If this isn't a kingdom then I don't know what is (Bellamy/Clarke, 1/1)
Title: If this isn't a kingdom then I don't know what is (based on a prompt from fluffyfrolicker of the same name).
Rating: PG13
Pairing/Characters: Bellamy/Clarke leaderSHIP (this is the best term in the world).
Summary: Queen. That is what an orphan Princess grows up to be, after all. Set in the period between 1x09 and 1x10.
Word count: 790
A/N: Again... oops? The mind writes what it wants to write, I guess.
They call her Princess.
She can’t deny that it’s fitting. She’s a product of privilege, on a first name basis with the Chancellor and a daughter of an engineer. She knows things. That’s what got her on the drop ship in the first place, after all.
She resents it but maybe it’s partly the way she looks too. All braided hair and innocent blue eyes. She proves them wrong time and time again, defies whatever inherent belief they have that her prettiness stops her from being useful or hard enough for the earth, but it doesn’t matter. “Good one, Princess,” they’ll say. All backhanded compliments and smirks. The worst traditions survive nuclear apocalypses, she thinks.
But no one says Princess with quite the same distaste as Bellamy. For Bellamy it’s all about the product of privilege thing, because she knows he knows by now that she is useful, and she doesn’t entertain ideas that Bellamy spends his time thinking about just how pretty she is.
Not like Finn does. Not like Wells did.
It’s not like she doesn’t understand it. How could anyone not blame the system that killed their Mother, imprisoned their sister and exiled them to a life of meager earnings as a janitor?
Still.
Still, she wonders if she’s ever going to get to a point where he doesn’t say her Earth given name with such coldness. Whether there’ll ever be a time when he doesn’t resent the need to share leadership with someone taken from the upper class.
It’s after the meeting with the grounders. After the Exodus ship crashes into Earth and she feels her legs give out beneath her.
That feeling lasts long enough for him to pull her back to the main part of camp. He sits her down on the ground and orders someone to get her some water.
Get the Princess some water, she thinks he would say, if he knew it wasn’t entirely inappropriate. Orphans aren’t Princesses. At least not in the history of the Earth that she knows.
She forces the water down her throat, effectively forcing it open past the lump that’s formed there. Bellamy has already pulled the troops together.
“We’ll find the remains at daylight,” he says decisively. The words resonate with her in a way that the words prior to that haven’t. Something is triggered within her and forces her to her feet.
“We go now,” she demands, almost choking on a mouth full of water. “Bellamy you can’t be serious? What if there are survivors.”
Survivors. Survivors. What if my Mom survived?
He gives her a look she’s not accustomed to seeing from him. It only lasts for a moment before he pulls himself together and starts listing off all the reasons that that’s a bad idea.
Grounders.
Night time.
Game plan. We don’t have one.
We’re all tired, Clarke.
Have I mentioned Grounders?
None of that matter to Clarke. Because that look that lasted a moment was one saturated with sympathy, and she knows the real reason they’re not already walking is because Bellamy knows there are no survivors.
She feels like she might throw up.
People start to move away from where she stands staring at him. The decision is made in their minds, the King has spoken. And what he says makes infuriating sense.
“I’m sorry, Clarke.”
He sounds like he means it. She wonders if a small part of him is glad. Glad that she knows how he feels now, being left alone in the world. Glad because one more upper class oppressor is dead.
She lets him walk her to her tent without complaint. She doesn’t know how she’ll sleep but she can’t fathom doing anything else. Not until she can start walking. Not until she can start finding some answers.
She can’t help herself from saying it though, as she opens the flap of her tent to climb in, one of those proverbial doorway comments, “It’s not much of a partnership here is it, between you and me?”
He looks stung but the change in his expression is transient, “You’re emotionally involved in this, Clarke. Wish it wasn’t true, but it is. Now’s not a great time for you to play Queen of the castle.”
The word makes her start.
Queen.
That is what an orphan Princess grows up to be, after all.
“Besides, I think you were the one calling the shots on the whole grounder meet up debacle. Do you really think I don’t listen to you?”
She lets him leave on that note. Says nothing long enough that he gets the picture and leaves her to her nightmares about the Exodus ship exploding on the surface of the Earth.
He doesn’t call her Princess again.
Rating: PG13
Pairing/Characters: Bellamy/Clarke leaderSHIP (this is the best term in the world).
Summary: Queen. That is what an orphan Princess grows up to be, after all. Set in the period between 1x09 and 1x10.
Word count: 790
A/N: Again... oops? The mind writes what it wants to write, I guess.
They call her Princess.
She can’t deny that it’s fitting. She’s a product of privilege, on a first name basis with the Chancellor and a daughter of an engineer. She knows things. That’s what got her on the drop ship in the first place, after all.
She resents it but maybe it’s partly the way she looks too. All braided hair and innocent blue eyes. She proves them wrong time and time again, defies whatever inherent belief they have that her prettiness stops her from being useful or hard enough for the earth, but it doesn’t matter. “Good one, Princess,” they’ll say. All backhanded compliments and smirks. The worst traditions survive nuclear apocalypses, she thinks.
But no one says Princess with quite the same distaste as Bellamy. For Bellamy it’s all about the product of privilege thing, because she knows he knows by now that she is useful, and she doesn’t entertain ideas that Bellamy spends his time thinking about just how pretty she is.
Not like Finn does. Not like Wells did.
It’s not like she doesn’t understand it. How could anyone not blame the system that killed their Mother, imprisoned their sister and exiled them to a life of meager earnings as a janitor?
Still.
Still, she wonders if she’s ever going to get to a point where he doesn’t say her Earth given name with such coldness. Whether there’ll ever be a time when he doesn’t resent the need to share leadership with someone taken from the upper class.
It’s after the meeting with the grounders. After the Exodus ship crashes into Earth and she feels her legs give out beneath her.
That feeling lasts long enough for him to pull her back to the main part of camp. He sits her down on the ground and orders someone to get her some water.
Get the Princess some water, she thinks he would say, if he knew it wasn’t entirely inappropriate. Orphans aren’t Princesses. At least not in the history of the Earth that she knows.
She forces the water down her throat, effectively forcing it open past the lump that’s formed there. Bellamy has already pulled the troops together.
“We’ll find the remains at daylight,” he says decisively. The words resonate with her in a way that the words prior to that haven’t. Something is triggered within her and forces her to her feet.
“We go now,” she demands, almost choking on a mouth full of water. “Bellamy you can’t be serious? What if there are survivors.”
Survivors. Survivors. What if my Mom survived?
He gives her a look she’s not accustomed to seeing from him. It only lasts for a moment before he pulls himself together and starts listing off all the reasons that that’s a bad idea.
Grounders.
Night time.
Game plan. We don’t have one.
We’re all tired, Clarke.
Have I mentioned Grounders?
None of that matter to Clarke. Because that look that lasted a moment was one saturated with sympathy, and she knows the real reason they’re not already walking is because Bellamy knows there are no survivors.
She feels like she might throw up.
People start to move away from where she stands staring at him. The decision is made in their minds, the King has spoken. And what he says makes infuriating sense.
“I’m sorry, Clarke.”
He sounds like he means it. She wonders if a small part of him is glad. Glad that she knows how he feels now, being left alone in the world. Glad because one more upper class oppressor is dead.
She lets him walk her to her tent without complaint. She doesn’t know how she’ll sleep but she can’t fathom doing anything else. Not until she can start walking. Not until she can start finding some answers.
She can’t help herself from saying it though, as she opens the flap of her tent to climb in, one of those proverbial doorway comments, “It’s not much of a partnership here is it, between you and me?”
He looks stung but the change in his expression is transient, “You’re emotionally involved in this, Clarke. Wish it wasn’t true, but it is. Now’s not a great time for you to play Queen of the castle.”
The word makes her start.
Queen.
That is what an orphan Princess grows up to be, after all.
“Besides, I think you were the one calling the shots on the whole grounder meet up debacle. Do you really think I don’t listen to you?”
She lets him leave on that note. Says nothing long enough that he gets the picture and leaves her to her nightmares about the Exodus ship exploding on the surface of the Earth.
He doesn’t call her Princess again.