Chapter Text
Clarke woke up before dawn.
Like she did most of the days when she knew she could get away …
She rolled over on her thin cot and reached blindly for the little box on the floor, opened it and struck a match against the floorboards.
Lit the old lantern to cast light on her little closet of a bedroom.
And the sand oozing up through the floorboards sparkled a little in the flickering light.
She got up, pulled on her warn out oversized man’s shirt, buttoned it up.
Tied back her hair.
Pulled on her worn out pair of pants that were covered in patches from her best attempts at stitching.
Stepped over to her rickety little writing desk that was covered with worn out paperbacks, either bought or stolen, pulled open the drawer and picked up her prize.
It wasn’t an impressive gun by any stretch of the imagination.
She’d bought it for next to nothing from a traveling trinket man who was in the bar one night.
It was cheap, and she could afford it.
And that was all that mattered.
The trinket man had called it a ‘lady’s pistol’.
And maybe that’s what it had been once.
But Clarke was no ‘lady’.
And it barely functioned as a pistol,
The gun was small.
Meant to be hidden.
Had four barrels, each with its own chamber.
And it had been rusted all to hell when Clarke bought it.
But she’d scrubbed it with sand till it was shiny again.
Poked and prodded until she managed to break the seal of rust so she could open the chambers … then scrubbed them out with sand as best she could … and every other part she could see …
Oiled it …
Tinkered with it …
Figured it out …
In the end, only one chamber actually fired.
But having one shot to save your life was better than nothing.
Clarke reached into another drawer half full of loose bullets … loaded it … stuffed the little gun into her pocket.
Stuffed her other pocket full of bullets.
Pulled on her too big denim jacket and stepped quietly out the door …
And then stepped quietly out the back door of the saloon.
The air was crisp as a slap in the face.
Not yet warmed by the morning sun just starting to peek out over the horizon.
But anything left of her tiredness vanished.
She walked down the quiet main street of Sand … the piss poor town she’d ended up in … and made her way to the desert … the morning light glittering off the spent shell casings littering the street.
This town was as poor as they came.
The only thing it had a lot of was drunks.
Sand.
And bullets.
Bullets were cheap.
The drunks were the reason she had a job.
And sand was everywhere.
It was a ghost town really.
Haunted by the people left over from whenever this town had been something …
But now it had just as many buildings empty and falling apart as inhabited …
The sign at the edge of town said “Population 500”, but most of those people were either long gone or buried in the cemetery outside of town.
And of those who were left, most were miners …
Miners who sifted old dried up creek beds for gold …
Miners who dug deep below the sand into stone for metals …
But more valuable that any of that was water …
And water miners … well diggers … came through regularly searching for that rarest, most precious and most necessary thing of all ... hoping to strike it rich by finding an underground water source …
Clarke had no hopes of striking it rich.
She had no hopes at all really.
But she had memories.
And as she walked out to the desert that morning, she thought about them … like she thought about those memories every morning that she made this walk out to the desert …
Her few good memories …
They felt like they were from a different life now.
Like they were a different person’s memories.
But she held onto them all the same.
Her father’s face.
Her mother’s crooked grin.
Her brother and his wild curly black hair.
His crooked smile …
An image in her mind of the little farmhouse they’d grown up in …
That was all she had of the time before.
After that … the orphanage …
She’d been four … five maybe …
Her brother eleven …
She’d spent more years in that orphanage with Bellamy than she’d spent with her parents …
But thank god she’d had him.
One person in this world who had loved her.
And who she’d loved.
Who made the orphanage feel less like the prison that it was …
To keep her from going crazy …
The women who ran the orphanage were strict as hell.
Wiry.
Mean.
Keen eyes always lookin’ for any excuse to whoop any kid who stepped outta line …
And god …
Bellamy had given them so many excuses …
He was always up to something …
Stealing whatever he could get his hands on to make little toys for her …
Stealing stuff to build things for himself … all his little projects …
He wasn’t really one for sitting and listening to the teacher in their little one room class …
He already knew how to read and write and some math …
And he was more likely to stare out the window than at the chalkboard …
But he’d watched over her.
Protected her.
Made sure nobody picked on her.
Not even the mean old bitties who ran the place.
He’d squeeze into her cot at night … quiet … so as not to wake the hundred other kids asleep in the dormitory beds … and he’d told her stories …
Stories about home …
About their parents …
About what they’d do when they ran away from the orphanage …
Sometimes he’d show her his little projects too.
Little mechanical things he’d made from toys or old clocks or junk or whatever he had managed to get his hands on …
And during recess in the yard, they played bulletcatcher and gunslinger …
Bellamy always played the bulletcatcher … whipping his hands around to swat the imaginary bullets out of the air that Clarke shot at him with her fingers …
And Clarke always let him win …
When he swooped his hands around to throw her imaginary bullets back at her … Clarke would grab her gut and fall to the ground with a loud groan …
And after a few years at the orphanage, he told her one night that when they ran away, he was gonna become a bulletcatcher.
That he would convince the bulletcatchers to teach him how to catch bullets. That he’d get real good at it and then work as a bodyguard for some rich person.
And then they’d be able to eat as much as they wanted and drink clear, clean water … as much as they wanted. Have their own place to live where it was just them.
And Clarke had believed him.
Bellamy told her the stories of what he was gonna do when they ran away and he became a bulletcatcher over and over again over the years … more times than he’d told her any other story … how he was gonna find the bulletcatchers … learn their ways … become the best bulletcatcher there ever was … Then become a bodyguard for some rich person and buy them everything they’d ever wanted …
And one day, when he was 15 and she was nearing 9, he reached over a hand from his desk to give her something in class …
Clarke quickly took it …
Looked at it in her lap …
It was a shiny little thing …
Pieces of metal shaped to look like dog … on a little metal pedestal with a little turn crank on the side …
And when Clarke turned the little crank, the dog’s little legs skittered and moved … kinda like it was running …
Clarke had grinned down at it.
Maybe that was her mistake.
The teacher marched over to her and started barking at her about not paying attention …
And Bellamy had started mouthing off to the teacher …
Earning him a slap and him getting yanked out of his chair by the ear and hauled out the door …
He’d shot his crooked smile at Clarke just before she’d yanked him out the door …
And Clarke hid the little mechanical running dog in the pocket of her thin dress …
A minute later, she’d heard him getting whipped outside in the yard…
Heard him crying out as he got his lashings …
The other kids got up from their chairs to watch at the windows …
But Clarke didn’t.
She couldn’t.
She’d seen him that night though … curled up in his bed when she’d gone over to check on him after lights out …
And he’d told her, “I’m getting outta here. Tonight.”
His voice was rough from crying.
But he’d tried to hide it.
He’d almost looked like a man to her at that age …
With his little wisps of a mustache on his upper lip … like the ghost of one of those furry little caterpillars they sometimes found in the yard at recess …
“I can’t take you with me. You’ll just slow me down and we won’t get away,” he’d said, “But I’ll come back for you when I’ve got things set up for us.”
“Promise me,” Clarke had looked back at him.
And he’d looked her in the eye and said, “I promise.”
So she’d helped him tie their bed sheets and blankets together so he could slip out the window and climb down to the ground to make his escape … even though she was crying …
He’d given her a long hug.
Kissed the top of her head.
And then he was gone.
Clarke didn’t remember too much about the years after that.
But she remembered standing by the window every night for years …
Or whenever she got too lonely really …
Looking out to see if Bellamy was out there … coming to get her …
Spent her days at the orphanage truly on her own.
With no one.
Just her memories.
Every once in a while, she was hauled outta class to be presented to prospective parents … but more often than not … to business owners … looking for small hands to assemble things … to clean things …
Clarke had been passed over more times than she could count.
Her teeth inspected.
Her bony limbs prodded at.
“She looks half dead.”
“Looks like she could keel over any second.”
“She’s smart. Can do figures in her head. Can read and write. And we’ll give you a steep discount if you take her ...”
But no one did.
Not until Titus showed up.
He’d seemed interested that she could do math in her head.
That she knew her multiplication tables backwards and forwards and could read and write good.
But he didn’t actually put any of those skills of hers to use.
Nope.
He’d taken her with him to Sand.
Put her to work washing dishes at his saloon.
Scrubbing them clean with sand.
And she’d been doing that ever since he’d “adopted” her at 12.
She must be 17 now.
18 maybe.
But the endless days and night washing dishes behind the bar had all blurred together after a while …
And she was still a scrawny thing …
Pale.
That kinda hollow look to her that a lot of people in Sand had …
Her blonde hair stringy and thin.
Just long enough to tie back into a little bob of a ponytail.
With her hair tied back … and her too big man’s shirt and too big pants … and just about 5 foot tall or around there … and with the name ‘Clarke’ … she could pass as a boy if anyone glanced at her … avoid the attention of the drunks a little better …
She didn’t need any more problems.
Any more sad memories.
She was full up on those …
She knew not to look out windows for Bellamy now.
She knew that he was dead.
He hadn’t made it.
That was why he’d never come back for her.
It was the only explanation.
Maybe he hadn’t even lasted a day before trouble had found him.
Trouble was everywhere.
She knew that now.
Which was why Clarke stepped out into her spot in the desert to practice her aim …
Stood 15 feet away from a few scraggly cacti jutting out of the sand at their jagged angles …
And Clarke pulled out her little pistol … held it out … closed one eye and aimed at one of the green prickly paddles …
And then … pulled the trigger …
Pulled that trigger until she was clean outta bullets …
She’d had to reload her single working barrel after every shot.
But she’d hit the cactus paddle she’d been aiming at every time.
—-
That night, Clarke was working behind the bar.
Scrubbing dirty glasses clean in a bucket of sand, while Titus slung drinks to the drunks and the other ne’er do wells who hung out at the saloon … for the miners and travelers just passing through …
Pretty much everyone ordered the same thing.
Snakebite.
It burned going down.
Tasted like hell.
But it was cheap.
And it got you drunk if you drank enough of it.
And nothing in Sand tasted good to drink anyway.
The water they did have tasted like it had been recycled hundreds of times …
Because it had been.
Smelled vaguely like piss.
And you never got used to it.
Just like you never got used to fights breaking out or tables being thrown over or the sound of gunfire or the sight of blood and death.
And that night Clarke’s eyes were focused on a raucous card game going on at one of the tables …
Three of the five men at that table looked like the kinda men that you needed to keep an eye on …
Most of the men at the bar were harmless …
Too drunk to be a threat to anyone but themselves …
And Clarke had gotten good at making herself invisible.
No one noticed her anymore really …
But she had learned what trouble looked like …
Knew that it was a good idea to keep an eye on trouble when you saw it …
So you were already ducking behind the bar before the bullets started to fly …
And Clarke didn’t look away from those three men when she heard the saloon’s swinging doors creak open and shut …
Didn’t actually turn her head to see who it was when the place went quiet for a moment … only looked when the chatter started back up again like it had never stopped.
The stranger was tall …
Black cowboy hat pulled down low over the eyes …
Jeans …
A dark green button up shirt that looked a bit cleaner than most …
And the sound of their boots stepping over to the bar was different too …
Quiet …
The stranger took a seat on a barstool a few seats away from where Clarke was scrubbing glasses clean in her bucket of sand.
But then the stranger did something weird …
Or rather …
Didn’t do what everyone else did …
The rule was, when you came into a saloon and took a seat, you pulled out your shooters and laid them on the bar … or the table … laid them in front of wherever you sat to show that you were there to drink and not to start shit …
But … the stranger didn’t do that …
Just lifted 2 fingers at Titus and tipped the low brim of that black cowboy hat …
Titus frowned at the stranger …
But then got to pouring two fingers of snakebite into a newly washed glass … slid it across the bar.
The stranger didn’t reach for it right away.
Just sat there stock still for a moment …
And then looked right at her …
Clarke’s breath caught in her throat …
The stranger was … not a man …
She had a sharp jawline …
A few scars on her cheeks …
And eyes greener than any Clarke had ever seen …
Green eyes that looked … so alive …
Not hollowed out and haunted … not glazed over with drink … not narrowed with suspicion or fidgety like nearly every other pair of eyes in that bar … like nearly every other pair of eyes she’d ever seen …
And those green eyes were looking directly at her …
She wasn’t invisible …
Not to her …
And then those green eyes turned to the glass of snakebite on the bar and the woman took a slow sip …
That’s when Clarke noticed the woman’s hand …
Tan like her face …
Lined with scars …
Clarke didn’t see it coming …
Titus’ hand when it flung out and smacked the back of her head.
“Pay attention …,” he bristled, “You’re scratchin’ up my glasses.”
Clarke looked down at the glass her hands had been scrubbing in the bucket of sand.
It was all scratched to hell …
Just like every single other glass in this bar was scratched to hell …
Clarke’s eyes narrowed at him, “‘Cause your glasses are cheap Titus.”
This time, she saw the hit coming, but she didn’t flinch when it connected.
The slap cold on her cheek.
“Only thing cheap in here is you …,” he grumbled back.
Clarke broke his glare, glanced at the stranger, and her eyes went wide.
The stranger was glaring at Titus … was looking at him like she might fly over the bar and rip his head off any second …
Those green eyes of hers were burning at him like fire … her jaw clenched tight …
But when Titus looked over, the stranger looked down at her drink.
Hid those eyes of hers under the brim of her hat and took another sip …
That’s when everything went to hell.
The sound of chairs skidding back and a table being flipped over and shouting and-
“You cheated! I saw!”
“I won fair and square!”
Clarke saw that one of the men already had a pistol in his hand, pointed at the other and she ducked down fast behind the bar.
“Maybe so … But you ain’t leavin’ here with my silver …”
The bar was dead silent …
Clarke peeked out just over the edge of the bar and-
The stranger was still sitting at the bar … still sipping her snakebite like nothing was happening … not even looking at the commotion …
Clarke wanted to tell her to get down but-
“So what’s it gonna be then …”
Clarke heard the metallic click of a hammer being pulled back.
And then a sigh.
“Fine. Keep it. But you gotta let me walk outta here.”
“Fine.”
Three seconds later, shots rang out …
Fast cracks of gunfire bursting out in a rush …
Two guns firing …
The wood wall behind the bar splintering and cracking …
Then a heavy thud …
And then silence.
Thick and heavy like the smell of gunsmoke in the air …
And then Titus was peeking up from behind the bar, shouting out, “Take him outside for god’s sake …”
Then there was a bunch of murmuring and the sounds of boots on the floorboards … the sounds of people getting up from their chairs and righting the table and-
Clarke stood up slowly …
Saw two men reaching down to drag a dead body out by his boots …
Titus sighed and grabbed a bucket of sawdust from a low shelf … stepped out from behind the bar … started pouring it out over the puddle of blood on the floor … and then along the trail of blood the body was leaving behind as the two men dragged it out the swinging doors …
That’s when Clarke noticed the woman …
She was still sitting at the bar … just like she had been before … slowly sipping her snakebite …
And then Clarke looked over at the wall in front of the woman … just beyond the bar …
There were five smoking bullet holes in the wood …
All around where the woman was sitting …
That’s when Clarke put it together …
The scars on her hand …
The scars on her face …
The … something about her …
She was a bulletcatcher.
Clarke stared at the woman …
Thought, ‘Look at me …’
But she didn’t.
The woman’s eyes were on her glass …
Someone else had noticed the bullet holes though …
A big man … hard features …
One of the three dangerous ones she’d spotted before …
The dead one … the one who’d killed him … and this one …
His boots sounded heavy when they thudded to a stop next to the woman …
And his voice was gruff when he said, “I know what you are …”
Clarke’s heart clenched.
But the woman said nothing in reply.
“Yeah … I killed a lot of you in the war …”
Then the man pulled up his sleeve and held out his arm in front of the woman so she could see the series of black hand-shaped tattoos on his forearm …
“One for each one of you …” the man gruffed.
The woman looked at him and snorted, and then gruffed right back, “You ain’t old enough for that war. And I’m even younger than you.”
He slapped his hand down on the bar in front of her … his fingers spread wide, “I’m old enough to be a gunslinger … Old enough to put you in the ground bulletcatcher …”
And Clarke could see the tattoo on his hand … the black ink just behind the web of skin stretched between his thumb and pointer finger …
VI
The blocky roman numerals … six …
For the number of bullets in a gunslinger’s revolver …
A perfect black circle around the number …
And the quality of the tattoo looked good … real …
“I’m callin’ you out bulletcatcher …,” he growled.
The bulletcatcher just sighed and threw back the last of her snakebite, said, “There ain’t no more bulletcatchers. And I’ll be moving on anyway.”
Then she got to her feet and tossed a coin on the bar.
And looked at her again.
Sending Clarke’s heart thumping like crazy in her chest.
And then the woman turned and walked directly out the swinging doors …
“Hey! I’m calling you out!” the man shouted after her, “You gotta answer!”
And then he stepped over and quickly grabbed his shooters off the floor, shoved them into his holsters before marching out the door after her.
And then everyone was rushing out of the bar after him … out into the street …
Titus sighed and picked up the bulletcatcher’s coin off the bar.
Slipped it into his pocket.
And Clarke dropped the glass her hands had automatically picked up back into the bucket of sand and rushed out the door too …
“Hey!” she heard Titus shout after her.
But she didn’t care.
The bulletcatcher was walking down Main Street … away from the crowd that had gathered in front of the saloon …
Away from the gruff man standing in the middle of the street with his hands on the shooters in the holsters on his hips who was belting out, “Hey! Get back here! I’m calling you out!”
He was trying to do it the honorable way at least …
But of course he didn’t in the end.
When the woman just kept walking … didn’t turn back to face him …
When she was almost out of range …
He pulled his guns and started firing at her …
And … under the bright moonlight … the woman turned into a blur …
A whirl of motion …
So fast it … didn’t seem real …
It … couldn’t be real …
But the shots were cracking out one after next in fast succession and then …
Silence …
Except for the sound of the man gasping and choking …
The sounds of the guns falling from his hands and hitting the sand …
And then he fell to the ground …
Still and motionless.
The crowd was on him in a flash …
Grabbing his guns and belt …
Yanking off his boots …
Hands in his pockets to steal any coins he had on him …
But Clarke’s eyes shot back to the bulletcatcher … receding into the distance … walking straight out of town … Further away now … like … she’d barely broken her stride to send a bullet flying back to kill that man …
Clarke closed her mouth.
Jaw set and determined.
She ran back into the bar …
Past Titus to the back …
He probably thought she was going to throw up from seeing whatever she’d seen on the street.
But Clarke ran to her room.
Quickly packed up her few possessions … her other pair of clothes, her other pairs of socks and underwear, anything that seemed useful and was small … tied them all up in a bundle in her extra shirt. Put on her too big jacket. Grabbed her knife out of a drawer and shoved it into her pocket. Ran her hand over the little gun in her pocket to make doubly sure she had it. Then filled up her biggest jacket pocket with all the bullets in her drawer. Emptied the water recycler into her canteen, screwed on the lid and slung the strap over her shoulder.
Looked at all the books on the desk …
She couldn’t carry them all.
She stuffed her three favorite paperbacks into the big inside pockets of her jacket.
And then ran out the back door … carrying her bundle of clothes over her shoulder …
Ran down alleys and side streets … in the same direction as the bulletcatcher had been walking …
And when she was far enough away from the saloon … far enough away from the crowd that was picking that corpse clean of his earthly possessions … Clarke cut over to Main Street … and saw the dark shadow of the bulletcatcher up ahead … walking maybe a hundred yards ahead of her … into the desert …
And she followed …
Notes:
Welcome to this new Clexa adventure!
Hope you enjoyed Chapter 1 ❤️
And if you did, your kudos and comments are always appreciated.
New chapter next week!
PS - I’m so excited to finally be sharing this fic with you.
This story is a Clexa version of one of my all-time favorite audio fiction podcasts: “Bullet catcher” by Joaquin Lowe. Highly recommend the podcast - it’s beautifully written and voice acted.
And this Clexa version will be quite the tale too 😊
Chapter Text
The bulletcatcher wasn’t running.
But she never seemed to stop walking either.
Seemed to always be a ways up ahead off in the distance no matter if Clarke sped up or slowed down …
And they’d been walking for hours …
All night …
Past dawn …
Clarke was tired.
But still determined.
Life didn’t give you second chances ...
You had to grab the first one when it came.
And she had.
And she didn’t let go.
She had no idea where they were going.
How long the bulletcatcher would walk to get to wherever they were going …
So she’d sipped at her canteen sparingly as they walked across the desert.
She’d never left Sand before.
Not since she’d been brought there from the orphanage years ago.
But she knew there was a whole lotta nothing but sand in pretty much every direction from what everyone at the bar said …
When Titus had walked her into the saloon that first day … back when she was 12 … he’d told her that there was nowhere to run to …
But he was wrong.
Because this bulletcatcher was going somewhere …
Every one of the boot prints she left on the sand was headed somewhere …
And so Clarke followed her footsteps …
Through miles of desert under the blazing sun …
Her too big denim jacket pulled up over the top of her head like a hood to keep the sun off the back of her neck and out of her eyes …
She was going to do what Bellamy had never managed to do …
What he’d always dreamed of doing …
The dream he’d died for.
She was going to become a bulletcatcher …
And so she kept walking …
Even though her legs ached …
Even as the dry air tried to steal every drop of moisture from her parched mouth the few times she’d opened it as she followed the bulletcatcher’s footprints on the sand …
And she kept following …
For three days …
Collapsed from exhaustion a few times …
But when she woke up …
She still saw the bulletcatcher’s shadow up ahead …
And scrambled to her feet to follow after her some more …
And after that third day, late that night, the bright moon was high and her legs were aching fiercely …
Her muscles tense and rigid like stone … like they’d forgotten how to relax …
They were cramping too …
But more concerning than that was the fact that she was out of water …
Her canteen hanging useless from the strap …
She was stumbling across the sand under the moonlight …
Lightheaded and unable to think about anything but the shadow of the bulletcatcher ahead of her …
And then her foot caught on something soft and she went tumbling down to the sand …
She looked down at her foot and … there … lying on the sparkling sand … was a desert fox …
Its unblinking eyes shining back at her in the moonlight …
Clarke sat up …
And saw that written in the sand above the fox was the word:
DRINK
In big capital letters … next to a switchblade that had been stabbed into the sand …
Clarke’s hand reached out and brushed across the fox’s soft fur …
Its body was still warm.
She was hungry …
Starving …
She’d been ignoring the ache in her stomach for ages but now …
Clarke looked at the shadow of the bulletcatcher up ahead in the distance …
Looked down at the word again …
DRINK
The bulletcatcher knew she was following …
Had left this for her …
Drink.
Clarke pressed her chapped lips together …
Reached for the knife …
Let out a breath …
And then angled the foxes chin all the way up …
Slid the blade across its furry throat …
Pressed the button on the side of the switchblade and folded it closed.
Slid it into her jacket pocket to give herself just a moment to commit to this ...
And then leaned down and drank deeply from the cut …
The fox’s blood was still warm …
Thick and metallic on her tongue …
And after that first taste … she couldn’t stop … gripped the furry creature in her hands as she sucked the warm blood from its neck …
Felt a few thick drops drip down her chin …
But she still couldn’t stop …
Her body started to feel warm …
Tingly …
Like the last little bits of the fox’s life were pouring into her …
And it felt like … if she didn’t drink every last drop … then she was gonna die …
So she drank all she could …
Every drop …
Stood up, carrying the furry body … and kept drinking as she walked … following after the line of boot prints in the sand under the moonlight …
——
When Clarke’s bleary eyes blinked open a few days later … she thought she’d died …
The sun was peeking out over the horizon … bright and glorious … the most beautiful sunrise she’d ever seen …
The clouds fanned out across the sky were pink from the morning light …
And just up ahead of her … were mountains …
White at the tops with snow …
And below that … the mountainsides were covered with green trees …
She was lying on dirt and pebbles instead of sand …
But when she licked her lips … she tasted the fox’s blood …
And she knew she wasn’t dead.
She sat up.
Saw her bundle of clothes … still tied shut with the arms of her other shirt … lying on the dirt where it had dropped when she’d dropped …
She grabbed her bundle … hauled herself up onto her sore feet …
Started walking straight ahead …
And it wasn’t long till she spotted the shadow of the bulletcatcher up ahead …
Standing at the base of a footpath that led into the trees … and then the shadow turned and headed into the trees … and Clarke followed after her …
Through the trees …
Up the side of a mountain …
Up the trail that was barely wide enough to be considered a path …
But it was shady …
With the big trees on either side …
Big branches swaying in the breeze …
Creating shade that felt miraculous and mercifully cool to walk under after so many days under the hot sun …
There were many forks in the little trail …
But Clarke made her best guesses on which way to go …
Her eyes looking for boot prints in the narrow strip dirt ahead of her …
The barely there crescent of a heel print …
A too straight scuff in the dirt …
And she found some …
Had to double back a few times but …
Eventually …
The path opened up to a flat place among the trees … a clearing …
And there was a cabin made of logs …
With a front porch and a rocking chair …
And sitting in that rocking chair … was the bulletcatcher … still wearing her black cowboy hat … her boots … her green shirt and jeans … and looking directly at her …
Clarke swallowed.
Her throat dry.
She’d finally caught up to her …
Now what?
Clarke reached into her pocket …
Pulled out the switchblade …
But she didn’t open it.
She stepped forward.
Nice and slow …
The switchblade hanging from just the tips of her fingers …
No threat …
She stepped up to the edge of the porch and held it out to the bulletcatcher, “Thank you. For the fox.”
Those green eyes looked back at her.
But they were different now.
Looked back directly into hers like before … but this time … like she was considering something … thinking it over …
And Clarke’s outstretched arm was starting to get tired …
She was … very tired actually …
Even though she’d just woke up a few hours ago …
The bulletcatcher reached out and took the switchblade from her hand.
Didn’t say ‘you’re welcome’ or anything.
Just took the knife.
Then she stood up from the rocking chair and opened the door to the cabin.
Went inside.
Closed the door.
Clarke dropped her bundle but …
She wasn’t sure what to do exactly.
She couldn’t just walk into the woman’s home.
No …
She needed this woman to-
The door opened again.
The bulletcatcher was carrying a woven basket by its arched handle …
And in her other hand, a canteen.
She tossed it to Clarke.
And Clarke opened it up and drank from it greedily before she even realized what she was doing …
Felt the cool, clean, delicious tasting water pour down her dry throat …
Flood her dry mouth …
Soak her tongue …
Moisten her gums …
Slip across her dry lips …
Cold, clean water …
The best water she’d ever tasted in her life …
And Clarke swallowed down the whole canteen …
Lowered it …
Panting and breathing heavy …
Her mind already feeling sharper … more awake … more aware … more … alive …
Saw the bulletcatcher just standing there … looking at her with her green eyes …
And Clarke immediately felt guilty.
She’d just swallowed down a whole fortune of clean water in no time flat and-
The bulletcatcher lifted her head and pointed with her chin … and then started walking that way …
So Clarke followed after her …
Down a path into the trees …
A path that soon opened up to … the shore of a lake …
A lake full of sparkling blue water …
And Clarke just stood there …
Frozen …
Staring …
Her jaw hanging open at the sight of so much water … more water than she’d ever seen in her whole life …
At the fresh scent of it filling her lungs …
The bulletcatcher stood at the water’s edge … looking out at the water like she was appreciating the sight of it too …
And then she stepped over to beside a big boulder …
Took off her black cowboy hat and laid it on the ground … put down the basket and started unbuttoning her shirt … peeled it off …
And Clarke’s eyes shot away …
Her cheeks hot …
She heard the sound of clothes dropping to the ground …
Boots being tugged off and hitting the dirt …
And her cheeks got even hotter …
And after a while … she heard water splashing …
And when she looked over … the basket was sitting by the waters edge …
And the bulletcatcher was standing waist deep in the water …
Her back was just as tan as her face …
Was covered in lean rippling muscles …
And her muscly back was crisscrossed with scars going every which way …
Clarke’s whole body felt hot now …
She watched the bulletcatcher reach up to the back of her head and tug at something … and then her hair spilled down her muscly back like a waterfall of wavy chestnut brown curls …
Clarke swallowed thickly …
Watched the bulletcatcher sink down into the water and dunk herself … rinsing her dark locks …
Watched the muscles across her scarred back shift and flex as the bulletcatcher washed her face … her arms …
Clarke’s hands were fidgeting at her sides …
She … didn’t know what to do with her hands all of a sudden …
And then she realized …
She must desperately need a bath too …
After so many days of trekking … she must smell god awful …
She could … feel the dirt and grime on her skin actually …
The bulletcatcher was still turned away …
So Clarke started tugging off her own clothes and laying them aside …
Her jacket …
Her shirt …
Her boots …
Her pants …
Everything but her underclothes …
Which surely needed a wash just as badly as she did …
Clarke stepped into the cool water … and instantly felt lighter …
Better … as the cool water crept up her ankles … up to her knees … up to her waist as she stepped further and further in …
The cool water felt so good on her sore muscles …
And the bulletcatcher stepped a little further away from her …
She had a stone in her hand now …
A small, flat gray stone in her hand that she was rubbing along the length of her scarred, muscly arm …
Clarke could feel those stones under her feet …
She lifted her hands from the water …
Rubbed them across her face …
Felt the crinkly mess of dried blood all around her mouth and rubbed it away …
God …
She must’ve looked like a damn vampire to the bulletcatcher … her mouth covered in dried fox blood … from that fox she’d drained of blood and eaten raw strips of flesh off of …
And no doubt she stank to high heaven …
She sank down in the water and soaked her hair …
Felt the cool water prickle pleasantly against her scalp and ran her fingers through the wet strands …
A bath …
She was having a bath … in fresh, clean water …
It felt like her skin was drinking it in …
Soaking it up …
Clarke scrubbed herself with her hands … under her underclothes as best she could …
Feeling so clean …
Cleaner than she’d ever felt in her life.
Feeling … so alive …
Full of life …
She reached down under the water and grabbed one of those small flat stones … it was lighter than she’d expected … with tiny divots in it … and she started rubbing it across her arm …
It felt good …
The stone against her skin …
Felt like … it was making her skin smoother somehow …
She heard the bulletcatcher step out of the water behind her …
But Clarke still had a lot of cleaning up to do …
And … she knew where the bulletcatcher lived now …
So she didn’t follow after her.
She stayed in the water.
Thoroughly cleaned herself off all over.
Her face.
Behind her ears.
The back of her neck.
Her hair.
Cleaned thoroughly under her arms to clear away the smell …
Even took off her underclothes and rung them out a few times in the water before putting them back on … hoping they were cleaner now too …
And when she finally felt thoroughly, properly clean … she stepped back to the shore …
And the basket was still sitting there …
When Clarke looked into it … there was a towel …
Clarke’s gaze traveled around … looking for the bulletcatcher …
Shivering a little as a cool breeze passed by her as she stood there in her wet underclothes …
Was the towel for her?
Had to be right?
She pulled it out of the basket and dried herself off.
She was much cleaner now.
Surely she wouldn’t dirty it too badly.
And she’d offer to wash it too.
Clarke decided to just take off her damp underclothes.
Wrapped the towel around herself and tucked it securely in place.
Bundled up her dirty, smelly clothes.
Bundled up her wet underclothes separately.
Carried them in one hand and the basket in the other … made her way back to the cabin so she could get changed into her change of clothes from her bundle that she’d dropped there …
And when she walked back to the cabin … she saw the bulletcatcher sitting by a fire in a different set of clothes … by a fire in a circle of stones in front of the cabin …
She was wearing a different button up shirt now … a different pair of pants …
Had her long dark hair tied up in a ponytail …
And she was cooking something over the fire …
Something that smelled amazing …
Clarke hurried over to her dropped bundle of clothes … stepped around to the side of the cabin with it and took off her towel … put on her clean dry underthings … and a clean shirt and clean pants from her bundle …
The clothes she’d trekked there in did smell awful …
She’d have to clean them as soon as possible … once she got her situation with the bulletcatcher settled …
And she felt better when she stepped back out around the cabin … dropped her bundle and went to sit by the fire with the bulletcatcher …
The bulletcatcher was tending to something in a pan …
Something that smelled like meat and spices …
Something that smelled like it tasted worlds better than raw fox meat and fresh blood …
And after a minute … the bulletcatcher nodded over at something …
Clarke looked … and saw a tin cup full of water … with a toothbrush laying across it … and a little circular metal tin of toothpaste sitting beside it …
God …
In her rush to leave the saloon …
She’d forgotten her toothbrush …
Was her breath so bad that the bulletcatcher could smell it from even a step away?
Embarrassing.
“Thank you …,” Clarke said quietly.
And then took a sip of water … opened the tin of toothpaste … dipped the toothbrush into the paste and got to brushing her teeth …
Brushed them all clean … brushed her tongue and gums clean too … and in the absence of a recycler tank to spit into … she spat out the paste on the ground … leaning back … away from the fire …
Rinsed her mouth out with a sip of water and spit that out too …
Ran her tongue across her squeaky clean teeth …
And saw the bulletcatcher scoop a thick hunk of meat out of the pan with a big wooden spoon and put it on one of two plates …
Put the other hunk of meat on the other plate …
Watched her scoop some unfamiliar greens out of the pan and put them on the plates too …
Clarke’s mouth was watering …
And the bulletcatcher put the pan aside …
Put a fork on one of the plates and handed it to her …
“Thank you …,” Clarke whispered before she took it.
Her voice quiet …
Reverent …
Humble …
And took the offered plate gratefully with both hands …
Waited to eat until the bulletcatcher had started eating from her own plate …
Tried not to groan to loudly …
Or wolf it all down in huge bites …
But god …
It tasted incredible …
She didn’t know what she was eating …
And she did not care.
Not at all.
She would eat anything to survive.
She’d already proved that.
But the meat was so warm … hot …
Tasted buttery in her mouth …
Practically melted on her tongue …
The greens were so good too …
Even though she didn’t normally like greens much …
But she ate them with just as much enthusiasm as she ate the meat …
When Clarke finished her plate, she set it aside with a deep, satisfied sigh …
And then startled at the sight of the bulletcatcher …
Like … she’d forgotten that she was there …
But … was this the bulletcatcher?
The woman she’d followed through the desert?
She’d been so distracted by her thirst and hunger and those green eyes and trying not to look at her too much while she was bathing but …
But … looking at her now …
The bulletcatcher was … so beautiful …
Startlingly beautiful …
A fierce beauty …
Her features were a little softer somehow now though …
Even though her jawline was just as sharp as before …
Even though her green eyes were as distracting and alive as ever … especially in the flickering light of the fire …
The woman was … really so beautiful …
Her high cheekbones …
The delicate line of her nose …
The graceful slope of her neck leading down to … a shirt with a few more open buttons and …
Even those few scars on her cheeks …
They looked like they belonged there …
Like … she’d been born with them or something …
Like … she was how people were supposed to look …
But then the bulletcatcher looked down at the fire …
Said low and quiet, “There’s a town on the other side of the mountain … not as far away as Sand. You can rest out here tonight. Fill your canteen and head out in the morning. I’ll make sure you get there.”
Clarke’s back straightened.
No.
She wasn’t going anywhere.
But … the bulletcatcher had already given her so much …
Had saved her life with that fox …
Had given her a canteen full of clean fresh water worth more than her life …
Had allowed her a bath …
Had given her a meal beyond anything she’d ever tasted …
Was offering her a good night’s sleep by a warm campfire too …
And the bulletcatcher could obviously kill her whenever she chose …
Especially if Clarke gave her a good reason to … like not clearing off her mountain when she’d been told to …
But … Clarke needed more than all that from the bulletcatcher …
She needed a teacher …
And this woman, she was the one.
Clarke was certain of that.
The bulletcatcher’s gaze shifted to the side …
And Clarke looked over there too …
There was a tent.
Hung from a line of rope strung up between two trees …
A tent … made of canvas thrown over the line of rope … that hung down to the ground on either side of the rope to form a triangle …
Clarke’s eyebrows raised …
And shelter …
The woman was offering her a night of shelter too …
Clarke didn’t even have a chance to say thank you.
Because the bulletcatcher stood up and walked straight to her cabin with her long strides …
Those long strides that Clarke had followed straight through Hell and all the way to Heaven …
Notes:
Hope you enjoyed ❤️
And if you did, your kudos and comments are always appreciated.
New chapter next week!
Chapter Text
Clarke woke up to the sound of a crackling fire … under a quilt in the canvas tent …
Sat straight up at the scent of something cooking …
“Bulletcatcher …” she whispered to herself.
She wasn’t in Sand anymore.
She wasn’t in the desert anymore either.
She was warm under a warm, thick quilt.
Well rested.
Muscles still achy from the long walk but …
She was free.
Her hands fidgeted in her lap as she looked at the sliver of morning light peeking in through the tent flaps …
Today, she had to convince the bulletcatcher to take her on as a student.
She had always been a good student.
She learned quick.
Faster than the other kids at the orphanage.
Math.
Spelling.
Reading.
She liked reading.
And she’d kept on reading books even after Titus had “adopted” her … even though she didn’t have to read anymore because she didn’t go to school anymore …
But she’d kept on reading ‘cause she liked doing it …
Reading …
Learning stuff from reading …
Loads of people couldn’t read even to save their lives …
But she read for fun …
That’s how good she was at it …
And all she had to do now was convince the bulletcatcher that she was a good student and worth teaching things to and show her that she could be useful to her …
And she would be.
Whatever it took.
Clarke tied back her hair into a little bob of a ponytail like she did for work at the saloon.
Straightened out her clothes to make herself more presentable like they did at the orphanage when people were coming by to pick out a kid.
Crawled out of the tent and stood up straight …
And then startled at the sight of the bulletcatcher sitting by the fire … tending to something …
She was beautiful again …
Startlingly beautiful …
Her long, wavy chestnut hair was tied back in braids today …
Clarke would have to get used to having such a beautiful teacher …
Maybe if she just stopped looking at her so much …
Maybe that would help …
Somehow … it didn’t seem like that was gonna be possible though …
Clarke was already looking at her again as soon as she sat down by the fire …
“Coffee …,” the bulletcatcher murmured.
At least the bulletcatcher wasn’t looking at her …
That helped some …
Then the bulletcatcher poured a kettle full of a dark drink into a cup and set the cup down next to her …
Even though Clarke hadn’t asked for it.
“Thank you,” Clarke said, genuine, before taking the tin cup and letting the heat of it warm her hands.
The bulletcatcher didn’t say anything.
Just sipped at her cup in silence … looking out at the trees …
So Clarke sipped at her cup in silence for a while too.
And then, when she’d worked up the courage, she said, “I came here to train with you.”
The bulletcatcher looked at her …
Not looking impressed by this declaration …
“I can be useful,” Clarke pressed on, “Whatever you need.”
“And what is it that I need?” the bulletcatcher drawled.
Fair point …
“Laundry washed?” Clarke looked back at her, steady, “Someone to cook? Clean? Chopping firewood? Whatever you need. And in exchange … I’m asking … for lessons … to become a bulletcatcher like you …”
The woman’s gaze didn’t waver, “There are no more bulletcatchers.”
Clarke lifted an eyebrow at her, “I know one dead jackass who might disagree …”
It was so quick she almost missed it …
That little twitch of a smile at the corner of the woman’s mouth …
But she’d seen it …
And Clarke grinned at her.
Maybe … what this woman needed was company …
The good kind …
And wouldn’t it feel good to be so good at something that someone wanted to learn from you?
That was all she wanted.
To learn from her.
And she was willing to work for it.
“I’m a hard worker …,” Clarke looked at her, “And a fast learner. My teacher said so …”
“Your boss seemed displeased with you …,” the woman looked back at her, her voice gruff, “Seems like you might’ve learned not to piss him off …”
Clarke lifted her chin.
But she’d seen the look on the bulletcatcher’s face when Titus had slapped her.
She knew the bulletcatcher wasn’t okay with that … the way her eyes had blazed at Titus for that slap … not at her …
“I learned …,” Clarke looked back at her, “That if you show people you’re scared of them … people who want something from you … then they’ll keep on trying to scare you into giving them what they want … And he learned that scaring me isn’t the way … Though sometimes he liked to test that out … ‘Cause scaring people is free and he’s cheap.”
That twitch of a smile again.
Two almost smiles now …
“My brother wanted to be a bulletcatcher …,” Clarke looked at her, “It was his dream. It meant everything to him. And it means a lot to me. Because he meant a lot to me ...”
The bulletcatcher looked away.
“Bellamy …,” Clarke said quietly, “My brother … If … I became a bulletcatcher … it would be like … his dream came true …”
The bulletcatcher’s gaze shifted to the ground, her jaw working … like she was chewing on something …
And then she said, quiet, “And you’re his sister. Clarke.”
Clarke’s heart stopped.
“We had the same teacher …,” the bulletcatcher went on.
Clarke stopped breathing.
“But Bellamy was undisciplined … impatient … and full of anger …,” the bulletcatcher looked at her, “And that’s what killed him.”
Clarke’s eyes filled with tears … Not even so much at the acknowledgment that her brother was dead …
She already knew that.
That’s why he’d never come back for her.
But … hearing someone else say his name … out loud …
That’s what made her heart hurt.
She hadn’t talked about her brother in years …
Not with anyone.
And … here was someone who’d known him … who knew his name …
“Being a bulletcatcher was his dream …,” the bulletcatcher looked back at her, “But he wasn’t cut out for it. He learned that the hard way … and too late. And you … You deserve your own dream.”
“Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it …,” Clarke snapped.
She hadn’t meant to snap but … she couldn’t help it.
So many things had happened to her that she didn’t deserve …
She didn’t deserve to lose her parents …
To end up in an orphanage …
Bellamy didn’t deserve that either …
And he didn’t deserve to die.
He was good.
Not perfect but … good …
A good brother …
In every way that mattered.
And she didn’t deserve to lose him.
She didn’t deserve to be adopted by Titus either … to live off table scraps in that shit hole town, scrubbing dishes and dodging bullets and creeps and sleeping in a closet on the floor …
“People don’t get what they deserve …,” Clarke looked back at her, “They get what they work for … What they maybe get just one chance to sacrifice everything for if they’re lucky … What they’re willing to chase across the desert for days and days and drink fox blood for … And even then it’s 70/30 you die tryin’ …”
The bulletcatcher lifted her chin, “So you’re angry too.”
Clarke sighed and shook her head, “What sorta opportunities do you think there are out there for a girl like me? Dishwasher? Scrubbing floors? Prostitute? I’d rather kill myself.”
The bulletcatcher pressed her lips together, “You said you’re smart …”
Clarke shook her head again, “No one sees that though. Or … they don’t wanna see it … Like … it makes them dumb or something … So they look at me like … Like I’m nothin’ … Like I’m trash …”
She felt more then saw the bulletcatcher stiffen …
Clarke looked at her, “You didn’t though. You saw me. Or … I thought you did …”
The bulletcatcher looked away …
Like she’d prove that it was true if she looked at her right then …
“You had a teacher …,” Clarke looked at her profile, “You worked for what you got … And you’re good at it. I respect that. I want that to.”
The bulletcatcher looked at her then, “You know how you get good at being shot at?”
“You …,” Clarke looked back at the fire in those green eyes, “Get shot at …”
The bulletcatcher dipped her chin, “And you know why you need to get good at being shot at?”
“‘Cause …,” Clarke swallowed.
“That’s right …,” the bulletcatcher looked back at her, “Because people want to shoot at you … That’s what being a bulletcatcher is … People hating you and getting shot at … And most likely dying. You’re askin’ me to teach you how to get good at getting your foot outta bear traps … But you know what’s even better than knowing how to bust the spring of a bear trap? Never stepping into one in the first place …”
“That’s … how you get outta bear traps?” Clarke looked back at her, “You bust the springs?”
Something was happening to the bulletcatcher’s face … a tremor that twitched all across her cheeks … or a-
The bulletcatcher covered her mouth, but it was too late …
Clarke heard her muffled laugh …
Heard her howl with laughter into her hand …
Heard her choke on it …
And Clarke’s cheeks flushed with heat …
Holy hell …
She’d made the woman laugh …
Clarke’s whole body was tingling as she watched the bulletcatcher’s shoulders shake with laughter …
And the sound of her laughter …
She wanted to kiss her …
What?!?
No …
Clarke shook her head …
No.
You don’t wanna kiss your teacher …
She’s just real pretty …
That’s all.
Too pretty.
“Test me …,” Clarke tried to shove down her smile and get serious, tried to shove down the weird fluttery sensation in her chest, “Don’t make up your mind now. Let me prove myself.”
The bulletcatcher sighed and looked at her, “You are smart Clarke. What you’re askin’ for is dumb … But you’re smart.”
Clarke blushed at the compliment …
Her whole face blushed.
The back of her neck felt hot too …
When was the last time someone had given her a compliment?
And … why did it feel like how long it’d been had nothing to do with why she was blushing …
“C’mon …,” the bulletcatcher sighed and stood up, “Let’s go get breakfast.”
Clarke stood up too.
“And while we’re doin’ that …,” the bulletcatcher arched a pretty eyebrow at her, “How ‘bout you use that smart brain of yours to think real hard about the wisdom of askin’ somebody to teach you how to do what got your brother killed. About what sort of tribute that is to him.”
Clarke’s smile was gone then.
Her fists clenched at her sides.
But she nodded.
And … she started thinking about that …
—-
Clarke walked into the woods with the bulletcatcher … thinking over what she’d said as they checked the bulletcatcher’s snares …
As the bulletcatcher pointed to plants for her to gather up … which Clarke did by loading them into the front of her too big man’s shirt … holding out the extra material in front of her to make a big pouch to carry greens in …
Thought about what the bulletcatcher had said as she watched her humanely kill a rabbit that had been caught in a snare …
Stared at that rabbit with the splotch of dark blood on its neck … swinging by its furry feet from the bulletcatcher’s hand as they walked back to the cabin …
Was she that rabbit?
Was becoming a bulletcatcher that switchblade sinking into her neck?
Just … slower …
She thought about that as she watched the bulletcatcher clean and gut the rabbit …
On one level … she was learning how to gut and clean a rabbit for eating by watching …
Watching how the bulletcatcher skinned the hide at strung up the fur to dry out and be used later …
How she put the guts aside in a jar …
But on another level … Clarke was thinking about being that rabbit …
Then she was learning how to build a fire and cook a rabbit on a spit …
And on another level … she was thinking about that rabbit’s life … its choices … what choices had led it to being caught in a snare and being slowly turned on a spit over a fire as its body turned a golden brown …
The bulletcatcher showed her how to pull the best parts for eating outta the plants she’d gathered and told her to make a pile of them …
And Clarke thought about the rabbit as she made her pile of the best parts of plants for eating …
Then she thought about the best parts of her own life …
And when they were sitting across the fire from each other … both their plates full of half a rabbit apiece and a bunch of boiled greens … holding their forks … the bulletcatcher looked at her and said, “Well?”
Clarke took a bite of her rabbit to give herself a moment to collect her thoughts …
To draw strength from the rabbit …
God it was delicious …
But she couldn’t think about that right now …
She looked back at the bulletcatcher, “I can’t say you’re wrong. You’re right. For warning me …”
The bulletcatcher sighed, “But …”
And then she took a bite of her rabbit.
“I don’t know if I can make it make sense to you …,” Clarke looked back at her, “But I’ll try …”
The bulletcatcher looked back at her, and took a bite of her greens.
“This is the first day I’ve ever been free …,” Clarke looked back at her, “Truly free … For as long as I can remember really … The first day I’ve been safe.”
The bulletcatcher started to speak.
But Clarke raised a hand, “I know … What I’m asking for ain’t safe. It’s the opposite of safe. But … that’s not the important part … The important part is that I have a choice and I’m asking for it …”
The bulletcatcher took another bite …
“I don’t know what my brother told you …,” Clarke looked back at her, “He was older than me …,” her eyes narrowed at the bulletcatcher, “Older than you too maybe when you knew him … But he remembered stuff. About our parents. Stuff about … before the orphanage … But I don’t remember almost anything about that time. I was 4 … 5 maybe when we got to the orphanage … I never had a choice about that. Didn’t have hardly any choices when I was there either. Bellamy’s choice was to run away … But I was too small. I didn’t have that choice. He said he’d come back for me but … he died … I didn’t have a choice about that either. Seven years I was at that orphanage … a big chunk of it alone … Then Titus came and took me when I was 12 … And I’ve been working at his saloon ever since … Five more years … Six probably … His choice. And he told me when I got there … that there was nowhere to run to …”
The bulletcatcher was still looking at her …
Still eating …
Clarke took another bite … thinking … chewing … and swallowed …
“But I did run,” Clarke looked across the fire at her, “I made this choice. Was it safe?”
The bulletcatcher’s eyes glinted back at her.
“No …,” Clarke nodded, “It wasn’t. But I made that choice. It’s mine. I own it. And I’m free now … looking at it from one angle … Or … I’m lost … looking at it from another angle …”
The bulletcatcher cocked her head as she chewed … looking back at her.
“Was I safe before?” Clarke shook her head, “No. Definitely not. You saw what the saloon is like … You were there 10 minutes and got shot at twice … at the bar and then called out into the street … I was working there all day and night seven days a week … How many times you think I’ve had to duck bullets …”
The bulletcatcher’s chewing slowed …
“Lots …,” Clarke looked back at her, “But there’s a big difference between being shot at when you’re in a cage without any choices … and gettin’ shot at while you’re roaming around free … by your own choice …”
The bulletcatcher said nothing.
Just took another bite, looking back at her.
“The way I see it … I was already dead … I wasn’t living …,” Clarke pointed at the rabbit on plate, “This rabbit had a better life than me. Sure … we’re eating it now … But it got to roam around free in these woods … Eat flowers or whatever … Do rabbit things all day in the sunshine … I could work bad jobs for the rest of my life and never have as good a life as this rabbit … Never be as safe as this rabbit was … even with hunters and predators around … It had good hearing and could run fast … But I don’t have anything like that. I’m not strong. And this world it full of strong, dangerous people … And right now … I have nothin’ to protect me from those people anywhere I go … Nothin’ to protect me except my wits and-“
Clarke hesitated.
And then put her plate aside …
Stepped over to her tent and pulled out her jacket … dug her hand into her jacket pocket and pulled out her little lady’s pistol …
Set it down beside the bulletcatcher and then took a seat back beside her plate, put her plate back in her lap, “Except my wits and that.”
The bulletcatcher frowned down at the little pistol as she chewed.
And then she picked it up, opened the chamber …
It looked even smaller in the bulletcatcher’s beautiful scarred hands …
Clarke shook her head a little to focus, looked down at her own plate, “I only got one chamber to actually work … When I bought it it was a hunk of rust … But I cleaned it up. Got that one chamber to fire properly … That’s all I got. One shot to defend myself with that little bullet or I’m dead …”
The bulletcatcher closed the chamber and looked at her.
“See … I can hand it to you now … My only protection …,” Clarke looked at her, “Because I know I’ve got no defense against you … Zero. One bullet is nothin’ you can’t stop … And you could shoot me with it right now and this would still be the best day of my life … The shootin’ included … Because I’m free.”
The bulletcatcher pointed the gun at her.
And Clarke froze … eyes wide …
The bulletcatcher’s face was hard now …
Her jaw clenched tight.
“Do it,” Clarke looked back at her, “This’ll still be the best day of my life. And you’ll still be the nicest person I’ve met in years … In my whole life maybe …”
And then she took a bite of her rabbit.
Chewed slowly … looking back at her …
The bulletcatcher set down the gun.
Took a bite of her own rabbit …
And Clarke sighed at her, “So … to sum up … Right now I’m free. But defenseless. I’m easy prey anywhere I could go. If you teach me … I’d be less defenseless … and free …”
“But more of a target …,” the bulletcatcher looked back at her.
Clarke shook her head, “Everyone’s a target. Stray bullets kill people every day … People who ain’t even done nothin’ … They’re wearing a target on their backs and they don’t even know it … I’m know I’m wearing a target … Because I’m small. A girl. And no one in this world is looking out for me but me.”
They finished their meal in silence.
And then the bulletcatcher stood up, “Come with me.”
Clarke stood up.
Followed the bulletcatcher to her little log cabin … watched her open the door with a key from her pocket and duck her head … smack something on the wall …
And Clarke took a step into the cabin too …
Saw a good sized bed … two small one’s pushed together with a big fur blanket over it …
Saw clothes hanging in a little wooden wardrobe …
A kind of couch with fur covered cushions …
A wood-fired stove …
Saw rows of rifles hanging from hooks on the wall …
The little cabin was clean and tidy …
Orderly …
The bulletcatcher lifted the top of a big chest that sat at the foot of the bed with the toe of her boot …
The heavy lid creaked open …
And Clarke’s eyes went wide at the sight of dozens and dozens of shooters all piled high in the chest … Thirty guns? Fifty? More?!?
“These are the guns of the people who’ve tried to kill me …” the bulletcatcher looked at her, “Not stray bullets. They were aiming for me. I burned their bodies myself. Otherwise the wolves and coyotes might get a taste for people …”
Clarke swallowed thickly.
“This is what I’m talking about Clarke …,” the bulletcatcher looked back at her, “I’m asking you to keep thinking.”
Clarke nodded, “I … uh … I can wash the dishes … Clean up …”
The bulletcatcher nodded, “You do that …” she tossed Clarke’s little pistol into the chest and then toed the lid of the chest closed, “Rinse ‘em in the lake. Then boil water in a pot … Then drop the dishes in … Let ‘em boil for just a few minutes in the water. Then let ‘em cool … Then if you need to think some more … You can use the rabbit guts for fishing … Fishing is good for thinking … and for catching dinner. I can bring you a fishing pole …”
Clarke nodded quickly, “Yeah … I’ll do that.”
The bulletcatcher nodded slowly back at her, “This isn’t what the life of training to be a bulletcatcher is like … Training to be a bulletcatcher is harder than anything you’ve ever done … It’s pain … Bleeding … Getting shot … And then more pain and more getting shot and more bleeding … It’s hard training every day till you wanna just fall down and die … And there’s a very good chance that just the training kills you. That’s what it takes. That’s why there’s so few bulletcatchers. One of the reasons anyway …”
Clarke nodded slowly, “I’ll think about that too.”
And she did.
Thought about it as she washed dished and then boiled them.
Thought about it when she was figuring out how to fish with a fishing pole and rabbit guts …
Thought about it when the bulletcatcher came by and silently filled a bucket with water from the lake and set it down beside her before walking away …
Thought about it when she put each of the four fish she’d caught into that bucket … after she figured out how to get the hook out of their mouths …
Thought about it when she watched the bulletcatcher clean and filet a fish …
Then she cleaned the other three that same way … and put their guts aside in the jar for future fishing …
Thought about it as she chopped some wood for the fire when the bulletcatcher handed her an axe and pointed at a tree …
And she thought about it some more as they ate the fish with greens that evening by the fire …
“Well?” the bulletcatcher asked when they were halfway done with dinner …
And god … the fish was delicious too …
But just like before … Clarke focused her attention on the topic at hand …
“Who watches your back?” Clarke asked.
The bulletcatcher’s forehead furrowed at her in the firelight …
The sun was already starting to set …
And Clarke was pretty sure that the bulletcatcher wouldn’t kick her out and make her wander the desert at night for asking a personal question, but she added, “If you don’t mind me asking …”
“I do just fine,” the bulletcatcher answered without even a trace of pride.
Clarke nodded, “Seems that way. But anything could happen … ‘Specially if scores of people have come after you looking to kill you … Even though you don’t seem like the type to go out looking for trouble …”
The bulletcatcher looked back at her, “You don’t know me very well.”
Clarke looked at her.
Was that true?
They’d spent … parts of two days together.
And … she already felt like she knew a lot about this bulletcatcher …
“You could get sick … Hurt yourself on accident living out here …,” Clarke looked back at her, “It can be dangerous being on your own … in my experience.”
“Or around others … In my experience …,” the bulletcatcher looked back at her.
Clarke rolled her eyes, “You’re not afraid of me.”
“Your little gun can still fire a bullet …,” the bulletcatcher looked back at her, “The fact that it’s small … That it may not seem like much … is part of what makes it a bigger threat … It shouldn’t be underestimated. When aimed right, any gun … any bullet … any size bullet … can be lethal … Every gun … and every person should be handled carefully as such …”
Clarke chewed that over … along with a bite of fish …
She liked talking like this with someone …
With her …
The bulletcatcher …
Clarke looked at her, “Like when you pointed my gun at me?”
“I made sure it wasn’t loaded,” the bulletcatcher answered, “Swiped out the bullets when you weren’t looking … But … yes … You should never point a gun at someone unless you’re actually willing to shoot ‘em …”
Clarke gave her a look, “Well … glad to know you’re okay with shooting me …”
“If I trained you …,” the bulletcatcher looked at her, “I’d have to be okay with it … And so would you.”
Clarke hesitated at that, “So … you were testing me? Whether I’d be okay with it? Or … were you testing you … whether you could …”
The thought sent a thrill down her spine …
Was … the bulletcatcher not sure if she could shoot her?
Was that why she’d done it?
The bulletcatcher chewed silently across from her.
Didn’t answer.
“I’ve been thinking …,” Clarke continued on, summoning up her courage to put these thoughts into words, “I’d like to know what I can do … What I’m capable of … Whether I can make myself into somethin’ … more …”
The bulletcatcher looked at her.
“I wanna try,” Clarke looked back at her, “I’d rather die tryin’ than not try at all … I’d like to know what it feels like to feel safe in my own skin. Whether that’s even possible … And … I’d like to keep someone else safe too maybe … To feel like I could … To know what that feels like …”
The bulletcatcher was still looking at her … but she was chewing slowly now …
“And maybe …,” Clarke looked at her, “If I could turn myself into somethin’ more … I could do somethin’ good in this world … Like … protect somethin’ good … or … someone good … with the time that I’ve got. However long that is.”
Clarke swallowed, “If I could do that … It might feel like … it meant somethin’ … My life … ‘Cause … I’d have done somethin’ good … left a mark …”
The bulletcatcher sighed and put aside her empty plate, stood up, “I’ve got some thinking to do … You’ve got the dishes handled right?”
“Yes m’am,” Clarke sat up straighter.
The bulletcatcher rolled her eyes, “None of that now.”
“What’s your name?” Clarke asked.
The bulletcatcher just walked off to her cabin.
And Clarke watched her go … grinning …
Notes:
Hope you enjoyed ❤️
And if you did, your kudos and comments are always appreciated.
New chapter next week!
Chapter Text
The next morning, Clarke started to learn a secret …
The secret of how the bulletcatcher had walked for endless miles across the desert without ever slowing down …
That first morning, Clarke was woken up well before dawn by a boot nudging her foot where it lay under the quilt in her tent …
And she got up and followed the bulletcatcher into the woods … walked with her for miles in silence through the forest … learning to step lightly … quietly … so as to not snap the twigs scattered across the ground …
How to listen for animals …
Only … she had to figure out what she was supposed to be doing just from watching the bulletcatcher and how she walked … and doing the same …
Not from being told what to do …
The bulletcatcher moved slowly, but constantly …
Clarke’s muscles had just recovered from the long days and miles of trekking through the desert … but now … after hours of walking quietly through the woods … they were aching again …
Not even so much from the walking … but from the effort of stepping carefully …
And when the sun came up, and they were still walking … Clarke started learning how to walk without leaving a trail … without leaving boot prints in the dirt or bending branches … how to duck and weave her way through them by watching the bulletcatcher …
She’d never learned anything like this before …
Had never lived in the woods before …
And … she wasn’t great at doing these things the bulletcatcher was showing her how to do …
Not yet.
But she was getting better at it …
Learning …
She was also … very hungry and thirsty when they got back to camp carrying some greens the bulletcatcher had pointed out and that she’d collected and another rabbit the bulletcatcher had caught in a snare …
She’d watched how the bulletcatcher had reset the snare this time …
How it worked …
And she offered to clean the rabbit … which the bulletcatcher agreed to let her do after she’d skinned off the fur …
The bulletcatcher sat with her while she cleaned it … explained how to do it properly …
Her voice a quiet description of the steps she must’ve done herself hundreds of times to know them so well … Definitely a lot … judging by the big fur blanket on the bulletcatcher’s bed … and the fur covered cushions on her couch …
Clarke made the fire for breakfast too …
With a few tips from the bulletcatcher as she waited with her bucket of water and kettle and tin cups for the coffee for Clarke to finish setting up the fire and showed her how to light it with flints …
Clarke was proud of that fire …
Of the rabbit they ate …
Even though she hadn’t caught the rabbit, she’d cleaned it.
She’d had a hand in it.
And in collecting the greens she’d gathered that were part of their breakfast too.
And when they settled in to eat from their plates, Clarke let the bulletcatcher take a bite before she said, “So … you knew my brother …”
The questions had been buzzing in her brain all night …
What she wanted to know …
She didn’t dare ask whether the bulletcatcher was gonna train her … whether she was gonna let her stay …
Maybe the bulletcatcher was still thinking it over … testing her …
But while she was here … Clarke wanted to learn everything she could about what’d happened to her brother … to Bellamy …
“I did,” the bulletcatcher answered, and took another bite.
“How long did you know him?” Clarke asked, all ears …
The bulletcatcher took in a slow breath … let it out slow too …
And then swallowed her bite, “About … two years maybe …”
Clarke’s jaw dropped.
Two years?
“So … you knew him well …,” Clarke looked at her.
“We trained together,” the bulletcatcher answered.
Two years …
Bellamy had made it to … 17 …
As old as she was now …
Or … a year younger than she was now …
Time was blurry these last few years …
And it wasn’t like anyone had been bringing her birthday cakes to celebrate her life or anything …
She’d still been at the orphanage when Bellamy had died …
And in all that time … those two years … Bellamy had never managed to get himself set up well enough to come back for her …
He’d died trying though …
“He talked about you often …,” the bulletcatcher looked at her, “I know why you love him like you do.”
Clarke smiled.
Her eyes filling with tears at knowing that Bellamy had been talking about her …
That he’d never forgotten about her …
Like she’d sometimes feared that maybe he might’ve on some of her darkest days at the orphanage way back then …
“It … was very hard for him …,” the bulletcatcher added, “The training … The focus required …”
“Was it hard for you?” Clarke asked.
“It’s hard for everyone …,” the bulletcatcher looked at her, “Absolutely everyone. But it was less hard for me. I’d been doing it for longer. And it suited me. It didn’t suit him. But he tried … in his way …”
Clarke nodded slowly at that.
Two years …
“How can you do something for two years and not be any good at it …,” Clarke looked at her.
The bulletcatcher sighed, “Our teacher made it his … personal project to turn Bellamy into somethin’ … Like … a challenge … Bellamy wanted it bad so … Our teacher said he wouldn’t give up on him unless he gave up himself …”
The bulletcatcher looked at her, “But wanting somethin’ ain’t enough … Not without discipline … focus … countless hours of practice … There are no shortcuts. You can’t talk your way out of a bullet. And you do someone no favors by teaching them to do somethin’ that they ain’t cut out for …”
Clarke just looked back at her.
She knew that the bulletcatcher was maybe talking about her …
“I’m not my brother,” she said finally.
“No …,” the bulletcatcher looked back at her, “You’re not.”
Clarke sat up a little straighter, chest puffed out.
Both at the compliment and the insult to Bellamy.
But … there was truth in it …
She knew that too …
That the bulletcatcher was just speaking the plain truth about her brother …
Bellamy did like to take shortcuts …
Looked at the other kids’ chalkboards in class and wrote down their answers on his own …
He coulda been smarter …
Coulda paid better attention in class like she did and got better grades from the teacher and gotten whipped a lot less …
But … for him … those whoopings at the orphanage were like a point of pride …
Like … he wasn’t afraid of them …
Like they couldn’t tell him what to do like they did everyone else …
But of course … they definitely could tell him what to do in the end …
Could send him to bed without any supper for as many nights as they pleased … make him scrub floors or starve … whoop him as much as they wanted to get him to stop mouthin’ off for at least a while … till he made them do it all over again …
Titus would’ve killed Bellamy flat out if he’d been the one Titus had adopted …
“Being a bulletcatcher takes everything you got …,” the bulletcatcher looked at her, “It’s humbling … You gotta let go of your pride … Let somethin’ else sink into your bones that goes deeper than pride … Let that make your back straight … You gotta let go of … a lot of things … He couldn’t.“
Clarke swallowed that down …
Ate a few more bites with the bulletcatcher in silence.
And then … asked another question she wanted to know the answer to … and didn’t want to know the answer to in equal measure …
“How did he die?”
The bulletcatcher looked at her, still chewing.
And Clarke thought … maybe she wasn’t gonna answer at all …
Thought about what she would do if the bulletcatcher wouldn’t answer, and then …
“Angry. With a bullet to the head.”
Clarke looked away.
The bulletcatcher had said that before …
That Bellamy had been ‘full of anger’ …
She … hadn’t seen much of that herself …
Bellamy’s anger …
Why would she?
Bellamy was never angry at her …
But … that didn’t mean that he wasn’t angry …
Who wouldn’t be angry about the situation they’d been in?
The orphanage …
Everything they’d lost …
Clarke hardly remembered what they’d had before the orphanage …
Just a few memories …
But Bellamy remembered …
Had lived differently before …
In a way she hadn’t … or couldn’t remember at least …
She could be mad about the situations she found herself in too sometimes … a lot of the time …
But … she hadn’t known much else …
What she could’ve had …
What she’d lost …
She’d been too young to know.
All she had was a deep sense that some things were unfair and wrong … even if you had to swallow them down anyway …
But it was unclear where that sense even came from … since unfair and wrong was just kinda how things were most of the time …
Clarke looked back at the bulletcatcher, “Did you like him?”
The bulletcatcher looked back at her … dead in the eye … a look that … Clarke couldn’t quite parse …
It meant something …
That look was saying … a lot of things …
But … she couldn’t tell what exactly …
And then the bulletcatcher answered, quiet and slow, like it cost her something to say it, “Sometimes …”
Clarke just nodded and didn’t ask anything else.
She wasn’t sure what that look on the bulletcatcher’s face had meant …
And she didn’t wanna poke at something if it might snap at her fingers …
Or … if it might make the bulletcatcher uncomfortable …
She was tough as nails … this bulletcatcher …
Was strong as hell.
Smart too.
She wouldn’t say anything if she didn’t want to.
But … Clarke was a guest here … on her mountain … eating her food and sleeping under the bulletcatcher’s tent …
And she was asking for her help too…
And if the bulletcatcher wanted her to keep her nose outta something … she didn’t want the bulletcatcher to even have to say it out loud …
She’d just … pay attention to know what to keep her nose out of …
—-
For a week the bulletcatcher woke her up before dawn each morning …
And every morning they walked for miles through the woods as quietly as possible …
But when the sun rose … they ran …
Far …
And as fast as they could …
She’d chased that bulletcatcher for so many miles through the forest …
Just like she’d followed her through the desert …
But faster.
Until Clarke’s whole body ached and her lungs burned and she just dropped to the ground from exhaustion when they got back to the cabin …
They did that every morning for a week …
And every morning it was pure torture … running till she dropped … going to bed each night with all her muscles so sore …
But each morning she was a little stronger … and it hurt a little less to keep running …
Each day was filled with chores too …
Constant chores that the bulletcatcher demonstrated how to do correctly …
Chopping firewood …
Making fires …
Salting and smoking meats to preserve them …
Mending and polishing boots …
Mending clothes … mostly her own from running through the trees and catching her too big shirts on branches …
Doing laundry in a big pot of boiling water …
Washing dishes …
Preparing the rabbit hides to dry out and be used for something …
Checking and setting the snares …
Baiting the fish trapping basket in the lake with rabbit guts or fish guts … ‘cause that fish trapping basket was much more efficient for catching fish than sitting by the lake fishing …
Sometimes the bulletcatcher fished though … but when she did it … she did it with a spear … Standing stock still in the clear water … waiting for her moment to strike …
But Clarke’s favorite part of each day was eating with the bulletcatcher.
The bulletcatcher had … very little to say over meals … unless Clarke was asking how to do something …
But … the bulletcatcher was a good listener if Clarke wanted to talk …
And every day, Clarke asked what her name was.
But the bulletcatcher never answered.
And … Clarke tried to guess her name sometimes … at night … alone in her tent …
But no name she could think of seemed to suit the bulletcatcher.
She’d asked the bulletcatcher how old she was too.
But the bulletcatcher didn’t answer that question either.
She didn’t look all that much older than Clarke really … A few years older … four or five maybe?
But how could someone just a few years older than her know how to do so many things?
It … didn’t seem possible …
And … Clarke couldn’t really imagine someone like the bulletcatcher being born either … Maybe she’d just appeared in these woods one day … fully formed with a head full of knowledge and all grown up at whatever age she was now …
Or maybe she didn’t age.
Sure … that sounded impossible …
But she’d seen the bulletcatcher on Main Street that night in Sand … when that gunslinger had been shooting at her …
Had watched the bulletcatcher turn into a blur of motion … a one woman tornado … and toss a bullet right back at that gunslinger and kill him dead on the spot … without a gun … from afar …
That shouldn’t be possible either.
But bulletcatchers were special.
And … there was … clearly something special about her bulletcatcher …
Her quiet ways …
Her quiet strength …
And it wasn’t just all the things she could do … all the stuff she knew how to do … all her skills …
It was how she did them.
Thoughtfully … precisely … carefully … and with total focus …
It didn’t matter what it was.
Even if it was something small … something she’d done many times before … she was always careful.
She wasted nothing.
Worked hard and constantly every day.
Only sat still at meal time … and presumably … when she went to sleep in the cabin at night.
Clarke had seen her shoot too …
She was an expert shot …
Clarke had seen her practicing …
Had watched the bulletcatcher call out what she was shooting at and hit the mark every single time … even if it was as small as the corner of a particular leaf on the side of a tree …
But … the bulletcatcher didn’t seem proud of her shooting …
She just did it perfectly and then packed up her guns and then cleaned them later that night by the fire.
And after a week of walking quietly through the forest for miles and miles before dawn with the bulletcatcher … and then and miles and miles of running after the bulletcatcher after dawn … and the rest of the days spent doing countless chores … Clarke was burning with the question …
Would the bulletcatcher train her?
Would she teach her how to be a bulletcatcher?
Clarke didn’t wanna pressure her … not any more than she already had …
It was a huge favor she was asking for …
An incredibly rare and valuable skill …
But … she’d been hoping that she had proved herself to be a valuable person to have around …
With how fast she’d learned from the bulletcatcher how to do chores the right way …
With the fact that she didn’t even have to be asked to do them ...
With the fact that she was working just as hard as the bulletcatcher hour after hour … day after day …
Till she dropped onto the quilt in her tent exhausted each night …
But instead of bringing that up, Clarke asked instead, “Why do the gunslingers hate bulletcatchers?”
The bulletcatcher looked at her with her forehead furrowed, “Because of the war.”
“Why did start it though …,” Clarke asked.
The bulletcatcher took in a deep breath and let it out slow, “Ask a hundred people and you’ll get a hundred different answers …”
“I’m asking you though,” Clarke looked at her.
The bulletcatcher green eyes glinted back at her in the firelight, “I wasn’t there. It was before my time.”
Clarke nodded.
“But …,” the bulletcatcher added, “The gunslingers wanted power … control … And they got it. Behind the barrel of a gun. That’s how they still control the southland. With guns and numbers. And sometimes skill at using all those guns.”
“And the bulletcatchers?” Clarke asked.
The bulletcatcher shook her head, “We don’t think like that. It’s not about control. Not for us.”
“So what’s it about then …,” Clarke looked at her.
“Balance …,” the bulletcatcher looked back at her, “Moving with things rather than against them … rather than trying to force things into certain shapes … It’s easier and harder at the same time.”
Clarke hummed at that.
Thought that through …
Wasn’t that what she’d been doing her whole life?
Moving with things …
She’d never had control of the situations she’d found herself in.
Not really.
Trying to control those situations would not have been possible.
She’d had no power.
Not that kind of power anyway.
The power she had was to adapt …
Figure things out …
Figure out how to move through her situations as best she could …
It … did feel kinda like balancing …
Moving just right so you didn’t tip things over and get hurt or in trouble …
Like threading a needle …
“The bulletcatchers were a threat to the gunslingers … That’s what it comes down to,” the bulletcatcher looked at her, “Many towns used to be bulletcatcher towns … by choice … All across the southland … The gunslingers wanted those towns and … things didn’t go our way.”
Clarke nodded again, wondering what things would’ve been like if the war had gone the other way …
“You sure you wanna hitch your wagon to the losing side of a war that’s already over?” the bulletcatcher asked, looking her dead in the eye.
Those green eyes boring right through her …
Just like the first time the bulletcatcher had looked across the bar at her back in Sand.
“Do I still wanna know what I can do? Know what it feels like to feel safe in my own skin?” Clarke answered, looking back at her, “Do something good in this world? Protect something good or … die tryin’ …”
The bulletcatcher said nothing.
Was still just looking back at her.
“I think you know the answer …,” Clarke added, quieter.
“You’re stronger now …,” the bulletcatcher looked at her, “Smart like you said. Everything you’ve learned here is a skill … lots of ‘em new skills by the look of it …”
Clarke pulled in a breath.
“But you learned ‘em fast … and well …,” the bulletcatcher added, “There are many more towns in the southland for you to make your way in other than Sand … You can take your pick. The meat you’ve salted and smoked … you earned that. Take it with you. And enough water to get you there.”
“I appreciate that …,” Clarke looked back at her, trying to keep her voice steady so she didn’t start crying, “But I’d rather stay here and learn to be a bulletcatcher from you than be anywhere else in the world.”
The bulletcatcher looked back at her, her jaw working silently …
“I’m capable of more …,” Clarke looked back at her, “I think you know that. I’m not sure … how much more exactly … But I’d like to find out … and I’d like you to show me.”
The bulletcatcher was still looking at her … looking for cracks in her resolve …
“I’ll give it everything I’ve got …,” Clarke looked back at her, determined.
“And probably die trying …,” the bulletcatcher added.
“There’s worse things than dying …,” Clarke looked back at her, “And I know if I leave here … I’d regret it every day for the rest of my life … however long that is ...”
The bulletcatcher sighed and stood up.
Walked to her cabin with her long strides.
“What’s your name?” Clarke called after her.
But the only answer she got was the cabin door shutting.
And Clarke got to work cleaning up the plates and pans.
Notes:
Hope you enjoyed ❤️
And if you did, your kudos and comments are always appreciated.
New chapter next week!
Chapter Text
The next morning, Clarke woke up under her quilt in the tent to the feeling of someone nudging her foot with the toe of their boot … as usual …
Then she was walking quietly through the woods with the bulletcatcher for miles … as usual …
Then the sun came up and they ran fast through the woods forever till Clarke wanted to die … as usual …
And when they got back to the cabin Clarke collapsed on the ground … sweaty and panting … as usual …
She heard the bulletcatcher go inside the cabin …
And then come back out again …
“C’mon …”
She saw the bulletcatcher walk past where she was still lying on the ground trying to get her breathing and pounding heart under control …
But she hauled herself up onto her feet anyway and followed her …
The bulletcatcher set down the basket on the shore of the lake …
And then stood right in front of her and started stripping off her clothes …
Which started Clarke’s heart pounding like crazy all over again …
And Clarke tried to look anywhere else than at her …
Looked out at the lake …
At the sky …
Her hands fidgeting at her sides …
“Look at me …”
Clarke’s heart beat faster …
Her whole face felt hot …
Everywhere was … so hot …
She could feel sweat running down her neck …
But she did it …
Looked the bulletcatcher in the eye …
But …
She could see out of the corner of her eye that the bulletcatcher was no longer wearing clothes …
“Have a look …,” the bulletcatcher nodded back at her.
Clarke let out a breath … and then let her eyes trail lower …
Across scarred muscly shoulders …
Across the scars across the top of the bulletcatcher’s muscly chest …
Down across the strips of cloth binding the curves of her breasts …
Across the ocean of tan muscles and scars … so many lines and curves of muscle …
Across muscly arms crisscrossed with scars too … down to her scarred forearms and scarred hands …
Down to her muscly scarred thighs …
The scars running every which way …
The bulletcatcher turned around …
Exposing the tan expanse of her muscly back …
All the lines … the scars running north, south, east, west, and everywhere in between …
All across her back …
Scars on the backs of her tan muscly thighs …
From the bottoms of her underwear all the way down across her muscly calves …
And Clarke’s fingers ached … ached to touch her … to feel those scars sliding under her fingertips … to run her hands across them …
To feel the scars and the ridges and … all the soft smooth parts too …
Clarke swallowed thickly … holding her own hands together to keep them from doing that …
The bulletcatcher turned around to face her … her face serious … green eyes looking directly into hers, “What do you see?”
‘A miracle’ Clarke thought.
Strength.
Beauty.
Fearlessness.
Something … beyond human …
How could someone have been shot at this many times and still be breathing …
Much less walking around …
“Strength,” Clarke told those green eyes.
“Damage,” the bulletcatcher looked back at her.
Clarke started to shake her head, but then stopped herself.
She was the student here.
It … wasn’t her place to question her.
“I was born a bulletcatcher,” she looked back at her, “Training started early. This is what surviving it looks like.”
Clarke let out a breath.
The orphanage didn’t seem so bad now …
Not at all …
“This is what training can do to you …,” the bulletcatcher looked back at her, “Best case scenario …”
Clarke swallowed.
“Worst case you die,” the bulletcatcher looked back at her, “Or lose an ear … an eye … both eyes … a hand … fingers … a foot ... your nose …”
Clarke glanced at the bulletcatcher’s little ears, “You’ve got all that stuff though …”
“I’m …,” the bulletcatcher hesitated, “Good at it …”
“Clearly …,” Clarke whispered.
“Being smart is only part of it …,” the bulletcatcher looked at her, “Training and endless practice is part of it … But not everyone’s body can do it … Even if they practice forever … Some people’s bodies just … can’t …”
Clarke swallowed.
She was stronger than when she’d first arrived at the mountain …
She knew that …
She could run further …
Faster …
Could work all day non-stop doing physical work that was much harder than standing still scrubbing dishes with sand …
She was exhausted at night …
But every day she woke up a little stronger …
Could work a little longer …
Her body was capable of that …
But how much more could she do?
Could she be a bulletcatcher?
Physically?
“I’m not built like you,” Clarke answered, “I’m shorter … And … I don’t have all the muscles … And I’m … I don’t know … different …”
“Not every bulletcatcher is built like me either …,” the bulletcatcher answered, more gently, “They come in different shapes and sizes …”
Clarke felt a bit better at hearing that …
Her shoulders relaxed a little …
“Do you still wanna do this?” the bulletcatcher asked.
Clarke hesitated, “I … want to try.”
The bulletcatcher looked back at her … looking for cracks again …
And then …
“Do you know how to swim?”
Clarke’s eyebrows raised, “Is that a joke?”
The bulletcatcher shook her head.
“Where would I have learned how to swim?” Clarke quirked an eyebrow, “There’s no water … Unless … sand swimmin’ is a thing?”
“But you know what it is …,” the bulletcatcher looked at her.
Clarke nodded, “I’ve read about it. I know up north they’ve got water … lakes …”
The bulletcatcher nodded, “So … you need to learn how to swim …”
Clarke looked out at the lake.
It looked scarier now …
All that blue …
Beyond where the water went up to her hips … her shoulders …
“Swimming makes you strong everywhere,” the bulletcatcher added, “And it teaches you how to move differently …”
Clarke looked back at her, “How do I do it?”
“I’ll show you …,” the bulletcatcher grinned.
A real grin …
At her …
Clarke’s heart was pounding again, “Okay.”
—-
When they got back to the cabin … Clarke collapsed on the ground again …
Breathing heavy …
Her heart pounding …
But … her body felt lighter …
Like … she was still swimming …
Like she was still floating in the water …
Like her body didn’t know she was on land yet …
And she was even more tired than she was from running …
She was tired everywhere …
Every muscle was tired …
Muscles she didn’t even know she had were tired …
They’d been swimming for hours.
And she was so hungry …
Like … maybe her stomach might crawl right outta her mouth and go looking for food on its own since she couldn’t move a muscle …
Even her little tent was too far away to crawl into so she could go to sleep properly …
The bulletcatcher had just walked right past her … off into the woods …
Hopefully to get the breakfast that was hours overdue now …
It was getting close to midday …
The sun was high in the sky …
Clarke blinked …
And then heard a fire crackling …
Clarke turned her head to see if the woods were on fire …
Whether she was gonna die in a fire because she couldn’t get up …
Nope.
The bulletcatcher was sitting by a crackling fire …
She heard a sizzle …
And smelled … food …
Oh god …
Food …
It smelled so good …
Clarke groaned.
The bulletcatcher looked over at her lying on the ground …
“You’re awake,” the bulletcatcher observed.
Clarke groaned again.
The bulletcatcher grinned.
It was nice … so nice … that grin on her face …
Clarke reached out a hand in the direction of that grin …
The bulletcatcher chuckled at her …
A chuckle …
Oh god that sounded nice …
“C’mon … You can do it …,” the bulletcatcher grinned, prodding at something in the pan …
Clarke swallowed the saliva already pooling in her mouth from the scent of food …
Forced herself to sit up … even though her body protested …
And then crawled over to the fire on her hands and knees …
Scootched around till she was sitting on her butt by the fire.
“Sore?” the bulletcatcher looked at her.
“Yeah …,” Clarke swallowed, “Everywhere.”
The bulletcatcher nodded, “Good … It means you’re getting stronger …”
Clarke’s eyes fell to the pile of food in the pan …
There was a whole rabbit cooking with greens in the pan … and another whole rabbit cooking on a spit over the fire …
Oh my god …
Was she gonna get a whole rabbit?
“Hungry?” the bulletcatcher asked.
“Starving,” Clarke answered instantly.
The bulletcatcher nodded, “That’s good too.”
Was it?
She’d gone hungry loads of times …
It was never good.
“Happy to eat it raw …,” Clarke offered.
The bulletcatcher chuckled, “No. Just give it another minute or two …”
Clarke looked out at the trees and just … zoned out for a while … let her eyes get blurry …
It wasn’t like she’d never been hungry before …
You just … had to think about something else if you could …
But right now … her brain was mush …
No thinking was possible …
And her stomach was growling angrily …
She’d never eaten as well in her life as she had with the bulletcatcher … but now … just a week and a few days in … her stomach was spoiled from so much good eatin’ …
It wanted two good meals every day now …
And it wanted this meal right now …
The bulletcatcher handed her a plate full of rabbit and greens, “Alright … There you go …”
Clarke took the plate and pulled in a deep breath … letting the delicious smell fill her lungs …
And then tore into it …
Messily …
With her hands …
And when she looked up … the bulletcatcher was holding out a fork to her …
“Or … do it your way I guess …,” the bulletcatcher hesitated … eyeing Clarke’s already food stained mouth and fingers, and pulled back the fork, “Just … try to eat slow … Otherwise … you’ll get a stomach ache … Don’t forget to chew each bite okay?”
Clarke nodded and let out a breath …
Started actually chewing rather than just inhaling every delicious mouthful …
Ate the greens too … chewing …
Tried to savor the bites like the bulletcatcher was doing …
Appreciate each one more …
Her whole body felt warm and tingly and good from the meal …
And her brain was working again …
“You did well today …,” the bulletcatcher nodded at her, “You learned to swim …”
Clarke sat up a little straighter.
Yeah …
She could swim now …
That was … kinda amazing …
No … it was amazing …
She could swim!
“What’s your name?” Clarke asked.
“Don’t go to sleep okay?” the bulletcatcher looked at her, “Keep pushing … You’re eating more … you’re stronger … You can do more than you think … And you’ve got stuff to do around camp …”
Clarke nodded.
She did have chores to do.
That was her part …
And she would do her part.
Or collapse trying …
But she didn’t collapse.
She was tired.
And sore.
Everywhere.
That didn’t go away.
But she knew how to do her chores …
Had done them many times before …
And she did them now …
She did them all.
Went through the familiar motions.
Baited the fish trapping basket with rabbit guts …
Prepared the rabbit hides to dry out …
Washed the dishes and pans and cups …
Washed her sweaty clothes … and the bulletcatcher’s …
Polished the bulletcatcher’s boots … and her own …
Chopped some firewood for dinner …
Went back to the lake and got the fish out of the fish trapping basket …
Cleaned and gutted them …
Loaded the fish trapping basket with their guts …
Went and found greens for dinner in the woods … even though her feet were dragging …
And then made her way back to the cabin …
Made a fire …
And then made dinner …
Saw the bulletcatcher coming back from the woods just in time …
Clarke was tired …
Still so tired …
But … the bulletcatcher grinned at her …
And Clarke was proud of herself …
Yes she was gonna collapse in her tent and go to sleep as soon as she washed up their dishes after dinner …
But … she had done her chores …
Unless … she’d fallen asleep somewhere along the way and this was all just a dream …
She served the bulletcatcher her plate first …
Even though she was starving again …
But before she started eating from her own plate … she looked at the bulletcatcher again and said, “Thank you. For … god … for everything.”
Heartfelt.
With her whole heart in it.
The bulletcatcher nodded back at her.
And then got to eating …
And Clarke smiled as she watched her eat …
The bulletcatcher was eating a little
faster than usual too …
So … she was human …
Just a little …
Clarke smiled bigger at the thought.
And when they finished eating, the bulletcatcher said, “I’ll clean this up. You go rest.”
Clarke could’ve cried with happiness at the offer of immediate sleep …
But she reached over a hand to the bulletcatcher instead …
And the bulletcatcher reached out and gave it a squeeze …
A squeeze that made her hand feel all warm and tingly …
Had the bulletcatcher ever touched her before?
She could feel the lines of scars on the bulletcatcher’s palm when she squeezed back …
And then Clarke sighed and crawled over to her tent to go to sleep …
Thought she heard the bulletcatcher say quietly, “Goodnight Clarke … Sleep well,”
And Clarke grinned at the thought … for that one second before she fell into a deep sleep …
Notes:
Hope you enjoyed ❤️
And if you did, your kudos and comments are always appreciated.
New chapter next week!
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