Bellamy
Bellamy was the first to wake fluttering open his eyes onto the dank light of the single bulb barely filling the room. There was a constant throbbing pain in his side and he struggled to catch his breath. Clarke's hand was still in his her warm fingers curled around his. He wasn't sure why he'd taken her hand. It was a reflex more than anything else.
He knew she was scared, hell, he was scared. He knew the guard's steel capped boot had done some damage when it had been kicked into his side as he laid curled defenceless on the floor. That's when he knew he was beaten. He couldn't take on that many of them, one had been easy, two even but they just kept coming and they hadn't been particularly forgiving. It was Clarke's face when she first saw the blood pooled under his skin that told him the true extent of his injuries. It was the fear in her eyes and not her fake reassurances that what his prospects were. She was trying to be strong for him. That was typical of Clarke. She was the one person who had seen him at his most vulnerable and she was the one person he knew he could lean on if he was weak. He had so many people he had to support it sometimes felt like he had to hide his weakness. But he had doubts, he had fears, he had insecurities. He knew he came across as self-assured, arrogant even. It was an image he cultivated. Nobody wanted a fallible leader. But he didn't always know the right thing to do, maybe sometimes it was his first instinct to fight; to be the aggressor. That's why Clarke and him worked. This co-leader deal they had really did seem to be good for the camp. Maybe precisely because she was so different from him. She had a cool head in a crisis and wasn't afraid to disagree with him. She wasn't afraid to tell them to run.
He listened to her even if he didn't always agree. She wasn't afraid of making a hard decision but she didn't make light of them either. She carried the full weight of leadership like a burden across her shoulders. The memories of the mistakes, the failures, the people they couldn't save haunted her. She had changed since they'd come to the ground. She wasn't a little girl anymore, not in his eyes, she wasn't much of a princess either. There was no privilege on the ground.
Looking down at her sleeping face Bellamy couldn't help but wonder how she'd lead after he was gone. She'd get over his death, his ego wasn't so swollen, but would she need another him, another partner. He was replaceable just the brute force. She'd be okay.
Her eyelashes fluttered for a moment and he was struck by how young she looked. In her sleep you couldn't see the shadow of pain in her eyes. But he knew it was there. He knew Clarke well enough that he saw her pain.
He knew she lied when she said it wasn't that bad. It was bad and there was a fair chance he wouldn't be making it back. He wished it had been quick. He wasn't comfortable with the time he had to think of his death. He'd have rather'd an arrow to the heart. Quick, maybe even painless. That might be cowardly, he wasn't really sure. It was certainly more of a hero's death than this. Not that Bellamy considered himself a hero. But this, this lingering, slow painful erosion of his life. It wouldn't have been what he would've chosen.
He didn't want to sit around and think about the implications of his rapidly approaching death. It was too macabre for his liking. So it suited him fine to play along with Clarke's charade and pretend he was going to be fine. The fundamental truth remained that he was human and he failed.