A/N: I'm back! Thanks to my inspiration wellsjahasghost (tumblr)/LaughingSenselessly (FF) and her Stydia fic Never Gonna Leave This Bed.
Disclaimer: I do not own The 100 or it's characters. I only play with them.
Status: One Shot (with potential) Unbeta'd (sorry)
That Good Night
She sat up abruptly out of a dead sleep, cold sweat dripping down her back. Swinging her legs over the side of the cold metal bunk, Clarke placed her bare feet on the cold floor welcoming the shocking temperatures. The sensations reminded her she was awake. She was in her cell.
The scratchy sheets tangled around her torso from thrashing while she slept. She pushed them away, as she leaned over her knees, cradling her head in her hands.
She didn't know which was worse, the habitual nightmare of her father being sucked out into space or the new ones.
A month into her incarceration it started. Every night it had been those last moments before her father was floated. His watch being placed into her hand. His strong arms around her. His bittersweet grimacing smile before his face is frozen in shock and he dies instantaneously in front of her eyes. But then the other dream started. It was more than just the same dream, they just felt the same because he was there.
Pushing the stray strands of hair out of her eyes, Clarke takes a shuttering breath as she tries to remember which dream woke her moments before.
She was at a dance. One of the dances held for the teens of the Ark. She'd been dragged to one before with Wells, so the atmosphere was familiar, but it didn't feel like one of her memories. The kids were wearing masks, which was silly really because everyone knew everyone, at least from your year and station. The music was playing, loud enough to make the kids happy, but not loud enough to feel the base in her chest.
She was standing against the wall watching the kids. Knowing what comes next, she looked for him. Across the room, through the bouncing teenagers, he was standing against the opposite wall watching the crowd. He was tall. Taller than her father, probably the same height as Wells. He had a light brown skin and a few freckles peeking out of his collar on the back of his neck. His hair was dark, more black than brown. But what really caught her attention was his eyes, honey brown eyes slightly crinkled at the sides, like he couldn't help but smile despite his attempt at keeping a straight face.
Clarke, without realizing she made the decision, started to move towards him, weaving through the crowd of masked dancer. His eyes connect with hers and he nods, acknowledging her presence but they don't stay long because someone else holding his attention. This was the moment that very first time when she knew it was a dream. As far as she could tell no one else had looked at her. No one glanced at her, noticed her when she bumped into them, heard her say, "Excuse me," as she passed. It was like she was in solitary confinement in her dreams as well.
But he saw her.
She was almost to him when the music stopped, the lights came on, and a computerized woman's voice came over the PA system. He froze panic flashing over his face.
"Solar flare alert! An x-class solar flare has begun on the starboard side of the Ark. All citizens must report to the nearest shelter zone immediately. This is not a test. This is a solar flare alert," the indescript woman's voice said.
He glanced once to her, the terror rolling off him like waves.
Clarke mouthed, "I'm sorry." She remembered the sequence of events that came from here.
The teenagers around her groaned, taking off their masks. But the man was twisting his head and craning his neck as he brushed past her. His face had gone cold, but Clarke felt nauseated with the panic she could tell that he felt.
A few feet past her, Clarke watched as he grabbed the wrist of a teen girl, long dark hair in a ponytail and bangs, her mask still snugly in place. They moved together, as one unit, moving past her again, only to twist back again.
The girl spoke to him, as they moved by, "Bell, I need to get home." She sounded scared.
Clarke followed close behind them, like she did every time she had this dream. Their heads were together, and she caught a few words, "Home... Safe… Always…" before he pulled out his shock baton.
"Create a distraction," he said, "Go on."
The girl, frantic, asked, "Bell, how do I get home?"
Clarke wished she could do something, anything, but she helplessly watched as Bell and the girl stared at each other, both at a loss for words. She's tried before. This dream wasn't a new one, so she knew that no matter what the girl doesn't know she's there. She'd tried pulling the girl with her, away from the incoming guardsmen. She'd tried yelling to create the distraction that Bell wanted to create, to allow her to get away. If Bell could take her, she wouldn't need to know how to get home. But no one can see Clarke, but him, and distracting him at this point only makes the dream worse.
Clarke stands close to Bell, hoping that her presence will make it better, though she knows it won't.
Closing her eyes, she can't watch the end. She can't watch as the girl is taken away, and it looks like his whole world is crashing down around him.
This is the moment that wakes her up. The moment when the dream freezes, as if time stands still, and Clarke opens her eyes to see the absolute despair in his.
She looks up into his face, as he asks her, or maybe himself, "What did I do? How could I have done this?"
She can't help it when a tear runs down her cheek. A small breath catches in her throat, "I'm sorry."
The man, she only knows as Bell, searches her face. "It's all my fault. I need to save her."
But before she can answer the dream unfreezes, and the girl is screaming, "Bell! Bell!"
And she woke.
Clarke lay back and stared at the ceiling. She'd been in solitary for seven months. The most communication she'd had in that time was the 'thank you' and 'you're welcome' she occasionally got from a guard delivering a meal, and the short conversation she had with the medic on staff once a month about her health. Part of her honestly thought that the dreams were her mind's way of creating a connection. Which was the nice way of saying she was officially going crazy. She had had no one to talk to in months, and her mind was trying to fill that psychological gap.
But the part she didn't understand was why she was in someone else's nightmares. They felt real, like memories, but they weren't hers. They felt like Bell's memories. Whoever Bell was. If he was even real.
What she's deduced about him, was 1) he was a cadet guardsmen, 2) he had an illegal younger sister, who 3) was caught. But he was probably a figment of her imagination.
The dreams weren't always memories, or they weren't always nightmare memories. A month into getting these new dreams and two months into her incarceration, she'd had a dream where they were both on the ground. They were in the middle of a forest, beside a river. The wind was whipping loudly around them, but Clarke couldn't feel anything against her skin. Wordlessly they'd sat down next to each other, far enough away that they didn't touch.
"Bell?" Clarke asked, calling him what his sister had called him. He looked hesitant, but he nodded.
She sighed, watching the trees around them, and noticed the wind had grown oddly quieter. Oddities that only happen in dreams.
"I'm sorry about your mom and your sister." She swallowed, hoping that she hadn't overstepped. He clenched his jaw; his cheek bones looked sharper than they do in the memory nightmare, like he'd lost weight.
"Thanks." He nodded. Bell looked away from her, but not really looking at the scene before them. "I'm sorry about your dad."
Her breath caught, surprised. "Are you there? When my dad…?" She can't finish that thought out loud. "Like I am in yours?"
Bell nodded again.
She shook her head. "I haven't seen you."
He looked down at his hands in his lap. "You're a little preoccupied."
Clarke snorted, her mouth twisting into an almost grin. "That's one way of putting it."
"So, what do you think?" he asked.
"About what?"
"This." He points between the two of them, and then makes a circular motion to the world around them.
She shrugged. "Honestly? I'm probably going crazy." He chuckled, darkly. "I'd like to think that this is real. I'd like to think that a month ago we started making appearances in each other's dreams. Which means that we're in each other's heads. I'd like to think that you are real. But I'm probably crazy."
"So I'm not real?" His voice tight with anger. Clarke shrugged. She watched as he rubbed his hand over his face and through his dark hair, slicked back against his head. "What if you are the one who isn't real?"
She laughed. "Then I've had a pretty crappy couple of months in your head." Studying his eyes, how his lashes framed them, making the teenage girl in her jealous, she continued, "All I know is I am real. I think therefore I am. So my crazy dream person is trying to make the fact that I'm going crazy a little better by trying to take the crazy blame? Thanks. I appreciate it."
He narrowed his eyebrows, obviously not happy with her conclusions. "Whatever you say, Princess."
Dark clouds came rolling in, unnaturally fast. Thunder cracked overhead. Lightning flashed in the distance. She pointed to the weather around them. "Do you think this is what it was like?"
"Earth?" he asked.
"Yeah. Or is this some twisted concoction of my mind from vids I've seen in the records?"
"Probably. Before the bombs went off. None of this will be there now."
"I wish I could see it," she confessed. Her ears go pink in embarrassment, but if she's really only talking to herself (because she's going crazy) he already knows all her secrets. "What it looks like now, not just the world before the bombs."
"If wishes were fishes, Princess, I wouldn't be living the crap life I am now." He sounded tired, which was ironic. She was asleep. Technically.
Ignoring his pessimism, she continued, "I draw it sometimes. The ground."
Bell smirked. "Are you any good?" Clarke smiled back self-deprecatingly and shrugged.
He started to say something just as Clarke heard an alarm go off, waking her up. The blaring noise started a headache that had lasted all day. She remembered there had been a problem with the skybox air filtration system that had brought in a team of engineers. She couldn't see much from window in her cell, but she had overheard two guards talking about it as they passed.
Clarke's days continued, mostly spent drawing or staring out into space through her overhead window. Every night she'd see Bell, either in her dreams or his. Occasionally they'd get a break from the nightmares, when one or the other couldn't take it any longer. They would find themselves in the woods, with the wind they couldn't feel and a storm thundering toward them. But they'd get to talk, about what books he liked or the team she and her father had rooted for.
They had an unspoken rule. They didn't discuss anything overtly personal. They were already seeing each other's nightmares; there was no reason to add to each other's burden. So they talked, or they were quiet but they had an understanding. Or Clarke felt like they did.
She still wasn't sure whether she was going crazy, but part of her was okay with it if she knew he was there when she watched her father get floated again. She knew that he couldn't be real. That's what she told herself, even if she hoped he was.
She'd spent the last week perfecting the drawing above her bed. The trees, the river, but most importantly Bell. She'd drawn his profile, looking down at her. His hair was loose instead of his normal style slicked back. Her art teacher would be proud of this piece. It was like they were part of the forest. They were the trees standing firm against the encroaching storm. She hadn't intended to make it look like he was about to kiss her, but the piece got away from her; as art has a tendency to do. And standing back, looking at the whole product, she decided that she liked it that way. He'd never know anyway.
Bellamy had been working the night shift for the past week. The monotony of his days and his nights didn't change. He'd work when he was told. Clean what he was told to clean, and then he'd return home to an empty room.
The lump in his throat made it difficult to swallow. It had been there since Octavia asked how to get home.
Of course she didn't know how to get home. How could he have expect her to know? Why did he think it was a reasonable risk to take her to that dance?
It was his fault they floated his mom. It was his fault Octavia was in the skybox. It was his fault Octavia would be floated when she was eighteen.
He wished that he could take her place. She deserved to live.
His jaw started to ache again from clenching his teeth. He'd gone to the medical bay thinking he'd gotten an infection in his ears, but instead he'd learned that he'd caused the pain himself.
He wanted to scream or hit something. He fisted his hands only to relax them moments later.
What was the point?
He ignored the solitary book he had on the table in the middle of the room, kicked off his boots, and climbed to the top bunk to sleep. He couldn't face sleeping on the bottom bunk, where his mom had slept, or Octavia the nights she didn't spend under the floor.
He tossed and turned, listening to the neighbors on either side leave their rooms for the day ahead of them. He suspected his new schedule had been the reason for his dreamless nights, or days, in fact.
What did night and day matter when they lived in space? It was all just a construct of time.
He'd known that his dreams were real for months. It wasn't that hard to find out. The girl he shared dreams with was in solitary confinement in the skybox. There weren't that many teens in solitary confinement, let alone continual confinement. They hadn't let him anywhere near the skybox because of Octavia, but he had contacts that allowed him to check up on her. He used those contacts to find out who the girl of his dreams was.
Clarke Griffin, age seventeen, daughter of Jake and Abby Griffin, residents of Alpha station. Her father had been the chief engineer before he was floated for treason. Her mother was the chief medical officer of the Ark and a councilmember. She had been accused of treason, like her father, and was sentenced to solitary in the skybox.
He didn't know why it was happening, but at least he knew he wasn't crazy. He knew things from his dreams with Clarke that he hadn't known previously. There was no way his mind could have invented her, or known what he knew.
Unfortunately, she still thought he was a figment of her imagination. He wanted to talk to her about it, but for some reason he knew that she didn't. He could sense her dread every time their conversations became more than the superficial. And given her circumstances, he couldn't blame her for trust issues.
He hadn't spoken to her in over a week due to the change in his shift. He suspected that they weren't sleeping at the same time. It made him anxious. He hadn't had a chance to check up on her through his usual channels, and he needed to know if she was okay.
Turning once more, Bellamy got comfortable enough to drift off and he hoped that she was still asleep.
He opened his eyes to the hallway outside the airlock where they floated his mother, but this wasn't his dream. He'd jumped in at the end, and he'd recognized it as the nightmare that haunts Clarke.
She's crying hysterically, calling for her dad from her mother's arms. Jake Griffin, walked away from her into the airlock, where it closed behind him. He turned and said something to the Chancellor, but Bellamy was too focused on Clarke wailing for her father.
Commander Shumway was standing by the ominous red button, and at Jaha's nod he opened the outer doors and Jake was flushed into space.
Clarke's cries rose.
And the dream stuttered, Jake was standing in front of her again. He gave her a twisted smile before walking toward the air lock, the door sealing behind him.
Clarke continued to call for him, "Dad! No! No! Dad!"
Bellamy squeezed his eyes close, as the outer door opened and her father was sucked out again.
The dream stuttered. She was caught. It had happened before. Her nightmare got caught in a vindictive loop. Like reliving it once wasn't enough.
Bellamy knew he was going to have to pull her out of it. He moved forward, walking through sludge. His legs didn't move like he wanted them too, sticking to the air, but he pushed anyway.
The loop completed again and restarted by the time he reached her. Pulling her out of her mother's arms, Bellamy braced her, his large hands holding both of her shoulders. He lifted one to push the hair out of her face, stuck to her tears.
"Princess? Honey, you need to wake up now." His eyebrows furrowed in concern.
She looks up at him lost, another tear escapes down her cheek. "I couldn't save him, Bell. I was supposed to help him. But I didn't do anything at all. It's my fault he's dead. I told Wells, and it's my fault." Her voice cracks.
Bellamy let go of her shoulders to hold her face in both of his hands, his thumbs brushed the tears away. "No. It's not your fault, Princess. You didn't push that button."
"I might as well have!" she almost shrieked.
"No. And your dad knew that. Just look at him." They both turned to see the loop repeating again. Jake looked down at Clarke, regret filling his face but not covering the love they see shining from his eyes. "Now it's time to wake up."
Clarke shakes her head. "I haven't seen you all week." A determined expression takes over her face. Her lips tighten into a line.
The dream around them faded and Bellamy found himself in a cell. Charcoal drawings covered the walls and floors. The bed was mussed and a tray of food was untouched on the floor near the door.
Clarke looked surprised, and a touch of pink brightens her cheeks as she glanced at the drawing on the wall behind her bed.
"Are we still asleep?" Bellamy asked. Teleportation seemed extreme to him, but he had been sharing dreams with a girl he'd never actually met for months.
"Yeah. I think so." Clarke raised her eyebrows. "I didn't want to wake up, but I didn't want to stay there either."
"Impressive exertion of your will." Bellamy mumbled. He walked around slowly, getting a closer look at the drawings on the walls. "Your cell?" he asked.
"Yep," she replied.
"You've talked about drawing, but you're actually good." He smirked at her over his shoulder.
She rolled her eyes at him. "Thanks, I think."
"Well," he looked up at Earth through her window, "it's nice to know that we can control this. It only took us ten months."
"It only took me ten months. I'm still not sure if you're real."
Bellamy rolled his eyes at her this time. "We've discussed this. You're not that creative. Plus you know that I know you're real."
"Of course I'm real, this is my dream."
"What about when it's my dream? Because if you dreamt me up, thanks for the craptastic nightmares you've been giving me."
She snorted. "I have a theory for that too."
"Of course you do." He crouched down to look at the piece in the middle of the floor.
"That one's not done yet." She points at the floor. "I think that the reason you have such a crappy time is because I can only connect with someone who can reasonably empathize with my own equally crappy past. And since I'm the crazy lonely prisoner, I created you to keep myself from talking to the walls."
Bellamy laughed. "How do you know you're not talking to the walls right now?" She glared at him, only making him laugh more.
"So where have you been?" Clarke asks, her voice was tentative and low.
He walked across the room. "I've been moved to the night shift. We must be sleeping at different times."
"I was worried." She was looking at her hands, twisted in her lap.
He sat next to her, their thighs touching hip to knee. He put an arm around her, and she rested her head against his shoulder. "I know. I'm sorry." He kissed her hairline. "I'm here now."
They sat quietly for a long time. Neither one wanted to break the contentment they felt.
"I saw her the other day." Clarke finally broke the silence. Bellamy rested his chin on top of her head. "She was across the box. They've changed their schedule for the last three weeks, and I saw her in a group. At least I think it was Octavia. Her bangs have grown out. She looks good."
Bellamy tensed at his sister's name. He hadn't seen her since he was locked up. They wouldn't let him come on visitation days. He was always conveniently scheduled to work. Bastards.
Clarke reached over for his free hand and squeezes it. Relaxing his shoulders, he responds, "She looks okay?"
Clarke nods, "Yeah. She looks okay."
He sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Thanks, Princess."
She leaned away from him, breaking his hold on her, and gave him a small smile. He returns it the best he can. "I need to wake up now. Today is my month check with the medic."
"Tomorrow?" he asks.
"I'll stay up. I don't want to miss you again. And I want to finish that drawing. Maybe I can show it to you tomorrow?"
"Sure, princess. And then maybe we can let me try the," He twirled his finger around, gesturing to the room. "Get you out of this cell?"
Clarke smiled brightly this time. "Sounds perfect."
The dream dissolved and Bellamy opened his eyes to the dim light in his room.
Clarke spent her day as she usually did, with the added benefit of a conversation with a real person. Not that she wasn't starting to believe that Bellamy wasn't real. Okay, she totally did.
She was working on her drawing in the early hours of the morning, when the guards entered her room. She was supposed to be sleeping, but she was staying up hoping that she would sleep at the same time as Bell.
They couldn't take her. She wasn't eighteen yet. She had another month.
They didn't expect her to fight back, but she couldn't let them take her before she got to say goodbye. She was going to show him her finished drawing today.
Her mother was there on the balcony. And when she least expected it, they knocked her out. For once she didn't dream.
She woke to the drop ship hurtling through space toward Earth, and Wells was sitting beside her. She couldn't believe that he was there, and supposedly for her. He shouldn't have bothered. She'd watched her father die over and over again for a year. Even with Bellamy to bring her out of it, she wasn't going to forgive Wells for making her live that. For killing her dad.
Bellamy. She was leaving him behind. He had to be on the Ark. And now there was no way for them to meet but in their dreams.
If he was even real in the first place.
The kids were idiots and two died in the landing. The Ark sent them down, and they couldn't have expected them to survive.
All the kids were unbuckling and climbing down the drop ship once they were sure that they'd landed. Clarke knew they needed to assess the predicament the Ark had thrown them into if they were going to survive. She had to get to the ground floor.
Clarke climbed down the ladder, impatient with the kid climbing below her. Dropping to the ground, she found a guard standing near the door. She was surprised that they had sent someone else with the delinquents.
His voice was low and gruff and oddly familiar, "Hey, just back it up guys."
He was tall and the guard's uniform fit snugly over his shoulders. His hair was dark, and the moment she saw his face she gasped.
Bellamy.
He looked up, eyes widening, as he recognized her.
His hand was on the lever to open the door, and instead of saying what she wanted to, she found herself saying, "Stop. The air could be toxic."
He quirked an eyebrow at her and smirked, "If the air is toxic we're all dead anyway."
It was real. He's real. It was all real.
And they were on the ground.
Together.
A/N: Can you believe it? I wrote something?! I know it's a bit rough, but I just needed to make myself write something. Thanks for reading!
Anyone else love them some Bellarke? Please use that Review button!
Rec: Survivor's Guilt by LaughingSenselessly "We're the last of our people," Clarke utters without much emotion. After all their efforts, they failed; the story of Skai Kru would die with them. Bellamy finally looks up at her tone of voice and after a pause he says, slowly, "We don't have to be." (Post-Series Bellarke fic.)
LOooooove this story. I cried! I Ooo'd and Ahhh'd! Excellent characterization and broadening of The 100 world despite it's depressing beginning.