Woah! Thirty-something new followers this week? Why'd this get so popular all of a sudden? Dang, thanks, Guys! It's a good thing then how I know I'm going to end this. I'm not there yet, though I'm getting close. This isn't edited yet, but I do have a little prize in this chapter for all of you. Please review!

Bellamy was no novice to fear. He'd felt plenty of it in his life, from the moment he had to clamp one small hand over his sister's mouth to keep her cries from permeating the corridors. He knew what it was like to be scared for himself, but if Octavia had taught him anything, it was that it was so much worse to fear for someone else.

And right now, standing outside the door Clarke was supposed to be coming through, Bellamy was glad Octavia was far away from the Ark. He hoped she was someplace nicer, somewhere that wasn't so touched and tainted by fear.

Bellamy clenched his hands, ignoring the way his nails bit into the skin. "Should it be taking this long?" he asked Wick who stood by the opposite wall, leaning against it with his arms crossed.

He switched his weight onto his other foot. "She'll do it. Clarke Griffin doesn't exactly strike me as the type to give up easily."

"She's not," Bellamy whispered, low enough so that Wick wouldn't hear. He took a deep breath, trying to calm the torrent of unease inside him. It mingled with the frustration he felt towards himself and the anger towards Clarke for having taken such a risk in the first place. Maybe the terrible pit in his stomach was guilt, but it was something else, too. It was the feeling he got when Octavia was in trouble. It was a feeling that made him want to tear the whole ship apart if that's what it took, but he settled for staying rooted to the spot, keeping his eyes on that door.

The minutes came and went and it became harder for Bellamy to stay where he was. He was seconds away from crawling into that shaft himself when the sound of something snagged his attention.

Footfalls.

He waited, eyes wide as figures appeared through the transparent door just a moment before it opened, revealing a very dishelved Clarke. Bellamy was so relieved it took him a second to register the second person-a woman- clinging to her side, an arm draped over Clarke's neck. There was something familiar about her, though, and Bellamy felt himself blanch. "Is that"-?

"Abby?" Kane's voice came from behind Bellamy and the counselor hurried forward, taking Abby Griffin's other side. Her clothes were matted and damp, and a grisly stain bled through the front of her shirt, but she was alive and responsive enough to look sidelong at Kane.

Clarke acquiesced, letting him take her weight. But as she moved away from her mother, Bellamy didn't miss Clarke's wince of pain. His eyes dropped to the burnt fabric of her shirt, and his body moved without violation.

He stopped in front of her as she met his eyes with a smirk. "Told you I'd be fine."

Bellamy grabbed her arm gently and turned it over. He grimaced at the sight, of torn cloth and the bands of bright red decorating her forearms. "This is your definition of fine?" He tried to quiet the undertone of anger, but Bellamy never had a good handle on that emotion. It had its way with him.

"Breathing is my definition of fine," Clarke said, glancing between his gaze and his hold on her arm. "I can handle a few burns."

Bellamy frowned, unconvinced, but dropped his grip. The heat of her skin lingered on his fingertips.

He wanted to say something else, such as how he should've been the one to go in that shaft instead; how fatal her stubbornness could've been, but he just gritted his teeth to keep from any of that slipping out. He looked over to where Kane was supporting Abby. "How's she doing?"

A line appeared between Clarke's brows, the beams from the nearby flashlights kindling like fire in her eyes. "She'll be okay. There's a cut to her abdomen like she was . . . stabbed, but it doesn't seem to be septic." Her voice took on a rushed quality and Bellamy didn't miss the crack in it.

A strange urge to comfort her suddenly crashed over him. He wanted to make her feel better, as impossible as that seemed in their current situation. He really wanted to, but what came out was, "She's not dead yet, Clarke."

Clarke looked up at him and the years seemed to melt from her face, exposing just a young girl underneath, terrified of losing their parent.

It was weird, if not a little frightening, to see her like that and Bellamy pitched his voice low, until only she could hear him. "Look, I don't know if we're going to make it out of this. If you haven't noticed, I'm not much of an idealist. But I can promise you, we're going to try."

Something else sparked in those eyes of hers and her lips curved upwards a little. Though it was just an echo of a smile, Bellamy would take it.

The moment was shattered by Wick. "You had us worried there for a second," the engineer said, materializing by Bellamy's side. This guy annoyed him for some reason, but Bellamy had to admit that he at least knew what he was doing.

Wick gestured with a tilt of his head to the rest of the crowd. "C'mon. Jaha told us to meet him and Sinclair in the Council Room."

They were sitting around the circular table, with Jaha at its head. Abby stood in up front with Kane, completely lucid and able to stand upright on her own. Bellamy was resting against the wall with Clarke at his side, glancing over at her mother every once in awhile.

Clarke had nearly rescued thirty people and they all crowded in the room, staring at Jaha, waiting.

When he spoke, his voice was grim, so unlike the tone Bellamy was used to hearing. "The hard and simple fact is that in fifty one hours, life on the Ark will no longer be possible," he said. No one made any sound of surprise. It came as no shock to any of them.

"I choose to find consolation in one remarkable truth. The surviving members of the One Hundred have proven themselves to be more resilient than we ever could have ima"—

"Wait," Bellamy interrupted. His heart suddenly felt tight in his chest as hope unfurled inside it, bright and relentless. It was a force that would crush him if it were contradicted. "The Hundred . . . you're saying they're alive? For certain?"

Jaha's eyes looked up to him, and he nodded. "That's what I'm saying. We received message after the Culling."

A feeling of such intense relief flooded Bellamy. His sister was alive. She'd made it to the ground. Though Jaha hadn't said that exactly, it meant that Octavia had a chance.

"Our legacy will go on," Jaha kept going. "And for that I am not only grateful, but I am proud."

"So what do we tell our constituents to do now?" One of the women piped up. "What do we do now?"

Jaha closed his eyes for a moment before reopening them. "Look inside. Find your peace."

What? Anger curled inside Bellamy. Just a second ago, he'd actually felt calm, high on the relief that his sister was safe. But now? He stood up abruptly. "That's it?" He practically shouted. "That's your big plan? To 'find our peace'?"

Jaha sighed tiredly. "There's nothing else to be done."

Bellamy waited for more. For an explanation. For something, but it never came. And when he realized it wouldn't, he laughed. He actually laughed. "So that's it? We give up?" Bellamy pushed his way forward. "Do you have any idea what I've done to get here? To just survive? And now you're telling me, you're telling all of us, to just accept it?"

Jaha looked unfazed by his outburst, as calm and collective as if they were discussing filing. "I just told you there is nothing else that can be done. It is inevitable. So yes, I am telling you to accept it."

Bellamy wanted to shout. To bang his fist on the front of this table that had served nearly a hundred years' worth of their society's choices. The place that had agreed to sentence so many to death. And now he was here, being sentenced himself.

"No," Bellamy hissed. "I didn't do all this for it to end this way!"

"I can assure you, no one did," Jaha replied, in that same maddening monotone. "None of us wanted this."

"And yet you're so willing to make that choice for us. You know I wouldn't have bothered helping you if I knew you were just going to say this. That you weren't going to actually do anything useful besides kill the rest of us."

"Blake!" Kane admonished, but Bellamy ignored him. Why did it matter anyway? He was just going to be dead in twenty one hours. "No," he repeated. "No, I'm not doing this. I won't just sit around and wait to die. I"—

"Bellamy," Clarke grabbed his arm before he could storm from the room. She looked up at him, as calm as Jaha but with a different resolution in her blue eyes. "Bellamy, there's nothing more we can do."

His breathing was haggard and his heart slammed against his ribs, but the way Clarke was looking at him gave him pause. It was enough to make him absorb what she was saying.

"But I . . ." his voice shook. "I promised you we would try. This is not trying. This is giving up without a fight."

"We fought," she insisted, grabbing his other hand firmly in hers. It was drastically smaller than his, but it fit like they were made to be there. "We've been fighting this whole time. Not once did we give up. But now we're here and there's nowhere to go."

"But . . ." Now Bellamy was just scrounging for reasons. For an out that, as Clarke had said, wasn't there. He looked up, at the grey ceiling, as if it would hold some kind of answer. But maybe he'd already gotten it.

Bellamy's worst fear hadn't been dying. It had been about losing his sister. But Octavia wasn't lost; she was on the ground, alive. Rebuilding the world.

He wouldn't die thinking his sister was already dead. He'd die knowing she was okay.

"I'm releasing all available resources to the surviving citizens of the Ark.," Jaha said. "There will be no more rationing. What we have belongs to all of us."

And then he brought down the gavel for the last time.

As Bellamy had watched his mother being floated, he'd wondered what everyone else wondered; at every execution man had ever overseen.

What was it like to die?

He'd dreamed about it after witnessing his mother being shot out into space. Had tried to see through her eyes, but he never managed it for long. It made Bellamy feel trapped and suffocated and helpless.

But now, quite literally counting down the hours to his own demise, Bellamy finally knew.

Dying sucked.

Maybe faster was better. Anything certainly seemed better than sitting on the floor with an apple in his hand and waiting for death to show up. It wasn't something he should've been impatient for, but the wait was probably just as bad as death itself.

He tossed the apple into the air, not wanting to take a bite of it. The fact that it would be the last thing he ever ate sort of made it lose its appeal.

A shadow crossed over him and Clarke sat back down. She'd been with her mom for what felt like the last hour but couldn't have been more than fifteen minutes and Bellamy was actually glad to have her back at his side. It made him feel less alone. It made him feel like they were about to do something and avoid death, like they'd done every day since meeting each other.

But she just let out a sigh. She unwrapped something small in her hands, meticulously folded in tinfoil. She handed him something.

"What's this?" Bellamy asked, looking at the brown disk in his palm.

Clarke unwrapped another and shoved it in her mouth. "It's chocolate. You eat it."

Again, it didn't have the same appeal as it probably would if he weren't dying, but Bellamy complied. It was stale, but sweet, and unlike anything he'd ever tasted before.

"How long has it been?" he asked, looking sidelong at her.

Clarke crammed the wrappers into her pocket. "Two hours. Only nineteen more to go."

"This doesn't feel right," he said, leaning his head back. "Just sitting here. I feel like I'm asking for it."

"I know." She sighed. "I'm sorry. For you it's different. You were supposed to get back to Octavia. I never . . . I never counted on making it to the ground."

"That doesn't mean you don't deserve to," he instantly replied.

But Clarke just looked down, her blonde hair forming a curtain between them. "I had my chance. I could've been there, with the others. But I don't regret what I did. Staying. Warning all those people." A pause. "Meeting you."

Bellamy glanced at her just as she looked up, and he saw the earnest there. "I doubt that was your first thought when you found me in the storage locker."

"Definitely not. In fact, my initial thought was how this guy was still alive. It defied the odds."

"Doesn't feel much like that now." Bellamy looked around the room.

Clarke leaned back, too. "Maybe we weren't supposed to make it out of this alive."

"You believe in that?"

"After how many times we've been screwed, can you really blame me?"

Despite the situation, Bellamy smiled. "Fair point."

Clarke shifted on her side, until she was turned fully to him, her head still resting against the wall. "I mean it. I'm glad I met you."

A warning went off in Bellamy's mind, painting his vision red. "Clarke"—

"I mean you may not be the most pleasant person, but if it had been someone else in that storage locker, I would already be dead."

"Clarke, we're not doing this," he said, the words coming out as a snap.

She gave him a puzzled look. "Doing what?"

Bellamy gestured between them. "This. Saying our goodbyes. I'm not good at it." That wasn't completely true; Bellamy had spoken them before, but he wasn't interested in a play-by-play. Maybe it was because he didn't want the memories. Or maybe, it was the simple fact that he didn't want to say it because he was . . . scared to. Because that meant the end. Of him. Of the Ark. Of the blonde girl sitting so close to him.

Clarke smirked, but there was a sadness in it that sent a painful throb through Bellamy's chest. "Fine. You don't have to care. But I do," she deadpanned. "I need you to know how much you did. For a lot of people, not just your sister."

"Clarke, stop."

"You're good, Bellamy. You're a good man and it wouldn't be fair for you to die without hearing that from someone."

"Clarke," The way he said her name sounded almost panicked. Something inside him was fissuring, cracking, breaking through the dam he hadn't known had been there in the first place. "I told you I don't want to do this."

Clarke didn't listen. "I do. I have to."

"I don't care what you want," he hissed, the dam breaking further and letting in a sensation that had no name. All he knew was that it was an all-consuming feeling that completely and utterly terrified him, even more than death. "I'm telling you to stop."

But Clarke wasn't like other people. She didn't cow under his gaze. She was persistent. "I never got to say goodbye to my Dad. Not really. Not in the way that I wanted. But I can say it to you, so I"—

And the dam shattered.

Bellamy didn't know what he was doing. It was as if the feeling had overpowered every shred of reason he had, drowning him from the inside out. His hand reached over to cup her face. He didn't give her a chance to object or to even understand what he was planning to do before his lips were on hers.

Her response came a second later and it wasn't her pulling away. It was her lips moving against his, tasting of chocolate and smelling of burnt hair. She was everywhere, in the air around him. In his lungs and in his blood.

Only when it was done did Bellamy understand why he'd been afraid. Because now, staring into those brilliant pools of blue, he knew what else he wanted, but had no time to have.

And that was when the reality of death really pissed him off.

He pulled himself to his feet.

"Bellamy?" Clarke asked, voice breathy, but Bellamy just extended his hand down to her. "Come on," he said.

She frowned. "What are we doing?"

Honestly, he had no idea. But Bellamy was following his instinct. He was done playing dead. If he was still breathing, he would still fight.

Clarke followed him out the Council Room, having to fast-walk to keep up with him. "Bellamy"—

"Not yet," he answered brusquely, nearly running down the corridor that appeared before them. They made their way back to Earth Monitoring where Kane had told them earlier where he'd be. He'd wanted to continue running simulations and right now, that sounded like their best option.

Kane stood in the middle of the room, his hand under his chin as he stared up at the flickering screens. Bellamy came to a halt beside him. "Did you find anything?" he asked, his voice husky to his own ears.

Kane glanced across at him and let out a sigh. "Other than a dozen ways this ship will fail?" He shook his head. "Jaha was right. The Ark can't be saved."

Bellamy wanted to argue. He was preparing for it, when the door suddenly hushed open and in walked Jaha with Abby at his heels. He carried a roll of what appeared to be blueprints in his hands.

His eyes met Kane's eyes. "Have you tried not saving it?" Jaha asked almost smugly.

Bellamy turned to the Chancellor. "What are you talking about?"

Jaha smirked. "I'm talking about going home."

Bellamy hoped that wasn't code for afterlife, but he didn't say anything. He stood next to Clarke, crossing his arms over his chest. He did what the others did.

He waited.

"From where I stand," Jaha continued, "We have two options: die in space or probably die trying to get to the ground."

"That doesn't sound very promising," Bellamy remarked, but Jaha ignored him. And by this point, Bellamy was willing to keep listening.

"We have no more Exodus ships, Sir," Kane pointed out.

But again, Jaha didn't seem disheartened. "You're wrong, Kane. There is one."

Now, he had Bellamy's attention.

Jaha looked at each of them in turn. "We call it the Ark."

"What?" Clarke asked, but Jaha wasn't listening. "Sinclair, please tell us what would happen if we use the thrusters that keep the Ark in orbit to propel us into the atmosphere instead."

Sinclair's eyebrows hitched up and he stared at Jaha with a look of vexation. "The Ark would . . . break apart," he said. "First into its original twelve Stations then further as the violence intensified. Ninety-five percent of the structures would explode on the way down."

"You think you're smart enough to pinpoint the five percent that wouldn't?"Jaha asked as he unraveled the bound blueprints.

Kane peered over at him incredulously. Bellamy felt the bewilderment on his own face, scared to hope, but it was better than nothing. It was better than sitting on the floor and waiting to die.

"Wait," Bellamy said, staring at the Chancellor. "You want to bring the Ark to the ground?"

Jaha looked at him. "What do you say to that, Bellamy Blake?" he asked, lips pulling up into a smirk. "Ready to see your sister again?"