Bellamy has never met anyone like Gina. She is smart and strong and spirited. In some ways, she reminds him of Clarke, but she's not Clarke, and that fills his lungs with fresh air and it feels good. He can't remember the last time he felt like this, if he'd ever felt like this at all.

Bellamy was sitting at the bar inside the Ark, swirling his flat drink around, his body still weak and hopeless when he'd met Gina. Her first words to him were: "You look like you could use something a little stronger." Then she'd slid a drink his way, the corners of her mouth tugged upward in a smile.

Months have passed by since that moment and within those months Bellamy has started to understand what love is. It isn't leaving or staying. It isn't promises or oaths. It isn't a kiss on the cheek and a "may we meet again." No, love is what happens when you realize that it has nothing to do with you anymore. Love is what happens when your world becomes merged with another's and there are no lines. Love is gray and messy and hard and beautiful.

Gina is beautiful. Bellamy loves her crooked smile and the way she says his name. He loves the sound of her laugh and the way her hair looks when she wakes up next to him in the morning. Her arms wrapped around him as they fall asleep leaves him feeling like he's finally grounded. He isn't floating anymore, he's here and it wasn't easy, but he's happy to be here. The aching in his chest lifts every time she kisses him and he swears that nothing on this earth is more important than this right here. As time passes he forgets the sound of Clarke's laugh, her constant frown of concentration, the way her hair looks in the sun.

One day he decides he doesn't want to remember.

Gina and Bellamy learn to swim together and he tugs her beneath the water, pressing a kiss her her lips. The first snowflakes he sees cling to Gina's hair and eyelashes, but they melt when he climbs into bed with her and she breathes his name as he finds her center and makes it his own. He silently promises that nothing will ever hurt her. He thinks he loves her, but he won't say it outloud.

They sneak out to look at the stars together when the others are asleep and the guards are patrolling the borders, leaving a place by the lake open. Bellamy and Gina lay on the grass and her fingers find his. She snuggles into him, his dark curls blowing in the spring air. Her own golden brown curls fan out over his arm. Orion looks down from above and Bellamy uses Gina's finger to point to each star. It's then that he rolls over and tells Gina about his mother and the stories she would read to him and O; he tells her about the sexual favors he did for female guards, nurses, and cooks, desperate for food and safety on the Ark. He tells her about the way he felt when his mother offered him up to get what she wanted. Gina listens as he tells her about locking his baby sister away, about the awful things he did to protect her. He explains how Clarke saved his life in so many ways, how she'd made him feel whole again, how he'd trusted her. Then he tells her about Clarke leaving him. She'd asked him to stay and he'd stayed, but when he needed her most, she left him with nothing and he hates her for it. Gina's fingers glided over his lips, her eyes full of understanding and she pulls him into a hug that holds him together. Gina tells him about not having any family and feeling alone all the time. She tells him anything and everything about her. Bellamy tells her that he'll be her family. That's what they become: family. She's smarter than he thinks he'll ever be. He remembers seeing her in the halls of the Ark and asks himself why he never spoke to her, but he already knows the answer. Friends on the Ark meant death for his sister and mother.

Bellamy loves the way Gina trusts him completely and he knows he can always count on her. His love for her starts small and builds into something that overshadows everything else, even Clarke's absence. Gina folds him into her walls and she never gets caught on his rough edges. Her lips are a safe haven. They become one and Bellamy feels so sick with love and pride for her it almost drives him mad. She's too good for me he thinks. Raven seconds it and he can't even argue.

Summer fades into fall and just when things seem stable word of Clarke comes and shakes his world. He feels the beginning of something that scares him. A familiar feeling finds its way into his heart and he feels guilty. Gina doesn't ask why he's so desperate to find Clarke, she already knows, but she never says it. When Bellamy sees Clarke for the first time, his stomach drops and his heart runs through so many feelings that it leaves him nauseous. She mumbles his name into the cotton around her mouth and a weight leaves his shoulders. But it quickly settles onto his chest as she leaves and he's bleeding on the ground without her.

Gina reminds him that it will be okay and he kisses her until the pain in his leg is miniscule and Clarke doesn't touch his mind. He brushes her untamable curls away from her face and he promises her that he'll come home safely next time.

An echo of the past finds him and tells him Clarke is in danger. Something kicks into gear inside him and he is ready for war. He promises Gina that he won't do anything stupid.

He feels so stupid. Echo abandons them like every other person in Bellamy's life has. Except Gina. Never Gina. Something in his gut feels wrong when he thinks of her, but then he sees Clarke, gold and dark and small standing next to the beast itself. Lexa looks down on him and he wants nothing more than to take her head from her shoulders for what she's done. Anger seeps into his bones and hatred runs hotly through his veins. But, that anger is replaced by a sickening, inexpressible grief and hopelessness when Raven's voice crackles out of the radio. Sinclair and I are the only ones left. Bellamy can't understand. His mind is a beat behind the rest of his body. No no no you don't understand Gina isn't dead she can't die she's waiting for me. I promised I'd come home to her.

Hot tears burn his eyes and he looks to Clarke. Clarke can fix this. He needs her. But, she does it again. Clarke won't come home, she won't make this right. He can't look at her anymore. There's nothing but sickening disappointment and rage inside him, threatening to spill over. Anything he'd felt for her evaporates in 2 words: I'm sorry. The tears recede and he nods his head with resolve. When he turns his back to her he tells himself that he lost two people today.

Gina is dead. And now Clarke is dead too.