Chapter Thirty Six

Bellamy

There she is. Clarke.

She's a bit older than the last time I saw her. Her golden hair is still beautiful in great long locks. But her face is thinner, her bone structure is more sound. Each line on her face shows me another thing she had to go through without me. Her body is stronger, a bit thinner than before because she probably has been eating nothing but radioactive cockroaches since we left her.

Since I left her.

But there she is.

She is standing right in front of me. I feel like crying, grabbing her, holding her and never letting go for the rest of my life. But then I notice something strange, something different about her. She is tilting over on her own body. She is holding onto her stomach, leaning as if her stomach is hurting. I take a step closer to her but she puts her hand out toward me. The free hand. And when she does, it comes away from her side with blood dripping from her finger tips. Her other hand remains on her stomach, putting some pressure on it. I can almost see her effort.

I attempt to get closer to her.

She puts her hand out again, almost as if warming me away. But then she coughs, chokes and holds onto her own stomach. She steps away from me, like she's stumbling.

"What is it? Clarke, what's wrong?" I beg.

She doesn't answer. It's like she can't. She stumbles backwards again, coughs on some blood and then spits it up. She spits some blood out, choking on it. She puts her hand back to her stomach so now both of them are pressing down on her abdomen.

Blood seeps through her fingers and drips down her hands onto the ground. The grass. There is grass. I look up for the first time and see a beautiful clear blue sky with white puffy clouds. I love to look up and see sky instead of an endless pit of darkness. There are trees around us, brush and bushes. The greenery almost makes me smile. Then I see the red blood pooling around Clarke's feet.

"Let me help you!" I shout. "I can help you!"

I run over to her, grabbing her body and wrapping my arms around her. She lets me because she does not have the strength to push me away. She starts to fall, her knees bending and giving out. I grab her as she collapses onto the ground with me holding her weight. I guide her to the ground with my arms around her fearful body.

"Come on, Clarke," I say. "Just let me help you."

But I am panicking too. I don't know how to stop the bleeding. I do not know how to get her help. She is always the one that handles these sorts of things so how am I supposed to fix her?

"Clarke," I whisper.

"It's okay," she says to me. There is a smile on her face.

When she moves her arm away from the wound, her guts are falling out of her abdomen. I can see her intestines. Her stomach is falling out. Blood and pink flesh are falling out of the skin that is no longer in tact. But Clarke is looking only at me. She is afraid, shaking even in my own arms. But she is looking at me.

"Bellamy," she says. "I would rather it happen this way."

"What are you talking about?" I demand. "Come on, Clarke. Just keep talking. We'll get you some help."

I don't know where help may come from. I don't know if there is help coming at all. I can't even remember who else I was with or how I found Clarke here. Of course I would have been with her. But who else would I have been with? Where are they? Maybe I sent some other people out to get help for her. Why don't I remember?

"I want it to happen this way. At least this way, I get to say goodbye," she says with a smile.

"What?" I demand. "Don't do that. Please don't do that. Don't go anywhere. Don't leave me. I still need you around. Everyone still needs you around."

"I'm done, Bell. It's okay. I would rather say goodbye than feeling nothing at all. Goodbye, Bellamy. It has been an honor knowing you. And it is an honor dying in the arms of a man that I love. At least now, I am the furthest from alone that a person could be," she says.

Her eyes close.

But mine open.

I sit straight up when I realize where I am. Echo is laying beside me in a tight tank top. She turns back over to her side, facing away from me. I sit at the edge of the bed and put my hands in my hair. I push my sweaty hair aside. If I had her here with me, she and I would hold each other until the terror went away and the morning came. We would walk outside and start thinking up strategies to deal with Ice nation or a way to get us all off of the ground. Or maybe one of the thousand ways we needed to save the bunker. I can remember it all happening. It would distract us from that pain that we felt in our dreams.

Here, there is no distraction. There is only pain. But worse than any of that. Here, there is no Clarke.

"Bell?" I hear.

I turn around to see Echo sitting at the edge of the bed. She puts her arm around my shoulders and kisses my cheek. I don't care. I don't even look at her. I look down at the ground and breathe heavily. I know she is only trying to help.

"What was it this time, Bellamy?" she asks in a sad tone.

"Nothing," I say.

Her dark eyes are sad but also concerned. She tilts her head to the side and holds out her hand. I don't take it. I just shake my head, warning her that I really want to be alone on this one. If I agree to have her give me comfort, it's like I'm betraying Clarke. I'm ignoring everything that she ever did for me and I'm allowing someone else to give it to me as if it were the same. But it is not the same.

No one could ever be Clarke.

"Was it Clarke?" she asks.

I nod.

"Leaving her was the right choice. It saved us all. She saved us all, Bellamy. You know that is exactly what she would have wanted you to do. One day you'll have to stop beating yourself up over it," she says.

"Echo, I like you," I say. "I like being with you and I trust you. I know you're right. But right now, I can't think about anything else. She died for me. I was supposed to be with her."

"What?" she asks.

"I was supposed to be with Clarke the moment she died. I should have been with her," I say.

"Bellamy," she says, putting her hand to my arm. I pull away. I do not want her touch. Her touch feels odd and strange. Her body is close to mine but too close. She is trustworthy. She is just not the person that I want her to be.

"I need to be alone, Echo," I say.

She nods and gives me a small smile. She leans over and kisses my cheek, keeping her hand on the side of my face for a long moment before pulling away.

"It's alright, Bellamy," she says. "I understand."

"Thank you," I mutter.

Just as she is leaving, I get out a piece of paper and my pencil. I feel tears welling up that I have not felt in a long time. I used to get so angry and upset at crying. But this time, I don't. I just let it happen. I let myself feel the real terror of her passing. She must have felt so alone and abandoned. She deserved so much better.

I write it down. I write it all down. I write down everything that I have ever felt and everything I think I will feel.

At the end of it all, I don't feel any better for sending Echo away. But at least, I am alone.

At least now, I can be alone with Clarke.

All night I sit in the same place, talking to her. I hope to god that she hears me. I really need her to hear me.

"And Clarke…I have said I'm sorry a thousand times. I don't want to say that anymore. I want to say that I love you and I wish you were here."