A/N: This story takes place after Charlotte jumps off the cliff, plummeting to her death, and Bellamy decides to banish Murphy for the loss of the girl. They never really say on the show what happened to Murphy the entire time that he is out there on his own other than the fact that he was tortured at some point, so that is what inspired me to write this. "Murphy's Law" took place before Octavia met Lincoln, but I still wrote that Lincoln already knew her for the sake of the story. Hope you like it!
Murphy just stood there, where Bellamy, Clarke and the others had left him, wondering how things had gone so wrong so fast. All he wanted was for the real murderer to pay the price for what she had done both to him and to Wells. He was beaten and strung up by the neck for a crime that he didn't even commit. But, when the real criminal stepped forward no one did a thing about it. And, when he tried to take matters into his own hands by trapping the girl in the woods at the edge of a large cliff with Bellamy he thought that he had her, that he could make things right... but then she jumped. She jumped because she said that she didn't want anyone else to get hurt.
It wasn't his fault she jumped – he couldn't control what she did!
She jumped on her own accord, that was her choice, not his. And yet, he was still banished; and now he had no idea where he was suppose to go or what on earth he was suppose to do now.
He was afraid – Jasper had been speared in the chest by a grounder not that long ago, and also not to far from where he stood now. They could be anywhere right now, just waiting for him to make one wrong move.
It was dark out here on the cliff, but it was even darker out in the woods. His torch was taken away from him when they abandoned him here, so he now had no source of light. The sun had completely set hours ago and the moon and stars were partially covered by a thin layer of clouds. He didn't want to go out there, but he knew that he couldn't stay here forever. He just wasn't sure if he should chance it in the dark – he could just stay here and wait for morning to come before he went out in search of somewhere better to stay, and maybe something to eat.
Suddenly, Murphy hear a slight rustle of leaves coming from his left, his head snapped automatically in the direction of the sound. But, it was so dark out that he could barely see three feet in front of him, let alone through the pitch blackness of the woods.
The rustle started to grow louder and he began to raise the knife that was still clutched tightly in his right hand (at least they had not taken that from him). His breathing intensified and he widened his stance and squared off his shoulders, preparing for a fight.
A large man stepped out of the woods with his hands in the air, palms facing outward to show that he was not there to cause any harm as he inched closer to Murphy.
W-Who are you?" Murphy demanded weakly, trying to seem braver then he felt.
"Name's Lincoln," said the man.
Murphy starting to drop his protective stance when he recognized the name.
"Octavia's Lincoln?"
"She told you about me?" he asked lowering his his hands as well when he saw that the boy wasn't going to try anything.
"Camp full of bored teenagers? If you tell one person something that's even remotely interesting, then the entire camp hears about it within the hour. And let me tell, a grounder that doesn't want to stab you in the chest with a spear or chop off your head is pretty interesting – fascinating even."
The side of Lincoln's mouth turned up slightly into a half smile at that blunt comment.
"Yes, well," he murmured, scratching his head. "I saw what happened and figured you could use a drink," he finished and pulled out a glass bottle of what looked like moonshine from somewhere inside of his enormous fur coat he was wearing.
Murphy smirked and walked over to him taking the bottle that he held out on offer.
"Thanks," he said, raising the bottle to him. "Cheers."
After taking a big gulp of the fiery liquid, he handed the bottle back to him and watched as he gave the drink the same treatment.
"You were watching us you say?" said Murphy sarcastically. "What? Do you have grounders sitting in trees all over the woods to listen in on our juicy conversations to relate back to your master?"
"Yes," said Lincoln bluntly even though he knew it was a joke.
Murphy paused a beat then shrugged, those weren't his people anymore, so there was no need for him to warn them about this little fact.
"You sure you wanna be seen drinking with one of the villainous skypeople? I mean, isn't it bad enough that your own people think that you're a trader because you "hangout" with Octavia almost every night?" asked Murphy taking the bottle back from him and taking another drink.
Still holding the bottle is his left hand, his knife in the right, he walked over to a nearby boulder and plopped down on it taking another sip, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
Lincoln came and sat down beside him, both of them facing out towards the cliff that Charlotte had jumped off of just moments ago.
"We've all done things that we regret," started Lincoln, completely ignoring his question. "But, a leader will do anything to keep their people in check – to stay in power. If Bellamy had let you come back with him and without Charlotte it would have caused a riot. The whole camp would have wanted someone to punish for her death. They would have wanted you punished for killing that little girl."
"I didn't kill her," said Murphy harshly, snapping his head to the side so that he could look Lincoln in the eye. "She jumped."
"I know that, and you know that, and I'm sure that even everyone back in your camp knows that. Because, if one person knows it then so does everyone else right? But-" he said quickly when he saw that Murphy was about to cut him off. "That doesn't change the fact that their still going to want someone to blame. Their all going to want closer. You know, me and you aren't very different, we can see things that other people are to cowardly to even consider – no one would want to see a little girl harshly punished for the crime of murdering one of her own people, when, if it was someone older who committed that same crime, then they would have made sure that they payed. Now, my people don't want to consider the fact that we could all work together down here on earth as one people, because our leader fears the loss of power over everyone if we all join together. When I think that we both have skills that could benefit each group. We've lost to many lives already, if we keep going as we are now, then we might as well just say goodbye to the human race all together."
"Yeah," Murphy grumbled, slouching over, bracing his elbows on his knees nonchalantly. He wasn't really sure how to respond to that so he just took another big gulp of moonshine, wincing as it burned his throat going down. "Well, Bellamy has no idea what he's doing, and neither does Clarke – their not leaders, their just pretending to be."
"I'm sure their trying their best, from what Octavia has told be about them. And sometimes pretending to be a leader for the good of the people is better than having no leader at all," said Lincoln, looking a broken Murphy in the eye.
He held his gaze for a while as a confirmation to what he just told him, until Murphy broke it looking back out at the expanse of earth over the cliff.
"You know what Linc?" said Murphy with a smirk. "If people on earth had jobs other than killing each other out here, you would make it pretty well as a councilor."
Lincoln laughed a loud rumbling laugh, which made Murphy chuckle with him, shaking his head.
Lincoln took the bottle from him and this time raised the glass to him before taking a sip.