Clarke

She was relieved when Lia let her direct her in setting up and gathering supplies, since her wrist was still tender. She and Lia worked together mostly in silence, which allowed Clarke to ponder everything that had happened, as well as all that was still coming.

A big weight would be lifted once Bellamy was fully off the drug, but Clarke was still worried about what they would have to do once that was finished. To go back to Mount Weather… to face that place again… the idea filled her with such dread that she could hardly stand it.

Silently she reminded herself, One thing at a time. That was the only way she could keep moving, keep getting things done.

"This is the last of it," Lia said, setting down another bag of fluid replacement on the trolley Clarke had set up.

It was a welcome distraction. "Okay," Clarke said, surveying the room they had prepared. It was the same little area where Lincoln had spent his days following his own detox from the Red, which seemed fitting, but she had chosen it not out of poetry but necessity.

"Are you ready?" Lia asked. She seemed curious about this whole process, as if not quite believing it would really work.

"We have the bed, restraints for his hands and feet, IV equipment, fluids, a defibrillator, a heart monitor, and epinephrine." She nodded. "Yeah… that should be it." She wracked her brain, trying to think of whether she'd missed anything, but she knew she was just being paranoid. After all, they'd detoxed Lincoln with nothing more than makeshift restraints from the dropship and a shock baton.

It wasn't long before Bellamy and Octavia returned to the medical bay together. Clarke noticed, but did not comment on, the redness around Octavia's eyes.

She could see the apprehension all over Bellamy's face as he looked over the supplies she'd gathered, but when she met his eyes he just gave her a small smile and said, "Let's do this."

Clarke nodded. Somewhat apologetically she said, "I'll have to restrain you."

"That's fine," he answered right away. But still, he hesitated, not moving toward the bed yet. He turned to his sister and said gently, "Hey… can you clear out for a minute? Come back in a little while?"

"Come on," she protested immediately. "You don't have to protect me from this. I know what's going to happen and I want to be here. I told you I'd be there to help you through this and I meant it."

"O-" Bellamy had a little smile on his face.

"No way," she interrupted him. "I held it together just fine with Lincoln." Looking to Clarke for support she said, "Right?" Clarke nodded, but before she could even respond, Octavia turned her attention back to her brother and said, "See?"

"Are you done?" he asked, his smile only wider now.

Octavia seemed to consider the question for a moment, and then she nodded. "Yeah."

"I'd like some time alone with Clarke if that's okay," he explained, still looking amused.

Octavia didn't blush, but she looked about ready to. "Oh," she said, glancing toward Clarke, who couldn't help an amused smile of her own. Octavia added, "Okay then… I'll be back in a little while." Tossing a wry smile in her brother's direction, she left the medical bay.

"You too," Bellamy said to Lia. "But give her some space." Lia said nothing, she just left, and Bellamy shook his head as he watched her go.

Clarke swallowed nervously and went to the trolley, again going through the inventory of supplies. With forced cheeriness she said, "So I've got everything I need… I think. We should be okay as long as we take things slow, help your body through the process gradually. Who knows, maybe you won't even-"

"Come here," Bellamy said, his voice soft and gravelly as he suddenly appeared behind her, his chest pressing into her back. He wrapped his arms around her, one covering her upper chest, his hand squeezing her upper arm gently, the other sliding across her stomach and finding one of her hands. She laced her fingers through his as his chin curled over her shoulder. Clarke closed her eyes, relaxing just a little bit into his embrace.

For a long moment he just held her and they said nothing. She could feel his breath on her cheek, feel the heat of his body spreading outward through her own. Finally, gently, he pulled her away from the trolley and turned her around to face him. He wrapped her up in his arms and tucked her head under his chin, and she held onto his back, trying not to be scared.

Softly he said, "Hey."

Clarke couldn't help a smile as she replied, "Hey."

"Whatever happens," he said next, his voice rumbling in her ear. "I wanted to say thanks. For getting me this far… getting me through this. It can't have been easy."

She let out a long breath and forced herself to sound upbeat as she said, "It was nothing."

"You know you don't have to do that with me, right?" he asked gently. "I can read you like a book, Clarke." He let go of her and stepped back enough that he could take hold of her arm gently. He slid the sleeve up a little, revealing her injured wrist, then higher to show the still-healing bite marks he'd put there when he'd first been turned into a Reaper. It seemed so long ago now.

She covered his hand with hers and said, "That wasn't you." Suddenly she remembered what Lincoln had told her, all those months ago when he'd been the one in this room, We've all got a monster inside of us, Clarke. And we're all responsible for what it does when we let it out.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she shook her head and said again, "That wasn't you."

When she looked at Bellamy again, he was gazing at her with such gentleness, such compassion. He nodded his head, and then raised a hand to trace the curve of her jaw with his fingertips. The tenderness of that action coupled with the knowledge that he would soon be a rabid, snarling beast, was too much for her. She reached up and slid her fingers through his curls, pulling his face down to meet hers and burying her grief in his lips.

Bellamy seemed relieved, almost, by the kiss, and he deepened it right away, opening his lips to her, finding her tongue with his. He backed her up against the bed so there would be some kind of resistance behind her as he leaned against her, pressing his body into hers, flooding her with his warmth. One of his hands gripped her hip while the other slipped under the hem of her shirt and anchored in the small of her back.

Clarke was so scared- scared to hurt him, scared to be hurt by him, scared to lose him- and she needed to be as close as she could be to him, needed to drive those fears away with the reassuring pressure of his body pushed against hers. Suddenly irritated by the fabric between them, she seized the hem of his shirt and tugged.

Bellamy chuckled softly into her lips and pulled back from the kiss long enough to yank the shirt off and toss it aside, pushing her jacket back off her shoulders and doing the same. Clarke grabbed her own shirt and pulled it over her head, adding it to the pile. She was prepared to stop Bellamy from going further, but he made no move to reach for her bra, he just slid his arms around her back and held her as close as he could, kissing her again.

The strength and warmth of his body, the reassuring and familiar smell of his skin, the taste of him, the silkiness of his hair under her fingers, and his lips- somehow soft and firm at the same time- provided her with a sensory overload that drowned out all thought. It was a welcome reprieve, for both of them, from what was to come.

Finally they stopped kissing, but neither of them were in any hurry to pull away, and they kept their arms around one another. Clarke laid her cheek against Bellamy's chest and enjoyed the feeling of his skin against hers, trying to ignore the strange pounding, then murmuring, of his heart. Bellamy's hands stroked her back, up and down and side-to-side, drawing lazy circles over her skin that made her shiver. She turned to look up at him and he brought his hands up, using his thumbs to stroke the hair back from her face, smiling down at her.

"I'm scared," she whispered, holding his eyes with her own.

"So am I," he answered, his voice barely more than breath. "But this-" He stroked his hands across her cheeks, her neck, over her shoulders, down her arms, and then took her hands in his, squeezing them. "- this is worth sticking around for."

Bellamy could be many things, but romantic wasn't really something she would have ever expected, before all this. Every time that part of him showed, her heart couldn't help but quicken, and her lips couldn't help but curl up into a smile. She kissed him again, soft and tender, and then- reluctantly- she stepped backward out of his embrace. She picked up her shirt and put it on again, sighing as she did.

"Now that's not fair," he teased her gently, with that wry smile she knew so well. "Why do I have to keep mine off and you don't?"

"Because I'm not the one who has a heart problem," she answered, rolling her eyes- but she was still smiling.

Bellamy sat down on the bed, leaning into the pillow and letting her fasten the restraints around his wrists and ankles. Quickly after that, the mood became somber as she worked. Carefully she put in an IV line, apologising for the prick of the needle, and then she started running fluids into it as she attached the leads from the heart monitor to him, placing several sticky pads on his chest.

"Shit," he said as he looked at the monitor, seeing the erratic rhythm of his heart rate displayed on the screen. The beeping that accompanied each beat of his heart seemed random and haphazard. Quickly Clarke turned the volume down, silencing the machine that she knew would only stress everyone out- including herself. Once that was done, he shot her a grateful look.

When everything was prepped, Clarke sat down next to him and gave him a tight smile. Bellamy looked at the monitor, then down at his restraints, then back at her, and that wry smile slowly slid back onto his face as he said, "Now what?"

She laughed softly. "Now we wait."

"For me to go crazy?" he clarified, sounding apprehensive.

"For you to get through this," she answered firmly, though he was mostly right- he would become unpredictable, aggressive, and dangerous before she could declare him stable.

He leaned his head back into the pillow, swallowing a little as he looked up at the ceiling. "Maybe I should get some rest."

"That's a good idea," she said, pulling a chair to the side of the bed so she could sit down next to him.

Despite the logic of that plan, Clarke laid her hand over Bellamy's and the two of them just looked at each other. She knew without a shadow of a doubt: neither one of them were going to be able to sleep.