Chapter Text
Bellamy Blake POV
He had landed on the ground with a stolen Guard jacket, a pistol, and a responsibility to protect his sister. Now, Bellamy Blake had a list of responsibilities a mile-long – number one was a woman he hadn’t seen in three months.
Bellamy aggressively flicked his metal blade over the wooden one taking shape in his hand. He was sitting high in a tree near the Azgeda border. It was lush here with thick trees giving way to rolling stretches of grass before thinner trees once again burst forth from the ground. It was winter and the coverage wasn’t optimal, but he used this to his advantage. He was more visible but so were they – the Azgeda scouts that had begun to cross the border more frequently in the past weeks. Through the thin trees, Bellamy could see the scouts and radio down to Indra before they ever crossed Eden’s Pass; it was a good system and it occupied a good portion of his time.
Nonetheless, he couldn’t help his mind drifting to Clarke.
He had started searching for her when a month passed and she hadn’t returned; he had grown frantic when legends of Wanheda started being passed around the grounder villages. Now, he was coiled impossibly tight at the news Indra passed him that morning – Queen Nia of Azgeda had announced a bounty on Wanheda. Bellamy lifted his hand to press against his sternum where his t-shirt was slightly nicked. Indra’s sword pressing firmly against his chest was the only thing that had stopped him from going rogue. He had reluctantly agreed to finish their scouting mission before renewing his search for Clarke and, when Indra’s sword dropped away, silently promised himself that he would single-handedly knock on every door on the ground, territory be damned, if it meant finding her.
They had pulled the level to irradiate Mount Weather together and she had left him to pick up the pieces. It left his blood boiling more often than not these days. He wanted to give her a taste of that anger. He also wanted to fall at her feet and beg her to come home. He wasn’t sure how to do both, but, if he could just find her, he was sure he would figure it out.
Bellamy’s radio clicked in a short and precise pattern, interrupting the spiral of his thoughts. Time to come down, he thought with relief, swinging his foot over the edge of the branch. His arms flexed as he lowered himself before dropping the rest of the way. He landed on the balls of his feet with a muffled thud, gun knocking against his back.
At the bottom of an adjacent tree was Monty, rolling his shoulders as though working out a cramp. He had become a good Guard, Bellamy thought, a sense of pride in his friend. He had stepped up when Clarke left and the Guard was better for it.
Striding in their direction was Kane, grim-faced, gun lifted and at the ready as he traversed alone through the woods. Bellamy’s eyes narrowed at that, a dozen worst-case scenarios running through his mind in rapid succession. He was already cursing Azgeda, the Commander, and even himself when Kane stopped in front of them. Kane laid a steadying hand on his shoulder. It was a paternal gesture Bellamy wasn’t particularly fond of and it brought him no comfort.
“Indra and I spotted bounty hunters.” Bellamy’s muscles tensed, coiling and ready for a fight. “We don’t know that they’re here for Clarke,” Kane added quickly, the fingers on Bellamy’s shoulder tightening.
He could have torn out of the grip easily, but his attempt to make a real place for himself in Arkadia, the mutual respect he had slowly cultivated with Kane and Chancellor Griffin – it was all contingent on setting an example for what the Guard could be on the ground. He had to choose his battles and, despite every muscle in his body telling him to find Clarke immediately, he recognized that, this time, waiting for Kane to say his piece might be the best option.
“We have reason to believe there’s a trader in the area who may know where she is.”
“Then let’s go,” Bellamy said, shoving the whittled knife into a pocket on the side of his jacket. It wasn’t a particularly effective weapon compared to the rifle strapped over his shoulder or the steel knife strapped to his waist, but, if he had learned one thing on the ground, it was that anything could become a weapon and options meant survival.
“We don’t storm in demanding answers,” Kane warned, leading the way back to the rover. The edge of command in Kane’s voice made Bellamy’s jaw clench.
“We do if Clarke’s there.”
Kane didn’t respond, but Bellamy knew it wasn’t the end of the conversation.
The man had become an enigma to Bellamy since Mount Weather. He had been ruthless on the Ark, but he had somehow become a diplomat on the ground. Chancellor Griffin had the pin, but Bellamy was increasingly certain that Kane was pulling the strings. It didn’t bother Bellamy how the two wanted to work out their share of power, but he would be damned if he became their puppet. He would play their political games and legitimize their directives, but he wouldn’t bow down and kiss their boots, especially not when Clarke was out there somewhere being hunted down.
So, they walked in silence, eyes roving the trees for threats.
The drive was as silent as the walk, but this silence was different. It was a silence of people afraid to jinx themselves; the ground was brutal and it was particularly skilled at detecting hope.
Bellamy’s mind raced as they drove. There were too many ways for things to go wrong; too many variables and not enough options. This was a young Bellamy’s worst fear. There had always been too many ways for Octavia to be caught and not enough ways to protect her. Now, an adult Bellamy, clad in a Guard uniform with a former Chancellor sitting behind him, felt as small and helpless as he had when Octavia was born.
Monty pulled the rover into a copse of thick foliage, trees rising on either side, and cut the engine, the rover’s light dimming immediately. The sun had long set and the only light was a soft glow from the trading post some distance ahead.
The protocol was to return to Arkadia or find shelter for the night far from the Azgeda border. Kane hadn’t mentioned it, however, and Bellamy couldn’t risk missing Clarke again. For just a second, the thought occurred to Bellamy that Kane also wasn’t willing to return to Arkadia without Clarke, if only for Abby Griffin’s sake.
Jumping from the car, resolve calming his nerves, Bellamy strode towards the trading post, body falling into auto-pilot.
“Slow down,” Kane warned, but the blood pounding in Bellamy’s ears drowned out the words.
The front door to the trading post was closed and only a soft light emitted from the cracks at the edges where the door was poorly fit to the frame. Various goods Bellamy recognized as low-value trade items from some of the more far-flung clans hung around the door and in small piles on the ground. Other unsorted and low-value goods sat in piles around the lot. A small basin of water with a cup beside it for travelers sat on a short table next to the door.
Bellamy was constantly struck with surprise by how lived in the ground was. He had once imagined the ground as a place of only trees and rivers and animals. He had imagined there might be ruins and dreamed of getting just a glimpse of the Circus Maximus or the Colosseum. Never, on the Ark, could he have imagined the complex society they now lived alongside. Seeing this small piece of humanity, as it often did, calmed something inside of Bellamy and made it a little easier to slow down. If Clarke had been here, he could convince himself she was okay, that she had been provided food and water and, perhaps, a kind smile.
Bellamy hesitated at the door; if he was wrong and Clarke wasn’t here –
The thought petered out as Kane and Monty caught up. “Maybe we should wait until morning,” Monty offered, glancing at the dark structure in front of them.
Bellamy considered it and Kane made a noise of approval.
A twig cracked around the corner. All three men lifted their guns in unison, Kane moving to the front of the formation, holding his hand up in a reminder not to fire as they approached the edge of the trading post.
A woman was facing away from them. She had long red braids and a heavy leather jacket drawn tight around her body. She was bent over a small pack that she seemed to be reweighting. “Niylah,” Bellamy said, lowering his gun and taking a step around Kane. Indra said a woman called Niylah and her father ran this post; if Bellamy believed in luck, he would count himself lucky that she was still awake at such a late hour.
The woman tensed like a rabbit caught in a trap.
Then, before Bellamy could continue, he was on the ground, a heavy knife pressed to his throat. His back ached from the impact and every breath seemed to rub his skin dangerously against the blade. “Don’t move,” the woman hissed, eyes unfocused in the dark.
There was a second where Bellamy attempted to strategize the best way out of his current position. In the next, the moon emerged from a bank of clouds, and the knife was gone. His eyes focused. “Bellamy,” she whispered.
“Clarke,” he said, awe tinging his voice. She was alive. It was the only thought he could process until the reality of it set firmly into his bones, filling his lungs and knitting into his soul. “Truce?” Bellamy asked, painfully aware of her knee pressing into his sternum. The words were punctuated by a cough as he motioned to her knee.
Clarke shifted her weight quickly, lifting herself to her feet and offering Bellamy a hand. He took it, awareness of how much he missed her touch threatening to drown him. She, he noticed, dropped his hand as soon as he was firmly on his feet, stepping back quickly. Her knife remained in her hand as she dusted herself off, avoiding his gaze.
“No truce,” a voice said from the shadows. Bellamy turned, lifting his gun in the process.
A man was standing on the edge of the shadows. He had greasy brown hair that hung down either side of his face like a shield and black paint smudged in diagonal lines across his face. Something about the set of the man’s shoulders, strong and self-assured, told Bellamy a truth he hoped Clarke sensed as well. In each of his hands was a long blade; one was pressed to Kane’s throat and the other to Monty’s.
“Wanheda,” he drawled, eyes fixing on Clarke.
“Let them go,” Clarke commanded, stepping around and in front of Bellamy. It made his skin prickle. He knew from experience he wouldn’t like what was about to do, but he still had his gun trained firmly on the man’s head and, as long as no one moved, he could make the shot.
“I’m faster than you think,” the man said, sparing only a short glance at Bellamy. “You shoot me and they both die.”
Bellamy hesitated. Clarke lifted a hand, the one carrying the knife and said, “Put down the gun, Bellamy.” Her voice was even and it made him want to yell at her that the gun was the only thing keeping their friends’ heads attached to their shoulders, the only thing keeping her from becoming this man’s prisoner.
“Listen to Wanheda,” the man said with a sly grin.
“Let them go. I’m the one you want,” Clarke said, taking another step forward.
“Why not kill them and take you?” the man’s voice dropped the drawl and took on a refined edge. It made Bellamy all the more skeptical of Clarke’s current approach. This was all clearly a game; he was a cat toying with a den of mice. Bellamy was pretty sure no cat had ever been satisfied with one mouse when they could have four.
“We’ll pay you for your trouble,” Kane offered. Bellamy stepped forward jerkily as the blade bit into Kane’s neck, a rivulet of blood snaking down his neck and staining his collar.
“This is between me and the girl,” the man said, jerking both Monty and Kane closer. The movement obscured Bellamy’s shot. He cursed himself for hesitating. Clarke’s way had better work, he thought, because, if it didn’t, he would take whatever shot he could get before letting her become a prisoner.
“It is.” Clarke’s agreement was accompanied by a stiff nod. “So, if you let them go, they go home and I go with you. No fight.” Clarke took another step forward and Bellamy mirrored it like a moon stuck in her gravitational pull.
“Drop your knife,” the man commanded. Clarke lifted her hand, showing him the blade, then tossed it back towards Bellamy.
She took another step closer.
The distance between Clarke and the man was inconsequential now and he seemed to consider the situation.
Clarke’s eyes cut back looking from the knife to the gun in Bellamy’s hands for just a fraction of a second. He tightened his fingers around the stock of the gun and gritted his teeth to stop himself from intervening in whatever dance Clarke was doing. He had seen it in the glance that she didn’t really plan to go without a fight – now, he just had to hope that he could still read those glances after so long apart.
“You won’t follow us,” the man said, “or I’ll rip your throats out with my bare hands.” It wasn’t a threat so much as a warning.
He shoved Kane and Monty forward in the same motion he grabbed Clarke. His movements were precise and didn’t waste a drop of energy. Bile rose in Bellamy’s throat as one of the man’s arms wrapped around Clarke’s waist to secure her in place.
Bellamy’s gun remained focused on the target; if Clarke shifted just a little to the right, he could take out the man’s shoulder. Looking down the sights, now, he took a deep breath, ready to pull the trigger. Just before he squeezed, the man’s hand faltered. Clarke was gripping a heavy wooden blade, plunged deep into his thigh. She nodded at Bellamy and he squeezed the trigger, a round discharging and blasting through his shoulder, the impact at such a close range sending him sprawling backward.
Clarke withdrew the blade from his thigh as he stumbled, then shoved hard against his already wounded shoulder sending him sprawling to the ground. She lunged, pressing her knife against his neck. Matching red stains bloomed at his thigh and shoulder. “Tie him up,” Clarke commanded, motioning with her free hand to the pack she had dropped in the commotion.
Bellamy grabbed the rope inside the pack and unfurled it. The man wheezed and let out a low groan. “Wanheda strikes again,” he said, another pained grown wracking his body as Bellamy roughly pulled his hands together.
The wound on his leg was precise; it was deep, down to the muscle, but not much larger than half an inch in length and width. The one on his shoulder was open and fleshy, cords of torn muscle visible. Even if it was given ample time to heal, Bellamy would be surprised if it regained full functionality. He pulled the rope tighter and the man gritted his teeth.
Once the man was securely restrained and propped up against the trading post wall, Clarke knelt in front of him, pushing his hair back from his temples. A whoosh of air that sounded like a hiss passed her lips. The deep scars on his temples, stretching up to his forehead and down towards his cheeks, painted a clear picture. “Azgeda,” they whispered together.
Bellamy had his knife at the ready in less than a second.
Clarke’s fingers landed on his arm. “Leave him.”
He hesitated; he wanted to plunge his knife through the man’s chest, to feel it crack his sternum or slide between his ribs and up into his heart. Bellamy didn’t relish killing, but three months of hurt and fear and grief had twisted into something nasty.
Sighing, he glanced at Clarke’s face and any desire to kill drained from his body. “He’s a traitor to the Coalition,” she said, looking down at the man. “His life isn’t ours to take.”
Bellamy straightened and the fingers on his arm fell away. He sheathed the knife, a sick feeling settling in his stomach. The adrenaline had left his hands shaky and his mouth tasted metallic. Clarke was safe; repeating those three words offered him some modicum of control.
“Clarke.” Monty’s voice was hopeful.
Bellamy watched as the two embraced, a ghost of a smile tugging at his lips. They shared a few words he couldn’t quite hear before Clarke continued on to Kane. He could see a shadow of nervousness on her face as she asked, “My mom?”
Kane’s face lit up as he offered Clarke a firm handshake and said, “Will be happy to see you.”
Clarke’s body didn’t relax at those words and Bellamy found himself observing her closer. She began to gather the red braids that hung around her shoulders, securing them with a leather tie before saying, “Tell her I love her.” Her voice wavered and Bellamy immediately keyed into the sadness filling her eyes.
“Why can’t you?” Bellamy asked, voice gruff with restrained accusation.
Clarke looked at the ground, then glanced at his face for a split second before her eyes settled on a point just over his shoulder. “I can’t,” she said, voice barely above a whisper, a pleading look on her face. Bellamy knew she wanted him to drop it, not to make her explain herself, to let her just walk away. He had done that once; he had vowed to himself not to do it again.
Clarke sucked in a deep breath. Her chin tilted up and it took a massive amount of restraint on Bellamy’s part to keep his face from showing amusement at the familiar gesture. How many times had the sighed, tilted her chin up, and totally stole the show back at the dropship? She was a natural leader and, even now, it showed.
Clarke opened her mouth, but it wasn’t her voice that interrupted the silence. “Get back.”
Bellamy cursed the continued interruptions; he was tired of people always having hidden accomplices and allies. Before he could respond, however, Clarke was saying, “These are my friends, Niylah. They’re Skaikru.”
The blonde woman standing near the corner of the trading post was holding a heavy-looking sword. There was a pause as the woman, Niylah, raked her eyes over Clarke as though checking for injuries before she nodded and said, “There is a shelter,” pointing towards a wooden shack behind the trading post, “if you would like to continue this inside.” Her eyes darted around the property as though expecting an attacker to emerge. “He had a partner earlier,” she added, eyes jumping between Bellamy and the bleeding attacker. She motioned the group to follow, sword still poised in a defensive position across the front of her body.
“We appreciate the invitation,” Kane said, dipping his head in respect. Bellamy caught Clarke’s eye and swore she was about to laugh at the unfamiliar cadence in Kane’s voice.
Bellamy bent down, breaking his eyes contact with Clarke, and placed his shoulder under the now-weakened Azgeda attacker’s arm. Monty moved to the man’s opposite side, hauling him to his feet. He grunted loudly as they adjusted him, jostling his shoulder in the process. He didn’t resist, however, as they began to shuffle him towards the shack, trailing behind the others.
When they reached the entrance, Bellamy motioned for Kane to grab the man and reached a hand out to stop Clarke. “I need to talk to you.”
Before Clarke could respond, Niylah turned to Kane and Monty. “I’ll pour you a drink while they talk.” Niylah gave Clarke a knowing look from where she held the door open, shuffling Kane, Monty, and their prisoner inside. Clarke’s responding look felt like a spear to the chest. He had once been able to decipher all of the small expressions that flitted across her face. Now, he had no clue what was going through her mind and it only served to stoke that latent grief that had been building inside of him since she left.
The door thudded closed.
A heavy silence descended over them.
“I’m not coming back,” Clarke said, breaking the silence.
“You almost got taken by an Azgeda bounty hunter.” Bellamy detested the pleading edge in his tone; he wanted the words to come out mocking, to make her realize how absurd she sounded. Instead, he sounded desperate.
“But I didn’t.” Her tone was matter-of-fact, but when Bellamy glanced down at her ever-steady hands, he noticed a soft tremble. A small grin played at his lips and her eyes flared with anger, mouth setting into a tight line. Clarke shoved her hands in her pocket. “Adrenaline,” she said, tone snippy and ready for a fight.
Bellamy nodded slowly, the grin still on his face as he slowly repeated, “Adrenaline.”
Her entire face had contorted at the mocking tone and, for a second, he thought she might hit him. His heart sped up, hammering so hard he could feel his blood rushing. He didn’t relish her anger, but it was so good to see her alive that he couldn’t help leaning into it, drinking it in.
Her face closed off when Bellamy didn’t back off and she whispered, “I bear it so they don’t have to.” The crack in her voice told him that it was a line she had rehearsed, but not fully internalized. He wanted to reach out and offer reassurance, but he couldn’t make himself. Those were Wallace’s words; they were the words of a man who spent his life torturing and killing thousands of innocents, turning them into blood bags and Reapers. What he and Clarke did would never be the same. Bellamy had to believe it would never be the same. If he didn’t believe that, he wasn’t sure he could wake up every morning and face their people, face Trikru warriors as allies and Azgeda warriors as enemies.
“You don’t bear anything, Wanheda.” The words were rough and aggressive and not the ones he had spent months practicing. They weren’t words meant to coax her home; they were angry and truthful words he wished he had said before she left. They had run through his head, echoing when he couldn’t sleep, but he had never intended to voice them.
“I killed over three hundred innocent people,” Clarke said. “And the problem is, I would do it again if it saved our people.”
Bellamy would too. He knew, deep down, that he would pull that lever every day for the rest of his life if it kept his people alive. “I’ve been the one bearing it,” Bellamy said, trying to add that matter-of-fact air that Clarke so often put on to hide her real feelings. “I’ve watched Jasper suffer every minute of every day because we killed Maya. You’ve been here.” He gestured to the trading post and the small structure standing in front of them. He felt his anger deflating, replaced by something softer and more malleable. “Come home.” Those were the words he had meant to say. When she didn’t respond, he repeated, “Come home because I can’t keep bearing it alone.”
Clarke’s eyes found Bellamy’s with a silent plea. He shook his head, his own need clear on his face. If only he knew which words would work on this new Clarke; what did Wanheda need to hear? He didn’t know the answer, so he repeated the words that had failed him before. “You offered me forgiveness once,” he said slowly. “I forgive you, Clarke.”
She bit down on her lip and Bellamy could feel the rush of breath as she exhaled. He wondered if maybe she hadn’t changed as much as he feared. If all she needed was forgiveness, Bellamy could offer that every day for the rest of their lives.
“I forgive you,” he repeated. Her shoulders sank and, under the dirt marking her face and the red of her hair, she looked vulnerable. She had spent three months running from her herself, from her people, from a bounty. Bellamy knew the person under this façade well. She wasn’t a legend or a Commander of Death; she was a woman who did what she had to do to protect her people. She was a woman in the wrong place at the right time.
“I don’t think forgiveness is enough,” Clarke said after a long pause.
Bellamy slowly lifted his hand, resting it on her shoulder, fingers pressing against leather, and said, “It has to be.” The bags under her eyes were heavy and dark, so he added, “You’re tired.” She didn’t shrug his hand off this time and she didn’t look away, so he repeated his earlier plea, “Come home.”
Her jaw worked for a second. Bellamy watched the gears turn in her head. “How do you do it?” Clarke asked. Bellamy cocked an eyebrow and waited for an explanation. “You see them every day. How do you do that knowing what we did to save them?”
Bellamy sucked in a rough breath and rubbed his face. He hadn’t talked to anybody about what they did at Mount Weather; everyone knew, but he never talked about the moment the lever clicked into place, about how quickly the Mountain Men died, about watching on the monitors as they exterminated an entire population. He hadn’t talked about the way he and Clarke avoided each other’s eyes in the stretch after they pulled the lever or about what she had said when she left. No one had asked how he coped or if he was coping at all. He had put on a brave face, a Guard jacket, and got to work.
“I live with what we did because it saved them,” he finally said. He glanced at the shack their friends had disappeared inside. “Every time I see Monty’s face,” he said, motioning towards the structure, “I know it was worth it. Every time I see Raven working around camp, I know I did it for her. Every time Harper smiles, I know that I chose to save her life.” Bellamy tried to find the words to summarize three months of healing. “I can live with it because I live with them every day.”
Clarke was silent, but Bellamy felt a jump in his pulse as the last bit of armor fell away, her eyes clearing. Finally, she nodded very slowly and carefully. “I could come home.” The words came out slowly like she was checking them for poison.
“You could come home,” Bellamy repeated, squeezing Clarke’s shoulder. The gesture was as much to ground himself as to reassure Clarke of the truth in his words.
“For my people,” Clarke said as though she still needed to justify her return.
“For our people,” Bellamy amended, a small smile tugging at his lips. He had vowed to bring Clarke home and he could taste victory.
They stood, eyes on one another, for a long moment before Bellamy noticed the quiver of Clarke’s lower lip and the soft wetness gathering at the corner of her eyes. He opened his arms instinctively and she folded herself into them, her own arms wrapping around his waist. “I forgive you,” Bellamy whispered, lips pressing into her hair. An unfamiliar strangled noise tore through Clarke’s throat, her shoulders shaking. Bellamy clung to her tighter and whispered, “You’re home.” When she sniffled, a sound he had never before heard, he felt a part of himself he thought he’d lost at Mount Weather come home, too.