The one thing that no one ever taught them in Earth Studies was that Earth wears things down. It takes everything and changes the shape to something more suited to survive. It carves parts out while others it just wears at until it doesn’t even resemble what it was before.
If Clarke could look at the person she would become she might not have tried to help the Ark. The person she is now is a shadow of who she used to be while at the same time now she stands taller and would make the past her cower.
When she first starts to be with Finn she thinks they’re perfect. There are certain edges that bang against each other, but they force them together and she almost feels like a puzzle that’s been completed.
Then Raven yells for Finn and the pieces start to force against each other. They pop out of the place where she hadn’t known they were forcing themselves together and every piece of her feels jagged.
She spends nights actively thinking about anything that isn’t about the way that she’s changed since the landing.
She doesn’t think about all the edges that were soft that are now sharp as a scalpel, out of fear that they’ll slice her open and everything she’s bottled up will come spilling out.
She spends so much time not thinking about it that she never even notices when the sharp edges start to fit in line with the man who used to drive her crazy. He takes the edges that she didn’t want to think about and he’s the one who evens them out. He makes them so that she can handle them again.
It’s years later, when the Ark is settled, and Earth feels like a home that Clarke realizes the edges of herself are fitting with someone else. She realizes when they’re standing in the council room discussing the plans for Unity Day when she looks up at Bellamy and realizes that he just finished her sentence.
And then she realizes that he does it all the time and she does it to him. She remembers all the times that they knew what the other was thinking before anyone else. She remembers the times that he inexplicably knew that she needed him with her. She remembers the fact that he never leaves her side and that he will always stand in her place if he thinks it’s not safe. She remembers the scouting mission he went on two years ago when he was gone for three weeks and she didn’t sleep soundly once.
When she stops remembering the meeting is over and he’s asking if she’s okay.
“Yeah, could you stay for a minute? There’s something we need to discuss,” she says and ne nods and they wait in silence while the rest of the council leave.
She stands up and he does too because he’s always by her side, ready for action.
“Bellamy,” she says because she doesn’t know where to start.
“Princess,” he says and now he’s smirking at her because he knows she’s trying to figure out what to say and that never stopped amusing him.
And she wants to give him a piece of her mind. She wants to tell him to go float himself, but instead she just steps closer so that her lips barely brush his. He does the rest.
He wraps an arm around her waist and tangles the fingers of his other hand in her hair. Their lips are working against each other in a way that she should have known they would. Their bodies slot together perfectly and she realizes that the pieces aren’t forced.
They aren’t pushed together by the kiss, just locked together because now the pieces that were already together, completing each other, are never going to separate.