I don't bother knocking or trying to make myself known. He knows that we should talk. We have been talking nearly every night. My tent is right beside his. He hasn't seen Echo in a while. He has been worried about his sister so much.

When I enter his tent, I find him sitting on the edge of his bed with his hands over his face. When he sees me, he looks surprised but also worried. He has tears all over his face. His eyes are bright red. His hands are shaking. I get worried right away. I run over to him and sit beside him. I wrap my arm around his shoulder. Without a word, he rests his head on me. He leans into me, almost as if he needed this comfort and did not even know it.

"Bellamy," I say and wait for him to respond. He doesn't.

I hold him close to me, letting him rest his body weight against my own. I put my arms around him. I feel him squeezing me tightly. His beard is rough against my arm. His hair tickles my chest. We form so gracefully around each other, as if we have been doing this our whole lives.

"I couldn't save her, Clarke," he says finally.

His voice is broken and sad. He heaves a strong, heavy breath that later comes out in shaking shambles and tears. I hold him tighter when this happens, not speaking or telling him any lies about how it is going to be okay. We both know it will not be. But we will take this comfort for what we can. It is a long time before he finally looks back up at me. There are still tears falling down from his eyes onto his cheeks. This is not a boy crying; not even the man version of him I saw six years ago. This is a real man. This is a man who knew peace and love and equality for six years. This is a man who is broken because it was all taken away from him.

"I couldn't save you," he says.

I shake my head and put my hand on his arm.

"Let's not play that, Bellamy."

"I have to. I have to say this." His voice is sad but I understand. "I missed you, Clarke. So much. And I regretted leaving you there everyday. I wish I would have stayed here with you, brought you back to me. I came up with a thousand things I could have done. And I didn't do one of them. I am so sorry."

His tears are falling again, his lip quivering until he can't control it anymore. His head falls. I catch him and pull him in for a hug, feeling my own tears now. I lay him down on the bed with me. We intertwine ourselves, lacing our legs together, resting our heads on each other, holding our arms around our bodies until we are connected. I think of Echo then. I start to pull away when he grabs my arm.

"No!" he says in an almost panicked voice.

"Echo…"

"Will understand that I thought you were dead when I agreed to be with her. She isn't here right now and…" He looks right into my eyes when he says this part. His face is clear and honest. "I missed my best friend, Clarke."

I nod with a small smile.

"I missed mine too."

We lay together for a few minutes, calming our breathing and our bodies. After a few seconds, we are talking like old friends, reminiscing, planning, and just being the people we were together all of those years ago. I have missed that too.

"Octavia is not my sister anymore. I raised her to be better…to be good. Just like my mom raised me and look what we did to each other…We're all monsters. Maybe that is what my family was meant to be," he says.

"No. Bellamy Blake. You are not a monster. You are a man. You did what you had to do for your people. And you did it better than me. Octavia became that way because of whatever went on down there. It broke a lot of her people, her included. That was not your fault," I assure him.

"It was my fault for being up here."

"Do you regret saving Raven? Going back for her? Going with me to get her?"

"Of course not. I was never going to let you go alone. You almost shot me and I still never would've let you go alone," he says, almost as if to himself. He knows it sounds crazy. "And Raven is my friend. My family now. I would never trade her."

I nod. He rests his head on the pillow next to me. I roll mine over to face his.

"We're so different now," he says in a deep, raspy voice. It is one that I remember when we would spend the night in the same tent, never telling anyone about it or even justifying it to ourselves. It was for comfort and convenience, nothing more. We know we were lying to ourselves.

"Octavia will be fine on her own now," I tell him. "She has to be. You can't tell her what to do anymore and it isn't your job to try to save her."

He agrees.

"And it isn't your job to destroy people's lives for your daughters," he says with a serious expression.

I nod.

"We both have new people to care about," I say.

"Echo," he says. "I told you. I love Echo. But you are my best friend. Nothing can change that. Nothing has ever changed the fact that I thought about you every day while I was gone. I mourned you."

I squeeze his hand.

Bellamy pushes his body against mine so we are laying together again. He rests his head on my shoulder. My arm drapes around his chest, laying on him comfortably. We hold each other in the dark.

"I don't sleep well anymore. I got used to sleeping on the Ring eventually. I used to scream myself awake until the last two years. It was always you. Clarke and radiation. Clarke stabbed. Clarke shot. Clarke fell off the tower. Clarke struck by the death wave. Clarke. Always Clarke. Even then…it wasn't great. But we could sleep whenever we wanted so I was never tired. It was so terrible. Now I can't sleep here. Too much sound. Too much worry," he admits.

"Over time that will stop, Bellamy. Just as it did with so many other things," I tell him.

"I am afraid we don't have that much time left, Clarke."

I understand but I don't want him to go just based off of that point. I have missed him too. He has no idea how much I have missed him. If I tell him, everything will change. I don't think I can. Instead I swallow it back and kiss his forehead.

"For tonight we have each other," I promise.

"You don't sleep well either?" he asks.

"Terrible when I was alone…better with Madi, once she trusted me. But now…same as you."

He nods.

"Then tonight maybe we should…stay…you know, for sleep purposes," he says.

"Yeah," I agree.

I can feel him relax his body into my own, as if understanding he doesn't have to leave.

"We'll ward off the demons in our sleep," Bellamy says.

"Even if that demon is your sister?" I joke.

Bellamy turns his body and puts his arm around my waist. "Shop op, Wanheda. I'm sleeping for the first night in over six years."

I breathe deeply and close my eyes, feeling peaceful.

"Me too."