Etherea: Lost and Found

Chapter 3

The air was crisp and cold, biting at the exposed skin. A deep vocal groan echoes through the trees as a man stands, heaving himself up from the ground. The landing wasn't what he expected, but he was still breathing. Almost instantaneously his mind whirls with the recent memories and how he landed on the ground beneath him. White room, Octavia, Clarke, Danger, Blast.

Clarke...

Abruptly Bellamy whips his head left and right, looking for any sign of the blonde, but there was none. His breathing quickens as he sucks and shoves through trees, running until he finds the woman he is looking for. Where is she?!

"Clarke? Princess!?" He shouts, his words bouncing through the forest as it echoes back towards him. "Clarke!!"

Bellamy looks around and around, his heart beating out of his chest. Did she not make it? Did she not jump through the anomaly in time? No, no, no!! Just as hysteria begins to set in, a mumbled moan to his left swivels the doubt from his mind. She was alive!

"Clarke!?" He dashes in the direction of the sound, stopping on his heals as he sees her lying on the ground. "Hey, you okay?" Bellamy kneels beside her, reaching for her hand to help her sit up.

"Bellamy?" Her voice is rough but clear.

"Yeah, it's me. Clarke are you okay?" There's a scratch on her forehead black trickling down, but otherwise he couldn't see anything else wrong.

"Mmm," she groans before trying to stand. Except she can't. "AHH!!" Clarke cries out in anguish and falls back down, leaving Bellamy to clutch her to his side.

"Clarke!? What's wrong?" He looks her up and down but sees nothing visible...that is until she looks down at her leg. When they jumped through the portal Clarke landed more roughly than Bellamy, her leg crashing into a stone as she tumbled down. Gently he undoes her boot and feels the stickiness under his palm. Her leg was broken.

"That bad, huh?" She retorts and tries to smirk, but it turns to a grimaces instead. "I need to reset it."

"We need to get you somewhere safe first, then treat your wound."

"Like where? We have no idea where we are, Bellamy." Clarke attempts to sit up again, and Bellamy assist her, his hand lingering on her back for support.

"Well its better than being out in the open. Do you trust me?" She freezes, her eyes meeting his.

"With everything." She replies with no hesitation.

He doesn't let himself think to much on it as he reaches out to her, one arm under her knees and the other supporting her back as he scoops her up in his arms. Clarke bites down on her lower lip to muffle the groan, but it doesn't slip past Bellamy. He holds her tighter, closer, as she rest her head in the crook of his neck. Her fingers digging into his bicep harder than he thinks she even knew. The pain was getting to her.

Bellamy walked with a faster pace through the tree lines as his eyes look up to find a path forward. There was a clearing to the sight of a tall mountain ridge with the anomaly floating above at the farthest tip. That was there way home.

Bellamy shifts Clarke's weight in his arms as he tells her to look up. She does as asked with as much ease as she could muster before sighing deeply.

"Looks like we have it cut out for us." Bellamy tries to joke, but Clarke isn't amused. If anything she's as silent as can be. She stares up at the portal before looking down at her lap, her head turned and eyes avoiding him. What she has to say next makes his heart stop.

"You have to leave me behind."

"What?!" At his outburst Clarke jumps, his shout bar her ear. Mentally he smacks himself for being too loud before the confusion and anger bubble again. "Clarke you can't be serious."

"Bel-"

"No! I am not leaving you behind ever again." 

"You need to warn the others and get off of this damn planet, Bellamy!"

"Not without you!" The conviction in his tone says it all. He can't abandon her like primfaya. He won't survive it.

Too many times he's almost lost her and Bellamy refuses to do it again. He would rather die here with her than leave and survive without her. A world without Clarke griffin is not living, it's simply surviving, and that is not any life Bellamy wants to be apart of. Not anymore.

"Fine." She grumbles, her voice tight.

He shuts his eyes knowing she's mad at him, but he won't apologize. He can't live without her. He readjust her weight in his arms as he walks on to find some sort of cover. Anything really, and as luck would have it he finds just that. A cave on the far side by the mountain. He smirks and sighs of relief before looking down at Clarke and feels her weight more than before. She's passed out. Bellamy holds her tighter as he continues forward.

"Almost there, Princess."

He steps into the cave with as much caution as he can, and discovers it empty. They were safe here. Gently he lays Clarke down on the ground and builds a fire for warmth. He knew they wouldn't leave anytime soon and it was best to get comfortable. They needed to keep warm to survive.

Clarke doesn't stir once in her unconscious state, and that worries Bellamy all the more. The bleeding hasn't stopped and the bone was still broken, and Bellamy knew what he had to do. He had to reset the bone and close the wound. Seeing as there was no thread or needle it would have to be done the hard way. Fire.

He knew it would cause her more pain, a scenario he wanted to avoid at all costs. Seeing Clarke Griffin suffer was one of the hardest things Bellamy had to witness and endure, but this needed to be done. And all he could do was hope she stayed unconscious for the next step.

He glances back and forth between her face and the leg now in his hands before setting the bone back into place. She cries a little and whimpers in her state, but doesn't do much else. Now for next part. Closing the wound.

He takes the small blade hidden in his sweater and leaves it over the flames to smolder. It doesn't take long before it's red with heat. With one look at Clarke he knows she's still not awake, and he hoped she stayed that way. With a few hesitant moments and deep breathe stop calm his nerves, Bellamy tears away at the cloth of her pants and holds the heated to her skin. She cries and whimpers a little and shakes in response, her bodies instinct to her skin being burned, but it only lasts a second before she stops.

The shaking persist far too long for his liking, and Bellamy knows he has to keep a careful eye on her condition for the next several days. Her injury could get infected and leave them with more problems than before. And that was not an option.

Clarke needed to stay warm and her wound clean. So that is what Bellamy does. He leaves to find a water source and quickly returns to boil it, then uses a scrap of cloth to apply the water to her leg. Instinctively her body jerks but she still does not wake. Clarke's lost far to much blood and her complexion was too pale for his liking. She needed rest and warmth.

There wasn't much they could use to keep warm, that is until Bellamy goes hunting. But for now he needs to warm her up the fastest way he could given the circumstances. Body heat.

He lays down beside her, arm under her shoulders and her head places on his chest, and keeps her tucked into his side. Here's to hoping she makes it through the night.