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Her eyes look like the blue of the Ark when he first touches her.
She's a breath away from an untimely demise and his hand is the only thing keeping her from dropping. The strain on his shoulder from holding her weight feels like twenty-three years of fear and anguish and bitterness, feels like the Ark. His hand burns everywhere his skin touches hers, alight with the knowledge that their connection is only skin-deep, that the last thread tying him to the Ark is only a desperate grasp from a girl literally trying to hang on by a thread. This knowledge-- it sears up his arm, settles under his skin and shows him a side of him he never knew: the one that's willing to let a girl die to get what he wants.
The rest of him screams in horror-- this is not who he wanted to be, this is not who he was raised to be-- while the new part settles in his blood like a new friend. He freezes, he doesn't know what to do. The Ark is just a bag of flesh and bones and blonde hair that's ripping his arm out of his shoulder and he could--
Arms wrap around his and pull.
He falls back on his ass and he can hear her catching her breath and it's like they're both breathing for the first time. The loss of contact fills him up and shows him a new side of himself: the one that's ashamed with who he's becoming.
.....
Her eyes look like the ocean, torrid and vast and full of possibilities, when he takes her hand for the first time since the Mountain.
The only thing left of the Ark in her is the steel backbone, and it's kept them both standing for all this time. He's sort of in love with her at this point. He's not fully there, but he's aware of the little buds of affection growing into something larger in his chest-- this time, his foresight is on task-- but, he's not in a rush. They have time, and that's what he needs, what they all need. Every loss, every betrayal is still an open wound that flares and throbs when prodded. Her name is stitched into too many of them.
But he can hold her hand. He also needs the reminder that she's here, that she's staying, that she's with him. The people they once were when they stepped out of the dropship are all but ghosts in their pasts, the people they were when war came are a little more corporeal in their minds but the people they are now-- they rely on each other, to lead, and that is all that Bellamy needs to know, for now.
(And if she tells him, later on, that his hand was her tether that kept her grounded and gave her strength, and healed her heart like hers did his, he'll smile and never let go of her hand again.)
