Chapter Nine: Thread
He can't help but shut his eyes, if just for a moment.
Beneath his eyelids are where the nightmares resided. It's a little different each time but he's always in that field where Clarke is supposed to be but she's never there. She's somewhere he can't get to. He can't hear her and he can't see her. It's a form of sensory deprivation.
Bellamy had waited too long for a perfect moment that didn't exist. He'd tell her everything now if he could. Every single thing.
He slowly blinks awake and Raven is sitting at the comms. station. She hadn't left since she told him the news. The news that they were slowly running out of air, that they were dying. He wouldn't do it. He wouldn't agree to any more deaths. He's tired of losing people.
"I heard Clarke on the comms." Bellamy whispers and he's not sure if he's actually talking to Raven or if he's trying to reassure himself.
Raven turns to him and replies, "Some good news. She seems okay?"
Bellamy's not sure what Clarke sounded like. She wasn't in distress or happy. She just was.
"She seemed fine. She was calm." He squints against the light in the room and stands from the floor.
"Monty will want to know that you know. We have to start thinking of solutions." Raven states, watching Bellamy with concern.
"Still not sleeping well?"
He heads directly towards the door.
"There isn't enough time for it."
"Sleeping isn't a luxury, Bellamy. It's a necessity." Raven replies.
"I got an hour…it's enough for now." Bellamy steps out into the cold hallway. He softly closes the door behind him and stands in front of the small window. There are still pieces of debris from the breach floating by. It's like they are slowly crumbling, piece by piece. He wonders years from now if there will be anything left.
"Hey Bellamy."
He startles out of his thoughts and nods as Harper walks by him, disappearing down the long hallway. He makes his way to the algae farm and stands in the doorway of the lab. Monty is collecting fresh grown samples at the front and Echo is in the back tending to the rest. He hadn't realized she had been helping Monty.
"Monty." Bellamy calls and he looks over at him with grim acknowledgement. He knows what he's here for.
He follows Monty to his quarters, which he realizes he's never been to before. Monty shuts the door behind him, his eyes closed as if he's waiting to be punched.
"Raven wants us thinking of solutions. Solutions that don't involve floating two of our people." Bellamy says.
Monty opens his eyes, blinking at him. "We should tell the others, we shouldn't keep this from them."
"Right now? It'll cause too much tension and panic. That's not a solution."
"WE are panicked already!" Monty abruptly yells. "They have a right to know we may not make it back home."
"We will make it back home, all of us." Bellamy replies and Monty crosses his arms on a sigh. "How are we going to do that?"
"Is there any way we could cut off power in the other sectors, it'll be cramped but would that work?" Bellamy asks and Monty shakes his head.
"It wouldn't make a difference. We are all still breathing the same air."
"We could head home early, before the oxygen runs out."
Monty squints at him as if he's lost his mind. "You do realize that we'd be fried by the radiation. We'd have to go back a year earlier."
"There's a chance it could work though. Wouldn't it be better than floating two of our people?" Bellamy asks and his face falls when Monty doesn't answer.
They stand there in silence and Monty won't look at him. Bellamy continues, "You'd be willing-"
Monty interrupts, "No I wouldn't. We just don't have a lot of options."
"Have we ever?"
Monty looks over at him then, solemnly. "I think we should tell the others."
Bellamy hates the cold and how it takes things from him without permission. This Ark is slowly stealing the warmth from every corner.
The seven of them stand in the command center and small tonal lights blink softly behind the others. Raven, Monty and Bellamy stand in front of them at a map projection table that's no longer lit. Monty has his head bowed, staring at nothing and Raven is looking to him, waiting for him to speak.
Bellamy can't let Raven bear the weight of this news too. If Monty couldn't do it, he'd do it.
"What happened now?" Murphy asks.
Monty shuts his eyes tight and Bellamy speaks up, "We have some bad news."
"No shit…out with it." Murphy replies.
"Raven did the projections on how long the oxygen would last us before we have to journey back home. Since the damage from the old antenna, the time that we have has shortened." Bellamy continues and watches the quiet realization sink in.
"By how much time?" Harper asks and she's looking at Monty.
Monty finally speaks up, "By a year. We have four years of oxygen left with seven people."
Murphy is quietly laughing bitterly as Bellamy suspected he would and the others are stark pale.
Emori breaks her silence, "What about without seven people?"
Raven catches Bellamy's eye before she replies, "with five people we can make it the five years required."
"What does that mean?" Echo resounds. It's the first time she's spoken in a long while.
Murphy answers, "It means that two of us has to die."
"That won't happen, we are trying to think of better solutions that will guarantee we will all make it back home." Bellamy replies.
No one looks convinced and Bellamy didn't blame them. They're terrified and trapped in the cold confines of a metal tomb.
"I understand this is a lot to take in -" Bellamy stops mid-sentence when he sees a shadow looming in from the doorway. It's like someone is standing there, listening. It even moves, fidgets like a person.
He blinks and looks back at the terrified faces that are waiting for him to finish and he says softly. "….we'll figure this out."
"Well that was convincing." Murphy supplies and Bellamy walks from the table they were standing at and towards the doorway. The shadow is still now, it looked inanimate. When he reaches it, a cold blank hallway waits for him. He didn't know what he was expecting or at least wants to pretend not to know what he was expecting.
"Give me a minute." Bellamy says to the room behind him.
He walks back to the comms room and stands in the silence. There's an odd eerie feeling washing over him, like a slow descent into the unknown. After a moment, there's a low crackle of static as if he willed it.
"Bel-amy."
He quickly grabs the receiver. "Can you hear me?"
There's fuzzy white noise and then, "I…-an hear y-ou."
Bellamy startles and his heart threatens to break open his chest. "You can hear me?"
Then there's silence. The static is gone again; back into the ether.
"What the hell was that?" He hears from behind him and he turns suddenly to see Raven looking perturbed in the doorway.
"What?"
"You just walked out of the room, what happened?" Raven questions.
Bellamy ignores her irritation and says, "I think Clarke might be able to hear me."
Raven watches him with an unreadable expression. "You talked to her?"
"Yes, it was garbled but I think she could hear me." Bellamy says and he feels like smiling but decides against it under the circumstances.
"Well I'm glad that she's okay and that you may be able to communicate but we need you to come back to the command center. We are trying to figure out solutions, Bellamy."
He looks back at the receiver but that feeling of wrongness has yet to lift.
"Bellamy." Raven prods.
"I'll be there."
"You with me? You seem…out of it." Raven tries.
Bellamy turns back to her again and nods, "I'm just tired."
"Have you seen yourself lately?" Raven says bluntly.
He hasn't. He's been avoiding reflective surfaces for the better part of their stay.
"It's just insomnia." Bellamy replies and it feels like a lie.
"I'll walk with you back to the command center and then you should get some sleep after." Raven says and Bellamy swallows on a nod.
He stands and looks back at the receiver one more time before heading out of the doorway with Raven.
"We need you with us, Bellamy. We can't do this without you."
Bellamy moves his eyes back to hers and he can see the desperate truth there, bared.
"I'm here. I promise. I'm not going anywhere." He reassures her. She seems somewhat satisfied, enough to start walking ahead of him.
He can hear the others arguing as they near the command center again. They'd make this work. Bellamy would do anything to get them home again. Even if it meant drawing the short straw himself.
As they enter the large room, he interrupts the mild argument breaking out between Murphy and Monty.
"We should vote, like we did before. For each solution, we come up with."
"Enjoy your break?" Murphy asks and he looks exceptionally annoyed.
"Who thinks we should float two of our people?" Bellamy says harshly.
No one makes a move, silence falls over the room. The complete kind.
"It's off the table then." Bellamy adds.
"For now." Raven replies.
Bellamy knew as the years wore on the more desperate they'd become. He couldn't say where they'd be in three years or what new terror they'd have to face.
Home seemed so far away, like a dream. She seemed so far away. When he looks at their home burning below them, bright and dying, he hopes there's still a future that waits for them there. He hopes his mind will cling onto that thread a little longer. It's such a small thread, but it's all he has.