When the bunker latch swung open, their new world of white and dry cold had given way to damp and cool. The snow shriveled and tiny holes appeared where the once powdery blanket had collapsed in on itself, its moisture going first. The dry wrinkles of the last of the snow were ugly and brown. But it was easier to walk, and Bellamy couldn't get back to camp fast enough. All things considered, that was an extreme sentiment.

The humid atmosphere was easier going down his lungs, and maybe he would have felt like he could truly breathe deeply again if Clarke weren't there beside him. She made it sharp and stinging going down.

He noticed her sidelong glances throughout their walk, but if he tried to catch them they'd be straight ahead once again. She walked with her shoulders back and her head up, mouth settled in a stern line, its edges turned slightly down. She was back to normal and it had never looked so good on her. The trouble was that the current situation was anything but normal. An uneasy feeling, like sloshing back and forth, settled in his stomach.

They snuck back into camp during breakfast, and the tents were eerily empty.

"Clarke," he said when she turned to go her own way. It was the first time he had spoken since the bunker. "Whatever happens, with your mom…"

Her tongue poked between her lips and disappeared before she nodded. He didn't have to finish telling her that he would be there. She knew.

When she was out of sight he couldn't breathe any better. He figured he might have to get used to the feeling. Truth was he didn't mind too much.

"Where have you been?" A forceful, hushed voice caught up behind him. Octavia grabbed his sleeve and jerked him towards her.

"It's a long story," Bellamy said, clenching his jaw at the memory.

"Well is she okay? What the hell happened?"

Bellamy hesitated. Octavia raised an eyebrow, impatient. "I have no idea," he said finally.

"Bellamy," Octavia said in warning. Maybe he'd been looking off into the distance, too intently trying to will himself back to the bunker. She could sense his imbalance.

"Don't worry, O. We're still on." He couldn't keep eye contact.

She poked his chest. "Promise?"

He swallowed. "I'm worried about her," he said. He thought of Clarke. Clarke alone. Lost. Trapped.

She shoved him slightly then. Her tiny frame was curiously strong and his weaker foot stepped back to steady himself.

"Don't you dare, Bell. You know it can never work if she comes with us. You said it yourself." Octavia's face was contorted in distress, her eyes squinted small, like she always did before she was about to cry.

And he had. Bellamy looked to the sky. The sun wasn't hazy and dull today, but bright and yellow. It burned his eyes. He had promised his sister, among several others. They were counting on him. But now there was a Clarke shaped cloud over the entire thing and he felt the familiar weight of guilt and regret that had travelled with him in his bones for so long.

xxx

How low she had been. So low, in the literal dirt, to the point that she hadn't recognized herself. But now…now she had new clarity and the damp, cool air in her lungs. She could breathe deeper and fuller. She looked up and squinted. The sun was bright and rich.

Still Clarke couldn't bury the fact that it wasn't the thawing weather that brought her renewed life. But the determination she was armed with when she approached Marcus Kane was all that mattered.

"I have some information you're going to want to hear," she said, slipping onto the bench across from him at breakfast.

Kane stopped mid-chew, skeptical, until he seemed satisfied enough at her unfaltering stare that he glared at the others at his table until they understood to find somewhere else to be.

"And how is that so when camp policy is to stay on grounds at all times?" he said.

"Laundry duty seems to be an exception," she answered dryly.

Kane sniffed, maybe from the cold, maybe because everyone knew about laundry duty. "So what do you have to say for yourself? You understand you will be subject to arrest if your information was gathered in violation of the law."

Clarke leaned forward, elbows on the table. "You're not gonna arrest me, Kane." She let him continue his stare down for just long enough that he grew uncomfortable and he flicked his wrist, dropping his spoon into his bowl. The corner of her lips twitched up. "You're going to want to send a scouting party twenty kilometers northwest. I'll give you a map. They'll find one of two things. Either six grounders tied to trees, very pissed off with the very real chance that they'll be frozen to death. Or you'll find the evidence of a struggle, a moose carcas, and discarded rope. That would mean they got away."

Kane leaned back and crossed his arms. "And?"

"They surrounded us-"

"Us?"

Clarke narrowed her eyes at him in warning before continuing. "They were ready to send a rookie charging without a weapon. Their leader said he didn't answer to Commander Lexa. The plan was to sacrifice one of them at our hand so they could force the breakdown of our truce and blame it on us."

Kane leaned forward then, his hard eyes and pulled jaw falling at the intrigue. "You're sure?"

"I'm sure," Clarke said, letting herself open up enough for him to find her sincerity and show him her trust. "Now," she continued when she was sure he had registered it. "I need something from you."

By lunch she had effectively avoided being arrested, somehow gained leverage in her ongoing battle of wills with her mother, and negotiated the first stages of her plan. The morning had been wrought with conflict and difficult maneuvering, and her back was riddled with twisted knots. Her arm ignited as if on fire anytime she moved it. Keeping it limp and flush against her side, she made her way to a small, tucked away room located in the center of the Ark.

When she reached the pharmacy she smelled grass and the particular aroma that fresh, loose soil emitted, like something mossy and woody. It was warmer in there, too. His door was slightly ajar and she pushed it open, surprised to find him quietly conversing with Bellamy among the terrariums of plants and herbs. Heads bent, soft murmurs.

"Monty…" Clarke said, questioning in her voice. The two looked back and pulled apart, as if caught in some secret. "Am I interrupting?" Her eyes darted to Bellamy, who looked away.

"Clarke! No, no. Not at all," Monty said hastily. "What uh…what can I get for you?"

"Well," she said and winced as she lifted her arm, having to prop it up on the nearby table in order to hold it up. Bellamy had found her a new shirt in the bunker, one with loose, long sleeves. She rolled it up to reveal the gash in her arm and the dark slew of stitches protruding from it.

"Holy crap," Monty said. Bellamy's eyes widened in silent alarm. He jutted forward, but she glared at him to stand down.

It looked bad.

"Got anything for me?" Clarke said. "Something with antibiotic properties. Maybe a coagulant."

Monty crossed the small, narrow room and began to examine his plants.

"It hasn't been disinfected, either," Bellamy said. He was leaning against the same high table as Clarke, arms crossed and a scowl darkening his features.

Monty had to shuffle around her to get to his moonshine, but Clarke didn't budge an inch, which forced him to clunk and clamor awkwardly. She was staring at Bellamy, who had begun to stare back. Their eyes hardened and narrowed and brows furrowed and she didn't know why, but she was mad. She was mad at his scowl and she was mad that she didn't know what it was about.

Monty finally came up for air. "Ok. Here's everything. I'll write down directions. But Clarke, you should really go to your mom for something like this."

"Not an option," she said simply and waited for him to prescribe her her things as Bellamy brushed by them in a huff and left without a word.

xxx

The next day, after a restless night-he had shifted from side to side but every time it felt like his ribs were so confining they might crush him-Bellamy pulled himself out of bed at dawn and to their morning spot. Most of the snow was gone now, replaced by cold, sticky mud. And unlike yesterday, when the moist coolness was welcome and inviting, the wet air made the cold stick to his bones and keep him freezing from the inside out.

As he walked, boots mushing into the mud and hands deep in his pockets, he felt the same painful feeling in his chest that he'd felt all night. Like something might leap out of his chest but when it tried, it smacked right against his ribs with a thud. He grew closer and the feeling grew worse with each step he took towards her.

Her hair was always the first thing he latched onto when he saw her. He wanted to comb his fingers through it again. He wanted her weight on his thighs again. He wanted her hands hot on his bare flesh again, lighting him up.

And just then something snapped in him and he didn't care anymore, about repercussions or fallout or increased degree of difficulty. He had to tell her. And he had to beg her to come with him. God, how could he had ever possibly thought he could do it on his own? There was no vision of his life on Earth that he didn't picture Clarke.

Perfect, he thought, when the first peek of the sun revealed itself as a hazy lavender. Her favorite.

But Clarke never showed.

He sat, tense and waiting, fingers knocking atop his knee, until the haze dissipated and the the sun just hung there in the sky. Finally he stood up and walked away.

During breakfast he caught a glimpse of her straw yellow hair far across the camp's main clearing, wavy and clear against all of the brown and grey of the world. He looked on wistfully, until his jaw clamped down so hard that the muscles in his neck tweaked. She was standing with Jaha and Kane, deep in conversation. Something was very off. Bellamy sniffed in a breath and turned away.

His hunting privileges hadn't been rescinded just yet, so he took off for the rest of the day in solitary brooding. Not even the squirrels were out. There was only a squawking crow, large and ugly, that followed him as he walked. Maybe he was just walking in circles anyway.

"Where have you been?" Her voice, like brightness, streamed into his head and filled it like blinding. The sun was low and orange at his return. A glow, like the candles in the bunker and the fire at first snowfall dusted her skin but didn't flicker. It just illuminated.

"Out," he said, hard and clipped.

"Well I need to talk to you," she said.

He crossed his arms, squared off his stance. "I'm listening."

"I sent Kane and his men to retrieve the Grounders tied to the trees. They just came back. Two were frozen to death but we have the other four." Clarke paused, waiting to read his reaction. When his expression didn't change she continued, creases appearing between her brows. "My mom is heading out tomorrow for her weekly healing training and you and I are going with to request an audience with Lexa."

"Should be fun," he said sarcastically. "When do we head out?"

Clarke bit her bottom lip as if to quell a smile from spreading across her lips. "It gets better," she said. "I realized we have leverage. Lexa won't talk to anyone but me. And so I explained to Jaha and Kane that if they wanted me to bring the intel about an insurrection in her ranks to her then they're just going to have to consider giving us positions on the Council."

Her face was awash in the setting sun, filled with hope and anticipation. It was enough to make him unwind himself from the hardness, like stone, he had willed himself into.

"You did that?"

"Our people account for nearly a fifth of Camp Jaha and yet they have no representation. They didn't come down here with them, they came down here with us. And we have experience and perspective that the Council needs. They ate it up."

Bellamy couldn't shake the nagging pull in his chest. He pictured the future he didn't want. "So we join the Council. And then what?"

"What do you mean?" Clarke asked, stepping back at his chilly reception to her news.

"They're still going to arrest anyone at the first sign of dissent. They'll still float-"

"Float how? Hanging someone from a tree is a hell of a lot more difficult to swallow than ejecting someone into space," she said, agitated.

"Sure, tell that to the thousands of years of public hangings. Better yet, to the public beheadings and burnings," he bit back.

Clarke scoffed, incredulous. She took him in, sized him up for a long moment until his neck burned with heat at his collar. "We can make a difference if we're on that council," she said finally.

"They'll find a way, Clarke. One way or another. It's all they've ever known." He said, conciliatory like he was sorry and trying to let her down easy.

But she was incensed, looking up at him, eyes blazing. "And what else do you suggest we do, Bellamy?"

All he could do was watch as the sun set on her face and keep silent with his secrets.

xxx

Bellamy hung back with the guard that accompanied Abby to the Grounder camp each week and Clarke couldn't help but notice the way the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Her thoughts ricocheted back and forth against her skull. Thoughts of Bellamy, trying to make sense of it all. Trying to make sense of him. She needed to focus and she couldn't. Bellamy's hardened face, not letting her in. Bellamy's lips on her skin. Bellamy's terse responses. Bellamy's fingers digging into her hips.

She squeezed her mom's hand when they reached camp, parting ways towards infirmary and headquarters respectively. Bellamy followed in tow, closer now, and she relaxed at the safety she felt with him looming near. All at once things were no longer tense or uncomfortable and they were once again in sync. Clarke allowed her fingernails to ease up from digging into her palm.

A guard demanded the reason for her presence and she requested an audience with Commander Lexa. She had important information to share.

"Alone," the guard said.

"No," Clarke replied. "He stays. For my protection. Unless the Commander prefers to have Indra step outside."

Ten minutes later they had been shuffled into an empty tent and left there, save for the two guards standing right outside.

"Well that worked out well," Bellamy said, sitting down heavily on a creaky bench.

"Shut up," Clarke said, but her heart wasn't fully in it. She plopped down too and leaned back against the sturdy wall made of hide. She crossed her arms, staring straight ahead.

Bellamy's elbows ended up on his knees, gaze determined to find something interesting in the dirt floor. Minutes passed. Double digit minutes.

"So," Bellamy broke the silence. "We gonna talk about it?"

Her ribs hurt. She knew he didn't mean the Council or even the mutiny. "No…maybe. I don't know."

"Clarke. If you regret it, it's okay. It wasn't smart…I wasn't smart and I shouldn't have…"

"Shouldn't have what?" she asked, holding her breath.

Shoulders still hunched over, he turned to look up at her. "You were hurt. Exhausted."

"And you what? Wished you'd been the decent guy and walked away?" She wasn't able to hide the bitter judgment in her voice.

He opened his lips as if to answer her, but if there were words to say he let them die, and his lips just hung there, full and parted and unsure.

"You don't seem to have a problem not being decent with anyone else," she said, jaw set tight and cold.

Clarke could see in his tight swallow, and subsequent jumping of the muscle in his cheek that she loved so much, that he knew she meant Raven. He looked hurt, but she had frozen over and no amount of troubled, dark brown eyes could pierce through her ice. Somewhere underneath she knew somehow that he did. Have a problem with it, that is. She remembered what Raven had told her. He always wished to be better, to be good. He always feared the destruction that could so easily come from his own hands, his own actions. But that knowledge was hidden somewhere rational and locked away because right now all she could think about was why her. Why regret touching Clarke, the princess, for fear of wanting, using, needing. Why couldn't she inspire passion and desire instead of regret and shame.

She was untouchable. Until she wasn't. And then she should have remained untouchable.

"Clarke I…" he said finally, searching for the words. "I don't know what to say. I don't know how to…

"You're the one who wanted to talk about it," she snapped. "And you're right. I do regret it. So are we done? Can we move on to more important things?"

Bellamy looked like something broke in him. Like she has just reached in and snapped his bones in half. "Yeah," he said quietly. "Yeah, ok." He looked back down to the dirt.

She felt like she couldn't breathe, she couldn't breathe because if she did she'd either scream or cry. So she sucked in a breath and winced as it pierced through her.

Clarke channeled her bitter rejection into cutting through the skepticism and politics that were ceaselessly present in any conversation had with Lexa and Indra. She entertained none of it, and sliced through their objections and reservations like butter until she was satisfied and promptly turned on her heel and began walking back to camp, not caring who followed her. Of course he did, though.

After that, his physical presence in her life began to quietly wane. She no longer spent her days with him, but he showed to their preliminary council meetings and and always took her side. They discussed their politics afterwards or at dinner, but his heart was never in it and she cut them shorter and shorter. She didn't wake up at dawn anymore. She missed the sunrises and wondered if he still showed.

She heard from Jasper that Bellamy had gotten himself on firewood duty. Winter had returned in full force, and the camp was burning twelve fires twenty-four hours a day. They couldn't chop trees down fast enough, especially since the snow made it hard to keep dry. She imagined him spending his days out there, swinging an axe while she spent hers inside the walls of the infirmary and tried to pretend she didn't know what constant heavyheartedness felt like.

One day, late into winter, she stopped seeing him at all. Normally she caught glimpses of him hauling his logs to the shed, or in line for breakfast before heading out for the day. And then there was just…nothing. Her eyes searched for him in every new place she went, scanned the crowd, reworked.

She caught Octavia stuffing her pack with clothes and hauling it over her shoulder.

"Not now, Clarke."

"Octavia, please. I know something is up," Clarke said, persistence in her voice.

"I'm sure he'll back in a few days. Look, Lincoln is waiting."

Octavia's eyes flicked back and forth slightly and she shifted on her feet. Clarke honed in on the signs, circled like a hawk. Octavia was never shifty, never nervous. Her eyes narrowed. "I'll find out, you know."

"I know," Octavia said. "Just not from me."

Before dinner she wandered into Raven's work station, weary and dragging her feet. Raven had a screwdriver deep in-between the metal guts of some contraption that looked like a piece of junk.

"Rough day?" Raven glanced over at Clarke when she sat heavily on a work stool, hands dangling limply between her thighs.

"Why does it feel like all of a sudden everyone is avoiding me like the plague?" Clarke said within a long, exasperated sigh.

"If it feels like it then they probably are," Raven said flatly.

"You're so good at pep talks," Clarke said, teasing sarcasm.

"Is that what you need? Pepping?"

Clarke crinkled her nose in brief thought. "No. I need to figure out what Bellamy's up to."

Raven shrugged, still twisting her screwdriver. "I know."

"You're in on it, too?" Clarke's voice raised, pulling tight so it was strained and higher pitched than normal.

"Hell no. They left me out of it, like you. I just figured it out a while ago." Clarke looked at her, expectant and impatient. Raven stopped her tinkering and turned, hand on her hip. "Hold on. You're gonna need a drink for this."

Raven brought wire cutters and they broke into Monty's pharmacy and sat on the ground, back to the metal wall and knees up in front of them, passing a bottle back and forth.

"Before I tell you I wanna know two things," Raven said and took a swig. "One. How chummy are you with the Council these days?"

She was gravely serious, waiting for Clarke's response. "Not at all. All I did was take your advice. I found a less drastic measure to take."

Raven puckered her bottom lip up so that her chin scrunched a little. "Two. Is there more to you and Bellamy?"

Clarke reached for the bottle in Raven's hand, took a large swallow and let it burn all the way down before bracing herself to answer. "There was. But he regretted it."

"No he didn't," Raven said quietly.

They exchanged the bottle back and forth in silence for a few minutes.

"Why?" Clarke finally said.

Raven hesitated, had to work up to saying it. "Because he's leaving."

xxx

The wood in front of him snapped and splintered under his axe. Others were calling it quits for the day and heading for camp, but they knew Bellamy liked to work right up until the last gleam of light and then carry his day's work back to camp in the dark. Sure, they figured he was getting through his last two logs by his station. It was good that they figured that.

In actuality, once everyone was gone, Miller would meet him and they would carry his remaining logs a few miles east. This went on for weeks, and they routinely missed dinner. Breakfast too, since the only time they could work was from dawn until shifts started and during lunch. By the time the siphoned logs were dropped at their chosen site they were heading back to camp well after dinner. Monroe snuck them rations to their tents.

Weeks of this had passed, but today was the day. The prototype was ready, and he'd be damned if he were going to sleep within the confines of Camp Jaha that night. It was late in winter, and soon to be spring he thought. But there was a good foot of snow on the ground, no end in sight.

Bellamy looked up, searching for an early moon in the afternoon sky, but it had grown light grey and strangely bright.

An hour into chopping his own wood for the hearth, it had begun to snow. It was different this time than the others, like a swarm of white, dense and foggy. It was growing difficult to see, and winds gusted strong and mean. Miller should be there soon with the rabbits that Monroe swiped from the kitchen that morning. If they could test living conditions for the next month or so, while building more, then they'd be able to send for the others by the time the last snow fell.

He squinted, making out a dark, shapeless figure approaching through the white haze of snow. It wasn't Miller.

"Clarke?"

As she grew closer he could make out her features. She carried two rabbits by their ears in her left hand and her face was nearly blank, save for the corners of her lips that were turned down and the indent in her chin. She wasn't wearing her jacket let alone her fur and she stood, ghostly and ominous before him, in just the shirt he had found for her.

"Jesus, Clarke," he said when she was just feet in front of him. He made to move towards her but she stepped back.

"Don't," she said. Her voice was dark.

"How'd you find me?"

"Punched Miller in the face," she said and tossed the rabbits at his feet. "He said to give you those, by the way."

He looked down into the pearly black eyes of the dead animals, then back up to Clarke. "Let me explain." Cautious, measured. His ears were screaming and his throat threatened to collapse on itself, but he had no idea what was happening behind her eyes. It scared the hell out of him.

"How many?" When he didn't answer right away she repeated herself. "How many, Bellamy?"

"Six," he said.

"Who?" she pressed on, relentless.

"Miller. Monty. Monroe. Harper. Octavia. For now. And Lincoln."

"For now?" she scoffed. "So what are you just biding your time before you can take all of our people with you? And I'm just supposed to what? Stay put while I'm left behind?"

"It's not like that," he said, pleading in his voice.

"Then what's it like, Bellamy? Enlighten me." Her voice raised, close to yelling. A bout of wind whipped her hair around her face.

"Look, who knows if we'll even survive out here. It's just an experiment. That's as far as it goes. I can't live another day in that camp."

"We're getting somewhere. The Council-"

Bellamy rose his voice to meet hers then, frustrated and battling against the rising winds. "Not we. You, Clarke. You did that. You never asked me."

"And you never asked me," she yelled back. "All you had to do was ask." Her voice faltered then and broke all over the last word. Her hardened features had broken with it and he now faced all of her hurt. Hurt that he had caused. Hurt that hit him square in the gut.

"It's not that simple," he said hoarsely.

"It is!" She was crying now and she angrily wiped at her tears.

She turned to go and he leapt forward, grabbing her good arm.

"Let go of me," she ground out between clenched teeth.

"Clarke, you don't even have a coat on and you can barely see a foot in front of you. You're not going back until the storm passes."

"I don't care," she said and wrenched her arm, hard, to try and rid herself of his grasp.

"Too bad," he said and held his grip, feeling his fingers press indents into her skin. "Now either you can turn around and get in that cabin or I can throw you over my shoulder and carry you in there myself. Your choice, Princess."

He made sure to pick up the rabbits, lightly coated with snow, once she turned around and stalked furiously into his prototype. His very own log cabin.

It was a square, small room with a packed dirt floor and a thatched roof. To the right of the door, tucked in the corner and away from the cold draft of the entrance was a pile of hides, pelts, and furs, stacked to make a bed. Directly across and built into the opposite wall was a hearth, where a fire could burn and the smoke funnel up and out through a vent in the roof. To the left of the door was a humble table, a wash basin and a canteen resting on top of it. It was pieced together with spare scrap metal from camp.

Clarke tucked herself into the far corner of the furs, where the two walls met, while Bellamy began to build a fire. He handed her a tin of water and she looked down into it in that way she did. He skinned and gutted the rabbits, readying them for the spit, and only when they were roasting did he allow himself to settle down a few feet from her.

The warmth of the fire slowly filled the room and he let the crackle and pop of the wood be the only sound save for the whistling wind outside.

"I thought you were with me," she said finally, nearly under her breath. Her knees were up against her chest and she hugged them to her.

"I'm so sorry," he said. It wasn't enough. But he meant it truly and fully. If he could pour all of his regret into that one word until it burst he would. "I couldn't ask you to leave with me. It felt selfish and stupid and…" his voice fell to a whisper. "I could never ask."

"You didn't have to. You could have told me."

"I wanted to," he said, with sudden urgency. "So many times. I wanted to tell you. I wanted to beg you to come with me and tell you I couldn't go it alone. I just…There's so much there for you, Clarke. And they don't know it but they need you."

"You didn't give me a choice." she ground each word into him. "What about what I need, Bellamy?"

He turned his body to face her then, eyes perfectly round, worried and scared. "What do you need?"

"You're an idiot," she said but it wasn't accusatory. It was almost wistful. Pitying. And then she flung to her knees in front of him and grasped his face in her hands so she was looking down into his soul. And she kissed him desperately.

Open mouthed. Tongues hungry. Heavy breaths. She told him all the need and hurt she couldn't figure out how to convey. He matched her and kissed with all of his regret and sorrow.

"Clarke," he managed to get out between breaths. Her hands were in his hair, tangled up in it. His snaked around her hips. She pulled back and stilled, breath heavy and hair falling down around her and shielding him from the rest of the world. "Of all the mistakes I've made-and there've been a lot-this was the biggest. Okay?"

Her lips hung parted and swollen, her eyes shiny and sparkly with tears. She nodded and a tear dislodged and fell onto her cheek.

Bellamy pulled her close and buried his face into her chest, resting his cheek along the hard plate of her sternum. He felt a salty sting in his eyes and a wave swelling in his throat.

"Please," he choked out. "Don't ask me to stay."

"I won't," she said. Her hands still played in his hair. Exploring. Combing. Twirling. "Because I'm coming with you."

He pulled back to look at her, forehead twisted in a wordless question, oceans of hope in his eyes.

"I am always with you, Bellamy."

He wanted to worship her then. He wanted to awash himself in her forgiveness and her power. He wanted to show her how much he needed her too. So he raked his lips over her skin, trailing from her chest to where her collarbone met in the center at the base of her neck. Clarke threw her head back, clawed at the back of his shirt, pulled it up and yanked it off. His hair fell in his eyes, and she somehow looked more beautiful obscured, lifting her arms up as he swept her shirt from her body.

This wasn't like the last time. There was no reveling a tender spot on her shoulder or exploring the grooves of her skin with his tongue. This was frantic and frenetic. It was electric need and blazing desire.

He unhooked her bra with one hand and peeled it away from her breasts with his teeth. A sharp gasp escaped her when his lips closed over a nipple and his tongue swirled. She tugged at a fistful of his hair.

Soon he was toppling them over and laying her down on her back, their arms tangling as he tried to yank down her pants and she fumbled with his belt. He got to hers first and made his way back up to her by trailing wet, open-mouthed kisses at her ankles, along her calves, and up her inner thighs.

She tensed when he pulled her underwear off and instead of settling on top of her, he hooked his arms under her thighs and settled his head in between them. Bellamy realized Clarke, at seventeen and leader of the free world (as far as he was concerned), might only have had the most rudimentary of sexual experiences thus far.

"Hey," he said. She lifted herself onto her elbows, the ends of her hair grazing against her skin. Athena, he thought. War and wisdom. "Trust me?" he said and placed a chaste kiss on the inside of her knee.

Clarke bit her bottom lip and worried it for a few seconds before nodding. "Yeah," she whispered.

His nose grazed the light curls of her mound, soft and wild and tangled, before he dipped lower and parted her folds with a long stroke of his tongue. Her lips ejected a delicate moan, wisping like a streak of smoke to his ears. Encouraged, he lapped at her entrance. She tasted like Earth. Like the woods and ferns and fog and musk.

Then his tongue was on her clit, flicking and swirling, teasing and taunting. Her next moan ripped from her throat, primal and guttural. Her hips bucked up. It sent tiny pricks of pleasure all the way down his body so that his cock strained against his pants.

Athena. Courage and law and strength and art and inspiration. He felt her tense, her back arch. He pulled himself away, needing a bird's eye view of her naked body. Thin but not chiseled. All soft curves around the edges. Blue eyes that glinted even in the absence of any light. Straw blond hair cascading in tiny waves along her shoulders. Lips parted and full. Breasts heaving and supple. She was positively mythic.

"Bellamy," she said and his gaze, which had gotten lost somewhere along the round of her right hip, snapped up. "Take off your pants."

He did as told, shedding them and crawling back to her like a large, prowling cat. Her hands snaked around his biceps as they held his weight by her shoulders and he kissed her with a hard fusion of lips, as if soldering them together.

When he guided himself to her entrance, slick and hot and wanting, she pulled her lips away.

"Do you regret it?" she asked, meek and fragile. The bunker, he knew she meant.

He stroked her cheek with the backs of his knuckles. "I've never regretted anything less in my life."

And he eased the head of his cock into her. She let out a high-pitched ah. Dug her nails into his arms when he pushed in further. He felt her inner walls stretching to accommodate him, allowing him little give.

"God, Clarke. You're so tight," he whispered in her ear and he felt a rush of heat from her pulse around his cock. "You feel so good around me." She mewled at his encouragement and her thighs fell wider. He waited, still and motionless within her, allowing time to adjust and fit together. When he felt her relax and her nails retract he jutted his hips in a soft, upward sweep.

She gasped, one of those gasps that starts heavy and full in the chest, and her nails were back in his arms. He rocked against her a few more times, creating a delicious rhythm that she seemed mad he broke when he pulled nearly all the way out of her before thrusting back in. She cried out, eyes snapping open, lips falling apart in an eternal gasp. And again when he pulled back and thrust into her a second time. And a third. And a fourth.

"More," she strangled out in between thrusts.

"More?" he said, goading her with amusement behind his hot, heavy breaths. She just nodded. The loose strand of hair that always framed her face was matted and damp against her temple.

"Tell me," he said hoarsely. But she didn't know how. His lips found themselves hot and heavy at her ear. "Faster?"

"Faster," she gasped.

He picked up the pace.

"Deeper?"

"Deeper," she echoed.

He hooked her right let under his arm and pushed it up and back.

"Oh, God," she cried and bucked her hips up to meet his thrust.

It was his turn to moan, rough and harsh. "Harder?"

"Harder."

His free arm found hers and pinned it back behind her head. He twisted his fingers around hers before releasing more power into the snap of his hips, building building and building until he was fucking her good and proper. Rough. Wild. Untamed.

Coherency seemed to have been lost on her and incantations of yes yes yesses fell from her lips and captured him in rapture. His lips hovered over hers, both hanging open and wide to allow for the ecstasy escaping from deep inside their chests.

"Kiss me," she demanded, urged, begged. When he obliged she moaned and shuddered, tensing as her muscles clenched around him, pumping and pulling out of him all that he had. Something like lightning must have shot through her, and she whimpered before biting down on his lower lip and tugging.

With one more desperate thrust, with everything he had, and everything he could give her, he came inside of her and collapsed against her chest, breathing hard and ragged. Her heartbeat underneath him lulled him into a languid half-sleep as she traced small patterns against his temple.

xxx

Clarke woke with a jolt and sat straight up, having heard a retched howl, like a dying wolf. Her heart thumped in her throat. There it was again.

Suddenly Bellamy was next to her, sitting up, all mussed hair and bare chest. "It's just the wind." His voice, groggy and jagged, vibrated against her skin. He kissed her shoulder. "You hungry?"

"Famished," she said, a smile fluttering across her lips.

She reveled in all the ways he was a man. She had only ever been with boys, and not that many. But Bellamy, with his lean, hard muscles and his deep voice and his big hands, was all man. Not just in physique, but in the way he held her, the way he looked at her, the way he had fucked her. Even in the way he carried himself, walking naked across the tiny room and commanding it. She watched the dimples in his backside flex and flutter as he tended to the fire. He returned to her with two rabbits on skewers.

"How old are you?" she asked.

"Twenty-three. Why"?

"Hmm, no reason," she cooed teasingly. "I just realized I don't know anything about you."

His grin broke out onto his face like sunshine suddenly piercing through the clouds.

Later, deep into the night and after the rabbits and the planning and the talking, Clarke traced lazy circles on his chest with her fingertip. Under a distinctly soft fur. Facing each other. Grazing and gazing languidly.

Clarke explored the flush of freckles that danced across his nose and dusted his cheeks. She wanted to memorize their patterns like constellations in the night sky.

"Everything's about to change," she said.

"It is."

Languid touches turned into languid kisses, slow and sleepy and deep. Until, like a soft blush, new heat swept under her skin and lit up her bones from within like the embers of the firewood just a few feet away.

Clarke felt his hardened erection poke against her thigh and she wanted him. Badly. All over again.

"I've never been on top," she whispered into his lips.

"Oh, Princess. That…" he said and paused to hike her leg over his hips and hoist her up so that she was straddling atop him. "…is where you belong."

She eased herself down onto his shaft, taking him in slowly and letting herself grow accustomed to him inside of her. The few times she had slept with others she hadn't wanted to explain her relative inexperience and had swallowed the initial pain she had felt before the pleasure. But Bellamy had known intuitively. And that thought seemed to keep with her as she rode him-rode them both-into oblivion once again.

When she was close his thumb found her clit and rubbed fast circles until she saw all of the speckled constellations she memorized etched bright and light behind her eyes. She leaned over to kiss him, messy and rough, with teeth, as he thrust up into her. A fresh, bright wave of pleasure crashed over her and she unraveled all over again. He kept going. He wasn't done yet. And it was all she could do to hold on for dear life, through waves that she thought would never stop coming.

After, her body was sated, muscles loose and heavy and mushy. She had never felt so sleepily content before. Her thoughts became fluid and freeform, as fields of yellow flowers eased seamlessly into sandy beaches and then into dark caves. Pictures she drew on the walls of her prison cell.

"Bellamy," she whispered hazily, wrapped around his torso.

He was playing with a strand of her hair, curling it around his fingers and letting it go before starting all over again. "Yeah?"

"I want to see the ocean."

In a half remembered dream she had felt it. She was filled with it, the ocean, and she had never even seen it. She had waves inside of her and hurricanes and calm, still days.

"Anything," he said before they both drifted from the shore and into sleep.

The next time they met at dawn in their own little corner of Camp Jaha and readied themselves for the day's expedition out into the world, they had packed for a long journey. Stockpiled food had been siphoned and hidden at the cabin for a week. A med kit. A gun and extra bullets. Raven even found them a lighter.

There would be no hiding her absence this time around, and she left a note with Raven to deliver to her mother when they were two days out and hysteria began to rise. She would deal with the fallout when they returned.

They set out on a warmer day than most. One where the birds came out to play as the sun battered down into the snow and the trees stood still and at peace. The winter warmth followed them the first few days as they traveled south, running along the river.

It grew cold again, they lost the river, and they wasted all of Monty's moonshine on a night of cold winds and hot, drunken sex that would have steamed windows if the tent had had any. If there was any glass at all on Earth. They only covered ten miles the next day instead of their usual twenty.

Eventually the snow began to thin, giving way to brown earth and bare trees. It was barren and grey from dirt to sky. And by midday of the eleventh day, just as Clarke began to worry that she had made the wrong call and bitter tears threatened to cloud her vision, something in the air changed.

"You smell that?" Bellamy asked warily.

"Yeah," Clarke said, noting the change in terrain. Damper, flatter, more barren.

It stung. Not in an entirely unpleasant way. But the air was stinging with something that wafted and overwhelmed the nostrils and seeped into the back of the throat. As if the air could be tasted. It smelled like salt and something more pungent. Of musk, but sharper and more metallic.

"What is it?" he said.

Clarke closed her eyes, breathed it in, let it fill her lungs and puff out her ribs. She liked it, but she didn't know why.

Her eyes snapped open. She knew.

"The ocean."

And she was off, dropping her pack where she stood and barreling up the hill.

"Clarke," Bellamy called after her, but she had reached the top of the hill and over and stopped still in her tracks. There it was. A dull beige landscape before it-that must be sand-was covered with driftwood and stringy messes of shiny plants and shells. Beyond it was a grey vastness, stretching out and over in both directions until it curved and disappeared over the horizon to go somewhere new. The swell and subsequent crashing of waves filled her ears, reverberated with a full thunder that she hadn't expected. Frothy, white caps decorated the tips of the choppy waves.

The ocean.

She felt it. She felt the whole thing in her heart. Choppy and grey and beautiful. And Bellamy was next to her. It had begun to rain. Cold, invisible drops that were sharp when they landed on her cheek. She took his hand in hers and lay her head on his shoulder.

They looked on.

"This is it," Clarke said after a long while.

He looked at her and she smiled. He knew it too.

Home.