Chapter Text
Bellamy sat by Murphy’s bedside, his head clasped in his hands. His leg ached, and he tried not to think about the circumstances leading up to it. His feelings were too conflicted, too confused, too much. He didn’t want to think about what he had done to Clarke, or to Murphy, or what Clarke had done to him.
A groan slid from Murphy’s lips and Bellamy’s head whipped up. Murphy blinked twice, his expression dour.
“Welcome back,” Bellamy said gently. “How are you feeling? I’m sorry about— I’m really sorry.”
Murphy groaned again. “Fuck off, Blake, you won’t be the end of me. If this planet manages to kill me though, I’m going to be very pissed off.”
Bellamy’s lip quirked up in a half smile that fell rapidly as Murphy attempted to haul himself to sitting. He reached in to help. “Hey buddy, take it easy, okay?”
“Knock it off, mom.” Murphy smacked his hands away and pulled himself the rest on the way up, leaning back against the headboard. “So how’s everybody else doing? Anybody else laid up or do I win?”
"You win, I guess." Murphy pumped a fist in the air and Bellamy sighed, sitting back in his chair. “Emotionally, it’s questionable but physically? Jackson and Miller are awake and fine, Miller got his arm stitched up. Emori has bruised wrists from fighting the restraints but that’s about it. Echo tranqued herself before anything could happen so she’s awake and okay. I’ve got a mild stab wound but it’s been stitched up.”
He paused, his eyes cast down on the ground. Murphy urged him on. “And Clarke?”
Bellamy felt his heart clench in his chest and he shrugged. “She’s doing okay, I assume.”
Murphy’s eyes narrowed. “You assume?”
He nodded. “She has some bruises on her throat and a bit of a cut which I guess is from…” he trailed off, taking a deep breath to steady himself. He turned over his hands, fidgeting uncomfortably. Bellamy continued, “I guess it’s from my nails, or something.”
Murphy rolled his eyes. “You haven’t talked to her? I thought everything was all good and forgiven between you and the princess.”
Bellamy shook his head, tapping his fingers nervously against the chair. It was fine, and is wasn't, all at once. Everything with Clarke was so complicated, all the time. “It is. Or it was, it’s just—”
“A minor stab wound?” Murphy guessed. Bellamy let out a strangled laugh. If there was ever a time when a stab wound was the least of his worries; and honestly, there had been way too many opportunities for that exact situation; it was now.
“Fuck my leg, I deserved it. Murphy, I tried to kill you.” Murphy shrugged in response and Bellamy continued, his voice going soft. “I— I tried to kill Clarke. I almost did it. If you hadn’t stopped me— I watched the light start to leave her eyes. I did that.”
Murphy scoffed and rolled his eyes. “She’s alive, Bellamy. Like we haven’t all tried to kill each other every once in a while. Now you guys are even till next time.”
That wasn’t enough. Not for Bellamy. He lowered his shaking hands to his lap, fighting back guilty tears.
“Besides,” Murphy continued, “If you hadn’t gone off, she’d have just done it herself. God knows she probably would have been successful, too.”
Bellamy’s head jerked up, his eyes flashing. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Everybody else was going nuts trying to off each other.” Murphy waved a hand dismissively. “Clarke was just interested in offing herself.”
No. Bellamy’s chest seized, his body flooding with panic. “What? How do you know?”
“Caught her talking to a radio with the power off, pressing a knife to her throat.” Murphy caught the crazed look in Bellamy’s eyes. “Relax, psycho. I talked her down and she still came riding in to save you, or I guess me as it ended up.”
“But— you’re sure that was what she was doing? Why would it affect her like that but nobody else?” Bellamy’s mind was racing, trying to find explanations. None of them were anything he even remotely wanted to entertain.
“Hell if I know why, but the gesture was pretty hard to misinterpret. I guess I’d better let up on her a little. It’s not the right way for a cockroach to go out.”
“Shut the fuck up, Murphy!” Bellamy snapped, his hand coming down hard on the arm of his chair. He was practically shaking, the fear boiling over into rage. “How can you be so dismissive of this? I’ve let you guys act like she was the bad guy for too long without saying anything, but I’m saying it now. Clarke is our friend, our family, no matter what happened on Earth. She has given everything she has for us, more times than I can count. She makes the impossible decisions because no one else will, and we sometimes hate her for it, but she keeps us alive.”
Murphy's eyebrows lifted, his expression almost amused, and Bellamy hated it. “Oh yeah, Mr. Left-to-die-in-the-pits? How exactly was leaving you to die and working with the enemy supposed to keep us alive?”
Bellamy clenched his fist, shaking his head as if he could push away the words. “I betrayed her by putting the flame in Madi’s head. I left her chained up just like I did when she came back after Polis. I did it to save her, but she couldn’t have known that. She was just trying to protect her family.”
“Oh yeah? I thought we were her family.”
“We are! Or we were. But at that moment, we weren’t acting like it. Madi was all she had, for years. She waited for us, she called me on the radio every day, but we came back and everything went to shit.”
Murphy chuckled and Bellamy shot him a glare. “Don’t act like you weren’t just as happy to see she was alive when we came down. Don’t act like you didn’t mourn her too.”
“I don’t know about just as happy.” Murphy said under his breath. Louder, he continued, “Look, obviously I was glad she hadn’t died to save us? But me and Clarke never had a particularly warm relationship. Let’s not act like she did it for me.”
Bellamy fixed him with a hot gaze. “Clarke cares about you.”
Murphy scoffed. “Fat lot that’s worth. She’s in love with you and she still left you to die.”
Bellamy sucked in a sharp breath and Murphy groaned. “Forget I said that.”
“She’s not—“ Bellamy stuttered, his face red. The air in the room felt like it had gone up a couple degrees. He tried consciously to relax his jaw, and failed. “You’re just speculating.”
Murphy eyed him doubtfully. “Sure, if it makes you feel better. But you know I’m right. And for what it’s worth, you should probably address it at some point. Echo is going to notice eventually.”
“Even if you were right—which you aren’t—why would Echo care how Clarke felt?” Bellamy wrung his hands, his body tense.
Murphy shrugged as if the answer should be obvious.
“Because you’re in love with Clarke too,” he said simply, and Bellamy flinched. He felt guilt, doubt pool heavy in his stomach. It felt wrong to contradict it, when it was so obviously true. It had been a fact of his life for so long, longer than he’d even known Echo. Space was a vacuum, water was wet, and Bellamy Blake loved Clarke Griffin.
He flexed his fingers reflexively, shaking out a fist. His nails had left deep indentations on the palm of his hand. “I love Echo.”
Murphy raised his hands placatingly. “Sure you do. But she’s not Clarke Griffin, and she never will be, and eventually, that’s going to be a problem. Though—“ he paused, a mean smirk curling his lips, “—it probably wouldn’t be as big of an issue if Clarke had actually managed to off herself.”
The slap rang out loud in the silence of the room. Murphy clutched his red cheek and barked out a laugh, watching Bellamy’s back as he stormed through the door. “Ah,” he said. “There he is.”