Summary: "She's breaking right in front of him, and he doesn't know if he can fix it this time." Bellamy and Clarke (finally) have a conversation. / Post 5x07. Bellarke. One-Shot.

A/N: I wanted this to be done before 5x08 aired, but clearly, that didn't happen. Oh well. At least I completed something for once. Hopefully you enjoy reading it?

Disclaimer: I don't own The 100 or "The Last Time" by Taylor Swift ft. Gary Lightbody (title).

"What would it take for you to share the valley?" Clarke said into the radio.

"Share it?" Diyoza laughed. "Well, let me see. Short of an unconditional surrender, nothing."

Monty looked at Clarke with concern. "Octavia will never surrender."

Clarke had been keeping her eyes on Bellamy during this entire exchange, but now he turned around. He knew what she was about to say, and he wasn't sure he could look at her when she spoke again:

"That's why we're gonna take her out."

Clarke's last words are still ringing in Bellamy's ears, hours later. Monty suggested they all take a break to recoup and come back after some time has passed. Immediately, Clarke left the bunker, and Bellamy didn't have the energy to follow her. He knew it would only lead to confrontation, and he wasn't sure he was ready for that. But now he knows he has no choice; if they want to make any progress on getting to that valley and saving their friends, they need to talk about it.

Outside of the bunker, Bellamy finds Clarke alone in her tent, looking at a picture of something in her lap.

She looks startled to see him come in, but once she realizes who it is, she quickly turns her attention back to the picture. From where he's standing, it looks like a little girl – Madi, most likely, when she was much younger than she is now. It makes Bellamy wonder how this relationship came to be, and how little he knows about the time she spent on Earth without him. A part of him wants to forget why he came here in the first place, and instead sit down and ask her how she's feeling, but he knows now is not the right time for that. Besides, he's not entirely sure if she would tell him the truth, anyway.

A moment passes. He speaks up. "Can we talk?"

She doesn't look up at him, but moves the picture of Madi from her lap and places it on the makeshift bed next to her. "What is there to talk about?"

Everything. What's changed between us. Why you barely even look at me anymore.

Instead he says, "How about everything that's happened in the past couple of hours? Starting with the fact that you think it's a good idea we somehow take out Octavia and surrender to Diyoza instead of saving our friends. And without consulting me about it."

She shakes her head. "It's funny you say that," she says. As she reaches for her pack to pull out a canteen, she continues, "Considering you decided we needed to save our friends first without consulting me."

He sighs. He didn't even realize he'd done that. He's been leading his friends in space for so long without Clarke, he's forgotten what it's like to have her around. He says, "Okay, that's different, and you know it. I'm just trying to save our people –"

"Our people?" she says, cutting him off. Finally, she looks over at him and, meeting his eyes, he's surprised to see how mad she looks. "Last I checked, Raven, Kane, and my mom were just as much as my people as Madi is. And yet you seem to think she's not worthy of our time." She stands and walks toward him, yet keeps her distance. "In case you didn't know this, Bellamy, I'm trying to save our people, too. But unlike you, I want everyone to live, not just our friends."

That crossed a line, and Clarke knows this. Bellamy watches as the anger she held in her eyes falls, and a look of regret replaces it. He may have once felt that way, when all he cared about was keeping his sister safe, but that was years ago, back when they first landed on the ground. Clarke taught him different.

She looks down. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that, I just –"

"I think you did," Bellamy says. "You think I don't care about Madi, or getting to that valley without killing anyone. But you have to know that's not true, Clarke. I don't want a war, either. I don't want to kill anymore. And Madi – she's important to you, I know that. And if she's important to you, she's important to me, too. But we're only gonna be gone for a few days. I'm sure she'll be okay. Indra can look out for her, or –"

But she's shaking her head now, and so he stops speaking. "No. No, that's not enough," she says. "I–I can't leave her here. I can't."

He's struggling to understand her. "Look, I get it. She's family. And as much as I hate to say it, I understand why you don't trust her with Octavia," he says. "But what does Octavia even want with her, anyway? She may be strong, but she's still just a kid. Octavia wouldn't hurt a kid."

Now, Clarke is quiet. Bellamy watches her as she crosses her arms over her chest, keeping her eyes firmly on the ground between them. She's avoiding something, and the longer she stays silent, the more worried he gets. He's afraid he knows what it is, but he needs to hear it from her first.

Quietly, he asks, "What is it you're not telling me, Clarke?"

She takes a breath. Still refusing to look at him as she speaks, she says, "Madi's not just some child I saved with my Nightblood, Bellamy. Her blood isn't synthetic like mine. It's real." She lifts her head. "I found her after two months of living on my own – well, she found me. She was scratched up and bruised and scared as hell, but she was alive. But she didn't survive Praimfaya because of me. She survived because she's a Nightblood – a true Nightblood."

Bellamy is stunned. "And you're afraid Octavia will see her as a threat to her leadership."

Clarke nods.

He shakes his head. "I don't understand. Isn't the flame gone? And Gaia is loyal to Octavia now, why would any of that even matter anymore?"

"I'm not so sure about that," she says.

"Why not?"

She sighs. "When Gaia found out Madi was a real Nightblood, the way she reacted was like she was her old Flamekeeper self again. She may be loyal to Octavia now, but I think her belief in the Commander's rule still stands," she explains. "Besides, Gaia's never been just a believer; she's a fanatic. I wouldn't put it past her to have held onto the flame for all these years."

Bellamy takes a moment to think about this. He reaches up and rubs his forehead in concern. Coming to the ground has given him a lot more than he bargained for.

Finally, he says, "Why didn't you tell me?"

Clarke is confused. "Tell you what?"

"About Madi, what happened with Gaia and Octavia; all of it," he says. "You've barely spoken a word to me since we came back to the ground, Clarke, and whenever you have it's been about some battle strategy, or your concern for someone else. But you haven't told me anything real."

"I – What do you want me to say, Bellamy?" she says. "It's not like we've had any time to talk, anyway. Since you've come back, we've been fighting a war, again. I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to talk when all of this is over."

"Will we?" he asks. "We were on the ground for less than a year when we first came down, and most of that time was spent fighting for our lives. What if –" He stops for a moment, thinking over his next words carefully. He continues, "What if that's all there is for us here? What if what we're doing now is just the next war in a line up of a wars? What if it never ends?" Remembering Jasper's letter from earlier, he adds, "What if the cycle never breaks?"

"What do you think I was trying to do, Bellamy?" Clarke replies. Her voice raises as she speaks. "Why do you think I want to take down Octavia? I know she's your sister, and she's family. I don't want to hurt her. But she's changed a lot in these past six years, and I don't think we can trust her anymore. But if we can remove her as Wonkru's leader, we can surrender to Eligius and go home."

"But why couldn't you have told me that in the first place?" Bellamy asks. He's angry now, and it feels wrong to be angry at Clarke, but he can't help it. He feels like they've been walking in circles, talking around the problem without actually solving anything. He's starting to bend it, but one of them is about to break and he's too involved to worry about how. He continues, "We're supposed to be in this together, Clarke, and instead, you went ahead and made the plan without me. But if you had just sat down with me and talked, maybe we could've come up with something better!"

Clarke snaps. "Because I don't know if I know who you are anymore!" she shouts.

Bellamy is rendered speechless.

"I thought when you finally came back, everything would be the same. I had hoped that things wouldn't have changed. But six years is a long time, Bellamy, and I – I've changed, and you have, too." She looks down, but not before he sees the tears glistening in her eyes. She's breaking right in front of him, and he doesn't know if he can fix it this time.

Without looking up, she continues, "When Eligius captured me, I thought I was as good as dead, and that Madi would be all on her own. But then you came, like a miracle, and saved us. And I can't thank you enough for that." She shakes her head, then looks up to meet his gaze, and he hates the way the shine in her eyes pierces his heart. "But every time you speak, it feels like someone different. The way you lead, the people you care about – I mean, Echo? – you feel like somebody else."

The mention of Echo helps Bellamy find his voice. He didn't think about her being a problem for Clarke. Then again, Clarke doesn't know her like he does. But even then –

"She's changed," he says, but it's feeble at most. He feels like he has to explain himself to Clarke, but for what, he's not sure. It feels like he owes her something, but not this. He never thought about having to explain this.

She turns to the side, lifting a hand to her face to wipe away a tear that slipped out. But then she keeps her arms crossed and her eyes to the side. She won't even look at him, and this just fuels his anger even more. The wall she's built up whenever she's around him has gone on for far too long now, and he's tired of it.

"What did you expect me to do, huh? Spend the entire time up in space hating her?" he shouts. "Do you know how torturous that would've been? To spend six years locked up in an airtight spaceship with someone you hate?"

"Try spending six years without the person you love!" she yells.

This throws Bellamy completely off guard. He can see from her expression that her own words surprised her, too, but it's too late. There's no coming back from them, and she knows it.

Her breath shudders, but she continues speaking. "Do you know that I tried radioing you? Every day for the past six years? 2,199 calls were made, with not a single response." She pauses. "I knew pretty quickly that it was pointless, but I kept at it. Because those radio calls kept me going; they kept me alive. You did that for me."

She throws her arms up in defeat. "And now? Now you're here, and... And I don't know what to say to you anymore. The Bellamy standing in front me is not the same Bellamy that went to space six years ago." She drops her arms to her sides. "But I guess I should've expected that, shouldn't I?"

He doesn't know what to say. A part of him is still processing the fact that Clarke just confessed she once felt something for him – maybe even still does. But another part of him is reeling at the fact that she'd been trying contact him for all those years, and he never knew. Not once did they hear even a slight static in their radios, much less a human voice. Her voice.

It breaks him to know she spent six years trying to talk to him, when all he did was give up any hope that, somehow, she might've lived. He tried his best to move on, but never once did he let her go. He kept her alive in his memory, day in and day out, leading for her, the way she asked of him. He could never forget Clarke Griffin, and how special she was to him, and everyone she knew. But she has no idea about any of it.

She's still looking at him when he meets her gaze, arms crossed and a fire in her eyes. She's waiting for a response from him, maybe some kind of an explanation, but he can only give her one.

Quietly, he says, "I thought you were dead." He takes a breath. "I thought you were dead, Clarke. For six years. And every day, I blamed myself for it. I kept telling myself, over and over again, that I could've done better – no, I should've done better. If I had just waited a little longer, or gone with you to that tower –"

"No, Bellamy –" she starts.

"– things might've been better, and you might've lived."

"You would've died," she whispers. The tears in her eyes are strong now. One slips out and falls down her cheek, but she does nothing to stop it this time. "I survived because of my blood, but if you had stayed, Bellamy –" She stops for a moment. "The radiation would've killed you, and... I never could've lived with that."

He nods. "Maybe," he says. "Maybe not. We'll never know now." He shrugs. "Thinking about what could've been was pointless, anyway, so I did the only thing I could: I changed." He fixes her with a look. "But I changed for you, Clarke. When you told me I that I needed to lead with my head, I took that to heart, and I did it. Because I needed to. Because if I didn't do something to keep your memory alive, then... What was even the point in surviving?"

He feels completely drained now, all his energy used up on this conversation. He only hopes that it was enough to make Clarke understand where he's coming from. Because he's tired of fighting her, tired of the distance that's come between them since he came back. He misses her, his best friend and co-leader through nearly everything Earth tried to throw at them. And for all of that to just disappear because of six years apart? If anyone could've handled a separation like that, he thought it could only be them.

She's starting at him, open-mouthed as if preparing to respond. But after all that's been said, it's clear she's at a loss for words. He's not the same Bellamy that left, no, but she's not the same Clarke that stayed, either. Their only hope now is that they're better people because of it.

He watches as the tears she held back for so long spill over, and she's crying. It's enough to break his heart, and he can feel his eyes starting to tear up, too.

"I'm sorry," she says.

He shakes his head, and quickly closes the distance between them, wrapping his arms tight around her. She buries her head into his shoulder and throws her arms around his waist, gripping the material of his jacket in her hands.

"I'm sorry, too," he whispers. His hand is cupping the back of her neck, and he buries his nose into her shoulder, breathing her in. Comfort has never been an easy thing for Bellamy, but it's always felt natural with Clarke, and he needs that. It's been far too long since he's been able to care for someone in this way, and allow them to care back, too. He imagines that, even with Madi around, Clarke feels a similar way. They need each other, more than he realized, and maybe now they can start getting back to that again.

Slowly, Bellamy breaks the hug, but neither one of them let go of each other. He gently places his hands on the sides of her face, meeting her gaze.

He asks, "Are we okay now?"

She nods. "Yeah," she says, a smile forming on her lips. "We're okay."

He smiles back. "Good," he says. Dropping his hands, he takes a hold of her arms still on his waist and adds, "Now what do you say we go save the human race again? Together?"

She laughs lightly, but nods again in agreement.

"Together."

I never know what to say down here except thank you for reading! Reviews are cool. :)