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Bellamy knew they would probably kill him. Maybe they’d torture him first, pretend they wanted him, but in the end they would throw him away. He was almost fine with the idea; God knew he deserved it, and he had prepared himself anyway.
But he wasn’t prepared for this.
The first thing he saw when the guards brought him was Clarke. He always saw her first, but there was no way he could see anything else now. She was chained to a pole, her arms behind her back and a collar of sorts around her neck. Her eyes radiated terror. Clarke – strong, composed, enduring Clarke – terrified.
He lunged towards her, though he didn’t know what he was going to do, but the ALIE-controlled guards had a firm grip on him and he couldn’t get to her. “Clarke,” he
choked out, not thinking to keep the desperation out of his voice. “Clarke, are you okay?”
Her whole face was tight as she nodded. He could see her chest rising and falling, hard and fast, but she managed not to show it. He’d always loved her for that ability, but now it scared him. It scared him because he knew she would not break, no matter what they did to her, even if they killed her. And that wasn’t something he could bear to happen.
“Bellamy Blake,” Abby – or the ALIE version of her, at least – said, standing straighter as she looked over him coldly, the way a hunter might inspect a rifle. “It has come to our knowledge you could be of great use to us.”
“Unless your plan is to turn off the City of Light, I highly doubt that.”
“On the contrary.” She stepped closer, dropping her voice, and he felt his skin crawl. “You are one of your people’s leaders, you have excellent combat skills, and you possess intricate knowledge of their plans. With all of that in your hands, just imagine what we could do together.”
Bellamy inwardly flinched at the last word but steeled himself from showing any reaction. They wanted a rise out of him; wanted to find a way to break him. “And why would I help you?”
“Because we can help you,” Jaha said suddenly, stepping forward. Bellamy hadn’t even noticed the old chancellor was present.
“If you’re going to kill me,” Bellamy replied tiredly, “just do it.”
“But don’t you see?” Jaha insisted, adopting the inspirational voice that had won over hundreds. It had never had much of an effect on Bellamy. “Everything you’ve suffered, all you’ve done, it can go away. Killing all those people in Mount Weather, people who believed you would do the right thing? It can disappear. Imprisoning your sister, being the reason for your mother’s death, as well as Gina’s, not to mention....”
“You already tried all that on me,” Bellamy reminded him, even as memories unwillingly surfaced of a dimly lit room, Raven chained and no longer herself, her snide smile and cutting words. Does it bother you that you don’t get credit for the genocide at Mount Weather? “It didn’t work then, and it won’t now.”
Abby spoke up. “Maybe not those things....” She tilted her head slightly as she regarded him, and he had the sudden, chilling feeling she was looking right into him. “But I think something did.”
Bellamy didn’t allow any reaction to cross his face, but his heart had tightened unpleasantly and his mind was buzzing with Raven’s words, the only words he had replied to in all her time testing him, curse his soul. Too bad you were never that devoted to Gina. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said, but his voice was unsteady and it was too late anyway. Abby had already taken her knife and turned to her daughter, who was shifting in her chains and mumbling something he couldn’t quite make out. It sounded like please.
“Wait.” Bellamy struggled in his captors’ arms, but they held fast to him. “Wait. You don’t know what you’re doing, don’t—” He stopped short, not because he’d run out of words, but because it was at that moment the knife pierced Clarke’s skin. Red spilled from her sternum, dark and thick, and Clarke muffled a cry. She was brave, as always, but Bellamy didn’t feel brave. He felt like his insides were being smashed together, like a terrible weight was slowly pushing him through the floor.
As Abby drew out the knife, she said calmly – how could she be calm? How could she sound so composed when she had just stabbed her own daughter? – “Just take the chip, Bellamy, and we can stop.”
In response, Bellamy ground his teeth together and let unshed tears burn the backs of his eyes instead of his cheeks.
“Bellamy,” Clarke said, and he locked eyes with her. She looked so in pain, so afraid; he couldn’t stand it. When she was in pain, it was like he felt it, too, and right now he wished he could feel it all instead of her. “You can’t.”
“I know,” he murmured, trying to be gentle even though his words were a death sentence for her. He held onto her gaze, even when the knife went back into her skin and Clarke could only partially conceal a strangled gasp; even when Abby cleaned off the knife with her shirt almost presumptuously, as if it wasn’t a real human being she had just stabbed; even when he could see Clarke’s shoulders shaking with agony she refused to show. He kept looking, because who knew how much he could lose when he glanced away.
“I won’t take it,” he mumbled when they paused, knowing they wanted an answer. “I won’t...I can’t do it.”
“We will see, won’t we?” Abby said, and he wanted to scream at her that couldn’t she just stop, couldn’t she see this wasn’t right? Then she turned her head to the side, listening to a figure Bellamy couldn’t see – ALIE, most likely – and nodded in confirmation to an order, maybe.
At the same time, one of Bellamy’s guards started fumbling for something at their side, and he took his chance. He ripped out of the man’s loosened grasp and swung towards the other – a tall, short-haired woman – his vision hazed with adrenaline. Before she could react, he swung his fist at her jaw and she reeled back, spitting out blood. He heard in the back of his mind Clarke calling his name anxiously, but didn’t realize at first what she was warning him about. It wasn’t until he threw back the other guard coming for him and spun towards her when he understood.
Abby had a gun in her hand, and it was pointed at Clarke.
The world tilted nauseatingly and then froze at the wrong angle, leaving Bellamy feeling as if he would fall over at any moment. He couldn’t stop looking at the gun—his gun, the one they had confiscated, the one the guard had probably been reaching for, the one he had somehow forgotten about until it was inches from Clarke’s skull.
“Bellamy,” Clarke said, and he looked at her. His heart didn’t seem to be beating, or maybe it was beating so fast he couldn’t decipher it. “Bellamy, it’s okay.”
He nodded, but of course it wasn’t okay, because they were going to kill her if he didn’t take the chip and yet she was trying to comfort him. They were making him choose between the safety of the world and the safety of Clarke, and to him they were the same.
“No,” he breathed, and he didn’t know who it was directed to, but it was all he could think. No. No, it wasn’t okay. No, he couldn’t take the chip. No, he couldn’t let them hurt her. He turned to Abby. “You don’t know what you’re doing,” he insisted, almost begged.
“Yes I do,” Abby said, and he felt the guards grab him again. He hadn’t even thought to do anything in his moment of panic, and now he hated himself for it. “You are our greatest chance of winning.”
“If you kill her,” he warned, feeling his voice and body go weak even as he forced authority into it, “or even harm her, you will have no chance of winning. She knows things no one else does—”
“Really? Because our information tells us Clarke has a record of confiding in you for everything, and she’s also rather intelligent. She knows that if she dies, the plans, the pass phrase, all of it, dies with her. Clearly she told you.”
Bellamy balked with the force of this misunderstanding. They thought he knew the pass phrase. They thought he was as useful as Clarke, and that meant they might not hesitate to kill her. “She didn’t tell me anything, I swear she didn’t, just stop—”
“I’ll move this gun,” Abby said slowly, “when you take the chip.”
Clarke shook her head, lips pressed tightly together as if holding back a string of words. He knew she wasn’t say anything because she was too afraid to do so, and he knew he had done that to her. He had been careless and now Clarke, the person he cared about most in the world, was in danger. The fact tore at him like an open wound.
“Clarke,” he said, desperately. “Clarke, I—”
“Too slow, Bellamy,” Abby said, and she shot Clarke in the leg.
A scream ripped through Clarke, and Bellamy could feel it shredding his insides. He was shaking, and he thought maybe he’d shake apart and then he’d wake up and find it was all a dream, because this couldn’t be real. He couldn’t lose Clarke. He couldn’t. But could he sacrifice the world for her?
“The next one goes in her heart,” Abby said, and Bellamy knew his answer. Of course I could. I can.
I will.
“Okay. Okay, I’ll do it, just—just get that gun away from her.”
“Bellamy,” Clarke said, shocked and betrayed. “Bellamy, no.” But Abby had thrown the gun aside and Clarke was still breathing, still alive, and he could think of nothing else.
Jaha brought a chip to him and Bellamy obediently opened his mouth even as Clarke shook her head. For the first time, tears crossed her face.
“I’m sorry,” he said, only for her. I’m sorry I have to do this. I’m sorry for what I’ve done, and what I might do. “I’m so sorry, Clarke.”
She was the last thing he saw before the world he knew faded away.
-
Clarke stared at Bellamy as his eyes glazed over, feeling like someone had scraped out her insides. She’d lost him. First her mom, now Bellamy. She would’ve rather had the bullet through her heart.
Abby stared at Bellamy for a moment, then frowned. “The boy was telling the truth. Only Clarke knows the pass phrase. We need her as well.”
“How do you suggest we do that?” Jaha asked, and Clarke couldn’t tell if he was asking her mom or ALIE. Either way, he got an answer.
“It’s her friends who she’ll break for,” Abby suggested. “She doesn’t care if she’s broken, but if we take someone she cares about....”
The idea was left hanging in the air, and Clarke stood stock-still, wondering if they could hear her heart beating through her shirt. Almost unwillingly, her eyes turned to Bellamy, instinctively wanting his comfort even when he wasn’t really him, and he looked back. But the warmth that usually filled his eyes, the gentle frame of his face that expressed his pride in her, his belief in everything she was, was gone, replaced by a cold, calculating being that once was her best friend.
Bellamy, she thought, a pain so unlike the agony in her leg starting in her chest and seeping outwards, fingers of heartbreak across her nerves. Bellamy, please.
He tilted his head suddenly, blinking as if something quietly brilliant had just occurred to him, and with his eyes still trained on hers, he said, “Start with me.”
The world froze around Clarke, but yet she felt as if she was being thrown back with shock. Her lip trembled with the full weight of this realization, and even though she knew it wouldn’t help her to show weakness she couldn’t help it because it was Bellamy. Bellamy, who held her like he was never letting go. Bellamy, who took upon himself the Mount Weather genocide just so she wouldn’t have to do it alone. Bellamy, who forgave her time and time again, who never saw her as any less despite her mistakes.
Bellamy, who she would have to sacrifice to save the world.
“Here,” Ontari said from the quiet corner she had been waiting in. Clarke gathered the strength to look at her, only to feel her heart sink to her toes. She had given Bellamy her sword.
“Bellamy,” she said, half-paralyzed with fear. “No, Bellamy.”
He glanced at her, but it was only a moment, and in the next one he was taking the sword to his wrist. Blood gushed from the wound and she had to choke back bile, not at the sight of blood but at the knowledge it was Bellamy’s blood, and it wouldn’t be the last blood spilt. Carelessly he sliced at his other wrist, then took a moment to look at her questioningly. Are you broken yet?
“Bellamy, please,” she said, straining forward against the collar even though it strained her voice. “This isn’t you.”
“Take the chip,” her mom said from beside Bellamy, cold and calculating, “and it will stop.”
“I—I can’t,” Clarke said, almost to convince herself. She couldn’t remember a time where she had felt more hopeless than this one.
Bellamy listened to an outside voice for a moment, then nodded solemnly. He dropped the sword, which made Clarke almost fall with momentarily relief, but then he went to the other side of the room, where she could see a bucket and, above it, a....
Clarke’s heart stopped abruptly. It was a noose. And Bellamy was standing up to meet it, looping the rope around his neck like some deranged leash. “No,” she murmured, and it was half a growl, half a whisper. “Bellamy, no. Bellamy!”
Finally, he looked at her, except it was just as bad as when he looked away, because she saw no regret in his eyes. No hesitation in this action. No warmth towards her.
“Bellamy, this isn’t you,” she said desperately. She had to snap him out of it, she had to get him back somehow. “Don’t do this. Bellamy, please, come back to me—”
“You know, Clarke,” he said, and there was something lifeless to the rough tone that usually sent soft tingles up and down her spine, “I was in one of these before, before Mount Weather. I survived then.” There was a terrible pause, and she couldn’t tell if her heart was even beating anymore. “I won’t this time. Not if you don’t take the chip.”
The tears that had started when he took the chip were coming faster, making it harder to see him and harder to concentrate. I can’t take the chip, she thought over and over again, even though she wanted to so badly her whole body was on fire. No matter what. “Bellamy, please,” she choked out, a final pleading. She had to reach him, she had to stop him before she lost him for real, forever. “Please don’t do this.”
He stepped off.
Clarke screamed as the noose tightened around his neck, but it was so much more than a scream. It was like a hand was dragging all the air out of her body in that cry, sucking the life from her as she watched Bellamy Blake, the person she would’ve died to protect, choke in front of her eyes. Her mouth opened but she couldn’t get any air out to form words, and even if she did she was too afraid the words would be to take the chip. I’m so sorry, she thought, still struggling against her chains, and the pain in her leg, once agony, was nothing. It was nothing compared to this feeling, this aching in her whole body, like she was being ripped apart—
“STOP!” she shrieked, before even realizing she was saying it. “I’ll do it! I’ll...I’ll take the chip.” But no one moved, wondering if she was telling the truth, and she shoved against her chains. “Get him down from there! I won’t take the chip if you let Bellamy Blake die!”
That got everyone moving. Ontari grabbed her sword and swung it over Bellamy’s head, tearing the noose and sending him to the ground. Clarke could barely see; tears stung her eyes and she couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead, and if she hadn’t saved him she knew she would never forgive herself.
Abby bent down and inspected him, then after a few seconds said, “He’s alive.”
“Let me see,” Clarke said before she could be too overfilled with relief. She knew this could be a trap, and if she was going to give up the world for Bellamy Blake, it was going to be because she had kept him alive. “Let me see him.”
Jaha undid the collar but held tight onto her arms – assuming correctly that she would try to knock him or some of the others out – and threw her down beside Bellamy. Her leg burned horribly, but she didn’t care. Quickly, desperately, she put her fingers over his neck, feeling for a pulse, and found one. It was weak, but it was there, and that meant he was alive. He’s alive. She could’ve melted with relief, and she nearly did, collapsing her head onto his chest and reveling in the slight rise and fall of his chest. Bellamy Blake was alive. That was all that mattered for now.
“Clarke,” Abby said, and she unwillingly turned to see a chip near her mouth. Her heart was a heavy stone weighing down her chest, and she scooted backwards, lips sealed tightly. “Clarke, take the chip now.”
Clarke just shook her head. She needed to stall. Maybe—
It was at that moment she heard gunshots.
-
“Bellamy. Bellamy. Wake up.”
Bellamy didn’t want to open his eyes. His whole body hurt, and the voice trying to draw him back to consciousness was unsettling somehow; comforting and shaky and uncertain and sweet all at once. He wished it was Clarke speaking to him instead.
Clarke. The memory of her, chained to the pole, pleading for him not to take the chip, screaming as he hung the noose around his own neck, got him up immediately. “Whoa, there,” the person – Abby, he realized – said, putting a hand on his shoulder as if to steady him. “Slow down, you’re still pretty weak.”
“Clarke.” Her name sprouted from his lips without even thinking, fear and guilt and confusion texturing the single syllable. “Where’s Clarke? Is she okay? Is she—”
“She’s fine, Bellamy,” Abby said, still keeping him from fully getting up. “You, on the other hand, just nearly choked to death, so maybe I should ask how you are.”
He shifted his eyes, feeling his chest tighten. “Fine.” Then his eyebrows furrowed in bemusement. “How are we not chipped anymore?”
“Miller used the EMP on you, then Clarke took it and got me.”
Bellamy noticed Abby’s red eyes and face, which probably meant her reunion with Clarke was rather emotional. He winced at what his might be like. After what he’d done to her, Clarke might easily be unable to look at him again. The idea made him sick.
“Bellamy?” Abby asked, and he forced himself to look at her. “She’s in the throne room, and we should be going in soon, too.”
He nodded numbly and got to his feet. Before they could leave, though, he asked quietly, “What happened, after I…passed out?”
Abby looked at him, long and hard. “Most of that I think should be discussed with Clarke,” she said carefully. “All you need to know is no one else took the chip, and Murphy and Miller came and apprehended the guards, Jaha, and…well, myself.” A pause. “We do really need to get moving; Ontari suffered a lethal blow, but we’ve salvaged what we could and we’re almost ready to continue on.”
Bellamy wasn’t sure what she meant by salvaged, but he also wasn’t sure he wanted to know, so he didn’t ask, just followed her to the entrance of the throne room, where – against his wishes – she sent him in alone.
He breathed in hard, trying to calm his wayward thoughts, and stepped inside.
-
Clarke was sitting on the steps by the throne, half waiting for the next phase to start and half savoring this one moment of quiet, sinister as it was with Ontari dead feet away and the noose where Bellamy had tried to hang himself across the room. Her throat closed up at that memory, and she tried to chase it away by checking on the wound in her leg, but the pain there wasn’t nearly as bad and she couldn’t distract herself from the insistent ache in her heart.
The distinct click of footsteps caught her attention, and she looked to the room’s entrance; immediately, her heart skipped several beats. Standing there, with a gun held loosely in his fingers and eyes like shattered glass, was Bellamy. His face and hands were bloody, and his collar didn’t quite hide the red scores across his neck where a rope had been, but in his eyes she finally saw the warmth and trust she had missed, and her heart nearly split with relief.
She stood slowly, attempting to disguise any pain she felt, but Bellamy noticed anyway. He always did. “You okay?”
The question almost made her sob, because he was asking her if she was okay when he had been seconds from death because of her. She nodded, though, and inched forward despite the shockwave of pain crawling up her body. “Did they—”
She had been going to ask if someone had EMPed him, but it was too clear from the tone in his voice, the way he held himself, the haunted softness in his eyes, that he had been. No one could fake the pain Bellamy Blake went through.
He watched her for a few moments, seeming to be deciding something, and then he was running towards her. For an awful moment she froze, seeing the gun still in his hand and wondering if she had been fooled somehow, but then the gun was flung away and suddenly she was being scooped up into his arms.
Her feet actually left the ground for a moment as he secured his arms around her and buried his face into her neck. She half-sobbed and held him back as tightly as she could, feeling somehow that if she pulled him close enough, she’d never lose him again; never have to fear she’d lose the comforting touches, the arguments she secretly loved, the glances held a few moments too long. She hoped so, because she couldn’t lose him.
Bellamy was shaking so badly she wondered if he would shake apart, and she instinctively cradled his head with one of her hands to calm him. Taking a shaky breath, he said against her collarbone, “Clarke, I—”
She only gripped him tighter, feeling the ache welling in her chest like water against a dam, and insisted, “You didn’t do anything. It was ALIE, it’s not your fault.”
“I took the chip,” he said, muffled but sure, and his voice was so broken she thought it would shatter her.
“Bellamy….”
He pulled away, suddenly unable to look at her, and murmured, “You told me not to do it and I did it anyway. I risked everything on a chance. But I was so afraid they would actually kill you, and I can’t….” His Adam’s apple bobbed slowly as he swallowed. “I wasn’t going to wait and find out.”
The first tears slipped down his cheeks, quiet and slow and heartbreaking. Clarke felt on the verge of tears again herself, seeing that; she had to work hard not to reach up and wipe his away with her thumbs. “We all have our weaknesses, Bellamy,” she murmured, trying hard to catch his gaze, to get him to just look at her again.
It took several long moments, but finally he lifted his head and their eyes met. He had such beautiful eyes, she thought, even when they were so pained; not because of the rich brown color, or the round, doe-like appearance, but because of who he was. Bellamy Blake was one of the few people who could have the darkest, cruelest, and most painful parts of him revealed and still be something beautiful.
For a long moment they just looked at each other, then he whispered, “Let’s be grateful they didn’t find the one that broke you.” Perhaps it should’ve been harsh, but he sounded hollow instead, almost relieved. Not overflowing with things to say and emotions to explain and things to do, like she was.
But she couldn’t think of that; not now, when the world was at stake. She had to tuck Bellamy away, and maybe once it was safe, once she was safe – no longer a beacon for destruction and horror and death towards everyone she loved – she could try to express this ache in her chest, the uneven beat of her heart that came only for him. For now, she just touched his hand, looked into his eyes for as long as she dared, and thought, They already did.