I Never Meant To Fall

6. Into The Storm

Clarke:

She felt amazing, euphoric almost! She'd actually been swimming! She'd never felt anything quite like it.

She was buzzing with the thrill of it, it hadn't even fully sunk in that she'd spent the whole afternoon with Bellamy, and not wanted to murder him.

They were just sitting now, by the edge of the water. He'd even given her his jacket because she was too wet to put her clothes on, too cold and self concious to just sit in her underwear.

She did feel self-concious. Bellamy on the other hand seemed perfectly fine lounging with his chest out...flaunting his abs. He had however, put his trousers back on. He looked different in that moment, somehow older, despite the boyish look his wild hair was giving him. She found herself watching him without realising, found her body heating up a little faster whenever she looked at his chest.

Once, Bellamy almost caught her looking and she jumped to her feet, shimmying into her clothes.

Bellamy brought himself lazily to his feet and Clarke threw him his jacket. "We should go, take the water back to camp." She said, lifting two of the filled buckets. He looked dissapointed but shrugged on his top and gathered up the other two.

They walked back in a comfortable silence but as the adrenaline wore off, Clarke's heart began racing. She could see Bellamy in her mind, that wide smile that changed his entire face, the water dripping from his chaotic hair and onto his lips, she could feel his arm around her waist and could still feel his lingering warmth from where she had just let him hold her, her head on his solid chest.

By the time they reached camp she was annoyingly flushed, she felt like some silly hormonal teenager and, one they had dumped the water, she turned and practically ran away before she had a chance to look at Bellamy again. She felt ridiculous! Embarrassed, because she had allowed him to see her in her underwear! No one had seen her so indecent before and to let Bellamy of all people see it.

She slumped down into her bed, biting her nails, jittery and nervous. She couldn't be sure of the cause - whether it was swimming for the first time, whether it was seeing Bellamy so...undressed....or whether it was simply the cold getting to her.

She curled up and stared, smiling at the wall of her tent but as the sun began to fade away, the darkness looming, the adrenaline effects wearing off...the sadness crept in.

She bit her lip and closed her eyes, as if that would keep it away...but it had never worked before.

For, as good as the day had been, she couldn't deny just how completely alone she felt. So isolated. Hated even. No one on the ground would ever choose to talk to her, or hang out with her. No, she had chosen to take charge, being their 'boss' and not their 'friend' was the price she had to pay.

That's why, the day, with Bellamy had been so amazing. In the moment, she hadn't cared that they belonged to two different classes, or that they disliked oneanother - somehow it felt like they were in this together, two leaders on their own path of isolation.

Clarke blamed the lonliness for the images of him that clouded her mind as she tried to sleep. She blamed the growing sadness and the ache in her chest which longed to see her loved ones again. She blamed the anxiety and the pressure to keep these delinquents alive.

But, no matter what she blamed it on, she still fell asleep wishing that Bellamy would have held her in his arms just a moment longer.

It was raining when she woke up. Her tent was shaking with the force of it, the sound of it crashing down loud in her ears. Clarke groaned and rolled over. The emptiness from the night before still lingered and she tucked the duvet in under her chin. She didn't want to get up. She didn't want to go outside and face the new difficulties of the day. She didn't want to think about how winter was coming fast, how the Ark was dying and needed to know they were alive. She didn't want any of it.