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He took a deep breath, pushing the button, and watched as the ice unsealed, releasing his sister back to the waking world. He watched silently as she struggled to wakefulness, her eyes going to him immediately. She registered the bundle of letters in his hand, and swallowed hard, making no move to get up, or even speak.
It would be up to him then, to start.
“Morning, O.”
He would do better this time.
“Where did you get those?” Octavia asked carefully, looking back to the ceiling. “Did Niylah give them to you?”
“No.”
“Then where did you get them?”
“Monty. He found them when he was organizing everyone’s belongings. He read them.”
Her expression turned furious and she sat up in a flurry of movement. “Those letters are private. He had no right. Where is he?”
Bellamy grabbed her arm, perhaps too hastily, and he felt her freeze, not moving a muscle. He released his grip immediately, stepping back a few paces. She still didn’t move.
“I’m sorry.” He whispered. “I’m sorry. But Monty’s gone, O. You can’t talk to him.”
“What do you mean gone?”
“He’s dead. Many decades ago.”
Octavia furrowed her brow in confusion. “How long were we asleep?”
“A hundred and twenty five years.”
She looked stunned. Even sad, perhaps. “Was he alone?” She asked quietly.
“No. He and Harper had their happy ending. They lived here on the ship, working to find us a new home, because Earth isn’t coming back. They also had a son. Jordan Jasper Green.”
Octavia’s mouth quirked into a soft and sad half-smile. “For Jasper.”
Bellamy nodded. “He’s about our age now, since they put him in cryo too, when they realized it could take awhile.”
“Did they find it? A new home?”
“Yeah. They did. That’s why we’re awake now. Jordan woke me and Clarke up a few hours ago. There’s a new planet. A fresh start. For all of us.”
“Except Monty and Harper.”
“Except them.”
Octavia nodded, biting her lip. “But they were happy?”
“Yeah. From the messages they recorded for us, they were happy. Lived a long life. Best anyone could ask for in this world.”
“I guess they got to play Adam and Eve after all. Good for them.”
“O…” Bellamy trailed off, not sure what to say anymore.
Octavia looked at the letters, still not moving from the edge of the cryopod. “Did you read them?”
“I did. Monty said I should.”
She nodded again, expression becoming blank. “Then I guess you know everything.”
“Only what you wrote down.” Bellamy tried to soften his stance, his gaze, as much as he could, to show he was ready to listen and wasn’t a threat. “You didn’t write every day.”
“Which part do you want to know more about, Bell?” Octavia asked as she hopped down from the cryopod and stepped into his personal space, her movements irregular and unsteady as she kept moving forward, making him take steps back. “Do you want to know about the feel of blood, the blood of my people, spattering across my skin as I took back the farm? Or the sound of my people screaming as I shot them in the cafeteria when they wouldn’t eat? Or maybe you want to know about the taste of human flesh, how-”
“O!” Bellamy cursed himself for the harsh sound of that one letter as Octavia jumped back reflexively, and then froze again. He put his hands up in surrender. “O, I’m not judging you.”
“That’s new. Because that’s all you’ve been doing since we reunited after six years apart.”
“I know. I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I understand now why you didn’t want to say anything about what happened down there. And I understand why you didn’t want to stay there and why you had to get your people to the valley. I get it.”
“You don’t get anything.” Her voice trembled. “You weren’t there. You can’t possibly understand.”
“I want to.” Bellamy tugged on his hair as he worried his lips together, trying to think of what he could say to hope she’d believe him. “I know that when the bunker was opened, I refused to see you as you were - the leader of your people, the leader that had kept them together and prevented everything from descending into anarchy. I only saw you as my little sister, creating a fantasy, rather than the reality of what you’d lived with for six long years.”
“I don’t know how you could ever think that this was some fantasy for me. People died, Bell. My people. I never took it lightly.”
“I know. And I know that you shouldered all of the burden and responsibility for it. I can’t imagine how that feels.”
“It’s awful.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “But you know what feels even worse?”
“Knowing that someone you love and trust poisoned you?”
Octavia nodded, tears slipping down her cheeks. “I know you were angry, about Echo, about the worms, I recognize that, but a leader has to make hard choices. Make sacrifices. I didn’t want to do any of it. I thought you of all people would understand. But then you murdered one of my people and poisoned me.” She looked up at him. “Do you know what that did to me?”
“I didn’t then. I didn’t want to. But I do now. O, I -” his voice broke. “I’m so sorry, O. And if I could take back everything I said to you in that gorge, I would. I - I know before the fight in the pit, I told you there was no coming back from it. I don’t even know if you remember that, but I want to take it back. I do.”
“I don’t remember. I don’t remember a lot of our last days on Earth. Just the battle in the gorge.” Octavia stepped back and dropped to the floor, hugging her knees close to her chest, but still looking up at him through her tears. “What happened to us, Bell?”
Bellamy sat down heavily and sighed, resting back against the cryopods. “I don’t know. I just know that I missed all the signs that you were suffering. That there was some trauma that happened to you, and that its effects hadn’t gone away. And then I made it worse. You’re my sister, I should have seen it. I’m sorry I didn’t.”
“I’m sorry I threw you in the fighting pit.”
“I deserved it at that point.”
“So what do we do now? Where do we go from here?”
“I wish I knew.”
They sat in silence for a long time, the silence and space between them an unbridgeable chasm, but both knowing that if they walked away from it now, there would be nothing to come back to.
“Do you remember Euripides?” Bellamy finally asked into the silence.
Octavia raised her head from where she’d been resting it on her knees. “Yes. Mom never wanted you to read me those plays.”
“Violent and bloody family drama, I know. But you couldn’t get enough of them. Especially Iphigenia in Tauris.”
“A brother comes to a faraway land to steal an icon, but instead discovers his long-lost and believed-dead sister. I remember. I always liked that one.”
Bellamy smiled ruefully. “I know. We acted it out many times.”
“But we only focused on the happy parts. The reunion, the escape. Not the sad ones. Like where Iphigenia was going to sacrifice her brother.” Octavia’s voice hitched on the last few words.
“Else, unhappy one, thyself had spilt this day thy brother’s blood.”
“Bloody my hand had been, my heart heavy with sin, and now what end cometh?” Octavia intoned. “Shall Chance yet comfort me, finding a way for thee back from the Friendless Strand, back from the place of death?” Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks.
Bellamy wanted desperately to reach out and comfort her, but knew she needed to take that in her own time without him pushing her for it.
So he returned his focus to the story. “But you’re forgetting the part where Iphigenia was ready to die to let her brother escape.” Bellamy looked at her, but she was in her own world, hidden behind a veil of tears.
“Nay, I must wait then and be slain - thou shalt walk free in Argolis again, and all life smile on thee… dearest, we need not shrink from that. I shall by mine own deed have saved thee.”
“My mother and then thou? It may not be. This hand hath blood enough. I stand with thee one-hearted here, be it for life or death.” Bellamy quoted. “He saved her.”
Octavia smiled a sad smile. “You can’t save me, Bell. Not this time.”
“It’s all I’ve ever known. My sister, my responsibility.”
“You had six years on the Ring, the first time in your life since I was born that I wasn’t. I know you wish you could have been there in the bunker to help me, but you weren’t. No amount of wishing is going to change that.”
“Six years on the Ring, and I forgot about the most important person in my life.”
“You didn’t forget me, Bell. I know you didn’t. We were living different lives for the first time. I know you wish you could always protect me, but you couldn’t. You can’t. And I’m not that little girl anymore. We can’t ever go back to that. That’s over, on a planet dead and gone from here.”
“O, I don’t want to lose you. Please.”
“You don’t have to lose me. But you do have to realize that we’re not the same people we once were. And since there’s no going back to that, all we can do is move forwards. A new start, you said. There’s a new planet to explore, after all.”
“You’re not going, O. Not until it’s safe.”
Anger flashed in Octavia’s eyes. “You’re not my keeper, Bell.”
“I didn’t make that call, Niylah did.”
Octavia’s expression changed to something resembling vague confusion. “Niylah’s awake? Clarke woke her up, or -”
“No. I did. After I read your letters, I wanted to talk to her. She’s been there for you when no one else was, and I’m supremely grateful to her for that. She loves you and wants what is best for you. She said she knew you’d want to dive into danger on the new planet, but what you needed was peace in which to heal. Might not be my call, but I don’t think she’s wrong.”
Octavia shook her head. “She’s not. I’m tired, Bell.” Her voice wavered. “I’m so tired.”
Bellamy nodded, scooting along the floor slowly so that he was within reach of his sister, who looked so small and no longer the imposing queen that she had once been.
“For what it’s worth - I’m not going either.” Bellamy said, and Octavia looked up at him in surprise. “I told Niylah, I said you two could have the ship while we went down to the new planet, but she said I should stay too. She was right. I need to be here for you. I need to know my sister again. Learn to see her not as the sheltered little girl she used to be, but as the brave selfless woman she has become.”
“I don’t know who I am right now, Bell.”
“Then I’ll be here to help you figure that out.” He held his hand out towards her, palm up, in invitation. “For however long it takes.”
Octavia looked at her brother’s hand, then his face, and the hopeful smile it held.
She reached out and took his hand. “Okay.”
“Okay.” Bellamy breathed. “Okay.”