When Selia wakes a second time, her mother is gone. In her place is Bellamy who is sitting on a chair that wasn't there when she fell asleep. She can hear his soft snores and smiles a bit at the sight, but then she registers the strangeness of him being in her tent. As the haze from sleep starts to clear from her brain, she realizes that something has changed.
They know.
Urgency to deny the truth fills Selia as if that will be enough to convince the others, but when she tries to move, she finds her body is too heavy. It weighs her down like an anchor and the brief struggle she faces leaves her exhausted enough to fall asleep once again. The only thing that keeps her conscious is the painful, crackling cough that her movements triggered. She desperately gasps for breath between the coughs while it feels as if it's trying to tear open her chest.
Bellamy is startled awake by the noise and he's quick to move from his seat to her bed, helping her to sit up before she chokes on the fluid in her lungs. When she settles back into a wheeze, Bellamy grabs a cup of water and places it at her lips.
"Here, drink," he urges softly.
Selia lets the water coat her dry mouth and throat while Bellamy holds the cup steady.
"Thank you," she murmurs.
"How are you feeling?"
"I'm okay," she lies. Her mother's words echo in her mind. Tell them the truth, but she can't bring herself to admit what they both know. "What happened?"
"You were coughing up blood, Raven got you help, but I told them," he explains. He watches Selia carefully, waiting for anger or a look of betrayal, but she simply nods.
If she's being completely honest, she's glad that he broke the news to the others because she isn't sure if she could do it herself.
"How…how did they take it?"
"As well as expected," he says. "They aren't angry with you, Sel. Just scared."
Selia nods, glancing towards Raven's empty bed. She can't imagine the mechanic wasn't angry, that's her go-to emotion.
"She's okay," Bellamy assures, reading her mind. "She comes in every few minutes to see how you're doing."
"And Clarke?"
"She's okay, too. She's trying to stay busy," he says. "She listened to your chest and she thinks you have pneumonia."
Selia nods, figuring the same thing. "It's not uncommon at this stage."
Her body is more susceptible to infection and far too weak to fight it. She doesn't say it aloud, but she imagines that the fluid filling her lungs will be what kills her as it's working faster than her failing organs. By the look on Bellamy's face, though, she realizes that he is just as aware of the fact without her telling him.
Before either can say a word, Raven enters the tent and her eyes widen at the guard sitting up in bed.
"Sel," she breathes in relief. The mechanic rushes over and Bellamy moves so she can sit on the bed.
"I'm going to go get more water," he says, offering the girls private time to talk.
Selia feels like a child watching her mother with cautious eyes because she knows she did something wrong but isn't sure how much trouble it will cause. However, Raven doesn't act like the angry parent or even a betrayed friend. She seems nothing more than sad and worried, two emotions she's trying to hide so Selia won't notice, but of course the young guard does.
"I'm s-sorry," Selia whispers.
Raven shakes her head, "I'm sorry I didn't notice. I'm sorry I've been dragging you around this whole time, making you come to Earth, putting you in danger, being so self –"
"Raven, you weren't dragging me around and you didn't cause the danger," Selia intervenes in what she believes is bound to be a lengthy apology. "And making me come to Earth was a gift. I don't see it as something bad and I never have. It was die up there or die down here, I think the choice is pretty easy."
Mentioning her impending death so casually does a number on Raven and she almost visibly winces. Again, she hears her mother's advice like a mantra she can't stop. Say your goodbyes. Tell them you love them.
"The whole catapulting to Earth in an antique you restored and then saving a bunch of people on the Ark while breaking all sorts of laws was pretty badass," she says instead. Her exhausted smile is one of amusement that tries incredibly hard to lighten the mood. "Can you imagine how bored I would have been if I missed that?"
Raven chuckles lightly, but it comes out forced. It's hard to find humor in something that hurts so much. Selia's smile turns sympathetic, but her brief conversations have wore her out already. She grabs her friend's hand that rests on the bed and squeezes it weakly.
"I'm really tired, do you mind if I sleep a little more?"
"Of course not," the younger girl answers quickly.
"Thanks," Selia murmurs as she falls gently back to her makeshift pillows. She closes her eyes and everything goes black only moments later.
…
The thick smell of smoke and the loud sound of chaos wakes Selia next. Her nose scrunches up as she glances around the tent to find it empty. With shaky arms, she pushes herself up into a sitting position and then moves her legs over the edge of the bed. Whatever is going on outside sounds crazy, she can hear shouting and fighting while a gray fog starts to seep through the canvas separating her from the rest of camp. She wants to get out there to help and moves as fast as possible, but it's as if each limb weighs a thousand pounds. A hundred-year-old after hip surgery would probably move faster.
It takes all her strength to force each foot into her boots and she can't even be bothered to tie them. The coughing starts as she stumbles out of her tent, but it's drowned by the hectic teenagers running around. As she slowly makes her way to the source of the distress, she sees the dying flames consuming the smokehouse. Most of the delinquents are working to contain the fire while the rest are panicking about their loss of food.
Selia covers her mouth, trying not to inhale the fumes, as she approaches the problem. Those who notice her give her the space to move past, clearly aware of her illness. She can see Bellamy at the front of the group, staring at the scorched remains with the tense stature of a very stressed out leader. Beside him is his sister, seeming incredibly frustrated herself. Before she can reach either of them, however, Nate blocks her path.
"You're supposed to be resting," he says by way of greeting.
She ignores him, "What the hell happened?"
"The smokehouse caught on fire," he explains, grabbing the older girl's elbow to steady her when he notices that way she sways in place. "Murphy is blaming Dell."
"The food?"
Miller glances back at the fire being put out before answering. "I'm going to say it's all gone."
"Yikes," she mumbles. "I'm going to talk to Bellamy."
Selia starts to move away, but to her surprise, Nate joins her, keeping a firm grip on her arm so she won't fall. She wants to roll her eyes and push him away because being babied has never been something she enjoyed – unless it was by her parents – but she knows that in reality his help is necessary. The young guard hasn't gone a hundred yards and is already on the verge of collapsing.
Nate brings her straight to Bellamy, dropping her off like Marcus did when she first started school. Bellamy's reaction to Selia being out of bed is a bit more concerned than Miller's, but it comes as no surprise.
"What are you doing out of bed?" he demands as the younger boy leaves. "You shouldn't be out here with the smoke."
"Is everyone okay?" Selia asks, once again ignoring the worry. She glances at Octavia who is just as displeased with her presence and notices the smudges of ash on her cheeks. "Were you in there when it happened?"
"Yeah, but I'm okay," Octavia answers. "You need to go back to bed."
"You know you guys don't have to keep saying it on loop," she mutters, though her tone is good-natured. She appreciates their concern.
"Everyone is fine," Bellamy tells her. "The only thing that got hurt is our food supply."
"If that's all the food –" Selia is interrupted by a viscous cough that claws up her throat. "W-what are we going to do?"
The coughing continues and she barely makes out Bellamy shaking his head. She's suddenly lifted from the ground as he scoops her up into his arms.
"We are not doing anything," he says as he takes her back to the tent.
"I can help," she argues in between wheezy breaths.
"No, you can rest."
"I'm not a child," Selia grumbles as she's gently placed in her bed once more.
To counter her statement, however, Bellamy kneels by the bed and pulls off each of her untied boots. He then proceeds to cover her with the blankets that seemingly duplicated since the last time she was conscious. When he's done, he sits beside her and examines her face for any signs that she's getting worse. Selia can see the exhaustion in his eyes and the dark circles beneath them formed from stress. Mixed in is the pain that she never wanted to see but knew would be inevitable once he learned the truth.
The guard wants to ask what he plans to do about food. She wants to know the battle plan for when the Grounders come. She wants to know about everything she wishes she could help with, but it's obvious that her interrogation will only add to the weight on Bellamy's shoulders. So instead, she searches for a different topic, one that she can focus on before the heaviness in her eyelids wins.
"I was dreaming about the ocean before," she says softly. "It seemed so real, I swear I could feel the mist on my skin."
A small, fond smile forms on Bellamy's face as he knows all about her strange obsession.
"I wasn't scared, I was relaxed," she continues. "Even with the crashing waves, it was so peaceful, but it went on forever. All I could see for miles on end was blue."
"You used to have a million facts about the ocean," Bellamy remembers. "All sorts of statistics."
"I memorized every book," she chuckles before growing serious. "Will you promise me something?"
"Sure," he agrees easily, though his eyes show caution.
"When this is all over with the Grounders and everyone is safe, will you go find it?" Selia pleads. "Will you find it and stand on the beach and find out if it's scary or amazing or both?"
"Sel, when this is over, we'll find it together," Bellamy says, refusing to make any promise that confirms her death.
"Bell," Selia sighs sadly.
"We will," he insists, desperately trying to control the tremble in his voice.
Tell them you love them.
"You'll see the blue and you'll feel the water and you won't be scared because it'll be amazing," he continues as his voice cracks. "As soon as we beat the Grounders, we'll go."
"Bellamy," she tries again, needing to remind him that she'll probably be gone before the Grounders even arrive, but he won't let her.
"You need to get some rest."
He tries to escape the tent so he can reassemble himself, but Selia grabs his hand before he moves out of her reach. She realizes when he turns back to look at her that there are a thousand things she needs to say. A thousand words she can't leave unsaid, but they all hurt too much. They all lead to goodbye and the former couple has shared one too many of those.
This time, emotions get the better of her and tears fill her eyes. The fear bubbles to the surface and her hand falls away from his. The pain in her chest is double as her heart aches more than her lungs. Facing her own mortality is not as simple as she believed and Bellamy's denial of what is really going to happen makes it more real.
"Sel," Bellamy murmurs as he watches her strength wane. He moves back to sit with her and grabs her cold hand.
"We'll go," Selia agrees weakly as the tears spill over. "We'll find it when the sun is the highest in the sky and the water is as warm as it will ever be. We'll get our feet wet and stay for hours."
Tell them the truth.
"But I will be scared because it will be just like a dream and dreams have to end."
"Selia," he whispers, gently wiping her tears away.
"I'm scared, Bell," she admits suddenly. "I don't want to die."
His eyes widen, probably not expecting this rapid shift in her emotions, but he reacts quickly. He pulls her fragile, shaking form into a tight hug, letting his jacket catch the rest of her tears, and holding her together as she falls apart.
…
BOOM!
Selia wakes with a gasp at the sound of a rifle going off and the panicked shouts that follow. Delirious from sleep, she's momentarily surprised that it's now dark around her when the sun was high in the sky when she was last awake. She rubs her eyes until she hears more yelling and then remembers what just happened. She struggles out of bed, getting twisted in the blankets much to her frustration. As quickly as possible – which is not quick at all – she slips her boots on and grabs the handgun hidden underneath the bed.
Selia isn't sure what she expects to find outside, she isn't even sure what she's doing. It couldn't possibly be an attack, there was only one shot. Then again, her head is foggy, there might have been more and she just didn't hear them. Either way, she probably is already rendered useless, even with her gun. The young guard doesn't think she could hold the weapon up if her life or anyone else's depended on it. That's how weak she feels as she stumbles towards the crowd.
When she gets to the back of the group, she realizes that it's Bellamy's angry voice bellowing through camp.
"The Grounders are out there right now, waiting for us to leave and picking us off one by one when we do!"
Selia glances down at her weapon just hanging in her hand. The battle is coming and she should be on the front lines. Unlike the children sent here by force, the young guard has been trained. She could do some serious damage to their attackers if she hadn't taken such a drastic turn. Now, the gun she carries is meaningless. She can't even pull the trigger.
"Clarke, Finn, and Monty are gone, probably dead!"
Bellamy continues, but the rest of his speech has little meaning. Selia stands there gaping at the sudden news of her friends. She was asleep for a while, but how did all three just disappear? Why were they even out of camp?
Fear of a different kind begins to fill her, scratching her lungs even worse than the fluid. She cares about Monty and even Finn despite what he did to Raven, but her main concern is Clarke. Clarke cannot be dead, Selia won't allow that to be a true possibility. The guard is supposed to protect the younger girl, take care of her, but all she's done is sleep away an entire day.
Anger starts to tint her vision, though she can't decide who or where to direct it. She wishes cancer was a person and that she could shoot him between the eyes. Then, she'd be able to run out of camp and find the blonde. She'd keep her promise to Abby from when she was six and everything would be okay. But cancer isn't the person, she is, and soon the anger is all pointed at herself.
Bellamy leaves without noticing Selia and the crowd disperses to do as he said until only Raven, Octavia, and Jasper are left. When they finally turn to go back to work as well, just as hurt by their leader's harshness, they spot the sickly girl.
"Sel," Raven mutters, clearing her throat, and trying to pretend like her eyes aren't glossy with tears. "It's late. You should be sleeping."
"What the hell is he talking about?" Selia demands in response. Sleep still crackles in her voice, making it a strange octave higher than normal, but the urgency is just as evident.
"We sent hunting parties out and they all came back except for Clarke, Finn, and Myles," Octavia explains. "We went searching for them and found Myles injured, he said Grounders took them. Somehow, Monty disappeared during the search, too."
Her head feels like it's underwater, so it takes longer than normal for Octavia's words to sink in and make sense. All she can think is why did the Grounders take Clarke and Finn and leave Myles to die? And why was Monty taken rather than killed? Despite the ever-changing state of her body, Selia's true character stands out, keeping the optimistic – or hard-headed – beliefs she has always maintained.
"So, they're not dead," she concludes. "We should go back out at first light. They wouldn't have taken them for no reason."
"First of all, you're not going anywhere," the mechanic says sternly in spite of how upset she is over the situation. "Secondly, you heard Bellamy. No guns leave camp."
"I'll talk to him."
"And say what?" Octavia questions.
"I don't know, that he's being an idiot," Selia says with half of a shrug.
"I think you should rest," the younger Blake tells her. "We'll try talking to him again when he cools down."
Selia is annoyed, but she doesn't let it show. She's grateful for the concern, but she's getting pretty sick of being told to rest, especially when she's rested all day and woke up to find Clarke missing and most likely in serious danger. She swallows all her biting responses and lets Raven guide her back to their tent before she returns to work that apparently the guard can't help with.
They meet Bellamy coming out of it, a frantic look in his eyes that calms once he spots Selia. Raven pulls the guard past him, shooting him a glare in the process, but it's not enough to keep him from following. He hovers behind the mechanic as she helps the older girl and it's clear he has something he wants to say.
"You heard?" he asks.
"Yeah, you said it pretty loud," Selia grumbles.
"I'm sorry, Sel."
"You're not serious, right? We can't just leave them, we have to find them!"
"Don't you think I want to?" He returns in frustration. "But I have to make the decision that is best for the group. Anyone we send out there will die."
"You don't know that," she argues petulantly.
Bellamy sighs, "Yeah, Sel, I do."
Silence consumes the tent as they stare down each other in disagreement. Raven stands awkwardly to the side, suffering through the tension. This conversation would be much different if Selia wasn't sick. She'd be able to just disregard everything he says and go out on her own. No one could stop her and she'd be strong enough to find Clarke and Finn and Monty and bring them home.
But she is sick and she can barely walk around camp on her own, let alone venture into the woods to search for her friends who were kidnapped by Grounders.
"I have to get back to work," Bellamy murmurs as he comes to the same realization. "Do you need anything?"
Selia shakes her head, her defeated gaze falling to the dirt floor of the tent. They both leave, telling her to get some rest again and she sighs.
Sleep until you're dead, Selia, she thinks.
She is tired, she's always tired, but she doesn't want to sleep anymore. She doesn't care about the pneumonia, she doesn't care about her life slipping away by the hour, she just cares that her friends are missing. The girl who she's seen as her little sister their entire lives, the girl she promised to take care of always, is out there in some perilous situation while Selia sits on her cot, weak and utterly useless.
For a while, she sits there thinking about all the things she can't do, but then anger fills her once more. This is not who she is, Selia Kane isn't going sit around and wait for death. She isn't going to just ignore the fact that people she loves are missing. That's not how she was raised and it's definitely not her.
It takes longer than it should, but soon her boots are tied, her jacket is zipped, and her gun is holstered in its rightful place on her waist with the rest of her weapons belt. The moon is still in the sky, lowering slowly as the night comes to an end, when she sneaks out of camp, careful to avoid the mines Raven and the others are making. Not a soul sees her despite how slow she is, and she doesn't look back until the dropship appears smaller in the distance.
A voice in the back of her head tells her that this is stupid. It says she will never find Clarke, Finn, and Monty. She won't make it more than a mile away. She'll never see Bellamy or Raven or Octavia again. It tells her that she will die tomorrow with a thousand words left unsaid.
But she still can't say goodbye.
"May we meet again," she says instead.
And then she's turns away and begins her search.
…
Night ends as dawn colors the sky. Selia has been tracking someone for the last hour, but she isn't sure who. She desperately tries to focus on any prints or disturbances to the ground, but her body fights her every step of the way. She can't breathe and every time she tries to muffle her coughs, she nearly suffocates. Her head throbs like a second pulse and makes the woods blurry. And she feels so heavy, she's just dragging herself around, swaying about, and depending on trees for support.
It doesn't take long to realize that the voice she ignored was right and it's only confirmed when she is finally forced to take a break because it's possibly one of the biggest mistakes she could make.
Selia senses the movement, but never hears it. Despite her unsteady hands, she reaches for her gun, but she's not fast enough.
The attacker's muscular arm wraps around her from behind in a vice grip, lifting her off the ground while a meaty hand slams against her mouth before she can scream.
And she can't get away.
Hello!
I'm so sorry for another delay on the update, things have just been getting crazier. When it rains, it pours, you know?
I got awesome feedback for the last chapter so thank you so much! I loved it! Also, I'm glad to hear that Clarke's flashback ended up being good!
Okay, so I'm introducing another character who is from the show, but does not come in until way later. You might have already figured out who it is, but if you haven't then you'll find out in the next chapter! I will also explain why I'm introducing this character early in chapter 13 because I don't want to give too much away.
Also, I know you all want to know if there is a cure, but I just can't tell you yet! I'm not ignoring your questions, just avoiding them lol! You'll get all your answers soon!
Please review and let me know what you think!
Thank you so much for reading, favoriting, and following. Special thanks to my lovely reviewers as well!
Hope to hear from you all,
- V :)