Authors note:
Sorry it's been so long. I wanted to get this finished before season 3 aired. But that didn't happen. This writing lark is harder than it looks. Once the season started I needed to put some distance between it and this story. I've written the penultimate chapter already that kept nagging at me to write. I see about four more chapters in total. This is in no way canon to season 3, some of my predictions were obviously way off base. But I wanted to finish it, because otherwise it will drive me crazy. Warning - this chapter does not have a happy ending.
Back to the story.
Next morning.
An icy breeze through the tent flap woke Bellamy. He was momentarily confused by the dark head of hair tucked into his bent arm. His head was fuzzy from last night's drinking but he was sure he'd gone to bed alone. It was just Octavia snuggling into him as she had done when she was a little girl. Had Lincoln and her been fighting? But no, he had a vague recollection of her comforting him last night. Some sort of nightmare, but apart from glimpses, he couldn't catch what it had been about. Just a sense of anger. At whom he wasn't sure. Maybe even himself.
They were alone so Bellamy assumed Wick had just left. He'd have to get up too. Soon. But for now it was nice to lay back and relax with Octavia. He liked having her close, knowing for sure that she was safe. He couldn't imagine a time when he wouldn't worry about her. Although he was sure she'd scoff at such an idea. She was so independent now.
Another cold blast of air preceded Lincoln's face at the flap. "Breakfast is ready." He spoke softly, smiling down on Octavia as he did. At the sound of his voice she stirred beside Bellamy stretching out and yawning. She stared at her brother intently for a moment as if looking for damage, and then kissed him on the cheek before following Lincoln out of the tent. Their voices quickly grew distant.
Lincoln was already on the radio to Raven when Bellamy sat next to him by the fire. He'd rigged up a makeshift antenna using scrap from the waste as far as Bellamy could tell. Nothing to report on their end, just more preparations for the move. The weather at the Mountain was even colder than Camp Jaha. A few thousand feet in elevation made a huge difference apparently. After a hearty breakfast of rabbit stew Bellamy left to find Councillor Jordan.
The large tent was already dismantled and stacked in a deceptively small bundle. A wagon was just making its way into camp, pulled by a two headed horse. All four nostrils flaring in the frigid air giving off steam like a dragon. Bellamy thought it looked magnificent like a creature out of Greek or Roman mythology. He absentmindedly wondered if he might find a winged horse. But that was just fancy. Leader Breeze's back was to him watching the wagon roll in. She spoke briefly to an Arker beside her who rushed off in the direction of the tent sheltering baby and mother.
Then she turned and smiled at him as if she had known he was there. "Good morning Bellamy." She called to him. Her smile was wider and more genuine than yesterday. It unnerved him. She walked towards him and he closed the distance to meet her. Her long brown hair hung in braids that stretched towards her waist. This morning she was wearing a simple leather tunic and pants that showed of the sinewy muscles of her arms. Without face paint he could see the faint white scars that crisscrossed the dark skin of one cheek. The morning sunshine caught her bright blue eyes making them shine. She was stunning. "How are you feeling this morning?" She enquired genuinely concerned. "I heard that there was a commotion amongst your tents last night. Someone was screaming?"
Bellamy was glad that his sister and Bill had filled him on last night's events. He still had no recollection of them, but Bill said that was to be expected with a sedative. He was uncomfortable with the whole camp knowing, but he'd been deflecting attention away from himself all his life. He cocked his head and laughed. "Who knew spiders on the ground would be so large?" He quipped his mouth twitching into his most winning smirk. Breeze nodded her head, understanding that he didn't want to talk about it and not pushing.
"Have you seen Jordan?" Bellamy asked, looking around the camp. "We need to get this radio set up today so we can head back out to look for the last ship." Breeze gestured with her hand indicating that he should walk with her. They headed towards his daughters tent, which was situated on the edge of the small clearing the camp was set up in. Her tone was friendly, "Jordan will be coming back to the village with me today, it is an easier journey for mother and child to make, besides we have important business to discuss now that communication with your people has been established." She paused for a moment and looked at him, "Do you have a radio we can use in the village also?" Bellamy nodded as he said, "I'm sure Wick can set something up once the main one is operational." Then he turned to continue walking to the tent. Breeze watched him leave for a moment and then headed to a group of her people who were preparing to leave.
At the tent Bellamy stopped, there wasn't really a post he could knock on so he just yelled a hello to the people inside. Bill's head popped out of the tent and Bellamy laughed. "Have you moved in?" Bill smiled broadly at him. "No, just checking on the patients. I think I missed my calling, I should have been a midwife." Bill's enthusiasm was infectious and Bellamy found himself smiling back despite the pain in his head.
Councillor Jordan arrived out of the tent next. He looked tired. He indicated silently to Bellamy that he should follow, and headed in the direction of the waste. Once they were a little away from camp he began to speak as the walked. " I wish you had arrived even a few days ago." He said his voice grave.
So all was not well in paradise Bellamy thought.
"We might have been able to put off forming this alliance, for a while at least." He stopped and looked at Bellamy. "Please don't get me wrong. I trust Breeze. She sees all the benefits of this alliance for her people, and she is right. We have a lot to offer each other. But we were not negotiating from a position of strength. I'm not sure how many of our people will really want to stay once they realize they have somewhere else to go." Bellamy raised a quizzical eyebrow at him and the councillor continued. "Their ways are savage. Brutal. They are not like us."
Bellamy nodded. He understood. He had heard this sentiment before. The Mountain Men could have integrated more into grounder society. They surely had plenty they could have exchanged for grounder blood in a mutually beneficial trade. But Maya had told him that many of the Mountain Men hadn't considered the grounders as true humans, but as a mutant race, worth less than real humans. This is why they'd never even considered bringing grounder DNA into their gene pool. In a few generations they could have bred their way to the surface. That apparently had been the original plan for the forty eight. Until their leaders had decided that the children of the Ark were just one more subspecies of human to be exploited for their gain. Bellamy couldn't think of Maya without guilt, gratitude and great sadness.
"Maybe not." He said finally to Jordan. "but they are not going anywhere. We have to learn to live and work together. What you've achieved here, it's our best chance at living in peace with these people. Who knows, maybe we will rub off on them." Then a thought occurred to him, what had the grounders told him about not picking up guns? The Mountain Men had controlled this region and the people in it, keeping them down, keeping them primitive. The power balance in the region was going to change, everything was going to change. Bellamy's voice was very serious. "The most important thing is getting you back in permanent contact with the Ark the sooner we get that radio up and running the better. Whatever else has happened since we all landed we are stronger working together." Jordan nodded in agreement.
Despite Breeze's earlier assertions Jordan led them back to Agro station himself. It was a half days hard march, through gently downward sloping forest, to the clearing the crashing ship had created on the edge of the tree line. Giant pines lay toppled and broken around them. Ahead the Agro station gleamed in the midday sun. The outer shielding had been retracted revealing the large glass windows that had been designed to funnel maximum light from Mar's more distant sun into the growing chambers. They glinted in the wan winter sun like jewels. Around the ship a palisade had been constructed of fallen timber. Beyond that the vegetation grew gradually sparser until in the distance Bellamy thought he could see waves, but realized they were sand dunes when they didn't move.
Once they had moved through the airlock Bellamy had the unsettling feeling that he was back on the Ark in space. The familiar machine hum was present and all the corridors and rooms looked so normal and undamaged. But his senses soon betrayed their more earthly situation. For a start artificial gravity felt different. Then there was the smell of the air. Clean and fresh, even inside, and lastly the occasional glimpse of daylight through the sparse portholes in the corridors. They climbed from the bowels of the ship up and up a winding staircase.
Once they entered the arboretum however the view outside was spectacular. A 360 degree panoramic with views of the forests, with the mountain rising behind the trees in the distance and far off to the south the large body of water where the Boat and the Arkers who survived in it lived. The Boat itself was too far away to see or perhaps it was hidden by an in-cropping of forested land. It was difficult to tell. The sand dunes continued forever to the west. North more forest and distant glints of sunshine that hinted of more lakes.
The interior was covered in lush plants growing hydroponically in tall towers that reached to the roof. Elevated walkways criss crossed the dome allowing access. He had not seen this room since a school trip as a small child. Octavia and Lincoln had gone to the village. She maintained that the Ark was no home to her and that she wanted as little to do with it as possible. But he'd have to find a way to get her in to see this somehow. He knew she would love it.
The truth was that only a small percentage of their food grew here. They consumed a lot of algae based products too. Algae was a much more efficient producer of oxygen and flourished in the water supply whether they wanted it or not. So it had been better to farm it in a controlled way. Absently Bellamy wondered what would that algae do now. Had it found its way out of these pipes and back into the lake nearby. Had it too made it back home to earth. He wondered whether it would thrive, or would a new more aggressive earth algae wipe it out after all.
Bellamy felt very tired. After lunch Wick would oversee the radio installation attaching it to a larger antenna. Once he was finished the mobile units from Mount Weather and the Ark would allow easy communication between the village and ship. Until then there wasn't much for him to do so he asked Jordan to show him to a bunk.
The rooms in Agro station were all white, or at least they had been 100 years ago. As Bellamy sat down in the stark box lit by one lamp he couldn't help wondering what genius thought that was a good idea. After taking off his boots and massaging his feet he took out his map. It was as he feared. The final beacon was somewhere in the desert beyond this ship. They were not equipped for a journey like that. His mind thought back to the automobiles he's seen in the garage where they'd found Lincoln as a Reaper. Some of those had looked pretty serious. He wondered if Raven could get one working again. Or perhaps there was something in the Armory that could help. He'd have to talk to Wick once he was finished with the radio and see what he thought. How would they even get it here?
The idea of people from the Ark stranded in the desert without food and water was deeply upsetting to him. He was actually surprised at how much he cared for those unknown strangers. People who would never have noticed him or thought about him on the Ark. Somewhere along the line the definition of his people had shifted from just the 100 he had landed with to include all the people of the Ark. He felt very protective, he wasn't going to let anyone else die if he could stop it.
But the beacon had stopped working and they had no idea if there even were survivors. It could be Mecha station all over again. But there had been a survivor even at Mecha station. Though they'd lost one to save one. That had been his fault. He was too busy worrying about Clarke and the larger group that he hadn't paid attention to the lives infront of him. He should have checked that rope. He should at least have been holding on to it. He wasn't going to make the same mistake here. Walking into the desert blind and unprepared would get people he cared about killed. They would go searching, but they'd do it smart, with a plan and with the supplies and equipment they needed.
Lunch was a big roast pig within the walls of the palisade. To go with it there were roasted vegetables and weak beer. Wick was sat at an a long table with benches either side talking animatedly to some of the people they'd met in the arboretum. A pretty blonde was laughing flirtatiously at something he's said. He looked like a king holding court. He smiled when he saw Bellamy and waved him over, but Bellamy just waved back and kept walking. He didn't feel like company. The Bens were sitting with a small group of guards, catching up on all the news. Bellamy was struck with how normal everything felt. People here were relaxed. They had plenty of food and they were not looking over their shoulders waiting for an attack. The Arker's here probably had no idea who Commander Lexa and the Mountain Men were. He liked it.
He'd hoped to eat quietly and look around but Jordan had other plans. As soon as he saw Bellamy he collected him and pulled him up onto a small makeshift platform. he picked up a hollow pipe and clanged it against a piece of metal suspended by wires from a mini gallows. The sonorous clang that rang out filled the camp. Everyone turned to look and new people poured into the space ready to listen. Jordan gave a moving speech about how they were not alone and that more people from the Ark had survived. He introduced Councillor Bellamy from camp Jaha and made a quip about his past and how if Chancellor Jaha could forgive Bellamy for shooting him and elevate him to councillor then he must be alright. It sounded forced to Bellamy but everyone laughed. Maybe it was just him who didn't find it funny. He didn't tell them that Jaha was missing. The rest of his speech consisted of a rousing endorsement for their treaty with the village, and an optimism for their future. He finished by telling them all that everyone would be issued a time to speak with people on the other Arks once the logistics had been worked out. Eventually Bellamy was able to escape the podium and all the eyes on him. One of Jordan's aides pulled him aside giving Bellamy the chance to escape.
He grabbed some food and ate on the move as he circled the camp. At the rear where the camp butted into the brush towards the desert, men were working on erecting stronger defences. Tall lookout towers were being constructed. While he watched a cart arrived hauling scrap metal from the waste. Bellamy could see places that his had already hammered and welded into panels. On the north side of the camp he found the pipes that were leading into a well that had been dug into ground. A little way off another group were using another huge drill bit and literal horsepower to drill a new hole. This bit had been found in the waste, whatever it's original purpose it's job now was to secure the ship's water supply.
He climbed the palisade and finished eating slowly. Then sat lost deep in thought until the sun began to set and fill the sky with burnt oranges and reds, even greens and purples as he watched. He hoped that Clarke was still okay out there, watching the same sunset as him. Letting her go had been a mistake. He should have insisted she came in, even if it was just to get supplies. Winter was coming, how was she going to survive alone? A part of him even hoped she had gone to Polis to track down Lexa, at least there she wouldn't be alone. She might even make some friends.
That night Octavia and Lincoln joined them for dinner on a special viewing platform in the arboretum. Jordan had invited them and Lincoln had not taken no for an answer, when Octavia objected. He asked about all the different plants and technologies involved. Octavia looked at him slightly bemused but Bellamy suspected that Octavia might have accidentally fallen in love with a sheep in wolves clothes.
Wick had filled them in on all the technical work. The station was in full contact with camp Jaha and had everything they needed to set up the radio in the village. As he spoke his skin was pale and clammy looking. Bill asked him if his stomach was still bothering and Wick just nodded and took a drink of water.
Jordan reached into his pocket and offered him some leaves from a small tin. "Here try these." he offered holding them out to Wick, who popped a few in his mouth and began to chew. Jordan took a couple himself and offered them to the others, all of whom except Bill declined. "They help with the digestion." Jordan said, "We have had some stomach problems here too and these seem to calm them down, it's a local remedy."
"Ooh!" Bill exclaimed, "It makes your mouth feel cold and…. there are no words. You have to try it Bob." He was saying as he turned to his bunk mate with a broad smile.
Across the table Bellamy watched as the color drained rapidly from Wick's face. His body convulsed once and then there was blood all over the table. Bill lunged for Wick as his body fell still vomiting and he began to convulse in Bill's arms. By the time Bellamy had reached the other side of the table Wick had stopped moving, his eyes rolled into the back of his head. He didn't need the shake of Bill's head to let him know that Wick was dead.
.
