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Miller stood at the door to the room where Bellamy was being held, debating whether to go in or not.
Bellamy had been a friend once. But now it had come to light that he’d poisoned Octavia, his own sister.
Octavia was a better friend.
Miller nodded at the guard, who opened the door to admit him. Bellamy was laid out on the bench, staring up at the ceiling. He turned his head to see who entered, and sat up, observing Miller carefully.
Miller stood in the entrance of the chain-link door, not moving any further, thumbs hooked into his weapons belt, staring Bellamy down. Bellamy just looked at him, not saying anything.
The staredown went on for a few minutes, until Miller finally spoke.
“A long time ago, you asked me to take care of your sister. To protect her. I never thought the person she’d need protecting from was you.”
“She’s not the same person she was then.”
“None of us are, Bellamy, not even you.”
“And if I took back that request? Would that change anything?”
“No. She’s saved my life. And Jackson’s. And the lives of everyone in this bunker. I’m not going to betray her. Not when pretty much everyone else has. We’re all she has.”
“Doesn’t that tell you something? Miller, if a leader has gone wrong, people betray them. That’s a sign.”
Miller moved faster than Bellamy expected, slamming him up against the wall. It knocked the wind out of him as he struggled to breathe with Miller’s hand clamped around his neck.
“Octavia hasn’t gone wrong.” Miller snarled at him. “Far from it. She’s had to do things to keep us alive. Things we don’t talk about. Some people haven’t been able to handle it. That’s on them, not her. But she takes it on herself anyway. She shoulders all of the guilt and blame and pain so that the rest of us can get up in the morning with a clearer conscience. She’s not a tyrant, Bellamy, she’s a fucking martyr. I thought if anyone would understand, it would be you and Clarke. That was my mistake.” Miller shoved him into the wall for emphasis, then let go and walked away.
Bellamy dropped to the ground, but rolled and recovered quickly, getting back to his feet. “Miller, she’s about to put me, Gaia and Indra in an arena to fight to the death. You don’t think that’s a lot insane?”
Miller turned back around to face him. “You killed one of her people, tried to kill her, and conspired to replace her with a kid who didn’t even want it. You’re lucky that you even get a chance to live.”
“I wasn’t trying to kill my sister. Just put her out of commission long enough for us to take Diyoza’s deal. You have to believe me.”
“Wish I could, Bellamy. But Jackson told me it was really damn close. If he hadn’t started that dialysis when he did, she would have been dead. Just like that. How does that make you feel?”
“Horrible. I’d never forgive myself. But I was trying to save her from herself.”
Miller stormed back over to Bellamy, pushing him back into the wall with a hand to the chest. “To be able to save her, you’d need to understand her. And you don’t. Not anymore.”
Bellamy pushed Miller off of him and stalked across the room, sitting back down on the bench. “So you admit she needs saving.”
“Not in the way you think. And not for the reasons you think, either.”
“Then enlighten me. Why does my sister need saving?”
“From you, Bellamy. Things have been fucking hard down here, on no one more than her. She’s been through some monumentally fucked up shit. But we had nothing but time to help her work through it. She’s been able to manage it. But now there are too many variables in the equation and you've backed her into a corner.”
“I’ve backed her into a corner?”
“Like I told you that first day. You can’t just do whatever you want here. You’ve been undermining her from the second you arrived, and that’s just made everything go from bad to worse. You keep pushing, and you’ll push her over the edge.”
“You mean this isn’t her over the edge?”
“No. But she is balancing right on it. It won’t take much. Dammit if you'd just listened to her. Trusted her. Now this, everything that happens from here on out, is all on you.”
“I told her, I’m not fighting in that arena.”
Miller stalked back over to Bellamy and pulled him up by his shirt, faces only inches apart. “You damn well better fight. If you care at all about your sister, you will. The only way this ends well for any of us is if you win that fight, you hear me?”
“You’ll choose me as the victor over your fellow Wonkru?”
“Gaia and Indra are enemies of Wonkru. But my loyalty isn’t to Wonkru. It is to Octavia. And I will always choose her well-being over everything else.” Miller looked Bellamy up and down with a look of disgust. “The only reason you’re still alive at all is because she wants you alive. And I don’t break my promises.”
Miller didn’t wait for a response, letting go and walking out of the room, telling the guard to bring Bellamy to the arena in five minutes.
He could only hope that Bellamy would take his words to heart, and fight. He didn’t want to know what would happen to Octavia if her brother died. Miller knew without a doubt that ever since she’d awakened from her coma, she’d been operating in a what Jackson called a dissociative state, stemming from a trigger to something known as post-traumatic stress, that she was likely to not remember later.
Miller didn’t know how long it would last, so he’d been doing what he could to try to let things rest for several days, so that Octavia wouldn’t have to make any life-altering decisions until it passed, but in his meeting that morning, Brell had forced his hand. And now Bellamy still didn’t seem to be getting the message.
As he took up his spot on the right side of Octavia’s throne, he could see it in her eyes that she was still in that state. But there was no stopping this now.
Part of him breathed a sigh of relief when Monty and Harper broke into the arena and stopped the fighting, but only because he knew Bellamy didn’t stand a chance against Indra.
The other part knew that no matter how well-intentioned Monty and Harper’s actions were, this wouldn’t bring Octavia any peace. Having to continue living with her nightmares, she’d vanish to them completely.
Octavia told him to stand down, but he still did a visual sweep over the crowd, to see if there were any further threats lurking, if anyone was emboldened enough by Gaia’s attempt on her life that they’d try something further.
He looked back to Octavia too late, for she was already gone. And he knew exactly where she was headed, but while no one had dared to get in her way as she slipped out of the arena, he was met with plenty of resistance as he fought his way after her.
If it had been any other day.
If it had been any other moment.
But it wasn’t another day, it wasn’t another moment, and Miller was not at all surprised when he finally made it through the halls to reach the burning hydrofarm.
This time, when Octavia looked up, he didn’t see any trace of the pain and struggle that she had been fighting so hard to contain for hours, days, months, years.
He didn’t see her there anymore. He only saw her mask, which he had always been able to see through. Now there was only Blodreina.
Miller made his way to Bellamy’s side and whispered harshly in his ear. “One thing that Octavia hasn’t done is break. Against all the odds of the past six years, she never broke. Until now. Congratulations, Bellamy. You’ve all done what six years of the worst conditions imaginable couldn’t. I hope you’re proud of yourselves.”
Bellamy still didn’t get the message.