he doesn’t feel like he has missed out on life. he has loved and been loved in more ways he could have imagined, feels more understood than he ever thought possible, and none of that would have happened if his life wasn’t exactly the way that it is. that doesn’t stop him from wondering sometimes about what could have been. he doesn’t like these thoughts because he doesn’t see the point in dwelling on them, would rather move forward in the life that he does have. regardless, he falls into traps where he thinks about what he wanted out of life ( again, he does love his life now. would not trade tasha or o for what they might have had. more importantly, he doesn’t want to live without rose, and he doesn’t think they would have met if everything hadn’t led them to lissa’s guardians ).
it’s hard to think about how connected everything is, and he himself has found himself wondering if he could have stopped tasha from killing tatiana. he’s adjusted to their lifestyle now, even if it means that Tasha is legally dead. if she wasn’t so attached to the cause, he would have tried to sneak her out of the country by now- would have gotten her somewhere so that she could live. but he’s sure that tasha is used to her life now too– even if it means she spends most days alone with her work. it’s not what the two of them dreamed their life would be, and he finds himself feeling bad for how happy he is.
tasha was supposed to be the happy one. she was supposed to go to college and live, while bellamy was supposed to lock himself away to be her guardian. he would have been content with that life, and he would have been okay to watch tasha fall in love and be with someone else – he never thought it would have gone the other direction. that tasha would have to watch him fall in love while she locked herself away.
being away for a year allowed him to gain perspective. he was able to release the reins on being the sole person in charge of octavia, her sole source of support. it wasn’t true– it wasn’t even true when she was younger but it always fell on him. until their mom died, it didn’t matter what went wrong, if she fell and twisted her ankle, it was because bellamy wasn’t keeping a strong enough watch on her. four years. she was alone for four years without him able to protect her ( he was only six. he was only six. he was only six ). trusting tasha to take care of o, trusting o to take care of herself, leaving so that rose could take care of herself, it was all tied into the idea that he had to be more than enough, and that he had failed them all by being present.
“i know.” he says softly, battling her thumb for dominance so that he could brush her knuckle. he knew that it wasn’t zeus that she was afraid of the second he connected the pieces, but it doesn’t change the sentiment. dimitri might not be in their bed anymore, but he still lingered in the door. there was still more she had to work through, and it was something she would probably have to work through for the rest of her life–one he wanted to spend with her. ( again, something he never saw coming, and it scares him because ..this is their life. their life is hiding. their life is wishing for the sun. their life is allowing space for the other to process. but it’s also running and hoping that they don’t die. it’s holding his breath every time she walks out the door for a mission and not being able to exhale until she returns. it’s hoping that o can breathe herself. it’s waiting and waiting and waiting.
it’s making sure lissa lives to see a day where she isn’t isolated from everything. it’s making sure that everything they do is worth it ).
his hand meets her on his cheek, taking it in his own before pressing a gentle kiss to the inside of it. he listens intently as she talks about her own adventures with running, and he knows that there is still so much about her that he doesn’t know. so much he wants to know. “i couldn’t do it either.” he says, knowing that she already knows this about him. that the two of them thrive on activity and need to be doing something in order to function. “but the idea of you always being safe…you and o.” he can’t continue the thought, and his hand tightens in hers slightly. if he could take all of them to a nondescript location and live the rest of their days off the grid..maybe it would be worth it.
“i was alone. growing up. for a long, long time…i was alone.” he tends to focus on his time with tasha because it started when they were young and they had carved a place in the world for them, but the loneliness was never fully gone. the worry for o always present. “i was twenty two when our mom died, and o and i … we don’t know our fathers. we don’t know anything about them. she wouldn’t talk about them. by the time o was born..i don’t know if she even remembered my father.” she passed out. i was alone holding octavia. he’s already told rose about this, doesn’t feel the need to repeat himself, but his throat does catch every time he thinks about how vulnerable she was then. “i had started doing everything when i was sixteen. i was still at vlads. i would look at college pamphlets with tasha and pretend like that was something i could do– but i was always worried about how we were going to pay rent. octavia and i were at vlads, but my mom wasn’t. and i was always paralyzed that the next time we went home, there wouldn’t be a home to return to.”
“i didn’t have any choice, and I always wondered what it would be like…to go to college. to study something that wouldn’t be practical like history or philosophy. something that would really only result in me becoming a professor or something… maybe criminal justice just because i need action. i used to dream up stories of what my dad was like – who he was and what he was like. if he was a leader. i wanted to be someone that he could be proud of.”
it’s more than he’s opened up to anyone, including himself. “i was always going to be a guardian. it’s who i am. and I became the head guardian for the Queen and all i could think..was that my mom would be ashamed of me.” tears glisten in his eyes. “i was shorting my responsibilities to octavia. she wouldn’t have cared if i was a disgrace to my race, could have gotten my license, worked until octavia was out of school, and then i think she would have wanted me to quit and just..follow her everywhere she went and be a guardian without the actual title. at least that would mean she definitely got protection.”
he leans into her touch, feeling more selfish than he probably ever has. “i wouldn’t know what i would wish for if i wanted my life to be any different. i was six. i never had a chance.” to want to be anything else, but even at four, he was learning what duty was. “a part of me still feels like i failed o.” especially after everything that had happened when she found out tasha was alive. “every decision i’ve ever made is to protect the people i love.” even the one where he left. “i think asking you to move in here in the only one i made for me.”
and with that, he has talked about himself too much. it might seem like a dramatic change in the conversation, but it’s something that he has always wondered. since he met her and learned of the bond in the first place, since ryan became bonded to kara, he’s been curious. “do you ever miss it? being bonded to lissa?“ it fits his line of thinking because of regret and wishing that their lives were different. even with everything that had happened, rose probably would have gotten his position if she still had the bond. everything is connected – she didn’t have a choice in either case, and it comes back to tasha taking away that right when she shot rose. “you are the strongest person i know.” it’s sad– the amount of times she has come back from the dead. it breaks his heart to think about. “you told me once that you were glad I didn’t know you in high school.” he’s glad he didn’t but for reasons that were closer to his relationship with mia than for her personality. “but i would have known that even then. your life has been a fight– i wish you could stop fighting.” fighting to breathe. fighting to exist. he gets that, better than most. “it’s who we are, and you’re right, i wouldn’t change anything, but still sucks.”
rose can’t help but smile when bellamy’s thumb sneaks out from under hers and slides over top of it, that little gesture washing over her like warm water and leaving her love bare. it stands to reason that the lather might linger given the kindliness of the water, that her heart might have found some degree of resistance given the familiarity of his particular stream of tenderness, but she’s as receptive to it as she was before she knew it like the back of her hand.
it warms her just as much now.
in fact, her recognition of it touches her in its own way; she hadn’t known it was possible to appreciate him more than she does, would have never guessed there was room left inside her for it to build, and yet she’s overwhelmed with that feeling every time he does something like this now, having gone a year without it. surprises are wonderful, but it’s wonderful not to be surprised, too, to know all that lies behind that little force of habit as intimately as she does, to know that it can reach her here even with the name of someone who’s brought so much misery a memory in her mouth ( zeus, they were calling him this time. but the fact remains just the same. does not provide any relief from the truth. ) some people are just bone underneath all of their tenderness, just tissue when it’s been stripped away, but when bellamy washes away all of the soft stuff ( the swelling adoration that builds at the thought of his freckles, the obsession she has with the perfection of his hands, the innocent tricks his smile plays on her heart ), there’s another layer of it left behind, and another under that. just as intense, as earnest, but reeking of all of that deeply emotional, feel it in your soul stuff.
that is to say, when rose is all out of comedy, there is still love. when rose is worn down to survival instinct and skin tissue and breath, there is still love. and it does not wear or tarnish or rust. does not diminish or weaken or strain.
lately she’s been learning to balance the two – the light stuff, the easy stuff, and the weightier feelings she’s been tasked to carry. she’s learning to accept she can’t always expect to operate without feeling the heaviness strapped across her shoulders, that there will be times she can’t shake it off, and she’s pleasantly surprised to find incredible warmth building up and around her somberness, naturally radiating outward into the sincerest of smiles, all fondness and sickeningly sweet affection. it’s calmer now than it used to be, a steady current of love coursing through her rather than a blinding flash of it, but it’s just as pleasant, just as kind to her heart. “ thumb war? ” she teases lightly, her own thumb passing over his. it’s not blind like it once was, overwhelming happiness operating in ignorance of both old and still-lingering hurt, but rose appreciates it more now – finds something beautiful in being incredibly happy even though the memory of being unbearably sad hasn’t completely disappeared from her rear view mirror. it’s, like, healthier or something, probably, and she wants to be healthy. wants to leave it all behind, too, but wants just as much to be certain it’s gone when she stops seeing it in her peripheral. the i love you she thinks as the pad of his thumb caresses her knuckle might not block her line of sight, but it does shine light behind her eyes, chase off any chill that the mention of dimitri could have brought on. it steadies her, grounding her in the wonderful warmth of their bed.
it’s just such a bellamy thing to do – offer her comfort in this way when it’s his shoulders that are heavy, his heart being weighted down. they’re not in the habit of competing, but it’s taken bellamy a long time to let himself be comforted, and sometimes he still slips up. she doesn’t think this is that, just his own version of reaching out whilst overcome with love for her, but she’s watching him closely, fond, bright eyes following his hand as it wraps around hers and brings it to his lips, another act of tenderness she’s come to greet as an old friend. when it tightens in hers, she doesn’t think twice about finishing his thought he can’t find it within himself to say out loud: “ maybe it would be worth it, ” rose says gently, lacing her fingers through his so that she can squeeze it, this contraction a passing along of comfort rather than a reflex of fear.
she’s not without her own feelings on the subject, but she’s never been one to linger. the idea of a safe place for them is wonderful, but it’s not real. her heart aches to think about it and there are days the harsh circumstances of their lives feel too heavy to bear, but what she feels isn’t conflict so much as grief. she knows it isn’t possible, and so her energy is devoted to what is; she can’t make them safe, but sometimes she can make them safe-er. she can’t agonize over dreams that can never be realized, but she mourns a life where neither of them wake up from nightmares, where bellamy’s wrists don’t bear so brutal a scar. the thought has her dipping her head so that she can press a kiss to his wrist, lingering for a moment before pulling back. “ i get it. ” because she does. she really, really does. “ i do. ”
and she wants to stay here with him in this feeling, only him, but her memory isn’t always so kind. it recalls a conversation somewhat similar to this one, one that had taken place in the snow on a drive to meet guardian legend arthur schoenburg quite a few years back. she’d asked dimitri if he thought it would be nice to live in a cabin, and he’d teased that she could never handle the serenity of living out in the wild, told her she had a fire inside of her that drove her to make the world a better place and could never be sated by mundane life.
there was a time when that was one of her fondest memories.
now all she can think is how he’s one of the things she most wants to escape. one of the things she and bellamy would be safe from in that hypothetical nondescript location where neither of them have to worry ever again. but she allows herself to think it, and then allows it to pass. as tempting as it was to shove it back into some corner of her mind where it couldn’t hurt her, she let the feeling come and pass. she knows that’s a victory, but for a moment all there is is the question of whether she and bellamy could ever find a place safe enough to protect her from her own memories. she lets herself feel that, too.
“ i guess if everything gets to be too much, ” rose begins to tease oh-so-softly, leaning in to press her forehead against his for a long moment. “ we can always move to utah. ” utah, which she has dubbed as super boring, but also warmed up to significantly since bellamy vowed to take her there. of course, that’s sort of the point – if it’s as boring as she has insisted it must be, there’d be nothing to put them at risk. and yet even as she jokes, there’s a lingering sadness there she’s resisted the urge to push back down, one she chooses not to hide from but instead share with bellamy, hoping to give him something similar – permission to grieve. how many times has he given that to her, after all? given her these moments to experience the depth of her aching when all she wanted to do was send it far, far away, holding her until they passed?
the ache she experiences as he opens up to her is one that’s throbbed its way through her many times before, pulling at either side of her heart until it’s begun to splinter and break off into pieces. her free hand passes over his arm again and again as he speaks, gently urging him onward. it’s always broken her heart to think of bellamy alone, even when she barely knew him and had no idea how alone he truly was, how deep that isolation run. it absolutely rips her apart now, and all she can find for consolation is that he’s not alone now – that he has her and he’s talking to her, sharing these incredibly painful things he’s kept so close to him for so long, perhaps so close that he couldn’t entirely see they were there. he’s not alone, which means she can hold him as he works through this.
but that does nothing for all of the years that he was, and she’s discovering that even when he wasn’t... he was. even when he had tasha, even when things were good between him and octavia, bellamy was alone in a thousand critical ways that tear into her now, each more horrible than the last. her eyes fill with tears for him, so close to spilling over that she attributes the fact they don’t a miraculous feat. more likely than a miracle is the simple fact that there are so many separate things in what he’s saying breaking her heart that she doesn’t have time to fully process each of them individually, just feel herself aching to hold him more and more with each one.
“ you’d be good at that, ” rose finally says softly, mostly just to keep him talking – though it’s perfectly sincere, spoken as her thoughts momentarily drift towards a bellamy in criminal justice. a professor bellamy, but only for a second, mostly for the glasses and whole professor look she pictures him having. “ i know it’s not the same, ” she squeezes his arm. “ but i’m proud of you. ” more proud of him than she can possibly convey, but this isn’t the time to try. nonetheless, the look in her eyes, full of love, expresses the sincerity of that statement effortlessly. “ would you ever.. do you think finding him..or finding more information about him.. is something you’d ever wanna do? ” it’s tentative. she knows that’s not why he brought it up, knows she wouldn’t know a damn thing about conducting a search for a guy his mom probably didn’t even remember, but... she’d do anything for bellamy, and with her track record of achieving the impossible, she’s convinced she could do it if that’s something bellamy really wanted. so in true rose fashion, she can’t not offer. it’s also a way of gauging where he feels about it now – especially because she can’t relate, not where fathers are concerned. at least not completely.
she didn’t grow up longing for her father, but she can remember being a kid drinking up stories of janine like they were water, pushing and pushing herself into being faster and stronger in the hopes word of her talent might earn her mother’s pride. for so long she’d resented her for her absence, but it’s easy to see now that for every way janine didn’t take care of her, there’s another way that she did. vlads took good enough care of her, and she can’t imagine having grown up with any of concerns bellamy did. and then there were the dragomirs who always gave her a place to stay on breaks, shared their home, their food, their lifestyle with her. the way she grew up seems to be world’s apart from how bellamy did, looking like an idyllic childhood in comparison, but there’s something that tightens in her when he talks about his mother wanting him to be octavia’s guardian – whatever the flash of tears in his eyes hadn’t shattered, anyway.
the realization, perhaps, that the dragomirs asking her to be lissa’s guardian, was also in a way asking her to live for lissa, suffer for lissa, die for lissa. she can’t bring herself to be angry, not when she thinks of all the weeks alone at st. vladimirs they saved her from experiencing, all the kindness they’d extended to her, but there is something entirely different about their request than aurora's. the dragomirs owed nothing to her, but aurora... aurora was bellamy’s mother. she was bellamy’s mother, and she asked him to die. i was shorting my responsibilities to octavia. living for octavia, suffering for octavia, dying for octavia... it was a responsibility. bellamy’s responsibility.
bellamy’s sister, bellamy’s responsibility.
a tear escapes at that realization, slipping down her cheek. her hand tightens around his, and for a moment she leans forward so that her forehead can rest against his before she pulls back to speak. it’s the closest she can get to hugging him, and she knows sometimes that makes bellamy feel closer to her than actually being pressed right up against her. “ i don’t know what your mom would think, ” rose confesses, chest aching with love and compassion for him. “ but i do know that octavia is a healthier, happier, better person because you are who you are. ” she pauses, getting her thoughts together. “ our parents don’t always know what’s best for us. ” the statement is gentle; it doesn’t come from a place of bitterness, not even as it pertains to her own mother. “ that’s.. that’s a hell of a lot to expect of anyone. ” she empathizes, she means. with her mother. to an extent, with his. her protectiveness makes it difficult to reach that place with bellamy’s, but she can acknowledge that the circumstances under which she attempted to raise her children were difficult, and that her intentions may have been good, if flawed. the point is, it’s hard for anyone to know what’s best for anyone else – must have been just as hard for he and tasha to try and decide what was best for octavia and christian. she’s never been in their shoes, but she also knows how difficult it was to try and decide for lissa when she held her life in her hands and can’t imagine trying to do that for a child.
she knows it’s hard for bellamy to think of in terms of himself, that this idea that he’s supposed to be responsible for octavia is ingrained so deep that he may not be able to see how their mother failed not just her, but him – so she tries to put it in a way he’ll be able to digest, one that will ease his guilt. “ and not.. not just you, but octavia too. ” aurora didn’t know what was best for her, either. “ maybe she’d be a little bit safer, but she wouldn’t be happy. octavia doesn’t want you to be her guardian, she wants you to be her brother. and if you were, all the time... you’d never be able to shut that off. you’d never be off duty. she’d be losing the most important person in her life. ” not completely, but enough. “ and even if you could turn off that part of yourself every once in awhile, she still wouldn’t be happy because you wouldn’t be happy. ” octavia reacted badly when bellamy found someone to share his life with besides her, but she still believes that, believes that ultimately octavia is happier because bellamy is. “ she can’t always express that, but she’s grown so much in these last couple years because you gave her the space to. because you trusted her. ” her voice softens. “ i don’t think being the safest person in the world would be worth giving that up. and i don’t think she would either. ” her thumb gently traces the curve of his cheek. “ maybe your mom would see that if she were here. but i don’t think that’s half as important as you seeing it. ” and then she’s leaning in again, voice almost a whisper. “ this is your life, bellamy. it belongs to you. it’s yours. no one else’s. it’s okay to live it for yourself. ”
and she knows all of the arguments to the contrary, knows that if it doesn’t belong to octavia many would argue it would belong to lissa, just as many would argue that hers does, but she can’t live in a world where bellamy is selfish for making a decision for himself, and so she won’t. i think asking you to move in here is the only one i made for me. this time when her heart vies for her attention, it’s because it’s expanding with love, not breaking with sadness. there’s sadness in there, too, sadness that it’s taken him so long to ask for something for himself, but she chooses to focus on the good, on how proud she is of him for that, for everything he’s said here. “ yeah? ” rose asks softly, eyes shining. “ always kind of thought that was for me. ” to make her feel more secure, she’d figured. she knew he’d been happy when she’d yes, but she’d never thought he’d asked with himself in mind specifically.
she nearly laughs at his question, purely because of how unexpected it is. “ that subject change was dramatic even by rose standards, ” she teases lightly, but soon considers, falling quiet for a few moments as she tries to figure out how to word her answer – tries to figure out her answer, period. “ yes and no. it’s... complicated. ” her gaze drifts downward, hand coming to rest on his chest and beginning to toy with his collar. “ i miss knowing that she’s safe. knowing that if she was in danger, i’d know and could follow the bond to her. being able to feel her out there and know that she’s okay. ” some of those things, she’s learned, can be achieved in other ways – she can always call lissa, always reach out to her. it’s not the same as having a bond with her and knowing for certain, but she realizes now that she’d grown so dependent on it that she’d nearly forgotten how normal people coped with distance. “ it... it was hard at first. going from knowing every thought in her head to being cut off from her completely... it was horrible. ” she was so, so worried about her. but that wasn’t all of it. she supposes it would be better if it was, more noble, but... “ and... you’re never alone. that.. could be a lot sometimes, but... it was also nice. i.. i felt alone a lot, but i was never actually alone. liss was always with me. ” she swallows. “ i think.. i think i missed it the most after dimitri and i got engaged. not just because i missed lissa, but because i missed... having some place to escape. ” a year ago she could have never admitted that, but it’s not so hard now. her other hand runs down his arm. “ you know, i didn’t know that it was possible to literally feel someone you weren’t bonded to love you until you. with lissa, i could.. i could feel how much she loved me, sometimes, coming in through the bond, and that was.. really nice. i didn’t think i’d ever feel that again until i could... feel you love me. ” which is getting away from her actual point, but is also true. and it’s no coincidence that she stopped missing the bond so much when she stopped being alone, when the place she came back to when the day was over was no longer a place that only ever made her feel lonely. she smiles a little as she thinks about feeling love radiate off of bellamy before turning serious again. “ it saved my life in russia. i don’t think i would have made it back without it. ” having a place to escape the horror of her situation, to distract her when she was drying out and keep her resolve, knowing that lissa needed her... those were all things that kept her alive. she nearly died with them, she can’t imagine how she would have fared without. well, she can – it’s just not pleasant. “ i hate that i can’t help lissa with the darkness anymore, but... i don’t miss it. or the depression or anxiety. and... it wasn’t until spokane that i knew which nightmares were hers and which ones were mine. i’d wake up in the middle of the night and wouldn’t be able to tell until i looked over and saw her sleeping or heard her screaming. i don’t miss not being able to tell us apart. and i definitely don’t miss trying to drown out her sex life and gooey feelings for christian. ” her tone lightens at that last bit before the humor fades. “ it’s better for us. we’re better because of it. it took.. a really long time to stop feeling like i lost something, and every once in awhile i still have phantom pains, but... it’s better. i mean, if she was in danger.. i’d probably take back everything i just said in two seconds flat, but... ultimately.. yeah. ”
what he says next draws her gaze up to meet his, and when it does, her eyes are shiny and awed and all kinds of lovingly overwhelmed. there’s a part of her that wants to interrupt but is too overcome to manage even the teasing, yeah, because i was a bitch, she nearly jokes when he brings up her saying she was glad he didn’t know her in high school. “ that would be easier to believe if i didn’t know all of your friends, ” she finally finds it within herself to tease, but it’s incredibly soft, coincided with her finger drawing circles on his hand. i wish you could stop fighting. anything left in her capable of joking officially dies off, emotion completely taking over – not that it hadn’t been running the show beforehand. some part of her that had spent her entire adolescent life aching to be understood swells up so large in her now she could cry. “ it still sucks, ” she agrees gently, hand now squeezing his. “ but i have a place where i can stop now. i’ve never had that before. not completely. and it’s enough. it’s more than enough. ” until him, she means. she never had a place where she could stop fighting until him. but she understands. she does, she does, she does. she wishes that for him too. “ i wish this could be the world. i wish it could be this safe. i wish you could bring it with you and it would keep you safe. i wish it could protect you and you wouldn’t ever have to fight again. ”
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