15a/n If you've ever read my writing before, it won't be news to you that I think Echo is the most underrated character in the 100. I'm really excited about this story - I know it won't get as many readers as some of my others because it is Echo-centric, but I'm looking forward to writing a multi-chapter project from her point of view all the same. You can look forward to plenty of Bellarke, a healthy dose of Spy Mechanic, and some completely unrealistic but enjoyable season seven speculation.
Huge thanks to Stomrkpr, who didn't used to be an Echo fan but admits to actually feeling affinity for her on betaing this chapter!
Happy reading!
Rise above it.
That's pretty much been Echo's motto since they landed back on Earth and learnt that Clarke was still alive.
Rise above it.
She mustn't let her gaze linger on the fond farewell between Bellamy and Clarke before he sets out for the anomaly with Octavia. No good will come from staring at them, and the only solution is to let it go.
Rise above it.
She can't allow herself to care too deeply that he's falling in love with Clarke all over again – or that, perhaps, he never stopped loving Clarke. She knows where this is going, has been able to see the writing on the wall ever since Madi pulled the rug out from under all their feet. She just needs to bide her time, and choose the perfect moment to set things to rights.
And in the meantime, she needs to keep her head held high. There's no point letting this get to her – Bellamy will love who Bellamy loves. That's not a thing anyone gets to choose, Echo's pretty sure. If free will was involved, she sure as hell wouldn't have chosen to go and fall in love with a guy who was still stuck on a woman they all thought was dead.
They've finished hugging, now, but Echo represses the urge to make a biting comment along the lines of took you long enough. Bellamy and Clarke just got each other back, really, and it's only natural that they should take their time saying goodbye. She will rise above her jealousy at their obvious intimacy, and she will get on with being the most loyal member of Bellamy's family.
"She could come with us, you know." Echo offers as they leave, because it needs to be said, and because she reckons that suggesting Clarke join them as an addition to the group is a less controversial suggestion than coming out and saying that it should be Clarke by Bellamy's side instead of her.
"She can't. She has Madi." Bellamy says shortly, and that is all the confirmation Echo needed – confirmation that he loves Clarke, confirmation that Clarke would be his companion of choice were it not for the lack of suitable childcare arrangements. And it hurts, sure, because she is in fact in love with this man herself – but it hurts with a dull throb rather than a sharp stab. It hurts like an old injury she's known about for a while, one she can sometimes even forget is there. And anyway, she's going to rise above it. She's had plenty of practise at ignoring pain before now.
They join up with Octavia and Gabriel then, and Bellamy makes a game attempt to engage his sister in conversation. Echo is proud of him, really she is – it hasn't been easy for him to forgive the Queen of Cannibals, as he was referring to her just a few short days ago, so she reckons it's only good news that they're trying for a chat about nothing in particular as they walk towards the anomaly.
"Something on your mind?" Gabriel asks, catching her by surprise. Echo wasn't aware that there was anyone here who bothered talking to her much, apart from Bellamy and the rest of Spacekru.
"Just glad to see them talking again." She says, with a gesture at the siblings.
"Reunions and reconciliation all round." Gabriel says, agreement in his tone. "It must have been hard for Bellamy to leave Clarke behind so soon after getting her back from Josephine."
Echo doesn't answer that. She can't. She's a bit too busy, rising above it for all she is worth.
…...
She's not surprised when Octavia disappears in a puff of green smoke.
She's not surprised, because she already figured all those symbols had to mean something. There was obviously something mysterious afoot, and now she comes to think about it, she's not sure rushing out here to investigate was a particularly good idea.
Most of all, she's not surprised because she's pretty damn difficult to take by surprise. Expecting things to go wrong is basically her default state, these days, and she likes to think that being level-headed in a crisis is one of her better qualities.
Unsurprised though she may be, she does wonder what's going on. Of course she does – she's as vulnerable to human curiosity as the next woman, for all that she's heard people accuse her of being somewhat inhuman in the past. This vanishing act is like nothing she's ever seen before – she'd be tempted to call it almost magical, but she distinctly remembers a conversation with Raven, early on in their time on the Ring, where she was feeling completely bamboozled by all the new tech and Raven had shared with her some profound quote about advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic.
In the time it takes her to scour the dust at her feet with a frown on her face and start questioning what has happened, Bellamy manages to make a run for it, sprinting out into the forest for no apparent reason.
She wishes he'd stop and take a breath, sometimes, before acting. It's exhausting, following helplessly in the wake of his impulsive decisions. Being helpless doesn't really suit her, she's pretty sure. And she's no Clarke, so she hasn't a hope of actually getting him to change his behaviour.
Swallowing her frustration, she follows him into the trees. Gabriel joins her, too, muttering something about how Bellamy seems to be heading for the anomaly, and that confuses her. She thought they'd already summoned the anomaly – wasn't that what all that green mist was about?
Clearly, understanding the intricacies of temporal anomalies is not her strong suit.
It doesn't take them long to catch up to Bellamy. He's still limping slightly from that encounter with the blade of Clarke's knife during the red sun psychosis, but she's pretty sure that's not all that's going on here. He seems to be slowing down, as he nears the anomaly, staggering slightly for reasons that remain unclear to her. And then he stops altogether, just as they are a handful of paces away, and reaches out to stroke thin air with a tentative fingertip.
She's seen Bellamy behave pretty damn weirdly, over the last thirteen decades. She can remember, for example, one morning in space when she woke up to the sight of him sleeping on a rough-bristled doormat on the floor so he'd feel more on Earth.
But she's never seen him stroke thin air.
Then she hears him speak, and it all makes sense. It makes perfect sense, because as he steps forward and wraps his arms around nothingness he's whispering one word, over and over and over again, prayer and mourning chant rolled into one.
You know what he's whispering, don't you? He's whispering Clarke.
Echo hears Gabriel clear his throat noisily, but she wants to tell him not to bother. It is not news to her that her boyfriend is obsessed with Clarke Griffin. She'd be a pretty hopeless spy if she hadn't the observational skills to have noticed that, by now.
"The anomaly shows people their deepest desires and greatest fears." Gabriel reminds her unnecessarily.
"I know." She agrees, a little affronted. "And we both know which of those two things describes the way Bellamy feels about Clarke. Now let's get him out of there before he follows some illusion of her into that anomaly and we lose him too."
She can see why people might think she's heartless, as she reflects on those words. It takes a pretty exceptional talent to compartmentalise to that degree – yeah, sure, her boyfriend is currently living out some fantasy happily-ever-after with another woman before her very eyes, but she needs to get him to safety before she allows herself to fall apart over it.
She's not sure whether she will fall apart over it, actually. She's already cried about Bellamy's obvious preference for Clarke, a time or two or three, when she had the privacy to be able to do so without rousing Bellamy's suspicions. She thought she was all cried out, but as she watches him, now, smiling fondly and evidently holding onto a hand only he can see as he follows his hallucination towards the unknown, she begins to wonder if there might be more tears to come.
She's just never had to watch him be quite this obvious about it before. Leaving her to save Clarke's life without looking back was a bit of a giveaway, but this is something else entirely, and she has to admit it's not particularly easy to remain impassive on this occasion. It's a sharper kind of pain than she's grown used to, and it makes her feel small, and she doesn't like it.
She advances slowly towards him, balancing caution with urgency. She spares a moment to notice her own hallucination flit across the edges of her vision. She should have known – it's just Roan, in all his regal state, telling her she did a good job on her latest mission.
Pathetic. Predictably pathetic.
Of course her deepest desire is just to have the genuine approval of someone she respects. She knew that when she woke up this morning, has known it every day of her adult life – she doesn't need some fog of technical wizardry to tell her that. She bats Roan physically to one side and makes straight for Bellamy.
Between the two of them, Echo and Gabriel manage to grasp Bellamy's arms and drag him away from the danger. He protests loudly – heartbreakingly so – and calls out desperately to that vision of Clarke only he can see as they go. But that's fine. It's to be expected, and Echo's not about to let it get to her.
She's rising above it, one step at a time.
By the time Gabriel reckons they have put enough distance between themselves and the anomaly, Bellamy is weeping messily and mumbling in confusion. It's not a pretty sight.
"It's normal for him to be disorientated like this." Gabriel says with a shrug. "It'll wear off. It might clear quicker if he sleeps it off."
Echo draws in a steadying breath, and crouches at Bellamy's side.
"Clarke?" He croaks out, as he turns to look at her.
"You'll see her soon, Bellamy. I promise. Get some rest, and then you'll feel better when we go to meet Clarke."
"But she was right here." He protests, the first actual sentence she has heard from him in the best part of an hour.
"I know." Echo soothes, with all the sensitivity she can muster. Given the circumstances, that's not a lot of sensitivity. "She'll be back soon, and you can see her then. Go to sleep."
Unusually compliant, he nods, brushes aside a confused tear, and leans back against the nearest tree.
…...
Bellamy wakes up, and Echo isn't ready for it. She's spent the last couple of hours watching over him with nothing to do but plan how and when she will end things with him, how and when she will tell him what he saw in the anomaly, but she's still not decided. All she knows is that it is a special kind of cruelty that she will have to tell him about his hallucination of Clarke – Gabriel is certain that he won't remember it for himself, because he got sufficiently close to entering the anomaly that it will have wiped his mind of the memory.
"Echo?" He asks, bolt upright the moment his eyes blink open.
"I'm here. You're OK. Just rest and let me tell you what happened."
"What do you mean? What -? Octavia?"
"She's gone into the anomaly. You were about to follow her." Echo explains, although it is not strictly the whole truth. "We dragged you back here so that -"
"No. You shouldn't have – I need to go after her."
"You need to sit still until I've finished explaining." She cautions him firmly. "You won't achieve anything if you run in there unprepared, you know that. We should go back to camp and talk to Raven."
"Raven? We don't have time to sit around chatting to Raven. My sister is gone."
"This is tech. We should get Raven – she'll know what to do better than either of us. And you should get Clarke, because no way would she want you to do this without her. You know she regretted it last time she sent you off on a mission without her, back at Mount Weather."
"How do you know that? You weren't there." He points out belligerently.
"I know both of you well enough to know it's the truth."
He admits defeat at that, and she is glad of it. She may have the self-control of – well, of Echo – but even she is beginning to struggle with the discomfort of insisting to a man she loves that he should actually be spending his time with someone else. He gets to his feet, and the three of them set off for Sanctum together, Gabriel taking the lead, Bellamy and Echo walking alongside each other.
She wonders how often they will walk like this together, in the future. She likes to think that they might still be friends when she breaks things off and he settles down with Clarke. No, maybe that's not quite right – they were never friends in the first place. They started sleeping together long before they started truly speaking to each other. She wonders, then, if maybe they could start a friendship when they -
She stops wondering anything at all, very abruptly, when a crazed man cuts in front of them and launches himself at Bellamy.
"Cage?" Bellamy chokes out in shock, even as he tries to push the man away. It's tricky, though, because the force of the impact has knocked him to the ground and the newcomer has, quite literally, the upper hand.
"You're the impostor!" This stranger is yelling, for no apparent reason. "It's you! I'll kill you, I'll -"
He doesn't finish his sentence. He's a bit busy trying to pull Echo's knife from his throat. She waits for him to finish choking on his own blood, kicks the body once to check he's really dead, and then extracts the knife herself. It's a good knife, so she cleans it calmly on a scrap of the dead attacker's shirt.
Gabriel, meanwhile, appears to be losing his mind.
"What – did you? Who?"
"Cage Wallace." Bellamy supplies, sitting up and rubbing his forehead. Echo's not sure whether it's pain or confusion that's bothering him, as she crouches by his side.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes." Bellamy shakes his head, at a loss. "It's impossible, because he died on Earth over a century ago – at least, I think he did. I never saw the body myself."
"You're telling me that's Cage Wallace." Echo repeats, because, to be clear, this is preposterous. And she's not in the business of entertaining preposterous ideas.
"I'm telling you that's Cage Wallace. He seemed – disorientated, didn't he?"
Gabriel speaks up at that, forming rather more sensible sentences than his last attempt at speech. "Of course he's disorientated. He's just been through the anomaly."
"What?" Echo asks, growing fed up of the magic of tech.
"Makes sense, doesn't it? If people can enter the anomaly, why shouldn't they be able to leave it?"
Echo is sorely tempted to point out that they shouldn't be able to leave it because this entire conversation is insane. She resigns herself, however, to sheathing her knife and helping Bellamy up off the ground. She figures he needs her loyal support more than he needs her critical mind, just this moment.
Bellamy doesn't seem to want her help, though. He shrugs her off, roughly, and shuffles away from her.
"What is it?" She asks, confused.
"You killed him. You just – you killed him."
"Of course I killed him. He was about to kill you." She really doesn't understand why they're having this conversation.
"But he could have given us answers!" Bellamy cries, visibly distressed. "He could have told me how to get to my sister!"
"You would never have got to your sister if you were dead. And I don't think Cage Wallace is the kind of man who would answer your questions just because you asked him."
She knows a thing or two about keeping secrets, after all.
That's what decides the matter, in the end. She had intended to pick her moment, and plan some words, but she cannot in all good conscience continue pretending to be in a relationship with a man who doesn't even know who she is, and who's just seen another woman in his desire-fuelled hallucination. Her self-control may have held out for this long, but she's done, and they're done, and she wants this conversation done, too.
She falls unceremoniously to the dirt at his side, and begins without preamble. Efficiency is what she does best, after all – second only to loyalty.
"We're over, Bellamy. I'll stab the next guy who tries to kill you, too, because we'll always be family. But before you go to look for Octavia I'm moving my things out of your room."
"Our room." He corrects her, blinking in confusion. "I don't – where is this coming from, Echo?"
She doesn't laugh, but it's tempting. He must know full well where this is coming from. She notices Gabriel retreat discretely into the shadows as she continues to speak. "You and I both know you'd be happier with someone else."
"I love you." He insists, with more volume than conviction.
"You don't know who I am." She points out sadly. It's tempting to tell him what she means by that, by she decides that's a story for another day. That's a story to save for a time when he's chosen to listen to her, rather than only feeling obliged to hear her out because he wants to continue to sleep with someone who distracts him from missing Clarke.
"You can't just -"
"Clarke." She interrupts him firmly. "Clarke is where this is coming from. A future with her is your deepest desire. You saw her in the anomaly."
He is silent for a moment, processing.
"How do you know that?" He asks, hesitant.
She wishes, in that moment, that it was something more complicated, perhaps even nuanced. She wishes she could tell him that it's the observation of a spy gifted in reading people, and spare him the shame of knowing what he made her watch.
But this is Bellamy, and she loves him, and so she tells him the truth.
"You spent the better part of an hour crying her name while at least seventy percent delirious. I'm pretty sure you were making out with a hallucination of her at one point."
He looks like he's been hit in the head with the butt of an axe, and it appears to take him a great deal of effort to gather his wits before he next speaks. "I'm sorry, Echo. I'm sorry you had to see that. I think – you're right. We should go our separate ways."
"Don't be stupid." She dismisses that idea out of hand. "We're not going separate ways. You're my family, Bellamy, and I'll love you even though nothing romantic worked out between us. We're going the same way, but you're going to be in a relationship with Clarke. And that's fine with me."
With that, she gets to her feet, and rises above the grief and jealousy that threaten to spill from her eyes and roll down her cheeks.
a/n Thanks for reading!
