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“I’m not going in.”
Clarke could practically hear Bellamy’s breath halt in his throat, the air faltering and standing still, turning stale. There was a sting behind her eyes and a burning in the back of her throat, but she held the strings inside of her tighter, practically strangling herself in order to keep it together.
“Clarke. If you need forgiveness, I’ll give it to you. You’re forgiven, please come inside,” Bellamy pleaded. His eyes were wide and his face was open, his expression spilling truth and as fragile as glass.
It was the please that struck her the most, tugging on her heart and eliciting a sort of slow moving ache through her chest that she was hoping to avoid until she at least found herself in the privacy of the woods. Clarke had known he was going to argue, but she hadn’t realized how hard it was going to be to deny him this, to leave his side. After so long apart all she wanted was to be near him, to smell his earthy scent and stand by his side and groan as he said something entirely inappropriate, but she couldn’t let herself.
She didn’t deserve that, to slip so easily back into a life she used to be so comfortable with. Walking through those doors felt like a stamp of approval, like saying everything she had done was ok when it was so far from it. Finn was gone. Lexa was gone. The 100 were so far from 100 and all of it, all the death and betrayal and lies, gnawed away at any light that still trembled within her.
Clarke felt weak.
“Take care of them for me,” Clarke ordered, nodding. If she left now, ignored his words and the quivering of his chin that hit her like a bag of bricks, not daring to even spare a glance at his pleading eyes-
“Clarke-”
Or maybe not.
“Seeing their faces everyday will only remind me of what I did to get them here,” she said.
“What we did.”
Clarke wanted so badly to believe it, to hold onto that we like the life vest it was, but maybe Clarke was meant to be left at sea. Maybe Clarke was supposed to struggle by herself in the water, losing her breath and feeling the fatigue of her muscles. She certainly deserved it after everything; no matter how enticing staying was, she knew she couldn’t live with herself here.
“You don’t have to do this alone.”
Bellamy’s gaze was hot on the side of her face as she trailed her eyes over everything sitting inside those gates. They all looked so happy to just be alive, and Clarke couldn’t help but wonder when life had gotten so desperate. She used to laugh, right? She used to be happy? She could barely remember that time of simplicity.
“I bear it so they don’t have to.”
“Clarke, I-” Bellamy stumbled over the words. “I can’t do this alone.”
“Bell-”
“I don’t want to ruin you, Clarke,” he cut her off, “and I understand that you feel like you can’t walk through those gates because looking at their faces will just remind you of the person you’ve become, but let me tell you what I see.”
“I’m not going to go in,” she said, lips pursed.
“You’re strong. You- you think you’re some kind of monster, but when it comes down to it you aren’t the only one. Everyone’s become some version of themself they didn’t know they could ever be. Or at least we are, and I can’t let you go out into those woods and walk away without me, not knowing if I’ll ever see you again. I’m tired of giving away what I want without even getting a say in it.”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“It doesn’t? So, you aren’t a part of my life?” Bellamy breathed out between his teeth, looking away from her and regaining his thoughts. “If you leave I will go out of my fucking mind, and I’m pretty sure if you leave you’ll go out of yours, too. So why, for the love of God, can’t we just do it together?”
Clarke paused, a tear dripping from her eye that she furiously wiped away. She wished it was easier to walk away from him. There was such validity in his words, such understanding. Bellamy had always gotten her more than she seemed to get herself, always fallen right by her side with a heavy smirk and a surplus of support she never really expected in the first place.
“I can at least get a good night’s sleep,” she whispered, eyes watching the forest wistfully. Her insides clenched painfully at the thought, but a part of her seemed to float away with the idea. When she woke up Bellamy and Raven and Monty would all be there, near her, and though Octavia was still pissed and Jasper hated her she at least had some people on her side. She wouldn’t be entirely alone even though she felt it. “Leave in the morning.”
Bellamy nodded. “It’s a good plan.”
When Clarke woke up the next day to find Bellamy slipping inside of her tent, bringing her a hot meal and staying silent, she should have known she was screwed right then and there. Bellamy touched her shoulder and the nightmares seemed to wash right off of her, and she knew there was no way she was leaving quite yet.
It was nice to always have the possibility of leaving right at her fingertips. She never spoke of it aloud again, but it was always an option, a mantra. Tomorrow. Today she would have to help Abby in medical or test Raven’s refined walkie talkies or sit beside Monty as he struggled with the familiar weight of grief she shared. A whole week filled with tomorrow’s before she admitted within herself that she may be in Camp to stay for a while.
“You want to go for a walk?” Clarke asked. She was supposed to be categorizing all of the new medical equipment they had found from other drop sites, but Monty had been sitting on top of an exam table for at least ten minutes without speaking or moving. He had originally come in to get his ankle checked, but Clarke recognized the look of someone desperately lost when she saw it, and she hadn’t pushed him away as soon as she finished.
It was one thing for her or Bellamy to take the brunt of a horrible act, but to put it on the shoulders of a young man not used to corrupting the world around him with such ease… she would forever feel guilty about it.
“What?” Monty snapped his head up, smiling tiredly. There were dark smudges underneath his eyes, like a child messily finger painting in long strokes, and he looked so much more frail than his time before Mount Weather.
“A walk, do you want to go on one?”
“Sure.” He nodded, sliding off of the table.
The two of them fell into step beside each other, their strides slow but in sync. Camp was fairly quiet around them, the sun barely peaking over the horizon. Monty and Clarke both struggled with sleep, finding their mornings shifting earlier and their nights later, their days horrifically long. Only a few people wandered around, some guards tiredly standing post around the fence and looking desperately around for those that were going to relieve them of their shift.
“Why are you here?” Monty asked.
Clarke shifted her gaze from Camp to Monty, his eyes still trained forward. His face looked so much sharper than it used to, his eyes so sad, and Clarke couldn’t help the overwhelming guilt that ripped her apart at the sight. “What do you mean?”
“When you hugged me,” Monty began, his voice level and his eyes darting around the scene in front of them, “it was goodbye. I could feel it in your arms, and I could see it in your eyes. I thought for sure you weren’t going to walk through those gates, but then I saw you and Bellamy that night and I knew you hadn’t left.”
“I was going to leave.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
Clarke blew a spiraling breath out of her mouth, biting her lip before nodding and continuing. “I looked at all of those people walking around Camp and I felt so unbelievably guilty, Monty. I couldn’t look at them without remembering every single person I had killed - parents, children, Finn - and I didn’t think I could even breath looking at them. My chest hurt with the weight of it.”
“But?” he asked, his eyes shifting over to her.
“But,” she continued, “I looked at Bellamy and I thought of you and the guilt of that, of leaving you guys, seemed unbearable. Bellamy, he - uh-, he said something too that really hit me.”
Monty waited for a moment, scratching at the back of his neck before turning his eyes back to her. “What did he say?”
“He told me he couldn’t do it alone, and it made me realize I couldn’t really either.” Clarke’s speech paused as she nervously rose her thumb to her mouth and bit at the nail. Her fingers were wrecked from the chewing and biting, jagged nail marks in her palms from the anger that sometimes shook her like an earthquake. “He said he was tired of letting go of what he wants, too, and it made me realize that maybe I can deserve what I want too some day.”
“That would be nice,” Monty whispered, “deserving something nice.”
“Oh, Monty,” Clarke replied, stopping her steps and wrapping her arms nice and tight around him. It was so hard to see that pain on someone else’s face when you knew it was reflected in your eyes. “We’ll make it through this.”
“How can you possibly know that?”
“I don’t, but… if I don’t believe it I’ll go out of my mind,” she told him, semi-echoing Bellamy’s words. Without him, without all of the people Clarke cared about, maybe she really would be slipping away into something indistinguishable. Monty shuddered, and Clarke thought maybe the realest punishment of all was seeing this, was trying to stick back together pieces that no longer fit in place.
As Clarke pulled away from Monty, she saw two familiar figures stalking toward them. One with a fresh beanie now on his head, the other with flopping, messy hair, and Clarke felt the briefest moment of calm because she got to see this - the two of them, friends together again and coming toward her. If she had left she would have never gotten to see the beginning of all of this reconstruction, and for the first time Clarke felt like she had truly made the right decision.
“Hey,” Bellamy said, nodding toward them. “What are you two up to?”
“We were just going for a walk,” Clarke answered, turning toward Monty. She had hoped to catch his eyes, to send a reassuring smile in his direction, but instead she surprisingly found his own soft smile sent in Miller’s direction.
The sparkle in his eyes was startling, and Clarke realized suddenly that Monty was looking at Miller like he was a glue to stick him all back together. Her heart ached knowing she had missed some foundational moment in whatever this was, but she would just have to talk to him about it later. Miller had always been harder to read, so Clarke had no idea if it was a one way or two way thing, but she knew that once someone found some sort of happiness it was a dangerous game to play.
“You know, Bellamy, I actually had to talk to you about something,” she stated, “do you think I could walk with you? Miller, you wouldn’t mind taking over for me, would you?”
“Sure,” Miller replied, his eyebrows crushing together for a moment of confusion before smiling smally at Monty. The two of them lazily stepped in a new direction, Miller’s hands sliding into his front pockets and Monty’s arms wrapping around himself.
“What was that about?” he asked.
Clarke shrugged. “Just trying to give them some time to figure things out. Where were you coming from?”
“Just got off a shift. Walk me back to my tent?”
Clarke nodded. “Of course. You don’t seem very tired to me.”
“Exhausted,” Bellamy replied, bringing a hand up to rub down his face. “I think I’m just always so tired it’s become my new normal.”
Clarke looked over at him, really looked, and noticed the smudges of darkness underneath his eyes and the slump of his shoulders. Bellamy really did look tired. His skin was paler than usual and his hands twitched, like he truly had lost control and his body just couldn’t handle it anymore.
“You can come in if you want.” Bellamy nodded toward his tent, only moving when Clarke finally gave a small shrug and followed in after him.
Bellamy shed his shirt as if she wasn’t there, throwing it over a small crate in the corner and heading directly to his bed. Clarke stared for a second before coming toward him, her heart racing as she sat down next to him. “If you’re so exhausted, why aren’t you sleeping?”
His whole face hardened, his muscles tensing, and if Clarke didn’t second guess almost every action she took now, she would have been tempted to reach forward and run her hands over his skin. She wanted his body to loosen, to be free, but instead it looked like he had been perpetually dumped in ice water.
“I have nightmares.”
Clarke’s eyes shut, the painful flashes of memory flickering against the back of her eyelids. She understood the horror of the images you couldn’t escape, the memories that seemed to stick to your skin like a sweat you could never wipe away. The smell of burning bodies, the sound of the explosion, the sight of irradiated bodies, and the list didn’t really end. Every single thing that had happened to them since the first day they’d landed had just been another thing to add to the list of the horrible.
She flopped down beside him, letting her head hit his extra pillow. Bellamy shuffled next to her, his body lying close enough to her own that heat radiated between the sheets. She could feel his body close, and there was something incredibly comforting about having a breathing, living person who knew so much about you, who understood you, right by your side.
“I have them, too.”
“Yeah?” Bellamy asked.
Clarke opened her eyes, turning her head slowly toward his. He was staring at her, an eyebrow raised, and his face was open. It was weird to see this side of him, the side that was willing to admit dangerous secrets he held so close to the heart. The vulnerability he displayed to her had only been seen a handful of times, each one just as surprising as the last, because as close as the two of them were (as she thought they were), there was still a certain distance maintained between their hearts.
“Yeah,” she confirmed.
Bellamy breathed out in a wave, a familiar gesture of relief, and Clarke wondered if he really thought he was the only one falling apart. Bellamy truly thought he was alone in his pain, always and forever, and it broke Clarke apart to realize this.
“Tomorrow, or at least in the near future, we’re going to talk about what your nightmares are about,” Clarke said, “but for right now we’re just going to get some sleep.”
“We?” Bellamy quirked an eyebrow up, a mischievous smirk playing at his lips. Clarke was fairly sure she would never get tired of the annoying side of him that got her blood boiling. As much as he got on her nerves, it was still a part of him, and Clarke cared deeply about Bellamy. Every part of Bellamy.
“Yea, you’re bunking with me for right now.”
“Very presumptuous of you, princess-”
“Don’t call me that.” Clarke’s words slashed harshly into Bellamy, his eyes latching straight onto hers in hopes of understanding.
“I’m sorry, I…” he trailed off. Clarke could sense his horror at having broken the moment in his grimace and dark eyes.
“It was the last thing he called me,” Clarke admitted, her voice a small thing.
“I’m sorry, Clarke.”
Clarke nodded, fighting the sting at the back of her eyes. “I know.”
“Sleep is nice,” he joked, wagging his eyebrows.
Clarke rolled her eyes. “Don’t get handsy or you won’t have hands at all.”
“Always ruining my fun.”
Clarke laughed, snuggling into his sheets, and tried to ignore the fact that Bellamy’s smell was thoroughly coating her pillow and that his slowing breaths behind her weren’t the most soothing lullaby she could have asked for.
Bellamy didn’t say anything when she moved her stuff in a day later, and he didn’t ask her what she was doing there. He found some extra crates and cleared up space for her and suddenly there were four pillows on the bed instead of two because both of them liked making nests in their bed. He just smiled like it was a secret, something beautiful and shining meant for just the two of them, and Clarke knew some things were going to get better.
As it turned out, some things got a lot worse.
Bellamy told her everything he went through in the mountain, all the gory details of thinking he might actually die, how sometimes he still flinched when others touched him, how it all blurred into a horrible memory he could never seem to lose, and, worst of all, he had almost wished for release after it all in a way she could never be able to speak aloud.
Which made it increasingly difficult to look at him, because when Clarke did look at him all she wanted to do was hold him like he was her last breath, like she would never let him leave her arms so she could maybe help to hold him together, and she wasn’t sure she was allowed to. She wasn’t really sure she even should or he would want her to, which left her angry, confused, and stuck.
The logical part of herself knew she was being ridiculous, that all she was doing was hurting him by the way she couldn’t quite meet his eyes, but it wasn’t exactly like it was a one way street. Bellamy closed in on himself after revealing everything, and Clarke wasn’t all that sure how to unravel him and get back to normal. He treated her with courtesy, but not familiarity, and it made Clarke feel like she was dying all over again.
If she didn't have Bellamy to go through this with, she wasn’t all that sure how to go through it at all.
It was the anger that eventually did it. It was the pain and loss, too, but it was the anger that irrationally lead her to Raven’s two days later. Clarke’s whole body felt weighed down with grief, and she knew that a smarter version of herself would just deal with it, but the anger made her feel fueled with something entirely different. Her veins were pumping with blood and her heart was shrinking into herself but she couldn’t admit it, not when she was trying so hard to be strong for everyone else.
Bellamy would understand.
Bellamy wasn’t talking to her.
“What’s up?” Raven asked as Clarke finally took the plunge through the doorway. It was actually quite astounding how she could sense a change in the room without even looking. Her eyes stayed trained solely on the schematics laid out on the table in front of her, the paper ruffling slightly as she slid her hand around to make a note or add something to the drawing.
Clarke shuffled toward Raven, her feet pushing her forward quickly and her heart beating so loud the blood pulsed deafeningly in her ears. She moved without a single thought, her body moving by its own volition. Her hands grabbed the sides of Raven’s face and paused for only a second before she surged forward, planting a kiss straight on her lips.
“Woah, woah, woah,” Raven said, pulling back and raising an eyebrow. “Words, Griffin, use them.”
“I need…” she trailed off, biting her bottom lip as she struggled to put words to the feeling that raged within her. Whatever this was, in the end, was only going to hurt her, but she needed it. She needed to feel the release of someone and Raven was the perfect kind of distraction. Clarke didn’t care about her the way she cared for Bellamy, obviously, but she loved her enough to know that Raven would be the perfect amount of hot and quick and oblivion to serve her purpose. “I just need to forget.”
“You sure you want to do this? It’s probably not going to make you feel better, and I don’t much like being people’s regrets.”
Clarke nodded, pulsing forward and slipping her fingers right into her hair. Just as Clarke had suspected, Raven charged to action, pushing right back with that familiar ferocity. Raven tasted sweeter than she expected, her mouth clean and fresh, and her skin was surprisingly smooth for a person who spent so much time getting roughed up. The equipment clattered to the floor as they were pushed off of the table, and with Raven’s lips on her neck and her hands gripping hard into her waist, Clarke did forget.
Almost entirely.
“You slept with Raven.”
Clarke paused, a shirt halfway up her stomach as she changed from the shirt she had worn in medical into something clean. Her fingers dropped from the hem of the fabric as she turned to face him.
His face was much more hurt than she had expected it to be, and her heart clenched at the sight of his crestfallen features, of his shiny eyes and his eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. Because above all else, Clarke could tell that he was just confused; he didn’t understand what had caused this, how they had gotten there.
“I thought…” he trailed off, but it was fairly obvious neither of them had any idea how he was going to finish the phrase.
“I slept with Raven,” she admitted.
Bellamy’s face crumbled a little bit more, like he had expected that not to be the answer. Clarke wished she could tell him it wasn’t just so she could see that look disappear, but wishing something to be true didn’t change the truth; she couldn’t will the past into changing. If she could do that there would be a hell of a lot more things for her to change.
“I didn’t know-“
“That I liked girls?” she finished.
Bellamy shook his head. “That you were hurting so bad.”
The second the words were out Clarke bent forward, her stomach convulsing with a strong pang. A sob shook itself straight out of her body, her muscles seeming to become tired and lifeless as she sat down onto the bed as to not collapse onto the ground instead.
“I didn’t know the girl thing either,” Bellamy continued. His words were more rushed now, more fragile, and he sat down beside her. “Which I want to talk to you about, but I assumed you wouldn’t do that with Raven unless you really needed a release. Unless you do love her and I’m getting this all wrong, I mean, you don’t, do you?”
Clarke shook her head no. “I don’t love Raven.”
“Ok,” Bellamy stated, nodding along. He brought an arm around her shoulders, Clarke falling naturally into his side as she continued to cry.
“I- I missed you and I didn’t know how to talk to anyone and I felt like I was dying inside and I want so bad to fix you Bellamy because it’s all my fault and God I couldn’t look at you without wanting to rip my hair out. I did this to you, I did this to all of you.”
“You missed me? Clarke, I was right here.”
“We weren’t talking, hell, we weren’t even looking at each other! You can’t deny that, Bell, ever since we tried to talk about Mount Weather-“
“That wasn’t talking, Clarke, that was me yelling some things in your direction and then stalking out of the tent. I knew what was happening between us wasn’t good but I felt like I shouldn’t have ever told you those things in the first place. They weren’t your cross to bear.”
Clarke laughed, and Bellamy joined in. The whole thing was absolutely ridiculous, Clarke realized. They were both so worried about burdening the other they were trying to keep everything in, were trying to avoid the inevitable, but in truth they were both just packing more and more in until they were going to practically explode.
“We both think we’re martyrs,” she released with a dying laugh.
“Maybe we should talk, actually talk… that’s what real adults do, right?”
“Us? Adults? Please,” Clarke joked. “I’m sorry I didn’t try to talk to you, and I’m sorry if I hurt you by sleeping with Raven.”
“It’s none of my business who you sleep with.”
Except, Clarke realized, it kinda felt like it was. Bellamy’s face wasn’t as nonchalant as she assumed he was going for, the muscles around his mouth tighter than they were meant to be, and she knew he did mind. The two of them were something close to something, two people petering on the edge of something they couldn’t quite admit to quite yet, but Clarke knew she couldn’t do this to him again without feeling her insides ache with regret.
“I’m bisexual,” she stated. “I’ve never really said anything about it before because it felt like it didn’t matter, but I am. Lexa kissed me after you left.”
“Did you- and her- you know…”
“I’m not sure if you’re asking whether we had sex or we loved each other, but either way, no. I mean it hurt when she betrayed me even more because of it, but Finn had just died and you had just left and, no. I couldn’t.”
Bellamy nodded, some of the tension in his shoulder muscles releasing at the news. “I would have gone into that mountain whether you asked me to or not. Whatever happened in there isn’t your fault.”
“And you can talk to me, actually talk to me about anything. I promise I won’t go all silent anymore. We’re in this together, we can’t be pulling all these bullshit silent angst parties and screwing the other person over.”
Bellamy held out his hand for a shake, smiling wide. “Deal.”
“Deal,” Clarke confirmed, wrapping her hand in his and giving a solid shake.
Together.
“So, I heard you had sex with Raven.”
“You too?” Clarke exclaimed, setting down her tools and giving her sole attention to Monty. The two of them were currently trying to form braces from surplus fabric and some metal scraps they’d had lying around, but Monty’s quick fingers were proving a lot better at the task than Clarke’s were. “Who told you that?”
“Believe it or not, Miller.”
“Two things are strange about that to me: one being how does Miller even know and the other being Miller talked.”
“He talks,” Monty replied, a slight blush falling to his cheeks.
“To you, maybe,” Clarke said, and as soon as she said the words she realized how true they were. This whole time she had accepted the newfound closeness of Monty and Miller without even thinking about it. As good of a friend as she had thought she was being by keeping her pain to herself, she had forgotten that being a friend meant a lot more than just being able to avoid adding pain, it meant helping and listening - two things she wasn’t all that sure she’d been doing a very good job of lately.
Monty shrugged, but a small smile filled to the brim with satisfaction sat on his lips. “Miller and Bellamy actually talked about it.”
“No,” Clarke gasped. “They’re bros, obviously, but they have always been silent bros.”
“Miller and I talked about some stuff and he told me he realized how much Bellamy’s friendship meant to him when he was in the mountain. I told him he could try talking to Bellamy about it all, and I guess they had a huge friend moment or something.”
“Wow,” Clarke stated, shaking her head slightly. “People are just surprising me left and right these days.”
“Yea, like this friend I have of mine who just slept with this other friend of mine.”
“Oh, shut up.” Clarke rolled her eyes, but she was happy to see Monty filled with some of his old sarcasm and laughter. It made her feel lighter to see him finally adjusting back into a normalcy again.
“You guys aren’t together now or something, are you?”
“No, it was a one time thing.”
“Good,” Monty stated.
“Good?”
“I just…” Monty trailed off, releasing a breath between his teeth. “You and Bellamy.”
“Me and Bellamy?”
“You know,” he replied. “You and Raven would be like one of the most aesthetically pleasing couples ever, don’t get me wrong, but you and Bellamy have been working toward something really good lately, and I would hate for it to get ruined.”
Clarke paused, her whole body feeling to tighten at the thought. Monty hadn’t really said anything she didn’t already know. She and Bellamy had been working toward something important ever since she decided to walk through those gate doors right beside him, but it felt strange and dangerous when someone else said it, when someone else knew it.
“I don’t think I can,” Clarke said. “It’s just- can I be honest with you?”
“Of course.” Monty entirely paused for the first time, giving her every ounce of his attention.
“It would hurt so much if something happened. It already hurt with Finn, that was hell, and I’ve lost so many people. I still think about Wells everyday, I think about all of us we’ve lost, and I can handle a lot for the sake of the people I love, but I don’t think I can handle losing him.”
“If you lose him it’s going to hurt either way, Clarke,” Monty answered, smiling sadly, “but if he did go before his time, wouldn’t you rather have him die knowing the full truth? Otherwise you’re just letting him go while you still hold onto words you wished you had told him.”
“What’s the truth?” she asked. Her voice sounded small even to her own ears, and she felt like the thinnest pane of glass in front of Monty; just one breath, and she would shatter around him.
“You love him, Clarke.”
“Do you love him?”
“Bellamy? No,” Monty responded, his eyebrows pushing together as he eyed her curiously.
“Not Bellamy, Miller.”
Monty paused. “I care about him a lot. He gets me in this way no one’s ever gotten me before. I always thought Jasper and I had this bond that could never match anything else, and we do in a way, even if he still hates me he can’t deny that we do, but then Miller came around and it’s something completely different and kinda awesome. He makes me feel really good about myself, he makes me feel really smart and funny and like I can do something wonderful even in this hell hole.”
“That kinda sounds like love to me.”
Monty smiled, more to himself than to Clarke, and released a soft chuckle underneath his breath. “Well, I guess maybe I do.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell if you don’t.”
“Sounds like a promise to me.”
Clarke awoke with a scream pulling from her throat, her forehead drenched with sweat and her heart racing. Since being back to Camp she’d had her fair share of dreams, nightmares really, but never quite as bad as the one that caused that sense of panic and fear within her. Bellamy shifted to her right, pushing himself up on his elbow and tiredly looking at her through his lashes.
“Are you ok?”
Clarke shook her head, biting her lip because she knew if she tried to talk she might just cry and that was the last thing she wanted to do in front of him in the middle of the night. Bellamy eyed her for a beat too long, compassion heavy in his eyes, before opening his arm for her.
She practically dove into his chest, wrapping her arms around his chest and nuzzling her face into his shirt. Having him so close was everything. His scent, his heat, his touch all gave her some sense of calm that she was desperately clawing for. She needed him right there, by her side, because when he was she didn’t feel like everything was falling as desperately apart.
“Don’t leave me,” Clarke pleaded. She realized how desperate she sounded, her voice raw and needing, but she couldn’t help it.
“I’m not going anywhere.” Bellamy rubbed a hand over her back and rested his chin on the top of her head.
“I can’t do it without you,” she admitted with a whisper. Clarke could feel Bellamy’s breath halt from her ear on his chest, and she waited with bated breath to see what he was going to say, feeling ridiculously vulnerable beside him.
“Clarke,” he began, his voice thick with an emotion Clarke had never heard played out in his voice before. Bellamy’s hand reached below her chin, tilting her head so she was staring up at him, their eyes latching on to one another, “I will never go anywhere without you by my side ever again.”
The words hit Clarke with such intensity, with such feeling and strength she thought she might just start crying again. She cuddled herself further into him, her eyes fluttering shut as he kissed the top of her head. “Can we stay like this for just a little longer?”
“As long as you want,” he told her in a breath.
Clarke didn’t tell him the truth, because the truth was she wanted to stay like this, just the two of them in a raw and beautiful moment, forever. But she’d take the night too.
“You know, one of these days you should really learn how to do your goddamn laundry by yourself,” Clarke called, not even bothering to raise her head to see the familiar smirk she knew would be on his face.
“It’s not that I can’t come do it alone, it’s that I need the moral support.”
Clarke raised her head, making eye contact with him across the stream before rolling her eyes. His smile simply widened in response. Bellamy turned and laid out his final piece of clothing over the rocks, wading himself into the stream and throwing his final shirt off.
“Come on, sweetheart,” he began, “let’s go for a dip.”
Two nights ago Raven had made a joke about them acting like an old married couple, and Bellamy had loved the comment so much he hadn’t been able to stop his teasing about it. Ever since princess had been declared a no go, he had been trying desperately to find some nickname to fill its place (though Clarke had noticed he had begun to use her name with increasing frequency and a sort of softness that left her smiling widely every time), and ‘old married couple’ had given him about a million more for his repertoire.
“But darling, I’d much rather finish this laundry.”
“You’re boring.”
“You’re mean.”
“No, I’m fun. Something you can barely remember. Remember us in the old days, Clarke? We were so young and in love! What happened to us? We’ve fallen apart. We need to rekindle the spark.”
“I’ll come into the water if you stop talking about us like we’re some dysfunctional couple who’ve been married for forty years,” she said, brow raised in challenge.
“Fine,” he replied, rolling his eyes. Bellamy reached forward and splashed her slightly, and Clarke yelped in surprise.
She jumped into the stream, lunging straight at him for retaliation. He laughed as she threw her body on him to get him under the water and he barely budged. His foot slipped against the smooth rock suddenly, toppling over, and then Clarke was the one laughing. Pushing at the top of his head, Clarke dunked him under, only releasing him after a few seconds.
“Honey! I can’t believe you tried to murder me!”
“You said you were going to stop!” she replied, slapping his chest.
Bellamy laughed heartily, grabbing her around her waist and pulling her through the water so they were closer. Clarke didn’t know if he had grabbed her in hopes of throwing her in or for some other ulterior motive, but as soon as she was pulled flush against his chest the whole tone changed.
A heat built in her chest and suddenly Bellamy wasn’t looking at her with mirth in his eyes but a sudden dose of reality, of want, of something so dangerous Clarke was afraid to even think it, and she didn’t know what to do but she knew what she wanted.
And she wanted him.
Clarke swore she didn’t know who moved first. While Clarke was wrapping her arms around his neck he was grabbing at her waist, and their lips met together in the middle.
Kissing Bellamy wasn’t anything like kissing Raven. Raven was like kissing fire, risky and invigorating and dangerous - fun but a flash and then it had disappeared up in smoke, gone. Kissing Bellamy was like kissing a hurricane, the rain pouring all around you with no sign of ever stopping, inevitable contact everywhere, like there was no way to escape any of it. It was dangerous in a whole other way because you weren’t sure it was ever going to end. It consumed her whole body in a whirlwind, and, truthfully, she wasn’t all that sure she ever wanted it to end. She was fairly sure she would be happy to be stuck in his storm forever
The water was cool as it lapped around her, but she was thankful for the sharp temperature grounding her to reality. She was sure she would have burned up from the pure heat of their two bodies pushed together, from the electricity their lips must be producing against each other, if the water wasn’t there to stop it all.
Clarke pulled back, resting her forehead on his chest as she fought to catch her breath for a moment. Pushing her gaze upwards, she met Bellamy’s eyes with as much confidence as she could manage.
“I love you,” she stated. Clarke was fairly sure she had never felt so terrified in her entire life than she had as she pushed those three words out, but she wouldn’t have changed it for the world. Releasing them felt like releasing the biggest, heaviest secret she had ever carried, and suddenly she was undeniably free.
Bellamy let out a small chuckle, like a man who was so surprised but so happy, and grinned down at her. “I love you, too.”
“Well, thank God for that.”
“Can I start calling you honey and sweetheart now all the time? Maybe even buttercup?” he joked.
“I will leave,” she replied. “Now, do you want to kiss me some more or what?”
Bellamy whistled underneath his breath. “Geez, you drive a hard bargain. Hm, I might need to think a little bit.”
“Oh, well I guess I’ll just go finish-”
Bellamy grabbed her around the waist as she moved to walk away, pulling her tightly against himself.
“You,” he spoke. “I choose you. Always you.”
Clarke was relieved to find kissing Bellamy didn’t change much. The things she wanted to change of course changed, the amount her and Bellamy touched, the way they clung to each other in sleep in hopes of keeping the nightmares at bay, and for the most part it really wasn’t that hard to slip into being a couple.
The two of them had practically already been doing it, heck, they’d been living together, and if when they walked somewhere sometimes they wrapped their hands together or flirted a little more openly, no one seemed to notice all that much. For the most part, people were just happy that they had stopped playing the game they had all been so privy to.
The most distressing thing about the two of them being “official” (the word official was hilarious to Clarke - official what? What the two of them felt for one another had always been real, but she understood the connotation people associated with labels) was that their cleanliness had seemed to go down the drain. Instead of their clothes sticking on designated sides, their bags hanging on the back of their chairs or sitting in a corner, their belongings had been flung around. There was no border between Bellamy and Clarke, which usually didn’t bother her all that much, but it did when she couldn’t seem to find her work clothes.
A familiar whoosh came from behind Clarke, the sound of the tent door flapping open. “Bell, have you seen my work shirt?”
Clarke turned just in time to see Miller standing by the doorway, his eyes flashing around before finding her. “I came to see Bellamy.”
“He’s not here,” she said, though she assumed it must be pretty obvious to him.
“I’ll leave you be,” he replied, “but I think it’s the one on the edge of the bed.”
Clarke looked to where he had suggested, grabbing it up with a victorious smile and shifting her body back toward him. “Thank you! Here I am looking all over this disgusting floor and it’s on the bed.”
“No problem.” Miller nodded, turning toward the door again.
“Wait!” Clarke exclaimed. He turned, and she smiled a small, yet inviting grin in his direction. “If there’s something I could do for you…”
The offer hung between them unsure, dangling in front of them as something clearly new and untested. Miller nodded again, a familiar gesture for him, and took a small step in. “I was just going to talk to Bellamy.”
“You can talk to me,” she offered. “Yours and my world have always been revolving around each other since we were little, and now Bellamy and I are… Bellamy and I, and Monty’s pretty much my best friend, so-”
“What does Monty have to do with anything?” he asked, raising a brow.
Clarke laughed softly, crossing her arms. “Really? You’re going to deny it?”
“What has he told you?” His voice grew both a little more open and vulnerable simultaneously.
“You’re going to Bellamy about boy problems?” Clarke asked, most definitely too excited about the whole thing. It felt like forever since any of them had just been teenagers, and so the news that Miller was having some kind of questioning thought about Monty was so welcomed Clarke thought she might just cry. “I’m sorry, but you should definitely be coming to me about boy problems. Specifically ones of the Monty Green variety.”
Miller’s lips turned up at the corner, not a smile perse but something bordering on the edge of it. It felt like a victory of some sort, nothing huge, but coming from Miller? It was definitely something worth mentioning.
“Would you like to go for a walk?”
Clarke smiled, nodding furtively and following after him.
Who cares if she had work? Miller was talking to her, actually talking to her, and that was not a breakthrough to be ignored. She knew her mother would cover for her anyway, it wasn’t like she was ever easily pulled away from work in the first place.
Right now she needed to talk to Miller about boys.
The thought had her giggling all day.
“Clarke, come quick.” Monty’s eyes were darting, filled with worry, when Clarke set down the chart and turned toward the door. “There’s something you have to see.”
Clarke knew the rigidness in Monty’s voice spoke to the importance, so she didn’t question him as she followed closely behind. Her mind whirled with a million different scenarios of just what she was about to see. Was someone hurt? She figured there would have been no harm in telling her if that was the case, but it was hard to imagine just what could possibly be going on that had Monty so on edge.
“What’s happening?” Clarke asked, jogging slightly to fully catch up to Monty’s unusually long strides.
Monty turned his eyes to her, his eyebrows scrunched together in a mixture of confusion, anger, and a million other things Clarke couldn’t even begin to understand. “You just have to see, I don’t…”
Monty trailed off, his eyes flipping back in front of him, and as the sun hit their faces and they left the Ark behind them to step out onto land, a jolt of panic hit Clarke. Her eyes were slow to adjust to the setting sun that flashed hotly in her eyes, but as soon as they did, she could see the army that was waiting directly outside of the gate.
“Who’s the leader of that army?” Clarke spoke through gritted teeth. Her heart prayed for Monty to say just about anything but what he was going to, to have her be wrong just this once, but truly when it came down to it… an army wasn’t good. No matter whose it was.
“Lexa.”
She just really wished it didn’t have to be hers.
Clarke suddenly eyed Kane, Bellamy, and Abby right by the edge of the fence, heads bent in rapid conversation, and she jogged over.
“What the hell is she doing here?”
Abby eyed her directly first, her face trying desperately to maintain a sense of normalcy, diplomacy, but it was evident she too felt the familiar heat of anger spreading spreading through her limbs. Her hands clenched at her sides, and Clarke noticed the way Kane brought a hand up to her lower back in a soothing gesture.
Out of all of the things Clarke had to think about, that was one that would have to sit on the back burner for now.
“We haven’t spoken to the Commander yet, but some of her affiliates have asked for representation to speak to her about something regarding treaties.”
Clarke could feel the rage take hold in her body, shaking and rattling her. She wished so desperately that she would never have to think about Lexa again. She wished that Lexa would have just fallen away into a horrible memory, just another nightmare to add to the list she had been culminating since deciding to stay.
Fingers took hold of her wrist, not tightly, simply wrapped loosely around, and Clarke looked up to see Bellamy eyeing her with concern. It snapped her back to reality, because if Bellamy could see past his blind indignation right now to be there for her, if he could put aside his anger just to make sure she felt supported, then she could at the very least attempt to retain a rational mind.
She slid her fingers between his own and took a slow, deep breath.
Lexa didn’t look all that different than the last time Clarke had seen her. Her hair was a few inches longer, spiraling down her back in long braids that were semi-familiar. No makeup adorned her face, which Clarke instantly took as a good sign: at least she was not preparing for battle. Overall, Lexa was still Lexa, but Clarke couldn’t help but notice the traitor lying right beneath her skin in every action and look, every movement.
“Thank you for speaking to me,” Lexa began. Clarke wanted to tell her that she hadn’t really had much of a choice with the whole entourage Lexa had brought to her gate, but she bit the inside of her cheek to keep her commentary at bay. “We need to discuss a treaty for the safety of both our peoples.”
Clarke hated the way she spoke to her as if nothing had happened. She was sure her gaze must be burning the side of Lexa’s face, but her gaze remained neutral and her posture just as controlled as it had always been.
“I’m sure we can craft something that is beneficial to both of our people,” Kane remarked, his expression shifting from surprised to in charge in lightning speed. “Though, I would like to discuss what brought this on.”
Indra lunged forward, eyes full of fire. “The Commander doesn’t have to explain herself to anyone.”
Lexa’s hand went up, halting Indra’s speech, and she took a step closer herself. “You inhabit land here now, and as much as we may hope you would evacuate, we have come to understand you wish to remain where you are. You may think Grounders uncivilized, but we do not love war the way you may think. A treaty will help us come to an agreement to help us coexist as well as can be managed.”
Clarke laughed, a rough jolt of a thing, and all eyes turned toward her. Indra’s hand wrenched itself toward her sword, as if the gesture was insulting enough just to make her attack, but paused at Lexa’s harsh look of warning.
“You have something to say?” Lexa prompted. For the first time she looked at Clarke, properly looked at her, and Clarke tried to slow the rapid beating of her heart, the natural heat that seemed to grab onto her as if she might just burst into flame.
“I do.”
“Clarke, this might not-” Abby began, but Kane gave her a reassuring nod and she snapped her lips shut.
“You’re not here because you think we need to live in harmony,” Clarke said. Indra’s muscles were so tight Clarke thought they just might snap, but she didn’t approach her. Clarke knew she had every person in that room’s full, undivided attention. “You’re here because you’re scared.”
If looks could kill, Clarke was sure she would have dropped straight to the ground. Every single Grounder in the tent was eyeing her like some embodiment of evil, and maybe to them she truly was. There were two sides to every story, and to the Grounders Lexa was the thing of legends she was sure, but Clarke also knew one other thing with the utmost of certainty.
She had massacred a civilization of people. And that made her a legend too.
“You thought we were dead when you left us in that mountain, and some of us are, but you didn’t wipe us out. We survived, like we have always survived, and we came out the victor. You’re here because you saw that we didn’t just make it out of that mountain, we decimated it, and you want to make sure you aren’t on the receiving end of it next.”
“Clarke, what was done-”
“Lexa,” she cut her off, “I don’t care what you did. I don’t. You can’t change it, and the both of us can know that what I’ve just spoken is true. You did what you had to do to save your people, and I do what I must to protect my own in return. Which is why we have some treaty regulations and rules to discuss.”
Lexa nodded, her face unreadable, but Clarke didn’t care about reading her face anymore. She could think whatever she wanted to think, she could do whatever she wanted to do, because Lexa was no longer a concern of Clarke. Every little piece of anger she had held onto, like thin ropes keeping her afloat in midair, she could finally release with the knowledge that there would be a net safely below her.
“Just remember of what I’ve done, what we,” Clarke spoke, her eyes flashing toward Bellamy with so much love she felt like she could barely keep it in without bursting, “did for all of us before you ever contemplate crossing us again. Because I am certain you will not like what follows when you do.”
Clarke’s chest rose and fell with clinical breaths, a smooth pattern that could only signify the control she still held. There were parts of her that still screamed inside of her to slap Lexa right across the face, to walk out of the door, to never let go of the atrocity that hurt more than she could have ever imagined, but it felt so pointless to hold onto it when she could feel Bellamy’s supporting gaze on her back or the team that was Kane and Abby by her side.
Her people, though still recovering and broken, were undeniably strong together, and Clarke would never for even a minute let anyone try to tear them apart again.
Lexa finally left after three days of nonstop negotiations, and Clarke felt a weight leave her shoulders as soon as the Grounders got on their horses and galloped off into the woods.
“So, that happened,” Bellamy spoke. Clarke could feel him eyeing her from the side, but she held her eyes forward. “You ok?’
She finally turned, sending a small smile his way. “Believe it or not, I really am.”
“Shame,” Bellamy began, that wicked smile Clarke could never stop herself from loving taking charge on his lips, “I was going to offer my services to help cheer you up.”
Bellamy moved behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and laying his head on top of hers. Clarke relaxed her body back into him, letting herself revel in everything that was Bellamy Blake. It seemed so crazy that she had once lived a life without him, that she had been able to survive without him by her side, but she knew with all of her heart that she would do everything in her power to make sure she never had to go back to that.
“Hey, Bell?”
“Yes?”
Clarke paused, releasing a breath into the wind. “Forever, ok?”
Bellamy nodded behind her, tugging his arms tighter around her waist.
“Forever.”
“So, what you’re saying is that he kissed you?”
Raven rolled her eyes. “Of course that’s what he was saying. What else could that have meant?”
“I’m just clarifying,” she responded, hitting her shoulder against Raven’s.
They both turned back toward Monty, his cheeks flushed and his smile stretched wide and packed to the brim with an overwhelming sense of joy. “He kissed me,” he confirmed.
“Thank God,” Raven said through a small smirk. “I was starting to think you guys were never going to.”
“We weren’t that slow!” Monty said. “Definitely not as bad as Bellamy and Clarke.”
“Hey!” Clarke exclaimed, but she felt herself laughing along with Monty and Raven.
“I would actually argue that you two were practically just as bad. You two had so much pining,” Raven stated.
“I hate this conversation.”
“You love this conversation,” Clarke challenged.
Bellamy burst through the door, his eyes searching wildly until they landed on Clarke. “Emergency in medical; we need you. Actually, you should all come.”
The only sounds as they rushed to medical were the sounds of combined breaths and footsteps. By the time they finally rushed through the doors, all four of them were breathing heavily, and Clarke was anxious about just what she was about to see.
“Murphy?” Raven asked first.
Murphy had clearly been through something, Clarke observed, and she rushed forward to look him over. There was a gash on his stomach that was clearly a few days old, his lips dry and parched, his skin dangerously burned, and all around his body looked limp and fatigued.
“What the hell happened to you?” Clarke poured some alcohol over his cut, ignoring the expletive that slipped from between his lips.
“Jaha went off the deep end,” Murphy said. His voice was scratchy and dry, but, even after all Clarke could only guess at he had endured, it still held its familiar arrogance. “It’s a long story, but it’s bad.”
“We’ve survived this long. We’ll just have to keep surviving.”
“It’s not just us this time,” Murphy stated, “it’s the whole freaking planet.”
Clarke nodded, taking the words in. She should have known safety didn’t come easy, and especially after so many days of relative peace there was no way the other shoe wasn’t going to drop. Her heart pumped with the thought of whatever was ahead of them, but she noticed a twinkle in Raven and Bellamy’s eyes, an acceptance in Monty’s shoulders, that told her they could do with a little fight.
At some point along the way, they had learned to live off of the battle, to push through the pain and keep fighting until there was no fight left. It wasn’t the life Clarke thought she would ever want, but she could manage it, she could do it when she had such great people there at her side.
“Tell me all that’s wrong with you, and then tell us what’s going on.”
Bellamy twitched behind her, Raven shifted her leg, and Monty bit his lip in concentration. Clarke pushed her shoulders back, a sense of calm and ready falling over her limbs with her team beside her, and got to work.