As they got closer to Mount Weather, however, Clarke jogged ahead to catch up to Wells. She slipped her hand into his. There were no words Clarke could offer to lessen Wells’s pain. She just wanted to remind him that he didn’t have to go through this alone. They were in it together.
They reached the Earthborns’ village just before nightfall. Max opened his door on the first knock, as if he’d known it was them. His cabin was heartbreakingly neat. All the machine parts and half-finished devices that had littered his table had been cleared away and replaced with countless dishes of food. “Please, help yourself,” Max said, gesturing toward the table. None of them felt much like eating, but they sat down with Max and told him what had happened since they’d left Mount Weather. He’d learned about the attack but hadn’t heard about the Vice Chancellor calling a vote for a new Council.
“So, you’re on the Council?” he said to Bellamy, smiling for the first time that evening.
Bellamy nodded, his face reddening slightly with embarrassment and pride. “Yeah, trust me, I was as surprised as you were when they voted me in, but hey, I’m just giving the people what they want.”
“Wells was voted in as well,” Clarke said. “Actually, he was elected first, way before Bellamy.” She smiled from one to the other. Bellamy returned hers. Wells didn’t.
“I’m very glad to hear that,” Max said, placing his hand on Wells’s shoulder. “Your people are lucky to have such a fine young leader. I know you’re going to do your father proud, Wells. You’re going to make all of us proud.”
“Thank you,” Wells said, meeting Max’s eyes for the first time.
As they helped Max clear the few dishes they used, he told them the plan for tomorrow. “It’s our custom to bury our dead at sunrise,” he said. “We believe that dawn is the time of renewal. Endings and beginnings are inseparable, like the moment before dawn and the moment after.”
“That’s beautiful,” Clarke said softly.
“After the Cataclysm,” Max went on, “our ancestors suddenly had to struggle with the idea that light doesn’t always follow dark. That one day, the sun really might not come up again. That’s where the tradition started. It’s gratitude, really, that the sun came up for one more day.”
“I bet Sasha liked that idea,” Wells said with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Something in his face had changed, Clarke thought, as she studied him in the flickering candlelight. There was something harder in it, but wiser too. “Max, do you mind if I spend the night in the tree house?” Wells asked.
“Not at all. Though it’ll be pretty cold out there.”
“I’ll be fine. I’ll see you all in the morning.”
“I’ll walk you,” Clarke said, rising to her feet. “I want to go check the radio room one more time, if that’s okay.”
Max nodded. “Of course.”
Bellamy stayed behind to keep Max company, and both Clarke and Wells stepped into the night.
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay out here by yourself all night?” Clarke asked as they approached the tree house.
Wells gave her a look she couldn’t quite read, a mix of sadness and amusement. “I won’t be by myself,” he said quietly. “Not really.”
Clarke didn’t have to ask him what he meant. She squeezed his arm, then gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and left him with his memories.
She walked quickly to the Mount Weather entrance and disappeared down into the bunker, back to the spot that had become so familiar to her. She fiddled with the radio dials, her fingers working from muscle memory. She moved through the standard combinations she liked to try, starting with the one that had worked the day she heard her mother’s voice. Her desire to hear it again was physical, a craving.
An hour passed with no results. Clarke wasn’t even sure anymore whether the hiss and crackle of the radio were in her head or coming through the speaker. Her back ached from leaning over the console, and her head had started to throb. Bellamy was probably going to come looking for her any moment.
She stood up and stretched her arms over her head, then leaned from side to side and shook out her wrists. She knew she should shut down the system, but she wasn’t quite ready. One more time, she told herself. Just one. Clarke sat back down and began to adjust the dials.
She was so focused on listening to the tonal shifts in the static that she almost didn’t notice the clomping of footsteps in the hall until they were right outside the door. They were quick and heavy. It must be later than I thought.
Clarke spun around on her seat and looked out the door. “Bellamy?” she called. “Is that you? Max?”
There was silence in the hall as whoever was out there paused. Clarke rose from her chair, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end. Surely Bellamy knew better than to play a trick on her at a time like this, after all they’d just been through. Could the violent Earthborns have returned?
Two figures stepped into the room, one right behind the other. Before she knew what was happening, Clarke had been enveloped in two sets of arms, and she was crying tears of joy.
It wasn’t Bellamy.
It was her parents.
The next morning, Clarke, Wells, and Bellamy stood side-by-side on a bluff overlooking a river, shivering in the cool darkness. Row after row of stones jutted from the ground, the names carved on them unreadable at this early hour. Max stood at the head of an empty grave, staring silently down into it. Sasha’s body rested nearby, wrapped tightly in a shroud the color of the dirt that would soon envelop her.