Chapter Text
It doesn't matter how many Grounders testify against Finn. It doesn't matter how many of them witnessed him slaughter eighteen of their people.
Bellamy took the blame and the Commander wants his life.
So it's not Finn Collins tied to a flank of wood. It's not the boy who wasted a month of oxygen, who floated into Clarke's life on the dropship, who she let run his fingers along her shell of a heart, who broke it. It's not him.
It's Bellamy. Bellamy Blake: failed assassin, rebel king. Her partner. Her friend. Her other half.
Clarke barely registers the moving of her feet as she makes her way to Raven. She's glaring through the fence at the army of Grounders who are preparing to torture their friend, clutching tightly onto Finn's hand. Bile rises in Clarke's throat as a wave of envy runs through her. After tonight, she won't have Bellamy the way Raven and Finn have each other ever again.
“I need your knife,” Clarke announces.
Raven gives her a once over, apprehension drawn across her face. “There's nothing you can do, Clarke.”
“There is,” Clarke counters. She sticks her hand out, not taking 'no' for an answer. “Please, Raven.”
Raven battles with herself, hesitating before she reaches into her pocket and pulls out her blade. Clarke takes it and slides it up her sleeve. She meets Finn's remorseful eyes, then she turns on her heel to leave before he can do something she'll hate him for, like apologize.
Bellamy's life is worth more than “I'm sorry.”
The ten minutes it takes to walk to the Grounder camp feels unreal, like a dream, like a nightmare. Clarke feels galaxies away as she fingers the knife in her sleeve. Not even the sharp edge cutting into her skin keeps her rooted to reality.
Approaching the Commander, the words which tumble from her mouth feel thick and foreign on her tongue. “Can I say goodbye?”
There's a beat of silence. Clarke wonders if Lexa has any idea what she's about to do. She nods her assent, and Clarke runs as fast as she can towards Bellamy, one last time.
He doesn't seem surprised to see her, only angry. She grabs his face in her hands and forces him to look her in the eye, to figure out what she plans to do, to understand why.
“Clarke,” he chokes out. She feels his jaw tick against her fingers. “What are you doing?”
Clarke pulls her hand back, just enough for Bellamy to see the glint of steel poking out of her sleeve. He closes his eyes. He expels a long, heavy breathe from his lungs. Clarke can't stop the sob which wracks her body when he turns his head and places a hard kiss to her hand.
“They'll kill you,” he whispers into her palm.
She turns his head so he's looking at her and shakes her own. “They already have.”
Bellamy stares at her, hard, longingly, sorrowful, before steeling himself and pressing onward. “Take care of Octavia for me,” he orders. “Take care of all of them. You hear me, Clarke? You keep doing that for me.”
She nods her head vigorously, streams of tears making paths through the dirt on her face.
“They need you. None of this will work without you,” Bellamy says.
Clarke wants to remind him they need him too. She needs him. She wants to remind him he's the reason they all survived and she wants him to know he's the one who helped her live again.
Clarke wants to admit she can't do this without him. But, the truth is, she can. She just doesn't want to.
One hand snakes into his hair, pulling him down to her as she rises on her tiptoes and captures his bottom lip between hers. He kisses her back softly, tearfully, not at all the way she imagined he would the few times she's allowed herself to dream. Clarke slips Raven's knife from her sleeve. She presses it into Bellamy's abdomen until she feels his body sulk against her.
When she break their kiss, he buries his face into the crook of her neck with the last bit of energy he has. “Thanks, Clarke.”
She stumbles away from him, head spinning, lungs aching, and collapses to ground before him.
Clarke hears Octavia's screams in the distance.
They're almost drowned out by the howl of her soul splitting in two.
Almost.