The first time he sees her, he can't quite believe his eyes.
It's after a pretty heavy night drinking with Murphy because it's Emori's birthday and this time they dragged him out to the main room, refusing to let him drown in his misery like he's been doing ever since they came up here.
He was good at avoiding them, great even, he could bet if Clarke would see him, she would be scolding the shit out of him. That or she would be proud of the leader he's become just a little bit. (or so he hopes).
But he doesn't get to even think about that when he sees her standing there the minute he closes the door of his small room, which insisted on taking even though Raven tried to fight him on it.
He's just standing there gaping at her and trying to make sense of what's happening, because yes he's drunk and yes that can't be true, but right now she's right there before him, arms so familiarly crossed above her chest, hair messy and down but in an adorable way he's only seen her be after she's just come out of bed, her blue jacket hangs a little loosely around her ("Has she lost weight?" he wonders for just a second), but she seems pissed off and that is what makes him actually question his sanity at that moment.
If Clarke was pissed, she was real.
Wasn't she?
"Clarke?" he tastes her name on his tongue, it's been over six months since they came here and he has stubbornly refused to say it out loud, because for him it meant finality. It meant referring to her as someone who's dead.
And well...he had no idea what he was seeing right now but she surely didn't look dead.
"Glad to know you still remember my name" she jokes lightly as she drops her arms to her side and takes a step forward. He doesn't move, afraid that if he does, she'll vanish.
"What's...what's going on?" his voice is dry, barely audible, quite honestly it makes him shiver, because he is the one who sounds like a ghost, not her "How are you here?" he adds a little more bravely now.
"I'm here because you're drunk" she explains simply as she takes another step "And you obviously have a really wild imagination. That or your guilt is just unbearable and you're so good at drowning yourself in it, that your mind is conjuring this image of me up so you can maybe get some kind of peace." she shakes her head "Or punishment. Knowing what kind of person you are, I would say the second is more probable."
"I'm sorry" he gulps hard, not really paying that much attention to her words but instead wasting the time she talks in taking her in, as she is there. God, it seemed so real "I'm sorry for leaving you behind" his voice breaks a little and he wills himself to shake his weakness off. That might be his one chance to tell her what he always wanted and real or not, he was taking it.
"I'm sorry that I didn't stay there with you." I'm sorry that I didn't die there with you, he thinks but doesn't add because he knows it will piss her off.
"You couldn't have" her voice is softer now and she takes another step, ending up right in front of him and with a gentle smile she raises her hand and cups his cheek "You would've died you know?"
"At least it would've been there, by your side" he covers her hand with his and leans down, their foreheads touching briefly "I should've never gotten into that rocket."
"Of course you should've!" she cuts him off abruptly "Our people need you" at that he laughs and shakes his head, as usually not believing a word when it comes to him.
"No, they need you" it's time for him to cup her cheek and rub it gently with his calloused thumb "You saved them" he utters "You saved me."
"You idiot, don't you get it?" she looks up at him and he feels her hand bury in the back of his curls "We saved each other." he smiles and leans down again to rest his head on her forehead, but when he closes his eyes for just a second, he feels something cold creep into his bones and when he looks up again, she's gone and he's no longer standing in the middle of the room.
Instead, he's laying on the cold floor. Alone and broken.
He expects to see her the next day too when he wakes up and is still so badly hungover, but he doesn't and for some odd reason, he's surprised.
If he was getting crazy, wasn't he supposed to see her all the time?
Then he remembered what she had said when he first saw her-you're drunk, your mind is coming up with things because of it.
So that was it? He just had to get drunk to see her again?
He could do that, but he had to be careful, he couldn't let Raven or Monty catch him talking to himself. God knows what they would do if they found out.
Moreover there were things that he had to deal with, help them, lead them-there were still so many broken parts of this ship that they had to fix if they wanted to survive here for the next five years. He had to urge them, get his hands dirty with Raven while he helped her fix the algae farm or stay all night going over numbers and statistics with Monty.
He had to push them, because he had to make sure they survived. All of them.
Buried in work like that doesn't give him the chance to go on with his plan like he initially wanted to.
Finally, a week later, when they're having what Raven likes to call a lazy Sunday (even if they had no idea which day of the week it was technically), they're playing some old movie on the TV Monty fixed last week and he excuses before they're even forty minutes in.
Raven actually kicks his ass when he begins snoring in his seat (all a very well played act on his side) and he heads out of the room slowly and sleepily until he reaches the hallway and rushes towards his place.
He closes the door with a silent thud and wastes no time to grab one of the bottles he has stashed under his bed. He found them in Jaha's old office, five bottles of good old whiskey that he carefully transferred to his room one late evening while everyone else were still asleep.
It takes him some time to open it up but when he does, he takes a large gulp and leans his back on the bed.
Surprisingly, he doesn't see her right away. Not even when he's done with half the bottle and he's starting to lose hope. He's about to give up and just finish the thing and go to bed when he opens his eyes after closing them for a second because everything was spinning too bad, and sees her sitting opposite of him, leaning her back on the cold metal wall and staring at him angrily.
Again.
"What are you doing?" she asks, her voice loud and cold, not that anyone but him would hear her.
"Hello to you too, princess" he smiles and brings the bottle to his lips again, afraid that if he doesn't keep it up, he'll lose her.
"I asked you something" she keeps up and gets up promptly so she could walk to his side and sit down next to him "What on earth do you think you're doing?" she repeats and he laughs a little.
"Isn't it obvious? I'm drinking" he raises the almost empty bottle and waves it in her face. She grabs his wrist and he gasps at how real her hand feels on his.
"Stop this!" she scolds "It's stupid and it isn't who you are." the words are too familiar for his chest not to tighten painfully. He gasps and stares at her eyes only to realize they're full of tears.
"I just wanted to see you again" he admits shamefully and stares down at his lap for a second before he feels her fingers on his chin lifting his head up.
"This isn't the way, you know that right? You're just torturing yourself."
"I'm fine" he lies and pulls away from her, getting annoyed all of a sudden. All he wanted was to see her, talk to her, but he didn't need her scolding him.
"Yeah, right" she keeps pushing him and he would've been surprised if he didn't knew who the person was "You need to take care of yourself" he feels her hand on his arm now, squeezing it gently "You didn't come all the way up here so you could slowly kill yourself."
"No" he opposes "I came here even though you stayed down there and got swallowed by a fucking radiation wave!" he raises the bottle once more and expects to feel the burning of the alcohol but instead she snatches it from him and his head snaps angrily at her "Give me that back!"
"No!" she says stubbornly and he tries fighting her to get to the bottle until she finally crashes it on the ground "Stop it!" she yells and something in the way she says it, makes his oblige "Just stop!" she begs and this time his eyes fill with tears.
"Oh, Bell..." she sighs when he stops struggling and his body goes limp snuggled in a bad angle between the bed and the floor "I never wanted this for you."
"Neither did I want this" and he nods at the only window in his room from which the still-burning earth was visible "for you."
He feels her hands come behind his back and her moving the upper part of his body to her chest. Her hair tingles his face and he almost smiles-it feels so good to have her bony fingers dig in his messy curls and he sighs.
"I miss you" he admits but doesn't open his eyes, yet he still feels the tears fall down his face "I miss you so much."
"I miss you too, Bell" her voice breaks a little as she leans down to kiss his forehead, then pulls his head on her lap and keeps stroking his hair until he falls asleep.
The moment is so real that when he wakes up the next morning, he wonders off around the room trying to find where she went until he remembers she was never here in the first place.
The third time it happens, he doesn't expect or provoke it, which is maybe why it knocks the breath out of him.
He accidentally slashed his arm really bad while he was helping Raven patch a weak spot on the ship that could give them trouble in the future and he's bleeding profusely. He starts feeling dizzy just a few minutes after he falls on the metal floor and sees Raven yell his name from above, panicking and begging for help. He's gripping his arm with his good hand but he feels the blood thick through and he's sure he must've slashed some big vessel if the world is getting blurry that fast.
Soon everyone are surrounding him and he feels them roll him over on a stretcher before they pull him up and start carrying him to a room they've only recently organized to be their medical. His eyes are drooping and Monty is patting his cheek, trying to wake him up and yelling something when he sees her.
At first he's not sure if it's really her again or if the memory of her just passed through his mind for a minute too long, but when they place him on the bed and Murphy yells something about bandages, she appears right there, near his head.
"You need to stop the bleeding!" she yells at them though they couldn't hear her and then she turns to him "Don't fall asleep!" she orders like with that sentence she could save his life "Don't fall asleep or I swear to god!" she threatens this time and he smiles.
"Whatever you say, princess" he mumbles and for a second everyone that are surrounding his bed and worriedly hovering above him trying to help, stop and stare at him confused.
Apparently they decide he's hallucinating (which he is) and a few seconds later he feels someone pressuring his deep long cut with something soft. Bandages maybe?
"You're losing too much blood" she continues worriedly and looks around as if trying to get something that will help her save him "You need to stay awake and fight, okay? They'll fix you" she peeks down at Murphy trying to tighten a bandage around his arm which soaks right through.
"Why?" he asks weakly sure that the others are too busy trying to save him than listening to what he has to say "Don't you think it's time you and I had a proper date?"
"Don't joke about this!" she snaps at him and he actually sees the tears in his eyes "You need to stay alive. If you give up, I swear-"
"You like threatening me too much for your own good. Is it some kind of kink of yours? Gotta tell me so I can know how to swoon you on our first night together" he keeps joking because that's the best he can do right now.
Suddenly he feels even more dizzier, the bandage wrapped around his arm doesn't allow him to lift it up even though he wants to, he really fucking wants to cup her cheek and caress her lips one last time but he barely even has the strength to open up his eyes only to find her leaning closer to him, her face inches away from his.
"I'll see you soon" he mumbles hardly coherently at all and feels her hand on his shoulder, shaking him roughly the minute he tries to close his eyes.
"No!" she yells at him "No way! You fight this, Bellamy Blake, you fight this or I swear to god, I'll kill you myself!" he smiles at her stubbornness "You fight this because our friends need you and you're not done with even half the things you're supposed to do, you hear me?" he still doesn't say anything and then he feels her grip tighten again
"You fight for me."he looks at her one last time and he really wants to do it, he wants to stay awake for her, but the tiredness that fills his limbs and the heavy emptiness that drenches his heart makes it all the more hard to fight the comfortable darkness that is already blinding the corners of his visions.
"Love you too, Clarke" he whispers before he closes his eyes and the voices yelling above him slowly, but surely fade away.
He wakes up the next morning to find all of them still in the room, near his bed, napping on the chairs or the other available bed in the place. He stares down at his bandaged arm and then his head instinctively turns to the right where he last saw her, a glimpse of hope making the heavy breath in his lungs hitch.
But she's not there anymore.
The fourth time is not for a long after the incident happens. They've been on the Ark for a year seven months and fifteen days when Monty bolts in the conference room while Bellamy's going over some schemes with Raven about the repair again and announces that the earth is no longer burning.
Everyone dart over the starboard window bay and stare down at the ash-looking planet that used to be their home, even if for a short while.
They're all smiling, talking loudly, discussing plans optimistically as if they were returning there tomorrow and Bellamy can't blame them.
On the contrary-he's happy that they're hopeful, lately everyone's spirits were a little low and he struggled to keep them up and going when all they wanted to do was stay in bed all day or eat and watch movies or play some grounder game Echo and Emori taught them.
He knew it won't last too long, but at least it was something-if the world wasn't burning, it meant it was on the path of healing itself and one day when they were ready to head down, it might actually be fruitful enough to help them survive.
That evening they party and this time he doesn't excuse himself before they're done-this time, he waits for them to be drunk enough and snoring in the common room before he grabs a bottle of whiskey from his stash and heads for the starboard window bay.
He sits down there on his own and his hand touches the window.
The truth is-he wasn't happy, not at all and deep down, he wished he was. It's not like he wanted to give his friends fakes smiles and pretend laughs while he willed himself to enjoy their company this evening.
No...he wanted to be happy too but he wasn't sure he even knew the meaning of that word anymore.
All day he can't get out of the image of her body burnt and turned into ash, that's currently been spilled all over this fucking planet by the winds.
It makes him sick, makes him disgusted with himself, makes him angry to the point that even thinking about it now results in him fisting his hand and banging it in the window bay angrily. Pain shoots through his whole arm and before he knows what's happening, he opens up his eyes and sees the blood he's left there.
Funny thing, looking through the bright red spot he just left, makes the world seem red and burning all over again.
He laughs at himself and struggles to open the bottle with his bruised bleeding hand but he does it and twenty minutes later, he's almost half done with it when he hears her voice.
"Are you kidding me?" it comes from behind him and he smiles but doesn't turn right away "Again?"
"Nice to see you too, Clarke" he jokes and turns around, this time she looks different, her hair's shorter, way shorter and her clothes are new, greener and old but somehow exactly what he would imagine her in.
She comes by his side and sits opposite of him, similar to that time they were in his room. Her eyes glance at the red spot on the widow and then to his open knuckles and she sighs but what catches his attention is that she seems somewhat different, older and wiser but also even stronger than she was before.
"I thought you've stopped this" she nods at the bottle and then meets his eyes.
"I don't remember promising anything" he states as he brings the bottle to his lips "Plus, today we celebrate" he's drunk, his voice sounds funny even in his own ears "Apparently the earth is ready to start healing again."
"Too bad you aren't" her words make his breath hitch and he furrows his eyebrows confused at her.
"Tell me, Clarke" he swallows hard and takes her in as she is before him "Has the world gone mad" she looks up and meets his tired eyes "or is it me?"
"You're not mad, Bellamy" she says after swallowing hard "You're just broken." he looks at her curiously as if she holds the answers to all his problems right now "And I'm sorry that I am the one to do this to you yet again."
"You didn't!" he hurries to reassure her and curses himself mentally when he sees a single tear roll down her cheek. He reaches out to her, his bruised hand ending on her forearm, squeezing it tightly "This is not your fault. I just... I just wished I could see you again."
"Maybe you will" she responds with a light smile and he returns it, just because he can't handle seeing her sad.
"Yeah, maybe" he says clearing his throat" But for now...can you stay a little bit more?" he asks of her, knowing that these dreams...hallucinations whatever it was, didn't actually last as much as he wanted him to.
She nods and lets him pull her by his side, his arm closes around her shoulders and he pulls her to his body. He feels her head lean on his chest and they both stare at the ashen grey Earth.
"Still kind of beautiful, don't you think?" she asks after a while as he rubs his hand up and down her arm, fulfilling some fake desire to keep her warm even though she wasn't even real.
"I can think of a few stuff that are better" he jokes and she slaps his chest playfully earning a genuine laugh out of him "Sure, Clarke" he adds in a second because he just refuses to fight her anymore"whatever you say. "
She hums in approval and closes his eyes while he remains like this completely engrossed in the simple action of watching her sleep in his arms until he feels himself get too tired for his own good and he finally closes his eyes.
He wakes up in the late afternoon the next day and the first thing he sees is the dark grey earth greeting him from the window bay.
He's not sad this time, though, he just smiles and his hand touches the glass again, thinking how she was actually right-it was really beautiful.
"I'll see you soon, Clarke" he mumbles quietly to himself before he gets back up on his feet and heads to the common room so he can wake the others.
There were still quite some work to be done before they got back home and he was nowhere near ready.