Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Clarke wakes up to find herself hurtling through space in a flaming tin can, designations are the last thing on her mind. The Ark’s dying, her dad’s dead, she’s about to die too, and Well’s apologies won’t change those facts. But then they hit the ground, and they’re not dead, which is exciting. Since she rather likes surviving, she insists on an expedition to Mount Weather, and from there things get…busy.

So Clarke forgets all about designations until she’s dangling over a pit of spikes with Bellamy Blake’s hand wrapped around her wrist. And designations only matter then because her index finger is digging into the scent gland in his wrist. Painfully, judging by the strain in his eyes.

But she’s too scared to let go or even shift her grip, and anyway then the others are there, pulling him away from the edge and pulling her up. He never lets go either though, palm covering her own emerging gland. Both of them are wearing jackets, but she’s still so overwhelmed with the scent of alpha, mint, woodsmoke, and something else that she stumbles. Finn steadies her, giving her a curious look.

“Vertigo,” she explains, waving him away. He frowns but climbs up to get Jasper down, after ordering Wells to stay with her, in clear challenge to Bellamy. Which means Finn either doesn’t know or doesn’t care. Stupid, either way.

But then, maybe he’s just too far away from presenting to realize. After all, she hadn’t really given it any thought until suddenly she was literally dizzy with pheromones, and she’ll be presenting within the month. Alpha, she’s guessing. Her mother’s an alpha after all, and that would explain why she and Bellamy have already marked each other out as rivals.

Still, Clarke’s smart enough to not outright challenge him unless she has to. He’s older, and that means he’s more experienced in weaponizing his natural alpha traits, his charisma, anger, and strength. And given that their camp is full of criminals, she knows they need a leader like that. A leader like her, or even Wells or Finn, would be too soft. And at least Bellamy seems to have a stronger moral compass than Murphy. She saw the conflict in his eyes when he said "brave princess." He didn't want her messing with his plans or challenging his authority, but he didn't really want to hurt her. He just thought he could scare her.

(It isn’t much, but it’s something, and down here, she’ll take it.)

Weirdly, Bellamy’s a natural pack alpha, now that she thinks about it. As if to prove it, he subtly positions himself in front of her as the panther approaches, making himself the easiest target, and prepares to fight the beast, barehanded. He's protecting her and Wells – even though she doubts he really considers them true pack. But he is here, he is alpha, and he will protect.

So later when he snarls at Wells for stealing his gun and wasting so many bullets, she can tell he’s more relieved that no one was harmed, no matter who killed the panther. Then he makes Murphy help him carry the carcass back for food for the pack, something that Finn and Wells failed to even consider. And something about seeing that side of Bellamy Blake makes her feel just a bit safer – until she sees the pile of wristbands beside the fire. 

After that, Clarke does her best to forget about designations again. So Bellamy’s an alpha. That’s fine. It makes him a better leader and no one else has presented yet, so really, designations don’t matter on the ground. Not until the Ark comes down, which they will. Soon. They have too.

In the meantime, she ignores the way his bark to “get Clarke whatever she needs” fills her with pride, because that’s ridiculous. And she avoids him, especially after Wells dies and she ends up taking her wrist band off in a fit of pettiness. It feels like she’s giving into him somehow, and she can’t do that. She’s an alpha too, or she will be. So during the week Jasper spends recovering, she mourns Wells, talks with Finn, and sits with Octavia.

She distinctly does not see Bellamy eating dinner with Charlotte or teasing her while they build the wall. She does not think about the easy way he shifts from harsh, unyielding tyrant, to protective, strategic leader, to attentive, compassionate caretaker as he moves through camp, being whatever he needs to be for their people in the moment. She doesn't hear the annoyed fondness in his voice sometimes as he's barking orders and assigning jobs.

(But of course she does – he’s alpha, she can't help it.)

She also can’t help but see that being their alpha is more than just a power trip to him. Clarke suspects his reasons for removing wristbands and despises his methods of doing so, obviously, but she cannot doubt that Bellamy genuinely cares about them. And she has to grudgingly admit that if it wasn't for the fact that the Ark was dying and it would be nice to have a real doctor on hand, she wouldn't mind never hearing from them again. So ultimately, everything she pretends not to notice just confirms that she was right, a week ago, when she admitted that he was the best possible alpha for the pack right now. But she still tries to ignore the way her stomach tightens and her skin tingles whenever she sees him doing any of these things, because that’s certainly not a path she wants to go down.

After all, Finn is a much more suitable romantic interest. Sure, he was a bit of a player and flirting with everyone at first. But lately, he’s been singling her out. He brought her that pencil, because he remembered her saying she liked to draw, and he'd intervened on her behalf with Bellamy a lot too in the beginning when he was still a potential threat. And he was supportive and kind to Jasper when he was trying to impress Octavia that day. Unlike Bellamy, he isn’t violent and temperamental. He would make a good alpha too. Not for the pack, of course (she still remembers his outright refusal to go after Jasper because he was afraid). But he would make a good alpha for –

For what? What good was an alpha without a pack? What good is an alpha who is only second best? 

That’s unfair, Clarke reminds herself. Her mom was an alpha, and she didn’t need a pack of her own. She was the head doctor and served on the council, and that was enough. A life like that would be enough for Clarke too. She could be in charge of the medical aspects of camp, help Bellamy make sure that the kids had their basic needs met, things like that. She was already doing it anyways, and besides, he was too busy worrying about keeping them safe from outside threats or infighting. He clearly didn’t begrudge her help with the more mundane tasks. She wouldn't be useless, just because she wasn't the alpha.

But then, she really doesn't want to be the alpha. She barely gets enough sleep as it is, patching up cuts and foraging with Monty. She can't imagine trying to do it all. Avoiding Bellamy has been easy in large part because of how busy he is - directing the building of the wall, organizing hunting parties, and moderating disputes. Sometimes she wonders if he sleeps at all, with camp to run during the day and the women in his tent at night. On the upside, they don't have time for fighting either.

And then Jasper and Octavia find the knife with Wells’s blood on it. Fury fills Clarke’s veins like a drug. Murphy killed her best friend, and she's going to make him pay. She's going to tell everyone exactly what he did, and then they're going to punish him. No matter what Bellamy says.

“The people have a right to know,” she spits at him on her way out. She's not letting Wells miss out on justice like her dad did, just because it would ruin Bellamy's building project. And she'd thought he was a worthy alpha. Her lip curls in disgust.

“Do not leave this tent.”

Clarke freezes just a step past his shoulder, like invisible chains have wrapped around her, making it impossible to move. He just – he just commanded her.

There’s too much adrenaline to be able to think. That, that wasn’t supposed to happen. It shouldn’t be possible. But here she is, rooted to the ground at the entrance of his tent. He pulls her back and turns her so she’s half a foot from his chest, staring over his shoulder at his disheveled mattress in defiance. 

“What do you think is going to happen if you go out there, Princess?" He growls in her ear. "Let’s say I just let you walk out of this tent, and you announce to the camp that you think Murphy killed Wells. What happens then?”

Her mouth is dry, and she's too livid to speak. She sucks in a breath. “We punish him.” She turns her head to glare at him, but she still can’t lift her feet.

“How?” he raises an eyebrow.

“I – I don’t know. The people should decide. But they need to know. So they can protect themselves. So he can be punished.”

“Okay,” Bellamy says slowly, like he’s talking to a particularly stupid child. It makes her want to deck him. “So you’re going to rush out there, in a fit of rage, announce that Murphy killed Wells, and you what? Expect a hundred delinquents to drop everything and hold an impartial trial?”

Clarke’s mouth works. Damn him, he has a point. “We – we can hold him in the dropship until we have time for a trial.”

Bellamy laughs darkly. “Princess, how many people out there hate Murphy?”

She glares again. “What does that have to do with anything?”

He isn’t looking at her anymore though, and that makes her angrier, that he can just ignore her. Ignore the justice Wells deserves. “Octavia, how many people hate Murphy?”

“Everyone in this tent, depending on the day.” Clarke can’t see, but she can almost hear Octavia shrug. “Pretty much everyone out there. Heard he pissed on that kid you gave a water break to. He’s an ass, so he doesn’t have many friends. Just people who are scared of him. Or scared of you.”

Bellamy turns back to meet Clarke’s glare with an air of smug condescension, but he’s still talking to his sister when he asks, “And what do you think would happen if Princess here waltzed out there and told a camp full of bitter, scared delinquents that she thinks Murphy committed murder?” He waits a full minute, but Octavia doesn’t answer. “Jasper? What do you think would happen? What would you want to do to Murphy, if you had an excuse?” He still hasn’t let Clarke look away.

She hears Jasper shuffle and clear his throat. “I would, well – I’d want to, um, get rid of him, probably.”

“Exactly. Very good, Jasper.” Bellamy turns to beam at Jasper like he’s a star pupil and everyone else is an idiot. It annoys her that she feels even a twinge of jealousy at that. It also annoys her that she knows Jasper’s right too. “So you see, Princess, if you go out there waving around your circumstantial evidence calling Murphy a murderer, they will not only stop building a wall – which we need because murderer or not, there are still grounders out there – they will turn into a mob neither of us can control. Is that what you want? Do you want to watch them hang Murphy? Are you that sure it was him?”

“No,” Clarke’s ashamed of the way her voice cracks. But as much as she hates Murphy, she doesn't want to be responsible for his death. The thought makes her sick. 

“That’s what I thought. If you want, I’ll question him a bit. You can even be here. But we’re not going to announce this. Not until we have to, or at the very least, not until we know more. Now, you can sit here and stew, or go to your tent, or find Spacewalker and have a nice little jaunt through the forest to clear your head. But you need to get yourself together if you want to be here when I talk to him.”

She feels the invisible chains around her loosen and turns toward him. “Fine. But don’t ever do that to me again,” she snarls and jabs a finger into his chest because she can.

She storms out of the tent and out of the gate. Finn passes her on his way back to camp and stops, asking her if she’s okay. She snaps at him to leave her alone and ends up crying in the car where they hid from the acid fog just because that wasn’t on Bellamy’s list of approved activities. And she’s so scared of what she almost did, what might have happened had Bellamy not stopped her, that’s she’s able to ignore what it means that he could.

That night, she dreams of Murphy swinging from a tree and wakes up muffling a scream.

Bellamy tries to be discreet when he questions Murphy, but after he lets Murphy go, the man goes on a witch hunt that ends with Charlotte’s confession and suicide. Bellamy tackles Murphy and nearly kills him, except Finn pulls him off, which is dangerous and foolhardy. But Clarke knows Bellamy’s more upset about Charlotte’s death than the fact that Murphy usurped his authority. The challenge is part of it of course, and a large part of why Murphy’s punishment must be swift and painful, but Clarke’s relieved that their alpha ultimately cares more about their lives than his power. He was willing to abandon his power and position and go off with Charlotte himself, if it would have saved her, and that says something.

So now she has to make sure Bellamy can live with himself after all of this – like he did for her. She also has to smooth over Finn’s unconscious challenge in interrupting Murphy’s punishment. So as soon as Finn has Bellamy back on his feet, Clarke puts on her poker face and employs all the diplomacy she learned from years of soothing her mother’s alpha ego. “How should we punish him, Bellamy? He challenged your authority and Charlotte died because of it. Should he be hung up outside camp? Banished? Or should we take him back to the Dropship and decide on a suitable punishment tomorrow?”

He looks up at her, wild-eyed. Bellamy can’t wait until tomorrow; she can see it on his face. But she’s given him options that will allow him to reclaim order and authority without having to beat Murphy to death, and he realizes it. She’s also just publicly re-enforced his status as their leader and given him her support as - medic? Rival for the pack's loyalty? Whatever she is. 

He lets out a breath, yanks a hand through his hair, and assesses her with a look she can’t quite place. Possibly bewilderment that she would so obviously support him, which is laughable. She just doesn’t want to be responsible for any more bloodshed, and if that means playing the designation game, fine. Her next move was to contradict him outright, and she still will, if it comes to that. But frankly, she’s not really in the mood to fight with him tonight. Not after seeing Charlotte throw herself off a cliff.

So Clarke watches Bellamy as he watches her. She sees the shift in his eyes when he decides to take the out she’s given him, and she stands passively as he dangles Murphy over the cliff, warning him and the other traitors about what will happen if they ever disobey or contradict him again. She doesn't flinch when he strings Murphy and his gang up outside of camp like he did Atom.

"You'll hang here for the next three days," he says. "No one will protect or provide for you." It's an implicit message: Alpha protects and provides; going against him means death.  

Finn opens his mouth to protest, but Clarke cuts him a look. Bellamy has just spared Murphy's life, has recognized an emerging alpha who got carried away on a power trip and even given him a punishment that will allow him to rejoin the pack when it's over. But any more would be weakness: rebellion must be discouraged. Bellamy doesn't actually enforce that many camp rules. Generally, he does let people do whatever the hell they want. So in a camp full of Murphys, disobedience means chaos that threatens the tenuous society they have established so far - and lives, like Charlotte's.

He is a merciful but strong alpha.

Carefully, Clarke asks him if they should be given water. 

"In the morning. But no food," he growls and strides back to camp to give everyone an ultimatum: respect his authority or leave camp to die. Clarke stands close beside him as he does it. She’s not quite sure why, but, somehow, what happened on the cliff makes them feel like a team. 

They almost find a way to talk to the Ark. And then it slips through their fingers, and Bellamy need no longer wage his campaign against the wristbands.

Clarke’s never seen Finn so heartbroken or angry as he is when he storms out of the Dropship, and she follows him because it was Finn who helped her figure out about Wells before it was too late. And Finn who tried to understand her when she accused him of being her delinquent psychologist. And she owes it to him to be there for him when he needs someone. After all, friends are precious on the ground.

Finn’s quicker; he’s out of camp before she can spot him. But she has a pretty good idea of where he’s going. She’s just made it past the gate when she passes Bellamy on his way back into camp. It’s inconsequential; normally they ignore each other. But this time, he stops.

“Where you headed, Princess?” His scowl is more intense than normal.

“Be back in a bit!” Clarke doesn’t stop, but she does yell over her shoulder because she’s trying to maintain whatever sort of truce they have going on.

“Clarke.” It’s biting and firm. Authoritative. Not an order, but close.

She exhales through her teeth before turning to see what’s got him in a tizzy today. “Yes?” she asks tightly, feigned sweetness dripping from her voice. She glances over her shoulder to see if she can see Finn. She hopes he’s not doing anything stupid yet.

“Where are you going?” He enunciates deliberately.

She rolls her eyes and sighs. “We thought we could communicate with the Ark, but the wristband Monty modified short-circuited. You’ll be happy to know it fried them all, and now the Ark thinks we’re dead. Finn – took it pretty hard. I was on my way to check on him, so if you’ll excuse me,” she explains, spinning around to jog to the Art Supply Store. Surely, he’d go there before doing something that would get him speared by a grounder or eaten by a river monster, right?

“Don’t.”

Clarke snaps back around. “Excuse me?”

He’s already turned to go back to camp, sure she’ll obey him. Arrogant ass. Resentment brews within her. Finn needs her. She’s going. It’s that simple. Clarke has taken about five steps before Bellamy has ahold of her elbow and is yanking her backwards.

“I said, don’t.”

She tries to rip her arm away, but the more she struggles the tighter he holds her. “Why?” she snarls.

“Because I said so!” he snaps. He sighs, and the tension seeps out of his shoulders and his hand loosens a tiny bit on her arm. He looks tired, and older than normal. Now that his hair isn’t slicked back, it’s hard to remember he’s almost five years older than her sometimes. But right now, he looks tired enough to be twice her age. “Look, Clarke, just trust me, okay?” He runs his free hand over his face. “Spacewalker needs to be by himself right now. So just…let him come back on his own.”

“How would you know?” She shouldn’t snap at him, but she can’t seem to help it.

“I don’t have time for this,” he mutters under his breath. Then he sighs. “I just do, okay? This is important. Don’t make me order you, Clarke. I don’t want to. But I will if I can’t trust you to stay inside camp until Spacewalker comes back on his own.”

Clarke raises her chin in response. This is ridiculous. He’s ridiculous. Finn’s her friend. And if he tells her to leave, she will. But she needs to make sure he’s okay first. And she’s an emerging alpha; she can take care of herself. She rips her arm out of Bellamy’s hand. “I don’t take orders from you. So I’m gonna need a better reason than that.”

She turns and takes another step into the woods, and then her back is slamming against a tree, breath whooshing out of her. And suddenly Bellamy is everywhere. The only thing she can see, smell, feel. He’s got both his hands wrapped around her upper arms so tight she’s sure she’ll have light bruises, and he’s so close his breath gives her goosebumps.

“Don’t you?” he hisses, head cocked, mocking. And now Clarke can’t catch her breath because of the way her stomach flips. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you wanted me to command you, Princess. Is that it? You’re being difficult because I haven’t been paying enough attention to you lately?” He chuckles darkly and leans closer so he can whisper in her ear. “That’s a dangerous game to play.”

All the fight left her the moment her back hit the tree, and now Clarke blinks up at him in confusion. She knew she was irrationally angry before, but it – it was just because they’d lost their chance to contact the Ark. Now everyone would die, including her mother, and Clarke felt a lot of contradicting emotions about that. Plus, Bellamy was being an unreasonable ass. She wasn’t playing any games, and she sure didn’t want his attention.

She rolls her eyes and tries to find a retort, but he’s already pulling back. “Don’t follow Spacewalker. Leave him alone until he comes back to camp,” he says. He turns and walks through the gate without a backwards glance.

Clarke scoffs. She’s a week away from her alpha presentation. She doesn’t have to listen to him. She turns and walks toward the bunker.

Twenty minutes later, she realizes she’s somehow gotten lost, because she’s back at the gate. Frowning, she sets off again, sure she remembers the way from when they hid Charlotte. But it happens a second time. And a third. And a tenth.

When dusk has faded into night, she slides down a tree just outside of camp and wipes away tears of frustration. She can’t disobey him. If she was going to be an alpha, she should be able to disobey him. She has to be able to disobey him. The fact that she can’t means – means that – it’s unthinkable, on the ground, without the order of the Ark. Without the medication of the Ark.

She can’t be an omega on the ground. She just can’t.

When Clarke sees the meteor fall, she knows it must be something from the Ark. And Bellamy didn’t alpha command her to stay away from that. So she sets off to see what it is on her own, out of spite.

Dawn is rising when she finds the pod. There’s a girl inside, and she’s injured. Clarke manages to get her out, lay her down gently in the grass, and make sure she’s okay. All told, the girl’s lucky. Clarke will need to look at her head better once she gets her back to camp, but she’s fine for now. So Clarke moves to the radio, unable to believe her eyes. A way to communicate with the Ark - to save them. She picks it up, reverently.

“Clarke Griffin to Ark Command. Come in Ark Command.”

Silence. She waits a beat.

“This is Clarke Griffin to Ark Command, come in Ark Command.”

Static.

It takes her five more tries to get her mother’s voice, and by the time she does, she’s too frantic to care about having to talk to her mother. “Mom?” she asks, and hates that she sounds like a child.

“Clarke! Clarke, honey, are you okay?”

“We’re fine, mom. We’re fine. None of us have radiation poisoning. It’s safe. The ground is safe. You can’t cull anyone; it’s safe,” she all but sobs.

“We’re relieved to hear that,” the Chancellor says. “But we need more information. What happened to the wristbands?”

Clarke sucks in a breath. She opens her mouth to explain about Bellamy, but then thinks better of it. “Some took them off, since the ground is a second chance at freedom. The rest were fried when we tried to modify them to get in touch with you.”

“And Wells, is he…?”

Clarke’s heart breaks. “I’m sorry. He was – he was murdered. The murderer is…dead. But we couldn’t save Wells.”

She hears Jaha take in a shattered breath, but it’s Kane who speaks next. “Are you alone right now, Clarke?”

Frowning in confusion, she looks down at the pilot who’s still knocked out. “At the moment.”

“Good. Listen closely, Clarke, this is important. There is a fugitive among you: Bellamy Blake. He shot Chancellor Jaha and escaped aboard the dropship. When the guard comes down, we’ll secure him, but in the meantime, we recommend you stay away from him. He is armed and dangerous –”

Suddenly, Clarke can’t swallow. Bellamy? Shot the Chancellor? So that’s why he had the gun. It doesn’t quite add up though. Sure, Bellamy’s an ass, but he’d never just shoot someone without cause – right? She saw him with Atom, knows that he did all he could to save Charlotte and even Murphy. He’s not a murderer.

She hears a twig snap and looks up to see him stalking toward the pod, alone. She shivers.

In the end, she doesn’t really know him or what he's capable of. He’d strung up Atom, risked getting him killed, over something stupid like kissing Octavia. He’d wanted her wristband enough to threaten her for it. Had given Wells a knife instead of stopping Murphy's antagonism. Maybe – maybe if he finds out what she knows he’d kill her just to keep her quiet.

No. Alpha would not harm pack. He provides for us. He protects us.

The truth settles over her and calms her. Bellamy may have shot Jaha, but there must be more to the story. And Jaha isn’t dead. If Bellamy had really wanted him dead, there’s no doubt in Clarke’s mind he would be. So she’ll question him later. But right now… “No. He’s not dangerous. Not to us. He is the only reason we have survived so far. He deserves a pardon."

Jaha sighs. "Clarke, there's no way I could possibly pardon an assassin."

"You pardoned the other murderers who came down."

"That was different. Bellamy Blake was of age at the time of his crime. He commited the highest possible crime on the Ark. And his presence on the dropship was unauthorized."

Something bitter swirls in Clarke's stomach. "I'm sorry, Chancellor. I didn't realize your life was the most important on the Ark. Or that wounding you was more of a crime than sending one hundred underage kids to die in a science experiment. It is a good thing then that we no longer recognize the Ark's jurisdiction."

Bellamy's close enough to hear now, and his eyes widen at that.

"You're under Ark jurisdiction whether you like it or not, Miss Griffin," Kane snaps. 

"No. We're not. You say sent us down for a second chance, and we're taking it. How could we possibly trust the authority of a council that goes back on its word? You promised everyone on the dropship a pardon. But it does not seem like you intend to keep your promise." She meets Bellamy's eyes and takes a deep breath. "The earth is a big place, bigger than the Ark, and if you threaten one of ours, we’ll leave, move somewhere else. You’ll never see us again.”

“Clarke –” her mother starts, shocked, hesitant. “Clarke, honey, are you sure you’re okay? He’s not – please tell me he’s not holding you hostage, is he?”

Clarke gives Bellamy a pointed look. Yes, he is. Just…not the way you think. He glares back at her, but she answers her mother anyway. “No, mom, he’s not. You know the earth’s survivable now. Our duty to the Ark is done. You don’t have to cull anyone or float anyone else like you did my father. I’d think that’d be enough for you.”

“Clarke. Clarke, sweetie, calm down. We're just worried about you. He’s a dangerous criminal, honey. He shot Thelonious in cold blood. I know you’re an idealist like your father, but –”

“Don’t talk to me about my father," she snaps. "I believe I have answered all relevant questions about the status of earth. Perhaps we’ll be in touch again once you’ve had a chance to reconsider our desire to separate from the Ark and be left alone.” She turns the radio off, hoists the girl up, and ducks under her arm, dragging her toward camp.

She feels Bellamy watching her a moment before he rips the radio out of the pod and marches up to her. “Here,” he says, thrusting it into her free hand. She takes it, blinking. Then he scoops the girl out from under Clarke’s arm and carries her back toward camp, careful of her bleeding head. 

"You shot Jaha." 

He glances over her shoulder at her. "I did." 

"You going to tell me why?" 

"Is it any of your business?" 

"I did just defend you to the whole council, so." 

"Didn't ask you to." 

"Bellamy," she huffs. "You're not a murderer."

"Is that a statement or a question?" 

She rolls her eyes. "A statement, you ass. I just want to know why." 

He pauses half a second. Readjusts his grip. "I needed on the dropship." 

It's cryptic and vague, but...of course he did it for Octavia. 

Alpha takes care of what's his. Jaha threatened that. 

Clarke thinks of losing her father and what she would have done to protect her mother before she knew the truth. She's not sure how attempting to assassinate the chancellor helped him get on the dropship exactly, but if her mother had been sent down to earth, Clarke would have done anything to go with her when she believed she was innocent. 

"Okay," she says. 

He stops, raises an eyebrow. "That's it? You're done with the third degree?" 

"For now. You could have just said you did it for Octavia, you know. I would have understood." They walk a bit farther. "So, the wristband thing was all about keeping the Ark from coming down?" 

"I thought you were done with the third degree." 

Clarke laughs. "You could have told me earlier. I still would have told them to go to hell."

"No, you wouldn't have. Last week you were planning how you were going to get rid of me." 

This time she stops. "No. Maybe when you were threatening to cut off my wrest, yeah. But mostly I was just trying to figure out how to use you and your ego to keep us alive." 

He laughs, loud and hearty. "Clever princess." He smirks at her. "That work for you?" 

"Not dead yet," she smirks back. "And this way, I don't even have to do the hard stuff, like put people on latrine duty. So I reckon I'll keep you around a little longer, Alpha." 

He meets her eyes, and the look he gives her burns. 

Chapter Text

They don’t realize Octavia is missing until after dark.

It’s Bellamy who notices of course, and his anxiety is palpable, a stench smothering his natural scent and filling the camp. He’s trying to hide it, but some of the kids are already restless, as if they can sense their alpha’s terror. If he doesn’t find Octavia soon, Clarke decides, neither Bellamy nor the pack is going to be able to hold it together.

So, after she helps him recheck the camp, Clarke grabs her pack and goes to join the search party he’s putting together. Every warm body out looking has to help, she figures. Maybe Bellamy will even let her go after Finn now; he is their best tracker.

But the moment she approaches the group, Bellamy takes one glance at her and yanks her aside, growling, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

If she looks at him like he’s stupid, she can’t help it. “Helping you find Octavia.”

“The hell you are,” he snaps. “If you think I’m letting you out of camp smelling like that, you’re an idiot. And if you want to go out like that, you’re a damn fool. Octavia’s missing; I won’t have you causing another crisis because you have a damn hero complex. Stay in camp. Tell everyone here what to do, sit up with that girl, yell at Octavia if she comes back – I don’t care. But don’t you dare leave this camp, you hear me?”

Bellamy glowers over her until she huffs a sigh and nods.

He must buy her sincerity because he steps back after another second. But then he licks his lips and adds, “And stay away from Spacewalker if he comes back. I doubt he’ll be able to manage any self-control.”

Clarke rolls her eyes. “My god Bellamy, what is your problem?”

“I mean it, Clarke. It won’t be safe for you to be alone with him.” He’s giving her a look that says, don’t make me give you another command.

She mutters some choice words under her breath, but concedes. “If Finn comes back while you’re gone, I won’t be alone with him. Cross my heart, hope to float. There, you happy?”

He gives her a feral grin. “Miller!” He stares her down even as the other boy steps forward. “Keep an eye on her. She doesn’t leave camp; she’s never alone with Spacewalker, if he shows up. Anyone gives her any problems, they answer to me.”

“Got it, boss.”

Bellamy finally turns and shares a look with Miller before slapping him on the shoulder. “We’ll be back by daylight, but keep the gate shut until you hear us.” Then he’s striding out the gate, barking out for Murphy to take point beside him, and he’s gone.

The search party comes back at daylight, but none of the bodies they carry are Octavia’s. Clarke’s not sure whether that’s good or bad news, as far as Octavia is concerned. 

One kid is just injured. Two are dead. Even if they're not his sister, Clarke knows Bellamy will hold himself personally responsible for these deaths anyway, especially since one of them is Roma. Roma has been in his tent since the beginning, and Bellamy might not be one for monogamy, but that doesn’t mean Roma meant nothing to him.

She hadn’t particularly liked Roma, but that was probably more because of Clarke's initial hostility toward Bellamy and anything associated with him than anything about Roma herself. Regardless, she can’t begrudge a dead woman for seizing any opportunity to make herself happy on such a hostile planet, no matter who she chose to do that with. And she hates to see any of the hundred die. So when Bellamy stalks past her on his way into camp, Clarke catches his arm.

“I’m sorry,” she says. She means it.

He’s not looking at her and his jaw is clenched. But he nods and pats her shoulder before going to dig Roma’s grave.

Bellamy goes back out alone after he buries their dead, which makes Clarke nervous. Sure, he can handle himself (she’s seen him throw his axe and nearly kill Murphy with his fists), but…He doesn’t have any more bullets for his gun, and he’s only one man.

Ironically enough, she wishes he’d at least take Murphy. But he insists that both Murphy and Miller are both needed in camp – Murphy to direct building projects, and Miller to coordinate the guard. And of course, he won’t let her go with him either.

The worst part is how aware she is of his absence. It's like a constant itch in the back of her mind. She can be working beside Monty drying herbs or sewing up a wound in the dropship or even helping finish up the wall, but whatever she’s doing, the hair on the back of her neck is on end, reminding her that something is off. Alpha is gone.

Her restlessness is heightened by the fact that his scent is fading too. She’s not sure when his scent became a backdrop of camp life for her, but now that he’s been gone two days, the absence of it is noticeable. It’s not a huge deal, but she feels a little safer when he’s there across camp barking orders, the smell of woodsmoke, mint, and some nameless thing that’s sweet and just uniquely Bellamy wafting to her on the breeze. It means that he’s not out doing anything stupid, and that he’s making sure the kids aren’t doing anything stupid either. It means everyone’s safe, and she doesn’t have to worry.

It’s hard waiting patiently for him to come back – determinedly not thinking of all the ways he could be killed and they never know – while the comforting reminder of his protection stales and fades around her. She’s trying hard not to think too much about why she feels that way. Surely everyone else close to presenting must feel the same, a side effect of having no suppressants and being pack in a way that pack didn’t exist on the Ark. 

Raven, the pilot, wakes up demanding to see Finn. When Clarke tells her that he’s been gone from camp for just over three and a half days and no one has been allowed to go after him, she goes ballistic.

“Oh, so everyone can drop what they’re doing to go find Bellamy Blake’s little sister, but everyone’s too scared to look for Finn because Bellamy said not to? Fuck that – come on, blondie, you and me are going on a rescue mission of our own.”

“I can’t,” Clarke frowns. “Bellamy commanded me not to.”

“He commanded you?” Raven snarls. “That bastard. Well here, if one alpha can command you not to do something, another can command you to do it. Take me to Finn.”

Clarke swallows. Bellamy was being a total asshat when he gave her the command to leave Finn alone, obviously, but obeying Raven still feels like betraying him. After her discussion with the council, Clarke had realized that she trusts Bellamy; if he had a reason to command her not to go after Finn or leave camp alone, it must be a good one. But then, she really wouldn’t be alone, and she can feel the pull of the alpha command in her very tendons. She hesitates. Maybe she can just convince Raven to wait. 

“Finn explored the woods a lot on his own,” she hedges. “He found a bunker, so he’s probably just been hanging out there for a bit. It hasn’t been too long, if he just needed to blow off some steam and wanted to be alone for awhile.” It isn’t very persuasive even to Clarke, but at least she can say she tried. “Besides. If he’s not safely at the bunker, then I have no idea where he is, and we’ll need Bellamy's guards. You don’t know, but we aren’t alone down here, and the grounders are dangerous.”

Raven blinks at her. “You’re disobeying an alpha command.”

Clarke recoils. “I – I – maybe there was a mistake with Bellamy before, then. Maybe I’m presenting as an alpha after all.”

Raven snorts. “No, you’re definitely not.”

Clarke’s jaw clenches. She could at least be a beta. They’re still compelled by commands, but not as strongly as omegas. “Well then, maybe I’m only able to delay and question it. Or maybe it’s because Bellamy is pack alpha and his order trumps yours or something. But the point is –”

“He’s pack alpha!” Raven spits. “How on earth did that happen?”

Clarke’s hackles rise. “He’s the only one who cared about all of us enough to unite the group.” A slight exaggeration, but close enough for this outsider. “He’s the only one who cared to provide for everyone after we were unable to get to Mount Weather. He’s also the only one who cared about making sure we had a wall and a guard rotation. Plus, he’s the only one everyone listens to. Bellamy is the best possible alpha for the pack right now.”

Raven stares. “You want to mate him.”

Clarke chokes. Coughs. Sputters out, “Absolutely not.”

But Raven’s already appraising her. “Whether or not you’ve consciously decided that's what you want, it’s still true. You probably want to give that some thought. Soon, I’d say.”

Clarke flushes. For some reason, talking about her upcoming presentation feels too personal. She's not even sure of her designation anymore. But regardless, she has no desire to mate, or even fuck, Bellamy Blake. He’s an egotistical, womanizing ass who set himself up as leader just to protect himself.

He’s also strong, protective, merciful, kind, and smart. He clearly regrets shooting Jaha, and he never agreed with Murphy’s cruelty. But he's loyal, and he'll do anything for his sister, his family. 

Truthfully, she couldn't imagine anyone else in camp being a better father. Once, Octavia told her how Bellamy would do anything to keep her entertained: tell her stories, give her endless piggyback rides, sew her a doll, teach her to read. Even his biggest teenage mistake was unselfish; all he had wanted was to give his little sister a glimpse of the outside world. 

It would be a wonderful thing, to be mated to a man who loved so intensely. If Clarke were his mate, he'd do anything for her. She'd finally have someone who was always in her corner again. They could be partners, equals. Her heart almost breaks with how much she wants that. To have a best friend again. To not be alone. To have a family. 

But she’s still not fucking him. 

And honestly, none of this is any of Raven’s business. “If you want to find Finn so badly, ask Bellamy for permission when he gets back or go by yourself,” she snaps. “But I don’t know why you'd want to. You might have risked your life to come down here for him, but he’s been flirting with anything with boobs since we landed.”

Once Clarke makes it back to her tent, she feels a bit bad about that last line. She doesn’t want to come across as jealous, she’s not – even though it stung that Finn had had a girlfriend while he was asking for her deepest secrets and calling her princess. And Raven probably didn’t deserve to find out her boyfriend was a douche like that.

But then she remembers the alpha command Raven tried to give her, and she’s too angry to feel guilty. Bellamy uses commands as a last resort, or at least with some gravity. And he only does it when it's in her best interest, like to keep her from starting a riot she doesn't want or because he thinks it's keeping her safe (at least, she's pretty sure the whole Finn thing had something to do with Bellamy being stupidly overprotective). Raven’s felt more flippant, like the command was something she did just to get back at Bellamy without even thinking about what Clarke wanted or her safety. So no, Raven wasn’t an alpha she was going to obey.

She works herself up over it enough that she can forget about the rest of that conversation entirely. Because in absolutely no universe has she chosen Bellamy Blake.  

Bellamy doesn’t stay gone for more than a couple days, at least.

Clarke knows he probably wants too, but she’s selfishly glad he doesn’t. At least when he blows in the gate the next evening, she has reassurance that she’s not alone in taking care of ninety some kids, no matter the overwhelming anger and worry radiating from him, souring his scent. It’s got to be tearing him in two – his worry for his sister battling against his need to be close enough to protect his pack.

He still goes looking for Octavia, but now he tries to multitask while he does it. Mostly, this means he brings back an animal for dinner and calls his outing a hunting trip. They all pretend with him that that's exactly what it was.

It’s sweet, really, how these teenage delinquents are quietly supporting him. On the second day after Bellamy's return, Monty even comes up with a plant they desperately need that he thinks grows miles away in one of the few directions Bellamy hasn’t been yet, so Bellamy, Murphy, and Monty spend all day out "gathering" and searching for Octavia.

It helps, Clarke thinks, these excuses that allow Bellamy to satisfy both his alpha and brotherly instincts. But he’s still becoming more antsy as he becomes more terrified. Perfectly reasonable, of course, given what he’s been willing to do for his sister in the past – frankly, it’s impressive he’s kept it together this long. Still, something has to give, soon.

By the sixth day of Octavia’s disappearance, Bellamy’s so tightly wound in his helpless worry that Clarke knows if she doesn’t do something, one or both of them is going to snap. So, when Raven passes along the location of a military bunker she learned about in her debrief with the Ark, Clarke decides to ask Bellamy to go find it with her. He looks both grateful and suspicious.

Clarke reminds Bellamy that he’s really the only person she can take: Raven won’t leave camp because she’s waiting for Finn (who Bellamy still refuses to let anyone go after, but he does finally crack and tell Raven that Finn is presenting, which elicits a curt apology to both of them). Jasper’s too scared and jumpy to go outside the gate. Monty’s staying with Jasper. Finn’s obviously indisposed, not that she’d want to go with him anyway. And Wells is dead. So taking Bellamy is simply a matter of practicality, she asserts, since she has to find this bunker today.

(She doesn’t tell him that’s because they need the supplies, especially any medical supplies, immediately. She doesn’t want to add any more stress right now.)

“Fine, Princess,” he snaps. He looks up at the sky for a long minute and sucks in a breath. “Let me see the coordinates.”

She hands him the map, points to where she marked out the best route to the bunker.

He studies it for a long minute. “You say they think it’s livable?”

“Yeah, Raven said they suggested we winter there.”

He eyes her carefully, nostrils flaring. He seems to be debating something. “Okay.” He nods. “Okay, I’ll take you.”

Before they go, though, he stuffs his pack with more rations than she thinks is necessary for a day trip. “A lot can happen in a day,” he says cryptically, maybe a little pointedly, when she comments on it.

He’s right, of course. A lot happens in a day on the ground, but she’s not too worried about this trip. Bellamy’s probably just planning on sending her back while he spends the night in the bunker so he can expand his search for Octavia.

She tugs at the strap of her pack and waits for him to bark out some last-minute orders to Miller before they set out. They don’t encounter any signs of Octavia, which frustrates and worries Clarke, but she tries not to show it. Bellamy’s upset enough for both of them.

“We were so close,” he had told her while they were standing over Roma’s grave. “We found a cave with shackles. We thought she might have been held there, but they’d moved her. We couldn’t find a new trail, after that. And then Roma got hit and blood was everywhere and – and everyone started dying. We had no weapons. I couldn’t ask them to keep going.” He threw the shovel at a tree. “And now their death is all for nothing. I still have no clue where O is. They’ve probably moved her again, so anything we found probably doesn’t matter.”

Still, Clarke tries to hold out hope that they’ll come across something by taking a different route back to camp. It’s all the hope she can offer him at this point, so she tries to believe in it with all her heart as if that could make it true.  

But she can’t hide her frustration that the bunker is a disappointment too. The pack needs medical supplies and a way to shelter for the winter. At least there’s the guns. Bellamy’s whole mood shifts when he finds them, and he insists she learn how to shoot because, “You need to know how to protect yourself, Clarke.”

She can’t argue with that, so she lets him show her how to load the rifle and chamber a round. Then she’s aiming, and he’s behind her correcting her stance – right there at the back of her neck. Her emerging mating gland itches so much it makes her eyes water. It’s so excruciating she wishes he would just lean forward and –

Clarke blushes. Fuck, Raven might have been right about what her hindbrain has already decided after all. But mind over matter has always been her favorite catchphrase, so she blinks hard and tries to aim more carefully.

It’s harder than she would have believed, a week ago. It doesn’t help she’s overwhelmed by the smell of him. He briefly touches her scent gland when he adjusts her grip, scenting her. She can’t help the shiver that dances up her arm and down her spine, but she tries not to lean into him anymore than she already is.

Given the circumstances, it might have been an accident, but – but he has to feel this too, right? Or is she the only one drowning in pheromones? She hasn’t presented yet, so maybe hers aren’t strong enough for him to notice, much less get drunk on, like she is on his. (Or is this what being high feels like? She doesn’t know – she’s never been drunk or high.)

Probably, he doesn’t even think of her as someone to worry about affecting like that – probably he sees her like another little sister type, like Charlotte, given his history with more experienced Betas like Roma. She has to remember that. So she’s glad that he pulls away before she can do something stupid like beg him to throw her down right here and teach her about more than guns.

But she also feels a tiny prick of rejection, which doesn’t make sense.

Bellamy clears his throat.

Focus, Clarke. She tries to line up the crosshairs like he said. Then she squeezes the trigger. And as the shot echoes in her ears, she feels invincible. She’s hit the target, she realizes. The adrenaline pumping through her veins feels like raw power, and then she can’t help but spin around and look to Bellamy for approval.

He’s grinning. “You’re a natural, Princess.”

“Is it – is it bad that I enjoyed it?”

He laughs. “No. Try again.”

She does and her next three shots hit in a tight cluster just a hair to the right of the bullseye. So close that one of them is on the line. She sets the gun down carefully on the nearest tote and throws her hands in the air, spinning around toward Bellamy again. “Did you see that?”

He’s smirking at her, but it’s a different kind of smirk than she’s ever seen on him before. Honestly, it looks like he’s proud of her. Like he knew she’d be good at this, and he’s proud he’s the one who taught her. That smirk does something to her insides, and before she really knows what she’s doing, she’s launched herself at him and wrapped her arms around his neck.

She catches herself a moment later, when he’s still frozen under her. When her brain finally processes her position, she realizes her arms are accidently rubbing against the scent glands in his neck, and she wants to sink through the concrete floor of the bunker. She’s pulling away when he wraps his arms around her back and laughs into her hair. “Told you you’d be a badass.”

Clarke preens.

Bellamy purrs.

And then he curses under his breath and yanks away, nostrils flaring and eyes dilated. Just like that, Clarke’s euphoria is buried under a wave of anxiety and despair. She doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t really know quite what just happened, but, clearly, she’s done something wrong. Yeah, she crossed a boundary between them, but he seemed fine with it. Until he wasn’t. And she doesn’t know what changed. Maybe she clung too long?

Whatever she did, she feels guiltier than she ever has before. She’ll apologize, do whatever it takes to make it right. The thought of him being upset with her is unbearable, not when she’d briefly smelled happiness on him for the first time in days. “I’m sorry. I –”

“Clarke,” he snaps. “When’s your birthday?”

She blinks, confused. “What?” What on earth does that –

Oh.

Oh.

She curses.

He nods, like that answered his question. “I thought that was why you wanted to check out the bunker so badly.”

She blushes. Did he think she had really invited him along for that?! And after her little display, well, it would be a fair assumption on his part. At this point, the thought of fucking him doesn’t seem repulsive anymore – but she’s not quite sure how much of that is being out of her head on hormones or her hormonal desperation cutting through the bullshit bravado she uses to ignore her attraction to Bellamy.

Bellamy catches her initial panic. “You didn’t know?”

“I knew it would be soon, but I didn’t expect it quite this soon. I – I didn’t want to be an omega. I knew – I know what that means, and I’d hoped I was just going to be a beta –”

“You ignored it?’ His voice is harsh, disappointed, and Clarke winces. But it’s the truth, so she stares at the ground and nods. “Damn it, Clarke.” He shoves a hand in his hair and paces.

He’s right to be angry. Normally she plans for everything; god knows, she should have planed for this more than anything else. Now…now her lack of planning has put her in a potentially dangerous, certainly awkward spot.

You didn’t plan because you didn’t want to shut yourself up alone for four or five days of misery. You were never going to do that. You wanted Alpha.

No. No, of course not. She’d just gotten busy and distracted by the Ark and Raven and Octavia’s disappearance. She’d just ignored it and forgot.

“If the bunker was actually livable, everything would be fine. You could stick to the plan and lock yourself in with the rations.” He gestures to his pack. Wait. Bellamy had taken all of those rations for her? Even when he thought she’d prepared for this herself?

Alpha cares about you. 

She tries not to do something absurd like preen again.

He keeps ranting. “But now – now we’re stuck out here with a ruin, you’re going into heat, and there’s no way I can get you anywhere safe without –” he snaps his mouth shut before starting again, even more firmly, “Going back to lock you in the dropship is not an option. We don’t have the time.” He kicks the barrel the guns were in.

“Fuck. Fuck, Clarke. What the hell were you thinking? Why were you not thinking this through? Did you even consider what would happen if a random alpha grounder happened by while you’re in heat? I knew you were close, but I didn't think it would be today. What if there had been no bunker, and I had left you alone in camp?” He kicks the barrel with more force this time, and the sound of it ricocheting off the wall echoes through the bunker.

He turns an fixes her with a glare. “Is this about Spacewalker? You and him agree that after you both presented, you’d just mate each other? Was that it?” He’s almost in her face now. “You don’t even know him, Clarke! Did you even stop for one minute and think about what that would mean for you? Did he?”

Clarke hasn’t cried since her father died. Not really. The shock of Wells’ death was more numbing than anything. But she’s on the hormone trip of her life right now, so she’s legitimately trying not to have a total meltdown in the face of Bellamy’s anger. She doesn’t want him to see her as just another kid he has to take care of – like literally everyone else. The thought that he might not see her as the equal she wanted to be makes her so frustrated several tears fight their way out.

“No. I don’t want Finn,” she snaps. She lets out a ragged breath, trying to calm herself. “And I’m well aware that mating is for life and would probably result in a pregnancy, for the record. That’s why I didn’t want to be an omega! Because what am I really supposed to do to avoid that, Bellamy?”

He goes to open his mouth, but she cuts him off.

“We have no suppressants. Finn is in the only habitable bunker we know of, and, even if he's out by now, it reeks of him, which would be unbearable." Bellamy raises his eyebrows at this, but doesn't comment. "And if I did lock myself up in the dropship, I’d be in the middle of camp. That would hardly be ideal. Not only would it be humiliating, the door only really locks from the bottom, so all it would take is some smartass sneaking up and forcing the door up an inch trying to get in for me to get a whiff of enough pheromones to tempt me to unblock it. And I'd be half out of my mind, so – ”

“I’d kill anyone who tried,” Bellamy snarls.

She scoffs. It’d be Bellamy’s scent that would have her unblocking the door, not some nitwit teenager's, but she can’t tell him that. “By the time you found out, the damage would be done. I could lock myself up here, but…aside from the general repulsiveness of this place, how would I even get enough water for four days, if I can't leave? So yeah, fine, it looks like I’m an omega; but that means there aren’t any good options for me, Bellamy.”

Bellamy pulls back and sighs. “Look, I'm sorry. I just – believe it or not, I just don’t want you to get hurt.” He shoves his hand back through his hair. “The thought of Spacewalker, or Murphy, or some grounder using your heat against you – touching you, mating you, getting you pregnant when that's not what you want…” He picks up the barrel and hurls it through their target. It tears down the canvas and clatters down the hall.

When Clarke looks back at Bellamy, he’s heaving, like keeping his anger in check is literally taking all his strength. She shivers. 

“I need some air.” He leaves her in the bunker without a backwards glance.  

Chapter Text

It hits her then that this is really happening. She’s presenting, or on the cusp of it, as an omega, without meds, an actual room, or even a bed. And apparently, it’s already affecting her to the point of throwing herself at Bellamy Blake, only for him to reject her.

Clarke drops into a ball on the concrete floor, wishing she could just melt into a puddle. Or vaporize. Because she thinks that’d probably be less painful and humiliating in the long run.

Will he even come back? Tell her what she’s supposed to do now? Or is she just supposed to lock the bunker door and suffer alone in the dark with the skeleton?

She’s not sure, but then her vision blurs, and it doesn’t really matter anymore. The world is a fun kaleidoscope of new colors. Her fingers twist and bend weirdly where she’s got them locked around her knees. She feels strangely calm for a second, until her dad shows up.

Clarke has a weird conversation with her dad. Apparently, he wants her to get married.

“You need to be marked by a trustworthy mate, honey. You need someone to help watch out for you,” he says. "That way you can choose, and not have to worry about someone forcing you anymore."

It's weird to hear her Dad say it – and impossible right now, honestly. But the idea sounds nice. She’s scared, and it would be nice to have someone here to help take care of her.  

In school, the girls had whispered that unmated omegas who didn’t have medication to dull their heats either died or went insane – which had seemed a little farfetched at the time. But now that Clarke is facing a heat herself, that possibility worries her more than she logically knows it should. Losing her mind is probably the worst possible outcome she can imagine.

And if she does make it through her presentation heat alone without going crazy, there’s always the chance that some alpha will try to kidnap or forcibly mark her after it’s over anyway. After all, she’ll have to have another heat eventually. Omegas on the Ark had been fairly rare, and while she’s not sure if that’s also true for grounders, it’s likely they’ve already kidnapped Octavia. Clarke doesn’t want to think about what they might do to get their hands on an unmated omega, rarity or not.

I could put the camp at risk if I go back, but…I can’t live down here forever either. And I can’t survive alone, if it isn’t safe for me to be outside now.

Given the practical circumstances then, her father’s right. The simplest solution to her situation would be to find a trustworthy alpha who would agree to mark her. Wells, sweet, sacrificial Wells, had come down to protect her, and maybe if he had lived, she could have mated with him for protection (assuming he presented as an alpha). But the more she thinks about it, the more the thought of mating with Wells is repulsive to her, even on the cusp of her heat. Still, she wishes Wells were here, if only to help her figure out what to do. 

As for other potential mates, just thinking about Finn makes her skin crawl. He hadn’t bothered to tell her about his girlfriend or that he was about to present. If Bellamy hadn’t stopped her, if she had went after Finn that day, he probably wouldn’t have been in his right mind by the time she found him, and – she doesn’t want to think about that.

Alpha knew. He made sure to protect us.

She shivers again, glad Bellamy’s not in the bunker with her at the moment because that would be…dangerous. She’s still covered in his scent from where he helped her hold the gun and she hugged him – it’s really that not much, but it’s still making her lightheaded and irrational. If he were in the bunker with her, she doesn’t even want to think about how she’d be making an even bigger fool of herself than she already has.

But now that she has to be honest with herself, she can fully admit Raven was right. As far as her instincts are concerned, Bellamy's the only one she wants. Logically, however, she knows this is ridiculous. After all, she hardly knows the man, and he shot Chancellor Jaha. He–

He is the best alpha; he is the only worthy mate.

She has to admit, even logically speaking, it’s true. Bellamy is the best option available to her right now, the best that ever will be available to her in their camp, no matter how long she waits. And she can't afford to wait long. He is a strong, kind alpha; every omega will want him – presenting and grounder alike. Even without designation biology coming into play, he’d had lines of girls outside his tent the minute they’d landed.

But aside from his grief and regret over Roma’s death, he hadn’t seemed interested in any sort of commitment or even long-term arrangement. So why on earth would he want a mate? And even if he did, it was unlikely he’d want her as his mate. Sure, he’s been looking out for her, but he’d left her, all alone, when she was going into heat. He’d pulled away when she embraced him. So just because he wasn’t a total dick and cared about her general wellbeing (as any halfway decent person would), didn’t mean that he wanted to be tied to her forever – especially since they’ve been at each other’s throats since they landed.

So yeah, strategic mating? Not really feasible for her. 

Her dad has that I'm waiting look on his face, and she sighs. “I have found a trustworthy alpha, and I know he’d protect me. But he doesn’t want me like that, Dad.”

“Bellamy?” Clarke looks up and sees Wells studying her over their usual chess set in the rec room. “Please. He’s wanted you since the moment you told him the air could be toxic.”

Clarke blinks, fiddles with her rook. “No, he hasn’t.”

“He has. Trust me. The way he was about your wristband – when he called you a brave princess – he was totally whipped. He just didn’t want to look weak in front of Murphy.”

“Then why did he leave me?” Clarke hates the whine in her voice. "I'm going into heat, and I'm scared, and I need him." 

Wells smiles sympathetically. “He doesn’t want to hurt you, Clarke. Think about it. He presented while we were still on the Ark, so he spent that whole first week adjusting to being without meds for the first time. He’s been working to suppress his instincts since we hit the ground, and now he's afraid of losing control with you.”

Clarke hadn’t thought about that before. No wonder he’d been a particularly asshatty asshat those first couple weeks. No wonder he’d had girls in his tent two at a time. Since he’d been used to being an alpha, he hadn’t gone into a full-blown rut, but he must have been horny as hell. The fact that he’d showed any restraint at all said a lot about his strength of will. And…hadn’t he caught her that second or third day?

“He knew, didn’t he? He’s known I’m an omega since he saved me from being impaled.”

“Pretty much.”

“Why didn’t he say anything?”

“Apparently, he assumed you knew.” Wells raises an eyebrow. “But the point is, he’s been keeping you safe, and fed, and issuing you commands since then. He’s already acting like you’re his.”

“So in other words, he’s chosen me too,” Clarke concludes. “He just hasn't said or done anything about it because he doesn’t want to hurt me.”

Wells nods. “Or trap you. So yeah, that's why he left the bunker. He's probably planning to wait until the Ark comes down with suppressants before he makes a real move. That way, it's fully up to you, and the two of you can take it slow, since you're only eighteen.”

She thinks about how angry Bellamy was when he asked her if Finn had thought about what mating her would mean for her life. Whether or not Finn ever gave it a passing thought, Bellamy clearly had, and he didn’t want anyone, even himself, to force that on her lightly or before she’s really ready. After all, if she mated, she’d be at that alpha’s mercy for the rest of her life. A terrifying thought, given how things had almost gone with Finn, but with Bellamy…well, somehow she knows she can trust him. He wouldn’t take away her autonomy.

But mating also likely means pregnancy, since the Ark didn’t bother giving contraceptives to teens who hadn’t presented yet, and Clarke naturally feels too young for that. Not to mention life has proven dangerous on the ground. Could she really bring a child into this world? Without a doctor? Before they even got settled?

Alpha is strong; he will build us a house and protect our pups well.

That thought sends a thrill down her spine, and her hand flutters to her flat stomach for a second. He would. She knows he would. Then suddenly, her stomach is round with child, her breasts heavy with milk. She can feel the baby nudge against her palm, and she smiles as she gently presses back. She feels warm and content in the spring sunshine as steady arms slip around her and Bellamy’s large hand covers her own.

“How are my two favorite people doing today?” he rasps in her ear.

She turns her head to grin up at him. “Restless. Ready to see the world.” She shifts his hand under hers so he can feel his child kick.

 “Just like his mom then.”

“Hey, as I recall it was his father who couldn’t wait to open the dropship door.”

He laughs, deep and hearty, and pulls her closer.

Then she’s inside the dropship and there’s a tiny baby in her arms. He’s still wet, tiny eyes screwed shut and dark downy hair soft against her chest. Bellamy is proud and happy, beaming down at them. When she hands the baby to him for the first time, he studies their son with more wonder on his face than when he’d followed Octavia out of the dropship and into the sun. He whispers words of love and comfort in their newborn’s perfect little ear, gently cradling him against his shoulder.

“Thank you, Clarke,” he says, an odd crack in his voice, and he looks absolutely wrecked with love for his son. His son. And just like that she’s inexplicably proud that her child is Bellamy’s. That they did this together.

She closes her eyes to swallow down the emotion of watching Bellamy meet their baby and opens them to see a whole gaggle of freckle-faced kids with dark hair run out from behind a cabin. They're playing tag, and they weave around the yard, ducking under a clothesline, laughing and shouting and bickering as children do. Bellamy strides into the clearing and catches the youngest girl by surprise, swooping her up in his arms and blowing raspberries on her little stomach. She squeals and bursts into a fit of giggles. The others swarm around him in excitement, yelling variations of “Dad! You’re home!”

Over their heads, he meets her eyes, grinning. “Yeah, I’m home.” He shifts the girl into his left arm so he can ruffle the oldest boy’s hair.

It’s peaceful. It’s happy. It’s perfect.

Her father appears beside her. “You chose well, Clarke. He’s a good man, and you’ve built a good life here. I’m so proud of you.”

She smiles up at him. “Thanks Dad. I know you’re not really here, but…it still means a lot to hear you say it.”

“It’s true. You know I’ll always be proud of you, no matter what.”

“I love you, Dad,” she whispers as she hugs him. “And I miss you so much.”

The world warps and twists around her until she’s back in the dark of the bunker. She blinks, mind sluggish. What was she doing? It was important…

A nest. She needs a nest before Alpha returns. Clarke tears through the totes in a flurry, dumping out the blankets and padding the concrete floor as best she can. Once she’s satisfied that her nest is big enough and as comfortable as possible, she takes off her itchy clothes and opens up one of the ration packets Alpha brought. Instinctively, she feels like she should eat before she can’t anymore, and, all in all, these new nuts taste pretty good. She sips water from the repurposed whiskey bottle she’d found with Wells and Finn.

Then, she curls up for a nap, nose pressed against Bellamy’s pack, breathing in his comforting scent.

When she wakes up, Bellamy has just come in, shaking water from his hair. Thunder cracks overhead, and Clarke instinctively burrows down into the soft, warm blankets around her. She’s in Bellamy’s bed, she realizes, gently running her hand over his panther skin.

“Don’t tell me you’re scared of a little thunder, Princess.” He grins impishly at her through his bangs.

Her whole body flushes. “I’m not!" He gives her a look. She huffs. "Well, I'm not now that you’re here, Alpha.” She may have added that to deliberately to distract him. But, it's true.

His eyes darken. “Is that so?” He toes off his boots and stalks toward the bed. Distraction successful. Clarke tries not to look too smug about it.

But then Bellamy distracts her too. “And why is that, Omega?”

She shivers. “Because I know you’ll always take care of me.”

“Damn straight.” He stands right over her now. “I’ll always protect you. Give you everything you need.”

She whimpers, her body clenching so hard she doubles over. The heat that had made her limbs heavy just a moment ago burns through her veins now. “Alpha,” she gasps, and it’s only after the word is out of her mouth that she realizes it’s a plea.

“What is it, Omega? What do you need?” he hums.

“You. I – I need you. Please, Alpha.”

He crouches down, looks her in the eye seriously. “Tell me what you want, Clarke. What do you want?”

“I need you to touch me. Please.” She feels like she’ll combust if he doesn’t touch her. “Please, Alpha.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere. Everywhere. I just – I just need you.” She’s all but sobbing now. “I want you to make me yours.”

He growls, and suddenly his body is pushing hers back into the bed, hands around her wrists. “You are mine.” He nuzzles the side of her face and neck. “All mine. Only mine.” Clarke moans. He nips her scent gland. “Say it.”

“Yours,” she pants, the fire in her blood raging. He rewards her by laving her gland, soothing the sting of his teeth. “Only yours.” She’s not sure whether she’s asserting it as a fact or pleading for him to make it true.

He switches to the other side of her neck. “Only mine,” he agrees. “I’ll kill anyone else who even thinks about touching you.” He kisses her, dirty and hard, asserting his dominance and possession. When he pulls away, he slides her hands up over her head, still holding her wrists, grip gentle but firm.

Then he’s sliding his left hand down her arm, over her shoulder, and down her back to her waist before smoothing over her hip. “Beautiful.” His fingertips trail from her hip bone to her lower stomach. “Such wide, beautiful hips. Perfect for giving birth to our babies.” Her cunt clenches at that, and he smirks against the top of her left breast, smelling the fresh slick leaking down her thighs.

“You want that, Princess?” She shudders. “Hmm?” he asks as he mouths around her nipple. “To be all swollen with my child, right here.” He flattens his palm over her womb, and she gasps. “Then everyone will see you’re mine.” He kisses a line down her sternum between her breasts until his mouth replaces his hand, which slides up to flick over her neglected nipple.

She squirms. “Please.”  

He leaves an open-mouthed kiss over her navel before kissing over her hip bone and then up her thigh, soft and sweet and yet somehow still possessive. It’s divine – glorious. It’s not nearly enough. She tries to pull her wrists out of his grip, but he just holds her more firmly.

“Tell me what you want, Princess.” His breath fans against her, making her writhe. “What do you need, Omega?”

She opens her mouth, but she can only whimper.

He laughs and kisses her other thigh. Then he gently parts her so his breath can ghost directly against her clit. “Tell me what you want.” And the vibration of his alpha voice alone has her coming completely undone, keening out a moan and clenching around nothing.

When she can breathe again, she opens her eyes to find him looking supremely smug. He raises a brow in mock impatience. She would blush if she could do more than pant out, “Need – you – your knot.”

He moves back up her body, the skin of his chest sliding against hers, and she shutters again when she feels him pressed against her, abs firm against the curve of her stomach. But the alpha command still has her babbling. “I want – everything. Your knot, your baby, your bite.” He pauses, meets her eyes. “Want you to, to build me a house. Want to give you so many kids. A family.”

In the flash of lightning that cuts through the tent, she sees something flicker in his eyes. He kisses her again, and it still feels like he’s trying to devour her, but this time there’s something tender about it, almost as if he wants to become one with her.

“My omega,” he says reverently against her lips as thunder rattles the walls around them.

And part of Clarke wants to keep kissing him like this forever, just to see if they can somehow meld themselves together body and soul. But her heat has her empty cunt clenching painfully. “Alpha, please. I need –”

 “I know.” He reaches down and sinks two fingers in her. "So wet, so ready for me." He adds a third. “I’ll give you everything you need.” He scissors his index and middle fingers, and Clarke’s back arches. “I’m gonna fuck you, and I’m gonna knot you so many times, there won’t be any doubt you’re pregnant.”

She groans in anticipation, and he pulls his hand away to lines up his cock. “Yes, please,” she begs.

He pushes into her and the stretch is overwhelming. But she thinks she likes it. She knows she likes having him here, connected to her like this. So she takes a deep breath and tries to wrap her hand around the one he has still holding her wrists. He shifts his grip and squeezes back. “That’s right, Princess. You’ll take me, just relax,” he murmurs in her ear. He pushes in further, and when he bottoms out her eyes roll back. “You’re doing so well," he croons, "Taking me just like you were made to.” He starts to move, and he’s so big he drags against her in all the right ways. When he sets a rhythm her hips buck up to meet him.

“You were made for me, Princess,” he pants, so sincere it makes her shiver and flutter around him. “That’s right, you were made just for me. Made for me to fuck.” He punctuates his claim with a sharp snap of his hips that has her groaning. “Made for me to knot.” Another hard thrust. She can feel his knot beginning to swell now. “For me to protect and take care of. To give my soul to.” That makes her gasp. A warm, fluttering feeling spreads over her that isn’t directly related to that spot inside her he’s found that has her seeing stars, teetering on the edge.

“Made for me to fuck a baby into.” His rhythm is starting to get sloppy now; he must be close too. “And when your mom comes down, she’ll see you – your pretty tits spilling out of your bra, heavy and aching with milk for our baby." He palms over them, swirls his tongue around a nipple. "And then she’ll see your swollen belly," his hand moves down to caress her stomach, "and she’ll know that I did that. Know you’re carrying my child. One hundred delinquents, thousands of grounders, and you chose me. And she won’t be able to do anything about it.”

Clarke raises her head up for a kiss. It’s probably sick, but the thought of her mother coming to drag her back to the Ark and discovering her pregnant with her alpha's baby instead is obscenely hot. He gives her her kiss, slow and deep this time – and he slows his hips down to match. She whines in protest.

He laughs against her ear. “I’ll give you my knot. But first you’re gonna come for me, Omega. Let me feel you let go, feel you come on my cock, and then I’ll fill you up – give you your knot and your baby. C’mon, Princess. Now,” he orders, wrapping his lips around the scent gland in her neck and sucking hard.

And she does. Oh, she does. Everything snaps, and she’s arching and shouting, and her head’s spinning, and her cunt's pulsing, and his answering groan sounds far away, like she’s underwater.

And then – then he’s coming, and he is filling her up just like he said he would, bathing her womb in his seed, and she knows. She knows she’ll be pregnant. His knot stretches her further, locking them together, keeping her full of his come just like she needs.

He’s limp over her now, head buried in her neck trying to catch his breath, so she pulls her left hand down to card through his thick hair. She likes the weight of him on top of her. It makes her feel grounded, held together after flying apart. But she can’t really breath like this, so when he pushes up on his elbows and gently flips them over, she doesn’t protest.

Outside, the storm’s over, but it must already be evening because the tent’s grown dark. She can’t even make out the red of the canvas above her now. Her eyelids are heavy, and she can feel herself nodding off, but she doesn’t want to go to sleep yet.

She's dizzy, just like before when she saw their family - right before they disappeared and she was back in the bunker. Which must mean this was only a heat-induced hallucination like the others. Clarke tries, but she can't help the tears that well up in her eyes. The feel of Bellamy still locked inside of her and firm under her is too good, too real, to let go of. She doesn’t want to wake up in an empty bunker, crazy with need, and be reminded she’s actually alone in her nest, unwanted. 

Maybe if she can just stay awake, she can make this last, pretend it's real...

“Go to sleep, Omega.” It’s his command voice, but there’s an underlying tenderness to it.

So Clarke closes her eyes and tries to memorize the feel of his thumb tracing her arm and the sound of his heartbeat in her ear, to keep them with her just a little longer.

Chapter Text

Clarke wakes up to a splitting headache, the inability to move, and the dim illumination of emergency glowsticks. Her tongue feels like cotton. She also feels like she’s well on her way to becoming yet another forgotten skeleton.

She groans and tries to sit up, but she can’t quite manage it. Her whole body is remarkably sore, especially between her legs. But she must be over her heat now, because she feels fairly coherent – like she’s herself again.

Maybe she’s still getting over whatever crazy trip she was on though, because as she tries and fails to get up she swears her pillow moves, and she finds herself faceplanting in something orange.

The blankets. She’s in the bunker, protected from the concrete floor by the nest she’s made. Which means she didn’t hallucinate the onset of her presentation heat, but of course she did hallucinate her time in Bellamy’s tent. And everything after that that she can’t quite remember the details of, except in blurred bits of intense sensation (which is how she's choosing to think about what really amounts to weird sensory imprints, like the feeling of concrete under her knees through the blankets, and the tension of Bellamy's hand in her hair, and the taste of his skin - and of course a lot of intense orgasms). Apparently, she has a very creative imagination, and she’ll never be able to face Bellamy again without dying of mortified guilt on the spot.

…And maybe the all-consuming desire to see if he lives up to her imagination.

She hides her face in the blankets and groans again.

It’s official, there’s no way she can go back to camp and look Bellamy in the eye now. She’ll have to become a hermit; maybe the skeleton won’t mind if she hangs out here a bit longer, at least until she can figure out where to go next–

“Clarke?!”

Her head snaps up, and she turns to see Bellamy sitting up beside her, looking panicked and confused. His eyes drop to her body, horrified, and they realize they’re both naked at the same time. Yanking a blanket over himself, he scrambles away to the far edge of her blanket nest, only stopping when his back hits a wall. Then he covers his face with his hands, like he can’t bear to look at her.

“No. No, no, no. No.” He sounds…broken.

Clarke blinks. Inhales. Exhales. Tries to get her thoughts in some semblance of order. But she doesn’t want to, really. It was better when she thought she was waking up alone to be honest. This…well, she doesn’t really want to think about what his reaction means.  

“Is this…Am I still hallucinating?” She holds her hands up in front of her face, but there’s no warp to them. And god knows this is definitely not shaping up to be a fantasy. She swallows.

Bellamy is making a noise that might should be a derisive laugh, but really just sounds hysterical. “Don’t think we’re that lucky, Princess.”

“Then…?”

“Then you presented, and I lost control and raped – ” his voice cracks. He has a white knuckled grip on his bangs and his palms pressed over his eyes. “Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god – ”

He’s spiraling.

Wrapping a blanket around her, Clarke forces herself up and crawls over to sit beside him. “Hey…hey,” she says softly, putting her hand between his shoulder blades, and starting to rub small circles.

He blindly shoves her away so hard she lurches sideways. As stupid as it is, given the circumstances, there’s something about this physical rejection that stings. She tries to ignore it; it's probably just a side effect of her designation.

“Don’t,” he snarls. “Don’t. I – you should hate me. Want to hit me. Kill me. You should have let Murphy kill me on that cliff. Then none of this would have happened. I wouldn’t have – oh god.”

Clarke sucks in a breath. “Bellamy. Bellamy. I need you to count backward from ten with me on your fingers, okay? This is very important. Ready? Ten…” He ignores her. “Hey, Bellamy.”

He just keeps mumbling to himself incoherently and shaking.

“Alpha, please,” she asks in her omega voice, small and pleading. A shiver goes down his spine, stilling him. Then he peaks up at her cautiously. “Ten,” she says slowly.

“Ten,” he repeats. And they count down. By the time they reach one, he’s calmed enough for her to get him to just breathe with her. After a while, he crosses his forearms over his knees and rests his head on them. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Clarke.”

She believes him. The thing is, she doesn’t quite know what he’s sorry for. Obviously, she gets the gist, but…all she really remembers is banging him in his tent, which, clearly that couldn’t have actually happened. So.

She clears her throat and tries to phrase her question as delicately as possible. “What, exactly, are you sorry for, Bellamy?”

He gives her an incredulous look that says: Are you stupid?

Leave it to Bellamy to have an attitude even now. She huffs and somehow manages not to roll her eyes at him. It’s probably a good sign he’s being snarky. It’s certainly better than him hyperventilating.  

“Look, this is going to sound insane, but I, um…Maybe it’s a common thing with heats? But…I was pretty out of it. So, after you left to get some air, I, um. All I remember is that I had a – ” A whole hallucinogenic montage of our future family.

She swallows, searching for something she can say. “A conversation. With my dad and Wells. So. Obviously that wasn’t real. And then I built the – ” For some reason, she’s embarrassed by the word nest, so she just gestures vaguely to the blankets heaped on the floor. “And after that…um. Well. I had some more hallucinations, I think? …And that’s all I really remember.”

Bellamy makes a noise that sounds like a dying animal, face buried back in his arms. “That’s it? You’re sure?”

She blushes. “I – Well. The rest is just – feelings and sensations.” Oh god. That sounds like something out of a cheap novel. She’s a doctor, damn it. She’s been trained to talk about uncomfortable topics directly and professionally. She clears her throat again and tries to sound more professional. “Sensory detail.”

“Sensory detail,” Bellamy says slowly. He’s studying her face carefully. Clarke thinks it might catch fire if he stares at it any longer.

“Yes." For example, I'm pretty sure I know what you sound like when you come. She needs to change the subject. "But there's no clear order of events or - anything like that after - um, after the last hallucination. So…when did you come back?”

Fuck. What if he came back to find her naked, writhing on the ground, begging for him to knock her up, and that’s the last thing he coherently remembers? She wants to die.

Bellamy clears his throat and stares resolutely at the wall in front of them. “Well, I didn’t make it far from the bunker. I couldn’t bring myself to leave you unprotected.” There’s a bitter twist to his mouth. “Then I had some…interesting hallucinations of my own. After a nice long chat with Jaha and then O, I barely managed to dodge a tree that blew down. Then the rain started. It was torrential. I was still pretty out of it, and I didn’t know where else to go. Thought maybe I could – ” He shakes his head. “No, I wasn’t thinking. I was being beat to death by the wind and the rain, and I could smell you, so I climbed down that ladder.” His breath is ragged now.

Clarke remembers him teasing her about the thunder, remembers the lightening in his eyes. She wonders if any of it was real. “What then?” she asks, voice small.

He snaps toward her, angry. “What then? What? You want a play by play of sensory detail?” he mocks. “What happened is that I’m a monster. You remember enough to know that. Hell, just look in a fucking mirror. You’ll see.”

She glances down and sees a fairly large hickey, right over her heart. So there must be more of those. Vaguely, she remembers the suction of his lips, the scrape of his teeth, the rasp of his tongue. Blushing, she tries to figure out how to tell him that that was – enjoyable, in the moment. She just isn’t too happy about having to parade them around camp, especially given how repulsed he is by them. 

But now isn’t the time because he's still talking, voice quiet and hoarse. “If my mother new what I’ve done to you – She raised me to be good. To be better. To have some fucking self-control over my instincts.” He sniffs, and Clarke can’t quite tell from the angle he’s holding his head, but she thinks she sees a tear. “But I didn’t. I hit that ladder, and suddenly I stopped thinking. And then I hurt you.”

“Oh, Bellamy.” He looks up at her, and he is crying; it breaks Clarke’s heart. “You didn’t hurt me. You – I guess – we –” She swallows and forces herself to just say it, like an adult. “You fucked me, but you never hurt me. Yeah, I was too out of it to really consent. But so were you. I think – It sounds like you were in rut. You couldn’t think.”

“Clarke–”

“Hey, just listen. This isn’t – this isn’t your fault. I was in heat, and your body responded to that. That’s just – it’s natural; it’s biology. You couldn’t have stopped it. That means this happened to you too, okay? So you get to be upset, and you get to freak out, but you don’t get to beat yourself up about this because it’s not your fault. If anything, this is my fault. I shouldn’t have ignored it. I should have had a better plan, kept better track, not invited you out alone without at least thinking–”

Clarke suddenly chokes on her own guilt. This is her fault. If she’d just admitted it to herself earlier, came up with a plan (she always has a plan; how could she not have had a plan for this?!) – she wouldn’t have basically forced a physiological response on Bellamy that he couldn’t control. If she’d just listened to him while he was still coherent and locked herself in the bunker, she’d have woken up with just the skeleton for company, like he’d planned. He’d have still been in rut, and maybe she’d have gone mad with her heat. But at least then she wouldn’t have forced him to be with her. She wouldn’t have taken away his choice.

“I’m so sorry, Bellamy,” she whispers, pulling her own knees up and sobbing into them. Which just makes it worse because the blanket that stretches across her lap smells like them. Like her and Bellamy and sex. She hates how much she loves it. Maybe she did this on purpose, at least subconsciously. Maybe the only reason she had really invited him out here was because her instincts knew what would happen, knew she could trap Bellamy like this. Guilt threatens to drown her, and she sobs harder. “I’m so sorry.”

He lets her cry for a bit. Maybe he knows she needs it, or maybe he just doesn't know what to do. But when her sobs start to get hysterical, he puts a gentle, tentative hand on her shoulder. “Don’t. If I don’t get to feel guilty, you don’t either, Princess.”

She shutters out another half-sob, but nods into her knees. She doesn’t deserve to feel better, but with his large, warm hand on her shoulder, she can’t help it.

Then he jerks away. “Shit.”

Her head snaps up. “What?”

His wide eyes staring at the back of her neck are enough to make her stomach sink. No, anything but that. I can’t take that from him too. Not that.

Bellamy licks his lips, squeezes his eyes shut, and tips his head back towards the ceiling. “Clarke, I – ” He sucks in a breath, holds it. And she knows what’s coming next, but she still has to hear him say it. Because when he does, everything will change between them forever. “Clarke, I fucking bit you,” he breathes out. “I mated you.”

And then he turns his head to look her in the eye, searching her reaction for…something. But, she’s not nearly as alarmed as she should be. In fact, she feels rather – calm. Calmer than she did just a few minutes ago, actually. Maybe that’s just her body’s response to incomprehensible stress combined with post-heat hormones. But then she has recently spent a lot of time high and thinking about nothing else but how much she wanted this. Just, you know, when he wanted it too.

And a horrible part of her is selfishly glad to know she gets to hold on to him, even if he doesn't want her to. She hates that part of her, but she can't ignore it.

 So she has no idea what to say. She doesn’t have it in her to freak out about it yet, even for his benefit, so she quirks an eyebrow, mimics his teasing smirk, and drawls, “Oh. Is that all?”

Bellamy laughs, long and deep, and it makes her laugh too, because, really, what else is there to do? And when they’re done, he lets out a shuddery sigh and says, “Well, fuck.”

Which honestly sums up everything that’s happened since they got to this stupid bunker pretty well, in her opinion.

Chapter Text

When Clarke wakes up again, Bellamy is nowhere to be found. She panics, stumbling into her clothes and grabbing a gun before bolting up the latter. What if something happened? What if he went out for water and got attacked by a grounder?

What if – what if he left her?

It wasn’t common for a mated pair to split up. The bond made that hard. But Bellamy hadn’t exactly wanted to mate her. So maybe he’d decided it was best to just part ways here, before the bond had time to really set.

Or maybe she’s overreacting, and he just went looking for Octavia again. Which sucks, because Clarke would have gone with him if he had, you know, asked.

Now, she was just going to kill him.

Clarke springs out of the hatch, glancing wildly around her and stops. She has no idea which direction he went off in. It’s dark, and the wind whips silently around her. She sees the silhouette of the tree Bellamy had told her almost fell on him. It’s not the only tree that blew over in the storm, either. The forest’s a mess; there’s no way she could track him.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

He could be dead at the bottom of a cliff, or captured by grounders, or halfway to the coast by now, and she’d never know. She glowers at the forest. Well fuck him too. If he’s just going to go off and leave her alone to deal with this mess, he can just –

“Where’s the war, Princess?”

She looks down, and there he is, not ten feet away, lying in the tall grass with his hands behind his head looking up at the stars. There’s a long piece of grass in his mouth, and it’s clearly Bellamy the Rebel King who does whatever the hell he wants she’s dealing with now, instead of the panicked, broken man she’d woken up with the first time. Well, good. That means she can give him a piece of her mind without feeling guilty.

“Where the hell were you?” she snaps. And maybe this whole bonded pair thing is starting to chang her because she never cursed this much, before.

He turns his head toward her slowly. “That for me then?” he asks, eyeing the gun.

She huffs. “I considered it.”

He chuckles. “At least you’re being honest, now.”

“I’m always honest,” Clarke snaps. But now that she knows where he is, her anger begins to fade until she can begin to recognize just how terrified she was. She plops down beside him. “I thought you’d left.”

He’s still looking at her, and she swears she can feel his intensity. Perhaps he could feel her terror, because he’s deadly serious when he says, “I’d never leave you alone with this, Clarke. I may be an asshole, but I’m not that kind of asshole.”

See? Alpha protects us. He would never go far.

The certainty with which she believes that is…alarming, really. She shifts the gun in her lap and ignores how his promise loosens the knot of anxiety that’s lodged itself in her chest. She’d believed it before, in the sense that she knew he took care of all the hundred, but she’d still needed to hear him say it specifically to her.

“I’m assuming you missed where I left you water in your mad rush to come yell at me,” he snarks, and asshat Bellamy is back, but he’s almost…teasing. “So here.” And he hands her the repurposed whiskey bottle.

It’s only as Clarke takes a sip that she realizes how thirsty she is. “Thanks.”

He shrugs, turning back to the stars, and they linger in silence a minute. Then, after she’s drained all the water from the bottle, set the gun aside, and lain down beside him, he blows out a long breath. “I believe it’s your turn to freak out about this. So go ahead, lay it on me, Princess.”

And Clarke didn’t feel like freaking out or even acknowledging all the tens of thousands of questions and concerns floating around in her brain. But now that he’s brought it up, given her the opening, she can’t help herself. Still, she tries to stem the flow a bit, to keep both of them from getting overwhelmed.

She starts with the most obvious question, the one that sums up everything else: “Well, what do we do now?”

He doesn’t respond.

“We’re…bound together. Forever. And we hardly know each other.”

“You wound me, Princess. I thought we were at least amicable antagonists by now.”

She rolls her eyes. “For the love of – Look, Bellamy. We have to go back eventually. God knows how long we’ve been gone already. They’re probably panicking, especially after the storm; what are they going to think about us as leaders if it looks like we just wondered off into the woods to screw for a few days?” Clarke moans into her hands. “What on earth are we even going to say? Do we really want them to know? Because if you want to pretend this never happened, we could probably come up with a lie about why we’ve been gone for days–”

“We can’t, Clarke. You know that.”

She does. She really, really does. But… “I don’t want to ruin your life, Bellamy.” God, she hates how small her voice sounds. “We didn’t mean to do this, so there’s no reason we have to let it completely change our lives. We can just ignore–”

He jerks up. “And how do you propose we ignore it when we walk into camp and Spacewalker loses his shit because he smells me all over you? Or when others start presenting and they smell me all over you? Because now I’ve bit you, that’s not going away,” he snaps. “How do we ignore it when, if anyone even looks at you wrong, I’ll rip their throat out? Or how else do we explain that I need know where you are all the time now?” Yanking a hand through his hair, he scoffs. “Fuck, Clarke, what the hell are you going to tell them in nine months?”

Clarke chokes. “I – I um –” That’s the one thing she’s absolutely refused to think about yet.

His jaw tightens. “I don’t give a shit how embarrassed you are,” he hisses. “That baby’s mine – and I’ll die before I let anyone take that away from me. Including you.”

Clarke swallows. Well. At least she her assessment of his paternal instincts weren’t impaired by her hallucinations. Suddenly, she remembers what he’d looked like with a newborn, and she has to take a deep breath to settle the butterflies that image stirs up. 

She huffs to cover her blush. “I’m not embarrassed!” At his pointed look, she clarifies. “Of you. Or –” And her head might just explode from all the blood rushing to her face or just her complete insanity, but she says, “or having your baby either.”

He stares at her, and she’s not sure, but she thinks he’s a bit awed. The butterflies stage a riot.

“I just – I guess I’m just a tiny bit embarrassed about the circumstances. It will be blindingly obvious it wasn’t exactly premeditated, which my mother will absolutely love.” She doesn’t mean to be sarcastic or bring her mom into this, but she can’t help it. Telling her mother is one of the things she’s dreading most, at the moment. “I mean, it’s true that – anyways. I just don’t want everyone gossiping about it, you know? But there’s no way around that.”

She sighs. “And I know that you’d– But I just wasn’t sure you’d want to be around me, after this,” she whispers, because he has to understand. He has to know that she really didn’t mean to trap him. Also, she’s not ready to talk about how she’s probably carrying his child as more than an abstract possibility, at the moment.

Bellamy studies her a minute before laying back down and looking at the stars again. He sighs too. “I don’t really want anyone else. I don't think I even can anymore. And I have to be around you. Probably a side-effect. But I can’t bring myself to resent that, even though it feels like I should. So no, I don’t want to go back to normal,” he says carefully.

“Then what do you want?”

“From now on, I’ll need you close by, especially at night. I’ll need you to sleep in my tent. I’ll fix you your own bed, but that’s non-negotiable.”

“Oh. Okay.” She can’t form anything more coherent after her hallucination-memory. Even the thought of stepping foot in his tent makes her blush and turns her insides to mush. How the hell is she going to live there?

Well, you better figure it out quick, Clarke.

“Also, I know you’ll hate this, but… I need you to keep your distance from other alphas for a bit. Especially Finn. Because if you don’t, I’m not sure I’d be able to keep myself from ripping his throat out.”

He’s almost growling, and Clarke gets the sense that spending time with Finn in just about any capacity is out of the question now. She’s not nearly as pissed off about that as she probably should be, and she thinks maybe she understands what Bellamy meant earlier.

“What about Raven?” She asks.

He considers for a moment. “I probably hate her least, so that should be fine…just let me give it a trial run with you first. She’s too valuable to risk.” His mouth quirks up in a rueful grin. 

Clarke’s does too. “True.”

“As for…the rest – can we figure that out later?”

“Yeah, let’s put a pin in that,” Clarke agrees. He’s clearly avoiding any specific discussions about what they are to each other relationship-wise now, and admittedly it does feel too raw and vulnerable to poke at yet, from any angle. “We can revisit that when we get used to everything.”  

He nods.

“But…what do we do when we get back to camp? What do we tell them?”

He picks another long blade of grass, rolling it between his fingers. “The truth. If they ask. But it’s unlikely too many of them will have the guts for that, and they’ll figure out all they really need to know when you start emerging from my tent every morning.”

Clarke thinks about that a minute. On one hand, she likes the idea of not having to directly confront ninety some gossiping delinquents who, more than likely, will accuse her of trapping Bellamy for his status. But…they’ll hardly be the last alpha/omega couple in camp. And since he is pack alpha, his behavior will determine what’s acceptable as the status quo now.

“We can’t just say nothing, Bellamy.”

“Watch me.”

“Look, if we were anyone else, I’d agree with you, but we’re not. You’re not.”

“What do you want me to do, Princess? Announce it?”

Clarke inhales slowly and pinches the bridge of her nose. “That’d probably be a good start, yeah.”

“You can’t be serious.” He’s incredulous now. “How do you think that would even go? ‘Listen up, everyone, we were AWOL for days because I was busy raping the Princess, and, while I was at it, I made sure to mark her so she’s stuck with me for life too, just so you know’?”

Clarke sits up, angry. “Listen here, Bellamy Blake. We’ve been through this. Neither of us were capable of legal consent when this happened, so you are not responsible for this mess. If anything, you did the most to avoid it. So if you want to blame me, fine. But stop acting like you’re a monster; you’re not. You’re a good man.”

He scoffs, and Clarke cuts him off with a withering glare before wrapping her arms around her knees and continuing. “I never thought I’d actually be an omega, you know? My mom’s an alpha, Dad was a beta, and I’ve always been opinionated so…I just thought I’d be an alpha like her. Especially when I tried to help dad go against the council. I never even considered what my life would be like, if…” She’s rambling. She sucks in a breath and tries again. “When you left me in the bunker, I realized that any way you cut the cake, being an omega – my life would never be what I’d planned, before. On the Ark, I would have been given suppressants until I was given to an alpha I didn’t know. For the good of humanity.”

Bellamy growls. 

“And here, it could have been even worse. If it wasn’t for you, I would have gone to the bunker to find Finn, and if he had already gone into rut and cornered me…” She swallows. She can’t bring herself to say it. “What that would have done to my body when I hadn’t fully presented yet – I don’t want to even think about it. I probably would have died. And if it wasn’t Finn, it would have been someone else, so–”

“Clarke, stop,” Bellamy explodes, leaping to his feet. “What’s the difference? Besides just waiting for you to present, tell me – what’s the fucking difference?” She stares, opened mouthed. “I’ll tell you. Spacewalker is a hypothetical. He only could have hurt you. But I did attack you; I could have fucking killed you. Do you understand that?” He stops pacing to turn and plead with her. “I couldn’t – I couldn’t stop. I had no control over myself. And while I was busy fucking you for literal days, I couldn’t even think. There were only 'sensory details,'" he mocks. "It never even occurred to me that it wasn’t okay, or that I might be hurting you, or that I needed to stop. So not only did I attack you, I enjoyed it too.” He swallows, and suddenly he’s not angry, he’s broken again. “How sick must that make me?”

He turns, probably so she won’t see him cry again. “And no, hearing your stupid arguments about biology doesn’t help. And this? Where was this going? It had to be somebody, so you’re glad it was me?”

She raises her chin. “Yes.”

He scoffs. “How can you even be sure about that? How can you ever be sure that that’s really how you feel and not some messed up mating hormones or omega instincts or whatever? You can’t.”

Clarke feels her eyes water. He’s right. There’s no way she can separate what happened with Bellamy from the onset of her presentation. No way to know how she’d feel about it they were both just betas.

“And even if you could, Clarke, I didn’t know. I had no clue that if you had to be raped by a rampaging alpha, you’d at least be okay with me doing it. Which is also fucked up, by the way. What does that even mean?”

She looks down at her feet. Everything just feels all twisted up in her head, tangled in ways she never would have expected – and maybe that’s the thing. She’ll never know what they’d be if the were betas, but they aren’t. And they wouldn’t be them if they were.

Clarke sucks in a breath and meets Bellamy’s eyes. “It means that in the end, the only real option I had to survive was to pick someone to claim me. And the only potential alpha I wanted was you. Raven tried to tell me that when I refused her counter-command, but I…wasn’t ready to admit I was even an omega yet.”

His eyes are unreadable in the darkness, so she looks down at the grass she finds herself desperately tearing apart. “Obviously, we really should have at least had a conversation about that, before... And maybe picking you was just instinctual because you’re pack alpha or whatever,” she shrugs. “But…I saw you with Charlotte. And I saw you with Atom. And I realized that you were just trying to do what was best for Jasper too, even if you were a total ass about it. You tried to keep Murphy in check, and you were merciful to him when he didn’t deserve it. Even when you commanded me, you only did it because you thought you had too, to protect me from myself. Plus…Octavia told me stories about what you were like on the Ark. So at least, at least you’re a decent person.” She swallows.

“So the thing is, I can’t separate my feelings on this from biology and hormones and everything else that comes along with this. It’s all wrapped up together, and if I try to parse it out too much, I’ll go nuts. To be honest, I…I have to wonder if the hindbrain part of me did choose this, and I gave into that, subconsciously, by inviting you out that day. I could have invited Murphy or Miller or anyone else in camp, but when Raven told me about the bunker, I knew I had to take you. Maybe – maybe instinctually I knew what was about to happen and that you were the one I most wanted with me when it did. And maybe you knew that too when you packed those rations.” She hates the pleading undertone in her voice, but she doesn’t think she can live with herself if her theory isn’t true, if only to give herself the illusion that they had both had wanted this on some level.  

She clenches her fist and presses on. “Either way, that’s what I have to believe. So no, being mated for life at eighteen wasn’t exactly in my master plan when I was on the Ark. But, as you continually like to remind us, this isn’t the Ark. So forgive me if, after considering other, more horrific, alternatives, I don’t think this is worst thing that could have happened. Maybe it’s a side-effect…but, it’s true; I don’t regret that was you. I just – I’m just sorry it happened the way it did. I’m sorry – I’m so sorry it was like that, for you. But I know you would never hurt me, even if you didn’t have control of yourself. If you had hurt me, you would have known, and you would have stopped somehow. You just would have, because that’s who you are, Bellamy. You don’t enjoy hurting others.”

She licks her lips. “You need forgiveness? I’ll give you that. You’re forgiven.” Bellamy sucks in a breath. “But thank you, for mating me and saving me from someone else, someone my biology or my instincts or whatever wouldn’t have wanted. And I’m sorry, that this…That you didn’t–”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Clarke. Don’t. Don’t thank me.” He has the heels of his hands pressed against his eyes. “I’ve wanted you since the moment I caught your scent. Definitely since you were dangling over that pit of spikes, clutching my arm.” He sinks back down on the ground, back against the fallen tree. “I knew what you’d be, smelt it all over you, and I decided then you’d be mine one day, even if I had to fight all the alpha whelps in camp for you. I knew you were close to presenting when you asked me to come out here with you. I didn’t realize how close, but you asked, and I couldn’t – couldn’t say no. Couldn’t leave you in camp without me, just in case. I brought you to the bunker to make sure you got here safe, yeah, but I also did it just in case you’d ask me to stay…even though I knew I shouldn’t.”

Clarke gapes at him.

“So, you were right about what I was thinking with the rations, and you should not thank me.”

She can’t help the flush or sense of satisfaction that spreads over her entire body. “Oh. Well then. I suppose we can both stop feeling guilty.”

He drags his hands down his face and huffs. “Fine. We were both interested in our biological compatibly, and we both instinctively knew it. I’ll give you that.” Then his eyes dart down to her stomach, and he swallows. “That still doesn’t mean I didn’t ruin your life. This wasn’t just a drunk hookup, Clarke. This – it’s permanent.”  

Clarke sucks in a breath, hand twitching toward her stomach before she can help it. “I know. But I still haven’t really wrapped my head around the fact that I’m stuck with earth’s most stubborn ass for life. It’s going to take some time before that actually sinks in, so I’m not quite ready for the freak-out it deserves yet. What I’m trying say right now is that I guess I’d rather be stuck with you for life rather than a grounder or, you know, die – even if you are an ass most of the time.” She shoots him an attempt at a wry smile.

Bellamy snorts a laugh. “Fair enough.” He turns his head back to the stars, which are starting to fade.

Clarke lets the silence sit awhile, watching the sky begin to lighten by degrees. Then she sighs. “But earlier my point was that I probably won’t be the last omega in camp. I don’t want anything bad to happen any of the others, and because it’s us, we have an opportunity to make rules that address this sort of situation before it gets personal for anyone else. We can set an example.”

Bellamy groans, but she knows she’s won. “Fine.” He stands and brushes off his pants before reaching down to help her up. “I guess we should get back then.” He eyes her carefully. “You up for the walk?”

Funny how she has the distinct impression of having been on her hands and knees, wantonly keening for him what might have only been hours ago, but now she can’t quite meet his eyes when she mumbles, “If we take it slow.”

Slowly, he slips the strap of the gun over his shoulder. She wonders if he’s sore too. “Sure, Princess. Whatever you need.”

Bellamy kicks the bunker closed, making sure it’s as secure as possible. They should bring back most of the guns now, but Clarke doesn’t think she’s up to carrying five or six of them that far, at the moment. Apparently, he isn’t either. She hopes he takes her back to get them though; the thought of anyone else invading her nest, even now that her heat’s over, feels like a violation of sorts.

They don’t talk on the way back.

But he walks beside her the whole way, reaching out to put a steadying hand on her elbow whenever he thinks she might need help, especially over logs and on hills. He never rushes her, and at one point, he even scoops her up to carry her across a high creek. So. There’s that.

Bellamy rests his right hand on the small over back as they walk into camp, and, from his earlier reaction, she imagines she has about fifty hickeys on her neck. Altogether, it’s enough to make everyone stop and stare.

He was right. There won’t be much they have to actually say.

“Bell!” A blur tackles Bellamy, and suddenly he’s catching his sister up in a fierce hug.

“O!” He pulls back to look her over. “Are you hurt?”

Octavia grins. “I’m fine, big brother, now that I’m not going out of my mind worrying about you! Raven said the bunker wasn’t that far. What took you so long?”

He glances around at their audience. “I’ll explain later. Are you sure you’re okay? What happened? Where were you?”

“That’s…also a long story. But I’m fine.” Bellamy gives her a look that even Clarke knows means he isn’t budging until he hears it. “Fine,” Octavia huffs. “Just…promise not to freak?”

“What is it, O?” Bellamy growls.

“Well…I tripped, fell down a bank, and broke my knee. That’s why I never made it back to camp.” Bellamy stiffens. “But I made a new friend!” Octavia adds quickly. “A grounder found me, patched me up, and, after some misunderstandings, we became friends and he brought me back. His name’s Lincoln, and he’s been helping us get ready for winter and hold things together while you were gone. So, it’s all worked out!”  

“O.” Bellamy somehow manages to look simultaneously alarmed and exasperated. “Grounders put a spear through Jasper.”

“I know, Bell. I was there. But Lincoln’s different. He saved me. Twice. And he says winter is brutal here; we need the help, so please at least meet him before –”

“Clarke!” Finn is suddenly running up, looking like he’s about to launch himself at her. “Thank god! I was so worried when I came back and you were gone. What happened? Are you okay?” Clarke shrinks towards Bellamy, who automatically angles his body between them. Finn stops, scowls. “You were with him?”

She opens her mouth, searching for a response, but Finn reaches around Bellamy to grab her wrist and pull her away. “What did he do to you?”

Bellamy wraps his arm around her waist and yanks her back toward his chest. Clark puts her left hand over his heart in an effort to mollify him a bit, but it’s pointless because Finn still has her other wrist and is now snarling.

“You marked her?! You fucking marked her? You bastard!” His grip on Clarke’s wrist is bruising. “How dare you.”

Clarke yanks her wrist back, and bats Finn’s hand away when he reaches for her again. “It’s none of your business, Finn. But I asked him to.”

At least she remembers needing him to so badly she was sobbing for it while he was sucking hickeys into her neck with her back pulled tight against him and his knot swelling deep inside her, whatever she actually said. But Finn probably wouldn’t find that context helpful. 

As it is, he looks shell shocked. “Him? You asked him?! How could you, Clarke? He’s dangerous, irresponsible, cruel. He was about to kill you for your wristband. And you want to be mated to him?”

Clarke snarls in warning, but Finn misses it.

“If you needed an alpha for your heat, Clarke, I would have – Is that what happened?” The anger in his face softens to condescending pity. “Did he take advantage of you when your heat started? Because you don’t have to defend him, Clarke– ”

“No,” Clarke snaps. “I chose him.”

That’s all she manages to get out before Finn launches himself at Bellamy, who pushes Clarke out of the way toward Octavia. The boys collapse in the dirt, and Clarke is both alarmed and pissed. This…wasn’t how she’d hoped the announcement would go.

She wants to make them stop – but alpha fights can’t be interrupted without great personal risk. And Bellamy would never forgive her, even if she knows he doesn’t actually want to hurt Finn. Stopping them would only delay this, she chants to herself as Octavia pulls her back to a safe distance. But just because it’s true doesn’t mean she likes it.

God, alphas are idiots.

Bellamy, of course, pins Finn down after a moment of blurred scuffling, arm to his neck. “Don’t ever touch her again,” he snarls through his teeth, bloody from a busted lip. “The next time you grab her, or yell at her, or even glance at her with anything other than respect, I’ll kill you.” Finn glares up at him. Bellamy gives him rough shake. “Clarke has made her choice. Nothing can change that, and you will respect it. Understood?”

Relief settles over Clarke. He’s at least supporting her narrative that this was, in some sense, premeditated. That it was her choice. And he’s using Finn as his example. At this point, all they’ll have to do is give some general admonitions about respecting choices and boundaries – easy, painless. They won’t have to talk about themselves at all. Maybe the impromptu wrestle in the dirt was a good thing after all.

And then Finn ruins it.

“Yes, alpha,” he spits mockingly. It’s not remotely a submission, and that sort of blatant disrespect cannot stand.

Bellamy punches him once, hard and fast, and Finn yelps, blood gushing from his nose. It’s a nasty looking break. But it seems to be enough to get Finn to back down.

When he stops struggling, Bellamy hauls him up by his shirt collar and drags him outside the gate. “If you can’t respect her choice, then you can leave,” he proclaims, and tosses Finn to the ground in a heap. “Spacewalker is dead to us. No one helps him, touches him, speaks to him, or even looks at him from now on.” The alpha command ripples through the crowd.

He walks back into camp, and at his nod, Miller closes the gates on Finn. The last time Clarke sees his face, he looks shocked and heartbroken, and she can’t help but feel a twinge of guilt. This was partly her fault.

Finn…had been confusing. In the beginning when she was still afraid of Bellamy, she’d thought Finn was an ally and that he cared about her, that at least they could be friends after Raven came down. Maybe she had led him on earlier, maybe he was just trying to protect her…

But she’d never even kissed him or told him she liked him like that. And he had a girlfriend. And he should have at least respected her choice after she told him.

Still, she hadn’t wanted things to go down like that.

Bellamy stares down the rest of the camp. “I don’t care who you are or how you feel or what sort of hormone trip you’re on. I will not tolerate any disrespect of omegas. If an omega says they don’t want you, that’s the end of it. If that’s a problem for you, you can leave and die with Spacewalker.”

No one moves.

“We better be clear then. Because if I hear that anyone has harassed or forced or tricked anyone else into anything, I’ll kill you myself.”

A tense silence lingers as Bellamy waits for someone to challenge him.

“Yes, alpha!” It’s Raven. Clarke looks up in surprise and sees her standing next to Murphy, of all people. Raven elbows him in the stomach until he yells out his own gruff, “Yes, alpha!” Monty and Jasper take it up next, followed by Miller and the guards. Clarke watches, stunned, as the whole camp echoes with it.

And just like that, Bellamy Blake has fully solidified his place as pack alpha – publicly and unanimously.

He surveys his people for a moment longer, letting the moment wash over them all. Letting them see his shoulders relax and his jaw stop twitching. Letting them know that he is pleased by their response, and that he accepts their loyalty.

And as he stands there, Clarke suddenly knows what was missing on the Ark all those years: trust and devotion. Bellamy has just shown them that he does care about his people – even the ones who were looked at as expendable commodities on the Ark. He has demonstrated that he means what he says when he tells them they have the freedom to make decisions for themselves as adults. And in return, these delinquents are giving him their loyalty and respect, without reservation or suspicion.

This is the bond that should be between leaders and their people, and for the first time, Clarke is glad the Ark sent them down to earth. Here, with these people, she can build a society worth protecting. One that will last. Her hand slips over her stomach.

Over the crowd, Bellamy’s eyes find hers, fierce and determined.

And then a shot rips through the cheers.    

Chapter Text

One second Bellamy’s looking at her with his soul in his eyes, and the next he’s flinching. As the shot rings in her ears, Clarke’s already screaming.

Bellamy pulls his hand away from just above his left hip, looking shocked to see blood.

Her heart drops like a stone to her stomach. Bellamy’s in danger, and she can’t let him die. No matter what, she can’t let him die. Blood rushes in her ears, and she hardly hears the delinquent’s screams or Octavia pleading with her to get down or Bellamy snapping out orders through his blood-stained teeth. Someone just tried to kill him. Her hands fist. No, that's not okay. She won't let that happen again.

She’ll burn the whole fucking world down to keep him safe if she has to.

Before she even knows what she’s doing, she’s ripped Bellamy’s gun from Octavia’s hands and spun in the direction of the shot. There’s the flash of metal and a blond head, and Clarke lines it up in the crosshairs as she squeezes the trigger. He taught her well. The whole thing is smooth, fast, completed in a matter of heartbeats.

The camp goes quiet.

Bellamy stares at her.

Thrusting the gun back at Octavia, Clarke shoves her way through the crowd to him. He’s bleeding and – oh god he can’t die. She can’t let him die.

“Clarke,” he says, when she tries to pry his hand away from his wound.

“Let me see, Bellamy.”

“It’s just a scratch.” But he lets her wrap her fingers around his palm and shove it aside anyway.

“How would you know? You’re in shock. I need to see.” She lifts up his shirt. And it isn’t exactly a scratch. But it is far enough to the right that, if they stay lucky, that the bullet has missed his organs, but the perfect small, round hole she sees makes it clear that it fully entered. She presses his hand back over the wound tight. “Is it – is there an exit wound?” She traces her fingertips over his hip around to his spine. There isn’t. Thank god it didn't take a chunk of him with it on the way out. 

“Clarke,” he rasps.

“We need to get you in the dropship, now. I’m going to have to take it out, and it’s going to hurt like hell, but– Murphy!” Murphy materializes at her elbow. “Help me get him in the dropship.” She puts him under Bellamy’s good arm, where he needs to be leaning his weight. On his other side, she carefully puts her hand on his back. She can’t help it. She couldn’t stop touching him now if her life depended on it.

“Are you sure you killed him?” Bellamy grits out.

Clarke hasn’t had time to think about that. “Pretty sure. Once we get you to the dropship, Murphy can go out and double check.” She looks up. “Monty! We need moonshine. And seaweed.”

Monty nods and sprints off toward the dropship. But she can feel the others watching, still stunned. She wishes they weren’t – she doesn’t like feeling like she’s in a fishbowl as they cross camp, but she doesn’t know what to say to a bunch of scared kids right now. And frankly, right now, she doesn’t care about them.

“Okay, show’s over. Clarke’s going to take care of Bellamy, and Miller’s going to check the perimeter. Mom and dad’s made sure everyone’s safe, so get back to work!” Raven snaps out, and Clarke breathes out a sigh of relief, especially when Raven turns and follows them into the dropship.

Monty’s returned with the seaweed and moonshine. Jasper’s dug up some bandages and a torch. “Just in case you need more light in here,” he says. But they all know it’s just in case she needs to cauterize the wound. (She probably will.)

“Thanks, Jasper.” Clarke tries to smile. “Raven, get my mom on the radio. I’ll need a consult.”

Raven sucks in a breath. “I can’t.”

Clarke’s blood freezes. “What?”

“We lost contact with the Ark two days ago. I’ll try again, of course, but – I just thought you should know that we probably won’t be able to get ahold of them.”

Clarke trembles. She's alone then. It's all on her. Damn it, she's never treated a shooting victim before. What if - what if she can't? 

Murphy sets Bellamy on the table. “I’m going to help Miller,” he says and leaves. Octavia takes his place, helping her brother lie back, and that’s when Clarke realizes just how pale he’s gotten and how glassy his eyes are now. He's lost so much blood. 

He looks up at her. “It’s ironic, isn’t it? I shot Jaha in the stomach too. So it's poetic justice, don't you think?”

Clarke glares at him and lets her anger settle her. She's doing this. Yeah she's doing this on her own, but she'll figure it out because Bellamy can’t die. She’s not going to let him. “Jaha’s fine,” she snaps. “You’ll be fine too.” She tries not to think about how Jaha had a real doctor. 

“But what if I’m not?” His eyes linger on her stomach as she sanitizes her hands and the tools she needs.

She gives him a sharp look. “You have to be.” She doesn’t mean to be so short with him when he’s hurt, but she can’t let herself be soft right now. She needs to focus. “Do you hear me, Bellamy Blake? I need you. We need you. I’m not running this camp without you.”

“I’m scared,” he whispers.

She feels her mouth tremble. “I know. Me too. But I’m not going to let you die.” Moving carefully, she offers him a shot of moonshine. “Here, you’ll want this.”

Brushing his hand against her arm, he meets her eyes, and she knows he’s saying goodbye, just in case. She blinks hard. “Still, if-” and his eyes drift down to her stomach again, meaningfully, “if things go sideways, have O tell you the story of Hestia.” And she knows that he means O should tell the story if there’s a baby. That that’s the legacy he wants to leave, instead of whatever the hell we want. He wants his child to remember him through that story, instead of the one where he's a failed assassin. And that, well...that breaks her heart. 

Clarke swallows to keep from crying and jerks her head in a nod. “I will.” She takes a deep breath. “But I’m sure everyone would like it better coming from you.” And she gives him a look she hope he understands.

He holds her gaze as he swallows the moonshine. “Vile stuff,” he mutters, handing her back the cup.

“Only painkiller we’ve got right now, and this is going to be bad. Sorry we don't have time to get you drunk.” She wraps the handle of his axe in a bandage and slips it between his teeth. She sucks in another breath. Makes a plan. “Okay. Okay,” she says, trying to sound bright and optimistic, but it just reminds her of killing Atom and her hand trembles. 

Bellamy sees, grabs her hand squeezes. I trust you. You can do this, his eyes say. And she nods. “Okay.”

She lifts his other hand away and tries not to think about who is under her makeshift scalpel as she searches for the bullet. Bellamy whimpers, and it breaks her heart, but she forces herself to ignore it.

“Hey, hey, look at me,” Octavia whispers to him, smoothing his hair away from his face. “I’m going to take care of you. I won’t let anything happen to you. That’s the first thing you said to me, remember? Well, now it’s my turn, okay? I’m going to take care of you, Bell. Breathe, just breathe.” She rambles on, and her voice soothes Clarke too.

Finally, she manages to dig out the bullet, which did miss any major organs. Relieved, Clarke allows herself to breathe again. “Okay, good news, no organ damage. Bad news, I’m going to have to cauterize it so that you stop bleeding internally.”

Bellamy groans.

Octavia tries to laugh. “Oh, come on now, Bell. I broke my leg, and Lincoln had to cauterize it for me, so I know it’s not that bad.” She gives Clarke a slight nod. “You’re just being melodramatic. Like that time we were playing tag and you slid into the corner of the table and–”

Jasper hands her a heated knife, and Clarke firmly presses the flat of the blade to the wound. Bellamy screams, teeth clenching around the axe handle. Clarke forces herself to hold it there until she’s sure it worked, then she throws the knife to the ground.

“Hey, hey it’s over,” she whispers, blinking back tears. “I’m done. You’re okay.” She smooths his hair back and lifts the axe away once his jaw relaxes. “You’re okay.”

He leans into her hand. “Thank you.” He’s hoarse, and she barely hears him. Still, the sound of his voice settles her, makes her smile.

“Of course. You should rest now. You’ve been through a lot.”

“Stay.” He looks from her to his sister. “Please.”

Octavia snorts. “Just try to get rid of us, dumbass.”

Chapter Text

“So, you and my brother, huh?” Octavia asks softly.

They’re sitting with their backs against the wall of the dropship, watching Bellamy sleep. Clarke is too tired to stand and can’t bring herself to clean his blood off of the scalpel and forceps even though the first rule of medicine is to always keep everything clean and Abby would be appalled. Just looking at his blood makes her sick. So right now, she lets herself sit, drained.

But she should have known this conversation was coming. “Yeah,” she says, because what else is there to say?

“There’s something I never thought I’d see,” Octavia laughs. Clarke looks up, surprised, and she just shrugs. “Look, I hated it when Bell did his whole protective big brother act, so I’ll try not to be his bitchy little sister. Just promise me that you didn’t pick him to get back at Finn, okay? I don’t want to see him hurt. You might not think so, but he deserves better than that.”

“This had nothing to do with Finn. And I know. That’s why I chose him.”

Octavia gives her a long look. “Well as long as you know. Because if you did hurt him, I don’t think I could stop the protective sibling shit. I’d have to hate you on principle, and I don’t want to do that.” She’s trying to joke, but the truth of her words sits between them for a minute, absorbing into Clarke’s skin. Raven walks back in with a new part and fiddles some more with the radio. She never had gotten ahold of the Ark, but she hasn’t stopped trying. Clarke thinks this is her way of dealing with everything that happened today, and she's kind of jealous. If only she could trick herself into feeling useful.

When the silence gets too heavy, Octavia elbows her lightly in the ribs. “Happened a little fast though.” Her tone is light and teasing.

Clarke picks at her shoestring, trying to hide her blush. “Yeah. Turns out we suck at communication.” The lie sticks in her throat a bit, and she's hoping Octavia won't notice. Somehow, she doesn't think Bellamy would want her telling his little sister that it was all pretty much an accident. Or maybe Clarke just doesn't want to confess to Octavia that she pretty much forced this on Bellamy by manipulating his biology - only he feels responsible. She's pretty sure there's no quicker way to make Octavia hate her, actually. 

Raven snorts. “I’ll say. I told you you wanted him almost as soon as I woke up, but it still took you like, what – three, four days to admit it?”

“Man, I hate I missed that. How did you find out?” Octavia leans forward, giddy. “Please, I’ve got to catch up on all the ridiculous pining I missed.”  

“Well. First, she refused my alpha command because she didn’t want to disobey his, even though she thought it was stupid.” Raven rolls her eyes. “As if that weren’t obvious enough, then she gave me this big, long speech about what a great alpha he was and how he was the best option for the pack.”

Octavia snickers, and Clarke shoots Raven a glare before hunching her shoulders petulantly.

“So I told her that she wanted to mate him, and I swear she almost swallowed her tongue – but she was blushing so hard she was clearly thinking about how much she wanted to screw him and have his babies. It was hilarious.”  

“Ha ha,” Clarke mutters at the same time Octavia scrunches her nose and says, “Ew.” She’s scowling like Bellamy does, and Clarke finds herself wondering if it’s an inherited Blake trait. “Okay, for the record I don’t want to think about that. As far as I’m concerned, their little vacation in the bunker was entirely innocent and my precious niece or nephew will be delivered by a stork.”

Clarke opens her mouth to object that they don't know she's pregnant yet, and that it's really none of their business what happened in the bunker, thank you very much. But before she can even get a word in, Raven laughs. “Oh, don’t worry. I’ll wait to ask about the gory details.” Her wink makes Clarke cover her face in mortification. This was exactly the kind of thing she wanted to avoid when they came back to camp. She should have known it would happen regardless. 

“Stop, please. I'm not sharing any gory details,” she moans.

“That bad, Griffin? Or that good?"

Clarke groans.

“Good then, I take it.” She downright waggles her eyebrows.

Octavia claps her hands over her ears. “That’s my brother, Raven!”

Raven laughs. “Okay, okay.” She puts down the wires she was splicing and moves closer, face serious now. “But in all seriousness, how are you doing, Clarke? This has to have been a lot – the presentation heat, getting bonded for life, the whole Finn thing. Not to mention–” she gestures vaguely at Bellamy asleep on the operating table.

Clarke wraps her arms around herself. “Yeah, it has been. Too much to really process yet, if I’m being honest.”

Raven fidgets. “I tried to warn him, you know.”

“Who?”

“Finn. You were right; when he came back after presenting, nothing was the same. We grew up together. We were like family. I loved him, and I know on the Ark he loved me too. And before he went into the Skybox, I thought maybe after we both presented, we could even be mates. So I came down here to– Well, you know that. But his presentation changed him.” Raven takes a deep breath. “When he came back and you weren’t here, he was just so angry. He thought I was hiding you from him, and when he was high on the Jobi nuts, he almost killed me.”

“What?!” Clarke’s jaw drops.

Raven pulls down her collar to show the bruises around her neck. “Yeah. I mean, almost everyone was out of their minds so maybe he didn't mean to take it that far, but Murphy had to pull him off. I’d already told him that you were out looking for supplies with Bellamy, that you’d probably chosen to mate him, but he didn’t believe me.”

Clarke sucks in a breath. “I’m sorry, Raven.”

Shrugging, Raven brushes her off. “It’s not your fault. I’m just glad that you weren’t here.”

She nods. “I’m glad Bellamy took care of it before anything else could happen then.”

“Yeah,” Raven says, but she sounds sad.

“So, what are Jobi nuts?” Clarke asks, just to change the subject.

Octavia stares at her, incredulous. “How did you get lucky enough to miss that? When Lincoln brought me back to camp, everyone was high as a kite off of those new nuts y’all’d found. Jasper was trembling at shadows. Monty ate a pinecone because it asked him to. Miller was crying because he wanted to be the best broom in the closet. And I had to make sure no one accidentally walked off a cliff. Do you know how hard it is to corral ninety some teenagers who are high off their ass?”

Clarke laughs. “They’re bad enough when they’re just hungry.”

“Well, they’re all yours again now,” she huffs.

Clarke smiles. Then she thinks more about the nuts. “It was those new rations we found?”

“That were actually so out of date they were hallucinogenic? Yeah.”  

“Oh.” Those were the nuts she’d eaten just before she and Bellamy had left for the bunker. Those were the rations Bellamy had packed.

They’d been high all week. Which makes sense, looking back. But that means that it hadn’t been just “normal biological processes.” The nuts were yet another way they hadn’t been in control of themselves or their minds. Another strike against their ability to consent. Bellamy would love that, she thought bitterly. How could she even tell him this without it upsetting him all over again? Without it making him regret it even more?  

She wraps her hands around her knees, tries to remind herself that nothing has really changed. They’d already known they had been out of their mind before. It hadn’t mattered then, and it doesn’t matter now: they’re still irreversibly stuck together no matter what.

But even if he couldn’t want anyone else now because of their mating bond, did that mean that Bellamy would still want her if he wasn’t high? What if he didn’t? Or what if the memory of not being in control made the thought of ever touching her again repulsive? The thought of touching Bellamy now, without her heat and without being high made Clarke a little queasy herself. But was that because of what had happened or because it felt like too much too fast?

Octavia groans. “Please don’t tell me that you and my brother spent the whole week high.”

Clarke picks at her sleeve.

Raven cackles. “You were. Oh, that’s gold. Did it make it better?”

“Eek! We agreed not to talk about this!” Octavia snaps.

“Then put your hands over your ears, baby Blake,” Raven says. Octavia complains about it, but she does. The grin that Raven gives Clarke after that is downright devilish. “So now that the grownups can talk, did it?”

“It made it…weird.”

“Weird how?”

Clarke sighs. “We were already pretty much out of our minds because – you know,” she gestures vaguely.

“Because it was a biological imperative for you to fuck each other’s brains out?”

“Raven!”

“Well?”

“Yeah, because of that. So being high too made it seem dreamlike.”

“Oooh, do tell.”

“No, not like that. Just like…like it was great and all but it’s harder to tell what was actually real, I think. Like it was just all sensation and being in the moment, mostly, so…”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm what?”

“Nothing.” Clarke fixes her with a look and Raven sighs. “It was just a hmm of maybe you remember more than you’re admitting.”

Clarke is taken back to the reflection of lightening in Bellamy’s eyes and blushes. “Well, that’s the thing. I don’t know if it’s a memory or if it was a hallucination.”

Raven rolls her eyes. “And you didn’t just ask?”

“Oh yeah, sure.” She glances quickly at Bellamy to make sure he’s still asleep and at Octavia, who’s humming softly while also glaring at both of them. No one’s standing outside the door either, but Clarke lowers her voice anyway. “When he wakes up, I'll just walk up to him and say, 'Hey, Bellamy, I know we kind of hated each other until suddenly we didn’t and we spent all week having a mindless sex fest and now we're bonded for life and all, but that time we both got off on me telling you I wanted you to build me a house - was that real or did I hallucinate that?'”

“Build you a house?” Raven cackles. “Oh Griffin, that’s rich.” She elbows Octavia, who drops her hands from her ears. “Don’t worry, kiddo. Apparently, their idea of dirty talk is just talking about construction.”

Octavia looks equally grossed out and confused. “Wait, what?”

“I hate you both.” Clarke stands up, brushes off her pants.

“Do I even want to know?” Octavia asks Raven.

“Hey, it’s just a public service announcement: if he starts building her a house, you want to stay clear. I’m just saying.” Raven looks back up at Clarke. “I mean, what kind of kink even is that?”

“Eww, no. I did not need to know about that.” Octavia exaggerates a gag. “It’s so predictably Bell and yet so disgusting. Is nothing sacred? Gosh, I'll never be able to visit your house now.” She shudders. “I’m going to go wash my brain out.”

Clarke gets the sense that somehow she thinks it's worse than it was. Personally, she thinks it was...well, sweet. But then Raven did make it sound like they would be doing it on every available surface while the house was being built so, she supposes Octavia's disgust is fair. Shaking her head, Clarke picks up her surgical instruments. “I’ll go with you, Octavia; I need to wash these.” She turns to Raven. “Keep an eye on him for me?”

“Sure thing, Griffin.” She’s still smirking like a fiend.

Clarke scowls at her. “I hope you wind up with Murphy. I hope you have seven of his bratty kids and that they constantly annoy you and pull your hair and generally make your life miserable.”

Raven’s eyes sparkle. “Maybe I will. If he builds me a house.” Clarke flips her off. Raven just laughs.

“Whoa, what did that scalpel ever do to you?” Jasper asks, alarmed. Clarke glares at him and goes back to scrubbing the knife vigorously. “Hey, he’ll be okay. I mean I was, and that grounder had twice the aim Dax did.” He clears his throat. “And, you know, if you tell him I actually said this I’ll be humiliated forever, but like, Bellamy is more than twice as strong as me, so there’s no worries there…”

Clarke ruffles his hair fondly. “Thanks. And I’ll be sure to tell Bellamy about your little man-crush.”

Jasper blushes. “Please don’t. I’m not sure unmitigated envy counts as a man-crush anyway. Besides, I don’t want to move in on your turf.”

Clarke's mouth quirks. “Please, unmitigated envy is exactly the definition of a man-crush. And over half the camp is man-crushing on him. The rest are trying to get in his pants – or back in his pants. So don’t worry, I won’t hold it against you.”

“Yeah, well.” Jasper clears his throat awkwardly. “Monty wanted me to come tell you that he’s got the seaweed tea ready. And he’s been working on something else he thinks might help: Jobi tea.”

“What? How on earth would getting Bellamy high help?”

“Well, it would make him less grumpy for starters, which he probably will be once he gets tired of being cooped up. But most importantly, the idea is if he’s high he won’t feel as much pain.”

Clarke takes a minute to think about that. She’s still sensitive to Jobi nuts as a concept, but. She doesn’t want Bellamy to be in severe pain. Medically, it’s not good for his body, and more pragmatically, if he keeps the whole camp up, moaning like Jasper, it will weaken his status as alpha and possibly even put him in danger. Still, she wants to make sure that Monty gets the dosage right. She imagines that having control of his faculties is as important to Bellamy after their experience at the bunker as it is to her.

“Okay, thanks. I’ll pop over and talk to Monty about it real quick.”

Jasper fidgets. Clarke eyes him carefully. “Was there anything else?”

“Well, you two have been gone for a while, and…a lot has happened. Octavia had been planning this whole big briefing before,” he gestures vaguely to the gate, “you know. We had reports prepared and everything. It’s kind of important. But…”

So Jasper’s stepped up while they’ve been gone. Clarke manages a sincere smile. This is good, they’re going to need strong betas, and he’s right. A lot has happened while they’ve been gone. She needs to find out about what happened to the Ark and get updated on how they’ve been coping since the storm.

“I’m proud of you, Jasper. It sounds like you’ve really helped keep things running here while we were gone. I know Bellamy will appreciate that.” Jasper stands up a little straighter, practically glowing.  “As soon as he’s up to a conversation, which will probably be as soon as he realizes he’s stuck in the dropship, we’ll have that meeting. In the meantime, I can help with anything pressing?”

“Murphy and Miller are burying Dax. He was the shooter. I’m sure they’ll be in to talk about it soon.”

She nods. “Okay, thanks. Anything else?”

He shifts on his feet. “Everything else is…complicated. But I think it will be okay, for today. It’s really not my area anyway.”

“Okay. I’m sure if there was a pressing problem Octavia and Raven would ask. Let me know if you need anything else, Jasper.” She rinses off her tools and goes to find Monty.

By the time she makes it back to the dropship with two cups of tea, it’s time to check Bellamy’s vitals. Really, she should probably try to clean him up or something too, but. Undressing him feels invasive, given the circumstances. Maybe she can delegate that to Octavia somehow.

Bellamy’s pulse is within acceptable bounds, but it is a bit sluggish and weak. He’s still pale too, which worries her the most, since his complexion is decidedly not. He’d lost a good bit of blood. If this was the Ark, she would give him a pint, but down here just figuring out how to set up a safe donation would be difficult. Matching blood types would be impossible.

“Careful, Princess, your face will freeze that way.”

Clarke looks down at him, unimpressed. “I can’t help it. This is my default face when idiots get themselves shot.”

Bellamy laughs, which leads to coughing. She frowns, turning around to dig in her bag for a stethoscope. “Who was it?’ he asks. She pauses, keeps her back to him.

“Jasper said it was Dax.”

Bellamy grunts. “Anyone know why?”

“Not that I’ve heard yet. But apparently, they had a full council meeting planned. Complete with reports. Jasper was excited about it, so I told him I’d let them give us their reports when you started getting restless.”

“So now.”

She chuckles dryly. “Nice try, Blake.” She presses the stethoscope to his chest. “Deep breath.” He sighs, but she waits until he complies. “Okay, another?” She doesn't turn her head to look, but she feels his eyes on her and it makes her fidget. After spending her heat with him, it's hard to make this feel as clinical as it should. 

The good news is his lungs sound clear enough. Hopefully then the cough was just from the painful pull of his torn muscles when he'd laughed. She puts the stethoscope around her neck and gently pulls up the bandage to check the wound itself. It’s red and angry but otherwise clean and dry, so it looks like the cauterizing worked.

She turns to pick up the first cup of tea to hide her relieved sigh.

“How is it?” he asks.

She turns around to find him watching her carefully. So she tries on a small smile. “You were right. Just a scratch. At least as far as I can tell with what I have down here.”

“Which isn’t much.”

“Which isn’t much. But. Your lungs are clear; the wound isn’t oozing anything weird. As long as you don’t have any internal bleeding I don’t know about, the biggest problem is that you lost a lot of blood.”

He looks up at the ceiling, exhales slowly. “So that’s why I’m lightheaded.”

“Yeah. That and, as it turns out, we’ve been eating hallucinogenic nuts all week, which probably hasn’t helped.”

“What?” He raises his head off the table.  

“Yeah.”

He drags a limp hand across his face. “Damn.” He peaks back up at her. “What does that mean for…how were we affected?” His eyes twitch to the corner where Raven is back to cursing at the radio. 

Clarke fingers a roll of bandages carefully, so she doesn't have to meet his eyes. “Well, we already knew something was up, given my conversation with Wells and yours with the Chancellor. So it explains that. Naturally, the Jobi nuts would have helped lower inhibitions as well, but I’m not sure that made much of a difference, given the circumstances. Maybe it just sped things up once the storm hit. I don't know." She shrugs. "But I’d say that’s why things are so…spotty, to remember. Really though, I don’t think it changes anything, from what we talked about before. We didn’t know.” She looks down at the cup in her hand.

“We should have guessed.”

“It’s not like we had any other food options.”

He doesn’t say anything to that, so Clarke clears her throat and tries to refocus the conversation. “Which is the important thing at the moment, because we probably need to get something else into you to help your body deal with the blood loss. Do you think you could keep anything down?”

Bellamy eyes the cup in her hand suspiciously. “Depends what you’re about to dose me with.”

“This is the same seaweed tea I gave Jasper. I want to make sure that you don’t get an infection.”

“Fine,” he relents, and Clarke slips her arm around his shoulders to lift him up. As she raises the cup to his lips, she feels him studying her and tries not to blush. She probably fails – especially when he lays his head on her chest to catch his breath after a long sip. The urge to cradle him to her, to protect him and hold him until he feels better hits her like a freight train, and she physically reels back a fraction before she can stop herself.

Her heart and her ovaries are about to explode, and she hopes to god he can’t hear or smell it.  

But there’s an arrogant twinkle in his eye when he raises up again, like he knows exactly what he did to her and he did it on purpose. The little shit. She makes him finish the tea this time, out of spite.

“What’s in the other one?” he asks when his ear is back over her heart.

Which means that her plan of lying to him for his own good goes right out the window. She sighs. “If I ask how much pain you’re in, will you give me an honest answer?”

“So it’s moonshine? I’d have to get really drunk to make this better, Clarke.”

“Not quite.” She squeezes the empty cup tightly to keep herself from running her hand through his hair. “Monty whipped up a new prescription just for you. It’s Jobi nut tea, Bellamy. I made sure he diluted it with water–”

“No.”

“But–”

“I said no.” He pulls back with a surprising amount of force. “I’ve been high all week. I’m sick of it.”

“Being in too much pain is bad for you, Bellamy. It will slow your recovery down. And I told him to err on the side of caution – it might not even make you high at all.”

He snorts dismissively. “If Monty actually thinks that it will take away the pain of getting shot, I’ll be as high as a fucking kite, Clarke. No.”

Sighing again, she concedes. “I won’t make you take it of course. But I wish you’d at least consider it. Even if you only drink half of it.” Carefully she lowers him back to the makeshift pillow Harper had brought in after the surgery. “Please.”

He sets his jaw. “I can’t see them again, Clarke.”

She frowns. “See who?”

“Just – nevermind. It doesn’t matter. I don’t want it, Princess.” It’s the closest he’s come to the sneering malice of their first day on the ground in – a while, actually. Whatever this is about, it has him rattled.

“Okay, okay,” she says, setting the cup back on the table. “Then I won’t give it to you – unless you’re pulling a Jasper, deal?”

He snorts. “If I get as bad as Jasper did, you should just put me out of my misery.” He must catch the look on her face then, because his face softens. “Too soon?”

“Clearly.” She doesn’t think it will ever stop being too soon. “Don't even joke like that. I told you, I’m not doing this without you. You promised.”

The warm, barely there smile he gives her melts some of the anxiety that had frozen around her heart. “Don't worry. You’re gonna be stuck with me for quite a while, Princess.”

“Bell!” Clarke turns and sees Octavia has ducked through the canvas and is halfway to her brother by now. “You’re awake!”

He gives her a soft grin. “Hey, O.” Octavia already has her arms wrapped around his shoulders, and Bellamy spits out her hair dramatically. “You know, I’d almost think you’d miss me or something.”

Octavia snaps upright and punches his shoulder. “Of course I would, you fucking moron. Just because I don’t follow you around all the goddamn time and threaten anyone who looks at you twice doesn’t mean I don’t love you.” She turns her head, stubbornly blinking back tears. “You’re my best friend, Bell. My only friend until–” Giving up, she swipes at her eyes. “Atom told me once that I wasn’t crazy because of you and how much you loved me, took care of me. And he was right. I wouldn't have made it, wouldn't have wanted to make it, if I didn't have you. So just because I don’t want you following me around everywhere or trying to keep me cooped up anymore doesn’t mean that you aren’t one of the most important people in my world.”

“One of them?” Bellamy’s tone is supposed to be indignant, but his voice cracks a bit. His eyes are definitely wet. 

Octavia smiles through her tears. “Yeah. Definitely in the top ten.”

“Ten!” This time he actually does sound offended, but he pulls her in for another hug.

“Maybe five.”

Clarke ducks out silently before they can catch her crying. It’s just – she’s never been around siblings before, but now she’s envious. What she had with Wells was close, and seeing Bellamy and Octavia together and happy makes her ache for her best friend. But the truth is that even that friendship was missing the something that make Bellamy and Octavia what they are. And damn if Clarke doesn’t wish she had something like that. It’s beautiful, to see someone love someone else so much, no matter what, for no other reason than being family.

And she knows how much seeing his sister again after the week she was missing means to Bellamy. So, to give them some space, she walks over to find him something to eat that won’t be too heavy on his stomach. She’s not quite sure what, though. Meat seems like it would be too much, too soon. Berries with seeds are hard to digest. Obviously, Jobi nuts are out of the question.

“How’s the boss man?”

Clarke looks up to see Miller, walking beside her and looking concerned, Bellamy's rifle strapped to his back. She hadn't expected him to seek her out like this, so he'd snuck up on her. She’d forgotten how much Bellamy means to people like him, too. Smiling, she pats his shoulder. “He lost a lot of blood, but he got lucky. He’s awake now and as cranky as normal, so I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

Miller’s shoulders relax. “Good. Tell him I’ve got everything covered. We’ve been sticking to the shifts, and Murphy and I have the guns, so…” He shrugs. So tell him I’ll protect the camp for him until he’s ready to take back over.

Clarke smiles. Bellamy chose his beta well. “I will. He’ll probably get bored and want to talk to you about how things have been tomorrow.”

Miller nods, and Clarke thinks he’s even puffed out his chest a bit. “Just let me know.” He strides confidently back to the gate. A really good choice.

When she makes it to the fire pit, she gets another surprise. Murphy’s standing over a large scrap-metal pot, another gun slung over his shoulder, stirring something with a scrap-metal spoon. She’s so shocked that it takes her a moment to realize he’s arguing with Monty.

“Like hell you’re putting pine needles in my soup.”

“They’re a good source of vitamin C! You don’t want anyone to get scurvy, do you?”

“Do I look like I care?”

“You’ll care when it’s you with the scurvy.”

“If you’re so worried about it, eat pine needles on your own time. They’re not going in.”

Clarke blinks, confused. Since when did Murphy cook? Since when did they have a pot?

Monty gives a long-suffering sigh. “Well, your soup should taste like something and right now it doesn’t taste like anything.”

“How would you know? You haven’t tried it yet. As it happens, the leg bone I saved from last night will create a nice broth and enhance the natural flavor of the venison. Plus we got those carrot things. A–”

“You mean the roots of Queen Anne’s Lace.”

“Yeah, whatever. The point is, even if my soup was tasteless, which it’s not, that would be better than having it taste like fucking pine. So fuck off.”

“Fine. But when Bellamy gets sick because his immune system has been weakened and he hasn’t got enough vitamin C, you’ll have to explain why to Clarke.”

Murphy glowers. “Go make some stupid tea or something then. But you are not–” A random kid bumps into Monty from behind, knocking him off balance and practically into the fire. Arms flailing, he manages to keep from getting burned, but the pine needles slip from his hands into the pot. Murphy yanks him back and utters a string of curses that make Monty blush.

“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t–”

Murphy rounds on him, grabs his shirt collar. “I told you to leave me alone. Now look what you’ve done. I ought to make you eat it all. Every. Single. Pine-flavored bite. What kind of fucking moron wants pine-flavored venison? Huh? Huh?”

For the first time since they’ve landed Clarke finds herself laughing sincerely. Both boys’ heads swivel to look at her. Monty’s ears turn pink. Murphy clears his throat. “Why are you two making soup?”

“I was making soup. This idiot just ruined it.” Murphy lets go of Monty and petulantly goes back to his spoon.

Stumbling back a bit, Monty shrugs apologetically. “We need to make sure everyone’s getting a balanced diet.”

“Ass-kisser,” Murphy mutters under his breath. Monty blushes. “Oh, yeah? Why are you making soup in the first place?” he hisses. Murphy straightens again.

Clarke manages to catch her breath and decides to put them out of their misery. “Bellamy’s so out of it, I’m sure he won’t notice.” It’s a lie, but she’ll tell him the whole story, and he’ll get just as big a bang out of it as she did and it will be worth it. Even if the soup is horrid. (The thought of actually eating a pine needle certainly is.)

Murphy grumbles, but he doesn’t threaten Monty with bodily harm again, so Clarke counts it a win. “How much longer will it take, do you think?”

Murphy shrugs. “Dunno. I don’t know how people typically like their pine needles.” He glares at Monty again. Clarke bites back a snicker.

Clearing her throat, she tries to be diplomatic. “I rather imagine we’ll all prefer to eat around them…so I’m sure whatever you think best will be fine.” Monty’s still standing there awkwardly, so clearly she’s going to have to be the one to separate them. She sighs. “Monty, do we have any apples left? Bellamy seems to like those a lot. I’d like to try him on that first.”

“Uh yeah, sure. Be right back.” Monty scurries off, and Murphy shoots one last glare at his back.

“I don’t see how Bellamy does it,” he mutters. “One week, and I’m already sick of them. Tell him he better be back on his feet soon; they’re his stupid kids, not mine.”

Clarke can’t help but laugh again. “He told me once that it’s not easy being in charge. I guess he was talking about more than just making the big decisions.”

Murphy snorts. “The big decisions are the easy part.”

She thinks about that while he carefully stirs their dinner, and by the time Monty appears, Clarke thinks that maybe Murphy’s right – at least most of the time. The big decisions are rough, but most of the time, what she has to do has always been clear as long as she can live with the guilt, like with Atom. The day to day minutia is what takes up most of her time. And then she finds herself looking forward to the day when the delinquents are grown up enough to take care of themselves.

Monty returns with an apple and an excuse about how Jasper needs his help with something. Murphy promises to bring a bowl to the dropship when the soup is ready. “I make no promises it’s actually edible now,” he scowls, and Clarke nods.

When she slips back inside the dropship, the sibling moment is over, and Octavia is wheedling Bellamy into teaching her how to shoot a gun. He’s grousing about how she shouldn't be in a situation where she’d need to use one, but, given how Bellamy had insisted on teaching her, Clarke suspects it’s mostly an act just to provoke his sister.

“That’s not fair, Bell! You taught Clarke to shoot, and look how absolutely badass she was, saving your life.”

Clarke feels her stomach tighten. She’s been avoiding thinking about that. It’s frightening, in hindsight, how quick she was to kill someone for hurting Bellamy. How little she regrets it, even though Dax has to have family. Friends. Maybe even someone he loved...and Clarke put a bullet through his brain without blinking.

She clears her throat. “Let’s not be celebrating the fact that I had to commit murder,” she says softly, pulling over a crate to sit on.

There’s an awkward beat of silence before Bellamy clears his throat too. “She’s right, O. I’ll teach you, but. Just remember that it’s a serious thing, to shoot someone.” He looks a bit haunted. He must be thinking about Jaha. Clarke wonders if that’s what he meant when he said he couldn’t see them again: the ghosts of the sins he felt responsible for.

To distract herself, Clarke sanitizes her knife before sitting down to slice the apple. Octavia carefully props Bellamy up against her and holds her left hand out like a plate. Bellamy seems to be feeling better (or doesn't find being fed by his sister so appealing) because he manages to feed himself slowly. While he eats, Clarke tells them about the soup debacle, and Bellamy does sputter out a laugh.

“You’re telling me that Murphy was cooking? In the middle of camp? Willingly?”

“Yep. I think we might have broke reality.”

The corner of his mouth twitches up. “Plausible. But wait. He was making it for me? He and Monty. They were arguing about making soup. For me.”

“And you’re going to have to pretend to at least not hate it.”

He stares at her disbelievingly. “But why?”

Clarke shrugs. “No idea.”

“Murphy really stepped up while you were gone, from what I hear.” Octavia shrugs. “Maybe he just grew up some. But also, it’s weird how much they like you, big brother. Like, it was a pain in the ass, just keeping them from worrying themselves to death while you were gone. Especially when they were all high.”

Bellamy frowns, considering. “I still don’t understand why though.”

Raven looks up from whatever it is she's doing. “You’re the pack alpha. What else were you expecting?” The three of them just stare at her. “Please don’t tell me none of you know anything about pack bonds.”

Clarke shrugs. “Only what I could pick up on the Ark, which – doesn’t really count.”

Raven snorts. “Not the way it worked in the government, anyway.” She shrugs. “Listen, it’s just that a real pack is family. Like, you’re literally a surrogate dad to them now, and they know it. So of course they want to make sure you’re okay. And they want your approval. Maybe not everyone in the hundred feels that way, but the ones closest to you definitely will."

“Aren’t they supposed to be challenging me or something?”

Raven grins. “I mean, I could if it would make you feel better. But being pack alpha sounds like a pain in the ass. Plus, Clarke might shoot me, if I put you in danger. So I think I’ll pass.” Clarke twists her hands in her lap. She would. If Raven was a real threat, she knows she would and that scares her. “Seriously though, they already have. Murphy’s little stunt, my order to Clarke that time, and obviously Dax and Finn were all challenges to your authority. But you won everyone's trust and loyalty in the end so, congrats - you’ve just adopted ninety some fucked up kids.”

Bellamy looks stunned. Like he's achieved a dream but also like can’t quite believe they’d want him, and it breaks Clarke's heart a bit. But then his face clouds over. “What happens to that when the Ark comes down?”

Raven swallows. “That's the thing; I’m not sure they are.”

Chapter Text

The world spins around Clarke as Raven tells them about losing contact with the Ark on Unity Day and not being able to reach them again no matter what she tried. That the radio problems had to be on their side, and that means – That means her father overestimated how long the Ark had left.

The knife slips out of her hand and clatters to the floor.

“Clarke! You’ve cut yourself,” Octavia says.

She has. A thin red line runs diagonally across her palm. “It’s just a scratch,” she shrugs, wiping her palm on her jeans. “Nothing to worry about.” She picks up her knife and ducks out of the dropship before anyone can say anything else. Before Bellamy can say anything else. Not that he would, but. She’d probably have to listen to him if he did.

Outside, Clarke doesn’t know where to go. People are everywhere. Bellamy will have a cow if she leaves camp, and she doesn’t even want to – she’s still sore and exhausted – but she does want to be alone. And there’s nowhere to do that in camp. She never even had a tent to herself. Then she catches Miles headed her way and ducks behind the dropship, pressing her back tightly to the warm metal.

Thankfully, Miles doesn’t follow her. Letting out a breath, Clarke allows herself to sink slowly to the ground. Her heart feels empty and numb, like it was drained and then wrung out. She’s mated to a man who doesn’t really want that sort of emotional relationship with her, and now her mother’s dead. For all her faults, Clarke hadn’t really felt alone in the world until now. Before, she’d always had her mother; just the knowledge that she was out there, fighting to make sure Clarke survived Earth, sending Raven down… As adamant as she had been that she could survive without Abby Griffin, Clarke realizes now that she’d never quite believed she’d have to. She’d thought that the Ark would eventually come to terms with the delinquent’s new pack and that they’d be able to be allies – twin colonies of sorts.

Now they were all alone.

Clarke’s all alone. No one in the whole universe loves her now. Bellamy will help keep her alive, and he’ll probably be willing to help her through future heats since they are mates now, but… No one else will want to hear about her day or her dreams or comfort her when she’s scared, now that both of her parents are dead.

And the thing she hates the most is that she didn’t want her mom to do those things for her anymore. She was still angry with her.

…she’d wasted the last time she’d had with her mother being angry just like she had with Wells. Her father had been right; even though Clarke still hated what Abby had done, she’d been her mother. No amount of hate or anger could have brought her father back, and his death had broken her mother too. Clarke had seen that firsthand.

She wishes she’d listened to Jaha and at least let her mom apologize. At least heard someone say they loved her one last time. She doesn’t cry; somehow, she can’t.

She thinks she might feel better if she could.

“You should come eat something before our fearless leader bursts a blood vessel.” Clarke squints through the darkness to see Murphy striding around the corner, holding a bowl. “He swears it’s edible, but I’m not sure if he’s just saying that because you told him to or not. So if he lied, and it’s awful, that’s on you.”

He plops the bowl in Clarke’s hands, and even though she scrambles to keep from dropping it, the broth sloshes over anyway. “Murphy,” she snarls when she sees that it’s stained her only shirt. Not that it matters, but…being covered in blood is one thing. Looking like someone who can’t even feed themselves properly is another.

“Oops. Sorry, princess.” He doesn’t sound sorry at all. “But you better get eating. I have to make sure you do, orders of the king and all. But frankly I have better things to do than babysit you.”

Clarks scowls. “Murphy, you’re an ass.”

“So I’ve been told.”

Glaring at him, she tilts the bowl and sips some of the broth. It is good. Frustratingly good, given the fact that the hint of pine actually makes it better than expected.

“Now, I’d ask what’s bothering you, but I don’t actually care.”

“Your compassion is moving.”

“Legendary, I’d say. But don’t worry, his majesty is in there holding court, trying to distract himself from getting up and coming after you himself. So feel free to go cry on his shoulder.”

“Now you’re just being a dick.” Clarke squints at him. “I think you’re just jealous.”

“Of Bellamy over you?” Murphy snorts. “I thought you were more intelligent than that.”

Clarke’s mouth twists. “You know, it was interesting that you were standing so close to Raven yesterday, before the shot went off. And that you were the one to save her when Finn lost his mind.”

“What can I say? I’m a survivor. And we need her to survive.” But there’s something in the way he fidgets that makes Clarke think she’s struck a nerve. He’s not jealous of her or Bellamy, but of what he thinks they have.

She finishes her soup in silence and hands him the empty bowl. “Thanks, Murphy.”

“Of course. I’ll gladly bring you food any time I’m ordered to,” he throws over his shoulder as he turns away.

She can help the way her mouth twitches up. “You know, I hear Raven wants you to build her a house.”

Murphy freezes for half a second, sucking in a deep breath. “Noted.”

At least they don’t have to be alone, she thinks, watching him disappear around the dropship.

It’s dark when she feels settled enough to go back in the dropship. By now, Bellamy will be asleep, and she can check him before curling up in the hammock across from him. If she’s lucky, she won’t even have to speak to anyone.

She isn’t lucky. Bellamy’s awake and watching for her. “Doing alright there, Princess?”

Clarke squares her shoulders. “Fine.” She keeps her face carefully blank while she checks his wound. “The real question is how are you feeling?”

“Better.” He sighs. “Monty talked me into drinking the tea after they caught me up on Dax.”

A wry smile twists her mouth. “I’ll have to ask him how he did that. But good. That will help you heal faster, and you don’t seem high?”

“Not really, no.”

“Not really?”

“I’m fine, Clarke. But you should get some rest.” He looks over her worriedly, and she sighs.

“I know. And I will, once I get you settled.”

“Well, now you have.”

She finishes checking his vitals. “Good night then, Bellamy.” And she curls up in the hammock facing away from him, so he doesn’t smell her tears as she remembers her parents tucking her in as a child.

"Goodnight, Clarke." 

She bites her lip to keep it from trembling even more. It's selfish, but...she's glad she's not alone, alone. 

She keeps Bellamy in the dropship for two more weeks, despite his petulance. Aside from the blood loss, he’s fine, but she doesn’t want to let him up just for him to over-do it and pass out. And it’s nice – not that he’s hurt, of course, but that he’s there to make snarky comments when Jasper comes in with a splinter or when Miles twists his ankle tripping over a root.

In the afternoons, Octavia, Raven, Murphy, Miller, Monty, and Jasper come in to report the camp’s progress. They’ve started making blankets and coats for the coming winter, as well as drying meats and berries (that aren’t hallucinogenic). Bellamy wants to get them building cabins too (Clarke furiously rewraps a bandage to hide her blush when Raven looks over at her with a smirk), but Octavia says that they should talk to Lincoln about making a permanent treaty first. Building anything permanent without permission is likely to make them a target.

“She’s right you know,” Clarke says softly, once everyone else has left and she’s peeling him an apple.

“About what?” Bellamy huffs.

“We need to make sure we have peace with the Grounders before we settle here permanently. We don’t want to be halfway through building and get attacked. Or for them to decide they want their land back in three years.” She swallows hard, trying not to think about what that might mean.

“I know, Clarke.” He runs a hand down his face. “I know. But they put a spear in Jasper just for crossing the river. That doesn’t exactly say they want to make friends. We need to be prepared for that.”

Clarke frowns down at the apple in her palm. “Then we’ll go somewhere else. Lincoln should know where their boundaries are. It’s only been a hundred years, there’s got to be somewhere they haven’t settled yet.”

“We’d have to get there, Clarke. They probably wouldn’t want us tramping across their land if they don’t want us living on it. And we’d have to get there, Clarke. Who knows how long that would take.”

She tightens her grip on the apple. “Well it would be better than fighting a war we can’t win, Bellamy!”

He pushes himself up and swings his legs over the table, glaring at her and daring her to stop him as he stands. “Do you think I want to fight a war, Clarke? Do you?” He sucks in a deep, angry breath. “This isn’t even really a defensible position. If we were on Mount Weather, that would be something, but here we’re just sitting ducks. A bunch of scared kids who don’t know anything. But I’ll be damned if I let anyone hurt my family. And I’m not going to drag you all over creation when you’re–”

Clarke’s head jerks up. “When I’m what, Bellamy?” Her voice is low, dangerous.

The muscle in Bellamy’s jaw is twitching. He flexes his fingers around the side of the table. “I know you don’t want to talk about it yet,” he says softly, “but that won’t make it any less true, Clarke.”

“Bellamy,” she breathes.

“I mean it, Clarke. We’re going to have to talk about it eventually.”

“Not until we know for sure–”

“I can smell it, Clarke.”

“What?” She’s on her feet, stumbling backwards over her stool into the table behind her.

“You’re pregnant; I can smell it.”

“How is that even possible? And besides, you’ve already said my scent’s changed since you marked me, it could just be that.”

Bellamy shakes his head. “This is…it’s different. It’s been getting stronger. It’s like…like I can smell your body chemistry changing. I'm not sure anyone else can. Raven hasn’t said anything, so maybe I’m the only one who can tell since – anyway. You’re going to have to stop pretending that what we did didn’t have consequences, Princess.”

Clarke pushes herself forward. “You think I don’t know that?!” She scoffs. “Bellamy, I fucking killed someone for you. Without thinking. I just knew I had to, so I did. I grabbed a gun, and I shot him, and I can’t even pretend to be sorry about it because he hurt you, even though I’m sure he had a family and people who loved him too and–” She sucks in a breath. “And it scares me, what I would do for you. I can’t even imagine what I’d do if…” If anyone tried to hurt our baby. She wraps her arms around herself and looks at her shoes. She won’t cry. She won’t.

“Hey.” His hand slots in the groove of her left cheekbone perfectly, so that he can wipe away her tears with his thumb while cradling her head. “I won’t let it come to that, Princess. I promise.” And he pulls her in to him until she’s pressed tight against his chest, holding on to him for dear life.

"My family's dead. All of them. This – this is all I have left, and I can't – what if I screw it all up? What if I can't protect them?"

He rubs circles on her back. "You will. I know you will, Clarke. You'll do whatever it takes. And so will I. We'll burn this whole world down to keep our child safe, if we have to." He brushes a thumb over her scent gland, reminding her that he's alive and well and hers. "I'll take care of you, both of you, no matter what. You hear me, Princess? No matter what." 

She may be crying, but it’s the safest she’s felt in days.

They tell Octavia to set up a meeting with Lincoln as soon as possible, to discuss their options. When she returns, she tells them to be ready to go with her in three days. It takes a lot of convincing, but Bellamy finally agrees to let Clarke go with them when Octavia assures him that her presence is crucial and that it will just be them and Lincoln, as close to camp as they can manage. 

He still doesn't look happy, but Clarke refuses to miss this meeting. It's her baby's future on the line too. 

As soon as she tells him that, Bellamy stops fighting. Sighing, he runs a hand through his hair. "Okay. But I'm not trusting any of the other Grounders. Not with you," he says, tone final. 

"I know," she says, and she does. She wouldn't trust them with him, either. 

That night, when she curls up in her hammock, she wishes he was holding her, which is foolish. He doesn't want her crying all over him all the time. 

She breathes in a shuddering breath and reminds herself it's going to be okay. She's going to have a baby – she's going to have Bellamy Blake's baby – but it's going to be okay. Because they're a family. And she's not alone. 

"Bellamy?" she asks softly. 

"Hmm?" 

"Can you tell me a story?" 

He laughs softly. "You want me to tell you a bedtime story, Princess?" She shivers at the nickname. It sounds more fond than contemptuous, now. 

"Yeah. Tell me about Hestia." 

Breathing out a long sigh, he clears his throat. "Well, it starts with a woman named Pandora. Some say that Zeus made her especially to curse humanity. Others say that he simply manipulated her and her curiosity. But either way, Pandora's husband had been entrusted with a box he was supposed to make sure was never opened. He didn't tell her why, which makes him sound like an idiot, but one day when he was gone, she picked it up. It was a beautiful box of course," Bellamy yawns. "Covered in jewels and made of gold. Pandora knew that whatever was inside must be just as beautiful, so she gave into temptation and opened the box, just to peak. But before she knew what was happening, all these horrible things started flying out to torment humanity. Greed, malice, lust, any vice you could image flew out of the box. At that moment, Pandora realized what she had done, and she fell to the ground in tears. But then she heard a small voice calling out to her and looked down to see that there was one last creature left in the box."

"Hestia," Clarke whispers. 

"Hestia." She can almost hear Bellamy's smile. "Hope. She stayed. Later, she became the goddess of the hearth, to remind people to always have hope." 

"That's a good story," she whispers, pressing both hands to her stomach. He was right to pick that as his legacy. He'll have to tell that story to the baby when it comes.  

"Glad you like it, Princess. Now get some sleep." 

Clarke smiles softly in spite of herself and closes her eyes. "Good night, Bellamy."  

Chapter Text

“I have to get the rest of those guns today,” Bellamy says immediately after Clarke is finished checking him over the next morning. “I shouldn’t have let it go this long.” She's just cleared him to leave her makeshift hospital, and it looks like he has absolutely no understanding of what "return to light activities" means. (Which is why she kept him confined to the dropship longer than she would have for any other patient, just to be safe.)

Clarke swallows and looks down as he pulls on the new shirt Jasper and Octavia scrounged up for him. She knew this was coming, knows he’s right but… “I’m going with you.”

He freezes, and she sighs. She really didn’t want this to be a fight; she doesn't actually like fighting with him, for the record. “Why?” he asks carefully, his tone telling her he doesn’t like where this is going, but he's still listening.

“You know why,” she says, because he does. When he's silent for a beat too long, she looks up to meet his eyes. They’re determined but pained, like he doesn’t want to fight her either. Like he wants her to give him another, logical reason that will make her presence worth the potential risk even to him.

So she does. “We need those blankets, Bellamy. We’ll need every scrap of fabric we can get when it snows, and the temperatures have already started to drop. I have to bring them back and wash them, so we can hand them out.”

He looks away and sighs, and she knows she’s won. The idea of disrupting their nest is painful enough, much less giving away their blankets. He knows she won’t let anyone else retrieve them, and, frankly, there’s no way he wants anyone else doing it either, just like he didn’t want anyone else going down there for the guns.

Bellamy sucks in a deep breath that means he’s officially shifted into Rebel King mode. He’s looking at Clarke, but he yells, “Raven!” so loud she knows they’ll hear him outside the dropship. Clarke forces herself to hold his gaze without fidgeting, even though there’s a weight to it she hasn’t felt since she was defending him to the council.

It feels longer than it should, long enough that Clarke feels just a bit too vulnerable, but eventually Raven flounces in. “You bellowed?”

“Get me Murphy and Jasper; tell them to bring the guns. The five of us are going to bring back the rest of the supplies from the bunker.”

“Oh, hell no.”

Clarke jumps at the force of her statement, and Bellamy tenses up at the stark challenge.

“Calm down, I’m not – It’s – Look,” Raven says, holding up her hands, “it’s not like I don’t get that this is important and all. But none of us want to be anywhere near your little sex-fest den.”

Clarke chokes and looks away from Bellamy so fast, she might have given herself whiplash. When she manages to draw a breath and sneak a glance over at him, he looks a bit like he swallowed a frog that got stuck in his esophagus and is currently trying to wriggle the rest of the way down his windpipe on its own. She imagines she has a similar expression. 

But Raven eyes them unapologetically. “Y’all reeked bad enough when you first came back. In fact, no offence, but you still reek, just more mixed with B.O. now. No way am I getting my nose within a mile of that bunker. God – underground like that? It would still be flooded with enough pheromones to choke a horse, even after a month.”

Bellamy’s nostrils flare. “You’re only going as a protection detail for when we’re in transit. In fact, you’ll be watching the perimeter of the clearing the whole time we’re down there to make sure we don’t get any more surprises like Dax.” Frowning, Raven opens her mouth, but he snaps, “And that’s not a request, Reyes.”

Raven purses her lips and raises her eyebrows. “You gonna make that an alpha command, Blake?”

“I will if I need to.”

Clarke looks between them and tries not to sigh. Raven does have a valid point that they’ve been trying fairly hard to ignore, but she's also gotten Bellamy unnecessarily worked up about it. “I thought you said you were done challenging him?” she asks quietly.

Raven pauses a moment. “Yeah, well, that was before he started being an asshole.” But she leans back and lets her body relax a bit.

Bellamy snorts. “I’ve always been an asshole, Reyes, since before we even opened the dropship door. Don’t know how you missed that.”

Clarke’s mouth twitches, remembering. “He's right about that; it’s part of his charm. Or at least it would be if he had any charm.”

“Hey,” Bellamy says sharply, but he’s smirking at her, and all the tension that filled the air just a second ago is gone. “Careful there, Princess. You like my charm.” He looks so different than he did just seconds ago, standing there teasing her now – more real somehow. And she does like it.

“Anyway,” she says, fighting down that thought and turning to Raven, “we really do need you to come along. I have to go, and I don’t think he’ll be able to let me otherwise.”

She raises an eyebrow. “A little overkill, don’t you think, Blake? Especially if you’re going with her.”

He exchanges a glance with Clarke, asking for permission. She doesn’t want to give it, but really, it’s not like she can keep the secret much longer anyway. And for all Raven’s faults, she’s no gossip. Clarke nods. Bellamy steps in closer to Raven and puts his hand on her shoulder. “Raven. She’s pregnant.”

Raven’s breath hitches, and there’s some silent communication between them, clearly an alpha thing. Something Clarke can’t understand. She wraps her arms around herself and watches a small spider in the corner by the door, waiting for them to finish. Finally, Raven steps back from Bellamy and nods. “Only the perimeter.”

His mouth ticks up. “Promise.”

“Alright,” she sighs. “I’ll go argue with the boys. But you owe me one, Blake,” she calls over her shoulder.

“Twenty minutes by the gate!” he yells after her before turning to Clarke. “Okay, Princess, one last thing.”

“What? Gonna carry me there?” She doesn’t mean to be snarky, but there’s a whole cocktail of emotions being shaken up in her at the moment. Like how their whole alpha telepathy thing made her hyper aware of how much more Raven has in common with Bellamy than she does and–

Bellamy gives her a look. “Don’t be difficult; I’m trying to compromise here.” He frowns. “Did you not want me to tell her? It was the only way to explain–”

“I know,” Clarke cuts in, feeling guilty. “I know. It’s just…I would have liked more time to get used to knowing before telling anyone else. Telling Raven…just makes it real in a weird way, you know?” Makes it something that's less exclusively hers in a way. 

There’s sympathy in his eyes when he says, “Yeah. I know.”

And for the first time, Clarke wonders how long Bellamy has known for sure that she’s pregnant. She wants to be mad at him for keeping it from her, but really, it was one of those things Clarke should have assumed was inevitable after a heat spent with an alpha and no birth control. She wonders what it was like for him to tell her, to force it to be real for both of them.

She steels herself and finds a conciliatory tone. “What else do you need?”

It’s not Bellamy’s fault, really. In any circumstances involving a pregnant mate, alpha instincts would make him overprotective and clingy. But given the nature of how they ended up in this situation to begin with and the way death lurks everywhere here on the ground, his instincts are probably in hyperdrive.

“I need to scent you.”

Well. She still wasn’t expecting that. “Um…Why? I thought our scents had already mixed because of the whole mated pair thing.”

“They have, but…it’s not the same. Right now, it’s clear that you belong to me. Beyond that, though, you still…” He shoves a hand through his hair in frustration. “Look, I don’t really know how to explain it. I know it’s ridiculous and that you can take care of yourself and that scenting you probably won’t matter either way. Logically, I know that. But there’s something inside me that – that says if I don’t, something bad will happen, and you’ll somehow be the target because this time the panther will smell the baby and decide you’re the weakest link and–”

He looks up at her, pleading, and if she wasn’t already slammed in the gut with him saying the baby instead of the pregnancy like it’s already a person to him, the look his eyes and the bitter smell of his desperation on her tongue would have decided her. Like going to the bunker is nonnegotiable for her, scenting her is nonnegotiable for him.

“Okay,” she says, and he straightens up, blinking.

“Okay?”

“This is really important to you right? So yeah, go ahead. I can compromise too, Bellamy.”

He snorts, but his lips twitch up. “I’ll believe it when I see it, Princess.”

She rolls her eyes in mock annoyance and holds out her wrists for him. He steps up, just close enough to take them and massage them gently yet efficiently. But despite their best efforts to keep this business-like, a shiver races down Clarke’s spine, and Bellamy purrs in response. Her head snaps up, but he won’t meet her eyes, so she looks back down.

The thing about scenting is that, unless it’s parent-child, it really can’t be a platonic thing. And Clarke hadn’t remembered that when she agreed to this. Or maybe she'd thought that having his thumb on her scent gland wouldn’t be as big a deal as it had been when she’d been dangling above those spikes because of everything else they’d done since.

But the muscles in her arms are relaxing until they’re almost entirely limp, and she’s breaking into goosebumps. And his scent. It’s the slightest bit different. There’s a note there – whiskey maybe, like they found in the car – that wasn’t there before, but otherwise, the familiar wood smoke and mint envelops her, making her head spin and her soul feel warm, safe. There can’t possibly be anything to be afraid of when he’s here making her smell like this. She can’t hold back her moan anymore, has forgotten why she thought she had to. She can trust Bellamy with anything. He is our Alpha; we never have to hide from him.

“Princess,” he breathes out, almost shuddering. His palms slip gently up her forearms to her back, and he pulls her toward him, burying his face in the crook of her neck. His nose slides against her scent gland until his lips just barely brush over it too. “Omega,” he growls, lips moving against her gland, and her whole body spasms.

He shifts so that it’s his forehead pressing against her now and pauses, breathing heavily. Clarke swallows and brings her arms up loosely around him, shoving her face into his shoulder so she can breathe him in deeper. God, she’s probably high. She feels almost as disoriented and sensitive as she did when the jobi nuts started kicking in.

Bellamy takes a deep breath before nuzzling her neck on one side and then the other. He’s holding his breath now, she realizes, which is odd. And he keeps his jaw clenched, refusing to lick the glands on her neck like she wants him to. She whimpers, desperate for the swipe of his tongue, the graze of his teeth. For him to pull her closer so she can feel the solidness of his chest against hers. For his hands to smooth over her– 

He straightens and lifts his head away, but pulls her closer to him, cradling a hand around the side of her head and pressing her right ear to his heart. She feels its rapid beat against her check, but it takes a minute before she can hear it over the blood rushing through her ears. When she does, she realizes that he’s shushing her, rubbing her back with his other hand and holding her still until she comes down.

When she does, she feels a bit mortified, but she can’t quite bring herself to be the first one to pull away. So instead she asks, “Is that good?”

“It’ll do,” Bellamy grunts, chest vibrating under her ear and sending another shiver through her.

She forces herself to pull back then. “Okay.”

He clears his throat. “Okay, yeah. Gather up everything you think you’ll need and meet us by the gate.”

She nods. She has nothing to gather up – she keeps her knife on her at all times – but she grabs her pack and stumbles out of the dropship like she does. Thankfully, she narrowly avoids making a fool of herself by walking straight through Murphy’s firepit. When she looks around quickly to make sure no one was watching, her eyes immediately meet Raven’s, who is already at the gate with the guys.

Raven smirks at her, like she knows exactly what happened after she left them in the dropship. Of course she does; she can smell it a mile away, literally. Clarke frowns and starts a conversation with Monty about what herbs she should try to keep an eye out for on their trip despite the fact that she already knows what they're running low on – she helped him do inventory two days ago. But Monty, bless him, doesn't even blink when she asks him the same question twice. Finally, Bellamy strides up, grabs a gun out of Jasper’s hands, and snaps, “Let’s go.”

Clarke files in behind him and pointedly ignores the smug look Raven’s giving her.

Chapter Text

Bellamy puts Raven, Murphy, and Jasper on the perimeter and carries up the guns before he lets her go down. But when he does, he’s careful to let her go alone, which Clarke is grateful for. It feels so contradictory, climbing the ladder down into a destroyed bunker and walking past a skeleton to a nest that feels like her only safe space – where she mated a man that she hardly knows during a heat neither of them can really remember. Where she conceived the child of a man who now acts like they’ve never kissed.

She’s not even sure what she feels about that.

But when she’s back inside her nest, kneeling on blankets that smell like them, all she wants to do is curl up underneath them and hide away from the rest of the world, so she does. But it’s cold, and lonely, without Bellamy curled around her. The concrete is uncomfortable too. Clarke sits up with a huff and tosses her blanket to the far side of the nest.

She’s being foolish, she knows, but she just wants a space that’s hers. That’s safe. And this felt…special, given the significance of what happened here. But nowhere is safe on the ground.

She scowls and grabs a tub, stuffing blankets into it as fast as she can until a large, hairy spider scuttles out from under one, and she screams as she jumps back in surprise. They stare at each other for a long moment while Clarke tries to figure out how to proceed. This was never an issue in space.

“Clarke! Are you okay?” Bellamy calls, darting down the stairs toward her.

She looks at him and then back at the spider helplessly. “Um…yeah. I’m fine; I just…” she gestures at the creature vaguely.

“Oh god!” He jumps back with her. “I didn’t know they got so big.”

“Me neither.”

They stand there a minute, but Bellamy seems as inclined to confront it as she is. It’s the final nail in the coffin of her romanticization of her nest. Ridiculously, she feels her eyes begin to water. Bellamy looks up at her in concerned surprise.

She shakes her head, answering his silent question. “No, it’s – it’s just after…everything this felt like a – a place that was mine and safe, you know? A hundred people weren’t trying to bother us here. And nobody was shooting at us, and the Ark wasn’t gone and – and I guess I built it up in my head. But it never really– ” She stops herself. Takes a breath. Swallows. “It was always just a crumbling bunker with a skeleton and spiders and who knows what all–” she shudders. “I know it’s stupid–” She shakes her head, squares her shoulders, and steps forward to deal with the spider and the rest of the blankets.

Before she can take a step though, Bellamy puts a hand on her arm. “No,” he says softly, “it isn’t stupid.” She blinks in surprise. “You made a good nest, the best with what you had, and we were safe here. You should always have somewhere you feel safe; it can’t be here, but… I’ll make sure you have that. Somewhere better. I promise. But you don’t need to – If you’ve seen what you need to, I’ll take care of the rest.” There’s something in his eyes that says this is about more than the spider or the blankets, so Clarke nods and lets him.

She’s hardly up the ladder before she’s losing her breakfast. Morning sickness or whatever emotional reaction she just had. Maybe both.

“You okay?” Bellamy asks when he finally emerges with the tote.

“Yeah.” He doesn’t look convinced, so Clarke tries for a reassuring smile. “Thank you, for taking that.”

He squeezes her shoulder gently as he walks by.

When they get back to camp, she stands beside him as he explains the rules for the guns, and he takes one and stands watch while she washes their scent and bodily fluids out of the blankets. Neither of them say anything about it, but she thinks it makes Bellamy as antsy as it does her. But there are no more spiders, thankfully. And the kids look relieved to have a real blanket each, and that soothes some of the anxiety she feels. She supposes it’s the omega in her, but taking care of the others calms her, gives her purpose.

If Bellamy notices she doesn’t wash the blanket that smells the most like them quite as thoroughly, or that she stuffs it in her bag instead of giving it away when it’s dry, he doesn’t say anything.

That night, Bellamy takes her back to his tent. After a month, the scent of the girls he’d had in his bed before their trip to the bunker has faded, but it’s still there – a faint undertone reminding her that this space isn’t hers and that he wouldn’t want her in it if it wasn’t for the mating bond. She drops her bag at her feet with a thud.

Bellamy shifts his weight and then turns to her where she lingers in the doorway, that stubborn look on his face. “Go get the blankets we’ve been using in medbay.”

Clarke blinks. “What?”

“Your pillow and shit, go get it. Anything else you have too.”

She nods and goes to bundle up her meager belongings. She’d managed to snatch a piece of canvas for herself and another that Bellamy’s been using since he was shot. Octavia made them two tiny pillows while she sat with Bellamy during his recovery, and Clarke brings them too. They are her most prized possessions after all.

By the time she gets back, Bellamy has stripped his bed and, apparently, his shirt. He’s washing his face and neck with his back to her, letting her take in the changes on her own. The faint scent of sex and other women is completely gone – she looks at the tote; he must have put everything in there for now. He’s also tossed his shirt on the bed. It looks careless, but Clarke knows better. His shirt smells like him, and it still carries traces of her from where he’d held her to scent her this morning too. It smells like them, together. It smells like this is their nest.

Clarke hides her smile and pretends that they do this every night, which seems to be what Bellamy’s going for. She tosses their pillows and the canvases onto the makeshift mattress and arranges them on separate sides of the bed. But she pulls out the blanket she saved and slips it under their pillows so they can smell it. Then she folds Bellamy’s shirt and puts it at the foot of the bed, so that their mixed scent surrounds them.

Bellamy slides under his covers as she takes off her boots and jacket and arranges them carefully by the door. She glances to see his back is turned, so she pulls off her jeans and wriggles out of her bra. When she climbs into her side of the bed in just her shirt and underwear, it’s the most comfortably she’s slept since they hit the ground. Well, it’s the most comfortable she’s been while she’s been sober enough to appreciate it.

Still, it isn’t quite enough somehow. She tosses and turns for a while, until Bellamy finally snaps. “Problem, Princess?”

Her face heats. “Sorry.”

He sighs. “Just tell me what’s wrong.”

“I – I’m not sure.”

She feels him shift to look at her. “You’re not sure,” he echoes dryly.

“I know. It’s stupid.”

“Well why don’t you take a guess anyway.”

Clarke takes stock of her body for a second. The mattress is better than anything she’s slept on recently. Unlike the hammock, it actually gives her support. So it’s not that. She’s out of her bra, finally, so it’s not her clothes. She’s not hungry, or thirsty, and she doesn’t need to use the bathroom. What – She thinks about how he held her that morning, how safe she feels when he holds her, how the feeling feels up something in her insides that feels empty otherwise.

That’s the problem, she realizes. She wants him to hold her so she can feel fully comfortable and safe in this space, make it fully theirs instead of his. And it’s not even sexual, it’s just – comfort. But she doesn’t want to overstep. She’s already forced herself into his life in unforgivable ways.

“Nothing. It’s nothing. I’ll be fine.” She blinks watery eyes. Good god, what’s wrong with her? “Just go to sleep, Bellamy.”

He sits up instead, turning to her fully. “For fuck’s sake, Clarke. If you don’t tell me what’s making you cry I swear I’m going to vibrate out of my fucking skin.” He shoves both hands through his hair in agitation. “We don’t lie to each other. Whatever else we do, we don’t do that. Not us. Not now.”

For some reason, that wrests a sob out of her, and it’s not even that his words make her upset. If anything, it comforts her that he cares like this. But the sound makes his silhouette shift to look more contrite. “Just tell me what you need from me, Princess,” he says gently. “It hurts, not being able to take care of you.”

Her eyes widen at that. So maybe he’s been frustrated with the awkwardness too. Silently, she holds out her left hand, and he takes it, eyes wondering.

“It hurts, not being close to you,” she says softly, voice scratchy from tears.

“Then come closer,” he says, intertwining their hands and tugging her across the mattress toward him. When he lays back down, only their hands and forearms are touching, but already it’s making a world of difference. Clarke’s body relaxes and whatever was aching inside her unclenches as his breath teases the hair on the top of her head. “I got you,” he whispers. “Now go to sleep. It’s been a long day.”

It has, so she does.

The next day, Octavia slips them out to Lincoln’s cave with a blush that makes Bellamy scowl, and that alone should probably tell Clarke all she needs to know about how he’s going to respond to his sister’s new Grounder friend. But, to be fair, she hadn’t paid a lot of attention to the Atom debacle, too busy worrying about Jasper and the Ark. So she’s still cautiously optimistic when they duck into the cave.

“Octavia – this is your brother?” The Grounder doesn’t seem surprised to see them. He's large, tall and muscled, and clearly familiar with Octavia's presence in his home.

Bellamy’s scowl deepens.

But Octavia's smile is blinding. “Yes. This is Bellamy and his wife, Clarke.”

Clarke nearly chokes on her tongue. That’s what bonded pairs are on the Ark, but…no one’s said it down here. Bellamy’s certainly never called her that. For Octavia to use that title now causes her heart to speed up and heartburn to crawl up the back of her throat – all at once. Bellamy shifts awkwardly beside her.

“Big brother, Clarke, this is Lincoln. He saved my life.”

Lincoln eyes them warily. “You’re here to talk about peace?”

“We just want to be left alone,” Bellamy rumbles.

Lincoln sighs and gestures for them to sit. “We heard about the people in the sky. It’s been a story passed down for the three generations since the bombs. But that doesn’t mean my people will welcome you back.”

Clarke sits beside Octavia, pulling Bellamy down with her. “We understand. We don’t expect or want that. We just want to be able to live our own lives.”

“But you will still hunt game that we will be hunting for ourselves and our children. You will still want land we call ours. You could still bring disease or violence to our villages.”

“Lincoln–” Octavia starts.

“No. Before they speak with our heda, they need to know how my people will view your presence here.”

Bellamy draws himself up beside her. “Then where are your people’s boundaries?” he asks, and Lincoln starts to draw them a map.

“There are twelve clans,” he says. “You were lucky; you landed in Trikru. Azgeda is here.” He looks up, deadly serious. “If you had landed there, they would have killed you the first night.” Clarke suppresses a shudder. They hadn’t even known to be worried about grounders their first night. Killing them would have been easier than slaughtering livestock. “Flokru is the only clan that will accept you; but only if you’re willing to swear to them first.”

“Is there anywhere unclaimed?” Clarke asks, but she feels like Lincoln would have led with that if there was.

He eyes her carefully. “Not mapped. Where you are is – a place we do not normally venture. It is as close as you will find to unclaimed land.”

She smells Bellamy’s brief spike of panic as he asks, “Why?”

“Because of the Reapers and the Mountain Men.”

“So we’re living in a buffer zone?” Lincoln nods, and Bellamy curses.

“They have not bothered you yet, but they will. You should prepare to defend yourselves.”

Clarke’s glad they went back for the guns yesterday. “Is there a chance we can convince Trikru to let us stay here, if we agree to provide a human buffer for them?”

“If they do, that will be why. That, and the fact that you are children. Heda will not expect you to last through the winter, there are so few of you. It would not be worth wasting the lives of any of her warriors.”

Bellamy practically growls under his breath. “And I don’t suppose she could be persuaded to see us as possible allies instead of summer pests?”

Lincoln’s expression turns especially grave again. “That would require a negotiation; I cannot speak for her.”

“Then how do we negotiate?” Bellamy snaps.

Lincoln locks eyes with Clarke. “Only omegas, mothers, can speak for their people. It is our way. If heda agrees to negotiate, it will only be with you.”

Bellamy doesn’t say a word as they walk back to camp. His shoulders are tense like he’s ready to fight anyone who gives him a sideways glance, but when they get back he throws himself into checking the wall and walking the guard towers with Miller. Octavia frowns after him, but there’s nothing either of them can say that will change the facts.

He spends another two days like that before Clarke snaps, cornering him, literally, in the dropship where he’s staring at the map Lincoln made him like it has the answer if he could just crack the code. She’s brought him dinner as a sign of good will, and she waits until he finishes eating, just in case it helps him be less grumpy. Finally, when he sets down the bowl and thanks her, she scoots closer and wraps her right hand around his upper arm. He looks down at her, wary, but his expression says he’s listening.

“I know you’re upset about what Lincoln said. But we need to talk about it. Making peace with the Grounders–”

“No.” He’s turned his back to her.

“Bellamy, please–”

He whirls around again, snarling. “I said no. Drop it, Clarke.”

“You know I can’t.” She sucks in a breath and squares her shoulders. “I have to do this, Bellamy, and I will, with or without your help.”

He slams his fist against the side of the dropship so hard it rattles her medical supplies all the way across the room. “Damn it, Clarke,” he growls, but he lowers his head, and when he speaks again he sounds broken. “Anything else. I’ll give you anything else you want.” He looks up, eyes burning. “You want to go to Mount Weather? I’ll pack them all up, and we’ll go now. I’ll take you to the damn ocean if you want. But I refuse to let you walk into a Grounder village alone and unarmed.”

“It wouldn’t be a village, Bellamy. It would be a neutral location–”

“It wouldn’t be a fucking tea party, either, Clarke. They have the upper hand, and they know it.”

Sighing, Clarke sinks down and sits with her back against the dropship wall. “What’s the alternative? We don’t have provisions to last the winter or a truly defensible location; you said so yourself. And we can’t just all pack up and go to Mount Weather and not expect retaliation for that. You saw what they did to Jasper.”

“And they could do that to you!” He storms back across the floor, gesturing wildly. “They could put a spear through your chest, Clarke. Or your stomach, did you think about that?”

She covers her stomach protectively and snarls back, “Of course I have! But they could do that anywhere, anytime, if we don’t establish an understanding with them. I will not allow my child to grow up in danger when I could have done something about it, Bellamy.”

He collapses down beside her. “They’ll know, Clarke. They’ll know that I would do anything to keep you safe. All they would have to do to get me to surrender the whole camp is threaten you. And god, if they killed you – I–” His eyes are glassy, and suddenly Clarke’s blinking back tears too.

“And if I don’t, they could wage a war.”

“Let them. I’ll give them a war.”

“I know. I know you would. You’d fight all the Grounders on your own to protect us if you had to, but there’s too many of them, Bellamy. And if they killed you, I–” Her chin wobbles, and inexplicably she launches herself into his chest. He catches her, pulling her tight against him as he cradles her head in his shoulder. But he doesn’t shush her; doesn’t lie to her and tell her it will be okay. While she loves him for it, it makes her clutch him tighter. "I need you. We need you. I can't take care of them without you." 

“I won't loose you, Clarke,” he snaps, as if he can make it true by saying it. "I'll kill them all first." 

“I know. You'll be there too, watching. I'll be fine.” It sounds like an oath. 

They sit there, holding each other until the sun goes down and the stars come out. Then Bellamy sighs. “Fine, Princess. We’ll talk to the Grounders. Together.” Clarke has a feeling he means something different than she did, and that that’s going to be a problem, one he won't compromise on. “But can we figure it out later?” he pleads. And he's right: They won't solve anything tonight. 

So she strokes her thumb over his shoulder and nods. “Whenever you’re ready.”