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Turns out that once you start, hugging Bellamy is a hard habit to beak.
It started as just a means of greeting when he returned to camp.
The first time, he was coming back from a joint scouting mission of Mt. Weather with the grounders. They hadn’t been parted from the same general vicinity since their reunion and Clarke would be lying if she said there wasn’t a small, irrational part of her that feared he wouldn’t come back at all. She happened to be near the gate with Raven when he returned, discussing the practicality of sending up the radio beacon again, now that they were allied with the grounders.
“Open the gate!” came the call from the guards.
“…depends on how much stock we want to put in the assumption that Weather knows where we are already,” Raven was saying. Clarke glanced up to see Bellamy coming through the gate, covered in a layer of grime, but otherwise unhurt.
“I mean, this thing did fall out of the sky,” she returned, turning toward the gate a few paces away, “we should assume they’re not idiots, right?” she finished over her shoulder, walking over to where Bellamy was shrugging off his pack.
“Hey.”
“Hey yourself,” he returned.
Without really thinking about it, she was up on her tiptoes, arms around his neck. Partway through the action she nearly stopped herself, but what the heck, she was already half hugging him. Before she even had the chance to question the choice, she felt his arms encircle her waist without hesitation.
Breaking from their short embrace, she looked up at him.
“Raven and I are discussing the pros and cons of putting the radio beacon back up,” she said, before turning to walk back to the mechanic. He fell in step beside her.
“Might as well. It’s not like they don’t know where we are,” he said, coming to a stop between the two of them. Clarke nodded in agreement.
Besides a wide-eyed look that was lost on the two co-leaders, Raven didn’t comment on the interaction.
“Right then. Now we can finally see if the other stations made it to the ground.”
It became a habit they both expected from then on. A hug and an update on what each had accomplished in their time apart. It wasn’t always a full on embrace, often just a one-armed hug if they’d only been apart for a short time. Living in a camp run by adults, it was nice to keep some semblance of the comradery they had built up from their days at the drop ship.
A week or so later, Clarke was returning from a tactical meeting with Lexa—the grounder commander preferred strategizing with the younger Griffin over her mother, who was still new to how things worked on the ground. She trudged through the gate, exhausted from the extensive planning but feeling good about the outcome. Glancing around for her mother to brief her on the plan, she felt a warm hand on her shoulder and turned around to find herself in Bellamy’s arms. She was surprised, but instinctually wound her arms around him in return, letting herself relax into his embrace.
It took her a second to get to the heart of her surprise: it was the first time she was the one returning to camp while he stayed behind. The realization that he worried when she was away too had her smiling softly into his neck.
“Hey,” he said when they parted, his eyes searching hers, “How’d it go?”
“Good. They don’t mind putting off the attack a couple days if it means we’ll have more backup,” she smiled at him wearily.
“Great. Your mom already signed off on sending a delegation, so I’ll get Raven and Wick to let farm know we’ll have people coming for them in a few days.” With the beacon back in the air, they’d finally made contact with farm station, who they now knew had also made it to the ground, albeit not without casualties and injuries. Camp Jaha was in far better shape, so it only made sense to bring in the survivors and supplies from farm station and keep one primary camp.
Clarke nodded, things were finally coming together. Soon they’d have all of their people back together, farm station and hopefully the 47, after they marched on Mt. Weather. Hopefully.
She sighed, swaying slightly on her feet, “Thanks Bellamy. Now I just need to find her and fill her in on the rest of the plan.” She craned her neck, squinting as she turned to look around the camp.
“There she is,” she muttered under her breath, beckoning to her mother who had caught her eye from the door to medical and taking a step in that direction.
“Clarke,” Bellamy reached out for her arm, his hand sliding down to grasp hers as she turned back around, “Get some rest, alright?” His dark eyes were worried when they met hers.
She smiled and nodded, squeezing his hand before letting go, turning to her mother who walked up just as Bellamy left.
When Clarke questioned her mother’s surprised look, the Chancellor just shook her head.
Without Clarke really noticing, it became an even more regular occurrence.
When Bellamy entered her tent from time to time to discuss things that needed changing—Abby took criticism better when it came from her daughter—she’d instinctually stretch out an arm as he came to stand by her side. He never seemed taken aback by it, draping his own around her shoulder in response and they’d stand there, arm in arm, as they talked.
Octavia broke into these conversations occasionally, knowing that, if he wasn’t to be found around camp, Bellamy was likely to be in Clarke’s tent, overanalyzing things as usual.
“Hey, Lincoln says taking a second group around the back might work after all,” she said, ducking into the tent. Her eyes flitted to where Clarke’s thumb was tracing circles on the back of Bellamy’s hand where it rested on her shoulder. To her credit, she didn’t miss a beat, smirking slightly as she continued, “The river’s not flooded anymore, so crossing it shouldn’t be a problem.”
Bellamy and Clarke exchanged relieved looks. The rescue mission was to take place in two days and their plan of a double headed attack had seemed foiled when the entrance Bellamy and the grounders had found was made unreachable thanks to steady rainfall and a fast moving river. Now that it was accessible again, a weight was lifted. Maybe this would work after all.
“About time. Now as long as that cave leads where we think it does,” Bellamy leaned down to gesture to Clarke’s hand drawn map of the mountain, all the while his arm still around her shoulders, “we might actually have a chance of rescuing our people and the grounders.”
Octavia gave him a mock solute, “Glad to be of help, big brother.” She turned to leave the tent, but not before giving them another coy smile and a wink.
“What’s up with her?” Clarke asked after she’d left.
“Who knows,” Bellamy said, attention already returned to the map, “it’s Octavia.”
The day of the march on Mt. Weather came, Bellamy leading one group to the river side entrance, Clarke leading another through the garage where they’d found Lincoln.
And against all odds, it worked.
At least that’s what Clarke was thinking when she led her team and the 47 through the gates of Camp Jaha. Everyone was all smiles. Victory was theirs, wasn’t it?
Clarke made it no more than ten steps into camp before she knew something was wrong.
Where’s Bellamy?
She looked around again, but, no, he wasn’t here. Neither was the rest of his group. She pulled Raven from where she was exchanging hugs with Monty and Jasper.
“Hey, where’re Bellamy and the others?”
“Not back yet, but don’t worry. They have all those blood-drained grounders with them, they’re bound to take longer.”
Two hours passed, then three, four, five…and they still weren’t back.
“Relax would you, Clarke?” Wick called from where he and Raven were working at the beacon, trying to boost signals again to reach Bellamy’s group. Clarke looked up from her worried pacing outside the medical tent.
“Your boyfriend’s gonna be fine. He can take care of himself.” That earned him a glare from Raven and an elbow to the ribs.
Clarke turned back into the tent, ignoring his words. There were patients to care for.
Except she couldn’t really ignore the engineer’s words. Boyfriend…That’s not what Bellamy was to her, right? No. Of course not.
But was it what she wanted?
She’d never even considered it before. Bellamy was her co-leader, her partner, her friend. She trusted him, and cared about him, more than anyone. But…romantically?
She had no idea how that would work.
Would that work?
Luckily, the hard knot in her chest was somehow sure about this thing that she couldn’t wrap her head around.
She buried herself in her work then, tending to those who’d been hurt in the rescue mission. Trying desperately not to think about Bellamy. Trying not to count each second that he wasn’t back. Trying not to imagine him lying somewhere, injured…
It was nearly sundown when Clarke was awakened from a restless sleep, which she had given in to solely because she could hardly stand on her own two feet. Her mother had made her lie down when she’d nearly taken a scalpel to a patient who needed just needed a bandage.
The commotion outside had her pulling herself up and nearly running out of the tent.
Once outside, she could actually understand the words that had woken her. “They’re back!” was being chanted back and forth and Clarke’s heart leapt.
Then she was pushing her way through the crowd, many yelling out at her as she pushed past, but a fair few stepping out of her way, soft knowing smiles on their faces.
And finally, finally, there he was. Battered and bruised and bleeding, but alive. He was alive and his eyes found hers and his face split into a smile that should have been impossible for someone who was as worn and exhausted as he looked.
Before she could even tell her feet to move, she was running to him. She knew that she should be careful. He could be hurt. She knew that.
But he was alive.
She flung herself against him, her arms wrapping tightly around his neck, burying her face in his chest so he wouldn’t see her tears. She was breathing heavily, trying not to sob as her fingers found the hair at the base of his neck. Crying was not a thing that Clarke Griffin did.
But Bellamy was alive.
“Hey Princess.” His voice was little more than an exhausted whisper, but his arms were tight around her, clinging to her like a lifeline. “Sorry we took so long.” If she weren’t overwhelmed by a million emotions, Clarke might have felt him lightly kiss the top of her head before he dropped his head to her shoulder, breathing her in.
“I—I thought…” she couldn’t finish, words trailing off in a choked sob.
“I know.” The way he squeezed her tighter expressed his unspoken words. I’m sorry.
“The tunnel didn’t lead where we thought,” he mumbled into her hair, “and by the time we made it to the grounders, they knew we were there.” He didn’t finish, but she didn’t need him to. He was here. He had done what needed to be done. It had been hard, but he had succeeded. He was here.
They stood there a moment longer, reveling in the comfort of the other’s embrace.
Eventually, Clarke heaved a heavy sigh, pulling herself from his arms. Tears still lingered on her cheeks when she looked up at him, but her voice was strong.
“Come on, you need to get to medical.”
“Clarke, it’s just a few scratches,” his voice was still low and strained with exhaustion. He stayed where he was, looking at her with a kind of awed intensity.
“They’ll get infected, you know that.” Her words were steady, but Bellamy didn’t miss the shaky breaths she took in between. She placed a hand on his arm, feebly trying to pull him away from the gate, looking around for someone to help her drag a certain stubborn leader to the medical tent.
“Clarke.” His voice was a little louder now.
“What?”
“Just turn around, would you?” he rasped, grasping the hand that was still on his arm and pulling her around to face him.
“Bell—what—” And then he was kissing her, his mouth hot on hers, hands cradling her face. When she didn’t respond, he nearly pulled away, making to apologize, but her hands caught the fabric of his shirt on either side of his waist, pulling him back to her, smiling against his lips as she returned the kiss, fierce and warm. Satisfied that he wasn’t going anywhere, her arms snaked around his neck, pulling herself up on her tiptoes. Closer. His hands found her waist and he sighed into the kiss.
“Did we miss something?” Jasper asked Octavia, exchanging surprised looks with Monty as they looked on, in mixtures of shock and awe, at their leaders’ embrace.
“Nothing they weren’t missing themselves until about two seconds ago,” Octavia said, smirking, “Idiots.”