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“This changes everything!” Bellamy calls out, dropping the end of the blanket that he’d just hung up as a makeshift target.
“No more running from spears. Ready to be a badass, Clarke?” he asks her as he pops one of the nuts from the ration packages into his mouth and he gives her one of his rare smiles.
Her stomach flips and then it flops at the sight of his pearly whites. “I’m not going to fight you on bringing guns back to camp. I know we need them, but don’t expect me to like it.” Clarke frowned at him, pointedly crossing her arms over her chest.
“We’re lucky the rifles were packed in grease. The fact that they survived means we’re not sittin’ ducks anymore. You need to learn how to do this,” he tells her, ignoring what she said but hoping that she’ll agree to it because he’ll feel a lot better once he knows that she is capable of protecting herself.
Clarke nods and moves to pick up one of the rifles littering the floor around their feet.
“So I just…hold it on my shoulder?” She shifts if from shoulder to shoulder uneasily.
“Yeah, uh.” Bellamy moves and puts his hand over hers to guide her on how to hold the gun. His body is so close to hers now that she can feel the heat radiating off of him and she’s having trouble thinking straight. She wants nothing more than to just let herself lean into him.
“A little higher,” he tells her as he puts his other hand on her shoulder. Bellamy watches her from where he’s standing behind her and lets out a breath that Clarke feels brush across the back of her neck. She shivers and knows that it’s not because she’s cold.
“Yeah, uh. That’s good. Uh, watch and learn,” Bellamy breaks the silence and moves away from her to pick up a gun of his own. He aims it at the target opposite of him and Clarke and squeezes the trigger. Nothing. He looks over at her and gives her a sheepish look that was totally unlike Bellamy before he points the gun towards to ground again and cocks it to get another bullet into the chamber. He lines up his shot at the target and squeezes the trigger.
Still nothing.
“Still watching,” Clarke comments smoothly and Bellamy almost swears that she’s flirting with him but he’s probably just out of his mind. He looks adorable, standing there struggling. Bellamy never seems to struggle with anything so Clarke is finding this very amusing.
“My bullets are duds. Try yours.” Bellamy cocks the gun again before moving out of the way to give Clarke a chance to take a shot.
Clarke takes aim, remembering how Bellamy told her to hold the gun and she fires and her bullet hits the lower right corner of the target.
“That was amazing,” she says as she lowers the gun slowly, a look of surprise plastered to her face. “Am I horrible for feeling that?”
Bellamy shakes his head no and grins. “Try again.”
“No, we shouldn’t waste the ammunition.”
“You need to practice.”
“No, we need to talk about how we’re going to keep guns around camp. Where are we going to keep them? Who has access?” She rationalizes, feeling the real worry about keeping guns around beginning to settle in.
Bellamy aims his rifle at the target and fires, hitting just to the right of the center of the target.
“You left Miller in charge of the Grounder, you must trust him,” Clarke observes quietly. She’s noticed that Bellamy doesn’t trust that many people. She wanted to know if he trusted her.
“You should keep him close. The others listen to him,” Bellamy answers, avoiding making any kind of eye contact with Clarke. He knows that it won’t be long before she put the pieces together and figures out what’s going on.
“I should keep him close? Bellamy, what’s going on? You’ve been acting weird all day.” He was kind of freaking her out, he'd been off since she found him with Octavia.
Clarke looks over at his bag on the floor and she finally figures it out.
“All the rations you took, you’re gonna run! That’s why you agreed to come with me. You were going to load up on supplies and just disappear.”
He sighed silently. “I don’t have a choice. The Ark will be here soon.” Bellamy shakes his head, knowing that he can’t be around when the rest of the people on the Ark come down. A part of him doesn’t want to have to leave though. He’s got his sister that he promised to protect, then there's Clarke...
“So you’re just going to leave Octavia?” Clarke ground out. She didn't want him to leave.
“Octavia hates me, she’ll be fine,” Another thought struck Bellamy. It wasn’t just his sister that he needed to protect, wanted to protect. That’s how he felt about Clarke too, he wanted to protect her.
“You don’t know-” Clarke starts before she’s interrupted.
“I shot the chancellor! That's how I got on the Dropship. They’re gonna kill me, Clarke!” Bellamy takes a deep breath. He doesn’t want to yell at Clarke. He just wants to make her stop talking. There’s one way that he can think of but he shakes the thought from his head because that is not something that’s going to happen. He inhales another breath of air before he finishes. “Best case scenario, they lock me up with the Grounder for the rest of my life and there’s no way in hell I’m giving Jaha the satisfaction. Keep practicing, I need some air.” Bellamy says before storming off towards the exit.
It took Clarke less than a minute to decide to go after him. His bag was on the ground, but she wouldn't put it past home to wait till after she went back to camp to come back for it.
She had only taken a few steps away from the bunker when something hit her on the back of the head. She lost her footing and stumbled before falling to the ground. Her head hit the earth below her hard and it wasn't long before the world went dark around her.
Bellamy stopped, he was just inside the woods then he heard a loud thump.
All of a sudden Clarke’s face popped into the corner of Bellamy’s mind. Could something have happened to her? A grounder? He turned back towards the bunker only to be met with a fist to his cheek. Before he could really grasp it another punch pushed his head backwards and a gun clicks.
Clarke blinks quickly, trying to get herself together. She knows that she blacked out, she'd been hit on the head but she didn't know why or by who. Slowly she got to her feet, there were some partial footprints in the dirt not too far from her. She didn't know if it was Bellamy or whoever knocked her out, but she was gonna find out. Keeping quiet she followed them to the edge of the woods.
Bellamy looks up and it’s Dax standing before him.
“Nothing personal,” Dax says as he takes aim right at Bellamy. Bellamy looks around, wishing he'd brought his gun with him, even if it was filled with duds it'd be better than nothing. Clarke, where was Clarke? God, please let her be okay. He’d never been so concerned about anyone’s well-being besides his sister.
“Put it down, Dax.” Another voice calls and Bellamy’s heart jumps when he realizes who it is.
Clarke.
Dax turns to face her, turning his back to Bellamy. “ I tried not to kill you, but Shumway says, no witnesses.”
“What is he talking about?” Clarke asks Bellamy, ignoring the fact that she has a gun pointed at her right now. She knows that Bellamy’s here and he won’t let anything happen to her.
“Shumway set it up. He gave me the gun to shoot the chancellor.” Bellamy answers.
Dax speaks up, “Walk away now and I won’t kill you.”
“Put it down.” Clarke’s gun is trained on Dax. She prayed that he would listen and she wouldn't have to shoot him.
“Your choice,” Dax replies.
All Bellamy can do is watch. His princess is defending him when he’d never really given her a reason to since they got off the drop ship. Wait, his princess. Oh, crap. What did he get himself into now? Clarke’s gun clicks and brings him out of his thoughts. He watches as Clarke get behind a tree just as Dax takes a shot at her after her unsuccessful attempt at hitting him.
Dax fires a second shot but Clarke is still hidden behind the tree. Bellamy can’t let anything happen to the princess, his princess, so he pushes himself off the ground and tackles Dax, throwing in a few punches at him before Dax sends him flying backwards.
Dax takes advantage of the situation and starts punching Bellamy and then reaches for his gun that’s lying on the ground close by.
Clanked moves from behind the tree, watching as Bellamy grapples at it too trying to remove it from his tormentor’s grasp, but just ends up getting smacked with the side of the gun. He spies a stray bullet lying on the ground next to him and looks back up at the sound of Clarke’s voice.
“Get the hell off him!” Dax knocks her out and Bellamy grabs the bullet and shoves it into the side of Dax’s throat. Blood spews from the wound and begins dripping from his mouth. The last thing Dax manages to do is pull the trigger, pointing right at Bellamy’s heart, before he falls backwards, dead.
Clarke runs over to Bellamy, tears already forming in her eyes. "Bellamy!"
"Come back! Bellamy don't leave me!"
He doesn't move as she falls to her knees next to him. "Bellamy, Bellamy?" No, he can't be dead.
"No, no, no, no!" He can't be. He's Bellamy. He can't be dead!
Clarke is shaking, sobbing over his body. "Bellamy, why? Why did it have to be you? We need you. I need you!”
“Please don’t leave me…”
She swears she can almost hear his voice as she lays across his bloody chest, eyes closed against the tears that she just can't bring herself to stop.
The shaking gets worse, she just wants Bellamy back. She want wants him to be okay.
When she finally opens her eyes, Bellamy is there, leaning over her with a worried frown on his face but she doesn't care. His arms instantly tighten around her, pulling her closer and burying his face in her hair, whispering to her, trying to calm her. But none of it matters because he's okay, he's alive!
She gasped. "Bellamy!" Her face is buried in his chest.
"It's okay now, Princess. Shhh, it's okay." He could feel the goosebumps as he ran a hand along her arms. Bellamy didn't have a clue what could have been bad enough to get her worked up like this.
"Clarke," she pulled away from him just enough to be able to see his face. She brought a hand to his cheek, then let it slide down his neck to his pulse point. Her gaze following her hand. His pulse was so fast. He had been terrified.
"Princess, look at me." She didn't, she just pulled herself so she was curled against his chest again.
"What happened?" He whispered to the ever so slowly brightening room of their cabin.
Her answer came out even quieter. "You died." And with that her eyes started to water again, she could see Dax pulling the trigger again, and again, and again. “Y-y-you died and…l-l-left m-me.”
"I'm right here. I'm right here, Princess." She was shaking again, only this time he wasn't the one shaking her.
Keeping one arm around her, Bellamy unzipped his jacket and slowly wormed his way out of it. Once his jacket was finally off and thrown to the floor, he wrapped both arms around Clarke and shifted them to the middle of the bed, laying down curled around her, under the blankets together.
"Dax, h-he shot you..." Bellamy remembered the day all that time ago that Dax had followed him and Clarke to one of the bunkers and had tried to kill him. He must have succeeded in Clarkes nightmare.
Now he understood, they were both terrified of losing the other, and even though the rest of the Ark was on the ground those remaining from the original 100 still looked to him and Clarke as their leaders. They needed each other. "Did he now?" Bellamy asked gently as he shifted Clarke so her head was resting on his chest, right over his beating heart. She nodded silently and wrapped an arm around him.
"He can't hurt us Clarke, Dax has been dead for a long time." She didn't move or respond.
They laid there in the quiet for a while, Clarke trying to stop the tears that were determined to keep falling, and Bellamy curled around her, running a hand through her long blonde hair and down her back before starting again.
"You scared me and Miller half to death tonight." It'd been almost an hour since she'd woken up now, the room still getting brighter as the sunrise got closer and he doubter either of them would be getting any more sleep.
She sniffed quietly. "Why Miller?"
"You were screaming in your sleep, he heard you when he was walking by and didn't know what to do so he came and got me." Bellamy had been on guard duty at the main gate when Miller had found him, out of breath from running across the entire camp.
"I'm sorry." She knew that he'd had guard duty that night and wouldn't be back till sunrise. She knew she must have been screaming pretty loud if Miller could hear her from outside their cabin. But then again, she hadn't had a nightmare this bad in ages.
"Hey, don't apologize. You got me off duty early." He waited a moment to see if he could get a chuckle out of her, but when she didn't laugh he continued. "We all get nightmares, Wick has told me that Raven still wakes up screaming some nights. And you know I get them too." His arm tightened around her slightly.
She was just barely nineteen, him almost twenty-two and they had both faced and dealt with more than their fair share of rough times.
"I know, but you don't scream in your sleep, terrifying those you care about." He leaned down and placed a kiss on the top of her head.
"No I don't, but that's because I have you in my arms. Octavia has this giant guardian angel named Lincoln watching out for her. The only other person I need to really worry about is right here, curled up with me. Whenever I wake up, you're always right there."
Clarke finally looked up at Bellamy, her eyes were red from crying and there were circles forming under her eyes. "Please don't die on me..."
He smiled down at her softly. "I have no intention to. Now, do you want to try and get a few more hours sleep?" She nodded and one of his hands went to her cheek, gently wiping the tears with his thumb.
Bellamy sat up just enough to pull his shirt over his head before laying back down. She sighed softly, getting comfortable. "You do know it's only a matter of time before someone comes needing something right?" Clarke asked as she pulled the blankets higher.
Bellamy chuckled, and wrapped his arms around his princess again. "I got Miller to take care of that. Try to sleep Princess."
She yawned, "I love you Bell." And inched just a bit closer.
"I love you too Princess."