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Clarke is no Titan, but in the rare quiet moments when Bellamy brings up ancient myths, she can’t help but empathize with Atlas. Except instead of the weight of the world on her shoulders, it is in the palm of her hand, millions of pounds weighing down her pen as she marks the page, each swoop of her handwriting taking strength Clarke isn’t sure she has. It’s not a burden she chose to carry, but now it’s one she must. If she doesn’t bear this weight, who will?
So she sits at the Chancellor’s desk, the sky burning into her tense shoulders. Clarke is not a Chancellor, or a leader; she lost the right to any notion of that when she abandoned her people. Maybe even before that.
Yet she sits at the Chancellor’s desk.
Name 99 is easy, she thinks as her gaze falls on Bellamy asleep on the couch. He looks more peaceful now than she’s seen him since—Clarke doesn’t want to think about the last time any of them have felt peace. Even now, there are still traces of panic on him, marks that he is not old enough to have: scars that she couldn’t heal without leaving a mark, worry lines that don’t belong on a face so young.
If Clarke had the time, she would use every second to map out the freckles on his face, his body, even, if he’d let her. She would count how many rest on his face, trace them into his dimples, over his cheekbones, push back his curls to see them dust his forehead.
If no one else were seeing this list, Clarke might be tempted to put Bellamy’s name at the very top, but she can’t justify it to prying eyes. What matters is that he makes the list. His name sits in the second to last spot in permanent ink.
He’s a leader, one they’ll need if they have any hope of surviving. Their people turned to Bellamy when Clarke was gone, when freedom was won and life had to move on. And what did Clarke do? She ran.
Bellamy was there for the day-to-day life. Bellamy was there for the mourning of those they lost. Bellamy was there to pick them back up and help them move on.
They don’t need someone like Clarke with him around; the thought is a great comfort, honestly.
All Clarke does is hurt the people she loves. Jasper hates her for what happened at Mount Weather, and Clarke can’t blame him. Look at what it’s done to him, after all. That’s what Clarke does: create shells of people. The ones she doesn’t murder, that is.
Name 100 is the hardest. It shouldn’t be. Clarke doesn’t deserve this; she can’t think of a single reason to put her name down.
Tears well up in her eyes, and she doesn’t search for a reason. If there isn’t an immediate one, why would she? There are 400 other people this spot could go to, and each one would be more deserving than she is.
Clarke takes a shuddering breath to hold back her tears. This isn’t a moment to show weakness, this is a moment to right her wrongs. Maybe doing better today means giving up her spot, making the day her last one, sacrifice as her last act.
Clarke doesn’t know what better is. She isn’t sure if it exists anymore, same as good . Better and good existed before the bombs, but there is no space for them here. Only survival. Only the continuation of the human race.
Which will happen with or without her, won’t it? Or even thrive in her absence, given her hand in the destruction of it. Clarke has enough blood on her hands to ink this page thousands of times over.
Bellamy stirs after a few more shaky breaths fight their way out of Clarke’s throat. His eyes find her the moment he wakes, and they soften with a sympathy reserved for so few that Clarke will lose her mind trying to list them. She takes in the way his shirt stretches over his shoulders, his cargo pants settle on his hips, all the ways he is more man than boy as that protective look spreads over his face, loving and fierce all at once.
Clarke makes no effort to hide her tears as he walks over; Bellamy has seen the worst of her already. His voice cuts through the aching quiet of the room.
“If I’m on that list, you’re on that list,” he says, like it’s easy.
And maybe it is for him. Bellamy sees her as his equal, he’s made that clear, but Clarke has fallen so much further than he has. He’s broken, but not unfixable. Clarke isn’t sure where on that spectrum she falls.
He led in her place when she left; he doesn’t need her, at least not as much as he thinks, as much as he’s insisting now. When Clarke left, Bellamy stepped up and did what he thought was best for their people. Clarke became the Commander of Death.
“I can’t, Bellamy,” she chokes out. It’s all too much; she doesn’t deserve it—
“Write it down.” His voice is gentle and understanding and all the things that could still break her. “Write it down, or I will.”
All Clarke can do is weakly shake her head while he reaches for the pen and paper. She can’t let him do this, not for her.
She protests more, children and workers and innocent people flashing before her eyes. People who aren’t murderers, who have no blood on their hands, who aren’t liars or killers or poor leaders. People she is killing by sitting idly while Bellamy writes her name.
But Bellamy is the one with the pen. He has lifted the weight of the world off her shoulders and bears it himself to save her. His hand holds the pen with the same firm grip that held hers over the lever in Mount Weather. Clarke can’t let him bloody his hands for her again.
In her desperation, her hands latch to his arm and grab for the pen, but he’s right-handed and a quick writer. Clarke doesn’t stop him in time; she just makes the N of her last name wobble.
That’s her name, bold and block-lettered in Bellamy’s handwriting, taking up the last of the space on the page.
400 faces flash before her again. Monty, Jasper, Harper, the people she loves, the people Bellamy took care of in her absence, the people she still can’t take care of now.
Rules and probabilities be damned, Clarke has to put one of them on that list. She didn’t wipe out Mount Weather just to lose them now. She has to fight back. She has a choice, and she makes it.
Clarke continues to struggle as the ink sinks into the paper. Panic seeps into her chest as Bellamy caps the pen and steps back, reading her face and shoving it in his pocket.
“Clarke,” he says softly, and dear god she can’t handle this. She has handled war after war, one mass murder after another, but Bellamy Blake saying her name like a prayer, looking at her like that , is her breaking point.
Everyone is mad at her or will be soon, so why isn’t Bellamy? He’s seen the worst of her— is seeing the worst of her—watches her play god and does it alongside her so she isn’t alone. If anyone has a reason to be mad, it’s the man in front of her. She stands and grabs at the pen, wanting a fight, wanting him to hate her as much as she hates herself right now.
Instead Bellamy grabs her shoulders and pulls her against his chest, his arms circling around her and trapping her struggling ones between their bodies. He doesn’t say a word, just holds her there while she cries against his thin t-shirt.
It’s frighteningly easy to cry like this, to let go when Clarke knows Bellamy is there to catch her. All her thoughts bubble to the surface, swirl around her restless brain with the infinite possibilities of this moment, and yet Bellamy’s embrace has her heart beating out of her chest.
Her voice is weak when she responds. “So what now?” Clarke peers up at him, dangerously close from the way he holds her.
“Now we put it away and hope we never have to use it.”
Hope doesn’t belong in a place like this, Clarke thinks. Hope died with the first bombs. There was no hope on the Ark, either: only survival. The Ark was a lifetime spent biding minutes, days, months, years, all spent waiting to get to the ground. That wasn’t living.
Living—here, now—is Bellamy, his heartbeat steady and strong against her palm.
“You still have hope?” Clarke manages.
Bellamy’s arms tighten around her, reassuring and strong. “We still breathin’?” he asks, more comfort than genuine question.
The air leaves Clarke’s lungs as she buries her face in him again, wanting to live in this bubble of safety for just a moment longer.
Naturally, she isn’t that lucky. Bellamy starts to withdraw, probably to finish his nap, and he lowers his voice to her ear.
“Get some sleep,” he says impossibly gently, and Clarke can’t bear to let him go.
Her words escape in the form of a hoarse whisper: “I can’t.” And it’s more terrifying of a confession than saying she deserves to die, but not as much as the confession she’s been shoving down since god knows how long, since something shifted between them after landing on this god-forsaken planet. “I see them, I see them all.”
Understanding flashes in Bellamy’s eyes as he pulls back to look at her, and it’s that understanding that keeps Clarke from clutching at him to keep him close.
He beckons her to the couch where he was napping, keeping her left hand encased in both of his, and gestures for her to lie down.
Clarke can’t bring herself to remove her hand.
“Please don’t go.” Her voice is small even to her own ears.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Bellamy reassures her. “Just have to look over some—”
“Please stay .” Clarke isn’t sure if she’s asking or begging, just that she rarely does either.
Bellamy pauses with his mouth open, and Clarke knows he’s reading into her word choice. The difference between don’t go and stay rings clearly in Clarke’s ears; she doubts Bellamy hears it any differently.
His eyes dart between hers carefully before relaxing. “Okay, I’ll stay.”
Clarke sighs in relief and throws herself to the couch before she can think about it. Her spine eases into place with the help of the cushions, a reminder that the last time she slept (or lay down, really) was too long ago to recall.
That’s largely because of the nightmares: hundreds, if not thousands of lives she’s taken flashing in her mind and threatening to swallow her—
The cushions dip as Bellamy eases himself down next to her, leaving just enough room between his side and Clarke’s front to leave the decision of closing the space up to her. His arm rests behind his head, giving her the opening to press against him without the obligation of a hovering hand. They could stay just as they are for as long as she needs, or…
Or Clarke could do what she’s wanted to do for far too long.
She closes the distance between them slowly at first, starting with a tentative hand on his chest, then easing herself into his space. Bellamy doesn’t urge her forward; he lets her get situated on her own, the way she needs to.
The shift between them is almost impossible to detect, but Bellamy’s arm slides around Clarke once her ear presses against his heart. It doesn’t settle in the safe space around her shoulders, but rather around her waist, his hand resting on her side. If it weren’t for the steady beat of his heart to soothe her, Clarke would be breathless.
Emboldened by Bellamy’s touch, Clarke burrows into him, sliding her arm around his waist instead of resting it on his chest. Her other arm is trapped between their bodies, resting so that her fingertips brush Bellamy’s on her waist.
It’s too much, Clarke is sure she’s crossed some line—until his fingers twitch against hers, sending licks of fire up the nerves of her arm. Their fingers lace slowly, coming together like the first beams of light on the horizon: stretching, reaching across the sky for something to touch, to warm.
Clarke can’t see Bellamy’s face from this angle, but she feels him shift as his opposite arm reaches for her. Her hair shifts off her face, and it takes Clarke a moment to realize Bellamy’s fingers sweep it back and tuck it behind her ear before continuing on to play with the strands at the base of her neck.
An entire year of Clarke’s life was spent in solitary, and every moment after that at war. War does not give you time to hold or be held. War is just war. It tears people apart.
Finn held her for a night and died by her hand. Lexa held her for the same amount of time and died in her arms the next morning.
Now they’re fighting a war against an uncaring wave of radiation, a war they cannot win, and Clarke’s mind races with all the harm that could come to Bellamy by morning, all the reasons she should run out of this room without looking back.
Through all of her racing thoughts is the rise and fall of Bellamy’s chest, and his heartbeat is not the time bomb of Finn’s or the war drum of Lexa’s: it’s just a heart beating in the chest of someone she loves, simple as that. Right now he is hope personified.
He isn’t always, though, and perhaps that’s why his hope means so much to Clarke now. She has seen Bellamy broken, just as he has her. For him to fall so low and still pick himself up has to mean something.
Clarke hasn’t felt safe since touching the ground, since watching her dad float, since he was alive to hold her when she cried, to kiss her knee when she scraped it. But being with Bellamy gives her peace she never thought she’d find.
She doesn’t have to be strong here, she realizes, and that’s when the tears fall.
Bellamy senses them before they spill, and when he became this attuned to her, Clarke doesn’t know.
But he takes her cheek in his big, calloused hand and wipes her tears with his thumb, tracing her skin even after she stops crying. He touches her like the moment is fragile, like so many moments have been before it, and he’s afraid of being the reason this one shatters. Clarke feels the world hold its breath and dares someone to call for them, for disaster to strike the way it always does when Bellamy holds her.
She’s met with silence.
Silence is foreign in Clarke’s ears. There has always been some white noise: the hum of the Ark, the noisiness of a busy camp, the bird calls in the morning. It compels Clarke not to fill it, but to make the most of it.
It has her shifting up, reluctant to let go of his hand but hopeful that they’ll be so much closer in a few moments, if only she can keep her courage that long. Bellamy’s hand doesn’t move from her cheek as she levels her face with his.
She hears her name on his lips; a few more inches and she could probably feel his breath fanning over her skin.
As Clarke moves to close the distance, Bellamy’s hand tenses on her cheek, a clear sign to stop.
Of course he stops her; this is stupid. Clarke is so stupid. He was comforting his crying friend and co-leader, and Clarke has ruined another thing, hurt another person.
“Why?” Bellamy asks (as if Clarke can give a straight answer). His brow furrows, his thumb still traces shapes into her cheek, and the look in his eyes drives the breath from Clarke’s lungs. There aren’t words for how she’s feeling, not in her vocabulary. Not on this planet.
“I don’t—I…”
“What do you want, Clarke?”
There hasn’t been room for want since whatever the hell we want , and god, has Bellamy come a long way since then. Nobody has asked Clarke what she wants since… well, ever.
But right now her answer is simple.
“You.”
Bellamy’s eyes darken, and he swallows roughly. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to be more specific, Princess.”
That nickname has become more scarce over time, but Clarke can’t help the smile tugging at her lips at the sound of it rolling fondly off Bellamy’s tongue. He used to spit it, a reminder of her privilege and all the reasons the two of them could never coexist. At some point, things changed, and Princess became a sign that he was deferring to her, that he would follow her.
Looking at you, Princess.
Even now, he follows her lead, lets her decide what she needs from this. It means more to her than words can express— he means more to her than words can express. Bellamy is all that matters.
And her people, but mostly Bellamy—especially in this moment. Clarke was there to help them survive, but Bellamy was there when the goal was to live . They could do both, she thinks, if they did it together.
Clarke shakes her head, covering his hand with her own.
“You. Just you.”
“You have me,” he breathes, an air of vulnerability in his voice. This time his breath is warm on her lips as their noses brush and their heads tilt. She can make out every single one of his freckles from here.
Bellamy’s hand slides behind her neck to close that last inch of space between them, and then his lips are on hers.
They press gently against each other at first, almost hesitant in the wake of their desire for each other. That hesitance dies when Bellamy’s fingers tighten in her hair, pulling her closer. Clarke fills with want she didn’t know she had left to give, but she gives . She gives into the passion of the kiss, into the longing she has shoved down for so long now. It rises in her chest, makes her whole body warm as she shifts up his body, winds her fingers into his soft curls.
He makes a sound of contentment against her lips, and it might seem out of place if Clarke didn’t feel the same way. Kissing Bellamy is joy unlike she’s ever tasted. A smile—a true, genuine smile—cracks her lips as they move against his.
They part too soon. She wants to kiss him again. And again. And again and again until she loses herself in him—until the burden she bears is imperceptible in the sheer magnitude of her love for him.
Bellamy looks up at her reverently, like this moment is sacred and breakable—like if they pull back another inch, they’ll lose both it and each other. His brown eyes are warm and swimming with an emotion Clarke has never pinned down until now: love.
Just in case he can’t recognize it mirrored on her own face, Clarke leans down once more, her hand against his cheek as she smiles against his mouth. This kiss is sweeter, more reassurance and comfort than desperation. This kiss says I love you better than Clarke ever could. It says I’ve waited so long for this. Oh god. Thank god, I don’t have to wait anymore. If the first kiss was a culmination of every stolen glance, of every time they shifted under heavy tension in the room, the second is a culmination of every comforting touch; every handhold and hug; every sigh of relief they’ve breathed into each other.
Bellamy’s responding grin is the rising sun, the radiant dawn taking residence in the smile lines and dimples Clarke so rarely sees. His fingers trace her back lightly, gentle as daybreak.
“Get some sleep,” he breathes, the corner of his mouth tugging up as he gazes at her. One of his hands travels up to cup Clarke’s cheek, his big palm calloused and warm against her skin. She leans into the touch almost subconsciously, pressing a kiss to his wrist before frowning her protest down at him.
His fingertips curl in her hair as he sighs, an air of a chuckle in the exhale.
“I’ll be here when you wake up.” He swallows thickly, trying and failing to dispel the weight in his voice when he says, “I’m not going anywhere.”
Only then does Clarke nod, ducking down for one last kiss before settling her head just over where Bellamy’s heart races in his ribcage. That list will still be on the desk when she wakes up—as will all the people whose names are not on it—but Bellamy will be here too. His arm circles her waist, his lips press against her forehead, and his chest is firm against her cheek.
His radiant warmth; his hope; his heart lulls her into her first dreamless sleep since landing on Earth.