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He wasn’t even sure his heart was still beating. He couldn’t feel it in his chest. The blood was draining from his face. He couldn’t seem to breathe anymore either. It made sense.
But he knew it was just a trick of his mind, an attempt to convince himself that time wasn’t running out, that the seconds weren’t still ticking by as he waited with his eyes on lab entrance.
They had to go. They had to go now. What was that she’d said about the head and the heart? His heart was failing him now, but his head was all over the place.
They had to go. He knew it. His head was screaming it at him, in a voice that sounded a hell of a lot like Clarke.
He took a tentative step back towards the rocket, then another. He made his way over without ever taking his eyes off the door.
“Bellamy…”
Raven’s reluctant whisper didn’t come from far behind him. He was close. Once he made it into that rocket, it was over. She’d be—
He tore his eyes from the door, praying that Raven would tell him she was wrong, that they could wait another minute, that…
But the tortured look in her eyes was enough to tell him he was being ridiculous. There was no hope. Clarke wasn’t coming back and if he didn’t get on that ship right now… it was all in vain.
“Oh, thank god!” Raven’s face lit up as if the world wasn’t ending at all. “Clarke, run!”
He whipped around, and this time his heart had actually stopped at the sight of her sprinting down the stairs, hurtling towards him. Later he would blame the fact that he’d stopped breathing right then for his complete lack of memory of those moments. All he knew was he practically threw her into the ship before jumping in after her.
She held his hand when they took off, their rubbery gloves sticking to each other as she panted for air.
When he finally tore off his helmet, his eyes immediately found Clarke. She stared into nothingness, her breathing still heavy.
He took her face in his hands, made her look in his eyes.
“Clarke. You did it. We made it. We all made it.”
Her big eyes swallowed him whole before she crashed into his arms.
He hardly let her out of his sight for a week. After a few days of waking up to find him asleep sitting up beside her bed, she simply followed him to his own room the next night and curled up in his arms.
No one had to say a word.