a/n This prompt was doing the rounds on Twitter, so shout out to whoever first came up with it and to Pris for bringing it to my attention. Huge thanks to Stormkpr for all this betaing. We're starting off with Bellamy taking the chip early in S3. Happy reading!
Content note: this includes a lot of the darker elements of canon, including suicidal thoughts, self-inflicted injury whilst chipped, choking, and pain.
Bellamy knows exactly what he's doing when he takes the chip.
He wants that on record. He's not doing it because he's stupid, or because he's been conned. Sure, he's self-aware enough to realise there might be some manipulation at play here – Jaha seems very keen for him to take the chip, and Bellamy knows he is playing easily into his hands.
But he knows exactly what he's doing. This is a chip that can erase pain, and frankly that sounds like a godsend, right now – or at least, it would if he honestly believed there was any god out there who gave a damn about the pathetic remnants of the human race.
He's just sick and tired of this life on Earth. It hurts, leaves his heart sore and his head aching. The tough choice at Mount Weather, Gina's death, Clarke's abandonment. He'd give anything to make it go away. And really, in the grand scheme of things, if it turns him into some Jaha junior, where's the harm? If it turns him into some evangelical who thinks the world would be better without pain?
He thinks that's a pretty reasonable conclusion, given the evidence before him.
So that's why he does it. No one can judge him for it, he maintains. His sister can't judge him – she's barely speaking to him. Gina can't judge him – she's dead.
And Clarke? Clarke can't judge him, because she left him. She left him and then chose Polis over Arkadia to seal the deal.
That's his last thought before he swallows the chip.
…...
Bellamy knows exactly what he's doing when he gives Pike the chip.
Of course he does. That's how the City of Light works. He's still himself, still Bellamy – only enhanced. He was brave before, but he's braver now he has no dread of being hurt. He was strong before, but he's stronger now pain cannot pin him down.
He was determined before, but he's fearless now.
More than that, he's clever. He might not have Clarke's logic, but he knows his way around people. So if ALIE says that they need more people in the City of Light, he knows how to make that happen.
Huh. Clarke? He used to have a good friend called Clarke.
Anyway. That's not what matters. He approaches Pike, hands him the chip.
"You need to take this. Doctor's orders. Dr Griffin says it's something for your stomach – nanobots, she said. Because you got sick the other week."
Pike swallows it down. And Bellamy – or ALIE, or both – reflects for a moment that this will always be Pike's downfall. That he's too trusting of those who bear arms at his side, presumes that they will not stab him in the back. That his belief that those he knows are friends and all strangers are enemies is far too simplistic and makes him almost gullible.
It's a scheme Clarke would be proud of, Bellamy thinks. Brutal and deceptive and thoroughly effective.
Clarke? Why does he feel a punch to the guts whenever he thinks that name?
He's not supposed to feel pain, any more.
…...
Bellamy knows exactly what he's doing when he marches out to meet the Trikru army, rifle slung over his shoulder.
He knows what Pike's doing, too. And Monroe and Hannah Green and all the rest, because this is how it is, to be part of the City of Light.
They're here to offer the army a simple choice: join or die. And Bellamy's proud of that, because he knows it is his playing a trick on Pike that helped ALIE to learn how to override free will in this way.
It's all thanks to him that the City of Light will be filled.
They are successful in their mission, more or less. Some Trikru join, and some Trikru die. Indra is amongst those who refuse to take the chip, and he spares a moment to note that her loss will break Octavia's spirit. Her death will make his little sister bow and take the chip, he hopes.
With that decided, he puts a bullet in Indra's chest.
…...
Bellamy knows exactly what he's doing when he follows Octavia down the hallway. He intends to corner her when they are out of earshot of those unchipped and still loyal to Kane, try to talk some sense into her and bring her into the City of Light.
But it turns out, she's cornering him.
He stumbles into a small room, sees Clarke standing before him. Clarke.
Clarke.
He used to have a good friend called Clarke. This is her – the Clarke who left him. The Clarke he cried himself to sleep over, for one pathetic week of his life.
Thanks be for the City of Light. He's better off now, without pain.
He'd almost forgotten Clarke, somehow. She just wasn't in the forefront of his mind any more – but he supposes that's progress, because he really was hurting when she left him. He remembers that, but he remembers it in a muffled kind of way, like hearing loud shouts more quietly from underwater.
He's grateful for the City of Light.
"How did you get in?" He asks – or ALIE has him ask. If there is a security breach in Arkadia, it's important to know about it.
"Indra." Clarke says.
"Indra?" He asks, shocked, even as ALIE stands, stunned, at Clarke's side. "But we killed her. I killed her."
"Not quite. She's badly hurt, but alive."
He nods. ALIE still looks angry – he's not sure whether she's angry with him or with herself. If he's honest, the line between those two things feels awfully blurred, these days.
Clarke, of course, does not care about any of this. She has her own agenda to pursue as always.
"Bellamy, listen to me. I need your help and we don't have much time."
He laughs. That's not ALIE – it's all him, a cold hollow sound that echoes off the bare walls of this lonely meeting room.
"You need my help? The great Wanheda? Now you've decided you need me?"
Clarke frowns, hurt. ALIE frowns, angry with him for provoking their visitor.
"I need you." Clarke repeats, careful, voice shaking. "I need the guy who wouldn't let me pull that lever in Mount Weather by myself. I need -"
"He's gone." Bellamy bites out. "You won't find him here. Move on."
It's the wrong thing to say. It's the wrong thing to say to Clarke, who looks like she's just been stabbed in the guts. And it's sure as hell the wrong thing to say to ALIE, who is beginning to snap at him with angry words he chooses to ignore.
"Bellamy -"
"He's gone." He repeats, tears threatening.
There's an horrific pause. He stares at Clarke, and Clarke stares back. In this moment, he doesn't much care for ALIE wittering away at him, reminding him of the cause, too clean for this messy planet in her shining red dress.
He's too busy remembering how much it hurts to be around Clarke.
"What happened to you?" Clarke asks, too soft, too kind. There's a tear rolling down her cheek, and he thinks that could be dangerous. It's threatening to cut through the comfortable cushion he's built around his heart since he joined the City of Light.
"I changed. You left me." He summarises, brief but accurate.
"But what happened to you?" She repeats, helpless, tears rolling faster. "I know you must have taken that – that thing. Indra told us all about it. But how? When? What did they do to you? I swear, Bellamy, if they hurt you or threatened you I will find them and -"
"She did nothing." Bellamy interrupts, firm.
"Bellamy -"
"She did nothing. It was you, Clarke. You broke my heart. You left me to bear it alone after Mount Weather. You watched me run through that door in Polis to save you and then sent me home alone. So if you want to know what happened to me – you happened to me." He swallows, tastes salty tears. "You. It was you."
"You took the chip by choice." She gasps, catching on at last.
"I did." He doesn't see why that should be so very shocking. He was fed up of pain – isn't that pretty understandable, given the circumstances?
She stands there, gaping at him. It's an odd situation – he's never seen Clarke lost for words before. He knows that, even though he hasn't been remembering her so well recently. It's like he can remember her a bit more clearly, now she's right in front of him. As if the hurt and anger he feels at her presence is overloading his brain, breaking through the neat box he placed his painful memories of her in.
He steps forward, reaches for the handcuffs at his belt. He has a plan, here. He's going to lock her up, because she can be a tricky one – he knows this from experience. And then he's going to head and get a chip, force it down her throat. He has all sorts of ideas if it doesn't go to plan – he figures if he hurts himself in front of her very eyes she'll give way soon enough. She may be heartless enough to have left him and hurt him, but as a doctor she never likes to see people wounded. And from the way ALIE frowns at him from the side of the room, still, he gets the feeling she thinks he means more than Clarke to most people.
Huh. That's a hollow victory. To be the person whose lifeblood would most likely sway Clarke Griffin. To be the person she loves too little to stay with, but too much to watch him die at her feet.
He pauses, though, when Clarke starts to speak.
"I'm sorry, Bellamy. I'm so sorry. I never meant to hurt you." She gets the words out effortfully, tearfully, urgently. "I never meant to drive you to this. I can help you. I swear that if you come with me I can -"
He doesn't let her finish. He lunges for her, seizes her wrists in his hands. He seems to remember a time when he used to dream of holding her tight under rather different circumstances, but it hurts too much to think of that so he bats it away. He feels her lash out and try to hit him, try to get free, but he doesn't really register it. He's beyond pain, now.
"Bellamy -"
He reaches for the cuffs, locks the first loop around one wrist. He's nearly there. Once he's done this, he'll go fetch a chip.
That's when he makes the fatal mistake. That's when he looks her right in the eye, sees the tears and the desperation and yes, also something that looks a lot like love.
I never meant to hurt you.
He hesitates a beat too long. He feels something tug at his belt, and then suddenly Clarke is brandishing a shock baton and he is falling to the floor, writhing and shaking yet strangely not in pain.
He comes round a couple of seconds later. He has failed. He knows this not just because ALIE is glaring down at him, but because he feels the truth of it in his heart. Clarke was right here – dangerous, powerful Clarke Griffin. The key to the human race, and he has let her slip through his foolish fingers.
It's all thanks to him that the City of Light will fall.
…...
Bellamy knows exactly what he's doing when he goes about his business the following morning.
It's as if Clarke was never here, as if that odd emotional overload, those flashes of pain, those crucial hesitations never happened. It's good and normal. ALIE walks by his side as he strides around camp, recruiting more people to the cause, consulting with ALIE and Pike and Jaha on the matter of adding the whole of Polis to the City of Light. They will leave in the morning, and it will be a great success for their cause.
It's good and normal, until he feels that odd tingling in his legs, the shaking in his arms. Too late, he realises he's been shocked again. He realises that pain is a useful reaction, sometimes, that warns you bad things are happening before it's too late.
But now it is too late, and his world turns dark.
…...
Bellamy knows exactly what he's doing when he wakes up in a dimly-lit cave. He's thrashing, struggling, desperate to break through his restraints. He needs to get out of here and find out where he is, share any useful information he can with the rest of the residents of the City of Light.
But then he hears the voices and goes still. He might learn more if he can make sense of their conversation than if he just runs. See – he can scheme with the best of them. Clarke would be proud.
Clarke. Ouch. Why does that name still hurt?
He shakes it off, listens to the conversation. ALIE is proud, watching over him while he lies here. He likes that – it's a long time since anyone has been proud or protective of him, as far as he can remember.
"We make an EMP, fry the circuitry." That sounds like Raven's voice.
"No way am I standing here and letting you fry my brother's brain." That's Octavia.
"We're not frying his brain, just the chip in his head." Raven again, impatient – or perhaps desperate.
There's a brief pause. He can imagine Octavia doing her considering face, wondering whether she likes the idea. But ALIE isn't happy with him for remembering his sister's considering face, so he moves on to wondering what Raven means by frying, then consulting silently with the other minds in the City of Light about where his old friends will find the components for the EMP.
But then a small voice speaks up into the silence.
"Will it hurt him?"
He gasps, loud and unexpected, shocking himself and genuinely struggling for breath. Clarke. That's Clarke. That's Clarke who left him, asking in a shaking voice whether he'll be hurt. That's Clarke caring about him, and showing him she's sorry, and -
No. He mustn't think like that. ALIE doesn't like it, when painful thoughts of Clarke drown out his communication with the City of Light.
He focuses in on his silent conversation again. There are components at the dropship, perhaps, or at Niylah's trading post, or in the market stalls of Polis. Emori used to scavenge tech – this is something he knows, now that Otan is in the City of Light. Bellamy knows everything, now that he has taken the chip.
Everything except why the sound of Clarke's voice still hurts.
"He should be OK." Raven states firmly.
"Should?" Octavia asks, urgent.
"I think so. I'm sorry, OK? I can't say better than that. I studied the chip Jaha gave me but I could only figure out so much." Raven says.
There's another heavy pause. Bellamy can feel the weight of it, even from here. He can feel the sorrow and concern thick in the air as his friends try to figure out what to do.
Can he? He shouldn't be able to feel any of those things. They're all things that sound a lot like pain.
It gets worse, of course. It gets worse when Clarke speaks again. Don't things always get worse, when Clarke is involved?
"It's my fault." She says, audibly tearful. "It's all my fault. He told me that – he took the chip because he was so hurt by what I did."
"It's not your fault." Raven lies.
"That wasn't him." Octavia offers.
"It was him. I know he's chipped but – but if you'd seen him." She heaves in a loud, shuddering sigh. "That was Bellamy. The guy who looked me in the eye and said I broke his heart was still Bellamy, even if he's ALIE too."
He stops hearing things, after that. The darkness is rising up to meet him again. Maybe being shocklashed so often while he has electronics in his brain isn't good for him, he wonders.
It doesn't matter, of course. It doesn't matter so long as the City of Light survives.
…...
Bellamy knows exactly what he's doing when he wakes up in the back of a moving rover.
He's stopping this, no matter what it takes. From what he heard in the cave, and what ALIE has pieced together, he knows his former friends must be planning to take him to somewhere that has the parts for an EMP and then fry the chip, and he simply cannot let that happen.
He has a part to play. He needs to make good on his mistake from yesterday, and deliver Clarke to the City of Light. She's powerful and dangerous, and needs to be brought to the cause. And if he can't do that, then he needs to throw himself from the rover and flee before they can cut him off from the City of Light, or even kill this body if need be. These people cannot be allowed to find out ALIE's secrets from him.
He blinks his eyes open. He will fight whoever is restraining him. He will hurt them if he has to. The City of Light is everything – there is no room for foolish, painful sentiment.
But then he sees Clarke crouching over him.
"Thank god you're awake." She says without preamble. "I'm worried about what that shock baton might have done to your brain with the chip. I'm so sorry, but I couldn't see another way."
He blinks, puzzled. Why is she still talking to him as if they are more friends than strangers?
"How are you feeling?" She asks softly.
That's what snaps him out of it. She doesn't care about his feelings – ALIE is here to remind him of that. She left him, and this must all be some dangerous game.
He breaks. He wrenches at his restraints, feels something crack in his hand as he tugs it out of the ropes that hold him. He tugs at his other hand, his thumb making a popping sound that is too loud even over the noise of the engine.
And then he sets his hands around Clarke Griffin's throat.
He squeezes, hard. She's dangerous. He needs to take her out, or take her to the City of Light – whichever he can manage. He needs to -
"I'm sorry." She wheezes beneath his hands.
He gasps, loosens his hold. This is horrific. He knows exactly what he's doing – he's strangling Clarke. But why the hell is he doing that? He's missed her. He loved her, only a few short months ago.
But ALIE wants him to choke her.
It's such a confusing mess, and he can't make sense of it. He can feel ALIE urging him to bring Clarke to the City of Light, can feel his heart urging him to protect Clarke with his life. And the two things are so utterly in contrast, tangled together inside of him, and his pulse is pounding in his ears.
"I can't." He gasps. He doesn't know whether he's talking to Clarke, or ALIE, or both.
"Bellamy -"
"I can't." He tells Clarke, dragging his hands from her throat through sheer force of will. "I can't. I don't want to hurt you."
I never meant to hurt you.
"You're OK." She soothes immediately, sitting up and placing a hand on his arm, totally heedless of the fact he just tried to throttle her. "You're going to be fine, Bellamy. Fight it for me, OK? I know you can do this. You're a fighter."
He does fight it. He can be a fighter, if Clarke believes in him. He can do whatever it takes to protect her. He'd do anything to protect her – he remembers that, now.
"I'm sorry." He chokes out. Talking is effort. Ignoring ALIE is effort. Everything is so damn difficult, and he hates it.
"You're OK. You're fine. Just keep fighting. We'll get you out of this."
He nods. He can do this. He can fight the urge to hurt Clarke. He doesn't want to hurt Clarke. He concentrates on the sensation of her hand gentle on his arm, the pain he can feel spiking in his hands now he's fighting ALIE. It hurts so much, but it's better than the numbness, he decides. It's more real, and Clarke's here. He can fight it.
ALIE hits upon a new idea, then. Of course she does – she has hundreds of minds working with her. So it is that she notices that he will fight hard to keep Clarke safe – but that he doesn't have such strong will when it comes to his own wellbeing.
"I'll kill myself." He hears the words come from his mouth, but he doesn't recognise the voice as his own.
"Bellamy -"
"Bellamy Blake will die." His lips intone. "He will throw himself from this moving vehicle. We can't let you have him."
There's a ghastly pause. He fights for control, but he can't do it. He can't feel his injured hands or his sore heart or even his pounding head.
But then Clarke saves him, as she has saved him so many times before.
"I need you." She says to him, loud and clear. "I need you to fight this, Bellamy. Because I am not losing you. So you can't let her kill you, you hear me?"
He nods. It's difficult, but he does it. He nods again, reaches out for her hand, clasps it with his broken, burning fingers. It hurts so badly, but in this moment, it feels better than the alternative. It feels better than sitting here, numb and alone, and allowing ALIE to pull him into a horrific fate of his own making.
Everything feels better, when he and Clarke face it together.
"I promise we'll get you out of this mess. Just hold on for me." She tells him, urgent. "Think about your sister. Think about how you're going to help us save everyone from this."
He snorts. It shouldn't be funny. His hands are broken and his heart is broken and he's sitting in the back of a rover trying to keep a monster out of his head.
But it's funny because Clarke doesn't realise her power, even now. She doesn't realise that the only reason he's clinging to his own personality in this moment is that his love for her – and anger at her – are overloading his link to ALIE, crowding the City of Light out of his brain.
Bellamy knows exactly what he's doing when he curls up in a ball and clasps Clarke's hands tightly. He's placing his faith in her, because when push comes to shove, he always will.
…...
Bellamy knows exactly what he's doing when he wakes up tied to the bed. He's thrashing, desperate to break free. This is his last chance to finish this – to end himself, and with it to end this dangerous threat to the City of Light.
Damn it. That's ALIE taking control of him again. There she is in her damn red dress, scorn in her eyes as she judges him for his weakness.
"We can't let them have you." She tells him, plain and simple.
He nods. He understands that. He's made a mistake. It's all thanks to him that the City of Light will fall.
He starts to thump his head against the back of the bed, desperate to finish this. Jasper tries to restrain him, but has no luck. Octavia joins in, weeping and begging him to stop.
Then Clarke stumbles into the room, runs to his side, cradles his head in her hands.
"Stop. Stop stop stop." She begs him.
He's never seen her lose control quite like that, never seen her beg and weep in quite this messy way. And that's enough. It's enough to break through his connection to ALIE, to overload the link and flood his heart with hope and helplessness, all tangled together.
He takes a deep breath. He feels her thumbs on his cheeks, feels his own thumb smarting with pain where it knocks against the headboard of the bed. That's good – pain is a good sign, in this most disturbing of contexts.
"You're going to be OK. We're nearly ready to – to help you." She says.
He nods. He knows that she can't tell him much, because the information would go straight to ALIE if she gets through to him again. So he simply sits there and focuses on the feeling of Clarke stroking gently over his skin. It's a good feeling, he decides. It grounds him and helps him to focus on remaining truly himself, without any of those flaws he once made the mistake of viewing as enhancements.
"I can't wait to get you back for real. I can't wait to show you how sorry I am and how much I've missed you." Clarke murmurs.
He can feel tears cutting a path down his cheeks, can feel his throat growing thick with sorrow. He's never heard Clarke sound so vulnerable as this, and he hates himself for landing her here.
But a little bit of him loves it. The awful part of him that shot Jaha, or taught ALIE how to overcome free will. The part of him that is selfish and thoughtless and prepared to do terrible things for the good of himself or his family or his cause. That part of him loves this final proof that he means something to Clarke after all. That she's telling the truth when she says how sorry she is, not just trying to win him away from ALIE.
It's complicated. It's too complicated for his brain to fathom, right now, when all he can think is light and pain and Clarke.
But as soon as his head is fixed, he's going to figure it out.
…...
Bellamy knows exactly what he's doing, when he wakes up in the bed.
He's hurting.
His injured hands are throbbing, his head is aching, and there's a sharp pain in his shin that he doesn't even remember acquiring.
But he's healing, too. He can already feel that, between the way Clarke is stroking his forehead and his sister is holding his less painful hand and his head is clearer than it has been since he took the chip.
"Thank you." He murmurs.
He feels small and embarrassed. Is this the kind of man he is? Gets a bit upset, loses his girlfriend and the best friend he loves more than he ought to, and ends up causing a calamity that threatens the free will of the entire human race?
Clarke doesn't make a big fuss, of course. She takes it all in her stride, as she has taken everything about life on Earth, more or less.
"Any time. It's what we do for each other." She says lightly.
He snorts. Last thing he checked, he once pulled a lever with her, and previously knocked a possibly-poisoned goblet from her hand. He's never done anything like what she has done here with the help of their friends – sneaking him out of camp, helping him cling onto sanity even as he tried to choke her, then saving his mind to seal the deal.
"I know your hands must be hurting. I've bandaged them but we don't have any pain medication. Does anything else need medical attention?" She asks briskly.
"I don't think so." He's not going to mention that unexplained pain in his shin. It helps him feel alive, after too many days of numb comfort.
"OK. Then let's get moving."
…...
Bellamy knows exactly what he's doing when he sits in the back of the rover driving through the woods.
He's following Clarke around and hoping for the best.
He knows the plan, more or less. It's not his plan, of course, made as it was while he was out of it with a monster in his head. And he doesn't like that – it makes him feel left out and useless, but left out and useless is better than robotic, he supposes. So mostly he sits quietly and causes as little trouble as possible.
He's determined to serve his friends well, in the battle he knows must be to come. He's going to show them how sorry he is for causing them all that trouble, put his life on the line to protect them and display his loyalty.
He knows that's what he did for ALIE, too, more or less. And maybe it's not the healthiest attitude in the world, but at least he's choosing it, now.
It's all thanks to him that the City of Light will fall. He'll do whatever it takes to make it happen – he's determined of that.
…...
Bellamy knows exactly what he's doing when he drives the rover towards Polis.
Or rather, he thinks he does.
It's all going so well. He's got Clarke at his side, Roan and Jasper and Octavia in the back of the rover, and he's got some vague idea to sacrifice himself as a distraction while the others get into the tower. It's one of his better ideas, he likes to think – more useful than taking that damn chip and screwing up the human race for good and for all.
He thinks he knows exactly what he's doing until Clarke throws a spanner in the works.
"I want to talk about what you said that day." She murmurs as he drives, gripping the steering wheel carefully with his bandaged hands. She tried to stop him driving with his broken fingers, but he figures this is the least he can do to make it up to her.
He doesn't have to ask which day she means. He knows there is only one day either of them will ever be able to consider as that day – the day she broke into Arkadia and he spat horrific words at her, then tried to lock her up.
"Which part?" He asks, half curious, half resigned.
"When you said I broke your heart." She says. He hears her suck in a loud breath before continuing. "I want to know if that was really you, or if it was ALIE. Because – because when I left you, I broke my heart, too."
He gulps. Typical Clarke, he thinks – she has to go and imply she might actually feel something for him just as he's on the point of giving himself up to protect her.
"It was me." He admits. "I might only have come out and said it because of ALIE but – but it was true."
"OK." She says. Just that.
He sighs, squints into the darkness as he drives. Are they doing this, here and now? Will they ever be a normal couple, able to confess their love by a peaceful fireside? Or will the key moments of their relationship always come along while they perch balanced on a knife-edge of survival?
"Can we maybe try being happy, if we make it through this?" He asks with false brightness. He seems to remember he was planning to sacrifice himself to atone for his sins, just a couple of minutes ago, but heaven knows he can't do that if Clarke really needs him, too.
And more than anything, he can't do it if Clarke wants him. He can't do it if she's actually come home from Polis and decided she chooses him, now.
She snorts, slants a look across at him. He probably shouldn't try to smirk at her whilst driving, but it's just too damn tempting.
"If we make it through this, we can try anything." She agrees.
"Whatever the hell I want?"
"Whatever the hell you want." She echoes, laughing a grudging laugh.
He takes the incongruously good-humoured moment and runs with it. He and Clarke have always specialised in snatching laughter in the face of despair.
"OK, then. Whatever the hell I want." He muses out loud, grinning. "So that'll be a little wood cabin, three – no, four – children. You're going to be a nice calm peacetime doctor – delivering babies, maybe. And I'm going to teach the cadets how to shoot straight."
"There seem to be a lot of kids and babies and youngsters in this plan." She points out, and she doesn't sound unhappy about it.
"What can I say? Didn't we first bond over parenting a hundred teenagers?"
She laughs softly, reaches out to rest a hand on his thigh. "It's a nice dream, Bellamy. We'll try it if we make it out the other side of this."
"I'll hold you to that."
She smiles softly across at him, her hand still on his leg. "You know, I'm so happy you're OK. I know you still feel guilty about it all but honestly – I don't care what you did, so long as you're back to yourself now."
He honestly believes her. It's the first time since the EMP that he genuinely believes she's completely at peace with what he did, that he has her wholehearted forgiveness.
It's not the same as forgiving himself, of course. But it's a start.
…...
Bellamy knows exactly what he's doing when he places the chip on Clarke's tongue.
He knows that thing is dangerous. He knows it better than anyone – he's had it in his own head and lived to tell the tale.
But he trusts Clarke. He trusts her more than he trusts the whole of the rest of the human race put together, he's pretty sure. He trusts her to make the right call, now, and so it is that he's prepared to give her the chip, if that's what it takes.
But he's going to give her a few choice words, too.
"I trust you. Take care in there, OK?"
She nods, mouth hanging open, silently asking for him to hand over the chip.
He hesitates just a moment longer. There's something he needs to say, first. He knows they're on the same page, since that chat about the children, but he wants to say it out loud before she goes. It's not so much because he's worried she won't come back – he trusts her. It's more that he remembers how invaluable his emotional link to Clarke was when he was in the City of Light. He wants to give her something powerful to hold onto, while she's in there, in case she runs into any trouble.
"Remember I love you." He offers lightly, as if it's something they say to each other all the time.
"And I love you." She echoes right back at him, as if she didn't abandon him in this very room just a few short weeks ago.
No. It's not that she's forgotten it, or hiding it. Rather, they have moved on together, now.
He sets the chip on her tongue, watches her close her eyes and set out on her journey. And then he spins on the spot, stands before the throne and sets about guarding Clarke's body with all he is worth.
…...
Bellamy knows exactly what he's doing when he kisses Clarke full on the lips.
He knows there are other priorities, right now. Those who have just emerged from the City of Light are disorientated and hurting – he knows that feeling all too well. Those who have lost loved ones are mourning, and besides all that there are practical problems to worry about, like how the hell they will climb down from the tower.
Bellamy ignores all that. He knows exactly what he's doing, though. It's a conscious choice. He wants that on the record – it's not that he's stupid, or has been seduced by something as shallow as Clarke's bright eyes. He makes the deliberate decision to kiss her now, because as far as he can see it's long overdue. They've already planned a picture-perfect future he suspects they will never get, already confessed their love in the face of danger. So he figures it's time for a first kiss at last.
And based on the way Earth has treated them so far, he might never get another chance.
He cups a hand about the back of her head, gives her a moment to figure out where this is going. She smiles up at him, happy and trusting and a thousand other good things. He never thought he'd live to see her look quite like that ever again, just a few short days ago.
He leans in, presses his lips to hers, firmly but not too forcefully. He feels her relax against him, tastes her sigh into his slightly open mouth. She sounds every bit as overjoyed as he feels, and he thinks that's a good thing – there's been precious little joy on Earth, of late.
Clarke kisses him back eagerly, takes things up a gear. He should have known she would. She tangles one hand in his hair and tugs slightly. He'd love to return the gesture, but his hands are still too painful for that. Never mind – he'll try it some day in the future, and in the meantime at least the pain reminds him that this is real.
They kiss for several long moments, and it's warm and comfortable, but rather thrilling, too. Bellamy can't wait to see where this goes, when they're somewhere more private than the Polis tower, with more time than the precious few minutes he figures they can snatch before they are needed elsewhere.
At length, he pulls away.
"Thank you for forgiving me. Thank you for fighting for me." He murmurs, lips hovering against her forehead.
"Thank you for protecting me." She bounces back. "Even when you were chipped, you were trying to protect me."
"That's love." He offers simply.
She pulls away far enough to peer up at him, looks him right in the eyes and smiles widely.
"Yes. That's love."
He has no idea how they'll get dozens of injured down a tower without a lift. He has no idea what will happen next – whether there is some other disaster round the corner, or whether he will have to learn how to help build that log cabin with Clarke.
He doesn't have the faintest clue what he's doing, in short. He doesn't know what he's doing at all. But he's OK with that, so long as Clarke is by his side.
a/n Thanks for reading!