Bellamy

If he had awareness of anything at all, he knew he was going downhill, that death was a real possibility. He lay on a narrow pallet of wood and straw, covered in furs, in front of Lala's hearth. His temperature rose and then plunged again, and most of his body's functions shut down as he lay there sweating, shivering, his heart pounding, his breath coming in shallow gasps. He often overheard the women muttering about him, but since they were only speaking Trigedasleng he couldn't understand enough to grasp just how dire things might be. Only his own name and a few words were intelligible, just enough to make him worried.

When he spoke, he knew from the women's faces that his words made no sense, and his thoughts were cloudy and muddled, his sense of time and place confused. More than once he demanded to see Octavia, or his mother, but of course neither of them ever showed. Usually when he woke up it was only long enough to rant about something incoherent, maybe vomit, and then his dreams pulled him under again. Sometimes when he slept he was forced to relive unpleasant memories, while other times his dreams were completely invented by his mind and his fever, but still so vivid that he could have sworn they were real.

He had no concept of all the medicines they were giving him, but each one tasted awful. Some of them were thick and sticky while others were watery and so strong smelling they made him gag before he even took the first sip. Still, with Lala's gentle coaxing and Echo's insistent force-feeding, he kept most it down.

The skin on his leg continued to blister, split, peel back, and rot away, as the wound festered more and more. Bellamy was too squeamish to look at what they were doing to treat that, but he had felt every sensation possible- sticky, watery, thick, heavy, dry, wet, burning, stinging, cooling, and even squirming things- placed on the wound. There were times when he was absolutely positive he was dying, or that they were making it worse, or that his leg was gone- rotted away or cut off. But he knew he had no choice but to trust them.

The fever dreams were at best disturbing, at worst traumatic. Echo and Lala worked to feed him medicine that would ease his visions, but it really only took the edge off and not much else. Their priority was to save his life, and he couldn't fault them for it. So he had to just lie there, at the whims of his body and his mind, trusting these two women he barely knew to take care of him.

Today when Bellamy was jolted out of consciousness from yet another strange dream, he felt different. He coughed, feeling something boiling up in his throat, and rolled over to the side just in time to let the vomit spill out onto the floor and not choke him. He felt someone move up behind him and rub his back, and then that person held his shoulders as he rolled back onto his pallet. He looked into Echo's eyes and noted that she looked surprised.

"You can move." She sounded impressed, maybe even hopeful.

"Should I not be able to?" he asked. He blinked a few times, focusing on her face. He felt her palm on his forehead, the coolness of it.

"And you can speak." She wiped his face and brow with a cloth, then raised his head in her forearm and pressed a cup to his lips. "Drink." He obeyed her, draining the liquid, glad it tasted like water and not like anything horrible.

"So does that mean I'm better?" he asked, hesitant, afraid of the answer.

"It appears so," she said with a satisfied nod. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him up to a sitting position, letting him slump against her for a moment while he adjusted.

Bellamy looked down at his leg, noting with relief that it was still there, and he thought he remembered it being more swollen, redder, so that made him feel hopeful. He felt so weak, like he hadn't moved in days.

"How long?" he asked her, again fearing her response.

"A long time," she said gently.

He swallowed. "Octavia?"

Echo gingerly extracted her body from his, slowly, seeing whether he would sit up on his own. When he managed not to waver, she nodded her head. "Good."

She started to move away, but he quickly grabbed her arm. "Where is she?"

Echo pulled away from him and shook her head. "I do not know. There is still no word, but I also haven't been looking for her. I have been preoccupied with keeping you alive."

"Yeah," he said, nodding. "Thanks, but I get the feeling I've been laying around long enough. I need to find Octavia."

"You are truly an infuriating man," she said with a deep frown as she shook her head, pulling to her feet and going over to the hearth to stir one of the many pots bubbling above the fire.

Bellamy rolled onto his hands and knees and grabbed hold of a shelf, using it to hold his weight as he raised himself to his feet. It took a lot longer than he wanted, but finally he stood there, palm planted on the wall, breath heaving, legs wobbling, struggling to stay upright. He looked up at Echo and saw her standing by the fire, glaring at him, arms crossed over her chest.

"You cannot even stand," she snapped, returning to his side and grabbing him under the arm, pulling him over to a chair. He nearly toppled but she held his weight, swinging him around and sitting him down on the chair. She looked at him with clear disgust. "You are no help to your sister."

"How long has it been?" Bellamy demanded, wrenching his arm away from her.

Echo let out an exasperated sound of frustration and said, "Six days, Bellamy. It has been six days, and there is no sign of Octavia or of Lincoln. Does that help?"

He squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them again. "No," he whispered, shaking his head. His heart felt like ice.

Something about the look on his face seemed to soften her anger and she knelt down in front of him, carefully placing her hand on his knee. He looked at her, saw the determination in her soft brown eyes, but wasn't sure of the meaning of that look.

"Bellamy, I am sorry about Octavia- truly. But throwing yourself around like this, risking to undo all the hard work we have put into keeping you alive… it is selfish."

"Selfish?" he answered, straightening a little, not having expected her to say that at all. "Why is it selfish to want to rescue my sister?"

"Octavia is not a child. She is a warrior. If she has gotten herself into trouble then she has just as much chance of getting herself out of it again. And if she is meant to die then nothing you can do will save her. We do not know if she is dead or alive, but if you kill yourself trying to find her then it will not help either of you."

He was sick of being lectured, sick of her being right. "I need her," he protested, his voice soft.

"And those may be the truest words that you have ever spoken," she answered, standing up, going back to tending the pots.

Bellamy shook his head, closed his eyes, and he had a crazy idea suddenly- that he would know if Octavia had been killed. That he would have felt it, somehow. "She can't be dead," he insisted.

Echo nodded. "Then let us assume she is alive until we know otherwise."

"And she's with Lincoln," he reasoned. "So she'll be fine." He knew the man loved his sister, would keep her safe even if she couldn't, even if he had to die to do it.

Echo said nothing to that. She found a wooden bowl and went back to the fire, spooning out something thick and then bringing him the bowl, handing it to him with a spoon. "Eat this."

"What is it?" he asked apprehensively.

She gave him a soft smile and he thought, not the first time, that he didn't understand her. "Food. Only a bland broth- nothing more."

He inhaled the steam rising from the bowl; it may have been bland, but it smelled amazing, and he realised then just how hungry he was. He ate slowly in case it might all come back up again, but he couldn't help but think about Octavia, of where she might be, if she was okay, and what he was going to do now.

Echo reached forward and laid her hand on his forehead. For once there wasn't a sheen of sweat between his skin and hers. As he looked at her she nodded her head. "Good."

"I know you don't want to hear this," he said tentatively, meeting her eyes. "And I get what you're saying- I know she's a warrior, that she can take care of herself. Really. But I need to know that she's safe. So we still have to go after them."

"And what about Clarke?" she asked evenly. "We do not know where Octavia and Lincoln are. They may be fine. And yet we know that Clarke is in danger." She went back to the pots, stirring another concoction that smelled far less pleasant than the one he was eating.

Bellamy hesitated. He felt torn, but still he shook his head. "Octavia was getting medicine to save my life. She didn't come back, so she's not fine." He said it with great resignation, knowing without a doubt that it was true. She wasn't okay… even if she was a warrior, and even if she was with Lincoln, something had gone very wrong.

"There may be no trace of them," Echo warned him. "No one knows what happened to them after they left this village."

As soon as she said that he knew what they had to do. Before she said that, his mind had been racing with possibilities of how he might track down his sister, how they would find the trail of wherever Lincoln and Octavia had been and how they got into trouble. But as soon as Echo said that- that no one knew what had happened after they left this village- he realised that their answers lay not outside, but within the village.

"Echo," he said carefully, turning to look at her. "What about before they left the village? You said they made it right here to this hut, but then what? Did anyone actually see them leave? Was there anyone else they talked to besides Lala?"

"I do not know," she said, shaking her head slowly as she considered it.

"Then let's ask people," he insisted, trying to sit up again. "It's our best lead."

Echo placed her hands firmly on his chest and pushed him back down. "When you can walk, you can participate in that plan," she said. "I promise."

He started to protest, but then he realised that she was- as usual- right. "Fine," he said, giving her a wry smile. "Then let's hurry up and get me well."

Echo returned his smile, flicking her eyes to the ceiling. "Finally we agree."