Author's Note: I bet you guys thought this update was never going to come! Sorry! If you know me, you know that I've been putting out other Bellarke fanfic content in the meantime so I was keeping busy. Don't hate me for "Emptiness" but love me for "Matchmaker". Anyways, this chapter includes content from episode 1x11 so if you haven't seen the episode...SPOILER ALERT! As always, I cut, copied and pasted as I needed to mesh the episode to my story. Enjoy!
(CLARKE)
Clarke stood outside the wall the next morning, consumed with thoughts of Grounders and their upcoming retaliation for the bridge.
Bellamy was several feet away from her, talking to a few of the guards about switching shifts and keeping their eyes open. No one knew when an attack could come and in what form.
They learned that lesson from Murphy.
"Anything?"
Clarke realized that Bellamy had moved to stand beside her while she was lost in though. She shook her head in reply.
"It's been a few days. Maybe the bomb at the bridge scared them off for good."
Bellamy looked at her skeptically, "You believe that?"
They shared a knowing look, each aware that the Grounders wouldn't forgive and forget.
Clarke found herself shaking her head again, "No. They're coming."
In unison, they started back toward camp; there was still plenty of preparing to do that day.
"Jasper thinks he can cook up some more gunpowder, if he gets some sulfur, and Raven says she can turn that into landmines. So, uh, be careful where you step."
Clarke jerked her head and found Bellamy grinning at her.
"Ha. Funny." She rolled her eyes but a smile found its way to her lips.
"What I really need is a thousand more of her tin can bombs I can roll into their village and blow those Grounders to hell."
Clarke stopped in her tracks and Bellamy nearly barreled into her from behind. She stared at him in shock.
"That's what they want to do to us." Bellamy said, getting defensive.
"Can't believe we survived 100 years just so we could slaughter each other. There has to be another way." she spoke softly, almost to herself.
Bellamy shifted uncomfortably, "Any word from the Ark?"
"Radio silence"
"Finally ran out of air." he spoke softly, knowing that Clarke took the loss of the Ark hard, especially on top of her mother's death.
"Maybe my mom was lucky being on the exodus ship. At least it was quick." she paused, unwilling to voice her next thought, "No one is coming down to save us."
Clarke found herself wrapped up in Bellamy's arms and she just held on, fear for their future threatening to consume her.
(BELLAMY)
Bellamy wished he could soothe Clarke's fears away but he knew that she was right to worry. Their time on Earth had not been easy and it was getting harder every day. So instead, he just gave her comfort now the only way he could.
It wasn't long before Bellamy heard shouts coming from behind him. He turned and saw that the smokehouse had caught ablaze.
Bellamy ran towards the fire, remembering that Octavia had been on duty there today. He didn't see her in the crowd and was starting to panic when she exited the building, covering her mouth and coughing. Bellamy helped her off to the side where it was safe.
"Are you okay?"
Octavia nodded, still coughing too hard to speak.
As he checked her over for injuries, Murphy ran past him and hit another boy, Del.
"This is all your fault! We told you it was too much wood."
"Get the hell away from me!"
Bellamy rushed over to pull the two boys apart. "Hey! Hey!"
Neither were listening and where trying to reach around him to attack one another. Bellamy stood in the middle with his arms outstretched, putting as much distance between them as he could.
"Hey, stop! Save it for the Grounders."
The boys glared at each other before Murphy turned away and walked off.
Octavia looked to him in despair, "Bell, now what the hell are we gonna do? That was all the food!"
Bellamy's eyes shot instinctively toward Clarke and locked with hers. They both knew that their chances of survival had just plummeted.
Everyone in camp stood and watched as the fire engulfed the building, along with their most precious resource.
A few hours later found Bellamy shifting through the embers.
"Any idea what happened?"
He looked up and found Clarke standing next to him, looking over the ruins.
"Murphy says that Del kept feeding the fire, mostly because Octavia told him it was a bad idea."
"And we believe Murphy?" She raised her eyebrows in surprise.
"I do. Yeah."
Bellamy had been reluctant at first, but when Octavia had confirmed enough of Murphy's story, he had no choice but to believe him.
"We have some wild onions and nuts in the drop ship. It's only enough to last us maybe one or two weeks. What's left here?"
"Nothing. It all burned." Bellamy stood up and looked around, wondering how they would recover from this.
She paused as if in thought, "Then we have to hunt. Anyone we can spare goes out."
Clarke turned to go but Bellamy caught her arm, stopping her before she could walk away from the bomb she had just dropped on him.
"With the whole Grounder army out there?"
"Look. We can't defend ourselves if we're starving." Clarke tried to reason.
Bellamy clenched his jaw; he knew that she was right about this, so after a brief hesitation, he nodded in agreement.
(CLARKE)
"Each group takes someone with a gun, and they're for killing Grounders, not food. We don't have the ammo. Use the spears for hunting. Get what you can. Be back by nightfall. No one stays out after dark."
Clarke watched as Bellamy gave everyone their marching orders and then slipped off to find herself a partner. They had agreed that one of them should stay behind in camp and since it was her idea, she was the one going out.
Bellamy hadn't been happy about it but he had finally given in after she wore him down with reason.
"Hey, Clarke? You alone? You maybe want to go together?"
She turned at the sound of her name and found Myles, one of the guards talking to her.
Clarke gave a small smile at his exuberance, "Sure. I'll get some gear."
As Miles already had a gun, the only thing left to grab was a spear. She was picking one out when Finn walked up to her.
"You ready to go?"
She raised an eyebrow at him, surprised, "I don't think so."
He gave her a cajoling look, "Come on. I'm a good tracker. You're lousy with a spear but you're sneaky. We make a good team."
Clarke hesitated. She knew that it wasn't a good idea given their history but she missed him as a friend.
"Hey, partner, we're wasting daylight." Myles joined them before she could answer and he just seemed to notice her companion, "Oh, Finn, you're joining the band?"
Finn glanced at the kid before looking back at her. "Sure."
"Awesome. Haven't really got a chance to hang with you guys much." Said the boy in excitement. They all started to walk to the drop ship entrance while he continued on, "Hey, do you even know how I got arrested on the Ark?"
The boy slipped through the opening while she and Finn exchanged an amused smile.
"I'm dying to hear about it." said Finn as they followed Myles outside.
Neither of them realized that Raven had watched them leave together and drawn the wrong conclusion.
(BELLAMY)
"We need more ammo."
He had popped his head into Raven's tent to get more supplies for some of the hunting parties, when he found her throwing her stuff into a backpack.
"That's it till Jasper gets back. Now get out of my tent." She thrust three bullets into his hand and then resumed what she was doing.
"Where you going?"
"The hell out of here."
Bellamy knew he had to stop her. She was one of the best mechanics on the Ark from what he had heard and she had saved their lives many times since arriving on Earth.
"No way. You're not leaving."
"Really? And what makes you think you can tell me what to do? Aren't you a janitor?"
He rolled his eyes at her attempt to piss him off, knowing it was her way of getting him to leave her alone. "Where you gonna go?"
"Into these damn woods. Don't worry about it. I'll find someplace safe."
"Just wait." Bellamy grabbed her elbow before she could walk out. "Don't be an idiot. You go alone, and you're dead...or worse."
"So what's your plan, sit here until you run out of bullets?"
"Yeah...", he paused for effect, "or until you come up with something better."
Raven looked at him in surprise. Bellamy had always been impressed with how smart Raven was, even with their rough start, and he thought Finn was an idiot for not realizing that a great girl he had.
"Come on, Raven. You came down here in a pod you rebuilt yourself. You made a bomb out of a tin can. What else you got in that head of yours?"
She hesitated and he knew that he had her. Appealing to the girl through her skills had been the way to go after all.
"Radios. We can't defend ourselves if we can't communicate. If we can build radios, walkie-talkies-"
"Then we can fight as a team. We'd have a chance, at least." he smiled and then remembered Clarke's empowering words to him, "See? We need you. You may be a huge pain in the ass, but you're smart."
Bellamy left her tent then, glad to know that he hadn't just lost one of his best people due to Finn's stupidity.
(CLARKE)
Her little adventure group had managed to find a set of fresh tracks and were in the process of following them.
Myles seemed nervous as he stared at the prints in the ground, "One of those scaly panther things?"
"Boar." Finn's answer was short and Clarke knew it was because he was concentrating on tracking the animal.
"Good, because that panther meat is nasty, but I could eat a whole boar by myself, no joke." Clarke could hear the gun rattle in his hands as he rambled on, "You know what the best part is of the board? It's gonna sound gross."
Clarke noticed that Finn looked concerned so she interrupted, "Myles, quiet for a second."
She knelt to examine the tracks, "What is it?"
Finn gave her a thoughtful stare, "These tracks."
After giving it a second check, she realized that it didn't feel right. It didn't look like other tracks that she had seen before. "They're perfect."
At the same time, Finn and her looked around the forest, both looking for something that they now knew was there.
"We're the ones being hunted." whispered Finn.
Myles had been kneeling with them but at this statement, he stood up to look around skeptically. "I don't see anything."
Seconds later, an arrow came flying out and hit the boy in the knee. He started to buckle in pain when a second arrow got him in the shoulder.
Clarke cried out when the kid fell down, "Myles!"
"Clarke, come on. We got to leave him." stated Finn as he took off running.
She didn't want to abandon Myles but she knew that they were in danger. The Grounders would kill all of them without a second thought. She hesitated for just a moment and it cost her.
A masked Grounder came out of nowhere and hit her in the head with a club, causing her to go down.
Clarke watched as Finn froze when she fell, "Clarke-"
"No." She tried to yell at him to run but it was too late. Another Grounder appeared and knocked him out.
Everything started to fade out of sight, but the last thing she could distinguish was the Grounder leader Anya staring down at her.
Clarke woke up to find her hands tied and a rope binding her to Finn with the end held by a guard. She was thankful that they hadn't taken Myles as well.
Maybe then, if he survived, he would manage to make it back to the camp to let the others know what had happened. He was their only hope of rescue.
It took over an hour of walking to reach their destination, which wasn't helped by the constant pushing of the guards on their backs in trying to force them to walk faster. Clarke had almost stumbled twice due to the harsh shoves.
They arrived at what looked to be left of a destroyed house, going down a set of stairs into a large room.
One of the guards forced them to kneel on the hard floor and then took off for the other room.
Finn leaned closer to her and whispered, "We walked for about 3 miles after crossing that creek, another two or so before we got to the road."
"I don't think it matters, Finn. They didn't blindfold us, which means they don't care what we saw. They're probably gonna kill us." stated Clarke.
The second guard came from behind them and pulled them up to their feet again. He pushed them into a second room before making them kneel once again.
Clarke stared at the guards, wondering why they were still alive.
Not much time had passed when Anya came through the door and stood in front of Clarke, pulling out a dagger from her back.
Finn struggled to protect Clarke but the guard pulled him back, and she felt pure fear that this would be their end.
Before she had time to react, Clarke found her hands freed from their restraints.
"What do you want from us?" she asked Anya.
"Help her." Anya turned to look at a young girl, laying on a table, obviously in pain. Then she pointed her dagger at Finn. "If she dies, he dies."
(BELLAMY)
When he arrived at his tent that night, it wasn't Clarke that greeted him like he had hoped.
Bellamy had heard the hunting parties had come back at dark and he searched for Clarke but when he didn't find her, he thought maybe she had gone to bed.
Instead, it was Raven standing in their tent.
"What are you doing in here?"
"They sure don't waste time. I'll give them that. What's it been, a few days?"
He didn't know whom exactly she was referring to but he had a feeling it involved Spacewalker. Bellamy didn't feel in the mood to deal with her drama again today, not when he still hadn't found Clarke.
"You're mistaking me for someone who cares. Time to move on."
Raven sat down on the bed and started to remove her boots. He stared at her in confusion.
"What are you doing?"
"Moving on."
When she took off her pants, that's when he got nervous. What was she trying to do? Clarke would kill him if she found a woman in their tent, especially a half-naked Raven. He couldn't bear to hurt her like that.
"I've never been with anyone but Finn. Take off your clothes." Raven started to move towards him and he held out a hand to stop her.
"Raven, you've got the wrong idea here. I'm with Clarke and I'm not going to cheat on her just because Finn hurt you."
She gave him a look that he couldn't decipher. "Then you don't know?"
"Know what? What are you talking about?" he was growing more confused by the second.
"That Finn is in love with your girlfriend? That they went out hunting together, and they've not come back? What does this tell you, Shooter?"
That was news to Bellamy and he wondered why Clarke hadn't told him. He felt sick as an unwelcome thought crept into his head. Was a part of her still in love with Spacewalker?
Clarke had told Bellamy that she loved him, but for the first time he felt a flicker of doubt.
Will he or won't he? Mwuhahaha. You'll have to wait to find out =P
XoXo ~ Becky