When they finally reached Arkadia, the Rover had barely come to a stop before John Murphy was opening his door.
Bellamy supposed he might have been surprised, but he wasn't. With what was happening on the planet, where else could he and Emori have gone? Or maybe Murphy really had decided that Arkadia was an okay place to ride out the end of the world.
Either way, Bellamy was happy to see him.
"Did you find her?" It was Murphy's first question.
"She was in Lincoln's cave," Bellamy said, as he and Clarke wearily exited the Rover and grabbed for their packs.
"You gotta be shitting me! After all that, she was practically on our doorstep?"
Bellamy shrugged. "She'd been every other place we looked, too. We just got everywhere too late."
"So then...where the hell is she?"
Murphy glanced toward the gate, as though expecting to see Octavia ride through it any second.
"Still there," Bellamy's answer was terse.
Murphy opened his mouth, but before he could voice a follow-up question, Clarke interrupted him.
"How's Emori doing? She okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, she's good," Murphy answered briefly. "Thanks to the two of you."
Bellamy knew it was pointless to argue.
"I could really use a drink," he said instead, shifting his pack tiredly and moving towards the door.
Murphy clapped him on the shoulder. "First one's on me."
XXXXXXXXXX
"I heard you had a bit of trouble out on the road." Kane caught up to him as they were both leaving a committee meeting a couple of days later.
Bellamy sighed. "Murphy tell you about it?"
Kane shook his head. "Emori."
Bellamy couldn't keep the surprise out of his voice. "You're having one-on-ones with Emori these days?"
Kane shrugged. "Maybe she's decided the Skaikru are good people after all," he said. "And that's in large part thanks to you. And to Clarke's quick thinking."
This was getting ridiculous.
"You do realize that we caused the problem in the first place, right? Put Emori in that position?"
"I heard it was a river changing course and an injured boy. And you not wanting to leave the Rover behind." He gave Bellamy a small smile. "Which, by the way, I appreciate."
Bellamy shook his head. "Whatever."
He turned to continue down the hall, but Kane grabbed his wrist, stopping his forward progress.
"You did a good thing, Bellamy. A brave thing." Kane seemed so sure that Bellamy almost wanted to let himself believe it might be true.
"Yeah?" he said, still not completely convinced that it hadn't somehow been all his fault, but more than willing to try to let go of some of the guilt.
"Yes." Kane was adamant. "You couldn't have known what would happen. And then you stepped up and did the right thing. For someone you hardly knew. I'd say you deserve to feel pretty good about it."
Maybe it was true. Maybe it wasn't his fault. Or Clarke's. In the end, they had managed to save the girl.
He'd been avoiding Emori, certain that she'd soon come to realize that he was to blame for everything that happened to her. But...maybe not. Maybe he should stop by. See how she was doing.
Bellamy couldn't help his sudden small smile.
"Thanks," he said, grateful for Kane's kindness to him. Hoping it didn't spring from residual guilt over what had happened while Kane had been in the City of Light. Bellamy liked to think they'd gotten past that.
He had turned away, sure that the chancellor must have more important things to do, when Kane's voice stopped him in his tracks.
"And...Octavia? Did you find her?"
Bellamy hesitated. He'd been told that Octavia had nothing to fear from Arkadia, but he figured that meant she wouldn't be floated - or whatever the Earth equivalent was. But she had killed the chancellor, and he knew they couldn't just let her get away with that.
Should he tell Kane that he'd found Octavia? That she was relatively close by?
He knew he'd hesitated too long when Kane's expression changed. Became knowing.
"Look, Bellamy, you don't have to tell me where she is. And even if you do, I'm not going to send armed guards out to drag her back here."
Kane's assurances brought him some relief, but still.
"She did kill Pike. You can't just...let that go like it was nothing." Bellamy understood that.
"No," Kane said, "we can't. But we also - Abby and I - know that life has not been kind to Octavia, either here or on the Ark. And there's no doubt that...well, Charles might have thought there was some pressing need to make an example of Lincoln, but he really had no cause to execute him. None at all."
"I agree," Bellamy nodded. "But I also know that none of that gave Octavia the right to do...what she did. My mother taught me that when I was a little kid. Two wrongs don't make a right."
Kane nodded. "No, they don't. And if Octavia decides to return to us, she would probably face some type of penalty. But we wouldn't...hurt her. There's been enough of that kind of punishment. I think we could find some other way for her to atone."
He paused, inched a bit closer to Bellamy. Spoke quietly.
"The most important thing is that she understands that she did wrong."
"So...part of her being accepted back into Arkadia would be that she shows...contrition."
"I suppose so, yes."
Bellamy shook his head.
"I don't know if she'll ever come around to it," he said sadly.
"I understand," Kane said. "But maybe when her grief isn't so fresh, Octavia will find that she needs her brother, as well as her friends. And she'll understand that no society can accept members who only feel answerable to themselves. It would be...chaos."
What's wrong with a little chaos? Bellamy smiled inwardly, remembering. He'd learned the answer to that question the hard way. Over and over again.
"Maybe," he answered Kane now, trying to remain hopeful.
"Meanwhile...wherever she is...we'll leave her alone."
"She's in Lincoln's cave," Bellamy said impulsively, suddenly certain that telling Kane was the right thing to do.
"Good. Then she's safe for now."
XXXXXXXXXX
Bellamy had found it a lot harder to get back into a routine than he would have expected.
Ever since they'd come to the ground he'd done nothing but deal with one impossible situation after another. Not exactly fun times, but still, he'd always had a clear purpose. Even if he hadn't always chosen the right method to achieve it.
Then, when he got a little break from crisis mode, he'd given himself a new goal: find Octavia. And he'd managed that, too. While she hadn't come back with him, she was...available. If things on planet Earth took a sudden bad turn, he could maybe even persuade her that they weren't the enemy, and that she should return. But for now, just her proximity was enough.
But now he felt...at loose ends. He knew it was ridiculous, The planet was trying to kill them all, and he was going crazy because he wasn't the person responsible for preventing it.
Not that he hadn't been asked to help. Kane had wanted evacuation plans, and Bellamy had provided them. Then security plans, and defense plans, and he'd gotten all that done, too.
For now, his part in the planning was finished. In readiness. Waiting for the smarter people - the Ravens and the Montys - to figure out how to deal with the threat. Bellamy didn't consider himself an idiot, but he knew he'd have little to contribute to discussions about nuclear reactors or radiation levels.
So at the moment he had few day-to-day responsibilities, and he found that without those distractions to demand his attention, he was...fidgety. Not sleeping well. Unable to concentrate.
Bellamy didn't know if it was the restlessness, or the fatigue, or just the excess of free time, but it seemed like every damn day, without any kind of deliberate plan, he found his feet carrying him to the exact same spot.
He stood there now, barely noticing the other Arkadians who passed by with a look or a nod, because he was so totally focused on not turning down the corridor to his right. The one that that led to the med bay, where the medical staff was working feverishly on treatments for radiation sickness or whatever the hell else this fucking planet was about to unleash on them.
Where Clarke was.
He knew it was stupid, because she was right down the fucking hall, but he missed her so damn much, it felt like a physical ache. Like a wound that wouldn't heal.
Not that he never saw Clarke. Unless she was too busy to take a break, they ate dinner most nights with the same group of people.
But it wasn't the same.
He'd spent two weeks with her by his side almost every minute of the day. She'd slept curled against him every night. And they'd talked, really talked, about so many things. Things that they'd never had time to even think about while they were trying to save themselves. Save everyone. Save the whole damn world.
Now their meaningful conversation had been reduced to, "Please pass the salt."
Since they'd returned to Arkadia, he'd searched in vain for that Clarke. The Clarke who'd touched him with gentle hands. Who'd told him she needed him. Who'd looked at him with...could it really have been affection?
Was she just too busy to talk to him? Was he being selfish, expecting her to waste time with him when she had more important things to do? Or was it, as he'd begun to fear, that she was pulling back from him? That she'd realized she didn't need him after all. That he was too damaged to bother with.
Bellamy stood there, rooted to the spot, while the same questions that plagued him every day swirled around in his head. But people were already starting to look at him strangely, and he knew he couldn't stay there forever. He forced himself to move.
He could, as he did most days, recheck his evacuation protocols, or make yet another round of the guard stations. But today, Bellamy decided to opt for a different kind of activity.
Screw it, he told himself, wheeling suddenly, and heading briskly towards the other end of the Ark.
XXXXXXXXXX
He'd hardly been in the bar since Gina died. Too many memories of her handing out drinks and smiles with the same casual grace.
Grief without the guilt, that's what Clarke had asked of him, and as he slid onto the stool, Bellamy thought that maybe it was working. He felt sad but not overwhelmed as he placed his order with the new bartender, some guy from Farm Station whose name he couldn't recall.
"Coming right up, Bellamy," the barman said, and he wondered if he should be flattered or appalled that everyone always seemed to know exactly who he was.
"I'm back, Gina," he said softly, raising his glass. "This one's for you."
She'd helped him a lot after Mt. Weather, with her cheerful and undemanding affection. Gina had never asked more of him than he'd been able to give, and he'd regret to his dying day that he'd never had the chance to tell her how much he valued her. How much he cared for her.
Bellamy didn't honestly know how he'd have gotten through those dark days without Gina's bright warmth.
By the time his third drink was sliding down his throat, he was thinking about that other time that he'd been desperately missing Clarke Griffin. Not that he'd ever have admitted it back then. Instead, he'd told himself that he was worried for her safety, concerned for her state of mind. And he supposed both those things had been true.
But they hadn't been the whole story.
He'd managed to shove the rest of it down so far, bury it so deep, that when he'd told himself that the lurch he felt in his stomach every time he heard Clarke's name was nothing more than friendly concern, it hadn't really been a lie. Because Bellamy didn't lie to himself.
Then all it had taken was one glance at her through his rifle scope, and the delicate web of self-deceit he'd woven had been torn to shreds. As he finished off his third drink, he remembered his agitation, his gut-wrenching fear, and wondered again how in the hell he'd ever persuaded himself that what he felt for Clarke was anything other than...what it was.
Had Gina known? he wondered now. Horrible thought! God, he hoped not.
When the barman brought him drink number four, he raised it again in tribute.
"You deserved better, Gina," he said earnestly, taking a generous swallow.
"Talking to yourself now, Blake?"
He hadn't heard her approach, and surprise choked a cough out of him as the liquor slid down his throat.
"What the hell are you doing here, Raven? Aren't you supposed to be saving the world? Or something equally important?"
Bellamy smiled wryly at his own feeble joke.
"All my calculations are done for tomorrow's meeting, and I just...felt the need for a little break before I write my report," she said, shrugging. Her brow wrinkled as she looked him over. "What the hell's your excuse for getting hammered in the middle of the day?"
"Nothing better to do."
"Yeah, right," Raven said, eyeing him skeptically as she slid onto the next stool.
"Ah, yes, there is another meeting tomorrow, isn't there?" Bellamy smirked as Raven sat down. "Another chance to see your friend Roan."
"What's that supposed to mean?" She bristled, but he thought he detected a faint pink tinge on her cheeks.
Bellamy shrugged, grinning. "Nothing. Except I know the guy has the hots for you."
Raven's eyes narrowed. "You know? What do you mean you know?"
"Well, he might have said something to me about you when we made our impromptu visit to Azgeda." He and Clarke had told their friends about all their "adventures" in the Ice Nation.
"Geez, Bellamy! You might have warned me." Raven was indignant.
"Not my business," he said, holding up both hands. "Besides, I knew you'd probably already figured it out."
"Maybe I had and maybe I hadn't. Either way, a head's up would've been nice."
Bellamy was quiet for a moment, working on his drink, while Raven placed her order.
But when he did open his mouth, he couldn't seem to stop what came out of it. Even though he knew it was none of his damn business.
"You know," he said earnestly, "if you want to be with Roan, you should just go for it. Who knows how how much time we all have left?"
Raven made choking sounds as she turned in his direction.
"First of all, I'd like to think I'll be able to figure this thing out before it gets to that point. And second...relationship advice from you, Bellamy Blake?"
"Why the hell not?" he asked indignantly.
"Because you're a fucking mess! You're so tied up in knots." Raven blew out a frustrated breath. "You both are."
Bellamy's mouth clicked shut. He was not having this conversation with Raven.
But she was apparently perfectly content to have it all by herself.
"I think she's just scared, Bellamy," she said quietly, sipping on her drink.
Bellamy told himself he wasn't going to respond, but then he just couldn't help it.
"We're all scared, Raven. Every fucking day. Because we never know what's going to come at us next."
"It's not...that's not what I meant. It's just...Clarke is..."
Raven paused, and Bellamy felt himself tensing up at the mention of her name. No beating about the bush, then. No room for pretending that he didn't know what she was talking about. A direct frontal assault.
He held his breath, waiting for Raven's next words.
She sighed and continued. "That story you told, about fighting those two Azgeda warriors."
Raven shook her head as she recalled the conversation.
"I was watching Clarke while you were telling that story, Bellamy, while you were trying to make it, I don't know, funny, I guess. But we all knew you nearly died that day," she reminded him, "and I could see it on her face. That's the part she was remembering while the rest of us were being entertained. And she's already lost a couple of people..."
Raven's breath hitched, and Bellamy knew she was probably thinking about Finn.
"...people that she cared about. That she maybe even loved." She sighed heavily. "But even they weren't you."
"What does that mean?" he asked, puzzled. "That they weren't me?"
Raven swallowed the last of her drink. "I think you know," she said. "And if you don't, you need to ask her yourself. But right now, I gotta get back."
She slid off the stool carefully, favoring her left leg, as always, but Bellamy knew it would be more than his life was worth to try to help her. She was already standing, already turning to leave, when he thought of it.
"Raven, wait! Can I ask you a question?"
"Yeah, as long as it's not one you should be asking Clarke."
Bellamy shook his head. "Nope, it's about the time ALIE took over your body. Do you remember much from that day?"
Raven leaned against the counter, shifting her weight off her bad leg, and eyed him coolly.
"I gotta hand it to you, Blake. Nobody else has ever had the balls to ask me about that day. And to answer your question, I remember everything."
"So you remember the things you said to me?"
She quirked a brow at him. "Hey, if this is about my disparaging remarks about your sexual prowess, if you remember, you and I weren't exactly Romeo and Juliet."
Bellamy smirked. "Nope, not asking about that. I just figured ALIE had addled your brain about our...encounter."
"Maybe," Raven laughed.
"No...what I wanted to ask about," and now the smirk was gone as he picked his words carefully. "It's about what you said about...about my being more devoted to Clarke than to Gina."
Raven was immediately wary. "Bellamy..."
"No, I get it. That's something you would never have said to me if ALIE wasn't using you and your words to try to get under my skin. But...that doesn't mean it wasn't exactly what you thought. What Raven thought."
"Except you told me I didn't know what I was talking about," she reminded him gently.
"Yeah, I know," he said. "But I might have been a little bit...in denial."
He struggled to explain what was going on in his head. "Look, when you walked in here I'd just been thinking about Gina, about how you said I didn't deserve her. And I'd been worrying that somehow she might have felt like...second choice."
The words had been hard to get out, and probably if he hadn't had all that alcohol, he'd never have had the guts to say them at all. But he knew this sentiment was at the root of a lot of the guilt he felt about Gina. Not about how she'd died, but about everything before that.
Raven was quiet, and for a moment he thought she might not answer him. But then she gave him a sad little smile and he knew she was going to give him her truth, as she saw it.
Bellamy braced himself.
"Gina was crazy about you, Bellamy. I tried to tell her her taste sucked, but she wouldn't listen. But I also knew her pretty well, and I never heard her say a bad word about you. Not that she thought you were perfect..."
Bellamy harrumphed.
"Right," Raven agreed, but her smile was gentle. "But she was happy with you, with the relationship." She paused. "Now if you're asking if she knew about you and Clarke..."
"There was no me and Clarke," Bellamy interjected.
"Bellamy, there's always been a you and Clarke, almost from the beginning. You just never...did anything about it. And everyone understood that. So it's possible someone might have said something to Gina, but it wasn't me. And if they did, it didn't seem to make any difference."
"Not even after I got hurt trying to save Clarke?"
"Not even then," she agreed. "So...is that what you wanted to know?"
He shrugged. "Yeah, I guess it was." He wondered if, when he thought about Raven's words later, they'd make him feel any better about Gina.
Bellamy thought she'd leave then, but she had a question of her own.
"Um, about Roan. You said he...mentioned me to you? You didn't say anything to him about, you know...?" Raven wiggled her fingers back and forth between them.
Bellamy shook his head. "We weren't exactly Romeo and Juliet," he parroted her own words back to her.
"Right," she said with a satisfied nod, slapping the counter and turning to leave.
She was nearly to the doorway when he called out to her.
"Hey, Raven!".
She turned, her face a question.
"Don't forget to wear something extra pretty tomorrow," Bellamy grinned.
"Go fuck yourself, Blake," she huffed, turning her back on him. She raised one arm over her head to flip him the bird as she made her way out the door.
XXXXXXXXXX
That night, after his conversation with Raven in the bar, Bellamy found sleep even more elusive. Could she be right? Was Clarke just...afraid? Was that why she'd been, if not exactly avoiding him, then keeping things between them at a very superficial level?
Or maybe she was still grieving for Lexa, as he was for Gina. But that didn't fly either. Now that he'd pulled his head completely out of the sack of denial, he admitted to himself that whatever there was between Clarke and him had started long before she'd met Lexa. Certainly long before she'd become...intimate with her.
But that didn't mean Clarke wanted things between the two of them to be...how he wanted them to be. If he even knew exactly what the fuck that was.
Bellamy's body shifted again, and he sighed in frustration. His last clear thought was that he'd slept better in the fucking cage in Mt. Weather.
When he staggered into the meeting the next day, Kane eyed him with concern.
"Bellamy, you're looking a little...under the weather. Are you ill?"
"Just tired."
He took his seat, doing his best to look alert, but as everyone filed in, he wondered how he was going to be able to focus on the agenda. Roan nodded as he entered, moving around to the other end of the table. Closer, Bellamy noted, to Raven.
Clarke was last, and she gave him a wary smile as she took the seat next to him, the same place she always sat. Bellamy returned the smile warmly, figuring that committee meetings were about as close as he was getting to Clarke these days.
When Raven started to speak, Bellamy tried hard to concentrate on what she was saying, but a lot of it was technical, and in his condition, pretty much beyond him. He knew he'd have to read it all later on his tablet and hoped to god he'd be able to understand it without having to crawl to Raven for explanations.
By the time Kane took over, Bellamy was very nearly asleep with his eyes open. Which is why he almost missed it. As it was, it took a moment for Kane's words to penetrate his tired brain. But when they did, Bellamy was suddenly more awake than he'd been in days. And he felt more energized than he had in weeks.
"I'll go," he said suddenly, interrupting Kane mid-sentence.
Kane frowned down at him, making an obvious effort to tamp down his annoyance. "What?"
"Didn't you just say that we needed information about the lands southeast of here? Between here and the sea?"
Kane nodded, his frown deepening.
Bellamy shrugged. "Well, then, I'll go and find out whatever you need."
At last. Something to do that would get him out of this funk. And it was important. Necessary. Vital, even, that they get this data.
Kane looked taken aback. "This is just a proposal, Bellamy," he hedged. "We haven't yet decided if it would be advisable. Or even safe."
"Safe? What on this planet is safe? Where on this planet is safe?"
When Abby smiled at him gently, he knew she would try to dissuade him. So he preempted her.
"This is stuff we need to know, and I'm the best person to go after it," he said decisively.
At the other end of the table, a throat cleared.
"Are you sure about that, Skaikru?" Roan's eyes narrowed as he asked the question. Bellamy had forgotten he was even in the room.
He nodded in acknowledgement of the other man's longer tenure on the planet. But he had a few questions of his own.
"Have you ever been south of here, your majesty? Do you know how to drive the Rover? Operate any of our...gadgets?"
"I'm sure I could learn..."
Kane sighed, interrupting the debate. "Don't you have your people to look after, Roan? Doesn't a king need to stay home and," his brow wrinkled, "run things?"
Roan shrugged. "I've never cared much for the politics. I have...others to do that. And from what I've been hearing, making this journey would be taking care of my people."
The room was silent as the two young men studied each other. Finally, Bellamy nodded.
"Best of both worlds," he said. "We go together."
Kane and Abby exchanged a glance, communicating wordlessly, and then Kane shrugged, ending the debate.
"I suppose I should have known this would happen. And it would be tremendously helpful to know what's out there. My greatest concern is whether you two can get this done without killing each other."
Bellamy smirked. "I think I can restrain myself for the good of humanity."
"I, too, will exercise self-control," Roan said, his face expressionless. But Bellamy caught the glint of amusement in his eye.
"Well, then," Kane said, "it appears we have a plan..."
"So, that's it? We just...send them off without a thought?"
Bellamy's head swiveled in surprise when he heard the quiet question. It was the first time Clarke had spoken since the meeting began.
Her chair scraped and squealed along the metal floor as she rose quickly and looked around before addressing the group.
"Shouldn't we...discuss this a bit more? Think about the alternatives?"
Bellamy hadn't so much as glanced at her during his exchange with Kane and Roan because he hadn't wanted to be influenced by the expression on her face. He'd been afraid she might think he wasn't capable of completing the mission. But he needed to do this. Needed to feel like he was contributing.
"Clarke," he turned his whole body towards her, trying to project his deeply-felt confidence. "I can do this..."
She jerked around in his direction, her face stricken.
"That's what you think? That my objection is that you aren't up to it?"
There was dead silence as Clarke stared at Bellamy accusingly, and he stared back in bewilderment.
"Maybe..." she said, clearly struggling to maintain control, "...maybe I just don't think it's worth the risk."
She was out the door then, while Bellamy was left sitting there with his mouth open. He glanced around the table, and the others looked back at him with sympathy. When his eyes locked with Raven's, she shook her head and mouthed one word.
Scared.
A/N: The next chapter, which will be the last chapter, will be up in a few days.