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Whenever Bellamy’s in Clarke’s little house, he tries not to snoop around too much, wary of invading her personal space even if it is just the common area, but each time seems to get a little bit harder, what with her adding new drawings on the walls or a new trinket or gift from the village to whatever surface that’s clear.
It’s not that she’s ever told him not to look around, she’s never said anything of the like, but he still somehow feels like he’s intruding on something personal.
And perhaps it’s a reminder of how much they’ve missed of each other’s lives. For Madi and Clarke, it seems second nature, to have precious things like this displayed for everyone to see, and it’s such a deviation from what their living situations had been like at the Dropship, or at Arkadia. Not that he would want her to go back to tents or metal rooms, but it’s just a reminder of years spent apart.
He wishes he could have helped. He wishes he could have helped them build their cabin into a home, he wishes he could have spent nights talking about the constellations in the stars until she got so used to hearing them that she’d draw the stories, sketches of Andromeda and Ares and Apollo hanging crooked on her walls, he wishes he had whittled her a small artist palette or Madi a little soccer ball to put on their desk, absolutely useless in terms of necessities but something they could look at every morning and smile at.
They have now, he reminds himself. Permanent homes for themselves, slow mornings and quiet, peaceful nights, a future to look forward to. It doesn’t stop the thoughts. Of what things would have looked like if he could have stayed. Of what they might be.
But they have now, and that’s enough. It has to be.
It might even be more than he deserves, but he won’t refuse a quiet life lacking fear and running. If the Universe is done tearing him away from his family, he’s not going to question that.
“Hey.” He’s so stuck in these thoughts that he doesn’t hear the creaking of floorboards as Clarke comes back downstairs. He whirls around, heat in his cheeks as she catches his eyes drifting around her living room, mouth just about to open to apologize, as has become tradition in this situation.
And then he sees her, and even the apologies on his lips fall away.
She’s in a dress, he realizes dumbly. It flows down to her knees, with thin straps holding it up, the color a vivid red against her skin that almost seems to make her glow. Offhandedly he thinks this is what the Goddess of Earth must have looked like.
“How do I look?” She asks, something soft in her voice that makes his heart lurch.
Beautiful, he thinks, immediate, so quick he couldn’t have stopped the thought even if he wanted to. He’s at least grateful he was able to stop the word from tumbling off his lips.
It’s probably not even the wrong thing to say, as Clarke gives him an expectant but almost timid look. He wishes he could. He wishes he could tell her she’s beautiful just as easily as he can tell her how the renovations on the school are going or how he thinks they should increase security during festival nights.
He thinks about her on that table, her pulse dying out on the monitor. He thinks about himself in that moment, how he would have given anything to be himself right now, to be able to tell Clarke anything at all, to be able to see the light in her eyes and the smile on her lips. That Bellamy would have told her she was beautiful in a heartbeat.
So he tries.
“Like Aphrodite herself,” is what ends up coming out. It’s not exactly what he planned, but he can’t stop it now. Her lips quirk into a crooked smile, like she’s amused by him, but her cheeks flush pink, and maybe that means he didn’t do too bad.
He could do that more often, maybe. He should. Maybe a little less awkward, though.
“Thanks,” she answers, quiet, as she sweeps through the room, gathering one or two things for the night and making sure everything else is in its place.
He watches her for a few seconds, as she shuffles her feet into a pair of small flat shoes, the kind that look like what dancers would have worn before the Ark, so unlike the heavy leather boots he would acquaint with her if someone had ever asked.
So unlike Clarke.
It’s not that he would change anything about her, it’s just—
They’ve only ever known each other when things were hard, when shirts with holes in them and ill-fitting boots that belonged to someone else were all their options.
And not just Clarke and him, all of them. Even his sister. They fought every day on the Ark just to be able to wake up and do it all over again.
When he thinks of Clarke, he thinks of long-sleeved shirts or leather jackets, but he realizes he has no idea if that’s what she likes.
Personally, he likes it all, the worn-in shirts, the leather, the dress, but well— what he likes doesn’t matter.
There’s no fighting, no threats looming over them, she gets to find out what she likes now.
She pops back up after fiddling about with her shoes, surprising him so much he has to take a step back.
Her blue eyes roam over him, from his head down to his feet, and though he knows she’s just looking at what he’s wearing for tonight, there’s still something electric that shoots under his skin when she looks at him like that.
Once that’s calmed down, though, he feels a little underdressed.
It’s not that different from what he’d normally wear, honestly.
Simple in all black. A shirt that’s a little tighter than what he’d usually put on, although this one had buttons along the front. Pants that are more fitted, and only have two small pockets, nothing suitable for the frontlines. Boots that barely have any dirt on the bottom of them at all.
Really, the biggest difference is that everything’s clean and new, something he’s never actually had before in his life.
But nothing like her.
Maybe he should have worn that sweater Gabriel had offered him after all.
She steps closer, her dress softly swishing around her calves, and it’s like all the air starts to slowly slip out of the room when he realizes it’s just them.
They’ve hugged in greeting and in celebration, they’ve sat shoulder to shoulder on the couch in this very same room, Clarke even held his hand when they got the school up and running again and she watched Madi go to her first real day of school.
But somehow, he hasn’t felt like this since she woke up in his arms, gasping for breath and reaching out for him like he was her only lifeline.
She runs her palms over his shoulders, her small fingers tweaking at the collar of his shirt a little, and he really hopes her hands don’t run close enough to his chest that she can feel how quickly his heart is beating.
“Like Anteros himself.”
Anteros.
The God of Requited Love.
“You ready?” Clarke asks, her lips quirked up just slightly, and it’s just enough to pull him out of whatever thoughts were starting to form in his head. It’s for the best, probably. Those thoughts are dangerous ones.
“Yeah,” he answers instead, shaking himself out of it as he looks around her place one last time, his eyes landing on a spot in the corner, a pair of small boots and a soccer ball, a backpack hanging just above them on the wall.
“No Madi?”
“She’s with her friends.” She responds simply, none of the strain or worry that would have been in her voice when they first got here.
That makes him smile. With everything they’ve been through, everything she’s been through, he’s glad she can have that. Friends, fun, happiness, all the things a kid deserves to have.
She bumps his shoulder playfully. “C’mon, let’s go.”
The people here seem to have more festivals and party traditions than he can keep track of, but this one doesn’t seem too bad, actually. A festival to honor the stars. There’s food and drink, as there usually is, but the main attraction waits by the water. They send out small boats, enough to comfortably fit two, to float atop the dark water to watch a display in the stars that occurs every year.
No sins. No sacrifices. Just the stars.
As long as no one gets kidnapped or taken away, it already beats the rest of the parties he’s ever been to.
The thought is interrupted by Clarke, whom he pretended not to notice disappear only moments after they arrived, returning to his side, sipping on a glass of something brightly-colored even under the night sky. He glances down at her, a little transfixed by the smile on her lips as she gives an approving noise.
"This is already the best party I've ever been to."
"Great, now you've jinxed it," he grumbles, as if she hadn't interrupted that same exact thought in his own head.
Mostly he just tries not to think about her last party, about how if he had just been paying more attention, about how he should've known—
She bumps her bare shoulder against his, a lightness in her smile that he's still not completely used to. He hasn't seen her like this since they first made it to the ground, and even then, it usually wasn't directed at him.
"Want some?" She asks, lifting up her cup. The drink is pink and orange and yellow, and he swears it's glowing in the dark.
"I'm good, thanks." He answers, and she rolls her eyes.
"Raven said the same thing," Clarke replies, taking another sip and once again giving a little happy sigh at the taste. "She says hi, by the way."
While Clarke and Raven have mostly worked through their issues, Raven apparently has a bone to pick with him now. She came up to him a couple days ago and announced, as only Raven could, that she wasn't speaking to him until he got his head out of his ass.
He pretended to not know what she meant, but after all these years, after dark hours spent in the dead of night on the Ring together, sharing thoughts and fears and memories no other souls have heard, they both knew each other too well for either of them to believe it.
Sending Clarke to relay the message felt pointed.
"I asked her about the boats but she said she had someone she promised a ride to," Clarke muses, conversational, but he can still hear it, the little chip of insecurity, a worry that their relationship will always have something holding them back, that she can't patch up that wound like the kind she can on flesh.
This knowledge is clearly what makes his heart speak up before his head can stop him.
“Do you... I mean if you’re not going with anyone else, we could share a boat?”
She blinks up at him, and he feels heat creeping up the back of his neck in a way it hasn’t in years.
“What about Echo?” She asks, curious.
The question is a shock, though it shouldn’t be.
He realizes they don’t talk about this kind of thing.
He realizes maybe there’s a reason for that.
"I think Echo is probably the one going with Raven," he answers, stalling as he searches for the words, "We decided that we, um—"
"Were better off as friends?" Clarke supplies helpfully while he struggles and he lets out a breath.
"There really has to be a better way to say that without sounding so underwhelming. We were together for years, we still care about each other, but it's just—"
He doesn't know where he's heading with this, and he's sure Clarke of all people doesn't want to hear all about this, so he's somewhat glad when she interrupts him again.
"Bellamy, I know," Clarke says simply.
"You know?" He echoes, brows knitting together in confusion.
"She told me a month ago," she explains, though he still feels lost.
"Raven?" Bellamy asks, thinking back on how Clarke left his side to talk to her earlier.
As much as he doesn't love the thought of them using his relationship failures as a buffer to heal their friendship, if they were doing so maybe they're in a much better position than Clarke thinks they are, that sounds exactly like something they'd do back in the day.
"What? No, Echo."
Bellamy tries, really tries, to wrap his head around this, but he fails to envision how this conversation could have happened.
Which is probably good for his health, thinking about Echo and Clarke talking about their breakup would no doubt have his anxiety shooting through the proverbial roof.
It's been a few months and Bellamy still hadn't even known how, or even if, he could explain it to Clarke — he went back and forth between wondering if telling her would be weird, and then if not telling her was weirder — and Echo managed to beat him by weeks.
Come to think of it, she always had been better than him at facing things like this head on, so maybe he shouldn't be so surprised.
And while one side of him is morbidly curious about that conversation, the side that wants to retain any form of mental and emotional stability is good with the little information he has.
When he realizes he's zoned out and left Clarke hanging with no response, he scratches at his jaw and clears his throat.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," is what he finally settles on. He wants to say more, but maybe leaving out I spent the last couple months trying to figure out how to tell you could spare his dignity just a little bit. Plus, then he doesn't have to explain why telling Murphy and Emori and Raven was easy, but thinking about telling her left him at a mental standstill. He doesn't even really understand it.
"You don't have to tell me everything, Bellamy." Clarke says softly, so soft it leaves him with a twinge of guilt.
He knows how hard it's been for her, reconnecting with her friends. He should have told her.
"I want to, though," he responds, automatic, and he starts to worry about it until she gives him a smile that lifts his heart up a little.
"And I want to go on a boat ride with you." She tells him, lips curved upwards as she looks up at him, and he feels better than he has in months. Years, maybe.
"Yeah?" He asks, just to make sure.
She finishes off the rest of her hazardous looking drink, setting it on a table a few feet away, and when she returns, she hooks her arm with his, heading toward the water.
"Yeah."
Bellamy has to admit, it really is beautiful out here.
The lights on land are twinkling, growing smaller the further the boat floats away from shore, there's glowing plants in the water, like Sanctum's version of lily pads and water flowers, almost somehow leading the path the boat slowly took.
He doesn't entirely understand any of it, but he can't deny the beauty of it.
Clarke reaches out of the boat, and he has to bite back the instinct to tell her to be careful, instead watching as she brushes her hand against the gleaming flower in the water as they pass by it.
He watches the way her face lights up, the brightness in her eyes and the slow growing smile on her lips.
Somehow, the night seems to grow even more beautiful.
"This is amazing," Clarke interrupts the comfortable silence that had grown between them, whipping her head to look at him.
He lasts under her pleased gaze for only a second, turning his sight to the sky on instinct, something like nerves briefly fluttering under his skin.
"This isn't even supposed to be the best part," he muses into the darkness after a moment.
The stretch of quiet grows long again, and when he tilts his head to peer back at her, she's already looking at him, eyes soft and expression thoughtful.
She bites her lip, and before he can ask what's wrong, she breaks the silence again.
"I, um, I never really said this before, but—" She worries her lip again, and he finds himself a little transfixed. She's been bright and casual all night, this air of easy comfort that drew him in like an insect to the light, and he wants to know what changed, wants to know what goes on in her head. He's wanted that for a while, he supposes. Before he can wonder further, though, she finishes, “Thank you.”
He can hear the soft murmurs of their surroundings as his brain processes.
"It's just a boat ride," he answers after a minute, stupidly. Clearly that's not what she's talking about, but he finds himself lost in their conversation again. "I'm sure Raven would've gone with you if you told her you really wanted to share a boat."
Clarke rolls her eyes, but it doesn't seem to be on purpose, like she just can't help but be exasperated at his cluelessness sometimes.
(It reminds him of the early days, when he'd push her buttons and she'd shove at his chest and call him out on his fake bravado.
He can't deny that he likes it.)
"No, I mean..." Her eyebrows crease in that way they do, the little lines appearing between them as she grapples to take control of the conversation. It's so familiar that even despite his confusion, he has to bite back a smile.
“These last couple of months... I don’t know what they would have been like without you, without... your forgiveness." She struggles, a little, to put it all together, to take what's in her head and let it be spoken aloud. But then she finds her groove, as strong and clear as ever. "I don’t know if I would have even had a family anymore, but these last couple months— This feels like home, and I've never had that before."
He hadn't expected it, this confession of sorts. The separation they went through was harder than any of them realized, he thinks. They lived through it because they had to, there was no other way, but since settling in Sanctum, it's a realization they've all had to come to in their own time. A picking up of the pieces their lives had caused them.
He wishes he could help with her pieces, stand alongside her as they pick them up together.
"What about with Madi? I mean, I know it wasn't perfect, but you had each other, right? You had the valley."
(But there will always be pieces he wasn't there for, pieces he can't help with.
There will always also be some pieces he doesn't know about.)
"But I didn't have you," she says it gentle, like it's something precious, like she's held it back from him before.
Hearing those words, on a boat that's slowly guiding them away from the shore, guided by luminescent flora as they sit there beneath a blanket of stars— Well, it's a lot.
Clarke must think so too, because she pauses for a moment, but then she's quick to keep going. "Any of you." She adds, a little rushed but unquestionably genuine.
"Those years with Madi, we had each other, but we were always waiting. Not just me. Her, too. I told her stories about you all, and she wanted to know everything. What you looked like, what you sounded like." She pauses, and it feels like a lot, like everything that they never said is now suddenly right there in front of them. Everything he wanted to know and everything she couldn't tell him. He just needed to give her time, he realizes. She never gave up on him, like he thought back on the ground, she just wasn't ready yet. "When I— When I called you, on the radio, she talked to you, too, sometimes. Like even though she never knew you, even though you never answered, she believed you were still out there just as much as I did. Maybe more than I did, on some days."
Bellamy thinks back to the first time he met Madi. Even despite being scared about losing Clarke, the moment Madi saw him, it was like she knew who he was instantly. He hadn't thought about it at all, the very next thing that came out of her mouth was about Clarke, and nothing else really mattered, not when one sentence shattered his entire world and everything he had thought to be true for six years.
And sure, it's not like there was a whole horde of them coming down, Monty and him really don't look anything alike, and Murphy wasn't even there. But he also realizes that the Bellamy Clarke must have told her about looked nothing like the Bellamy that stood in front of her that night.
(He'd never thought he'd need to look like he did when he left so she would be able to recognize him, because he couldn't bear to entertain the idea that the girl he agonized over leaving for dead, the girl who saved their lives at the price of her own without thought, could still be alive.
He has no idea how those six years would've changed if he had known that, if he had gotten even just one of her calls.)
"You were like a fairytale for her. After losing everything she had— You were her hope. You were our hope."
It stings, just a little. That pinch of guilt he feels when he thinks about it.
The thought of him for her brought her hope, but the thought of her for him tore him apart, split whatever fragments that were left of his heart into even smaller pieces, until he just couldn't do it anymore, he had to let her go. Use your head, he'd remember of her, so that's what he did. His heart only brought him pain and guilt, thinking about Octavia and Clarke and everyone else he left, so he honored what he thought was her last wish, and used his head, like her.
While he was using his head up on the Ring, she was on the ground, using her heart.
Like even when he didn't know it could be possible, one didn't exist without the other, like there was an invisible string that still anchored them to each other across the stars.
"But here, with our people, we don't have to wait anymore, we don't have to hope. We can live, for once. She can have the life I always wanted her to have, what her parents wanted for her."
"You deserve that too, you know."
He gives her a smile, crooked and soft, and when she smiles back, just as delicate, it feels like healing.
He can't look at her forever, though. (Sometimes, when he remembers the heaviness of her absence, of thinking she was lost to him for good, he wishes he could.) Instead, he looks out again.
Watches the water ripple as they tread slowly along the surface, watches the stars twinkle and sparkle as though they were just as alive as the people lining up to gaze up at them, even watches some of the guests on shore, his eyes finding a couple dancing in the moonlight.
There's a girl with a dark navy dress that matches the sky and long hair that glows like dancing flames under the flickering of the torch lights surrounding them. A boy with dark hair towers above her, twirling her around as they enjoy their night like they couldn't have another care in the world. Like as long as they had each other, that's all that really mattered. Like everything else around them had melted away.
He's not entirely sure why, but it pulls a smile out of him.
Just before he intends to look away, scan the rest of the shore, maybe see if any of their friends are still out there, the girl stands on her toes, leaning in to kiss her dance partner, who after a moment of (probably stunned) hesitation, wraps his arms around her back, holds her there.
Bellamy blinks rapidly, immediately ripping his eyes away from the pair, settles on the tables with food and drink instead, accidentally makes out who he thinks is Murphy at a snack table, grabbing something from a bowl and seemingly stuffing it in his pocket. Bellamy rolls his eyes. They've talked about this.
(You know we're in a good place now, right? We don't have to scavenge to survive anymore. We can just eat at the table... you know, like normal people do. Bellamy had said one night. Murphy had immediately given him that I'm-up-to-no-good smirk, and Bellamy was rolling his eyes before Murphy had even finished replying, Yeah, but where's the fun it that?)
It was a good distraction at least. The funny feeling in his stomach and on the back of his neck slowly fading away.
He doesn't even know why. He'd never been averse to public displays of affection. Not with Echo, not with Gina, not with anyone, really. (Hell, some of them still tease him about it sometimes, mostly Miller and Raven. Harper did too, in that soft little way she did, teasing smile that you could never be upset with no matter how hard you tried. He could tell Miller and Raven to shove it, but he never could manage to with Harper. She was infectious like that, making you smile even when she was making fun of you.)
He just knows it's that same feeling like when he thought about telling Clarke about him and Echo. Or when they were at that last party, he was brooding over his conflicting emotions, Clarke dancing away in the corner of his eye before everything went to shit. Or that time when Clarke—
Oh. Oh.
It's right when he's in the middle of this revelation that he feels a hand softly grab his, thin fingertips gently running over his knuckles. Clarke's hand.
Shit, he almost forgot where he was, what he was doing.
"We deserve that," she says after awhile, breaking the comfortable silence between them, her voice airy and soft in a way it never used to be, when they were fighting to survive, when she had to be a leader, strong and determined.
Between his far off thoughts and the distraction of her soft hand still on his, he has to fight with his brain for a moment to remember where their conversation had been.
When he does, his heart flips and his features melt into something soft and vulnerable.
We deserve that, his brain echoes. We. Like there's no him without her and no her without him. Like they belong together now, side by side, hand in hand.
Emotion wells in his chest, too vast and intense for him to even try to name.
What could he possibly say to that? How can he possibly explain what that means to him after having nearly lost her again?
(And, a traitorously hopeful part of his brain wonders, could it possibly mean that nearly losing each other woke up that same part of her that arose in him that night?)
It's by complete coincidence that they move at the same time, Bellamy turning his head to look at her again, hoping to find something that he could possibly muster up that would hold as much meaning and weight as what filled up his heart, and Clarke to press a grateful kiss to his cheek, like she had done so many years ago.
It only lasts a second, but when her lips meet his in an accidental kiss, the boat could have capsized and sent them both tumbling into the freezing water and they would have been less shocked.
Clarke immediately seizes up, the soft expression on her features immediately morphing into panic as the color drains from her face, her mind racing with worry that in one singular moment, she ruined everything she's been trying months to build back up.
Bellamy, a mix between surprise and something akin to awe, has to rip his gaze away from her mouth when he realizes he's staring, nerves sending his vision in all directions until they land back on her eyes again, mouth still a little ajar as he searches for something, anything, to possibly say.
"I'm so sorry—"
"Did you ever realize the stars are different here?"
Their sentences tumble out at the same time, but when Clarke's brain processes his words, she lets out an instinctual, disbelieving laugh.
"What?" She can't help but to ask, and it's the unwittingly amused smile that encourages Bellamy to carry on with the thought.
"I mean, it makes sense, we're in a completely different spot in the Universe, but if you look, really look, everything is different." He explains, tilting his chin up to the sky, and after a moment, he senses her following suit. "At first glance, they're just stars, same as always. But when you keep looking, you realize they're completely different constellations, different galaxies, different everything."
He knows they're here for a star show, but even still, he swears they twinkle back at them as he speaks.
"We were so busy when we first got here, I didn't even notice until everything calmed down. All the stars Octavia and I used to spend our days reading about, all the stories that revolved around them, they're all gone, like they never even existed at all."
When he risks a glance, Clarke looks so intrigued, so invested in where his line of thought has gone, he thinks he's almost entirely distracted her, the panic from kissing him almost melting away, so he keeps going.
"Obviously they do, they're still out there, somewhere. But I look up, all the stars twinkling above us, and for the first time in my life, I realize I don't know a single thing about them." For a moment, even he's able to let the feeling of her lips against his slowly drift away, just the faintest tingling of knowledge that it had happened remaining, replaced instead by nostalgia. He sees it, feels it, like it was yesterday. Octavia and him huddled together in his bunk in the middle of the night, his voice in hushed whispers as he relays to her the newest myth he had learned, their mother's soft snores drifting in their ears even in his memories. "Not one name, not one story."
"So let's change that," Clarke responds, like it's the simplest thing in the world.
His brown eyes search her blue ones — can't help but notice how they've gone dark in this light, how they match the deep blues of the water beneath them — and despite himself, his brows crinkle in both confusion and curiosity.
She is an utter enigma to him. How he can talk about something as massive and unknown as the undiscovered Universe, and still, somehow, she has an answer.
"They're stories, right? Passed down between generations and millennia, but they had to start somewhere."
"Yeah—" He responds slowly, the single word drawn out. He thinks he understands where she's going but he— Well, he never even considered it. Even before the bombs that came a century before them, most of the stories he knew of came a millennia before that. Ancient tales from the ancestors on the ground.
He'd never thought that in some far off time they would be the ancient ancestors on the ground.
Perhaps spending most of his life uncertain he'd even make it another week, spending years staring down at a planet that looked nearly lifeless, had skewed his perceptions a bit. Of what things were. Of what things could be.
When he was on the Ring, looking down at the ground, he never could have imagined that somewhere down there Clarke could be looking back up at him, that years later he'd be sitting right next to her, on a boat in an entirely new home, free from the peril and uncertainty of war and apocalypse.
Perhaps it is time to begin looking at things differently, to start believing in a future that he hadn't considered before.
(Probably can't be worse than what he'd imagined, anyhow.)
"So let's start." Clarke says definitively, with a little nod of her head, like the idea of being the start of a story that could last thousands of years doesn't weigh heavy on her head, like it's as simple as gathering food for dinner or fixing the rusty hinge on her front door.
(She's the most ethereal being he's ever laid his eyes on in that moment.)
"Right now?" He asks, if only to give her an answer as he tries to get his head back on straight.
"Why wait?" She responds with a shrug, the tips of her short hair brushing her shoulder as it lifts with the action.
"We've waited long enough?" He asks, and it feels like a weighted question, like it's about so much more than stories in the sky.
"We've waited long enough," she agrees, a faint smile that lifts the corners of her mouth.
And so, for perhaps the first time in their relationship, Bellamy and Clarke stop waiting. And instead of looking back at everything they lost, they look towards the sky, at everything that's still to come.
(And if Bellamy spends just as much time watching Clarke's smile as he does watching the constellations in the sky, well, who could blame him when she looks like that, shining brighter than the moon and all the stars combined.)
"That was beautiful," Clarke says lightly as he walks her back from the festival, the skirt of her dress swishing around her calves again, occasionally brushing against the fabric covering his own.
It's not until her head whips around to look at him, eyes shimmering even in the low light and lips stuck on a lazy smile, that he realizes he's been staring.
"Yeah," he responds instinctively, clearing his throat as he ducks his head, hands finding their way into his pockets as they continue to follow the path back to her house. "Very beautiful," he agrees, hoping that if the night sky can't hide his bashful smile, maybe it can at least hide the warmth that he starts to feel in the tips of his ears under her gaze.
(Bellamy can admit, to himself, that Clarke is and has always been gorgeous, but there's something about her tonight, something that feels not just enchanting — an intoxicating, bewitching aura that's been surrounding her all night — but something that feels... tangible.
It feels dangerous, too. Feels like he's teetering on the edge of a cliff, so close to jumping off and doing something monumentally impulsive and stupid.)
"I'm glad you asked me," she adds, bumping his shoulder and making his heart jump despite his best efforts to remain composed, if only until he drops her off at home. Apparently he can't even make it ten minutes when she's looking at him like that, touching him like that. "I'm glad I went with you tonight."
"Better than having to third wheel Murphy and Emori?" He jokes, mostly to distract himself again.
It doesn't work, all it does is make her laugh, which means he gets to watch her throw her head back, watch her features contort into amusement, watch her cheeks turn the faintest, prettiest shade of pink.
It is decidedly very undistracting.
When she looks at him again, her smile is crooked and almost mischievous in nature. "Definitely better than that."
He wants to kiss her.
The thought comes at an instance, before he can manage to shove it back into that part of his brain he knows better than to listen to.
She's smiling, and flushed, and if he didn't know any better he'd almost think she was flirty.
(He does know better, though. He does, he does, he does.)
He wants to taste her smile. He wants to kiss her for so long he can finally find out how far down the flush on her skin goes. He wants to use his fingers to push those dainty little straps off her shoulders as he kisses her neck, hear her breathy little gasps in his ear.
He wants to. There's nothing in the world he wants more than this.
But then he remembers the look on her face when she accidentally kissed him tonight, the shock and horror, and he knows that he can't.
The disappointment of never kissing Clarke again is nothing compared to the pain of losing her one more time.
He just wants her in his life, as a friend or as something more, it doesn't really matter. He just wants her.
He just wants Clarke.
He'll take everything she wants to give to him, and ask for nothing more.
He knows what the hole in his heart feels like when he has to live without her, and he won't ever do anything to risk reliving that.
Before his mind can manage to delve even further into this path of conflicting and confusing thoughts, he tunes into his surroundings enough to notice the familiar sight of her little house, illuminated in the night by the light hanging from the roof of her porch that he installed for her a couple months ago when she was worried about Madi getting home from her soccer meet after dusk.
"Home sweet home," Clarke hums, her smile a little more tired now, but still hanging from her lips nonetheless.
His heart gives only the faintest of tugs at her words, so at least his head is trying to communicate composure to the rest of him.
It disappears in an instant when, only about a yard from getting her home, she tilts her head to rest against his shoulder, her short, blonde hairs tickling his exposed neck and the warmth from her body pressing faintly into his clothes.
(Try as he might, this girl doesn't make it easy.)
He's not entirely sure if she expects him to reciprocate, but the action reminds him of the first time they laid eyes on their new home, tears in their eyes and Clarke tucked into his side as Monty's recorded voice speaks to them in soft, wistful tones. Bittersweet is the only word he can think of to describe that moment, the last memory they would ever have of their friend, who'd chosen to change his own future so they could make more memories after him, and Harper.
Perhaps it's this vulnerable recollection — one he shares solely with her — or perhaps it's the knowledge that it's only a few more minutes until they reach her door and say their goodbyes for the night, or maybe it's both, that convinces him to lift his arm to wrap around her shoulder like he did back then.
At least this time there are no tears, no mournful-tinted awe as they listen to the last words one of their dearest friends will ever speak.
(I hope your lives there will be as happy as mine has been.
They didn't always get it right, but Bellamy thinks if he saw them right now, that maybe, just maybe, Monty would be proud of them.
He'll never stop missing his friend, but looking out at the clusters of small homes that make a village, several gardens sprawled along the land, a small pond that glistens under the moonlight, even a playground area, a few balls and a jump rope Miller made a few months back left astray from the last time Madi brought some of her new friends over, he hopes this is what Monty envisioned, he hopes they've at least started to honor his final wish for them.)
Clarke presses in just the slightest bit closer when his arm drapes across her shoulders, and the rest of the walk is peaceful, nothing but the soft wisps of the wind and the slowly fading noise of the winding down festival being replaced by the native nightlife chirping and croaking away around them.
The light of her house is just bright enough to lead them back in an almost trance like state, muscle memory guiding them back to her porch, empty save for a few items cluttered on the end opposite the front door — a basket they use for the garden, two fishing poles leaning next to one of the columns, a sketchbook that Clarke had been drawing in earlier that day set atop the blue-painted railing.
They're still for a moment, no haste to part or to go back inside their respective houses. When the majority of your life depended on how fast you could run or how quick you could shoot, you learn to appreciate these moments when they come, especially when you can share them with someone you love.
Because he does. Love her. And he thinks she loves him, too. Maybe not in the way that they write legends about, of star-crossed soulmates across the cosmos and kissed-soaked confessions on the battlefield, but they've been through too much for him to doubt she doesn't love him in someway.
(He'd made that mistake before, doubting the point where his heart and hers met. He can still hear Madi's voice changing all of that in a single moment. She called you on the radio every day for six years. One glance toward her, one broken gaze, and slowly he started to put the pieces together, slowly he started to see what six years of waiting looked like on someone else's face.)
"Thank you," Clarke breaks the silence between them again — probably because if it was up to him, they just might stay there all night, soaking up each other's presence until the suns started to peek over the horizon — her breath skittering over his jaw as she spoke. "For walking me back."
She presses a hand softly to his sternum, and when he looks down at her, she is closer than he expected. Even after being tucked into his side, he's unprepared for the sight she makes.
Her eyes suddenly shockingly blue under the porch light, her skin almost golden beneath it, and the normally soft pink shade of her lips is stained the slightest bit red from the drink she had earlier in the night.
(She looks like she was meant to tempt him, like a Goddess plucked straight from his dreams.)
He wets his bottom lip before letting her go completely, taking a much needed step back, hoping it will clear his head.
He supposes it might have worked, if only barely.
"You didn't have to," she adds, and it's that voice that gets him again. Soft and gentle, like when she speaks it's meant especially for him.
It's that voice that makes him want to tell her things he shouldn't, things like how much of him belongs to her.
"I know," he responds simply instead, shifting his weight on his feet. If there's one thing he knows, it's that Clarke doesn't need him. Not for big things, like political meetings during the height of wartime, nor for quiet nights walking back to her home.
But if there's one more thing he knows, it's that whether she needs him or not, he'll always be by her side, just in case she decides she wants him there.
(All he can do is hope she keeps wanting him, hope he doesn't have to brace for the day she decides she doesn't anymore.)
He watches her lips crook to one side, and then watches her gaze drop slightly, his posture righting itself on instinct as her eyes catch on something beneath his face.
She reaches out for him, and for a moment he doesn't know what she's intending to do. Her fingers graze his shoulders, can feel her warm palms even through his shirt, and she tweaks at his collar again, straightening it fondly, something gentle in her expression.
"Sorry," she apologizes for presumably making the fabric across his chest go askew on their walk, but he barely even hears her, because all he can think about is the word, the name, that she had mentioned when she fixed his collar just like this earlier.
Anteros echoes in his head on a loop in her perfect, fond, beautiful voice. Anteros. Anteros. Anteros.
Her thumb rests on his skin just above where one of the buttons is unfastened, so exceptionally subtle and most likely unintentional but it makes him feel ablaze all the same.
It is, once again, a struggle between his heart and his head when it comes to Clarke Griffin.
His heart tells him to gently cradle her face in his hands, to feel the soft warmth of her underneath his skin, to close his eyes as he presses his forehead against hers, to breathe her in, to savor every single passing second until he finally, finally brushes his lips against hers, fleeting and gentle like a ghost at first, and then firm, passionate, never-ending.
While his heart tells him all of this, his head tells him it's time to go back home, to his house.
Because as many times as he's fallen asleep on her tiny, plush couch and woken up with the handmade blanket Madi and him made for her birthday (or what they guessed was her birthday, at least — the timing after all the years and different homes that had passed them by was a little iffy) draped over his shoulders and abdomen, he was still a visitor in their house, a guest.
He'll go back to his own house, smaller than theirs because he's just one person who doesn't need a spare bedroom, tidier than this one but certainly less lived in, and it will feel alright, comfortable, but still not exactly a home.
And maybe when he's laying down, trying to sleep, he'll think about that little blanket with it's crooked For Clarke! Love, Madi and Bellamy inscribed in tiny letters on the back, but it's okay, because tomorrow he'll wake up and meet them both for breakfast and discuss plans for the day and then maybe get roped into a soccer game with Madi in which she'll kick his ass as Clarke pretends not to laugh at him on the side and it will be enough, it will be so enough for him because just getting to see Clarke, just getting to spend his days with her was more than he'd ever thought he'd get.
He could think about all the ways he'd kiss her or tell her he loves her or what things he'd bring if she asked him to move in with them, but it just feels greedy.
He loves her, but he loves her in a way that is more than just wanting to share her bed, he loves her in the way that he is happy with being her friend, her partner, her rock.
He can handle the occasional fantasy about what something more would look like, but he can't handle losing what they have, not again.
It would be his heart that would give out this time, he's sure.
"No worries," he responds, means for it to be easy and nonchalant, but his voice is too soft, just a breath of words between them.
He's too close. Too close to her. Too close to changing everything with one sweeping motion.
He swallows thickly, pushing down the emotion and want threatening to engulf him. "I should go."
He hadn't realized until she dropped them, but her hands had still been resting comfortably on his shoulders.
Comfortable. That's what it is, he thinks. She's too comfortable. She makes him feel like he has a home. And he does, he supposes, with her. But he has to be careful he doesn't knock the foundation of that home down. (Unfortunately for him, Clarke has a way of making the logical, careful part of his brain disappear at an alarming rate.)
There's half a moment where he sees a hint of surprise on her face, her blue eyes twinkling underneath the porch lights, but then she gives him that little smile, the one that wakes up that part of him that would drop everything in an instant just to be by her side, the one that makes him feel like he can take on the whole world — the whole Universe — whenever it's aimed toward him. "Already? That boat ride wear you out?"
Bellamy huffs a laugh, the noise leaving his body almost unwittingly as he ducks his head. "Something like that," he mutters in reply. He has to wonder if her little jokes will always make his heart kick up like this. As he looks back up at her, frizzy hair under yellow lights and that one red dress strap threatening to dip over her moon-kissed shoulder, he certainly hopes so. "Goodnight, Clarke."
He gives himself a couple more seconds to look at her — any longer and he knows his resolve will begin to fade — before giving a little nod and turning to head back to his house.
He makes it three steps.
"Bellamy, wait—"
Her fingers fumble to catch his again, the softness of her fingertips against his skin as delicate as a feather or flower.
When he turns back around, he figures whatever it is must be important. When he does, her face looks stricken, frozen as she gazes up at him with a look so intense it locks him into place.
She's never looked at him like this before.
He doesn't know what it means.
But the next thing he does know, her hands are on his face, her body is pressed against his, and she's kissing him.
She's kissing him.
Clarke is kissing him. On purpose.
The moan that leaves his mouth is instantaneous as he feels her, and then it’s like a dam breaking, like the gates of Heaven opening up, and he can’t get enough. He doesn’t even know what to do, it’s so overwhelming to finally kiss her. A real, proper kiss. His arms move between her back and her neck and her hair, the kiss that had started out quick turning into something desperate, all the passion and longing hidden beneath the surface burning bright into the most relieving moment of his life.
She’s here. With him. She wants him.
She even loves him, maybe.
It’s not until he’s kissing down her throat, her arms wrapped around him in a way that feels like she’s trying to keep him as close as possible, and he’s nosed the strap of her dress away to mouth at her shoulder (God, he's been wanting to do that all fucking night) that he realizes he probably needs to say something.
It slows then. He can’t quite get himself to leave her embrace, so he drops his head to her shoulder, can’t help but to nuzzle into her soft skin a bit, his breath skittering over her collarbone.
Say something, his brain tells him. Tell her everything.
Before he can, before he can even figure out where to begin, it's her voice that he hears, soft and filled with wonder as it floats into his ears.
“Look,” Clarke whispers, nudging him with her nose until he looks to the sky.
Another burst of brightness shoots across the dark night sky, brilliant colors dancing above them so intensely that he swears he can see them in her eyes as she watches the display.
“Do you know what you’d wish for this time?” She asks, and instantly he knows she’s harkening back to a long lost day, the one that feels like lifetimes ago.
You, he thinks instantly, and this time he doesn’t hold back his answer, feels a mixture of anxiety and relief in his stomach as he hears the word leave his mouth.
But it’s out there for her to hear, just like he promised himself he would do.
Maybe he can get better at that, now. Maybe he can tell her everything he’s held back.
Her smile then is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, surpasses the glittering lights in the sky by eons.
“You don’t have to wish for that,” she says, so soft he can’t help but to lean closer, brush his lips against hers in an impossibly gentle kiss.
Maybe if he plays his cards right this time, he’ll never have to stop.
And despite her words, despite how well she fits in his arms in that moment, he does still wish for her, there under the bright, flickering lights dancing across the night’s sky.
Just to be safe.