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Why would Bellamy call him that? Traitor. Did he mean it?
They bind his wrists at his back and yank the ropes around his ankles tighter. The post they’ve tied him to runs along his back and higher still, cut for a bigger man. They sort wooden planks in a ring around him and do the same to Emori. He wonders if they really mean to burn them at the stake once they’re done with them. That would suck.
“You think we care about that traitor?” "Set the EMP.” They left him there, Bellamy and Echo. Didn’t they?
They’ve gone and stitched his leg up just well enough to keep him alive, because he has answers. Murphy always has answers, and so Murphy is no stranger to the ritual of torturers caring for his body and tearing their work apart again in a way that makes him scream the loudest. Fire is not unfamiliar either, perhaps flashy, but the people need a show. Look what happens to traitors.
His mind is clearer, his eyes drying. They’re cutting off his clothes. Good, he figures, he’ll get the first lick. Maybe he’ll pass out, and then he won’t have to watch them hurt Emori. That’s exactly what they’re betting on, keeping them together; that their pain will be their pain and so too will the other’s. But they’re a united front. Murphy’s a perfect veteran of torture and Emori’s a total badass. They won’t tell these people shit. His lip wobbles as the black torch ends flare up in bursts of blood orange.
Traitor. It’s true, he realizes; what he thought he heard while he was trying to keep his blood inside of him. Echo left him, and Murphy can maybe understand that. She was raised to keep emotions out of battle and away from her loyalties, which she kept organized into a neat hierarchy. But they were family. They said they were family. And Bellamy…
“Tell us where he’s taken Josephine.”
Ah, fuck. This is gonna hurt like a bitch. “Narnia."
Jade shoves the torch and all its flames and embers against his stomach and Emori screams. She screams at his scream and writhes at the smell of burning flesh. “Stop!” she wails. “Stop! Please, stop!”
Even if he could really remember what he was he wasn’t supposed to be telling them while they chase his flesh down to the muscle like candle wax, he knows it’s for Bellamy and he keeps his mouth shut.
Murphy doesn’t think he’s a traitor. Everything he did or didn’t do, he did it to save Bellamy. To save them all. And then he did a little more, to save Emori, to save himself. Clarke was as good as dead and there were hundreds to think about. Hundreds. It didn’t compute with Murphy why they would give up a home, a future, their lives, for one person. They’d never done that before, the good guys.
He’d tried to do better. Maybe he chose the wrong time to try. Maybe he chose the wrong few to sacrifice in order to save the many. He just hadn’t had much practice, that’s all. But he wasn’t a traitor, was he?
They take the torch away at last and the night wind feels like a cold blade scraping down his abdomen, and when he stops gasping long enough to hear Emori weep, Murphy wonders in the in-between if it would even mean anything to Bellamy. If anything ever did.
“Tell us where he is.”
Murphy lolls his head back against the post and laughs, tears darting from the corners of his red eyes. “Fuck you.”
He burns.
- ┈┈ ∘ ┈ ˃̶ ༒ ˂̶ ┈ ∘ ┈┈ -
“This is so stupid. I’m actually surprised by how stupid you are.”
Bellamy yanks Josephine Lightbourne forward by the cord he’d bound her wrists with. This doesn’t deter her.
“Even John is smarter than you, but he’s an idiot for crawling back over to your side at the end. I mean—“ she laughs, “It’s clear loyalty doesn’t go for much with you people. Considering him working with me, and you, you know…” She raises a tied hand to mime slashing it across her throat, and rolls her tongue out of her mouth like she’s dead. Bellamy’s stomach roils.
“Shut up.”
She skips in front of him and walks backwards. “The guards are coming. You’ll never get off this moon alive, and neither will Clarke, if you kill me. Are you sure you don’t want to turn around and go see your best friend’s dead body with the time you have left? We could pick flowers for him and everything.”
“Shut up.”
“That’s what he called you, you know.” She pouts her lip. “His best friend. His brother —“
Bellamy slams her against the nearest tree with a forearm against her collarbone.“Shut up!”
“Oh.” Clarke’s eyes sparkle as his chest heaves, as she watches the tears roll down his cheeks. “Did I hit a nerve? Well, no sense in feeling bad now,” she whispers, grinning. “That’s all in the past. Unless he’s still alive, in which case you could turn back now and save him.” Bellamy searches her bright eyes, which blink in quick succession. A-L-I-V-E.
He wishes Murphy could send him a message too. Maybe it’s wrong to hope that, after what he’s done.
Bellamy yanks her off of the tree and shoves her forward. “Keep walking.”
Two hours pass, and then, by the grace of God and Its holiest sense of humor, Octavia bursts forth from a camouflaged hut that Bellamy wouldn’t have noticed otherwise and rushes forward, only to stand before him with wide eyes, a familiar childishness glinting in them that hypnotizes Bellamy. Flanking her is a decidedly un-pregnant Charmaine Diyoza, a four year-old, and a man dressed like a swamp monster, all four of them claiming the anomaly told them he was coming, and with him, everything they needed.
“Turns out your love is my greatest desire and your rejection is my deepest fear,” says O. “So that’s embarrassing.”
Bellamy yanks her in and hugs her tightly, too tired to figure anything other than that she’s his terrible sister, and he missed her, and he’s made so, so many mistakes.
Diyoza introduces him to not only Gabriel, but Hope, and Bellamy thinks the anomaly might have known what he needed, too.
And then Josephine starts up again. “Oh, Gabe, baby, I’ll be honest: I was really hoping you were dead.”
“Josephine?” breathes Swamp Man, and fuck no, they don’t have time for this.
“Bell, what’s happening?” Octavia asks, staring at Clarke like there’s something on her face.
“One of the Primes took Clarke’s body, but she’s still alive.” Bellamy turns on Gabriel and barely refrains from grabbing the man and shaking him. “You have to take her out. Now.”
Josephine laughs. “Yeah, right. You might not understand this, Bellamy, but he won’t kill me; he loves me.” She twirls a golden lock of Clarke’s hair around her finger. “Isn’t that right, Gabriel?”
“You took a body?” Gabriel asks, accuses, voice rumbling.
“My parents took a body. They just couldn’t wait, and who could blame them?” She flares her hands as best as she can in her restraints, gesturing to herself as if she’s some kind of treasure. “Aren’t you happy to see me too?”
Gabriel searches her unfamiliar face. At last, he answers, “No,” and Clarke’s eyes flash with poorly veiled surprise. “I think this has gone on long enough, Josie.” He disappears into the hut, and for lack of other directions, they all follow.
He unlocks a cedar chest and rifles around inside it, and Josephine must know what’s inside because she slams back into Bellamy’s shoulder to try and make him let go and laughs hysterically, blabbering unintelligible excuses, jokes, pleas. Bellamy holds tight.
Coming in close, Gabriel traps Josephine between himself and Bellamy. “I love you,” he whispers, “I’ll always love you,” and empties a syringe into her straining neck. She goes dead weight against him, and Bellamy panics for a moment, until he recognizes the syringe. A paralytic.
Gabriel lingers, a hand resting gently against Clarke’s frozen face, and then turns and swipes all of the crap on the closest wooden desk onto the ground. He digs around in his chest for more supplies, removes his gloves and rinses his hands with alcohol. Bellamy picks her up and lowers Clarke’s body sideways onto the wood surface.
Armed with a scalpel Gabriel pushes Clarke’s hair over her shoulder and cleans the thin scab, and Bellamy stares as the healing incision at the junction of her head and neck is reopened and hopes to God this was all worth it.
With a tear rolling down his face, Gabriel gingerly tugs Josephine’s mind drive out even as it hangs on by its silver tendrils and fights him just as hard as Josephine would have. Once it’s out Bellamy takes it, and in front of Gabriel’s crumpling face, he brings a fist down and smashes it to pieces on the table.
If Murphy’s Hell was bad, he’s comforted knowing Josephine Lightbourne’s will be even more miserable than she deserves.
Black blood weeps slowly from the small wound that did so much damage, and Gabriel injects Clarke’s body with what he assures Bellamy is only snake venom. This seems counterproductive to Bellamy, but he’d seen the venom counteract the poison that killed Murphy, and so he keeps his mouth shut. His chest constricts as black veins and closed eyes and grey lips flit through his mind unwanted.
“She’s still breathing,” Gabriel confirms, hanging his head over her form. “She’s alive.”
The man looks crushed even as he gives the hopeful news. Because people cry when they kill something they love, even if good comes out of it. Even if they think they had to do it. Even if it might kill them to let themselves believe it was a mistake. People sorrow. People ache.
Bellamy aches.
The out-of-practice neurosurgeon closes the incision and leaves one person inside. The right person.
The person who would have known what to do at the radiation shield. The person who would have done the right thing. The person who has to stop dying.
“I don’t know how long she’ll be out,” Gabriel says as Bellamy sits Clarke up and pulls her against his chest. “She fought hard, I’m sure.”
Octavia smirks. “Of course she did. It’s Clarke.”
Bellamy drops his forehead to her hair and sighs. It smells unfamiliar, like strawberries. Like Josephine’s home. “We don’t have time to wait. Let’s get to the ship.” Bellamy drapes Clarke over his shoulder and hands Gabriel the map. He shakes his head and returns it, looking solemn.
“I’ve had well past my fair share of chances.”
Diyoza shakes his gloved hand, and Octavia touches his shoulder. They’ve been through something together, here, and in their eyes they look like people who got lost and found themselves again.
They’ve gotten just far enough that they wouldn’t see the hut anymore if they turned around when a gunshot rings through the forest, and Hope is the only one who stumbles.
They keep going, and as they run west under a starry sky Bellamy wonders why he feels like crying, if he got what he wanted.
- ┈┈ ∘ ┈ ˃̶ ༒ ˂̶ ┈ ∘ ┈┈ -
" Last chance!” Jade shouts, and Murphy’s heard that shit before. He swallows, watching them bring the torch closer and closer to his shoulder. The skin there is already a bit warped from the first time he was burned, and he hopes that means it will hurt less.
The flames lick at his face, closer, and Murphy tightens up and screams, again, as they force the fire into a searing and foul-smelling kiss against his skin. Someone in the crowd whimpers, and through the haze of all-encompassing pain Murphy thinks, “Oh, fuck you.”
And then they’re bored of him, and they start cutting away at Emori’s shirt, and this is the part that Murphy had been praying they wouldn’t make it to. The part that had Murphy hoping some terrible disaster would happen first, like a meteor hitting the moon and killing them all.
He jerks against the post and tugs at his restraints until they flay his skin. “No! Get away from her! No, no! STOP!” They don’t answer his pleas. Of course they don’t.
Emori’s face is hard and sure. After all, she’s been taunting them the entire time, hoping they would give up on Murphy and give her a go. These weren’t exactly the honeymoon activities he had in mind. He weeps silently, thumping his head against the post and wishing he could sink down to the bottom of it.
And then, it’s perfect: Murphy, for the first time in forever, gets what he wants.
It isn’t a meteor, but their rescue comes in the form of the woman who left them in the first place, which is damn near just as funny.
Echo and Miller fire into the air until the crowd of civilians scatters, scrambling and squealing, and then they take out Jade and the other guards. It’s almost too easy. (They would always make better killers than heroes. Murphy would laugh if he wasn’t so damn tired.)
Madi stands behind Miller in cuffs, looking dejected as Jackson holds the back of her neck, and Jordan is tossed over Miller’s shoulder, bleeding slowly onto his clothes. Murphy doesn’t have the energy to ask what in fuck’s name has happened.
Echo unties Emori first, and then blocks her with an arm from untying Murphy. Emori draws her hands back and looks up questioningly, fear waiting on her face for the answer. Murphy doesn’t want her to have to choose sides again, and they’ll probably just kill him later, anyway.
“Go,” he croaks. “I got this.”
“You’re tied to a stake!"
“That sounds like the least of my problems right now. Go, ‘Mori.”
“I’m not leaving you.” It's just one reason of many that he loves her, but right now it’s really stressing him out.
Their stare-down is interrupted by Echo, whose hard gaze moves slowly from Emori to him. “Why’d you do it, Murphy?”
He feels vulnerable up here, looking down on his battered friends and family, practically naked and stuck on a rotisserie like a fried rat. “I wanted to live.” He licks his chapped lips. God, he feels like he’s still on fire. “I wanted to stop running and I wanted all of us to live. Here, forever.”
Echo looks suspicious, but it’s not like his story has changed. “It wasn’t just about the mind drives?”
“It was a little bit about the mind drives,” Murphy answers, and Miller gives him an exasperated look. "But I would’ve given them up! I would’ve given all of it up, if I’d known none of you were going to listen to me anyway. If I’d known Bellamy had a plan for once.” He gives her a weak grin. “You know I’ll always be on the winning team.”
“Why weren’t on you on the winning team in the first place?” she asks, voice softer now.
“I thought I was making us the winning team.”
Her expression slackens fully and she backs off, and Murphy is flooded with relief as he finds acceptance on her face. Emori rushes forward to frantically untie him.
“I’m sorry, Murphy. I think we misunderstood disagreement for disloyalty,” says Echo. “We’ve all been on the same page for so long.”
“Maybe you guys should actually trust us once in a while,” Emori grumbles as she works at his hands, and Echo catches him by the waist like he’s a princess as the ropes fall.
She lowers his feet to the ground, holds him, bends down to inspect his burned thighs.
“You left me,” he says quietly to the top of her head.
“I’m still learning,” she answers, looking up at him with concern etching lines into her tired face. He knows she means love. He knows she means family. “But I’m here now, little brother.”
He’s still learning too. He can’t fault her for that. Though he probably will, sometime when he has energy enough to be angry.
As he sways forward, her hands hover unsure over his burns which must look much worse than they feel, which is pretty fucking bad. He knows Echo likes burnt people least of all, and hopes deliriously that that won’t be why she leaves him behind again and the reason will be better this time; like because of what he’s about to do.
“Can you walk?” she asks.
“Yeah,” Murphy answers, and passes out.
- ┈┈ ∘ ┈ ˃̶ ༒ ˂̶ ┈ ∘ ┈┈ -
When Clarke’s eyes open again, they are undeniably hers, and still, that weight doesn’t come off of Bellamy’s shoulders. He smiles down at her and holds her hand and tries very hard to ignore the way his knees want to wobble.
“Welcome back.”
“Glad to be back,” she whispers.
Bellamy wonders what it must have been like, to be trapped in her own head. He’s not sure he would survive being trapped in his, he figures, and suddenly, Clarke’s arms are around him and he really is crying, this time.
“I’m sorry,” he grounds out, running a hand down his face. “I don’t know why I’m— you should be the one—“
“It’s been a long week,” she says, and laughs, soft and sad and tired. She’s crying too. He rests his head against her golden hair and wipes at his tears. Calling it the longest week of his life would be an understatement.
“Where is everyone?” Clarke asks as she looks up, pulling her head from his shoulder. Her eyes are ringed with rose and still dripping with tears. “Madi?”
“Everyone’s coming. Madi’s… coming. And then we’re getting the hell out of here.”
“Madi’s coming with who?” she asks, voice urgent. “Who is she with? Is she okay?”
“Echo’s bringing her. We can go wait for them,” he answers, and so they go to the main door, a yawning mouth opening up the mothership to the dark forest.
Clarke asks after her mother’s whereabouts as she scans the woods, anxious, and seems conflicted upon hearing that Abby never knew anything had been amiss with her daughter in the first place, and still didn’t know the full story. She then asks to hear that full story, and Bellamy tells her everything he knows.
She looks like she doesn’t know whether to thank him for saving her life, or to smack him for making so much trouble over it.
“I lost my head, trying to lead without you. And then it was either Murphy or the radiation shield, it was Murphy or you, and I guess I hoped she was bluffing, and if she wasn’t, at least I could save one of you, and I—“
Clarke spares a glance away from the forest to look at Bellamy, eyes sad. “He betrayed us, Clarke.”
“But he’s family.”
And that does it.
She follows him as he sinks down to the floor, and he covers his face with his hands. “What if I let him die?” He hates the sound of his wavering voice.
Clarke rests her cheek on his arm and stares out at the night sky, hovering just over the tree line and glittering with stars. “He’s hard to kill. Let’s just… wait. Let’s just wait, okay? Everything will be okay.”
Bellamy feels a knot forming in his throat and goddamn, he really isn’t feeling up to crying again. Even if Murphy’s alive… “He’ll never forgive me.”
“You might be surprised,” Clarke whispers, and Bellamy meets her eyes, questioning. “Murphy seems… surprisingly lenient, when it comes to you.”
So they wait, and Bellamy feels Clarke breathe, perhaps for the first time since waking, as the silhouette of a small huddle breaks through the trees and clambers up the dropped door in wildly varying states of health and uprightness.
Clarke wraps Madi in a fierce hug, and Jackson reunites with Miller as they rush Jordan off to medical, and Emori and Echo are dragging Murphy between them, a perfect picture of Bellamy and Monty heaving him onto the mothership just days before. It’s damn near a running joke.
Except Murphy is naked save for his briefs and boots, and his skin is charred and he’s out cold, and Bellamy’s crying again at the sorry state of him as they drag Murphy away, and nothing seems very funny at all.
(Other than when the ship’s maw slams shut and they rattle out of the moon’s atmosphere and Raven, over the intercom, says, “Welp, that’s a new record.” That’s a bit funny.)
He should be happy that everyone’s alive. That Murphy’s alive.
Mostly, he’d just like the longest week to be over.
- ┈┈ ∘ ┈ ˃̶ ༒ ˂̶ ┈ ∘ ┈┈ -
“You can’t avoid him forever.”
“I can try.”
Echo levels him with a look that says she’s serious. “We’re stuck in space. Jordan’s bed is right next to his. You’ll have to see him eventually.”
She drapes her arms over his shoulders and stares him down. “I can’t, Echo,” he tries to reason. “There’s nothing I can say.”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something. Now get it together.”
He goes to medical.
Emori’s sitting in a chair by the bed, daydreaming with her chin on her knees, and comes to meet him just past the folding divider once she returns to the world and notices him hovering.
“Took you long enough,” she mutters.
“Can I see him?”
Emori looks wary.
“Please. I…” Bellamy hesitates, and cups her shoulder. “We shouldn’t have written you off. Murphy, either. I need you to know that. I screwed up.”
Emori searches his eyes, and then, to Bellamy’s horror, she starts to cry. And Emori never cries.
“He should have came right to you when he found out Clarke was dead, I know that. And I know why you must have thought he betrayed you, but… he’s still family, Bellamy. I don’t know much about family, but I learned from you that you don’t give up on them.”
“I know, I know, Emori, I’m sorry. Don’t cry,” he begs, holding her close to his chest, trying not to suffocate her with his hug. “I wasn’t thinking straight, I wasn’t— I didn’t mean—“
“He loves you,” she hiccups, “so much. You can’t keep doing this to him, none of you. He needs people that believe in him. Just me isn’t enough. He needs you.” It sinks Bellamy’s heart like an anchor too heavy for its ship.
“Never again,” Bellamy swears, and his voice breaks on the way down. “Never, ever again.” He promises, taking Emori by the shoulders and nodding urgently as she tentatively looks up at him, eyes puffy.
She nods back, once, firm, and wipes her cheeks.
“I have some errands to run for Raven,” she announces then, stepping out of his grip. It’s as good as invitation he’s going to get, and he watches his buffer leave with longing eyes.
He steps around the divider.
“You’re loud,” Murphy mutters, awake now, and watching his fingers scratch at a spot on the blanket.
Bellamy gets his first good look. Murphy is still without clothes, save for boxers and a pair of thick gray socks that make his feet look big. Disregarding the other bullet holes and stab wounds courtesy of the longest week in the history of the universe, his stomach, left shoulder, and the fronts of both of his thighs are marred by angry burns, white blisters around their edges and a sheen of salve over them. Bellamy swallows.
“What?” Murphy sneers, but it’s tired and half-hearted. “Come here to finish the job?”
“Does it hurt?” Bellamy murmurs.
“Feels great.”
“Murphy.”
The younger man rolls his eyes and turns his head to the side against his flattened pillow. Bellamy has seen his shoulder carved out like that before. Blistered and blackened.
“Did you hold out on them… for me?”
Murphy huffs out a laugh, tries to turn on his side to get his back to Bellamy and then grimaces as the blanket disturbs the waxy white edge of one of his burns. “It’s always for you.”
And then Murphy sits up, leaning away as Bellamy crosses the stretch of space between them and lowers himself to one knee by the bed.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m sorry.”
The apprehensive look on Murphy’s face morphs into incredulity.
“I’m sorry,” Bellamy says again, forceful and through his teeth. “I should have trusted you. I shouldn’t have let Echo give that order.”
Murphy’s eyes dart between Bellamy’s until his jaw shifts and he drops them to his mutilated thighs again. His hands have begun to tremble by his sides and Bellamy wishes he could take them in his.
“Thought I was a traitor. Thought you didn’t… care about me.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Bellamy insists, scooting closer on his knees and trying to lean into Murphy’s line of sight. “I did think you were betraying us, but I only said that to get her to let go of you. I could never not care about you. You have to know that, Murph.”
“Sure as hell didn’t seem like it when you gave me up for Clarke.”
Bellamy cringes. They was no way around it. “I had to make a choice.”
And just like that, Murphy’s face has been wiped of all emotion as he says, “Yeah, I get it, I wouldn’t choose me either,” and Bellamy feels like he’s scrabbling against the side of a cliff and barely hanging on. He has to hold on tighter.
Bellamy wraps a hand around the back of Murphy’s neck, and even if Murphy has no choice but to look at Bellamy, he manages to avoid his eyes. “It was a choice I’ll never make again.”
Murphy jerks out of his grasp. “Me? Over Clarke?” He scoffs, stuffing himself against the rails on the other side of the bed, as far from Bellamy as possible.
“No, both of you. Echo told me that I misunderstood you, I should have talked to you. I should have come up with a better plan. I should have tried harder to get Josephine away from you,” Bellamy pleads with his eyes, searching Murphy’s blues. “I’m sorry.”
Murphy crosses his arms tighter over his chest. “That’s a lot of ‘should haves.’”
“I made a lot of mistakes. I was… I was trying, Murphy.”
Tentatively, and looking angry about it, Murphy unfurls slightly, twisting his fingers together in his lap. “I was trying, too, you know. I was trying to save us. But I’m… sorry, for lying to you.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Bellamy insists. “Don’t be sorry. Not with the mess I made between us when you told me the truth. But, next time; yeah. Okay?”
After a quiet, contemplative moment, Bellamy chances a look up at Murphy’s face. For once in his life, he seems to be at a loss for words.
“When we came down to Earth, I chose you first. I made a damn good choice, and I’ll never forget that again.”
Murphy’s watching him with eyes wide as planets, looking like he wants so badly to believe him. Like he’s following a religion with nothing to stand on but blind faith.
Bellamy's starting to feel stupid, talking to himself. “Never again, you hear me?”
Murphy swallows. “Yeah, I hear you. I just think you’re full of shit.”
“I’ll show you.”
“Yeah, whatever. Do you feel better about yourself yet? Because I’d like to go back to sleep.”
‘He’s surprisingly lenient, when it comes to you.’
Bellamy takes a risk, and leans over the bed to wrap his arms around Murphy’s shoulders, careful not to brush his wounds. Murphy doesn’t fight him, and slowly but surely, presses his face against Bellamy’s chest.
“You don’t have to forgive me.”
“Good,” comes Murphy’s muffled voice. “Wasn’t going to.”
“Good,” Bellamy repeats.
“Fine,” says Murphy.
And he thinks about the cauterized scar on Murphy’s raw, red thigh, a long slash from a scalpel that was meant for his throat, and he thinks of Gabriel the Swamp Man, and suddenly he gets it.
Josephine Lightbourne, the bitch, gave him one more chance.
“If you really care about me,” Murphy murmurs, raising his arms to twine them around Bellamy’s waist, “You’ll go get me something to eat.”
“How’s algae?” Bellamy asks, unmoving.
“Never mind,” Murphy whispers, curling his fingers tighter in the fabric of Bellamy’s shirt. “Just kill me.”
Bellamy laughs into Murphy’s neck, and feels Murphy smile against his chest. And Bellamy can’t imagine living the rest of his life without feeling this again.
“Love you, Murph.”
“Prove it.”
“I will.”
They’ve done worse to each other when the world was snapping at their heels. So Murphy will forgive him, because he always does, and whether it’s loyalty or love, Bellamy will try to earn it this time.