AN: Thank you to Hmm I'm Thinking, StarKiss666, anonymous Guests, Athenyx, Darkangel-Luv and 00sonrisa00 for your feedback! Reviews are my favourite part of sharing my fanfiction! You guys rock!

Two quick things - Yep, Clarke was the only one with a mark on her arm and that was the same arm that was holding the handle to the medical kit. In my mind, the lightning did a jumpy U-turn and some excess energy jolted back into her arm from the metal box (I'm sure that's not scientifically true, but personally it's how I visualised it). And if you google image search lightning scars, some are actually pretty cool looking!

The other thing - friendly reminder that if you don't enjoy or like this story, do not feel compelled to read it! :D I try to write the characters true to how they are in the show, because writing them OOC is pointless in fanfiction as it may as well be an original character. Like Thalie! So all characterisation is based on the actual already-established characters, not my own imagination. Criticising every chapter how I write Clarke would be more effective if you wrote to The 100 Writers Room (they're on tumblr, twitter, and have a mailing address), so that I could follow their lead :) (I wish the person who I was directing this at didn't review anonymously so I could have spoken privately to them. Alas! Public Service Announcement it is.)

Happy reading, everyone!

"What?"

"What did she say?"

"Did she say she's drowning?"

"Clarke?"

The confusion was a cacophony of voices. Raven had joined Bellamy on the ground, kneeling at Clarke's other side. She gave clumsy taps that were more like slaps to Clarke's cheeks.

"What's happening?" she asked Bellamy with alarm and genuine concern in her eyes.

"She said 'secondary drowning'. Does that mean anything to either of you?"

Finn slung his gun and backpack off. "Let me see her," he said. Bellamy and Raven gave him space as he reached over for her throat's pulse. "It's racing," he said seriously. Bellamy nearly punched him when he saw him press his face on Clarke's boobs until he realised he was listening for something. "There's too much fluid in there. She's drowning."

"What?" Raven asked, perplexed. She'd glanced away while her boyfriend practically felt up another girl in front of her, but Clarke's health was more important than any grudge right now. "What does that mean?"

"More importantly, what do we do about it," Bellamy corrected gruffly.

Finn looked torn.

"Now would be a good time if either of you has any suggestions," Bellamy said with exasperation. "It's not lost on me that the only person who would know what to do isn't available right now."

"I saw Clarke once -" Finn began, before a coughing fit roused the girl in question. Her eyes had flown open and a hand had flopped as if it had tried to stifle the coughs but couldn't muster the energy.

"Clarke!"

"Clarke, what do you need?" Bellamy demanded, capturing her attention by thrusting his face inches before hers. Her wide eyes locked on his and he was a little frightened by the helplessness in them. She was clearly in pain, wincing as she struggled for basic breaths of air. "Tell us."

"Drain the fluid," she wheezed, lifting a trembling hand to her chest. Her head, still supported by the tree, flopped to look at Finn. "Remember the girl?"

Bellamy shot a look at Finn. "What's she talking about?"

"When we were captured by the Grounders, one of their apprentices had fallen from a tree. The trauma caused internal bleeding. She was choking on her own blood," Finn explained as quickly as he could. "I saw what Clarke did, but I'm not confident enough to try it. What if I make her worse?"

"Clarke will talk you through it," Bellamy told him before urgently looking back at her. "Won't you Clarke?" But Clarke's eyes had unfocussed and her wheezing breaths were starting to carry a trace of gurgle on them. "Clarke?" Her eyes refocused. "Should we try to take you back to camp?" he asked, even as he knew the answer.

Clarke shook her head and closed her eyes. "It has to be now," she said, as Raven exclaimed "There's not enough time!"

"Finn, just do it," Raven told him in a voice that left no room for argument. Finn held her gaze for only a moment before he nodded. "Find me a clean knife and a pen."

Despite the unusual request, his companions dived for the backpacks and dug around until Raven emerged with an almost-empty waterbag, "Moonshine!" she declared as she pulled out her knife from her pocket. Bellamy emerged from Clarke's backpack and triumphantly held up a new pen they'd picked up at the air tower, before he realised how ridiculous his victory looked.

Raven cleaned her knife with her shirt before dribbling the last of the moonshine on it, her expert pouring coating as much of the blade as possible before it spilled over the sides and was absorbed into the dirt.

"Now what?" she wanted to know.

Finn looked so nervous, he might be sick. "Someone might want to hold her steady."

I'll do it, Bellamy had intended to say. But Raven had made an infinitely small move towards Clarke as if she were going to offer, and his body reacted in panic, reaching quickly for Clarke to get there first. "I'll do it," he said gruffly after he'd captured his prize and won. He cleared his throat. He hoped he hadn't looked as much like a caveman as he thought he did.

As gently as he could, he pulled Clarke from her support post and settled himself against the tree, arranging them so that she was laying against his chest. Her gasping breaths were rumbling now, sounding wet to his ears, and vibrating though her back and into him.

He locked eyes with Finn, who looked as grim as he felt, and nodded. Raven passed the knife to him and they swapped places, with Finn hovering on Clarke's left.

"Clarke, where should I cut?" he asked as he kneeled poised at her side. Bellamy craned his neck over her shoulder to watch her. Her face revealed her distress. Her breaths were quick and shallow now, and Bellamy reached out to grasp her hand. He could count on one hand the amount of times he'd even seen Clarke scared. She looked so vulnerable and in such pain, that he physically felt pain of his own clenching around his heart, squeezing tight and stealing his breath.

Too winded for words, Clarke tapped the spot at the base of her throat with two fingers from the hand currently not enveloped in Bellamy's. Finn went in with the knife and that was all Bellamy saw before his attention was stolen by Clarke's sudden rigidness. She hissed in pain and jerked back, pushing herself further back into Bellamy's embrace. Giving up dignity altogether, he released her hand and wrapped his arms around her. He hoped she found it more comforting than confining. He wanted to give her comfort but knew that the best way to help her was to prevent her from moving too much so that Finn could do his job. He could always comfort her later. After she'd survived.

Bellamy felt warm stickiness flow onto his arms. He felt a brief wave of nausea, not from the blood itself, but the fact that it was Clarke's. That blood was Clarke. He couldn't fight off the disgusting images his brain was conjuring that he was literally having Clarke leak onto him. Emptying, turning inside out, aspects of her gushing over his arm in warm spurts, liquid life, bleeding away. He gritted his teeth and focused on keeping her calm, even as she trembled and choked in his arms, hugging her tighter to him, talking nonsense quietly in her ear.

He felt rather than saw Finn plug the emptied pen in the wound. Clarke jerked and stilled, and there was a sudden awful odour, sour on the air.

"I'm guessing that's the seawater," Raven said after an unintentional sniff. "Hey, shouldn't she be laying down?"

Clarke shook her head. "Not a tracheostomy," she said. It took her a long time to get the words out. "Need gravity. Liquid." She let her head fall back against Bellamy and sighed.

"Your breathing seems better?" offered Finn. "Is it?"

Clarke nodded. For a long time, no one spoke, simply watching as the blood turned to foul smelling lake water and back. Bellamy stared unseeingly at Clarke's leg as he continued to cradle her to his chest, like a child who was worried his favourite toy would be taken away. He noticed when her breathing became less laborious, feeling her fill her lungs more deeply in the cocoon he'd trapped her in.

"Sorry to have put you in this position," Clarke said quietly. He felt the words rumble in his chest in more than one way.

"It's only okay so long as you live," he told her before daring to place a kiss in her hair. "Just promise me you won't die."

"Can't promise that," she murmured. "No one can."

"Well the camp needs you, Princess. Without you and your stubbornness, we're as good as dead. Who else can both patiently stitch us back together whilst berating us for getting injured in the first place?"

It was as he said these words that he realised her strength was the only thing keeping him sane as he struggled to be in charge of what was essentially a small army that had no chance of survival if the Grounders decided to attack in force. He recalled her efforts to keep him fed both day and night (she was perhaps the only one who worked as long into the night and was up as early as him). Keeping him company in her spare time when he was on Watch at the gate. Defending him when people questioned his leadership (apparently it was only okay when she questioned him). Forcing him to take naps during downtime and running the camp on her own for an hour when she thought he was looking a little too rundown…

With the sudden unpleasantness that accompanies such an epiphany, Bellamy realised how wrong he'd been. Of course. Her need for medicine was her way of saying she cared about them. Why hadn't he seen that she hated the idea of having to stand by helplessly as the group that was surely becoming a giant family, faced hurdle after hurdle of adversary when it came to their health? He swore under his breath when he remembered his words only the night before and how cruel he'd been. He'd thrown her father's death in her face. She'd been immediately sent to isolation – long months of grieving alone. And then been thrown down here to Earth. Shit. What an ass he'd been. Truly, an ass.

Clarke tried to twist in his arms in response to his profanity but he tightened his hold to keep her still. He didn't want that pen lodging somewhere it shouldn't because she'd moved wrong.

"I'm sorry, Clarke," he whispered brokenly by her ear. He rested his chin on the top of her head. "I'm sorry for everything."

She reached up and patted his arm comfortingly. She wasn't sure what he was apologising for, but the gravity with which he'd said it spoke volumes.

"Okay, you can take it out now. Bring me one of those blankets from the air tower to control the bleeding," Clarke said when she deemed the operation a success. "We've wasted enough time. Everyone'll be worried and there's always the chance of Grounders."

Raven dug through her backpack for the cleanest blanket she could find, and held it at the ready as Finn slowly pulled the pen out. Raven swooped in and helped Clarke press it against the small hole at her collarbone. "Maybe you'll be left with an impressive scar," she teased with a small smile. Clarke scoffed and rolled her eyes, but couldn't fight the smile off her face.

Finn threw the pen to the ground and picked up the ink cartridge he'd yanked out earlier, stuffing it down the side of his backpack. "Probably don't wanna use that one," he said nodding to the empty casing.

"Up we go," Raven sang as she helped Clarke to her feet, Bellamy struggling to his feet behind her. Truth be told, his legs had cramped up ages ago, but he'd been enjoying his closeness with Clarke too much to do much about it. Flexing the muscles in his legs, he looked around and picked up his gun. Wordlessly, he handed it to Raven, who thankfully took it without a word of her own, and pulled one of Clarke's arms around his shoulder. When they realised there was still Clarke's backpack to be carried, and it was a choice between supporting Clarke to walk or leaving it behind, Bellamy said "Screw it", tugged on her backpack and swung her up into his arms.

"I'm fine to walk, Bellamy," she argued after her initial reaction of flinging her arms around his neck. "Really."

"Clarke, you can hardly keep your head up and you look exhausted," he told her as the trio began walking.

Clarke scowled. "Can everyone stop saying that?"

"Look, in the past 24 hours alone, you've been stung by wasps, run for your life, drowned, been struck by lightning, drowned again, and been operated on in the woods by Space Walker. It's okay to admit your body has been put through the ringer."

Clarke huffed. "Guess you were right about this trip being a mess."

"Glad to hear you were listening. That was the only part I was right about though. Forget the rest. I shouldn't have said it."

Clarke feigned shock. "What's this? The Great Bellamy Blake admits he was wrong? Shoot, I wish we were still on the Ark and had access to a video recorder." Her sleepy blinks and yawn ruined the effect, which annoyed her all the more.

Bellamy smiled despite himself and glanced back down at her. "Ha ha. Go to sleep, Princess. We'll be back at camp soon and I'm betting Jasper or Monty are going to wet themselves when they see the state of you. Best to be on alert so you can fend them off."

"You wouldn't let me fend for myself," she tried to tell him seriously, but her drowsiness turned it into a far more affectionate sentiment. Bellamy glanced down once more with a soft smile. He could tell she was losing the battle against sleep as her head weighed heavier and heavier on his shoulder.

She was damn right. He'd never let her fend for herself again as long as he lived.

AN: Clarke's okay, yay! Regarding Finn's reference to the Grounder girl, I took inspiration from 1x11 'The Calm', where Tris (Anya's second) was injured by the bomb at the bridge, but it is not the same event. That way, this fic can still exist somewhat canon-true as it occurs before Raven and Finn break up, the Ark and the Camp have radio contact etc. But in this situation, Finn and Clarke were still kidnapped, and Clarke was forced to perform the operation to save the girl who fell whilst they were there. Just to clarify!

Reviews are most welcome! :D