A/N: You have all been SO patient. TOO patient. I am sorry. Mea culpa. Mea culpa. I am doing my best to keep the real world from leaving me in the dust, and - frankly - I hit writer's block on this piece. It SUCKED, because I already know how this ends (there are only a few chapters left) but couldn't get the words to come out right. And I just... love this piece too much to let myself post a shitty chapter. Anyway, I hope this small update meets with your approval, and please know I am already working on the next chapter!
A/N2: I am the luckiest lady EVER. My internet wife is my beta, and she's the kick-ass-est at both those things: MarinaBlack1! Also, Persepholily has been serving as a reader from the get-go but now we've also managed to sucker lucawindmover into it, too! WHAT! (Seriously. These women are each AMAZING writers with beautiful, unique voices and I feel HONORED every time they are willing to read something I write. Good god.)
Night 33
Lincoln had warned against a departure today, staring at the grey morning clouds so pregnant with snow they seemed to drag painfully over the bare treetops… but Clarke and Bellamy had shared one look and shaken their heads. They couldn't possibly feed everyone for another day, and they'd been gone from Camp long enough. At the very least, they needed to get close enough for Monty's reconstituted radio to pick up Raven and Wick's transmissions so reinforcements could be ordered.
With Lincoln and Octavia at the head, the displaced residents of Agro station had abandoned the relative safety of the house just before mid-day. Clarke and Bellamy stayed toward the back, along with Monty and the three parentless children who seemed to have latched onto him at some point. Monty kept up a stream of light, friendly chatter with the children, even though they rarely responded. Bellamy had never considered Monty in the role of protector, but he seemed good at it, so Bellamy opted not to intervene. By the time they stopped for the night – too soon, and too far from Camp for Clarke's liking but Bellamy had insisted – the children were actually communicating in fits and spurts.
"Because, buddy, Bellamy and Clarke are our leaders," he corrected one of the children who had asked why Bellamy kept shouting at people.
"Like the Chancellor," the oldest child, a seven-year-old named Mari, finally said.
"Well kind of, but Dr. Griffin is the Chancellor," Monty tried with a frown. "The Chancellor's in charge of Camp Jaha. Clarke and Bellamy… well, they take care of the rest of us."
Now the whole recovery party had sheltered inside a nearby mining tunnel, clustered in groups of three or four under the thin blankets, superficially out of a desire for physical warmth but also, obviously, about so much more than that. Bellamy moved restlessly down the center of the tunnel, checking in on people. He tripped over an extended leg in the poor light, cursing as he went down hard. He managed to shield his face just before hitting the unforgiving stone of the tunnel floor, but could feel a quick hard bite in the palms of his hands. Damn, that would hurt tomorrow.
"Bellamy?" Monty, the owner of that treacherous leg, sounded surprised by Bellamy's presence. "What's going on?"
"Just doing the rounds. You good?"
"Yeah, we're fine, thanks." And that's when Bellamy spotted them, the three parentless children. They were draped over Monty like puppies, half-asleep but not quite, and Bellamy's bruised, wrung-out heart still managed to break afresh for them.
This was Monty's family now. It should have been obvious earlier, really. When the group was pushing to stay ahead of the snow. When Monty, a child on his back and another gripping tight to his free hand, had asked Clarke to help with the littlest. Her name was Alma, and she was unnaturally quiet for a toddler. Bellamy knew: he remembered those frantic years when Octavia was still too young to understand the importance of silence. This little girl should have been running between legs, asking endless unanswerable questions – instead she stared carefully at the grownup faces around her, as if still searching out her mother and father even now. Bellamy had to walk away from that face for a moment. It took him three deep breaths to find the calm comfort a child like that needed, but when he turned back he almost lost it again to see Clarke, hugging the tiny thing against her shoulder with a fierce determination.
He'd been so busy watching Clarke, he had missed how much it all mattered to Monty. He had missed Monty's worry for Alma, or the way he stayed right beside Clarke as they walked.
Now though, in the dark of the tunnels, Bellamy heard four year old Karl whimper in his sleep, watched Monty pull the boy closer against his side, and it was a hard punch to the gut to admit he knew this scene. He was watching a young Bellamy, a frightened little Octavia clinging to each other as though the outside world held all the monsters of Roman myth. Bellamy cleared his throat but could not dislodge the hard lump. These boys had found safety in each other, and neither was willing to let go of yet another person.
Bellamy murmured good night quietly, but just as he was turning back toward the tunnel entrance Monty called his name.
"Listen. Without my parents…" he stopped and Bellamy waited. "I don't have anything keeping me at Camp, Bellamy. Not anymore. So… if you decide to go – I mean, when you decide to go – come tell us. We'll be ready."
Bellamy was tempted to toe the party line. He was tempted to deflect, to assure Monty of the unity of the Arkers. But he remembered what Monty had been through, and how much he mattered to Clarke. Monty was one of theirs, and he deserved better. He had earned better.
"I will, Monty. Thanks." Without another word Bellamy headed back up the tunnel to his partner. He sank beside Clarke with an exhausted groan, curling closer and dragging the bright orange blanket around them both. Her damp hair still smelled of the snow drifting down beyond the cave mouth, and for a moment Bellamy considered going back outside, just for the pleasure of the experience again. The only person who had not smiled when the first flakes floated down onto them was Lincoln; he had tried to hurry everyone along, worried about getting caught in a blizzard. All the others, even Clarke, had smiled and stretched out their hands to catch at the snow. She had been so perfectly Clarke about the experience, too: in one breath able to describe the science of why ice crystals formed six spokes each time, and in another marveling at how beautiful and perfectly unique each was, a tiny ethereal sculpture.
"Are you okay?" Clarke asked, and he recognized that worried tone. Fuck. Would there ever be a point when she didn't have to worry so much? He was trying his hardest to get them there, but it seemed like this shit-hole planet always had some new torment for them.
"I'm fine. I just hope Monty knows what he's getting himself into, with those kids."
"Monty's not one to take responsibility lightly," Clarke whispered into his ear as she pressed one small cool hand to his cheek, drawing his attention to her face. He could feel some, though not all, of the tension easing from his neck as she pressed her forehead to his. "Trust him, Bellamy. I do. The kids do."
"Yeah." Bellamy tried to relax more fully into her, but he was fooling no one.
"Come on," Clarke finally huffed at him, standing and dragging the blanket around her. "Let's take a walk."
She folded the blanket and set it down just inside the mouth's edge, away from the ankle-deep drifts of snow, and twined her fingers into his. Together they stepped into a world transformed, made new and foreign all over again by this blanket of pure clean cold, and Bellamy smiled down at Clarke, smiled so hard his cheeks hurt because she glowed. Her eyes were wide with wonder at the pristine midnight landscape, dark pupils drinking in the vision of branches sagging low with the heavy weight of the snow, the crystal sparkle of starlight catching the peaks of snowdrifts. She glanced up and half-gasped, half-laughed, pointing up until Bellamy had no choice but to comply. It was hard. He wanted to watch her like this forever. But he did as she asked, turning his face to the sky.
"Shit," he breathed, stepping to Clarke's side so he could wrap one arm around her waist as they marveled at the barely-there crescent of moon, and the way it appeared to glow from within a rainbow outline made of a thousand small pinpricks of light. "What is that?"
"I don't know," Clarke admitted. "Wells would've known maybe, or Finn. I guess we'll have to ask someone when we get back to Camp."
Bellamy glanced down quickly at her words; but she hadn't flinched as the name slid off her tongue, there had been no uncertain catch in her breath before it tumbled past her lips, and for the first time in – he had not really paid attention to a calendar, but it had to have been weeks by now – she seemed really at peace.
"Sure, we'll check around Camp," he promised her quietly, with a gentle squeeze of her hip. "Although you never know, Monty or Jasper might have the answer."
"Or Nyko," Clarke smiled. "There are plenty of people to ask, really."
Beneath the simple statement was a mountain of relief. Clarke turned toward him, her eyes falling toward his lips, but just before he gave in to the warmth of her mouth he paused, cupping her chin in both hands.
"We're safe thanks to you, Clarke," he told her, earnestly, trying to make her understand how valuable she was to them all. "We have friends because of you."
"And we're alive because of you," she answered him. "I'm alive because of you." Obviously Clarke was done with words; she grabbed at the thin cotton shirt exposed beneath his jacket (the zipper had broken ages ago), pulling herself up to his mouth hungrily. As they kissed he let the force of her pour over him, hard and determined and fierce, and Bellamy Blake tried to understand what the fuck he had ever done in his life, that she considered him worth her time, worth her love.
"Thank you," he mumbled at one point, the words slipping past her parted lips and teeth. He hadn't meant to say it out loud, but it was too late to take it back, and Clarke stilled suddenly under his hands.
"Why?" She asked, her voice small and uncertain. Bellamy cursed himself. She would hate his answer: thank you for saving us all, thank you for your brilliance and strength and sense of duty, thank you for seeing me as more than just another useless face in the crowd, thank you for loving me, thank you for letting me love you the only way I'm any good at?
"You know why," he laughed to throw her off, and she grinned and relaxed, pushing her nose against his lightly.
"Thank you too, then."
He vowed silently not to ask the question.