Chapter Text
The morning air was still, untouched.
It was quiet. There was no howling, anguished wind, or harsh creaking of tired metals. The world had not yet woken, though the sun had long stretched above the towering pines. Birds whispered lullabies from their high branches.
Clarke traced a map of the cosmos up and down the length of Bellamy’s arm. It fascinated her, how sleep softened his features. She was reminded once again of just how young he really was. Of how young she really was.
If she were another girl, in another life, maybe she would have let herself imagine a gold-tinged, bright future. One of lazily linked fingers, soft grasses, warm sunshine. A future of children and wrinkled smiles and white hair.
But she was Clarke, and he was Bellamy, and they lived a life where imagining the future was a fool’s game and a fool’s game only.
For now, she spent hours (or was it years?) inhaling this quiet, lovely moment. She bit back a smile at the way his cold nose dug into her neck. Happiness crept back into her guarded heart, little by little, warming the edges with a soft glow.
Bellamy stirred at last, turning the world as he woke.
“Hey,” he breathed, voice gravelly with sleep. Pulling her close, he murmured with quiet awe, “You’re still here.”
“I’m still here,” she confirmed gently, tracing the sharp line of his jaw, thumbing the dimple in his chin.
“Good,” he smiled, crooked and sleepy and Bellamy. Pushing up, he rolled on top of her, boxing her in with his arms. In response, Clarke’s fingernails grazed the skin of his hips.
Looking at the hopeful expression on his face, masked only by explosive freckles and chaotic hair, she couldn’t help but imagine a future where the two of them grew to be as old as they felt.
“I love you,” she said, the words leaving her lips without asking for permission.
“I love you,” he echoed, surging down and kissing her like he could taste tomorrow on her lips.
They spent the morning making up for lost time, loving each other differently than they had the night before. Heavy-lidded sighs escaped her as he pressed slow kisses down the valley of her spine.
This time, there was no hungry clashing of teeth. There was no need to leave possessive marks along the column of his throat, or to run angry red lines along his shoulder blades with the tips of her fingers. It was slow, rocking back and forth like a boat in easy waters.
It was quiet, like the morning.
Deliberate, unhurried, satisfying.
The world could wait a little longer for them to make up for lost time.
Sleeping bags rolled up tightly, bags fastened over shoulders, Bellamy and Clarke trekked back to Camp. The Dropship was a fading figure in the background, the tattered, blood red curtain hanging from the door waving them a bittersweet farewell.
Snow blanketed the ground, blinding white and all-consuming. The sky, the trees, the ground, all were a bright, perfect white. A blank slate of a world met them as they walked through the powdered snow. It crunched beneath their feet, leaving their socks damp and toes cold. The sun was obscured by a sheet of clouds, a white orb whose warmth struggled to reach them.
They trudged through the forest, eager to make it back to Camp before nightfall. Bellamy tracked their progress against the map of the land in his mind.
Clarke was quiet. She walked behind him, stepping in his footprints. Whenever Bellamy commented on landmarks they passed, or relayed insignificant information the Arkers had discovered about a specific area, her answers sounded brief, distracted.
“Clarke,” he began, careful. He turned to face her. “You don’t want to go back to Camp.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a statement; one she didn’t outright deny. He could see the mental battle she was fighting in the way her brows furrowed and her hands clenched at her sides.
“I…” Biting her lip, she didn’t meet his eyes.
He waited.
She met his eyes at last, and he could see that she had made her decision. He prepared himself for whatever that answer might be, squaring his shoulders and shifting his weight.
“I want to go back with you,” she said, and it was the way that she said you that made his fears dissipate like cold breath in the wintry air.
Before he could reply, she rushed forward unexpectedly. Exclaims of It’s the river! and It’s frozen, I bet we could walk over it filtered back to him on the coattails of the windy chill brushing against his cheeks.
They surveyed the river. It had frozen, not completely through but enough for them to walk over it. Tentatively, they stepped onto the frozen river, Clarke grabbing Bellamy’s forearm. Together, they balanced across the clouded ice, breaths hitching whenever a sharp crack formed beneath their feet.
When their boots hit the mud on the other side, they clung to each other. They glanced back at the wide, frozen river like they couldn’t believe they hadn’t fallen through the ice.
A surprised, relieved laugh bubbled out of Clarke. The corners of his mouth twitched upwards at the sound.
“I can’t believe we made it,” Clarke said.
He shook his head in similar disbelief.
The snow was lighter on this side of the river, not as deep or imposing. It blanketed the ground instead of smothering it. Here and there, green leaves peeked out at them, winking in the wind.
They pushed forward, each step one step closer to warmth, to shelter, to home.
“I feel…different,” Clarke confessed once they reached a ravine, adjusting the pack over her sore shoulders.
The wariness was clear in his voice. “Different how?”
“I don’t know.” She steadied herself on the thick trunk of a slouched tree, catching her breath. They had been walking nearly all day. “I feel…cautiously optimistic.”
Bellamy raised an eyebrow, amused. “Cautiously optimistic?”
Maybe it was the playfulness in his eyes, the way tiny snowflakes lodged themselves into the ends of his hair. Maybe it was the way he looked at her like he couldn’t believe she was really there, that she was really with him.
Whatever it was that possessed Clarke to bend down and crunch snow into a ball between her palms, also possessed her to throw said snowball towards his chest. The snow splattered over his shirt, leaving shrapnel of ice on the fabric. The look he gave her was enough to make her laugh.
“Did you—” he glanced back down at his shirt, at her dripping, guilty fingertips. “Clarke, did you just throw a snowball at me?”
Her answer was a broad smile. She ran through the snow, knowing she wouldn’t have to wait long for his impending counterattack. A snowball whizzed beyond her head, exploding on the tree branch above her and sprinkling snow in her hair. Her lungs burned in a good way, cold breaths soothing her dry throat.
I can’t believe this is actually happening, she thought. Is that me laughing? I haven’t felt like this since...since forever, it feels like. I can’t remember the last time I felt so free.
She prepared herself to throw another snowball when Bellamy tackled her to the ground. He landed on top of her, the soft, powdered snow breaking their fall.
Clarke laughed. She tangled her fingers in the hair at the base of his neck and kissed his cheek impulsively. The same cheek, she realized too late, that she had kissed months ago, when she had left him.
The laughter died quickly, extinguished in the thin air.
Bellamy stilled above her, body growing tense in order to accommodate the familiar heaviness of pain and regret and loneliness associated with that day and the many before and after it.
“Sorry.” He cursed under his breath, the sound of his low voice rippling through her. “I—Sorry.”
“What are you sorry for?” Tears stung her eyes. “I’m the one who left, I’m the one who—”
“I wasn’t enough for you then,” he interrupted, voice raw. “Clarke, I…I want to be enough for you now.”
A contradiction of a man looked down at her, eyes as soft and brown as sun-warmed earth, features as hard and sharp as stone. He was a gentle, good man; one with blood staining his rough, calloused palms. He blurred the line between savior and sinner, redrawing and erasing it with every action he took, with every word he spoke.
He was her weakness. Her strength.
“You are more than enough, Bellamy,” she stressed. “You are everything, okay?”
She faltered, desperate to make him understand.
The look he gave her was open, vulnerable. His dark eyelashes fluttered, like he was surprised to hear those words coming from her mouth, like he didn’t know just how much she needed him and cared about him and loved him.
At last, he nodded softly. She could just see the beginnings of acceptance filtering into his eyes. Kissing her softly, he poured his emotions into the way his lips moved against hers, and she knew, without a doubt, that he felt the same about her.
“Come on,” he said, standing and pulling her up with him. Brushing the snow off his clothes, he smiled faintly, shaking his head. “I can’t believe you threw a snowball at me.”
Clarke bit her lip. “I can’t believe it either. I just—” wanted to have fun, to feel like an eighteen-year old girl for once in my life. “I wanted to do something normal.”
“The kids do stuff like that all the time, now,” he said. “A week or two ago, they made this huge fort out of snow. They had this big snowball fight. Pretty much everyone joined in, even Kane and your mom.”
His words were wistful, like he wished she would’ve been there to see it. They were hopeful too, though, like he knew she would get a chance to see something like it again.
She found herself hoping the same thing.
“I’m glad they’re having fun,” she said, sincere.
Bellamy looked at her, serious and meaningful. He eyed the snow still stubbornly clinging to her hair. Her cheeks were flushed from running, a sign of health and life and laughter that strengthened the blues in her eyes.
“I think it means they’re healing,” he offered.
Does that mean we’re healing too? she wondered, looking and him and finding the same question written across his features.
“I think it does,” she answered aloud.
The smile he gave her was brighter than a summer sunrise, bleeding with tragic beauty. They started walking again, this time side by side.
“Just a little farther,” he said, and she couldn’t help but agree with him.