Chapter Text
Bellamy had never really had any strong feelings about soulmates. Everybody had one – some people wanted to find the match deemed perfect by some strange combination of DNA and fate – others were avidly against searching for their soulmates. Bellamy himself was just passive – if he found his soulmate, he found them, but he was also never going to shut away the idea of being in a relationship with a person that didn’t share his soulmark just because he was holding out hope for his so-called other half.
Everybody has a soulmark, and there will be exactly one person on the planet that shares the same mark. They appear on a child’s thirteenth birthday – at the exact same time as the moment that they took their first breath in the world. No one really knows why, it’s just how it’s always been. There has always been soulmates, and however much research is done as to how they work, nobody is any the wiser. Soulmarks and soulmates are just one of the universes many secrets that nobody will ever be able to truly understand.
So, Bellamy had never really paid much attention to the whole discourse surrounding soulmarks and soulmates. Until, that was, his little sister’s best friend showed up on her thirteenth birthday with his soulmark on her skin.
Describing Clarke Griffin as just his little sister’s best friend would definitely class as doing her a disservice. She had been a pretty much daily presence in his life for the past five years – ever since he and Octavia had moved to the quiet town of Arkadia after the sudden death of their mother. Aurora Blake had been a loving if hard-working mother, and despite the fact that he had done his fair share of babysitting over the years, nineteen-year-old Bellamy had been woefully unprepared for the task of taking on responsibility for an eight-year-old – especially one as tenacious as Octavia - in a city as expensive and hard to prosper in as Polis. He had been working full time since he had left high school, and with the culmination of his savings and the inheritance that he received he had managed to scrape enough money together to get them away from Polis and to a small but well-kept two-bedroom house in Arkadia.
Bellamy found himself a job at Marcus Kane’s security firm - which offered a very fair wage and flexible hours that he could fit around having to look after Octavia easily enough - and had gotten his little sister enrolled in Arkadia Elementary School. The school had seemed nicer than any he had ever attended in the city, and also offered before-and-after school clubs if he ever was needed to work at those times. It had been exactly what Bellamy needed to be able to change both his and Octavia’s life for the better – although he had feared it was all at risk very early on when he had received a phone call from the school during Octavia’s first week, asking him to come in due to the fact that O had been involved in a fight.
That had been the first time he’d met the Griffin’s.
-
Bellamy tapped his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel, waiting for the traffic lights to change on his way to Octavia’s school. He had been allowed to leave work early when he received the call from the school and spent the twenty-minute car journey turning the vague details he had been given over the phone over and over in his head. He just couldn’t comprehend the fact that his little sister had gotten into a fight in her first few days at her new school. Octavia had always been feisty, but never violent. She had seemed happy enough at home the last few days – and certainly hadn’t complained about anything or anyone at her new school – but maybe he had missed something. Perhaps she wasn’t coping as well as he thought she had been with everything that had happened over the past few months. Losing their mother and moving to an entirely new place where they knew no-one had been hard enough for him to adjust to, let alone for a child. Maybe he’d made a mistake coming here in the first place.
When he finally got to the school he was directed towards principal Diyoza’s office – and he entered the room to find that he was the final guardian to arrive. Octavia was in a chair on one side of the room, face red like it went when she got upset, and the empty chair to her side was clearly meant for him. On the other side of the room there was another brunette child with crossed arms and a scraped knee – and quite frankly the woman next to her looked slightly terrifying. The last child in the room was a small blonde girl looking totally unbothered and flanked by her parents, who, judging by their scrubs and suit, had also come from work.
“Sorry for the wait, I was at work and got here as quickly as I could.” Bellamy apologised as he took his seat, shooting a quick glance at Octavia who didn’t seem to want to make eye contact.
“That’s no problem Mr Blake,” Bellamy is not used to being called Mr Blake – it’s strange; makes him feel older than he is, “As you are all aware, Octavia, Clarke and Ontari were involved in an altercation on the playground. However, none of the girls have been particularly forthcoming with the details so I’m hoping that having parents and guardians in the room will help us with discovering what happened and then working out the consequences.” Diyoza explained. Bellamy was definitely intimidated by the woman – he doesn’t quite understand how three eight-year olds aren’t.
The lady with the other brunette child speaks up haughtily, “I’m not sure what needs to be said. My Ontari is injured, and one of these girls hurt her and should be punished for that.”
“I do understand what you’re saying Mrs Azgeda, however I would like to know the full story before any punishments are discussed.” Diyoza returns. Bellamy internally balks at the the idea of Octavia being punished. She couldn’t get kicked out of school already, could she?
“What happened, O?” Bellamy tries to push. He has a point to prove here. He needs to show that he’s a responsible adult that is capable of looking after his little sister, and that she respects him. Octavia just shrugs.
It’s Clarke that speaks first (which Bellamy will come to learn is a very common occurrence), “Ontari was being mean to Octavia, so I stood up for her.” The blonde’s voice is clear, and there is no regret in it.
Diyoza raises an eyebrow. “Clarke, you didn’t just stand up for Octavia, you pushed Ontari over.”
Clarke huffs and mutters something under her breath that Bellamy can’t quiet make out. Her parents obviously hear it though, judging by the sharp nudge and the hissed ‘stop’ she receives from her mother.
“What was Ontari saying to Octavia?” Diyoza asks, looking between the young girls and waiting for one of them to crack.
“I didn’t say anything to her!” Ontari attempts to protest.
“Liar!” Clarke cries out, “She was saying really mean things! She made Octavia cry!”
Bellamy looks at where Octavia is scuffing her shoes alone the carpeted floor – it isn’t like her to cry at just anything, or to be this quiet. He can tell that she’s upset. “Look, O,” he speaks softly, “I won’t be mad, I promise. I know it’s been a big week for you. You just need to tell us what happened.”
For a moment he thinks she’s going to ignore him again, but then she looks up at him – big green eyes shiny with tears – and speaks in the smallest voice he thinks he’s ever heard from her, “She said that no-one loves me because I don’t have a mom or dad anymore – but that’s not true because I’ve got you, Bell, and I told her that but she wouldn’t listen!”
Bellamy feels his heart stutter at her words. He doesn’t understand how kids can be so cruel sometimes. The fear of having no family left that loved them was one for him to deal with, not O.
“Ontari? Is that true?” Diyoza asks, but everyone in the room can tell by the way the girls face flushes a deep scarlet that it is.
“Okay, as that is the case, to me it is a clear that Octavia deserves an apology, don’t you think?”
Ontari nods and stammers out a very weak apology, but Octavia seems to accept it.
“And Clarke, you need to apologise for pushing Ontari. Remember, if there are any problems you should go to a teacher. You don’t need to fix them yourself, especially with violence. I understand that you were helping Octavia out, but you did not go about it in the correct way.”
Clarke opens her mouth as if to a protest, but after a sharp glare from her mother she issues her own, very reluctant, apology.
“Seeing as it is close to the end of the day, I think it’s best if you all took the girls home now,” Diyoza tells the adults, before turning her attention on to the kids, “I’ll be keeping a close eye on all of you though, to make sure nothing like this happens again.” Diyoza looks up at Bellamy at the end of the sentence, and he feels very reassured that she’s taking what Ontari said seriously. In actual fact, Octavia doesn’t appear to have done anything wrong in the situation, thank god.
Diyoza shows everybody out of her office, and almost as soon as they are out in the hallway Octavia is accosted by a very enthusiastic Clarke.
“Octavia! Come with me - I want to show you my art that’s on the wall!” Clarke announces, grabbing O’s arm and pulling her towards the presentation on the wall. His little sister seems happy enough to follow the girl, so Bellamy sees no issue in letting it happen.
Bellamy hears a huff from behind him, and turns to see Clarke’s parents standing there with amused smiles.
“I’m sorry about that, Clarke has a habit of being a bit bossy. We’re trying to work on it. I’m Jake and this is my wife, Abby.” Clarke’s father introduces them, holding out a hand.
Bellamy lets out a laugh and returns the handshake, “Oh don’t worry, Octavia can be just as bad. Once she’s more settled here she’ll get a lot louder. I’m Bellamy.”
“Nice to meet you Bellamy,” Abby speaks before glancing over to the wall where the girls are staring at the pictures whilst Clarke talks animatedly, “Something tells me we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”
-
Abby wasn’t wrong. Clarke and Octavia had been pretty much inseparable since that day, but both Bellamy and Octavia became very close to the Griffin family. Jake especially was the closest thing to a father figure Bellamy had ever had in his life, and Bellamy owed them. There was a lot he still hadn’t known about life and parenting at nineteen, but Jake and Abby had been more than happy to give him any help that he needed, and were more than happy to look after Octavia if he needed to work any extra shifts, just as he would look after Clarke if both Jake and Abby had to be at work.
So yes, Clarke was definitely a lot more than just Octavia’s best friend – if anything he saw her as another little sister that he didn’t need to worry about as much – which was just another reason that the appearance of her soulmark had been so shocking.
-
Bellamy turns up the volume on the TV, attempting to drown out the incessant giggling coming from Octavia’s room. He can’t blame them -he supposes. It’s the big day – Clarke’s thirteenth birthday – and with a click glance at the clock he knows that her soulmark will be appearing in approximately seven minutes. They had done the exact same thing on Octavia’s birthday a few months earlier, cooped themselves up in her room until after the soulmark appeared before running down to show him. Octavia’s soulmark was an intricately decorated sword that took up half of her calf. She loved it, of course.
Clarke was so excited for her mark to appear. She had been raised on her parent’s picture-perfect love story – the two of them having met on their first day of college and pretty much falling in love on the spot – even before they discovered that they shared the same marks. Clarke had spent a large amount of the past few years imagining all the possible meet-cute scenarios she could think of (and then describing them in great detail to anyone that would listen).
He knows the moment that the mark appears, because all the sounds he can hear from upstairs stop immediately. He waits for the inevitable sound of Octavia’s bedroom door being flung open and the girls to come charging downstairs, but it never happens. When there’s still no sign of movement after half an hour, he decides he should check to see if everything was okay.
The girls are sitting on Octavia’s bed – Clarke with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders despite the warm weather. The looks on their faces are not excited or happy, and he can tell that they’re trying to be secretive about something – mainly because the hushed conversation they were having ceases as soon as he walks in the room.
“Is everything okay.” Bellamy asks, even though it clearly isn’t.
“Yeah.” Clarke’s response isn’t convincing in the slightest, especially when added to the look she sends to Octavia.
“How’s the soulmark?” Bellamy can’t be bothered to beat around the bush. The weird vibe in the room is clearly a result of whatever has just appeared on Clarke’s body.
Neither of the girls moved to respond.
“What is it? Do you not like it or something?” He teases, hoping it would bring some reaction other than silence.
“That’s not the problem.” Octavia responds, eyes flitting between Clarke and himself.
“What is, then?” Bellamy questions. A sudden thought enters Bellamy’s head that perhaps Clarke’s mark is the same as Octavia’s – the two are so inseparable that he wouldn’t be particularly surprised and it would explain why they’re both being so weird – but a quick glance at the blonde’s left leg shows that the skin there is bare.
Clarke takes a deep breath and lets the blanket slip off her right arm. Bellamy almost stops breathing when he sees it. There’s a black outline of a human body – like the type you’d have to annotate in a science lesson – spanning the top of Clarke’s arm. The only things in the outline are a brain where the heart should be, and a heart in the head.
It’s his mark.
He and Clarke have the same soulmarks.
Clarke is his soulmate.
“Holy fuck.” Is all that Bellamy can say.
It doesn’t make sense. How can Clarke Griffin – bossy, slightly spoiled, stubborn Clarke Griffin – who is the closest thing he and O have to family - be the person the universe has deemed his perfect match?
It can’t be right. There has to be some minute differences between the marks. It’s happened before – people believe they’ve found their soulmate but then discover the marks are slightly different sizes, or there’s a tiny detail missing from one that’s present on the other. Clarke is thirteen, for god’s sake. He’s twenty-four. It isn’t right.
“Bellamy,” Clarke says his name and he doesn’t think he’s ever heard her sound so unsure of herself, “I don’t – what does this mean?”
Bellamy knows what she’s asking. What does this mean for the future – for them. The simple answer is that he has no fucking idea, honestly, because Clarke being his soulmate still isn’t computing in his brain – but he needs to give her a better response than that. She’s just a kid – this soulmark hasn’t just confused him, it’s also thrown a bomb in just about everything Clarke had considered for her future. It’s almost a right of passage for everyone to spend the next few months after they gain their soulmark obsessed with soulmates – dreaming about how they’ll find their match and who they’ll be for however long it takes for the excitement to die down. Clarke isn’t going to have that – because she already knows who her match is. There will be no big romantic meeting or dramatic realisation – just the knowledge that her soulmate is her best friend’s big brother.
Bellamy crouches down next to the bed, and traces a finger down the outline of the soulmark. Upon closer inspection, it is definitely identical to his – there’s no question of that.
“It doesn’t have to mean anything, Clarke,” Bellamy begins, swallowing the lump in his throat and trying to sound confident, “It’s strange – I know, and it might take a bit of getting used to but it doesn’t have to change anything you don’t want it to. You know that people don’t have to be with their soulmates – it’s just a possibility – an option. We can make it whatever the hell we want it to be, okay?” Bellamy is trying to comfort himself just as much as he is Clarke. He knows that he could be lying – the mark could change everything. Jake and Abby could decide that they want to keep their daughter away from him. Everyone’s heard the horror stories of people taking advantage of their much younger soulmates. He would never do anything like that to Clarke – he couldn’t - but he knew that any of he and Clarke’s future interactions were as much the decision of her parents as it was the two of them.
“Yeah. Whatever the hell we want it to be.” Clarke nods, and she seems to be calmed somewhat by his answer. At least she is – that’s what matters right now.
“Well,” Octavia speaks up, a bright lilt to her voice which is an obvious attempt to lighten the atmosphere, “That was not how I expected today to go.”
Bellamy snorts. That’s an understatement.
Abby and Jake were both at work, which was why Clarke had spent her birthday at their house in the first place, but they were going over to the Griffin’s later on to have dinner and for Clarke to open her presents.
Bellamy spends the entirety of the time between seeing Clarke’s soulmark and arriving at the Griffin’s attempting to work out what he’s supposed to say to her parents. He wants to think that Abby and Jake know him well enough now to know that he would never do anything to hurt Clarke – but that doesn’t necessarily matter in a situation like this.
Abby’s in the hallway when they enter the house, immediately wrapping Clarke up in a warm hug, “Happy Birthday honey, have you had a nice day?”
Clarke says yes, but it’s very unenthusiastic. Bellamy can’t help but feel guilty – like it’s his fault the universe decided to fuck them over.
Abby obviously picks up on Clarke’s uncertainty, but before she can comment on it, Jake pokes his head into the hallway, “Come on kid, let’s see it then.”
Clarke doesn’t respond, just looks to Bellamy. Bellamy himself doesn’t think he’s been this fucking anxious since he first made the decision to move to Arkadia. He doesn’t want to lose the Griffin’s – they’ve been so good to him and O – he doesn’t know what he’d do without them.
“What is it? You don’t seem very excited.” Jake queries, making his way towards where they’ve all congregated close to the entrance of the living room. The Griffin’s house is a lot larger than his and O’s, and with the amount of time he’s spent there it’s almost like a second home. He hopes this isn’t the last time he’s allowed round.
Bellamy opens his mouth to say something, to try and explain to Jake and Abby that their daughters soulmark is his soulmark but he can’t find the words.
Octavia, apparently tired of his inability to speak, beats him to it, making the statement like it isn’t something life-changing, “It’s the same as Bellamy’s.”
“What?” Abby chokes out breathily.
Bellamy takes a deep breath and finds his voice, “Clarke’s soulmark is the same as mine.”
The next half hour is not the greatest in Bellamy’s life. It definitely isn’t the worst (that moment will forever belong to the moment he found it his mother had been hit by a drunk driver and had died instantly). He and Clarke are both ushered into the living room, sat down next to each other and their arms are examined in great detail by Jake and Abby.
“They’re definitely the same.” Abby concludes, saying what everyone else already knew for sure.
“I’m not sure I know what to say.” Is Jake’s input.
“Neither do I.” Bellamy admits.
“Clarke and Octavia, go and have a look at the takeaway menus and decide what you want for dinner.” Abby orders. There isn’t much room for argument, but Clarke tries anyway.
“No! This is as much about me as it is about him. I want to stay.”
“Clarke,” Bellamy interjects softly, nudging her with his arm, “Go on, it’s okay.”
The blonde huffs, “Fine, but you’re not allowed to make any decisions without me. I don’t even know why it’s such a big deal. Like Bellamy said earlier, soulmates only have to mean something if you want them to. We don’t, so it doesn’t matter.” She stomps out the room, quickly followed by Octavia, who’s already discussing the pros and cons of Chinese vs Italian.
Bellamy looks up at Jake and Abby. He can’t read the expressions on their faces – and can’t even try to begin to think about what must be going through their heads. They were probably expecting Clarke’s soulmate to be some rich lawyer or doctor or something – not a security guard eleven years her senior.
He figures he should probably break the silence – attempt to explain things from his point of view, even if he’s not sure that there really is anything he can explain, “I know – well I don’t really know anything right now. I don’t get it and it really doesn’t make sense to me. I’d understand if you want to keep Clarke away from me – if O’s soulmate showed up and was my age - I don’t know what I’d do but it probably wouldn’t be good. I just – I hope you know that I would never ever do anything to hurt Clarke or hold her back at all. I love her like I love O – I just want to see her grow up happy.”
“Of course we know that you’d never hurt her, Bellamy,” Jake assures him, and god it feels good to hear those words come out of his mouth, “And I very much doubt we’d be able to keep Clarke away from you if we tried.”
Abby lets out a noise of agreement, “That girl is only going to get harder to control when she gets older. You know, if there was anyone that we know that I thought may have been Clarke’s soulmate, it definitely would have been Octavia.”
Bellamy snorts out a laugh, “I actually thought the exact same thing before I saw the soulmark. They were both acting so strangely.”
A crash from the kitchen distracts the three of them, and Abby heads off to see what Clarke and Octavia have inevitably just destroyed, leaving Bellamy with Jake. The older man looks at him for a moment before speaking, “Bellamy, son. You know I respect you endlessly. Watching you mature and raise Octavia over the past five years has been nothing short of inspiring.”
“Thank you.” Bellamy speaks even though he knows Jake hasn’t quite finished. He isn’t sure if he’s going to like the next words that come out of his mouth.
Jake, for his part, looks like he’s working very hard on picking his next words carefully, “Soulmates aren’t something we understand. The bonds between them run deeper than anything else. Just remember that there’s always a reason that two people are soulmates – and those reasons may not be clear now but they’ll reveal themselves at some point. I just want to make sure that you’re prepared for that because Clarke is my little girl and I won’t see her getting hurt – and I don’t mean by you, just by the situation in general. You’re the adult, Bellamy – you hold the power. Make sure you make the right decisions, even if they’re hard.”
Bellamy nods, “I know, I understand. I promise you, Jake, Clarke is the priority. I’ll do everything I can to keep her safe and happy.”
-
Bellamy had really believed those words when he said them – he just hadn’t realised exactly how hard it was going to be.