This one took longer to update for a few reasons: class, motivation, my desire to get it as realistic as possible, and fanfiction having a connection issue. I haven't edited this, so if there are any mistakes, please ignore them (I really just want to post this), but let me know what you think! Reviews make me happy.

"Ten minutes."

The words echo back, across six years that suddenly condense into this single, glass moment.

"We have to go."

"This is what Clarke would want us to do."

Those final minutes slam into Bellamy like a tidal wave. He didn't realize how fuzzy they've become until now. It hits him right in the chest. It makes his eyes burn.

"I left her behind."

He relives it in a breath, just before those blue eyes slide to him.

And all those memories?

Oh, they explode.

Words and pieces and moments flood back with clarity sharp enough to cut him, bits he's forgotten of, bits he can't forget, even after the end of the world.

"I need you, Bellamy."

"It had to be done."

"I don't want to be angry at you anymore."

"I can't lose you, too."

A second of disbelief crosses Clarke's face. It's barely there at all. Then her lips part in shock. Those blue eyes go wide. She stills.

"Come inside."

"I knew I could leave, because they had you."

"I trust you."

"You need me? You left me."

"I left her behind."

"Together?"

"Together."

The shock seems to wilt her. Or maybe it's relief, and Bellamy can see his name forming on her lips as surely as hers is on his, because this is so much more than he could have dreamed. She is alive and he is alive, and he doesn't even realize he's pulling at his restraints, desperate to touch her, to feel her, to know she is real before he blinks and she disappears.

But she doesn't. She stays, her eyes locked on his, as the room around them disintegrates and it's just the two of them, taking each other in. It's quiet. It's peaceful. It's the first time Bellamy believes that everything he's done has been worth it, if it all meant being alive for this.

Clarke tugs at her arms and for some inexplicable reason that Bellamy will forever be grateful for, Axl let's her go. The sudden freedom surprises her and she stumbles, but she never takes her eyes off Bellamy's.

A few steps forward, and suddenly she drops to her knees in front of him and she is there, with free hands she lifts to his face. She hesitate by his cheek, as if scared to touch him. But then she does. Her fingers first graze his cheek before dropping to the beard and a sound that's part-laugh, part-sob escapes her. It's a sound that Bellamy doesn't hear himself echo but he knows he does as her hand cups his cheek. Her blue eyes fill his view.

"Bellamy," she whispers. And despite all of it, she grins, the biggest smile he's ever seen.

He feels his lips mirror hers. Whatever words he's planned scatter. He wants to tell her everything but he can't when all of them seem to turn to dust. He searches her eyes, and the only thing he manages to get out is one word.

"Clarke."

A disbelieving breath. "You're . . . you're alive."

You sure about that? he almost says, because a part of him wonders. "Thanks to you." He can't stop his eyes searching her face.

A tear slips down her cheek and she shakes her head. Stares at him as if she's just as afraid he'll evanesce through her fingers. But then a small crease appears between her brows. Bellamy can practically hear the question forming in her mind.

"We're alive because of you," he adds quietly, so she knows. The others are here. We're all okay. You saved all of us.

That crease vanishes, chased away by that smile. "I can't believe you're here. I thought . . ." The unspoken words hang between them.

"I'm sorry," tumbles from Bellamy, like air after being underwater for too long. He needs to say it, not because he regrets his decision, but because they both know he would make the same one again. He says it because the six years were long and lonely and hard, and because there were moments he needed to look across the room and see someone there who understood him without him having to speak a word. He says it for the moments he did regret it, for the nights he awoke angry at her sacrifice, angry at himself for her being the one to do it instead of him.

Clarke shakes her head again, hands pressed to his cheek. "No. Bellamy-"

Steps interrupt her, and a moment later Axl looms behind her crouched form. His hand seizes her forearm and he pulls her back. "No!" Bellamy snaps, pulling against his restraints, pressing himself into her touch just as her fingers leave his cheek.

She yanks at her own arm, gaze fastened on Bellamy's. "No, stop. Please!" Axl pulls her back to the other side of the room, by the door they entered from. He stands sentinel by her, as rigid as a statue.

Bellamy keeps his eyes on her until McCreary eclipses his view, like a shadow blotting out the sun. The room seems darker, all of a sudden. Bellamy's relief crumples at the edges, because he knows what men like McCreary like to do now. Bellamy knows, because hasn't he done it himself?

"You've made things . . . easier . . . for me now, I think." He tosses a glance at Clarke from over his shoulder. "It's nice to have friends, isn't it?"

Bellamy doesn't even realize he's bitten his lip until the sharp tang of copper registers. He tries to pull everything he's shown back into himself, wrap it all back around the spool, but what he's shown can't be unseen. He can't rewind his relief. Can't pretend that the woman standing just beyond his line of sight is anything less than what she is: someone he would be captured for. Someone he would fight for. Someone he has mourned and missed and spent six years trying to prove that everything she did wasn't for nothing.

So Bellamy schools his features as best he can, but he suspects it still shows in his eyes, especially when the fading trace of a smile touches McCreary's lips. "See, Clarke here has been having some qualms about doing something for me. But I reason that if she wants to see you remain mostly intact, she'll concede."

Bellamy forces his eyes from over McCreary's shoulder to his eyes. Reminds himself to stay calm against the hurricane brewing inside, ready to sweep reason away. "Didn't seem to work much last time," he says, "if she's still giving you trouble."

McCreary smirks. "She won't do anything for us now, not without the girl."

Bellamy almost smiles. It's a victory at least. "Managed to lose her that quickly, huh?" he asks. He tilts his head to the side, baiting him. "You should watch your hostages more carefully."

McCreary doesn't take it. In fact, Bellamy's words might as well be water, effecting no change. "I figured it was you. You and your friends."

"It's good to have them."

The man nods slowly. He flicks his gaze back at Clarke before throwing it back at Bellamy, a ghost smile lingering there, like he knows something Bellamy doesn't. Only Bellamy does know. He knows what any person would in this situation, and it rids himself of his relief.

"What do you think, Clarke?" McCreary asks, stepping to the side just enough for Bellamy to see her again. She looks between him and McCreary, eyes still wet, expression . . . afraid. That alone is more unnerving than the silver lighter that McCreary retrieves once more and swipes his thumb across, letting the flame spring to life. He rifles something out of his breast pocket and pulls out something cylindrical. Lights the end of it on fire before capping the lighter shut. Pinching it between his fingers, he drags in a deep breath before exhaling out a cloud of smoke that turns the air acrid around Bellamy. "How far will we have to take this," he asks, "before you give me what I want?"

Clarke shoves forward but Axl holds her back. "Don't. Don't hurt him."

"I don't have to, not if you do as I ask."

Clarke's eyes go back to Bellamy, big and pleading. She shakes her head, almost imperceptibly, because she is afraid.

McCreary pulls out the stub in his mouth. Swift as the smoke he breathes, he thrusts it forward until the lit tip is pressing against the skin just beneath Bellamy's jaw.

It's a moment before he feels it, and when he does, he has to press his lips together to keep the pain inside.

"Stop it!" Clarke shouts as heat blazes up Bellamy's neck. His hands turn to fists behind him. This is what it's like to be branded.

McCreary waits until the embers smolder. "I am a patient man, Clarke," he says. "But even I have my limit, and you don't want to see what happens when I reach it."

He pulls the stub away and Bellamy lets out a small breath.

McCreary relights the stub, but this time he doesn't put away the lighter. He keeps it out and lit, holding the thimble of flame close to Bellamy's face. He can feel the heat of it waft against his nose, until it becomes an uncomfortable tingle.

"What'll it be, Clarke?" asks McCreary.

Bellamy searches Clarke's face, as if expecting to find the reason for all this there. What does he want you to do?

"How are you sure I even know how to do it?" she asks, her voice calm despite the war in her eyes. "I'm not even sure!"

McCreary pulls in another mouthful of smoke. Exhales again. "Wrong answer." And with that, he brings the lighter over the burn mark, close enough for the flame to lick at the raw skin.

This time, Bellamy can't bite back his choked gasp.

"Stop! Stop hurting him!"

"Tell me what I want to hear, Clarke."

"What if-what if it goes wrong?" she asks, her voice desperate. "What if I can't do what it is you're asking me? What if I kill them instead?"

"If they die, he dies." A pause. "Very slowly."

The pain seems to set his bones on fire and another gasp slips through Bellamy's lips. "Don't, Clarke!" he pants. "Don't- don't give him whatever it is he's-asking for." Bellamy doesn't even realize he's trying to lean away from the lighter, from the pain, but there's nowhere to go tied down in a chair.

McCreary's face looms by him. "I suppose you think it's heroic of you for suggesting that, but you'll soon find that it's actually very stupid."

"Please!" Clarke shakes her head, holding herself as far from Axl as he'll allow. "Just stop hurting him and I'll . . . I'll try it." Bellamy can barely hear her over the pain searing his neck. Sweat beads at his temples and spills down. Some of it touches the wound and makes it burn like acid.

"You don't sound very convincing," says McCreary. "I want you confident. I want you sure."

'I'm sure you'll kill us both after you get what you want."

"Perhaps, perhaps not. I can promise you a swift death."

Clarke's eyes narrow, and this time, her voice isn't desperate; it's confident and sure. "If he dies, there's nothing you can do that will make me help you. You'll stay leader to a frozen people and when the time comes that you become so desperate to free them, you'll be the one who drowns them instead."

McCreary straightens and pulls the lighter away, and it's like water down Bellamy's neck. He caps the lighter, but its flame seems to linger, burning in his eyes instead of between his fingers. "I believe you'll feel differently, maybe sooner than you think."

Turning his back to Bellamy, he approaches Clarke, and before Bellamy can shout something he really can't do anything about anyway, McCreary turns his words to Axl instead. "Return Clarke to the dock bay. Then call for Venson."

Bellamy can't see McCreary's face, but he can see Clarke's, and the way she blanches makes every muscle of his tense, because he can read it all in her eyes, even before she shakes her head, struggling for words, for anything that would pull the both of them out of this alive. "No, wait, I can . . . I'll try. I'll try."

McCreary pockets the lighter. "Of that, I have no doubt. Let's just consider this a little motivation, to help get you started."

Clarke pulls against Axl's hold, eyes flashing between him and Bellamy. "No! You don't have to do this!"

"It's a little late to try appealing to my conscience. Or has war taught you nothing?" He gestures with a tilt of his chin towards the door. "Take her."

"No," she tries to pry Axl's hold from her, but he is relentless. "No, just-"

A net of fear unravels inside Bellamy at the sight of her slipping away again. Not again. He just got her back.

"Clarke," he says. Her blue eyes burn into his. We'll find a way. He hopes he conveys the message. Hopes it looks more convincing than he feels, because he knows what will comes next. It won't be gentle. It never is. He just hopes it will be slow enough for the others to catch up, if they are to come at all.

A tear slides down Clarke's cheek. All traces of her earlier smile are gone. There are a thousand words in her eyes, but she only has time for three. "I'm sorry, Bellamy."

Then she's pulled from the room and into the corridor. The door slides shut behind them, and Bellamy is left with a sudden bomb of silence that seems to pulse with the throb of his burning neck. We'll find a way, Clarke. We always do.

Not the last time, a small part reminds him. But last time had its mistakes, and unlike then, he won't be going anywhere without her. We'll find a way, he thinks again, almost angrily. His neck burns. Exhaustion shakes his limbs. But he won't stop. This is where he doesn't give up, because now he knows Clarke's alive, after sacrificing everything she had to save them, and walk a burning world alone. She's alive, and she's here, and he is not leaving her behind again.

We'll find a way, he repeats, even as the door opens again and in steps a tall man, his hard face adorned in a motley of scars, eyes as kind as shards of glass.