Clarke had spent all night talking to her parents, if talking was really the right word to describe the stream of words, sobs, and laughter that had poured out for hours after their reunion. Her parents were both much thinner than they had been the last time she saw them, and there was a lot of gray in her father’s new beard, but other than that they looked exactly the same.
When she’d finally managed to stop crying, Clarke’s mom had unleashed a series of questions, asking about everything that had happened during Clarke’s trial, her Confinement, and then her trip to Earth. But her father had barely managed a word. All he could do was smile and stare at Clarke, holding her hand as if afraid that she would vanish into the air at any moment.
She told them about being dragged from her cell, about the violent crash, about Thalia and Wells and Bellamy and Sasha. As Clarke spoke, she felt herself growing lighter. It was like she’d been carrying two sets of memories with her for a more than a year—the memory of what really happened and how she’d imagined her parents would react. And now, every time her father smiled or her mother gasped, more of that weight broke off. Clarke was desperate to hear about her parents’ time on Earth, but by the time her mother had finished questioning her, it was nearly dawn.
They decided that it was best for her parents to stay behind at Mount Weather rather than make a sudden appearance at Sasha’s funeral. Although they’d gotten on well with the Earthborns, the memory of the first Colonists’ betrayal was still too fresh.
Standing between Bellamy and Wells, Clarke felt a strange mix of elation and sorrow. That seemed to be how things worked on Earth. There was too much happening, too much to process ever to feel one emotion at a time.
She turned to the side to look at Wells, wondering if he felt the same way, or if his grief were all consuming.
The sun cracked the horizon line, sending orange and pink scouts racing ahead of it into the sky, as Max laid his only child to rest. In a hoarse voice that made Clarke’s chest ache, he shared some of his favorite memories of Sasha, some of which prompted chuckles from the assembled Earthborns, while others left hundreds of eyes glistening with tears.
As he wiped a tear away from his own eye, Max gestured to Wells and asked if he wanted to say anything. He nodded, let go of Clarke’s hand, and stepped forward to speak.
“The connection we feel to other people isn’t bound by geography or space,” Wells began. Although Clarke could see him trembling, his voice was strong and clear. “Sasha and I grew up in two different worlds, each of us wondering and dreaming about what was out there. I watched from above, never knowing for sure whether humans had survived here on Earth. I didn’t know if we’d ever set foot on this planet again or if it would happen in my lifetime. And she looked up”—he pointed at the fading stars, still faintly visible in the dark blue sky—“and wondered if there was anyone up there. Had anyone survived the voyage into space? Had people managed to stay alive up there all these hundreds of years? For both of us, getting answers to our questions seemed so unlikely. But a million tiny forces moved us toward each other, and we got our answers. We found each other, even if it was just for a moment.” Wells took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Sasha was my answer.”
Clarke shivered, though this time, it wasn’t from the cold. Wells had said it perfectly. Everything about their time on Earth had been so unlikely, so astonishing. And yet these months were more real to her than all the years she’d spent on the Colony. Clarke could barely remember what mornings were like without crisp air, dewy grass, and birdsong. She could no longer imagine working long hours under the medical center’s fluorescent bulbs instead of helping her patients heal in the sunlight, like their bodies were designed to do.
She tried to picture what her future would have been like if none of this had ever happened—if she hadn’t told Wells about her parents’ experiments, if he hadn’t reported them to his father, if she hadn’t been Confined, if Wells hadn’t loosened the airlock, if the hundred had never come to Earth—but the scene just dissolved into blackness. There was nothing there but the past. This was her life now.
Clarke watched as a few of Sasha’s friends lifted her body and gently laid her into the ground. She whispered a silent good-bye to the girl who helped make Earth their home, who’d brought Wells back to life when he’d been stuck in darkness. He would be okay, Clarke told herself, as she watched him join the Earthborns in throwing handfuls of dirt into the grave. If she’d learned anything on Earth, it was that Wells was stronger than he realized. They all were.
Bellamy took Clarke’s hand, then leaned in and whispered, “Should we go check on your parents?”
She turned to him and tilted her head to the side. “Don’t you think it’s a little early to be meeting my parents?” she teased. “After all, we’ve been dating less than a month.”
“A month in Earth time is like, ten years in space time, don’t you think?”
Clarke nodded. “You’re right. And I suppose that means that I can’t get mad at you if you decide to call it off after a few months, because that’s really a few decades.”
Bellamy wrapped his arm around her waist and drew her close. “I want to spend eons with you, Clarke Griffin.”
She rose onto her toes and kissed his cheek. “Glad to hear it, because there’s no going back now. We’re here for good.”
As she said the words, a strange sense of peace enveloped her, momentarily softening the pain of the day. It was true. After spending three centuries desperately trying to get back to Earth, they’d made it. They were finally home.