Chapter Text
i.
“Bellamy,” Clarke calls, walking over to him like she has something to prove. Bellamy smirks, putting his hands on his hips and cocking his head to the side just enough that she knows that he’s listening, but doesn’t really care about what she’s going to say.
“What is it, Princess?” His gravelly voice is mocking, his tongue sharpening around her nickname like a knife.
“You need to stop abusing the poor kids you’re trying to train to be our guards. They’re our warriors, our fighters – how are they supposed to protect us from the Grounders when they’re constantly limping their way over to me because you and Murphy beat them up in a training session?” She is constantly indignant when it comes to him, and this time is no different. Clarke stands with her chin up, jaw tightening until he knows she’s not going to relent. He sighs and crosses his arms.
“Look, Princess, they need to learn how to protect us. If they can’t stand their ground in a training session, how are they going to be able to fight against a people trained from birth to wield a spear?” Bellamy examines the smaller girl - she has a bright, burning fire in her eyes, and he knows that she’s not going to back down.
“They aren’t going to be able to hold themselves upright if you keep beating them up like this.” She informs him, rolling her eyes. She steps a closer to him until they’re almost touching, and his mind goes blank for a moment as he feels the warmth of her skin pressing onto his.
“If they could just figure out that being on the offensive is not always the best stance to take, we wouldn’t have this problem, would we?” Bellamy looks down at her, trying not to focus on the way her eyes look like fragmented pieces of the cloudless sky when they’re looking into his. He turns away for a moment, trying to snap himself out of it. This is Clarke Griffin, for heaven’s sake, everything he despises - a privileged little girl who thinks that she can rule the camp because her mommy was on the council. Clarke is part of the reason his mother was floated, part of the reason why his little sister was locked up. He will not allow himself to develop a stupid little crush on someone like her.
“Bellamy, they’re just kids.” She sounds almost desperate, her eyebrows creasing as she stares up at him. Her hands are by her sides, and he can’t stop wondering if they’re as soft as they look - if they have the callouses of the workers’ children on the Arc, or if they are unscarred and perfect, unmarked by hardship. He is lost in these thoughts until Bellamy realizes that Clarke is waiting impatiently for his response. She shifts her feet, just a little, and raises an eyebrow at him. Bellamy clears his throat and shakes his head in a futile effort to shake Clarke loose from his thoughts.
“Yeah, uh - listen. I guess I’ll try to talk to Murphy, get him to go a little easier on the trainees. But these kids need to learn that not everything is going to be easy on the ground - it’s the only way they’ll be able to survive, Clarke. Okay?” Bellamy finally relents, relaxing as his arms uncross in defeat. Clarke studies him, eyes trailing up to his face, and pauses. Her gaze rests on his coffee-colored eyes, hand nudging his softly, and he is consumed by the crackle of electricity he feels where her hand touches his skin. She stays there for a moment, eyes boring into his, considering what he’s said. When she’s finally satisfied, she nods.
“Fine. Just try to make sure Murphy doesn’t kill anyone before they figure out how to throw a punch,” she says dryly, a small smile on her face. She turns on her heel and rushes away before he can respond, and Bellamy is struck by the feeling that Clarke Griffin is a forest fire and he is just a scrap of tinder.
ii.
“Clarke--” She cuts Bellamy off with a roll of her eyes.
“Absolutely not,” she declares. “It’s a mission to get herbs I need, and I’ll be damned if you try to keep me from going.”
“Clarke, you’re our only healer. You can’t just go running off into the woods – you could be killed, or worse.” He crosses his arms and looks down at her, adamant. He’s not going to let her go off and kill herself because she misses Wells, who was murdered a week ago. They lost Charlotte, and he refuses to lose her too, especially now that he is personally responsible for the three hundred that died in the culling. Bellamy Blake is tired of people dying because of him, and if he has the chance to protect someone, he’s going to take it.
“No. I’m going,” She says, tilting her chin up at him and tightening her jaw. “I’m the only one who knows what plants aren’t poisonous now that - now that Wells…” She trails off for a moment, voice cracking on his name. The pause seems to stretch for an infinity, her grief heavy in the air. Clearing her throat, she continues, “now that Wells is… gone. You need me to go on this trip, okay? I need to go on this trip.” Bellamy thinks that he hears her mutter and away from this damn camp under her breath. He is struck with the overwhelming urge to give her a hug, to wrap her up in his arms and take away the pain that has been silently destroying her since Wells died. Her guilt is a palpable thing, and Bellamy knows that she’s been spending her sleepless nights by Wells’ grave, occasionally sporting a bottle of Monty’s moonshine. Finn knows too, but she hasn’t allowed him to come close to her since Raven fell from the sky. She hasn’t allowed anyone to come as close to her as Finn was since her father was floated, and Finn broke her heart. Bellamy knows that Clarke won’t be able to let anyone else in for a long time.
“Clarke…” Bellamy’s eyes are soft, sad. He wants to reach out and touch her, offer her some sort of solace, but he’s not sure how. His shoulders sink as his arms uncross, but his hands remain at his sides. Clarke stiffens.
“I can handle myself, Bellamy. I’ll be fine.” Her eyes are unreadable, and all Bellamy wants to do is sweep her into his arms and kiss her until she feels okay. But that’s not what she wants, he knows - she needs things to go back to normal. Her world has just turned upside down, and he can be her lifeline.
“Absolutely not. I’ll go instead,” He declares, grabbing a few rations. He sounds like he’s talking to Octavia, bravado masking a fierce need to protect her.
“Yeah, that’ll help the group figure out which plants are poisonous. I aced Earth Skills, Bellamy. I can do it.” She sighs at his show of machismo, but in her mind, she thanks him; he hasn’t mentioned Wells at all in his campaign to make her stay at camp.
“I’m not going to let you run around and get yourself killed with them as your only source of help,” Bellamy tells her, jerking his chin at a group of kids holding spears. They’re waiting at the gate, watching the argument unfold with smirks on their faces. Bellamy is pretty sure Miller is taking bets on who will be the loser of this round.
“They need you here, Bellamy,” Clarke says, putting her hand on his arm. “I can take care of myself.”
“No, they need you here, Clarke. They’ll be fine without me for a few hours, but what if someone gets hurt? You need to stay at camp and be safe so that you can keep everyone else safe.” Bellamy can feel the heat of her hand bleeding through his jacket, and he shivers - the rest of his body feels impossibly cold without the comfort of Clarke’s warmth.
“A few hours isn’t going to kill anyone, Bellamy. But not having the right plants when I’m trying to ‘keep everyone else safe’? That could.” She cocks an eyebrow at him, waiting for him to agree. He knows that she’s right, but Bellamy is as stubborn as Octavia when it comes to protecting the people he cares about.
“No. I’m not letting you go out and get yourself hurt for some leaves, Princess.” Bellamy puts his hands on his hips, shifting his weight so he stands a little taller. Clarke doesn’t back down, her face a picture of exasperation.
“They’re not just leaves, Bellamy. When you get stabbed by a Grounder and need to keep the cut clean and healing, you’ll be grateful that I went on this trip.”
“We have Monty’s moonshine for that, Clarke.”
“A little bit of moonshine isn’t going to be useful when I’m trying to heal actual stab wounds, Bellamy. We need medicine for that, and those herbs are the closest things we’ve got.”
“Fine,” Bellamy relents, his posture relaxing. “But I’m coming with you.”
“We’re losing daylight, here, Bellamy.” She shoots a pointed look at him.
“No. If you’re going, I’m going too, and that’s final.”
“Fine. Let’s go.” When they finally walk over to the group, Miller grins.
“That’s two day’s rations each, boys,” he laughs as the losers groan lightheartedly. “Bellamy, I knew you’d cave.” Bellamy turns to him indignantly, but Miller has already started sauntering ahead into the sun-streaked woods before them.
“You act tough, but really you’re just a great big teddy bear,” Miller calls over his shoulder.
“Yeah, a teddy bear that could beat your sorry ass up if you keep talking!” Bellamy yells back, drawing a surprised chuckle from Clarke. He has never realized how much he likes her laugh until he was the catalyst of it.
iii.
It was an offhand comment about Clarke needing to be able to teach the other delinquents how to shoot that made her finally understand. His hand was on her waist and he was distracted, lost in impossible fantasies of kissing her, slow and burning with warmth, and his guard slipped. He must have said something about when I’m gone but all he can remember is the heat of her seeping into his every pore and how easy it would be to just spin her around and brush her lips against his. He wants to do it now while he has the chance, but he knows that he can’t. He needs to make sure he won’t turn back, and if he kisses her, he’s afraid he’ll need her more than he already does.
“Bellamy, you’re not going to leave, are you?” Clarke says, realization dawning on her. Bellamy says nothing, just glances at her eyes. He’s going to miss her eyes the most, he thinks. They’re at the supplies depot, trying to get supplies so that the delinquents can last until the Ark comes down, and Clarke has finally caught on. “You can’t leave, Bellamy. I – we need you.”
“I already told you, Clarke. They need you. I’m just the muscle.”
“And what about Octavia?”
“She hates me, Clarke. She’ll be fine. She has that Grounder now, Lincoln, and she has you.”
“Octavia could never hate you, Bellamy. She’s your sister.”
“You don’t know how she looked at me, Clarke. It was like she didn’t even know me.” Bellamy’s eyes are desperate, pleading. He looks like he’s given up, and he needs her to understand why he has to leave. He was so eager to go on the day trip with her because he knows that she is the one that will lead when he’s gone, and he needs someone to understand him, at least for a moment.
“She was just angry, and she had a right to be, but you were doing the right thing.”
“Was I?” Bellamy’s heart is bleeding in his hand, and Clarke is desperately trying to stitch it up. But he is convinced that it’s too late, that he no longer deserves saving, and Clarke can see it clearly in his eyes. He is terrified of his own mind, and it breaks her heart.
“Who we are and what we do to survive are two very different things, Bellamy. You told me that.”
“What if I can’t see the difference any more, Clarke?”
“Bellamy…” She looks up at him, brow furrowed and eyes sympathetic.
“Whatever, Clarke. I need some air.”
“Don’t ‘whatever’ me, Bellamy.”
“What do you want me to say, then? I have to leave, Clarke, or they’ll kill me when they come down.”
“I can help, Bellamy –” she protests.
“Not this time, Princess. I made my choices, and I’m living with them.” He stalks outside, trying not to be distracted by the way his hand fit on the curve of her waist.
***
He stabbed Dax in the neck with a bullet. Clarke tried to shoot him, sure, but it was Bellamy’s hand that ended his life. He had a mother back on the Arc, someone that will mourn him, and Bellamy isn’t even sure if he’s sorry. He stumbles over to where Clarke rests on a sturdy tree, clutching her side. He slips in his haste to reach her, to make sure that she’s safe, to be certain that her blood will not stain his hands too. They are breathing heavily. Dax is not breathing at all.
“You’re okay,” Clarke says quietly.
“No, I’m not. My mother...” He pauses. Swallows his fear, the knot in his throat, hoping that she won’t leave him when he tells the truth. His eyes are haunted, searching for answers in the darkened forest and finding nothing but demons. “If she knew what I had done, who I am - she raised me better, to be good…”
“Bellamy--”
“And all I do is hurt people. I’m a monster.”
“Hey,” she shifts, moving closer, and he doesn’t deserve to feel her touch his skin. Not when Dax lies dead beside them, eyes empty and hollow. “You saved my life today. And you may be a total ass half the time, but I-” She chokes on the words for a moment, and Bellamy is afraid that she is going to lie. “I need you. We all need you. None of us would have survived this place if it wasn’t for you.” Bellamy turns away, knowing that she is too good for him - he won’t destroy her, too.
“You want forgiveness? Fine, I’ll give it to you. You’re forgiven, okay? But you can’t run, Bellamy. You have to come back to me. You have to face it.”
“Like you faced your mom?” Bellamy’s voice is watered down with tears, but he knows that the words still sting. He hurt her, like he hurt everyone else, and she is still trying to save him.
“You’re right. I don’t want to face my mom,” Clarke admits quietly. Bellamy looks up at her, eyes shining, and lets out a breath. “I don’t want to face any of it. All I think about, every day, is how we’re going to keep everyone alive.” She crescendos, voice swelling with emotion. Finally, she meets his eyes, and her voice is barely a whisper: “But we don’t have a choice.”
“Jaha will kill me when he comes down,” Bellamy says, his mouth twisting into a strange smile.
“We’ll figure something out.” He laughs, breathy and humorless, and rests his head on the tree.
“Well, can we figure it out later?”
“Whenever you’re ready.” Clarke shifts until her back rests on the tree, her hand resting on top of his as she sighs. They rest for a while, lost in their own minds, and Bellamy can’t help but think that this is the first time that someone has ever truly understood him.
iv.
He is dreaming of her. She haunts his dreams often, but tonight it’s Clarke throwing herself off of the cliff instead of Charlotte. Clarke, dying in agony as the acid fog eats away at her skin instead of Atom. Clarke, choking on her own blood as she perishes from a wound made by Bellamy’s hand in Dax’s place. Clarke, suffocating in the Ark because he threw away the one chance they had at saving three hundred people. Clarke, dying because of him. He wakes with her name on his lips, drenched in a cold sweat, and walks outside to start an even colder day. The sun isn’t up yet, the midnight sky barely starting to streak with grey, but Bellamy is no longer tired. Something is brewing on the horizon, and the Grounders are due to attack at any moment. Bellamy stands next to Clarke, cautiously aware of the way that her shoulder grazes his skin when he breathes the right way. The silence is thick and heavy and he thinks that they shouldn’t break it, if only to keep the day at bay for a few more moments. He is trying to hide it, but he is terrified of what’s to come. When the camp finally starts to wake up, she turns to him.
“Today’s the day, huh?” she says quietly. He is constantly distracted by her, and the way her eyes are bluer than the crisp morning sky, and the way her laugh sounds like freedom, and the way her touch sends shivers down his spine. But today is not a day to be distracted, and so he turns away.
“I guess so.” His eyes find the horizon, where the sun begins to push away the dark of night. They stand like that for a while, side by side, watching the sun rise before them. Bellamy thinks that it shouldn’t be so beautiful, not when death looms so close to their makeshift camp. Clarke tries not to think at all.
***
“Bellamy, you can’t. This is a suicide mission, and you know it.” Clarke stands in front of him like a barricade, determined to keep him safe. He crosses his arms, looking down at her and wondering how he’s going to be able to say goodbye to someone like her.
“Someone has to do it, Clarke, and I’m not letting one of these kids try to hold off the Grounder army by themselves.” He needs her to understand, like she always does, because without her telling him that he’s doing the right thing he’s not sure if he’ll be able to do it at all. Most of the kids are furiously working on their grand plan - barbeque the Grounders, save the day - but Bellamy knows that they won’t have enough time to finish it before the Grounders attack. He has to hold them off for as long as he can, to buy them time. Bellamy is ready to stay at the foxholes until he has fallen, ready to go down fighting with a gun strapped to his back and desperation in his eyes. The Grounders are powerful, yes, but they have never seen the lengths that Bellamy will go to in order to protect the ones that he loves.
“We just need more time to finish getting the dropship ready, Bellamy-” Clarke knows that this is the only way, deep in her heart, but she won’t allow Bellamy to be the one to go, not when he’s done so much for her already. He is always there when she needs it, always able to read her thoughts like she’s an open book when really she has spent an entire year in solitary building impassable walls around her mind.
“The only way you’ll be able to get more time is if I do this, Princess.” She hates that nickname, he knows, but there is no venom in his words. He sounds exhausted, defeated, like he has already resigned himself to death. He sounds broken, and she can feel her heart crack in her chest to match his.
“Bellamy, please.” Her voice is thick with tears, her eyebrows creased as her blue eyes shine cobalt with emotion. He studies her in the golden afternoon light, his sharp gaze muddled by fear and heartbreak. He is trying to memorize her, knowing in his heart that he will not come back from this. His fingers play with a strand of her hair, and her eyes meet his.
“I have to.” Bellamy whispers roughly, and she knows that there is no way she can win this argument. She wipes a tear that has leaked from his eyes gently, her hand lingering on his face for a moment too long. Bellamy tangles his fingers in her hair, knowing that this is the last time he will see her, knowing that he has to do something before it’s too late. He puts his hand on the small of her back and pulls her to him, letting their lips touch at last. She is surprised at first and then melts into his arms, deepening the kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck and running her fingers through his hair. She is so small in his arms, smaller than he ever realized, and he knows that he is making the right choice if only to protect her. There is something warm in his stomach, sparks trailing across his mouth, forest fires burning where her fingers brush his skin, and he needs more time but that is something that they will never have.
He pulls away and wraps his arms around her, placing a kiss on her forehead. They fit like like a desert and a monsoon - polar opposites, but sometimes the other extreme is needed to survive. They linger like that, star crossed lovers destined to be torn apart, and he whispers something in her ear, so soft she almost doesn’t hear it.
“May we meet again.” It is as good as an I love you in his eyes.