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“Be strong, saith my heart; I am a soldier;
I have seen worse sights than this.”
― Homer, The Odyssey
Bellamy Blake is 18 years and 2 months old when he enrols in the army. He’s fresh-faced with a boyish grin and innocent brown eyes. He’s fooled by the false promises made by the propaganda and the government. He waves his mother off with a smile when she cries about him dying.
He won’t die. Not really.
He promises his sister he’ll be back soon and kisses his mother’s cheek at the train station.
“I love you.” He kisses Octavia’s forehead, his sister is 12 years old, clutching to her brother - the only stability she’s ever known.
“I love you too, Bell. I’ll love you even more if you come back.” The small dark-haired girl with the red ribbon tied in her hair tells him with wide eyes full of sincerity (eyes that reflect his own, that have ever since the day they first peered into his, wide and innocent, his brown orbs her first sight of the world).
“I will, O. I promised, didn’t I?” She nods but she doesn’t look convinced. He looks at his mother and hugs her tightly.
“No more funny stuff, mum.” He says lowly, so Octavia won’t hear. “Okay? O needs you. I’m not here to clean up after you anymore.” His mother winces at the last word. Anymore. It’s so - so permanent. “I’ll be back, mum. I swear to God if I have to kill every Nazi I meet for the rest of my life I will be back to you both.”
“I love you, son. I’m proud of you.” Her voice is too quiet and her eyes too moist for Bellamy to see the truth in her statement.
“I love you too.” And then there’s the final call and Bellamy has to go, running and swinging himself up on the train.
“Bellamy!” His mother calls after him. He turns. “Don’t be a hero, Bell. Come back to me.” She glances at her daughter, holding tight to Aurora’s arm with one hand with a tatty doll (Bellamy bought it with his very first paycheque at 13 and Octavia hasn’t let go of it since). “Come back to us.” He nods and then he’s on the train, catching the barest sight of a silver tear making it’s way down his sister’s olive-toned cheek.
He won’t die. Not now. It’s not his time.
He meets a kid called Jasper, he's in his regiment and they share living quarters. Bellamy’s been here 4 months now and he’s already used to being constantly hungry. They try their best to feed the soldiers, but sometimes you can’t eat when you think about the amount of people you’ve killed, you know? He’s fully trained and knows every danger area in the body. He hasn’t been injured yet and he’s still fighting with a patriotic smile on his face. He still believes in his country. He thinks he’ll never stop.
At 6 months, he has fallen into routine with his regiment and he writes to his mother and Octavia regularly. O is growing up now and Bellamy is torn between being proud that she is and annoyed that she has to. He wants to banish Hitler and Daladier and Chamberlain and everyone who decided on the war to hell, because he’s away from his sister whilst she goes through so many milestones and needs him so much.
He fights harder, for his sister. He will get home. He doesn’t care what happens to get him there.
It’s 12 months into the war now and Bellamy’s smile still exists. He’s thinner and leaner and his face is dirtier, but it’s still Bellamy’s face. He celebrated his 19th birthday by shooting some Nazis. His best friend Jasper makes sure he celebrates it properly with a makeshift cake from their ration packs and a song with some jeers from the older men. Bellamy smiles at him because he knows that he’s tried his best and it genuinely was a good birthday. His mother and sister sent him a small box of goodies from home, including the chocolate chip cookies that he taught O how to make when they were kids. It breaks his heart that she can make them without his help but he tries not to think about it, because she had to learn at some point, right?
He’s been fighting this war 21 months and is considering giving up when he’s shot in the side. He’s rushed to the closest infirmary where he’s greeted at the door by a pretty blonde and a dark-haired Asian boy. He’s rushed to an operation where they don't have enough drugs to sedate him so he weakly tells them to do it whilst he’s awake. He doesn’t know if it’s brave or sadistic, but the blonde nurse gives him a weak smile.
“Are you sure, soldier?” She checks. When he nods, she nods to the boy and it starts.
The pain is blinding and Bellamy waits for it to knock him out.
It does, eventually. He falls unconscious and the world goes black.
When he comes back around, the blonde nurse is watching him closely, standing over his bed.
“Hi, soldier.” She says softly, he can hear the thinly veiled relief in her voice. She pushes his hair from his sweaty face and looks down at his side, which is bandaged. “We fixed you. Just a few more weeks now and you’ll be good as new.”
“Weeks?” He gapes.
“Quite a wound you had there.” She points out. “It’s gonna take a few weeks to get you better. Okay?” He shrugs.
“I don’t have a choice, do I?”
“Not really.” She pats his head with a chuckle. He winces in pain as he tries to move. “Don’t move.” She says, a beat too late. “You want some water?” He nods.
“Please?” His lips are cracked and dry and she glances worriedly at them before fleeing the room. She comes back a few minutes later with a jug of water. “You’ve got quite the fan club here.” She tells him wryly and he rolls his eyes with a chuckle.
“Sorry?”
“You wouldn’t believe the amount of nurses that just offered to bring this drink to you, just to see you.” She shakes her head.
“I bet I would. I get it everywhere.” He remarks dryly. “I mean, it’s only natural I’d have it here in the peak of my physical health.” She laughs and props him up a little to pour some water down his throat, he gulps it but she pulls the drink away.
“Sip it. Drinking too much when you’ve gone so long without it will make you ill.” She warns him; he nods but drinks quickly anyway, guiltily avoiding her scowling stare.
“So who’s Octavia?” She asks lightly. He shoots her a questioning look, more than an edge of resentment withering inside his eyes. “You talked in your sleep.” She admits quietly. “I tried not to listen-“ He waves her off.
“S’fine.” He shrugs. “My sister. Octavia. She’s 13 years old now. God. She’s a teenager.” He’s speaking mostly to himself, but she’s watching him intently as she potters around his bed.
He’s in the hospital for 3 weeks, where he talks to the pretty blonde nurse about pretty much everything. She’d sit by his bed during her breaks - which were few and far between (‘blood doesn’t wait until I can stop it, soldier’) where he told her about his mother and his sister, the only family he’d ever had. He tells her about Jasper, his best friend in the army. He tells her about all the crazy stuff he and his sister used to do to annoy their mum’s weirdo boyfriend. She tells him about her mother and the probable death of her father - how her mother could have saved him, but had him diverted elsewhere because she was a coward, how they don’t really know where he is anymore - she tells him about her best friend Wells, who was killed when he enlisted in the war so she’d have somebody to watch over her. He didn’t have to, she’d cry, his father was a senator, he could have gotten him out of it. But no, Wells came with her regiment to check she got home safe.
Now, he’d never be going home with her.
He tells her about his best friend Miller, back at home. He was in a different regiment from Bellamy, but they still kept in touch whenever they could. She tells him about Raven, this badass girl back home who dated the same guy as her, but they still managed to become best friends. He tells her that he’s scared. And she admits she is too.
They never exchange names. She calls him soldier (for obvious reasons), he calls her princess, because she’s like the rebellious princess in the fairytales he used to tell Octavia.
Then the day he gets to leave rolls around and he wants to laugh and cry and smile and frown all at once.
“Will I see you again?” He asks her at the door, glancing at her before looking away, eyes fixed on the horrendously heavy boots on his feet.
“Tell you what, soldier.” The blonde smiles at him. “After you survive this war, you come find me.” She jots something down - a number. “That’s my home number - if I’ve even got a home to go to anymore.” She kisses his cheek and is gone as swiftly as she was by his side the instant he got there.
“What’s your name?” He calls to her retreating figure.
“You’ll find out when you call me after the war, won’t you, soldier?” She calls back before walking away quicker, almost as if resisting temptation.
He returns to the war to find Jasper dead. He cries and yells and wants to kill everything; it just gave him something to fight harder for.
Jasper. Miller. Roma. Monty. Lincoln. Dax. Monroe. All of these people have lost their lives for others. He fights for them. He fights for his family. He fights for everyone he’s found and everyone he’s lost in this damn war.
Octavia. His mother. The blonde nurse. He has everything to get out for.
He looks at Octavia’s handwriting - it’s improved so much - and Clarke’s number before he sleeps of a night (after a few weeks, he has those simple numbers memorised like the spelling of his own name). He’ll find them both, he vows to himself. He’ll get out of here, he’ll survive and he’ll find his sister and his princess.
His mother’s and Octavia’s letters stop coming somewhere around 28 months into the war. He mourns them, despite the fact that he doesn’t know if they’re dead. They can’t be dead, right? He’d know if they were dead…
Wouldn’t he?
(Then again, he thinks, he’s read countless stories about humans who treat themselves as deities, who think that they can do things beyond the fundamental human functions. Look how they turned out).
At 30 months he’s back in the infirmary. The blonde nurse is there again, but she’s not his. He’d been in an explosion this time. Nothing too big. He was on the outskirts of it - he was lucky - only a few head wounds that bled like hell but never actually amounted to anything. He thinks about giving up again, running away and living like a fugitive.
Then the blonde princess stops by his bed.
“Hi, soldier.” She smiles softly.
“Hey, stranger.” He murmurs. “I was starting to think that you’d forgotten me.”
“Never.” Her grin is crooked and her eyes are duller than before.
“How are you?”
“As good as you can be in a war.” She perches on the end of his bed. “I’m on a break.” She explains. “How’s Octavia?”
“She… uh… she stopped writing.” Clarke’s crooked smile falls from her lips. She knows what that means.
“That doesn’t necessarily mean what you’re thinking it does.” She tells him kindly, softly. “She could have lost your details. You’ve relocated since last time, right?” He nods. “There you go. It’s gotten lost somewhere when you relocated.”
“It means exactly what I think it does, but thanks for the attempt, however weak.” He shoots her a grin and though it’s sad, it’s the most real smile he’s managed in weeks.
“Don’t give up hope, soldier.”
“I think I gave up hope a long time ago, princess. But thanks.”
“No, you haven’t. You’ve got to keep on hoping. I’ve been in this war as long as you have. I’ve saved as many lives as I can and I’ve lost more than I could bear to admit. So if I tell you there’s hope, there’s hope, got it?” Her voice is as passionate as he’s ever heard it and he nods dumbly. “Okay. You’re okay. We’re going to be okay. We’re all going to be okay.” She tells him - herself.
He’s 20 years old when he next departs the infirmary. This time when he’s discharged, she’s not there to wave him off. It’s another girl with beautiful dark hair and golden eyes and she’s gorgeous, but she’s not his princess. Her name is Lydia and she kisses his cheek shyly before allowing him to go. He surveys the area for a glance of the princess but she’s nowhere to be seen.
At 45 months into the war, Bellamy gets word of the enemy getting into the infirmary. They killed multiple soldiers and a few nurses, he’s told. One of the nurses to be killed was a gorgeous blonde with porcelain skin and the sky in her eyes.
He tells himself it’s not the Princess.
He knows it is.
At 47 months, he finds a 12 year old German girl, hiding in the trees. She’s terrified, he sees, so he asks her how she got there. He learns that her name is Charlotte and she lost both of her parents in the war, so she ran away but didn’t get very far before she found herself in a battlefield. She has horrible nightmares, so he teaches her how to defend herself. He tells her about Clarke and teaches her to slay her demons.
She kills one of his own the next night.
50 months along the line, the nightmares start. Octavia is in them, so is the princess.
He’s stuck in a room that’s like a box, there’s gas filling it up and Octavia and the Princess are standing outside watching him. Octavia does everything to help him. She screams and she kicks at the door. She fights and fights until her knuckles are bloody and her skin is cracked from the strain. Her voice is scratchy from screaming as she pleads with the princess to help her, help him. Just help. The princess watches calmly. She tells Bellamy that she can’t help him until he helps himself and her voice is serene despite the fact that he knows her eyes well enough to see the terror within. “Bellamy please.” She’ll speak to him, but he’ll never answer, the air will have left his lungs.
It’s never real.
She doesn’t - didn’t - know his name. It’s not real. The dream wasn't real.
She’s gone. Octavia’s gone. And he’s still here.
He’s still here.
It’s 67 months into the war when he’s knocked down. They say he won't get up. They say he was good as dead.
This time when he went to the infirmary his princess wasn’t there. He asked after her, but nobody knew who she was.
She’d disappeared.
He recovered - sorrowfully - and was on his way within 2 months.
It’s 69 months when he leaves the infirmary for the third time. Again, the princess doesn’t wave him off. This time, he doesn’t look for her.
He can’t bear not finding her.
If I say there’s hope, there’s hope.
There’s hope, he tells himself, because hope is all he has.
He’s a miracle, they say. They say he was as good as dead, but he got back up.
He idly wonders why.
It’s been 76 months and one day when Bellamy Blake finds out the war is over and he’s still alive.
He’s 24 years old when he walks out of the barracks and starts his journey home. He’s fresh-faced in the literal sense of the word. The boyish grin has long since fallen from his lips and in it’s place is a manly scowl. His innocent brown eyes are not innocent anymore - he’s seen too many fallen soldiers, heard too many wails in the middle of the night. He knows the truth of war and what it means now. The propaganda lied. His mother told the truth.
He sheds a tear when he thinks of the mother he isn’t sure is alive.
He understands why she cried about him dying.
He didn’t die. Not really. Not in the literal sense of the word, at least.
“O?” He calls to the empty shell of a house that was once his. There’s no furniture - hell, there are barely walls in this crumbling host of his childhood, the wallpaper is gone and the floors are charred. Octavia is not inside. Neither is his mother.
“Bellamy?” The neighbour, Jan, asks, concerned, as she stands at their front door.
“Where’s my mother?” He asks her, knowing he doesn’t want the answer.
“She’s - well, Bellamy. She’s…” He waves her off, he can finish that sentence himself.
“Octavia?” He asks in a pained voice.
“She left, Bellamy. She’s alive. She was taken away, evacuated before your mother’s death. She hid her, you know that? She hid Octavia as well as she could for 2 years, kept them both safe until news of the Germans got around here. She got Octavia out - but your mother, she was sent to one of the camps, supposedly. They reckon she was killed along the way, though.” Bellamy hangs his head.
“Octavia’s alive.” He says to himself, his elderly neighbour smiles and nods a little. “My mother isn’t.” The smile falls from her lips as she continues to nod. “Where’s Octavia?”
“Last I heard, she’d been taken far out to one of the little villages on the outskirts, new name mind you.” The woman tells him. He nods, unconcerned (he doesn’t need a name to know his sister).
“Okay. Okay. I’ll find her.” Jan pats his shoulder.
“Best of luck, Bellamy Blake. May we meet again.”
“May we meet again.” Bellamy replies, but his cracked voice is no louder than a whisper.
It’s been 82 months since Bellamy enlisted in the war and he has found his little sister. She’s not little anymore. She’s almost 19 years old an as gorgeous a girl as he’s ever seen. He can think of only one girl who can rival her in beauty. But she’s not there, so Octavia is the most gorgeous human being he’s ever laid eyes on. When he finds his sister, and confirms the demise of his mother, Bellamy sets on to Jasper’s parents, to explain to them the brave death of his best friend and second hand man.
Only then did he call Clarke. O teased him for ages, but he wasn’t in the mood for jokes (he never was, these days). He had to know if she was alive, though he was sure she wasn’t (However, he wasn’t in the business of denying himself hope these days). The phone rang four times before there was an answer.
“Jake?” It wasn’t her voice. It wasn’t the voice that called out to him day and night - the voice that had become the narrative in his head. It was a half-hopeful voice of an older woman, so close and so far away.-
“No, ma’am.” He hears a deflated breath let out. He closes his eyes in silent prayer for whoever this lady wished it would be and an apology for it not being him.
“What can I help you with?” The lady asks, her voice all business, devoid of the earlier hope and enthusiasm.
“There’s no chance that there’s a blonde nurse there, is there? She was in the war.” He adds the last part as an explanation. The lady sighs and Bellamy’s heart races.
“Clarke!” She calls. “Who’s calling please?” She asks Bellamy. Clarke. It suits her, he thinks, his heart picking up pace faster than he’s ever felt it.
“Just tell her it’s the soldier.” He tells her, excitement clear in his voice and his eyes, Octavia is laughing silently beside him, so he sends her out of the room. She laughs all the way. He laughs too, although it’s more hysteric than anything, because he was so sure that she was dead.
“You’ll have to give her a moment. She was, um, she was hurt in the war.” Bellamy’s heart races once more.
“She’s okay, though?” He asks.
“She’ll be fine, yes.” The woman answers briskly. “Clarke! Here you are! It’s ‘the soldier’.” He hears a distant gasp and then Clarke is on the phone.
“Hello, Princess.” He greets her, though he knows where name now.
“Soldier?” She asks, like she can’t believe it.
“In the flesh.” He grins proudly. “Well, uh, in the voice.” Smooth, Bell. He can almost hear Octavia’s voice (maybe he can, he feels like she’s outside the door listening in).
“You’re alive.” It’s a statement.
“No war could kill me, Princess.” He remarks, she laughs dryly.
“Almost did, soldier.”
“Bellamy.” He says softly. “Bellamy Blake.”
“I know, I saw your record. I just quite enjoy calling you soldier.” He laughs. “Clarke Griffin.”
“I know, that lady - your mother? - told me, I just quite enjoy calling you princess.” He hears a mock sigh and then a chuckle.
“So, Bellamy.”
“So, Clarke. I’m going to need your address.”
“Did you find your sister?” She asks first.
“Yes.”
“Then you can bring her to meet me…”
Bellamy sees Clarke Griffin for the first time uninjured outside of an infirmary at 88 months. She gets on with his sister like wildfire with a tree and he’s pretty sure he loves her (damn that, damn it all to hell. Bellamy Blake knows he loves Clarke Griffin).
At 92 months the nightmares stop, and Bellamy can finally sleep at night. He suspects it something to do with a certain blonde princess living a few streets down and a certain brunette bombshell in the next room, but he doesn’t say anything.
At 96 months their courtship ends with him proposing to her. He gives her a princess cut ring that cost him over 5 months worth of wages but was worth every penny. She says yes and the two argue about every little thing to do with the wedding.
People had their doubts about them then, but they had no need to.
They were Clarke and Bellamy, the Princess and the Soldier. They shouldn’t work, they were wrong in every possible way, but they worked. They argued at every corner, but they worked through it.
The two get married at 104 months and their first son, Jacob Wells, is born at 118 months. Clarke’s father, Jake, was not there to see his name sake, but Abby had met a new man, Marcus Kane, who could never be to her what her Jake was, but maybe one day she would let him help her. Jacob Wells is everything Bellamy ever wanted in a son. All white-blonde hair and challenging brown eyes. Clarke’s snub nose and Bellamy’s stubborn jaw set.
At 105 months, Octavia meets Lincoln, one of Bellamy’s friends from the war (he fought for the opposite side, but he and Bellamy crossed paths (and both stayed alive - barely) at some point, at a time Bellamy does not want to remember, at a place he does not want to be). The two become fast friends and then more. They’re married by the time Jacob turns 2.
Bellamy and Clarke’s second child comes at 134 months, her name is Aurora Abigail and she’s the apple of her daddy’s eye. She has her mother’s blue-grey eyes and her father’s dark curls. She’s as gorgeous as her mother and Bellamy swears that she can’t date until she’s 30.
The third baby arrives at 148 months and this time when Clarke swears that he’s the last, she’s right. His name is Jasper Bellamy and he has his Aunt Octavia’s stormy eyes and his mother’s blonde hair. He has both of his parents’ stubborn temperaments and knows how to get what he wants.
Bellamy loves him as much as he loves his mother and siblings - a hell of a lot.
Bellamy Blake is 30 years and 3 months old. His grin has lost every ounce of boyishness and his face has now thinned and gained countless scars and some stubble, his eyes remain brown, but have some innocence restored through his children. He has 3 beautiful children, a gorgeous wife and a hell of a little sister. He’s no longer fooled by false promises and he knows that war is terrible. He mourns daily for his mother, so concerned about his life that she lost her own.
He didn’t die. Not really.
He promises his daughter that he’ll be back soon and kisses his wife’s cheek as he leaves for his office job.
“I love you,” He calls to his boys in the living room. He kisses his sister’s forehead as she comes to visit his wife with her own children. He ruffles her son’s hair and pats her husband’s shoulder. Octavia is 24 years old and Bellamy couldn’t be more proud, she’s built a family of her own and no longer relies on him for all of her stability.
“I love you too, Dad!” Jake calls, he chuckles as he kisses his daughter again, a small dark-haired girl with a pink ribbon in her hair that reminds him of another little girl at another time.
“I’ll see you later.” His wife smiles at him from the living room and he smiles back.
“I’ll be back soon.” He tells her, and it’s a promise like the one he made to his sister 12 years and millions of lives ago.
“No more funny stuff for mum, okay?” He says to his kids. “Behave, all of you.” They nod obediently and he grins at them. His wife runs and gives him one last hug.
“I’m so proud of you, Bell.” She murmurs and he presses his lips to her hair. “I love you.”
“I love you too, Princess.” The nickname never left.
“Bellamy?” Clarke calls as he walks out of the door. “Don’t come home too late. Don’t slave at the office.”
“Okay.” He smiles at her. “I’ll see you later, kids.” He calls to his sister and her children in the living room as he walks away with her husband.
He’s almost run over by a automobile. But Lincoln pulls him back.
The war almost killed him, but no.
He won’t die. Not now. It’s not his time.