a/n Hello and welcome to a re-do of that list-writing scene. Thanks to Stormkpr for betaing. Happy reading!

The thing they don't tell you about the apocalypse is that it's a waiting game.

Bellamy gets that now, as he collapses in an exhausted heap on the sofa in Clarke's office and wonders if he'll be able catch some sleep. The problem with the end of the world is that long-drawn-out tension of knowing that the death wave is coming for you, and not knowing whether you'll be ready to face it. That taut anxiety of knowing that there is nothing you can do besides sitting tight and waiting for your fate.

He reckons the people on Earth when the bombs fell maybe had it better, from that point of view. They didn't have weeks to watch their impending doom draw ever nearer. No, they had mere minutes to phone their loved ones and say their goodbyes. Bellamy, meanwhile, has four months on the clock. He has four months to tell Clarke how he feels before the world ends, so of course there is never a right time to say it.

He settles more deeply into the sofa and allows himself to note that it smells of Clarke. He doesn't suppose he will sleep, nerves balanced on a knife-edge, but he knows that he's exhausted enough to at least give it a try.

He closes his eyes, and tries not to let his mind wander.

It is no good – his thoughts aren't just wandering, nor even meandering. No, they're slaloming, out of control, between one random observation and another.

Out of nowhere, he is struck by the idea that there are good things about the apocalypse, too. No one ever told him about that in his Earth history classes, but now that the world is ending – again – the remnants of the hundred and some of the most proactive of the Arkers are doing a good job, he thinks, of trying to pull everyone together and keep their spirits up.

No one warned him about the laughter, either. Sure, some of it has been tinged with more than a hint of hysteria – some of it has been outright panicky, he has to admit – but it has been laughter nonetheless, genuine and warm and real. He remembers sitting with Monty at supper the other evening, and from out of nowhere the younger guy produced two mugs of moonshine and said they might as well make merry seeing as it was Clarke and Raven's shift to save the world, that night. Sure, it's not something he would have found that entertaining under usual circumstances, but after a whole day of achieving a great deal of nothing, it seemed like the funniest comment in the world.

Clarke doesn't laugh, though, not any more, and that worries him. It worries him even more than the fact they'll all be dead in four months.

He gives up on sleep, then. It's quiet enough, as the hour grows late, but all the same he can't settle. Maybe it's the lights, he wonders. He remembers watching old Earth apocalypse movies with zombies and the like, and those were always played out in near darkness as electricity was the first pillar of civilisation to fall. But it's not like that, now, in the shell of the Ark, as he opens his eyes and squints into the too-bright glare of a fluorescent bulb.

No, the only real indicator of an apocalypse just now is to be found in the fact that Clarke's still awake and still frowning.

He admits defeat and heaves himself to his feet. It takes some effort, but he thinks it's worth it if he can do anything to smooth the lines currently marring Clarke's brow. He approaches her, almost gingerly, knowing that she doesn't tend to like people making a fuss of her when she's in distress.

He might not have found the right moment to tell her how he feels, just yet, but he makes a point of showing her several times a day.

"Clarke?" He hovers at her shoulder, takes in the sight of the sheet of paper before her.

Ninety-nine names, and his the last amongst them. He may not have Clarke's strategic mind, but he's pretty sure he can work out what that means.

"If I'm on that list, you're on that list." He tells her, torn between tears and rage. How dare she put him in this situation? She must know there is no way he could survive the end of the world without her. She must know that the end of her would be the end of his world.

She doesn't reply to that, only shakes her head, scattering useless tears across the page.

"Write it down." He bites out, wondering whether it might be worth taking her shoulders to shake some sense into her.

Wondering whether it might be worth taking her shoulders to press his lips to hers.

He pushes that thought aside, and gets back to his task. He can't believe that he used to be able to inspire obedience in bunch of disgruntled teenagers, but somehow his eloquence has deserted him to such a point that he cannot convince the woman he loves that she deserves to survive Praimfaya.

"Write it down, or I will."

Another jerk of the head, this one even less controlled than the last. And with that, somehow, he knows what he has to do. If Clarke is falling apart, he will have to hold her together. He eases the pen from her trembling fingers, and then he writes her name.

He writes it slowly, carefully, giving himself time to decide what to say next. He is struck by the sudden and horrifying thought that, if she keeps trying to sacrifice herself like this, she might not even make it as far as the apocalypse. He needs to take his chance. He needs to tell her how he feels – not just because it might be too late, if he doesn't say it now, but also because he hopes that she might consider looking after herself a little bit better if she knows how essential she is to his survival. As she is so determined to put him on that list, she wouldn't want to break him by putting herself in a dangerous situation, surely?

"No way am I surviving the end of the world without you." He says, in the end, settling a careful hand on her shoulder.

"You'd be OK." Clarke tells him, because of course she does. "You're strong, and people follow you. You'd -"

"Clarke. You misunderstood me." He takes a deep breath, and tries to ignore the warmth of her cheek as she settles it against his hand. "I meant that I don't want to survive the end of the world without you. Scratch that, I'm not willing to survive the end of the world without you. It's out of the question. And yeah, maybe I'd be physically capable of it but – but losing you would break something inside of me."

There is a loaded silence, in which she is completely motionless, her skin still soft against his. He's pretty sure she's not even breathing. It occurs to him rather suddenly that maybe telling her wasn't such a good idea after all. Maybe she doesn't feel the same way, and maybe he's now got four months of grief at his world ending to add to his four months of waiting for the Earth to burn.

Then she lets out a careful exhale and misunderstands him yet again. In fact, he's beginning to wonder if she's doing this deliberately.

"It wouldn't be so bad as all that." She tells him, in a voice he cannot quite read. "You'd still have Raven and Octavia, they both made the list. You'd have people you could depend on."

"Clarke. Stop it." He's getting angry with her now. The four horsemen are hunting them down, and they do not have time for this game she is playing. "You must know that's not what I meant. I didn't mean I'd miss my dependable friend. I meant I've fallen in love with you. And if you didn't already work that out, then you're not half so wise as you like to make out."

Another loaded silence. Clarke is still once more, and this time they are both holding their breath.

And then, slowly, almost tentatively, she turns and presses a solitary kiss to the back of his hand.

It shoots straight through him, shakes him to his core. OK, if he's being really honest, it shakes him to his groin. Because her lips are soft and warm but they're not as gentle as that might imply. No, there is a firm confidence to that kiss which is one-hundred-percent Clarke.

Before he is quite aware of having chosen to move, he is tangling his other hand in her hair and tilting her face up towards him. And then he is bending towards her lips, aware that this is a pretty damn awkward angle for a first kiss but too absurdly excited to care.

Only then she turns her face away, and shrugs his hand from her shoulder.

"Cla -"

"Bellamy." She interrupts, before he can yell at her or weep at her or whatever else he was planning to do. "I'm sorry, but we can't. You know we can't."

He knows no such thing. "Why not?" He bites out, repressing with a substantial amount of concentration the urge to reach for her once more.

"Because the world is ending, Bellamy."

"That's exactly why we should do it." He informs her. "The world is ending, and if I've only got four months left to live I want to spend every spare minute of that time with you."

"We can't get distracted." She tells him, but something is off. He can read it in the way that she will not meet his eyes, the way she fakes a newfound interest in the list. And he can read it most of all in the fact that she is the least distractable person he knows.

He huffs out a sigh and adopts a crouching position at the side of her chair. There are times for being strong for her, he knows, times to be a looming presence at her side and show that he will take on the world for her. But right now he reckons she needs a bit more vulnerability from him, and softness, and most of all, understanding.

"Clarke." He leans half against the desk, half against her chair, and looks up into her eyes. "You don't get distracted. We both know that. For god's sake, Clarke, you were in love with Lexa and you were still ready to leave her to come back to your people. Nothing can distract you from doing your duty. So how about you tell me what's really wrong?"

She holds his gaze for a long moment, frowning slightly, and he wonders what is coming next.

"I love you." She blurts at last, and he realises that, whatever he was expecting, that was not it. "I love you, Bellamy. That's what's wrong. I love you, and the people I love always die. And I'm worried that starting something with you now, when Praimfaya is coming for us and the clans are still warring amongst themselves, is just asking for trouble."

He reaches up to cup her jaw. "Clarke. Come on now, that's not like you. I know it's scary, but think about it. I'm no more likely to die if I kiss you than if I don't."

She makes a sound at that, half way between a sob and a giggle, and he doesn't know whether to sigh in relief or exasperation. He doesn't understand why she's being so stubbornly illogical about this, when the Clarke he knows always takes such a strategic approach. He doesn't know -

He doesn't know why her lips are suddenly on his, and why the world is moving beneath his feet as she grabs at his shoulders and pulls him towards her in an ungainly mess of limbs and lips and clashing teeth.

She pulls away too soon, squinting at him, as if he is a puzzle she cannot quite work out.

"What is it?" He asks, when he can bear the weight of her stare no longer.

"It won't be any different, will it?"

"What?" Her words make no sense to him.

"I'm just thinking. It won't be any different. Lexa already worked out that my feelings for you left me exposed. ALIE already wanted to torture you to get to me. If my love puts you in danger anyway, we might as well make the most of it while we still can."

He kisses her for that, with slightly more elegance and control than their previous attempt. He teases her lips open with his tongue, and cradles a hand around the back of her neck, and within an embarrassingly short time he is panting eagerly into her mouth.

He forces himself to pull away and meet her eyes. "You know, I think I might have said something like that earlier."

"You might have done." She acknowledges, with a tentative smile. "I'm sorry – I'm not at my best. I don't know if you noticed, but I've had a lot on my plate recently."

He laughs at that, but of course it is over half way to hysterical. "You can say that again. Come on, Clarke. Even at your worst, you make more sense than the rest of us put together. But you still need to get some sleep." He gets to his feet, and reaches a hand out towards her.

"Sleep?" She asks, brow cocked to a teasing angle. "You wanted to have that conversation so that we could spend the night sleeping?"

"I wanted to have that conversation so that you'd know how important you are to me. So that – so that you'd know I love you." He corrects her in a rush, feeling somewhat defensive and more than a little embarrassed.

She rewards that with a squeeze of his fingers, as she accepts his hand and gets to her feet. "So you definitely want me to go and sleep?" She asks again, grinning widely.

"You do need some sleep." He murmurs, brushing her hair back from her face. "But if you like, maybe I could help you with that?"

She nods in agreement, and leads him cheerfully out of the door and down the corridor towards her quarters. And as they go, he is struck by the observation that he is feeling more relaxed than he has been in quite some months.

The thing they don't tell you about the apocalypse, Bellamy reckons, is that there is always a bright spot on the horizon.

a/n Thanks for reading!