The pounding in his head matches the drumbeat of steps around him. Pain stabs at his temples and his eyes water, but Bellamy tries to blink it away. He resists the desire to look behind him for Madi. Instead, he risks a glance at the men flanking either side of him, their hands hooked through his arm.

He catches a glimpse of dark skin and even darker eyes, the color of ash.

Bellamy doesn't even see the fist when it comes.

***********

At first, he thinks he's blind.

Something sharp prods him in his right shoulder and even though Bellamy feels himself blinking, everything remains dark, save for distant flecks of light. Is he under the stars again? Where's Madi?

Oh. His head is covered with a hood. Madi, as far as he knows, is safe. Safer than him, at least.

"He's awake."

The voice is like a bolt of lightning, igniting his nerves. Pulling him to alertness. It's deep and gravelly, the kind that scrapes over words. Bellamy raises his head despite the pain still tapping hammers against his skull. Tries to pull his hands up, ready to defend himself, but they stay wrapped behind him, secured by something he can't see. He doubts he still has Raven's pocket bombs on him.

It's not the most promising situation.

"Wh-" Who are you? Bellamy almost asks. He wants them to identify themselves. It's what the survivor in him wants. But the soldier part tells him to wait, so he locks his jaw shut. Don't give anything away.

That prodding snakes up to his head and pokes him in the jaw, earning a hot lance of pain. "Anyone in there?"

Bellamy can't stop the hiss that escapes him.

The high keen of metal against metal sounds, like someone is dragging something over to him. Bellamy hears an exhale. There's an acrid smoke on the air, the kind that digs into Bellamy's lungs. He tries not to cough.

Suddenly the darkness disappears as the hood is pulled off and Bellamy is blinking in a place not much brighter than the hood had been. A single illumination from above seems to be the only source of the light in the small room.

Bellamy turns his focus on the man in front of him, tall and brutish looking, with the shadow of a beard and crew cut hair the color of salt. In his hands is Bellamy's own rifle; the source of the prodding.

The man sees him eyeing it and smirks. "Been a long time since I handled one of these." His fingers brush down the cherry wood stock like a caress. "Last was in a Wyoming winter. Caught myself a beautiful buck. Want to know where I hit him?" This time, the man doesn't prod Bellamy but puts the barrel against his forehead, hard enough for the cool steel to bite into his skin. "Right between the eyes."

"Enough, Beckett," says someone else. He steps into Bellamy's periphery, enough for him to catch those cool, dark eyes again. They both wear a similar ensemble of cargo pants and sleeveless shirts, the color of the night sky. It makes the brutish man-Beckett-stand out while it seems to swallow the other man into the shadows.

The barrel doesn't leave Bellamy's forehead for another moment. Then, with a small shove that digs the barrel in deeper, the man finally withdraws the rifle. He tilts his head to the side, analyzing Bellamy. He has a square face, like a mountain lion's. "You wouldn't happen to know anything of those bombings by the bay, would you?"

"Beckett," repeats the other man, a warning in his tone, "Stop engaging." Unlike Beckett's, his voice does not scrape. It is smooth; water over stones. But there is steel in it, too. It's the sort of voice that doesn't have to be raised high to be heard.

Or listened to, judging by the other man's response. He leans against the wall, still holding the rifle, gaze digging, digging, digging into Bellamy. "It's taking too long."

"He'll get here when he gets here."

"After he cleans up a mess we could already have the answers to if you'd just let me get them myself."

The other man looks unbothered. In fact, Bellamy would even say relaxed, considering his unaffected posture and expression that, so far, has given nothing away. It is like a mask, and Bellamy has the unnerving feeling that he is far more dangerous than the boulder of a man set on crushing him into dust.

"If you want to kill him, kill him." The shadow man says dismissively. "But I don't think I need to remind you what McCreary does to those who go against his orders."

Bellamy tucks away every bit if information they give, but one look from the expressionless man tells Bellamy he knows exactly what it is he's doing, and that no information given is given with the intent of keeping him alive.

The man's threat must be enough of a deterrent, because with a frustrated shake of his head, Beckett doesn't advance on Bellamy but remains seated. "Don't move," warns Beckett. Without a glance at the other man, he leans forward and pats Bellamy on the cheek, hard enough to sting. "Wouldn't want to accidentally shoot you now, would I?" He leans back, balancing the rifle over his knee and trailing the barrel on Bellamy's chest. "Best to keep you all together, until we can really pull you apart."

*************

The impatience is worse than the pain in Bellamy's head. The distant echo of bombs continues for what feels like hours, but Raven doesn't have a perpetual supply of explosives, and it must only be an hour at most. Still, every moment stirs Bellamy's impatience faster, makes his blood run hotter.

The silence of the two men has almost been enough for Bellamy to say something. But he won't. Not yet. So until then, he waits, letting the throbbing of his head beat out an angry chorus that fuels him. He hasn't come from space to die. He didn't make a promise to a little girl just to break it.

So he sits, and he waits, calm on the outside as a storm brews on the inside, looking not at the expressionless man leaning against the wall or the gun lilting over a knee, but right at Beckett, who is years more out of practice than Bellamy is.

It's in the middle of this when the door finally opens, and Bellamy's eyes snap to the newcomer. He, like the others, is dressed in dark clothes only with a jacket, its collar pulled close around his throat. His brown hair cropped closely to his scalp. Stubble lines his jaw, making his cheeks look more sallow than they are. He can't be older than Beckett, yet his superiority is almost tangible, breathing a cold draft into the room.

The light from above paints any groove in his face black, darkening his eyes to pitch. The presence of the other two fade in his as he appraises Bellamy. "And who is this?" he asks in a flat, flat voice that lilts. Spanish, Bellamy guesses.

"Trespasser," says Beckett. "Caught him sneaking down the south corridor."

"Trespasser?" the man-McCreary, Bellamy presumes-asks. There's a touch of humor there, barely present at all, like breath on glass. "Now there's something unexpected. Most everything is, I suppose. Earth is not . . . how I remember." He crouches down before Bellamy, eyes scouring his. Bellamy notices the scars on his hands, some old, some fresh. Traces of soot smudge his face.

"Perhaps you would be willing to explain some of it to me. Like who you are. Yes, that is a good place to start. So then. Who are you?"

Bellamy looks back at him. Sweeps his gaze from top to bottom. Says nothing.

McCreary tilts his head. Smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes. "Ah, you're a soldier."

Bellamy almost jolts at that.

"Taking notice of the military-grade boots. Undoubtedly scoping for weapons. It would be unfair for us to presume those who have survived on earth haven't done so out of stupidity. We learned that with the other one."

It's an off-handed comment. So offhanded, it nearly blindsights Bellamy and he has to blink to readjust himself. He struggles to remain stoic, to school his face into an unreadable mask.

The man McCreary watches him with fathomless eyes. The ghost of a smirk touches his lips and Bellamy doesn't want to know what that means.

Silence.

Bellamy waits, tense, expecting the man to start up on more questions. To begin the inevitable torture, because that's where these scenarios always lead. The memories of his time spent in Mount Weather don't haunt him like others do, but that doesn't mean they are any less sharp.

As if to hurry it along, Bellamy tilts his chin up, challenging. Would it be so bad if he let this man see the fire in his eyes?

A silent war wages between them, until McCreary stands. Without looking at him, he tells the shadow man, "Axl, escort our trespasser to the conference room. I think it's a more suitable place for a little chat, don't you?"

The shadow man doesn't answer but peels from the wall and again hooks his hand back through Bellamy's arm. Beckett appears on his right, barrel kissing his spine.

McCreary's next words echo to Bellamy from behind him, so low he nearly misses them completely. "You people are hard to break," he says, almost admirably. "But not impossible. No, not impossible."

**************

A hood is thrown over his head again and Bellamy is led back into a corridor he can't see, down, down, up. He tries to memorize the pattern, counting off the paces in his head. But he can't even be sure that where he had been was closer to the exit. Maybe he's getting closer now, and escaping only to go this way would lead him to a dead end.

But this is all he can do right now, so he counts.

Forty paces. Left.

Twenty paces. Right.

Bellamy's yanked to a stop. There's a hum before a buzz and the scraping of metal sounds. Door.

Ten. Left.

Nineteen. Down.

Stop. Door.

Hum. Buzz. Scrape.

They halt another ten paces later and a third door opens, but this one doesn't buzz. Bellamy is led through and he notes the way the echo of his boots hush a little. A smaller room, he wages.

He's proven right a moment later when the hood is removed again and he finds himself in a square room, bigger than the last one but still a little tight for comfort. It's a bit brighter too, the circadian lights highlighting the ovular steel table in the center of the room, bolted down to the floor, along with a handful of chairs. A few have been unscrewed and sit at angles, but Bellamy's shoved onto one that doesn't budge.

Figures. Who knows what a prisoner is thinking better than other prisoners?

Bellamy tries to get a last glimpse of the corridor beyond, but the door closes before he has much of a chance.

Beckett stands by it as the shadow man takes up his previous posture, resting a shoulder against the wall.

McCreary's boots against the floor and the hammering of Bellamy' heart is the only sound in the room, as McCreary takes the seat closest to Bellamy's own, one that isn't bolted. He flips it around and sits, straddling the chair between his legs. He watches Bellamy from over the back of the chair, eyes slightly narrowed, lips pressed in a thin line, as if trying to guess all the secrets Bellamy has, locked up inside.

Or maybe they're more bare than Bellamy knows, and this man is just debating on which wound to probe first.

He doesn't know me, Bellamy reminds himself, because the way this man looks at him makes Bellamy start to think that maybe he does. But he can't. Raven's bombs worked. Monty's coverage worked. It all worked, because if it didn't, it means his sister is dead, and he sacrificed his family's only advantage for a suicide mission.

"You don't have any questions for me? Who I am really? What it is I want?"

Bellamy's jaw tightens. Wait, instinct chides. Wait for the others. Because right now he still has hope, and he won't let it fade without a fight, even if it is a quiet one, between him and the questions he refuses to let himself ask.

McCreary looses a muted sigh. His eyes meet Axl's from over Bellamy's shoulder and he flicks his gaze towards the door in a silent message Bellamy can't understand. A moment later, Axl melts from the room, slipping out the door, and Bellamy's spine goes cold.

McCreary returns his focus to him. Hedges his chair a bit closer.

"Now, I'm going to tell you a little story." McCreary leans forward, watching Bellamy like a hawk does its prey.

"Once upon a time, there was a girl who fell from the sky." He slowly sweeps his hand down through the air, to the steel tabletop. "And as she fell, her wings broke off, so she could no longer fly. Instead, she had to live on the ground."

That coldness in Bellamy's spine slips into the rest of him.

McCreary taps his fingers on the steel. "She wasn't alone, though. No, the girl had friends, and they spent a long time fighting to stay alive, even at the expense of others. Finally, they believed that after all their wars, after all the blood they shed, they would finally live in peace."

McCreary pulls something from his pocket, a small rectangular object that glints in the lowlight. He flicks it open, and with a swipe of his thumb, a small flame sparks from the top. McCreary stares at it, the fire dancing in his eyes like coals. "But then came the fire. A death wave, that devoured the world, and every living thing on it." His index finger drifts through the thimble of flame. "Some hid under the Earth. Others took to the sky again, borrowing old wings they found. But as for the girl . . ."

Bellamy grinds his teeth, trying to keep calm, because his nerves are suddenly jumbling around like marbles inside him. He's told enough stories to a little girl to know where this one leads. He helped write the end of this one himself.

"She could not take flight in time, and she was left behind to burn." McCreary shakes his head slowly. "But she didn't burn. She lived, because this girl had magic blood." McCreary looks back at Bellamy, letting the fire dance. "And every day, for two thousand, two hundred days, she would pull out her radio, and try to talk to her friends in the sky. But they could not answer her. They could not even hear her. Maybe, she thought, there were moments when they even forgot her completely."

Bellamy's hands tighten until the cuffs dig into his wrists, ordering himself to breathe through the anger shaking him on the inside.

"But she waited. And she waited. And she radioed, always hoping, always praying, always beginning the same way, speaking to the same friend in particular when she had more than one up there. Do you know what their name was?"

Bellamy's heart pounds as McCreary looks between the him the flame, as if contemplating which one to extinguish first. "Bellamy," he whispers, and some distant part of Bellamy notes the sound of a door opening as that coldness starts to burn.

"Bellamy Blake." McCreary snaps the lighter closed and his gaze slides over to the noise of hum and scrape.

Bellamy follows, blood frozen in his veins as he turns.

Axl enters. But then he fades away. Disappears like smoke, because behind him is someone shorter, with blonde hair and eyes the color of a sky he once doubted he'd ever see again.

All the air is sucked out of his lungs, and suddenly there is no worry, no fear, no ship full of criminals. There is no McCreary. There is just him and the fallen sky girl he buried prematurely, now standing close by, breathing, alive.

Clarke.