A/n - Hello everyone welcome to the new and revamped "An Unexpected Love". I started this story a couple years ago now but as I've grown as a person (and hopefully a writer) I started to feel disconnected from my stories and really my writing. Truthfully I just wasn't proud of it and felt it was rushed and I could do better. This story in particular bothered me because of how it started out. I used a trope I really find problematic and dislike in a way I don't think I realized when I first wrote this story. Or maybe I've just learned more since writing it. Because of that I wanted to rewrite it. I decided I'd change some plot points, improve my writing and maybe along the way work through some writers block I was having anyway.

I also have plans to rewrite my other big story "Now and Then" (well not so much as rewrite as add more to and edit). So without further ado here's the first chapter of the new version of this story. Hope everyone can understand and support the changes!

Chapter 1: My Sister, My Responsibility

If you let your guard down for a second…we die Octavia.

Her mother's words echoed through her head as she clutched onto the old stiff pillow with so much force she was surprised her nails didn't cut through the fabric. Biting down on her lip she stuffed her face into the pillow to help block out the sounds of her whimpers. Being quiet was essential to not only her survival but her whole family's.

When I gave birth to you I had to fight through the pain, push down any desire to scream and do what I had to do to survive. Because if I had let myself have one moment to cry. One moment to succumb to the pain. I would have died. If you want to survive then you must always do the same. Don't let the smallest bit of weakness shine through. You lose control of the situation and your life isn't the only one in jeopardy.

Their situations weren't exactly the same. Actually they were very far from it, but Octavia knew her mother was right. If she lost control and screamed out in pain her entire family would be dead by the end of the day. But if her mother could keep quiet giving birth to her then she could keep quiet through…whatever this was.

Another rush of sharp pain shot up her side and she felt the rise of vomit. "Crap" she muttered lifting her body up enough off the cold stiff mattress to puke over the side of the bed. She stared blankly at the yellow puddle before the stench of her own bile caused another uprising in her stomach.

"Ugh..."

Using the remainder of her strength she managed to lay herself back down on the bare mattress. The all gray prison they called her family's quarters had never felt more like hell to her. Then again, from the millions of stories she hard heard from her brother, hell was never really described as a gray prison. More like a reddish orange fiery inferno that engulfed its residents in a never ending excruciating tragedy.

Then again those people were considered sinners. That was their punishment for their crimes in her life.

So what was she being punished for?

She sucked in a piercing breath as she felt another swift jab into her side and thought about the stories and their version of hell. Looking back up at the gray ceiling she was only sure of one thing.

Hell came in many colors.

The sound of the door opening brought her back into reality and she pulled her head up to see a familiar male walking towards the tiny bedroom

"O?"

Bellamy. Her brother. Her only friend and one of the only two people she had actual social interaction with.

At least in the fiery version of hell the sinners had each other to communicate with. She was almost jealous of them. As much as she loved her brother and mother her skin crawled with the craving for more social interaction. She ached to just get up and run out the door most days but the consequences kept her grounded.

She saw his face scrunch up. "I threw up on the floor."

"What? Why? What happened?" He stumbled over his words as he frantically rushed over to her, lying the back of his hand to her forehead. "You're burning up."

"I'm sick dumb ass."

"This isn't funny."

"I'm not joking."

Her face was more than pale. It was almost completely white and Bellamy couldn't understand how she had gone from looking fine when he had left to looking like a corpse only ten hours later.

He glanced at the empty bed only a two yards away at the other end of the room then reached over and grabbed the sole blanket they owned off of it. He laid it over his sister before retreating to the tiny bathroom entrance at the end of the bed Octavia resided on.

"When did you start feeling sick? Does mom know? How many times have you thrown up today?" The sound of his voice was accompanied by the soft drizzle of water from the sink plopping into a bucket.

"Geez Bell" Octavia muttered rolling her eyes despite the fact that he couldn't see her. "One thing at a time."

"Octavia."

"I started feeling crappy yesterday. Mom doesn't know. And twice." She stared up at the panels on the ceiling. There were sixteen. Four rows of four. When she was younger used to imagine that they led to secret tunnels around the Ark and that when she was old enough she would travel through them. Nobody would know she was there. It'd be her secret getaway that would allow her to see the whole Ark.

Then maybe just maybe someone else could find out about her. Someone important. But they wouldn't tell the Chancellor or float her family. Instead they'd hire her to be a spy like the ones in some of the stories Bellamy used to read to her. Then she'd sneak around the whole Ark through the secret tunnels to complete her missions. Her boss would sneak her family extra rations for compensation.

For once she wouldn't be trapped in these quarters. Instead there would be a whole world through the tunnels she could still explore. And then, someday, she'd complete a mission so big it would save the Ark. Her identity would be revealed but instead of being punished her whole family would be rewarded for her heroic acts.

When she was twelve climbed up onto the table and ripped one of the panels off the ceiling. There were no tunnels. Just wires. She was truly trapped.

After all the stories Bellamy had read to her about spies were truly just stories. This was reality.

Bellamy came out of the bathroom with a small green bucket and an old brown rag. He grimaced at the puddle as he laid the rag in it and tried to mop up the puke.

"This is gross you know."

She smiled softly through the pain "I think it adds some nice color to the room."

"Unfortunately it also adds its own unique smell." He sighed as he dipped the rag into the water before reapplying it to the floor. "It's probably the flu. I think that can be air born…anyway someone on the ark probably has it and you caught it."

A pain shot up her side and Octavia gasped in pain. She couldn't day dream her way out of this type of pain. "My side Bell. It's my side…" she clenched her teeth together and squeezed her eyes shut in pain. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

Bellamy clutched her hand tightly feeling helpless.

They were in trouble.

….….

It was another two hours before their mother came home. Bellamy tried to make Octavia as comfortable as possible but there was nothing he could really do to ease her pain. He had never had the flu. The Ark was usually on top of quarantining any type of outbreak even just the common cold. It was essential on a vessel this size to contain anything that could cause harm to the only survivors of the human race. Still while nausea and fevers were known to be associated with the flu he couldn't be sure.

Even if he did know for sure what was wrong with Octavia finding medicine would be no easy task. And if he was caught…well he was over eighteen which meant he'd be floated. And his biggest issue with that was that he didn't trust his mother to take care of Octavia on her own.

"Where have you been?" He demanded as his weary mother entered through the doorway. She put down a small bag which contained two bottled waters and some rice made on Farm Station.

"Keeping us alive" she said tiredly walking over to the table. "What's wrong did something happen during your guard training?"

"Octavia's sick."

She looked up worry covering the exhaustion on her face only moments before. "What do you mean?" She asked slowly as if afraid to hear the answer.

Bellamy led her to where Octavia was lying. There was sweat dripping down from the seventeen year old's forehead and her brows were knitted tightly together as if she was embracing as much pain as she could.

"Octavia sweetheart what's wrong?" her mother rushed over and crouched down next to the bed.

"It hurts…" Octavia whispered with tears dripping down the cheeks of her flushed face. "My side. " She tapped her hand onto the spot where the pain kept shooting down then closed her eyes bracing for the next wave of agony.

Their mother looked up at Bellamy seriously. "We need to figure out what's wrong with her."

"The flu?"

She shook her head. "I don't think so. I've seen people with the flu before. It doesn't look like…this" she motioned her hand over Octavia.

"So what do you suggest?"

She bit her lip in thought as she stared down at her only daughter. Using her sleeve she wiped some of the sweat beads off of Octavia's forehead. A lot of things could be said about Aurora Blake. Things Bellamy tried to hide from Octavia and ignore when the whispers were within his earshot.

But she did love her children.

"I'll go down to medical. Give them the symptoms Octavia has and see what they say. Maybe they'll give me some medicine and we can give it to her."

Bellamy gave her a skeptical look. "And if they don't?"

She huffed in annoyance. "I don't know Bellamy but we have to do something. I'm not going to stand here and watch my only daughter die."

The words made him flinch and he could see the guilt beginning to cross Octavia's face. He didn't want her to blame herself for this. Her life already had enough pain and sacrifice without her adding to the list of ways she believed she was a burden.

"I'll go." Octavia opened her eyes and looked towards her brother in union with her mother. "No offense but you don't have the best reputation around here. It's probably best that if were going to try and lie our way into getting medicine for Octavia that I do it".

It was a low blow and he knew it but at the same time he really believed it to be true. The last thing they needed was for Aurora to owe someone else a favor in exchange for their lives. That is if they were even lucky enough for someone to agree to keep her attempt to gain access to medicine a secret.

"My sister, my responsibility" Bellamy he said softly before going to grab his shoes and heading out the door.

….

"Clarke you're progressing at an amazing rate."

Clarke could feel herself perk up at her mother's words. All she had ever wanted to do since she was a child was be like her mother. To be a doctor, save lives. Now at 18 she was under an apprenticeship with her mother, the head doctor on the Ark.

She finished up the small procedure of inserting a mandatory birth control device into the young girl in the chair. She couldn't have been older than fourteen but it was important that once a girl showed signs of their period they had a device inserted. Unplanned pregnancies on the Ark could be fatal to those involved.

Clarke carefully stitched up the area the device had been implanted. It looked flawless and she knew there would be no scar later on. "You're all set" Clarke said smiling at the girl who looked a bit frightened.

The young redheaded teen nodded nervously as she stumbled off of the examination table. "Uh thanks." She mumbled before heading out the door as Clarke nodded then went on to finish updating the girl's record.

"Really Clarke I'm impressed." Abby added still watching her daughter.

Clarke smiled but being as ambitious as she was felt the compliment fell slightly flat. "It's a very common, very simple procedure". Still she knew her mother wouldn't say she was impressed if she wasn't.

Abby rolled her eyes clearly seeing herself and her own goals in her daughter. "Yes but most apprentices your age aren't doing even the simplest procedures on their own. And you've assisted me on extremely difficult procedures as well. Even Jackson didn't advance this quickly".

Now that felt like a compliment considering Jackson was one of Abby's all time favorite medical apprentices. Clarke considered him to be possibly the second best doctor on the Ark, her mother being the first of course.

They heard a knock and Abby gave permission for entrance.

The tall brunette they had just been speaking of came in with a small smile. "One of the mechanics cut themselves on the job, pretty large gash down his arm. I'd handle it but I'm already dealing with an allergic reaction in room three. Oh and there's some guy in the waiting room complaining of a stomach ache."

"I swear the minute we seem to slow the flow of patients someone else gets hurt" Abby sighed putting away the chart of the girl who had previously been in the room. "Clarke will you take the guy with the stomach ache?"

"By myself?" Clarke asked shocked. Her mother hadn't let her handle a case on her own yet. Yes she had just done the procedure by herself but her mother had been there the whole time. Being completely by herself was…new territory.

"Yes, you're ready." Abby said with a smile then followed Jackson out of the room. Clarke took a deep breath. She was ready, she knew she was. Plus it was a stomach ache. She had just dealt with way worse.

She walked out to the waiting room to see a handsome young man sitting in one of the seats. He couldn't have been too much older than her. Tanned skin, dark curly hair, a face with freckles sparkled over like the stars in the sky. She was slapping herself in her head for noticing all of these things about him. He was her patient.

He looked up at her his dark brown eyes searched her skeptically. "Are you the doctor?"

"Yes", I'm Dr. Clarke Griffin" Clarke said proudly trying to come off as professional as possible despite his handsome features crossing her mind only seconds before. She was young but that didn't mean she couldn't handle the job. "If you'll follow me well have a look at you."

The guy stepped up uncertainly as he held his side as if almost to prove he was ill. He followed behind her entering one of the four patient rooms they had on that Ark. Normally so much space wouldn't be given to one area but it was important that medical was spacious enough in the case of a quarantine.

He sat on the examination table looking around nervously. She couldn't help but notice is fingers playing with the white paper he was sitting on, absentmindedly creating tears.

Maybe he didn't like doctors.

"Name?" Clarke asked opening up the computer files. It was required that everyone be accounted for on the Ark due to population control. And any visits to the hospital wing had to be recorded.

"Bellamy Blake" He said taking his eyes off of the eye chart on the wall and staring at her carefully. It was making her more nervous than she already was given this was her first official patient on her own.

"Okay, Mr. Blake." Clarke took a breath pulling up his file on a small tablet and walking over to him. "You were complaining of a stomach ache?"

"It's more than that." He said quickly, almost defensively motioning to his stomach. "On my side there's been a sharp jabbing pain. And I've had a fever. Oh and I vomited a couple of times. It's probably just the flu. Right?"

She looked up from the tablet. He certainly didn't look like he had the flu. Though he was sweating but that could have been from his obvious nerves. She stuck a thermometer in his mouth which he looked displeased about. "You're temp is normal."

"It wasn't earlier." He countered a bit sharply. He was staring at her hard as though he felt the need to prove himself.

Clarke eyed him suspiciously then looked down at the thermometer again frowning. "Well your temp is fine now. If you're having cramps it could have been something you ate. Food up here has a tendency to do that with the added preservatives to speed up production. But the sharp pains are a bit concerning. Let me check your stomach. Lift up your shirt."

"What?" He asked a bit startled clutching onto the blue t-shirt he had on.

She gave him a look. "I need to see where it's tender."

"Oh…" He lifted up the side of his shirt to reveal the portion of his stomach. "It hurts on the right side".

Clarke bent down and touched his side softly not wanting to hurt him. But he didn't seem to be in much pain. She looked up and he made a wincing face almost on cue. If she was being honest he was a terrible actor.

"There it's killing me. Like someone's stabbing me."

Clarke nodded still feeling skeptical. He really did look fine. "Well your temp is fine and it doesn't feel like anything is off or swollen in your stomach so it's probably just something you ate." She concluded standing up and taking off her plastic gloves.

"What if there was like swelling and a temp though?" Bellamy asked almost desperately.

Clarke clucked her tongue out of habit. "Well those accompanied by sharp pains would cause alarm for appendicitis. But you're appendix isn't swollen from what I can tell so I wouldn't worry."

"What's the treatment for that? Some like medicine or something."

Clarke looked at him again wondering if she was even hiding her disbelief anymore. This guy was fine. In fact he looked perfectly healthy. The likelihood of this visit being a maneuver to gain access to medication for his own personal goals was high.

Still he was looking at her earnestly so she figured it'd be better to give him some sort of answer. "You'd need surgery for that. An inflamed appendix is dangerous. If it is to burst while in you and you didn't get medical attention it would be fatal."

"Surgery?" He muttered almost weakly. Now he looked like he was going to be sick. She was almost tempted to grab the bed pan off the shelf with the way his face turned green. Maybe this wasn't just about the medication.

Still one thing that was for sure was that the guy was hiding something. Clarke scrunched her brows. "Yeah but I just said you don't have it so why are you so worried?"

"I'm not.." He said jumping off his seat nearly toppling over as he did it. "Thanks…" He muttered as he regained control and started to leave but she stopped him.

"You're not sick." She stated as a matter-oh-factly as she put her hand on his arm.

His face was a cross between alarmed and annoyed. "Thanks for the assessment Doc."

"But I think you already know that." She added probably pressing her luck as she blocked the exit.

His dark eyes stared down at her and her heart sped up. Maybe being bold or really nosy in her case wasn't the best idea but she couldn't take her words back now. And she had a really bad feeling about this. So she sucked in a breath and looked back up at him with her arms crossed and eyebrows raised to let him know that she was serious.

"I told you I had a stomach ache. I thought this was a medical ward. You know the place people go to when they have a medical problem." His sarcasm didn't go unnoticed by her. If anything it made her more intrigued. Why would somebody come to the medical center with fake symptoms and then give her attitude? It certainly wasn't a way to make her more sympathetic to him. What was this guys deal?

"Why don't you just tell me why you are really here? I'm a doctor. Maybe I can help."

He stifled a laugh with the roll of his eyes. "Princess the only help I need right now is for someone to get you the hell away from me." He nudged past her despite her statue-like stance and she turned and watched as he walked away.

….….

Clarke opened the door to silence and darkness within her empty quarters. He mother was still at the medical ward. Apparently the mechanic's injury had been more serious than it had appeared and she had been forced to put him through emergency surgery to repair possible damage to the ligament in his arm. Her father must have had to stay at work late again too. It had been happening a lot lately.

She dropped the bag she brought with her to work on the empty old arm chair in the center of her living quarters as she flopped down on the old tan couch. Despite the many holes covered with patched up pieces of cloth she would be naive to think that her quarters weren't one of the few bigger ones on the Ark. Her mother was the Chief of Medical and her father the Chief of Engineering. She had privilege and she wasn't unaware of that.

And at that moment she wasn't sure if it was the doctor in her or the fact that she was well aware of how many others didn't have the same privilege she had that made her keep thinking of Bellamy Blake. Maybe it was also the fact that it was her first real case and she didn't want to let her mother down if something was wrong. Whatever it was it had been haunting her since Bellamy had walked out of the examination room earlier that day.

Why was he there? He clearly wasn't sick. But he was listing off symptoms with such urgency that she couldn't help but think that something else was going on. She wasn't stupid. She knew it wasn't unheard of for people to come into medical lying about being ill in order to get access to medication for their own personal needs.

But swelling in the abdomen, sharp pains, fever, vomiting…they were all signs of appendicitis. It's possible he had read up on the disease…but then he would know that the solution was surgery and not medication.

Something wasn't right and Clarke was too stubborn to just let it go.

She sat up and reached over towards her bag pulling out her tablet. Being a doctor gave her access to patient information including their section and quarters. Still this was a total invasion of privacy…but she had a bad feeling in her gut.

"Section 17" she whispered to herself.

This was probably a bad idea but her feet took her out of the door anyway.

..…

Octavia was getting worse. She was trying to hide the pain which only made Bellamy feel worse about the situation. All he could think about was how she should have been able to go to the medical ward and get the surgery she needed. But instead she was forced to lie their in agony as they stood by and watched her die just because she had been born illegally.

It just made him angry. Angry at the Ark. Angry at his mother. Angry at himself.

Octavia hadn't chosen to be born. It wasn't her choice to live as a prisoner in a cell with no hope of ever getting out. And now her short life was likely going to come to an end when it barely ever had a real beginning.

"Maybe the doctor was wrong. It could still be the flu" his mother offered as she patted a cold cloth on Octavia's forehead.

Bellamy didn't answer her. He didn't have to, they both knew it was false hope.

They jumped in union at a knock at the door.

"Th…fl….floo….r" Octavia muttered trying to sit up but Aurora stopped her. The girl was barely conscious as it was and her breathing was audibly heavier. She looked at her son and nodded her head towards the door.

Bellamy nodded and stepped outside of the room and into the living quarters where the front door was located. He slowly closed the door to the bedroom behind him. His heart was racing fast than he even knew was possible. His hand shook as he placed it onto the knob slowly cracking the door open. Thoughts racing through his mind at a mile a minute.

Please don't be a guard. Please don't be a guard.

With a deep breath he looked up and he suspected the surprise was evidence on his face. "Doc?"

The blonde smiled nervously as she stood in front of him. "It's Clarke actually. Clarke Griffin."

TO BE CONTINUED