Bellamy

He woke to the feeling of the sun on his face, and when he opened his eyes he could feel the heat of it, see it shining right over the camp. He knew from Earth Skills and his own experience on the ground what the sun's position meant- it was the middle of the day. But beyond that he felt disoriented, confused, and unable to figure out what was happening. He looked around for Octavia but couldn't see her. Belatedly he remembered she had left with Lincoln, but he couldn't remember when.

The campsite was quiet and deserted, the fire burning low, as though it hadn't been tended in some time. Bellamy managed to sit up, his body feeling stiff and weak. His leg was half painful, half heavy and numb, and he could hardly stand to look at it. The reddish blue lump on his calf had expanded, and the skin seemed to be starting to pull away from it, crusting and blistering around the centre, which was now black, as though his flesh was dying off. He swallowed, glancing away from it, and he found himself wishing Clarke were there to tell him what it meant.

He had managed to roll over onto his knees and was halfway to his feet when Echo appeared at the edge of the clearing. She said one of the Trigedasleng curse words he had learned, dropping the basket she was holding to the ground and hurrying over to him. She forced him back down on the ground, pulling his injured leg up and setting his foot firmly on a rock.

"You must keep it elevated," she chided him. "You must not move."

"I was looking for you," he protested, feeling sheepish under her dark glare. "I thought maybe something happened to you."

Echo let out a huff of air. "You must take care of yourself, not worry about those who are stronger than you. Don't be stupid."

Bellamy smiled a little in spite of the dire situation. "I'm thirsty."

"And that is why I have brought you food and water," she said, grabbing the fur and spreading it over him with clear annoyance. She felt his forehead with the back of her head, nodded, and then returned to the basket. She stoked the fire back up and pulled out a small clay pot of water, which she brought back, holding the rim of it to his lips. He drank deeply, draining more than half the pot before she finally set it down beside him.

She returned to the fire and he watched her pull two pheasants from the basket. With quick and efficient movements she plucked their feathers, setting them carefully aside. Then she took her knife, slit the birds' stomachs open, removed the entrails, and cut off their heads and legs.

"Can I help with anything?" Bellamy called over.

"Clearly you cannot," she answered him, bringing another smile to his lips.

The fire was hot now, and Echo carefully wrapped the birds in clean leaves before placing them on top of the fire and covering them with more rocks. She looked up, seeing him watching. "Rest," she said, her voice almost tender. "Sleep will help. When our meal is ready, I will wake you."

Bellamy started to protest, to insist that he wasn't tired, but suddenly his eyelids felt heavy and he found himself drifting off, and he was asleep before he could say another word to Echo.

.

He was running. It was hard to tell time or place- it was a forest but not the one he knew, not the trees around the dropship that had had come to see as home. The foliage reached far over his head, blocking out the sun, and the whole place was hazy, damp with fog that clung to his skin and chilled him to the bone.

He didn't know why he was running, he just was, and it felt so urgent- as though there was somewhere he needed to be, and he needed to get there as quickly as possible. His heart was pounding in his chest.

Bellamy caught his foot on a root suddenly and pitched forward, barely able to get his hands up in time to save his face from impacting with the hard, frozen ground. He felt his knees and the heels of his hands stinging with the force of his fall, and for a moment he just stayed there, on all fours, breathing hard.

It was the prickling sensation on the back of his neck that told him he was not alone, that someone was watching. Rising slowly back to his feet, at first he saw nothing, but then something compelled him to walk toward the fog that was rising in vapours to obscure either side of the path. The trees loomed out of this curtain of mist like huge, silent ghosts.

Only as he crept closer to the fog did he start to see shapes behind the haze and he started to make out people, standing silent and facing him, watching him.

"Who are you?" he called out, swallowing a little, his eyes darting around. There seemed to be men, women, and children, all standing and staring at him. The mood was one of foreboding, and he felt judged by them, though none of them spoke.

"What do you want?" he tried.

Finally one of the figures broke from the group and stepped out from the fog and stood in front of Bellamy. It was a little girl, seven or eight years old, and he noticed she was wearing an old dress of Octavia's, long outgrown and reprocessed.

"Are you okay?" he asked her. "Are you lost?"

"I'm dead," she answered, and her arm shot straight out to point right at him. Her green eyes filled with tears. "You killed me."

Horrified, he backed away from her accusing stare, shaking his head. "No."

"Yes," she said, advancing on him- each step he took backward, she took a step forward, until his back meant the hard trunk of a tree, and then she advanced on him, coming right up to him. Her little face barely reached his chest as she looked up at him, the tears spilling down her cheeks. "You killed me. Why?"

As he watched in horror, the tears washed away the flawless veneer of her skin and revealed angry red boils all over her- those burns that he knew had been caused by radiation, her skin flaked off and burned away, the yellow muscle visible underneath. She started screaming, and as he watched she leaned forward and vomited thick black blood all over the ground.

"Help!" he yelled, panicking, reaching out to grab her, help her, but realising that anywhere he might have touched was painful, raw and swollen with this horrible burns. He looked up in panic at the other figures in the fog, still and silent. "Please help her!"

The little girl's head suddenly snapped up and her eyes were less sad and more angry, flashing with what could only be described as rage, unsettling on a child so young. "Why would they help you?" she snapped. "You killed them too."

He looked up and saw the other people slowly emerging from the fog, slowly and methodically advancing on him from all directions. Some of them were burned and bloodied like the little girl, while others looked healthy and well, not a mark on them, but he knew that they too were dead.

"No, I didn't… the radio… please, I didn't know!" he yelled. He couldn't help but feel betrayed, like he'd had a deal with these people not to hold this against him and they weren't keeping up their end.

"You didn't know, you didn't know," the little girl said, her voice high, mocking him. "But what about me and my people? You knew then. You knew exactly then."

Bellamy squeezed his eyes closed and when he opened them again he was back in the Mount Weather control room, looking at those monitors, everyone still alive. He saw Clarke and he was looking at her with urgency in his eyes as he said, "We need to think about this. There are kids in here!"

"I tried to stop it," Bellamy whispered now, sinking down into the dirt with a heavy look of defeat. "I tried to stop it."

"And yet it still happened," the girl said. "Your hand was on that lever."

"Bellamy Blake," one of the victims of the culling spat at him. "You're a mass murderer!"

He shook his head slowly from side to side, opening his mouth to deny it again, but he knew he couldn't- it was true- he was responsible for the deaths of hundreds. When he looked at his hands, all he saw was blood, and it was too thick to wipe off even as he rubbed his hands frantically together.

"Bellamy, we have to save them!" Clarke cried out to him. He hurried over to her, saw her hand on the lever, reached out with his own to cover hers.

"Wait, no… this is wrong," he said, shaking his head, pulling his hand back.

"Bellamy!" Clarke yelled, and she grabbed the lever, pulling with all her force, but somehow she couldn't get it to move, even though he remembered it being so easy to flip that switch.

"Don't kill me," the little girl sobbed, appearing at Bellamy's elbow. Her skin was clear again, she looked alive. She grabbed the sleeve of his shirt in her hands and tugged. "Please don't kill me, Bellamy… not again."

"I won't," he said to her, turning and grabbing her around the shoulders so he could look into her eyes. "I promise."

Clarke was still trying, desperately, to pull that lever, but this time when Bellamy reached out he didn't help her, instead grasping her arm and gently removing her hand from it. "We can't do this, Clarke," he said softly. "It's wrong."

Her eyes flew to the monitors as she watched her mother being drilled but she seemed to believe him, agree with him maybe, as she just shook her head.

A commotion on one of the other monitors suddenly grabbed Bellamy's eye and he turned just in time to see Cage put a handgun to Maya's head and fire. Her body collapsed forward, a pool of dark blood oozing out on to the carpet beneath her.

Time seemed to freeze as Cage's gun swivelled and pressed against Octavia's head.

"No!" Bellamy yelled, letting go of the child in his arms and springing forward. He seized the lever in his hand and pulled it with all his strength, easily putting it into the second position.

It took only a few seconds for the scrubbers to reverse and the irradiated air to kick in, but it was more than enough time for Cage to pull the trigger a second time. Bellamy watched the monitor as his sister's head exploded forward, the spray of her blood and brain matter looking like a puff of red smoke on the monitor. Her body crumpled forward, still half on her knees, and only when she was still did the others start to cough and moan, slowly collapsing as the red burns bloomed on their skin.

The child next to him was similarly collapsing in pain, screaming, but Bellamy didn't even hear her. He just stared at the monitor, his pounding heartbeat so loud that he could hear nothing else, and the edges of the vision were going dark. His knees went weak and he felt himself stumbling, so he grabbed the console for support. Clarke's face hovered in front of him, her eyes filled with tears; her arms were wrapping around him as she started to speak, but he couldn't hear her.

Abruptly he jerked out of Clarke's grasp and whirled towards the door. His run down those hallways seemed to last forever before he finally careened into the dining room. He barely acknowledged the bodies that surrounded him as he just ran towards the sound of Jasper's soft sobs, collapsing down onto his knees as he reached Octavia beside him.

He pulled her into his arms, desperately brushing the hair from her lifeless face, and a clump of her scalp, still attached to a fragment of her skull, slipped through his fingers and landed on the floor as he did so. He felt the vomit rising in his throat but somehow he managed to choke it down as he stared into her lifeless blue eyes, frozen in shock.

"O!" he yelled, shaking her violently, as though he could snap her out of it, wake her up. Her blood coursed from the wound and soaked his chest and stomach where he was holding her head. When it became impossible to convince himself that she was still alive, Bellamy let out such a cry of anguish that he didn't even recognise his own voice as he pulled her into him, cradling her body against his. He just rocked her back and forth, hardly able to see from the force of his tears as his breath came out in choking gasps and the tears ran down his face, mixing with her blood.

Seconds or hours later, he didn't know which, Clarke was there, kneeling in front of him, trying to pry Octavia from his arms. Bellamy gripped his sister tighter, yelling at Clarke, screaming at the top of his lungs for her to leave them alone. She kept trying though, and eventually he couldn't fight anymore and he let her take Octavia away, knowing it would be the last time he would ever hold her. He watched as Clarke laid her body out on the floor and rolled the carpet over her, knowing she was doing that so he wouldn't have to look at her anymore.

But he knew there was only way that he was ever going to forget that image, forget that he had failed in something so integral to who he was- to protect Octavia, to keep her safe, no matter what. Without speaking or even thinking, he picked up the gun that Cage had used to kill his sister, put it to his own head, and fired.

.

Bellamy woke up screaming, bolting upright and scrambling backward, not even feeling the pain that lanced through his leg as he did so, just wanting to escape that horrific image of Octavia dead, of the knowledge that he had killed her, failed her so horrendously.

Echo appeared at his side and she looked as concerned as he had ever seen her. Only when she clapped a hand over his mouth did he realise he was still screaming, but despite that realisation and her hand over his lips, it still took him a while to calm down enough to be silent. When she pulled back from him, he turned his head to the side and vomited until all he had left was stomach acid and sore ribs. He forced his eyes to stay open because the second he closed them all he saw was Octavia's broken skull, the blood, her lifeless eyes, and all he could feel was how profoundly he had failed her. It had felt so real, that sense of having gotten her killed, and it just made the bile rise in his throat once again.

"Drink now," Echo ordered, holding the back of his head and lifting the clay pot to his lips. He gulped down the liquid and when he finished she set it down and examined his leg carefully. "You've made it worse," she rebuked him, then put her hand to his forehead. "You're burning up. I will get you more medicine, and something to calm your dreams."

As she moved away Bellamy pulled it deep breaths, his eyes wide open, staring at the ground. He wanted Octavia, needed to see her right now, make sure she was alive and whole, but he knew that was impossible.

When he could speak again he asked Echo urgently, "How long has it been? How long until they're back?"

"It has been several hours," she replied. "And it will be several more."

He frowned at the inexactitude of that statement, but he tried not to let it get to him. Echo returned with a bowl of water and a cloth. She dipped the cloth into it and wiped him down, starting at the top of his head and moving over his face, his neck, and his bare chest. The cool water was incredibly soothing, and he started to feel a little more human. He wasn't sure how much sweat was from the dream and how much from the fever.

Echo had also brought bowls of the pheasant soup, as well as that same fever reducing concoction she'd been feeding him throughout the day. He drank both down hungrily, and eased himself back onto the ground, letting her elevate his leg once again as she tightened the rope around his leg, which had come loose in his panic.

"You must sleep," she said to him.

"I can't," he said immediately, shaking his head, just the thought of falling into another nightmare like that terrifying him. "I can't sleep."

"Yet you must," she said, standing up and returning to the fire. He watched as she pulled out a single hot coal and placed it in a mortar, then ground up a few plant ingredients with a pestle. She tied some grasses around the bundle of pheasant feathers and returned to Bellamy's side with the concoction, which was steaming and crackling softly, creating a sweet-smelling vapour.

"Inhale this," she told him, using the feathers to wave the smoky tendrils towards his face.

Bellamy balked for a moment, shaking his head. "No, I'm good."

Echo frowned at him. "You are not 'good,'" she said. "You need all the treatment you can get, and you must sleep if you are to heal. This will ease your dreams."

"What is it?" he asked apprehensively, looking into the smouldering mixture.

"Medicine," she said firmly, waving the feathers again. "Now breathe before it's wasted to the wind."

He inhaled deeply and tears immediately sprung to his eyes as he coughed and sputtered. Echo seemed satisfied, nodding and saying, "The medicine is good."

"Good?" he managed, once he could speak again.

"Now the rest," she said, fanning him with the feathers once again.

With great trepidation he obeyed, and only when he had breathed in all the vapours and the potion was fully cool did Echo set aside the mortar. She fixed him with an intense look, as though she was waiting for something to happen.

"What?" he asked nervously. "Is it supposed to cure me immediately?"

"You will start to feel tired," she answered, and sure enough as soon as she spoke those words his eyelids grew heavy. He still felt the fear of not wanting to sleep, but it was like a great force was pulling him downward into unconsciousness. It was unsettling, and felt very much like he imagined drowning would feel. He tried to protest, tried to tell her he didn't like this, but before he could his eyes had closed and he was, once again, asleep.

.

This time he was on the Ark, in his quarters, sitting on one of the chairs at his family's small table. He still felt that residual fear, and he was fully aware that he was dreaming, which was strange. Only the fact that the table was covered in his mother's sewing paraphernalia made him relax a little, knowing that this was before everything went wrong- before Octavia was taken, before their mother was dead, before he was expelled from the guard and forced to spend that lonely year alone.

"O?" he asked cautiously, looking around frantically and realising she wasn't there.

"Are they gone?" Her voice was coming from the floor, and belatedly he understood there had just been an inspection. He went to the loose panel and pulled it up, reaching down a hand to pull Octavia to her feet. She had a good amount of room still in her hiding place, and so he knew this had to be years before she'd been taken from him- she looked about ten, eleven maybe.

"All done," he said, smiling at her. When she was on her feet he wrapped his arms around her and held her close, his hand automatically stroking over her hair and feeling her head- intact.

"Are you okay?" she asked him as she wriggled from his grasp, giving him a slightly amused, slightly perplexed look.

He smiled softly at her. "Yeah," he said, nodding. "Yeah, I'm good."

She yawned. "I'm tired, Bell. I can never sleep in the hole… I'm going to have a nap."

"Okay." He really didn't care what she did, he was just content knowing she was alive, so he watched her climb the ladder on the wall and slide into his bunk, wrapping herself up in his blankets.

While she slept he pored over the Guard Cadet Study Guide that his mother had gotten for him months ago. He knew that becoming a guard was the key to creating a safe future for himself and for Octavia.

Octavia was fast asleep by the time Aurora came home. She sat down with her son, giving him a tired smile. "How was your day?"

"Fine," he answered, keeping his voice low for Octavia's sake, though she was good at sleeping through anything. "The inspection was no problem." He had forgotten that he was dreaming.

"Is your sister safe?" she asked him, which was strange.

"Yeah… of course," he said, looking at her with confusion.

"Now you know why you had to do the things you did," she said to him.

He felt his heart quicken. "What?"

His mother's dark eyes bored into his. "She needs you, Bellamy. Even now."

"Now?" he repeated. He felt like they were each having a totally different conversation. "Why now?"

"She may be a warrior, but she's still your little sister," she said. "You have to do what you have to do to protect her. It doesn't matter what it costs."

He set down his tablet and looked at the table, and in his mind he was seeing all the bodies all over again- the people from the culling, the irradiated citizens of Mount Weather, including children and people who'd helped him.

"Do you remember what I said to you the day she was born?" Aurora pressed. "Do you remember what you told her?"

"Of course," he said, closing his eyes briefly before looking back to her.

She still had that intense expression on her face. "Say it."

"'Your sister, your responsibility,'" he said immediately, used to this familiar pattern of conversation between them. As he grew up, they had rehashed it many times.

"And what you said to her?" she prompted.

"That I'd never let anything bad happen to her."

"So you know in your heart what's right, Bellamy Blake," his mother said. "All those people had to die. There was no other option- not for her, not for you."

"But how many bodies is too many?" he asked softly. His eyes flickered to his sister's sleeping form in the bunk above their heads. "When is it too much?"

Aurora seized his arm with her hand and her voice was savage when she said, "Never. It's never too much. Not if it means saving her life."

"But-"

"Listen to me, Bellamy," she interrupted, her eyes holding that same intensity he knew so well. "Shooting Jaha was justified- if only because he was a tyrant. If only because he killed me, locked your sister up, showed our family no mercy. But especially because it got you to the ground, so you could look after her. Do you think she would have survived without you there? Would any of them?"

He swallowed, nodded. He had long since forgiven himself for Jaha, accepted Clarke's words telling him that they all needed him… but there was clearly still hesitation in his eyes and his mother knew him too well to miss it.

"You didn't know about the radio," she said, her voice gentle for the first time. "It was Jaha that chose to cull them. Just like he decided to send your sister down to Earth, where she would most likely die. Those deaths are on his hands. Not yours."

"But what about Mount Weather?" he whispered, his eyes dropping to the floor, the image going wobbly as his eyes filled with tears. "All those people… the kids…"

"Oh, my brave boy," Aurora said fondly, gently, curling her fingers around his cheek and raising his face to look at her. "You know the answer to that. You just watched what would have happened if you hadn't pulled that lever."

He closed his eyes, swallowed, seeing again that horrific image of Octavia dead.

"Look at me," his mother ordered. He did. "What you did was right. Those people would have hunted you and your friends- your sister- down like animals. You had to do it. You had to save her, Bellamy, you know that. What you did was exactly what needed doing- it was the right thing. It saved Octavia."

Again, he looked to Octavia, watched the rise and fall of her back, listened to her breathing- listened the sounds of her living. He looked back to his mother, who was smiling softly at him. "I fulfilled my life's purpose," she said softly. "I gave you both life and I bonded you to each other so that when I died I would know you would take care of each other… and that your little sister would always be safe."

She cupped her son's face in her hands and he met her eyes, both of them close to tears in that moment. "I am so proud of you… never doubt that, Bellamy. I know you've laid awake thinking that I would be disappointed in who you are, in the things you've done, but listen to me now, because this is the truth: I could never be more proud of you. I'm proud of the good, good man you've become."

.

Bellamy's eyes opened slowly and he saw Echo sitting next to him, gazing down at him. He couldn't help but smile at her. The sky was growing dark.

"The medicine is good," she said, returning his smile. "You should listen to me."

"Yeah," he said, his own widening into a grin, nodding his head and letting out a long breath of relief, his chest feeling light and unburdened for the first time in what felt like forever. "The medicine is definitely good."

Echo nodded her head with satisfaction, and together they watched the sun dip lower and lower on the horizon, a comfortable silence passing between them.