Note: This is probably very historically inaccurate but I got the prompt on tumblr and I wanted to have a go so I read some wikipedia articles.
January 1905
She sneaks out to see him almost every night. She tells him she's certain the Tsar doesn't know, or she'd be facing very stern consequences. She's lying naked in his bed one night and he traces circles on her back with his thumb.
"I have to say, I never thought, before I came to St Petersburg that I would have a grand duchess in my bed," he whispers.
"You weren't dreaming big enough," she laughs. "Do the others know I'm here?" By the others she means his friends, Miller, Monty and Jasper. They all live under the same roof so it's unlikely they don't know.
"They'll pretend they don't but I'm sure they do," Bellamy tells her. "They think I'm crazy."
"Maybe you are. I know I am. What else would prompt me to sneak out of the palace and into the bed of a rebel every other night?" she asks him light-heartedly.
"Love?" he suggests hopefully.
"And isn't love just craziness?" Clarke smirks.
"You know, sometimes I think that's exactly what love is," Bellamy agrees. "If we're caught I'll be killed," he reminds her.
"Let's not get caught then," she whispers and leans over to kiss him. "Have you written your sister lately?"
"Last week," he replies. "She told me she and the baby are well."
"That's good. I wish you could tell her about me," Clarke sighs.
"I imagine she would die of shock if she found out her poor uneducated brother had somehow managed to convince a princess to sleep with him," Bellamy laughs. "But we can't risk it in a letter anyway. Even if there aren't people checking our mail, people in my home town are nosy. Someone would read it or find out somehow." Clarke hums in agreement.
"I should go," she whispers. "Before they notice I'm gone."
"We're marching on Winter Palace in two days," Bellamy tells her. "With the petition."
"I hope it works," she says softly, but she doesn't sound like she really believes it will.
"Maybe if you talked to your father-," Bellamy starts.
"You know I can't. He'll never listen to me. I've told you," Clarke stresses.
"I know, I know," Bellamy sighs. "The petition will work anyway. And we can stop striking and stop starving."
"I said I could bring you food if you-," Clarke tries but Bellamy cuts her off.
"I don't need you handouts," he mutters. He doesn't know what he's doing with the Tsar's daughter sometimes. He knows in his heart nothing can ever come of it, and he knows she knows it too. One day she'll have to marry some prince or other and he'll probably marry someone back in his hometown so he can be close to Octavia. But it's nice while it lasts, to sometimes feel like he's worthy of royalty.
Clarke nods at his assertion that he doesn't want her handouts. She gets up and dresses ready to leave.
"Be careful, Bellamy," Clarke warns him.
"It's just a peaceful march," Bellamy assures her. "What could possibly happen?" Clarke shrugs.
"I worry about you," she tells him. She leans over the bed to kiss him where he's still lying, propped up on an elbow. "I love you," she says seriously.
"And I love you," he assures her. "I'll see you in a few days."
She can't sneak out again until days later, though it should have been easier with her father gone. But he's back now, and of course he's calling the massacres "painful and sad", but it's nothing to how the families of the dead must be feeling. She knows it's not her father's fault but she hates him a little bit anyway.
But she sneaks out a few nights later, dread in heart because she doesn't know, (because how could anyone tell her) if Bellamy's okay. She knows as soon as she knocks on the door and it's Miller who answers it.
"He's not here," Miller says, his voice flat.
"Why not?" Clarke asks desperately, but tears already prick at her eyes, because she knows but she doesn't want it to be true.
"He's dead, Princess," Miller tells her and he looks right through her, but when she breaks down in front of him he can't help but put his arms around her to comfort her as she clutches him.
"It's my fault," she sobs.
"It's not your fault," he soothes. "You couldn't have known. None of us knew." Clarke pulls away nodding, but she can't stop crying.
"I'll never see him again," she states, though it's fairly obvious already. Miller nods uncertainly.
"But you always knew there'd be a day when you couldn't see him again anyway," Miller reminds her. "At least this way he never had to have his heart broken." Clarke nods again and bursts into a fresh round of tears. Miller shuts the door on her then and Clarke has nothing left to do but make her way back to the palace.