#common ground

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You are strong. Stronger than any human I have ever fed upon.

Pairing: OC x Bellamy Blake (you can use this extension to swap your name with the OC’s)

Word Count: 2.7k

Warnings: Vague mentions of violence

Description: Delia and Bellamy were acquaintances on the Ark: two lost souls connected by the common ground of their imprisoned sisters. Now, on the ground, everything has changed, and Delia isn't sure she recognizes Bellamy Blake anymore.

A/N: Also posted on AO3 under the username mikiwritesstuff.

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Friend was a strong word for Bellamy Blake. He and Delia were just two amicable people with one horrible piece of common ground—Octavia and Charlotte, Charlotte and Octavia. However they passed their time together, it was always to forget the way their weary hearts pressed up against the loss of their parents and the imprisonment of their siblings. No one else on the Ark knew how each of them felt, save for each other.

Delia sat in the mess hall—shuffling and reshuffling the cards in her hands—for ten, twenty, thirty minutes past their usual meeting time. She glanced up at the clock above the entry and frowned. Every now and then, Bellamy’s shift would run over, and he told her not to bother waiting. Usually, she didn’t. But today, she had news that couldn’t wait until they played cards again next Tuesday.

She dealt herself a hand of solitaire and settled into the chatter and hum of the hall. It was quiet during this time of day, but she was more paranoid than usual—scanning the face of everyone who sat down at a table nearby. A dark-haired man in a guard’s uniform joined a group two tables down, and her heart flipped, throwing one hard and fast beat against her ribs. But when he turned his face in Delia’s direction, his features were those of a stranger. Not Commander Shumway. She let out a breath and looked back down at her cards. She would be fine, she assured herself. Shumway had made her his offer less than a day ago, and she’d told him she’d think on it. She wouldn’t say yes. She wasn’t reckless enough to assassinate the Chancellor. But sitting on the offer was a risk too. Shumway had revealed his hand, and he wouldn’t tolerate her indecision for long. 

Perhaps he’d have patience. To an enemy of Jaha, she was a safe bet. Since her sister’s discovery and subsequent imprisonment, she’d organized protests and action groups and smear campaigns and taken every opportunity to tell the citizens of the Ark how deeply her hatred for Thelonious Jaha ran. Her political history was the only reason Shumway felt confident enough to make the offer at all, but he’d miscalculated. Delia was angry, but she wasn’t reckless. She spent the first two decades of her life lying to guards and hoarding rations and hiding her sister beneath her hollowed-out mattress—she could never be anything but calculated, anything but completely allergic to impulse.

But she was desperate to get on that dropship. There was no chance in hell she was letting her little sister fend for herself on the ground. She knew Bellamy would feel the same. Which is why he needed to show the fuck up.

She forced herself to focus on the cards—the hearts and diamonds and stone-faced queens. The slick snap of the paper between her fingers brought her back into her body, and here—before the 52-card deck—things would always add up. She found the ace of clubs buried in her left-most pile and she smiled, tucking it among the other aces at the top.

The anxiety didn’t lull completely. She could still feel it thrumming in her gut with every second she was alone at the table, but she could swallow it down and digest it into simple, achievable steps. She would talk to Bellamy. She found the two of clubs and laid it gently over the ace. If he wasn’t here in another ten minutes, she’d go to his room. She found the king of diamonds and moved it to an empty slot. If he wasn’t in his room, she’d leave him a note. She reached for the three of clubs and paused. No—no note. No paper trail. She set the three of clubs over the two and drew a new card. She’d wait outside his room. She’d talk to his neighbors. She drew another—the king of hearts—but there was no space to play it. 

She blinked down at the card and wondered if, perhaps, Shumway had gone to Bellamy. She hadn’t considered it. She felt so certain Shumway’s offer was born in Delia’s political background, but Bellamy had dealt with the same loss. He’d been on the guard and, presumably, worked under Shumway. 

But Bellamy had taken it all with his head down. He never said it directly, but he disapproved of all of Delia’s loud-mouthing antics. He thought it would lose them favor with the council, thought it might hurt Octavia and Charlotte’s chances of being cleared at eighteen. But—he’d still lost his mother, still been separated from his sister.

If Delia didn’t agree to Shumway’s offer, Bellamy Blake was the next best option.

But he wouldn’t say yes.

She pulled a new card—the jack of diamonds—obscuring the king of hearts beneath its smirking face. She paused again. 

What would happen to her if he did say yes?

Movement at the entrance to the mess hall drew her attention, and she made eye contact with a guard as he stepped into the hall. He pressed his hand to his ear, speaking soft and fast into an ear piece, and disappeared back into the hall. When she looked over her shoulder towards the entrance behind her, another guard stood post just inside, purposely avoiding her eyes.

She gathered her cards and stuck them quickly in her back pocket. She stood. As soon as she did, the guard behind her spoke into his ear piece. She glanced at the other entrance. It was empty. She took one step, and then two, and by the time she’d made it out of the mess hall, the guard from the other door had crossed the room, ducking into the flow of people behind her.

Shit. 

She couldn’t go to her room. She had a feeling Shumway or one of his cronies was waiting there with a gun—either to put in her hand if she agreed or put somewhere between her eyes if she was having second thoughts. 

She was a pile of bitter second thoughts as she weaved through the halls, guard on her tail. Why had she been so goddamn loud about hating the Chancellor? What hadn’t she gone to Bellamy—gone to anyone—right away? Why did her stupid, careless mother have to bring one child, let alone two, this godforsaken world?

She turned a corner and immediately ducked into an alcove, watching as the guard passed her by. She didn’t wait for him to turn and look for her. She darted back the way she’d come. 

When she made it to Bellamy’s door, she didn’t stop knocking.

“Bellamy?” she called, cheek nearly pressed to the door. “I need to talk to you.” She looked over her shoulder, heart racing as she scanned the empty hallway. It wouldn’t stay empty for long. “Bellamy?” She heard footsteps approaching and tried the door handle. It gave, and she ducked into the room without a second thought. 

It was a wreck. Drawers were open, spilling clothes and supplies onto the floor. The mirror over the small desk had fallen, its surface splintered. She blinked at herself, her features split and multiplied, and she felt heavy and breathless at the sight of her flushed features, her panic eclipsed by momentary shame.

She’d only been in this room once before. Three months ago, the day after Charlotte’s twelfth birthday, a coworker in the kitchen had given some of his stash of homebrewed wine to get her through the night, and she’d downed it all in the two hours after her shift. She stumbled through the Ark—drunk and dizzy and teary-eyed, mumbling about her sister and her parents. Bellamy found her curled into the fetal position before one of the windows, weeping in the light reflecting off the Earth. She’d never told him where she lived, so he led her back to his room, and she woke up tucked under his sheets, blinking at the sight of him fast asleep on the floor.

She crept out of the room. She went to work. They met in the mess hall two days later to play cards. She apologized and thanked him. He told her not to worry about it. And they hadn’t spoken of it since.

It stunted something between them. Before, they were inching towards something like friendship—he talked about his mother, she told him about the illness that killed her father, the illness that quickly overtook his allotted medication rations. The card games began to stretch into the evening. She started to memorize the pattern of freckles across his cheeks.

And then got too drunk and made a fool of herself.

She was helpless. He took care of her without being asked. It felt as if she’d lost her equal footing, like something weak and small and bitter had been exposed, constantly flinching in the light of his attention. So she did all she could think to do: she took a step back, created enough distance to hide herself again. And maybe Bellamy resented her for that night, because he followed suit.

 They stopped sharing their childhood memories—the good and the bad. They kept their meetings to one or two games of cards. She stopped counting the stretch of freckles laid over the ridge of his nose. Their time together morphed back into what it had been at the start—distraction, not connection. And now, based on the state of Bellamy’s room, their time playing cards together was over completely.

Shumway found him.

He said yes. Maybe he said no.

She wasn’t sure which option she preferred.

////

Working in the Ark kitchens didn’t afford Delia the kind of connections that could keep her safe from Shumway and get her a spot on the dropship. She had, however, spent several awkward nights with an engineer on Mecha Station. He was her only hope of finding a way onto that dropship with Charlotte.

After hiding out in Bellamy’s room long enough to hear the footsteps outside disappear, she swiped a janitorial jumpsuit from his closet and slipped it on over her clothes. She unwound a shoelace from one of his boots to makeshift a hair tie, pulling her hair into a low bun at the nape of her neck. She tucked it into the too-big collar of the jumpsuit, and looked at herself again in the broken mirror. Face-to-face, it wasn’t much of a disguise. But for the cameras Shumway might be looking for her on, it would be good enough.

The halls were quiet, and it made her nervous. She would’ve liked a crowd to blend into, but it was late. Most people were sleeping. Knowing Kyle Wick, her engineer, he was probably still up, tinkering around in the workshop he shared with five of his peers. If he wasn’t—or if someone was in the workshop with him—she’d have to improvise from there.

As she wove through the halls, eyes averted from every passing face, her anxiety fell hard and heavy against the bottom of her gut, solidifying into something bitter and confused. If Bellamy had said no to Shumway’s offer, Shumway would be a fool to let him live for long. Maybe he’d killed him on the spot. But Bellamy’s room showed the signs of a quick exit, not a struggle. That mess was the remains of someone who was preparing to leave and never come back. 

Bellamy didn’t owe her anything. They weren’t even friends, really. But their sisters were the one thing that brought them together, and she’d stalled Shumway so she could tell Bellamy about the ship that was taking Octavia down to earth. If Shumway had gone to him first, she might never have known Charlotte was destined for the ground. She bit back the feeling that followed the thought. She didn’t have time for bitterness and betrayal.

As she turned the corner that led to Mecha Station, she heard the sharp clink of tools in the distance, and a few turns later, the entryway of Wick’s workshop yawned open before her. As she’d expected, he was there. As she’d hoped, he was alone.

“Kyle.”

He jumped, the device in his hands clattering to the table as he looked up at Delia. “Jesus,” he said, inspecting the device he’d dropped for damage. He flicked his eyes back up to her and frowned. “Why are you cosplaying a janitor?”

She crossed her arms. “I’m seeing how it suits me.”

He tsked his tongue. “Might wanna stick with the kitchen.” He picked up a screwdriver and continued tinkering with the device before him. “It’s been a while since you’ve been all the way down here.” He looked up just long enough to give her a curious once-over. “Need something?”

She couldn’t tell if there was any lingering resentment from their breakoff that was just as awkward as their time together. But she didn’t have time to parse that out. She glanced behind her and lowered her voice before she stepped closer and said, “I need you to help me get off the Ark.”

Wick laughed. “Didn’t peg you as someone who’d float themselves.”

Delia crossed the room until she stood on the other side of the table, hands braced on the edge. “They’re sending the adolescent offenders to the ground.”

He paused his work, his suddenly somber eyes meeting Delia’s. “Your sister.”

She nodded. “The dropship launches at eight a.m. tomorrow.”

“Alright.” He dropped his tools on the table and stood. “Let’s figure out how to get you on it.”

////

Delia wasn’t sure if she wanted to kiss or kill Kyle Wick. Her limbs were stiff with the throbbing soreness of spending the entire night cramped into the tight bends of the air ducts. He found the plans for the launch bay and talked her through getting there through a walkie talkie. And then she’d unscrewed an outer panel and cramped herself into the air circulation system of the dropship until the morning. But she couldn’t stay hidden in the ship’s ducts. She would, as Wick put it, fry like a marshmallow over a fire when the ship hit the Earth’s atmosphere if she wasn’t inside the ship.

She crouched down and stared through a vent cover. The first prisoners were being led into the Ark—all buckled into a row of seats facing away from her, thankfully. She baited her time, waiting until the ship was nearly full, until one prisoner started fighting back against the guards that held him, and she ducked out through the cover, darting into a seat and buckling herself in. The guards were so focused on subduing the unruly prisoner, they didn’t notice her. And by the time they buckled him in beside her, they were so grateful to have him tranquilized and in a seat, they paid no heed as to whether or not she’d been there before.

The prisoners kept filing in, and she chanced a look when she could. She tried to keep her head down, tried not to draw attention to herself, but she hadn’t seen Charlotte in nearly four years. She wouldn’t miss the opportunity to lay her eyes on her face.

When two guards dragged her sister’s limp body towards the stairs to the second level, she looked longer than she should have. She lifted her face to the guards, to the other prisoners, to the cameras, just to see the young girl her sister was growing into. Delirious and half-lucid as she was—likely from drugs—she was so grown. She was taller. Her face was thinner. 

Delia’s heart began to grow, pressing heavy and mournful against her ribs. She could see every year, every day, every hour she’d missed carved into her sister’s features. When she was plastering posters to walls and shouting curses outside council meetings, she felt angry. Really, truly angry. But seeing her sister, watching her disappear as the guards took her upstairs, she felt her grief rip through her all over again. They would land, and if Earth’s air didn’t kill them, she would have time with her sister. But she would never, ever get back the time she’d lost. Her sister would never have the normal childhood she deserved.

Her fingers gripped the armrests of her chair, knuckles going white, and she closed her eyes. Maybe she should’ve taken Shumway’s offer. Maybe she should’ve jumped on the chance to put a bullet between Jaha’s eyes, to pay him back for all the misery her family had endured. She felt nauseous with hate and loss and sorrow, and when the ship’s doors began to close and a voice over the intercom began announcing the launching protocols, she finally let herself look at the world around her again. And he was there, standing by the closing doors, gripping the wall, donning a too-big guard’s uniform.

Bellamy Blake.

////

Gale Davidson is a bitch

Dan Miller is a loser

Speaking of, what does this guy do for a living? I've only seen him stirring trouble. Is he living off of Denise?

Ok so Cordell was out of reach but no one thought of calling the rest of the family when Denise took August down to Ranger HQ? Liam? Grandparents?

Sorry, if Gale went around making big accusations about next door kid burning down the barn and killing Marv, I'm sure there would have been an investigation. How did they not find the lantern then?

Violet next to Jared is exactly how I'll look next to him if I ever get to meet him

Ohh those Davidsons are such dirty cheats!

Cordell gave Dan a chance to race with dignity and the loser is a fucking loser! Ugh!

Jared does ride horses right? I mean maybe not the entire race, but there are shot of him riding (like properly riding) the horse. Nice!

"Next time we meet..."

"...all bets are off."

Then they continue to save each other.

I also love John's little brush past Rodney,

"Thanks for showing up."