Archive of Our Own

The whole assignment was a joke anyway, so it didn't matter that he wasn't following anyone's orders now. No one had seen a Grounder since the attack on Mount Weather, Clarke was dead, and that was that.

A branch snapped on the ridge above him, and Bellamy swung his gun up onto his shoulder in one fluid motion, his sights trained on the small, dark figure crouched there.

Octavia was frozen in place, nearly invisible among the brush. One hand was up, cautioning him, and the other hefted her spear. She'd broken the twig on purpose to get his attention. Much as he felt the need to protect his sister, he had yet to regret bringing her along. He froze and listened. The birds had stopped trilling. And now, distantly, he heard footsteps. Someone was coming.

Snapping the sights back down to the trees in front of him, Bellamy felt the familiar course of adrenaline surge through him. Maybe today would actually be interesting.

The sound of footsteps grew louder, and fern leaves began to rustle a hundred yards ahead. Octavia stood slowly, lowering the point of her spear. Bellamy's eyes flitted nervously from the crosshairs of his gun to her alert profile.

"Octavia," he growled, not liking the way her dark head was silhouetted against patches of sky. She was such an easy target up there, so visible and so small. 

"Relax, Big Brother," she said in a normal voice, sliding down the ridge and coming to a controlled stop by his side. "They're not bothering to hide their steps, now are they?" When he still didn't lower the gun, she placed her hand on the barrel and pushed it down. "It's Lincoln, stupid."

Sure enough, as the leaves parted, Lincoln's imposing figure strode into view, his russet skin streaked with mud and a cloak of moss across his shoulders. He'd been scouting, then. Octavia ran to meet him, the quickness of her steps betraying her enthusiasm. It had been weeks since they had seen Lincoln. Now neither of them had a reason to return to camp.

Bellamy ducked his head and stared down at the butt of his gun as Lincoln and Octavia pressed their foreheads together. He heard their whispered words.

"Ai hod yu in," Lincoln murmured, and the obvious tenderness in his voice twisted like a knife in Bellamy's chest. Clarke's exhausted face flashed before him briefly, her last words to him, May we meet again, drumming along with his heartbeat. He swallowed hard and glanced up.

"Hey, Lincoln," he called. Lincoln looked up from Octavia's face, his eyes were glittering and alert.

"Men," he said, by way of greeting. "Outliers not from my clan, about two miles north and just beyond the bridge. Branwoda soldiers, though, and only a few. Not a problem to take out."

"Where's the rest of them?" Octavia asked, her brow furrowed. "Are they scouts?"

Lincoln shook his head curtly. "No. Dissenters. Or exiles. The twelve clans are coming apart. War is inevitable."

"Against Camp Jaha or between the clans?" Octavia demanded shrewdly. 

Lincoln's large shoulders rolled in a shrug that said it all. "It could go either way. Lexa will have to make a choice."

Hearing the name of the traitor commander made Bellamy's nostrils flare. When he swallowed, his Adam's apple felt like a stone in his throat. He kicked the point of his gun up and swung it onto his shoulder, rocking back a little with the weight of it.

"Then now seems like the perfect time for a fight."

****************** 

They approached the Grounders' makeshift camp from the southeast, spreading out as they reached the high ground. Octavia was in the middle of the semicircle, with Bellamy and Lincoln flanking her. The sun was beginning to be crowded out by clouds, but thin beams of light were still punching through the leafy stillness of the forest. Bellamy got into position, nestling down into a crouch with the scope of his gun over the lip of the ridge and his hip resting firmly against a towering cedar. 

Below there were only five men, speaking in loud Trigedasleng. The crackling flames of their fire threw shadows along the bowl of the ridge, and Bellamy was surprised to find his nerves calm. He'd missed this--having a purpose, having something to do. Lincoln was in position opposite, wedged between two trees. Bellamy watched him draw his bow, pull the string taut.

"Lok op der!" came the shout as the arrow was released. It flew true, but the men were already scrambling, and it hit the dirt with a thud, just inches shy of its target. Bellamy raised his weapon and stopped in cold horror as a spray of bullets raked the ridge where Lincoln had stood.

Grounders? With guns?

"Lincoln!" Octavia shouted, her voice a knife's edge. She streaked along the side of the ridge toward the falling shadows of the trees. Bellamy found himself standing almost without realizing it, a hoarse cry snatched from his throat. Two of the men below whirled and surged his way, their faces sharp and dangerous in the mixed light of fractured sunshine and harsh flames. One raised a rifle to his shoulder. His heels sliding out from under him, Bellamy stumbled backward, and in that moment the solid weight of the cedar behind him fell away. A hand reached out and seized him roughly by the collar, pulling him into the thick dark hollow of the tree.

They have guns, he thought numbly as he thrashed against his captor. They have guns and they're hiding in hollowed-out trees. Damn the Ground. He reached for his knife and found the polished hilt in his belt. He tried to pull it free and knocked his elbow hard into the tree trunk instead. A spike of panic shot through him. A leg tangled in his, and a strong hand closed over his wrist. Twisting in the claustrophobic confines, he dropped the blade and aimed for a desperate blow instead. There wasn't enough space; the walls were scraping his shoulders as he turned. He found a neck instead, and his hand closed hard around it, forcing a sudden stillness. The world stopped moving.

For a long moment there was only the sound of their hard breathing, impossibly loud in his ears. The spicy scent of cedar floated in the cramped air. The hidden door had closed in the scuffle, and there was no room to move. It was utterly dark except for a thin beam of sunlight falling on his arm through a crack in the bark. The Grounder who'd grabbed him was smaller than he was and easy to hold in place, the bones within his grasp as fragile as a bird's.

"Where the hell did you get guns?" he demanded in a rough whisper.

"Yu souda shof op," a tight, female voice rasped.

"Where did you get them and why are you using them?" he nearly shouted, feeling the slight, breakable shape of her with his body and pressing it hard against the wall of the tree. 

"I said, be quiet!" she hissed, her hand worming up between them to cover his mouth. With a grunt, she forced his head back. The crack of light cut across her pale face and her wide blue eyes.

It was Clarke.

He was in the vacuum of space. The air had disappeared from his lungs, and sounds had receded to nothing. There was no room to move, but he started to anyway. The pressure of her fingers against his mouth stopped him. She cut her eyes sideways, and he became aware of the world just outside the layers of bark. There were grunting voices, orders in Grounder, and the thick whump of heavy footsteps. The Grounders were surrounding the trees, moving through the foliage.

His eyes were adjusting to the dark now, and he could see the outline of her, the cascade of her hair, the curve of her neck. She'd grown thinner in the last months, her cheeks hollowed, but she was alive. Her eyes were still locked on his, and in the close quarters her steady gaze was as naked and intimate as a kiss. He was suddenly aware of the way his thigh was jammed hard between her legs, the jut of her hipbone nearly pressed against his groin. Her chest rose and fell with his, and he could feel the hammering of her heart through the thin T-shirt she wore.

His hand was still pressed against her windpipe. He relaxed his grip, felt the bones in her throat bob up and down as she breathed deeply in response, but he couldn't let her go. Instead, he slid his hand around to cup the back of her neck, his thumb brushing the soft curve of her cheek. She responded ever so slightly, turning her face into his palm as though starved for the touch. His touch.

With his other hand, he reached up and, with careful purpose, peeled her fingers back one by one from his lips. With exaggerated motions, he held her gaze and mouthed, It's you.

A smile broke the wintry tightness in her expression, and her eyes crinkled at the corners with a kind of joy that twisted in that painful spot in his chest. We meet again, she mouthed in reply.

It was impossible to fight the smile that crept along his lips, so he just shook his head and grinned, reveling in the sight of her, the solid feel of her so near him again. When he smiled, her pulse spike against his hand and her body seemed to go soft where it touched him. She shifted her hips forward, just fractionally, and at the brief brush of her thigh against his crotch he found himself suddenly, painfully hard. He startled backward out of instinct, but there was nowhere to go. His shoulder bumped the makeshift door, and the bark entrance shifted away from the rest of the tree, just enough to let in another half inch of light. Her eyes eloquent with panic, Clarke grasped him by the belt with both hands and hauled him up hard against her.

"Ah! Ai don hon gon op!"

The voice was just outside their hiding space now. Bellamy could see through the newly expanded slice of light that the Grounder was rummaging around in the grass near the roots of their tree. He hadn't spotted them yet, but if he looked up, he'd meet Bellamy's gaze head-on. Bellamy turned his face away and rested his forehead against Clarke's upturned brow, squeezing his eyes shut and waiting for the Grounder to move on. The rustling continued, and the seconds seeped by.

Bellamy and Clarke breathed shallow breaths together, frozen in place. Every one of his muscles was wound tight with some damned tension or another. Clarke's breath was hot on his cheek, and he stroked the edge of her jaw softly with his thumb to count the time. There was a pressure mounting in him, an ache that the curve of her body had awakened. He opened one eye and looked down at where their bodies were joined. Her fingers were still twisted in his belt loops, holding his hips firmly against hers, and neither of them could ignore the bulge of his cock straining against his pants now. The whole hard length of him was pressed against her, and she was holding him in place. 

The man outside could go float himself.

Bellamy's gaze flitted back up to meet Clarke's, and he realized she was watching him with that hard, amused smile she had. He made his expression a shrug, raising his eyebrows helplessly.

Sorry, Princess, he mouthed.

In response, she arched her back, just a little, just enough. His breath caught in his throat, and his erection pulsed hard against the hot junction of her thighs. Her breathing became heavy and jagged in the stillness, but she didn't look away. Her eyes were searching his desperately now, and he wanted to give her whatever she was looking for. Keeping her jaw cupped in his palm, he placed his free hand against the tree on the other side of her head and pushed himself into her soft, yielding body, exhaling raggedly as his groin tightened with desire. The death grip she'd had on his belt loops slackened slightly, and a whimper escaped her throat. Bellamy felt a shiver tingle up his spine as the tips of her fingers slid under his shirt and across his burning skin. Her thumbs dipped below his waistband to brush tentatively against the wells of his hipbones, and he sucked in a sharp breath. His eyes drifted shut, his control slipping away--

"Nou mou!"

The guttural growl of the Grounder jarred them apart. The man outside straightened and froze in place, his keen, hawkish face raised. For a long moment he seemed to sniff the air, but then, without even glancing their way, he broke into a run and loped away. As he flashed by their cover, a glimpse of black metal whisked past their view. 

It took Bellamy a long, muddled moment, but then it clicked. Dropping his hand from Clarke's face, he groped around at waist height, fumbling in the dark.

"Bellamy, what is it?" Her voice was raw and husky.

He didn't answer her. There wasn't that much space in the tree with them, so his search didn't take long. Shoving his shoulder against the bark hatch, he barreled out into the dim and shivering afternoon.

After the tight confines of the cedar, the world was bursting with fresh air, air on the brink of a storm now, and Bellamy gulped it down. 

"Bellamy!" Clarke hissed, following him out.

"My gun's not here, Clarke! You left it on the ground!" He searched fruitlessly, raking his boot across the grass, but the weapon was gone.

Her voice was impatient. "I know that. I didn't want you to have it."

He whirled on her. She stood, leaning against the tree, her arms crossed, as though completely immune to his urgency. A ragged backpack that looked dangerously slim was slung at her feet. He was surprised to see her not wearing a uniform or even a jacket. He'd spent months imagining her clad in that terrifying armor and streaked with war paint. But she was wearing only a thin shirt, pants, and boots. Her blond hair hung in loose waves over her shoulders.

He took a second to process.

"You didn't want me to have a gun?" He thrust his finger sharply at the figures retreating through the woods. "Clarke, those bastards are after my sister. And they're using guns now."

"Octavia can take care of herself."

He shrugged her words off and reached for the pistol still strapped in its holster. 

"I don't have time for this," he said cuttingly.

Shaking his dark curls out of his eyes, he dropped to one knee and raised the weapon to target the last figure weaving through the trees.

"Bellamy, no!" In a flash, she'd launched herself from her post and flung herself in front of him. "You can't."

"Clarke," he warned, cocking his head to look past her. "Get out of my way."

She stood her ground. "You can't shoot them."

He arched an eyebrow, determined to keep his cool, but when he locked gazes with her again, he could feel the deep heat smoldering there.

"I thought I told you, I don't take orders from you, Princess," he reminded her evenly.

She stepped forward, one large stride that forced his pistol against her sternum, just above the deep valley of her breasts. He could feel the point digging into her flesh, the hard metal pressed against the bone. The diffused light behind her head threw her face into shadow but lit her hair up like a golden halo. She rested her hand on his forearm, and her skin was warm against his.

"Then do it because I'm asking you," she said softly. "Please."

He glared up at her, his breath coming short and hard from his nose, but she didn't waver. Over her shoulder, the figure faded into the foliage and disappeared. Bellamy lowered the gun.

"Can I assume you have a plan at least?" he demanded, rising to his feet and holstering his pistol. 

A thin smile played around her lips. "I never leave the tree without one."

He huffed out a breath, trying to hold onto his indignation, but it came out as a gruff laugh, and he had to look up and away to reassemble his composure. She wouldn't let him. With a delighted snort that momentarily betrayed her youth, she grabbed him by the collar and pulled him to her. His arms slid automatically around her back as hers looped around his neck, and he nearly lifted her off her feet.

The clouds were gathering over the trees, leaching sunlight from the day, and they stood there a long moment in the gathering gloom. He hugged her tightly, letting his eyes close as he buried his face in her hair. She smelled soft and loamy, like cedar and earth. Her lips were pressed tightly against his neck. He ran his palms up and down her spine, reveling in the feel of her wrapped so closely around him. 

"I missed you," she said, the words hot on his skin.

"Ai hod yu in," he breathed softly, echoing Lincoln's words. It was the only thing he could think of to convey the immense pressure building in his chest, the insurmountable relief at her appearance. She pulled back to arm's length, her brow furrowed, her eyes searching his face.

"What did you say?"

He was saved the trouble of an explanation when a sudden, strangled cry sounded in the direction the Grounders had taken. Bellamy dropped his arms and pushed her away, all his senses on high alert. A plume of red smoke had bloomed in the trees and was seeping along the forest floor.

"The hell is that? Clarke, is that from...?"

He glanced down at Clarke and was surprised to see a small smile curling the corner of her mouth.

"Nope," she said slyly. "That would be me." And she turned in one fluid motion, snatched up her backpack, and sprinted for the trees.

***********************

It was good to run. After more than an hour holed up in that cramped space, Clarke had been itching for some action. If Bellamy hadn't come along and introduced a different kind of action...

Stop it, Clarke. This doesn't change anything.

She shook her head to clear it, whipping through the branches and dancing over protruding roots. Her plans had gotten...derailed. Now she'd have to hunt the Grounders down one by one, but they wouldn't get very far. She'd made sure of that.

The smoke had dissipated by the time she reached the scene, and three Grounders were sprawled out over branches and in the dirt, deeply unconscious. Clarke surveyed them all with satisfaction, her hands on her hips. Bellamy broke through the brush a second later, breathing hard, his hand on the butt of his pistol. His large, dark eyes roamed the clearing, then flitted to her face. She'd nearly forgotten about the constellation of freckles that dusted his cheekbones. 

"What the hell is this?" he demanded in a gravelly tone. He reached down near their feet, where red tendrils of smoke were still issuing sluggishly from a spigot protruding inches from the earth. He worked it free until the whole gas canister slid out of the ground. He brushed the dirt loose. "Clarke, what are you doing?"

"I'm protecting Camp Jaha," she replied, more aggressively than she'd intended. Taking the depleted can from him, she shrugged off her backpack and knelt near the closest body. 

"You took that crap from Mount Weather? You brought back their weapons?"

His words hammered at the little cracks left in her armor. She ignored the onslaught. There were no good guys left. "I brought a lot of things back from Mount Weather," she snapped. "Besides, why do you think there haven't been any Grounder attacks on Camp Jaha in the last three months?"

He shook his shaggy head, and dark tendrils of hair fell over his face. She wanted to brush them aside, look into his eyes, make him see what she already knew. "The truce--" he started before stopping himself abruptly. His lips twisted, and she stared down at her pack before opening the zipper with a sharp tug.

"The truce is dead. I'm keeping our people safe now. And I have to do it from afar. After what I did--"

"After what we did," he interrupted, his voice gentler now. He squatted down next to her and brushed his fingers tentatively through the curtain of her hair, drawing it away from her face and tucking the strands behind her ear. She glanced at him. His eyes were soft, concerned. One hand still rested on the butt of his pistol. "So what now? What are you doing? Killing them off one by one when they get too close?"

She reached out and placed her hand over his where it was resting on his holster. Overhead, thunder cleared its throat. After a moment, Bellamy unclenched his fingers and Clarke removed her hand slowly, letting it linger a second too long. He glanced down pointedly and then back up, his eyes looking to her for something she couldn't give. Back in the tree, maybe, in the dark. But here...

Don't let him distract you from what you have to do.

She returned her attention to her pack. "Just killing the Grounders doesn't stop them. They're not afraid of death. It's basically an invitation to go to war. That'd be an easy way for Lexa to redirect their anger."

His brow furrowed. "Their anger? At what?"

Clarke sighed. "Bellamy, their people were captured, tortured, and turned into Reapers. They were killed by the dozens, by the hundreds. They're angry at the Mountain Men. And Lexa cut a deal with them, and then we killed them. They hate us for taking away their chance for retribution. Well, us and Lexa." It was petty, but part of Clarke was glad that Lexa hadn't gotten away with it all so easily. The young woman's role as commander was as tenuous as it had ever been. "They can't get revenge. They can only get..."

Bellamy nodded. "Us." His lips were pressed together in a thin, hard line, impatient and raring to go. "So what, then?" What do we do? He was asking her. As though they could be a team again. As though she hadn't learned to work alone.

She drew a large syringe out of the front of her pack and stood up, holding the needle aloft. She examined it with cool dispassion. "You have to keep them afraid."

Bellamy rocked back a little on his heels but remained in a crouch, rubbing one hand across his mouth as he watched her. He made no move to stand, and his lips seemed to lock around whatever it was he was going to say. She'd forgotten that he wasn't always a man who flew off half-cocked, someone who fought every problem with a hot head and hard fists. He could be still and watchful. Trusting. 

"Show me," he said.

There was no pleasure in the act, but there was a certain satisfaction. The nearest man was already laid out on his back in a bed of leaves. She pulled back the plunger of the syringe and watched it suck in nothing but air. Finding the artery in the Grounder's bulging arm was easy. The needle slid in without resistance.

"Yu gonplei ste odon," she whispered.

She gave the man 40 ml of gray sky. Then another, finding a different vein on the other arm. Then another. Then another. Until his breathing grew raspy and short and his lips turned blue. He started to seize. She turned away to the next man. Rain began to patter through the leaves and fall softly on the ground, her cold hands, her victims' pallid skin.

At some point she looked up to see Bellamy watching her carefully, his eyes following her every movement. She could feel some anger mounting in him by the way he swung to his feet, the way he prowled along the perimeter, surveying the scene but not entering it. He didn't interrupt her, but his eyes were racing over her face and hands as she worked. The sharp angle of his jaw was clenched tightly. When she was done, she stood and faced him.

"At first I tried injecting them with the drug they used to create the Reapers," she said in a controlled voice, as though explaining it rationally could make it better. "I just wanted to make the area unsafe for them. I wanted them to be afraid of this place. But it makes them wild. You can't control them after just one dose."

"So this..." He gestured with revulsion at the splayed-out men, their thrashing, twitching limbs gradually settling into piles of stirred-up leaves, subsiding into nothing.

"It's an air embolism. It blocks passage to the brain and heart, and all you need is a needle. I change the entry point for each one so that the Grounders don't recognize the cause of death. Getting them down is a little harder. I set up the gas canisters so that they activate with pressure--like a minefield. The Grounders are blind to any traps that aren't their own. They stumble into them every time. Then I come in with this." She waved the empty syringe for emphasis. "I leave the bodies in different places for them to find."

Bellamy's nostrils flared as he stared down at the ground, swallowing hard. When he looked back up, he shook his head at her. The rain was coming down harder now, dribbling through the branches and dripping from the tips of his hair. The droplets tracked dark paths through the dust on his face. 

I'm a monster, he'd said to her once after inadvertently causing death. What must he think of her now, dispatching people with cold calculation?

The bodies on the ground stilled, and the forest was quiet save for the needles of rain pattering the earth. She waited for him to speak. The moment stretched thin. Bellamy worked his lips but said nothing.

"We should go," she said finally. "The bunker's nearby. That should be safe enough for now."