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The sheer weight of Bellamy’s words to Octavia hung over him as he crouched in that strange fluorescent cavern. He blinked past the burning in his eyes, forcing his hands to work in the hollow silence.
And then something very large and very fast swept across his line of vision.
He swung with a startled grunt, squinting around. Then came another—some type of creature, he was sure—whipping past in his periphery. He lurched towards the exit, fumbling with his collected samples. He barely registered some of the luminous green crumbling away in his hands, floating into the air like a radioactive dust mote. He coughed violently, blinking to clear his vision.
But he could no longer distinguish the exit, the walls reduced to a homogenous texture. He scrambled to his right, the way they’d come—or was it? He tried to call for Octavia, but swore he felt the toxin sticking to the sides of his throat. Fitfully, he grappled along the walls, uncaring that his hands were now glowing too, just desperate to get out—to get back to Clarke, to the others—
The tunneling cave curved, and he wheezed in relief as natural light pierced the bioluminescence. He broke into the clearing and cursed.
There was daylight, for where the cave ceiling had been was only treetops and dusky sky—but the stone contained him, walls sprawling up and up above his head—though he couldn’t have been that far underground—
“Bellamy.”
He spun. Frowned in confusion. Her chest rose and fell quickly, like she'd been running. “Clarke? Why aren’t you with Gabriel—what happened?”
“Bellamy.” Her voice was low, frantic. “Bellamy, it hurts."
He gaped as black blood streamed from her nose over her trembling mouth, her chin, far too quickly. “No, hey. Clarke.”
He scrambled for her as her eyes and ears began to drip, too, an awful cry pealing from her. He clutched either side of her head. “What is this, oh God. Oh God, please don’t, please please—”
She was gone in moments. She was in his arms, and gone—again. His skin and sleeves were soaked in her blood—
But mixed in with the ebony. . .
He gasped at the powder-fine bits of bright green. The toxin. He'd been worried about the antidote. . .
She had disappeared, like a play of the light, leaving him staring mutely at his hands—the blood on them gone in a blink, leaving only that menacing wash of green.
He forced his mind to work through his ragged panting—didn’t he have a radio? Some way to communicate—
He needed to get back.
A shriek ripped through the cave, through muscle and bone.
The figure was clad in a yellow hazmat suit some meters into the glimmering dark, writhing and screaming in agony.
“No,” he hissed, jerking away. He squeezed his eyes shut, pulled his hair taut. “Nonono—it’s not real. Not real.”
But Clarke was sobbing, her cries getting closer. He could hear the vinyl fabric crackling as she dragged herself. Her anguished noises formed strangled pleas.
“You're aren't dying, you're alive,” he bellowed, refusing to look. “I saved you. I brought you back. I brought you back.” He repeated it to himself until her voice choked and faded at last, his teeth chattering in its wake. He knew she would be there when he opened his eyes. Knew how her skin would be blistered, probably beyond recognition, her gaze blue and glassy.
Because it was one of his worst nightmares, and the Anomaly seemed keen on showing it to him.
“Bellamy, we have to go.”
He groaned. She was already revived again. He didn’t know which version of her he’d see this time. “You’re not real,” he spat uselessly.
Then her hand rested on his shoulder, solid and warm, a shock running through him. “Bellamy, what are you talking about?”
His eyes cracked open, and his heart sank. Her hair was longer, face a bit younger. Still an illusion, then.
But the sight landed hard. The first Clarke—the rebel princess. The one who first stole his breath from him, who latched onto whatever was left of the dreamer he had been, while there was still time to dream. The Anomaly gave form to his time-muddled memories, every detail in sharp focus.
“Why,” he whispered. “Why you?”
She frowned. “I don’t know what’s going on with you. . .” She pressed a hand to his brow, her frown deepening. “Shit. You’re running a fever. You should be on bed rest. My mom’ll make something to get your temperature down—”
He didn’t particularly care what the illusion was saying to him. He raised a hand and caught a lock of hair between his fingers, stunned by the silken texture. “Not possible,” he murmured. He studied her flushed face, eyes narrowed. “How is it doing this? Can you tell me?”
Clarke looked baffled, then exasperated. “You ate something, didn’t you? God, Bellamy, after those berries. . . Come on, the others are waiting for us.”
“What does it want—stop.” He gripped her wrist, tasting sweat on his lip. “What does it want, huh? Why draw people in?”
“You’re scaring me,” she breathed, trying to wrench away. “Bellamy, let me go—”
“Why did you let my sister go?” he seethed. “Why spit her back out?”
“Please, I don’t understand—” Clarke’s eyes were shining. “Why are you saying this?”
“I’m not giving in,” he snarled, head pounding painfully. “You hear me? You screwed up choosing her. Because I know her. I’ve already seen her face worn by someone else, I know who she is, you can’t fool me like you do other people—so cut the shit.”
She was shaking her head desperately, trying to free herself. He locked his jaw and held her put, swallowing his revulsion. Then, as if someone flipped a switch, her face went absolutely smooth.
He fell forward squarely on his palms when her weight vanished, flesh tearing.
He sucked in a breath and held it as he stumbled into the cave, spots in his vision as he plunged back into darkness. He got as far as he dared before mustering all the volume he could. “Octavia!”
Bellamy saw no breaks in the walls, nothing to suggest an alternate channel. “O, where are you? Octavia!”
His feet twisted beneath him, and he was downed again, his pants leg ripping over the knee. He tried to bat away the airborne toxin—then a sob was torn from him as his eyes focused:
Octavia’s eyes were unseeing, her throat dark with blood. He’d tripped over her body; he’d missed it as he ran—
No. No. Another trick. It had to be.
He hissed as he straightened, his leg aflame. “Let me out,” he growled under his breath.
He staggered onward, refusing to peer closely at the bodies lining his path, wedged into shadowed crevices. Some called for him.
As he blinked, more and more began to appear, piled atop one another. He registered the Grounder armor on most, forced himself not to falter. Then civilian clothing of Mount Weather, their burns glistening faintly.
Soon, he could no longer search for breaks in the walls. Too many bodies, but for the occasional gap where luminescence shone through.
He wheezed in panic, overcome by his surroundings—then gagged as the stench reached his nose, one he was unfamiliar with in reality, but somehow knew was accurate.
Focus, he willed himself. Think past it, think above it—
He was on his hands and knees, head bowed so he was engulfed in blackness.
If it was getting this bad, it could have been due to his intake spiking. . . Or maybe it was because he was nearing an escape. But how would he know where. . .?
His eyes snapped open.
He was half-crouched as he turned the opposite direction, and began to feel his way through—impressed and disgusted by how utterly real it felt as he would accidentally graze a warrior’s fur pelt, a knitted cardigan, or worse of all—a head of hair, some unknown patch of cool flesh. But he moved onward, and detected the green glow growing stronger as he went, the bodies becoming sparse.
Then they were gone altogether, and he continued carefully, dread heavy in his gut. Again, he noticed a bit of a curve to the cave. He moved slowly around the bend, unable to see ahead. Then, revealing itself as he moved—
The helmet of the hazmat suit had been discarded a few feet before she fell. Bellamy faltered, eyes filling at once. He bent over, hands bracing his knees, unable to go on.
He’d already seen her dead, he told himself—the real thing, only once. But then another time just today, or close enough.
Bellamy didn’t know how many times he’d seen her dead like this. It was a recurring nightmare—almost weekly in his first months on the Ark. And even in the years of sleep after, it would occasionally feature again, making him either violently sick or unable to speak for a few hours upon waking.
It’d even happened when he’d been back on Earth. The night before the fighting pit, when they’d been at their worst. When he’d had to confront the fact that he might die with her despising him.
How the hell this so-called Anomaly reached into his brain with poison-dipped talons and ripped this out was beyond him. Rather anomalous of it, really.
He stepped carefully towards her, expressionless as he stood over his worst nightmare. Then he had to catch his breath at a grim new detail: The radio, the one she’d tried to call him on. It was resting in her ruined palm.
He knelt, reaching for it—
And drew back as light poured in—more than one, whipping around.
“Got him,” a gruff voice said. Another crackled back over static.
He stumbled backwards on his elbows as he faced a gas-masked figure. “Get back,” he heaved. “Get back!”
“Oh my God. . .”
Octavia darted around the stranger, cursing when they swept an arm out. She struck the man sharply in the spine and the back of the knee in one swift maneuver, dashing forward as he collapsed. “Bell? Bell, I’m so sorry—”
“I said get the hell back!” he roared, his vision doubling briefly.
“Let me through,” another voice demanded, promising violence. He cringed away from it, fully pressed against the cave entrance as Clarke’s face—healed, spotless—was cast in the blinding blue-white lights. She hesitated as she spotted him, recovering quickly. “Hey.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. He was never getting out of this cave. He’d die here, its lies on a loop in his head—
“Bellamy,” the Anomaly tried softly, “I need to give you the antitoxin. You’ve got too much of this stuff in your system; it needs to be flushed out. Can you let me do that?”
His head was turned against light. He peeked through one eye at the ground beside him—
The radio was still there.
“Just stop this, please,” he begged it, hoarse. “Stop.”
Someone was arguing above him. He covered his ears, groaning.
“—And I’m telling you to let her handle this,” Octavia snapped.
His heart pounded wetly in his ears. He felt like his skull was splitting—
“Bellamy. You can hear me, right?”
He seized violently. Her voice was too close.
“I don’t want you to hurt yourself, okay?” the false Clarke breathed, startlingly calm and clinical. “Listen to me. Gabriel says your brain is running in overdrive right now, you’ve ingested a potentially lethal amount of this toxin. You could have a heart attack at any moment if you don’t get this injection. I need you to work with me.”
“Bellamy, don’t do this. I need you.”
He froze as the twin voice appeared even closer, the heat of her breath on his left ear. He reached out, felt her sleeve and gripped hard. “Clarke?”
“Yeah,” they said as one.
Bellamy shook his head, weeping quietly. “Help me. God, help me.”
Shit. It has to be now, the clinical Clarke said, from some distance.
The other was rubbing soothing circles on his arm. “Just breathe.”
He nodded, his chest going tight as her lips brushed his cheek, his ear. Hot tears mixed with perspiration on his skin.
We have to hold him down—
“The only way to fight them is to sleep,” Clarke whispered. “You have to sleep to fight the lies."
He was suddenly aware of how exhausted he was. It limned every bone, every atom—
He wanted to ask her why, but his brain no longer seemed in communication with his tongue.
As strong hands clamped down on his arms, he abruptly snapped awake. And Clarke. . .
He struggled and spat at the masked man in her place, finding the clinical one on his other side, her brow narrowed. “Don’t touch me,” he hissed.
She regarded him, lips thinning. “Keep him still,” she said.
He yelled, bellowed with every bit of his lapsing energy as the syringe entered his arm. Clarke flung it away as soon as the plunger was dispensed, and joined in restraining him.
“Show me someone else,” he cried, ragged. “Not her, not her.” He was sputtering it over and over.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she huffed. “It’s not making me up.”
“Don’t waste your breath, girl,” the masked man said. “The madness whispers to him.”
“Thanks, we’re familiar with it,” Clarke shot back, winded. Then, after muttering something in a different direction, her tone was measured. “Bellamy, including you, there are five people here. I’m taking your hand right now—it’s okay, see? We are all going be silent for twenty seconds. I’m gonna count it off with you like this.” She tapped his knuckle with her index finger. “If you hear someone speak in that time, it's not us, it’s the toxin, okay? Ready?”
Past the roaring in his head, he found himself counting. The beats were steady in spite of his gnarled breathing. . .
And hers. Vital and even, with each exhalation marking a passing second. As five, then ten passed, his hand began to shake. Fifteen, he lifted his other one, tentatively stroking the veins of her wrist.
Her breath caught. Then reached for his other hand, too, tender over where he’d scraped his palm.
Bellamy’s eyes were open on seventeen, though hers weren’t. His streamed as she seemed to steel herself before blinking up at him.
It hadn’t been a full day since Clarke had last been wrapped around him, tearful and relieved. It was the same in many ways, down to Octavia half-buckled over her shoulder. Hell, they were still in the same clothes.
When they returned to Gabriel’s hut (Bellamy had to make them pull the bikes over for him to vomit in some bushes), the old man scanned him. “Gonna need to do an examination to be safe,” he said, eying the others so as to dismiss them.
Bellamy began to protest, but Clarke murmured for him to go ahead. He grimaced at the door after she slipped outside.
“You can sit,” Gabriel said, plucking up a vial of liquid the same hue as the red soil in Inner Sanctum. “Drink it. It’ll calm you down.”
“Is it alcohol?” He cleared the rasp from his voice.
“Heavily fermented.”
Bellamy downed it with a shudder, leaning his head back as Gabriel begin strapping wires to his forearm.
“Just checking vitals,” he muttered. “Look here for me.”
His eyes watered as a powerful little light scoped them. After a few more rudimentary tests, Bellamy found himself saying, “It showed you Josephine.”
Gabriel’s mouth twitched imperceptibly as he studied the numbers on the monitor. “Every time.”
“Dead or alive?”
For a brief moment, the man’s true age shone in his gaze. “Either or. Your readings are normal.”
Bellamy nodded absently. Then after a moment: “You’ve treated yourself for this.” Not remotely a question.
Gabriel smiled humorlessly. “The way I saw it, I had a fifty-fifty chance of seeing her alive and healthy, or. . . well. You saw.”
He couldn’t respond. Gabriel seemed to have known that already.
“If I may—and you should let me, given that I’ve saved Clarke, your sister, and now your life in less than a week. . .”
Bellamy was too damned tired object; Gabriel clearly knew that, too, and continued after a beat, “I don’t speak from wisdom; I’m as great a fool as any man. Only from having lived a few more years. Your people haven’t had a moment of rest—not true rest. You’ve been fighting most of your life. Fighting to survive, to keep others alive, to deal with what happens when you can’t—or when you’re the ones ending them.”
Had he not seen what he had that night, Bellamy would have likely rebutted every word he said. Possibly due to whatever substance he’d just inhaled, he found himself absorbed.
Gabriel stood against a column, arms folded. “We had many years of rest. Maybe too many. . . Obviously, when a person demands another lifetime, they’re not quite grateful for the one they’ve been given. But you are, clearly. Look at the way you fight for it. The way you fight against trying to steal someone else’s.”
“Your point?” he prompted.
“I know you have lives of your own, histories and whatnot. I don’t presume to know them. But to fight for a person the way you and Clarke do one another. . . It’s a pity that you haven’t had rest. That neither of you have been able to consider your own happiness—”
“Careful,” Bellamy panned.
Gabriel’s brows just rose. “Maybe you shouldn’t wait for rest,” he said, “Because if it never comes, and you lose her anyway, you’ll realize how many years—how many moments you wasted. Though I suspect you realized it sometime ago.”
He had. On the Ark, he’d been ravaged by the fact that he had never even let himself consider them being. . . more. He couldn’t have—not knowing she still mourned for Lexa. But the truly rotten part had been that he’d assumed they would have time. He had convinced himself she’d be with him in space—refused to acknowledge any other option for the impossibility of it.
Up there, he’d imagined they’d find some rest.
Bellamy swallowed back bile, head starting to pulse again. “I need to sleep.”
“You do,” Gabriel agreed drily. “I hope that one day, life won’t be all about needing. Needing to survive, needing someone to love—it’s not the same as wanting, Bellamy.”
He twisted over on the cot, biting his lip hard enough to draw blood.
Bellamy had never stopped wanting. He’d suppressed it in order to survive, as they all did; besides, what he wanted was often impossible.
He wanted Clarke alive on the Ark. She was dead. But after sometime, to his relief, he wanted someone else.
Then she was alive (the first time), and he found he wanted to know and be known by Echo the same way he was with his best friend. Today, he had wanted to care more about the fact that his girlfriend was left behind while he was fighting tirelessly to save Clarke’s life. He’d made excuses for it—that she could fend for herself, that she’d even told him to go save Clarke. But it was a flimsy pretense and he knew it.
He’d needed Clarke alive. . . because he wanted her.
It was a damning statement. Not merely wanting her friendship, her partnership, though of course he did. Not wanting something from her.
Just wanting her.
I need you. Not a new sentiment. He’d bellowed it hours before in desperation, and he’d meant it. . . But surely, that wasn’t where they ended.
For now, it was only safe to say in his head, both stabbed and soothed in wake of the Anomaly’s attack. Still, he whispered it—like dipping a hand into warm water, tentative that it might be scalding hot:
I want you, Clarke.
Bellamy didn’t withdraw his hand.