A/N: I have been nominated for several Bellarke Fanfic awards on Tumblr (bellarkefanfictionawards) and I am SO honored. I know I can't possibly win (voting ends on 6/30 and I am in China where I have limited access to Social media, including NO access to Twitter, so I cannot possibly campaign for myself) but I am very happy to have been nominated. As a GIANT THANK YOU, I am putting this little one-shot out into the universe.

I love you all, and I would really REALLY REALLY love you to take the time to vote for me on Tumblr, so I can at least make a bit of a decent showing? It would mean the world to me, and might even prove to my husband that I am at least not a terrible writer.

She does it fairly regularly, without him knowing. A quick detour whenever she happens to be passing through the area, an hour or two (at most) spent lounging in a tree near the entrance of Camp Jaha. She tells herself she is checking on everyone. "Herself" knows that this is bullshit. "Herself" feels the sudden change in heart rate when Bellamy is visible, hears the whispered echo of their last words to each other, "herself" is too wise to let Clarke get away with the lie much longer.

Which is how Clarke ends up following him one day when he sets off from camp without a backward glance or an explanation for Miller. Not that Miller asks for one, and Clarke suspects this is a habit of Bellamy's. She follows, curious.

His first stop is Mount Weather; it is sunset by the time he arrives. Clarke almost reveals herself when she realizes Bellamy is collecting wildflowers to leave by the main door, but he is crying and she cannot bear to interrupt such a personal moment.

He leaves by a familiar route, and Clarke smiles to herself because, yes, the Dropship is a haunt of hers as well. They stop to rest at the midpoint, and in the morning there is a moment when Clarke forgets to be careful and Bellamy freezes, head cocked, alert for further evidence he is not alone in the woods. Clarke dares not breathe; for some reason she cannot explain, it is vital to her that Bellamy be allowed to fulfill this ritual of his uninterrupted.

It is a good plan, except that when they near the debris of the Dropship camp's outer wall Bellamy stops again. "It's okay, Clarke. I won't tell the others you're here."

She steps out from behind a tree and suddenly – inexplicably – she is nervous of him. Not of him, really: of what he'll see when he looks at her, of what she might say to him after all this time… and something in her face must give her away because his demeanor changes. He looks at her the way Grounders look at their untrained horses. It is cautious, hopeful, but free of any real expectation.

She can't even bring herself to speak. After so many glimpses of him from afar, Clarke is stunned to find that what she has truly ached for is the chance to touch him. She moves a bit closer. His eyes rake over her and maybe he is just taking a quick inventory but it does not feel like that, it feels like she might as well have been naked when he did that because her whole body hums with a need she's struggled to suppress for far too long.

A few steps closer, but it is Bellamy who moves this time. Close enough that she can smell him, smell the way the forest has wrapped itself around him and sunk into his pores. She closes her eyes because this is too real, she is too present, and after months of avoiding all contact with others he is too alive.

She can sense the desire on his part, too, and the uncertainty. What are the rules here? Are they allowed now, finally, to admit things are so much more complicated than either of them had ever anticipated?

"Your hair's longer." Bellamy's words are a kind of permission. Clarke opens her eyes once more and he is so close how could she not reach for him? How could she be expected not to touch his cheek, rest her hand on his shoulder, step forward those last few inches? He freezes under her fingertips. He wraps her hand in his, refuses to break eye contact, and Clarke swallows back dread at the thought of him turning away from this moment.

Because it is a Moment. The kind that has to change everything, no matter what, because it demands a decision from which neither will be able to return.

So when he sighs as if he's given up, and drags her hand forward to press a kiss against the palm, Clarke shudders with the weight of this confession. It would almost have been easier if he rejected her. More painful, but easier to move on. This, though… she must be honest. This is why she returned to watch, again and again. This is why she still has not spoken. Why she has not pulled her hand free of his… because like him, she has given up the fight.

Eventually they drift toward the Dropship, her hand still in his possession. Clarke knows there is a makeshift bed inside, against one wall – she has slept here a few times – but is surprised to see Bellamy is just as comfortable in the space as she. It occurs to her they may have missed each other by only a day or two in visits past.

Bellamy reaches up, tucks a strand of loose hair behind her ear, and Clarke cannot focus on the past any more because Bellamy is here now. Has made his choice. She takes her time – difficult, she trembles with the effort such self-control demands – but running her fingers up his torso as she frees him from his dark t-shirt is the kind of feeling she wants to savor. He is healing in odd ways, certain wounds completely gone while others have left deep scars. He is as silent as she now, standing before her defenseless, and Clarke bends to kiss each scar. She can guess at the origin of most. Like her, he carries their people's recent history on his body. He is beautiful and proud and does not react until she touches one spot in particular, a line at his shoulder she cannot place. He looks away from her: this one does not belong to her. It came after she left. Clarke shrinks back slightly, feeling chastised.

But it is his turn, and when her torso is likewise bare Clarke's reaction is not nearly so stoic. Her skin flinches, puckers, shivers beneath his calloused hands and soft lips. He actively seeks out those fresher scars, the ones that were acquired after she fled… as though through them, he can learn who she has become in their time apart.

He starts at her waist, works his way up to her chin, and his thumb glides softly along her cheek. Collecting her tears. He leans in, slow and careful. Clarke's head aches, her eyes burn, her throat is tight with all the times she has imagined his mouth over hers.

And yet he hesitates.

She looks into his face for some clue as to why he has paused. Bellamy stares back defiantly, but she sees the truth anyway. She knows those eyes too well not to see his fear in their inky depths. Clarke has hurt him, over and over again she has hurt him, and suddenly the world is flipped upside down and he is the wild horse, ready to bolt at the first sign of danger.

Clarke does not allow another minute for thought. She presses into him, chest to chest, nose against nose, mouth finding mouth. Her motive is simply this: to make him feel better. To make him feel whole, to make him aware of just how much of her world he inhabits.

Because for her, he is everywhere.

And so she pours it all into the kiss, trying with her body, her hands, her lips and tongue to draw for him a picture of a universe in which his eyes crowd out the stars, a dappled forest floor swims with his footsteps, clouds cannot compete with his hair, and the sun is bitter over the beauty of his smile.

…

She can feel him shift, relax, give back… Clarke moans with the discovery of all he has to offer. There ought to be a way to control the flood but none exists and she feels weak in the face of his reaction. Bellamy's mouth softens with desire one moment, is hard and angry and heavy the next. Clarke needs both sides of him, though. She wants this, including the brutal honesty because it is where they are best together.

There is no chance to recover – neither can bear the idea of breaking this contact – so they fall against the wall still tangled into one another, cold metal burning hot skin, and sink to the floor beside the bed. Clarke whimpers into Bellamy's mouth. It is next to terrifying, close to shocking the way he responds as if he had been waiting for just such a cue from her. He drags himself from the kiss and Clarke has barely enough time to wonder why the sudden absence of contact before a tug at the waist of her pants leaves her stripped, completely naked; she should hate this, this bare defenselessness, but it is Bellamy and he has already been a part of her for so long Clarke simply closes her eyes again. No human has ever trusted another the way she trusts this man.

It feels like he is painting the wind into her flesh, his hands traversing every dip and swell, and Clarke longs to feel his body beneath her fingertips the same way. She manages to free him from the last of his clothes and has to remind herself to breathe because the beauty of him hurts. The valley of his spine, the rise and fall and power of each muscle, Clarke is overwhelmed.

He moves to sit between her legs, knees pressing into the backs of her thighs as his fingers travel up, up, up. Her body is already on fire; when he parts her and his hands explore, test, tease her, it is hard not to cry out. When he buries his face in the V at the apex of her thighs, when his mouth opens to taste her and his fingers bite into the flesh at her hips, dragging her closer, Clarke gasps and her hips curl up to meet him of their own volition.

This should not be possible. He should not be able to possess her heart, kiss her with his whole soul, and make her come against his mouth so easily. But a wave of white heat courses through her, then another, and another, and Clarke shudders at the sorrow of such a sudden response. It is over far too quickly.

Bellamy shifts forward until his face hovers above one round breast. He runs the tip of his tongue lightly over her nipple; it sends electricity pouring over her skin. He kisses her, rough and fast, and enters her at the same time and she sees black punctuated by red bursts of pleasure at the friction of flesh against flesh, at every second of fullness.

With her hands clawing through his curls, scratching down the back of his neck, across his shoulders, Clarke tries desperately to wait for him. She needs his release now more than her own. In all this time she still has not spoken – but as it becomes impossible to control her reaction to him, Clarke opens her mouth and gasps a single word.

A name.

Her universe.

"Bellamy…" He sighs and growls and she can tell, instantly she can tell because he shudders within her and over her and because her own body can bear it no longer; the world shrinks down until it is smaller than her navel, and settles somewhere deep in the cradle of her hips before exploding back outward again and taking her soul with it.

In the warm silence that follows, Clarke relishes the weight of Bellamy on her chest. She knows she cannot, but entertains the fantasy nonetheless, of staying here with him. Or running away with him. Anything to extend this simple bliss.

Eventually they stir and dress, quiet, each with their own thoughts to wrestle into submission. He does not ask, and she does not offer; they both know the kiss they share – as they cling to each other, tucked just inside the Dropship door – is the only thing left to say. Bellamy slips away first, and Clarke waits a long time before she can find the strength to go as well.

**Thank you to Persepholily for all her help with this piece!**

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xoxo,

~ Jo.