Study me then, you who shall lovers be...

I

Panic.

Sheer, unadulterated panic.

What else could be said? Bellamy ran into medical, his gun still slung over his shoulder, banging with such a force against his shoulder blade that he felt the medical assistant lean over to check if its safety was on. Satisfied though the medic was, the same feeling could not enter Bellamy's mind. She was seizing up, jerking against the table while her mother strove to hold her down, another assistant holding her feet. Abby tried to soothe her, but her shaking fingers made the needle she was holding quiver in a terrified grip. Bellamy was simply frozen - people were flurrying around him, and nobody seemed to have the time to tell him to leave. They probably also knew that he wouldn't obey. Still her knees jumped, her head twisted, pale hair knotting and tangling against the cot as she writhed. 'Let me help,' Bellamy breathed, slinging the gun off his shoulder and handing it to the medic, who took it with such speed and caution that it seemed to Bellamy that he was afraid of the weapon. Bellamy didn't give a fuck. Clarke's face was the centre of the room, and while others dashed and darted into and out of his peripheral vision, his eyes couldn't leave her face. Abby looked over at him, evidentially unaware up to that point that he'd been in the room. Panic, like his, was marked only through her heavy breathing. Year of being a doctor had inured her to showing her fear. 'Hold her down,' Abby nodded, her breath wild and beastly. Bellamy didn't hesitate to meet her by the table, pinning Clarke's arms down to the table. He could feel her shivers, her quakes, reverberating through his arms. His panic only reminded him that this was not the circumstances in which he had ever imagined pinning Clarke down, imaginings in which her shivers would be of pleasure - and he had imagined, not that he cared to dwell on it.

Reality was so much shittier.

'Hold her head down, I need her neck still,' Abby ordered him, and Bellamy complied instantly. He turned Clarke's head so that she was lying down on one cheek, the left side of her neck exposed. His hand exerting a firm pressure on her damp and feverish forehead, he heard his breathing matching the erratic pacing of Abby's as she slid the needle into Clarke's vein. Shortly, Clarke stopped jerking. Her arms ceased to twitch, and soon Bellamy felt comfortable to take his hands away from her forehead. He heard Abby breathe a sigh of relief - and a doctor's sigh of relief took a weight of his shoulders.

'Well?' he asked, not meaning to sound rude but failing. Abby nodded, wiping her forehead.

'We need to let her sleep. I'll stay here and keep her cool. It shouldn't last too long, the rest of you can go.'

'Like hell,' Bellamy shook his head, firmly planting himself in the chair beside Clarke's cot. Abby glared at him, exasperated, but after a moment of staring right back she appeared to surrender. 'The rest of you can go,' she muttered, turning back to Clarke. The other three people in the room petered out through the door, obviously unwilling to contradict either of the people who remained.

As Abby peeled off Clarke's jacket, Bellamy found his gaze caught on the rash that had invaded her arms. An angry population of hives had marred her hands, with further colonies marching along her forearm. The blemishes had marked both of her arms, with a high concentration around her fingers. 'What happened to her?' he asked, finding himself far quieter.

Abby shook her head. 'Something that barely ever happens,' she glanced over her shoulder at him. 'Poison ivy,' she turned back. 'I never expected such a strong reaction to it. It barely ever causes convulsions. She got unlucky.'

Bellamy looked down, thinking of how she'd easily strode off into the forest this morning, promising to return with the berries that Lexa had told her about. How she been wiping her forehead with arms that had red hives blossoming on them ever since she'd returned, and finally how she'd collapsed as she took herself into medical, and how he'd run after her as soon as he saw her fall.

Abby was quiet for a few more minutes as she applied a balm to Clarke's arms - Bellamy couldn't help but think how those things would have been itching her up a storm if she didn't have her fever. 'She'll be fine, you don't have to stay.'

'I also don't have to leave,' he shook his head. 'How long will she be here?'

'I'll keep her in observation until I'm sure it's out of her system. Do you think the Grounder meant to send her to fetch poison ivy?'

Bellamy paused, then shook his head. 'How could they know she'd have a reaction to it? Besides, we just made a truce. Nobody's gonna want to jeopardise that.'

Abby nodded. 'I suppose.'

When there was nothing more that either of them could do, Abby muttered something about fetching some water for her and walked out. Bellamy shifted around in his chair, eyes trained on Clarke's body to check for any further signs of convulsions. His eyes found her face. The cuts and bruises - courtesy of the Grounders - had all but faded. He supposed his had as well, but he never had time for mirror nowadays to check. He didn't even know where any were. He wryly mused on how he probably looked like shit. Not Clarke, though. Somehow the lack of mirrors didn't seem to be doing her any harm. Back on the Ark, Octavia had never spent any time maintaining the way she looked - for what point? - and the first time he saw her after their battle, she had concocted an elaborate braided hairstyle. For the first time he wondered if a Grounder had done it for her. Is that what those people did, to keep busy when they weren't plotting traps? They certainly all walked around with braided hair, even the men. Perhaps they all knew how to braid hair. On the Ark, he'd kept Octavia busy by playing with her, reading to her. Their mother had often braided her hair, but Octavia, to the best of his knowledge, had scarcely known how to do so herself. Himself, even less, though he had picked up a knack for reading aloud.

Following this train of thought came a terrible idea. He shuffled his chair closer to Clarke's head, pausing to remember the words from the book Octavia had pretended not to like.

'O! Do not die, for I shall hate all women so, when thou art gone,' he muttered slowly, praying to god nobody walked in. 'That thee I shall not celebrate, when I remember though wast one.'

He continued, more sure of himself. 'But yet thou canst not die, I know; to leave this world behind, is death; but when from this world wilt go, the whole world vapours with thy breath.'

The next stanza escaped him, so he went onto the next part he could remember.

'O wrangling schools, fire...shit, that search what fire shall burn this world, had none the wit unto this knowledge to aspire, that this her fever might be it?'

Those words surprised him by how close to home they hit him.

'And yet she cannot waste by this, nor long bear this torturing wrong, for more corruption needful is -' and he saw flashes of her face when they set foot on the ground for the first time, he saw Atom, her hopeful gaze at the flares they launched, the way she launched herself at Dax and Lincoln when he was in trouble. He saw brave princess. '- to fuel such a fever long.'

He coughed, looking down at his shoes. 'These burning fits but meteors be, whose matter in thee is soon spent;' and he thought fuck, let that be true. 'Thy beauty,' and he had to roll his eyes at this, 'and all parts, which are thee, are unchangeable firmamament...crap, firma...uh, firmament.'

Clarke sighed suddenly, and Bellamy's eyes shot up. Her eyes were still closed, but something about her...

'You're awake, aren't you?'

'A-firmament...I mean, affirmative,' she smiled weakly. She rolled onto her side, keeping her eyes closed. Bellamy chuckled quietly.

'How are you feeling?'

'Like hell,' she murmured. 'I'm cold.'

'You're still burning up,' Bellamy shook his head, leaning over to pick up the damp cloth. 'Can't do much about that.'

She hissed weakly as he dabbed at her forehead. 'Is that the end?'

'Of what?'

He knew what.

'The poem.'

'No, there's one stanza left,' he muttered, refusing to smile. 'How much of it were you awake for?'

She shrugged. 'All of it? I think?'

'I thought your mother gave you a sedative,' Bellamy frowned.

'She wouldn't give me anything to knock me out, just to calm the muscles...or nerves, or...something,' she trailed off. 'Finish the poem.'

'No way,' Bellamy shook his head.

'I'm Bellamy,' and he snorted as Clarke put on a stupidly deep voice. 'I only like to shoot stuff, but secretly I know poetry and recite it to girls when I think they're asleep. If you don't finish the poem, I tell everyone that you started it.'

Bellamy smirked, looking down again, his hand still on her forehead. 'Yet,' he began, but Clarke snorted weakly. 'Shut up,' he muttered, and Clarke nodded, her movements slow and tired. 'Yet 'twas of my mind, seizing thee, though it in thee cannot perséver; for I...' he paused. Clarke raised her eyebrows, prompting him. 'For I had rather owner be...of thee one hour,' he coughed a deep, manly cough, 'than all else ever.'

She hummed slightly. 'S'good,' she murmured. 'Who's it by?'

And even though he told her the answer, she was already falling asleep as he did, and she didn't quite catch the name.

And Abby waited another few minutes before coming into the room, pretending that the water had been far away and she hadn't come back quickly to find Bellamy reciting poetry to her feverish daughter. And she definitely hadn't waited outside and smiled slightly as she'd listened.

Intently.

II

'I still don't like it,' Clarke stated obstinately. Her arms were folded and she was blocking his way to the door.

'You don't have to like it, princess, you just have to deal with it,' Bellamy shook his head, trying to barge past her. Clarke firmly put her hands on the doorframe, blocking the exit.

'Three days?' she rolled her eyes. 'At least take me with you.'

'You know why I'm not,' Bellamy shook his head, and though the words came out harsh Clarke knew that he was avoiding saying something far harsher. 'Nobody else wants to go. We've got our truce, I'll be fine.'

Clarke looked down. 'Think about what it is you're bringing back. What's are you doing with...him?' she paused, biting back on his name. She wasn't ready to say it. Bellamy glanced past her adamant arms at the locked and closed door, her body still blocking his way.

'The dropship. That's where we bury them,' he said simply.

Clarke felt a lump in her throat. 'Then I'll meet you there.'

'Clarke, you know you won't want to see this.'

'You know that I have to,' she said, their voices equally unyielding. Bellamy frowned again.

'Why would you only come to the dropship? That's a day, there and back, of trekking through the woods, unprotected.'

'And you're trying to go for three. So let me come,' she reiterated. Bellamy rolled his eyes.

'It's not safe.'

'Bellamy, I can't lose anyone else that I care about!' she hissed, and Bellamy felt his resolve waver.

'That's why I'm going,' he spat. Clarke opened her mouth, probably to tell him that she cared about him - and if he heard those exact words, he'd be taking her with him in a moment, his resolve not only crumbled but battered and ground into mulch - but he carried on. 'I'm trying to get some god-damn closure on this, for you.'

'You want me to have closure on this?' she rolled her eyes, her eyes still dry. 'Then let me come.'

'No.'

'Then I won't let you go.'

'Clarke -'

'Okay, a poem for your freedom.'

He frowned. 'What the hell?'

'If you can recite another poem right now, then I'll let you leave,' Clarke insisted. Bellamy looked down, cursing himself and her silently.

'No freaking way,' he shook his head. Clarke readjusted her position.

'You let me come, or you recite a poem. That's the only way I'm going to let you go.'

'Why?'

'I don't know,' she said, a moment later. 'I guess I either want to be there or I want to know that you care about what you're doing enough to make a fool of yourself.'

Bellamy paused, and finally nodded. 'Okay,' he muttered. Clarke raised her eyebrows.

'To which one?'

He rolled his eyes. 'As virtuous men pass mildly away, and whisper their souls to go,' he said, to answer her question. Clarke nodded slowly, waiting for him to go on. 'Whilst some of their sad friends so say, the breath goes now, and some say, No.'

In that moment, he knew the boy they were both thinking of. He hurried on to the next stanza.

'So let us melt and make no noise, no tear-floods, nor sigh tempests move; 'Twere profanation of our joys, to tell the laity our love.'

'What's this poem about?' Clarke asked quietly. Bellamy didn't reply.

'Moving of th'earth brings harms and fears, men reckon what it did and meant; but trepidation of the spheres, though greater far, is innocent.'

Clarke didn't even seem aware that she'd taken her hands from the doorframe.

'Dull sublunary lovers' love (whose soul is sense) cannot admit absence, both it doth remove those things which elemented it.'

Clarke had coughed quietly when he'd said the word 'absence.'

'But we,' Bellamy paused, 'by a love so much refined, that our selves know not what it is, inter-assured of the mind, care less, eyes, lips -' he saw Clarke twitch, 'and hands to miss.'

He hesitated. 'Is that enough?'

Clarke raised her eyebrows. 'Is that the end?'

'No.'

'Then no, dipshit.'

Bellamy looked squarely at her, refusing to admit any nerves he felt over the rest of the poem. 'Our two souls therefore, which are one, though I must go, endure not yet a breach, but an expansion, like gold to airy thinness beat. If they be two, they are two so as stiff twin compasses are two; thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show to move, but doth, if the other do.'

He'd recited these two stanzas rapidly, not daring to let himself linger over the meaning of the words.

'And though it in the center sit, yet when the other far doth roam, it leans and hearkens after it, and grows erect, as that comes home.'

He'd been prepared to roll his eyes at a reaction to the double entendre in his words, but no react came. Clarke was staring stoically at the floor.

'Finally...' he emphasised, 'Such wilt thou be to me, who must, like th'other foot, obliquely run; thy firmness makes my circle just, and makes me end where I begun. Happy?'

She looked up at him. 'I don't know.'

He sighed, and then leant over her to open the door. She made no move to stop him. 'I'll see you in three days,' he muttered. 'Don't come to the dropship, Clarke,' he added, glancing over his shoulder at her. The way the light was hitting her hair at that moment made the outer part of it look almost translucent, as though she were barely corporeal herself. Easily breakable.

Without another word, he marched off, resolutely not looking back.

'Do you know what that one means?' Octavia had asked her, an hour later. Clarke had leant over to look at her map.

'The tunnel? I think -'

'No, the poem you made Bell recite,' she shook her head. Clarke paused, then leant back with a quiet sigh.

'How did you hear it?' Clarke asked, tiredly.

Octavia smirked slightly. 'I was waiting outside for you guys to open the door. I needed to get changed, and he washed my clothes yesterday.'

Clarke shrugged. 'I got the gist of the poem, there was a lot about a compass foot -'

'No, I meant, do you know what it means if it's about you and my brother?' Octavia shook her head. Clarke frowned.

'But it's not.'

'Bellamy had this poetry book when he was younger,' Octavia shook her head. 'He used to read it to me a lot, and he's always been good at quoting stuff when it's the right time. 'A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,' was...' she paused. 'The first part is about virtuous men dying peacefully, leaving sad friends behind who can't tell if the guy's dead or not because he's so calm. That's Finn, to you,' she said softly. Clarke folded her arms, Finn's name unwelcome to her sad ears. 'Then it's like, 'don't cry, don't be sad, no-one's dying,' when the guy speaking is leaving. Then he's like, we question small things, but we don't question the big things if they don't affect us.'

'Okay,' Clarke nodded. Octavia rolled her eyes.

'Goddammit, Clarke. It's about love. Like, love love.'

'Oh?' Clarke feigned nonchalance.

'The next stanza is literally like, normal lovers can't be apart from each other, because they need physicality to their relationship, but our love is so great that, even though I can't put it into words, I know that because I love you for your mind, and I have your mind and heart, I can stand being away from your body.'

Clarke looked up. 'Oh.'

Octavia nodded. 'The next part, about the compass? That's, we're connected, even though one of us is moving away. Our love is still golden, even though the connection between it is thin. If you stop loving me, I have to stop loving you. I kinda guessed that you understood the double meaning of the second to last verse, so I'm not going to spell out what that means for my brother, because ew, but the last one is saying that you're his compass foot, you keep him grounded, and if you stay still, he can come back easily to you.'

'Octavia, your brother...I'm not his compass foot,' Clarke shook her head. 'We don't have time for this. I know what Bellamy's doing right now, and honestly I don't want to think about it. So can we just focus on mapping out Mount Weather?' she asked, refusing to acknowledge the stupidly high pulse she was sure that she was running.

Octavia rolled her eyes again. 'All right, I get it, it's not my place. But he is my brother, so don't you dare -' a glance from Clarke shut her up.

Neither girl dared to admit the thoughts running through their minds. Even though they were about the same young man.

III

Bellamy had returned when he'd said he would, once again covered in dirt and grime. Clarke and Raven had run to meet him a the gate. A glance at his face had told them everything they needed to know. It was done.

'How was he?' she had asked quietly.

'They'd made a box for him,' Bellamy had replied, and both of them knew what that meant. 'Did you...you know, did you...' Raven had made an opening gesture with her hand, looking away. Bellamy had paused, then nodded slowly. Raven had bitten her fist.

'I had to check it was him.'

Clarke had shivered at the grotesque thought. 'We'll get you cleaned up,' she'd said, leading him into medical, allowing Raven some privacy to process the news.

The first day that any of them forget to remember this conversation was two weeks later, when worlds collapsed, trees parted for their passage and a mountain was toppled. They strode through the forests in numbers far greater than that which they'd set out in, Grounders and delinquents alike. Bellamy saw, for the first time in days, true jubilation in Clarke's face, as she walked with Jasper and Monty's amorous hugs around her. Bellamy walked with Octavia and Lincoln, whom were guiding a weak Grounder together, his arms around both of their necks for support. Mount Weather had been far worse than he'd been prepared for - he'd been telling himself, repeating it like a mantra in his head, what to expect, what he was going to see. When at last he'd seen it properly, he'd trembled to his boots. The bodies were limp, looking like death warmed up only by the rubbing of its hands together in anticipation for it's final attack. Barely alive, and so incredibly human.The barrel of his gun hadn't shaken, and he'd left the two men who drew guns on him with bullets in their guts in his wake. And then, the sight of his people's faces when they say them, the leaps, the hugs, the questions to Clarke. The amazement on one of Mountain Weathers' girl's faces when she stepped outside for the first time in her life, and her skin didn't blister. The joy he felt at seeing Jasper, Miller, Monty, each one of the forty-seven remaining of his hundred, and the relief when he'd shaken the hand of the Commander, and they'd parted ways, each with their people alive and rescued.

He heard someone draw up to his side. A quick glance told him who it was. 'You look happy,' Clarke grinned.

'So do you. You never smile.'

'Neither do you,' she laughed. 'I think Monty going to be throwing a big party sometime soon. I might need to find some sort of herb for hangovers.'

'The Grounders probably have one,' he smirked, and Clarke matched his expression.

'Who'd have thought it, Bellamy the ass rescuing forty-seven people,' Clarke mused.

'No man is an island, entire of itself,' Bellamy spoke before he realised what he was doing. 'Shit...' he groaned, as Clarke began to laugh.

'You've started one, you might as well finish,' she coaxed, slipping an arm around his waist. He jerked a little at the familiarity of the movement, but soon slung an arm over her shoulders.

'No man is an island, entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.'

'Yeah, I can imagine you thinking that when we first came down here. Tell me again, why did you make them take their wristbands off?' Clarke muttered, and Bellamy squeezed her shoulders lightly.

'If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. As well as if a promontory were -'

'Did someone say my name?' Monty asked loudly, looking wildly around him.

'As well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were,' Bellamy was talking quietly now. 'Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.'

When he didn't speak again, Clarke looked up at him, surprised. 'That one was short.'

'I'm bored, I chose a short one,' Bellamy shrugged, and Clarke felt his shoulder knock against hers.

'Well, it works,' Clarke admitted. 'We're part of a unit now.'

'A collective,' he confirmed.

'We are Grounders,' she muttered up to him, and he smirked. Suddenly Octavia leant over to him.

'Never thought I'd see you falling like a drop ship to the ground for anyone, big brother. You keep surprising me,' she said in a way that made him think Clarke was meant to hear it, meant to look at him with a smirk and tighten her arm around her waist.

Not that he complained.

IV

A month later, she woke up to utter warmth, to the sound of slow breathing against her neck. A warm arm draped lazily over her waist, a nose buried in her hair. A heart beat steadily thrumming against her back. She laid her own arm over the larger one that cradled her bare waist, holding him to her. The movement must have woken him, because less than a minute later, she felt lips pressing against the back of neck, kissing her collarbone, her neck, her jawline. She turned to meet Bellamy's kiss, and he rolled on top of her again, tilting her jaw up and kissing her softly. His hand cradled her face, and when he eventually pulled away, he pulled away unwillingly.

'It's morning, Clarke. We have stuff to do,' he muttered, kissing her jaw again. He heard, and felt, her chuckle.

'Busy old fool, unruly Sun, why dost thou thus, through windows, and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?'

Bellamy pulled back, surprised. He raised his eyebrows, and smirked at her smug expression. 'You didn't,' he uttered.

'I found an old book on the Ark. It had your poems in it,' Clarke said, biting her lip teasingly. 'I decided to learn a couple. Just in case.'

Bellamy's smirk only widened, and he leant back to kiss her neck again. 'Go on then,' he murmured, as he sucked and nipped at the soft skin that he had only just begun to explore.

Clarke sighed softly. 'Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide late school-boys and sour prentices, go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,' and Bellamy pressed her tightly against his own body at this, 'Call county ants to harvest offices; love, all alike, no season knows nor clime, nor hours, days, months which are the rags of time,' she breathed, crushing herself against him. 'Bellamy...' she whispered.

'That's not part of the poem,' he murmured, laying kisses on her neck with the ghost of a touch. 'Go on,' he prompted, as he began his work on a new section of her throat.

'Thy beams so reverend, and strong why shouldst thou think?' she whispered, running her hands along his back and knitting themselves into his unruly hair. 'I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink, but that I would not lose...his sight so long,' she breathed.

'Paraphrasing, nice.'

'After last night, I'm positive that you're not a 'her',' Clarke muttered, bending up to kiss him again. Bellamy tilted his head away from her.

'Finish the poem first.'

'Bellamy.'

'I gave you three poems, give me this one,' he shook his head, and she shivered as his hands trailed over her waist.

'There's a time and a place...' she said, exasperated. 'If his eyes have not blinded thine, look, and to-morrow late tell me, whether both th'Indias of spice and mine be where thou left-st them, or lie here with me.'

She bent her head up, kissing his neck in return. She trailed her lips tantalisingly close to his dark skin, and he groaned as they brushed against him every few seconds. 'Ask for those kings, whom thou saw'st yesterday, and thou shall hear -' And she suddenly flipped them over, Bellamy lying on his back, her bending over him. '"All here,' she pressed her lips to his neck, 'in one bed lay."'

'One more stanza, princess,' he muttered, fighting hard to control the urge he felt to crush her against him, to feel her move in time with him, to kiss her with every ounce of passion he had left in him. It was becoming increasingly difficult by the second to ignore the fact that she was straddling him.

Her lips pressed against his jaw again at the same time as she pressed her body against his. 'He's all states, and all princesses I;' Bellamy chuckled, 'nothing else is; princesses do but play us; compared to this,' and suddenly her lips were moving away from his neck, kissing his chest, 'all honour's mimc, all wealth alchemy. Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we are,' and he stifled a moan whenever she kissed a new patch of his skin, whenever her hands stroked him delicately, 'in that the world's contracted thus; thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be to warm the world, that's done in warming us.'

She said it as though it were simple, as though it's meaning were true. As she kissed his collarbone, he could only think oh god, yes, it's true. It's so fucking true.

'Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;' Clarke breathed, kissing his taunt skin between every word. 'This bed thy centre is,' and she paused again, and Bellamy groaned loudly, 'these walls,' another god damn pause, 'thy...'

'You're just messing with me now,' he breathed, as her kisses trailed up towards his jawline.

'Sph...' she hissed with a smirk.

'Sphere!' he chuckled, and without anymore patience he pulled her against him, kissing her with all his might, arms crushing her body against his. He felt her smile as she responded in full, his lips tugging at his, hands roaming all over his body. He smirked, as he flipped them over again, lying on top of her. Her hair was splayed across the pillow, and in the morning sunshine it glowed. This whole thing was a fucking fairytale.

Secretly, he loved fairytales.

'If John Donne is what it takes to get you, I might need to get another of his anthologies,' he smirked, before bending down to kiss her again.

A/N: Okay, so honestly I doubt Bellamy can recite John Donne's poetry. It would be awesome if he could. Basically, I was meant to write an essay using the same title as this about John Donne, but I couldn't get The 100 out of my head (because shipping Bellarke is healthy like that.) I decided/tried/failed(?) to merge the two together in an effort to get into the mindset of writing the essay, but eventually I only had a few thousand words of fanfiction to show for my efforts to study John Donne. I didn't exactly show that to my teacher. Still, the essay is written now (belatedly) and I have this too. Hope you enjoyed it!