1. Left Behind
Everything is chaos. Red lights and noisy alerts in the monitoring equipment of the lab, raven yelling orders at everyone, Murphy and Harper rushing to get Monty into the rocket. Everything seems to be moving at three times the normal speed around him, but all Bellamy Blake is able to do is stare at the lab's entrance, silently willing the doors to open and let her small figure in.
"Bellamy! Time to go!" Murphy shouts angrily at him "Raven! Get this damn thing off the ground, he's gonna get us all killed!"
He feels a pang of guilt at that and takes a step closer to the ship, looking back at the timer counting down the seconds until the radiation wave hits the lab, until it hits her. It's true, he's about to get all his friends killed, but he simply can't get his feet to move one in front of the other to hop into the rocket, not without Clarke, he physically can't leave her behind. They're already past their window of time before the radiation starts affecting the rocket's avionics, he knows he they have to leave, but if they could just wait one more minute. He knows she's gonna make it back.
"Bellamy get in here!" Raven shouts this time.
"We need to wait for her," he says, his voice cracking mid-sentence.
He looks up at his friend, already strapped in her seat in the rocket, everything ready for launch, and suddenly there is this bubbling anger rising from his chest, at himself, at Raven, at this stupid planet that can't keep its shit together for them to be at peace for any length of time, let alone be happy.
"You sent her!" he can't stop himself from shouting at Raven "I was supposed to go with her! She wasn't supposed to do it alone!"
"There's no time!"
He closes his eyes for a split second. He can see Clarke, pleading for him to hurry back to her before they parted ways, him on his way to bring Monty back, her towards the tower. He can see her, hopeful in front of the computer, making calculations on their supplies, talking about how they'll survive, and he can't bear the thought of leaving without her.
"I can't leave her behind!" his voice shakes, his entire being is shaking as the alarms blast his ears, red lights flashing on the huge screen to his right more insistently than ever.
"We know, Bellamy. But if we don't leave now…" Raven leaves the sentence incomplete and looks at him with pleading eyes.
Bellamy looks back at the door then at the projections on the screen, showing the radiation wave getting dangerously close to the lab, which makes the warnings on the rocket's control system even louder.
"Damn it, Bellamy!" Raven shouts, jumping out of her seat, trying to reach for him.
Bellamy moves away almost instinctively. Raven glares at him, about to jump out of the rocket to drag him in by sheer force, and he looks right back into her eyes, somehow knowing that there is nothing to say because, even if he's never said it out loud, everybody knows it. He belongs with Clarke. There is just no way in hell he'd leave her to face the end of the world alone, even if it means they'll both perish together.
"You won't make it…" Raven whispers, in awe of his determination.
He knows. Of course, he knows they won't make it. He can almost hear Clarke in his mind, telling him about his big heart, about how much he needs to use his brain too if he wants to survive. Everyone would say it is an impossible choice, everyone except him, because, for Bellamy Blake, there just is no choice in the matter, he just has to get to her.
"Take care of everyone," Bellamy tells Raven, and there is no changing his mind as he disconnects his oxygen pack and throws it towards their friends. "May we meet again."
"What are you doing?" Monty says in surprise as Raven catches his oxygen.
"Go!" Bellamy shouts at them, already running towards the lab's exit. "You'll have a better chance with that, I'm getting to Clark."
"You'll get yourself killed!" Murphy yells.
"We can't wait for you!" Harper adds.
"GO!" he shouts over his shoulders, louder this time.
"Damn it, Bellamy, get your ass back here!" Raven begs one last time.
But he doesn't, and the clock keeps ticking, the warnings flashing at them as he runs away from his friends. Raven has to bite back a sob as she closes the hatch, ready to leave her friends behind.
"May we meet again" she whispers quietly, as she coaxes the rocket into life with the push of some buttons, and the countdown for launch starts as Bellamy runs outside.
Bellamy's heart is racing when he gets out of Becca's lab. He can see it, getting closer with every second that passes, a fiery wave of death advancing towards him. Praimfaya. He can feel his own heartbeat drumming in his ears. He's had his own fair share of near-death experiences, but nothing has ever seemed so final as this one, so utterly unstoppable.
At least he'll get to see her before their fiery deaths. That will have to be enough.
The sound of the rocket taking off at his back shakes him to the core, but he keeps running anyway, away from the lab, in search of Clarke. It is getting unbearably hot, he can feel it through his suit. Hell has been unleashed on earth, radiation levels are too high, so much so, that he starts to feel his lungs burn as his eyes water, fighting to stay open as he frantically looks for her.
Out of Bellamy's sight, Clarke falls hard on her back from the tower just a couple of minutes after she sees the rocket take off. She has been stabbed, bunt and starved on the ground; she's felt the pain of hundreds of deaths, many of them by her own hand, many of them her own fault. She is no stranger to pain, but the kind of pain she feels in that moment, as she watches her friends take off, that is a whole new kind of pain.
It takes her a whole minute to get back on her feet. It's actually over. After all that fighting and bearing the weight of the world on her own shoulders so that her people don't have to, after all the pain and losses, it is all over. But it isn't, not really. She is still alive, fear boiling inside her. She thinks of her friends as she jumps back to her feet, and starts running right when the death wave is about to catch up. They must be up in space right now, starting to freak out about their oxygen supply, fighting to stay alive, and that is exactly what she is going to do on the ground.
The earth is on fire. There is nothing else she can think about, nothing else she can feel. It is scalding hot, she can feel the heat through the tough material of her suit, she can feel the stickiness of her feet on the ground with every step. Is it so hot that her soles are melting?
By now, Bellamy's run has turned into a strange form of crawling and he can barely see a few feet in front of him. He doesn't really know if the blurriness in his vision is caused by the sting of the radiation or the fact that he can barely get any air inside his lungs. The grim realization that he can't keep going any longer, that he won't find her in time, hits him hard and suddenly, making a rush of raw pain spread through his body like poison. He stayed behind for her, and not even that will be enough. His survival instinct seems to have run out the window when he allows himself to rest his back for a moment against a huge rock. He's breathing heavy, tears welling up in his eyes, and, as he coughs out, some blood splashes onto the front of his helmet. The wind is so loud, it's so hot. He's stumbling on his steps now, aimlessly trying to keep walking. Is he still going towards the tower, trying to find Clarke? Or is he trying to get back to the lab? His mind is foggier than ever and he can feel his body starting to give up on him.
Clarke sees him a minute before he does. She's not even had time to be confused about this human figure clearly fighting to stay on his feet even though the impossibly strong winds keep pushing him around. It takes her a full minute to get closer to him, and even then, she can't believe her own eyes when she really sees him. But there is no time to be relieved that he is alive, or scared to death because he is in such danger. She has to get him out of these woods, so she runs, reaching him right on time to break his fall.
"Clarke" he breathes out right before he coughs again, blood splattering out of his mouth, splashing on the inside on his helmet.
"Bellamy!" she can't believe her eyes, but there is no time for questions or surprise.
"You're alive," he says, relieved, but the winds are too loud for Clarke to hear.
"I've got you. We need to get inside!"
Bellamy does his best to run with her, but he eventually collapses again. Clarke quickly realizes that he isn't strong enough to get to the lab on his own. It isn't easy, but she manages to shake him into a half-conscious state and gets her own body under his, supporting most of his weight as she rushes them towards the lab.
"We're almost there…" she breathes out, dragging him with her, stumbling as fast as she can towards the lab.
Then, it happens. Clarke doesn't know if it was a rock shifting under their combined weight, or the sheer intensity of the winds that pushed them forward. She doesn't have time to question it anyway, because suddenly all there is is the pain. Her piercing screams barely register as she desperately tries to cover the crack on her helmet. She feels it before she can see the hole. Burning. Her skin is burning with a sort of intensity she's never experienced before, and as she breathes in, that feeling extends towards her insides. Her mouth, her throat. Everything is on fire.
"Bellamy!" she screams through the pain, shaking him violently. "We need to get inside."
Trying to fight another violent fit of coughing, Bellamy does his best to get back on his feet. He is completely horrified by the sight of her face, bright red blisters on her skin, bursting open and leaving behind a scary amount of exposed flesh.
We need to get inside is the only thought in his mind as he pushes himself back on his two feet, looking straight at the lab's door. It is so close... He's stayed behind for this, to get to her. He won't let this be their end. Clarke screams in pain when he grabs her by the arms, the burns probably having also reached her right shoulder and arm, but he doesn't stop. Her pain is so sharp as he drags her towards the lab, that he can hear her screaming even over the fury of the winds, but he won't even try to pick her up, he knows they won't be able to make it that way. It's hell, and the woods around him are burning, they're surrounded by a thick cloud of smoke, and he's about to give up, but they make it.
His whole body screams at him in pain when he lifts Clarke up to type the security passcode to open the door, and her hand shakes in obvious pain as she does, but eventually, she gets it right, and the airlock is decompressed, and they make it past the door, closing it behind them just as they see the fire engulfing the green patch of foliage around the lab.
The door is sealed behind them, and they stumble down the stairs together, until they're finally lying on the floor, in the middle of the main level of Becca's lab.
Clean oxygen fills Clarke's lungs as she breathes heavily in and out, blessing Becca's oxygen scrubbers for the clean supply of oxygen she's getting. For a second, she rejoices in the pleasure of breathing normal air again, but as soon as her heart rate starts to fall back into normal levels, the adrenaline rush that allowed her to make it inside the lab starts to dwindle and suddenly the pain from the burns is almost too much to bear. She sees dark spots around the edges of her field of vision, and she's feeling like she's about to pass out from the pain. The tricky part is that it is not only her skin. The air must have been so hot that every single breath she took after her helmet cracked has burned her tissue. It's on her lips, inside her mouth, all the way into her airway. She desperately takes off her helmet and suit, trying to assess the damage. The helmet cracked on the right side of her face, so that is what hurts the most, but it doesn't end there. Her skin is burnt all the way down her neck, towards her right shoulder and down her arm.
"What the hell are you doing here, Bellamy?" it's a whisper, because she's a mess, and she can't manage more.
For the first few seconds he doesn't reply, she just assumes she's so badly injured that her words are no longer comprehensible. He's dropped to the floor right next to her, so she reaches for him, shaking his body, trying to get a reply out of him.
"Bellamy!" she tries louder this time, but he doesn't reply, he doesn't move.
With great effort, Clarke pushes her body up to check on him. He's definitely unconscious, she acknowledges as she takes off his helmet. She grows frantic, her hands fluttering over his body trying to find an injury, there has to be one, with so much blood all over him. But there's no injury for her to patch up.
"Damn it, Bellamy!" she curses loudly, and her throat burns again, she has to spit out the blood, probably from bursting some blisters on the back of her mouth. "Gross" she whispers to herself, making a disgusted face at the taste of burnt flesh.
He does have a pulse, she finds when she checks his neck, but he's flaming hot. She checks his suit for holes, and there it is. There's no point in dwelling on how it got there, but she can see a clear tear on the back of his suit, right where the seal between his helmet and the rest of the suit should pressurize. She feels tears starting to well up in her eyes, but she slaps them away, biting back the curse word as she bursts another blister on her cheek. Bellamy remains unconscious on the floor, no matter how violently she shakes him.
"Think, Clarke" she whispers to herself, pushing her thoughts through the pain of the burns.
She can't concentrate for long, though, because he starts shaking violently, and suddenly he's seizing. She scrambles to push him on his side, holding his head carefully, to avoid any further injuries. She bites back the tears as she counts the seconds. It's been a little over two minutes before he goes limp again.
"You're ok, you're ok, you're ok" Clarke repeats over and over again, in such a small voice that it doesn't even hurt.
She's surprised when his eyes flutter open very soon after the seizure stops. She even tells herself that she's imagining things when his lips curve into what looks like the faintest of smiles.
"You're ok" she repeats as she cups his face between her hands.
"Clarke…" his voice is rough and small, she can feel the pain in it, but he's alive, and they're together. "Your face…"
"Don't worry about it", she shrugs it off, and she's about to say something else, but he starts coughing again.
It's a lot, and she gets more and more worried as she helps him to his side just in time for him to cough out more blood onto the white floor, and before another second passes, he's sick, and he's hurling all over the floor. Clarke is right by his side, her uninjured hand on his flaming hot forehead, trying to keep his brown locks away from his face.
There's a loud crash outside, and the lights inside the lab flicker. She's racking her brain for an answer. He was perfectly fine less than an hour before when they parted ways, and now he's fucking dying in front of her.
"You'll be ok…" she repeats, like a mantra.
"I don't think so," he breathes out before another wave of nausea takes over. "Not all of us are enhanced to live through a nuclear apocalypse" he half-jokes.
As he speaks, Clarke realizes that, if radiation levels are so high that they've wrecked Bellamy's system this quickly, then probably her mom's nightblood serum actually worked, because she doesn't seem to be having any of these symptoms herself, and she's been exposed as well. He's right, all they need is that enhancement, and they'll be able to survive. So she has her answer.
"Wait for me here" she whispers in his ear.
"Not going anywhere…" she hears him complain between coughs as she runs towards the back of the room, where her mother stored the remaining doses of her last test batch of nightblood serum, the one she had injected herself with.
She's back at Bellamy's side with the serum in no time. He looks up at her and he's about to say something right before another seizure takes over.
"Damn it, Bellamy. You're not gonna die on me, ok?" she curses as she holds him on his side, one hand on his shoulder, another one cupping his face, trying to keep his neck straight for the minute and a half that the second seizure lasts.
She spits out blood to the side again when he relaxes. She must have burst another blister back there. Apparently, she'll have to keep quiet if she wants those to heal properly. And she will, but now is not the time…
"What was that?" he breathes out, looking at her through bloodshot eyes.
"Seizure" she mutters. "It's the second one in like 20 minutes. I'd appreciate it if you stopped making it this hard to save your life."
"How are you going to do that?" he asks, confused.
"Here..." she says simply, preparing the syringe.
"Is that…?"
"It's my mom's nightblood serum."
Too much speaking, Clark thinks to herself when she feels the rusty taste of fresh blood in her mouth again. She curses under her breath as she spits out another splatter of dark black blood.
"What's wrong?" Bellamy asks weakly, looking at the stain on the floor.
"Burns" she whispers and then she adds "It hurts to talk".
"Then don't…"
She gives him a small smile, and she's ready with the syringe. She takes his arm with her bad hand and uses the good one to inject the serum slowly into his bloodstream. It's one dose, it's supposed to be all it takes, and now all there is to do is wait.
Finally, Clarke breathes out, utterly spent, and puts the syringe away, falling back onto the wall to her right, seriously needing some support after such a close brush with death.
"Come here" she gestures with her hand "I don't want you to puke again and aspirate your own vomit," she said in a slightly joking tone.
"That would be one very lame way to die after surviving the end of the world…"
His small laugh fills the room as he half-crawls towards her, still too weak to move more gracefully. Clarke uses mostly her good arm to manoeuvre his head onto her lap, helping him to lie on his side using her as his own personal pillow.
"Are we? Surviving the end of the world?" he asks, allowing some vulnerability to reach his eyes with that question.
"We better be…"
"Good… because it would have sucked to miss my ride to space only to die a horrible death down here." He pauses for a second, "Do you think they made it?"
"I got the power on…" Clarke whispers.
"You're a hero, Princess" he smiles up at her.
Even the small smile that curves her lips at that hurts, so she winces in pain but shakes the feeling away, mindlessly pushing Bellamy's sticky curls away from his forehead. He's still running a fever, she realizes as she touches him, but then again, the serum has only been injected a moment ago. She'll start to worry later if there are no signs of him being able to metabolize the radiation without dying in the process.
"This is gross…" he gestures to the pool of vomit and blood they're partially laying on, but none of them moves, they're too tired and in too much pain to do anything.
"I've seen worse…" Clake shrugs it off.
For a while, all they can hear is the world crumbling above them outside the lab. Clarke rests one hand on Bellamy's chest while her other hand draws small circles on his forehead, all the while telling herself that she needs to monitor his heartbeat and his temperature and ignoring the fact that there are about a hundred more efficient tools around them to do so. Her eyes remain closed as she holds him. Although she looks relaxed, a pained expression seems to have taken permanent residence on her face, but she's alive and whole, and that's all that matters to Bellamy as he looks up at her.
"Are you in a lot of pain?" he asks concerned with the nasty aspect of those burns in her face.
"Yes," she admits looking down to meet his eyes.
"Can I do anything to help?"
"Yes," she whispers. "Please don't die."
Bellamy chuckles at that and relaxes onto her touch.
"On it…" he whispers softly before he starts drifting away.
Clarke is looking at him as his eyelids get heavier, and she lets the hand that is resting on his forehead run down on the side of his face. Bellamy hums in approval and she lets out the tiniest of laughs as he leans into her hand, his eyes already closed as he slowly drifts into sleep.
"You'll be fine" she promises "Just rest, I've got you."
At those words, she can feel him relax completely into her and, all of a sudden, he's gone. As her head falls back against the wall and she closes her eyes for a moment, she finally starts to question why the hell he's with her instead of safe in space with the rest of their friends. But then she looks at him again, peacefully sleeping, and the realization that he's the one person she'd choose to survive the end of the world with washes over her. She wouldn't have it any other way.