AN: Posting this, I realize we've actually passed the halfway mark! I mean, it's still going to be, like, four months or something before the fic is all done and posted, but still, we're kind of on the home stretch – I hope you'll all want to continue on this journey with me until the end!

I don't own anything relating to The 100

Chapter title from "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol

36

Would You Lie with Me and Just Forget the World?

Clarke knew about Sparta and the Spartans before she started planning their round-the-world trip, of course. Her knowledge was basically limited to three things, though – the Spartans (hint in the name) advocated for a simple lifestyle, their army was the most prominent in Ancient Greece for some time, and Spartan women were known for having more freedom and power than any other women during that time.

She also knew that Gerard Butler looked hot on the cover of the movie 300, but that's beside the point. She did try to get Bellamy to watch it a couple of days before they left New York, but he flat out refused, claiming that it would give her a completely skewed impression of the Spartan people and the battle of Thermopylae. He got so worked up about it – she even caught him muttering about it under his breath a couple of times in the days after – that she didn't dare bring it up again.

She did do some more research herself, though, and she's really looking forward to their trip to Sparta, and not just because she knows Bellamy will be like a kid in a candy shop – she really thinks it'll be interesting.

And it is, the whole day is great.

They've booked a private tour, so it's just the two of them and their guide, a twenty-something girl who introduces herself as Alexandra, immediately following up with asking them to call her Alex. She seems genuinely excited, even though this is probably something she does regularly, and if Clarke hadn't just had two large cups of coffee, she probably would have vaguely resented her for being so exuberant at eight in the morning.

She gets them settled in the back seat and takes off through the city, weaving up and down narrow streets so much Clarke has no idea which direction they're going after only a few minutes. She knows Athens must be a pretty large city, but it was dark when they landed, so it's not until now that they really get an idea of its size. It takes almost half an hour before they even leave the city behind, the houses and stores giving way to trees and hills on both sides of the highway and, a little while later, to the sea on their left.

Alex keeps up a running commentary of what they're passing, everything from landmarks to places she knows for various reasons. Clarke only listens with half an ear but Bellamy seems really interested, cutting in with questions now and then. She leans her head on his shoulder and gazes out at the blue ocean beyond the car window, letting their conversation become background noise.

She might doze off a little, because before long, Alex is pulling off the highway and comes to a stop in a parking lot in front of what looks like a restaurant. Clarke looks around with a frown.

"Are we there already?" she asks, getting a chuckle from Bellamy.

"No, just the first stop," he tells her.

"Yes, this is DhiorygatisKorinthou," Alex adds from the front seat. "The Corinth Canal. It is over six kilometers long but only twenty-one meters wide at the bottom. It was supposed to be used for shipping, but it was too narrow. But it is a beautiful place. There is a café on the other side, if you want to get something to eat before we go on."

They get out of the car and Clarke stretches a little, getting a better look at their surroundings.

"Come on," Bellamy says, taking her hand and tugging her along. "It's this way."

They take off in the direction he indicated and soon emerge on the bridge stretching over the canal, stopping in the middle. She leans against the railing and takes in the scene before her – the narrow, bright blue canal far below them, at least two or three hundred feet down, another bridge some ways away and then what she assumes is the sea, hills still shrouded in morning mist in the distance.

"It is beautiful," she notes, pulling her hand from his grasp to wrap an arm around his waist and pull him closer.

"It is," he agrees, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and pressing a kiss to her hair.

They admire the view for a little longer before continuing across the bridge. It's only been an hour and a half since they had breakfast, so neither of them are hungry, but they pick up a couple of sodas at a news stand before turning back the way they came, crossing the bridge on the other side this time.

They've almost reached the end of the bridge when Clarke stops with a laugh.

"What?" Bellamy asks, frowning at her.

"Look," she says, nodding at the sign she spotted, right next to the bridge, and he does.

"Bungy platform?" he reads out loud.

"You didn't change your mind and want to try it?" she asks, not really serious, but still wanting to check in. She promised herself that she would, at some point.

"There's nobody there," he points out, looking around. "Besides, isn't Australia the place for all that adrenaline stuff? I mean, if you're going to do it you might as well do it right."

Maybe he's still thinking about it.

"Whatever you want."

"Right now, what I want is to get going so we get to Sparta soon," he tells her.

"Then let's go."

Alex is waiting by the car and soon they're back on the road, she and Bellamy quickly getting into a discussion about infrastructure in Ancient Greece. Clarke tunes them out again, focusing on the landscape, which is more rural on this side of the canal – fields stretching into the distance, what looks like olive growths here and there. After a while, it turns hilly, almost mountainous, reddish-brown mounds dotted with green shrubs rising high above them. They pass through a city, which she manages to identify as Tripoli from the signs, which luckily aren't just in Greek, and then it's back to the hills and mountains.

"It's definitely a special type of landscape," Bellamy says after an indeterminable amount of time, his voice almost making her jump since she wasn't prepared for it so close to her ear. She looks up at him with a smile.

"It is," she replies. "Did you two finally run out of aqueducts and canals to talk about or are you just taking a break?"

He rolls his eyes but there's a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "We're getting closer to Mystras, Alex wanted to give us both a summary before we get there."

"Yes, we will be there soon," Alex confirms from the driver's seat. "Mystras was a fortified city that was the capital of the Byzantine Despotate of Morea in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Today, it's known as the ghost city, but many of the monasteries are still inhabited…"

She goes on to give them the whole background of the city and what they can expect to see there, and by the time she's done, they're pulling into a parking lot on the side of the road.

The sun has risen in the sky while they were in the car, and with it the temperature. Bellamy immediately pulls off the light sweater he's wearing, tossing it into the backseat of the car, and Clarke follows his lead. It must be at least seventy-five and the sun is really beating down.

Alex seems completely unaffected in her thick looking sweatshirt. "Right, this way."

They follow her around the ruins, listening to her more in-depth description of each one. Bellamy pipes in now and then, but mostly stays silent, to Clarke's surprise. Then again, Alex is probably the best tour guide they've come across so far and she doesn't leave anything out, going into all the little details Bellamy added during previous tours. They meet some of the brothers still living in the active monasteries, explore the little churches dotted around, check out the castle ruins and finally grab some lunch before returning to the car for the short drive to the final stop in Sparta.

They start at the old citadel, and even if it's just ruins these days, Alex' engaging tales of the old warrior society makes it come alive somehow.

"Come on, Bell… say it," Clarke says when they're strolling around for a few minutes after Alex has finished her guiding.

"Say what?" he asks, tearing his eyes from the plaque he was reading.

Clarke raises her eyebrows. "You know what."

He just stares at her for a moment before groaning and shaking his head. "No."

"Come on…" she wheedles. "You know you want to say it."

"I really don't."

"Say what?" Alex asks, coming up behind them.

"Are you going to say it?" she asks.

Bellamy crosses his arms over his chest, but she can tell from the glint in his eyes that she almost has him. "Nope."

"Then you give me no choice but to say it myself," she replies with a casual shrug.

He rolls his eyes. "Come on, Princess."

"Last chance," she says, pausing for a moment to give him a chance to change his mind. "Fine then. This… is… Sparta!"

He lets out a huff but it's almost drowned out by Alex' excited laughter. "Again!" she exclaims, coming to stand next to Clarke, and they say it together, a little louder than before.

"Come on, Bellamy. You know you want to."

He shakes his head, but the next time she opens her mouth, he chimes in.

"This… is… SPARTA!"

A few other tourists nearby turn to give them amused or disapproving looks, but they're laughing too much to even care.

"OK, yeah, that was kind of fun," Bellamy admits as they make their way back to the car.

"Told you."

"Yeah, yeah. Still a crap movie, though."

They wrap the visit up at the archeological museum before starting back towards Athens.

The sun sets just after they pass the Corinth Canal again, and Clarke dozes a little on and off the rest of the way. She apparently falls asleep at some point, because Bellamy shakes her awake when they're back at the hotel.

"Hey there, sleepyhead," he greets her with a smile.

"Mmm, hey."

They thank Alex for a wonderful day and say their goodbyes before entering the hotel and climbing the stairs to their room.

They spend Wednesday morning exploring the Acropolis with its many temples in various stages of ruin, the theaters and monuments. It's another beautiful day, clear enough they can make out the sea in the distance. After a quick lunch, they continue to the Acropolis Museum, which keeps them busy most of the afternoon.

It's almost five when they finally leave the museum, and they decide to head back to the hotel for a little while before trying to find a restaurant for dinner. Bellamy immediately slumps down on the bed with his phone in hand.

"What are we doing tomorrow again?" he asks and Clarke opens her calendar to check.

"Stuff on the other side of the Acropolis," she tells him. "Roman forum, Agora, Temple of Hephaestus… I think there were some other cool stuff over there as well, but that's what I have written down."

He just hums and taps away on his phone, and she knows he's googling all the places she just told him, even though they'll be exploring them for real tomorrow.

She changes her jeans and shirt for some sweats instead, since she's planning on putting on something else for dinner anyway, and is just about to join Bellamy on the bed when her phone pings. It makes him look up and she shrugs, checking the screen.

"Raven," she says when she sees the notification.

"Ah."

It's not that unusual for Raven to text her, they've kept in touch fairly regularly over the last couple of months, texting every few days and skyping once a week or so. But she had a text waiting for her this morning and they have a Skype date planned for Friday evening.

The actual message doesn't make her any the wiser – hotel? – but she sends confirmation back and a moment later, there's an incoming Skype call.

"Hey Rae," she greets her friend when she's picked up.

"Hey, babe, how's Greece?"

"It's good, the weather's finally getting nice so that's a bonus." She sits down at the edge of the bed, Bellamy's arm immediately sneaking around her waist to pull her against his chest. "Did something come up on Friday?"

"Friday?" Raven asks. "Oh, right, we were going to Skype. No, nothing's come up, I just… remember what we talked about on Christmas?"

They talked about a lot of things on Christmas, of course, but Clarke immediately knows what she means and feels her heart rate pick up.

"You found something?"

Raven sighs. "Not what you wanted me to find."

Clarke can honestly say that she hasn't thought a lot about her and Raven's conversation about getting around Bellamy's Number. It's crossed her mind now and then, when she can't avoid actually thinking about the whole situation, but since they set out on their trip, she's been pretty good at doing just that. Still, the way Raven's words simultaneously feel like an expected confirmation she knew was coming and like a knife in the gut makes her think she must have been thinking about it on some subconscious level and that her subconscious – traitor – has been hoping for some solution.

Bellamy must pick up on her reaction because he tightens his hold on her and presses a kiss to her hair. She slumps back against him, covering his hand with hers and squeezes a little to tell him that she's OK. Which she's not, not really, but still.

"What did you find?"

"Well, I thought the best bet would be to try to skip the day entirely, you know, hope it would reset the clock or something," Raven says.

"Is that even possible?" It sounds a little like science fiction to Clarke.

"Yes and no. If you time it right, you can, technically, leave a time zone where it's July twenty-sixth and cross the dateline so that you go directly to July twenty-eight. But time zones and all that, it's really just something humans have come up with to make sense of the way the sun and earth and everything move, night and day, it's not an actual, physical thing, so it's not like you'll be a day younger if you do that."

"And it won't work for us," Clarke adds.

"Like I said, I thought it was the best – the only, really – option. But… it's been tried."

"Really?"

"I honestly didn't think so, since it hasn't even been technologically possible for that long," Raven says, sounding exasperated, like her failure to solve this problem is actually affronting to her personally. "But, yeah. You've met Roan King, right?"

Clarke has to think for a moment before she can place the name. "Yeah, a couple of times, I think."

"Anyway, he met someone a few years ago, a Norm with, like, two years to live. Apparently, he spent a lot of time trying to come up with some way to get her past her date, and in the end, this was the only thing he actually felt would be worth trying. So he chartered a plane to go from… I don't even remember the name, some tiny Pacific island in the time zone UTC minus eleven, to another tiny Pacific island in the time zone UTC plus fourteen."

She pauses, as if not sure if she should continue.

"What happened?" Clarke asks, though she's pretty sure she knows and doesn't really want to hear the answer. She needs to.

"She died when they crossed the dateline," Raven replies quietly. "So, yeah… not an option."

They're both quiet for a long moment and Clarke can practically feel Bellamy's questioning eyes on her.

"So that won't work," she finally says. "Anything else you could think of?"

"Not really," Raven admits. "I tried to get in touch with Roan, figured he might have some other idea that they never tried, but he hasn't picked up on the number that's listed for him. He's stationed in Sydney right now, I know you'll be there for a few days, I can see if I can find his address in case you want to look him up…"

"Yeah, we might do that," Clarke agrees before letting out a sigh. "OK, thanks for trying, Rae."

"Always, babe. And I'll keep trying to find something else… You know where to find me if you need me."

"Thanks. Love you."

"Love you too."

She hangs up the phone and resists the urge to throw it across the room. It's not like it would help, even if it might make her feel better for, like, a second.

"So you asked Raven to try to come up with a way to get past my Number?" Bellamy asks behind her, voice light.

She slips out of his embrace to be able to turn around and give him a scrutinizing look. "How did you reach that conclusion from my end of that conversation?"

He shrugs. "I figured you probably had and it sounded like you were talking about something more serious than our latest holiday photos. She hasn't found anything?"

She nudges him a little and he moves over so she can flop down on the bed, curling around him. He wraps an arm around her and rubs soothing circles against her back.

"No. She thought our best option would be to cross the dateline backwards, I guess? Go from the time zone UTC minus eleven to the time zone UTC plus fourteen at the exact right moment, so we'd skip the twenty-seventh completely. But apparently, that doesn't work."

"Huh." He pauses. "That's the only thing I could come up with too, so good thing I didn't put too much energy into trying to figure out how to actually do that."

She's a little surprised that he's thought about it, but maybe she shouldn't be. It's only natural, after all. The will to survive is ingrained in the human brain. But… he's never said anything about it to her. Then again, she didn't mention talking to Raven about it either. And either way, it doesn't matter.

"The guy who tried that is apparently in Sydney, Raven tried to get in touch with him but couldn't, but she's going to look up his address. We could see if he'd be willing to talk to us while we're there? He might have some other idea."

"Yeah, we could do that," he agrees, but she has a sneaking suspicion he's just saying it to humor her.

Maybe he's given up. She wouldn't blame him.

"OK."

She moves so she's in a more comfortable position and can lean against his shoulder and they stay like that for a while, Bellamy doing whatever it is he's doing on his phone and her staring across the room without really seeing anything.

"Look," he starts after a long silent moment. "I don't…" He pauses, sucks in a deep breath and lets it back out. "You know I'm not expecting you to fix this, right?"

Clarke twists around so she can look at him and he meets her eyes with a half-smile.

"I know," she tells him. "I was expecting Raven to fix it."

Like she hoped, it makes him laugh a little. "Well, if Raven can't fix something…"

She settles in again, keeping her eyes on her hand where she's fiddling with the hem of his t-shirt. "I wasn't expecting her to have some sort of magical solution," she admits. "I mean, it's one of the first things we learn – Numbers are set in stone, there's no way to get around that. But there are still stories about people who try, you know?"

"I don't, actually," he replies, sounding genuinely curious. "How do people try to do that?"

It's the most they've talked about this in weeks, maybe since she told him the truth, but even though it makes Clarke's stomach twist, thinking about his Number, it's still a relief, in some way, to just talk logistics.

"Well, it's obviously just Norms with some sort of connection to a Keeper who even know about it," she starts. "So they'll know the when and the where and the how. Say someone's going to drown in a lake at noon on a specific day, it's pretty easy to avoid that, like you told me that first day – you just stay out of the lake."

"But that just means it'll be something else," Bellamy says, obviously remembering that conversation as well. "That's what you said, right? Something else will happen and they'll still die."

"Exactly. You get out of that one and the place, COD and exact time changes, but the Number stays the same," she replies. "So instead of drowning you'll… get hit by a car, fall down the stairs, get shot in a drive-by, something."

He's quiet for so long she actually has to sneak a look at him, but his eyebrows are furrowed and his gaze unfocused, so she figures he's just thinking.

"What if the original time of death was already, like, a few minutes before midnight?" he finally asks. "I mean, I get that you can't affect that, but if it was and you avoided that one, what would happen if you were still alive at midnight?"

She frowns. "I honestly don't know. I've never thought about it."

"As long as COD isn't something medical," he continues, "if it's something external, like getting in a car accident or falling or something like that, you should theoretically be able to postpone it indefinitely, right? Just avoid those situations."

Clarke considers it for a moment. How has she never thought about that? "In theory, yeah. But like you said, you can't affect the exact time, or the cause. I've only ever had the COD and time change once for a Transfer, I don't know what happens if you change the timeline more than that."

"It's something to keep in mind, right?" he says, voice deliberately light. "If this Ronan guy…"

"Roan," she corrects him.

"Roan, right. If he doesn't have any ideas, we could still try that?" Bellamy continues. "I mean, if it's not… a heart attack or a stroke or something like that, anyway."

She can hear the undertone of hope in his voice, so maybe he hasn't given up after all. "Of course we can."

"Can you… do you already have that information?" he asks after another moment. "The exact time and… how?"

"No," she replies, before letting out a long sigh. "You remember I showed you the app, right? We get assigned Transfers on a weekly basis, and if there's a specific one we want to handle, for whatever reason, we can claim it a month in advance. So I can do that… at the end of June. I mean, if you want me to."

She's thought about it, a couple of times. Whether he'll want her to be the one to do the Transfer herself, of if he'd prefer someone else handle it.

"Why wouldn't I want you to be the one to do it?" he asks, no hesitation.

Clarke shrugs, or at least does the best version of a shrug she can in her current position. "I don't know, it's a… strange situation. I wasn't sure if you'd maybe prefer someone you don't know to do it. You know how it works, I'll see… I don't know what exactly, and you won't be able to control it, but it will be your most powerful memories."

"I know," Bellamy assures her. "And you're the only one I want to see those."

She buries her face against his shoulder, fingers tightening in his shirt. "OK."

He gently disentangles her hand so he can interlace their fingers instead and presses a kiss to the top of her head. "Unless you don't want to. Which I would totally understand."

"No, I want to," she replies immediately. "I mean, I've never done that for someone I know before, so I don't really know what to expect, but I don't want anyone else to do it. Not unless that's what you want."

"OK," he says. "I'm glad we're on the same page."

She hums, closing her eyes and trying to just enjoy the moment.

The conversation does put a bit of a damper on the mood, though, and in the end, they decide to just order room service and go to bed early.

Luckily, a good night's sleep has at least Bellamy back to normal the next morning, and his excitement as they make their way around the Acropolis area finally clears Clarke's mind of the last traces of heaviness from last night.

They explore the Roman Forum and Agora, the old Temple of Athena and the Temple of Hephaestus, Stoa Poikile and Hadrian's Library, where Bellamy somehow gets going about the library of Alexandria and what a loss it was to the world. Clarke can't keep the smile off her face as he rants about the power of the written word and how kids today don't appreciate it in a world where everything has to happen in an instant and all types of reactions need to be limited to 140 characters. She doesn't bother pointing out that Twitter's been upgraded to 280 characters.

When he finally tires himself out, it's early afternoon and they grab some lunch before strolling around the Monastiraki neighborhood. It's Thursday, so the Sunday flea market isn't occupying the streets, but they still enjoy themselves checking out all the little souvenir shops, trying to find the funniest looking loofah for Raven, who's never been to Greece or Athens.

Their last two days in Athens are a little slower paced – Bellamy wakes up with a pretty bad head cold on Friday, but still insists on sticking with their plan to check out the archeological museum. They take a short detour by a pharmacy where he picks up throat lozenges, cough syrup and some sort of super strong nasal spray that lets him breathe properly after only a minute or so. He keeps his commentary to a minimum as they wander between the exhibits, mostly pulling Clarke's attention to the available signs and letting them do the guiding for him.

He's a little better on their last day, but still tired and stuffy, and she manages to convince him that they'll have plenty of time for the last couple of stops on their agenda in the afternoon, so they spend the morning in their room, Clarke leaning against the headboard reading while Bellamy dozes with his head in her lap.

They leave the hotel around noon and make their way slowly towards the Ethnikós Kípos park a few blocks away. They make quick stops at the Temple of Olympian Zeus – Bellamy muttering about Zeus and his inability to keep his dick out of pretty much everything – and Hadrian's Arch before venturing into the park proper, where they grab some lunch at a nice little café and then stroll around the area, checking out the botanical gardens and different buildings and ruins. Their finals top is Kallimarmaro, or the Panathenaic Stadium. Bellamy's voice is much better today and he quickly gets caught up in the history of the place – the first racecourse that was built on the site way back in the sixth century BC and hosted the Panathenaic Games, the eventual abandonment of the stadium and then the excavation and reconstruction in the nineteenth century, for the first modern Olympic games in 1896.

They climb to the top of the stands on the short side of the stadium and Clarke has to admit that it is pretty impressive, especially considering it's thousands of years old.

"Pretty cool, huh?" Bellamy asks next to her, voice going a little hoarse again. "I can't believe this was built over two thousand years ago."

"Pretty cool, yeah," Clarke agrees, sliding an arm around his waist and leaning her head against his shoulder. His arm comes around her too, and he lets out a long breath. "Good Athens experience, despite the cold?" she asks after a moment.

"The best."

AN: I hope I didn't offend anyone with my '300' reference – I haven't actually seen the movie myself, I just Googled "300 historical accuracy" and judging by the hits, most people who actually care about history don't seem to like it, so it felt like Bellamy wouldn't be very positively inclined towards it…