Chapter Six: Fragile
In the silence, when everyone else sleeps, Bellamy lies awake. He concentrates on the metal walls that encapsulate him like a prison. They are all so fragile and finite. It's hard to imagine what the future holds. Clarke hasn't reported back since she had been caught in a trap. There is nothing but silence.
He sits up on a sigh, catching his shadow from across the room. His hair is a mess, more mad scientist than tame. He hadn't taken care of himself properly since they arrived. He's never been good at that. There's a knock on his door and he wondered if that's Monty, if he's ready to get started.
Bellamy clears his throat, "Come in."
Raven steps inside then and he sits up a little straighter.
"I figured you wouldn't be sleeping. Monty told me." She says it calmly...with sympathy?
Bellamy's heart is racing, "Told you what?" He isn't focused and aware enough for this conversation.
"About Clarke. She hasn't reported back yet?" Raven asks and he breathes a small sigh of relief.
"No, she hasn't." Is all Bellamy can manage.
"You know Clarke. She's resourceful."
Bellamy nods, "Yeah…she is."
She's looking at him like she wants to say something. It's an awkward few minutes of silence. He runs his fingers through his hair to tame the tangles there.
"I think we should put it to a vote. It shouldn't be me that just decides this. Everyone should vote whether we use an O2 tank to repair the antenna. What do you think?" She asks him and crosses her arms.
Bellamy tries to force a smile and she cringes a little at his effort. "Thank you, Raven."
She nods and taps the wall with the palm of her hand as she leaves. She stops in the doorway and turns on her heel to him again. "Harper is good with cutting hair."
"It's that bad?" He asks and she smiles at him with a shrug before finally leaving. He turns back to the silent radio and says, "You better be okay."
Bellamy sits with the six others at the cold metal table. He hadn't talked to many of them since they arrived here and they all look at him with a nervous energy, except Murphy and emori. They looked exceptionally bored but he would guess that's just their factory setting.
Raven stands up from the table and says, "You know why you're here. So, all in favor of this?"
Bellamy expected it. The lack of hands in his favor. He raises his hand against his chest resolute and the only other person that does is Monty. No one else. Echo looks quietly confused. Harper sat with her head pointed down towards the floor.
Murphy speaks up, "We tried it once already. It was a bust, so no."
"If it was you down there, I'd still be voting in favor." Bellamy replies.
Murphy smirks and stretches in his chair, "Wasting oxygen so you can call your girlfriend doesn't seem practical but that's just me."
Bellamy suddenly wanted to rip the smirk off of his face. He stood from his chair, scraping it uncomfortably loud against the floor and leaves.
Raven catches up to him as he suspected she would and they stand in the doorway to the comms room.
"I'm sorry." She says and Bellamy waves her words away, walking from her. He didn't want to hear it. He sits in the chair in front of the comms radio and glares at the receiver. Her footfalls fade away in the background. There's a delirious nervousness to his heartbeat.
When everyone saunters off into their own corners of the ship to sleep, Monty comes knocking on his door.
"Are you sure you want to do this?"
"More than anything." He means it with unwavering conviction.
The ark is as silent as a tomb, which made getting the hidden O2 tank fairly easy. His hands wouldn't stop shaking though and he had to hide it from Monty. He's more nervous about this not working than suffocating in space. That's nothing new though. This is routine.
Bellamy watches Monty through the airlock window, suited up and ready to go. Monty is blatantly nervous and mouths the words 'Be Careful' before he heads for the command center.
The room begins to depressurize and Bellamy takes a slow deep breath. He thinks on the promises he's made and what's owed. He owed this to them. To all of them below. Isn't this about staying together?
He imagines the surprise in Clarke's voice once he's able to talk with her and hopefully the relief that follows.
You're not alone. You're never alone.
His heart quickens as the doors open up to the wide expanse of space.
"Do you hear me?" Monty asks.
"You're clear."
His stomach never fails to leap into his throat once he leaves the confines of the airlock. The vastness that surrounds them isn't perceivable, not even time could really touch it. He finds the rungs and climbs towards the bottom of the ring. He's dangling in the black as if he's bait for a creature made of stars.
There's debris floating aimlessly from the crashed dead antenna above. Pieces of metal spin sideways, a little too close for comfort.
He spots the antenna then, like a beacon, surrounded in debris. They're lucky something didn't smash it to pieces. It looked so fragile.
"I'm almost there." He comments and reaches for the nearest rung.
"Keep it up, Bellamy." Monty encourages.
The walk to the antenna is a long one. He's sweating too much and the suit is far too bulky. He felt a little too dizzy and disconnected for this to be safe but he kept his eyes on that precious antenna.
"Might want to slow down your breathing a bit." Monty comments.
"Okay, thanks." Bellamy says and closes his eyes tightly for a moment, calming his heart.
He ducks under a piece of sharp metal that is slowly floating by and makes it to the antenna.
"I'm here, at the open panel." Bellamy replies.
Raven isn't much for sleeping. She's never had a good relationship with it. If such a thing were possible, she'd just not sleep at all. It's pretty damn annoying. It gets in the way of too many things and wastes too much time.
She stands from her bed, pulling her hair back in a tie. Something is making her nervous or keeping her from calming down.
She leaves her cold room, hugging her arms and passes by the algae farm where Monty is making good progress. They wouldn't have to worry so much once they got that up and running properly. She thinks of Bellamy who also had an estranged relationship with sleep and she passes by the closed comms room door.
If she's being honest she's worried about him, more so than usual. He's never handled being apart from Clarke well and he's always been irritatingly stubborn but she isn't one to talk. She stops her feet and thinks about knocking on the comms room door but she can't be his babysitter. He had to choose to take care of himself, no one else could make that choice for him.
She walks on and yawns as she enters the command center. She spots a panicked Monty shut off a screen, as if he's been caught. Monty was never good at lying or hiding.
"What's going on?" Raven asks and slowly approaches him. Monty looks spooked and he's sweating which is strange in the cold room. He's like a frightened animal and Raven finds it a little amusing.
"N-nothing. Just going over diagnostics. I couldn't sleep."
Raven tilts her head at him and Monty doesn't meet her eyes.
"What's wrong with you?" Raven asks and now the achy tiredness she felt before was forgotten.
"Nothing…I'm…I have insomnia. I needed a break from the algae farm. The lights were giving me a headache." Monty supplies and finally meets her eyes but they're hooded. She didn't even need to be a good bullshit detector to know something is wrong.
"Monty? If something is wrong I need to know." Raven replies.
"Nothing is wrong, Raven." He says and there's a squeaky crackle over one of the receivers. Raven moves closer to him and he flinches.
"What the hell is going on? Are you talking to someone?"
Monty just looks at her but says nothing in response. She stands there in the dead silence, neither of them making a move.
"You've gotta be kidding me." It dawns on her and she steps back. The rage is bubbling up in her throat. She wants to scream.
"Raven.." Monty tries and Raven storms out of the room. She stalks down the long cold hallway and shoves the comms room door open to find it empty, as she suspected. His small bed is unmade. The radio is silent.
He actually did it. He went out to fix the antenna and Monty is helping him. Shouldn't she have expected this? It's Bellamy after all. He's always been emotional about his decisions. Most especially, when it came to Clarke or his sister.
She jogs back towards the command center and Monty wasn't even trying to hide it anymore. The monitor is on, which gave her a view of Bellamy's O2 consumption.
"Bellamy used a full tank of O2? And you let him?" Raven practically snarls at Monty.
"I understand you're upset, Raven. I do, but right now we are on borrowed time and I need to talk him through this." Monty pleads.
"Unbelievable. He's gone off the deep end and he's wasting our O2 with it. This can't happen." Raven replies.
"Well it did and he's going to fix the antenna. We are going to be able to talk to our people on Earth." Monty's fear is fading into something that resembled determination. He actually believed it, like Bellamy did.
Raven grabs the receiver from him and says, "I hope you're happy Bellamy."
There's silence at first then a crackle.
"Raven…I had to do this. This is important. Once we get this working, you'll understand."
Raven looks to Monty with the shake of her head, "Move."
"What?" Monty asks in confusion.
"Move out of the goddamn chair."
Monty scrambles, moving out of the way as Raven takes his place. "Is the panel open?"
Since the O2 tank has already been wasted she wasn't about to let him half-ass this. This had to be done right. She knew arguing about this over comms would be fruitless.
It took a lot longer than he expected but the blinking green light is all Bellamy had ever wanted to see. The antenna is working. It's actually working. The smile that bloomed on his face is born from relieved exhaustion. He felt sickly, as if all the sleepless nights are finally catching up with him.
"Get your ass back here, now." Raven scolds and Bellamy quickly heads for the rungs.
"Monty have you tried Clarke?" Bellamy asks, entertaining the possibility that Raven might murder him once he gets back.
There's no answer.
He felt like he could lose consciousness. His limbs are rubbery as if he's made out of pudding. He blinks the sweat away from his eyes.
"What happened?" He tries.
"Bellamy…you are going to suffocate if you don't calm down." Raven reports.
Bellamy cringes and reaches for the final rung before flinging himself towards the airlock. He almost misses and he slams into the side of the door, knocking the air from his lungs. He coughs against his helmet, grips onto the doorway and forces himself inside the darkened room.
"I'm here." His voice is rough like someone took sandpaper to it.
The doors shut and he collapses onto the floor with the pressurization of the room. Before the doors even open, he's ripping off the space suit and helmet. He stumbles forward, surprised to see almost everyone crowding around the entrance, staring at him.
Raven steps between them and grabs his shoulders to get him to look at her. "We made contact with the bunker."