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Day 1 - 10
The first week was awkward.
Skaikru seemed right at home on the ring. Hell, even Emori had adjusted quickly. But Echo was freaking out.
Grounders in space, Bellamy had murmured one day in passing before freezing, turning on his heel, and escaping to the far reaches of the ring where everyone knew not to follow.
Echo knew what he meant, though. She didn’t belong there. She could practically feel how deeply the others resented her presence. Every time she walked in a room someone would give her an inscrutable look or sometimes even shed a tear. She was a constant reminder of who wasn’t there.
Skaikru had loved Clarke deeply, it seemed, and space gave them too much time to mourn.
There was plenty of work to be done in order for them to survive the next five years, but there was also more down time than any of them knew what to do with. At first, Echo tried to keep her distance, but after the third day in a row of sitting in her room staring at her sword and weighing the decision to finish what she’d tried to start on Earth, she stopped self-isolating and sought out the common areas whenever she could. She volunteered her help, even though she had little to offer.
She committed to a singular goal early on—when she died, it would be at home on the ground.
Day 10 - 45
Emori was the first to reach out to Echo, despite Echo’s hesitancy towards the frikdreina. But it was nice to know someone else understood what Echo was going through.
Murphy never made any special effort to befriend her, but he never distanced himself in the first place. His throw away quips towards her were the first hint of friendliness she found.
Raven was busy, but kind enough in her own off-handed way. She helped give Echo direction in the first months. But most of what Raven muttered about went over her head.
Monty and Harper communicated with her mostly through smiles. Sometimes in comfort, sometimes in solidarity. Echo was suspicious of them at first, but no one else batted an eye.
Bellamy was the most distant, but he was kind of that way with everyone for awhile. When he wasn’t rallying their will to survive, he went off on his own for hours at a time. (Murphy followed him one day, only to return telling them all to give the guy some space.)
He scowled every time Echo asked him a question, even though he answered freely. He alternated between not being able to look at her and staring at her with a confusing mix of anger, disdain, and heartbreak in his eyes. He made Echo supremely uncomfortable, not to mention a little sad. There’d been a time when she thought he could have been her first friend up there.
Maybe if she hadn’t pushed his sister off a cliff.
And, she sometimes thought, maybe if Clarke had made it.
Day 45
Bellamy first sought her out a month or two into their stay.
“I want you to teach me to fight.”
It wasn’t a question or a request. It was his own personal form of giving orders to make it sound like they had other options.
She needed something to do anyways, however.
“Okay.”
Days 45 - 87
He was wild like she’d never seen him before when they sparred.
(Perhaps once, when she’d held her blade to Clarke’s neck.)
He radiated anger and was happy to find a target for it in Echo. She understood. He was grieving. Sometimes she riled him up on purpose to push him onward.
One day she went too far. That was the first time he won against her, nearly strangling her with his bare hands once again. She almost wasn’t sure Bellamy would let her go when she tapped out.
She kept her ribbing away from anything Clarke-related after that.
Day 88 - 193
Everyone was pleased to see a change in their leader after she started training Bellamy. Having an outlet for his anger and grief kept him present the rest of the time. He maintained a fairly cool demeanor, but he engaged more and went off on his own less. (Less, but he never stopped completely.)
Raven decided she wanted in on the action, but she had significantly less free time than the rest of them.
That first year, Echo trained anyone who asked.
Day 194
At some point, the concept of peace took on real meaning for Echo. After a lifetime of war, she was ill-prepared. She found herself starting trouble where there was none, picking fights that didn’t need to be fought.
Bellamy, of all people, sat her down one day and said, “No one up here is against you. You know that, right?”
She merely glared in response.
“Survival is a team sport,” he recited, as if quoting another one of his dead philosophers. Her look must have conveyed her confusion, because he immediately elaborated. “We have to work together if we’re going to survive the next few years up here. We need you to survive, just as much as you need us.”
“Oh?” she challenged, “so you’ve forgiven me?”
He stared back at her, defiant for a long moment. “No,” he answered with gravel in his throat, “but I’ll work on that.”
It was more than she’d expected.
With a nod, she acquiesced, “I’ll work on my… attitude.”
He left her at that, turning back at the door to assure her, “We will get back to the ground. There’s not much Raven can’t do.”
She didn’t believe him, but she dismissed him with another nod of her head.
Day 195 - 460
After Raven started training Emori on tech, Bellamy decided they could all learn a few things from each other.
Monty started Echo and Emori off with some “basic” science, as he called it. It all sounded fairly ridiculous and useless to her, but so had living in space.
After Bellamy stumbled upon Echo and Emori speaking to each other in their native tongue, he demanded, “Teach us trig.”
She thought it might be because of his suspicion of her, as if she and Emori were planning some subversive coup.
She taught them all anyway.
Bellamy was the worst, too easily frustrated to learn an entirely new language. No one else took it quite as seriously, however.
Day 461 - 725
By the second year, they had developed a routine. They ate all their meals together. Nightly meals tended to lead into story time. They shared anecdotes of their past, usually funny but every now and then someone shared a bittersweet story that just made everyone smile. Echo shared, too, telling stories of life growing up in Azgeda. They weren’t the funniest stories, but once she even made Bellamy chuckle to himself so she was satisfied.
Day 726 - 1,046
They made up games, an entirely new concept for Echo. To play, for her, meant competition and fighting, one-upsmanship and teasing. For them, it was innocent and meaningless, just a reason to laugh, something to pass the time.
She learned to play cards, beat everyone at something called Twister, and looked on confused when they brought out a board and tiny trinkets and pieces of paper then yelled at each other and called it fun.
Monty threw her a book one day and she struggled with it for a week before anyone noticed.
“I can read,” she argued.
“But you’ve never read a book before, have you?”
“I don't know what you did up here for all those years, but on the ground we didn’t have the free time to lie around and read thousands of words at a time.”
Harper sat with her after that, reading the book together and helping her piece together the fragments she understood. One day, Murphy shoved Emori to sit with them. They learned together.
She felt a sense of pride when they finished, something akin to winning her first fight or riding home after completing a harrowing mission. Reading wasn’t nearly as impressive in her opinion, but she had to take the victories when she found them up in space.
Day 1,047
“There are no good guys and bad guys,” she said one day, in response to one of Murphy’s bitchy remarks.
She wasn’t looking at him, but she could feel Bellamy freeze at her words. She prepared herself for his disdain, even as she continued. “There’s just what you’re willing to do for your people.”
Monty didn’t like it, but Murphy seemed to get it.
Bellamy…
He was quiet, but somehow suddenly less forceful in his dislike.
He nodded to himself, before looking straight into her eyes. The sense of being understood overcame her and she knew he agreed. But all too quickly, he averted his gaze, cleared his throat and left the room. She didn’t see him again for nearly 24 hours—an impressive feat under the circumstances.
Days 1,048 - 1,300
She’d missed sex since their first month in space, but the desire had only become painful after hours and hours of sparring, day after day, with a fit, hot-blooded man. Because Bellamy was quite a man. Maybe not the type she’d have usually gone for back in Azgeda… But, then again, maybe he was.
Brute. Cunning. Strong. Loyal.
There were times she thought maybe… but he never acted on it. Even after he’d forgiven her for her earthly transgressions.
Days 1,301 - 1,824
Every day was more of the same. They entertained themselves. The trained. Raven worked.
No one could deny... life on the Ring was pretty boring.
Days 1,825 - 1,900
When five years came and went, things had to change. They didn’t know how long they’d be up there. The unspoken fear being: they may spend the rest of their lives on this ring.
Bellamy pushed them all to define their place, to be useful. Raven had her tech, with Emori as her second. Monty had his algae. Harper helped him, but also served as their makeshift doctor, mom, and therapist. Echo kept them all in fighting shape.
Murphy rebelled.
Echo wasn’t sure why, but the five year mark had been hardest for him. Harper had tried to empathize one night, describing him as a marathon runner reaching the finish line, only to find out he could never stop running. Echo didn’t care for her excuses.
The more Bellamy pushed him, the more Murphy pulled away. He lashed out, his stupid little jokes somehow becoming even more bitter and dark until they weren’t even jokes anymore. His mood soured the entire ring. He and Emori started fighting frequently, eventually devolving into screaming and shoving and pointed, hurtful words.
One good thing came out of it, however. Bellamy spent more time with her as they both tried to escape the tension. Together, they found a sort of calm the others lacked. There was no pressure to make each other smile or laugh, only a quiet understanding that Echo found made her feel at home.
Day 1,901
She felt a strange sense of freedom in that sixth year. She was pretty sure the others felt it too.
They were suddenly looking at the possibility of a future in space (better to look at it as possibility than a death sentence) and to Echo, that future looked bright.
Peaceful.
She let herself get used to the idea. She imagined a future with her family, imagined growing old, imagined how much her relationship with Bellamy would change in another three years.
Because at some point, it began to seem inevitable. Monty and Harper. Murphy and Emori.
Bellamy.
Echo.
And Raven.
And Bellamy and Raven weren’t any closer to hooking up than they were five years ago.
Echo didn’t know when and she didn’t know how, but she knew she gravitated to him. She had since the moment he’d saved her in that cage.
And she knew where they were heading.
Day 1,941
“Thank you for forgiving me.”
It was the first time she’d said it out loud, even though it’d been over a year since things had settled between them.
He was quiet for a moment, gaze far away, staring at the ceiling. “You deserved it,” he finally replied. But his words were as distant as the stars.
She curled into his side to bring him closer, drawing him to her with a finger teasing over his bare chest.
A memory lingered on the edges of her mind. A conversation overheard ages ago when they’d first arrived on the ring. Bellamy hovering over an upset friend, a comforting hand on their shoulder.
“Forgiveness isn’t about what people deserve, Monty,” he’d whispered. “It will happen whenever you’re ready.”
She let the memory drift away without ever solidifying. He was in her arms now—that’s all that mattered.
Days 1,942 - 2,044
At first, that was all it was. For the next couple months they had sex every now and then. Not as much as she would have liked—Bellamy always found a way to make himself busy or a reason to spend time with each and every one of his friends.
Still, it brought them closer. She cherished the alone time that came with their new arrangement, when there seemed to be no demands or expectations. She woke him from nightmares before they got too bad. He talked to her with a softness she’d never experienced before.
She loved him first. It took him longer.
He didn’t seem to treat her any differently than the others for the longest time. She tried not to expect more from him, but when they were alone he was more attentive than any of her past lovers.
Raven teased Echo about her budding relationship with Bellamy, one day slipping in, “He’s good, don’t you think?”
“You say that as if you have experience,” Echo pushed. She wasn’t jealous. Really.
“Once. He was all about the casual sex for awhile. I figured, why not. Of course, that was before… um, Gina.”
Echo didn’t react. She knew what she’d done to him.
“After that though, I never really saw him with anyone. I thought he and Clarke would’ve, but…” Raven drifted into a solemn silence.
“They never…?” she couldn’t help but ask. It surprised her—the way people had talked about them, the way Roan had spoken of them—Echo thought there must have been something between them once. Perhaps they’d had more of a sibling bond, she reasoned. It made sense.
“Not that I know of. Clarke had a thing with Niylah, I think. Nothing serious. Seemed like the both of them were too busy saving lives to commit to anyone.”
“Well, there’s no one left to save…”
Raven gave her a knowing look. “Hey, I don’t know your relationship. You want to know, ask him.”
Day 2,045
“Are we together?” she asked bluntly one day.
He’d said numerous times that it was something he liked about her, but his face shuttered at the onslaught. “What?”
“Are we together?” she repeated, explaining, “like Monty and Harper are or Murphy and Emori,”
“Um,” he hedged. “I… don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it.”
“Well, think about it.”
She waited for him to nod, then went back to work.
Day 2,052
“We could try that,” he said a week later, standing in the door of her room.
“Don’t do me any favors,” she tried to joke.
And he smiled, lifting a heavy weight off her heart. “I want to try that,” he clarified as he moved toward her. She welcomed his hands on her waist, threw her arms over his shoulders in response. Her smile grew to match his, starting a seemingly never-ending competition for luminance.
“Okay then.” She brought her lips merely an inch from his.
“Okay,” he whispered, then kissed her.
Days 2,053 - 2100
Not much changed around everyone else. It was when they were alone in his room that he suddenly offered her kinder words, softer touches, and gentler kisses than ever before.
He tried, and it showed.
Days 2,100 - 2,199
Things settled once more. Murphy kept himself secluded. Raven and Emori became closer. Monty and Harper were happy. Echo and Bellamy fell in love.
They took it slow, but there was little else to do in space. It was a connection unlike any Echo had ever known. She felt more attached to him than she was comfortable with, thinking of him both as hers and as her leader. The resulting connection was one that made her feel helpless and weak like never before. For the first time, her sense of loyalty left her feeling vulnerable to loss. She would have kept some distance, but in space there was no distance to be had.
So she ignored it. They were safe in space. There were no threats, no enemies. She had nothing to fear. Spacekru would never use her greatest weakness against her.
They were her family.
Day 2,200
She was raised to be a warrior. Six years ago, war was all she knew. And as much as Bellamy hoped it was something they could all leave behind them, she knew she carried a piece of it with her wherever she went, a part of who she was.
And better a warrior with a sword than a warrior without.
Still, at the first sign of bloodshed in six years, she was taken aback. In less than a second, her sword was raised and her eyes sharp, but too slow she scolded herself.
A spear flew. A gun shot. And their captors lay dead, a little girl standing over them.
She reminded Echo of a miniature Octavia. And if she was thinking it, Bellamy had to be, too. She carried all the signs of sky people and grounders alike. There was only one way—
“Bellamy?”
Echo waited for confirmation of what they all knew. The girl knew his name, knew who he was. Octavia must be—
“Clarke knew you would come!”
Clarke? The ball of nerves that had been building in her gut since they left the ring sank into the pit of her stomach, a heavy dread weighing her down.
Nothing will change on the ground.
Then Echo heard Bellamy’s voice in a breathy tone she had only heard in treasured whispers as she lay in his bed.
“Clarke’s alive?”