"No way. . ." Harper pushes through the door, letting it slam without resistance against her shoulder. Miller sticks closely behind, mouth agape as soon as he follows her line of sight.
"I should be the one saying that." Ethan chuckles. He gestures at her from his spot on Kane's desk, "Then again, you've always been pretty brave, so I can't say I'm shocked you're here."
Her awed expression bursts into a wide smile. She darts over and meets him halfway in a quick, excited hug.
Mirroring one of their very first interactions, Ethan laughs, "Hey, Harper." He squeezes her close. "My best buddy, my go-to girl."
Giggling, she catches on and recites the rest, "What's up, Ethan?"
They pull back, looking each other up and down, taking note of everything new and everything old. Harper looks stronger, her eyes missing something of the youthful joy and her stance is one of preparation. The guards uniform says it all.
Miller swerves around Harper hesitantly and sends a pursed smile.
"You, on the other hand, I am surprised about." Ethan huffs. He remembers, pretty vividly, Miller following Bellamy around without question.
He holds out his arm and almost shrieks when Miller yanks him in with more strength than he's had for months. Patting him on the back a few times, Ethan hides a smile.
"Where the hell have you been?" Miller slaps him on the arm when they part, eyes quickly darting from Ethan's hair to his skinnier figure.
"Believe it or not, the City of Light." Ethan dips his head to the side, and almost sarcastically, says, "Wouldn't recommend it."
"Here I was hoping we'd have somewhere to run away to." Miller jokes, a hint of a smile twitching at the corner of his lips.
Ethan bites his tongue, guilt stirring in his gut, "So was I."
Harper pats him on the shoulder, dipping her head to send him a welcome look and a small chuckle, "Guess things haven't gone so well for both parties." The humour is dry, but sometimes the only thing capable of making them feel better.
He nods, "You can say that again."
Kane clears his throat, all attention back on him. Ethan heaves himself off of the table and spins around to stand beside the others. In a line like faithful soldiers. When he notices that particular comparison, he promptly throws himself onto the nearest chair.
Ethan studies Harper and Miller while he was the chance, zoning Kane out as he summarises their impromptu plan.
They went from kids sent down to Earth to teenagers on the cusp of adulthood fighting for their freedom. He can see it in the way Harper stands, her smile gone, and the way Miller listens without question, none of that snark, none of those stupid jokes Ethan remembers.
He looks away.
Ethan was sure Harley would be a part of this rag-tag resistance Kane put together, yet he hasn't seen the man even once.
He'd have to ask about it. And Jasper, too. Someone who used to be inseparable from Monty, but hasn't been seen around him.
Patiently waiting, Ethan only butts in once to add, "We know surveillance has been doubled. There's no point in me trying to stay hidden anymore." He shrugs, swinging his knee from side to side, "I'll talk to Bellamy, Monty too. There's no guarantee I can change their minds but it'll buy you guys some time. If I get arrested, that's my chance to help Sinclair and Lincoln."
And so the plan is a go.
Bellamy needs a breath. He just needs to- to think, for a second. Storming into his room, he tosses his guard's jacket down on the bed and yanks his handgun free from its holster.
Exhaling slowly through his nose, he starts taking the gun apart, cleaning it through with a permanent crease between his brows.
"Nice place you got here."
Bellamy refuses to say he flinched, but he definitely wasn't expecting somebody else to be in the room. He recognizes the voice, sighs, and continues with what he's doing.
"Get on with what you want to say, Ethan. I have somewhere to be."
On the other side of the room, "Interrogating Sinclair?" Ethan crosses his arms and leans back, relatively comfortable in the metal chair.
Bellamy pauses, glancing slowly over his shoulder until their eyes are locked. He puts the gun down and turns to stand straight. "Already been done." He cocks his head, "Kane's failed, Ethan. Now would be the time to realise you chose wrong."
They're on track, then.
Ethan smiles, entirely derisive. "Pretty sure I'm on the right side." He claps his knees and stands with a sigh, "I'm gone for four months and you're already pissing off every one of your friends. Just like old times."
"You were gone, Ethan. You have no right to be judging me on what I've done for our people."
"You think you're doing it for us? You're so wrong." Ethan saunters slowly around the room, "This war Pike is starting, it's only going to end with all of us dead." He glances across to meet his eyes, "And I know you don't want that."
Slowly turning to keep Ethan within his sight, Bellamy frowns. "Pike is doing this so that we will have a home. He was the only one that did something when the grounders destroyed Mount Weather."
"Don't be an idiot, Bellamy." Ethan barks, frustrated. He steps closer, lines forming between his brows, "Your girlfriend was there, I get it, but that's not on you, and it's not on the innocent grounders Pike wants dead. It's on Ice Nation."
Bellamy jolts forward at the mention of Gina. He pauses, abruptly, though, at the sight of something in Ethan's hand. Something that wasn't there a second ago.
"You gonna shoot me with that?" He says, his voice low and eyes narrowed.
With a frown and a confused part of the lips, Ethan squints at him, "What?" He follows Bellamy's eyes to his hand and sucks in a sharp breath.
He'd instinctively grabbed the closest thing to defend himself.
"Uh," Ethan blinks, repeatedly, slowly loosening his grip on it, "No. I'm not."
And in seconds the gun is gone, twisted from his fingers and instead in Bellamy's. Now Ethan is cornered.
"Turn around," Bellamy demands, nostrils flared.
"What, so you can arrest me like you did Sinclair? Like you did with Clarke?" Ethan focuses on his breathing, trying to keep it calm. He had an inkling it would only turn out like this. "You still have a chance, Bellamy. To join us."
"Funny. I was going to say the same to you."
Ethan's eyes narrow into slits. That was it, then. Bellamy was too far into this rabbit hole Pike created.
"Turn around, Ethan, and we can do this the easy way." Bellamy's eyes dart to Ethan's bare wrist, par for the twined bracelets. "Or do you want a repeat of last time?"
Last time. . . the dropship. Their wristbands. "You had a chance to do this the easy way."
He inches backwards, "Low blow." Glances, briefly, at the open door.
Bellamy notices.
It only takes a second, and the stiffness of motionless bodies tears into frenzied movement. Ethan hooks his foot behind Bellamy's and tugs, making a path for himself.
Bellamy grunts, steadying himself in time to catch Ethan's arm, yank him back and toss him towards the dresser. "Don't make this difficult."
Back meeting wood, Ethan curses and lifts his arms to defend his front. He swats away a reaching arm, ducks and drives himself into Bellamy's ribs.
They hit the mattress and roll off onto the floor, giving Ethan the advantage of moving first, scaling over the bed and limping towards the open exit.
Risky in itself, considering anyone could come past and see the commotion, but he was appreciative nonetheless.
During all this, Bellamy doesn't even think about firing the gun at his belt. "What happened to Murphy?" He calls out, as a last-ditch attempt, hoping it would hit a nerve.
It succeeds. Ethan stops as soon as he hears the name, "Wh-"
A second too long, a moment too curious, and Bellamy's got a hold of him.
"Get the hell off me, Bellamy!" Ethan throws his head back, misses, and then his foot. It lands, but being his injured one, Bellamy barely acknowledges the weak attempt.
"Take it easy, Ethan. Stop struggling."
Ethan curses, "Why the hell would I do that for?" When he hears the clink of metal handcuffs, he struggles harder, jerking around in Bellamy's grip even if it sends them into the wall a few times.
"Damn it, Ethan-" Bellamy grits his teeth, having to grab at Ethan's wrists with one hand, and swing the other around his front to keep him still.
Even then, it barely works. He has half a mind to call out for the guards to help him, but this feels personal.
Then, thoroughly sick of it, knowing he has somewhere to be, not wanting Ethan to get in the way or change his mind any more than he's already starting to - Bellamy goes for the one place he shouldn't have.
Ethan's knees buckle.
The pressure at the base of his skull shuts down every single rational thought and screams at him to kneel, to abide, to stay.
Ethan flinches, half expecting a shock to the gut, but it doesn't come.
He's already lost his breath, caught in his chest just waiting to escape in desperate gasps.
"Okay, okay, okay," He begs, eyes squeezed shut. It happens, then, choking on an inhale. "I'm-" He almost says it, almost apologizes like the idiot back in his wooden cage.
He can feel his knees against the floor, the cold metal biting at his wrists, fingers digging against what feels like every nerve of his body.
Ethan shuts down. Blocks it out.
He's done this before, he thinks, when he hung the sheet on the rafters in the basement, when Jaha first separated him from Murphy.
When things got hard in the cave and he believed his friends were dead.