Bellamy wonders where her tiara is the first time he sees her.
Clarke's hair is woven with gold, eyes encrusted with sapphires, fangs glistening like pearls, and her forked regal tongue has already issued its first order: "STOP!"
She is royalty, clearly. A princess. Cast off to this planet with the Galactic Proletariat.
"The air could be toxic," she warns.
More toxic, Bellamy wonders, than the Ark? The Ark and its serpent council and venom rules, dividing the people and swallowing the mice classes whole? The air could be toxic, she says. He doubts she knows what toxic is.
So Bellamy is only slightly relieved when he opens the dropship door and Clarke does not get to find out; when they step onto the ground – the first human beings to do so in almost a century – and they breathe fresh air and tingle with the breeze and listen to the leaves crunch beneath their feet.
Okay, he's more than slightly relieved.
They are here. They are on Earth. They made it.
Still, there is a gnawing in his chest when he sees the princess has not burned to a crisp, that her skin has not sizzled and bubbled and melted beneath the sun; that, instead, the day's rays are beaming straight down on her, setting her braid ablaze with color. Now he can almost see the tiara – or is it a crown? – rising straight from the top of her head.
And when Clarke makes her first speech not even an hour on the ground, insisting it does not matter who is in charge but who is taking charge, Bellamy has already prepared the guillotine.
He will not let her mini monarchy, her makeshift delinquent Bourgeois, take a bite out of him. Not this time. Not again. And if she sinks those viper teeth into his flesh, sends poison coursing through his veins, he will suck it out and he will spit it back at her and he will kill her.
He's done it before.
He'll do it again if he has to.
"Looking to you, Princess."
It's the last time Bellamy uses the nickname. The nickname, born of derision and resentment. Christened on Octavia's sneer and passed to Finn for a flirt, salvaged from the ground by Murphy and held tightly in Bellamy's grasp since then. Because calling her Clarke meant something. Calling her Clarke meant letting go of his preconceived notions, his will to believe they would never quite be equals. Calling her Clarke meant they were.
But now his grip has loosened so greatly he does not even notice the nickname fall to the dirt.
By birth, Clarke is no greater than he is, than anyone is. Divine Intervention via Gods of the Ark did not grant her privilege, nor did it force poverty upon him. Because, despite where they started, they are both deserted on a strange planet now, fighting for their lives and the lives of their people – together.
So when bullets miss him by a hair, swords slice the air thin around him, a Grounder's fist knocks him breathless, Bellamy prays Clarke – Clarke, who has always called Bellamy by his first name – will not wait for him so she can burn their patchwork kingdom to the ground. He prays her level head will outweigh her heavy heart.
And when the dropship door closes – the door Bellamy opened so quickly, carelessly weeks ago – he knows it has.
Crows circle above them, flapping weighty black wings, cawing, taunting.
Bellamy, Monroe, Finn, Murphy: they managed to save someone today – Mel from Factory – but at the cost of another's life – Sterling's life. Which seems to be the way things work on the ground, Bellamy muses. You save a life, you spare a life. Death is not only a constant companion but a crafty player as well. Just once Bellamy wishes he could beat The Reaper at his game.
The squawks of the crows, their calls for bereavement, fade away when what's left of their rescue crew walk through the gates of Camp Jaha. It's as though here, behind these walls, loss cannot catch them, death cannot follow. Behind these walls, they are permitted the illusion of safety – of life.
The trill of another bird, a bluebird, greets Bellamy's ears here. It dares him to be relieved. Relieved Octavia is alive, relieved Mel is alive, relieved he is alive. But there are still 48 people he's holding his breath for. 47 people plus her: Clarke. Clarke, who he simply refuses to breathe without.
And he still refuses to when they collide. When she runs to him, crashes into him, throws her limp arms around his neck and holds on for all she's worth. Bellamy does not register the sudden intrusion of space immediately; doesn't allow himself to believe that the wings of his heart are fluttering because it's Clarke, that the birdsong in his ear is Clarke, that he can breathe – he can breathe – because Clarke. And when he does, finally, his arms wrap around her, crush her to him, and he doesn't hear the bluebirds because he's too busy listening to the noise of his heart singing.
Clarke was not born with a crown fixed on her head. Bellamy knows that now. She forged her role from blood, from sweat, from tears, mud, trees, bullets, and moonshine. And she shared it with him. She snapped her thorny crown in two and stabbed it into his scalp. But the crimson that soaks their hair is not their own. Blood from the ground blinds them; blood from the mountain clogs their noses; blood from the sky drips onto their tongues, and what they have done to save their people stains their skin sanguine.
For Clarke, Bellamy wears it. He does not shy away from their crimes. He does not pretend he is anything less than a monster who drowned a radio and started a culling, who whipped loyalty into the man his sister loves, who strangled a father with his deadly, calloused grip. Who placed his hand atop Clarke's and pulled the lever.
Bellamy cannot forgive himself for that. For any of it. He never can, he never will. And Clarke has already graced him with all the mercy she possessed, has expelled it from herself, so when he pleads with her to stay, reminds her they need her, assures her they can do this together, hands her back her absolution wrapped inside his bleeding heart... she takes it, holds it to her mouth, and returns it to his cheek for safekeeping with a kiss.
"May we meet again," she promises.
They pull away from each other, both fractions of their crown now digging, pricking into his hands. Bellamy cannot bring himself to watch the other half of himself walk away.
In peace, may you leave the shore. In love, may you find the next. Safe passage on your travels until our final journey to the ground –
"May we meet again."