Archive of Our Own ^beta

It was almost unnoticeable at first.

An offhand glance here and there, a nod from across camp and- depending on who the instigator was- the other would come running. Well maybe come running is exaggerating it a bit, but the code Bellamy and Clarke seemed to share was a wordless one and highly effective.

They were both obviously at the top of the Ark survivor’s hierarchy. Bellamy perhaps the more prominent figurehead; but if Bellamy was cast into the role of the rebellious King, Clarke would take her place beside him as the benevolent Queen.

And like any good King and Queen, they spoke their own language only to be understood by the other.

-----
It started with the Grounder.

Clarke knew very well how opposed to violence she was; the very thought of listening to a man’s grunts of pain as he was whipped over and over again sickened her to her very core.

And yet, she nodded to him, to Bellamy, over and over, giving her consent through motions and looks, even as she couldn’t vocalize the very action that condemned the Grounder through more rounds of pain.

Bellamy understood that. He took her desperate gaze and he followed through with what she couldn’t. Again and again, looking to her to continue until either the Grounder or she reached their breaking point, ready to pull back when Clarke felt she could no longer hold his actions on her conscience.

She reached that point much too quickly, but also held out much longer than he anticipated. It was the look of muted hopelessness, of self- loathing that was slowly overtaking Clarke’s bright gaze that caused Bellamy to stutter in his movements, to bend over in regret and weariness and allow Octavia to take over in the interrogation department.

Later he tells her that who they are, and who they have to be are separate. But he hopes that she gathered his true meaning with the intensity of his gaze.

-----

Their trek to the Bunker came and went, leaving two emotionally exhausted teenagers to walk mostly silent back to camp. Bellamy had said few words to Clarke after they set off from that place, instead choosing to turn the night’s events around in his head. Coming to terms with Dax’s betrayal, Clarke’s new found confidence in him, her willingness to risk her life to save him; it was all conflicting in his mind.

But then they had arrived back to camp- to chaos, it would prove- and it was all Bellamy could do to inform the rest of the survivors of his plans for defense. Clarke stood at his side silently, approval radiating off of her in waves as he spoke.

Then, with a single glance to her, she flicked her eyes downwards and they moved in sync. The guns clattered to the floor and spread out across the dirt in front of them like a victory. Kids ooed and awed and cheered as they realized, this was their chance.

Clarke met Bellamy’s eyes once more. And while he could feel her exhaustion and her pain as his own through her simple gaze, Bellamy grinned. Because more than the absolute drain today had been for both of them, Clarke and he were completely on the same page for once.

And their shared look felt good.

------

“Help me,” Clarke announced, opening the flap of his tent without warning and studiously ignoring the naked brunette girl Bellamy had entertained for the night that laid beside him. The girl- Stella? Sara? Sonja?- shifted and groaned and buried her head in the animal skin blankets, never noticing how Clarke’s eyes spit fire at her prone body.

Bellamy blinked up at the intruder, flinching away as sunlight reflected off her golden head. “What the hell, Clarke?”

“I need you.” The words were spoken blandly, Clarke’s head tilted impatiently to the side. Distantly he remembered the first day after landing when Clarke had strolled over to Bellamy and his crew, not so pleasantly announcing that she ‘was here for him’.

He almost dismissed her right then and there (both now and then). Almost rolled over to throw an arm around Stella, Sara, Sonja, or whatever the hell her name was and go back to sleep.

But Clarke’s gaze was sharp and pointed, never straying even for a second to his bare chest or even to the side of his head. The problem was, he knew that look. It meant business, urgent business, which was obviously not to be discussed in the presence of one of his girls.

So with a bit of regret (more for the lost sleep than the girl occupying his bed), he shooed Stella, Sara, or Sonja out and followed Clarke.

------

Clarke and Finn were going at it again.

Not going at it, going at it- at least, Bellamy seriously hoped not- but hushed conversations off to the side of the camp were growing loud and hostile and if Bellamy had to listen to his name come out of Spacewalker’s mouth one more time, well Bellamy was simply going to lose it.

Who the hell was Spacewalker to harass Clarke about decisions both he and she had made?

The answer: Finn was no one here. He lost the only leverage he had into power the moment he and Clarke imploded and his crazy girlfriend had come down from the Ark. In fact, the only redeeming force behind Finn’s entire fragile place in the upper hierarchy was because Clarke had once thought highly of him. And if Clarke thought highly of him, Bellamy begrudgingly respected it.

Bellamy caught Clarke’s gaze as he walked past the campfire headed toward the makeshift infirmary Clarke had set up. Instead of nodding to her and continuing on with his day, Bellamy held her gaze. It wasn’t teary or distressed (Clarke was much too tough for that), but it was beseeching and annoyed and when she flinched at something Spacewalker had just said, well, Bellamy had enough.

He diverted his course and walked toward his blonde partner and her irritating former bed-mate.

“Princess,” he greeted with a nod, and then with a not so subtle once over, “Spacewalker.”

“Finn.” Spacewalker responded tightly, his expression hardened. But the hand that had been gripping Clarke’s forearm loosened enough for her to pull away and put a step of distance between them. If either of the boys noticed that she stepped closer to Bellamy in the process, no one said anything.

“Hmm.” Bellamy responded in kind, before turning his attention to Clarke, “I was just coming to find you.”

Clarke raised a single eyebrow- a look that clearly called bullshit on his lie.

He tilted his head and pasted a complacent grin on his face. Give me a break here Princess. I’m just trying to help you out.

Maybe she could read his mind, because Clarke blinked and then nodded slowly for Finn’s benefit. “Is it about the Grounders again?”

“What else would it be about?” Bellamy made a show of rolling his eyes. “Come on.”

“We’ll talk later, Clarke.” Spacewalker gritted out through a locked jaw, looking distastefully between Bellamy and Clarke. Bellamy’s responding glare was enough to send Finn awkwardly shuffling back.
No you won’t.

“I didn’t ask for your help,” Clarke muttered moments later, when Finn had walked off and been intercepted by Raven.

“Not in so many words.” Bellamy nodded, and looked down to her face.

Clarke’s eyes were trained on him, moving around his face, searching for… something. Whether or not she found it, Bellamy didn’t know, but he did notice that Clarke’s eyes were like the sky on a cloudless day; still, deep and much too vast for him to begin to comprehend.

She nodded and her eyes softened.

She didn’t say thank you. But she didn’t need to; it was all in her eyes.

----

Clarke was going to lose her mind.

Bellamy- thatsonofabitch- was easily the stupidest, stubborn man she had ever come across and he was going to get himself and every single person in their camp killed. It was that simple, he couldn’t stand to listen to reason or face the facts out in front of him.

“No,” the oaf snapped at her, paying no mind to the volume of his voice or the fact that Grounders surrounding them easily outnumbered their camp. “No.”

His gaze was like molten pools of lava; fascinating, alive, but if you get to close, intense enough to burn you. And both were currently scorching holes through Clarke’s face.

“It’s not like I’m really loving this plan either, Bellamy, but what do you want me to do?”

“Not go with them, Clarke. You go with them and you won’t come back.”

“They want peace. We want peace-”

“They can’t have peace if that means they get you.”

Clarke doesn’t have the words to respond to that. So instead she uses what she knows in her soul that Bellamy will understand. He knows her- he can read- her better than anybody she’s come across. And she can read him.

She meets his gaze full on and waits. Bellamy shakes his head and they begin what they have been perfecting since the Drop Ship landed on Earth.

Call it a battle of wills, or meeting of two minds; Clarke calls in a conversation.

Please, she begs him, I have to do this.

No, he responds, jaw locking tightly, looking fierce as ever even as he knows the battle is hopeless.

I trust you, Clarke wants to tell him, now you have to trust me.

“Your decision?” A Grounder woman, with tangled dark hair and intricate tattoos over her body, asks, eyes floating back and forth between Clarke and Bellamy.

“I’m going.” Clarke snaps at her, turning only briefly to face the woman.

Bellamy moves to answer, but Clarke’s gaze is back on his before the words can escape. He nods once, and then backs away. His eyes cut across the field and rest on a figure standing stone faced as he watched the proceedings.

The Grounder, Lincoln, as Octavia stubbornly calls him.

Bellamy stiffens and moves toward him, stopping only a few inches away. Lincoln’s tribe shifts and readjusts their grips of the spears and bows that constitutes as weapons. Lincoln returns the glare impassively.

“She comes back,” Bellamy utters lowly, eyes as hard as steel at the words only meant for the two, “If she doesn’t, I swear to you on my life, you will never see my sister again.”

Lincoln’s eyes flick to Octavia, hovering at the side of Finn and Miller, not moving forward, but watching with great interest the conversation between the two. It’s pointless, there was no way Octavia could have heard it.

Bellamy stalks back toward the rest of the Ark group, passing Clarke silently as she walked toward the cluster of Grounders.

They moved out like an invisible force, disappearing into the trees, fading into the darkness. The Grounder woman, the leader, ties Clarke’s hands with leather strips. And leads her by the arm away from the Ark, her people, Bellamy.

Right before Clarke makes her own descent into the shadows, she looks back.

Bellamy stands there, a little in front of the others, fists tightly clutched at his sides.

She can see his eyes, burning in the firelight, even as she travels further and further from him

I’ll come back, she says, without actually saying it.

Bellamy nods, understanding her as he always does.

I know, he thinks, just as she disappears from sight, and I’ll be waiting.

Fin.