Chapter Text
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Clarke was going to faint. She could feel the dizziness creeping up into her brain, and the world seemed to sway. It was her own legs giving out beneath her, but to her, it was the world that was all wrong. A moving, living thing. She stumbled, and then it felt like she was floating softly downward through a sea of clouds. She wondered if this was how falling through the sky outside of a spaceship felt like. She had never flown through the sky before.
Before she hit anything hard, her vision and consciousness temporarily blacked out. The world was gone for a matter of seconds, peaceful and deep like the comfort of sleep. When she came to, Clarke’s eyes fluttered open slowly. She could see the treetops above her. Shafts of sunlight shot through the golden green leaves, landing on her face to warm it.
She was being carried in a pair of arms.
Clarke glanced over at her rescuer. To her surprise, it was Bellamy carrying her. Not Finn. She stared at him blankly at first, her lips parted in shock. When she blinked her eyes, she closed her mouth. She was so exhausted. She shut her eyes again, unable to argue with reality, and let her head fall against Bellamy’s chest.
“Did you catch me before I fell?” Clarke managed to ask.
“Maybe,” Bellamy replied. “Or maybe you hit your head and now you’re dreaming.”
“I’m not dreaming,” Clarke protested.
“Oh yeah?” Bellamy said. “How come?”
“Because you stink,” Clarke answered softly. She was so, so tired. Despite her comment on his smell, she breathed in deeply, her fingers curling unconsciously against the material of his shirt. “You don’t smell anything in dreams.”
“Astute as always, Clarke,” Bellamy joked, but he didn’t sound angry about it.
“Where are you taking me?” Clarke asked him.
“Somewhere where you can lie down,” he told her, and not a moment later, Clarke felt the flap of a tent slide against her legs. Suddenly, the sun was gone and so was the heat. It was cool and comfortable and dark. Clarke was laid upon a thick blanket and a makeshift pillow. It was soft. A lot softer than her own. Her head rolled to the side, but she couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes again. The pillow was cool, and when she laid her cheek against it, she sighed comfortably.
She heard a rustle, and the tent flap flew open to let in a stream of sunlight.
“Is she okay?” Monty asked quickly, his voice full of concern. “Is she sick? What’s wrong with her?”
“Yeah, is she going to be alright?” Jasper asked next, equally as worried as Monty.
“She’ll be fine,” Bellamy said firmly. “She’s just tired is all. She needs some rest to recover her strength.”
“She hasn’t been sleeping much lately,” Monty offered. “She said so last night while I was working on the comm system.”
“I saw her giving her rations away to the kids in the group, too,” Jasper added knowingly.
“I’m right here,” Clarke mumbled out loud, but she couldn’t bother to turn over and face them.
“Guys, clear out of here,” Bellamy argued with them. “Let her get some sleep. C’mon, get out of here.”
Clarke heard Bellamy shooing them away, and then he spoke from the flap of the tent.
“Get some rest, Clarke,” he said softly. “You’ll need it.”
Clarke heard the tent flap fall as a brief ray of light filled the tent, and then it was gone. Slowly, she turned over onto her side and opened her eyes to gaze where Bellamy had been standing just moments ago, but he was already gone.
Sighing, Clarke closed her eyes and tried to do what he said. Get some sleep. She curled into a ball on her side, sliding her hand under the pillow and hugging it close as she lay on it. She didn’t need a blanket to cover her. It was cool, but not chilly. Before long, she slipped into a deep sleep. She was resting on her side, and then there was blackness. When her eyes opened up again, she was in outer space, surrounded by blackness on all sides. When she looked forward, though, the Earth loomed before her, a large and terrifying thing pulling her closer and closer with its pull of gravity. She could see the green lands, the sandy deserts, the white ice caps, and the deep blue oceans. All of them, charging towards her.
The pull became so strong that it was like she was falling. Falling, falling through space towards the Earth. Her hair whipped behind her, and fires sparked up around her as she accelerated through the atmosphere. Surprisingly, despite her fear of burning, she didn’t feel the fire. It was like it wasn’t there, but it was. Eventually, the sheer force against her splayed her arms out to either side of her body. Falling, falling through space, burning like a star.
Just as the Earth became closer and Clarke was going to scream, her eyes shot open to the darkness before her. There was a blue wash of color to the black. Like moonlight. Moonlight she had never seen until her time on Earth. Clarke realized she was pressed against someone’s back, her arm curled over his arm, her hand gripping his shoulder too tight with her nails digging in. His messy black hair was the first thing in her line of sight. He smelled clean. Nice. Like soap, Clarke thought. She loosened the tight grip of her fingers on his shoulder, but she didn’t let go of him.
She recalled Bellamy bringing her back to her tent, and then she realized with a sudden shock who it might be lying down with her. With her hand still on his shoulder, she lifted her head to look over his back at the side of his face, but she didn’t have to. At the same time that she lifted herself to look at him, he slowly turned his head to look at her, too.
Bellamy, Clarke thought with a bolt of shock again.
It wasn’t Finn this time either.
It was Bellamy.
“Hey,” he said, and she realized by the drowsy tone of his voice that he had been asleep, too. “Wait,” Bellamy added, suddenly sounding confused. “I fell asleep five feet away from you.”
Clarke looked over her shoulder behind her. She was on the edge of the makeshift bed, touching a fine line of waterproof tent material between the blanket of the main bed and another one that Bellamy had thrown down beside it for his own place to sleep apart from her. She blinked in surprise and turned back to him.
“Sorry,” she said, “I must’ve moved in my sleep.”
Despite her apology, she didn’t move away from him. Her body was still pressed against his back, and it felt comfortable. It felt nice. Clarke didn’t want to pull away and lie down alone again. She swallowed past a lump forming in her throat. She was afraid Bellamy might get the wrong idea, but he just lied there, looking up at her through his dark locks.
“You okay?” he finally asked, breaking the odd tension that had formed between them.
Clarke was silent at first. “No,” she said in a quiet voice, finding her honesty yet another surprise. She was tired of being tough. She was always tough, and he wasn’t judging her. “I had a bad dream.”
“About what?”
“Falling through space,” she said, recalling the way it felt. The air roaring around her, but there wasn’t air in outer space. It was just the pull of gravity as she broke through the atmosphere. “And burning. I was burning, but I couldn’t feel it. It was the falling that scared me.”
Bellamy breathed in deeply, and he shifted onto his back. Clarke had to pull back some, but she didn’t pull away completely. She kept her hand on his shoulder. Bellamy noticed, and he glanced down at her fingers. His eyes looked up at her face again.
“I’ve had that dream before,” he revealed, lowering his voice, too. “It’s scary, I know.”
Clarke never thought in all her time here that she would have ever heard Bellamy admit he was scared of something. She had seen it in his face before, but he had never said it out loud. He had never given it that power, that validation. She realized her mouth was open, and she realized that Bellamy was staring at her.
“Look at us,” Clarke said, huffing in disbelief.
“Hmm,” Bellamy inquired wordlessly, tilting his head to the side as he looked up at her.
“Admitting our fears,” she said softly. “To each other.”
“Hmph,” Bellamy said, a small smile curving the corner of his lips. “Yeah, who would’ve thought, huh?”
His smile caused her to smile, too, but she grinned instead. It felt nice. Her hand flattened against his shoulder, and then it slid a few inches lower. His skin was warm. She could feel it through his shirt. Clarke thought about lifting her hand away from him, but she couldn’t pull it away. It was too comforting, human touch. She didn’t want to pull away, she realized.
Her eyes had fallen to his chest. Bellamy was wearing a clean shirt. Clarke recognized the scent of soap again as she breathed in, and she remembered her comment to him earlier. You stink, she had said. He didn’t stink now.
Had he washed? Clarke thought. Had he washed for her?
The thought was so alien, foreign to her, that she felt herself yet again experiencing the brusque feeling of astonishment as it filled her up to the brim. Her lips were parted again, her eyes shining with it as she stared down at his shirt. Her fingers were moving over his chest, lowering themselves along the curve beneath his shoulder. Bellamy’s chest rose and fell a little quicker than normal, a little more pronounced than before. Her fingers followed an indented path across his chest until they reached the dip in the center. She traced her fingers lightly, watching them pass over his shirt.
“Clarke . . . ” Bellamy said below his breath, his voice laced with a slight strain.
She paused the movements of her hand and looked up at his face. Bellamy was staring up at her, a pained expression on his face.
“Yes?” she whispered, gently tapping two of her fingers against him.
“Is there a reason you’re touching me?” Bellamy asked in a murmur. His eyes were dark, but they seemed to glint as they caught the moonlight.
Clarke opened her mouth to say something, but found no words immediately. She didn’t know what to say now that it was acknowledged out loud. There was a strange pull to him, a magnetism she couldn’t explain. The air was electric with it. She felt if she touched him with her other hand that she would shock him. Clarke breathed out, allowing herself another moment of honesty with her guard down.
“It feels nice,” she answered softly.
She watched his expression. He was still. Afraid of discomfort, Clarke thought maybe now she should pull away. Bellamy surely didn’t want her touching him. He didn’t think of her that way, and she had never really thought of him that way either.
She went to pull her hand away, and Bellamy stopped her by laying his hand atop her own on his chest. Clarke froze, breathing in slowly. Her eyes lifted to his face, and he was still looking at her. She felt his fingers gently curl underneath her palm and his thumb grace over her fingers. The motion was so soft, so unlike him, and it sent a slight tingle through her hand. She felt it in her back, behind her neck, even though he hadn’t touched her there. The little hairs on her skin stood on end as he stared up at her in the darkness, and for that moment, Clarke didn’t want to pull away.
“It does,” Bellamy answered just as softly, and Clarke felt the four walls she had built around herself begin to crumble at the gentleness in his voice.
“Can I just stay here tonight?” Clarke asked him suddenly, feeling more vulnerable than ever with the request. “Can I just . . . lie here . . . with you? Or would that be weird?”
“No, you can stay,” he told her, shaking his head. “It doesn’t bother me.”
“You don’t think I want to sleep with you, do you?” Clarke asked, feeling a little unsure about it.
Bellamy huffed in amusement. “Not unless you say you want to sleep with me, princess,” he joked, and at the sudden shift in her expression, his own softened up again. “Clarke,” he added seriously.
Clarke felt the tightness in her lips loosen. “Okay,” she said. She went to lay her head down against his chest, but she paused halfway there and looked at him again. “You don’t mind if I lay my head against your chest, do you?”
Bellamy’s dark eyes were looking down his chest, regarding her in the moonlight. He shook his head again. “No,” he said in a low voice. “I don’t mind.”
Taking a deep breath, Clarke finally rested the side of her face against his chest. She scooted closer to him to make it comfortable. She was partially draped over his body, but he didn’t seem to mind. Bellamy still held her hand, pulling it closer towards his collarbone to get both of their hands out of her way.
His thumb grazed her knuckles, and Clarke gently twisted her hand in his grasp to flatten it against his palm. She laced her fingers with his and curled them to a close. Her eyes fluttered shut, and she took a deep calming breath.
Bellamy curled his fingers over her hand as well, and like that, they fell asleep together in Bellamy’s tent.
For the rest of the night, Clarke didn’t have anymore nightmares.