Bellamy Blake (
to_survive) wrote2015-12-22 11:30 pm
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[For Clarke; December 23]
He wakes exactly like he knew he would: in a cold sweat, breath shallow and painful, the remnants of his dream still clear and sharp.
Bellamy touches his stomach as he sits up, feels nothing but old scars and bare skin as he remembers what it had been like to be blown up, to be shot, to die and watch those he loves die in different ways.
And through it all had been Clarke, a solid presence beside him even though Dream-Clarke made no sense -- hell, the entire dream made no sense. Bellamy understands reliving it all, he does that enough on his own. But reliving different versions of those few minutes, over and over, until everything came back to the way it originally played out? What the hell was that supposed to mean? And why had he dreamed of a Clarke who acted so differently?
Whatever the reason, Bellamy doesn't want to even attempt to fall back asleep. When his breathing finally evens out he turns to look down at Clarke, who is exactly where he knew she'd be: safe.
Bellamy touches his stomach as he sits up, feels nothing but old scars and bare skin as he remembers what it had been like to be blown up, to be shot, to die and watch those he loves die in different ways.
And through it all had been Clarke, a solid presence beside him even though Dream-Clarke made no sense -- hell, the entire dream made no sense. Bellamy understands reliving it all, he does that enough on his own. But reliving different versions of those few minutes, over and over, until everything came back to the way it originally played out? What the hell was that supposed to mean? And why had he dreamed of a Clarke who acted so differently?
Whatever the reason, Bellamy doesn't want to even attempt to fall back asleep. When his breathing finally evens out he turns to look down at Clarke, who is exactly where he knew she'd be: safe.
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Opening her eyes seems like too much. It was one thing to know that she did it; it was quite another to live it. To know it was the only way.
"No," she says softly, shaking her head slightly as she presses her face against his chest. "It was too real."
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He can't trust himself to speak right away so he just holds Clarke for a few moments, finding comfort in being able to do so. The difference in the dream he's just had and the reality he's woken up to is enough to give him whiplash.
They're safe. He has to remember that. Whatever he's done in the past, whatever nightmare his own guilt-ridden mind has come up with, they're safe now. There are no Mountain Men, no lives hanging in the balance and waiting on their decisions.
There is also no Octavia, and the image of her lying on the floor of the main hall, guards standing over her as a dark pool spreads beneath her, is enough to make him squeeze Clarke a bit tighter as he tries not to shake. They'd all been kids. Just fucking kids.
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Her mother, laid out on that stretcher, too late to save her. The feeling of knowing she was an orphan and it was all her fault. So many people lost, no matter how hard she tried.
Tears have slipped onto her cheeks as she holds Bellamy tighter, squeezing her eyes once more before letting them open. She can make out his profile in the dark.
"Bellamy?"
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When she says his name he lets out a ragged breath, unable to keep this from her. Clarke already knows how bad it gets some nights, just as he knows she has her nights as well.
"I had a pretty rough one," he admits, his voice low and scratchy as he forces the words out between shallow breaths. Clarke doesn't look so good either, and when he reaches up to touch her cheek, he's not surprised to find that it's wet. "What was yours about?"
Sharing the burden is how they can live with it, Bellamy's found.
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Momentarily leaning into his hand without opening her eyes, she licks her lips before answering him.
"Mount Weather. I — we — tried to save everyone, but they kept dying or we kept dying and in the end, we had to do it. I watched you die." Her voice cracks at the end of that sentence, the pain of it still oddly fresh.
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They've had enough terrible experiences together that having the same fears and nightmares isn't surprising, but this is different. Clarke's dream is too familiar, too specific for it to be anything but the exact same dream he's had.
"Clarke," he says, moving his hand to brush her hair back as he presses a kiss to the top of her head, letting himself breathe in Clarke's familiar smell, nothing like the air in Mount Weather and of the dream. He wants to say it's not possible to have shared a dream or for Clarke to have experienced all of that, but the way she clings to him says it very much is. Knowing what she'd done and feeling it for herself are two very different things, and Bellamy had always been grateful that she'd never had to go through that decision.
He doesn't want to see a part of Clarke die all over again. Selfish and self-centered as it is, he can't stomach the possibility that she'll leave him again.
"I had the same dream," he finally says, shifting away just a touch so he can look at Clarke's face in what little light streams in from the windows. "I don't know how it's possible, but I was there too."
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Holding fast to him, Clarke is glad that at least she didn't dream it alone. Even if she can still see his deaths behind her lids whenever she closes her eyes.
"I'm glad it was really you," she says after a moment, not questioning how it happened. All that matters is that it did. "It was worse than I thought it would be. And you — Bellamy you lived again."
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And now that Clarke knows what it meant to have done that, now that she's experienced it for herself instead of only having Bellamy's word for it, he's afraid of much more than another nightmare.
"I never told you before," he says haltingly, "but you left after that, after we got our people out of Mount Weather and back home. That's when I showed up here. You'd just told me you couldn't come back into camp with us, and I watched you walk away." They've had so much time together here, and Bellamy's not sure he can take Clarke pulling away from him again. There a myriad of ways she can disappear without literally walking away from him again, and Bellamy's not sure he could manage dealing with most of them. Not with how much...not now.
"Don't leave." He brushes his thumb over her cheek, glad that he isn't trembling even though he feels like falling apart. Clarke will do what she needs to do, but Bellamy is not above asking or begging if he must. "I know it's a lot to take in and it's a weight that's almost too much to carry, but don't turn away or shut me out. Don't leave me, Clarke."
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But now she's looking at him in the dim light, memorizing his freckles and the line of his eyelashes. Reaching up she mimics his gesture, running her own hand gently over his cheek.
"I won't," she assures him. "I'm not going anywhere. We did it together."
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He has so much more to lose now, so much more to hurt were anything to happen.
"We did it together," Bellamy echoes as he looks at Clarke again, seeing the understanding, knowing she's actually with him this time. So much of what they've done in the past, alone and together, has always been for their survival and if they have to bear that guilt at least they won't have to do it alone. "Who we are and what we do to survive are different things."
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Mount Weather and all that they did there was hard to live through once, let alone the iterations that just stretched out between them. She had come in unprepared, but what of Bellamy? He'd known, but did that make it easier?
Nodding, she leans in to press her nose against the curve of his neck, nodding again. "Exactly. What we do to survive, to make as many people as we can survive are not the same thing."
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"I miss them," he eventually admits, not saying what he truly means. He misses Octavia. Bellamy would be happy to see anyone from home arrive in the city, but even as content as he is with his and Clarke's life here, he's missing a limb without her.