Disclaimer: I don't own Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury and his genius mind does.
Story: The war has finally started and what's worse is that the nuclear explosion created a shock wave that short circuited all electronics in the US. Clarisse, Beatty, and Montag seemingly have nowhere to turn to but a warehouse full of books.
Set as an AU sort of.
Spoilers: Probably. .
Warnings: Age difference definitely, others not sure...
Pairings: Montag/Clarisse/Beatty

The Beginning of the End
Chapter One: The Open Door

The nuclear warheads streamed overhead, flying passed the two running. After having knocked Beatty out and having to drag him around as hostage until he woke up, they started running the moment they viewed the hounds coming after both of them. And then now they've seen the warheads attached to the bombers flying straight where they used to be hours ago, heading for the city they had run away from hours ago.

Knowing the city would soon be obliterated, they were glad they were farther away from them than they would have been had they'd stayed behind. They were safe from the hounds and safe from the explosions. They had reached warehouses that were too far away, warehouses that were long forgotten about and were practically crossing the state border.

They didn't expect them to be full of books.

"What are all of you doing here?"

That voice!

Guy grinned, happy at the revelation. "Clarisse, you're alive!" He couldn't believe it. After what he'd been told, after having thought of the car that had run her over…

The blonde girl cocked her head to the side and looked at him funny, although her brown eyes warmed towards him. "Guy? Hm, why aren't you over there in the city?" She felt it a silly question a moment later, considering that she had seen the bombers coming in the air not too long ago from when she'd been on the roof.

"Long story. You've got a place to sit down?" he shifted slightly, giving his ex-Captain (who was silently standing nearby) a look.

Clarisse looked warily at Beatty, but then bit her lip and gestured for them to follow her. They went through shelves of books until they reached a little living space set aside. Books littered the area too, but there were couches regardless. Setting books on the couch aside, all three of them sat down on the couches.

"I thought you'd died," Guy couldn't help that he'd grinned happily at the strangely quiet girl.

Clarisse's smile was strained, "Almost."

He lost his grin and shifted again. This was a different Clarisse. Something…something had to have happened. The lively, inquisitive girl he remembered didn't seem to be the same one in front of him now.

"This is nice and all, but shouldn't we try to get our stories straight? So let…Miss McClellan finish her story," Beatty scowled and said bitingly.

Clarisse's glance towards him hardened, but she looked back at Guy.

"A car almost hit me. My uncle found out and sent me away with directions to here," Clarisse told them quietly. "He went back to get my parents, but…"

There was a moment of awkward silence and she looked down at the floor, while Guy looked at her, trying to find something to say.

"Oh…d-did you hear about me? I was on the tele. They were chasing me with the hounds, along with him," Guy said, forcing fake cheer into his voice and hoping Clarisse would also become happier.

"I see…you might still be on," she gave him a small smile.

She turned on the modest television put there and it immediately went on about Guy. Only that he was still being chased with Beatty and both were found by the hounds.

"Huh, so they staged it so people can forget the war is coming," Beatty narrowed his eyes at the screen.

"Forget it? Those warheads we just saw should reach them at any moment now –!" Guy said, but was cut off when the ground shook and the distant sounds of explosions were heard along with the power cutting off in the warehouse. The lights were out and television definitely was not working.

"Damn, lights out. How the hell are we going to get around? There's not much daylight left out and we can't even see what's left because of the closed windows," Guy glared into the inky blackness.

"The warehouse's backup generator will come on," Clarisse informed them amusedly.

Sure enough, the lights came back on except for the TV. They tried turning it on, but it stayed black.

"Doesn't matter. We don't need it," Clarisse hummed thoughtfully. "We should probably rest and then venture out into the city when it'll be daytime again."

The males agreed with her and Clarisse left them to go to wherever spot she had found to sleep since she'd ended up there. Those two, in the meantime, decided that they'll use the couches for now before looking for other places to sleep tomorrow.

Another few days passed and they put off going back into the city, looking at the dark, gloominess of the area from the distance. They stuck to a routine. It was the same as before. Get up, clean, sleep. Eat in between, with the rations that had been stocked beforehand into that warehouse. They had yet to take showers or baths, as they haven't managed to fix the water heater and whatever issue they couldn't figure out yet that was causing problems with the water. No one had come in contact with them either. For all intents and purposes, they were all alone. Guy and Beatty mostly kept to themselves, though Guy would rather be with Clarisse. They weren't sure what she did with her time though.

Finished with their early routine, the two men finally found out at least one of the things she did. Clarisse was curled upright on one of the couches and was reading a rather thick book.

"What's that you're reading, Clarisse?" Guy eagerly asked, hurrying to sit next to her.

"The Chronicles of Narnia, full-set edition. It's a rather well-crafted story. It's supposed to be in seven different books, but this edition has them all put in one bound copy. There's religious overtones, but you don't have to see it that way," Clarisse smiled enthusiastically, much more like herself.

Guy returned the smile, "Can I read it after?"

Clarisse laughed, "Go ahead. There's nothing stopping you."

She looked so alive in that moment that even Beatty forgot to hate books. She and Guy continued to chat about the book for a long time, only stopping when they noticed it was sunset.

"It's time to get ready to eat and sleep," Clarisse murmured. Guy looked disappointed. He had been enjoying himself, talking with Clarisse like old times. Beatty immediately stood up and left them, already taking to the idea of bed and being alone.

Clarisse watched uncertainly in his retreating direction, eyes flickering from the man's back to the ground. Guy watched her worriedly.

"Clarisse, what's wrong?" he murmured, moving closer.

"I don't trust him," she clasped her hands tightly together, looking dully at the ground.

Guy faltered, "I know he's the, uh, bad guy, but…"

She glanced at him and saw the hesitation in his face. Clarisse suddenly understood and uncertainly relaxed.

"I understand," she smiled at him and he grinned back hesitantly.

His Clarisse was carefree, not the cautious and suspicious girl she was being at that moment. He was determined to help her be that girl again.

The 'tap, tap, tap!' noise alerted her to an intruder to her space, and she put down her book hesitantly to look up and see who it was. To her surprise, none other than Captain Beatty, Guy's former boss, stood standing in front of her. His dark, sharp eyes were narrowed down at her, while his lips had thinned into a straight line.

Clarisse had stayed away primarily because of this man, seeking solace in another area of the warehouse that was more hidden away. She hadn't forgotten that night the speeding car had come towards her, when her attention had been drawn to this very same man who had been watching her from across the street with an unreadable look on his face.

"Yes?" she hesitantly asked, feeling her flight and fight instinct kicking in and making her want to run away.

"You're wary," he noted, voice neutral. "Is it me?"

She stayed quiet, cautiously watching him. He picked up a book from the side and opened it idly.

"Othello," he read the title aloud. "Good ol' Shakespeare," he snapped it close and tossed it back onto a pile. "Such meaningless words from an ancient, long dead man. It's all a bunch of meaningless drivel anyway. Can't understand a thing of what he wrote."

"Is it drivel?" she asked, suddenly inspired to question this man. "Why can't he entertain, just as your parlor walls do? Or why not look deeper into what he had written, and see something more than just words?"

He gave her a strange look, but then he shrugged. "Why not, I suppose? Why bother either?"

"Have you ever even read anything of his? Can you really judge his works without reading them?" Instead of sounding judgmental, she sounded too curious for her own good.

He gave her a sharp smile. "'My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, and every tongue brings in a several tale, and every tale condemns me a villain,'" he quoted easily, the words slipping off his tongue like he was a Shakespearean actor.

Her eyes widened and she stared at him, caught off guard as to what to say or do then.

"Such words, I believe, can have meaning to them after all," he said contemplatively, oddly giving her a strange sort of grin briefly. It disappeared as quickly as it came. "Why don't you stop hiding in your little hole, and join the rest of us –what can be assumed is left of civilization –if Guy and I can be considered that. For dinner, tonight, at the…main area, you can say."

He turned on his heel and left her behind, with her not sure if that encounter had been real.

And so, it wasn't so much as she wanted to, but more that she was curious in the end. It wasn't everyday that Beatty would tease her like that and she wanted to know why. So she accepted his invitation and waited for him to meet her in what was to be assumed to be the main area of the warehouse, where she had first sat them down after they'd come to the warehouse by accident.

It wasn't long until she spotted Guy coming into the area, holding two bowls of steaming soup, and she stood up hesitantly from the couch she'd sat on uneasily. He looked surprised to see her there, but his face immediately broke into a grin.

"I guess this extra bowl Captain made me bring is for you," Guy handed it over and she accepted it shyly.

"Don't call me Captain anymore," Beatty entered then, saying gruffly. "I'm not your captain anymore."

"So what do we call you?" Clarisse braved a smile in his direction.

He paused a moment, hand holding his own bowl of soup suspended in midair. "Alistair. My first name is Alistair."

The men sat down at the opposite couch from Clarisse, and they ate silently for a few moments.

"We should read a few books together," Guy suggested, breaking the silence. "We only have each other right now, and there's nothing else around here but books to occupy our time."

Clarisse, still unsure about the situation, was curious and interested at least. But glancing over at Beatty showed him with a blank face, and neither of them knew what was going through his head.

"Why not?" he asked sardonically. "It's not like we can do anything else."

Unbidden, a large smile grew on Clarisse's face as Guy looked at his former boss in surprise. Beatty set aside his bowl and grabbed a random book, snorting as he read the title.

"Romeo and Juliet," he gave a meaningful look Clarisse's way, and she almost –an almost strange sound to her by then –started to giggle. "'Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we lay our scene, from ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.'"

If nothing else, at least now maybe Clarisse could start to feel less lost and alone since she'd been sent there.

Started 7/15/2012 – Completed 1/4/15

A/n: I worked on this sporadically for years as a side project, and randomly recently checked on the F451 fandom on FFNET and saw (finally) that others shipped Montag/Clarisse and that there was finally some stuff for them there. So –inspired –I went and finished this chapter. I hope you guys are interested and enjoyed it so far, so please review!

Quick Points:

1. Actors/Actress: Mark Strong for Beatty (with hair of course, though I might just make Beatty shave his head XD), Andrew Lincoln as Montag, and Gabriella Wilde as Clarisse.

2. Beatty's name: Beatty is derived from Scottish/Irish origins, so I picked "Alistair" since it was the name of an author who wrote a book talking about Scottish origins, which mentioned the surname. Also, which ironically makes my actor pick for Beatty matching (I hadn't thought of this until way after) since he played a Scotsman in Kingsman: Secret Service.