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Spring creeps in slow to Aventine. The nights are still cold and the days barely less so, but the sun shines out from between the clouds, lighting on the neat rows of plants that Monty promises will flower, if given the chance.
Today dawns bright and crisp, the sky turning pink and orange as Raven watches, leaning heavily on her cane, from the window of her workshop. She's been on this side of the sunrise too often to be enchanted by it, but it makes something soften inside of her, anyway.
Raven lets it happen; peace is hard to come by.
*
At the breakfast circle, Bellamy takes one of the empty spaces next to Raven. She nudges Raven’s knee with her own, and Raven is too tired to prickle at it, to pretend warmth isn’t spreading from every point of contact between their bodies.
“‘Morning,” she says; at least she manages to sound sardonic, for all the good it does her. Bellamy’s still smiling at her, too soft and warm for Raven to have any defences against.
It’s Bellamy’s fault, then, that Raven ends up leaning into her side, then drooping into her lap, then drifting out of consciousness without meaning to.
She comes to to Bellamy drawing a hand through her hair, painfully gentle. The sun is higher in the sky, now, enough that they’re lying in a patch of spring warmth and that ephemeral peace has soaked into Raven’s bones without her permission. She squeezes her eyes tight for a moment, breathing it in, and then she looks up.
Bellamy is smiling down at her, backlit by the sun. The camp is bustling with the noise of their people living lives they never thought they'd be able to have, and Raven surges with a terrifying, all-encompassing love for this woman she's built this all with.
Why is this scarier than struggling through brutal winters with dwindling supplies, than facing down the Arkers trying to impose their awful, broken system and saying no? Bellamy has been there every step of the way, and Raven knows she always will be.
Well. She doesn't know. She believes, and she supposes that's the scary part. It's horrible that Bellamy has that power, but she looks at Bellamy and she believes, she knows, she has that power over her too. Bellamy's still here, after all.
“Raven?” says Bellamy, and Raven realises she’s just been staring. She would feel embarrassed, but she’s pretty sure Bellamy’s been staring right back.
She props herself up onto her elbows, doesn’t break eye contact, says, “Bellamy,” and Bellamy grins. It’s a little uncertain, and only grows more so when Raven shifts, closing the distance between them. Raven’s so, so tired of being scared.
“Bellamy,” she repeats, her voice cracking a little. She swallows and keeps going, doesn’t let her gaze waver from Bellamy’s eyes, wide and trained on her own. “Can I?”
Raven doesn’t even know what she’s asking for, so there’s no way Bellamy does, but she nods anyway. There’s something careful in the movement that spins the ache in Raven’s chest into something painfully tender.
If it weren’t this moment, a strange wispy haze caught between them, that fragile feeling would not win. Far more of her is jagged and torn up and snarling with it. But it is this moment, on this bright spring day, and Raven leans in. She thumbs a stray curl behind Bellamy’s ear and Bellamy’s eyes flutter closed, delicate in a way she so rarely is.
“Raven,” she says, little more than breath. Her mouth stays slightly parted, and she holds herself still, like she’s waiting.
Or like she’s holding back, handing Raven the reins.
“Fuck,” Raven says, something wretched in it, “you’re so-” and then she curls her hand around the back of Bellamy’s neck and kisses her.
She tries so hard to keep it gentle. Everything she’s been carrying inside of her is boiling up all at once, threatening to spill over. She’s shaking, she can feel herself shaking, and there are arms sliding around her ribcage, Bellamy’s arms, pulling her in. When their bodies meet, Bellamy makes a soft, raw noise into Raven’s mouth, and there’s not a gentle thing left inside her.
If this is the last time Raven gets to do this, she’ll survive. If she’s ruined this, if she’s given too much of herself away by kissing Bellamy like she’s trying to climb inside of her, she’ll hate herself, but she’ll live. She can’t pretend at nonchalance, can’t hold Bellamy like it means nothing at all-
“Seriously?” Monty calls out, and Raven almost jumps back. “You have beds. Use them.”
Raven’s too shell-shocked to form an appropriate response, and Bellamy’s just kind of staring at her, touching two fingers to the corner of her mouth, but Monty nods at them and leaves, apparently satisfied.
“So,” Raven says, when she thinks she might burn up if Bellamy just looks at her like that a moment longer. “Beds, huh?”
Bellamy drops her hand like it’s been burned. “I can’t,” she says, and Raven does her best not to crumple. She knew this was coming. It shouldn’t hurt this much.
“Sure,” Raven says. “Yeah, I get it. Sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry,” Bellamy says, like Raven can’t see how defeated she is, in her face and the droop of her shoulders. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting- but I can’t. Not this time. Not if that’s all this is,” she continues, and, wait, what?
“What do you mean,” Raven says slowly, and Bellamy looks away, pained.
“You’re a physical person, and you need that, sometimes, and that’s fine, but I just- I can’t be that person for you again.” Bellamy smiles like it hurts something in her to do it. “I’d apologise, but it’s not like you’re gonna have trouble finding somebody else.”
“I don’t want anybody else,” Raven says, genuinely bewildered for a second, before it clicks. She throws herself into Bellamy’s arms, holding nothing back, this time, because Bellamy thought- Bellamy actually fucking thought-
“I fucking love you,” she pulls away to say, because maybe that’s something she needs to give voice to, if Bellamy didn’t know, if Bellamy didn’t realise- “God, I’m stupid about you.”
“I have it on good authority that I’m stupider,” Bellamy says, breathless but still managing to sound snarky, and then, “You, too, if that weren’t obvious already,” and Raven shakes out a laugh before she drags Bellamy back in.