Work Text:
The chancellor’s office was quiet, lit by the mismatched blue and yellow glow of long working Ark lights, and faded like everything else once touched by recycled air. The metal walls pressed in close, their seams and scuffs catching faintly in the uneven light. Clarke sat at the desk, papers spread in loose stacks around her, they’d long since stopped trying to keep tidy. Her chest felt heavy, her mind numbed by the impossible decision waiting for her.
She glanced up to where Bellamy had given in to sleep on the couch and let out a breath.
They’d been tasked with charting who would be most essential if the worst came to pass, weighing skillsets and alliances like currency for survival. They’d agreed to meet here, to finish the task without distractions, but exhaustion had claimed Bellamy somewhere around the seventies, civilian profiles still scattered where he’d left them.
Full nights of rest were rare for either of them, and once she realized he’d dozed off, she couldn’t bring herself to wake him.
Clarke let out a sharp breath as if she could exhale the pressure pressing down on her. The list stared back at her. White paper against scavenged steel, the numbers climbing in relentless order.
99.
100.
They bored into her vision, unblinking, as if waiting for her to break. A faint furrow pulled between her brows. Not anger, but the taut focus of someone trying to shoulder a decision too heavy to carry alone. More than once she had wondered if she deserved this type of absolution. She didn’t believe so, Bellamy on the other hand…
Her lips pressed into a thin, deliberate line.
This one was easy. Her hand didn’t falter this time. The pen glided across the page in two, certain strokes, his name taking its place among the others.
She looked back at the list and the last slot under his name.
Clarke drew in a shaky breath, her thoughts collapsing in on themselves with every second.The pen slipped from her grasp. Her eyes shut tight as the pain surged through her—sharp, unrelenting, impossible to outrun. She didn’t deserve this. Not the space she’d carved onto the page, not the chance it pretended to offer. Resolution was a lie. Forgiveness, impossible. The weight of all she had done pressed too deep, sinking into her chest until it was hard to tell where it ended and she began.
Tears burned at the corners of her eyes. Trembling fingertips pressed against her lids, trying to breathe through the tide threatening to pull her under.
They were better off without her.
Clarke's eyes opened at the sound of movement, startled to find Bellamy pushing himself up from the couch. She hadn’t even realized he was awake until she caught his gaze set on her. Her elbow slipped from the desk in defeat as another wave of emotion broke through. It was rare for her to let anyone see her like this, but with Bellamy she didn’t care.
He stepped up behind her, eyes catching on the progress she’d made without him—and then on his name, written there among the others.
“If I’m on that list, you’re on that list.”
Her head shook, tears spilling hot down her cheeks.
“Bellamy… I can’t.”
“Write it down,” he said, voice steady, certain. “Write it down, or I will.”
Her eyes fell back to the list, but her head kept shaking. She couldn’t bring herself to do it.
Bellamy reached across the desk, drawing the notepad toward him. He leaned in, writing her name in bold, deliberate strokes without hesitation. His handwriting stood out against hers, sharper, more certain. When he reached her last name, he didn’t look away. He held her gaze as if to make sure she understood. She mattered here.
She mattered to him.
Then he capped the pen and slid the paper back toward her, quiet and final.
“So what now?”
“Now we put it away... and hope we never have to use it.”
The smallest trace of disbelief tugged at her expression. “You still have hope?”
“Are we still breathing?”
Clarke’s gaze fell back to the list, her mouth softening into something close to resignation.
Hope felt like a luxury she no longer trusted.
Bellamy reached out, his palm settling on her shoulder with a steadiness she felt more than she saw, a quiet anchor offered without a word.
She closed her eyes, relief threading through her before she could stop it. Her hand lifted to meet his, easing into the space he offered. His touch was rare, and she felt the weight of how much she needed it.
Warmth seeped into her, loosening something wound tight in her chest. The rest she forced down. The sudden swell of feeling. The weight of everything unsaid. They were always perched on the edge of war, of catastrophe. There had never been room for this. Not for what she felt for him. Not for whatever they might have been if the world were different.
This was the closest they had ever come, and she didn’t want to let it go.
Sometimes she wondered if her parents had ever felt this weight, this kind of love that pressed as heavily as duty. If they, too, had found themselves trapped between devotion and survival, giving in to convention because there had been no other way forward. Maybe they had loved with the same ferocity, the same fear, only to find that even love could become a burden when the world left no space for it.
“Get some sleep,” Bellamy mumbled.
The words drew her back to reality, but she stayed rooted in place. As he began to pull away, her hand found his, holding on.
Two months. That was all they had. Two months.
“Bellamy…” Clarke stood to face him, letting his hand fall though her gaze held on, searching. A flicker of hesitation passed through her but exhaustion dulled her restraint.
Tonight she chose selfishness.
“Stay with me?”
The words slipped out gently, but their weight was unmistakable. His expression broke, eyes darkening with a grief so raw it looked like they'd split something open inside him. He shook his head before he could stop himself, his voice tearing out pained and nearly broken.
“Clarke.”
He couldn’t be that with her, casual.
“If this is about the world ending—”
“The world is always ending.” Clarke swallowed against the unease, her eyes fixed on his. “This isn’t just about needing someone.” She drifted forward, the space between them slowly dissolving.
What she’d felt for him at first hadn’t been friendly, let alone romantic. She cared about him, that he was okay, that he was on her side. And then one day it shifted, sharp and undeniable, into something a little more.
In barely a whisper she said, “I want... you.”
The words felt dangerous, heavier than she expected. Not a plea for comfort, not some fleeting escape. She didn’t want a hollow imitation of closeness. She wanted him, all of him, in a way that stripped her of any pretense. For so long she had believed there was simply no room for that kind of wanting. Not when the world kept asking for every last bit of her, not when survival came first and everything else came second. She had seen it in him too, in those fleeting shifts of his voice, in the quiet moments when his gaze lingered longer than it should. She wasn’t blind. She had only been too caught up in duty, too tied to everyone else’s needs, to imagine reaching for something of her own.
But time was narrowing around them, slipping through her hands like water. As the silence stretched, she braced for rejection only to watch his defenses falter and his eyes search hers with a raw, unsettled honesty that mirrored her own.
He held her gaze, something shifting in him, turbulent and new. She watched his guard ease, watched something softer surface as he lifted his hand to tuck a stray strand behind her ear. His fingers lingered in a way that felt like a question.
Her head tilted toward him as his hand slid to her jaw and he leaned in.
Their lips met, careful and tentative. For a suspended moment, they hovered there, tasting the edges of something they had denied for far too long.
Then hunger rose up, sharp and consuming. The years they had spent holding themselves apart collapsed in a single breath. Clarke surrendered to it, starved for a warmth she had denied herself again and again. And for Bellamy, the world went quiet. Duty faded, fear thinned, everything outside this room drifting away until only her touch was real. Nothing was burning. Time was no threat at all.
Not in this moment.
Bellamy pressed closer, his mouth deepening against hers as his hands slid up the curve of her neck and tangled into her hair. He kissed her like he’d been deprived of it—unhurried, and with a need that pulled every ounce of her closer. His lips moved over hers again and again, lingering, claiming, drinking her in as if he couldn’t get enough.
“You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do that.” He breathed out along her jaw line when they came apart. His voice was rough and gruff with certainty. Clarke nodded as she reached up and met him again. Deeper this time, faster, like she was trying to grasp hold of this fleeting sliver of time between them.
She didn’t want to think about what would happen once they stopped. She didn’t want the moment to collapse under the weight of reality.
His hand caught her hip, drawing her in, his arm sliding up her back to anchor her against him. Clarke’s heart kicked hard in her chest. She’d never been this close to him, not really. Touch between them had always been quick, fleeting moments, gone before she could register the heat of them.
But this was different. This was deliberate. Intentional. This was time, this was permission, this was the freedom to touch him and to let herself revel in the solid weight of his body pressed into hers.
A shaky breath left her as he drew back, the sudden absence of his mouth a sharper ache than she’d prepared for. The dim office swam around her again. Scuffed metal walls, the stacks of paper half-falling across the desk, the muted hum of air passing through Arkadia’s vents. Bellamy’s hand lingered at the back of her neck, his chest rising and falling quick against hers. He looked at her like he wasn’t sure if he should step forward again or retreat altogether. His thumb shifted just slightly against her spine, a touch so small and unthinking it unraveled her even more.
Clarke lifted a hand to his jaw, brushing her thumb across the stubble there. The small scrape of it grounded her.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered, less confession than surrender.
He let out a low sound and closed the space again, his mouth finding hers with a new urgency. The kiss was deeper this time, deliberate, like he’d decided if the world was going to burn, he would burn with her.
Clarke gripped the fabric of his shirt in tight fists, dragging him closer until the desk pressed against her thighs again. She didn’t care. She wanted the weight of him against her, wanted every barrier between them gone. Her breath hitched as his mouth traced the line of her cheek, then down to her throat, heat searing against her pulse.
The room felt impossibly small, air thinning around them. Each second fragile and breakable—yet she wanted to stretch them, to live inside them and never face the wrath of reality again.
Bellamy’s forehead came to rest against hers, his breath ragged.
“Clarke…” he murmured, and it wasn’t protest so much as her name spoken like a prayer.
She shut her eyes, her lips brushing his as she answered, steady now.
His mouth didn’t leave hers as he lifted her, strong hands anchoring her hips until she slid onto the desk.
She hooked her legs around him instinctively, pulling him closer, the hard line of his chest pressing into hers. The kiss deepened, messy now, almost frantic, as though Bellamy couldn’t get close enough no matter how he tried. She threaded her fingers through his curls, tugging until his breath caught against her mouth.
When he finally broke away, it was only to trail kisses down her throat, his breath hot where her pulse raced. Clarke’s head tipped back, eyes closing as a shaky sound left her, one she’d never have let anyone else hear.
“Clarke,” the name fractured against her collarbone like he was fighting for control.
The desk creaked under her, and the sound snapped him back enough for his forehead to press against hers, breathing hard. For a brief moment, Bellamy’s eyes flicked over her shoulder to the couch behind them and a faint smirk tugged at his mouth before he kissed her again, slower, coaxing. When he finally pulled away, it was only to guide her from the desk, leading her the short distance to the couch.
The cushions dipped beneath her as he followed, bracing on one arm while the other cupped her face.
For a moment he just looked at her, his expression raw, stripped of all the walls he usually held between them. And then he kissed her again, soft, like he wanted to memorize every second.
Clarke’s hands roamed his back, pressing, pulling, keeping him anchored to her.
“Bellamy…” Her voice broke against his mouth, her heart pounding so hard it felt like it might leave a mark beneath her ribs.
Bellamy caught the sound in another kiss, lips insistent yet reverent, torn between hunger and restraint. She knew this was what she wanted—had for longer than she’d ever let herself name. Yet beneath the certainty, something shifted. As if stepping closer might change everything, as if the wrong move could splinter the very fragile thing they’d been holding between them.
“Tell me to stop,” he murmured, the words slipping between kisses. There was something unsteady beneath them. Fear that this was fleeting, that she didn’t feel it the way he did, that once they pulled apart it might all disappear. He couldn’t bear the thought, but he would still give her the choice.
She shook her head with certainty as if reading his mind. Her fingers curling tighter in the fabric at his shoulders.
“Never.”
For a moment, their foreheads pressed together, breaths ragged, both of them trembling under the weight of how much they wanted and how much they stood to lose. His breath hitched against hers, uneven and unsteady, the space between them gone entirely.
And in there in her touch, something shifted.
His body softened against her, tension slipping out of him piece by piece in a way it ever had before.
Bellamy had meant it when she asked.
He still had hope.
So long as Clarke was by his side, and he, beside her.