AN: I can't believe we're already at chapter twenty… only eight more chapters and an epilogue to go after this! From the beginning, the story was supposed to be 27 chapters, not 29 – originally, the story jumped from around the middle of chapter 18 to the second half of this chapter, though with the same timeframe, but I felt like I was skipping ahead a little too much, so I split that chapter in two and filled them out a little, and added a Clarke chapter in between, and here we are…
As always, I don't own anything relating to The 100
-20-
It's still dark the next morning when Bellamy's roused from sleep. They're well into fall by now, and the suns rise later every day, but it must still be pretty early.
It takes his sleep-addled brain a moment to realize that Clarke's side of the bed is empty, and after rubbing his eyes to wake up at least a little, he pushes himself up to see where she might have disappeared to at this time of the morning. Usually, she's still asleep when he gets up to get ready for work and doesn't drag herself into the living area until just before he's about to leave.
He hears her before he sees her, the door to the washroom slightly ajar and the sound of vomiting coming from inside it.
"You OK?" he asks as he pushes the door all the way open. His question is answered by Clarke bending over the toilet again. "I'll take that as a no."
He crouches down behind her and carefully gathers her hair in one hand behind her neck while rubbing soothing motions against her back with the other. She heaves into the toilet a couple of more times, but soon her stomach seems to be finally empty and she slumps back against him, head dropping to his shoulder.
"Stomach bug," she mumbles tiredly, and Bellamy presses a kiss against her sweaty temple.
"I figured. Think you can make it back to bed?"
She shakes her head. "I should just stay here, not sure it's over yet."
"You can't sit on the floor like this, you need to sleep. Come on, I'll get you a bowl in case you're sick again."
She lets him help her up and leans heavily on him as he leads her back to bed and tucks her in before going into the main room to try to find something in case she throws up again and can't make it to the toilet. There's not really much to choose from, the kitchen is still very sparse, but he does manage to find a slightly rusty bucket that can't be used for much else.
"What's going on?"
He straightens up at Madi's sleepy voice and finds her rubbing her eyes in the doorway to her room.
"Clarke's got that stomach bug that's started going around, I've got it," he tells her. "Go back to bed."
She nods slowly before turning around and heading back into her room, the door sliding closed behind her.
Bellamy goes back to the bedroom and puts the bucket down on Clarke's side of the bed before sliding in behind her and placing a careful hand on her stomach.
"Feeling better?"
She grunts in what might be confirmation, but weakly tries to push him away.
"You should keep some distance, don't want you to get sick too."
He chuckles at that.
"Princess, we had sex, like, seven hours ago," he reminds her. "If I'm going to catch it, I think it's already too late."
She grumbles a little but doesn't complain when he moves in closer behind her.
"You're hot," he notes, her skin feeling warmer than his for once.
"Just what every girl wants to hear after spending half an hour bent over a toilet," she mumbles sleepily.
"Well, you're always hot," he replies. "But I was talking about your actual body temperature. I think you have a fever."
"The others who've had this got a fever the first day too, it should pass in a… day or so…"
She trails off, slipping back into a light slumber.
Bellamy stays awake behind her – he knows it's probably less than an hour until he has to get up anyway. She wakes up again just as it's starting to lighten outside, the cracks around the shutter a light grey instead of the earlier black. He holds her hair back as she bends over the side of the bed, heaving into the bucket even though the only thing left in her stomach by now is bile.
He gets her to drink some water while he and Madi get ready for the day, and leaves a tin pitcher and a mug on the floor by the bed for her.
"You sure you'll be OK on your own?" he asks, lingering hesitantly in the doorway to the bedroom.
"I'll just be sleeping anyway," she replies, not even opening her eyes to look at him. "I'll be fine. Just let Mom know I won't be in today."
"I will." He leans down to kiss her forehead. "I'll come back during lunch, OK, to see how you're doing."
-100-
Clarke's right, the fever does pass towards the evening the first day she's sick, but she's unable to hold anything but water down for several days after.
"Everyone reacts differently," Abby tells him when he talks to her on day five.
"But you said everyone else has gotten over it in three or four days," he insists. "It's been five now. She's not getting any nourishment, it can't be good in the long run."
"I know you worry," she tells him with a squeeze of his arm. "But give it another day or two."
To his relief, Clarke's able to eat without throwing up again the next day, and the following morning, she insists on getting out of bed and moving around a little.
Which is good, since Madi catches the same bug that night, and then Abby a few days later, leaving Clarke and Jackson to handle the stomach flu cases as well as the few injuries that seem to pop up every day.
Clarke's been back working for just over a week, Abby still out with the stomach bug, when they're woken up by someone banging on the door in the middle of the night.
Bellamy's a lighter sleeper, so he's already at the door by the time Clarke's sitting on the edge of the bed, opening it to reveal an out-of-breath Miller.
"Diyoza… baby… coming…" he huffs out, leaning against the door.
Clarke's there in an instant. "It's finally getting closer?" she asks, pulling a sweater over her head. The pregnant woman went into labor yesterday morning, but the progress has been slow so far and Clarke and Jackson decided to take turns dropping in on her during the nights. Clarke had last night and today it was Jackson's turn.
"Jackson said to get you," Miller replies, having finally caught his breath. "There might have been some sort of status report, but I honestly have no idea what he was talking about."
"OK, I'll be back as soon as I can," Clarke says, reaching up to give Bellamy a quick kiss before dashing out the door.
He doesn't see her again until she stops by the current construction site an hour or so after he's gotten there, a tired but happy smile on her face.
"Everything go OK?" he asks from the roof he and Miller are perched on.
"Just fine, mother and daughter are doing well and resting," she replies. "I sent Jackson home to get some sleep, since he's been up since yesterday morning, so I'll be in the med bay the rest of the day."
"OK, just don't overdo it, you're still not a hundred percent," he reminds her, but she just waves his worry off before leaving them.
He watches her go until Miller huffs next to him.
"What?" Bellamy asks, turning to his friend.
"Nothing," the other man replies. "You're just a complete sap when it comes to her, that's all."
And, well, it's not like he can deny that.
-100-
Bellamy's been neglecting his work duties a little while Clarke's been sick, and then Madi, he won't lie about that, but now that they're both back to – more or less – normal, Clarke insists that he focus on the last phase of the construction of the settlement, so he throws himself into work again.
They finish the last of the cabins the first day there's frost on the ground in the morning, to Bellamy's great relief, and Raven and Jordan arrange an impromptu celebration in the evening.
"We have something else to celebrate too," Raven announces when most of the settlement is gathered in the mess, where the individual tables have been pushed together to make three long ones.
Their group has nabbed the end of the large table at the back of the room, in the spot where their normal table usually stands. Raven holds up a big plastic container with something liquid inside it, and at first, nobody seems to realize what it is. Then Murphy woops. "Moonshine!"
"Yup, finished the first batch just this morning," Jordan confirms. "So this will be our grand premiere, if you will."
There's general cheering, but Bellamy feels Clarke tense next to him.
"Yeah, I'm not touching that," she mumbles into his ear. "Remember Jasper and Monty's first batch after we landed on Earth? I sweat it could have eaten through the metal of the Dropship."
Of course he remembers – vividly. In fact, the taste might still be ingrained in his brain. And while he was happy to put up with it to get a bit drunk back then, he'd like to think he's matured since.
"Have you actually tasted it?" he asks, getting a frown from Raven.
"Don't be such a party-pooper, Blake," she complains. "If you don't want to try it, you don't have to. It's a free world. Be boring if you want to."
Jordan opens the container, which gives off a strong smell that makes them all cough and Bellamy's eyes water, and pours some of the liquid into his own and Raven's mugs before holding it up as a question to the rest of them. Only Murphy, Shaw and Echo hold out their mugs – Bellamy's fairly sure Shaw only does it so he won't get kicked out of bed, he's learned it's best to stay on Raven's good side by now – and Jordan pours them some as well while Raven gives the rest of the group the evil eye.
"And here I thought we were friends," she exclaims in an exaggerated tone.
"We are," Miller tells her. "Unlike you, we just don't think that gives you the right to poison us."
"Exactly, we're too young to die," Octavia chips in. A couple of months ago, that might have made the situation uncomfortable, but now, everyone just laughs.
"Fine, have it your way," Raven grumbles, raising her mug. "Bottoms up!"
The five of them throw their drinks back in unison. A moment later, Jordan and Echo both spit theirs back out, while Shaw swallows with a pained look on his face. Murphy doesn't seem affected at all, and actually holds out his mug for a refill. Raven hasn't swallowed the liquid in her mouth yet, and her eyes are starting to tear up.
"Just spit it out, babe," Shaw tells her before he's overcome with a fit of coughing, and she immediately does.
"OK," she says after a moment. "That might need a bit of tweaking."
"A bit?" Echo questions with raised eyebrows, Thor patting her comfortingly on the back – the two have become a regular occurrence at their table since Echo introduced him to the group a while ago.
Raven rolls her eyes. "OK, fine, a lot of tweaking."
With the construction work essentially finished, a lot of people don't have much to do anymore. They do have some long term projects, like a proper building for Octavia's sewing and a real school, but the first frost seems to indicate that fall is quickly turning into whatever winter this planet has to offer, and even though the temperature rises a little again, they don't want to get anything started if it ends up being left unfinished and exposed to the elements during the colder months. They step up hunting, gathering, fishing and work in the smoke houses another notch, in preparation for the winter, and even head north to explore further in that direction, which keeps part of the previous construction work force busy, and the rest are re-assigned to the kitchens or as apprentices in the med bay or the workshop. Most of the people assigned to the workshop beg to be moved within a couple of days, though.
"You have to stop scaring people off!" Bellamy berates Raven one evening. "We need to train people so you, Shaw and Jordan won't be the only ones with technical knowledge."
"I know!" she grumbles. "Just… maybe let Zeke handle the newbies? I'm not good with stupid."
It gets better after that, even if at least one apprentice is reduced to tears every week. But nobody else quits, and Raven insists she's trying, which Shaw backs her up on, so Bellamy lets her be.
He and Miller steal Jordan away from the workshop to get his help on the work to set up a farm down in the valley. They've found something that Jordan has judged more or less the same as wheat on Earth, so they're hoping to be able to grow that and eventually make flour, which could mean bread, though that would also involve one of the long-term building projects – a mill. They also have a bunch of root vegetables similar to potatoes and carrots, and Jordan wants to do some test planting to see which are overwintering and which need to be planted in the spring. He says that he would have preferred planting a while ago, but the ground still isn't frozen, so it should work.
Still, the work setting up the farm isn't nearly as demanding as the construction was, which means that Bellamy has a bit more time to enjoy life and take more notice of his surroundings.
Like the fact that there's something wrong with Clarke.
Sure, she had that stomach bug that was going around the settlement, but that was weeks ago now. Bellamy didn't think much of it back then, she was taking care of sick people all the time, and Madi got it a few days later as well, so it really wasn't strange that she caught it. He had been worried for a while, when it seemed like it affected her more than everyone else and she didn't recover as quickly, but she did get better eventually.
But now he notices that, while she's not throwing up anymore, she still winces slightly, wrinkling her nose and pressing a hand against her stomach if they pass the kitchen when they're preparing fish. She's not eating much, either, which he really doesn't like, she lost some weight while she was sick and needs all the nourishment she can get so she can put it back on, especially before winter when they might not have as much food as they've been used to so far.
Now that he has time to go home for an hour or two before dinner every day, instead of meeting Clarke and Madi in the mess hall most nights and then going straight to bed after, he also notices that she's tired all the time, often taking a nap when she gets home from the med bay in the afternoon, even though she always gets a solid nine hours of sleep every night, if not more.
"How are you feeling?" he asks her one afternoon when Madi's off somewhere with Raven and they're alone in the cabin, him reading, leaning against the wall behind the bed and Clarke dozing with her head in his lap.
"What do you mean?" she asks, looking up at him, and he runs a hand through her hair, detangling some of the knots that have formed during the day.
"You've been tired lately," he expands.
Clarke frowns. "I guess so… I haven't really thought about it, to be honest. The med bay's been busy since that stomach bug started going around a while ago, you know that, and we still get the occasional flu case and injuries… I'm probably just a little over worked."
It could be that, of course.
"That's another thing," he continues. "The stomach bug. I know you're better, but you still feel sick sometimes, right?"
"It's just one of those new types of fish they've started cooking in the kitchen," she assures him quickly. "It really stinks, I'm surprised nobody else gets sick from the smell."
It is true that the smell is a little… pungent during cooking, even if the fish is absolutely delicious to actually eat. Still, he's just not sure that's it, and there's a small weight forming in the pit of his stomach even as she brushes his concern off.
"Are you sure?" he insists, frowning.
"I'm positive," Clarke replies, squeezing his hand comfortingly. "Which one of us is the doctor here?"
"OK, fine," Bellamy grudgingly agrees. "But promise me that you'll ask your mom to give you a check-up if you think something's wrong?"
"I promise," she says, running a hand up his thigh. "Now, how about I show you how not-tired I am?"
He lets her distract him, and he really does try to let the issue go.
He still can't help but keep an extra close eye on her over the next few weeks, though. If anything, she's getting more tired, to the point where he has to physically wake her up when he leaves in the morning, so she'll get out of bed and not just roll over and continue sleeping until noon. Eventually, it gets to the point where Madi calls her out on it, when Clarke actually falls asleep against Bellamy's shoulder in the mess hall one evening during movie night.
The young girl waits until they're back in the cabin a little later, before turning on Clarke, hands on her hips and a stern look on her face that reminds Bellamy so much of Clarke and Abby that he has to suppress a laugh.
"Are you sick again?" Madi asks, jumping directly to the point.
Clarke lets out a tired sigh. "Not this again… did you put her up to this?" she asks, turning to him.
"I have nothing to do with this," he replies, raising his hands in surrender. "But even you have to realize that something's going on by now. This isn't just being overworked, Princess."
"By now?" Madi questions. "How long has this been going on?"
"Since she had the stomach bug," Bellamy tells her, getting a betrayed look from Clarke.
"That was over two months ago!" Madi exclaims, and Bellamy realizes that she's right. Time has kind of started bleeding together, but he knows Raven has a sort of calendar in her workshop, keeping track of how long they've been down here, and Madi hangs out there almost as much as she does in their cabin, so she would know.
"OK, we're making a majority decision," Bellamy says, nodding at Madi. "You are going to talk to your mom tomorrow and figure out what's going on. No arguing."
Clarke rolls her eyes but agrees. "Fine."
He waits until they're in bed before he brings it up again, the worry nagging at him.
"What if it's something bad?" he murmurs into Clarke's hair as he wraps himself around her, the way they almost always fall sleep. He has a lump in his throat and has to swallow hard to even get the words out.
She covers the hand that's resting on her stomach with her own and squeezes.
"I'm sure it's not," she whispers back.
"We know so little about this planet, it could be anything," he continues. "The air, even, or the water or the food…"
"If it was, someone else would be showing symptoms as well," Clarke reasons, and he knows that, of course, on a logical level. Doesn't mean it helps. "Do you want to know what I think, honestly?"
"Mm-hm."
She turns in his arms so she can look at him as she continues.
"The most logical thing is some sort of deficiency, probably iron," she says. "That causes tiredness, and sometimes headaches and dizziness, which I have been experiencing, now that I look back at it from that perspective."
It doesn't sound too bad.
"What would you do about that?" he asks, wanting some sort of practical plan, something he can do.
"I'll talk to Mom about it and take a look at the original analyses we did of all the fruits and berries. I know some of the things we grew on the Ark were rich in iron, like spinach and broccoli, but I'm sure some of the plants on this planet must be as well. I'll just have to eat more of those and I'll be fine in no time."
"OK."
She squeezes his hand again. "Does that make you feel better?"
It doesn't eliminate the nagging worry at the back of his mind that it's something worse, but it does help. "Yeah, a little."
Clarke drifts off almost immediately, like she always does these days, her head tucked under his chin and her warm breath against his chest, but Bellamy lies awake for a long time before sleep finally drags him under, trying and failing to stop his mind from wandering to the worst case scenarios.
AN: OK, a bit more action in this one – babies being born, people getting sick, building work getting finished up… and what's wrong with Clarke?