but the world keeps spinning around
and in my dreams, I meet the ghosts of all the people who come and gone
memories, they seem to show up so quick but they leave you far too soon
naïve I was just staring at the barrel of a gun
Bellamy, Clarke and Raven stand among the throng of adults as they watch a large wooden pole being erected facing Camp Jaha. "They want us to watch." Clarke murmurs to Raven, a few people down from Bellamy.
"We're gonna get him." Bellamy tells Kane, pretending he didn't hear the grief in Clarke's voice, see the pain in Raven's eyes. "We'll get in close. And we'll hit 'em hard."
"Son," Kane's face remains deceptively blank, his eyes don't leave the grounders. "There's thousands of them." His voice is soft. "Even if we could kill hundreds, they'd still wipe out this camp and your friend would still die." He speaks to him like a father would teach his son. But Bellamy doesn't need teaching - he learned for himself. He knows that between them, he, Clarke and the others will have killed a thousand grounders, using the bomb on the bridge, the landmines, the dropship and combat. "We have to try." He's sure they can do it again, for Finn. Even if they go down - they go down together. Clarke's eyes remain on the grounders, Bellamy can see that something is happening in her head. He's either going to love it or hate it, because that's the way it is with him and Clarke.
"Abby." Raven turns to the Chancellor, her eyes wild, desperate. "Abby, we have to do something."
"No, Raven." Abby's voice is below a whisper, low, respectful - but firm. They aren't doing anything. Bellamy glances over once more, feeling Clarke's eyes on him. He looks at Raven for a second, first, her eyes are watery as she stares at the pole Finn is to be tied to. Then his and Clarke's eyes meet in a silent conversation, they duck out of the line, away from Chancellor Griffin and Jaha and Kane. The tension between the three is palpable, and frankly something that Bellamy doesn't want to get involved in. Raven follows, eyes still watery, stumbling a little. She is nothing like the girl that first approached Bellamy in the woods, shouting for her radio. "Take this." Clarke thrusts a bag into Bellamy's hands - a weapon bag, by the looks of it - the second he falls into line beside her. Raven stays behind them, so she can announce her presence at a time convenient to her.
"What're you doing?" Bellamy asks warily.
"Going to talk to the commander." She tells him, Bellamy looks at her, alarmed.
"What else do you have to say?" His voice rises a little from the whisper it was before. She'll die if she attempts this again. It's not something he wants to go through.
"I don't know!" Her voice is exasperated as she quickens her pace a little, Bellamy matches it easily. "I don't know." She repeats, quieter, as they come to a stop.
"Clarke." His voice is low, warning. They can't - won't - get back from this if she dies. He can't do this without her, and he knows that Abby can't either.
"Give me your hand." Raven says, Clarke turns to her - breaking eye contact with Bellamy - for the first time, as if she hadn't noticed her being here. She warily offers her hand to Raven, and the older girl slides a knife up Clarke's sleeve. "If she won't let him go, kill her." Bellamy wants to protest, wants to tell her that it's a stupid plan, it will only get both Clarke and Finn killed, but he remains quiet. He sees the belief in Clarke's eyes and the pain in Raven's, and he can't protest against the only plan they have. He just hopes that Clarke recognises it's stupidity for what it is before she goes through with it, and uses the knife for something better.
He doesn't hope - he knows. He has full faith in her.
"Things will go crazy," Raven continues as Clarke nods a little. "And we'll grab you and Finn." She gestures slightly to herself and Bellamy and he feels a ridiculous relief flooding through him. They're going to do something. "You have to help him," Raven's voice has dropped to a whisper, her eyes on Clarke, wide as Clarke nods slightly. "I owe him my life." Bellamy tries to figure out why. What did Finn do that Raven owes him her life? It's more than the bridge and the battle. He knows that. It's the Ark - it's why Finn got locked up. The spacewalk. He knew it. Bellamy's eyes flick between the two girls as he opens the gate. Clarke walks out without saying anything. Bellamy closes up the gate and he and Raven watch from behind the fence. The grounders on horses part fro Clarke as she walks through and Bellamy feels a ridiculous pang of pride. She walks to Nyko, the Commander's second, and Bellamy notices the tip Nyko's burning a hole in Clarke's abdomen. He can't see from here, but he's sure she's bleeding. He wants to stop it.
He doesn't. He stands still and watches, Raven by his side. Clarke passes Nyko on the Commander's request, and then she seems to bargain with the Commander. Neither of them relent.
Finn is being tied to the pole by what seems like a bunch of rowdy grounders. Clarke watches, her eyes round. Bellamy notes Raven stiffening beside him.
Bellamy is reading their lips now. Clarke's face is contorted with grief, she's begging the Commander to take her instead. "He did it for me." She says. Lexa will not relent. "Then he dies for you."
"Do it." Raven mutters from beside him. She thinks it's the right time to kill Lexa. Clarke does not. She looks at Finn. Clarke finally resorts to one last request. "Can I say goodbye?" Her voice is barely above a whisper, but by some magic, it carries to Bellamy's ears. Lexa nods. Bellamy braces himself to see Clarke pull out the knife and slit Lexa's throat, or stab her. Kill her.
She doesn't. Kill her, that is. She turns around. Walks to Finn. "What is she doing?" Raven murmurs impatiently. She wants to get them out of there. So does Bellamy.
Clarke's eyes are wet - he can see the reflection of the moonlight as she turns slightly to them. And then her lips are on Finn's. Her hands are on either side of his face. Raven makes a wounded sound in the back of her throat but doesn't comment. Then she breaks away, she moves in close - a one-sided hug, as Finn's hands are (quite literally) tied - and he rests his head on hers. It's touching, intimate. Bellamy wants to look away.
He can't. His eyes remain fixed on them. Clarke's body is shaking as Finn rests his head on her shoulder. Bellamy holds his breath as she steps back, ready for the battle. But not really - he knows Clarke. He knows what she's done. She could not see an out, so she made one herself.
Bellamy sinks to the ground as he watches Clarke back away from Finn; Raven is in his arms. She's crying hysterically. There is a hole in the Spacewalker's stomach, dyed crimson from his own blood. His head hangs limply atop of his shoulders. From the Princess' hand dangles the tool that Raven pressed up her sleeve what seems like hours ago but was really only ten minutes. He presses his palm flat against Raven's hair, stroking it slowly like he did with Octavia when she was little. This is foreign to him. He fights, he shoots. He does not comfort grief-stricken, broken-hearted girls.
Yet here he is, watching, his own face slick with tears as Clarke makes her way back to the camp. The grounders growl in protest, moving towards Clarke with spears poised. Bellamy stiffens, ready to run down there and fight with anyone who will go with him. He has lost one friend tonight. He will not lose two. Then their leader throws up a hand in protest. She shouts something at them, but Bellamy cannot hear the words over the blood rushing in his ears and Raven's inhuman cries. "Shhh, shhh." He wants to tell Raven it will be okay. He can't. It won't be okay. Finn is dead and Clarke looks ready to drop down with him.
She won't cope with this.
Raven won't cope with this.
Whatever this - this situation - is, it's not okay; Bellamy knows that.
Bellamy stares at the corpse of Finn - a child, no more than eighteen years old, no older than anyone else sent down here to die - and his heart aches.
He did not love Finn, as Clarke did. He was not Finn's family, as Raven was.
But it was because of this that he saw the boy in a way so differently from the other two.
He watched as Finn lost his innocence, like so many others in Bellamy's camp. He's seen from the very first day that Finn did not walk in space. He took the blame, the fall, so that Raven would not die. Then he was killed by grounders, but saved by one who had already tried to take his life. He saved the Princess time and time again - not that she needed saving - time and time again putting his own skin at risk to do it. He killed a reaper, and then he killed a grounder. He killed another to get a watch that once belonged to a king - and then a princess. Then he killed a village in a desperate attempt to save his own.
He took a life, then he took many.
He saved a life, and then he saved many.
He gave up his innocence for Raven, but he lost his life for Clarke.
Bellamy finally understands what the old books meant, when they spoke of love and destruction being synonymous.
Bellamy tries not to watch as Clarke stumbles up the path alone. The guards rush to the gate and open it, Abby is there. He and Raven are on the floor beside the gate. She is still sobbing, calling for Finn or screaming 'no' at uneven intervals. He continues to stroke her hair and murmur to her softly. He has never particularly liked Raven, but his heart warms now. Nobody should have to go through this - especially not alone.
Tears pour down Clarke's face as she finally stumbles through the gate. Bellamy attempts to stand up, to greet her. He can't. Raven is weighing him down and he doesn't have the strength to stand anyway. Yes, Bellamy has been in a war zone - a battlefield - and he has seen people live and die, but he has never witnessed anything like this. He has never seen anyone kill their best friend, their lover. He has never seen Clarke so shaken.
It worries him more than anything. Clarke is serene, sure she worries, but she is never inconsolable. Bellamy watches as Abby attempts to bundle Clarke up in a blanket, see to her 'shock', but Clarke says nothing. She looks around wildly, and then spots Bellamy and Raven on the floor. She stumbles over and sits on Bellamy's other side, leaning towards him. She doesn't touch him, but he feels her body heat as she shakes silently beside him. He sighs, wondering how he got there. Tipping his head back, he looks at the sky.
One star falls slowly from the depths of space.
He thinks of another time, with another girl and another boy, standing side by side in the midst of a soon-to-be cemetery.
She murmurs "Can you wish on this kind of shooting star?" He is silent for a beat.
"I wouldn't even know what to wish for." He lies. He knows what he would wish for.
He still does now.
"Can you wish on this kind of shooting star?" He asks Clarke lowly. She looks at him and smiles ever so slightly. It's false, but it's an effort.
"I wouldn't even know what to wish for." She quotes him. He's the first person to hear her speak all night. Raven goes quiet beside him. "Actually, I would. But the things I would wish for could not possibly come true." He knows. He understands. Because the things he would wish have the exact same problem.
He would wish for Finn, his mother, Roma, Mbege, Sterling, Charlotte, Wells, Clarke's father, that little boy in Section 17 who starved to death when Bellamy was seventeen.
He would wish for all the men - boys and girls - that he lost in the battle, that seemed so long ago.
He would wish for everyone he'd ever seen die to come back.
Because nobody deserves to die the way that they did.
He'd wish to go to a world where Octavia was born first and she could have a life, a decent shot at this godforsaken world, without being licked one hundred years before she started. He knows that in a well ordered universe, Octavia would be born first and the world would welcome her, because his sister is beautiful and intelligent and full of life.She's just - well, she's worth it.
She's worth going to hell and back for.
That's why Bellamy is here.
And that's why when he glances at Raven, and he looks at Clarke, he wipes away his tears and gets on with it. He gets on with it for the sister he should have had and the sister he does have - the girl she should have been and the woman she is. For the mother who should still be here, to give him advice and help, and would be only for Bellamy's own goddamn mistakes - far too many, far too frequently. For the princess imprisoned by her own guilt. The mechanic who has truly lost everything. The spacewalker who laid down his own life for those he loved - the spacewalker who wasn't really a spacewalker at all. The prince who perished in the princess' flames for a mistake that was not his own. The little girl who jumped off a cliff so that nobody else would die for her cause. The forty-seven kids locked up in a mountain; the hopeless adults who can't - won't - get them back.
He continues for the 100 children condemned to hell and the handful that still roam the ground.
He continues for his family.