✿ NINE ✿
"Tu as le cœur à rire,
Moi, je l'ai à pleurer."
___
Miraculously and against all the odds, Katherine had managed to rip none of the stitches. Small trickles of blood had managed to find their way through the stitches, but nothing major except for the fact that her recovery would probably last ages due to this. She had cleaned the wounds, all the while ignoring Bellamy like her life depended on it, and put on new bandages.
When she was finally done, she had gathered enough guts to turn around and look at Bellamy and Charlotte. The young girl was asleep, though she appeared to be a troubled sleeper, and Bellamy was sharpening his knives, not bothering to look at Katherine either.
"Are you religious?" Bellamy asked all of a sudden. His hushed voice seemed to be cutting through the forced silence that been hanging around too long.
Realising it might take a while before the fog would clear out, Katherine decided that she would be on her best behaviour. She went to move so that she could look Bellamy in his face. She wondered if Bellamy was genuinely interested, or if he would make a snappy remark. She guessed it was going to be the second one, so she decided to keep it vague. "I'm not sure. Why do you ask?"
"Because every time I try to touch you, even if it is to save your life, which has happened too many times the last couple of days, you flinch away like I'm the devil," Bellamy scoffed. There it was, the snappy remark Katherine had anticipated. She couldn't help but wonder if he was offended, she betted he didn't get rejected often. Bellamy looked her in the eye. "I bet you would have rather had Charlotte carry you to the cave she would have been able to."
"Yes, probably," Katherine answered truthfully. She gave a shrug as if to ask if it was really that bad.
Bellamy scoffed, rolling her eyes. He fumbled with the knives in his hands and Katherine had to resist the urge to ask him to stop that. "You know, Katherine," Bellamy said, looking at her as if he suspected anything. "I asked around a bit and the overall conclusion was that you are intelligent and mature, and yet you have the behaviour of an eight-year-old towards guys."
"Yeah, they are gross," Katherine replied, her face scrunched up in disgust. She wondered what Bellamy's problem was, suddenly forgetting all about the promises of good behaviour she had made. "Why would you bother asking around about me? Afraid I'm a threat?" Katherine scoffed, shaking her head in disbelief. She fiddled around with a lavender plant. "I can't even walk properly."
"Well, the funny thing is, nobody seems to know you," Bellamy replied. Suddenly Katherine understood why he looked at her with suspicion, he really thought she might be a threat. She quickly wondered if he was fumbling around with his knives because of nerves, or because he intended to use them. "They don't know why you got locked up, or how long you've been locked up for."
"Perhaps that's because I've been in isolation for the past four years," Katherine snapped back. She started to have troubles with keeping her voice down. The guy sitting just a couple of feet away from her made her so nervous, with his patronizing behaviour. "I was probably the first of these people to get locked up, so obviously they don't know about me. If it makes you feel any better, I don't know any of them."
"You seem close with Miller," Bellamy retorted.
Katherine looked at him in disbelief. "Nathan's father was my favourite guard."
"Oh, so you had to have a guard stationed at your cell all the time?" Bellamy asked as if that explained everything.
"Doesn't everybody in solidarity?" Katherine asked genuinely curious. The way Bellamy looked at her said enough, causing Katherine to swallow loudly. The questions asked, Bellamy's behaviour, it pretty much looked like an investigation. She decided he must have really forgotten about the fact that he had stood guard at her cell for more than three months and for some reason that hurt her.
Bellamy looked at her as if she was some cold-blooded murder and though she had never felt the urge before, she felt like she needed to explain herself. When she had been on trial, the judges and councilmembers had asked why she had done it. She had just pleaded not guilty, even though it was obvious that that was a lie. She didn't know if it was the humiliation, or something else, she just hadn't.
"When I went to visit my doctor, he drugged me with a special substance that is usually only used in surgery. It makes your physical being paralysed, but mentally you're there. He raped me. More than once. When the drug had worn off he sent me home to my mother with a couple of painkillers," Katherine told. It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the whole story either. She took a quick glance at Bellamy, who was at a loss of words, before looking back at her now purple, fiddling fingers. "That's why I don't like physical contact, especially coming from people like you." She looked at Bellamy again, who was just gaping at her like a fish on dry land. She chuckled humorously. "Yeah, people usually don't like to know the real story. But you desperately wanted to, didn't you?"
Before Bellamy had a chance to reply, Katherine noticed that Charlotte was awake, tears rolling down her cheeks, but that she wasn't able to move. Blocking Bellamy out completely, Katherine went to sit next to Charlotte, making soothing sounds and softly brushing her tears away. The weeks following up that day, Katherine had been terrorised by sleep paralysis much like Charlotte seemed to be right now.
Once she seemed completely awake, Katherine put her arms around the young girl, cradling her to her chest. "You know why that happens, Charlotte?" she asked the girl whispering softly.
"Because there is a demon sitting on my chest? Because that is what it feels like," Charlotte replied. Her face was too young to be scrunched up in such fear, so Katherine chuckled like she had said something funny.
"No, it's not a demon, though it is some supernatural creature," Katherine answered. She stroked the girl's hair, feeling her soft, uneven breath in the crook of her neck. Leaning her head on Charlotte's Katherine closed her eyes, because she was tired, but also because she didn't want to meet Bellamy's eyes. "It's actually a big fat leprechaun, with a long beard and a weird green suit."
She heard Charlotte chuckle quietly, and Katherine smiled to herself, continuing the story. "And this odd big fat leprechaun is sitting on your chest, because he wants to get drunk, very drunk. He wants to drink all of your wine and harass your dog. But you have neither wine, nor a dog. Do you?"
"No, I don't have either of those," Charlotte replied.
"Right, so the next time you feel the fat leprechaun sitting on your chest, you tell him that you don't have good wine or a dog he can harass, but that he should come back to drink a cup of water with you," Katherine continued. She felt Charlotte's breath tickle her skin as she chuckled.
"Now why would I want to do that?" she asked curiously.
"Because the leprechaun is actually a really nice guy, but just like a child needs to learn how to communicate, so does he," Katherine answered. "And when you've invited him to drink water with you, he will leave you alone."
"Is that really so?" Charlotte asked in wonder.
Katherine didn't know. It surely hadn't helped her, but she could hardly tell the young girl so. "Yes, and everybody knows that. Right, Bellamy?" Katherine didn't bother to open her eyes, because she wasn't ready to look him in the eyes, but she knew he wouldn't leave her hanging. He seemed to care about the girl, so when he let out an affirmative grunt, Katherine grinned. "See, if Bellamy believes it, then it must really be true."
"Yeah, yeah, that's true," Charlotte replied. She sounded a lot convinced now. "I will try that the next time."
Feeling Charlotte shift, Katherine let out a soft grunt of pain. She opened her eyes, forcing a smile on her face, only to meet Charlotte's enthusiastic blue eyes. Of the sad and stressed expression was nothing left and Katherine truly hoped that she had taken the girl's mind off of her nightmares.
"Could you please tell another story like that?" Charlotte asked hopefully.
Well, that hadn't exactly been Katherine's intentions. She had just hoped that while she was talking, the girl would drift off to sleep again, not that she had awakened an unknown interest for myths and legends. Her thoughts must have shown on her face, because she saw the way Charlotte's face fell.
Letting out a sigh, Katherine went to sit a little more comfortably, realising that they still had to spend the whole night before they could move out anyway. And Katherine knew she wasn't going to catch any sleep with her troubled mind.
"Okay, but you have to promise me that you have to try to catch some sleep when I'm done," Katherine finally admitted. Even though she had been a kid herself, and still a bit was, she had always hated children for their slow comprehension and their greedy behaviour. Charlotte, however, didn't even annoy her in the slightest.
"I promise," Charlotte said, not missing a beat. She looked at Katherine excitedly, as if she was about to discover a whole new world.
Katherine smiled. "Say that louder."
Charlotte repeated it, just a little louder than she had before. Shaking her head, Katherine's smile grew. "If you don't say it loud enough, I won't be able to tell my story."
This time Charlotte did say it loud enough, because her voice was being bounced off the walls of the cave. Katherine noted that Bellamy was also listening, though he probably wanted to appear bored by just sharpening the knives that didn't need any more sharpening. "What is that you just heard?"
"My echo," Charlotte answered as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. She looked puzzled at Katherine, which made Katherine only more excited. She had forgotten how much she loved myths, especially those the ancient Greeks and Romans had made up to explain the things around them.
"Yes, well once upon a time, many, many thousands of years ago, Echo wasn't a sound. She was a person, a nymph to be more exact," Katherine said. She was still rubbing soothing circles on the back of Charlotte's hands with her lavender fingers and she hoped it would calm the younger girl down. "I do think you need some backstory first. All those ages ago, people believed there were many gods. The god of all gods was named Jupiter, and his girlfriend was named Juno. She was the goddess of marriage and many other things, but mostly marriage," Katherine told softly, barely holding a chuckle inside. The Greek and Roman mythology were full of ironies, like the fact that the goddess of marriage couldn't even have a happy marriage herself.
"Alright, Jupiter and Juno," Charlotte softly repeated to herself.
"Yes, they were just gods. There was a special group of creatures, however, that weren't gods, but they weren't human either and usually, they were associated with things like water or woods. Some of them even could talk with animals. They were called nymphs," Katherine tried to explain in the easiest way possible. Absentmindedly, she stared at Charlotte's hands. "These nymphs were beautiful girls and everybody thought so. Even Jupiter."
"But Jupiter had a girlfriend," Charlotte protested, causing a chuckle to escape Katherine's lips. Yeah, this surely was a lovely religion, people praying to the biggest manslut alive.
"Yeah, but he was the like the supreme god, and with all of his family and other godly friends he lived on a big mountain called the Olympus. Nymphs didn't live there, they lived in forests like this one. They danced through the trees and swam in water just like you or I might do, and Jupiter really liked these nymphs so he went on secret dates with them."
Katherine smiled as she saw Charlotte roll her eyes. "Every single time Juno noticed her boyfriend wasn't at his house, she went to the woods to search for them. You must understand though, that Juno was an extremely jealous girlfriend, so if she saw another girl talking with Jupiter she would start a fight with her. So someone had to talk to Juno every time she came down from the Olympus, so the nymphs had enough time to run hideaway. They didn't want to fight with Juno."
"Echo must have done that," Charlotte guessed. She looked at Katherine for confirmation, which she gave with a single nod.
"Yes, Echo was a really talkative nymph. She loved talking, and she was quite good at it too. So every time Jupiter was on a secret date with one of her friends and Juno came down, she talked with her. Besides being envious, Juno was also very smart. At a certain point, she figured out what Echo had been doing all this time, and she was fuming."
"Well, I don't really think it's Echo's fault either," Charlotte mumbled softly. She buried her head in the crook of Katherine's neck again. "Juno should just dump Jupiter."
"I think so too," Katherine smiled tiredly. Now that she couldn't look at Charlotte's facial expressions any more, she closed her eyes. "Juno, she was just so angry with Echo, that she made it so that Echo could only repeat the last word someone had said. So when you said 'I promised', the walls responded with 'promised'. Just like Echo would whenever someone talked to her. And because she was a nymph, she had to live for many years. And each year she became a little more sound and a little less nymph."
When Katherine had finally ended the story, she felt that Charlotte's breathing had evened out. Opening her eyes, Katherine saw the girl had even stuck her thumb inside her mouth, and she couldn't help but smile contently. She gave the girl one last hug, before moving her gently to the place she had been laying earlier.
Katherine pushed herself to her feet, stretching a minute to get her blood flow going on at the right speed again, and sat back down again. She took a quick look at Bellamy, realizing the expression on his face was admiration, though he covered it up so rapidly, Katherine thought she had probably imagined it.
She opened the backpack and grabbed some flowers along with her metal slab that she refused to call a knife. With her face scrunched up in concentration, she made precise cuts into the capsule of the poppy plant. She didn't have much light to work with, except for the radioactive, glowing moss that covered the walls of the cave, but it would have to make do.
"You should get some sleep as well," Bellamy said, looking at the girl, hoping to meet her eyes. That didn't happen. "I will stay awake."
"How charming," Katherine responded almost on automatic pilot. She stared in fascination at the milk of the poppy, wondering if there could be a way for her to save it in its liquid form. She could mix it with some sweet flowers and it would be easier to take it in.
"I'm serious, Katherine," Bellamy insisted. "It's not good for your recovery to wear yourself out. Besides, I didn't carry you that torturous way back just so that you could screw your leg up."
Katherine's eyes snapped up. Her odd eyes seemed to hold a mixture of curiosity and accusation. "Why did you carry me back?"
Bellamy had no witty remark for that one, just as Katherine had expected. Scoffing, she went back to making cuts in plants. She wondered what on Earth had made her tell Bellamy what she had. She hadn't ever told somebody apart from her mother. She didn't particularly regret it, in fact, telling somebody like it actually meant nothing, seemed to have lifted some of the weight from both her shoulders and mind. She just wondered why it had been to Bellamy, instead of someone she actually appreciated.
"I'm sorry that I pushed you to tell, I shouldn't have," Bellamy said after a couple of moments of silence. His voice sounded genuine, causing Katherine to look up cautiously. She had half expected Bellamy to look at her mockingly like had done so many times, but the expression on his face was a real one and it took Katherine by surprise.
"Well, I guess it would be an appropriate time for me to thank you for saving me twice," Katherine mumbled awkwardly. She didn't like apologising, because that meant she had done something wrong and she hated doing things wrong. She realised she sucked at apologies. "That probably didn't sound sincere, but I do mean it."
"I know, and you're welcome," Bellamy answered, a soft chuckle leaving his mouth.
"Wake me when you're too tired," Katherine muttered. For the past hour, she had been forcing her eyes to stay open and now that Bellamy didn't have a reason to kill her sleep, at least, she thought he didn't have one, she could try to rest a bit. She wrapped up the plants and put them back in the backpack, which she used as a pillow when she went to lay down on her side, her back to Bellamy.
After a couple of minutes later, as just as she was about to fall asleep, Katherine realised something. "Bellamy?" she broke the nice silence. After she heard his affirmative grunt, which she took as a sign that he was listening, she continued. "I haven't told anybody about this, so when Monty all of a sudden looks at me like I'm the most piteous creature on Earth, or if Murphy starts to make rape jokes, more then they usually do, I will have your guts."
"Got it," Bellamy noted.
Katherine heard him take another breath, but his words never came. Without turning around she knew doubted about something. "Say whatever you want to say so I can get to sleep without wondering what you were about to say."
"Alright," Bellamy muttered, sounding slightly taken aback. "What is going on between you and Murphy?"
Katherine let out a loud sigh, trying to get more comfortable, but the hard rock beneath her didn't give in. She thought about it for a moment, before answering. "I guess some natural rivalry that will be the end of certainly one of us, probably both of us."
"Like Romeo and Juliet?" Bellamy chuckled. He mocked her, that much was clear, but it didn't sound half as mean as it usually did when Bellamy taunted her.
"Romeo and Juliet weren't rivals, their families were," Katherine answered with a loud sigh as if she was annoyed by his ignorance. She did cringe however at the thought of her Murphy doing something together, other than making nasty comments. "Besides, I hate Shakespeare. Never bring him up again, ever. Especially Romeo and Juliet."
"Duly noted."