Chapter Eleven

Harper

"Alright, what's this so called family meeting for, Harper?" Emori asks, leaning back in her chair. I look across everyone, making sure that everyone is here.

"Where's Bellamy?" I ask.

"Right here," he says as he enters, rubbing his eyes and then folding his arms over his chest. He has dark circles under both of his eyes. His face is scruffy and his hair is getting longer. His entire body just appears weak, as if I could knock him over. We all know what it is from. But he is the one that needs to be here more than anyone.

"I'm here. Now what?" Bellamy asks.

"I called this because I think we should talk about some things. We are a family. We have all heard each other in our rooms, we are hurting. We have to help each other. We trust each other up here."

"What does all this mean? Yeah, the walls are thin enough to hear your space sex," Murphy says with a scuff.

"As if we can't hear yours," Monty mutters.

I give them both a glare. This was supposed to be something nice that we could do together. I feel battered but not taken back just yet. I have to work this out.

"This is important," I say. They all look back at me. "We all have demons."

"Build a brace for yours," Raven says with a smile.

We all wait for her to explain.

"I told Finn that once. He couldn't. He didn't know how. And Clarke and I failed in showing him. But maybe if we all help each other up here, we can build enough braces that when we go back down, we will have enough," she says with confidence. At least someone here wants to try to help. I smile back at her with a nod.

"That's what I mean."

"You want us to talk about our problems, Harper?" Murphy asks.

"Yes," I say. "So that we can help each other. We all have done terrible things. We need to agree that we did them, admit them and then…build a brace for them."

"So you want us to blame each other for what we did on the ground?" Murphy clarifies.

"Yeah, this is starting to sound like a bad idea, Harper," Emori agrees. I shake my head and stand up.

"No. I just want us to talk to each other. I know that we are all hurting. Maybe if we make peace with it now, then when we go back down, we can be the good guys."

"Good guys? I was never a good guy," Echo says.

"Come on, let's just try!" I say.

I am losing them when finally, Bellamy speaks up.

"Listen up!" he says. "We are all here for one very important reason. We survived. We lived through everything that happened down there. But Harper is right. We can't just pretend that all of that didn't happen. I am not saying that I like it or that I want to talk about it. But I think that is Harper's point. We don't want to talk about it or admit it. We want to push it all away. I don't want to say…" he trails off, looking at a wall and then back to the rest of us. We are all silent just so that we can hear Bellamy. He is being so serious, so intense. When he looks back to the group his eyes are raging with fire.

"I don't want to say that…that Clarke is dead," he finishes, biting the inside of his mouth and running his hand down his face. "But I have to. We all have to admit the hard truth. By doing that, maybe we can heal enough to be good people by the time we get back down." He pauses and looks to me with a satisfied expression. "This is a good idea, Harper. We should all be thanking you for it."

I smile at him and then sit back down, realizing that it just took another person to express it. Everyone sits down silently, as if they have all decided that they are now ready for whatever it is that they think we are going to talk about.

"Who wants to go first?" I ask.

Everyone looks at the other person.

"If we are going to share our terrors, I had a realization last night. Clarke and Bellamy might have pulled the leaver, but I am the one that made it possible to kill everyone at Mount Weather. It was easy. I knew just how to do it and I treated it as if it was nothing but another technological problem to be solved. I rarely thought about what I did there because they allowed it."

"Who, Monty?" Bellamy asks.

I appreciate that he is trying to participate.

"Everyone. When everyone called her Wanheda, and they seemed to forget that you had any role in it, I realized that no one was going to think about me having anything to do with it. I guess I just forgot about it. But I shouldn't have. I killed all of those people too," he admits.

I put my hand on his leg, squeezing it just a little. He puts his hand on mine. His fingers are shaking slightly so I lean closer to make sure that he knows I am with him.

"I understand, Monty," Raven says.

"What do you mean?" he asks.

"When I had to make that radio, I felt like the entire time, I was focusing on what I had to do. When I was making the reaper sticks, I was doing it for the task. Every single time I did something, I was focusing on the act, not what came behind it." I pretend not to notice the strange glance that she gives to Bellamy. He presses his lips together, not leaving her gaze for a second.

"Working with computers instead of people doesn't make us any less guilty," Monty says.

"Not at all," she agrees.

There is a long pause when Murphy looks up. He gets up and walks over to Raven. He holds out his hand and she looks at it with confusion. We all watch as the strong, uncaring man with jokes is now almost fragile in front of all of us. It is the strangest thing I have ever seen. Murphy is standing with a great vulnerability. His face looks like he is almost in pain. He has a small look of embarrassment.

"I'm sorry Raven. Not just for shooting you but for hurting you. I'm sorry that my carelessness and selfishness gives you physical pain everyday. I'm sorry that what I did made you take the chip and that I can never find a solution for it. I'm sorry for being a terrible person," he says all at once. Raven stands up, looks him over and then wraps her arms around him. I can't help but smile.

"I forgive you, Murphy," she says with a smile into his shirt. He is surprised but hugs her back.

I try not to notice that Bellamy wraps his arms around himself a little tighter. He shifts on his feet. I decide that this kind of change of heart is the kind of thing that creates a good person. A chaining person. I put my hands together and clap.

Everyone joins me slowly and we clap them on. They separate and Murphy gives a small smile, sitting back down at his seat. Of course, there are a lot of things we all have to talk about. But then I look to Bellamy. I know he wants to talk.

"I guess that makes it my turn," Bellamy says. "I've got a long list."

"We've got nothing but time," I tell him with a smile. "We'll take it one thing at a time, until we can remember how to be the good guys."