Chapter Text
The floor of the house is eerily clean. It's dustless, unlike every other abandoned house Clarke has broken into, and that's what clues her into the fact that this one actually has human residents.
She grips her pistol in both hands, aiming it toward the ground with the safety clicked off. It's solely a precaution. She's not going to be the first to shoot, but she's met her fair share of weirdos since the outbreak and she's not above shooting a person in the leg to save her own skin.
Clarke makes her way into the house. It's a small building, one floor. She had stepped into the kitchen through the back door. The linoleum was faded and peeling but clean, the sliver of sunlight coming through the open door illuminating a pantry. And food. Real, canned food -
"Are you going to close the door, or do you want every walker within hearing distance to join us?"
The voice behind Clarke startles her. She turns and raises her gun, finding one pointed right back at her. She follows the line of his arm, dark-skinned, veins prominent in his forearm, up to a broad chest in a dirty t-shirt and finally to his face. He looks young, maybe a few years older than Clarke's 21 years. There is a mess of freckles along his nose and cheekbones. His lips are turned down into a scowl and his dark eyes are hard, untrusting.
Clarke reaches behind her to shut the door without taking her eyes off the man. His harsh gaze doesn't waver, and neither does the gun aimed at her forehead. Suddenly, she just feels really tired.
"You're not weird, are you?" She asks, her voice sounding exasperated even to her own ears. The man stares at her. "Not a collector? Opportunistic murderer? Creeper in general?"
One side of his mouth twitches. "Just trying to stay alive, Princess," he says, "Like everyone else."
"Good." Clarke lowers her gun, flips the safety on. She sees the tension ease out of the man's shoulders. "I'm Clarke. And I'd appreciate it if I could stay here tonight. I've been out in that damn forest for weeks."
There's hesitation in the man's expression. He must decided Clarke isn't a threat, though, because he finally puts his gun away and introduces himself. "Bellamy. My sister is in the other room."
Clarke follows Bellamy into the next room. It's a small living room with dark furniture and paint. It would be cozy if not for the arsenal lining the wall. Guns and knives and what look like explosive devices entirely line one wall. Against the other wall a young, dark-haired girl sits cross-legged on an old couch. Bellamy takes the spot next to the girl. Clarke is left to stand awkwardly in the middle.
"You're the first person we've seen in months," the girl says. Her eyes are wide. Clarke feels itchy under her gaze, as if the girl's judgement is actually scratching at her exposed skin.
"I wish I could say the same," is what she replies with. The girl looks at Bellamy, then back at Clarke.
"Where are you headed?"
"East," Clarke says automatically. "They have a cure."
Bellamy snorts. Clarke snaps her eyes to him. "What?"
"Bullshit," he says simply, leaning back against the couch with one arm protectively around his sister's shoulders.
Clarke bristles. She puts a hand on her hip, about to challenge him, but he returns his attention to the other girl.
"Why don't you go to bed, O? We'll check the traps in the morning." The girl gives Bellamy an eye roll, but gets up off the couch with no other complaints. She stops in front of Clarke on her way out of the room. Clarke's suddenly struck by her beauty, which is both similar and different than Bellamy's. The girl has the same jaw and the same determined look in her eyes, but her skin is pale and free of freckles. She's sharp and delicate at once and Clarke might be jealous of her if Clarke were worried about things such as her appearance in the middle of the apocalypse.
"Octavia," the girl says, holding out a hand. Clarke shakes it, a smile just pulling at her lips when Octavia continues, "please don't kill my brother tonight."
---
Clarke doesn't kill Bellamy.
He invites her to sleep on the couch while he keeps watch, and she's not too prideful to take him up on the offer. So she makes herself comfortable on the small couch, her sleeping bag draped over her, and promptly passes out.
She wakes only a few hours later, but it's still the best night of sleep she's gotten in a long time. Her eyes adjust after a moment to find Bellamy sitting by the window, watching the world through a crack in the wooden boards. A rifle is sitting on his lap. He's caressing the barrel of the gun like it's an animal that he's trying to soothe. A book is lying abandoned on the ground by his feet.
"Want to switch?" Clarke's voice cracks with sleep. Bellamy looks over his shoulder, his expression making it clear that he wasn't expecting her to wake up any time soon.
"What?"
Clarke almost laughs at his confusion. "I said, do you want to switch? I can keep watch for a few hours if you want to sleep."
To her surprise, Bellamy stands up. Clarke watches him cross the room to the other couch and stretch across it. "Wake me up if you see anything, you hear me?" Clarke rolls her eyes at the order but moves to the empty position by the window.
"I hope you're friendlier once you've gotten some sleep," she comments offhandedly. Bellamy snorts, and that's the end of it. Clarke sets her pistol in her lap and looks out the window, settling in for zombie duty.
It's maybe an hour later that he speaks up. "There's no cure, you know." His tone is almost conversational, as if he had told her the weather forecast.
Clarke looks away from the window to the couch, where Bellamy is sitting upright, legs stretched out in front of him and arms folded across his chest. "Excuse me?"
Bellamy shrugs. "Earlier, you said you were going east toward the cure. But there is no cure."
"And how do you know that?" Clarke is challenging, short and unfriendly, but Bellamy doesn't seem bothered.
He looks at her for a long moment before replying. "Because if there was a cure, I wouldn't have had to shoot my mother in the head when she got bit."
The world rocks, and Clarke suddenly feels like she's going to be sick. The way he said it, so calm and matter-of-fact makes her simultaneously scared of the man and sympathetic. She wants to hug him and get away from him. She wants to ask him to shut up and she wants to ask him what happened.
So she just looks at him for another moment before returning her gaze to the window.
"There's a cure," Clarke says quietly. "There has to be."
Bellamy doesn't argue this time.
---
Clarke gets a few more hours of sleep that night. When she wakes up again the room is empty, but she can hear low murmuring in the next room. She picks out Bellamy 's and Octavia's voices and through she can't understand what they're saying, she tries to eavesdrop as she packs her sleeping bag. Just as she's slinging her backpack over her shoulders and putting her shoes on, the two siblings enter the room. Octavia's first, head held high and arms folded as she stands across from Clarke. Bellamy's next. He seems wary, casting Octavia a defeated glance before looking at Clarke.
Clarke thinks that what he has to say might be physically painful for him, judging by his scowl and the way his hands fist around nothing. So she isn't expecting what he says when he does speak.
"Do you want to stay?"