a/n Here's another longfic! I hope there are people out there still reading and enjoying Bellarke multichapter fics - I'd like to make a bit of a plea on this one to please leave some love along the way! It can be a tough slog to the end of a longfic if you're not sure whether anyone is with you! If you're reading this on FFN maybe consider getting an AO3 account and hopping over there? I don't post all my fics on here any more because I'm finding it less user-friendly, with a higher ratio of hate comments - and I know I am not the only writer making that move.
Huge thanks to Stormkpr for betaing this chapter (and future ones) and to Zou for being such a heroic cheerleader.
This fic picks up at the end of season 1, but with Wells still alive, because honestly I have lost all respect for canon by this point. Happy reading!
Bellamy runs to save Wells.
Of course he runs to save Wells – protecting people is what he does. Or what he tries to do, at least. And he likes Wells, some of the time, and respects him the rest. So he doesn't really want Wells to die amidst this frantic dropship battle.
Behind him, he hears Clarke cry his name as he dashes forwards. He ignores her as best he can. He's pretty sure he'd weaken, if he stopped to notice that Clarke sounds concerned for him. He might be tempted to abandon his self-appointed mission and dash back to her side. But he can't do that. He has to save Wells.
Clarke needs Wells alive more than she needs him.
He reaches Wells. Between them, they fight off the huge grounder who had Wells pinned down. Bellamy turns, just in time to see that the dropship door is shut tight.
Crap. That means the engines will fire any second, now. They need to get out of here.
"The tunnels!" He cries, grabbing Wells by the arm and tugging him to safety.
He gets the picture. At least Jaha junior is quite bright, he finds himself thinking. There are worse people to have at his side in a crisis. The two of them run flat out towards the tunnel entrance, dive into the measly cover it provides.
Then they crouch there, panting, waiting.
There's a beat of perfect silence – or so it seems to Bellamy. He knows that, around them, the sounds of battle continue. The grounders trying to climb the walls of the dropship must be making noise, but he does not register it. Even his own breathing seems strangely distant while he waits for the dropship to burst into flames.
"Bellamy -"
The engines roar into life, cutting off whatever Wells was going to say. Bellamy looks away quickly, but not quick enough. He's still dazzled by the sudden flare of flames. He tries not to see the grounders' charred bodies falling away from the dropship. He wanted barbecued grounders, yes. But now he's realising they're real human beings, real lives, it feels rather brutal.
As the noise dies away, Wells speak up again.
"Thanks for helping me out."
"No problem. We stick together." Bellamy says, as if that's the reason he did it. As if it came from a place of genuine altruistic teamwork, rather than a selfish desire to make himself feel useful by saving someone – or an even worse desire to earn Clarke's respect.
Wells has an uncanny and somewhat distressing ability to read his thoughts, it seems. "Clarke must be worried sick about us. It must have been tough for her to close the doors while we were still outside. We should get out of here and show her we're safe as soon as we can."
Bellamy only hums. It must be nice, he thinks, to have that much confidence in Clarke's respect and esteem. He's been trying to show her he's capable of doing better at least since the day she told him he's no monster – or possibly a little before. And quite frankly he's still not convinced she misses him at all, in this moment.
The flames die away slowly, leaving smouldering ash behind. Bellamy is only grateful they didn't burn down the entire forest, but thankfully the weather has been wet recently. He starts to edge slowly from the hiding place, Wells hot on his heels.
He wonders if all this ash is still hot enough to be damaging his boots. Maybe that's a silly thing to fixate on, in this moment, but he only has the one pair of boots – and it's not as if he could get another pair easily on the ground. Is the smouldering wreckage still dangerously warm? Should he -?
He stops worrying about that when he sees the dropship door open. They're still alive in there, thank goodness. Any moment now Clarke will see that Wells is safe – and maybe notice that he's OK, too. He starts running, heedless of scorching his boots, desperate to get there and -
Suddenly the air is dyed red, and Bellamy is falling to the ground.
…...
Clarke wakes up in a room which is too clean, too white, too bright and shining.
This is not the ground. She remembers the ground – all blood and dirt. She remembers plumes of smoke as she opened the dropship door, ash trickling through the cracks as the hinges eased open.
Ash of the people she killed, more or less.
She sits up at once, urgent, and tries to take stock. She's wearing a hospital gown. It's similar enough to the ones she remembers from her medical apprenticeship on the Ark for her to recognise it as a hospital gown – yet also different enough that she knows she has not magically found herself back on the Ark.
Somewhere new, then. Somewhere new and too clean. Somewhere dangerous.
She looks around the room. There's a painting on the wall she vaguely recognises as having been famous on Earth before the bombs. There is little furniture, but it's in good repair. The medical monitors hooked up to her bedside tell her nothing – they are fairly standard, keeping track of such things as blood oxygen and heart rate as far as she can tell.
She rips the corresponding cables from her arm without pausing to think twice. Her heart rate is fine, thank you very much. She does not need to sit around and listen to that bleeping noise. She needs to get on with figuring out where she is.
She needs to get on with figuring out how she will survive this without Wells and Bellamy.
That's a thought which hits her all at once, with an impact not unlike that first dropship landing. If she's been taken – if all her surviving people have been taken – she needs to get them out of here. She needs to save them. But she's honestly not sure how to do that without Wells and Bellamy. Wells was her best friend from the day they were born, more or less, but for those horrific few months when she blamed him for her father's death. And she only knew Bellamy a few weeks, but she had already come to rely on him and think of him as protective and reassuring and safe.
She shakes her head to clear it. Missing them won't help. She can mourn them when she has found her way out of here.
It doesn't work. She's still stuck on that loss. She's still haunted by the image of Bellamy running out onto the battlefield, just as she was on the point of closing the door.
She tries to do something useful anyway. She starts moving towards the door. That has to be a good start. There's a window in the door, so she should be able to look outside and see what's going on. She should -
That's Bellamy. That's Bellamy staring back at her through the identical window in the door opposite, and she could swear she has never been so relieved in her life.
He looks happy to see her, too. His face relaxes at once and he starts frantically saying something she cannot hear.
She starts small – a cautious smile and a wave.
He waves back.
She tries a next step. She gives him a thumbs up, a questioning look, and mouths a question as clearly as she can, shaping each syllable with the utmost care.
"You OK?" She asks.
He nods at once, gives a firm thumbs up in return. "You?" He seems to be asking.
She nods urgently. She's physically fine, for all that she hasn't a clue what's going on.
"Wells too." She thinks he is saying. He's shaking that raised thumb at the window as if it's very important that she understands.
"Wells?" She repeats. She has to check that she has not misunderstood before she starts to celebrate.
"We were together when they took us." She hopes she got that right. She's certain about the together, at least. That's quite a distinctive word to lip read.
She nods. So Wells was OK when the red gas hit. That's a good sign. Seeing as she and Bellamy have both been kept whole and healthy, she gives herself permission to hope that the same is true of the rest of their people – at least for now.
"Where are we?" She asks.
He shrugs. She's not sure whether that's a shrug because he doesn't know, or because he doesn't understand her question. Either way, it's not a useful answer.
She tries something new. "When did you wake up?"
He understands that, she thinks. He holds up a hand with all four fingers and his thumb raised. Five. Five what? Five minutes? Five hours? Five days?
"Not long." He mouths to her.
Right. Five minutes, then. Does that mean something, that they both woke up around the same time? Are there any other clues she should be reading from the situation? Is it significant that she and Bellamy, the two leaders of the camp, have rooms opposite each other? Did their mysterious captors do that deliberately?
She doesn't know the answer to any of those questions. She doesn't know the answer to any questions at all – not even a simple what happened. She feels hopelessly out of her depth, and hopelessly worried about the kids.
But she can't show it. She has to be strong – for Bellamy as well as for the rest of them.
All the same, he must sense something of her distress.
"We've got this." He tells her, with a reassuring smile.
She nods, smiles back at him in turn. "It's so good to see you."
She doesn't know if he gets that. He seems to get the general gist of it, nodding and smiling and giving her another thumbs up.
It occurs to her that it was a foolish mistake on the part of their captors, if they did put her and Bellamy in opposite rooms on purpose. Perhaps it was supposed to be some kind of mind game – she's not sure. But these mysterious strangers have underestimated them, if that is the case. She already feels like she can take on anything, just from knowing Bellamy is a few feet away. They've formed a pretty formidable team, these last few weeks.
We've got this.
He's right. They're going to be able to figure this out – she is sure of it.
They spend a little while longer at the windows, communicating as best they can. Not much more is said beyond reassurances and the occasional unanswered question. But they stand there, smiling at each other, simply buoying each other up while they wait to see what will unfold.
Clarke wonders whether they ought to take the initiative themselves. What if she were to smash the window? Could she break out of here, and get Bellamy out, and give them the upper hand?
No. She's too late. Here comes a figure decked out in some kind of suit from head to toe, heading towards Bellamy's room. A young woman by the looks of it, with a pale face and tired eyes just visible through her mask before she turns towards the door.
Well, then. It looks like they have more human company on Earth than they realised.
…...
Bellamy looks about him as he is led down the hallway, trying to take in every detail. This place is too bright and clean and shining – but it looks worn and old in its way, too. As if it was once very fine, but has been going downhill for some years.
Then he sees a sign which reads Mount Weather Medical Ward, and it all makes sense.
This is Mount Weather. He should have known – just another thing on the list of Ark mistakes. So much for this being a safe haven of supplies, empty of people. How did the Ark never realise anyone made it here?
He carries on playing his memory game as he walks. Thirty feet down one hall, then a ninety degree turn to the left. Clarke will want to know little facts like that, just as soon as he sees her again. She will want to make a plan.
He sure hopes he will see her again. They wouldn't have taken all that trouble to have them safe and healthy in those white rooms just to kill them off now, would they?
He is led through a guarded doorway and into a room lined with beds, each with curtains half-drawn around them. There is a rack of clothes to one side.
"Pick something to wear." His mysterious companion says.
He jumps at the sound of her voice. This is the first time she has spoken since she told him that he and his people were safe and instructed him to follow closely.
"What?" He asks, frowning.
"Choose some clothes. Don't go anywhere – you saw the guards on the door. I'm going back for your friend."
"Clarke?"
"Yes. I'll be back with her in a few minutes. Choose some clothes and don't go anywhere." She repeats.
With that she is gone, striding back out the door with a confidence that seems rather at odds with her small stature and pale face.
He finds himself struck by an odd thought. In another life, he feels like this quietly firm girl and Clarke could be good friends.
In another life, where they are not her prisoners.
He shakes his head, concentrates on the instructions. He's not going to try to run – he decides that much at once. It would be impossible, he suspects, between the guards on the door and who knows what other security measures. If he had only himself to think of he might risk it anyway. But if that young woman is bringing Clarke to him, he wants to be here waiting for her. He doesn't want to do anything to put her in danger.
With that decided, he starts looking at the clothes. He takes his time, eyes narrowed, still absorbing details rather than actually trying to make a choice. Everything looks old and worn, even if the quality was once good. There are formal shirts with threadbare cuffs, once-smart sweaters now wearing thin around the underarms. How can they use this information? How can they string it together into some kind of plan of action?
Clarke will figure something out. He holds fast to that, as he investigates and waits for her.
He investigates the room, next. He tries not to look too clever or impertinent, because he suspects a room with a guarded door also has security cameras. But he wanders around with eyes wide as if overwhelmed to be in such comfort and safety. At one point, he even stretches out over one of the beds as if he is relishing the soft mattress, when really he wants to look up at the ceiling and check out the system of air vents, as well as scouting for cameras.
He sees nothing useful.
He is startled when Clarke arrives with that same companion. He must have spent longer looking around the place than he thought. He jumps to his feet and finds that he is feeling rather self-conscious. He didn't expect to be wearing a hospital gown for his first meeting with Clarke since dashing from the dropship to save Wells.
She grins at him, as she walks through the door. She breaks into a jog, then more of a run, crossing the short distance between them at pace.
Then she throws her arms straight around his neck and pulls him into the firmest of hugs.
It takes him a while to catch up with her. Several long seconds in which he stands there, relishing the closeness of her embrace, but also feeling rather disorientated. Clarke is hugging him. She's hugging him as if he's her favourite person in the world, almost – or maybe that's only because she hasn't seen the rest of their people yet. And she's hugging him close even though they are both dressed only in hospital gowns and he can feel the warmth of her skin through the thin material.
No. Now is not the time for questions. Now is the time for hugging Clarke back, hard, and rocking her slightly on the spot all the while. He squeezes her tight, buries his face against the crook of her neck. He's missed her so much. He didn't realise it was possible to miss a person this much when they have been apart only a few waking minutes.
Must just be the strange situation, he tells himself. It's not only about Clarke.
And yet he knows, in his heart of hearts, that it is at least a little about Clarke.
She pulls back from the hug first, smiling up at him. It's at that point that Bellamy realises their companion is still looking on.
"You should both get dressed." She says, evidently displeased that Bellamy has yet to follow her instructions.
"Why? Why won't you tell me anything?" Clarke asks, as if she has asked such questions on the walk over here and had no useful answers.
"You will see President Wallace when you're dressed." The young woman concedes, frowning slightly.
Bellamy feels a small flicker of victory at her words. This is progress. They are being taken to see the person in charge round here – and they have managed a vaguely useful exchange with their companion, too.
He decides to press for more.
"Thank you – what was was your name?" He asks, trying for his best charming smile.
It works. "I'm Maya."
"Thank you, Maya. What does your president want with us?"
She shakes her head. "I couldn't say. But – he doesn't want to hurt you. He's been clear on that. No harm is to come to you or any of your people."
No harm is to come to you. That's funny, Bellamy thinks. He could swear he remembers being knocked out with red gas and brought here against his will, then kept separate from all his friends.
Huh. That doesn't sound very benevolent, as far as he can tell.
All the same, he nods and smiles. "Thank you, Maya. So we can just pick some clothes and get dressed? And you'll be taking us to your president?"
She nods. "Yes. I'll wait for you outside with the guards. Just get dressed – you mustn't try anything." She warns.
Bellamy almost rolls his eyes. He's got the message, thank you very much. He's understood that security is tight round here. He has understood that he and Clarke are going to have to be clever, if they are to figure out what is happening and keep their people safe.
He resists that urge and simply nods again. Maya walks from the room.
That leaves Bellamy alone with Clarke and a rack of clothes.
He turns to look at her. She's holding a heeled shoe cradled in her hand. He's not sure what it is – something about her expression, or just the way he's got to know her so well in recent weeks – but he is suddenly convinced that she is considering doing something bold and a little foolish.
Silly of her – she's got him for that.
He walks swiftly to her side, covers her hand with his own.
"Don't." He whispers in her ear. "Whatever you're wondering about doing, don't do it. You're not on your own. You don't need to do anything... extreme. We should learn what we can and figure something out together."
She snaps out of it quickly, blinking up at him. "You're right." She hisses, barely audible. "Sorry. It's just – this is a lot."
He nods. It is a lot. He's surprised to see her wavering, because he doesn't think of Clarke as the kind of person who would try to threaten someone futilely with a shoe. She's too calm and competent and collected for that, in his experience. But then again, he likes to think they both show each other weaknesses they keep hidden from everyone else. She is having this wobble, now, just as he once broke down in front of her.
And it's a brave wobble. Brave and fierce and determined. Of course it is – she's Clarke.
She's back on an even keel again now though, more or less. She's already whispering urgent questions.
"What have your figured out so far? Cameras?"
"I guess. Can't see any."
"OK. We act grateful and naïve?" She suggests.
He nods. And then he pulls away from her, because he figures they cannot afford to stand around whispering all day. That would be the opposite of acting grateful and naïve, he fears. That little bit of hand-holding and murmuring over a shoe might look like a poor attempt at flirtation on his part, if they're lucky. But they cannot afford to hang around together much longer.
"We should get dressed. I'll head behind a curtain." He offers, picking a shirt almost at random.
"Yeah. What do you think of this colour on me?" She asks, picking up a pink sweater with a bright giggle.
He's so grateful for her, in that moment. She has clearly decided it's best to pass off that whispering as flirtation, too. Sometimes he could swear she can read his mind – they have learnt how to work well together rather quickly, in recent weeks.
"It's cute." He offers, with what he hopes is a winning smile.
He heads to get changed, then, as Clarke heads to the neighbouring bed and draws the curtain between them to do likewise. It's odd, this. He's stripping and dressing right next to Clarke – he can hear her breathing just a couple of feet away. There's an unexpected intimacy to it which he doesn't quite know how to handle.
Then she starts talking, and it's even worse.
"This bra is perfect. I can't remember the last time I felt this comfortable." She says, a sigh in her voice.
He gulps slightly. He knows she's just trying to sound grateful and naïve like they agreed, but really, did it have to be a bra she praised? Couldn't she have picked on the joy of wearing well-fitting shoes instead?
"I bet it looks cute." He offers. He really needs to find some more compliments besides cute, he fears, if he is going to be acting naïve for the long haul.
She giggles lightly. "What about you? Everything fitting nicely?"
"Yeah. It feels so good to wear clean clothes." He says. That sounds both safe and grateful, he hopes.
"I hope the food is good." She offers. "I bet it is. It seems like a place where the food will be good, you know?"
"Yeah. You know what I really miss? Starch. Do you think they have rice or bread?"
She hums in agreement. "I hope so. I'm so sick of meat and fruit and nuts. You're right – starch is so much more filling."
He doesn't know what the hell they are doing in this place. But at least he has Clarke by his side, he supposes.
And at least if they can get out of this by acting like gormless children, they are off to a good start.
…...
Clarke finds her first afternoon and evening in Mount Weather frustrating. President Wallace tells them nothing useful – only that they are welcome and he hopes they will rest and recover after their tough weeks on the ground. He then sends them to meet their friends. It turns out that the remaining fifty kids have been given a large dorm to share.
Clarke and Bellamy are the last ones to arrive. She wonders whether there's something going on with that. Is it a tactical choice, to hold the leaders in medical until last?
Their friends all seem glad to see them. Clarke gets the sense that they mostly are grateful, rather than only acting grateful. There's a certain sharpness in Wells' eyes, and maybe Miller's and Monty's and Harper's. But apart from that no one seems as suspicious as she and Bellamy.
That's why they have to look out for these kids, she supposes.
There aren't as many left as they started out with, of course. She marks those they have lost as best as she can, stopping to share sympathetic words with their friends. But it all feels strangely remote, as if the dropship battle was long ago. There is already a new crisis to deal with. She feels more guilty for the losses than she does actually touched by them, for the most part. Maybe that's more shock than anything else.
She has to admit it, though – she really misses Raven.
She doesn't make much progress with figuring out why the residents of Mount Weather have brought them here under such strange circumstances, on that first afternoon. Mostly she sits around the dorm, checking all the kids are physically well, having those sad conversations about death, and ignoring Finn when he tells her that she looks cute in her new pink sweater.
Wells knows better than to bother saying such things, thank goodness. His eyes linger on her a little too long, but he doesn't try to pay her any inane compliments. He seems to have realised they are destined simply to be best friends, these days, and she loves him more than ever for it.
As afternoon turns to evening, the fifty are called for supper. It turns out that supper is quite a formal occasion in Mount Weather – there are set places and everything. Clarke finds herself next to Bellamy, opposite Wells, with Monty on her other side.
Yes. There are definitely some deliberate decisions, here, in the way these people are pulling the strings. They have definitely done some research and picked out the key players from the dropship camp.
All at once, she finds herself wondering how much research they have done. Is there more at play, here, than simply asking one of the delinquents who is who? Have Mount Weather been spying on them for weeks, perhaps?
Or is she just scared and fearing baselessly?
No. She's definitely right to be suspicious. Bellamy is suspicious, too, and she trusts him. And she's pretty sure she's not imagining that Wells looks uncomfortable as well.
"I see there's plenty of bread." She says pointedly, when the food arrives.
Bellamy grins. "They heard me. Starch. I'm a happy man."
She nods, smiling in what she hopes is a grateful and naïve fashion. "It tastes so good. Hey, you want to go for a walk after supper? I'm not used to sitting still all afternoon."
"Sure. I feel the same way." He says without missing a beat. As if two youngsters exhausted from living life on the edge could honestly be that keen to take a pointless wander.
He must know she just wants cover for a private conversation with him.
She throws him a grateful smile. "Thank you. I need to try out these new shoes."
Beside her, Wells is frowning deeply. That's unfortunate. She supposes she ought to explain what's going on, but she doesn't see how she can. And they are bound to make the security forces suspicious, if they all start taking evening walks in a large group.
She does her best. She taps Wells with a toe under the table, smiles at him as best she can. She thinks he gets the message, giving her a small nod in turn.
Relieved, she finishes eating her bread and soup.
She and Bellamy set out for their walk straight from the dining hall. They chat carefully and lightly for a little while – entirely about the food, actually. He really does have a lot to say about carbohydrates, this man.
She adds that to her mental list of unexpected facts about Bellamy Blake, in fact. Sometimes cries. Has less self-confidence than he likes to pretend. And has very strong opinions about bread.
At last they find themselves in a quieter hallway, with no other people about. Clarke knows there are probably still cameras – and quite possibly hidden microphones – but she figures it's worth the risk. She needs to talk openly with Bellamy sooner or later, otherwise they will never figure out what's going on.
"What do you make of this place so far?" She asks him in an urgent whisper, leaning close to his side as they walk.
"Good food and they're looking after us. No immediate physical danger." He says carefully.
"But there's something wrong, isn't there? I'm not imagining that? There's something going on beneath the surface." She concludes, absolutely convinced of it.
"Yeah. Definitely. Why else kidnap us with the gas? If they honestly wanted to feed us and help us out they would offer, not take us."
"Agreed. And the way they kept us in medical until last? And no one will give us an honest answer about why we're here? Suspicious."
"I'm just sorry we didn't stop them taking us." He says fiercely.
"Don't frown." She reminds him at once – more of a snap than anything.
He pastes a careful smile back onto his face. She giggles, hopes it looks suitably lighthearted to whoever is on duty in security tonight.
She wonders what the two of them look like, walking together like this. A happy couple? A pathetic girl clinging to the arm of a man too good for her?
"We couldn't have stopped this." She tells him now, firm but still smiling as best she can. "Look at this place. A few tired kids with guns weren't going to do a thing."
"We're more than a few tired kids with guns. We're a family." He bites out.
She hesitates. She never saw it like that, but she supposes it's no surprise he did. Family is important to him, isn't it?
"Either way, we're here now and we need to figure out what's going on." She decides.
"Yeah. You're right. We could keep taking walks together like this and explore the place?" He suggests.
"They'll get suspicious. The two leaders walking together all the time for no good reason? That excuse about itching for a walk was thin." She says ruefully.
"Better than nothing. We can try it sometimes."
She nods. Sometimes taking a walk and slowly finding out information might be the best they can do. Taking long and frequent private walks with a colleague and whispering closely is not normal human behaviour, last thing she checked. They're bound to rouse suspicion.
Meanwhile, they keep walking.
"In here." Bellamy suggests suddenly.
She blinks, startled. "What?"
"In here." He gestures to an open door. A dimly lit room which appears to contain shelves and storage boxes lies beyond it.
"What? Why? What is it?"
"No idea. But it's open and we're looking for intel and we have to start somewhere."
With that, he grabs her by the elbow and whisks her through the door.
It's an odd room, vast and rather dark. The shelves seem to be packed with all sorts of items. Clarke can see everything from artwork to furniture.
"What is this place?" She whispers.
"Storage? Not sure. Let's look for clues. Stick together?"
"Definitely." No way is she wandering off alone in here.
They don't find much of use. A lot of paintings Clarke vaguely recognises from books about art on Earth before the bombs. So damn much furniture – why is a bunker this small stockpiling so many willow garden chairs? But there is nothing which looks like classified documents, no computer system. No obvious source of the kind of intelligence they are searching for.
"This is hopeless." Clarke murmurs through the darkness.
Bellamy is walking ahead of her. She can pick out the broad shape of his shoulders even in the shadows. "It's not great." He agrees reluctantly.
"We know they have lots of resources I guess. That might be useful?"
"Yeah. If we're going to fight them we really need to know how many antique vases they own." Bellamy grouses, sour.
She laughs a little. She can't help it. Despite their difficult situation, something about his grumpy mood strikes her as rather funny. It reminds her of the way he was so frustrated at the supply depot that time. He's a strange man – all smirks and sunshine half the time, but sometimes seriously grouchy when he's stressed and worried.
He spins on the spot, as if provoked by her laughter.
"What?" He mutters. She can see his frown in the dim light.
"When you say things like that – I can never tell whether they're supposed to be sarcastic jokes or whether you're really annoyed."
His mouth curves up just a little. "Bit of both. When I get frustrated I guess I make stupid bad jokes."
"They're not stupid. I like them. Sometimes they pick me up." She admits. Something about the darkness makes her feel more honest, perhaps.
He smiles slightly more, nods at her. "Shall we -"
All at once, he falls silent. All at once, there is a cry at the door, the beam of a flashlight cutting through the dark.
Crap. They've been caught. Their first day pretending to be grateful and naïve, and they've been caught snooping around a dark storage room.
This is bad.
Clarke doesn't know what gives her the idea. Maybe it's something about the way they have been playing their youthful naivety so far – that whispering walk down the hallways, or those silly giggles and playful compliments in the medical wing earlier.
Or maybe it's something deeper and more dangerous than that.
Either way, she comes up with a plan. A plan that is simple and which fits their cover story perfectly and which will, she hopes, be devastatingly effective.
She throws her arms around Bellamy's neck and kisses him full on the lips.
She's imagined kissing Bellamy more times before now than she cares to admit, frankly. She's only human, and he's a rather attractive guy – most of the time. But never before did she imagine it quite like this. She did not imagine fear and darkness and her palms sweating even as she clasps them together behind his neck.
She didn't imagine backing him into a corner against his will.
He's kissing her back, at least. He's giving her hip a slight squeeze as if he wants to reassure her that this is OK, that she played it right, that she made the best move she could under the circumstances. And it's a good kiss, actually, as it happens. She knows that shouldn't be her priority right this moment, but he's putting plenty of effort into it.
Of course he is. He wants this to be convincing as much as she does.
When the beam of the flashlight is right on them, when she can hear the guard calling out to his colleagues from behind her, she breaks away from the kiss.
"Oh! Sorry." She giggles for effect. "I guess we lost track of time."
"You lost track of time." The guard repeats back, plainly unimpressed.
"You know how it is." Bellamy joins in with a chuckle. "Easy to get lost in the moment when you finally get to kiss the girl."
That seems slightly more successful. The guard is a young man and is now nodding slowly.
"Yes. Well. You kids take care." He says, brisk and perhaps a little uncomfortable. "But you shouldn't be in here. This room is out of bounds unless you have a pass from the president's office."
"So sorry. We were just looking for somewhere private." Clarke gives another giggle. Is she overdoing it on the giggles?
"Won't happen again." Bellamy offers, reaching out to take her hand and start leading her towards the door.
Well. This is not what she would have chosen. Her palms are still clammy with nerves – the fear of getting caught as well as the butterflies of that unscheduled kiss.
He either doesn't mind or is a very good actor. Must be the second, she figures. He did manage to hide his sister for sixteen years. He's a natural at this kind of subterfuge.
She does her best to help him out. She leans into his side and bats her lashes as best she can, gazing up at him as if that kiss was the stuff of dreams.
It works. The guard does not follow them. They simply walk straight out of that room which was supposedly off-limits and back into their too-clean new life.
a/n Thanks for reading!