She let out a sound he couldn't put a meaning to as she dug her nose into the crook of his neck.

Bellamy finally released her, and she looked delighted, staring up at him. He stroked a few strands of hair from her forehead, and then pressed his palm to her skin. "You do have a fever."

She tapped two fingers to his wrist and lowered his hand like that. "Just a little tired, Bellamy. It'll pass."

There was something about the way she said his name that gave him chills. Good chills. "Then get some sleep," he urged softly. He took his bottom lip between his teeth on the inside, considering his words carefully. "Octavia will be fine, and so will I. Does that help?"

Clarke nodded, and near her hips, their fingers tangled for a moment. "More than you know," she uttered. Their hands swung for a moment, and then she released. "Thank you, Bellamy."

"I'll see you later, Clarke. Get some rest," he smiled lightly. She nodded, and with a last glance, she left him in the hallway. Like the world had separated him and happiness for a long time. It was gone, but he would see it again. He was thinking that reunion would start now.

He could've kissed the nurse when she told him Octavia was okay to go home. The young nurse in question, Harper was her name, managed to remind him quickly that she had a soulmate. He backed away with an apology and told her that, yeah, he too, had one. He was just really happy that they saved his little sister. Octavia looked at him weirdly, but he didn't explain himself as he took the fifteen-year-old home with a smile on his face.

When they got home, Bellamy explained. He explained what he had called Elysium when they were younger, and he apologised again, because she had nightmares and he didn't. She hugged him and asked whether she would get to see his soulmate. Maybe one day, he said, maybe soon. He knew he still had a loan to pay off and work to do, but he couldn't stop smiling those few days, not even when customers were rude or people were annoying at the museum. He found her. Clarke.

She approached him during English class, about the only course they shared, and like absolute toddlers, they started to pass notes. After doing this for two classes, she wrote:

I feel like I've known you forever.

And he smiled down at the paper.

You have known me since forever, he wrote back.

She drew a lot on her notes, she was left-handed, she was in pre-med, but majoring in art. Her favourite colour was blue, but she was into the white, chrome and wood aesthetic for living spaces. She liked cats and dogs, and didn't really see why people had to choose a side. "That's just cruel!" she whispered. "They're both too good." She wasn't that into vague poetry, he discovered, when Pike read one to them. She wrote:

No one listens to Pike

He looked up at the board, read over the poem and smirked. He bent over the sheet of paper.

On purpose, love
That's the way things go around here

She saw where he was going and chuckled lightly. Clarke withdrew the paper and when he got it back, under his large, block letters, her curly ones spelt something new.

Isn't this what anarchy is?

Farewell, communism, he decided. She laughed, only to be shushed by some kids in front of her. He wished they hadn't done that. He wanted to hear that laugh forever. Whether it was about a stupid poem they wrote, or anything else. It sounded like singing when you're sure you're the last person on earth.

She used her phone under the table, and after ten or so minutes, he got the sheet of paper back, a nice portrait of an angry Stalin next to the poem. He nodded in approval. She asked if she could have the paper. He approved of that, too.

They exchanged numbers; Bellamy had a small phone that wouldn't break if you dropped a brick on it from ten thousand feet, so she texted him and he replied slowly, and with a lot of typos because his thumbs were too big for the dials.

After two weeks, she sent him a blurred picture of some scribbles on paper. He asked her what it was. She said she stapled their poems in their sketchbook.

He grinned, thinking about the other poems.

Hey, hello
Good day

Apples!
Plums, apricots
Makes me hungry
Makes me angry

Being happy

And the other - which had been a conversation about drugs, but Bellamy turned one of her responses into a poem.

My friend Monty once ate a pinecone
Five years without wings
He's right, thought the pinecone
And he drifted away on the wind

But then he saw her choice of words.

Our sletchbook? he texted back.

Oh yeah, Ive been drawing things bout u for a while now. Idk, just my interpretation of things, she replied.

Can I sef?
see

If you want to.

Octava wants to meet you so come over maybe?

SUre.

Bellamy gave her the address and time she could be there - on a Thursday night, because he didn't work on those - and suddenly felt a bomb drop in his stomach. He'd come over to their house. So they'd have to clean. And he'd have to cook for her.

He tried to break it to his sister slowly. She had become very curious, that came in handy. By the time he'd finished the dishes and he called her to come dry off, she'd cleaned her room, she announced. Bellamy smiled as the brunette took a wet plate from the rack and started to wipe off the water. He twisted her ponytail over her hand as he passed her, to scrape some books from the couch and stack them back under the wooden coffee table.

Clarke had been happy to hear that his little sister had shown interest. That was a good sign, right? She wasn't too focused on coming over to his place. What she worried about were the sketchbooks.

Maybe it'd be too early to show him? Her perception, the colour schemes... Was that weird? Maybe even intrusive? It was his life she painted in there, his life through her eyes in a haze of intense, flickering dreams. But she'd already mentioned it to him, and couldn't turn back now.

That night, she crashed on a bed next to Raven, to watch Ocean's Eleven - Clarke liked animated films better, but Raven objected and they took turns picking movies - and afterwards they conversed about the soulmate idea, their eyelids only half-open after the cheap bottle of wine they'd shared.

"Don't you feel like someone decided for you? Like you don't have a choice?" Raven dangerously waved with the coffee mug she'd filled with wine.

"It used to be much worse," Clarke brought up. "The soulmate connections used to be different, a long time ago. You knew that, right?"

"The tattoos? Yeah, everyone gets to hear about that in middle school," Raven nodded.

"Now that's different. Because you wouldn't have met the person," Clarke explained, taking a sip from her own mug, and spilling a drop on her chin. She wiped it off. "I've lived in his skin, right? Besides, don't tell me you'd say no to him."

"Okay, what do you know about what I say yes and no to?" the Latina stopped her, holding one hand up in defense, a playful glint in her eyes.

Clarke giggled. "Trust me, Reyes, I know enough." She extended her legs over the lap of her friend.

Raven smirked, and Clarke knew it meant something along the lines of: I'd totally bang him if my roomie wasn't destined to be with him. They finished the bottle and went to bed. Later that week, Raven offered to help her pick something to wear. She hadn't realised just how much of a pain Clarke was when she got nervous. She'd seen her exam-nervous, but this, this was different. After four different tops, Raven was back to lying on her stomach and scrolling through her instagram. By now, Clarke started to doubt whether maybe it wasn't the top, it was the skirt, and switched it for pants, to reclaim the skirt as the option she would go with just two tops later.

"You look great, Clarke. He's already seen you in your pajamas. Now fucking leave, he's waiting!" Raven finally ushered her out of their room with those words, leaving Clarke with the three sketchbooks and a lot of doubts about the black skirt and the cropped red sweater she ended up with.

After taking the bus for two stops, she found herself at the bottom of a huge flat. When she rang the doorbell, a feminine voice croaked through the call system. "Clarke?"

Before she could reply, there was some rummage in the background, and his voice came to the front. "Hello?"

"Hi- it's me," Clarke answered.

"Yeah-" He laughed a bit, and maybe it was wishful thinking, but he sounded nervous as well. "We uh, we figured. Come upstairs, yeah?" The door buzzed, and Clarke pushed it open with her shoulder. When she wandered up some stairs, she found herself in front of an open door with their house number next to it. She stepped inside and closed the door behind her.

A brick landed in her stomach. She'd walked through this hall before. Her eyes went up, towards the source of the bright orange light that illuminated it. That hadn't been there. Her dreams had been gray, or in complete darkness. The walls had the same colour, but the lightbulb changed the atmosphere. Even so, it felt odd, coming in a hallway where she had never physically stood, but somehow had entered before. The face peeking from an opening on the left shook her awake.

His hair was still messy, she realised, and smiled lightly at the sight of it. He had a pair of thick-framed glasses on his nose and an apology in his smile. "Food's not ready yet, but it'll just be a minute," he spoke, tapping his fingers on the doorframe, waiting for a response.

Clarke looked about, and undid herself of her coat to hang it near the door. "No problem," she replied, looking over her shoulder. "It smells really good."

He brightened a bit more before ducking back into what appeared to be the kitchen. She felt free to follow him, so she did.

The kitchen spilt into the living room, and at the table sat a girl with dark hair and fierce features. She had dark eyes that she made look bright, and extended her hand to the newcomer enthusiastically. "Octavia," she introduced herself.

Clarke accepted the hand, of course, and replied with her name, although she was sure the girl already knew. "I've- heard, a lot about you." Her sky blues flickered to Bellamy for a second. Most things Clarke knew about the younger girl, she hadn't really heard him say. He returned the glance, but didn't say anything. Something beeped, and he went back to the sizzling pans on the stove.

"Take a seat," he urged gently. "Take your shoes off, if you want. Make yourself at home."

The blonde did sit down, but left her shoes on. Not because she wanted to leave quickly, but because she felt a little weird just taking them off like that. Maybe later.

Bellamy set his pans down, and held up two different glasses. "Wine, or not?"

"Please!" Octavia joked before Clarke could say anything. Bellamy shot her a glare, but Clarke laughed. She then turned back to the older brother. "Yes, please."

When he poured her some, they sat down and ate. Bellamy was either a very good cook, or this was the only dish he could make well. Either way, Clarke was impressed; she sucked at cooking. She made sure to let him know she enjoyed it.

Octavia was straightforward and passionate, like her brother. She seemed to be very good at filling silences, where Clarke would share a look with Bellamy, just long enough to see the tips of his ears turn red. She'd just take a bite then, or laugh or reply to Octavia's words. It was nowhere near tense, the blonde realised, and was oh-so glad about it.

After dinner, she insisted on doing the dishes, or helping in some way. His sister quickly offered to help, and it was clear that she shooed him away, to another room. As she dried the plates that Clarke handed her, she talked, and Clarke mostly listened. Near the end, she suddenly nudged the blonde with her elbow.

"So I feel obligated to do this, because my brother meddles in my life all the time," An eye-roll was audible in her tone. "But, soulmates or not, if you break his heart, I will kick your ass, you hear me?"

Clarke wanted to laugh, but wasn't sure if she was one to mess with the fierce young woman, so she nodded. "I'll take that to heart." She couldn't, however, help a smile from creeping up on her face. Octavia returned it, and finished up.

Somehow, it was as if Octavia knew more about this than he did. While he didn't really know what to do whenever Clarke really looked at him, Octavia knew her place and did exactly what was needed of her in every situation. She filled a lot of silence at dinner, but quickly announced that she was going to bed after doing the dishes. "Go to sleep before twelve, this time?" Bellamy called after her, but the brunette didn't reply. He smiled softly, and padded back into the kitchen.

Clarke looked a bit lost, standing near the kitchen counter. He approached her, giving a gentle smile and reaching into the overhead cupboards, grabbing two clean glasses. "More wine?" he asked. "Or water?"

"Let's do water," Clarke laughed briefly. His lip curled up, showing his teeth as he turned to tap water.

They sat on the couch, on opposite sides, facing each other. Bellamy had his legs dangling off the side. She had taken off her shoes and folded her knees in front of her chest. She laughed again, and because Bellamy was sure she felt the same thing he did, he laughed along.

"Apparently, we're meant to be," she finally uttered, blue eyes shining up at him intently.

"It's funny, really," he replied. "You've been making me happy since I knew what a dream was, but I didn't dare think you were real. And now, you're sitting in my living room."

"I didn't want to meet you for a long time," she admitted, raising her glass to her nose as she sipped the clear liquid. "but here we are, indeed. And I don't know how this is going to unfold."

"Let's see, then," he shrugged, granting her a small grin.

Her smile was enlightening, he found. He'd already seen it in class a few times; a genuine smile. One that lit her eyes up like stars had found a way to shine during the day, one that crinkled the skin around her eyes and dipped her cheeks a little. Her mouth then formed an o, and she stretched her legs, leaving the room to get something.

She returned with her bag, the one he'd watched her carry in. She'd left it near the door and had forgotten about it. The blonde fell back into the cushions, this time leaving both feet on the floor, and pulling out some books.

"The sketchbooks," she explained, stroking a thumb over the cover.

He eyed it with awe, until he realised she was waiting for him to say something. He looked up to her eyes briefly. "Can I uh, can I see it?"

"That's- what I brought them for," she nodded, and piled the books onto his lap. "Number one, number two, and number three."

While he opened the first, she leaned over to watch the pages as he flipped through them slowly. An odd feeling clung to him as he did. That was his house, the house that was never a home, and she had called it her perception of things, but of course it was his perception. Everything through his eyes. She used charcoal, black and grey pencils and occasionally put in a black piece of paper, where a white pencil had been used to make shapes in the darkness. Glass, cigarettes, plates with little to no food on them. She had drawn just a pair of sunken eyes sometimes. Octavia's. His dad's lips were in there, stuck to the mouth of a bottle. His own hands, beaten to pulp on a wall or a tree. Blood had been accentuated with red, but it wasn't the exact colour of blood. Not that he could blame her.

The drawings got better throughout the book. He'd noticed that before he noticed the dates in the right upper corner, which ranged from six years ago to four years ago, at least through the first book. Halfway through, it occurred to him that she'd consistently put a smudge of colour on each page, in the bottom right corner.

"What's this?" He pointed to a faded purple under a drawing of a collection of bottles on the countertop. He flipped back to the first page, where the smudge was just black. His eyebrows creased into a frown.

Clarke blushed, and took her bottom lip between her teeth as her fingers traced both colours. "This is just... something I did on accident in the beginning, but eventually I started to do it every time I drew in this book. I think it was..." She halted in the middle of her sentence, and stopped to think for some time. He glanced at her as she drew in sharp breaths multiple times, opened her mouth and then closed it again, like she needed to reconsider her words more. "I just- I felt like, in the beginning, I could be there to carry this with you, you know? Maybe I'd meet you in time to make you feel strong?" Again, she paused. He wanted to speak up, but she interrupted. "It was like a- a feeling. Like seeing you stand at the edge of an abyss, and the darkness was asking you: 'What are you going to do now?' And I- I wanted to get up, stand next to you, and tell you that we- we'd figure it out, but the abyss would tear me away from you and show me a different hole in the ground, and it'd ask me what I was planning to do. What was my plan? I didn't know what I could say! I didn't even know your name!" She drew in a sharp breath once more, and directed her stare back to the purple smudge. "And the more I wanted to answer, the more colours I passed and it got me further and further, asking new questions on how I wanted to go on. But I didn't want to go on, I wanted to go back, back to you." Lacking anything to do but explain herself, she flipped on through some pages. "It was a sick board game, and all you were allowed to do was lose turns." The last words came out quietly, and she stared at a brownish orange. "The colours- I don't know. They're a countdown without an end. Because I hadn't seen the whole board before I began to play, and I didn't know when I'd be getting back to black. To square one."

Bellamy fidgeted with a strand of his hair as he listened. When she seemed to be finished, he looked up, desperately seeking her blue gaze. "Does that mean we're in the black now?"

Her lips curled up only slightly, as she extracted the third book from his lap. With nimble fingers she flipped through the pages, and showed him a picture of his face. It was a quick sketch, he saw, but in the right bottom corner was one word: finish.