AN: Chapter four coming up. Some more Bellarke interaction in this one but also a bit more insight into Bellamy's thoughts and feelings – and a flashback! Hope you like it...

As always, I own nothing of this.

Enjoy :)

-4-

Bellamy watches as Clarke disappears behind the door to the bridge and for a moment he regrets leaving the room. Maybe he should have stayed, made sure they really do make up… but Jordan is waiting a few steps behind him, and he is fairly sure Raven won't be too hard on Clarke, so he reluctantly turns and joins the other man.

"I'm sure they'll be fine," Jordan says, obviously picking up on his reluctance to leave. "Why don't we head over to the algae farm in the meantime, get started on that?"

It's a good suggestion, so Bellamy agrees and follows him down the ship's corridors to the large room that houses the algae farm.

Jordan starts describing everything, explaining what they're going to do, and Bellamy only half-listens – he did all this with Monty and doesn't really need instructions, but the kid seems excited, so he lets him ramble on.

The work is familiar and simple, something he can do without really needing to focus on it, so he lets his mind wander.

Working with Monty on the algae farm on the Ring is one of few clear memories he has of the first two or three months up there.

A couple of days after they got to the Ring, he had a… Raven called it a complete breakdown, Bellamy called it a minor panic attack – the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

-100-

They'd gotten all the vital systems up and running, they weren't going to die from a glitch in the oxygen scrubber or dehydrate because the water filtration system flunked, so Raven gave everyone, except Monty who was setting up the algae farm, the task of scouring the place for scrap metal, tech and other things that might be useful for their day-to-day life or eventual return to the Ground.

Somehow, Bellamy found himself in the Sky box, rows of abandoned cells with doors hanging open in front of him. He froze completely, just stood there staring for a long moment as he wondered which cell had been Octavia's, if she used to watch TV on the couch against the far wall or play ping pong with some of the other kids at the table to the right… and then his mind switched to her, Clarke, and he almost turned on his heel, didn't want to see her cell, the space where she'd spent the better part of her 17th year. He could send someone else to check the Sky box, Emori or Echo, they didn't have any connection to the place.

He didn't have to do it himself.

But for some reason, his legs carried him down the corridor, stopping briefly in front of each set of doors before moving on again, convinced he would just know when he got to her cell.

And, God, he did.

He turned a corner and passed another security check point, by the look of the reinforced steel door with fingerprint scanners, ajar just like all the others, when a single open door at the end of the hallway caught his eyes. He slowly made his way there.

It wasn't like any of the other cells he'd passed along the way, white, empty walls without a soul, nothing left behind that showed who had once inhabited the space. Here, Clarke was in the floor, the walls, even the parts of the ceiling she had been able to reach… drawings in black and grey, images of things on the Ground she couldn't possibly have seen when she had been locked in here, others of the Ark, and here and there a few portraits…

Bellamy slumped down on the abandoned cot in the cell, what little he had managed to scrounge up clattering to the floor, and tried to take in everything around him. Next thing he knew, someone was calling his name, hands shaking him and then a warm body pressed against his back and arms and legs wrapped around him – Raven. He absentmindedly noted that he must have had some sort of black out.

"You're OK, you're OK," Raven mumbled into his neck, arms tight around his chest, and he started breathing again – or at least that's what it felt like. He became aware of his racing heart a moment later and then the wetness in his eyes, on his cheeks, his shirt damp with tears and clinging to his chest. You're having a panic attack, his mind supplied. Which, of course, did nothing to help him get it under control.

But Raven stayed like that, a human version of a clingy koala bear on his back, until Bellamy's breathing started matching her long, deliberate inhalations and exhalations. When he finally felt his heart rate start to slow he gently pried Raven's limbs from around him and cleared his throat as he stood up, keeping his eyes on the floor.

"Sorry about that," he apologized, voice rough, glancing up at Raven but not quite far enough to meet her eyes.

"No reason to be sorry," she assured him. "Honestly, I've been sort of waiting for something like this."

He busied himself with picking up all the scrap metal from the floor.

"You have?" he asked in a deliberately light voice.

Raven sighed and crouched down next to him, taking the pieces of metal and putting them in a bag she'd brought.

"Bellamy, look at me," she said in a gentle voice that wasn't like Raven Reyes at all.

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and then grudgingly met her gaze, dreading the compassion he knew he'd find there.

"Monty told me about… back when she was taken by Roan, remember?"

Of course he remembered. It would be engrained in his mind until the day he died, how she had looked tied up and gagged in that basement. He managed a short nod and Raven shrugged.

"I just figured… this must be so much worse, so I was sort of wondering when it would catch up with you."

Maybe that's what it was. He had kept busy the last few days, avoiding the windows with a view of the burning Earth and, until now, every reminder of her. The others hadn't mentioned her either, perhaps realizing he didn't want to, couldn't, talk about her. Not yet. Everything was still too fresh, too raw.

He stood abruptly and brushed past Raven.

"I don't want to talk about it."

He heard her call after him, but didn't stop or turn around.

After that day, he shut himself off. He did what he needed to do, slept, ate, carried out the tasks assigned to him – which were more often than not working the algae farm with Monty – but he was numb for a long time, because the alternative was worse.

-100-

That period of his life is still a bit of a blur to Bellamy, even now, six years later. He eventually managed to break the cycle, move beyond the mind-numbing grief that had overpowered him in that cell, and towards the end of their time on the Ring, he had even managed to smile at some of his happier memories of Clarke, even if he still had the occasional nightmare where she accused him of abandoning her, killing her. Your fault, your fault, your fault.

And then he found out that she was alive, and it was like everything shifted, just a tiny bit. He's still not sure exactly how, but he knows everything is different, or could be, if he let it.

"There you are."

Bellamy looks up at Clarke's voice, and an irrational – considering he saw her only a few minutes ago – need to touch her to make sure she's real, probably caused by his little trip down memory lane, makes him take the few steps to where she's standing just inside the door and pull her into a tight hug.

Clarke willingly returns it though.

"I was just gone for, like, five minutes," she says with an amused chuckle.

Bellamy reluctantly pulls away, aware that they're not alone. But Jordan is still working the soil, seemingly focused on his task.

"Sorry," Bellamy apologizes. "It's just, being in here, it sort of brought back memories of our first few months on the Ring and I…"

Clarke reaches out to squeeze his hand before he can say more.

"You don't have to explain," she assures him. "Trust me, I have my fair share of crappy memories from those six years."

This reminds him of Madi's words yet again, and he wants to ask her about it, but now is not the time. Not with an audience.

"Besides, you never have to apologize for hugging me," she continues with a smile before turning to Jordan and effectively putting an end to the conversation for now. "So, what do you need me to help with?"

Jordan straightens up from where he was bent over the soil a few feet away and purses his lips.

"Honestly, I think we've done all we can," he says, looking to Bellamy for confirmation.

"Yeah, I think so too," Bellamy agrees. "Now it's up to the algae, really, just keep up watering the plants and hope they take."

Jordan nods. "They should, Dad spent a lot of time perfecting the strain back when I was a kid, so it's basically supercharged by now," he explains, and Bellamy can just see it, Monty bent over samples of his algae, tampering with the DNA or whatever it is you can alter in plants. The image makes him smile, despite the flash of grief it also brings.

"OK, so… anything else we can take care of while Raven's doing her thing?" Clarke continues.

Jordan thinks for a moment. "I guess we could get the living quarters set up for the four of us, somewhere to sleep," he suggests. "They've obviously been uninhabited for a while now, so might need some freshening up."

Bellamy has a vague memory of the living area of the large Eligius ship from when they first got here from the Ring – they had explored the entire ship and might have made use of that part of it if they hadn't had to hurry down to Earth in the end. Of course, Monty and Harper must have made a home there, the only one Jordan has ever known.

Ever since he woke up, the loss of two of his closest friends have been hanging over his head, and he wonders if this will be the moment when it really hits him – when he sees the home they created for themselves and their son, where they raised him and grew old together.

"That sounds like a good idea," Clarke says, pulling him out of his thoughts. "I've never been to the living areas of the ship, so you'll have to show the way."

Bellamy realizes that she's giving Jordan control of the situation – if he wants to take them to his and his parents' home, he can, but if he doesn't he can simply pick another part of the living quarters. God knows there are plenty apartments to choose from.

Jordan lights up at Clarke's request and immediately wipes the dirt off his hands.

"Of course," he says, starting in the direction of the door to the corridor. "Follow me!"

Their trek through the ship reminds Bellamy of how big it really is. It's nothing in comparison to the size of the Ark, of course, which had over 2,000 inhabitants at one point, as opposed to the 500 that lived on this ship at any one time, but it's still probably at least ten times as big as the Ring.

"So the ship was originally set up for eighty prisoners working at a time," Jordan says over his shoulder when they've been walking for a few minutes. "There would be twenty guards awake as well, to keep them in line, I assume. The rest would be in cryo, and then they'd cycle through people working and sleeping."

Bellamy hadn't known that, but he supposes it makes sense – efficient use of "resources" and all that, and who cared if a bunch of criminals were worked to death over a few decades anyway? He knows enough about the US before the nuclear apocalypse to know that they were one of the lowest rungs on the ladder.

"So, there are two living areas, sort of," Jordan continues. "The one for the prisoners is basically a jail, small individual cells."

"Yeah, they have those on the transport ship too," Clarke notes darkly, reminding Bellamy of where he'd first seen her after landing on Earth again. The memory is bittersweet – just seeing her again had been… more than he had thought he'd ever get, even after Madi's revelation that she was still alive, but then she'd had the shock collar around her neck and they'd once again been thrust into a life and death situation.

Jordan gives Clarke an understanding look over his shoulder before he continues.

"Right, you would know those pretty well," he says in a sympathetic voice. "We're on our way to the living quarters for the guards now, though. For some reason, there's living space for every guard, all one hundred, and not just the twenty who were awake at the same time. I guess Eligius had to use something to get people to agree to this kind of work... So there are a hundred state rooms, which is really just a fancy word for bedrooms. They're arranged in twenty separate apartments, each with five en-suite bedrooms and a communal living space with a kitchen and a lounge area."

They turn a corner and find themselves in what was probably a rec room at one point – there's a couple of ping pong tables, a pool table, several dart boards, and a bookcase filled with board games. Along one wall is a bar with some stools, though the shelves against the wall behind it are empty. The rest of the large area is occupied by comfy but worn looking couches arranged in groups.

"Wow, the Eligius guards were really living the high life," Clarke notes, crossing the room to check out the games. "Monopoly, Clue, Game of Life…"

"However will we get anything done with all this to distract us?" Bellamy jokes, earning a smile from Clarke.

"Come on, the apartments are through here," Jordan nods at the corridor leading off the rec room and they follow him down it.

A moment later, they emerge into a large, open space with four doors leading off it and an elevator off to the side which connects to the other floors with apartments, if Bellamy remembers correctly. He turns to Jordan.

"So, which one should we use?" he asks, glancing at the doors. They're all closed and look identical, so he has no idea which one might have been the Green-McIntyre's, if theirs is even on this floor. But it seems logical – especially once Jordan came around, they wouldn't have wanted to bother with the elevator.

Jordan doesn't hesitate before crossing to the nearest door and opening it.

"This one was ours, I think it's easiest if we just use it, I'm not sure if anything's been done in the others since Eligius time, to be honest. Plus, Dad set up the rations in our kitchen, so…"

He crosses the threshold, leaving the door open behind him, but Bellamy still hesitates. It feels too personal, somehow, like they're trespassing now that Monty and Harper aren't here to invite them into their home.

He feels fingers interlace with his, a hand squeezing, and turns his head to find Clarke next to him, a knowing half-smile laced with sadness on her face.

"It's OK," she says. "I think they would have wanted this."

And she's right, of course.

She takes the lead, tugging him along into the apartment where Jordan's standing by the sink in a small, basic kitchen, the tap running and the water slowly changing from a brownish color to clear. He looks up when they stop just inside the door.

"Make yourselves at home," he says, gesturing at the room in general. "I've only checked the rations and the water out here just now, we might want to run the taps in the bathrooms as well, get the water clear in there. The computer system is obviously up and running, so hopefully that means the entertainment system works as well."

Clarke is looking around with wide eyes, taking in all the creature comforts she obviously hasn't experienced since the Ark, and Bellamy tries to see it through her eyes.

Apart from the basic kitchen – a sink, two-burner stove, microwave, tiny fridge, and some storage cupboards – along the far wall, there's a round dining table with five chairs in that end of the open space as well, a small book case to the right of the front door, which is actually full of books that Bellamy immediately itches to check out, and a couch and a couple of armchairs around a coffee table in front of a big screen TV to their left. Two doors on either side of the TV obviously lead to two of the bedrooms, the other three on the right side of the room. There's some artwork on the walls, generic prints that are probably in all the apartments, but they add some color to the room.

From what he remembers, all the apartments look the same, but he can see that this one was Monty and Harper's from the little details around the room – drawings pinned to the wall by the dining table, no doubt a younger Jordan's work, a blanket on one of the armchairs, a couple of decorative pillows on the couch and something that looks like little flowers made out of everything from metal and plastic to cloth and paper scattered on many of the flat surfaces. The absence of dust tells him that Jordan must have had a quick clean when he checked the apartment earlier.

"I thought I'd take Mom and Dad's room," Jordan says after a moment, glancing at one of the doors to the left. "My room was next to theirs, I can clear it out if we need it. For now, the other three should be empty apart from the furniture. Take your pick."

They divide the rooms between them, wordlessly leaving Jordan's old room empty for now – Clarke picks the room in the middle and Bellamy the one closest to the front door, leaving the last one for Raven if she ever emerges from the bridge.

Jordan disappears into his parents' old bedroom while Clarke and Bellamy get their own and Raven's rooms set up. They raid the other apartments on the floor, finding extra bedding and pillows, and even some spare clothes that they split between them. As Bellamy tosses a final pillow onto his bed, he hears a soft knock and turns to find Clarke in the doorway, knuckles against the wood.

"I'm all set, I think," she says, looking around the room. "I figured Jordan might need a moment to himself, and Raven's obviously still deep in her tech, so… want to see if that TV actually works?"

Her voice turns excited at the end, and Bellamy understands – it's been seven years since she was on the Ark, after all, while he spent hours every day on the Ring watching old TV shows, documentaries and movies. They had way too much downtime up there after the first few weeks…

"Sure," he agrees easily, following her out to the couch where she flops down in one corner, stretching her legs out along the cushions, while he takes the other corner and puts his feet up on the table in front of them.

She picks up the remote from the table and turns the TV on. After a moment, they're greeted by a welcome screen similar to the one on the Ark and asked to pick what they want to watch – TV shows, movies, documentaries, sports, live events.

"Anything in particular you're in the mood for?" she asks, raising her eyebrows at him.

Bellamy shrugs. "Honestly, I made my way through most of the stuff in the archive on the Ring," he says. "You pick something."

To his surprise, she chooses the sports category.

"Really? I never would have taken you for a jock, Princess," he jokes.

Clarke sighs, tapping a few more buttons and opening the sub-category soccer.

"It was a thing me and my dad did," she says quietly, eyes intent on the screen, but he can see her eyebrows furrow a little at the memory. "I didn't really get it at first, you know – the games were played a century ago, you already know who won, where's the excitement? But he loved it, and eventually I started to as well, and it became this thing we did with Wells and Thelonius. I kind of miss it."

Bellamy knows that she doesn't just mean the soccer, and reaches a hand out to squeeze her calf. She looks over at him, eyes glossy but free of tears, and offers a weak smile.

"I have to admit," he starts, "I was never really into sports. Octavia had a cheerleading phase when she was seven, I think, and she made me watch a bunch of American football and after that I sort of ruled out all sports by default. But if you don't mind explaining the rules, it should be fun."

Her smile brightens considerably, and she starts scrolling through the games on the screen.

"OK, let's see… this one should be a good beginner's game." She picks one of the options and the screen changes to an aerial view of a large arena, the people dotting the field about the size of ants. "This is what they used to call El Clásico – games between two Spanish teams, Madrid and Barcelona, they were among the best in the world around the turn of the millennium. It's also the final of the Copa del Rey, which was the Spanish soccer league, in 2014."

Bellamy can't help but smile at her enthusiasm.

"So it's the final game of a tournament?" he asks. "Shouldn't we start at the beginning, then?"

She rolls her eyes. "That's the beauty of old games – you don't have to watch them in a specific order since you know how they end."

"But I don't," he reminds her, voice teasing, which she of course catches, if her raised eyebrow is any indication.

"Just watch the damn game."

He laughs and turns his attention to the TV.

"Whatever you say." They watch for a moment in silence. "Wait, so they actually use their feet? Then why wasn't this called football and American football called… handball or something?"

"It actually was called football in British English, it was just the Americans that insisted on calling it soccer," Clarke explains. "And handball is a completely different sport. American football is actually closer to what the Brits called rugby, but that's…"

"Maybe we should just focus on this sport for now," Bellamy interrupts her. "I've got a basic understanding of American football, but I've never even heard of handball and I don't know if all the new information will fit in my brain right now."

"Fine," Clarke laughs. "So the team in white, that's Real Madrid, they had Ramos and Pepe, who were great players, but then Barcelona, they had Neymar and Messi, who were both considered among the top players at the time, so…" She trails off as she catches the blank expression on his face, so he doesn't have to interrupt her again.

"You realize those names mean nothing to me, right?" he says slowly. "Just… start with the basics. The white guys, they score behind the guy in green?"

"No, that's their own goalkeeper, they score at the opposite side of the field. Honestly…" And just like that, she's off going through the rules, explaining offside and penalties, excitedly pointing out when something interesting happens on the field. Bellamy just leans back against the couch, watching her more than the game, how she talks with her hands, and thinks that he can definitely get into soccer if he gets to watch it with Clarke.

AN: I really wanted to get Bellamy's reaction to seeing Clarke's cell in this story, I don't even know if it's on the Ring or some other part of the Ark that crashed to the ground, but creative freedom, I guess ;) I think he needed to deal with that after Praimfaya.

I'm in no way a soccer (football to my fellow Europeans) expert, I'm honestly not even sure where that scene came from, but I accepted long ago that this story has taken on a life of its own and I'm just along for the ride!

As always, comments are much appreciated, so please take a moment to let me know if you enjoyed this one :)