remind me how to breathe (it's harder than it seems)

She has come to realize that Bellamy Blake is more complex than she could ever begin to understand. 

She first realizes it when they are sitting underneath the tree, Dax’s still warm body lying a few feet away. She realizes that he’s more than she expected as the tears slide down the fractures on his face, confessions pouring from his mouth. At first, it breaks her heart. A dull ache is pulled from her chest as she watches the man before her being slowly devoured by his demons, and she wants to help, oh how she wants to help. 

So she gives him forgiveness. She gives him the courage to keep moving, to keep going. 

But she does not see the enormity, the immensity that is he until after the exodus ship crashes.

She watches with gut-wrenching horror as the ship, their salvation, does not slow as it soars across the atmosphere. She falls to her knees as it collides with the ground in an explosion that lights up the heavens. She vomits as the awareness that her mother was on that ship washes over her and she no longer knows if they are going to get out of this alive.

In that moment, her mind wanders back to her first day on Earth. She remembers what the first breath of air tasted like when the drop ship door had opened and the sun had blinded a hundred juvenile delinquents, wondering if certain death or a new life waited for them past the familiar confines of steel and bolts. She remembers smiling, laughing as she saw the green of trees and the fresh air, unfiltered and unreserved, filled her lungs.

She remembers feeling as if it was the first time she could truly breathe.

How ironic that as she watches the pillar of flames climb up to the heavens from the earth (Earth—the one place in the universe where oxygen was plentiful and they never again needed to worry about suffocating in their sleep) she finds herself unable to make her lungs work. 

What she does not expect are strong hands pulling her hair back over her shoulder and rubbing soothing circles on her back as the bile continues to rise in her throat. She does not expect solid arms to wrap around her as she sobs and pull her close to a firm chest. She does not expect to feel the rough material of his shirt against her cheek nor to hear him softly humming the tune she had sung when Atom died as he rocks her back and forth until she can breathe again.

 She does not expect his complexity.

 She remembers the first time she saw him, when he opened the door to the drop ship despite her warnings. His eyes had been strong and defiant, and from the moment she had caught his gaze, she knew that this man wasn’t like the rest of the delinquents. She knew that he was harsher, stronger and much more dangerous than any juvenile criminal she had been sent down with.

 The first few days on earth had proved her right. He was cold and cruel, threatening to kill Jasper, goading Murphy and Wells into a knife fight; he played each and every one of the Hundred like they were a fiddle and he was a master violinist. His words pushed and pulled the teenagers in the direction that he wanted and she saw how they loved it. She saw how they loved being led by a man such as he.

 The ever confident, silver-tongued, rebellious Bellamy Blake. Surely the man who risked everything to protect his sister would be able to protect them.

 She thought she had seen through his façade to his true self, to the selfish man who put himself before others, the cruel guard who had no remorse and no morality.

 But then he had broken down in front of her and she realized that what she had seen, what she had thought was him underneath all the lies and the persona, was simply another layer of his mask, a net to catch people like her. If they did not love the leader Bellamy, they would hate the brutal Bellamy. Either way, no one would see his true face, the one who was haunted by his decisions, the one who regretted his actions, the Bellamy that wasn’t perfectly happy with what he had become.