He found both disappointment and relief when Clarke didn't offer her own declaration of love. Part of him had wanted her to say she loved him - to offer some sort of validation of his own feelings. He didn't want to be the knight in tarnished armor, with unrequited love the only thing to show for all that he'd done for a princess. But at the very same time, he was relieved she didn't return his affections. He could have been a rebound for Finn. A way to distract herself from what happened in Mount Weather. He didn't want to be those things. He let Raven use him once before and that was fine. They both needed it, but he knew he couldn't be that for Clarke. He didn't want to be and he was glad she wasn't going to take that path. Still, he had to look away from her in order to sort through and cover up the way his heart stumbled.
But he was glad he reached her - Bellamy could tell in the way her eyes welled with tears. Clarke reached out to touch his hand and Bellamy turned his palm up to lace his fingers through hers. He didn't need her to love him yet. Maybe she would, maybe she wouldn't. He could settle for whatever they were right now. As long as he could help her get through this, and as long as he could protect her, Bellamy didn't really need anything else. He learned how to love selflessly a long time ago and this wouldn't be any different. He just had to hope it wouldn't be weird. And he would probably have to broach the topic with Octavia soon. Judging by her tone as she filled him in on the walk back to Camp Jaha, he knew she wasn't happy with Clarke or the way plenty of events had gone down.
She complimented him and he ducked his head, a smile breaking across his face. "You just now figuring that out?" he quipped. When they first crashed down to Earth, Bellamy never thought he would look at Clarke Griffin and count her as one of the most important things in his life. He never thought he would be so damn taken with her that he would regularly put his life at risk for her. "We'll get through this," he reassured her, and felt confident that, this time, she would actually believe it.