The Slowest Burn - Bellarke

Bellarke season 7 AU- What if the dead could ascend?

*Inspired by BellarkeeBelizaa 's prompt; what if the dead could ascend?*
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The searing pain in Bellamy's chest ended in perpetual darkness. He had remembered coughing up his own blood, tasting it on his lips, trying desperately to call to Clarke, his best friend. The one person who knew him, the real him.

When his eyes closed though, the darkness engulfed him. He had expected to see his mother, those he had lost. He had expected to ascend just as he'd been promised.

He wanted to scream but the nothingness had swallowed him whole.

He didn't know how much time was passing, but he felt nothing. There were no days, no hours, no time had passed. He couldn't speak or move or cry out.

To fill his time, he thought of his friends, of his sister. The lives they all could have had on Sanctum if he hadn't been so stupid.

How could he have abandoned his friends to follow a man he barley knew?

The self loathing set in, and though time didn't pass Bellamy could feel himself being aged by it.

He hated himself. More than anything he hated that she hated him. Clarke. The rage she must have felt, to point a gun at him and pull the trigger.

Not shooting me was the right call.

He remembered Clarke's mournful smile, how sorry she had been to him. He wondered if she felt that now.

Just when Bellamy thought the hopelessness of it all would kill him, assuming he wasn't already dead, assuming this wasn't hell, a light appeared. An outstretched glowing hand.

His sister.

"Octavia?" Bellamy reached desperately for the girl. Her luminescence lighting up what he now recognised to be Sanctum.

How long had he lied here? In a purgatory of his own mind?

"Bellamy." The girl called to him. He could hear the joy in her voice.

"You did it." He cried, pulling the girl to him.

He was glowing now too.

"Levitt said the dead couldn't ascend, but I couldn't just leave you here." Octavia cried.

"I'm here now." He hugged her tightly.

"Where are the others?" He could feel them ascending, soon they would no longer be humans, they would be something else, something better. He wanted to see everyone one last time.

"Where's Clarke?"

Octavia looked mournful.

"Clarke- Clarke didnt- she won't..." Octavia couldn't get the words out. How did you tell your brother the woman he truly loved would be stranded on Earth, alone for eternity.

"O." Bellamy's voice was grave.

"She failed the test. She was too angry about Madi and you and Lexa and everything that has happened."