Chapter 2
I have been overwhelmed by the amount of support for this story already. I was originally planning on it being just a one-shot, but now I'm thinking of extending it. Comment if you think I should continue. The quote is from a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, mentioned at the start of Breaking Dawn. Sorry about the Twilight bashing :/ but I doubt that it would be Bellamy's favourite book.
The rescue party consisted of Bellamy, Finn, Raven, Jasper and Monty. Octavia was insisting that she wanted to go but Bellamy wouldn't hear of it. He couldn't let the other girl he loved get hurt as well. Besides, as he pointed out to her, she was the only one left in the camp even remotely capable of performing first aid. They were almost ready to set off, just waiting for the first rays of dawn so they would be able to see their way through the forest. As much as Bellamy had wanted to leave camp right away, even he had to admit that going a night would have just gotten them all killed.
The group of them was so small, although almost the entire camp had volunteered to come, because Bellamy was planning on it being an undercover mission. The grounders outnumbered them 10 to 1; they would be slaughtered if it came down to full-scale war. Miller was in charge until they came back, he had been told that if the grounders caught them the rest of the 100 should deny any knowledge of their rescue mission and hope that the grounders spared them.
Bellamy marched ahead of the others, not looking back. He knew his aim in this mission, not that he'd admit it to them. He seriously doubted that Clarke was still alive. He was going to go in alone, insist that the others stayed to watch out for grounders. He wasn't coming back without his princess. The other four on the mission seemed almost as if they were going out for a fun day trip. They were all so young; they didn't understand the hardships of life. They didn't understand that the grounders were probably either torturing Clarke right at this moment for information about their weaknesses, or they'd killed her for refusing to cooperate.
They were just children. Bellamy thought of a quote from a book which Octavia had forced him to read with her. The book had been awful, about weird glittery paedophile vampires and the world's most boring girl, but the epigraph at the start had caught his attention. It really felt relevant when describing the people he was currently with.
"Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age
The child is grown, and puts away childish things.
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies."
The others were only young; they'd never faced true hardship like Bellamy had. Sure, they'd had more than their fair share of teenage angst, they were criminals after all, but none of them had really experienced how cruel the world gets like he had. It had corrupted his innocent mind, destroyed his faith and hope, made him pessimistic and angry at the way things were. That was the cause of the "Whatever the hell we want" chanting that he'd started. He'd never been allowed to be selfish. He'd always had to help his mother look after Octavia or steal rations so that they'd have enough to share between the three of them. He had grown up too fast. And although Clarke seemed like she'd had the perfect life, once he got to know her, he realised one really important thing about his princess. She acted like everything was alright, even though her world was falling apart around her. Even though her dad had been executed and it was her mum's fault. Even though she hated herself because she had lived when her father didn't.
He supposed that was the reason they'd become so close so quickly. Nobody had expected it to happen. One day, they were fighting over how to lead the camp and the next they were confessing that they wouldn't be able to live without each other.
He knew that they were getting close now; they'd been walking for hours. He turned to the others.
"Raven and Monty. I need you to get up high. Watch out for grounders. Contact us if you see any. Find us a clear route." He handed them a walkie talkie, the other one was in his pocket. They each had a gun, but this was strictly for emergencies only. Bellamy refused to let them sabotage the mission by being stupid.
He then motioned for Finn and Jasper to follow him. They were steadily coming up towards the clearing in which the village was located, Bellamy could tell as the trees were starting to thin. He pretended to be waiting for a message from Raven. He knew it wasn't going to come; he'd dismantled the walkie talkie to stop her from being able to get through to them. It was all part of his plan to go in alone. He addressed the others.
"Wait here. I'll scout ahead. I'll come back and tell you when the coast is clear."
"I don't think that's a good idea Bell. You're our leader; we need you to stay safe." Protested Jasper. Finn just looked frustrated, like he knew exactly what Bellamy was trying to do and couldn't find the energy to stop him. Looks like spacewalker isn't quite as thick as he seems.
Bellamy glared at Jasper, extinguishing his protests immediately. He crouched down and started slowly moving through the still dense undergrowth, as the tree cover was no longer thick enough to hide him. He managed to get close to the centre of the village without any problems. There was nobody in sight. This was unnerving.
Once he was fully out of the forest, he straightened up and began walking purposefully, as if he wasn't out of place. It was a trick he'd learned while working as a guard back on the ark. Act like you know where you're going and the whole world will assume that you're meant to be there. Not that it really mattered anyway, considering the complete lack of people in the village.
When he entered what appeared to be the centre of the village, he realised why he hadn't seen anybody on the way in. All of the grounders were in there and they were all staring directly at him. He was surrounded, there was no escape.
One of them, Bellamy quickly identified her as their leader by the way others gathered around her, walked towards his and stopped only when their faces were inches apart. She smirked, "Bellamy Blake. We've been expecting you."
