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Bellamy pushed another wayward branch out of his way, continuing his journey into the depths of Alpha’s woods. He found having black blood had it perks. Being able to slip through the radiation field encasing Sanctum was something he had been taking advantage of a lot. To think he was ever resistant to the procedure, although he definitely had his reasons to be wary. It did make sense through, the way most ideas that came from Clarke seem to. Making sure the people of Earth, at least those awake, had nightblood was one of the first things that was done after the whirlwind of action was over. No longer would they run the risk of being cornered and trapped within the walls of Sanctum and with Russel apprehended and the rest of the Primes stuck in their chips, the chance of any bodysnatching was significantly lower.
The woods, a frequent haunt of Bellamy’s as of late, brought out a lot of self reflection in the man. He would call this either fortunate or unfortunate, depending on the day and which topics his mind drifted to and from.
Coming across the clearing in which they first landed, Bellamy was hit with the knowledge that today was not one of fortune. His stomach sank with the memories of shutting Octavia out, leaving her to fend for herself in the woods. The siblings had a long and tangled history of separation, and Bellamy had to admit that particular situation cut the deepest. That was, until he discovered it would not be the last time that fate tore the Blakes apart.
Octavia had been missing for fifty-two days.
As if out of a movie, with a flash and a magical poof, she was gone. At the moment, it felt like so was his mind. In rapid succession, he faced each decision he had made since landing on the foreign planet, wondering if anything he had done could have avoided this. Looking back on his choices, he did not regret them per say. However, he did see a glaring flaw in his nature he had tried time and time again to address, to seemingly no success. Living solely for someone else, he had found, is no way to live at all. He thought himself righteous for putting a barrier between him and Octavia, but the more he thinks about his actions, he feels as though he merely replaced one responsibility for another.
Of course, he did not regret saving Clarke, not in the slightest. If he could go back and do it all over again, he did not know if he could do things any differently and get the same result. However, his heart aches when he thinks of how much trouble and pain he put his friends, his family, through. After hearing a full account of what they had all been through being held captive in Sanctum, he had felt as though his stomach was going to jump out of his throat. He left them, and they nearly were burned at the stake. They were only saved at the last second by some quick thinking on Murphy’s part.
Murphy saved them all, while Bellamy was saving one. Bellamy knew that he could not hold himself accountable for what happened to them. Bellamy also knew that saving them all was what Murphy was trying to do the entire time, even with the Prime business. The irrational side of him, the one that had been ruling over his mind, could not help but have disdain for the younger man’s choice of actions. Although to dwell on all that was useless. As Bellamy slotted a hand into the pocket of his trousers and felt the familiar grooves of the piece of plastic that hold permanent residence there, he was overwhelmed with emotion.
Murphy had been dead for thirty-seven days.
Apparently, the people of Sanctum did not take too well to having Murphy and Emori as the sole Primes to be worshiped, hallowed be their names.
Things seemed to be going fine for quite some time. Like all good things, it had to end. Things began not adding up with the Lees; even in the eyes of the most devout. Tensions rose, and eventually the spell was broken. After weeks of peace, no one was expecting an attack. On a Tuesday morning, during an otherwise peaceful and humdrum dinner, John Murphy finally found himself unable to survive any longer.
Bellamy can still feel the moment his world was pulled out from under his feet. The pounding of his heart, the ringing in his head, his body moving on autopilot. Holding Murphy’s limp body close to his chest, this time unable to stop any of the bleeding. The bleeding that was unnatural black instead of the bright red that he had grown accustomed to seeing painted on Murphy during their many trials and tribulations.
After the initial shock, Emori – ever the practical thinker – quickly asked Clarke to remove her own drive, and swiftly destroyed it. The choice between a now impossible immortality versus a life cut short, the decision was easy. Wanting to be rid of the whole business, Emori also asked for Murphy’s drive to be removed and destroyed. Holding her in his arms, Bellamy has assured her that he would take care of it, and left her to mourn. However, once the chip was actually in his hand, he found himself unable to move. He did not want to go against Emori’s wishes, but the thought of destroying the only part of Murphy left was imaginable.
Time moved slower after that. Echo was there, having to prompt and guide him into changing out of his inky stained clothes. To wash his hands and face, which had both been covered in a mix of blood and tears; the latter he did not even realize he had been shedding. For many days, the woman helped him through the things in life his all-encompassing grief did not let him worry about. Until she didn’t.
Echo had been single for twenty-one days.
The two parted ways in a non-dramatic way - a fitting end to their relationship.
Once Bellamy had gotten his feet firmly planted on the ground once again, he decided he needed time to be alone. Really alone. He wanted, for the first time in his life, to put himself first. To not feel the overwhelming responsibility to mother hen Octavia, to not feel the duty to protect one single person. For once, he wanted to be selfish. For everything Bellamy had done for Echo, the decision to let him go was one of the easiest the woman had ever made. They both knew they would always be family, and family does what is best for one another.
Thus, began his walks in the woods. What started out as scouting missions and resource collecting for the purpose of creating their very own colony, soon morphed into Bellamy’s own personal therapy.
Bellamy couldn’t remember the exact day he last felt happy.
He realized that pretty early on in his ruminations and reflections.
Maybe it was that day in the rover, with Raven, Jasper, Monty and Miller. For one single moment, they were free. Laughing and singing, like nothing else in the world mattered.
Maybe it was the day they arrived on the ground. Seeing his baby sister after so much time apart. The joy on her face at the prospect of feeling the wind in her hair, the sun on her skin. If he could collect that moment, that feeling, and relive it forever, he would.
Or maybe it was back on the Ark before his world opened up to endless possibilities. Playing Lily Pads with Octavia, which he always secretly enjoyed. At the time, he felt as though he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Looking back, he could see how carefree and unburdened he felt in comparison to now.
In all honesty, he couldn’t be sure if any of those days were true happiness. Looking back, each moment is tainted with unhappiness or unfortunate circumstances.
He absently mindedly took a sip from his canteen and consulted his map, but his mind couldn’t focus on the task at hand. For it had dawned on the man that maybe happiness, true happiness, was not written in the stars for someone like him.
Another day, another trek into the trees.
Clarke had expressed her discomfort in Bellamy always walking out alone, but he reassured her that he was fine. Gabriel had taught them all about the ins and outs of the mystically alive forests.
Truthfully, even if he wasn’t confident in his abilities to stay alive, he did not know if he could have handled the company. His walks alone felt like the only time he could breathe. Not having to put on a fake smile and prove to everyone that he was alright. He didn’t have to see Emori and feel guilty about the grief he felt over Murphy and the secret he had been harbouring since his death.
The alone time was nice. He didn’t feel happy, but something akin to it. Content, maybe. He didn’t need anyone coming along and taking that away from him.
“Bellamy!”
With a furrowed brow, his head darted around trying to find the source of the voice.
No one should be out here - at least no one who knows him well enough to call out to him by name.
Another shout calls out to him, this time even more confusing.
“Bellamy! Say I’m your sister!”
A hazy image of Octavia emerged from a mossy area to his right, and his heart clenched.
“O? Is it really you?”
The girl gives no indication that she might’ve heard him, and with a sinking feeling, he realized what was happening.
Within his Sanctum debriefing, Gabriel informed Bellamy of perhaps the most puzzling aspect of the planet’s wilderness: The Anomaly.
Apparently, something normally well contained, the Anomaly had been acting differently ever since it went boom and vanished his sister. It no longer stayed in once place, but instead it’s boundary ebbed and flowed, almost as if it was alive and breathing. This means the radius of its vision inducing effects are incalculable. The only advice given if Bellamy is to ever to find himself too close, is to ignore the visions and head back.
He knew that is what he should do, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do so, just yet. He took in the face of his sister, so full of pain and sorrow in that moment. Guilt slams him, knowing that while he had no part in his sister’s descent, he also did not do much to help. He can’t imagine what she had been through all those years and wishes more than anything to have his carefree and kind-hearted sister back.
Before he could be sucked in any deeper, he turned on his heel and jogged away. Hoping that would be the last vision he would see.
The next time, it’s not Octavia.
Instead, he found himself face to face with a man of hair the colour of earth and eyes the colour of the sea.
He seemed younger than when he last saw him. Hair cut shorter than how he used to wear it but lacking the sharpness of his undercut he grew fond of.
This Murphy is from the early days of the ring, then. After months of trying to convince someone to give him a haircut, Raven finally put him out of his misery and did it. She didn’t even mess it up. On purpose.
Unlike Octavia, Murphy did not try to speak. Sitting on a log, he seemed to be crying. Although fighting it. Sobs held back and hands determined to keep the tears from racing down his cheeks. Bellamy remembers this moment. He had been searching for Monty, thinking he might’ve been in one of the storage rooms. Instead, he had found Murphy sitting on a box in the corner.
At the time, rather than try to talk to him, Bellamy thought the best thing to do would be to close the door and pretend not to have seen his vulnerable moment. Bellamy saw no reason not to do the same thing with this fake Murphy in the woods.
A week later, it was a lot harder to ignore.
Heaving himself over a massive fallen tree, he landed directly into something he never thought he would have to see again.
His stomach threatened to upturn the joberries he had been snacking on.
It was a train wreck he wanted to look away from so badly, but he felt frozen in place.
It was Murphy, again. This time under a tree branch, begging for his life.
“Bellamy! Bellamy please!” Muffled words fought their way through from behind a bright red seatbelt.
Bellamy knew, he knew it wasn’t real. He found his mouth opening anyways.
“Murphy,” his voice croaked out, “it’s going to be okay.”
Hanging Murphy’s eyes seemed to zero in on him then, and Bellamy knew it was silly, but it felt real . Most times, if the visions happen to ever look at him, it was distant and unseeing; almost human, almost alive, but not quite.
“Bellamy!”
This time, the voice did not belong to Murphy. Instead it was Clarke, who had tagged along for the day.
“I’m coming!” he shouted after her and in a soft whisper, “I’m sorry Murphy.”
“Bellamy come in, it’s Murphy. Please tell me you can hear me.”
“Ah. there you are, I haven’t seen you in awhile.”
By now, the visions had become routine. He had gotten quite skilled at ignoring them, or at the very least he was learning to take them in stride.
This one, at first glance, seemed tame. There was no screaming Octavias. No crying Murphys. It should be easy to walk away from.
However, something was nagging at Bellamy. When he found himself looking at Murphy, it hit him. This was not his memory. He didn’t pretend to understand the Anomaly, but something didn’t add up. They were always his memories, always things he had been present for. He did not understand the change in the routine. He knew of this instance, but it had been merely relayed to him after the fact. He wasn’t sure how the Anomaly made up a situation to seem so real.
Fake Murphy had been chattering away while Bellamy was deep in thought, and suddenly he seized. Gasping in pain, hands ghosting at the collar Bellamy just now noticed was around his neck.
It was too hard to watch, and Bellamy turned to make his way back to Sanctum. When, from behind him Fake Murphy called out.
“Please don’t leave me!”
Bellamy did not know what the Anomaly wanted from him, but he did not intend to stick around long enough to find out.
Hitching his backpack farther up onto his shoulders, Bellamy began to whistle a tune.
“Someone’s in a good mood,” called Raven from behind.
Bellamy let out an undignified snort, “What could be better than a camping trip in unfamiliar woods?”
Just him, Raven, Emori and Clarke were set out to what they deemed New Arkadia. Not the most original name for their settlement, but it would do.
They had their work cut out for them in the coming weeks. Raven and Emori being the brains behind the operation, they were in charge of directing everyone just how they are to set up their very own radiation shield. Bellamy had offered to come to provide muscle, despite Raven saying that was unneeded - accompanied by a myriad of flexing on her part. Clarke came because, well, she was Clarke.
The groundwork had to be set first, then they would call for more hands and reinforcement to really get the shield up and running. For now, they were each tasked with marking out a quadrant of their newly decided boundary lines. This would call for a lot of alone time during the day, which was not a change in routine for Bellamy. He just hoped that they were now too far from the Anomaly’s reach to have any stray Octavias or Murphys from interrupting his work.
Though weirdly enough, on the third day of work, he was interrupted by a young boy darting by.
“Hey! Wait up! Are you lost?” He shouted at the boy, to no avail.
Bellamy started jogging after the boy, and eventually he stopped.
Once Bellamy got a good look at the child, he had a pang of recognition that he couldn’t quite grasp at first. The brown hair, the blue eyes, the too large nose he would hopefully grow into.
Now this one was weird. He watched as little Murphy’s smile grew dimmer and dimmer as he saw something Bellamy could not. Bellamy had half a mind to be concerned, until he heard a little voice ring out.
“Mom?”
Little Murphy walked a bit further out and knelt down, looking lost and confused. He began to motion as if he was trying to rouse someone out of sleep.
“Hey. Hey mom, please wake up.” His voice breaking at the end of the sentence.
Bellamy too knelt down, knowing his actions were futile and irrational but, hoping to bring the small boy some comfort.
“Murphy, hey Murphy. Over here.” He gently pleaded, clueing in on what was happening and not wanting to see it play out.
John Murphy, at the ripe age of eleven, had found his mother dead.
“Mom-,” he sobbed. “Mom please. I- I’m sorry. Okay? It’s my fault. It’s my fault.”
Bordering on hysterical, the words sounded painful and heartbreaking.
“Pleas-“ the words broke off all together then, leaving nothing but echoing sobs. Normally, Bellamy would had left and allowed the vision to play out alone by now. Though, it seemed cruel to leave this one now.
He was not sure how long he sat there, listening to the broken sounds of a boy who had lost everything. Bellamy never once heard the full story of how Murphy found himself an orphan, but from the small details he had been able to pry from the man it seemed like this was accurate. This left him wondering how the Anomaly managed to tap into the deepest confines of his mind that even he did not know he possessed. It shouldn’t be possible.
Finally, when the noises had all but stopped, Bellamy picked himself up and gave one last look at the small boy and his heart ached. If he had been any farther, he might have not heard it but, as fate would have it, he did.
“Now I’m all alone, Bellamy.”
Bellamy wavered on the decision to tell Clarke about the visions, but was afraid of looking too crazy.
They had all been treating him with kid gloves ever since they lost Murphy, and he did not want to give them any more reasons to doubt his sanity. Even Emori was holding it together better than he was. Perhaps if he had been a grounder, he would have had to learn how to steel himself in situations like this. As is it, he is a boy from space with too much heart for his own good.
It didn’t help that the visions were getting too weird. Too real. Every time since the one of Murphy as a young boy, they seemed to be calling out to him. Pleading with him by name, even in situations that made no sense for Murphy to be talking to him.
The ones with Octavia always seem to be tinged with a haze, blurry in a way that tips them off from being reality. Murphy’s however, they seemed to be growing more and more clear. Sometimes, it seemed like Bellamy could walk right over and touch him.
So, when the next one came, Bellamy decided he was going to put this theory to the test.
It was some random day from the ring, Murphy had been running his mouth and trying to get a rise out of everyone.
Bellamy stepped out of the wooded area he was working in to join Murphy in a small clearing, creeping closer and closer to the weirdly real image.
When he was an arm's reach away, he tentatively reached out for Murphy’s shoulder.
It was the weirdest thing Bellamy had ever experienced. Not quite transparent, but not solid either. His hand went through Murphy’s shoulder, but not before experiencing some resistance.
Murphy was not unaffected either, cutting himself off mid sentence, his gaze moved from the focused gaze on someone Bellamy couldn’t see, to trail down from his shoulder up to Bellamy’s face.
“…Bellamy?”
“Yeah, uh. It’s me.” He awkwardly choked out. “Are you… you?”
Murphy, the one who shouldn’t possibly be having a conversation with Bellamy, blinked a few times as if he was waking up.
“Where am I?”
“In the woods. On Alpha.”
“Wh- What? I was just in the castle.”
Bellamy blinked. This Murphy shouldn’t have any knowledge of Sanctum. This Murphy had yet to even land on Earth for the second time.
“Murphy uh, I don’t know how to say this...”
Murphy made an impatient motion for Bellamy to continue, not-quite-there hands flapping in front of Bellamy’s face.
“Well you see. Uh- Well. You’re dead?”
All the blood seemed to run out of Murphy, and he was left looking as pale as, well, a ghost. After a moment of silence, Murphy seemed to understand, his head bowing into a slow nod.
“I remember now. Bellamy, I don’t know what’s happening to me, where I am. I’ve been trying to get through to you for weeks, but I feel… trapped in my own memories, if that makes sense. Maybe this is hell.”
“I can assure you that I am very much alive.” Bellamy does his best approximation of a comforting smile, given the situation. “We are going to figure this out, I promise Murph.”
Bellamy reached out to squeeze Murphy’s hand and was met with the same sensation. It was like how one feels when falling in a dream, it's slow – until it's not and the next thing you know, you’re awake. His hand brushed Murphy’s and for a moment it could have passed as a comforting gesture, until his hand was entirely within Murphy’s own.
“This is going to be fun.”
Turns out, it actually kind of was.
In the weeks that followed, Murphy would follow him while he made his rounds setting up the barrier. They had somewhat of a competition to see who could come up with the craziest idea to prove Murphy was real, or at least kind of real.
They started out small, Bellamy would break Murphy out of whatever memory he was in and they would get him to interact with the real world. Throwing rocks, climbing trees, blowing on Bellamy’s face.
They touched shoulders, held hands, nudged feet, all while Bellamy caught Murphy up on the happenings in Sanctum since he made his untimely departure.
It was odd, they had been through so much together, and spent six years in space, but Bellamy was finding there was so much more to Murphy than he had ever thought. He sometimes felt guilty, being able to tap into Murphy’s most intimate memories; he saw all the moments Murphy would normally cover up with sarcasm and edge. He saw him laughing as a young boy, chubby cheeks rosy. He saw him crying in the skybox, long after everyone else had gone to sleep. He saw every act of kindness the young man had performed on Earth, but never told anyone about.
He was beginning to see that there was a beauty to John Murphy; flawed and broken, but beautiful nonetheless. Bellamy found his little tics endearing, a hand brushing his nose when he was nervous but trying to act tough. A crinkle of the nose when something was particularly funny, but he didn’t want to show it. The way his eyes lit up when he thought of a particularly funny joke. Bellamy wondered why he hadn’t seen any of that before, and he also wondered what it all meant now that he noticed it.
That day, with all of his new revelations in the back of his mind, when Bellamy sat to eat his lunch he had an idea he couldn’t stop his mouth from blurting out fast enough.
“We should try kissing.”
Murphy, for once in his life, was speechless.
“I was kidding man, just forget it.”
An eyebrow was raised.
“Maybe it’s like in Princess and the Frog. You are the nasty slimy frog and only a true love’s kiss will save you.”
They locked eyes for a while with straight faces, until Murphy cracked and they both dissolved into a fit of giggles and laughs.
After it had died down, they fell into a comfortable silence while Bellamy continued to eat.
“And, lips, o’ you the doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss. A dateless bargain to engrossing death.”
Bellamy found himself much closer to Murphy than he originally had thought he had been, both of them seeming to gravitate towards one another. Before he could hesitate, Bellamy closed the distance.
The kiss was real. The most real Murphy had felt to him since holding him in his arms as he took his last breath. The only thing to keep it from feeling entirely real was the slight coldness to it, almost as if they had suddenly walked into a freezer. They also had to keep a distance, as Bellamy felt himself slipping too close to Murphy. Even with all that, to him, it was perfect.
Murphy seemed to take it in stride, despite it being a half-baked idea to begin with. What started as a hesitant peck of the lips developed into some more, something real. Neither man could say they had never thought of this before, however brief, but time had never been on their side and they were forever meant to be two planets; orbiting each other forever, but never meeting. Bellamy could see why the universe tried to keep them apart, when their lips met it was as if a cosmic sized explosion rocked Bellamy’s entire world.
They broke apart, resting forehead to forehead. Twin smiles shining back at once another. It was only when Bellamy went to reach up to cup Murphy’s cheek, a little too fast and forceful was the spell broken.
“We are going to figure this out Murph. Together.”
Bellamy had never been one for deep conversations and feelings, but with Murphy it seemed to come naturally.
Back at camp, with the other’s asleep, Bellamy sat by the fire with Murphy having collected him earlier in the day.
“What would you do if you were real again?”
“Is it bad if I said I’m not sure if I’d want to be with Emori?” Murphy looked pained but Bellamy’s heart secretly soared. They had both silently agreed to not talk about the kiss but Bellamy didn’t want to let it go, for some reason. “I just feel like we don’t fit anymore, or maybe we fit too well.”
“I felt that way about Echo, too.”
“Yeah?”
“I think my whole life I’ve been searching for something to fill the void within myself. I think I tried to use Echo for that. Before that, it had been Octavia, then the hundred, and then it was Clarke.”
“That’s no way to live.” Murphy replied with a scoff.
“Well I know that now. Being by myself, well - being by myself with you and fake Octavia, apparently, I finally have started to feel whole, ya know?”
“I know, Bell,” Murphy said, a look softer than Bellamy thought to be possible of the man on his face. He was hit with an earth shattering revelation.
“You know. I love you Murphy, right? I think part of me always has.”
“Bellamy?” A loud voice from behind made him jump.
“Oh! Hey Clarke, just letting the fire die down.”
“Who were you talking to? I heard you say my name.”
“Um, just myself.” She couldn’t see Murphy, apparently.
“I heard what you said, about, or to? Murphy.” she said softly. “I am here if you need me, trust me Bellamy, I get it.”
She didn’t get it though, and Bellamy decided that now was the time. “Clarke. I know this is going to sound crazy, but I don’t think Murphy is really dead. Not totally.”
“Excuse me?”
“It started weeks ago, I have been seeing these visions and they started to get more and more real. And well, I started talking to them. They talked back and it's really him Clarke, I know it.”
A sigh sounded from where Clarke had sat next to him, where Murphy had jumped out of place to avoid her sitting on him.
“Everyone grieves differently, and with the anomaly, who knows what you have been seeing in these woods.” She let out another sigh, sounding like a weary mother, “I know what it’s like to cling to an impossible dream. But Bell, it’s not healthy.”
“No Clarke I can prove it, I can-“ An idea shot himself to his feet, and he began digging into his pocket. “Clarke! The drive, I’ve had Murphy’s drive this whole time!”
“Bellamy! You told Emori you’d get rid of that thing!”
“I know. But what if we found out we could bring him back, somehow? I couldn’t do it.” Bellamy felt his heart race beneath his shirt, “This is it Clarke, it’s got to be.”
“I don’t know Bellamy… I mean it could be something to do with the Anomaly, couldn’t it? We’ve all been pretty close to it lately. Maybe it’s been, I don’t know? Melding with his memories? We could ask Gabriel about it when we head back.”
A figure popped up beside him before he could respond, but one only Bellamy could see.
“Bellamy give me that! Now! I have an idea” Lost for words, Bellamy let Murphy snatch the drive from his palm, which must have been quite the sight for Clarke.
Murphy took off running, Bellamy close behind and Clarke not far behind him.
“Wait! Murphy! Explain!”
Murphy did not wait to explain anything. Twenty minutes of running lead them straight to the heart of the Anomaly.
“No! No Murphy, don’t go in there! You don’t know what will happen. This works. We can make it work. We can ask Gabriel and figure something out, just think Murphy.”
“You know this is no way to not live, Bellamy, and you know thinking isn’t my forte.” Murphy said, with a wry smirk. “I don’t know why, but I know I’m going to be okay. Either way, parting, right?”
With that, Murphy gave one last wild smile and turned to sprint into the green mystery, Bellamy’s calls falling on deaf ears.
A minute went by. Two minutes. Bellamy was on edge and Clarke still not knowing what was happening grabbed his hand, urging him to leave.
He was about to relent, when a figure stepped out of the Anomaly.
“Murphy?” Clarke gasped.
Bellamy ran to him, Murphy meeting him halfway. The impact caused them to stumble. Which in turn caused them to laugh at the joy of Murphy really being there and being solid. Murphy’s arms shot up to wrap around Bellamy’s shoulder’s and pull him into an embrace. Bellamy stepped back and peppered Murphy’s face in kisses, each one proving to him that this was real.
He stopped, and took Murphy by the shoulders, face growing serious.
“Don’t ever do that to me again.”
Murphy lurched forward and met Bellamy with a lingering kiss.
“You don’t have to worry about that Bellamy,” Murphy replied, a smile evident in his voice, “Oh and - I love you too, idiot.”
With that, Bellamy finally realized something: this was happiness.