A/N: Comments are love :) thank you for enjoying this journey! More to come!
Chapter Twelve: Unknown
Raven and Bellamy stare at the speck of white moving slowly towards them through the dark of space. The apprehension is palpable between them. Bellamy didn't know whether to be fearful of what this could mean or view it as a good omen. Could they have more supplies they could trade? Or did they need help? Help they may not be able to give. They operate in unknowns and it will never not completely terrify him.
"I think it's headed this way." Raven replies.
Bellamy squints anxiously, "I guess we are kind of hard to miss."
Raven shakes her head and eyes him, "It'll be a while before they are in comms range, what do you want to do?"
Bellamy was so entranced by the speck of a shuttle that it dawns on him about the radio. He dashes from the room without a word and Raven calls after him with abrupt confusion. Monty waves at him as he races by. "You okay, Bellamy?"
Bellamy slides into the doorway of his make-shift comms room and adds, "I'm fine, Harper okay?"
"Yeah, she's fine." Monty manages before Bellamy disappears from the doorway. He immediately grabs the receiver and speaks quickly, "Clarke, can you hear me?"
All is quiet. It's the usual dance. He doesn't know why he expects every day to somehow be different. The hope is dashed and then rekindled like Prometheus' liver. He'd always talk to static if it meant she could hear him though, even if he couldn't hear her.
"I…" He begins and then rests the receiver against his forehead, with his eyes closed. There's a low hum of static, crackling and waiting for him to continue. He presses his lips together and then releases a quiet breath. "I..still feel your hand over my heart, like a weight. It never left." His throat is a vise and he can't form words anymore to articulate any meaning. The static doesn't grant him reciprocation. It hangs in the air like a reminder.
Spending all that time in the med bay had his mind turned inside out, imagining Clarke trying to get a hold of him when he wasn't around to hear it. He spent far too much time in his own head these days. He slumps in the chair there, holding the receiver loosely in his palm. He thinks about what Emori said, about Raven believing he was imagining things.
"I heard you." Bellamy says to the static and it crackles for a moment but doesn't spark to life.
Then comes the double knock that Raven does now to announce her presence. "Anything?" She asks his back. There's pity in her tone, he can hear it clearly even if she didn't mean to convey it. Bellamy skirts around the question and stands from the seat, the receiver still in his hands. "I'd like to talk to Echo."
She sighs, "Well you know my opinion on it but if you think you are up for it then I'm not going to argue, have at it." Raven says with the wave of her hand. She's frustrated with him, he can tell but he can't say he blames her. They stand there in that crackling silence for a moment. Raven waits for him to leave so she can take over comms duties while he's gone.
"What?" She eventually says.
Bellamy sets the receiver down and says quietly, "Nothing." But he knows Raven can read him well by now. She doesn't push, she lets him slip by her and into the cold hallway.
Echo is sitting against the wall with her knees up, staring at the ground with indifference. She isn't open to discussion but he didn't expect her to be. She's always been damn near unapproachable.
"Was the motivation the O2 situation?" Bellamy questions and crosses his arms, leaning against an empty desk.
"I have nothing to say." Echo replies, keeping her eyes locked on the ground.
"I think you do. I think you have a lot to say. Why attack Harper?"
"Why do you think?" She snaps.
Bellamy rests his hands at the edges of the stark desk behind him and asks, "How'd you know it was her that accused you?"
She says nothing and closes her eyes, before setting her head back against the wall. The room is more suffocating then the med bay, with its pristine white and gray surfaces. Bellamy blinks against it, already feeling a headache fast approaching.
"I would bet you'd know the correct amount it would take to kill one of us. So, why poison us in the first place? Can you at least tell me that?"
Silence.
"I understand that you don't feel welcome here and that you prefer your own company as opposed to ours but I'm not really seeing a motive here and I don't think it was because of the O2. You were ready to die before we launched into space, I don't think the fact that we are running out of O2 bothers you and it definitely doesn't bother you enough to attempt to kill two of us over it."
Echo opens her eyes and stares at Bellamy then in silence. He waits in the quiet, keeping the eye contact she granted him. "It's better this way…" Echo states, her stoic veneer cracking.
"What is?" He prods.
She closes her eyes and doesn't speak to him again for the rest of the time he occupies the room. After an hour of idly throwing questions and answers at her, he gives up for the time being. If she wanted to stew in it then that was her choice and not much could be done about it right now.
Bellamy steps out into the hallway utterly spent. There's a ticking in the background like he's hearing a clock he hadn't noticed was there. The rest of the sounds are muffled, transient and irrelevant. He swallows and releases a breath slowly until the sound starts to rattle back to life. "…Not like we have anything to offer them." He hears Murphy say. He spots the group crowded around the large window in the hall and he suspects Raven told them about the shuttle while he's been gone.
"Maybe they have something to offer us." Monty replies.
He spots Harper then, leaning against the wall and not bothering to look out of the window with the others. She appears preoccupied, in the deep kind of thought you need to be pulled out of.
"You okay?" Bellamy asks and her head snaps up to him. She's a little too wide-eyed and edgy.
"I'm fine, just…ya know…tired." She doesn't sound very convincing but he wasn't going to pry. She fidgets and asks, "You doing okay…after that whole thing?"
"I'm managing." Bellamy says and she gives him a small tight smile. He nods once and leaves her to her thoughts. He enters the comms room, wishing he had a cup of coffee to supply Raven.
"How's our grounder friend?" Raven asks.
Bellamy walks up beside the chair and Raven blinks tiredly up at him. She looked just as exhausted as he felt. "Something's off." He replies.
Raven chuckles tiredly, "She didn't tell you anything then."
"She said 'it's better this way.'"
"Well I'm glad she's cozy at least, at least one of us is. You should use this opportunity to get some shut eye, by the way. I can wake you when they are in comms range."
"…I don't think she did it." Bellamy confesses and Raven lets out a frustrated huff, "Bellamy…I don't need to hear your 'people are inherently good' argument. Let's not make this complicated. Echo had her reasons."
Bellamy smiles a little at that and walks over to his cot in the corner which he sits down on. It's unmade and the blankets are in a haphazard pile. "Shouldn't you be getting some rest?" Bellamy asks.
"I wasn't the one poisoned, so no. I'm fine. I'll wake you when they are in comms range." Raven insists and he knows when she's in this mood it's best not to test her. He collapses onto his bed, staring up at the familiar blank ceiling above him. He listens to the idle hum of the ark surrounding them and the small creak of the chair Raven is sitting in. It's enough after a while to lull him into slumber.
He didn't dream of the field or earth this time. There are no trees or grass to lie in, there's just nothing. The dead silence and blackness that sleep most of the time affords. He felt someone pushing on his chest gently and attempts to open his eyes, thinking it's Raven and if so, would have been an odd way to wake him. He blinks blurrily above him and sees the tell-tale blurry image of blonde hair. His heart jumps and he blinks quickly, focusing in front of him to see Clarke sitting above him, tapping her hand on his chest. She wasn't smiling, in fact she looks worried. The knowing kind of worry, like she knows something he's yet to figure out yet. This had to be a dream.
"Clarke?" He whispers.
"Is this where I exist? In those spaces in between?" She asks and Bellamy rests his hand on top of hers. It felt warm, real.
"What do you mean?" He asks, confusion threading through his features.
"Bellamy…" She recites.
He blinks, the room is too bright. When did it get so bright?
"Hey…Bellamy…" Clarke's voice morphs into Raven's.
Raven is suddenly there, where Clarke was a moment ago and he flinches when he realizes it's Raven's hand he's grabbing onto. He releases it and she pulls back with a soft look of concern. "Sorry..." He manages and she doesn't seem fazed by it, which he's thankful for. He still feels hazy and the lights in the room have a halo around them that his eyes can't quite adjust to.
"It's fine, Bellamy. They're in comms range, been getting garbled static but I figured you'd want to be awake if they were able to contact us soon or we could hail them." She says and steps back, standing from her kneeling position by the bed. He runs a hand over his face and through his unruly hair as he sits up.
"We could contact them." Bellamy supplies and rests his elbows on his knees, blinking and unable to fully get his bearings.
"You wanna do it? Or me?" Raven asks and Bellamy takes a deep quiet breath.
"I'll do it."
Raven is standing there watching him like she wants to ask him a million things at once but she refrains and says instead, "Meet me in the command center then."
He watches her leave and shuts his eyes tight at her exit. He didn't know why he felt a deep thrumming unease ripple through him at almost a constant rate. He can sometimes get a hold of the reins and dismiss it as something irrational, that his thoughts were merely just thoughts. Sometimes though, they take hold of him, threatening to pull him into that void that surrounds him.
Bellamy stood in the command center with the others fanning anxiously out behind him. The blinking of the nav system causes Bellamy to squint against the piercing light.
"This is the ark, hailing the shuttle in our vicinity. Do you read us?" Bellamy announces to the open channel, low and loud.
There's static again. That goddamn static he's grown to hate with each new day.
He repeats, louder as if it could make a difference, "This is the ark, hailing the shuttle in our vicinity. Do you read us?"
There's a spark of life on the comms and a garbled voice but he can't make out the words. It echoes and fades in the large room.
Raven moves over to where Monty has stationed himself at the front, "Isolate that channel." She orders.
They wait in bated silence and Bellamy turns back to the others who all eye him with a similar uncertain expression. Even Murphy is silent for once, which sets him on edge.
It crackles loudly and then, "…Ark…D…you read? This is…" Then the static strengthens.
"Dammit, can we clean that up?" Raven exclaims. She leans over Monty, pointing at the bright screen.
"I'm trying." Monty replies with annoyance.
The comms suddenly blares startling them, "…We've run out of food stores, any help would be appreciated. Can you hear us?"
"Oh great…" Murphy says, not wasting time to state his opinion. Raven looks over at Bellamy but makes no move to speak or question the situation. She's leaving this decision to him.
Bellamy watches the blinking light on the nav system absently. They had food to spare. It was one of the few things they did have to spare and if the crew were to connect a bridge between ships then it could be possible to maintain for trading purposes.
"They could have more O2? At least for our suits." Bellamy says.
"Should we trust them?" Harper speaks up and Bellamy catches her sheepish expression.
The weight of their stares is almost suffocating and he bulks a little, changing his stance to face away from them. Raven adds, "We meet with them on their shuttle and we decide from there."
Bellamy glances at her and nods once. "I'll go." He states.
"I'll go too and Monty will maintain comms over here and if anything seems off then we are out of there, understand?"
Murphy interrupts, "All of this for a few O2 tanks they may not even have? They could shoot the two of you and try and take the Ark."
"That won't happen." Bellamy says with the shake of his head and Murphy huffs, "Why because you said so?"
Raven steps up between them, breaking Murphy's eye contact with Bellamy and says, "Decision has been made unless you want to be the one to go over there."
Murphy holds up his hand in mock surrender as Raven pushes past him.
"Good luck, Bellamy." Monty kindly adds and Bellamy nods in acknowledgment.
More unknowns, so many unknowns. They multiply refusing to solve themselves. One unknown leads to another. Bellamy knows he doesn't have much of a choice but to strap in and endure it until time eventually grants them a reprieve.
He speaks into the comms channel, "Yes, we hear you."