Bellamy blinked in surprise.
Clarke had found Becca?
With some difficulty, he forced himself to shove aside his personal agenda and refocus on the mission.
"That's what you were doing there? It wasn't about the stone or our people coming through the wormhole?"
She shook her head. "No, I was looking for information on Becca."
"But… why there? What's that place got to do with her? You remember that old vid Jaha showed us. Cadogan's just some nutball cultist."
"Yeah, but it looks like he's very wealthy nutball cultist, considering the size of that building."
Bellamy shrugged. "Okay. Still… what does any of it have to do with Becca Franko?"
"Remember those two guys on the stairs that first day? We almost ran smack into them. Remember the conversation they were having about Cadogan and the genius science broad?"
What Bellamy mostly remembered from those first moments back on Earth was his fear that they'd be caught before they ever made it to the surface. But even so, he'd heard the words and made the connection, yet never once thought about using Cadogan to find Becca.
He sighed heavily, shaking his head at his own stupidity. "How could I have forgotten about that?"
Clarke shrugged. "Yeah, I asked myself the same thing. But once I thought of it, I knew I had to check it out right away."
"So… are you saying you think Becca's a cultist?"
"Not at all. But I do think she's the kind of single-minded scientist who'd accept cash from anyone who gave it to her if it meant she'd get to carry on with her work. No questions asked."
"And… Cadogan? He didn't exactly strike me as the philanthropic type."
Clarke smirked. "Agreed. We probably should figure out what his angle is. But for now, I think it's enough to know where Becca is."
"And where is she?"
She pulled out her phone and flipped to the few photos, shoving one in front of Bellamy.
All he saw was a couple of lines of text. "So what am I looking at here?"
"The record of a payment for the delivery of a hell of a lot of food to a property on Beaman Island." She used her fingers to enlarge the font on the next line. "And here's the reference."
Bellamy squinted at the phone and then slowly nodded. "B. Franko."
Clarke's lips curved into a satisfied smile. "Exactly."
XXXXXXXXXX
Now that they had the name, it had been easy enough to locate Beaman Island on a map of Chesapeake Bay and to let the amazing 21st-century phones — those marvels that seemed to do everything but cook your breakfast — plot a course to it. It turned out to be at the north end of the bay, well into Maryland.
"We'd never have found the place," Bellamy admitted as he carefully piloted yet another rented boat northward through the crowded waters of the bay. "Or at least, not until it was too late."
He glanced behind him to where Clarke sat in the middle of the boat.
"Good thing you have no scruples about breaking into private buildings," he added with a smirk.
"Good thing," she grinned. "Now we just have to convince Becca that we're not a couple of lunatics, but really are from the future. And that if she doesn't stop what she's doing she's going to be the cause of the end of the world."
Bellamy snorted. "Is that all? I mean, who wouldn't believe that?"
Clarke sighed, her mouth twisting into a wry smile.
"It's such a… a mind-blowing task, Bellamy, really just… unbelievable. So if I don't joke about it a little I'll feel overwhelmed by it."
"Yeah," he nodded, steering carefully around yet another boat. "I can only deal with it by taking it one task at a time." He shrugged. "Find Becca Franko, check."
"Once we actually meet her, maybe we can start the conversation small, too. Like… maybe she'll tell us why she needs so much food..."
She paused suddenly, frowning. "Hey, do you think some of the stuff Cadogan paid for this month is food we ate a hundred years from now?"
"Who the hell knows? But the food that was in her lab and house had to come from somewhere."
They'd been on the water for over an hour now, wending their way slowly northward toward the GPS coordinates his phone told them was the location of Beaman Island. They'd left early, hoping to make initial contact with Becca during the late morning and still have plenty of time to get back before the waters began to crowd with boaters during what Rosa Santiago had told him was rush hour.
If ever Bellamy heard a misnomer, that was it. In the area they'd been living in, there was definitely no "rushing" anywhere between the hours of 4 and 7 in the evening — not by boat, car, train, or anything else. Indeed, travel nearly came to a standstill. Bellamy just consigned it to another of the strange quirks of living during a time when billions of people called the Earth home. He'd heard there was still a "countryside," places where they could find the fields and meadows and forests that had been his experience of "the ground," but so far they hadn't had time to even look.
When this is all over and people are safe, he promised himself for the dozenth time.
He glanced over at Clarke again, thinking how surreal it all felt. If he let his mind drift, he could almost make himself believe he wasn't on some kind of mind-blowing "save the world" mission, but was just some 21st-century guy, taking a nice boat ride up the bay with his girl.
Not that Clarke was his girl!
Jesus! He really had to get his head straight. It was hard enough keeping his distance in their one-bedroom condo without daydreaming while they were actually in the middle of the damn mission.
Bellamy sighed deeply and told himself to focus.
"What's with the big sigh?"
Christ! How the hell did she know just when to probe?
"Nothing," Bellamy lied smoothly. "Just, uh, wondering what everyone's doing back in Sanctum," he added, scrambling for a reason and saying the first thing that came into his head
Clarke stared up at him for a moment, the smile slowly leaving her face, and he felt her distance herself from him.
What the hell have I said now?
With an effort, he forced himself to put everything out of his head except making contact with Becca Franko. Of course, it was wildly improbable that they could influence Becca about anything on this first visit. Certainly not about something as extreme as halting her life's work. It'd be enough if they could manage to persuade her that they weren't crazy as loons...
"Hey, I think that's it up ahead," Clarke interrupted his thoughts. "Yes! Look, there's the tower and the satellite…"
When Clarke broke off, he couldn't help wondering if she, too, was remembering one of the worst days of their lives.
Clarke caught by Praimfaya. Bellamy leaving her behind.
Even now, he could never think of that moment without the hollow pit in his stomach, equal parts guilt, grief, and loss.
But Clarke had survived and was here with him now. Where he was determined to make sure she would stay.
The bay was a little choppy close to shore, and he knew he'd better get his mind on what the hell he was doing before he had them both in the water.
He moved the boat closer to the island, circling it slowly at what he hoped was a safe distance, looking for anything that looked like a place to dock. He was relieved when a wooden pier came into view, while on a rise behind it sat both the house Clarke had told him about and the nondescript concrete superstructure of what he knew was Becca's lab.
In the distance, above the treetops, he could just make out the satellite dish that had allowed them to open the Ark doors… and almost cost Clarke her life.
He slowed the boat and headed for the pier, managing to dock it without banging the structure too badly. Clarke jumped out and he threw her the rope, which she tied securely to a wooden post.
"Where do you think she might be, lab or house?" he asked, leaping smoothly onto the pier.
Clarke shrugged. "Probably the lab, but we can try both…"
"Hey! Who the fuck are you?"
The man was tall, dressed in dark clothes, and he did not look pleased to see them.
Bellamy, startled by his unexpected appearance, felt himself tense up as Clarke laid a restraining hand on his arm.
"Is there a problem?" she asked, smiling up at the guy like she hadn't a care in the world.
"Yeah, there's a problem," the man barked. "This is private property and you're trespassing."
Bellamy frowned. "Yeah? We were just looking for a place to picnic," he lied smoothly, trying to suss out the situation.
"The only thing you're gonna do is get back in that boat and get the hell out of here," the man said, casually pushing back the edge of his jacket to reveal the gun that was holstered on his hip.
Bellamy glanced up the hill toward the house just as another man, similarly attired — and no doubt similarly armed — came into view.
Shit! The last thing they'd expected was to run into a fucking army.
Clarke moved closer, clutching at his arm.
"You know, hon, the man's right. If this is private property, we should just go. Sorry, sir," she added with a fatuous smile.
"Just get the hell out of here. If I have to tell you again, I might not be so nice."
"Right," Bellamy nodded, immediately untying the boat and then hopping in after Clarke. He restarted the motor and backed them away from the dock.
"Hon?" he muttered, brow cocked, as he pulled the boat away from the dock.
Clarke snorted, peering back as they moved steadily away from the island. "Just propping up our cover story."
Bellamy rolled his eyes and considered what their next move might be, but he should've known Clarke already had something in mind.
"The guy's gone, Bellamy. Can you double back around to the other side of the island without anyone seeing us?"
"Yeah, I think so. Whereabouts?"
"Get as close as you can to the satellite tower."
"Okay."
With the motor running as quietly as possible, they crawled along the shoreline toward where the tower rose near the water's edge at the opposite end of the island. Bellamy estimated the tower was about a half mile from the house and lab.
"Okay, we're here," he said, bringing the boat to a halt. "So what're you thinking?"
Clarke scanned the tower and the surrounding area, then gave a satisfied nod.
"I'm thinking we come back at night, and this time with more of a plan."
"Okay," he agreed. "And I'm thinking that somehow we also get our own weapons."
Clarke smiled grimly. "Pretty sure I got that covered."
XXXXXXXXXX
She really couldn't explain to Bellamy why she hadn't told him about the guns she'd found a week earlier in a box in one corner of the safe.
"I think… maybe… I was hoping this was the one time we wouldn't need guns. Or any weapons."
"Clarke…"
"Yeah, Bellamy, I get it. I guess I should've known it wasn't going to be that easy."
"Easy? We've been here for weeks now and haven't even managed to get a glimpse of Becca, never mind talk to her. So we need to step up our game. And I don't just mean the weapons."
"You're right. We need a detailed plan. Our biggest advantage is that I remember the path from the tower to the lab. And then once we get to the lab," Clarke's expression became grim, "I was there for more than two months and I know every inch of the place. If we can get inside, I can find Becca."
Bellamy stared at her for several long moments.
"You know," he finally said quietly, "you've never told me about those months in the lab, or really anything about what happened to you after praimfaya."
They were lying in bed, as usual each carefully keeping to their own side. They'd spent the evening going over their failure that day and trying to come up with a foolproof plan that would get them in to see Becca without getting caught. Right now, those guys — whoever the hell they were — just thought they were a couple of stupid boaters. But if their faces were seen again, the whole mission could be compromised.
Clarke knew they couldn't let that happen.
But in trying to reassure Bellamy that they had an advantage, she'd alluded to a time in her life she'd really rather not talk about.
"I don't think we need to get into that now, Bellamy."
He shifted onto his side, moving fractionally nearer, and Clarke felt her heartbeat speed up just like it did every time he got that close.
"No?" he said softly. "Well, if not now, then when? Are you ever gonna tell me what it was like? What happened to you?"
Clarke felt her insides roil. "I told you how I met Madi, how we lived." She gave an embarrassed little laugh. "You even heard all about my radio calls to… to you…"
"Yeah," he agreed, "but what about before you found Shallow Valley and met Madi? What about," Clarke watched as Bellamy swallowed heavily, "your time in the lab… recovering. And then… right afterwards?"
Clarke sighed softly. Would she ever really want to tell anyone — even Bellamy— about those awful months? When she'd spent so many years trying to forget them?
"I… don't know, Bellamy," she said, gazing at him in the semi-darkness. "I've never talked about that stuff to anyone. But if I did, it would be you. So maybe… when this is done? And we're all safe?"
Bellamy nodded, his head bobbing up and down across his pillow.
"Okay, I'll hold you to that," he whispered, before rolling over onto his back. "Night, Clarke."
"G'night, Bellamy."
Clarke rolled to face in the opposite direction, determined to force her mind away from her past, and from the prospect of any kind of long serious discussion with Bellamy. She willed herself to instead work out the details for a successful invasion of the island.
First things first.
XXXXXXXXXX
Clarke was determined to at least make contact with Becca before their friends started arriving, and time was getting short. So they waited only two days before putting their new plan into action.
Dark clothes were a given, but Clarke suggested the extra precaution of wearing winter-sports masks that covered their entire heads. Even though the weather was still warm, she found some in a local sporting goods store.
"Do we really need these?" Bellamy protested. "The damn thing itches like hell."
"I'm pretty sure you can survive the discomfort, Bellamy, but those guys already saw our faces and I don't want them to make the connection if they catch a glimpse of us again."
"It's pretty dark out there, Clarke."
"Yeah, but I was thinking… my hair."
Bellamy stilled, and Clarke's breathing quickened when he reached out to twist one of her blonde strands through his fingers before abruptly pulling his hand away.
"You're right," he said, clearing his throat. "Your hair is… noticeable. Best not to take any chances."
Clarke chided herself mentally for her inability to control her reactions to Bellamy's touch. It was stupid and childish and she really needed to get over it.
"Right. Well, now that that's decided," she said, casually shifting her body away from Bellamy and searching through her backpack, "do we have everything else we need?"
"Maps. Flashlights. Phones." Bellamy eyed her. "Guns. I'm using the one holster Gabriel had. Where are you…?"
"In the pocket of my backpack. I'll get it out… if I need it."
He nodded slowly, glancing out the window.
"It's twilight. Let's go."
Bellamy had arranged for a rental at a marina located further up the Maryland coast, and by the time they launched the boat an hour later, it was fully dark. But the moon had not yet risen, and there was very little ambient light, so they had only the lights that were mounted on the boat for illumination.
Clarke thought it fortunate that they'd grown up on the Ark, where limited resources meant that lights were kept to a minimum, and that on their last visit to Earth, they'd mostly depended upon firelight at night. As a result, she was pretty sure that their ability to see in the dark would be greater than the average 21st-century human.
They approached the island from the south this time, Bellamy cutting the motor to a minimum for the last quarter mile, wary of their being heard even if not seen. But all was quiet as they hit the shore at a spot not far from where the communications tower rose toward the sky. Clarke jumped out of the boat, fully conscious of the need for both speed and silence, and quickly fastened the rope to a sturdy tree. By unspoken agreement, they dragged the ski masks over their heads then, unsure of what might await them in the woods.
Bellamy pulled out his gun and chambered a round, returning it to the holster before nodding to Clarke to move. She set a brisk pace along a path that, as expected, she remembered well. Thankfully, they neither saw nor heard any sign of the armed guards, and Clarke speculated that Becca's guards probably saw no need to cover the wooded area on the south end of the island.
They began to move more stealthily when the concrete protrusion of Becca's lab came into view, but instead of heading towards the main entrance, Clarke led Bellamy around to a lower level. He followed without question, but halted her with a touch when they finally reached the building.
"Where're you going?"
Clarke could feel his breath on her cheek as he whispered in her ear.
"It's another entrance," she murmured. "Doesn't seem to be guarded."
"And you think this is the best way in?"
"Yes," she muttered without thinking, "since it's the door I dug myself out of."
Bellamy stilled. "You… dug yourself out?"
Clarke's eyes closed briefly on a quiet sigh. Why couldn't she seem to stop talking about it?
"That doesn't matter right now, Bellamy. What's important is that this door is very close to the lab. And I'm sure it doesn't have a lock."
A moment later, she was proven right.
The door would creak on rusted hinges a hundred years in the future, but at that moment it opened smoothly, soundlessly. Clarke led the way into the building while Bellamy pulled the door shut behind them.
She stopped short, her heart hammering when she saw the familiar walls of the place where she'd been caged for all those weeks. Her memories of the pain and fear and loneliness were suddenly threatening to engulf her, but she determinedly pushed them aside, forcing herself to focus instead on Bellamy's solid presence behind her.
"You okay?" he whispered, reaching out to place a reassuring hand in her shoulder.
She nodded. "Let's just get this done."
They made their way silently along two corridors, then rounded onto a third before coming to a room Clarke thought Bellamy would probably remember well. When they saw light under the door, she knew she'd been right in thinking that even though it was well into the evening Becca would still be working in the lab.
Bellamy nodded to her and she pulled the door open as quietly as possible, praying the woman wouldn't have company.
She needn't have worried. Becca Franko was alone at her desk, and so engrossed in her work that she never even heard them enter the room.
They stopped several feet away from her and quickly removed their masks, stuffing them into their pockets. The very last thing they wanted was to scare her.
Clarke cleared her throat softly, but even then Becca didn't respond. So they moved a little closer.
"Dr. Franko," Clarke said softly, trying not to startle her. And then a little louder, "Becca."
She turned then, her face registering first surprise and then alarm.
"Who're you? How did you get in here?"
Bellamy extended his arms, palms up.
"I'm sure it's a shock to see us here but please don't be afraid. We aren't going to hurt you."
"Then why is there a gun on your hip? And why the hell are you sneaking into my lab?"
"Same answer for both," Clarke told her, trying hard to keep her voice soft and non- threatening. "We tried to come to your front door a couple of days ago, but the gun-toting goons that are guarding this place were pretty insistent that we leave. So we had to do something else."
Becca huffed. "Those men… they weren't my idea. It was just… he insisted… my backer…"
"Cadogan," Bellamy suppled.
Becca was visibly taken aback. "How could you know that? He told me no one would know where my funding came from."
"And no one does," Bellamy assured her. "Clarke here," he cocked his head in her direction, "figured it out when we were looking for you. And I'm Bellamy, by the way."
Becca appeared to relax a bit, although whether it was because her association with Bill Cadogan was still a secret or because she no longer felt threatened by people who'd bother to introduce themselves, Clarke wasn't sure.
She eyed them curiously.
"It sounds like you put a lot of effort into finding me, so… what is it you want?"
Clarke squared her shoulders. This was the dangerous part. So far they could be written off as a couple of overzealous science groupies, but that was about to change.
She took the plunge.
"We've come to ask you to stop building your ALIE program."
"What! Why would you ask me to stop working on something that's going to make life better for everyone. And," she frowned, "how the heck did you even know what I'd decided to call it? I haven't told anyone that."
"The same way we know you shouldn't finish building it," Bellamy said. "Because it didn't make life better."
Becca gaped at them. "What do you mean it… didn't. You say that like it's… already run."
He nodded. "Yeah, it ran all right. But not with the results you wanted."
"But… that's impossible."
Clarke realized there was no point in beating around the bush. They were going to have to bring it up sooner or later.
"So, Becca, what are your views on… time travel?"
Becca blinked at the sudden shift in topic.
"Uh, it's… theoretically possible, I suppose. But no one's even come close to actually doing it…"
"What if I told you that they had? And that we're from the future?"
As Clarke had feared, Becca's reaction was disbelief… followed by extreme annoyance.
"Okay, you two, I think I've listened to this crap long enough. If you leave quietly right now, I won't even call the guards…"
Knowing she might have only seconds before Becca made good on her threat, Clarke quickly pulled a knife from her pocket and made a tiny puncture in her right index finger, then held out her hand so Becca could see her blood.
"So what would you say about this, then? Any theories about how we could have the black blood? Something you only recently engineered?"
Becca's eyes swung toward Bellamy. "Both of you?"
He nodded, grabbing the knife from Clarke and making a small incision in his own finger.
Becca's eyes widened as she stared at them. "But… how? I created that for…"
"The space explorers on Eligius 3."
Becca gaped at her. "How could you possibly know that? That part of the operation was highly classified. Need-to-know basis. And most of the people who knew aren't even on this planet anymore."
"And yet somehow we have it," Bellamy pointed out, employing what Clarke always thought of as his most persuasive tone. "Because we're from a future where certain things have already happened."
He paused, to give his next words added weight.
"Including the launch of your ALIE program, Becca. Where things went seriously wrong."
For a few seconds, it seemed to Clarke that Bellamy might have gotten through to Becca, but then she began to shake her head vigorously, completely rejecting everything she'd just heard.
"Bullshit! No one's figured out time travel, so you must have some kind of… of inside source. Someone who showed you how to alter your blood, which you did for some reason I can't even begin to imagine. Unless maybe it was to fool me into thinking you were legit. So I'd listen to your baloney about how I should stop working on ALIE…"
In seconds, Clarke had crossed the floor to Becca's desk, turned and lifted her hair off the back of her neck.
"So how do you explain this, then? How could I possibly have one of your mind drives in my head?"
Becca gasped, reaching up to examine Clarke's head, her fingers trembling when she recognized the device.
"That can't be one of my mind drives," she insisted. "I only made enough of them for each member of the exploration group, and… and…" she stared at Clarke in confusion.
"And I'm not one of them. But you agree that it is one of yours, so… how can I have it?"
"When we first came through the door," Bellamy reminded her, moving to stand beside Clarke, "you asked how we got in here. Think about it. How did we manage to find your lab in the middle of this huge building? The answer is… because we've been here before, a long time from now."
Becca stared at him for a moment and then sighed heavily. "I don't understand any of this."
"I don't blame you," he said, nodding sympathetically. "And right now, it really doesn't matter exactly how Clarke came to have that mind drive in her head. She only showed it to you… and we only showed you the black blood… so you'd understand that we're who we say we are. That we really do come from the future."
Becca frowned in confusion. "It's just so unlikely that someone's actually achieved time travel, but… say it's true, that you're really who you say you are," her eyes shifted helplessly between them, "what does that have to do with me? With ALIE? This program I'm writing is going to help people… help everyone. So why would you want me to stop?"
Clarke eyed Bellamy, and the message on his face was clear. We have to tell her.
She nodded, knowing that there really was no other way.
"Perverse instantiation," she said, blurting out the words.
Becca blinked at her. "What?"
"Perverse instantiation. You know what that is, right?"
It was a rhetorical question, since Clarke had learned the term from Becca herself— or at least from the vestiges of Becca left in the flame — as she struggled to shut down the City of Light.
"Of course I do. But… are you telling me that perverse instantiation is what caused ALIE to malfunction? Because… that would be impossible! There's a fail-safe built into the program just so that could never happen. Several of them, in fact. Redundancies."
"Yes, but someone turned off all the fail-safes, and the result was…catastrophic."
Becca looked shocked. "But who would do that? And… and why?"
Neither Clarke nor Bellamy had those answers, and they might have confessed as much if there hadn't, at that moment, been a sudden sharp rap at the door.
"Dr. Franko? You in there?" Clarke recognized the voice of the man from the pier.
Becca's eyes darted over Clarke and Bellamy, but all she said was, "Yes, I'm here."
"And who's with you?"
Clarke held her breath when Becca hesitated, but then she said coolly, "What makes you think there's someone with me?"
"Thought I heard voices…"
"Listen, this is my lab," she told him, clearly exasperated, "so if I feel like talking to myself, I will. If I need you, I'll use the intercom. You don't have to keep checking up on me."
"Sorry, Dr. Franko, but the boss told us to make sure you're not disturbed."
"As far as I can see, the only one disturbing me is you!"
"Yeah, okay, but I got my orders. So if you start talking to yourself again I'm prob'ly gonna have to come in to check."
Becca gritted her teeth. "You do that!"
He left then, but Clarke wondered if he believed Becca. If the man might not even now be stepping up the patrols.
In sync as always, Bellamy mouthed to her we have to leave.
Clarke nodded, but first grabbed Becca's phone from her desk and quickly keyed in her number and Bellamy's.
"We need to talk more, Becca, so call us as soon as you can." She said it so softly that she fairly breathed the words into Becca's ear.
They left quickly then, Becca's wide-eyed nod their only reassurance that maybe she'd believed them.
Instinct told Clarke it would be better if they mounted the stairs and headed toward a different exit, one that was a little closer to the path. All the twists and turns came back to her as they raced down the hallways as stealthily as possible, and when she saw the exit door a few minutes later, she thought they were home free.
But The Goon must have had his suspicions after all.
They'd no sooner cleared the building when the shouting began.
"Look! There's two of 'em! Runnin' towards the woods!"
"Which way'd they go? I can't see nothin'!"
Clarke and Bellamy ran full-tilt along the path, both of them having learned long ago to be quick and nimble in the forest. They'd taken a moment to pull on their masks, but even so the moon was up now and they were more visible than they would have been earlier in the evening.
So when they continued to outrun their pursuers, Boss Goon decided to up his game.
Clarke heard the first bullet as it whizzed by her head, while the next one hit a tree. Experience had them automatically zig-zagging across the narrow path to avoid being hit, while the Goons fired wildly into the dark.
Just as they reached the tower, Bellamy seemed to lurch slightly.
Without slowing, Clarke shifted her head in his direction. "You okay?" she hissed.
"I'm good. Keep going. We're almost there."
Seconds later she caught a glimpse of the water, the moonlight reflected off it giving it an eerie glow. And then they were on the banking, their boat thankfully still tied up just as they'd left it.
Bellamy jumped into the boat and gunned the motor, Clarke pausing only long enough to free the rope from the tree before leaping in after him. And then they were off, the boat's headlight shining a welcome path as they began to move away from the island.
At first Clarke thought they might be followed into the bay, but when no other boat appeared she decided Boss Goon must have decided they weren't worth the trouble.
Nerves still jangling, they reached the marina in record time, and were soon in their car and headed south towards Arlington. Bellamy had become familiar with the highways by now, and used to driving in traffic, so it wasn't that long before they were pulling into the condo garage.
Clarke hopped out of the car, praying Becca would call but happy to have put this night behind them. As they made their way back to the condo in the dark, Bellamy seemed to be a little slow on his feet, maybe even a little sluggish.
She couldn't stop herself from teasing him a bit.
"Hey, old man," she smirked, opening the door and flipping on the lights, "can't take these late night adventures anymore? Or was it the idiots running after us that had you…"
And then she stopped abruptly, gasping when she got her first good look at Bellamy since they left Becca's lab.
"Oh, my god, you're bleeding! You're goddamn bleeding, Bellamy! Why the hell didn't you say something?"
"It's nothing," he insisted, "and we needed to get back here, so…"
"So… what? You just decided to ignore the fact that you'd been shot?"
The wound ran across the top of his left shoulder, only an inch or so from his neck. Clarke's throat closed when she saw how close the bullet had come to piercing his head.
"Stop!" she cried when she saw him trying to remove his shirt, and tugged at his arm to pull him into the master bathroom. Bellamy said nothing, simply sat uncomplainingly on the toilet lid while she carefully cut the shirt away from his wound.
"Seems like a waste of a nice shirt," he tried with a small smirk, but Clarke was in no mood for joking.
"Do you realize how close that bullet came?" she snapped as she cleaned the wound with antiseptic before carefully applying a bandage.
"Clarke, the bullet barely grazed me," he insisted, trying to make light of it. "I've been wounded a lot worse…"
"So you should be cavalier about this time, then? Driving all the way home… bleeding the whole fucking way… and not even telling me?"
Clarke couldn't remember the last time she'd been so angry.
"I just… I knew it wasn't a big deal and I didn't want to worry you."
Her head snapped up from the bandage she'd just finished applying so she could look him square in the eye.
"And why shouldn't I worry! Why the hell is it only you who gets to worry about me!"
She barely managed to choke out the words before her eyes began to fill with tears, her anger evaporating suddenly, morphing into terror as she realized how close she might have come to losing him forever.
"Clarke." Her name was a sigh on his lips as he reached up to wipe away the tears that were coursing down her cheeks.
"I'm sorry," he said softly, rising to his feet and pulling her into his arms.
"Your shoulder," she protested weakly, the words muffled by his broad chest.
"I don't care about that," he whispered. "The only thing I care about is you."
Clarke drew in a sharp breath, then pulled back to study him, needing to know how he looked when he said something like that to her.
And what she saw in his face took her breath away.
"Bellamy," she said softly, reaching up to stroke his cheek.
And before she could stop herself — before she could take even one second to think about what she was doing — she'd lifted her head just enough to ghost her lips across his.
Her kiss had been tentative, but Bellamy's reaction to it was anything but. In an instant, he'd wrapped her tightly in his arms, and was returning the kiss with an intensity that thrilled her. Soon Clarke was lost to the feel of it, her body twisting against him as she frantically sought more and more contact. And when she felt the tip of Bellamy's tongue sliding across her lips, she was suddenly on fire.
She was panting by the time he backed her against the wall, his body pressing into hers as she sucked strongly on his tongue. She could feel how hard he was, and instinct had her rising on her toes so she could feel that hardness exactly where she needed it the most.
Using the single brain cell that was still capable of thinking, she told herself they had to stop, that it was too soon, that Bellamy had only just broken off a relationship. But none of that seem to matter at all compared to how he was making her feel.
How they were making each other feel.
By the time Bellamy pulled away to bury his face in her neck, clutching her hair and moaning her name softly, Clarke was barely coherent.
So it was nothing short of a miracle that through the heavy haze of desire she even heard the ringing. And then realized it was coming from the other room, from the telephone inside her backpack.
"Bellamy, wait," she said, the words coming out on short pants, when he slid his lips across her cheek and began to kiss her again. "My… my phone's ringing. Gotta answer it."
His eyes half-lidded, Bellamy gazed down at her in confusion. "What?"
She slid out from under his arms, telling him, "It could be Becca. I turned the phone back on in case she called. I have to answer it."
Clarke hurried into the living room and pulled the phone from her pack, pressing to accept the call.
"Hello?" she said, nearly breathless.
But it wasn't Becca on the line after all. It was Rosa Santiago.
"Clarke? Oh, good! Look, something's happened."
As she listened to Rosa, Clarke's eyes locked onto Bellamy, who'd followed her into the room.
"Okay, Rosa," she said a few moments later before ending the call.
"Put on a clean shirt," she told him. "We have to drive to Rosa's house."
Bellamy gaped at her in disbelief. "You mean… now? Can't it wait until tomorrow?"
But Clarke shook her head. "No, it can't. Because Madi, Octavia, and Raven are sitting in Rosa's kitchen."