A/N: This was my Bellarke Secret Santa gift for the awesome shhadowhunter on tumblr. Now I get to share it with everyone else! :)

"Skaikru."

Josa, the leader of the Grounder camp Clarke's just marched into doesn't sound fearful or apprehensive; just curious. He leans back in his chair, watching Clarke stare defiantly back at him.

He doesn't seem at all bothered by the fact that Clarke is pointing a gun at him in his own tent. The guard around them are tensed, ready for action, but Clarke has planned for that.

"My guard told me some interesting things," Josa says, thoughtfully stroking his beard. He looks like the average grounder, draped in furs and with a large bushy beard, tattoos on the sides of his face and crawling into his hairline. "They say they found you on the perimeter, demanding to be taken to me or that you would destroy our village. Something about a bomb planted in the camp."

Clarke silently thanks every deity she can think of for the gift that is Raven Reyes, and mockingly waves the remote control box in her other hand. Her response is cold and brief. "That is correct."

He leans forward, steepling his fingers and eyes flickering to the remote control and back. "Well, rest assured that you have my full attention now. What is it that the Skaikru wants?"

"It's not about my people," Clarke says, because she knows this plan of hers is stupid and bull-headed, but she in no way wants her careless actions to cause repercussions for the other Arkers. This is all her. "It's about the man you hold in captive here. Bellamy Blake." She watches for his reaction.

He gives her none, except for leaning back slightly. There's a cold glint in his eye. "I don't know what you're—"

"Liar!" Clarke explodes, betraying her temper rising internally, and she flicks the safety off. The cold clicking sound causes the entire room to go still. "You have him. Don't lie. I've been watching."

He studies her, sees the certainty in her eyes. "He's dead."

Clarke moves the gun away from Josa's chest and shoots one of his guards in the leg. He goes down with a yelp, and everyone in the room jumps. When the other guards start toward her, she raises the remote control again, a reminder of what they have to lose "I said don't lie to me!" She can't help her voice from shaking a little bit, try as she might to sound strong. She can't even imagine a world where Bellamy isn't.

He looks calculating. "You'll destroy this camp, with you in it?"

Clarke almost laughs, and it sounds a little unhinged even to her. He doubts? He doubts her? In her peripheral vision she sees two of the uninjured guards exchange wary looks. "You think I won't?" Josa is silent, and she continues, her gun pointed right back at his chest again. "I am Clarke of the Sky people. I've killed hundreds upon hundreds of men, women and children, most of whom were innocents. And that was only at the beginning. I get what I want, Josa. Or we all pay." Her voice is strong, sure of itself moreso than Clarke feels.

"And what you want is Bellamy," Josa surmises quietly. "This man, he is something to you."

Her grip on the control in her hand stiffens. "He's something to my people, and therefore he is something to me," she lies.

"If he's so precious to your people, you wouldn't be walking in here alone," Josa observes.

Her heart leaps, because he's unfortunately right. She tried to get back-up, tried to appeal to the rest of the council to start a search mission for Bellamy. She'd been unsuccessful. The council deemed it an unworthy cause. They were too stretched thin, so Bellamy had to wait.

That's what they said, but what she heard was, We're abandoning him. And she is never doing that again.

"Who says I'm alone?" Clarke says breezily instead. "Now take me to him."

They're locked in a battle of stares for a few wild moments, where Clarke thinks he might call her bluff, but then his gaze shifts to his guards, barking something in a language she still hasn't quite gotten the hang of. At his command, the two men lift up their injured comrade gently and carry him out of the tent. She hears voices outside, and then the tent flap opens again and two more Grounders walk in with Bellamy.

She's taken a step forward before she knows it, her mouth already stretching into "Bell…" before she stops herself and squares her shoulders again. She's too aware of Josa watching her closely, and she's given up too much information about their relationship already.

The guards don't drag Bellamy like a dead man; rather, they've each hooked one of their arms under one of Bellamy's and are towing him in backwards, so that the first glimpse she sees of him is the back of his bloodstained guardsman jacket, the bare heels of his feet dragging in the dirt, his head lolling forward to his chest—

"What did you do to him?" she snarls, wheeling back to Josa momentarily. He looks startlingly calm in the face of her anger, and she knows how angry she looks. She's made much more formidable leaders pale with the fierce glare she's giving him now. "Let him go!"

They do, unceremoniously. She whips back around to see them drop him to the ground. He falls on his back, and now she sees his pale skin, the bruises on his face, the blood trickling from beneath the thick curly mop of his hair. His eyes are closed and he's slack-jawed— They've knocked him out.

Her expression must change, possibly even more murderous than before. One of the guards, a woman, who was holding Bellamy up speaks instead. "When we brought him out from the prison, he struggled. It was much easier this way for him."

"Comforting," she snarls, and swiftly bends down to press her fingers to his throat, not taking her eyes off the guards for an instant. She doesn't trust any of them. She feels the steady beat of his pulse under the clammy skin, and lets out a quiet breath that feels like it's been hovering in her chest for days. She straightens up again.

"You should be proud," says the other guard, in a deep voice. "Your warrior, he is strong like an ox."

"He's not my warrior," Clarke spits, because it shouldn't matter to her what these people think of him but it does. Strong like an ox? Like her workhorse? It angers her. "He's my equal." He's her friend. Her confidante. Her co-leader.

He's everything.

"I think Clarke here is strong like an ox, too," Josa says in amusement from behind her. "Or perhaps just as stubborn." Clarke glares at him. "Don't worry, Skai girl. We know just how important he is. Why do you think we didn't kill him?"

Clarke's had enough. She's been here too long, and the longer that she stands here in this tent with all eyes on a little box clutched in her hand the more she thinks they're planning something. "Wake him up," she orders. "And let us walk out of here."

Josa nods to someone, and they disappear and come back with a large pail of water. Unceremoniously, they dump the whole thing on Bellamy's head. Clarke winces, but whatever.

He wakes with a gasp, shooting up into a sitting position immediately and struggling to stand.

"Bellamy," Clarke says shortly from behind him, no explanation following the utterance. They don't have time for subtlety.

He freezes and turns his head. Their eyes connect, and there's a strange sort of swooping sensation in Clarke's chest. A myriad of emotion crosses over his face; Clarke thinks she catches relief, panic, exasperation amongst them. "Cl— "

She gives him a meaningful look. And like always, their communication is just as strong non-verbally, and he falls silent. He looks like he's in pain, the way his face twists when he stands up.

Her mouth tightens into a line, and she turns to the watchful audience.

"We are walking out of here. Don't even think about following," she hisses, and after a pause, Josa nods and the Grounders part to let them back out of the tent. She challenges Josa's flat stare until the tent flap falls closed behind them.

The villagers are outside watching them go. It's too silent. Clarke almost can't believe this stupid plan is working. Her hands clench around the remote control and the gun she's holding in separate hands.

Then his fingers brush against hers holding the gun, and it's soothing. The trembling slows. She looks at him briefly, to see him nod at her reassuringly as if he isn't the one in pain.

They walk shoulder to shoulder towards the woods. It's silent, and the villagers watch them pass. Clarke barely catalogues their faces. Young, old, men, women watching fearfully from the sidelines. It reminds her painfully of TonDC. The only sound she can hear is their own footsteps, hers heavy in her boots and his light and uneven with his bare feet and injuries he isn't disclosing. When they reach the treeline, she turns back and raises the remote control high before disappearing with Bellamy into the underbrush.

It's a minute of walking before he speaks, breathing shallowly as if he's run a mile. "They'll find the bomb, you know."

She should've known he would deduce what was happening. "No, they won't. There wasn't one."

He turns to look at her but she doesn't meet his eyes; she's too focused walking away. And then he laughs. It's not really a joyous laugh, but her own lips are slowly pulling into a smile anyway.

He's still chuckling when he simply collapses to the ground.

She stops and kneels immediately. He's fallen to his knees but they've only been walking a minute or two in the woods. "Bellamy?" Her voice sounds too panicked and her hands are gentle, skimming over his arms and legs, looking for something, a sign of why he's now struggling to pull himself up. "Bellamy, get up."

"That's the idea, princess," he mutters, and then he lets out a strangled groan of pain when her hand touches his ankle. She glances that way, and is shocked to see his ankle swollen and slightly out of place.

"Bellamy, your ankle!"

He looks down and his lips twist into a grimace. "Yeah. It's broken, I think."

She's so outraged she can hardly speak. "They broke your—?"

"I tried to escape once. Twice," he amends. Clarke stares at him. "Six times, alright? Can we get a move on?"

She ignores him for a moment to push up his pant leg and examine it further. It's swollen to hell, the bone broken in at least one place and she doesn't have the supplies she needs to fix it or even examine it further. "How on earth did you walk out of that camp on two feet?"

"I'm a stubborn son of a bitch," he mutters grimly. "Help me up. We need to put as much distance between us and them as we can."

"You can't walk like that," Clarke protests, the doctor part of her taking over. And she knows, although he's not telling, that the ankle is probably only one of his injuries that he'll never tell her. She can see the blood staining his shirt, the way he winces when he bends at the waist. But she doesn't comment just now. "I have to— I have to bind it somehow."

He fixes her with a look, and she knows what he's thinking. Time is of the essence in this delicate situation. She sighs, relenting to his logic, and offers him her hand. He takes it, and together they haul him up. He's left balancing on one leg now, though. "I— I can't," he huffs with annoyance.

There's a silence before Clarke understands.

"Can't walk by yourself," Clarke echoes. She wraps her arm around his waist under his jacket instead. He's warm like a furnace, as usual— almost too hot. She decides not to think about that at this moment. "Here. Put your arm around my shoulders. We'll walk together."

His eyes close briefly and he looks humiliated for a moment. Clarke knows he'd rather do everything himself, do everything for anyone, rather than let someone do something small for him. It's one of the most endearing and simultaneously infuriating things about him. But then he throws his arm around her shoulders, and she staggers under their combined weight.

"This isn't working," he says after a few teetered steps together. "Maybe you sh—"

"Shut up," she snaps at him, tightening her grip around his middle. Her knees are shaking just trying to keep him upright. "We'll go slow if we have to, alright? You shouldn't walk on that ankle. You've already made it worse."

They make it a bit further in the darkness— there's a silence between them for a few minutes, where the only sounds are branches crunching underfoot and the sound of their own laboured breathing. Camp isn't that far away, Clarke thinks desperately. They can make it. And is it just her, or is Bellamy getting heavier by the minute?

That's when they hear shouts in the distance behind them.

They both freeze and turn their heads. To Clarke's horror, she sees faint lights— lanterns? — in the distance behind them.

"They're looking for us," she realizes, and then looks down at her remote. "They figured out I was bluffing."

"Or they know that by now you'd be out of range to activate a bomb with that thing," Bellamy says with a cough.

Clarke stares, heart in her throat a moment longer, before turning back to the darkness in front of them. "Let's go," she says briskly, pulling him along now at a more urgent pace. Maybe if they just keep to the shadows...

"I think you might have started a war," he says, wincing and struggling to keep up.

She glances behind her, seeing the dim lights of torches following them in the distance. "I don't care."

"Dammit, Clarke!" he explodes at her, and now he stops in his tracks,but Clarke tugs on his arm and he falls back into step with a pained groan. "We were at peace with these people."

He says this as if it would have lasted forever, had Clarke let him die. But both he and Clarke know better. Peace is not a stable state of things; it is fragile. It's a tipping point, a bated breath; a punctuation point between wars with the outside or from within. It's always only a matter of time. They both have learned this.

But all she says is, "And taking you was an act of war. They've been playing at peace but really they've been looking for a weak point to strike at."

He fixes her with a look. "And did they find one?"

His words hang in the air with a special significance. She knows what he's really asking, what they always have left unsaid: Both Bellamy and Clarke's best and worst kept secret is the depth of their feelings for one another.

She returns his cold gaze. "No." It's a lie— Bellamy, she thinks, may be her biggest weakness of all.

He exhales shakily and looks back at the ground. She thinks he's going to leave it alone, but then he goes, "This was the most idiotic plan you've ever had, Clarke. Walking into a Grounder camp alone with no back-up? What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking I need you alive," she hisses. She can hear the volume of the shouts behind them steadily increasing, and her heart rate picks up as well.

He scoffs, but doesn't respond. Clarke finds that surprising, but he's also stumbling a lot more over roots, leaning a lot more heavily on her shoulder, and all the while Clarke can see the glowing lights from the Grounders' torches drawing closer.

She thinks maybe they can make it. As long as they can stay ahead of the Grounders sweeping the woods. They can make it, she knows they can—

"You have to leave me."

She looks sideways sharply to look at him, noticing how rough and scratchy his voice sounds. He's not looking at her so she's treated to the sight of his profile; his lids are heavy over his eyes and his dark curls are plastered to his forehead. His skin gleams with sweat, even in the darkness. And she hates him for his selflessness for a moment.

He's spent nearly his entire life down on Earth trying to atone for the sins he's committed at the very beginning of it. Redemption is an asymptote for Bellamy Blake, and he could get closer and closer but she knows his stupid complex; he never thinks he'll be able to do quite enough until he's given the last thing he has to give.

She stares at him for a long moment, his agitated features, the exhausted tone of voice, and she's angered by the way his body sags against her arm; because hell no he is not allowed to give up now, when he's kept her from giving up so many times before. How dare he try to leave her now?

"I'm not leaving you," she hisses, shaking him and pulling him farther a few steps with a renewed burst of energy. But inside she's quietly wondering, with despair, how the Grounders are following them so closely... He doesn't respond, just staggers with her, and they've not gotten more than a few feet before his knees buckle and he collapses completely with a pained sigh. His dead weight surprises Clarke, and she falls with him.

Their bodies tumble into the mud in the middle of a small, silent clearing, and as she struggles to get up, he doesn't move at all, eyes looking more glazed-eyed by the second.

"Bellamy," Clarke says angrily. They're out in the open here. While she's struggling to stand, he looks right at home lying in the dirt, like he could just fall asleep here. "Get up. Don't give up, you— you—" But she can't find the right insult to hurl at him, the one that will hurt him as much as leaving him will hurt her.

"Leave, Clarke," he says softly, not even looking at her. That angers her even more. "Now."

"No."

"We both know if we keep going like this, they'll take out both of us," he retorts, fixing his gaze back onto hers unwaveringly. "You have to go back to the others."

"I don't want to," she replies, selfishly, crouching at his side. Touching his hair absentmindedly. His forehead is burning up. "Not without you."

"Clarke!" he bursts, and his sudden volume, his fervor make her reel back a bit. "Make the right choice. Get out of here."

They can both hear hooves drawing closer, and now Clarke hangs between indecision and the instinct to run.

"I'll be fine," he says, sensing her wavering. "They're not going to kill me. 'Belomi kom Skaikru'. I'm a fucking commodity." He grins listlessly, but she can't find it in her to smile back. Not when she knows that there's no certainties, no promises left in this broken world of theirs.

There are shouts starting up again in the not-so-far distance now, closer than Clarke originally thought. She rises into a crouch, gaze on the ground.

His eyelids flutter. "My blood." When she looks at him, puzzled, he elaborates. "My leg's been bleeding this whole time. I've practically been leaving them a fucking trail, Clarke." He groans. "God, I'm stupid."

It's too late now to do anything about it. "It's not your fault."

His eyes flash open. He looks a little delirious. "It will be my fault if you die right now."

His voice is stern, but she stays rooted to the spot, conflicted, until he utters, "Please."

Her eyes snap back to his own dark, beseeching ones, and he adds weakly, "They need you to live." His jaw works. "I need you to live."

Such similar statements, but such different meanings implicated in the emphasis. Clarke's breath catches in her throat at the way he looks at her after he says that, like he's spilled some secret between them. She stares at him in shock, lips parting slightly because she understands what he's saying, and how is it fair for him to say it like that when he's asking her to leave him? It's not fair. It's not fucking fair.

But that's what life on the ground is.

She's shocked into action when he grits his teeth and barks, "Go!"

And she finally obeys, taking off. The trees are a blur as she runs as fast as her legs can carry her.

Or maybe that's the tears.

-x-

When the Grounders find him, Bellamy has managed to crawl under a tree, for pathetic refuge or what, he doesn't know. What he does know, when he finally manages to heave his body to the tree trunk, is that Clarke is safe. He is satisfied knowing that.

Then he passes out.

He feels it's only moments later when he's being wrenched back to wakefulness again by a hand pulling him up by the collar of his jacket. He lets them drag him to the center of the clearing, from where he'd expended so much effort trying to get away from, and force him to his knees. Even through his haze of pain, he's dimly aware that his hands are tied behind his back.

Once he's on his knees, a blow to his head throws him back into the dirt. He hears laughter behind him, but he refuses to give them the satisfaction of crying out.

He closes his eyes, not even bothering to lift his head up from the ground. He's too much of a liability to them now, he knows; they're going to end this quickly.

A hand closes on a fistful of his hair, and then he's being forced up to his knees again, head forced back to expose his throat. Now he can see four of the Grounders around him, smiling in a victorious sort of way. One of them unsheathes his sword, slowly. Bellamy makes sure his stony expression stays in place, even as the blade is pressed to the skin of his throat.

They laugh. "You're a brave one, aren't you?" He doesn't say a thing; he won't give them anything. "You might have made a good warrior," the Grounder in front of him says, almost thoughtfully. Bellamy can hardly make out his surroundings right now but he thinks he hears a hint of admiration. "But no matter. To us, you have become an annoyance. And annoyances must be dealt with swiftly." And he raises the sword.

Bellamy closes his eyes. And wishes, suddenly, that he had asked Clarke to take care of his sister. But it's too late for that now.

That's when he hears a gunshot.

His eyes fly open at the same time that the Grounder in front of him makes a choking sound, and his sword falls to the earth in front of Bellamy.

Bellamy and the three other Grounders look up slowly, to see his would-be executioner with a bullet in the center of his forehead.

No one moves for a millisecond, and then they all move at once.

One dives for the sword that's fallen in front of Bellamy; Bellamy sweeps the Grounder's feet out from under him with his good leg so that he trips and falls on the ground. He can hear the Grounder behind him unsheathing her sword. And one more is scanning the treeline, keen eyes searching for something.

There's another gunshot, and the woman behind Bellamy falls with a gasp. Meanwhile, the Grounder who's been searching the trees is drawing a bow and arrow, eyes flashing at something Bellamy can't see.

Bellamy doesn't waste any time; ignoring his ankle, he charges the Grounder headfirst.

It's not his best mode of attack, to be sure; but it's enough that the Grounder stumbles, and that's all he needs to save the life of the shooter. He and the Grounder fall to the ground together.

Bellamy lands roughly on his bad ankle, twisting it, and the sharp pain is so intense he blacks out.

-x-

This time, he wakes up relatively peacefully. There's a hand on his shoulder, gently shaking him, and groaning, he comes back to the world of the living and godawful pain and... Clarke Griffin with her halo of blonde hair, her concerned blue eyes filling his hazy vision.

It clicks together in his mind all at once, from the gun she's tossed to the side to the leaves sticking to her clothes. She'd circled back and hid in the trees. And sniped out a bunch of Grounders. He can see their unmoving forms still lying around them.

Even though she'd clearly ignored his order, he's strangely proud.

"Bellamy?" she asks, voice tentative. "Are you okay to go? I put a splint on your ankle… sort of, anyway…"

Bellamy manages to prop himself up on his elbows to see her handiwork, coughing. It's a strange mix of branches, hastily snapped off trees, keeping the joint rigid and wrapped in torn strips of cloth, the material which he recognizes from her sweater. She's torn off the sleeves.

He finally speaks, voice rough. "I thought I told you to leave me behind."

"I'm never leaving you behind again."

He looks up at her strange tone of voice. Maybe he's just delirious, but she sounds suspiciously close to tears. "Clarke…" he says carefully. She doesn't give him a chance to finish.

"Never," she repeats, blue eyes now hard with resolution, as if she's just realizing this for herself, making a vow. "I left you behind at the dropship to die. I left you behind after Mount Weather to deal with everything." Her eyes are definitely shiny as she says those last words, leaning over him, and the fact that she feels so responsible for those impossible decisions hurts him a little bit. Her voice mounts with emotion as she continues. "I've left you behind so many times but I'm never leaving you behind ever again."

"Clarke," he repeats, but she cuts him off again by pressing her lips to his.

It's totally unexpected. The force of her lips pushes his head back a little bit, so fast that it's clumsy. He's so shocked he doesn't reciprocate at all. Almost as fast as she'd moved forward, she's withdrawing, but he forcibly brings himself out of his shock and chases her, not letting her get too far because hell he's been waiting too goddamn long for this.

They meet back somewhere in the middle. Bellamy gently captures her bottom lip in both of his, and she melts into him. Their lips don't move any more than that for several seconds. They are connected at that one place, breathing what remains of their life and soul into each other, hoping to keep each other anchored. They are completely still. He refuses to move now, to take it further. He will give this to her. He will give her the choice to take it or leave it. In a world that has been full of impossible dilemmas for them, she's always done what she's had to do, but right now she has the opportunity to do what she wants, knowing that he wants it too.

And then she moves, pressing a hand to his chest, curling her fingers into the fabric right above his heart. She tilts her head, parts her lips, and deepens the kiss.

He follows her lead, deliberately slow. He knows her issues too well. Only when her other hand slides into his curly hair and they are suddenly kissing deeply, that he lets one of his own hands tentatively cup her cheek.

The skin there is wet, and while they are still kissing he slowly sweeps his thumb in a wide caress across her cheekbone, wiping that tear away.

She sighs a little into his mouth. He swallows it, that happy Clarke sound, and hopes he can bring it forward in his memories in the future.

And then they part.

Her nose is an inch away from his, and her pupils are blown wide so he can hardly see the blue of her irises but they sparkle with tears and emotion. Her cheeks are flushed, and he thinks his might be too. He feels absolutely wrecked by this simple, innocent kiss, and it's not a feeling he recognizes but it's one that he wouldn't mind getting used to.

"Jesus," he mutters involuntarily. It's not the most articulate or romantic thing he could say in this situation but he's never claimed to be a Casanova.

She smiles a little shyly through tears. "I usually go by Clarke, actually."

He groans, tipping his head back. "Oh, so now you decide to become a comedian." She laughs, and it's a little contagious, as it always is, so he is laughing too, and then he is wincing because his ribs are bruised from being kicked and it hurts like hell.

Clarke notices and immediately tries to lift his shirt to see. He pushes her hands away gently. At her questioning look, he says, "I'll get it looked at when we get back to camp." She accepts that; he's relieved. He doesn't want her to see it.

So Clarke just helps him up. He leans on her heavily, throwing his arm around her shoulders again. This time with the splint makes it a little easier for the both of them to walk. Clarke wavers a little under his weight but eventually stands strong.

And they again begin the slow trek to camp. They don't talk about the kiss. It almost feels, to Bellamy, like it's nothing to talk about. It's just them doing what they've always done for each other— support.

And yes, it's more too. But they've got other things in mind.

It's Clarke who speaks first. "Think we'll get back to camp before the Grounders realize something's wrong and send another group after us?"

He cocks an eyebrow up. "Usually I'm the pessimistic one. Don't worry, we'll make it."

She chews on her lip, looking unconvinced. They walk like that for a long time. She's got her brow furrowed the whole time and he knows she's worrying about something and he hates it. That's Clarke— always worrying about everything, the weight of the world on her shoulders even when she has nothing to do with it. He wants to see her smile again.

"Maybe you are Jesus," Bellamy says as they start up a hill, rolling his neck theatrically. "I think your kiss healed me."

It works. "Oh, shut up." She breaks into a grin. "We both know if it weren't for the fact that you're a stubborn ass, you'd be passed out right now."

"From the kiss."

She laughs again, and it's the most glorious sound in the world, and the most glorious site in the world is the blush rising to her cheeks. He loves it. He wants to see it every day for the rest of his life.

"Thank you," he says, and when she looks quizzically at him he elaborates. "Thank you for coming back for me." As difficult as that feels to say, he feels he needs to say it. She has given him a chance to live another day, to see his sister again and to see Clarke again. Even if he dies tomorrow, it'll have been worth it for this night.

She looks taken aback at his gratitude. "You don't need to— "

"But I am," he replies firmly. And she gets it. She smiles and nods just as they reach the top of the hill.

He looks up first. "Clarke," he breathes, "Look."

She looks up. WIth the starry night sky as a backdrop, they can both see lights in the distance. Camp Jaha. They're almost there. They've made it, against all odds.

"Home," Clarke says in awe, but when he glances down, she's looking at him with a smile on her face.

"Home," he agrees.

And when she looks at him like that, he feels like he finally is.

A/N: Thank you for reading, I really hope you liked it! And if you did, why not leave a review so I can shower you with love and gratitude ;D