A/N: I can't believe it's done! As you can see this chapter ended up being much, much longer than I'd expected. Hopefully that makes up for it being up slightly later than I'd promised. Anyways. Thank you so much for sticking with me this far, and now that it's all said and done, nothing would make me happier than hearing what you think. 3

"Is he alright?" Miller frowns, which is slightly less intimidating given the Star Wars t-shirt he's currently wearing. Clarke suspects that might be Monty's influence, but it amuses her anyway.

"He's fine. How are you? You took three times as many bullets," she points out. His frown deepens into a scowl as she swipes through his chart, pausing occasionally to poke at various parts of his body. She knows Nyko has been covering for her for the past day or so, but Miller is still technically her patient. When he glares at her, Monty just clears his throat from his seat in the corner, and Miller sighs.

"I feel like shit. I'd be better if you weren't so goddam fussy. That Nyko guy already checked all my vitals."

"I'm not fussing," Clarke mutters, even though she is, a little. "You're my patient, so you're my responsibility. Even if Nyko's been nice enough to look after you while I was…" She trails off. While she was a useless wreck of grief.

But she doesn't feel like admitting that to Miller.

"What?" He blinks. "Are you guys just trading patients so you can hover?"

She rolls her eyes.

"No. You were my patient to begin with. Nyko was just covering for me while I was dealing with Bellamy."

Monty looks up again, setting down a Cannabis Culture magazine Clarke can't imagine Miller approves of.

"Didn't I tell you? Clarke was the one who operated on you. She saved your life."

Judging by Miller's face, this is news to him.

"Oh." The cop suddenly looks bashful. "Uh, I guess I should thank you then."

"Don't get too excited," Clarke murmurs, adjusting his IV. "I only did it for Monty."

Miller's answering chuckle is only a little embarrassed.

By the time she leaves them, Clarke feels a little better, although she can't help but be envious of the easy intimacy the two men share.

.-.-.-.-.

She doesn't go home for three days. Eventually Raven catches on, and corners her.

"Enough is enough. I know you want to stay busy, but-"

"It's not that." Clarke picks at her cuticle. "I mean, it's not just that."

But Raven doesn't know what she means, and Clarke can't bring herself to say it out loud, so she goes home.

She knows what to expect. That night is burned into her memory like a scar. She walks into her apartment, turns on the light, and pads softly over to the bathroom. It looks…

Well. It looks like a murder scene.

His blood is everywhere. Black and brown and burgundy cover every white surface, in smears and handprints and pools that have since dried up. She walks over to the toilet, stained with red where Bellamy had probably propped himself against it, and empties the meagre contents of her stomach.

Then she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, opens the cupboard under the sink, and empties a bottle of bleach.

The stains don't come out.

.-.-.-.-.

Two weeks pass, and Clarke has successfully avoided any discussion of the incident. It's pretty clear to her that Bellamy doesn't feel the same way. She's embarrassed, and more than a little hurt, but the feeling of relief that he's even still alive is lingering, so she tries to put it behind her.

It turns out that it's hard to pretend you're not in love with your best friend, especially after you've admitted as much. So she does the only thing she can. She avoids him.

She's in Miller's room, grilling him about how many times he's urinated in the last twelve hours, when Bellamy suddenly appears in the doorway.

His face is slightly gray, covered in a thin sheen of sweat, and even as Clarke gapes at him, he sways on the spot.

"What are you doing?" she cries, leaping forward to catch him as he tips forward, half dragging him over to the nearest chair.

"I need to talk to you," he pants. Miller is watching them curiously, probably just glad that the interrogation about his bodily functions has been interrupted.

"You shouldn't be out of bed." She fights the urge to hit him. The two men currently in the room are some of the worst patients she's ever had.

"Well, you're avoiding me. You left me no choice."

"You're such a drama queen," Clarke sighs. "And I'm not avoiding you. I have patients. I can't just hang out in bed all day like the two of you."

They both glare at her.

"Do you really want to do this here?" Bellamy finally asks. Clarke glares at him, arms crossed over her chest. Then with a sigh, she holds up a finger.

"Alright, fine. Stay here. I'm going to get you a wheelchair."

When she comes back, he hasn't moved, now staring vacantly at Miller. Clarke tries to help Bellamy into the wheelchair, but he just turns to glare at her, so she holds her hands up in surrender as he struggles to do it himself.

Bidding Miller an irritated goodbye, she pushes him out into the hallway.

"This is stupid. I can walk. Isn't exercise supposed to be good for you?"

Clarke lets out a noise halfway between a laugh and a growl.

"Yeah, you looked almost invigorated right up until you keeled over in the doorway," she retorts.

"I'm going to tell Jackson it was your fault I'm out of bed."

She rolls her eyes.

"Oh no. The word of the world's most difficult patient against his favourite trauma surgeon. I should just go pack up my things right now."

He apparently doesn't have an answer for that, and she lets him sulk the rest of the way to his room. When they reach his bed, she reaches down automatically to help him up, but he swats her hand away.

"I can stand on my own, thanks." The genuine venom in his voice has her doing a double take.

"I…alright." She doesn't understand why he'd go to all the trouble of finding her just to be so hostile. Maybe he's angry that she told him how she feels. Maybe he's angry at her for ruining what they had.

She crosses her arms, frowning down at him as he struggles to settle back into the bed. When his eyes catch hers again, he flushes and glowers back at her.

"Should I leave?" she wonders, uncomfortable under his angry stare. She hasn't seen him like this since the morning he accosted her at the apartment, when the hospital sent him that dramatically reduced invoice. It seems like a million years ago, but she feels the same way now as she did then, confused and hurt.

"What? No." He gapes at the question. "Are you seriously that desperate to run away again? Typical," he adds with a snort.

It's her turn to stare.

"What are you talking about?"

He shifts in bed, clutching his stomach with a wince. She leans forward to do something, fluff his pillows, check his bandages, anything to help. But he waves her off again, only to accidentally smack her in the face. It's barely a tap, it doesn't even really hurt, but she rears back as though he'd punched her.

"What is wrong with you?" she shouts, hand flying to her face. He looks stricken, mouth dropping open in horror.

"Fuck, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"

As anger rises in her chest, a mixture of hurt and resentment that's been building for the past couple weeks, Clarke does something she's been itching to do since the first time she met Bellamy. She hits him. His remorse turns to shock as he rubs his arm dazedly. Far from apologetic, she plants her hands on her hips, fuming.

"I didn't mean to hit you," he mumbles, still apparently in shock that she'd hit him. She rolls her eyes.

"Obviously." As angry as he gets sometimes, she knows he would never hit a woman. Octavia likes to joke that it's a deeply sexist notion, but it's just who he is. And Clarke suspects that he'd rather get shot again than physically hurt her, even if he's currently glaring at her like she's his least favorite person on earth.

"What?" His surprise turns right back into anger. "Then what the fuck did you hit me for?"

"Because you're being an asshole!"

As her voice echoes around the tiny room, Clarke is suddenly glad that the hallway outside seems to be deserted. It probably wouldn't reflect well on the hospital if anyone saw her insulting and beating her patients. Bellamy watches her take a deep breath, looking indignant. She suddenly doesn't want to do this. She's tired, and he's still pale and clammy from the exertion of walking down the hall. He looks frail, and angry, and Clarke doesn't want to stand there just so he can glare at her from his hospital bed and tell her he doesn't feel the same way. Or worse, so he can let her down easy.

She doesn't want to hear it. So she turns on her heel, making a beeline for the door. He can accuse her of running away all he wants, but she has to start protecting herself at some point. It's time to start rebuilding some of the walls she's been letting down.

"Don't walk away from me!" His voice hits her back like a knife, but she doesn't turn around. "Clarke." Her name sounds like a plea, suddenly sad and desperate. She tries to hold out, to ignore it, tells herself the guilt isn't worth another broken heart.

"What?" she wails jaggedly, spinning around in a whirl of anger and hurt. "Bellamy, what do you want from me?"

Stunned at the raw emotion on her face, Bellamy recoils.

"I'm-"

"I told you I loved you," she interrupts, "and you didn't say it back. When you acted like it never happened, I went along with that. When you said you wanted to talk, I gave you the chance. I have been trying, Bellamy, but I'm tired of getting hurt, and I'm not your punching bag. Just…leave me alone," she finishes quietly.

He stares at her. Only the faint ticking of the wall clock breaks the silence in the room

"Is that really what you want?"

No.

She doesn't say anything. Her mind wanders back to the night of Raven's birthday, her finger in Finn's chest.

You hurt her. You don't get to keep forcing yourself into her life to make yourself feel better.

Is that what they've come to? She doesn't want to lose him, but she can still see something like resentment in his eyes, and it's making her chest ache.

"I want things to go back to how they were before," she decides. It's not really what she wants, but it's the next best thing. His face turns cold.

"So you didn't mean it, then." It's not a question. "What you said before."

She runs a hand over her face, exhausted.

"No, I meant it. But you obviously don't feel the same way, and it's not worth ruining a friendship. It's not worth ruining us. You're family. I don't want to lose that." She sinks into the chair beside his bed, all immediate plans to retreat put on hold.

"I do."

She looks up, confused.

"You do…want to lose that?" she repeats, forehead creasing.

"No, I-" he sighs, frustrated. "I feel the same way. I mean, I…"

"You what?" Clarke prompts nervously, when he trails off.

"I love you."

Even the air in the room seems to still when he says it. The words echo in her head, repeating over and over until she can't remember what they mean.

"You love me." Her voice sounds skeptical, even to her. Bellamy nods, slowly, watching her intently. When she doesn't say anything else, he starts talking again.

"And I-I know what you said before. But just now, you said you want things to go back to how they were, and if that's what you want, if you've changed your mind, I-"

"Are you going to die?" she asks suddenly.

Startled, he pauses mid-sentence, mouth slightly open. "Because every man I've ever said I love you to has died. And I don't feel like going through that again."

"Um," he closes his mouth, then opens it again. "Eventually, probably. But if I was going to go young, don't you think I would have just croaked two weeks ago?"

She considers this. Then, with newfound heart, she stands up, leaning over him.

"Wh-" His words are cut off as her lips takes his. He's still salty from overexerting himself, and he feels almost delicate beneath her hands. And then he reaches up, fisting his hand in her hair to yank her closer to him, and there's nothing delicate about it. Her teeth capture his bottom lip, and his other arm slips around her waist to tug her forward, until she tumbles onto the bed, and him.

He makes a noise halfway between pleasure and pain, and she likes it probably more than she should, but she pulls away.

For a moment all she can see is his eyes, huge and black and mesmerizing. And then she notices the patch of scarlet blooming on his shirt. Trying to even out her breathing, she sighs.

"See, now, I told you that would happen," she murmurs, a little too breathless to be casual. His gaze follows hers to where his stitches have come open, blood soaking through his shirt. It's not hard to tell that he's in pain, but his lips tug into a smirk anyways.

"Do you always draw blood on the first kiss?" he wonders sarcastically. "I never would have taken you for a biter."

She stands up, rolling her eyes.

"Alright, take it off."

His eyebrows shoot up.

"Well, that's kind of forward, but if you insist-"

"I need to fix your stitches, idiot," she says, the insult almost embarrassingly fond on her tongue. He blinks.

"Oh." But he pulls his shirt over his head with a grimace, and she grabs a suture kit out of the drawers beside the wall.

He sits still like a good boy while she peels off his bandages and gives him a quick shot of local anesthetic. He has indeed torn his stitches, and she sighs, pulling them out as gently as she can. Bellamy just makes a garbled noise, and she presses her lips together. She can still taste salt on them.

"So just to clarify," he says through his teeth, "you haven't changed your mind?"

Clarke's eyes flit up to his face, catching him watching her. Instead of answering, she pokes the needle through his skin. He hisses.

"No," she says mildly, continuing to suture. "I haven't changed my mind."

"Stabbing me with a sharp object is an interesting way to show your affection." His voice is teasing, but she can see the real question in his eyes. She loops the thread into a knot, and snips off the end. Pulling off her gloves, she cups her hand under his jaw.

"I love you. I love your stupid obsession with obscure ancient Greco-Roman laws, and your stupid protective streak, and your stupid sourpuss face."

Even as she says it, he's wearing his signature stony expression. She feels a swell of affection.

"I love these," she runs a thumb across the stripe of freckles on his nose, watching as his eyes flutter shut. "I love your whiskey sours." Eyes still closed, he grins at that. "I love you."

He opens his eyes, gazing up at her with an intensity that takes her breath away.

"Do you remember the day we met?" He asks quietly. She frowns.

"Of course. It was like five months ago." Puzzled, she smooths a new bandage over his mended stitches, then looks back up at him.

"You thought you were such a mess. You came into the bar in the middle of the day with a red balloon and this thousand-yard stare. And then, like a crazy person, you popped it and scared the shit out of me."

Her cheeks burn, not one of her finest moments.

"I remember watching you let your guard down drink by drink, and thinking there was just something about you. You were different. Just so…bright. Even as you were falling apart." It's his turn to reach out, finger twirling a strand of blonde hair around his finger. It's a little lighter than it was before. She had to bleach the bloodstains out.

"I was drunk. And sad," she reminds him. "From what I remember, I didn't make a great impression."

He shushes her. She crosses her arms, annoyed.

"And then you told me about your dad, and Wells. And the way you just seemed to immediately know everything about me made a little more sense. You were drunk," he agrees, "and sad. But I could tell you were strong."

A little uncomfortable now, under the heat of his gaze and the weight of his words, Clarke looks down, peering back up at him through her eyelashes.

"You were wasted, and it took you like five minutes to figure me out. And then when Octavia was in the accident…I didn't even know you and you took care of her. For me. And then you took care of the bill, and then when I showed up at your house and yelled at you for it, you gave me coffee and just let me be an asshole. Because you got it. I don't know how, but you always just get it."

She stares at him. The things he's saying…they're everything she thinks about him. How he takes care of her, and Octavia, and everyone. How much he cares. The way he takes the weight of the world on his shoulders and refuses to tell anyone even if he's crumbling under it.

"So, yeah. I love you. You make everything bearable." He finishes, and he's always loved a good speech, but this one has her blinking tearily.

"You're such a nerd," she croaks, a mess of emotion. Giving in to it, she curls up at his side, closing her eyes when he throws an arm around her shoulders and presses a lingering kiss to her forehead.

"Yeah, but you love me."

She chuckles weakly.

"You're alright."

They just lay there for a little while, Bellamy tracing patters on her arms and her soaking in the warmth that he gives off. Eventually, something starts to nag at her.

"So how come you've been such an asshole all day?" She asks, and it's just like her to ruin the moment, but his lips just twist into a wry smile.

"I thought you were taking it back," he admits. "I thought you'd realized I was…I thought you changed your mind."

Clarke goes over the past few days in her head, the way he'd recoiled every time she tried to help him, his anger whenever she'd been around to see him struggle. He thought she'd taken his recovery as weakness and wanted an out. She hits him again, lightly this time.

"Hey." He grunts, glaring down at her.

"You idiot." It comes out a lot less affectionately than before. "You really thought I'd stop loving you just because you got shot?"

"You have baggage," he says softly, "around that kind of thing."

That's true.

"Don't get me wrong," she nestles in closer to him, breathing his scent. These days it's slightly tainted with that hospital smell that seems to latch onto everything, but there's enough of Bellamy there to satisfy her. "If you do that again I will kill you myself."

"Get shot?"

"Get anything," she mutters. He sighs, arm tightening around her.

"You know I can't make that promise. If you, or O,-"

"Bellamy." She cuts him off. "Just let me have this."

"Yes ma'am." He nods against the top of her head. "I'll do my best to not get anything."

This time when she falls asleep, she dreams about living, about Bellamy.

.-.-.-.-.

"You don't have to help me. You're still healing, I can get Monty and Jasper to-"

"Shut it, Princess. I want to help." He pushes past her into her apartment, a stack of flattened, empty boxes in his hands.

There's not that much left to do, Clarke has already packed most of her things while he was in the hospital. The truth is, the apartment never felt the same after that night. She knows she can repaint the bathroom, have it re-tiled, even changed the countertops if she wants. But it doesn't matter. The place is just…tainted. She follows Bellamy inside, and he blinks at the empty space.

"So you're…already done?" He asks, baffled.

"I got all the heavy lifting out of the way before you were discharged." She says, flashing him a grin. "I know how you are, Bellamy Blake."

And she does. Ever since she mentioned getting a new apartment, he's been a fountain of opinions, finding listings and calling references and vetoing almost every place she'd found. It didn't take long for him to cross the line between protective and overbearing, and the following argument had lead to Jackson coming all the way down from the ICU to tell them off for waking up half the floor. Bellamy's been itching to help with the whole process, frustrated when she refused to let him out of the hospital to help move all her furniture. She predicted weeks ago that he'd want to come straight here the second he was discharged. And so naturally she arranged to have the place cleaned out by then.

She's his doctor after all. And apparently the only way to keep him from overexerting himself is through stealth and manipulation. Luckily Clarke is very good at both of those things, when she wants to be. It's a small perk of growing up in the throes of American politics.

"Is there anything left?" He asks, pulling her out of her thoughts. She nods.

"There are still some towels, and linens and stuff."

"Linens." He repeats. She giggles at the bemused look on his face.

"You wanted to help," she reminds him. With a long-suffering sigh, he heads down the hallway. Too late, Clarke realizes where he's going. "Bellamy, wait, no-"

But he's already taken a left into the bathroom, and stopped sharply in the doorway. Clarke is there in a heartbeat, tugging at his arm.

"Come on, the towels are in the hall closet-"

But he shakes her off, staring blankly at the room in front of him. It's a bad horror movie, the stark white against stripes of red that didn't come out, even after a mixture of bleach and tears and scrubbing until her fingers bled, leaving fresh smears of blood among the old.

She slides her hand into his, squeezing until their knuckles turn white.

"Bellamy." She tugs on his arm, and he finally moves, stumbling back into the hallway looking dazed. Her hand flies up to his face, pressing against his cheek. "Are you alright?"

He nods.

"I…I guess I don't remember as much of that as I thought."

She bites her lip, guiding him to one of the already packed boxes and sitting him down on top of it.

"That's probably because you were in shock."

"Jackson liked to say that it was a miracle I was alive. I just assumed he was giving me a hard time. I…never really thought about it."

Clarke can't help the bitter laugh that escapes. He frowns up at her.

"What?"

"Nothing." She sits down on another box, next to him. "It's just that I think about it all the time." She drops her head onto his shoulder.

"I can't believe you've been using that bathroom for four weeks." He mutters, arm sliding around her and squeezing.

"I've been showering at the hospital," she admits. "I don't-I never really go in there. I have to paint it before I officially move out, but…I've been avoiding it, I guess."

"We'll hire painters," he says firmly, and for the first time since the shooting, Clarke remembers that this is what it feels like to have someone to take care of you.

You make everything bearable.

And he does.

.-.-.-.-.

"Babe, pass me a spatula."

Clarke glances at the mess of half unpacked boxes in front of her, hands on her hips.

"Um," she says.

"Clarke," there's a new urgency in Bellamy's voice. "I'm serious, this is burning."

She rummages haphazardly through the closest box, neatly labeled Kitchen, but all she comes up with is a colander and two Costco sized tins of powdered iced tea. She moved in almost a month ago, but unpacking is apparently made difficult by the schedule of a trauma surgeon. She's been spending most of her time at Bellamy's anyways. But he'd finally put his foot down this morning, telling her it was time to unpack and actually move in. So he'd spent the day doing the first proper grocery shop and stocking the fridge, and Clarke had come home to find absolutely nothing unpacked and a pot of pasta bubbling on the stove.

"I can't find it," she tells him, moving on to a new box, optimistically marked Utensils. It's full of Blu-Rays, and one pair of socks.

"Jesus," he mutters, "this is the last time Monty and Jasper are ever allowed to help anyone move."

Snorting, she hums her agreement.

"Just use a fork or something," she calls over her shoulder, stomach grumbling at the thought of the spaghetti she's been smelling for the past half an hour being ruined. Bellamy huffs irritably.

"Do you have forks?"

She points to a drawer, from which he then retrieves a bag of plastic forks. He looks genuinely offended.

Suddenly, Clarke spots the red rubber end sticking out of a box a few feet away. She climbs over several others to get there, then holds the spatula triumphantly over her head. Curious, she glances down at the word written on the flap of brown cardboard. Upholstery.

"I'm starting to think they forgot to label these while they were packing," Clarke muses, clambering back over toward the oven, and her boyfriend. "And then just wrote random words on the boxes after they'd already been taped up."

She passes off the spatula with a winning smile, and he shakes his head, brushing his lips across hers in a brief kiss. Like almost nothing else in their relationship, these familiar touches come easy.

"Or they were just completely baked," he suggests. Clarke ponders that, and finds it has an undeniable ring of truth. Then she notices a black stain on his t-shirt.

"What's that?"

"What?" He glances down. "Oh. Sink issues. The garburator backed up and made a mess."

She frowns.

"Already? I've hardly used it."

He shakes his head.

"No, mine. I swear, the plumbing in my building gets worse every winter. I've only had hot water like three days in the past week."

This, Clarke knows. She'd been unpleasantly surprised when she'd turned on the shower one morning to be doused in icy water. It might have woken her up, but its not an experience she's anxious to repeat.

"Hmm," she says, stealing a noodle from the pot. "You know, it occurs to me that your lease is up in a month." She'd had to break her own in order to move out early, but her old landlord had been surprisingly understanding.

"You think I should get a new place, too?" He muses, not looking up from the pot he's currently stirring. "Yeah, I thought about that, it-"

"Actually, I was thinking you could just move in here."

Bellamy drops the spoon, swiveling to gape at her, and it disappears slowly, sinking into the red sauce.

"You…want me to move in with you?" He asks, just to clarify. Tentatively, she nods.

"I know it's fast, like outrageously fast, and it's fine if you don't want to, but it's close to your work, and no offense but your place sucks, and-"

"Okay."

She blinks at him.

"Okay?"

And then her back is against the counter, Bellamy's mouth hungry against hers. He lifts her onto the countertop, and she wraps her legs around him, relief mixing with bliss as his hand slides down her waist, settling on her hip. He pulls back to nip at her neck, and she lets her head fall back, beaming.

"I would love," Bellamy tells her, in between biting gently at the skin beneath her ear, "to move in with you. In case that wasn't clear."

"My mom is going to flip out. So will everybody else," she reminds him. He stops, leaning back.

"Do you care?"

She shakes her head, hand tracing his jawline.

"No. I'm happy."

At her words, his face lights up, so bright it feels like her heart is swelling.

"I love you," he says.

"I love you, too." And she means it more everyday.

Suddenly distracted by the slightly smoky haze in the air, she frowns, wrinkling her nose.

"Bellamy, is something burning?"

They both remember the sauce at the same time, and he leaps over to fish the spoon out of the bottom of the pot, but it's too late.

They have to get take out, for the third night in a row, but given her lack of dinnerware it's probably for the best.

.-.-.-.-.

Three days later, Clarke finds her dishes buried under a pair of old hiking boots and her dad's tools, in a box marked Intimates.

Monty and Jasper are not asked to help when Bellamy moves in.

Fin.