AN: Again, sorry for the lack of posting on Wednesday if you were waiting for the new chapter. To be honest, I'll probably only be able to post once a week for at least two weeks I'm just super busy with work right now
I don't own anything relating to The 100
Chapter title from "Heroes" by David Bowie
58
We Could Steal Time, Just for One Day
It's still only raining a little on Sunday morning, and the wind has actually calmed overnight, so they probably didn't need to leave a day earlier than planned to avoid the possible storm. They've done everything they wanted, though, so it's not like losing a day in The Big Easy is a disappointment.
"Besides," Bellamy notes when they're back in the car, "this way we'll have more time to appreciate the world's largest brick."
Clarke groans behind the wheel. "I'd forgotten that was in Montgomery. You do know you're a little weird about these roadside attraction things, right?"
He just shrugs, seemingly unconcerned. "We don't have to."
It really sounds like he means it, too, but he'd been so excited when they were talking about these, and it's not like they have anything else planned.
"Nope, I'm invested now, and it's not like it's out of the way or anything," she replies, letting out an exaggerated sigh. "Bring it on."
It turns out the world's largest brick is on their way out of town, though, so they put it off until tomorrow and spend the afternoon and evening exploring the downtown area of Montgomery, where Clarke has never been before.
"There's a lot of history here," Bellamy notes when they're stopped in front of a sign identifying Rosa Parks' bus stop. "I've never been that into more recent American history, I was always more focused on ancient Greece and Rome, but this is interesting."
Clarke pulls her phone out of her pocket and does a Google search. "There's a Rosa Parks' museum, like, two blocks that way," she says, nodding down the street. "And a history museum, the Legacy Museum about the history of racial injustice, a civil rights memorial… I don't know if we'll have time for all of it, but Atlanta's only a couple of hours away, and we don't have anything planned there tomorrow night, we don't really have to leave until mid, maybe late afternoon? If you want."
Bellamy is frowning at his own phone. "Yeah, that sounds good. There's also something called Old Town Alabama, which is an area with restored buildings from the nineteenth and early twentieth century, that sounds cool."
"OK, well, let's check out the civil rights memorial tonight, it looks like it's outside of the actual memorial center and always open. Then we can decide which museums we want to hit tomorrow?"
So they grab dinner before strolling back towards the hotel with a detour to the memorial, and then spend the rest of the evening on their respective phones, reading up on the different options in the city.
In the end, they start at the Rosa Parks' museum at nine the next morning, and then move on to the Legacy Museum. They don't exactly rush through them, even if they probably could have spent longer at both, and have time for a quick lunch before making the two p.m. tour of the old Ordeman House in Old Alabama Town and then exploring the rest of the area until it closes at four.
"So did you get your history fill today?" Clarke asks when they're walking back to the hotel, where they left the car. "I guess it's been a while since we did anything really historic."
Bellamy wraps an arm around her shoulders. "The Alamo was historic, that was just a couple of days ago," he reminds her.
"Oh, yeah, I forgot about that."
"And I love everything we've done on this trip," he continues. "There's been more than enough history stuff, don't worry."
"I'm not," she assures him. "Plus, we're doing the whole Jamestown-slash-Williamsburg thing to top it off, that's going to be fun."
He looks down at her with a soft smile. "So my history boner's rubbed off on you?"
"That's a weird image," Clarke says with a laugh. "But sort of, I guess. I've always been kind of interested, but I lived through a lot of the history in the US, so that wasn't really on top of my list, you know? Like, I saw the moon landing, I don't need to visit an interactive museum to relive it. But going to Rome and Athens and all of the places we've seen, I've really loved it."
"I'm glad. I'd hate to think you've been bored this whole time."
She rolls her eyes and he pinches her side, making her yelp.
They grab some coffee at their hotel before getting in the car and heading out of town. Bellamy did some more research into the world's largest brick and found that it should be perfectly visible from the highway they're heading down, so Clarke's behind the wheel so he can get a look at it without them having to stop.
"Live up to your expectations?" she asks when they've passed it and he's relaxed in his seat again.
"I don't know," he replies with a frown. "These things are always… with the whole 'world's largest' thing, the expectations are pretty high, so it's always a little… oh, is that it, you know?"
Clarke nods thoughtfully. "I do. And especially after seeing, you know, the world's tallest building, the world's… longest man-made structure? Is that the Great Wall?"
He grabs his phone from where it's charging between them to check. "Yup. But sort of, yeah. So a little disappointing but still pretty cool, I guess is my conclusion on the great American roadside attractions."
"Sounds like a good conclusion."
Atlanta is just as hot and sunny as Montgomery was, and they opt to enjoy the air conditioning in their hotel room until the sun sets.
"How long is the drive to… Charlotte, right?" Bellamy asks after a little while. They're both relaxing on the bed, Clarke checking her social media and Bellamy doing something on his own phone.
"Just four hours or so, unless there are any stops you want to make on the way," she replies after checking Google Maps. "Why?"
"Just wanted to know the timeline," he explains. "And I don't have anything between Atlanta and Charlotte. So we'll have time to check out the city a little before we leave tomorrow, right?"
"Yeah, I figured we could do some sightseeing and then leave after lunch, maybe." She leans her head against his shoulder to be able to see what he's looking at. "Did you find something you want to check out?"
"I was thinking the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, maybe," he says, tilting his phone so she can easily read the information on what looks like the official website. "Continue our twentieth century US history tour."
"Sounds good," she agrees.
"And look at this," he continues, switching to another window. "Creepy, right?"
"Doll's Head Trail…" Clarke reads out loud, and then flinches when he scrolls down and an image pops up. "Shit, yeah, that's seriously creepy."
It's a doll's head stuffed into what looks like an old TV, and when he continues scrolling down, there are more like it – a lot of heads, some with their eyes gouged out, some looking like they've been burned, all of them dirty or broken in some way, as well as complete dolls, which aren't really that much less scary than the severed heads, and some other toys.
"It's supposed to be some sort of urban nature trail," Bellamy says with a shudder, closing down the site. "Some local guy created it as an art project."
"You didn't want to go there, right?"
"Fuck, no, I just didn't want to suffer alone," he replies with a smirk. "Now if I wake you up screaming in the middle of the night, you'll know why."
She glares at him. "Or I'll be having the same nightmare. Thanks, really."
"That's what marriage means," he says with a chuckle. "What's mine is yours, including nightmares."
"I don't think that's really how it works," Clarke grumbles.
He's still laughing, but he puts his phone away and wraps an arm around her, pulling her closer and nuzzling under her chin. "Sorry… want me to distract you?"
She tilts her head to give him better access, arching her back to get closer. "It's the least you can do."
And to Bellamy's credit, by the time they leave the hotel to find somewhere to eat, all thoughts of creepy dolls are completely gone from Clarke's mind, and once they finally fall asleep, she doesn't dream at all.
-100-
They tour the birth place of Martin Luther King Jr. on Tuesday morning, stroll around the International World Peace Rose Garden, and listen to Dr. King's speeches at the church where he used to preach, before continuing to King Center.
"That's the same text that was on the civil rights memorial in Montgomery," Bellamy notes when they're standing by the Reflecting Pool with the tomb of Dr. King and his wife. "It's from his speech, right? 'I have a dream'."
"Yeah," Clarke confirms, glancing around to make sure there's nobody too close that might hear. "I was there that day, actually."
He glances at her, eyes wide. "When he made the speech?"
She nods. "The March on Washington was a huge thing," she starts, not sure how to even explain it. "I always knew there were prejudice, you know? I mean, I had it better than so many people, being white, but a single woman in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century still drew attention and odd looks sometimes, and Raven… there was always someone looking at her the wrong way or talking behind her back wherever we were. And then, when I was with Lexa… that kind of thing definitely wasn't accepted by the general public back then. So I knew, sort of, but it was always… a raised eyebrow here, rumors going around there about those two odd women living together without any men, and just… we could ignore it, you know? It was hard, but it didn't outright affect our lives, unless we chose to let it. And then Wells and I moved back from London in sixty-two."
"That's where you met?" Bellamy asks.
"No, the first time we met was in… the eighteen eighties, the first time I was off on my own posting without Raven, actually. The two of them were stationed in Chicago at the time and I visited now and then, but we were just acquaintances for a long time, never in the same place for more than a few days. It wasn't until I was transferred to London in fifty-five that we spent any time together, really, and that's when we actually got together. And it wasn't a problem, not there." She pauses, reconsiders. "Or it wasn't a big problem, at least. The Soul Keeper community has always been more open and accepting about pretty much everything, as far as I've experienced, and even our neighbors in London were friendly, even if we still got the odd look now and then. But then we moved back to the US, to Houston, actually, in sixty-two, and it was… bad."
"I'm sorry," he offers, squeezing her hand.
Clarke flashes him a brief smile. "We were basically run out of town. A group of men from the neighborhood jumped Wells just a few weeks after we got there, they probably would have killed him if he wasn't…" She pauses, the memory still making her blood run cold even half a century later. "We were relocated again, to New York, which was better, but not good, you know?"
He nods quietly.
"So we were in New York when word started spreading about the Great March on Washington. Raven was up in Boston with Wick, but they came down and we all drove down to Washington to be there, and it was… I can't even describe it."
They stand in silence for a little longer.
"I wonder what he would have said about the world today," Bellamy then says, voice thoughtful.
Clarke snorts. "Nothing good."
"Probably not."
They wrap up their visit and grab some lunch before once again getting back on the road.
"I keep expecting to get sick of being in a car all the time," Bellamy notes once they've left the city behind. "But it's kind of fun. Maybe the journey really is the goal."
"You sound like a greeting card," she teases him and he rolls his eyes.
"Won't happen again."
Neither of them have anything in particular they want to do or see in Charlotte, so they spend the evening just strolling around the city, exploring a little. When they pass the Mint museum, though, Bellamy insists on going back the next day, so Clarke will get to check out some art before they spend the last real day of their trip – she has a minor mental breakdown when he says that, but luckily he's in convincing mode and she has time to pull herself together before he notices anything – on history stuff. She has to admit that the museum does seem cool, so they spend a few hours there before leaving town a little after noon on Wednesday.
"OK, so we have a bunch of those world's largest things today, right?" she asks while he's setting up the sat nav.
He snorts. "If by 'a bunch' you mean two, then yeah."
"Just two, really? I feel like your list was much longer when you first went through it, are you sure you haven't taken anything off it?" He glances at her and she tries to look stern. "I know I was kind of complaining, but I was really looking forward to them."
Bellamy offers her a smile and his phone, which is open to his notes. The top one is actually called "World's largest – American roadside attractions" and hasn't been changed since June twenty-eight. She has to think for a moment, but that was the day they left San Francisco.
"I haven't removed anything," he still assures her, pulling out of the parking lot at their hotel. "We have two on this stretch – in Thomasville and High Point – one between Jamestown and Boyce and the last one in Philadelphia."
Clarke scrolls through the list as he maneuvers them onto the highway. "OK, good," she finally says, closing down the app and putting his phone down. She can feel his eyes on her and turns to meet them. "What?"
He just shakes his head, smile widening, and turns his attention back to the road. "You're just kind of cute, that's all."
She doesn't know exactly what to say to that so she just pokes him lightly in the side, not hard enough to make him jump or anything, he is driving after all. He grabs her hand, just like she knew he would, and interlaces their fingers.
The first stop is just an hour or so outside of Charlotte – in the middle of Thomasville is a huge chair on a stone plinth. It's really the only thing around, though, which Clarke realizes when she turns in a circle to find somewhere to have lunch.
"This is Main Street, right?" she asks, checking the street sign again. "Yup. East that way and West this way, so this should be the actual center of town."
Bellamy's watching her with an amused look on his face. "Is this leading to somewhere or are you just stating the obvious?"
"I'm hungry," she replies, glaring at him a little for good measure. "But there's, like, nowhere to eat here."
He copies her and turns in a circle of his own. "You're right. But there has to be something nearby."
"Nope." She has Google Maps open on her phone. "Or, yeah, there are a couple of places within walking distance, but they're local, and I'm really hungry – I want something I know I'll like."
He wraps an arm around her waist and starts leading her back towards where they parked the car. "Then let's keep going. High Point is just fifteen minutes from here, and if we find somewhere on the way, we'll just stop there."
They don't pass anything promising on the way, but they do reach their next stop – the world's largest chest of drawers – in fifteen minutes, so that's good.
They're in a more residential area this time, a small single family house on either side of the chest of drawers, which…
"There are socks hanging over the edge of that drawer," Clarke says with a laugh. "See?"
Bellamy's just pulled up to the curb, not even killed the engine. "Cool," he replies, leaning over her to get a better look.
"Don't you want to get out, get some pictures?" she asks with a frown. They did at the chair.
"I thought you were hungry."
She rolls her eyes. "I can wait another five minutes, come on."
She gets out of the car and, after a moment, he follows, phone in his hand. "There's a Subway a couple of blocks that way," he tells her with a nod down the street behind them.
"Sounds good. Now pose with the big chest of drawers with socks, Bellamy!"
He sighs but does as she asks and she snaps a couple of photos before joining him for a few selfies. When she's happy with them, they get back in the car and drive the short distance to a small Subway restaurant opposite a Y.
It's exactly what Clarke had in mind, and before they leave, she gets a couple of extra sodas, a few bags of chips and some cookies.
"What?" she asks when Bellamy raises an eyebrow at her.
"We just had lunch," he points out, completely unnecessary.
"I know," she replies with an eye roll. "We have another, what, four hours to go? We just filled up on gas, this way we won't have to stop just because one of us is thirsty or want a snack."
He looks at the four bottles she has sort of awkwardly cradled in one arm. "You drink all that, we'll have to stop for bathroom breaks."
She juggles a little and shoves two of the bottles at him. "These are for you, I think we'll be fine."
They're slowed down a little by traffic around Richmond, but they still reach their hotel in Williamsburg a little after six. Clarke took over driving after High Point, which is good since Bellamy seems a little gob smacked by the building in front of them.
"We're staying here?"
"We've stayed at a five star resort in Bora Bora," she reminds him amusedly.
"Which was also a huge deal," he reasons. "Seriously, this is so cool."
She tries to see the hotel through his eyes. Sure, it's grand, with the pillars and the fountain and manicured gardens around them, but it's still just a building.
"I didn't want to go totally time appropriate, since I kind of like having running water, so this seemed like a good compromise," she explains, putting the car in park and unbuckling her seat belt. "Come on."
She gets out and hands the key to the valet before rounding the car, where Bellamy's waiting.
"Bags?" he asks as the valet drives away.
"They'll bring them to our room," she assures him, grabbing his hand to pull him along into the hotel.
They're staying in the cheapest room the hotel has to offer, but even that's five-hundred square feet of old-fashioned charm with dark wooden furniture, golden cornices with heavy curtains, and a bathroom with his and her sink and a sunken tub all set in marble.
Bellamy does seem awed by the room, but he quickly moves on to ask if they can go explore the town – either he's getting used to staying in fancy hotels, or Colonial Williamsburg is just too much of a draw.
"Let's just wait until our bags get here," Clarke suggests. "Do you want to try to get in on an evening tour? I didn't want to book something ahead of time since I wasn't sure when we'd get here, but there might still be something available."
He sits down next to her on the poufy couch. "What are the options?"
She opens the app up and finds the evening tours. "We're doing Cry Witch tomorrow, that's sort of a reenactment of the only witch trial in Virginia, but Haunted Williamsburg looked interesting too… looks like there are still tickets for eight thirty, what do you think?"
"It looks good, yeah. We'll have time to grab dinner before, too."
She clicks to buy the tickets, and just when it's gone through, there's a knock on the door announcing a bellboy delivering their bags.
"OK, so dinner, check out the town a little, and ghost tour?" she concludes when they're alone again. "It starts at the Play House Stage which is, like, a ten minute walk from here."
Bellamy nods, not quite bouncing on the balls of his feet but pretty close. "Let's go."
They forego the restaurants at the hotel for a tavern close by, which serves Colonial-inspired pub food. It's good, in any case, and they leave forty minutes later with full bellies and only slightly tipsy from sharing a pitcher of beer.
"Did they even drink beer in the eighteenth century?" Clarke asks, looping her arm through his mostly because she likes to and only a little to keep steady.
"They drank beer in ancient Egypt," Bellamy replies. "George Washington put a beer recipe in his journal."
She snorts at that. "God, you're such a nerd."
"Did it take you this long to realize that?"
"Nope, I've known all along. You're not even a little sneaky."
It's seven thirty and the sun is starting to sink lower in the sky, but the temperature is still in the nineties, so they take their time, strolling slowly along the quiet streets. There are some other tourists around, but not as many as she would have expected, considering it's the middle of what must be their busiest season. Then again, it really is too hot to have energy for much, so maybe people are back in their hotel rooms, enjoying the air conditioning, before venturing out once the sun has set.
They pause to admire the Governor's Palace, an imposing brick building, before continuing a short distance down Palace Green to their destination.
The tour is just as interesting as Clarke was hoping, even if she can imagine the spookiness factor rising considerably when it's actually done after dark. As it is, the sun's just disappeared behind the buildings when they set out, but they do get to visit some of the historic buildings in the town which are usually off limits to visitors, so that's cool.
As usual by now, Bellamy's read up on the place and supplies his own comments or reflections now and then, but he keeps them quiet, only for her, and really, it's not a proper tour without some kind of contribution from him.
"Seriously, did you never consider doing something like that yourself?" she asks when the tour is over and they're strolling through the twilight. They're theoretically on the way back to the hotel, but it's finally dark out and compared to the heat earlier in the day, it's more or less cool, so they're taking a bit of a detour around most of the town.
"Do what?" he asks with a frown.
"Tour guide," she expands.
"Huh." He pauses, obviously thinking the question through. "I probably would have, if I'd had the opportunity, honestly. But there's nothing like this near Paterson, or in New York, so I was limited to standard part-time jobs in high school, and then I got the delivery gig and didn't actually need a second job…"
"Well, I think you'd be great at it," Clarke tells him with a squeeze of his hand.
"Or horrible," he replies with a snort. "I wouldn't be able to limit myself to what I was supposed to be talking about, I would go on long tangents about stuff people don't care about and the tours would be, like, three times as long as they're supposed to be."
She can't help but laugh at that.
"OK, yeah, that's probably true. But you'd still have fun."
"I'd probably be the only one."
Since they do have a bit of a tight schedule, they're up bright and early the next morning and by nine, they're waiting by the first stop on their rather intense half-day tour – Bassett Hall. Clarke has the app open on her phone with the itinerary she worked out before they even left New York, to make the best use of the time they're planning on spending here. Bellamy made fun of her at first, but she just pointed out that they only had one day for Williamsburg and the Jamestown Settlement, so he… OK, he still laughed a little, but still.
It doesn't feel like they really rush in the end, though – they make it to all the buildings that are open, even if they don't take any of the tours. They did walk through basically the whole town last night, between the ghost tour and their own explorations, so they don't need to linger anywhere outside, which does help. Bellamy gets a little caught up talking to the guy in the bindery, listening intently as he explains how books were made back in the day, and Clarke does lose track of time a little in the public hospital, their final stop, the cells of the old asylum bringing back memories of a similar place she volunteered at back in the early twentieth century.
"You OK?" Bellamy finally asks, when she's stood staring at a display for probably way too long.
She offers him a reassuring smile. "Yeah, just thinking about how far medicine's come in the last few centuries."
He nods thoughtfully as they make their way out of the building. "Talking from personal experience?"
She sighs, squinting against the harsh sun. Another scorching day, and judging from the forecast, it's not going to get better any time soon.
"I've volunteered in different medical facilities now and then," she says. "So yeah, I've seen everything from… I don't know, lobotomies and electrocution to bloodletting by leeches."
He whistles, low, and tugs her down the street. "That's some heavy stuff."
"Yeah," she agrees. "But come on, we need to grab something to eat before heading over to Jamestown Settlement."
They're a little late for the lunch rush and both chose sandwiches, so they're in and out of the tavern in half an hour and arrive at Jamestown a little ahead of schedule.
They spend the afternoon exploring the settlement, James Fort and the re-created Powhatan village, watching demonstrations of food preparation, weaving, forging and trying out some traditional games. Bellamy's eyes are alit with excitement the whole time, darting between everything there is to see, making Clarke's heart beat almost painfully in her chest.
She's infinitely grateful that she gets to share this with him, but she wishes it wasn't the only chance they have…
Once the settlement closes for the night, they head back to their hotel and relax for a while, before finding another tavern for dinner and then making their way to the Capitol General Court.
It's an intense experience, and Clarke actually breathes a sigh of relief when the verdict comes back 'not guilty', even though she knows, on a logical level, that the actress playing the alleged witch obviously wouldn't get burned on the stake if it had been different.
"So tomorrow we're doing Historic Jamestowne, right?" Bellamy asks when they're back at the hotel. "Last thing before heading out."
"Yup," she confirms. "It's going to be awesome, there's an actual archeological dig site, which is totally cool."
He's watching her with a smile as she talks. "So what's the itinerary?"
"Shut up," she grumbles, throwing one of the decorative pillows at him, which he of course catches easily. "The actual, like, buildings and stuff close between four and five, but you can stay on the island until sunset, so I figured we'd have plenty of time."
He tosses the pillow back onto the bed and comes up behind her where she's packing what she won't need tomorrow morning in her bag. "Still, we should get an early start, right? So we should probably go to bed, so we're well rested in the morning…"
He slides one arm around her waist to pull her closer and pushes her hair over her shoulder to be able to place a kiss against her throat.
"I doubt what you're thinking is going to result in either of us being well rested in the morning," she points out, but she slides one hand into his hair to keep him close and leans back against him.
"Promise I'll let you sleep before midnight…"
Which, to be fair, he does, if only barely.
AN: I've been using the website a lot while writing this fic, to find unusual sights in various places, and that's the site Bellamy's checking in this chapter – the Doll's Head Trail is a real thing, if that's something you find cool, I'm sorry for calling it creepy!
Also, I realized I put Birmingham instead of Montgomery in the last chapter, so I've gone back and changed that, in case you're wondering about the inconsistency in this chapter!
