She woke to the sound of voices and the strange discovery that her body had stopped hurting.
Not entirely — there was still a dull weight in her limbs, and her mouth felt dry and wrong — but the burning that had been climbing her legs all day was gone, and when she moved her arms the air felt like air instead of something she had to push through. She lay still for a moment, not trusting it, and then she sat up and her head stayed where it was supposed to be.
"Here she is," John said, and she looked up to find him crossing the room toward her. He was walking differently than he had been — steadier, carrying himself with less effort, the careful movements of someone testing a body that had stopped fighting them. "You took your own sweet time, sweetie."
"What are you doing up?" she asked.
"Same thing you're about to do." He stopped in front of her and looked at her with that expression she had never quite learned to read. "You feel it too, yeah? How it's different."
She did. She didn't know how to explain it, but something had shifted while she slept — the fever, the weight of the sickness, whatever had been pulling her under — it was still there at the edges but it had lost its grip. "I don't understand how that's possible," she said, more to herself than to him.
"Lily." Octavia's voice came from behind her, and she turned to see the girl coming toward her with a cup of water. "Oh, you're up."
"And you came back," Lily said. "What did Lincoln say?"
Octavia had explained it quickly. Lincoln had told her there was no cure for the fever, but that this particular one was not designed to last. The Grounders had sent Murphy because they were planning to attack the following day. The disease was a weapon meant to weaken the camp overnight, not to kill everyone in it. Not a long illness. A sharp one.
"That's why I feel better?" Lily asked, turning it over in her head. She reached out and pressed her fingers to Murphy's forehead before he could say anything.
"Alright..." he muttered as she touched him.
"No fever." She dropped her hand and looked around the room. In the dim light she could see people sleeping, some of them breathing more easily than they had been before she went under. Some of them still looked bad. Some of them were very still. "Did anyone else—"
"Die?" Murphy guessed.
"Yeah," Octavia said, her voice quiet. "And some more showed symptoms while you were out."
Lily got up from the hammock. Her legs held. "But they're attacking in the morning."
"Bellamy is handling it," Octavia said. "He'll figure something out."
She believed that. Whatever she and Bellamy were right now — whatever had cracked between them over Murphy, over the fever, over all of it — she had never doubted that he would find a way. She just hoped whatever he was planning didn't put him directly in front of an arrow.
"He asked about you," Octavia said, holding out the cup of water.
Lily looked up at her, and she fought the instinct to let her eyes go wide, because she hadn't expected that. She had thought — genuinely thought, lying in that hammock while the hours blurred — that after everything, after two people dying and his sister nearly sick, he would have filed her somewhere past concern. That the anger would have been the whole of it.
"He wanted to know how you were feeling," Octavia said, watching her. A small, knowing expression settled on her face. "Is something going on between you two? Because he looked very ready to come in here when he heard you'd collapsed."
Lily took the cup and drank from it, because it gave her something to do with her face. She felt warmth move through her chest, something quieter and more complicated than happiness, something she didn't know what to do with yet. She had been so sure she had lost it. That the anger had finished it off cleanly. And instead he had stood outside and asked how she was, and that was— that was enough. That was more than enough.
"As much as I love chitchatting," John said from behind her, "there's work to do."
She turned to look at him, frowning slightly. "You're helping?"
"Why so surprised?" He was already moving toward the nearest row of hammocks, picking up one of the cups from the table as he went. "They have to stay hydrated, right?"
Her lips curved up before she could stop them. "Right." She glanced at Octavia, who looked faintly amused, and then they both turned to go back to work.
"Where's Clarke?" Lily asked.
"Sleeping," Octavia said. "She passed out not long after you."
Lily looked across the room to the hammock Murphy had been using — Clarke was there now, her face slack and still, her breathing slow. Lily crossed to her and pressed the back of her hand to Clarke's forehead. Still warm, but not the burning it had been. Not worse.
"I was trying to keep her temperature down," Octavia said, a wet cloth in her hand.
"Keep doing that," Lily said, and Octavia moved to do it. Lily looked at her carefully — at her colour, at the steadiness of her hands, at the absence of the signs she had been watching for all day. No bleeding. No pallor beyond ordinary tiredness. No trembling.
"Are you feeling alright?" she asked.
"Yeah," Octavia said. "Apparently some of us are immune."
It was good news. It was genuinely good news, and Lily held onto it — if there were people who couldn't catch it, then there were people who could move through the room freely, who could carry water and change cloth without risk, who could hold the line while the sick ones fought their way back. It didn't change the ones they had already lost. Nothing changed that.
She wished she had real medicines. The thought came and went — she had been thinking it all day, this particular quiet grief for the equipment she didn't have, the compounds she couldn't synthesize, the things that might actually have shortened this rather than just softened it. She let it pass and reached for the yarrow.
Then someone coughed badly enough that the whole room shifted, and when she turned she saw Connor.
He was down on his side, his body shaking with the effort of it, and Octavia was already calling across the room.
"Murphy. Clarke said to roll him over when it happens."
"I'm on it." He was already moving, crossing the floor with more steadiness than she would have expected from him twenty-four hours ago, crouching beside Connor and getting his hands under the boy's shoulder. "Come on, come on, roll on your side." Connor resisted for a moment, and then didn't. "It's okay," Murphy was saying, lower than his usual voice, "I got you. Try to breathe. Hey — listen to me. You and me are good, all right? Just breathe."
Lily stood very still for a moment, watching him.
Connor had been the one who put the rope around his neck. Connor had been the one screaming loudest for it, his face twisted with the kind of anger that had stopped seeing a person and started seeing something it was allowed to hate. And now Murphy had his hand on Connor's back and was talking him through it in that low, steady voice, and she felt something move in her chest that she didn't try to name.
She hadn't thought he would do that. She hadn't let herself think it, because she hadn't been sure it was possible. And here it was.
She crossed to them and crouched, holding out a cup. "I've brought more water. You sure you've got him?"
Murphy took the cup without looking up. "I got this. Don't worry."
She touched his shoulder briefly as she stood and moved to the girl lying next to Connor, and she heard Murphy's voice behind her, and Connor's ragged breathing, and then Connor's voice, thin and exhausted and confused.
"I put that rope around your neck," he said. "Why are you helping me?"
There was silence for a moment, but then John answered, "Bygones."
Lily didn't hide the small smile that came, then she kept moving.
For the next hour she worked through the room — water to the ones who could drink, cloth to the ones who were burning, her voice to the ones who were frightened enough to need it. She turned people who were coughing and held them when it became the bad kind and talked them back when it passed. She checked on Clarke twice, who slept on, her temperature falling toward something survivable.
As she looked around, to the new faces that have entered since she had fallen asleep, Lily was glad that she didn't spot Jasper and Monty among them.
Then she heard a groan from the entrance, and something in the sound of it went through her before she had finished processing it, her body already turning, already moving.
Bellamy.
He was being half-carried inside by two of his boys, his arms over their shoulders, his feet finding the floor unevenly. His face was pale, sweat was forming on his forehead and there was blood on his upper lip and down his chin, probably coming from his nose. She was beside him before she knew she had crossed the room.
"Oh my God," she said, and her hands went to his face without asking permission. "Bell."
His eyes found her, and something in them shifted — something that had been braced relaxing very slightly. "Lily," he said.
Her eyes filled with tears. "It's going to be alright, I promise," she said, and she meant it, she would make it true. Behind her she heard Octavia's voice.
"Oh, no. Bell." Quick footsteps. "Clear some space. Lay him down."
Lily kept her hands on his face, her forehead nearly touching his cheek, steadying him while the two boys moved to do what Octavia said. His weight shifted toward her and she took it.
"You alright?" he asked her.
She let out a sound that was almost a laugh and almost a sob, and she was grateful he couldn't tell the difference. She didn't want him to see how frightened she was. "Are you asking me?" she said, and they looked at each other, and she felt him lean into her hands just slightly.
"Here, Lily," Octavia said from beside her.
But before they could move him, Bellamy started coughing.
"Bell—" She was already guiding him down, Octavia on his other side, both of them lowering him as fast as they safely could. He coughed and coughed, his whole body working with it, the sound wet and wrong, and she got her hand under his shoulder and her other hand in his hair. "On the side," Octavia said, and Lily was already doing it, tilting him so the blood in his mouth could come out instead of staying in, and she heard herself talking to him in a low steady voice, "It's alright, I've got you, you're alright," and she couldn't have said when she had started.
When the coughing finally stopped he lay gasping, his chest heaving, his eyes unfocused for a moment before he came back to himself. Octavia was already cleaning his mouth with a cloth, her eyes bright with tears she was not letting fall.
"Hey, big brother," she said.
He looked at her, and then at Lily, and then his eyes filled with tears.
"I'm scared," he admitted in a tired whisper.
She had never heard him say that. Not like this — not plainly, without anything over it, without armour. It was the most unguarded thing she had ever heard him say and it hit her somewhere behind her ribs and stayed there.
"I won't let anything happen to you, I promise," Octavia said, and her voice only cracked a little.
He looked at her for a moment. "That's what I said to you. The day you were born."
"I know," Octavia said softly. "You told me about a thousand times." She looked up at Lily. "You stay with him while I get water?"
Lily nodded, not trusting her voice. She kept her hand in his hair.
"Hi," he said tiredly, when Octavia had gone. His eyes were still wet.
"Hi," she said, and it came out soft and unsteady. "You're going to be up in no time. I'll make sure of it." She reached for his hand and he took it, his fingers closing around hers. She felt the tears slide down her own cheeks and didn't try to stop them. "I'm sorry, Bell," she whispered.
He shook his head slowly. "No." His voice was quiet and there was no harshness in it at all. "I know you'd do it again. That's who you are." His hand tightened around hers, and she smiled despite the tears, the two of them looking at each other in the dim light. "I'm glad you're alright," he said.
She almost lost it completely then. She had watched people die from this fever. She had watched them shake and go still, and she had held some of them when it happened, and she could not — she was not going to let him be one of them. "Try to rest," she said, steadying her voice as much as she could. "I'll be right here if you need anything."
He nodded, and his eyes closed, and she sat with her hand in his until his breathing slowed and evened out into sleep. It didn't take long. She knew that kind of exhaustion from the inside now. She watched the rise and fall of his chest until she was sure it was steady, and then, with a last touch to his hair, she let go of his hand and went back to work.
For the next two hours she moved through the room with Octavia and Murphy beside her. She brewed another batch of yarrow tea when the first ran out and pressed cups on everyone conscious enough to hold one. She turned people who were coughing and changed cloths and brought water until her arms ached with it. Every so often she passed where Bellamy lay and looked — breathing even, face still, the rise and fall of his chest steady. Each time it was steady and relieved Lily kept working.
She was passing Clarke's hammock when she noticed the girl stirring. She put her hand out to slow her down.
"Hey. Not too quickly." She said as Clarke blinked her eyes, "How are you feeling?"
"Like I've been hit by a tree," she said letting out a breath.
"I know what you mean." Lily pressed her hand to Clarke's forehead. The fever had dropped. Not gone, but cooler than before, heading somewhere survivable. "You should lie down a while longer."
"How are things going?" Clarke asked after a moment.
Lily's eyes moved across the room to Bellamy. "More people got sick while we were both out. And some had died too." She kept her voice steady, she needed to stay focused. "But don't worry about that right now. Rest some more. Octavia and Murphy are handle everything very well." She nodded toward the two of them moving through the rows, crouching when someone needed them.
"Murphy's helping?" Clarke asked, genuinely surprised.
"Yeah." Lily nodded. "And he's very committed to it."
"Do you trust him?" Clarke asked. Her voice was still tired, stripped down to its plainest version.
Lily thought about it honestly for a moment. "I don't think it's a matter of trust," she said. "He could have not cared at all. But he's helping." She briefly looked to where John was, then she turned to Clarke again. "I don't know what to call it. But I think it means something."
Clarke looked at her for a moment, probably thinking about what Lily had told her, but she didn't answer.
"Now rest," Lily said. "Peter brought more yarrow — I'm going to make another batch of tea."
She turned and looked at John across the room, and let herself think about what she had just said to Clarke. She knew that Marcus Kane would have sent him away the moment his usefulness ended — would have called it order, called it safety, dressed it in the language of what was necessary for the greater good. The same language the Ark had always used for the things it did to people. And sending Murphy away was that, in another shape. A slow execution instead of a quick one. A few days alone before the Grounders found him again, and she didn't think he'd survive a third time. She had never believed in those punishments. She still didn't, and she didn't think she ever would, no matter how much the world down here tried to make them seem like the only available answer.
She went back to the herbs and the water, and the work filled her hands, and after a while it filled her mind too, and she stopped thinking and just worked, and at some point the room went quiet around her and she didn't notice, and at some point after that she stopped noticing anything at all.
She woke to a hand on her shoulder, shaking her gently.
"Lily."
She jolted upright, and turned, and found Bellamy standing over her.
"Bell." She was up and her hands were on his arms before she had fully arrived in the moment. "You shouldn't be up."
"I feel better," he said.
She looked at him. His colour was still wrong, still carrying the grey of someone who had given more than they should. There was blood at his upper lip again, dried while he slept. And then she saw a drop of fresh blood coming form his nose. Lily reached for one of the cloth strips Murphy had torn from an old blanket and held it out, and he took it and pressed it to his nose.
"Why are you up?" she asked observing him. He was supposed to rest.
"Clarke's gathering everyone inside," he said glancing at the exit of the dropship. "It's almost dawn. The Grounders are coming, and we're safer in here."
"Octavia said you had a plan."
"Finn and Jasper are handling it." She could already hear it in his voice — the leader coming back, that forward-facing steadiness that refused to wait for permission even now, even half-recovered and bleeding. "But you never know."
"You're not going to rest, are you?" she said, even if it didn't sound much of a question.
He let out a breath instead of answering, and she had her answer. She turned to the yarrow tea and poured a cup and held it out. "Don't just drink water. Drink this too. It'll help with the bleeding."
He took it, and she expected him to move away, but he didn't. He looked at her.
"I thought you'd be angry," he said.
She looked up at him. "It wouldn't stop you," she said quietly. "That's who you are." Something passed between them — not quite a smile, not quite the resolution of anything, but something that held both and chose not to end in the hard place. "But if you feel tired," she added, "please, sit down. All right?"
He nodded, "All right." Then he reached over and moved a strand of hair from her face, slow and careful, his eyes observing her face closely. And then, without say anything else, he turned toward the entrance to go back to his work.
She stood still for a moment, her hand rising without thinking to the place where his had been.
It wasn't long before the first people began coming in — cloths pressed over their mouths and noses, eyes moving fast through the room, making space for the ones behind them. But then suddenly the sound came.
It moved through the ground before it moved through the air, deep and percussive, felt in the soles of her feet before she heard it.
Lily walked out of the dropship, shielding her eyes form the light as she step out. And she found the whole camp funnelling toward the dropship, Bellamy and Clarke at the entrance directing the flow, the sky above the trees going pale at the very edges with the first light of dawn.
But on the east, the treeline was lighten up — a dark column of smoke rising fast and thick above the canopy, grey shot through with orange, still burning. And everyone was looking at it.
"They did it," she heard Bellamy say.
She looked at his face as he watched the smoke climb, and she thought about Finn and Jasper somewhere out there in the trees with whatever plan they had found, and the smoke kept rising, steady and unhurried, into the pale sky.
They were safe. For now, at least, they were safe.