Archive of Our Own ^beta

As Clarke made her way back to the ground, she kept her eyes shut. The light conversation around her felt like a shrill humming in her ears, puncturing and inflicting a gnawing endless pain in her chest every time one of them whispered ‘is she okay?’ thinking she couldn’t hear it. No, she wasn’t okay. But she was also feeling feeble and lost and even the thought of lifting her head and using her voice to ask them to shut up felt like too much. 

She had lost her mother twice that day: for a moment, when Abby pointed that gun at the Primes, she felt her chest laden with hope, only to have it taken away from her within seconds, like a dreary, twisted joke she couldn't find the will to laugh at. She could still feel her mother’s skin under her fingertips — so warm, unlike the woman who was using her body as a vessel — as she gruffly pushed her to her death.

She killed her mother.

Clarke clenched her fists around Madi’s shirt, tightening her grip on the little girl’s body and burying her face in her shoulder even deeper. She had almost lost her too, her kid — the girl who once gave her hope in a bleak world filled with nothingness — and now her tiny arms wrapped around her neck were the only things keeping her grounded.

She didn’t cry, not after holding a gun to her own head in front of Madi, regardless of the threatening tears pricking her heavy eyelids. Clarke wasn’t a teenager anymore; she couldn’t give in to the desire to lie down and hide under her dome of sadness to protect herself from all the pain that jolted her own heart with deride. Madi depended on her, now more than ever, and seeing Clarke almost taking her own life hadn’t been easy for her. She could still remember Madi’s eyes, widened and terrified, reflecting her own.

She had to be strong.

For a brief second, she thought she had a lapse in her memory when she found herself rousing from what seemed to be a reverie, walking numbly towards Sanctum with the rest of her people, Madi’s hand damp from sweat and slightly shaky inside her own. She had stopped crying. It made Clarke feel less of a monster.

She killed her own mother.

Clarke clenched her jaw and took in the scenario in front of her: dead bodies, clouds of smoke flying into the sky and fading away as its grayness dissolved into nothingness, her own heart clenching and aching for the lives they lost. She didn’t like the hint of selfishness that emerged from within when she silently prayed that those motionless bodies weren’t theirs, their own people’s. 

Bellamy.

She let out a shaky breath and an anguish sound escaped her throat as she looked around, frantically looking for the man who saved her life, the one who risked everything to keep her safe, the one she would risk everything to keep safe as well. The familiar pang prodded at her insides: need. She needed him. She needed his arms, his comfort, his words. She knew she would break the second she found him — and God, she needed to find him well and alive — because he was her harbor and she would never be able to hide anything from him. And as she saw Jackson sprinting into the arms of his boyfriend with yearning, followed by every one of her friends, and Madi letting go of her hand to hug Gaia, she finally spotted him.

When his eyes met Clarke’s, relief washed over her like waves laving the shore, calming and soothing, overshadowing everything else and making her forget, even if momentarily, about the pain and the grief. She saw him stopping in his tracks and almost felt the alleviation that inundated his body and softened his gaze over her.

There was never a need for words between them; Bellamy’s eyes were like pages of a book she could recite from memory, a beautiful mess of brown that could soothe her with a single look. But they were just as efficient at making her vulnerable and she could already feel the turmoil of emotions delving into her as she ran to him, — drawing strength solely from the fact that he was doing the same now — meeting Bellamy halfway to throw her body at him; their chests collided, but he didn’t even flinch, with a devastating yet comforting reminder that he was her rock: solid, steady and strong. She didn’t have to be strong anymore, because he was. He was strong for the both of them.

She felt his arms enveloping her immediately, wistfully, anchoring her to the present, adjusting his chin on her shoulder and holding her like she was the last tinge of hope, like he was hers. She closed her eyes and buried her face in the crook of his neck, inhaling his scent, grasping every inch of skin her hands could find to ascertain he was real.

She could feel his heart beating against her own at the same rhythm, like a lilting song that reminded her how they needed each other to find balance. Nothing was right in the world, not right now, but she had Bellamy. It had never occurred to her up until that moment that she associated Bellamy with safeness.  

He loosened his grip on her and she drew a sharp breath as he slid his hands from her back to her arms; her own hands finding the inside of his elbows, clinging to him like she could vanish into thin air like the smoke that surrounded them if she let go. 

Bellamy’s eyes bore into hers with compassion and caring, a mixture that prodded at her insides and forced her tears to break the barrier she had tried to build just a couple of minutes ago, with Madi by her side. 

“I heard about Abby,” he said, his eyebrows knitting in empathy and sorrow. 

Her chin quivered, but she gritted her teeth in a failed attempt to make it stop. The image of her own mother being floated, yanked from her just like her heart seemed to be shattering into tiny pieces, permanently engraved in her brain.

“I tried to do better,” she whispered, listening to her own voice breaking. Bellamy’s fingers curled firmly around her arm, squeezing it gently, telling her that he felt her pain. He felt it in his core. She could see in his eyes. “I did, and then I lost my mom.” She pressed her lips together in an unwavering line, struggling to contain the tears that were already moistening her eyelashes and blurring Bellamy’s face. Monty’s words still echoed in her mind like a loud hammering pounding and drilling her skull agonizingly, causing excruciating pain. I hope we do better. Be the good guys. She tried — God, she did — but now there were dead people all around them. Now her mother was dead. She looked up at Bellamy again. “Tell me it was worth it,” she pleaded. “Tell me— tell me it was worth it.”

“Hey, hey,” he said softly as his hands went up a little bit, his thumbs sliding across the insides of her arms soothingly. His eyes were pools of tenderness and it only made her swallow a lump in her throat. Bellamy leaned in, his face even closer now in order to force her to listen to his words warily. “We did. We did do better. I have to believe that that matters.”

His tone, ever so affectionate and understanding, was what it took to break her. He pulled her into another hug before another tear could fall down, leaving a scorching trail of grief and heartbreak on her skin; he knew what she needed before she even knew it herself, and as she laid her cheek on his shoulder — letting her guard down, allowing him to peer into her soul, dampening the fabric of his cardigan with her tears — she felt his breath brushing her hair. He didn’t say anything, because they both knew that no words could make her feel better, and at that realization, a sob tore from her throat: a harrowing sound that made her shoulders tremble and his arms tighten around her body.

“I’m an orphan now,” she whispered with a faltering voice, something that resembled a child. “I saw my father being floated, and it hurt so much, Bellamy,” she cried, hiding her face into his shoulder while he slowly moved his hand to the back of her head, as if holding her still. She noticed her entire body was shaking from the shock and Bellamy’s fingers were now touching the stitches in the back of her neck, but the pain didn’t match the emptiness in her chest. “And now I saw my mom being floated too. But it hurt much more. I didn’t think it could hurt more, but it did. It does. I killed her.”

“Clarke, no,” he hastened to say in a soft tone. “You didn’t kill her. The Primes did that. That’s not your fault. None of this is your fault.”

But even though his refusal to acknowledge her words created tendrils of warmth inside her chest, she couldn’t help but feel deceived. Whether it was guilt or the sheer fact that she was still, somehow, his best friend, he wouldn’t let her believe she was a monster.

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not lying. I promise you,” he said forlornly, like he needed her to believe it; like he keenly believed it himself. She closed her eyes and pressed her face to his neck. “We did the best we could, Clarke. They killed Abby. That wasn’t you. I promise that wasn’t you.”

“Do you really believe that?”

The way he squeezed her even tighter should be enough of an answer, but he replied nevertheless.

“Yes, I do.”

She let out a shaky sigh and felt her body go rigid at the sound of Madi’s voice nearby. Clarke quickly disentangled herself from Bellamy and harshly wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. Bellamy looked at her, his eyebrows scrunched together in confusion at the sudden movement, his hands still firmly placed on her back. 

“Clarke?”

“I’m okay,” she managed, attempting to feign a smile and failing miserably. 

“You’re not okay,” he countered, gently. “And that’s okay. You don’t have to fake it, not with me.”

“I have to, for Madi.”

His eyes focused something behind her promptly and she didn’t have to turn around to know it was Madi. Bellamy quickly shifted his eyes to her, nodding almost imperceptibly as he scanned her face warily. She wondered if his mind had briefly turned into a jumble of memories from his time on the Ark, taking care of Octavia. He had told her stories about that time, tales of innocence and fear that somehow still made his eyes glisten with nostalgia. He told her about having to be strong for her, having to learn how to mask his sadness or cover the truth with a smile that killed him from the inside.

She knew what that was like now.

“You need to rest,” he said, simply.

“I can’t—”

“Yes, you can,” he retorted gingerly. “You and Madi. Come on.”

She let herself be guided by his hand gently wrapped around her arm, awfully numbed to offer some kind of resistance — not that she would have done it, anyway, for she was certain she wouldn’t be able to function for much longer, at least not until she had enough time to process everything that had happened. 

Clarke was vaguely aware of Madi’s hand now wrapped inside one of hers, while Bellamy’s had found its way around her other. He quickly led them to a room and in a matter of minutes, she was safely curled up under a soft blanket, her arm firmly pressed around Madi’s body, pulling her into her own chest until she could bury her chin on top of her head. The urge to cry was still obstructing her throat, scratching it with invisible sharp nails that made her grit her teeth until they hurt. She opened her eyes and saw Bellamy staring back at her, standing right beside the bed, his face unhinged.

“Don’t go,” she pleaded softly, trying to keep her drowsiness from taking her away from reality. She needed to know he’d be there when she finally closed her eyes.

“I won’t.”

She nodded languidly and watched as he headed to settle on the other bed, resting his back against the headboard and visibly sighing as he fixed his eyes on her. Clarke welcomed the feeling of safeness as she let her heavy eyelids finally close and almost instantly introduce her to a much less vile world of dreams. 

***

Clarke woke up with a pleasant warmth spreading across her chest, one that subsided and was replaced by a feeling of loss as soon as she realized the cause of that sensation had only been a dream. She saw her mother again: warm hands, gentle smile, tears in her eyes upon seeing her daughter alive. Clarke couldn’t fathom the fact that those traits had been completely erased the moment Simone took over her body; she looked just like her mother, except she didn’t.

The aggravating pain that twisted and turned inside her chest, puncturing her heart until she could no longer breathe easily, returned abruptly, like one of those tsunamis she read about on the Ark: unannounced, destroying everything in sight with a wave that couldn’t be stopped.

She could feel Madi’s steady breath against her neck, her warmth reminding her that she was fine and alive. Annoyed by the unwitting tear that rolled down her face, she opened her eyes to find Bellamy, still sitting on the other bed; he had his knees flexed, elbows rested on them, head sagged forward against his hands. If it weren’t for the slight drumming of his fingertips on his forehead, she would’ve assumed he had fallen asleep.

Clarke carefully removed her arm from Madi and rolled out of the bed in silence. Bellamy must’ve had taken off her shoes before helping her lay on the bed, because she was now only wearing her socks and the cold metal floor under the fabric made her quiver as she made her way to the other bed. He only noticed her presence when the mattress shifted under her weight and she adjusted herself by his side, pulling her knees to her chest to hug her shins.

Bellamy dropped his hands on his lap and turned his face to her, although she kept her own eyes on Madi on the other side of the room. She wondered if she was having a good dream, similar to the one she’d just had. Her heart shrank at the memory of Abby beaming at her, tears in her eyes, saying: ‘go save us all. Again.’

She couldn’t save them all.

“Do you ever think about your mom?" she whispered, letting her head fall back and rest against the headboard.

She could see him nodding his head, his eyes still glued to the side of her face.

"Yeah."

"I can't stop seeing her face. Even when I'm awake."

"I know."

For a moment, all she could hear was a slight hum of conversation outside, too distant to be understandable, and Bellamy’s soft breathing. Her eyes found his and she could easily pinpoint the uncertainty mixed with trepidation that overwhelmed him. 

“It’s not gonna be easy, Clarke,” he finally said. “It’s gonna hurt. Sometimes it’s gonna hurt so much that you won't be able to get out of bed. You won’t want to do anything else but stare at the ceiling for hours. And you're gonna remember her every second of the day. Even when you think you forgot about it, she’s gonna be there. You may be drawing or talking to friends or just walking and suddenly she’s gonna be there.”

Clarke tightened her arms around her legs, sinking her nails into her skin; she could feel the emptiness now, like a crooked hole that had been carved in her heart and could never be filled again. She knew Bellamy’s uneasiness came from the dilemma of lying to make her feel better or telling the truth and make her bleed even more. And it hurt. It hurt like hell, and she knew pain all too well. But she’d rather have the truth.

“But then it's gonna get easier. With time, you'll be able to think about her without crying and even smile at the memories."

His eyes searched for hers with gentleness, but she lowered her head and slowly opened her hands, staring at them with disgust and agony. She silently wondered if those feelings would ever simmer down, if she would ever be able to stop looking at her hands and vividly remembering the moment they pushed Abby. Bellamy’s hands captured hers swiftly and her eyes flickered to his face almost instantly, flummoxed. 

"It wasn't your fault. Okay?"

Her head jerked in frantic disagreement.

"You're saying that because—"

"Because it's true,” he affirmed with conviction. “I wouldn't lie to you, Clarke. I already said that. Trust me."

She did. She trusted him more than she trusted herself, but his words didn’t sound right in her ears; they didn’t sound right when she could still feel her mother’s skin under her fingers. She didn’t realize she had been clenching her fists inside his hands until Bellamy carefully opened them; his movements were too tender, too gentle. She didn’t deserve that. She didn’t deserve words of encouragement or sympathy or him for that matter.

But she needed him. And she selfishly allowed him to envelop her hands with his one more time, drawing invisible circles on her knuckles.  

"Everyone died. I'm alone now.” The comprehension felt like a punch to her stomach and her breath hitched when she tried to swallow more tears. “I know it's selfish, I... I just..."

"I'm here,” he hastened to say, drawing his face closer to hers as if to compel her to listen to his words. “I'm here, you're not alone. You'll never be alone, Clarke."

"But that's just the thing, Bellamy. Everyone that stays with me dies. That's what I do."

"Clarke—"

"I ruin things. I kill people. Wells, Finn, Lexa, Jasper, my mom. I almost got you killed. You almost died because of me—"

"No. No, Clarke. I won't let you do this to yourself. Listen to me. Listen to me," he repeated when she tried to avert her eyes. Clarke squeezed them eyes shut, embracing the painful memories like an old friend. "You've been carrying the weight of so many deaths on your shoulder. You were a kid forced to make decisions. I was there with you for most of them, I get to share the burden.”

A sob escaped from her lips and she fluttered her eyes open, incapable to even entertain the idea that Bellamy could earnestly want to share her pain. He didn’t have to pull the lever with her on Mount Weather, he did it so that she wouldn’t have to grapple with the fact that she murdered hundreds of innocent people; he did it so that she could find redemption in the fact that she did it for their people. He did it and he continued to do it and she loved him for it. She loved him with every fiber of her body, with every beat of her heart; she loved him like it was human need.

“And you leaving me to die? I have to ask for your forgiveness, Clarke. You trusted me to protect Madi and I put the flame in her head. That's gonna be on my conscience for the rest of my life and I will never, never, hold you to that.” He gulped, his eyebrows scrunched in clear agony. A different emotion flickered in his eyes, but she couldn’t read it under the thick layer of tears that dampened her own. “I didn't have the right to do that. I was so scared. I was so scared that I was gonna lose you.”

She felt her lips quivering, tugging at the corners with a spasm she couldn’t control. Bellamy tilted his head to the side, almost hopelessly. 

"I poisoned my sister for you."

“What?” Her eyes widened at the revelation, decimating the urge to cry for a moment and twisting her insides. She could see his face much clearer now and despite her perplexity, the evident unusual shyness that contorted his mouth and instigated him to look away were proof that his words were true. 

"It wasn't for our people, Clarke. It was for you.” She took a deep breath and the shaky sound made him turn to her again, somewhat concerned. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for how things turned out, but I couldn't lose you. You are too important to me, too. I should've told you that when you said that to me. I should've told you you're my family. Because you are. And I can't— I won't leave you. Or Madi. I won't leave your side. So if you want to... we'll do this together."

Together. That word used to be merely another adverb inside the old and heavy dictionary her father used to keep in his drawer. Now it meant so much more; it embodied her entire relationship with Bellamy, a relationship built on trust, complicity and sharing. He shared her burden, she shared his; he shared her sorrows, she shared his; and now he was sharing one more tragedy, one more death, one more bullet to her heart. 

Bellamy let go of her hands and pulled her to his side, embracing her firmly; she laid her cheek on his shoulder, her palm placed on his chest where his heart beat calmly. She closed her eyes and focused on every beat as if she needed to memorize its pattern; she could almost hear it now, sending waves of serenity and comfort through her body.

Clarke felt him rest his cheek on the top of her head, whispering something under his breath. She wasn’t able to comprehend the words, but she didn’t have the energy to question him about it either. 

"I'm gonna be right here with you."

"I'm afraid," she confessed, feeling slightly embarrassed. If this was someone else beside her, she wouldn’t expose her soul like that. Perhaps anyone could’ve discerned her fear from miles away, but she would never be brave enough to reveal it spontaneously, because there was a callous nudge inside her that convinced her that being afraid was being weak, that they would all find her fragile and powerless. She was once the commander of death, how could she dare to be afraid? But this was Bellamy, and she knew he wouldn’t judge her. She knew she was safe right there, inside his arms, away from everyone else.

"I know."

"What if I can't be there for Madi? She needs me. I can't break, not again."

Clarke felt his muscles tighten around her and mentally cursed herself for being so careless. He would find out, eventually, that she had held a gun to her own head in front of her people; in front of Madi. He would find out that she had been close enough to pull the trigger, close enough to take her own life out of despair and misery. But it didn’t change the fact that she didn’t want him to find out. 

"Not again?" he whispered hoarsely, and she couldn’t determine if it was for his fear of having Madi hearing that conversation or his incapacity to find his own voice. 

She fell silent, her body as still as the walls that surrounded them, separating them from the world outside, blocking all the sounds safe for her own quickening breathing. His heart began to race under her hand and she was able to draw a bittersweet conclusion from his response: he cared about her. 

He cared about her enough not to want her to take her own life. 

Yet he cared enough about her for her to easily disappoint him — and that was bound to happen.

"Clarke?" he prodded, sliding one of his hands down her arm until he reached her wrist; his fingers wrapped around it with ease.

"She was just scared on the ship."

"Why?"

"Bellamy." She intended to put a stop to that conversation, but her voice broke and her reproach sounded like a plea instead.

He squeezed her wrist gently and she felt him nodding against her head, but his body remained as tense as before.  

"Okay. That’s okay, you don't have to tell me."

She gritted her teeth, curving her fingers around the fabric of his shirt, crumpling it with all the strength that was left in her body. Suddenly, her mind was overrun by the abject images of the most recent events: a lever, her mother dying, a gun to her head, Madi’s face wet with tears, her body shaking as Sheidheda tried to kill her, darkness.

"I put a gun to my head,” she mumbled, choking on her own tears. Bellamy’s hand let go of her wrist languidly and he took a few seconds to tighten his arms around her once again. “She was so scared."

"What?"

"I'd lost my mom. You nearly lost your life trying to save me. I thought I'd lose Madi too. I thought maybe she would fight Sheidheda and come back to me. She did. But then she almost died. I failed her so many times. And I can't—” Her voice trailed off, squeaky due to the tears that had already broken free. Her throat hurt from trying to swallow the lump that had been stuck there for so long.

She hadn’t cried all the tears yet; her chest was inflated with guilt, sadness, loneliness, fear. She knew she had done bad things and she had endured the consequences of her actions; but she tried — she did — and every time she made a mistake, there was a finger pointed at her. She had spent six years with only one person on Earth, but she had never felt more alone than among her own people in the last weeks. Bellamy was all she had besides Madi now, and the mere fact that he was right there, assuring her with the soft movement of his fingers sliding over her shoulders that he understood and that he wouldn’t leave her alone, was comforting, hopeful. 

"Oh, Clarke," he said, and his voice sounded just as broken as hers. It stung. "This is not fair. None of this is fair. But please, please, never think about taking your own life. Please, Clarke. If that ever crosses your mind, come talk to me. Madi is fine. And I'll make sure that she stays fine every single day. You didn’t fail her. And you’ll never fail her either. You're the best thing that's ever happened to this kid. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me."

Her hand slid to his side in an attempt to pull him even closer to her and he responded by carding her hair with his fingers. It had been more than a hundred years since he found her alive on Earth, but in cryo, it felt like days; she still craved human touch for the lack of contact with anyone else besides Madi during those six years; she still craved warmth and love. She craved him. Because he happened to be the best thing that had ever happened to her as well, just like Madi, and hearing him say the same to her was definitely more than she could have hoped for. 

"It's okay to break and to cry. You've lost so much, Clarke. But we're here, you’ve got me and Madi and our friends. You'll heal, it just takes a little time."

"Thank you. Not just for this, Bellamy. For everything you did."

"You don't need to thank me. Do you have any idea,” he began, moving his hand to her shoulder once again, “of how much I need you?"

She swallowed hard, allowing those words to reach her heart and appease the agony and grief; he had said the same thing only a couple of days ago, right after her heart stopped. She felt that; she felt her heartbeat decreasing agonizingly quick, charging her lungs with one last painful breath of air before wiping it clean. Everything went silent for brief seconds and there was only a blazing glow of light when Josephine slit her throat. But then she heard it, loud and clear: a heartbeat — soon she’d find out it was Bellamy’s fist pounding against her motionless chest, serving as her own heart. Then, it was his voice. She was ready to forfeit until she heard it, the familiar and warm tone marred with anguish and desperation: he told her to fight, he told her to live.

Clarke, I need you.

It was the plea, the begging in his statement that gave her strength. Soon after, she felt the frenzied touch of shaky hands, skin as cold as marble against her slick face from the sweat, the taste of salt, sun and earth on her mouth. There was pressure on her lips, air being blown into her lungs, forcing her body to revive.

He brought her back to life.

And all she could hear since then, replaying inside her mind like one of those broken CD’s Jaha let her and Wells play with when they were kids, was ‘Clarke, I need you.’ It felt good to be needed, to have someone fighting for her life. To have him fighting for her.

"I do,” he resumed. “God, I need you, Clarke. You don't ruin things, you make them better. I'd save you again, no matter what."

Clarke slid her head to his chest, tucking her hand under her cheek. 

"I heard you."

"What do you mean?"

"When my heart stopped. I heard you telling me to fight. I felt you pumping my heart and blowing air into my lungs. Josephine had almost killed me. But I heard you and I got up to fight. I came back because of you."

She heard him gulping, suddenly conscious of the fact that he had stopped stroking her shoulder. 

"Oh.” The interjection was barely a whisper, if not a breathy sound. His heartbeat quickened under her palm, but she didn’t mind it. She was almost certain that if she removed her hand from there, she would still be able to feel it reverberating through her veins. “I'm... sorry."

She frowned, despite the fact he couldn’t see her face. 

"You’re apologizing for saving my life?"

"I got a little carried away. I might've hurt you."

He did. Her chest still ached every time she took a deep breath, but it also reminded her that she was still there because of him. 

"I told Madi to fight too,” she said. “When she was having a seizure, I told her what you told me. She came back to me."

"She's just as strong as you."

"I don't know if I'm that strong."

"You survived the end of the world, Clarke,” he reminded, his tone almost lighthearted if it wasn’t for the trace of guilt she could hear behind his words; for leaving her behind, for going to space thinking she was dead. “I think it’s safe to say you're pretty strong."

She let out a tepid chuckle that seemed to drain her energy.

"You and Madi got me through that."

"Well, we wouldn't have if you hadn't set your mind on staying alive. There’s strength in deciding to live."

Clarke sighed weakly, remembering the first time she held a gun to her head. If she closed her eyes, she could still feel her throat raw with the lack of water, her lips as dry as the immense and endless desert where she had fallen on her knees on, her salty tears being the only drops of water reaching her lips in days since Praimfaya as she cursed at the universe for taking everything away from her. She could still remember her shaky hand as she held the gun, her lungs hurting from the sobs that overwhelmed her body, the crude anticipation for the bullet about to cross her brain. She would never tell anyone how close she had been to pulling the trigger. 

"Clarke?" he tried softly, trailing his thumb across her jaw with gentle movements that made her shudder. "You are the strongest person I know. That's why I know you can do this."

His assertiveness was alleviating, like a fragment of light breaking through that painful hole in her heart after a long period of being in the dark. Bellamy began to stroke her arm lightly, drawing absent patterns on them with his fingertips.

"Hey, have I ever told you the story of Cloelia?" he asked.

She lifted her chin to adjust her head on his chest and whispered a faint ‘no’ as she frowned at the sudden change of topic. Bellamy cleared his throat, the sound reverberating in his chest like a low rumble. 

"She's considered the bravest and wittiest of all women in Roman history. After the war between Rome and Clusium came to an end, the Etruscan king took Roman hostages.” His voice assumed the assured tone it always did when he was talking about mythology and if she wasn’t so comfortable settled inside his arms, she would’ve straightened only to watch his eyes glistening with delight as he told her that story. Bellamy had already told her millions of tales about Roman and Greek mythology — and every time he did, he would always stop mid-sentence and ask her if it was boring her. It never did, and she always found it adorable how he couldn’t stop gushing about it once he started. “Cloelia was one of them. She escaped the hostage camps leading a group of Romans. The king then made a condition for her return and when she did return, he was so impressed by her courage that he granted her wish to take half of the hostages. You've always reminded me of her. Since the beginning. You were sent to Earth, forced to survive. Yet you led an entire group of people, you took responsibilities that weren’t yours, you fought for them all. You were never scared, you were smart and brave. You are all of those things. You saved us all, Clarke."

She huffed through her nose softly, even though his words had sent a wave of warmth that was spreading like wildfire through her body right now. With another sigh, she noticed the tears had dried out and he had managed to calm her down and wane the pain. 

"I don't know how you manage to see me so differently."

Gradually, she felt his heart speeding up under her palm and she tried to lift her head the moment he reached for her hand in order to quickly remove it from his chest, holding it against his own leg.

"What is it?" she asked, slightly concerned by his demeanor.

"Nothing."

"Bellamy," she prodded in disbelief, breaking free from his embrace only to meet his eyes. His were focused on their joined hands, however.

"That's not—" He sighed, interrupting his own answer with a subtle swing of his head. "Not now."

"You can tell me anything."

"I know that."

But he didn’t provide any other sort of answer to the question her eyes were silently asking him. It wasn’t typical of Bellamy to dodge questions and look away, much less to act so bashful about something so banal. That’s why she knew it wasn’t banal; there was a reason for his sudden change of behavior and a battle being fought inside his head as she stared at his face. 

A flick of fervor ran through her veins as abruptly as she pulled her hand out of his, causing him to tense up without even shifting his gaze to her.

"Please," she insisted, a subtle beg that finally made him look at her. His eyes seemed to reflect her own uncertainty. The more she stared into them, the more she comprehended what he had been telling her for so long without saying a single word. "Tell me. Please."

She knew he cared about her deeply; he left their friends behind, endangering their lives, for the mere possibility of saving hers. He didn’t give up on her, not even when her heart stopped beating. He was crying out for her when her body was still and cold, telling her to come back. And even though the voice in the back of her mind screamed at her the reasons why he did it, she needed to hear them. She needed a confirmation that she wasn’t insane, that she wasn’t imagining things or wishing for them so vehemently that it was messing with her head.

"Clarke..." he whispered back, knitting his eyebrows in an expression of agony that seemed to prickle her skin like millions of tiny needles. For a sole moment, all he did was stare at her and when she felt like she couldn't bear the intensity of his eyes any longer, he said: "It doesn't matter what makes me see you differently, it's just the truth. You saved us."

"It matters to me."

Her persistence was clearly arduous to him and she commiserated on the fact that he was probably trying to avoid more emotions. She had just suffered a trauma and he had just managed to calm her down. But her chest ached, and she missed her mother, and she was profoundly scared for Madi, and she needed him. Like the flowers need the sun or the soil needs water, she needed him. 

They weren’t touching now, but his eyes were so powerful over hers that it felt more intimate than any brush of fingertips or breath on her skin. She swung her head back and forth with an apologetic smile on her lips. 

"I'm sorry."

"Why are you sorry?"

She didn't have an answer. Maybe she didn't want to pressure him or maybe she was only creating scenarios in her mind that weren’t even close to the truth; maybe she wanted her presumptions to be real so desperately that she was willing to decode his actions and words and take them as confirmation of her wishes. 

Bellamy blinked and reached for her hand before she could ask him what he was doing. Slowly, he raised her hand to his lips and placed a light kiss on her knuckles, her eyes following every move with the attention she would give the subject of one of her drawings. She was certain that she would draw this exact moment in her sketchbook when nighttime came and she was left alone with her own thoughts.  

She held her breath when he looked at her through his eyelashes.

"I love you, Clarke."

Clarke drew a sharp breath. Nothing could have prepared her to hear those words coming out of his lips so candidly, so laden with raw emotion and sincerity. Bellamy began to shake his head subtly, almost regretful; it took her a few seconds to understand he was reading her stillness as a rejection, an uncertainty about how to act in order to let him down easy.

"I told you it wasn't the best—"

She cut him off abruptly, leaning in to press her lips against his. If the way his body tensed when her hand found his jaw didn’t serve as an indicative that he wasn’t expecting that reaction, the surprised sound that escaped his throat did. When the shock dissolved and he breathed against her skin, making the hair on her arm stand up involuntarily, he parted his lips to kiss her back. 

They tasted exactly like they did one day ago. Salt. Sun. Earth. She woke up from literal death that day with his taste on her lips and it took her a few minutes to remember that they had been responsible for bringing oxygen to her lungs. Yet now, they took her breath away.

He never mentioned what he did to save her life and she wondered if that was the reason why; he kept to himself when she laid down on the bed in Gabriel’s tent, holding her hand until she fell asleep from exhaustion. They never had any chance to talk about it afterwards.

Bellamy’s hands held her face and hers stopped at his shoulders, her thumbs brushing the visible skin of the sides of his neck. The jumble of emotions that caused the storm inside her now felt excessive, unbearable; she could still discern the sadness and hopelessness, but now there was also a tinge of bliss and an abundance of love; a fragment of certainty that her life wouldn’t be easy for a long period of time, but the weight of the grief would feel a lot lighter as long as she had Bellamy by her side. 

Clarke tasted the salt in his lips again, but realized it was from her own tears; he broke apart from her as soon as he noticed the same and she nodded her head to signal that she was okay, using one hand to dry her face. She managed to crack a smile — a subtle tweak of her lips that incited him to lean forward just enough to press his forehead against hers, their noses bumping slightly.

"I love you. So much, Bellamy."

Her eyes were closed now, but she could hear the faint gasp that fled his lips. They stayed in silence for so long, only feeling each other’s breath, that Clarke startled them both when she suddenly jerked her head back to cast an apologetic glance his way. Bellamy frowned.

"I'm sorry,” she said tersely. “I shouldn't have done that."

"What? Why? It's okay, Clarke."

"No. No, it's not," she asserted, nodding her head in a disapproving gesture. She had done this before with Finn, being the other woman without knowing it. But Bellamy had a girlfriend — one she knew for a long time — and she would never repeat the same mistake or hurt her purposefully. She knew that Bellamy wouldn’t either. The guilt creeped into her skin like an itching she couldn’t seem to be able to stop.

Bellamy’s eyes shone with comprehension and he shook his head with a small smile plastered across his lips. 

"We broke up. After I nearly lost my mind thinking I'd lost you. She knew. She’s always known."

The relief she felt upon hearing those words made heat rise from her chest to her cheeks from the guilt and she looked away bashfully. She would be lying if she said she never wished they weren’t together, but she didn’t want him to know that; whenever those thoughts emerged, she punished herself for even thinking about that. 

Bellamy whispered a soft ‘hey’, holding her chin with his fingers and tilting her head back to hold her gaze. She threw her arms around his neck and he quickly embraced her one more time, nuzzling her neck with his nose.

"I'm never losing you again,” he said. “And I'm never leaving your side, okay?"

"Okay."

He peppered her cheek with soft kisses, each a silent promise of hope for the difficult days ahead; Clarke closed her eyes and swallowed hard, intertwining her hands around his shoulders and allowing him to carry the weight that had been pushing her down for such a long time. 

"Don't let go yet," she asked softly.

"I wasn't going to."