ATARAXIA • BELLAMY BLAKE

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Trigger warning: This chapter contains descriptions of torture and abuse.

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"Hey," someone softly says to me. I slowly open my eyes, grimacing once feeling the ache in my body. Then my eyes land on him.

Bellamy is sitting leaned over me on the floor, holding a canteen in his hand. I try to prop myself up on my elbows, but Bellamy places a gentle hand on my shoulder and pushes me back down. "Don't try to get up."

I'm in pain. Much more pain than I remember ever being in. My entire upper body feels like it's on fire, and it's only getting worse and worse the more I think about it. It's a mystery to me just how I'm not screaming, but I have a feeling that I'm physically unable to.

I look around. The drop ship is empty. "Where is everyone?" I ask him, doing as told by staying on the floor. Now I can feel the thin blankets they've placed underneath me to lay on.

"Remember that one time you scraped your elbow?" Bellamy starts, a small smile played at his lips.  "When we were playing tag with those kids on Alpha?"

I nod my head, remembering that day vividly. I had heard two boys talk badly about Bellamy the day before at school, calling him poor and saying disrespectful things about Aurora and him. I didn't usually play with kids other than Bellamy and Octavia, but that day I had asked if they'd wanted to.

While Bellamy had been off chasing one of the boys to tag him, I had backed the other into a corner. Then I'd threatened to break his arm if he ever spoke badly about my friend again. I never would have followed through on it, of course. I was just very outspoken as an eight-year-old. But my sass had backfired, and the boy, Matty, had shoved me, making me scrape my elbow in the fall when the skin of it was dragged across the floor.

Later on I'd realized that Matty must have shoved me out of fear, because I never heard him say a single bad thing about Bellamy after that. And he'd seemed particularly keen on avoiding me, too. Bellamy never found any of it out.

"Why did you think of that?" I ask. I haven't thought about it myself in a long time. But then, I had spent months doing everything in my power to push away any thoughts and memories I might have of him.

"I don't know," he shrugs. He places a hand under my head and lifts it a little before bringing the canteen down to my lips. I let him help me and drink the water. Then he places my head back on the blankets. "I guess this kind of reminds me of back then."

He had helped me get over to Medical. It had been a pretty bad scrape as well. Deep enough for it to be a bleeding wound. The medical apprentice had said it almost went to the bone. I remember how Bellamy's throat had bobbed with a gulp when he'd heard that, and how I'd laughed at his reaction. Aurora was working, so Bellamy had made sure to be extra attentive the rest of that day and took good care of me despite my injury not being at all serious.

There's a pain in my leg. One that hadn't been there before. Just as soon as it comes, it's gone.

"You're okay." Bellamy reassures me. "You'll be okay."

"I'm sorry." My eyes scan over his face as if they feel a desperate need to memorize his features.

He frowns. "For what?"

"For us ending on bad terms," I say, ignoring when another quick pain shoots through my leg and disappears just as fast. He just looks at me, listening. "For not making things right before you..."