Chapter One
AN: Hello! This is the first chapter of my first Bellarke story ever! I am pretty excited. I hope some people will read this! Anyway, here is the first chapter.
Bellamy:
I shook myself awake, sitting up and breathing hard. Another one, I thought to myself. Why couldn't they just stop coming? After every death in the camp, I always felt a great guilt. Every time, a nightmare would come. I see their faces in my dreams. They call out to me, begging for mercy. And every time, I am the one who kills them. This time it was a young girl, probably around fourteen.
"Save me, Bellamy!"
I ignored her pleas and stepped forward, cocking the gun and raising it to my shoulder. She backs away from me, her eyes full of fear. And then, I pull the trigger. The shot rang out around us, filling my ears with the sound of it echoing away. She slumps to the ground, and I drop the gun. Blood pours from the wound in her chest. She coughs out blood, and tells me, over and over again, "You're a monster. You're a monster."
Her head turns to the side and I back away.
Why couldn't I save them? And I would think the same three words, over and over again.
I'm a monster.
I run my hands through my hair and lean forward, my elbows resting on my knees. There's no way that I would be going back to sleep. I put on a shirt and my boots, and step inside for some air. I look to the right at the guards who are looking beyond the wall. Good. They don't see me.
I close my eyes, and try to relax. I breathe. In. Out. I open my eyes. That's when I notice the hobbling figure on the other side of camp. I squint my eyes and try to see who it is. They look injured. If they are, I should get Clarke. As my eyes adjust to the lighting, and the figure comes closer, I can see who it is.
My eyes widen in surprise. Clarke? What happened to her? She doesn't see me yet, and I stay hidden in the shadows. She limps to the drop ship, clutching her hurt left leg in pain. She walks inside, and I go to the drop ship. I don't enter yet. Instead, I turn myself away from the tarp that hangs down to cover the entrance, and flatten my back up against the wall. This way, she can't see my shadow.
What could she be doing in there? I hear a small gasp of pain. And then another one. I start to become worried, so I go to the entrance. What is going on? I slip inside quietly, and she still doesn't notice me. Her back is toward me, and I try to get a glimpse of what is going on. Her shoulders shudder violently, and it looks like she is crying. She lifts a hand to her face and leans on it. I step forward, but I kick a bolt to the side. She immediately stiffens.
Her voice cracks when she speaks. "Who's there? You may as well come out."
I wait a few seconds before stepping out of the shadows. She hears my feet move against the metal, and she turns around.
Her eyebrows crease in confusion. "Bellamy?"
Her face has two thin, bloody scratches on it, and I can't stop wondering what happened to her. I can see her eyes watering, with tears that are threating to spill.
I simply nod in response.
"You shouldn't be here. Go back to sleep." She points to the exit door of the drop ship.
That's when I notice the blood on her hands, which are shaking almost uncontrollably. There is no way I am leaving her like this. I ignore her pleas and step closer.
"Clarke?" I ask. "What happened?"
I see the needle and thread in her hands, and the cut that she is trying to sew up. How on earth did she do that? There are already two stitches done, but it is nowhere near enough. She is so brave. How did she manage to even sew two stitches? She follows my gaze to her cut ankle. She lets out a shaky breath.
"I couldn't sleep," she says after a while. "So, I walked outside to get some air. Murphy snuck up behind me with a knife. He put his hand over my mouth, and dragged me outside the wall. I didn't know who it was. I don't even know how he managed to get back here. He kept taunting me, telling me how there was no one to save me. He told me that it was my fault he was banished. He wanted revenge, I guess. I tried to break free, but he cut my ankle. After that, he kept grabbing for the knife, trying to pick it up again. I was quicker. He jumped on me and I . . ." she stops talking and her eyes grow wide.
She looks up toward me. "I killed him."
"Princess, you—"
"I banished him, and I killed him," she says, her hands shaking.
I grab her hands and they quiver underneath my palms. "Listen to me, Clarke. It was self-defense. He attacked you."
She nods in response, but never meets my eyes. She doesn't believe she's innocent. I look over to the needle and thread she dropped in her lap. It takes a whole second before I make my decision.
"Alright, Clarke, I'm going to finish your stitches for you," I tell her, reaching down and picking up the needle.
"No, Bellamy, you don't need to. I got this," she says, still being stubborn when she is in so much pain.
Her shaking hands try to reach the needle before I can, but exhaustion takes its toll, and I am able to quickly snatch the needle.
"Have you ever done this before?" she asks.
"Honestly, no," I admit.
"Then how should I know that you will do it right?" she asks, raising her eyebrows and then cringing in pain.
I pause. She's right. All we do is fight. Why should she trust me? Especially for something like this. Still, I can't leave her here, cringing in pain and trying to sew her skin together.
"You'll just have to trust me on this one, princess," I say at last.
She looks up at me, her eyes alert and calculating. She stares at my eyes, trying to decipher whether or not she should trust me.
Eventually, she looks away and down to her ankle. She purses her lips. "Alright."
I nod. "I'll try to be gentle," I tell her, trying reassurance.
"Bellamy, there is no gentle way to do this. Just do it."
I meet her eyes, and nod. Slowly, I begin to stitch, trying to keep my stitches neat and even. I glance up, and she is shaking, rocking in tiny movements back and forth. I look back down and continue to stitch. Come on, princess. You got this. She lets out a gasp. Silent tears make their way down her cheeks.
I reach the middle of the cut, where it must hurt the most. Her fists clench, her nails digging hard into her palms. I glance up for a second, but quickly return to me stitching. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see her jaw clench tightly.
"Halfway through, Clarke," I tell her.
In response, she lets out an animalistic groan. She puts her head back as more tears fall down her face. She struggles to keep her ankle steady, but she does. Her toes curl.
"I'm tying it off now, princess," I tell her.
As I do, I realize something. The way I called her princess. It was out of respect, not loathing. She may be from the privileged, but she lost as much as any of us. Maybe more. She went from high in society to down on the ground. Yes. I have respect for her. She truly is brave. Braver than any of us. I recall the way her hands never shake when she is treating a patient. The way she always protects everyone, from anything. Even her own pain.
I cut the excess thread and she almost collapses on the floor. She props herself on her elbows. Slowly, she tilts her head down to look at the stitches. She nods and looks up to me.
"You did good. They're better than I thought you could do."
The corners of my mouth twitch up. "Can you get back to your tent?" I ask her.
"Not right now. There's a hammock, though, set up for patients. I can sleep there," she replies, nodding her head to the left.
I follow her gaze to the crude hammock. Brave princess.
I turn around and she is looking at me gratefully.
"Thank you, Bellamy," she says, "I don't know if I could have finished that."
I smile at her. "You're brave, Clarke, not stupid. I still wish that you had woken someone up, though."
She looks at the floor. "Yeah."
She reaches behind her and grabs a bowl of water and a cloth. She starts furiously scrubbing at her hands, trying to rid herself of Murphy's blood. Even after the blood is long gone she keeps scrubbing. When I watch her doing this, something cracks inside of me. She's broken. Tired.
And still she's brave.
I lick my lips. "Clarke."
It's all I say, but she stops. She sighs. She puts away the water and the rag. Both are stained with blood. I'm scared because I know that not all of it is Murphy's. She reaches to grab hold of the table and tries to pull herself up. Her face tightens with struggle. She stands up halfway on her good leg and pauses there to breathe. She closes her eyes and I step forward. I wrap her arm around my shoulder and help her stand up. She hops along as I support her. I take her to the hammock.
"Are you sure you're going to be alright?" I ask her.
She nods against my shoulder. "I'll be fine." I pretend not to notice when her voice cracks.
I set her down in the hammock.
"Than you," she says again.
I smile back at her. "Of course."
She closes her eyes and I begin to walk away. When I turn around, I see her shoulders shaking once more.
I close my eyes and pretend not to notice.
Brave princess.
AN: Hello, again! I hope you all liked that. I am probably going to switch off the point of views each chapter, so as not to have too many. I don't know though. I might change my mind later. I am already planning the next chapter right now, so look forward to that. Leave a review to tell me what you thought about this. I really want to write the characters "right," and I don't want them too out of character. Thanks for reading! :)