/2/ our scars, they mend

What good are hands that save others if she can't even save herself?

Or

Clarke is fighting for her life, and Bellamy is there when she needs him most. Set after {2.08}.

trigger warning:attempted rape

so this is going to be dark, and writing it certainly put me and my beta (thanks Zalsburry!) through the wringer, but I promise it's not all bad. and i know i said the last thing i wrote was the angstiest thing to have ever graced my keyboard, but now i'm looking back at my past self and going, oooh child. i'm literal trash i know. but don't worry; it starts out horrific and you'll probably be very incredibly mad, but there is fluff at the end of the tunnel!

ps: i couldn't bear to turn any of the delinquents we actually know into vile human beings so i took creative liberty and created the bucket of slime that is Tripp Pierce

pps: merry Christmas! ;D

If you had asked Clarke earlier in the day what she thought she'd be doing later that night, she would've told you any number of things. Maybe, I don't know, eating dinner? Following that up with a trip to the Comms Tent? Going over the map of Mount Weather again? Worrying about Monty. About Jasper.

Certainly not trudging through the forest in the dead of night. Not stopping in the middle of a clearing. Not taking her frustration out on the ground at her feet.

She drops to the dirt and curls her knees to her chest, picking up a stray twig and twirling it in between her fingers. This is where she's been going lately when she needs to be alone, when she needs to think about—when she needs to escape, when Raven's glares become too much to handle.

Or, in this case, when a disagreement with her Mother gets a little too heated.

The truce is tenuous, that's definitely true, but her Mom doesn't understand the Grounders like she does. And it's certainly not helping that she seems to be listening to Jaha more and more these days. Because no matter what he might've been like before, he clearly doesn't have their best interests at heart now. Her people's interests. As much as she hates to admit it, that's what it's become: her and Bellamy and Raven and Octavia and—

It's been the four of them versus the Ark since she arrived at Camp Jaha, and no matter how much she pleads with her Mother, it seems like nothing is ever getting done. If someone had asked her a year ago if she ever thought she'd be arguing leadership tactics with her Mom, she would've laughed in his face. But now the reality of what their lives have become is almost too much to handle, and sometimes she just wishes she could put the burden—no, the responsibility—of so many lives aside, if only for a moment, and pick up a pencil and paper and just draw again.

Clarke can't even remember the last time she felt as carefree as she is when she's brushing pen to paper. And she knows it won't be the same, but she sees the stick in her fingers and the dirt at her feet, and maybe if she just—

She hears leaves rustling nearby, and the sound is just a little too prolonged, just a little too deliberate, to be natural. She's about to stand up, get ready to make a break for it, but then a figure is stepping out of the trees. At first, it's cloaked in shadow and panic envelops her because maybe it's a Grounder—

But it's not. It takes a second for recognition to come, but when the figure steps into a puddle of moonlight, Clarke finds herself sighing in relief.

Tripp Pierce. One of the other delinquents she came down with. He was outside the Dropship when she closed it all those weeks ago, and she immediately begins to feel her guilt resurface, claw its way through her again, even though she knows that it had to be done.

She vaguely remembers Monroe and Roma whispering about him back when it was only the 100 of them, the way they would edge closer to one another when he walked by, the way their conversations would taper off into silence. What did they say about him…?

"Tripp…? What are you doing here?"

He smiles, and something about the easy way his fingers play with the knife at his belt, the way his nostrils flare, makes her uneasy.

"Oh, y'know. Taking a walk in the woods. I saw you, thought you could use some company."

Clarke levels her gaze at him and raises herself into a crouch. But she almost loses her balance as realization slams into her, knocking the wind out of her as sure as any blow to the chest could've, and she remembers what they said he was in for. Murder. And Rape.

The first twinges of trepidation begin to make their way into her voice, and she tries to hide the wobble in her words as she slowly stands up, takes a step back, says, "… Is that right?"

He mirrors her retreat with a step toward her, and his smile grows even wider. "It's not safe, all by yourself out here."

"I can take care of myself." One step back.

"You sure about that?" One step forward. "Was that what you were doing when you shut the door on us? When you left all of us out there to die?"

Clarke reaches an arm out behind her, feeling for any obstruction, anything blocking her path to escape. "… Were you following me?"

Tripp leers at her. "You know, I've always wondered why half of the camp looked at you like you were the sun and stars. Why Bellamy followed you around like a sad, little puppy when he could've had us all eating out of his hand. It makes me wonder how you wrapped him so tightly around your little finger. How often did you put out for him, Clarke? Did you follow him into his tent like all of his other whores?"

Clarke flinches at his words, and she wants to do nothing more than lay into him, take out all of her anger, call him out as the pig that he is. But she's not stupid; she's weaponless, and she's never been good with her fists, and everything looks so much more menacing in the dark. She raises herself onto the balls of her feet. "I think it's better if I go, okay Tripp? I'm going to turn around and leave now," she says, voice as steady as she can make it.

But he only ignores her, advances on her, runs his eyes up and down the length of her body. "I bet you like it rough. I bet, under all of those clothes, you're just like every other dirty slut I've ever fucked—"

And then Clarke is running, darting through the trees, dodging branches and boulders and moving like she's never moved before.

She screams for help, but she knows that she's too far from camp for anyone to hear (why didn't she tell anyone where she was going, why didn't she bring a weapon with her, why?)and as she hears the frenzied snap of branches underfoot behind her, she feels an ominous sense of foreboding worm its way into her gut.

And it's not like her at all, to be so careless, but these past few weeks have passed in a grief-filled haze, weighed down by Raven's hostile glares, her Mother's pity, Bellamy being so understanding (when she doesn't deserve it, damn it), and worst of all, the sight of any weapon making her want to retch, bringing her back to a time when her hands were covered in blood (you're going to be okay… you're okay). But it doesn't matter how she feels because she should've been smarter (stupidstupidstupid). Even though they're in a tentative truce with the Commander, there could be any number of disgruntled Grounders lurking outside the fence. But she never expected an attack to come from her own people. She shouldn't have to expect an attack from someone she should be able to trust.

Clarke bites back her fear and frustration and vaults over another fallen tree, and something like salvation seizes her as she sprints for a break in the trees ahead of her. She emerges into a small clearing and that means that the trees are getting thinner. She must be getting closer to camp, she must be—

But then she feels a sharp pain at the back of her skull and she's being wrenched backward by her hair. She whirls around and rears her arm back to jab him with, to distract him with so she can get away (she's just now started to realize that he's twice her size and that never seemed to matter before—). But before her fist can make contact, Tripp backhands her, and her head snaps viciously to the side, momentum sending her careening to the mud.

When she lunges forward through her daze to grab at his knees, he delivers a savage kick to her stomach that launches her backward, leaves her wheezing, face pressed to the ground, blood leaking from the corner of her lips and mingling with the dirt below her cheek. She curls shaking fingers into the ground and tries to muster the strength to push herself up, but her arms are trembling and her vision is blurry and she can barely tell up from down. And then she feels pain explode in her abdomen again and she tastes mud in her mouth as she rolls over and over, rocks and twigs cutting into bare skin. She jerks to a stop when her back hits a tree and everything hurts like it's never hurt before. She feels like her chest is caving in and her head is pounding, throbbing to the beat of her gasps for air. Every slight movement is agony. The clinical part of her, the part of her that she can just never seem to switch off, distantly notes that a rib or two must be broken (if—when she gets back to camp, it'll be a miracle if they set right without the proper equipment). And if it was just her body that ached, just her skin that was covered in scrapes and bruises, that would be okay. That would be something she could fix, bandage up until she felt brand new. But it's not.

She feels hands close around her ankles, start to drag her backward, but it's not that that starts her fighting again, hurling all of her weight away from Tripp. No, it's the way his laugh, dripping with condescension and promises of what's to come, cuts through the ringing in her ears. It's the way he sneers when he says: "No one's coming to save you. One of the privileged my ass. Bellamy was right, y'know: 'whatever the hell we want.'"

Because no. Bellamy would never—

She thrashes from side to side, tries to kick her legs up to her chest even though it feels like torture. But he responds in kind and jerks her forward, flipping her onto her back and collapsing onto her, straddling her. His entire weight is crushing her and now her ribs are screaming in agony and she can feel rocks digging into the bare skin of her back where her shirt has ridden up. She tries to push him off of her, to jerk out from underneath his touch, but he only bears down on her harder.

"Stop—! Please! Please… please don't do this!" she screams. But her pleas fall on deaf ears.

Tripp grabs both of her wrists in one hand and forces them above her head, grip like a vise, tight enough to bruise. She throws all of her strength into bucking against him, trying to jolt him off of her, but he just laughs. He lowers his face to the curve of her neck and breathes her in, hot air like a snake slithering across her skin. And then he whispers into her ear: "This is gonna be fun, Princess."

She starts crying in earnest now. Clarke has never thought of herself as weak, as helpless before. She has never thought of herself as a victim. She doesn't want to cry, to give Tripp the satisfaction of seeing her this vulnerable, this powerless, and she hates how she's been reduced to begging. But she can feel herself losing the struggle, her attempts becoming weaker and weaker in the face of their futility and the crush of Tripp's weight against her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees something gleam, catching the moon on its metal surface, and then, with a snap that echoes in the clearing around them, Tripp is cutting through the front of her shirt and the center of her bra. He discards his knife, and his free hand creeps upward, leaving in its wake a trail of pure revulsion; it inches underneath the material of her bra and cups her breast in its palm, rough and greedy in its exploration, scalding her wherever it touches. His tongue darts over her throat and his hips grind into her body and she's shuddering and crying and pleading and everything starts to run together into a single image of pain and fear and hopelessness until all she can see, hear, breathe, is godnopleasestoppleasestoppleasestop, a single stream of thought that, try as she might, she cannot tune out. It collides with the litany of her sobs and Tripp's cruel taunts, provides the backdrop to the soundtrack of this nightmare.

And she is suffocating on it, battling for air and choking in a sea of fear and humiliation and desperation and, most of all, anger. Anger at Tripp for the way his hand roams up and down her body, the way his breath feels like slime on the skin of her throat. Anger at the Ark for sending her down here in the first place. Anger at herself for getting into this situation and being too weak to do anything about it. What good are hands that save others if she can't even save herself?

And then all of a sudden, Tripp is easing up; he releases her wrists and raises himself up, and for one glorious second, relief washes through her. But then she sees that he's reaching for his pants. Time slows to a crawl and with a rising horror, she watches as he undoes his zipper, watches as it inches downward. And it's like watching the Exodus ship crash to earth, like watching Charlotte plummet to her death all over again. Like something horrible and terrifying that if you had just done something differently, if you had just tried a little harder, you might've stopped.

nononononopleaseno—

For a second that stretches into her rising terror (the kind of terror that accompanies complete and utter despair, that follows as you watch your father get sucked into space, as you wake up and realize that you'll never see your best friend again) she can barely breathe; she just lies there, frozen, ice cold panic shooting down her spine. But then she starts screaming, wailing, pleading with someone, anyone, to come help, that she's here and forgodsake please! She's flailing her arms and clawing at his chest and trying to reach his face—and then his features contort into a mask of fury and he's punching her in the jaw and dropping onto her, knocking the wind out of her again.

"Shut up, bitch!" His hands dart to her throat, fingers snapping closed, crushing into her windpipe. She tries to drag her mud-caked nails into his arms, tries to pry him off of her, but his grip is like iron and he just slams her head into the ground, once, twice. She bites her tongue and chokes on the blood and bile that threaten to escape and barely even notices when his hands leave the skin of her neck, her vision going in and out and her throat on fire. With dim awareness she feels his hands at her hips, undoing the zipper, creeping into the waistband of her pants, and with a grim sort of certainty, she tries to prepare herself for what is about to happen. She knows she's sobbing and that every fiber of her being is recoiling in disgust, but she can't move; she can barely breathe and for some insane reason, all she can think about is the day they landed on earth and she breathed in the scent of the world for the first time. Thinking almost anything was possible. Thinking the worst of her troubles would be shirking Wells and tolerating Octavia.

Tripp's hand travels even lower and Clarke whimpers; even though she feels like a limp rag doll, she lifts her arms and feebly tries to stave him off, weakly pounding her fists into his shoulders, but it's like pushing against a metal wall. Tripp just sneers and lowers his face to her chest, trailing his tongue in between her breasts and grinding into her and fondling her and his moans are drowning out all other sounds and she can feel him against her and—

And suddenly, his weight is gone and all Clarke can feel in his place is the cool night air, light and easy across her exposed skin.

At first, she just lies there, suspended in her confusion. She knows it's irrational, but she wonders if maybe it was all just a bad dream; maybe she'll turn to the side and her Mom will be there, maybe she's been home all along and there was never anything wrong with the Ark's oxygen and she'll live in this metal box for the rest of her life, no matter how much of a prison it seemed like before. She knows it's irrational because her skin still burns where Tripp touched her, where his tongue left trails of saliva in its wake. She knows because she can see the moon peeking out of the canopy of leaves above her. She knows because she can hear Tripp grunting and yelling a little ways away.

And then another voice cuts through every other sensation. At first, it seems so gruff and outraged and violent that she almost doesn't recognize it. In a daze, she musters the will to lift herself up, even though it hurts, oh god it hurts. And what she sees is almost too good to be true—

"You son of a bitch! I'm going to fucking kill you…!" Bellamy roars, his voice deadly, laced with venom. He's on top of Tripp, grappling with him, hammering him with punches, pummeling him over and over and over again.

And again.

And again.

He's still yelling, each word punctuated with another blow and it's impossible to make out what he's saying when all she can see is how frantic he is, how, with each strike, more and more blood coats his fists. She should feel relieved, safety only a stone's throw away, in the grasp of a boy she thought she might never see again, but all she can feel is nausea.

Clarke stares at him in a stupor. Bellamy, stop! You'll kill him! But she can't bring herself to say the words. Can't bring herself to stop what she wants more than anything to happen.

When Tripp stops trying to fight back, when he can barely manage to turn his face and spit blood into the dirt, Bellamy reaches for the belt at his waist and pulls out a pistol. Clarke wants to squeeze her eyes shut; she wants to pretend that Bellamy isn't going to be riddled with guilt for killing this boy (don't you see what this means? you're not a murderer), no matter how much he deserves it. But she knows him well enough to see that, no matter how angry he is, killing Tripp will only leave another permanent blemish on Bellamy's soul. And maybe it's incredibly selfish of her, but Clarke sees the fear in Tripp's eyes and she just. doesn't. care.

Bellamy levels the gun at Tripp's head and places his finger on the trigger and steels himself for the backlash and starts to squeeze—

And then nothing happens.

His hands are shaking and his jaw is twitching in that way that it does when he's furious at himself. He's breathing almost as heavily as she is now and all she can see through his mask of rage and uncertainty is a boy who just wanted to protect his sister. And in the loaded space between now and what comes next, Clarke feels like he's almost as scared as she is.

But his moment of hesitation costs him; Tripp's arm darts out and smacks the pistol out of his hands. Bellamy watches as it sails out of sight and into the tree line, and Tripp uses the distraction to grab a rock off the ground and pound his fist into Bellamy's head. When Bellamy lists to the side, Tripp scrambles out from under him, snatching something off the dirt as he goes. At first, Clarke thinks it's a twig, but then it catches the light and she feels so stupid, stupid. It's the knife; how could she have forgotten—

He lunges toward Bellamy, who's trying to stand up through his daze, clutching his head, and she's not sure if the blood that smears on his temple is his own or Tripp's but she doesn't care because Bellamy. She barrels into Tripp from the side, throwing him off balance, even though the thought of touching him again makes her sick to her stomach. He loses his footing and it's working—Bellamy is standing up and starting toward them—but suddenly Tripp is no longer falling. She casts a furtive glance in Bellamy's direction, watches his eyes go wide, and then Tripp is yanking her toward him by her elbows. He secures her to him, one hand wrapped around her chest, squeezing her into submission, the other pressing the knife to her throat, drawing blood. She distantly realizes that he's shaking too, and she can't possibly fathom why until she wrenches her eyes away from Tripp's hands on her and her gaze locks with Bellamy's.

His face is white, and she can't help but see the stark contrast between it and the blood on his hands. Or the way his eyes have gone dark, filled with an emotion she can't describe. And in that moment, everything else seems to fall away; it's like they're back at the Dropship again, two wide-eyed kids meeting for the first time, ready to take on the world and whatever it had to throw at them. A look passes between them that is pregnant with an unspoken plea, for him to understand that she needs him (you may be a total ass half the time, but I need you), for her to be all right, and it feels like minutes pass, even though it's barely been a second. When they both snap back into reality, his entire demeanor changes. He's no longer stiff as a board, swept up in his shock and guilt. Now he's very nearly quaking with rage, and the look on his face would terrify her if it was anyone but Bellamy. But she doesn't only see his fury, the way he's poised to strike, the way his fists clench and unclench and his jaw twitches. She also sees the way his eyes dart up and down her body, taking in her appearance, the way his shoulders are trembling too. And she thinks that she's never seen Bellamy so scared before.

She's aware that, her shirt cut the way it is, her chest is on full display. She's covered in grime, both real and imagined, her pants are sagging, and the pain that Tripp's will has wrought is written plain and clear all over her body. She sees what Bellamy must see, and that renews her anger and nausea and humiliation all over again.

"B-Bellamy…" she stutters.

And more than anything else, it's that single word that ends the standstill they've found themselves in.

Bellamy's eye twitches. "Let her go," he commands, voice shaking.

But Tripp's only laughing again (that horrible, mocking laugh, and he's on top of her again, lowering himself down again, and no—) and now it doesn't only sound ugly, it sounds maniacal, panicked. He lets his teeth graze her ear and the hand at her chest wanders further down as he angles the knife so it catches more light. "What're you gonna do about it, huh? Kill me? Because that worked out so well. Maybe I'll just make you watch as I…" And he thrusts his hips forward; Clarke gags as another sob wrenches out of her.

Bellamy jerks forward and snarls, only halting when Tripp presses the knife deeper into her skin. His clenched fists are quivering and he's poised like a bowstring, just waiting to snap. "I swear to God, you do that again and I will fucking rip your face off," he growls, voice low and dangerous.

"I'd like to see you try," Tripp sneers, and if Clarke hadn't been pressed as tightly against him as she was, she wouldn't have felt the way he recoiled almost imperceptibly at the fury coating Bellamy's words, at the pure malice in his eyes, wouldn't have felt the way the blade at her throat slackened ever-so slightly. My god, he's scared.

And maybe if Clarke had been anyone else, maybe if the Ground hadn't hardened her into what she is now (we are what we are) she would've remained a statue, rooted in place by everything she's been through. But she isn't anyone else. She's Clarke Griffin and she'll be damned if Tripp thinks she's too fragile to fight back.

Her fear hardens into steely resolve and, in that moment, she ignores the way her body protests at her movements, fights through the pain and shock winding through her. She takes advantage of the slack and drives an elbow into his stomach, plunges the heel of her boot into his foot. It almost scares her that she relishes in his grunt of pain, but then she remembers the feel of his clammy hands pawing at her breasts, the feel of his fists leaving bruises all over her body.

He drops the knife and she snatches it out of the air as she hurls herself away from him, not caring that its sharp edges are slicing into her palm, that her ribs are crying their disapproval. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Bellamy launch himself forward, making his way toward her.

But she doesn't wait, can't wait for him again. Because if Bellamy can't kill him, then she will.

The blade slashes across Tripp's shoulder, cutting through his jacket and leaving behind a bloody gash in its wake, and she's distantly surprised at how much strength she has left in her. As he blanches and cringes backward, she raises her arm behind her head, determined to finish it, to just end it so she never again has to fear the way his hands scalded her body, the heat of his rough exhalations against her neck.

And then Bellamy is hovering at her side and she can feel, rather than see, him begging her to stop, bringing with him the image of when he killed Dax, eyes haunted, never the same again.

"Clarke—no!"

And she looks up into the face of her assaulter, but instead of Tripp's face twisted into a sneer, cruel eyes taunting her, all she can see is the face of another boy, all she can remember is another time. Surrounded by the Commander's army. The feel of sweaty skin and rough bark beneath her fingers. Raven wailing. Blood on her hands.

Thanks, Princess.

All of her mettle dissolves, and she chokes back another sob and freezes. The blade starts to slip out of her fingers, and then warm hands envelop her own and free her of the burden of holding another man's life in her hands.

Bellamy steps between her and Tripp, shielding her from what she might've just done, and brandishes the knife. He's still trembling and his knuckles are white around the hilt of the blade, but his voice doesn't waver when he starts talking. "You leave here and you never come back. You're lucky I'm not a disgusting piece of shit like you, because I can think of a few other ways this could've gone down. And so help me, if you ever step foot near camp, near her again, I won't hesitate to end you," he spits out, threat as jagged as barbed wire.

Tripp sneers, but he sees the blood on the knife in front of him, and he's smart enough to hold his tongue. He spits on the ground at their feet and then pivots on his heel and into the forest. And then he's just gone.

But it doesn't feel like it.

After what seems like an eternity of silence, filled only with the sounds of their rapid breathing, hoarse and unsteady in tandem, Bellamy slowly turns toward her.

"Clarke... I—"

Clarke's knees give out, but before she can crumple into a pile of broken, blubbering parts on the ground beneath her, strong hands cushion her fall and she can feel their warmth radiating through the flimsy material of what's left of her shirt. And she knows those hands, knows that it's Bellamy, but the rational part of her mind shuts off and she can't separate his touch from the hands that were grabbing her not five minutes ago. She jerks out of his grasp and, as her legs hit the dirt, she desperately scrambles away from him, nails breaking against the hard ground, splinters wedging their way into her palms. Her back hits a tree and she can't bring herself to look up at him, she can't.

She's shivering violently, very nearly hyperventilating. The adrenaline from before has worn off, and now all Clarke feels is a bitter cold, seeping its way into her bones, setting her teeth rattling and goose bumps racing across her flesh. But although the chill cuts straight through to her very core, although it feels like it has frozen her heart solid, it can't erase the lines of fire Tripp scalded into her skin.

Wherever his hands pawed at her, violated her, hit her, it burns. Like a thousand tiny needles are stabbing her, like a thousand tiny insects are crawling on her, gnawing on her. And even though she knows, she knows, that there's nothing physically there, she wants to scratch at the marks, peel the layers of skin away until she can't feel how much they sting anymore, until they're scraped so raw that she barely notices the dull ache they leave in their place. But she just can't seem to move; it's like she's been manacled to the tree behind her and it's so frustrating, she just wants to make it stop—

She hears the faint snap of a twig in front of her and all of a sudden the shaking intensifies; her head is whipping up and she's flinging herself as far backward into the tree as she can go. But then she sees the source of the sound and she remembers.

Bellamy.

She finally drags her eyes up to really look at him and manages to only flinch a little when he takes a tentative step toward her. She can see confusion play across his face, warring with anguish and fury and guilt for dominance over his features. And even though she can't tell exactly what's going through his head, she thinks that he's never been such an open book before. She's only seen him so expressive in his quiet moments with Octavia, when he lodged that bullet in Dax's throat (my mother, if she knew what I'd done), when she felt ashamed to even be witnessing it. But now he's a kaleidoscope of feelings, vivid strokes of emotion layering over one another, jaw twitching, eyebrows drawing together, teeth grinding, and she can see his internal struggle play out like a movie in the way his eyes track the silent tears coursing down her cheeks.

And then a gust of wind brushes over the bare skin of her chest and she's reminded of how exposed she is. A wave of helplessness, of irrational fear (Bellamy's here now, he's not going to hurt her) rushes through her, and her arms snap up to cover herself as best she can. And she hates how weak she feels. She doesn't want anyone to see her like this, especially him.

So when he starts shrugging off his jacket and shuffling toward her, each faltering step asking her, "is this okay?" she swallows her fear. It's Bellamy, She reassures herself. It's Bellamy. Just Bellamy.

When he's in front of her but not too close, never too close, he lowers himself into a crouch so that his eyes are level with hers (she's grateful he's not towering over her anymore, she doesn't feel so small anymore) and offers his jacket, hand hovering in the loaded space between them. He doesn't try to get any closer to her and he understands.

She reaches out to take it with quivering hands; it's three sizes too big, but she maneuvers her arms through the sleeves anyway, and when she can't fit the zipper into the clasp (why won't it stop snagging, why can't she just stop shaking, why is it so hard) she lets out a little cry of frustration.

But Bellamy doesn't bend forward to help her. Just watches her, eyes never leaving her face. And again, she finds herself grateful. It's not even that she can't bear the thought of being touched right now. It's the fact that, no matter how tiny, no matter how insignificant, she needs some semblance of control over what's happening; she needs to feel like she's capable of doing something other than crying and hurting and shaking.

She fumbles with the jacket until the zipper finally catches, and when she pulls it up as high as it will go, it's like she's grabbed hold of a lifeline and she's no longer drowning, no longer sputtering for air.

Until she remembers Tripp's hand down her pants and she wants to gag and her pants are still sagging—

Her hands dart for the zipper at her waist and, this time, Bellamy does look away. And she's grateful for that too. His jaw is twitching in that way that it does again. But he shouldn't be mad at himself, he shouldn't. Because he was there when she needed him and she doesn't even know how he knew to come but he did. It's not his fault; it would never be his fault. She's safe now. safesafesafe

Before she even realizes she's doing it, she's scooting imperceptibly forward. She's croaking out his name—"Bellamy…"— and she's so quiet she's not even sure if he heard her.

But then he's turning back and his eyes are meeting hers. And when she looks at him, she doesn't see a man, she sees a boy again, a boy who's seen so much suffering, who's seen how unfair the world is and wants nothing more than to stand in its way and beat it back. She sees a boy who is reckless and courageous, but is equally as powerless. A boy who is completely and utterly terrified for her.

He reaches his arm out again, movements halting, unsure. When she doesn't shrink back, he lays a tentative palm on her cheek and grazes his thumb over the bruise that's forming on her chin, and she can tell that it pains him when she winces. So he moves it and wipes away a stray tear she hadn't even realized was there.

He catches her eyes with his own and, for the first time, she realizes that they're wet too. But there's also a question in them that she doesn't know how to answer, can't even really define. He's looking at her with such a singular focus, so intently, it's as if he's memorizing her, as if he never wants to forget her, as if everything else around them has vanished and it's only the two of them.

And his gaze is steady, so steady, and she feels as if he might be the only thing keeping her tethered here, like if she looks away, she might lose track of who she is and where she belongs, she might forget that she's more than a couple of bruises and scratches, she might forget that she's more than Tripp's plaything. But she doesn't forget, she can't forget, because Bellamy's here, and right now (no, always—) he is her anchor.

And she doesn't want to (didn't want to) be touched, but suddenly her vision is full of Bellamy, of the worry (worry, not pity) in his eyes, of the blood drying on the side of his temple, of the way he's still trembling, and suddenly she can't think of anyone else besides her Mother that she wants to hold her, that she wants to help erase Tripp's lingering touch.

So she leans forward, inch-by-inch, until her forehead is resting on his shoulder, until she's balling his shirt up into her fists and tugging him toward her.

And all at once it's like the dam holding back his uncertainty, the last of her wariness, breaks apart. She's not sure who moves first, but suddenly she's flinging the rest of her body into his chest and he's wrapping his arms around her. He doesn't realize that he's holding her a little too tightly, that his arm is brushing one of her broken ribs and she's still so sore, but she doesn't care. He buries a hand into her hair and he's guiding her face into the crook of skin where his neck meets his shoulder and he's mumbling something over and over that sounds vaguely like her name, but she can't really tell because she's sobbing in earnest now, weeping into his shoulder and clinging onto him for dear life. And in that moment, she promises herself that this is the last time she's going to fall apart like this. But for now, she revels in the shelter of his embrace, his whispered assurances, the way he's smoothing a hand down her hair, the soothing way he's rocking them back and forth, back and forth.

As they sway, as Bellamy cradles her to him, as his warmth envelops her, as she bares her soul into his shoulder, she knows now that she's completely and totally safe. Words can't express how grateful she is, how close she came to— Another sob wrenches out of her, but she just presses closer to him. She's aware that his arms around her are still shaking, and she thinks he might be crying too.

And it's not just Bellamy comforting her anymore, now it's her comforting him. It's like they're desperately clinging to each other, each the other's foundation, each supporting the other. And Clarke doesn't mind, doesn't care that he didn't go through what she had to tonight, because she's glad to actually be doing something other than wallowing, other than feeling sorry for herself (which she knows she's completely within her rights to do, she knows). But she wants to feel useful, in control in any way she can, and holding Bellamy, soaking one another in, letting him know that she's tangible, she's still here, is giving her a sense of purpose that she's craved since the last one involved fighting for her life.

They sit like that, for how long she doesn't know, until the storm of her emotions finally passes, until she feels like she can support herself again. She's very nearly cried herself dry and she just feels so tired, like she could just curl up and drape Bellamy over herself like a blanket and sleep and sleep until everything is just a distant memory. Because right now, she doesn't see how she could ever forget.

They've both been quiet for so long that it surprises her when Bellamy finally mumbles into her hair, "Clarke… say something. Anything. Please."

It takes her a moment (his embrace makes her feel so secure and she thinks she could maybe just stay here forever—), but she pulls back so she can look at him. He's not ready to let go yet either, and he's still cradling her cheek in his hand (his touch is so gentle, so faint, and if it was anyone but him she'd worry that it might disappear).The look in his eyes is equal parts anxious and afraid and hopeful and, again, all she can see is Bellamy.

"Thank you," she whispers. And never before have those two words meant more to her than they do now.

But he doesn't look relieved; he just looks miserable. "I'm sorry I wasn't here to stop him."

"You did stop it." (not him, but it, because even though he didn't get to finish, it still feels like he won). "He may have… he touched me," Clarke stammers. "And he—" she raises the tips of her fingers to the purpling at her throat. "But you came before he… before he—"

"I don't want— you don't need to tell me about it, Clarke." And in his words, she can hear a strangled plea.

But she just shakes her head. "I can still feel him, Bellamy. All over me. It's like he's still touching me. Like he never left." And she shudders.

But then Bellamy is bringing his other hand up and now he's pushing her hair back from her eyes and running his thumbs over the corners of her lips. "No—look at me, Clarke. Look at me. He's gone. He's gone and he's never coming back. You're safe now. And I promise you, I'm not going to let anyone hurt you ever again." And it's like he's trying to convince himself just as much as he's trying to convince her.

She thinks that, no matter how earnest he is, no matter how much he means what he says, he's not always going to be there. And even if he could, he can't protect her from everything.

But it's what he says next that reassures her more than anything else.

"You're strong, Clarke. You're so strong that… that every day, I envy you. You've been strong since the day I met you. And you're strong enough to get through this." His voice is fierce and intense and passionate, and it's exactly what she needs to hear. And she thinks that no one has ever understood, known her so completely, as he does.

For the first time that night, she feels lighter than all of the pain and fear. And as she looks up at Bellamy, she feels more than grateful. More than safe. She feels empowered. Because she's Clarke Griffin. She doesn't need someone to shield her from every bad thing that comes her way, but it's nice to know that someone will always be there to have her back, to pick her up when she falls, to reassure her that she's not alone, that she'll never be alone. Because there are people that need her just as much as she needs them.

So she knows that, even though Tripp's touch will linger for many sleepless nights to come, even though she's going to have to relive it all for her Mother, even though all of her wounds will take time to heal, she's resilient. She knows that Bellamy will be there, and that he's not leaving her side again.

She knows that, no matter what comes next, she's going to be okay.

{fin.}