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Clarke's lingering outside the fence, and Bellamy knows that's not a good sign.
She's been quiet on the way back to Camp Jaha too, hasn't really been able to look him in the eye since they pulled that lever. But Bellamy still sees her look at her mother like she doesn't deserve to have her. Notices the way she slipped to the back of the group like she didn't feel worthy of walking with the rest of them. Clearly, she's inching toward a Clarke meltdown, which is honestly the last thing he needs right now.
It isn't that he doesn't care. He and Clarke are friends. Or something like that. (He doesn't quite know how to label animosity turned into shared responsibility for a bunch of delinquents, I need you, and forgiveness, then her sacrificing him for the greater good twice intermixed with a hug that made him feel like he was the only thing anchoring her to the earth. What they have is both infinitely less and infinitely more than "friendship".)
So it isn't that he doesn't care about her. It's that after Finn's death, Clarke had needed time to heal, not to rush off to play commander with the grounders. Why on earth Kane had let her thrust herself to the forefront of that fiasco as, essentially, their only leader - let her put herself in a position to be manipulated by Lexa when she was clearly so emotionally devastated and vulnerable and still a freaking child...
But then Bellamy doesn't really have a lot of room to talk there. And it's not like the "adults" who had come down to save them had actually proven all that helpful, in his opinion. He himself had left Clarke on her own to deal with Lexa, which he had known was a mistake the moment she ordered him to go in that empty, imitation ice-bitch tone (no matter how necessary it was), so really it was pretty inevitable that everything had gone to hell in the end.
It's just his only real friend on earth basically sent him on a suicide mission because it was worth the risk without even talking to him about it or saying goodbye because she cared more about what Lexa thought than him as a person. And of course, like all things on earth, the reality of that mission had turned out to be so much worse than what he'd imagined when he'd first cooked up the plan. So now, he has even more blood on his hands, and he's tired. He wants to get good and drunk until he forgets the world exists. Or until the world forgets him and all the ways it has turned him into a monster.
Honestly, he's very aware he's inching toward a Bellamy meltdown, and no one needs that. So he really doesn't want to play comforting leader right now. Especially not with Clarke, not when their whole friendship - or whatever - is built on her seeing through his façade, on them being brutally honest with each other one hundred percent of the time. He's not even sure he has the strength to put the mask on right now. Not with her.
Still, it's Clarke, and he's painfully aware of how guilty she feels (after all, he bears the weight of that guilt too). So he waits for her and makes an attempt at a joke, to take some of the tension out of the monumental task of walking through the gate: "We deserve a drink."
"Have one for me then." Formal, detached. This is Clarke the martyr who is willing to take the blame for the all death they've all just caused, not the girl who helped him keep a bunch of scared kids alive at the dropship. Not his friend. And the churning of his stomach clues him into where this is going.
Still, he makes a valiant attempt at playing comforting leader for her. At trying to coddle her like Jaha Jr. or Spacewalker would if they were here, because he does know she's been through a lot. She's just as tired and broken as he is, and he tries to handle her delicately, like he knows he should. He reminds her that she isn't alone in this. He gives her back the forgiveness she'd given him when he'd been on the verge of running.
But maybe it had only worked for her because he'd been desperate for love. A boy who cared so much for his sister that he wanted someone to care about him for a change, even more than he cared about surviving. Clarke, on the other hand, is desperate to get away from anyone who cares for her. Desperate to punish herself. So she throws his conciliatory gesture back in his face, kissing him on the cheek before she turns to leave camp. To leave him.
"Take care of them for me," Clarke says, and Bellamy hasn't been this pissed with her in a long time. Maybe ever. She thinks he's just going to let her walk off into the wilderness on her own because the little princess wants to be some kind of saintly martyr?
Like hell he is.
And maybe it's because he's tired. Or maybe it's because he's angrier than he thought he was about the way she had treated him as lesser - the way she ordered him to go to Mount Weather and lied to him about the bomb that could have killed his sister - when he'd been the only one there to bear the guilt of saving their people with her equally in the end. Maybe he's just done pretending to be someone he's not (he's not Spacewalker or Chancellor Junior, damn it). Or maybe it's pure blind terror that he's losing his first real friend. Probably it's all of them at once, but when she turns away, he snaps.
He hasn't been this furious since he got back to the dropship and all he saw was Murphy and ashes.
"This is not happening, Princess," he snarls. He has her elbow in his hand and is whirling her back around when he sees the startled, almost scared, expression on her face. Guilt flickers in his stomach for a second, but he can't help but feel darkly satisfied too. That's right; I don't take orders from you.
"What do you mean 'this is not happening', Bellamy?" She's scowling, and it's so much better than seeing her hollow and resigned to self-imposed pain. "It's my decision, and I -"
"No. You're not just leaving me here holding the bag because you feel guilty for a decision that we made to save our people. You're not just walking off into the sunset like a self-righteous martyr so you can pretend that it absolves you of guilt somehow. And you sure as hell aren't leaving me to patch up your mess and tell your mother that her daughter walked off into the fucking wilderness with nowhere to go."
He's vaguely aware that he's shouting and the camp is holding its breath behind him, watching. He doesn't really want to do this with her in public, but then all their fights have been painfully public. They just can't seem to help it. And if it takes a scene to make her stay? Well then he'll give her one.
"So, what? You're just going to drag me through the gate kicking and screaming? Then what? Set a guard? Force me to show up to breakfast everyday just so I can see how much Jasper hates me? See the ghosts of Mount Weather following me around? Have my mother treat me like the child I was when she sent me down here to die while also forcing me to step up for our people because she won't? To walk around with nothing to do anymore because I can be old enough to commit genocide but not old enough to work in the med bay or sit on the council because the adults will handle it? What do you expect me to do, Bellamy?!" She's shouting now too, and this is good. He knows what to do with this Clarke.
"What do you expect me to do, Princess?" he shouts back. "Because all that? That's exactly what's about to happen to me while you prance around in the woods pretending like your self-imposed exile actually helped anyone. But you don't care about that, do you? You don't care about what you're asking of me when you ask me to stay and take care of them for you. Oh sure, you needed me at the Dropship; couldn't do it without me, huh? Well you sure as hell don't have a problem throwing me to the wolves now that you have Lexa. That's fine, Princess. Why should I care that the privileged Princess of the Ark couldn't give a damn about me?" He shrugs mockingly. "But I won't let you treat our people this way."
Clarke slaps him. "How dare you," she hisses. "Sending you into that mountain nearly killed me."
He scoffs. "Yeah? Well you have a funny way of showing it." He's in her face now because his cheek stings, but that's nothing compared to the way he just feels used. He wonders if this is how Wells and Finn felt before they died - like they gave up everything for Clarke only to outlive their usefulness to her. It's unfair he knows, but it's how he feels.
Her lip trembles, but he can't wipe the snarl off his face, even when her voice cracks. "I sent you into that mountain because Lexa guessed that you were important to me and suggested I was sacrificing our people because I was being selfish. And she was right. I would have already sent anyone else, Bellamy. If you had been anyone else, I would have let you go when you first mentioned it. Do you understand?"
He doesn't quite, but it's enough to make him still.
"And...Lexa knew. She told me about Costia, how her enemies tortured her and executed her and sent her head back to Lexa because they knew-" she chokes. Clears her throat. He pretends not to see the tears in her eyes. "They knew it would break her. And I couldn't risk anyone hurting you to try to break me and end the alliance. I had to pretend - I had to pretend I didn't care."
Bellamy swallows. He's not quite sure what that means - for Clarke, for him, for them both now that Lexa's gone. But he does know one thing: "That's the kind of thing you talk to me about, Clarke." His hand is still wrapped tightly around her elbow, and he shakes her. He has to make her understand. "You should have told me what was going on. I would've-"
"You would have said not to worry about it, that you didn't care." She's crying when she meets his eyes, nearly whispering now. "But I did. I did care. I cared so much I let them bomb a whole village-"
She swallows, looking down at her shoes, and takes a shuddering breath. But her voice still cracks when she says, "How can I do that to you? How can I do to you what Finn did to me? How can I make you get a drink with me, talk to me, see me knowing what I did, how I risked the only person you care about because - Because I'm selfish. You should hate me, Bellamy. The sight of me should make you sick."
He laughs humorlessly. "Do you really think I could judge you for that? I shot Jaha because I thought it would help me protect Octavia. I let three hundred people die to save myself. I pulled that lever with you too, Clarke. But you did it for all our people; I did it for my sister. Who we are, and what we do to make sure our people survive are two different things, remember? I probably would have made the same call, if it had been you in the mountain. I would have taken O, but I would have made the same call." He's not quite sure how or why he's so certain about that, but he is.
So he says it again: "If it's forgiveness you need, I'll give that to you. But I can't go through that gate without you." He meets her eyes. "I need you, Clarke."
She shakes her head, and he wants to scream, but then she says softly, "It wasn't about our people, Bellamy."
His brow furrows. "What?" He knows she's not talking about the lever, but...
"I let the bomb fall because I couldn't risk Mount Weather finding and killing you, Bellamy." She says slowly.
"Yeah, I caught that part."
"I sent you in there because it was clear to Lexa, and probably everyone else, that killing you would kill me - and I was afraid that would put you at risk."
His stomach flutters, but he quirks an eyebrow and smirks at her. "And why would they think that, Clarke? Use your words."
She's glaring at him now. "Because you're an ass, and the fact that I tolerate you at all indicates to anyone with half a brain that you're more important to me than anyone else."
He feels the corner of his mouth curl up a little more. "Is that so, Princess? And you we were going to leave me anyway?"
She's blushing and glaring at the ground. "I thought - I know I'm not - I didn't want that to be a burden for you."
He snorts and tugs her toward the gate. "It won't be, if you tell me that again when you're done mourning Spacewalker."
She stiffens and stops. She's still not looking at him, but he hears her whisper, "I thought I loved him, in the beginning. Or at least that I could, you know? Until Raven. And after that, things got complicated. He wasn't - It just-" She sighs in frustration. "He told me he loved me right before the battle at the dropship. And I couldn't say it back because - I didn't, at least not like he wanted me to. It was too soon and there was too much going on so I didn't know what to tell him. I mean, he was still someone I cared about, you know? Someone I had a history with."
Clarke bites her lip. "But when I closed the dropship door, when I was in Mount Weather, it wasn't Finn I was really mourning. And then he..." She swallows. "And I knew I could never see him the same way again. The thought of him loving me like that made my skin crawl, but he did it for me, and I just felt so guilty and disgusted and - what if I had just told him before the battle that I didn't love him like that? But it was too late, and I didn't know how to explain that it wasn't just because of what he'd done, even though I hated what he'd done and how he put that guilt on me. And then they were going to - so I had to - I lied and told him I loved him too because how could I not when I was about to...to kill him?"
She looks up at Bellamy, who feels frozen. He really doesn't know how to process this confession. He's a little afraid of getting ahead of himself. He can't imagine what that must have been like for her, to have someone force their affections on you in such a horrifying way. And he'd tried to push her toward Finn - at least toward forgiving him - because at the time he'd thought they really did love each other. That once she forgave Finn like she'd forgiven him (and he was responsible for hundreds of more deaths than Finn, wasn't he?), they'd be happy together. Maybe, maybe he had been compensating for something. Maybe he had been trying to play the martyr too, to hide his jealousy. And he hadn't needed to; he'd actually just been making things worse for her.
Guilt swirls in his stomach.
She looks up at him for the first time since she started this particular confession. There's fear in her eyes. Fear that he'll be repulsed by her, he thinks, turn her away. "And I just need you to know that." Clarke licks her lips, eyes darting toward the side. "I need you to know everything, before you forgive me."
He nods. "Okay." His grip on her arm gentles, but he pulls her all the way through the gate. "I still forgive you. If you can forgive me for everything I've done, I can certainly forgive you for being a teenager," he teases. It falls flat. Maybe that was the wrong thing to say.
He doesn't really like to think about their age difference too much. Whenever he thinks about it too hard, he can't help comparing her age to O's and that makes him feel weird. But he wants to remind her that this is normal. Feelings are confusing, and when it came to relationships, Finn had been a dick, so that hadn't helped. Neither had the fact that they were all just trying not to die in the days after Raven came down.
She pulls her arm away, and he pretends that doesn't sting. But she squares her shoulders and meets his eyes, defiant. "I'm not - I'm not finished." He raises an eyebrow and waits. "When I lit his funeral pyre I felt guilty, because I killed him, because he killed those people for me, and because I couldn't even love him like he wanted me to. But I still didn't want - He was still someone who meant a lot to me, and all I could think about as he burned was thank God that's not Bellamy. Then, Lexa told me the story about how she had loved Costia and what happened to her because of it, and that love was a weakness. And I just - I couldn't help but see you on the pyre, and I - I was afraid of how much that would hurt me. Break me. Because if losing Finn hurt this much, losing you...it would be unbearable." Her voice is a whisper.
Bellamy's heart stutters. Clarke is the best friend he's ever had. And she's smart and brave and fierce and stubborn and cute. But he...well, he never really considered anything more, because he never even let himself consider the possibility she could care for him that much. Much less in any sort of...romantic sense. Because that's what she's been saying this whole time, right? That in the end, she hadn't loved Finn as much as she loved him.
Bellamy's not sure what to do with that. How he feels about that. Or how he should feel about that. But his heart is warm and full, and, for the first time since his mother got floated, he really feels like he is loved. This is different from O. He'll protect Clarke with his life too, yeah, but she's not his responsibility - and she loves him anyway. She chose to love him. Clarke's seen the absolute worst of him, forgiven him, and loved him anyway. If they were out at the bunker again, he's a little afraid he'd cry a bit. As it is, he's blinking back tears anyway.
While the earth shifts under his feet, Clarke soldiers on with her confession. "So I sent you away, like you didn't matter. And I told myself that I was doing it for our people and for you but really, I think I was trying to stop...feeling. Because what I feel for you is confusing and infuriating but so strong it scares me. The thought of losing you terrifies me. And losing you on my own terms, because I had to send you into danger for our people or because I decided it's better for me to leave - I don't know, it just...sounds easier. But it's wrong. It's wrong, and you don't deserve that. So now you know how truly awful and pathetic I am."
She's hugging herself around her waist, and Bellamy realizes she's still waiting for him to send her away. To tell her how angry he is that she gambled with his life to try to ease her emotional pain. And of course he's not happy about that. But in the end he would have had to infiltrate Mount Weather anyway. And he's gambled a lot more for a lot less and lost. So.
"I don't really know what you want me to say to all that, Clarke. I think we both probably need some time to work through that one. But we'll figure it out, okay? You shouldn't worry that you're going to lose me or that I'm going to suddenly hate you or something."
She nods, and he can see the tears she's trying to blink away. "Can we figure it out later?" Her voice sounds small and lost.
"Whenever you're ready." He smiles slowly, grateful that she's letting him in for change. "But Clarke?"
She looks up to meet his eyes.
"You can't run from this. From any of it, okay? Promise me. Promise you won't try to run again." He tries to make her see how serious he is about this, how much it means to him. How much it would wreck him if he lost her.
Something flickers in her eyes, and he knows she'll stay now. Something in his gut unclenches, and finally he can breathe again. Maybe for the first time since he stepped foot on this stupid planet.
Clarke's mouth tilts up. "I promise I won't run without at least letting you yell at me first," she concedes.
Bellamy laughs and slings an arm around her shoulders, eyes daring anyone loitering around in the aftermath of their fight to say anything about it. They were too far away for anyone to overhear Clarke's confessions, but he knows that they had to have caught the shift in his and Clarke's whatever this is. But he can't really bring himself to care.
"You've got a deal, Princess. Now, let's go get that drink."