Summary: Bellamy coping with losing Clarke on the ark and adjusting to his new leadership responsibilities and trying, for Clarke’s sake, to use his head more.
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When Bellamy Blake finally broke down, there was no one around him to remind him that he had done what had needed to be done. There was no one to help carry his guilt. There was no one to look him in the eye and remind that he, despite all of his acts of monstrosity, was not a monster. When Bellamy Blake finally broke down, he was completely and utterly alone; and despite his several attempts at convincing himself that that was for the best, a part of him still wished that there were someone to console him, someone to show him love despite all of the the terrible things he'd done. He'd always had a crutch: his mother, Octavia, Clarke. And now his mother was dead, he wouldn't be seeing or talking to his own baby sister for five whole years and Clarke was supposedly dead, possibly by his own hands.
When he shut the door of the pod, his heart broke into two. When he looked down on the earth and instead saw a ball of fiery hell his heart shattered further. But all the while, he refused to acknowledge his grief. Clarke had told him to use his head, and he had chosen to do precisely that. He had put aside every thought of her and Octavia he had and put it in his head to protect the 6 people around him with everything he had instead. He ensured that everything was running smoothly, ran countless safety checks by Raven and personally comforted every person who needed consoling. Finally, after a day of tears of both relief and grief he dragged himself to one of the dozen empty rooms on the ark and shut the door. As the door clamped shut, his knees buckled beneath him and he slid to the floor, tears starting to pool in his eyes.
When Bellamy broke down, it was not pretty. There was nothing endearing about the sobs that racked his chest, or the tears that soaked his twisted fingers and stained his cheeks. There was nothing subtle about the furious scratches under his eyes from wiping his eyes with the starchy material of his tear-stained sleeves. Bellamy was completely alone with his thoughts, his guilt and his grief for the first time since landing on the ground, and it was killing him. It wasn't just Clarke- everything was coming back to him. All of the deaths. Jasper, Gina, Charlotte, Peter, Lincoln and the hundreds of grounders and people of Mount Weather. And now Clarke. He wanted it all to go away. He wanted to snap his fingers and find himself untethered to any of his pain, unresponsive to his own emotions. But that wasn't the case. He had to face his hell- he had to face himself.
His thoughts wandered back to Clarke. Over the past few months, Clarke had become his most trusted friend and partner. Even when she betrayed him, she did it for what she believed to be the best ,and often only, option and he could relate to that even if it angered him. The reason he could forgive Clarke so easily was because he could see himself making the same decisions she had made had he been in her place. He was glad he had let her tell him how she felt- he would have too, but they had been interrupted. And besides, he was planning on living with her for 5 years. If he was going to be confessing something, it wouldn't be a final sentiment for her to remember him by. In all honesty, Bellamy had no idea how to define his relationship with Clarke. For now, she was his best friend and partner, but he never knew if they could or would become anything more. All he knew was that when he imagined himself old and gray, he imagined her right by his side. Be it as his lover or his friend, he didn't know- he had foolishly hoped to discover the answers to those questions in the five years that lay ahead, but clearly that wasn't going to happen anymore. He knew that he loved her- there was no doubt about that. But what kind of love, he did not know. He knew that he would do anything to protect her and yet he closed the door and left her behind- and even though he knew it's what she would have wanted, he was still a long way off from forgiving himself.
His tears had to thinned out and now his chest was heaving half-heartedly, still unable to get Clarke out of his head. He knew he had to face his demons, but he couldn't right now. He pulled himself up and slumped into the bed, pulling up the dusty covers to shield himself from the cold. He couldn't face himself now and the only way to escape himself that he could think of was sleep. He forced every thought out of his clustered mind and soon fell into a deep sleep, exhausted.
***
He is walking around in Becca's lab. He feels like he's walking in a trance, everything is shrouded in a barely visible cloud of white mist. Something feels wrong.
He looks around. Everything looks the same. He hears ragged breathing and tries to run towards it, but his body feels like it moving in slow-motion and the faster he tries to run the slower his legs move. He finally reaches the source of the breathing and see someone sprawled down on the floor, barely breathing. He moves towards the body as fast as he can, and turns it over.
He swallows a scream.
It's Clarke. Her entire face is swollen from the radiation, red and blistering hot. Her blond hair is drenched in sweat. Her blue eyes are barely even there under the mounds of red flesh covering them. He wants to fix her somehow, but he can't. He can't help. She coughs up blood.
"Bellamy...", her voice is hoarse and torn.
"Bellamy...", she repeats.
"What is it Clarke? Tell me. What is it?"
She turns her head towards him completely and smiles, a toothy smile that no longer looks as kind as it usually looks and instead looks grotesque, like someone had slashed the smile across her face with a knife.
"You did this to me."
"Clarke...No. I'm sorry, I swear I waited as long as I could. Clarke, you have to believe me. I wanted to wait, but I couldn't. I did what you would have done."
"You did this to me."
"Clarke-"
She spat in his face. Her saliva burned and scorched like hot lava and he screeched, trying in vain to claw the fire off of his face. His hands burned from the contact and soon the burning spread everywhere. His eyes, his hands, his feet, his back. He screamed in agony, Clarke's smile still etched on her face like some demented child. This wasn't Clarke. This was nothing like Clarke.
He couldn't breathe. Every breath he tried to draw filled his lungs with fire, and he felt like was combusting from the the inside out.
"At least now I know you'll die in as much pain as I have.", she croaked.
He screamed in pain as his eyes felt like they were being set on fire and-
Bellamy jolted awake, panting. Tears were running down his face. He couldn't help it.
He heard his own words stunting him: "Slay your demons while you're awake, and they won’t get you when you're asleep." How do you slay guilt? How do you slay grief? He had not only left Clarke to die, but she had died an agonizing death. He had felt his blood turn to hot lava and he knew that her blood must have boiled the same way. Only his blood burning was a nightmare,and her blood burning up was a pain she actually had to bore.
Nightblood.
Bellamy's eyes widened at the thought. What if the nightblood had worked? He knew that it was stupid to feel this hopeful, but maybe that hope was what keeping him sane for now. He jumped out of bed and went out to look for Raven. If Clarke was alive she'd go to Becca's lab. Becca's lab had a radio. Raven could use that big head of hers to find a way to contact Clarke. Assuming she was alive, of course. Which Bellamy had set his heart on believing. His hunch on Octavia being alive was right, so why would this one be any different?
***
He found Raven in the command center working on something metallic in her hands. Harper and Monty were laying comfortably in each other's arms, clearly inseparable. Murphy, Emori and Echo were no where to be seen.
"You're up early," said Raven sarcastically without looking up from whatever her hands were working furiously on.
Bellamy cleared his throat. "Yeah.", his mouth felt like dry sandpaper. "How's everybody holding up?"
"Murphy and Emori are taking our time holed up in here as their honeymoon and Echo is still in shock and refuses to leave her room because she is avoiding all of the windows. Guess grounders in space act like grounders in space." Raven smiled coyly at that joke and Bellamy swallowed roughly.
"And you guys?"
Monty looked up and replied with a soft, "We're doing good." Of course he and Harper were doing good, they had each other. Their hands were intertwined and he felt a pang of jealousy, that was followed by an instant pang of guilt. His mouth tasted metallic.
"I'm doing fine, too. My brain hurts a little but that's what you get for sticking it in a tub of ice and then electrocuting yourself a billion times. Question is: how are you holding up?"
Monty and Harper stared at him intently and Raven looked up from her work with a shadow of concern on her face.
"I'm fine.", he replied gruffly. "I was thinking...there is a chance that the nightblood solution worked right? I mean, she could be alive."
He could feel the looks of intense pity that the three people were giving him. His ears felt hot and he felt angry. He didn't want their pity.
"Bellamy..", starts Harper, concern scrunching her eyebrows closer together.
"I know, ok? I know. It's a stretch. But I'm not crazy. All we need to do is fix the communications and try to radio her. If she's alive she'll pick up the signal. And if not...well then- well then we'll know, ok? Please."
Raven looked down and bit her lip slightly. "I'll see what I can do."
Bellamy nodded gratefully. He promised himself that this was the last time he'd be using his heart and that he’d be using his from then on out. Clarke hadn't dramatically put her finger on his temple for nothing- he knew what she meant about him using his head. If she really was gone, he would take her last words to him and treasure them and use them. He wouldn't let her down again.
"Plus we could try talking to the bunker," added Monty. Harper and Raven nodded at this.
"Right," Bellamy agreed, "Gather everyone here in 10 minutes- we have a lot of work to do if we want to keep our assess alive for five years, and we have to start now."
***
Bellamy was not too proud to admit that the first few months on the ark were hell. He constantly thought of Clarke, Octavia and, if he was being completely honest, real meat. He found himself making he decisions that Clarke usually made himself and found himself more and more comfortable with leading without a crutch. He missed Clarke everyday and would often spend time in her old cell to admire her art and think of her, and let his heart run free for a while to keep himself tethered to who he was. But apart from that, Bellamy was mostly head now. He had work distributed and divided, routines and schedules made, alarms and shifts given. He went over the necessary requirements for surviving the five years with Raven almost everyday. He didn't want to stay in the metal box anymore than he had to, and they were trying to find a way to come back down, which they still did not have.
Raven had long given up on the radio- it seemed completely useless and only made her frustrated. Echo would do the work she was assigned and then slink off to her room, preferring to be alone. Bellamy had caught her more than once standing by the window and gawking at the universe around her and then scampering back to her room. Murphy and Emori had never been more in love- in fact Murphy had shared with Bellamy in confidence that he was going to propose soon. He even got Raven to craft two identical rings for him out of old scrap metal. Monty and Harper were less intense, but just as happy and were never slacking off from work to secretly make out like a certain couple on board. Raven was adjusting to her brain going back to normal by working non-stop and taking almost no breaks whatsoever. Bellamy had tried to talk her into working a little less and trying to relax more but she snorted and replied with a pointed, "Look whose talking."
It's true that he may have been working almost all the time, but he didn't mind keeping his mind occupied. He and Monty would often go off exploring all the rooms for whatever the older occupants had left behind to try and scavenge anything useful, but also as a way to relieve stress and do something entertaining. It's how he came across Clarke's drawings and his old books. He also found Abby's room with a faded picture of Abby, Clarke and who appeared to be Jake Griffin. He kept the picture in his right pocket, with a page from Octavia's favorite book in his left. He'd take a look at both from time to time when he missed them.
As guilty as it made him feel, as the days went by the pain in his chest hurt a little less. He often forgot that it didn't mean he loved them or missed them any less- it just meant that he was healing, and he knows that he had to heal. If he lets his demons get to him, without Octavia or Clarke's help he doubts he'd be able to go back to normal again. And so everyday he remembers the people he loves, traces their faces in his memory and keeps his demons at bay. (Although to be very honest, he traced more than faces when it came to Clarke. Give the man a break, he is lonely.)
He does however, refrain from saying Clarke's name at all times. She is 'she' and the six have come to accept that. It's subconscious at first, and then it becomes a habit and later on a tradition in her honor. He says it sometimes when he's alone, trying to get a feel of her name on his tongue but it never feels right without her there to hear it. He had no more false hope- it hurt too much. He had accepted and come to terms with her death, and was just starting to accept and come to terms with his role in it.
Bellamy walked over to the large window overlooking the earth. It was no longer on fire, and now was shrouded in a strange yellow mist. He looked at the bottle on the ledge labeled The Baton. For some reason no one ever threw it out. He sighed deeply and closed his eyes.
