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The first time Bellamy hears himself called it, he doesn’t understand, or care to think about it too much. Octavia, Clarke, and Harper have been out on a gathering mission and when they don’t come back, Bellamy doesn’t waste time or breath arguing before setting out to find them. Miller tags along, and though Bellamy doesn’t like endangering anyone on these “suicide missions” he seems to find himself on more often than not, he’s incredibly glad for his presence when they find the girls tied by their hands to a low-hanging branch, a group of Grounders slicing at their clothes and skin.
Clarke is, of course, antagonising them as best she can, pulling focus.
They don’t have to kill them all, and Bellamy is glad for it, his hands already stained with so much blood he’s sure it’s become a part of him. The Grounders are young and inexperienced, and once they see two of theirs fall so easily, they surrender.
Clarke insists on freeing Octavia and Harper first, and Bellamy grabs the rope Miller hands him without thinking, tying the remaining Grounders up quickly and efficiently. It’s when he’s checked to make sure Miller’s got Octavia and Harper, and cuts Clarke loose himself, ghosting his hands over her face and body to check the severity of her wounds, that he catches a word in the Grounders’ harsh whisperings that means anything to him. “Romeo”. It doesn’t make any sense then, and Clarke is wincing as she prods at her own ribs, so Bellamy lets it fall from his mind.
On the Ark, the story of Romeo and Juliet is told like a warning - kids too young to understand that they’re upsetting the social order, sleeping together when they shouldn’t, and sadly, but rightly, ending up dead. The loss of life is always regrettable on the Ark, but never as regrettable as any perceived act of rebellion.
Bellamy doesn’t like remembering the nights he felt so helpless, the only thing he could think of to protect his mother and sister was death. He never did it, of course, but he thinks he knew more of desperation than the ones who told the story on the Ark.
Still, it’s not a story Bellamy thinks about too much.
The next time he hears it, he’s the one in need of saving, a new tribe brought closer by need having thought they could pressure the rest of Camp Jaha into giving them food, shelter, weapons, even land, if they kidnapped someone they perceived to be important.
Clarke is alone, or at least she appears to be alone at first when she strides into the clearing, sweat, dirt, and blood streaked through her blond hair, the look on her equally messy face promising death and destruction. The arrows that sail from the trees around them are the only indicator that Clarke did indeed not come alone, with only the clothes on her back and the bloody blade clutched in her hand, but as she stands in the clearing like the apparition of a vengeful warrior goddess, it seems for a moment as though she simply summoned them, calling arrows forth from thin air.
“You okay?” Clarke asks, cutting Bellamy loose while Miller, Octavia, and Jasper drop from the trees, keeping the Grounders at bay.
Bellamy nods, the adrenaline of fearing for his life receding a bit and leaving him with a sudden wave of exhaustion.
Clarke brushes hair off his forehead to check the gash from the blow that knocked him out, and when she’s satisfied he won’t die any time too soon, she turns to the Grounders. At her nod Miller throws a satchel at their feet and Clarke takes a few steps towards them. She’s a short little thing, technically, but she towers over them anyway. Bellamy towers behind her.
“I know you understand me, so don’t bother pretending. Know that this is mercy, and the only reason you’re receiving it are the children in your care. Never threaten one of mine again, I will not be so generous a second time.”
She nudges the bundle with her boot. “Food. Take it and get the hell out of here.”
It takes a few moments of hesitation before someone dares make a move for the food under Clarke’s watchful gaze. No one dares make any other sort of move, and as they hasten to retreat, Bellamy hears it again; those two names, Romeo and Juliet, though the hushed, almost reverent and yet terrified tone doesn’t go with the story Bellamy knows.
The trek back to Camp is too exhausting to focus on anything but putting one foot in front of the other, so it’s only when he wakes up to Clarke checking on his wounds the next morning, looking like she hasn’t slept, that he remembers.
“Hey,” she says, smile exhausted.
“The Grounders call us Romeo and Juliet,” he says.
Her smile turns grim. “The story’s different on the ground. They don’t kill themselves, they kill everyone else - raze the ground and kill anyone who dares oppose or separate them.”
Bellamy watches her rinse a cloth, the blood staining the water red either from her hands or wiped from his body, and wonders if all stories on the ground have turned violent. Then again, it’s not like the Ark tale is free of it either, and he doesn’t know how it was told before the Ark. For all he knows the Ark authorities changed it into a story of punishment, rather than one of impassioned rebellion.
It’s not like that between Clarke and him, not enough soft ground left in either of their scarred and bloodsoaked hearts for something as delicate as love to grow, but the rest... the rest Bellamy can’t argue with. Clarke is intricately woven into the deepest parts of his soul, and if need be, Bellamy would set the world on fire for her. Bellamy is hers, and Clarke, he knows, is his.
She turns back to gently wipe blood from his hair again, and when their eyes lock, he sees the same fire burning there.
Let the Grounders believe what they will. Let them compare them to their stories and cower in fear.
The End