Heaven Can't Wait - Chapter 60
10 May 2022 07:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jennickels
Chapter Sixty - Missing Again
Bellamy wakes slowly— a feeling of warmth caressing him inside and out. Just like the last three mornings he’s woken up here, he doesn't want to leave Clarke’s bed today, either, but he needs to get going before the craziness starts.
They’ve been steadily moving people out of the halls back to their quarters on the other side of the station for the last few days, and today they are clearing out the refugee camp that will once again be open as a fully-functioning Mess Hall. It’s going to be a long day of moving heavy crates, cleaning, and stopping the occasional fight, and Bellamy wants to get it done as quickly as possible because once the Grounders are all on their own side of the station, the better things will be. At least he hopes it will curb some of the drama he’s been dealing with since the evacuation.
Reluctantly, he slides out from under Clarke’s arm and gets dressed. He pecks Clarke on the forehead but doesn’t wake her before slipping out of the room.
Bellamy skips going to his office and heads right to the Mess Hall while reading the scraps of paper with Clarke’s carefully inscribed list of names in order of their move, but when he gets to the Mess, it’s already pandemonium as the Grounders pack up their personal belongings and Arkadians move crates that have been temporarily stored in the large room. In the space that had been cleared last night, tables are already set up where civilians watch the chaos and eat their breakfast.
We’d get a lot more done if you helped instead of just watching, he thinks, but doesn’t say anything. Instead, he hops up onto a crate to get everyone’s attention.
“Good morning,” he calls until most eyes are on him. “I know everyone is anxious to get back to their own quarters, but if you’ll just be patient a little longer, we can do this in an orderly fashion so everything ends up where it belongs without any issues.” Unlike yesterday when two groups of Arkadians began fighting over a single crate of belongings they both claimed as their own which ended up actually belonging to neither of them. That only took twenty minutes to figure out. The crate was still sitting in his office waiting to be retrieved by the owners.
There’s a bunch of grumbling from everyone, but slowly Bellamy gets them in order, directing a line of Grounders helped by Guardsmen out one door while Arkadians push and drag heavy crates out the other door.
“Having fun yet?” Murphy asks, coming up behind Bellamy.
“Shouldn’t you be working?”
Murphy takes a bite out of a green, pitted apple and shrugs.
“Where did you get that? I thought we finished off all the fresh produce already?”
Another shrug and a sly smile. “I can’t reveal my sources, you know that?”
“You mean you looted it.”
Murphy just chuckles, walks backward towards a crate, and starts pushing it towards the door, the apple caught between his teeth.
Bellamy shakes his head and gets to work helping an elderly Grounder carry her belongings to the farthest hall away from the Mess while she leans heavily on his arm. She chatters away half in English, half in Grounder so Bellamy doesn’t understand most of what she says. He lets her voice wash over him as they slowly make their way through the busy hallways.
Where people aren’t moving, they’re cleaning and making repairs or just out for a stroll because they can. Spirits are high despite all of the work needing to be done.
On his third trip back to the Mess Hall, Bellamy sees a group of kids in a circle in the center of the room. Storytime. Is it Wednesday already? Maybe they’re just taking advantage of the chance to get out of their rooms no matter what day it is?
The group is mostly listening to a woman perched on a broken chair as she reads a weathered picture book. Both Arkadian and Grounder children sit in the circle, watching her turn pages. Others are just talking to each other. The Grounder children look a little confused but curious as they copy the antics of their Arkadian peers. The parents look on weary but affectionately.
“Maybe this can work, huh?” Murphy says as he joins Bellamy again. There’s a glean of sweat on his permanently-pockmarked face. He’s staring at Heaven and Cara in the center of the group as they play with their dolls.
Bellamy swallows hard then starts gathering the supplies of the next family he’s helping. “Yeah, maybe.”
“The children are the future,” Murphy calls after him.
He has no idea if Murphy is being serious or ironic, but Bellamy wants to believe it’s true—that the children can learn to live together and grow to be more than just reluctant allies. Like Heaven and Cara. He wants them to be friends. Sisters.
A group of Grounder men in warrior garb stands guard at the exit of the Mess Hall, eying the group of children. They say something Bellamy doesn’t quite understand but gets a dissatisfied cluck from the woman he’s helping.
“Not all of us are that mistrusting,” she tells Bellamy in clumsy English. “Some of us have hope for the future. Like Lexa did.”
Bellamy nods. “I want to believe it will work, too.” It has to work, or they won’t make it another month.
He helps the woman and her two children to the small quarters they share—not unlike the room he grew up in—and helps them put away their things. She tries to thank him with a portion of their rations which he attempts to convince her isn’t necessary. She looks so affronted, though, that he eventually settles for half of just her protein bar and feels guilty as he backs out of the room—the food burning a hole in his pocket.
It’s then he notices the grumblings of people in the hall. A tall Grounder with waist-length braided hair steps in his path. “Taking food from a widow when you already get more than your fair share.”
Before Bellamy can reply, the man’s wife drags him away with a weary look. What did he mean? More than my fair share?
By the time he returns to the Mess Hall again, it’s nearly emptied of refugees and storytime seems to have broken up as kids run wildly through the empty space.
“Bellamy! Bellamy!”
He spins, concern instantly spiking his adrenaline as Nicole comes running up to him. “They’re gone,” she yells as she grabs his jacket. “They’re gone—you have to find them.”
“Nicole, calm down,” he says even as his own senses go on high alert. “Who’s gone?” But he already knows the answer.
“Cara and Heaven. They were playing with the other children and then-” Tears spill down the woman’s terrified face. “Then they were just gone.”
Bellamy forces all the panic deep down into his gut. “It’s going to be okay. They can’t go far in a sealed station. We’ll just go door to door until we find them. It’ll be fine.” He heads to an intercom on the wall near one of the doors and triggers a station-wide frequency.
“Attention, Arkadians, we have two missing little girls approximately two and four years old. If you see them, let the nearest Guard know or bring them to the Guard office. Thank you.”
Nicole is wringing her hands, eyes darting all around the Mess Hall as people stop to discuss the news.
“It’s going to be fine. You now have five hundred sets of eyes looking for them. Why don’t you head home—maybe they thought they could find their way back on their own.”
“Yeah, maybe you’re right. I’ll wait for them there.”
Bellamy manages to keep his cool until Nicole is out the door then the panic rises with the bile in his stomach. Missing again. Can’t anyone keep their eyes on her?
You lost her, too, you know. On more than one occasion.
Shut up.
“Bellamy!” It’s Murphy again, jogging over with Emori.
“We heard your announcement,” Emori says, “and want to help look.”
Murphy’s lips are drawn in a thin line, his brow knit together tightly. “Last time she went missing, I found her just outside of Engineering. I have no idea what she was doing over there, but it’s a place to start maybe.”
“Good idea.” Bellamy leads them through the halls towards Engineering, asking passersby if they’ve seen two little girls. Everyone seems to be looking, but no one is finding them.
They round the corner and run into Monty and Harper.
“Any luck?” Harper asks.
“No,” says Bellamy. “Last time she went missing, she came this way, but we haven’t seen her.”
“What’s over here that she keeps coming this way?” Harper asks. “It’s just Engineering and storage.”
Bellamy’s heart sinks. “And the observation room.” He starts running, taking corners without looking. The others catch up with him as he skids to a stop in front of a small object on the floor—a ragdoll. But not Bae. Bellamy picks it up. “It must be Cara’s doll,” he mumbles.
“Well, at least we know where she’s going. That kid,” Murphy says, shaking his head with an amused laugh.
“You don’t understand-” Bellamy starts to say.
“Isn’t the Observation Room a no-man’s land,” says Harper. “It’s off-limits because of radiation leaks.
“So? It’s not like two little kids can get in there. The doors are locked,” Murphy replies.
Bellamy is running again, his heart racing in his throat. No, no, no. As they turn the last corner, they find Cara wailing in the middle of the hall.
“I tried to stop her,” the little girl blubbers. “But she wouldn’t listen.” Cara points to the Observation Room where the interior airlock doors are sitting open.
“How?” Monty says.
Bellamy runs to the door and peers in. It’s dark in the room, but there’s a storm overhead—tendrils of lightning blast the room with moments of brightness.
“She must have climbed on these,” Harper says, pointing to the crates stacked in front of the door controls. “But how-”
“She remembered the code,” Bellamy says softly. “The last time we were here, she punched in the code herself. From memory. She’s smart.”
“Too smart for her own good,” says Murphy, getting a smack on the arm from both Emori and Harper.
Bellamy ignores them as he searches the room with each minuscule glimpse he gets from the lightning. Then he sees it— movement in the center between some debris that didn’t get removed before the doors were sealed.
She’s still alive.
