march 19th

unknown location

All things considered, Clarke should really be more concerned about the bomb strapped to her chest.

After all, it's a bomb. The kind that explodes. The kind that can and will inevitably send her all over the place in tiny, Griffin-shaped chunks. It's not going to be a very pretty image. In fact, she nearly feels a faint pang of sympathy in her heart for whichever FBI or Homeland Security or whatever agent has to comb through the mess and zip-lock baggy her remains.

(Assuming there are remains left to zip-lock baggy. If there isn't enough left of her to at least put her in a petri dish, she has no earthly idea how she's going to make it out of this one with her stunning good looks intact.)

Unsurprisingly, the bomb itself isn't exactly any prettier, either. Not that it would make her feel better if her instrument of destruction was aesthetically pleasing. What's she going to do? Admire it? Post a picture on Instagram immortalizing her friends' final moments?

'gonna miss these bitches! #blownup #killerfun :)'

God, she can't even think of a funny caption for that hypothetical piss on their memory to pass the time and distract herself. Maybe if she did have her hands free to snap a selfie, she'd just tell her followers to caption it for her. The kids she used to run with before her life went to literal shit had some pretty macabre senses of humor. They'd certainly be able to come up with something worth putting on her tombstone, at least.

Maybe… 'tfw u wake up before ur alarm goes off #wasted'

The bomb does look suspiciously like an alarm clock, so even if it wasn't ready to detonate in a little over six minutes, she'd still have hated it on instinct. It's large, clunky, and black, and it feels like it weighs a fucking ton.

Of course, it could just be weakness from blood loss that's making her feel like she's about to topple over like a backwards turtle that can't roll off its stomach. Or, of course, those bastards who strapped it on her and chained her up in a deserted subway station could've loaded the thing with cement just to push the boundary of how goddamn miserable she could be right now.

(And believe her, she's pressing against that boundary like she's in a burning house and it's saran wrap covering the only exit.)

Five minutes and fifty two seconds now.

But really. Who's counting? As much as she loves her own internal monologue on how much her life fucking sucks, her heart's not really in it. It's hard to focus on a problem meant for the Clarke from approximately five minutes and forty seven seconds in the future, when there is a very large and very painful issue requiring the full attention of the Clarke from the now.

Octavia's sawing one of her hands off with a pocket knife.

Yes, you heard that correctly.

No, she's not talking about one of Octavia's hands, although that would probably be distracting enough by itself. Clarke's never really been a huge fan of gore or horror films, to say the least, nor does she somehow get herself off on very messy field amputations. She's always been more of a flowers and daisies and sunshine type of person.

(That's complete bullshit. She's not into anything weird like vore, but she's not exactly in the running for a Nobel Peace Prize either. Still, she's about ready to swear off every violent impulse for the rest of her life if only some god, any god lets her wake up and realize this was some weird-ass nightmare or alternate dimension.

And also somehow Raven's fault, because she's biting her lip so hard to avoid distracting Octavia that there's blood in her teeth. She could use someone to yell at right about now.)

No, unfortunately, she's on the receiving end of this shit-show. Octavia's currently cutting off one of her hands. Clarke's hand. The same hand that has been attached to her body for the past nineteen years.

She and that hand have had a very long history together, you know. That hand has been with her since she was using it to pick her nose in pre-K or jerk off half-limp fuckboys under her high school's bleachers. It's her left hand; her drawing hand, her hand-holding hand, her masturbating hand. She's sorry to see it go, truly.

However, as much as she is going to miss it, she's of the opinion that long goodbyes just make it harder on everyone involved. This means she wants it gone sooner rather than later, so she can focus on something other than her own shallow breathing, the blood pooling against her lower back, and the fact that they're all going to get blown to bits in four minutes and twenty nine seconds.

A particularly hard hack at her wrist has a low groan slipping out of her throat. It's hoarse and throaty, like sandpaper, and she'd honestly kill someone for a cold drink or something to bite down on at this point. Honestly, she's just in the mood to kill someone. Amputation does that to a person.

"Did you say something?" Octavia mumbles distractedly without even glancing up.

When Clarke twists to look over one shoulder, she notices the younger girl's eyes are unfocused and glazed over. The poor kid's probably about in the same amount as shock as her right now, and she can't decide if she's thankful for that or not.

On one hand - damn - Octavia might not get traumatized too badly if she can't remember this clearly, so Bellamy won't try and murder her for what she's putting his baby sister through. If they all survive, that is. She's trying really hard not to think about the alternative. On the other hand, the person amputating her hand is in shock.

There's no water or smelling salts at hand, but if either of them had the equipment for some long-distance urinating, Clarke would be all for trying to wake Jasper up. It would be a last resort of course, because honestly she trusts him with a pocket knife and her limbs even less than she trusts Octavia, but at least that kid knows how to compartmentalize.

(For a moment, she swears Octavia begins to wobble a bit, and so she backpedals as fast as she can in her own head. Clarke knows better than to taunt the universe. At least Octavia is conscious. And her hands are chained in front of her. Small mercies, thank you, universe.)

"Yeah, I said my life is awful and I fucking hate you," Clarke mutters, turning back around and closing her eyes. Sweat still beads her brow, despite the majority of what she can assume should be sheer, mind-destroying agony numbed by an internal mantra of 'i'm not here right now, i'm not here right now.' And, like she already realized, a healthy dose of shock.

"Will you love me again once we get out of here?" Octavia responds after a moment, and while she hasn't looked up from her messy little operation yet - or blinked in a pretty long time - her lips still twitch in a faint, strained smirk.

"Can I cut your hand off too once we get out of here?" Clarke asks in a faux-bright manner.

Talking to Octavia is helping her even if it's not helping the one with a knife who needs her absolute focus. It does a much better job of taking her mind off of things than thinking about peeing on Jasper or Instagramming their deaths does.

Octavia sighs sharply. "If we live, I'll think about it. Though you'll need to get a permission slip signed by Bell, probably."

The last part is said somewhat bitterly, and Clarke can't help but feel for her. She'd probably agree to cut someone's hand off too if she was kept on the same short leash that Bellamy tries to keep his little sister. Everyone has to de-stress somehow.

(Of course, she's not serious. Octavia looks so stressed right now that Clarke would be concerned but entirely unsurprised if her heart literally stopped beating from the sheer amount of it.)

"He'll come around," Clarke reassures her. Her voice is pained but honest, and she peeks over her shoulder again. This time, Octavia meets her eyes and gives her a small, grateful smile. Both of them know Clarke isn't still talking about her hand.

After that, they're quiet for another few moments. The only thing they hear are Lexa and Jasper's slow breaths - reassuring that they aren't dead, despite their unnaturally still positions on the ground - the dripping of water along some broken pipe nearby that is echoing throughout the subway tunnel and Clarke's eardrums, and also the disgusting sounds of her hand being severed that she's doing her best to tune out.

She's only another moment away from trying to start a heart-to-heart in case they die horribly, or try humming a scratchy and strained rendition of that stupid theme song from the show they're always watching at headquarters, when Octavia speaks again.

"Alright, unless you have a bonesaw in your back pocket, I'm gonna need to break your wrist to get it off," Octavia announces, and then she takes a large, deep breath like she's the one in the pain.

(You know what they say about 'this is going to hurt me a lot more than it's going to hurt you,' except Clarke has a feeling it's really fucking not.)

"Just get it over with already," Clarke mutters, rolling her neck and feeling the bones crack with a tiny, tiny degree of satisfaction. She's still get her brave face on, but she doesn't even want to take a look down at the device on her chest and see how much longer her friends - friends! wild, she knows - have to live if either of them fuck up the next few precious minutes.

"Like a bandaid," Octavia agrees faintly. Clarke wonders how much blood the poor girl's looking at right now. Judging from the slickness coating both of her wrists, the cuffs, and her lower back, not to mention the dizziness she can vaguely feel: probably a lot.

"Yeah, like a bandaid, O. Just think, this is going to be one of those super fucking- fuck, hilarious stories I get to tell over dinner in a couple of weeks." On accident, Clarke shifts and so her wrist shifts, and the feeling of detached flesh moving about makes her stomach roll and her vision fade for a moment. "Months. Years, maybe. Please hurry."

"Okay, okay, we're doing this on three."

Clarke breaths in deeply through her nose, and while every instinct in her is shouting at her to close her eyes - as if that will make everything go away - her eyes stay open.

Her gaze traces the curve of Lexa's bruised jaw from where she lies unconscious a couple feet apart from them. It's been the subject of a million cliches already, but she doesn't really care about originality when this beautiful girl could be dead five minutes from now. It still reminds her why the hell she's fighting so hard.

"One-"

'we're gonna make it out of this, baby, just hang on.'

CRACK.

…

"Did nobody ever teach you how to fucking count, Blake?!"