Yeah, the back pats are nice and wholly professional. They're surface level comforting, and so very much not enough right now. The tight hold in her chest, like an invisible hand encircling her entire ribcage and crushing it to bits — that's sort of what she imagines Pal had felt finding her in the hallway the day after Halloween. The dead are alive again, and seemingly whole. But that hadn't made it easy for him to look at her covered in gore, right? And it certainly doesn't make it easier for Clarke, who can still smell the dust after the explosion, and whose ears are still ringing slightly.

Poor Gideon. Yeah, poor Gideon but also — in a short lived flurry of utter selfishness Clarke can't help but think poor me, too! She hadn't known, she'd walked into this memory blind, only to then watch one of her most cherished people on the ship die, and — and —

She finally unglues the sides of their faces, leans back. And the grief snaps, turns over on itself — becomes something more like anger. Her hands are on his shoulders, fingertips biting through fabric hard enough to bruise. And she shakes him a little, just once or twice.

"You never told me this is how it played out. You never told me that's how it happened, you —" Whatever sentence is stuck in the back of her throat turns on itself; cannibalizes itself until she's left with nothing to say, and only moderately aware of the fact her eyes are wet and swimming with tears.