Heart thumping, pulse pounding, Clarke knew she had to move fast.

Before panic immobilized her.

Before Echo's strength gave out, and she tumbled down the mountain.

Before the suns finally descended and they were left in utter darkness. And on this strange and unfamiliar planet, who knew when the hell that might be.

"I'll be right back," she told Echo, fervently hoping she sounded like she knew exactly what she was doing. "Try to get a toehold if you can."

Playing her flashlight before her, Clarke carefully crawled the few yards back to her pack, rooting through it quickly. When her fingers found the rope she always carried, her brain finally kicked into gear.

She knew she would have to pull Echo up; there was simply no other choice. But Echo was both bigger and heavier than Clarke, so brute strength was not going to do it.

Trying her best to keep despair at bay, Clarke focused her flashlight into the rapidly dwindling twilight, back along the path to the spot where Echo had fallen. When the light illuminated a tall, sturdy-looking tree, she felt a sudden spurt of hope.

It was a species she'd noticed earlier in the day because it was like no tree she'd ever seen on Earth. Heavy and smooth-trunked, it would be the perfect anchor for the plan she was now desperately formulating.

Clarke scrambled back up the path as fast as she dared, carrying only three items: her flashlight, the length of rope, and a pair of heavy gloves she'd found in the bottom of her pack. She turned the light on wide-beam, propping it between the branches of another, smaller tree, and directing it to illuminate the entire area.

"You doing okay down there?" she called, hoping that Echo would find her voice reassuring. "Did you find a place to anchor your feet?"

"Yes." The reply was faint. "But I... don't know how long I can hold on."

"You won't have to, Echo. I'm going to pull you up."

"How will you do that, Wanheda? You are only one small woman."

Clarke grinned into the darkness, much happier to hear Echo's normal acerbic tones than her earlier fearful cry.

"Leverage," she answered, sounding more confident than she felt. "I'm going to use the tree to help me."

Working as fast as she dared, Clarke looped the rope twice around the tree trunk, tying off one end around her own waist. Then she made a noose-like loop at the other end of the rope, securing it with the honda knot that Bellamy had taught her years earlier when they'd been out hunting.

And then she held her breath, praying that the rope would be long enough.

"I'm throwing you a rope. Slip the loop over your head and then pull it tight it under your arms. Okay?"

She saw Echo nod in the faint illumination from her flashlight, so it was clear she understood. But when Clarke's toss went a little wide of the mark, Echo made no move to grab onto it, instead keeping both hands firmly attached to the somewhat spindly branch that was anchoring her to the mountainside.

Shit! Clarke had counted on Echo's normal fearless aplomb. But then nothing about this situation was normal. She pulled the rope back to try again.

"Sorry about that. I'll get it closer next time."

When Echo nodded jerkily, Clarke thought maybe she was gearing herself up for a long grab. But it wasn't necessary. Clarke's aim was better this time, and Echo caught the rope easily, slipping it awkwardly over her head and shoulders and pulling the loop tight.

"I have done it, Wanheda. Now what?"

Now came the hard part.

Clarke took a deep breath and told herself she could damn well do this.

"I'm going to pull you up, but even with the tree as leverage I'll never be able to do it if you're dead weight. You need to grab onto the side of the mountain with your hands and your feet and climb as I pull. We'll go slow until you feel comfortable, but we can't go too slow because it's getting dark pretty fast."

"I understand."

"Good, here we go. I'll pull and you climb."

And pull she did, wrapping her gloved hands around the rope, and using the tree like a pulley. Whether it was determination or adrenalin, the two women worked quickly and in concert, and pretty soon Echo was halfway to the top of the cliff. Clarke began to think this might not be that difficult after all.

Later, she thought it might have been over-confidence. Or inattention. Or perhaps Echo's foot was more severely injured than she'd thought. But whatever the reason, Clarke heard a sudden sharp yelp, and barely an instant later the slack from the rope was pulled taut, and then...

Thwack!

She was slammed heavily into the smooth trunk of the unknown tree.

Gasping for breath, the wind knocked out of her, she called out uncertainly.

"Echo! What happened! Are you okay!"

The questions came in rapid succession as Clarke struggled to get her bearings, her head still ringing from the force of the impact.

When there was no immediate reply, the bile began to rise in her throat.

Until she caught a soft exclamation of disgust.

"My foot slipped. I am sorry," came Echo's anguished apology.

"No problem," Clarke told her, as relief coursed through her. "We're just going to have to start again."

But when she pulled at the rope, there was no give, because Echo wasn't climbing.

"Echo?"

Could she be more severely injured than she'd let on?

Then a quiet voice reached her out of the darkness.

"I know that must have hurt. I won't blame you if you give up and leave me here."

"Yeah? Well, I would blame myself. I don't give up. And there's no way in hell I'm leaving you here. So get your ass in gear and start climbing."

For a moment the rope remained taut, then Clarke heard movement below and felt the slack in the rope as Echo began once again to climb.

She had no sense of how long they struggled together to get Echo up that mountainside. Clarke was focused on nothing but the pull of the rope in her gloved hands and the strain on her back. Until suddenly, miraculously, Echo's arm came into view, and then her head, and finally enough of her right leg cleared the ledge that Clarke was able to grab onto it and roll her onto solid ground.

They lay there, gasping for breath and exhausted from their ordeal, until Clarke eventually noticed that night had fallen and their only light was coming from her flashlight. The one thing they didn't need was another stumble because they couldn't see in the dark.

"Do you think you can walk?" she ask worriedly. While she wasn't about to leave Echo, Clarke wasn't thrilled by the idea of a night on the edge of that mountain.

"I believe I can...uh... hobble along."

"Good. I think I saw some caves a ways back down the path. We could take shelter there until daylight. Maybe get some sleep."

Echo nodded, as compliant as Clarke had ever seen her.

They crawled at first, until they reached the spot where Clarke had left her backpack and the path began to widen out. But even on foot it was slow going, with Clarke helping the badly-limping Echo. But the cave she'd remembered wasn't far, and soon her light found the entrance.

Echo dropped onto the floor of the cave, exhausted, and stretched out as if to sleep.

"Hey, don't get too comfortable," Clarke said, crouching beside her. "I need to check your ankle."

Even her gentle probings brought a gasp of pain from Echo, but Clarke didn't think she'd broken it.

"It's just a bad sprain. It'll feel a little better after I wrap it."

Clarke worked swiftly to bind Echo's ankle, and when she'd finished she looked up to find Echo regarding her with a thoughtful expression.

"Why did you do it, Wanheda?" she asked, as though the question had been torn from her. "Why did you save me?"

Clarke's answer was accompanied by a shrug. "You saved me, I saved you. So... we're even now."

Echo shook her head. "It was not at all the same thing."

"Maybe," Clarke acknowledged, "so let's just say that... I did it for Bellamy."

She heard Echo's sharp intake of breath. "For Bellamy?"

"Yes. I couldn't have faced him if something had happened to you. I don't think he would have forgiven me."

"But... there was danger to you. And I was supposed to be protecting you."

Clarke's smile was dry. "That's just what's stuck in Bellamy's head because he's saved me so many times in the past. But now... I've had to learn to take care of myself. So I don't really need much protecting these days."

"I am beginning to see that, Wanheda."

Clarke fished out a couple of pain pills and handed them to Echo along with her canteen.

"You know," she said, her expression rueful, "I sometimes wonder if you're ever going to forget about Wanheda and just call me Clarke."

Echo shrugged. "It's just... habit."

"I imagine if I'd been on the Ring with you all for six years," she mused, "you would've learned to call me Clarke."

For a moment, Echo was silent. "I imagine," she said finally, "that if you'd been on the Ring a great many things would be different."

"Perhaps," Clarke said, unwilling to examine that statement too closely.

But as they settled in under the thin blankets Clarke had pulled from her pack, Echo spoke again.

"Has... Bellamy not spoken with you, Wan... Clarke?"

It seemed an odd question, but she was too tired to try to puzzle it out.

"I speak to Bellamy every day," she told Echo, as her eyes fluttered shut.

Echo sighed. "I see that he has not," she murmured, before the pain pills kicked in and she drifted off to sleep.

XXXXXXXXXX

Considering Echo's injury, Clarke knew it would be next to impossible to return to the shuttle by hiking across the ridge at the summit of the mountain. A lower alternate route would take longer, of course, and even with Clarke helping her along, Echo's ankle would slow them down still further. All of which meant that Raven, who hadn't heard from them since the previous afternoon, would be forced to worry for that much longer.

But there was simply no help for it.

Clarke had learned from bitter experience that safety generally trumped every other consideration when traveling through the wilderness.

As they made their way around — rather than across — the low mountain, Clarke stopped every hour or so to give Echo a rest, and to try to reach Raven on the walkie-talkie. But it wasn't until they were more that halfway around the base that her half-hearted Raven, come in, Raven, finallyproduced a response.

"Clarke! Where the hell have you been! I've been so fucking worried!"

"Sorry, Raven. The walkie's been out of range since yesterday. And then we had some... bad luck."

"Oh, shit! Are you okay?"

"Yeah, we're both a little banged up, but nothing serious."

"And what about the coordinates? Did you get them?"

"Yeah. It's all good."

"Thank god!" Raven said. "How long do you think before you can get back to the shuttle? We were supposed to be back to the ship yesterday."

Clarke sighed, imagining everyone on the Eligius sick with worry. "We'll do our best."

But it was another two hours before they made it back to the shuttle, and by then Echo's face was lined with pain and fatigue.

When she saw them, Raven scrambled out to lend a hand.

"Jesus! What the hell happened? Did the two of you decide to just duke it out or something?"

she quipped, smirking, as the three of them stumbled back into the shuttle.

Clarke's brow furrowed as she tried to catch the joke, but Echo appeared to be in no mood for Raven's brand of humor.

"I fell off the mountain," she told Raven succinctly. "Clarke pulled me back up."

Raven gasped in surprise, turning to Clarke in amazement. "How the hell did you manage to do that?"

But Clarke was already strapping them both in. "Let's go, Raven. I'll tell you all about it on the way back."

Raven nodded and began punching at a dozen screens at once.

"It was weird," she mused, as they began to lift off. "When I was sitting here by myself, and I couldn't reach the Eligius and you weren't answering the radio, for a while there it felt like I was the only person left in the universe."

Clarke snorted quietly. "Yeah," she said. "I can relate."

XXXXXXXXXX

As soon as they'd cleared the cloud cover that was blanketing the planet, Raven radioed the Eligius that they were on their way back. So it wasn't really a surprise that everyone was waiting for them when the shuttle finally docked in the landing bay.

Well... maybe not everyone. Just the people to whom they were most dear.

And the people who were most dear to them.

If Clarke had had any questions about Raven's relationship with Shaw, they were erased when he practically pulled her out of the shuttle and into his arms, his face wreathed in smiles of relief.

"Clarke got the coordinates," Raven told him happily.

Shaw looked up as Clarke descended the ramp to offer her a quiet smile. "Great job," he said.

He also seemed about to offer her a hand down, but Bellamy was suddenly there first, reaching up to clasp her hand.

"Good to have you back," he said quietly, giving her his gentle smile.

"Happy to be back," she acknowledged, with a small smile of her own. "And I don't need any help, Bellamy, but Echo does. She, uh... she hurt her ankle and is having a hard time walking."

Bellamy looked past Clarke to where Echo was still seated in the shuttle.

"You okay?" he asked her, a worried frown settling across his features.

"I am fine, but I could use a little help," Echo answered quietly.

Clarke dropped Bellamy's hand, figuring that this was her cue to move off. Her eyes lit on Madi, who'd been standing quietly in the background, trying to maintain the dignity of the Commander, but Clarke knew she could probably use a hug. But when she tried to slip away, Bellamy grabbed her arm, holding her in place.

"Wait! Where are you going? Don't we need to, uh, debrief?"

Clarke shrugged. "I gave Raven the coordinates, and I'll speak to Shaw myself, too. But it's nothing for you to worry about right now, Bellamy. You just focus on helping Echo."

As Clarke spoke, a dozen different emotions seemed to cross Bellamy's face as his head swiveled back and forth between her and Echo. Then he nodded.

"Right. Of course. I'll catch up with you later."

As Clarke was embraced by first Madi and then her mother, both tearful with relief, out of the corner of her eye she saw Bellamy and Murphy help a limping Echo out of the shuttle and down the corridor towards the infirmary.

Just before the trio rounded a corner and moved completely out of sight, Bellamy's head turned and he looked back at Clarke, catching her eye. Something about the expression on his face had her suddenly flushed and confused and filled with longing.

But she forced herself to remember how things were, and ruthlessly buried those feelings. And was doubly — triply — glad that she'd been able to save Echo.

XXXXXXXXXX

She couldn't sleep.

After everything that had happened over the past few days, Clarke figured that she should be overwhelmed and exhausted. But instead she felt energized. Like she could take on the world.

Which was probably a good thing, since in a few short hours, they'd all be taking on a whole new world.

After they'd returned from the planet, and she'd passed along those hard-won coordinates to Shaw so they could make a plan for descent, Clarke had fallen into her bunk, sure that they'd have to shake her awake in the morning. But she'd only managed a few hours of sleep, and now she was wide awake, too restless and unsettled to even remain in her quarters.

She finally crept out of her room and made her way to the bridge, intent on having one last bird's-eye view of the place she hoped would become her home forever. The thick blanket of clouds still surrounded the planet, but now she knew what was was hidden beneath. Rolling hills and fragrant meadows. Swift-flowing streams. Strange, strong, smooth-barked trees. She'd been on the ground, seen it all with her own eyes, and it had looked to her like a fine and welcoming place. As she settled her gaze, her eagerness to be down there only grew.

"I thought I might find you here."

Though Bellamy had spoken softly, Clarke was still startled. She'd been so entranced by the view of her future home that she'd never even heard him enter the room.

She turned, smiling softly. "Was there some special reason you were looking for me in the middle of the night?"

He shook his head, moving across the floor until he was standing only inches away.

"No, I was just restless, and I got this idea that I wanted to talk to you. And I couldn't shake it. When you weren't in your room I somehow knew you'd be here."

She shrugged. "I figured this would be my last chance at this view."

He nodded. "It's hard to believe it was only a few weeks ago that we stood right here and found out that things hadn't gone exactly as planned."

Clarke laughed. "No, not exactly. But... I think it might work out okay."

"Me, too," Bellamy agreed, following her gaze to the planet below.

When he didn't say anything further, she finally turned to him, asking hesitantly, "Is this something new, Bellamy? I don't remember you ever looking for midnight conversation before."

Bellamy shook his head and his lips tugged up in a rueful smile. "Nope. This is definitely a one-off."

He cleared his throat noisily.

"Echo told me what happened on that mountain, Clarke. I still can't believe you managed to pull her up. It was such a terrible risk to take. When I think," he took a deep breath, let it out slowly, "I might have lost you. Both of you."

Clarke shrugged, trying to make light of her actions. "I couldn't have faced you if anything had happened to her, Bellamy." Her eyes flicked away from his before she asked with as much nonchalance as she could muster, "Won't Echo be concerned if she wakes and you aren't there?"

When he didn't answer immediately, her eyes locked onto his once again.

But Bellamy's look was unreadable. "Echo isn't in my quarters, Clarke."

Clarke felt a small jolt of surprise.

"Did Mom want to keep her in the infirmary? I didn't think her injury was that bad."

He shook his head. "Nope. Emori is keeping an eye on her tonight, although," his mouth twisted into a tiny smile, "even that was under protest. Echo didn't think she needed anyone to stay in her quarters. Said she'd be fine on her own. We had to talk her into one night of company."

"Her quarters?" Her brow wrinkled in confusion. "But I thought... Echo isn't sharing with you?"

"No." He paused. "Not since we woke from the cryo."

"What?" Her confusion grew. "Was that her idea?"

He shook his head again. "No, it was mine."

"But... why? I thought that you and Echo..."

Bellamy's lip curled and he gave a small sigh. "Because it wasn't fair to her. To stay with her when I knew damn well she wasn't the one person who was most important to me."

Clarke felt her heart speeding up as she tried hard not to read anything into his words. Not to think they might have anything at all to do with her. And yet... she needed to know.

"But you were with her for all that time, Bellamy. And I know she must have been good for you when I see the kind of man you've become."

Bellamy's smile was soft.

"Echo was good to me, Clarke, and I care about her a lot. Like all of them, she helped me heal. But we hadn't been together in that way for very long at all."

As he explained, his expression became regretful.

"You know us Blakes. For a long time, I couldn't even bring myself to forgive her, so I didn't really get to know her much. Until it finally dawned on me that forgiveness was a lot easier than holding a grudge. After that, we became friends. Then family. But we didn't become more than that until several months after we'd passed the five-year mark. When I thought that maybe the Ring would be my life."

Clarke tried to process his words, to reconcile them with everything she had imagined. Everything she'd been so wrong about.

"So if it wasn't being with Echo, then... how did you figure it all out? How did you become the man who could take care of everyone on the Ring and stop a war and keep the peace and shepherd hundreds of people to a new home? How did you become this Bellamy, the one I knew you always could be?"

"Clarke." Her name on his lips was like a caress.

Her breath quickened, and her mouth was suddenly dry.

"If you're happy with who I am now," he said quietly, "with how I've changed, you need to know it's because of you. Because of what you said to me in our last conversation before praimfaya. Before everything went to shit and I had to..." he was suddenly struggling for breath, "... when I had to leave you behind."

"I don't blame you for that, Bellamy," Clarke said earnestly, reaching up to stroke his cheek. "I never did. If you hadn't left, you'd be dead, and... I couldn't bear that."

Bellamy's eyes closed briefly, and when he opened them again, he reached up and covered her hand with his own.

"You were my inspiration, Clarke. You'd sacrificed yourself, and I was damn well gonna make sure it wasn't for nothing. I grieved for you for so long. But even later, when the worst of it was past, I thought about you all the time, tried every day to remember what you'd told me. To listen to my heart and my head. To try to do the right thing."

Clarke smiled at him. "I thought of you every day, too, Bellamy. You asked me once what had kept me going and... so many times it was you. I talked to you on that crappy radio every single day," her lips twisted in a wry smile, "even though I knew I was probably just talking to myself."

Bellamy smiled in return, the crooked half-smile that she loved. "I know about that."

"You do?" Clarke pulled back, wide-eyed. "Wait. Is that what Madi told you? About my radio calls?"

"Hey, don't go away," he complained, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her just a little closer. "Yeah, Madi told me. And maybe it's a good thing she did, because it made me think you might care about me after all. Even after everything that went down in Polis."

Guilt tore at Clarke as she felt the wetness gather at the corners of her eyes.

"Bellamy, I'm so sorry," she said, her voice laced with regret. "I'll never be able to explain Polis. But everything that happened...it was never because I didn't care about you. Never. I've always cared about you so much."

By then, the silent tears were streaming down her face and Clarke couldn't seem to stanch the flow. It was as if all the emotion she'd been pushing down for weeks had suddenly risen up to overwhelm her. She wondered how he could forgive her so easily when she had so much trouble forgiving herself.

Bellamy's arms tightened around her and he pulled her fully against him, folding her into his strong embrace, stroking soft circles across her back.

"Clarke," he said gently. "Please don't beat yourself up about that. I know everything got all mixed up between us, but the important thing is that we made it through. And that you're still here. And that we're together. That's the thing I've been most scared of since I found you. That you'd just... disappear. I lost you once, and I don't think I could survive it again."

His soft words and his strong arms were both comforting and intoxicating. She could hardly let herself believe it. Bellamy cared for her. Maybe even the same way she cared for him. When she wrapped her arms around his waist, and heard the hammering of his heart, butterflies began to dance in Clarke's stomach.

They stood there, clinging tightly to one another, until Bellamy moved slightly, pulling back just enough to rest his forehead against hers. When he tilted his head, Clarke's heart began to beat wildly, and when his lips finally touched hers, it felt like a thousand rockets were going off inside her.

Within moments, the world had faded away, and they forgot everything except the taste of one another's lips, the feel of one another's arms. Years of longing went into that kiss, as they twisted and turned, trying to strengthen their connection in ways that might not even have been possible.

The kiss became more and more heated, and for several long minutes they were totally lost to their surroundings. Until a stray sound from somewhere deep within the ship finally recalled to them exactly where they were. Bellamy pulled back with a groan to run his fingers lightly up and down her arms.

"You have no idea how much I want to just drag you back to my room, shut the fucking door, and stay there for the next two days. At a minimum," he added, huffing in frustration.

Clerk grinned. "I think I actually might have some idea. But you know damn well that we're leaving in a couple of hours, and pretty soon people are going to be up and about and they're all going to looking for us. And," she added softly, reaching up to stroke his cheek, "I don't want to feel rushed. Not this time. Not with you."

Bellamy shrugged, his crooked smile rueful. "It's okay. Right at this moment I'm so damn happy that it's enough just knowing that you're here with me. That somehow I got this miraculous second chance."

"Second chance?"

He pulled her back into his ams, gently ruffling her hair.

"Up on the Ring, Clarke, when I thought you were dead, I mourned you for a long time. I mourned losing the best friend I'd ever had."

He paused, sighing heavily.

"But I was also so fucking angry with myself for throwing away every chance we'd had to be together. I'd let everything else come between us. Octavia, the war, even my anger that you'd stayed in Polis. I kept remembering that night in the chancellor's office, the night we made that fucking list, and then you reached out to me..."

Clarke pulled back to search his face. For years, she'd wondered about that moment, about why he'd run off. Finally convincing herself that she must have been mistaken. That he didn't have those kinds of feelings for her after all.

"What about that night?"

He shrugged. "I thought — I was sure — that you just wanted comfort. A warm and willing body. And I knew that with you I could never just be... casually intimate. If we were going to be together like that, it would have to mean something."

Clarke was appalled.

"It was never just about that, Bellamy." She was desperate for him to understand. "You could never be just a-a warm body to me. It was you I wanted."

"Yeah, by the time we were ready to get on the rocket, I think I'd finally figured that out. But I didn't say anything then, because I was so damn sure we'd have all those years to explore what we were to each other." Bellamy sighed heavily. "But instead, you weren't there, and all I had to live with was sadness and regret. I used lay on my bunk on the Ring, longing for what I could never have. Wishing I hadn't been so stupid, that I'd been with you when I had the chance, but it was too fucking late."

"Well, I'm here now, Bellamy," Clarke told him fiercely, reaching up to cup his face in her hands. "And there's nothing I want more than to lie in your bunk and spend hours making love to you. Then we can both toss all our regrets right into the fire."

"Christ!" he said, pulling her back into his arms. The strangled sound he made was half-laugh, half-moan.

Clarke pulled back just enough to gaze up at him wistfully. "But I think we may have to wait a little while."

"Yeah, I know." His smile became sardonic. "All personal considerations will have to be put on hold while we're exploring new worlds and saving the human race."

"Only for right now, Bellamy."

Clarke twisted in his arms until they were both, once again, staring down on the planet. "I know you can't see it from here but It's really beautiful down there. And this is going to be a great adventure."

"It will be," he agreed, his voice confident. Bellamy's arms wrapped around her from behind and he hugged her tightly against him. "But this time, we're going to be together right from the start. Making sure we do it the right way, like Monty wanted. Using the head and the heart."

"The head and the heart," she agreed, nodding.

"You know, I think we might have had this conversation before." She could hear the smile in his voice as he murmured into her ear. "But now I have a slightly different question. This time I want to know... what does your heart say?"

Clarke wrapped her arms around herself, leaning back against Bellamy until she was fully cocooned in his embrace.

She smiled to herself, because for once she understood exactly what was in her heart.

"Same as yours."