thirty one . . . my request for death
( may 1, 2281 — sanctum )

"THEY TRICK NIGHTBLOODS — or, all of Sanctum, I guess — into believing their sacrifice is for a God, when it's really to aid their immortality. That's what we found in the crypt, the bodies of past 'Hosts' that are glorified to keep the Primes in rule. That's what happened to Delilah. They erased her mind and put Priya's mind drive into her body." Cullen frowned across to Gracie, who's tears trickled emotionlessly down her cheeks. "I'm sorry. I hope by now, they feel no pain when it happens."

"'By now'?" Sloan repeated from where he stood by the window, looking down onto Sanctum.

She nodded grimly. "On the video we found, there was a girl that didn't go willingly. That's how we found out about all of this. I wanted to tell you now instead of with the group later."

"So what are we doing about it?" He asked, walking towards her with his arms crossed. "Are we leaving? Going to war?"

"No more wars." She refused instantly. "And I don't know if we're leaving. It's something to be decided with the group."

In the chair opposite her, Gracie viciously wiped away her tears and stared heedlessly to her Mother. "We can't just stay here. They'll kill you, or Clarke, or Madi — they'll kill us for protecting you from them. Nothing good can come of us staying."

"It's the majority vote, Gracie. We can't just branch off by ourselves." The look on Sloan's face indicated he thought otherwise, but Cullen ignored it. "We can't. Our friends are here, and we need to talk out all of our options before finalizing anything."

"What is there to finalize?" Her voice rose an octave.

"Whether some people do want to stay. I know Murphy does."

"Ban op Murphy." (Screw Murphy.) Sloan threw the words into the air without thinking about them thoroughly — Cullen knew he meant no offense to the man that had helped him while in the Valley. "If you're not safe here, then I'm not letting you stay."

"I won't leave our friends."

"Then convince them to leave. Please, Mom." Gracie's eyes looked so childlike in the plead, like she was five years old again and not willing to leave her Mom to go to safety. "They aren't the ones with their lives being threatened, you are. If we have the chance to leave now, we should. We'll go back up to the mothership, or find another place where we can survive."

"There's nowhere else that will keep us safe, not until Raven and Emori figure out how to build our own radiation shield."

Sloan exhaled shakily, Cullen's eyes moving up to where he stood behind Gracie, knuckles fading to white as his grip around the chair she sat on grew tighter. His face was taut, lips set in a firm line, though she could see the corners wanting to twitch down at the situation at hand — the emotion in his green eyes was hidden beneath a veil of fury, and Cullen wished to expose the raw feelings now instead of later in front of the group.

She herself had been angry all throughout the night, tossing and turning trying to think of any solution that would get their group away from Sanctum before herself and Madi were exposed as Nightbloods alongside Clarke — before either of the trio could be exploited for the blood they possessed. But it was like she had said, no other place on Alpha was safe except for Sanctum, its radiation shield barricading them in and protecting them from whatever lurked across the planet; they couldn't survive anywhere else, and going back up to the mothership was the last thing they wanted to do.

They were stuck, she had realized after countless useless hours of pondering ways to stay alive. She hated that their survivability had fell purely into the hands of Raven and Emori figuring out the engineering of the one thing that could protect them — without it, they'd surely die or go insane when the next red sun came around. And, maybe Bellamy was right; maybe the Primes had only allowed the people from Earth to stay in Sanctum because of the color of Clarke's blood. Cullen hated that the one thing she couldn't help was proposing to kill her, again.

"Then can we leave? At least for a while?" Gracie asked in a quiet voice. "Get you, Clarke, and Madi away from here until the radiation shield is built?"

Her jaw tightened. "I doubt the Primes will let you stay if you take away their Nightbloods."

"Their Nightbloods?" Sloan's voice turned hostile. "You're starting to sound like you'll just hand yourself over if it comes to them threatening our lives."

The silence was answer enough. Who would Cullen be if she hadn't thought of handing herself over for the greater good? — For the survival of her people, if it meant losing only her? One life compared to fourteen was nothing in the eyes of Cullen, who would allow them to kill her time after time if it meant they didn't kick her family out of the one safe place on that planet. It went against Julian Vander's last request, that she not allow what was beneath her skin to take control of her fate, but Cullen couldn't think about the ghosts in her past feeling ashamed of her actions for the people in her present — the people she wished to be her future.

She'd give herself up for them, there was no question in that. If this one action could seal their safety, she'd do it.

"No." Sloan near enough growled, the sound of plastic snapping beneath his fists echoing through the room. Cullen didn't look at him, only to her daughter who sat motionlessly in front of him, unfazed by his breaking of the chair. "Tell me you're not being serious."

"There are more lives at stake here than just mine."

"They want to kill your mind. That puts you and your life before ours." He argued, allowing the broken pieces of plastic to fall to the floor before he stalked around Gracie's chair and knelt down in front of Cullen. His eyes were hard, unmoving of his place in their oncoming argument. "I won't let you do this."

He meant well, but she still said, "I'll do what I think is right."

"What you think is right isn't necessarily what is right."

"Stop." Gracie choked out, bringing their eyes back to her. There was pure, genuine fear in her umber colored irises — fear like Cullen had never seen before. "What good is arguing gonna do when there's more important things to talk about?"

"No, there's not." Said Cullen.

"Yes, there is." Gracie argued straight back. "You dying isn't gonna help anyone — not in the long run. I'm sure by now my Dad and Clarke have come up with some solution that will put a stop to what the Primes are doing, keep you guys safe, and ensure we don't have to leave here. Put your plan on the back burner and focus on the bigger picture."

"I am." She turned away from Sloan's prying eyes. "There are innocent people here — people that believe the Primes are their Gods. Who are we to come through here and tear apart their lives?"

"Who are they to claim your body as a Host for their Gods?" Sloan threw into the mix.

"They're not gonna body snatch me. I'm telling you this now because I know you'll give me what I want." She looked between her daughter and boyfriend, scared of how deep she'd have to dig to find their clarifying motives for her next request. "If they find out I'm a Nightblood, kill this body. Don't feed into their rituals; a bullet through the head will be more effective than my heart. If you damage the brain they can't take me."

She knew how selfish she was to ask this of them: to ask them to kill her. That if they did not find a solution to put an end to the body snatching, erasing, and rebirthing of the Primes, they kill her body so that they needn't feel the pain of looking at her face but not seeing her. In a clearer light, Cullen knew her mind and body being dead was better than somebody being housed within her skin, complexion torturing those who love her. In a clearer light, she knew her plan was better than killing the Primes or running blindly across Alpha for the rest of their lives.

Gracie and Sloan thought different, however. They had practically recoiled away from her request, faces contorting into devilised anguish and forevermore reluctance of the plan.

After a moment of silence, Cullen blew out a breath and continued, "I'm not saying that whatever plan we come up with isn't gonna work. It might, and we might survive. But if it doesn't," they both winced at her words, "I don't want you to look at me and see somebody else. Being dead is better than being erased. So, please. This is the only thing I'll ask of you."

From beside her, still hovering on his hardened knees, one hand that she had retrieved sometime during her speech laying in her lap, Sloan's eyes explored Cullen's face. There was no denying the beauty in her fair skin, her structure of high cheekbones and arched brows that of a Goddess, lips a pink plumpness that he didn't dare kiss as guilt continued to swallow him up; but it was not Cullen's facial features that displayed who she was. It was her eyes, so full of Earth greenness and love, that Sloan knew he could never look in to and see somebody other than Cullen looking back at him. Her body they may claim, but not her eyes. Not the things that he had fallen in love with.

Who would he be to deny her of a dying — though she was not dying — wish? He'd fight until his last breath to ensure nothing harmed her, but if there was only this one option left, how could he deprive her of peace in her own body, soul kindred to the skin he had kissed each part of?

"Ok." He nodded once. "Jos taim yu let ai gon daun kom taim ai laik nou able gon. Den ai na frag op yu." (Only if you let me fight until I am not able to. Then I will kill you)

She nodded back to him. "Chof yu." (Thank you.)

"No." Gracie stood from the chair opposite them, lacking any remorse in her denial of Cullen's request. "You didn't wake me up just so that I could watch you die a few years later. That isn't fair."

Fair. Cullen was so sick of the word. "Life isn't fair, Gracie."

"Have you talked to Dad about this? Is he willing to kill you if needs be?" Her words disregarded Sloan's presence and brought back her question from yesterday morning — do you love Dad? — had she known then that that love was too powerful to request death? Had Gracie, in her youth of eighteen, saw the difference in Cullen's love to Sloan, and her love to Bellamy? "By the look on your face, I guess you haven't even talked to him."

"Watch your words." Cullen warned before sighing. "I don't know where your Dad is, so, no, I haven't talked to him. And you can't, either. Not about this."

It has nothing to do with him, Cullen wanted to say, but the feeling of Sloan's fingers twitching in her lap stopped the words from coming out. Had it anything to do with Bellamy? Would his input into the request put a stop to what Cullen hoped her boyfriend and daughter would do for her? — She knew for certain that Bellamy would not kill her. He'd bring down the sun and moons before resorting to that option.

"They'll find another way." Gracie said in utmost confidence. "I know you don't believe that that's possible, but I do. All that I'm asking is that you stay alive long enough for me to find out."

"Gracie—" Cullen tried, but she was already walking from the room, not afraid to slam the door behind herself. In her wake Cullen sighed, hands slipping away from Sloan's in order to drag them down her face tiredly. "That should've gone differently."

"You got your points across. She'll see that your plan is the best one if it comes down to it." Sloan assured.

She only hummed, leaning back in her chair and pushing out a long breath. She had accepted death on countless occasions, so this time hadn't felt any different — the aspect that had changed was her request to die. Not a casualty in wiping out an entire colony of people with radiation, not being the last person alive on Earth, and not being chosen to survive in the bunker. It was her decision, and as much as she didn't want to die, she didn't fear the time when it would come down to that.

After a minute she asked, "Did you mean it? — That you'd kill me if it came down to it?"

"If it's what you want." Sloan moved from his place kneeling on the floor to perching on the small table in front of her. "Non ste hon daun death kom a kru chon gaf in em." (No one should take death from a person who wants it.)

"I don't want to die." Cullen said to the ceiling she now stared at. "I just don't want you to look at me and see somebody else."

His hand slipped into hers, hooking their thumbs together. "I won't let anything happen to you."

Her smile was ghostly as she lifted her head from the back of the chair and looked across to him. "I believe you." She said tightly, moving to press her forehead against their conjoined hands for a few seconds — this was all she needed. A few seconds of peace as the world burned down around them, again. "Chof yu." (Thank you.) She repeated, kissing the curve of his thumb before standing.

He stood along with her, eyes starkly wide as he rose to his looming height inches above her. Cullen was almost too tired to catch him as he said, "I slept with Echo."

She blinked once. Twice. Everything seemed to evacuate her body at the feeling of his words banging against the doors of her mind, wanting to penetrate her brain and make her believe them to their fullest. She didn't dare move, blink, breathe — she didn't dare do anything as the words continued to come.

"In Shallow Valley, while you were fighting to get to me. On the mission we were sent on; I shouldn't have went. I knew what might happen, and I went anyway." There was a loud ringing that followed each syllable. "It was only once, but that doesn't excuse that it happened. I was solidly in my own head and I still slept with her." A crashing echoed along her bones, though she still didn't move. "I told myself it was because Bellamy had come back, and even in those first few days, I could see him returning — in your eyes, I could see the love that you only felt for him coming back to the surface. After I had pushed it so far down I thought it had disappeared, it still came back up. I used that as justification as to why I did it, but that wasn't the reason. Not entirely, at least."

She swallowed. Hard. "Why did you do it, then?"

It was his turn to blink. "What?"

The audacity — it striked up her spine in mind numbing fury. "If it wasn't because of Bellamy and my love for him, then why did you sleep with her?"

The words were spoken in cold dread, teeth clenched to the point of breakage as all warmth seeped away from her eyes — as all emotion simply evaporated into thin air and left her stripped, naked with red-hot anger by her side. Her clenched fists were not enough to contain the rising level.

He levelled his head. "I needed to feel something. And I understand if that makes it all worse, but hear me out. Please." A request — how so very convenient, Cullen thought. "Nothing can make right of my actions, but I won't apologize for what I feel." He paused, as though waiting for her to interrupt, but she remained very still. "There is a part of me that loves Echo, and that part came out when I thought I'd either die in that valley, or you'd find me and tell me that it was Bellamy who you wanted to be with. There was a part of me that feared my return to the bunker or your arrival to the Valley, and that fear spoke for itself in accordance to my actions."

"You're blaming this on your heart?" She asked with a level of coolness that shouldn't have been possible. "You're telling me that a piece of your heart wanted to sleep with Echo?"

"I guess I am." He said timidly.

Two halves of one whole were reacting to this news very differently. One half, abided to Sloan and the love he had given it in the six years they spent together in the bunker, was screaming out in anguish of its love choosing another — of its love discovering its true feelings. The other half, linked to a male that her soul craved in all formats of life, was walking towards a blinding light, away from the news that clarified one thing in itself; that one thought Cullen had had two years after Praimfaya was wrong; her meeting Sloan was not fated by the universe. He hadn't filled the void in her heart, but rather kept the formation intact until its true holder could come and make it whole again.

Maybe that's why the anger towards the actual action just disappeared. Cullen had kissed Bellamy twice now, and had admitted to both at the first given chance because her heart told her to — her heart sang for his love, but it stated in bold lettering that she owed it to Sloan to explain. Like him, she had apologized for the action, but not the feeling. She could not blame him now for doing the same, but the raw anger was still there.

She finally said, "You could have told me — how you felt for her. Every time I had asked you always told me it was familial love, not romantic. You lied to me."

"You're not angry?"

Cullen outright laughed. "You lied to my face for six years, slept with another woman, and didn't tell me. Yes, I'm angry. Not for the action, but for the feeling. You wanted to sleep with her, and when you did, you neglected to tell me because of what? Because you thought I'd leave you?"

"I love you, Cullen. I know that."

"I don't care for what you feel towards me." She snapped, pushing hard against his chest and sending him several feet away from her. "We can't help who we love, Sloan, but we can help our actions. Talking to me instead of sleeping with her would've been more in your benefit."

Clear anger flashed through his dark green eyes. "You kissed Bellamy. Twice."

"That is not nearly the same thing. And if you were worried about my feelings towards him, sleeping with Echo doesn't make that any better. You cheated on me. Did you even think about that while your dick was in her?" The vulgar words flew from her mouth as the anger truly settled in. "If you had talked to me first about your feelings towards her, we could've saved ourselves all of this hurt."

"It hurts that you love him." He raged. "After everything he's done to you, you still love him. You'd give your life for him."

"I'd give my life for any of our people!" She shouted in return. "I'd give my life for Echo. I would still give my life for you, even after what you've done."

His shoulders slummed. "My love for Echo is different to my love for you — the same with you and Bellamy."

"It's not the same. I'm not hiding from my feelings towards him." A lie, she thought to herself. "If you didn't feel shame for sleeping with her, then it's what you intended to do all along. We were together, and you knew of your feelings, and you still slept with her instead of telling me."

"I'm telling you now."

Cullen scoffed. "That's not good enough. You're only telling me now because I've come forward twice to tell you of my wrongings. You may only be telling me now because you've concluded with yourself who your heart actually desires."

Something in Sloan's soul snapped into place, and Cullen felt it in her heart; her words had pushed him to reveal a side of his heart that had been cloaked all these years.

Even with the truth now in the midst, he still looked across to her and said, "I do love you. I know I do. Everything I said before I told you — all of those years we spent together — none of them were a lie."

She believed him, in her heart. Her head told her otherwise; reminded her that he had lied and allowed her to wrongfully wallow in her guilt for kissing Bellamy twice; but she still believed him. She wouldn't be her if she didn't invest in the truest of loves, no matter how they came into existence.

"You didn't sleep with Echo out of spite. You slept with her because you love her. That's the difference between me and you; I know how to defect against what my heart is telling me to do, and you only know how to give to it. If you still loved me in the way you say you do, you would have told me sooner. You not telling me speaks higher volumes than the action itself."

As she began to move past him, Sloan dared to catch her arm. "Is that it? That's how things are going to end?"

"You don't deserve a better reaction." She took her arm from his hold and looked across to him in disappointment — a man of such wasted potential. "You're a coward, but you're a coward who's in love. I won't bid in to what road you've laid out for yourself, but all I ask is that you not tell Gracie."

"Not tell Gracie what? That we're no longer together? Because I'm sure she'll figure it out on her own."

"Not tell Gracie that you slept with somebody else, or that her Dad and I have kissed. She looks up to the three of us. Let's not falter that love on actions that are in the past."

And with that, she left, keeping her footsteps steady until she was far enough from the room she had left Sloan in for him not to hear her throwing up the contents of her stomach. For him not to hear the sob that wobbled past her lips, or the cracking of her heart.

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a/n . . . i don't even know why i plan out my chapters anymore when i just write whatever comes to my head in the minute. but here it is, not at all how i expected it to go down, but at least we're in the clearing now ...

the reveal was planned two different ways: echo was going to tell her because she didn't want cullen to hate her for it, and then in the previous chapter, cullen and bellamy were going to overhear sloan and echo talking about it. i thought both were impersonal and that it'd have a deeper effect coming from sloan, but cullen's reaction has me just neutral about the whole thing. i would love to hear your thoughts on this chapter!