Clarke stretched out her arm until she felt heat, then wriggled over to the warm spot, eyes firmly closed. She had been lying on the grass for hours, following the sunlight as it moved through the trees overhead. The sunlight was fickle. Earlier in the day she had drifted off into a nap and woken up shivering. Now she was about a dozen trees to the left of where she had started. She was moving in a straight line. When she hit a tree, she just manoeuvred around it. The warmth disappeared abruptly. She sighed and flung her arm out again, but instead of empty air she hit something with enough force to bruise her hand. That was no tree. She reached out gingerly and felt a boot.
"Sit down Bellamy. You're blocking my sun."
"How did you know it was me?"
"Anyone else would have either spoken first or stepped on me without looking." And his left boot had a hole in the toe. He stubbornly refused to replace it or patch it up. It drove her crazy. He was a medical disaster waiting to happen in those boots.
There was a rustling noise as he sat down and she got her sun back. She let out a happy little sigh.
"Why are you hiding out here?"
"I'm sunbathing."
He let out a snort. "You're covered from head to toe. What are you trying to tan? Your nose?"
She shrugged. "Maybe I could use a few more freckles."
She felt the force of his gaze on her face and wished she hadn't said that. She yanked on his arm and he fell on his back with a thud. "You could too."
"My freckles are perfect, thank you very much."
She couldn't disagree there, so she just nudged his shoulder. She felt him stretching his limbs out beside her, until their arms and feet were touching. It was a very small patch of sun, but they just managed to squeeze in.
Clarke poked him in the shoulder. "How did you find me?"
"Murphy said you left camp in this direction, so I just started walking."
"That Murphy. Such a gossip."
She didn't ask why. Just like he hadn't asked why she had sought him out yesterday, or the day before that. It had quietly become a thing, without words. They carved out time for each other. Bellamy time, she called it in her head. Sometimes they talked. Last night they had talked for hours, until they ran out of words and were forced to call it a night. Right now, she didn't feel like talking. The silence felt meaningful. It said that they didn't need or want anything, except to just be in the other's presence.
She tried to think of an excuse to reach for his hand. It wasn't something they had done before. A touch on the shoulder or a hug, sure. But hand-to-hand contact was different. It wasn't an instinctual move in a dramatic moment and it wasn't a half-conscious gesture for quiet times. It was deliberate. Intimate. When they were standing, or sitting, it would have felt like there was an insurmountable gap between them. But now her hand was right there, and his hand was right there, and she wanted to hold it. More than that, she thought that she could. But the desire had barely settled in her brain before her plan was scuttled. Because Bellamy didn't need an excuse. He just reached out and entwined their fingers casually, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Damn him, she thought with a smile. She couldn't let herself be outdone by Bellamy in the courage department. So she shifted onto her side and wriggled in closer, resting her head on Bellamy's chest. She could feel the breath catch in his chest at the same time that hers did. Then they both breathed out and untensed. They stayed just like that as the sun moved further and further away, as it set and disappeared over the horizon. She didn't even care. She had all the warmth she could ever need.