He finds Raven with her hands clasped around some old radio, head bowed, shoulders hunched. When her eyes slowly dally to his, there's an old haunting to them, a shadow once familiar that has not been missed. New alliances had been formed and broken on the Ring, but through it all she had been his partner, steadfast. So he crouches down beside her, takes in the regret so clear in the drawn line of her brow, and hates how gruff his voice is when he musters her name.

She sighs and glances out to the woods before turning her whole self towards him. "Does this… mean… anything to you?" And despite the downward pull of her mouth he can't help the little upward quirk of his own as he tilts his head quizzically at the radio she brandishes. "It's a radio." She waits for him to continue. He doesn't. "That's all?" "I mean, do you want a more elaborate description here or?" "It's Clarke's radio." His brow furrows but she can tell that he doesn't know the weight it carries.

It had been an honest mistake, a practical solution to a problem. An innocent suggestion to use Clarke and Bellamy's radios for communication across range. Followed by an unsure 'maybe he left it on the Ring'. Some quiet questions and a desperate 'be careful with it – it's Clarke's most precious thing' later and Raven found herself the keeper of a secret, Raven found herself here, cradling some piece of junk radio receiver that didn't work, her heart breaking for all the words it failed to transmit.

She doesn't want to tell him. She doesn't want to see the way his face will crumple or how he'll clamp his jaw. His heartbreak has always been so evident across his face. And she doesn't want to embarrass Clarke or betray her privacy or call out the motive behind those messages. Because there's a heck of a big difference between calling the Ring every day and calling him, and they'd all know that.

But she thinks of Praimfaya, thinks of all the days she can remember between then and now, and about how on every single one of those days Clarke was somewhere alone sending a message through to Bellamy. She thinks of how big the Algae farm was when they left, having grown from nothing, and of how many radio calls Clarke must have made in the time it took to get that size. She thinks of the times she found him on the floor of Clarke's old cell, asleep on her rendering of earth, and wonders what had Clarke been trying to tell him on those days? All those messages, all those days of talk, what had she been so intent on saying? Because the Clarke they returned to does not have words spilling from her, keeps her stories drawn close, packed away.

So she breathes deep and explains, as Bellamy crashes unceremoniously beside her, as the guilt pushes his shoulders further forward and his heart again cracks open before her. And they sit, as the sun dips further across the horizon, as the clouds chase its pathway across the sky. They let the hard ground hold them up, thoughts consumed by the girl they left on it in their refuge to the stars.