Dawn is Coming, Open Your Eyes

'Hey! Princess! Where the hell do you think you're going?'

She's a single step beyond the battered remnants of the wall, her lips parting against the sweet void of silence when he finds her.

A single step... From Finn. From Raven. From a hundred needy eyes.

A single step from impromptu scalpel blades, and muffled screams.

Blood to the elbows.

Love that isn't hers…

And of course it's him who sees her. Of course he'd have something to say.

'I'm taking a walk.' She doesn't turn to him as she says it. Just finishes the zip on her backpack and swings it over her shoulder.

'Are you insane?' Leaves hiss furiously as he moves, no doubt striding towards her back, no doubt reaching harshly for her shoulder, right about-

He swings her around.

'After what just happened to Octavia? You're seriously going out there - at dusk - alone?'

'Don't touch me.' Every nerve in her is overstrained, over-sensitised. The roughness of his touch blazes like raw voltage down her arm and she wrenches violently away. 'Go find yourself another Grounder to trap and torture.'

He darts in front of her as she resumes her course, palms out, a breath from touching her.

'Hey, hey, slow down-'

'I'm really not in the mood Bellamy.'

'Come on, Clarke,' his voice drops - a hint of incredulity, a taste of pleading. 'You're supposed to be the smart one here. What are you doing?'

She's had a long day. The longest. Her shirt still stinks of blood, her hands still shake.

Finn's alive… whatever that means.

Her mother's voice is a haunting echo in her ears…

How can love be such a source of pain?

All she wants is a little silence. Just one small piece of the world to hold for herself. She shakes her head and shoves past him.

'Look, hold on, okay?' He side steps her and moves back towards camp. 'I'll get someone to go with you.'

She doesn't slow. No. She will not be acquiescing to anyone tonight. Especially not Bellamy Blake.

'Just wait, damn it!' he shouts over his shoulder. And then louder: 'Drake! Monroe!'

She glances back at him. He's a short distance inside the camp, bellowing like an army general.

'Drake!'

There's no response. The wall is unguarded, none of the patrols in sight.

He swears, low and fast. 'Fuck. Do you all think the Grounders are a joke?! Jesus Christ… why do I even bother?' He grinds his fingertips across his eyes, like he can change the world he sees - if only he presses hard enough.

With a shuddering sigh he drops his hands, grabs an extra knife from the weapons pile discarded at the nearest sentry point, and makes his way back towards her.

'Right. Off you go.'

She baulks. No. Definitely not.

'You're not coming.'

He sighs with deliberate slowness, like the conversation exhausts him beyond words.

'Unfortunately… you are mistaken.'

'I can take care of myself.'

'…Also a mistake.'

'What the hell?'

He snaps. 'One of you against a pack of Grounders? Are you suicidal? Do you seriously like those odds?'

'Right. And I should feel so much safer traversing the woods with a man who abducted another human being, strung him up in ropes and tortured him today.'

The words hit a tender mark, she can see it in the throbbing muscles of his jaw, and his voice is icy cold.

'Lucky for you, I'm on your side. Which means I'll only abduct and torture people who try to abduct and torture you. Or is that such a burden to bear?'

It's too soon. Too soon after Octavia. All the lines are blurred and she doesn't even know what she thinks anymore… She changes tack.

'We've just survived a hurricane. They're not going to come for us tonight!'

'Oh don't be so naïve. This is the perfect opportunity for them.' He gestures back across his shoulder. 'The wall is down. And apparently no one cares enough to guard what's left of it… So no, Princess. No you're not going out alone tonight. I've got too much to do tomorrow to waste time on a rescue mission to save your reckless ass.'

The words hit their mark; the ceaseless logic of her soul cannot deny them. But it's more than that. She sees him, for the first time that night. Sees the bruised discolouration beneath his eyes, and the quivering tenseness of overused muscles. He's exhausted too. It's been less than 24 hours since he returned with Octavia, carrying Finn in his arms. Only to arrive home for a hurricane. She doesn't know for sure but she doubts he's even slept. And yet he's here…

Even after all she's seen, and felt, and done today, there's nowhere near enough selfish anger in her heart to withstand that.

So after a final, conflicted pause she carries on.

And he follows her.

…

She leads him to her favourite place on Earth: the ridge where she first watched shooting stars. Or so she thought… even that was an illusion. Raven's pod was all that materialised from the ether of misplaced hopes and dreams that night; the 'stars' nothing more than a constellation of Clarke's own ill-fortune. Yet she cannot hate this place for the changes it foretold. Anymore than she can hate Raven, for the crime of fearless love.

The glade is quiet. It's why she came. Tilting back her face, she lets the moonlight fill her eyes. Behind her, Bellamy settles silently at the base of a nearby tree. His presence is not as she expected, devoid of the restless writhing energy she has come to associate with him, but somehow softer, warmer... like the rolling hum of a slow-burning fire. She hadn't really believed she could find peace tonight with another person present. But he takes nothing from the silence of the space; demands nothing of her.

She settles on the rock she once shared with Finn and thinks of shooting stars.

…

Time moves differently in the night sky. Perhaps it is minutes. Perhaps it is hours. He speaks only once.

'Hey Princess?'

She turns her shoulder and finds him in the dark. His head is tilted back against the tree trunk, one knee bent, dark eyes gleaming like a panther's. When he speaks, his voice is low and softened by the edge of sleep.

'You're looking kinda perky over there. You want to take first watch?'

She rolls her eyes and breaks her silence. 'Remind me why I brought you?'

'My remarkable good-looks,' he retorts, his mood evidently improved. 'So you don't have to waste all night staring at those puny stars.'

She laughs, despite herself. 'Those 'puny stars' are the stuff of myth and legend. People write songs for them. Pine over them. Liken their greatest loves to them… Tell me, has anyone written songs about you?'

One corner of his mouth quirks. 'They're burning rocks, Clarke. It's all a deception. One day they'll fall out of the sky and be nothing more than a smoking pile of rubble… try not to get too attached.'

When she turns her head to retort his eyes are already closed. She stares for longer than she can explain.

He looks younger when he sleeps.

…

It's not long after when she sees it - a shooting star, for real this time. It plummets through the sky, fleeting and insubstantial, drawing her gaze with its destructive beauty. Yet the sky shines just as brightly without it. The stars it left behind glow on… and she finds a heady sense of satisfaction in the continued beauty of their existence.

By the time dawn comes, she's learned to smile again.