to_survive | that cold black cloud is comin' round

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that cold black cloud is comin' round

"Clarke! We're out of time."

When the dreams happen, it's like living through the same memories, all the emotion and pain heightened to a sharp point that slices and cuts until Bellamy wakes. He lives those moments over again and it's usually in waking that he remembers they're in the past.

He is very, painfully aware that this is a dream, and it feels much too real.

He remembers falling asleep with an arm around Clarke's waist, her body pressed up against his under her sheets. Gone is the smell of her hair, replaced by the acrid tang of blood and recycled air that he'd come to associate with Mount Weather. The familiar adrenaline rush is back and he recognizes this moment, knows exactly what they're about to do.

The monitors are quiet but he can still see their people trapped as Clarke's mother is drilled for her marrow, can see Octavia on the ground with a gun pointed at her head. Bile rises in the back of his throat as he remembers the words he'd uttered as he watched the screen, knowing if they didn't do this, she would be dead along with all of them.

"Clarke," he says, his hands shaking as he tries to figure out why this is so different, why it feels so real. His body aches and he smells like blood and sweat, singed flesh and fear. The entire control room stinks of it.

He knows what she says next and waits for it, heart in his throat at the idea of having to live this all over again only to wake up with her in his arms and unable to change any of it.

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The kiss nearly undoes him right then and there, an action he wouldn't have expected from this Clarke -- not even in his own messed up dreams. Even if they weren't living through the memory again, changing it somehow, Bellamy would have known something was off by that alone. But he can't stop and ask, can't do anything except get his mind back to the door, to what he has to do in the next few seconds. It shouldn't be difficult. It's just another person he has to put down in order to keep them alive, another life to add to his ever growing list.

He nods when she starts the count, his hand steady as it holds his (stolen) pistol out in front of him, finger on the trigger. The door takes a touch too long to swing open, and though Bellamy can see Emerson the second it's open more than a few inches, the guard is already stumbling back, reaching for his own gun.

Bellamy shoots before the door is open all the way, but the small gap leaves him with little room to aim; when the door opens he can see blood covering Emerson's shoulder, soaking his shirt down his left arm and dripping to the floor where Emerson is sprawled. It's the blood that distracts him, the blood and the half second it takes for the door to open enough to let him through.

Pain shoots through his entire body and he's not even sure where yet; Bellamy's only aware of pulling the trigger again and watching Emerson fall back, making sure the man doesn't move again before he allows himself to fall to his knees.

Someone is screaming.

It echoes off the walls, burns in her ears, and it's moment too long before Clarke realizes that she's the one screaming. A completely useless act in a moment that requires action.

The small part of her still capable of reason thinks of Raven, screaming for Finn.

Rushing forward, she doesn't even think of Monty and the others, so sure that Emerson's stillness means he's no longer a threat. The real problem is in front of her. Sliding down onto her knees in a fluid motion, she grabs Bellamy's shoulders hastily looking for the wound, for something she can fix.

"Bellamy, Bellamy, no, please, I..." she says mostly for herself than for anyone else. "We can do this, we'll triage the injury and then we'll get the others." Running her hand gently along his abdomen, she feels for the tell-tale wetness, trying to not think of the entirely different way that she touched him earlier.

Her forehead touches against his, as she looks into his pained face. "Everything is going to be okay."

Monty's risen to his feet, standing closer to them than not and it isn't until he clears his throat that she remembers him. "What can I do?" he asks.

Clarke doesn't even look at him. "Just tell me what's going on with the others. We're gonna figure this out."

Bellamy's sure he's felt pain like this before, he must have; he's been beaten down and hurt enough since coming to Earth that this experience would have a match somewhere along the way. He's become used to pain on the ground, accepted it as the cost of fighting.

It's Clarke that is totally unexpected-- he knows she's screaming, knows she's talking, knows that she's scared, but he doesn't register much beyond that initial knowledge. The pain is fading into an overall shock, the edges of his vision spotting out and fading slightly into nothing. But he can't stop now, can't allow himself to be brought down before they've gotten everyone out, before he's made sure Octavia is okay.

And Clarke...Bellamy tries to reach for her, vaguely aware of Monty's face beyond hers. But she is all he can see, her words coming back, a memory he's held close. She can't lose him too.

It's all a dream, he remembers. It feels real, terrifyingly so, but he'll wake up and she'll be there beside him and he'll be unable to sleep for days...but he'll wake. And she'll be there. She has to. He can't be the one to bring even more loss into her life.

He wishes he could say something, anything, but everything is fading and he can't see anymore.

"Clarke! We're out of time."

Words keep dying on her lips. There's so much that she wants to say, that she needs to say, but they're stuck. It's too hard to get air into her lungs, let along exhale long enough to say what she needs to say.

Bellamy can't die. Not like this. Not when she needs him still.

Then the world is blurring, going dark and then righting itself again just in time for her to hear Monty say the words that she has memorized by now. Clarke's hands are shaking, tension spilling into her movements.

"You're alive," she says, whisper soft and half-choked as she stares at Bellamy, whole once more. "We're not doing that again."

The sudden change makes Bellamy gasp and reach for his stomach, clutching at the vest and shirt covering his torso, feeling for wetness and a wound that isn't there anymore. Whatever the hell is going on, Bellamy hopes he never has to do that again.

And he hopes he never has to see Clarke like that again-- let alone be the one causing all that pain.

"I'm alive," he repeats, unable to look away from Clarke, not for one second. The look on her face is all he can see, and Bellamy knows that when he wakes, it'll haunt him for a long time to come.

"Where's the radio?" he asks when he finally breaks out of it, forcing himself to look away from Clarke and back over to Monty. He wants to move toward her, to comfort her and be comforted, but Bellamy knows if he does he won't want to leave Clarke's side.

He wants to be back in the apartment, in bed, safe and warm. He doesn't want any of this.

When he reaches the desk Monty's stationed at, Bellamy gives the monitors a glance, trying to remember how long it was before Emerson blew the door. Two minutes? Five at most? Not nearly enough time.

"Can you cut the lights to the lab? That might distract them long enough."

Her breathing is coming in staggered rasps. It's like a boulder is resting on her chest, heart racing, vision blurred. A panic reaction, her brain supplies unhelpfully. There's nothing to do but push through it, eyes fixed on Bellamy's face. Clarke is still staring even as he breaks eye contact, talking to Monty. It brings her back to the moment, reminds her that it is more than just the three of them. That their family is out there in the mountain, all in various states of distress.

They have to do something.

Monty looks at them both confused and wary as he nods. "I can. Give me a second."

Clarke thinks for a moment. "Also try releasing the door locks. If they're distracted, it might give time for some of our people to get out."

Bellamy's eyes are on the monitors again, the scenes replaying exactly as he remembers them. Abigail on the table. Jasper working his cuffs to get free. Octavia and Maya on the floor.

He nods at Clarke's suggestion, looking back at her with the weight of knowing she'd screamed and cried for him as he died. That he caused that sort of pain. Bellamy intends on never doing that again, if he can.

"Cut the lights, Monty. We need to stop Emerson now."

Maybe it won't stop him entirely, but it'll buy them a little bit of time.

Something solid and made of steel is forming in the pit of her stomach. It's stomping out the queasy twist of her stomach, the sense of overwhelming doom. This has to work. There isn't much time left.

There isn't much left in Clarke that could stomach who she could lose next.

Monty nods and in seconds, the lights go dark on all the screens in front of them. A ragged exhale of relief escapes her, just a moment too soon as the lights in the surgery flicker back on moments later.

"Shit," she curses softly. "They must have back up generators."

Bellamy echoes Clarke vehemently. They can't stay here and watch Jasper die on that screen, because that is exactly what's going to happen if he's stupid enough to try to kill Cage himself in front of all those guards. But they're running out of options.

Emerson's screen doesn't light up, though Bellamy isn't sure if that's a good sign or not. He knows the guard must have a flashlight in his vest if it's equipped with the same items as the one he's wearing, but they can't take the chance that he's gone. Bellamy is not opening that door again unless he must. He'd rather go out like the first time, barely understanding what's going on and not having to look Clarke in the face as he dies, or knowing she's going to die.

This is fucked up. All of this, everything in this dream is beyond fucked up.

He hears Monty say something and immediately turns his eyes back to the only source of light on the screens. The harsh lamps focused on Abigail are just enough to illuminate the rest of the room, and it's not hard to imagine what happens, especially when a silent muzzle flash lights up the edge of the screen before everything stills.

A dark figure stands over Abigail again, and Bellamy imagines he can hear the drill going, even though the only sound filling his ears is his own ragged breathing.

Clarke doesn't cry out.

Her mouth opens, the air getting caught in her lungs as she watches the scene with Abby unfold. She might have a lot of issues with her mother, but Abby is the one parent that she has left. This isn't how she deserves to go. How any of them deserve to go, tied up like lab rats and used to exploit some crazy asshole's big plan.

That damn generator. That generator is letting them cut into her mother, to kill her, messy and bloody and full of pain, just as Jasper goes for Cage. There's a desperate guard outside their door, pushing to get in.

In one of the other darkened screens, she can see the outline of movement. Her mind picks out that it was the one where Maya and Octavia had been shown. "Monty, can we get just those lights in the hall turned on?"

To Monty's credit, he does what he's asked. From his spot behind Monty, Bellamy can see he's shaking and is probably ready to fall apart at the seams, but he listens and keeps moving, as though it's the only thing that will keep him together.

It probably is. Bellamy would be doing the same, for the same reasons. He gives Monty's shoulder a squeeze, feels the boy go rigid beneath his hand, and he wonders what the point of all this is. Living through all these variations of how terrible being in Mount Weather had been -- for what?

There's more movement on Abigail's screen and Bellamy moves over to Clarke's side, his arm touching hers as he stands there and watches with her. He wants to reach out and take her hand, to pull her close, but that's not what happens here. Even though none of this is supposed to happen, he knows this Clarke doesn't feel the same. She might accept his comfort, but it wouldn't feel right.

Nothing is going the way Clarke wants it to. The lights, or lack there of, do little to deter Cage and his surgeons. She doesn't need audio to be piped in from the surveillance feeds to know the sound of a medical drill. Her blood runs cold on memory alone.

Something has to give. One of the choices they make must work.

"Please," she mumbles, eyes fixed on the screen, begging to a god that doesn't exist or certainly can't hear her. Cage is looking directly at the screen as the surgeons go for Abby, Jasper fruitlessly trying to escape only to be fired it.

She winces.

"We have to do something," Bellamy says, even though they already have multiple times, even though he knows the one way this works out is the last thing he wants to put Clarke through even in a dream. There has to be some way to fix it all, or to at least leave the mountain with most of their people, scattered as they are.

But there's no way he can think of to save them all. They've tried.

"We have to," he repeats, and that's when dim emergency lights finally flicker on, running off whatever backup of a backup generator is out there. It paints their skin sickly green and the monitors light up again, each screen familiar. Emerson is gone, finally leaving them a way out, but they're still separated, still levels away from everyone else.

Movement on one screen catches his eye almost immediately; all Bellamy sees is Octavia fighting back, but she can't be doing that, it's just her against all those people, just her and Maya and he barely watches her go down before he's headed for the door.

Not Octavia. Not while Bellamy still has breath left in his lungs.

Edited 2016-01-21 22:02 (UTC)

"What's even left?" Clarke wonders aloud, knowing all too well what option is left. They've tried everything else short of teleporting or sliding through the vents, neither of which are particularly reasonable at the moment if ever.

This is not a scenario in which everyone lives.

Her stomach aches at that realization. She's never felt quite so doomed, not even as she was preparing to slide the knife between Finn's ribs. That, at least, was an act of kindness in its way.

Eyes moving from camera to camera, she waits, processing on borrowed time. Emerson's absence is an illusion. He'll be back. He'll be successful.

Then it lands on the screen that must be killing Bellamy. "Octavia, what is she doing?"

"Goddammit," Bellamy snarls when his hand slips, and he hits the door with the side of his fist before getting back to undoing the locking mechanism. They're so safely locked in that it makes getting out difficult.

"She's being a Grounder," he answers Clarke, his voice raised with anger -- not at Clarke or Octavia, but at the fact that any of this is happening at all.

It's hard to work the door and watch the screen at the same time so he looks back every other second, sees Octavia surge up and take out one of the guards in short flashes of blurry action with each time he looks back until he finally sees her go down.

And she doesn't get back up.

Her nerves are already too frayed to really be upset at Octavia's actions. After the neverending loop of dying or watching others die, watching Bellamy's sister fight like that makes weird amounts of sense. Octavia isn't the girl who grew up under a floor anymore.

"We should," Clarke stops herself, shaking her head as she goes back to watching the screens. "Good for her."

A throb aches at her temple, pulsing from adrenaline and anger and fear. "Do we have any options left?"

"Screw the options." His hands are slick with sweat and they're trembling as he fumbles with the lock again, all of it feeding into the frustration and fear that lances through him every time he thinks of Octavia surrounded by guards and their guns.

She's become an excellent fighter, a true Grounder in her own right, but she's not invincible.

"I'm getting my sister."

Bellamy doesn't look back at the screen, focusing instead on the door in front of him. He doesn't want to look back and see the fight is over; he doesn't want to even chance it until he can get to her.

"Bellamy!" Clarke tears her attention away from the screen, from Octavia's fight, from her mother being ground into. There's too much going on, a pounding in her head that threatens to engulf her.

"Bellamy, stop," she urges. Octavia can hold her own, but she's outnumbered. As much as she wishes there was any other way, the best choice is the one attached to the lever. "Don't leave. We can stop this. I can stop this."

She nods to Monty. "We're ready, aren't we?" Monty nods his ascent. "Yeah. Just need to open the vents."

Taking a deep breath, she grabs ahold of the lever. "Bellamy. I can save her from here."

It's not until she says his name a third time, just as he finally feels the door latch release, that Clarke's words penetrate his panicked fog. Bellamy wants to keep going, wants to run down the hall and kill anyone in between himself and Octavia, but his arms go limp with the realization of what Clarke's saying.

"You don't have to," he tells her even though he's let go of the door, even though his eyes are on her hand on that lever and he knows his hand belongs on top of hers. "Clarke, you don't..."

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that cold black cloud is comin' round

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