Rust and Stardust

Footsteps rang hollow through the dim halls, echoing back like a spectral chorus, the only sound to shatter the mausoleum silence that pressed in on him from all sides. It was almost as though he was meant to walk quieter, step softer, so as not to disturb the hush that had rested here for the past year. It was always too quiet in this place for his taste. His own thoughts were becoming much too loud to ignore. The heavy silence a deafening reminder of just how few of them now resided on the station. It was in stark contrast to how full it had always felt before – full to the point of being suffocating and claustrophobic. It used to be so loud, so busy, and now was nothing more than a ghost town. The silence was unending, but made all the worse at night when the others had retreated to their own rooms, ready for bed and solitude, leaving him on his own. He wished that he too could simply crawl into bed and slip away from reality for a few hours, but it never quite worked out that way. Often, he found himself pacing his apartment. Pacing the halls. Walking the patrol that was once promised to him. Anything to keep himself occupied during those late night hours. It never seemed to do any good. His bottle clanked along beside him, the only comfort he had so far found on nights like these. Even though they had only been on Earth a short while – not even a year – it had become more of a home than this metal ring had ever felt. He missed it. Even more, he missed those he had left behind. He missed Octavia. Just thinking about his sister, so far away and underground in that bunker, caused a sharp pain in his heart. She was trapped again, just like she had been for all her childhood years in the floor of their apartment. Just like she had been when she had been found. Maybe it was that thought that had compelled him to come here to the Sky Box, to see where she had been locked away before making the journey to the ground. Well, that and a fifth of some very old scotch.

It wasn't much, really. The way the stories went, Bellamy was expecting to find a shop of horrors when he entered the Sky Box. To find a desolate, desperate looking place. Everyone who had ever lived on the Ark had heard all of the stories about the Sky Box; the terrible things that happened if you were ever unlucky enough to be sent here. It was supposed to be a place of violence. Of fear. Rations were withheld and there was no such thing as basic human dignity for those who were housed here. So the stories went, anyway. The one part that every tale shared, the one part that not one person ever doubted, was the utter misery this place caused. Even now, empty and long abandoned, Bellamy could feel the despair emanating from the walls. Despite all that, the Sky Box really didn't live up to all the tales that were whispered. It was just some small rooms, separated away from the rest of the station – or what was left of it anyway. To him, it felt no different than living in Factory Station. Even as he wandered down the various aisles, looking for his sister's cell, he had a hard time imagining this place being any worse than the way anyone on the lower stations used to live. That was, until he found the cell that once belonged to his sister.

It was on one of the upper levels, tucked towards the back almost completely out of sight. He should have known that it would be near a guard post – his sister was sure to have drawn a great deal of attention – attention that could quickly turn to riots and chaos if not kept under a watchful eye. Even up close the cell seemed unimpressive in comparison to the way it had always been described before. Bellamy leaned against the wall as his fingers traced out Octavia's name in the thick layers of dust that had accumulated there. It was strange to see her name like this and have it feel so very disconnected from not only himself, but her as well. This was his sister, her history and where she had ended up, written out in front of him – but he could not find any trace of her here. To him this place didn't have anything to do with Octavia anymore. But still, he wanted to see just what this place had put her through. It took a few moments of hesitation before Bellamy could bring himself to pull back the small sliding window and look through the bars behind it. When he saw how small the cell really was, his breath caught in his throat; the cells were so much smaller on the inside than they appeared from the halls. There was barely enough room for the two beds that were stacked against the back wall. Some might have thought that it was a step up from living under the floor, but seeing this proved that it absolutely wasn't. There was barely space to breathe in that cell. There was no family here – no love. Just a cold isolation. He couldn't explain it, but Bellamy suddenly wanted – needed – to see the cell from the inside. See what Octavia had to look at every single day that she was in here. When he pulled at the door, however, he found it locked up tight. He tried again and again, desperately hoping that maybe it was just stiff from disuse. It was definitely locked. If he had taken the time to check any of the other doors, he would have found that every door in the cellblock, and probably the entire Sky Box, had remained locked tight.

With a sigh, Bellamy slid down the wall, slumping against the floor with nothing but his scotch as comfort. He took a pull off the bottle, and another two for good measure, disappointed that this visit was all for nothing. It brought him no comfort. No closure. He wasn't sure that was what he was actually looking for, or if it was something he could have ever found here, but still he did not find it. If the floor hadn't been so uncomfortable, the cellblock so dismal, Bellamy may have stayed there, a pathetic mess on the ground, for the rest of the night. But even just seeing these grey walls reminded him of how close he had been to his sister's fate – if he had been just a few years younger. Or his mother's fate, if he hadn't been part of the guard to begin with – hadn't been given that small level of courtesy. He did not want to wallow in self-pity in a place like this – he wouldn't give it the satisfaction. With not a small deal of effort, Bellamy pushed himself back up off the floor, careful not to spill a drop from his bottle, and staggered away from his sister's cell. His footsteps echoed louder down the corridor on this pass through; his steps heavier than they were before. Or maybe it just seemed that way. This time there was no clanking of the bottle; it rarely strayed from Bellamy's mouth, causing a distinct sway in his gait. Bellamy had no specific destination in mind anymore as he wandered and staggered through the Sky Box, but it seemed to be vaguely back towards home. Or at least, the room he'd claimed as his own since returning to the ring of the Ark. It certainly wasn't home to him.

He may have even gone back to that small, isolating room if he hadn't spotted one cell with its door still unlocked – wide open and all but beckoning him. The curiosity was too much to ignore and Bellamy found himself wandering to the other cellblock and towards that open cell door. He passed below a sign that hung from the ceiling: Solitary Confinement. This was where the most dangerous of the delinquents were thrown when they came to the Sky Box. Those who couldn't play well with others. Or wouldn't. There was a time when he believed his sister would end up here, kept away from all the others to prevent the chaos that her story was sure to create here. The Sky Box was never a good place to end up, but at least Octavia had been allowed to visit with others, to leave her cell from time to time. In solitary, she would have been lucky to see the person who delivered her meals through the small slot in the door. Bellamy had counted his lucky stars that his sister never ended up in solitary – he knew that it had always been a looming threat for her. If she hadn't been sent to Earth, it would probably have only been a matter of time. This was where most of the nightmare tales came from and Bellamy knew firsthand that some of those sent to the ground had more than deserved to be in solitary. But within seconds of entering the open cell door, he knew that this person hadn't earned that place in solitary. The person sentenced to live in this cell was dangerous not because they were violent or a high risk prisoner. No, the danger came from knowledge – from knowing something that was never supposed to be found out. That needed to be kept a secret. It was because The Council was afraid of what this small seventeen year old had discovered and what she would do with that information.

This cell belonged to Clarke.

Bellamy stood in the door way, eyes wide in awe as he looked around the cell. Of course this was Clarke's cell. Who else would cover every available surface with charcoal drawings? How she got a hold of any type of art supply while she was in here was beyond Bellamy – but he had a sneaking suspicion that Abby had something to do with it. His gaze traced over every bit of art that covered the walls of the cell – even the floor and parts of the ceiling – a sad smile finding its way onto his lips. He found himself lost in the swirls of the universe. The waves of the ocean. Impossibly tall trees and cascading waterfalls. Twinkling stars and imagined thunderstorms. The dreams and wishes of a girl that felt a lifetime and a universe away. He followed the patterns around the room, his eyes finally landing on the view the small blonde had from her room: Earth.

Except it wasn't the same view that she had seen. What was there now was a dull orb, a husk of what it once was. Burned and dying and dead. The Earth that Bellamy could see was nothing more than shades of brown and grey and black. It had taken the death wave mere seconds to burn away all of the beauty that had once been Earth. Everything they had hoped for as they read book upon book upon book that described the beautiful world that was once their people's home. Now there was nothing left. Even from up here, Bellamy could see the destruction that had swept across the world. He and Raven had watched as it moved and consumed the last of the thriving planet. But he knew that was nothing compared to what it must have looked like on the ground. To see a wall of radiation cross the land, destroying everything in its path. He could only imagine what it would have been like to watch everything crumble and burn and turn to ash. It would have all happened so fast. In just an instant the Earth became uninhabitable again. The air turned toxic and unbreathable. The water turned sour and undrinkable. Any sources of food that had once been available now gone. The Earth was no longer able to support life. They had fled before that had happened because it was the only means left for survival. Anyone – anything – left on Earth and not safely behind bunker walls couldn't have possibly survived. He knew what that meant.

They had waited as long as they could, but they had simply run out of time. If they had waited any longer, then no one was going to get out of there alive. Even still, Bellamy wanted to stay. To wait. He would have waited forever. It wasn't just his own life that he would have been forfeiting though. It would have been Raven's. Monty's. Harper's. Murphy's. Emori's. Echo's. He could never have asked that of them. But if it had just been Bellamy, just him waiting with that ship, he never would have left without Clarke. Even if it meant that neither of them made it out safely, at least they would have been together. He had meant it, with all of his heart, that he refused to be on that list if she wasn't too. Instead he had abandoned her. He had left her to…Bellamy took another drink from his bottle, the liquid burning down his throat. All he could think about was what she must have thought, how she must have felt, watching the tail of the rocket streaking through the air – without her. Knowing that it meant that she was on her own. Completely alone. And yet she still did what she was out there to do. Even with the threat of the death wave looming over her, even knowing that she would never make it to the safety of the Ark, she still managed to get that door open for them. She saved them. Even after they abandoned her, she did all that she could to save them. Because of course she did. She's Clarke. And he left her behind. If, by some miracle, she managed to get back to the lab, he knew that it was too late. It would never be enough to withstand the radiation that was coming for her. Even before she had ventured out again, he had seen first-hand as the radiation sickness had started to take its toll. He knew what that meant.

Looking at Earth, seeing what it was now, knowing what it was like now, he knew that she was…Another gulp from his bottle of scotch. Enough to dull the pain that was starting to throb in his mind. Bellamy pinched the corner of his eyes in an attempt to stave off the impending exhaustion. He let himself sink to the floor, using the edge of Clarke's old bed as a support. Even from here, he couldn't tear his eyes away from the view out of that window.

But it wasn't always this way. There was a comfort in knowing that there was a time when the view out of this window was more than what Bellamy was seeing now. That it was beautiful enough to inspire her and keep hope alive. The Earth was more than what it was now: it had been alive. The Earth that Clarke had seen was vibrant. The oceans all brilliantly blue, sparkling and rolling and punctuated by warm greens on the land. It looked like a sanctuary from this metal prison. It looked like a paradise that was just waiting for them to return. Bellamy could only imagine how many hours Clarke had spent staring out at that marble, dreaming and daydreaming of the life that could await her there. The evidence of her love of Earth was everywhere around him as he sat on the floor. There was some solace in knowing that, no matter what happened or what horrors they had faced, Clarke had seen her dream become a reality. She had seen Earth up close. She had waded in those waters and traversed that land. There had been sun on her face and fresh air breathed. The crisp night air had brought shivers to her skin and she had felt the warmth of the sun. Heard the leaves rustle in the breeze and watched the clouds roll across the sky. She had made a life there – a home. She had made it.

God he couldn't even imagine how she had felt – the lightness in her heart – when she had first set foot on the ground. After staring at Earth for so long and dreaming of the day that she might get a chance to see it up close. It had always been maintained that the people of the Ark would return to the ground one day, but no one really believed that day would come. Certainly no one had believed that they would be alive to see it. And yet, it had happened. She had seen sunrise and sunset and everything in between. She had watched as the sky was painted colours that they had only read about in books – more vibrant than anything they had ever seen on the Ark. He remembered the way she had stared up at the sky, watching in awe and wonder as the stars twinkled and glistened in the night sky, seeing a whole new side to the space that had been their home for all their lives. Every night going out to see what it looked like as the moon passed through different phases, a spectacle to behold. For all the books they had read about Earth, none of them had even come close to describing what they would experience there. Every day was something new and exciting to see. To feel. He didn't even have to wonder if Earth had lived up to all the expectations that she had - all around him he could see evidence of the hope she'd had, and he knew that she had seen it and felt it and lived it. He knew it had been everything and more. Bellamy stared at the Earth through her window and tried to imagine, even just for a moment, that it was still that same Earth that Clarke and seen and watched and loved.

"You make it sound like it was so perfect down there."

The sound of another voice ringing through the darkness startled him. He knew that voice without hesitation, and it made his heart leap into his throat before plummeting to his stomach. He reeled back to see the small blonde sitting with her legs crossed, feet tucked in below her, like she was completely at home on the small bed. Her blonde hair was loose around her face. Her skin was perfect – unmarred by the battles she had faced. There was a twinkle of youth and innocence in her eyes, something that had been stripped from her within hours of landing on Earth. It was incredible just how real she looked – like he could reach out and touch her. Wrap his arms around her. Like maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't vanish as soon as he got close. She looked at him with that infuriating and so quintessential smirk on her face before turning her gaze back to the window he had been staring out. It was all so casual. Nonchalant. It was as if she was oblivious to how strange the situation was.

"But I guess, compared to this, it was," Clarke said with a sadness in her voice as she stared at the Earth.

"Yo-you're not really here," Bellamy said, only a slight slur to his words.

Clarke laughed, "very astute, Bell. Well done. I'm not real."

He didn't understand. Was this a manifestation of his guilt? A sign that he'd had too much to drink? Not enough sleep? There was no other explanation as far as he could tell. If he was being realistic, he would recognize it as a sign that he was actually losing his goddamn mind. Regardless, Bellamy wasn't stupid; he knew that seeing Clarke wasn't a good thing. It wasn't real. He should, if he were to listen to common sense, put the bottle down, get up, and go back to his room and go to bed. Whatever ghost or hallucination he was seeing would be gone in the morning. He could pretend that this all never happened and never say anything about this to anyone. That was the smart thing to do. But, god, he couldn't help but want to stay here. With her. He wanted to stay and commit every little detail of her to memory – all those things that he had taken for granted while they were on Earth. The crystal blue of her eyes. The curve of her lips. The cute dimple in her chin. The way should could look at him – so annoyed he thought she would kill him – but in the next moment like he was her lifeline. He wanted to see how, when she smiled, her eyes would light up and small creases would form around her lips. He wanted to see how her golden hair would shine when the light hit it, and how she'd brush it off of her face with an annoyed huff. He wanted to hear her laugh, a sound that he hadn't heard enough of back on Earth. He wanted to hear her voice – spend all night talking with her just to hear it a little longer. He wanted, he wanted, he wanted. He wanted her to be here.

Bellamy had thought about this moment ever since they had landed back on the Ark – thought about what he'd say to Clarke if he ever saw her again. All the things he had left unspoken on the ground. All the apologies he owed her. All the times he should have thanked her, but never did. There was so much to say and it was all too late. But now? With her sitting right next to him, or as close to her as he may ever be again, it was like all those thoughts just simply vanished. He just wanted to sit and listen to her. Talk things out. Of all the things he missed, he hadn't realized until right this second how much he missed her voice. Her voice of reason. Her calm, logical way of thinking. His balance. He wanted, more than ever, to have her by his side – leading together. How many times since he had been up here had he wanted to consult her? How many times had he started to say let's see what Clarke thinks before remembering that he didn't have that option anymore? It made him regret all the times that he had refused to listen to her. Argued with her just to drown her out. All the time and energy he had wasted fighting with her before they'd realized that they were better together. Stronger. He should have said all these things out loud when he had the chance. He was faced with that opportunity now, but he couldn't find the words. Instead he just kept staring at her, afraid to blink in case she vanished.

"I'm sorry," he finally said.

Clarke furrowed her brows, "for what?"

"For leaving you."

"You did what you had to do for our people to survive. That is exactly what I wanted you to do, and you know that," Clarke smiled as she spoke.

Bellamy felt a lightness in his chest at merely seeing that familiar reassuring smile. It was another one of those things, those quintessentially Clarke things, that he hadn't realized he was taking for granted until it was suddenly gone. He hadn't realized how much comfort it had granted him when she would just look at him as if to say it's all going to be okay. There wasn't much reassurance or comfort to be found in this smile, though. No matter what it looked like, or how convincing it was, Bellamy had to remind himself: this wasn't real. This wasn't actually Clarke saying anything – it was his own brain saying exactly what he wanted to hear. Ever since they had shut that rocket's door, even before they had taken off, Bellamy had regretted his decision. He wanted to take it all back. More than anything, though, he wanted to know that she forgave him for abandoning her. But this wasn't going to do any good.

"You'd think I'd be used to this by now. This whole being separated thing," Bellamy sighed, taking another drink from his bottle. "It's nothing new."

"This isn't the same though, is it?"

It was like a wave crashing over him as he remembered each time he had thought that he would never see Clarke again. Every time he had thought that he was going to lose her. When the grounders had infected them. When she had been lost in the acid fog storm. When she had been taken by the Mountain Men. When he had infiltrated the Mount Weather. After the Mountain, when she couldn't bear to stay anymore. In Polis, when she chose to stay behind and work with Lexa. Each time, Bellamy had been left with a dull ache in his heart as a result of the desire to say something, anything, to her to let her know all that he was feeling – but saying nothing at all. He remembered, with perfect clarity despite the scotch that was currently warming him from the inside, how it felt when, against all odds, they found each other again. For as long as Bellamy lived, he would never forget the pure joy and relief the moment when Clarke, battered and bruised and barely able to stand, ran into his arms across the clearing of Camp Jaha. It was that, and all those other moments, that left Bellamy with hope. Hope that there was another reunion on their horizon. There had to be, because their story wasn't over yet. It couldn't be. He need one more chance to get it right.

"What do you mean?" He asked, already knowing the answer that was coming.

"Because I'm dead, Bellamy. You know that."

There was that word, the one that he had been avoiding and ignoring. He refused to think it let alone say it out loud. No one else had dared speak it aloud either, at least not while he was around. It was said in hushed whispers, all with a look of humiliating pity for Bellamy. Hearing it now took a toll on him, more than he had expected. That word was the heaviest it had ever been. It sucked the air out of his lungs and formed a pit in his stomach. His heart stopped and struggled to continue to beat. He felt sick, and for once it had nothing to do with the nearly empty bottle that he was still clutching in his hands. The view of Clarke, struck by cold sweats and talking like it was the end, came screaming into his mind. She had been on borrowed time from the moment she took her helmet off to save Emori, and they both knew it. Even if she had made it back in time to board that rocket, there was no guarantee that she would have survived. But maybe the Nightblood had worked – maybe she survived that. It was a long shot, but if Clarke had taught him anything, it was that sometimes long shots worked out. There was no doubt, though, that the death wave – Praimfaya – was absolute in its destruction. He knew that because he had watched the Earth die from a window on the Ark. He had watched as it burned. There could be no miracle in that case. He knew what that meant.

"…I know," he said, his voice smaller than ever.

Bellamy closed his eyes against the small blonde. He was desperate to hold onto this image of Clarke without any signs of the damage that Earth had done to her. Desperate to keep her voice strong in his mind, to hear her say his name again. Desperate to commit every detail to memory, never to be lost.

When he opened his eyes again, he was unsurprised by what he saw. Nothing. She was gone. Vanished like she had never been there at all. Because she wasn't. And yet, it still stung as though she had been real.

"Please be wrong. Please be alive," he whispered to the darkness. His eyes spilled over as he looked towards the Earth. He begged and pleaded again. "Please."

Iiiiii want to start off by saying I'm not sure I'm happy with how this came out. I've been writing a lot of dark angsty stuff lately and it's been taking it's toll. That being said, this story has been on my mind for almost a year now and it wouldn't leave me alone until I posted it. I pictured this coming out a little differently, but I'm not even sure how I pictured it anymore =/ Soooooo I may end up taking it down and editing the hell out of it...but for now, here it is. A not-quite-a-drabble-but-close-enough focusing on the feelings that Bellamy has had since leaving Earth. Some hints of Bellarke feelings, but not the focus - it's more guilt than anything.