Bellamy did a lap around the room, taking in the white couch, butt-ugly art work in an even uglier gold frame, white trolley, white sink, white toilet… yeah, there was a lot of white going on in here. He finished his inspection, stopping by the narrow hospital-like bed in the center of the room.
As he half turned to face Clarke, she slapped a handful of white clothes against his chest.
"Get changed."
Without waiting for a response, she turned her back on him and started shaking out a white t-shirt.
"If you wanted me to take my clothes off, princess, all you had to do was ask."
"I just did," she threw over her shoulder, before shrugging out of her jacket.
Well, things were looking grim if she wasn't even bothering to shoot down his sarcastic flirting.
"What's the hurry?" He asked as she bent down to unlace her boots.
She paused to look back at him. "Because the sooner we're decontaminated, the sooner we can make sure our people aren't being used as walking blood bags. Or worse, been turned into reapers."
She straightened up and toed her loosened boots off, before tugging up her shirt and revealing the toned expanse of her stomach. "You better turn around before I start thinking you're some kind of perv."
He dragged his eyes up from her waist and shot her a grin. "If you flash me, I'd be more than happy to return the favor."
Her expression took on an exaggerated edge. "Ha-ha, very funny. And you're forgetting, I've seen you shirtless already. It's nothing to brag about."
"Ouch, that hurt. And here I thought we were getting all chummy, teaming up to get our people back." He unfolded the t-shirt and pants, turning toward the door.
"I wouldn't face that way."
He refrained from rolling his eyes and glanced over his shoulder at her. "Why not? There's clearly no one out in the hallway."
She nodded upwards. "Camera."
He followed her line and saw the black bubble in the ceiling. He walked over until he was almost underneath it. "Hey! When am I getting my chocolate cake?"
She snorted as he backed up a few steps.
"Please don't tell me that's the only reason you came along."
"Well, you just made it sound so damn good." He turned his back on the camera and walked over to the couch, dropping the light clothes on the arm, before shrugging out of his jacket and then quickly changing into the loose white pants. However, when he got the t-shirt on, it seemed someone had miscalculated his number by about three size. He yanked the too-tight garment down and then turned back to Clarke. The first thing he saw was bare feet, followed by bare calves up to her knees. She had a few bruises on her shins, but the sight of those legs were kind of distracting. Which was ridiculous, they were just legs. But they were bare legs he'd never seen before.
He cleared his throat and forced himself to meet her gaze. "Nice shorts."
She cracked a smile, her eyes traveling downward for a brief moment. "Nice shirt."
He tugged at it, feeling ridiculously self-conscious. "Yeah, someone's going to answer for this later."
Clarke glanced away from him, and damned if it didn't look like she was trying not to laugh. He wanted to be insulted that he was apparently the source of her amusement, but the sight of that smile hit him right in the middle of his chest. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her anything close to happy, certainly not since that whole thing with Finn had gone down.
He balled up his clothes and brought them over to stuff in the heavy plastic bag she held, before she added her own clothes and then sealed it. After that, she took it over to put it on the floor next to the door, before returning to his side. He leaned a hip against the bed and crossed his arms.
"Now what?"
She brushed by him to hop up on the bed, her shoulder and thigh brushing his side. "Now we wait."
He looked over at her. "That's it? We wait?"
"Well, we could use the IV stand to smash the window and escape, but I did that last time I was here, and I wouldn't want to be predictable."
He grabbed her arm, running a light finger over the still-healing cut along her forearm. "Is that how you did this?"
"The first time, yeah. The second time I tore the stitches on a metal bed frame so I could get into the medical wing to find out what was going on."
He tightened his fingers around her wrist a little, knowing exactly how much courage it'd take to do something like that. There was absolutely no doubting his princess's resolve when it came to protecting the people she cared about. But in direct contrasting to that, when the people she cared about disappointed her, she took it hard, which was why she'd been struggling with the things Finn had done. In the past few days, he'd been finding it hard to watch her deal with things and only offering his help in the most general ways.
Ever since he'd thought the grounders had taken her, he'd started having these weird urges to protect her, a lot like he sometimes went overboard trying to protect Octavia. Except Clarke quite obviously didn't need his protection, she was a warrior in her own right.
"Anyway, hopefully this time I won't have to do anything that extreme, like running from reapers or jumping off dams." She shot him a strained smile, before gently pulling her wrist from his grasp, though her thigh was still pressed against his hip where he was leaning on the bed, their shoulders brushing.
Maybe he should have moved away from her. Maybe he had no right getting up close to her considering their own rocky history and her recent problems with Finn. But being near her felt comfortable and easy, a kind of reassurance in the deluge of crap that kept coming their way. No one had ever said being sent to Earth would be easy, but hell, they could use a break right about now. However, before anything, they needed to get what was left of the 100 back from the psychos here in Mount Weather.
He straightened, crossing his arms and turning his mind to strategies. "So, tell me what the plan is once we're decontaminated."