sitting here in the shadow of the cave, with his face still burning under the ointment she put on it, with the people he had cared most about nearly strangers not thirty feet from him he had never thought that he would hear a confession of this magnitude. he wanted to respond. but he didn’t know what to tell her. she was there before him, vulnerable and bare. as he had been before her when Octavia had unleashed her grief on him. he wondered if it had been enough for her, after all her suffering and losses if letting it out had been enough for her. he hoped it helped a little bit. but Arty, he wasn’t sure what to tell her. what she thought he might say or what she wanted him to say. she was had lifted the veil from over herself and showed him everything she was. she trusted him still. that’s what this said to him. that she was trusting herself with him even though she shouldn’t. even though after everything he put her though, everything he put everyone through he knew he didn’t deserve it.
he had trusted Pike. he had been a leader, a mentor, someone who knew what the people of Arkadia needed. but he had been willing to kill them as well. something Bellamy disagreed with. he had come to Harper and Miller because he wanted to save his own. it was always about his own. and Arty was his own, his people. and more than that. a nameless something. someone who had found a way to live deep inside of him, something that twisted and pulled, ached, like she did now before him. and the first thing he wanted to do was reach for her but he knew he wouldn’t. he couldn’t anyways. his hands were chained here to the wall. there was no going anywhere near her. unless they allowed it. he was at their mercy. but somehow it didn’t seem like enough. he had hurt his sister, he had hurt Kane, and Arty, forcing her into the uncovered and vulnerable position that she was in now.
but she had touched him light and gentle, shook something inside of him. made him tense and unsure. searching her face for some form of hatred. the sort of anger that had been etched deeply on Octavia’s pained features. but he found nothing of the sort. he could will her to hate him but he knew it wouldn’t work. the worst had come out of his actions, Lincoln was dead and here she was. always there. a constant. lingering. he took in a breath and it almost hurt. he couldn’t stop looking at her. like he was trying to will her away with his silence. but what would she say if he told her what he thought of her now? what would she say if he told her that it changed nothing, that he still saw her for who she had always been to him? something beautiful and burning, something too high for him to reach. the things she counted against herself he counted as burdens she should have never had to face, things that should have never happened to her. and he wasn’t even aware that he could burn with more rage than he carried within the tomb of his chest. but now there was something more burning there, more raging. if he could go back and fix something for her, mend the broken pieces. she deserved a better life. she deserved more than sitting in front of someone like him and confessing all the things that didn’t make her any worse. that only made her almost fragile there before him. and if his hands weren’t only capable of destruction he might have reached for her despite his chains.
he can use words in front of crowds, before war, when there is nothing but the tense dark awaiting them. he can find his voice when he feels the eyes of people burning through, waiting for something more than just the bleak silence before they went out to die. when they were failing and needed encouragement. they would look to him for that before. before, before all this. now he knew they never would. not again. they felt betrayed, they felt he was the enemy. after Lincoln, after the arrests he couldn’t blame them. couldn’t try and convince them. but he used to use words for them. but right now he can’t seem to find the words that he wanted to say. he couldn’t find anything in the back of his throat or mold his thoughts into words. there was nothing but sharp edges in his mouth and nothing could come out. “you saw me.” and he does reach, cautiously touching his hand to hers. “I see you.” and his voice is low, hoarse almost. he had to push it out. but he’s actually looking at her now.
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