Chapter Text
Bellamy had never thought much about fire safety. Correction - Bellamy had never thought much about fire safety, until the fire alarm went off at three in the morning in his third floor apartment.
Waking up from a dead sleep, creating a single coherent thought was nearly impossible. Once he was able to comprehend the nature of the situation, his second thought was how the hell do I get out of here?
He hadn’t lived there long, only about a month. It was his first place on his own and he hadn’t really put much thought into having anything more than a bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen. Perhaps he should have looked for a newer apartment building, one that was up to code and required a sprinkler system.
But it wasn’t in the budget. Bellamy worked two jobs at a local museum. One as in visitor services, helping people plan their trips and buy group ticket packages, and one doing after hours janitorial work. The two combined made ends meet, but he wasn’t living a life of luxury. Needless to say, the last thing he needed was his apartment burning down.
He quickly grabbed his wallet and keys from the nightstand and threw them into his pajama pants pocket and went for the front door. He held his hand against the gold knob, and while he couldn’t feel any heat it appeared there was smoke sliding in from the bottom of the frame.
Fuck. The balcony it is, then.
He had made it about halfway across the apartment when he heard a knock at his door.
“Help! Please, my mom isn’t waking up!” It was a child’s voice. A young girl, by the sound of it. The knocking - well, more like pounding- continued, and he didn’t think for a moment.
Bellamy rushed to the door, and pulled his t-shirt up over his face to shield the smoke as he pulled it open.
Smoke was filling the hallway, coming from a door two down from his own apartment.
“Please, can you help my Mom?” The girl asked. She looked about ten years old, with dark wavy hair. Some of the smoke residue was clinging to her skin, and her eyes and nose were watering from the irritation. Bellamy recognized her as the daughter of one of his neighbors.
He had never paid too much attention to the people in his building, or even on his floor. The one person he had noticed, though, was the young blonde down the hall. Her looks were enough to draw his attention, but it was also a curiosity that she had a child she looked too young to have that also looked nothing like her.
It wasn’t any of his business, so he never said anything about it when they ran into one another in the hall. They seemed friendly enough and there didn’t seem to be a man in the picture, but Bellamy kept things casual. Hitting on the neighbor would have been too complicated for his liking.
“What happened?” Bellamy asked her, and the girl didn’t stop to explain. She simply grabbed him by the hand and pulled him toward her apartment. The black smoke was thicker as they reached the threshold, and smelled awful.
“Cover your face, there’s too much smoke.” He directed, anxious as to what he would find inside the apartment. It was possible the fire had overtaken the woman’s bedroom already.
“I couldn’t wake her up!” The girl said. “My mom had a candle lit, I think. She keeps a couple of the smoke detectors covered because she accidentally burned dinner and the alarm didn’t go off until the smoke reached the one down the hall.”
Her words spilled out of her mouth like an apology. Hey eyes were full of fear. A fear that Bellamy knew too well - the fear of losing a mother.
“I’m going to get your Mom, but I need you to get out of here. What is your name?” Bellamy asked, kneeling down in front of the frightened child, and waving away the smoke away from them.
“Madi,” she said softly.
“I am going to get your Mom and meet you by the big tree by the playground across the street.” He patted her back and gave her a firm nod.
Madi nodded and took off for the stairs. Bellamy pushed open their apartment door and his eyes stung from the smoke. The fire must not have spread quickly, as he could only see the thick black smoke coming from the bedroom near the kitchen.
Maybe because everything is plastic these days.
Thinking on his feet, Bellamy darted toward the kitchen and checked under the sink, finding a fire extinguisher. He scanned the instructions and rushed towards the bedroom,
Pull the pin
Aim at the base of the flames
Squeeze the trigger
Sweep across the fire
The substance tackled the flames, coating the charred belongings in the thick white aerosol substance battling with the dark smoke in the air.
Having put out the fire that had enveloped most of the bedroom, he tossed the extinguisher to the side.
On the bed laid his beautiful blonde neighbor, tangled up in her sheets. Her skin was flushed pink, the soot from the smoke sticking to her.
Bellamy slid his arms underneath her legs and torso, and carried her bridal style out of the apartment. For his sake and hers, he was glad that it was one of the first cool days of fall and they had both opted to wair pajamas.
His lungs were killing him just from being in the smoke for a few minutes. He coughed into his shoulder as he carried her down the stairs. The flights of stairs were usually no trouble for Bellamy - after all, he worked out regularly and was used to the climb. This time though, even the downward journey had him feeling lightheaded.
His eyes itched, his throat burned, and his chest felt tighter than he had ever felt. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think he had asthma.
As he neared the bottom of the stairs, Bellamy encountered a group of firefighters entering the building. Two of them fell behind, taking the unconscious woman from Bellamy’s arms while the rest went up the stairs towards the fire. He was pretty sure he had put it out, but he decided to let them be the final decision makers.
He followed the two firefighters out of the building, following closely behind them as they led them away from the potentially still-burning building.
There were handfuls of people grouped together outside of the apartment. Aside from Madi and himself, everyone else appeared unscathed.
“Mom!” He heard Madi yell from across the street. Another set of EMTs were on site, focused on her. She was a blur as she ran towards her mom and away from the paramedics. Tears were streaming down her face as she reached for Clarke. One of the emergency responders pulled her back.
“Is she okay? Is she going to be okay?” she frantically asked the firefighters that had begunloading her mother onto a gurney.
“Sweetheart, we are going to do everything we can for your mother. Right now, we need to make sure you’re okay too.”
“But my m-“ Madi started.
“Madi, they are right. They need to focus on your mom right now. Let’s get you looked at.” Bellamy pleaded. If he felt rough, he could only imagine what a child was feeling.
“I’m not leaving Mom.” She demanded. Bellamy wasn’t sure how to respond. After all, this wasn’t his kid and wasn’t his responsibility. Hadn’t he had enough of parenting a child while he was still one himself?
But the universe seemed to have other plans.
“Sweetheart, go with your Dad and they will get you taken care of.” The paramedic said. She looked to Bellamy. “We are going to St. John’s on Mitchell street. If they don’t take you there, you can drive up there yourself.”
Bellamy, still slightly stunned at the assumption that Madi was his child, just blinked at the woman.
“Her name is Clarke Griffin, and she’s the best mom in the whole world. Please take care of her.” Madi told them as they loaded her mom - Clarke - into the ambulance.
As they shut the door behind them, Madi collapsed to the ground in a puddle of tears. Bellamy, knowing exactly what to do for a distraught her young girl, reached for her and pulled her into his arms.
“It’s going to be okay, Madi.” He said, softly rubbing her back. He had held his own sister this way too many times to count. During every fight his parents had, when she fled the funeral, and for years after the incident as Octavia endured panic attacks.
“No it won’t, you don’t understand.” Madi sobbed into his shoulder. “If something happens to Clarke, I’ll go back into the system. I was in foster care for so long - I don’t want to go back.”
Suddenly Bellamy understood why Madi’s features so starkly contrasted that of Clarke. Biologically, Madi wasn’t her daughter at all.
“Madi, it’s okay. My sister and I were foster kids too.”
“Really?” She lifts her face to look at him, as if her eyes could detect any lie. He didn’t know what she had been through, but he knew plenty of other foster kids that were better at reading body language than some specialists probably were.
“Yes.” He breathed, and picked her up off the ground, cradling her to his chest.
“We’ll get through this, Madi. We’ll get you cleaned up, and go see Clarke. I’ll be with you the whole time.”
She nodded and wiped her tears, allowing him to pass her off into the arms of a paramedic. He sat down at the back of the ambulance, and let a paramedic look him over as well.
Madi kept her eyes on him through their entire work up, just in case he was going to disappear if she looked away.
Poor kid. He knew that the system was rough. Going back, even just for temporary custody, could undo so much progress.
“Sir, I think you and your daughter are going to be just fine. I would follow up with a primary care doctor tomorrow.” Madi’s paramedic said.
She does look a lot like me. Bellamy compared his dark curly hair to Madi’s. They even had a similar broad nose and freckles.
I’m too young to be her Dad. It must be the beard. He had, after all, been growing it out for awhile.
“Thank you, I’ll make sure she’s taken care of.” He says, officially taking charge of the child.
It’s nothing you haven’t done before. He keeps telling himself. It’s only temporary. Her mom will be okay.
“The damage isn’t too bad, but you will probably want to stay somewhere else until the smoke residue can be cleaned out of your apartment.” A firefighter says, laying a hand on Bellamy’s shoulder.
“I think we will be spending tonight in the waiting room, but we will figure something out.” He says, and Madi gets up and hugs him tight.
As the paramedics load up into their ambulance and the swarms of people begin to head back into their apartment building, Madi speaks up once more.
“Thank you for saving her. She’s all I have.” Her voice wavers with insecurity.
“Not anymore, kid. Not anymore.”