“I’ll be fine Oliver,” Clarke reassured her boyfriend and she pulled on a pair of jeans. She’d already gone back to his place to relax for the night after a brief appearance at the St. Paddy’s Day party when she saw Bellamy pop up on the network and made her plans to go meet him. Oliver pretended to believe her, but she was pretty sure he was going to do his rooftop stalking thing. Eventually, it would probably annoy her, but considering she hadn’t even been back a week yet, she figured she should indulge his overprotectiveness.
Using her crutches to hoist herself up once she got her shoes back on, Clarke kissed Oliver’s cheek and made her way for the door. The walk to where she’d agreed to meet Bellamy would take her longer than usual, so she was leaving a little early.
Bellamy was bound to have questions when he saw her. Clarke still wore the evidence of her week in captivity; bandages on both arms covering the deep cuts made by one of the COS agents. There were cuts and scrapes still obvious on her face and her jeans had been cut to accommodate the cast on her left leg where she’d broken it. Lissa might have healed the worst of her injuries when she’d first come in, but she will still pretty obviously beaten up. Explaining that to Bellamy wasn’t something she was looking forward to.
Bellamy Blake was confused and it was an emotional state he really disliked being in. He'd hoped the conversation on the devices might clear some of it up, and there were a few things it had - there was a war, and that war might threaten their worlds if it was not dealt with. That made sense - at least, it made sense if he didn't overthink it. If he started thinking about the concept of 'worlds' too much, it made less sense. So he wasn't going to think about those.
Other things, like the coin, like learning that whatever had happened to him had happened ages ago from his sister's perspective… made less sense. So when Clarke had suggested meeting he'd jumped on it. Maybe in person some of this would make a lot more sense. He could hope that would be the case anyway.
When he saw her though, there was that relief, followed by a bit of consternation settling quickly into worry. She looked as if she'd been through a battlefield, and when he stepped up to hug her, he'd stopped, worried by what he was seeing, that concern clearly on his face. "Clarke? What's happened?"
Clarke signed when the question she expected came. It would have been stupid to expect him to not question how beat up she looked. “It’s a long story,” she started with, insisting on that hug before she settled awkwardly in the booth and took a seat across from him. Somehow, she managed to get positioned so she could prop her leg up.
“A group of us were taken by COS - they’re the group Atlantis is at war with - almost two weeks ago,” she explained once she was settled. “They kept us hostage for about a week before some of our teams found us. They got us out, but most of us got pretty banged up between [...] being there and the fight to get out. I know it looks bad, but I’m okay. It’s nothing that won’t heal.” It was an abbreviated version of the truth, but she had no intention of telling him the details of her captivity.
Bellamy's face illustrated the concern that he felt upon hearing even the abbreviated version of this story. They had said there was a war, of course, but somehow it hadn't seemed particularly real to him - not with the nice city and surroundings about him. It hadn't felt like home, he supposed, so it hadn't seemed as if it could possibly be as dangerous as Earth had been for them. It seemed now that he'd been mistaken.
"All right," he frowned. He didn't know where to begin on any of this - not on what was happening here, or also the possibility that there might be several things between them. He knew from what Octavia said, that people came from different years and she'd come from in the future from him. "So uh, You're alright though? Now?"
First things first. He could deal with the war and everything else later. "Is that something that happens a lot here?"
“I’m okay,” she confirmed, in the sense that her injuries would heal and the nightmares would eventually fade, too. She’d survived it and she wasn’t going to let it keep her down, anyway. Bellamy would understand better than some of her friends here that sometimes just coming out alive was a win, even if the consequences stayed with you for a while.
She shook her head at his other question, though. “This is the first they’ve taken anyone here in Atlantis. I’ve been hurt on field missions before, but this was different. Atlantis as a rule is usually pretty safe, even if a lot of weird things tend to happen here.”
Bellamy wasn't certain he was one hundred percent at ease, but the strangeness of this whole situation meant that he wasn't going to be that for a while, probably. And if anything, his life had taught him to get okay with not one hundred percent at ease. He likely hadn't been since the day Octavia had been born.
"All right," he gave her a smile, reached over and squeezed her hand gently since it looked as if that were something that could be done without her getting too hurt with him doing it. But then even as he did it he remembered that Octavia had come from a different time and he had no idea what sort of relationship he and Clarke had whenever she was from. The touch was brief and he looked around, asking: "Could we get a drink?"
Smiling, Clarke nodded as she returned the squeeze. “I’d like that, yes,” she said. “Do you want something to eat, too?” she asked as she looked for a server they could flag down. “The food here is incredible, Bellamy. It’s not like anything we’ve ever had at home. And wait until you try the blue bubbles.”
Clarke had built a life here in Atlantis. She had friends, she had a man she loved and work that she as satisfying and, okay, sometimes dangerous. She was happy here, but there was as something about having Bellamy Blake around that just made it feel even more like home.