Author's Note:

So recently, I have become obsessed with The 100 (Bellamy especially x.x and Finn, but he belongs to Clarke so I can't even go there!). This idea came to me randomly when I was thinking about Season Three, and I thought, 'Hey! Why not write a Fanfic about it!' So wallah! I hope you like it!

Blurb:

The absence of Clarke left a chill in all members of the Ark, but none more so than Bellamy. Lonlier than ever, he finds himself in a part of the woods, alone... Or so he thinks. There, he finds a girl. A girl with no recollection of the time where people ruled the world. A girl who had no idea other humans even existed. A girl who, against all odds, doesn't know any of the horrific things Bellamy Blake has done to survive. But once he takes her back to his camp, questions start to arise. How does a girl who has survived ten years on Earth never come into contact with any other person? Is she all that she claims to be? Or is the only thing Bell has to keep him connected to reality about to be ripped from his grasp again?

Please tell me what you think, it means the world! And I'll try keep it as accurate as possible!

-Everliah

She screwed her eyes shut, curling into a ball. Her hands were clamped over face, and the leaves that covered her body stopped rustling as her movement ceased. It was loud this time, much louder than usual and masculine; the voice she heard in her head was broken, torn up about something. She didn't know what.

This was a regular thing for her; the voices came and went, an unpredictable assortment of laughter and screams, although she couldn't be sure. Her dad had described laughter as happy and uncontrollable and screams as painful and strained; both bubbled in one's throat and died in the air.

Her fingers ghosted over the small Walkman and headphones that were attached to the inside of her jacket. Wanting to sob, she relished in the smooth but cold feel of the plastic, wishing she could listen to her dad, instead of the voices. But that was impossible.

She couldn't do that.

So, she tensed her body, tightening every muscle, and everything seemed to explode. The voices sounded like bombs going off in her mind, like someone was playing her eardrum to coincide with every spoken syllable. It hurt. Oh God, it hurt. It hurt it hurt it hurt it hurt-

The voice stopped suddenly.

Fear spiked her bloodstream. A paralysing emotion that left her entire body tingling and numb. What was going on? Why had the voice stopped?

The hurt ebbed away, like water trickling through her fingers. She tried desperately to catch hold of it, to see if she could figure out what had caused it and stopped it, but it was too late.

Her heart was beating erratically. She tried to level her breathing, but couldn't. Biting her lip to try and stop herself from panting aloud, she felt something hot drip down her chin. Blood. Her limbs ached impossibly and she longed to get up, but she knew she shouldn't. Her dad had told her, at the beginning of each tape, that when she heard something foreign, she should hide, and stay hidden until she knew it was safe.

But the years she had spent doing this hadn't gotten her any more accustomed to the action. Her teeth relinquished the abused skin of her lip, and a sharp but shaky exhalation escaped before she could stop it. She froze.

Nothing happened.

Her body trembled, shaking and twitching.

Just as she was about the get up, the cloak of leaves was ripped off of her. Sunlight blinded her. Her eyes, which had previously adjusted to the darkness, squinted. She couldn't see. And all too soon, her vision returned and a looming figure towered in front of her.

She stared.

Bellamy sighed.

Shifting his grip on the knife in his hand, he glanced behind him once more. Of course, he didn't need to. There were no imminent threats waiting to jump out at him. At least, no obvious ones; he wasn't too sure where they stood with the Grounders. Their alliance was clearly over, but was it back to killing each other so soon?

It was habit, back from when life was simpler, and the dropship was home, and he was leader and Clarke was-

No. Bell shook his head vigorously. Don't think about Clarke.

It wasn't that he missed her, he thought furiously, but he had grown so used to her presence, to someone having to make the important decisions for him, to having faith in the leader who protected him but like she said, and he felt a sickening wrench in his stomach, Clarke must bear it so he doesn't have to.

The camp was empty now. It seemed as though her absence left a chill in the bones, as though everyone, even those who didn't know her, knew that the girl who had saved them countless times was truly gone forever.

Ever since she left, he had ventured further into the forests surrounding the Ark on a daily basis. Subconsciously, he seemed to always head in the opposite direction to Mount Weather. That place had taken too much from too many people; he didn't need to be reminded of what he had done to it, and what the place had done to him.

But why did she have to go? He had blood on his hands too! He felt pain as well! Every day of his life, he'd had to pretend to be brave when he was just scared! Why did she get to run away?

"God, Clarke, why did you have to leave?" A ragged yell wrenched itself from Bellamy's throat and his chest heaved in a sob. "Why did you have to go? Why couldn't you have stayed? You didn't need to leave us!" Tears pricked his eyes as he shouted his words into the wind. "You didn't need to leave me!"

His head bowed, a breathless cry left his lips. "I have to bear this too…"

Closing his eyes briefly, his grip on the weapon tightened and his other hand reached up to hold his face. Then, he heard a small gasp.

Bellamy stilled.

He almost thought he had imagined it, when he heard it again. Breathing. Without opening his eyes, he listened. The sound was definitely feminine, and seemed close yet distant. He cracked one eye open and scanned his surroundings. The trees rose up and pierced the sky, which was a bright blue. The ground was covered in leaves of all hues; browns and greens and reds, and when he heard the gasp again, Bellamy's head snapped towards the direction it came from, feeling cold all over. The breath was human.

His hand felt sweaty, but he couldn't lose focus. If this was an ambush, he needed to be prepared.

The next inhalation came from next to his foot. He looked down.

But there was nothing there apart from a pile of leaves.

His heart skipped a beat… The pile of leaves was moving.

The movement was imperceptible, and maybe if he hadn't been living through a war the past few months, he wouldn't have noticed it, but he did. There was nothing natural about the way they moved; they weren't dancing in the breeze, but quivering.

Bellamy only paused for a fraction of a second, before he reached down, brown eyes locked on the pile, and pulled at the leaves.

And he found a girl.

He dropped the cloak of leaves. The shock was evident on his face, he assumed. His mouth was gaping open, eyes widening, and all he could do was stare at her. She had brown hair with odd little braids in it, and a pale but freckled face with large green eyes. Her clothes appeared to have been made by hand; a patchwork outfit of various different scraps of material. She looked Octavia's age, younger even, but the youthfulness on her face was paralleled with a wisdom in her eyes.

She looked just as stunned as he did, more so even. They both regarded the other in a cautious yet dazed manner, and then the girl did something Bellamy could never have predicted. She got shakily to her feet (which he noted with dull detachment, were bare) and she wrapped her arms around his neck.

Paralysed, Bell didn't return the hug. The body that was pressed against his was trembling uncontrollably and he vaguely realised she was sobbing, but he could feel no tears leaking from her eyes.

He didn't know what to do. It was obvious the girl needed comforting, but why? What had happened to her? Why did she react in such a way to his sudden appearance? Why was she hiding in the first place?

Shaking his head slightly to clear his mind, Bellamy gently grasped her shoulders, pulling her away. Her eyes were still wide with something, but it didn't look like fear. "Who are you?" He asked carefully, his voice firm but soft.

The girl's lip wobbled but she just swallowed and said, "I didn't know…"

Bellamy watched her, his thoughts racing. "Didn't know what?"

But instead of answering, she just shook her head and whispered, "You're not supposed to be here… You don't- Oh god, now I'm seeing- I can't see, no, please, I can't see I can't see-"

Twisting and writhing, he tightened his hold on her, supporting her as her legs gave way. He was beyond alarmed. What was going on? "Hey," he urged. "I need you to calm down and tell me what you're talking about."

She just doubled-over, and manoeuvred her hands to cover her face, muttering something under her breath over and over again. Bellamy was at a loss at what to do, so he bent down and tried to catch what she was saying.

His breath lodged in his throat and he felt turmoil in his stomach. Staring at, but not really seeing, some point on the floor, his chest heaved. His eyes flicked back to this strange girl who was still repeating the same sentence that made his veins feel clogged, like his blood had somehow solidified into jagged metal.

"You're not real."

Bellamy shook himself.

No. It didn't matter for now. She didn't know what she was talking about. Or maybe it was he who didn't know what he was talking about… Then again, he wasn't the one having a seizure in the middle of a forest in a post-apocalyptic world. He needed to calm her down, or he was never going to get any answers out of her. "Please, you need to take a deep breath."

She stopped so suddenly, the silence seemed to scream. Her head hesitantly rose so that she could look up at him; she was short, the top of her body only reaching his chest. But her eyes were attentive. Never breaking eye contact, she inhaled deeply. "Okay," Bellamy breathed. "Okay, that's good. That's good. Now, what's your name?"

"Auriela."

"Auriela," he tasted it on his lips; it felt foreign. "Okay, Auriela, I'm Bellamy Blake."

She nodded. It seemed that this was as calm and unguarded as she was going to get, so he thought quickly about what to ask her next.

"What didn't you know?" Her brows furrowed and she cocked her head in confusion. He added, "When you first saw me, you said-"

"I didn't know…" A dawning look of dread flooded Auriela's face. She looked him in the eye and he saw tears. "I didn't know that you existed."

Bellamy pulled a face, showing the bewilderment he felt. "What? Of course you didn't know I existed! We've never met-"

She cringed. "No." And trepidation strained her voice. "I meant… I meant I didn't know anyone else existed."

"I don't understand-"

A breathless, choked laugh bubbled up and out of her mouth, before she said, "For ten years, it's just been me. I've never seen anyone else or spoken to anyone else. I forgot what real people looked like…" A wistfulness stole her expression as she studied him. It clicked for Bellamy then and he stared right back at her in stunned muteness. "I thought I was alone on this planet. I don't understand how you're with me. I don't underst-"

Auriela broke off, and tears leaked from her eyes. She faltered. He rushed forward and caught her in his arms before she fell. Mainly because she obviously just needed human contact; judging by the way she latched onto him, gripping him so tight, she had not touched another person in years. Ten, if what she said was anything to go by. "It's okay," he soothed. But shock was still numbing his brain. "It's okay. You're not alone anymore."

And at that sentence, she melted into him completely, nuzzling her head into his chest, the way she held him making Bellamy remember what it was like to be held as though you were going to shatter the minute they let you go.

They were both sat on the floor, watching the other intently. Bellamy reached into his rucksack and pulled out a water bottle. He offered Auriela it. "You want some?"

She shook her head, but her eyes lingered on it long after he drank from it himself and put it away again. Bellamy sighed deeply. The girl sat across from him didn't make sense. How could she have lived here for ten years and not have run into any Grounders or Mountain Men? But more importantly, he thought with a startling clarity, where did she come from?

He watched her retrieve her leaf cloak and detangle it and laughed a little. Her eyes snapped to his. "How did you survive out here?" He asked in disbelief.

She frowned, trying to appear aloof, but she twisted her body in a way that wouldn't draw attention to the Walkman. "I have my ways."

He studied her for a second; from her small hands to her braided hair and large eyes.

"You're just a kid," Bellamy scoffed, but there was a sincerity to his voice.

"So are you," Auriela replied quietly, and he froze, avoiding her eye. There was something about the way she said it that made him feel more vulnerable than he had ever felt.

He licked his lips and shook his head. "I haven't been a kid for a long time."

"Everyone's a kid at heart," she smiled, a half-smile, and with a shrug of her shoulders added, "We all have that innocence inside of us-"

"Yeah, well, not me," he cut her off shortly.

She fell quiet. The only sound was the vacant birdsong that echoed through the uppermost branches of the trees. Then, she said in a hesitant voice, "You came from the Ark. Didn't you?"

Bellamy's head shot up to stare at her. Well, it seemed this girl was full of surprises. He cleared his throat, finding it suddenly dry. "How do you know about the Ark?"

Auriela frowned. "I think that's where I came from."

And she didn't know why she told him that, why she opened her mouth at all, but she did. Her heart was thumping against her rib cage in a sort of way that she was scared it would break through every layer of skin covering her chest. Of course, that was impossible, but that's how it felt.

Bell breathed quickly, trying and failing to maintain some sort of pattern to calm him down, but it wasn't working. How could she have come from the Ark? What was the chance of The 100 not being the first to step foot on Earth soil? Was there a chance?

He knew that he wouldn't have time to ask all the questions he was burning to ask. He doubted she was even ready and willing to answer them, but he needed to try.

"I can take you back to the Ark, if you'd like."

Her eyes lit up, and Bellamy felt a rush of excitement himself, but he quenched it, almost blushing. "Will there be more people?"

The question made him falter. He'd heard it before, from the mouth of his illegal little sister just before the party that had gotten her locked up in the Sky Box. Eyes softening, he replied gently the very same answer, "More than you can imagine."

As they walked side-by-side, Bellamy kept stealing glances at Auriela. She was trying to hide a smile, but he could see the happiness in her eyes. He couldn't remember the last time he had seen such an untarnished, undulated happiness.

She was different from the other girls he knew. Octavia, Monroe, Raven, Clarke… They all exuded dominance. They were fighters, kindled from the ashes of war. Auriela seemed to be a fighter too, though. Just a different kind of fighter; she was a survivor, someone who had single-handedly raised herself and yet she didn't seem to wallow in sadness. She was like a breath of fresh air.

She caught his eye the next time he looked at her. "Why are you looking at me?" She laughed, and he smirked a little. She didn't seem embarrassed to have a boy stare at her, and even though he wasn't looking at her like that, he found it odd and refreshingly natural to not be flirted with.

Bellamy shrugged. "You're happy. You don't see that often."

Auriela's smile faltered slightly. "Are people sad?"

He struggled for words. It was hard to capture the feelings that accompanied humanity, especially when the humans in question had witness so much hardship. Finally, he said, "The people here have seen and done things that normal people should never have to even dream about. It affects them because they've lost people they cared about."

Clarke's face flashed at the front of his mind, but it was gone too soon for him to properly feel the pain of it.

Her face scrunched up in confusion. "But if they're lost, why can't you go and find them again?"

Bell's eyes flicked to her. She looked so innocent and he realised, that she was. She had probably never truly cared for someone, or had someone care about her as deeply as other people had. She didn't understand humanity and he felt a stab of envy slip through him.

"Because some people don't want to be found."

And maybe she didn't have anything to say to that, or maybe she knew that there was nothing you really could say, but Auriela remained quiet for a few minutes as he led the way back to camp.

"You've lost someone," she spoke up suddenly.

He clenched his jaw and answered, even though it wasn't a question, "Yeah."

"Does it hurt? People leaving?"

Bellamy stopped, turning to look at her. And he felt pity for her, and her inability to understand perhaps the most beautiful yet painful thing about human. "People," he said, never breaking eye contact, "when they've gotten used to each other… They start to depend on that other person, rely on them, because they've allowed their soul to correlate with another soul, and you can't just break these bonds. You need strength? You can draw it from just a few words that leave the other person's mouth. You need hope? Just look them in the eye, and they'll convey everything you need. And so, though you don't realise it, you start to leave bits of yourself in that person, until they have more of you in their body that you have in your own. And that's something people seem to really treasure. More than life itself-"

"Love," she breathed in awe. Nodding, she added bashfully, "I've read about it."

"Yeah," he clenched his jaw. "So that means that when this other person dies, or leaves, or never comes back, it hurts like hell. Because they've taken a large part of you with them…"

She looked at him with sadness etched into every detail on her face. "You've lost too many people, haven't you Bellamy Blake?"

He just looked away, eyes downcast, and carried on walking back to camp.