Polls are in! So in reference to any deaths of named characters from the show, there will not be any warning! So please take this message as a blanket warning for the whole story. Just like the show, death can come at any time!
Thanks to everyone who left a lovely comment, I'm still working on getting back to all of you. I appreciate your comments so much so I want to try and give everyone a personal thank you when they leave a review (:
Lastly, do not be fooled by the length of this chapter! I know all of the chapters so far have been relatively even in length because as a writer and as a reader I like things being relatively uniform. Unfortunately in writing this story, the starting chapters all averaged around 5k words, but from next chapter onwards they're all going to be 10k. So I know it's short! I'm sorry, but don't worry. Big rewards and big reading next week!
Lincoln hadn't been able to find much food. A pair of skinny rabbits that wouldn't have survived the winter, and some roots he'd dug up to make tea to soothe the throats of the sick. Most of the larger animals had migrated from the area. His people often followed them, Lincoln had explained, though when he'd joined Indra's regiment he'd left his nomadic lifestyle for the sedentary one that many warrior clans used. They liked to stay and defend their territory year-round, compared to the more peaceful, smaller clans that moved with the food.
Bellamy had trouble staying positive for his people. Over the next two days at least five more people moved into the sick hut. Everyone was thin and hungry. They all eyed each other at any odd sound, afraid it was a cough or sneeze or some symptom of the flu.
Bellamy was overwhelmed assuring people that he was close to sealing a deal with the Commander. That couldn't have been further from the truth. He and Clarke were struggling to come up with anything. They'd spent their days helping Abby and Kane with the sick, trying to determine how to make their food supplies last longer, and their nights were spent wracking their brains for anything they could give Lexa to let them into the mountain.
Lincoln had gone to the border and assured them that it was heavily guarded. Not even he could make it in and out undetected.
Clarke had ridden out to meet with Lexa again, the day after Bellamy had gone. She'd returned with the same news. Lexa refused their gift of the mountain—it was already hers—but it could be theirs as well if Clarke and Bellamy married her. Clarke had even tried to offer the mountain, and Clarke herself as a bride, without Bellamy, but Lexa had refused. It was both of them or nothing.
They couldn't understand why she was so determined for them to agree to her proposal. Bellamy could barely comprehend the idea of marrying someone you didn't love. He suggested that Lexa was probably insulting them—she'd abandoned their people in their time of need, and if they married her she was going to become their ruler. Clarke explained that Lexa wasn't petty like that, but Bellamy didn't believe anyone could be that emotionless. If he knew anything about people, especially people with power, it was that they loved to show off that power.
Clarke couldn't see any answers either, though. More people meant more mouths to feed, which was dangerous with the upcoming winter. Maybe Lexa's clan was migratory and wouldn't be around all winter, or maybe they had enough food stored that they weren't worried about a few hundred more mouths to feed.
In any case, neither of them could see what Lexa gained from the marriage that she wouldn't get from what Clarke and Bellamy could just offer to her. Which meant there was no way for them to change her mind.
The early hours of Bellamy's day, or the latest hours of his nights—it was hard to tell the difference anymore, it was always cold and varying stages of dark— were spent with Octavia. She was getting worse, and spent most of her time asleep. He had a chair beside her bed so he could keep an eye on her, and watch her shivering form while she sweated and coughed. She'd always been a still sleeper, from years of sleeping in a confined space, and so it was strange to see her so agitated in her sleep. One night Bellamy was so tired he crawled onto her cot with her, and held her as her teeth chattered and her legs tangled up in her blankets while she kicked.
Abby had woken him up when one of the patients started loudly complaining about the two of them sharing a bed. Bellamy always forgot that some people didn't know he and Octavia were siblings, or just flat out refused to believe they were related. He and his sister got a lot of strange looks nowadays, or complimented on their happy relationship and asked how long they'd been together. It created a lot more confusion when Lincoln was with them. More than one person had accused Octavia of dating two people at once.
"Delusional," Abby whispered in explanation, "he doesn't know what's going on around him."
Bellamy got up anyways, stretching out his sore back. Octavia didn't wake up, and her breathing was ragged and shallow. He hoped she'd slept better with him around, that maybe he'd helped her in some small way.
"How are things going with the Commander?" Abby asked.
Bellamy put on the same optimistic face he wore for everyone these days, "We'll have negotiations settled soon. The medicine is coming."
"Okay," Abby nodded. She looked like she wanted to argue with him, but then a middle-aged woman leaned over her cot and puked on the ground. Bellamy busied himself helping Abby clean up and ran to get something the woman could be sick into. At least they had nausea tablets to give people.
In the medical bay, Clarke and Jackson were busy treating people with hypothermia symptoms, or frostnip or frostbite. More and more people were getting injured every day from the cold, and more of those people quickly became ill. It was a bad cycle that Bellamy couldn't find the answer to make it stop.
That was a lie. There was an answer, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.
Clarke had been willing to do it. The thought that she'd been so willing to throw her happiness, her entire life even, away for her people made Bellamy feel ashamed. He loved his people, but he wouldn't do that for them. He probably wouldn't have even pulled the lever in Mt Weather if his sister hadn't been in danger. For all the times that everyone said he was a good leader, he only had to look at Clarke to know that wasn't entirely true. He'd do whatever he could for his people, but only if it didn't put his sister in danger.
Clarke and Bellamy had agreed to keep Lexa's proposal between the two of them, even hidden from Abby and Kane. The two Chancellors knew that Bellamy and Clarke had practically overthrown them, and it was a huge sign of their trust that they didn't fight. They trusted that Clarke and Bellamy knew what they were doing, and that they wouldn't let their people down. The two of them always came up with some way to save the day.
Even with this agreement between them, Bellamy had secretly hoped Octavia would be awake enough for him to talk to her. She was the only person he trusted to understand him, and to have insights on Lexa that he and Clarke might be missing. Monty, who was also getting increasingly worse, informed Bellamy that Octavia spent most of her time asleep and was often too tired to carry on any sort of conversation. The sick hut was too crowded as it was to have any sort of a private conversation, anyways.
Kane had mentioned to Bellamy his thoughts about potentially building a second sick hut to make more room for all the people falling ill. There weren't enough beds as it was, and some people were sharing and others were just curled up on the floor. More people were going to die if Bellamy couldn't think of something, and his brain kept going back to Lexa's proposal and freezing.
For now he had Raven and Wick working on a way to stabilize more segments of the Arc, or at least to have them safe enough to be heated and lived in. If his people had warm shelter, it would mean a better chance at surviving winter. He hadn't commented on the fact that Raven kept having to pause and blow her nose, or that Wick was looking paler than usual.
The third day after their last meeting with Lexa, a week after the initial proposal, Bellamy skipped breakfast and went to the sick hut. He'd done this for the last two days, and was preparing to make this his routine until his sister got better. He and Clarke were exhausted with nights of coming up with nothing.
There was shouting coming from the tent—it was usually loud with coughing or retching, but not with shouting. Bellamy broke into a run and burst inside. Abby and Lincoln were over Octavia's bed, and Abby was shouting orders. Monty was saying something, Bellamy couldn't hear him because he was so focused on his sister.
"What's going on?" Bellamy almost tripped on someone laying on the floor as he raced to Octavia's side.
They had Octavia on her side, one arm stretched out so her hand hung off the end of her bed, and the other tucked under her chin. She'd been sick on herself, and on her bed. She wasn't awake and Lincoln was wiping away vomit from her mouth.
"What happened to her?" Bellamy demanded.
"She started puking," Monty said. Abby was checking her pulse, and put an ear near Octavia's face to listen to her breathing. Bellamy's hands were shaking. He wanted to fight something, or scare someone into making his sister better, but there was nothing anyone could do unless they had medicine.
"She hasn't woken up in at least twelve hours," Abby said grimly, "but she's still breathing. She may be in a coma, or just exhausted and dehydrated."
"Is she going to be okay?" Bellamy asked. Lincoln was watching Abby intently as well, stroking Octavia's greasy, sweaty hair. Her braids were coming apart again. Bellamy wanted her to wake up so she could tell him what she wanted this time.
Abby nodded slowly, "The vomiting was only dangerous because she wasn't awake and she almost choked herself to death. Once Monty alerted us, we got her into the recovery position, and now she should be okay if she's sick again. But the fact that she didn't wake up concerns me. How long has she been sick?" Abby glanced up at Lincoln and Bellamy, "a week now?"
Bellamy nodded. His mouth felt dry.
Abby pondered this information without saying a word.
"Once she wakes up, we'll get some fluids in her. That should keep her going," she finally said, "and if Monty here doesn't mind keeping an eye on her."
"I'm not leaving," Bellamy informed Abby, "I'll watch her."
"No," Abby said sharply, "you have to finish things with the Commander first. I'm sure Lincoln won't mind taking watch for you."
"I will stay here," Lincoln informed both of them. He didn't take his eyes off Octavia once.
"Bellamy," Abby called, and waved for him to follow her outside of the hut. Bellamy's head felt light, and he couldn't tear his eyes away from his sisters pale face. He'd never seen her so sick. Her cheeks were hollow, and she was so thin his mind rang alarm bells every time he looked at her.
Abby pulled Bellamy aside where no one inside could hear them talking.
"Bellamy," Abby said, and she was using a motherly tone—not a soft one, but one that allowed no arguments, "I don't know what you and Clarke are doing, but if you don't get medicine to us soon, your sister is going to die."
Dun dun dunn! Let me know your thoughts! What's going to happen? What are people thinking? Is Octavia going to make it? See you next Saturday for chapter 6!