Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Bellamy wasn’t sure which fact he was having a harder time believing: that he was married to Clarke Griffin, or that she hadn’t already speared him through the chest.

Granted, they’d only been married about two hours, so maybe the latter was a bit premature. But the former—well, that was strange. He had a wife. He was somebody’s husband. It was all political and just for show, purely what he suspected to be a power-play against Clarke (a foolish move; Clarke responded to shows of force in ways you wouldn’t expect, except that it usually involved scorched earth). But even that didn’t change the basic facts: they were married. And the strange thing was that Clarke hadn’t seemed overly depressed or even oppressed during the ceremony, where they’d had to kneel in snow and freeze their damned asses off.

Instead, she’d laughed at his stupid jokes. Perhaps they’d stepped into a parallel dimension or maybe the Grounders had drugged her. He knew for sure that he wasn’t going to tamper with anything that made Clarke—or any of their group—happy. Though, really, he’d always expected that if he ever did get married, the bride would be the one wearing the dress. The kilt they’d given him was just damned inconvenient, what with all of the drafts and leaving his calves exposed.

He didn’t understand what the Grounders had against pants. Pants were convenient. Pants were warm.

The feast was going strong in its second hour, with the Grounders practically gorging themselves. “It’s the last feast before we tuck in for the rest of winter,” Lexa said when she stopped by their table. “The eating will not be this good again for months. I suggest you enjoy it.”

“But I thought—it was thawing…” Clarke looked genuinely puzzled, which Bellamy understood. He himself had been expecting that planting would begin soon.

Lexa gave them an almost-fond look. “The first thaw marks the turn of the tide, when winter begins to weaken its hold. But there are still hard months to come. Spring is not always kind.”

“I thought it was almost over,” Clarke said after the Grounder leader left. The scowl on her face was almost breathtaking to behold for its ferociousness, so Bellamy patted her shoulder consolingly. “Guess I’ll need to warn the other medics.”

“Time for that later,” Bellamy said, pulling a plate of roast goose toward him and dishing a liberal portion onto his plate. “You heard the lady. Food’s not going to be this good for a long time. Dig in.”

“Always thinking with your stomach,” Clarke said, but amusement threaded through her voice. Bellamy did not point out that she ate just as much as any of the boys. Only Jasper could put away more food, though where it all went was a mystery to everybody else. “Octavia and Lincoln look happy.”

Bellamy grunted as he chewed meat off of a bone. As their seconds, Octavia and Lincoln were seated at the table nearest them with some of the others from their group. As much as he didn’t always like Lincoln, it was nice to see his sister smile like that, so carefree for once. “O got to stand up in front of a crowd and look threatening, and she wasn’t even pressured into marriage over land rights. It was a good day for her.”

Clarke snorted and helped herself to one of the gelatin cubes from the dish he’d deliberately set as far away from him as possible. Bellamy had no idea how she could eat those, knowing what they were, but she always shrugged it off. “Good day for everybody, I think,” she said.

Even us? Bellamy wanted to ask, but he kept his mouth full so he didn’t.

A round of wine was brought round to all of the newlywed tables. As much as Bellamy wanted to abstain (his head was still ringing a little from the thistle wine that had gotten them into this mess in the first place), he accepted his cup, frowning. To make matters worse, the Grounders had been overly generous: the goblet had been filled with the barest millimeter of space between the wine and the brim. Lincoln shook his head before Bellamy could even lift it to drink. He paused.

“What is it?” Clarke asked, clearly expecting trouble.

“Not sure. Lincoln says don’t drink. Either it’s poisoned or—”

A cheer rose up from the room as all of the other newlyweds stood. “Oh, great,” Bellamy said under his breath, pushing himself to his feet. He stuffed a bit of a roll in his mouth since, well, food didn’t just come from anywhere these days. When the others in the wedding parties headed for the dance floor with their cups of wine held over their heads, he and Clarke did the same. The couple closest to them looked over with wide smiles, like they couldn’t wait to see Clarke and Bellamy’s reactions to whatever was about to happen. Through some pantomiming, they indicated that Bellamy should hold the wine in his left hand and Clarke in her right, and that they should hold hands. They stood with the others in a loose circle.

“I have a very bad feeling about this,” Bellamy said, twining his fingers through Clarke’s.

The music started. The clapping from the crowd followed, and the other newlyweds started to walk in the circle, holding their cups aloft.

“I think it’s a game,” Clarke said. “We’re not supposed to spill.”

“What happens if we do?”

“Let’s not find out.”

Around them, Bellamy could feel the excitement from the crowd growing. The walk sped up, all of the Grounders instinctively seeming to know the steps and tempo. Presumably, they’d grown up with games like these. Bellamy, on the other hand, was completely lost. At least Clarke was right there with him, stomping a beat behind the others and gamely trying to catch up when they changed directions.

Bellamy could practically hear Jasper, Monty, Miller, and Raven dying of laughter in the back of the hall, but he did his best to ignore them—until the spinning started. The couples moved around the floor in geometric patterns, weaving in and out, and it was everything Bellamy could do not to crash into anybody else.

The couple across from them spilled first: wine sloshed from the man’s goblet onto his fist, and the room let out an uproarious cheer. Chanting broke out, the same two words repeated.

“Well,” Clarke said, “now we know the Treigedasleng term for ‘chug it.’”

“Always an education.” Because the others were lowering their glasses, Bellamy took the opportunity to do the same. In the middle of the circle, the losing couple raised their cups the roof, entwined their arms, and drank from each other’s cup. Neither stopped drinking until they’d finished the entire drink, which they showcased by presenting the cups in a flourish and holding them upside down over their heads. The room went absolutely wild. The couple left the circle to good-natured jeers from all of the other participants.

“It’s like one of those old parties in the vids,” Clarke said, letting out a little laugh. “And whoops, back in the circle again. Here we go.”

Indeed, the dance started up exactly the same way it had before. The slow walk became a faster walk, and then the weaving in and out of the other couples. Bellamy’s arm began to ache pretty quickly into that round, but if Clarke wasn’t going to spill, he wasn’t going to spill. In the end, they were fourth. Bellamy’s arm burned so badly that he’d gritted his teeth and sweat had sprung up on his forehead and neck, but he kept his hand absolutely steady until Clarke muttered an oath and stepped on the outside of his foot. Wine splashed out of both of their goblets.

This time the roar was the loudest it had been all night.

“Sorry. I was a little tired of the game,” Clarke said.

“If you hadn’t done that, I was about ready to. My arm is killing me.” It took them a second of maneuvering to figure out how the others had interlocked their arms to drink from the goblets, while the audience laughed and shouted suggestions in two different languages. Bellamy had to stoop a little so it wouldn’t be awkward.

He took a deep breath and was about to drink it all when he got a good whiff of the wine. He automatically jerked his head back, which made the room positively explode with booing. Clarke, who’d already started drinking and was apparently committed to the chug-it philosophy, widened her eyes at him in question.

“It’s strawberry,” he said, pulling his head as far away from the goblet as he could. He was lucky it had missed his skin entirely when he had spilled. “I can’t drink that.”

Clarke’s eyebrows descended for a second before she seemed to understand. She pulled the goblet away from him, holding it behind her back. By then, the crowd was shouting insults, though he could see some of his friends in the back looking concerned. The other three couples still on the dance floor were shooting him unimpressed, puzzled looks.

“What is this?” one of the warriors on the edge of the dance floor called. “Sky People think they’re too good for our finest wine?”

Bellamy bit his tongue hard.

“Look at that! His woman drinks while he stands there—easy to tell who leads the other by the nose in this marriage!”

As true as that was, Bellamy could outright feel his hackles rise. He started to move around Clarke to go prove his point with his fists, but she grabbed a handful of his shirt right as she finished her drink. “That’s right,” she said, spinning around to give the man a vicious look. “I can drink for both of us, and Bellamy goes where he wants.”

And while Bellamy gaped at her, outright stunned, she lifted the full goblet she still held and began to drink that one, too.

“Whoa! Clarke!” He tried to grab it away from her, but she kept her grip on his shirt, holding him back. He could only watch in absolute amazement as she downed it all, eyes scrunched closed. The crowd’s chants grew louder the longer she drank. When she finished it and gulped in air, the applause became deafening. Clarke snatched the empty cup from Bellamy’s slack hand and held both aloft. “Whoo!”

She then turned and gave him a “so there” look that was so her that Bellamy couldn’t do anything but laugh. Impulsively, he hugged her, hard. “My hero,” he said, scooping her up the way he would Octavia. He spun them both around.

“Ohhh, bad idea,” Clarke said when he put her down on her feet. She squeezed her eyes shut. “Can we go back to the table now? That was—that was a lot of wine.”

Instantly, concern replaced the euphoria. “Can you walk?”

“You’re not carrying me out of here,” Clarke said, her chin lifting.

“Then bow for the crowd, Champ, and let’s go before you pass out and ruin that new street cred of yours.”

Clarke raised her fists again to another round of cheering, and led the way off the dance floor. Grounders crowded in, wanting to pat her shoulders and arms as she passed, but Bellamy stepped up so he was right next to her, blocking them from getting to her. Right before they reached their table, he made an executive decision and pulled Clarke the other way, slipping out into the night when nobody was paying attention.

“Oh, that feels good,” Clarke said, her head immediately lolling back. This was apparently too much for her coordination, for she would have toppled backward if Bellamy hadn’t caught her. She blinked up at him, her brow wrinkling. “Where’d you come from?”

“Wow, now you’re the one who’s drunk. Um, here, sit down.”

“No, I need to—” She pushed him away, moved to the bushes, and stuck her finger down her throat. Bellamy barely had time to grab her hair and pull it away her neck before she was retching and throwing up.

“Wow, we’re getting the ‘in sickness’ part of the vows out of the way first, I see,” Bellamy said, not sure what he was supposed to do.

She turned slightly to give him a malevolent look. “I did this for you, you jerk.”

“I’m sorry. Bad joke.” Warily, he rubbed her back, between her shoulder blades, in a gentle circle. She threw up again, coughing until she dry-heaved. Finally, she wiped her mouth. “Feel better?”

“Ugh.” Instead of giving him an answer, she turned and burrowed into him, pushing her face into his chest. He froze, and she made a protesting noise in the back of her throat. He really had to stop doing that, he thought, wrapping his arms around her.

The door to the hall opened and Octavia stepped out. “What was that?” she asked Bellamy right away. “Lincoln says you got lucky the crowd was so impressed by Clarke, otherwise they would have been really insulted by the fact that you didn’t drink.”

“Then they shouldn’t have given me strawberry wine,” Bellamy said.

“Oh,” Octavia said. Strawberries had been a luxury aboard the Ark, but Agro station had given the guards in his district a nice-sized basket, and he’d taken a few home for his mother and sister. His face had swollen up like a balloon. “When you put it that way.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think it would be a great thing to die at my own wedding reception.”

“How is she?” Octavia asked.

Clarke made a wordless grumble. “I’m fine,” she said, but her words were slurred. “Just need a minute. Then we can go back inside.”

“Can you get some water, and whatever plain food you can find?” Bellamy asked, ignoring Clarke.

Clarke shook her head, not moving. “Can’t stay out here. Your knees will get cold.”

“My knees are fine, Champ. O, see if anybody has any of that hangover stuff, and let the others know, quietly, that we might not be back. See if Lincoln can cover for us.”

“On it.” Octavia lifted her eyebrow at the way they were standing, and Bellamy decided to ignore that. After the almost oppressive heat of the hall, and the noise and the crowd, it was nice to stand outside in the cold and the quiet, even if he was worried about Clarke, who must feel awful if she was willing to lean on him so openly.

“We should go back inside,” Clarke said after Octavia had left. “Everything needs to go right—the land—”

“Anybody ever tell you that you have a one-track mind?”

“Well, if you’re willing to throw months and months of work away, then fine.” Clarke stepped away from him—which made all the cold come rushing back in—and took a seat on a boulder that was mostly clear of snow. She put her face in her hands and moaned.

He sat next to her and arranged the kilt to cover up as much of his knees as possible. “Doubt it’ll be that bad,” he said. “Besides, if they say anything about it, we could always challenge them to a drinking game. Pretty sure you’d win.”

Clarke started to laugh, and then broke off to moan. “Don’t mention alcohol of any kind, please,” she said, curling in on herself. “It’s times like these that I miss pain pills. I’m going to be so hungover tomorrow. Anything else you’re allergic to that I need to know about since we’re married now?”

“Just strawberries. You can throw yourself on those to protect me all you like, wife.”

Clarke moaned again. “That’s still so weird. We’re married.”

“Tell me how you really feel, Princess.”

“I liked Champ more. And…I don’t know. Doesn’t feel real.”

“You defended me to a room full of the natives,” Bellamy said, shaking his head. “Seemed pretty wifely to me and—oh, don’t give me that look, I’m messing with you.”

“You should smile more.”

Bellamy jerked his head to look at Clarke. “What?”

“You asked me how I really felt. You should smile more. It’s nice.” Clarke shut her eyes and leaned her head back so that her hair spilled down her back. The moonlight had turned it all silver, giving her an otherworldly appearance that suddenly made Bellamy’s mouth feel very dry. “My head is going to hurt so much tomorrow. It hurts now, actually.”

“Well,” Bellamy said, since he was still caught off-guard by her unsolicited remark, “does it make you feel better knowing you’re my hero now?”

“Pfft. You could hold your own if you had to.”

“Even so.”

Clarke opened her eyes, her brow wrinkling. “I think being married could be okay. I mean, knowing my mom, they’ll just keep us in separate quarters and everything, so it’ll just be us with a little extra.”

“I’m sure that’s it,” Bellamy said, and he kept quiet as a thought occurred to him: for a moment, while she’d stood valiant and tall and had chugged that wine for him, he’d completely forgotten that the marriage wasn’t real, that it was just a ploy for the land.

And it scared him a little just how much he hadn’t minded thinking that.

Chapter Text

The excitement running through the camp over the celebrated thaw deflated the next morning when they woke up to find a new coat of snow on the ground. Clarke could understand that, since she herself spent a good five minutes inside the infirmary that morning, glaring out into the world beyond like that would change anything. Her head throbbed even harder than the time she’d gone over a waterfall and Anya had lovingly beaten the shit out of her.

“No more alcohol for a long, long time,” she told Raven, who’d come in to get a burn on her forearm patched up. “I mean that.”

Raven shook her head. “So you don’t want any of this?” she asked, pulling out a flask.

The smell alone made Clarke moan and race for the door. She made it outside this time.

“Gonna take that as a no,” Raven said when she came back in, wiping at her mouth. The flask was tucked safely away. “Your eyes are more red than blue, just so you know.”

“I hate everything.”

“Day one of being Mrs. Blake, and life is going so well for you, I see.”

Clarke squinted viciously at her with those same bloodshot eyes. “I didn’t take his name,” she said, her voice stiff.

“Probably for the best. Clarke Blake? Not that great a name.”

“Ugh,” Clarke said. She finished mixing the burn paste and jerked her head for Raven to hold out her arm. The angry red mark stretched from the inside of Raven’s elbow, almost halfway to her wrist. Clarke had to figure the severity of it was the only reason Raven had bothered to come to the infirmary. It must have hurt like nothing else, but Raven didn’t even flinch.

Having spinal surgery done without anesthesia probably tended to put things in perspective.

“I have to ask,” Raven said. “I just have to. How’s the sex?”

Only practice and a steady hand kept Clarke from jabbing her. “Off the charts,” she said, not bothering to hide the sarcasm.

They hadn’t had sex. That much she was sure of, even if she had woken up, hungover and confused, in quarters that weren’t her own, tucked into a full-sized bed with the wrap from her wedding pulled taut around her. There had been a cup of water on the nightstand and some of Bellamy’s clothes folded on a chair. The other side of the bed had been disturbed, but her new husband had been nowhere to be found.

Most of the evening was a blank space that Clarke was having a difficult time filling.

“Uh-huh,” Raven said. “Just remember, I’m one of the few that knows the truth. At least you guys don’t actively hate each other anymore. That marriage would be awkward.”

And this one isn’t? Clarke wanted to ask. Bellamy had sneaked out at an insanely early hour to avoid awkward pillow talk with her. It rankled more than it should. The marriage wasn’t real. He was only her husband in name. But still.

“Yeah,” was all Clarke said. “Awkward. Right.”

Hours later, after her shift and tracking Raven down to make sure she hadn’t gotten oil all over the bandage (she had, but Clarke had come prepared), Clarke checked the hallway that served as the mess hall, hoping to find Bellamy. According to Jasper and Monty, she’d just missed him, so she sat with them and picked at her food as they talked about the final night of the feast. The highlight, of course, was her defiantly chugging both goblets in the face of the shocked Grounders.

“The ones that got knocked out after you, they couldn’t top that,” Jasper said. “Kind of lame, actually. I think you’re everybody’s hero.”

“As great as that is, I don’t think this hangover’s worth it.”

“You should get Bellamy to give you a neck rub,” Jasper said, and Monty and Clarke just looked at him. He shrugged and hunkered down. “You are married to the guy. He’s got to be good for something.”

“Don’t let him hear you say that,” Monty said.

“Well, no, I’m not stupid.”

After that, she tracked through the rest of the camp. Bellamy wasn’t in the guard cabin or on patrol, Octavia hadn’t seen him, and neither had anybody hanging out in one of the lounges where the Dropship kids tended to gather. After that, she didn’t see much of a choice: she headed back to their quarters.

He wasn’t there either.

Clarke sighed and leaned back against the wall across from the bed. Their bed. She’d never actually shared a bed with anybody. Sleepovers with Wells when they were four and able to fit in the same bunk bed didn’t count. The one time she’d had sex with Finn, they hadn’t exactly slept afterward. Sleeping near others on long trips wasn’t the same thing, even if she’d woken up back to back with Jasper once.

This felt wholly different. This was permanent. Bed hair, morning breath, waking up alone with Bellamy every morning.

She was interrupted from her reverie by the door sliding open. She jerked upright (a mistake, with the way her head felt) right as Bellamy stepped in with a canvas sack slung over his shoulder. “Bellamy! Hi.”

He tilted his head, squinting. “Hi?”

“I, um…how was your day?”

Bellamy’s expression told her that she was acting weird, but Clarke couldn’t seem to stop herself. “It was fine,” he said, pulling the door closed behind him. “Had an early shift, and I figured I should clear out of my old bunk and let somebody else have the space. How’s your head?”

“My head? Oh, it’s—well, it still hurts, actually.”

“Sorry. I tried to get you to drink water, but you were more interested in doing something called the Electric Slide with Raven and the others—even if you all had to sing it yourself.”

“Oh, my god,” Clarke said, as the night before was kind of a blur. She remembered the wedding, the all-encompassing strangeness of it, but after that first dance/game with all of the other couples, everything went a bit fuzzy. No wonder Raven had seemed particularly friendly today, if they’d bonded over the Electric Slide. “Did I really?”

“You taught fifteen Grounders how to do it and possibly immortalized it as a new Grounder dance. I think you’re okay. Hey, Clarke?”

Clarke dropped her hand away from her face. “Yeah?”

He pointed over her shoulder, at the chest of drawers behind her. “I kind of need to get over there.”

“Oh! Sorry. Uh—” The space between the end of the bed and the wall was barely wide enough for one people to squeeze through. Flustered and not enjoying the feeling, Clarke tried to step out of the way, right as Bellamy stepped in the same direction. What followed was both of them accidentally mimicking the other’s movements in a weird shuffle, with Clarke apologizing repeatedly.

Until Bellamy reached out, grabbed Clarke’s arms, and picked her up, setting her to one side. He squeezed by. “I expected a bigger set of quarters, considering they’re squatting on our land,” he said, throwing an easy smile over his shoulder like it wasn’t awkward as hell. “Though it’s always fun to dance with you.”

“Who are you and what have you done with Bellamy Blake?” Clarke asked. “I’m starting to feel like you may have been replaced with an imposter.”

Bellamy opened the canvas sack and began loading his meager belongings into one of the drawers. His rifle, he placed next to the ceremonial sword from the wedding. He fiddled with the strap for a second, squaring it off so that it wouldn’t clutter up the area. “You said I should smile more. I figure if we’re going to survive being married to each other, I should listen to you.”

“By…smiling,” Clarke said, completely mystified. She had no memory of telling Bellamy this, but given that she’d never handled alcohol well, it seemed like something that might come slipping right out. And it was true. She’d thought quite a few times that Bellamy should smile. It made him seem younger, like he wasn’t bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders, and it did interesting, handsome things to his face. “That’s your plan?”

“What can I say? Your wish is my command, Your Highness.” Bellamy toed out of his boots and lined them up with the heels flush to the wall. Station life had been instilled in all of them too strongly for mess. Items unpacked, he sat on the edge of the bed.

“What exactly happened last night?” Clarke asked, blurting the question out. “Besides the, uh, the Electric Slide. How did we get in here? I don’t remember at all.”

“I’m not surprised, since Miller and I basically had to carry you all the way back to camp.” Bellamy pulled off his winter hat so that his hair puffed around his head for a second before it settled into its usual pattern of disarray. “O came with us. She’s the one that took your boots and the wrap off, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“No, I wasn’t really worried about that.” Much. She’d woken up wearing pretty much everything but her outerwear. She was more perturbed by the holes in her memory than the thought that something might have happened. And by the fact that Bellamy wasn’t angry: with her, with the situation, with anything. “Sorry, I don’t—I don’t like not remembering.”

“Well,” and Bellamy lay down on the bed, propping his hands up behind his head, “we got married because that was the easiest way to stop a war, you took one for the team by chugging my wine so I didn’t die horribly of anaphylactic shock. When I insisted on heading back so you could sleep it off, you said no and made fun of my kilt, and you went back inside and made every single male friend of our acquaintance dance with you because, and I’m quoting here, ‘this is my wedding and we’re all going to enjoy ourselves, dammit.’”

“Oh, god,” Clarke said, covering her face with both hands. His words were bringing back the accompanying memories, albeit in blurry detail. “I did, didn’t I?”

“You made me dance, too, so I don’t think the Grounders suspected anything amiss. Chin up, Princess. You had fun.”

“I just had to get drunk to do it,” Clarke said, leaving her hands where they were.

“Since you got drunk to save my life, you’re still my hero. You don’t mind if I take this side, do you?”

“That’s fine.” She’d never had a side of the bed before.

Bellamy crossed his socked feet over each other. “After dancing with me, and with Raven, Lincoln, Miller, and then me again in that order, you decided you’d had enough and you basically passed out on me. Miller and I carried you back, and your mom brought all your clothes by and you slept right through it. I figured it was best to let you sleep.”

“Thanks.”

“Speaking of which, I’m going to take a nap. You’re welcome to join me, unless you hog the bed the way you did last night.”

“I did not,” Clarke said, though she suspected otherwise. Once she was out, there was little hope of waking her short of using cymbals. Wells and her parents had always joked about that. “I’m not very good at napping. I’m going to head back to the infirmary and work on getting some more of that medicine made.” She had no idea why she was telling him that, as they never compared schedules unless it was important. But it seemed like the right thing to do.

“Suit yourself.” Bellamy closed his eyes, his face going slack almost immediately, as he and Octavia were both those annoying people that could fall asleep instantly and pretty much anywhere.

Clarke just shook her head at him and let herself out of their quarters as quietly as she possibly could.

This married thing was going to take some time to get used to.

Chapter Text

Their first two weeks of marriage passed without a fight. Bellamy figured this was probably because they hardly saw each other.

It made sense. Clarke was busy. Or, not just busy—in demand. People trusted her enough to go to her with their problems, and it wasn’t like they had a surfeit of people with the medical knowledge to assist in the infirmary. When she wasn’t there, or organizing things, she could usually be found in the Grounder camp, as Lexa had decided she needed to get better at speaking Trigedasleng (Bellamy did, too, but he was relying on Octavia for that). Her schedule was so full that he usually heard her come in well after midnight every night. Every time, he pretended to sleep, even though he was really just listening to her sigh as she peeled off her jacket and brushed her hair. He was always tempted to say something, but he just kept quiet and waited until her breathing grew even and the air felt lighter, finally freed from the heaviness of her thoughts.

Since he had the early shift, he was gone before she woke, and on they went.

They saw each other around camp. Whenever Bellamy brought a message to Abby, he stopped by to say something to Clarke, usually with the sole intention of making her roll her eyes. They caught meals together. He escorted Clarke and a few others on a seaweed gathering/ice fishing trip, which was a cold, awful experience for everybody involved (but especially for him, as he had the longest arms, so he was the one stripping out of his shirt and jacket and reaching through a hole in the ice). The only place they did not spend any time together—apart from when they were asleep—was their own quarters.

Two weeks into the marriage, tragedy struck the camp. A temporary warm snap one afternoon had inspired a group of children to take a small hike through the woods. They returned one short, with the teacher in a panic. The searchers that found the boy, Yannic, came back with somber faces and a covered stretcher carried between them. All Bellamy could think as he carried one end of the stretcher was that that was how Charlotte had looked, when he and Miller and some of the others had braved the climb down to bury her. Painfully, horribly young.

The nightmares started soon after. Luckily, Clarke slept like the dead, so she never knew. And Bellamy knew how to run on very little sleep, and even better, how to hide that fact from others. He continued to show up to his guard shifts, his lessons with Octavia (how the tables had turned), card nights with his friends while they waited for winter to pass.

Nobody suspected a thing, and he was happier that way.

About three weeks into the nightmares, he stopped by the mess and nicked a couple of muffins. When he’d woken up that morning, she’d been lying closer to his side of the bed than usual, her shirt riding up to expose most of her back. He’d reached over, intending to pull her shirt down, and instead he’d frowned. They were all getting a little skinny on the rationing, but this was ridiculous. He could practically count all of the bumps in her spine, which made him sigh as he sat there with a hand resting on the smooth skin of her back. She slept on.

It took some doing to track her down now. For once, she wasn’t in the infirmary. After checking the mess hall and with the guard to make sure she hadn’t gone over to Lexa’s village, he backtracked and found her in a little hallway that they used for overflow patients and storage. She was dancing—if one could call it that.

“No, it’s, like, step touch, step touch,” Octavia was saying as he walked up. She and Clarke were holding hands and moving around in a lopsided circle while a little music player blared tinny swing music from the 1940s. Raven had probably rigged it up for Octavia, Bellamy figured. She’d always loved those old hits.

“I’m sorry, I’m hopeless,” Clarke said, but she was smiling. “I’m never going to get this.”

“It’s not that hard. I’m just probably a bad teacher. Bellamy always did the boy part.”

“Mm-hmm, I did,” Bellamy said from behind them.

“Bellamy!” Instantly, Octavia let Clarke go and dashed up to her brother, towing him back to their little cleared out area. “Perfect. You can help me. I’m teaching Clarke how to swing dance.”

Bellamy looked from one to the other. “Why?”

“Stress relief,” Octavia said. “Plus, it’s not like there’s much to do while we wait for the world to warm up. And when I found out Clarke didn’t know how to swing-dance—”

“When would I have had time to learn?” Clarke asked, a bit testily.

“No time like the present.” Octavia bounced over to the music player and fiddled with the controls. “But you’re here. So it’s perfect.”

Bellamy realized what was going on and began fervently shaking his head. “No way.”

“C’mon, Bell. Please? Clarke wants to learn, and you’re better at the boy part than I am.”

“I would hope so,” Bellamy said, and Octavia rolled her eyes at him. He looked at Clarke. “How’d you get suckered into this?”

“I asked,” Clarke said, shrugging. “It was slow today, and Octavia and I are going a little nuts cooped up inside. But we can do this some other time.”

When she started to walk away, Octavia turned an incensed stare on Bellamy. He lasted about three seconds. “Fine,” he told his sister. “Clarke, wait. I’ll help out, though I want it clear I am here under duress.”

“Words a girl loves to hear when she’s being asked to dance,” Octavia said, taking the little cloth sack with the muffins and setting it next to the music player.

“Hey, those are for Clarke,” Bellamy said.

“She can have them after.” She hurried over to Clarke and dragged her friend by the arm back to Bellamy. Awkwardness immediately reigned as both of them just stood there. “Oh, c’mon,” Octavia said. “You can get a little closer than that. You’re married.”

“Right.” Bellamy said. He grabbed Clarke’s hands and held on, loosely. He wasn’t surprised to find out that her fingers were freezing. Her feet were like blocks of ice at night. “What steps do you know?”

“We’re still working on the first one. The step touch one,” Clarke said, sounding frustrated. “I’m afraid I have no rhythm.”

“Nah, Octavia’s just a bad teacher.”

“I heard that.” But she was grinning as she stood next to Clarke. “Let’s start on the left. One, two, three, four, step touch, step touch.”

Half an hour later, thanks to coaching from the Blake siblings, Clarke had moved beyond the easiest of the swing dancing steps to working on mastering the step-ball change. She was a bright student, even if she didn’t seem to take as naturally to it as Octavia had. Eventually, Octavia moved over to the music player and sat down, content to call out encouragement and occasional bits of advice.

“So,” Clarke said, watching her feet as she tried to keep in time to the music, “swing-dancing, huh? You’re a man of surprising depths.”

Bellamy shrugged. The fact that knew how to swing dance was something he’d never shared with anybody. And it was strange to be dancing with Clarke instead of Octavia. With O, it was just a sport, something to keep active. With Clarke—well, Octavia had insisted they switch to a hold, so he had a hand resting on her lower back, and her hair kept brushing his chin. It made him a little more flustered than he wanted to admit.

He cleared his throat. “Octavia couldn’t leave our cabin, obviously, and she was always bored. You can only play tag so many times before that loses its shine, so I suggested this. I actually suggested ballroom dancing, but she liked this more. More fun. Ready to try a turn again?”

“If I have to,” Clarke said, wrinkling her nose.

They managed the turn, though Clarke nearly stepped on his foot twice. Bellamy laughed as she righted herself. “You’re getting better.”

“Thank you for lying and preserving my ego. How’d you learn? Looking in the archives?”

“More or less.” He’d pored over any old videos he could find on his meal breaks, with half of his lunch smuggled away in his pocket for Octavia to eat as soon as he got back to their cabin. There had been classes in the rec hall, but those cost credits that went toward food. And it felt unfair to have those kinds of experiences when Octavia was stuck in that room. “She’s better at it than I am, not that I’ll ever tell her that.”

“I don’t know. You seem really good. Me, on the other hand…” Clarke scowled down at her feet as she lost the beat again.

A laugh slipped out. “You just started.”

“So?”

“Doesn’t it get exhausting being that much of perfectionist? Just, I don’t know, let it go. Swing dancing’s all about feeling the rhythm. You can’t fight it—though you seem to be giving that your best shot.”

“Ha!” Clarke squeezed his left hand. “All right, if you’re as good as you claim you are, show me.”

“What?”

“I want to see you and Octavia do the—what’s this called again?”

“The Lindy Hop,” Bellamy said. “And I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’m so rusty, and she’s bossy.”

“Now who’s being a perfectionist? Hey, O, you should get over here and show me how it’s done. Your brother’s been telling me lies about how terrible you are,” Clarke said, raising her voice so Octavia could hear.

“Bellamy’s been saying what about me?” Octavia asked, and Bellamy sighed at Clarke. Now she’d done it. He stepped back, letting go of her hands, and resignedly pulled off his jacket. Octavia had already removed hers, but she pulled her hair back, tying it in a loose knot at the base of her neck. “You might want to stand back,” she told Clarke.

“Okay, now I’m a little worried,” she said, backing up.

“Gonna be able to do this without breaking a hip, old man?” Octavia asked.

It occurred to Bellamy, not for the first time, that he had somehow managed to surround himself with commanding, sarcastic women. First Octavia, then Raven, and now he was married to one in Clarke. He raised an eyebrow in challenge at his sister. “Please, I’ve forgotten more about this than you’ll ever know.”

“Just do me a favor and keep up.” The music changed to a new song with a much faster tempo than the others because, well, of course it did. Bellamy counted out the beat in his head, and kicked off. He kept the turns simple since he hadn’t been lying about being out of practice. And having Clarke sitting in the corner, watching them, made him want to stick to the safer moves, where he wouldn’t look like an idiot.

Until he heard Octavia’s derisive “Pffffft” under her breath.

He started to laugh. “Oh, is that how it is?”

“Bo-ring,” she said. “It’s like you’re not even trying.”

“You’re the worst,” Bellamy said, but the challenge had been laid at his feet. He spun her out into the hand-holding position and twisted so they passed behind each other, their arms interlocked. They broke apart, Octavia laughing, and he matched her step for step on the following boogie. Octavia jumped on the spin out, and he leapt after her, spinning them harder and hard until they were using each other as a fulcrum to pivot. Occasionally he spotted Clarke out of the corner of his eye, in the spot she’d taken up for safety.

“Do the double-spin,” Octavia said.

“Why?” He hated that move.

“Clarke will think it’s cool.”

Bellamy sighed. The things he did for the women in his life. “I’m not doing any flips, then,” he said.

Octavia pouted.

“Okay, maybe a little one.” And timing it right, he spun Octavia out, twisted all the way around and spun back the other way on his heel, easily grabbing her hands at the end. They fell back into the same easy rock step, and when Octavia shook her head at him, he sighed and gave in, judo-flipping his sister over his shoulder easily. They finished the dance to the sound of Clarke clapping enthusiastically.

“Wow,” she said when Bellamy, out of breath, flopped down onto the ground next to her. She swallowed a bit of the muffin she’d been eating while they danced. “You weren’t kidding when you said you knew how to swing dance. I still would never have guessed that about you. In, like, a million years.”

“I’m never doing it again,” Bellamy said, laying his arm over his eyes. Octavia hadn’t weighed quite that much at thirteen, which had made lifts so much easier.

“He’s a little slow, but he’s old. We can forgive him,” Octavia said.

Bellamy opened his eyes to slits to shoot her a baleful look. “I hate you.”

Clarke’s laughter was music to his ears, though.

* * *

The next morning, he woke covered in sweat and gasping. Clarke stirred in her sleep and muttered, her hand reaching across their bed. He eased away from it, sitting on the edge of the bed and breathing until he anchored himself in the moment, the nightmare breaking apart around him. When his heart rate had finally slowed, Bellamy looked up at the mirror above the chest of drawers that held their few belongings. His eyebrows drew together. Clarke had propped something up against the ceremonial sword the Grounders had given him at the wedding. He wandered closer until he could make out the shape in the dark: her sketchpad. He’d never poked through it, even the time she’d left it on the bed.

But now it was open. The page was covered with quick poses of Octavia and Bellamy dancing. They were dashed off, quick little scribbles, but that didn’t take away from the fact that they seemed like they were alive and actually moving in each sketch. The drawing in the center had been shaded and was far more intricate. She’d captured the moment right at the end of a spin, where his sister’s hair—freed from its knot—flew out around her head. She twisted her hips and had her arm flung out, her other hand holding Bellamy’s. He himself was suspended in midair as he jumped, legs tucked up under him. They grinned at each other, clearly having a blast.

It was the only picture Bellamy had ever seen of them together.

Quietly, he reached for his boots, which he overturned until he found a bit of the sticky pine resin that seemed to be all over everything these days. He smeared it onto the wall with his thumb and, gently pulling the paper out of sketchbook, affixed the drawing in a place of honor, right next to his side of the bed. Though he was beyond curious to see what else Clarke had seen as worthy of being drawn, he quietly placed the sketchpad on her bedside table and left to go wash up before his shift.

Chapter Text

When Bellamy walked into the infirmary, Clarke was already shaking her head. “Oh, no,” she said. “Not again.”

He held up a little cloth sack. “Sandwiches that almost taste like peanut butter,” he said, hoisting himself up onto one of the operating tables. He arranged his rifle behind his back and swung his legs easily, rattling the bag. “The cooks are really proud of today’s batch. I think it’s going to be a hit. You’ll be sorry to miss the first edition.”

Clarke cast a look behind her at Jackson, busy talking to a patient. Luckily, the flu strain appeared to be dying out so there wasn’t actually much to do in the infirmary for once. Her mother was handling camp matters, she’d already dealt with all of her duties, and honestly, she’d just been finding busywork for the past half hour.

That didn’t mean she actually wanted Bellamy to come feed her.

“You have got to stop this,” she said, pointing her pen at him.

“I’m just bringing you sandwiches before they’re all gone.”

“Sure you are.” It had started so slowly she hadn’t noticed at first. A muffin here, some winter berries and a pastry there. Warm tea that wasn’t infused with seaweed for once. But eventually she’d caught on: for some reason, Bellamy gotten it into his head that she wasn’t taking adequate care of herself—which was a lie, she was absolutely fine—and he was going to “help” her out by dropping by “randomly” with food.

Wells had done the same thing. It didn’t annoy her any less when Bellamy did it.

Miller came in, thankfully not bleeding this time. “Hey, Clarke, I—oh, sorry, didn’t know I was interrupting.”

“You’re not,” Clarke said.

Bellamy’s look turned to pure sarcasm. “It hurts me when you ignore me.”

Since she wanted to smile, she turned on her heel, putting him behind her. “Did you need something, Nathan?”

Miller sniffed the air, his eyes honing on the little sack Bellamy held. “Are those peanut butter?”

“They’re for Clarke.” Bellamy clutched the bag closer to his chest.

Miller’s face fell.

“He’s under the mistaken impression that I need somebody to keep an eye on me,” Clarke said. “You can have the sandwiches.”

“Uh-uh.” Bellamy held the bag away from his friend and looked at Clarke. “When’s the last time you ate?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Not what I asked.”

Clarke leaned her head back and counted to ten. Wait. When had she eaten last? She’d skipped breakfast because she’d needed to talk to Raven, and the mess had closed before she could make it there and—

“You have to think about it,” Bellamy said. “Which means whenever it was, it’s too long. Eat up.”

“He’s right,” Miller said. “You definitely need those more than I do.”

“Now there are two of you doing it?” Clarke wheeled around to glare at both of them. “No. This is not happening. I do not need a keeper. Hovering is not cute, or welcome.”

“All the man’s trying to do is give you a sandwich—”

“Two sandwiches,” Bellamy said.

“All the man’s trying to do is give you two sandwiches,” Miller said without missing a beat. “What’s wrong with that? You do so much for everybody else, you should let him help you out. You did marry him, after all. Must have been for some reason.”

Bellamy, who was trying to get the cork off of a bottle of winterberry juice he’d just pulled out of his jacket, didn’t seem to be having the same problem. “It was for the sex,” he said around the cork.

“Bellamy!” God, she was a prude, Clarke thought, if the mere mention of sex made her want to turn red.

“Can I help if I was naturally blessed with many gifts? Here.” Cork freed, he held out the bottle. “It’ll make the sandwiches go down better.”

“You’re not going to give up, are you?”

“I’m a stubborn son of a bitch.”

Clarke sighed. When her stomach turned traitor and rumbled, she gave in and pulled herself up to sit next to him on the operating table. “I’ll eat,” she said, begrudgingly. “But I’m sharing.”

“I brought my own.” He pulled another bundle out of his jacket. “Nice try, though.”

They looked over in tandem when a strange noise erupted to their left. It turned out to be Miller, muffling his laugh. “You two,” he said, “are so married. It’d be sickening if it weren’t so hilarious. I’m going to go tell Monty about this.”

“Nathan, wait,” Clarke said. “What’d you come in for?”

“Oh. Some of that tea with the stuff? I’ve,” and Miller wiggled his fingers in the direction of his throat, “got a tickle, don’t want it to become a thing.”

“There’s a fresh pot in the back. Help yourself,” Clarke said, waving in that direction. He didn’t stick around, instead gulping the tea down in one go (probably for the best; it had a rather biting aftertaste) and giving them a cheery grin as he left. She bit into the first sandwich and nearly closed her eyes in bliss. Bellamy hadn’t been kidding about how close it tasted to peanut butter.

“Good, right?” he asked, halfway through his own.

She could try to deny it, but she was a little too ravenous for that. She closed her eyes in bliss as she chewed. “So good.”

“See, this is why you should eat more. You miss out on really good sandwiches otherwise.”

“That doesn’t mean I want you to stick your nose in and bring them to me all the time. I can take care of myself.”

Bellamy stole the juice and took a long swallow before he handed it back. “Miller has a point. You do so much for others. And when you don’t eat, you get kind of bony, and your elbows are sharp enough as it is when they dig into me at night. So really, this isn’t about you. This is pure self-preservation.”

“You’re a jerk,” Clarke said, nudging him with one of those bony elbows.

“Just keeping up my end of the ‘for better or worse’ deal.”

“Thank you for the sandwiches, then.”

Bellamy smiled with his mouth full. “My pleasure.”

* * *

Though she was sure he’d meant them in jest, Bellamy’s words about keeping his end of the deal resonated. They weren’t partaking in the physical side of marriage, but Clarke had been taking a long, hard look at her life since she’d started sharing quarters with Bellamy. And in every other aspect, they were married. And it seemed like they had been for longer than she wanted to admit. No wonder everybody had been under the impression that they had been together beforehand, if it had been that easy to slide into what appeared to be a smooth marriage.

Or what seemed like one, Clarke thought, looking over at Bellamy’s sleeping form on the bed next to her. Sleep was an impossible windmill tonight, with all of these thoughts plaguing her. The balance had become uneven somehow in the past two months. In the early days, she’d recognized that they served as counterparts—his charisma needed her strength of will, her narrow focus needed his big picture thinking. But somehow lately, that had shifted. She was always running from one task to another, and she noticed that he kept showing up to offer support in the form of food or a willing ear, and she barely had time to seek him out and return the favor.

Hell, all she’d managed to do was give him the drawing that was now stuck to their bedroom wall (that had been a surprise to wake up to). She didn’t like this lack of balance. Not because it gave Bellamy power, but because, well, he deserved better, even if he would never see it that way.

She sat with her back against the headboard and brooded, her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms resting atop them (Bellamy may have had a point; they were a little bony). It struck her that the only time they’d ever been awake in this bed at the same time had been when Octavia had woken her to go assist her mom and Jackson with a surgery. And even that had only been for a second as she’d scrambled for her jacket.

That was a little strange, come to think of it. A couple of weeks could be blamed on incompatible schedules or simply being occupied with the thousand chores required to keep an entire camp alive through the winter. But two solid months? Two solid months was an alarming pattern.

She had her answer why ten minutes later when Bellamy began to mumble in his sleep, and then to shake. It took less than a second to recognize the signs of a nightmare, not surprising since they’d spent the first months on earth sleeping in tents, waking each other up with their screams in their sleep. Bellamy’s entire body locked up; he started to shudder, trembling hard enough to rock the entire bed.

“Bellamy.” She’d seen a few people come out of nightmares swinging, so Clarke leaned back when she shook his shoulder. “Bellamy, wake up. You’re having a nightmare.”

He moaned something and tried to roll away, but Clarke dug her fingers in. “Bellamy. Bellamy!”

His entire body jolted, and he made a noise like a drain sucking down the last of the liquid. When his eyes snapped open, they were glassy and unfocused.

“It was a nightmare,” Clarke said. “Whatever it is, it’s not real. You’re in Camp Jaha. You’re fine. You’re okay. It’s okay.”

Bellamy leaned up on his elbows. “Fuck,” he said. He ran a hand over his face. “That was a bad one.”

“Let me get you some water.”

“No—no, it’s okay. Just go back to sleep.” He shoved the covers off and scooted over to the side of the bed, resting his head in his hands. And he stayed there, shoulders sloped, bowed downward from the force of the nightmare, “I can feel you looking at me. Stop. Go back to sleep, Clarke.”

“I wasn’t sleeping.” Though Clarke was beginning to suspect that if she had been, she would have slept right through it all. She hissed a little when she put her bare feet on the freezing floor, dashing across the room to get her canteen as quickly as she could. She crawled back into bed and held it out toward him. “Here.”

“I’m okay, I don’t need anything.”

“Take it anyway.”

Bellamy’s expression, when he turned his face, was surly. “I don’t need it,” he said, biting each word out. There was a sheen of sweat on his forehead and his hair, usually pretty rumpled, stuck up in every direction.

She’d faced him angry before. It barely even fazed her now. “Then what do you need?”

“For you to go to sleep.” He turned away. “I’m fine.”

“Bellamy, take the damn water before I dump it over your head.”

“Nice bedside manner, Doc.” But he took the canteen from her, holding onto it and playing his thumb over the lid. “Happy now?”

She had a frosty retort ready when insight hit. This, she realized, was the piece of the puzzle she had been missing, why Bellamy never stayed in the room when she was awake. This was the darkness hiding behind the meals and the check-ins, the way he stopped by the infirmary sometimes solely to annoy her. This was the thing at the edge of her consciousness, that little doubt that told her something was wrong. “This isn’t your first nightmare.”

“Clarke.” He sounded tired.

“How long have you been having these dreams?”

He sighed and gulped down water like a man coming out of a desert. “Since the kid in the ravine,” he said.

“That was over a month ago. Why didn’t you say something?”

“Because of this moment right here, that’s why. If you knew, you were gonna flip out and want to fix it, and you can’t. I was handling it—am handling it. I’m handling it.” His breathing still sounded unsteady, though, and he wouldn’t look at her. She could see his face, worryingly pale, in the mirror. He kept his head down. “You’ve got enough on your plate. You don’t have to worry about this, too. It’s fine.”

“You’re such an idiot sometimes.” Clarke rolled her eyes and scooted over to his side of the bed. Forbidden territory, but at the moment, she didn’t care. She wrapped her arms around him from behind and held on, resting her face against his back. The smell of his T-shirt was musty from sleep and the familiar scent of his sweat. “I’m sorry.”

She felt his deep breath through her cheek. “Nothing anybody can do about it.”

“I can still be sorry.” Because he was still tense, she held on tighter. He finally sagged back and against her, the tension melting away from him in one big wave. “And you don’t have to avoid me or hide things from me, for the record.”

“We’re having such a nice moment, you don’t have to spoil it by talking.”

Clarke bit him. She wasn’t sure why—his shoulder was right there, and it seemed like the thing to do since she was still wrapped around him.

“Hey!” He made a noise that was half surprise, half laughter, nearly clipping her on the temple when he reached back to feel the place she’d bitten. “Did you just bite me?”

“No,” Clarke said, but her face felt hot.

“I didn’t even know you were into that.”

Now it was her turn to laugh. She closed her eyes, resting her forehead against the back of his neck, still hugging him from behind. “Bellamy.”

“I can’t believe you bit me.”

“I’ll do it again if you don’t cut it out.”

“Yes, ma’am.” His skin felt clammy when he reached up and covered her hands with one of his own. “I didn’t want you to know.”

“You got lucky I’m a heavy sleeper, then. C’mon.” She unwound herself from him and tugged on his hand until he gave in and scooted back. He rested his back against the headboard so that they sat side by side on their bed. “Do you want to talk about it?”

For a long moment, Clarke wasn’t sure he would answer at all. In a rough voice, he said, “I see Charlotte. In my dreams—a lot. She was the same age as the kid that fell. They were just so young. And it triggered something, I guess. It’s been pretty much every night that I’ve seen her. And the three hundred. I don’t know what they looked like, but I see their faces. Usually people I saw on my rounds, on the Ark. Sometimes they’re people from the ground.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, pushing his fingers into his closed eyes like he had a headache. Clarke had to figure he did; she always woke from her own nightmares with a sore head. “But I’m handling it. I can deal with it.”

“I know.”

Bellamy turned his head to look at her, one eyebrow going up. “You do?”

“You’ve always been strong. But what you aren’t anymore is alone.”

“You don’t need more problems. You’ve got enough to deal with.”

Clarke grimaced and breathed out hard through her nose in annoyance. Usually this made Bellamy give her a smug look over scoring a point in their endless verbal battle, but he stayed facing forward. The darkness made the circles under his eyes seem like more than shadows. “Bellamy,” she said, reaching out and touching his shoulder gently.

It seemed to release something, for he leaned over and hugged her, hard, around the midsection. Clarke did her best not to rear back in surprise. Bellamy had always been the more tactile of the two of them, but it was mostly just touching arms or shoulders, and occasionally a pat on the back. Hugging when one of them had almost died. Huddling into her for warmth that time she had made him pull up seaweed while shirtless in the snow. Never this, with this level of intimacy. Before she really knew what she was doing, she stroked his hair, trying to sort it back into its usual messy mop rather than the mad scientist look he currently sported. She felt his sigh.

“What happened to that kid was an accident,” she said. “You know that wasn’t your fault, right?”

“Can’t say the same about Charlotte.” He didn’t move from where he’d settled, his head in her lap. She had to lean over to see his face.

“Charlotte was…” Clarke shook her head as she tried to figure out what she wanted to say. Charlotte was many things. Her best friend’s murderer. A scared kid. The source of many of her own nightmares. Too young. One of their greatest mistakes in a long line of them. “Charlotte was tragic, but it’s not the same.”

“I know that, Princess.”

“We’re back to that again?” Clarke wrinkled her nose.

“Can’t help it. It suits you.”

“You should treat me less like one and more like your partner,” Clarke said, shaking her head. “I mean that. You can’t have it both ways where you secretly try to feed me and look out for me, but hide things like this for me. That’s not how it works, Bellamy.”

“Excuse me, that’s Mr. Princess to you.”

Clarke rolled her eyes. “I mean it. Don’t hide stuff.”

This time it was Bellamy’s turn to exhale through his nose, though he didn’t lift his head from her lap. “Feels like we’re really married sometimes,” he said, his voice tired. “Got me a nagging wife and everything.”

“Yeah, I’m clearly the one that’s the nag in this relationship, Mr. Sandwiches,” Clarke said, combing his hair back with her fingers. Before she really knew what she was doing, she leaned over and dropped a kiss on his temple. She immediately froze—what the hell was she doing?—but Bellamy seemed to sigh and tighten his grip a little before settling back down. She continued to card her fingers through his hair until she felt him truly relax. He actually seemed to melt a little bit, which was fascinating to behold. She wouldn’t have expected him to enjoy this sort of attention, but it just proved there was so much to Bellamy Blake she didn’t know.

When he fell asleep, his face seemed finally as though he had stopped fighting the war with himself. Clarke stayed where she was, leaning her head back against the headboard and closing her eyes.

The next morning, she had no memory of falling asleep, and Bellamy’s side of the bed was once again empty. There was, however, a note: Good morning, Princess. Don’t skip breakfast. – Mr. Sandwiches On second thought, don’t ever call me that.

Clarke just laughed and tucked the page into her sketchpad.

Chapter Text

Knocking pulled Bellamy from a dream that, for once, wasn’t a nightmare. Because of that, he was a little grumpy when he picked up Clarke’s wrist to check her watch for the time. Just after four a.m. Clarke let out a sleepy grumble and closed her eyes tighter when he dropped her arm, but didn’t wake.

“What?” Bellamy called. He did not follow it up with somebody had better be dead because that had actually happened, but he did let grouchiness make itself known in his voice.

The door opened up a crack for Octavia to push her head through. Her eyebrows shot up when she took in the tableau in front of her. Clarke lay on her stomach, arm thrown across Bellamy’s chest. She’d been using his shoulder for a pillow, and her hair was everywhere, as usual. “Wow, I thought you two had bunk beds for sure.”

“What are you doing in here, O?”

But Octavia crept creeping closer, her eyes wide. “Is she dead?”

“No.” He was tempted to throw his pillow at his sister to get her to go away. “Just a heavy sleeper. Is something wrong? Why are you here?”

“Lincoln just woke me up. Lexa’s coming to the camp.”

Bellamy rolled Clarke off of him (she mumbled something but settled into the pillow) and sat up. “Why? Has something happened?”

“I don’t know, but if I were you, I’d get dressed. And bring your wife. We’re going to need her.”

Since Lexa had only willingly entered Camp Jaha twice, Bellamy wasted no time shaking Clarke awake. They hurried to grab their winter gear, which didn’t require as many layers as it had even the week before, pulling it on even as they raced down the hallway from the living quarters to the main courtyard. Of course, when they rounded the corner and Clarke was still pulling on her second boot, Jasper and Monty promptly let out wolf whistles.

“Very funny,” Clarke said, giving them a look torn between exasperation and amusement. She finished tugging on her boot, stuffing the laces into the top.

“Looks like the Grounder visit interrupted something important, eh?” Jasper asked, elbowing Monty.

“Groundus Interruptus!”

“You’re both twelve,” Clarke said.

Bellamy threaded the strap to his sword through the buckle, settling it over his coat. If Lexa was coming, the need to stand on ceremony had increased. “Either of you have any idea what this is about?”

“Just as lost as you two.”

“But not as sexed, evidently!”

Bellamy gave them the look he had cultivated over several months of leadership and walked off, Clarke on his heels. He could hear the duo give themselves their goofy little high-five behind him, but he didn’t care.

“Nice hair,” Raven told Clarke when they arrived at the gates, where Lincoln and Octavia were waiting as well.

Clarke batted at it irritably. “It always looks like this in the morning. No need to insinuate anything.”

“Mm-hmm,” Raven said, but she smirked at Bellamy as Clarke huffed and finger-combed her own hair. The engineer was leaning heavily on her cane, as cold exacerbated her injury, but she pointed into the darkness beyond the gates. “Grounders coming from that way.”

“Where are the others?” Bellamy said, looking around. Apart from the guards, only their little group had been gathered (Miller, yawning, ambled up with Monroe and Harper in tow). The older leadership from the camp was nowhere in sight.

“She said this was a meeting for you two,” Lincoln said. “They have no business here.”

“Well, that’s reassuring,” Clarke said, exchanging a look with Bellamy. “We’ll meet them beyond the gates, to avoid stepping on toes.”

“Raven, Monty, you wait here in case there’s trouble,” Bellamy said. “Everybody else, come with us. Be ready, but try not to start anything we’ll have to deal with before the sun’s up, all right?”

“That go for you, too, boss?” Jasper wanted to know, and Clarke, the traitor, hid her smile behind her hand.

Outside the gates, they automatically assembled into the positions that had fallen into disuse over the long winter. Clarke led the pack, with Miller and Bellamy flanking her on either side. Jasper carried the torch, and Octavia and Lincoln walked separately from the pack. Firelight glinted off of the sword at Octavia’s back, and on the knife at Lincoln’s hip.

As much as he hoped this wouldn’t lead to a fight, Bellamy had faith in his group.

Lexa had brought a legion of her own warriors, though they all rode on horseback. They met in a little clearing within sight of the gates but out of range of arrows. The leader wasted no time approaching Clarke and Bellamy.

“The final thaw is upon us,” she said.

“O…kay?” Bellamy asked. All that remained of the snow were the stubborn piles of slush that lived in permanent shadow, and Bellamy had been able to go outside with a face-guard for nearly a week since the wind chill had gone from merciless to simply uncomfortable. So he’d assumed the planting would begin soon, but apparently the final thaw meant something if Lexa was visiting before dawn with an entire pack of warriors in tow.

Luckily, by this point Lexa was apparently used to the clueless space people. “Spring was when most of the fights for territory were fought,” she said, patiently. “We now have a meeting of the clans to settle any disputes. It is not always efficient, but it is certainly preferable to a war.”

Bellamy heard the words the leader could not say: it had been a hard winter. A war on a weakened society would be disastrous for all of them.

“The meeting is in five days’ time. Mount up,” Lexa said, wheeling her horse around. “We’ve provisions for you both, and for three of your choosing.”

“What?” Clarke asked. “We’re going with you?”

“The land for the Sky Clan belongs to you. You’ll be given representation at the table. I’ll give you a minute.”

Clarke let out a breath as they headed back to their group, who had been out of earshot. “My mother is going to love this. I don’t think we can miss this meeting, though. It sounds important, and if they’re acknowledging us as an actual clan—”

“Yeah, yeah, I get you.” But Bellamy couldn’t help but notice that they’d been all but ambushed with the news of a meeting that occurred annually. Lexa might regard them as allies, but she still didn’t trust them enough to warn them. “I don’t think we’ll have time to go back and say bye to the camp before we leave. Kane and Jaha will be pissed.”

“Can’t be helped. Besides,” and they reached their group, “we’ll be long gone before their wrath can reach us.”

“I enjoy it when you’re devious,” Bellamy said, and turned to address the others. “Listen up, looks like we’re taking an unexpected road trip.”

* * *

“You will need to convince them,” Lincoln said the next morning when the path had briefly become an open plain and he could nudge his horse next to Bellamy’s. For a man that had spent months alone in the forest, he had a pretty comfortable seat for riding. Bellamy, on the other hand, had already run through every obscenity in his repertoire to name his particular hell-beast, and had made up several more when those didn’t seem harsh enough.

The horse had been unmoved. Literally. Which was the problem.

“Convince who? Of what?” Bellamy asked, tugging ineffectually at the reins. His thighs were burning, his ass was sore, and by all appearances, he had several more days of this to look forward to.

“That your marriage was not done for show,” Lincoln said.

Bellamy swiveled in the saddle to look at him.

“You’re good. You’ve got many fooled, but at the summit, you will be under constant watch. You and Clarke had the winter together. They expect...affection.”

“Now I have to perform for them, too?” Bellamy asked.

“I tried to warn you, once, that something might be in store for you and Clarke. You’ll need to present a united front, and they will not take kindly to deception.”

“Thanks for the warning, both times, I guess.” Bellamy tried to tug at the reins again, wondering why he even had them in the first place if the damned horse wasn’t going to listen to him. He could practically feel Lincoln’s amusement as the man trotted his mount off to go talk to Octavia again.

They’d brought Octavia—like she would ever stay behind—and Lincoln with them, obviously, as the latter was a good liaison. Miller had come along, leaving the others to face the anger of the Camp leaders. Lexa had essentially made sure of this, Bellamy had realized almost right away. It made sense to him, though he knew it bothered Clarke. The older leadership was less sympathetic to the Grounder way of life and for all of their boneheadedness—not his word at all—Bellamy and Clarke did understand the Tree People a little better. Hell, Clarke could pretty much warble out anything in their language these days.

Bellamy had to admire Lexa’s planning, even as he filed the information away in the event it became a problem. For now, he chose to deal with the first issue. The Grounders were expecting open affection. If his horse were at all inclined to listen, he would have trotted up to where Clarke was near the front of the pack to let her know about the new addition to their arrangement. As it was, he had to wait until they’d stopped to make camp halfway up a mountain.

“It’s not the worst thing in the world,” she said, and he did a double-take. “What’s that look for? We already share a bed, and with everything we’ve been through, it’s honestly not that much to be a little affectionate with each other.”

“You’re taking this well. I was not expecting that.”

Clarke shrugged. “There,” she said, pointing.

Bellamy spotted it a second later and went still, watching the water carefully. And when the fish swam close enough, he speared it with one sharp jab. “Present for you,” he said, leaning over to extend the spear toward Clarke so she could take the fish and clean it. She’d found a large boulder by the little creek to perch on, so he had to crane his neck to look up at her. Because the weather had grown steadily warmer the farther south they’d traveled, she was down to her shirtsleeves and pants, her jacket tied around her waist. She was lucky enough to keep her boots on—Bellamy had already pulled his off, and he’d stopped feeling his toes in the frigid water long before.

“I thought,” he said, “that after everybody’s little remarks yesterday, you’d be bothered with people thinking we’re, you know, having sex.” She’d always gone red whenever he teased her about it. It was cute.

“Well, if they’re gonna be juvenile about it,” Clarke said.

Bellamy jabbed at another fish and missed. “Always zig when I expect you to zag,” he muttered.

“Are you talking to me or the fish?”

“Yes.” But he grinned when he looked up at her. “More the fish than you, though.”

“You and your flattery.” She jerked out the fish’s spine easily, which always made Bellamy feel a little ill. “Are you okay with the PDA? You seem a little freaked. I’m not that much of a hag, am I?”

“Yeah, you’re absolutely hideous. I’m so sorry that I’m the only one brave enough to tell you th—” His reflexes allowed him to duck out of the way in time to avoid fish guts. “What? Did I strike a nerve?”

She stuck her tongue out at him.

“There’s a mirror in our room, you know what you look like,” Bellamy said, focusing on the water again. Hunting had been good on the trail, but fresh fish for dinner was always superior, in his opinion. “And it’s definitely not a hag.”

“Stop, don’t, this flattery will go straight to my head,” Clarke said in a dry voice.

“It’s a little bit of a slippery slope, though.”

“What is?”

Bellamy held his hand up for silence and struck, narrowly avoiding his own foot as he speared what looked like a big sucker. He proudly passed it over to Clarke. “First we get married because it keeps the peace and settles the land dispute with us and the Woods Clan. Then we’re actually cohabitating to keep up appearances. More and more, the boundary is changing. And if we add affection to the equation, how long before the line’s so blurry that we forget who we are completely?”

Clarke frowned as she flicked fish innards off of her knife. “Do you really think that’s going to happen?”

It already had, for him, Bellamy thought. But he would never admit that unilaterally. “Don’t know. And there’s another layer there.”

“Okay, hit me with it, then.”

“Those lines get blurry—but what happens if they get blurry for one person and the other’s still seeing clearly? We’re going to be in this treaty with the Woods Clan for a long time.” Possibly permanently. “So far we’ve survived everything Earth has thrown at us, so we could be at this a long time, too.”

“So what? Better not to risk any of it?” Clarke asked, still focusing on cleaning the fish. “Just get through this trip, secretly move into separate rooms back at camp, and avoid all contact because, oh, no, we could develop feelings?”

“I have been told I have a magnetic personality, and I’m a handsome bastard,” Bellamy said, a little affronted at the derisive note in her voice. “It’s not that impossible to believe.”

“Somebody has seriously misled you if they told you that,” Clarke said, smiling to take the sting out of her words. She gathered the cleaned fish on the piece of chopped wood she’d already cleaned off for this purpose and easily slid down the boulder, landing beside him in the creek. “Gah, that’s cold. Anywhere, where’s the line?”

“What?”

“The line we can’t cross without either one of us losing the clear vision. Is it handholding? Kissing?” Clarke thought about it. “Heavy petting?”

“Jesus. I don’t know. Um.” She’d landed incredibly close to him, which was throwing him off. At this distance, her eyes seemed bigger than normal, and the beauty mark above her lip that he’d noticed on the very first day on the ground was even more distracting than ever. “What are y—what are you comfortable with?”

She frowned a little in concentration, which only made it worse. “I don’t know. Maybe we should try something out and see?”

“Without even buying me dinner first? I am shocked and insulted, Princess.”

The nickname usually was enough to evoke some kind of reaction, but now Clarke only lifted her hand and touched his cheek. “What are you doing?” Bellamy asked, not daring to move.

“Scientific experiment. I’m checking to see how far we can go and keep the lines clear in our heads.”

Speak for yourself, Bellamy wanted to say. With her standing so close, practically leaning into him and touching his face, absolutely nothing was clear in his head. Hell, he was pretty sure that if anybody asked him his name, he’d probably just manage to stutter. He wanted to lean in that last six inches and kiss her—god how he wanted to kiss her—but part of him held back. Part of him knew this was a dare, nothing more than a scientific experiment. And it felt wrong.

So he pulled his face out of her grip. Her smile immediately dropped away, replaced by alarm and subsequently confusion.

“Leave your science out of it,” he said, wading over to go put his boots back on so his toes wouldn’t fall off. “Experiment on somebody else if you need to. But I was serious about what I said. We’re in this for the long haul.”

Clarke didn’t reply. When he looked at her out of the corner of his eye, she was frowning at him like there was something she was trying to puzzle out.

“What?” he said.

“I guess I didn’t realize how serious you were, that’s all. And I—no, never mind that. We can keep the affection minimal. They really can’t expect us to be super demonstrative among near-strangers. I’m sorry.”

Bellamy kept his gaze focused on his boots, ignoring the little voice that was already kicking the rest of him. He’d been so close. But not like that, he thought. “Let’s just go back to camp. They’ll be wondering where we are.”

“Or what we’ve been up to, which solves our problem with very little effort on our parts,” Clarke said, but she didn’t sound like she was joking. “Everybody wins, right?”

“Right,” Bellamy said, though he definitely didn’t feel like he was winning at the moment.

* * *

Over dinner, Clarke stayed quiet—noticeably so, that even Miller and Octavia remarked on it. Octavia, in addition, kept looking between Clarke and Bellamy with narrowed eyes until he glared at her to stop. She glared right back and shook her head like he was being an idiot, which he supposed was only fair. They slept around the fire pit, the Grounders on one side, the Sky People on the other. Because of the arrangement, Clarke and Bellamy shared a blanket, with Miller to their left and Octavia and Lincoln sharing a blanket a little bit away (Bellamy tried not to think about that, though). Bellamy kept his back to Clarke, not quite ready to face her with the humiliation over the earlier incident sitting sharp in the back of his mind.

When he woke, Clarke’s half of the blanket was cold. He found her sitting closer to the fire, knees pulled to her chest and arms wrapped around them.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

“No, everything’s fine.”

It wasn’t, as far he could tell. As pale as she was, every bruise and sleepless night showed up like a shout on her skin. Things were still a little off after their conversation the night before, though, so he didn’t want to press it.

That morning, they left the horses at the camp with one of Lexa’s men to watch over them. “Today we cross the Pass,” Lincoln said. “It’s the most treacherous part of the trip.”

“Great. When you say ‘treacherous,’ you mean…”

“I’m gonna guess not all that fun,” Octavia said, punching Bellamy lightly in the shoulder as she passed him.

They had to climb, humping their packs up steep trails with steep drops over the side. The air grew thinner and thinner the longer they hiked, until they were up above the tree-line, the valley spread like a majestic jewel below. Perhaps Lexa noticed the Sky People gawking as they went along, for she stopped at a particularly wide cliff and indicated they would rest and eat. Bellamy could hear roaring in the distance. As none of the Grounders seemed particularly perturbed by it, he decided to ignore it for now.

He held out a piece of dried apple to Clarke, since she liked those more than he did. When she jumped, he frowned. She’d been a little off all morning, not quite as full of her usual energy during the long hike. “Doing okay?” he asked.

She gave the offered fruit an odd look. “Yes,” she said slowly, taking it from him. “Thank you.”

“No problem.”

When they finally reached the Pass, Bellamy understood what the roaring was: waterfalls. Not one, but two, several hundred feet high with the sheerest drop he’d ever seen. The two falls faced each other, forming a very narrow crevice. Right along the center ran a strip of rock. Bellamy was sure that if he stepped to the middle of the path and held his arms out on either side, his hands would both be above empty air.

“Holy shit,” he said, and he heard Octavia and Miller echo him a second later.

“We’re supposed to cross that?” Clarke asked. “How?”

“Very slowly, and in single file.” Lexa gave an order in Trigedasleng that had all of the Grounders securing their packs and their weapons. Belatedly, Bellamy and his crew did the same. “To walk around would take several more days. This way is dangerous, but it is efficient.”

“Sure, efficient,” Miller said under his breath. “We’re going to be a bunch of very efficient skeletons at the bottom of that thing. Are we sure it’s even sturdy enough to hold us?”

“It’s held this long,” Octavia said.

The Grounders had produced two lengths of rope. “Two groups,” Lexa’s second-in-command said.

“You go in the first,” Bellamy said, looking at Clarke. “You and Miller. O, you and I’ll go in the second with Lincoln.”

Once the groups had been decided, the Grounders began looping the rope around each person in turn, forming a line. “So if one falls, we will have a chance of catching him. Or her,” it was explained to Bellamy.

“Or we all die at the same time,” was Miller’s take.

Clarke brought up the rear of the first group, right behind Miller. “Once we have made it,” Lexa said, “you will cross. I would not risk it before that, though. The Pass is sturdy, but it’s old.”

“Got it,” Bellamy, who was leading the second group, said. When they set out, he took a step back away from the edge and gave Lincoln and Octavia a long look. “Everybody’s got their wills up to date, I hope.”

“You’re as bad as Miller,” Octavia said.

They fell quiet as they watched the first group pick their way across the narrow strip of land that made up the Pass. Bellamy couldn’t deny that his heart was in his throat. It was hard to see thanks to the mist, but Clarke’s hair was like a beacon. For the first half of the Pass, there wasn’t any trouble. The group went slowly enough, the mists didn’t seem to be too bad—

And then Clarke slipped.

Bellamy saw it all happen in slow motion. She was walking fine, and then she must have stepped wrong because her arms flailed out, her foot caught, and she fell.

“No!”

“Bellamy!” Lincoln and Octavia lunged, hauling him back right as Clarke hit the end of the rope. She wobbled, her arms windmilling wildly. “She’s okay,” Octavia said, as Clarke grabbed the rope and held on for dear life. Miller dropped to his knees, struggling to pull her up. There was no room on the Pass for anybody else to help him out. “See? She’s fine. She’s moving.”

But Bellamy had already unknotted the rope tying him to the others. He broke free and started sprinting as fast as he could. If his boots touched the ground, he had no notion of it. He had to get to Clarke. He had to help Miller before the rope snapped and Clarke fell. He ran through the fog, the spray from the waterfalls like icy pinpricks of death attacking his face. When he reached Miller, he skidded the last couple of feet.

“Bellamy, are you insane?” Clarke asked when he grabbed the rope to help his friend pull her up. “Have you completely lost your damn mind? You could have fallen!”

“Little busy, Princess, yell at me later.”

“Believe me, I will!”

Between the two of them, they hauled her up easily enough, Miller holding the rope steady so Bellamy could lean over and assist Clarke over the edge. She crawled up and stayed there for a second, bracing herself on her hands and knees until she was a little more sure of the ground. She hugged Bellamy hard. “You’re an idiot.”

“I love you, too, Princess.”

“You could have died.”

“Obviously, but,” Bellamy started to say, when Clarke grabbed the front of his jacket and yanked his face down to hers. And there, right in front of the entire party of travelers, she kissed him.

Bellamy went absolutely still, his fingers flexing. He could feel his brain trying to process everything, but there was just static between his ears. Clarke was kissing him. Her lips were cold and she kind of accidentally bit his bottom lip, which sent a spurt of shock right through him.

She pulled back first. He was pretty sure he was kneeling there like a shell-shocked statue, so moving wasn’t actually on the agenda.

“I figured it out,” she said. “Why the hell you were so weird yesterday. I figured it out. I hope you don’t mind that I just did th—”

Finally his brain caught up with the rest of him, and Bellamy ignored her, leaning in to kiss her back. He had no idea what she was talking about, or why, and quite frankly, he’d worry about that later. He cupped her face with his hands, kissing her slowly. If this was his only moment, he was not going to waste it.

“Ahem,” a voice said, and they broke apart. Lexa, at the front of the group, had her eyebrow raised. “Perhaps we can do this on sturdier ground? Just a thought.”

“Uh, yeah.” Clarke looked just as dazed as he felt. Whether that was from almost falling to her death or the kiss, Bellamy had no idea. She swallowed and sneaked a glance at him, cheeks already turning red. “Yeah, that’s…that’s a good idea.”

“It’s like I’m not even here,” Miller said as they started to walk again. “Help save a girl from falling and she kisses the other guy.”

“Aw, Nathan,” Clarke said, reaching back blindly with one hand. Bellamy wrapped his fingers around it. “If you want me to kiss you, too, I will.”

“I’ll consider it.”

“Like hell you will,” Bellamy said under his breath. Miller just shot a sarcastic grin over his shoulder that made Bellamy grind his teeth together. He focused on putting one foot in front of the other and not looking down because he figured if he thought about anything that had just happened, he might accidentally walk off the edge of the path.

He really didn’t want to fall to his death three seconds after being kissed by Clarke Griffin. That seemed really unfair.

The minute they were on safe ground, he turned to her to demand what the hell she’d meant, but she shook her head. He looked around at the Grounder contingent and nodded back. It looked like they would have to wait to discuss any of this. She kept hold of his hand, her grip like a vise as Octavia, Lincoln, and the others carefully made their way across.

Octavia threw herself at Clarke for a giant hug. “I knew it,” she said, loud enough that only Bellamy and Clarke could hear. “I knew it was going to be a danger kiss. Raven so owes me.”

“What are you talking about?”

Octavia untied herself from the rope and handed it to Lincoln, who Bellamy thought looked a little smug. “We took bets about your first kiss. I bet ‘somebody almost dies,’ and Raven bet ‘Clarke attempts to strangle you.’ Which are kind of the same thing when you think about it, but not really.”

Clarke covered her face with her hand.

Bellamy gave his sister a look.

“Though, really, if you’re going to fool an entire legion of Grounders that you’ve been happily married for months, you should try not to look like you just got hit in the face by a cannonball. I could see it all the way from back there, brother dear,” Octavia said. “Might want to work on that. What? I’m just trying to help.”

“There’s a cliff about ten feet behind you I wouldn’t mind dropping you off of,” Bellamy said through his teeth, as his face felt rather hot in that moment.

“Trust you two to pick the most romantic spot on the journey,” Miller said as he wrapped rope around his wrist and elbow. “Look, you got a rainbow and everything.”

As one, their group turned to look. What had been treacherous and terrifying—and still was; Bellamy’s hands were still shaking, and he wasn’t sure if it was because Clarke had almost fallen to her death, or because Clarke had kissed him—was now incredibly beautiful. Every color in the rainbow was crystal clear as it arced through the mist and into the sky.

“Whoa,” Clarke breathed. “I’ve never seen one of those in person before.”

Bellamy wrenched his gaze away from the rainbow, staring first at her awestruck face, and then down at their hands. Somehow, she’d never let go, and he really didn’t mind.

“Sky People!” Lexa’s voice cut through the moment, and the four of them turned to see that the rest of the party was already on the other side of the clearing. “Do you feel like joining us, or what?”

“She gets more and more sarcastic every day,” Octavia said. “Did you ever notice that? I guess you two will catch up to the rest of us? I assume you have things to discuss, if Bellamy’s mad dash across hell is anything to go on.”

“Yeah, thank you, Octavia,” Clarke said, sounding like she was trying not to laugh even as Bellamy glared at his sister. She let go of Bellamy’s hand to hoist her pack higher up on her shoulders, and they fell into step at the very rear of the group, intentionally letting some space play out between them and Miller and Octavia.

When he was absolutely positive his sister was out of earshot, Bellamy simply turned toward Clarke and raised both eyebrows.

She gave him a good-natured eye-roll. “Don’t even start.”

“Start what? You kissed me, Princess, not the other way around. Seems like you were the one wanting to start something. I mean, I get it. I’m handsome, and—”

“Oh, shut it.” She shook her head, but the corners of her lips seemed to refuse to stay down. Bellamy understood the feeling. He’d been doing his best to keep a steady, neutral look on his face, but he kept reliving the kiss in the back of his mind. It was like a shouted mantra. Clarke had kissed him. Clarke had practically tackled him and had laid her lips on his and—he sounded like an idiot kid with a crush. “You didn’t exactly seem to mind, for the record.”

“I mean, it was all right,” Bellamy said, and he nearly had to duck when Clarke turned an affronted look on him. “Or—hell, I can’t keep this up, it means too much to me. Why did you do that? I guess that’s what I want to know. And what did you figure out? You said you figured it out, but you didn’t say what it was.”

Clarke looked down at the trail at their feet rather than at him. “You confused me last night, when we were fishing. We were talking about lines and I was having fun teasing you, and then it was like hitting a switch. And I couldn’t figure out why. If I’d offended you or you found me repulsive—”

That, Bellamy thought, was pretty much impossible.

“—and well, I didn’t get much sleep, wondering which it was. And then I realized, when you were trying to break your idiotic neck running across the stupid rock bridge like you did, it wasn’t either of those things.” Clarke looked at him now, and her gaze was so serious that he couldn’t look away. “You weren’t bringing up the blurry lines as a hypothetical. You were talking about you.”

“Clarke,” Bellamy said, as he very much did not want to admit the extent of his daydreams about her.

“I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. I’m sorry I didn’t.”

“It’s not on you.” He picked up a stick to have something to do with his hands and twirled it through his fingers. It gave him somewhere to look, so he didn’t have to meet her gaze. “I didn’t want to make it awkward for you, if you didn’t feel the same way and all. And then we ended up married, and I guess irony’s a bitch.”

“But what if I do feel the same way?”

Bellamy stopped walking. He also stopped breathing, as his brain wasn’t entirely sure he’d heard that right. He stared at Clarke, who stopped a couple of steps away. Static seemed to roar between his ears. His numb fingers dropped the stick. “Uh, could you say that again? I think I just hallucinated.”

“No,” and Clarke lifted her chin, “I think you heard me perfectly.”

“Uh-huh,” Bellamy said, squinting at her.

She sighed at him, like he was being infuriating again. It was a sound that was so completely her that it made him suddenly want to grin. “Bellamy, if I didn’t feel that way about you, I wouldn’t have kissed you. I am at least a little familiar with my feelings and know how to act accordingly.”

“God, you’re bossy,” Bellamy said, and when Clarke opened her mouth, indignant, he bounded forward and scooped her up, pack and all. This time, the kiss had nothing to do with the adrenaline of having almost died. He was just so damn happy. She wrapped her arms around his neck as he put her back on her feet, changing the angle of the kiss and dragging him even closer to her. He absolutely did not mind. Hell, he wasn’t going to mind anything ever again, if he could stay in this moment pretty much forever.

“Hey, lovebirds!”

Or not. Bellamy scrunched his eyes shut and rested his forehead against Clarke’s, feeling her little laugh rumble through his own chest. “What is it, Octavia?” he asked, opening his eyes but not looking over at his sister up ahead on the trail. Clarke’s eyes seemed to smile back at him.

“That’s incredibly cute and all, but you’re gonna get lost and miss the summit, so you should get a move on. Plenty of time for that later!”

Reluctantly, Clarke untangled her arms from his neck and took a step back, breathing just as hard as he was. “Later?” she asked.

Bellamy nodded rather more enthusiastically than he had intended to. When Clarke grabbed his hand to pull him along, he only grumbled and dragged his feet a little.

Inside, though, he felt like he was walking on air, and it took hours before his feet touched the ground again.

Chapter Text

“Okay, okay.” Octavia threw herself onto the cushion Bellamy had abandoned nearly five minutes before. She didn’t strike a dramatic pose, but Clarke figured she was one cup of Grounder wine away from that point. “You can knock that out now.”

“Knock what out?”

“The eye-sex you’re having with my brother. In addition to being gross, it’s unnecessary. You’ve convinced everybody you’re together. Good job. Now please stop.”

“Just yesterday, you called us cute,” Clarke said, finally looking away from Bellamy to smile at his sister.

“Yes, but that was before I discovered how persistent this thing was going to be.” Octavia helped herself to some of the roasted meat left behind on Bellamy’s plate. “Now I’m regretting any part I had in this, which includes accidentally convincing the Grounders to marry you off in the first place.”

“Seems to have worked out for the best.” Clarke pulled her hand out of her pocket, where she’d been worrying the little stone she carried. Bellamy had handed it to her the night before their wedding in some kind of drunken haze, and for some reason, she’d never tossed it away. She picked up her wine goblet and took a deep drink. They were leaving the summit the next day. It would be a long journey home, followed by the planting season—the first, Lexa had said, without the acid fog to kill their most precious crops. Either way, the fun was almost over, and Clarke intended to enjoy it while she could.

“You think it would have, without the arranged marriage?” Octavia asked.

“Dunno.” She’d had that thought a few times over the past few days. It had been an adjustment, but not much of one, to go from thinking of Bellamy as her closest friend to her actual husband. After that long night when she’d stared at the campfire while the others slept, trying to puzzle it all out, things had changed. Sure, she’d been so exhausted from not sleeping that she’d nearly plummeted to her death, but it had cemented something she kind of felt she’d always known deep down inside: Bellamy loved her. Not as a friend or a partner, but something deeper than that. And it had crept up on her, so quietly and slowly she hadn’t even noticed, that she felt the same way.

Also, she kind of hoped the little jump her pulse made whenever she saw him wouldn’t go away.

“Probably not as fast,” she said, answering Octavia’s question.

“Fast, she says.” Octavia heaved a gusty sigh and propped her chin on her hands. “Raven and I have had that bet for months.”

“Not my fault that you need to get better hobbies,” Clarke said, and Octavia smirked.

The summit hadn’t gone horribly, but it hadn’t gone swimmingly, either. The alliance, which consisted of twelve clans, had been ultimately distrustful of the newcomers and of the Commander by virtue of association. It had been a long few days for Clarke and Octavia, who spoke Trigedasleng better than Miller or Bellamy, and Clarke was positive fights had nearly broken out on fourteen separate occasions. At least the eating was good, as every clan seemed to want to boast of its fortune. Clarke and Bellamy, on one of the rare occasions they had managed to sneak away, had discussed commissioning Monty to make a special batch of his moonshine for the near year’s summit.

In the future, they would also take a longer trip and skip the Pass, Bellamy had grumbled, and Clarke had distracted him by taking off her shirt.

But now, Clarke had been inducted as the alliance’s recognized Commander of the Sky People, with Bellamy as her second and Octavia as their heir. If Lincoln hadn’t been around to smooth things over, Clarke was pretty sure Bellamy would probably have started at least two battles they couldn’t afford, but that didn’t matter now. They were official. The alliance now had thirteen clans.

Across the tent, Bellamy broke away from the group of warriors he’d been talking to and headed back to their cushions. Octavia obligingly scooted over to make room for him. “Bad news, Princess,” Bellamy said.

Clarke wrinkled her nose at him. “Please don’t make me get up and dance one of those jumping dances with you. I’m enjoying this buzz.”

“Not that kind of dance, no.” Bellamy slapped Octavia’s fingers when she tried to steal even more food from his plate. “But apparently it’s custom to bring new dances to these meetings and teach the others. The Sky Clan needs to contribute a dance.”

Clarke raised an eyebrow at him. “Teaching them all how to swing dance is going to be difficult.”

“Thankfully,” and Bellamy crunched down on a bunch of winterberries, wincing a little at the sourness, “that’s not actually the dance somebody introduced to an entire clan while drunk off her ass.”

It took her a second of peering at him with her eyebrows drawn in close together to understand what he meant and why he was smiling like that. And when she did, she groaned. “No,” was all she said.

“’Fraid so. Lexa’s men have been talking it up for the entire summit, apparently. Everybody’s beside themselves with anticipation.”

“This isn’t happening,” Clarke said, hiding her face in her hands. “This is not happening. I am not about to teach a group of diplomats and leaders how to do the Electric Slide.”

Octavia, who’d been giving them puzzled looks the whole time, abruptly lost it, falling sideways from laughing so hard. Even though Clarke didn’t look, she could actually feel the force of Bellamy’s smug grin as he regarded her.

“I’m not dancing it alone,” Clarke said.

“Not for long, anyway.” Bellamy shrugged when she looked up to scowl at him. “They’ll probably join in really fast. They seem to like their dancing, these Ground folk.”

“You’re the worst,” Clarke said.

Bellamy leaned over, tangling his hand in her hair the way he seemed to love to do. “Aw, that hurts my feelings,” he said. When he kissed her, she felt his smile.

“Yuck,” Octavia said.

They broke apart, Bellamy laughing. “Are you sure I’m the worst?” he asked in a low voice.

“Yes,” Clarke said without hesitating. Across the room, she could see Lexa giving her that look, so she pushed herself to her feet. She heard Octavia get up and follow her. Spotting Miller chatting with some of the Ice Clan, Clarke grabbed his arm and tugged him along with her.

“What’s happening?” Miller asked, falling obediently into step.

“Culture, apparently.” She took the drink he held and downed it. “Sorry. I’ll get you a new one when this is over.”

The tent went quiet as Clarke joined Lexa and a small group of the other leaders in the center of the dance floor. Apparently, they had been warned ahead of time of what was about to happen. She wished she shared that luxury, but apparently it wasn’t to be.

“The band will follow your lead,” Lexa said, giving Clarke that regal nod at which she excelled.

“Raven is going to laugh her ass off when we tell her about this,” Octavia said as they fell into a line. “I’m just sad she’s missing this at all.”

“We’ll bring her next year,” Clarke said.

She had to hand it to them: the Grounders were apparently born to do the electric slide. It only took one round through the shuffling steps—which Octavia knew perfectly, to nobody’s surprise—before the band picked up the melody more or less. And with the unfamiliar earth instruments twanging the old classic, a few others from the different clans ambled onto the dance floor, falling into the ragged lines. Before long, there were a good twenty Grounders, Lexa among them, scooting in patterns around the dance floor and shouting, “It’s electric!” on the beat.

Surreal didn’t even begin to describe it, though Clarke couldn’t deny it: she was having a blast. Bellamy, reclining lazily on the cushions at the edge of the dance floor, gave them a little wave whenever they turned in his direction. Until Octavia nudged Clarke and jerked her head. “Why should he miss out on all the fun?” she called over the music and clapping.

“That’s an excellent point.” Clarke darted off the dance floor. Bellamy saw her coming and shook his head emphatically, but she only grinned and tugged on his elbow until he gave in. He had to be physically pushed onto the dance floor and evidently he did not share his sister’s affinity for the dance, for he kept turning in the wrong direction.

It took Clarke a while to realize that he was doing it on purpose. “You’re incorrigible,” she said the third time he crashed into her, his arm slipping around her waist. “Seriously, you’re doing the wrong dance at this point.”

He leaned in so close that his lips brushed her ear. “I have my own moves,” he said in the same low voice that did things to her.

Octavia used the lean-forward to elbow her brother in the center of the back, making Bellamy yelp. “What you guys are trying to do right now is an entirely different dance, and it’s better performed horizontal,” she said, shooting a smirk over her shoulder as they executed the kick-turn.

“I don’t know. Depends on how creative you are,” Clarke said, and both Blake siblings made a strangled noise. She narrowed her eyes at both of them, promising further revenge, and Bellamy finally broke away to properly follow the dance and laugh. On his other side, Octavia reached out and grabbed Lincoln’s hand, her smile possibly the widest and most carefree Clarke had seen it in a long time. Miller shook his head at all of them, but he was smiling, too.

It was a memory Clarke would always treasure: dancing the Electric Slide with her husband, his family, and nearly sixty Grounders, all in the name of peace. It had been a long, confusing winter, but spring had finally arrived.