Clarke knows this place. She looks around, studying the Cherrywood pews around her, the wreath of white flowers beside the altar at the front of the room. The sad, heavy silence is familiar too.

Glancing to her right, she sees Eddie.

"What are we doing here?" She asks him, voice barely a whisper. He doesn't say anything, doesn't acknowledge her at all. Assuming he didn't hear her, she tries again, raising her voice. "Eddie?"

This time, when he doesn't even blink, she knows something is wrong. The quiet here, it's so still, like everyone in the room is holding their breath.

Someone clears their throat up at the altar. Clarke turns toward it, and her stomach clenches. Bellamy's standing there, in a tux she recognizes, the last thing she saw him wearing. He's a little overdressed, she thinks, but when she glances down at herself she realizes she's wearing the red dress from that night too. His mouth opens slightly, and suddenly she doesn't want to hear this, doesn't want to know why they're here, doesn't want to know who's laying in that glossy wooden box resting behind the mountain of flowers. But she can't move.

And then he speaks.

"Clarke was-" he breaks off, clearing his throat again. "She was…"

His eyes wander, falling on where she now sits in the pew beside Eddie. He doesn't say anything else, doesn't acknowledge her there, just stares like he's looking right through her. Then he reaches inside his jacket, and when his hand emerges, it's wrapped around something black and shiny. Clarke can't really see it that well from here, but she knows what it is. He holds the gun to his temple, and his eyes are burning into hers, she can feel the pain and the anger radiating like a blue flame between them.

She tries to get to her feet, to do something, but she's still frozen to the spot.

"No." She says, and it comes out in a whisper. "No, don't, Bellamy don't-" She turns to Eddie. "Eddie, stop him, you have to do something. Eddie-"

The shot rings out while her head is turned, and she hears the body hit the floor.

When she forces herself to turn back, to see what he's done, he's gone. But there's a picture on the altar now, one of him. She remembers taking it; his glasses perched low on his nose, eyes wide with surprise. She'd taken it on one of the nights when he was reading through his notes on Archer Collins, and he'd done what he always does when she tries to distract him from work - rolled his eyes and gone right back to it. She's never told him this, but that picture was the wallpaper on her phone for weeks after he first left for Toronto.

As she stares at it, the glass breaks, a crack splintering out across the pane like a lick of frost. She can't look away, even though she knows something terrible is coming, even as something dark begins slowly to ooze out of the crack. Blood trickles down the photo, pooling at the bottom of the frame until it spills over onto the altar.

"No." She shakes her head, squeezing her eyes shut, something shattering in her chest. "No, no, no-"

.-.-.-.-.

Gasping, she blinks. The funeral parlous is gone, the concrete walls of her cell have returned. Relief floods her like adrenaline, coursing warmth through her veins as she leans back against the wall, panting. It was just a dream. Bellamy's fine. And then she remembers what Steven has done.

And Clarke can't help but wonder, is he really fine?

Is she?

.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Abby is flying out. She needs to be the one to ID the body because-

Well. Bellamy's not family. He never got the chance.

He needs to respect that, he knows, there's a proper procedure and Abby is Clarke's mother and it's not right that he demand to see her just because he thinks-knows-they've made a mistake. The cops are saying they can't release the details, and the looks they exchange every time he asks makes his stomach turn with dread. There's something he doesn't know, something they won't tell him. He's sure of it.

Still, they're all there, at the hospital, because that's where the morgue is. With a jolt, he realizes this is where all of this started. Not this hospital exactly, but one just like it. That night Clarke reached out to someone who was grieving. Clarke who cared in that pure and tireless way.

And it got her here. Cold and lifeless on a slab of metal somewhere below his feet.

"Lincoln's gonna come."

Bellamy glances over at his sister, having almost forgotten she was there. He keeps expecting her to do something, like cry or scream or grab one of these cops by the lapels and demand some answers. That's just as much her style as his. But he forgets sometimes how much that one year changed her, the one where she bounced in and out of hospitals with the same frequency that she bounced in and out of clubs. There were times he didn't think she was going to make it, and she'd lost more than one friend to the scene. He asked her about it, once, when he was driving her home from one of those funerals.

"A warrior doesn't mourn the dead until the war is over."

That's what she'd said. He was never really sure what it meant, but he can see it in her now, that refusal to give in to the grief, the feeling that someone else is more important.

"Okay," he says, because she probably needs her husband there, and at least there will be someone to take care of her. He can't do it. He can't even hold a thought for longer than a few seconds before it's gone. He can only keep telling himself this is all a mistake for so long before the words lose all their meaning. He needs something solid. He needs proof.

"I'm gonna get some coffee." Eddie stands abruptly, startling Raven. "And food. We all need to eat."

Bellamy has no plans to eat, couldn't stomach anything anyways, but he knows it would be pointless to argue. He just shrugs. When Eddie turns toward the cafeteria, Raven glances at the siblings.

"Go," Bellamy says, a little hoarsely. "I'm fine."

He's not, but.

She nods, hurrying after the blonde. When they're both out of earshot, Octavia speaks again.

"I'm worried about you."

He blinks. It's unlike her to voice something so obvious.

"You're in denial and it's not-it's not healthy, Bell. I know you might need some time to process, but are you sure you want to see her? You don't want to remember her like this." He can feel her eyes on the side of his face, can picture her expression perfectly without having to see it.

"I'm not in denial, O. It's not her. I can feel it. I know that-look I know how it sounds, okay?" He can't meet her eyes, can't stand to see the pity there. "She's still out there," he whispers. "I still need to find her."

Octavia doesn't say anything after that.

.-.-.-.-.-.

"You've been found."

Clarke's head jerks up, and she gapes at Steven. He's not saying-

"Oh," he takes in her shocked expression with irritation. "No, not you. They found the body, dredged it from the river."

"Right." The hope that had been so foolishly building dissolves. Behind her eyes, the scene from her nightmare plays out again. She keeps seeing it.

They'll test the body, especially if he's...well, Clarke doesn't want to think about the specifics of what Steven might have done to disguise the body in the river as hers, but if there's no face to ID, they'll test it. She knows that.

Vaguely, she wonders how much time it will buy them. Not much. A few days, probably, maybe a week. The labs for these kinds of things are always slow, and her mother has no pull out here in California to call in favors. So for a week, that's her laying in the morgue.

Steven hasn't demanded much of her so far, but she imagines that will only last so long. At some point he'll want more than cooperation, and Clarke has yet to come up with any plan short of rushing him the second he comes in the doo. She knows the idea is a bad one, probably ends with a knife in her side, so she's been conservative. But she's starting to think she'd rather die trying to get out of here than live indefinitely, caged like an animal, at the whim of someone completely deranged.

One day soon the cost of a failed escape won't seem so high to her. So for now, she waits.

.-.-.-.-.

It takes Abby twelve hours. The flight itself is short, just 3 hours along the coast, but getting something so last minute is-

Well, a surprising amount of people aren't willing to give up their seat so a mother can ID her daughter's corpse, apparently.

She arrives like a lightning storm, all manic energy and swirling brown hair, and Bellamy gets it, he does, why people are so afraid of Dr. Abigail Griffin. Marcus Kane is there too, the man Clarke has begun referring to as "not-not my stepfather". Abby knows hospitals. She runs one. She has the information she needs within fifteen minutes of arriving, minus the more sensitive, confidential details. When she strides up to Bellamy, an almost permanent looking shock in her eyes, he half expects her to slap him.

Instead, she draws him into a bone crushing hug.

He returns it, if only because he feels responsible for all of this, but it burns a little in his guilt, like a sinner plunging their arms into a vat of holy water.

When she pulls away, he can't bring himself to tell her what he knows. He can't put that burden on her, the excruciating hope.

"I'm so-" he chokes on it a little. "I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault," she says. And through all the holes in the woman in front of him, he can tell that she means that.

A cop approaches them, one Bellamy recognizes from when they first got here.

"You're Mrs. Griffin?" He asks. Abby nods, though Bellamy knows she has a habit of correcting anyone who doesn't refer to her as Doctor. "Are you ready?" Again, she just nods. Her hand, he notices, holds fast to Kane's.

Bellamy itches to follow them when they trail behind the cop as he leads them to the elevator. But he wasn't invited, and he won't push. He suspects the elder Griffin is brittle in this moment, one false move and she'll shatter like glass. As the metal doors close behind them, all he can think of is the tape, of Steven Kolberg carrying an unconscious Clarke from her room.

Bellamy's never been a bloodthirsty man. But suddenly he finds himself thinking that once this is over, Kolberg's not going to make it to prison.

.-.-.-.-.

Steven lets her wash. There's no shower, but he gives her two timed minutes in the bathroom with some soap and a wash cloth, and Clarke gets a little of herself back when she's finished. She rinses her mouth with soap, wincing at the bitterness of it. Her face stares back from the mirror when she straightens up, and it's like looking at a shadow of herself. Purple drags deep beneath her eyes from the exhaustion, she's almost sickly pale, and it's only been a few days. There's a carelessness behind her eyes that unnerves her, like an omen of the complete surrender that's to come.

Clarke's never been one to give up before, but she can still feel the tugging in her mind, like a loose thread threatening to unravel. When Steven yells that her time is up, and she hears the metallic rasp of the doorknob being turned, she shakes her head.

She's getting out of here. And if she dies trying, she's taking him with her.

.-.-.-.-.-.

When Bellamy sees Abby emerge from the elevator, he shoots to his feet.

And then he sees her face.

It's pale, tinged green, eyes shuttered like there's nothing but a hollow space behind them. Even Kane looks lost, though he's holding her steady as she stumbles down the hallway.

Obviously alarmed, Raven jumps to her feet, rushing over to them. Beside him, Octavia slowly turns her head, gauging his reaction.

He walks toward them, wary. As he draws closer, his body tenses. Everything about Abby is screaming "it's her, it's Clarke".

"Abby-" She looks up at him. "Is-"

"Her-" she clears her throat, straightening. For a moment, she resembles the woman she was before any of this happened. "They think it's her. But her…her face is gone."

He just stares.

"Her-" His own voice is gravel at this point, the blood draining from his head. "What do you-"

Kane shakes his head, a warning. He needs to back off.

"Can I see her?"

Abby blinks.

"I…I don't care, Bellamy." She's almost translucent, the way she's fading away as all of it sinks in. Kane frowns.

"Son, are you sure you want to? It's-you don't want to remember her like that."

He jerks his head, half shrug, half dismissal.

"I have to," he says. And that Kane seems to understand. Bellamy peers over his shoulder, spotting the cop who'd taken Abby and Kane down to the morgue. He makes his way over, numbly aware of the way his muscles are coiled so tensely that it's difficult to walk. "I want to see her," he mutters again. The words are wrong; he doesn't want to see this, whoever it is.

But he needs to know.

The cop glances back at Abby, who just nods vacantly, then shrugs.

"Okay. But I have to warn you, it's pretty bad."

"I've heard." He can't picture it, but-

Soon he won't have to.

"Alright." The cop waves over a dark haired man in a white coat and leads Bellamy to the elevator, pressing the button for B2. The ride is silent, Bellamy's stomach rolling, his arms shaking. He sees her face, that smile in the elevator, the laughter in her eyes. With a sick jolt, he realizes that will all be gone. Her smile, the curve of her cheeks, the birthmark above her lips.

It's not her, he reminds himself.

The ding pulls him out of his head, back to the elevator as the doors open. He follows the uniform in front of him, they take a sharp right and then there's a frosted glass door in front of him that says Morgue. He can't feel his fingers, is relieved when the doctor swipes a pass and reaches for the handle. There are three tables, two with white sheets draped over distinctly human shapes. It's cold, but he knows the goosebumps aren't really from that.

They stop in front of the first shape, the sheet rising unsubtly where he imagines her chest is.

"We haven't done an autopsy yet, so she's, uh, she's still wearing what we found her in."

He nods.

"I don't know what her mother told you but she looks…quite shocking. Her face has been removed." The doctor speaks with a clinical detachment, something Clarke had never been very good at, Bellamy knows. It's one of the reasons she struggled so much in her residency.

"They told me," he replies, lips numb from the cold.

The doctor glances at him once more, reading him, Bellamy supposes. Then the sheet is gone, and he can't breathe.

It's-

They were right. It's the dress. That's the first thing he sees, and it hits him with all the force of a baseball bat to the stomach.

And then he sees her face.

Or lack of it, really, the red and white sheets of muscle over bone, yellow streaks of fat running under the place where her cheeks were. And beside it, so innocuous next to the horror of her exposed jaw, a single turquoise drop hangs from her ear.

He spins on his heel, vomiting into the shallow metal sink beside the table. The other men in the room avert their eyes, for the sake of discretion, probably, and wait until he's done.

Even when there's nothing left, his stomach heave. Eventually it seems to subside, though the nausea stays. Slowly, fearfully, he turns back toward the body.

The voice in the back of his head persists; it's not her, but for the first time, he pushes it away.

And then he notices her arm.

The doctor has begun to lift the sheet back up, to cover her.

"Wait." Bellamy holds out his hand, and the doctor freezes. Gingerly, Bellamy steps forward, leaning down to look more closely at the pale arm, at the perfectly smooth spot on her forearm just beyond the bump of her wrist bone. "There's no…" he straightens up, turning to the doctor. "There's no scar here. Clarke has a scar on her arm from when she cut herself with a palette knife."

The other men exchange a look.

"Son, I know this is difficult," the cop takes a step towards him and Bellamy shakes his head.

"No, you're not listening to me." He snaps. "This isn't her. Clarke has a scar right there, I used to tell her it was exactly the shape of the Corona Borealis. This isn't her."

This time the doctor frowns, leaning in toward the body.

"You're sure it wasn't the other arm?" He asks, as though Bellamy doesn't have every inch of Clarke memorized.

"I'm sure," Bellamy says roughly. He glances at the other arm, just to appease the doctor. "But there's nothing here either, anyway." The man leans in, studying both arms, then looks back up at him.

"You realize what you're saying," he says slowly, like he thinks Bellamy might just be the type to get a kick out of giving a grieving mother false hope.

"It's not her," Bellamy repeats, and this time it feels heavier on his lips, this time it comes with another question. "It's not Clarke."

.-.-.-.-.

"Who do you think will speak at your funeral?" Steven asks from where he leans against the door, arms folded casually across his chest. He must feel big, like this, completely in control.

Clarke looks up, meets his eyes.

"I don't know," she says. "My friends, probably." She's thinking of Raven, but won't say her name. She doesn't want to give Steven any more information than he already has. "Maybe my old boss."

"You don't seem very concerned," he points out. She resists the urge to sink her nails into his eyes and grits her teeth.

"What does it matter?" She wonders. "I'm dead. What do I care who speaks at my funeral?"

He raises an eyebrow.

"And that doesn't bother you?"

"What," she frowns. "-being dead?"

He nods.

"Would it bother you?" Her words have more of an edge to them than she'd intended, coloring the question as a threat. She needs to be more subtle than that, but as the days go on her patience is waning. He grins.

"Would you speak at my funeral?"

She eyes him carefully, face neutral.

"If it were up to me, you'd be thrown in a hole and left for the animals."

His face changes, tightens. When his leg swings out, she doesn't see it coming.

Later, she rubs gingerly at her waist, feeling the slight crackling sensation as she takes a deep breath.

The broken ribs are worth it, though.

She's done cooperating.

.-.-.-.-.-.

"You're-are you sure?"

People keep asking him that, and he wants to shout Yes, yes I'm sure, I know every inch of Clarke's skin like the back of my hand. I've kissed that scar a hundred times. I'm sure!

But this time it's Abby, so he just nods.

"I'm positive."

She sinks into Marcus beside her, sagging against him as her face crumples. If possible, she looks even more wrecked than she did fifteen minutes ago, when she thought her daughter was dead.

Now-

It's possible. It's possible Clarke is alive. Bellamy knows that this body being someone else doesn't grant any guarantees.

"Then who is that?" Abby asks suddenly, almost to herself. "And-where's Clarke?"

And isn't that the question.

.-.-.-.

"I've tried every iteration of Maya's name, combined with Steven's, there's no property here that's registered to them, nothing within a hundred miles."

Bellamy pinches the bridge of his nose, exhaling.

"Alright, so, what about Clarke, or-" He stumbles as he paces, shoulder crashing into the wall of the hotel room. "Shit," he grumbles, rubbing at it as pain sears through his arm.

"You need to sleep." Eddie says. Bellamy grunts in disagreement, taken by surprised. He's been waiting for someone to say that, but-he'd expected it to be one of the girls.

He's napped, for an hour here or there, usually by accident, but he hasn't really slept since Clarke was taken. The double vision started a day ago, and he can't really feel his extremities anymore. Eddie's probably right, but Bellamy just-he can't. He can't sleep knowing she's out there, wondering if she's hurt, if she's alive, what Kolberg is doing to her.

"I'm serious, we're not going to get anywhere with you like this. We need your brain, man."

Bellamy moves to interrupt him, but Eddie holds up a hand.

"I'll wake you up if anything changes. Even if it's something small. I promise."

He wants to refuse, but he also knows his friend is right.

"Anythi-" he begins, and Octavia grabs him by the shoulder, guiding him to the bed.

"Bell, we'll wake you up. Just get a little sleep."

The second his head hits the pillow he does.

Later, he'll think that he should have expected the nightmares.

.-.-.-.-.-

The first time she opened her mouth against him, Clarke didn't realize she was flipping a switch in her captor. Once the violence starts, it doesn't stop. She's not a guest here anymore, not even in Steven's deranged mind.

Act like a prisoner, he tells her, and you'll be treated like one.

She's broken his heart, he tells her that too, when he finally comes back after the first time he kicked her in the stomach, leaving her winded and gasping in a ball on the floor.

"You did this, you know. You could've just-" He inhales sharply. "But you didn't. I tried to give you time, to let you come around, and you're not trying!" The back of his hand connects with her cheekbone, sending spots of light dancing across her vision. The temptation to beg, to apologize, surfaces again. But she won't. If Steven is finished pretending, so is she.

She can take it. And if she can't-

Then at least it's over.

"You're sick," she groans, over the ringing in her ears. "You need professional help."

He shakes his head.

"The professionals, I saw them, and they can't help me. But you could have, you could have helped, we could have gotten through this-" He shakes his head. "This isn't my fault."

He's losing his grip with reality, she can see it. The careful control is gone, replaced with something far worse, unraveling mania.

"I couldn't." It's her turn to shake her head. "I was never that kind of doctor and I'm-I'm not a doctor anymore anyways. I can't help you."

He laughs.

"You can't help anyone, can you Clarke?" All the mirth drains from his face, leaving pure disgust behind. Whatever pedestal he'd had her on before, it's clearly gone now. "You couldn't help Maya."

She winces. Sociopath or not, it's a low blow.

"I'm sorry about Maya." She says painfully. "I'm so-"

But his old lover's name on her lips seems to be too much for him. With a scream of rage, his fist comes down on her temple, and with it, instant blackness.