Work Text:
a p o s t a s y
[a·pos·ta·sy]
(n) the abandonment or renunciation of a religious or political belief.
"Clarke," he says. Her name rolls off his tongue so easily, yet it's so painful. Stepping further into the room, he avoids the disappointment in her eyes as if they carried a plague.
"What could you possibly want, Bellamy?"
"I just wanted to say goodbye before you leave."
"Okay," she said crossing her arms, "you've got thirty seconds, and then you're walking out of that door."
Thirty seconds were gracious. Thirty seconds were exorbitant. In thirty-one seconds, the tears would begin to weld in her eyes, and so she tells herself to hold on for thirty.
"Thirty seconds? That's all I get? After everything we've been through, you're going to give me thirty seconds to say goodbye?"
She's shocked that he's said that. No, she's a little mad too. She questions her hearing, but moments later, she comes to the conclusion that she did, in fact, hear correctly. She's speechless, really. The nerve of Bellamy Blake.
She laughs, and it isn't the blissful laughter he's longed to hear escape her lips since Mount Weather. It isn't the reaction he expected either. Instead, it's short, painful even.
"After everything- after everything we've been through? Really? Where was this reasoning when you let them strap me down to that chair? When you told Cadogan I didn't have the flame?"
"Clarke, I-"
"Why should I let you choose how long you get to spend ripping my heart to shreds? After everything we've done together, after everything we've been through, you're still going to go through with this? You're still forcing me to lose you too?"
"You're not losing me, Clarke!"
"No, no, you're right. How can I possibly lose someone who I don't even recognize anymore?"
"I'm still me, Princess."
"No, you don't get to use that. The Bellamy who called me that is dead. He died the moment he fell into the anomaly."
"I'm still that same Bellamy," he pleads.
"You may look the same, but you couldn't be more different from the man I fell in love with all those years ago."
Her words linger in the air as she turns her back to him and wipes her tears with her sleeve. He reaches his hand out to her shoulder, and she flinches.
"Is this what you want? Honestly?"
She doesn't need to hear his answer. In fact, she knows he's nodding yes. He's choosing to stay behind on Bardo while she and their friends go back to Earth to start over. To truly do better this time.
"Why?"
For all mankind, she assumes he'll say, and she thinks if she hears him or anyone else say it once more, she'll scream. Instead, he surprises her.
"You don't know what it was like on that mountain, Clarke. It was-."
Clarke turns turns on her heel to face him.
"Hell? I know exactly what it was like, Bellamy. I know the starvation, the isolation and feeling like there's no hope or point in surviving. I know because I've been there, and I pushed through it all because of Madi and because of you. I reminded myself of all the little moments and all the reasons. You are what got me through those six years, Bell."
"And you got me to the top of that mountain."
"Sometimes I wish I hadn't."
"You don't really mean that," his voice broke, "Do you?"
Once again, the air is silent. She paces the room, and his forbidden emotions hang in the balance, waiting to react to her answer as she gathered her words. He's not supposed to care. He's not supposed to be hurt. For all mankind, he reminds himself.
"I-I don't know. I mean sometimes," she hesitated. "Honestly, I wish you hadn't come back from Etherea." Her voice is soft, but it trembles with emotion. "I'm tired of seeing you walk around like the ghost of the man I used to call on the radio every day or the one who held my hand through every only choice."
The burning in his throat intensifies, as if the lump may just burn a hole into his neck from the inside out.
"I can still be him."
Clarke stops in her place. And while she doesn't agree with his discipleship and what they believe, she still respects his devotion and loyalty to it. His loyalty— she always loved that about him. The blonde knows there's no changing his mind, but she needs closure. She refuses to go back to Earth with the regret of not feeling as though she did and said everything she could have.
"Then come back to Earth with me. We can have what we always talked about having: a fresh start, a home, and a-a family. We always talked about that, didn't we? Happiness and something more than just surviving."
She steps closer to him, looking up to meet his eyes, but Bellamy won't dare look at her. Her hand rests on his bicep slowly making its way down his arm until she intertwines her fingers with his.
"We can wake up next to each other every morning like we used to do before Mount Weather and before Praimfiya. We'd get into bed. You'd read to me when I couldn't sleep. Don't you remember? Don't you want to feel that way again?"
"I- I can't," he whispers, pulling his hand from her grasp.
"You can't or you won't?"
"I'm a disciple now. I have an allegiance to the Shepherd. It's not about me and what I want. I can't show weakness, or they'll send me to Penance."
"I get that. I do, and I hate that I do. Your loyalty and dedication were always something I admired about you; it;s one of the reasons I fell in love with you all those years ago. But, Bell, you taught me it's okay to have weaknesses. You showed me that your greatest strength can come from your greatest weakness."
He gets it now. He gets why she said she'd only give him thirty seconds. Sure, the thirty second goodbye turned into one of their old quarrels, but nonetheless, he understood why.
"I was wrong," he lies.
There's a silence between them again, and neither is sure how long it lasts. Clarke walks over to her bed and sits down.
"There's no changing your mind, is there?"
"No," he answers, "there isn't."
"Then go."
Her voice trembles with emotion. Everything she fears is happening. He's staying behind, and there's nothing she can do to change his mind. Evidently, she's not enough for him.
"Clarke—"
"Please, Bellamy, just go."
He finally looks her in the eyes and sees her tears are filled with hurt and sadness. He doesn't leave; in fact, he walks over to her.
"Come here," he whispers.
She obliges, to his surprise, and allows herself to be engulfed in his armed one last time. Her head is buried in his chest, and his head in the hair around her neck.
Clarke is scared to let go because she knows that once she does, he'll walk right out the door. She'll never see him again or feel his touch again, or smell his scent again.
They stand there as if time is frozen still, as if they're the only two humans on Bardo or Penance or even Sanctum.
Bellamy inhales deeply through his nose, taking in the scent of her hair for one last time. He hadn't realized he'd forgotten it after all these years.
His hands rest and on her shoulders and he steps back slightly to look her in the eyes, but she continues to cling to him instead of releasing his torso.
"Clarke, it's time."
"No," she cries softly into his chest. "I'm not ready to let go just yet. I don't want to."
"Princess, I have to go."
She doesn't reprimand him this time for calling her that. Instead, she steps back, and with a tear-stained face and red, puffy eyes, she looks up at him before rising to her toes. Gently, she presses her lips against the recently, shaven skin on his cheek.
"This is really it, then?"
"It is."
Bellamy Blake turns his back on Clarke Griffin and walks towards the door. He won't look back because he knows that as soon as he shuts the door behind himself, her heart will break. He knows she won't run after him because he said he wants this— to be a disciple. This is his happiness, right? It's what his shepherd told him, at least. Yet, as he's nearing his exit, something doesn't quite sit right with him.
He places his hand on the door knob, and stops as if he'll say something. He brushes the feeling off and opens the door anyway. He turns his head to look at him once more, and this time, it really hits him.
His happiness isn't found within his discipleship. It's found in Clarke Griffin. She is his happiness.
So screw Bardo and Penance and whatever other Godforsaken planets and moons out there. He'd risk everything for her.
"Remind me."
"What?"
Clarke lifts her head as she stifles her silent cries. She thinks she's lost her mind, but Bellamy really does shut the door and walk back over to her. He walks with purpose in his step.
"Remind me. All those things you said about being happy and waking up next to each other-remind me. I don't know how, and I don't know why, but I think I'm being made to forget what happiness with you is like."
If he's going to become an apostate, he needs to be sure.
She rises to the tips of her toes and presses her lips to his. A century's worth of missed time is fit into one kiss as her hand finds his cheek, and her other reaches for the back of his neck. Bellamy pulls her closer to his body and leaves his hands on her waist.
"Are you sure?" She breathes. Her forehead is pressed against his. He nods, and she starts removes the white clothing from his body. He's never been more sure of anything in his entire life. He lets out a breath of laughter, and a smirk she hasn't seen in centuries creeps across his face.
"Whatever the hell we want. Right, Princess?"
So screw Bardo or Penance or whatever other Godforsaken planets and moons are out there. This is Clarke Griffin, the love of his life. He's fought and killed enemies, crossed a field of Azgeda warriors, and poisoned his sister all in the name of his undying love for this woman.
They've both made sacrifices and only choices and crossed time and space for each other, and their happiness is more than deserved. He was never one to care for entitlement, but after having crossed time and space for each other, he thinks, they are damn well entitled to some happiness.
He won't think twice about committing apostasy to get the happiness they've always dreamed of having together.