Hurray! My other stories are starting to fall into place! I'm getting there. Anyway, here's the next chapter! Please review :) I love you all :')

A tension fills the air, taut and fragile, and I'm suddenly very aware of the room. The silence. Of Bellamy's gaze burning into my face. Shadows collect under his eyes and his complexion is still pale, making his freckles stand out like splatters of dark paint against a flushed canvas. He's still lying down but the grim set of his lips suggests he wishes otherwise. There's a wariness in his features, guarded. It tells me he senses the fragility too.

Guilt rises up like a monolith inside me. Guilt and regret and relief, compounded with the desire to turn back time and stop him from going into Mount Weather. And, since I'm already entertaining such notions, maybe I'd even go further back, so I can stop the bomb before it collides with Rubicon. Find Finn before he massacres innocent villagers. Warn the 100 of the monster waiting for them in the mountain.

But wishes are just that. Wishes. And as the second's fall away with neither of us speaking, our last conversation whispers harshly over the silence.

You should go.

I thought you hated that plan. That I'd get myself killed.

It's worth the risk.

I clench my teeth as the shame barrels into me, so hard my legs nearly buckle again. I swallow the slump in my throat and struggle for some kind of apology.

But Bellamy beats me to it. "Clarke." His voice is gruff from disuse.

After seeing him as he was, some vessel for a drug that made him into something he wasn't, that one word of acknowledgement derails me. There is no apology good enough. No words. I struggle for a smile I can't feel and take a step towards him. "Hey."

I see Bellamy's jaw working and his Adams Apple bobs like he doesn't know where to go from here. So I close a little more of the gap between us. "How're you feeling?"

He takes a few seconds to respond. "My head hurts," he says. "And my chest feels like it's on fire."

I nod, blinking quickly. "Yeah, that's to be expected. It should fade soon." I purse my lips and take a shaky breath, trying to sum up my courage before asking, "What do you remember last, Bellamy?"

For a second, I'm worried that I've upset him. But he just shakes his head a little, then winces. His eyes flutter closed. "It's . . . It's like waking up from a dream. Some pieces are coming back but it's slow." He lets out a frustrated sigh.

I swallow, and risk another step. I don't want to goad the subject and stand in silence.

"Octavia said Lincoln was all right," he says slowly, eyes opening again. "Was she telling the truth?"

At least in this, I can reassure him. "Lincoln's fine." For now, my words seem to convey.

His tight expression turns relieved and gives a meager nod. Another handful of moments slip by us, but I'm not eager to fill them. he's alive. Right now that is enough.

"I heard you talking to Octavia," he says.

I bite the inside of my cheek. "Sorry if we woke you."

"I didn't understand all of it and I don't know what happened while I was . . . " a haunted look crowds into his eyes but he blinks it back. "But it wasn't your fault. She shouldn't blame you."

An incredulous sound bursts from me, like a scoff and a choke, because he doesn't know. He doesn't know I left his sister at Rubicon. He doesn't know of the bodies that still litter the ruin and the families that will spend the rest of their lives mourning for them.

"I sent you in there, Bellamy."

"You asked me to go. I'm the one who made the choice, Clarke."

"I shouldn't have let you. It wasn't worth it. Seeing you like that . . ." I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth, trying to stop tears. I let myself break down once. I'm not doing it again. I glance away, feeling Bellamy's eyes on me.

Then there's a sharp intake of breath and my gaze snaps back to him. But he's not looking at my face anymore. His eyes have fallen down, down to my neck. Id forgotten about the ugly fetter of bruises there, blossoms of blue and purple marring the skin. I quickly pull my jacket tight, shutting them off from view. "Bellamy-"

But his eyes have gone wide. There's a clarity in them, and I know another piece of his broken memory is coming back, nestling into place. I can almost hear the click. "Clarke . . ." I hear real fear in his voice. "Tell me I didn't . . ."

I shake my head. "That wasn't you, Bellamy."

But it's as if he hasn't heard me. He raises his hands and looks at them, like they're foreign to him. I watch a quiver start in his fingers, until both hands are shaking.

On instinct, I crouch down and reach for them.

When my skin touches his he flinches away from me, like the contact has burned him. "Don't touch me, Clarke," he snaps, and then winces at the harshness in his voice. "You . . . I- I attacked you. I tried to . . ." The raw pain in his eyes is unmistakable as the full realization hits him. "I tried to kill you."

"A Reaper tried to kill me," I amend. "You didn't know what you were doing."

But he tries to pull himself up. "I knew what I wanted, Clarke. I . . . wanted you dead. I wanted to be the one to do it."

"You didn't."

"You think that makes me feel better?" he asks. "This close, Clarke. I came this close. I was uncontrollable. An animal. A . . . A monster."

"Bellamy-"

His eyes snatch mine, loud and accusatory. "Why didn't you kill me? Why did you let it get so far?"

I stare at him and give a small shake of my head. how is it not obvious? "Because I couldn't."

He stares at me and I can't tell where there's more anger or fear there. "Why not?"

I shake my head. Clench my hands in my lap. "I already told you. I can't lose you too, Bellamy."

"What? Even if it kills you?" he asks. "What if I'd escaped and gotten to Octavia? What if I'd killed-" He abruptly cuts himself off, or maybe he can't even say it. He glances away fro me. "I never figured you the selfish type, Clarke."

It stings, and I try my best not to let it show. He looks about to say something else, but I intercept him before he gets a chance. "Do you honestly think Octavia would ever forgive me if I gave up on you so easily? If I didn't do everything I could just to spare you your guilt?" I take a shaky breath and look at him sternly, willing my voice not to crack. "We all need you, Bellamy. And maybe that's selfish. But it's also true. Dying . . . it's the easy way out."

"So we should keep going, even if it means hurting other people? Innocent people?" He shakes his head, disregarding the pain it brings. "You might be fine with that, Clarke, but I'm not."

It's like a slap to the face and I actually move back, as if his words pack a physical blow. His expression softens as the realization of what he's just said registers.

My calm abandons me and I pull myself to my feet. "What was I supposed to do, Bellamy?" I ask, well aware of my own voice rising. "Just let you die? I did. I watched my mom try to resuscitate you. I watched as Octavia was shouting and begging for you to come back. And all I could think about was the last thing I told you. That it was worth the risk. So I'm sorry I didn't do the selfless thing or the right thing by you, but you're here and you're alive and I am not going to apologize for that."

I drag in a big breath and tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear. The pressure that's been building since the confrontation with Octavia worsens and I twist away so Bellamy won't see the pain and misinterpret it.

"There were two boys," he says, so quietly I almost miss it. I look back at him again, but his gaze has fallen to his lap, staring without seeing. "Just kids. I took two kids from their home, Clarke. They're being used as human blood bags because of me."

My anger is suddenly back, fueled by the guilt I see in his face. The self-loathing I recognize too well. The sight washes my heart in a quiet fire and I look at Bellamy, hard. "They're being used as blood bags because of Mount Weather. Because someone in that mountain decided their freedom was worth the cost of innocent lives."

"That doesn't change the fact that if I just hadn't been here, Clarke, that they would be okay," he says, and I simmer at the brokenness in his voice. At the defeated tone he uses. So unlike Bellamy. "That everyone I took into that mountain would be home with their families right now. Safe."

My anger mounts, and I clench my teeth together, trying to pick my words with careful precision. "You're right," I deadpan after consideration, and he flinches. "You're right, if you hadn't been there, those boys would be fine. All those people would be back home. But the same applies for me, too." I give a slight shake of my head. "If I hadn't been here, you wouldn't have gone into Mount Weather to begin with and those boys would still be okay. If I hadn't been here, . . . Finn would probably still be alive. If I hadn't been here, maybe he wouldn't have massacred a village," I manage to say, and I'm surprised my voice doesn't crack. "I know this game, Bellamy. I play it every day, and I'm very good at it. So listen to me when I tell you that yes, your actions were wrong. But they weren't yours, not really. You aren't the monster in this story, Bellamy."

"You weren't there," he says quietly, still not looking at me like he can't bear it.

So I say the one thing that will make him. "No, neither were you here, when I turned my back on a village I knew was about to be bombed and left, even while I thought Octavia could still be inside."

Bellamy's eyes shoot up and he looks at me confusedly. "That . . . Clarke, that doesn't sound like you."

But when I don't say anything, when I don't deny it, his gaze slowly hardens. The brokenness in it is still there, but it's all edges now, wicked points trailed on me. He knows I'm telling the truth and when the reality of that hits him, he spits through his teeth, "I can't believe you."

The look there, the betrayal, hurts more than the bruises on my neck and it takes all my effort not to crumble beneath the weight of his gaze. "You aren't the only one who's become a stranger to themselves, Bellamy."

He shakes his head, looking almost crazed. "Why? I-I trusted you with her."

"I didn't think I had a choice." If I die in this war and am given the luxury of a burial, I think those words would be a sufficient summary of my life. Not my whole life, but the parts that mattered the most.

"You didn't have a choice?" Bellamy repeats, disbelief etched in every line of his features.

I swallow. By this point, I have my answer memorized. "If I'd warned anybody, they would've told the others and Lincoln would be compromised. Any chance of getting our friends back would be gone and every grounder being drained would consequentially die. So I had to choose."

Bellamy glares at me. "Between my sister and the mission."

"Between the possibility of losing one life and the certainty of losing hundreds more." I hold his gaze for as long as I can until finally, I focus on something else. Something simple, like a torn corner of Bellamy's woolen blanket. I feel as if I'm on a very narrow cliff, each choice pushing me closer and closer to the edge with nothing to cling to. Even if by some miracle I manage to hold on long enough to see the end of this war, I'm still on this cliff made of my mistakes. And there is no way down.

"I . . . I need some time, Clarke," Bellamy says slowly, and though there's some anger in his voice, I sense there's something else. A bitter understanding he wishes he didn't see. I can feel his gaze lingering on my neck. "Time to think. Alone."

I nod slowly and try not to stare back at him as I start for the hatch again. But I can't help looking when I stop to climb down the ladder. "If we win this war," I tell him, my eyes meet his from across the room, "you'll be the one to free those people, Bellamy."

"What, so they can forgive me?" he asks dryly.

My voice turns soft. "So that you can forgive yourself."