A Simple, Pathetic Fact

by unadulteratedsedation

He was self aware enough to know what he could and what he couldn't have. He could have her trust him and lean on him and depend on him, but he couldn't have all of her-all the parts he craved. The parts he dreamed about at night. It wasn't all depraved sexual fantasy encounters - he wanted to kiss her mouth, chaste and easy before he left for a hunt or before she left for medical.

Clarke was tired.

Bellamy could tell.

Clarke was exhausted. It was weird that he had learned to read her so well. He supposes that it came with the territory of co-leading.

(and maybe all the horrors they had witness and committed together)

He could read her like a fucking book and he had no idea when it had happened.

It was easy, he thinks - like falling asleep.

If he thought about it, he couldn't remember the last time he had seen her without with the large purple expanse of skin bruising her under eyes. They were a fixture on her face now, growing darker and more pronounced with her growing guilt and regret over the choices they'd had to make on the ground. It also had to do with the fact that she ran around camp fawning over anyone who so much as sneezed in her proximity, day trips into the forest to forage for anything useful, and pouring over every available piece of scrap paper someone somewhere thought might be important.

She haunted the camp with her tired eyes and quick hands, much like she haunted his dreams.

Bellamy is fairly certain that his obsession with the princess is bordering on unhealthy and he wonders sometimes while he's on the verge of sleep in his tent, that maybe the bond they've constructed isn't only shared pain and thoughts - but exhaustion, too.

He also thinks it's probably weird to admit that the bruises were striking against her pale complexion and made her look like a person who fell from the sky should.

(kissed by moonlight)

The weight of the world will do that to a person, Princess.

Bellamy had said it with a wry smile a few weeks ago after she had nearly collapsed by the camp fire. They had been celebrating something, he didn't keep track of the reasons everyone made up as an excuse to drink anymore - it was too often. Music played from the rover and moonshine was being passed around as they socialized, laughed and danced. He could hardly begrudge his people for trying to forget the things they had to do to survive and the things that had been done to them.

When the Ark had come crashing down from the sky, bringing all of the adults with it - the hundred had finally been able to take a deep breath and stop feeling so fucking scared all the time. Half of them suffered nightmares, the other half had PTSD - but it was nice to feel young again.

It was nice to drink too much moonshine and get a little stupid, even if when they woke up, there were always both old problems and new.

He had been staring at Clarke while she watched Murphy and Raven play a crude version of beer pong when she staggered on her feet, swaying from something other than drink. The easy smile slipped from her face and she shook her head as if to clear a fog, then a wave of dizziness sent her to her knees.

Bellamy had been watching her from across the flames while Harper and Monroe stood beside him, chatting animatedly about something he wasn't paying attention to. Clarke was almost smiling as she watched Raven and Murphy banter with a little less of their usual malice - maybe even a few poorly suppressed smiles.

The sight of Clarke's fond gaze directed at her friends was more interesting than anything else.

Bellamy had been transfixed. If he was honest with himself, he'd been gone for the blonde shortly after they'd been dropped on this planet to die. It happened probably somewhere between when she had scolded him for opening the drop ship door and their fateful trip to the supply bunker. It was pathetic really - if he was being honest. He'd catch himself looking at her while she directed sad little glances at the spacewalker.

What a dick.

(it was poor form to speak ill of the dead - but he had hated the guy, may he rest in peace)

He'd fallen a little the minute he saw her - blonde, daring, (a total fucking knockout) and fearless. So when she smiled, so did he.

He loved her.

It was a fact.

A simple, pathetic fact.

He was self aware enough to know what he could and what he couldn't have. He could have her trust him and lean on him and depend on him, but he couldn't have all of her - all the parts he craved. The parts he dreamed about at night. It wasn't all depraved sexual fantasy encounters - he wanted to kiss her mouth, chaste and easy before he left for a hunt or before she went to work in Medical. He wanted to fall asleep wrapped around her small frame. He wanted to wake up to her sleepy smile and soft curves.

He just wanted Clarke to let him love her.

It was kind of a tall order for someone who thought she was unloveable - or at least someone who thought that the act of loving her somehow resulted in untimely death. Clarke Griffin wasn't ready to be loved the way he wanted to - the way he already did.

So, he settled for watching her when she wasn't looking. She was so often this rare beacon of hope and light and he found himself craving how she made him feel - that tight feeling in his chest like his heart might be too big for it. His eyes chased her around camp while he chased that incredible (and painful) feeling of being in love with Clarke fucking Griffin.

The night she had collapsed at the bonfire had been one of those nights.

In the dark of the evening and only a soft glow from the fire, he didn't care so much about wearing his feelings all over his face. He didn't bother schooling his features into cool indifference the way he had become so accustomed to in the daylight.

He had frowned when she swayed a little on her feet, her jar of berry moonshine tilting in her unsteady hands and spilling some of its contents. Bellamy hadn't been aware that he moved or that his legs, of their own accord, began carrying him towards her. That was kind of how it worked with them anyway - they circled each other in tandem, pushing and pulling, giving and taking. It only made sense that his body would be aware of the unspoken partnership they'd fallen headfirst into.

He only narrowly avoided the flames of their campfire in his haste to get to her and despite a few protests as he almost barrelled into Raven and Murphy, he was at Clarke's side before anyone had even realized what had happened.

She'd landed painfully on her knees, her head lolling side to side until Bellamy's large calloused hands cradled her face and angled it towards his own. They were only a hairs width away from each other as he searched her eyes for answers. They were unfocused as his gaze swooped across the planes of her face, taking inventory of anything out of the ordinary.

"Look at me, Clarke." He had demanded, hoping his voice hadn't wavered with the fear coursing through him.

Her eyes seemed to meet his brown ones for one fleeting moment while he searched her face for some kind of answer. The pad of his thumb swept under her eyes like he was trying to wipe away the proof of her exhaustion. He stared at her with silent concern.

"Bellamy." She had croaked and he winced at the sound of her voice. It was usually so strong, commanding and powerful - now it was disoriented and scared.

Her eyes rolled into the back of her head in a vision so frightening, that a desperate sound clawed its way out of Bellamy's throat.

He had pulled her close to him, guiding her head to his chest and sweeping his arm under her legs. He had then carried her across the camp to his tent, ignoring the concerned protests and questions from onlookers as he went.

The logical part of his brain kept telling him that she was just tired and overworked, but another more sinister part kept telling him that this could be something worse - that this was their punishment for trying to enjoy themselves.

Bellamy had set her down on his pallet, piled with furs and whatever else he hadn't given away to the younger kids. He took a moment to observe her peaceful expression, her eyes closed and her face completely relaxed. It was almost a strange sight to see her without her brows furrowed in concentration or the groove that settled between her eyebrows when she was problem solving.

He pulled the furs over her body and began to remove her boots with a slow accuracy as to not jostle her. When he was satisfied that she was comfortable he settled into a rickety wooden chair he'd managed to scrape together with random bits of wood that sat in the corner of his tent.

He had watched her sleep until the sun rose over Arkadia, bathing the crude settlement with rose coloured sunlight. He had tried to tell himself it wasn't creepy and voyeuristic - that it was only because he wanted to monitor her breathing. He also wanted the satisfaction of personally removing anyone who came looking for the princess with bothersome questions and favours.

The kids could survive without her for a night.

Several times he caught himself wishing he could climb in beside her, pull her body into the curve of his own and rub circles in to the flesh of her hip. He quickly shook those thoughts from his head when he realized they had slithered back in - it didn't seem fair to be thinking of groping her while she was so vulnerable. She trusted him and he didn't want to violate that trust - even if she never knew the things he thinks of doing to her (with her) - he would know.

When the birds started chirping loudly at the sunrise, his cheeks were hot with the intensity of his fantasies and he kind of hated himself for it.

Bellamy hadn't exactly been the most chaste when they'd first landed here. The freedom had been intoxicating and somehow he'd managed to wrangle a bit of power for himself. For the first time since Octavia was born he had felt like he had actual control and far less responsibility. There was no need to push away friends or relationships because of the fear they would get too close and discover his secret.

Before the terrors of the Earth made themselves known, he had a taste of what living might actually feel like.

He was embarrassed that the thought of cuddling Clarke was making his face hot and his fingers itch. He'd had plenty of intense encounters with women that involved more than cuddling. Then again, none of those moments had been with Clarke.

Clarke.

The two of them had shared moments that were so visceral, so violently real and raw. There were times spent with Clarke that left him reeling and exposed like a nerve ending. Moments she could have destroyed him - but chose to caress his feelings and his soul with a gentle softness that had been so sorely missing from his life.

He wonders if having sex with Clarke would be tame in comparison to the intimacy he feels with her already. If it would pale in comparison to the connection they already share. He wonders if it would be a welcome reprieve from the overwhelming emotions that rolled over him in waves when they shared their deepest darkest fears. Over and over again.

Fucking was easy.

Then, her rose petal pink lips parted in her sleep and she let out a breathy moan. The sound shot straight to his dick and he swallowed a groan of his own.

Wishful thinking.

He would lose his fucking mind if she ever let him inside of her.

.

"Princess is pissed." Raven laughs. The log he was sitting on shifted with her weight when she seats herself beside him and rips into her small slice of rabbit with a ferocity that makes him stare a little. There was a small fire going in the fire pit the same way there always was after the sun went down. He could still see Raven's mocking smile in the dim glow.

Bellamy huffs in annoyance. "I don't care."

"Sure, Hotshot." She was goading him and his jaw hardened. "Just apologize and everything will go back to normal in the Kingdom." She suggests, nodding to Jasper and Monty in greeting when they sit across the fire, giggling over some joke one of them had made.

Clarke hadn't left Med Bay all day. She was ignoring him. That much was obvious when she woke that morning in his tent, a pretty pink blush settling over the tops of her cheeks as she apologized for fainting - as if it was her fault. He'd reassured her with a smile and a few muttered words about taking care of herself. Then she'd silently crawled out of his bed, put her boots on and trudged back to Medical where everyone had proceeded to regale her with stories of how he'd acted after she had fainted.

She wasn't pleased and he didn't need to read her mind to know it.

It was dinner time now and despite how aggravated he was that she had the nerve to be mad at him, he was still anxious to make sure she ate something - he didn't think he could take a repeat of last night.

His poor heart was already poised for breaking - thank you very much.

"Contrary to the Princess' belief, I didn't do anything wrong." It comes out of his mouth as a growl. His eyes are trained on the door to the Medical - like maybe if he concentrated hard enough she would come strolling through with her tight little tank top and a cheeky smile just for him. Or maybe he could just melt the door and at least get a glimpse of her.

Raven laughs again. "You know how she feels about your Knight in Shining Armour shtick." Her mouth is full when she chides him and he grimaces at her. "You carried her out of here, screaming at anyone who followed."

"I wasn't screaming." He mutters under breath.

He finally tears his gaze away from Medical, relenting to the fact that he hasn't inherited any superpowers from the radiation and the only way Clarke was coming out of Medical was of her own volition.

"You were." She argues. "Then, you put the fear of God into poor Jasper who was just trying to bring her breakfast rations." She looks at him pointedly. "You nearly gave him a black eye."

"I didn't actually hit him." He wasn't hungry anymore. "I only gave him a stern warning."

"You made him cry."

"Fuck you, Reyes."

"Been there, done that." She guffaws loudly and turns towards him with her eyes glittering. "Besides, everyone knows your tastes are a little more . . . royal."

He didn't want to deal with this. Raven was a smart ass with way too many opinions.

When he stalks off to grab another ration and begins stomping towards Medical he can hear her cackling from across the camp.

She is sitting on the floor, hunched over a bench - counting piles of bandages. The floor creaks beneath his feet and her head whips up in surprise. Her expression instantly melts to a glare that doesn't quite reach her eyes when she recognizes him.

"Bellamy." She greets coldly, turning her focus back to the bandages.

"Eat." He demands roughly, dropping the makeshift plate on the bench in front of her.

She scoffs, ignoring his peace offer and continuing her counting. He growls low in his throat at her dismissal and he sees the lines of her body tense at the sound. He should have turned around and walked out, leaving her to stew in her own bad mood, but he was ready to have this out and he knew that she was, too.

Besides, it wasn't like he could deny her anything, anyway.

"Thank you, Bellamy." He spits out, aggressively mocking her.

She was on her feet and invading his personal space so fast he would have been impressed if he wasn't so focused on how close she had gotten to him, so close that the tips of her breasts brushed his ribs.

"Fuck you, Bellamy." She replies back in the same tone, her cheeks turning a lovely shade of pink.

"What exactly is the problem here, Princess?" He questions, leaning over her and trying to look both bored and irritated. So he'd gotten a little over protective? She should have been used to it by now, and the fact that she was angry with him for having her back was uncalled for. It was what they did - they had each other's backs and they made the hard decisions together.

"The problem, Bellamy, is that you're an ass." She pokes an accusing finger into his chest and he inhales a sharp, angry breath through his nose.

He wants to scream at her, tell her how scared he was when she fell to the ground - how scared he is all the time for her. Scared that he'll lose her, that she'll leave him alone with all of these kids. He's scared to tell her how he feels while simultaneously being scared that one of them will die before he grows some fucking balls. He wants to scream how terrified he is that when he finally tells her he loves her it'll be over her nearly lifeless body while he begs her to hold on.

"Do you enjoy trying to undermine me?" She hisses at him, her mouth curling into a snarl.

"Undermining? Jesus, Clarke." He sighs, immediately backing down and levelling her with a stare that bordered on desperate. "Is that seriously what you think I'm trying to do?"

"It's what it feels like." She lost most, if not all of her heat.

"I need you, Clarke." He repeats the words that are so familiar to them. "Preferably, on your feet." He adds with a tentative smile.

The corners of her mouth turn up a little and he knows that he won. Or maybe she did.

She steps back creating more space between them and he misses her, instantly.

"You didn't need to scare everyone." She challenges him, but it's teasing.

Just like that, they're them again.

Clarke and Bellamy.

"You didn't need to scare me." He admits, cringing at his tone - he meant to match her teasing one, but it comes out sounding more like a plea. "If you aren't going to take care of yourself, then I will."

"I'm sorry." She says softly, reaching her hand out to him.

His eyes go a little wide when she brushes her thumb over his knuckles. A feather light apology and acknowledgment of his fear.

The warmth from her hand is gone from his in a flash when she crosses the room to pick up the folded plate of rations he had dropped on the bench. He watches her return to his side with a smile meant just for him she curls her free hand around his bicep, pulling him towards the door of Medical. She leads him to the bonfire and relinquishes her hold on him before anyone notices.

She sits beside him on the log he'd occupied earlier in the night. Raven is seated on the other side with Monty and Jasper and he wonders if she'd relocated on purpose - expecting this outcome and wanting to give him some privacy. It seems everyone but Clarke knew the depth of his feelings for her.

"Thank you, Bellamy." She repeats his words from earlier in a whisper at the shell of his ear.

Somehow, he knows she means for more than the rations.

He catches Raven staring at them with a raised eyebrow and a knowing smirk.

Clarke leans into him slightly and he is instantly enveloped by her warmth, he can feel the skin of her shoulder against his arm and the press of her thigh against his.

In that moment, very little could wipe the smile off of his face. Not even Raven's annoying habit of making him feel like she knew all of his secrets.

.

Bellamy hears the commotion first.

One of the perks of pitching a tent on the outskirts of Arkadia's electrified wall, he guesses. Him and the rest of the 47 had declined their room assignments from the Chancellor in favour of tents on the hard ground they had become so accustomed to at the drop ship.

Bellamy didn't know if it was pride or fear that all of them (himself included) were hesitant to walk back on to the Ark. They'd been cast out, banished, treated like criminals and sent down to Earth to die. Bellamy wasn't one of the criminals they had sent down but the Ark had ruined his life, too.

So, on their first night at Arkadia when Bellamy politely declined Kane's room assignment with a, fuck that, and began constructing a shoddy tent out of whatever he could find - he was surprised to find that he'd been the leader of a walk out.

The 47 had followed him outside.

He tried to rationalize with himself that it was just a hunk of metal that had fallen from grace just like they did. He tried to tell himself that he didn't need to be scared of it or even what it represented - but every bleak, scary, starved moment spent on that space dumpster rushed into his conscious with a starling ferocity. Rationalizing didn't work - he hated that hunk of space shit.

He and the 47 were perfectly happy, if not more so, to camp on the outskirts - that's where they'd always been anyway, so why not make it a choice this time?

Clarke sometimes spent nights in his tent when she was too tired to walk back to medical. Kane had given her and Abby some nice quarters away from the smell of the kitchens and the constant hum of mechanical and engineering - but Clarke never slept there. She preferred the small couch in Abby's office.

Or his tent.

He waited up for her most nights. If she did crawl into the makeshift bed he had made for her on the other side of his tent, he wanted to be awake. It was usually well after the sun went down that he would hear the shifting of his tent flap. He would sit up on his elbows and smirk lazily at her, watching with swelling ride as her eyes would start to his bare chest for the briefest of moments.

He would ask how her day was and she would tell him the basics. She would ask how is was and he would launch into a tale of whatever deviant activity he'd caught Murphy doing that day while on Patrol.

He appreciated having her close and had come to realize that their whispered conversations in the dead of night were the highlight of his day.

She hadn't come tonight and he'd fallen asleep alone, save for the disappointment that was his companion when she was absent.

Making camp on the outskirts of the wall meant that he was within earshot when the raised voices and the sound of hooves unearthing the dirt outside their gate drifted into their camp. He flew out of his tent, hurriedly throwing on a shirt and pulling his arms through his jacket.

He was running towards the commotion and trying to see through the dark of the night and into the forest where someone was fast approaching. As he approached the line of trees he noticed a few others had stumbled out of their tents, bleary eyed and a little panicked.

A single man on a horse emerged, slowing his horse to a casual trot and eventual stop. Another riderless horse trotted beside him, tethered with a leather rope to the Grounder.

It didn't take long for Burne and Miller's father to come sprinting out of the gate, Abby and Kane hot their trail, flanked by a handful of members of the guard. They all had their hands on the butt of their guns, ready for anything. The Grounder looked bored if anything, no trace of fear or caution on his face.

Bellamy turned away from the swarm of people now standing in his camp and fixed his gaze on the Grounder. There was a slight chill in the air and the man was dressed in a brown so rich and dark it looked black. Furs of different textures lined his shoulder blades and his face was decorated with whorls of black paint making his watchful eyes glow a startling white.

He did feels a brush of soft skin against his hand.

Clarke had come to stand beside him, her stare hard and calculating at the single Grounder on horseback who was demanding to speak to Kane. There was a fear shining in her eyes that he knew would be reflected in his own - the pair of them were always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Constantly afraid to be happy or feel peace for fear that it would all be ripped away.

She also looked freezing.

Clarke was wearing a thin white tank top and to his absolute horror a pair of cut off denim shorts that she had repurposed from an old pair of jeans for the summer. It was getting colder now as the season changed and he could see their breath curling around them in misty wisps, mingling together in the air. He could see the goosebumps forming on her exposed flesh.

She feels his gaze and turns to him. "What?"

She trips over the word because her teeth had chattered violently. He raises an eyebrow as if to say, you know what.

She narrows her glare at him and he grins wolfishly at her.

"I picked up whatever was in arms reach and just threw it on. I didn't have time to make myself look pretty." She whispers harshly, if not a little self-consciously.

"I didn't say you don't look pretty, Princess." He says out of the corner of his mouth. "I said you looked cold."

He realizes that he hadn't actually said anything at all, but at this point their mind reading wasn't a secret and at some point it had stopped freaking him out. He began shrugging out of his jacket when he notices the hardened buds of her nipples poking through the thin white fabric.

She's not wearing a bra, he realizes.

Obviously, moron. He thinks. It's the ass crack of dawn.

His movements still and he begs himself to look away before she catches him ogling her like a creep.

They were pink.

He groans and she looks up at him.

"Bellamy?" She questions in concern at the exact moment he found the strength to toss his jacket at her. It hits her face and drapes over the top of her head. "Oof." She rips the jacket from atop her head, mussing her hair up in the process.

She glares at him fiercely and then it melts away as a slow smile spreads across her face and she leans in to him with a wicked glint in her eye.

"Bellamy Blake, are you blushing?" She questions with an air of surprise in her voice. He just makes a strangled noise between a cough and a whine. She looks down at the jacket and threads her arms through the sleeves. "Oh." She says, noticing just how cold she is. Then, she beams at him like the cat that got the fucking cream. "Never took you for a prude, Blake."

She's fucking giggling at him as she pulls the jacket around herself and inhales deeply. He doesn't trust himself to speak at this point and she nudges him. "You know," She whispers, "If my legs are too distracting for you, I definitely wouldn't say no to your pants."

"Trying to get in my pants, Clarke?" He whispers back, pleased with the flush that reddens her cheeks. It was a cheap shot but he likes catching her off guard - she does it to him all the time, so he thinks it's only fair.

"I don't think there would be any trying, Blake." She shoots back, and he grins because she's flirting with him. Actually flirting!

"Clarke!" It's Abby, demanding her daughters attention.

They'd been so wrapped up in their conversation that they hadn't realized Abby and Kane had rushed onto the scene and had an entire conversation without Clarke or Bellamy noticing. Bellamy startled a little - it was strange that they'd let themselves get so caught up in each other while something substantial was happening right before their eyes.

The Grounder had been sent as a spokes person on behalf of his village leader to request a healer ride back with him to his Trikru encampment. There was some sort of medical emergency that their own healer had no answers for and in a moment of desperation their village leader, Engin, had sent a rider to the nearest camp - Arkadia.

The decision had been made quickly despite Bellamy's loud protests.

Clarke had been chosen and she was leaving immediately. Everything had happened too fast and she wasn't wearing enough clothes to travel in this weather - when would she be coming back. Would she be coming back? Was this safe? Was it a trick?

As the flurry of thoughts overtook one another in his mind he was only vaguely aware of the fact that he was speaking. Begging Kane and Abby to let him join her. Abby looked at him with sympathy, stating that she would have gone herself if she wasn't needed here, but Clarke was her student and more affluent in the language as well as the medicines the Grounders used.

Bellamy was needed here for the Guard, or so Kane said. Besides, the Grounder had huffed in annoyance at Bellamy's insistence to join them. 'Only one', he had growled out in broken English.

He watched helplessly as Clarke climbed on the horse the Grounder had brought for her. She was in her tiny denim shorts and his jacket which looked like it could swallow her whole. She looked too young atop the horse, messy blonde hair wild around her face and an expression he knew to be fear, which she quickly schooled into Coll indifference. Too young to be riding off into what was up until a few weeks ago, enemy territory.

Clarke looks back at him and he can see she her inner turmoil and surprise at the turn of events. Bellamy was fuming, even as she nodded at him, a smile pulling up the corner of her mouth as if to say, I'll be right back.

.

It had been seven days.

Seven fucking days.

Bellamy was livid.

Clarke was supposed to be back in two days - two days had been the agreed upon time.

It had been seven and no one was going out of their fucking minds the same way he was and it was driving him up the wall. He felt out of control - he'd never felt his anxiety weigh on him so heavily.

He felt like it might crush him.

Where was she?

He fantasized about hot-wiring the rover and driving off to find her. Repercussions of an unsanctioned mission be damned. Repercussions of offending and angering the Grounders be damned. What pissed him off the most was that no one else seemed to share his anger or worry. Kane brushed off his questions about Clarke's return, reassuring him that she would be back too and that there was a good reason for her tardiness - as though she was late to fucking Earth Studies!

Abby dove head first into her work overseeing her patients and spent more time in the quarantine ward in an effort, Bellamy suspected, to avoid his constant stream of questions and demands for news.

Five days ago - she was supposed to be back five days ago. His willpower was about to snap and he was going to do something stupid.

The third day was when he started to get snippy with people. He had no patience for stupid questions or mistakes and there was an angry glare permanently etched into his face.

It wasn't until the fourth that he took to screaming at anyone who looked at him the wrong way. Even Raven had turned on her heel and walked in the other direction when she saw him coming. It was rare that she missed an opportunity to goad him into a verbal sparring match.

He was unbearable and he knew it.

But he was pissed. He was angry and she was gone. Where was she? Why was no one trying to find her and bring her back. His dreams at night were fitful images of her laying in the grass, surrounded by purple flowers, eyes open and unseeing at the vast sky above her. That had been one of the more tame dreams that plagued him in the recent days. In others she was burning alive, dying of a thousand cuts, drowning - he always woke up terrified.

So he terrified everyone else to make himself feel better.

It only made him feel worse.

By the fifth day people were actively avoiding him, Kane had put him on temporary leave and he was a permanent fixture at the bar.

On the sixth day Abby sat wordlessly beside him as he downed another glass of moonshine that tasted more like rocket fuel than anything else. He'd yelled at Monty about it yesterday. Bellamy might have been imagining things but it tasted even worse today and he didn't dare wonder why.

"I miss her, too." Abby speaks quietly. "I'm worried, too. But Bellamy, you have to get it together."

"I don't have to do anything." He slurs, the words sticking to the roof of his mouth.

He was angry with Abby more than anyone. If someone were going to share in his terror it should have been her, and yet she was parading around camp like everything was fine and like her daughter wasn't traipsing around in the enemies base playing doctor at the behest of Arkadia's higher ups.

It drove him mad and it drove him to drink.

"You're scaring the children." She chides. "Clarke would be disappointed to see how you've handled herself in her absence."

Bellamy feels like he's been slapped. Mostly because it was true - he'd often imagined Clarke chastising him for his behaviour around camp. She wouldn't agree with how he had let his emotions rule him because she never allowed her own to rule her. It was a lesson she had learned quickly on Earth - to make choices for their people with her head and not her heart.

But his heart and his mind belonged to her. She held them both within her body and soul - unknowingly possessing his. How was he expected to function without his heart when it beat in her chest? How was he expected to function without his head that had wrapped itself around her so many times it would be impossible to untangle?

"It should have been you."

"I know." Abby confesses, the tops of her sharp cheeks turning a soft pink. "But she was the better choice."

She leaves him alone with his thoughts.

Clarke comes back the next morning and he swears his heart is pounding in time with the hooves of her horse striking the ground. Everyone in the camp had run out on whatever they were doing to watch the Princess' grand return. The gates opened for her and Bellamy is shoving people out of his way, desperately trying to catch a glimpse of her. He knocks a few people off balance and doesn't seem to realize that they were already moving out of his way, creating a path for him.

She was in a dress, a long black dress. Her hair was braided back. She was clean. She was lovely. She was smiling and the whole fucking thing made him angry.

He'd spent all this time trying desperately not to start mourning, trying not to give in to all of his wild imaginings that felt so real in his dreams. He'd relived her tragic death so many times and here she was fucking smiling.

Her horse was laden down with gifts from the Grounder village.

Gifts for them, in exchange for her help and for staying longer than she bargained for, she explained to Kane who had immediately started taking stock of her payment.

Bottles of sweet berry wine, furs from bears and panthers, cured meats, and vegetable seeds. She was flushed from her hard ride back to camp and she hugged her mother who all but pulled her from the horses back. Abby whispered something to her daughter and Clarke's blue eyes searched the crowd purposefully before landing precisely on him.

He turns away.

She finds him later, anyway. She always did.

She pulls him by the hand right out of camp with a bright smile and a brown leather satchel over her shoulder.

"Come on, Blake." She ushers lowly as she sneaks them out of camp. "I've missed you."

She is laid out a fur on the ground by a small river and pushes him down on to it with a cheeky grin. She pulls a bottle of the sweet wine she must have stolen back from her haul out of her satchel. He watches her wordlessly, eyes scanning up and down her body.

She looks beautiful in the Grounder made dress, he tries not to think about the deep plunging neckline that puts her creamy skin on display. Her hair was one of the first things he'd ever noticed about her, one of the first things he'd ever longed to reach out and touch - it looked like her time at the Grounder village has been specifically kind to it. It shone like that first day they'd landed here and he can smell a sweet heady scent wafting from it every time she moves. It falls in golden waves over her shoulder and he resists the urge to reach out and play with the ends of it. They'd put some black kohl that lined her eyes and made his breath catch, the overall image of her was almost too painfully beautiful to look at.

"So," She says casually, sitting next to him and taking a healthy mouthful of wine, "Tell me why I'm the only one who seems to be able to make eye contact with you."

Her smile is knowing and he is embarrassed.

"You're late." He grumbles through gritted teeth. She offers him the bottle of wine but when he doesn't take it, she shrugs her shoulders and takes another swig.

"They asked me to stay." She leans back on her elbows, her breasts straining against the woven fabric and his fists clench around nothing, turning white with the pressure. "They needed help and I learned a lot. Bellamy, you would love it. You should come with me next time."

His knuckles crack loudly.

"Next time?" His tone is clipped and he takes the wine from her when she offers it again.

"It'll be nice to make it a monthly thing." She states, nonchalant. "They gave us seeds, Bellamy. I mean, this could be really good for us. Fostering relations with the Grounders can only help us."

"Enough!" He yells, running a haphazard hand through inky curls.

"Okay." She sighs, licking her wine stained lips. Bellamy's eyes narrow at the display and he shifts slightly in his seat. God, he was so unbelievably fucked. "Let's get it over with."

"Excuse me?" His eyes flash dangerous and dark and his body rigid in response to her tone.

"You, being angry with me - for putting myself in harms way or something." She says, "I know you've been itching to rip me a new one since I rode in, and don't think I haven't heard how you've been terrorizing everyone in camp."

"You were gone for seven days, Clarke!" He roars and she barely flinches. "Five days of wondering if you were dead in a ditch somewhere. Five days of nightmares and anxiety and regret!"

"Nightmares?" She questions, voice quiet. She looks up at him curiously with her kohl lined eyes that shine with another unspoken connection.

He knows that she suffers from them too, how she writhes beneath the sheets in his tent, silents tears streaming down her face. How she will jackknife when she wakes, clutching a hand to her chest while her harsh breaths warm the air between them.

"Yes, Princess." He spit out, exasperated. "Nightmares. Night terrors. I haven't slept since you left. Can't you tell?"

She doesn't say anything.

"I'm coming with you next time and that is that." He declares. "I don't need an invitation."

"Okay." She agrees, easily. "Now, can we get to the part where you're happy to see me?"

He eyes her out of his periphery and she is looking at him expectantly. He finally lets out the breath he has been holding for seven days and reaches out fo her with shaky hands.

He crushes her hard to his body and she laughs at the force of it. He breathes in the scent on her - it was woodsy and heady, they'd made her smell different, too. But the longer she lingers in his arms the more he recognizes the scent of Clarke.

He thinks that maybe he should have made her work harder for an apology but Clarke has always tried to do the right thing for her people and she always had an uncanny knack for making herself feel more guilty for her decisions than anyone else could. He didn't want to be the person who tried to make her feel worse - he only ever wanted her to feel understood and so he caved to her ocean blue eyes and pretty pink pout.

Honestly, who could blame him?

They lounge on the grass by the water; eating, laughing and drinking.

He is warm and at ease by the time they head back to their camp. She lets him hold her hand the whole way home.

.

"When are you going to tell her, Big Brother." Octavia laughs through the side of her mouth over the sounds of the Solstice celebrations happening around them. Her dark eye makeup doing nothing to lessen her intense stare - her eyes were swimming with amusement and Bellamy found himself gaping a little at the unusual ease with which she was speaking to him.

The party around them was raging, the fire was built bigger than anything Bellamy had ever seen in the centre of the impressive village. The buildings were sturdy - made of stone and the roofs looked to be something resembling slate and the whole sight of it when they had arrived had nearly knocked him off of his feet. The admiration eventually gave way to something like hope - hope that they may have something like this one day. Not a nearly destroyed ring of metal half embedded into the ground it had crashed on.

The drink was flowing and the feast was mouthwatering, the smells in the air were enough to intoxicate him - but that didn't stop him from grabbing his third or fourth cup of the sweet berry wine he'd developed a fondness for. Clarke had said that it was normal to overindulge at the Solstice celebration - it was the custom. He'd been invited by Clarke, along with Miller, Monty, Harper, Raven and Murphy. Octavia and Lincoln were newly settled at a Grounder village a days travel away and had been invited by Engin, the village leader. Bellamy kind of wished that they had stayed home because he really didn't need the image of his sister nestled up against Lincoln as they swayed (gyrated) to the steady beat of drums that washed over the party goers like rainfall.

Engin had invited Clarke as a show of good faith between his village and Skikru. She'd been coming here once a month for the last six months and teaching his healers modern medicine and receiving her own education in the process. The invitation to join them for the celebration had been an honour, according to Clarke. Bellamy didn't feel that way right now as he sulked over his wine.

"Tell who, what?" He growls, refusing to make eye contact with his tipsy sister. He knows exactly what she is talking about but he has better things to do than talk about his non-existent love life with his basically married sister.

Like, get stupidly drunk.

"Clarke." She says like it was obvious. "That you love her."

"Octavia." It was a warning.

"Your sister has a point." Lincoln offers, slotting himself on Octavia's other side, too close for Bellamy's comfort. "We've been here for weeks and I've noticed many men and women who hope to unify the treaty by marriage to her."

Bellamy spits his drink out and the drops of red stain his knees. A few people look over at the spectacle but don't find it interesting enough to hold their attention for long.

Octavia starts to laugh at his expense, the dark makeup around her eyes creasing in the process.

"Don't wait too much longer." Lincoln advises, "She could be propositioned by the end of the night."

"She wouldn't do it." Bellamy chokes out, wiping at his mouth with the sleeve of his best shirt.

Clarke had made him wear it for the occasion after rifling through his meagre collection of shirts and deciding that one hole was better than his old guard uniform or the tattered and stained wife beater he wore to bed with his boxers.

He had pulled it on and turned around with an exaggerated flourish for her viewing pleasure. She'd approved it while laughing as she fingered a hole in the fabric by his neck.

"She would." Octavia argues bringing him out of the memory. "For her people."

When the silence prolonged the couple got up to dance in the throngs of people, leaving Bellamy to stew in his unhappiness. Octavia and Lincoln were dressed in matching outfits - all of the warriors were. Brown furs and and brown leather, war paint slashed across their faces in a more intricate pattern than when they were actually going into battle. Something about a social setting, Octavia had explained.

The people of power were dressed in white, the village leaders and shot callers.

There were a few men and women dressed in a vibrant red that shimmered in the firelight and Octavia told him in whispered tones that they were sex workers. People from the camp that made their living by entertaining other members of the clan - they were dressed in red to identify themselves, much like the other designations. Bellamy noticed that the red garments were much more provocative than Octavia's subtle brown.

Clarke was dressed in black, the colour designated for healers. He was trying not to look at her, because every time he did his mouth dried up and he had difficulty swallowing. That black shit was around her eyes again making them more stunning than usual and the black dress she'd emerged in hugged her everywhere. It was long but there was a large slit by her right thigh that exposed her creamy skin every time she moved and he felt a wave of anger thinking that there might be other people here appreciating the view in the same way that he was.

His eyes watched her as she stood by the light of the fire, wine in hand, speaking to Engin and laughing at something he was saying. Her cheeks were flushed with alcohol and the general splendour of the evening and Bellamy found that he couldn't look away.

She would, for her people.

He was up out of his seat before the thought left his head.

She smiles at him when she notices his approach and Engin turns his head to see what had caught the blonde beauty's attention.

Engin wasn't unattractive, he noticed bitterly. He was smiling, a boyish grin that made Bellamy's blood boil with the implication of how much he may have been enjoying making Clarke laugh and how every time she moved, that sinful slit in her gown exposed more of her to him.

"Ah, Bellamy Blake." His voice is welcoming and he offers his hand to shake having adopted their custom. "Happy Solstice."

"Happy Solstice." Bellamy replies with a tight smile of his own and returning his attention to Clarke. "Can I speak to you?"

"Of course." She beams. "Excuse me, Engin."

He leads her to another table of drinks, well away from Engin and other curious gazes. Wine and lager litter the tables along with a new addition, berry moonshine. Engin had taken a liking to it and requested that they bring some with them - Monty had been more than happy to oblige and had taken his time perfecting it. Though, with Grounders, the stronger the better - as far as Bellamy could gage these people knew how to let loose and indulge.

"Nice getup, Princess." He inwardly cringes at his tone. He hadn't meant to sound jealous or petty.

"Did you interrupt me just to insult me?" She lifts one brow and grabs another glass of wine. She sets her empty glass on the table with a slow carefulness that suggested she may have been over indulged.

"I was being serious."

"Oh." She wasn't expecting that. "Thank you."

"Black suits you."

"I guess it's tradition." She explains, "They got me all dolled up for some reason."

Bellamy expected that he knew exactly the reason.

"Would you like to dance?" He rushes the question out so fast that it sounds like one word all jumbled together and his face feels like it might catch fire.

She raises her eyebrows at him with an amused smile like she was waiting for him to come to his senses and rescind the invitation - like she couldn't believe he'd actually offered to dance with her.

Bellamy steels himself against the embarrassment and holds his hand out to her. Clarke's answering smile makes his heart hammer so hard it kind of hurts.

She places her hand gently in his, like she doesn't want to break the spell of the moment.

His fingers intertwine with hers, like he is trying to reassure her that she won't.

He leads her out into the masses of dancing couples. The beat from the drums is almost as intoxicating as the wine, it makes his head fuzzy and his chest warm. Everyone in the group of people are dancing to their own rhythm, with wide smiles covering most of their faces. There are couples who are writhing against each other like maybe they should be finding themselves a room, there are some who are flailing their arms and hoping back and forth on one leg, and there are some who just sway like they might fall over if a particularly powerful gust over wind were to come upon them.

He draws Clarke into his arms, resting his hands on her hips and pulls her as close as he possibly could. It didn't look to Bellamy like there were any rules to this dance so he did what he'd been dying to do since Clarke had emerged in that dress. She fell into him easily and her arms came to rest around his neck while she laid her head in the crook of his neck.

She sighs into him and he feels her press closer, almost as if to say that she had been wanting this close proximity the same as he did. Her breath fans over his neck, leaving goosebumps in its wake.

He might die.

The physical closeness feels just as unavoidable as their emotion closeness. The soft breeze that makes her hair dance across her shoulders feels like the universe is breathing a giant sigh of relief - this was how it is supposed to be between them.

Together, in every sense of the word.

The hands he has placed on her waist tighten at the thought and he feels her sharp intake of breath - her lips are ghosting over the juncture between his shoulder and his neck and suddenly it isn't the wine that is making his head fuzzy.

It's her.

"May I cut in." A unknown voice interrupts.

"No." Is Bellamy's answering growl. He hadn't even looked up to see who he might have been offending with his dismissal, he simply pulls Clarke tighter to him and wishes the rest of the world away.

"Bellamy." Clarke scolded, but there was no heat to her words and he can tell that she is swallowing a laugh.

She makes no move to pull away, even when it happens three more times.

"We're supposed to be fostering good relations." She giggles as they stumble to her rooms, Clarke leading the way. "You didn't let a single person dance with me."

She was light and happy and he was tipsy and loose lipped.

He grabs her arm before he can think better of it because she was giggling and she was happy. It was his favourite version of her - tied with the version of her that yelled at him because she was always so beautiful when she let the fire burn in her eyes.

She lets out a gasp when he backs her into the nearest hard surface, which just so happens to be a door.

"You let me scare them off, Princess." His voice rumbles low in her ear and he knows he sounds as wrecked as he feels. "I couldn't control you if I wanted to, and believe me. Tonight, I did."

When he pulls his head back her eyes are blown wide and her lips are parted in a pretty kind of gasp. He wants to lick her bottom lip. She angles herself towards him for a moment and he makes an embarrassing sound when her hips push into his hands that held her in place. His right hand is touching the bare skin of her hip where the slit in her dress has fallen away.

His thumb traces lazy hot circles there and she trembles.

He is on fire and he can see that she is, too. The dark of the evening concealing them from view and the thick tension that had swelled while they danced had caught up to them. For a tantalizing moment, he thought maybe there might be a God and she was going to kiss him.

Instead, she breathed, "We're drunk."

She is looking up at him in a pleading way - like she's asking him to make the choice to step away from her. She needs him to be strong for her and snuff out the heat growing hotter and more uncontrollable between them.

He knows that she isn't ready - it's Clarke. She might never be ready.

He backs away from her, allowing her the space that she needs but can't ask for. She looks almost disappointed.

A shaky breath leaves him and he clenches his unsteady hands into fists at his side. He turns towards his tent. He needs to walk away from her now before it becomes an impossible task.

He can't help but turn around to look at her once more.

She is leaning heavily against the door he'd pressed her into. Her eyes are closed and her hands are touching where his had just been. She's biting her bottom lip.

He takes that image to bed with him.

.

The rejection stung. Not as much as Clarke's silence on the matter, but it still left him reeling.

They are all feeling less than stellar when they mount their horses and ride back to camp early the next morning. Raven is nearly falling asleep on her horse while Murphy pelts nuts into her back to keep her from falling.

(so he says)

Murphy is even worse at flirting than him, Bellamy thinks.

Bellamy rides behind Clarke, because despite the unrequited feelings, he will always watch her back.

He avoids her in Arkadia.

Then he gets a cut repairing the wall that definitely requires stitches but he resorts to sewing them up himself instead of going to Medical on the good chance he might run into her.

The skin heals weird - puckered and kind of gross, but it's on his ankle and he doesn't really care.

She struts around camp in her Grounder clothing. Black, tight and very low cut. He wants to hit something every time he sees her. He starts to see the resemblance between her outfits and the ones the sex workers are made to wear at Engin's village. The only difference is the colour and it makes his blood boil.

He watches her a lot. Too much, probably. Sometimes she catches him and he quickly looks away, pretending to be busy or interested in something nearby.

He notices that she's getting thinner and it bothers him. With her new relationship with the Grounder village, supplies are at an all time high, she shouldn't be getting thinner. Bellamy watches as she runs around, obviously stretching herself too thin - with her medical knowledge she's a hot commodity between two different camps and the dark circles have returned to her eyes.

He wonders if maybe she'll faint again and he'll have a valid reason to have her in his arms.

The sting of his bruised pride would be more bearable if Octavia were here and not making a home and name for herself at a new settlement, he hears that she is training younger members in the village to fight and feels proud for his girl under the floor.

Though, she was never that to him and he's always been proud of her.

He wishes he had someone who understood - and maybe Octavia wouldn't because she'd never had a problem with matters of the heart but at least he would have someone around who he knew who be in his corner.

That position had been filled for so long by Clarke, but he can't bare to have her confirm his fears that it doesn't matter if she is ready for love, or willing to accept someone into her heart - that person would never be him. That scenario bounces around his head and intrudes in his dreams.

He's been hanging around in engineering a lot because of Raven. She's funny and the most tolerable (besides Miller). Plus, she is his direct line to all things Clarke.

"She delivered twins last month in Engin's camp." Raven says proudly. "They were all turned around in the mothers stomach - Clarke learned how to-" She makes some crude movements with her hands -"get in there and turn 'em around. Isn't that crazy?"

Bellamy nods, tinkering with some scrap metal he probably isn't allowed to touch.

"She misses you." Raven says quietly, her eyes and hands never leave the tangle of wires she's been trying to sort for the past half hour.

His head snaps up.

"What happened there?" Raven asks, caution lacing her every word and her eyes flickering between the wires and her radio. "You seemed to be having a good time at the Solstice last month."

"We were." He agrees. "Then, she wasn't."

"Clarke is difficult." Raven says slowly. "She's cautious."

"We're us." Bellamy protests. "She doesn't need to be, around me."

"She thinks she's unlucky in love." Raven admits like she's divulging a grave secret. "She thinks that she's cursed. It probably has something to do with all of the Grounder one on one time she's been having lately. I swear if Engin gets his claws into her any further I'm going to stage an intervention."

"You don't like him." It's a statement and Bellamy knows he sounds delighted when he says it. He's glad he isn't the only one fawning all over the man. Bellamy knows logically that it's in large part due to Engin that their camp has survived and thrived as well as they have - they're well fed, clothed, and the closest to happy that Bellamy has seen on the ground. It's not enough for Bellamy to like him as an actual person, though.

"You see the outfits he puts her in?" She scoffs. "Clarke thinks that she should be flattered that he would use his resources on her." Raven shakes her head, "I think he wants her to look like his whore."

Bellamy turns an unhealthy shade of red and Raven recognizes it instantly.

It's his rage - the Clarke-specific rage that he can't turn off.

Raven had all but confirmed his suspicions about Engin and his intentions with Clarke. Bellamy had been sitting on these assumptions, hoping that they were a product of his jealousy. He'd rather come to the realization that he was a jealous asshole than realize that he actually might lose Clarke to some Grounder Prince who liked to use her to play dress up.

"I mean - I just don't think it's Clarke." Raven tries to talk him down. "She doesn't like the attention but she thinks that if she refuses to wear it; the clothes, the hair the makeup - that she'll offend him somehow."

Bellamy nods once, it's tense and he feels like he may burst a blood vessel. He has to put the piece of scrap metal he had been holding back down on the table for fear of bending it and facing Raven's wrath.

"She's worked so hard for peace." Raven implores. "We all have. She doesn't want to ruin it. I keep saying that Engin might ruin her, but she says she has it handled." Raven shrugs. "And who are we to question the Princess?"

Bellamy's fingers itch like he wants to hit someone.

It ends up being Murphy.

When Clarke rides through the gates in a new ridiculous outfit, Murphy turns to Bellamy and sniggers maliciously.

"Looks like Grounder King and Clarke really are playing doctor."

Bellamy punches him right in the face and breaks his nose.

Bellamy doesn't feel bad about it either. Though, he still visits him in Medical, but Murphy just claps him on the shoulder and chuckles when he says,

"I should have known better."

.

He's reading a book in his tent by candle light. It's inconvenient and Raven has made a few torches for the 47 that chose tents instead of rooms in the Ark - but he's waiting until everyone has one before he'll ask for one. Besides, the dark glow matches his mood perfectly.

He hasn't spoken to Clarke about anything more than essentials in weeks. Since the Solstice.

He physically aches with her absence.

It's almost kismet when she whips the flap of his tent open and stands there in all of her exposed skin, black shiny fabric and rage. Her tiny hands are in tinier fists at her sides and it looks like she has to force herself to breathe. Her jaw is clenched so tightly it looks like it might hurt tomorrow.

"Engin has asked me to marry him."

He'll find out later that it isn't the first time, or the second that he has asked for her hand.

Then, she's gone.

It takes him over a minute to get his wits about him before storming out of his tent in a whirl of confusion and anger. It's dark and he can't see where she went but he's never needed his eyes to find her. He lets his feet carry him around and finally he sees a flash of blonde silk and starts sprinting.

He roars her name so loud he's sure the whole camp can hear.

She stills, her ridiculous black skirt fluttering around her legs.

"That's how you tell me you're getting married?" He spits. He's seeing red and it makes him angrier because now he really sees Clarke dressed in red. It's like he's seeing into her future with Engin.

"He speaks!" She yells, obviously uncaring that it's the middle of the night and they are screaming.

"She's engaged!" He yells back, matching her hateful tone. He's stopped a few feet from her, not trusting himself to go any closer because if he does he might just drop to his knees and beg her to love him.

She takes a deep breath trying to even her temper. "I just said that he proposed." She grits out. "Not, that I accepted."

His heart soars and it is such a juxtaposition from his rage that his head feels dizzy with the swiftness of the change.

She hasn't accepted.

She would, for her people.

He feel a sudden desperation - a crack straight through his soul as he realizes that she would. That maybe this was her way of asking his opinion but he'd ignored her for weeks and denied her the opportunity.

"Don't." He says, broken. A shell of a man as he realizes that the thing he is surviving for might up and leave him. His voice is strained and his fingers itch, not for violence but to reach out and touch her. To rip off Engin's dress and offer her his jacket.

"Okay." She bites out.

And then she's gone again.

.

She's gone a few tense weeks later.

Everyone had heard the fight, it had been loud and volatile and presently everyone was avoiding him. What they didn't realize is that this wasn't like the previous blows up that he and Clarke had. He was happy. He was ecstatic. He was walking on air and nothing could wipe the smile from his face.

Except that he couldn't talk to Clarke.

Their interactions were strained. He wanted to wrap her in a hug and whisper sweet things to her. He also wanted to whisper dirty things to her, but he knew that she was far from ready for that. He wasn't even sure if he was ready for it.

"Okay," Raven nearly yelled, fixing him with a pointed glare. "You and Clarke get into a massive fight and you haven't yelled at Monty or punched anyone in the face. The fuck is up, Blake?"

"We didn't get in a fight." He said, munching happily on some cured venison.

"The entire continent heard you two out here."

"You've got it wrong, Reyes." He smiled at her and got up, nearly skipping to his shift at the wall.

Miller told him that his smile was freaking everyone out and that he needed to knock it off.

Clarke rides in two days later with another rider in tow.

Bellamy is on shift at the wall and opens the gate to let her in - her companion stays outside of the barricade. He climbs down to the ground and when he gets a good look at her he nearly laughs. She's wearing the standard black uniform Engin was so fond of, but his navy blue jacket was swallowing up her frame.

She blinds him with a smile and he offers her a hand getting off her horse.

He grips her thighs and with a deftness he didn't think he would posses while having Clarke in his arms and sets her gently on the ground. They stare at each other for a moment before her companion whistles and Clarke's horse turns and trots off towards him and then out of sight.

Bellamy arches an eyebrow at her.

"I won't be visiting Engin anymore." She says in a tone that sounds like she's daring him to react.

"How'd he take that?"

"He was the one who suggested it when I declined to marry him."

"Sore loser." Bellamy comments. "I never liked him, anyway."

"Oh," She snorts and rolls her eyes, "You don't say?"

"Come on Princess," He steps away from her and catches her elbow, leading her further in to the camp. "You've turned down a marriage proposal, I think that deserves a toast."

They drink until the early hours of the morning and he's beaming because she held his hand on the way to the bonfire.

The hangover was worth it.

.

Things have been going pretty smoothly around camp. So smoothly, that Bellamy felt himself feeling bored for the first time that he can remember. He volunteers to go on a hunting trip. It's only a day but he's itching for something to do and he hasn't seen Clarke around for a few hours. Raven chased him out of Mechanical because he was 'annoying'. He'd even asked Murphy to grab a drink with him and been turned down.

Murphy as it turns out was recruited for a hunting trip and Bellamy was only too happy to invite himself along after hearing Miller had been roped into it too.

"I heard it's a boar." Murphy drawls, "Paul is obsessed with it."

"Obsessed with a boar?" Miller questions.

"Yeah, like there's not so much to unpack there." Murphy snorts. "According to Chris, he's out here every day, dragging different people along."

"Maybe he's going nuts." Miller suggests.

"Maybe he ate some of Monty's nuts." Murphy quips.

"Maybe he's just bored." Bellamy offers.

"Boredom doesn't exist down here." Murphy argues. "Death, fire, screaming, pain - those exist."

"Believe me, it exists." Bellamy assures him.

"You should enjoy it, Blake." Miller says, getting glared at by Paul when a twig snaps beneath his feet. "The boredom."

"He'll enjoy it once he finally gets the Princess in his bed." Murphy was always crude, it wasn't anything new, but Bellamy still wanted to punch him in his smarmy fucking face.

Again.

"Careful, Murphy." Miller warns when Bellamy growls low in his throat. "Your nose just turned back to a semi-normal colour."

"Do you think this idiot even knows where we are?" Murphy asks, changing the subject, gesturing to Paul.

They were in the middle of the forest and though they had a tentative peace with the Grounders in this area, Bellamy and Miller were still on high alert.

"Yeah, I've been here a few times." Bellamy answers.

"Me too." Says Miller. "There's a stream up head."

They can hear the soft tinkling of running water and Murphy smiles broadly at the revelation.

"I could use a swim."

"Paul would drown you." Laughs Miller with a snort.

"Let him- OH, holy shit!" All three of them stopped at the sight of a very naked and very wet Clarke Griffin standing directly in front of them with wide eyes. She stood statue still, like maybe if she didn't breathe they might not see her.

Bellamy swallowed a whine as he dove in front of her, pulling her frame behind his body to shield it from the entire hunting party. He reached behind him to pull her closer to his back and growled at Miller, Murphy, Paul and the other three men who had joined them.

"Get moving." His voice is dangerous and they made quick work of dispersing into the forest.

"Damn, Princess has got a body!" Murphy calls to a very red Miller as they leave. "But, I guess we already knew she had a wicked rack - " A dull thud interrupts as Miller claps his friend in the back of the head.

Bellamy would have to have a serious conversation with Murphy at some point in the very near future about just how close he would come to death if he ever spoke about Clarke in a way Bellamy didn't find respectful.

Clarke clears her throat behind him and he slams his eyes shut. "Uh, Bell . . ." She says cautiously, "I don't know how you managed it but, your hands - uh, well, you know."

Bellamy comes back to himself realizing that in his haste to cover her, he has grabbed her naked body and is pressing the front of her against the back of him.

His left hand has unmistakably laded on her ass and his right one, up a little higher has landed on her back, but his traitorous thumb is pressed against the underside of her breast. He thinks he might have actually squeaked as he rips his hands away from her like she was made of embers.

He stood there, facing away from her with his hands balled into fists at his side and tried not think about the fact that he had seen Clarke Griffin Clarke Griffin naked. She was all soft curves and smooth, creamy skin. Miles of it, it had seemed. The swell of her breast and her nipples - oh god, they were the same perfect shade of pink as her lips. The indent of her waist and the flare of her hips, the expanse of her thighs and the tuft of light blonde hair at the apex - he was absolutely fucked. He was never going to be the same again and how did she keep doing that to him? Turning his entire world upside down without any clue as to her impact. It was ridiculous.

"Bellamy." She says, and he can sense a hint of annoyance. "For godsake. I'm dressed. Turn the fuck around."

She has put her clothes back on and fixes him with an impressive glare.

"You know, you could act a little less offended or uncomfortable or whatever. You were the one who stampeded in on me!" Her arms cross over her chest, pushing up her breasts and he watches as her wet hair drips tantalizingly over her chest creating a wet spot on her shirt.

He stares at her. He thought she'd made him uncomfortable? Offended? God, he was in love with the smartest dumbass on Earth. I mean, the only thing that was uncomfortable about this whole situation was his steadily tightening pants.

"Clarke -"

"It's fine Bellamy." She cuts him off with a clipped tone, casting her eyes downwards.

"Would you shut up for a second?" He fumes, upset that she has mistaken his chivalry for something else. Clarke eyes him, unimpressed. "Believe me, I'm not uncomfortable or annoyed." He explains, with a curl of his lip. "I'm now inconsolably horny, thanks to you. I'm just trying to get my dick to behave."

She looks shocked for minute before she lets out an uncharacteristic chuckle.

Clarke Griffin was unbelievable. A storm in a human body and yet somehow insecure enough to think that she had no effect on him.

He was constantly screaming at the top of his lungs inside his head that she was fucking perfect. One of the reasons he had been made was for her - he knew it. He was simply waiting for her to get on the same page and figure it the fuck out.

"Well, thanks for defending my honour." She smiles, "Walk me back to camp?" Her nest smile is slow and easy, it's new in a way. One that is sultry and dark. It radiates a new kind of power. It was confident and pleased.

He definitely wasn't bored anymore.

.

He took a cold shower every night before bed.

He tugged at himself desperately - her name on his lips.

He was pathetic. He was gone, totally and completely gone. She'd had this way about her recently like she'd figured out exactly the kind of sordid things he thought about when it came to her. She smiled at him like she knew his secret. She swayed her lips like she knew he was watching. She bit her bottom lip more often now like she knew it drove him crazy.

There was a big part of him that thought maybe she was actually driving him crazy and it was all in his head. That she was doing all these things just as she normally did but now, after their encounter at the stream he was obsessing over them. Each and every little tick.

It was particularly easy to obsess over the black Grounder clothes she'd taken to wearing again.

The weather had gotten warmer and they were in the middle of a heat wave just before unity day when she'd sat down next to him in the short black dress he had only seen her wear once. He wasn't even sure he could even call the scrap of fabric a dress at all.

She eyed his expression and moaned. "Don't even say it, Bellamy. It's hotter than hell out here and it's the only thing I own that doesn't make my boobs sweat."

She was wearing the same one tonight as she talked with Jackson by the campfire. Music blasted from the speakers Raven had rigged for the Unity Day celebration and Monty had made a special strawberry version of his moonshine that was actually pretty decent.

"Blake, Griffin - come on!" Raven hollered over the ruckus of the party and beckoned them over to the makeshift beer pong table. "You're on a team - against me and Wick!"

She was hammered already and Clarke smiled at her indulgently, grabbing Bellamy's hand and following the willowy brunettes orders.

An hour later they had won by the skin of their teeth and Clarke was leaning heavily into his side. When they won she had grabbed his shoulder to pull herself up on to her tip toes and planted a smacking kiss against his cheek. Her shorter stature made it difficult and it landed on the underside of his jaw. He choked a little on his moonshine and Raven started to hysterically laugh while Clarke just looked on, oblivious to Raven's mocking.

"Hey Bell." Clarke whispers. "I think I should sit down."

He laughs. "Sure thing, Princess."

"You know," She says with a smile when they sit down away from the party. "I'm usually a better drunk than this."

"You know," He smiles, matching her tone. "You probably would be if you hadn't given away your rations to that kid in Medical."

"Charlie has the flu!" She defends, "He needed it more than me."

"Clarke Griffin, defender of the sick and downtrodden."

She grins drunkenly at him. "How did you even know about that?" She nudges him. "Keeping tabs on me?"

"Always." He says without hesitation.

"I know." She says contentedly.

There's a beat.

"Do you remember the Solstice?" She asks.

"Unfortunately."

She rolls her eyes.

"You asked me to dance and then barely let anyone else get close enough to cut in." He isn't looking at her but he can tell that she's smiling and the corners of his own mouth turn up.

"Your point?"

"If it's such a painful memory, why didn't you hand me off to someone else?" She questions, genuinely curious.

"It wasn't the dancing that was painful, well, mostly." He jokes.

"Then, what?"

"Lincoln told me that you had a village of suitors waiting for a dance so they could put a ring on your finger and have a litter of babies with you." He shrugs. "I was doing you a favour, Princess."

"I'd already declined Engin's third offer of marriage by the Solstice." She laughs.

His jaw drops at the admission.

"How many fucking times did this guy propose?" He growls.

"Five, I think, by the time I told you."

"Why?" She knows what he's asking.

"I'd hoped that you would tell me not to." She admits. "I didn't know for sure what you would say, but I needed a push to really say no instead of making excuses and asking for more time."

"You could have just talked to me about it."

"You weren't really talking to me at all." She says, playing with the hem of her dress. It hikes up a little and Bellamy averts his gaze. "It could have been good for us - for all of us." She says this last part like she might be regretting her choice to turn him down.

Bellamy feels his heart drop into his bowels.

"Even when you're pissing me off, which is often, by the way. I still always want what's best for you." He says, turning to face her. He lets everything he feels for her shine through in his eyes. It's dark and she's drunk and it's tiring to keep everything he feels for her locked away all the time.

It's true, what might be good for them hasn't always proved to be good for her.

"Do you think maybe, it was what was best for you, too?" She breaks their eye contact and looks down at the ground like she's feeling shy about the question. She kind of looks like she wants to inhale her words and take them all back.

It's the closest she's ever ventured to an admitting she knows how he feels about her.

He pales. He hopes she's drunk enough not to remember this conversation in the morning because she is spot-fucking-on. He had been selfish with her and he didn't feel bad about it one bit.

"I love you for it." She says with a sigh, realizing that he probably isn't going to answer her.

He stiffens beside her. She loves him like a friend or family member, but it still feels fucking good to hear her say it. She laces their fingers together and her thumb traces back and forth over his knuckles.

"Is this okay?" She asks quietly, her eyes closed as she leans her head against his shoulder.

"Yes." He whispers. "It's perfect."

It's enough.

.

They meet for coffee (Clarke) and tea (Bellamy) every morning just outside the gates of Arkadia. It's the spot they sat in a lifetime ago after they'd freed 47 of their friends from Mount Weather.

It was also where she'd said goodbye to him, he'd begged her to say and she had broken his heart.

It's nice for him, to create new memories here. It doesn't completely stamp out the first one - but it gets better every time he sees her bleary eyed and half asleep, hand already out so he could hand her a metal cup of black coffee.

They watch the sunrise and he watches as her eyes become clear as reality begins to take shape for her.

"It's the most people we've ever had in Medical." She says with a frown. Charlie was the first person to get the flu but certainly not the last. It had travelled around the camp too quick for Abby, Jackson and Clarke to keep up with. They'd lost a few people, and Clarke was taking it hard.

"We try." Bellamy says, heart heavy for her. "That's all we can do."

"We should be better." She says, running her hand through her hair with a sigh of defeat. He knows that he is the only person she lets see her like this. He feels a certain amount of privilege to be that person for her. "We should have a better handle on this by now."

"Give yourself some credit. We've come a long way from the drop ship."

"Not far enough."

She works herself to the bone over the next few days, she doesn't eat properly and she doesn't sleep at all and when he tries to call her out on it she ushers him out of Medical with a glare and some biting words.

She gets the flu two days later.

Abby refuses to let her work and Clarke only agrees to go to their room when Abby all but yells that she'll just infect more people if she's traipsing around the camp like nothing is wrong.

She looks like death warmed over when Bellamy runs into her coming out of Medical after the mother daughter confrontation.

"I've been fired." She laments, her voice sounds like it's struggling to get out of her throat and he winces at the sound.

"Temporarily relived of duty!" Her mother shouts from behind the door. "Get her to bed, Bellamy!"

"I feel terrible." She admits allowing her shoulders to sag.

"You don't look great either." He lies. She always looks good. "Come on, let's go."

He leads her out of the Ark and to his tent, ignoring all of her protests on the way.

I'll get you sick. He doesn't care.

I have my own rooms Bellamy. That she shares with her mom, who won't be around to look after her.

Don't you want your space? Not from her.

Your bed is so warm. Finally.

She insists on sleeping on the floor the next day when she wakes up, absolutely horrified to find that he's used the makeshift bed (a pile of furs) beside his own that she usually sleeps in when she comes to him. She demands to switch and can barely stand on her own two legs when she tries to relocate.

He refuses and the compromise is that they sleep together. She says that she'll get him sick and he says then the floor is his only option. She doesn't even have the energy to argue, she just scoots over and tries not to breathe on him.

It doesn't matter though because when they wake up he's curled himself around her and he feels lighter somehow.

He worries over her. Her fever spikes, and she gets a little delirious.

"You're my favourite." She coos, poking his cheek with a smile, it soon fades to a glassy eyed frown and she slumps back down on his pillow with a groan. "I'm so hot."

"I'll get you a cool cloth."

He lays it on her forehead and tells her he'll be right back. He sprints to Medical and pesters Abby with questions about her symptoms and she just puts a comforting hand on his shoulder and smiles like she knows something she shouldn't.

"She'll be fine." And then, "I promise."

And if Abby isn't worried, why does he still monitor her her breathing every night?

He comes back to the tent, out of breath from running and half of the broth in the bowl had spilled on his way - but she smiles at him in a fever haze and he settles down next to her with a smile of his own.

They wake up tangled together again and she's looking up at him from where her head is laying on his chest. She blinks at him while he comes out of unconsciousness. Her eyes are clear, her skins is a normal temperature against his and she looks determined. Her hand that had been drawing lazy circles on his bare chest stills.

"Thank you."

"Anytime." I love you.

He gets a fever that afternoon. She doesn't leave his tent then, and she doesn't leave it after his fever breaks five days later.

.

He's walking by engineering when he hears Raven and Clarke. It's a conversation he shouldn't be privy to but it doesn't stop him from lingering and trying to look like he's tying his shoe in case someone spots him.

". . . You're basically living together." Raven comments.

"It's not like that."

"Clarke, you moved in all your clothes because he fucking built you a dresser." Raven snarks, "Miller said that Blake only went on the hunting trip yesterday so he could get you a new fur for your shared bed because you run cold when you sleep."

"He did?"

"Yes, Clarke." Raven sounds exasperated, like they've had this conversation before. "I don't get it. How can you not understand - the boy would move mountains for you. In fact, he took one down for you."

"That wasn't for me. That was for everyone." Clarke says, an edge to her voice. The same edge they both got when Mount Weather was brought up. "The Ark may have come down but the co-leader thing, it - I mean, it just is. We just are."

"Whatever Clarke." Raven deflects. "You've moved in to his tent - do you think he's dating? How could he when you're sleeping in his bed every night? You're it."

There's silence. "I - I didn't, I mean I never thought about that."

"Maybe you should." Raven snaps.

Later that night they fight.

She walks into their tent.

Their tent.

She looks around like she's guilty of something.

"Do we live together?" She asks, her face is flaming red and he pretends not to notice. She's still looking around like she doesn't understand where she is.

"Yeah," He shrugs, dog-earing the page in his book, he knows that she hates when he does that but she doesn't say anything. "I guess we do."

"You're okay with that?" She asks the question like she's accusing him of lying before he even had a chance.

"Are you not?" He throws at her.

"I just - " She sighs, "I mean, you can't really have a romantic life if I'm here all the time." She says romantic life like it's some kind of dirty word.

"Clarke, if I wanted to fuck - I would." He says and she flushes so red he wonders if she might be running another fever.

"Maybe I should stay with my mom, or something." She can't make eye contact with him. "I just - this probably isn't what you want. What if I walked in or something. How would it look to someone you're, uh, entertaining. You know, that we live together? It's probably not sending the right message."

"Fuck, Clarke." He growls. "You're here because I want you to be. I don't care what people think. Besides, everyone already knows we're shacking up together - it's a small camp."

"But other people might . . . " She pauses, "Care." She clarifies.

"Okay, so you want me to kick you out? Fuck some girl when I'd rather be sleeping next to you? Why do you even care about this?" He's nearly yelling.

"If that's what you want." She's quiet and he feels bad - but he might be more angry that she doesn't understand what he is trying to tell her.

"It's not." He's still mad, it's clear even when he tries to moderate his tone. "I just said I'd rather be sleeping next to you. Even if sometimes it's torture."

"I don't want to limit your happiness just because you think you need to take care of me." She fixes him with a stare that is so open and honest he almost gasps at its intensity - she looks a little broken. He stands up suddenly and crosses the room, his hands grabbing at her hips and pulling her into him. Her startled breath ghosts across his face and he can feel how uneasy it is.

"You make me happy." He says easily, despite his heart hammering. She knows how to make his blood boil but he also knows that Clarke has worked herself up because of Raven's meddling. She never would have thought twice about this arrangement if Raven hadn't of made her overthink everything.

Plus, he thinks he might actually die if she packed up all her shit and moved back in with her mom.

"I'm sorry," She laments, in a whisper, "I just, got caught up in my head, I guess."

"It's okay." He assures her, stepping away and giving her the space he's sure that she needs. "Don't do that." He demands with a half smile, "And don't leave."

She doesn't.

.

He kisses her because he can't help it. He's been waiting for her to be ready for so long, and she's living with him and she sleeps nearly naked and she's so comfortable around him.

He's so in love with her.

So when she starts yelling at him for being a dumbass, he just can't help it.

He's sparring with a few younger kids when it happens.

Kane assigns him with the cadets. Training and instructing. It's nice because he feels useful and like he's making some kind of small difference.

He's been at it for a few months when one fall morning he's out in the courtyard and the cadets are doing a drill. It was a daily thing, for a few hours each morning and afterwards he would have patrol duty with Miller at the gates.

Rows of the younger children stood statue still in front of him as he explained the drill they would be practicing - using your gun as a weapon in the field when you're out of ammo.

He's showing them how to use the butt of a gun to cause maximum damage and he pulls Flora up to the front of the line to practice her movements. He's correcting her stance and getting back into place when Clarke walks by.

Her hair had grown a little longer and the day before they had ventured to the stream to bathe because they both shared the same distaste for the communal showers. They had taken turns washing each others hair with the floral scented soap Monty had been testing as some kind of passion project. It flowed behind her in ribbons of spun gold and she was wearing the jacket he'd given her a few years ago.

He stepped forward out of habit, wanting to be as physically close to her as possible. It's the exact wrong moment because Flora slams the butt of her gun down and because he'd moved so suddenly it connects with his temple and he's down for the count.

He wakes up to Clarke peering down at him with a frown and a deep crease between her eyebrows that he finds himself weirdly wanting to lick away.

He blinks away the strange thought.

"You're an idiot." She states with her arms crossed over her chest.

He mumbled incoherently and she steps forward with concern.

"Are you okay?" Her hands start fluttering around his hairline, gently prodding the tender area where he'd been hit. "You took a pretty nasty hit to the head - I think you might be concussed."

She checks him for a fever, the strength of his pulse and his blood pressure. That crease between her eyebrows remains and she is doing that thing she does when she is stressed or scared and won't make eye contact with him.

She had been scared for him, he realizes.

"I want to erase it." He says but his voice sounds hazy like he's underwater and she's kind of fuzzy.

"Erase what?"

"Your pain." He answers like it's obvious, a smile tugging at his mouth.

"I think you do a pretty good job of that already." She says, soft and gentle. Her eyes hold an entire universe of pain and beauty. They look as blue as the steam they bathe in and he finds himself leaning closer like he might be able to wade in.

"My head hurts." He announces.

"I'll bet." She smiles. "A concussion will do that."

"My head always kind of hurts when I look at you."

"Thanks?" She snorts. He tries to sit up and she tries to push him down. "You need to rest, Bell."

But he's determined and he swings his legs over the table and rights himself. He doesn't realize that he's grabbed her hips and slotted her right in-between his legs.

"In the best way." He amends.

"Flora clocked you pretty hard, huh?" She says with a soft smile, cradling his face in her hands and gazing into his eyes. He'd like to think it was a loving gaze, but he isn't sure.

"I was distracted." He says slowly.

"Hmm."

Her lips are pursed, they're so pink - like the flowers that bloom in spring outside the wall where they have their tea and coffee and where she eradicated every bad memory he associated with that place just by being with him.

Like her nipples.

She might be smirking at him or she might be smiling but he doesn't care because her lips are so nice and the mole above her top one is singing him a song.

So he lifts his head and presses his lips to hers for a few beautiful seconds, and then he presses his lips to her mole.

When he pulls back her eyes are closed and she's so still he thinks that maybe time has stopped.

"Get some sleep. Bell." She whispers, her eyes fluttering open to lock onto his again.

"Are you staying?" He isn't used to sleeping without her anymore and he doesn't want to get used it, either.

"I am." She says, "But don't get too excited. I'll be waking you up every two hours."

.

He feels like he ruined everything. This lovely, easy piece of domesticity they'd created while they were alone. He had kissed her and ruined it.

She spent most nights in Medical and he was so worried that he would ruin it further by mentioning it that he just pretended like it never happened - the last thing he wanted to do was scare her away. He was still surprised, days later, that every time he came home her stuff was still there.

It was five days later when she actually slept in their tent. He was surprised that she had actually come home because she'd been sleeping on that damned couch in her moms office since his trip to medical.

He watches her from over the top of his book as she unlaces her shoes and kicks them off, shrugs out of her jacket and lays it carefully on the back of the uneven chair exactly like she always did. He wants to go to her, to kiss her again and really mean it this time - but he doesn't want to scare her into running away.

She surprises him when she stops in front of him, pulls the book from his hand, grabs his wrists to pull him up and nestles herself in his arms. It takes him less than a second to grasp at her waist with one hand and wrap the other around the back of her neck.

"Hi." She murmurs into his chest.

"Hi." He breathes out, surprised and fulfilled. "Rough day?"

"Rough five."

He lets out a relieved laugh because she's been counting, too.

"How was yours?" She asks, making no move to let him go and he only holds her tighter.

"Paul wrangled me into another hunting trip tomorrow." He comments, "I didn't have the heart to say no."

"He still after that boar?" She mumbles into his chest.

He nods.

"I've missed you." She admits, loosening her grip on his back, her words muffled by the fabric of his jacket and shirt.

"Me too, Princess." She lifts her head to stare at him and he leans forward to rest their foreheads against one another.

For one agonizing second he thinks she might kiss him. But she just lets out another contented sigh, her breath fanning across his face. She is simply watching him, allowing him to be the person that she needs and he thinks that might be even better than having her tongue in his mouth.

"Bed?" She asks, tugging at his waist.

They strip out of their bulky clothes and curl up together under the furs on their bed. He holds her tighter than usual and she nestles closer.

.

He's impaled by Paul's fucking boar the next morning and all he remembers after the horn tears through is stomach, is whispering Clarke's name like a fucking prayer. He's kind of excited for Paul because his unicorn boar is actually real - but he's pissed that he's probably going to die before Clarke ever decides to kiss him back.

He passes out while Paul and Miller are carrying him back to camp. His torso feels like its on fire and the more blood he looses the easier it is to close his eyes.

It takes him an absurdly long time to find the strength to open his eyes and when he does, it hurts.

Everything hurts.

He vaguely recognizes that he's staring at the cold metal ceiling of Medical and something warm is clamped over his hand.

He falls back into unconsciousness almost immediately.

The next time he wakes it's because of a commotion, someone is yelling. His eyelashes are crusted shut when he opens them and his vision is blurry but he instantly recognizes Clarke. She's pacing at the foot of his bed and cursing loudly to herself. She picks something up from a nearby table and tosses it across the room with a sob. It crashes into the wall and the contents of whatever she threw, spill across the floor. She starts crying violently in the aftermath of her anger.

He wants to reach out to her, to comfort her - he wants to ask her what's wrong. But he can't move, he doesn't want to open his mouth either because he knows that if he does, he'll start screaming.

Sleep overtakes him once more.

He's barely awake when Octavia starts speaking to him. He can't open his eyes but he tries to listen to his sister even though she sounds like she might be speaking to him from beneath the surface of a stream or a pond.

". . . gotta wake up, big brother." She says softly, a hand tentatively touches his face. "I've got some news to tell you and I'd rather you be conscious for it," She pauses, "Plus, I think Clarke might set the place on fire if you don't open your eyes soon."

A few moments of silence before she says starts talking again.

"Lincoln and I are pregnant." She exhales and Bellamy wants desperately to open his eyes and promptly kill Lincoln. "We're excited. Fucking terrified - but excited. You should have seen Abby's face when I told her and Clarke, Bell. It was hilarious. Talking about implants and how there was no way that they were failing now."

She chuckles and he hears some shuffling.

"Should have watched how red the Doc's face got when Clarke had to explain that they didn't give illegitimate kids who lived under the floor a fucking birth control implant. Clarke was more tactful than that, though."

She stays for a while and talks a little bit more, explaining that her and Lincoln have set up camp a few yards outside the wall until he wakes up. He thinks she might be holding back tears when she finally leaves.

Over the next few days he's almost conscious when Miller visits. Raven and Murphy come to see him together and he wants to wake up and tell them to leave because he can't stand their constant arguing. Octavia is there everyday and so is Clarke.

"Clarke," Abby breathes, "You have to get some sleep."

"I sleep." Clarke says and he can clearly picture the indignant look on her face.

"I mean, in a proper bed - not that chair."

"Sleep is sleep, mom."

"You're the first person we would tell if he woke up and you weren't here, you know that." There's ruffling of pages and a flutter of hands over his abdomen. "Sleep in a real bed, eat some actual food and talk to your friends. You look like a ghost."

"Mom, I'm not going anywhere." Clarke sound aggravated.

"Clarke-"

"I love him!" Clarke shouts like she was bursting with the words. "I'm in love with him and I'm not going anywhere unless you drag me out kicking and screaming, and believe me I'll find a way back in if you do."

In love with him.

His eyes snap open.

The bright florescent lights momentarily blinded him and all he saw was white. A headache washed over him instantly and he groaned. He shifted away from the lights and a sharp stab of hot pain emanating from his torso shot through him.

"Bellamy?" Clarke is at his side in an instant. "Thank God."

He simply stares up at her.

She loves him.

She is in love with him.

There were tears brimming her eyes threatening to spill over her cheeks in fat drops. She looked like an angel despite her unkempt appearance. Her hair was pulled up in a bun at the stop of her head, strands falling out around her face like her hands had been through it too many times - her eyes were red rimmed and a little puffy, she was a vision and he thought it was so unbearably cliche that she's the first thing he sees when he wakes up.

"Clarke," Abby is back in doctor mode, her voice clinical and cold. "You have to leave, tell Octavia he's awake. I need to do an examination."

Clarke nods, her eyes never leaving his and she backs out of the room with a stunned look on her face.

Bellamy watch her leave in a stunned silence and Abby begins checking his bandages and asking him questions he wasn't listening to. She snaps her fingers in front of his face and he comes back into his body, blinking away the disbelief of what he'd heard, the fact that he was actually awake and able to move his limbs.

He sits up swiftly and Abby gasps in horror, "Bellamy Blake, lay back down this instant!"

"Sorry Doc," He pants, cautiously putting his feet on the ground and testing them out. He is weak, and he is heavily favouring the right side of his body but he can stand on his own and keep his balance. "I've got something to do."

"You were just run through by a tusk the size of an arm!" She tries to crowd him back towards his bed but he is still stronger than this stick of a women on his worst day. "You shouldn't be out of bed."

"I promise, I'll be right back." He calls over his shoulder and hobbles down the hallway leaving Abby clutching her clipboard with white knuckles. He opens the door to Medical and winces at the bright sun illuminating the camp. People are milling around as he searches for the familiar head of blonde hair in their midst.

People are looking at him oddly as he limps forward, clutching his stomach and trying to keep from falling over in the mud.

"Bellamy what the hell are you doing?!" It was Octavia's shrill yell. Clarke was pulling her through the gate, presumably headed back to Medical and when she heard Octavia's words her head snaps in his direction, eyes landing right on him and widening in absolute fear. The two girls rushed him, stampeding through the dirt and mud. "Get back to Medical!"

Clarke's eyes roved over him with a frantic yet clinical gaze.

"I'll get to you later." Bellamy growls at Octavia, his eyes flash to her stomach and she pales. He rounds on Clarke with blazing eyes and she looks a little shocked at his expression. "You." He growls out, trying to control the emotions that were raging in him. "You're in love with me?"

Clarke's mouth parts but all that comes out is a strangled kind of whine.

"I knew it." Octavia whispers with a smile that looks like it might split her face in two. She backs away with her hands up when Bellamy glares at her.

"Clarke," He says, enunciating his words very slowly. "Are you in love with me."

"I, I mean, I- " She swallows, "You should get back to Medical, we can talk there-"

"No, we are talking about this now." He says wincing as he shifts his weight. She reaches out to steady him but he brushes her hands away - this was a conversation he wants to have standing on his own, not collapsing into her. Besides, he was grappling with the fact that maybe he had dreamed the whole thing up, he wouldn't put it past his imagination when it came to Clarke Griffin. "You can't just admit you're in love with me and then walk away!"

"You were supposed to be asleep!" She growls back, levelling him with a glare. His heart is beating so fast in his chest that he figures he might die of heart attack before his other injury could finish the job anyway.

He hasn't made it up in some masochistic fever dream - Clarke Griffin was in love with him.

"That doesn't make it any better!" He runs a hand through his hair and wonders exactly how insane he must look. He was freshly woken from who knows how many days in coma and now he was yelling at the person who probably helped save him and who he was inexplicably in love with in the middle of camp. "We're you ever going to tell me or were you just going to talk to me about it while I was unconscious?" He didn't mean to sound condescending but there were so many emotions running over him that his brain couldn't pick just one - his body was running on autopilot.

"Oh, fuck you, Blake." She grumbles. "Do you love me?" Her arms are crossed over her chest and her stare is defiant.

He debates lying, just to be an asshole but this moment has a substantial weight. It was like the universe was telling him that this was his moment - the moment that could either make them or destroy them.

"Yes." His answer is firm, no room for debate.

"You never told me either." She says, looking relieved and a little uneasy at his easy answer.

"I didn't think you felt the same."

"Neither did I."

"I kissed you when I was concussed and you acted like it didn't mean anything." He explains, trying to ignore the crowd of people they had attracted.

"You were concussed." She says, "I thought you didn't remember."

"Impossible to forget, Princess." He says with a soft look. The tension had left his body and all of his anger - the only thing left was love. Love that had apparently been returned all this time. He couldn't help but smile so wide at the ridiculousness of the whole thing because of course when he finally professes his love for her it is during an argument and of course they're trying to one up each other.

They're matched and it probably couldn't have happened any other way. He reached out to her, pulling her into his chest and he lowers his head to whisper in her ear.

"I'm going to kiss you now," He announces, "Hopefully, it's something I can make a habit out of."

She beams and surges up to slant her mouth over his and of course she would be the one to kiss him after he'd announced his intention to kiss her first. It was messy, an amalgamation of clashing teeth and misplaced lips because of their smiles and laughter. He's sure his breath is atrocious due to being nearly dead for a few days but she doesn't seem to mind when she pulls him closer.

The discomfort becomes an inconvenience and he winces into her mouth, she pulls back to regard him closely. Her eyes are swimming and she has this soft look on her face - like the one she wears when she has just woken up in the morning.

"Can I take you back to Medical now?" She mumbles into his mouth.

.

"I can barely look her in the eye." Bellamy says with a groan, throwing his bare arm over his face. Clarke is laying naked beside him in the bed, furs thrown to the side in the wake of their previous activities. They were both sweating and sated and after Clarke had caught her breath she'd asked about Octavia. She was nearly four months pregnant and she was just starting to show.

"Why? Because she's had sex?" Clarke laughs.

Bellamy doesn't need to say anything, Clarke already knows this is the reason.

"She knows we have sex and she can still make eye contact." Her tone is teasing.

"She doesn't know for sure that we have sex." He argues. "I'm sure she suspects, but she doesn't know - I know."

"Bell, I hate to break it to you," Clarke laughs and her shoulders shake with the force of it, he tries not to stare at the effect it has on her exposed breasts before he remembers that she is his and he is hers and he can totally look if he wants. "We live in a tent, we have sex nearly every night and you're loud."

"I'm not loud." He protests, flicking one of her nipples. She squeals at the sensation, still sensitive from their earlier encounter. "Not as loud as you, anyway."

"Either way, everyone knows we are having sex." She turns to her side to smile at him. "Everyone has heard us. Including Octavia. You know what else? No one cares - because that's what people do when they love each other," She smirks at him, "Mostly."

"She's too young."

"Bellamy," Clarke sighs, "This is happening with or without your blessing. I'm sure Octavia would rather the former. You're going to be an Uncle, and I know you're having a moment right now, but you're going to love that child with everything you have, and I know that because I know you."

He grumbles unintelligibly because she's right and he knows it.

"She leaves tomorrow, are you going to put on some pants and go and see her or am I going to have to withhold sex?" She smirks wickedly at him and he already knows his decision. He wants to apologize to sister and he will not loose the haven he has found between Clarke's legs.

"That's what I thought." She smirks smugly as he rolls out of bed.

.

Octavia has the baby in late winter and Bellamy is ecstatic because it means that she'll have to stay at Arcadia until the weather warms and the baby can travel in it.

He loves his niece. She's the most beautiful baby he's ever seen, besides maybe Octavia herself.

Lincoln dotes on both of his girls and Bellamy is happy to take a backseat for this responsibility. His sister has found her place and he has finally found his.

When Clarke tells him that she is pregnant a few years later he moves up his plans to propose. Naturally, Clarke is hesitant - she doesn't want to get married just because she was knocked up. She starts rattling off statistics he doesn't care about and makes other flimsy excuses that he can see right through - he waits for her to finish her diatribe before he tells her to 'quit arguing and say yes already'.

She smiles and holds out her hand to him.

The ring is made of wood from a tree near the drop ship. She calls him a sentimental softie when he tells her that he's loved her since their time there. He pulls her close to press his lips against the back of her hand, her wrist, the inside of her elbow, her shoulder, the hollow of her neck and finally the mole above her lip.

He loves her.

It was a fact.

A simple fact.