a/n Hello and welcome to a dose of S7 speculation meets S4 AU! Massive thanks to Stormkpr for being the most awesome and tireless and enthusiastic beta. Happy reading!
Bellamy doesn't need some magic green fog to show him his deepest desire or his greatest regret.
He doesn't need this damn stone thing to teach him about his mistakes, his emotional baggage, or the things he could have done differently. He knows where he went wrong, and he knows where he'd be now if he'd gone right. And most of all, he knows when he went wrong, can pinpoint the exact day that his world fell apart and his hopes crashed and burned to cinders.
Bellamy doesn't need some magic green fog to show him his deepest desire or his greatest regret.
But it seems the anomaly has decided to do just that, anyway.
…...
He's not surprised to see the death wave when he steps into the anomaly. What else was he going to see? It is obvious that this day encapsulates both his deepest desire and his greatest regret. He can read the desire in his eyes when he looks at Clarke, when he brushes her hair back from her sweat-soaked forehead. And he can certainly see the regret when he witnesses himself gazing longingly at the door of the lab while Raven tells him to get in the rocket.
But then he starts seeing things he does not expect to see. Because he knows how this bit of the story goes. He knows that he climbs into the rocket, with one last, longing look at the door, and then he leaves her to burn.
He knows that this is how the scene plays out. He knows, because he was there.
Only this time, that's not what happens.
He does not watch himself board the rocket. Instead, he sees himself stay at the foot of the ladder, and tell Raven to go without him. And then he sees himself walk away from the rocket, watches it take off behind his younger self. And then he watches while that Bellamy of days gone by walks to the door and waits for Clarke.
He doesn't get it. He just doesn't understand. That is not how Praimfaya goes. He knows, because he was there.
And then the world is burning, and he isn't anywhere.
…...
When he comes round again, he's looking into the death wave once more. He's looking into Clarke's eyes, too – or rather, he's looking at himself looking into Clarke's eyes as they share those precious words about heads and hearts yet again.
He knows there's something going on here. He's still in the anomaly, he is sure of it. And he's not surprised that the anomaly is showing him Praimfaya, but he's surprised that the anomaly is showing him Praimfaya yet again.
He leans back on his heels, hands on his hips in his favourite defensive stance and watches his former self waste his last opportunity to say goodbye.
It's his last opportunity to say a few other things, too, of course. He spent six years in space wondering what would have happened if he'd just gone ahead and told her how he felt in that moment.
He brushes that thought aside, and narrows his eyes at the scene before him. Clarke is touching a hand to his heart, now, and then she'll raise her fingers to his face and any moment he'll tell her -
"I've got you for that."
He almost cries hearing himself say it, yet again. Only this time, the words are not followed by an explosion and Raven's sparky frustration.
No, they are followed by something much more frightening than that.
"But I'm just saying, Bellamy, if ever you don't -"
"That's not happening, Clarke. It's not even an option." The younger Bellamy bites out. "You know there's no way I'd leave here without you."
She is silent for a second, and for a panicked moment Bellamy wonders if she has noticed him lurking on the edge of the room.
"Bellamy." She murmurs, reaching out to his youthful face again – and this time without an excuse. "You might not have a choice."
"I'd make one. I'd find a way." He seems frantic as he tries to reassure her. "You're too important to me."
Clarke gives a damp smile at that, her hand still resting on his cheek.
Only then it never matters, because Raven shouts that the rocket is about ready, and they get on their way in good time.
And the older Bellamy, the bearded, regretful one, watches them go and is consumed by flames.
…...
The anomaly spits him out in front of the death wave once more. He's more or less expecting it by now, and hardly bats an eyelid.
Only then he takes in the scene before him, and finds his gaze narrowing in disbelief.
He's not here. His younger self is simply not here. There's Clarke – he spots her right away, of course – and there's Raven. Monty and Harper, Murphy and Emori. Echo, white-painted and stunning.
But no sign at all of Bellamy.
"Go on, Clarke." Raven is saying. "We got this. Go call him and say goodbye."
"No." Clarke looks wretched as she shakes her head. "It's OK, I'm needed here. And there's no point, anyway. He won't want to speak to me."
Bellamy finds that hard to believe. He's pretty sure he'd always want to speak to Clarke, is positive that there isn't a single radio call he'd willingly miss from her.
There are certainly 2199 he'd rather have received.
"Clarke." Raven sounds annoyed. "You're being ridiculous. He's Bellamy. So you had an argument? He's still going to want to say goodbye to you before you spend five years in space."
"He doesn't want to say goodbye. He didn't say goodbye when we left Polis." Clarke sounds small, and he doesn't like it. He doesn't think it suits her at all.
Raven frowns. "If nothing else, you need to go call Abby and say goodbye. And – promise me you'll at least send Bellamy a message while you're at it?"
Clarke nods, once, and leaves the room.
Bellamy knows that he has options, here. He could go and experiment a bit, find out if they can see him or speak to him. He could look for clues as to what is going on here, and try to work out why the anomaly thinks he needs to relive quite so many Praimfayas. He could maybe even muck in and do something helpful, and see if he can increase the chances of his friends getting off the ground in good time.
But he doesn't do any of those things. He sits, heavy and shaking, on a stool. He wonders how it can be possible that there is a universe in which his abandonment of Clarke is worse than in the universe he has come from.
He sits and shakes until the world burns about his ears.
…...
Bellamy gives a resigned sigh, as he comes round and sees the horizon burning orange yet again. He's sure there must be a reason why he's seeing all this, besides the fact that fate has a grudge against him. This cannot only be an exercise in drowning him in guilt and regret.
OK, maybe it can only be an exercise in drowning him in guilt and regret.
Because this Praimfaya is the worst of all.
There is only Raven, alone and deserted, and the fire that consumes her even as she screams for mercy.
…...
That shakes some sense into him. A very tiny bit of sense, at least. When he next resurfaces from the abyss, and looks at the glowing sky, and takes in the sight of his friends, he reaches a decision.
He marches up to Clarke, and speaks.
"Clarke. Hey." It seems a simple enough place to start.
She looks straight through him, as she carries on a conversation with younger Bellamy about water recyclers.
"Clarke." He tries again. "Hello, me here. Bellamy. Your old friend from the future."
She walks straight through him, then, as she wanders over to play with something on the screen.
At least this gives him more information to work with, he supposes. He is clearly not here to do anything, if he cannot actually interact with his environment. He is not here to save the day, or rescue his friends from the flames.
He is evidently here to observe.
Clarke would be proud of him for working that out, he likes to think. She'd applaud him for using his head to think about the situation rationally, rather than charging in and trying to make things better for the people he loves. She'd be proud of him for not just rushing to carry her single-handed out of here.
He stands by and observes this particular death-wave-day. It seems a bit more straightforward than some of them. Monty and Murphy bring the oxygen scrubber back safely and in good time, and then he watches as the more youthful model of himself dashes out of the door with Clarke.
He is anxious as he waits for them to return, although he doesn't know why. Whether they make it back or not appears to make no difference to him, based on the way his previous Praimfayas have turned out. But when they do at last make it back through the doors in time he breathes a sigh of relief.
Then he sees that their hands are clasped, and he gasps in shock. He chokes a little, caught by surprise mid-sigh. They look – they look like fools. Holding hands in a hazmat suit with those bulky rubber gloves on is silly. And to waste time with hand-holding when they should surely have been running for their lives is, he reckons, stupid beyond belief.
But they also look happy, and that's the thought that stays with him as he watches the world burn once more.
…...
He starts to lose count, after that. There's the one where Echo goes to the tower – he tries not to think about that one too hard. He's in a relationship with Echo, in his world. He loves her. Yet somehow, when he sees this younger, angrier Echo running into danger to save this younger, calmer Clarke and younger, happier Bellamy, he feels nothing but relief.
That's wrong. He knows it's wrong. He stands in a corner and headbutts the wall, until his girlfriend doesn't come back, and the woman he loves does make it into space, and his younger, luckier self is by her side.
There is a similar theme to the next episode, where he is the one who runs to the tower, and this time it is Clarke who stands at the foot of the steps, tears tracking down her cheeks as she refuses to move without him.
But then Raven says the magic words. She tells Clarke that it's what he would have wanted, and he cannot blame her for it.
She's right.
So this time, Clarke gets on a rocket and leaves him to burn.
…...
The hardest one of all is the one where she's pregnant.
There. He's said it. There is no hiding from anything, with the anomaly.
He doesn't know how many months away the baby is. He doesn't know what she plans to call it, nor does he know anything about the circumstances of the conception.
But he knows it's his child. It's pretty damn obvious, as he watches his younger self trail around after her fussing and dropping gentle kisses on her cheek and being all-round pathetic.
OK, yeah. He's jealous.
There. He's said it. He's jealous of himself, and of the happiness he could have had with Clarke if he hadn't screwed up so many thousands of times in so many thousands of ways. He's struck by the thought that, if he's seeing this, she must have wanted it too, once upon a time.
He wonders, with that, if maybe he's beginning to get there. Maybe he's beginning to understand why this anomaly is so obsessed with showing him things he already thought he knew.
Maybe, as the flames lick at his heels, he might find a way to rise from the ashes.
…...
When the sky glows orange this time, he knows it's the last. He can't explain how he knows that – perhaps it's something to do with the conclusion that's creeping into his mind, the explanation hovering on the edge of his hearing.
He perches on a stool, and he watches.
This is familiar, this world. There's the stroking of the sweat-soaked forehead, the sparks in the rocket. ALIE on the Ark, and a message to deliver.
He follows them outside, and there, too, the scene plays out as expected. Murphy returning, Monty left behind.
He watches himself turn to Clarke one last time, hears her whisper "hurry" into the breeze.
His eyes follow her until she is out of sight, and then he heads back into the lab. He watches Raven fiddle with the oxygen scrubber, watches Emori load the rations into the rocket. One by one, his friends board the rocket, including a visibly reluctant Echo.
Only the younger Bellamy does not take his place. He stands at the foot of the steps, just as Bellamy remembers doing all those years ago. But this time he does not stand idle, anxious gaze fixed on the door. This time, he watches himself fill an oxygen tank for her, then stand ready to intercept her on her return.
"What are you doing, Bellamy?" Raven asks. "Get in the rocket."
"I can't." He says, surprisingly calm. "I have to help her change her oxygen tank before we take off. Otherwise she won't have enough air."
"Bellamy -"
"Don't say it, Raven. Don't you dare say she's not coming back. I've filled her an oxygen tank, because she's coming back. And then we're going to space, and I'm going to finally get the guts to tell her what I should have told her twenty minutes ago."
Raven snorts at that. "You'd better do that, Blake. God knows it's taken you long enough."
And then Clarke is there, bursting through the doors, panting with the exertion of it. Bellamy watches himself try to calm her down, encouraging her to take deep breaths and not waste air as he helps her swap out her oxygen tank.
And then they climb into the rocket together, and close the door, and fly to space.
And Bellamy can't hear it, of course, but he's pretty sure there's an I love you to be said along the way.
The world still burns. That's what the Earth does, it seems. But this time, Bellamy rises.
…...
The anomaly lets him go, then. It has played with him long enough.
Bellamy didn't need some magic green fog to show him his deepest desire, or his greatest regret. But the anomaly decided to do just that, anyway. And he's heartily glad of it, now, as he crouches on the forest floor just outside Sanctum and waits for the ground to stop spinning beneath him.
He didn't need that damn stone thing to teach him about his mistakes, his emotional baggage, or the things he could have done differently. But it seems he did need the anomaly to show him that his greatest regret can be overcome, and his deepest desire is not so unobtainable. He gets it, now. The universe wanted him to know that his connection with Clarke did not die when he left her for dead.
However many lifetimes lie between them, they are still better together.
a/n Thanks for reading!