I.
The rule stands that for every physical injury you receive throughout your life, your soulmate receives the same one in the same place. Some people find this romantic, an emulation of Romeo and Juliet, because one would undoubtedly die when their partner died, but Bellamy tended to disagree.
His understanding of the sick joke that is "love" starts with Octavia. She's dancing around their tiny room, skipping and jumping and smiling because for once, she is allowed out of the floor and into the room that no doubt looks fantastically large to her.
Bellamy takes his eyes off of her for one moment. When they return, she is lying on the floor, tears flowing freely. She does not scream, despite her black eye and cut that is forming down her arm. She has been trained not to scream.
Instead, Bellamy shouts for them both, dropping to his knees next to her. "O," he says, "What did you do?"
It's not until Octavia has ice to her eye and cloth over her arm that Bellamy realizes that no, someone else did that to her. Someone she is destined to love did that to her.
For the next few days, he watches his own arm to check if his soulmate has injured them both, but nothing ever happens. He's not sure he wants anything to.
II.
Octavia gets injured too often to count, sometimes multiple times in one day. It gets to the point where each time, Bellamy would check the medical bay, asking Dr. Griffin suspicious question after suspicious question. Nobody on the Ark, it seemed, possessed matching wounds as his baby sister.
Not that, you know, he could tell Dr. Griffin why he was asking. Not like, if he did, he would be murdering two innocent people instead of one.
It gets to the point where Bellamy begins to worry. What if, somewhere on this floating piece of metal, a child was being abused? What if all these injuries were self-inflicted? What if, what if, what if -
How is it fair that his body remains bare, while hers is a canvas of black and blue and dripping red?
More importantly, how is that love?
III.
It happens, ironically, one evening when he's sitting in front of Octavia. She is scarred, and beaten, but the smile she wears scares Bellamy just a little.
"Bell," she asks, her voice small. "I don't want to stay-"
The rest of her question falls past his ears as a sharp, stinging pain spreads over his left cheek. His face turns to the right despite a lack of impact. The pain turns dull, but Bellamy hardly notices, because he knows what this means.
His soulmate is out there, somewhere. He'd always wondered if maybe he didn't have one. No unexplained cuts or bruises had popped up, none that he couldn't explain away off his own carelessness, but now -
The wide smile on Octavia's face will give him nightmares for years to come. "You're like me, now," she says. That is the biggest joke of it all.
IV.
A twisted ankle.
A messy, dull cut, tentatively drawn on the wrist, no doubt self-inflicted.
A second degree burn, creeping up his forearm during the night.
This is not romantic.
This is not love.
V.
The dropship crashes. Bellamy has no doubt that some people still on the Ark are feeling the effects. He has no doubt that he left his soulmate behind in space.
But then, he sees Octavia, sees her throw her hands up into the air, sees the outline of her first black eye, and - he has to be here.
He has to be here except Bellamy
is falling
t.
VI.
It's not that he doesn't think about it, per say, it's just that he puts it out of his mind. That's what everyone on the Ground does, he assumes - except, of course, the few happy couples that have formed in the past few days.
Pain is not love, he reminds himself.
Pain is not love, he thinks, staring at John Murphy, someone who he has never thought twice about. His hair is matted, his eyes wild, defending himself against a crowd that has never cared what he has to say.
It's sad, Bellamy thinks as he stares at Murphy, but he can't find the strength to defend him. And so, when the time comes for Bellamy to make a decision - the twisted, misunderstood kid or the fragile, scarred girl - he steps out of the way and lets the crowd do the work.
It becomes a pile of bodies, rolling Murphy down the hill, swarming around him, so tightly packed that he can't tell where one ends and one begins.
It's then that the pain begins, starting small, and escalating. His ribs hurt, his back, his knee, his foot, himself . The punches are not pulled. His breath goes ragged and he sinks, lower, lower, lower, pressing into the ground.
With wide, fearful eyes, he gazes towards the crowd, now stringing Murphy up with a small section of rope. Their eyes meet for one, fragile moment, but then Bellamy begins to scan the ground. Who is it, who is it, who is it - he can't tell. Everyone is being jostled. Some of the kids are lying on the ground, completely trampled. Despite the unified chant to float Murphy, despite Clarke's enraged screams, he cannot tell who has injuries that match his own.
It would be sick, he thinks, if his soulmate actually is on the Ark, and they just have a wicked sense of timing.
The crowd is one, dense mass, and Bellamy cannot tell where he ends and his soulmate begins.
This is not romantic. This is not love.
Somehow, he stands, moving to the front of the crowd. His body is on fire but he keeps walking. For another moment, he meets Murphy's gaze and then he kicks Murphy's bucket and -
For one moment, Bellamy watches Murphy struggle against the rope around his neck. Bellamy watches the life begin to drain from his eyes. He feels pity begin to grow, and regret coating it. Murphy has a soulmate, too, he must -
In an instant, his airway closes, and he can no longer breath. Something is around his neck and he tries to scream, tries to claw it off, tries to, but fails. His vision grows dark. Someone behind him - Clarke - screams his name, but he cannot answer.
This is hell. It must be. Nothing else could be as painful.
And then, just as quickly as it began, it is over. Bellamy's vision is spotty, but it returns. Breath comes roughly through his tired lungs. A drizzly rain pours down from the sky, but he remains on all fours, staring at the ground.
"Did what I think happened actually just happen?" Clarke whispers, somewhere above him. He doesn't reply. She says it more to herself, anyways.
She is more of a leader than he will ever be. The crowd disperses upon her quick thinking. Bellamy stays on the ground. Eventually, he finds the courage to look up at Murphy. A pair of desperate, confused eyes meets his gaze.
This is not romantic. This is not love. Yet, he does not look away.
VII.
Murphy runs away from camp before he and Bellamy have a chance to talk about it, about what this means, but...well, Bellamy guesses Murphy already knows everything there is to know, and that's why he ran.
A second ship crashes down from the sky. A girl from the Ark, Raven, lands with it. When she exits her ship, she has a slight scratch above her left eyebrow, dripping blood. Bellamy looks over at Clarke, only to see red drops falling from a cut above her left eyebrow.
Lincoln is the name of an exiled Grounder, come to their camp because he has nowhere else to go. As soon as Octavia steps out from her tent to see him, their matching scars answer any questions. Bellamy never found an abused child on the Ark because Octavia's soulmate has been here the entire time.
He learns that, in Grounder culture, not finding your soulmate by adulthood is a sign of shame, and that is why Lincoln was exiled. "It explains all the injuries," Octavia realizes. "That was being done on purpose, wasn't it? To find someone who received them as well?"
"I'm so sorry they did that to you," Lincoln replies. Bellamy knows he doesn't have to worry.
But Murphy ran away from camp, and for that, he worries. The scar on his neck proves that he has to.
VIII.
There is so much more to worry about.
It starts with a few cuts to his cheeks, then hits to his body, and then it escalates. His fingernails are torn off, one by one, and then each finger is broken in three different places. His collarbone snaps. His skin turns black and blue.
Clarke, Raven, and Octavia stay with him in the top of the dropship, staying by his side as he howls late into the night. Lincoln claims this is the Grounders' handiwork, but that only makes Bellamy feel worse because now he knows where Murphy is.
Clarke wants to plan a rescue party. Whether it's for him or for Murphy, he doesn't know, but Lincoln ruins the idea. There are too many places he could be. By the tone of his voice, Bellamy knows he will not live much longer.
Except, it stops.
He curls in on himself, taking the few precious moments of peace to rest, to return to some form of sanity because all he feels is pain …
His eyes shut. When they open, Murphy lies only inches from his face. Octavia found him outside of camp. He is beaten and bruised but, Bellamy knows he is not broken.
Murphy's eyes open a crack. They share a glance, and a painful nod.
IX.
Days turn into weeks.
Clarke and Raven sit by the fire, cuddled next to each other. The warmth from the flames could never rival the warmth they give each other. Slowly, Clarke's eyes drift to the dropship.
"Do you think they're okay?"
Raven doesn't reply at first, instead snaking her fingers through Clarke's hair. "I hope so," she finally settles on. She hasn't been here long, but she likes most of these people. She likes them better than the people on the Ark, at least.
"Yeah," Clarke agrees. "Yeah, I hope so, too."
Silence, and then a, "don't you think it's funny how your mom sent me down here to see if you were alive, and you ended up being my soulmate?"
Clarke's gaze returns to the fire, a twinkle lighting up her eye. "The universe has this all figured out, doesn't it?"
Raven nods. It is her turn to watch the dropship. "Yeah. It does."
X.
It is not easy. It is not good. But, it happens.
"Never leave me again," Bellamy whispers, his fingers on Murphy's skin, breath close to his ear.
"I won't," Murphy swears, and it is forever.
It was not romantic. It was not love, but yet -
Perhaps their scars were not meant to signify love after all.