoulder - he’d seen how she’d died. It made dying by poisonous box seem… pretty damn peaceful. “You okay?” He asked, knowing that the answer probably wasn’t yes at any rate (beyond relief that the deaths weren’t real, knowing she was probably still freaking out about Alicia and Wanda). But, it felt like the right thing to ask anyway. The sort of shit you said even if you knew that you wouldn’t necessarily get the whole answer.
For Clarke, Bellamy was her family just as much as her mom and Madi were and there really weren’t words for how relieved she was to see him standing here, alive, after having watched him die. She’d tried so desperately to save him. She’d mourned him even while trying to keep herself alive in the arena. All of the deaths had seemed so real. Her own had felt real and she still didn’t understand how she was standing here, herself, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t grateful.
“Okay might be kind of relative,” she admitted. There weren’t many people who would get more than a nod and a forced smile, but Bellamy was one of the few she’d give the truth to. “Are you?” It was recent enough that he had to still be reeling from all of this, too.
Bellamy didn’t want to, couldn’t, wouldn’t want to talk about how dying had felt. He didn’t want to think about the fact that he knew Clarke had watched it. Bellamy was okay at dealing with things, he was very much not okay at talking about them. He was better when he was talking about someone else, or a problem, or you know - anything that didn’t specifically center his own trauma. He’d done a lot of stupid shit over the years to deal with his own trauma, and well, most of it went largely undealt with. It didn’t mean he wasn’t over a lot of it, but it did mean he maybe hadn’t dealt with it the way a therapist would have approved of.
“Probably relative too.” Clarke was one of the few people he could admit that much to. One of the few people he’d bother admitting that much to. Out of everyone here she might have been the only one, if only because there were certain things he was too afraid might come up if he had a similar conversation with his sister. “You hungry?” He asked, pulling his hand back from her shoulder - stuffing both in his jean pockets.
“I could eat.” She wasn’t actually sure how true that was - after everything she kind of just wanted her own bed, a long hot shower, and some way to get Alicia and Wanda the hell out of there now rather than waiting for them to die the way she had, but food was probably somewhere on that list, too and she wasn’t sure she really wanted to be alone yet. She didn’t necessarily want to be with people, either, but Bellamy wasn’t just anyone. He was her family and probably one of the only people she really wanted to be around right now, after what they’d both gone through in the arena.
Clarke had to admit it would be nice to eat a real meal, something she hadn’t had to hunt for herself. She’d grown accustomed to the amazing variety of delicious food in Atlantis. Grabbing a bite now would be a nice way to drive home the fact that she was really back in Atlantis City and safe, even if there were obviously some worried for people who weren’t yet.
Looking at the woman who was, arguably, his best friend he just nodded. He had come out before she had. He knew how he’d felt. He couldn’t imagine how she did with people like ALicia and Wanda in there with her. And he’d had to see her face when he’d died. “I vote on pancakes.” He said casually, bringing one hand out of his pockets and motioning towards the city proper itself as he took a few steps, nodding for Clarke to follow.