Thank you to everyone wishing me well in Italy :) I've had a pretty good second week in all! I've started actually developing my photos in a darkroom (one of my classes is basic photography) and I think they look sort of badass ;) But man if I had to develop all my photos like that, I wouldn't bother taking pictures anymore. It's a lot of work to do, especially since half of it is in the dark! My other class is a History of Fashion in Italy and we got to go to a fabric fair the other day, where people that make yarn basically bring their wares in and companies go to pick fabric to make their collection, so I got a 'first look' if you will at the colors that will be the 'in' colors for next season, along with trends. It was such an amazing experience, and really eye-opening. Plus, I got some free swag. Not much, but not complaining! I also got to go to the Pitti Palace which has the most AMAZING gardens there. If you're even in Florence, take a day for that. They're HUGE! I've also found a lot of really good restaurants, of course, including a mexican place (Lordy I was craving that) and a place that sells Dr. Pepper (my weakness XD). The only unfortunate thing is that I hate the taste of coffee and they don't really make chai lattes here.
I also go SO many reviews! You guys are incredible, I love you all: jadegurl2, red08, nithika89, R, guest, SquidaQdaloo, Guest, Vicky Tzalachani, Cheri Estella, heidi1245401, Gigi, Academy Addict, and Skeptical Believer.
R: I like to keep people guessing ;) Glad I accomplished that for the pick. And YES FLORENCE! I will look for that gelato shop! I eat it far too often XD And I've been looking for a really nice quality leather jacket so I figure I might as well get it here. I'm not really a purse girl, but it does make for a quality gift.
Guest: What's a story without emotion lol
Vicky Tzalachani: Yeah, it's sad that they have to do it so young, but I'm trying to stay close to the canon and Bellamy and Octavia seem REALLY young when he gets the guards job. It's a little weird, tbh.
Gigi: I fully intend to do all those things! It's been a whirlwind experience and I'm not even half way through :) And yes, all the feels I shall give you. And there is more feels to come
The first six months of training was hard, if Bellamy was being completely honest. He woke up at 5:30 everyday, to be at the training center by 6:00 am. They stretched, and then did physical exercise for the next three hours, a variety of different methods from taking laps around the Ark to doing things like the climbing wall or lifting weights. They got an hour break to rest and shower up, and then until lunch at noon they went through the law book of the Ark in meticulous detail, usually taking quizzes on it. After the two-hour lunch the entire Ark enjoyed (except for when it was his turn to guard the Lunch hour, every first Tuesday of the month, and his dinner shift was every second Friday) they focused on skill work. This rotated between sparring with a partner, shooting a gun, going through different high risk scenarios to defuse, and doing puzzles or riddles to sharpen the thinking mind. This usually was the rest of the day, and they were done by five pm, because apart from the Lunch or Dinner shifts, cadets didn't patrol the ship until they were fully trained. By then, they'd get hours and it wouldn't be from 6 to 5, but a variety of times. Bellamy counted down the days.
The end of the day was always the most nerve-wracking. Their teachers would confer, and there was a great big board with the names of all the cadets that had chosen the guard's life. They had begun with fifty candidates. There was only room for 20. The teachers would arrange their names by how well they'd done today, and the culling of the lower students could come at any moment. By the end of the first year, they'd be down to twenty and the second year of the training would be more tailored to what kind of guards work would best suit them.
Even thought Bellamy had stayed solidly within the top eight (it would be five, but not everyone had perfect days, obviously), he never lost the fear that one day he'd mess up really badly and the would be the end of it. It had happened to more than one kid, so it wasn't an unrealistic fear. But maybe that acute fear was what kept him going and made him a good cadet.
One other student from his group had chosen to be a guard with him, Ana W. He liked her immensely.
First off, there was never any question of 'something' between them, just because it might be assumed since he was boy and she was a girl. Somehow, they both just knew it wasn't meant to be, and neither had truly felt anything for each other besides friendship. And although Ana was a laughable 5-foot nothing else, and weighed less than 100 pounds, and had a face that resembled a sad kitten, they had learned early on not to underestimate her. She was, in fact, better than most the male cadets and dirtier than them too. She had the most shocking jokes, and swore with the ease of all the teenage boys. She could fit in with them as easily as she could the girls, but preferred the company of her men, and (besides Bellamy) had already almost slept her way through the first year Cadets. He could, from a view outside, acknowledge the fact she was hot, but she'd never really made him go red like the other cadets. He didn't obsess over it too much.
She was…something else.
The only thing he didn't like about her was that she had very loud and vocal ideas about the government, and some of the older guards had grumbled about her, worrying that any guard that disliked their way so much might not make the best guard. But everyone was entitled to his or her own opinion, and besides this, she was a good person to befriend in this draining sort of work. She stayed within the top five recruits. Perhaps, if she was a shit guard, it would be easy to out her for her opinions, but she was good and you couldn't turn away a good possible guardsman here.
He found out very quickly that he didn't like a grand majority of the guards that held rank above him. He already hated people like the inspector that his mother traded sex for information with, and found those types of people despicable. But more than that, a lot of the older ladies and gentlemen that could boss him around made their way to the tops of their class by being cutthroat. While as a child he (like many others) had seen Commander Shumway as one of the coolest and most moral people around, just because he was the head of the guard, but his ideals were shot down quickly. It left a bitter taste in his mouth after every meeting with him, and almost made him disheartened about the whole career. If it weren't for a handful of good people, like Chief Miller, he wasn't sure he'd be able to stomach this job. At least Miller held almost as much pull as Shumway, and once had caught Bellamy's forlorn look at lunch and came to sit by him. The very fact that he knew what Bellamy was thinking about said a lot.
"There's a lot of corruption in the guard." Miller had murmured under his breath, "And it's hard to acknowledge and continue with it, I know. But just work on being the best person you can be, and hopefully you'll make it through so they'll be at least one more good person that the Ark can trust." He said, an apology in his eyes.
That was all that he said, but it got Bellamy thinking. About how they could make things better, how he could become the best person he could. Right now, at such a low rung on the ladder, he couldn't do much, not today or tomorrow or next week even. But one day…maybe he could do more.
It bothered Ana too, which was a relief. But then again, he figured that she saw it even more clearly than he did, being a woman trying to get into the guard. For every female, there were at least twenty men.
He couldn't tell Clarke these disappointing thoughts though, he would hate himself forever if he was the person that shattered her innocent illusion of life, for she should be allowed to bask in it as long as she could. His sister never got the chance and she was bitter more often that not now, and to see the smiling bright ball of sun that was Clarke Griffin go out would utterly destroy him. He couldn't tell his sister because it would only confirm her still stalwart conviction he picked wrong and would be unhappy one day, and he couldn't tell his mother because she was just so pleased and she likely already knew, and maybe he was a little angry she'd never warned him. For these reasons, he was glad that he had friends outside of Clarke like Benny, and more recently, Ana. Benny complained all the time, so he was a safe bet, because he was usually too busy complaining about this or that to recall what Bellamy had gripes with, and Ana understood his angers because she experienced them too.
"Sometimes I wonder if you can't fix a broken system." Ana said after particularly disheartening day, "And the best solution is to overhaul the whole thing."
"I don't think we have the capability to do that." Bellamy replied, although the idea made him uncomfortable. He didn't always like the way things were run, but at least they were being run. He'd feared that trying to fix the way they did thing would only lead to chaos, something no one could afford on a metal ball of humans hurtling around the earth. They could all die, "Look. In one hundred years, we'll go back down to earth. Things will change then, the rules we have now can't fit with the rules down there because everything will be different."
A sad look overcame Ana's face. It was a sad look many wore, the look that they'd never get to see earth, or really appreciate it, if they were lucky enough to live that long. He bit his lip uncomfortably.
"Hey, chin up. Maybe the earth will be ready for us before that?"
"I've read the histories, Bellamy." Ana gave a sigh, "It won't. It couldn't be. It's something we have to accept."
Accepting this was something like a rite of passage, a coming of age. When you were a kid, your parents undoubtedly told you fairy tales about going down to earth or swimming for the first time or smelling rain, even though they'd never experienced it themselves. And for a time, you held onto that hope that maybe it would be different, and you'd get lucky. Maybe you'd go to the earth early, and you hoped and dreamed about it the way you might dream you would be a princess or that dragons were once real. But when you got older, you had to realize that you would be dead long before any humans would touch the earth again, and you would die in the same metal walls you were born in.
The only thing that gave Bellamy faith was that soon, parents would be able to tell their children about earth and it wouldn't just be a fairy tale because some generation would actually get to experience it. If it wasn't going to be him, but maybe his grandson or granddaughter, Bellamy could accept that.
As despondent as Ana was, at least it got her mind off the very flawed system of the Ark rules.
Bellamy liked to think once it all worked out, but things had changed in the hundred or so years since they'd come up. Rules were rarely revisited or modified, even with changes to the way things ran. But in all honesty, it was a wonder to Bellamy they were all still alive. And he was going to do his best to keep people that way, and one of the best ways was being a guard.
As it was, though, guard training left little socializing time, at least at this stage. Even when he did get time off, he was always so exhausted that he crashed wherever could. He'd taken to sleeping on Clarke's couch, because his house was unsuitable to daytime naps for reasons starting with an 'O' and Clarke never seemed to mind it.
"You work too hard!" She'd tell him, poking him awake for some food.
"Someone has to." He replied, giving her a wry smile. He didn't want to tell her how many people were cut, and how suddenly it could be. He didn't want to worry her, "And I like it." He also didn't want her to think he wasn't happy with his job, and it wasn't always entirely a lie.
The hardest day yet came a little after that six month mark, when there was forty people left and the stakes were so much higher than before. It was announced that today they'd be sparring against fully-fledged guards instead of against their own cadets. Shumway's reasoning was that eventually they might have to fight against someone bigger and older than they were, someone with more experience. Bellamy didn't see the logic, unless they were trying to take down an ex-guardsman for some strange reason, but he wasn't going to shy away from a challenge when each movement was so carefully watched.
This was also in part why he offered to go first.
He saw a smirk on Shumway's face across the room, an odd expression to him in response to offering to go up, and Shumway motioned forward one of the biggest guardsmen, built like the lumberjack named Paul Bunyan he'd heard tall tales about. Bellamy didn't know if it was decided long before that he would fight this guy, or if it was just because he was going first, but really the only thing he could think was…fuck.
He stepped into the boxed-off area, trying to size up his opponent. Usually, he found himself being able to catch a break with his fellow cadets; if they were favoring a leg, how strong they were since he was with them everyday, obvious weaknesses he either collected in his mind or could spot easily. But this guy was like trying to read a statue.
He lasted all of five minutes, and even that might have been an overestimate.
Usually, against his fellow cadets, he had a win ratio of just over 67%, which kept him in good graces. The best fighter only had a win ratio of 81%, and each round Bellamy won a couple more than the last time. And, even if he didn't win, he could hold his own for almost twenty minutes, playing the defense, but here he couldn't even do that.
He only got a singular punch in, and it was like he was punching a wall of steel. He took more hits than he managed to land, and he didn't even get the chance to tap out, instead a punch to the face left him out cold.
He was humiliated.
He woke up against a wall, his face aching and Ana peering into his face, along with a cadet named Keith.
"I didn't win?" He asked sarcastically, and Ana gave him a thin smile, although she was biting the inside of her cheek, a tick she had when something wasn't going well.
"It was pretty bad, Blake." Keith winced, waving a hand in front of his face, "He's up, sir." He called back to Shumway.
"Can you stand, son?" He asked.
"Course." Bellamy scoffed, pushing himself up against the wall. Yet, as soon as he reached his full high, his vision swarmed over.
"Whoa!" Keith jumped forward, "He might have a concussion, sir."
Shumway gave a tense nod, "Take him to medical." He said, "Cadet W, you stay here." He opted to call Ana only by her initial, claiming her last name was 'too hard to say'. Bellamy personally thought it was because he was just sort of an ass.
"Yes, sir." Ana said, and she sent him a worried look.
Keith helped support Bellamy as they scuttled out of the guards area. He was glad everyone was pretty focused on the current spar at hand to notice him having to be taken to medical. He realized that for the first time ever, his name might drop below number 8, and this scared him.
Halfway there, they ran into Clarke.
"Bellamy! What happened to your face?" She questioned immediately, reaching toward it.
"Just a spar during training." Bellamy grumbled, "Nothing bad."
"Commander's worried he may have a concussion. I'm bringing him to medical." Keith said, and Bellamy felt his face grow hot. Clarke tilted her head at his expression.
"I can take him from here." She announced.
"I'm supposed to deliver him to the medical bay." Keith said, staying firm.
"And I'm the daughter of Abby Griffin," Clarke argued, and a realization dawned on the kid's face, "I'll obviously make sure he gets there. You wouldn't want to miss training, would you?"
"Well…"
"If anyone comes after you, just tell them that you handed him off to the Chief of Medicine's daughter. He's in good hands." She assured. Keith's expression flashed between them for a second, then he nodded and spun on his heels. Clarke took his place where he once was, although Bellamy was feeling a lot steadier now, and started veering to the left.
"But the med bay-,"
"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you might want to avoid everyone realizing you got beat up during training." She said, raising an eyebrow. He saw they were heading back toward her place.
"Are you medically authorized to treat me?" He teased.
"I've seen my mom do concussion checks enough. The rest of your face I can't do much about anyway." She paused, "I thought you were good at sparing."
"Yeah, until Shumway puts you up against a fully-trained guardsmen." Bellamy grumbled.
"That's like suicide!" Clarke squeaked, "No wonder you look like someone hit you with a crowbar." She added. Bellamy glared at her.
"The guy was like a mountain. I'm sure I would have been fine against anyone else." They had reached her door.
"We'll never know that, will we?" She chuckled, and her house was empty, which wasn't all too surprising.
"Aren't you supposed to be in school?" He questioned, and she sent him a deadpanned look.
"Supposed to." She coughed, "But don't want to. One nice thing about being an alpha kid is none of the teachers really tell on you if you miss."
"So what?" Bellamy asked as she set him on the couch and went to get something from the kitchen, "You just didn't feel like it?"
"I had cramps." She said so casually that it took him a moment. He lived with two women; he wasn't oblivious to female things.
"Ah…"
Clarke returned, and he was glad she shushed him so that they could move away from that topic. She checked him over, before leaning back on her haunches.
"No concussion. But if you start vomiting, have headaches, or you start not being able to think clearly, come back to my mom." She instructed.
"I thought you said you were qualified." He teased.
"You didn't have to trust me, a 12-year-old with exactly zero actual medical training." She pointed out. He nodded along, but he trusted her, medically trained or not, since she hung out around her mom as much.
"Now for your face…" She held up a mirror, and Bellamy winced at the site of it. He had a nasty bruise already forming around his eye, what had likely been the punch to knock him out. His nose was crooked and there was dried blood spilling onto his cheek, plus he had a split lip that kind of hurt now that he was aware of it.
"I'm going to re-set your nose." She said, and placed her fingers on either side of the break.
"Wait, maybe you shouldn't-," She cracked it back, and hurt like hell, "Ow! Are you sure you actually know what you're doing?" Diagnosing something was one thing, but setting bones back in place was another. It really hurt, and since this was his first broken nose, eh wasn't sure if it was supposed to.
"I've done three noses already. It's a common problem here, you'd be surprised." She said calmly. She took out a damp rag and began to clean off his face.
"I could clean myself off, you know." He murmured, but didn't make a movement to stop her, watching her eyes narrow as she gently wiped away his blood. She got to his lip, and he jerked back.
"You're such a baby, Bell." She rolled her eyes, "It's just a split lip, although he may have hit your jaw too…" She trailed off, "Either way, the nose probably hurt more."
"I'm just sore all over." He mumbled, but let her continue wiping off his face, "I've never gotten hurt this badly in a spar. If they do a random culling today, I'm screwed."
Clarke's movement stopped.
"They wouldn't! That's not fair, I mean, you were clearly mismatched." She argued.
"Fair isn't a word in the guardsmen, Clarke. And that was the point! I'm not always going to be evenly matched against someone." He said sorely, "Maybe that's part of the whole thing and I just failed."
He stayed with Clarke for another hour or two. He told Clarke it was because he wanted to be sure he wouldn't start showing symptoms of a concussion, but in reality, he was terrified to return. All he could imagine was his mother's disappointed face if he'd been cut. Eventually, his anxiety about not knowing overcame his fear of humiliation.
"Hey," Clarke grabbed his wrist as he headed for the door, "If you do get cut, I won't think any less of you, you know?"
Hearing her say that made him feel a little better.
Class had been dismissed for the day, because there were hardly any members walking around, apart from those coming and going from shifts. As he came back to the cadet's room, he saw Shumway by the board and his heart clenched.
Shumway was a stoic man that not may people liked. His respect was born from fear, quite unlike Chief Miller whose respect was born from his caring personality. If he was going to face fate and be cut, Shumway was not the optimal person to have there to comfort you.
"Sir," He greeted, nodding as he came in.
"Ah, Blake. I take it no concussion?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.
"No, but Griffin wanted to keep me in case any symptoms popped up." He said. Shumway gave an even nod.
"Rightly so. A concussion gone unseen can make things very difficult, and it's better that we would know now." He looked Bellamy in the eye; "We cut the lowest three cadets today."
Bellamy's heart plummeted, and he felt like he was going to barf. Was Shumway here to personally kick him off the training team? He stepped in front of his commander to see the list of names…but none of the names in red were his own. Confusion knit his eyebrows as he scanned the board…and found his name at number four.
"Sir?" He turned, "I'm number four. I…I was knocked out."
"Would you rather be at the bottom there, with the three cadets currently cleaning out their lockers?" Shumway questioned, "I'm sure one would be glad to be joined back in."
"No!" Bellamy backtracked, "I'm just…a little confused on my ranking."
"Guardsmen Packard is the best sparer we have. He's never lost a fight, not even against fully trained guardsmen that are much wiser than he is. You made it," He checked a sheet, "Four minutes and thirty-eight seconds against him, Cadet. That puts you, against everyone who's ever gone up against him, in the top ten percent. You should feel very pleased with yourself." Shumway put the sheet back into his pocket, a smirk as Bellamy's face moved to shock as he digested what his commander was telling him, "I was waiting for you to return to tell you that you did good today, Blake. I will be watching the continuation of your training very closely." He turned on his heels, leaving Bellamy glancing with pride at the boards, as his whole body slumped with relief.
He'd made it another day, and he had the praise of the commander. He'd get a split lip any day for his achievements to be acknowledged at such a high level.
SHUMWAY WHAT YOU UP TO? That man is creepy as hell...
And btw I am still open to getting baby names! I won't be picking for a couple chapters yet, so if you didn't get the memo last chapter or you're a new reviewer and you want to throw your additions to the pot, you still have a chance!
Many of you seemed really not all too surprised he kept the guard job last chapter. A lot of you secretly wanted him to pick the teaching position. I think many of you think that I always knew...truth is, I didn't. I had two different ideas of where the story could go if he picked either one (lots would stay the same, it would just truly be minor differences) and I liked both equally. I wasn't even all that concerned about staying true to the show because we do deviate at some points. In the end, I literally flipped a coin XD Bellamy actually just as fair of a chance for it to land on heads while I was writing it and for him to have ended up as a teacher! Just thought that was interesting and worth sharing!
Remember to review :) Love, Lex!
