Between Us

Old Habits

Bellamy is staring off where the vast display of stars linger, the full view obscured only by the steel walls and metal pipes of the room above. Unreachable. He couldn't have known when he lived on the Ark that being cast in a sea of endless space was as freeing as being buried in the earth.

He knows now.

He clenches his teeth, hard.

Even if they do somehow manage to get back to the ground, he has no idea of what he will find there. If the bunker will still be intact. If Clarke will still be waiting for them, radio in hand. He imagines her familiar form, standing a distance off as the ship settles on that small island of green. Waiting for them.

It is an image that's been as constant as it has been painful.

The comms have been down since they went dark, the silence once filled with her calls now lingering like lead in his chest. Once, Bellamy wondered if going without them would be easier. If it would make his own waiting a little more bearable. A little less sharp.

But the answer is no. Hearing something-anything-is better than this uninterrupted stream of quiet, where his questions do not stop and are left instead to orbit like this ship--endlessly--in his mind. If he has to wait for one more thing, he's sure the impatience will kill him long before this plan of theirs gets the chance to.

"You really think he's going to be comfortable opening his eyes to a bunch of strangers surrounding him?" Harper's soft voice breaks the cold quiet. She stares at the face beneath the ice, questions collecting in the line between her brows. Her eyes lift to Raven's. "If we want him to talk, to help, it might be best if we don't start with scaring him."

Murphy doesn't try to mask his disgust. "Scare him? We're waking him up to land the ship, not join our astronomy club. You're not going to get that by making him comfortable."

"Or maybe fear will just shut him down," Harper says, in a tone that surprises Bellamy. She is actually concerned about him, he realizes. The thought makes him grimace.

But then she stops, and sparks collect in her eyes. "Wait. What if Monty was right, and he doesn't know any of the prisoners personally?" she shrugs, as if the rest of the idea paints itself. "Maybe we can make him think we're on the same side before we resort to threatening his life."

Bellamy finds himself looking back to the frozen man, as if just by seeing his face, he can know what he needs to know about him. But all Bellamy can find there is a fragile plan with odds that favor the less--than-promising side of the scale. 

Still, it is something. And like everyone else, Bellamy is willing to risk it all for something.

Murphy's sigh echoes around the room. "So we lie to get him comfy, is that it?" he asks. His lips lift in a cynical smile. "And who says chivalry is dead?"

*********

She is staring up at the night sky as if she can physically see her message meet the exosphere. Even to her own ears, her words had sounded empty. Going through the motions. But some habits are hard to break, and talking to friends that have never answered her has proven to be one of the hardest.

Clarke shuts her eyes for a moment. It's not over yet, she reminds herself. She has to remind herself at least a dozen times before she feels a modicum of peace, the words like breath to a dying fire. Then she stands up, hand clenched around a radio that never seems to warm no matter how many years she's held it.

Perhaps tonight will be the last night she keeps it at the edge of her cot. Perhaps tomorrow will be the last morning she wakes to find it somehow back in her hand. Then Clarke will start keeping it on the floor.