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***

The floor should be worn with his pacing, the metal grating sanded by the soles of his shoes. He's surely walked it enough, miles of it, dangling in the stars. He's taken thousands of steps suspended over the earth, but their destination is always the starting point. He always returns to this same place before the same window overlooking the same broken planet.

Again, and again, and again.

The sight sets his teeth on edge, and prompts the inevitable question that he never can seem to make leave him alone.

Will we ever make it back?

And like every time before, he tries to banish it as quickly as it comes, burying it underneath the weight of better things.
We will make it, he tells himself, because we have to.

They haven't survived all this to stop now. And he didn't come this far only to leave Clarke to believe they'd never made it at all.

Bellamy tries not to think how the day-by-day strategy has stretched into weeks, and they are no closer to a plan than they were then. 15 days ago, they chose to reboot everything, with no change. The waiting game, as Murphy put it, no longer seems like a strategy, but their only option. Wait, until something changes. Or wait until Raven's new radar system catches something.

Either way, it leaves him in the same place, and it is almost enough to have him tearing out his hair.

"You look out that window as though earth is going somewhere."

Bellamy looks over his shoulder at Raven, her eyes pinned on the screen before her. She hasn't stopped looking at them. Despite installing her system with alarms that will alert them to any frequency, she still doesn't want to risk missing something.

Bellamy can't blame her. He is here too, after all.

"I'm not worried about the planet going anywhere," he says.

Raven looks up at him. Her eyes don't have to search much to read the unspoken words. I'm afraid that we will.

She smirks half-heartedly. Or maybe it's a frown. Sometimes it is hard to tell; some days their joking has lost its own gravity, becoming as dry as the dust on the earth. It's left Bellamy to wonder if they're all doomed to leave the ring with a humor like Murphy's.

"It just . . . takes time," Raven says, an edge in her words, because she's repeated them at least twice in the last 48-hours.

"But we can't power down again," Bellamy says. "Not if we have to."

Raven has told him of the problem the first time they rebooted the ring and saw the fuel gauge right after. Rebooting costs fuel they don't have, and to continue doing so is to potentially lose the only fuel they have left to get back to the ground.

Raven's silence is answer enough, and Bellamy returns his gaze to the window so he doesn't say exactly what he wants to. He tries to think of more promising things, but his mind turns back to Clarke's most recent call, and the information he could glean from it. He's lost count of the days, the number butchered by the poor connection they've been unable to improve.

"Right, day one-thou- . . . -eighty. Thank you, M . . . -adi."

Madi.

Questions pummel him without answer. The who, the what. The when. The how. They roll into a stream of question marks Bellamy finds himself turning frequently towards, as though it is a puzzle he is capable of solving from here.

With an aggravated sigh, he mentally replays the rest of the message, hinging on her last few words, the only ones that came through clear.

"Less than a year to go."

Bellamy crosses his arms and leans against the wall, staring out the window as though he can see all the way to the ground, to a girl with a radio somewhere far below.

It's instantly followed by thoughts of his sister in the earth, buried but alive, tucked beneath the world's floor.

It just takes time.

Bellamy doesn't yet voice the question he really wants to ask, the one that leaves him waking in the middle of the night to a shirt soaked in sweat and a heart rate higher than the ceiling.

What happens when we've run out of that, too?

***

Madi insisted on bringing the radio.

Clarke was initially against it. Why, exactly, she still doesn't know. Maybe she finds it weird. Sadistic, in a way, and perhaps even a little eerie. But at the chance, the possibility of there being anyone listening on the other side, Madi wanted them to be included in today.

Something in Clarke's chest tightens.

The other side.

She shakes the thought off, clutching the radio in her hand, finger pressed to the receiver. "All right, go over the three rules for me again," says Clarke, watching the young girl with wary eyes.

Madi lifts her gaze to the blue sky above, an act she does any time she is trying to concentrate or recall something. "Always keep it pointed to the ground when you're not using it. Never point it at a person. Keep your finger out of the trigger guard until you intend to actually shoot." Her contemplative expression turns proud.

Clarke smirks. She places a hand endearingly on Madi's head. "Good, now hold it a little higher." it reminds her of a different time, so long ago, when she found herself in a bunker alongside the man who she hopes is listening now.

"So I just hold it on my shoulder?"

"Yeah . . . a little higher."

"I still think the bear traps work better," Madi says somberly. "I mean, don't you wonder if we'll ever need to, you know, . . . save what we have? Just in case?"
It takes a moment for Clarke to understand her meaning, and a cold knot appears in her chest. Save what they have. Save the bullets.

Just in case.

But Clarke is quick to shake her head. To dismiss that knot as an echo of old fears. "There's no one left to fight anymore," she says softly.

***

The alarm comes in the middle of the night.

The shrill cry yanks Bellamy from his nightmare. He rushes from his room, having slept with his shoes on. He doesn't change from his sodden shirt to a dry one. Bellamy just runs, sprinting down the corridors, the echo of the alarm like flashes of red in his mind. Those old instincts slam back into place like armor.

Bellamy turns the corner onto the bridge, taking in the rest of those gathered. "Where is it?" He asks Raven, who is at her usual spot behind the screens. But this time she is standing, eyes jumping between monitors, fingers flying across keyboards. Three strides later, he is standing next to her.

"Caught the signal a thousand miles Northwest of our position," she says.

"And?"

"And nothing. I'm tracking the problem. You guys make the call."

"Raven-"

"All right. Go over the rules for me again."

Bellamy stops. His attention snaps to the voice over the comms. "They're clear." He whispers. He looks back to Raven, a sinking feeling collecting in his chest. He knows before he even asks. "Raven, why is-"

"Because the ship is getting closer," she deadpans.

Coldness slams into him, all other thoughts clamoring from his mind. Bellamy takes a survey of the room, making sure everyone is accounted for.

"Always keep it pointed to the ground when you're not using it." The voice over the comm continues, only this time it is different, because this voice is not Clarke's.

Bellamy looks overhead, the roar inside him subsiding for a moment. The voice sounds young. Feminine. It inexplicably has Bellamy thinking of Octavia.

"Never point it at a person. Keep your finger out of the trigger guard until you intend to actually shoot."

So this is Madi.

"Nine-hundred miles Northwest and closing," Raven chimes.

Bellamy's attention narrows to this small focal point, no greater than the dot that has appeared on Raven's radar.

"Bellamy, what do we do?" asks Echo.

"If we go dark once more, it might cost us the last of our fuel," says Monty, his eyes wide with fear. "Same scenario if we try to outrun them."

Bellamy's mind races. Sweat has started to dampen his shirt once more. "And if we do go dark, is there another way of getting back? An alternative source of power we could use?"

Momentary silence.

"We won't know until we have to find one," Monty says softly.

Bellamy looks between Monty and Raven. He casts a glance out the window to a threat he cannot yet see. "What happens if we stay put, stay powered, and they dock?"

Murphy takes a step forward in protest. "Bellamy, you can't-"

Bellamy holds up a hand. "What happens?" he repeats. "Can we barricade them? Control points of entry?"

Raven shakes her head in frustration. "I can control the points of entry by encoding them manually, but those can be overridden, depending on what kind of systems operator they have. If they even have one at all."

"So if they dock, we might be able to keep them in one place," reiterates Bellamy. "If not, we shut down, and potentially lose our only known chance to return to the ground?"

Murphy slams a hand against the wall. "Just once I would like to have promising odds!"

"Seven-hundred miles Northwest," is Raven's response.

"I still think the bear traps work better," chimes the young voice. Madi's voice.

Bellamy tries to block it all out, forcing himself to think. To consider their only choices.

'Only choice.' Also an oxymoron, by the way.

He looks between the monitor, staring at the solitary blip blinking across the screen. He does a mental inventory of weapons, considering, for a moment, Monty's wrenches and screwdrivers.

Murphy was right; there are no promising odds.

"I mean, don't you wonder if we'll ever need to, you know, . . . save what we have? Just in case?"

"Six-hundred miles." Raven looks up at him, the worry in her eyes louder than anything else. "Bellamy, we're down to minutes. What do we do?"

What do we do?

What do we do?

Bellamy stares at the small, seemingly innocuous dot on the screen, watching it move with unblinking eyes and an anger that has him clenching his fists tight.

His earlier thoughts repeat themselves. No, they haven't endured everything on the ground just to die in the stars. They haven't done all they did for it to end here.

Bellamy is not done.

None of them are.

"Three hundred miles," whispers Raven.

Bellamy raises his gaze to her, then to the others, searching for an answer he won't find. A solution that is not within their options.

Finally, his eyes settle on Monty's. Heart heavy as lead, Bellamy gives him a small nod, just as Clarke's voice spills over the comm, confident and at ease.

"There's no one left to fight anymore."