Archive of Our Own

i — year one

Before — before her dad had made his discovery, before her best friend had betrayed her, before she’d been locked in solitary for a year, before she’d been strapped into a dropship headed for uncertainty — Clarke had dreamt about the weather.

She had dreamt about the sun on her skin, wounded if it would feel like the lights on Farm Station? She had imagined what the rain would feel like beating down on her scalp, was it like standing under the spray of the shower on the rare occasions she had time to linger? Would the wind blowing through her hair be like standing too close to the air vents in crowded corridors?

She’d thought about the cold too, longed to feel the sting of real ice and snow. Fantasized about standing on a frozen lake in the middle of winter when the temperature controls on the Arc went heywire for a week and no one could escape the heat. Pictured herself forming snow into balls like she’d seen in old films and laughing as it sailed through the air to hit someone with giddy excitement.

On the Arc, Clarke had always thought if she could finally experience weather, live through the changing of seasons, winter would be her favourite.

She was very, very, very wrong.

She wraps her arms tighter around her chest, trying desperately to tug her t-shirt higher up her neck while not dislodging it from where it’s tucked into her trousers. A strong gust of wind blows through the camp, feeling colder from where she’s sitting at the top of the wall, stirring her hair and causing her to shiver. Again.

The cold didn’t come gradually, like she’d thought it would, there was no real build up, no warning, no flashing signs. One night she went to bed and the world was temperate, and in the morning it felt like the world had frozen over.

Logically, Clarke knows that’s not what happened. She knows the temperature had been dropping gradually for weeks, they’d been preparing for it the best they could. But she hadn’t expected it to be as cold as it was all of a sudden.

The wind blows again, and Clarke breathes on her fingers, wiggling them as best she could to try and get some feeling back into them. She was starting to wish she’d accepted the gloves Jasper had tried to offer her before she’d come out for her turn to watch. He probably didn’t need them when he was inside the dropship, if not warm at least safe from the goddamn freezing wind.

Weather and seasons were not as great as she’d thought they’d be. Or maybe she just really fucking hates winter.

It’s hard to even find the beauty in it. In the way the sun reflects off of freshly fallen snow. Or the way the world seems just a little quieter, just a little more peaceful, just a little more beautiful. How can you find the beauty in it, when it’s trying to freeze her to her seat? It’s probably to be expected that winter also wasn’t as great as she’d thought it would be, nothing else about Earth had been what she’d dreamt it would be.

She wishes they’d had more time to build cabins or watch places with a roof. And she knows the night time watch was partly her idea, that she’d been the one to suggest they split people evenly along the wall for the best chance of spotting anything unusually, but right now, as her fingers turn numb and her feet feel like blocks of ice and her teeth chatter, she’s really regretting it. At least if there was someone else with her they could have huddled for warmth or something. Right now she’s scared she might freeze to death and they’ll find her in the morning like a statue and they’ll all stand around talking about how she was stupid enough to suggest separate watch points and not take up someone's offer of gloves. Maybe if she was lucky they’d put her frozen statue form somewhere safe and visit her sometimes.

She shifts her feet, tries to wiggle her toes in her too tight boots, and winces when it hurts.They needed better winter wear, and insulated cabins, and a bigger food supply, and better defences if they wanted to avoid all this next year.

If they even made it through this winter.

She had started listing the things they needed to do, needed to find, needed to achieve, eyes staring sightlessly into the semi-dark forest. That was another thing she’d learnt about winter. Even in the dead of night in the middle of the forest, it was never really dark anymore, not with the way the moon reflected off the white of the snow. It was beautiful in its own way, but deadly too.

She’s wondering how long it might take Raven to make a working heating system if they can find her the right materials, if they’ll have enough bandages and moonshine to deal with the inevitable increase in cases of frostbite about to take place, when something lands in her lap.

Blinking, reactions slower than she likes, Clarke prods carefully at the balled up fabric before looking up to who had thrown them. Bellamy stands a short distance away, a cup of something streaming in his hands, fingers red where they’re gripping the metal tightly. She’s suddenly kind of jealous of the way his hands are probably burning.

“If you get frostbite and lose a couple of fingers we’re all fucked, Princess,” he huffs, and it takes Clarke another extended moment — both shocked at the sudden sound after nothing but silence and her half frozen mind working against her — to peer back at the ball of fabric in her lap before forcing her stiff fingers to unwrap the ball until she’s left with a pair of gloves. Dark grey and fraying on one cuff and a small hole between the thumb and pointer finger on the left. They’re the best thing Clarke has seen in hours.

“Put them on,” Bellamy grumbles and Clarke can’t even find it in herself to make a retort, already fumbling to pull the fabric on her fingers, they’re much too big for her, but the material is softer than she expected. And warmer.

Like they’d come off of someone else's hands only minutes ago.

She looks back up at him, and it’s hard to really tell in the dark, but she swears there’s a flush in his cheeks he’d probably blame on the wind or the drink in his hands.

“Are these—” she starts, voice rough from being silent for so long, but Bellamy cuts her off before she can say anything more with a glare and by pushing the cup he’d been holding into her now gloved hands. She has to bite her lip to stop the almost moan she lets out at the sudden heat.

“Miller’ll be out to swap with you in an hour,” is all he says before he’s turning to walk away, back to his own lonely spot on their frozen wall.

“Bellamy,” she manages to say with her frozen lips and he pauses mid-step without turning around, just tilting his head slightly to the side, “Thank you.”

It’s hard to tell, but she’s pretty sure he shrugs one shoulder before he starts walking again, and she doesn’t think she imagines the quiet “don’t mention it” that trails back to her on the wind.

She gripes the cup a little tighter, lets his lingering warmth from the gloves seep into her skin as she watches him walk away, and hides a smile in the steam of her drink.

She tries to give him the gloves back when she sees him in the morning, but she simply brushes her off with a muttered comment about not freezing when people need her. She wears the gloves all winter.

ii — year two

During everything that had happened over the last year, Clarke thought she would be better prepared for their second winter on the ground. And in a way they were. With the Arc on the ground they had better shelter for the nights, and they’d managed to store more food this year, had even had the time to dry meats and stockpile medicinal plants. They’d even managed to treat some furs and made a hesitant start on trading with local grounder villages so that those who had to spend extended time outside had something extra to wrap around their shoulders.

With more people on the ground, and with their relationship with the grounders slowly improving, Clarke found herself with a little more time on her hands then she knew what to do with. Without the constant threat of imminent attack, or being the only person who knew how to stitch up a wound, or having to always make the hard choices, Clarke found that she had more time to think. About everything. To remember mistakes and faces and cries of pain.

Which is how she found herself outside the walls of Arcadia, carefully walking along the bank of the river as she looked for a plant that a lady in the nearest village had told her helped with sleeping. Clarke would really like to sleep for a full night without dreaming.

“Are you sure she said they still grow this time of year?” Bellamy’s voice cuts through her thoughts as he stomped through the half melted snow in front of her. She could see splatters of snow tinged with mud creeping up the legs of his trousers, seemingly unconcerned about the cold seeping through.

Not for the first time, Clarke found herself wondering how he wasn’t cold all the time, like her. Bellamy spent more time outside then she did, but he never seemed bothered by it. Barely even seemed to notice when a cold wind blew. She was kind of envious of his apparent cold immunity.

She wondered if it was learnt or hereditary, maybe she should see how Octavia handled the cold. Maybe it was a Blake family trait and she could glare at her for not shivering every other minute for months too. It might be fair, so Bellamy wasn’t on the receiving end of all her winter glaring and grumbling.

“Are you going to look for this mystery plant or just going to keep glaring at my boots?”

His teasing comment pulls her from her runaway thoughts — and they do that a lot, in winter, she’s noticed, run away from her, moreso now she’s suddenly got so much damn free time — and she’ll blame the wind on how her cheeks feel warm when she drags her gaze away from his legs to his face. Eyebrows raised and one hand on his hip, waiting for her to respond.

“You’re going to end up squashing the plants with the way you're walking around,” she says, trying for annoyed but feeling like she misses it with the way her teeth chatter slightly and she shives.

She fucking hates winter.

“If we ever find any of these plants I promise to apologise to them,” he pauses, frowning a little at her in a way that makes her want to hide. Like he’s seeing more than she wants to show anyone, and Bellamy already knows more about her then anyone else alive. Or dead.

“Where’s your hat?” he asks.

And it’s so far from what she was expecting him to say that her only response is a croaked out, “What?”

One of her hands, wrapped in the gloves she’d given her last winter, reaches for her head, pushing loose locks of hair from her braid behind her ears, like she’ll find a hat suddenly there instead. Even though she knows she hadn’t left with one. She didn’t even have one, had left them for the people who spent more time outside in the cold then she did.

“Your hat,” he repeats.

“I don’t have one,” she shrugs, lowers her hands and tries to carry on walking, to find the plants that might help her sleep because clearly she needs it because she’s starting to think Bellamy actually looks angry about her lack of hat. His arm shoots out to block her path before she can make it past him and she stumbles for a moment before righting herself, turning to glare at him.

“What do you mean you don’t have a hat?” There’s an edge to his voice now that has her stepping back and crossing her arms, suddenly feeling defensive.

“Are you seriously angry at me right now about not having a hat!?”

He doesn’t respond, just huffs out a breath and mutters too low for her to hear as he yanks his bag from his shoulder and crouches down to start looking for something. Clarke has never felt so confused about a situation before. And she’d spent several hours last month trying to haggle for some seeds from someone who didn’t speak any English and who didn’t seem to understand her rudimentary Trig.

“Bellamy, seriously what—?” is all she manages before he’s letting out a small sound of success and is standing up and closing the distance between them in two quick strides.

All her questions and annoyances die on her tongue as, carefully, slowly, gently, he reaches out to tug a soft hat over her head, tucking hair behind her ears and making sure it’s tugged securely over them, his fingers are chilly where they brush against her skin, calluses rough and she’ll blame the snow that’s started falling in earnest for the way she shivers and has to squeeze her eyes shut.

“There,” he says softly, fingers lingering on her cheeks for a heartbeat before they’re gone. She suddenly feels colder than she was before.

“Don’t you need it?” she asks, blinking quickly and licking her suddenly dry lips.

He shakes his head, eyes darting to her lips, and she watches as his hand raises slightly, like he’s going to reach out for her again, only to drop his arm with a cough and a half smile, “I’m fine. Someone’s got to make sure your ears don’t freeze. I’m not sure even you could pull off the one ear look.”

He’s turned away from her, re-packing his bag and slinging it over his shoulder before she can come up with a response other than ‘what’ again. Which is probably for the best, all things considered. Maybe she’s just overly tired, because all she wants to do is ask him to hold her face in his hands again.

They don’t end up finding any of the plants she’s looking for before the snow starts to come down harder and sends them back to camp. But Bellamy doesn’t ask for his hat back when they part ways, and she manages to sleep through the night without hearing screaming, so she doesn’t think it was a totally pointless trip.

iii — year three

She doesn’ know when it started, or even how, but most nights Clarke found herself in Bellamy’s assigned room in the interior of the Arks wreckage. Especially as the temperature dropped and people began retreating inside instead of sitting around the fires outside. Clarke didn’t really want to spend the hours between sleeping alone or trying to co-exist in the awkward tension with her mom, so she went to Bellamy’s.

Sometimes they’d talk about their days, about plans and ideas, bicker about how to improve day to day life and if one of them needed to go with the next trading group to get things they actually needed.

Sometimes they didn’t talk much at all. Bellamy would read one of the books that had survived or that he’d found, or he’d sit at his makeshift desk writing plans and lists and thoughts. And Clarke would draw, sketching the faces she saw in her nightmares and the places she never wanted to revisit and the future they wanted to build.

Sometimes Clarke wouldn’t say anything at all. Just let herself in and curl up in the cushioned chair he’d found in a bunker over the summer, and just let the sounds of him going about his evening surround her. Bellamy never tried to talk to her on those days, like he knew that’s not what she needed.

She’s pretty sure Bellamy is the person who knows her best in the world, and she has no idea how she’s ended up there. She’s more surprised to find she doesn’t hate it. She supposes she never really hated him either.

Bellamy isn’t in his room yet when she gets there, which makes sense, because she’d seen him talking to Kane earlier, the set of his shoulders hinting at it not going well. But it had snowed again today, and while Clarke has come to like winter more than she had that first year, she still hates the cold. And Bellamy’s room always seemed warmer than her own.

(Raven had given her a look when she had said that and Clarke was doing her very best to not think about it. It didn’t mean anything.

His room was just closer to the central pipes that still somehow worked then the room she shared with her mom was.

That was all, no matter what Raven thought. Or Monty. Or Miller. Or Octavia.

She was chasing the warmth, nothing else.)

Shaking her head to try and clear Raven’s know-it-all voice from her head, she lets herself in, hanging her coat up on one of the nails sticking out of the metal and rubbing one hand over her arm to try and generate some more warmth. Her lips quirk up slightly at his perfectly made bed and the neat stack of books and ordered papers on his desk. If someone had told her 2 years again that Bellamy Blake was as neat as all hell she would have probably laughed in their face.

And yet.

He’s always rolling her eyes at the state of her corner of the room on the rare occasions that he comes to find her, and she’s had to force him out more than once when’s tried to start tidying things away.

The room is small, like most of them are, so it doesn’t take her long to walk from the door to his desk, leaning over the back of the chair to look at what he’s been working on. More plans for the expansion they’ve been talking about, better built cabins, things made to last, so they can start moving people into real homes. They want to put down roots and help the place grow. It’s not really something they’ve talked to people outside of their group yet. Sometimes it feels like they’ll never get past the settling in period. Like her mom and her council are determined to draw it out as long as they can for some fucked up reason only they understand.

Even though, objectively, she knows that’s not true.

They’ve already made so many changes and improvements to the camp. Set the foundations for what one day could be something amazing. She just wished her mom and the rest of the council wouldn’t push back so much when Clark knew that her and Bellamy were right. That their plans would work.

She just wants everything that they’d done — that she’d done — to get here, to be worth it. She’d paid for this chance with blood, and all Clarke wanted was to be able to wake up after nightmares had chased away her dreams to a place that was good.

They have to do better, and starting with making the camp better seemed like the right place to start.

She doesn’t know how long she spends sitting at his desk, carefully sketching out the design ideas that Bellamy has come up with for their possible future, but it’s long enough for her original burst of warmth from stepping inside to dissipate and for her fingers to start going cold. A shiver runs through her, and Clarke frowns. She reallydoesn’t want to go all the way back to her room to find something warmer to wear, and she really doesn’t want to have to put her coat back on. The cuffs of her sleeves were the kind of damp that takes years to fully dry when she’d taken it off, and as warm as Bellamy’s room was she doesn’t think it’s warm enough to have changed that.

Biting her lips, she thinks about her options, eyes searching around the room before they stray to the only other chair in the room. Recently restuffed with unusable rags they’d pilfered from the pile of cast offs that had been growing outside the fence, there wasn’t much they could do about the dull brown colour, or the frayed spots on the arms where wood was starting to show, but it was comfy, and cosy, and something about it made people talk. In another life, Clarke is pretty sure that Bellamy and this chair would have made a hell of a therapist.

Her eyes catch on the jumper that’s folded neatly over the arm, dark blue and exceptionally soft and with a hole that Bellamy had re-stitched on the left elbow, he’d worn it yesterday, she knows. Had spent probably far too many minutes admiring the way it stretched across his shoulders and clung to his biceps when he’d pushed the sleeves up during dinner.

It takes all of three steps to get her to the chair. It’s softer than she remembers, her fingers curling slightly into it, and before she can think of a million reasons why she shouldn’t, Clarke pulls the jumper over her head, tugging hair free of the collar. The hem reaches her thighs and she’ll have to roll the sleeves up several times if she wants her hands free, and she feels a little bit like she’s drowning in it.

In the material, in the smell of metal and smoke and sweat and something that’s just Bellamy. It’s the safest she’s felt in weeks.

She doesn’t want to think about the implications of that either.

Instead of going back to the desk, Clarke sits down in the chair, folding her legs underneath her as she gets comfortable and picks up the book Bellamy had been reading last night. She’s squinting at the faded and tattered back cover, trying to work out that it’s about — without much luck — when the door slides open with a groan. Bellamy shuffles in, shoulders a little hunched and a small frown pulling his lips down, his steps dragging across the metal floor, and it must have started snowing, she thinks, taking in his damp hair and the stray flecks of white still melting on the shoulders of his jacket.

Her fingers itch for a pencil with the sudden desire to draw him like this. To remember the way he looks lost in thought forever. Clarke blinks quickly, her fingers curling tightly over the spine of the book as she shoves the thought away.

“Hey,” she says softly, and has to bite her lip to stop a smile from taking over her face at the way he startles, stumbling a little from where he was trying to take his boots off without sitting down.

“Jesus,” he curses, hand fisted over his chest as he glares at her, “Are you trying to give me a fucking heart attack, sitting there in the dark?”

“It wasn’t this dark when I sat here. And anyway,” she shrugs, finally letting a smile tug at her lips as she teases, “What happened to always being aware of your surroundings, huh?”

“I wasn’t exactly expecting to be ambushed in my own room,” he grumbles and Clarke can’t help the laugh that bubbles past her lips at that.

“Isn’t ambushing someone in their own room kinda an ideal place to do it? Lowered guards and the element of surprise?” she asks, brows raised as she watches him let out a huff of air, shaking his head at her.

“Ambushing someone in their own home is just a low, low, blow,” he mutters before finally sitting down at the edge of his bed to untie his laces, kicking his boots off until they land as far away as they can with a thud. He runs a hand through his hair, grimacing when it comes away damp, curls hanging limp across his forehead.

“I take it whatever Kane was talking to you about wasn’t something good?” she hedges, letting the book fall to the small gap between her knee and the arm of the chair before uncrossing her legs, ready to move in case he needs to just be alone right now. Even if she really doesn’t want to leave, but she will, if that’s what he needs.

“He was asking if one of us would go with the next trade group in a couple of weeks, which is fine, I mean we were just saying how we thought one of us should go with them,” he starts, one hand waving in the air between them, “But then he started talking about the guards training schedule and how he didn’t think it was ‘appropriate’” here he waves his fingers in the air sharply, “for any of the delinquents to be going with them. Like those kids don’t understand the ground better than any of them. Like they didn’t send them down here with nothing and now they want to take away all the things we found. We agreed to disagree about it, but then when I tried to talk about maybe starting some work on some more permanent buildings he brushed me off and said we’d ‘get there’. Like they haven’t all been saying that for months, and now we’re in the middle of another winter with half our people crammed into the goddam wreckage of a ship from space!”

He’d started pacing at some point, two steps to the door, three steps past where she’s sat on the chair and back, sock covered feet probably not making the kind of sound he wanted as he stomped past again, fingers flexing against his thigh, and Clarke acts on instinct as she reaches out, catching his wrist the next time he paces past.

“Hey, breathe,” she murmurs, fingers circling his wrist until she can feel his heartbeat racing against her fingertips. He comes to a stop, chest moving just a little too fast as he looks down at her, the anger that had built in his eyes fading away to confusion and then to amusement.

“Is that my jumper?” he asks, lifting one eyebrow as his other hand comes up to finger at the sleeve of her — his — jumper.

“I— what? No— I mean yeah but,” she rambles, brow furrowing as she opens and closes her mouth trying to come up with something to say that was better then what she’s just come out with. Anything would be better.

“I was cold.” she winces, closing one eye as she looks up at him. Maybe that wasn’t much better. But Bellamy is smiling softly, eyes sparkling with something that makes her shift nervously in the chair, enough that she finds herself standing up. They’re never going to be quite eye level but at least now she doesn’t have to crane her neck quite so much, trying to cross her arms but only succeeding in folding one across her middle because she’s still got her fingers wrapped around his wrist with her other hand, she can feel his heartbeat still, a steady thumping that she swears matches her own. She should let go, she knows. She doesn’t.

“You know,” Bellamy starts, licking his lips as he steps just a little closer, until their toes are touching, and her eyes dart down to his lips and quickly away, she really hopes it’s dark enough in here he can’t see her cheeks flush.

“Know what?” she asks when it seems like he’s not going to say anything else.

He blinks, twisting his wrist in her grip until he can slide his hand down and link their fingers, his other hand reaching out to touch the reinforced patch on the elbow of his jumper. He leans down, breath fanning across her cheek as he says, “I’m starting to think you only hang out with me for my stuff in the winter.”

“Damn, and I thought I was being sneaky,” she sighs, tilting her head as she looks up at him, one shoulder raising up and dropping dramatically.

“Nah, can’t sneak anything by me,” he says with a shake of his head, wet curls flying around and spraying drops of water across her face and the jumper and the wall.

“Hey! Stop that, it’s cold!” she squeals, trying to duck away, but Bellamy just holds her hand tighter, grip on her elbow solidifying as a slow grin spreads across his face.

“Oh? You mean this?” He asks, false remorse in his voice as he closes the gap between them to shake more ice cold water across her skin from his hair.

“Bellamy!” She tries to sound stern, but it comes out on a laugh that mixes with his own until the only sound in the room is their laughter echoing around them. “You’re going to ruin the jumper!”

He shakes his head again, the ends of his hair ticking across her lips and now she’s shivering for a different reason. But Bellamy seems to think it’s because of the cold, and she’s not about to correct him when he finally steps back a little, space and distance return to normal, and releases her elbow so she can wipe cold water away from her face.

“You’ve got a little,” he says, finger drawing a circle around face with a wide smile. It makes him look younger, more boyish. She wants to be the reason he smiles like that all the time.

“You’re the worst,” she mutters using the sleeve of her jumper to wipe at her cheeks, “You’re not getting this back by the way. It’s mine now.”

He brushes a lock of her hair away from her face, fingers lingering just a little too long as his smile goes soft, “Yeah, it is.”

Clarke doesn’t know how long they stand there, just a little too close, his fingers on her cheek and hers linked through with his, just looking at each other. She could count the number of freckles across his skin if she had the time, if he’d let her.

Eventually, they break apart with shy smiles, Clarke back to the chair with his book and Bellamy to his desk to look over the plans that she’d given life too. She stays until she’s hiding yawns into the collar of his jumper and the last echoing footsteps of people outside have died away, and he never does ask for his jumper back.

iv — year three and 8 months

When she wakes up, Clarke has no idea where she is or how she got there. The room is made up of shadows when she squints her eyes open and she can hear people talking, and people moaning in pain around her, calling for help. And she tries to get up.

Tries to go and help, but her legs feel numb and heavy at the same time, and all she manages to do is knock a blanket off her foot and tug at an IV in her arm. The last time she hadn’t known where she was she’d been in Mount Weather. Her friends had needed her. People had hurt them, had hurt her, hand kept them trapped underground and taken their blood, their bone marrow. They’d called for help and she’d tried.

Maybe they’d never gotten out. Maybe the last 3 years of her life had been a dream, a drugged hallucination.

Panic rises in her chest, and she forces her eyes open, cold fingers curling into the sheets covering the bed they’ve left her on. The ceiling above her is made of metal, dented and scratched and what looks like scorch marks. Mount Weather hadn’t looked like this. It had been all stark whites and spotless perfection.

If this isn’t Mount Weather, it must be somewhere worse, she thinks. No where on the ground was safe for them. She needs to move.

Her breath comes out in ragged gasps as she forces herself to sit up, dragging her legs over the edge, tugging the IV out with a wince as she rubs the dribble of blood away and barely managing to catch herself with shaking arms before she collapses to the floor. She feels cold all over, which makes no sense when she glances down and sees her thickest pair of trousers and a jumper she vaguely recognises, a memory trying to force its way to the front. Someone laughing, cold hands and bright eyes. She has to squeeze her own eyes shut as a sudden wave of dizziness overcomes her, wobbling on shaky legs.

“Woah, can I get some help over here? She’s up again!” a voice shouts, and Clarke winces when the sound seems to drill it’s way into her head, echoing and rattling around until she can feel it behind her eyes. She needs to do something before more people arrive, before there’s too many for her to possibly deal with.

Taking a deep breath that hurts something in her lungs, Clarke turns around, one fist raised as high as she can get it, ready to swing. But her arms feel heavy and turning around so quickly has made the dizziness return, and before she can think to stop herself, she’s falling.

The pain she’s expecting never comes, instead a pair of arms are wrapping around her, tugging her close and lifting her off the floor. Weakly, she tries to push herself away, to hit out at whoever is holding her, until a voice breaks through the fog and pounding in her head. Whispering softly near her ear. “Hey, hey, you’re okay Clarke, you’re okay. I’ve got you, you’re okay, everyone’s safe.”

She knows that voice. Knows what it sounds like screaming, laughing, calling out for help, teasing her in the sun. Bellamy, her mind supplies. It’s Bellamy’s voice.

He’s still whispering in her ear, strong arms suddenly under her knees and around her back, carefully carrying her back to the bed she’d just tried to escape from. But if Bellamy was here, was holding her, was telling her things were fine, surely she could believe him.

Because Bellamy never lied to her.

Not really.

To everyone else, sure.

But never to her.

“Bellamy,” she manages to rasp, but her throat aches, like the words themselves are trying to crawl their way out and it sends her coughing. Lungs straining and throat burning and head pounding. Maybe she’s dying, she thinks, eyes squeezed shut as she tries to suck in a breath. Maybe this is her penance for all the pain she’s caused.

“Shh, hey you’re alright. Here,” there’s a cup in his hand that Clarke’s addled mind can’t comprehend him having picked up, and then he’s helping her sit up carefully, tipping the cup to help her drink the lukewarm liquid. The burning in her throat subsides slightly, slowly, and it feels marginally easier to breathe. But it does nothing to stop her racing thoughts.

“Where are we?” she chokes out, voice barely recognisable as her own. Had she been screaming? She winces as she tries to look around the room again, adding an aching neck to her apparently never ending list of hurts, but she doesn’t see anything different from when she first woke up.

“The infirmary. You collapsed by the gates after insisting you were completely fine to go and find some chamomilla.” He says and she catches a look of something on his face — hurt? pain? annoyance? — before he turns to put the cup down and moves to pick something up he must have dropped when he’d caught her from falling.

Clarke frowns, the throbbing in her head seeming to speed up in time with her racing heat. She remembered being at the gate and feeling dizzy. They’d run out of chamomilla flowers and the plants from the river, and the pale pink berries she’d found after endless searching and she didn’t trust anyone else to find the right ones.

She’d been going out to find them because she knew where all of them where, and because they couldn’t spare anyone from medical to go out.

Because of the flu that had swept through the camp, something different and stronger than any of them was prepared for and it took half of them out in a week. Clarke had been helping the worst hit and she’d been fine. Until she’d passed out at the gates.

“The flu.”

Bellamy nods, lips pulled down in a small frown, and now that she’s looking at him without fear of danger, she can see the exhaustion in dark circles under his eyes and the worry creeping through. But his hands are gentle as he drapes a soft blanket over her legs and carefully pushes her back down so he can tuck it around her. She wonders if this was how he’d helped Octavia whenever she was sick, wrapping her up tightly until she couldn't move her arms.

“You’re a terrible patient, you know that? Wouldn’t listen when someone said you had a fever, argued the whole time it took to carry you back here, keep waking up to try and fight people,” he teases, but she can still see the worry behind his exhausted eyes. She must have really freaked him out, she muses, she can’t even remember if he was on guard at the gate.

With a struggle she manages to free one of her arms from his blanket prison to lay her hand on his forearm, fingers curling around slightly and she takes a moment to enjoy how warm he is, even through his jumper, compared to her chilly fingers.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

“Not your fault. You were delirious. And not because of my amazing good looks.” He drops one eye in a wink that causes her to wrinkle her nose and would have probably come up with some witty response if she didn’t start coughing. Again. Bellamy helps her sit up slightly, muttering nonsense reassurances and helping to brush sweaty strands of hair off her neck.

She feels worn out and exhausted by the time she can suck in a full breath again, half sagging back into her flat pillows and half on to Bellamy’s shoulder, fingers digging into the blanket to tug it higher up her shivering body.

“‘m tired,” she mutters, eyes falling shut even as she hears Bellamy huff out a small laugh. She feels a hand against her forehead, and tries to lean further into the warmth of his palm, but he’s already pulling the arm that’s holding her up away, carefully lowering her back down in the bed. She wishes he would hold her, to keep her warm. She bets he’s really warm right now.

“Don’t go,” she says, she thinks, eyes half open as her hand reaches out for him, catching on the material of his t-shirt, fingers clinging to it like it will make him stay. She shouldn’t ask him to stay, she thinks, should tell him she’s fine, but the words are already past her lips, and he’s already here.

“Get some sleep Clarke, I’ll be here when you wake up.” his voice drifts over her, soft and comforting and she finds herself making some noise of agreement, letting herself cling a little tighter to his hand that’s replaced his clothes and lets herself fall into sleep. She’s not sure if it’s a dream or something her fever-addled mind has conjured, but she swears she can feel his lips pressed against her forehead. But she’s already asleep before she can find out the truth.

Four days later Clarke sits next to Bellamy’s bed with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, small smile pulling at her lips as she watches him scowl at the soup she’d brought him.

“This is disgusting,” he mutters, voice rough.

“I’ll make you feel better,” she says, trying not to laugh, but he still turns his scowl on her before eating a spoonful of — what truly is horrendous soup, she would know, he’d made her eat five bowls of it, she’d think maybe Lincoln was trying to poison them all if it hadn’t actually turned out to helped — the soup with a grimace.

“Now who’s a terrible patient?” she asks, and does laugh this time when he glares at her. But she swears she can see his lips tilting up, just a little as she tries to muffle the sound in her stolen blanket.

“At least I’ve not tried to fight anyone,” he grumbles.

And Clarke laughs again, norse wrinkling as she shakes her head at him, tugging her blanket a little tighter around her shoulders, “Yet.”

v — year four

It had taken her four years, but Clarke had decided that winter was nice in theory.

It was nice to think about when you were trapped in space with nothing but recycled air and climate controls, when it was your first time stepping foot on the ground ever and everything was brand new, when it was the height of summer and all you wanted was one goddamn breeze of air. Then, winter seemed great.

In reality, she spent months with frozen fingers and constant hat hair and clothes that were never quite dry and glaring at people who got the seats closest to the fire until they moved. Clarke wasn’t too proud to admit she’d traded half her breakfast for a week last winter when the worst freeze they’d experienced yet had happened suddenly so she wouldn’t have to leave the confines of medical expect to get to her room. It had been worth it.

At least the last few winters had come at the expected time. Leaves had fallen from the trees and frost had started lingering on the grass and each morning the water inside the store tanks was just a little colder. She could build herself up for the inevitable freeze that was about to happen. It wasn’t supposed to be this cold in September, no matter what people said.

It’s just another reminder of why winter is the worst.

Someone has got the fire going in the spot they always seem to camp at when they make these trips by the time Clarke makes it back from the nearby stream. The flames aren’t high enough yet to throw any real heat past the few feet directly in front of it, but she knows once she gets closer it’ll help to drive off some of the chill that settled over her since the sun went down.

It takes everything in her not to sit straight down in one of the open spots next to Miller and try to warm her fingers. Instead, she carries the refilled skins of water over to where the rest of their new haul waits. Piles of new furs and wrapped meats and paper made from leaves and jams.

She’s kind of excited to try the new paper, and more excited to travel to the little village just south of Arkadia where they’re known for making it. It might have taken four years — nearly five — but she thinks they’re finally at a place with the grounders where they can share things without it coming with a cost. It helps, she thinks, that they’re more self-reliant now. They have stores of food and walls for protection and nearly everyone is moved into newly built homes, and this time when they’d made the three day trip to Polis for the gathering of the clans, they’d had things people actually wanted to trade for.

Sure, people were still wary of them, still kept their distance when they could, but it was hard to resist Monty’s newest batch of moonshine apparently.

Her fingers are growing a little numb by the time she’s managed to refasten the bag straps and made sure they’ve not lost anything yet. And she spends probably a little too long with her hands buried in the new furs, trying to talk herself out of hiding her face in them too. They’re just so soft, and once she wraps herself up in them all, probably warm too.

“It’s not supposed to be this cold yet,” she mumbles to herself, feet shuffling on ground that’s not even frozen, like that’s proving a point. She hadn’t come prepared for a night spent in the cold. The last few nights hadn’t exactly been hot but they’d been warm enough she hadn’t felt the need to grumble about it.

Normally, when they make this journey in winter, there’s extra blankets, gloves and a stolen hat, sometimes a borrowed jumper that she has no intentions of returning. Normally, there’s nylon tents and extra mats for sleeping on the hard ground. Normally, they bring the rover and someone pushes her in the direction of it with knowing looks she pretends to ignore.

Maybe she can just offer to take the first watch so she can spend all night huddled as close to the fire as possible. No one would know if she didn’t swap out until they all woke up.

A weight drops over her shoulders, startling her from her thoughts, something heavy and warm from someone else’s body. The top of a zip scratches slightly at her cheek as she turns her head too quickly, catching sight of dark curls and crossed arms. Reluctantly, she pulls her hands from out of the furs, holding to the edges of the jacket as she turns to fully face Bellamy, a teasing smile already on his face.

“Stop taking inventory, again, and go sit on top of the fire like we both know you want to,” he says, nodding towards where their group is slowly filling up the space, and now she’s got an extra layer covering body, she can smell something roasting. Her stomach gives a rumble that just makes his smile widen.

“What about you?” she asks while she slips her arms into the sleeves of his jacket. The cuffs hang past the tips of her fingers and she tries not to audibly sigh as his warmth settles over her.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’ll want this back,” he starts, reaching forwards to take hold of the opening of the jacket, long fingers making quick work of the zipper and pulling it up, knuckles grazing her jaw as he makes sure the collar lays flat. Clarke bites her bottom lip, hoping he can’t tell how quick her heart suddenly seems to be beating as he steps back, “But, not all of us start shivering at the first little gust of wind.”

It might be a trick of the dying light, but she swears his smile grows a little softer, and something shines in his eyes that she can’t put a name to. She’s caught glimpses of it before, flashes in mundane moments and in the middle of shouting matches at council meetings. It’s a look she’s been trying her best not to think too much about for years. Because once she starts thinking about his looks, she’ll have to start thinking about her own.

Frowning slightly, narrowing eyes, she mutters, “Not all of us are stupidly hot all the time like you.”

A flush fills her cheeks once the words are out of her mouth and the smile that had been soft suddenly turns into a smirk on his lips.

“You think I’m hot, huh?” he asks, taking a half step closer to her, and she has to curl her fingers over the cuffs of the jacket to stop herself from reaching out and touching him. She’s had to do that a lot lately. Stop herself from closing the distance between them and touching him. It would be so easy, she thinks. A step here, sitting a little bit closer on the benches at camp there, resting her head on his shoulder when they spend nights around the fire with their friends. He wouldn’t mind, she thinks, would probably close the distance himself if he thought that’s what she wanted.

And it’s getting harder to remember why it’s a bad idea.

Why there’s a distance between them, why she’d built the walls in the first place. It had made sense, she thinks, when she’d first come back. After closing the dropship door, after sending him into danger, after pulling that lever together, after trying to run away from the past, after negotiations and fights. After losing everyone she’d ever loved and hurting those who were left, keeping her distance from Bellamy had made sense. After everything.

After, after, after.

There was so much after that Clarke thinks maybe she forgot that at some point, she was supposed to start living again.

“I think,” she starts, swallowing heavily and trying for a teasing smirk of her own as she steps closer and past him, shoulder brushing his arm as she learns up to say softly, “that that fire is going to keep me warmer.”

She catches sight of his face, eyes a little wide, tongue flicking out to lick his lips, cheeks a little red. It’s not everyday she gets to leave Bellamy Blake a little flustered, so she tries to commit the image in her mind, thinks that maybe she’ll try to draw it when they get back. Someone passes her a battered cup when she sits down, sighing happily as the heat from the fire surrounds her and her friend's idle chatter fills her up. She doesn’t look back at him, but she can feel his eyes one her.

Later, when Bellamy joins them, sitting in the empty spot to her right without comment, Clarke doesn’t think about what she’s doing. Doesn’t worry about before’s or after’s or even tomorrow. She shuffles a little closer, closing the distance between their sides and carefully, slowly, leans her head against his shoulder.

There’s a moment, a split second, where he tenses, she feels his breathing hitch, and then he adjusts the way he’s sitting, arm coming around her shoulders and tugging her a little closer. Warmth spreads through her body, but it’s nothing compared to the feeling on his lips ghosts across her hair. She’ll give him his jacket back in the morning, but for now, she hides here smile in the fabric that smells like him.

+ i — year four and three months

“I think this yarn is defective,” Clarke mutters, pulling at a thread that’s sticking out of the middle of what is supposed to be a scarf. She’s not sure how there’s a loose thread in the middle, she hadn’t added in new yarn yet, hadn’t even tried to do anything overly fancy with it like some of the other people around her were. Pulling a little harder at the thread has her eyes widening in horror as the whole scarf suddenly starts unravelling.

“Shit, shit, shit!” She curses, giving up and yanking angrily on the thread until the last three hours of her life lies in a tangled mess in her lap, needles clacking together as she resists the urge to stab them into the cushion she’s sat on. It shouldn’t be this hard to knit a scarf.

Two weeks ago, before she’d talked herself into asking someone to show her how it was done, she’d seen a kid no older than 13 reenacting a whole story while they managed to finish a pair of socks. People had been doing this for generations, making whole outfits with different patterns and colours and styles, and she couldn’t even make a scarf.

Clarke was trying really hard to not take it as a sign.

Because if she couldn’t even knit something simple, if she couldn’t do something that people had been doing before the world ended, if she couldn’t create something meant to keep someone warm — well, that would be proof that she wasn’t meant to, right?

Maybe she was just meant to destroy, to kill, to hurt. Maybe all her carefully constructed walls were exactly where they were meant to be. Maybe keeping her distance was what she should do. Maybe she could learn to be happy, watching from the outside, never getting close enough to touch. Maybe that’s all she gets now, after everything she’d done to get them here.

“Hey now, no need for any of that. No one's first try is ever perfect,” a voice says, Clarke thinks her name is Brenda, but she’s not sure, and instantly feels bad for not remembering, more so when she reaches over and gather’s her failure up in wrinkled hands.

“It’s not my first try either,” she mutters, picking at the fraying hem of her t-shirt as she watches Brenda find the end of the yarn and finishes two rows in the time it would have taken her to get the knot right. She has to blink back sudden tears as she reaches out to take needles back with a smile that she hopes doesn’t look too sad. She doesn’t know why she’s nearly crying right now.

“Sometimes… these things take a little time to get the hang of,” Brenda says slowly, not letting go of the thin pieces of metal and placing one hand on top of her. Her fingers are cold when they squeeze gently, “And sometimes you never end up with a perfect thing, but as long as you like it, or whoever it’s for, likes it, then what does perfect matter, hm?”

Finally releasing her hand with one last squeeze she turns back to her own work, some complicated looking pattern with interchanging colours and textures. It’s a testament to where they are, Clarke thinks, that this small group of people get to meet every other day and knit things not because they need them, but because they want to. There’s no rush or demand, just people doing something they like.

When was the last time people on the Arc got the chance to knit something as a gift with yarn that had never been used before?

When did they stop having to fight everyday for the chance of this?

When did they arrive at peace? And how did she miss it?

Blowing out a breath and blinking tears away, Clarke picks up the needles again. She takes it one stitch at a time, losing count and only having one more slight breakdown before people start breaking away. Going about other business with comments about “see you on Friday!”.

She has half a scarf, some rows a little longer than the one before and more stitches dropped only to be picked up again later then she wants to count, but it’s something, she thinks. Or, it could be. It’s barely long enough to wrap around her own neck after two afternoons spent working on it and she doesn’t want to think about how long it’s going to actually take her to make it long enough for Bellamy.

If only she’s had her epiphany on life and walls and distances a year ago. She might have something half decent by now.

There’s still a couple of hours before dinner, and it’s not particularly cold out right now, the first signs of spring starting to show in the flowers poking through the ground and the air warming, but Clarke finds herself walking towards Bellamy’s cabin anyway. She knows he won't be there, he had a morning guard shift and had mentioned something about helping to fix a leak in someone's roof, so she’ll have a little time before he comes back. Not enough to finish the damn thing, but to at least hopefully add an inch or two. She’d even take a single centimetre.

She knocks on the door, just in case, but there’s no sound from behind the wood as she pushes the door open carefully, fingers tapping gently on the sanded wood as she closes it behind her. They’d designed and built all the cabins the same, four walls and a roof, room to expand if people wanted, room to add walls inside if they needed too, room to grow.

Bellamy’s was the last one to be built, and while it wasn’t technically different from any of the others, it felt different. Like they had learnt from all their mistakes on the first cabins and avoided them all on this one. Whenever she stepped inside, it felt like a beginning.

(She’d made the mistake of saying that to Raven and Harper after they’d drank a little too much of traded wine on their last trip to Tondc. There’d been a long shared look that Clarke had understood a little too well, followed by dramatic sighs and ten minutes spent with them trying to explain she was in love.

It had been awkward and terrible, but she’ll always cherish the way Raven had fallen off her seat and Harper had spit out wine when she’d told them she knew that.

It was nice to surprise them with her ability to understand her own emotions sometimes, even if they still didn’t know what she meant about his cabin.)

There’s more room in here then the cramped space he’d been given on the remnants of the Ark, and he’d hung up a spare length of cloth to close his bed off from the larger room, but she can still see it slightly as she walks to the armchair they’d dragged in. There’s items scattered across the table, and books lining the bookshelf he’d built himself and drawings hung up on the walls.

The hole on the arm has gotten worse over the years, more wood than cotton left, and if you sat on a certain angle a spring would spend a lot of time poking you in the leg, but it was still just as comfy as the day they’d found it in a bunker. Still made you want to spill your thoughts and fears and dreams. There's the remnants of a fire smouldering in the heath that’s kept the room warm all day and she places a rough bound pile of papers on the table behind the chair, moving discarded tools aside, and squinting at the looped writing before giving up on trying to decipher the words. He’d been trading stories with a group of people for the last couple of months, a rudimentary book club spanning clans and too many miles and too many handwritings.

Maybe that’s when peace happened, she thinks as she sits down, when Bellamy had first scribbled a myth on a sheet of paper and handed it to a little girl in Polis so she could share it with her sister. She’d found him again the next time they were there, with a shy smile and asked for another and offered to share one with them in return. It had spread after that, one story turned into five, turned with fifteen, turned into books full of them, turned into their last trade always being for a different bundle of papers. Her lessons on how to make their own paper couldn’t come soon enough.

She’s managed to finish two rows and start on the third without realising as she’s been sat there thinking, and has to bite her bottom lip to stop a giddy smile from taking over her face even as tears pool in her eyes. It’s never going to be the perfect scarf, but maybe Brenda’s right, maybe things don’t have to be perfect. Maybe it’s enough that she tries.

She starts crying at some point. She doesn’t know when, or why, only that there’s tears running down her cheeks and making her fingers shake and causing her vision to go a little blurry because she doesn’t see the door open, or hear Bellamy’s greeting. Not until he’s suddenly kneeling in front of her, concern etched on his face as his hands hover in the air over her shoulder, her knee.

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong? Clarke? Are you okay?”

A laugh bubbles past her lips before she can stop it, and she has to squeeze her eyes shut tight at the look of confusion on his face before she laughs again. A slightly delirious sound that isn’t doing anything to reassure him that everything is fine.

Clarke shakes her head, hair flying in her face with the movement and before she can reach up to brush it away, Bellamys fingers are already there, rough calluses gentle on her cheeks as he tucks locks behind her ears and resting on her shoulder, thumb brushing her jaw and neck.

“I’m knitting you a scarf,” she manages to say, swallowing down delirious laughter as she opens her eyes. He’s a lot closer than she expected and this close she can see his eyes really are just a deep brown, irises lost in the colour and framed by long lashes.

“I— what?” he stutters, but doesn’t move. Thumb still stroking her skin gently and his other hand has landed on her knee, just on the edge of her scarf. It’s long enough now that it’s still touching her lap when she has to hold the needles up to her nose.

“A scarf,” she repeats, worrying her lip as she watches the way his eyes glance down to her haphazard work, taking it uneven rows and one sizable hole she doesn’t remember making, lips twitching up a little before looking back up at her.

“A scarf,” he repeats, head tilting and that look entering his eyes, “for me?”

Clarke doesn’t quite trust herself to speak, so she just nods instead, transferring the needles to one hand and waving it in the air, not watching the way it moves when she can’t draw her eyes away from him.

“I—“ she pauses, and has to look away now in order to say what she wants to, which isn’t easy when he’s so close but she can see the window just over his shoulder, a square of greying sky and focuses on that, “I keep stealing your clothes. Well I mean, you gave me the gloves and the hat and the blanket, and just never asked for them back, which I don’t really think is stealing. Technically.”

“Technically,” he repeats and Clarke drags her eyes away from the window to glare at him, “sorry, sorry, go on.”

But there’s a smile on his lips, something he’s trying to keep contained, it makes it easier to talk to him, when he smiles at her like that. Soft and boyish, and just Bellamy.

“On the Arc, I always thought winter would be the best season. With the way the sun would reflect off the snow and people huddling around a fire and how still everything could get. But then we got down here and it was just— cold. There wasn’t anything beautiful about it, because we didn’t have food, or the right clothes or even anywhere to sleep. I really thought we’d die that first winter, Bellamy. From the cold or the grounders, I didn’t know. Didn’t really care,” she’d picked his hand up from her knee at some point, dropping the knitting needles in favour of playing with his fingers, his hands have always been so warm, “And then you gave me your gloves. And you just— you kept giving me things to keep me warm. Even when I didn’t deserve them.”

“Clarke—” he starts, but she cuts him off with a shake of her head.

“You’ve been keeping me warm for years, keeping me alive, one winter at a time, Bellamy. And I know I’m not always the easiest person to be around, but you never— you never gave up on me. Even when you probably should have. So I’m knitting you a scarf. Which is— look sewing up wounds is just so much easier than this okay? And I think this yarn is defective or something because—”

“Clarke,” he cuts her off again and this time she lets him, because honestly, she has no idea what she’s going to say next to embarrass herself.

“Yeah?”

“I’m going to kiss you now, okay?” he asks softly, leaning closer and all Clarke can do is nod.

He hesitates for a second longer, and then the distance between them is gone and his lips are pressing against hers, softly, tentatively. It’s nothing more than a press of lips against each other, and then Clarke lets go of his hand and wraps it around his neck, fingers tangling in the curls at the back of his neck. And apparently that’s all the permission Bellamy needs, because the hand that’s been carefully stroking her jaw all this time moves up to cup her cheek and his other rests of her waist, pulling her closer, and closer still. The half finished scarf falls to the floor, needles clattering, but neither of them notice, or care, not when Clarke pushes herself up on her knees to deepen the kiss.

She’d thought about this, dreamt about it on her good nights, what it would be like to kiss Bellamy Blake. She should have known it would feel warm. Like someone was heating her up from the inside out, burning through her very veins until she doesn’t know how she’s ever lived without this. Without the feeling of his lips on hers.

Clarke doesn’t think she’ll ever feel cold again if she could just stay like this, with Bellamy’s lips kissing the corner of her lips, her cheek, down her jaw. Like he’s trying to map her face with lips, like he’ll never get another chance.

“I know how to knit,” he mumbles against her skin, breath warm and it takes a moment for his words to register in her head.

“What?” She breathes, pulling back so she can look at him better, trying to frown at the grumble he lets out, and she’s not strong enough to stop him from kissing her jaw, his fingers squeezing at her hip, which doesn’t help her think. Apparently it doesn’t hinder him.

“Knit. I’ll help you with the scarf.”

“You’ll— oh,” she blinks, and pulls her hands away from his hair to cup his cheeks, tugging his head up so she can look at him, a smile pulling at her lips, and it hits her suddenly. The thing that’s in his eyes she’s never wanted to name, the thing she’s been hiding from behind her own walls.

“I love you,” she whispers, and then she kisses him again.

Later, before she can even shiver in the cooling air, Bellamy pulls the blanket they’d kicked to the bottom of his bed up until it covers her shoulders, and she settles herself against his arm, her fingers tracing nonsense patterns on his chest as his tap an unfamiliar rhythm against her side. She’s never felt warmer, lying in his bed, surrounded by him.

“I love you too, I don’t think I said that yet,” Bellamy says, pressing a kiss to her temple and she smiles, pressing her lips over his heart.

“You didn’t, but I won’t hold it against you,” she murmurs, tilting her head up slightly to look at him just as he leans down to press a kiss to her nose.

If she could stay like this, maybe next winter won’t be so bad, she thinks. Maybe she could even grow to like it.