I'll tell the air because it's the one you're breathing
Happy Valentine's Day, stilinsksi!
Five times Clarke can’t talk to Bellamy and one time she does.
A/N: from 2.09 and after 2.11. Valentine gift for Isabelle, who wanted five+one angst (or something cute, but, well, you know, angst~) Hope you like it~!
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i.
Clarke woke up with the sun already not touching the ground, the only couple of hours she had slept — slept without a million thoughts twisting in her mind, that is — making presence in the difficulty to lift her eyelids.
The first thing she did when her eyes could find a way to keep themselves open was looking for the mop of dark, messy hair around camp. Her head was throbbing, discussions about the newest plan of the night before — which she knew were going to continue as soon as she found Lexa that morning.
She walked towards the medic bay, letting her eyes travel all over the camp, changing her mind at the last moment and turning towards the mechanic room where all they’re communications were — disregarding the fact that Raven probably didn’t even want to see her around there. This wasn’t about her, anyway.
Raven was working on something when she stepped into the room, the radio lying still at her side. Her shoulders were tense, as if she were going to jump the moment that radio made some kind of noise.
She must hear her, because she didn’t let her came closer than a few steps before speaking.
“Octavia is not here.”
It’s not her I was looking for.
“Where is she?”
“She left like an hour ago, because Bellamy and Lincoln were leaving” she answered without even looking at her.
Clarke felt something closing over her throat. She breathed in, but didn’t think her voice came out like she wanted.
“They’re already gone?”
Not even a goodbye.
Suddenly, Raven stopped working on whatever she was doing — hands still in position over wires and steel and bolts. She turned her head to look at Clarke over her shoulder with a glance Clarke didn’t know how to define, but it made the weight on her shoulder heavier.
Without saying anything she turned away and focused on her work again, shaking her head lightly.
Only when Clarke was about to get out of the room, her feet at the door, she heard Raven’s voice — hard and sharp —, cutting through her.
“Did you expect anything else?”
Clarke wants to say goodbye to Bellamy. (Then she thinks it probably would’ve end up being another “good luck” without being able to look at him in the eye and maybe the alternative is better than that.)
ii.
The sun had left the sky hours ago when she returned to Camp Jaha.
Everyone was walking from one place to another, food on their hands and murmurs on their lips. There were wary looks and whispers among the crowd — a clear difference between grounders and sky people. But there wasn’t anyone trying to kill anyone so Clarke thought it could be a lot worse.
That was until she found Octavia. The marks on her face put a lump in Clarke’s throat.
She straightened her shoulders and walked towards her feeling Indra’s look burning on her skin. She insisted in checking her bruises even if someone had already done it.
Clarke worked with the silence of the medic bay drowning them, Octavia’s eyes fixed on her, waiting for her to have the guts to look back. She ignored it.
And maybe she was somehow a masochistic because she lasted twice the usual on fixing her. (Or maybe it was another useless way of trying to lighten the guilt in her chest.)
“Bellamy is going to kill me when he finds out.”
Clarke realized too late what she had said; the words were already floating in the air between them.
Octavia clenched her jaw, tensed her muscles and hardened her look.
“Then it’s a good thing there is no way he can find out, uh?”
Her voice was forged iron and not a single word seemed to be real, all consumed by resentfulness and cynical sarcasm from the roots. Octavia was still mad at her and surely she’d have a long list of things to say — or shout — at her that she probably didn’t want to hear.
But instead of doing that, she got up from the cot she was sitting on, taking Clarke’s hands away from her face. Taking her sword, she walked towards the door — knuckles white and head hold high, as if she refused to let anything hurt her.
Clarke wants to tell Bellamy how strong Octavia has become, how important she is for the truce, how she’s earning the respect of who underestimate her just with that Blake stubbornness; she wants him to watch his sister grow up. (The she remembers he may not have the chance to do so.)
iii.
She could feel it breathing under her palm. The horse was looking at her in the eye, as if he was deciding whether he was going to let her rid him or not, whether she was afraid of him or not. So Clarke looked back at him without blinking until he closed his eyes and buried himself more deeply in her hand, almost nodding.
Later, she felt him underneath her, all muscles and strength. She felt the whole world was at her feet, that she could overcome every obstacle they could find, being on top on something so alive, so powerful.
When she looked around her, finding only grounders on their mounts, the memories stormed in her mind — of the bridge, of Anya.
Of Bellamy shooting.
Of her trusting him.
Of Bellamy not letting her go without a back up. Alone.
She tightened her grip around the reins and looked ahead of her. She had to get back to that radio.
Clarke wants to tell him how much she loves horse riding — that she knows he’d love it, too. (Then she thinks she can’t promise him he’ll also do it without lying.)
iv.
The sound of his voice through the radio was almost impossible to believe at first and it took Clarke a second to realize it was real.
She was vaguely aware of Raven listening to all of it and watching her carefully. She knew Maya was at Bellamy’s side and Clarke came to feel grateful that at least Bellamy wasn’t alone in there.
Although she knew that made her a horrible person, because the only reason she was grateful for was the possibility of Maya getting caught instead of Bellamy.
Bellamy didn’t mention Lincoln and Clarke didn’t even think of asking about him. The only thing she felt was hope and will filling every fiber of her body as they exchanged words.
She wanted to tell so many things that she couldn’t tell him anything, and so her answer was based on relief and keep doing that. Clarke felt her cheeks hurt because of her smile; she didn’t even think if Raven wanted to talk to Bellamy or if Bellamy wanted to talk to Octavia, or even of calling Octavia to tell her that her brother was alive.
Bellamy’s voice ran through her veins and her mind could think about anything else than a plan to keep him safe.
Clarke wants to apologize for the goodbye they had, she wants to make him understand that she could never doubt him, she wants to tell him that she almost kill a man in cold blood out of pure rage today, that she has felt the world crumble around her for an eternal minutes. (Then she thinks she can’t promise him that he’ll make it out of there alive, that he’ll live to see all of what they’re fighting for — but Clarke swears, in that moment, she could.)
v.
Clarke paced up and down the room, twisting her hands, biting her lips, her nails. Raven had her eyes fixed on the radio but her glance seemed completely lost. Octavia had stormed into the room, gasping for air and still sheathing her sword.
Bellamy’s last words lingered heavy in the room, making the air burn in their lungs.
Clarke had only being able to hear the last part of the conversation.
They’re launching a missile. They want to wipe them all.
I’m going to try to stop it. I’m going to redirect it.
If I can’t make the next communication, Maya will. From that moment on she’s your inside man. Tell Clarke, Raven.
Clarke had reached the radio in Raven’s hands — who had being murmuring something like I better hear you in the next communication, you ass — and had yell and shout at the device.
Bellamy!
Bellamy!
What the hell are you thinking? What are you going to do? You don’t even have a plan!
Bellamy!
But the only thing that had been heard through the radio noise was the alarm in Mount Weather deafening any other sound, before it went back to the same static as always.
With a cry of frustration she had left the radio on the table and ran to speak with Lexa — which had lead to more confrontation and more frustration, and the night had fallen between arguments and shouting.
Now, the mechanic room was only illuminated by the Ark’s old, white light tubes of emergency, and a couple of lamps Raven had been able to restore from some probably already defective bulbs.
The static of the radio turned the air heavier by the second.
Abby had tried to step into the room nearly an hour ago, but had just stopped at the door for a moment too long and turned away when she had noticed Octavia’s agitated breathing — as if she was drowning —, Raven’s hard look on the radio —as if she was trying to make Bellamy talk to them just like that—, Clarke’s pacing around the room, not being able to stay still for even a second — like something was twisting inside her.
“Ark station!”
The radio cracking back to life was like the spark necessary for the explosion.
Octavia turned so fast that the braids in her hair created a hurricane around her, Raven hit her hand with the table because of the speed of her movement to reach the radio, Clarke was sure she had step onto a wire with too much strength while running towards her.
“Bellamy?”
“Clarke! Please! Someone! Get Clarke!”
The communication noise hadn’t let them listen clearly to the tone of voice at first, but once it quieted, there was only one person that could own that voice.
“Ark station!”
She heard Octavia’s piercing cry as she fell to her knees, hitting the floor with her fists — knuckles already turning bloody red.
“Clarke, it’s Maya!”
She saw Raven throwing something to the other side of the room (the wall) — the motion filled with rage —, a “fuck!” on her lips.
“Please!”
Clarke just felt her heart stop beating for two entire seconds and then keep beating so painfully fast it seemed like it wanted to rip her chest apart through her ribs.
“They have Bellamy!”
Clarke wants to tell him how much of an idiot he is, she wants to yell at him and shout at him his stupid, improvised, impulsive plans. She wants to thank him and she wants to punch him. (Then she thinks that the last look he remembers from her —the last one he could remember— was one of complete indifference for his life or death, and a too fast tear escapes before she’s wiping her eyes and shouting evacuation movements.)
+vi.
The air swirled around the fires, the wind dragged ashes around the camp, the moonlight caressed everything underneath her.
Clarke walked through the remains of that part of the camp, bodies already confirmed to be corpses — gaze lost in the line where the darkness of the forest and sky’s met.
They had managed to take most of the people away from the camp and into the forest, with the grounders. But the missile had been launched just two minutes after Maya had contact with them. Clarke was sure that the target of the missile should have been the entire camp; however, it had landed on an outside area of the Ark, probably the closest to the side of the cliff, and most of the damage had ended up down the cliff, in an angle safe enough for the Ark. There was no way a missile missed its target unless someone had given wrong coordinates. Clarke had also guessed that the countdown for the missile had been already activated by the time Maya had reached the radio.
Whatever it was that had happened in that control room, whatever Bellamy had done, or tried to do, it had saved so many lives and most of the only place that represents the only chance of taking down Mount Weather.
Clarke knew something had gone terribly wrong with Bellamy’s “plan”, and the smell of death in her lungs was proof of it.
They’d had to extinguish all the fire before it could devour the remains of the camp. They had got out the people who had been trapped under the ruins. They had gone body by body, checking their pulse and breathing. They had fixed the survivors with just scratches and bruises and evacuated them with the rest to the forest, grounder villages, caves, underground. Anywhere else was safer than the coordinates of a missile.
In the camp only remained one group of guards. She could see Indra and her warriors in the limit of the forest, and her mother carrying the last injured with Jackson and Kane’s help. Octavia and Raven were probably back the radio.
The rest of the camp was pure silence.
Clarke walked among corpses until she reached the electric fence — that didn’t seem to be electric anymore, considering the amount of energy they had left — and looked ahead of her.
Her mind seemed to be in a state of absent replay.
Bellamy.
Clarke knew they wouldn’t kill him immediately, they needed his blood.
Bellamy.
Clarke also knew that his blood was not the only thing they wanted — Maya had said Monty and Harper were proof of that.
They had Bellamy.
Above all, Clarke knew Cage Wallace was not Dante Wallace, and having an infiltrated man among his lines would make him want to know information only Bellamy could give him, and he would cross lines she didn’t want to think of to obtain it. She knew he was desperate, and desperate people have a great facility to accept cruelty.
She knew it well, the lines they —Bellamy, Raven, herself— had crossed because of pure desperation.
She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, but the air got stuck in her throat and burned her trachea.
She wanted to talk to Bellamy, she wanted to tell him everything she hadn’t been able to tell him, tell him sitting in front of a fire, night already fallen, Monty and Jasper’s laugher in the background, Miller putting his beanie over his eyes to keep anyone from noticing he actually has them closed, Harper unbraiding her hair by the fire, the camp’s murmurs at the end of the day.
She wanted to talk to Bellamy so that is what she did. She said all the things she’d had kept inside her, being only answered by cold, empty air.
The she turned around and went to look for Lexa, because Mount Weather was going to fall and she was going to be responsible for it.
Clarke just wants Bellamy to be alive.
