Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s been one-hundred and fifty-six days since the world caught fire. The algae farm production has leveled out and they have more than enough food. There are no more wars to fight. Without enemies and without conflict, life has come to a standstill and Bellamy’s become barely a person, shrinking into his grief.

When they'd first settled on the Ring, he kept steady, stoic, strong. And then one morning, he woke well-rested and realized they were safe for the first time since they were sacrificed by the Ark and he fell apart.

A despair buried deep inside of his chest, under duty and responsibility, had begun to seep out, soaking into his bones. Eventually, his grief scraped him empty, leaving him with only a hollow ache.

All of the loss and killing had taken a toll but losing Clarke has worn him ragged. He has fallen so deep into misery he’s not sure he’ll ever climb out. Murphy’s taunts, Raven’s cheek—nothing seems to get through to him.

“Bellamy,” Raven knocks on the doorframe, there to escort him to dinner. It’s been the same routine for weeks now. She was the first to notice Bellamy withering away and she’s been unyielding in her pursuit to fix him. At Raven’s insistence, they’d implemented communal dinners. Murphy had jeered at the idea, but Raven shut him down with a steely, furious gaze.

(Bellamy heard Raven tearing into Murphy later, “He’s not eating. He needs this.” She hissed, looking ready to claw him to pieces. “For once, don’t be selfish.”

Bellamy had laughed then, loud and unhinged. He wishes he’d been less selfish. This empty existence is his punishment for leaving Clarke. He should’ve burned to dust with her.) 

Sitting in the sky now, when he looks at the still smoldering earth, he realizes that’s what he wants more than anything. To be a heap of scorched bones and melted flesh. He could’ve made it to her, he’s sure. They could've been rotting together, under layers of ash snow.

(Raven and Murphy had both turned at the sound of his laughter. They’d watched, unsettled while he'd laughed and laughed until he couldn’t breathe—until he was on his hands and knees retching.)

“Dinnertime. Green sludge. Yum.” He says woodenly, gives Raven a small smile more akin to a grimace to appease her. It doesn’t quite work, but she beams, grateful that he’s trying.

In all honesty, he dreads their company. Guilt gnaws at him constantly. Guilt about Clarke, guilt that he’s not more grateful, guilt that he left his sister alone (and for nothing, Clarke’s not here).

The guilt and shame worsen when he’s around everybody else. When they’re happy and laughing and peace almost settles in his heart, an ugly voice whispers in the back of his head: it should’ve been any of them instead of her. All of them instead of her.

Bellamy shakes his head and exhales sharply, dispels his ugly thoughts and concentrates on Raven’s rambling. Bellamy’s room is on the opposite side of the Ring, but Raven always manages to talk the whole walk, doesn’t allow a moment of silence. It’s mostly science and mechanics that he can’t understand so he gives her a noncommittal hum now and then, appreciates her efforts to keep him out of his own head. Sometimes, it works.

“You’re late. Dinner is at 6, sharp!” Harper reprimands playfully when they reach the cafeteria. When she catches Bellamy’s eye she smiles softly, pats the bench next to her. When he takes a seat next to her, she wraps an arm around him and presses her cheek into his shoulder. “Good to see you, stranger.”

There are six bowls brimming with algae sitting on the table. Echo avoids them as much as possible and nobody cares enough for her to push the issue of family dinner.

They fall into a comfortable silence and just as Bellamy is about to take a mouthful of algae, a deafening alarm rings out.

“Well.” Raven says nonchalantly, cringing at the sound. “That’s loud.”

Everybody stares at her incredulously when she casually takes another gulp of her algae.

Monty taps her shoulder and she shouts over the siren; insists they finish their meal before attending to it. She takes another swig of her dinner before jumping to her feet. She pulls a screwdriver out of her back pocket and wrenches open a panel by the door. She yanks at some wires and the alarm quiets in the room, but Bellamy can still hear it blaring throughout the rest of the Ring.

“It’s the thermal control system.” Raven explains, twirling the screwdriver and sliding it into her pocket, handle first. She sits down to finish eating, lifting her bowl to her mouth. “We don’t have much fuel left so I’ve been recalibrating the solar array panels to feed directly into the heat radiator. So, we don’t, you know—” She shrugs, “—freeze to death.”

She finishes off her dinner and sets it on the table. “The alarm is a warning that we have less than 24 hours of fuel left. We’ll be ice blocks at this time tomorrow.”

They all sit silently, still incredulous.

Raven traces the rim of her bowl, blinking expectantly. When she catches Murphy’s eye, he groans. “Okay, I’ll bite.” He drawls. “Why are you so chipper with imminent death approaching?”

“Because my dear, dear cockroach,” Murphy snorts and Raven grins. “I’ve adjusted the internal systems. The only thing left to do is calibrate the solar panels to direct energy to the Life Support Systems. You know what that means?” Raven doesn’t wait for them to guess. “Spacewalk.”

She jumps to her feet again. “I’ll need somebody to input the access code in the starboard engine room so I can open the solar panel while I’m out there.”

Bellamy pushes his bowl away. “I’ll—”

Raven interjects, frowning. “No. Finish eating.” When Bellamy clenches his jaw, she adds softly: “Please. You haven't eaten anything today.”

She catches his eye, looking pointedly at his untouched meal. Bellamy’s shoulders slump and he concedes, nodding stiffly at her. Raven reaches over and gives his hand a squeeze before turning on her heels.

“Emori, you’re with me.” Emori startles, tripping when she climbs over the bench to scramble after Raven.

“You heard the boss-lady, Bellamy.” Murphy slaps Bellamy on his back. “Finish your food.”

Monty, Harper, and Murphy make idle chitchat waiting for Raven to deactivate the alarm. Bellamy notices them glancing at him and his still mostly full bowl and he makes a feeble, sarcastic comment about the taste. They laugh, more exaggerated than necessary.

The conversation moves awkwardly to the future. It is too loud elsewhere on the Ring to leave the cafeteria and there is only so much conversation about algae to be had but there is still a river of bad blood between Murphy and everybody else.

Bellamy listens to them talk about their hopes and dreams and thinks about Clarke. He imagines Clarke’s last moments, watching him leave her behind. Had she screamed after the ship? When the fire came, had she cried for all the things she’d never have the chance to do? Or was it quick? Despair bubbles in the pit of his stomach.

He inhales a shuddery breath, tucks his trembling hands under the table. He struggles to stay present; their voices fade, and he surrenders to the dull buzzing in his head.

Bellamy is pulled back to reality when Echo arrives, driven from her quarters by the alarm, her empty bowl in hand. “What the hell is that noise?”

His head snaps up and he catches her eye. She doesn’t look away, meets his gaze with apathy, half-listening to Harper’s explanation. He can taste fire and rage on his tongue when he looks at her. He knows it’s unfair, but when he sees Echo all he can think is that she deserved to burn. Not Clarke.

He’s still trembling, now with barely restrained violence. He balls his hands into fists, doesn’t try to temper his anger; seethes and stews in his hatred. It’s welcomed, better than the numbness that’s been choking him since they left earth.

Echo seems to sense it. She quirks an eyebrow and slams her bowl on the table with unnecessary force. She's goading him to come at her. He doesn’t think she’s faring much better than him; her skin is dull, and her eyes are dark and sunken. If Bellamy was kinder, if his heart hadn’t burned to ash on earth, he might feel some sympathy for her. As it is, he sits and shakes with misplaced anger.

Monty stands, blocks Bellamy’s view of Echo and looks at him meaningfully. Bellamy has seen that look in Monty’s eyes before—every time he spoke to Jasper after Mount Weather. There’s fear, sadness and pity. Bellamy hates it and his rage mutates. It is no longer a quiet humming in his blood; it’s visceral and volatile. He clenches his jaw, resisting the urge to snarl and lash out at him too.

Everybody is deathly still, watching Bellamy like he’s feral. Echo is tense, expecting a fight, eager for it. Spite curls in his stomach and he stands abruptly. Echo widens her stance, relief washes over frame. He doesn’t want to give her respite. She doesn’t deserve the escape, but fury is boiling in his blood.

“Bellamy,” Harper cautions gently. Bellamy doesn’t acknowledge her; knows he will say unforgivable things. His eyes are locked on Echo. He thinks he might kill her.

The alarm silencing is his saving grace. He pushes passed Monty and gives Echo wide berth as he leaves.

Bellamy is still shaking as he storms away. He wants to be alone; can’t go to his room. At this time of day, his window has a perfect view of earth and he can’t help but press his nose against the glass, watch the earth and imagine Clarke’s dying breaths and her rotting corpse. He doesn’t want to fall back into that hole; he’s desperate to hold onto his anger.

Instead, he finds himself in the makeshift training room. He slams the door shut behind him. It’s abysmal, but Raven managed to improvise a punching bag and some weights out of some spare materials.

With a devastated scream, he launches himself at the punching bag. He doesn’t know how long he goes at it; all he knows is that when it falls apart his rage is still burning him alive from the inside out. He picks up a weight and hurls it against the door, leaving a considerable dent. He staggers towards it, his vision hazy. He means to throw it again, but he trips, falls against the door.

He presses his forehead to the cold metal, screams again, and batters his fist against the door until he hears the sickening crack of bones. The pain engulfs his sadness and his rage, and he collapses, sliding to the floor, empty once more.

He turns, leans his back against the wall and lets out a manic laugh. He clutches his mangled hand, kneads his bent fingers forcefully. He concentrates on the pain; would rather feel it forever than the emptiness he’s been living with.

He shuts his eyes. The air tastes thin and the room is spinning. When he opens his eyes again, his heart plunges.

Clarke is standing across the room.

He struggles to find traction against the floor. Stumbling to his feet, he falls forward on his hands and knees. She’s barely a blur, but he knows it’s her, can feel it in his bones. A knife twists violently in his chest. This is a dream. This isn’t real.

Except in his dreams, Clarke is always suffering, crying, begging Bellamy not to leave her; her skin is ravaged by radiation, boiling and falling off in pieces and she’s screaming for him while crows pick the flesh off her face.

He rubs at his eyes, ignoring the throbbing pain in his hand. When he opens his eyes again, black spots are dancing across the room but she’s closer, clearer. She falls to her knees and cradles his broken hand in both of hers. She examines and pulls at his fingers with practiced, methodical ease, tutting gently. It’s so familiar and the ache in Bellamy’s chest softens.

“What were you thinking?” She chastises. He can’t speak, his breathing is sluggish and his heartbeat is loud and slow in his ears.

She frowns when he doesn’t answer. She shuffles forward, impossibly closer, cups his cheeks. Her hands are warm, and he lets out an unrestrained sob, turns his head and presses his mouth to her palm. He can taste the salt on her skin.

He can’t look away, can’t breathe, too afraid that if he blinks, she will vanish. He watches her with watery eyes, can’t get enough. He stares and stares and cries and cries until the world goes dark.

When Bellamy comes to, he is in his room, Raven asleep at his side, clutching his bandaged hand tightly. He winces, tries to pull away gently but the mild rustling wakes her. She’s rubs at her eyes, disoriented. When she sees him, her eyes well with tears and she throws her arms around him.

“What happened?” He strokes her hair with his good hand, soothing her gently.

“I’m so sorry, Bellamy.” She bawls into the crook of his neck, tightening her arms around him. His whole body is sore, but he doesn’t wince again.

He gives her a moment, lets her cry until her weeping is a quiet sniffling before he repeats patiently: “What happened?”

She begins explaining, her voice garbled by her tears. The alarm wasn’t a low fuel warning, the Oxygen Generation System was malfunctioning. It wasn’t properly venting hydrogen into space. Instead, hydrogen gas had been slowly accumulating inside the ship, concentrated in the air-locked engine room and slowly leaking into the rest of the Ring. When Bellamy had given her a blank look, she’d said with a wet laugh: “Hydrogen go boom.”

The automated Life Support System had reduced oxygen production to nonessential areas to limit the steadily increasing excess hydrogen in the ship and minimize the risk of explosion.

“The LSS cut oxygen to the cargo hold.” Raven’s voice is a bit steadier now. “We didn’t know how long you were down there when we found you. You were blue. You could’ve died, Bellamy!” She’s rushing through her words again, her voice rising with growing hysteria. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve known better. Engineering, the mechanics of the Ring, that’s on me." She laughs, her voice heavy with self-loathing. "I almost got you killed for a spacewalk.”

“It was an accident, Raven.” He forgives her firmly, wiping her tears. She nods, wrapping him in another hug.

She cries into his shoulder until Harper and Monty show up and shoo her off to inspect and interrogate him.

“Your heart rate is back within normal range.” Harper pats his wrist. “Any dizziness or headache?”

Bellamy shakes his head.

With his friends fretting about him, Bellamy withdraws into his head, focuses on his vision of Clarke. She had been just as he'd remembered. Seeing her again, even only as a vision, had been a reprieve he didn't deserve—but it was also a reminder that she is nothing more than a fast fading shadow. She’ll be gone soon, another nameless loss in their quest for survival. He squeezes his eyes shut tight, struggling against the hopelessness settling back into his bones.

“Are you okay?” Bellamy’s eyes snap open and his heart jumps into his throat.

Clarke is standing behind Raven.

When he doesn't answer, she maneuvers around Raven and Harper to stand before him, more beautiful than ever. He mouths her name soundlessly as she lifts a hand and presses it against his heart. Shakily, he brings his bandaged hand over hers.

"I'm okay." 

It’s been two-hundred and forty-one days and Clarke rarely leaves his side. He thinks he must have died for a moment, pulled her ghost back to the mortal realm and now she’s haunting him. A faint, more rational voice whispers about hallucinations in the back of his head—but he doesn’t care either way. She’s with him now and that’s all that matters.

He’s better for it, too. He’s less jagged, less bleak. Her presence has always been a source of clarity and peace for him (time and time again, he has been his most reckless without her). He can eat again, sleeps mostly dreamlessly, and can finally bear the company of everybody without cruel, intrusive thoughts clouding his mind.

When he reaches the cafeteria, there are seven bowls of algae sitting on the table, one empty. Echo still avoids Bellamy but everybody else has warmed to her.

As soon as Bellamy enters, Raven grins, pleasantly surprised that he’s arrived at dinner without her insistence.

He nods at her and slides into the seat across from her.

“Raven, can you make spoons?” Murphy complains. “I hate lapping up this shit like a dog.”

Monty protests the use of the word ‘shit’ and Murphy makes a show of plugging his nose and swallowing down the rest. He grins when Emori snickers and nudges him.

“I’m the greatest mechanic and engineering mind of our generation—the world now,” The morbid joke falls mostly flat except for Murphy who snorts into his bowl. “And I’ve been designated the spoon maker.”

“How the mighty have fallen.” Bellamy teases.

The entire table turns to look at him. After what feels like hours of silence and staring, Raven huffs and kicks him under the table, dabbing at her corners of her eyes.

Bellamy smiles, sipping his algae. He glances discreetly to his left, already missing the sight of Clarke.

He anxiously pushes down fast rising terror when he finds her gone. She comes and goes, he assures himself, but something feels different. Permanent. And already a familiar misery is crawling through his veins and towards his heart.

The days begin to bleed into one another when Clarke doesn’t return. His world is dull again. The heaviness and heartache are seeping into him again.

He spends most of his days and nights in a frenzy, searching for her; as though her ghost is playing an elaborate game of hide-and-seek. He cannot sleep and vomits up most of what he eats. He feels her loss as though she has died again; as if he’s killed her again.

The algae is the same unappealing green on the floor as in his bowl an hour ago, Bellamy notes mildly.

Bent over a puddle of his own sick, Clarke finds him again. Exhaustion and relief bring him to his knees.

“Bellamy?” He turns his head and squints, can see Raven running towards him. It’s a mistake, as soon as he takes his eyes off of Clarke, she vanishes again. He lets out a guttural scream, punching the floor hard enough to feel a reverberating ache in the hand he broke months ago.

Raven slows to a stop a few steps behind him.

“I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine.” He insists, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. She rushes to his side, holding him steady as he staggers to his feet. As soon as the hallway stops spinning, he shakes her hand off his forearm. He looks up and down the hallway again, desperate to see Clarke again.

“What are you looking for?” Raven asks cautiously.

“Nothing. I’m just a little out of it. Let me clean this up.”

“I can clean this up. Go find Harper. You look terrible.” She commands gently. She reaches for him again, to press the back of her hand to his forehead, and he flits out of her grasp.

He nods his acquiesce, although with no intention of listening. Instead, once she is out of sight, he stumbles down the hallway towards the cargo hold. It’s in the same state he left it all those weeks ago—before Clarke. He shuts the door gently. Pressing his forehead against it, prayers and pleas on his lips.

He turns to search the room; devastation overwhelming him when he finds himself alone.

“Come on, come on, come on, come on.” He slides to the floor, grinding the palms of his hands into his eyes.

“I know you’re there, Clarke. I know it. Please, please, please—” He begs, slamming his head back against the metal door. The impact echoes in the quietness of the room.

He throws his head back again. And again. Harder. Harder. Until warm blood is trickling down the nape of his neck, soaking into the collar of his shirt.

Minutes or hours pass before anybody finds him down there, he’s not sure. He’s only faintly aware of somebody shouting his name. He can hear them vaguely; as if he’s submerged and they’re calling to him from above water.

His eyes are heavy, and he takes small uneven breaths. He’s going to die. He looks passed Murphy, finally sees Clarke. The knot in his chest unfurls for the first time in days. He smiles at her gently, his fingers twitching at his side, he wishes he had the strength to reach for her, to touch her one last time.

There are worse ways to go, he thinks.

This time when he wakes, he’s not in his own bed. He thinks he’s in the infirmary, but he’s only been by once and every room is nearly the same on the Ring.

The bright lights burn and it takes a moment for his eyes to adjust. He touches the bandage wrapped around his head. His skull is throbbing and the back of his neck is tacky with dried blood.

Raven is sitting in a chair across the room, toying with some mechanical device in shaky hands, her elbows resting on her knees. When he sits up, he brings her attention to him, and she drops what’s in her hands.

He’s still disoriented. Her lips are moving but he can’t catch what she’s saying.

“Are you trying to kill yourself?”

And Bellamy remembers. Clarke is gone. Again. Despair deepens and darkens, drowning him like quicksand. Raven fades into the background.

“Answer me!” Raven shouts, quickly growing frustrated with his silence.

“I see Clarke.” He admits quietly, unsure where the honesty comes from. Confession is meant to be liberating, but if anything, it just tastes like weakness and betrayal.

Raven studies him for a long moment. In the months they’ve been on the Ring together, it has become easier and easier to read her, but a flurry of emotions pass through her eyes to quickly for him to decipher. They sit, quieter than the dead, for what feels like hours before Raven speaks again.

“Is she here now?”

“No. She’s gone.” He forces the words out, focusing on his hands. There is crusted blood under his nails, and one of his fingers is still bent out of shape from breaking his hand against the door all those months ago.

“Is—The cargo hold. Were you—what was that?”

The bed sinks with her weight when she settles by his side, carefully, as to not startle him, she puts her hands over his, more patiently now. “Bellamy.”

“I was looking for her. I just want to see her again.” Raven squeezes his hands, understanding the implication behind his statement. If he had cracked his head open and bled out on the floor, he would’ve been happy too.

They settle into another long silence. Raven is oddly preoccupied with his hands, running her fingers across the ridges of his knuckles and old scars.

She whispers, her voice thick: “I should have known.”

“Raven—“ Raven wipes her eyes furiously before she quiets him with a short shake of her head, unable to meet his eye.

“You’re grieving. I thought you were getting better. Or maybe I was just seeing what I wanted to see.” Raven clears her throat, struggling. “I miss her too. But she’s gone.”

“You don’t think I know that?” Bellamy has watched her die a thousand times.

His tone is biting, and he can taste his anger on his tongue. His only defense. His grief, under the vast emptiness, is angry and possessive. At her mention, it pours out, volatile and brutal, blinding him.

But Raven does not flinch. She is like him; brimming with a lifetime of pain, regret, and fury.

“Do you? Because you almost bashed your head through a wall for a hallucination.”

Raven releases her anger with a deep exhale. “I’m sorry.”

She reaches for a washcloth sitting in a bowl of water at his bedside. She squeezes the excess water out and takes his hands again, working at the blood staining his skin.

“There’s nothing I can say to you that will make this easier. I know grief and loss like I know the back of my hand,” Emphasizing her point, she turns his hand. “We all do.”

“And we’ve always survived. But you and Clarke—” Raven hesitates. “She wouldn’t want this for you. And you won’t survive if you keep going like this.”

Bellamy snarls, jerking his hands back out of her gentle grip. “Don’t tell me what she would’ve wanted. We don’t know what she would’ve wanted because she’s dead.”

“Fine. You’re right. If she was here, she would want you to throw yourself out of the airlock.” Raven’s emotions are always simmering just under her skin—and more than fear and sadness, she feels rage. “But you want to know something? Clarke deserves better than to be some fucked-up fantasy in your head.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Isn’t it? Tell me, what do you and Pretend-Clarke do? Does she bat her eyes at you, tell you it was always you? Or was it never about that? Did you just want her to spread her legs for you?”

Bellamy has learned to expect viciousness and venomous remarks from Raven, but still her words cut to the bone. Speechless, he recoils as though Raven has slapped him.

Raven bites her bottom lip, regret coloring her face. She swears, swiping at the bowl and it clatters to the floor. When it’s not enough to quell her rage, she kicks at the bed frame.

“Clarke died for you. More than any of us. And I know you always thought it would be the other way around. She meant something else to you—something more.”

She was half of him. He can still feel her phantom touch against his temple, the warmth of her hand against his heart. How can he explain that he’s never warm anymore except when Clarke is with him?

Very suddenly, the entirety and enormity of his loss crowds in on him, sinking like a lead weight into his ribcage. He focuses on breathing, struggling to hold back something between a scream and a sob.

Raven reaches for him and he withdraws, refusing the comfort. But Raven is relentless, as always. As soon as she touches his cheek, his pathetic facade crumbles to pieces. His body shakes with the onslaught of sobs that wrack his body.

Raven guides him to press his face into her chest. She rests her chin in his hair, her hand clasped around the nape of his neck.

They sit in the infirmary, accompanied only by Bellamy’s mourning, until his voice goes hoarse.

It's cathartic to have his grief heard. He has been holding it close, like a secret meant to be hidden away. For the first time in months, he feels lighter. Guilt wells then—that her memory could somehow be a burden—and another wave of sobs threaten to overtake him.

Raven senses it and tightens her arms around him; does not allow him to internalize his grief, to feel it alone. He returns her embrace, squeezing his eyes shut against the flood of tears, his cries muffled against her shirt.

“Do you want me to go?”

Relief rattles through Bellamy’s bones and his shuddery breathing slows and steadies. He turns his head, his nose brushing against Raven’s collarbone.

Clarke is at the window, her eyes glassy with unshed tears.

A laugh begins to build, but he swallows it down, sobbing into Raven’s arms anew.

It's different now. Clarke is away more than she’s here and he moves through the motions until he sees her again.

Once, her ghost had soothed the pain, seemed to slow the decomposition of his soul, made a lifetime without Clarke seem possible. But there is no solace to be found with her anymore. She is tormenting him, with sparkling eyes and a warm smile, a testament to his countless failings.

“Do you want me to go?”

“No.” Still, he cannot fathom an existence without her, even as her ghost and his grief beats him into something irreparably disfigured. Every time she visits, she asks the same question and his answer does not change.

He will not kill her twice.

Bellamy’s sleep deteriorates. He’s losing his mind, has come to understand that his grief and heartache have been chipping away at his sanity since they left Earth.

Raven comes to speak to him again. Her voice is soft and urgent.

“Whatever you see, it’s not her. Please.”

She is begging, reeling in teary rage; he can see it in the tightness of her jaw. “You remind me of my mother, Bellamy. You’re addicted to your grief. Letting it consume everything around you. And you don’t want to get better.”

She crouches before him, tucking a hand under his chin and angling his face down to meet her gaze. “Do you remember the first day on the Ring? You asked me if I was with you. I am." Her voice breaks. "But I need to know that you’re with me, too.”

She waits for him to reply, for any sort of acknowledgment but he sits, stony-faced and silent. She wipes her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket and presses a kiss to his cheek before leaving.

“Goodbye, Bellamy.”

There’s is a steely honesty to her last words that settles uncomfortably, that chills the blood in his veins. He wishes he had the strength to stop her but there is nothing left inside of him.

It’s been three-hundred and twenty-nine days and Raven no longer speaks to him.

Everybody else treats him as though he is fractured glass, a delicate touch away from shattering. He’s humiliated by their sympathy, keenly aware that he has become the antithesis of what he once was, but he cannot find his way back to the Bellamy he used to be.

The only one whose attention does not sicken him is Echo. Still, more often than not, his fingers itch to snap her neck, but when he meets her eye, there is no pity and for that he is almost grateful.

Bellamy stares out at the dull, dead Earth, Clarke at his side, her head against his shoulder.

“You’re suffering.”

He was suffering before, too. He feels her absence with every breath. In every moment of stillness, there is melancholy and mourning. Losing Clarke is an intrinsic ache that will be with him forever. 

When her ghost visits, Bellamy can’t delude himself. He can’t feel the warmth of her skin anymore and the lilt and cadence of her voice are only just off, but he's begun dreaming of her again. He knows Clarke's joy, fear, and rage too intimately, memories seared under his skin, to continue to play pretend. This false reality is no longer enough.

“Do you want me to go?”

“No.” There is no conviction behind his words. Bellamy is all too aware that she is a cheap imitation; that he has invented her in his mind. This Clarke, with her bright eyes, gentle smiles, and soft voice is not real. Still, he does not want to let her go.

He hesitates for a long moment before gathering all of his resolve. “But I need you to.”

He sits, trembling. The words are bitter and coppery on his tongue. As soon as he speaks them, he wants to swallow them back down.

Nausea overwhelms him and he pitches forward, dropping his elbows to his knees. He knots his fingers into his hair and pulls. Dread sucks all the air from his lungs and a familiar coldness spreads through his veins.

There is a finality in the air, on his tongue, under his ribs that was not there before and he knows she is gone.

The coldness thaws suddenly and violently, replaced with fire ripping through his body, burning him alive from the inside out, destroying the little of his hurting heart that was left.

He struggles through a wobbly breath of air, waiting for some semblance of peace, or for the pain to dissolve. It doesn’t.

There is no absolution. He stumbles out of his room. He doesn’t make it far, his knees buckling under months of murderous grief consuming him all at once.

The despair is killing him, he’s sure from the slow lulling of his heart. He almost wants to let it. He sits, unseeing, for a small eternity, mourning something that never was. Until clarity and resolve (For Clarke) begin to form in the cracks of his broken soul.

Hours pass, and Harper, tray in hand, finds him just outside his room. She takes one look at his crumpled, shivering form and runs, returning with Raven.

Raven feigns indifference, but her furrowed brows betray her concern. He is seeing her for the first time—the darkness under her eyes and the hollowness in her cheeks—and knows, without a doubt, it is because of him.

He can't find the right words to convey his regret, apologies, and gratitude.

“I’m with you.”

He owes her so much more than that, but it is enough for now. She drops to her knees next to him, enveloping him in a hug. He collapses bonelessly, shutting his eyes against the wave of sadness threatening to drown him.

He won’t let it. Not again.

For Clarke.

It’s been four-hundred and eighty-two days and Bellamy mostly remembers Clarke with only fondness.

Nobody on the Ring dared to invoke her name for months, fearful of Bellamy falling apart again.

For a long time, just her name spoken aloud was enough to knock him to his knees but now the sole syllable of her name is enough to breathe life into his tired heart.

More than that, her name brings memories. Stories that are not his. Bellamy listens, over and over again, hoarding and devouring their memories, finding refuge and strength in every smile he never saw and all the laughter he never heard.

He tends to his grief, lets it sit with him rather than smother him; finally understands that he cannot part with it, must hold it close, breathe it in, before tucking it away again.

Still, however, he has nights when he dreams of her and he wakes with a profound sense of loss shrouding him. Days when his grief is so big and black, he could swear he lost her only hours ago. A dimness clouds his mind, blood staining his memories and regret curdling in his stomach; sometimes, it takes everything inside of him to hold his broken heart together, to keep pushing forward. To live this half-life to the fullest.

To laugh, to hope, to dream.

For Clarke, he reminds himself.

Forty-eight thousand and seventy-three days after he left Clarke to burn, she is standing before him, glowing in the honeyed light of two suns.

Tentatively, hands sweating and heart hammering, he mentions the radio calls, unsure what desperate thing pumping in his blood prompts him to.

“I know it sounds crazy—“

And Bellamy almost laughs. He knows crazy. Real crazy. Lost his mind when he lost her, and barely stitched himself back together. And still, he has moments when his fractured psyche convinces him that this is a dream—when terror surges up his spine, and he needs to see her.

“—talking to you every day—“

Even now, with her baring her heart to him, he cannot be sure she is real. He is overwhelmed by a sudden urge to touch her, to tilt her head up and brush her hair back, to feel her warmth and light.

“—kept me sane.”

But he can’t. She is not his, never was. And he’s since given himself to somebody else. He badly wants to open his heart to her, tell her of his own grief and that even in death, she was all that mattered. He's scratching at a poorly cauterized wound, still fatal and festering. His mind is a whirlwind of foolish daydreams and selfish what ifs and if onlys.

“It’s not crazy.” He says instead. He has always been a coward.

She looks up then, vulnerability muddying the usual shine in her eyes. Bellamy’s eyes meet Clarke’s, and for just one moment, everything else melts away. His mind calms and his heart beats a steady staccato against his ribs.

She is peace that he has never known.

“A little pathetic, maybe. But it’s not crazy.”

A smile tugs at the corner of his lips, watching her huff out a surprised laugh and the tension fall from her shoulders. Again, his fingers itch to touch her.

A sudden awareness that he cannot love her less, the physical impossibility of it, takes all the air in his lungs. It is too much all at once, and he watches her leave wordlessly.

There is so much uncertainty, but he knows, with sureness, that he cannot live without her. Not again.