If you ask Bellamy when he first began to love Clarke, he wouldn't know how to begin to answer the question. But if you ask him when he knew he loved her, well, that would be easy. It started so long ago. Six years, give or take a century, a lifetime, or perhaps, just one, long moment.
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It starts like this: a flash of blonde slips into his periphery, and before he has time to react, arms are around his neck and hair is in his mouth and his brain is saying how? and thank god and I thought you were dead and I was going crazy without you and the words I love you float up among it all and he's so stunned by the truth of those words that he doesn't even think about saying them out loud.
He does think about it later, though. Bellamy has never been in love, he realizes, as he watches her sleep, the fire flickering over her face. He's not quite sure what to do about it. He could tell her. He could do that, it's an option. But Clarke doesn't love him. She loves Spacewalker, even if she won't admit it. And does she really need to know? He doesn't want anything from her. He doesn't need anything to change. It's just there now, this love, closing around his heart like a fist, and that's all.
So, in this way, Bellamy becomes well-trained in the art of holding his tongue.
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He thinks about saying it before he leaves for the mountain. But she looks at her hands like she can still see Finn's blood on them and the Commander's at her side like a shadow and in the end he just tells her to be safe.
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When the fire from the explosion almost swallows him whole, his only thought is whether or not his charred and burning body could crawl to the radio in time to hear her voice one last time, to tell her –
And then he survives, and the thought evaporates, floating away above his head like smoke.
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If there was ever a moment Bellamy might have told Clarke the truth, it was after the mountain had fallen. He had thought she didn't love him, but now he's not so sure.
And then she says she's leaving and the words wither and die inside of him like leaves in the winter. He could say, "I love you, don't go," but the words would be a weapon to use against her. It would be the same as holding a gun to her head and ordering her through the gates.
And he can't do that. And he won't do that. He won't let his love be cruel, because it's better than that, it's worth more than that. After all they've been through, it has to be.
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I'll tell her when she comes back, he decides two nights later. Only she never does come back.
And then there's Gina and Lexa and ALIE and just when they think they've saved the day, everything's over and how can he tell her now?
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So it changes. I'll tell her if the world doesn't end. Then, I'll tell her if we make it to the ring.
But the world does end. And she doesn't make it to the ring.
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The words I love you weigh on his tongue like stones in the pocket of a body in the water. There is no one left to hear his confession, but he makes it anyway. A month after her death (a concept he still can't wrap his head around, Clarke and dead, Clarke and gone, Clarke and never coming back), he stands by the window and says, "I love you," in a whisper. He looks at the Earth as it burns and says, "Clarke." Again, "Clarke. I love you. I have always, always –"
And then he stops. Because he has to.
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Clarke doesn't think about telling Bellamy she loves him until the world has ended. No, she dreams about it instead.
I love you, she says, and he's bleeding out in her arms.
I love you, she says, and there's a knife in her hand and in his gut.
Sometimes it's I love you, she says, and he holds her as she's dying and Clarke likes those dreams better.
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She knows she loves Bellamy when she sends him to the mountain. Clarke has never been a superstitious person. But her decision not to tell him is like a protective charm, a forcefield, a blanket of safety she wraps around his shoulders like a child being put to bed.
Or rather, to tell him would be to place a curse upon his head because
I love you – and her father's body floats in space forever because
I love you – and Finn's body slumped against a pole, her saliva still wetting his lips
I love you – and who knows what will happen to Bellamy now? If she doesn't say it, if he never knows, then maybe it's not really goodbye.
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She falls in love again with the very woman who took her first love, with the very woman who sent death and destruction Clarke's way before she ever knew horror, before she ever knew blood. She falls in love with a woman so fierce and powerful and magnetic, so broken and solemn, with caverns inside of her stretching deeper than Clarke could ever hope of seeing.
Her love for Bellamy does not fade. It's lodged under her heart like a rock. It is a safe place for it to be.
She does not tell Lexa she loves her. Not until the end, anyway, when she knows that she will never see her again.
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And then the world is ending, and every time her heart wants to tell him, she is chastened by a brain that reminds her of Lexa Dad Finn Wells Lexa Dad Finn Wells Lexa Dad Finn Wells – over and over, a never-ending loop. People she loved. People she lost.
And no, she won't tell him. She won't tell him because every time they part ways, she wonders if the world might end before she sees him again, and by not telling him, somewhere she is convinced that she is ensuring them just a little bit more time, the guarantee of one more moment, one more touch, one more look even if it's only a look.
It's not until the death wave is roaring above their heads that she tries to tell him but of course, he doesn't want to hear it. Because he knows what it means.
"I just want to say…"
(I love you.)
(I'm in love with you.)
(I have always been in love with you.)
But the ring hovers over their heads like a dream, and if she doesn't say it, then maybe she can get there.
"Hurry."
She doesn't say it.
And she doesn't get there either.
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"Bellamy," Clarke says into the radio, a month after the death wave, when the lack of food and water are getting to her and her brain is swimming through a warm fog, "if you can hear me…" She trails off. "Bellamy. I love you."
She's not afraid to say it anymore. Because it's not goodbye if he's already gone.
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Bellamy had promised himself that if they survived the end of the world, he would tell her how he felt. And they did survive, both of them. By some miracle, she endured the fire and came out the other side, as beautiful as the day he left her to burn.
But Bellamy breaks his promise.
Because there is Echo. And she is real. She is not Clarke, but she is not nothing. She is family, in the truest sense of the world. If the Bellamy who stood by the window and whispered the truth to a version of Clarke that could never hear him was here now, holding her on the bed of a prison ship, six years after the end of the world, he would be whispering the words into her ears, over and over, for as long as she would let him. But that Bellamy is not here.
He loves Clarke, or he loves the memory of Clarke, or he loves what Clarke used to be, or he's learning to love what this Clarke is, or however you want to say it. He feels the fist around his heart, weakened, but still gripping tightly.
But make no mistake. What he has with Echo is different and quieter and softer and weaker. But it is absolutely love.
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In the end, of course, it's no match for Clarke. It never was. It could survive a love affair with a dead girl, but here? Now? On Earth? His love for Clarke grips tighter and tighter around his heart, leaving no room for anyone else, until finally, Bellamy is convinced (as he kneels, hands bound, on the floor of the fighting pits) that his heart has been ground to nothing but dust.
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And then he sees her again. And Madi tells him about the radio. And there it is, ever-so-slightly, as if waking up from a long and dormant sleep, the sound of his heart as it beats.
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Does Clarke think about telling Bellamy? Of course she does. And then he kisses Echo in the sunshine and he kisses Echo in the firelight and he kisses Echo in front of her and when she's not looking she knows that he's holding her and he buries his face into her hair as if he never wants to emerge and Clarke thinks that maybe everything would have been fine if she never had to see what she wanted being given so freely to someone else.
Does Clarke think about telling Bellamy she loves him? Why tell him something he so clearly doesn't want to hear?
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In the end, she forfeits all rights to those words. To those words, and to everything else. In war, we all have to choose a side. It's the first time since they set foot on the ground that she hasn't chosen his.
(It doesn't matter that she changed her mind. Not to Raven, not to Murphy, not to Echo, and not to anyone else.)
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The ground was a fresh start. Maybe this can be too, Clarke thinks. And the way Bellamy smiles at her, the way he laughs, even jokes. "A little pathetic, maybe," he says, "but not crazy." It feels like having him back. She finally feels it. What she dreamed of all those six years. She finally feels like he's home.
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Bellamy knows those six years are never coming back. But he looks at Clarke smiling in the Sanctum sunshine. Bruises in the shape of his fingers still ring around her neck. His left knee aches from the knife she stabbed it with.
And yet, none of that seems to matter. And that's how Bellamy knows that maybe, just maybe, he might be ready to tell her.
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Clarke hasn't been so happy in longer than she can remember. So she's not surprised when the rug is pulled out from under her again. The blue dress that she hoped Bellamy would like her in brushes against her ankles but she can't even feel it. Instead, Russell Lightbourne's face looms in front of her. The last thing she thinks before it all goes dark, as selfish and cruel as it is, is that she hopes that when Bellamy finds out, he's devastated. She hopes that, in spite of all she's done, in spite of her betrayals, he still loves her enough to mourn her.
And then she thinks of nothing, nothing, nothing…
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Of course, he's not just devastated. He's furious. His blood is made of fire, and his eyes have gone dark. When the rope is around Russell's throat, it feels easy, too easy, like the years and the promises of doing better and making peace have fallen away and turned to ashes. He is again the boy who walked into a mountain filled with death and decay simply because Clarke asked him to. He is again the boy who dressed up like a grounder and walked among enemies who would gladly have had his head on a suicide mission to keep her safe.
He would do anything for her. Anything. He only lets go because he thinks that she would want him to.
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He thought that moment was the worst it could get, the moment where he looked into her eyes and saw someone else looking back. But it's not. Because when her heart stops beating and her breath lies frozen in her chest, it's worse than Praimfaya, and it's worse than Josephine, because it is in front of him, it is fact, and there is no room for hope or confusion, or maybe-she-isn'ts, or maybe-I'm-wrongs, there is only the gaping, yawning mouth of grief growing wider and wider inside of him.
He kept waiting, all these years, for the right time to tell her, but maybe it's not about him. He saves her in the end, because of course he does, he has to. But she could have died without knowing he loved her, and a person deserves to know that someone loved them. A person deserves to know that they were loved.
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(Of course, she does know. She's known for a long time. Just as he knows too.)
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Josephine is gone, nothing but an empty chip and a pile of dead code. But the battle is not over, and Clarke is about to head back into the heart of it. And despite everything in him crying out against him, Bellamy knows he has to let her go. They stand outside Gabriel's tent. He will stay here, and she will go to Sanctum. They will both do their part. Bellamy swallows, and it gets caught in his throat. "I already brought you back to life once this week. I'm not sure I'll be able to do it again." If he was trying to sound casual with this half-hearted joke, he failed abysmally, but Clarke doesn't care.
"You stay safe, too."
Gabriel is standing thirty feet away, and she turns to go to him, but Bellamy grabs her hand. "Wait, Clarke…" He doesn't know how to say it except to say it. "I love you." It's strange that it should be so easy after all these years. But it was not telling her that was the hard part. Telling her now may be the easiest thing Bellamy has ever done.
And Clarke wants to say it back. She opens her mouth with the words on her lips, but then she hears, "If something happens to me." She hears, "I was just gonna say." She hears, "If I don't see you again." And she can't bear saying goodbye.
So, instead, she says, "After this is over, we'll get out of Sanctum and build that compound."
She's worried about breaking his heart, but Bellamy knows her, he knows her better than anyone ever has, and he knows what she's saying. "We'll build houses," he whispers.
She nods. "One for us. You, me, and Madi."
He smiles, then. One that strikes Clarke straight to her heart. "We'll have chickens in the backyard," he says, though he knows it's impractical and improbable and in all likelihood impossible. But when he says it, he believes it.
"A garden that would make Monty proud," she whispers, thinking of the berries she tasted after Praimfaya, wishing he could taste them too.
"We'll have windows made of real glass and everything," he says, and though he has no idea how glass is made, he can see them there, shielded from the elements outside. Safe. Happy.
"And we'll be together," Clarke says, meaning it in every sense of the word.
"Together." An echo, but it's not just an echo of her voice just now. It's an echo of her voice then, of all the times she's said it and all the times he's said it back. It's a promise. One that this time he intends to keep.
Clarke looks over her shoulder at Gabriel. He's letting them have their moment, but she can see in his face that it's time. "I have to go," she says.
Bellamy closes his eyes. He believes in that dream, but he knows it's fragile too. Just the day before she was dead in his arms. It could happen again. That's the thing. Bellamy and Clarke know that it could always happen again. "I know," he whispers. "Just…"
Clarke takes his hand. "I know." As she drops it, she fully intends on leaving. On never looking back. But Clarke knows what it's like to live a life full of regrets. She will always live with them, always. They will always haunt her dreams. But this one doesn't have to. Before she gets the chance to change her mind, she grabs Bellamy's shirt in both her fists and pulls him to her, kissing him deeply, fervently. His lips taste of salt and his beard is rough against her cheek. For a moment, he is surprised and then his arms are wrapped around her, and he's kissing her back, and Clarke knows that even when she pulls away, this moment will last forever. That she will always be here, somewhere in her heart, kissing Bellamy under the Sanctum moon, with a promise of the future still fresh on her lips.
She pulls away and turns before either of them have the time to say anything. He watches her go until she disappears into the forest, with hope tending more towards faith, that he'll see her again.
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(Clarke waits until the battle is over to tell Bellamy she loves him too.)