A/N: So ... um. Yeah. I started this right after season two ended, and I finally finished it.
Warnings for: Bellamy/Echo, one original character, canon-typical injuries, discussion of past torture and violence, cheesiness. This will obviously be jossed as soon as season 3 starts. The title comes from Halsey's cover of "I Walk The Line." I've been listening to Badlands obsessively while writing this.
Echo only notices something amiss when she hears Achai's soft gasp. The woods are winter quiet and the sound startles her; she hurries to his side and draws up short when she sees what he's found.
It's him, the Sky person who freed her in the mountain – he's called Bellamy, if she remembers correctly. He's unconscious, slumped against a tree trunk, loosely cradling one arm to his abdomen. Echo moves in closer for a better look, despite Achai's muttered, "Careful, sister."
"I know him," she responds in a low voice. "He saved our people in the mountain."
Achai can't possibly argue with that, so he doesn't say anything else as Echo reaches out and gently tugs Bellamy's arm into a better position for her appraisal. His sleeve hangs in tatters and there's a bloody wound on the inside of his forearm – if she had to guess, he's been bitten by one of the many venomous animals that roam the woods. The blood that drips from the wound is thick and dark. Echo knows that if he isn't cared for soon, his blood will turn black and he will be dead within days. Of course, he'll freeze to death long before then anyway.
"Take his ankles," Echo says decisively, letting go of Bellamy's arm so that she can grab his shoulders.
Achai gapes at her. "We aren't allied with the Sky people anymore," he says, as if she doesn't already know this. "We can't bring him to the village."
"I owe him my life, Achai," Echo says, sharp enough to make him flinch.
"We could take him back to his own people," Achai suggests quietly, finally taking Bellamy by the ankles and heaving.
"Then we may as well save ourselves the trouble and leave him here to die," Echo says, voice tight with exertion as she supports Bellamy's upper half. His head lolls to the side, eyelids fluttering as he struggles back toward consciousness. He must have been lying here for some time if the poison already has him this weak. And even if the Sky people are capable of saving him, Echo won't risk going near their camp. She isn't foolish; Commander Lexa of the Woods Clan's decision to break the alliance with the Sky people could not have been a popular one. No, Grounder medicine is the only way to save Bellamy of the Sky people.
Achai clearly doesn't agree, but Bellamy (along with the large pack strapped to his back) is heavy enough that her brother can't walk and talk very well. Their gait is so unsteady that Bellamy lets out a weak groan before beginning to struggle against their hold. "Be still," she tells him in English. "We're going to help you."
Maybe he recognizes her voice – or maybe he simply doesn't have the strength to fight her off – because he goes limp and quiet until they reach her village, staring up at her with half-lidded eyes. Echo leads the way back to her hut, which is close to the outskirts of the village and far from prying eyes. Her people won't like this anymore than Bellamy's would.
"Echo," Achai says, once Bellamy is lying on her pallet, still fading in and out of consciousness. "What are you doing?"
"Repaying my debt," Echo says, without looking at him as she bends down to unstrap Bellamy's pack. She knows Achai is worried; most would be, if their sister insisted on saving a Sky person. But Achai is fortunate, having never seen the inside of the mountain. He doesn't know what it's like to be drained of your blood over and over until you can no longer fight (not that Echo would wish that on her own brother – or anyone, for that matter.) But Bellamy had saved her from that fate, and now she will save him from a slow death by poison.
Echo uses a scrap of fabric from her blanket to tie around Bellamy's arm, stemming the slow trickle of blood from his wounds. After several moments of nothing but quiet and the sound of Bellamy's breathing, Achai finally says, "What can I do?"
"I need to put a poultice on the wounds," Echo says. "You know what to use better than I do. Don't speak to anyone about this."
When she glances up at Achai from where she kneels on the floor, Echo sees him roll his eyes. "Fine," he sighs, before moving towards the door. She knows it bothers him when she orders him around – he will always be the younger twin, even if they're grown – but he doesn't argue with her now.
Once Achai is gone, she is alone with Bellamy, and momentarily at a loss for what to do. She is no healer; she knows only the lessons taught to Grounder warriors, meant to keep them alive long enough for a healer to do the real work. All she can do is sit and study Bellamy, noting the sharp angles of his face, the freckles that stand out against his slight pallor. She knows he will soon become a sweating, vomiting mess, but if she appreciates the view now, it does no harm.
By the time Achai returns, Bellamy has done little but stir restlessly on Echo's bed and she has begun preparing a stew. She and Achai hadn't caught any game today, for obvious reasons, but Echo can make do. Achai comes in without knocking, as usual, and begins dumping handfuls of dried herbs onto Echo's small wooden table.
"It all needs to be ground up before you put it on him," Achai tells her, indicating the herbs. "And don't forget to change the poultice often. You can make him a stew from it, when he's able to eat – although your cooking may kill him faster than the poison."
"Funny," Echo says dryly, and contemplates throwing a handful of plants at him. "What else should I do?"
"I'm not any more a healer than you are," Achai says, rolling his eyes. "He's alright for now, I think."
'For now' turns out to be right, because by the following morning, Bellamy is running a fever. When Echo wakes, he is staring listlessly at the ceiling, his breathing oddly shallow. He doesn't react to her presence at all.
"Bellamy?" Echo finally says. He makes a restless noise at the sound – so she had gotten the name right – and looks over at her.
"Where am I?" he asks, his voice painfully raspy.
"My village," Echo says. She doesn't intend to elaborate, but he continues to stare at her, so she says, "I found you in the woods not far from here."
"Am I dying?" he asks, strangely calm.
"I don't think so," Echo replies, moving to make a new stew, one with herbs for him. The simple act of talking seems to have exhausted him, because when she looks over at him again, his eyes are closed.
She has to wake him once she's boiled the plants into a suitably soggy mass, but he lacks the energy to eat it. "I won't feed you," Echo warns him immediately. She will heal him to repay her debt, but she refuses to treat a grown man like a child.
"Good," Bellamy grits out, "because whatever that is looks worse than death."
"Ungrateful Sky person," Echo mutters in Trigedasleng. Perhaps Bellamy is no different from the others after all. Not that Echo has met many Sky people, of course, but she's heard rumors of their high-and-mighty attitude.
"Gonna spit on me now?" Bellamy asks, reaching for the proffered bowl with a hand that trembles. Despite herself, Echo softens slightly, realizing he's joking with her.
Bellamy manages two mouthfuls of the stew before he can take no more, mumbling an apology and a thank you before promptly falling into another restless bout of sleep. Echo wishes she could trust a healer not to reveal Bellamy's presence to the whole village; she has no idea if this behavior is normal or not.
Echo should be out in the forest, hunting whatever game she can find to make up for yesterday's missed opportunity (food stores are low in the village this winter – most of their warriors are dead), but she balks at the idea of leaving Bellamy here alone. He could get worse and die by the time she returns, or someone could discover him – it's too big of a risk. Achai will have to go hunting on his own.
Staying turns out to be the right decision, because within hours, Bellamy's fever has worsened. He retches and moans occasionally but seems to be only half-awake at best; it sets Echo's nerves on edge.
When she attempts to change the bandage on his arm, he manages groggily, "What're you doing?"
Echo looks up, but he's not looking at her – he's gazing somewhere above her right shoulder, eyes unfocused. He's delirious, she realizes. "I'm changing the bandage," she says, hoping he can still understand that much, at least. "It will make you better."
"Clarke," he rasps, still addressing someone who isn't there. Achai had told Echo about Clarke of the Sky people; despite being barely more than a child by Sky people standards, she is their leader. Echo wonders briefly why he calls for her, but then dismisses the thought. It's of none of her concern who comes to Bellamy in his fever dreams, or why.
Bellamy remains delirious and feverish for two days, and Echo is forced to go back on her promise about not feeding him (but only because Achai points out that feeding him the herbs is the best thing she can do to keep him alive.) It's a new experience, to say the least, having to support an almost stranger's head while slowly draining soup into his mouth. The first few times she attempts it, he chokes and resists, but after a while, he seems to find the physical contact soothing. Twice he asks for Clarke, and he often confuses her with someone named Octavia, but sometimes he just looks up at her, his eyes unfocused and heavy-lidded, but with no fear or pain in them. It is – strange, being trusted with the life of a Sky person.
On the third morning after Bellamy's delirium begins, Echo is forced to leave him. There has been talk in the village about why she's been inside for days, and she knows that soon, people will start finding reasons to come poking around. She returns after several mostly fruitless hours spent hunting with Achai and some of his friends to find her hut oddly quiet. For the first time in days, she realizes, Bellamy is not talking to himself or rolling around restlessly on the bed.
"Don't you dare be dead," Echo mutters, slipping into Trigedasleng without thinking. She walks over to the bed to peer down at him where he lies on his side, halfway curled up. When she leans over him, his eyes open. He looks up at her and meets her gaze clearly for the first time in days.
"What?" he asks gruffly.
"I thought you were dead," Echo says in English, busying herself with putting away her bow so he can't see the relief in her expression. "You've been carrying on for days."
"How many?" he asks.
"Today is the fourth," Echo says, putting down her pack next to her bow. "You've been very sick. Your fever must have broken this morning."
"I've got to get back to my camp," he says, his voice hitching slightly, as if from pain. "My people will come looking for me."
"There's no way you'll make it back to your camp today," Echo says, walking over to him again. When she reaches down to press her hand to his forehead, she expects him to flinch away from her touch, but he doesn't. Without stopping to think, she pushes back the dark curls sticking to his forehead from sweat. If the gesture bothers him, he says nothing. "Your fever may be down but you're still weak. The poison hasn't left your blood yet."
"How long will it take?" he asks, after a moment's hesitation.
Echo doesn't want to admit that she has no real idea, so she merely says, "A few more days, maybe." After a second, she asks, "Are you in pain?"
"I'm alright," he says, but the way his jaw is set gives him away. Echo feels for him, truly, but she isn't as worried as before, when he'd been burning up with fever. Maybe the pain is a sign that his body is fighting off the poison.
"You need to eat," Echo says after a moment, going to the small area in her home that serves as a kitchen. The cold stew she'd fed him last night is still sitting out, looking miserable, even by Echo's standards. She can kill a man in a dozen different ways, but cooking is something she's never had a talent for. "Though I know you'd probably rather be dead."
Echo hears a small huff that she thinks might be laughter. "I've had worse," he says.
"Really," Echo says dryly, as she lights a small fire. "The food was that bad in the sky."
Bellamy attempts to sit up and look at her, probably out of pride, but discreetly lies back down a few seconds later, grimacing. "No," he manages. "Not if that's all you were used to."
Part of Echo wants to know more about where he comes from, as Bellamy may be the only Sky person willing to share, but he's burning valuable energy. "Quiet," she says. "You're wasting your strength."
"It's better if I don't concentrate on it," he admits.
Echo can see the merit in that. After being bled in the mountain, she'd always indulged in fantasies, memories, anything to keep from thinking of the nausea and the weakness. Dreaming of killing everyone in the mountain with her own hands had been her favorite. "Talk, then, if you must," she says finally.
He hesitates, but then says, "You never told me your name."
She raises her eyebrows at him, and then says, "Echo. Now tell me about the food, Sky person."
After a moment's thought, he begins by telling her about the bread – how you always knew you were going to have a good day if you made it to what he calls the "mess hall" and found a warm biscuit waiting for you instead of the usual cold toast. "I once got caught stealing a biscuit for my little sister," he says, his voice far away, "but I was only twelve, so the cook let me go. Said I was a growing boy and told me not to do it again."
"That was kind of you," Echo says, "to think of your sister." She starts preparing a new stew, reflecting guiltily on all the times she'd taken Achai's food as a child. He'd been a shy child, her brother, too scared to fight back, and Echo had often taken advantage of that.
"I had to," Bellamy says. "She depended on my mother and me. Second children weren't allowed on the Ark."
Echo must appear slightly confused by that, so he elaborates. "Resources were . . . scarce," Bellamy says, pausing to grimace in discomfort. "Only one child was allowed to each family, but my mother had Octavia anyway. She stayed hidden in our quarters for close to sixteen years."
Bellamy eyes have a distant cast, as if he's gazing into a deep, murky lake. Echo's curiosity has been awakened – the very notion of not having her twin is an unsettling one – but she has enough sense not to ask him to explain. "Your sister," she says. "Is she Octavia?"
He looks surprised. "How did you know?"
"You asked for her," Echo says, avoiding his gaze and busying herself with the food. Something about the admission feels – intimate. She'd heard every word of his fevered ramblings, every plea for his sister and for Clarke and sometimes even for her, although he didn't have a name to call her by then. "During your fever."
"I thought she was here sometimes," Bellamy admits, watching as Echo ladles stew into bowls. The look of mild trepidation in his eyes is strangely endearing, if a bit insulting.
"Clarke, too?" she asks, approaching him with the bowls. He takes his without complaint, and she surprises herself by sitting down on the floor next to the pallet instead of going to the table like she generally would. "You asked for her, too."
"I was looking for her when that thing attacked me," Bellamy says, concentrating on his stew. He's displaying his first signs of appetite in days, although it seems very mild. "She left after the mountain. Hasn't come back yet. Everybody's worried she's going to freeze to death, wherever she is."
"She abandoned your people?" Echo asks, her distaste instinctive and evident. Leaders do not leave – not in Grounder culture, at least. To do so is to exile oneself forever.
"She didn't abandon us," Bellamy says, but there is a bitterness in his voice that had not been present before. Echo realizes that this is another subject she shouldn't press.
"I'm sorry," she says finally. Apologies, much like expressions of gratitude, are sometimes difficult for her to muster. "I don't understand Sky people."
"Well, we don't always understand your people, either," Bellamy says, with a small, wry smile. He has a handsome smile, she notes; she hasn't seen it until now. In the mountain there had been no reason to smile, and his expressions for the past several days have mostly been limited to ones of suffering. She hadn't considered that of course there is more to him than just the grim-faced hero she'd seen in the bowels of the mountain. Echo smiles back fleetingly, and busies herself with eating her stew.
After a moment's pause, he goes on describing the food on the Ark, his home in space. He doesn't strike her as being naturally talkative, but if it really helps him cope with the pain, Echo won't question it. She responds by telling him of comparable foods on the ground, if there are any. He even tells her about something called "jello", a fruit-flavored food meant for special occasions that is somehow both solid and jiggly all at once. He seems vaguely amused by her confusion, but not in a cruel way.
"This jello," she says, the word funny and foreign on her tongue. "How do you make it?"
"Flavored powder and water, I think," he muses. "It doesn't sound good, but it was."
"Will you ever have it again?" Echo asks. She's genuinely curious; like all Grounders she is familiar with every edible plant or animal in the area, but there is no powder here that turns into fruit.
"I hope so," Bellamy says, with a significant glance at his nearly-empty bowl of soggy stew, and Echo surprises herself by smiling.
"Are all Sky people so ungrateful?" she asks, but with no real reproach in her voice. She can't help but remember the mountain then, when he'd thanked her for helping him kill that Mountain man. She banishes the thought. There is a pleasant calm in the air now that Bellamy is no longer dying, and talk of death will spoil it.
"No," he says, a more serious note in his voice. "Thank you. For keeping me alive, I mean."
"You saved my life and many others," Echo says quietly. She doesn't mention how his people had been betrayed, but he knows that as well as she does. "I had to save yours."
He opens his mouth to say something else, but the faint tolling of a bell interrupts him. A quick look of worry crosses his face, but Echo recognizes the noise as a harmless summons. "Be calm," she tells him, rising smoothly to her feet. "We're being called into the village for a meeting."
"A meeting about what?"
"How should I know?" Echo asks, raising her eyebrows at him. "Relax, Sky person. Rest while I go." She takes both of their bowls and leaves them on the table to be washed later, and quickly puts on her heaviest furs before heading for the door, sparing a glance over her shoulder at Bellamy as he settles back on the pallet, watching her leave.
The village meeting turns out to be about a crime, but not one that Echo is party to (although she's not sure if housing Bellamy is considered a crime or not – it definitely would not be looked upon favorably.) Several children have been caught pilfering food, and Echo finds herself reminded of Bellamy, stealing biscuits to feed his sister.
"Why are you smiling?" Achai asks quietly as he sidles up next to her.
"I'm not," Echo replies, befuddled.
"You were," he whispers. "Have I missed something funny?"
"No," Echo says, her voice barely more than a hiss. There's not exactly a rule of silence, but the whole point of this meeting is to discourage the children from repeating their offense lest they suffer harsher consequences, so most are quiet. "Now hush."
The meeting lasts about an hour, by which time it is already dusk. Achai walks with her back to her hut, and waits until they're out of earshot to ask, "How is he? The Sky person."
"Better," Echo says. "His fever broke earlier today. He'll be able to leave within a day or two."
"You sound disappointed, sister," Achai says sagely.
Echo rolls her eyes. "Shof op," she tells him, turning away. Achai cannot understand; like most of the people in their village, he believes the Sky people are foreign and dangerous. They very well might be as a whole, but Echo has trusted Bellamy since the mountain, and Achai simply isn't used to it.
"Echo," Achai says, with a hint of apology in his voice, but Echo waves him away tiredly and enters her hut. Bellamy is sleeping on her bed; he's curled up tightly under the blanket, as if to ward off the cold. Echo fetches him a heavy fur, noting as she does so that at some point, he'd managed to get up and scrub the bowls she'd left on the table. Oddly touched, she crouches next to the pallet to place the fur over him. As soon as she comes close, he jerks awake, startled.
"Easy," she says, holding up the fur to indicate her intentions. "You're safe, Bellamy."
"Sorry," he says roughly, visibly relaxing. "You surprised me."
"Bad dreams?" she asks, placing the blanket over him. Something about the panicked look in his eyes had given him away. Echo has nightmares, too. Most mornings she wakes in a cold sweat, sure that she is delirious from blood loss and will regain consciousness in the mountain soon.
"Yeah," Bellamy says, his voice still hoarse from sleep. Echo touches his shoulder lightly (in what is meant to be a soothing gesture) and rises to a standing position.
"I'll make some tea," she says. "It will help you sleep."
He is quiet while she rekindles the fire and brews the tea; when she looks up from her work, she finds him studying her. He lowers his gaze when she comes towards him with a steaming cup of tea, murmuring, "Thank you."
He gives it a moment to cool and then sips from it while she fetches herself a cup, too. She could use the warmth it will provide – standing out in the cold has left her hands numb. She never remembers gloves. "This is good," he tells her.
"You're surprised," she notes, and he laughs, so softly she wouldn't have heard it if the room hadn't been so quiet. "My brother says tea is the only thing I won't ruin."
"Is your brother the one who helped you carry me here?" Bellamy asks, looking at her over his cup. Still halfway wrapped in blankets with his hair mussed from sleep, he looks relaxed and vulnerable. If he's anything like Echo, though – and she suspects he is – he's always ready, always quietly wary, even when he's safe.
"I'm surprised you remember that," she says. He'd been so out of it, staring up at her with his big brown eyes. "But yes, that was Achai."
"I just remember that he was there," Bellamy admits. "Mostly I remember looking at you and thinking I was going to die."
"You must have felt that way in the mountain, too," Echo says, sipping her tea. The scalding heat of it can't fight the chill the thought of the bloodletting brings. She'd watched him like a hawk until the girl, Maya, had come to rescue him. The thought of watching the life drain out of him when he'd purposefully saved her from the same fate had terrified her.
"Maybe a little," Bellamy says, before tipping his cup up and swallowing the last of his tea.
"You can have your bed back," he continues, a little more loudly than before, as if trying to distance them from the previous topic. Echo doesn't blame him. "I've taken it from you long enough. I'll sleep on the floor, if that's okay."
She holds out a hand, indicating that he shouldn't bother to rise. "Stay there," she says, wrinkling her nose. "You threw up on the blankets more than once."
Though he tries to hide it, Echo notices the look of sheepish disgust that crosses his face. "Sorry about that."
Echo smiles faintly. "I've seen worse," she says. Suddenly remembering, she adds, "I need to change your bandages."
She's been changing them regularly over the past few days, but it's been far too long now. She fetches a clean scrap of cloth and some of the remaining herbs Achai had given her. Bellamy observes her silently while she mashes up the plants, and while Echo does not appreciate being watched so closely, she'd want to know what was being slathered on her skin, too.
When the poultice is ready, she kneels next to the pallet. Bellamy offers his arm to her, and although removing his old bandage and replacing it with a new one tasks only a moment, she is suddenly very aware of her movements now that he is actually alert. She focuses on the bandage, but she can tell he's watching her – not her hands, but her face. If she'd been the type to blush, she might have.
Once the bandage is tied securely, she looks up and meets his gaze. "The wound looks better," she says. "How badly does it hurt?"
"It's alright. Thanks," Bellamy says quietly, not that Echo had expected any other response. Her hand is still resting on his forearm; when he shifts slightly, she can feel the play of muscle under his skin. It's that sensation that snaps her out of it, and she pulls her hand away and rises to her feet, busying herself with tidying up before bed.
Bellamy offers to help, but she waves him off, so he stays on the pallet. Finally, she snuffs the fire and the hut is submerged in darkness. Her people would be outraged that she'd be willing to sleep alone in the dark with a Sky person in the room, but she can hear Bellamy's soft breathing across the room as she settles down on a nest of blankets. Just when she thinks he's fallen asleep again, he says quietly, "Good night."
"Sleep well," she replies, sleepy and surprised, and that's the last thing she remembers before the dawn light awakens her.
To her surprise, Bellamy is already awake and has kindled a new fire without waking her. When she rubs her eyes and squints over at him questioningly, he shrugs and says, "You looked cold."
"I was," she admits, stretching discreetly. She has slept too long; if she plans to get any hunting done today, she needs to go now. It's only once she's standing and going for her furs that she hears the gentle howl of the wind outside.
She glances over at Bellamy, and as if hearing her thoughts, he says, "I think it's snowing."
Echo goes to the door and peeks outside, and it is snowing. Every animal in the forest will have hidden away to wait out the storm. She swears in Trigedasleng, then says, "Now nothing will get done today."
"I'll get out of your hair," Bellamy says immediately. "I feel a lot better."
That must be a Sky person phrase, but its meaning is clear enough. "No," she says. "You don't know these woods in the snow. You could get lost and freeze, if you're even strong enough to make the journey."
"I know the woods," Bellamy protests. "Well enough to make it back, at least."
"My people sometimes get lost in the forest," Echo counters, and Bellamy rolls his eyes. "I didn't play healer for days for you to go outside and drop dead, Bellamy."
"Alright, alright," Bellamy grumbles. "But when it stops snowing, I've got to go. My people expected me back days ago."
"For their sake, I hope they don't come looking for you," Echo mutters. If the Sky people could even find him to begin with, they'd probably come itching for a fight, and Echo's people would readily oblige. Shaking off those thoughts, Echo moves on to breakfast – strips of salted meat she saves for when she doesn't have enough food to make anything else. Bellamy eats it without complaint, so she takes that as a small victory.
The entire hut looks and smells like a healer's hut, which Echo has associated with discomfort since childhood. With Bellamy's help, she spends most of the morning tidying up – it's astonishing how much mess can accumulate in a hut as small as hers. Bellamy is still moving slowly, but he doesn't complain about the small tasks she asks him to do; he seems grateful to simply be up doing something.
They talk while they work, but not about food this time. It's too bitterly cold for the village children to be outside playing, but Bellamy has only known snow for a matter of weeks, and listens attentively while she tells him all about the games that can only be played with snow on the ground. She doesn't mind it, because he listens while he darns any torn piece of fabric she puts in front of him; his mother had been a seamstress, he tells her, and that meant he'd grown up surrounded by clothes that needed mending. Echo is proficient at mending, but finds it tedious work – and it's amusing to watch Bellamy's large hands deftly make tiny stitch after tiny stitch.
The afternoon passes in much the same way. Echo sharpens arrows at the table while Bellamy polishes her extensive array of knives. In the early evening, their solitude is broken for the first time when someone knocks on the door. Bellamy tenses instinctively, gripping the handle of one of her knives like he might have to use it, but Echo recognizes the knock – she and Achai have had a code since childhood. "It's my brother," she says soothingly, rising from her chair and heading for the door. "He's probably brought food."
Sure enough, Achai is standing outside, bundled up against the biting cold, and has brought bread. "I can't stay," he tells her, pushing the loaf into her hands. "I told Toria I'd fix her roof for that bread, and another hole just caved in over her bed."
Echo laughs quietly and accepts his unspoken apology for what it is, then sends him on his way with, "Try not to let it all cave in."
She and Bellamy feast on the bread for dinner; Achai must have run all the way across the village to keep it from growing cold, because it's still slightly warm when they slice it. "Finish the story," Echo says, once she's had her fill. "About Orpheus and . . ."
"Eurydice," Bellamy says, the corners of his lips twitching like he's holding back a smile. The name sounds much simpler when he says it, rolling off his tongue with a practiced air. "You know, most people couldn't care less about Greek myths."
"I've never heard them before," Echo points out. Besides, he seems to know a lot about these stories, and she has slowly come to the realization that she is fascinated with learning what fascinates him. "Well, are you going to finish it or not?"
He does, and when that story turns out to be even sadder than all the others he's described throughout the course of the day, Echo asks, "Did these Greeks have any happy stories?"
"Yeah," Bellamy says. "The tragedies are just easier to remember. The Greeks were very . . . dramatic."
"That's kind of you," Echo replies dryly, and Bellamy gives another one of those quiet laughs that makes her feel an inexplicable warmth toward him, this Sky person she barely knows.
To distract herself from that thought, Echo rises from the table and busies herself with clearing it of food and weapons. Once that's done, she drags a large metal tub out of its usual corner and places it by the fire. It's her prized possession; she never has to bathe in a river again. "What's that for?" Bellamy asks.
"You," Echo says, wrinkling her nose at him slightly. "You need a bath."
"No shit," Bellamy says dryly. It's another phrase she is unfamiliar with, but his tone tells her all she needs to know.
It takes her a few minutes to haul in enough snow, but it melts quickly enough with the tub by the fire. Sticking her finger in to test the temperature, Echo comments, "This is as warm as it will get."
Bellamy eyes it suspiciously. "I don't think I'm going to fit in that."
Echo rolls her eyes, although he has a point. It's going to be a tight squeeze; he's bigger than she is, and she can only sit cross-legged or kneel. "Get in the tub. Give me your clothes and I'll wash them."
She moves away to grab the bucket she'd used to haul snow, and it's only once she turns around and sees Bellamy, who has already shed his shirt, unlacing his boots that she realizes the problem here. She's already seen him in nothing but a pair of white shorts, hardly more than underwear, just as he's seen her wrapped in nothing but bandages. Still, the cold, dim light in the mountain had washed him out, made him look strange and ill. Here, in the warm light of the fire, he looks neither strange nor ill – not anymore, at least. She averts her gaze instinctively, though she finds nothing truly shameful in his nudity – really, the only shameful thing is her reaction to it.
"Embarrassed?" Bellamy asks, amused.
Echo recognizes a challenge in his voice, and looks up to meet his eyes as he starts to unbuckle his pants. "No," she says defiantly. "Are you?"
"I don't have any reason to be," he says. "It's not like you haven't seen me almost naked."
The reference to the mountain is a surprisingly lighthearted one, but it serves to remind Echo of what she's supposed to be doing. "Your clothes," she says, holding out her hands and refusing to look at anything that isn't his face. He dumps them into her hands a moment later, and she gratefully turns away as he clambers into the tub.
A rather companionable silence falls, broken only by Bellamy's grumbling as he sits knees-to-chest in the tub and the sounds of water splashing. During this time Echo chances only one look at him, at the strong wet planes of his shoulders and back, before going back to vigorously scrubbing the blankets from her pallet with soap that makes her fingers sting.
After what feels like an eternity, she hangs up Bellamy's clothes and several blankets to dry, putting them as close to the fire as she can without risking them catching on fire. Nearby, she hears water sloshing as Bellamy stands and steps out of the tub.
"It's cold," he tells her, and Echo curses her own foolhardiness as she remembers that she has no real clothes big enough to fit him. She grabs one of her last clean furs from a nearby pile, hoping it will keep him from catching a chill.
As she turns to face him, she can't help but see all of him, and suddenly the fire feels even warmer than before. "I can fetch some of my brother's clothes," she says, moving to offer him the fur blanket, which puts her ever so slightly closer to him. She cannot tear her gaze from his, no matter how much she wants to. "They should fit you."
"That's alright," Bellamy says finally, with an air of having reached a decision. "I don't think I'll need them."
He takes one long step forward, covering the space between them, and she realizes he's going to kiss her only a second before he does. Surprisingly, her first instinct is not to swing a good, hard punch at him. She allows the contact – no, she welcomes it, pressing herself against his damp chest and realizing, with startling clarity, how inevitable this feels after days of nothing but him.
Echo is the one that pushes them towards the pallet, although Bellamy certainly doesn't complain. He's made the opening move, and now Echo's taken the next step, and neither of them is the type to turn back lightly.
Echo doesn't remember much of the aftermath, but they sleep sprawling over each other, kept warm by body heat and a fur blanket. Nevertheless, Echo still wakes up in the hour just before dawn with her fingers and toes numb from cold. She takes a moment to painstakingly extract herself from the bed without waking him (she'd woken up with his arm thrown over her middle and one of her legs slung over one of his), then hurries to stoke the fire. She can't believe she hadn't snuffed it the night before – how many people has she known who'd woken with their homes on fire before because of a foolish thing like that? – but she'd been busy. She checks to make sure Bellamy's clothes are dry, then takes them down and places them by his pack. On a whim, she puts the last of her jerky in his pack. She then takes down the blankets she'd hung up the night before and brings them back to the pallet. She won't be getting any more sleep this morning, but the bed – and Bellamy – are warm and comforting.
He stirs slightly when she lays back down, but relaxes a moment later, still asleep. Echo knows she will have to wake him soon, and the thought gives her no pleasure. The wind outside is quiet and dawn is on its way; if he is going to make it back to his camp – Camp Jaha, he'd told her – before nightfall tonight, he will have to leave before the sun rises.
She lets him rest for a few more minutes, then gently prods him. When he doesn't wake immediately, she says, "Bellamy."
Finally he rouses, opening his eyes and giving her a sleepy look. "Hey," he greets, his voice husky from sleep.
Despite herself, Echo smiles at him. She is not used to such softness – there has never been anyone for her to be soft with, really. There's her brother, but that is something far different from this. She likes this, even if she's not quite sure she trusts it yet. "It's almost dawn," she tells him. "The snow stopped during the night."
"Right," Bellamy says, reaching up to rub at his face with one hand. "My clothes . . ."
"They're dry," Echo replies. "I put them by your pack. You should take some furs. You'll freeze otherwise."
He nods, and she watches while he rises from the pallet, taking a blanket with him and keeping it wrapped around his waist. She's sure it's for protection from the cold air rather than modesty, but it's a charming sight. He gets dressed while she continues to lounge; she thinks she ought to get up, but all she'll be able to do for the next few minutes is drift around waiting for him to leave, so she stays in the warmth of the blankets.
"There's food in your pack," she says after a few moments have passed. "Jerky."
He looks up at her in surprise as he's lacing his boots, and surprises her in return with a laugh. "Do you think of everything?"
"Maybe," she says, sitting up. She's still swathed in blankets but her nudity is quite apparent, and he smiles at her, one of those quick little grins that make her feel uncommonly warm.
"I believe you," he says, as he deftly finishes lacing his boots and straightens up. He looks a little odd in Sky person clothing with Grounder furs on, but he doesn't look any less handsome for it. He shoulders his pack, and an uncomfortable silence falls. He seems to be waiting for her to say something, but she doesn't know what. Perhaps he doesn't even know himself.
"Be safe," Echo tells him finally. "Don't forget to keep your wound clean."
He must understand what she's trying to say, because he walks toward the pallet and bends down, cupping her cheek with one hand and kissing her. He kisses her like perhaps it means something, and Echo kisses him back.
Bellamy pulls away from her a minute, and then walks toward the door and opens it, letting in a burst of cold air. The entire world outside her door is white with fresh snow, but the sky behind him is tinged pink with the dawn. He stops briefly and looks over his shoulder at her. "May we meet again," he says.
She doesn't know the significance of those words, but Bellamy says it like something sacred – like a promise.