Follow the Leader
Author's Note: Hey guys, I hoped you enjoyed the first chapter. If there wasn't enough of Bellamy and Clarke interaction in it for you, this one has a lot more of that so I hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own any part of The 100.
Chapter Two
"Bellamy, you can't stay here." Clarke protested his absurd idea.
"That's not very nice. Living in isolation has really been a blow to your manners," Bellamy said. He was trying to keep things light for now. She had to actually let him talk to her before he could convince her to come home.
"I'm serious," she replied.
He nodded. "Can I at least get a proper hello before we get into this?"
She crossed her arms across her chest in silent refusal.
The gesture honestly stung Bellamy quite a bit, but he tried not to let it show. They had parted on good terms with a hug and a kiss on his cheek. He had expected some hesitation, but not such a cold welcome. When she told him she hoped they'd meet again, he guessed that she didn't mean for it to happen so soon.
"Should I take this to mean that you haven't missed me at all?" he asked, fishing for a little sign that she was at the very least as happy to see that he was alive and well as he was to discover the same about her.
She clenched her jaw and looked down at her feet. "I miss everyone," she admitted, folding her arms so that they weren't just held in front of her anymore but so that it looked like she was hugging herself. "Except maybe Murphy," she added and shot him a smile.
"We miss you too," he responded softly, careful not to say 'I' instead of 'we'. He moved so that he was standing directly in front of her.
He tentatively reached a hand out to touch her arm and was bolstered when she didn't flinch away. "It's good to see you, Clarke," he told her sincerely.
She met his eyes and gave him a small smile. "It's good to see you, Bellamy," she agreed. And then she gave him the greeting that he hadn't realized he'd been hoping for.
She unfolded her arms from her body and wrapped them around him for an incredibly tight hug. He returned it in kind, clinging to her and the fact that she was finally here with him again. He could feel her hands pressing into his back as though she was trying to remember every detail of how he felt and definitively confirm he was here. He understood the urge. He was inclined to do the same, but he didn't have to. The way her body pressed flush against his left no doubt that this was real. It was not another restless dream. There was an indescribable magnetism that he felt every time they touched. He never got that in his dreams—or with anyone else in real life for that matter. No one hugged like Clarke Griffin. And it always felt wrong to pull away, so this time he didn't. He noticed that she hadn't either.
"I'm glad you're okay," he whispered into her ear, trying to convey the immense gratitude that he felt about finding her alive and unharmed without sounding like he had been pathetically worrying about her since the minute she left.
She had her head buried in his neck and seemed content to just breathe him in for the time being. "I'm not sure I would say that I'm okay, but I'm alive."
"That's what counts for now. I think it will be awhile until any of us will really be okay."
"I'd like to fast forward to that part."
"Me too," he admitted.
Finally Clarke started to pull back. Bellamy was reluctant to release her, but he did. Their hug had already long surpassed the normal timeframe of a friendly embrace.
There was a long pause where neither of them knew what to say next. There had been very few times in their relationship that they hadn't either been butting heads or working together to prepare for impending war. In a moment of normalcy, it was hard to figure out where they stood with one another. Right now they weren't stubborn rivals or the reluctant co-leaders that the others needed. They were just Clarke and Bellamy—the princess and the janitor.
Clarke spoke first, deciding to take advantage of the opportunity for some social interaction before she sent him away. "How is everyone? How's Octavia?"
"Everyone's…" Bellamy didn't know where to start. He didn't want to say anything that would make her shut him out just yet so he kept it vague. "…fine. Octavia included. She's a little restless from being cooped up at Camp Jaha, but she's good. Both she and Raven wanted to come with me, but I told them that I wanted to come alone."
Clarke nodded. "Is Raven back on her feet?"
Bellamy smiled. "Oh yea. It's been a slow recovery, but the girl is resilient. I don't think anything could keep her down long. Plus, Wick made her a new leg brace so that's helped."
"Good."
Bellamy waited for her to ask another follow-up question, but when she didn't he leaned forward. "Your mom's okay too. I mean it's obvious that she's worried about you and that she's missing you, but she's surviving." He didn't mention that Chancellor Abby was being pressured into making decisions that could get them all killed. He wanted to work his way up to that.
Clarke squeezed her eyes shut tight as he told her about her mom. She could feel her eyes go glassy, but refused to dwell on the feeling.
"Bellamy, I appreciate the update, but you really need to go now."
"I'm not going anywhere," he said simply.
"You can't stay with me."
"I can actually."
"No, you need to go. It's not safe for you to be around me," she protested and then turned to open the hatch to the bunker so she could escape.
He moved to hover directly behind her back so that she could feel the body heat from his presence. He wasn't going to let her get away again.
"Why is that?" he asked.
She wrenched the door open and tried to flee inside, but Bellamy was right on her heels. "Because the people that I care about die," she confessed over her shoulder. "My dad, Wells, Finn…there's a pattern happening. And you could be next."
Bellamy shook his head. "I don't think I have anything to worry about."
Clarke wheeled around to face him, hurt that he wasn't taking her emotional admission seriously.
"I'll be fine...because you don't really care about me. You never have."
She narrowed her eyes at him. "That's not true."
"Be honest. You hated me from the moment we met," Bellamy griped.
"I did, but that was a lifetime ago."
"It was months ago!" he argued. "From the start, you and I have never seen eye to eye and though we may have learned to coexist, nothing you've done tells me that you care."
"After everything you and I have been through together, I don't know how you could even think that I don't care," she replied.
"You can't care that much. You sent me into Mount Weather without even batting an eyelash."
Clarke shook her head in disbelief that she was actually trying to prove that she cared about this pain in the ass.
Bellamy on the other hand was trying to keep a smirk off his face. He was doing his best to play devil's advocate to make Clarke realize how much she cared about everything. It seemed to be working, but Bellamy had to be careful. The more he argued with her, the more he remembered how hurt and angry he actually was. He had been so happy to see her at first that he had forgotten how pissed off he was that she had abandoned him.
"Don't rewrite the past. You volunteered to go into Mount Weather and I agreed."
Bellamy shrugged. "Well, you weren't worried about me then, you can't be that worried about me now."
"Of course I was worried! We're partners!" she yelled at him.
"No!" Bellamy shouted, forgetting himself for the moment. "If we were partners, you wouldn't have left me to deal with everything on my own!" He cleared his throat and took a deep breath, trying to regain control of himself.
Clarke looked at him curiously with her head cocked to the side. "Are you mad that I left at all or are you mad that I left you?"
He looked up at her. "What's the difference?"
She didn't answer. She didn't have an answer for him because there technically wasn't a difference, but she felt like there was.
The heavy silence that filled the oddly still air of the forest hung over them until Bellamy couldn't stop himself from cutting it down. "I can't remember the last conversation I had that wasn't in some way connected to what we've done or need to do to survive this place." He sighed and stared up into the sky that he once called home. The light blue of the day was being taken over by sharp pinks and purples as dusk settled over the day.
"I'm not the best person to ask, I haven't exactly talked to anyone in a while."
Clarke wasn't one for jokes, but Bellamy could tell by the smile at the edge of her mouth that she was trying to lighten things up.
"What did people used to talk about on the Ark?"
She looked him in the eye and laughed. "They talked about returning to the Ground."
Bellamy shared in her laughter at the irony. "Well, I think you and I are both due for some meaningless conversation." He grabbed the basket she had set down when she first saw him and headed into the bunker without permission. "Let's do it over dinner." He called up to her as he descended the ladder.
"Bellamy, stop!" Clarke ordered when she saw where he was headed. She didn't want him to see the bunker. But of course, he ignored her.
She tried to grab him, but he was too fast and there wasn't far to go.
Bellamy entered the bunker and felt the wind whoosh out of his lungs like he'd been punched square in the stomach. Any hope that he had that Clarke had been able to move on when she left, vanished instantly.
"Clarke…"
"Don't," she said, landing just behind him. She looked down at her feet, not wanting to see the look on his face when he eventually turned back to her. "I don't want to hear it."
Bellamy listened to her for the moment as he took in the décor of the bunker in more detail. Not much about the bunker itself had changed—it was the same small, dark room that he remembered, lit only by the flood of sunlight streaming down from the open door. But the stark room that formerly held just the simple survivalist furnishings was now covered with drawings that Clarke had clearly created. Almost every surface was covered—papers taped to the walls and shelves, disturbing splashes of red and black paint applied directly to the walls, and the most detailed of all was the images in the center of the room that used the stain of Delano's blood as its canvas. The drawings were all filled with death and destruction—of all the terror they had faced since coming to the Ground. There was Wells in his grave and Charlotte tumbling down the cliff and Adam begging for the end. It was never-ending. Everywhere he looked he was forced to face another terrible memory: the 320 victims of the culling falling from the sky or the ash and bones of the incinerated grounders outside the drop-ship.
And then there was Finn, scattered throughout the many drawings, but never as the happy adventurer that Bellamy once knew. In some he was out of control, rampaging on a group of grounders, but in most he was dying either by Clarke's knife or by the original, punishing death that the grounders had planned for him as though Clarke hadn't prevented it.
Lexa was among the pictures too—allowing the missile to destroy her people in Tondc and walking away from Clarke at Mount Weather.
But after all that, the worst of it, the most detailed and disturbing pictures were of Mount Weather. He saw one of himself in a cage, trapped and ready to be harvested. There was Raven and Abby strapped down to a gurney and writhing in pain. And several of his hand on top of her gloved grip on the radiation lever, culminating in the picture set atop the stained blood floor of the radiated bodies of those who died on Level 5; including a slightly larger version of a devastated Jasper cradling Maya's limp body in his arms.
Bellamy finally turned to look at Clarke, swiping away the tears that had unwillingly formed at the corners of his eyes.
"Clarke, you can't do this to yourself," he said, trying and failing to keep the emotion out of his voice.
"I can't help it," she responded, taking a deep breath to stem the tears.
Bellamy held his hand out for her, waiting and hoping that she would take it. She wasn't sure what he was doing, but she knew by the concerned look on his face that he only wanted to help. She took his hand and he slowly pulled her toward him until she was enveloped in his tight embrace. She squeezed him back, happy for the comfort. Once again, Clarke and Bellamy took solace in the knowledge that in the midst of all the chaos and tragedy that followed them around, they could still rely on each other for support.
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