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With Earth still licking its wounds, the creatures were not yet used to the bright light of the sun and cowered from its rays during the day. After so long under the cloud-choked skies, they’d grown accustomed to living a grim, dreary existence. Now, the beasts only came out at night.
Under the cover of darkness, Clarke picked her way across the Shallow Valley’s woodlands, a sack of game slung over her shoulder. Nothing too large since the earth could not sustain such beings yet. Most days they fed off shrews, mice, and the occasional rabbit if they were lucky. Tonight’s hunt would feed them for a few days at least.
She wound through the greening trees, bioluminescence lighting the path to the village. All was quiet as she passed through the fence they had built—to keep what out, she was not sure, but it acted as a safety net against any unforeseen threat. It reminded her of the one they’d built around the drop ship. Simpler times.
Smoke plumed from the chimney of the house they’d chosen. It was not the biggest in the village, but that was to its benefit. The large one they’d initially chosen felt haunted, its empty spaces brimming with ghosts and shadows that stretched into beastly shapes. No, a smaller space where she could see each corner and wall at any given time was perfect. Despite three years of peace, Clarke still refused to let her guard down entirely.
She shouldered the fruits of her labour and turned the door handle so that it would not creak as she pushed it open. The house was silent, strangely so. She had at least expected murmurs, perhaps a giggle or two. By this time, Madi would be refusing sleep, grappling with her blankets and insisting on seeing the stars or the animals or anything that would delay her bedtime just a few minutes. Clarke laid out the contents of her hunt on the dinner table, humming. Perhaps Madi had been tired out by their training that day. They had a lot of time on their hands waiting for the earth to heal, and Clarke had agreed that a sensible use of it could be preparing for the eventual return of humankind. Which meant learning combat skills, sharpening tracking abilities, and knowing the land like the back of your hand. Despite their rigorous training, Madi never seemed to tire of it. Maybe tonight she had finally succumbed to exhaustion.
Shedding her layers, Clarke crept towards Madi’s bedroom. Previously, they’d all slept in the main room, taking turns keeping watch. But in a rebellious streak, Madi had insisted she take her own room. Clarke could do little to stop her—God, that girl was stubborn—but she could negotiate the removal of the door to replace it with a silky curtain that swirled in the breeze just enough so that when Clarke slept, she could glimpse Madi in her bed, gently breathing in and out, and calm herself with the sight.
A lantern burned behind the curtain. When she drew it aside, she uncovered the reason for the silence. Dozing in Madi’s bed, softly snoring, was Bellamy. Clarke leaned against the doorframe and simply watched. Madi was curled against him, her long hair strewn across his chest. His hand was tucked around her as if it was the wing of a bird sheltering its young from the rain. Dark hair fell across his eyes; he was in desperate need of a haircut. Quietly, Clarke snuck into the room and perched on the edge of the bed, just so she could more closely study his face, so peaceful in this state. With the sun finally breaking through the thick layer of ash, Bellamy’s freckles were returning, much to her delight. He looked much like he did the first few weeks on Earth, when sun-kissed had become sunburnt and his freckles had jumped out like star constellations. She would have left him there if not for the meat awaiting curing on the table.
She traced her fingers lightly across his forearm. “Bellamy,” she whispered.
His lashes fluttered open. “Clarke, hey.” He cracked his neck but refrained from moving so that Madi would not wake. “Sorry, I should’ve been keeping watch.”
Clarke shook her head. “It’s all right. I’m not sure why we still do that. There’s nothing here.”
“Old habits.”
She nodded at Madi. “How’d you get her to sleep?”
He looked down fondly at the girl in his arms. “Told her a story. One I used to tell Octavia when she was younger.”
Clarke wove her fingers through Madi’s tangled hair. “Which one?”
“Orpheus and Eurydice.”
She pursed her lips. “Not sure I know that one. You’ll have to tell me another time.” It was unclear whether or not he knew she was lying. Of course she knew it, but she loved hearing him tell stories.
He canted his head and smiled; he knew but seemed content to play along. “Whatever the hell you want. Successful hunt?”
“You bet. Come help me prepare it.”
Bellamy nodded diligently and carefully extracted himself from Madi. She shifted in her sleep, grabbing at the empty space where he’d lain. He drew the blanket over her shoulders and placed her scrappy toy bear in her arms. During the day, the bear would sit slumped over on her bed, bleached by the sun, waiting for her to return and squeeze it closer in her slumber. Clarke supposed it was the only thing from Madi’s old life that remained; she came to Bellamy each day complaining of a new loose thread.
With a last glance to make sure Madi still slept, Clarke pulled the curtains across after Bellamy had retrieved the lantern. He placed it on the dining table to light their work. “Impressive,” he said, nodding at the dead rabbit and mice.
They took turns hunting. Over the years it had become something of a competition, with Madi judging who had the better catch. Having picked up some tracking skills from Finn, Clarke was pleased to say her finds were usually superior.
“Did you expect anything less?” she said playfully.
He rolled his eyes.
They worked in silence preparing the meat to extend its life span. This too had become routine. Despite the darkness, despite their few exchange words, despite their exhaustion, she and Bellamy were well oiled machines. She enjoyed working alongside him, listening to his breaths and simply relishing his presence. After so long with only the three of them, one would assume they’d be sick of each other. But it was quite the opposite. They seemed only to grow closer each day.
When they’d finally finished, they flopped onto their beds. Clarke could have probably slept for an entire day, but perhaps not in these clothes considering they stunk of sweat and blood. Bellamy must have been thinking the same thing, because he crossed the room and dug through their heap of foraged clothes for a clean t-shirt. With a sigh, he pulled his top over his head. Clarke glanced away. Three years alone with him, and she still could not bring herself to watch him undress without her throat drying and heat spreading across her cheeks. She swallowed thickly and picked something from her recently washed pile to change into.
“Clarke.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you know your breath hitches every time I do that?” His voice sounded closer.
“Do what?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
She bundled her top close to her chest and turned to face him. Lit only by the fading lantern, shadows danced across his face. He had not yet donned the other t-shirt. His dark curls fell across his eyes, and Clarke resisted the urge to push them away. Bellamy studied her face with intrigue, tracking the movement of her eyes as they wandered down to the column of his throat and then to the angle of his collarbones and the breadth of his chest.
He gently pushed up her chin so that she met his gaze. “Three years of hearing your breath catch and wishing I could see the look on your face when it did.”
Clarke opened and closed her mouth like she was gasping for air. Heat pooled from his skin, the kind of heat that left her breathless for more. “I—”
“Are you gonna kiss?”
Clarke startled back. The tension evaporated, and Bellamy dropped his hand to glance over to where Madi stood in her bedroom doorway. She rolled back and forth on her heels, grinning mischievously.
Bellamy set his hands on his hips. “I thought you were asleep, princess.”
Her heart sang. Warmth spread through her each time he used that nickname for Madi. It had transformed from something snide and condescending to a term of endearment that made Madi giggle with that pure, childish joy.
“I was. But you’re not very quiet.”
Tutting, Bellamy dragged the t-shirt over his head and marched towards her. “Come on. You need to sleep.”
She pouted. “Clarke,” she whined.
Clarke shook herself. “Bellamy’s right. Or you’ll be too tired for training tomorrow.”
“How about I tell you another story?” Bellamy offered.
Beaming, Madi peered at Clarke. “You’ll come too, right?”
She nodded. “Just give me a minute. I’ll be right in.”
Madi took Bellamy’s hand and led him behind the curtain. There was a scuffle as Madi tossed and turned in her bed to get comfortable. Clarke pressed a hand to the back of her neck, where a blinding heat had settled. She blew out a long breath and changed into the clean top. Get it together, Clarke. Gathering the lantern (and what remained of her wits), she charged into Madi’s bedroom.
Bellamy sat on the ground at Madi’s bedside. “All right. How about the story of Eros and Psyche?”
Clarke settled on the edge of the bed, placing the lantern on the little table. She fluffed Madi’s pillow and gestured for her to lie down.
Madi shook her head. “No, I want something real. Something about Earth. About you guys.”
Bellamy and Clarke exchanged a glance. “Are you sure?” Clarke asked, drawing the blanket over Madi to tuck her in securely. They’d been telling Madi stories about the others for a while; of Jasper’s jokes and Monty’s kindness, Raven’s genius and Murphy’s endurance, Lincoln’s bravery and Octavia’s determination (or rather her ‘badass-ery’ as Madi called it), but they themselves were always absent from these tales. And for good reason. It was difficult to earn a child’s trust if they knew you were responsible for the deaths of hundreds.
Madi nodded. “I want to know about how you met. You’ve never told me.”
“Well,” Clarke began, “we met on the first day we came to Earth. Bellamy was being a total ass, and I—”
“That’s not true.”
Clarke rolled her eyes. “Maybe that’s not how you remember it, but you so were—”
“No. I mean, that’s not how we met.”
She furrowed her brows and hummed in confusion. “Yes, it is.”
He wore this dumbfounded smile, apparently thrilled that his memory was better than hers. “No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is.”
Madi’s head swivelled between them, trying to keep up with their ping-pong argument.
Bellamy scoffed. “I’m actually surprised you don’t remember this.”
Huffing, Clarke folded her arms over her chest. “Well then what’s your version?”
“My version starts with my first day on the guard.” Madi grinned; she was always enthralled by the picture of Bellamy as this dazzling knight. “I’d been handed the job of watching the door to the infirmary. Everything was running smoothly—and by that, I mean boring-ly—until a girl with frizzy blonde hair stormed towards me and demanded I allow her entry.”
“Frizzy blonde hair? Is that it?”
“Yeah,” Madi chirped. “Were you not dazzled by her beauty? Did you not get lost in her dreamy eyes?”
Clarke whirled on Madi; Bellamy’s bed-time stories were filling her head with ridiculous fantasies. She and him weren’t exactly Romeo and Juliet. But Bellamy just chuckled.
“I guess I thought she was too pretty to be so annoying,” he said, and Clarke was unsure if she should have been offended. “She was determined and insisted she needed to see Doctor Griffin. I asked her why, and she looked at me like I was stupid.”
Clarke’s neck burned. She never remembered being so rude, but she supposed that was the nature of a panicked teenager.
“Eventually, I let her in—against direct orders, by the way.”
“They couldn’t have been that strict,” Clark interrupted.
“No entry unless they could provide proof of injury or doctoral qualification. That’s what I had been told.” He shrugged, delighted to prove her wrong, and continued, “A few minutes passed, and I heard voices. The door flung open and Doctor Griffin pushed the blonde girl outside, muttering something about how she wasn’t an apprentice yet, wasn’t allowed in. The doctor then turned to me and ordered me to escort her daughter back to her quarters. So, I did.”
Clarke’s memories of the Ark were fuzzy. She recalled attempting to force her way into the infirmary many times to hasten along her training but could not remember this instance. Surely, she would have remembered Bellamy—he was difficult to forget. The image of his dark eyes trailing across her face, the amber light blazing in his irises and licking at his tanned skin, was seared into the backs of her eyelids.
“She didn’t say a word to me,” he continued. “Only when she was closing the door did she look at me and say, ‘The strap on your uniform’s undone, by the way.’ I didn’t see her again until the day we landed on Earth.”
Clarke mentally kicked herself. Why did her younger self have to be such an idiot?
Madi frowned. “That was boring.”
He laughed. “What were you expecting?”
“I like your Octavia stories more.”
“I think you’ve had enough stories tonight,” Clarke said, rising to her feet. She drew the blanket to Madi’s neck and leaned down to press a kiss to her forehead. “Time to sleep, or we’ll all be exhausted tomorrow. Good night, Madi.”
Bellamy took the lantern. “Night.”
For the second time that evening, Clarke pulled the curtain across and retreated into the main room. Bellamy set the lantern in the space between their beds, which stood close together to the side. Over the years, the beds had moved closer infinitesimally until they were practically touching. They settled into the darkness, and Clarke listened as Bellamy’s breathing slowed. She glanced into Madi’s room as the breeze shifted the curtain; her small face was the picture of serenity, her bear tucked securely under her chin.
She glanced over to Bellamy. He was staring at the ceiling, arm tucked beneath his head. How many nights had she slept at his side wishing for the space between them to fall away, wishing she could press into his warmth and sleep with his arms wrapped around her? It was too many to count. And that night was no different.
“Is that why you didn’t like me?” she whispered. “The first day on Earth. Was it because of how rude I was to you?”
“Partly. I resented who you were, who you represented. Not so much you specifically.” She was unsure she was comforted by that. “And just so you know I did think you were beautiful when I first saw you. That never changed.”
Perhaps Madi’s fantasies were not so far-fetched after all. “I didn’t think you were hideous either.”
He chuckled lightly and turned to face her. His gaze flickered to the gap between their beds. After a moment, he reached out, grasped the frame of her bed, and pulled it towards him. “You know,” he began, stretching his blanket across so that it lay atop her too, “I always thought something would happen between us, those first few weeks on the ground. After everything that happened with you, Raven, and Finn. I thought we were inevitable. I mean everyone seemed to think so.”
She canted her head, shifting onto her side so that she could study his face. Heat bled from his skin, and she had never felt so desperately cold. “Really? I always thought you were too busy making your way through the rest of the hundred.”
He winced with a playful smile. “Harsh, Clarke. Is that really how you saw me?”
“Oh, please. We all saw the girls leaving your tent in the mornings.” She had wondered why her heart had dropped each time she saw them clutching their jackets tightly to their chests with overly pleased smiles plastered on flushed faces. She supposed it had been envy.
He dismissed her with a scoff. “I was just getting it out of my system. You know. Doing whatever the hell I wanted.”
“Maybe I didn’t want to be just something to get out of your system.”
Bellamy’s self-satisfied grin faltered. His eyes flitted across her face, trying to decipher something. “So, you thought about it? Me and you?”
Thought about it? Bellamy had consumed her thoughts in those early days; he’d eclipsed her mind, cast her world into an abyss that echoed his name. She’d been in the throes of teenage lust, unsure when the heat of her blood would cool. But it had. The passion had faded, and she’d turned her thoughts to more pressing matters—like survival.
Now that the world was calm and the threats disposed of, perhaps the feelings had begun to emerge, like stubborn flower shoots through concrete.
“Yeah,” she said. “I did.”
He reached out and gently pushed away a curl bouncing across her vision. His fingers skated across her cheekbone, mercifully warm kisses of fire. “It wouldn’t have been like that, you know.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, and his expression soured. “What would it be like now?” Now that they had time, now that they had space. Could they begin to untangle the strings of pain and responsibility and loss and duty that bound them to each other? Could they make sense of it all?
His furrowed brows ease, and his hand traced down her side, where it curled around her waist and dragged her closer. “It would be what it always is.”
Whenever they embraced, she would always attempt to run her hands through his thick hair, but it was surprisingly difficult. Now, she could slowly and methodically weave her fingers through his curls. What a privilege it was to experience him this intimately. “Which is?”
Bellamy’s umber eyes flickered to her lips. He braced himself on his elbow and rose to cast his shadow over her. “Messy. Worth it.”
She hung her arms around his neck. “Stupid,” she agreed. “But worth it.”
He smiled and leaned down. Their lips met. His taste was salty and metallic, like hot blood. She breathed him in and thought of warm storms, the way rain burned against soil and filled the air with a rich, earthy scent. The warmth from his skin, his lips, his hands on the bare skin of her flesh, set her body ablaze. This was the feeling that had consumed her teenage dreams. This was that feeling in glorious excess.
Clarke slid her fingers along his jaw, the other hand pressing against the heat of his skin beneath his t-shirt. She was the eagle that feasted upon his liver, the fire he’d stolen shamelessly emanating from his body. She was the clay he moulded into living, his fingers kneading the flesh of her thighs, her waist, her stomach. Pressing and sculpting. He’d never touched her like this. Never with this much intention or want. Softly as if she’d crumble, but with a sternness and surety that felt like desire. It was needy.
Bellamy drew back. He searched her gaze and released a short laugh.
She slapped his shoulder. “What?”
“Why did we wait so long to do that?”
“Because we’re morons,” she said simply. “Kiss me again.”
Again, was that victorious smile. He bent down and pressed his lips to hers once more.