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CHAPTER TWO

CARING KILLS

It had been seventy-three days. He knew, he had counted.

Over two months since he last saw her face, and yet it felt like a lifetime since he had seen her. The real her. Not the grieving mess she had become. He knew she would be determined to reconnect with who she was, but he didn't realize it would take so long. He just wanted her back, even if that meant she hadn't fully recovered. He just wanted to see her face, to know she was still alive.

Bellamy hoped she was still alive.

Even a week was a long time to be gone where they were concerned, but two months? Not only was his worry building with each passing day but she and Clarke were missing so much. He had become part of the guard, he felt as though he actually had a purpose now, only he had no one to share it with.

Shifting his weight so his legs dangled freely over the edge of the Ark and his arms propped behind him, Bellamy exhaled deeply through his nose, eyes squinted as the sun began its ascent into the streaky orange and blue sky. He did this every morning, not to look at the breathtaking view, but to watch the tree line in the hopes to see her.

Every morning he woke up before dawn with a newfound hope Carter would clumsily stagger out of the bushes, and every time as the rays stretched across the sky, his heart sank further,.

It was downright awful how one person could have such an effect on him. To make him feel like his entire world, no matter how many changes, was on some kind of standstill. Like time wouldn't continue until she was back.

It made him feel weak.

"You're becoming pretty predictable, you know." Raven's voice sounded light like she was trying to step carefully. She knew he had somewhat shut himself off from people socially since Carter left, it was why she came up to the roof to see him even if it proved to be a challenging task for her. They often just sat in silence, waiting together. While the mechanic showed it less, Bellamy knew she felt the same pain he did. When she joined him, every single morning, he knew it wasn't just for him.

It was for her too.

"Same could be said to you." Bellamy sent her a weak smile as she shuffled over to sit beside him. The sun was beginning to illuminate the top of the Ark now, most of the camp would be up within the next half-an-hour. For a while, they just sat in silence, watching the treeline below them before Raven sighed. 

"She will come back. She always does."

"You really think so?" The former leader raised his eyebrow, tilting his head so he could see Raven's expression. He took comfort in the hardened determination within the mechanic's eyes. It was no secret that Raven had a knack for being incredibly realistic, sometimes bordering pessimistic, but she genuinely held hope for the return of the last standing member of her family. It often gave Bellamy hope when he felt there was none.

If Raven could have hope, so could he.

***

"You know, you'd think you'd learn by now that sleeping in a tree is just asking for injury."

Carter's jaw worked back and forth as Ren worked quickly to untie her from the tree. At some point during the night, she had managed to turn herself around to the point that she fell off the thick branch, only to be saved by the rope she often tied around her waist to stop her from promptly falling on her face. And while it saved her from imminent pain, it meant that in the morning she was stuck suspended to a tree and Ren had to come and save her sorry ass.

And every time, he took great pleasure in making fun of her for her apparent idiotic idea.

"Look, it's better than sleeping on the floor." She grumbled, glaring at the upside-down world she was forced to stare at as her friend freed her.

"Yeah sure, getting yourself stuck definitely beats occasionally getting a stick up your ass," He paused for effect, snickering lightly, "Then again, you don't need to sleep on the floor for that."

"You're an ass."

"Thanks, boo." Ren scoffed, and then without warning, untied the last knot, not bothering to heave Carter up onto the low hanging branch, instead he let her fall to the ground with a yelp, shoving the wind out of her lungs as she groaned loudly. With a small triumphant smile, he hopped off the branch, landing firmly beside Carter with a soft thud. His smile turned into a smirk as he offered her his hand up, which she batted away with a scowl.

"I hate you." She muttered, rolling her shoulders in a meek attempt to rid of the lingering sleep that still stiffened her body. Clearing her throat, she hiked her pack up onto her shoulder before glancing around their little makeshift camp. She wasn't sad to leave it behind, they both moved so much that sentiments never really developed to a place they stayed in. It was how they managed to get so far away from Camp Jaha. But now, they were less than a day away from Carter reuniting with her family.

A smile tugged at her lips. Less than a day away from seeing Bellamy again. 

Ren's lips were pursed into a thin line as his eyes narrowed, skitting across the map as he tried to calculate the best route. When it was first decided that he would be the one to drag Carter's ass back to where she came from, the engineer had been adamant her map reading skills were above par, but after half a day of inconsistent trails, map flipping and a lot of confusion, he figured it would be best if he took over. 

"Okay," He drawled, folding the map up and slipping it into his back pocket, "Let's hurry up and get rid of you."

"You know exactly what to say to warm my heart, you know that?" Carter scoffed.

"I know I'm irresistible, but you're spoken for Carter," Ren sighed dramatically, "Once you're back in Camp Jahaha, you need to let go of me. It'll be hard and you'll probably cry for a few years, but it's to be expected."

"Oh my god," Carter groaned, throwing her head back in exasperation as they began their journey down the beaten forest trail, "I have never met a man so in love with himself before, you make Wick look like an insecure teenage girl."

"With a name like Wick, he should be an insecure little girl." Ren snorted with a smirk, gripping onto the straps of his backpack as he nudged Carter playfully. "Just like with a name like Carter, you should be a boy."

"I'm going to pretend I'm not offended by that," The engineer muttered, shaking her head lightly. It was silent for a moment as she frowned thoughtfully before looking back up at her friend, "So, I still can't change your mind about coming to Camp Jaha with me?"

Ren dipped his head to hide the faint smile at the sincerity of Carter's words, but quickly schooled his face back into it's usual skeptical and sarcastic guise, "You're okay, I'd rather be eaten by an army of lava ants than spend an hour in the company of people I hate."

"You'd be safe there, though," Carter's eyebrows pinched upwards, "You can be part of something bigger."

"I don't want to be part of something bigger,"  He tried to keep the frustration out of his tone, but Carter heard it and her shoulders deflated. It wasn't the first time they had this conversation. "I enjoy being a lone wolf, Carter, because the moment you get attached, you spend the rest of your life worrying that the people you hold close are going to get hurt or die," He turned to look at her, blue eyes icy as his dark brows narrowed in a frown, "Tell me I'm wrong."

She was silent, words fizzing out on her tongue before she had a chance to try and convince him otherwise. He wasn't wrong. There wasn't a day that passed where she didn't feel the anxiety of what state her friends were in, even when she was around them, the worry was always lurking. Ren took her silence as an answer and tightened his jaw, his eyes focused forward as he nodded his head.

"Exactly, you can't."

***

"Pssst, Ren, wake up!"

After the fourth desperate attempt to wake up her friend, Carter had noticed how his face was contorted, brows pulled together, lips tense as he jolted with each furious mumble under his breath. Carter would have tried more a more gentle approach to wake him, had she not been dangling from the tree she had chosen to sleep in. 

"Ren! I need help!" With a louder voice, Carter called over to him and he sat up with a sharp inhale, eyes wide and glassy as he glanced around the clearing. He tried to make sense of where he was, and then all at once, his fragile expression faded and cleared his throat quickly getting to his feet. He looked up to where Carter was swinging helplessly and almost like none of it happened like he hadn't just been caught having a nightmare again, he started to laugh and Carter's concern dissolved into annoyance.

It was bad enough that she looked like a pinata, she didn't need him to ridicule her when it was still ridiculously early in the morning.

"Help me get down." She ordered, the rope had ridden up to beneath her arms and she was spinning slowly, her feet barely inches above the ground, but she still couldn't free herself without Ren's help.

"What if I don't want to?" Ren asked with a challenging smirk.

"I'll use your kneecaps as hockey pucks." 

"Well, with that attitude, I just want you to stay there, looking like live bait." He feigned annoyance, although his stupid smirk hadn't faded at all. "Ask nicely and I might."

Carter's jaw tensed as she fantasized in killing her friend several times in her head, "Ren," She started, her voice eerily calm, "If you don't help me down, so help me God, I'll burn-"

"-Nicely," Ren repeated with more force, his grin unwavering.

Whilst internally screeching, Carter gritted her teeth, "Please can you help me down?"

Pause. "I don't wanna."

Carter's jaw dropped as Ren made to walk away from her. She kicked her legs as though that would somehow help the situation, but all it did was push the rope up under her armpits, the tips of her boots grazed against the gravel on the floor. "Ren!"

He laughed airily before turning back around, "I'm kidding, jeez," He rolled his eyes, "No need to threaten me in your fancy language,"

"I'll do a lot more than just threaten you..."

He paused at the foot of the tree, cocking a brow at her, "Do you want me to help you?"

"You don't even know what I said!" She scoffed.

"I don't have to know, your tone speaks louder than words." He tutted as he began to climb the tree. 

It was silent as he began to untie the knot, and Carter thought back to the nightmare she had caught Ren having. It hadn't been the first time she noticed it, and it was often that the boy would wake up in a cold sweat. At first, she didn't think much of it. Everyone had nightmares, herself included. But then, they got worse. He began muttering names under his breath. And one name stuck out in particular.

Caroline. 

She knew it would be risky bringing it up, but she had to ask. "Who's Caroline, Ren."

Any movement above her froze and just when she thought he wasn't going to respond, he cleared his throat, "Beats me." It was a lie, the break in his voice gave that away.

"You keep saying her name in your sleep," Carter tried again, her voice light as it felt as though the atmosphere between them had dropped several degrees. "We've been stuck with each other for a while now and you know everything about me... I don't anything apart from your name."

"Not true." He swallowed thickly, trying to press most of his focus into the rope, "You know I don't like you."

"I'm being serious, Ren." An ironic line when you're dangling from a tree branch. She tried to look up at him, but it was to no avail.

The clearing was deathly silent again. Even the soft crackle of their fire seemed to be dulled out. Carter sighed, regretting her choice of conversation entirely. Whoever Caroline was, it didn't take a genius to work out she meant a lot to Ren. When Carter mentioned his nightmares last time, Ren had a familiar look in his eyes, one Carter knew all too well.

It was despair. The same feeling she felt for so long after losing Finn. 

"She was my girlfriend," Ren finally answered, his voice heavy with emotion. "She was... she still is everything to me. After Hyrdo crashed, a few of us survived. We had enough rations to last us until we knew what we could eat down here and what we couldn't. For the first week, it was easy living. And then our rations went missing,"

He finished untying the rope and Carter managed an uneasy landing to her feet, he jumped down and ran a hand through his hair. He kept his eyes cast down as he spoke to Carter.

"Something was wrong. You know what Earth is like, it changes us. Even the best people," He inhaled slowly as he looked up at her, eyes still glassy, but they held so much sadness that Carter had to resist the urge to reach out to him, "Our group, I don't know what happened to them, but they weren't men anymore. They were monsters. I begged Caroline to leave with me, we could make it on our own, but she didn't want to leave them. She wanted us all to survive," He laughed, but it was empty and hollow, "We should have left when I said because that night I woke up to Care screaming. It's so screwed up. The leader, William, he had convinced everyone that Care and I were the ones who stole the supplies, he had overheard my plan to leave and thought that we had to pay, they were going to get rid of her first and then kill me when I was sleeping," His jaw tensed and his eyes turned icy, but it wasn't directed towards Carter, "I... I killed them. I killed every single one of them but not before William took the opportunity to crack Care around the head with a pole."

He paused for a moment, schooling his expression into something more blase.

"I took my time killing him. Caroline was the only person in this entire freaking world I liked, let alone loved and she was taken away from me. The pole didn't kill her, but she wasn't alive either," His fists tightened by his sides, "Not only did Willaim take her away from me, but he also made me be the one that had to put her out of her misery. I... She is the only person I feel for. The others, I feel nothing, I don't feel remorse, I don't feel sad that I did what I did. Does that make me a bad person?"

"No," Carter replied almost immediately, her voice thick with unshed tears, her heart had taken refuge in the pit of her stomach. "What you did was an act of self-defense, it doesn't make you a bad person. They were the bad ones. You just tried to save her."

He snorted, "And all I did was kill her," His shoulders deflated and he suddenly looked extremely tired, "That's what happens when you care for people. You just end up getting them killed."

while I love ren and he's still almost a comic relief character, i want him to have more depth. so his story is still sad and plays a big part in this story. my bby deserves so much better