A/N: Thanks for all my new follows and reviews! I still don't own The 100

As per usual, special thanks to AvengerGirl17, strangeJenny, PenguinofProse and Cherrypinkrose for all their various forms of aid at various different stages of this chapter's developement.

Enjoy the Blake siblings! And readers, no Echo-hate please, this show is not about that.

Chapter Five

When Bellamy made the abrupt decision to leave he hadn't said a word to Echo. She followed him, practically jogging to keep up with his much longer stride. She'd never seen him in such a volatile state, so letting him go alone seemed like a bad idea even though she hadn't necessarily been invited.

The drive to Octavia's was silent. The jeep came to a stop, and he shifted into park. She studied him - the tense set of his shoulders as he took in a long bracing breath. She wanted to comfort him, but before she could say a word he was stomping to the front door and barging in without bothering to knock. Echo followed slowly, waving an awkward hello to Lincoln and Octavia where they sat on the couch in the dimly lit living room and had obviously been waiting. Lincoln flicked off the TV, plunging the room into semi darkness before he switched on a lamp.

Bellamy began to pace, running a shaky hand through his dark hair before sinking down onto the couch. Echo watched as his body curled in on itself, elbows braced on his knees and shoulders slightly hunched as if he was trying to protect himself. "I saw Clarke."

The silence was deafening. Octavia didn't move, didn't say a word.

"You knew," Bellamy's head snapped up, his lip drawing back in a feral snarl.

"I did."

Echo was amazed at Octavia's calm concern, her love and worry for her brother shining in her eyes.

His laugh was mirthless and bitterly sharp, "I guess I did get under her skin."

"Did you really think she wouldn't be nervous being in a room with you for the first time in six years?" Octavia scoffed. "She's not a corpse! She has feelings."

"I never would have known by the way she was acting." The harshness of his voice made Echo wince. This was a whole new side to Bellamy - the usually mild mannered high school teacher who loved ancient mythology and smiled easily was gone. She had never seen him so emotional.

"How did you expect her to act?" Octavia raged back. "You know how good she is at hiding her emotions!"

Bellamy's fist landed against his thigh with a harsh thwack, and Echo seemed to be the only one startled by the angry outburst. "I haven't known her in six years."

"What do you expect me to say to that Bell? I can't tell you she's the same, but some things will never change about Clarke." Octavia's chin rose in defiance, her voice belying the angry spark in her expressive eyes. Lincoln's hand on hers seemed to be the only thing keeping her in her seat.

"Why isn't she in the army anymore?" Bellamy asked suddenly, calm for the first time in over an hour. "That was her purpose, her one connection to her father."

A shadow darkened Octavia's gaze. "She was honorably discharged."

"Why?" Bellamy demanded, his anger returning.

"You should ask Clarke."

"I can't and you know that," he returned hotly.

"No I don't," Octavia huffed, "You know where she is. Ask her."

"And if she doesn't tell me?" There was so much uncertainty and sadness in that one statement. Echo could almost feel it. She knew he wouldn't show it, but she could tell by the twitch in his hands that he was afraid. He was afraid of Clarke's rejection.

"That's her choice, isn't it?"

"Stop being stubborn." Bellamy's glare darkened impossibly.

"Pot, meet kettle." Octavia threw up her hands. "My stubbornness is because I won't tell someone else's secrets. Yours has just made you miserable for six years."

"How is this my fault now? You're the one who kept Clarke secret all these years." Bellamy was on his feet, unable to sit still any longer. To anyone other than his sister he would have been pretty intimidating.

"It was only a secret because nobody ever bothered to ask. I never once lied to you to keep Clarke a secret."

Bellamy scoffed. "I don't believe you."

Octavia rolled her eyes. "That's your problem, not mine. I spent three years waiting for you to bring her up Bell, to forgive her or move on or break down, anything would have been better than ignoring it and shutting it away. I was waiting, hoping, sometimes even praying that you would just get over it but you didn't. Now that she's here, that you've seen her, you expect me to tell you everything. What are you looking for here, an excuse? Guilt? Do you even know?"

Bellamy started pacing. "I want to know why no one told me!"

"You didn't ask," Octavia shot back, tired of his outbursts.

"You should have told me anyway!" Both hands carded through his curls, coming to rest at the back of his neck.

"You wouldn't even stay in a room when someone brought her up." Octavia shot to her feet. "How was I supposed to tell you? Be honest Bellamy, you were waiting for her to apologize first!"

"You don't know what she said to me!" Bellamy whirled violently, coming toe to toe with his sister.

"I'm sure you gave as good as you got, and I'm three years and a lot of drama past caring." Octavia didn't back down. She was tired of his pig headedness. "If you think Clarke hasn't paid the price ten times over, you need to think again."

"And we're back to this. You didn't tell me then, you won't tell me now. How am I supposed to move past this knowing nothing?" He was pacing again.

"You're supposed to trust that the parts of Clarke we love are still there. If you can't do that then you just need to learn how to be in a room with her from time to time because I'm not barring her from my home to suit you." Octavia crossed her arms stubbornly.

"I trusted her more than anyone! That's not something that can just be recovered with no explanation."

"But you didn't even try!"

"Broken trust needs an explanation."

"What about Clarke's broken trust?" Octavia said shaking her finger at him. "Her family blamed her and cast her away because of the actions of the person she was in love with. And you, her best friend, didn't even question it. You took Raven's word - the person who hasn't had a kind word to say about Clarke in six years. You think you were the only one with a broken heart?"

"She could've contacted me."

"I call bullshit. You know she overthinks things like this. What was that inside joke…? The head and the heart?"

Bellamy physically jolted, bringing a bittersweet quirk to Octavia's lips as her barb hit its mark.

"I would bet my life that she picked up her phone more than once and talked herself out of calling you," she continued, "I know I did the same when we weren't talking. Do you even know what it would have done to her if you hadn't answered? Hadn't called back? On top of everything else."

"What's everything O? Stop dodging around it."

"I know you," she said with a stubborn shake of her head, "anything I say will make you feel guilty. Clarke doesn't need your guilty conscience, she struggles enough with her own."

"What about what I need O?" Bellamy's hand met his chest with a thump. "You only seem worried about Clarke."

"Because I was there when she was at her worst! You were not because you never let yourself need anyone!" Octavia accused.

"I needed her!"

His angry shout made Echo jump. She couldn't help but wonder if he'd ever feel this strongly about her.

"Not as much as she needed you! But I was the Blake she got…and Lincoln and Roan, and then thank goodness she found Madi."

"Then you should have told me!"

"You think I didn't want to?!" Octavia laughed harshly, almost hysterically, running a hand through her own hair. "I picked up the phone so many times to do just that, but to have you show up when she was in that state…out of guilt, would have killed her. Seeing her like that would have killed you too."

"You still should've told me. You don't know what she means to me."

His use of the present tense wasn't lost on Echo, and a glance at Lincoln told her he hadn't missed it either. She could feel her own shoulders getting heavy. This whole thing was wearing her out.

"We all knew!" Octavia's voice rose higher. "How could anyone with eyes not know?! But hell Bellamy, you didn't even know what was happening in our own family back then. How was I supposed to tell you out of the blue that Clarke needed you when you wouldn't even speak to me about her?"

"You're my sister. If you'd pushed, I would have listened."

"You could have asked. You knew Lincoln would be able to find her, admit it. It was easier to be stubborn and wall yourself off."

"What else was I supposed to do when she just disappeared?" Bellamy asked, his voice almost pleading.

"You tried to call her?" Octavia's eyes widened with the realisation, the fight leaving her in a rush.

"She didn't answer," Bellamy grit out, hurt written all over his face, "I didn't leave a message."

"She was overseas."

"That's not an excuse!"

"She was deployed, Big Brother," Octavia replied, her tone soft yet reproachful. "Her people abandoned her and cast her away, so she ran away. She didn't know how else to cope."

Octavia watched him for a moment, taking a deep breath. "She isn't your brave princess anymore Bell."

Bellamy dropped heavily back onto the couch, his face falling into his hands.

Echo wondered how that one sentence had held so much meaning to him that the fight seemed to have disappeared from Bellamy. The silence that followed was too loud as Octavia tentatively returned to her place beside Lincoln, waiting.

Finally he looked up again. "Clarke not being brave isn't Clarke." The tone in his voice was heartbreaking.

"That's not quite true." All eyes swung to Lincoln as the usually quiet man spoke up. "She's still brave," he went on, just as calm now as he had been when this had started, reminding Echo that Lincoln had known the Blake siblings for eight years, and probably seen many more of these arguments. "It's just a different kind of bravery." Lincoln met Bellamy's eyes, sorrow heavy in his aura. "She used to be fearlessly brave, but life was determined to break her. Eventually it succeeded."

Bellamy looked back to Octavia. "What happened? I need to know," he pleaded.

"I can't tell you what happened when they were on tour," Octavia shook her head apologetically. "Legally speaking I'm not even supposed to know most of what Lincoln has told me."

A frustrated hand went back through his curls and Lincoln took pity on him.

"I was deployed with her," Lincoln started, completely steady. "It was supposed to be for twelve months. I was back within seven, Clarke was back in nine. But even before I was sent home, she had earned a reputation."

Echo didn't like where this was going, and the colour leaving Bellamy's face revealed he was of a similar mind.

"She seemed to be able to walk away from everything, sometimes even without a scratch." Lincoln went on. "Those around her weren't always as lucky, me included. She watched a lot of people die Bellamy, more than some career military see in a lifetime. The local extremists somehow noticed this and gave her a moniker, starting to target our teams more than usual in some superstitious attempt to kill her. It wasn't pretty. No one would be okay after that, not even Clarke."

"What did they call her?" Bellamy's voice was clearly shaky.

"Translated it was the Commander of Death."

Something akin to a sob came out of Bellamy's throat and he bowed his head as he fought off his reaction.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, waiting, until Octavia got restless and stood. "I need a drink," she announced and marched out of the room.

Echo flicked a sidelong glance at Bellamy before murmuring that she'd get them all drinks and following Octavia into the kitchen. There she found the other woman staring blankly into the fridge, shadows clouding her usually vibrant green eyes. Echo cleared her throat and Octavia glanced over before reaching into the fridge and pulling out a few beers.

Movement when something was on their mind must have been a Blake trait, because Octavia shuffled through a drawer for a bottle opener that ended up being the first thing in said drawer, then proceeded to fiddle with each of the four bottles before she opened them. Echo had always observed that Bellamy tended to be a man of action, but the last few days had really brought the tics and motions that helped him mask his more volatile emotions to her attention. Movements that she had only seen occasionally when he was under a great deal of stress.

"If I know my brother at all he probably won't sleep much tonight." Octavia startled her out of her thoughts, as she handed over one of the beers. "You might as well both stay here," the younger woman went on. "And if you have questions, you should just ask. I doubt Bell will offer anything up voluntarily."

"Why do you say that?" Hurt put a tinge of sharpness into Echo's words.

"It's nothing on your relationship, but my brother has just never been very good at depending on people. Talking about his troubles falls under dependency." Octavia started picking at the sticker on her beer bottle. "Half of our issues stem from that fact. The more I didn't need to depend on him anymore, the harder it was for him to adjust to just being my brother and not my parent."

"And Clarke somehow changed that?" Echo couldn't stop herself from asking.

"They shared their demons and she took a weight off his shoulders no one really noticed was there until it was gone." Octavia glanced back in the direction of the silent living room. "It's back now, he just carries it differently."

Echo paused, wondering how to word her question so that she didn't sound insecure. "Do I need to be worried about Clarke?" There was simply no other way to put it.

Octavia's eyes shot to hers, brows raised sky high.

The silence grew uncomfortable before Octavia responded.

"Look, I can't give you assurances one way or the other, and it isn't my place to somehow end up in the middle of your relationship or any troubles that may or may not arise." Octavia's chin moved into that stubborn tilt she often wore, her words fierce and leaving no room for arguments. "I've always been a selfish person and I'll admit that it took seeing my brother lose Clarke for me to realise how selfish I was. Clarke and Bellamy connected on some level that I don't think either had with anyone else before or since. But none of us could ever really figure out for sure if they were more than friends. One second you would be convinced one of them was in love with the other and the next they were so obviously just platonic that it was baffling."

Octavia took a moment to collect her thoughts, sipping at her beer. "At the end of the day, whatever was there in the past, there's six years of distance between them," she met Echo's eyes. "The only solid advice I can give you, is that if Bellamy decides to try to patch things up with Clarke, you can't discourage him, because even when he was mad at her he could never just sit by and listen to people speak negatively about her. I know what Clarke's been through, and there are things in her past that will wreck Bellamy if he learns about them. He may think otherwise, but I worry about how he'll handle everything just as much as I worry about Clarke."

Echo nodded, not really sure how to absorb this advice.

A phone buzzed and Octavia pulled hers out, a faint softening around her eyes and mouth when she read the text. "Just like that." She made a motion with her phone before quickly typing a reply. "'Is he okay?' She just assumed he'd come here."

Echo's stomach dropped but before anything else could be said, Bellamy and Lincoln wondered into the kitchen and Octavia shoved her phone back into her pocket looking as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.

The two remaining beers were handed to the men and Octavia took her place pressed in to Lincoln's side, studying her brother. "I've already suggested that the two of you stay here tonight if you want?" she offered to her brother. "We can put something on and all fall asleep in front of the telly."

Bellamy glanced at Echo for her thoughts, and she could read in his eyes that he wanted to stay so she could only agree with a sigh.

"Great, we'll find something. You guys join us at your own pace." Octavia pushed Lincoln out of the room.

"I'm sorry about tonight," Bellamy apologised, not meeting her eyes. "It didn't turn out the way I was expecting."

"It's fine," Echo hesitated for a second before adding, "but I think we may need to sit down and talk about all this."

His eyes flicked up to hers and something that looked frighteningly like panic shot through his gaze before he locked it away and let out a drained sigh. "Please just not tonight?" he requested.

Echo nodded, and they made their way back into the living area.

A/N: Thanks for reading. Please leave a review.