Chapter 5
Bellamy had been awake the whole time. He never actually went to sleep and it took everything he had for him not to get up and punch Pike. He doesn’t know what he’s saying. They’ve all been through so much. Because of the Ark; the grounders; what happened at Mount Weather.
The Ark sent the 100 down to die. The grounders attacked them and tried to kill them once they thought they’d survive. The mountain men gave them the illusion of safety, didn’t let them leave, and then tried to kill them. And then Clarke and I had to pull that stupid lever.
Bellamy still had nightmares about it all. It was rare that he didn’t have nightmares. It usually meant he was due for a bad one the next night, though.
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Bellamy sat up jerkily on the bench, yelling, still half asleep. He was breathing heavily, and then he felt arms around him and someone shushing him from near his ear. He jumped up, yanking himself from the person’s arms and spun around, ready to fight.
Gina stood up from the bench and dropped her arms to her side, looking hurt.
Bellamy tried to slow his breathing and tried to relax from the defensive stance he had taken. Despite his efforts he was tense. He was strung so tight from the nightmare.
“What happened?”
“You fell asleep while you were waiting for me to finish inventory. You were having a bad dream,” Gina said cautiously. “I tried to wake you.” She didn’t look scared but she looked wary. She had never seen him like this. “Bell, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he swallowed. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a bad dream.” He was sweating.
Gina didn’t believe him. She looked him over, saw him try to hide his shaking hands by putting them in his pockets, saw the sweat on his forehead, the weird gleam in his eyes. “Are you sure? You don’t seem o--”
“No, yeah, I’m great,” he assured her quickly. “Are you almost done?” He was trying really hard to keep his voice from shaking.
Gina stared for a few seconds, as if she was deciding to let it go or force him to talk about it. “Yeah, I just finished up.”
“Great. I’ll walk you to your room.”
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Things had been shaky between Bellamy and Gina for a while after that, before she finally let it go. She wanted him to open up to her, tell her what had him so shaken. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her though, just kept saying it was a normal bad dream, that he couldn’t even remember what it was about.
Of course he was lying. He remembered every detail of that dream. He just couldn’t let her know how messed up he really was. She knew what happened since he landed on Earth with the 100. He’s told her everything, all the people he's killed, the friends he failed to save, how he blamed himself. But he never went into detail about the parts that gave him those nightmares.
She knew he hurt Lincoln, but not how badly, and not for how long. She knew the mix up with Murphy being hung instead of Charlotte, but not that he didn’t really try to stop it, or that he practically beat Murphy half to death after Charlotte jumped before Clarke stepped in and stopped him. She knew he destroyed the radio leading to the culling back on the Ark, but not of the hallucinations that haunted him after he ate those Jobi nuts.. She knew of what he did in that mountain, how he spied and killed Lovejoy. How he pulled that lever with Clarke. But not how those people looked. Not about the little children’s bodies. The mangled screaming that could be heard from the control room. Not how being responsible for all of those deaths, on top of everything else he had ever done, caused him to lose sleep at night.
So for Pike to just dismiss everything they’d been through since being put on the ground really got his blood boiling. And Clarke stayed so quiet.
Bellamy tried to sit up, to say something to Pike or to check on Clarke he wasn’t sure, but was reminded about his leg wound when he tried to put some weight on it. He hissed and Clarke got up and walked over to him. She helped him lean against the tree nearest him and looked at his dressings.
“I wish we had some bandages and something to clean this wound with,” she mumbled. “And you definitely need stitches.” Bellamy almost didn’t hear her, she was so quiet. “I think we have some bandages in the med box we keep in the back of the rover. There’s not much in it,” he informed her.
Clarke walked to the rover and stared at the back of it. She stroked it’s side, shivering at the coolness of the metal. She looked for a handle and once she found it she pulled it open. She couldn’t really see inside the rover, it was so dark. She tried to look for a handhold to pull herself in but she just ended up crawling inside. It got even darker once she was inside, but she tried to feel around the floor for the box Bellamy was talking about. All of a sudden the place lit up and she could see what she was doing. She looked over at the entrance of the rover and saw Pike standing there with a torch. Whatever gratitude she felt for the light dissipated once she saw him. He just stared right back at her.
She went back to what she was doing and saw a small wooden box underneath a bench-type seat built into the side of the inside of the rover. She looked inside and saw some bandages and a roll of medical tape. There were a few more items in the box but they weren’t needed. She climbed back out of the rover and grabbed the torch from Pike without thanking him. She knelt by Bellamy again, stuck the torch in the ground for better visualization on what she was doing, and took out the water skin she grabbed from one of the bags while she was in the rover.
“This might sting a little,” she warned him before she poured the water into the wound. His jaw clenched but he didn’t make a sound. After she rinsed the wound out she bandaged it up, keeping it in place with the medical tape. She put the torch back on the fire and leaned back on her heels before looking at Bellamy’s tired face. “Here, have some water,” she said as she raised the water skin to his lips. He tilted his head to drink better from the water skin when her hand brushed against his jaw.
Once he was done drinking she put the back of her hand to his cheek, then moved it to his forehead and his neck. “You’re warm,” she frowned.
“It’s just the stab wound. I’ve been through worse,” he reassured her. She was still frowning when she replied, “Maybe…”
They sat there in silence the rest of the watch, both Bellamy and Clarke exhausted from not getting enough sleep for the past few days, both trying not to let it show.
What happened yesterday?, he wondered. One second she was joking around with him, giving him a new nickname and the next… It was like a different person came back to get him from the steps. She’s been so cold and quiet. Emotionless. He turned to look at her. She had her face turned up to the brightening sky, her eyes closed. She looked calm but he knew what kind of war she could hide within herself. If he’s had such a rough time coming to terms with what happened back in the mountain while continuing on in Arkadia how has she coped out in this god-forsaken forest.
He watched as she opened her eyes and saw the tiniest glimpse of the pain she was hiding before it disappeared and the cold glint returned. She turned to him, having seen him staring at her, seeing the question on his face that was dying to be asked.
What happened to you, Clarke?