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“This morning all I could think of was how much easier this would all be if Finn were… gone.” Bellamy hears Raven’s voice over the radio, though he tries not to, and though he knows she probably didn’t mean for him to. He can hear his sister consoling her, in a way that only Octavia can, but Bellamy’s struck by her words, by the truth to them. He thinks of all the times he’s wished Clarke out of existence - and Finn with her, if he’s completely honest - the amount of time he has spent holed up alone wishing something would happen to her, especially in those early days. Praying for a miracle to make his life easier. And now something has, something’s took both of them (killed two birds with one stone, he hopes not literally) and has taken an innocent child along with them.
He tries not to care, he really does. That doesn’t mean he’s successful, though. He’s only human, after all.
“Damnit Monty, pay attention.” He growls into his own radio, ignoring the boy’s ramblings.
Then he hears an “Oh My God.” From Monty, and if he’s honest, that’s when everything started to go wrong.
“There’s someone in the bushes.” Raven’s voice is quiet and controlled as she speaks into the radio, her voice carrying across the waves to Bellamy. He turns to where he knows his sister and the mechanic are patrolling and walks that way. A few nerve-wracking moments and he hears one of the girls’ voices again. “Myles?” He breathes a sigh of relief, because if the kid’s there then Clarke and Finn can’t be far (they can, but Bellamy doesn’t want to think about what that could mean for any of them - Clarke was their best - only - medic, after all). Bellamy reaches the three of them a few seconds later, surveying his sister first for damage, then the other two.
“Where are Clarke and Finn?” Octavia asks, and Miles tries to breathe a reply, but fails for a second.
“Grounders took them.” The kid wheezes painfully and Bellamy sees the same thing dawn on Raven’s face as what’s in his head - they were screwing whilst Clarke and Finn were probably dying or being tortured or something. He tells himself to get it together, because God knows what’s out here at night and he needs to get them all back to camp.
He can’t waste his time on things that he can’t change. No, he’ll have to wait until it’s time to sleep to do that.
“Take it easy.” Bellamy speaks softly to the struggling boy. “We have to get him back to camp.” He says to the others. Octavia is the first to question him (it’s no surprise, really).
“Bell, what about Clarke and Finn?” She asks, looking at him. His eyes fall on Raven, as again, it falls to him to make the hard decisions. He stands up as the mechanic does. But she won’t look at him.
“I’m sorry.” He says, because he is. If he could, he’d be the first one lining up out there to go and save them. But he can’t - he has to make the decisions that others won’t. He has to let them die so the others can live. It’s the only chance they’ve got. Raven turns and walks away, just a few steps. Bellamy guesses it’s so she doesn’t have to look at anyone, just for something to do other than look helpless, just like how he feels.
He’s doing the right thing, he knows he is. He can’t risk 80 lives to save 2. Clarke would kill him, for starters. That doesn’t stop his voice from shaking as he talks to Monty over the radio. “Monty, we’re heading home. You copy?” No answer. His sister stands up, as if ready to fight something (he can’t for the life of him think what, out here in these woods at night) “Monty, can you hear me?” He tries again. Nothing. “Monty. Monty.” He says, more roughly this time, his voice a plea in itself for the boy to be off rambling about something and not be gone. Not like the others.
Eventually, Bellamy has to be the leader and make the hard calls once more. They have to go back to camp.
Monty isn’t going to return.
That doesn’t stop him lagging behind, trying to get in touch with what feels like his single shot at redemption.
There’s no answer.
The kids are tired, Bellamy knows this. That doesn’t stop him from rallying them to build his landmines.
It’s the only shot they’ve got, he tells himself. It’s the only way they’re going to live.
Otherwise… otherwise Finn and Clarke and Monty - everyone - they’ve died in vain. If the kids don’t win this battle tonight - Bellamy tell himself they will, though his morale is lower than he thought possible - then everyone that’s died for an of them. Charlotte, Clarke, Atom, Finn. All of them. They’ve gone in vain. Because there’s nobody to remember them. Nobody to mourn them.
They have to win. And to win, Bellamy’s got to be a hard ass.
“I really hope those landmines work.” He tells Raven and Jasper, hunched over the ground. “With all the gunpowder we’re wasting we could be making more grenades.” So he’s not the land-mine plan’s biggest fan - he thinks it’s wasting far too much ammo for indefinite results.
“You want to come over here and test one?” Raven asks, Bellamy rolls his eyes.
“Cute. I need this entire section lined by morning, then finish the south field.”
“Hey,” Raven stands now, turning to him, lowering her voice as she walks towards him. “I told you, we’re going after Finn, Clarke and Monty in the morning.”
“And I told you,” Bellamy retorts, “Nobody leaves this camp.”
“I’m talking to you! We can’t just abandon our people.” Raven doesn’t know how her words hit home, as Bellamy works to keep his face blank. “You want to lead them?” She asks, Bellamy resists the urge to tell her no, he doesn’t want to lead them. He wants to get away with Octavia, he wants to leave this place and never come back. It’s all he’s ever wanted. And yet he’s here. With them, trying to make sure they survive. “Show them you give a damn.” Bellamy opens his mouth to reply - though he doesn’t know what he’s going to say - when he’s saved the trouble by a gunshot.
“What the hell’s the matter with you?” He strides up the hill, to the source of the problem. Connor.
“I-I’m sorry man, I fell asleep. I’ve been on watch all day.” He tries to defend himself. Bellamy doesn’t care, he grips the collar of the kid’s jacket, pins him against the tree, shakes him a little.
“We’ve all been on watch all day.” He growls. “That bullet was one less grounder!”
“Bell,” Octavia tries to interject. “You’re scaring people.”
“They should be scared,” Bellamy tells her - and everyone around. He turns to the kids now, congregating to look at the spectacle he’d made of himself. “The bomb on the bridge bought us some time to prepare,” he walks down the hill, towards the people he’d professed to be his own. “But that time is up.” He throws an arm out in exasperation. “The grounders are out there, right now, waiting for us to leave and picking us off one by one when we do.” For a second, he’s glad Clarke isn’t here to counter him, give Anti-Bellamy talks to the kids, and then he thinks for a second. And he realises that with her and Finn here, they probably would have had a plan by now, and a better one than all the kids being awake all hours, exhausted, shooting at nothing as they fall asleep.
This display is kind of the epitome of what is wrong with his leadership skills, he thinks to himself. Out loud, he says “Clarke, Finn and Monty are gone.” The words eat at his chest, sticking in like knives. He didn’t like Finn and he wasn’t Clarke’s biggest fan 100% of the time, and sure, he didn’t know Monty as well as he probably should have, but they were three of his people. Clarke was possibly his closest - most trusted, besides O and Miller - friend (whatever that even means anymore) at this camp, and without her co-leadership, he’s trying to navigate an unfamiliar dark tunnel with no light.
She was the light, she showed him where he was going. Now she’s gone and he’s stuck in the dark.
“Probably dead.” He finishes the sentence, the words digging in, weighing on his shoulders even more. But they have the desired effect, he realises as he looks around at the kids, most of whom knew at least one of them, all of which had at least heard of Clarke, possibly been treated by her. Been wooed by Finn or had passed by Monty.
Jasper is the worst, close to all three, his face resembles Octavia’s when they’d shut her beneath the floor. Bellamy looks away, not being able to see the look he’d inflicted on the kid. “And if you want to be next, I can’t stop you.” These words were directed at Raven. “But no guns are leaving this camp! This camp is the only thing keeping us alive. Get back to work!”
Myles’ groaning makes Bellamy reminiscent of Jasper’s in those first few days, how he’d threatened to kill him, how Clarke had stopped him.
There was no Clarke to stop him now, he realised as he rocked forward, leaning on the sideboard. Not that he wanted to kill the poor kid anyway. Then Bellamy feels eyes on him and it’s Jasper, silent and sulking as he walks into the dropship, gun clutched tightly in his grip. Bellamy sighs.
“Don’t you think I want to go after them too?” The younger boy says nothing for a moment.
“If it was you out there, do you think that Monty, Clarke or Finn would hide behind these walls?” It’s a good question, one that Bellamy knows the answer to. “No. They’d go after me, then they’d be dead too.” Jasper shakes his head. “I am doing what I think is right for the group,” Bellamy defends. Jasper shakes his head again, walking and putting his gun down on the table.
“It’s funny you didn’t think that way when Octavia was missing.” He half-shrugs, turning around to exit the ship.
“Where are you goin’?” Bellamy asks, exasperated.
“More gunpowder for your minefield.” His hand lifts to his brow in a mock salute. “Sir.”
When Jasper is taken, less than two hours later, Bellamy can’t help a “Fuck” sliding from his lips because honestly, he knew Murphy was a psychopath, but he let Clarke keep him anyway. Bellamy sees no option but to give himself up, so that’s what he does, despite the protest of his sister and Jasper and a couple more people that he couldn’t really care less about. And then psychopath Murphy has him tie his own rope, to be hung with, and Bellamy lets a few more choice words go under his breath, because damn if Clarke has the worst possible judgement on earth, letting this kid back here.
“What do you want me to say?” Bellamy asks, but the younger kid just shrugs. “You want me to apologise? I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want you to say anything. I want you to feel what I felt, and then - then I want you to die.”
Bellamy looks at the noose with his name on and his stomach drops through the floor. All he can think is if Clarke was here, she wouldn’t let this happen. We’d have been out by now. She’d have seen Murphy for what he was, she’d have found another solution to him taking Jasper.
And then the noose is around Bellamy’s neck, and he can feel his dying breath bursting up into his lungs.
“Do you think they’re just oigng to let you walk out of here?” He manages to ask, through the undeniable panic rising up through his chest.
“Well, I think the Princess is dead,” The words still send a pang to Bellamy’s chest, no matter how many times he’s said them - thought them - in the past 24 hours. “And I know the King is about to die,” These are undeniably worse to Bellamy’s panicking, as he can feel the end coming nearer and he can’t hear any celebrations from Jasper or Raven right about now. “So who’s going to lead all these people, huh?” Murphy takes a step forward. “Me.” The first thought to Bellamy is ‘Over my dead body’ but he’s thinking that this could be a reality so he keeps that to himself. “And yeah, maybe I’ll have to kill your grounder-pouding little sister.” This isn’t the first thing that’s irritated Bellamy, but honestly, it’s the last straw because it’s also not the first time Murphy’s gone after Octavia but it’s sure as hell going to be the last he thinks as he kicks out, hoping to hit home on the kid’s face, or windpipe, anything that could get him free. And then Murphy’s pulling on the noose and Bellamy’s feet are unsteady on the stool and then finally, he’s in the air, fighting for his last breaths, telling himself he will get through this. He will.
He won’t, he sure as hell won’t get through this because Murphy’s laughing and every breath that reaches Bellamy’s lips dies before it reaches his throat and every morsel of oxygen that gets near his lungs falls beforehand.
When Clarke does actually return, Bellamy feels the relief bloating his chest because she’s home. She and Finn are home - but Monty is not, and Bellamy doesn’t want to think about what that means right now - and everything isn’t going to be okay, but this is a start at least, because Bellamy doesn’t have to do it all alone. His neck is still sore and his throat still hurts - kills - when he breathes or talks or does anything, really.
But Clarke is here, and she’s arguing with him (he never thought he’d be so happy whilst having a screaming match).