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Clarke knew.
She knew the entire time she was writing, the entire time they were discussing the merits of each choice, the skills the Ark would need to survive in the six years following Praimfaya, the population distribution and health requirements; that there was no version of this list that would not include Bellamy Blake.
She may pride herself on being logical, the head to his heart, but no argument no matter how strong could’ve persuaded her to leave him off, to give his spot to someone else. She should’ve put his name first for all the inevitability that it would appear, but she knew he would argue with her. She could tell him it was his skills: leadership, diplomacy, hunting, scouting, compassion. She could say it was his age, and his health, and his genetic potential. His perspective, his position in the power hierarchy. None of that is untrue, but it would be a lie all the same.
The truth is that Clarke is selfish, and she refuses to let him die.
He’s asleep, when she finally writes his name down. There’re two spaces left, one for each of them. Bellamy’s name goes first, because it’s the one she’s sure of. The second one—
That’s harder.
She stares at the final space, her mind racing. She could put her own name, it’s what anyone would expect. She fits the bill well enough—young and strong with specialized training to boot—but so do so many others. And her skills, she gained them by virtue of her station, by the luck of her birth. Who’s to say she’s more worthy than the others? The fact that she was willing to make this list at all should condemn her along with the rest of the names she’s left unwritten.
Clarke’s breath catches in her throat, a choking gasp. It sounds so loud in the quiet of the compartment, like the sound of ripping paper. She imagines shredding the list in front of her, tearing it to pieces in her hands, watching the names flutter to the floor like falling leaves.
Tears spring to her eyes and she sinks back in her seat. The pen, gripped for so long between clenching fingers, is finally allowed to slip out of her grasp, dropping silently to the tabletop. Her skin stings where it was squeezed against the plastic, blood rushing back into her white knuckles.
She can’t do it. Maybe the last slot can be lotteried off, the final space on the Ark left to the hands of fate. Clarke is so very tired of playing god.
She wishes— it’s not fair. Not fair that this task was left to her. Not fair that her time on the ground, her childhood dream nominally come true, has been filled with death and pain and loss. Not fair that the world is ending before Clarke’s even had a chance to live in it.
She stifles another sob, tears streaming down her cheeks. It’s not fair.
Bellamy rises then, lifting his body off the couch. Clarke stiffens. She tries to compose herself, tries to wipe the moisture from her face, tries to cover the shake of her body by lifting her shoulders; but it’s too late for that. He sees her, because he always sees her. And he knows.
Bellamy approaches her slowly, like she’s a wild animal. There’s something like disappointment on his face, or maybe resignation. Clarke turns her head away, unable to face him.
“If I’m on that list,” he tells her quietly, “You’re on that list.”
His words are soft but strong, brokering no argument. Still, Clarke can’t help but argue. It’s what they do, who they are.
“Bellamy, I can’t—”
He steps closer, his presence almost overwhelming. Clarke can feel the heat of his body, close enough to touch, and she longs to reach for him, to bury her face in his chest and sob. To break down in his arms and feel him hold her together.
“Write it down,” Bellamy orders. His mouth tightens as she makes no move to obey. “Write it down, or I will.”
His eyes are shiny, hard and dark and desperate, and for a moment she sees her own feelings reflected in him. Her own selfishness. When she shakes her head, he reaches in front of her and takes the list. In strong, bold strokes, Bellamy writes her name in the final spot. He glances up as he goes, making sure Clarke understands that this is as non-negotiable to him as his name was for her.
- CLARKE GRIFFIN
She can’t bear to look at it.
Bellamy caps the pen. His motions indicate the finality of it all: this is it, they are done. One hundred names, one hundred lives. Clarke sequesters the part of herself that wants to scream, walling off the deep ache in her chest. She lets out a breath.
“So what now?”
Clarke glances at him, waiting for his response. When it comes his voice is a rasp, his eyes staring blankly forward. “Now we put it away and hope we never have to use it.”
That’s a situation Clarke has failed to even consider, the weight of her knowledge not even allowing her a minute’s reprieve from the inevitability of it all: the end of the world.
“You still have hope?”
There’s a heaviness between them, a weight that lifts just slightly as he looks at her again, lips quirking just barely upwards. “We still breathing?”
She wants to smile back but she can’t. Instead her gaze falls back to the paper in front of her. Bellamy’s hand reaches out then, clasping around her shoulder. His grip is warm, and strong. It steadies her, tethering her to the ground when she feels like a single puff of wind would be enough to blow her over. She covers his hand with her own, leaning her head onto their joined fingers.
He curls his thumb around her fingers, stroking soft circles into her skin. Moving his body without letting go, Bellamy comes to stand in front of her, leaning back onto the desk. His torso blocks her view of the paper—of the list—so all Clarke can see is him, and there’s something right about that.
Her hand slides down to his elbow, and he shifts his grip from her shoulder to the curve of her jaw. His fingers brush against her skin so softly, like he’s almost unsure, but he tilts her chin up until their eyes meet. Her mouth falls open slightly, gazing up at him.
“Clarke,” Bellamy says, and his voice is wrecked, a rasp that sends shivers down her spine.
He’s so beautiful, she thinks suddenly. She’s known that, known clinically that he’s an attractive man, but with him so close, with her heart so ragged—
She wants to kiss him.
It’s something she’s thought about before, something she’s kept close to her chest as they went about their work. Bellamy means so much to her—too much—and not just as a co-leader and friend. Lexa knew, Roan knew, Alie knew, and they used it against her. She’s pushed it down, sublimated and covered it up because it’s weakness, she knows it is. But now, as the pads of his fingers curl into the hollow of her jaw, holding her eyes to his with gentle pressure, Clarke can’t bring herself to remember why that’s a bad thing.
She rises unsteadily to her feet, bringing their faces level. He blinks at her with wide eyes, surprised by her closeness. One of her hands finds his face, the other settling flat against his chest, palm pressed over his heart. She can feel the heavy thump of it, reassuring her that he’s here, that he’s alive, that they both truly are still breathing.
Clarke feels it race in time with her own as she steps even closer.
“Clarke—” Bellamy whispers again, something like warning in his tone, but his hand curls hesitantly around her hip. She’s shaking, she knows she is. Her cheeks are glistening again, eyelashes heavy with tears as she blinks at him, wetting her lips.
He wants this, she can see that. There’s something tortured in his gaze, like it’s painful to look at her so close. His eyes sweep over her face, lingering almost imperceptibly on the pink curve of her lips.
She can hear a rush in her ears, the pounding of blood in her head amplified by the stress of the day, by the role they’d been forced by circumstance to play, by the tenuous way they cling to survival. She thinks she knows how to make it all go quiet.
Clarke leans in, her eyes falling shut.
Bellamy follows, his forehead tilting down so it touches hers, his hand sliding into the hair at the nape of her neck. It’s an almost thing, a barely there brush of lips. He’s so close she can taste his breath on her tongue.
He pulls back with a hiss.
Clarke’s eyes fly open, taking in his pained expression, the stiff line of his shoulders. She mirrors it reflexively, hot shame rising high in her chest. “I thought—”
Bellamy shakes his head. “Not like this,” he says gently, thumb stroking over her hip through the fabric of her shirt. “Not now.”
She flushes red, detangling herself from his body. “Sorry, I just—” Clarke tries, but the words won’t come. They stick in her throat and she swallows them back down. “Sorry.”
God, what has she done? She has to— to leave, now, before she can make this any worse than it already is. Clarke scrambles for her things, grabbing jerkily at the paper. Her eyes burn, lips pressed tightly together.
Bellamy watches her, bewildered. “Clarke—”
“It’s fine,” she tells him. “I should go.”
Clarke moves to leave, heading for the door, but Bellamy stops her with a hand around her wrist. “Wait, Clarke—” She freezes. She doesn’t look at him, can’t look at him, so she misses the way his eyebrows pull together. His tone gentles, grip loosening. “ Princess .”
She closes her eyes at the once derisive nickname, now spoken with such softness, such—
Love.
She chokes back a single sob, her eyes stinging with unshed tears. Bellamy makes a strangled noise, and then he’s hauling her into his arms, pressing her slight body hard against his chest, stroking over her back. He tilts his head so his lips find the shell of her ear, murmuring into her mane of blonde waves. “I’m sorry,” he tells her. “Please stay.”
Clarke sighs into his chest and nods, exhausted. She lets him lead her over to the couch, lets him pull her down and arrange her body beside his, tucked in the embrace of his warmth. He holds her tenderly, like she is something precious, and she wonders just when they became this, when they started to mean so much to each other.
Bellamy interlaces their fingers, bringing their joined hands to his mouth for a kiss. His lips are soft against the skin on the back of her hand, his eyes tender. He uses his free hand to caress the curve of her cheeks, wiping away the tears she hadn’t realized had fallen.
“I’m tired,” Clarke says, lulled by the comfort of his touch. “Of everything always being so hard. Why does it always have to be so hard?”
He soothes her quietly, catching the fresh tears as they spill down her cheeks anew, but he doesn’t promise her anything. Doesn’t tell her things will be different, that one day things will be easier, and Clarke is glad for it. They both know ‘ one day ’ means nothing at the end of the world.
“Why does it always have to be us?” she asks, cheek pressed against the hard plane of his chest. She’s curled half over him, his arm wrapped around her body, holding her in place. “Ever since we got down here, whenever something goes wrong, it’s been on you and me to fix it.”
“You’re a leader, Clarke,” Bellamy tells her gently. He brushes a lock of golden hair away from her eyes and she blinks at him, blue irises meeting brown. His lips quirk up, fingers stroking the line of her jaw. “It’s in your blood, it’s the way you were built. We may have been dealt a bad hand in terms of choices, but there’s no doubt to me that even if there had been other options, you still would’ve stepped up. You wouldn’t be satisfied just sitting on the sidelines and watching.”
Clarke leans into his hand. “And you?”
He smiles fondly. “What about me?”
“Are you a leader too? In your blood and all that?”
Bellamy shrugs, shaking his head. “Not really. I’m a follower where it counts.”
Clarke frowns at that, craning her neck to look at him with narrowed eyes, her gaze doubtful. That can’t be true, she’s seen proof of it, of his charisma, his strength. She opens her mouth to contradict him. “Then why—?”
Then why is it always us , she means to ask, but he cuts her off.
“Because I go where you go, princess.” His eyes are dark, words thick with sincerity. “Haven’t you noticed that by now?”
There’s a lump in Clarke’s throat, and she lowers her head back to his shoulder, fingers clutching at his shirt. Her eyelids are heavy, dragged down by the weight of her exhaustion. She lets them flutter shut. When she speaks again it’s quiet, muffled slightly by the fabric covering his chest. “Thank you.”
Bellamy’s arm around her tightens, fingers tracing circles onto her skin. “For what?”
She sighs, feeling the breath drag the tension from her body. “For not letting me do it alone.”
She can feel sleep rising like the tide, a soft comforting black waiting at the edges of her consciousness, ready to pull her over as soon as she lets herself fall. Bellamy leans forward, pressing a kiss into her hair.
“Never,” he promises, and the word sinks warmly into Clarke’s chest like a drop of sunlight.
Never.
She feels the easy rise and fall of his chest, ribs expanding and retracting with each breath. It rocks her in time with his heartbeat. His fingers continue to trace patterns on her skin, dips and loops that she imagines to look like a painting, like the night sky.
“Get some sleep,” Bellamy rasps, but he needn’t have bothered. Clarke is already drifting off, falling softly into unconsciousness in the circle of his arms.
****
She wakes up first.
Clarke is initially disoriented by the heat, by the warmth of the arms around her, of the body beneath her cheek. Bellamy , she remembers then, and relaxes into him, relishing the comfort he brings her.
She tilts her head, looking up at him. His face is soft in sleep, hair mussed in inky curls over his forehead. He looks so young, so heartbreakingly beautiful. She presses a kiss to his sternum, right over the beat of his heart.
“I love you,” Clarke whispers.
She lets out a breath, chest suddenly tight. She thinks of the night before, and the nights to come, and the end of the world that bites at their heels.
“I’ll tell you,” she promises Bellamy. Clarke sinks into him, stealing another moment, another breath.
“One day.”