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"Come on, just keep going, he'll let us stop soon." Clarke whispered in his ear as she kept supporting him, feeling his body get heavier in hers, his breath fanning her ear, his fingers digging into her back.
They were walking through the forest, Roan ahead of them, tugging a rope that was wrapped around Bellamy's right hand and Clarke's left, leaving them to support each other with the other two as they struggled to follow him.
"Clarke, I-" he said desperately in a way she had heard him only once before, three months ago when they were standing outside Arkadia and he was begging her to come inside.
She didn't want to look in his eyes but knew she wouldn't be able to stop herself either-when she did, she felt like she was going to drown and pulled them to a stop, digging her feet into the dirt and feeling Roan's rope cut through her wrists as the same happened with Bellamy's left hand that was a lot more lifeless than hers.
This definitely wasn't how she expected their first meeting to go after such a long time-she felt like she caught a glimpse of Kane, Indra and Monty while Roan was dragging her away from the Ice nation army but she had no idea Bellamy would come into the old metro station and try to save her.
That stupid idiot.
Roan had caught up on his heavy steps, he was an amazing shooter and a good hunter, she had been out with him many times while they struggled to feed the kids back on the early days but today he had been loud, reckless, he wasn't checking his surroundings, he was just running to her.
That idiot. That goddamn stupid idiot.
When she saw how easily Roan pushed him down and stabbed him in the leg with such intensity, twisting the knife into his thigh hitting him several times in the face, she felt like she just wanted to throw herself over him, protect him like he had tried to do for her, but she had been tied up and nothing would help.
Then Roan hit her too and for a moment she lost consciousness until she woke up, surely not that long after, maybe half an hour, from him shaking her shoulders and pushing her up. Bellamy was only halfway there but he was sitting as well-he seemed pale, his face was sweaty, his leg was bleeding.
"What's going on?" she had asked him while he tied the ropes around her and his hand.
"We're going to Polis and I'm bringing both of you to the commander. At first I didn't recognize who he was but when I saw how hard you were fighting for him, I knew this must be Belomi from Skaikru, the man who helped you destroy the mountain." Clarke's heart sank in her chest and she wanted to punch herself for being so stupid.
"Lexa will be thrilled when I show her who I got out there-Wanheda and her precious soldier." Bellamy groaned next to her and looked at him from under his angrily furrowed eyebrows.
"Fuck you!" he spat in his feet and that just provoked Roan even more. He smiled and kneeled down, pressing his hand against his wound and digging his finger in it, making him squirm and lean back. Bellamy groaned loudly but held his ground.
"Stop it!" Clarke begged in the same desperate manner as before but Roan ignored her.
"Next time you say something this stupid or disrespect me, this will be my knife." he threatened before taking his hand off and wiping it in his clothes.
Then he pulled them up and made them stand.
"Come on, you'll help him walk." he told Clarke and gestured between their free hands in the middle-so that was why he had tied them up this way, Clarke realized, he was planning on her being his supporter all this time. He could've let them walk separately but she realized now, that they were standing up why he didn't-Bellamy was barely putting any weight on his leg, his pants were soaked, she could see it even through the dark material and he was already breathing heavily and probably running a fever.
"Are you kidding me? He can't walk, not like this. I need to check the wound." Roan smiled as he pulled their ropes again and forced them to make a step. Bellamy limped hard, then swayed and almost fell-if it wasn't for her fast reflexes, he would've fallen and dragged her down with him. But she managed to wrap her arm around his waist and sneak her body under his arm, propping him up.
"No." Roan said simply "If he falls, I'll kill him and keep going with you so make sure that doesn't happen." and off they went.
Now they were struggling to follow him and not just that, Roan tugged them every time they slowed down. Bellamy tried to put up a brave face for her but he really hurt, she could tell, he was limping very hard and leaning more and more on her.
The problem wasn't just pain-she could see he was handling it as well as he could, he had a high treshold, she realized, something she didn't know but which made sense considering it was Bellamy-he took on everything no matter what it was. The problem was the bleeding which was significant. From what she could tell, Roan hadn't nicked an artery wheather on purpose or not but but he had hit close to it and Bellamy was going to get worse soon.
She had to do something. That's why she forced them to a stop. Roan turned around and looked at her uninterested with her shenanigans.
"Come on!" he pulled the rope but Clarke held her ground and jut her chin.
"We need to stop. He's too weak. I have to bandage the wound." she insisted.
"No." Roan said as simply as before and pulled them again. Bellamy stumbled and because she got distracted, she wavered some of her support and he fell on his knees, groaning loudly. She crouched beside him and covered the wound, feeling the stickness of his blood against her palm immideately.
"He'll die if I don't do something." she insisted and Roan walked back to them.
"Then he dies. I told you I don't care. You are the prize, he's just an addition to it."
"But it's better if he's there too, isn't it? I'm sure it'll help you negotiate whatever it is you want from Lexa if you bring her two throphies instead of one." Roan shrugged but there was hesitation, he could tell that.
"She'll probably kill him anyway."
"She won't. She knows he's the reason we made it in that mountain, he's valuable." Roan laughed a little and looked at her with interest.
"To you maybe. Not to the commander." he was close now, really close and she was eyeing the knife strapped to his leg, the same one he used on Bellamy.
She looked up at him in defiance and knew exactly what she had to do, she swayed left, pretending to try and hit him but instead her heads went to the knife, grabbed it and instead of pointing it at his body, she pressed it to her neck and jut her chin.
"You kill him, you kill me!" she said quietly as her eyes bore holes into his. Roan tried to reach out to grab it from her but she just pressed it harder against her neck and felt her skin crack, the blood immideately running down. It wasn't a big wound, just a small cut but she knew it'd have the effect she wanted.
"Let us rest, give me time to take care of him." she insisted but he just kept staring at her with defiance.
"You won't do it." he states in the same quiet threatening manner she just spoke herself.
Dammit, he was good, he was a leader the way she was and though she knew his name know and was aware he was ice nation, she had no idea exactly what his position was in that society but now she had every right to assume that he was important and he knew how to do these kind of stuff.
Clarke laughed, coldly, unemotionally and felt Bellamy's weak gaze turn to her, his hand trying to reach out to touch her but god he was so bad, he just leaned on her side and the feeling of his body against hers gave her strength and courage.
"I ran from my people because I couldn't stand being around them, I couldn't deal with the fact that I lived after I killed two hundred people. Trust me, I will do it and I won't think twice about it. In fact...I want to do it." she pressed the knife harder and deepened the cut, not too much but enough to make it bleed harder, so that it'd push Roan into a corner.
He held her gaze for another minute, then sighed in defeat and nodded, reaching his hand out to her, begging for the knife without words.
"Fine, you win. Give me that back." he insisted but she wasn't as stupid as to immideately trust him, so she stayed in the same position until he added "I'll tie you up to that tree here and let you do what you want but if you're asking me, he's as good as a goner."
"We need a stretcher...some sort of cart, he can't walk all the way to Polis." she argued once she had won as she gently slipped the blade back into Roan's hand.
He laughed and pushed her back against the tree trunk behind them using the rope he had tied around their hands to simply circle around it and wrap it in the back. They ended up with her right hand and his left pressed against the tree and she immideately protested again by tugging hard against her confinments.
"I can't really do anything this way." she argued "Free my hands, I need to wrap him up with something." Roan rolled his eyes and stayed a good distance away from her so she wouldn't use any of his weapons in her benefit now that he had his knife.
"Untie me and keep watch on us. If we try to run you can kill me, I don't care." she said it like she meant it again just as before with the knife pressed to her neck and once again she felt Bellamy's look on her.
Roan contemplated but ultimately untied them and leaned down next to her.
"For the record, if you try something stupid, I'll hurt him, not you. You made a mistake showing me your weakness, Wanheda." he whispered and pulled away, sitting on one of the stumps just a feet away from them and picking out his knife and busying himself chopping on some sort of wood piece.
Meanwhile Bellamy had leaned on the tree and closed his eyes for a brief second trying to normalize his breathing. He was there still and though his head was heavy and his sight blurry, he heard everything Clarke and Roan talked about.
His leg was burning, nothing has ever hurt as much before not even when he's been hurt on the Ark as a kid or here on the ground, it was deep and somewhat...wrong, he couldn't pinpoint why but it felt like his bone itself was on fire and he couldn't really feel half of it. He tried not to show it to Clarke, he still hadn't told her about the other thing but she was already taking her jacket off and leaning over him.
"I'm not sure...you should be getting naked now...princess." he tried to joke and despite the awful situation they were in a smile flashed through her face. She shook her head and the next thing she did was rip off both sleeves of her shirt and tie them up together before wrapping it around his leg and grabbing a stick to tie into it.
A torniquet, he realized, she was trying to stop the bleeding.
"Those lines of yours stopped being interesting three months ago." she was trying to inspect the wound by pulling some of the pant cloth away but he hissed when her fingers treaded close to it and hated seeing her worried face. She tore another part of her shirt and turned around to Roan to ask for water which he reluctantly gave her.
"True...but then again you've been away for a while and I knew you'd forgotten all about my charm." Clarke's eyes got sadder and he hissed when she poured the water over the wound and pressed the small cloth against it. He had no idea why he felt like there was gravel in it, dirt, maybe he got some when he fell down just now and she was trying to clean him up.
"I didn't." she said it quetly again but kept her focus on the wound. He smiled and closed his eyes again, he had forgotten how much he enjoyed her touch, the softness of it, the feather-like pads of her fingers against his skin, it could take all the wrong and broken things about him in a second.
He felt like a child-the boy before Octavia, the good boy his mom always dreamed of him to be. And it wasn't like he wanted Clarke to fix him, no one could, but she took some of the weight away and he wanted to do the same for her.
That's why he snuck in that army, that's why he limped through that forest-she carried so much, he could only imagine.
"Hey, don't fall asleep, please." she begged of him and cupped his cheek, tilting his head up. He was burning but shaking at the same time and he knew this wouldn't end well but he also didn't mind how it'd go.
"You have to go." he whispered covering her wrist with his fingers. "You need to run." she shook her head in defiance.
"No." he smiled at her stubborness.
"We both know I won't make it to Polis." she dipped the cloth in the water Roan gave her and pressed it to his forehead. He must be feverish, he realized, which meant there was infection already, he wouldn't survive even if they somehow got help.
"Yes, you will!" she continued in the same stubborn manner.
"Clarke-" he squeezed her hand again and that's when she got angry.
"Why were you being so stupid? Why did you follow me?" she argued louder now, not caring that Roan was listening "Of all the times you had to be an idiot this is your worst one by far." he chuckled and moved a little, trying to raise himself up but then the other thing they hadn't talked about announced its presence loud and desperately and he betrayed her by letting his hand drop to his side. Clarke's eyes immideately followed it and her face got paler.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing." he let his hand fall but his side burned.
"That's not nothing." she tried to reach out to undo the grounder shirt but he grabbed her wrist with a bit more strength than before and he pushed himself up on the tree, staring into her eyes, ignoring the heartbeat in his ears or how blurry his vision was getting.
"Clarke, don't!" he insisted but she tore herself away and he shouldn't have let her, he knew that but she was fast, she pulled the shirt up and saw the other cut in his side, right under his heart, close to his ribs, the one Roan made after he tied him up to the pole back underground after he hit Clarke and she lost conscinousness.
It wasn't as deep as his leg one but it was meant to make him bleed, slow them down and kill him. Clarke's eyes widened when she saw it and she covered it with her small warm hand immideately. He saw her turning around and barking something at Roan but his head got heavy and for a moment he felt like he was losing himself to the darkness.
"Clarke, hey....Clarke" he begged of her and put her attention back to him. He had no idea what she and Roan talked about but he thought that he saw him stand up and move a bit further away.
"You'll be alright." she said with certainty and he almost believed her. He smiled and felt her leaning down and picking him up, moving him somewhat sideways so that she was holding him now. "It'll be okay."
"You may be the commander of death but you can't fix this, Clarke." he said seriously.
"Yes, I can." she continued in the same stubborn manner "I am the reason you're here, Bellamy." he shook his head.
"No-" he argued and took her hand that was pressed against his second cut, pushing it just a bit up over his heart "This is why I'm here and I don't regret it. Not one bit." he smiled at her, feeling the blood leave his body as he got sleepier and weaker and he didn't mind it, he didn't hate it, he just wished he got to talk to her some more, that's all he ever wanted.
Clarke bowed her head down and shook it at his words, somehow in disbelief-she loved herself as much as he did which was none and it made him angry which gave him the boost he needed.
"You shouldn't have followed me." she said before he could speak his mind but he just ignored it and squeezed her fingers hard.
"I always will." he meant it not in the way that it may have appeared to the world. He knew well enough what people thought of him-the good soldier by his queen's side and yes, perhaps he was that, but he'd do it a thousand times over and never think twice because he loved her.
He may not be able to say it, he was aware that she couldn't either and it didn't matter-it was there, nothing in the world, no matter how cruel and unfair it was, could change it.
"What was that talk before...with him-" he nodded somewhere behind them though he couldn't see well, he was getting so weak, so dizzy "About you not caring?" Clarke looked away from him and he tugged her hand "I don't want to hear that again, alright? No matter how bad it is, you have to keep going."
"As long as you're by my side, I always will." he smiled once more.
"You left and did quite well for yourself." he reminded her even though it hurt him more than it did her.
"Do you call this some sort of achievement, Blake?" he choked out a weak laugh and tensed when the pain in his leg got worse. She must've felt it because she put both her hands on his "Hey, it'll be okay. I'll get you out of here, you just have to hold on."
"Let's not kid ourselves." he said seriously and forced his eyes to open "I'm not standing up again, I'm not leaving this place and the truth is...I don't mind it. In fact, I'm lucky to have you here right now."
"Don't talk like this!" she scolded him "Nothing is happening to you." he pulled her hand to his lips and kissed it softly, weakly but he put everything he had in him as he did so before he let it drop to his chest again.
"It'll be okay. I told you, I don't mind it, I'm not afraid of it and I'm just happy it's with you here." he said simply but when he looked at her he found her crying and he felt her tears falling on his hot skin.
Now that made him angry and he wanted to reach out and brush them away but his hand fell mid-air and she grabbed it once more a second before it fell back to the ground.
"They'll find us. Our people will come for us and even if they don't, I'll get you somewhere safe, I promise." she said and pulled him up closer to her chest. He leaned on her and smelled her scent in, he had forgotten how she was like, so stubborn, so full of life, so beautiful.
Did he wish he had more time with her? Sure, but he wasn't as stupid and he didn't regret all that he never had before he already lived more than enough of what he deserved.
"I'm sorry-" he ignored her last words again and she looked down at him confused "That I wasn't enough to keep you home, that I couldn't help you the way you needed to be helped...that you felt like you were alone. You weren't. You aren't and you never will be." he squeezed her fingers hard and she leaned closer, pressing her lips against his forehead.
"This was never about you. I had to go, I had to...try and make sense of things." she explained weakly and he felt like he was making her feel bad so he just shrugged a little.
"I got angry. I got angry because I was never enough, not for my mom, not for my sister...not for our people or for you." Clarke opened her mouth to protest "But I don't mind it now, I understand that this wasn't how it had to be and I accept it."
"Of course you are enough, are you kidding me, Bellamy? I told you a long time ago that if it wasn't for you, I couldn't have kept us all alive and safe, I couldn't have done any of it." he felt like the darkness was pushing down harder at him now and he closed his eyes.
"But you can." he insisted "I believe in you. I always have and always will." he coughed again and the pain suddenly overwhelmed him so much that he started shaking hard, he couldn't control his body and he knew that she was panicking because she called his name and tried to keep him still in her hands.
"Bellamy!" she screamed loudly "Bellamy, please! Bellamy, hey, you need to hold on, you have to stay with me, okay?" she insisted but he just hid in her chest and held her hand until he felt his fingers slip away from her.
It was painful for a long while, he heard her try to fight for him, get Roan to help, beg him to let them go, then she rocked him in her arms and pressed her warm hand against his wounds. Roan said something about them going, threatened Clarke but she wouldn't move.
The whole time she cried and he felt her tears on his face. Her hands tucked the hair away from his forehead or rubbed against his scalp, she talked to him, begged him to hold on, promised him it'll be okay.
And he felt awful for a long while, he suffered...and then it let go, he lost himself in the darkness and at first he knew he was dreaming, he was back on the Ark and he was just a little boy, maybe three or four.
It was him and his mom in their small cold room, his dad was dead by that time, floated for stealing rations because Bellamy had gotten too weak after a particularly bad bout of the flu.
His mom was really tired after work, she always was, but she would spend some time with him back then. After they came home from day care, she showered him, put him in fresh clothes and sat him down on the bed where she opened up a big old yellow book with the name 'The Iliad' on the front and read from it. Bellamy pressed his tiny back against her body and listened, sucking on his thumb because he was hungry not because he was sleepy and when it got too bad, his mom would get up and carry him around while she warmed up some formula or algae on the stove and fed him as she kept reading. He usually fell asleep even when he wanted to keep listening to her. He asked her all about the letters and the names, what each thing meant-he had learned so much from his mom already that he could spell his name and count to a hundred and recognize each letter from the alphabet. She called him 'her sweet smart boy' and kissed his forehead right before he fell asleep.
He felt that now too-Clarke's lips against his forehead as he mumbled something about his sister, telling her that he was okay and everything was fine before Clarke said "It's okay, I'm here. I'm here." which told him, she too, believed he was finally dying and letting go.
He smiled-he was a little scared but it was okay just like Clarke said, he was warm and fine and he was no longer afraid.
Clarke woke up when she felt his fingers tremble in her hand and she immideately jumped, almost forgetting where she was or what has happened to them. Her chair squeacked hard when she stood up so rapidly and she almost lost her balance before leaning into the cot they've put Bellamy in.
She was so scared, as if she had woken up from a nightmare before she remembered everything that happened-Bellamy was back home, they both were. Kane, Monty and Indra had found them in the middle of those dense and awful woods, they've captured Roan and put them up at the back of the rover, rushing back home to save Bellamy.
She didn't remember much of that except that she just refused to let anyone else hold Bellamy and that she felt the life leaving his body. He was bleeding so much, even in the rover and Monty, MIller and Kane were trying to help out by patching him up, keeping him together and doing anything they could to stablizie him even though they technically had nothing out there they could use.
He had lost consciousness long ago but he held onto her and she kept her head bowed over his, covering him from the rest of the world and whispering in his ear that he'll be fine and that he couldn't die, she commanded him not to and he had to listen, he had to. She'd never leave again, she'd never abandon him and he was enough. That must've been the sentence she repeated the most. "You're enough, you're enough, you're enough."
She didn't remember how they got back home or the way her mom had to pry her hands off of him in order to put him on a stretched but she ran after them to medbay not caring at all for the curious looks people send her way, she just wanted him to be fine.
Her mom closed the doors right under her nose and though they told her she banged her hands against the door later on even if she couldn't remember it, apparent nobody let her in.
In fact, Monty, Miller, Harper and some of the other delinquents, had to push her back and hold her down, hugging her and piling in on her, telling her she had to let the doctors do their job and that everything will be okay. She realized how hollow the words she's been repeating to Bellamy all this time were in that moment.
It felt like it was hours when her mom finally came out of the room and took off her scrubs. Clarke tore herself from the delinquents then and ran to her. Abby raised her hand in the air, trying to tell her she had to speak now.
"He's alive." that tore an inhumane sound out of her that she didn't know she could actually make "But he's still not out of the woods. He lost a lot of blood and I'm already on a second bag but I'd appreciate it if you guys donate some, he'll need more." she looked at the kids behind her and Clarke heard them immideately volunteering and fight about who'd be first.
Clarke stepped closer and took her mom's hand.
"Will he be fine?" she asked quietly but heard the kids behind her go silent too.
"I don't know, not yet. The wounds are both infected and I do worry about permanent damage on his leg, I think that grounder definitely hit some nerves but...I'm hoping that he'll be willing to fight and push through." Abby said seriously "He'll need your guys' support to do it, though."
"Can I see him?" Clarke asked but it sounded like a command and Abby nodded, removing herself away from the door. Clarke forced herself not to run in there but when she did, she stopped dead in her tracks because when she saw how weak and horrible he appeared, she almost thought he was dead already.
She hasn't left his side since. He woke up briefly and he was dreaming, hallucinating because of the infection and the fever he ran. She blushed when her mom was in the room because he kept speaking out her name and looking out for her, calling to her, asking if she was okay even though he was the one struggling in bed.
Now, though, when he squeezed her fingers and she looked down on him, he opened his eyes and looked at her with the most genuine and soft look there was and she knew that he was back, he was coming home to her. She cupped his cheek and smiled.
"Hey." she said softly and he groaned quietly while trying to find his place on the bed.
"Hey." he said back with a smile when she pushed him down in order to prevent him from trying to get up. "Is this heaven? Am I dead?"
"Would it hurt that much if you were?" he choked out a laugh but it resulted in another cough and she squeezed his hand again.
"No. But I got confused because of the beautiful sight before me." she rolled her eyes.
"Come on! Again with the cheesy lines?" he pulled her to bed.
"You know you love them, princess." he dared her and scooted to the right side of the cot. "Come here."
"No-"
"Stop fighting me and come here." he insisted and she listened.
This time, she was too tired to protest, he was here, he was awake, he was alive and yes, there were so many variables, so many things still to fight off but when she lay down next to him and rest her head on his chest and listened to his big beautiful beating heart, she gave into her own exhaustion and let her eyelids drop because she knew, that all was right in the world, simply because she was finally home.