Chapter Text
Help me…
Bellamy…
Please…
Help me!
Bellamy sprints through the forest, trying to find the voice that’s coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. He has to find her, he has to find her now. Something terrible will happen if he doesn’t. He calls out to her, screams at the trees that separate him from her.
Bellamy!
Bellamy!
“Bellamy! Wake up!”
Bellamy sits upright with a shout, drenched in sweat and shaking from his nightmare. Octavia jumps back from the edge of the bed where she had been sitting just moments earlier trying to wake him. He doesn’t even register her at first. He can still hear Clarke’s screams echoing in his ears, just as fresh in his memory as they had been when the Grounders took her months ago. He vainly tries to clear his head by rubbing his hands over his face, but he knows the screams won’t go away. They never do.
“You were having a nightmare?”
Bellamy just grunts in reply, levering himself out of bed and grabbing a shirt off of the floor. He begins to gather up the things he’ll need for his next hunting expedition. A better canteen, one of his replacement knives, more tarp, a warmer coat. He’ll grab some food before he heads out, but he packs light. Judging by the brightness of the sun he slept longer than he had intended to, and he needs to get back out there. Every second that he isn’t in the forest looking for Clarke causes the screams to grow louder.
“It’s good to see you back here, the camp’s missed you over the last few weeks.”
“Just back for resupply.” He says, not wanting to waste energy that could be spent looking for Clarke on a conversation.
“Bell, you have to stop doing this. You need to acknowledge the fact that even if Clarke’s not dead, we aren’t going to find her. There’s no trail to follow, and if she could escape from wherever they have her, she would have already.” Octavia uses her most reasonable, calming voice on him, but the words have the opposite effect on him.
“Shut the fuck up.” He growls, “You don’t know that. You can’t possibly know that. She’s out there somewhere, and I will find her. It’s my decision if I want to die looking for her. And don’t call me “Bell” anymore. You’re the one who said I wasn’t your brother anymore.”
“Fine then, Bellamy.” She replies, a little bit of her temper flaring up, “But it’s pointless for you to die looking for her. We need you here at camp. You’re the best hunter we have, and you’re the leader that everyone’s waiting on.”
“I’ll be a leader again once I find her. And I’m not your best hunter. If I was, I would have found her by now.” Bellamy drags his hands over his face again, feeling weariness down to his very core. His voice drops to a whisper as he repeats, “I would have found her.”
“You really loved her, didn’t you?” Octavia asks, placing a hesitant hand on his shoulder.
“I still love her.” There’s no use in denying it anymore. In the first few days, Bellamy convinced everyone including himself that they needed to find her just because Clarke was valuable to the camp. But after Jasper, Raven, Octavia, Monty, and Finn had given up hope on finding her, Bellamy still couldn’t. He passed on all responsibilities of leading the camp to others, spending more and more time in the forest. As weeks turned into months, he knew it was more than wanting a valuable resource back, or even a friend. He loved his brave princess, and he had to get her back. It’s the only thing driving him anymore.
Octavia surprisingly pulls him into a hug and whispers in his ear, “I never really wanted you to stop being my brother, you know. I was upset, and then you’ve been gone. Even when you’re here, you’re gone.” She releases him and adds, “Go find her. Raven and I will run the camp while you’re gone, like always. You can grab a better canteen from stores, we just got our trade in from Ark-camp last night.”
“You’re trading with them regularly now?” The last thing Bellamy had done as leader was to declare the Delinquents’ independence from the settlers who had come down from the Ark. The Chancellor had agreed, making it clear that the action meant they would have to trade for anything and everything the Arkers had that they might need, and that even then the Arkers could just say no. Raven and Octavia must have smoothed over relations between the two camps a little if the Arkers were willing to trade regularly.
The girls do a good job of running things for him. Octavia is compassion and understanding while Raven is more actions and firm rulings. They balance each other well and seem to get along. Actually, now that Bellamy thinks on it, they get along really well. He doesn’t remember seeing the makeshift lean-to that Raven had been staying in when he was wandering to his tent last night, and he definitely didn’t notice any new shelters. Well, good for them. He cares about both of them, and if they make each other happy it’s obviously a good arrangement.
“Mhm. We’re getting more meat than we need now, with organized hunting parties, and none of them have bothered to learn how to hunt.”
“Mmm, good.” But Bellamy has moved past caring now. The screams in his head prompt him to rush out of the tent without further comment. He grabs a metal canteen and some roots that someone had dug up before he leaves camp, but he doesn’t linger a second longer than he has to. No one else is awake yet, but he still feels as if he’s wasting time.
The walls around the camp are far better constructed now, actual interlocked logs rather than just lashed together deadfall. There are only two gates, both constantly guarded by pairs of people. He takes the northern exit, nodding briefly to Jasper and a girl who he doesn’t know the name of.
At the very least, his constant forays in the forest have given Bellamy the ability to move almost silently through the forest. He sets off to the northeast and quickly becomes surrounded by the sounds of birds chirping and animals rousing themselves in the early morning. At any other time, it might be peaceful. But Bellamy doesn’t know how to be at peace anymore.
He passes by a deer, close enough to have easily killed it with his axe, but he has no interest in hunting. He might kill a rabbit when he begins to feel the signs of starvation set in, but as long as he still has enough energy to keep going he leaves the animals unmolested. He has enough guilt on his conscience over Clarke that every time he kills something it drives him a little closer to the edge of insanity.
Of course, it was his fault, as Bellamy sees it. He had been teasing Clarke, as always, maybe a little harsher than normal due to the fact that they knew the people of the Ark were coming down. He was frightened, and he took it out on her. He had felt accomplished- accomplished- when she had stormed off into the woods. In the broad daylight, with the people of the Ark coming any day now, how would it have been dangerous? But then she had started screaming, calling his name, and Bellamy had started to fall apart. He’s still falling apart, every day he doesn’t find her.
He trudges of through the forest for hours, until the sun reaches its zenith. He knows that it’s in his best interest to take a break at this time, so he heads to a stream he remembers being nearby and pulls out one of the roots. They’re some tasteless form of tuber, but they give you enough energy to get by on and fill you up some, so he chokes them down. Bellamy takes a swig from his canteen and bend down to refill it from the rapid flowing stream, but then pauses as he sees something in the woods.
A flash of pale gold, just on the edge of his vision. It must be the sun, he tells himself. But the sun is almost directly above him. He shakily sets aside his canteen and tries to avoid getting his hopes up. Perhaps he’s closer to insanity than he thought. Maybe he’s started seeing things. Seeing her. Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. The object stays hidden behind the trees until he passes one and suddenly he can see, and he knows he’s not insane because Bellamy would have imagined her strong, happy, vibrant. She would tease him, or yell at him, or kiss him.
In front of him is a body that bears Clarke’s face, and her hair, but it doesn’t resemble Clarke anymore. Her hair has been hacked at clumsily, half of her head covered in patches of short hair and bald patches and scabs where they didn’t stop cutting at the root of her hair. The other half it still as long as ever, but is mostly matted with dirt and what seems to be- oh god, it is- blood.
Her face is still mostly recognizable as Clark, but her normally pale skin has become sickly and bluish white, as if she hadn’t seen the sun in the entirety of the time she’d been gone. But it’s difficult to tell what the true colour of her skin is now, because it’s covered in bruises. Red, purple, green, and blue new and fading bruises cover her skin as if a child had been allowed to paint on her. Several scars and open wounds crisscross her eyebrows, lips, and jaw. Her throat has distinct fingers marks bruised into the tender skin.
And the rest of her body… Bellamy feels all hope drain from him as he see the state of her. Her clothes are so tattered that they barely conceal anything anymore, and he wishes that they would cover more of the horror before him. Thick scars cover every inch of her, segments of skin have been flayed from her, and the angle of some of her limbs is definitely not right. One of her feet is almost black with bruising, and so swollen that he thinks it might have been crushed.
Bellamy feels tears creep from his eyes and choke his throat as he grabs her less damaged hand and grips it gently. He tries to call out to her in the hope that somehow she’s still alive, but the first time no noise escapes his mouth. He tries again and calls her name.
“Clarke, please. I found you. Please.” He sobs, over and over again, clutching her hand tighter every second that she doesn’t reply.
Sobs rack his body as the last vestiges of hope leave him. He found her, and it was too late. He would do anything to bring her back, to save her, to heal her, but there’s nothing he can do. He screams his frustrations to the skies, before settling back into painful sobs that do nothing to ease the feeling of his soul shattering. She would never even know that he loves her.
But maybe it’s better this way. Bellamy looks at her damaged body once again and tries to imagine how long and painful it would be to heal from that. And who knows what they did to her mind. At least now she’s at peace. He leans forward to press a delicate kiss to her bloody forehead, the only affection he’s ever shown his love. And that’s when he hears a soft groan.
Bellamy’s head snaps up and he scans the forest, but sees nothing. Desperately trying to ignore the slight spark of hope that flares inside of him, he glances at the body in front of him. Are those shadows flickering across her face, or her eyelids flickering? Is she breathing, or is he imagining things? And then he sees her lips part around another groan, and the fragments of his soul suddenly snap back into place.
“Clarke. Clarke. Come back to me. You have to, you can do this, you can fight. Come back to me, my brave princess. My warrior. My leader. My love. Come on Clarke, you can do this.” He encourages her, his spirit soaring when he sees a crease form between her eyebrows as if she’s concentrating on something. He sobs and laughs and smiles and continues to talk to her until her eyes flicker open.
“Bell… my… you.. fou… me…” Her voice is the faintest whisper of an echo, but to him it is the sweetest music ever to have graced the Earth. She came back to him. He laughs with tears running freely down his face and leans closer as she tries to say something else.
“Please… Bell… Make it… stop… The pain… So… much…”
And Bellamy feels his heart stop. He remembers the last time he heard something like this, when he was in the forest with Atom. Another person he couldn’t save. And this girl in front of him, she had helped Atom, and helped Bellamy by taking the knife from him. Since then Bellamy had hunted countless animals, racked up an impressive kill count, but he can’t kill a person. Especially not Clarke. Not right after her found her.
“No.” He says in a broken voice and places a hand on the less beaten side of her face to quell her protests, “I can’t. Not you. I can fail everyone else, everyone else can die, but not you. Never you. I’m going to take you back to camp, and we’re going to fix you, and you will get better. And I’ll be with you the whole time. I’m never letting you go again.”
“I… c… an’t…” A tear creeps down the side of her face, and Bellamy gently brushes it away with his thumb.
“You can. You’re the strongest person I know. You’re a leader, a warrior. You can fight the pain, you can beat the injuries, and you can get better. You will get better. Understand me?”
Tears continue to leak from the corners of her eyes, but Clarke eventually gives a shaky nod and Bellamy smiles in relief. Her face then goes slack as she lapses back into unconsciousness, but Bellamy isn’t worried. Nothing bad can happen to her now, not now that he’s got her back.