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"Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies - God damn it, you've got to be kind."
- Kurt Vonnegut -
Bellamy is standing in the forest, two hands ground into the dirt, when he looks up and realizes that he might believe in something above.
His mother made it all sound so easy. There is a plan for all of us, she'd say, brushing the curls from his forehead. Just you wait and see, honey.
He doesn't know what it means that he is remembering now. His mother was different. She was kind, gentle. Nothing like her children.
But then he remembers Octavia, sitting in her cabin with her feet in Lincoln's lap and he thinks there may be something there.
There may be something of Aurora in both of them, in all of them, and it's worth saving.
***
He knows what she is going to say even before he's reached her cabin.
Bellamy looks at his baby sister and he's sure she doesn't want to do it, but she has to. So he nods, shoots her a quick smile.
"It's going to be a long winter, Bell," she starts, averting her gaze to the window. Outside, people are hot and sweating. The sun is still scorching their skin.
He remembers the term he'd read once in a book lodged behind their fireplace.
Indian summer.
"We'll need allies to survive it."
Survival is a word he hasn't thought of in a very long time.
They were doing so well; all of them in their village, hunting and gathering and laughing by the time the day is done. He watched some of his bravest warriors settle down and welcome their children into this world.
The last few years have been good on the Shallow Valley clan. They got the chance to rebuild.
"What's your plan?"
She swallows, hard.
"We ally with the Sky People. They have the technology. We have the food."
He closes his eyes at the onslaught of memories, bits and pieces pressing on his brow, coming to him in waves.
Mount Weather, their people stuck in cages. Fox and Gina and all the people he was supposed to save.
He brought back home most of them, but it's the dead few that he remembers. It's the dead few that haunt him.
"Fine," he presses out, locks his jaw. "What do you need me to do?"
"That's the thing… Marriage is the only way to ensure that the bond between our people stays strong."
"You're married."
"But you're not."
He pauses, then nods. "Of course."
The apprehension in Octavia's face is still baffling to him. Both of them know that this is reasonable - Bellamy is thirty, not yet married.
He doesn't think he'll ever fall in love again, but he can protect his people.
"O, what is it?"
She chews on her lower lip for a second, gaze fixed to the floor of her cabin. Then, she looks up and he can see a storm brewing.
"You'd have to marry Wanheda."
Wanheda, the material of fairytales. Wanheda, who slaughtered dozens of Trikru warriors in a ring of fire. Wanheda, who made everyone in Mount Weather burn when they refused to let her people go.
Wanheda.
Wanheda.
Bellamy smiles at his sister.
"Wanheda is as human as the rest of us, Octavia. I'm not afraid of her."
"That's more than half the men and women in our clan can say, Bell," Octavia reminds him, smiling back.
"If you're not afraid of letting Death walk among your people, I'm not afraid of letting her into my home."
This time, she laughs and rolls her eyes. The world outside of her cabin starts moving again.
"I think that's a little too dramatic, don't you?"
At dinner, people whisper.
Word travels fast in Doah.
His people won't meet his eye, looking away quickly when they spy him coming to the church with a plate in his hand.
Bellamy hears remarks, words like Wanheda, she'll wreak havoc. Words like Who could sleep with Death herself?
Some of them are derogatory. Others mock her for becoming a taboo among their people.
They scare little children with her, threatening that if they do not listen to their parents and teachers, Wanheda will come and take you away at midnight.
"No Grounder in their right mind would marry her," Harper says, blushing furiously when she spots Bellamy a few paces away. "Shit, Bellamy." She eyes him for a second. "I'm sorry. But even her people fear her."
He briefly wonders if his people are right. But then he remembers seeing her ten years ago at Mount Weather.
She didn't look like Death.
Wanheda just looked like a young woman whose heart was breaking.
And Bellamy could never fear a monster that feels pain, that doesn't feel like a monster at all.
***
She's changed in the last few years, Bellamy realizes as she arrives with her people.
Octavia and Lincoln go to greet them but he lingers behind. Watches her.
Her hair is shorter, the lines around her eyes more pronounced. She's matured but hardly grown supple.
Instead, he looks at the head of their clan - their chancellor and Wanheda's mother - and they have the same stormy, careful look in their eyes.
Maybe she does look a little like Death, but don't they all?
"Thank you for arranging this, Octavia," Marcus Kane says, holding on to Octavia's forearm in a custom so distinctly Grounder that it makes something warm unfurl in Bellamy's chest.
After Mount Weather, the Sky People were initiated into the Coalition. They became the thirteenth clan, sharing their technology and their medicine with everyone who asked.
Marcus Kane was at the head of this new partnership and while Bellamy had not seen the man often, he knew he was a good one.
In a different life, Kane could have fit in with the Shallow Valley people well enough.
"Of course," his sister responds, turning towards Bellamy and motioning for him to come. They stand shoulder to shoulder. "This is my brother, Bellamy. Bellamy, this is Wan-"
"Clarke," he addresses her, offering his hand and a smile. She looks away from Octavia, and some of the tension in her shoulders dissipates. "We've met."
He offers his hand but she reaches for his elbow instead, locking eyes with him. The Sky People, always more human than anyone would think them to be.
"We've met?" she whispers, right by his ear. When she moves away and lets go of his hand, Bellamy smiles at her reassuringly. She's pursing her lips and trying to remember, the gaze more pronounced now.
"Mount Weather."
Her lips part, forming a small 'O,' and then Octavia is ushering them forward to the church, where his people prepared a feast.
No one really knew how to welcome Wanheda to their village, but they figured food was worth a shot.
Seeing the spread now, even musicians in the corner of the hall, Bellamy can't help but smile.
This is why he'd always been willing not just to die for his people, but live for them, too.
Despite it all, they've got kind hearts.
Clarke looks out of place, even with her entourage taking places around the table, finding people they've met in Polis and catching up. Her mom looks at Clarke every once in a while but never asks her to join them.
It makes Bellamy wonder why she's doing it. What hasn't she given her people already?
Seeing that she's still there, trying to find a spot, he pulls out a chair for her and pours her wine when she takes a seat.
She looks like the deer he sees when they're hunting. Facing the unknown and unable to do anything but blink.
He leans over to her, careful not to surprise her. "Making the best out of a complicated situation, huh?"
At that, she chuckles. She actually chuckles and Bellamy hangs his head, shaking it a little.
Wanheda is as human as the rest of them.
Octavia notices, and she shoots him an amused look. He waves it off with a hand and then he's pouring Clarke more wine.
Conversation doesn't come easy but the silence feels amicable.
They watch their people chatting and he even sees her swaying a little by the end of the night, to the tune of the drums and singing.
No, he's not going to fall in love. But having Wanheda at their village may not be so strange after all.
***
The Sky People depart early in the morning, Bellamy still bleary-eyed and thankful he's no longer the head of their clan.
Instead, it's Octavia leaning on Lincoln who wishes the Sky People a safe journey back home. The promise of seeing them in a month dies on her lips.
They know.
Back in the church, half of the Shallow Valley people are nursing hangovers, the opulent elderberry wine making them queasy. It's going to be a long day, Bellamy knows, but he thinks their future may not be as bleak as they thought.
"So, what did you think?" Octavia asks, digging into her plate of fruit. It was a bountiful summer, they'll have plenty of produce to preserve for the winter.
And with the Sky People's technology, they won't even have to fear the cold and the snow sweeping over the valley.
"I think half of them forgot she is Wanheda."
Octavia smiles crookedly. "She does look a little small, doesn't she?"
This makes all of them laugh, Bellamy handing her more fruit and chewing on his own breakfast.
"Size is no measure of power," Lincoln reminds Octavia, eyeing her wryly. "If you are anything to go by."
She elbows him but it's playful, easy. Everything is when Lincoln is with them. He may not be Louwoda, but he has what the Louwoda need.
In the afternoon, Octavia explains the details.
"They need our food. Their settlement is in a big game area, but the land isn't as fertile. Kane said they needed more phyto proteins."
"So that's all? That's why they are doing this?"
Octavia shrugs. "Honestly, I think they want to prove they have adapted to life on Earth."
Bellamy remembers the way they greeted them. The way they shared food and spoke, Trigeda mixed with standard English.
"They have. It's been ten years."
"They are still strangers. This is good for them. It gives them leverage in the Coalition. It's why they're marrying off Wanheda."
"It's a show of faith."
Octavia nods. "It is. And we're going to accept them."
His sister hasn't always been like this.
When she was younger, she was almost feral. He'd spend hours trying to track her down, only to find her on the border between their and Trikru's territories, chasing butterflies.
Later, it was Lincoln she chased. It was a marriage of love, impossibly, and their clan and Trikru became even stronger allies.
Over time, she turned wise. After their people returned from Mount Weather, their mother died and she was ready to become a leader.
When the Sky People requested to join the Coalition, she was the first to stand up and say: "The Shallow Valley clan accepts you."
In a different life, Octavia could have been angry, furious, spitting blood and teeth. He can see it in her.
But in this life, she loved her people and they loved her back.
They don't speak for a while, both of them lost in their own thoughts. Then Octavia turns to him, serious, and Bellamy sits up straighter.
"This is all good, Bell, but I need to know what you think. About her. About the marriage. We can survive the winter - we've always survived. I need to know that you can survive this marriage."
He thinks about it, deeply this time.
"I think we are both adults who want to protect their people. We're not kids, Octavia. She has done things, and so have I. I am not saying that I wouldn't rather be married to someone I love, but both you and I know that is not going to happen."
Gina's name dies on both of their lips, and he smiles, already worn down by the sole memory of it.
"I know what our people think of her. I'm not ignorant. But she doesn't seem evil, and that is enough."
Octavia nods, solemn.
"So you consent to this union?"
"Yeah, O. I consent to this union."
The voice of his mother is as clear as day in his mind: There is a plan for all of us. Just you wait and see, honey.
He wishes that were true.
***
The ceremony is performed at the time of the autumn equinox.
In the Shallow Valley, marriages are sacred and so the preparations begin weeks in advance.
Ambassadors are called in from Polis, diplomatic envoys sent around the continent to notify everyone of the ceremony that will take place.
Bellamy mostly goes about his usual routine, not pausing to think. He helps the Sky People who have come with solar panels install them on the roofs of trailers and cabins.
A woman, fierce smile and a metal brace fixed on her leg, asks him if they get a lot of sunny days in the valley.
"Would you be here if we didn't?" he shoots back, using a screwdriver to fasten them so they don't budge in bad weather.
She grins at him from the ground, hands on her hips.
"What do you know about solar tech?"
"Plenty," he shoots back, smiling in return. Her name is Raven Reyes and she is Wanheda's best friend.
He may not need her approval, but he wants it all the same.
He also notes the way she's introduced herself. Best friend, like a partner, like a title as important as Wanheda.
As she leaves, she grips his hand and threatens, "I know all of you think she's some kind of harbinger of death or whatever the fuck, but she's my friend. If you hurt her, you're gonna answer to me. Got that?"
Then she punctuates it with an ominous grin and Bellamy's smile slips off his face.
"We'll treat her as one of our own."
"I thought so."
On the day of the wedding, Octavia wakes him by unceremoniously dumping a fistful of flowers on his face.
"Wake up, big brother. Time for you to get married."
He's laughing before he even knows he's awake, and he follows her obediently, letting her fix his hair and drape him in traditional clothing for the ceremony.
She talks incessantly and a part of him is thankful.
If he stops to think, he may find that he is doing the wrong thing. If he stops to think, he may enter this union knowing that it's not the right course of action.
Mercifully, Octavia is there to distract him, even if she is yawning by the time he is done. Her second in command comes into his cabin when the Sky People arrive.
"Thank you, Niylah."
She lingers in the doorway, eyeing Bellamy before finally saying, "She looks really beautiful."
Maybe he shouldn't feel anything, but he does. It makes what they're about to do a lot more normal. For a second, he can imagine he is marrying the woman he loves.
He lost the chance to do so when they marched at Mount Weather, but maybe… Just maybe there is hope, somewhere in the future, somewhere in a different life.
"He'll see her soon enough," Octavia responds, grinning at him. When they're alone again, she places her hands on his shoulders, inspects his face for any doubt. "Thank you, Bellamy. Whatever you need, just let me know."
"Is it time?"
Octavia nods, her responsibility making her look older. Blink and he'll mistake her for their mother.
"It is."
Hand in hand, they go.
***
Niylah was right, Bellamy realizes when he arrives to the church.
Clarke is beautiful.
She's standing at the bottom of the steps under an arch woven out of wildflowers and fresh fruit.
Hundreds of people are surrounding her, some of the dignitaries seated, others standing. He spies the Sky People in the front row, all cleaned up and well-dressed. Raven is standing right behind her by the arch.
She is wearing an old, simple gown with just a little lace around her neck. Then he sees what's on her head and a chuckle escapes his lips.
The Shallow Valley crown, leaking rust to paint her golden hair the shade of autumn.
It's a small thing but it makes Bellamy's heart swell. Then she looks at him and suddenly, he's not worried anymore.
Wanheda is just as human as the rest of them.
There is nothing to fear.
Gaia takes both of their hands into hers, starting the ritual as Octavia escorts Bellamy to the arch.
"On this day, a monumental day for both our clans, I have decided to perform an Old Earth marriage ritual."
She bows her head to the Sky People congregation and Clarke's eyes widen. Bellamy's fingers find hers and he nods.
It's okay.
"Please repeat after me. I take you, Clarke of Sky People, to be my partner."
He looks at her, finds her fingers on Gaia's palm, and relaxes when she smiles at him.
"I take you, Clarke of Sky People, to be my partner."
"For better and for worse."
Raven winks at him behind Clarke's back.
"For better and for worse."
"In abundance and in scarcity."
He thinks of the cold winters they've survived. The Sky People's long journey back home to the ground.
"In abundance and in scarcity."
"In peril and in peace."
Clarke's lips pull up a little. Peril they both know. She mouths I remembered.
"In peril and in peace."
"To love and to respect," Gaia prompts, her own features cracking into a smile.
Bellamy tries to understand the look in Clarke's eyes. He does not know her well enough, but he folds it away. He will understand when the time is right.
"To love and to respect."
"And may we always meet again, in this life and the next."
This time, he does understand the look on her face. The dawning, the softness. It seems as if she is breaking open, tears welling in her eyes.
Her people, equals.
"And may we always meet again, in this life and the next."
"May we meet again," Clarke whispers into his ear when he wraps his arms around her.
He does not know if these vows were made for people like them, but they were as honest when she said them as they were when he was the one doing more than simply repeating Gaia's words.
They are married with a nod from Gaia and a celebratory shout from Octavia, instructed to embrace and reach for the fruit overhead.
He feeds Clarke pomegranate carefully, and she slips the seeds past his mouth with apprehension that makes him laugh, making her miss his lips and paint his cheek red instead.
She leaves his side to hug her mother and accept best wishes from her people, as well as Polis ambassadors that have all come to watch history write itself.
Bellamy, for his part, finds Octavia in the throng. Lincoln is holding her around the waist, and she is grinning.
"Did you like the vows?"
Bellamy laughs, somehow feeling more joyful than he'd expected. He loves Old Earth traditions and she knows it well.
Then Kane addresses both of them, Bellamy still with his family. He wonders why their people ever fought.
"Octavia, Bellamy, thank you for including our customs in your ceremony. It was beautiful."
"Our pleasure. Your people are now our people, thanks to Bellamy and-"
For a second, he thinks she'll say Wanheda.
She doesn't.
Instead, she uses her name.
"Clarke."
Kane nods, following her towards the clearing where the first part of the feast is to be held. They talk so much that Bellamy realizes he will feel out of place, looks for his-
Wife.
She is his wife.
The realization knocks the breath out of his lungs but then she sees him and excuses herself from talking to Heda Lexa and her mother, weaves her way through the crowd to reach him.
She's smiling, and it makes him think she's forgotten what they have just done.
"Hey."
"Hey," he shoots back, teasing her just a little. "Are you hungry?"
Suddenly, she turns deadly serious and it makes him realize just how young she is. Barely older than Octavia.
"I could eat a horse."
She takes his hand when he offers it and they ignore the looks, the wonder rising in his people's eyes at seeing them talk and walk together, laughing like people who could have been friends in a different life.
Even Octavia hugs her when they arrive.
After that, it's a blur of sounds and images.
People come to congratulate them, they drink wine and laugh, someone proposes a toast because it was done on Old Earth and all of the Sky People take turns wishing them luck, knowing that Bellamy and Clarke's luck is the luck of their people.
Then his own clan lift their glasses and say their own words, mostly speaking about the benefit of the union.
Only a few look at Clarke outright, and it does get to her, her shoulders tensing progressively throughout the evening, but it's all forgotten by the time the music starts.
At the end of the night, Octavia and Kane are sleeping at the table, leaning on one another. Even Bellamy's eyelids feel heavy and sore.
"What do you say, wife? Ready for bed?"
She swallows hard but nods.
Bellamy steers her gently towards his cabin, even offering a hand to help her cross the root knots rising from the ground.
She doesn't take it.
Instead, she lifts her chin petulantly, a steely gaze in her eyes. She holds herself with all the grace of royalty.
It surprises him at first. Her dress caught on the knots, her refusal to accept his help even if both of them are a little drunk, legs still tingling from the dancing.
He realizes what the problem is when they make it back to his cabin and she starts undressing as soon as she crosses the threshold.
On Old Earth, he’d have carried her across. On Old Earth, she would have been his wife out of choice, and there would be a white picket fence somewhere, he’s sure.
"Wait."
She looks like she'll fight him, or worse.
"You understand that we can give you your separate cabin?"
She blinks, lips still pursed. "You what?"
"No one is expecting us to live together."
She deflates at that.
He watches her for a beat, her brows knitting together like she's struggling to understand. Her hand is still frozen on the zipper.
He has time, and he'd give that to her, but the longer she watches him, the more tension starts creeping back in.
All the muscles in her body are rigid by the time she opens her mouth again.
"Is arranged marriage not a tradition your people respect?"
"Yes, but…"
"Then I intend on upholding that tradition."
"We don't know each other."
"We will."
A groan escapes his lips and he drops his cloak on the bed, takes a seat by the fireplace. She's still rearing for a fight.
"Clarke, it's not fight or flight anymore. The future of our clans does not depend on us fucking," he says, gruff.
Her lips are a thin line now, her arms crossed at her chest. It came out too rough, he slipped up.
"I didn't ask you to fuck me. I said I intend on living with you."
"For posterity?"
She nods, adamant. "For posterity."
He eyes her for a few moments and then he's undressing too, careless of what she may think.
For a second, he'd hoped that she'd changed over time. He had grown tired of fighting with no one left to fight.
But the leader of the first hundred that made it to the ground was still there.
And all she has ever been was a war commander who doesn't know what to do in peacetime.
"Alright then, wife," he drawls, rolling his eyes at the word. He moves the covers away and sinks on his bed. Taps the empty space on the left. "Get in."
She mulls it over for a few beats and then she's stripping, too. He doesn't look away.
If he does, she'll just think he's weak and something in him won't allow that.
Instead, he watches as she removes her dress and folds it on the chair. Methodical, precise. Her ribs, protruding from her skin, cut across her body almost geometrically. She’s thinner than before and beautiful, but in a tired way.
In a way that says her body is a tool, not really a body.
Bellamy closes his eyes when she slides in.
"Are you cold?"
"No."
"Do you need anything?"
"No." The left corner of his lips pulls up unwillingly. "Just let me sleep."
So he does.
***
Every night, she crawls in bed with him and every morning, she is gone before he wakes.
The first time, he looks for her, still bleary eyed as he trots out onto the porch. Doah is littered with the remnants of last night’s celebration, Miller is picking up the ribbons.
"Hey, have you seen Clarke?"
"Yeah," he responds, throwing Bellamy a look he can't decipher. "She's in the church."
So he follows, wanting to make sure Clarke is okay. But when he sees her sitting by the fire and meets her eye, she turns away.
It takes him a day or two to get used to her ignoring him. He looks for her out of the corner of his eye but there's always her mother or Kane or Raven to create a human shield between them.
"Isn't your wife going to eat with us?" Lincoln asks him one day, cocking an eyebrow. She still sits with her people, even if it's at the end of their table.
Bellamy stabs a fork into his veal.
"I guess not."
Lincoln gets up with the scrape of his chair, Octavia shooting an apologetic look at him. He exchanges a few words with Clarke and then she's sitting down next to Bellamy.
Her lips are a thin line.
"For posterity?"
She doesn't reply, but she doesn't touch her food either.
"Everything alright with you and Wanheda?" Miller asks him one morning as they pack supplies for a hunting trip.
They're going further down south, hunting big game for winter.
Bellamy shoulders his rifle, courtesy of the Sky People. At first, his warriors wouldn't take it. The old superstition propagated by the Mount Weather was too strong.
Then he cut down two Reapers with it and the bullets rattled.
"Fine. And don't call her that."
"Trouble in paradise?" Murphy cuts in, throwing him a crooked smile. "Thought you'd be fucking her into the bed by now."
"Murphy…" Bellamy warns and the other man raises his hands in mock surrender.
"Alright, behaving. We're all worried about you. You're freaking us out, you and your death girl."
He and his death girl are freaking Bellamy out, too.
When he saw her with the Shallow Valley crown under the arch, he thought they could be partners.
Then he offered her a separate cabin and it was like they were on opposite sides of a war.
The war, he realizes as he leaves to tell her he'll be gone for a few days, is the problem. She may not know how to stop fighting it.
Bellamy didn't either.
She’s sitting on the steps of their cabin, not that she’d done much to make herself at home. She’s wearing her Sky People clothing still, and the summer heat is leaving wet patches all over the threadbare cotton.
Then he spots a paper in her lap. Her fingers are covered in charcoal and Bellamy stops, smiles.
When she can't see him, she almost looks soft.
"Hey, Clarke."
The change is immediate. She goes from stillness to looking locked - gaze sharp and cold, shoulders squared, Wanheda.
"Yeah?"
"We're going hunting. It might be a few days before I come back. If you need anything, just ask Octavia."
"Oh." Then he watches the armor slip, and she frowns. "Don't you usually come back by nightfall?"
"Not when we're preparing for winter."
"Well…" She mulls it over, looks up, and then back at him. "Can I come?"
He pauses.
"We don't have any more rifles."
"Right. I was just… I'm bored, Bellamy."
He thinks that over for a second, wondering if this is an olive branch. It's barely been a month; the rest of their lives won't be impenetrable silence.
All it takes is a little patience.
"I think Harper, our healer, could use some help. You studied medicine, haven't you?"
She nods, lightening up. "I have."
"Good. She's stationed in the back of the church. Our methods are different, but I think you'll manage."
This time, she doesn't roll her eyes when he motions to leave.
Instead, she calls for him, reaching for the laces on her boots, grabbing on to them until her knuckles go white.
"Be careful. Please."
He smiles.
"Your wish is my command, Princess."
It's out before he can stop it and then he's laughing at himself all the way out of the village.
Princess.
It rings truer than Wanheda, so he uses it more often.
He’s by the forest one day, a saw in his hand when she stumbles upon him and he greets her with an easy:
"Hey there, Princess.”
For a second, he thinks she’ll turn around wordlessly but instead, she ventures forth. Examines his tools and the pile of sandpaper by his ankles.
He doesn’t have to build new cabinets, but he enjoys it anyway.
“Are you woodworking?” she asks, finally. She’s frowning at his hands and he realizes they’re covered in sawdust.
It’ll take days to get it out of his clothes.
Bellamy smiles at her, motions for her to come closer. “Yes. You want to try it?”
She does, and so he gives her a sheet of sandpaper, instructs her on how to sand down the edges so the paint sticks better. He blows away the dust and she throws him a self-deprecating smile.
“I’m not really good at this.”
“Sure you are.”
So he shows her that she can be good, places his palm on top of her hand carefully.
Their hands glide across the material, smooth all the uneven edges, giving the wood a little more meaning.
By the end of the day, the cabinet isn’t nearly finished, but he leans back against a tree, takes a deep breath.
“I can’t believe you do this every day. It’s not going to be done for weeks.”
Bellamy closes his eyes.
“Patience, Princess. That’s all it takes.”
With time, he hears his people using the same nickname to speak about her.
They were apprehensive at first, every single member of the Shallow Valley clan somehow aware where she would be so they could avoid that route.
She'd wake up and leave for church, and he'd see them parting like the Red Sea just so they wouldn't brush shoulders with her in passing.
Now Murphy rolls his eyes and tells her to Lighten up, Princess when she shoots back to keep a lid on it as he's jeering at her.
Harper uses the title fondly when she can't reconcile their different ways.
It even slips into Octavia's vocabulary, a meeting about preparations for the winter ending with:
"Bell and Princess are going to travel to Arkadia."
He raises an eyebrow and she grins at him, feral.
"Princess?"
Next to him, blush is creeping up Clarke's cheeks.
Octavia turns to her, palms resting on the maps and documents, exasperated. "Clarke, do you mind it if I call you Princess?"
Impossibly, she shakes her head.
"Not at all. It's better than Wanheda."
These days, Octavia understands her better than he does.
He sees them sitting together by the fire after dinner, sharing wine and trading stories.
Octavia brings their old clothing to Clarke as summer gives way to autumn, and Bellamy watches them go through piles of it together.
“That’s Bell’s, but I’ve commandeered it,” Octavia explains when Clarke picks up a dark blue sweater.
There’s still a patch where he stitched the rip in the fabric the way his mother taught him to.
When he leaves, they don’t even notice.
At lunch, it's the two of them who preside over the table, joking about books Bellamy told Octavia about. His sister says: "Winter is coming," and Clarke laughs.
Even now, the two exchange a look of such dark understanding that something in his gut twists. He has to look away to stop himself from interrupting.
Try as he might, he still doesn't quite understand his wife.
She’s content to help his people, working herself to the bone with Harper.
The flu sweeps through Doah and she brings him a sweater to the school, waits for him to finish his lesson.
He knows she’s assessing him, constantly. Measuring him against something, a warrior or a man. To her, he may not be anything at all.
“Thank you,” he says anyway, because the air is growing colder and he didn’t have the time to think about bringing a sweater.
Clarke toes the floorboard, the kids milling around her on their way back home. They no longer fear her, and it might wreak havoc with his lessons.
With no Wanheda to fear for not listening to their teacher anymore, the children of Shallow Valley may just spend their days chasing butterflies.
He thinks there’s a second in which she’ll say something, finally make him understand why she is the way she is. Why she works, but does not eat. Why she crawls into bed with him but doesn’t seek out the heat of his body at the coldest time of the morning.
Then she’s gone, already far away in her head. She leaves, and the air around her doesn’t even shift.
Steadily fading ever since she said "May we meet again."
***
The night before they are supposed to leave for Arkadia, it all boils over.
She is sitting on the couch staring at the fire and Bellamy is trying to repair his coat, but to no avail.
He asks her for a glass of water but she is completely motionless, save for her chest rising and falling as she breathes.
These days, he checks if she's breathing when she's sleeping hard enough not to notice.
He looks at her now and sees that her collarbones are protruding more. It's winter, she should be eating.
She is not.
"What the fuck, Clarke."
That stirs her and she turns her head but her eyes are glazed over. Looking at him and not seeing.
"Yes, Bellamy?"
"No," he snaps then, gets up with the scrape of his chair. The fire is crackling in the fireplace. "Fuck no."
He crosses the distance and then he's by her side, taking her hands in his. She may not like it. He doesn't care.
"You need to talk to me."
"Nothing to talk about." Then she blinks quickly and she's back, if a little more hazy. "Sorry, did you need something? I was zoning out."
He hangs his head, inhales sharply. Patience. It's a virtue, his mother used to say. Patience.
He doesn't know why it's so hard to come by when he's next to her.
"Zoning out?” He shakes his head, feeling his blood boil at her nonchalance. “Clarke, you need to tell me what's wrong so I can help because this," he grits his teeth, "isn't working."
She looks at him for the longest time. She could tell him to get away from her, take him up on the offer to get her own cabin. Decide to leave, Polis be damned.
There are a lot of things she could do.
Instead, she just leans forward, close enough for her chin to touch his forehead.
"I keep forgetting that you're my husband and I'm your wife."
He runs a thumb over hers, feels her grip tighten like a vise. Exhales in relief.
"No kidding," he huffs, some of the nervous tension lifting.
"We didn't have arranged marriages on the Ark, but I know there were parts of Earth where it was normal. It's just not-"
"Normal for you," he supplies when she seems to struggle.
"Yes, and no. Marriage isn't normal for me. After everything, I never thought I would do this. Not like regular people do.
"When Kane proposed an alliance with your people, it made sense that it would be me. It's been almost ten years since our lives were in danger. I wasn’t exactly useful at Arkadia.”
Bellamy smiles. "And here you are."
"Here I am." A beat, and then she's pulling back, untwisting their fingers to compose herself. He watches her run a hand through her choppy curls, brush away invisible dust on her pants. "I'm sorry. I never asked if this was what you needed."
"It's okay, I don't mind."
He gets up with a slight twinge in his knee, and she makes a compassionate grimace when he winces.
"Knee?"
"I hurt it years ago. It's fine." Then he sits next to her, careful not to spread as he usually would.
It's different, having someone share his cabin, another person whose things are strewn around, her clothing on the hooks, her smell hanging in the air.
Dirt and rain and Clarke.
"I didn't think I would get married either. When Octavia asked, I said yes."
"And you knew it was me before you said yes?"
He chuckles, throws her a look that makes her roll her eyes.
"Yes, I knew it was you. I remembered you from Mount Weather. You didn't look like the commander of death to me then. You don't look like the commander of death now, either," he adds, her inquisitive expression prompting him to speak. "You're just the commander of your clan. Why should we call you Wanheda for defending your people?"
The word sounds so heavy in his mouth. It pulsates, breaks open red and ugly.
The taste of it prompts him to say the truth.
"I lost the woman I loved at Mount Weather. Her name was Gina and she was…" Kind, brilliant, funny, hopeful. Bellamy swallows. "I wanted to marry her. After her, there was no one. I wanted there to be no one.
"When I came back from Mount Weather, I was still the head of our clan. I nearly started a war with Trikru. When I realized what I'd almost done at Hakeldama, I stepped down. Knew peace just wasn't what I was good at.
"I spent the year drinking and fighting until Octavia had to throw me in a basement just to get me to sober up and talk to her. She made me build my own cabin. No one was allowed to help me. After that, it didn't get easier. But I could get up in the morning and have somewhere to be. With time, I didn't just remember the screaming and the blood.
"I remembered the people we've lost for who they were. I remembered the people they left behind. Someone had to take care of them."
They don't speak for a while after that. The fire goes cold and he adds more wood. Clarke shifts, following him intently with her eyes the entire time.
It's only when he sits back down again that she starts talking.
"I remembered you, the way you were at Mount Weather. You stood shoulder to shoulder with Lexa and I imagined killing you over and over in my head after that. You sacrificed my people together so I did the only thing I could. I took it into my own hands.
"Three hundred people died that day, but almost a hundred of mine were safe. A woman from your clan told me that my body wasn't big enough for the kill marks."
She traces the ridge of her spine, as far as she can reach. Almost wistful.
"It was Kane who asked to bring us into the Coalition. I told him we could just kill everyone. We had enough hydrazine. He knew better, which… Lucky."
Bellamy smiles and she keeps going, mouth curling in a way that he's taken to associating with her. The Clarke curl, digging deep into her cheeks, a smile that is not a smile.
"They kept me on the Council just because my people knew I would kill to protect them. Otherwise, I was just a staple. We were at peace. I had no purpose."
Something is dawning on her and Bellamy takes her hand, runs his thumbs over the pale skin.
"I understand."
"I know you do. I knew what I was signing up for. They told me you were no longer the leader of your people, and at first, I couldn’t understand what your purpose was. Were you a teacher? Were you a hunter?” She smiles, watery. “I understand it now. I didn't ask for you, but I'm glad it's you."
His heart clenches and he smiles despite himself. When she returns the smile, albeit watery and tired, he brushes a stray curl from her cheek, tucks it behind her ear.
She leans into his touch and he wants to break something.
"I'm glad it's you, too."
"I don't know how to do it, though. How to get used to being here, to get used to peace."
To get used to you.
He shifts them so his arm comes around her shoulders, letting her lean against his chest.
Bellamy swears he hears her breathe a sigh of relief.
"That's fine. We've got all the time in the world, wife."
She smiles into his shirt, curls up next to him. Into him.
"For better and for worse, huh?"
Bellamy squeezes her shoulder. "For better and for worse."
***
Her mother hugs her when they arrive to Arkadia, but her people are not kind.
The Sky People are practical. Intelligent. Capable. But the one thing they are not is kind.
They are in the council room just moments after they've arrived. He can feel the tension in the room mounting; everyone is on edge, and it’s not because of him.
It’s because of her.
"Thank you for joining us. I hope you managed to get some rest in the Shallow Valley," Kane says and Clarke nods, perfunctory.
“Thank you.”
It doesn’t escape him that she never responds, not really.
"We wanted to talk about the supplies for the winter and opening trade routes in the summer."
They all nod in unison. Ten people who waste no time on niceties.
"Of course, Louwoda Kliron are our dear friends," Thelonious Jaha sounds now. He says friends and means people we can use. And then he continues, looking directly at Clarke, "Have you started working on children yet? They would be an important asset."
Bellamy grits his teeth but not a single person, save for him, bats an eye.
Private, he wants to growl. That is private and not yours to ask.
"Not yet," Clarke responds coolly. "Have you prepared the solar panels?"
Supplies, trade routes, children.
All the same to the Sky People.
At first, he thinks it's politicians. But the people of Arkadia themselves behave strangely.
Before arriving, he thought they would welcome Clarke with open arms.
Instead, they pass a man with goggles perched on top of his head and Clarke explains, "We went to school together back on the Ark."
He doesn't even stop to say hello.
For all she'd done, they whisper and pass her by the same as Bellamy's people do.
The first few times Bellamy hears whispers following them, he looks to Clarke. Her shoulders are squared.
This is normal for her.
Bellamy tries very hard to accept it as normal himself, for her sake if nothing else, but he can't.
It's Raven that he blows up at.
They're having lunch in the mess hall and she's talking to Clarke when she just lets it slip… "But of course, what's a mass murderer to you?"
Clarke acts like it's fine but Bellamy's decided that he's had enough.
They haven't even finished lunch and half of her village has managed to insult her.
"Watch your mouth," he warns, incredulous that Raven is still speaking after the offhand remark. Chairs scrape, he can feel Sky People’s eyes on him.
It's no wonder that Clarke is the way she is.
"Excuse me?"
"Not excused. You can't talk to my wife like that."
She seems to understand, pulling back on her chair slightly. Clarke still doesn't.
"Comparing her to a mass murderer is not alright. In case it slipped your notice," and here he turns in his chair, addressing the people listening in on them, "none of you would be here if it weren't for Clarke. You should treat her as not only one of your own, but as your commander. Show some damn respect."
Clarke doesn't say anything but when he turns around, Bellamy is sure she's just smiled into her plate.
He understands better as the day passes.
They spend time in meetings and if word travels fast in Doah, it travels even faster in Arkadia.
By the time they are talking about accommodating fifty of the Sky People to help with the winter in the Shallow Valley, Jaha no longer has questions and even Clarke's mother seems to be assessing him out of the corner of her eye.
"We'll bring Monty and Raven," Clarke says, making plans as though it's as easy as brewing coffee in the morning. Setting wheels into motion like placing coffee grounds in boiling water.
In Arkadia, he sees something else.
In a different life, Clarke Griffin would have been mighty.
Then he watches her pinch the bridge of her nose and suddenly, he knows it has nothing to do with being a leader.
Even though she is a commander, she is powerless. Without the weight to her name, she would have been free to be powerful.
Here is something he has realized about Clarke: She doesn't give, she offers.
She's singularly selfless, in a way that's not martyrdom. Sacrificing herself would require her to consider herself in the first place.
Clarke Griffin thinks of the people she protects even before she's opened her eyes.
"So we bring them back with us. Is that alright, Bellamy?"
He snaps out of it. She's presiding over the room, impossible to ignore. Every head gravitates towards her.
"Fifty? Yes," he confirms. "We have room. They will have to share with our people but I will make sure the matches are fitting."
Clarke nods and turns to her mother.
"Will you be needing Raven?"
The twisted feeling in his gut evaporates.
This is what he could not understand.
Even when she says she is bored, it is only because she is not parsing herself to feed others' needs.
Clarke Griffin is not a martyr, but she is a miracle still.
"We'll need to bring more equipment. The drugs, too," she tells her mother and then turns to him. "Harper said she could use flu medicine."
Bellamy smiles at her but he's still thinking, mulling so much over.
Back in Doah, she was a stranger in a strange village. In Arkadia, she's a stranger, too. No one seems to want the girl who saved them all.
And she doesn't mind.
"As for your accommodations, we couldn't find a room for two. I'm sorry," Kane explains.
Clarke shrugs and says, "It's just a night."
She stays behind to talk to Abby and Bellamy is escorted to dinner by Kane. They talk about politics, the Ice Nation's queen making sweeping declarations, before settling on Mount Weather.
He can see the questions in Kane's eyes so he barks, "Ask me already."
"It may be impolite, but I cannot understand how a man like you goes from a leader to a teacher."
He says teacher like it's shameful.
Bellamy understands anyway. The Sky People may think Grounders are violent, but they are the ones thinking there is nothing more noble than being a warrior.
"I was a war leader."
The first days were Whatever the hell we want. He read it in a book somewhere, led with chaos and anarchy. There was more wine than wisdom.
They barely managed to survive the winter.
"My people needed someone different after Mount Weather, and I found teaching suitable."
He found hunting suitable. He didn't like the blood, but he liked the full-bellied laughter of his people.
He found woodworking suitable. A reminder that no one had to bleed to make him feel like he'd done something.
Teaching was just an extension of wanting to make sure that no one repeated his mistakes and suffered.
"Alright," Kane says, calm, but Bellamy knows he hadn't given him the answer he wanted.
The Sky People only seemed to know how to live if someone was making sacrifices. There was enough guilt in the wreck of the ship to feed thousands of ghosts.
At night, he tries to sleep alone but misses the curve of her.
She's quiet, controlled in her sleep as well as during her waking hours, but Bellamy had gotten used to her steady presence.
Her absence makes the metal walls colder.
Around midnight, there is a knock on his door.
Clarke is standing in the hallway, wearing a threadbare shirt and not much else. The sight of her makes him feel cold, and she throws him an apologetic smile.
"Do you mind?"
She doesn't voice anything but Bellamy moves away, makes room for her on the narrow bed. She eyes it; it's small for him, much less the two of them.
"I don't think I've thought this through," she finally admits, a tired chuckle bursting from her lips. Her thighs are the size of his arms; she's not eating well and he doesn't know how to help.
So he lies down first, pats his own chest. "We'll fit. Come on."
They've been married for two months but it's the first time they've touched, skin to skin and limbs entangled. She buries her nose in the crook of his neck, grasping for purchase and slipping on his bare chest.
It's not electric, touching her, but it's something. It feels like she is getting what he needs.
"Can I try something?" he asks. She thinks it over for a second and then nods, apprehension in her smart, clear eyes.
In a different life, this would all be normal.
In this life, he waits for her go-ahead before he winds an arm around her waist, securing her against his chest. Her leg falls between his, and his palm comes to lie flat on her back.
"Is this okay?"
She nods against his chest, her head bobbing up and down as he breathes. He's never liked hearing his heartbeat, but she seems to enjoy it.
By the time he's managed to drape a blanket over them, Clarke Griffin has fallen asleep in his arms.
***
As they leave for Doah, he waits for the tears that aren't coming. The goodbyes are perfunctory; no one is going to miss her. She is not going to miss them.
It's all simply a matter of survival.
They walk side by side on the long trek back home. The leaves have all fallen off, and the sun is setting too early.
At one point, Raven catches up to them, looking apologetically at both. When Clarke is talking to the junior agriculturist, Monty Green, Raven turns to Bellamy.
"I'm sorry for what I said."
"I'm not the one you should be apologizing to."
She shakes her head, her laugh mirthless. "She said there was nothing to apologize for."
The not-martyr girl, thinking it was her duty all along.
"I'm not sure she needs our sympathy anyway," Raven continues, staring ahead of them. She winces every few steps but refuses his help. "She seems fine on her own."
Her body is waning, she's quiet beyond comprehension, stranger in every place she's ever been in.
"Everyone needs kindness."
Raven frowns. "She's just not that kind of person, Bellamy. She's made of tough stuff, you know? Fall back down, get back up again."
"One day it all collapses on top of you."
Raven knows, but there isn't anything she can do. It's easy with things you can fix; humans are not one of them.
"I'll try." She looks behind her shoulder. Nods solemnly. "We all will."
It's nearing dusk when they're passing through Trikru territories and Bellamy makes a misstep.
In retrospect, it's stupid.
He should know better by now. The terrain is littered with traps and caverns.
He knows he's found one when he hears a grotesque sound, a click followed by the claws of a bear trap biting into his thigh. It's not the pain that astounds him - it's the idea of being caught.
Their entire party is on him immediately.
The trap still has a hold on his thigh and Clarke pushes through Raven and Monty to inspect the wound.
"It's bad, right?"
She purses her lips and he knows it is. There's blood everywhere.
"It's going to be okay," she lies.
The night falls and the Sky People set camp around them in a circle. They light up torches as if forming an altar.
Keeping the light on as their girl works.
His girl, maybe.
Vaguely, he remembers an old world statue. A woman dressing the wounds of a man dying on her lap.
Clarke lays him across her lap, her hair falling in his face, and he wants to laugh.
Many times, he thought he was going to die.
This is the first time that he doesn't want to.
"What's so funny?" she asks, smiling mirthlessly as she works around the trap. She's careful with him, like he is the fragile thing.
"Nothing. Just thinking about school days."
She hums, stitching the jagged ends of his wound. It hurts, but it's not a bad feeling. A place beyond pain.
"You went to school?"
"Best days of my life," he croaks, and sees her wince when he does. Reaches up to tuck a curl covered in his blood behind her ear. "Hey, Princess. Don't worry. It's just my bad knee."
He's full of shit and she knows it, but she laughs anyway, makes the pain in his chest subside.
All things considered, dying in her arms wouldn't be a bad death at all.
He just wishes she didn't have to clean up the blood after.
"What about crushes? Who did you fall in love with on the first day of school?"
He laughs but it makes him cough blood. They both ignore it.
She's trying to keep him awake even as Raven and Miller pull on the trap, part it from his flesh with a searing sound.
"Roma."
"Pretty name," Clarke says without missing a beat. Both her hands are trying to stop the bleeding. She hasn't had a sip of water in four hours.
"Pretty girl. But not as pretty as you."
It bubbles out of her, this laugh like she's surprised she still knows how to make the sound.
"He'll pull through. Won't you, Bellamy?" Raven grins, pouring moonshine over his wound. Then quieter, to Clarke, "He's gonna be okay, right?"
"He has to be."
She tells him about her school as she stitches him up. Best friend who died in the ring of fire, sacrificing himself so they could survive. Playing chess and losing so badly it became a joke by the time they were sent to the ground. Watching football and treasuring trivial things.
Small things, human things from a miracle girl saving him at her altar.
She works through the blood, methodical, as though all the rags piling by their feet don't mean a thing.
She is stubborn in how she refuses to let him go.
"You need rest, Clarke. I'll be fine."
She shoots him a level gaze, and he almost wants to laugh.
"You are not going anywhere."
She howls when he howls, but he survives.
It's nearly dawn when she sutures his wound completely. There's so much blood on her hands that he calls for water.
Washes it for her, washes it off her. Would’ve washed her feet too, if it helped. Kisses her wrist because it's the only place still covered in red.
Bellamy isn't afraid of the blood. He just doesn't want her to have to clean it up again.
She deserves better.
In the morning, she fends off everyone who wants to help.
It's Clarke who props him up and shoulders his weight all the way back to Doah.
***
It's a long winter, even with Sky People's resources.
The windows of their cabin rattle with the howling wind. Around what used to be Christmas, they all wake up to find snow covering the church's spire.
Some nights, they all sleep in the church.
Two hundred people huddled together for warmth of the single fireplace. The heating in the trailers would have been enough, but the snow froze them. Next year will be easier, but first they must get through this winter.
"It's going to be alright," Clarke assures his people whenever he and Octavia can't. He watches her do her miracle work with them.
If Death herself says they will survive, then they must.
He watches his people band together with her people to protect the village and the kids. Come spring, he knows they will stay, having fallen in love or having found peace.
For his part, he tells stories to anyone who will listen.
Clarke drops by one day, opening her mouth to speak before she realizes he's surrounded by kids, transfixed at the words coming out of the only book of fairytales they have at Doah.
She just stands there, leaning on the window for the longest time with an inexplicable look in her eyes.
"You're really good with them," she tells him after, quietly.
Niylah's daughter is sleeping on his leg.
"Kids?"
She hums, smiling.
"They really like you."
Bellamy motions for her to pick up the book. "They'd like you, too."
That evening, it's Clarke who reads them bedtime stories.
She starts off slow, unsteady, but they badger her; posing hundreds of questions before she finally gets her footing and says, with a wry smile, that they'll just have to listen to the story.
"I haven't seen you this calm in a while, Bell," Octavia tells him one afternoon.
It's warm enough to drink tea on the porch, watch kids roll in the snow, and adults shovelling snow off the food routes.
He hums. Zeke pushes Raven into a pile of snow and she hurls death threats at him.
"We'll be fine."
Octavia shoots him a wry look. "Not what I meant."
"You didn't mean our people?" He pretends to be shocked. "Is that even possible?"
"I meant your princess, big brother. She's good for us." A quick glance at his thigh. "But she saved your life, too."
He knows, but that's not what brings warmth to his chest. The fact that she now sleeps curled into him is even better. The fact that she stays until he's woken up means more.
Things have changed.
"They call her the commander of life now," Octavia adds, blowing on her tea. "Sonraunheda."
Bellamy smiles.
"Took them long enough."
Octavia gives a half-hearted shrug. "Louwoda Kliron take their time but we always get there."
When snow gives way to rain, they move back into their cabin and Bellamy watches as Clarke settles in, easy and cat-like, stretching to catch the roof with the tips of her fingers.
"It feels good to be home, huh?" he asks, watching her quietly. It feels precious, seeing her so peaceful.
The days in the church made all of them go a little stir crazy, cooped up when they're used to roaming. Not Clarke.
Clarke had patience.
Now she faces him, a brilliant smile on her lips, and says, "Home. I like that."
***
The first time she turns to him and says "I want," Bellamy almost cries with relief.
"Anything, Clarke. I'll give you anything you need."
And he means it. Fall-down-to-his-knees-for-her-kill-thousands-to-keep-her-safe anything, because the fact that she wants something...
It's the closest thing they'll ever have to a miracle.
He knows that ten years ago, this would have been all wrong. Bad timing, mismatched people. She'd fall apart and he'd think about undressing her.
Now he watches her close her eyes at the first taste of blueberry jam and he thinks it's the purest thing he has ever seen in his life.
Now he thinks about how she eats, and whether she's eating enough.
Braids her hair because it helps her sleep, tucked into his body, holding on to his shoulders and waking up in the middle of the night with screams dying on her lips like she’s purging the pain.
Seeing her is like seeing himself.
It's only worse because this time he knows what it feels like.
"It's alright. It's alright, I've got you," he repeats into oblivion, wipes the sweat off her brow.
She's his girl, Death or not.
When he's shaking and she is aching, Bellamy realizes that he loves her.
"This is okay, Bellamy. Please don't worry."
She comes home and it's the only time she allows herself to fall apart.
Long days give way to long nights. Some are easier, dinners and conversations. Others, she doesn't go to sleep because she knows what's waiting for her on the other side, and he keeps her company.
She dies a hundred little deaths in front of him, and wakes up to find it was not enough.
"What do you need?" he asks, one day when he’s too late to come back home, practically runs back and finds her curled up on the floor, crying and smiling at the same time.
She’s letting go, but it doesn’t mean it’s easy.
"I need…" she starts, leaning her head on their bed, and every nerve in his body springs to attention.
He doesn't care what she says, as long as she says something.
The air is warm when she sits on the porch again.
There’s his people’s blood in her hair from a long day at the church, and she is waiting for him to come and announce his hunting trip.
"It'll be a few days."
This time, she doesn't make excuses.
"You're not going."
He tucks a stray curl behind her ear.
"Excuse me?"
She's adamant. "You're not going."
"Since I don't take orders from you, Princess, I'm gonna need a better reason."
Clarke swallows, hard, but her shoulders sag and he knows she's telling the truth when she admits: "Because I can't lose you, too."
He stays. Murphy laughs at him but Bellamy doesn't care. They've given enough.
They've given enough and he decides that they get this.
They get to sleep together, messy and dirty and exhausted. She can't eat when she's tired so he makes sure he's at least a solid body to sleep on.
The next time he leaves anywhere, it's for Polis and she's right by his side.
They don't address this but she makes coffee in the morning and he holds her at night.
It's not perfect, but it's marriage.
"Obviously, Doah is the best place to construct the power plant," Heda says and the ambassadors nod.
Always so full of grand plans, his people.
"We have the infrastructure. It will take a few years, but we could light up Polis," Kane promises.
"And poison the Shallow Valley?" Clarke asks suddenly. Both Kane and Lexa's eyes widen at the ice in her voice.
This time, she is more substantial. This time, she is asking all the right questions.
Bellamy smiles.
"The pollution of the Shallow Valley is a worthy sacrifice for the good of the entire coalition, Clarke," Heda reasons. The lilt in her voice, as if speaking down to her, rasps at Bellamy's skin, doesn't sit right with him.
"Of course, Heda," she drawls, almost lazy as she toys with the edge of her chair. She looks up and Bellamy sees winter. Ice everywhere. "But trust me to know enough about death. You will not touch the Shallow Valley. We have our own light."
They dismiss the motion.
Entire Polis chants Wanheda, Wanheda, but she sleeps soundly.
This time, instead of accepting the title, she wields it.
***
She gets sick on the first day of summer.
The rain is crashing against the tin roof of the school when Harper bursts in, a wild look on her face.
"Bellamy, it's Clarke. You need to come right now."
She's running a fever that makes her cheeks flush, curled up on a cot in the improvised hospital.
Harper pours tea down her throat but they all know it won't help.
"She only wanted to see you," Harper explains, biting her thumb.
For the first time, he wishes his people were right. He wishes she was Death, because Death cannot die.
"Bellamy…" she croaks, grabbing for his hand as soon as he falls to his knees by the cot. She’s always looked tired, but this is too much.
This is too much even for Clarke Griffin.
"Clarke, what do you need? Anything."
She smiles, watery, and admits what he was fearing.
"I don't know."
For seven days, he sits by her bed.
Seven days he guards her and makes sure she is breathing. Seven days, as if protecting an old Earth relic capable of working wonders with a single touch.
Seven nights he doesn't sleep, begging promises off the sky.
On the eighth morning, Octavia comes and decides:
"Wanheda no more."
She begs him to let her go, all the hands on him trying to pry him away when her heart stops beating, but if Bellamy has one thing, he has faith.
It's passed down his bloodline.
It seeps into her chest when he pounds and pounds on it, ravaged with grief and rife with hope. Harper is crying and Octavia is trying to get him to stop, and Bellamy’s not much. He’s not much at all, just a man.
But he is his mother’s son so he tries again.
Clarke starts breathing.
The world rearranges itself around them.
On the ninth morning, he holds her on the porch, her body weak and her lips oozing blood, and looks at the sky. Somewhere, his mother is smiling and saying I told you so.
He doesn't mind.
Clarke's alive, and he's happy to be proven wrong.
"God, it's beautiful," she breathes out.
People wave at them in passing, kids stopping by to bring her drawings, I missed you, I missed you, You are one of us-
She kisses him with arms full of wildflowers and drawings, and it tastes a little like blood.
He kisses her back, palm careful on her jaw, and it feels a lot like peace.
They stay there until spring finally gives way to summer, until the entire world has forgotten about them.
It can go on without Bellamy and his miracle girl, held together by hope and flowers.
They have each other to take care of now.