Prompt "Elevator" from RealLifeShipper (ages ago, but I finally got to it!)
So, definitely wrote this in one day, then revised it a second day, probably the quickest story I've ever spit out.
Disclaimer: I have no knowledge of elevators or their habits/ways of malfunctioning. I am also somewhat skeptical about how often fire departments actually rescue people from elevators (rather than just maintenance or someone handling it), but this story wouldn't work if I paid attention to that detail, so I ask for a little suspension of disbelief. But isn't that true of a lot of fanfiction?
Clarke loved her building. It had charm, a great view, and most importantly memories—she had inherited her apartment from her dad. At least that's what she told herself as she sat inside the elevator, lit by emergency lights waiting for help to come. She had just run a few errands after a long day at work and to top it off was soaked to the bone from the short walk from car to building. She sighed again.
"Sorry, it took so long to get back to you about an ETA, Dr. Griffin," Mr. Miller's voice crackled through the speaker. "The fire department has been a little busy with the problems the storm caused, but they said they have a small crew coming that should be here in twenty or so minutes."
She pressed down the button to respond. "How many times do I have to ask to call me Clarke? You've met my mother, please don't call us by the same name. I'll have nightmares. And no worries. I just wish I had something more to do in here."
He chuckled, likely recalling the nightmare of a visit when Abby came to the apartment and demanded to know everything Mr. Miller was doing as security. "Aren't you kids supposed to be obsessed with your phones? I know Nathan and his boyfriend are constantly on theirs."
She joined his laughter "If mine wasn't dead, I'd be fine. I may or may not have dropped it in a puddle while trying to rush to the building."
"Well, you hang in there, Clarke," he told her. "I'll let you know when they get here."
"Thank you, Mr. Miller," she responded. "Talk to you soon."
"If I'm calling you Clarke, you should call me David."
"But I grew up with you as Mr. Miller, there's a difference," she protested.
He solemnly joked, "The resident is always right."
Clarke settled with her back against the wall of the small space and rummaged through her bags to try to find something to entertain herself. First she nibbled on one of the cookies she had bought. But that only lasted so long. She sighed and dug through her purse until she found a pen which she then used to doodle box the cookies had come in.
At long last the emergency line crackled. She jumped toward it eagerly. "Hi, Mr. Miller."
"Hello Clarke. The fire department just pulled up." Then a little further from the speaker she heard him say, "Oh, Bellamy! I wasn't expecting you to be the one to come. How are you, son?"
"I'm good Mr. Miller," a deep, attractive voice replied, sparking her interest. "Who have we got and where are they at?"
"Miss Griffin is stuck…"
"Somewhere between the fourth and fifth floor," she supplied, rolling her eyes at Mr. Miller switching back to a formal way of addressing her.
"Did you get that?" Mr. Miller asked the firemen.
"Yup," the same voice replied. "We'll have you out of there soon, Miss Griffin."
"Thank you!" she called through her end and sat back to wait.
A few minutes later she heard some muffled talking and then metal creaking. "Can you hear us, Miss Griffin?" the same voice from earlier called.
"Yeah," she called back.
"Alright, we're going to open up the elevator." And sure enough the doors to the elevator were widening, the top half opening to a floor. Crap, I'm going to need arm strength for this aren't I? she thought to herself.
Then a freckled, tan face surrounded by a mess of dark curls smiled brightly down at her. She took a sharp inhale. Damn, you can rescue me any day, she thought and hoped her attraction wasn't immediately obvious. Apparently he didn't notice or was simply used to it because all he said was, "Hi. I'm Bellamy with the fire department. How are you doing, Miss Griffin?"
"Well, you know, your typical day. Decided it would be fun to get stuck in an elevator during a power outage; got to have that fun story to tell at work on Monday."
He laughed at her dry humor. "Well, let's get you out of there. Do you have anything with you, you want us to take?"
"Just a couple bags," she gestured to where they were lying next to her on the floor.
"Why don't you hand those to Sterling, while I work on getting you out of there."
Clarke lifted the canvas bags overhead to the blonde reaching for her things, before giving Bellamy a contemplative look. He quirked an eyebrow when she didn't move closer to the doorway again.
"I'm warning you now, I'm short and have basically no upper body strength so to speak of," she told him.
"It's okay, I've got you," he assured her leaning an arm down, so she didn't have to jump for it. She reached up and grasped his wrist. "One hand, now two," he extended his other arm for her. And once he had a strong hold, he hoisted her up and through the opening, making it seem like he was lifting only a small child.
As she stood up she looked him up and down. "Damn, someone has insane arm strength," she commented. "Then again, that's part of your job, isn't it?"
He laughed and she studied him more closely, noticing how the open laugh and freckles made him look young, though he was probably a few years older than herself. "Maybe just a bit," he admitted.
"Thank you. All of you," she addressed the other two firemen.
"You're welcome, ma'am," Sterling told her.
"Oh god, Clarke, please. No 'ma'am's."
"You're welcome, Clarke," the third man said.
There was an awkward pause and she shuffled her feet a little. "Well this feels sufficiently awkward. Do I just wave and say, 'See ya later?'" The three fireman laughed politely at her joke. "Wait! Here," she dug through one of her bags and brought out her favorite bakery cookies. "It's the least I could do. They're from this amazing bakery over on Mecha Ave. I found the place last month and I probably go in at least once a week; I may have a problem."
Sterling and the other man laughed heartily. "They are great cookies. Bellamy's brother-in-law owns the place, so he's brought some to the station, though usually the ones that are a day or two old."
Clarke turned in surprise to Bellamy. "Really? Lincoln? He is such a sweetheart. And that means your sister must be Octavia; she's definitely a spitfire." She really needed to get a better social circle. She didn't think normal people knew this much about their bakery owners.
Bellamy smiled, "That'd be them. I'll let them know how much you like the cookies."
"I think they already do. I raved about the cookies for about five minutes to Octavia before she told me she was the owner's wife rather than another customer."
"I think I remember that story," Bellamy laughed.
Clarke groaned. "Glad I could help entertain at family dinner. So, cookie?" she offered them to the group once more. "Then I'll let you all be on your merry way."
All three took a cookie with a "thanks" and moved to pack up their things.
She looked down the hall at the door to the stairs. "Fuck," she muttered. She turned and Bellamy's eye who had looked up at her utterance. "Only police and paramedics come if there's a dead body, right?"
"What?" he sputtered.
"Well, I'm probably going to die on the trek up to my apartment, but I'll try not to if I'd annoy you all by making you come back to the building right after you leave."
"What floor do you live on?"
"Twelfth," she answered forlornly.
"Princess in her tower," he teased. "If I help you carry your bags if that going to help you not die?"
"Oh! That is not what I was getting at, at all! Plus, I'm sure you have much better things to do. Help other damsels in distress out of elevators."
"This is my last stop of the day. I was going to go home after this, but I can make a quick detour up a couple stairs if it'd help you out."
"You really don't have to," she protested.
"I know, but I'm still offering," he smiled at her.
"Okay. But, um, be ready to make frequent stops on the stairs. I get the feeling you're in like a hundred times better shape than me."
He laughed and picked up all but her purse and made his way to the stairs, saying good-bye to his co-workers. He held the door open for her as she scrambled to catch up. "I'm sure we'll be fine." Then as she squeezed past him, chest to chest her added with a wink, "I'm also trained in mouth-to-mouth if you do start to die on me."
Her breath caught for a minute, but it didn't stop her from turning with a gaping look at him over her shoulder. They continued their light banter all the way to her apartment where they finally parted.
Clarke sighed against the door of her apartment after she closed it. With the combo of the smiles, the flirting, the freckles, and being related to someone who makes the best cookies in Arkadia, she was sold. Crush formed. Too bad she'd never see him again.
Two days later she was on the phone with Raven, innocently riding the elevator down to the lobby. "Yeah, Rae, I'll meet you there. Why I agreed to go to kickboxing with you, I have no idea, but I'll be there." The elevator jerked to a stop right before the seventh floor, the emergency lights flicked on. "Fuck."
"What?" Raven said through the phone.
"I think the elevator is stuck again." She tried hitting a few floor buttons, but nothing.
"You're just trying to get out of kickboxing," Raven accused.
"No. For real. I'm not kidding. Fuck!" she hit the call button. "Hold on a minute, Raven."
"Hello?" Mr. Miller's voice came through the speaker.
"Hi, Mr. Miller," Clarke greeted. "So, uh, any chance this is all a joke and I'm not stuck in the elevator again?"
"Clarke?" he asked.
"Yeah…I think the elevator's broken. Unless power went out again."
"I thought maintenance checked it and said it was fine after the power outage, but I guess not. I'll call for help immediately."
"Thanks, Mr. Miller. I think I'm just above the seventh floor," she sighed. "I'm back, Raven."
"So, theory: you got so hot and bothered by that fireman what's-his-face that you sabotaged the elevator so he would come rescue you again and you could grow some gumption and ask for his number."
"If you could see my face right now, it'd be giving you a very unimpressed look."
"But you're still not saying I'm wrong."
"Of course I didn't sabotage the elevator. Do you even think I'd know how to do that without killing myself? And what if someone else got in it instead of me."
"You're right, you wouldn't know how to sabotage an elevator; you would have needed my help."
"That's your reason for believing me?"
Raven just cackled. "I'd love to stay and chat and wait for your knight in fireman's jacket to come for you, but I have a kickboxing lesson to go to. Text me updates. Oh, and a picture if it's your hot fireman."
"I'm hanging up on you."
"I know. That's what you do after I say I have to go. Bye, Clarke."
She rolled her eyes. "Bye, Raven."
Clarke hung up her phone and sat down to wait. At least she had a working phone this time. She opened social media and the first thing she saw on Facebook was a post by the bakery that Bellamy's brother-in-law owned. She closed the app, she'd only get her hopes up thinking of him. The chances of him being the one to show up this time were slim to none.
Thirty minutes later, she heard voices coming through the walls. "Can you hear us, Clarke? We're going to open up the elevator now."
"Fuck me," she muttered to herself, if she wasn't mistaken that was Bellamy and she wasn't quite sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing. Either way, Raven was going to give Clarke so much crap when she heard. "Yeah, I'm here. Sounds good," she voiced.
Sure enough the elevator doors were opening, this time the lower half giving the opening to the floor. She caught a look at Bellamy smiling up at her. Damn, even in two days she had forgotten quite how attractive he was in person. "Stuck again, Princess?" he asked.
"Well, I already went up to get out of a stuck elevator. I figured I should try going down on you instead." Her eyes widened as the words left her mouth and her face flushed with red. "Wait! No! That's not what I meant." Bellamy and whatever other firemen were with him today burst out laughing. "You know, nevermind. Just close the doors back up. I'm going to just stay in here and pretend this never happened."
Bellamy gained control of his laughing, but couldn't stop his smirk. "Come on, Clarke. Let's get you out of there."
She sat down and scooted to the edge of the elevator floor, her feet dangling. "You remember those bus drills we had to do as kids? Where you would practice jumping off the back of the bus? Well, this feels like that, but a heck of a lot scarier," she said, eyeing the abyss below the elevator.
"Don't worry about it I've got you," Bellamy assured her.
Right as she began to push off, she felt his hands strong on her hips, helping her. Her breath hitched, a combination of his hands, his strength, and her landing on the ground inches from his chest. "Hi," she smiled up at him, unsure of anything else to say.
"Hi," he responded, matching her smile before abruptly taking a large step back. He coughed. "Um, you all good? All limbs intact, no problems from being in a small space?"
"Yeah, I'm good." She opened her mouth to say something else, when her phone started to ring. She looked down to see who it was, Raven. "Sorry, if I don't answer, she's going to keep calling until I do," she told Bellamy and his two co-workers, it was a different man than last time and a woman. "Hi Rae, can you hold on for one second?"
"You're out? Did he come? Is he there?" Raven demanded through the phone.
Clarke held it at her side. "Um, thanks for getting me out of there…again. I should probably avoid this elevator in the future, since it seems to be cursed. But I live on the twelfth floor, so who are we kidding?"
"No problem, ma'am," the firewoman said.
"Clarke, please," she insisted.
"So, it's not just Blake who gets to call you that?" she ribbed Bellamy with a smirk.
"Nope," Clarke smiled, somewhat embarrassed. "Knowing my luck the whole department will know to call me Clarke. Though by that point you'd probably just know me as the girl who keeps getting stuck in that elevator."
"Not quite the name we know you as," the other fireman shot a smarmy smiled at Bellamy.
"Shove it, Murphy," Bellamy barked as Clarke raised an eyebrow, wondering what name they did know her as.
Her phone started to ring again. "Ugh. She hung up and called back. Um, thanks, again. Good to see you, Bellamy. And, uh nice to meet you Murphy and…"
"Monroe."
"Monroe. Yeah, thanks again. I, uh, would say hope to see you again, but I really don't want to get stuck in that elevator a third time. So, um, yeah, thanks?" Clarke waved and walked away shaking her head. How much of a dork could she be? She hit answer on her phone.
"Oh my god, he was there. He was totally there. Did you get his number?"
"No! Someone kept calling my phone," Clarke retorted.
"You totally could have hung up on me and got his number. In fact, do that right now. I demand it."
"No, I already look like a complete dork. Who gets stuck in the same elevator twice? And to top it off, I insinuated I would go down on him. Not on purpose!" she yelled over Raven's cackling laughter. "I'm a mess. He probably never wants to see my face again."
"Tell me the whole story. From the top," Raven commanded, laughter still lacing her voice.
Clarke recounted the story, reliving her foot in her mouth. "If it happens again, I'm going to have to go down to the firehouse and bring everyone cookies and thank them for putting up with me and my cursed elevator."
"I will hold you to that," Raven informed her.
"Shit. Don't even think about sabotaging my elevator, so I have to do that. I will literally murder you and then we'd better hope the police officers of this city are as good looking and forgiving as the firefighters seem to be."
"I wouldn't dream of it."
"Why don't I believe you?"
"Because you know me."
"Raven," Clarke groaned.
It was a little over a week later and Clarke had used the elevator plenty of times without incident. She was on her way out to meet Raven for dinner before they went to the bar, when it happened a third time. She was just minding her own business, when all of a sudden the elevator jerks to a halt.
"You have got to be fucking kidding me!" she yelled to no one. "Fuck!" She reached to the button she was all too familiar with by now. "Uh, Mr. Miller?"
After a minute or so, a voice finally came back to her, sounding a little confused. "Is this right? I think so. Hello?"
"Hi?" Clarke echoed the questioning tone.
"Uh, it's actually just Miller tonight; it's my parents' anniversary, so I'm filling in for my dad's shift."
"Oh, hey Miller. It's Clarke. How have you been? How's Monty?"
"I'm good. We're both good. How are you?"
"Um, well…I think I'm stuck in the elevator again."
She could hear the laughter in his voice as he responded. "I thought that already happened to you twice."
She sighed, of course he knew the story. "Yeah. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to go down to the firehouse with baked goods and a blanket thank you from the resident damsel in elevator distress."
"I'm sure they would all appreciate that. Some more than others," his voice took on a teasing tone, but she dismissed it; he couldn't possibly know about her crush on Bellamy. "Wait, there's a little light here that says, 'emergency stop.' Did you accidentally pull the emergency stop?"
"No," Clarke said slightly offended. "I was literally just standing in the middle of the elevator. I was nowhere near it."
"Maybe just try pushing it and see if the elevator starts up again."
Clarke presses it and the elevator indeed whirrs to life. "I'm going to fucking kill her."
"What was that, Clarke?" Miller asked.
"Nothing," Clarke said quickly. "It's working. I don't know what happened. See you in a minute." She watched the floors finish ticking by and walked out of the elevator, face a bright shade of pink.
"Trying to see me again?" A deep, familiar voice teased as she exited. She turned abruptly to find Bellamy smirking at her, leaning against the wall.
"I did not pull that emergency stop," she defended. "I swear."
"You could have just asked for my number last time I was here," Bellamy pushed off the wall to come stand next to her. They began walking toward the door and front desk.
"What are you doing here anyway?" she asked, just realizing that it was odd that he was here, and in civilian clothes nonetheless.
Bellamy immediately lost some of his suave approach. "I, uh…"
"He heard I was filling in for my dad and said he wanted to hang out with me, pretending it was because we hadn't seen each other in a week, but really hoping you'd come through the lobby at some point," Miller spoke up from the security desk.
Clarke looked from Miller to Bellamy who sheepishly nodded. "You could have asked for my number too, you know?" Clarke stepped a little closer, giving him a shy smile.
He stepped closer as well, mirroring her grin. And right when they were about to have a moment, her phone chirped. She looked down to a text message from Raven that read, "Did my evil plan work?"
"She fucking did it. I'm going to murder her."
"You're murdering who now?" Bellamy asked.
Clarke looked up. "My friend Raven. She uh, knew I was crushing on the cute fireman that rescued me from the elevator and joked that she was going to sabotage it, so I'd run into you again."
"She can do that?" he sounded concerned.
"She's the smartest person I know and a mechanic, so she definitely could. And did."
"But how did she know I would be here? Wouldn't Mr. Miller have just figured out it was the emergency stop?"
"True, true," Clarke considered.
Just then her phone chirped again. This message was a picture message captioned, "Meet my co-conspirator. We met at kickboxing."
"Is that my sister?" Bellamy peered over Clarke's shoulder.
"With Raven." Clarke replied looking up to meet a pair of very close, very brown eyes.
Miller just started laughing uproariously from the desk. "I don't know Raven, but I already love her. You and her should meet up with us at Grounders later tonight."
"Around 9:00?" Clarke asked, putting a few more things together.
Bellamy looked at her slightly suspiciously. "Yeah, actually."
And just to make it all the clearer, Clarke's phone chirped again. This message read, "Go to dinner with Bellamy. Have a great time. And meet me and Octavia at Grounders at 9:00 like planned."
She punched out the message, "I hate you," and sent it. She immediately received, "No you don't," back as if Raven had it typed out already.
"So, apparently we've been set up for dinner," she told Bellamy, trying to keep her tone light.
"Is that so?" he smiled.
"Mhmm," she nodded.
"Well, in that case, see you at Grounders, Miller," he nodded to his friend, settling his hand on the small of Clarke's back and guiding her toward the door. He looked down at her. "So, where to?"
"Anywhere that does not require using an elevator." They burst out laughing together.
