There is enough time for him to focus on every possible outcome of the decision he made – running them over and over and over again, as if there’s anything that can be done once the choice is made. It’s out of his hands, and there is nowhere that tasha can hide in this church—and he almost makes a snide comment about it but the truth is that it would have been worse anywhere else. at least here she could sneak out a window and run down the street ( okay, he knows that the guardians would have them surrounded, meaning she wouldn’t stand a chance but it would be better than this. Better than not knowing whether Christian and laurel will be coming back or if rose will be alone or whether she’ll hate him forever. Christian and lissa muse be excused on some moroi that need to be protected, best friends grounds. He & laurel willfully kept information from a fellow guardian, friend, family.
He doesn’t allow himself to center on the thought for long because if he does, he needs to address what family means to him ( Octavia, his mom, tasha ). The wait is always the worst part because it comes with not knowing, which is centered on not knowing what he should be doing. He keeps his phone on him in the hopes that either Christian or laurel could send an alert about impending guardians because as good as rose is, she wouldn’t be able to incapacitate them both in the few seconds it would take for one of them to send run.
Maybe it’s years of expecting the worst from not just himself but everyone around him that even lets him entertain these thoughts. There were too many nights where rose and he talked about trust, too many times where he thought about what that means. or maybe it’s because of how he reacted to this news that leads him to think that rose is a better guardian than him, would turn tasha in because it’s what she’s done before. It was to clear her name, yes, stop her own execution, but it also was the right thing. It’s maybe what he should have done but never would have, and not just because of their history. Tasha may be a murderer, but she was family, and he would forgive her anything because of that bond. maybe it’s simply because the sting of betrayal still sits in his ribcage guiding his every action, and he was so sick of all the lies and politics that surrounded this secret.
Maybe it’s years of expecting the worst that makes it easier for him to see it playing out in rose. Guardian instinct guides him more than the fear of guardians swarming into the building because they weren’t subtle enough to send rose in first – no that was a plan that he would have but not them. They would storm the building and kill them all before anyone realized what happened – that was how they operated even against humans. That’s what happened with Jill – descending on her when no one was paying attention. It takes a lot to think about this moment in those terms, but the reality is that he trusts rose, still. His body might be reacting as if he doesn’t but his mind knows that if this goes the other direction, his trust was not misplaced. She would need to see it with her own eyes before making the decision, he imagines. Needs to see to believe—isn’t that one of the things that they bonded over too?
The waiting is the worst part but thinking about every interaction they’ve ever had hurts more. Thinking about each one tainted by his lies and the secret veiled behind a broken-down church that provided no cover and allowed for every sound to drift in ( every sound to drift out, then, too ). No amount of fighting with tasha had changed her mind about the church, and maybe it would help her escape. The light shining through the windows provides him with enough warmth to know that the sun is still out there, and tomorrow it will come up again, and the day after that. Mornings spent with tasha staring at the stars didn’t detract from the nights longing to be out in the sun, and how rose sometimes felt like that: like walking outside and letting warmth wash around you.
He brushes the thought away as soon as it comes because trusting rose with his life doesn’t change the fact that he didn’t trust her with this. ( justified. He was justified because this wasn’t just his life. this was tasha’s and lissa’s, and they come first. This was Christian and laurel’s, and they also come first to him even if not his direct charge or partner. They could die right here together but he has yet to regret the decision to trust rose – maybe it will change. Maybe she will surprise him and he would be wrong, but he doesn’t think so. He spent too much time walking in on her after fights, too much time watching as she massaged her temples on a plane despite knowing it won’t help, handing her water and hoping it does anyway….too much time watching as life faded from her eyes every time Dimitri walked in the room ( he can’t be imagining that too—can’t get his voice out of his head asking her why her hair was down when it looks so much better up despite knowing the headaches that it causes. Can’t get the sneer that crosses his face whenever he sees bellamy – can’t get over the relief on rose’s face when she saw it was him standing in the doorway after their last fight ).
He thinks to the time they talked about coercion and the plans to find out about compulsion of dhampirs. He thinks of the loneliness he can feel around her and has for a while despite not knowing why ( she had a boyfriend, yet she seemed so alone ). He looks over his shoulder to lissa and thinks thinks thinks. She had lissa until she didn’t – had Christian and laurel until she didn’t—had him until?
So his eyes close and brace for impact. His eyes close because he no longer needs to wonder if rose will tell because he was right about her. she won’t turn in her family even if they don’t seem like it right now. She won’t turn them in and maybe knowing this will bring them back together, bring her that clarity of why they weren’t in her grasp.
It never occurs to him that she could be thinking the same thing about him.
Why that statement stuck with him, he can’t say. It’s simple and yet it sent shockwaves through him, made him start questioning himself and the weight he carried so much like her: in silence. As her arms wrap around him, he thinks I can wait. It isn’t limp the way their past ones have been—isn’t weak because she’s in pain or distracted or worried about what people are thinking. It’s sure, and so his response is just as. The fear he spent the past few minutes with dissipates, and he realizes that the fear was never about her at all. He knew that rose was a person capable of this, of reaching out with empathy instead of anger, and he has watched her do this before, but this is the first time outside of her incessant comments and questions about the fights with Octavia that he’s felt it directed at him. The first time, maybe, he felt like he needed it. Needed her arms wrapping around him to be a sign that he made the right choice years ago when he decided that tasha would continue living, even if it was never a decision at all. There were no other options, but he still chose her.
Her arms around him feel like forgiveness for going against everything he has ever known.
If he isn’t careful, he’ll think they feel like home too, like safety. That when her arms squeeze him, it’s her whispering that he can breathe now.
He goes there briefly because he knows that rose is the closest that has come to understanding him – and he told her Janine couldn’t understand her if she didn’t know her, knowing that rose couldn’t understand him with tasha between them. The irony doesn’t escape him that they might be the only two that have tried, and with that does not come clarity but a muddled number of feelings that he cannot sort through.
So, he breathes her in instead. He blows air out against her shoulder in time with her own release against his. With that, the only thing he needs to know is that he still had this person that had become important to him ( it doesn’t feel wrong to admit that. That she was important. That she had transcended beyond a partner at work to family and maybe friend. It’s much more dangerous to admit that they pull apart after what feels like forever and also feels way too soon ).
Turning his head away from her, an exasperated smile already on his face, he scoffs. It’s a good sign, though, so the smile softens into something more real and typically only reserved for her when she seems to need sincerity and support. “harboring a fugitive wasn’t on your list?” he can’t imagine why not with it being the obvious reason why he shut her out ( if he can call it that, built up deeper walls around himself and his secrets, maybe ). “seems the most obvious past time to me.” And it had become just that, after all. What wasn’t spent at work or with Octavia when she was home was spent in this church with tasha. “keeps me busy.” Another poor joke because they both know that they get no free-time as guardians, and he just added another thing onto his own plate. “what do you think of the place.” Because he knows her and knows how they operate, he knows she’s already scanned it and formed her own opinions.
her hands can still remember the exact way they felt when had bellamy touched them, their recollection of his fingers gently tending to her palms, all but torn to shreds by jagged stretches of metal, as keen as more earned instances of muscle memory. there are any number of things they’ve come into contact with more frequently than bellamy's own fingers, but their impression is rarely half as sharp. it would be easy enough to attribute the scrapes on her fingers for the clarity of the memory – pain creates edges, adds color, invites contrast, heightens sensitivity, and yet, rose is certain the heat of his hands was just as responsible, if not more so than the smarting of her wounds. it doesn’t seem like a stretch of a conclusion. rose has experienced a great deal of pain in her life, so much she hardly blinks an eye anymore, but she’s not as accustomed to tenderness.
tenderness, rose wants to think – does think, will think if for no reason other than her own capacity to – leaves far more lasting an impression than hurt. she can believe that, she will believe that, she chooses to believe that.
and as they grow nearer and nearer to living, breathing proof of a secret that could ruin it all, rose thinks of the compassion bellamy has extended to her. she thinks of him reaching out to her before she climbed inside the vent with no motive other than to bring her comfort, thinks of the pained look in his eyes that suggested a concern for her he had no reason to feel, a concern that came in conflict with his duty – that perhaps even stood in opposition to it. she pictures his face as he’d carefully cleaned and bandaged her wounds, focused in a way that insists caring, insists compassion, insists heart. that image stays with her for the duration of the car ride, cozying right up to her heartache and offering what even rose in all of her optimism can recognize might very well be naive solace. she feels that very same warmth in her hands.
she turns the picture of the bellamy she was certain she knew in her mind back and forth and sideways and it occurs to her that she has two options: that bellamy was real, or he wasn’t. that’s it, really. that’s all there is. bellamy wouldn’t be the first person to fool her – he wouldn’t even be the second. there are things people are all too capable of faking, and her eyes have deceived her in the past. maybe she saw what she wanted to see, maybe she didn’t look closely enough. but that would mean everything that has ever occurred between them is a lie, and that is an agony she can’t yet bear with proficiency; unlike the body that breaks so often snapping of bone is met with repose, her heart could not manage a beat without first acknowledging the immensity of what had been given and then ripped apart.
it’s nearly an unbearable thing – sifting through all of their memories and watching them unravel one by one, but that day is one of the worst ones to have discredited, one of the hardest to remember knowing that throughout it bellamy had held a secret that had the power to change everything, turn her life upside down. it’s a horrible sensation recalling the sincerity in his eyes now knowing the secrets he had kept locked behind them, wondering if one cancelled the other.
but it’s a rather simple process, when it comes down to it. there’s no extensive deliberation, no thunderous inner conflict. there’s no real weighing of options or coming up with solutions; there’s just what happens when he comes into her line of vision.
she sees him, and she decides he is real. her arms wrap around him, and it becomes apparent that she’d never had any real doubt. there are some things, rose knows in her heart of hearts, that cannot be faked.
what she’s seen in bellamy – what exists between them, what binds them together – cannot be faked. she knows it in her gut, her heart, her bloodstream, all the way down to her toes, and couldn’t fight the realization if she tried. bellamy is still the person who put her hands back together after they were torn apart, and she can’t help but hope she can bring some of that same solace to the wounds the loneliness she’s felt around him since the very first day she met him as she holds him like he could fall apart. her hands slide along his back as he lets out a breath against her, gently rubbing the muscles that lie beneath again and again, hoping to soothe the strain she thinks may be as much a part of bellamy as his own skin. she holds him tighter then, filled with the overwhelming understanding that as painful as this secret had been for her to hear, that pain could never compare to what bellamy would have had to endure to keep it.
a part of her is holding onto him still even when she lets go.
the sincerity of his smile nurses the sincerity in her own, breeding something inexplicably soft despite how often and how easily they have found themselves in banter. there hasn’t exactly been a shortage of genuine moments between them, but there’s something especially tender in this one, despite everything, like the relief of not having lost him makes everything gentler to the touch, softer to the eyes. there’s familiarity to the way they engage, absolutely, and comforting familiarity at that, but it’s different, too, even as she rolls her eyes in true rose fashion.
“i guess i just hoped that if you had a double life, it’d be teaching pilates or running a bookstore or something else i could tease you about,” rose jests lightly, brown eyes warm and sincere. it’s maybe only three fourths of a joke; if bellamy was going to have another life besides this one, she would have wished for it to be softer, kinder. she would have hoped it would have been gentler than this, more distant from the battles they fight daily. she doesn’t know how he feels about the secrets that he keeps, but she knows they make his life harder – make the days longer, the work more difficult, his nights lonelier. she can’t say whether or not he has any regrets, but she’s certain of the weight that he carries, and she wishes it were lighter.
his question prompts a second glance around the church, but it’s more to disguise the hesitation that forms as she looks for a way to answer honestly without offending anyone than it is a need to further take in their surroundings. “honestly?” rose finds herself asking with a slight raise of her eyebrows because she’s never been great at bullshit with him, chewing the inside of her mouth, “i think it’s kind of... exposed. i mean, it’s far enough off the map that you’re not really in danger of any of our people stumbling on it, but it’s not gonna protect you from asshole humans or strigoi or even weather.” in fact, it’s probably freezing in here at night because of how open it is, and she suspects either tasha or christian or both of them in some joint magical space heater effort are to thank for the bump in temperature. she starts to comment on the lack of privacy, how annoying all the outside noise must get, but a different train of thought takes priority.
“i’m kind of surprised you’re not throwing a fit about it,” she admits. she would have thought this kind of set up would drive him crazy – and as she looks between him and tasha, she becomes more and more certain that it does. “unless... you have.” which meant someone else was responsible for the current location of their hideout. feeling awkward, her gaze drifts across the space again, looking for something less harsh to add. “the windows are pretty, though. kind of incredible that they’re in this good of shape.”
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