Chapter Text
Traveling in a post-apocalyptic forest with eight people while trying to avoid man-eating monsters is not the easiest of tasks. Clarke finds herself in the midst of petty and not-so-petty arguments over the next few days, trying to resolve them in a manner that doesn’t involve violence, which is what seems to be the go-to solution for most of the new group.
Bellamy’s usually the one that ends up finishing the fights. He’s taken to leading in the most natural way – Clarke can’t help but be impressed. Everyone listens to him when he talks. He barks out orders like he owns the whole damn world and people follow them. It’s a little intimidating but mostly awe-inspiring. Clarke catches herself staring sometimes as Bellamy talks Jasper through skinning a squirrel or shows Monroe how to clean her gun faster than she knew how to before.
Sometimes he’ll catch her eye, and the lines in his forehead will smooth out. It’s not a smile, but Clarke thinks it’s about as close as he gets. She only sees him smile at Octavia. Somehow it’s become a goal of hers to get him to smile at her.
They reach a city after a few days and decide to split up in search of supplies. Monty joins Clarke and the Blakes and they head for a big chain store while the others weave through the abandoned houses, planning to meet up again at sundown.
She won’t ever get get used to abandoned, ransacked buildings, Clarke thinks. Stores are the worst, with their concrete walls and empty shelves. She keeps her nose covered with her shirt so the rotten smell can’t mess with her stomach as she paces the aisles. The chances that she’ll find something useful are slim, but she has to check.
There’s a can of something in the back of a shelf, so she reaches for it and drops it in her backpack without checking the label. Anything in a can lasts for years and she’s not in the best position to be a picky eater.
A crash the next aisle over has her aiming her gun in front of her before she can even process what happened.
“Dammit,” Bellamy swears.
Clarke turns the corner, gun still up, to find Bellamy plucking a bit of glass from his pantleg, a broken jar at his feet. She lowers her gun. “What happened? Are you okay?”
Bellamy shoots her an unimpressed look. “I was reaching for this,” he holds up a can with a faded label, “And knocked the jar–”
Octavia’s voice is loud, a high note of panic ringing through the empty building. “Bell!”
He starts toward his sister without a second of hesitation and Clarke follows. They pass a section of furniture into what used to be the hardware department and the unmistakable sounds of the undead reach their ears. Monty yells at Octavia to watch out and Clarke sees a walker dive for the girl before Monty finishes it off with a wrench.
There are more, though, coming at them in a group of ten, probably, it’s hard to count when they seem to blur together. Clarke tries to take a quick inventory of their surroundings – it looks like Monty grabbed the only pseudo-weapon in the area. She takes her knife from her boot and steels herself, feeling like the second goes by in slow motion.
Then everything happens at once, as it usually does, and it’s almost hard to keep track of the dead and the living. Walkers screech. Octavia gives a shout of success before the sickening crunch of a zombie hitting the floor. Bellamy gets two with a well-aimed throw of his knife then turns and offs another with the butt of his hammer. Clarke retrieves her knife from one just as another makes a lunge for her, jaw open and arms outstretched. She stumbles, kicks out at the body and it catches her leg. She’s fumbling for her gun, dropped just out of her reach, as a shot goes off and the walker falls onto her, limp.
“Ugh,” she curses and shoves the walker off her, grabs her gun and stands. A sharp pain burns up her leg.
“Are you okay?” Clarke blinks. Bellamy’s face comes into focus. Behind her, a zombie wails with a death blow. There’s a split second of eerie silence before Clarke processes what happened.
“It got my leg. Just its nails, I think.” She pulls her pant leg up to check on the wound. There are two gashes across her calf but they’re distinctly not teeth marks, so she deems it a win. When she looks back up at him, Bellamy’s eyes are locked on her leg. “Thanks for saving me.”
His gaze lifts to her face. “Anytime. You should get that bandaged.”
He sits with her while Monty and Octavia continue to search for supplies, confident in their relative safety because any zombie in the area would have been attracted to the bloodbath before. Clarke wraps her leg and tucks the end of her pants into her boot, securing the bandage as best as she can.
“I saw you get those two walkers at once,” she says as she cleans her knife. “You know, you don’t have to show off when we’re literally fighting for our lives.”
To her surprise that gets a reaction out of him. It’s not quite a laugh, more of a quick release of air through his nostrils, but it’s still satisfying. “I’ll take whatever I can get, Princess.” Clarke smiles.
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When the rest of their group finds them that evening they look to be a little worse for wear.
“Caught a nest in an old school,” Raven says before anyone can ask. “No one was bit but Harper took a bad hit to the head.” She collapses onto the porch swing of the house they stopped at for the night.
Monty goes to check on Harper, frowning. “We found some too. Clarke’s leg took the worst of it.”
“And my shirt,” Clarke mumbles. She’d given up on trying to ignore the gore on her clothes and had since stolen new clothes from the house. “Bellamy had to play action hero and I got zombie guts all over me.”
“In my defense, the zombie was basically all guts anyway.” Bellamy doesn’t even look up from his gun. Clarke thinks she hears a hint of a smile in his voice, but when she looks at him his forehead is creased in concentration.
“Monty found a wrench,” Octavia pipes up, and the conversation turns to more heroics. Clarke watches Bellamy, though, wondering again if he was born this unhappy or if his personality is a product of his environment. She finds herself hoping that it’s the latter.