AN: Posted on AO3 a few months ago. Thought I'd post it here for them people who don't venture there. :)

It's been five hours since their return. He has catalogued the new electric wiring system surrounding the camp, the one possible entrance and exit, some of the rooms' functions including the work assignments – something that has become natural to him after landing on Earth some month ago.

He doesn't flinch at a dead body anymore, does not fear his own demise. Not anymore. His fears have morphed into something he's never thought he'd fear until then. The death of the people he cares most about. So when Clarke Griffin ran from all the way back there to where he and his sister are to wrap her arms around his neck, almost toppling both of them over with the force of her momentum, her face buried at the crook of his neck, a smile pressed against the skin there, her breath warm on his back – he felt like he's stepped on Earth the first time all over again. The impact of the feeling doubles when he realizes that he had been so desperate to find her, triples when he realizes that he had thought he would never see her again.

So now, he's sitting on his solitary bed, trying to will the pain in his chest away. His heart is beating too fast, it hurts. The pain is dull and feels like elephant feet on his chest, walking on his heart and his lungs and pressing on his ribcage, and there's a sharp pain in the joint between his thigh and his pelvis –

"Are you okay?"

He looks up and his chest becomes more painful when he sees that it's Clarke standing at his doorway. Her eyes are filled with concern, her lips tugged down by a frown (he so desperately wants to make her smile; a frown, even when she wears it so often, does not suit her), her hands are around a bowl, and a threadbare towel is hanging from her arm.

Her hair is now without grime, so is her face. Despite the cuts on her face, the color of her skin has taken a lovely lively turn. She looks stronger, well rested. Good.

He sends her a smirk (he can feel how soft it is around the edges, notices that this is how he usually greets her) and nods at her. "Never better, princess."

The nickname rolls off his tongue smoothly, even when his voice is gruff and coarse.

She steps towards him, her eyes indifferent and skeptical at the same time and – he knows that look. That's the look she uses when she is trying to crack somebody open. Its efficiency has been remarkable.

"Right," she seems to acquiesce, taking more steps so that she is standing in front of him, towering over him as if trying to intimidate. "I noticed… with the sweat on your forehead and your tense shoulders. Never better."

His shoulders sag with a big huff, his façade dropping. "Okay, what do you want me to say? That I don't feel well?"

He watches as her lips tug up at the corners, her eyes softening, a sigh escaping her as an exhale (there's a subtle frailty in her gaze, something that would have been lost to anybody, if they weren't looking hard enough). He would not mind seeing her smile like that for the rest of his living days.

"See?" she says, taking a seat next to him on the mattress. "That wasn't so hard, was it? Acceptance is part of the healing process."

He scoffs at her, and it seems to make her smile widen, so he takes it as a victory, however small it is.

"Come on, Bellamy, how are you feeling?" she prods as she dampens the towel on the bowl of water in between them. She raises it to his face, pauses and looks at him with so much earnestness that he feels like he doesn't deserve to be around her.

"Bad," he jokes, and when she shoots him another glare, he crumbles. "Feels like there's a slab of bricks tied to my chest, my left thigh hurts like a bitch, and the cuts sting. Happy now, princess?"

"Must have been the ropes," she explains, her eyes averting, jumping from his forehead to his cheek, but never to his eyes. "The muscles were shocked, you might have sprained something."

She presses the towel to his face, her touch gentle against his skin as she tries to wipe around the cuts. He nods with understanding, and he could feel just how careful she is with him, feels the shift in the air just as much as he felt the way her shoulders tense with an invisible weight. He catches her wrist in his hand just as she was wiping at his jaw, her gaze snapping to his, her eyes fluttering in response.

"Hey," he says, his voice quiet and soft. "I'm not gonna break."

He watches her face, watches as her lower lip trembles, her eyes water (his chest hurts again, but this is a different kind of hurt, this is a pang – a stake to his heart). She's crying –

"Hey, Clarke," he says, letting go of her wrist, his hand clutching at her arm, to steady himself or her, he doesn't know. "Hey, it's okay, it's alright. Everything's gonna be fine."

"I thought you were dead," she whispers, her tears staining her cheeks. "I-I thought I killed you – I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Bellamy –

He steadies her, his palms on her cheeks so that she is looking directly at him. His thumbs catch the tears falling, wipes at them gently, and her breathing evens. "It's okay," he tells her, and he wants more words to tell her that she's the bravest person he's ever known for doing it, but there's only so much he can say. "You did what you had to do."

She hears him, he knows she did, because she lifts her gaze to his, her eyes staring right into his soul. His heart is beating painfully in his chest once more. "If I were there, would you have done the same?"

There's silence where the only thing he can hear is the pounding of his heart (traitorous, loud, painful) and her steady breathing. He hasn't let go of her face yet, and he can feel her breath against his cheek. Her eyes hold his, so steady that a lie will never get through. So he does what he knows is best. He tells her the truth.

"No."

More tears fall from her eyes.

"I would have made Miller do it," he says. "I would have gone out to get you. I would have damned it all to hell if it means a chance to save you –

"Why?" is her weak question.

He smiles at her, his thumb tracing her trembling bottom lip (if this is all he could have, he would have it – God only knows what's going on between her and Finn, and her mother and her, and Mount Weather).

"I've learned a little while ago that if there's something I would go down fighting for, it's the people I care about."

Her brows furrow, her lips purse, and her eyes widen. "You care about me?"

"I didn't stutter, did I, princess?"

She laughs, an honest to goodness laugh, and if it's just short-lived, her leaning her forehead on his collarbone makes up for it. The warmth of her breath against his shirt, seeping through to his skin, the light shaking as she tries to rein her tears in, and her hand on his waist make everything feel less heavy, even for just a moment.

She scoffs (later he will tease her about how un-ladylike that sound is) and lifts her forehead from his chest (he vaguely recognizes the absence of the weight on his chest), her eyes gleaming and smiling and he wants to kiss her so badly. The thought surprises him (but he's got to admit, it's not the first time it has fleeted across his mind), but instead of acting upon the urge to haul her against him, he lets her wipe the remaining dirt from his face and his neck, and while her hand is careful against his cheekbones, he remains unmoving.

He doesn't know why she is doing this, or why he's letting her, when they both know he's more than capable of taking care of himself. But for once, it feels good to be the one taken care of.

The hand on his chest, the one she uses to anchor herself against him, is not lost on him. The thigh pressed against his own is also searing through his skin. Her breath fanning across his face, her eyes jumping to every skin and crevice.

He doesn't realize she's done until the heat of her hands leave him, the absence reeling his thoughts. She finishes with a soft 'there', and bites her bottom lip as she rinses the towel in the bowl of water.

"Clarke," he says, and he doesn't know why but he wants those blue eyes back on his. He wants to see her smile one more time. She looks up at him, expectantly. "Thank you."

It serves its purpose, makes her smile that shy little smile as if she could not help it. And he is so overwhelmed, so full of heat from his chest, that he just kisses her.

He just kisses her.

He puts his hand at the back of her head, pulls her against him, and kisses her. She stiffens, and for a moment he thinks maybe it's a mistake, but she sighs against his lips and opens up to him, and he couldn't help the grin he presses against her mouth.

Her hand comes up and threads through his hair, the other's fingertips careful against his jaw. She kisses back with underlying desperation he didn't know was there until right now, so he gives and gives until he's out of breath, until they're pulling away, until she is resting her forehead against his.

His breathing is ragged, and so is hers, but when he opens his eyes, she is grinning at him.

"Is that how you thank people?" she asks, and even when her voice is rough, she manages to wrench out a huge smile from him.

"No," he replies, his own laugh exiting his lungs naturally. "But I'm starting to like this habit."

"You should do this more often."

"Yeah?"

"Mm."

AN: Tell me what ya think! :)