The Slowest Burn - Bellarke

Bellarke season 4 AU- "Not shooting me was the right choice."

*chainssaws on youtube proving the importance of source material 😭*
*Clarke tells Bellamy the real reason she didn't want him to open the door in the bunker- spoiler alert, she loves him*
***

The silence between them was deafening. There was a palpable space between them. In that space lied the hurt and heartbreak that they'd both endured since they reached the ground. The moments they had shared together, the times they had betrayed one another.

Clarke pointing a gun at Bellamy was the heavy tread on a frozen lake. It was the breaking point.

Clarke was wracking her mind. Say something. Say something!

Begging herself to think of a way to fix this. To explain to Bellamy why she did it.

She... needed him.

Surely he understood that.

Clarke thought about the fact that she'd almost let his sister die. The person he loved most in the world.

The knot that was housed in her stomach tightened.

"Why did you come on this mission, Clarke?" Bellamy deep voice broke Clarke from her thoughts.

Clarke couldn't believe he was speaking to her.

She'd expected a ride filled with the gut wrenching silence.

Though she wasn't sure she preferred Bellamy's accusatory tone.

"Raven's my friend." Clarke defended herself.

"Yesterday, you were fine leaving your friend out to die- my sister too, Kane." Bellamy's defensive sarcasm made Clarke's skin burn.

"I wasn't fine with it, and you know that." She bit back.

The pair fell back into silence for a moment.

Clarke knew she needed to tell Bellamy the real reason that she didn't want to open that door.

"Bellamy, I never meant to hurt you." There were tears in Clarke's eyes.

The thought of actually losing Bellamy was too much to even imagine.

"Aiming a gun at me is a strange way of showing it." He retorted, quickly.

He needed to keep his defences up.

He couldn't consider even for a moment that what Clarke had done was reasonable. He wouldn't let himself forgive her, like he had a million times before.

"I didn't pull the trigger." Clarke knew it was a weak defence. But it was all she had.

"Is that supposed to make it okay?" Bellamy inwardly cursed the way his voice broke when he spoke.

"Nothing is okay." Clarke whimpered.

"Whatever choice I make, somebody always dies."

Bellamy could hear the strain in Clarke's voice. The suffering. He knew what it was like to have the wait of 300 deaths on his shoulders. He knew how she was feeling.