Chapter 1:

Under the impression that the semi-artistic gray walls in the Skybox previously housed all my fears and sobs would also hold the longest night of my life, I pushed on vehemently. It wasn't until the clammy sweat broke across his forehead and the blood soaked rags filled the upper level of the drop ship that I realized this was actually the longest night of my entire life. Before, I believed it to be the night my father was floated and I was arrested for treason, the first night without the comfort of my own bed or a parent to try to console my grief…

His throaty groan caused me to focus once more on him. The thin scratches that ran down his arms were illuminated under the small artificial light and the sweat that covered his skin glistened. I compared my pale hand to his tan skin as I pushed him back down to a flat position. "You need your rest." My tone was serious but I could tell he was ignoring everything I told him by the flicker in his brown eyes. "Your stitches will tear if you move."

"Face it, princess." It was the weakest I'd ever heard him sound and it scared me. We'd fought for everything down here and it sounded like he was giving up—he was giving up. "I'm dying. I've been poisoned and there's nothing you can do about it."

"Octavia—"

"Octavia won't make it back in time." Bellamy said with a dismissive hand, "It's over. If I wasn't laying on my death bed right now, I might kill you for sending her out there alone." He choked, something rising from his chest to his palm as he jerked his body forward. He looked down at his hand and tightened his fist before I could see it but the crimson stain on his lips told me what he was hiding.

"Lincoln—"

"Oh, so it's Lincoln now?"

"Will you let me say more than one word?" I asked, annoyed not because he was talking too much—I figured as long as he was talking, he was alive—but because there wasn't anything I could do for him. I'd stitched up the cut across his back with sublime evenness, although I guess my own personal accomplishments weren't important. "You aren't allowed to die."

"You don't tell me what to do." He was all the more stubborn while he was slowly decaying from his normally cheeky and overconfident self. "Just to prove that—I'm going to die so when people ask, tell them it was because you told me not to and I had to be true to thy self until the end. They'll laugh about it…but you probably shouldn't lead with that joke. They might not appreciate it at first."

I watched his face rise and fall as he accepted and declined his looming death, "You're nattering." I commented, willing him to change the subject. I wasn't in the mood to deal with his unwelcomed jokes and remarks. Who decides to develop a sense of humor when they're dying?

"Standardized test word of the week, everyone…" Bellamy mumbled, wincing while he straightened up to talk to me as an equal rather than a dying man hunched over before the person he competed with daily. "I've got one for you—mawkish. You, princess, are being extremely mawkish."

"I'm not being sentimental." I said, "You're the one writing your own funeral jokes—I didn't even know you could be funny. I barely know you…" He went into another coughing fit and I gripped his shoulder to keep him balanced out of shear habit. My heart jumped with each guttural sound that broke free from his tight lips. He ejected a hard pant when his coughing ceased.

"You have to take care of her, Clarke." I could barely handle his weak whisper. The sound of it was too final and I knew if he felt like he was going to recover, he would disguise it with one of his rough, deep tones. "Promise me you'll take care of Octavia?"

Bellamy couldn't die. There were so many things that I needed him for and there were so many people that wouldn't follow me. Bellamy was their voice. He probably didn't contain all of the knowledge in the world but he was smart and he was the one I needed to keep the entire camp alive. No one could shoot like him—no one could get things done like him. I'd said the same things to the Chancellor before Bellamy's life was pardoned although I didn't go into detail. I couldn't name another person that could help me run the camp successfully in the way Bellamy had.

"No need in crying, princess…" He said softly and I shook my head back and forth, biting my lip hard. If he saw me cry, he would really give up. I needed him to fight it. I needed him to be as stubborn as ever about living.

I wiped a stray droplet from my cheek and said, "I need you, Bellamy."

"You don't need anyone, Clarke. You've made that obvious."

"That's not true and you know it." I argued, "I've always recognized when I need someone, and dammit I need you to stay alive. Have you forgotten that already?"

"It's not like I have much of a choice." He said, "It's not like I want to die, Clarke. There wasn't a fucking death option when everyone got on that ship—"

"No one had the option to get on the ship."

"I did." He said, "I had a choice and I made it. This is the consequence of my choice." I placed my thumb on the corner of his mouth, smearing the blood away from his lip. "For two days I was a free man, you know? I wasn't carrying someone's secret, I wasn't mopping floors for my own, and I wasn't sentenced to death for my actions."

It felt longer than two days…

He placed a hand over my own before I pulled away from him. His fingers rubbed across the top of his hand while his ailing thumb pressed into my palm. He managed a smirk, "Ignorant to believe I had more time…right? Could have lived every day like it was my last instead of making sure it wasn't. Should have seen the spear coming for me…"

For a second, all I saw was the color orange as my eyes closed tightly against the gleam of light shining on us. I felt his fingers digging in my scalp and trailing down my head to the end pieces of my hair. I felt our breath mingling heatedly with my own as we said our own twisted version of goodbye. I'd never considered having feelings for Bellamy until all I could feel was Bellamy.

We broke at the sound of someone climbing up the ladder and I found myself hurriedly standing up and walking away from him. "I got it." Octavia said, "Not going to die today, jackass."