"What do you mean? Why wouldn't he be OK?" Raven was beyond confused.

"He... Seemed a bit upset last night." She got the feeling there was something that Clarke wasn't telling them.

"Well none of us have seen him, he was up late talking to you, wasn't he?" That had to be the answer, logically speaking. And Raven was nothing if not logical.

"Not as such, no."

"What do you mean by that?"

There was a beat of silence, as if Clarke was wondering how to phrase her next sentence.

"I think he decided to go to bed early."

"You think?"

"Well, I don't really know. We were talking and then he got upset and then he was gone." Raven could hear the tension in her friend's voice and privately wondered what could have gone so wrong – Bellamy seemed overjoyed when they last spoke at supper yesterday evening.

"OK, Clarke. Don't panic. He can't have gone anywhere, we're on a space station after all. I'll go and find out what's going on. Chat to Emori for a bit."

"Thanks, Raven. I just... Tell him I'm sorry." That, thought Raven, was an interesting development. Head swimming with more questions than answers, she went in search of Bellamy.

…...

Bellamy didn't particularly think he had slept, but he was certainly waking up now so he must have dozed off at some point. He could hear someone knocking on the door, and what sounded like Raven's voice. He sighed deeply and buried his face in the pillow. He didn't really want to deal with himself this morning, let alone anyone else. He needed to get to that radio and make things right with Clarke, but she was probably busy living her life and looking after Madi, not sitting around waiting for him to realise he was an idiot. Gradually, some of Raven's shouting managed to penetrate the fog of his self-recrimination. She seemed to be yelling something about...

"Clarke wants to speak to you, Bellamy. She's really worried and I don't know why." Raven's voice sounded frantic, and she was still hammering on the door. He bolted towards it and threw it open, to her visible shock.

"She does? She's there now?"

"Yes, Bellamy, she's there now, worried sick about you. She says she's sorry, but I don't know what for. Are you OK?"

"Yeah, I'm OK. She has nothing to be sorry for."

"In that case, Bellamy Blake, what the hell is wrong with you?" He had to admit he was a little surprised by Raven's sudden change of tone. "She sounds absolutely frantic. Said something about you disappearing on her last night. How could you do that to her? She's been down there, alone, but for the recent company of a small child, for eighteen months, and her closest friend disappears on her the day after she manages to get in touch with him again? Did you even think about what that would do to her?" He deserved to hear this, he reflected, but that didn't stop it from being enormously unpleasant to do so.

"I know, Raven. You can stop now. Believe me, I've already thought of everything you could possibly have to say on the subject. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go speak to Clarke."

…...

Clarke hadn't slept much – or at all, if she was being honest with herself - and as soon as it was a vaguely socially acceptable time to do so, she had reached for the radio on the off-chance that anyone was awake on the Ark. She was beyond relieved to hear Raven's voice, but now, as she had gone in search of Bellamy and left her with the instruction to talk to Emori, she could feel the rising bubble of confusion and worry in her chest threatening to burst all over again.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Emori's voice came over the radio.

"No, thank you." She barely knew the woman, and didn't particularly think she was one for deep and meaningful conversations about feelings in any case.

"OK." They both seemed inclined to let the silence settle for a minute. Clarke, however, discovered that the bubble in her chest caused her more problems when she was left to her own thoughts, so she cast about for something to say.

"How are things with Murphy?" She cursed herself silently, because in asking that question she felt that she had admitted that she knew nothing at all about Emori besides her relationship status.

"John is John." She replied with a laugh in her voice. "He loves me, and I love him, but sometimes we show it in unconventional ways."

"Uhuh." She couldn't really be less interested in the ways that John Murphy showed his love, but she didn't have another topic of conversation to hand.

"He's not like Bellamy, who wears his heart on his sleeve all the time."

"If Bellamy's that easy to read perhaps you could explain to me why the hell he ran off last night." Clarke felt a disproportionate level of misplaced anger at Emori rising in her at that woman's flippant words.

"Yes, I don't think that's very difficult to explain." Emori sounded completely calm and confident. "I imagine he got really upset or worried about something – probably something to do with either you or his sister to get that level of response – and then his emotions got the better of him. He's probably furious with himself right now, because he was so happy to hear from you, to know you're alive, and now he's made you upset and worried too."

"You... you think so?" Clarke hated the vulnerability in her voice but seemed powerless to stop her words from running away with her as her anxieties spilled over. "You don't think he's angry with me? Because I could have tried harder to get to Octavia. I could have kept digging for longer."

"I don't know what was said between the two of you last night. But I do know that if there were any way you could have got through to his sister, you would have done. And he knows that too. So stop blaming yourself for everything, all of the time, and get on with speaking to him. I can hear him in the corridor now."

"Thanks Emori. Really. I think we should get to know each other better in the next three and a half years."

"Agreed."

…...

Bellamy walked to the radio, nervous, heart galloping. He told himself to pull it together – this was only Clarke, and they had had difficult conversations before, and survived.

"Clarke?" He could hear the slight tremor in his voice.

"Bellamy." Did she sound angry? Worried? It was difficult to tell from one word.

"I don't know where to start. I'm sorry I ran off last night. I didn't mean to make you worry." He hoped she could hear how genuine he was, how much he meant it.

"It's OK. I know how much you care about your sister." She sounded calm, and compassionate, and in control, and so thoroughly Clarke that it made his chest hurt.

"But I need you to know how much I care about you, too, Clarke. I need you to know that the day before yesterday, when I found out you were still alive, was the best day of my life. And I need you to know that I will never, ever, abandon you again."

"It's OK, I get it. Really, I do. Emotions have been running pretty high recently. Well, since we came to Earth really. What do you think it would have been like, if the Ark had never failed? If we met up there, in another life?" It was something she had often allowed herself to wonder, recently, as she drifted off to sleep alone in the wake of a nuclear apocalypse.

"I think I'd have thought that you were a stuck up princess at first, and then I'd have noticed that you were clever and brave, and then I'd have realised that we complemented each other like two pieces of the same puzzle. So pretty much how it happened on Earth, really." She heard the pure affection in his reply, and knew then that they would never need to discuss what happened last night, because they were Clarke and Bellamy, and they didn't need words to understand each other perfectly.

a/n Thanks for reading!