Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When they fall to earth, it only takes moments to realize they’re not alone. There’s a girl, wild-eyed with alarm, standing in the clearing and watching them as they leave the dropship. She’s clad in leathers and furs, and there’s an alarming array of weapons strapped to her person, but she asks them who they are in a language Clarke understands.

She leads them back to a village, filled with people, and though they look fierce and Clarke worries for a moment that the ninety-eight of them that are left after the fall are about to die, they don’t. Instead, Anya opens the village to the teenagers, even though Clarke admits that more people plan to follow them down once they think it’s safe.

“They may, or they may not. I only see their cast-off children standing in front of me right now. You’ll have to work,” Anya says, and sneers at their soft palms. “Harder than you’ve ever worked. But you can stay if you do.”

“We will,” Clarke says, lifting her chin. She can hear the shifting of the others behind her, no doubt irritated that the princess of the Ark is speaking for them, but thankfully they keep silent. The sooner they learn that there is no more of the Ark, the better. “And thank you.”

They’re all split up that first night, parceled off where they can fit into other families’ houses to sleep. And the next day, they work.

Clarke is assigned to Nyko, the village healer, when Anya hears that she’s been trained as a medic.

“We’ll need you,” she says. Clarke blanches, and Nyko later explains that the worst injuries to their people come from the mutated monster animals, the panthers and gorillas and eels and more.

A few others are assigned to different Trigedakru villagers—Raven Reyes, the girl who got onto the dropship to be with her boyfriend, demands to be apprenticed to the blacksmith, who agrees while looking somewhat bewildered by the girl. Wells and Monty Green are told to work with a woman named Korina, who’s in charge of the crops every year. This means Clarke has to talk to Wells far more than she’d like, because Nyko works with Korina to grow a lot of the medicinal herbs they need.

And then, because Clarke knows Wells too well to ignore the way he talks around her accusations, skirting her angry words, she realizes the truth of what happened to her father. When she throws up her dinner that night, he holds her hair back until she’s done, and then holds her in his arms until she’s done crying.

Until then, she’d been panicked that none of the dropship’s tech has worked since they reached earth. Now, she’s almost grateful. She doesn’t know that she wants to look her mother in the face anytime soon. The wristbands let the Ark know they’re alive. That's good enough.  

All the rest of the dropship kids are trained in—everything, really, at least until they’re taken on as apprentices with other villagers. Part of the day, they’re being shown how to build, and they’re working on constructing enough new cabins to hold all of them. Another part of the day is spent on the things they could only learn in theory in earth skills class—what plants you could eat, what plants could kill you, how to make clothing and fire and how to find water. And any time that’s left, they’re trained to fight. Even knowing the most basic of skills with a dagger or a bow could mean the difference between life and death if one of them meets up with one of the mutations in the forest.

Clarke is one of the few whose duties exempt her from training, at least for now. Until they arrived, Nyko had been the sole healer for the large village, and he told Clarke in no uncertain terms that she has her work cut out for her, helping him get prepared for the winter and the illnesses that will come with it.

She’s working on sorting herbs outside of Nyko’s cabin when she first meets Bellamy of the Trigedakru.

She’s not surprised to see Jasper Jordan is the one being supported between the two siblings who had volunteered to take on the thankless task of training ninety-odd hapless teenagers in the art of survival. Jasper’s basically a disaster, and the blood dripping down his leg while one of the fierce, lovely teachers harangues him is, unfortunately, not unexpected.

“You’re the sky healer?” the woman on Jasper’s left demands. Her name is Octavia, Clarke remembers, and the man on Jasper’s other side is her brother. Something strange and old-fashioned, even more so than his sister’s name.

Bellamy, she remembers then. It’s beautiful.

“Unfortunately,” Clarke sighs, standing. Jasper looks morose and Bellamy laughs, deep and loud.

“He stabbed himself in the leg,” Octavia says, clearly disgusted, and Jasper droops even more while Bellamy looks on in silent amusement.

“Jasper,” Clarke groans, but takes his arm from the siblings, leading him inside to stitch him up before he makes his injury worse.

She doesn’t expect much else to come of that day, except hopefully maybe some lasting embarrassment for Jasper that results in him paying more attention to his blade than his pretty teacher, but Bellamy finds her at the village's communal dinner that night.

He plops down next to her, gives her a charming smile that has her narrowing her eyes. She’d given the same sort of smile to all sorts of girls and guys on the Ark, and yeah, the girl she was up there, before the skybox, would have taken one look at his stupidly pretty face and stupidly pretty freckles and thought—why the hell not?

But she’s not that girl anymore, and she’s prepared to tell him—politely, because she doesn’t want to start a feud between the sky kids and the Trigedakru by offending one of their warriors—to fuck off, when he speaks.

“What do the stars look like?”

Clarke stares at him, then glances up at the little pockets of clear night sky that can be seen through the trees. “Um…”

“No,” he laughs, and steals a morsel of meat off her plate. “When you’re up in the middle of them. Don’t they look different?”

He chews, watching her intently, waiting for her to speak.

“Well—yes,” she starts, hesitant, and when he smiles, this time it’s soft and genuine.

She doesn’t quite know what do with the handsome warrior as he asks her countless questions that night—the one about the stars, and what did they eat in space, and what does she think of the wind?

The breeze, still strange to experience without something mechanical making the air move, plays with her hair while she tries to answer him. He grins as she describes the unfortunate reality of living mostly on soy packs, and tucks the windblown strands behind her ear with surprisingly gentle fingers.

No, she doesn’t know what to do with him.

But by the end of the night, when he wishes her sweet dreams and disappears into the dark toward his cabin, she realizes she wants to find out.

Clarke finds Bellamy the next day, at breakfast.

“What are puppies really like?” she asks, folding her legs beneath her and reaching over to snatch one of the strange purple fruits off his plate. It bursts on her tongue, wickedly sour and then perfectly sweet. “I’ve seen pictures, and I’ve seen grown dogs around here. What about the puppies?”

Bellamy looks up at her, surprised, and then stands. “Come on,” he says, tugging at her hand until she gets up again.

He takes her to the far side of the village, where the livestock are kept, and in a tiny little shed he pulls the smallest of a litter away from its mother’s teat.

“Here,” he says quietly, and deposits the creature in her cupped hands.

She holds it against her chest instinctively. “What if I drop it?” she asks, terrified. Then the puppy wriggles and snuffles at her palm, the tiny tongue licking her hand with its eyes still closed, and she’s gone. “Oh,” she breathes, and brings the puppy up to her cheek so she can rub it carefully against the fur.

“He’s too young to leave his mother yet,” Bellamy tells her, and she looks up to see him watching her, an odd look on his face. “But when he is, you could probably have him.”

“Me?”

“Yes. I know a few of the others have been claimed already, but since he’s the runt nobody’s wanted to choose him yet.”

He looks down at the little pup, and Clarke scrutinizes his face.

“You were going to choose him, though,” she says.

He shrugs, bashful in a way that Clarke is startled to realize she finds desperately attractive, if the pull in her belly is any indication. “Maybe.”

She places the smallest of kisses on the puppy’s soft, wrinkly face, then transfers him over to Bellamy. “Why don’t we share?”

His smile is her favorite one yet.

It starts a tradition. Every day is busy, whether Clarke’s doing the tasks Nyko sets for her or is treating the injuries the sky kids collect all too easily, and Bellamy’s nearly always dealing with training or a hunt or someone who needs help figuring out how walls are built. But at every meal, they find one another. Bellamy starts to split his portion of fruit with Clarke without asking, and she offers him some of her meat, knowing she can never finish the portion given to her. They visit the puppy nearly every day, and Clarke is way too flustered for her comfort by the way Bellamy looks when he’s playing with the growing dog.

And she asks Bellamy more questions, like how do they make the fabric for their clothes, and what is it like to feel the seasons change, and does he have a favorite one?

“Spring,” he tells her, smiling like he has a secret.

He asks her about her family, and she surprises herself by answering him frankly; he tells her about his when she asks him the same. No father, because his mother didn’t care to keep the men and the men didn’t care to argue, and Clarke learns that there are far fewer rules on the ground about couples and families than there ever were on the Ark.

He has a sister, which she’d known, and a brother-in-law of sorts, which Clarke hadn’t.

“Really?” she says, surprised. “I never see her with anyone.”

Bellamy grins wryly. “That’s because she’s busy trying to teach your people not to stab themselves. But her chosen is Lincoln—you know him,” he says, and Clarke nods. He's quiet, but kind, and when he’d seen Clarke sketching in the dirt with a stick, he’d brought her rough, homemade paper and had shown her how to make her own charcoal. “And when they get a chance to relax together, they prefer to do so alone,” he explains. “In their cabin.”

Clarke feels herself flush, and he laughs at her until she elbows him in the gut.

She and Wells try to eat together at least once a day, because if they don’t it’s all too easy to realize they’ve gone five days without even speaking. They’re just busy, in this new life on the ground.

Wells is oddly quiet as he tears his venison into tidy little strips instead of eating it.

Clarke eyes him, then kicks him in the shin. Wells yelps and glares at her.

“What was that for?”

“What’s up with you?” she asks. “You’re wasting perfectly good food.”

Wells immediately looks guilty, the habitual response of a privileged child constantly reminded of said privilege, and stuffs a bite in his mouth.

“Nothing’s up with me,” he says, speech garbled around the food.

“Wells.”

Wells swallows and sighs. “It’s that girl.”

Clarke’s eyebrows skyrocket. “Wells Jaha is having girl trouble?”

“Shut up,” he says, and she snickers. “No, it’s weird. You know Raven?”

Clarke nods and gestures for him to continue.

“She doesn’t seem to like me,” Wells says. “And it’s not just the normal ooh, chancellor’s kid, must be such a jerk kind of thing, either.”

“What do you mean?”

“She won’t look me in the eye,” he replies. “Whenever I talk to her, she just stares at the ground or whatever she’s working on. I can’t figure her out.”

“Why do you care so much?” Clarke asks, intrigued.

Wells must be flushing fiercely for her to see the hint of red blooming in his cheeks.

“Oh my god—Wells!” Clarke hisses. “She came down here for that guy. Finn.”

Wells shrugs uncomfortably. “That’s fine,” he says. “I’m not going to—it’s not like I would do anything to them, Clarke.”

Clarke considers him, and he starts to shred his meat again. “She is beautiful,” Clarke says thoughtfully, after a minute, and Wells looks at her like he wants to kill her.

In their nightly tradition, Clarke and Bellamy have talked about the sky, they talked about the earth, they talked about their families and the songs their mothers used to sing when they were small. It seems like they’ve talked about everything, but Clarke has another question for Bellamy, now weeks after they first met, and it’s one that’s been brewing for a while. She doesn’t ask it until after dark, when they’ve finished eating and Bellamy is walking her back to the cabin she shares with seven others. It’s one of the first ones the sky kids completed, and they’re cramped as they hurry to get more done before the weather turns.

“Bellamy?” she asks, pausing, and when he realizes she’s stopped walking he returns to her, standing a little closer than necessary. She hopes it’s intentional.

“What is it?” he replies. “Are you still hungry?”

Clarke shakes her head. “No, I’m fine. I was just wondering…”

“Yes?” he prompts when she’s quiet for some time. The moonlight is bright enough, and he’s close enough, that she can make out each individual freckle on his face, splattered over his skin like the paint she used to fling at paper as a child before she was chastised for being so wasteful.

“I was just wondering why you haven’t kissed me yet.”

She looks up at him, feeling almost defiant now that the words are out there. He looks surprised for just a second, and then grins down at her.

“I was only waiting for you to ask, Clarke,” he replies. “I didn’t know what kind of strange courting rituals you sky people might have.”

Outraged, she opens her mouth to retort, and before she can say a word, he presses his mouth to hers.

A few days later, Clarke joins the group of people going to the river to do wash. It’s hot that day, which she’s not used to, and when she hesitantly remarks upon the heat to Octavia, the earthborn woman just smirks at her.

“It’s October. This is nothing,” she says. “In the summer, there are days when it storms, but it’s so hot that the rain disappears before it can even hit the ground.”

Clarke blanches at the thought, and someone else says, “That sounds hideous.”

It’s Raven, looking sticky and sweaty and tired, not just in the way she carries her body, but in her eyes.

“You’ll get used to it,” Octavia declares, and slings her arms around both Clarke and Raven’s necks.

Clarke and Raven meet eyes, silently agreeing that they might, one day, get used to it, but it’s never going to sound like fun. And in that moment, a friendship begins.

They settle in next to one another at the river, sliding their clothes against the rough stones used as washboards, and Clarke glances over at Raven as she carefully rinses out the old, delicate fabric of her Ark-issued clothes. She, like the others, has been outfitted more appropriately in the cast-offs of Trigedakru women, and she’s learning how to sew her own clothes, but the Trigedakru are comfortingly familiar in their waste-not, want-not attitude.

Raven is frowning at the water, scrubbing at a matted spot in a big, dark fur that must dwarf her.

“Looks a little big,” Clarke comments, and Raven looks at her.

“Not mine,” she says shortly, and glares more forcefully at the garment. “It’s Finn’s.”

Clarke raises an eyebrow. “Then why isn’t he washing it?”

Raven raises and drops one shoulder. “I was already going, how much more work is it to just wash his at the same time?” she says, but it’s more like she’s repeating something than telling Clarke.

Clarke snorts. “It’s a hell of a lot more work. There’s the hauling and the scrubbing and the stupid blisters and the wringing, and then on top of all of that we’ve got to haul them back wet, which means they’re about three times heavier than they were for the trip here.” They’d all learned the woes of laundry quickly, and it was an equally dreaded chore among the men and the women. Occasionally some of the families elected one person to do the family’s laundry, but the adults would usually take turns doing it, and more often than not couples would just go together.

“Yeah, well.” Raven’s quiet for a moment.

Clarke can see why Wells would be drawn to her. Even quiet, even tired, there’s an intensity to her. She’s lovely, but she also seems as likely to fight as she is to talk.

Clarke likes her. She likes her a hell of a lot more than than she likes the woman’s boyfriend. Finn hasn’t done anything wrong since they landed, exactly, but he’s not the most focused either.

“Is this why you came down here?” Clarke says eventually. “Why you fought your way onto the dropship?” Raven starts at that, but come on, they’re not idiots; she didn’t have a monitoring wristband and she had a gun. She and the blacksmith had even figured out how to make new bullets for it, and now the Trigedakru take turns using it on hunts. “He’s not helpless, you know.”

“He’s all I have!” Raven bites out angrily, and for a second Clarke wonders if Raven’s going to shove her into the river.

“Raven,” she says, gentle. “You have the entire world.”

On the walk back, Raven lags behind, so Clarke slows until they’re walking side by side.

“Let me take some of that?”

Raven huffs, then transfers some of the sodden clothing to Clarke’s basket. Clarke can immediately feel the burn in her arms from the added weight.

“Fuck,” she hisses, and hitches basket up so it sits more securely on her hip.

Raven gives her a wry smile. “You’re a wimp, Griffin,” she says, but there’s no acid to it.

“Shut up, Reyes,” Clarke returns mildly, and they trudge through the woods. Clarke’s puffing quietly, the heavy burden of the laundry making her breathe heavily, when Raven speaks again.

“We grew up together. Finn and me.”

“I’ve heard that,” Clarke replies cautiously.

“He was arrested for spacewalking.”

“I’ve definitely heard that.”

Raven grimaces. “But he didn’t. I was the one who went out on an unauthorized spacewalk. But I was eighteen, and he wasn’t, so. ”

She doesn’t say anything for a minute. Part of her is instantly angry, the same quiet anger she’d had somewhere inside her for Finn, because all of that oxygen was wasted, when the Ark was already failing—god, what idiots.

And another part of her remembers that the Ark sent them to the ground, not knowing if they would live or die, and the anger quiets.

“So he got locked up, instead of you,” Clarke says.

“Yeah. And it’s just—” Raven lets out a frustrated sound, and then it all pours out, words tumbling over one another in her irritation and sadness. That it had been so long since they’d been able to be together without guards watching them visit, and Shumway had told Raven that the skybox kids were being sent to the ground and she would lose Finn unless she shot Jaha, so she did and she hates herself for it, but she’d tried to focus on life here on the ground, but, but, but.

But Finn is—distant, and after all this time apart Raven had thought being together would just be normal again, that they would just be them again, but it’s not and they aren’t and it’s awful.       

Finally, Clarke says, “You sound like you could use a drink.”

Raven lets out a laugh, and it’s harsh, nearly hysterical, but her shoulders droop with relief.

“I really, really could.”

After she finishes hanging her things out to dry behind her own cabin, Clarke stops by Korina’s, where Wells is hunched over their plans for harvest.

“I talked to Raven,” Clarke announces once she notes that Monty and Korina are out, and yeah, a little bit of her feels guilty, but technically she’d never said she’d keep the conversation secret, nor had Raven asked her to.

Wells groans and drops his face to rest on top of the rough paper. “I told you not to!”

“No you didn’t,” she says immediately, “but even if you had I wouldn’t have listened to you.”

Sobering a little, she sits down next to Wells. “You know how you said she seemed kind of off?”

He peers up at her, suspicious. “Yeah.”

Clarke wraps her arms around one of his. “It’s because she feels guilty, Wells,” she says softly. “She had to shoot your dad to get onto the dropship.”

Wells stares at her, then sits up and stares at her some more. “What.”

“A guard told her it was the only way she’d ever see Finn again,” Clarke says. “And he gave her the gun, and she says she did it.”

Wells drops his gaze to the plans. “Oh.”

Clarke keeps hugging him until he offers her a small smile, and tells her to get the hell off him.

Later that night, she cuddles into Bellamy’s side at the fire. “The girl Wells has a crush on might have killed his dad.”

She can feel him tense in surprise. “That’s…unfortunate,” he replies slowly.

Clarke snorts. “That’s putting it mildly.” Then she sighs. “The first time he likes someone in years, and she might have assassinated his father.”

“But she might not have,” Bellamy says, hand resting on her thigh. His fingers move back and forth, soothing and electrifying all at the same time. “Even if she did, maybe they can work through it.”  

“Could you work through me killing one of your parents?” she asks, raising a brow. Bellamy seems to actually consider it, forehead furrowed as he nudges a log further into the flames with the toe of his boot.

“Probably,” he says eventually, and Clarke’s mouth falls open.

“What?”

“Probably,” he repeats. “Yes, most likely.”

“Okay,” she says, drawing out the word. “I guess I’m...flattered? But that kind of calls for more explanation.”

She feels the restless shift of his limbs as he shrugs. “Well, if they weren’t already dead, they wouldn’t care much about me. My father didn’t care about staying once my mother got pregnant, so he went back to his own village.”

“And your mother?”

He sighs, turns to press his mouth against her hair for a moment. “My mother didn’t care that my father went back to his village when she got pregnant, either. She just wanted to have a child to raise as a warrior, and she got what she wanted.”

Clarke frowns. “That’s not so bad,” she says hesitantly.

He laughs, humorless. “It wasn’t. But then, she only wanted the one child. When she got pregnant with Octavia, it was an accident— she was far from pleased, but she had her anyway. Once O was born…” He hesitates. “Well, once she was born, she was mine. My mother barely bothered with her after that. And I never really forgave her.”

Clarke has seen him with Octavia, and she sees how deeply he loves his sister, and how much his sister loves him, even if she’s making fun of Bellamy seventy percent of the time.

“I wouldn’t really forgive her either,” she says, and Bellamy squeezes her thigh.

“He’s going to need a name,” Clarke remarks one evening. The puppy is slowly getting more adventurous, even if his control of his limbs is tenuous at best. He loves to clamber up onto their knees when they sit on the ground to play with him, only to tumble into their laps and whine pitifully because he can’t get out.

He’s gaining weight, too, growing rounder. Not as round as his brothers and sisters, but a respectable size, and he’s only going to get bigger if his paws are any indication.

Bellamy reaches to rescue the pup from his predicament, trapped in Clarke’s lap while she laughs at him. His fingers graze her inner thighs before he scoops up the dog, and her breath catches a little in her throat.

His gaze catches hers, eyes hot, and she knows he noticed.

She clears her throat. “So. What do you think?”

At his blank stare, she smiles. “Bellamy, a name?”

“Oh.” He shrugs, sets the dog to chasing his hand around in circles. “My sister told me I wasn’t ever allowed to name anything ever again.”

“Ever again?” she echoes, and Bellamy looks sheepish.

“I might have named my sister,” he mutters.

“I...see,” she says, considering that. How strange it must be, and wonderful, to have a sibling, to have a bond so close that you get to choose their name. “But Octavia is a lovely name.”

Bellamy makes a face. “She didn’t always agree.”

“Now’s your chance, then,” Clarke says, and scoots closer so she can lean against Bellamy’s side. “Prove to her that you’ve grown, learned. Pick out the dog’s name, Bellamy.”

The puppy collapses on his back, tongue lolling out in utter bliss as Bellamy starts scrubbing his belly. Clarke runs a delicate finger over the dog’s head.

“Atlas,” Bellamy says eventually, and Clarke’s quiet.

“What do you think?” he asks when she doesn’t speak.

“I think…” she says slowly. “I think that it’s a great name for a dog.”

Bellamy grins.

“But,” Clarke says, “under no circumstances are you allowed to ever name a human child by yourself. It’s decided. Your wife’s just going to have to do it, and you’re going to nod and agree with her choice because you cannot be trusted with the task.”

Bellamy huffs a laugh, and when she turns to him, his face is close. “My chosen,” he says, and Clarke blinks.

“What?”

“My chosen,” he repeats. “Not wife. We don’t use those terms anymore.”

“Your chosen, then,” she says, still a little discombobulated by his proximity. “Just—just leave it to her.”

Bellamy just smiles and agrees with her, then kisses her until the puppy protests the lack of attention being paid to him.

Clarke sees Octavia all the time, in passing at meals or when she walks by the training grounds on her way to visit Wells or Raven. But she hasn’t really spoken to Octavia much, and now that Clarke’s—well, Clarke’s not exactly sure what to call what she and Bellamy are doing. Courting sounds desperately old-fashioned, but this doesn’t feel casual. He acts with too much intent for that. But whatever it is, Clarke is with Bellamy now.

So it feels a little strange and awkward when Octavia barges into Clarke’s cabin one morning just after Clarke’s birthday when Clarke is trying to convince herself she’s not sick enough to warrant staying in bed. The other girls left earlier for breakfast, and she’d been reminding herself that it’s only a matter of minutes before Bellamy comes looking for her. But she’s so tired, and her whole body aches, and she can’t breathe through her nose.

She yelps at the bang of the door against the wall, and immediately starts coughing.

“Sorry,” Octavia says, frowning as she fastens the door shut again. “Harper told me you were still here. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s fine,” Clarke wheezes. “I was just getting up.” She sticks one foot out from underneath the thick furs piled on top of her and shivers violently.

“Oh, no you’re not,” Octavia declares. She pokes Clarke’s foot until Clarke draws it back under the covers with an indignant noise. “You’re sick.”

“I’m fine,” she protests, then sneezes. “What did you need?”

“One of the younger girls, Charlotte? She picked a fight during training, and now three kids need to be patched up. Nyko’s busy with a delivery,” she adds when she sees the question on Clarke’s face. “But they can wait until he’s done.”

“Just let me get dressed.” She eyes her jacket, hung on a hook all the way across the room, with despair.

“It’s okay to admit that you’re sick,” Octavia replies, exasperated. “And the kids aren’t about to bleed out. They can shove cloth up their noses for now. ”

“But—”

“Clarke. Stop. Stay in bed. Besides, if you get up, I’m positive my brother will just follow you around and mother you to death until you go back to bed anyway.”

Her face burns, and she stares down at her blankets.

“Clarke? It’s not the end of the world.” Octavia’s voice is puzzled, and a little frustrated. “People get sick.”

“I just…” Clarke says softly. “You’re so strong, and Bellamy is so strong. I don’t want you to think I’m weak. I’m not; I’ve gotten a lot stronger since I got here.”

It’s true; aside from this stupid illness, her body is stronger after all this time on the ground, and she understands the earth in a way that could only ever be theoretical on the Ark. Because of Bellamy, she knows what the air smells like before it rains, and how to tell the difference between a coming thunderstorm and a simple shower. She knows how to build a fire, bank it, and warm stones in the ashes to heat her bed on cool nights.

She knows the stories of stars, in a way that means so much more when she is on the ground, looking up at them with Bellamy’s arm around her and his voice whispering the tales in her ear, than when she was stuck up in them.

She’s always known how to survive, and if she had landed on a barren planet, she would have found a way to keep her people alive.

But being with Bellamy has taught her how to live.

At her words, though, Octavia smiles, a real, sweet smile that’s not quite like the quick, bright grins she’s prone to.

“Trust me, Clarke,” Octavia says, exasperation warring with fondness in her voice. “You were already strong. My brother wouldn’t have fallen for anyone who wasn’t.” As Clarke gapes at her, Octavia adds, “And getting a cold doesn’t make you weak. I mean, trying to work while you have a cold makes you stupid, but there’s nothing weak about having to take care of yourself because you’re sick.”

While Clarke still stares, Octavia stands and takes herself to the door. “Hope you feel better soon,” she says. She has to duck past a bewildered Bellamy, who was standing just outside the cabin, arms filled with bowls of stew. He must have come looking for her when she didn't show up.

“What was Octavia doing here?” he asks, suspicious, as he settles next to her on the bed, but on top of the covers. He helps her sit up, then hands her a bowl and runs his fingers through her hair, pushing stray strands away from her face.

“Somebody needed a healer,” she says. The warmth in her chest from Octavia’s words still lingers, but she doesn’t tell him what his sister said.

Bellamy frowns. “They’ll just have to wait for Nyko; you’re not going anywhere.”

“I could,” she argues, mostly for the sake of argument. “I’m strong.”

He eyes her strangely. “Yeah,” he says, like that’s obvious. “But you’re clearly also sick. And flushed with fever,” he adds, brushing the back of his hand over her forehead. “So they can wait, and you can eat your stew.”

“You eat your stew,” she retorts, and smiles into her bowl.

It takes days for Clarke to feel strong enough to go about her duties. A part of her wonders if the Ark can tell, and if that’s why no one has followed them to the earth yet—the other parts of her point out that it’s useless to wonder what’s taking them so long. 

Bellamy frets over her the whole time.

“What are you doing?” he barks when he comes into her cabin on the fourth day to find her lacing up her boots.

“I’m getting dressed,” she says patiently, then stands up. “Hand me my jacket?”

He takes her jacket from the hook on the wall but doesn’t hand it to her. She raises a brow.

“You’re sick,” he says. “You shouldn’t be going outside.”

“I was sick,” she corrects. “Now I’m better, and I’m going outside so I can go back to work.” She holds out her hand until, finally, he relents and gives her the jacket. After she slips it on, she kisses his frowning mouth.

“Thank you for taking care of me, Bellamy,” she says. He softens a little, looking her up and down.

“You sure you’re feeling well enough?”

“I’m sure,” she promises. “My fever broke night before last. I feel much better.”

“Don’t overdo it,” he warns.

She promises she won’t, but despite her promise, Bellamy pops in three times that day to check on her. After he leaves the last time, Nyko eyes her.

“Just how ill were you?”

“Shut up.” Her cheeks are hot, and not from a fever.

That night, she falls asleep leaning into Bellamy’s side when they sit in front of the fire for dinner, and wakes up when he is carrying her back to her bed.

“Sorry,” she mumbles. “Guess ‘m still getting over the cold.” She can feel the press of his mouth against her hair when he kisses it.

“Shh. Go back to sleep.”

The next day is a wash day. Clarke’s been dreading it, but after sweating with fever for days, she has a pile of dirty bedding and clothes that desperately need to be cleaned.

“I’ll come with you.”

Clarke blinks at Bellamy, who keeps eating his porridge. “What?”

“To the river. I’ll come with you.”

“Why?”

He shrugs. “I need to wash things too.”

She eyes him until he says, “Also, you shouldn’t be carrying such heavy things yet.”

“Bellamy.”

He smiles at her. “Do you not want me to come with you?”

She bites her lip; that’s not fair. Of course she wants him to come. But if he’s only coming because he thinks she’s still an invalid…

The longer she takes to respond, the more his smile fades. “Nevermind.” His gaze shifts to the bowl in his lap. “If you really don’t want me to come, I won’t.”

That settles it. “No—I mean, yes. Come with me.”

The grin on his face builds slowly even as his eyes darken, and Clarke realizes how her words sounded. Interest stirs low in her belly in response. Flustered, Clarke stands. “So. It’s settled. I’ll meet you this afternoon.”

Bellamy nods. She can feel his eyes on her as she turns and walks toward Nyko’s, trying not to think about how easily he can make her want him.

At the river, Bellamy scrubs and rinses what looks like sheets while Clarke tries not to shiver while doing her shirts. It’s still autumn, but just. The sun is tempered with the chill bite of the breeze, and the river’s getting colder every day.

“You’re cold,” she hears him say.

“I’m fine.”

“You were just sick,” he counters. “I’ll go get you a fur.”

“Bellamy,” she says, exasperated. “I’m okay.”

“It must be bad for you to be so cold after being sick,” he argues.

Well, she wouldn’t say it’s a good thing, but it’s not so bad she needs a fur. She opens her mouth to tell him so, and he kisses her first. “I’ll be right back.”

Clarke watches in surprise as he jogs away. It’s...sweet. Silly and unnecessary of him, but still sweet.

Biting in a smile, she turns back to her wash.

“You’re here with Bellamy?”

The woman asking is a few yards down the river from her. Her two friends lean forward so they can all look at Clarke, eager.

“Yes,” Clarke says slowly. “Why?”

The woman—Lira, maybe?—grins sharply. “Bellamy’s never gone with a girl to the river before. You’re lucky.”

Clarke reddens a little, but on their way to the river it hadn’t escaped her that she and Bellamy were now one of those courting couples who did their wash together.

“He certainly never came to the river with me,” Lira adds, and her friends giggle.

The pants she just pulled out of the basket nearly get taken by the river current when she drops them. Clarke snatches them just before they’re pulled out of reach, then looks over at Lira.

“Oh?” she says carefully.

Lira shrugs. “His loss. Careful, your basket’s about to fall.”

She turns and steadies the basket just in time to prevent the whole thing from falling into the water. Turning back to her wash, she tries to concentrate on scrubbing, but instead keeps catching herself straining to overhear the other girls.

She can’t hear much, just a few words here and there, but then Lara sighs dramatically, “and his mouth. I miss that mouth.”

“Soza said Bellamy’s hands were even better,” one of her friend’s adds slyly. Her eyes catch Clarke’s with a wicked look.

Face burning, Clarke turns back to her wash, vowing to really focus on it this time.

They chose to speak in English while Clarke was near. They’d wanted her to hear them talking about Bellamy. About Bellamy with other people, using his mouth, his hands…

It wasn’t cruel, the way they’d done it. It was more like they were teasing her. And she wouldn’t have minded, not really—Clarke had been with other people before too, back on the Ark, and she already knew that Bellamy had been with other girls before.

Except that Bellamy has never touched her like they’re talking about—like they’re probably assuming she has been touched.

A heavy fur drops over her shoulders and Bellamy folds his legs under him next to her, panting a little. He must have run nearly the whole way to the village and back to have returned to the river so quickly.

Clarke’s watches him run his hand over his face to wipe off the sweat, then bring a cupped hand full of water to his mouth.

His hands are beautiful. The same freckles that are on his face and neck crop up on his hands, and the nails are kept short and clean. She knows that his palm is calloused, but his fingers are gentle when he holds her hand. And his mouth—it’s not a large mouth, but she likes the shape of it, and the way it changes his face when he smiles, and the way his lips feel on hers.

“Clarke?”

She blinks. “What?”

He eyes her. “Are you alright?” Bellamy reaches out to test her temperature. His hand is hot on her forehead and she shivers involuntarily, thinking of his hand, so warm, elsewhere on her skin.

“You don’t have a fever,” he decides, and tucks the fur more securely around her. “But you should probably stay out of the river for the rest of the day, just in case.”

“I was just distracted. I still have clothes to wash,” she says.

“I’ll wash them,” he offers.

She has to smile at that. “No.”

“Clarke—”

“No, Bellamy.”

He huffs. “Then I’m going to carry your basket back for you.”

Her refusal is on the tip of her tongue, but he looks so defiant that she ends up swallowing the words and nodding. “Okay. Thank you.”

Bellamy waits a moment longer like he’s expecting her to change her mind, then nods. “Good.”

They finish the rest of their laundry in companionable quiet, but the entire time Clarke’s thinking about Bellamy’s mouth.

And Bellamy’s hands.

And about how she wants them.

How she wants him.

It’s really not very fair, Clarke thinks as they pack up the wash and start back on the path toward the village.

Bellamy stacks her basket inside of his, and manages to carry it with just one of his stupid, beautiful hands bracing it on his hip. He reaches for her with the free one.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” he asks when they’re about halfway back, and she’s barely responded to any of his conversation as she works herself up into a bizarre fit of jealousy and want.

“I’m—” The word fine is on the tip of her tongue for the thousandth time since that morning. It’s what she means to say at least. “Do you not want me?” is what she says instead.

Bellamy nearly drops their baskets of clean, wet clothes into the dirt. “What?” he croaks.

“Nevermind,” she says hurriedly, and tries to move forward on the path. Bellamy’s grip on her hand stops her—he hasn’t moved. He’s just looking at her, really looking at her, and she can feel herself start to blush.

His mouth parts, as if to say something, but instead he shakes his head, puts down their baskets, and pulls her off the path and into the woods.

“Hey!”

Bellamy ignores her until they’re a good thirty paces from the path, tucked into the trees. Then he turns to her.

“You think I don’t want you?” His face is neutral. His voice is not. The gravel of it skitters up Clarke’s spine.

“I think…” Clarke swallows, presses her thighs together to hide their quiver. She’s getting wet. “I think you haven’t done anything other than kiss me. It’s a reasonable question.”

He cocks his head, eyes dark and fixed on hers. “You’ve been sick.”

“But before that,” she counters. She shifts a little on her feet, moving her thighs together again, and Bellamy notices this time, his eyes darting from her face to her body.

The smile that begins to spread over his face makes her heart start to pound. “I told you before that I waited for you to ask.”

“I said yes then,” she reminds him. He moves closer, and closer again, until she can feel the heat of his body.

“That doesn’t guarantee you’d say yes again,” he says, and cups her jaw. His thumb drags against her lower lip. “I wanted to do this right, Clarke.”

“This is right,” she says. “It’s right, Bellamy.”

She kisses him then, hands diving into his hair possessively, body moving until it’s pressed up against the firm line of his. She pours every once of jealousy, every ounce of lust into the kiss until Bellamy groans and clutches her hips. When he grinds against her she can feel him, already getting hard, and a thrill of desire shoots through her.

He’s hers now, and he wants her.

The fur wrapped around her shoulders slithers to the ground when he slides his hands up her back, then to her front to cover her breasts. She groans into his mouth and he nips her lip.

“Bellamy,” she whispers against his mouth. “Please.”

He ducks his head to bite her neck and she gasps and trembles when he reaches between them to place a light hand over her mons. His fingers brush over the fabric covering her with featherlight pressure, but Clarke feels everything.

He’s so close to where she wants him, needs him to touch her—he squeezes her breast with his other hand and she whimpers. He curses lowly, his own breathing growing labored as he touches her, and she—

“Whose baskets are these?”

The voice is loud and close—still on the path, but coming closer. Bellamy’s eyes are a little wild when they meet hers.

“Fuck,” she says. Bellamy snorts, presses one last hard kiss to her mouth, and makes her gasp with a final pulse of his fingers between her thighs before pulling away.

The villagers they’d heard talking eye them when they emerge from the trees to sheepishly reclaim their baskets. Since Bellamy still insists on carrying them both, Clarke piles the fur he’d brought her at the river on top, now far too warm for the extra layer. Rather than on his hip, Bellamy now holds the basket in front of him—deliberately, Clarke knows. She hides her smile and sticks close to his side on the walk back to her cabin.

They help each other hang up their wet laundry on the lines to dry. Every time their fingers touch, reaching into the same basket, their eyes meet, and Clarke feels silly that she ever wondered if he didn’t want her like she wanted him.

But the village is busy. Dozens of others are hanging out their own clothes, and there are sky kids everywhere, working their apprenticeships and practicing the skills they’ve learned in training. Clarke knows that for now, until they can steal another moment alone together somewhere, she has to content herself with the slow burn of his eyes on her and the memory of his touch.

That’s what she thinks until he walks her back to her cabin after dinner, an hour after sunset, and crowds her up against the side wall where it’s dim and hard to see. He kisses her and touches her so thoroughly her legs want to stop holding her weight. When Bellamy pulls back, his mouth is swollen and his eyes are mischievous.

“Good night, Clarke.”

“Good—what?” she squawks. He pecks her on the mouth one last time, then jogs away.

Clarke mutters under her breath about the stupid egos of stupid boys, even as a silly grin pulls at her mouth, and goes to get ready for bed.

And that night in her cabin, among the quiet chorus of sleeping breaths, she touches herself until she comes, biting her pillow to keep silent.

She’s still thinking of Bellamy when she finally falls asleep. 

Chapter Text

“I remember this,” she says, early one morning, and blows out a long stream of breath that clouds in the cold air.

Bellamy looks at her curiously, and she explains, “It was cold in space. Sometimes the power would go out in some of the stations, and we could see our breath like this when that happened.”

“It’s only going to get worse,” he warns.

“I know that,” she says. All of the sky people have been told that winter is much shorter now than it ever used to be, before the war, but that it's also much harsher.

He blows at her face and she wrinkles her nose, shoving at him until he laughs.

“You’re ridiculous,” Clarke grumbles, then shivers. “I’ll be glad when all the cabins are built. Some of my idiots are still insisting they’d rather sleep outside than share with a big group. And it would be nice to share with only a couple others,” she adds thoughtfully. “It’s pretty warm with all of us in there, but I think I’d sacrifice some warmth for more privacy.”  

She looks over at him, smiling, only to have it fade when she sees the funny look on his face. “Bellamy?”

He clears his throat and shifts in place a little. “If you—uh, if you wanted to share with fewer people, you could.”

“Okay,” she says slowly. “Right. That’s what I said I’m looking forward to.”

He huffs, frustrated. “No, I mean—now. You could start now.”

She frowns. “I’d really rather see everyone else settled in before I take a cabin, Bellamy.”

“Fuck,” he mutters, and in spite of herself she grins. She and the others are slowly but surely learning Trigedasleng, but they’re hardly fluent, and she knows Bellamy only bothers to curse in English for her benefit. “I mean, there’s already a cabin. That’s finished. Mine, I mean. You could—be in it.”  

Her lips part in surprise. “...Oh.”

He flushes a deep red beneath the dusky color of his skin. “Or not. Whatever you want.”

Clarke considers it, considers him. “I guess…it could make shared custody of Atlas easier,” she says lightly. “I think all the back and forth could confuse him otherwise.”   

Instead of relaxing, Bellamy looks even tenser. “Don’t—don’t just agree because you think you should, or because I want you to. Because I do, I want you to, but only if you want to, and if you don’t want that then we’ll build you your own cabin and that’s fine, I wouldn’t be mad, and—”

“Bellamy,” Clarke says, and leans up to kiss his mouth until he softens, kisses her back. “I don’t do anything I don’t want to do.”

“Well,” Bellamy says. “Do you? Want to?”

“I’ll think about it,” she promises, because that’s what he needs to hear. For some reason, he won’t let her just say yes, like she tried, so she makes an effort to take the time to mull over the decision for him. Make certain.

About five minutes later, as she’s stealing a berry out of his morning oatmeal, she says, “I decided.”

“What?” he asks, distracted as he frowns at her eating the stolen fruit.

“Yes,” she says. “I want to move in with you instead.”

“Really?”

“No,” she says, “I lied. Yes, really.”

Bellamy grins down at his bowl.

That night, after they’ve played with Atlas and it’s getting late, Clarke wonders if she’s made a mistake.

Yes, moving into Bellamy’s cabin with him sounds like a perfectly reasonable idea. She likes him, and he likes her, and he’s used the word courting to describe whatever it is they’re doing, and plus they’re going to share a dog.

And she really likes kissing him, so there’s that.

But she’s never slept with him—either way. Maybe he snores terribly, and she’ll never fall asleep.

And what if they’re awful together?

She might have jumped the gun about living with him if she’s not even sure if they’d have good sex.

Realistically she knows that sex with Bellamy will be great—Lira and those other Trigedakru girls had a lot to say about his abilities in bed, and a few times since that day off the river path, when it’s dark and he’s walked her to her cabin, pressed her up against the wall while the others sleep inside, he’s proven his fingers bold and skillful. Kissing her and kissing her, dipping his hands to her hips, tracing the crease of her thighs, moving to her center and pressing through the fabric of her pants until she moans and trembles.  

So, yeah. That part’s probably going to be fine. Probably.

And even if they don’t click at first, she knows what she likes, and he’s proven willing enough to ask her questions and listen to her answers.

But she and Bellamy aren’t—Clarke doesn’t think they’re like Bellamy’s mother was, how Aurora didn’t much care to keep a man around for long. It’s only been a couple months, but Clarke knows she wants Bellamy to stick around, and she thinks he wants her to stick around, and that means tonight is potentially the first night of...forever. She doesn’t want anything to go wrong.

It sounds silly when she thinks of it like that. Forever is an old-fashioned idea, one she hasn’t believed in since she found out her parents’ forever was so easily cut short.

“Clarke?” Bellamy’s watching her with concern, and his hand cups her cheek. “Are you alright?”

Maybe it’s not the first night of forever, Clarke decides, but it’s the first night of them. And she wants them, just like this.

She turns her head to kiss his palm. “I’m fine,” she says. “Take me home.”

After detouring to her old cabin to pick up her things, where some of her cabinmates remind her of just how young they are when their “ooooh!”s follow her back outside where Bellamy waits, Bellamy leads the way back to his cabin.

Clarke knows where it is, has even been inside it once or twice when Bellamy didn’t meet her on time for dinner and she had to go looking for him.

But it’s different, walking there in the dark, the air cold and his hand laced tightly with hers.

She can feel the damp of his palm against her own, and the idea that he’s nervous about this is strangely calming.

He holds open the door for her and she goes inside, looking around at the sparse furnishings. There’s not much, but everything that they could need is there—a table and two chairs, a cozy-looking bed, a fireplace. There’s a metal tub stowed in the corner that Clarke’s delighted to see because god, it’ll be a relief to bathe inside as it keeps getting colder. Next to an old and scuffed chest sits another one, the worn metal shining with a recent polish and the fresh wood glowing.

“That’s for you,” Bellamy says, and hurries forward to open the lid of the chest. “For your clothes.”

Clarke’s speechless as he takes the pile of spare clothing she’d brought with her out of her arms, and lays the garments carefully in the chest and lowers the lid.

He looks adorably proud of himself until he sees her face—then his own falls. He hides it, mostly, but she sees the drop in his expression. “Do you—do you not like it?”

“Did you make that?” she asks and he nods, rubbing the back of his neck.

“I, uh, had to ask Lincoln for help with the the carving,” he admits. “I’m not so good at the art.” When Clarke looks closer, she sees delicate plants, flowers and ferns and thin, pretty trees etched into the wood. “Spring,” Bellamy adds.

“Why spring?” Clarke asks.

He shrugs uncomfortably. “I just—you remind me of it.”

“I thought you said—” He’s already turning red, and Clarke melts.

Do you have a favorite season?

Spring.

“Thank you, Bellamy.” She crosses the room until she’s close, their boots touching. “I’d like to go to bed now,” Clarke says, and Bellamy nods. She can see his throat working as he swallows.

“Alright. I keep water there, in that canteen, if you get thirsty, and…” he trails off as she unfastens her pants and lets them skim down her legs to the floor. He’s very quiet as she unlaces her boots and kicks them off, and as she shucks her shirt, her bra, the fur wrap she began to wear when it had started to get cold in the evenings.

His eyes are impossibly dark, and his jaw moves when she rests a hand on his shoulder for balance while she pulls off her socks.

“Well?” she asks finally. He hasn’t moved, and she’s standing in front of him in her underwear, for god’s sake.

“I didn’t ask you to move in so you would sleep with me,” Bellamy says, abrupt.

“Do you not want to sleep with me?”

“Uh,” he replies, trapped.

Clarke smiles at him and starts to unfasten his own clothes. “I wouldn’t mind sleeping with you, but I wouldn’t be doing it just because you gave me a new place to live,” she tells him, gentle. “And you don’t have to sleep with me just because I live here now, either. We can just sleep.”

Her hands trail down his bared chest to his abdomen, where the muscles jump under her fingers. He’s warm and his body is firm as she traces the outline of them.

He clears his throat when her fingers skim the waistband of his pants. “So, you want to.”

“God, Bellamy, yes,” Clarke says, and Bellamy finally grins and reaches out to touch her.

She shivers as he runs his hands up her sides, her skin prickling with goosebumps as her nipples pebble. Bellamy watches her with dark, eager eyes as he cups her breast, and she sighs.

It feels so good, to be held and touched by someone she really, really likes. It’s been a long time.

She’s missed it.

His hands skim from her breasts to her neck to slide into her hair and he walks forward, into her, until her breasts are pressed against the bare skin of his chest. Then he leans down the small distance to kiss her, sweetly and thoroughly, as he maneuvers her onto the bed.

“You’re still wearing pants,” she complains into his mouth when he settles over her, weight of his hips firmly against hers. He huffs a laugh against her lips.

“You’re still talking,” he retorts.

“I talk. I’m a talker,” she says. “You’ll have to get used it.”

Bellamy grins at her. “That’s fine with me,” he says, then slips downward until he can pull a nipple into his mouth. His hand sneaks into her underwear, the sad, frayed pair of black briefs she has left over from the Ark and washes in the river.

Clarke lets out a small noise, both from his touch and the thought.

“Okay?” Bellamy asks her, lifting his mouth from her skin. He waits for her to respond, and she nods.

“Yes, I’m fine. Just—can we be careful with those?”

Bellamy looks, puzzled, between her face and her breasts, and Clarke bursts out laughing. “Not—oh my god, Bellamy, the underwear.”

“Oh,” he says, and nips at the underside on her breast to get her to stop laughing. “Yeah, I can do that.”

“G-good,” she stutters as his fingers, callused and deft, slide through the slick folds to bump her clit. When her hips shift restlessly, trying to press him closer, harder, Bellamy instead pulls his fingers back, down until he can slip one into her. He’s touching her so softly, carefully, caressing her from the inside that Clarke wants to scream because it’s the kind of good that’s agonizingly good but goes absolutely nowhere. And she’s talking now, babbling almost as he kisses her sternum, the tops of her breasts, her nipples, her ribs, and shit, fuck, just—

“Fuck me,” she begs, and the air is humid and heady with the scent of sex. “Please, Bellamy, come on.” Her hands go from his hair to his shoulders, and she tries to urge him up so he can slide into her easily.

He does move, a little, but just so he can kiss her mouth while he tugs her underwear lower on her hips with one hand. Clarke lifts her hips to help him get them off, then smooths her hands down his spine as they kiss.

Her hands touch material; “Fuck, why are your pants still on?” Clarke demands, and then her mouth falls open in a pant as his hand starts moving decisively, a second finger joining the first and the knuckle of his bent thumb pushing insistently against her swollen clit with each stroke. When he changes the way his fingers are angled, pressing up, and swirls his thumb, messy and firm, Clarke nearly bites her tongue as she shudders and comes.

There’s some rustling that eventually registers, and when she looks Bellamy’s finally naked too. Clarke lets out a breathless laugh and draws him down to her, cradling his jaw as she kisses the smug curve of his mouth.

“Come here,” she says, and Bellamy lets her guide him until he’s on top of her, his weight deliciously heavy. His cock is between them, hot and hard against her belly, and she wiggles, trying to get him to fucking fuck her already. But instead he puts one of his thighs between hers, and leans forward to bite her jaw.

“Oh my god,” Clarke says, the hard press of his muscled thigh against her still sensitive cunt nearly too much. “Bellamy, what—” He grinds against her, his cock sliding along the sweat-slick skin of her belly, and the rasp of his thigh is too much for her to successfully argue through.

“Fine,” she manages, and slicks her palm with spit before wrapping it around him. It’s a tight fit, but she manages, and Bellamy lets out a strangled sounding grunt before thrusting hard in her hand, then again, and again. His thigh presses harder into her, and Clarke didn’t think it would be enough to get her off again, but holy shit, it’s like all of her is being touched all at once and she—and she—

She comes down from her orgasm to realize she’s hot and sticky and exhausted, and Bellamy’s breathing heavily into her neck, his weight almost crushing her as she registers the wet heat on her belly.

“You’re pretty great,” Clarke decides, and Bellamy huffs, his laugh barely more than a wheeze as he rolls off her. “No, I’m serious,” Clarke says when Bellamy just grins at her. “That was awesome. You’re pretty perfect, except I need—”

She breaks off as Bellamy hauls himself up. “Shit,” he mutters, wobbling a little, and Clarke feels a deep thrill of satisfaction. Once he’s steady, he digs a couple of frayed cloths out of the his wooden chest, then crosses to the bucket of water by the door she hadn’t noticed earlier. As she watches, he dips them in the water, then wrings them out and brings one to her.

“Here,” he says. “For the—” Bellamy gestures at his own come on her skin, and though he’s already flushed, pinks up a little more. Clarke takes the rag.

“Nevermind,” she says. “You’re pretty perfect, period.”

She tidies herself up, the cool cloth feeling lovely against her too-hot skin, and collapses back onto the bed. She’d been otherwise occupied so far, but now she can appreciate the soft furs beneath her back, and the slight give of the stuffed mattress underneath. It’s much better than the hastily-made pallets they've been sleeping on since they arrived on the ground, and Clarke manages to feel guilty for about two seconds until she switches to delighting in the comfortable bed.

Bellamy’s watching her, a bemused smile on his face as she wriggles, finding a comfortable position against his side, her head on the sweet-smelling pillows. One of them looks older, the fabric slightly dingy with age, the stitching nearly invisible. The other, the one under her cheek, is brighter, clean and fresh, and stitched shut with a messy hand. She traces the thread with her fingers, then angles a look at him.

“Is this new?”

He flushes again. “No.”

Clarke raises an eyebrow.

“Okay, yes, but just because I wanted a new one,” he insists. “Not because of—” he cuts off when she kisses him, hand curling around his neck, and then he just gives in and curves his body around hers.

“It might have been for you,” he offers, grudging, and Clarke smiles against the skin over his heart. He’s busy most of his days, and she’s been with him when he’s not. To be able to make it without her knowing, he must have been planning, hoping, that she’d choose to be with him for a while now.

“I never would have guessed.”

And she falls asleep, just like that, and sleeps through the night better than she’s slept in over a year.

It’s a little strange, the next morning, because she has bad breath and her hair is a disaster, as usual, and she stumbles around the unfamiliar cabin in the dark trying to find her way out so she can go to the bathroom. When she comes back, Bellamy is awake, already lacing up his own clothes, and she feels unsteady. He’s just—god, she’s going to get used to this. To being around him, messier and grosser than she is when she normally sees him, aside from that time she was sick, and to waking up to him, and to seeing his hair, wild from sleep, as he pulls on his clothes in the morning.

“Hi,” she says, awkward, and Bellamy flashes her a smile as he pulls a fur-lined vest on.

“Hi,” he replies, and before she can warn him about her breath, leans forward to kiss her. He doesn’t seem to mind though, because his hand goes to her waist, and he holds her there as he kisses her, and kisses her, and kisses her.

When he finally pulls away, Clarke blinks, dazed. “Um. Wow. Good morning.”

“You should hurry and get changed,” he says. “Or breakfast will be gone by the time we get out there.”

The we gives her pause, but she decides she likes it. She does give him a funny look before she goes to the pretty chest that holds her clean clothes. “It’s barely dawn, Bellamy.”

“Really?” he says, sounding delighted. “Nevermind, then.”

“You’re way too chipper for barely dawn,” she complains, and then gasps because one hand tugs her back against his chest while the other snakes beneath the long shirt she’d thrown on to go outside. One hand tweaks her nipple through the homespun fabric of the shirt and the other doesn’t bother to mess around, instead going straight to the cleft between her legs.

“Fuck,” he says, mouthing at her ear. “Clarke, you’re so warm.” Clarke slumps back, letting him support more and more of her weight as her legs start to quiver. His fingers trail up and down her slit, growing slicker with each second, until he can slip them inside and bring her to a limb-trembling, chest-heaving, eyelid-drooping orgasm.

“I lied, earlier,” she says, voice shaky. “Now it’s a good morning.”

He kisses the corner of her jaw, and somehow even that feels smug. When she peels herself away from him and turns around to look at him for the first time since he’d grabbed her, he’s got his fingers in his mouth and an innocent expression on his face.

“What?” he says in response to her look, pulling his fingers back out. “Now you really should get dressed for breakfast.”

They settle into a routine, and Clarke gets used to their life together.

It hardly seems possible, that she does, when it feels terribly perfect and she’s pretty sure she doesn’t deserve a perfect, happy life like this.

But she’ll take it.

And she guesses it’s not totally perfect. Bellamy does snore, it turns out.

But it’s quiet and steady, a comforting noise in the background of her dreams that reminds her sometimes when she wakes in the middle of the night of the rumble of the Ark engines she’d lived her entire life with.

And while he seems to delight in getting her off at every opportunity, he still hasn’t fucked her. It’s been almost a week.

That’s what would really bring it to perfect, if she’s being honest.

“Nice,” Wells says. It’s a morning when the ground crunches under their feet with the winter frost. He reaches out and tugs the curl that has sprung loose from the braids bundling her hair away from her face. “Did your boyfriend do that?”

She gives him a dirty look, tucks the curl behind her ear reflexively. “Maybe. Did your girlfriend do that?”

She gestures at the tangle of wires and metal bits that he’s cradling in his other hand, carefully, as if it’s a small bird or a blossom instead of something that looks like actual garbage.

“No,” he says primly. “I made it for her, I’ll have you know.”

Clarke raises a brow. Then she realizes—Wells’s wristband is missing.

“Wells!”

He shifts defensively. “Everyone else is still wearing theirs. The Ark’ll just think there was an accident.”

“They’ll think you’re dead,” she says.

“My dad’s dead. Who’s left up there to care, Clarke?”

Clarke opens her mouth to respond, then shuts it. He nods. “I had more use for it like this.”

“And why are you giving Raven the guts from your wristband?”

Wells eyes her, then sighs, knowing she won’t let him get away without answering her. “A peace offering, sort of. I guess.”

“Why are you the one doing the offering?” Clarke asks. As far as she knows, Raven still avoids Wells like the plague when she can, and is short and somewhat rude when she does have to speak with him. At least she’s moved into Clarke’s old cabin, leaving Finn to his own devices.

She still sees them together at meals, hesitant smiles on their faces as they navigate the rocky ground of awkward breakups, but Clarke’s glad of that. She doesn’t want Raven to be anyone’s servant, but she could tell how frightened the girl was of losing the only family she’d had on the Ark. She'd killed someone to avoid it. 

“To show her that I forgive her,” he replies, quiet. “Even if she doesn’t want to forgive herself, I will. So now she can stop avoiding me and start being my friend.”

“Or else?” Clarke says dryly at the determination in his voice.

“Only if it comes to that,” he replies brightly, and Clarke’s there to see Raven’s utter bewilderment when Wells presents her with the metal and wires. Though she has no clue what Raven could make with it—what she would even want to make with it—the other girl’s face lights up with a cautious joy.

“What do you have for me today?” Clarke asks, though she’s given up on expecting any new answers. While Nyko tends to the sick, the pregnant, and the elderly throughout the village, she’s always grinding herbs, preparing ointments, winding clean bandages, sterilizing their medical equipment, and patching up any of the few who come in with minor injuries or illnesses.

But today, Nyko surprises her.“It’s officially flu season,” he says. "Six people are already sick and more will follow. I need your help to treat them. Move quickly; I'll take you with me to the first home to show you what to do, but then you'll have to go tend to others your own.”

Clarke hurries to begin packing her own basket of supplies, adding different herbs and tools as he points them out to her. “We never had any flu viruses in space. How bad is it?”

“It spreads quickly and can kill if it’s not treated properly,” Nyko says. “Sometimes even if it is treated, if the person is already weak. You’ll need to be careful to wash in between each case, and before you go home. I don’t need you to get sick as well; I’ll need your help.”

“You didn’t have a helper before me,” Clarke points out. “What did you do then?”

“I watched a lot more people die,” he says.

“Oh.”

“With two of us, this year should be better.” He doesn’t exactly sound hopeful.

She follows him to the first home, where a man somewhere in his forties is sweating and shaking with fever. The woman hovering over him with worry etched in every line of her face calls him Gareth, and introduces herself as Juno.

“He was fine last night,” she insists. “He wasn’t even very tired.”

“You know flu sets in fast,” Nyko says kindly. “But he’s being treated early. He may very well be fine in just a few days.”

Juno twists her hands together anxiously. When her nails start digging half-crescents into her skin, on the edge of breaking it, Clarke reaches out. The woman stills in surprise when Clarke touches her hands.

“Nyko and I will do everything we can to see him through this,” Clarke promises.

Juno nods. “I know.” Her voice cracks a bit. “He’s my chosen. I can’t help but worry.”

She squeezes Juno’s hands one more time, then goes over to watch how Nyko treats their patient.

Once a fever reducer has been poured down Gareth’s throat, they leave Juno with a balm to ease the pain in his muscles, directions to bathe him with cool water, and strict instructions to send for them if he gets worse.

Outside, Nyko lists a few names. “Do you know where to find them?”

“I know where to find at least one of them, and I’ll ask how to find the others,” Clarke replies. “I’ll be fine.”

He nods, then heads out in the opposite direction. Clarke takes a deep breath, turns, and sets out for the next patient.

A young man, perhaps a decade older than Clarke, lies unnaturally still on his bed. His fever is higher than Gareth’s, but his pulse is steady, and she does her best to reassure the man hovering nearby that his chosen’s chances of recovery are very good.

She tries the same tactic at the next house, where a middle-aged woman sleeps fitfully, face gray.

“Brin’s not my chosen,” Lito says, shaking his head. His eyes are fixed on the restless woman, and his fingers smooth tendrils of hair away from her face with painstaking care. “Not yet.”

“I’m sorry,” Clarke says, hiding her confusion. “I—will you be able to help care for her while she’s sick?”

“Of course,” he says simply. “I’m not leaving her.” He presses a soft kiss to the corner of Brin’s mouth.

The last patient is a child, barely more than four. He’s by far her worst case with labored breathing and a fever high enough that Clarke’s worried about him seizing. Clarke assures his worried mothers that they will treat the child as best they can, but can’t bring herself to leave once the medication is administered.

She stays put until Nyko comes to find her, late in the afternoon. He quietly greets the women by name when he lets himself in, then grasps Clarke’s shoulder.

“Clarke?”

“He’s unchanged since I arrived,” she explains, and watches his mother tenderly wipe the child’s brow. In a lower voice, she tells Nyko, “High fever, accelerated pulse, difficulty breathing. It’s been a challenge to get him to take any food or water, though I was able to get the fever reducer into him.”

“It sounds like you’ve done all you can,” he says.

She starts. “Oh, but I—”

“Have more patients,” he interrupts, not unkindly.

“More?” she says in dismay. He nods.

“Cam’s mother and her chosen will watch over him and fetch us if there’s any change. We can come back to check on him tomorrow.”

The women murmur their agreement, and at Nyko’s urging, she packs up her things, washes up, and follows him outside.

“Have you eaten?” he asks her. She shakes her head. “Alright. There’s one more new case. We’ll go there first, and then eat.”

The newest case, a teenage girl, is thankfully mild. She’s sitting up in bed, sipping broth, when Clarke and Nyko arrive, and swallows the medicine with only a little difficulty.

Plates of still-warm food wait for them at Nyko’s home. Clarke’s surprised to find herself ravenous. They compare patients as they eat, and a thought she’d had earlier in the day returns to her.

When her plate is empty except for a few crumbs, she sets it aside.

“Nyko,” she begins, then hesitates.

“Yes?”

“What does it mean to be someone’s chosen?” she asks. “Does it just mean that you choose to be together?”

He considers her. “Yes and no. Many people are together without the formal declaration of being one another’s chosen.”

“So it’s like a marriage?” Bellamy had once corrected her when she’d used the word wife .

“Yes,” he says slowly. “In the sense that it is a step of commitment between two or more people. But marriage was—like stopping together at the same place on a journey. It may be a beautiful place, but it’s something you’re in, rather than something you do. A chosen is...personal, rather than of the law. Choosing someone and being chosen is continuing that journey and choosing to walk it together day after day. It symbolizes continuous, active choice and commitment, and all of the work that comes with it.”

“That’s…lovely,” she says. “How does it happen? Is there a ceremony, or a special announcement?”

“No ceremony. It’s most often a private thing between people, when they become one another’s chosen. Many will then announce it in some way, though there’s no special process. Sometimes there are gifts given, in congratulations.”

Clarke thinks of Brin and Lito, and the tender way he’d said Not yet.

A knock at the door interrupts them, and Harper pokes her head through the door. “Monroe and some of the others are sick. I’m not sure what to do.”

Nyko stifles a sigh, then starts to push himself to his feet. Clarke stops him with a touch to his arm.

“I’ve got this. You wait for the next one.” He’d seen twice the number of people in the time she’d treated three.

He nods gratefully, and Clarke motions for Harper to lead the way.

When Clarke lets herself into Bellamy’s—their—cabin early a few evenings later with dinner plates for the both of them, she stokes the fire as high as Bellamy had shown her was safe. She’s been up since before dawn, treating another handful of patients stricken with the flu, and checking on the patients who have begun to recover. So far, no one has died. Brin is awake, and gaining strength every day; Cam’s fever broke the second day, and is more mischievous each day his mothers insist he stay in bed and rest.

But after yet another day of treating patients around the village, Clarke needs a break. She wants the quiet of their cabin, the softness of their bed, the comfort of Bellamy. She’d seen him on her way in for the night, and gestured with her head toward the food and the cabin to let him know they were eating at home, so she expects him relatively soon.

In the meantime, she shrugs out of her heavy outer gear until she’s left in her soft deerskin leggings and the cotton shirt she’d worn on the journey to the ground, and curls up in bed with one of Bellamy’s books.

When he does come in for the night, Bellamy glances between the plates of food on the table, and Clarke lounging on his bed, then strips out of his own heavy winter furs and leathers.

She opens her mouth to speak, smiling, but breaks off in a squeal when he pounces. He swallows the sound with a playful kiss before slinking down her body, dragging the last of her clothes off, and dives between her thighs before she can even say hello.

He works his mouth, his lips, his tongue—fuck, his tongue—against her until, straining against his hold, she comes with a muffled shriek, her face turned and pressed into her pillow.

Clarke’s gasping, her entire body trembling, when Bellamy pulls his face from her cunt, a smug expression on his red, shiny mouth.

She can’t feel her feet. All she can focus on is the liquid pleasure, racing down her limbs with each tremor.

He shifts up, folds his arms across her stomach and rests his chin on them while he watches her labored breathing gleefully. “Good?”

Clarke chokes out a laugh. “Like I say every time, the greatest. Oh my god. Do I still have feet? I can’t tell. Are they there?”

He laughs, and she likes the feel of it, the sound rumbling through him even as the heavy weight of him comforts.

But even though she likes it, even though she’s flushed and satisfied and everything’s just good, in a way she never imagined when she hurtling toward the earth in the dropship—she wants.

She wants him.

“Come up here,” she says, tugging lightly at his hair. The curls are a riotous mess, both from the hours he’d spent training—or trying to train, it didn’t always go well—the others from the dropship, and from Clarke’s fingers.

He gives her a curious look, but climbs up her body. Bellamy yelps when she wraps her arms around his ribcage, yanks at him until he loses his balance and crashes into the cradle of her hips. Clarke lets out a grateful sigh at the pressure of him against the still-sensitive flesh between her thighs.

“Bellamy,” she whispers, tilting her head up to trail kisses along his jaw. He’s still in his underwear, a pair of fabric shorts not unlike what citizens were issued on the Ark, and Clarke firmly believes that they should have been removed five minutes ago. Her hands slip down his back, under the cloth, and she smiles against his skin when he hisses and jolts at her squeeze.

Then she shoves the underwear down his hips, freeing him, and rocks her hips up so he slides through the wet, slick folds.

“Shit!” he grunts, and pulls his hips away, holding himself awkwardly so he doesn’t touch her anymore.

She shrinks away a little bit, feeling immediately, stupidly, hurt.

“Clarke…” he trails off when he sees the look on her face, and he sighs. Then he leans down and presses a tender kiss to her brow, to her cheeks, to her lips. “Clarke.”

“Bellamy,” she replies quietly. Part of her is soothed by the gentle affection, but a bigger part of her is still hurt. “It’s been over a week. Why...why won’t you…” She’s not sure what to say; why won’t you fuck me sounds vulgar right now in this quiet moment, and why won’t you make love to me feels like—like too much, at least for right now. “I want you inside me,” she says instead, flushing a little. “But you don’t. Why?”

Bellamy turns onto his side, tugs her in close to him so their whole bodies are touching. “Fuck, Clarke, of course I want to be inside you,” he says, voice rough. She can feel him, hard against her hip. “But I can’t—we shouldn’t—” He breaks off with a frustrated groan.

Clarke echoes the sound. “Why, Bellamy? Why can’t you? Why shouldn’t we?”

Bellamy buries his face in her hair, and his voice is muffled when he speaks. “Our methods of birth control are unreliable at best, ineffective at worst. You’re only eighteen, Clarke, and you’ve only been living this life for a few months, and the last thing I want to do is get you pregnant right now and make your life more difficult.”

He must register the utter stillness his words cause in her, because he pulls his face away so he can look at her. “I mean,” he says, sounding a little anxious, “if you did, um, get pregnant, I would—I would be there for you, and the baby, and I’d be happy, but it’s not—I didn’t think this would be a good time, and I didn’t think you would, either, and I—”

Helpless, he stares at her. Clarke stares back.

“You won’t be with me like that because you’re afraid of getting me pregnant?” she says, quiet.

He nods. “I thought—well, I saw what it was like when my mother didn’t want to have Octavia,” he says, quiet too. “It wasn’t good, and I didn’t ever want to put a woman through that, or have a child feel like Octavia did if the mother didn’t really want the baby.”

“Bellamy,” she replies, soft, and brings her hand to his face. “You did your best for your sister. She loves you.”

“My best still isn’t what she deserved.” Clarke traces his lips with her thumb, and when he sighs, the breath tickles her skin.

“Well, I think your best is the best any child could hope for,” she says finally, “But I agree, I don’t want to get pregnant yet. So, thanks for looking out for my interests, I guess.”

He looks relieved, and Clarke smiles at him. “But we’re both idiots,” she continues, “because we both should have brought this up a lot earlier.”

Frowning, he runs his fingers through her hair. Her eyes flutter shut a moment, and she hums at the tender touch.

“Why are we idiots?” he asks, curiosity in his voice, and she opens her eyes to see him still frowning in confusion.

“Because,” she says, laying her hands on his chest. “I can’t get pregnant, Bellamy.”

His face goes from puzzlement to a brief sorrow that’s rapidly replaced by understanding. “Oh,” he says. “I’m—I’m sorry, Clarke.”

“Oh—no, Bellamy,” Clarke says, and slides her hands up to cup his face. “I can’t get pregnant right now,” she clarifies. “All of the girls from the Ark, we have devices that reliably prevent pregnancy for years, or until we choose to remove them.” She frowns briefly—she’d never removed one during her medical training on the Ark, and she’s going to have to figure out how to, when it’s time. But that’s a problem for the future.

“You have one of them?” Bellamy says after a moment. Clarke nods, and draws his face to hers for a kiss.

“Yes,” she says. “So. You won’t get me pregnant.”

“So you...so we…?”

“Yes,” she says again, and pulls his lower lip between her teeth, sucking on it until he groans and kisses her heatedly.

She moves her hands lower, urges him to kick off the shorts the rest of the way until he’s finally as bare as her, then rolls onto her back again, pulling him with her. He settles against her, a deliciously heavy weight, the hot length of him against her skin.

Clarke sighs in satisfaction and strokes her hands down his back, feeling the muscles tense and relax and shift under her touch.

There’s more tensing than relaxing, so she presses a kiss to his jaw.

“Bellamy,” she whispers, and he exhales, then braces himself on his elbows on either side of her while he buries his face in her neck. “Bellamy?”

“I’ve never—I’ve never done this before, Clarke,” he mutters. “With anybody.”

Bellamy has always been confident in bed with her. Clarke knows he’s been confident with other girls before, like Lira. But now, he sounds unsure in a way that has Clarke melting, both body and heart. “We don’t have to do this either,” she says honestly. “It’s good, now that we’ve talked about it. We can just keep doing what we’ve been doing.” She rubs his back again. “I mean it.”

He draws back enough that he can peer up at her. “But I want to.”

She raises an eyebrow at that. “Then we will.”

“But…” Bellamy says again, and red blooms in his cheeks. “I might not, uh. Be good at it. Yet,” he adds, hasty. “Just let me practice, and I’ll—”

Clarke bites back on a smile, though it’s difficult. “Trust me, Bellamy. I’ll be happy to let you practice as much as you want, but I’ll be satisfied no matter what happens.”

Because it’ll be with him, she thinks, though she’s not quite brave enough to say the words out loud just yet.

He nods, a tiny motion, and presses a sweet kiss to the swell of her breast.

“Come here,” she says, and moves her thighs farther apart while she urges him up until they’re face to face.

Bellamy balances on one elbow, starts to reach down and tease her cunt, but Clarke shakes her head and pulls his hand back up. She’s still wet and relaxed from her first orgasm, and she just wants him.

“I’m ready,” she tells him, and she’s the one who reaches down, wraps around his cock to line him up with her. It’s very quiet in the cabin, the only sound the little pants of breath, and the tiny groan that escapes him when she carefully lifts her hips so the head of his cock is nestled in the perfect spot.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asks.“I promise I wouldn't mind if we didn't.”

He nods and rests his forehead on hers, eyes on hers, and she can feel him trembling as he moves forward, but she realizes she is too. It’s hardly her first time, but—it’s the first time for him, and with him, and everything just feels more—

Everything is just more.

When he’s completely inside her, his eyes shut, and she can see the clench of his jaw and feel the wrinkling of his brow against hers.

“Bellamy?” she whispers after a moment has gone by in silence. It’s not that she minds staying like they are now, her feeling full and warm and blissful, but she wants to make sure he didn’t, like, pass out or anything.

“Bellamy,” she repeats, and a strangled Trigedasleng word drops from his mouth—a word she recognizes as one he’s taught her, though it’s one that’s definitely not suited for polite company.

“Are you alright?” she asks, rubbing circles on his back.

“I—yes, fuck, I just…” his voice is impossibly deep and rough, each word sounding almost pained.

Clarke is quiet for another moment. “Is it...good? You’re not really—”

“It’s good,” he cuts her off. “God, Clarke, it’s good—”

His limbs tremble, and he mutters another curse and tries to remain still.

Her mouth rounds in an ‘o’ of realization. “Just let go, Bellamy,” she tells him, and scratches his back lightly with her fingernails.

He shakes his head and his nose brushes hers. “No. I want to do this with you.”

“Don’t be silly,” she says, exasperated. “You are doing this with me, and then you’re going to get to do it again, and again, and—” She breaks off, sighing, then tilts her chin to kiss him hard and deep as she finally moves her hips under his in a deliberate undulation.

He rips his mouth from hers with a gasp, head tilting back so the line of his neck stands out in sharp relief. “Fuck—”

She does it again, and finally, he moves, pulling back and then thrusting into her with enough force that her back drags against the bed. She wraps her legs tightly around his waist, whispering encouragements as he fills her, and after only a couple strokes he shudders and she feels the wet heat spilling into her with each stutter of his hips.

His head drops heavily to her shoulder with a groan. “Clarke…” His tone is reproachful.

“I’m only a tiny bit sorry,” she says, and pets his hair a little. “But only a tiny bit, because I really enjoyed that.”

He lifts his head up, and his expression is adorably outraged. “There is no possible way that did anything for you.”

“I don’t have to come to enjoy it,” she tells him firmly. “Don’t be stupid.”

“But I wanted you to come,” he mutters, and pulls out of her to roll over on his back.

“And I will,” she soothes, linking her hand with his as they lie side by side. “Next time.”

He sighs gustily.

Clarke rolls her eyes, and catches sight of the goofy grin playing at his mouth.

Idiot, she thinks, but it’s with fondness flooding her heart.

She’d dropped into a dead sleep before Bellamy could convince her to let him get her off, so she wakes up to his fingers tangled in the damp curls between her legs, his mouth pressed to the nape of her neck while she reaches her orgasm in a sudden, shocking burst of feeling. She reaches back and grips his hip, trying to tug him closer, and he complies, crowding against her back until they’re skin to skin everywhere.

“Morning,” she slurs, still hazy from sleep and coming. He nuzzles her neck.

“Morning,” he says, then grips her thigh in his hand. She can feel his fingers flex, and she knows what he wants, what he’s still hesitant to ask for. She lifts her thigh, presses her ass back against him, and he sighs in gratitude as he holds her in place and slips easily inside of her.

Clarke instantly lets out a long moan, the sensation of him nearly too much, so close on the heels of the orgasm that still has her cunt tingling.

“Fuck,” Bellamy mutters, and kisses the spot beneath her ear, sucking gently as he starts to fuck her with short, deep thrusts.

“Fuck,” Clarke agrees breathily, arching against him as the feeling builds again, warmth and pleasure and happiness. She pushes back against him, whimpering when he hits the perfect spot, and fists the bedding in her grasp. His thrusts get sloppier, and his hand slips over her hip to tease her clit. The second she starts to come around him, breath caught in her throat, he chokes out her name and wraps his arm tight around her waist as he comes, pressing as deep into her as he can.

With deep, shuddering breaths, Clarke’s heart gradually calms as the pleasure thrums quietly through her body; Bellamy is breathing heavily too, the harsh sound echoing in her ear. She groans when his dick softens and slips out, and she clenches her legs together as she rolls onto her back so she can finally see his face.

He’s still flushed from sex, but the grin on his face is brilliant.

Clarke laughs at him, and he ducks his head to kiss her quickly, messily, before bounding out of bed with what Clarke considers far too much energy to fetch her a damp cloth to clean up with.

They bring Atlas home once he’s weaned from his mother. He’s grown a little, but he’s still getting used to his limbs and trips over his own legs when he tries to walk.

“Ouch,” Bellamy says, pulling his finger out of the pup’s mouth. Tiny pinpricks of blood well up where the sharp puppy teeth punctured the skin. Clarke grabs his hand before he can put the finger in his mouth.

“You don’t know where his mouth has been!” she scolds, and drags him over to the table.

“Clarke, it’s fine,” Bellamy says. She glares at him.

“We need to teach him it’s not okay to bite,” she says, pulling supplies out of her med kit. He hisses when she disinfects the bite.

“We will,” he soothes. His hand turns, curls around her own. “We’ll teach him everything he needs to know.”

Atlas attacks her shoelace and then falls over.

Clarke looks at the puppy, then at Bellamy. Bellamy looks at her. He breaks first, deep belly laughs filling the room, and Clarke joins.

Their puppy is very smart. He learn each simple command in less than a day, and it only takes four days of training to teach him to be careful with his teeth when either of them are playing with him.

Unfortunately, he’s also smart enough to manage to climb out of the wooden crate that serves as his temporary bed and leap onto Bellamy and Clarke, doggy joy in every rapid swish of his ropy tail, right at the point when Bellamy’s making Clarke’s head go fuzzy in a wonderful way.

“Oh shit,” Clarke gasps when the pounce pushes all of the air out of her lungs and the sharp claws prick the skin of her stomach, and then realizes that it’s Atlas. Bellamy curses and topples off of her. Atlas immediately races to investigate, and Bellamy scrambles to scoop him up before the sharp claws run over rather more sensitive skin.

“Oh!” she says, sitting up and pulling one of their furs to cover herself. She looks at Bellamy, sitting in a naked heap where he landed on the floor, holding Atlas in the air and looking disgruntled.

The puppy’s tail wags.

Clarke giggles, and keeps giggling while Bellamy tucks the dog back into the crate, making stern sounds and insisting the dog stay put this time.

When he slides back into bed with her and sidles up close, though, she shakes her head.

“Nope.”

“But—”

“Nope,” she says again, popping the ‘p.’ “He’s gonna get out again.”

“I told him not to,” Bellamy argues.

Clarke arches a brow. “I’m not holding my breath.”

Bellamy looks put out. “He’s staying put.”

“You can be the one to find out,” Clarke decides. When Bellamy reaches for her, she pushes his arms back to his sides until he lays still, watching her with eyes half-closed. She smiles and skims her fingertips from his right hip to the knee. The coarse hair covering his leg tickles her fingers when she trails them lightly back up his inner thigh. His breath catches, and she pauses at the crease of his thigh.

“You good?” she asks innocently. He huffs and reaches for her; she draws her hand away, and he pauses, torn.

“Nope,” she reminds him. Slowly, he lowers his arms to the bed and grabs the sheets in his fists.

She returns to tracing his skin, following the crease of his thigh up and along the inguinal ligament, across his abdomen and back down the other line of the ‘v.’ Clarke pauses for just a moment, then drifts her thumb over the underside of his cock.

Bellamy whimpers, and this might not have been the best idea, because she’s so, so wet at the sight and sound of him laid out on the bed, waiting for her to touch him.

“Clarke,” he chokes. “Please, I—”

She leans forward and kisses him softly as her hand closes around his cock, sliding up and down with soft, measured strokes. He bucks into her grasp, gasps and moans as she keeps the rhythm steady, until Bellamy yelps and abruptly rolls over, on top of her.

She oofs, Bellamy’s elbow digging into her gut. Atlas clambers further onto the bed and rears up, planting his paws on Bellamy’s arm, eager to play.

Bellamy drops his head to her shoulder. “Fuck.”

Clarke pats his other arm. “I told you.”

He lets out a gusty sigh. “I’ll go put him out.”

“Out? Out where?” she asks.

“Outside,” he says, as if it’s obvious. And it is, but—

“But it’s freezing!” Last week had seen the weather finally turn with the first snow of the season. It had melted off within a day, but yesterday was the second snow, and inches of the stuff lingers on the ground. “You can’t put him outside just because you want to have sex.”

“We won’t take that long.”

“Bellamy!”

He sighs.

“Have you seen what your boyfriend is doing?” Wells asks curiously.

“What?” Clarke tosses more red kelp into the mortar and starts grinding again. They’re running low after another round of the flu filtered through the village, and the benefit of having Clarke as his apprentice of sorts is that when she’s not needed to actually treat people, Nyko can make her do all of the tedious jobs. Like grinding.

The word boyfriend still bothers her, like a loose hair that she can’t see touching her skin. It’s not wrong, but it’s just…not right, either. Clarke pushes the thought away.

“I don’t know what he’s doing,” Wells says. “I just wondered if you knew.”

That steals Clarke’s attention. “Where is he?”

“At your place—hey!”

Clarke thrusts the mortar and pestle into his arms with a quick, “Keep working on that, will you?”

When she nears their cabin, she doesn’t notice anything strange going on, but she hears Bellamy’s voice and the high-pitched yips and play-growls of the pup. That’s normal enough—most days, Bellamy takes the dog with him while Clarke works, as it’s easier to have Atlas outdoors with him than it is for Clarke to keep him from knocking over medical supplies with his puppy enthusiasm.

She follows the sounds around to the back of the cabin, and covers her mouth when she sees Bellamy wrestling with Atlas in the snow.

The dog is still small, about the size of her boot, and Bellamy moves in exaggerated gestures, giving the pup plenty of time to pounce and bark and run. Whenever he does snatch the dog up and roll around with him, he’s gentle, careful.

Mid-roll, he catches sight of her and stills. Atlas barks and licks his face, wriggling madly while Bellamy beams at Clarke, breathing hard.

“Hi,” she laughs. That catches the pup’s attention, and he wiggles out of Bellamy’s hold and dashes over to jump at her legs. She scoops him up while Bellamy clambers to his feet. The puppy is small and warm and licks every part of her he can reach.

Clarke loves him desperately.

Bellamy loves him too.

And she loves Bellamy.

He joins her and ruffle the dog’s fur. He’s disheveled and his hair is wet from melted snow.

She loves him.

He kisses her in greeting and asks, “What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” Clarke retorts. “You’re supposed to be training.”

“That’s a secret,” he says, boyish smile lighting up his face.

She loves him.

After grinding what feels like seven more pounds of kelp for Nyko, she goes home for the day to find a tiny but sturdy looking structure attached to their house. She puzzles over it for a bit until Bellamy gets home, sees her looking at it, and grins shyly. He motions toward the cabin door, and they go inside.  Atlas races around their feet, delirious with joy now that the two of his humans are both home for the night.

Bellamy nods to the small door that’s been installed on the inside of the cabin. It's about three feet high and wide with a latch to keep it shut.

“What do you think?”

“It reminds me of that old story, the one with the girl who has to shrink to fit through the doors because they’re so small,” Clarke says, crouching down in front of it curiously.

He reaches down, tugs gently on her hair. “Don’t go chasing any rabbits, Alice.”

Clarke glances up at him, delighted that he knows the story too, and he nods again at the door. “Open it.”

She does. It opens into the little added-on structure, and it’s warm inside from the heat of the attached cabin. The floor is lined with pine needles, and over a mound of them he’s laid one of the older, patchy furs they used as a rug. A wood-hewn bowl is in the corner, filled with water, and another holds the chopped meat Atlas eats now that he’s away from his mother.

“What…?”

“It’s a dog house,” Bellamy explains, and crouches next to her to point things out. “For Atlas to sleep in at night. We can close the door if we’re…” He pauses. “Busy. Or leave it open, if we’re not. But he’ll still be comfortable, protected from the cold, and have food and water. We can even find him a big stick to keep in here, for him to gnaw on when he’s bored.”

Clarke stands, moves into him. His arms go around her waist automatically, and she links her hands around his neck. “Bellamy kom Trigedakru,” she says, utterly serious. “Did you make our dog his own room so you could have sex with me without being interrupted?”

He thinks about it. “Yes.”

She nods. “Alright then.” And she draws him down into a long, wet kiss that has him blinking when she finally lets him go.

Atlas sniffs around their feet as they eat dinner, and only reluctantly lets himself be lured into the dog house. Though it had seemed funny, even charming when she’d first realized what Bellamy had done, she feels terribly guilty now as Atlas looks at her woefully.

Clarke bites her lip as Bellamy fastens the door shut so the pup can’t get out, and they both hold their breath. Her heart lurches when he lets out a single, lonesome woof, then begins to whimper. She has to breathe a sigh of relief when it stops after just a minute and is followed by shuffling sounds, telling her he’s resigned himself to his new place and is curling up on the improvised bed without too much fuss.

Bellamy looks at her expectantly when he stands. “So.” He moves in toward her, but she plants her hands on his chest.

“So?” she echoes. “You just locked our dog in a box!”

His brow furrows, and he looks rather put out. "It's a dog house. And he likes it.”

"He tolerates it," Clarke corrects, still feeling somewhat terrible for putting the puppy out of the room just so she can get laid.

"He's a dog," Bellamy replies, puzzled. "He's fine."

Clarke sets her mouth stubbornly. "Yeah, he's a dog, but shit, Bellamy. It starts with the dog, but it doesn't end there."

He stares. "What the hell are you talking about?"

She throws up her hands in the air. "First the dog, then what? What would you do with a baby? Tuck them in with Atlas and toss them a blanket? Say good luck?"

"Well, when there are actual babies to interrupt us..." Bellamy considers it, then shrugs. "I'll build another room for them. Problem solved."

She stares at him; he raises a brow.

"I keep telling you, Clarke. Atlas likes it; they will too."

They only manage to keep straight faces for another few seconds, and then they’re laughing, Bellamy chuckling in between kisses to her forehead, her cheeks, her lips, and she twines herself around him.

At the sound of their laughter, Atlas protests being left out of the fun with a sharp yip that echoes from inside the little dog house.

They hush their laughter the best they can and tumble onto their bed, kissing and touching and shedding clothes, until Clarke has Bellamy back where she had him the night before, gasping and straining into her touch while she works his dick in her hand.

But this time, she sits up, swings her leg across his body, and slides over him, moaning as he comes to rest fully inside her. Bellamy makes a sound deep in his throat and grabs her hips.

She rides him until he comes with a shout. Then he fucks her with his fingers until her body shakes and she begs for him to start it, to end it, to do something.

Her orgasm breaks, and he holds her and kisses her hair softly as she comes down again. She draws in deep, shuddering breaths as she tries to regulate her breathing. His chest is slick against her cheek, and he smells like sweat and sawdust and a little like the dog. He smells like Bellamy. She can feel his heartbeat thud against her ear.

She loves him.

He murmurs nonsense words, English and Trigedasleng and words she can’t identify at all, and lays her down on their bed, touching her so gently she could be a soap bubble he’s trying not to pop.

She loves him.

The cloth he brings her is cool and wet, and it makes her shiver as he drags it over her skin. Once she’s clean, he tugs the furs up over her shoulders and takes the cloth to their basket of dirty laundry.

She loves him.

“Let him out?” she asks softly when he pauses by Atlas’s door. He nods, looking relieved, and her heart might beat right out of her chest.

She loves him.

He brings the sleepy pup back to their bed and deposits him on top of the blankets at her feet, then slides under the furs and tugs her close until her head is tucked under his chin.

“I love you.”

Bellamy goes very still. It takes a moment for him to speak. “Clarke.” His voice is raw. “Ai hod yu in seintaim.”

“I haven’t learned those words yet,” Clarke replies. It’s hard to talk around the boulder in her throat. “What do they mean?”

“Clarke,” he says again, and tips her face up so he can cover her mouth with his. “It means, I love you too.”

“Why do you think they haven’t come down?”

Clarke glances over at Wells as he takes a seat next to her. He shivers a little and she scoots closer to share the fur she’s wrapped up in.

Over a month has passed since the winter solstice, and they’ve all been confined to the village buildings for the last few weeks during blizzards. Today was the first day with clear skies, and now that the sun has set, she can see all of the stars. The spot where the Ark usually glows is strangely dark to her, only a few dim lights still on. Conserving energy, no doubt.

“I don’t know. Enough of us kept our wristbands on for them to know we’re safe. I thought they would have followed within a few weeks, but maybe they’re waiting for better weather?” Clarke doesn’t think the hundred of them was enough to make that much of a difference in the lifespan of the Ark, but it’s possible. It probably would have given them a few extra months to prepare, at the least. The alternative, that they reduced their population further rather than follow them to the ground immediately, is hard to bear.

“The wristbands malfunctioned.”

They both start in surprise, and Raven sits down next to them, grim look on her face.

In her hands is a familiar tangle of wire, now arranged neatly, in a way Clarke figures electronic things are supposed to look.

It still mostly looks like a pile of garbage to her.

“What do you mean?” Wells asks, leaning forward to look at the wires.

He doesn’t have any more of a clue what to look for than Clarke does, but Raven moves closer, until her shoulder brushes Wells’s, and points to something.

Clarke and Wells look at the metal, then expectantly at Raven.

She huffs. “I noticed while I was trying to put the mess that you gave me back together, so I could decide what to do with it. It took forever to sort this thing out, but once I got it back in order, I saw that just here—”

They lean in closer to get a better look at the metal wire she’s pointing to. Where it’s supposed to be connected to another, it’s loose, the end of the wire fading to black at the tip.

“The wire’s fried. But I figured you could have done it when you pulled it out of your wristband,” Raven says. “So I started opening the control panels of other wristbands to see if they’re intact.”

“And?” Clarke asks, a growing sense of dread in her gut. The air is so cold that her lips are numb.

“And they’re all the same. Every single one was fried.”

“So what does that mean?” Wells asks.

“This is a pretty crucial wire. When it arced, all transmission to the Ark would have cut off.”

“When did it cut off?” Clarke asks flatly.

Raven looks at her with something like pity. “It’s impossible to tell. But…”

“But?”

“My best guess? Right after we crash-landed on earth.”

“So they thought we all died,” Wells says. He’s staring at the metal in Raven’s hand, the wires almost as thin as spider silk. The gift it had given him so much joy to give her. “That earth wasn’t survivable.”

“What caused it?”

Raven shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know. Maybe the radiation down here, or the force of the landing.”

“They would have planned for both of those things,” Clarke argues.

“Plans can still go wrong.” Raven looks from Clarke to Wells. “Or they could have been tampered with. To make the Ark think you’d died, and they had to stay in space. With your dad...out of the way and people scared, it would be a great time to take control.”

His mouth flattens into a thin line, and Raven looks uneasy.

“Look, I’m sorry. I can’t say for sure how or why any of this happened; I just thought—I thought you should know.”

Clarke nods, and Wells says something to Raven she doesn’t hear.

She used to think that she and all the other kids sent down in the dropship were like sandbags on an air balloon. Cast away just to let the rest rise up and thrive. It turns out she got her metaphor wrong.

They were in the only lifeboat, cast away from a sinking ship.

“They could still be alive,” Bellamy ventures, when she goes home and tells him what Raven found.

She tries a smile, but it falls flat. “Maybe.”

If the Ark is stabilized enough by limiting energy use, if the engineers have figured out how to fix what’s wrong, if they’ve lowered the population somehow—if, if, if.

Without a way to contact the Ark, there's no way to know for sure. Without the belief that the Ark was preparing to come down, the months since their landing can't be explained away.

The dark spot in the sky where the Ark should be says something different to her now.

Bellamy tugs her into the cradle of his thighs and starts combing the tangles out of her hair with his fingers. She relaxes into the heat of his body. She hadn’t realized she’d gotten so cold outside, but in contrast he feels almost as hot as the stones they pull from the fire to warm their bed.

He switches from combing to twisting her hair together in a simple plait. Once it’s tied, he drapes it over her shoulder, leans forward and kisses the nape of her neck.

She turns her head and their noses bump. His mouth brushes hers in featherlight kiss, and she sighs into it.

Clarke turns to face him and rises up onto her knees, cradling his face between her hands as she examines it, the erratic dusting of pigment across his skin and the scar on his lip. His hair has gotten longer and his beard is starting to grow in. His eyes meet hers, dark and calm.

She kisses him then, carefully, as if sipping the nectar from a flower. And then harder, once he begins to kiss her back. Clarke leans back slowly, drawing him with her, until she’s flat on their bed, his body covering hers. The weight of him is solid and comforting.

“Clarke?”

She caresses his scruffy cheek. “Please, Bellamy?”

His eyes go soft, and he leans down to kiss her again.

They shed their clothes, and Bellamy kisses and touches her until she’s wet and ready. He makes love to her, fucking her slowly, holding her as she holds him: tightly, as if they never want to let go.

Atlas sleeps through it all. 

Chapter Text

They gather all of the sky people and explain what Raven’s found. Most are angry and sad, and don’t want to believe it, but the doubt brought on by the delay of the Ark’s arrival eats away at their denial. One by one, they stop by the blacksmith’s for Raven’s help removing their wristbands. Clarke is the first to take it off.

The days after are easier. The sorrow is still there, but life in the village as winter is slowly pushed out—spring creeping in through little spikes of green grass poking through the snow and birds starting to sing—keeps her busy, keeps her present, instead of back on the Ark with two thousand ghosts.

Working in Nyko’s workshop, sorting the herbs they’ll use to bring someone back from the brink of death, helps. Patching Jasper’s perpetually injured limbs while Monty hovers in the background helps. Spotting Wells and Raven walking slowly beside each other on a circuit of the village helps. Feeling Atlas’s coarse fur and the still-soft pads of his feet in her hands when she holds him helps.

And Bellamy helps. Every morning, she wakes in his arms—he doesn’t leave her until he knows she’s awake. Every night, she falls asleep listening to the sound of his breathing and the measured thud of his heart.

The Ark was her home for a long time. When she dreams, it’s often still about the cool metal walls and circular paths of each station, or the small partition her family shared.

But the Ark in her dreams and most of the people who once made it home are gone.

This is her home now, with people she loves—Wells, and Raven, Octavia and Lincoln and Nyko. Harper, and Jasper, and Monty, all of the sky kids, and all of the earthborn from the village who taught them how to live on the ground.

Atlas.

And Bellamy. Always Bellamy.

She’s home.

Clarke has been living with Bellamy for just over four months when Octavia marches up to her at breakfast, steals Clarke’s apple, and tells her that she’s overdue for training.

Clarke mourns the apple as it disappears into Octavia’s mouth. It was a little wrinkly and bruised, but it was one of the last left from the previous harvest’s stores. Bellamy’s told her that the earth will heat up quickly and new fruit will grow soon, but until it does, Clarke’s been trying to savor the fruit she’s given.

“Training?” Clarke echoes. She looks at Octavia cautiously. “Octavia, are you feeling alright? I’m Clarke, not Bellamy.”

Bellamy had left for the training ground with Atlas a good ten minutes ago, anyway. Now that spring had arrived and snow had melted, the sky kids are resuming their training—though Bellamy despaired this morning over whether it was really resuming, rather than starting from scratch. They had an entire winter cooped up inside to forget everything they had already learned.

Octavia rolls her eyes. “Don’t be an idiot,” she says. She crunches into the apple. “You’ve gotten out of training for too long. If you don’t want to die for no reason, you’ve got to learn at least the basics. I’ve already cleared it with Nyko.”

Clarke wants to protest. She’s busy, and being a village healer is hard, and she’s never done anything as physical as training looks. The closest thing is sex, and at least that is fun.

But…Octavia’s right.

“Fine,” Clarke groans.

She meets Octavia in a smaller cleared area behind some houses, away from the patch of hard packed dirt where the others usually train. At first she’s puzzled, but the first time she’s knocked on her ass, she appreciates the privacy as well as the layer of grass and  last season’s pine needles that cushion her fall.

Octavia gives her a hand and hauls her up, smirking. “Can’t have the healer breaking something during training,” she explains. “Who would fix the healer?”

Clarke just rolls her eyes, rubs her smarting hip, and then tries to resume the stable stance Octavia’s been attempting to teach her.

To her surprise, it’s a lot more fun than she thought. Not as fun as sex, but her adrenaline gets going and her breath grows labored and even though it’s serious, even though it’s teaching her how to stay alive, she still breaks out in shrieks of laughter whenever Octavia gets through her guard and jabs her lightly in the stomach.

It’s the end of the second week of working with Octavia when Clarke finally starts to feel like she stands a chance. Not against Octavia, of course; Octavia could kill her with just her pinky, probably. But in the event that she’s attacked by something, she has a small chance of, if not killing it outright, disabling it enough to get away.

“Good,” Octavia says when Clarke finishes a repetition of blocks, panting lightly. The air is crisp and chilly against her overheated cheeks. “Again.”

Clarke groans, her muscles protesting, but obligingly shifts into the proper stance. But Octavia raises an eyebrow at something behind Clarke, and doesn’t start the normal rapid-fire blows for Clarke to attempt to block.

“What are you doing here?”

“Lincoln’s looking for you,” Clarke hears, and turns to see Bellamy. He glances at her, something odd in his eyes, but looks back to Octavia. “

“Sure he is,” Octavia says dryly.

“Take the dog with you,” Bellamy asks abruptly.

Octavia snorts, but calls Atlas to her side. “See you tomorrow, Clarke.”

“Oh, but—” Clarke starts. They usually go for an hour or two in the morning, then again in the afternoon. But Octavia’s already gone, and Bellamy is walking to her, slowly, deliberately, until Clarke realizes she’s backing up when she stumbles over a root and nearly falls. Bellamy’s hand darts to her arm, steadying her, and Clarke’s back lightly touches a tree.

“Bellamy?”

“Clarke,” he replies, then takes her face in his hands and kisses her. Clarke squeaks a little, then groans when he drags her bottom lip through his teeth. Her hands go to his shoulders as he presses her harder against the tree, his lips burning a path from her mouth to her ear. Her mind goes blank, and by the time she can notice the hardness of his body against hers, Bellamy’s mouth is working at her jaw, sucking bruises into the pale skin.

“What—” She swallows, tries again. “Why now?”

“You’re learning to fight.” He presses a wet kiss to her throat.

“You knew that,” she breathes. “This isn’t—”   

She presses her thighs tightly together in response to the sudden flood of feeling that throbs in time with the movement of his mouth, and lets her head fall back against the bark.

“It’s not a surprise,” she finishes in a rush.

“First time I got to see it,” he counters, and Clarke huffs a laugh, shivering a little when his lips tickle her skin.

One of his hands rests heavy on her hip, a finger tracing the bare skin between her shirt and pants, and he moves the other from high on her ribcage to her breast when she arches against him insistently.

“Bellamy,” she demands, feeling him against her stomach. “Bellamy .” The hand on her hip moves to her belly, flirting with the edge of the soft deerskin leggings. Her breath catches in her throat when they dip under the material, just a little. His fingers are cool from the spring air, and she’s overheated from exercise.

“Clarke,” he says, nuzzling her a little. “Let me?”

The words are a question, but his voice is hoarse, insistent. He presses a little harder against her, and she kisses him, because he’s waiting for her to do something, to say something, to say yes, and fuck, why would she say no?

He groans into her mouth, and she tangles her hands in his hair when he slips his fingers under her leggings, pasther underwear, between her legs where’s she’s already slick and wet.

Bellamy strokes carefully through her folds until she’s trembling and grinding against his hand, trying to get him to really touch her.

“Come on,” she pants, “just—please, just—” He pulls his hand from her pants, and she nearly sobs at the loss. Then he’s falling to his knees in front of her, pine needles rustling under him, and he’s looking up at her as he grasps the fabric at her hips.

“Shit,” Clarke says. “Shit, yes, please. Just—” Bellamy presses a kiss to her belly, making the skin there jump, and tugs the leggings down to her knees. She gasps a little at the sudden cool against her burning skin, and she feels herself flushing even redder. Before, he’d been pressed against her, hiding her from view; now, if anyone walked behind the cabins for any reason and glanced back into the trees, they might see them: Clarke braced against the tree with Bellamy before her.

She doesn’t care enough to stop him; instead, her breathing quickens.

“Stop thinking so loud,” he says, teasing, and Clarke tugs at his hair in retaliation. Then he pushes a hand against her stomach, holding her still, and the other goes between her legs along with his mouth.

The mid-day sun is filtering through the new leaves, dappling his shoulders and the ground and the tiny blossoms on the bushes all the same.

She can understand why spring is his favorite season.

“Jasper!” Clarke groans when she sees him approaching Nyko’s, Monty by his side. “Not again!”

“It’s not me this time!” he says defensively. Clarke’s gaze shifts to Monty, who ducks his head sheepishly.

“What happened?”

“Harper knocked him on his ass!” Jasper interjects. Monty hits him on the back of the head, going pink.

“We were sparring ,” he says. “She’s supposed to do that.”

“Yeah, but not so hard you break something.”

“You think something’s broken?” Clarke asks.

“Maybe,” Monty grants, and uses his left hand to lift his right arm for her perusal. “It sure hurts like hell.”

Clarke’s feels along his arm, delicately searching for a break and wishing for an x-ray, when she hears Bellamy’s voice and feels Atlas snuffling her feet in greeting.

“Not you two again.”

She snorts while they both protest. Bellamy’s shared a fair number of tales from the training ground about the two friends. She almost thinks he’ll miss it, when the sky people are deemed trained enough to shift from active training to maintenance drills. He’s too entertained.

“At least it’s Monty this time,” Clarke says, gingerly turning Monty’s arm over.

“Thanks,” Monty says sourly, then hisses.

“What’s up?” Clarke asks Bellamy.

“It’s almost lunch. I thought I’d walk with you to eat.”

She flashes him a smile. “I would have loved that. But…”

“But,” Bellamy agrees, watching her examine Monty. “Join me if you get time? I’ll bring you a plate if you don’t.”

“Thank you,” Clarke replies, grateful, and lifts her face to accept his goodbye kiss. Atlas gets his ears rubbed before he follows Bellamy away.

After he’s walked away, Jasper says, “Damn, Clarke. You and your grounder boyfriend are on fire.”  

“He’s not my—” she bites off the sentence. She doesn’t know what she was going to say. Boyfriend has never sounded nor felt right, but it’s not technically wrong.

“Oh,” Jasper says, nodding sagely. “I get it. He’s your grounder husband.”

“What?” Clarke blinks. “No, he’s—” She doesn’t know what to say to that either. “Shut up.”

“Hey, uh, Jasper, can you stop talking until Clarke finishes fixing me?” Monty asks.

He nods. “Sure. Wouldn’t want Clarke to be late to lunch with the husband.”

She’s going to murder him.

After Clarke diagnoses Monty’s injury as a likely sprain, fashions him a sling, and sends him on his way, the two must go straight to their friends and start running their mouths, because it only takes two days for Wells to say, mild, “Congratulations on your nuptials, thought I’m a little offended I wasn’t invited.”

“What?” Clarke’s still half asleep, with a spoonful of porridge halfway to her mouth.

“I always thought I’d be your maid of honor,” Wells continues. “But I understand that you and your husband wanted a small, private affair.”

She stares at him, mind slowly filtering through his words and her memories until it finally draws the conclusion— “God damn it, fucking Jasper.”

Wells cracks a smile. “I’d wondered who’d started the whole thing.”

“What whole thing?” she says, wary.

“Oh, just everyone we know talking about how you’re basically married now, and that your husband is super hot.”

“He is super hot,” she replies automatically.

“I know that. I just didn’t know he was your husband.”

“He’s not. He’s just—” He’s just Bellamy. He’s hers.

“Uh huh.”

Clarke doesn’t think the ridiculous thing can get much worse. Then she finds out that when Wells said everyone we know , he meant everyone—the sky people and the Trigedakru alike.

Some of them don’t seem to even get that it started as a joke, as a way to mess with Clarke. Even Lira congratulates her sincerely when she catches her on her way from breakfast to the spot she trains with Octavia.

The only thing keeping her from completely losing it is the fact that it hasn’t seemed to reach Bellamy.

“There’s always a huge party when we reach the other villages during trading season,” Korina is telling Clarke and Wells. “It’s our only chance during the year to see anyone new. Perhaps meet someone you’ll like. And the goods we trade are beautiful—people spend the whole winter working on clothing and weapons and woodwork to trade in summer.”

“Can anyone go on the trading trips?” Clarke asks. Bellamy’s mentioned the trips before, but they had seemed so far away, while Clarke was still settling into life on the ground. Spring is progressing quickly toward summer, and she’s more sure of herself on earth now. The idea of travel is intriguing.

“Yes, as long as Anya determines the village will be alright without you. Nyko usually doesn’t travel to the trades, so you might be able to go, but I don’t know if your husband will have finished with the sky people yet—Anya may want him to stay here and continue their training,” Korina warns.

“I’m not her husband,” Bellamy says behind her, and she practically turns to ice. Then he adds, “I’m her chosen.”

She turns just enough that she can look at his face, but she can’t read it at all.

“You’re talking about the trade trips? I’ll go if Clarke goes. Octavia can stay here if Anya wants their training continued.”

Korina nods, expression a little embarrassed. Wells is looking between her and Bellamy with wide eyes.

“Clarke? I have something to show you,” Bellamy says, and she makes her mumbled goodbyes to the others before following Bellamy back toward their home, the dog trailing after them.

They’re nearly there when he stops, turns to her.

“I’m sorry,” they blurt out at the same time.

Bellamy frowns at her. “Why are you sorry?”

“Why are you sorry?” she demands, utterly confused.

“I overstepped. I just hate the word husband; it sounds wrong. But I shouldn’t have called myself your chosen—you haven’t chosen me, and now Korina and Wells will think that we—well.”

“I was a little surprised,” she says carefully. “I love you. You know that. But I asked Nyko once about what being someone’s chosen meant. It didn’t sound like something people who have known each other for as short a time as we have would do.”

He shrugs a little self-consciously. “It depends on the people. It’s not a stagnant thing, Clarke. It’s flexible. We define for ourselves what being one another’s chosen means. It may mean we’ve been together for thirty years, and plan to never part for the next thirty. Or it may just mean we love each other, and can only see ourselves choosing each other for as far into the future as we can imagine.”

“Oh,” she says softly. Oh. That changes things.

He takes one of her hands. “I love you. And I only want to be with you. I choose you every day, Clarke. But it’s okay if you’re not ready to be called my chosen, or if you don’t want to be.”

She licks her lips, trying to alleviate the sudden surge of nerves. “How do you feel about being called ‘boyfriend’?”

He tries and fails to hide the face he makes, and Clarke laughs then, her heart impossibly light. “Yeah, I don’t like that either. That’s why everyone started with ‘husband’ instead.”

One side of his mouth quirks up and she adds, “But you’re wrong, you know.”

She can read the immediate tension in the movement of his throat, the muscles along his jaw. “About what?”

She smiles softly. “I do love you, Bellamy. And as far into the future as I can see, I’ll always want to be with you.”

Clarke slides her free hand along one cheek; he leans into the touch, but doesn’t look away from her, eyes intent and focused. “You are my chosen,” she says. “And I’m yours, if you want me.”

His eyes shut tight, but he tugs her into a bone-crushing hug. She can’t breathe all that well, but it’s alright.

Bellamy loves her, and he chose her.

She loves him, and she chooses him.

Always.

Octavia and Lincoln, Nyko and Anya, Lira and Soza and several others, all give them small gifts when they hear that Clarke and Bellamy have chosen each other. One of the gifts is a blanket small enough for a baby—a joke. They roll their eyes but share a look before tucking it in Atlas's dog house.

Construction is in full force again. They had built enough cabins to shelter all of the sky people through the winter, but quarters are cramped, and there’s space to keep building. Those without specific apprenticeships spend mornings in training with everyone else, then work on more cabins in the afternoon.

Clarke’s called out to the build site late one afternoon. Charlotte, Miles, and a few others are sitting on the ground, looking woozy. Clarke surveys them all.

“What’s going on?”

Harper shrugs, mouth twisted with worry. “I don’t know. They just said they felt sick.”

Sweat beads at Clarke’s temple as she looks them over. Their pulses are a little fast, but steady. Their skin is red, but from sunburn.

She straightens, about to make her diagnosis, when she sees Bellamy and Raven on the far edge of the village, talking. She lifts a hand to wave, but neither of them notice her; a moment later, they separate, Bellamy moving in the direction of the training grounds, Raven towards the trees.

Clarke shrugs and faces the miserable kids sitting on the ground. “I’m pretty sure it’s just the heat. Have you been drinking water and taking breaks?”

Miles glances guiltily at the pile of canteens. Clarke marches over to them and turns one upside down; only a few drops trickle out.

“We’re just trying to hurry!” he blurts out when she looks at him, eyebrow raised.

“How long would it have taken you to go and refill your canteen?” Clarke demands.

Mumbling from the group on the ground, as well as those still feeling well enough to stand.

“Less time than it took to come get me because you can’t work without getting woozy, I’d bet,” she continues acidly.

A few more mumbles, this time apologetic.

“Drink water. Take breaks. Sit in the shade,” Clarke says. “It’d be a pity to build yourself a nice new cabin only to die before you can move in.”

Harper snorts quietly.

Miles scowls at Clarke. “Alright, alright, mom.”

“Shut up.”

She relays the idiocy of the afternoon to Bellamy while they work to fill the metal tub in the cabin with warm water that evening. The river is still too frigid to bathe in comfortably—Bellamy says it will be until the hottest days of summer—but the air outside is sweltering and sticky enough during the afternoon to leave Clarke’s body crying out for a bath.

Bellamy doesn’t seem to mind it when she’s sticky and sweaty, but he likes her even better when she’s wet and slippery from the bath.

They both fit in the tub, just barely, though there’s no room for anything more exciting than bathing.

But she can lean back against Bellamy, tracing one of the arms he has wrapped around her middle, while he brushes fingers over her lower belly, under the water level. It’s a strange sensation that half lulls her toward sleep, and half makes her to drag him out of the tub so she can fuck him until he comes with a shout.

The lukewarm water gets the best of her, and she feels her eyelids drooping.

“Oh,” she says around a yawn. “What were you talking to Raven about earlier?”

His fingers still briefly, then begin moving again. “What do you mean?”

“When I was at the build site. I saw you and Raven talking, and then she went into the woods.”

“Oh.” He’s quiet for a moment. “She was just asking me if I had seen Wells anywhere.”

Clarke frowns and cranes her neck to look at him. “Why did she go into the woods? Wells was working with Korina and Monty in the fields.”

Like he has been for the last few weeks, monitoring the growth of their recently planted crops.

“I don’t know.” She can feel his shrug. “Raven does what she wants.”

“True,” Clarke agrees, still puzzled, especially since they've been told over and over to never travel alone through the forest. It's much safer to travel in pairs, in case they encounter a mutation.

She’s distracted when Bellamy’s fingers creep lower on her belly.

“Clarke?”

“Yes?”

“Are you clean enough to get out now?”

Clarke bites in a smile. “I could be persuaded.”

He proceeds to do so enthusiastically.

Everyone in the village is busy. The earth is rapidly growing and heating, and Clarke remembers when Octavia warned her and Raven about the extreme heat of summer, so she can understand why there’s an almost frantic air in the village as they try to get all of the biggest work of the year out of the way now.

The thought pushes her to detour to the blacksmith’s to say hello to Raven. Wells has been spending a lot of his time hanging around, so she might even see him too, if she’s lucky.

The blacksmith, a very large and very friendly man named Leo, greets Clarke by name when she pops her head around the doorway.

“Good morning, Leo,” she replies, glancing around. Neither Raven nor Wells are anywhere in the sweltering building, but she asks anyway. “Raven around?”

He shakes his head, droplets of sweat flinging off his skin. “Not yet. Would you like me to tell her you’re looking for her when she does come in?”

Clarke shakes her head. “No, that’s okay. It wasn’t anything important.” Before she leaves, she adds, “Make sure you take breaks—it’s way too hot in here to go all day.”

The lines around his eyes crinkle as he solemnly promises her that he will.

Clarke walks to Nyko’s, wondering idly where Raven was. She doesn’t have long to think on it though; ever since flu season, Nyko has started having Clarke help him more and more with his rounds through the village, rather than making her stay behind to do medical prep and take care of the minor injuries that occur when he’s out. When she enters the workshop, he glances up briefly.

“Good, you’re here. We’ve got a full load today.”

“We had a full load yesterday,” she says, taking the basket of medical supplies he hands her.

Nyko grins at her. “It’s spring. We won’t have a break until the heat makes everyone too tired to move. Or to get pregnant.”

At her raised brow, he rattles off a list of names. “All of them are complaining of symptoms I’m pretty sure are related to pregnancy. Go confirm. I’ll take the elders and the rest of the sick today.”

Clarke nods, and they take different paths through the village.

The first woman, Marin, is at least twelve weeks pregnant, Clarke determines. She gives her advice about rest and what herbs she can make into a tea to ease her morning sickness, then moves on to the next patient.

This woman is earlier in her pregnancy, but Nyko was still right. When Clarke tells her, she bursts into tears.

“Daya?” Clarke asks, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Are you alright?”

Daya cries too hard to answer clearly, and her chosen slips his arm around her and holds her close. He only has eyes for her.

“Daya, do you not want to be pregnant?” Clarke asks carefully.

Daya hiccups in surprise, then shakes her head. “No,” she sniffs. “I do. I’m just so happy.” She offers Clarke a watery smile, and her chosen beams at Clarke.

Clarke smiles back.

She’s with Nomi, her fifth patient of the day, when Octavia throws herself through the door of the poor woman’s house, scaring both of them to death.

“Clarke,” Octavia gasps. She’s out of breath from running, but despite the exertion and the temperature, her skin looks ashen. “It’s Bellamy.”

Clarke can feel the blood drain from her face. She’s instantly dizzy.

“Go,” Nomi commands, shooing her out the door. “I’m fine.”

Clarke scrambles to follow Octavia as they wind through the village at a sprint. There’s already a small cluster of people outside of Nyko’s house, the tension in their frames evident from thirty yards away.  

“Move!” Clarke barks, and they part so she can see Bellamy, unconscious and lying on a makeshift stretcher. The soft hide supporting his body is soaked a dark brown that gleams red where the sun hits it.

“Where’s Nyko?” she asks as she tries to inventory the injuries she sees. His right wrist is beginning to swell, his face, neck, arms—almost all of his visible skin—are covered in tiny scratches, as if from blackberry brambles. One of the sources of blood—Clarke tries not to sob when she realizes there is more than one—is his shoulder. Through ripped gaps in his clothing, she can see puncture marks oozing blood.

It’s a bite mark. A big one.

“Lincoln’s trying to find him,” Octavia says while Clarke takes stock of the tears in his pants, and the worst part, the dark, wet wound across his stomach. There’s too much dirt and blood there for her to see how deep it is, but if it’s very deep at all, it could be—

Clarke swallows hard and tries not to think of words like fatal.

“Get him inside and light the lanterns,” she orders the group who must have carried him here. “I’ll need more water boiled—there’s some ready, but not enough. You—go find Monty or Jasper of the skaikru. Tell them to bring me moonshine.”

She spots Atlas then, tail between his legs, hiding near the corner of the building. She picks him up, though he’s nearly too big to be carried, so she can pass him carefully to one of the few people still there, waiting to help. He’s trembling violently, and he whines a little when Clarke lets him go. “Take him to Korina’s, please. Wells should be there; he’ll take care of him.”

They scatter to do as she says.

Octavia’s banging around behind her, setting pots of water over the fire to boil, and Clarke’s left to look at Bellamy.

She sets her mouth to keep it from quivering, fetches clean water and soft, clean rags, and starts to wash away the blood and dirt.

The bite encircles his entire shoulder and blood seeps out again as soon as it’s cleaned. The bramble scratches are better, clotting almost instantly after Clarke washes them.

The belly wound is deep—but not as deep as she’d feared.  

The wrist looks to be just a sprain.

Nyko gets back just before Clarke is about to disinfect Bellamy’s wounds with the alcohol. He stayed unconscious through everything so far, but if anything is going to be painful enough to wake him, it’s this.

Clarke looks at Nyko, and he gently pulls the bottle of moonshine from her grip.

“I’ll take over from here, Clarke.”

She hesitates for just a moment, then nods, moving up by Bellamy’s head, out of the way.

Nyko douses a clean rag and presses it to Bellamy’s shoulder without mercy.

Bellamy whimpers, then regains consciousness screaming. The screams get worse when Nyko disinfects his stomach, and Clarke and Octavia have to help hold him down so he doesn’t thrash too much and make his injury worse.

He lies on the table, gasping, once Nyko finally finishes. His eyes dart around the room feverishly. It takes several passes for him to finally focus on her.

“Clarke?” Bellamy’s voice is raw.

“Bellamy,” she says, placing a careful hand on his cheek. It’s damp with tears, and she feels tears fill her own eyes when he keeps looking at her, confusion and pain clear on his face.

“What…?”

“They found you in the woods, Bell,” Octavia says, her own voice rough. He turns his head to face her with what looks like tremendous effort. “You’d been attacked by—something.”

He hums. “Yes.”

“You’re very hurt,” Clarke says, trying to keep her voice from shaking. “You have wounds on your shoulder and your stomach that both need stitches.”

“Hate stitches,” he says. “Okay.”

“It’s going to hurt again,” she warns.

He hums again and closes his eyes tight, furrowing the skin between his brows.

“Hold him down again if he moves too much,” she tells Octavia, then goes over to Nyko and holds out her hands, silently demanding tools.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Nyko hesitates.

Clarke glares at him and snatches a curved needle from their supplies.

“Fine,” Nyko says. “Take his shoulder while I do the stomach.”

As quickly as they dare, but carefully, they sew Bellamy back together. The shoulder is difficult, punctured on the backside as well as the front, but Clarke’s hopeful that the muscle wasn’t damaged too badly, and that he might regain full use.

He passes out again somewhere between the third and fifth puncture.

Nyko rinses his arms in what’s left of the clean water once they’re finished, then offers a damp cloth to Clarke. She takes it and stares at it blankly.

“Clean up, Clarke,” he says kindly.

The tan cloth is already smudged with red from her grasp. Clarke realizes blood covers her fingers, smeared up her wrists and even onto her arms. Her shirt, the one she’d come down from the Ark in, is splotchy red all over her front.

She quickly wipes off all the blood she can. Some stays stubbornly gathered around her cuticles and under her nails.

Nyko is pouring something carefully down Bellamy’s throat when she returns to his side.

“He should sleep for a good while,” Nyko explains to Clarke and Octavia.

“Is he going to be alright?” Octavia demands. Clarke watches Nyko silently.

“Whatever did this did not puncture any organs, so he has a very good chance of making a full recovery.”

“But?”

“But there’s always a chance of infection. That’s the biggest threat.”

Clarke knows this. She’d made the same diagnosis herself, once she’d seen the extent of the wounds. But this isn’t the Ark, sterile and cold. This is the ground, warm and messy and beautiful and all too dangerous. Infection is not a simple thing to prevent, nor to defeat.

Octavia and Nyko were talking while Clarke thought, but now Octavia says to her, “Why don’t you go get cleaned up?”

Clarke hates how kind her voice is.

“I’ll stay with Bellamy until you come back,” she promises. “You’ll feel better once you change.”

Clarke’s quite sure she’ll feel just as bad, but she makes herself nod. With one last look at Bellamy, she forces herself through the door and into the bright sunlight. She blinks. It feels impossible that the sun hasn’t set yet.

On her way back to their cabin, she stops by Korina’s to pick up Atlas. Wells doesn’t press her to speak. He just offers her a tight embrace, then waves her off to go home.

Atlas sniffs at her clothes as he trots beside her, his tail unusually still.

Clarke slams the door shut and shucks her ruined shirt, her splattered leggings. A tinge of pink on her own belly shows where blood, Bellamy’s blood, had soaked through.

For the first time since she saw Bellamy on that stretcher, Clarke lets out a sob. She grabs one of their cloths, dunks it in the bucket of fresh water, and scrubs at her skin until it’s red but clean.

Atlas woofs when she sinks onto their bed, face in her hands. A moment later, he’s worming his way into her lap to lick the tears off her face. Clarke sniffs, then holds him and buries her face in his fur, shuddering as the tears continue to come.

Clarke benefits from the meat hunters bring in.

She’s seen the bodies of the deer, the panthers, even a gorilla once—all animals that they’ve eaten. But since she arrived, there had been no incidents like Anya and Nyko had warned her about. Sure, there were some scrapes and minor bites here and there, but they were fortunate that the animals had been easy hunts. It made Clarke less wary than she should have been, though she’s always been careful when out gathering medicinals, or on a wash day.

It’s what made Bellamy’s injuries so painfully shocking.

Spring changed everything. When the earth was waking from its slumber, the animals were too.

While it grew warmer, and the plants grew lush and strong, the mutations were growing stronger too.

Now, the steadily rising temperature, the craze of animal instincts, and the approach of summer makes the earth’s creatures more active—and more dangerous—than ever.  

Just two days after Bellamy was found in the woods, another pair of hunters come limping up to Nyko’s in need of stitches and a sling from a run-in with a wild boar. The injuries are steady after that—never as severe as Bellamy’s, but much more than she’d come to expect over the past months.

Clarke doesn’t mind. It keeps her busy, and it keeps her at Nyko’s, where Bellamy continues to sleep a drugged sleep as he slowly heals.

Atlas stays with her on these days, alternating between trailing at her heels and curling up next to the cot where Bellamy’s been moved.

Octavia visits often, and Raven and Wells have taken to bringing Clarke food, because otherwise she forgets to eat.

So far, no infection. Which is good.

But no Bellamy, either—Nyko’s keeping him dosed while the worst of the wounds improve, and he’s only ever conscious for a few incoherent moments each day when Nyko makes him swallow a draught of something that’s supposed to give him the nutrients his body needs to keep running.

He begins to run a fever on the third day, and Clarke spends hours bathing him with fresh, cool water and anxiously examining the flesh around his stitches for red streaks, pus, or swelling. The fever burns for another two days, but breaks by the sixth, still with no signs of infection.

“Healing is hard work,” Nyko had said when she worried over Bellamy. “There are all kinds of reasons for a fever.”

On the eighth day, Clarke heads back to Nyko’s after a scant few hours of poor sleep. Atlas does his best, but his snoring doesn’t compare to the rhythm of Bellamy’s breaths at night, nor the heat of his body.

She walks in to find Raven sitting at Bellamy’s bedside, and Bellamy awake.

Bellamy’s gaze shifts to Clarke immediately. His eyes are clear, no feverish gloss or pain to cloud them. Raven gives Clarke her place by the bed, squeezing her shoulder on the way out.

Atlas races to the cot and plants his paws on the edge so he can sniff enthusiastically. Once he’s satisfied, he lays down under the bed.

“Clarke,” Bellamy says, and turns the hand closest to her palm-up in offering.

She hesitates for just a second, then slips her hand into his. His grip tightens, curling around her like he always does, and she closes her eyes so she doesn’t cry.

“Hey. Clarke.” His voice is soft. “Hey, it’s okay.”

Her eyes snap open at that. “It’s not okay,” she bites out furiously. He blinks, taken aback. “You could have died, Bellamy. You almost died.”

“I—” he starts, and she cuts him off.

“What were you doing in the woods alone?” she demands, her voice cracking on the last word. “How could you be so reckless?”

“I didn’t—” he starts again, and she shakes her head.

“You’re not allowed to do that, ever again,” she says. “Please, Bellamy. Don’t ever do that to me again. Don’t leave me alone.”

He swallows hard and pulls his hand up so he can cradle her cheek. She leans into it, holding her own hands over his, eyes burning.

“I’m sorry,” Bellamy says simply. “And I won’t. I never want to leave you alone, Clarke.”

She sniffs, then bends forward so she can press a careful kiss on his lips. They’re a little greasy from the balm she’d been putting on to keep them from getting chapped as he slept through the days, and he smells of sweat and blood.

Clarke doesn’t mind. He’s alive, and he’s here, and he’s hers.

In a few more days, Bellamy is moved into their own cabin and cleared for light activity.

“That means getting out of bed to relieve yourself or to go get something to eat,” Nyko warns them. “Nothing more strenuous.”

“Tell Clarke to keep her hands off me, then,” Bellamy says with a grin. Clarke rolls her eyes but can’t stop the smile.

That night, when Bellamy falls asleep beside her, filling their home once again with the quiet rumble of his snores and the too-warm heat of his body, Clarke has never been more grateful for a day on earth.

Come morning, home and less drugged, Bellamy quickly settles into being grumpy.

“I know you’re bored,” Clarke says when she’s getting ready for work. “But you—”

“Almost died. I know.” He sets his mouth in a mulish expression.

She glares at him until his shoulders slump.

“Sorry.” He sighs. “I feel good, though. I want to do things.”

“I promise you, the second you start doing things, you’ll feel a lot less good,” Clarke warns, pulling on a pair of shorts. It feels kind of strange, baring her legs to the world when she grew up in temperatures that required layers of clothing, but it’s gotten far too hot to keep wearing her favorite hide leggings.

Bellamy eyes her with interest, lingering on her calves, her knees. When she passes by where he’s sitting at their table and he reaches for her, she has to dance out of his grasp.

“Clarke,” he complains.

“Bellamy,” she mimics. “Nyko said nothing strenuous, remember?”

“I’ve got one good arm,” he argues. “And the other one is fine too! I just need the bandage taken off.”

“And just what are you going to do with one good arm?” she says, raising a brow.

He grins wickedly at her, and she flushes. “Let me, Clarke?”

A part of her wants to say yes. The part of her that feared she’d never be touched by him again; the part that wakes up before the rest of her in the mornings and relishes the sensation of his body along her own, enticing and familiar after so many days without him; the part of her that wants nothing more than to be close to him, closer, closer still. The idea of his fingers sliding over her skin is all too tempting.

She bites her lip. “No.”

He frowns. “But—”

“No,” she says again, kind but firm. “I want to wait until I can touch you too.”

Bellamy sighs, but nods.

She finishes getting ready, then says, “As long as you’re careful, there’s no reason you have to stay in the cabin, Bellamy.”

He perks up a little.  

“Why don’t I walk with you to the training grounds?” she offers. “We can send someone to bring you a seat, and you can still help supervise drills and form. As long as you stay put and let Octavia do all of the physical work.”

Bellamy makes a face at the idea, but agrees easily enough.

Clarke’s not quite sure if she believes him—she gets the feeling that he’s not going to be the most obedient of patients during his recovery.

She’s not wrong.

Chapter Text

Being out of the house improves Bellamy’s mood a little, but it’s still hard on him to sit on the sidelines, even with Atlas for company.

Clarke would have more sympathy if he actually stayed on the sidelines like he’s been told to.

The third time Clarke catches him on his feet, wincing as he moves Miller into the correct form, she drags him back to his chair by the shirt and threatens to tie him to it if he doesn’t stay where he’s supposed to.

“I’ll stay put,” he grumbles, crossing his arms and wincing again as the movement pulls at his injured shoulder.

Clarke narrows her eyes.

“You’d better tie him up, Clarke,” Lincoln calls from across the training grounds. He’s helping out while Bellamy heals. “He’s gotten caught three times. That doesn’t mean he’s only done it three times.”

“Traitor!” Bellamy shouts back.

“Fool,” he retorts, grinning good-naturedly.

“Bellamy,” she sighs.

He shifts guiltily under her disappointed look. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I just...hate this, Clarke.”

She runs her fingers through his hair. “I know you do. But the more you push your limits, the longer your healing process will be. And the more you stress me out,” she adds, stern.

He tries a charming smile.

She frowns. “Don’t make me assign someone to babysit you.” His mouth drops open in outrage. “Because I will, if you refuse to be smart about this.”

He slumps. “I’ll be smart about it.”

She tips his chin up. “You promise?”

The corners of his mouth tug down. “I promise.”

“Good.” She leans down to press a soft, lingering kiss to his mouth until the frown melts away. “Thank you, Bellamy.”

As far as she can tell, he does keep his promise. He’s more restless every day, and the sky kids begin improving at an accelerated pace as a result of his shortened temper and stricter demands during their training.

Atlas learns a lot of new commands during this time too, though Bellamy’s not quite as cranky with the eager-to-please pup.

His mood sours even more when he realizes he can’t travel with Clarke for the summer trade trips, though she assures him over and over that she doesn’t mind waiting until next year. She does her best to cheer him up, and it works most of the time, yet every day he remains limited comes with renewed frustration.

But each day, he walks a little easier and stands a little straighter without pain. After the first few weeks, once his shoulder has healed enough, Nyko and Clarke start him on some careful arm stretching exercises to begin rehabilitating the muscles.

Six weeks pass this way, until the day Bellamy—and Clarke—has been waiting impatiently for arrives.

“You’ll likely still experience tightness around the wounds,” Nyko says, examining Bellamy’s abdomen. “And I wouldn’t advise exerting yourself excessively. But you’re healed enough for regular activity.”

Bellamy tugs his shirt back down. “How regular?”

Nyko snorts. “Exactly as regular as you’re hoping.”

“Great!” he says brightly. “Get out.”

“Bellamy! Sorry, Nyko. Thank you.”

The healer nods. “You’re welcome. And you—” He points at Bellamy. “You’re lucky.”

Bellamy sobers and nods. “I know I am.”

Nyko waves goodbye, Bellamy shuts the door behind him, and has his hands up Clarke’s shirt before she can blink.

She laughs and helps him strip off her clothes, then his, nevermind that it’s the middle of the day. She’d wondered why Bellamy had left the dog with Octavia that morning, but just now, she’s grateful.

He’s already hard once she gets her hand around his dick, and he groans into her mouth while he kisses her messily.

His hands are a little rough with need, but she finds it exhilarating, the rough swipe of hands over skin, and she’s wet enough to take two fingers inside her when he reaches between her legs. The third burns a little, but just enough to set her on fire as she hisses with the sharp pleasure of fullness. She whimpers when he pulls them out and puts them in his mouth.

“Bed,” she gasps, and stumbles back onto the mattress, drawing him down with her. His knees are holding her thighs apart and when he bends down to kiss her, she takes hold of his cock again, swirling her thumb messily over the head.

“Fuck.” He thrusts into her hand, and she smiles against his mouth.

“That’s the idea,” she teases, releasing him and trailing fingers up to his sternum, carefully skimming over his scar. He makes a sound deep in his throat, almost a growl, then sheaths himself in her with one hard thrust. Clarke cries out; Bellamy trembles and stills, nuzzling her neck.

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice raw. “Did I hurt you?”

“No,” she gasps, and locks her ankles together around his spine. “Move, Bellamy.”

“Oh good,” he says, and pulls back, then thrusts deep once more.

She does her best to meet his hips with each thrust, but despite his injuries, he’s quicker and stronger than she is and each time he pushes into her, her back slides along their bed with the force of it.

Clarke’s orgasm shocks her both in its suddenness and intensity. Bellamy grunts when he feels her cunt tremor around him, but keeps moving until Clarke is gasping and keening and scrabbling across his back for something to hold onto as he pulls her straight into a second orgasm without ever letting her come down from the first.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck,  oh fuck, oh fuck,” Clarke chants, every nerve ending in her body afire with pleasure so strong it brings her to the point of pain. Each time Bellamy moves, it enflames her body further, until she’s wild with the desire to push him away or hold him so tight he’ll never move from her body.

“Please,” she gasps; Bellamy lifts his head from her neck to kiss her hard, with too much teeth and spit and tongue. Clarke loves every second of it. The moment he lifts his mouth from hers, she gasps again, “Please, Bellamy, I need you to come, I need you to come right now, please, Bellamy, Bellamy— ” She barely knows what she’s saying, switching rapidly between begging him and encouraging him, but it finally, finally pays off at the same time her cunt spasms again, overwhelmed with sensation.

Bellamy whimpers, then cries out. His hands slide between the mattress and her body so he can grip her shoulders with near-bruising force as he pushes messily into her the last few times, more heat seeping into Clarke as he comes.

She sucks in air and lets her legs fall back to the bed on either side of Bellamy’s hips. Her thighs are shaking, the muscles in them twitching uncontrollably as she tries to figure out how to breathe again. She can feel her stomach spasming too, and every bit of her in between. The bliss still ebbing and flowing through her body is so overwhelming that her eyes well up with inadvertent tears.

Bellamy’s still a heavy weight on her torso, heaving gasps of his own. Their bodies are wet with sweat.

Finally, he pulls out of her and flops on his side next to her; she grimaces, not with pain, but the residual hypersensitivity as his cock slides over the pleasure-wrecked walls of her sex.

“Clarke?” Bellamy sounds vaguely horrified.

“What?” she croaks, turning to look at him. His eyes are a little glassy, as if from a fever, and he has deep color high on his cheekbones. It’s unfair how beautiful he looks—she’s sure she looks like a drowned cat, with sweat-matted hair and the tendency to go bright red everywhere with any kind of exercise.  She clears her throat and tries again. “What?”

He touches her cheek, now damp with tears, with careful fingers. “I did hurt you,” he says. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Clarke laughs even as more stupid tears streak from her eyes to disappear into her hair. “You didn’t hurt me, Bellamy. You fucked the shit out of me.”

He blinks. “You’re crying.”

“That happens sometimes,” she says dryly. “You made me come so hard I cried. I don’t mean to, I promise.”

The dawning realization and the following smug look spreading across his face is almost enough to make Clarke regret telling the truth.

Almost.

The next few days are much the same, stealing moments to be close to one another in between their work duties, between meals, whenever they get the chance.

One morning, while Atlas chases rabbits in his sleep, Bellamy finally convinces Clarke to stay in bed longer than usual with his clever fingers and his clever mouth. Her body is just starting to awaken to the joys of his touch when someone pounds on their door.

“Go away!” Bellamy calls, busying himself with Clarke’s breasts while she tries to hold in a laugh.

“Stop fucking around and come out here, Bellamy,” comes Raven’s annoyed voice through the wood. “I need to talk to you about something.”

Bellamy groans and drops his head to rest on Clarke’s sternum. She pets his hair while Raven pounds again.

“You’d better go see what she wants,” Clarke says. “I don’t think she’s going away.”

Bellamy huffs and goosebumps rise in response to his breath coasting over her skin.

“Fine,” he groans, and pushes himself up and off of her. He starts pulling his clothes on, then points a stern finger her direction. “Wait for me.”

Clarke stretches on their bed, keeping an innocent expression on her face when his eyes get caught on her legs, her face, her breasts, the curls between her thighs. “Hurry up, then.”

With a muttered curse, Bellamy strides out of the cabin, slamming the door behind him.

Clarke does try to wait for him. She really does. But he’s taking much longer than she’d expected, and she’s already slick and ready from his earlier attention. It seems a shame to let that go to waste.

She squeezes her breast, then plucks at the nipple while her other hand goes to her clit. Her breathing quickens as she works herself up—Bellamy knows her body intimately at this point, and he can make her come with laughably little effort if he wants to.  But Clarke’s had this body for over eighteen years, and she knows better than anyone how to bring herself to the edge quickly.

She pants as she approaches that edge, fingers working faster over her slick flesh, growing warmer as the pleasure unfolds through each limb, like a blossom stretching out under the light of the sun.

The door opens just as Clarke’s about to come, and she instinctively pulls her hand away as Bellamy lets himself inside and closes the door.

“Clarke, I—” he turns around and stops dead, gaze going from her flushed face to her sticky-slick fingers, to her legs still splayed slightly open.   

“Fuck,” he says. Bellamy crosses over to her, drops to his knees, pushes her legs open further, and brings his mouth to her center. She bucks against him with a gasp. His tongue pushes into her, then laves the length of her up to her clit where he carefully suckles until she seizes with the force of her orgasm.

He manages to slip out of the vise of her thighs, slink up her body to kiss her. Through her daze, she tries to kiss him back, only for him to pull away.

“I thought I told you to wait,” he says, running a hand over her stomach in soothing strokes.

“You’re not the boss of me.” Her lips curve, nice and slow.

He smiles, but instead of settling back into bed with her like she expects, he gets up to fetch her a cloth. She takes it, surprised, but goes ahead and gives herself a quick sponge bath. Once she’s dressed, Bellamy offers her his hand.

“Walk with me?”

She takes it. “Of course.”

Atlas perks up when they call his name, nails scrabbling against the floor of his dog house as he races to follow them outside and through the village. Bellamy seems content to walk quietly at her side.

“Are we walking anywhere in particular?” she ventures once they reach the outskirts of the settled area.

Bellamy stops and turns to face her, taking hold of her other hand too. There’s no hint of his usual easy smile or good humor on his face.

“I have something I need to tell you.”

She eyes him. “Okay.”

“I—” She can see his throat move when he swallows nervously. “I did something.”

“You’re making me nervous, Bellamy. Spit it out.”

“I asked Raven if she could repair the communication technology in your ship.”

The birds in the trees are trilling loudly. The grass shifts behind Bellamy, but it’s only a hare.

She’s speechless.

“I know you’ve mourned your people,” Bellamy says. “But—if they’re anything like you, I imagine they would have fought harder to stay alive.”

“So you…”

“I asked Raven to try to fix it, so you could find out for sure.” He squeezes her hands tighter. “I’m sorry if this was wrong.”

“But the comms system is completely busted,” Clarke says, mind beginning to race. “It can’t even pick up static, let alone a call from space. Raven said it was probably faulty before we even went through earth’s atmosphere. She said nobody could fix it.”

Bellamy shakes his head. “She said nobody in their right mind would try to fix it. Then she did. It took her a long time, but she did it.”

Clarke licks her lips. They're dry, on the edge of chapped. She needs to mix up more balm the next time she’s at Nyko’s. “She really fixed it?”

He nods, dark eyes serious and focused on hers.

“Has anyone responded?”

He shakes his head, and her heart sinks, but then he adds, “She hasn’t officially tried making a call. We wanted to wait for you.”

She pulls her hands out of his and turns to look out at the forest, in the direction of the dropship.

“Does Wells know about this?” she demands, turning back to Bellamy.

He shakes his head quickly. “No. No one but Raven and I knew what she was doing, just in case she couldn’t make it work.” He pauses. “Well, a few people might have wondered, when they had to go with Raven to the dropship site so she could work. But the ones who helped all know how to keep quiet.”

Clarke nods, glad Raven hadn’t risked her safety sneaking off to the dropship site alone. Then her eyes narrow.

“Is that why you were alone when you were attacked in the woods?”

Bellamy averts his gaze, ears turning pink. “Maybe.”

She scoffs, because it’s easier than acknowledging the utter terror consuming her at the thought that someone up there might still be alive, or that they might not be, and she’s the one who has to make the call to find out.

“Raven and the comms are ready when you are,” Bellamy says quietly.

Dragging her hands over her face, she takes in a deep breath, holds it for a count of five, then lets it out. “Is she already at the dropship?”

“She’s waiting near the path for us. But you don’t have to do this today, Clarke.”

She shakes her head, feeling ill. “If someone really is up there, they deserve to know they can come down now. But we should tell Wells.”

And if there isn’t anyone up there, then they will know for sure.

They backtrack into the village to find Wells, who looks as gobsmacked by the idea of someone still alive in space as Clarke feels.

“The Ark went dark,” he argues, confused.

“We’d wondered if it was power conservation,” Clarke reminds him. “Or it may be just dark. We won’t know until we try.”

He swallows, nods, and follows them to the woods.

Raven falls into step with them when they enter the treeline. Atlas sniffs her shoes with interest and trots along beside her.

“You fixed the unfixable?” Clarke asks with a forced smile.

Raven shrugs with practiced nonchalance, angling a look at Wells. “I’m good.”

They’re silent for most of the journey. The woods are vibrant and surprisingly loud with birdsong and distant howls of predators, but thankfully no beasts cross their path.

The dropship surprises Clarke. It’s closer to the village than she remembers, and the earth has already started to claim it over the last few seasons. Vines have started creeping up the metal from the base of the ship, and shocking purple flowers bloom. Morning glories, she remembers from her old earth skills class. It isn’t a very useful flower, but it’s a beautiful one.

Other signs of nature are evident too, like the bird’s nest just inside, and animal droppings around the site. It’s a convenient shelter for fauna, and Clarke’s just grateful they’re the ones having to use it as a home, rather than her.

“I’m going to power up the system,” Raven says. “Give me a minute; I’ll call when it’s ready.”

Wells trails after her into the dropship, and Atlas wanders around the site, investigating all of the smells. Clarke chooses a rock to perch on and waits. Bellamy takes a seat on the ground beside her, leaning against the rock. His head is level with her knee, and she gives into the temptation to comb her fingers through the shaggy locks. He needs a haircut, though the long waves are almost as endearing as the curls she adores.

Bellamy leans into her touch and rests his cheek against her leg.

“Are you angry?” he asks, voice low.

Her hand pauses, then gently scratches his scalp. “I’m not angry,” she says. “I’m sad, that someone might have been up there and I didn’t try harder to find out. And I’m grateful, that you thought of it, and did something about it.”

“Clarke.” They both look toward the door of the ship. Raven beckons to them.

Wells is sitting in a jump seat in front of the comms system. Clarke squeezes his shoulder as she takes the seat next to him. He offers her a half-smile.

“Are you ready for this?” she asks.

“No,” he replies. “But that doesn’t matter.”

“I know.”

Raven explains the set-up. The video equipment wasn’t repairable, but audio transmission should work fine. Once Raven flips the switch, their calls should reach the Ark—as long as the Ark is still reachable.

After a brief countdown, the comms system emits a short burst of crackling static. Bellamy’s hands settle on her shoulders, a light touch that anchors her to the earth.

Wells is still staring at the system. Clarke swallows hard and reaches for the transceiver.

Mouth dry, she licks her lips. Depresses the button.

“This is Clarke Griffin and Wells Jaha. Does anyone copy?”

Radio silence.

She repeats the call every two minutes until her voice starts to crack. Wells takes over then, calling the Ark and asking for anyone to respond.

No one does.

The sun marks mid-afternoon when Raven pulls dried meat and fruit out of her pack. They eat quickly, but the flavorful meat and sweet-sour fruits might as well be soy packs for as much as Clarke tastes them.

Clarke takes over the calls again. After the umpteenth unreturned call, she clears her throat.

“We’ll keep trying until sunset. If we don’t get a response by then, we’ll need to leave while there’s still some light to get back home.”

Wells nods, face grim. Bellamy and Raven agree quietly. Bellamy’s face is pained, almost guilty, and amidst the terrible reality of calling to people who aren’t there, she’s seized by how huge and terrible and beautiful and amazing it is that he loves her like this.

If there is no one left on the Ark, like she and Wells have thought since Raven discovered the wristband malfunction, she’ll feel the pain of it all over again.

But she’ll also be okay again, too. She has a home and a dog and friends she loves, and she has Bellamy.

It’s Clarke’s third shift on calls. They’ve stretched out to every five minutes, then every eight. The sun hangs low in the sky, already halfway below the horizon.

“This is Clarke Griffin and Wells Jaha. This is our last call. Do you copy?”

The quiet hum of the open system is the only response. Clarke shuts her eyes, trying to fight the burn in her sinuses and the urge to cry. She takes a deep breath and hangs up the transceiver.

“Okay. Let’s pack up.”

She hands her leftover food to Bellamy to begin packing away, and Raven reaches for the controls on the comms system.

A loud crackle sounds through the room, and they all freeze.

“Clarke?” The voice is desperate, tear-filled. “Clarke, are you there?”

Bellamy is the first one to spring into action, snatching the transceiver and thrusting it at Clarke.

She raises it to her mouth with a shaking hand. “Mom?”

Her mother explains everything when she stops crying enough to speak.

No one monitors the Ark’s communications system anymore, and it is supposed to remain shut down in order to conserve energy, along with most of the lights. But Abby goes there most nights, after her medical shifts, to power up the map of the ground, to examine the vitals of the hundred, recorded before they had all died, to see if she could tell what had gone wrong. She never could.

It was sheer luck that she snuck into the monitoring station and it powered up in time for her to hear Clarke’s last call.

She takes a deep breath before she tells them that Wells’s father died the same day the hundred were sent to the ground.

In the chaos and fear that followed Thelonius’s death, Diana Sydney stepped in as a voice of the people. She was a calm, kind, and ruthless dictator who confirmed the ground was not yet survivable and explained to them all that the Ark’s life support systems were damaged and could not support all two thousand, two hundred and thirty five of them for the next hundred years.

By now, Diana has reduced the population to just over six hundred souls to ease the burden on the Ark’s systems, though the Ark’s last dropship, Exodus, can carry seven hundred. But Diana had said, gently and with visible sorrow, that they have another hundred years until they can go back to earth. They need to make room for future generations, so the last humans in the universe can one day return home.

Another culling is scheduled for next week, to make more space for future population growth.

When Abby asks how they’re still alive, Raven takes the transceiver, avoiding Wells's eyes as shame burns bright in her cheeks.

“Diana was an engineer before she was chancellor, right?” Raven asks.

“Yes,” Abby confirms.

“Both our communications system and every wristband failed upon arrival,” Raven states clinically. “Clarke says you would have accounted for the impact of radiation and the force of landing when they were made?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then I’m almost positive their failure wasn’t an accident.”

Abby is quiet for a long moment. When she speaks again, her voice is deadly calm. “I’d like you to elaborate on that, but first: Raven, how good are you with tech?”

They all look at each other. “Uh,” Raven says. “Really good.”

“Excellent. I’d like you to walk me through something, if you could.”

“Sure,” she says cautiously. “What?”

“Tell me how to broadcast our conversation through the Ark’s P.A. system, please.”

Clarke’s heart gives a sick lurch. If things are as bad as her mother says, she could be floated for what she’s doing. She’s only lasted this long because she’s a skilled doctor, but there are other skilled doctors on the Ark.

Raven looks at Clarke, waiting.

She swallows thickly and nods.

“Okay, doc. This is what you need to do.”

Raven walks her through the controls, and suddenly feedback squeals through the speakers of the system.

“It’s on,” Raven says dryly.

“Great,” Abby says, and they hear her voice echoed back as it plays through the Ark’s speakers. “Now, Raven. Tell me and the rest of the Ark more about how the hundred’s monitoring wristbands were tampered with to make us think you had all died on the ground, when you’ve really been living there since September.”

Their connection cuts out just after Raven identifies Commander Shumway as the person who had given her the gun used to shoot Jaha. Despite their best efforts, no one answers their calls back.

They practically live at the dropship for the next three days, waiting for word. They have to offer flimsy excuses to explain their absences from their apprenticeships when they go back to get more food and some makeshift bedding. Clarke only sleeps when Bellamy insists she lie down, and wraps her up in his arms to force her to lie still.

The waiting now is worse than the first time they made a call. Because Clarke now knows that her mother is alive, and despite all of Abby’s flaws, despite her transgressions, the things Clarke doesn’t know if she’ll ever forgive her for...she’s her mother, and Clarke loves her, and if she’s alive, she wants her to stay that way.

She thinks she’s going to throw up when the comms finally crackle to life and it’s Marcus Kane’s voice on the line.

“Clarke or Wells, are you there?”

Wells is there faster. “We’re here. What’s going on?” Clarke motions frantically at him, and he adds, “Where’s Abby Griffin?”

“She was in lock-up,” Kane says grimly. “But she’s being released now.”

Clarke reaches over and presses the button. “She’s okay?”

“Yes. A few bumps and bruises from Diana’s guards, but she’ll be fine.”

Bellamy’s hand rests on her shoulder; she reaches across to squeeze it as she breathes a sigh of relief. She continues holding onto him while Marcus explains the mutiny that has occurred over the last few days. Abby was caught in the monitoring station during the broadcast of their last call and the transmission was cut off before she was taken to the skybox. Marcus hadn’t known where she was until yesterday, when a search party finally looked in the abandoned prison.

Raven, Wells, and Clarke’s explanation of what happened when they fell to earth had galvanized those still alive on the Ark.

Diana and those involved in the plot to seize power were captured by mobs. They were floated before anyone could find a reason to try and stop them.

“We’re coming down in one week,” Marcus says. “We’re packing up all of the equipment and supplies we can fit in the Exodus ship along with our people.”

“Okay,” Clarke says slowly. One week isn’t much time to prepare, and—she has a sudden terrible thought.

Anya had taken them in last autumn, but there had only been ninety-eight of them, and they were all young, healthy, and (mostly) willing to work and learn. The village was large, and could support them as they built their homes and learned how to feed themselves.

She’d told Anya once that their people might follow, but Clarke has no idea how Anya will feel about the reality of over six hundred new people joining their community.

“Okay,” she says again. “We’ll talk to the leader of the Trigedakru. We’ll figure out what to do.”

They make plans to check in every day around sunset, and Raven shuts off the system to finally give it a rest.

“What if Anya says no?” Clarke says, looking from Wells to Raven to Bellamy. “I can’t tell them to stay on the Ark. I saw my dad’s predictions. Even with such a reduced population, that only extends the Ark’s lifespan by so much. They would still only have a few more years, unless a miracle happened.”

“Anya’s not in charge of the entire earth, Clarke,” Bellamy points out gently. “If she says no, the sky people can settle somewhere else and establish their own village. There’s time still for them to plant food, and to build shelter.”

She stares at him, distraught.

If Anya says no, and her mother and all of the people coming down from the Ark have to go somewhere else, what are the hundred supposed to do? Stay with the Trigedakru, where they’ve made a home and friends, or go live with their families, who will need them and the things they’ve learned if they’re going to survive on the ground?

What is Clarke supposed to do?

“I’m not leaving you,” she says fiercely.

Bellamy looks surprised, then laughs and pulls her into a tight hug. He kisses her hair. “Clarke, you wouldn’t have to. Where you go, I go. Always.”

She closes her eyes and breathes in his scent, feels the soft fabric of his shirt under her cheek. The tension in her body lessens somewhat.

“This is real cute and all,” Raven says, “but we’ve got a deadline and a shit ton of work to do before it hits. Can we get going?”

Anya sits before them, stone-faced, while Raven, and then Wells and Clarke explain what happened, is happening, and is going to happen. Her eyes narrow just a bit when Clarke says the words, “a little more than six hundred.”

When they finally fall silent and wait for her response, she looks them over, brow furrowed, with a singular intensity Clarke’s never seen in anybody else.

Then she sighs. “Bellamy?”

“Yes, heda?”

“Go tell Ana to take a group tomorrow and start clearing trees on the west side of the village. We'll need the lumber and the space.”

He relaxes and squeezes Clarke’s hand tight. “Yes, heda.”

Her heart’s in her throat while Bellamy leaves, and she turns back to Anya, gratitude tumbling off her lips. “Thank you—I don’t know how they would have survived on their own down here, even if we were with them; thank you so much—”

Anya lifts a hand. Clarke stops talking.

“You underestimate yourselves,” Anya says eventually, cool gaze looking the three of them over. “But I am only giving your people this one chance. They can learn our ways and help our village grow stronger, as you have done—or  they will be told to leave.”

They nod.

“If the sky people are told to leave,” Anya adds after another minute, “you do not have to go with them. You are of the earth now, as we are. But any of you may go with them, if that is what you wish.”

“Thank you, heda,” Clarke says again, and hopes she doesn’t have to make that choice.

Word of the Ark spreads like wildfire through the village. By the time Clarke wakes up the next morning, at least a dozen of the sky kids are waiting outside her cabin.

“Is it true?” Monty demands when she opens the door and stops short at the sight of them. “They’re alive?”

“Some of them,” Clarke cautions, and a flurry of murmurs goes through the group. “Less than seven hundred people are still alive, and I don’t know whose families made it through the cullings.”

He nods, looking a little sick, but determined. Jasper grasps his shoulder and Miller takes his hand.

“There’s a lot to do before they come down,” Bellamy says, coming up behind her. “Training is suspended until further notice. You’ll be assigned to construction or to provisions. Octavia and Lincoln will tell you where to report.”

A few linger to ask questions, and Bellamy and Clarke answer to the best of their abilities. Once everyone has gone, they look at each other.

He tucks a wisp of hair behind her ears. He’d braided it for her that morning, deft fingers winding her hair into a coronet to keep it off of her neck and out of her face, but a few stubborn pieces are trying to escape.

“Are you ready?” he asks her.

He’s not asking if she’s ready to join Korina and Wells to go gather food.

“Yes,” she says, but she’s not sure if she’s telling the truth.

Bellamy knows her too well. He leans forward and kisses her, lips soft and skin a little scratchy with stubble against her own.

“We’ll be alright.”

Clarke musters up a smile. “I know. Now go get to work.”

They work themselves to the bone, Bellamy doing construction and Clarke building up their food and medical supply stores, and fall into a dead sleep the moment their heads hit their pillows every night. The heightened activity in the village is wildly exciting to Atlas, to the point that even he is passing out hours earlier than normal after spending every day running around and barking deliriously.

The week passes quickly this way. After their last call to the Ark to confirm their arrival plan for the next morning, Clarke takes Bellamy’s hand and leads him home.

It’s a rare moment of calm after frantic days of preparations. As they walk, fireflies glow blue, yellow, pink and green, flitting through the trees.

“I thought they were only yellow,” Clarke says, following a particularly fat one with her eyes, its pink light flaring and fading rhythmically.

“I think they were, before the war,” Bellamy says. “But after, some changed colors. They’ve been like this for as long as I can remember.”

“They’re beautiful.”

“Once I saw one that changed colors every time it blinked,” Bellamy says, straight-faced.

Clarke knocks his shoulder with her own. “You did not.”

“I did, I swear.” He gives her that crooked grin. “Octavia caught it and put it in a jar and accidentally killed it.”

Clarke snorts. “That I believe.”

They talk the rest of the way home.

It reminds Clarke of when she used to only see Bellamy at meals, when he asked odd questions about space and patiently answered her own about earth. He courted her with kind and clever words, and promises of a puppy and a life they could share together.

Tonight, they talk about that puppy, who trips around their feet like he knows the subject of their conversation. They talk about their mattress, which needs restuffing, and the pine needles in Atlas’s dog house that need refreshing. They talk about when Clarke was small, and her father carried her on his shoulders so she could touch the cool metal of their apartment’s ceiling, and of when Bellamy carried Octavia the same way so she could pluck apples from tree branches.

At home, after Atlas takes himself to bed with a tired doggy sigh, they stop talking out loud for a while.

Instead, they speak with hushed sighs and quiet groans, panted breaths and broken moans. Bellamy holds her in his lap when she takes him inside her, and helps her move against him with his hands on her hips. She holds his face in her hands, kissing him softly, sipping from his lips as they move closer and closer to their peaks with every undulation of her pelvis and every push of his own up into her.

He helps her over edge with slow, deliberate fingers on her clit; she muffles her cry in the crook of his neck, then holds on tight when he tumbles her onto her back and fucks her until he’s shuddering in her arms and coming inside her.

In the dark, as their bodies cool, Clarke murmurs Bellamy’s name.

He hums and fumbles on the bed until he finds her hand, twines their fingers together. His palm is sweaty in hers.

“I don’t want to leave,” she whispers.

Bellamy’s quiet, his thumb tracing the back of her hand.

“I love this cabin,” she confesses. “I love living here with you, and I want to stay here with our dog, near our friends and your family, and if we have children one day, I want to have them here, so they grow up with other earthborn children, and—”

“Clarke,” he says.

“And I don’t want to have to leave,” she finishes lamely.

“Clarke.” His lips find the corner of her mouth, her cheek, her brow. “I told you. Where you go, I go. Where you stay, I stay. And if you don’t want to leave, we won’t.”

“But—”

“All of the people from the Ark will make their own choices independent of yours. I know you want to help them all, but you’re only one person. You get to decide your own fate, and they get to decide theirs.”

She closes her eyes and tips her chin to press a kiss to the underside of his jaw.

It doesn’t feel that easy, but she trusts him. It’s enough to let her fall asleep.

The Exodus ship is hard to miss when it burns through the atmosphere. It lands miles away from the village in the late morning, and Anya sends several dozen of their people to meet the Ark survivors. By the time they find them, the sky people have only made it about half a mile from their drop site.

Clarke’s just thankful that they’re going mostly in the right direction.

Anya’s warriors and those of the hundred who came out with Clarke to meet the ship quickly take charge of the crowd, dividing them into clusters that can more easily navigate the terrain, and instructing them not to lose their group.

Atlas barks at the large crowd of frightened, sickly-looking sky people while she searches for her mother’s face. She sees others she recognizes from years of pacing the same corridors and eating in the same mess halls, and her heart feels a bit lighter when she spots Miller’s father in one cluster of people, and someone she thinks may be Monty’s mother in another.

“I can’t see her,” she says.

“There are six hundred of them. We’ll find her,” Wells assures her.

He helps her keep an eye out as they continue to instruct the sky people to break into groups, to watch out for specific signs that mean panthers or worse may be near, to make sure to fill their canteens with water once they reach the river.

And still, Bellamy finds her mother first.

He had been deep in the throng of sky people, helping them swap packs until everyone was more equally burdened with supplies and equipment. Clarke had lost sight of him for a moment, and then just as suddenly found him again, only a few yards ahead of her, towing her mother by the hand.

Her mother’s face has grown too thin, the lines around her eyes and on her forehead a little deeper. She’s visibly wary of Bellamy, who’s outfitted in sturdy leather armor today, just in case they encounter the creatures they’d prefer to avoid.

He must have recognized Abby from Clarke’s drawings, though Clarke hadn’t imagined they were a good enough likeness that Bellamy could pick out one stranger from among six hundred others.

“Here,” Bellamy says, thrusting Abby forward.

“Excuse me!” her mother squawks when she stumbles, and starts to turn as if to scold him.

“Mom.” Clarke reaches out and grasps her mother’s arm. Abby jerks in surprise, and her irritation turns to shock, and then to joy.

Her mother is more petite than she is, both in build and height, but when she hugs Clarke, it reminds her of feeling safe and small.

“Did you even tell her who you were?” Clarke asks Bellamy over her mother’s shoulder. “Or what you were doing?”

He shrugs, mouth tugging up at one corner. “Talking takes time. I figured you’d prefer I get her to you as soon as possible.”

She beams at him, heart squeezing. She loves the silly boy so much. “Thank you.”

“What do you mean?” Abby asks, pulling back and swiping at damp eyes. “Who is he?” She turns to Bellamy. “Who are you?”

Octavia passes by right at that moment, leading a couple dozen people Clarke thinks she recognizes from Go-Sci toward the river.

“He’s her chosen,” she tells Abby helpfully. To Bellamy and Clarke, she adds, “You two had better hurry up. Everyone is having to go around you.”

“So go around,” Bellamy retorts, unrepentant.

Abby glances between the two of them, the grooves in her forehead deepening. “'Chosen'?”

Clarke takes a deep breath. Somehow the myriad things she’d worried about over the last week as the Exodus ship’s arrival date loomed closer hadn’t included introducing her mother and Bellamy. It probably should have, because now she’s unreasonably nervous.

“This is Bellamy. You’ve heard him on the comms a few times.” Abby hadn’t been on the call where they’d explained to Kane that it was thanks to Bellamy as well as Raven that they had been able to reach the Ark, but Clarke assumes he would have told her, and she’s been present for later calls.

“Oh. Yes. Hi, Bellamy,” Abby says, and offers him her hand. He shakes it carefully.

“Bellamy is my chosen,” Clarke adds, and braces herself for her mother’s response.

Abby eyes the two of them. “That’s...nice. What does it mean?”

Bellamy cracks a smile at that, and Clarke does too. “It means we’re together,” she says, choosing the explanation most likely to get them walking faster. It’s an incomplete and insubstantial explanation of what they mean to each other, but there will be plenty of time for that later.

“Oh.” Abby takes that in, then offers Bellamy a true, genuine smile this time. “It’s wonderful to meet you, Bellamy.”

He nods his head. “And you.” To Clarke he says, “I’ll gather the next group, then we should get going.”

She nods. “I’m ready.”

The sky people listen to Anya in silence when she welcomes them to the village, though ‘welcome’ is a generous word for what she says to them.

It’s nothing untrue or even unkind—she tells them they can stay if they learn from the Trigedakru, work hard to support the village, and listen when those who actually know what they’re doing tell them to do something. If they don’t want to follow these rules, they’re welcome to settle elsewhere, but their lives will be much harder and she’ll think them much more stupid if they choose to do so.

Not exactly how Clarke would have said it, but true enough.

No one argues that first night, but they’re tired and scared and hungry and overwhelmed to find themselves on earth, standing on ground none of them thought they’d touch in their lifetime. Once they’ve eaten and slept, Clarke expects dissenters to pop up.

She’s not wrong. Many, nearly half, choose to leave the village and settle two days’ journey up the river, unused to the culture of the Trigedakru and unwilling to adapt for fear of submitting themselves to someone who may turn out to be a dictator like Diana was.

Some of the hundred go with them, to stay with the remnants of their families. She understands.

If her mother decided to leave, it would break Clarke’s heart to watch her go.

Abby stays.

“I was thinking of building here,” she says, indicating a spot diagonal from Clarke and Bellamy’s cabin. “It would be nice to be close, don’t you think?”

Clarke tries not to blanche at the idea of her mother living within easy earshot of their home. “Yes,” she says slowly. “But the homes in this area need to be able to expand, if necessary. That’s a little too close. I know of a good spot close to the river path, and to Nyko’s. Why don’t I show you?”

“Oh,” Abby says, visibly disappointed. “Yes, alright.”

Clarke winds her way through the village, greeting Lira and Soza when they cross paths and popping her head into the blacksmith’s to call a quick hello to Raven and Leo, who are working around the clock to refashion scrap metal from the Exodus ship and the dropship into building materials.

Miles is working on one of the new cabins when she passes. “Your husband’s a real dick, Clarke!” he yells after her. Clarke guesses that Bellamy must have made him start something over when he tried to cut corners.

“He’s my chosen!” she yells back automatically. “Get your ass to work and stop complaining, Miles, or I’ll tell Bellamy to put you on lumber duty tomorrow.”

He grumbles as she keeps walking away. Felling lumber is the most arduous of the building duties, and the most likely to land someone in Nyko’s and Clarke’s care with an injury. Only the strongest or the most irritating are put on lumber.

Clarke arrives at the spot she’d scouted out for her mother. It’s small, but big enough for a modest cottage that her mother could live in alone or with one or two others. Clarke thinks she would like it here, especially once the other cabins are complete and more people are living in this part of the village.

She turns and looks at her mother expectantly. “What do you think?” She paces the length of the lot, mentally calculating the space.

“Why did that boy call Bellamy your husband?” her mother replies.

Clarke freezes, then turns to face her. “Well…”

“Clarke,” Abby says, warning tone in her voice.

Clarke narrows her eyes, irritation suddenly rising. She’s grateful her mother made it to the ground, and she’s grateful Abby has chosen to stay in the village, but that doesn’t mean her mother has earned back the right to judge Clarke’s choices or actions. Abby still holds the record for bad decisions in what’s left of the Griffin family.

“Because that’s what he is,” she says crisply. “The Trigedakru don’t have marriages, and they don’t use the terms husband or wife anymore. They use the word chosen when they have committed to one another. But it’s essentially the same thing.”

It’s really not, but she doesn’t feel like explaining the details and nuances to her mother at the moment. It’s enough that she and Bellamy know the difference.

“You’re eighteen.”

“I am,” Clarke agrees.

“You’re too y—”

“Mom, I’d like to ask you to reconsider before you finish that sentence,” she interrupts, voice sharp with annoyance. “I’ll remind you that I wasn’t too young to be sent to a potentially deadly planet before I’d even turned eighteen.”

Abby’s mouth snaps closed, and Clarke almost feels bad. Almost.

“I told you that we were together,” she adds, a bit milder now. “You know that we live together, and that I’m committed to him and he’s committed to me. It shouldn’t matter to you what we call each other.”

After a long, tense silence, Abby offers her a small nod. “I’m sorry. I’m happy for you Clarke. I really am.”

“Thank you,” Clarke says. “Now. What do you think of this spot?”

Her mother’s cottage is one of the first ones finished.

Bellamy might have something to do with it, and Clarke might have thanked him quite thoroughly for it in the privacy of their cabin.

Abby has to share with a few others, especially when the year eases fully into the summer storm season, but she has a roof over her head and, once more homes are built, she can live alone if she wants.

Atlas has decided he adores Clarke’s mother, to the point where if he’s not with Bellamy running around construction sites, or with Clarke harvesting early summer vegetables and fruits and nightshades in the fields and the woods, he’s stuck to Abby’s side like a burr, tripping her up as she tries to teach Nyko how to use the medical tech she brought down from the Ark.

“Traitor,” Clarke tells him when he spots her and takes his time sidling over to her. He leans against her leg, tongue lolling out.

“He’s a good dog,” Abby says. “But I swear he’s doubled in size since I got here. He’s huge.”

“He probably has.” Clarke grins. “You should have seen him as a puppy, though. He was so small.”

“How long have you had him?” her mother asks, crouching so she can ruffle the dog’s ears.

“Since he was about twelve weeks old?” Clarke says, trying to remember exactly. “We brought him home once it was safe for him to leave his mother.”

“And you and Bellamy were already living together then?”

Clarke pauses, but there’s no censure in Abby’s tone. “Yes. Bellamy had offered to let me have Atlas to myself, but I wanted us to share him. Though I’m not sure what he would have done if I’d just said yes. I’m pretty sure the offer was just a tactic on his part to get me to like him.”

An arm snakes around her waist, making her squawk in surprise, and Bellamy plants a sloppy kiss on her cheek while he holds her in place.

“It was definitely a tactic,” he agrees. “But you already liked me.”

“Get off,” Clarke complains, unable to control her grin. She pushes at his arm. “You’re all sweaty.”

“So are you,” he says unrepentantly. “Welcome to summer. Everyone is sweaty all of the time.”

Clarke gives up and lets his arm stay around her waist. He’s right anyway.

“What?” she asks when she realizes her mother is watching them, a funny look on her face.

“Nothing,” Abby says, smile blooming. “Nothing at all.” 

Chapter Text

“Hey, can I talk to you?” Wells asks, poking his head into the infirmary as Clarke reviews medical charts. In the months since the Exodus ship came down, they’ve built a new structure to act as their medical facilities and to house all of the equipment they now have. “Hi Abby,” he adds when he sees her mother disinfecting tools on the far side of the room.

“Good afternoon, Wells.”

Clarke glances at her mother, then sets down her tablet. “Sure.”

Before she goes outside, she snags a fur from its hook on the wall. Winter is still a few weeks away, but the air outside is crisp. When she breathes, she can see the clouds of vapor form.

“I’m not sure how to do this,” Wells confesses as they walk.

Clarke sighs in exasperation. “We’ve gone over this, Wells. Literally all you have to do is ask.”

“But what if she says no?”

“She could,” Clarke grants. “She could also sprout wings and fly back up to the Ark. I think both scenarios are equally as likely.”

“Clarke.”

“Wells,” she mimics, and he shoves her.

She snickers, then sobers when he continues to stare at the ground as they walk, looking a little queasy.

“Hey,” she says, grabbing his arm. “Raven loves you. She’ll say yes.”

“But—”

“Wells, she’s stayed over almost every night for the last four months. Hurry up and make the damn thing official before winter hits and you freeze to death alone in your cabin.”

“Right,” he says with a nod and a hard swallow. “Okay.”

“You can do this,” she says, shaking him a little to get him to focus. “Come on, Wells. Say it.”

“I can do this,” he repeats, and heads away in the direction of the blacksmith’s. Clarke watches with pity when he pauses to throw up in a bush beside the path. But he straightens up, wipes his mouth, and keeps going.

Clarke has a good feeling about this.

“Wells finally asked her,” Clarke says when she comes home that evening to find Bellamy building up their fire so they can reheat last night’s stew. Atlas races over to sniff her in greeting and accepts a vigorous ear rub as his due, then returns to ‘helping’ Bellamy with the fire.

“About time,” he says, arranging the wood. “He’s only been agonizing over it for two months.”

“I told him he had to pull himself together and get her to move in before winter or he’d freeze to death,” Clarke says as she starts to strip off her heavy clothes.

Bellamy snorts and tosses another log onto the fire. “Is that why you moved in a year ago?”

“Yup,” she confirms cheerfully. “I just wanted you for your body heat. I’m not built for the winter; it’s the only way I survived.” She goes over to him and wraps her arms around his waist, fitting her body against his bare back. From his intake of breath, she guesses he’s realized she’s no longer wearing any clothes.

“Atlas,” Bellamy croaks. The dog’s ears perk up. “Go to your room.”

Atlas heaves a doggy sigh and trots into his little dog house, where he’ll snooze until they call him back out.

Bellamy turns around in her hold so he can kiss her in greeting, eager hands dislodging her hair from its braid. Clarke hums happily against his mouth. His beard is starting to grow in again, and it tickles a little.

His hands slide down her neck, her spine, to her ass; he squeezes, making her squeak into his mouth before he lifts her off her feet and walks over to set her the table.

His beard tickles more when it catches the skin of her throat, then her sternum. He sucks a bruise into the tender underside of her left breast and follows it up with a wet kiss to the nipple.

She hops off the surface of the table and swings them around before Bellamy can even protest, then busies herself with unfastening his pants and slipping a hand inside. His dick is hot against her palm, smearing a bit of precum over her skin, and Bellamy’s gasp at her first languid stroke hardly makes a sound.

“Clarke,” he says in a warning tone.

“Bellamy,” she says, and drops to her knees. He grabs for the edge of the table so fast he bangs his wrist and curses, a Trigedasleng word Clarke is now intimately familiar with.

When she takes him into her mouth, Bellamy lets loose a dozen more intermingled with the occasional fuck and Clarke.

She brings him almost to the edge with her mouth and her hands, laving the head of his cock with her tongue in the way that drives him utterly mad, taking him in deeper when she can. His desire-raw voice and white-knuckle grip on the table makes the flesh between her legs damp and slick.

“Please, Clarke,” he begs, just before she thinks he might come. He reaches for her with one hand. “Please.”

She lets him urge her to her feet, turn her to face the table and plant her hands. Bellamy nudges her knees apart with his own and threads his arms around her, one tight on her waist and the other going to her clit. When he thrusts into her from behind, she cries out at the bliss of it, of his cock heavy inside her, sliding over the sensitive walls of her cunt while he flutters his fingers over her clit just right.

Her thighs quiver.

Bellamy stays still inside her, focused on touching her until she’s almost as close as he had been, and she has to beg him to move.

He kisses her ear. “Alright.”

His thrust reaches so deep inside her, she can hardly breathe. With the next, her legs are threatening not to hold her up anymore.

“I’m going to fall,” she gasps as he draws back.

Bellamy’s forearm flexes, holding her tighter around the waist. “I won’t let you.”

After two more thrusts, each somehow deeper than the last, her legs do give out, but it doesn’t matter—she’s already shaking with the force of her orgasm, and Bellamy holds her close as he finishes inside of her. They both slump forward onto the table, Bellamy squishing her, as the sparks of pleasure fizzle out and their bodies calm.

“Can’t breathe,” Clarke mumbles, waving her hand in the air weakly.

Bellamy pulls out of her and rolls over with a groan. “How about now?”

“Mmm. Still can’t,” Clarke says, dragging in a breath.

He huffs a laugh. “Me neither.” His hand finds her back and rubs soothing lines up and down her spine. Clarke can feel herself going even more boneless, but the edge of the table is beginning to cut a line into the tops of her thighs, and her breasts are protesting being squashed flat against the tabletop. She pushes herself to her feet, gingerly testing her legs before she settles all of her weight on them.

“Come on,” she says, tugging at one of Bellamy’s hands. “I’m starving.”

He truly laughs then and lets her pull him to a standing position. “You’re the one who couldn’t wait until after we ate dinner,” he teases, but goes over to the fire to warm their food.

She sends him a flirtatious look over her shoulder as she wrings out a fresh washcloth. “Can you blame me?” She begins to run the cool cloth over her arms, her torso, then between her legs.

Bellamy forgets to answer, following the path of the cloth with interested eyes.

“Bellamy,” she says. He blinks, then grins wickedly.

“No, I guess I can’t blame you.”

They call Atlas out to join them as they eat their stew. After, Bellamy pulls a book from his trunk, and reads aloud as Clarke listens intently, head in his lap. In between page turns, his free hand gently combs through her hair, separating all of the tangles.

Clarke lets her eyes close as his voice washes over her, low and a little rough and beautiful. Every now and then, he translates a line from the book into Trigedasleng and she does her best to translate it back. She’s gotten much better, after a year of listening to him speak.

As night continues to fall, her mind begins to drift. She’d never imagined she could be this happy. She never imagined she’d find a home on the ground with people she loved. Clarke Griffin had been born in space, where her life had been mapped out for her: become a doctor like her mother, be a dutiful daughter and friend, match with a partner and have a child so the human race could continue to live.

It had been an easy life to contemplate, because there were no choices. There was only one path for her to follow, and only one life.

Being branded a criminal changed all of that, and being sent to the ground changed it all again. Suddenly she was free, and faced with thousands of choices, very few of them easy.

But one choice was simple.

Bellamy, who teaches her the language of his people during spare moments, who chases her across the bed at night in his sleep. Bellamy, who smells like the woods and like fire, and who likes to comb her hair out with his fingers when it’s tangled and wet after she bathes. Bellamy, who loves her.

Bellamy, who she loves.

Choosing him was the best decision she ever made.

Together, they’ve built this home—this life with each other, and their friends and their family and their dog.

And it’s a good one.