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Clarke is furious. That’s all Bellamy knows when she gets out of what’s left of the Ark. She has that look on her face that pushes everybody away from her and he knows he shouldn’t follow her to her tent and try to find the reason why she was so annoyed. But he does, because he’s curious and he can’t afford having Clarke this mad at the world. Their friends are still trapped in Mount Weather and he needs her focused on getting them out.
Bellamy finds her sitting on her bed, taking deep breaths as she tries to calm herself but of course it doesn’t work because she is Clarke and there’s not an easy way to calm her down. She’s too stubborn. And he thinks he might have some kind of deep death wish because he sits right next to her, making her jump a little.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, a little annoyed by his presence.
“Why do you keep asking me that, Princess?” Clarke looks at him trying to read between his words but he keeps talking. “I need you to save our people; I thought you knew that already.”
And she knows. And that’s all she can think about. Because she’s not aware of Bellamy’s knee brushing against her own or of his eyes looking at her, worried. She’s not aware of the thousands freckles that cover his face and she doesn’t have the overwhelming desire of counting them. She’s not even a little tempted. Or at least that’s what she tells herself.
“I know, Bellamy but right now is not the moment, I’ve been discussing it with my mom and they will speak with the grounders and-“
“And you know they won’t do it anytime soon. We have to bring them back Clarke.” And she’s scared, because she had only seen that look in his eyes when he’s worried about his sister.
“Why are you mad?” He asks and she suddenly remembers.
“My mom. She just keeps treating me like a kid. I mean, I’ve been living here longer than her, I know the woods and I know how to protect myself. Damn, she is driving me completely insane! And I can’t talk to anyone here because my friends have been kidnapped by a bunch of freaks that live underground, or have been killed or they simply hate me!”
“I’m here, Princess, you can talk to me.” She looks at him and she can’t help but wonder why he cares about her; why he holds her until she falls asleep again when she wakes up screaming in the middle of the night or why the fact that he still calls her Princess doesn’t annoy her as much as it used to. He’s smirking and she’s not angry anymore. “I know it’s hard to believe but I am your friend.”
Clarke wants to tell him that he’s so much more, that she couldn’t have lead the camp without him, she wouldn’t have been able to protect the rest of them, she wouldn’t have been able to keep as many of them alive on her own. She wouldn’t even be able to sleep at night if it wasn’t for him and that is something that scares the hell out of her. They depend on each other and she has no idea of how that happened. He was the leader when they first got to the ground and she just happened to have the necessity of questioning everything he said. Now that the adults were there Bellamy and she weren’t leaders, they were just two kids who nobody listened to. Clarke felt completely useless and that was driving her mad.
“You are probably the only person here who worries about me, you know that, Bellamy?
“Oh, come on Clarke! Your mother is here, she worries about you.” He says, turning serious again.
“Yes, my mom. Who thinks she still can protect me. Protect me from what? She sent me to the ground to die! She got my father killed! And now she thinks she knows better than me because I’m only seventeen! We were the ones who did all the dirty work Bellamy, you, me and the rest of the criminals, because that is all they think we are, just criminals. Sure, we made mistakes, I get that, but still she doesn’t have the right to keep us apart from everything!”
Bellamy thinks his heart has skipped a beat the moment she said us, but he quickly recovers and his serious expression turns into a smirk again because she thinks of them as a team, and that provokes a warm feeling in his chest that he can’t quite identify. But Clarke is calmed now and doesn’t miss his smirking.
“I haven’t felt useful since Kane found us.” Bellamy confesses “Hell, I swear that it’s like being on the Ark again and I hate it. People look at me like they still think that they are better than me. But what I hate the most is the way they look at Octavia, like she shouldn’t have even been born, like she is insane just because she cares about Lincoln. Clarke I hate this place and the truth is that I would love to grab a bag an Octavia and just get the hell out of here.”
“Then why are you still here?”
They stare at each other and Bellamy can almost get lost in her eyes- he had never seen the sea but it couldn’t be deeper than Clarke’s blue eyes. Her look drops at his lips, suddenly wondering what was so great about them that half of the camp wanted to try them on their first days on the ground. He smiles and answers her question like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Because we have to save them, Princess. They are my friends too.” He gets up, still smiling, and leaves her there, speechless. And that’s new, because Clarke Griffin always has something to say.