AN: Things are going to start getting a little angsty from here on out. Rest assured there will still be fluff sprinkled in and fluff at the conclusion but shit's getting real so they're going to be a little less light hearted for a few chapters.


You Instantly awakened my imagination

Old fashioned infatuation

I can be anything that you want me to be

And you can have me in every position that you dreamed

I know you've got a wild streak

You're a freak

You're alone in your bed with graphic images in your head

Let me do what I want to do with you

Let me tie you down pick you up and

Flip you all around

Let me tell you how sexy you are

As I'm going down on you in the car

If feeling this good is a sin

Let's do it all over again

Do It Again- Stroke 9


Fallon managed to crack an eye open and look towards the flap of her tent that had been zipped closed since she collapsed onto her bed late Sunday night. It said a lot about her new group of friends that none of them had apparently had the thought to come and check on her since then, but to be fair she didn't have an honest sense of how much time had passed either.

It had been at least two days, she was pretty sure she had seen two cycles of light and dark through the gap at the bottom of the entrance as she drifted in and out of consciousness, but it could easily have been more than that.

The bleeds had only gotten worse since Sunday, dark blood trickling not just from her nose but from her eyes and ears. If the metallic taste in her mouth was any indication her gums were similarly leaky.

The vomiting had been a recent development. The first time she had managed to spit up into a dirty bowl she had never remembered to return to the dining hall after carrying some leftovers back to bed one night. It was warm and red and speckled with something that looked coffee grounds, she could feel it still slippery on her lips when she slumped onto her bed in a pile of achy joints and sweat-soaked skin. The next few rounds she was just lucky she was on her side, any strength she had to push herself up over the edge of the bed had long since abandoned her and she was left half laying in a puddle of her own sick. She wasn't very knowledgable about medicine, and even if she had been, her brain wasn't functioning on all cylinders, but she did know enough to be deathly worried about the bright red arterial look of the blood she seemed to be hemorrhaging from every orifice.

Fallon had been on the ground with the 100 since the beginning and from the very first trickle of blood from her nose she had terrified flashbacks to a similar bloody illness that had ravaged their first camp. The memory of the panic and the chaos that it incurred had kept her from going to the med-bay when the first symptoms presented. She had been lucky that it had only been Arkers around when the nosebleed started and they didn't know any better than to write it off as some normal ground occurrence.

She trusted Clarke, she was their leader and she had proven her dedication to her people over and over. She trusted that she'd show mercy and compassion, she had shown that to be her M.O. with the delinquents in the past, but Fallon didn't have as much faith in the adults. These were the people who had sent them down to potentially die in the first place. All she had done was steal some booze and she had been granted what was as good as a death sentence for it, something she thought to be the opposite of justice or humanity. It was only because of Clarke, Bellamy, and the sheer resilience of the teenage delinquents that it hadn't been. Kane and even Clarke's mother hadn't been there before and she had seen their style of leadership that was so reminiscent of the strict administration on the Ark. She couldn't begin to imagine how they would react to her illness and the uncertainty kept her confined to her tent, suffering alone.

Fallon felt the hot bile rising in her throat once more and managed to tilt her head enough to the side to retch onto the already ruined mattress. Her neck and every other joint was on fire and she wasn't sure that she'd be able to manage even this half hearted twist of the head next time. She was going to choke on her own vomit if this fever didn't burn her from the inside out first.

Fallon had a moment of clarity before losing consciousness once more.

Dying alone sucked.


Clarke sat on the floor of the hallway into the med-bay, legs stretched straight in front of her, across from Bellamy who was similarly seated on the other side. The hallway was wide enough that they could both sit with their legs fully extended and their feet were just barely sharing the space in the middle.

With Abby and Jackson around, Clarke's skills were required much less. Unlike them she had never had any formal medical training, but she still pulled the occasional shift during the week to help with the lower priority cases. Bellamy would often break from his station standing guard at the wall or helping to build the cabins to bring her lunch and share in their few minutes of daily downtime before their evening run and dinner.

Bellamy was currently tossing blueberries and Clarke was skillfully catching them in her mouth. They had started off trading roles back and forth, her throwing and him catching, then the reverse, but it had become quickly apparent that they had differing skill sets as more of her throws bounced off his forehead than not and even when she did manage any sort of accuracy he would open his mouth seconds too late or early.

"You know we don't really have record books anymore," Bellamy mused as Clarke snagged yet another berry out of the air, "we could start fresh and just claim everything for ourselves. Most blueberries caught in the mouth by a unapologetic know-it-all."

"Or 'Most blueberries caught in the mouth despite the abysmal throwing skills of her unreasonably arrogant partner.'" Clarke countered, batting his next throw out of the air.

Bellamy rolled his eyes and the next blueberry bounced perfectly off the tip of Clarke's nose to silence any complaints she had about his aim.

"O's visiting this weekend," he said, the offhand manner of the comment belied by the happy smile curving his mouth. Even though he had made the resolution to give her some independence and they were still often at each other's throats the way only siblings could be, he always genuinely looked forward to any chance to spend time with his little sister.

"Is she going to be staying with you?" Clarke asked thinking quickly of the personal items she should probably remember to grab from his tent before his eerily perceptive sister spent time in there.

"I was actually hoping she could stay with you," Bellamy said, the smile falling from his face, "Lincoln is coming. If he stays in my tent it greatly reduces his opportunities to seduce my sister."

Clarke groaned, "Is the day ever going to come when you are mature enough to handle the fact that Octavia is a sexually active adult?"

"No."

It was Clarke's turn to roll her eyes but she allowed the topic to drop. She knew that in her heart of hearts Octavia would never truly forgive her for the bomb dropping on TonDC and Clarke didn't honestly believe that she deserved to be forgiven. She did know that Octavia was making an effort to move forward and rebuild some semblance of their old friendship despite the lingering resentment if only because it was so important to her brother. Her staying with Clarke for the weekend was likely a less than subtle move on his part to further that relationship and he was just too embarrassed to admit it.

"Who's on the playlist today?" she asked, nodding at the headphones that were hanging around his neck. Since she had gifted him with the walkman a few days before it had been like another appendage, constantly clipped to his pants, headphones resting among tousled black curls or dangling around his neck ready to be slipped back on. Raven had made noise about collecting on her partial share of custody but seeing how attached he was, was enough to weaken even the fiery mechanic's resolve.

Bellamy grinned, just the reminder of his new toy was enough to cheer him up, and he set the headphones gently on her head so she could listen. Clarke shuffled through a few of the songs on today's mixtape, it was his go-to alternative rock and while he was doing his best to school her on the artists and sub-genres she wasn't quite knowledgeable to know exactly what she was listening to yet. She did like the music and wasn't entirely just humoring him when she let him ramble on at dinner most nights. It brought him so much more joy than discussing patrol shifts and cabin blueprints and she could never deny him something that made him happy.

Clarke was doing her best to ignore her mother's gaze which was boring a hole in the side of her head from across the room. Bellamy was much less tactful and turned one of his charming smiles towards the older Griffin woman, waggling his fingers in a sarcastic wave.

"Stop instigating," Clarke warned, though she could see her mother scowl and turn away in her peripheral vision and she was grateful for the brief respite from her watchful gaze. She pulled the headphones off and handed them back to him.

"She's not very fond of me," Bellamy observed and for all of his disinterested tone she could hear an undercurrent of hurt in the simple observation.

"She probably heard tales of your wayward penis and is worried about my reputation," was all Clarke would say, bouncing a blueberry off one razor-sharp cheekbone to try and lighten the mood. The truth was she had spoken to her mother in depth about her thoughts and feelings on her daughter's best friend and the conversation was simply too personal for her to be comfortable sharing just yet.

'He worries me Clarke,' Abby Griffin had said during a serious moment after the confrontation at Mt. Weather. They had all come back to camp and were trying to re-establish normalcy, or as much normalcy as had ever existed for them here on the ground, and Abby had pulled her aside after dinner one night.

There had been no doubt of Bellamy's heroics in the rescue from the Mountain and Clarke had thought it would be more than enough to silence the adults' lingering concerns over his intentions.

'Don't start, Mom,' Clarke had warned, 'he has saved my life time and time again. We need him.'

Abby had looked at her with an infuriatingly knowing and sad expression and Clarke couldn't do anything but wait awkwardly for her to spit out whatever it was that she needed to say.

'It's not that, Clarke,' she said softly, brushing her hair back gently and pinning her with an uncomfortably serious look, 'I know everything he has done for all of you and I trust him with that. It's the two of you together that worry me.'

Clarke could feel her face getting hot and started to sputter out some sort of denial. Honestly she was getting pretty sick and fucking tired of everyone making assumptions over something they knew nothing about.

'I'm not even talking about that sweetheart,' Abby interrupted, 'It doesn't matter what the nature of your relationship with that boy is. I see the two of you together and I just worry that you have become a little too… codependent.'

'Codependent,' Clarke repeated, her ire not fading at all with the clarification, 'he is my friend mom, I don't see you chastising Jasper and Monty over being too 'codependent',' she made sure to put as much disdain as she could on that final word.

'Well seeing as neither of them are my daughter they are much less my concern,' Abby replied dryly.

Clarke just shook her head and got ready to storm out of the room, she was an adult and for whatever mending had occurred in their relationship she was still not willing to take this kind of judgement from her mother.

'You don't see him when you aren't around,' Abby called, causing her to pause at the door, 'When you are gone for more than an hour at a time he storms around camp like a thundercloud, snapping at everyone and being a generally useless pain in everyone's ass.'

'I mean that's Bell, Mom,' Clarke said with some level of relief, 'he can be a little moody sometimes.' She had been slightly concerned that her mother had observed some sort of revelatory detail that would complicate her easy relationship with her co-leader but fortunately she had just seen the bad side of Bellamy's temper.

'It's not just him,' Abby said, looking almost pained, 'when he is visiting with his sister you seem to lose all purpose. You walk around camp aimlessly like you can't really continue anything until he's back. It's almost like you two can't function properly without the other one around.'

Clarke once again opened her mouth to protest but was cut off by her mother, 'I just know what it's like to need someone like that, and I know what it does to you if you lose them.'

'That's rich,' Clarke sneered, all of the malice she had ever felt towards her mother returning in that moment, 'You have no fucking idea what you are talking about and you can take all of these bullshit observations of yours and stick them right up your ass where they obviously came from in the first place.'

She had stormed away and refused to ever speak of the matter again with her, whatever she might have to say about anything else in Clarke's life, her father and Bellamy were strictly off limits. Unfortunately, it didn't keep her mind from flashing the word 'codependent' whenever she found herself feeling a little lost outside of his company or whenever she saw her mother studying them as she so often did.

"Wayward?" Bellamy said with a wince, "Christ, Princess, you sure know how to emasculate a guy. Couldn't have gone with something a little more 'conquering hero' and a little less 'Tom Sawyer'?"

"I happen to think Mark Twain is a wonderful storyteller," Clarke said primly, ignoring his put-upon expression.

"Yeah well I guess Tom and I better get back to work, those walls aren't going to whitewash themselves," Bellamy drawled as he dragged himself to his feet.

Goddamn, of course he had read the book and could make sexy offhand references.

"Wait!" Clarke blurted, scrambling to her feet herself and internally cursing her intellectual kink, "Before you get back to work can I run and grab that thing from your tent?"

A wicked smile crossed Bellamy's face, "What thing is that Princess?"

"It'll only take a minute," Clarke fumbled, she could feel her cheeks getting hot and knew that if anyone was actually watching them they would be able to read her arousal like an open book.

Bellamy allowed himself to be almost pulled the distance from the med-bay to his tent, a smug smile fixed on his face.

"That thing in my tent?" he teased when they finally stumbled inside and she launched herself at him, "that is hardly the kind of convincing excuse I thought we were aiming for."

"Shut up," Clarke demanded, dragging his t-shirt over his head when he set her on the desk and positioned himself between her open legs, "you know I get horny as hell when you start talking literature."

Bellamy lifted her briefly to pull her jeans down and off her legs before dragging her roughly to the edge of the desk to bury himself deep inside of her.

Clarke muffled a cry against his shoulder and Bellamy took a second to regain his composure before beginning to move.

"Shit Princess, I've got enough Greek mythology and Roman history knowledge to keep you wet for years if that's your thing."

Clarke just bit his lower lip and used her feet on his lower back to urge him faster.


Fox felt like a complete bitch.

She hated that word. It really was degrading to women and she thought they used it far too much to drag each other down but it was the only adjective she could think of right now that really applied.

She and Fallon had been friends as long as she could remember and she was an absolute shit person for allowing a boy to get in between them for as long as she had.

Sure Sully had charmed the hell out of her right from the start but she and Fallon were family and she was scum for allowing herself to forget that. It wasn't like she hadn't seen the way Daniel had looked at Fallon anyway. The way he looked at any pretty girl actually. He might be charming and he might have been a half decent boyfriend for the past two years but she would be an idiot to let that supplant 15 years of friendship.

They hadn't spoken in over two weeks, since Fallon had tried to be honest with her at the party, but Fox had still seen her around camp and been aware of her presence the way she always had been. Just because she was angry (and in all honesty, jealous) didn't mean she stopped caring about her. But the last time she had seen her had been Sunday at dinner and she was starting to get really worried. Fallon wasn't unstable and Fox didn't think she would do anything to hurt herself just because her friends were currently shunning her, but she had heard rumors that she wasn't feeling well and she knew Fallon's abhorrence of doctors and a stubborn streak would keep her from getting help if she needed it.

"Fallon?" she called as she neared her friend's tent, "I know I've been a total shit lately but I'd really like to talk if you'll give me a chance."

Fox got within 3 feet of the tent and wrinkled her nose in disgust, it smelled terrible and Fallon had yet to respond to her call. Maybe she wasn't in there at all, Fallon had been known to leave dishes laying around gathering mold and if she hadn't been staying in her tent they were bound to start smelling. Fox pinched her nose and continued forward. It might be a good first step towards mending their friendship if she helped to clean her pigsty of a tent up for her.

She reached forward and grabbed the outer zipper and slowly pulled the flap open, unable to suppress her gagging as the smell increased exponentially as it was opened. There was no way this was dirty dishes, here on Earth they had experienced a fair share of dead and dying wildlife and she knew the smell of decomp well by now.

Fox could feel a desperate panic starting to set in and almost couldn't bear to make herself look inside the tent at whatever horror likely lay within. This was Fallon though and whatever had happened she needed to know.

Fox braced herself for all of the worst possible scenarios and still, when she looked into the tent, she could hear herself scream.


Bellamy smiled fondly as he watched Clarke try and tame her hair into something that looked slightly less like she'd just been fucked senseless on top of a table. He felt briefly guilty for the trouble he caused her but it was well outside of his power to be able to resist diving his hands into that blonde mane whenever the opportunity presented. It wasn't like she was guiltless on the hair-pulling front either, he was just lucky his was shorter and in a constant state of disheveled anyway.

Clarke, seeming to sense his thoughts, looked at him mischievously before stretching and running her hands emphatically through his black curls.

Bellamy shrugged, "Nice try Princess, you know I'm perfectly fine parading around camp looking like I just got laid."

Clarke scowled and reached back up to smooth his hair down, having given up on her own once it somewhat resembled a braid.

Bellamy leaned into her touch and pressed a brief kiss to the inside of her wrist. He was pushing his luck but they were still breathing heavy and neither of them had managed to button their pants just yet so he figured they were still toeing that fine line between their bedroom and public personas enough that he could get away with it.

"It's not fair for someone as smart as you to look like this," Clarke said, fingers slipping through his hair and then ghosting down over his face, brushing his eyelashes before moving along his cheekbones and over his lips.

Bellamy felt his chest constrict tightly and that annoying little flare of hope that had been nagging him for weeks now reignited. It wasn't that Clarke was never affectionate, they were very close friends and both were actually remarkably tactile people, so there were always small touches being exchanged between the pair. He would guide her to their dinner table with a hand at the small of her back or she would elbow him in the side over a particularly crass quip.

A few weeks ago it had been torment the way she casually doled out touches, nudging him over a private joke or punching him lightly in retribution for something. She was constantly invading his personal space, sitting close by the fire or crowding him at his desk while looked over schedules and plans. Bellamy had worried that it might be a dead give away when they started sleeping together that the sexual tension caused by their constant physical proximity was no longer present but he really didn't need to be concerned. Knowing exactly what it was like to be with each other only increased the level of tension that constantly hummed between them.

She had been very careful though, to remove all of these casual touches from their sexual interludes. She would rest her head on his shoulder as they sat with their friends at dinner but in private it was like a game of 'the floor is lava' as soon as they disengaged from each other, only he was the floor. He knew it was her way of eliminating any potentially troubling relationship-like aspects from this side of their partnership so he never commented on it but he couldn't help his reaction on the few occasions that she seemed to forget herself and let moments like this slip.

Bellamy met her eyes, hoping to get some sort of insight into what exactly was going on in that brilliant, complicated head of hers and that was all it took to startle her out of her moment of solemn reflection, "Seriously, these cheekbones?" she teased, actually shaking the serious expression off her face in favor of a safer playful smile, "Badass Bellamy Blake is positively pretty when you get right down to it."

"Shit I'm secure enough, I'll own pretty," Bellamy preened, doing his best to conceal the flash of disappointment he felt over her emotional withdrawal. "You're one to talk by the way, you're like a walking, talking encyclopedia with blue eyes and blonde hair."

"Hm, good point," Clarke said, very clearly just playing along rather than giving into a fit of vanity, "lucky you snagging someone who is the total package huh?"

"Doesn't much feel like I've snagged anything when no one else is allowed to know about it," Bellamy replied, far more honestly and bitterly than he had intended. He wished he was capable of having these half moments when it seemed like she was at least entertaining the possibility of more between them without shoving his fucking foot in his mouth but of course he was too goddamn stubborn. He knew this was going to be his problem with the Princess. Half doses were just never going to be enough when he felt the way he did about her.

"Bell," Clarke began, and as intriguing as whatever she was going to say had started with his nickname on her lips, he never got to hear the end of it as a scream rang out across camp.

There was a second when Clarke and Bellamy shared a look before they were both in motion, moving toward the sound. It killed him how similar the sentiment on her face had been to what he had been feeling himself just then. It wasn't shock or surprise or even fear but the 'I've been waiting for this' resignation of a condemned person. No matter how content or peaceful life on the ground seemed to be it looked like he and Clarke would forever be waiting for the other shoe to drop after what they went through that first year.

Bellamy's longer legs had him on the scene before Clarke but she could see him lingering just outside the crowd that was already gathered, as if he was waiting for her. 'Codependent' burned hatefully in the back of her mind for a second before Clarke shoved the thought away, they were partners and this is what they did.

The crowd was composed mainly of young adults and teenagers at this point and they quickly parted to allow their two leaders to get closer to the shell-shocked girl at the center of it all.

"Fox," Clarke said, putting a comforting hand on the girl's back and looking at her with sincere concern, "What's wrong? What happened?"

Bellamy tracked Fox's tearful gaze to the tent next to them and he left Clarke to her calm questioning, reaching to move the flap aside.

"Fuck," he swore, instinctively bringing his arm up to cover his nose and mouth as the putrid smell of death and decay, that had only been a mildly concerning under layer moments before, slammed into him full force.

"I think she's dead," Fox said hollowly. Clarke eyed the girl clinically. As concerning as the words she just spoke were, Fox's sallow color, clammy skin, and detached tone were troubling in their own right. If she wasn't in shock already she certainly seemed to be headed there.

Bellamy looked quickly into the tent before letting the flap fall and turning back to Clarke with a wretched look on his handsome face. The soulful brown eyes that had been dancing playfully less than five minutes before had taken a damned cast and she felt panic start to bubble up in her chest.

Bellamy was a man of action. When something was wrong he immediately went into planning mode so the look of sick resignation on his face terrified her.

Clarke gave Fox's shoulder a comforting squeeze and instructed a bystander to run and get her mother and Jackson and to let them know that someone might be in shock.

Bellamy still hadn't said anything and she felt a brief flare of anger that he was going to make her look in that tent herself, that he was forcing her see for herself what had put that look on his face. It quickly retreated though as she considered that this was exactly why she felt the way she did about Bellamy. In ordinary circumstances her subconscious would have had a field day with that passing thought ('And what feeling is that exactly, Princess?') but right now she was too consumed with the dread that she was pretty sure she was about to see a dead body. Bellamy respected her strength, clearly trusted in it. Despite having a possessive and protective streak a mile long he knew that she could handle this like she handled everything they had been dealt so far and wouldn't demean her in some misguided attempt to save her from whatever new horror lay in front of them.

Clarke steeled herself and lifted the tent flap, Bellamy standing close enough that she could feel his body heat along her side and could feel him stiffen at the smell once again.

'Not a new horror after all', was the disjointed thought that went through her head as she surveyed the scene in front of her. Laying on the bedding was one of the original 100, Fallon, a pretty red head with freckles enough to rival Bellamy, though you would never know how cute and vivacious she was in her current state. A sick feeling twisted her gut that she was pretty sure had nothing to do with the smell or the sight in front of her. It felt a lot more like apprehension. 'Not this again' was beating a mantra around her head.

She turned her head towards her partner and they had a moment of their trademark silent communication in which his eyes told her he remembered what this looked like too. The hot red and black vomit, the blood tracks streaking her face and trickling from her ears. They both had first hand experience the last time this particular terror uprooted their lives and neither of them were going to make the mistake of ignoring the severity of the situation. This looked exactly like the hemorrhagic fever that had ripped through camp in those early months and they both knew it.

Clarke's attention snapped back to the prone figure in the tent when a weak groan sounded from the bed.

Clarke had the forethought to grab Bellamy's wrist as she turned around and started barking orders to the crowd surrounding them, the last thing she needed was him doing something senselessly heroic. They hadn't been to each other what they now were the first time around and it had still broken her a little when she saw her normally formidable co-leader sick and defeated. Having to witness that happening to her best friend would probably destroy her.

"Grab my mom before she gets here," Clarke instructed, "tell her she needs to go back and get the radiation suits from Mt. Weather. Everyone else clear out, this tent is quarantined and I want at least a 20 foot radius around it."

Bellamy quickly went to work on making sure her directions were carried out and they had established a decent perimeter by the time Abby and Jackson arrived, has-mat suits in hand.

Clarke filled her mother in on the situation and Bellamy could see the older woman's face becoming more tense with every word. Jackson for his part was already stepping into the suit, getting ready to enter the tent. Bellamy knew that it was half because he was the slightly stronger of the pair and half because he was stupid in love with Abby and he wanted to play the hero and save her from having to go into the hot zone. Bellamy couldn't help feel a pang of commiserating pain for the poor guy since Abby was so obviously involved in some sort of emotional train wreck with Marcus Kane.

"We can use the airlock as a quarantine area," Abby was saying, starting to pull the other suit on herself even as she spoke. "It's not ideal but it's better than nothing."

Clarke was nodding but he could see the worried look on her face at the prospect of her mother going into that tent. Whatever tension and ill feelings lingered between the two Griffin women they were still blood and family is family.

"None of you are going to be able to carry her," Bellamy suddenly spoke, shooting Jackson an apologetic look. "She's small but she's going to be completely dead weight."

Abby paused, one arm in her suit, the other still hanging loose at her side and she turned to look at him. Clarke for her part was already staring at him looking nothing short of murderous. It was moments like this that he wished they weren't quite so finely attuned to each other since she had clearly caught his meaning the second he opened his mouth.

"Fuck you," she said angrily, blue eyes flashing anger and something he hoped was concern for his well-being as well.

"I'll be wearing a suit, Princess, I'll be fine," Bellamy said in what he hoped was a reassuring voice and one that held none of the fear he actually felt. He still had dreams he woke from gasping, the taste of blood still in his mouth. He couldn't honestly say he had ever been as scared as he was in those couple days it felt like his insides were liquifying and death seemed like a constant specter at his side. He didn't like feeling helpless and nothing left him more helpless than his body betraying him like that. He wasn't eager to relive the ordeal but logic said that this was the only course of action at this moment. Sure they could summon someone else in camp with better than average upper body strength but what was the point? They didn't deserve to be put in harms way any more than he did.

Clarke was obviously wrestling with the same conclusion since she hadn't responded but her eyes were still projecting seething anger. He decided to be flattered that the thought of him in danger clearly made her so unhappy.

"Look as soon as this is done with I'll help you start training with some pull-ups so next time we're in this situation you can be the one taking reckless risks with your life," Bellamy said drolly. Clarke just glared, the frown lines between her eyes growing impossibly deep.

Abby's full attention was now trained on her daughter and Bellamy thought he saw something like pity in that knowing gaze, pity and sorrow, which he really didn't understand, but she was gesturing for Jackson to take off his suit since it was the larger of the pair and he was soon distracted by the process of getting dressed.

Abby said something, soft and comforting to Clarke and tried to put an arm on her shoulder but the younger woman shrugged it off angrily and stalked over to him instead.

"You are an idiot," she said, helping him to zip into the light yellow suit. Bellamy watched her as she began to inspect the fabric from head to toe, fingers tracing over every seam and checking every zipper. The suit fit but it was a little snug, none of the residents in Mt. Weather had been especially built, they were inclined towards frail and sickly for the most part rather than tall and broad like him. He could feel her hands through the material of the suit and he was suddenly stuck in a weird limbo between scared shitless and hopelessly turned on. Angry Clarke wasn't the most common persona in his presence anymore but she still did ridiculous things to his libido especially when she was this mad out of worry over him. She might not be ready to deal with it yet but there had to be something like affection there for her to be this upset.

"If you've got another option Princess I'm all ears," he replied lowly when she finished her through inspection of the suit. He didn't need to hide the fear in his voice when it was just the two of them. She knew him too well to be fooled by that.

"Please don't do anything risky," she said softly, the anger leaving her face to be replaced by a naked worry, she was chewing obviously on her bottom lip and the skin around her eyes was tight with the tension.

"I had no intention of living that particular rerun," he said and it sounded almost like a joke but his tone was completely serious. Clarke reached out and squeezed a gloved hand and he applied similar pressure back. "Besides I know the doctors in this camp are completely incompetent, I'd have to be insane to want to put my life in their hands."

Clarke huffed a watery laugh and swiped angrily at the anxious tears collecting in the corners of her eyes. Bellamy wished that this open show of emotion didn't have to be precipitated by the threat of him contracting a life threatening virus but he'd take what he could get.

Clarke helped him fit the headpiece of the suit over his dark curls and they stared at each other through the plastic visor for a loaded few seconds before he turned and stroke purposefully into the tent.

He could hear Clarke, Abby, and Jackson spring into action outside, ordering people away from the path to the Ark but he was quickly consumed by the gruesome tableau at his feet. He didn't know Fallon exceptionally well but was acquainted enough with her to be genuinely sad over her condition. He knew she and Fox had been close but that there had been something to do with a boy according to Jasper during one of his moonshine-fueled gossip attacks. He knew she was the quiet one of the two and was more whimsical and contemplative. He knew that she didn't deserve to be dying alone in a pool of her own blood that she had clearly been throwing up for days.

Bellamy did his best to detach himself from the mess of it all and focus on his concern for the girl. The headpiece did something to muffle the stench and the blood looked slightly less violent through the faceplate but it was impossible for his stomach not to turn when crouched down next to the slight girl.

"Hey Fallon," he said, biting back the bile rising in his throat, "It's Bellamy, I'm here for you." He kept repeating vaguely comforting variations on this as he gathered her into his arms. He didn't bother to try and reassure her, he wasn't sure she was conscious enough to understand him and it felt like an unfair lie to say that everything was going to be ok. He could feel the fever radiating off of her and he almost laughed as the thought that it was going to burn through his suit actually occurred to him. It couldn't of course, but it was a testament to how fatally hot she felt.

Bellamy rose and pushed through the entrance to the tent, cradling Fallon to his chest and walking directly to the Ark. He could see people staring at him from a distance, their terrified eyes pinned on the girl in his arms but they stayed away and gave him clear passage to the air-lock that was being repurposed as a sick-bay.

Abby was fully suited and waiting for him just outside the door, she disengaged the lock when she saw him coming and followed him into the room directing him to lay Fallon on the hard exam table in the room. Bellamy ignored the direction and placed her softly on a cot nearby.

"She's dying," was all he said, "she deserves to be a little more comfortable than that."

Abby very obviously bit back whatever retort she had over being disobeyed and just nodded tightly at him.

"Jackson's in the next room," she said, "That will have to serve as our decontamination area."

Bellamy nodded and left their best doctor alone in the airlock with the dying girl. The neighboring room wasn't as contained as their newly formed quarantine but it would have to do. Jackson was waiting just as Abby said he would be and Bellamy spread his arms and legs and allowed himself to be hosed down and doused with an antiseptic smelling chemical before carefully peeling off the suit. He couldn't help the involuntary shudder at the memory of a similar but significantly more invasive process in the catacombs of Mt. Weather.

"You should really get rid of those clothes too," Jackson advised and Bellamy didn't need to be told more than once. He quickly shucked the t-shirt and jeans that had been under the suit and he immediately felt slightly better standing in just a pair of black boxer-briefs. Modesty wasn't a problem for him and it felt too good to be out of the clothes that had come so close to that sickness again.

Clarke was waiting just outside the door when he exited, a fresh t-shirt and his athletic shorts in her arms. Rather than handing over the clothes though she let out a relieved groan and threw herself at him. Bellamy staggered back a couple paces, caught off guard by her aggressive hug, but quickly regained his footing and wrapped his arms around her smaller frame. There was no one around and in the intensity of the moment he felt it was safe to press a kiss into her blonde hair. They stayed that way for almost a full minute before Clarke finally seemed to realize his near-naked state and pulled back to sheepishly hand over the outfit.

Bellamy yanked on the shorts and pulled the t-shirt over his head. When his head emerged from the top of the shirt he was stricken to see her pulling on her own small version of the suit he had just taken off.

"Clarke," he said warningly.

She looked up, her eyes clearly stating that this was not up to discussion. He couldn't make a case against her going in when he had just done something even more dangerous himself.

"I have to help my mom," she said and her voice had a lot more resignation in it than anything else.

Before he could protest further she had pulled the lever and entered the airlock, the door hissing closed behind her.

Bellamy stood in the hallway, hair a mess, in shorts and a t-shirt, without any shoes and no part of him could be concerned with how ridiculous he looked when she was in that room. He ran a hand through his hair and then over his face before setting up a vigil outside the airlock. He alternated between pacing agitatedly back and forth and sitting against the wall so he could see the yellow-suited figures moving around inside.

Jackson entered the room in Bellamy's decontaminated suit not long after and Bellamy glared at his back until the door closed.

At some point Fox had come running up to the room, wild-eyed and tearful, demanding to see her friend. It had taken Bellamy, with an assist from Miller, almost 20 minutes to talk her down and convince her to go rest. That there was nothing she could do for Fallon.

"She in there?" Miller asked, motioning his head toward the door when Fox had finally been subdued.

Bellamy nodded grimly and Miller gripped his shoulder in a show of support before following Fox out of the Ark to be sure she ended up in bed where she belonged.

He wasn't completely sure how much time had passed, he left only to grab a change of clothes for Clarke, as much as he enjoyed the sight of her in her underwear it wasn't a view he wanted to share with anyone else, and to snag two ration packets so they'd have something to eat when she was done. After everything he had seen today he wasn't sure his stomach could handle a full meal anyway.

There was a pretty constant stream of people stopping by as word traveled through camp what was going on.

"This again?" Raven asked, sliding down on the floor next to him to keep him company for a little while.

Bellamy almost growled when Murphy made an appearance promising that 'it wasn't me this time'.

Monty and Jasper wandered in and out several times, the duo uncharacteristically quiet, their eyes holding the same haunted cast he saw in Jonesy and Monroe and later in Harper. There was such a continuous flow that Bellamy almost wondered if they were coordinating shifts.

The only constant presence was Marcus Kane who stood silently just down the hall from him. Bellamy couldn't help but feel a sort of silent camaraderie with the older man over the similarity of their situation.

After what felt like an eternity to him, Clarke and her mother emerged from the air-lock. Bellamy scrambled to his feet and Kane materialized next to him in an instant.

Clarke looked exhausted and defeated as they went directly to the decontamination room next door. Minutes later both women emerged, Abby thankfully in a new set of clothes that Jackson had apparently stashed in the room for her. She went immediately to Kane and the two started talking in hushed tones.

Bellamy tossed Clarke the items he had grabbed from her tent and she quickly changed. She looked down at the overtly tight tank top she was now wearing and raised an eyebrow his direction. Bellamy just shrugged as she walked to his side, he might be scared out of his fucking mind right now but he would still always be in the mood to see her tits in a tight shirt.

"She's gone," Clarke said simply, her eyes betraying exactly how much the fact hurt her. Bellamy pulled her into a fierce hug, wishing he was able to will some comfort into her. She took it just as hard as he did when they lost one of their people and she would always compound the guilt further when she had been in a position to help them as one of the medics.

"It's going to be alright Princess," he pulled away from her, hands still on her shoulders because he was loath to completely break off physical contact, but he wanted to be able to look her in the eyes, "We have the airlock this time and we have better medical supplies."

Clarke let out an empty laugh, "Hemorrhagic fevers are supposed to be handled with bio-safety level 4 protocol. That's positive pressure suits, a vacuum room, and UV lights. We have ancient radiation suits, an airlock, and a hose."

"Well that's sure as shit more than the open-ass drop ship. That's all we had last time and we survived then," Bellamy reminded her.

"It's worse this time Bell," Clarke said with a grimace, "She was literally just bleeding out from everywhere. It looked like she'd been there for days with no sign of getting better. People showed signs of recovery within the day last year."

Bellamy wasn't sure what it was in that particular moment, probably the confluence of a number of factors, the fact that even damp from the decontamination shower, exhausted and sad she was still breathtakingly beautiful, the concern that radiated from every pore, concern not for herself but for their people, because that was the selfless person she was, the way his heart had just sort of settled when she had walked out of that airlock and how easily his nickname had rolled off her tongue, but looking down at her then he could only think how hopelessly irrevocably in love with her he was.

It wasn't like something in him had switched on, the only shocking thing about the entire revelation was exactly how not shocking it was. The fact was that he had been feeling this for his blonde spitfire of a partner for as long as he could remember, it was just now that he was finally able to put a label on it. She was it for him and it was exhausting him to pretend otherwise to himself any longer. It was bad enough he was going to have to keep pretending to her that he wasn't head over heels because he had the distinct impression that Clarke Griffin would not take kindly to her best friend falling in love with her.

Not only would it end the sexual relationship he was enjoying the hell out of, he was pretty sure she would cut him out entirely to save herself the trauma of inevitably losing him. Clarke was under the impression that when a man claims to love you he ends up leaving and with Jake, Wells, and Finn all on her track record he couldn't entirely blame her for that. Even more simply than all of this though, he just still didn't really believe he deserved someone like Clarke, he was grateful enough for the affection of her friendship and he sure as fuck wasn't going to risk that because his dumb-ass fell in love.

"We will get through this," he said softly, it felt bizarre just continuing their conversation when his entire worldview had just shifted but if he was going to keep up the pretense that he wasn't deep in love with her it needed to begin immediately. "It fucking sucks that we lost Fallon but it seems like she was confined to her tent not walking about camp coughing germs on every flat surface."

"We have no idea when she was exposed or even how," Clarke said, but she did look slightly comforted by the idea that maybe this would be an isolated case.

"We'll quarantine Fox and anyone else she has had close contact with lately and we'll keep an eye on them. Hopefully someone will have some idea as to where she picked this up," Bellamy replied.

"Jackson is in there cleaning now," Clarke said, motioning to the airlock, "We'll get Fox in quarantine as soon as he's done."

Bellamy smiled and gave her shoulders a final squeeze before releasing her. This was more their element, making plans and executing them.

"Can we discuss this tank top now?" Clarke asked, "Because there's a reason you never see me wearing it you know."

"I happen to think it fits you perfectly," he said, stealing a quick look to be sure Kane and Abby were still consumed in their conversation before running a finger over her cleavage, dropping a suggestive wink. It was probably in poor taste to proposition her when she had just spent the day watching one of their friends die painfully but he was never really great with social etiquette.

He was opening his mouth to suggest that if she disliked the top so much she was perfectly welcome to come back to his tent and take it off but the words died on his tongue. He felt a crushing pressure in his chest and a cold sweat broke out along his spine at the sight just over Clarke's shoulder. Fuck.

The small smile that had finally graced Clarke's face fell immediately and she spun around to see what he was staring at and Bellamy knew the terror he was feeling must have been written blatantly on his face.

"I think we've got a problem."

The words hung in the air like a toxic cloud as all four leaders turned and stared at Daniel Sullivan where he stood in the hallway leading to the airlock, bloody tear tracks streaking down his cheeks.

Maybe this was going to be exactly like last time Bellamy thought with a sickly increasing dread.


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