Algae
Nobody wants to try Monty’s second batch of algae, especially considering Murphy is still in a coma from the first round. Their rations are just about gone, though, even with Skaikru’s extreme apportioning, and they’ll starve soon. Someone has to test it.
“Well it can’t be Monty,” Raven says, “and it can’t be me either. We’re too important up here to lose to bad algae.” Echo purses her lips. Raven’s full of herself, but she’s not wrong.
“I’m Monty’s hands,” Harper reminds them, wiggling her fingertips. His hands still haven’t quite healed from the radiation burns, so she’s been assisting him with everything.
“And I’ve gotta clean John up,” Emori says. She looks around at the group. “I don’t suppose anyone else wants that job.” It’s an unglamorous task, but it makes Emori nonexpendable. Echo would rather die a violent death than clean up John Murphy’s fluids.
That leaves Echo and Bellamy.
Back when Bellamy had convinced Echo to come to space, he had joked about having someone to throw overboard. Maybe it wasn’t a joke. Echo steels herself, readying herself for a coma or worse.
Instead, Bellamy steps forward and volunteers. “I’ll do it.”
“Are you sure?” Raven asks, touching his arm. “We need you too, Bellamy.”
She’s not subtle. It’s obvious who she, and everyone else, thinks should be doing this. Still, Bellamy nods.
“I’m sure the second batch’ll be better than the first,” he says, squaring his shoulders. “And besides, Murphy’s still alive.” His lips tug upward. “How bad can it be?”
“Famous last words,” Harper says, bringing over a metal spoon with a small serving of green sludge.
“A true hero,” Emori says, as Harper brings the spoon up to Bellamy’s lips.
Echo catches Bellamy’s eye. “Thank you,” she says, quietly.
Bellamy nods and opens his mouth for Harper. She smiles and makes some reference to an “airplane” as she feeds him with the spoon.
He takes it in, and visibly gags. The colour drains from his face as he struggles to choke it down.
“That good, huh,” Monty says.
Harper hands him a tumbler full of water, which he eagerly takes to chase it down, spilling a bit on his shirt in his haste. He slams the empty cup down and grips the table, white-knuckled.
“Nice work, champ,” Raven says, clapping his shoulder, before concern colours her expression. “You’re looking a little grey there. You gonna hurl?”
Bellamy grimaces. He keeps his mouth shut and seems to focus on breathing. In, out. In, out.
Emori stands by at the ready with a basin. “Well, he’s still breathing, so that’s a good start,” she says.
“Please don’t die,” Monty murmurs.
Bellamy manages a smile. “I’ll be fine, Monty,” he says.
“You’ll let us know if you get worse, right?” Harper asks.
“Right,” Bellamy utters.
After a few more breaths, he seems to get his nausea under control. He waves Emori off and gets to his feet. “Alright,” he says. “Let’s get back to work.”
“I’ll, uh, work on the flavour,” Monty says.
Bellamy huffs out a laugh. “That might be for the best.”
They split up. Echo follows Bellamy to storage room #3, where they’ve been searching for things they can use. She goes back to where she left off, while Bellamy goes to the other end of the room.
She rifles through the crates. Most of it is tech stuff or chemicals, which she doesn’t know anything about—Raven or Monty will have to look through it themselves—but she has found some useful items before, like cloths and towels.
Eventually, after an hour or so of sifting through boxes, she finds several containers labelled “soap”. She’s a little confused, because these containers are filled with liquid, so she calls Bellamy over. “Hey, Bellamy. Come look at this.”
She waits for him to come over, but it takes longer than it should. When he finally rounds the corner, he’s staggering. There’s a sheen of sweat on his face, his dark curls plastered to his forehead.
She frowns. “You don’t look well.”
“I’m fine,” he insists. “What did you find?”
Echo gestures to the “soap” containers.
“That’s great,” he says, though he sounds more exhausted than excited. “We can use this.”
“It’s a liquid,” she says, dumbly.
Bellamy nods. “Yeah. Makes it easier to clean stuff. Like dishes.”
“Oh,” Echo says. “Have you found anything?”
“I don’t think so.” He scrubs his face. “There’s still a lot to go through. I’ll keep looking.”
Echo wonders if she should let the others know that he looks ill—they had asked to be kept informed. She doesn’t want to betray him, though, so she decides against it.
They keep at it for another half-hour, working in silence, until Bellamy leaves for a bathroom break. Echo’s a little worried he might not make it back in one piece—he’s clammy and ghastly pale—so she silently follows him as he stumbles out of the storage room and down the hall.
When he makes it to the bathroom, Echo waits around the corner, hidden from view.
She doesn’t mean to listen, but it’s hard not to hear as he retches, violently emptying what little there is in his stomach. He heaves over and over, far past the point of empty.
She thinks maybe she should go tell the others—it’s clear, now, that he’s been poisoned—but she also doesn’t want to leave him unattended, so she waits for him to finish.
He’s shaky and colourless when he comes out, clinging to the wall for support. Echo wonders if she should offer to help him, but she also doesn’t want him to be upset that she was spying on him, so she decides against it.
He doesn’t head back to the storage room; instead, he goes down the hall toward where the rest of them are staying. Back toward his room—the one he shares with Raven, because there are only four beds between the seven of them, and naturally they chose to stay with each other rather than room with Echo.
Raven, engrossed in reading something on a tablet without looking where she’s going, nearly crashes into him in the hall. “Whoa, sor—“ she cuts herself off when she looks at his face. “Jesus, Bellamy. You look like crap.”
“Thanks,” he mutters.
“Seriously,” she says. “Are you okay?”
“…I’ve felt better,” he admits, quietly.
She pushes his sweaty bangs out of his eyes and presses her hand to his forehead. His eyes flutter shut.
“Yikes,” she says. “Let’s get you to bed, big guy.”
Bellamy nods, letting her sling his arm across her shoulders for support.
He walks with her for a few paces, and then, without warning, he pitches to the side, taking her down with him.
“Bellamy!” she shrieks.
Bellamy groans. “Sorry,” he manages.
“God, you’re heavy,” she huffs, barely managing to roll out from under him. She cups his cheeks with her hands. “Still with me?”
He nods slightly.
Raven struggles to help him to his feet. Echo takes that as her cue to come out of hiding to lend a hand.
Raven glares at her as she helps to pull Bellamy up. “Have you just been standing there the whole time?”
“Is there a problem?” Echo asks, coolly.
“You could’ve helped him walk,” Raven scoffs. "You could have helped him back here before he collapsed in the hallway."
“He told me he was fine,” Echo says.
In Azgeda, offering to help someone after they said they were fine would be taken as an insult. And besides, even if Bellamy wanted help in his vulnerable state, she doubts he would want it from someone who betrayed him and tried to kill his sister.
“Does he look fine to you?” Raven snaps.
“Raven,” Bellamy says, exhausted.
Raven stands down, but her glare doesn’t fade. "Get him to bed," she orders, reluctantly acknowledging that Echo is better able to support his weight. “Make sure he’s okay. I’ll tell Monty and Harper."
Echo helps him to his room. "She'll warm to you eventually," Bellamy says. "They all will."
"Why do you care?" Echo asks.
"We're stuck here for five years, and we need to work together to survive," he says, his words sluggish. "But also... I know you're a good person. And I think you deserve a second chance."
"I think I used that up when I stabbed your sister and sent her over a cliff," she says.
Bellamy's brow wrinkles, and he looks almost… confused. Did he forget about that? He wobbles, and Echo steadies him.
Eventually, she gets him into the makeshift bedroom, where she deposits him on the stiff mattress. He immediately curls up on his side, barely stifling a groan.
"Are you in pain?" she asks.
“I’m— fine," he grunts, a blatant lie.
"Do you need anything?" she offers, but he shakes his head.
As much as he tries to be friendly with Echo—which she still doesn't quite understand—he doesn't trust her enough to be vulnerable around her. Certainly not the way he was with Raven moments ago. She understands; it makes perfect sense. But it also means she doesn't know what she can do to help, so she just stands silently by his side, a statue, until he falls into a fitful slumber.
He mutters things in his fever dreams, some of which Echo can pick out. Octavia, of course, but also Mom. Gina. Clarke. And, over and over, I am not afraid.
He wakes in a panic, bolting upright as he takes in his surroundings. He takes a few heavy breaths, then leans over and retches. His stomach is empty, but he continues to dry heave, gasping for air in between.
Echo wishes she were a healer. She wishes she had herbs she could give him to settle his stomach. Instead, she stands to the side and wordlessly watches him suffer.
Eventually, he stops and slumps forward. Panting for breath, he looks up at her from beneath sweat-soaked bangs, a string of drool hanging from his lips.
“…Do you need something?” Echo asks.
“Have you— have you seen Octavia?” he asks.
“No,” Echo says. “She’s not here.”
Bellamy swings his shins over the side of the bed and tries to stand. His legs immediately buckle and he crumples to the floor. His arms shake as he pushes himself up to his knees.
“Where are you going?” Echo asks.
“I need to find my sister,” he says. He crawls forward and starts feeling around the floor, scrabbling at the surface as if looking for something. “O?”
“What are you doing?” Echo asks.
“I need to find her,” he says. He digs his fingertips into a shallow groove in the floor and tries to lift. “O, are you down here?”
Echo narrows her eyes. “You think she’s in the floor?”
“Under the floor,” Bellamy corrects, scowling as he tugs uselessly at the metal floor. “I can’t— get it open.”
“She’s not under the floor,” Echo says. “She’s on Earth. In the bunker.”
Bellamy’s face scrunches up as he tries to think. “The bunker…”
“The bunker that protected twelve hundred people from Praimfaya,” Echo says, trying to be patient. “They’ve been there for a few weeks, while we’ve been up here.”
“We?” Bellamy asks.
“You, me, Raven, Harper, Monty, Emori, and Murphy,” Echo says.
Bellamy mouths the names as he reviews them, then frowns. “…What about Clarke?”
Echo is not equipped to handle this. “I need to leave,” she says, and with that, she heads for the door.
"Echo, wait," he pleads, just as she reaches the doorway. She whirls around. He looks so pathetic there on the floor. She supposes she should help him.
She crosses the room and pulls him up, bearing most of his weight as she gets him back into bed.
She makes to leave again, but his hand ensnares her wrist before she can.
"Is there something you need?" she asks.
He releases his grip. "I... uh..."
"You what?" she prompts.
He looks away. "When I'm sick sometimes I have... dreams," he says. The nightmares, he means. "And I just... My sister, she would stay with me, and it always helped."
"Your sister isn't here," Echo says.
Bellamy's eyes sadden."Yeah. I know."
She frowns. "So then..."
Bellamy's gaze flits away again. "You don't have to, obviously, but... can you stay?"
"Yes," she says. "I'll stay."
He shuffles to one side of the bed. “Would you… lie down with me?”
Echo has never lain with anyone she hasn’t had sex with before. She’s never lain with someone outside of the context of espionage. But Bellamy is the only good thing in her entire life right now, the only reason she’s even alive in the first place, and she can’t possibly deny him.
“Like… this?” She lies down, stiff as a board.
Bellamy shifts and snuggles up next to her, wrapping his arms around her waist. He’s uncomfortably hot and completely drenched in sweat and his breath reeks from vomiting, but Echo stays where she is.
She stays, and as his breathing evens out, she thinks that maybe, just maybe, she doesn't mind this at all.