AN: A Bellarke AU based on the prompt "I think this library is haunted – will you help me look?"

Ghost Stories

Clarke Griffin did not believe in ghosts. They were a ridiculous concept, and Clarke was pretty sure that if there was such a thing as life after death, then the dead would have a whole list of better things to do than haunt the living.

Hell, Clarke was alive and she had a whole list of things she'd rather do than spend time with the living.

She didn't believe in ghosts… but that didn't stop her from being creeped out when a book two aisles over randomly fell off the shelf and startled her out of the half-sleep she had almost fallen into. She blamed the studying. It was making her mind into mush. And she blamed the time – one in the morning in a huge library with hardly anyone else around? It had nothing to do with ghosts, and everything to do with her overactive mind playing tricks on her.

And damn Raven anyway, for reading her all of those CreepyPasta articles during one of their study breaks. Clarke would have been perfectly fine, if she hadn't had thoughts of The Midnight Man and that stupid bath tub ghost floating around in her mind.

"I think you have to actually take a book off the shelf to learn anything from it."

Clarke let out an undignified yelp and grabbed a book, spinning around with a two-handed swing. Bellamy Blake managed to duck just in time to avoid being hit by Gray's Anatomy, although it wasn't particularly graceful, and involved a lot of swearing.

"Jesus, Princess, what's got you so jumpy?" he demanded, clambering back to his feet and wrestling the text from her hands, putting it back in its place on the shelf. "That thing would have killed me, you know."

"And the world would have mourned," Clarke snapped back, though her voice came out far higher than she would have liked, a sure sign of her still racing pulse. But Bellamy Blake was the university's biggest prick, and even with her blood pumping at double rate, Clarke could hardly let him get one up on her.

"Maybe not the world, but your roommate certainly would have."

Clarke crinkled her nose in disgust and rolled her eyes at the reminder that, not only had Raven and Bellamy slept together in freshman year, but they'd somehow become the best of friends in the aftermath. Clarke swore he spent more time in their dorm room than he did in his own. And now, apparently, she would tolerate him even when she was ghost hunting…ah, studying. Yes. Even when she was studying.

"I know you're pre-med, Princess, but I think that's a little ahead of the game, even for you. I though Raven said you guys were studying Physics together."

"We were," Clarke replied with irritation, and she knew what Bellamy was thinking – then why are you in the Medicine section – and she really didn't want to explain to him that, even though she didn't believe in them, there may have been a ghost haunting the stacks.

She decided it was a sign that she had been studying way too long, that thinking such a thing sounded perfectly rational.

"I'll bite," Bellamy said after the silence became long enough that he clearly realized Clarke would say no more on the subject. "If you're studying for Physics, then why are you trying to brain me with Gray's Anatomy rather than Advanced Particle Theory or something. And where is Raven?"

"First off, I'm pretty sure that textbook doesn't exist. Second, Raven went to bed because she's weak and requires sleep during finals. And finally…" she trailed off, because she really didn't want to explain her presence amongst the medicine texts to Bellamy. For his part, Bellamy just leaned against the stacks and watched her with patient amusement. Normally, patient wasn't a word one used to describe Bellamy Blake, but Clarke had come to discover that when it came to annoying her there was no end to his aptitude for it.

"Today, Princess."

Clarke opened her mouth – probably to snap at him for his continued insistence of calling her Princess even though she hated it, maybe to tell him something close to the truth – when a loud bang once again had her jumping. This time, right into Bellamy. He caught her, and her arms wrapped around him out of instinct, and she clung to him tightly, frantically listening, to identify where the ghost… er, the noise, had come from this time.

"Clarke?" Bellamy asked hesitantly, and Clarke wasn't sure what surprised her more – that he used her name, or the hesitance in his voice as he said it. "Are you okay?"

Her mind chose that moment to catch up with her actions, and she remembered that A) she considered Bellamy to be a plague upon the Earth that she should never, ever get this close to and B) that they were nowhere near close enough for her to be hugging, even if it was out of fear. She pulled back from him as though she were burned, putting several feet of space between them.

"Uh, the noise startled me," Clarke said, pasting what she hoped was a believable smile on her face.

"Uh huh?" Bellamy replied, his expression saying quite clearly what he thought of that. "It was just a book falling, Princess. Come on, I'll even go check it out with you. The way you reacted, it was like you thought it was a ghost or something."

He had reached out to grab her hand to pull her along to check out the bang, but Clarke's sudden stiffening as he said ghost had him pausing. Slowly, he turned back to her. Clarke wasn't sure what he saw in her expression, but it had a slow smirk crossing his face. Clarke cursed that smirk every time she saw it, because it meant that he was about to say something that would annoy her, and it made him look far more attractive than he had any right to be.

"Don't tell me that the Princess is afraid of ghosts," he said, and Clarke felt her expression tighten as he threw his head back and laughed. Bellamy was a full body laugher, something Clarke both liked, because it was so genuine, and hated, because more often than not the laughter was directed at her.

"Ghosts aren't real," she stated, pushing past him and wandering in the direction the bang had come from. "It's just something used to play with our minds at slumber parties."

"I don't know, my grandmother swore that my uncle haunted her place until she died. And there were some odd noises. Maybe a student was murdered here. Or a librarian died of boredom at her desk."

"Now you're just being ridiculous," Clarke retorted. She turned down an aisle and saw a book sitting in the middle of the row. Once again it was large, large enough that it shouldn't have been displaced easily from the shelf, and it had a title written in what she was pretty sure was Russian. She lifted it and put it in the slot where it clearly belonged. "I told you, I was startled."

"Hmmm," Bellamy hummed, surveying her with amusement. "Raven was reading to you from CreepyPasta again, wasn't she?"

Clarke crossed her arms and glared at him, but Bellamy just raised a brow and copied her position. She finally allowed her arms to drop and sighed.

"Okay, yes," she agreed at last, feeling her shoulder slump.

"What was it this time?"

"The Midnight Man and that stupid bath ghost one," Clarke replied, deciding that if they had to talk about this, it would be back at the desk she had claimed as her own until the end of exams.

"Oh, Daruma-san. I tried that once. I was very disappointed when it didn't work."

Clarke shivered at the thought of ever trying something like that willingly, and it had Bellamy laughing, which made her glare at him over her shoulder.

"Easy there, Clarke. All of that stuff is bullshit. But you really shouldn't listen when she starts reading them. You know they always make you think that there's ghosts in the stacks."

Clarke just muttered under her breath, because did he have to remind her that this wasn't the first time this had happened? It wasn't her fault her roommate had a horror story fetish!

"The books kept falling," she muttered.

"You can admit it, Clarke. You believe in ghosts," Bellamy's voice was far too smug, and Clarke considered retrieving Gray's Anatomy to try and hit him again.

"Don't call me that," she grumbled instead.

"What? Clarke? It's your name, and you hate it when I call you Princess."

"You only call me Clarke when you're being serious. You're not being serious right now."

"Now you're just being contrary."

Clarke huffed but didn't respond, because they both knew he was right. Instead she sat once more and returned to her Physics. Bellamy took the seat next to her, pulling out his own textbook, and Clarke paused, looking at him.

"What are you doing?" she asked him.

"Studying," Bellamy replied, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. Clarke continued to stare, and he sighed after a moment. "Look, we both know that you won't be able to concentrate now if you're alone. You'll keep on looking for a ghost to come and get you or something. So, I'm studying."

He went back to his book once more, and Clark watched him for another second or two.

"Stop staring, Princess," he said. "I know I'm striking, but it's making me uncomfortable. And the sooner you finish your chapter, the sooner I can go to bed."

Clarke didn't say anything, just opened her book to the right page and began to read. But there was a smile on her face while she did so.

AN: I love Bellarke AUs. They're my favorite. Let me know what you think!