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When the night first starts to light up in streaks across the sky, Clarke and Bellamy climb one the highest trees and watch in wonder. They lean close against each other, sharing quiet whispers and theories about what the lights could mean. Clarke says they’re just the shooting stars that her father taught them about, only, they must be closer to Earth. Bellamy disagrees, remembering the history of Becca pramheda and how she was rumoured to ascend into the sky. ‘She must be coming back down’ he had said.
Oh how Clarke wishes it had only been the shooting stars.
~ ~ ~ ~
Clarke doesn’t exactly remember how she first met Bellamy. But she had heard stories that they used to play together when they were little, that they’ve been inseparable since birth. He’s always been there in her memories; when they started to climb the big trees outside the village, when they were taught to fight for the first time (Bellamy specialising with a sword, her with a bow and arrows), that time they snuck into the fall festival they weren’t supposed to be at for another 5 years, and how they got drunk on the spirits they thought was the lychee juice. Bellamy’s always been there. Like some sort of stubborn shadow that wouldn’t go away…not that she’d ever want him to go away of course.
She loved Bellamy.
She loved the freckles that splattered constellations on his nose and cheeks- something that was so rare amongst their people. (Although his freckles held nothing on the rarity of her blonde hair and pale skin- something she liked to remind him of often; she was the special one she’d always tease, to which he’d reply that he agreed). She even loved that stupid smirk he’d give her whenever she did something particularly stupid. They were each other’s person, and the years of memories they held mean that nothing could shake that. He was her best friend, even though such a love was rare on the ground.
“Thinking about me?” Bellamy’s voice shakes her out her thoughts. She raises one eyebrow and smirks at him.
“Only about how stupid you are.” She quips back.
He shakes his head and smiles at her. He has her bow and arrows slung over his shoulder and some kind of sack in his hand.
“Ready to get that target practice in?” He asks.
Clarke nods, reaching for her weapons and pulling them from his arm. As they walk towards a small clearing in the woods, he slings an arm over her shoulders and starts to tell her about how his little sister, Octavia, is doing in her training.
Clarke only half-listens to him, and as his words start to blur out of her focus, her mind drifts to the strange lights she and Bellamy had seen last night. What were they? Could Bellamy be right? Is it really Becca’s ancestors coming back to Earth?
“You have your thinking face on Princess.”
Clarke startles and stops walking abruptly.
“Sorry, I just can’t stop thinking about the lights we saw.” Her face creases as she frowns.
Bellamy tilts his head slightly as he puts a hand up to smooth down the crease between her eyebrows.
“Don’t overthink it. I’m sure it’s nothing. Shooting stars- like you said.”
Clarke looks up at him and nods slightly. Bellamy gives her a small smile and then as he shrugs the pack off of his shoulder, it moulds into a smirk.
“Now, lets see if you’re as atrocious with a bow as you were last time.” He teases.
Clarke shoves him, gripping her bow in her hand before turning towards the trees. She walks towards a decently size one and starts to climb. When she reaches one of the middle branches, she leans slightly against the trunk and takes one of the arrows out of her quiver.
“Are you going to help me with my target practice or what?” She calls down to Bellamy.
He grins up at her before reaching into the bag he brought.
“I thought this time I might up the stakes.” He calls up to her, “Instead of hitting fruit as I throw it, you have to try and hit me.”
Clarke freezes, paling slightly.
“You want me to shoot you with arrows??” She continues, “If you’re that desperate to get out of perimeter duty I could always poison you. Shooting you just seems a little overdramatic.”
Bellamy laughs, pulling out an apple from the bag and placing it on his head. Clarke quirks an eyebrow in confusion.
“I guess I should have said that you have to try to not hit me as I stand in the way of the way of the target.” Bellamy chuckles.
“…you want me to shoot the apple off of your head?”
“Yep.”
Clarke sighs, “Don’t you remember the last time we tried something like this, out of those stupid history books you have?”
“Yes and I have the scar on my face to forever prove that you suck at throwing knives.” He jibes.
Clarke scoffs.
“I’m not the one that chickened out at the last second and moved.”
“Just shoot the damn apple off of my head Clarke. Come on, I have complete faith in you.”
Clarke rolls her eyes once for good measure, before notching the arrow into place. She pulls back on the string and brings her arm down, aiming a little bit above Bellamy’s head. She prays to all the gods that she doesn’t kill him.
As she releases the arrow, she has to resist the urge to suddenly close her eyes. As the arrow hits the middle of the apple, the force sends it backwards into the tree. Bellamy ducks, the loud noise making him turn around. The apple is stuck to the tree, with the arrow perfectly in the centre, holding it there. Bellamy looks back up at her as she lets out the breath she didn’t even know she was holding. As they grin at each other, Clarke shrugs the bow over her chest so she can start to climb down. Before she has the chance, a loud thrumming noise sounds through the forest. There’s a great bang that shakes the earth, sending birds to the air, with the impact causing Clarke to lose her grip on the trunk and crash towards the ground.
The wind is knocked out of her and she can’t get any air to her lungs. Her eyes fill suddenly with tears and her ears ring. The quiver digs painfully into her back but she doesn’t have enough energy to move it.
“Holy shit.” Bellamy’s voice seems so far away.
“Clarke!” He yells, suddenly seeing her.
Clarke tries to tell him that she’s okay, just shocked, but words escape her.
Bellamy suddenly appears over her, the worry evident on his face. There’s a small red scratch on his cheek, showing that the impact must have also sent him flying. Clarke feels him lift her head gently. He pushes some of her hair away from her face and scans her body for injuries.
“Anything broken? Do you think you can stand up?” He turns his head away, facing towards the direction the sounds came in, “We have to get back to the village and find out what that was.” He looks back down at her. “Are you okay Clarke?”
She nods slightly, before the dizziness in her head forces her to stop.
“I’ll be fine.” She says hoarsely.
Bellamy seems to disagree because he puts his arms under her back and legs and hoists her up into the air.
“You should know by now that you can’t lie to me Princess.” He says, rushing back in the direction of their village.
~ ~ ~ ~
It takes almost an entire day before Anya and Indra come up with a plan to investigate the mysterious ship that fell from the sky.
“There’s no way I’m letting you go by yourself.” Bellamy says after the announcement that 4 scouts would be sent into the woods to spy on the ship is made.
Clarke scoffs and rolls her eyes, continuing to pack a few rations into her bag. She dances around Bellamy from where he’s sitting on her bed.
“You’re being ridiculous, I won’t be alone. And it’s a honour that Anya chose me as one of the scouts.” She says, dismissing him.
Bellamy scowls at her, crossing his arms over his chest (an action she distinctly remembers him doing constantly when he was younger. Stubborn asshole.).
“Yeah but I won’t be with you and none of those assholes will be able to protect you if it really came down to it.”
“What makes you think I need protecting?” She says hotly.
Bellamy sighs, grabbing at her hand as she angrily turns her back to him. He pulls her back around, looking at her exasperated.
“You know that’s not what I meant Clarke. I just don’t like you going off into danger without me. And I know you feel the same way.”
Clarke bites her lip and nods. When she looks back to Bellamy, his eyes dart up quickly from her mouth to her eyes. She quirks her eyebrows at him but he pretends not to notice the questioning look.
“I’ll be fine Bellamy. It’s just a scouting mission. See what it is, draw pictures, stay out of sight. And I’ll have my bow. It’s fine.”
Bellamy stares at her, relenting a little. He stands up and pulls her into a hug.
“Stay safe.”
“I will.”
“You better. I’m not rescuing your ass.”
“That’s a lie and you know it.”
“Yeah…I know.”
She feels Bellamy’s lips against her hair before he quickly leaves. She watches the door flap shut behind him and wonders what the warmth in her chest is and why she’s never felt it before.
~ ~ ~ ~
She stays longer than all of the other scouts. One by one, she sends them back with different drawings of the camp and tallies of the sky people’s numbers. The first one she sends back almost instantly, telling him to warn the others that there were people inside the metal thing that came from the sky. He nods and runs off quickly, melding in with the colours of the forest as he goes.
She sends the second one back with some of her sketches detailing the layout of the intruders camp. She draws the thing they call the ‘drop-ship’, and even sketches out the faces of some of the more menacing looking sky people. They seem to speak only English and none of them appear to be over the age of twenty. However, there’s something dangerous about a lot them; especially the ones with the crudely designed weapons. She even watches one of their youngest stick a knife into the kid everyone had been calling the chancellor.
She sends the final scout back with the tally of the people she’s been able to see in the camp, 100 initially, but with their numbers slowly dropping from exposure, dehydration and even murder. Just before the scout goes, she tells them to let Anya know that she’s going to find out the structure of their society and find the weaknesses of their infrastructure. If this turns into a war, she’s going to be the one that has the information that will help them win.
She’s been sitting in the trees for four days when they bring guns back into camp. She had seen three of the sky people wander off a few hours before, but she had thought nothing of it. They weren’t going in the direction of her home so she didn’t have to worry about them. She thought they they were probably just searching for water or food or something. She wishes that had been the case.
Although three of them had gone out, only two return. And with them, they have large sacks slung over their shoulders. When they drop them and show the others what is inside, there’s a cheer of excitement that rushes around the camp. Confused, Clarke leans forwards in an attempt to get a closer look. What was in the bags? As she teeters too far forwards to look, her foot brushes against her now-empty pack of rations. It falls towards the ground before she can catch it, making a noise against the forest floor as the empty tins clang together. Clarke’s eyes shoot back up towards the sky people, praying that none of them heard it. But of course one them did. And of course it had to be the deranged one they call Murphy.
“What was that!?” He calls suddenly, his yell hushing the others in the camp.
“You’re just hearing things Murphy. It’s probably another one of those freaky animals.” A tall lanky boy says beside him.
Murphy sneers at the boy and reaches into the sack.
“Murphy put that gun back!” Another person yells, trying to take it out of his arms. Murphy shrugs them off, walking towards the haphazardly made wall they were in the middle on constructing.
Clarke eyes the black thing in his hand, -the gun-, it must be some kind of weapon. Reaching for her book in the pocket of her jacket, Clarke quickly sketches the shape of it.
Maybe Bellamy will know what they are. There might be something in those books he’s always reading.
Murphy shrugs the door to the wall open, and steps into the forest. Clarke watches him, her eyes uneasily flitting towards her pack that lays a few steps to his left. She’s so stupid. She should have left with the other scout, before these people started getting suspicious of their surroundings- she should have left when everything was new and exciting to them. She’d seen that girl’s face when she found the butterfly field. It had even closely resembled Octavia’s, reaction when they had first taken her to see it. Before now, some of these people hadn’t seemed so bad. Sure she’d have loved to have shot the ones like Murphy by now, but that wasn’t her mission.
Clarke shifts backwards a little, waiting for an opportunity to slip away undetected.
Too bad the kid finds her pack before she can.
~ ~ ~ ~
Clarke is glad that they’re all lousy shots and don’t seem to have any particular strategy when they spot her.
The sounds the guns make, shock her so much that she barely thinks to move out of the way. The pain starts in her side, and pools into her leg and up her spine. She cries out suddenly, looking down at where she was hit. Clarke puts her hand to the rip in her side. She wonders if being hit directly would intensify the burning that is currently spreading around her side and licking at her back. The kids keep firing, some hitting the trunk and branches of the tree around her, causing bark to fly up and scratch at her face.
Clarke growls angrily at herself. She has weapons. Why isn’t she shooting back?
As her hand reaches for the bow strung across her back, Bellamy’s face appears in her mind. Get out of there! It seems to scream at her. Don’t play the hero! Clarke huffs. Even when he’s not with her, he’s somehow bossing her around. She stops reaching for the bow and instead swings herself to the next tree, almost crying out again at the sharp pain the exertion causes in her side. She pushes through, fleeing from the sky people’s camp and in the opposite direction of her own to throw them off in the process. No point letting them know that there are other people on the ground while simultaneously alerting them to the location of her people at the same time.
As the echoing sounds of the guns start to fade, Clarke’s face hardens at the realisation that there is no way they can avoid a war with this people. Not when they possess such weapons and are hostile without cause.
Finally out of the vicinity of the camp, and sure that none of the sky people are following her, Clarke drops down from the trees and doubles back towards her village, running at top speed as the blood continues to trickle down her side and the fire continues to spread across her limbs.
I’m coming Bellamy.
~ ~ ~ ~
It’s early morning when Clarke reaches the large statue just outside her village. Her legs feel heavy as she trudges forwards. Sweat drips down her forehead and collects around the base of her neck. The pain in her side has become so familiar, it’s now more of a dull ache than the burning from before.
As she passes some of the last few trees, she reaches the warning horn. It hangs from a hook on a post her father put in a few years ago, before he was taken by the mountain. She reaches out to grab it, shakily pulling it from the hook and bringing it to her lips. She gathers the small amount of air in her lungs and pushes it out of her mouth, producing a loud warring sound that will definitely reach the village and wake them up.
Exhausted and sore, Clarke sinks to her knees in front of the post. She blows the horn again, the sound less shrilling than the last. Her hand with the horn drops, and she lets her grip on it loosen.
She clutches at her side, staunching some of the blood flow. As her head falls forwards to rest against the post and she finally allows herself to feel the pain, she hears shouting in the distance. She twists her neck slightly to look towards the direction of her village. Her vision blurs in and out of focus as figures burst through the foliage. Some are only in their sleepwear, others are in full armour and with weapons strapped to their sides.
Anya is the first one to zero in on Clarke. Her eyes flit down to the horn in Clarke’s right hand, to the blood covering her left and then back up to her face. She moves to take a step forwards when Bellamy suddenly bursts into view. His hair is messy and his eyes are still slightly glazed with sleep, but he seems to wake up when he sees her.
He brushes past Anya and the others and kneels in front of her. Clarke focuses on his face as he removes her hand from the wound. He takes in the sight of the blood before grabbing tearing some cloth off of his shirt and pushing it against it. Just like she’d shown him.
“Clarke. What happened?” She hears Anya ask.
Bellamy turns and shoots Anya a look that Clarke doesn’t see.
“Sky people.” She gets out, taking a breath before continuing, “Two of them came back with weapons…it was like they were spitting fire.”
Bellamy straightens suddenly, looking into her eyes.
“Guns?”
Clarke nods, not even a little surprised that he knows what they are without even looking at the picture she sketched for him.
“Did the bullet only graze you?” He asks seriously.
Clarke blinks at him.
“Graze…I think. One of them spotted me in the trees because the noise they were making scared the birds away.”
She laughs a little, “Good news though Anya, they’re pretty lousy at aiming.”
Bellamy reaches towards her forehead and pushes back part of her fringe.
“We have to get you to your mother.” He says to her before turning back to Anya.
Anya gives a terse nod, “Take her. We can fortify the village before we get details.”
Bellamy nods back, turning towards Clarke again, lifting her up against his chest.
“You really need to stop coming up with excuses to make me carry you Princess.” He jokes quietly. She gives him a small smile before leaning her head against his chest.
“I’m tired Bell.”
“I know.”
There’s a moment of silence between them. Clarke listens to the sound of Bellamy’s heart and focuses on matching her breathing to the rhythm of his.
“You scared me Princess.” He says once they’re out of vicinity of the others. “This is exactly why I hate letting you go off by yourself.”
“Because I can’t protect myself?”
“No you did pretty well considering there’s what..100 of them?”
“94 now.”
“Well you got away from 94 hostiles with only one injury, so I think you’re definitely more of a badass than me.” He pauses briefly, before smirking “I just wish I had gone with you so I could have seen it myself.”
Clarke smiles a little, feeling her eyes close.
“Don’t worry…there’ll be plenty of other times when..you’ll see it…” She closes her eyes, drifting off just before she hears him say
“I have no doubt.”
~ ~ ~ ~
By the time Clarke realises that she loves Bellamy, as in the real romantic-type ‘love’ rather than the best friend/ sibling love, she’s part of the army of warriors marching towards the Skaikru camp. Let’s just say that she has terrible timing.
She remembers the dread she had felt in her stomach when she was told that both her and Bellamy would be part of the first group of warriors to advance on the sky people. She had looked across to him, finding that he was already looking at her. His face was grim and his eyes seemed to be hurting, but he had still managed to give her a smile. Figures that he’d still be caring for her wellbeing first.
They had packed quietly that night, sharpening weapons and applying war paint.
Together they had walked out towards the edge of the village, joining the other warriors conscripted by the threat of war.
Bellamy had looked like he had wanted to tell her something as they neared the location of the Skaikru camp. He had suddenly turned his head towards her, with his mouth open.
“Clarke…” He blinks twice at her, his facial expression contorting strangely before he turned back around to face the others as they walked in the swarm of Trikru warriors.
“Yes?” She prompts, still watching him, her throat closing at the thought that she might never see him again.
“…Stay alive, okay?” He says, the fear in his voice rips at Clarke’s heart.
“Only if you do.”
His head turns slightly towards her at the serious tone of her voice, but he nods and grabs her hand to squeeze it.
“Together.”
Clarke smiles slightly to herself, finally being able to name that strange feeling in her chest: Love.
~ ~ ~ ~
The battle was bloody. Her people were dropping all around her, some silent, some with cries of agony as they blindly grasped out for their comrades. She heard explosions behind her, and turning, she saw her people on fire. They stumbled into trees or fellow warriors, screaming out words of agony. Some of them were blown apart by the explosive traps Skaikru had planted. Clarke’s heart seemed to bleed in pain each time she heard another cry or saw another one of her neighbours fall and die.
She wipes at the blood covering her face, casualty of the last explosion that had sent someone’s guts flying at her face. Her ears ring painfully and her limbs feel like lead.
She had long since abandoned her bow and arrows for her sword once the sky people realised that the arrows were coming from the trees. Somehow, in the space of a week, their aim had already improved significantly.
Clarke slashes brutally at any sky person she sees out of the camp. Before, she would have been hesitant at killing so many children, but she had seen the death and destruction they could bring. Blood must have blood.
She lost sight of Bellamy a while ago, just before she was forced to drop down out of the trees. Last she saw him, he had been attempting to pull down the wall with three other men from the village and Anya. She figures that they must have succeeded because there was now a steady flow of skaikru appearing outside of the wall trying to escape.
After pulling one of the teenage boys from her village behind the cover of a tree, Clarke turns and looks for the opening in the wall. She hears hysteric shouting coming from near the drop-ship and makes her way towards it. As she reaches the part of the wall that has been knocked down, she catches sight of Bellamy and all the breath leaves her lungs.
His sword lays on the ground behind him, stained in blood. She grasps for her bow as she watches him grapple with a particularly ferocious looking sky person. She notches the arrow and takes in a breath.
It’s okay Clarke. It’s just like hitting the apple off of his head. You aren’t going to hurt him, you’re saving him.
She lets the arrow fly and watches with satisfaction as it hits the boy in the head, killing him instantly. Bellamy drops the body in shock, and turns towards her. When he spots her, he gives her a blinding grin, (which is semi-inappropriate for this particular moment but she doesn’t care), his white teeth are a stark contrast to the blood and dirt that sticks to his face. It looks like he’s about to step towards her when she hears multiple echoes of a gun and sees the grin on his face fall.
“No!” She screams as he falls to his knees, clutching at his side.
Clarke automatically grabs another arrow and shoots it at the small Skaikru kid holding the gun, not even thinking for a moment that they’re probably only Octavia’s age.
She drops her weapon and rushes towards Bellamy in shock. When she reaches him, she puts one hand over his on the bullet wound, and uses the other to brush over the curls covering his forehead.
“Bell?” Her voice cracks.
He opens his eyes and looks at her. Her heart beat speeds up when she sees the fear in them. She ignores the commotion going on around her.
She doesn’t care that the sky people are retreating into their drop-ship and closing the door. She also doesn’t seem to notice when Anya screams out in frustration and flings herself over the door just in time to roll inside. She only focuses on Bellamy and shallowness of his breathing.
She feels tears start to slowly roll down her cheeks, leaving tracks against the blood and paint that covers her face. She starts to shift, trying to grab under his shoulders, pulling him.
“Come on! I can carry you back Bell! Just like you did for me…come on Bell! Please!”
Bellamy stops her blabbering by carefully reaching up towards her face and wiping the tears away.
“I won’t make it that long Clarke.”
“Are you saying that I’m not strong enough to get you back?!”
Bellamy smiles at her slightly, “I have complete faith in you Clarke. It’s me..I…I’ll bleed out before you can-”
She shakes her head in denial and presses her hand against the bullet wound. Bellamy grunts at the pain but makes no comment.
The blood won’t stop.
Clarke sobs, leaning closer towards him.
“Clarke?” He asks weakly, brushing her hair away from her eyes.
She keeps her head down, watching as the blood from his wound continues flowing, covering her hands.
“Clarke I-” His body shudders and he leans heavily against her.
“Shhhh” she says, letting his head drop to her shoulder as she runs her fingers through his curls soothingly. The blood on her fingers covers his hair but he doesn’t seem to notice.
“I need-” he takes in a heavy breath, “I need to tell you…”
“It’s okay Bell. You’re okay.”
“No I-” he laughs painfully, “of course you’d…interrupt me..even now.”
Tears flow freely down her face as she laughs painfully.
“I…I love you Clarke.” He says into her shoulder. She swears that she can even feel his tears through the fabric of her shirt.
“I know.” She says, twisting her fingers into his hair.
“No..not..not like that…like…” He peters off, taking a shuddering breath. Clarke pushes his shoulders back so she can see his face.
“No Bellamy. I do know.” Her lip quivers and he gives her a small smile, tears dropping from his eyes.
“I love you too.” She says, letting him lean back against her.
“It’s okay Princess.” He says breathlessly.
She feels his arms go around her waist. They tighten for a moment as he breathes in deeply, but then they loosen.
Sobs wrack Clarke’s body and her hand shakes as she continues to comb her fingers through his hair.
As the drop-ship begins to make strange mechanical noises, she speaks to Bellamy.
“You die, I die Bell.” She whispers.
Fire begins to spurt out from the bottom of the drop-ship, engulfing the grounders trying to climb it to get to Anya. They scream in agony and try to get away.
As Clarke watches the flames burst towards her, she kisses Bellamy’s head, closes her eyes and whispers,
“Together.”
-Fin-