"Is she awake?"
"No, for the millionth time."She can hear voices all around her but can only clearly make out two male voices. She groans at the pain in her forehead and everyone falls silent.
"Clarke?" This voice is higher than the previous two and much, much softer. When she opens her eyes, she is overwhelmed by the sunlight, turning the faces around her into nothing more than shadows. The girl to her right helps her slowly sit up.
"Alright," one of the male voices from earlier booms. "Back to work! Now!" Slowly her eyes adjust to the light and she sees four faces peering down at her. Two girls, both with long dark hair and two boys, both with shaggy dark hair.
"Clarke?" The younger of the two girls asks. "How's your head?"
"My head?" She touches her forehead and winces.
"She should probably get some sleep," the shorter boy suggests.
"Yeah," the tall one snaps hotly. "If she has a concussion leaving her to sleep alone is a great idea."
"Obviously we'd watch her. Despite what you may think, I'm not an idiot, Blake."
"Guys! Can we not?"
"What is going on?" Clarke's voice is shaky even to her own ears. All sets of eyes turn slowly back to her.
"Well, Murphy's brilliant self knocked you in the head with a piece of wood." Clarke stares blankly at the younger girl as she speaks. "Wait, Clarke? Do you know where we are?"
"Er, in the woods?" The girl blinks and straightens up, casting a concerned glance at the boy called Blake.
"Do you know who we are?" He kneels in front of her.
"Your name is… Blake?" Clarke glances at the other three people who now look completely shell shocked.
"Do you know your name?"
"Of course I do!" She says indignantly. "It's Clarke!" There's a brief pause and when no one answers her, she begins to worry that maybe that's not the name the first girl had called her. "Right?"
"GREAT!" Roars the Blake boy. "WHERE'S MURPHY!?"
"What are you going to do? It was an accident, Bellamy."
"I'm going to hit him so hard it gives him amnesia!" Bellamy storms off.
"Okay, now that that's over with… Clarke, I'm Raven." The older of the two girls smiles down at her and offers her a hand. Hesitantly, Clarke takes it and stands slowly. "This is Octavia." The other girl waves awkwardly, still looking extremely concerned. "And that," she points at the last boy. "Is Finn."
"Um, it's nice to meet you all," this warrants a couple of uncomfortable chuckles from the others.
"Let's get you into the drop ship and checked out, shall we?" Octavia points at the large metal thing behind them and leads the way through the tarp acting as a door.
"What is this thing?"
"It's… this whole big thing. We used to live in space and we were sent down here as a sort of punishment in this thing… it's not much, but its home. Here, sit." The next half hour is spent with Octavia asking Clarke silly questions. Some of the questions work their way into her brain and spring loose a memory. Finally, Octavia leaves Clarke to rest and meets Bellamy outside the drop ship.
"So?"
"I think she definitely has memory loss… just a slight concussion, she should be fine on that front. She remembers some things, like her mom, and life on the Ark. But after that? All of us? Earth? She has no memory of any of it. I don't know if it will ever come back. When I was asking her stuff she seemed to recall certain things when I brought them up, but she said they were hazy, unclear. I think maybe if we give her a while she might remember some things, but who knows?"
"That's not good enough. She needs to remember this. We need her to remember." Bellamy reaches forward and begins to pull the tarp back.
"Hey," Octavia reaches out and stops her brother with a hand on his arm. "I don't think so, she's sleeping. And since I'm the only other one with medical training I say no one is to bother her or question her until I release her. Got it?" Bellamy glares down at his sister for just a moment, but never being one to argue with her, he releases the tarp and heads towards the gates.
…
Life in the camp continues on as normal and when Clarke is finally released by Octavia it's with caution that she leaves the drop ship. She moves through the camp with an air of amazement.
"You guys built all of this?" She asks Octavia as she leads her through the camp.
"We built this. You helped. You and Bell are kind of the leaders around this place."
"Hey, princess," Bellamy's voice makes her jump. She screws her face up at the apparent pet name.
"Princess?"
"Can't remember my damned name but she can remember that she hates being called princess." He grins at her and lifts an eyebrow as she flushes red.
"Are we…" She leans closer to Octavia and lowers her voice. "Are we together?"
"What?!" Bellamy's face flushes in turn. "No, absolutely not. If anything, you're with Spacewalker."
"Spacewalker?"
"That'd be me." The other boy, Finn, comes trotting towards them, a smile on his face. "It's nice to see you out, Clarke." He has a kind face and warm eyes. And when he looks at her, she can tell that he definitely feels something for her. She wishes she could remember him.
"Yeah, it's nice to be out." The air becomes heavy with the awkward silence that stretches between them.
"Would you like to go out and relearn the area?" Finn asks, his eyes shining brightly and his eyebrows raised in anticipation.
"Yeah, sure… why not?" Clarke glances uneasily at the other two but follows Finn anyways. The whole way out of the camp he chatters on, telling her about their time since they landed, how she first met him and how they've been in love ever since. As he prattles on and on she finds it hard to believe that she'd fallen so madly in love with someone in such a short amount of time. "But we hardly know each other." She blurts out after a while.
"What?" Finn stops short. They've just barely made it into the surrounding woods when she spoke up. Now, she can hear the sound of what she believes is a stream to her right and what could only be birds high up in the trees.
"I mean, you seem so sure of it. That we're meant to be and all… but you hardly know me."
"It's not like that, you know?" Finn takes a step towards her a gentle smile on his face. "When it's right, you just know."
"At this point in my life I don't know much of anything." She means it as a joke, but his face falls and she gets the tiniest feeling that she should feel guilty for saying that, but to be honest, she doesn't. Instead of apologizing, she follows the sounds of water and pushes her way through some very thick underbrush to find the water moving slowly over the earth. They spend the rest of the time wandering aimlessly, and silently, through the trees. "Shouldn't we be getting back?" Clarke asks as her stomach grumbles. "It's getting kind of late."
"Yeah, let's head back." Without really thinking about it, Finn reaches out and grabs her hand only to have her yank out of his grasp. "Sorry!" He raises his hands. "Habit… camp's this way." He leads the way back looking rather dejected. They once again fall into silence. On the way back she does start to recognize a few different landmarks, though whether that's due to her memory coming back or the fact that they passed these exact places just hours before she's not sure.
"Perfect timing, guys." Raven greets them at the camp entrance. "Here's some food."
Clarke accepts a plate of food and settles onto the ground a little ways off from the rest of the kids. She's staring down at the plate of strange looking, supposedly edible stuff when a shadow falls across her.
"It's better than it looks," Bellamy says as he lowers himself to sit next to her. "It's just boar."
"Boar?" She wrinkles her nose at the food. "Do I like boar?"
"I don't know. The only way to know that is if you try it." He takes a big bite out of his charred piece of meat and smiles encouragingly at her.
"It's all just so frustrating," she mutters around a piece of the boar, which, she is pleased to find, she does happen to like.
"What's that, princess?"
"Not knowing anything. I don't even know who I am." She places the makeshift plate on the dirt in front of her, suddenly she isn't hungry anymore.
"Well, you're a pain in the ass if that helps any." She shoots him a look of disbelief. "Seriously, you are. You're too… good. Always doing the right thing, keeping a level head. You know, boring stuff." He smiles at her and she is startled to realize that she actually likes that crooked smile very much.
"Thanks. But that doesn't help any. You and Octavia are related?"
"Mhm," he nods his head and swallows the food in his mouth. "She's my baby sister. I actually named her," he says proudly.
"But no one else here is related." It's not really a question but he nods in confirmation. "Why were you locked up and sent down here?"
"I came down here to protect Octavia." Clarke doesn't miss the way he seems to shut her out at the question. So instead of digging deeper she just nods.
"She's lucky to have you then. This place is weird. I saw a bird with two heads today." Bellamy nods again as if this is normal.
"Wait until you see the giant man eating snakes in the water." Clarke's eyes widen in horror and he laughs. After a moment he adds, "No but seriously, don't get in the water unless someone tells you it's a safe area."
"This is terrible," she groans resting her head in her hands.
"It'll get easier," Bellamy says as he stands. "And if you have any questions, I'm here to help. Well, so are the others, but they might soften it up for you. If you're looking for the truth, I'm your guy." He turns to leave.
"Bellamy wait! If you'll tell me the truth, I do have one question for you… me and Finn… are we really together?"
"Uh, kinda. I'm not really sure what's going on there. You'll have to talk to Raven about that one."
"Raven?"
"Yeah, they were sort of still together when you and Finn got together. It's kind of a mess." Despite himself, Bellamy can't help but smile just a little.
"Huh, he just doesn't seem my type." Bellamy full on smirks at that.
"Tell me about it, princess."