#bbaw25

“I thought I lost you,” she whispers in his ear, refusing to let the tears burning behind her eyes fall. Clarke nuzzles into the crook of his neck, breathing him in. 

“You will never lose me, Clarke. I’ll always come home.” Bellamy’s hand rests at the nape of her neck, his fingertips just barely resting in her hair. They stay in that position longer than any of the other hugs lasted. 

A tear falls down Echo’s cheek, and Emori takes her hand in comfort. “We need to come up with a plan,” Emori says to get Bellamy and Clarke’s attention. 

The group forms a tight circle and speaks quietly. “Cadogan still wants the Flame, and I need to give it to him,” Clarke says. “We don’t know what he will do if we keep stalling.” 

“I remembered things from getting brainwashed.” Bellamy shudders at the memory. “Cadogan said to someone else in the room about gaining control of Bardo. Transcendence isn’t real, and he only hypes himself up as a savior to stay in power.” 

“We know,” Echo tells him. “We found the room in a big electrical closet and played the video. Gabriel figured out how the brainwashing worked and Cadogan’s hunger for power.” 

“Then I think we all know what needs to happen next.” Bellamy looks them all in the eyes. 

“We fake your death,” Murphy deadpans at the same time Bellamy says, “I go undercover with Cadogan.” 

“Are you insane?” Clarke gasps angrily. “There is no way that’s happening!” 

The others spit out agreements, even Echo who hasn’t been interested in anything so far. Bellamy didn’t expect them to like the idea, so he makes his case. “I’m the only one left he trusts, and I have all the knowledge a disciple should have. More, even. The other disciples are dead, and we still have something he wants. I will be the real inside man now!” 

Echo sighs and takes one step out the door. The siren is still blaring outside. “You should know I think this is a terrible idea. I’m going to find Hope and make sure she is alright.” 

“What’s wrong with her? She’s acting different.” Awkward tension fills the room, and Bellamy feels like he is missing something big. 

“It doesn’t matter right now, Bellamy. We are not letting you near Cadogan again!” Clarke starts pacing around the shed. 

“I don’t see another way out of this, Clarke!” 

Murphy tells him, “We could still tell him you’re dead. He clearly doesn’t care about the people that die while trying to get him what he wants.” 

“He’s too smart for that. If I were dead, he would need proof. He knows how hard you would work to get me back.” 

“What if I tell him you escaped and went back to Bardo to get more help? Then I give him the Flame, he leaves, and we try to destroy the stone,” Clarke suggests. 

“It won’t work. I have never known how to use the stone, so it’s not believable that I suddenly figured it out. Besides, Clarke, can you tell me you’d honestly leave all those innocent people on Bardo to keep getting brainwashed and controlled?” 

She grunts in frustration and runs her hand through hair as Emori says, “Hey, guys.” When they all look at her, she is staring through a small crack in the wall of the shed. “Cadogan just kicked the door of his shed open and is heading our way.” 

At some point, they now realize, the toxin alarm went silent. When no one went to get him, he probably thought they were stalling. 

“Ok we don’t have much time, maybe five minutes.” Clarke looks around the shed. There isn’t anything to use as a weapon or a door they can escape from without Cadogan seeing them. “Bellamy, get under the lowest shelf and get as close to the wall as you can. Murphy and Emori, you should go. He doesn’t think of you as a threat.” 

“And what will you do?” Murphy asks her, concerned. 

“I will think of something, just go!” The two of them reluctantly walk out, and Clarke starts running ideas through her head. She stops, though, when she finds Bellamy not moving, just staring at her. “What are you doing?” 

“I have to go undercover, Clarke, and you know it.” 

“No, you don’t!” She walks over to the self that runs along the left wall. “Please, just get under!” 

“If we don’t take this chance, you will be at square one again.” 

“I don’t care! Once they figure out you aren’t with them anymore, all it will take is another trip to that room and another dose of the drug. It’s not happening!” 

“It’s exactly what you did when I got you back from Josephine!” Bellamy yells. Then his shoulders slump, and he steps in front of Clarke. He takes her face in her hands, his thumbs gently caressing her cheeks that are wet with tears. “I didn’t understand how you could go back into that danger after we had worked so hard to get you out, but now I do. We have people to save.” 

Clarke leans her face into his right hand and looks up at him. “You have no idea how much I admire you for that, Bellamy, but this is not the same thing. When you got her out of my head, she was dead. There was no chance of her hurting me again. Cadogan, though? He has the means to do this to you and everyone else over and over if he has to. I am not losing you again.” 

“You won’t lose me.” 

“You don’t know that, and I can’t take that risk. I won’t. I already lost my mom. I have Madi, but I don’t know if I could survive without you by my side.”  

Bellamy doesn’t say anything, he just gently presses his forehead against Clarke’s. She feels every point of contact, and the heat spreads all the way down to her toes. They shouldn’t be doing this, Cadogan will be here any second, but that doesn’t make her pull away. What does, though, is what she heard him say while he was under the influence of the toxin, and he hasn’t had the chance to talk to Echo about it. Clarke isn’t even sure Bellamy knows he said it out loud for them all to hear. 

She steps back from him to beg one more time for him to hide, but the door opens, and Cadogan walks inside. Clarke is suddenly spun around with her arms twisted behind her back. “My Shepherd, she was behind the toxin. It was real, but she controlled it. Now she is out of tricks and is going to take you to the Key whether she likes it or not.”