Chapter Text
Luna wasn’t what Clarke expected her to be.
Peaceful, sure. Accommodating? Reasonably so. But, as it turned out, Luna wasn’t as helpful as she’d been played up to be. Maybe she had changed since the last time Lincoln saw her. Maybe she just needed a little time to warm up to Clarke and her friends, but more likely than that was that Luna just didn’t fit into the mold Clarke created of her in her mind.
Over the past few days, Clarke was dead set on finding Luna, in desperate need of her assistance. Ontari was taking over Polis, ALIE was taking over the world, Sinclair was killed, and all the rest of Clarke’s friends were almost suffocated to death as well. To top it all off, Lincoln’s map first appeared to lead them to a dead end. The idea that when they did find Luna she might refuse to help them had never even crossed her mind.
But here she was.
Clarke sighed and tugged at the hem of her t-shirt. It was too big for her, she knew, but Luna insisted that Clarke find something besides the commander garb she previously sported before wandering around the rig. Her clothes were “symbolic of war” and Luna made it clear that they would not be tolerated by the rest of the boat clan. The boat leader then managed to scrape up some old clothes: a simple black jacket that was surprisingly not too different from the ones the delinquents came down with and an over-sized t-shirt that clearly used to belong to a man. Clarke was allowed to keep her leggings and boots, but her commander jacket was quickly disposed of. It was a small loss, but Clarke felt strange in it anyway. As much as the old commander had tried to mentor her, Clarke just wasn’t Lexa. She was Clarke of the Sky People - not Wanheda, not some icon. Back in Polis, Clarke was revered. It was easy there, hiding from what she truly was. But now that Clarke was reunited with her people once more, she saw herself for what she was: a coward, running from her demons, and a monster to boot.
Derrick, one of Luna’s apparent guards (although it did seem that there was more going on, from what Clarke observed), led the guests to their quarters – two doors at the end of a long corridor. The end of the hall displayed a large fishing net and some sort of emblem that looked to be the floukru clan’s symbol. On one wall, there was a door to one room and directly across from it was the door to the other.
Derrick paused when they reached the end. “We have only two rooms available for your use. You are welcome to use them for tonight, but tomorrow we expect you to depart before sunset unless you are willing to give up a life of war and live with us in peace and solitude.”
The offer was tempting, but Clarke knew the peace would never last – not unless ALIE was stopped.
“We can’t do that,” Bellamy stated for her and, for once, Clarke was glad she wasn’t the one making the decision, despite it being decidedly non-negotiable.
Derrick nodded, like he did not expect any less. “In that case, I hope you have a pleasant sleep, and an even pleasanter journey to the shore on the ‘morrow.”
When he was gone, the group looked at each other briefly but no more words were said on the matter. Octavia looked at Derrick’s departing figure and glanced briefly at Bellamy before spinning around and storming into one of the rooms. It was impossible to read the look she had sent in Bellamy’s direction, but Clarke knew it couldn’t be good and it would only be worse for Bellamy. Octavia was acting out – she was a teenager and Clarke knew that she often responded to problems aggressively – but Clarke also knew that that didn’t change anything for Bellamy and she hated to see him hurting in this way.
Jasper brushed a hand over his face and turned around to chase after her. “Octavia—”
When those two were gone, Clarke was acutely aware of Bellamy’s presence beside her. While the silence was grim before, now it was awkward and out of place. But instead of trying to alleviate the tension in the air, she bit her lip and strode towards the remaining bedroom. When she reached the doorway, Clarke noticed that there were no footsteps following behind her and she stopped, placing one hand on the wall.
Clarke tilted her head and looked at Bellamy. “You coming?”
Upon being spoken to, he glanced up at her. His eyes travelled before landing on something behind her shoulder, inside the room, and then flicked quickly back to Clarke, but his expression remained frustratingly unreadable. After a moment of not saying anything, he sighed and followed her into the room.
Their quarters were modest, with only a bed on one wall and a small wooden desk beside it. There was a metal stool in the corner, and on the desk there was a candle. The candle wouldn’t serve much use without a source of fire, though, and Bellamy didn’t know what he did with his matches. A chilly sea breeze wafted in from a round window near the top of the wall and everything smelled like the ocean –salty, but fresh. Despite the room being freezing and eerily resembling the storage crate they were shipped on to get here, what with its metal walls, the bed was a decent size and was topped with multiple blankets to keep warm. There was but one glaring problem.
The bed.
As in singular.
Clarke didn’t seem to notice – or maybe she just didn’t care – because she immediately sat herself down on the foot of the bed and started untying the laces on her boots. She was clearly getting ready to curl up under those blankets and pass out… .
Which meant Bellamy was taking the floor.
Bellamy didn’t mind. It wasn’t like he bothered to get much sleep lately anyway. While reality haunted him sufficiently, the nightmares waiting for him when the moon rose were equally as terrifying and he preferred to avoid them altogether. On the rare occasion he did manage to get a wink of sleep, his demons always managed to chase him awake in a cold sweat eventually. No, the idea of sleeping in that bed wasn’t appealing whatsoever. Clarke, on the other hand, needed to rest. Just looking at her was almost painful. Stress was deeply ingrained in her eyes and it was obvious from the drooping of her eyelids that exhaustion was just about to send her over the edge. Tonight might be the best opportunity she would have for a good night’s sleep in a while and he wasn’t going to ruin that for her.
Bellamy would take the floor.
When he started kicking his boots to the side and taking off his jacket to arrange it on the floor, not unlike a pillow, he was abruptly cut off by Clarke. “What are you doing?”
He paused to stare back at her. Her jacket was gone and she just had on that t-shirt that was clearly too big for her overtop her leggings. Her eyes asked him a million questions. “Getting ready to sleep.” A lie, but she didn’t need to know that.
“On the ground?”
Something in her eyes made him shift uncomfortably and suddenly his mouth became dry. “Yeah.”
Bellamy turned back to his task of making a semi-comfortable place for him to lean against the wall, and Clarke, to his relief, didn’t say anything else. In the silence, he continued on with indifference and was barely aware of the lack of sound from the other person in the room. A few minutes later there was a short sigh and a bounce of the springs on the bed that Bellamy chose to ignore. It wasn’t always this awkward with Clarke – at least, it hadn’t used to be. But something had changed between them, and Bellamy was too scattered to try and figure out what it was.
A tug on his bicep finally caused Bellamy to acknowledge Clarke again and he turned around. She was staring up at him, one small hand wrapped around his upper-arm and an exasperated expression on her face. She pulled him back towards the bed and pushed him down so he was sitting on the edge. Once she was apparently satisfied, she climbed up beside him and crawled over to the other end of the bed.
“I’m not letting you sleep on the floor, Bellamy,” she told him from her perch. “There’s plenty of room for two.”
“I don’t mind, Clarke,” he reassured her. “We sleep on the ground all the time. This isn’t new.”
“And look at the good it’s done you,” she said softly.
Bellamy knew he probably looked like hell. While it had been days since he’d had access to a mirror, Bellamy was well aware of the cuts and bruises on his face and the dirt that covered them. If the bags under Clarke’s eyes were any indication, he probably appeared much the same. Exhaustion was always on the horizon, but Bellamy still couldn’t bring himself to sleep, not here, not when people could watch. The last thing he needed were for his shrieks to awaken her in the night.
“I’m fine,” Bellamy told her again, wishing he could sound more convincing. “One of us should take the floor.”
Clarke sighed and started shifting on the bed. “Fine,” she said, and Bellamy could hear the irritation in her voice. “If it’s such a problem for us to be in such close proximity, then I’ll sleep on the ground.”
Bellamy groaned and stopped her with his arm before she could leave. “Clarke, wait.” She turned to face him, her eyes revealing nothing. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
Her eyes softened under his touch and smiled sadly. “I know you’re just trying to be give me space, Bellamy, but I’m too tired to argue with you about this.”
With that, she turned away from him and laid herself down under the blankets on her side of the bed, facing the wall. The light streaming in from the window was thinning as night overtook the sky. Bellamy set his jaw before pushing his stubbornness aside and leaning back against the pillow. He was careful not to touch Clarke, leaving a good one to two feet of space between them, but she, on the other hand, didn’t seem to care as much about the space. Bellamy turned to glance at her curled up on her side. He could see her chest rising and falling and hear her even breathes. She was already asleep.
The idea that she was finally getting the first rest she had probably had in days was enough to make him smile slightly and he finally turned away to prop his head on his pillow and stare at the ceiling.
Bellamy wasn’t sure how many hours had passed when Clarke started to stir. At first she just made little wriggling movements, as people often did in their sleep, and eventually rolled onto her back. Bellamy didn’t think much of it, but then the murmuring started. Her words were indistinguishable but the sounds became more and more distressed after a few seconds. Clarke’s face was all scrunched up in what looked like pain, her eyelids fluttering, and suddenly the quiet sounds emerging from her lips turned to whimpering. Bellamy was about to reach over to wake her up when her eyes snapped open suddenly and she jerked forward, panting.
Clarke didn’t acknowledge that he had noticed her, instead stared blankly ahead into the darkness. Bellamy could see that she was trembling and her bottom lip was quivering. When he looked closer, he noticed a few tears rolling slowly down her cheeks and the sight sent a pang through his chest.
“Clarke?” he spoke softly, quietly, unsure of how to help her. Her eyes barely flicked over to his before moving quickly away.
And then Clarke crumpled.
The sound she let out ripped Bellamy’s heart straight out of his chest. It was a sound of such grief and heartbreak that he had never once heard emerge from her mouth before. Clarke erupted into choking sobs that filled his ears and curled in on herself, wrapping her arms around her stomach, like it was the only thing keeping her from shattering completely. Her chest hitched with each shaky breath and Bellamy worried that she wasn’t allowing herself enough air. Turning her face into her knees, Clarke hid her tears and Bellamy wondered, briefly, if she was trying to hide her sorrow from him.
Inching closer, Bellamy reached out and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her flush against his chest. Clarke immediately broke in his arms, letting out hysterical sobbing sounds. He could feel the shuddering of her body with each wail she let out. The weeping grew louder and more frantic and Bellamy cradled her head in one hand, trying to help steady her. She buried her face into his chest, muffling the sound of her bawling in the fabric of his t-shirt.
Bellamy was too caught off-guard by her sudden vulnerability in front of him to know what words to say so instead of verbally comforting her, he tightened his grip around her and caressed the hair at the nape of her neck. He could feel Clarke’s tears soaking into his shirt, but it didn’t bother him – only sent a sharp prick of sadness through him. Her breaths were heaving and her form was still crumpled up in a ball against him, one hand curled on his chest. Still stroking her hair, Bellamy shifted so that his back was against the headboard of the bed and Clarke was leaning against him.
Clarke, so defenseless and exposed like this, reminded Bellamy of a younger version of Octavia – when she used to get nightmares back on the Ark. Back then, Bellamy was always the one to calm her down. However she tried, his mother just could never figure out how. Bellamy always put his arm around her as Octavia would lay her head on his shoulder and he would tell her stories, the ones about Greek myths and heroes and the legends they became, conquering villains with the same arrogance and bravado. Bellamy didn’t know whether Octavia understood the stories or not, or if she even listened to him at all, but they served as a distraction from the terrors that tormented her in her sleep.
But here Bellamy was and he was holding a real legend in his arms. The great myth of Wanheda: mountain slayer. And she was nothing like the cocky and fearless heroes he whispered to Octavia about all those nights before. He was realizing, in the real world, courage and physical strength didn’t make a hero; not even saving all your people made you noble – not if you did whatever it took, however heavy a price to pay. Real people broke down, like old machinery, but they could become whole again. Without grief and emotion, there would be no humanity.
Clarke had told Bellamy that maybe there were “no good guys”. At the time, he thought she was just trying to provide the comfort he needed to move forward with her on the mission. Whenever Bellamy looked at himself next to Clarke, he never felt like he could put himself on her level. From the moment they landed on the ground, Clarke’s intentions were inherently good, and everything she had done since that moment were in the name of their people: to protect them. But staring at her now, so riddled with guilt and trauma, Bellamy didn’t see that girl. She hadn’t been trying to manipulate him into following her before – her words were true. There were no good guys. The heroes that left Bellamy in awe when he was young weren’t real or realistic and the legend of the great and powerful mountain slayer wasn’t either.
She was not Wanheda, not a princess: just a girl. Just Clarke.
And the more Bellamy considered it, the more it made sense. Why she ran away. Why she stayed in Polis. There, she was treated as a myth, a misconception Clarke must have known was inaccurate. But the more she was revered, the easier it was to lose herself in the story of Wanheda, to convince herself that Clarke Griffin of the Sky People never lived. In Polis, Clarke hid from who she was. It was her distraction, just like the Greek stories were Octavia’s.
But Clarke was done with the distractions, as it appeared, and as a result she lay crumpled in his arms, the waterfall flowing from her eyes providing any remaining explanation he needed for the reasons she left him behind.
All Bellamy could do was hold her.
There was nothing more to it. He knew she needed to let it out, that she just needed for him to allow her to break for once. But he’d be damned if he let her do it alone. Fastening his arms even more securely around her, he leaned his head down so his lips were almost brushing her ear. For a moment, he hesitated. He didn’t know what to tell her. He could lie, say that everything would be okay, that they would fix everything. But he couldn’t do that. He could only promise one thing.
“You don’t have to go through this by yourself.” I know how you feel. “I’m here. I want to help you.” Let me help you.
His words issued an even more violent round of crying. Bellamy could feel Clarke struggling against his arms, trying to release herself from his grip. At first he was confused, but then he heard her take two heaving breaths and realized that she was trying to speak.
“I can’t,” she choked out between sobs, shaking her head, tears streaming down her scrunched up face. “I can’t do this anymore.”
Bellamy pulled away from her so he could look in her eyes, a sick feeling starting to churn in his stomach. “What are you talking about?”
“Every night, I get these nightmares,” she gasped, “and they’re always the same.” Her eyes took on a haunted look and it didn’t feel like Bellamy was staring at Clarke anymore. She was somewhere else, and he realized she was reliving it all. “I’m walking in the forest and then I – I start to hear things. Voices. Telling me that I’m a monster. That I killed them.” She gulped, her eyes filling with moisture. “When I turn around, they’re all staring at me. The people at Mount Weather, in Tondc … everyone I killed. And it doesn’t matter how fast I run, they’re always there. Just a few feet behind, calling out to me. And it never ends.”
Bellamy felt something break inside of him as he listened to her, watched her bottom lip tremble. But Clarke wasn’t finished.
“The dream never ends,” she began again, her voice cracking, “because when I wake up, for a moment I feel relief that it’s all over, but then I remember that it’s not a dream. It’s all real. And the people following me are telling the truth. This is who I am.”
“Clarke …” Bellamy began, but he found he didn’t know how to finish the sentence. Her dreams sounded eerily similar to his own, where the spectres of those who died at his hands haunted him. Except sometimes, it wasn’t just them. Sometimes he saw Octavia’s face in the dead bodies of the Mountain Men. Sometimes it was someone else. Other times his dreams were a different kind of torment, the kind with a kiss placed tentatively on his cheek, only to be followed by the face of the girl who gifted it painted on the remains of a body bleeding red into the night sky. The dreams all shared one thing in common: the deaths were always his fault.
The words of comfort fell flat on his tongue and Bellamy’s arms slackened their grip on Clarke as it all came flooding back to him. The reason he wouldn’t sleep: Clarke embodied it. He was just like her, and as Bellamy had no words of sympathy to offer himself, he had no idea what to do to reassure the girl in front of him.
“There’s only one way to make it end.”
Clarke’s words took a moment to settle in, but the implication was a shard of glass in Bellamy’s heart.
“No,” he breathed. “Clarke, no.”
She stared at him sadly. “It will be easy that way.”
A rush of heat filled Bellamy’s chest. “For who?” he asked with indignation. “You?”
She didn’t have an answer for that.
Softening, he reached out to cup her face in his hands, gently turning her to look him in the eye. “I don’t know what happened with you in Polis, okay? I don’t know what you did those three months in the wilderness. But you managed to get through that and you’re here now.” He paused, his mouth suddenly feeling dry. “I don’t know what I would do without you. I need you, Clarke. And it doesn’t matter what you did or what you will do because I care about you and nothing’s going to ever make that untrue.”
When Bellamy saw the look on Clarke’s face – half surprise, have awe – he realized that he had never told her that before. He needed her. Of course he did. But it was only in this moment that he found the words felt new in his mouth. He’d never said them before. They felt strange, dangerous, but they also felt right and Bellamy froze with the dawning realization that Clarke truly didn’t know how much she meant to him, that he cared about her.
All this time, and he never told her. Not once. Bellamy swallowed.
This time when he made eye contact, he didn’t look away as he usually did. The azure blue of Clarke’s eyes were wide and brimming with tears, making her irises look like rivers. Her lips were parted slightly, but the choking sobs had come to a halt and now just a few streams trickled down her cheek as she stared into his eyes, like she was testing him to see if he really meant everything he said.
“Please,” he breathed, so barely a sound escaped his lips.
There was a beat – an interruption in the fabric of time where everything seemed to still around him – and in that moment Bellamy swore he felt his heart stop. Would his words reach her? If they did, would they be enough? Bellamy didn’t know; he did know that no matter what he did in the past, he’d never been enough before. He couldn’t save his mom, he couldn’t protect the kids on the ground … Over half were dead, because of his failures. The people in the Culling? Gone. His fault. The Mountain Men and the Grounders outside the walls of Arkadia would never breathe again and their blood was still fresh on his hands. Bellamy, despite his efforts, failed to save Lincoln or Gina… . Hell, Bellamy couldn’t even save himself. And now he might as well add Octavia to the long list of people that Bellamy had let down.
Why would anything he said matter to Clarke? What would his pleas mean to her?
The pit of dread in his stomach expanded to the point that Bellamy was completely thrown when he felt a tickling of hair on his chin and delicate arms wrapped around his waist. Clarke had tucked her head under his chin and had him pulled against her, her arms gentle, but also desperate. After a brief pause and the inevitable wave of relief that washed over him, Bellamy responded, returning her embrace. Clarke now carried a new sense of calm with her – or at least, it seemed that way. Her shrieks had departed and in their wake remained only silence, but Bellamy could still feel the tears streaking from Clarke’s eyes against his skin, burning holes that went straight through his heart.
With a sudden urge overcoming Bellamy, he shifted his head to plant a soft kiss on her forehead. When his skin made contact with hers, he heard Clarke sniffle against his neck and he started slowly rocking her back and forth, remembering that it used to soothe Octavia when she would wake up from nightmares when she was younger. He held her in his arms as she cried, until she stopped trembling and the tears stopped flowing from her eyes. And even after her breathing became steady again, he continued to hold her because Bellamy had let Clarke go before and he didn’t want to do it ever again.
Eventually, after a long period of silence, Bellamy felt Clarke grow relaxed in his arms and she yawned before nuzzling her face back into the crook of his neck. He leaned down so his lips were hovering by her ear and spoke for the first time in what felt like hours. “Are you tired?”
Clarke sighed in response, which Bellamy took to mean “yes”. Getting the message, he gently repositioned himself and Clarke so they were lying down on the bed, facing each other. For a moment, Bellamy wasn’t sure if Clarke would move away but if she needed it, he would grant her some space. Instead, however, she just buried her head in his chest and leaned against him. Bellamy kept his arm wrapped around her waist and waited until her breaths became even and it was obvious that she had elapsed into a much needed sleep.
Bellamy could have disentangled his arms from her, could have moved away back to his side of the bed, and she wouldn’t have noticed – but he didn’t. Because Bellamy imagined Clarke’s eyes opening in a panic, a nightmare chasing her out of sleep, only to find herself alone. He could envision it so clearly, because it was his reality for three months. All those long nights Bellamy would wake up, trembling in the dark and calling out, only to realise that the person he was calling out for would never hear. She was gone, another person to add to the list of people who left him behind.
When it came down to the two of them, Bellamy knew he would always be the one to stay.