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Bellamy is barely aware of his surroundings – the realest thing are the drops of cold sweat making their way down his forehead. Voices speak, but they seem muddled as if heard through glass. It hardly matters because he can’t concentrate on anything, anyway.
As his consciousness sobers up, the pulsing pain kicks in with no warning. He whimpers involuntarily and is surprised to find a piece of leather between his teeth.
Bellamy doesn’t open his eyes. Maybe they’ll think he’s sleeping, or better yet, dead and leave him alone for a few minutes more. Or even for a few seconds, he would take scraps at this point. He wills himself to relax his body, but there’s no controlling the trembling that wracks him, the tension in his shoulders. Miraculously, nobody makes a move towards him. A few moments later he hears the door close and the voices fade out into silence.
His body burns. Needles, knives, electric shock, it has seen it all, but never so much and never as violently as now. How long has he been here, anyway? Feels like weeks, but it might have been days. Hours? He doesn’t know, but likes to believe it would take more than mere hours to reduce him to the mess he is now. He spits the leather scrap out of his mouth unceremoniously.
Bellamy wonders idly if he’d given up any information about his people. He hadn’t, as far as he remembers, but what if the Mountain Men done something to his head too? More guilt settles in the crevices of his heart. It’s a routine at this point, to blame himself for everything. If he had kept his mouth shut for Charlotte. Went with Finn to go look for Clarke. And surely, Octavia wouldn’t have been caught if he hadn’t brought her to the dance. Maybe their mother would’ve still been alive.
“Or maybe you three would’ve died in the Ark while trying to land on earth.”
Bellamy whips his head so fast his neck cracks, but all he sees are old rusted walls that seem to close in on him with every blink. He’s going fucking crazy.
“You’re not crazy, Bellamy.”
He almost gasps when he recognizes it. Foolishly, he scans the room again for the owner of the raspy voice, but she’s nowhere to be found. The fluorescent light over his head flickers.
“It's not long now, we're coming.”
Bellamy doesn’t really grasp what is being said, screws his eyes shut and wills the voice to go away. It’s too late. Slivers of hope are already wrapping around his heart. He wants to cry and it shows in his voice, exhausted and broken when he whispers: “Clarke?”
He opens his eyes, and takes a labored breath as a weak smile appears on his face. There she is, leaning over him, clean waved blond hair falling around her face like an unearthly halo. He opens his lips to ask her what she’s doing here, but Clarke shushes him gently and suddenly he’s reminded of Atom, his last choked breaths and her piercing the boy’s neck with a knife. He’s tired, so tired, but he’s not ready to go yet. The fear of death, unknown and all ending makes his exhausted heart pick up a rapid rhythm, one he could swear is so loud it echoes off the damn walls. Death reminds him of space, the vast emptiness of it, its fatal grip on one’s lungs. Funny how he’d never been this close to dying as he is now, on the ground.
“I don’t want to die, please,” Bellamy says softly and he means it, but inadvertently reaches out for her. Disappointment curdles the lightness of hope he’s been keeping when his hand meets nothing but air. He can’t see where he ends and she begins, but there’s no warmth in his fingertips. This is all a dream.
“Bellamy.” He looks back at her and Clarke frowns. It looks strange on her, unfitting that she should look sad and Bellamy wants to reach up and smooth her forehead out with his thumb. His arms are too weak, though and she is not there to touch, anyway. He drinks her in instead, stares at her face wishing the image could burn into his retinas, so the next time they cut him open all he would see be her face behind his eyelids.
“You’re strong, Bell, you won’t die. You won’t leave.” You won’t abandon us, is all he hears. “Our people need you.” His eyes search her face. “I need you.”
This Clarke that stands in front of him reminds him of pre-Finn Clarke. Concern is clearly written on her face, palms hovering just above his bicep (he supposes his psyche wants to uphold the illusion of her really being there). Not the one that looked at him over cackling fire, uttering it’s worth the risk with a stone cold expression and dead eyes. He’s not bitter, he really isn’t. What she said was true and after all he himself had propositioned it, but having her go from I can’t lose you too to sending him to Mt. Weather suicide mission had left a crack in his heart.
This is the Clarke that smiled into his neck when they hugged, the Clarke that laid with him under the tree and gazed at the stars.
He has to remind himself she’s not actually here all over again.
“He’s awake,” says someone and the heavy doors creak open. Clarke’s head swivels to the entrance and when she looks back at him, her voice is frantic and she keeps repeating hold on, Bellamy, hold on a little longer.
A man grabs his face and roughly shoves the abandoned piece of leather back into place. Bellamy spits it out – Clarke’s presence breathed a little defiance in him. The man grunts angrily, whacks him in the cheek with the back of his hand and for a moment Bellamy sees stars. He’s about to be gagged again, when another person interrupts:
“Leave it. If he wants to bite his own tongue off, let him.”
The woman that spoke is the same one that operated him before. He can see her assistant wheel in a cart full of scalpels and needles and animalistic fear hits him so hard his heart is seconds away from an attack. Desperately, his brown eyes search the room for his solace, but Clarke is gone and that hits him harder than the slap. He whines through gritted teeth. The doctor woman stands in the same place Clarke stood, wearing the same expression almost, but on her it looks fake, stolen and Bellamy wants to scream.
Then she stabs his abdomen and he does.
//
It hurts so badly. They break his fingers and along with it his resolve. It can’t be worse than this, death. Suddenly, the darkness of space seems like a safety blanket and suffocation nothing more than falling asleep. A knife to the throat is a mere stab and at least he’d know it would be the last one.
Unthinkingly, his lips start forming silent words and he doesn’t even realize what he’s mouthing. Somewhere at the back of his head he scolds himself for being selfish with Atom, prolonging his pain because he was too afraid to help him, the guilt washes at him again (only if he knew how it felt on Atom’s end then). He can’t stop whispering the same sentence over and over, take me, take me please. Bellamy’s not even sure who he’s talking to. They won’t grant him mercy.
He can’t--
The fear is gone now, all drowned in a bloody pool of the pain. He keeps thinking it can’t get any worse and then it does, he blacks-out for a moment and is woken up by force and the cycle repeats itself again and again and
Bellamy sees a flash of blonde hair and a wet chuckle escapes his lips. She heard his plea. She came. He doesn’t see others that tumble in the room with her, doesn’t try to make sense of them hitting and shooting the Mountain Men around him, but keeps his eyes locked on her.
Once every doctor is laying on the ground, Clarke’s gaze meets his and she lets out a sob, then covers her mouth. Bellamy frowns. She’s supposed to take him smiling, hold his hand and lead him away, assure him he was strong and that he can rest now.
“Are you an angel?” he tries to ask, but the words are too jumbled and his throat too parched.
His angel of death approaches him, hands flitting inches above his wounded body. Bellamy wants her to touch him, hopes he can feel her warmth unlike before. It’s one last thing he wants, prays the powers of the universe will let him have this.
The angel looks a little different – her hair is curly and dirty, scrapes and bruises scattered on her face. She cards her fingers through his hair hesitantly and he gasps at the contact. It feels like years since anyone touched him that gently, without any malicious intent. She’s trembling. He distantly notes that he is too.
“Please take me,” he says, voice as soft as a flutter of butterfly’s wings.
“Yes, we’ll take you with us, Bell, it’s over.” She bites the insides of her cheeks to keep from crying “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, Bellamy, I’m sorry.”
He doesn’t understand what she’s apologizing for. He just hopes everyone will get out safe. If they do, well then… it was worth the risk.
“Sleep now,” she says, and with her fingers still running through his sweat matted hair, he does.
//
He wakes like winter changing into spring – slowly and a little dazed. There’s an aching all throughout his body, but it’s rather dull. The smell of ever present metal and antiseptic is gone, replaced with fresh air and he feels like he can breathe for the first time in weeks. It’s quiet, but not abnormally so, Bellamy can hear people shuffling and chattering outside the tent he’s currently staying in.
Mount Weather hadn’t been a dream, he knows, but this doesn’t feel like an illusion either. The bed creaks as he props himself up on his elbows and cringes.
“Damn it, Bellamy, can you just rest for once?” A voice asks and he almost chokes up. A small hand settles on his forehead and suddenly he has Octavia’s brown hair falling all over his face as she hugs him from behind.
“I was really scared.” She mumbles into his shoulder, her voice higher and less controlled.
“I was too.” He says, and his voice strains from disuse. Octavia freezes for a moment, but then continues to caress his shoulder. It’s unexpected, to hear him admit it. It was always him that comforted her when they were on the Ark and never the other way around, but the Ground has been another thing entirely and he just couldn’t keep up the stone walls around him.
“I know. I know, but it’s over now. You’re here, so are everyone else and you will never have to see Mount Weather again.” Octavia’s tone takes on a darker manner. “Clarke made sure of that.”
And like a dam breaking it crashes on him. All that he had said to Clarke back in captivity, back when he didn’t know she was real. He tries to fight it, but embarrassment trickles unpleasantly down his chest. An angel, plea for death? She must think him weak or broken now.
“Bell?” Octavia has changed her position, now facing him directly, her warm hand still a welcome presence on his shoulder.
“Yeah, uh. Is she okay?” He asks. Octavia smiles cheekily through un-shed tears.
“Oh, she’s fine. Guilty as hell, but alright. You want me to call her?”
He’s torn between wanting to see her and wanting to bury himself under the sheets and sleep until he forgets. Octavia doesn’t have the patience to wait for his decision.
“Clarke!” she yells and he winces at the sheer volume. “CLAR—Wait here.” Octavia pushes a pillow under his back so he can stay half upright and walks outside. As if he could do anything besides waiting.
Bellamy sits there staring at the red flaps of the tent’s entrance for at least fifteen minutes, before she walks in, blond hair shining in the dim light, hands clenched into fists at her sides. He exhales loudly. There’s a silence that’s bordering on awkward and he doesn’t like it. There has been anger between them, resentment, excitement and affection, but never awkwardness. Bellamy tries to think of something to say, but everything he comes up with sounds ridiculous in his head. Clarke, stay with me for a little while. I missed you, Clarke. Was it worth the risk?
He must’ve mumbled the last part out loud, because something in her face breaks. Her shoulders slump and she’s no longer as straight or as cold as a metal rod.
“We got them back.” She begins, hesitantly moving towards his bed. He scoots a little to make some space and she sits down. “They’re safe and home, all because of the information you’ve provided.” Clarke looks down at her hands, clasps them tightly together until they turn white. “I just wish it wasn’t you that had to go through this.”
He places his hand over hers.
“I wish for a lot of things, Clarke, but none of them is to take back what happened. If you say it was worth it, then I know it was.”
Her shocked gaze meets his and she envelops the same hand with her own, bringing it to her lips, then her cheek, all the while staring at him like he’s something special and important. Bellamy tries to memorize that look, save it and lock it at the back of his brain. It’s not a look he’s used to.
“I wish for a lot of things.” He repeats almost involuntarily and Clarke seems to understand what he means even before he himself does. A smile graces her lips and Bellamy can’t help but think how she does look like a damn angel.
“Me too.”