Above Ground

Pulling Together

Six months passed and Raven had found no trace of A.L.I.E. It was maddening. Bellamy and Monty had begged her to let it go. That if she hadn't found it yet there was nothing to find. They all still agreed to take shifts in the control room monitoring the Ring's vital functions. They were holding out hope for the bunker to make contact. This was where the roles reversed and Raven reassured them. The atmosphere was still thick with ash and debris from what was essentially a global nuclear fire storm. She didn't expect any communication from the planet for at least two years, and even then it was a long shot.

Raven was in the middle of digging through lines of code when Harper showed up for her shift.

"Raven, come on. You're gonna drive yourself crazy with this stuff." She placed her hand on Raven's shoulder.

"Your shift is over... Go... Eat... Relax. Anything that isn't digging through millions of lines of computer code" Harper continued when Raven didn't answer. She huffed and took her arm, pulling her out of the seat. "Go!" she urged as she ushered Raven to the door. She finally admitted defeat and smiled at Harper.

"OK, I'm going." She laughed. "But call me if-"

"If anything changes on any of the screens I'll call you right away. You've trained us all well." Harper interrupted.

Raven went to cafeteria and filled a bottle of water. Bellamy was sitting at one of the tables tying his shoe.

"Hey Bellamy" she smiled.

"Hey,  how's hunting?" he grinned.

"Shut up!" she said, trying to conceal the twinge or annoyance she felt with humour.

"I was gonna go for a run.... Why don't you join me? You spend so much time in front of the computer I'm surprised you haven't wasted away."

Raven looked down at the brace on her leg. "Running?" she said sarcastically "Really?"

"Fine... If you don't can't you can keep up, that's totally fine." Bellamy grabbed his water and started to jog towards the hallway

Raven chuckled and adjusted the straps on her leg brace.  Then she jogged awkwardly after him. Bellamy slowed down to let her catch up.

"Just for a few minutes" She said, ignoring the pain shooting from her ankle up to her thigh.

"We can't let ourselves get soft up here." Bellamy added. "We have no idea what things could be like when we get back down there."

He had a point the one thing they knew about life on Earth was that it was dangerous.

Monty was coming from his shift tending the algae farm, which was surprisingly low maintenance. He was on his way to control room to check the efficiency of the CO2 scrubbers, and maybe sneak in a little make out session with Harper on her control room shift. He happened upon Echo standing in her favourite  spot; by the large viewing window. There were parts of Earth still burning, she could still see orange spots glow through the thick grey cloud cover. Monty approached her slowly, "You O-"

He was interrupted by Echo's elbow connecting with his nose. He stumbled back a few steps holding his face. She stood there wide-eyed, stunned.

"Monty!"  she gasped.

"What the hell!?" he shouted.

"You startled me! I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to-" she stopped when she saw blood drip from the fingers he clasped over his nose. In his other hand he held one of those weird computer screens. "I'll take you to medical"

She led Monty to the med-bay and sat him on one of the beds. Monty pinched the bridge of his nose and tilted his head back. "No, no" Echo said, handing him strips of the unused clothing they had shredded as bandages, (just in case), most of the medical supplies had been pillaged to bring to earth. "Head down, between your knees."

Monty obliged, after all Echo was a warrior she probably had many more nose bleeds than he did.

"I don't think it's broken" Echo said. "I really am sorry."

"It's ok. Bellamy told me you haven't been sleeping very well..." Monty could see the heavy dark circles that encompassed her eyes, her cheek were drawn and she had clearly lost weight. They all had,. But Echo just wasn't adapting.  "No wonder you're a little jumpy. I should know better than to sneak up on someone like you."

"What does that mean?" Echo asked.

"Oh... No... Not in a bad way. I just mean that you're a fighter... You know, like prepared for anything..." he trailed off and took the cloth away form his nose. I think the bleeding stopped"

"It's ok." Echo smiled. She pinched the bridge of his nose checking for any breaks. "Am I forgiven?"

"That depends... Am I still pretty?"

Echo laughed, it was the first time Monty ever heard her laugh. She looked at the bruise that was already forming over the bridge of his nose. "Um.... More or less." She teased.

"Then yes, you're off the hook." Monty was glad that he seemed to have cheered her up a bit, it was just unfortunate that he had to bleed to squeeze a giggle out of her. "I'm gonna finish up my checks in the control room. Why don't you tag along?"

Echo looked around, a little shocked that he was talking to her. "Oh... No, thank you. I think I'll just get some sleep. I'm tending the farm tomorrow." It was the only thing on this floating cage she was any good at. Monty nodded and hopped off the bed.

Bellamy knock on Echo's open door and leaned casually against the door jamb. "You Okay?" he asked "Monty told me what happened."

"Shouldn't you be asking him if he's Okay?"

"He's tougher than he looks." Bellamy stepped inside and took a seat on the chair across from her bed. "He's worried about you. He thinks you're isolating yourself from the group."

"He's not wrong." She said quietly as she folded clothes and put them into the closet.

"Echo we've been here months and we have four and half years left. You can't avoid us for that long. There's only seven of us we need to be able to lean on each other or we'll go mad."

Echo huffed. "There is nothing I can talk to these people about. I should never have come here, I don't belong here."

Bellamy looked away, thinking about that moment he found he with the sword to her abdomen.

"Well, I'm glad you're here." He said quietly. Echo said nothing and just sat on the bed facing him. Bellamy moved and sat next to her, awkwardly placing his hand on her shoulder. He had expected her to reject the gesture, but she just flinched softly. He didn't sit too close, he didn't speak. They sat quietly for a long time, before Echo lifted her hand off of her lap and placed her hand on Bellamy's. He smiled.

"It's okay to need people." He said.

"You don't." Echo said, staring stiffly ahead.

"Yes I do. None of us would've made it up here without Raven, and Monty. Those are the two that made this liveable. We all need people. Raven needs the rest of us to remind her to eat and sleep, Monty needs Harper to remind him that there was nothing he could do to save Jasper. And who knew Murphy could cook, at least every now and again he can spice up algae so it doesn't taste like.... Well algae." Echo laughed, thinking about how old jars of dried herbs spices actually improved their quality of life. Bellamy was glad to see her smile.

"Okay, I'll leave you alone now. But you know where I am if you want to talk.... And even if you don't."

"Thank you, Bellamy." Echo nodded with a genuine smile.