A/N: Hey guys, let me preface this by saying that I am absolutely a Bellarke girl through and through, but last night's midseason finale gave me a lot of feels and reminded me how much I liked Finn in the beginning. I just sort of had to get this out (and shout-out to my beta reader S.B. who encouraged me to post), and it's just a quick one-shot. If you like Bellarke, check out my other fic "Entropy."

Disclaimer: I don't own The 100 or its characters.

Warning: Spoilers for the midseason finale "Spacewalker."

The End's Beginning

When you first meet him, you think he's irresponsible, irritating. Incorrigible, for lack of a better word. He's trying to impress you, trying to show off, and you don't know why he's picked you, but you're over it almost instantly, and you demand that he take a seat, that he back off. And because of his irresponsibility, two others are affected, lost in the sea of ignorant and heady teens that wind up in that godforsaken place you now have to call a home.

You're alone here. You never really belonged, but you think about the best way to survive, to thrive, and you know that you have to be an adult if nobody else will be. You need to get food. You need to make sure there's sustenance. The human body can only live for three days without water, and a little over a week without food. You know this because you know the human body. You're a medic, or a medic-in-training, or you were before you were arrested for some crime they call treason when you were really only privy to a secret that they wanted forgotten. You shake your head. It doesn't really matter now what you were; all that matters is what you are, and what you have to be to live.

So you decide to go on a journey to get provisions, and then he comes with you. Another girl tells you to stay away, he's going to be hers, and you're more than happy to let her at him. After all, you never cared much for him or his silly nicknames, which annoyingly seem to be catching on.

You learn a lot on that trip. You don't really want to like him, but his smile is infectious. For some reason, he's got eyes for you, and when he slips you a flower, you don't want to grin, but you feel the corners of your mouth tilting up anyway. You try to remind yourself of his more infuriating traits, but those seem to be evolving too into things that might make him a good person.

And do you really want him to be a good person? You could use allies here, after all, and everyone else thinks you're some spoiled upper class brat who always does what she's told.

Later, when one of your people needs help, he doesn't want to go at first. You're dealing with yet another asshole, only this one is charismatic as Hell and already has a following. Whatever the Hell we want, they chant, and you can't help but curse the whole batch of idiots. But they're the only family you have here, and someone has to be responsible. And that's just it, isn't it? It's in your nature to be the mom of the pack, the leader of the bunch.

He doesn't want to come on the rescue mission, and you tell him that your quarry once looked up to him. He should be ashamed. Minutes later, when you're already being bullied, he suddenly shows up, seeming a lot more like a hero than a nuisance. After that, he stays by your side, and you start to admire that carefree attitude, that disarming smile. He used to make you grind your teeth, but now he makes your eyes shine. You start to care.

You start to care too much. You start to fall too hard. And one day when he's upset – and you understand, because you're upset too – you tell him that he's not alone, and that you're there for him, and then it happens. You sleep together, and it's not just for the comfort of another body. It's for comfort from him, and comfort for him. And you start to think that there might be a reason you've wound up together here in the first place.

Only to have that tragically cut short when his girlfriend arrives. And she's so beautiful, and so secure. She's everything every woman wants to be, and she has history with him. And maybe you were just another notch on his bedpost.

She starts to suspect, and he tries to talk to you, but you're not having it. And then the unthinkable happens, and he's hurt. He's hurt bad, and here you are working hand-in-hand with his girlfriend to save him. And miraculously, you do save him, but when she stays there, monitoring him as he sleeps, your heart breaks a little more, until you're not sure if it was really whole to begin with.

It gets messy. He's persistent. He thinks you've started something, and you assure him that no, nothing has started, and his girlfriend would surely not appreciate this. But she's smart. She can tell it's over. And he confesses that he loves, but it's too late. He's hurt you too much.

Throughout it all, you don't know how you feel. Your heart was broken when you came down here, and now it's broken again, and you're too busy shouldering the responsibility of the world to even stop and assess how you really feel. And then you're separated. You find yourself in a tricky situation, your friends lulled into comfort, but you have to escape, and you flee. You manage to find some old friends, but he's not there. He's out looking for you, they say. He went to find you.

You finally find him, but he's not the same. He's changed. He's an extreme version of himself, driven to something almost crazy in your absence. And when he looks at you with those wild eyes, you take a step back, because this side of him scares you.

There are consequences to what he's done. Everyone has to face the music when the time comes, and he knows that it's his time now. But you refuse to believe it. But deep down, he's always been a good guy, an idealistic guy, and he knows when sacrifice is righteous versus when it's necessary. And it's necessary now.

But before they can pull the trigger, you have one last minute to make it right. And you kiss him, and tell him that you return his love even though your own heart is too shattered to even know how it feels, and you mercifully end him before he can feel any more pain.

And you wonder how you got here. How you started to fall for him, and did you ever start to love him? Did you ever stop? And you wonder how he's the only who saw you when you were just a privileged princess to everyone else, incurably sad and alone. And you know nothing will ever be the same again.