Chapter Text
1.
He didn’t know what was going on. The Grounders had found them in the woods almost as soon as they had crossed out of the desert, dazed and blinking from both weariness and the drastic change in light.
Jaha had returned to the beach and Murphy’s lighthouse with a renewed fervor, a fire lit within his eyes that made Murphy itch with the need to have never left with the former Chancellor in the first place. They had filled extra water bottles and, on the theory that whatever was in the water waited until dusk, night, or dawn to begin hunting, waited until mid-morning the next day before departing in one of the other ramshackle rafts.
Even if Murphy hadn’t been able to see the vestiges of the other shore across the water, he wouldn’t have had to worry about getting lost at sea; a done flew slowly and suspiciously close throughout the duration of their journey, and Murphy caught Jaha nodding whenever the elder man looked at it.
Murphy would have commented on Thelonious’ further descent into lunacy, but at that point the blood loss in combination with the physical exertion of rowing and the thought of all the floating walking took the wind out of his metaphorical sails. Judgmental staring and emphatic sighing, however, were still well within his repertoire.
The only benefit to the drone guide,in Murphy’s opinion, was that they made it to the far shore with plenty of daylight left, and were able to wade through the nerve-wracking mine field before - well, before sitting down in the sand for the night. Murphy hardly remembered the days that followed beyond wondering how two people with double the ration of water between them managed to run out of supplies so quickly. Besides for keeping his head down and the monotonous process of placing one foot in front of the other, the lack of water had really been the only thing on his mind until they found themselves blinking in the forest shade.
And then, well, Grounders.
"We thought you Sky People, but now you come out of the Dead Zone,” the one with the really pointy sword said. “Have you switched allegiance? To whom do you report? What tribe?"
"The Tribe of Man,” he heard Jaha respond from where he was kneeling alongside him, and Murphy frigging - wanted to bash his head in with a rock.
God, the level of crazy. His plan, once he thought to form one, had been to hang back, let Jaha do the talking and keep the Grounder's attention off of him; Murphy recognized this Camp and some of the faces in it, and the recollection did not bring good memories. To have any hope of getting out of here again, however...
"Bellamy," Murphy said, interrupting anything the Grounders could have said in response to Jaha's insanity. The Trikru’s attention immediately snapped to him, and Murphy licked his lips, eyes darting from Grounder to Grounder. "I belong with Bellamy."
"Belomi?" came a voice from behind the Grounder who had identified herself as Lexa to Murphy's left, and the crowd shifted so as to let the speaker - a tall, slender girl - pass through. The girl walked with her head high, Murphy noted, but held an arm around her middle as if it were tender. "You say you know the one called Belomi?"
"Belong," Lexa repeated. Her lidded gaze made Murphy regret speaking, and he felt as if his skin were crawling as Lexa stared at him before her attention refocused on Jaha.
"And you, of course, I remember." She gazed at the Chancellor with what Murphy felt was decidedly more hostility than she had when looking at him; maybe nobody had told her about his being in attendance for the fiasco between Finn and the Woods Clan camp.
"I did nothing - " Thelonious began, drawing himself up to his full height whilst kneeling, chest forward, to deliver what Murphy imagined would have been a stunning defense.
"Silence," Lexa said, her jaw snapping. "With Clarke no longer staying in the Sky Camp, I am less inclined to curry favor with your people by returning you to them. Bellamy, however..." Lexa trailed off as her gaze returned to Murphy; ”Having something of his... would be good."
Murphy felt the bottom drop out of his stomach in a low swoop. Shit, fuck, fuck - he should have said Clarke; should have said any name other than Bellamy’s. Bellamy had made it abundantly clear that he would never be coerced into something for Murphy’s sake. Murphy was under no illusion that Jaha only brought him along for the return trip in case he needed a sacrifice, but now Murphy had screwed them both over - they would have been better off if Murphy had said Kane’s name. He’d given Bellamy’s, though, and now they were going to be left for torture. Murphy clenched his bound hands together to focus on the pain that radiated from his sliced arm rather than the way his body was beginning to shudder in remembrance.
"I will go to the Skaikru, Commander," the willowy girl from earlier said, bringing a fisted hand to the shoulder across her chest with a slight bow, "if you approve. Belomi helped us in the Mountain, and I would like to help return his people to him."
"Echo," Lexa acknowledged. "Take a unit with you. Cage them," she continued, indicating Murphy and the former Chancellor with a flick of her wrist, "until the Sky People come." The matter concluded, Lexa turned her attention to other concerns as Grounders moved to carry out her orders. The mention of cages, however, spiked an immediate fear response in Murphy.
“Jaha!” he shouted. “They’ll want - they named our camp after him,” Murphy said, tongue almost tripping over the words in his haste to get them out; he could hear how high and thin his voice had gone, but nudged his chin towards the former Chancellor regardless. “They’ll want to know he’s here too.”
Lexa made a scornful, disagreeing sound. “They’ve done well enough without his influence - better, I would say, than if your Chancellor,” she sneered, “had been present. No. We will not relay who it is we hold.”
Murphy swallowed thickly two or three times, Lexa’s heavy glare towards Thelonious affirming that he had made a miscalculation somewhere - not that he could fault the crazy Grounder for her good taste. Just, you know: Torture.
Lexa stood from her throne of sticks and started walking away, the retainer of important-looking Grounders following behind her. “Make sure, Echo, to mention a renewal of our treaty with the Sky People while you discuss those we’ve found. I will be in the War Tent.”
The remaining Grounders started into motion at Lexa’s dismissal and the whole area was a swarm of bodies. Murphy felt his chest constrict and his breathing go quick and shallow even though no one had touched him. Panting, Murphy stared hard at the Grounder - the that had done the talking with Finn - coming towards him, and he jerked his head around to get the hair out of his eyes before he realized it was black spots appearing in his vision, not hair. A panic attack; this was - he was having a panic attack. Shit, shit, fuck - he saw the Grounder’s hand coming at him out of the corner of his eyes, and twitched away.
He twitched a little too sharply, considering his hands and feet were tied. Murphy felt it as he tripped backwards, and a sharp pain pierced through his head as he landed. Everything from that point on was a little hazy.
======
The Roman Emperor Octavius Augustus had been an amazing man. Augustus transformed Rome and ushered in the Pax Romana; a true leader if ever there was one, but Bellamy had never considered himself to be following in Augustus’ footsteps.
Bellamy had named Octavia after Augustus' younger sister because he had wanted everyone to know how powerful and noble she was. Even when she had been a baby wriggling in his arms, Bellamy knew that Octavia was meant for the all respect and admiration given to her namesake by Rome - and she had shown them.
O was glorious; her spirit as spit-fire sure as her namesake, her strength of character as true, and her loyalty unwavering. Octavia didn’t remind him of a Grounder, even though she dressed like them and smeared their war paint on her face; to Bellamy, she looked like an Amazon warrior, noble, strong, and true.
It had never been more apparent to Bellamy that he did not emulate his Roman counterpart in that sibling pair. He had failed these kids from the moment they had crashed onto Earth, even before the Grounders could get ahold of them. Bellamy had thought only of his own circumstance, only of what would happen to himself if and when the rest of the Ark followed the delinquents down - and what was worse, he had thought of them all as criminals, all 100, without even entertaining the idea otherwise.
Maybe if Bellamy had spent less time worrying about keeping Octavia away from those he'd considered unworthy and more time concerned with the good of a group of kids, they... Well. Who knew.
What was almost more infuriating than his failings, however, was living at Camp Jaha - at Arkadia, and wasn’t that ridiculous - and seeing what was left of his people be treated as miscreants. Even seated as he was at the entrance to his tent in the early morning, Bellamy saw the clear delineation between the original 100 and the rest of the surviving Arkers - and some of the remaining thirty-seven had parents within the larger group, parents who still kept their distance. They had all been through a traumatic experience, Bellamy thought, rubbing his hands up his face and into his hair, giving it a slight tug; they shouldn't be made to feel like the criminalized Other on a planet they’d been sent to first.
If it weren't for their inexperience - or the fact that most of these kids hadn't been to school since having been locked up - Bellamy would suggest that they leave Arkadia to start their own village. But for all their ingenuity, they were all kids under 18 when they'd been placed on the Dropship, and there were just some things only training and experience could teach.
Bellamy had no doubt that Raven and that new guy, Wick, could have eventually rigged up the communal shower - with hot water, no less - that the Arkers had developed while the fiasco at Mount Weather was unfolding, but it would have been a process of trial and error, a waste of parts and resources in experimentation where they could not afford it.
“Bellamy!” Octavia’s voice broke through his brooding and the domestic noises of the Camp, and Bellamy snapped around to see his sister and Monroe jogging towards him. Bellamy frowned further as he remembered that O and Monroe were the two Delinquents scheduled to cover sentry duty at the gate alongside the Ark’s own rotation. As they got closer, Bellamy could see that they both still had the guns assigned those on sentry duty, and he stood up to meet them.
“Lexa’s finally made her move,” Monroe relayed. “There’s a squad of Grounders that appeared at the Gate, and the girl that spoke,” she continued, glancing at a smirking Octavia as if for confirmation, “asked for you by name, not Abby. We came for you immediately, but a few of the Arkers left at the same time for the Chancellor and Kane.”
There were many benefits to the Delinquents keeping their tents closer to Arkadia’s entrance, and Octavia and Monroe being able to more quickly reach Bellamy than the Ark Guards were able to reach the Chancellor was just one of them.
“Let's go,” Bellamy fell into line between the two women, the three of them walking abreast around the Camp and back to where the Grounders - lead by Echo, Bellamy realized; the woman from the Mountain - stood detained by a mix of Ark and Delinquent guards.
“Echo,” Bellamy nodded at the Grounder in recognition, and cast a wary gaze at the armed warriors that flanked her. “To what do we owe the honor?”
“You helped us in the Mountain,” Echo intoned, her lightly accented English different from Lincoln’s but still clear, “and we of the Azgeda repay our debts. You will have your men back as we had ours, Belomi Blake. That is why we are here.”
“Our men. There are other survivors? Did you find a crash site?”
“Two of the Skaïkru came out from the Dead Zone: Mofi and Jaha. We found no others, but Mofi told us he was yours, and I…” Echo trailed off with a questioning tilt to her head as Bellamy blinked in reaction to her report. “Is this not true?”
“No, it’s true,” Bellamy responded after a pause, digesting the news that Murphy and Jaha were not only alive, but that Murphy had identified himself as one of them. “Murphy is one of us, one of ours.”
Echo looked hard at Bellamy before continuing with a slower intonation. “The Commander has allowed me to be the one to tell you we have found your people, to return them to you as we in the Mountain were returned. The Commander would discuss terms of the treaty made before the Mountain when the Skaikru comes.”
“She’s holding them hostage,” Bellamy said, more an attempt to interpret the meaning behind Echo’s presence than an accusation.
“No,” Echo replied in a calm, firm tone. “Leksa will return your men to you regardless. Their coming from the Dead Zone will lead to thoughts that you are trying to reach an agreement with the Wastelanders,” she continued slowly, “but I do not think this is the case now.”
Echo furrowed her brows and gave Bellamy an assessing up-and-down glance. “I will tell my Queen,” she spoke slowly, as if making a decision as the words came out of her mouth, “what Leksa and her people are saying, but I will also relay what I have seen.” Echo paused again and turned to take in all of Camp Ja - all of Arkadia for the first time. Bellamy watched as a frown developed across Echo’s features while she took in the two camps, the forty-six and the Ark survivors, that made up Arkadia.
“I do not think your people were sent to the outcasts, Belomi Blake,” she commented when her gaze returned to him, “and I will not let my Queen think so either. You will need to be cautious when you speak to the Commander.”
“Thank you for letting us know,” Bellamy acknowledged, already trying to imagine who Abby and Kane would send to meet with Lexa and assessing who of his own people would best help manage the Coalition without losing any footing within their own Camp. The forty-six had been fighting a war on two sides ever since the Mountain, and now the Grounders have come out of hibernation. Bellamy would need Monroe, he thought, but Octavia and Jasper…
“Belomi,” Echo spoke his name sharply, attracting his attention from where it was drifting towards politics and chain of command, as was presumably her desire. “Mofi did not say he belonged to the Skaikru,” she said at a lower volume, “he said he belonged with you.”
Bellamy nodded again and turned, perplexed anew at the personal emphasis but already scanning the gathered crowd for Kane’s face. He had just spotted the elder Miller when he felt what must of been Echo’s hand grab his bicep and he turned to face her again with raised eyebrows.
“They will not thank you for the Mountain, Belomi. You have rescued us and defeated an old enemy, and for that I thank you, but they will not thank you,” she emphasized. “The Kru are gathered under Leksa in name only; what the Commander is attempting is fragile, and Polis is allowing it because they can.”
Echo squeezed her grip on Bellamy’s arm and her gaze flittered between each of his eyes, checking, Bellamy guessed, for his understanding. If things had been different, Bellamy thought as he and Echo stared in calm contemplation of each another, Echo could have been a real friend, and a welcome one at that. Rather than buoying him up, the knowledge of what could have been made Bellamy feel explicitly sad, and Echo’s gaze softened as his fell.
“Polis will not thank you, Belomi,” she repeated herself slowly, her stare turned piercing and direct. “And the Ice Nation will thank you least of all.”
And the thing was, Bellamy understood what Echo wasn’t saying; in a sense, it was something he had known without knowing before she had even said anything. Strategically, the enemy of your enemy was only your friend until the threat was gone - especially when you were the reason that threat was gone. The forty-six and the rest of the surviving Arkers may have had the threads of a treaty with the Coalition, but the control Lexa had over her army was tenuous at best and Polis was bigger than whatever peace Lexa could dream.
Bellamy gave the slightest of nods to Echo,
“Atohl will remain at your gate to escort you to the Commander’s camp,” she said, “I am returning to my Queen from here.” Echo stepped backwards and brought a fist up to her opposite shoulder. “Mebi oso na hit choda op nodotaim,” she said. “May we meet again, Belomi Blake.”
Bellamy watched as Echo turned on her heel and led the warriors that’d accompanied her back through Arkadia; he watched, contemplating her words and the fact that she’d warned him at all, until Echo and the unit under her command exited through the gates and vanished into the forest.
When he could no longer see any trace of the Grounders, Bellamy inhaled deeply through his nose and, upon exhale, turned to head towards where he’d seen Sargent Miller. They had a rescue to plan, or at least an extraction, and he had a feeling he’d need to send one of the forty-six to retrieve Clarke.
======
In the end, Bellamy had sent Mel, who’d taken Sterling’s place in honor of his sacrifice and who was shit at aiming a gun but ace at running through the forest, out ahead to get Clarke. By the time Kane and the Ark crew was ready to go, Mel had had enough time that she and Clarke were waiting along the path Atohl was leading them.
Athol’s presence kept Kane, who Abby sent in her sted, and Clarke from exchanging more than polite greetings and loaded looks. Bellamy and Clarke had said everything that needed saying to each other after the mess of Mount Weather, so it wasn’t until it became apparent that Athol was leading them towards what would remain of TonDC that they exchanged anything beyond the briefest of nods.
Their path through what was TonDC was clear but lined with Grounders from various tribes. Bellamy had another moment’s worry that this had been a trap, something he’d expressed back at Camp, despite his faith in Echo’s good will. Bellamy pursed his lips in remembrance over how his worries - his valid, strategic worries, never mind if he were playing devil’s advocate - had been dismissed because “It’s Thelonious, Blake. Even if it is a trap we still need to know.”
Bellamy at least had back-up from Chief Miller when discussion turned to whether or not they should walk into Lexa’s Camp armed, and he looked towards Miller and Monroe, along with the rest of the guards, now. Everyone in the retainer looked ready without seeming aggressive, and Bellamy relaxed a smidge; their relations with the Grounders since Mt. Weather had been tense, but this, Lexa wanting to meet and returning those she considered Skaikru, was a step towards the positive. Bellamy could appreciate just how poorly the Arkers and forty-six would do against Grounder forces, guns or no, and he didn’t want a war.
Kane and Clarke stepped forward as the group from Arkadia drew closer to Lexa’s war chair, and the figure of the former Chancellor standing alongside it became clear. Jaha’s hands were tied in front of him, Bellamy noted after a quick once-over, but there didn’t appear to be any obvious wounds. Bellamy could tell the moment Kane registered the ex-Chancellor’s presence, and as Councilman called out and hurried his steps further, Bellamy frowned at the distinct lack of Murphy.
“It is good to see you, old friend, and you, Commander,” Kane greeted from where he’d stopped just before Lexa. As a grin stretched across his face, Bellamy could tell that Kane had wanted to embrace Jaha, but common sense and the hand Miller had placed on Kane’s shoulder had encouraged some discretion. At least someone was paying attention to Jaha’s tied wrists, Bellamy thought.
“We thank you, Lexa, for finding and returning our people; they have been missing for quite some time and it is good to see them alive and safe.”
“Alive and safe,” Lexa parroted. “Yes, as you can see,” she used the dagger in her hand to indicate Jaha’s presence beside her, “your people are here. Why they have come from the Dead Zone, we would like to know and these your people,” Lexa stressed, “have refused to answer such a reasonable question. Perhaps you would care to share.”
“We were of the notion that you had rescued our people,” Kane responded in a tone that steamrolled over and ignored Lexa’s insinuations. Bellamy hadn’t shared Echo’s warning with the Ark portion of Arkadia, so either Kane and Abby guessed what Lexa and her War Table would think after finding Sky Crew within the Dead Zone or Kane was being genuine and naive.
“You expect us to believe your people - people we have known came from the Skaikru and not from one of your fallen clusters - wandered purposelessly into the Dead Zone?”
“They had left to find one of what you call our fallen clusters,” Kane lied to Lexa’s face, staring not at her, but at Jaha. “That they return at all - and that you have helped return them to us - is success enough.”
Lexa’s upper lip lifted in a faux snarl, unwilling or unable to call Kane out but clearly disbelieving his story. Using the blade in her hand to once again indicate Jaha, she flicked her wrist in a dismissive motion; “Release him.”
“We were told you had two of our people,” Bellamy said as he side-eyed Jaha’s swift reunion with Kane.
Lexa, who, Bellamy noticed, had been staring at Clarke, turned to Bellamy with a sneer. “Yes, there were two. The second one is a coward,” she spat the word. “Jak honon ot!”
Without much ado, Murphy was little more than drug out into the clearing and shoved at Bellamy. Bell moved so Murphy wouldn’t hit the rifle, but the other still hit hard, landing with an oomph against his chest. Bellamy rearranged his grip on the rifle, wary, now, over the violence, inadvertently enveloped Murphy between his arms with the movement. Though he didn’t look down at the younger teen, Bellamy felt as Murphy’s hands scrabbled for purchase, and he was aware of the other’s body shaking against his own.
"I didn't - I didn't tell them anything, Bellamy!" Murphy choked out, voice thick with panic. "I didn't tell them! They didn't make me! Don't leave - don't leave me,” he let out a soft, wet-sounding moan.
"Shit,” Bellamy glanced down, not wanting to take his eyes off the Grounders, allies or not, but admittedly alarmed. “Murphy? Murphy, snap out of it, I got you - hey!" Bellamy dropped the rifle, trusting the strap to keep it from falling, and grabbed Murphy around his waist as the his legs buckled.
“What did your people do to him, Lexa?” Clarke bit out, addressing the Grounder from where she was perched atop her throne.
“We did nothing,” Lexa growled, tilting her chin up further. “They came to us dry; Nyko was able to treat your other man, but this one,” Lexa gestured, breaking her staring contest with Clarke to turn towards Murphy and locking gazes with Bellamy in the process, “this one refused our aid.”
Bellamy kept eye-contact with Lexa as he shuffled Murphy around in his arms to stand up straight.
“He also,” Nyko interjected, drawing Bellamy's attention as the healer shifted in place, “reacted poorly when we attempted to place him into the prisoner cells and may have hit his head in his struggles.”
Bellamy followed Nyko’s gaze to a grouping of rudimentary stick-and-twine cages, his mind immediately flashing back to when Murphy had told them about his escape from the Grounder camp. These weren’t the same cages - those were probably in the same crater as the rest of TonDC - but they were similar enough, Bellamy reasoned.
Bellamy swallowed hard and remembered how badly beaten and bloody Murphy had been when he’d returned to the Dropship. Bellamy may have been forcibly decontaminated with burning chemicals and hung from his feet to bleed, but the Grounders had methodically tortured Murphy - for days. Bellamy had a visceral flashback to Clarke holding up Murphy’s hands and saying that they had been pulling out his fingernails, and he suddenly wanted to be back at Camp Jaha, finished with this whole charade.
“He has been without water for too long while in the Dead Zone,” Nyko continued; “he did not hit his head hard, but such wounds sometimes disorient people and make them act...” Nyko paused and glanced at Murphy with more than a little disgust, "emotional. But - "
“Is this not also the one we turned traitor to your people?” the woman at Lexa’s side whom Octavia had apprenticed under, Indra, interspersed; “Why do you come for one who betrayed you?”
Murphy, who had been hiding quietly in the crook of Bellamy’s neck, pushed himself harder into Bellamy’s hold and his grip on Bellamy’s jacket turned clutching.
“It is already apparent that the Kongeda and the Skaikru have different views on the punishment of our people,” Clarke prevaricated after sharing a look with Bellamy. “I was led to understand you also wanted to discuss the alliance you broke,” she added. “I’m listening.”
“We are listening,” Kane interjected, “and as I am sent as the Commander’s Second,” he stressed, “it will be me that will discuss our alliance.”
Lexa scowled, clearly unimpressed, but it was a valid comment and followed the Grounder’s societal rules more than their own and she couldn’t argue with it - and nor could Clarke.
“Blake,” Kane commanded, “accompany the former Chancellor and Mr. Murphy back to Arkadia - the former Camp Jaha,” he explained as an aside to Thelonious with a conspiratorial smile. “We thought you would appreciate the illusion.”
“An unspoiled, harmonious utopia,” Thelonious avowed. “I can think of nothing better.”
As Bellamy went to rearrange Murphy into a piggyback, he had to nearly pry the other’s fingers from where they were clenched onto his clothing.
“Lean forward and arms around my neck, Murphy,” Bell murmured. “Clarke?”
“I’m coming with you,” came Clarke’s response, though she kept her gaze locked with Lexa’s. Bellamy had a moment to acknowledge that something loaded was passing between the two before Murphy for once listened unquestionably to an order and the slighter teen’s body was stretched along the entire length of Bellamy’s back.
Sparing the two women an uneasy glance, Bellamy breathed heavily out his nose before he bent at the knees to cross his arms back under Murphy’s thighs and scooped the other up onto his back as Bellamy rose. Murphy kept his head buried in Bellamy’s neck, the shift placing the his mouth underneath Bell’s ear, and with the new hold Murphy’s soft crying and hitching breath reminded Bellamy too much of comforting a younger Octavia.
“We got this. Blake, Thelonious," Kane said, "go, get out of here.”
Bellamy turned to catch Sergeant Miller’s eyes, and, after a quick, reassuring nod from the guard captain, lead the way into the forest without hesitation.