The days after the storm passed in the way hard days passed when there was work to be done — slowly at first, and then all at once.
Finn was recovering. Lily had watched him silently for three days, making sure that he was not sweating, and that his skin wasn't getting paler. But he wasn't. The morning after they gave him the antidote he had woken up, and the day after he had moved back in his tent. He was walking, but slowly and he couldn't make big or rush moviments, but at least he was alive.
Octavia of course had recovered faster. The antidote had worked immediately on her, and even after at the beginning she didn't want a medication on her arm, Clarke had been able to convice her to let her bandage her.
Lily had been observing both Octavia and Finn with a fear she couldn't entirely reason away. The Grounder had indicated the vial — his eyes moving toward it, that small nod — but she had lain awake two nights wondering if it had been a lie. If he had pointed them toward something that would finish what the poison had started. But Finn had improved. And Octavia had healed. And eventually, Lily had accepted that the Grounder had told the truth.
She had thought about that, in the quiet moments between tasks. Why?
He had held silence through everything, had given them nothing, had endured what he endured without breaking. And then Octavia had knelt in front of him with blood running down her arm, and something had changed. Lily couldn't explain it. She had turned it over a dozen times and hadn't arrived at an answer that satisfied her, it only managed to make her think again at what they did to the man. So eventually she had surrendered that for some reason the Grounder cared about Octavia.
They are humans too, after all, she told herself.
The practical work had helped. In the aftermath of the storm there was an enormous amount to do — fallen branches, uprooted stakes, tents collapsed or torn, the wall in several places needing repair, the path to the river blocked by a tangle of debris that took most of a morning to clear. Lily had thrown herself into it with a gratitude she hadn't expected to feel. Her hands had blisters by the second day. Her shoulders ached. She slept those nights with a heaviness that left no room for anything else — no dreams, no spiraling, just dark and then morning. She was grateful for that too.
The communications tent had been Raven's doing. She had rigged the equipment herself — repurposed components, careful wiring, a setup that had taken two days to get working reliably — and now there was a schedule. Slots for each of the hundred who had someone to speak to. Slots for those who had lost someone, where the Ark's representatives offered what little they could. Clarke spent more time there than anyone, working through the ongoing problem of the Grounders with Jaha and the Council.
Lily had not requested a slot.
She stood outside the tent sometimes, listening to the low murmur of voices from inside, the occasional crackle of static. She knew Marcus must had been told they were alive. She had imagined, despite herself, what he might have done with that information — whether he had stood very still, whether he had let anything show on his face, whether the knowledge that she was alive had moved him at all.
He'll never reach out, she told herself, doing it meant that he had to ask for a slot to someone else. Even if Marcus had given her a job, he rarely wanted to be seen with her. So Lily was sure that this time was not different. Marcus had his precious Ark to make work, that was all he cared.
She turned away from the tent and went back to work.
It was Jasper who found her later that morning, wandering into the medical tent with his hands in his pockets and the expression of someone looking for something to do. She put him to work immediately — grinding bark, measuring water, holding things steady while she strained infusions through cloth — and he submitted to it cheerfully, peering into the bowls with an expression of professional interest.
"This is not different from making moonshine," he said, studying the mixture with narrowed eyes.
Lily looked up from the cloth she was wringing. "No," she said. "This is just a little more useful."
"Useful?" He drew back, mock-offended. "Giving my friends a way to have a good time is useful."
"My bad," she said, laughing despite herself. "You're right."
He grinned. "And besides, Monty and I found some berries just outside the wall. We'll go get them once he's done talking to his parents."
Lily's hands slowed for a moment. She thought of her mother, of how she talked when she was tired but still wanted for Lily to listen to a story before sleeping, the way she would sit at the edge of Lily's cot when she had nightmares and speak very quietly until the fear went away. She thought of how she had always manged to make Lily see things from another perspective. Lily wished once more for her mother to be alive. She needed her voice, her arms around her, she needed to know what she would have made of all of this. Whether she would have had words for it that Lily hadn't found yet.
She set the cloth down.
"Have you talked to your parents?" she asked, looking at him.
Jasper's smile faded. He looked down at his hands. "No, I... I don't have anyone anymore."
"I'm so sorry, Jasper." She touched his arm lightly. "I know what it means."
He was quiet for a moment. Then he looked up, and she could see him reaching for something — some version of himself that could hold the weight of it without collapsing under it. "But we've got each other now, right?"
Lily nodded her head. "Right," she said, and meant it.
He seemed to hold onto that. "So you'll have some moonshine tonight?"
"Alright." She rolled her eyes. "Just a sip. And I'm not going to pretend I like it if I don't."
He laughed, and they went back to work, and for a little while the tent smelled of crushed bark and warm water and something almost like an ordinary afternoon.
When Monty appeared at the entrance, Lily could tell from his expression that his conversation with the Ark had gone as well, he had a relieved smile on his face, and there was not pressure in the way he carried himself.
She began gathering the empty jars while Jasper reached for his jacket.
"Miller is coming with us?" she heard him ask to his friend.
"No," Monty answered with his hands in the pockets of his jacket. "He's busy talking to the parents of who died." Lily turned at those words, and she noticed Jasper doing the same.
"Bellamy not going to talk to the Diggs family?" Jasper asked, glancing toward the communications tent.
Monty shook his head. "Apparently he's guarding the Grounder."
Jasper seemed surprised. "I thought he'd be the one to go."
"Apparently no," Monty said simply, and there was something careful in his voice, the way there was when someone was keeping the full shape of a thought to themselves.
Lily said nothing. But she heard it, and she thought about it after they left — about the way Bellamy had been moving through camp since the storm, or not moving, really. Retreating. He was still present, still giving orders when orders were needed, still showing up where the work was hardest. But the third level of the dropship had become something like a retreat for him, and there was a quality to his stillness up there that had nothing to do with vigilance. Clarke had tried to convince him to speak with Jaha, but he refused each time she asked. Lily knew what fear looked like on him now, and she knew he was scared.
She packed up the last of the infusions, filled two cups with water, and went to find him.
Jake was standing near the dropship entrance when she arrived.
"Do you know where Bellamy is?" Lily asked with a little smile.
"Third level," he said. "With the Grounder."
"Thank you." She was about to go, when she noticed a kind of shadow in his eyes. "Hey, is everything alright?"
Something passed across his face — not quite pain, but adjacent to it. A small, tired smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Just a bit sad that's all," he said, glancing at the tent where they put the radio and Lily didn't need to ask anything else. Her heart sank when she observed him turn and walk away.
She stood there a moment, watching him go. She thought of all the people she had seen carry that particular expression — the one that came with loss that the Ark had caused and the Ark would never account for. It was so common among the hundred that sometimes she almost stopped seeing it. And then she saw it again, fresh, on someone's face, and it hit her all over again.
Marcus, she thought, with the familiar heat rising in her chest. How did you not see it? How could you look at all of this and call it order?
She pushed the thought away, tightened her grip on the two cups, and started up the ladder.
The hatch was open. She came through it slowly, not wanting to startle him, and found Bellamy sitting on a crate facing the Grounder. He wasn't doing anything, he was just sitting. His elbows were resting on his knees and his gaze fixed somewhere that had nothing to do with the room. His eyes were bright in the dim light. There was not anger in them, she noticed, but she could see he was thinking.
"Hey," she said softly.
He turned. He didn't try to mask what she had seen, which she took as something. "What are you doing here?" in his voice there was no harshness which pushed her to go.
"I thought you might use some company." She held up the cups. "I brought you some water. And — for him too," she added, nodding toward the Grounder.
Bellamy looked at her for a moment, then gave a small nod. She crossed the space and held out his cup, and he shifted on the crate to make room. She sat down beside him. For a while neither of them spoke — they looked at the Grounder, at the walls, at the water sitting still in their cups.
"Bellamy," she said finally, turning toward him. "Are you alright?"
"As good as we can be, right?" He lifted one shoulder in a shrug that didn't convince either of them.
She thought for a moment about how to ask the next question. "Is it about Jaha?"
He didn't answer immediately. She waited patiently for some moment, and then she decided to press on, gently. "What happened between you two?"
"You're here to know why I shot?" He asked, his fingers gripping the cup harder, as he turned to her. He was trying to keep his face steady, but she knew he was worried.
"I'm here to understand what happened." She held his gaze steadily. "Bellamy, you are many things. But I don't believe you'd kill without a reason."
"I hated him," He shrugged his shoulders. "Is that not reason enough?"
"You hate the elite," she said not believing him. "But you didn't kill Wells. Or Clarke. Or me." She looked at him in silence for a moment. "I know you wouldn't kill for hate."
"Then why do I kill for?" He asked with a glare. "Since you've got it all figured out—"
"You're not a bad person," She said firmly looking in his eyes, that widened as she spoke. "Look, I know you're afraid--"
He went still. Just for a moment, and then he looked away, fixing his eyes on some point across the room. "I'm afraid of nothing, Lily."
"Are you sure?" She didn't move back.
He said nothing. She waited — not with pressure, not with prompt, just with presence, the way she had learned worked with him. Giving him the space to decide whether to let her in.
"Bellamy," she said quietly. "Please, tell me what happened."
His legs bounched in stress, and he turned to her, "Why do you care so much?"
"Because maybe I can help you." She said quietly, not backing away from him.
But he shook his head slowly. "You can't, Lily." He said in a whisper. "Nobody can. I'll get the blame for what happened."
She frowned, turning toward him more fully. "You'll get the blame? What does that mean, you'll take the blame?"
But before he could answer, footsteps sounded on the ladder, and they both looked up as Miller and Jake came through the hatch. Miller stopped when he saw her, visibly surprised.
"Oh — Clarke was looking for you," he said.
Lily frowned. "For me?"
"Yeah. Apparently there's Marcus Kane that wants to talk to you."
The air went out of her lungs.
She sat very still for one second, then stood, catching the edge of Bellamy's expression before he could smooth it into something unreadable. She held it for just a moment — that flicker of something raw and unfinished between them — and then she climbed down the ladder.
She stood outside the communications tent for longer than she should have. Part of her — a part she recognized and wasn't proud of — wanted to go in immediately. Wanted it so much that she was ashamed of the wanting. He had sent her here. He had watched her dragged out of her cell without a word. He had looked at her like a prisoner number and she had screamed his name until the corridor turned. And still, some traitorous part of her had been waiting for this. Had kept a corner of itself open, against all evidence, against all reason.
She stepped inside.
He was on the screen. She had forgotten, in some abstract way, that he would look like himself — the same lines of his face, the same stillness in his eyes, the same posture that had always made rooms feel smaller. His expression changed when the screen showed her. She sat down and put on the headset before she could read too much into it.
"Lily." His voice was careful, measured in the way it always was. "I thought — are you alright?"
Lily was confused by the question, "My answer won't be different from the others." That was all she could give him. She could never say that she was fine, because she wasn't, but she didn't even want to show him how scared she was to be on Earth. That would only make her angry.
He looked down briefly. "I wasn't sure you wanted to talk to me."
Something in her chest moved against her will. Her legs were trembling faintly under the table. She pressed her feet flat against the ground and made herself breathe. "Yeah," she said. "I'm still not sure that I want to talk to you."
A silence stretched between them, longer than it should have been. Lily was even avoiding to look at the screen.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" he asked after what felt like hours.
A humorless chuckle left her lips as she looked at everywhere in the room but his face. "I think you've done enough, thank you." She heard the edge in her own voice and didn't try to file it down. There was nothing he could do for her from up there. The Council had no way to help them. Then suddenly, Bellamy's face came to her — on that crate, eyes too bright, the misery of someone waiting for a punishment they expected and was only waiting to arrive.
I'll get the blame for what happened, that was what he told her.
"Wait," she said quietly, before turning to Marcus. "Actually — there is something. Something you can do."
"Tell me," he said, and there was something in the way he said it, a kind of careful attention, that she tried not to feel anything about, but she noticed. Why was he so open with her?
But Lily decided to avoid reading into that, and she took a deep breath before she spoke.
"It's about Bellamy Blake."
Marcus' expression shifted, becoming harder. "The shooter?"
Again that word used against Bellamy made her heart clench, but she did her best to keep her voice even.
"I need you to vouch for his pardon." She said looking at Marcus in the eyes.
His face closed down, the way she had watched it close a hundred times before. "And why would I do that? He tried to kill Jaha."
"Because I think there's more behind his actions than you know." She insisted and she heard him let out a breath.
"You think—"
"Marcus, please." She leaned forward. "I know there's something behind it. You have to help me on this."
"Why would you do so much for a criminal?" The question made her freeze for a moment. She just wanted for Bellamy to be safe. He was doing so much for them, and she knew he could be an asshole but he didn't deserve to die.
"We're all criminals here, aren't we?" She held his gaze. "You sent us here for a reason. But Bellamy found a way onto that dropship with a uniform and a gun. Someone must have helped him in doing so." She saw the slight widening of Marcus' eyes — that particular stillness that meant she had told him something he hadn't known. "He did what he did out of desperation, Marcus. He just wanted his family back. A family the Ark took away from him in less than a day. It wouldn't hurt to show some compassion."
The silence that followed was long and heavy. The kind she knew too well. She felt the anger rise — the old familiar shape of it, the one that came when she remembered Grace, when she remembered all the small cruelties dressed in the language of necessity. And somehow he'd always looked at her in the same way.
"It's no use with you," she said quietly pushing her hair back. "Fine. If I'm right — if I can convince him to tell you what really happened, who was behind it — would you at least consider my request?"
Marcus kept quiet for a long moment, and the anger in Lily was growing but she tried all she could not to snap. Then suddenly he spoke.
"I… yes. Lily—"
"Alright," she said, "I have to go." She pulled off the headset, stood, and was out of the tent before he could finish the sentence.
The medical tent was dim and smelled of dried leaves and something faintly bitter — the white willow infusion she had left steeping since morning. She pulled the flap closed behind her and stood in the middle of the small space, pressing her hands flat against her thighs, and let herself shake. It was too much to hold all at once — her father's face on that screen, careful and unreadable. And she thought about Bellamy, and the fact that if they didn't find a way, once the Council was on the ground he would have been floated.
She pressed the back of her wrist to her eyes. She would not cry about Marcus Kane. She had already spent too much of herself on that. But the tears came anyway — not only for him, not exactly. For the version of this she had wanted. For the conversation she had rehearsed a hundred times in the skybox that had gone nothing like she had imagined. For Bellamy's voice, surrendered like he had long forgotten how to expect anything better. And then she thought about Finn, and Wess, and Charlotte and Murphy and all those who had lost their life on the ground. And again it was too much
She was wiping her face with her sleeve when she heard the tent flap move.
"Hey."
She turned. Bellamy stood in the entrance, not quite inside, not quite out. She straightened quickly, pulling herself together.
"Hey." She cleared her throat. "What are you doing here?"
His eyes moved over her face as he entered the tent. "Are you crying?"
"It's alright, it happens sometimes." She said trying to sound calmer than she was. Then she forced a smile. "Do you need anything?"
Bellamy didn't seem convinced, but he decided not to push her, which she was grateful for. "Have you made more disinfectant?"
"Mm — yeah, sure." She moved toward the row of sealed jars, keeping her hands busy. "Did you hurt yourself?"
"No, I'm alright." He assured observing her as she moved.
"I'm going with Clarke to find some guns. Apparently the Ark has records of a hidden cache — could be useful. We could use a couple of those ampoules, in case anything happens out there."
"Sure." Lily said going towards the table where she kept the ampouls that she had ready to use.
If they could find guns they could really improve their defence, and maybe they could defend themselves better. That was actually a good news, finally.
Then Lily moved towards him, so that she could hand him four ampouls. He took it from her hand and she decided to ignore the feeling in her chest when their fingers brushed each other.
"When are you going?" she asked after clearing her throath.
"In... um... in ten," he said putting the vials in his pockets. "Why?"
"I was hoping," she said looking up at him, "We could talk before you leave."
He took a breath closing his eyes, but he didn't move away, "If you want to convince me again to talk to the Council, don't." He said with no harshness. "I told you that."
He was stubborn, so stubborn that was almost unnerving. But she was not surprised by his reaction.
"I've talked to Kane," she admitted as their gaze met.
On his face appeared a confused frown, before she noticed his eyes getting sharper. "He won't help me."
She shook her head, as she took a step towards him. "I've asked him for help."
Bellamy seemed to think again at what she had just said, as if he wasn't sure he had understood her words.
"You..." he muttered, "You ask a favor for me?" His eyes were wide, but she could see a spark of anger in his gaze. Why was he being so proud?
"Of course I did," she said firmly, "I want to help you."
His eyes went still in that way that meant something had hardened behind them, and his hands went on his hips. "And what does he want in return?"
He didn't have to be more specific than that, to make her understand what he was implying. And her eyes widened.
"What — nothing."
A humurless lough came from his lips, and if possible his gaze hardened again. "Yes, of course," he said quietly, not believing her. He was about to move when Lily's hand shot forward to take his arms in between her fingers, so that he'd look at her.
"Bellamy." She said as their eyes met. "I don't know what you've heard about me and him. But this is not what you think."
"Nobody does anything for nothing," he said with a shake of his head. "Especially not the elite." He held her gaze for a moment, something unreadable moving through his eyes. "And you don't have to do this for me."
"Hey." She said almost desperate for him to listen to her and she gripped his arm a little bit more, feeling the tension beneath her fingers. He looked down at her hand, then back up at her face. "I can help you, alright? Trust me that I can help you fix this. Please — just tell me what happened for you to shoot—"
"People like me don't get pardons that easily, Lily." Bellamy said, "Whatever he promised, he won't follow through. He will just use you."
She shook her head, "Bellamy, please, just trust me. I can help you. If you just—"
Then without warning, he leaned forward and his lips found hers. His hand coming up to her face, his mouth warm and certain against hers, and she kissed him back before she understood she was doing it, her hand moving to his jacket without her deciding to move it there. It lasted only a moment and when he pulled back his eyes were open, looking at her.
"I do trust you," he said quietly as their eyes met.
"Bellamy..." she whispered, just before he moved away from her, making his way towards the exit of the tent. She noticed him stop for a moment there and for a moment she thought that he might turn again, but he didn't.
The tent flap shifted behind him, and she heard his footsteps in the dirt, moving away, and then nothing at all. She stood exactly where she was, alone with the warmth of his palm still against her cheek.
And she could hear only the sound of the camp around her, ordinary and indifferent, and the small, strange weight of what had just happened settling over her like something she didn't yet have a name for. She pressed her fingers lightly to her lips. Outside, his footsteps had already faded.