When Rosa first came up with the plan, Bellamy had looked on it as one more challenge he and Clarke would face together to ensure the success of the mission.

Hopefully, their last mission.

But as soon as he'd had a chance to think about it, he began to have grave doubts about his ability to pull it off. As far as Bellamy was concerned, he'd only ever been good at being himself.

He wasn't like Clarke, who'd thrown herself into playing Wanheda to secure a peace treaty with the grounders, and years later successfully pretended to be Josephine Lightbourne, fooling even Josephine's father.

Bellamy couldn't see himself managing anything like that.

But when he raised the issue with Clarke during one of their bedtime conversations, she completely dismissed his concerns.

"You not able to play a role? The guy who had a secret sister he practically raised? You were her brother, father, teacher, protector… all those roles in one. But on the outside you were just a regular guy, an only child just like everyone else. Seems to me you're a past master at playing a part, Bellamy. You fooled the whole Ark for 16 years."

Bellamy huffed in surprise. "I never thought of it like that, Clarke. It was just, you know… my life."

"Yeah, I understand that. But you were showing the world a life that wasn't real, and you did it for years. So I think you can manage one night. Just kind of … think yourself into the part. Decide in your head that for a few hours that's who you are."

Think himself into it?

"Yeah? You think that'll work?"

"I do. Don't worry about it."

Of course, the bottom line was that he'd never let Clarke try to pull this con on her own, anyway. So he'd better figure out how to successfully play his part.

"Besides," Clarke said sleepily. "I can't wait to see you in that fancy suit that's hanging in Gabriel's closet."

Bellamy was still smirking when she turned out the light.

Unfortunately, their plan also had another, perhaps more serious, drawback.

In his experience, no operation was successful without good security, and Bellamy had always handled that part himself. But not this time. This time he'd be playing a different role, trying to distract Cadogan by pretending to be some rich asshole.

Which left the security to Octavia and Miller.

He wasn't worried that Octavia wasn't up to it because he knew that she was. But he also knew that the last thing she wanted these days was any kind of physical conflict. Her time in the bunker had shriveled Octavia's soul, and she was just now beginning to recover the girl she'd lost amid the chaos of trying to keep so many people alive.

But there was no help for it. They'd need Octavia to ensure Raven and Becca stayed safe, and Bellamy wanted to believe she could do whatever that might take without descending into the darkness again.

As for Miller… well, thank god he'd asked for him to be sent through the wormhole, because there was no one he'd trust more to be a vigilant lookout. But Miller was still just one guy, and he couldn't be everywhere at once. They'd pressed Jackson into service, of course, even though everyone knew that soldiering wasn't exactly the doc's strong suit. But they'd run out of options.

That was as far as they'd gotten the day before, so although Rosa herself was working, they were meeting at her Arlington house that day to continue to flesh out the plan.

"We've never really had to do things covertly before," Bellamy reminded them all as soon as they'd settled around the kitchen table. "But we've landed in a civilized and highly regulated society, and if we want to stick around when this is all over, we can't go in all guns blazing. We need to take a more subtle approach."

Seeing them all nod in agreement, he started down his mental checklist.

"The first thing we need is some kind of sophisticated communication devices. Something less obvious than our personal phones. Raven," his head swiveled in her direction, "do you think you could research that. See if you can find something I can wear with my, uh, dress-up clothes?"

"Yeah, sure." Raven was as confident as ever. "But will we really need it? Seems like it'll be pretty simple. Becca and I have mostly figured out how to detach Cadogan's secret computer from her system, and then we need to maybe do, uh, a couple other things. It might take us a while, but we're just gonna be in Cadogan's office, not wandering around the place, running into other people."

"Yeah? And what happens if Becca's missed and has to go back to the party to avoid suspicion? And then you have to handle whole thing on your own. Wouldn't that slow you down? Drag the whole thing out even longer? Or what if you run into some kind of, I don't know, a snag that slows you down? The longer you're there, Raven, the more dangerous it gets. And what if, despite our best efforts to distract him, Cadogan decides to go up to his office after all?"

Octavia spoke up then. "Then the plan is to retreat to the passageway, Bell, and wait 'til he leaves. We'd already figured that out."

"I understand, O, but wouldn't it be nice to have a little warning that you need to hide? And I think Miller'd want to know when you're done and coming out of the building so he can make sure it's safe."

"Definitely," Miller said. "I vote for the best fucking equipment you can find, Raven. Otherwise Jacks and I'll be flying blind out there, and that's not the way I like to go."

Raven huffed. "Okay, okay, you've convinced me. I'll look into comm systems as soon as I finish your covers," she said. "They're almost done. I'm just adding the finishing touches…"

"My… covers?"

Raven frowned. "Yeah, yours and Clarke's. You know, as the super rich couple."

He glanced at her in surprise while she glared at him in disbelief.

"Hey, did you really think that when Rosa asks for invites for her new friends Cadogan isn't going to have his minions thoroughly check you out? Because if you did, you're a lot more naive than I thought you were. But it won't be a problem because like I said a couple days ago, there aren't many systems in this century I can't hack into. So I've been creating new digital lives for you both, and they're just about ready to toss onto the web."

Bellamy frowned. "The web?"

Raven groaned. "Jesus, Bellamy! I know damn well you know what the web is. We learned all about it when we studied Old Earth. Only now that's this Earth. Becca helped me out, gave me an idea where someone might go to look into your background. And before you ask, yes, she used the phone you bought her. And I used my own tablet to set up the data, since our tech from the Ark is untraceable in this century."

Bellamy was glad to hear that Raven and Becca had been discreet, but amazed that she'd felt she had to create an entire background for this persona he was only going to inhabit for a few hours.

"Right, but… shouldn't Clarke and I know about our, uh, our new lives?"

"Of course! I'll write it all down and upload the info and the links to your tablets when I'm done. You should both have plenty of time to get it straight in your heads before the gala next week. And while you're at it," she added, shifting her gaze between them, "don't forget to cook up a good together story."

"A together story?" Clarke asked, puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"I mean the story of how you met, how you got together. You know, all the usual crap. Some busybody might ask and you sure as hell can't tell them anything that resembles the truth."

Clarke turned to grin at Bellamy. "Not if we want to be believed!"

Bellamy shook his head, sighing. He'd had no idea this… this masquerade was going to be so complicated.

"Yeah, okay," he said briskly. "We'll figure it out."

"Maybe you can do it at night when your talk in the bedroom," Madi suggested suddenly, her tone utterly matter-of-fact.

Miller guffawed and Octavia smiled, while Clarke flushed to her roots.

But all she said was, "Really, Madi?"

Madi turned to her mother, confused. "What's wrong? I know you talk every night because I can hear the sounds of your voices as I'm falling asleep, although I can't tell what you're saying…"

"I think Madi might be on to something there," Raven said, smirking heavily.

"I think we got the idea, Raven," Bellamy said testily. "Moving on. Uh… okay, so what's the actual plan for the ALIE program?"

Raven shrugged, accepting the change of topic with a smile. Probably because if she couldn't walk in space, tech was the kind of thing she most loved.

"So Becca and I had a long conversation after we all decided on this plan, and we've talked a few times since on the untraceable phones. And what it comes down to is that the whole thing is a little more complicated than we thought.

"First thing, like Becca said, is to get rid of the connection from Cadogan's computer to her ALIE program. The plan won't work if they can watch her every move. But it's not just detaching Cadogan's computer, it's doing it in a way that whoever's operating that system won't detect it. That'll be harder, and take longer, but when we're done, Cadogan's guys will think they're still looking at ALIE."

"And what's the big deal about that?" Miller asked, frowning. "Why can you just… cut them off quick? To save time."

"Because then, when they see they don't have access to the ALIE program anymore, they'll know something's wrong and try to fix it. When they can't, they'll report it to Cadogan, and that's sure to cause trouble for Becca," Madi said immediately.

Raven grinned at her. "Got it in one, kid. We want them to have no access… but to think that they do, so when we proceed with the rest of the plan it'll be invisible to them. Whoever they are will think the only reason nothing seems to be changing is that Becca's essentially done and just testing, because that's what she told Cadogan. So they'll be sure all the failsafes are still gone and they can soon launch the damn war Cadogan seems to want so badly. Because that's what their system will be telling them."

Clarke nodded, and it was clear to Bellamy she'd understood immediately. As he had.

"And then what?" she asked.

"Well, since Becca told Cadogan the program is basically done, she expects him to move up the delivery date by a couple of weeks just like he's already hinted at. And she'll agree to it. So he'll have all his plans in place — whatever the hell they are — so he can launch the bombs the day after the program is delivered. Because we already know that's what happened in the original timeline."

"So what happens then?" Clarke asked. "I mean, isn't it dangerous for him to get the program even with the failsafes in place?"

"He's never going to get the program at all, because Becca's going to destroy ALIE as soon as the link to Cadogan's computer is gone and they can't see what she's doing. On the delivery date, she'll claim some minor last-minute delay, but by then Cadogan should have whatever his crazy plan is in place. We're betting he's not the kind of guy who can deal with being thwarted, and that he'll try to launch the program directly from his own system instead."

"But it won't run, right?" Bellamy said.

"Not only will it not run, as soon as it's even attempted the link will disappear from his system, as well as every line of code. And that'll happen because we're going to load a virus into his system to do just that."

Bellamy gawked at her. "And that will work?"

Raven frowned. "What do you mean? Of course it'll work!"

"But won't Cadogan rush to the island then, looking to start his global war from there instead?"

Raven smirked. "Yep, that's exactly what we expect. But since Becca will automatically be notified when the Second Dawn system's been obliterated, she'll immediately call Cadogan, shocked and outraged because some outside source has hacked into her program and destroyed it. She'll be pissed as hell and demand an investigation. Which he won't want to do because he's going to assume it was his own computer that was responsible for destroying her program. I mean, why would he think anything else? As far as Cadogan knows, Becca has no idea there was a dedicated computer system in his building that had breached her system right from the beginning."

Around the table there were stunned gasps at the sheer audacity of their plan.

Clarke nodded slowly. "So goodbye ALIE and hello 21st century."

"Exactly," Raven grinned. "And Becca's so honestly horrified about the whole thing that she won't have any trouble appearing pissed off at the destruction of all her work."

Raven might have said more, but just at that moment her phone rang, and she glanced down, muttering, "Becca." She slipped from her chair and headed for the office, which had become her workspace.

"That plan," Bellamy muttered, turning to Clarke. "If it actually works…"

"It has to work," she said. "That's why we're here."

He nodded slowly. "Right."

With the plan for the destruction of ALIE well in hand, Bellamy thought he might ask Clarke about scheduling time to dream up their together story. But Miller got up and tapped him on shoulder.

"Can I talk to you about security?"

"Yeah, sure," Bellamy said, and they headed for a couple of comfortable chairs in the living room. "So what's up?"

"So I was just thinking about the first thing you said today, about not going in with, you know, guns blazing. And I get that. But from what you told us about Cadogan's thugs, they aren't so particular. They have guns, right?"

"Yeah. In fact… one of them shot me."

"What! What the fuck? Why didn't you say something?"

Bellamy shrugged. "It happened a few weeks ago, before you got here, the night Clarke and I finally found Becca."

"So Clarke knows."

Bellamy smiled wryly. "When have I ever been able to keep anything from Clarke? Yeah, the bullet just grazed my shoulder and she patched me up."

Miller nodded, expelling a heavy breath.

"Right. So like I said, these guys are obviously fucking dangerous, so we definitely don't ever want them focusing on us. But if one of us does get caught where we're not supposed to be it's kind of an uneven fight…"

Bellamy thought quickly. "Have you used a handgun?"

Miller shrugged. "Yeah, not as often as a rifle, but I'm an okay shot." He frowned. "Why? You got one?"

"I have two. Both of them Gabriel's. They were in his safe."

"So what are you suggesting?"

"I… let me think about it..."

Miller sighed. "Look, I definitely agree with the no guns blazing thing, but I also don't want any of us dying. Because you know damn well, Bellamy, that if that happens it's not just us who aren't gonna make it. It's everyone."

Bellamy nodded, acknowledging the truth of what Miller was saying. On the other hand, he didn't think he could deal with yet another life in which he was defined by all people he'd killed.

"Okay, you can have a gun, but it's only to be used as a last resort. It only comes out if the mission's in danger."

"Yeah, you know, I'm not really eager to start killing people, either," Miller said.

"I know you're not," Bellamy assured him, "and we won't have to. Because this is gonna work." He smiled wryly. "And I never said we couldn't use a well-placed shot to slow someone down. I mean, I doubt Cadogan's thugs are going to report us to the police."

Miller nodded. "A well-placed shot. Yeah, I think I can manage that. As a last resort."

XXXXXXXXXX

The planning began to move along quickly then. Raven found a communication system that was so sophisticated that both the earpiece and the mic were nearly invisible. She and Becca worked on their plan to sabotage Cadogan's computer, while Octavia and Miller coordinated on security.

Two days later, Bellamy brought one of the guns to their planning meeting and surreptitiously handed it to Miller, along with a box of bullets.

Miller nodded. "Last resort," he confirmed.

Raven also downloaded their cover stories, and as he lay in bed that night Bellamy finally had a chance to look it over, chuckling when he saw how well Raven had blended fact with fiction.

"What's so funny?" Clarke asked, looking up from her own tablet.

He shrugged. "It's just funny how bits and pieces of the real me turned up in this cover story."

"Oh, yeah? Like what," she asked, smiling. "Was it the playboy tendencies in your earlier years? I read your cover and 21st-century you were certainly seen out and about with a lot of different women. Raven must have heard about your threesomes when we first got to the ground."

"Oh, geez," Bellamy said, and he could feel the heat on his cheeks as he recalled his idiotic behavior early in the dropship days. When he didn't give a shit about anything except Octavia, and figured he'd be dead in a few weeks anyway. When he thought Clarke Griffin was nothing but a pain in the ass elitist and had no idea she'd become the single most important person in his life.

"I don't think she was exactly going for playboy, Clarke. Just giving me a social life before, uh, you." Bellamy ground to a halt, not knowing exactly how he should phrase it. "But that wasn't what I meant, anyway. I was just amused that the new and improved Bellamy Blake wrote two monographs on the early 21st-century anti-democracy movement."

"Yeah, I read those. They were kind of interesting. I wonder where she got them."

Bellamy huffed a laugh. "I wrote them both when I was at school on the Ark."

Clarke's mouth dropped open in surprise.

"You were interested in history? But… you went into the guard."

"I was from factory station, Clarke. A couple of my teachers thought I had promise and might be accepted as an academic apprentice in history, so I wrote those papers as a kind of application. But the position went to someone from alpha station because… that was how things worked on the Ark. I don't know what the hell I was expecting."

It had happened more than a decade earlier, and Bellamy hadn't thought about it in years. But he recalled now the bitterness of his disappointment. His mother had done well to find a way to get him into the guard but it had never been what he'd really wanted.

"I'm sorry, Bellamy," Clarke said softly. "I can't believe I didn't know how shitty life on the Ark was if you weren't from alpha station."

"Don't feel bad, Clarke. It wasn't your fault. And in the end, it didn't matter anyway." He sighed. "So what about you? Anything in there left from the real Clarke?"

She laughed. "It seems like maybe Raven knew a lot more about us than she let on. Or else she did some amazing research. She somehow found photos of a couple of my paintings in the Ark archives and worked them into an article about the promising artist Clarke Griffin. Of course, anyone who goes looking for those paintings is going to be disappointed because they were destroyed with everything else on the Ark about a hundred years from now. At least your papers can still be read," she lamented.

Bellamy quickly looked up the bogus article and found the pictures, one a detailed portrait of her mother at work that totally caught the spirit of Abby Griffin, and the other a landscape. He thought how surprised someone seeing it would be if they knew that every brushstroke in the landscape was the product of Clarke's imagination.

Bellamy thought both pictures beautiful and amazing, and mourned their loss.

"Clarke," he said, his voice tentative, "maybe we should start working on our together story tonight. Maybe Madi's right and this is a good time to talk about it."

Clarke stared at him for a moment, her expression somehow unreadable.

Finally she shrugged and said, "I don't think I have the, uh… the fortitude to do that tonight, Bellamy. But we still have some time, right?"

Fortitude? What the hell did that mean?

"Yeah, sure," he agreed. "Plenty of time. And I want to finish reading this at least once, and then read through yours, too. Lots of reading to do before I sleep."

An hour later, he was the one finally turning out the light.

XXXXXXXXXX

A couple of days later, Rosa reminded him about the special clothes he'd have to wear to the Second Dawn Anniversary Gala.

Bellamy had spent his entire time on the Ark in threadbare hand-me-downs, mended by his mother, until he finally got the cadet uniform. Later, on the ground, he'd worn whatever clothes he could find. It was nothing to pull on a shirt that had been removed from a dead body.

Clothes were precious and were handed from wearer to wearer until they quite literally fell apart.

Which was why he'd been so astonished by the sheer volume of clothes in Gabriel Santiago's closet, all of them in perfect condition. So far, he'd worn only the most casual, the jeans and t-shirts during the day and those soft pants to bed at night. Although he had discovered the comfort of what Rosa told him were called sneakers, as opposed to the heavy boots he'd been wearing all his life.

But he'd barely glanced at the row of more formal clothing in the back of Gabriel's closet, and hadn't imagined he'd ever have occasion to wear any of it.

"Do you mean those, uh, suits is what they're called, right? Gabriel had a lot of them. So I should find one that fits?"

Rosa smiled. "Gabriel did have a lot of business suits, Bellamy. When he was at NASA, some of his duties were administrative, so there were meetings with staff, with other government officials, even with his counterparts from other countries. In some workplaces, business dress is more casual, but not in the upper echelons of NASA."

She looked suddenly reflective.

"But they were never Gabriel's favorite kind of clothes. Too stiff and formal, and only to be worn when the occasion required it. I sometimes think that's why he joined the Eligius expedition. So he'd never have to wear a suit again."

As she spoke about this earlier version of Gabriel, the one Bellamy had never met, he couldn't help wondering what Rosa would think if she could have seen the elaborate costumes the Primes wore. Fashioned to intimidate, no doubt, but certainly far more gaudy than any suit in Gabriel's Earth closet.

In the end, of course, Gabriel had given all that up. The pomp and ritual of the Prime gods, as well as the clothing that went with it. Bellamy recalled once again the ragged sweater he'd been forced to borrow from Gabriel after he rescued Clarke.

"Yeah," he told Rosa. "Gabriel didn't seem like the kind of guy who'd really enjoy dressing like that."

"No. But for some reason he didn't seem to mind the occasional need for very formal dress."

Bellamy frowned. "More than the suits?"

Rosa nodded. "Yes. Hanging somewhere in that closet, probably protected by a plastic garment bag, is a much more formal suit of clothing. A tuxedo, it's called. I seem to recall that Gabriel's was black, with a white shirt, a vest, and a formal black tie. I'm sure it's there, Bellamy. Shoes, too. Shiny black ones. And since everything else has fit, I've no doubt the suit will, too. But still, it might be a good idea to try it on. Just in case it needs some alteration."

Bellamy smiled. "If it does, Rosa, Octavia and I can probably manage it."

"Of course you can," she nodded. "I keep forgetting."

He found the tuxedo that night and hurriedly donned the entire outfit while Clarke was using the second bathroom to shower.

"What do you think, Madi," he asked, wandering out to the living room and interrupting her newly-discovered delight at television watching.

"Whoa! You look great, Bellamy. Very fancy. And it looks like it all fits, too."

"Yeah, that's what I thought, but I wanted a second opinion."

"Wait! Aren't you going to show Clarke?" she asked as he turned back towards the bedroom.

"Nah. She'll see it eventually…"

Madi frowned. "But… I think she might like to see that suit on you now."

But somehow he couldn't quite do it. Couldn't quite put himself on display for her like that. He had his soft pants on and was sprawled across the bed by the time Clarke entered the bedroom.

"Suit fit?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Yeah, I think so. And… Madi agreed."

"Oh," she said, her brow wrinkling slightly "Good, then. One less thing to worry about."

The next day, they drove to Rosa's again so she could take Clarke shopping for a dress, and Madi insisted on tagging along. Bellamy had planned to go over more details of mission security with Miller, but as soon as Clarke left, Octavia grabbed his hand and pulled him into the kitchen.

"What the hell, O?" he complained when she pushed him onto a wooden chair. "You didn't have to drag me in here just to talk to me."

"It's not talk I'm after, big brother," she explained, spreading an old sheet on the floor and tying a towel around his neck. "You're not going to that fancy party looking all scruffy. I'm giving you a haircut."

Octavia had insisted on cutting Bellamy's hair from the time she was ten years old, and the older she got the more adept she became. But it'd been a long time now between haircuts, and his hair had always been… difficult. It was wavy, and heavy, and tended to go its own way, and he was half afraid Octavia might have forgotten how to tame it.

Especially when he saw the clumps of hair raining down around him.

But when he looked in the mirror she handed him when she was done, he realized he needn't have worried.

It was definitely shorter, especially in the back, but the sides still fell around his ears in natural waves. Which was a good thing, since his hair had to hide the sophisticated barely-there earpiece on the new comms. The top was cut shorter, too, and fell to the sides rather than down across his forehead.

"Good job, O," he admitted, giving her a hug. "Definitely better. Thanks."

"It frames your face better, Bell," she insisted, adding with a smirk, "Clarke's gonna love it."

"Yeah, I don't know about that," he said, rising from the chair and hastily exiting the kitchen to finally look for Miller.

The shoppers were gone for hours, and returned laden down with bags.

"Did you find something?" he asked Clarke, but she just shrugged and said that Rosa told her the chosen dress would do, but all the time she was talking her mouth was tipped up in this little half-smile.

Bellamy supposed he could ask for details, but really, what the hell did he know about women's dresses, especially 21st-century party dresses? He decided to just leave it alone.

But whatever she'd bought must have made her happy, because she was still smiling that night when they slid into their chosen sides of the bed. She seemed so cheerful, in fact, that he thought this might finally be the right night for them to create their together story.

When he broached the subject she shrugged and agreed they had only a few days left to figure it out.

"Where should we start?" she asked.

"I suppose with how we met. Raven has me getting degrees in both history and finance from Harvard and you going to art school on Boston. So that seems like a natural point of connection."

Clarke nodded. "So… how did we meet? At a bar? A party? Through friends?"

"In a coffee shop. It was crowded and I asked to share your table."

"Oh! Okay. So was it… love at first sight?"

He smirked. "No way. I was a poor kid on a scholarship and I thought you were a stuck-up snob. You thought I was rude and pushy."

She grinned. "That sounds familiar. So how did we get past the bad first impressions?"

"We met again at a political rally, found we had the same politics. Then I was impressed when I learned you'd defied your family and chosen art over medical school…"

"And I heard about the sister you practically raised."

"So maybe it was love at second sight?"

She smirked. "Maybe. So why are we even at this gala thing? Just because you, uh, struck it rich in the stock market, we still don't sound like the kind of people who'd be interested in Second Dawn."

"We're not," he said, extemporizing rapidly. "We're there out of curiosity, had wanted to meet the nut job cult leader, Cadogan. Rosa brought us because we were in the area and she's an old friend of your family. But he won't know that. By the time his staff reads Raven's version of us, he'll think we're ripe for the plucking!"

Clarke laughed, and said, "Hey, you're pretty good at this."

He shrugged. "I've always liked telling stories, and I'm just… making us the lead characters in this one."

"I see. So, um…" she hesitated just a bit before asking softly, "So… are we married?"

Bellamy gazed at her from the other side of the bed, his heart beating fast.

"Yeah," he said, after a moment, "I think we are."

"Right," she said faintly, and then her voice became brisk. "That… seems like enough for now, Bellamy. We can do a little more every night until we have… a whole life."

He nodded. "Yeah, okay. We can try things out and see if they, um… if they fit with us."

They turned out the light then, but Bellamy had trouble falling asleep, their short whimsical conversation replaying inside his head.

So are we married?

XXXXXXXXXX

Three days before Operation Destroy ALIE was set to commence, Indra, Gaia and Echo came through the wormhole.

Like the others before them, they arrived during the day, and since they also had the advantage of knowing what to expect, Indra remembered enough about the bunker to get them out of the building.

It was afterwards that things got complicated.

Unlike the other groups, all these women had been brought up as grounders, and while they were experts on the Earth after the apocalypse, they knew little of its history and nothing at all about Old Earth culture. They'd seen no vids and read no books, and certainly had no archives to help them understand what they were walking into.

Bellamy heard later that Gabriel had tried to prepare them by giving them specific instructions, but it'd been a long time for him and he couldn't quite recall every detail. So the three of them wandered around amidst the cacophony of a mid-21st-century city for an hour, unable to overcome their natural reluctance to asking for help.

The transportation system they were most familiar with was their own two legs, and since Gabriel had provided them with a roadmap, and an address, they eventually did what was most comfortable for them. They used what cash they had to buy food and water at a small store and set out to walk from Alexandria center to Arlington center, and from there to Rosa's house five miles away.

But it wasn't like walking through the familiar forests that the area had been reduced to after the apocalypse. There were other humans to dodge now, and speeding cars to avoid. So it was no wonder that all three were exhausted by the time they showed up on Rosa's doorstep hours later, just as Bellamy, Clarke and Madi were about to leave for the condo.

Rosa welcomed them just as warmly as she had the others, but Bellamy could see she struggled a little to understand them, and he wished he'd prepared her more for the grounder contingent of their little group. So far, there'd been only Madi, and she'd been brought up by Clarke from such a young age that her thinking was at least half-Ark.

It was too late to drive to the beach house, so Octavia and Raven doubled up, leaving one room for the mother and daughter while Echo took the couch.

The newcomers settled into the beach house over the next couple of days, Miller and Jackson moving out there with them to provide both transportation and orientation. Bellamy bought them phones and explained how to use them, and that minimal tech, at least, wasn't wholly foreign to them.

Strangely, although he was happy to see them all, the grounders seemed more alien to Bellamy than ever. Even though he knew them all well, and Echo had spent six years with him on the ring, the last couple of which they'd been sleeping together.

When they'd all been locked into the post-apocalyptic Earth, the differences between the grounders and the Arkers had seemed insignificant, becoming even less so on the strangeness that was Sanctum. But now that they were back in a civilization that somehow felt familiar to Bellamy, the cultural gap seemed enormous.

But if the mission was successful — and Bellamy now had every reason to hope that it would be — they'd all have no choice but to remain here, former Arkers and former grounders alike. He vowed to himself that he'd do whatever it took to help them acclimate.

Aside from being happy to see his friends again, Bellamy was also relieved that there would now be a couple of more available bodies to help with security at the party. He'd given them his no guns blazing speech, and even though they'd rarely used actual guns they got the point. Echo had been trained to be covert, and he was confident that Indra would adapt.

Octavia insisted more shopping was necessary to find them clothing better suited to blending into this century and society. She and Rosa took the three of them shopping and Bellamy tried to wrap his head around the idea of Octavia and Echo buying clothes together… instead of trying to kill each other.

Another bright spot was that Rosa and Indra seemed to take to each other from the start. They were of an age, he supposed, although he could find nothing else they had in common. Still, he was happy to think that Rosa might also be a source of friendship for Indra.

Echo had barely spoken to him since they arrived, but he was happy to see her. Happier still that since she'd had little to say, he could assume she was over her fixation with him.

It wasn't until the afternoon of the party day that he learned how wrong he was.

They'd had a last minute review of all the details of the operation, and then the security group had stayed behind to talk with Bellamy, while Clarke went off to talk to Gaia. Madi had insisted she wanted to see Bellamy and Clarke in their finery, so Miller volunteered to pick her up and drop her at Rosa's later on so she could spend the night there under Gaia's watchful eye.

They'd just finished up and Bellamy was headed out, when Echo's voice stopped him.

"Bellamy, can I talk to you?"

He turned with a smile. "Of course, what's on your mind?"

"I was just wondering if you've had time to think since you been here."

What? "Think? Think about what?"

Her chin rose. "About… us."

Bellamy felt stunned. Blind-sided. He'd been certain she understood the last time they talked about this.

"Echo," he said as delicately as possible, "we've been over all this. There is no us. Not anymore."

Her chin rose. "I just thought after all this time away you'd have come to realize…"

"Realize… what?"

"That all our years together on the ring meant something."

Oh, god. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt Echo, but he also didn't want to mislead her, or give her some kind of… false hope when what she needed was to accept reality.

"The ring… that was another life, Echo. Just our own small group trying to get on as best we could. You were a… a comfort to me. And I hope I was a comfort to you."

Her eyes narrowed. "So… that's it? I comforted you?"

"That's not nothing. Especially during a time when we didn't know if we'd ever see the ground again. But we did see it and… things changed."

"Because Clarke was still alive."

Bellamy sighed. It was like she was asking to be hurt.

"Yes," he said finally. "I explained all that to you the last time we talked."

He hesitated for a moment, then finally decided that maybe the only way to end this was to be brutally frank.

"The truth is that finding out Clarke was alive was the best present I've ever gotten. By a mile."

Echo stiffened. "So then… you and Clarke are together now."

She made it a statement, not a question.

Bellamy frowned. This was highly personal and absolutely none of Echo's business, but he felt he owed her the truth. And he didn't want to have this conversation again.

"Not in the way you mean. Not… yet. We've had other things on our minds. But it makes no difference. I know in my gut Clarke and I will get there some day, no matter how long it takes."

Echo's usually impassive face fell and she heaved a sigh.

"Just the way you say her name," she whispered.

Christ! He felt like a real asshole.

"I'm sorry this hurts you, Echo. I really am. But… look around you. This is a new opportunity for all of us, and that includes you. To live in a world not measured by the number of people you can kill, or how you can please your despicable queen. You've had so little opportunity to have a personal life that I think you've put more importance on… me… than I deserve. You can find a life here with someone who cares about you the way you want. The way you deserve."

Echo stared at him. "I know you're right." She shrugged. "I'd just gotten used to planning my life around you."

"You should plan your life around you."

"Yeah," she said, giving him a little smile. "Maybe I should."

That was the moment Bellamy knew that Echo had finally accepted the situation and that this would be the last time he'd hear about it.

"Good," he said, smiling, then reached out to give her a brief hug.

"Bellamy, are you ready to go? Oh…"

Clarke was suddenly in the doorway.

"Sorry to interrupt," she said, but now her voice was tight and clipped. "But we have to leave. It's time to get ready. But, uh, take your time. I'll, um, I'll meet you in the car."

"Clarke, wait!" But she was already gone.

"She misunderstood," Echo said. "Do you want me to talk to her?"

He shook his head. "No, I've got this."

And he really hoped he did.

XXXXXXXXXX

She knew it shouldn't bother her that much, but it did.

Clarke felt like she had a ball of pain in the pit of her stomach the whole time she was getting dressed to meet one of the biggest challenges of her life. And the consequences, should she fail, would so big that they were nearly unquantifiable.

How many billions of people were there on the planet? How many would die if she couldn't get past her own stupid broken heart?

She refocused on the bathroom mirror. Thank god she'd practiced putting on the makeup that Rosa said she really should wear.

"You don't need makeup, my dear, not at all," Rosa had told her. "But there's a certain way of dressing for these kinds of events, and I'm afraid if you don't conform it may put your cover story in doubt."

So she'd practiced many times with the mascara wand and the blusher, and slid the lip gloss across her mouth. But tonight her hands shook as she tried to apply the makeup, because she was so damned angry.

Not at Bellamy because he'd never promised her anything. No, she was angry with herself for being so stupid.

Yeah, he'd responded to her kiss, but she was the one who'd initiated it. And he hadn't done a damned thing since.

So it was entirely possible… the pit in her stomach grew… that he'd decided he needed to be with Echo after all.

Despite her shaking hands, Clarke finally managed to finish the makeup and slip the dress over her head. The color was a soft shimmery blue, and it had a deep-V neckline that showed off her cleavage. She'd loved it from the moment she tried it on.

Tonight, she could hardly bear to look at herself in the mirror.

She slid into the silver sandals, the ones with the sparkly little heels. She'd been practicing with those, too, because even she could see that this dress wouldn't look right with flat shoes, let alone with her usual workaday boots.

Lastly, she fastened around her neck a silver chain with a pendant set with a number of sparkling white stones. Rosa had lent it to her, and she'd protested at first because she knew the piece had to be valuable, but Rosa had insisted.

"It will look lovely on you, my dear," she'd said, "and go beautifully with that dress. And you need it to keep up your cover."

The necklace had come with small sparkly earrings, something she hadn't worn since her days on the Ark.

There, done. Now if she could just get through the rest of the evening.

Clarke told herself once again how stupid it was to get upset about her trivial concerns when so many more important things were at stake, but so far it hadn't helped. There was no help for her, either, when she finally stepped into the living room to join Bellamy and Madi.

She'd always known that Bellamy was handsome, of course, right from the day she'd met him. But after everything they'd been through together it ordinarily wasn't the first thing she thought about when she saw him.

Tonight was different.

The formal black suit fit him perfectly, and somehow Octavia had managed to tame his glossy black curls so that they fell perfectly around his face, setting off his high cheekbones and the sharp cut of his jaw. Clarke had never been more attracted to him.

Which, under the circumstances, was damned inconvenient.

Fortunately, Clarke didn't have time to think about that because Madi was practically jumping up and down in delight.

"You look so beautiful, Clarke," she was saying now. "Both of you do."

Bellamy laughed. "Not sure that word really applies to me, Madi, but you're definitely right about Clarke."

When Clarke glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes, she was pretty sure she could see admiration there. Well, fine, at least he thought she looked nice. Not that it made any difference.

Then suddenly, Madi's cheerful smile became a worried frown.

"Just… be careful tonight, Clarke," she said, her expression serious. "I don't want anything to happen to you."

"Don't worry, Madi, I'll be fine."

"Right, of course you will, because you're with Bellamy."

"Exactly," Bellamy smiled down at Madi reassuringly. "You know I wouldn't let anything happen to Clarke."

"Yeah, I know," Madi said. "Clarke told me about all the times you saved her life."

"Well, I won't have to save her life this time, Madi, because her life will never be in jeopardy."

"But if it was?" Madi asked anxiously.

"If it was, you know there isn't any danger I wouldn't face to make sure Clarke was okay."

Madi frowned. "No, Bellamy, that's not the right answer. You're not supposed to put yourself in danger, either."

Clarke smiled at Madi, and when she turned that smile on Bellamy, she realized it was the first time she'd looked at him directly since she'd seen him with Echo.

"I'll take care of Bellamy, too, Madi. Please don't worry."

"Good. Take care of each other," Madi instructed them sternly. "I think that's how it's supposed to work."

And then they were out of time. Miller arrived to pick up Madi and drive her to Rosa's, where she'd spend the night with Gaia while the rest of them went off to slay the dragon.

"We should go, too," Clarke said quietly as soon as Madi left.

But Bellamy just stared at her, unmoving.

"We will, Clarke, but first we need to talk."

"Now? We don't have time for that, Bellamy. This thing we're about to do… it's more important than anything we might have to talk about."

And besides, she wasn't sure she could bear to hear whatever it was he wanted to say.

"Yeah. Maybe. But I can tell you right now that there's no way in hell I'm gonna be able to focus on anything at all, including the fucking mission, with this stupid misunderstanding hanging over our heads."

Her head snapped up. "Misunderstanding?"

When she looked up at him she saw the frustration in his face.

He sighed. "Yes. And I know damn well my timing sucks, that we have somewhere important we have to be. But there's always something more important on our agenda. People to rescue… planets to save. But this time, I don't give a shit. This time, nothing's getting in the way. This time we're not moving another inch until I have my say. And until you listen."

Clarke stared up at Bellamy, recognizing the stubborn set of his jaw and the thin determined line of his mouth.

"Okay," she said softly. "Tell me."