Chapter Text
Sometimes Clarke thinks about how they’re due to save the world again , and feels slightly hysterical.
It’s ridiculous, so unfair – they’ve barely had time to recover from Titans trying to kill them left and right, and now they’re on a metal ship of death flying halfway around the world to kill a primordial goddess none of them know how to fight, and a quest her divine mother saddles her on that could get her killed. Why couldn’t it be some other seventeen-year-old kids who got caught with this shit while Clarke got an all-expense-paid trip to some exclusive Olympian spa?
(She can’t do that, of course. There was no way she’d pass on the fighting. Not with everything at stake.)
She finds Raven in the cockpit, her fellow demigod practically slumped over the wheel.
“Brought you coffee,” she says softly.
Raven turns around, her ponytail glinting in the fluorescent light. “Thanks,” she says, taking the cup. Her voice is tired. “Smells good. Monty’s?”
“Yup. His coffee’s only slightly less good than his booze, apparently. But it looks like you need sleep more than caffeine. Need me to sub in?” Clarke gestures to the wheel.
“No, babe. I built this baby. Nobody knows her like I–” She’s cut off by her own yawn. “…do.”
Clarke looks at her, bemused. “I’m a genius, remember?” she says. “I’m pretty sure I can get by for a few hours without crashing us into a mountain. Get some sleep, Raven. I’ll call you if any monsters attack.”
“I’ll hold you to that, Griffin.” Raven stops at the door, turns around. “Thanks,” she adds, a little awkwardly.
Clarke watches her leave. She used to envy Raven for continuously oozing confidence, skill, and charisma; for being whitehot emotional only when the situation called for it, for having the sense and maturity for not ending their friendship once Finn’s indiscretion had been discovered. But the last one left a gap between them still, and it’s something Clarke hopes they can mend before they, you know, die.
Clarke’s been driving for three hours. She’s pretty sure Monty puts ambrosia in the coffee. She feels more alive with each sip, and her fingers tingle on the wheel.
“Hey,” Bellamy’s voice says softly behind her. “You left this.”
She turns around. He’s standing in the doorway, in a rumpled T-shirt and the pants he wore today, his hair curling out in every direction. He looks beautiful and exhausted, and he’s holding out a coin.
“I left it on purpose,” she says, but she gets up to take it anyway. The silver metal is cool against her skin, the engraved owl staring at her like a promise. The Mark of Athena burns through Rome, the prophecy had said, and the coin suddenly feels hot on her palm. Suddenly she feels the urge to hurl it out the window, let it fall somewhere into the Atlantic Ocean, to hell with her mother and her urging.
Bellamy seems to sense this and he moves so that his large palms close over her hands. “Hey,” he says, his voice nothing short of gentle. “It’s been a long day.”
“God, it went to hell in the worst possible way,” Clarke says near-hysterically.
Bellamy’s hands move to her shoulders, and they rub comforting circles through her shirt. “Lexa will understand,” he says quietly.
“What if she doesn’t?” Clarke mumbles. “That truce we worked so hard for – do we have to stop Gaea without her support because we fired on them? It’s–”
Bellamy says nothing, just guides her back to the cockpit. “I’ll keep you company,” he offers, giving her a tired smile. “It’ll be fine.”
Clarke inhales. Exhales. Keeps her eyes trained on her. They’re big and soft and warm.
“Okay,” she says. He smiles at her again and plops down on the extra chair Raven keeps around. They talk about everything and nothing. Clarke keeps her eyes trained on the star charts and the clouds, tries to avoid the way Bellamy looks at her sometimes.
(Deep down, she knows Lexa will understand. She’s Bellona’s daughter, child of a war god like Clarke’s and Bellamy’s parents; like them, she knows the cost of leading. But it’s nice to not have someone constantly expect levelheaded leadership from her once in a while.)
Clarke watches Bellamy, asleep in the chair, and thinks, It hadn’t always been like this.
She and Wells came to Camp Half-Blood at the same time. They were both twelve, had grown up together in the same upperclass suburban neighborhood, knew each other inside and out. It was only right that they come together. Bellamy had been sixteen at the time, handsome and angry, rough and experienced, and had taken one look at them and sneered.
Won’t last half a day if they don’t toughen up, he’d told his siblings.
Wells had tugged at her hand, urging her to back down, but Clarke had yelled back, asking him what right he’d had to judge them, they’d gone through the same hardships he had faced coming here –
Chiron himself had had to intervene eventually, sending Wells and Clarke back to Cabin Eleven and giving Bellamy a hard talking-to. Clarke had felt a rush of pride.
Pretty impressive, Miller had said. He was a Hermes kid, two years older than her, and nice-sounding. I’ve never seen a kid get Bellamy so riled up.
I’m not a kid, Clarke had said stubbornly.
And he’s not head counselor of Ares, Miller had reminded her mildly.
Makes sense, Clarke had replied, pouting. What a brute.
Miller and Wells had laughed. He’s not so bad once you get to know him, Miller had replied, not unkindly. But I won’t tell him you said that.
It’s true, she thinks. Bellamy’s not bad at all.
Her first Capture the Flag game, Eleven had been allied with Five. Clarke doesn’t remember much of it, just a lot of yelling, but she had come up with a strategy that had ended up taking a lot of Four and Nine campers out. Soon, it had ended up with her and Bellamy back-to-back defending the flag.
Watch your back, princess, he’d said.
You don’t have to watch yours, I’ve got your back, she’d said hotly.
They did a damn fine job of defending the flag for a while; Clarke finds that she and Bellamy actually make a damn good team – he’s all rage and raw power, Clarke is grace and finesse, and they managed to channel this into something workable and ferocious. Clarke takes out two enemies with a well-placed arrow, and Bellamy’s mouth drops open.
You’re being claimed, Bellamy had whispered, gazing at the owl above her head. Athena. Of course.
They managed to win, but only by the skin of their teeth; Clarke took a blow to the back that left her bedridden for a day. Wells was beside her when she’d awoken. Hey, niece-once-removed, he’d said, smiling with teeth. He lets a spark of electricity pass from one hand to the other, and her jaw drops open before breaking into an earsplitting grin.
Bellamy was there, too. You okay there? he had asked, and his expression towards her is kind for the first time.
She learned a lot about him in the years that came. She learned that he loves his sister more than anything in the world and that he stays over for the summers because he doesn’t want to put her in danger, and that they grew up with practically nothing. He learned that she’d hoped to be an Apollo kid, only because she’d planned to be a doctor, and "Apollo likes art, right?" When her father died and she and Wells stopped talking, she started staying the summers with him, and they trained and fought and fished and ate together. It was…nice. They've practically grown up together.
Bellamy stirs, jolting her back to the present. He smiles at her blearily. “O, captain, my captain,” he sing-songs. “Am I that handsome in my sleep?”
“You’re only handsome when you’re asleep,” she retorts, but she can’t stop herself from grinning back.
“Coming from you, that’s a compliment of the highest order. I will treasure it till the end of my days,” he says. “Sorry I fell asleep,” he adds, more seriously.
“It’s fine,” Clarke says. “Like you said – long day. And hey, we’re okay.”
He grins at her and Clarke promises herself – the day this is over, they will finally talk about what this is between them – but only then. Until then, there’s a world to save.
They come down for breakfast where the rest are eating. “Hey, Clarke,” says Wells cheerily. “Raven told me you so heroically took over for her, so I asked Bufort to make us blueberry pancakes.”
Clarke fights a smile. “Thank you, my loyal subjects,” she says, taking a seat next to him. He gives her a small smile, and she nods at him. Their friendship will never quite be what it once was, but it’s a start.
“…and then Maya walked by and Jasper just walked straight into the fountain,” Monty’s saying, and the breakfast table dissolves into laughter. Clarke lets herself sit back and lose herself in the chatter. It’s nice, eating and talking like this. It’s almost like they’re a bunch of excited kids, not a bunch of tired warriors.
Bellamy meets her eye across the table, his glance worried, and she sends him a weak smile. They’ve always understood each other.
A lot of things happen when they cross the Mediterranean. Finn gets a cornucopia when dealing with Hercules, they all fight the same wind and air monsters a thousand times and everyone nearly dies when Chrysaor boards their ship. But somehow, praise the gods – they make it to Rome.
Bellamy goes with her while she searches for the entrance to what her mother’s looking for. He’s on high alert, constantly on the lookout for threats to the two of them, but Clarke can tell he’s excited – Rome has always been the dream for him, and he chatters on about this building and that fountain, holding her hand all the while. Clarke smiles and doesn’t let go.
A few years ago, she would’ve balked at this – but they are so, so different now, they’ve lived through gods and monsters and Titans, they’ve lived through quests and dying teammates and Wells saving the world and subsequently disappearing and coming back, they’ve lived through Octavia turning out to be Roman, they’ve lived through so much, and, not for the first time, she realizes how relieved and glad she is that it’s him here with her. She looks up at him. I don’t think I tell him that enough.
So when they sit down at a café for lunch and Tiberinus and Rhea Silva come up to them, Bellamy’s eyes nearly drop out of their sockets.
“Lovers?” Rhea Silva trills, her mouth curled in Audrey Hepburn’s famous smile.
Bellamy and Clarke look at each other and shake their heads. Clarke pretends her cheeks don’t heat up.
“No, my lady, it’s–”
“We’re on a quest–”
Tiberinus and Rhea Silva laugh heartily, like their denial is some kind of joke. “It’s always the same with you demigods,” he says in Gregory Peck’s deep voice. “But come, children. We’ll help you.”
They get on a vespa – a vespa, seriously – and Rhea Silva turns to her. “There have been many children of Athena who have gone before you,” she says, “And all of them have failed. But if you can do it – that will change everything.”
“No pressure, right?” Clarke gulps.
Rhea Silva glances at the other vespa. “That boy,” she says, looking at her, “The two of you do not have the kind of connection that makes you weak. It’s forged in fire and will only get stronger. You can use it, too. I think he knows, the way he looks at you.”
Clarke ducks her head and looks away. “It’s not like that.”
Rhea Silva tuts knowingly, but says nothing else.
When they arrive at the entrance to the underground, the god and goddess bid them farewell. Bellamy stands next to her. “Wish I could go with you, Clarke, but Tiberinus was really sure about me having my own path and all,” he says, looking down on her.
Clarke takes a deep breath. She thinks about Wells, Finn, Raven, Murphy, and Monty, thinks about this godforsaken quest and all they’ve gone through together; she thinks about Octavia and Harper and Jasper and Miller and all the others they left guarding Camp Half-Blood; she thinks of her mother and Bellamy’s father and all their parents trying to deal with this goddamn divine schizophrenia, she thinks of fighting Gaea somehow, somewhere. She thinks of Rhea Silvia’s knowing smile. She glances at him, and he’s staring at her, his gaze firm and level.
"You okay?" he asks softly. It's always like this, he's always so patient with her, and suddenly she feels a rush of warmth.
“Hey,” she says fiercely and suddenly, “When all this is over and we finally defeat the fucking ground, we’re coming back here. To Rome. Like a legitimate vacation for sightseeing and everything. Together.”
Bellamy stares at her, stunned, before his face breaks out into a smile. “I’d like that,” he says, before pulling her into a bonecrushing hug. “Take care of yourself in there. We’ll catch up,” he says, his chest rumbling against her ear. She hasn’t felt so happy in a long time.
Her arms tighten around him. “Take care of yourself, too,” she whispers. “We’ll meet again.”
He lowers his lips to her hair and kisses her head. “We’ll meet again.”
Clarke’s ankle is burning and her head hurts like a bitch, but she keeps talking, seduces the giant spider with grandiose promises and sweet lies.“I’m rebuilding Olympus,” she says, her voice unwavering, “And I can put your work above my mother’s. Those gods, they never cared about us anyway.”And the terrifying thing is she almost believes herself.
Arachne spins and spins until she’s woven her own jail, and Clarke feels the sick sweep of triumph in her stomach. “My mother will thank you,” she says, only slightly smug, “for keeping her statue safe.” The spider woman frowns as she screeches.
Then the Argo II blasts a hole in the ceiling, and she holds Bellamy’s gaze across the room, he’s leaping off the ship to get to her, and the floor splits open and the spider woman falls and falls, and for one blissful second she feels nothing but sick happiness and relief –
And that’s when she feels Arachne’s thread around her ankle, pulling her down with her. Clarke screams.
Bellamy’s eyes widen, and suddenly, he’s there.
Things move in slow motion – she’s aware of the others loading the Athena Parthenos onto the Argo II, of Raven and Wells running towards them, of Bellamy yelling at Murphy to promise to take the others to the Doors of Death, and she feels her hands slipping, yells – no, let me go, you can’t, please go with them, Bellamy –
(But they’re children of war; they will always understand each other. Clarke wishes for the first time in her life that he’d let go of her hand.)
“Hey,” he says, his voice choked. Clarke thinks she’ll remember how Bellamy looks right now for the rest of her life – looking at her like he’s about to lose her, his muscles strained with the effort of holding her up, death and destruction happening behind him and he can’t focus on anything except her. “I’ve got your back. Together, right?”
She feels tears pooling in her eyes.
He falls into Tartarus with her, and she lets him.