Disclaimer: not a Roman history expert... also don't own The 100
"Ugggg," Bellamy groaned holding his head in his hands. He was sitting crisscross on his bed, elbows pressing into his knees as he leaned forward to squint at the large book in front of him. Being an ancient history professor was one thing, but being the teaching assistant who had to read and grade one hundred essays was another.
The paper that he was currently grading had him bewildered. Whatever the person's name - he only knew them as "student id number 1293500" – they were making quite a large claim based on some very arguable facts. Joe Schmo proudly asserted that Caligula, an emperor during the Julio- Claudian dynasty, had his favorite horse Incitatus made a consul member!
Bellamy snorted and rolled his eyes, but as he glanced at the footnotes of the paper, he saw that the writer had a source to prove his claim. So, wanting to see for himself if this absurd moment in history actually happened, Bellamy went over to his bookshelf and searched for a volume of Cassius Dio's history.
He flopped back down amongst the scattered essays on his bed and flipped through the book to find some unlikely evidence. However, many scholars had agreed that there appeared to be no corruption in the text; Dio's writing was accompanied by a set of personal circumstances that allowed him to observe significant events of the Empire, or had direct contact with the key figures who were involved. Bellamy had to agree that Caligula was kind of a nut job, but accounts of history were notorious for being inaccurate - slanted by one-sided stories of a controversial nature.
So there he was searching tirelessly through the book to find even a single mention of Incitatus, disregarding the other forty-seven essays that he still had to grade, and despite the fact that by now it was close to two in the morning.
"What?!" he scoffed, re-reading the last sentence with disbelief. It was there, in the text! Well, Bellamy had to hand it to "number 1293500," they had an appropriate source for the information. It's not over yet though, he thought. He grinned, pounded his fist in the air and declared, "to the internet!"
A few clicks later, he found a reasonable explanation to defend crazy Caligula. In regards to making the horse a consul member, only two writers, Suetonius and Dio Cassius, mentioned it as fact. Both of them had reason to be politically motivated and they also came much later in history to have observed it in person. Bellamy figured that the most likely scenario was that Caligula said it to imply that a horse could do a senator's job, and this remark was taken literally by those two chroniclers. Alright, he smirked and wrote some notes about his theory in the margins of the essay, then scrawled a B- on the top.
He had just started reading another paper when his phone trilled. He frowned, wondering who would be calling him after midnight, and reached over to grab his phone from the nightstand. There wasn't a caller ID, but the area code was local so he pressed send.
"Hello," he answered.
He waited for a reply but there was only static on the other end.
"Hello?" he tried again.
"-ellamy," the voice cut in and then he heard another whoosh of static.
"Clarke?" his brow furrowed, wondering why she was calling from an unknown number.
"Bellamy," she whimpered. Bellamy's whole chest tensed up and then his heart started pounding frantically.
"Clarke, what's wrong?" he spoke louder into the phone.
"I-," her voice caught in her throat.
He was painfully waiting for her to resume her speech, but all he heard was a loud sniffle. His stomach dropped when he realized she was crying. The hand that wasn't holding his phone clenched into a tight fist and he pressed his nails into his palm, trying to focus on the pain to remain calm; he was useless to Clarke if he started freaking out.
"I…," she sniffled again, "I…need…"
"Clarke, you need to take a deep breath, okay?" he said slowly and evenly into the phone. He heard a shaky sigh and then a few seconds later heard a huff followed by a quick and jagged inhale.
"I can't," she cried angrily.
"I'm gonna count to five while you inhale and then you exhale until I get to ten, ready?"
He heard a high pitched whimper.
"One," he thought he heard a dry, dragging breath in.
"Two...three...four...five," he paused.
"Exhale...six," he heard a slow breath out, "seven...eight..."
"Nine...ten," he waited.
"I need you to come get me," her voice lilted and quivered.
"Where are you?" he asked desperately.
"…jail," she cried.
"What?!" he choked out.
AN: Too be continued...
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