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She heard footsteps approaching and looked up to see Bellamy entering the ring of firelight.
He looked tired. She wondered whether he’d been out on today’s hunting trip. If so, she was surprised to find him awake so late - she was only up because Madi had needed stories to fall asleep. Clarke was worried. Madi's nightmares were coming more and more frequently, and on those nights when she did finally sleep, her breathing even and the tension gone from her shoulders, Clarke kept having to step outside to walk off her own brewing sense of panic.
She smiled at Bellamy gently as he took a seat on the log perpendicular to hers, but she was careful not to let it touch her eyes. Everything she did had been careful these last few weeks, everything she said. It was tiring, admittedly, but it was working.
“Hey,” he grunted, leaning forward to rest elbows on knees.
“Hey.”
A few moments of silence while they both watched the fire crackle before them.
“Were you out hunting today?”
“No, no. I went on Saturday. I’m trying to pull some guard duty this week. Miller’s still operating on Octavia’s every beck and call, and I keep trying to reach out to him. I thought maybe that when you broke through to him about the hike to the valley, it would stick, but now... they can’t see the danger that they’re putting themselves in. This blind loyalty is going to do more harm than good in the long run, and they don’t see it.”
“Mm.”
She didn’t go on. More silence.
Then a shift from where he sat to her left, and his voice, softly -
“Clarke.”
She inhaled evenly before turning to him. He was staring at her, confused. There was a wrinkle between his brows.
Shit.
She thought it’d been working.
“You okay?” he asked.
She tried to shake off her sense of dread. “Yeah.”
Yet more silence. She turned back to the fire, hoping to avoid the impending conversation entirely. “Sorry. You’re right - Wonkru’s not huge as it is, and if they keep following Octavia like they are now, they’re gonna get themselves killed. They’ve already lost a third of their people to those fights, and twelve to that sandstorm. It can’t go on indefinitely.”
“Clarke.”
She inhaled again, staring straight forward. Exhaled. She stared at a leaf in that had just fluttered into the coals. Its edges were glowing red. He spoke again.
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
She frowned at this - that was one thing she’d been careful (so careful) not to do.
“No, I haven’t.”
He scoffed, and she looked up to see his eyebrows raised in disbelief. God, he looked tired.
“We’ve seen each other every day this week, Bellamy. If I’m avoiding you, I’m doing a really bad job of it.”
“Come on, Clarke, you know what I mean. If not me, then - then conversation with me.” She bit her cheek. “You barely responded to me just now,” he insisted gently, eyes flickering.
She couldn’t deny this. It was a long time ago now that she’d promised herself she’d be honest with him. Now that he was here, looking so upset - and, Jesus, so tired - she found it wasn’t a promise that she could break. His face was rounder than it used to be. She nodded, and said quietly, “Okay, yeah. Maybe I’ve been avoiding you a little bit.”
He sat up straight.
“Why? Clarke, what’s happening?”
More than anything else, there was concern in his voice. Clarke licked her lips. She still hadn’t pieced through the situation entirely herself. It was still mostly a feeling, one strong and deep enough that had it had to be acted upon. But now he was asking. It was hurting him, so she had to try to find the words. She forced herself to concentrate.
“I didn’t know,” she started, “about you and Echo.”
If anything this seemed to confuse him further.
“Bellamy,” she sighed, “you and I, we… we know each other better than anyone.” He was listening intently and made no move to correct her. “But - shouldn’t that be Echo’s role now? Shouldn’t she be the one that you tell this stuff to? That you talk about this stuff with?”
He blinked and opened his mouth to reply, but stopped. It took him a minute to respond, and she waited.
“I do talk about these things with her, and… Clarke, you and I have just been through more together. We’ve known each other longer. Me being with Echo doesn’t just make that go away.”
She nodded. “I know, but maybe - maybe it takes a back seat.” He kept frowning. She tried again to identify the ache in her gut when she thought of their talks, the head and the heart, and of Echo’s absence from them, but Echo’s presence in his tent when he finally went to bed tonight. “It just feels like this is something that should be Echo’s now. This is something that should be yours, together. I feel like I’m taking up space, knowing you this way. She deserves to know you like this, and to be the only one who does.”
A hand lifted from Bellamy’s lap to run through his hair seemingly of its own accord, his focus off somewhere in the dark beyond the campfire.
“So what does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” she murmured. Her heart was aching now too.
“Clarke…”
“Bellamy, I really don’t know. I didn’t say anything before because I didn’t know how to say it. I’m not even doing a good job now. I just know that something needs to change.” And now an ache in her throat, a pressure behind her eyes that threatened to burst. She kept breathing. He met her gaze and her resolve wavered infinitesimally.
“So you’re gonna keep skimping on our conversations? Keep giving me one-word answers? Clarke, come on. We - we’re partners.”
“Yeah, but so are you and Echo, now. A different kind, maybe, but an important kind. There needs to be a balance, and I don’t know how it’ll work but it’s not there yet. That’s all I’m looking for. That’s all I’ve been trying to do, is find that. ” She was pleading with him at this point, but he only looked more tired than when she’d begun, and she didn’t know what else to say. He was staring, unmoving, into the fire now, and she could tell that he was desperately trying to understand, to find a solution. None came, and the silence became unbearable. The fire burned low. Clarke shivered.
She soon got to her feet and turned to leave, but hesitated. He was staring somewhere near her midriff when she looked back.
“Six years is a long time. You built a family up on the Ring, and I found one down here. Maybe we just… we just stick to those. For now.”
He was pleading now, too. His eyes sparkled when he looked up at her.
“Clarke, you’re my family too.”
She couldn’t -- he wouldn’t understand, no matter what she said. This was a goodbye. A small one, maybe temporary, but a goodbye nonetheless, and she had to make him see it. Her throat tight, she moved to sit beside him, knees knocking against his, and she laid a hand on his forearm.
“I know,” she whispered, “But I’m not Echo. I don’t know what I am, but there needs to be a difference.”
She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his cheek, overcome by emotion just as the last time she’d done it, even though this situation wasn’t half as heavy.
Somehow it felt heavier.
The walk back to her tent was cold.