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She finds him within an hour, not that there are many places he could be hiding. The Ring isn’t that big, probably not more than a 20-minute lap at a casual pace, and it’s not a part of the Ark he ever spent much time in, so he’s not familiar enough with it yet to know its secrets.
Besides, it’s Clarke. Sometimes he thinks she has her own private entrance into his mind. A back door nobody else has ever found. She’s always seen him for who he is, even when he tried his best to hide beneath a veneer of dickishness and antagonism.
“How’s the view?” She asks, tucking herself into the opposite corner of the windowsill and drawing her knees up to her chest, close enough she can loop her arms around them loosely and prop her chin on them to watch him.
With bare feet and hair damp from showering, she looks so much smaller than normal. He feels so old inside that he sometimes forgets how young they all are.
“Horrific.” He shakes his head, trying to find his way out of a maze of morbid thoughts. “You think that bunker really held up?”
“Yeah, I do.”
When he looks back at her, her eyes have drifted to watch the world simmer under the death wave. It’s hard to imagine anything surviving the blaze. He tries not to think about Gina’s body, buried in the foothills of Mount Weather. Lincoln’s body, Jasper’s. His sister, hiding underground once more to save her life.
“How can you be sure?”
She flashes him a crooked smile, wry with understanding. “We’re still breathing.”
Hope, he thinks, letting a matching smile grow on his face and then fade away.
“You almost didn’t make it back,” he says softly. Clarke’s expression sobers.
“But I did make it.”
“I thought--” The words get stuck in his throat and he clears it, looks back at the burning earth. It hurts to picture her dying that way. To imagine all the ways she would have been suffering.
“I know.” She stretches her legs out in front of her, pokes his knee with her toe. “But we have enough to worry about. Don’t add what-if’s to the list.”
He unfurls his own legs, knocking his knee into hers.
“Run me through your list, then. Let’s see if ours match.”
“Well, we need to get the algae up and running.”
“That one’s a given.”
“Monty’s hands need tending to.”
“Of course.”
“And then there’s the eight of us ourselves…” She trails off, thoughtful. “We’ve got a lot of wild cards, and most of us have tried to kill each other at some point.”
“That’s putting it lightly,” he snorts. “I don’t think Emori trusts any of us.”
“And I don’t think any of us trust Echo,” she agrees. “Raven tried to sell Murphy out when the grounders were after Finn--”
“And that was after Murphy tried to hang me.”
“Technically, we hanged him first.”
“So we’re even.” He tips his head back against the wall and lets his eyes close. Through his lids, he can still discern an orange glow, but it seems softer this way. “I’m not that worried about him. He’s proven to be handy in a crisis.”
“My mom and Jaha think he has a lot of potential,” she says, and he can hear the smile in her voice. It’s nice. “I’m not really that worried about any of us killing each other, but-- if we can’t work together it’s going to make surviving up here harder.”
“Yeah.” He sighs, not wanting to think about it. “What else?”
“Hmm?”
“What else are you worried about?”
“Oh. Depression. Nutrition. Our ability to keep the Ring functioning for five years.” She pauses. “Contraception.”
Bellamy chokes on nothing, his eyes flying open to find her looking smug as shit.
“Contraception is that high on the list?”
“A baby is the last thing we need,” she shrugs. “And abortions weren’t covered in my limited apprenticeship before I got sent to the skybox. I doubt we’re all going to be celibate for the next five years, especially existing couples. So…” She shrugs. “Something to think about.”
“That definitely wasn’t on my list,” Bellamy manages at last, earning a soft laugh.
“So what’s on yours that wasn’t on mine?”
He hums, thinking through it. It hasn’t really hit him yet that they’re back in space. Clarke named most of the big concerns already, and he’s sure there will be plenty of unanticipated obstacles to deal with. So instead of listing off any one of his thousands of fears, he says, “Aliens.”
Clarke’s laugh is sharper this time, surprised. He grins at her, pleased to have wrested it out of her.
“You watched too many science fiction movies growing up,” she teases. “Or read too many sci fi books, more likely.”
“Clarke, we were born on a space station. In the past year alone, we’ve had mad scientists kidnap us for our bone marrow, a rogue AI try to wipe us out, and found out that some people have black blood that protects them from radiation. We already live in a science fiction reality. Aliens aren’t that much of a stretch.”
Despite the horrors of all they’d been through, as he mentions each one, Clarke’s grin grows giddier and giddier until she bursts into uncontrollable laughter. A grin overtakes his own face as he watches her, delighted at her easy reaction.
“You’re right,” she says at last, dabbing fingertips at the corners of her eyes. “The threat of hostile aliens should definitely go on my list.”
He pinches her calf, catching her ankle when she tries to kick him for it.
“I’m glad you’ve seen my side of things.”
They sit there for a long time as everyone else sleeps, at times making plans for the next few weeks, but mostly lapsing into contented, contemplative silence as they try to wrap their minds around the prospect of the five years ahead of them.
No grounders trying to kill them. No Council rules with the threat of floating hanging over their heads. It’s the most free Bellamy has felt since those first few hours on the ground and he savors the feeling, knowing the constraints of living on the ring will start to chafe sooner or later.
As the sun begins to emerge from behind the earth, Clarke tries to smother a yawn behind the sleeves she has pulled up over her palms, her fingers curling over the hem.
“You should go sleep,” he says, fond. “It’s been a long day. And I’m sure the oxygen deprivation didn’t help.”
“Did you pick a room yet?” She asks, not moving.
He shakes his head. He’s been too busy worrying about Octavia to give in to the sleep tugging at his consciousness.
Clarke bites her lip and looks away, like she’s thinking about saying something but hasn’t made up her mind yet. He taps his foot against her hip, calling her attention back.
“Spit it out, Princess.”
She looks him up and down, evaluating.
“I don’t sleep so well on my own,” she admits at last. “It’s not a big deal or anything, but-- never mind.”
“You want to be roommates?” He teases, heart pounding for reasons he doesn’t want to think about right now.
“It’s probably weird,” she mutters. “I can ask Raven tomorrow. I just thought--”
“No.” Her face falls and he realizes his mistake. “Shit, I mean-- No, don’t ask Raven. Yes, we can share a place. I get it.” He looks down at his hands. “I don’t sleep for long periods of time usually, but-- it helps just to lie there through the night with my eyes closed. And maybe catch naps here and there during the day.”
He thinks about the last time he’d had the chance to do that. How he’d been helping her with the list and slumped further and further on that couch until he was staring up at the ceiling. And then staring at the insides of his eyelids. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep and leave that burden on her alone, but he’d been too tired to resist. And maybe too comfortable, knowing that Clarke wouldn’t let anything happen to him while he was out.
“How long has that been going on?” She asks, and he wonders if she’s remembering that too.
“Since Mount Weather,” he says lightly. He’s never told her the full extent of what he went through in the mountain. She doesn’t need that weight on her shoulders. Not when she feels so guilty for sending him there in the first place. “Maybe before. Hard to let your guard down on the ground.”
“Well, you can let it down up here,” she says, standing and holding out a hand to help him up. He takes it, faltering when standing puts them too close.
She doesn’t move, and for a moment neither does he. Then she clears her throat, steps back, and says, “Follow me.”
“And why would I do that?” He teases, swaggering after her in a mockery of himself all those months ago. Clarke snorts under her breath.
“Because out of the two of us, I’m the one who already picked a room big enough for two.”
“So you were just assuming I’d say yes, huh?”
She shoots him a look over her shoulder, but it’s almost apologetic instead of annoyed. “There’s only one bed in it right now. But there’s space for a second one, I just couldn’t move it on my own.”
“We can get it in the morning.” His mouth is suddenly very dry, which is stupid. “I don’t mind sleeping on the floor for a night.”
“Don’t be an idiot. We can share the bed. We’re both adults.”
It takes him a moment to find his words. “If you’re sure.”
The back of her neck turns red.
“I am.”
By the time they get to the room that Clarke has chosen, she has that determined look in her eye he knows means she’s not about to back down, no matter how uncomfortable it might be. And if she’s not backing down, there’s no way he’s about to.
She pulls back the thick blanket and slips between the sheets first, scooting over until she’s up against the far wall.
Bellamy takes his time removing one boot, then the other, folding his jacket and socks meticulously.
“I can’t tell if this is your bedtime routine or if you’re stalling,” says Clarke. When he looks up at her, she’s got one hand propped between her face and the pillow, blue eyes glazed with exhaustion beneath heavy lids.
“Why would I be stalling?” He lies, knowing the tic of his jaw is giving him away. He stands and gets ready to slide in next to her but she makes a soft noise of disapproval and he freezes. Has she changed her mind?
But, “You’re planning to sleep in those?” is her only protest. Bellamy follows her gaze down to his pants in surprise.
“I--”
“You can, obviously. They just look uncomfortable to me.” Her ears and neck turn red again, putting Bellamy at ease. At least she isn’t totally immune to the novelty of this.
“I see what’s happening,” he teases, turning to sit on the edge of the bed with his back toward her as he quickly shucks the garment. “This was all one big ploy to get my pants off, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, you got me. Evil plan exposed.”
“Thought so.” He swivels around and tugs the covers over him, groaning as he melts into the mattress. It’s the softest thing he’s felt in months.
When he glances beside him, Clarke’s eyes have closed all the way. Whether to give him privacy while changing or because she couldn’t keep them open any longer, he isn’t sure.
“Quit staring and go to sleep,” she mumbles without opening them.
Bellamy grins into the dark and turns his head to look straight upward again. “Whatever you say, Princess.”
* * *
It’s the best sleep he’s had in a long time.
* * *
The months pass much as they expect, growing sick of algae quickly and sick of each other at a steady, if slower, pace. They also grow closer, though.
Clarke had never spent much time with Harper before, but when they both lose badly enough at poker that they end up with cleaning duty together for three weeks, they quickly bond over plotting revenge against Monty and Emori.
Bellamy, prone to restlessness, begins jogging laps around the Ring. At first he does it in the afternoons, when he’s finished his chores and they’ve got nothing but time to fill, but Raven snaps after a week, telling him she can’t concentrate with his boots pounding past her every time she’s just getting in the zone. And, well, her efforts to keep the Ring in functioning shape-- mostly on her own-- are more important than his excess energy, so he takes to jogging his laps before anyone else is awake.
Echo joins him on his third morning, matching his pace easily. They don’t speak, but when he finally slows to a stop in front of his and Clarke’s compartment, they exchange breathless nods before slipping into their respective rooms. She doesn’t show every morning after that, but after a while he stops worrying that she’ll gut him in the abandoned section where nobody would find him until long after he’d bled out.
“That’s comforting,” says Clarke dryly when Bellamy mentions this to her.
“It actually is,” he admits. “One less thing on the list, right?”
“For you, maybe.”
She makes a noise of frustration and Bellamy pauses in getting dressed. He thought she was washing her face or whatever it was she did in the bathroom in the morning. But-- she has been in there an awfully long time.
“You okay?” He asks, frowning at the door.
“Fine,” Clarke sighs, and then the door swings open. Bellamy steps through tentatively, his confusion clearing to surprise when he sees her glaring at her own reflection, shearing her hair shorter with choppy, sharp movements. “I can’t see the back very well,” she says when he catches her eye in the mirror. “Can you help me?”
“Should have just asked me to begin with,” he says, shaking his head and taking the knife from her.
She holds perfectly still as he combs through her hair, soft as silk between his fingers. His cuts are gentler, cleaner than Clarke’s jerky motions had been, and after he makes sure it’s all the same length, he begins making the front and sides less severe than she had done.
“What inspired this change?” He asks after a few minutes of silence. Clarke shrugs, jostling her head and he scowls. “Hold still or I’m going to stab you in the head. And since you’re the doctor, I’m pretty sure we’d all die.”
“I’ve been teaching Murphy a few things,” she muses. “You wouldn’t die immediately.”
“Oh, good. A slow death is much more comforting.”
He can see traces of a smile in her reflection and swallows down his own.
“Honestly?” She says, going back to his original question. “I just got bored. My hair is so much harder to manage when it’s short that I’m already regretting it, but at least it’ll give me something to do.”
Bellamy hums, finishing the last cut and brushing loose strands off her shoulders.
“All done,” he announces, voice gruff as he realizes just how close they’re standing. His eyes lift to the mirror again and meet hers instantly. He balks at the soft glow there.
“Thanks.”
He wets his lips. “Anytime.”
After that he’s the one everyone comes to for a trim or a cut. He’d like to say that Clarke is the only one he trusts to hold a knife anywhere near his person, but after seeing the hack job she did on herself, he winces at the thought of letting her do the same to him. Instead, she sulks as she holds the mirror as he gives himself a careful trim in the common area, where the light is better.
“How’s it look?” He asks when he finishes, turning his head side-to-side and wincing at the itch of cut hairs on his neck.
“The front looks good,” she grumbles. “But from the back it’s absolutely hideous.”
Bellamy scoffs and calls over to Raven and Harper, “Is that true, or is Clarke just being petty?”
“It looks fine,” Raven snorts. “And even if it didn’t, you’re hot enough to make up for bad hair.”
“I’ll drink to that,” says Harper, lifting her water with a smirk. “You should have seen it when we first got to the ground.”
“Bad?”
“I’m not sure ‘bad’ is strong enough,” Harper answers at the same time Clarke replies, “Just imagine all the gel we ever made on the Ark got put on his head all at once. On purpose.”
Raven cackles and even Monty starts laughing from the corner where he’s fiddling with something technical. Bellamy scrubs at his neck with a wet towel and glares at each of them in turn.
“You’re opening a can of worms here,” he grumbles to Clarke. “I haven’t forgotten your grounder-chic phase. You really want to start a ‘worst looks’ competition?”
“That’s true,” Raven puts in. “You guys have both gone through some rough patches.”
“Don’t you start with me either, Reyes.”
Raven tosses her ponytail over one shoulder, smirking. “Come at me, Blake. I’m flawless and always have been.”
“That’s hard to argue with,” Clarke says, with a smile that looks like it comes easier every time he sees it on her face.
He loves that smile. Loves-- Well, maybe he’s not ready to admit everything. Not yet. But seeing her smile like that, unburdened and teasing, lifts a weight off his own shoulders he hadn’t fully realized he was carrying.
Which is why his first instinct is not to panic but to smile when he steps into the doorway of Monty’s room one day and finds Clarke collapsed on the floor, giggling.
“What’s going on here?” He asks, a smile dawning on his own face.
Monty shakes his head, fond, as Clarke dissolves further into laughter. “She offered to help me get a still up and running.”
“Is that so?” Bellamy asks, eyebrows lifting.
Clarke pushes herself to standing, wobbling to one side as she goes, and tries to swat Bellamy’s hands away when he reaches out to steady her.
“I am fun,” she tells him, jabbing a finger at his chest.
“I can see that.” He looks over to Monty. “Is helping code for taste-testing?”
“I’m the hands,” Clarke says, sagging her weight into him as if it’s just too much work to remain upright on her own. “And the mouth. Monty is the brains, so he had to stay--”
Unable to find the word she wants, she just taps a finger against her temple.
“Sober?” Bellamy offers.
“Yes!” She beams at him. “You’re smo-- smart.” She pokes his temple too and Bellamy jerks back before she can stab his eye out. Her finger falls to his cheek, tracing from one freckle to the next. “And pretty.”
“I tried to tell her I can hold my booze better than she can, but I think she took that as a challenge,” Monty says, slowly working a part into the intricate setup he’s got. His fine motor skills are still a work in progress, but if anyone has the patience to make it work, it’s him.
“I can hold my booze and I can hold yours too.”
“Yeah, you really showed me.” Monty shakes his head. “You got her?”
“I got her,” Bellamy agrees. “Come on, Princess.”
“Where?” She wants to know, stumbling even as he supports half her weight.
“Back to our room. I think some water and a nice nap would be good for you right about now.”
“It’s so far,” she whines, leaning her full weight into him so suddenly that he nearly drops her. Bellamy sighs and bends down, hoisting her over his shoulder. Clarke squeaks in surprise but starts laughing again as he carries her back down the hall with her feet in his peripheral vision and her head hanging upside down.
“You okay back there?” He teases when she erupts into yet another peal of laughter.
“It looks so funny.”
“What?”
“Everything.” He feels something smack his ass and pauses, trying to figure out what just happened. “No, don’t stop,” she demands, wiggling her legs and patting his backside again. “Faster!”
“You heard the lady,” Murphy says, rounding the corner, headed for his own room. He’s got the smuggest look on his face Bellamy has ever seen.
Bellamy thinks it speaks to his own credit how little he wants to punch Murphy despite it.
Progress.
“I’m not picking the pace up,” Bellamy tells them both, fighting a smile. “The last thing I want is for you to get sick all over my back.”
“You know I’m never letting her live this down,” Murphy calls after him.
“I’m never letting you live your face down!” She calls back, quieting as Bellamy’s laughter bounces her.
“That was a pretty good comeback, Princess. For the state you’re in.”
She sighs and wraps her arms around his middle. He can feel her nuzzling her face into his back. “‘M tired.”
“I know. We’re almost there.”
By the time he lowers her into their bed, Clarke is almost passed out. She mumbles incoherently as he gets her shoes off but manages to wriggle out of her own pants as he fills a cup with water for her.
“Hang on, don’t fall asleep yet,” he says, sitting next to where she has curled on her side and shaking her shoulder gently. “Drink this first.”
“Don’t wanna drink any more.”
“It’s not moonshine, it’s water.”
“Don’t care.”
Bellamy sighs exaggeratedly. “I guess I’ll have to tell Monty he was right. He is better at handling his liquor.”
One blue eye cracks open, then the other, and he knows he's got her. Good thing she's a contrary drunk. She glares at him as she takes the cup from his hands and tries to down it in a single gulp.
“Careful,” he says, dabbing at her face with the hem of his shirt when water dribbles out of her mouth. “Slow down.”
“That’s quitter talk.”
Bellamy huffs a laugh, letting her drain the cup and then placing it on the bedside table.
“Get some sleep,” he says, starting to get up. Clarke grabs him by the shirt and pulls him back down.
“Sleep with me,” she says, eyes closed, words slurred and drowsy. “I like it better when you’re here.”
Bellamy sighs like it’s some great burden and toes his own boots off before sliding in beside her. “Princess gets what she wants, I guess.”
Clarke hums and curls practically on top of him, tangling their bodies together and nuzzling into his chest as if it’s a pillow. Frozen at first, Bellamy slowly winds an arm around her waist.
“You gonna be mad at me in the morning I let you embarrass yourself like this?”
“I’m not embarrassed,” she says, voice muffled by his shirt. He combs strands of hair away from her mouth carefully.
“You’re on top of me right now.”
“You’re comfy.”
“And you slapped my ass back there. Twice. In front of Murphy.”
“It’s a good ass.”
Her voice is absent and he doesn’t even have time to formulate a response before she drifts off completely. Instead he just lies awake until his brain spins in circles long enough to wear him out, and follows after her into sleep.
* * *
Bellamy wouldn’t have thought it possible to avoid someone on the Ring. There are only so many places to hide, only so many other people to talk to.
But for the first time ever, Clarke is already up and gone when he wakes for his early-morning run. She skips breakfast, swaps chores with Emori, and by the time dinner rolls around Bellamy realizes he hasn’t seen her all day.
So he grabs two helpings of Murphy’s latest concoction and heads for the makeshift med bay they’d set up, unsurprised to find her there sterilizing the few tools they do have.
“This couldn’t wait, huh?”
She jumps at the sound of his voice, shooting him a glare.
“Don’t startle me like that.”
“Don’t skip meals,” he shoots back, setting down her bowl a little harder than he means to.
“I’m busy.”
“You’re avoiding me.”
Her expression turns guilty and he sighs. He’d hoped he was wrong. That there was something else at work here beyond her not wanting to see him. Of course that had been too much to ask.
“I’m sorry,” she says, taking the bowl and sniffing at it skeptically. “I feel like I crossed a line yesterday.”
“Which part?” He teases, nudging her with his elbow. “The part where you fell asleep on top of me? Or the part where you complimented certain parts of my anatomy?”
Clarke groans and drops her chin to her chest, her cheeks flushing pink.
“All of the above? I wish I could go back and tell myself not to drink those last few cups of moonshine.”
“Last few?” He shakes his head. “How much did you have?”
“Not enough to forget.” She lifts her head and gives him a sheepish smile. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I completely understand if you want to find a new place to sleep. Or if you want me to, since I’m the one--”
“Why would I want that?” He interrupts. Her jaw snaps shut. “You know I’m not shy about speaking my mind. I wouldn’t have stayed last night if I hadn’t wanted to.”
He stops himself there before he goes on to say anything he doesn’t mean to. Before he bares too much of his soul to take it back.
But Clarke, as always, seems to hear the things he doesn’t say.
Slowly, deliberately, she sets down her bowl and steps toward him.
“You always put other people before yourself,” she says, taking his bowl too and putting it aside. “So if you didn’t stay just because I asked… I don’t know that I’d be able to tell the difference unless you said something.”
Bellamy swallows, grips the counter harder behind him as she steps closer into his space.
“What do you want me to say?” He asks, heat creeping up the back of his neck when his voice comes out huskier than he intends.
“What do you want to say?” Clarke asks, her own voice low and quiet.
She’s standing so close, chin tilted up to stare him straight in the eye, it doesn’t take much for him to reach out and crush her to him. His lips descend on hers like a man starving and Clarke presses herself impossibly closer, meeting his passion with her own. The world seems to spin around them, and if his brain could string words together right now, he’d be glad they were doing this in the med bay.
Before he knows it, he’s got Clarke up on the counter, her legs around his waist and her hands woven into his hair. He breaks away to catch his ragged breaths and clear his mind but she immediately starts kissing down his neck, so-- that doesn’t work.
“Clarke.”
“Bellamy.”
He laughs and makes himself loosen his grip on her waist, releasing one finger after the other. “We have time. And a room. We don’t have to--”
“I know.” His lips find her ear and she shudders, fingers digging into the muscles of his back. “We shouldn’t in here anyway. I just sanitized--”
He laughs and settles in to kiss her again, slower this time, though just as deep. He wants it to last forever. Wishes it could.
In the end, they stay and make out until their lips are numb with it, then Clarke finishes putting everything away while Bellamy disposes of their long-abandoned dinners.
“This was on my list, you know,” she says as they begin the stroll back to their room. “My list of things to worry about.”
“What was? Drunk Clarke mortifying sober Clarke?”
“No.” She catches his hand in her own. “Figuring out how to tell you.”
“Oh.” He links their fingers together, his heart soaring even at the simple touch. “You never had anything to worry about.”
“When has that ever stopped us?”
He laughs. “Good point. But we’ve got food, we’ve got water. We've figured out vitamins and antidepressants and contraceptives. Nobody has tried to kill each other. You and I made this happen.” He squeezes her hand. “That’s everything crossed off, right?”
“I guess it is,” she marvels, as if this hadn’t occurred to her yet. “Well, everything except for aliens.”
Bellamy laughs louder, a pleased smile curling on Clarke’s face.
“Except for aliens,” he agrees. “But I figure we can cross that bridge when we come to it. Save those worries for tomorrow.”
Clarke smiles and squeezes his hand right back. “Sounds good to me.”