Bellamy leaned over Atom, a tight grip on the knife in his trembling hands. He watched Atom struggle for breath, his eyes filled with pain. He couldn't do it. He kept telling himself to put his emotions aside and just put Atom out of the misery that the acid fog had caused, but he couldn't bring himself to kill his friend. Suddenly, he felt a presence behind him and glanced over his shoulder to see Clarke walking up to him. She knelt on the other side of Atom, saying nothing.
Clarke glanced at Atom, and then began humming, stroking his burned face. It was a soft hum, yet it still made Bellamy feel a sense of ease. She reached her hand down and grabbed the knife from Bellamy's hands, still humming quietly. Bellamy glanced at Clarke, and when he noticed that she didn't seem scared or upset, but at ease, he felt some sort of feeling rush over him. This was a different Clarke, one that Bellamy felt few people saw. This wasn't the leader Clarke, the one who always steps up to make decisions for the whole camp. This was vulnerable Clarke, the one that showed all of the pain that she had endured and all of the empathy that she felt for all of our people. And in that moment, seeing her easing Atom into his death, making him comfortable, Bellamy felt something that he has never felt before.
Jasper and the others parted as Bellamy and Octavia walked closer to the wounded girl. Bellamy knelt down beside her, and automatically his eyes went to her wound. Now it was covered with a torn cloth, as if Lincoln had ripped part of his shirt off. Underneath, Bellamy saw some sort of plant sticking out, covered with blood.
The Grounder girl's head was now perched on a pack, and Bellamy guessed that either Monty or Jasper gave theirs up. Her eyes were closed, but somehow Bellamy knew that she wasn't sleeping. He glanced around at the others.
"Can we have a minute?" Bellamy asked, trying not to sound like he was barking at them. Thankfully, none of them protested, just nodded and walked back into the woods, as if they were grateful that they didn't have to deal with the situation anymore.
The minute that their footsteps faded, the girl's eyes opened. She slightly raised her head, glancing at the wound on her stomach. She sighed in anger and plopped her head down on the bag.
"Was that really necessary?" She whispered, her voice hoarse.
"Based on our history with Grounders, it's understandable why Octavia didn't even hesitate." Bellamy said, avoiding the actual question.
She nodded as best as she could while laying down. "Lexa, right? You mentioned her before."
Bellamy nodded, not wanting to get into it. He wasn't about to relive the war with some strange girl who was just shot by his sister. Instead, he changes to a more important topic.
"You said you weren't with Lexa. If so, then who are you with?" He asked, genuinely concerned. He had heard about the other Grounder clans, the ones whose leaders showed up to Lexa's camp on the day that Mount Weather decided to attempt to kill them all, but he never thought he would have to face any others.
The girl hesitated, as if she had to think about whether she should even tell Bellamy. After a few silent seconds, she cleared her throat before saying, "My name is Amelia. That's all I can tell you."
Bellamy felt a sudden surge of anger as he replied, "That's all? You came here to ask me for help but you won't even tell me who you're with?!"
Amelia didn't seem scared, she just stared right at Bellamy. "It doesn't matter which clan I'm from. What matters is that a leader of that clan has gone missing and I figured you would want to help."
With all this confusion on who this girl was actually with, Bellamy had almost forgotten that Amelia had mentioned Clarke earlier. For a moment, he had thought that he had just imagined it, that he was just hearing what he wanted to hear, but once Octavia said she had heard it, too, Bellamy realized that it was real. If Amelia was telling the truth, and Bellamy and the others did help her, he could be seeing Clarke soon. The thought just made Bellamy's heart flutter, but there was also a looming sense of nervousness. He didn't know how she would have changed in these last few months, living with the Grounders, by Grounder rules. Bellamy had seen what Grounders could look like, and somehow he couldn't imagine Clarke like them. He didn't want to.
After realizing that he had been silent, lost in his train of thought, he finally responded to Amelia.
"Clarke." He said matter-of-factly, as if he was already positive that as he had thought, Clarke was the missing leader. It was more like he hoped it, though. He hoped that this leader was Clarke so that he would have some chance of saving her, of seeing her again. Otherwise, that would mean Bellamy was back to where he was before: not knowing where she was or if she was even alive.
Thankfully, Amelia nodded her head as best she could while laying down. When Bellamy did nothing, just sat there, grateful that he was right but also scared because now he knew for a fact that she was missing, she answered the question that had been circling around Bellamy's head.
"She came to us a little over 2 months ago. We were wary at first, of course, this strangely dressed girl coming into our camp asking for a place to stay, but our head leader Kaya agreed to let her stay for a few days to regain her strength."
When she paused, Bellamy sat quietly, wanting to know where she had spent the first few weeks after she left. He wanted to ask Amelia so many things: Was she hurt? How did she look? Was she doing okay? Did she talk about us? But, knowing Amelia had more to tell, Bellamy asked none of these.
Amelia breathed deeply, as if the pain from her wound was returning, but she just winced and continued.
"On the last day that Kaya was allowing her to stay, we were attacked. It was from out of nowhere, just bullets, yes, bullets, flying everywhere, hitting so many people. We were so unprepared, so weak. We never even found out who it was." She whispered the last part, as if she was reliving some terrible memories. She blinked a few times, the sad, far away look in her eyes gone.
"Clarke helped us. The moment the first bullet hit its first victim, Clarke was ushering everyone into one of our underground huts. She stayed out there, amidst the flying bullets and people dying all around her, just to make sure that she could get everyone she could to safety."
Bellamy smiled at this, again just imagining her, the strong Clarke that he had grown to admire, knowing she was forced to leave a town but still willing to help everyone in it. Maybe she hadn't changed that much after all.
Amelia had a slight smile on her face, too, as much as she could with her wound. "She saved so many of our people. When it was all over, when we all came out of hiding, Kaya went straight to Clarke, thanking her for her help. She barely hesitated before she said that Clarke could stay and train to become part of our clan. After weeks of training, she proved to be so strong that Kaya asked her to be the replacement of the leader that had fallen during the attack. She was a very strong leader and everyone in the clan was loyal to her."
As much as Bellamy liked hearing about Clarke and what she had been up to for the past few months, he felt as though they were wasting precious time.
"You said something about her going missing?" Bellamy asked, trying to indirectly tell Amelia to get to the point.
She nodded, stating, "A few days ago, we sent her to retrieve supplies. Of course, since she's one of our leaders, we sent two of our best guards with her. When she hadn't returned within two days, Kaya sent people out looking for her, me being in one of the three groups. A few hours later, when we met back up, one group reported that they found her two guards….dead." Amelia choked out the last word, and Bellamy assumed it was because she had known the guards. But that wasn't what was bothering Bellamy.
He closed his eyes, sighing. "How do you even know she's alive?" He whispered. He had gone all of this time just assuming that she was alive, not even beginning to think of the alternative until now. He tried to push it out of his head, the thought that she could be lying somewhere…. Thankfully, Amelia speaking snapped him out of his painful thoughts.
"If whoever had killed the guards wanted her dead, they would've killed her right there, with them." She says confidently. "There would be no point just to take her somewhere else to kill her."
"Unless they wanted you to look for her. Form some sort of trap and just end up taking more of you." Bellamy stated bluntly. He didn't want to believe that he was right, yet some part of him was telling himself to be realistic, even if it hurt more.
Amelia hesitated, as if she hadn't thought that was a possibility. After a few seconds, she shook her head. "Doesn't matter. One of our leaders goes missing, we look for them. Wouldn't you do the same?" she asked, looking at Bellamy with raised eyebrows.
Bellamy was silent, remembering when Clarke and the others had been taken by the Mountain Men. When him and Finn disobeyed Abby and Kane and went out looking for them.
He nodded, pushing the pessimistic thoughts out of his head. That would only make him weaker, and he needed to be strong and focused if he was going to find her.
"Yeah, you're right. Just tell me where she was headed and we'll help you find her." Bellamy said, now feeling a sudden urge to get moving right away. He didn't want to waste any more time, he was ready to go after something worth fighting for after many months of silence and busywork. He couldn't help but get excited about seeing Clarke again, seeing her smile and those beautiful eyes, wrapping her in his arms again, remembering every tiny detail of her and the moments they had spent together... He smiled, knowing for a fact that he would see her again. There was no way that it ended like this. They were going to save her and then she would come back to Camp Jaha, reuniting with her family and she would finally be able to be happy, moving forward instead of looking back. They would go back to being leaders together, making each other stronger and, at least in Bellamy's case, a hell of a lot happier.
But, in order for all of this to happen, he would actually have to know where to look for her, which is why he turned his attention to Amelia, eager to find out where she was, and how long it would take to get there.
Amelia smiled slightly, silently thanking him for deciding that she was worth trusting.
"Mount Weather. They were going to Mount Weather."
