A/N: A big thanks to Sjaan (readymachine) and MJ (wellamyblake) for beta-ing the hell out of this. MVPs.
A big thanks to everyone who left reviews on the last chapter. MVPs.
A big "screw you" to myself because this chapter is nearly 30k, way longer than it was supposed to be. Goddamnit.
— 1429: VALAIS (NOW PART OF SWITZERLAND) —
Her name is Claude, and she loves girls.
"Claude, Claude, Claude," Mary, the girl she's currently loving, giggles as she crowds her against the bookshelf. They're in the dark back room of Valais's town library, a room full of dusty archives that no one ever really goes in. "I'm supposed to be working."
"So am I," Claude laughs against her mouth. She's a clerk for the court in Valais, and she's got quite a few case transcripts to polish before she can hand them over to the librarian to archive. And yet, she's here. Kissing Mary and clacking their teeth together and dissolving into giggles.
Without warning, the door opens.
Claude freezes. Within the second, she rips herself away from Mary and takes several rapid steps back, but she knows it's too late. They've been caught.
Her heart rate calms immediately when she realizes it's just Beau, the librarian.
Then her heart rate kicks up again because hello, it's Beau.
Beau, of course, doesn't have the same silly thoughts she does. He stares hard at the two of them and their clearly dishevelled state. His lips are pursed in a way that screams Again?
Claude shrugs, not very apologetic, but Mary looks down at her shoes.
"Mary," Beau says meaningfully, "there's plenty of books that need to be re-shelved up front, you know."
Mary looks up, nods fast— a blush still fast on her cheeks, and gives Claude one last look. Claude smiles slowly at her, and the other girl slips past Beau. Beau folds his arms and looks at Claude. Claude casually looks at the ceiling like she doesn't notice his scrutiny.
He speaks after a minute of letting her squirm, words slow and deep and measured. "This is the second time this week I'm finding you distracting Mary from her work."
Claude lowers her gaze to his. His expression is stern, but she's not bothered by it. "We both know that's not the problem here."
"You're right," he replies, uncrossing his arms. He glances behind him as if expecting to find someone there before adding, "You need to be more careful."
She looks at him with a quirked up eyebrow. He goes on, voice steady and slow.
"You're a young woman who lives by herself, and you heal people too well. You don't want to add 'kissing girls' to the list of things people think you're odd for."
Claude huffs, examining her fingernails. "I keep trying to tell them, all I do is wash my hands before touching the patient, unlike the rest of the doctors around here."
He ignores this. "All it takes is one reason. And then you know what happens. They use it as a reason to execute you for being a witch."
She ponders this. He's a scholar, probably the most educated person in town, so she has to ask. "So you don't believe the people they're executing are actually witches?"
"Do you?" he simply returns, giving her a meaningful look.
She sighs and purses her lips. She's sat through more witch trials than she can count, diligently recording the witches' pleas and the accusations thrown around in court. It's hard not to form her own opinions. She's been surprised more than once since the beginning of the witch hunts at the outcomes; people she'd never have guessed for a witch being condemned. Beau's skepticism confirms her own suspicions. "I'll be more careful," she mutters, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her dress. He nods, apparently satisfied, and although he doesn't look smug about her relenting she feels the need to jab, "I miss the old librarian."
"Because he never got up from his desk and never knew what you were up to at his place of work?" His lips finally tug into something of a smile.
She smirks. "Why do you get up from your desk?"
"I saw you slip in here," he says, amusement clear in his eyes. "Don't think I haven't noticed you didn't give me the latest transcripts yet."
She rolls her eyes with exasperation but offers no answer.
"Who knows, maybe one day you'll get lucky and I'll go the same way as him."
Her eyes snap back to his sharply. She can tell he's joking of course, but it's not funny to her. Despite his tendency to boss her around, Beau is a good man. A quiet one, and a trustworthy one. Claude found that out the first time that he caught her with a girl— he'd left immediately, and she'd been scared to death that he'd tell— but when she'd gathered the courage to leave the house the next day, no one looked at her differently. Not even him.
And so he gained her respect.
With time, her affection for him has grown. And she's not blind, he's only a few years older than her and he's very nice-looking. So yes, she might like him in other ways, which may or may not be another reason she doesn't want him dead.
When she doesn't give him a snappy retort like usual, his smile fades and he takes a step closer. "You alright?" He's serious again, and his fingers reach out to touch her shoulder lightly.
She realizes she must have a distressed expression, imagining him being burned at the stake. "Nothing." She clears her throat and studies her shoes. "I just— I was thinking about him. The old librarian. How he died."
He sighs and squeezes her shoulder. "I'm sorry."
The old librarian was elderly, could hardly even see a few feet in front of him. But apparently three people pointed him out as indulging in witchcraft, killing their animals in the middle of the night—and three accusations were all it took to get arrested. Claude doesn't know the details, but he'd confessed to it immediately, probably to save himself the pain of torture, and was killed the next day. And he was only one of the first. Thinking about it still makes her stomach churn, even though it was almost a year ago.
She doesn't want his sympathy, though, so she shrugs, trying to play it off. "I didn't know him that well. The only times I talked to him was to give him transcripts." She realizes belatedly how close Beau is standing in his effort to comfort her. In lifting her head, she nearly bumps into his, and maybe he realizes it too, because he takes a large step back as soon as their eyes connect. The room is rather dark, but she thinks he might be blushing slightly.
She reminds herself, again, that he's engaged.
—
Claude marches into the library right before a court session to slap a pile of transcripts on Beau's desk. "There." He doesn't even look up from whatever he's scribbling.
"These are a month late."
"Why do you always act like you're above me?" she retorts good-naturedly. "I've been the court clerk for years. You're the new one. I should be criticizing you."
He looks up at that, eyes twinkling. "Go on, then." She blinks. "Criticize me."
She puts her hands on her hips and narrows her eyes. His smile grows wider the longer the silence goes, which irritates her more.
The thing is, Beau does a very thorough job. On everything. The library is always neat, and she can tell how much care and love he puts into organizing and cleaning and fixing the binding of books that have been returned falling apart. She admires how hard he works.
"Your hair's always a mess," she eventually barks at him, and he actually chuckles at that, stretching his arms over his head.
"That right?"
"Yes," she replies, adamant. "Don't you own a comb? It's all over the place, all the time."
He runs a hand through his hair, now looking mildly affronted. "It's naturally like this."
"I'm sure it is, when you roll out of bed in the morning."
"I'm wounded." He shakes his head fondly and bends back to his book, apparently done with humouring her. "Don't you have somewhere to be?"
Oh. She's late for the court session. She sends him an evil look and heads for the front door.
"Hey, Claude," he calls gently before she can exit. "I'd rather you recorded the transcripts neatly than had them delivered on time. You do a good job."
She whips her head back to see him smiling at her. Her cheeks warm, but she hopes the distance between them disguises it. "I changed my mind. I guess your hair looks alright then." His chuckle is the last thing she hears before she leaves.
When she slides into her seat in court a few minutes later, she earns a few nasty looks from the prosecutor, but nothing she's not used to. She opens her bag and throws her fresh parchment on the desk, barely noticing who else is there in her hurry to get organized.
When she straightens up, she locks eyes with someone in the audience. Mary's there, eyes wide and frantic.
Why would Mary be here? Claude thinks to herself. She usually steers clear of court proceedings. And even if she'd decided to switch things up, why does she look so terrified?
Unless… Claude's eyes drift to the front and fix on Mary's mother, pale and trembling in front of the prosecutor who is now announcing that with the scribe here, they can finally get on with the day's witch trial.
—
Claude leaves the courtroom in shock afterwards, her hands trembling as they clutch onto her carefully written transcripts full of Mary's mother's denials of each accusation. She knows what happens next. Torture.
There were other witches on trial today as well; a man and a woman, both of whom confessed shortly after the questioning began, but Mary's mother had stayed adamant the whole time. Even as the testimonies started—people saying she'd bewitched them. But the more she denied it, the more the prosecutor pushed. One witness had said that she'd been bewitched to not believe she was a witch so she wouldn't be able to point out other witches, which was one of many things Claude had found ridiculous. It's all so ridiculous.
But then she spots Mary at the edge of the crowd afterwards, looking lost, and knows that whatever she's feeling is nothing compared to her.
Mary is inconsolable.
"We'll save her," Claude says wildly when she reaches her, but Mary jerks away from her touch.
"Not everything is a game you canbreak the rules for, Claude," she spits, and her eyes are bright with anger and tears. "My mother will be tortured until she confesses, and if we try to help her, it's the same for us."
"Mary—"
"I don't want to hear it!" Mary shouts. Claude reels back and several people look their way; Mary's not usually one to raise her voice. Gulping in shuddering breaths for air, Mary stomps away, leaving Claude's heart aching for her.
—
Claude tries to give her space, but she can't stay away from the library. Beau's at his desk, flipping through some old documents, and looks up when she enters.
"Mary's not here," he tells her before she can open her mouth. "I gave her time off."
She hugs herself. "Oh." He looks at her another moment, then turns back to his work. Claude can't bring herself to leave because, in her loneliness and fear, Beau's presence is somehow soothing to her soul. Maybe it's something about the warmth in his gaze, or just the fact that she knows she can trust him, but he makes her feel grounded in an unsteady world.
"You didn't know about her mother's trial, did you?" she asks him.
He shakes his head slowly, brow furrowing. "I would've been there," he says quietly. "I would've testified for her character." He sounds regretful.
She shakes her head firmly. "There wouldn't have been anything you could do. There were too many testifying against." Her lips flatten in disgust at the memory. "That horrid neighbour of hers, Mrs. Sampson, for starters."
"That doesn't surprise me," Beau says darkly. "Mary told me that woman has been trying to buy their family land for years but her mother doesn't want to sell it. A little too convenient that Mary's mother would be out of the picture after this, isn't it?"
Claude huffs in agreement, folding her arms. Her whole body is thrumming with frustration. None of this is fair.
"I'm sure Mary's at home," he says, jarring her out of her thoughts. She blinks a few times, realizing he's watching her curiously. "Just be careful if you're going there."
"I appreciate you caring about my safety," she replies, "but I want to help Mary, not console her." She hops on his desk to sit, and he straightens up.
"You want to help her mother escape." His voice is flat.
She looks at him pleadingly. "Can't we? Isn't there something we can do?"
"No."
Her jaw drops. "Beau—"
He slams his book shut and speaks tersely. "She's being held in the jail. She's guarded around the clock, until she either confesses and dies, or is tortured until she dies. Anyone seen attempting to help a condemned witch will be suspected of witchcraft themselves. There is nothing you can do, Claude. End of discussion. Keep your head down."
"That's the last thing I want to do!"
"I know. But you have to. I'm…" He trails off a moment, and she watches with fascination as his jaw works. He glances to the side as he admits, "I'm worried about you."
Well, that intrigues her. It also makes her heart sing because it means Beau doesn't just see her as a colleague; he cares, and there aren't many people who have cared about her in her life, not since her parents died. But his words catch up with her. "Are… Are people talking about me too?"
"People are always talking about you," Beau says, with a mix of exasperation and fondness. Claude takes his statement with a nod. It's true. She's too free-spirited, too wild, to be considered anything but a local oddity. "But this is different. Please, Claude. Be careful. I don't want you to be next."
Now he's the one being pleading with her, and she's taken aback a little by the force of emotion in his voice. "I won't be," she finds herself saying, to hide her surprise. "They won't catch me. I promise I'll be more stealthy about bewitching people from now on," she teases.
He smiles slightly, leaning over the desk. "You're already stealthy enough on that front, trust me."
Before she can process that comment, the door opens and both of them turn their heads. It's a woman with long, glossy dark hair and green eyes, and there's a grace to her walk that Claude could never possess. Beau's expression changes, softening completely upon the sight of her.
"Jane," he greets her, pushing off his desk to walk over to her and kiss her on the cheek. Claude feels a pit settle in her stomach and pretends she doesn't know what it is.
Jane smiles at Beau and turns to Claude. "Hello, Claude," she says with a smile. "I hope he's not boring you with long-winded stories about the Mongols again."
Despite herself, she feels herself smile, because Beau also smiles good-naturedly when Jane says that, and if he is happy, so is she. "Not yet," she replies, and hops off the desk. "I'd better leave before he gets any ideas." She gives him a quick glance— it hurts to look at him any longer than that, suddenly. "Good night."
His amusement fades all at once and he watches her seriously. "Stay safe, Claude." There's a warning in his voice she recognizes.
She chooses to ignore it.
—
But when she gets to the jail and asks to see Mary's mother, she's told that the witch has just confessed to her crimes. Claude gets to the town square just in time to see the end of the burning.
It's... horrific. Mary is nowhere to be seen.
She runs to Mary's home, bangs on the door. It's a small house, narrow, crammed between a larger one and a sweets shop. Her father opens the door, looking wary. When he sees it's just Claude, he relaxes slightly.
"What do you want?"
"Where's Mary? She wasn't at— she wasn't—" She wasn't there to see her mother alive for the last time.
His lips draw tight. He looks pained. "I didn't let her go see the burning. Neither of us went." His voice breaks slightly. "My wife— told us not to, you know. When she was taken. She knew it would happen, and she didn't want us to see it. I thought we should respect her last wishes." He covers his face with his hand. "It gave us extra time, anyway, to pack."
"Pack?" Claude repeats dumbly.
"Yes," he says softly. Claude marvels at how he's holding it together. "We're leaving town."
Exactly what Mrs. Sampson wants, Claude thinks to herself, but she just shakes her head fervently and puts her hands on her hips. "Let me see Mary."
"She doesn't want to see anyone."
"Just—"
The door slams in her face. She stares at it for a long minute before backing away. When she turns around, she realizes several people are staring at her. Probably wondering why she's been talking to the family of a witch.
Beau's warnings echo in her head.
She gulps, fear getting the better of her for once, and flees home for the remainder of the evening.
—
She stays indoors the next day, passing the time by polishing her court transcripts. There's a nervous energy in her bones still, and her mind won't stop whirring. It eventually gets to the point where she throws down her pen in frustration and heads out the door, and to the library. She needs— she doesn't know what she needs, but something in her heart tells her it's there.
When she walks in, he looks up and relaxes at the sight of her. He looks tired, she notes, more so than usual.
"Didn't you hear?" he says without waiting for her to speak. "Mary left—"
"I know," she interrupts. "I just…" She casts a look around the room, all the papers and books he has surrounded himself with in his attempts to sort them. He doesn't have Mary around to help him anymore. "Can I just stay here a while?"
She hates her voice for sounding so small, but he nods. She doesn't want his sympathy, and is about to say so, but then he adds, "Yeah, but don't just sit there. You can help me with the damn reshelving." He balances the stern sentence with a hint of a smile at the end, and that feeling sets into her heart again— the feeling of safe.
She spends the evening shelving books with him. It's a quiet few hours because he doesn't talk much, but she's not bored. She's comfortable with him. Every so often he'll pass by her through a narrow space between bookshelves and momentarily put his hand on her back, the brief touch a silent comfort that is exactly what Claude needs right now.
It's late at night when he catches her yawning and says, "You should go home. I'll finish up here."
Nodding tiredly, she backs towards the door. "You should get some rest too, you know." She knows despite his casualness, he can't be completely unaffected by what happened.
"I'm fine," he says.
Right. "Whatever you say. See you later, then."
"Wait." He turns a little on the ladder he's standing on, leaning against the bookshelf with a dusty rag in his hand. "Give me two minutes and I'll walk you home. It's late."
"No," she replies automatically, even though she'd like nothing better. "It's not far."
"This isn't negotiable." He starts climbing down the ladder, but then the front door opens and a dark-haired man steps in.
Beau's demeanor changes instantly but subtly, instantly guarded. "Mayor Hollis," he says politely. "What can I do for you at this time of night?"
He doesn't bother with pleasantries, barely sparing Claude a glance. "I need to see some transcripts from the witch trial yesterday."
Claude thanks every deity she knows of in that moment that she had polished off the transcripts early for once. As Beau becomes preoccupied with the Mayor, she slips out the back door, wondering what's so urgent that the council needs those transcripts this late at night.
It's so dark out that she bumps right into someone she didn't see at first.
"Oh, I'm sor—" she halts when she sees who it is.
Mary's mother.
It takes her a moment to register that, another moment for the fear to set in, and another for her mouth to open, lungs drawing in air to scream.
Despite looking surprised at the encounter, the woman's hand readily shoots out to clap over Claude's face.
Claude screams anyway, the sound muffled against the woman's hand. She tries to back away, but Mary's mother grabs her hand.
"Shh," she chastises. Claude stares at her, eyes wide with fear, heart pounding. Another long moment passes, while she examines how the woman in front of her looks so alive despite being executed in front of the town's eyes. Did it— did it even happen? Was it a dream? Or did Claude fall asleep in the library and she's dreaming right now?
Her hectic thought process distracts her, and apparently Mary's mother is satisfied she won't scream, because she removes her hand. "Don't scream," she warns. "I won't hurt you."
Claude draws in large gulps of air. "You're dead," she finally manages in something of a strangled, high-pitched tone. "Everyone saw you getting burned at the stake."
"People are seeing a lot of things these days," is the dark reply, and then a wide smile grows on the woman's face. "But what you saw, at least, was real."
"You're a real witch, aren't you? That's how you survived." Her voice is shaking. Her entire belief system has been turned upside down suddenly— she and Beau were wrong, there are witches in this town. And if what they say is true, witches work with the devil. She should be afraid. But instead, she's curious.
"An astute observation." Mary's mother grins, raising a hand and wiggling her fingers. A spark shoots from her fingertips.
Despite herself, Claude gasps and takes a step back, making the sign against evil that's been drilled into her by weekly masses since birth. The witch watches her do it with some amusement.
"Well, I must be on my way now. Good day, Miss Clarke." And just like that, the woman who was dead a few hours ago turns to walk away.
It takes her a few moments to process. "Wait," she says sharply. "What did you just call me?"
That gives the woman pause. "Miss Claude," she says. "Isn't that your name? I've heard my daughter say it enough times." She sneers and Claude wills herself not to blush at the implied meaning. And here she'd thought she'd been stealthy in her escapades.
"I should report you," she says, defiant.
Mary's mother turns around, a glint in her eye. "But you won't."
Claude crosses her arms. "Give me one reason why."
"One, because you hate the authorities around here. Two, you don't want to draw any more attention to yourself and your activities than you already have."
She doesn't have an answer to that, admittedly.
"Three," the witch goes on, and a small coy smile grows on her face as she looks Claude up and down, as if she can see something Claude can't, "because magic is the only reason you're even here." And she turns again, leaving Claude only a moment to register her words.
"What does that mean?" she asks, but the woman continues walking away into the darkness. Unthinkingly, she goes after her, catching her arm. "Wait. Explain what you meant. How is magic the reason I'm alive?"
Mary's mother hasn't turned towards her, but her shoulders begin to shake. At first, Claude wildly thinks she's crying— but when she speaks she realizes the witch is laughing, wheezing almost in the fervour of it. "Oh, dear," she chuckles, and whips around, so suddenly and so fast that Claude takes an involuntary step back. "You're just going to keep pestering me, aren't you?" She whips her hands out of her cloak, producing a small metal flask out of nowhere, and thrusts it into Claude's arms. "Hmm… Drink this. And all will become clear."
She looks down into the flask, opening the lid. It looks like water. She voices that thought.
"Drink it with the librarian," the witch adds without responding to her comment, and Claude's eyes shoot back up. She's smiling smugly. "The handsome one. Make sure he drinks it too."
"Why him?" Clarke manages. Her heart is thundering. This time, she can't fight the blush rising up her neck.
"Because he's like you."
"Like me?"
"Hmm," the witch agrees vaguely.
Claude looks back down into the flask, gives it an experimental sniff. It doesn't smell like anything. "What is it?"
"The truth," The witch replies mysteriously, but there's a mischievous twinkle in her eye. "Good night, Miss Clarke."
As the witch takes a step back, Claude looks down at it, and back. "You could be poisoning me," she says slowly. "They say… they say witches work with the Devil."
Mary's mother throws back her head and laughs. "For such a supposed rebel, you sure are willing to eat up what they tell you, aren't you? It's not poison." She shrugs. "Even if it was, because of what you are, it wouldn't be able to destroy you."
"I—" She's barely able to keep up with this information. "Destroy me?"
The witch waves a hand in a dismissive gesture. "It could kill you, yes. But destroy you? Nothing can, not really. Well," she mumbles pensively, almost as if to herself, "maybe he can. I'm no expert. Now for the last time, good night, Miss Claude."
She takes another step back, and Claude calls again, "Wait," because she's still got about a million questions, but the witch has seemingly melted into the darkness, gone, and when Claude reaches out to grab her again, her fingers close on nothing but cold evening air.
She stands there for a moment, wondering why she's actually considering tipping the flask back into her mouth. She never knew Mary's mother, but she survived being burned at the stake. That can't be the mark of a good person, can it?
But then she reasons that if people in this town knew what Claude liked to do with girls these days, they wouldn't think she was a very good person either. So fuck them.
Decision made, she takes a long swig from the flask and makes a face. It's like water, but with a slight bitter edge that tingles unpleasantly far back on her tongue. Her vision goes blurry for a moment before sharpening painfully and, swaying on her feet, she turns to head back into the library.
Beau looks up in surprise when she enters. The mayor appears to be long gone, presumably with the transcripts he needed, and he's back to carrying books to their location. "Did you forget something?"
"No," she says slowly, but for some reason, while looking at his face, the answer suddenly strikes her as a lie. "What did Hollis want?"
"Mary's mother's court transcripts," he replies, frowning. "He wouldn't tell me the reason. Seemed serious, though."
Having witnessed what she did, Claude can imagine why.
When she doesn't answer, he tilts his head at her and comes closer. She feels like she can feel his warmth right up against her skin, even though he's standing a respectable distance away. "You okay?" he asks.
Her eyes snap up to his. She doesn't feel much different, actually. The tingling sensation has spread from the back of her tongue to the rest of her mouth and is expanding it's reach— she's tingly all over. But there's no sudden realization. Maybe he has to drink it, too, for it to work. She extends her hand, showing him the flask. "I'm great. Are you thirsty?"
His eyebrows raise. "What is that?" He sounds curious and maybe a little wary.
She debates telling him. But what could she say? That witches were real and she'd just encountered one outside who'd handed her a flask? He hadn't seen it with his own two eyes. He'd think she'd finally lost it, and he wouldn't drink it. He'd probably take it away and throw it out. Throw out her chance of finding out what the hell the witch was talking about.
Feeling like a terrible person, she takes another sip of it and then tips the flask at him. "Why don't you take a sip and find out?" she asks in lieu of answering.
He examines her another minute before sighing. "You're a little young for alcohol," he remarks, a hint of disapproval in his voice, but he plucks the flask out of her hands. She doesn't correct him. She just watches while he takes a long draught of it. He must be more shaken by the whole Mary situation than he wants to admit.
His expression screws up a bit. "That's not vodka."
"No," she replies, watching him closely as he hands it back. He doesn't look any different, or like he's had any realizations. And she feels disappointment settling like a pit in her stomach, because there's no revelation coming to her either. She looks down at the flask and then back up. His dark eyes are regarding her with open curiosity now, and he crosses his arms across his chest. She tries not to notice how the muscles in his forearms are thrown into stark relief.
She wonders if he's starting to tingle as much as she is. "Are you planning on telling me what it is?" he says now, and she thinks she might be imagining it but— is his voice a little deeper?
She opens her mouth but— how would she be able to explain this to him? That Mary's mother was just outside, apparently unharmed from her execution, and a witch to boot, one that had given her a drink that would reveal all the secrets of Claude's past if she only shared it with him?
Because it's done nothing so far. Except given her a buzz. But it's not a buzz that she'd associate with alcohol. "Never mind," she sighs, hoping he'll just chalk it up to one of her eccentricities.
As she watches, he blinks a few times before shaking his head slightly as if to clear it. He clears his throat and looks away from her— there's definitely a blush on his high cheekbones now. She watches with interest as he picks up another book from the cart, turning back towards the shelf. "Claude. What did you just give me?" He asks with his back turned to her, voice carefully measured.
She leans against the table and watches him work. Helplessly, her eyes travel down the length of his lithe body, and all at once she feels that constant tingling centralize in one... very specific place of her body.
Oh.
"I don't know. Someone gave it to me," she hears herself say in a breathy voice. He wheels around, outrage evident, leaving them almost chest to chest in the narrow space.
"You just drank something that someone gave you in the middle of the night—" Claude is too slow dragging her gaze from his lower half and when she meets his eyes, she knows he's noticed.
He licks his lips. "Claude." There's a familiar warning in his utterance of her name, but there's more than that.
There's want.
His deep, ragged voice thrums through her whole body. She's fighting herself with any semblance of control she has left, because suddenly all she wants to do is run her hands down his body—
"Don't," he warns. His hands twitch at his sides. But he's not stepping back.
And she's never been one to step away from a challenge. "I won't," she promises sweetly. His jaw ticks. She wants to put her lips on him; the desire fills her head until there's nothing left in it. He's standing too close. Something like a cross between a sigh and a moan passes her lips, and she rubs her thighs together feverishly.
This time, it's his gaze that shoots downwards, and when it comes back there's no warning in his eyes, just want.
He surges forward, and she's ready when their mouths crash together.
And then they're kissing furiously in the dim lights of the library.
Clarke has always known Beau as a gentle, sweet man. But there's nothing gentle about the way he hauls her closer with a growl or the way her fingers dig into his muscled shoulders, or the way he bites her lower lip to make her open up and then shoves his tongue into her mouth. There's nothing sweet about the way they stumble against the table together and— with a wicked delight she notes— his hands on her waist slide down her back to her ass, squeezing roughly before pulling her flush against him.
God, she can't seem to stop touching him. There's so much skin to get her hands on. She pulls at his shirt as he mouths at her neck, untucking it and sliding her hands under. His hands slide down to the backs of her thighs, lifting her onto the table, nudging her legs apart brusquely with his knee. She can't help but rut against his thigh a bit for the brief moment that it's there, and he groans a curse that only gets her hotter.
And then— there's a flash of light behind her eyelids.
She cries out from the suddenness of it, pulling away from him. He makes a similar sound, wrenching himself away from her and backing away.
And Claude remembers.
Dragging his body up a mountain.
Playing backgammon.
Jumping in front of a sword meant for him.
She remembers her name is Clarke.
The moment she opens her eyes, Beau is staring back, pupils still blown from desire but a different kind of longing in his voice. He's still Beau, but… no. He's Bellamy. "Clarke?" he asks, voice ragged. "Is that really you?"
She's overcome with something clogging her throat, and she can only nod.
He strokes her cheek with his thumb, leans into her. He presses his forehead against hers, looking into her eyes like he can't believe she's there. She imagines she probably has a similar expression on her face.
She tried so valiantly to hate Bellamy in the last life, but he was always there making it difficult. Playing with her son like her child was his own, touching her in that gentle way of his, and defending those robbers from the other generals— trying to be better than he'd been at Kiev. And in those last moments more than any other, she recognized her lover from another lifetime in Belgutei. And there was absolutely no way she could have let him die. Not again.
"Bellamy," she finally whispers. Her hands slide up his chest, up to clutch his collar, to cup the warm skin of his throat, feeling him swallow against her hand.
And then, astoundingly, he buries his face into the crook of her shoulder and starts to cry.
"You died in front of me," he cries, holding onto her like a lifeline. "You died, Clarke."
Tears prickling in her own eyes, she cradles his head and strokes his messy hair gently. "Now you know what it feels like."
He laughs tearfully. "I could've lived without knowing." He straightens a little to kiss her again, sweeter and slower, and she welcomes the feeling of his lips, so familiar as they suddenly are.
They part and he opens his mouth, but Clarke beats him to it. "Roman? Did you— "
He doesn't seem to like the question. "Do you really even have to ask?" He leans in to kiss her again, a slightly biting one that stings against her lower lip. "He was a funny kid. Sharp too. He grew up to be a better man than me." He sounds only proud saying this, but Clarke feels a pang in her chest.
She regrets many of the things she said to him in their past life. She has no doubt that he took care of her son. That's just the kind of person he is. "You're a good man too, Bellamy," she says a little sadly, because she's unsure that he'll ever believe it.
But he just narrows his eyes at her. "Why the hell did you jump in front of Jebe's sword?"
"I couldn't," she tries to say, takes a deep breath and goes on. "I couldn't watch you die again."
"You could've just closed your eyes and saved yourself the trouble."
She ignores his attempt at humour, searching for the right words to express that she couldn't, she just couldn't bear to live in a world without him in it, for the third time in a row. "It hurt too much," she admits quietly.
"I was so angry at you for doing that, you know. For such a long time." He sounds like he still kind of is.
"You're such a goddamn hero," she retorts, rolling her eyes, and kisses him again, just because she can. And then again, just because she wants to. And then it's ferocious all over again, the familiar heat returning to Clarke's belly. She pulls at his belt, bringing him flush against her, and rolls her hips against his. He groans, tipping his head against hers.
"I thought you hated me."
"I was trying to," she says breathlessly, grabbing his large hand from between their bodies, where it's pressed almost indecisively against her lower stomach, and guiding it down to between her legs, simultaneously hiking up her dress. "But I've decided, bygones."
He chuckles low. "Bygones?" He wiggles his fingers against her underwear, and she practically pants. His voice goes gravelly as he touches her through the slick material, light and teasing. "Aw, Clarke, is this all you wanted me for?" Clarke arches her back, hands braced behind her against the desk, and he takes the opportunity to press his mouth to her neck. Excitement is mounting in her, just at the impact of his talking— she hasn't had him in so long, and the time separating them has done nothing to stop her attraction to him. He runs the edge of his blunt nail against her through the fabric, and she can't help but thrust into his hand. He laughs against her skin, free hand sliding up her back, and then—
He stops.
He pauses in his assault of her throat, and his fingers pause in their teasing, and she whines, thrusting her hips shallowly into his palm.
"Come on, Bellamy—"
He pulls away, leaving her flushed and confused on the desk.
He looks equally flushed and bewildered, hair rumpled from Clarke's ministrations. She can't help but feel a little smug, but far less so when he takes a step back, the hand that was up her skirt just moments ago now flexing at his side. "I can't do this." He sounds pained.
She follows him, pressing against him and palming his bulge that's evident in his pants. "Are you sure?"
He pushes her hand away with a choked sound. "Stop, Clarke. I've got someone in my life already."
Jane.
Clarke feels suddenly rather like she's been doused in cold water. She stares at him, at his swollen red lips, his messy hair, his shirt halfway unbuttoned and untucked, and feels a terribly heavy guilt start to pull at her stomach.
"I…" The urge to throw up rises up her throat, and she takes a step back.
He watches her reaction, his dark gaze full of nothing but conflict whereas only a minute ago it was only joy. "Clarke," he says, and his voice is low and steady and sad, "I love her."
"Do you love me?" The words fly out of her mouth before she can stop them.
He levels her with a flat look, because they both know how selfish that question is. "Did you love me, in the last life?" She opens her mouth to say yes, but he goes on. "Did you let that stop you?"
She closes her mouth.
"Fuck, Clarke," he sighs. "I… I've always wanted to be with you, but you said it yourself— the people in our lives matter."
He's right. The people that they live with matter just as much as the two of them do to each other. And that just makes it a whole hell of a lot more complicated. Clarke can't believe another woman now has a claim on Bellamy— on part of his heart— when she was there first. And she knows that's such a childish way to think but she can't stop herself.
There's also a frightened part of her that wonders— just because he loved her first, doesn't mean that she's the one he was meant for. After all, in their first life, theirs was an arranged marriage they both accepted as duty; the feelings came later.
Maybe the feelings were only conditional on situation. Maybe Jane is just a better match for him. The thought makes her stomach curdle.
Bellamy rubs his face with a hand, and she crosses her arms and closes her legs tightly, trying to ignore whatever leftover throbbing is there. It's almost a little ridiculous how affected she is—
Her eyes fall on the flask, now abandoned on its side on the table, and it all clicks.
She must have made some kind of noise, because Bellamy looks at her sharply. "What?"
"Witch," Clarke manages, pointing at the flask. "A witch gave me that."
His eyes widen. "A— a real witch?" He sounds dubious, and Clarke reminds herself she's the only one of the two of them who's had any real encounters with magical creatures.
"Mary's mother," she explains. "She survived the execution. That's probably why Hollis was so panicked. She said it'd… help us understand our pasts, but it just made me want to…" her voice dies away, a little embarrassed. She's having vivid memory flashes from another life of his lean, tan body moving over hers.
"I get it," Bellamy he cuts her off, voice strained. The throbbing between her legs intensifies at how gravelly his voice is. She has a feeling he's being assaulted with the same visions. She closes her legs tighter.
"It was just to get us to kiss." Her lips tighten. "In a twisted way." Which fits well with what she knows of these magicians, seeing as how granting wishes in a twisted way is how she and Bellamy ended up in this situation in the first place.
Apparently Bellamy is thinking the same thing. "What is it with you?" he mutters. Her head snaps back up.
"Excuse me?"
"Why can't you just leave things alone?" He looks frustrated. "Now we're stuck in this situation again—"
"How was I supposed to know—"
He sounds agitated. "I cheated on my—"
"Don't put this on me, you kissed me back—"
He slams his fist against the bookshelf, making it shake. "Dammit, Clarke!" Clarke doesn't bat an eye as he glares at her. "I swear to God, sometimes I really wish you'd just let us both die the first time."
Silence.
His words hit her harder than she would've thought. Probably because she's thought the same. Because now they're stuck in this world forever, in a world that seems determined to keep them apart, and that prospect seems more hellish than whatever is waiting for her in the afterlife.
Her surprise must show on her face, because Bellamy's eyes soften, but he doesn't take the words back. Clarke puts her hands on her hips and narrows her eyes. "Fuck you, Bellamy."
His lips twist into an ugly smile. His gaze is hard again. "Not in this lifetime, princess."
That does it. She turns on the heel and leaves the library without looking back, taking care to slam the door as hard as she can.
She's nearly in tears as she walks furiously down the darkened path to the village.
Not in this lifetime, princess. The words, designed to grate on her nerves, do their job, and she stomps down the path with even more anger than before. She hates him. No, she hates this situation. He's not making it any better.
A thought occurs to her as she passes the street that leads to Mary's old house. Her steps falter.
She twists on the heel and starts going in a different direction instead.
—
The windows of Mary's house are dark, but Clarke hesitates barely a moment before striding to the door and pushing experimentally.
It doesn't budge. Clarke gives a look around the street— it's pretty abandoned at this time of night— and hip-checks the door with all her might. It finally gives, letting Clarke stumble inside.
Moonlight streams into the living room she enters, and it takes her a moment for her eyes to adjust. When she does, she clears her throat and whispers, "Hello?"
Silence.
"I know you're here," Clarke adds. She has to be. Where else would Mary's mother go? She'd be looking for—
"Where's my daughter?"
Clarke wheels around. In a corner of the room near the window is the witch. She looks disgruntled.
"Mary?" Clarke shrugs. "I'll tell you if you do something for me."
"Don't play with me, girl."
Clarke scoffs. "That's kind of rich of you to say, don't you think?"
The witch cocks her head, examining Clarke for a moment, before a wicked smile crosses her face. "Oh, you took the potion— Excellent. Reunited at last?" There's a sly, lecherous glint to her eyes.
It brings a scowl to Clarke's face. "That was a sick thing for you to do."
"No thank-you's?" The witch shakes her head. "Ungrateful, Clarke."
Clarke reels in her next retort with some difficulty. She's not here to exchange snappy comments. "The djinn that made us reincarnate did something else to us, didn't she?"
The witch stares at her in surprise— finally, finally caught off guard.
"What makes you think something like that?" The witch finally asks.
Clarke scoffs. "Because what are the chances of this happening to us over and over! Something always happens that keeps us apart. It's happened too many times to be coincidence now. The djinn must've put a curse on us, too. I want you to remove it." She lifts her chin defiantly.
Mary's mother studies her and laughs. "Oh, you sad child. You're actually serious." She leans forward conspiratorially. "Has it ever occurred to you that life itself is the curse?"
Clarke stares back. "That's ridiculous."
The witch shrugs. "Believe it or not, it's coincidence." She examines her fingernails. "I mean, you could easily kill his pretty fiance and have him all to yourself. There's no curse at work, just your own choices."
"I don't believe that," Clarke says adamantly.
"You don't want to," the witch corrects, straightening. She appears bored of the conversation already.
"I still need answers. Don't you dare leave again," Clarke hisses, taking a step forward. The move throws her into the moonlight streaming through the window, and the witch all at once pales, eyes widening.
"What?" Clarke asks, uneasy. The witch's mouth has dropped open as she takes in something Clarke can't see.
"Your aura," the witch manages. "I… I didn't notice…" She sounds shaken.
"Tell me what it is!" Clarke shouts, tired of being toyed with.
"I don't know!" The witch says, sounding almost panicked. "I didn't think that my potion would… it looks as if your djinn's magic is incompatible with mine. It did something to you. I don't know what. I don't," she reiterates when Clarke takes another step forward. "But something is different about you. That's all I know, truly. Now please, tell me where my daughter is."
Clarke can tell the witch is telling the truth for once— there's no slyness to her tone now, she's caught off guard and genuinely so. Still, she debates withholding the information.
In the end, she says, "I'm only telling you so that Mary can have her mother back." The witch nods rapidly, and Clarke tells her where Mary and her father have moved to.
"Are you sure you don't know anything about what you saw in my— my aura?" she asks again afterwards.
The witch shakes her head slowly. "Best of luck, Miss Clarke." And then she disappears. Literally, she disappears into the shadows, leaving a lingering cloud of smoke stirring at Clarke's feet and her last words: "I have a feeling you'll need it."
—
Clarke is uneasy after the witch's last words. She comes back to Mary's house the next day, hoping to run into Mary's mother, but she has no luck. It looks like the witch isn't coming back.
With nothing much else to do, she lays low for the next few days, only half paying attention during the witch trials, which are continuing in a frenzy.
But she can't stay away from Bellamy for long. Eventually she finds her feet carrying her back to the library.
She enters, and though the candles flicker their hello, no one appears to be there. "Bellamy?" she calls, taking further steps in. There are books piled messily on the table. A thin layer of dust on his workbench. He hasn't had an assistant around for a week, but it's not like him to leave things in disarray like this.
She calls his name again and gets no response. She's about to leave when she's seized with a sudden hunch, and makes her way to the back room of the library, where town archives are stored, where Bellamy often used to catch Clarke in inappropriate situations.
She pushes the door open and now she notices the room is dimly lit on the inside by a singular candle. Lounging in the desk chair, with his feet propped up on the table, is Bellamy.
He doesn't look up when she enters, choosing instead to continue staring blankly at the bottle held loosely in his hand. It's mostly empty. Clarke glances to the side and notices several more bottles there.
She puts her hands on her hips and attempts a joke. "I thought I was the alcoholic in our relationship."
His eyes flicker up, no surprise registering in them. Despite all his studious ignoring of her, he'd known the moment she walked into the room. Moment she walked into the library building, probably.
"Times have changed," he remarks somewhat sardonically as he lifts the bottle to his lips. She reaches forward and snatches it from him. His eyes snap up to her in annoyance, but she doesn't care. She doesn't like seeing him like this. "Give it back," he says.
"Do you think Jane would approve of you drinking like this?"
His lips twist into a grimace. Then: "I told her, you know."
That stops Clarke short. It's just enough hesitation for him to grab the bottle back from her hand. She doesn't try to fight him.
"Told her?" she repeats, sorting through that in her head. "You mean…"
He downs whatever's left in the bottle. "I told her what happened between the two of us."
"Why?" Clarke can't help but ask dumbly.
He glares at her. "Clarke, I can't marry her otherwise. She had to know we… kissed."
Clarke swallows this information down with difficulty. "What else did you tell her?"
He resumes staring off into space. "Nothing."
"Just that you cheated on her?" Silence. "You didn't try to tell her why? The potion? Anything?"
"Clarke," he interrupts. "Don't be stupid. And besides, the potions don't matter. Our history doesn't matter. What matters is I kissed you while I was engaged to her, and that's all she had to know."
Clarke rocks back on her heels with a sigh. Although she and him deal with guilt in different ways, she recognizes this as typical Bellamy behavior. Clarke suspects he intentionally told Jane the half-truth— the ugliest part of it— because he felt he deserved punishment, not because he didn't think Jane would believe the whole story.
"So what happened?" She already knows the answer.
"She said she needed time away." Bellamy shrugs, holds up something in his hand. On closer inspection Clarke realizes it's Jane's engagement ring.
Clarke feels that familiar guilt in her gut again. Jane, as far as she can tell, is a good woman. She doesn't deserve this. "She would've understood if you explained, you know. You just made it look worse than it was."
He says nothing.
"She would've wanted the whole truth."
He lets out a snort. "Sure. I'll go right now and tell her you were my wife four hundred years ago and that we've been reincarnated since then, Clarke. That'll go over real well."
That reminds Clarke of what she came here to say, and she abandons the topic to steel herself. He watches wearily.
"You did something," he guesses.
Clarke folds her arms. She tells him. His reaction is about what she expects.
By the time she's finished her story, he's leaning forward, no longer with his boots up on his desk, looking suddenly very lucid. "She said what?"
"You heard me."
"Clarke, you—" He shakes his head, as if unable to fathom the depth of her stupidity, which pisses her off. "Haven't you learned? Why would you even go looking for her again? Witches can't be trusted."
"Trust me, I know," she hisses. "But I wanted answers. And all I got were more questions." She wraps her arms around herself.
"You should've talked to me before you went to her."
Clarke narrows her eyes, but then she realizes he just sounds sad. And she deflates as well. "You're not angry?"
"I should be." He sighs and looks up. "But Clarke, I'm tired of it. I'm tired of fighting with you. And I hate feeling that way."
Despite his gentle words, she feels very small and chastised in that instant. "I'm sorry," she whispers, coming closer to sit on the edge of the desk. "I should've asked you."
"It's okay."
"It's not," she insists regretfully, toying with the edge of her skirt. "Making you drink that potion without telling you where it came from, going to talk to her afterwards— I should have talked to you first. But I just… I want us to have that happy ending, Bellamy. I want that so badly." She shakes her head and swallows. "I'm sorry. This was stupid of me."
"You're not stupid," he responds automatically. But his eyes look at her more softly after her apology. He reaches out a hand suddenly. Clarke stares down at it, how it's outstretched towards her with the palm up. Hesitantly, she looks at him and slides her hand into his. It's warm, calloused, firm against her skin, and she instantly feels calm wash over her. "Whatever happens, we'll deal with it." He squeezes her hand momentarily before letting go.
Watching him resume staring into space, she's suddenly seized with the urge to tell him she loves him. But she keeps her mouth shut. What good would that do?
"I didn't know you liked women," he says suddenly. She's confused until he clarifies, "Romantically, I mean."
She blinks. Oh. Mary. Among others, she supposes. "I didn't know in my first life either," she confesses. "I guess it took me a few centuries to figure out." He nods thoughtfully, not looking at her, and she feels the need to add, "I still like men too."
A wry smile crosses his lips. "Yeah, I figured that part out."
A flush rises to her cheeks. But he's still kind of half-smiling, and she pushes at his shoulder with a huff. The tension seeps away.
—
Time passes, and Clarke still feels bad about what happened. She wants to fix everything somehow, but there's nothing she can do about their current magical dilemma. But maybe there's something else she can do for Bellamy.
She thinks about going to talk to Jane about what happened, but something tells her Bellamy wouldn't take kindly to her meddling in his private life. It's strange to think of it as something separate— because there's a part of her, a part that she doesn't think will ever go away, that still sees him as her husband, someone who shares his private life with her.
"Are you going to wait for her forever?" she asks one night, while she's helping him with alphabetizing scrolls. He's not paying her to do work for him, although he offered. She just wanted to help him out.
He pauses in the middle of scrawling something down, and she realizes her careless wording too late. She quickly tries to gloss over it.
"I mean, when are you going to go talk to Jane again?"
He resumes writing. "I'm not. I'm giving her time. When— if— she's ready, she'll come back."
"What if Jane doesn't want to come back to you?"
"Then that's the way it has to be," he says gravely, throwing down his pen and rolling up the paper to toss into a growing pile of documents to be archived. He reaches for another blank piece of parchment. "I'm not going to chase her when she doesn't want me."
"You think you don't deserve her after what happened."
He looks up from his work to cast her a guarded look, eyes flickering down her body in an almost unnoticeable way, but Clarke knows him too well not to notice. "And you think you're a mind reader now."
Clarke persists. "I see Jane around town a lot, you know. She looks sad." And she also looks pissed when she spots Clarke, but she won't mention that. "She misses you, and you miss her. If you just explain— and let me help— I know you can fix things." The words hurt to get out, but she manages to get them out almost effortlessly, casually even, and his eyebrows rise.
"Do you…" He pauses, then goes on slowly. "You want me to be with Jane?" There's a clear note of puzzlement to his tone, and Clarke's wishful thinking makes her think there's a trace of hurt too.
She delivers her most honest answer, the one that aches the most. "I want you to be happy."
His face changes, from wary to soft. "Clarke." Her name is a caress on his lips, so familiar and rich that it sends an involuntary shiver down her spine. He sighs and runs a large hand through his unruly black hair. She follows the motion with her eyes and she thinks she isn't doing a good job of disguising the hungry look on her face. God, she wants him so badly. She's so preoccupied thinking about him using those hands to spread her thighs apart that she almost misses his meaning when he says, "Do you remember what you said about Mstislav?"
"I— what?" Clarke asks wildly, jerking her gaze away from his hands and focusing back on his earnest expression.
"You said you felt like you were cheating on me with him, even though you were with him first."
She stares at him for a beat and then— oh.
So that's what this is really about. Now she understands— it all becomes clear. That guilt he's feeling— it's not about Jane.
It's about Clarke.
She can't help but feel a little flutter in her stomach at that. But she swallows it down. She can't just jump into his arms, as much as she wants. That's not what he needs right now. "You love Jane, though."
"Yes. All my life."
That hurts more than she cares to admit. "But you love me too."
His voice takes on a deeper, almost desperate quality. "You know I do."
He's looking at her beseechingly now, like he's looking for the answer to a question she didn't ask. He's so, so lost. They both are. A feeling of ice-cold helplessness seeps into Clarke's bones. Why does this keep happening to them?
The door opens, and Clarke takes a step back. So does he. It's only then that she notices how close they've gravitated to each other during their conversation.
It's Jane, she notices with a start. And then— several men. It takes a moment to register, but she recognizes them immediately. They're on the task force of people who have been arresting witches—
"It's her," Jane cries, pointing at Clarke, and Clarke's heart stops dead. "She's a witch, I swear it."
Clarke feels her mouth drop open. She's too in shock to respond, or move, or do anything. It's Bellamy that is the first to react as the men draw closer.
He steps in front of Clarke, arm outstretched as if that alone could shield her. "What is this?" he barks. "Claude's not a witch."
"Move out of the way," one of the men tells him sternly. "There were already two who came forward about this girl's satanic activities. Her neighbour and Johannes Frund, and Jane here was the third, confirming it." Satanic activities? Clarke almost laughs. Johannes Frund has wanted her job as court clerk for years. This shouldn't surprise her, but she's still rooted to the spot.
Bellamy's eyes fall on his ex-fiancee. "Jane, what the hell are you doing?"
The woman holds her ground, lip trembling. "I'm doing the right thing."
"She isn't a witch!"
Jane's eyes fill with tears. "She did something to you. I know it."
"No, she didn't," Bellamy insists, now shoving Clarke totally behind him as the men close in. Clarke fights to get around him—she doesn't want him getting hurt in this process. He doesn't let her. "It was all me. Every mistake— that was mine. Not hers."
But Jane is adamant. "I know you," she tells him, eyes flickering to Clarke and back. "And the Beau I know wouldn't have done what you did. Not in a million years."
One of the men grabs Clarke's wrist, jerking her forward. Bellamy tries to stop them, but he's pushed back.
"Leave it, Bellamy," Clarke finally manages to say, even as she struggles to wrench her wrists out of the man's hands. "There's nothing you can do."
But he pushes forward anyway, thrown back once again. His eyes dart around, at the many surrounding him, and Clarke watches defeat settle into his eyes as he realizes he will be overpowered. "No, don't," he begs. "Please don't punish her. Punish me. Jane."
Jane closes her eyes briefly at his pleading but says nothing.
"She's the witch," one of the men say, "Not you. She's bewitched you. Get some sense into your head and stop making a scene."
Clarke feels like she's seeing this all from very far away. She turns to her captors. "What evidence do they have? I've done nothing wrong," she says in the most haughty voice she can imagine.
"Reports put you speaking to Mary Johnson's mother, a known witch," is the prompt reply. "Leaving the house at odd hours. Exchanging potions. Practicing witchcraft."
Clarke blinks several times. She hadn't thought anyone had seen her. It had been dark out, dammit. Her eyes seek out Bellamy's. He's being restrained now, but she shakes her head minutely at him. Let them think she was bewitching him. At least he won't be targeted if that's the case.
"Alright," she says, lifting her head. "I'm a witch. I confess it." She's not interested in a kangaroo court trial or torture. Her words elicit gasps from the people who've gathered to see the commotion. "I've been— bewitching him." Whatever that means.
"Stop lying," Bellamy bites out at her. There's a wild look in his eyes. "She's not bewitching anyone! Jane," he pleads. His fiance turns away, as if unable to bear the weight of his gaze.
"Execution at dawn," one of them says, finally. Bellamy closes his eyes as if he's in pain.
"I knew it," Jane says, hands on her hips. "I knew you were a witch." But there's no triumph in her eyes; there's a tiny bit of guilt instead. Jane didn't want to turn Clarke in, but she genuinely thought Clarke was bewitching Bellamy. She was trying to protect him. And Clarke can't really fault her for that.
And she can't fault her for thinking that Bellamy would never kiss another woman otherwise. Because he wouldn't. Clarke knows that for a fact. She knows because even before she kissed him in this life, had their memories returned, he looked at her with interest, yes; but a detached interest— because more than anything, Bellamy is loyal. It's one of the things Clarke loves most about him.
Despite her earlier fears of this very thing happening, she strangely feels nothing but calm as she's dragged away.
—
Bellamy tries to fight his way to the execution, but in the end, it's hopeless. In the end, Jane asks several burly men from the task force to keep him away from it. That eventually means knocking him unconscious.
When he wakes up, he's alone on his own bed. He scrambles up and heads to the square, where the executions are held.
He's too late.
It's abandoned now, but the smell of burning is still in the air. His eyes fall on the cross still lying there, charred to a near crisp. If there were remains of her, they've been taken away, but it's like he can smell that, too. Like he can smell the scent of her being carried away by the thick night air.
He walks slowly to where the cross would have stood, where they would have tied her to that wooden stake and set it on fire in the middle of the town. There's blood on the ground.
He falls to his knees and throws up.
—
Somehow, he ends up back at his own house. He's a zombie, sinking into a corner of his room and staring blankly ahead of him, before he hears a rooster crow in the distance and realizes it's a new day. A new morning for everyone except Clarke.
That's when the tears start, and once they start, they don't stop.
And that's how Jane finds him, with his head buried into his knees.
"Oh, Beau," she says softly. "You went to the execution site, didn't you? This is why I tried to keep you away."
He raises his head, glaring through blurry vision. "Get the fuck away from me." He pushes her hand away violently when it reaches for his shoulder. His voice sounds slurred from exhaustion.
"She was a witch, Beau."
"No, she wasn't!" he screams at her, and she blinks at the raw volume of his voice, glances to the window as if maybe the neighbours are listening. He doesn't care. "You got her killed. An innocent woman!"
Jane sinks to her knees in front of him. "Then explain, Beau. Please explain what you mean. I promise I will listen." She sounds sad and desperate too, and he hates that; he wishes it was easier to hate her. But then it occurs to him that maybe if he explained before like Clarke told him, this wouldn't have happened. This is his fault. There's no one to hate except himself.
"Please, Beau," Jane pleads, eyes shiny with tears. "I can't make it right, but I—I don't understand what you mean. Why else would you do that, if she wasn't a witch? I know you. You wouldn't have, otherwise."
Her confusion breaks him. She really thinks he's that good a man.
His chapped lips part and he finds himself talking anyway. He tells her the whole damn story, and she sits there and listens, eyes growing steadily glassier the longer he goes on, until his voice is raspy and he's not even listening to himself anymore, just imagining a pair of blue eyes.
When he's finished, she leans forward and hugs him. He can't find any strength to push her away.
"You—you believe me?" he asks.
"Oh, Beau." She buries her face in his shoulder, and now he can tell she's crying, too. "I'm going to help you."
"What?"
She lifts her head to press her forehead against his. "She really put a strong spell on you to make you believe this."
He stares at her until it sets in. Jane still doesn't believe him.
"Beau," Jane says sternly at his silence. "Claude was a witch. She made you believe that you were lovers. That's what witches do. They mess with your head."
Maybe she's right, a small voice inside him whispers. He shakes his head adamantly. "You're wrong."
Jane grasps his chin firmly and forces him to look at her. "You're the logical one. What's more plausible, that you've been reincarnated for hundreds of years, or there's been a simple spell put on you just once?"
Neither, he wants to say. Neither is plausible, or logical. But she's right about one thing—the simplest explanation is that which he's denying.
He finds himself nodding slowly. "Simple explanation," he mutters wildly. She nods back soothingly.
"That's right. So just—shake it off. Don't let that witch mess with us anymore."
He nods again, rapidly, mechanically. Somewhere in the back of his head there's another voice that whispers he's accepting this explanation to avoid dealing with what he's just experienced. He's running away from the pain. Because he's a coward.
Outwardly, he replies, "I won't."
—
Life goes on, with the constant mantra Clarke isn't real. Clarke isn't real, running through his head.
He goes through the motions in a daze, watching other witch trials happen. It was a witch.
Reshelving books. She put a spell on me.
Kissing Jane at their wedding. It was all a trick.
He's almost at a place where he believes it, too. But then something curious happens.
One day he's trying to pick the tape label off a shelf with his fingernail, but it's too strongly bonded to the wood, and his fingernail is too short and blunt. He stops bothering with it, reasoning that he'll pick it off when his fingernail is long enough to peel it off.
A few weeks later, he goes to pick the label off again, but he still can't. Frowning, he looks down at his thumbnail and stares. It's the exact same shape and length it was three weeks ago. Like it didn't even grow at all. But that can't be right.
He starts noticing other things. His hair, which usually starts sweeping into his line of vision after a few weeks, stays out of his way. It's not growing either.
What Clarke said to him comes rushing back: The witch said something was different about us. That her magic interfered with the djinn's.
As an experiment, when Jane isn't home, he takes a knife from the drawer and draws it over his palm, slicing a shallow wound into his hand. He watches the blood drip into the basin and thus learns he is not invulnerable. The cut scabs over like normal. Maybe this is nothing, he reasons. Maybe his hair and nails aren't growing because of stress.
And maybe you're in denial, a voice at the back of his head whispers. He banishes it. It sounds suspiciously like Clar— like Claude.
—
Years pass. Over time it becomes increasingly apparent what's happened to him. He watches his increasingly older wife come home with new laugh lines, her face thinned. All the while, he remains the same. His hair doesn't grow, his skin feels the same, but he still carries a small scar on his palm from his experiment. He's not invulnerable, but he's not aging either.
It's the day he accepts this that Jane comes home and tells him, "You have to leave."
He looks at her, at her tired face. There's silence for a long beat, punctuated by the distant sound of the neighbour's baby crying next door. He and Jane haven't been able to have a child, and now he's wondering if this is why. If this part of him has halted in its tracks, too.
"Why?" he finally asks.
She swallows. "People are talking about you. How you look like you haven't aged a day."
He knows that. They comment on it all the time. At first it was admiration, but recently it has become laced with suspicion. The witch trials have only grown more frenzied in Valais, and he suspects he's next. "Maybe I haven't," he replies.
"You need to leave town," Jane says, thrusting out a satchel. He stares at it. "Two people have already pointed you out as a witch."
He finds his voice. "I'm not a witch." He looks up. "And Claude wasn't either."
He thinks about her all the time, but he hasn't said her name in years. Jane still winces. "It doesn't matter," she replies, apparently unconvinced. She probably thinks Clarke did this to him, too. "Beau, I love you. You have to leave, tonight. I don't want you to die."
What about what I want? He silently wonders. But his wife is pleading with him, begging him, and her voice cracks, so he takes the satchel and stands up.
"Okay," he says softly. "I'll do it. Just don't cry." He has always hated seeing her tear up. Their relationship was never the same after Clarke, but he eventually came to accept that she did what she thought was right, and incredibly there's still a very real part of him that loves her. There are also very real parts that hate her, and others even that drown out the rest with guilt.
"Get away from here," Jane says, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "Don't come back."
He hitches the pack over his shoulder. "Alright."
Her tearful words are barely distinguishable. "I love you, you know that, don't you?"
"I know."
"Find a way to lift whatever curse she put on you."
He doesn't dignify that with a response, and pushes the door open to walk into the night without looking back.
.
Do not stand at my grave and cry; I am not there. I did not die. —Mary Elizabeth Frye
.
— 1565: CEBU ISLAND (THE PHILIPPINES) —
.
There's a little stone building nestled into a corner of the busiest street this side of Cebu. It's small, but everyone knows it despite barely paying attention to it in their day-to-day activities around the neighbourhood. The paint on the wall is faded, but the word "ORPHANAGE" can still be read quite clearly if one stops to look. Another small wooden sign is propped up in the window, simply saying "TAILOR. ASK INSIDE FOR RATES."
In the open windows, clothes of all sizes hang over a string and wave lazily in the wind to dry. If someone paused to look into the window of the cramped building, they'd see a handsome man, looking to be in his late twenties, hard at work with his forearms deep inside a wooden basin of water, hair plastered over his forehead from the sweltering weather despite the shade inside, and the trace of a smile on his lips; if they strained to listen, they'd find out why— the laughter of children inside.
The man, who now looks away from his work because there's something tugging at his pant leg, is named Bellamy. And although he looks like he's just twenty-something, he's actually much, much older. But no one else knows that.
Presently, Bellamy picks up the little boy who's been vying for his attention, hoisting him in his arms, and tweaks his nose. "And what do you want?" he asks, in a mock-stern manner. "I'm not giving you another piggy back ride. You've filled your quota for the day."
The little boy shakes his head and points in the direction of the living room. "Arwin brought someone home."
Bellamy blinks in surprise. Arwin's seven years old, one of his oldest charges, but still. "He wasn't even supposed to be out." He frowns.
He gets a shrug in reply, but Bellamy lets himself be tugged out of the kitchen to the commons. Gathered there are the rest of his nine kids. They're from all walks of life, ranging from four to twelve, and they wound up at his orphanage in various states, but they all have one thing in common: they've been abandoned in one way or the other.
(He knows the feeling.)
He spots Arwin in the middle of the group of kids, and Arwin spots him.
"Don't be mad, Bellamy," begs the little boy immediately, seeing the stern glint in Bellamy's eyes.
"Arwin, what did I tell you about going out without telling me?"
"I know, I know," Arwin says impatiently, and flings his hand out. "But look, I brought a friend!" Bellamy stares at him hard for another moment before sighing, throwing down his towel and looking down.
He gives an immediate start. It's a little girl— she can't be more than six years old. But all the other kids in the room are now watching the girl with rapt attention. She's an exotic looking thing to them— pale skin, yellow hair.
Bellamy's heart seizes and he can't seem to move his arms or legs. He watches as if through fogged glass as his young charges crowd around the white girl, touching her hair, her pale porcelain skin. She, in turn, stares in wonder at them all, the sea of brown skin and black hair around her.
She reminds Bellamy of someone.
But it can't be. He gave up on finding her a long time ago. That's why he'd settled here in the first place, somewhere he could fit in with the natives, and try to bury all his memories of Clarke along with his heart.
He realizes dimly that Arwin is saying his name, and he tunes back in. "Can we keep her?" Arwin whines. "She was lost. She has no family."
Bellamy manages to unstick the back of his throat. There's no way it's her. Not after all this time. "She's got family, all right. Look at her, Arwin. She's with the Spaniards. Take her back where you found her." Or the colonizers would come looking for her, and they probably would not be happy to find one of their own kidnapped by him.
"She was crying and stuff," Arwin says defensively. "I don't think she knows where to go. And I don't understand what she's saying anyway."
Bellamy sighs and that's when the little blonde girl looks up.
His eyes connect with hers, and he feels like someone's just stabbed him in the gut.
Don't ask him how he knows— but he does. Her blue eyes remind him too much of Clarke. He feels his breath catch in his throat as he studies her. Nothing else is really recognizable about her features— in none of his past lives did he know Clarke as a child. He has no idea what she might've looked like. But then again— she's got the precise shape and colour of Clarke's eyes. He knows that golden-spun hair anywhere. And there's an adorable point to her nose, a faint mole above her lip, a slight cleft in her chin. It all seems like too much coincidence.
It's Clarke, it's got to be Clarke. She reincarnated after all.
He's so caught up in his fascination with her, his sudden feelings of joy that threaten to overwhelm him in the middle of the living room with all his kids looking up to him, that it takes him a moment to realize her blue eyes are glistening with tears. When he does, he's immediately crouching to her level. The other kids get out of his way, stepping back, so that there's a clear path between Bellamy and— and Clarke?
"Hello," he greets her softly in Spanish. He sees her eyes widen at her own familiar language. He knows the language— one of many he's picked up over his life.
"I'm scared," she says tearfully. "I want my mommy."
She sounds so young. Maybe it's just wishful thinking on his part that he can almost hear Clarke's huskier voice under the youth, waiting to spring forth with age. "And where's mommy?" he asks her gently. "If we take you back to where Arwin found you, is she there?"
"No," the little girl says tearfully, looking down at her hands. "I don't know where I am. I just fell asleep and— and I was here." She looks so lost.
"And how about daddy?"
"I don't know," she repeats. A tear escapes her eye, falling down the pale skin of her cheek. Behind her, one of his young charges is still running a few golden strands through her fingers in amazement. Bellamy doesn't exactly blame them. White people are still new to them.
Bellamy sighs. "We'll find your people. In the meantime," he ignores the triumphant glimpse in Arwin's eye, "you can stay with us."
—
Maybe it's a lack of effort on his part, but they don't find her people. So instead, she becomes one of his.
As the following six years pass, Bellamy becomes one hundred percent certain that he's raising a new incarnation of Clarke. It becomes apparent as her face starts to fill out. She's got her own name, but Bellamy slips up so many times, calling her "Clarke", that the other kids start to follow his lead, presuming it's just another endearing pet name he's got for her. And she seems to like the name, too, even insisting he use it instead of her own.
But of course, she does not remember him.
He supposes he could find out pretty easily, just by kissing her lips. But that's a pretty goddamn depraved thing for a hundred and sixty five year old man to do. He's not sure he can ever do that now— he doesn't even know how a young Clarke would handle all those very adult memories of pain and suffering she's endured over many lifetimes. He would be taking away her innocence. But that doesn't stop him from thinking about it, a lot. He just misses her so damn much.
In any case, he spends a lot of time cursing magicians in the back of his head. Fucking djinn, that made them reincarnate seemingly endlessly. Fucking witch, that interfered and made them ageless but not invulnerable. Fucking Clarke, getting killed and going back to the same cycle they've been dancing in for the past few centuries, leaving him alone in immortality.
Now that he knows this is what will happen if someone kills him, he supposes he could just kill himself, following her right back into reincarnation. But he can't do that. Not now. Not now when Clarke sits across from him at the dinner table every night, giggling innocently, chattering away in a mix of Tagalog and Spanish with the rest of them and carefree as a child should be. He would never give up a minute of her company. But sometimes he's seized with the urge. Just—kiss her, awaken her. She'll remember him, and he'll have his best friend back.
But then she'll look up, grin saucily at him with an eyebrow arched up, and he'll realize he has his best friend back already, even if she doesn't remember that she is. And that'll have to be good enough.
—
The story comes out of Clarke gradually, as the years go on—she stowed away on a ship that set sail from Spain. She survived, somehow, as Clarke always does, and found herself here. She says she thinks her father might have been on that ship, but she doesn't know for sure, and as the years pass she finds herself less and less certain of her own story. She was only five years old, after all. She might never be reunited with her real family. Bellamy wishes he was more cut up about it, but he's not.
She's truly one of his family, he muses late one night while she and Arwin are having a heated argument over something or the other in the kitchen. Bellamy just happens to be present when it gets nasty, since he's cooking dinner.
"Quit it," he warns twelve-year old Clarke after she makes fun of Arwin's hair, but he's trying to keep his lips from twitching upward.
"Clarke has a crush on you," Arwin announces as revenge. Bellamy's smile disappears immediately but he continues stirring the pot.
Clarke's reaction is about what he expected. "I do not!" She gasps, looking rapidly at Bellamy.
Arwin isn't done. "She likes your pretty hair, Bellamy. And she's always drawing your arms in her sketchbook—aah!" Bellamy looks up sharply; Clarke, blushing furiously, has pushed Arwin hard, and he stumbles backwards. He puts down the wooden spoon. Time to step in.
"Enough, you two," he says, smoothly stepping between them. "Arwin, stop teasing her or you're cleaning the outhouse for the next week. Clarke…" He can actually feel himself soften as he falls inside her blue eyes. "Don't hit him."
"Or what?" Arwin demands. "Why doesn't she have to clean the outhouse? I mean, everyone knows she's your favourite, but—"
"Enough," Bellamy repeats. "You're both on outhouse duty." They both erupt into protests, and he holds up a hand. "Save it. If you work together, it'll be done faster."
Arwin grumbles and, after casting a last dirty look at Clarke, he slinks away. Clarke hovers. Bellamy doesn't catch her eye, instead choosing to pick up his wooden spoon and resume stirring the pot of chilli.
"I'm sorry," Clarke says in a small voice. He can see in his peripheral vision that her hands are clasped in front of her. "I shouldn't have pushed him. He got to me."
"It's all right." He knows he still sounds disgruntled. Truth be told, having twelve-year-old Clarke's crush on him shoved in front of his face always gets him in a bit of a mood. It brings forth a shit ton of cognitive dissonance he's not prepared to deal with. Ever.
"Please don't kick me out," she whispers. He pauses, confused, and then looks at her again.
There's fear in her eyes. She really thinks he might just leave her out on the street; she still feels like she's living off a favour that he might retract at any time. Somehow, she doesn't realize that she became part of his family the moment she stepped in here.
When he doesn't answer right away, she surges forward to hug him, awkwardly around the side since he's turned towards the stove. "Please. I'll be good."
He's frozen for a moment, then sets down his spoon again. "Clarke." He turns and disentangles her arms from him with difficulty, holds her away from him by the hands so that she has to step back and look him in the eye. He bends slightly; he needs her to see in his gaze that he's telling the truth. "You never have to worry about being kicked out. You've always got a home here with me, do you understand that?"
Her lower lip wobbles and her eyes fill with tears. She nods, and satisfied, he straightens up, letting go of her hands. But then she reaches forward and grabs his hand again. He looks down. She's got an earnest look on her face.
"Maybe it doesn't mean anything to you, but you've always got home with me too," she replies.
His breath catches at her solemn gaze. She is wise beyond her years. Picking up the other meaning in his words, reflecting it back at him. She sees it, even at just twelve years old. She somehow sees how lonely he is.
He loves her in a different way in this lifetime, Bellamy muses. But in some ways, it's the same. Because Bellamy's love for Clarke has always, at its core, been about understanding. And that has never changed. The only thing that changed is the way it manifests in him.
He doesn't say any of that, of course. He doesn't tell her how his love for her only seems to expand with time, filling up more and more space in his heart. So he just squeezes her hand and lets go. "Thanks, Clarke." He means it. "Now go clean the outhouse." She pouts and he can't help but laugh. "You didn't think sweet-talking would get you out of it, did you?"
She smiles back and bats her eyelashes. "I hoped it would."
He shakes his head fondly. "Go help Arwin, Clarke."
She stops at the door. "Bellamy?"
"Yeah."
"I love you," she says with a sigh, in the careless and casual way children do, and Bellamy freezes up again.
But she's waiting for his response, unaware of his inner turmoil. So he swallows down the lump in his throat and casually returns, "Love you too."
Clarke smiles bright, and flounces away, bright and innocent and unstained as she should be. He watches her go, fingers clenched around the wooden spoon. The dark, selfish part of him debates awakening her again. But he pushes it away for the umpteenth time.
It's not worth it. It's not worth losing that carefree smile.
—
IAnd it's not always easy raising her.
She's just as stubborn a child as he knows her to be as an adult.
Like the night some weeks later she just… disappears, and none of his kids seem to know where she is. He's losing his mind with worry and is putting on his shoes to go looking for her when she walks in, calm as you please.
He's on his feet within the instant. There's a small smile on her face, but it disappears at the look in his eyes.
"Where have you been?" he thunders.
"Relax, Bellamy," she says. "I was with Neil." Neil is a boy from the street over, one Bellamy really, really doesn't like, mostly because he looks at Clarke with a gleam in his eye.
"You can't just disappear without telling me!" he shouts at her. "Do you even know how worried I was?" She's silent in the face of his anger, and he realizes he's raised his voice a little more than he usually does. He can't help it, though. It's Clarke. He'll be damned if she dies on his watch again. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers in an attempt to calm down. "It's dangerous at this time of night. Where did you two go?"
"He was showing me around," Clarke says in a small voice.
"I'm not asking again. Where?"
She looks down at her shoes. "Uptown."
His heart stops. "Uptown?" That's where the Spaniards are. That's where he's explicitly forbidden his kids to go. Bellamy may have to deal with the colonizers on a daily basis, but that doesn't mean he'll expose any of his kids to them. It's safer for them all to stay out of sight in the slums.
Especially her. She stands out with her paleness, and the last thing he wants is for her to get noticed by the Spaniard men.
"Bellamy," Clarke pleads, clasping her hands together in front of her. "You never let us go there. I just wanted to see it. I want to see things. And if I never get to see the world, I'd like to at least see a few blocks over."
She sounds near tears and he feels guilty. It's not the first time. He can't really provide much for his kids, except for a marginal amount of safety with him, food, and a roof over their heads. He can't provide them opportunities to grow or to escape poverty, and that breaks his heart.
He runs a hand over his face. "You're grounded."
She's outraged. "But—"
"You're grounded," he repeats, jabbing a finger to the hallway where the kids' rooms are, where he knows probably all the kids are huddled around the corner listening to this conversation. "You deliberately disobeyed me. Extra chores tomorrow."
"You suck," she spits at him, stomping away the way kids do.
"Hey," he shouts after her, "my rules aren't to ruin you guys' fun, it's to keep you safe." Her door slams in response.
He goes back to the kitchen and back to his needlework, starting to worry. If she was seen outside of the slums, word might get to the Spaniards. And then there'll be trouble.
—
Clarke gives him the cold shoulder for a while. He'd be lying if he said it didn't hurt a bit. Even if he's felt it before, back when they were married and disagreed on things. But those arguments always ended with whispered streams of apologies and gentle touches and long passionate nights.
This isn't the same Clarke, of course. This is one of the kids he's raising, and he knows far too well that kids can hold grudges. Roman held a grudge against Bellamy for a very long time following Clarke's death, not that he ever told her that. If Clarke's anything like her son, he's guessing she can probably keep this up for years if she wants to.
The following week, it's Arwin's birthday. So with the small amount of money in his pocket, Bellamy buys some sweets from the market on his way home to share with them, as he always does on the kids' birthdays. And a set of shiny green marbles, because Arwin collects those.
He's just imagining the boy's glee upon receiving the gift when he gets jumped.
It's not uncommon for there to be robbers on this side of the slums, especially when it gets dark, but tonight he's unprepared. At the end of it, he's left spitting blood into the dirt, his money bag and gifts stolen for his trouble.
Testing his jaw gingerly, he picks himself up and continues on home like nothing happened. He'll just take on more work than usual and get more treats for them next week.
Letting himself into the orphanage, he decides he'll just tell them he forgot. They'll be disappointed, but it's better than telling them that he got robbed. That he's not as invulnerable as they like to think.
As always, a bunch of kids come streaming out of the commons to greet him, jumping up and down. They pause in confusion when they see he's empty-handed.
"Did you bring us anything?" one asks eagerly. "Sweets?"
"It's my birthday!" Arwin yells in jubilation, throwing his hands up.
Mask in place, Bellamy opens his mouth to calmly tell them his prepared lie, but then another voice cuts through from the back of the room.
"What happened to your eye?"
He looks up. It's Clarke, standing in the doorway. Confused, he raises a hand to his cheek and realizes his skin is sensitive to the touch and swollen. A quick glance at the chipped mirror on the wall confirms his fears. The robbers have left a visible mark on him, one that will only become more noticeable come morning.
He grits his teeth and changes his story. "It's nothing. I was being clumsy," he tells them. "I fell and everything I was gonna bring went into the mud. I'm sorry. I'll bring you something next week, Arwin," he tells the boy, desperately hoping he won't be too mad.
To his surprise, Arwin just shrugs. His eyes are wide with concern at Bellamy's bruise. "It's okay," he says. A pause. "You should really watch where you're going though."
For some reason, a laugh bubbles up in his chest, out of relief or because the comment is unexpected, he doesn't know. Fondly, he ruffles the young boy's hair. "I'll do that next time."
The kids slowly disperse after learning that there won't be any treats tonight after all. Bellamy retreats to the kitchen, which is essentially his workroom, and sits on the large upside down bucket that functions as his stool, picking up the cloth he's been sewing into a shirt for one of his clients.
He's not a minute into his work when he senses he's being watched. He looks up, and Clarke is standing there, hands behind her back. Her expression is indecipherable.
He clears his throat, unsure of where they stand. "You need something?"
Her answer isn't what he expects. "Do you think we're stupid?"
He blinks. She goes on, sounding furious.
"You really expect me to believe you fell and got a bruise like that?"
Oh. He looks back down at the thread in his hand. "Believe me or don't believe me, but that's what happened." His answer is brusque, and there's silence. He assumes the conversation is over and resumes sewing.
He doesn't realize she's standing right in front of where he sits until her small hand is on his chin, tilting his face up towards her.
She's examining him with a clinical eye, and then her fingers, far too gentle and soft, touch the puffy skin around his eye. "It looks like you got punched in the face, Bellamy."
With her hand on his skin, her voice filled with concern, he can't bring himself to respond. He's not even sure what he'd say.
"You don't have to lie to us to protect us, you know," she tells him, sounding softer than she has in a while. Her fingers continue to stroke his swollen skin. "We're family, aren't we? We share stuff with each other. We comfort each other. That goes for you, too."
He squeezes his eyes shut tightly. Once again, she knows exactly what to say to rip away the barbed wire caging his lonely heart. "I don't want you guys to worry about me," he mutters. Kids should be innocent, and happy, and only have to worry about frivolous things like chores or getting grounded. He can give them that, at least.
He opens his eyes again just in time to see a small sad smile crosses her lips. "We're all you have. If we don't worry about you, who will?"
Unable to bear her compassionate gaze any longer, he catches her wrist and removes her hand from his face. "I will. That's my job." He avoids her gaze, bending down to grab his scissors, but he can feel her eyes on him.
"Too bad," she announces, and he looks back up. Her hands are on her hips. "I already worry about you."
Despite himself, he's intrigued. She sounds like she's thought about this. "You do?"
"Well, yeah," Clarke says. "All you do is sew people's clothes, and buy things from the market for us, and cook food, and, well, you know." She waves a hand around. "House stuff."
A smile tugs at his lips. "What's so bad about that?"
She shrugs. "I don't know. You just don't seem to do much for yourself. I mean, do you have any friends?"
Yes, you, he thinks.
"Don't you have, I don't know, hobbies?"
"You guys are all I need," he eventually answers, and honestly that's pretty true. Since starting this orphanage, he has felt, for the first time in a long time, like he's doing something meaningful. He's happy with that.
Clarke apparently isn't. "There must be more you want."
If only she knew. But he's done with this conversation. It unnerves him a little bit to have young Clarke so easily peer into his soul. "You're right."
She leans forward in anticipation.
He points to the door. "What I want is for you to go sweep the commons floor. You're still grounded, remember?"
—
The tension between them eases after that. That's immediately clear the next day when, after he unexpectedly gets an advance payment for some of his work and decides to head to the market to grab some sweets right away, Clarke pipes up and asks to go with him.
"How old are you?" Clarke asks suddenly while they stroll around the busy square.
Hardly blinking, he gives the standard answer he gives all his young charges when they have asked this question. "Old. Hey, you want more paints?" A vendor on the other side of the square is selling brightly coloured cans of them, and the kids— especially Clarke— love them.
"Yes," Clarke says eagerly. "But don't try to distract me. You didn't answer my question." When Bellamy doesn't say anything, she presses further. "I asked Arwin yesterday. He said you know everyone's birthdays, but none of them know yours, or even how old you are." She examines him, tilting her head. "You look exactly the same as when I met you."
"That wasn't very long ago," he replies lightly.
"It was six years," she shoots back. "And I have a good memory."
"Maybe not as good as you thought." He pays for the paints and a bag of marbles he also sees on the table.
Meanwhile, Clarke continues to look doubtful. Bellamy sighs. He's been keeping a low profile in this town, having lived here close to fifteen years, and people come and go quickly so he rarely has to answer this question from an adult. And when he does start having to, he'll move.
Clarke pouts. "Why won't you tell me? I won't tell the other kids if you don't want me to."
"Why do you care so much?" he asks with exasperation. "You've just spent so much time around me that you haven't noticed me getting older, that's all. I'm twenty-seven." It's a lie, of course, but she looks satisfied at the answer.
"Was that so hard?" she asks wryly.
Bellamy nearly trips over his own feet because she sounds so much like his Clarke in that moment that he's caught off guard, but he manages to right himself at the last moment. Before he can respond, there's a shout in the square, and he whips his head around to look.
The Spanish Governor has entered the square, followed by some of his men. They wear their impressive, colourful uniforms, crisp and neat as always, their pale skin and hair standing out starkly amongst the natives in the square.
Bellamy feels his throat go dry. The governor has never set foot in the slums before. What's he doing here now, after six years of settlement? Even worse, he realizes with horror that he's scanning the crowd as if looking for something. Instantly, he grabs Clarke's hand and backs up.
"What's wrong?" Clarke asks.
"We need to leave," he says curtly. "Now." Just because he doesn't think Clarke has any relation to these people, doesn't mean that he doesn't know what'll happen if they see him holding the hand of a little white girl. They'll take her. No one will ask questions, because she doesn't fit in around here anyway— not really. And he's afraid of what will happen to her.
Clarke doesn't press further, recognizing his scary tone of voice, the one he uses when the kids are being unreasonable. She lets him tug her away, back to the orphanage, before he finally decides they're safe.
"Who are those men?" Clarke asks when they get there.
"I don't know," he replies, then looks at her. "Do you? Do you recognize them?"
She shakes her head. "No… but they look like me. Maybe they know who I am." She sounds hopeful.
"No," he says, nipping that to the bud immediately. She glares at him, stomping her foot.
"Why not?" Bellamy recognizes the yearning in her voice, the yearning to know where she came from.
But he shakes his head. She doesn't understand— she's too young, too innocent to know what might happen if those men see probably the first white girl they've seen in years. "Not yet," he replies, and she delivers him a very poisonous look. He almost laughs because the glare very much reminds him of their first life, when she used to get pissed at him for making decisions in war without her input. It's been happening a lot lately; she's really growing up.
Clarke doesn't seem to appreciate the humour she sees sparkling in his eyes. "Why not?"
"Because they'll take you," he replies, amusement dying at just the prospect. They'll take Clarke from him.
"Because I belong with them?"
"Because you look like them," he corrects her. "There's a difference."
She crosses her arms. "It sounds to me like you just don't want me to meet people who might know my family."
He can't even deny this because that's partly true. She must see that in his eyes because she huffs in disgust. "I don't understand you."
He watches her walk away. Her dismissal makes something in his heart twinge, but it's okay. As long as she's safe.
—
She's not safe. Word hits the street in the following days that the Governor's men are looking for a little girl with blonde hair.
"It's his daughter," the man who owns the flat next to the orphanage explains to a very shocked Bellamy. "The Governor's second in command has been missing his daughter for years, and found out from letters from his wife that she wasn't in Spain. Apparently she stowed away on his ship and came here. Then she disappeared, and was seen a few streets uptown a while back." He misreads Bellamy's shock. "Guess we know where your mystery white girl came from. You can give her back. With a little extra money on your hands, maybe."
Bellamy recovers. This is all Neil's fault, really, for taking Clarke up there. He squashes the sudden desire to strangle him the next time he sees him and focuses on the immediate problem. "Do they know?" he asks urgently. "Do they know I have her?"
A shrug. "Everyone knows that girl around here. They're bound to find out eventually. You'd best deliver her to them before they come knocking."
Indeed. The sinking feeling in his chest constricts Bellamy's breath as he enters the orphanage, stopping at the door. Clarke is reading a book aloud while sitting on the floor, one of the other girls resting her head on her shoulder to listen. Some of them are running circles around the room, chasing each other, so used to Clarke's soothing voice filling the silence that they barely hear it.
Bellamy suddenly finds himself leaning very heavily against the doorway. Taking Clarke away won't just affect him.
Clarke chooses that moment to look up, meeting his eyes. Her gaze turns frosty and she looks back down deliberately. She's still irritated at him for not being allowed to talk to the Spaniards.
"Clarke," he says softly. She looks up again reluctantly, pausing in her story. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"
She sighs and gets up, leaving the book on the floor for the other kids to pour over, and follows him to the kitchen. When he turns to look at her, she crosses her arms, expectant.
He doesn't meander around the topic. "I think I found your father." Her mouth opens in shock, but he presses forward. "I'll take you to him, if you want. Do you want that?" He feels a little desperate asking that question.
Her answer makes his heart sink like a stone. "Of course I want to see my father," she says. "How—how do you—?"
"He's been looking for you," he says curtly. "You were seen uptown with Neil. But look, you have to understand. If I take you to him, he'll want you to go with him. You won't be able to stay with us anymore."
She looks disappointed, but brightens again. "I can visit, though."
She looks so hopeful, so naive; he swallows. "I don't think so, Clarke."
"You don't know my father," she says stubbornly, crossing her arms. "I'll get him to listen to me. I can live with him, and I can visit you."
He thinks she might be wrong, though. She's spent the majority of her life living at the orphanage after all. She doesn't really know her father after six years of no contact with him. And Bellamy doesn't trust the Spaniards, not at all.
But it's not right of him, he decides, a lump growing in his throat. It's not right to take her away from her family, her birthright, because he's too selfish to let her out of his sight.
"Alright," he relents.
—
It doesn't take long for Clarke to gather her things. She excitedly tells the other kids the news, that they shouldn't worry and she'll be back within the hour to visit, and it makes his heart ache.
He takes her uptown, to the Governor's main office, clutching her hand all the way. The moment they're spotted, a ripple of murmuring erupts from the Spaniards gathered around. They're ushered inside, and that's when the trouble starts.
She's ripped away from him inside the room by one. Another Spaniard has his sword to Bellamy's neck. He stands completely still, hands raised in a placating gesture. He doesn't take his eyes off Clarke.
"Claire," says one of the men, delighted, reaching for Clarke. She recoils, looking terrified suddenly.
"Let him go!" she cries. "Who are you?"
He frowns. "I'm your father."
Clarke looks at him, really looks at him, and some part of Bellamy hopes she'll announce that nope, he's not, but instead he sees recognition dawning in her eyes.
"It's really you," her father says, sounding tearful. "Oh, Claire. Your mother will be so happy to see you again."
"I don't want to go back to Spain," Clarke protests. She's ignored.
"We were all so worried, you know. To find you alive is a miracle."
Clarke jerks her head at Bellamy, who's pressed against the wall. "It's because of him. He's taken care of me. Please leave him alone." Her voice goes squeaky, but she holds her ground. "He's a good man."
Her father wrinkles his nose. "You don't know what you're saying."
"You don't know what you're saying!" Clarke retorts. "Please let him go."
Her father studies her a moment and nods at the man who's holding Bellamy. The sword falls away from his throat and Bellamy releases a breath. Clarke turns back to her father.
"I mean it. I'm not going back to Spain. I love this place. Please, please let me stay here with you."
He considers her for a long moment, and Bellamy holds his breath, almost daring to believe—
Clarke's father nods at his men. "Take her away. Get her on board the ship." Clarke screams, fighting against them, and Bellamy surges forward automatically at her cries, only to be held back by the sword again. He sags in defeat. This is it. The last he's going to see of her.
"Wait, wait," Clarke sobs. "Let me— let me say goodbye." Her father looks skeptical. Clarke turns on her doe eyes. "Please, Daddy. He raised me."
Her father's eyes soften slightly, and he nods at his men. As soon as she's released, Clarke flings herself at Bellamy. He barely manages to catch her around the waist, pulling her close to him in a hug while terribly conscious of the eyes on them.
Clarke tucks her nose into the crook of his neck. He can feel her hot tears on his skin, and thinks it's a wonder he's not crying himself.
In fact, he sounds astoundingly even when he murmurs, "Don't try to escape." That actually gets her to lift her head off his shoulder, startled, and he meets her gaze steadily.
"How'd you know I—"
"Because I know you, Clarke," he interrupts. If only she knew how true that statement was, beyond the surface level of it. "But this time, don't do it." He jerks his head towards the Spaniards. "You come from money, you know. They can offer you a better life than I ever could here. More opportunities." It's the truth, every ugly word of it. He wishes he could come with her to Spain, but he's got about ten more kids behind him who need him more. He can't abandon them now.
"I don't want more opportunities." Her hands tighten around his shoulders, voice muffled against him. "I want you."
Her murmured words have his heart beating erratically, but he responds evenly, "And I want you to live."
Her eyes swell with fresh tears. "Bellamy—"
He gently extricates her arms from around him. It feels like the hardest thing he's ever had to do, and he feels a pang of regret at the flash of hurt he sees on her face. "Go." He nods at the Spaniards, and they come forward to grab Clarke's arm again.
She wrenches her hand out of their grip. "I'll write you," she says, voice breaking. "I'll— I'll— I'll come back. This is all a misunderstanding."
"Forget it," Bellamy tells her. "Listen to your father."
She replies fiercely, with tears spilling from her eyes, "I will never forget about you."
Despite her fervency, he somehow knows from the uneasy shifting of her father that he will never receive a letter. And he has a feeling that in several years, when all his orphans are off on their own and independent so that he finally gets a chance to follow her, he won't find her. Not in Spain, not anywhere.
But Clarke's looking at him desperately, searching for reassurance. He can't walk away with giving her that, so he just smiles and tells her the painful truth. "Me neither."
.
May you live forever. —Clarke Griffin
.
— 1700: THE ISLAND OF MADAGASCAR —
.
There's a well-known pirate tavern in Madagascar. tonight, there's quite the stir there.
Most nights, it's home to tired sailors, or drunken stragglers from the port. But tonight, the small establishment is packed to the brim with a loud and boisterous crowd gathered, the liquor flowing freely. This kind of stir at the tavern only ever means one thing: the owner of the tavern is in town tonight.
He is a well-known pirate who, along with Thomas Tew, practically established the Pirate Round, an elaborate circuit that has now become popular among pirates looking to pillage ships passing to or from India on the Red Sea. Presumably occupied with his own riches, he is hardly ever present at the tavern he helped establish.
But tonight he is, throwing back shots and surveying the crowd in front of him.
He's got tan skin, freckles you can't see in the dim lighting, inky dark hair curling against his forehead, and even darker, long-lashed eyes. But what makes him attractive is the sense of mystery around him— the twinkle in his gaze, the curl to his mouth, the confidence with which he walks. Even the gleaming hook where his left hand used to be contributes to his allure. Unsurprisingly, he's the object of many wanton stares in the room, and he returns the attention gladly tonight, dancing with many of the admirers to the music his live performers provide.
One dancer in particular seems to capture his attention.
He stops on his way to the bar when he sees her. She wears a loose, silky white dress, no doubt made from material stolen from Moorish ships. She's swaying her hips in the middle of the dance floor, arms raised above her head, and she's got a few admirers of her own. She cuts an impressive figure in more ways than one, and the tavern owner follows her movements with a hungry gaze. Eventually he sets his drink down on the bar and approaches her.
Closer up, it's easier to see her hair is long and wavy and red and he pauses for a fraction of a second before continuing on, boldly entering her personal space from behind. The woman, still shrouded in the darkness of the tavern, senses him and, still dancing, steps right into his arms. Taking the invitation, he places his right hand on her hip. She arches into his touch, tipping her head back against his shoulder.
They dance like that for a few minutes, until the woman reaches behind her, urging his lips down to her neck. He complies, mouthing at her skin, his hand raking a fiery path down her side in a way that would be absolutely appalling if they were in proper public.
She sighs, the sound low and husky in her throat, and he pulls her flush against him, wrapping his other arm around her waist completely to draw her in close. He's entranced by her, the way she moves, the way she sounds, and the way her lazily closed eyes finally open, revealing irises bluer than the sea.
He's got no time to react because she suddenly lifts an arm and the pirate feels the cold metal of a gun being pressed to his temple. He stops in his movements. So has she. Dimly, they're both aware that the music has stopped, the performers in confusion. The pirate looks up, unheeding of the gun pressed to his head, and sees all his workers held up in similar positions by women. All women with streaming red hair. It clicks in his head at the same time that the woman holding him captive in her lethal embrace smiles triumphantly at having held him and his crew up at his own bar.
"Hello, Bellamy." She slowly extricates herself from him and gestures for him to get on his knees. He complies, putting his hands behind his head and watching her attentively.
His mouth breaks into something of a wry grin. "The Griffin," he says her name, or at least the title of the infamous female pirate in front of him. His voice is deliciously low, sending sinful shockwaves down her spine, but it still carries over the now quiet room as everyone watches. "In mythology, it's the name of the king of all beasts. You still going by that name?"
Griffin bristles, knowing he's taunting her. He's the one who, many years ago, gave her the idea for the name himself. "Queen of all beasts," she corrects, nudging at his head with the gun. He ducks it obediently. "Including yourself. So kneel." She tsks, trying not to let on how his mischievous eyes put her off. She's got him in a bad position, so why does he look like he's got all the cards in his hands?
"More like princess," he muses.
She pushes the gun harder against his head to indicate she doesn't like that, then reaches behind her own head and pulls her wig off, letting her tousled hair, yellow as a lion's mane, fall over her shoulders wildly. "I put on a red wig, and you don't even recognize me. You're so shallow."
He delivers another rakish grin. "Who says I didn't recognize you?"
She stares at him, willing herself not to blush at the memory of the way they had just danced pressed up against each other. And at the knowledge that, beyond reason, she had liked it. She dismisses the troubling thought as soon as it comes. There are more pressing matters at hand. "You're a pig, but that's not news." She sniffs. "I think you know why I'm here."
He looks around. "I have a few ideas. Especially since you've brought your crew." Bellamy looks back up at her, and disbelievingly she recognizes pride in his dark eyes. "I hear you call yourselves the Sirens now. Luring men to their deaths, and taking all their treasures."
His eyes on her are, as always, unnerving; somehow she gets the sense that he's staring right into her soul. Her breath catches, and she's almost ensnared in his heady gaze, at least until his eyes flicker down blatantly to her lips, and she catches the longing in his expression. That snaps her out of it real quick.
She still remembers when she first met him, several years ago when she was barely a woman, and he caught her eye— it had been in Madagascar, when she was working in one of the shops on the shore and he was a famous pirate stopping for supplies. He'd stopped when he saw her, and he'd strode straight towards her like he was on a mission, and tried to kiss her, without greeting her, without speaking, touching her like she was his.
That really hadn't been a good start to their relationship. She'd managed to jerk out of the way just in time. Then she'd slapped him across the face for his trouble while he was stammering and stomped away. He found her at her work later, looking much more chagrined, apologizing and asking her if he could make it up to her with a drink. She'd accepted against her better judgment, and every time she'd found herself becoming entranced with him, he'd look back down at her lips with that look on his face and she'd remember what a pig he clearly was.
She realizes belatedly he's studying her, too, now, eyes dragging up and down her body. "You've grown," Bellamy remarks. She puts her hands on her hips, unyielding to his lecherous gaze.
"You haven't grown at all," she retorts, and he laughs lowly.
"You have no idea," he replies finally. His voice is still light, but there's an edge to it. It's one of those complexities about Bellamy she has never quite been able to unravel, from when they met to when they became rivals on the Pirate Round. "So, princess—"
Her lips tighten at the nickname. "Griffin."
"Princess Griffin," he amends with a twinkle in his eye. "How can I help you?"
"You're already helping me," she replies, gesturing to all Bellamy's crew members who, like their captain, are stock still under the weapons held against them. "By staying put. As we speak, my people are raiding your backrooms." His smile fades slightly, urging her on. "Yes, we know all about the treasure you keep around your tavern. Eyes up here." She shoots at the ground near his knee, eliciting gasps from the watchers. Bellamy doesn't flinch, but he does drag his gaze from her lips back to her eyes.
"Sorry." He doesn't sound like it.
She's had enough, and casts a glance behind her. Now that the tavern is at her mercy, her red-haired Sirens have begun dragging out his chests of silk and gold from the backrooms. At her glance, one of them looks up.
"Almost done, ma'am," she's told. Griffin nods curtly and turns back to Bellamy. Looks like she has to entertain him a bit longer if she wants to rob him completely blind.
"How'd you lose your hand, anyway?" she asks him, eyeing his left arm, where his hand used to be. "I'm pretty sure you had both when I first met you." He doesn't answer right away. She can't help but taunt him a bit. "Did a woman finally do something about you putting a hand on her ass unsolicited?"
That gets a response. He gives her a hard glare. "I'm not like that."
She scoffs, not even dignifying that comment with a response. "What then? In a fight?"
His eyes are now on her Sirens, still traipsing out of his bar holding heaps of the treasures that he's accumulated over the years. She kind of relishes the exasperation in his eyes. "No," he merely replies. And then, abruptly: "Why are you stealing my treasure, Griffin?"
She's almost startled by the question. It's out of left field. The obvious answer is on her lips: Because we're pirates, that's why. And there's no honour among thieves. Bellamy should know better than to keep this big a stash in his tavern with so little security, anyway. It'll be a lesson for him. But instead she finds the truth falling from her lips. "Because I need it."
She chastises herself immediately for saying that, but he looks up sharply, heedless to the gun still pressed to his head. "Why? What happened?" She doesn't say anything, but he somehow deduces it anyway. "Someone's stolen from you."
Her hand tightens around her gun.
"You're desperate," he continues, eyes narrowing. "You're indebted to someone. They want their share, and you're trying to get it to them. Through any means possible."
"Shut up," she hisses, hearing the restless stirring of her Sirens around her. Her finger tightens at the trigger. He doesn't seem to fear the gun pressed to his head. If anything, he almost leans into it.
As she's trying to puzzle out what that means, he says suddenly, "Let me help."
"Help?" she repeats, dumbly. He nods. She would say he looks concerned for her, but she knows better than that. She shakes herself and glares. "I didn't agree to a parlay."
He ignores that. "I've got intel that there's a Moor ship sailing through the Round carrying silk and spices. Not to mention gold and silver and jewels. Headed for Europe. At least, until we stop them."
Griffin is barely keeping up and finds herself irritated at his wording, as if she's already agreed to this plan. "You're just saying this so I won't rob you."
"What I have stashed in the tavern isn't enough to pay back all your debt," he replies, somehow deducing this correctly, and she finds herself sweating. How does he do it? How does he look into the poker face she's perfected and somehow see what she's really thinking behind it? "That ship, on the other hand..." he eyes her. "How much do you owe them?"
She doesn't know why she tells him, but she does. His eyebrows raise at the hefty amount but he doesn't comment on it.
"That ship's got three times as much as you need," he tells her. "It's heavily guarded, but that won't be a problem with both of our crews working together. We split the profits and both go away happy." He licks his lips. "You in?"
She's silent.
The whole room is silent, actually, as if waiting on bated breath for the infamous Griffin to make her decision. But she isn't sure. The logical part of her says she shouldn't trust Bellamy.
But there's something about him… something she does trust. It might get her in deeper trouble, but instinctively she chooses to listen to it for now. "I keep your loot for now," she tells him. "As insurance. If we get to this ship you're talking about, you get it back." He nods. She lowers her gun. He breathes out and immediately springs up from position.
"Good, because I need it," he says. She scoffs.
"You're the richest pirate this side of the world. Whatever you have stashed here is only a fraction of what you have. What could you possibly be doing with all your wealth?"
He doesn't answer right away. "I'm retiring from the pirate life. I need all the money I can get."
"Retiring?" she repeats with a laugh. He looks young and attractive as ever, not that she'd ever admit it. "You're not that old."
He sends her a humorless smile and straightens, adjusting his collar. "Are you going to get your crew to back down from mine? They're not going to be much help on this mission if they're dead."
Clarke casts a look around and realizes her Sirens have still been dutifully keeping everyone else at gun or swordpoint. She waves a hand at them, and they relax. She turns her gaze back to Bellamy, just in time to catch him staring blatantly at her lips again. She tries to muster up disgust, but she can't; instead her face feels hot. She takes a step back from him. They're standing too close. "I guess we'd better plan," she tells him pointedly.
He snaps his eyes back to hers, and there it is again— that longing. She supposes she must be the only conquest of his that hasn't fallen right into bed with him. Maybe he sees it as a challenge. But it's more than that, isn't it? Because there's pain in his expression too. It makes him look older than he is. She doesn't understand it.
That look fades after a moment, and she's left looking back into the bottomless dark brown eyes of the Bellamy she hardly knows. "After you," he replies, sweeping his hooked hand in a gesture to the bar to sit down, and that's the start.
—
They set sail a week later, hoping to catch the ship as it passes Madagascar so they won't have to travel as far.
She and Bellamy bicker a lot over who's going to be captain, prompting the eye-rolls of their now joined crew. After they've finally settled on a co-captain agreement, Griffin marvels at the strangeness of having a co-ed crew. Bellamy's crew is comprised mainly of men, with one or two women in the mix; the majority are natives of Madagascar, loyal to him for some reason or another. Her crew, on the other hand, didn't get its name— Sirens— for nothing. It's a little jarring to be on a boat with a bunch of men, and she wonders if it will be a problem. But Bellamy addresses that with an announcement on the very first day.
"Right, listen the hell up!" He commands their gathering crew from where he's hanging on the ladder. "I'm your captain—"
"And so am I," she interjects pointedly. He spares her a glance and a slow, apologetic smile.
"I was getting to that," he tells her, amused. Then he raises his voice again. "I'm your captain, and so is the Griffin here. We will both be addressed that way. Her crew is part of our crew now. And if I see or hear about any kind of harassment between anyone—" His voice takes on a very dangerous note, "there'll hell to pay. Got it?"
A silence has fallen over their people, and Griffin can imagine what they're thinking. Bellamy looks absolutely murderous suddenly, and capable of it. She finds herself wondering, not for the first time, what kind of life he's had.
—
It's smooth sailing for a while, or at least as smooth as it could be with Bellamy around. Bellamy makes it his business to pick some kind of fight with her every morning. And while she shouts at him, he lounges against the railing, looking like he's enjoying every moment. It only infuriates her more.
She's telling this to her first mate, a Siren named Willow, who looks like she's trying to repress a smile.
"What?" Griffin asks, annoyed, crossing her arms.
"Nothing." Willow pales under her brown skin at the glare the Griffin sends her. "I mean, are you sure you're not enjoying it too?"
Her mouth drops open. "What?"
Willow is saved from answering because Bellamy chooses the moment to saunter out of his cabin, wearing a billowy white shirt that complements the rich tone of his skin perfectly, and hair a perfect mess. He looks like he just rolled out of bed, and looked good doing it.
He looks her up and down, yawning. Irritated at how attractive that jawline looks, she snaps at him, "Finally up?"
"You make it sound like it's noon," he protests, but again there's that amused glint in his eye. It never seems to leave. It's like he treats life as a big joke.
"The sun has been up for half an hour already," she tells him, crossing her arms.
"My mistake, then."
She glares at him. "If you're asleep when we encounter the cargo ship, your unconscious body will be the first cannon fodder I throw at them."
He barks a short laugh. "I'll hold you to that, princess." And then he goes on his merry way, strolling past them to go talk to some of his crew standing by the ship's mast.
"See?" Willow says when he's out of earshot. "You just did it again."
Griffin looks at Willow, still feeling residual irritation. "Did what?"
"Tried to start a fight with him," Willow says. Griffin stares at her. "You know, if you enjoy his company that much, you could just go have a drink with him like a normal person."
She's affronted. "I don't enjoy his company."
Willow shrugs. "Whatever you say, captain." And then she saunters off, too, leaving the Griffin staring off into space and steaming for no particular reason.
—
She tells herself that Willow doesn't know what she's talking about, and yet.
A day later, she finds herself in the canteen in the evening, when she knows Bellamy is usually there, having a drink with his crew members.
They've already had a few, she can tell it when she enters and a few of his men whistle at her. She'd just taken her coat off before walking in, and she knows her cleavage is nothing to scoff at; still, she simply rolls her eyes and strolls to the bar, but not before she hears Bellamy say, "Leave her alone."
She whips around, drink in hand. Surrounded by his drunken mates, he's lounging at one of the tables, feet kicked up on it and his eyes fixed on hers. "Oh, am I all yours to harass, is that it?"
Bellamy doesn't answer right away. She's about to turn away when he quietly says, "You are entirely your own, Clarke."
Her eyebrows raise. Firstly, he doesn't sound drunk at all, and she notices there's only one cup in his hand and it's still full. Secondly, the reverence with which he called her… "Clarke?"
He looks surprised, blinking a few times, and she gets the feeling this was a slip-up on his part somehow. Then he shrugs easily. "Never mind."
But she does.
Making a decision, she strides over briskly to his table. One of the men who'd whistled at her is sitting in a chair right beside Bellamy. She looks down at him. "Get up."
He looks unwilling to move, but Bellamy prods, "Be a gentleman for once in your life, Isaac."
Isaac sighs loudly and gets up, moving to the bar for more to drink. She sits down primly in his vacated seat and sips from her bottle. When she lowers it, Bellamy is studying her. She doesn't say anything. She doesn't know what to say yet; Willow's words are just echoing in the back of her mind. It's time to find out if she's right.
"You want to say something to me?" he asks lightly.
"No," she replies equally lightly. "My feet were tired, so I sat down. Is that a problem?"
He leans back in his chair. "Course not."
Seeing that she's not itching to start talking, Bellamy returns to whatever conversation he was having with his crew, and Clarke observes. His crew listen to him, she can see that; but they also joke with him like they're all friends. He has their respect. Probably because he listens to them just as attentively.
In the middle of the conversation, he pulls his pistol out of his thigh holster and starts taking it apart to clean it, methodically, as the dialogue continues. They're on the topic of his bar in Madagascar, and how business has been slim as of late when she decides to engage with him again.
"It's the location," Bellamy is saying. "Madagascar's too far removed from most pirate routes. Tortuga had far more business." There's a wistful air with which he says this, and she gives him a sharp look, finally interjecting.
"You act like you've been there."
"Who says I haven't?"
She snorts, folding her arms. "Because pirates were run out of Tortuga what, thirty years ago?" The others murmur in agreement. That was why Madagascar had become a new safe haven for pirates. She gives him a once over. "Somehow I can't picture baby Bellamy hopping over to Tortuga for a drink. You don't look more than thirty years old yourself. "
"Well, you keep me young," he replies, and once again, there's that sparkle to his eyes— like he's indulging in some private joke that no one else understands. Today, however, it's not irritation that flares in her. It's a strange feeling instead, one that wells up in her stomach as she registers the bitter tinge to his words. She just doesn't understand it.
"You're a real piece of work," she tells him while the men laugh raucously, but there's not much passion behind it.
"I could say the same about you." He sounds fond when he says it, though. His eyes bore into hers, and it's almost a little discomfiting until she realizes she hasn't noticed him looking at her lips once this entire encounter, and she almost gets the feeling that he's actively resisting the urge to.
She's intrigued by him, she decides as she leaves the canteen that night to take her turn on watch. Not necessarily in the way that Willow suggested, but nonetheless, he's interesting. She wants to know him.
—
So she begins making an effort to seek him out, and not to argue.
He seems to think it's coincidence the first few times, but the fourth night that she plops down in the chair next to him at the canteen he asks, "What is this? Why do you keep coming here?"
She tilts her head at him, pushing her blonde hair out of her face. "I wasn't aware me and my crew weren't allowed in the canteen." As time has passed, their crews have begun to mingle more, and tonight the canteen is lively with the laughter of both the Sirens and Bellamy's Madagascar crew. The two of them eventually find themselves tucked into a corner by themselves.
"You know what I meant," he replies. She shrugs. He goes on. "Thought you hated me."
She thinks he sounds almost guarded, and she looks at him. He doesn't look amused for once. He looks like he's trying to figure out her game.
She smiles inwardly. That makes two of them.
She sends him what she hopes is a mysterious and sultry smile and holds out her empty glass. He takes the hint and pours her some of his. He doesn't take his eyes off her, apparently awaiting an answer, so she replies, "Keep thinking, then."
—
It becomes routine. It becomes casual.
They start beginning the day with a walk around the ship together, checking in on their crew as a united front. Their solidarity seems to have an effect on the rest— they work more easily with each other than they did before.
He walks in on her doodling on a piece of parchment and, embarrassed, she tries to hide it. But he doesn't ask to see it. He doesn't even seem surprised that she draws. He just smiles, like it's endearing to him, and launches into a rant about the rapidly depleting food stores.
(That one becomes an argument, but somehow it resolves itself. In laughter. How did that happen?)
She finds out that Bellamy takes apart and cleans his gun every night. She's not sure he even realizes he does it. It's absentminded on his part, in the middle of talking; akin to fidgeting for him.
"Maybe you should have a gun for a hand instead of a hook," she remarks one morning, while they stand on deck in a lull between work. The atmosphere on the ship is tense, seeing as they're close to where they will meet the Moors, and the horizon shows that a storm is coming. Great timing.
He scoffs, the furrow in his brow smoothing out. He tucks his gun back into his belt. "That wouldn't be practical."
"Oh, of course. A hook is the height of practicality."
There's a glint of amusement in his dark eyes. "It's more useful than you think." To emphasize this he reaches up and catches his hook around the rope they use to adjust the sails.
She snorts. "I'm not impressed."
"What would it take to impress you?"
"If you caught fish with it."
One of Bellamy's eyebrows quirks up.
Twenty minutes later, she can't fight back her grin as he and his first mate drag a barrel of ocean water across the deck to where she's standing.
"I never said it was a challenge," she laughs.
Bellamy produces his hooked hand with a flourish and rolls his sleeve up his muscled forearm. "You implied it." And with that his arm darts into the water, fast as any harpoon she's ever seen.
The rest of their crew gather around in interest of what their captains are doing— she hears them taking bets on whether he'll be able to do it. It takes a little (a lot) of him waving his hook around, and by the end of it both of them are soaking wet from all the water splashing out of the barrel. But finally he triumphantly produces his hook, a grin gracing his features as they all behold the fish he's managed to capture, wriggling on the hook.
The crew roars with laughter and she laughs too, and his grin only grows wider at the sight of her.
"Impressed?" he asks, watching her with his ever patient gaze.
"It's just a little minnow."
"That's not what I asked." He daintily plucks the still wriggling fish off his hook and flings it overboard. His shirt is plastered to his chest from the water, and she finds her breath catching to see his golden skin gleaming so clearly through the thin white material.
The rest of the crew begins dispersing, now that the spectacle is over. Her smile doesn't seem to want to go away today. She relents. "Very impressive, Bellamy."
"I can rest easy now that I have your approval." He shakes his head vigorously; water flies everywhere. Droplets land on her, but she's not too bothered. She's already drenched. She looks down at her dress with dismay. It's molded to her like a second skin, and she can feel her hair frizzing up from the water and the humidity.
"You got me all wet," she complains, and then belatedly realizes how that might sound, and where Bellamy might take that.
But he doesn't. He's silent, and when she glances up, he's looking at her intensely. So intensely that her heart rate kicks up in response.
"Bellamy…" she says slowly.
He cocks his head to indicate he's listening.
"Stop looking at me like that."
He blinks. "Like what?"
"Like…" Her voice feels thick. Like you want to consume me. Like I've already consumed you. "Like that."
He stares at her another moment, and she feels heat sweep through her face. He tears his gaze away finally, turning his face towards the ocean, and the strong winds that have started to blow in. "I don't know how to stop." His voice is rough. "Not sure I can."
"Why?" she asks in barely a whisper. It begins to rain. "We hardly even know each other." Somehow the sentence feels wrong, even though it's technically true.
His knuckles whiten in their grip on the railing. She watches him swallow in profile, his eyelashes sweeping down to his cheeks. He doesn't answer.
But she needs answers, and the questions keep coming. "Why do you act like this? Why'd you try to kiss me that first day we met?"
Bellamy finally just sends her a slightly sardonic smile. "Kiss me and find out," he replies.
She doesn't. Kiss him to find out, that is.
She kisses him because his voice is soft, because his dark eyes seem to find the light in her effortlessly, because he makes her smile and feel at peace in a way she never thought was possible; she kisses him because the sun shines on his skin, throws the loveliness of his sharp edges into relief and makes her want to touch them; mostly, she kisses him because she wants to kiss him.
She can tell that he's caught off guard when she angles her head and ducks closer, frozen when she presses her lips against his, but then he relaxes into it. His lips are full and soft— how she imagined them. Her hand finds the back of his neck, curling into the ends of his damp hair as the rain begins to fall in earnest. His hand simply finds where her dress collar has slipped to her shoulder, and with the rest of his hand resting on her clothed shoulder, his thumb strokes burning circles into the exposed skin of her collarbone.
The simple touch somehow sends her spiralling, and she's disoriented when he pulls back far too quickly. Blinking dazedly, she realizes he's studying her, hand still on her shoulder.
It's almost a clinical eye and she shifts on her feet a little uncomfortably. "What?" she asks uncertainly. She's suddenly doubting that she read the signals right.
Without replying, Bellamy looks away and his expression shifts slightly, to something she could swear is almost like disappointment.
Her hand slides from the back of his neck to his jaw to tilt his head, forcing him to look in her eyes. "Bellamy," she says. "What's wrong?"
And just like that, whatever shadow there was in his expression is gone, so suddenly that she wonders if it were ever there at all. "Nothing. Everything's fine."
She's still unconvinced, but before she can reply there's a tremendous gust of wind, hitting the side of the ship and causing it to rock slightly. There are alarmed shouts from all over. She staggers, but Bellamy, who'd had his hook anchored around the railing, stays in place and snags her elbow with his free hand to prevent her from falling over.
"Thanks," she gasps, straightening and following his gaze to the horizon. Grey clouds are gathering, stirring menacingly in the otherwise blue morning sky. They're going into a—
"Storm," Bellamy murmurs, looking a little troubled. "Even worse than we thought it would be."
She chews her lip. "According to our maps, we're close to crossing paths with the cargo ship. We'll reach them today."
"You want to keep going?" Bellamy asks. The wind is picking up now, howling around them.
She glances around, notices the crew is listening in, and they look ready to accept whatever command she issues. She turns back to Bellamy. "We've come this far already. We're so close." People around her nod in agreement, but her eyes are on him. "What do you think?"
"I came up with the plan in the first place," he points out lightly, and raises his voice to the rest of the crew. "You heard her. We're going to be in a storm. We'd better prepare now if we want to be ready to fight and take the riches we've been looking for. And then? We'll be set for life!" His voice rises to a roar, and their people cheer.
His eyes connect back with hers, and that's when it happens.
A sudden jolt of pain through her head that makes her close her eyes, and blinding, flashing light behind her eyelids. She takes a step back involuntarily.
And then…
Clarke remembers.
When she opens her eyes, Bellamy is striding off down the deck, their people are dispersing, and she's rooted to the spot, unable to move.
She remembers everything— she remembers she died, but she kept coming back. She grew up in his orphanage in the Philippines. Had that incredibly huge crush on him. And now she's here, where every comment he's made is starting to make sense. Bellamy… somehow, he's been alive this whole time. She remembers what the witch said, and it all clicks in place.
Now she gets it. She understands that what she mistook as lust when he looked down at her lips was really just a longing for his best friend.
She's barely cognisant that she's moving forward. She hears Willow asking her something but she ignores it, brushing past.
Clarke catches up to Bellamy when he reaches the door of his cabin, grabbing his hand where it's placed on the knob. He looks sideways at her, startled, and then realization dawns.
"Clarke," he says simply. It sounds like a question. She can't find it in herself to do anything but nod, nod furiously, with tears blurring her eyes and a sob threatening to rise in her throat.
There are no other words needed. Bellamy instantly turns away from the door and sweeps her into a hug, a body-crushing tight one that lifts her almost off her feet. It's like the strong winds around them go still when he touches her— the roar of the ocean and storm front fades and then there's just the sound of his breathing.
She wraps her arms around him, marvelling that her remembrance of their history together makes being pressed against him so much more thrilling, like she's home for the first time in years. In centuries, really.
He buries his nose into her neck, breath shuddering in his chest. "I missed you." He sounds on the verge of tears. "God, Clarke, I missed you so much. Even when you were right here in front of me."
She loses her battle against her own tears, feeling their hot warmth slip from her eyes. "I'm here now." They continue to sway in place. Clarke doesn't even want to move from here, not ever.
But she pulls away eventually, because she has questions. "You're immortal."
He grimaces. "Not invulnerable, but I guess so."
"Did you marry Jane?"
If possible, he looks even more grave. "Yes, but— long story. I'll tell you later." Her heart falls a bit, but she presses on.
"Did you marry anyone else after that?"
He shakes his head. "No."
That makes her feel marginally better, but. "I can't believe I was living with you for six years and you never kissed me." They could have had so much more time together.
"No offense, Clarke," Bellamy replies. "I like kids, but not that way."
Trust his sense of honour to come into play at the most inconvenient times. "I had a crush on you," she admits.
"I knew." Embarrassing, Clarke thinks, but before she can dwell on it he goes on. "Just a crush, though. You probably grew up and forgot all about me." That sentence is loaded.
"I never forgot about you." She runs her hand over his jaw. "I even tried to get back to you at first, you know. But then…"
"Life happened," he finishes quietly. "Six years of your childhood became a memory. I get it."
Her eyes burn with tears and she feels inexplicably guilty.
"It's okay, Clarke," he tells her, reading her mind. "You were a kid. Kids are like that. It's not something you would have been able to control."
She takes a breath and asks another burning question, wanting to get away from this topic that hurts her. She gestures at his hook. "Seriously, what happened to your hand?"
He sighs, recognizing her scolding tone of voice. "It was just a fishing accident."
"You should've been more careful." He shrugs, and she feels compelled to add, "I'm sorry that happened to you." It must have been painful. She can't imagine.
"Don't be," he replies immediately. "I'm used to it, now. Like I said, it's useful. I almost wouldn't have it any other way." He shoots her a wry grin, teases his hook down her cheek. The metal is cold against her skin, but his gaze on her makes her feel far too warm.
He's handsome as ever; he really hasn't aged one bit. It suddenly occurs to her that she hasn't had sex with her husband in over five hundred years.
She reaches around him and turns the knob, pushing his door open. His eyebrow raises when she pushes lightly at his chest, making him fall back a few steps into the darkened cabin. She matches him step for step.
"What are you doing?" The gravelly quality of his voice tells her he knows exactly what she's doing.
"Do you remember the last time we had sex?" As she speaks, she runs her fingers down the buttons from his collar, toying with them.
That's apparently all the encouragement he needs; he pokes his head out the door and barks at the nearest crewman, "Isaac is in charge until me and Clarke come out, got it?"
"No, Willow's in charge," Clarke says sharply, folding her arms.
"Isaac and Willow are in charge," Bellamy amends.
The crewman looks between the two of them, a grin on his face that tells Clarke the entire crew is going to know about this in about five minutes.
Bellamy adds, "Don't bother us unless we come upon the Moors' ship or someone's about to die. And even then, think twice."
"Bellamy," Clarke chides with a laugh, but he's already swung the door shut and turned to her.
"Don't give me that," he murmurs, ducking his head to trace her jawline with his lips. She tilts her head up, eyes falling shut. "You were thinking it too."
Instead of answering, she kisses him again, and then it's frantic. Her hands find the buttons of his shirt. His find the strings holding her dress tight to her body, working at the knots.
"You're not with anyone right now, are you?" he asks while she drops her dress, letting it pool at her feet.
"No. Are you?"
He shakes his head. "Finally," he growls, just as another gust of wind rocks the ship violently, and they both stumble, unprepared.
It's the storm, but a storm isn't going to stop Clarke now. He seems to be of the same mindset because he hardly pauses in kissing her as they pull each others' clothes off.
The next rocking of the ship sends them tumbling into his bed, which Clarke doesn't mind at all. The rest of their clothes come off. He kisses down her body, latches his mouth on her breast, and his hand slides down her stomach and between her legs.
"No teasing," she's about to say sternly, but he's apparently ahead of her. His fingers thrust inside her without hardly any ceremony, and the urgency of it only contributes to the fire that's setting her lower body alight.
"No teasing," he agrees. His hook scrapes against her stomach.
"Get that thing off before you accidentally gut me," she says in between kisses.
He chuckles, unstraps the harness and chucks the hook across the room. It makes a heavy clunking sound when it hits the wall. Lazily, she wraps her legs around him as he lines up with her entrance.
He pauses, eyes closed, and with an impatient sound she rocks her hips in an attempt to urge him on. He presses her back down into the mattress with one large hand over her lower stomach.
She thinks he's teasing her, but his eyes open and they're shiny. "I thought this would never happen again," he confesses. "Thought I'd never get to touch you like this again." He runs two fingers up the side of her body, up the swell of her breast, and she shudders. He drops down to his elbows, his body curving down onto hers, pressing their foreheads together.
"If you don't get inside me right this minute, you won't," she threatens him breathlessly. He huffs a laugh against her lips, and then he's pushing inside her, pushing her open, filling every piece of her with a piece of himself.
The ship rocks again as they move against each other; the wind is howling against the cabin wall, making the wood groan. They brace themselves against the mattress so they won't topple. Neither of them stops. She rocks her hips against him, and he groans. They've known each other so long that they both know exactly what to do and how to touch to drive the other crazy with lust.
Just then, the ship rocks so intensely, that the two of them, caught off guard, roll, nearly off the bed. They get their bearings at the last minute, with Clarke on top. The wind howls outside, but they hardly even pause.
"Maybe we should stop," she murmurs through her haze of pleasure when the ship rocks again. It's the hardest thing she's ever had to say.
His hand tightens on her hip. "I'm gonna fuck you if it's the last damn thing I do," he growls.
The rain pattering on the walls reaches impossibly loud volume. "It might be," she laughs.
"But what a way to go," he rumbles, rolling against her in a very deliberate way, hitting a spot deep inside her that hasn't been touched in a very long time, and she loses her ability to do anything but gasp for a while.
—
Clarke isn't sure how much time passes with them lounging in that bed, but eventually he voices her thought that they should go outside and check on their crew.
It's still a dose of reality, and as she's retying the top of her dress, she's overcome with fear. Her hands begin to shake. He notices, closing in behind her to tie her dress.
"What's wrong?" he asks lowly.
She swallows. "We're in the middle of a storm, about to try and loot a merchant ship. Doesn't that sound risky to you?"
"Risky is our line of business." She can hear him grinning. She whips around, and his smile fades at her expression.
"If we die today…" She swallows. "We're separated. Again. I'm not sure I can deal with that anymore, Bellamy."
He's quiet for just a moment, studying her. "Come with me," he says abruptly.
"What?"
"Come home with me," he repeats. "To Madagascar. We can turn this ship around right now. Use some of the loot I have to pay off your debts, and then… you can come live with me."
She can picture it all in her head. Going back, and lounging on the hot beach with him for the rest of her days, safe from harm. It sounds like heaven, she muses as she turns over the possibility in her head. "But… you're immortal. I'm not. I'll get old."
Bellamy doesn't seem bothered by this prospect at all. "So? When you die, I'll just go with you. Then I'll be back in the reincarnation cycle."
For some reason one thing in that statement niggles at her. She puts her hands on her hips, almost offended. "Who says I'll die first?"
He cocks an eyebrow up. "Why not? Old age."
"You're not invulnerable. You can die at any time, if someone kills you," she points out.
He spreads his hands wide. "I've survived this long."
"Maybe your luck is running out."
He smiles. "After today, maybe you're right." He rubs his chin. "I'll tell you what. Let's make a bet."
"A bet?" she repeats, a little caught off guard.
He nods seriously. "I bet all my riches you'll die first. Old age. If I'm wrong, you can come collect in the next life."
Clarke has never been one to back down from that, but… "What if someone else has already taken all your treasure by then?" she snorts.
"I've thought about that," he replies. "I've been building up resources and hiding them away for decades. So that if we need, we can find them later in different lifetimes."
She's a little impressed despite herself. "That was thoughtful of you."
He half-smiles. "Yeah, well, you're rubbing off on me."
Before she can ask what she owes him if he's right, there's a knock on the door, and they both jump apart, whipping their heads in the direction of the noise. Willow's voice sounds. "Clarke, come out! We've found the merchant ship!"
Clarke freezes, heart thundering. Just a moment ago, she was entertaining the possibility of backing away from this all now, but the excitement in Willow's voice makes her pause. The treasure doesn't mean anything much to her anymore, but to the crew? It's everything. This is the trip that makes their whole lives as pirates worth it.
Can she deprive them of that out of her own selfishness?
Bellamy lets out a haggard sigh, probably thinking the same thing. "We're coming," he barks at the door, and turns to her. "What's the verdict, princess?"
She shakes her head helplessly, not having an answer, and pushes forward to the door. Opening it, she realizes something very strange. It's sunny out, and the waters are almost calm— as distracted as she'd been, she hadn't noticed the rain had stopped. Walking towards the helm of the ship, she finally halts, realizing that there is a solid wall of dark clouds about twenty kilometers into the distance, where the towering thunderstorms they emerged from are still lurking. She turns on the spot, turns all the way around, and sees that they are surrounded by them.
They are in the eye of the storm, she realizes dazedly. An eye fifty kilometers wide.
"We had to sail into the eye," Willow says next to her. She nearly jumps, not having noticed her first mate approach. "The ship wasn't built for the conditions of this cyclone. Lucky for us, looks like the Moors' ship wasn't either." She points into the distance, where Clarke squints and sees another ship in the eye with them. "Might as well get them now, while we're in the calm weather, right?"
"Right," Clarke says slowly. "So there's no way we can get out of this storm?"
"Not until it dissipates." Willow shakes her head. "Until then, we're trapped."
Of course they're trapped, Clarke thinks. Why not? Why should there be an easy out for her and Bellamy for once?
"There it is," Willow says, blissfully ignorant of Clarke's thought process. "That's our loot." Her voice turns wondrous. "Bellamy's right, isn't he? We'll be set for life."
"Damn right I am," Bellamy says from behind them. He must have heard the whole conversation. "Full speed ahead, and then we all go into comfortable retirement."
He's saying that last part for her benefit, but Clarke's mouth tightens with worry.
"Hey," Bellamy says quietly, and she nearly jumps when his fingers brush against hers. "We've survived worse."
Clarke snorts at the thought. "No, we haven't. That's the problem."
—
The Moors' ship, of course, sees them coming from a mile away. But there's not much they can do, considering they're all trapped in the eye of the cyclone together, and their firepower is measly compared to the pirates'.
Once they roll down their pirate colours, the merchants surrender. It isn't difficult to secure lines to swing aboard the other ship, or to hold their crew at gunpoint and swordpoint as the Sirens and Bellamy's people traipse back and forth carrying barrels and barrels of loot. The scene reminds Clarke a lot of the one back in the tavern in Madagascar, actually.
They're almost done when Clarke sidles up to Bellamy. He keeps his gun trained on the captain of the Moors' ship as she speaks quietly to him.
"We're almost done," she says, unable to stop a small amount of excitement from entering her voice. "And the storm's almost dying down, do you hear it?"
"That's right," he replies. He's become a lot more terse since boarding the ship. "Almost."
That last word is said darkly, but Clarke can't be bothered with pessimism right at this moment, not when they're about to escape with the biggest heap of treasure any pirate this side of the world has ever seen. Maybe it will actually work, she finds herself thinking.
It doesn't work.
Almost should never be considered a promise, as it turns out. Because a moment later another ship appears in the eye of the storm, apparently seeking refuge just like the other two ships. But unlike the other two ships, this one flies the flag of the British Navy.
That's when things get ugly.
—
When the British realize what they have found— Bellamy's ship is well known to their Naval forces— the Moors' ship becomes a battlefield, with the Navy forces coming on board to rescue the merchants. It quickly becomes clear that the pirates will be outgunned in this particular battle. The British are too well armed, and they fight hard, knowing exactly who these two pirates are. They've got a two-for-one deal laid out for their taking and everyone knows it.
"Retreat!" Clarke yells, because that's their only hope now. Seeing as they're being pushed back anyway, the pirates obey hastily, swinging down their connecting grappling lines back to their own ship. Meanwhile, the storm has more or less dissipated around them. An escape is possible.
Almost, anyway.
Because at the end, it's Clarke and Bellamy who are the last ones left on the Moors' ship, desperately trying to fend off the British long enough to get back onto their grappling lines.
"Go, Clarke," Bellamy yells at her when it becomes clear that won't happen. He fires off a few more rounds as Clarke pauses to stare at him. "Go. I'll cut the lines once you're across."
"You're insane if you think I'm letting you do that," she shouts back, skewering another Brit with her sword. She wrenches her weapon out of his gut and backs up as three more advance on her.
"Clarke." He sounds exasperated. "Please, I'll find you again in the next life. Just go."
Clarke looks at him, at his utter look of defeat and then back at the grappling lines, which the British are going for now as well. She realizes in a panic that they're looking to board the pirates' ship. So she makes an impulsive decision. She raises her bloody sword and cuts the lines in one fell swoop.
They seem to fall in slow motion towards the ocean. She looks up and sees her people, distantly, on their ship watching. They're too far to properly make out their faces, but she knows they understand the message— to leave, and split the riches that they've got.
Clarke and Bellamy will get another chance at life. Their crews won't.
She turns back around. The two of them are entirely surrounded. In the background the Moor merchant captain is looking very smug.
"Clarke." Bellamy sounds near tears. "Why didn't you listen to me?"
She turns to him. His gun must be empty, because he's got his sword in hand now, but it's dangling listlessly as he watches her. He knows the fight is over, too. The British, advancing, watch them warily.
"Surrender!" one shouts.
Ignoring them, Clarke takes the few steps forward she needs to put her right next to him. "You would've lost our bet if I listened to you."
He stares at her for a moment and then turns his face away from her, back towards their ship, now sailing fast and safe into the distance towards the afternoon sun. "Now we both lose instead," he says quietly, and then their hands are being wrenched behind their backs and they're dragged away from each other.
—
They're kept separate the entire way back to Britain. Clarke doesn't see Bellamy for weeks, doesn't know what's happened to him. But when they dock and the dark burlap sack is pulled off her head, she finds herself in a dark room with him, surrounded by guards.
He looks a little gaunt, dirty and worse for wear, which she suspects is how she looks as well. Nevertheless, she's happy to see him. "Bellamy," she cries, and instinctively surges towards him, only to be held back by ropes cutting into her wrists and tying her to the opposite wall.
He watches her attempt with shuttered eyes, and with a shaky sigh turns his eyes to the ceiling. "Stay still."
She jerks at her bonds again, with only the desire to get to him on her mind. One of the guards stalks over and slaps her across the face. She gasps more out of surprise than in pain.
"Struggle all you want," the guard sneers as she attempts to shake it off. "You're both about to be hanged, anyway."
All Clarke can do is stare in disbelief, now tuning in to the distant sound outside of someone speaking loudly. She can't make out the words, but it sounds like a speech. Turning her head from side to side, she's astounded to note that she and Bellamy aren't the only ones tied up here—there's at least a dozen others awaiting their end. The dreaded pirate hangings.
"Don't look so surprised," the guard says. "Your kind are dying off. Face it," he addresses Bellamy now, "the age of pirates is over. And we'll all be glad to see the rest of you scum hang." He spits in Clarke's face. Bellamy growls.
He walks away, back to the first two prisoners at the front of the line-up, who are wrenched to their feet and led out of the room. A distant cheer soon follows, and Clarke turns back to Bellamy desperately.
"I'm sorry," Bellamy says suddenly, before she can speak.
"For what?"
"For not keeping you safe," he says, sounding miserable. "I was supposed to. I told myself I would, but instead, it's just like every other time. As soon as we meet, we die."
"It's—it's not related," she says automatically, but he's already shaking his head.
"Isn't it? Tell me something, Clarke—how long did you live when you went back to Spain in the last life?" Her silence makes his lips twist up into a bitter smile. "I bet you didn't die violently. You lived long because we separated."
The words set into her chest painfully, knocking the breath from her lungs. She bows her head. He goes on, voice flat.
"You probably made lots of good friends. Got married, and got to live with them for most of your life. Maybe you had some kids."
"Stop it," she snaps.
"Got to watch them grow up. Maybe even to see them have kids of their own."
"I get it, okay?" Tears are running down her cheeks, but she can't wipe them away with her hands behind her back. "You and I are doomed, you're right."
"Don't say that," he responds.
"Why not?" she demands angrily. "Isn't that what you want?"
"No. I don't want to be right." He closes his eyes, tips his head back. The despair settles again, as another pair of pirates are taken out of the room. There's two more pairs before her and Bellamy.
"It's funny," Clarke says, and he opens his eyes again. "I couldn't figure out what the djinn got out of reincarnating us, but now I know."
He nods, following her line of thought. "It wasn't a gift. It was a curse."
The ensuing silence is brief and bitter, at least until Clarke speaks again.
"You know what else that djinn said?" Clarke says to him. "She said we'd live again, but whether we fell in love again was up to us." She feels empty inside. "Maybe—we were never really meant to be?"
That gets a surprising reaction out of him; he opens his eyes and looks at her, really looks at her. "Clarke."
But his pessimism has infected her, too, and she can't stop. "I fell in love with Mstislav. You fell in love with Jane and—probably so many others."
"Clarke," Bellamy says again, and he shifts to lean forward, as if he could force her to look at him with just the intensity of his stare. "Listen to me. You can't think like that."
He doesn't deny her words, though, and tears prickle in her eyes. The sadness threatens to overwhelm her. "You've loved so many other people. Probably more than you loved me. And like you said, you probably actually got to be happy with them."
"Clarke," he barks this time, making her look up. His expression is almost ferocious. "Stop assuming how I feel. Do you think any of this has been easy for me? Living centuries—centuries—without you?" His voice breaks slightly at the end of that sentence. It's like a splash of cold water to the face; she shakes her head adamantly even before he finishes his sentence.
"No, of course not. I'm—I'm sorry, Bellamy. It's just, you're right. This keeps happening to us. Maybe the universe is trying to tell us something. Maybe we weren't meant to be." It's terrifying to think. "Maybe we were only meant to happen once."
He shakes his head as another pair of pirates are dragged out. "No, Clarke. Maybe we'll fall in love with a thousand different people in our lifetimes. But you…" he shakes his head, as if amazed. "But you, Clarke, I've already fallen in love with you a thousand times, in a thousand different ways."
Those words send her into a spiral. She starts to cry in earnest, although she doesn't know why anymore. Really, it's a take-your-pick kind of situation.
He goes on, fierce now. "Maybe we're doomed to never be together. Fine. But don't doubt what I feel about you, Clarke."
"I won't," she whispers, pauses to swallow, to gather moisture in her dry mouth. "For what it's worth, I feel the same. About you. Always."
She listens to his steady breathing and thinks that maybe this, between them, is what makes it worth it—what makes all the suffering worth it. Even if it's brief, only small moments that they get to grasp together between hundreds of years, she'll take it.
And that's what inspires her to say, "Fuck the djinn."
He tilts his head at her in the gloom of the holding cell.
"She got off on thinking we'd suffer," she says to him strongly. "But we only suffer if we choose to. Let's not give her the satisfaction anymore. Let's not let her break us."
He smiles grimly as the last pair of pirates before them are escorted out. "I think that ship has already sailed."
"No, it hasn't," Clarke insists. "Bellamy, if there's one upside to this whole thing, it's that I got to see you again. I got to touch you again. I got to love you again." She sees this register in his eyes and plunges on. "That's a gift I won't ever regret. Not for a second." She swallows and throws her heart out there. "I'm happy as long as we can be in the same world together, even if it's just for a few days." He's silent. "Do you… do you feel the same way?"
He doesn't speak for a very long time, and then all at once she watches his gaze on her intensify. "I really wish I could kiss you right now." For the first time in the conversation, there's a genuine smile underlying the words.
She hadn't realized how anxiously she was awaiting his response until she lets out a little relieved laugh. "You can kiss me in the next life," she says lightly. "Maybe it'll be easier then." She tugs at the restraints for effect.
"It better be," he agrees, equally lightly. "Unless I get reincarnated as a fish, or something."
She giggles. "I don't think that's possible. We both look exactly the same as we did in our first life." She frowns with a sudden thought. "How is that possible, do you think?"
He shrugs. "Hell if I know. Maybe we're descendants of ourselves." He huffs, seemingly amused by this possibility. "That's pretty screwed up."
Her giggles become full-blown laughter, and then she can't help it anymore, and he's joining in. If the guards, or any of the other pirates, have found this entire conversation odd at all, they haven't given any indication.
"Time to go," one of them says, nodding to Bellamy, and both of them shut up immediately.
There's a change on his face, too, as the guards start towards them both.
"Are you scared?" Clarke asks quietly.
He meets her eyes. His own are round. "Terrified," he admits. "I haven't died in a long time."
"It's not so bad," she says, tilting her head at him while the guards shove her up. "Dying is easy."
A smile plays on his lips. "Yeah, well, you've had more practice at it than me."
"I could probably do it in my sleep now," she replies with a straight face, and is rewarded with the hint of a smile turning into a full blown grin.
"That's the dream, isn't it?" The guards push them towards the door; he cranes his neck over to look at her. She's relieved to see he doesn't look afraid anymore, just calm. "See you later, Clarke."
She smiles back. "Until next time, Bellamy." A bag is thrown over her head, but not before she drinks in his warm brown eyes one last time.
"And the time after," he whispers back, still right next to her.
She nods even though he can't see. "And again, and again and again. Until the earth blows up."
"And then we'll probably wake up on Mars."
She laughs, and so does he, and then a crowd roars in front of them. She loses track of him despite straining her ears over the noise.
So Clarke awaits their hanging, not feeling very afraid at all. Maybe what they need is a new start anyway. She'll find him again—she always does. It's not over.
She pushes away the sadness still lingering at the edges of her consciousness and focuses on the one thing that matters, focuses on it until it's all she sees. Until it's thrumming through her veins with restless energy for what's still to come.
Hope.
.
Forever isn't long at all, as long as I'm with you. —A.A. Milne
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A/N: I swear there's a point to all this. If you stick around for the third and last part, anyway. Which may still take a bit to get written (even though it should be shorter than this was!) because I'm busy with exam crunch-time. It will feature… well, since it's the conclusion I suppose I may as well leave it a surprise this time. But I think it will be a little lighter in tone.
If you have a moment, it always really makes my day to get reviews and I will appreciate you a lot. Thank you!
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