Semper Idem...?

Always the same…?

Chapter 1

An intense sunrise bled through the trees of the new and expanding village, as Clarke wove her way in and out of busy workers. It had been a month since the first exodus ship hit the ground of the new planet, which Commander Madi had dubbed Novae Terrae at Bellamy's suggestion. It looked kind of like Earth, it had grass and trees, and mountains, and clouds, but the color was off. Instead of shades of deep forest greens, plants and leaves were blue, or yellow in color, and often alternated between these colors even within the same species.

The land the village was settled on, was at the top of a flat hill that gently sloped down to the flat grasslands that had been converted into farms. On the opposite side was where the forest seemed to stretch on for several kilometers before eventually coming to a wide river. It served as a nice boundary for patrols to follow around the backside of the village before heading down to the grassland. With all the land they'd already covered in three months, they'd learned a lot about Novae Terrae.

First, there were these giant 'balloon' trees everywhere. They weren't anything like the trees Clarke had seen on Earth, these trees were almost backwards in how they grew. Instead of having large, leafy canopies, these trees had giant trunks. Sometimes the stumps were hundreds of meters wide and tall, and not at all circular in some cases. The branches were small and gnarled, looking much more dead than alive, and held almost no leaves. Each tree was more than sturdy enough to hold itself upright, if you carved out the middle and made a house out of it. They were even strong enough to have windows carved through the bark. But when they started cutting the trees down, something about the wood changed and it became brittle; no longer strong enough to support the weight of Madi's boot, let alone a roof. The bigger trees had been reserved for communal buildings like the infirmary, mess hall, meeting hall, and communal housing for the prisoners. While the smaller trees had been allocated to certain people for one or two person houses, or for smaller buildings like storage or the armory.

Second, there were all kinds of strange animals, and it took a significant amount of trial and error to figure out which ones could be eaten and which couldn't. The prisoners were fed a meal of each animal that was killed to see if it was something their stomachs could tolerate. However, more often than not, several of the taste-testers were in the infirmary being induced to vomit up the poisonous food. There were other animals that liked to try and kill them, like a kind of flightless bird that had claws on the ends of its wings and toes and could spit rocks as projectiles. And then there were just strange animals, like the aptly named 'penis' snakes that often hung around in branches of the giant balloon trees.

For some reason, many women, and some men of the Wonkru warriors had been killing the snakes for sport, and Clarke didn't want to know what they were doing with them.

And third, there weren't really seasons. Since the planet rotated on a perfectly horizontal axis, the side facing the sun was always summer, and the side facing away was always winter. But they still had consistent day and night cycles because the planet orbited the binary suns perpendicular to the planet's rotation. They'd chosen to land somewhere between these two zones of extreme hot and extreme cold, and had found a pleasant temperature of twenty-one degrees Celsius year-round. The days were warm, and the nights were cool because the climate and season stayed the same, but they had real bad thunderstorms on occasion.

Because the balloon trees took so much work to carve out and create rooms in, the prisoners were working as a labor force to build and expand the village before they woke the rest of Wonkru. According to Madi, they would use this as their time to prove themselves worthy enough to have been saved. Clarke had chosen to work in the infirmary with Abby and Jackson, whereas Spacekru had been given positions within Madi's inner circle of advisors. Madi offered Clarke a place by her side, but Clarke had declined for a plethora of reasons -none of which she felt the Commander and her advisors would care to hear.

Clarke carried a basket of medicinal herbs that Jordan had grown in one of the newly-built high tunnels, and put them in the solar dehydrator to dry them. She entered the infirmary to see that it was already buzzing with activity. The sharp smell of medicinal herbs and sting of antiseptic flooded her nostrils when she passed the doorway, and already she felt sick to her stomach. The giant tree the infirmary was built into was smelling less and less like nature, and more like the white-walled hospital she sometimes saw in her nightmares about Mount Weather.

While eavesdropping on conversations as she jumped in to help, she quickly learned that the sudden influx of patients was because they'd carved out a large tree for the Commander's house. Carving a new building always led to many of them coming in with bruises, blisters, dislocated limbs, or strained muscles. Clarke tried her hardest not to agree with the prisoners, who were openly expressing their distaste for having to build such an extravagant house for a child. They also thought that she wasn't a strong leader because of her age and the fact that there were adults that followed her meant that they were crazy.

"Clarke," Abby's voice reached her. "You've been here all night. Go home and sleep."

The young woman knew that her mother wasn't about to let it go, and walked out of the infirmary without answering her. Her cabin was in the woods, a significant distance away from the infirmary and the rest of the village. Close enough to walk to if someone needed to come get her, but far enough that the trees and low hum of the forest muted the hustle and bustle of the village.

Her house was also carved from a balloon tree, but it was much farther out than the expected range of the village borders, and she'd done all the work herself. The outside was patterned with charcoal, which just washed away every time it rained -not that Clarke minded drawing new things on the walls of her home- and left giant black stains on the soil and grass. Up in the branches Clarke had relocated several bioluminescent plants that she'd found caterpillars on, to pots in the branches, so she could create a hub for them to grow and reproduce. She then used the glowing insects as lights in her home until they metamorphosed into glowing moths. They were released back to the wild where they would lay their eggs on the plants on the tree and start the process again.

Inside the house, Clarke had tried to carve as much furniture from the innards of the tree as she could, so she wouldn't have to make any later. She fit in a loft bed, a bathroom, a closet, a fireplace, a decently sized sitting area and had enough room left over to carve out some counters and shelves from the tree, and build an oven from cement to make a kitchen. The floor was also cement, and did well to cool the house during the day and retain heat at night. There was a window up by her bed facing the direction of the sunrise so it could wake her up in the morning, and there was a second facing the sunset, so she could draw all the different colors and cloud shapes before she went to bed.

She grabbed a basket off a shelf in the closet and went into her garden to pick some food for lunch. Plants from Earth grew exceptionally well in the alien soil, and Clarke was happy she was able to feed herself not only healthier alternatives to bread and salted meat, but also not needing support from the village at all. She was completely self-sustaining at her home in the forest. She picked kale, spinach, and cut the leaves from some of her beets -she'd planted far too many- before picking some strawberries. Whatever was in the soil really intensified the sweetness of fruits and the crispness of vegetables, and Clarke found herself munching on them as she strolled about.

She gave up on the prospect of making a leafy-strawberry salad, and opted to sit on one of the tree's giant roots that framed her garden to munch on her food. From there she could see the adventures of an animal that she'd managed to catch and tame. Clarke's turtle-duck was an enigmatic combination of mostly duck head and body and the ability to lay hard-shelled eggs, but also had a tough shield of an exoskeleton, covering its back and preventing it from flying. Either way, she was happy she had a way to get protein that didn't involve killing the cryptid, lizard-stags she'd seen, or eating soybeans. After six years in the valley, Clarke was more than done with eating soybeans for protein.

When she'd finished her meal, she sat there just watching the hybrid animal eat all of the alien insects that plagued her earthly crops. The sound of footsteps caught Clarke's attention, but she didn't reach for her spear. Murphy came around the corner of the house, and Clarke maintained the tension in her shoulders, but let the rest of her relax.

"Greetings fellow cockroach," Murphy gave her a mock salute before joining her on the steps. "I hope you're not doing anything today."

Clarke just stared at him with wide eyes and raised eyebrows -Murphy was the last person she'd expected to visit her.

"Well, Madi finally approved an exploration mission, and you need to come," He explained as his eyes surveyed the garden.

She could feel the dread pooling thick in her stomach, this was not going to end well.

"Madi said we couldn't go without a medic," Murphy explained properly.

Clarke just looked away and tried to maintain her composure. Going on an exploration mission that could last days, with the three people that hated her the most was not something she was ready for.

"Did I mention that you don't have a choice?" He finished. "Jackson's tied up with the people that just got out of cryo, and your mom is helping the prisoners."

The homesteader hung her head and stalked inside her house to change clothes and pack a bag. As a peace offering, she held some extra rations out to Murphy, who hesitantly accepted them. They exited the house in silence after Clarke put her pet inside.

"It's nice and quiet out here," Murphy began chatting as they waited for the others to show up. "Do you think it's enough distance between us?"

She just held his gaze. He'd been baiting her with questions like this ever since Bellamy woke him up. He was still angry at her for how she'd treated them, and while Clarke couldn't blame him, she also couldn't figure out why. Murphy seldom liked her, but he was always able to understand her reasoning when she'd fucked up like this in the past.

"It's all well and good," He continued with a false pleasantness that made Clarke want to vomit. "Out of sight, out of mind, amirite?"

She nodded absently as Bellamy appeared from the tree line, alone. Murphy wore a quizzical glance, and Clarke held back a sigh of relief.

"Echo's not coming," Bellamy explained, looking uncomfortable as he approached. "She doesn't want to be too far from the Commander so soon."

The blonde swallowed her irritation with Echo's possessiveness over Madi, and Murphy kindly changed the subject.

"So where are we going?"

"To explore the land on the other side of the river and see if we should use it for hunting, farmland, or freshwater," Bellamy replied as he shifted his pack.

She exchanged a glance with them and sighed before walking deeper into the woods. The three of them did not have the expertise or tools needed to make that distinction. Clarke led the way through the trees, Bellamy just behind her, and Murphy staying unusually quiet the rear.

Clarke hadn't been speaking to anyone since they'd reached the ground, and for the first three months, no one wanted to talk to her anyway. Everyone had a problem with something she had done on Earth before they left, and found any reason they could to avoid her. She could've tried to apologize, and often did, but no one wanted to hear it. It was why she moved away from the village in the first place; if they didn't want her in their lives, then she could easily live by herself.

Hell, even Murphy held some things against her. It was a clear sign that she'd really fucked up this time.

Her lack of speech wasn't because she was angry with anyone -but herself-, she just couldn't find the point to speaking. No one had wanted to hear her thoughts about the exodus and the construction of the village; they didn't want to hear her opinions about anything. Her relationships with her 'friends' were still broken, and she didn't want to make anything worse.

Monty and Harper's last words of: "Do better," echoed through her mind constantly nowadays, and in addition was reminded of the promise she made to them the day she'd set foot on the ground.

If she was going to live, she was going to do better, by not doing worse.

She wasn't convinced that things would get better for her. The least she could do was rehabilitate Octavia, and give Jordan pointers about integrating into Spacekru so they could be safe and loved. That option was long gone for her.

The dark tendrils of her sins started branching from her fractured heart, and she shook herself before her emotions could overtake her. She couldn't do that here. Not with Bellamy and Murphy watching her every move. She tried her best to refocus on the trail, but it disappeared again when Bellamy matched pace beside her, blocking her left periphery.

"How have you been Clarke?" He asked good-naturedly.

The functional mute just barely glanced at him before she felt her heart in her throat again. She looked away and focused her gaze firmly on the trail.

"Murphy wasn't kidding," He commented. "You really don't talk anymore."

She avoided his eyes, and he took a long pause to carefully choose his words.

"Either way, thank you for coming Clarke," He told her with his signature half-smile. "It feels good to have you back."

It was a lie, and Bellamy knew it. She wasn't 'back' by any definition of the word. She'd been withdrawing into herself for months now, and he definitely had noticed, because he'd been reaching out to her all that time. Their friends - though Clarke didn't think of them as her friends anymore- hated her, and didn't want her anywhere near them or Bellamy. So she just moved away and avoided them whenever she had to go into the village. The isolation just caused her to drift further and further away, and she felt that there wasn't any sweet-talking or convincing he could do to close that distance between them.

She instead gave him a small nod in return before re-focusing on the woods. If he was going to keep lying, so was she. Lying about her feelings hurt less.

By the time night fell, the trio reached the river and decided to make camp, rather than crossing in the dark. Murphy was trying to get a fire going as Bellamy kept watch, and Clarke was waist-deep in the river, carefully scooping out some kind of near-translucent fish with her bare hands into a basket.

Clarke could feel Bellamy's eyes on her as she climbed out of the current, and shrugged her jacket and boots back on before bringing the basket to the fire. Bellamy returned in time to watch the blonde woman artfully skin and skewer the fish before resting them between the coals to cook. She also skinned the remaining fish, salted, and wrapped them in some big orange leaves that were part of a shrub growing right by the water to eat another day. Once the cooked fish were ready, she passed one to each of her companions before taking one for herself. She kept her eyes on anything but the two sitting near her, who were making small talk about their jobs.

Murphy and Bellamy were both on Madi's advisory council, but Bellamy also worked as a member of the royal guard, and Murphy worked in the kitchens with Emori and occasionally Jordan.

"The stew you guys came up with was amazing," Bellamy continued. "Madi wants you guys to make it more often."

Murphy snorted, "We were only able to make it because someone was able to take down two of those giant stags the last time they went out. They're as big as cars, but the lizard-tail and legs have this green meat that oozes purple blood, and doesn't look remotely edible. We'd need four or five of them in order to feed everyone just for one meal."

Bellamy's eyes flicked to Clarke, "I only remember one person sneaking into camp that night."

Clarke just continued to avoid his eyes as she sprinkled some more salt on her fish. The creatures were a special kind of nasty.

"That was you?" Murphy asked with surprise, then quickly hid it. "Who knows? She probably stole them from a hunting party so she could take the credit."

"No hunting party had been out far enough to get to them," Bellamy told him sternly, as Clarke shrunk deeper into herself.

Murphy heard the warning in his words and shrugged, "Whatever."

They finished their meal in silence and Bellamy volunteered to keep watch during the night.

"I spent most of the day in bed today, so I'm good to stay up," He reassured them when Murphy asked and Clarke raised an eyebrow.

Murphy broke into a grin, "Ah...so it was that kind of morning then?"

Clarke felt intensifying nausea in her stomach as a headache began to form. The last thing she ever wanted to talk about was Bellamy and Echo's sex life. She tossed the remains of her meal into the fire, and went to go set up her tent a significant distance away from where Murphy had his stuff laid out. She heard Bellamy call after her, but ignored him as she found a nice dry spot.

Bellamy tossed his fish into the fire to burn and walked a short distance before he looked in the opposite direction of where Clarke had gone. He was angry that she wasn't responding to him at all. Murphy began setting up his tent once he finished eating.

"You can't force Clarke to do anything, Bellamy," Murphy told him as he struggled with the tent poles. "If she's gonna be a bitch, let her be a bitch."

The older man gritted his teeth as moved to help the younger, "She's not a bitch."

"Why else won't she talk to anyone?" The delinquent began. "She clearly doesn't care how we feel, if she won't even talk to us about it."

The older man shot him a glare, "You were the one who told her to go float herself, Murphy. Maybe she's not talking to you because you won't fucking listen."

Bellamy didn't even feel the punch to his jaw until he was sprawled out on the ground.

"I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say it's because she's a bitch," Murphy snapped as he flexed his hand. "She hurt you the worst Bellamy, and here you are defending her! What the hell is wrong with you? You should be on my side!"

"Abusing Clarke is not how you make yourself feel better!" Bellamy shouted back, and before he could stop himself added: "It's how you drive a friend to suicide!"

Silence fell between them, and Bellamy prayed that Clarke hadn't heard him divulge her secret. He wasn't even supposed to know.

It had taken them two weeks to wake up all the necessary people, and get everyone on the same page for landing. Clarke had been verbally abused and thrown out of meetings almost constantly despite Bellamy's intervention. He understood that his family was mad, but they had no right to treat her that way after she'd saved them again. A week before the first launch, Abby found Clarke asleep in a bed of her own blood in her quarters, with a knife buried deep in her stomach. With the help of some of Dioyza's men, they got her to the operating room and cleaned up the bed before anyone noticed. Clarke survived, and asked that if they wouldn't let her die, then they wouldn't speak of her attempt.

Dioyza had told Bellamy about it because she thought that he and Clarke were together and Madi was their child. Bellamy didn't even have time to set the record straight as he fought off the urge to go lecture his family.

"What are you talking about?" Murphy asked, quieter, and with a glance at Clarke's tent.

"Before we landed, Clarke tried to kill herself," Bellamy told him carefully. "Dioyza said couldn't live with the pain of everything she'd done. She knows she hurt you, but you don't care about her enough to let her try and make it up to you."

Murphy grabbed Bellamy's collar and shook him angrily, albeit for a different reason.

"Why the hell didn't you tell me?" Murphy demanded.

Bellamy pushed him away, "Every time I wanted to talk about Clarke, you all just shot me down or left the room. This is on you. If you care about her, and want her to live, then stop being a child and go talk to her."

Murphy just stared at him for a moment and then crossed his arms, "She's not going to talk back."

Bellamy rubbed his face with his hands, "Do whatever the hell you want, Murphy. But if she makes another attempt, it's your fault for not trying to help her."

He turned on his heel and stalked toward the tree line, tightly gripping his rifle in an attempt to steady his emotions.

The next morning Bellamy didn't see Clarke until she exited the woods at dawn with a few dead bunny-cats for breakfast. They ate in relative silence before packing up camp and heading down to a shallow crossing in the river. Clarke drew her spear immediately upon stepping on the opposite shore and offered a small and silent prayer as the memory of Jasper getting speared flooded her senses. For just a moment, she was standing on the opposite bank of the river again, watching Jasper lay motionless on the ground in a pool of his own blood, the spear sticking out of his chest at an awkward angle. She took a moment to collect herself and stood, gripping her spear just a little bit tighter.

They could fight back now. It wouldn't happen again.

She looked to her comrades, who were staring at her with concerned faces. She felt the pain seep from her heart with every beat as she straightened and led the way into the forest. None of them had been there that day. Monty, Jasper, and Finn had died. Octavia was still alive, but deeply broken in a way that only she herself could really understand.

Clarke was thankful that Bellamy was bringing up the back of their group after their pseudo-talk the day before. She wanted nothing more than to scream and yell and punch him until he felt as bad as she did, but she couldn't do that to Bellamy. Between Octavia's former abuse, and her own past disregard for his feelings, she didn't want to add to his pain. He'd been hurt so much already, and she didn't want to hurt him anymore.

There were too many feelings she had when it came to Bellamy. She cared too much. They always ended up hurting each other one way or another, and now he cared about...well, anyone, more than he cared about her. She couldn't bring herself to go through the pain of being close with him again, only to know that she could never have him the way she wanted him. He didn't love her. He'd never loved her. In his eyes, she was a worse option than Echo now, and that alone made her want to run from him every time he tried to speak to her.

The building dread in her stomach suddenly evaporated when she heard a growl from somewhere off the side of the trail. Out of the trees erupted what appeared to be some kind of giant canine, but it had no eyes, a short tail, and a large, six-nostrilled nose. It roared, then charged, and Clarke leapt backward to draw Bellamy's sword. She ran forward and dove underneath the beast, slicing open its stomach as she slid across the forest floor on her knees.

It collapsed onto its side and blood gushed out of the long wound, quickly enough to only grant the beast one last breath. Bellamy and Murphy who were paralyzed for the span of the attack, walked over to deliver a kill shot each, just in case.

"What the hell was that?" Murphy asked as he turned back to them.

Clarke had knelt to examine the beast's face and quickly pulled out her paper and charcoal to sketch it. She tore out the paper and handed it to Bellamy with the note to Raven written on the top. She then stiffened when she heard a twig snap. Bellamy took aim with his rifle as a second of the mysterious creatures appeared. It was significantly smaller than the first -about the size of a car compared to the size of a small cabin- and was cautiously sniffing everything.

"Oh shit did you kill its mother?" Murphy asked and Bellamy shushed him.

Clarke gently pushed the barrel of Bellamy's rifle to point at the ground and stuck her spear in the soil before rummaging through her pack. She pulled out a fish from the night before, and slowly approached the creature. When she was about three meters away, she held out the fish with an open palm, trying her hardest to stay relaxed and not move. Murphy was shocked while Bellamy watched in awe as the beast not only ate from Clarke's hand, but allowed her to pet it. Clarke gave it a piece of another fish as a reward and pretty soon she was smiling happily as she rubbed its belly.

Clarke shot a glance at Bellamy that seemed to be asking an obvious question.

Bellamy took a moment to consider his options, "It could be useful for hunting or rescue missions. Madi will buy that."

She nodded at him as they watched the beast roll over and Clarke carefully climb on its back.

"Well it's not the rover, that's for sure," Murphy commented.

Clarke's smile disappeared as she gently ruffled the fur of her new pet.

"Let's keep going," Bellamy ordered with a nod at Clarke and a glare at Murphy.

Clarke nodded back and gently steered the beast as Bellamy handed Clarke her spear. He couldn't help but compare her to some Celtic or Nordic princess, and was stuck in that fantasy for a while before he noticed Murphy watching him. The simple leather armor and long braids disappeared to reveal Clarke's short hair and leather jacket. Bellamy rolled his eyes and tried to keep his gaze from lifting from the trail.

Eventually the forest gave way to a gentle slope and then to a lake. Herds of what looked like giant deer drank from the water before disappearing into the woods on all sides.

"Hunting ground it is," Bellamy concluded. "It's too far to carry water, and we should preserve the habitat to maintain the stag's population."

Murphy nodded, "Okay. Then let's get the hell out of here."

When they returned to the river they made camp again in complete silence. Clarke was dutifully ignoring the men accompanying her and Bellamy was watching Murphy watch Clarke. When she set up her tent a noticeable distance from them, Murphy volunteered to take the first watch. Bellamy was suspicious of Murphy stepping up to do something, and watched him carefully make his way around the clearing, before stopping at Clarke's tent.

Bellamy couldn't see them well from the fire, but he saw Murphy sit on the ground outside and place his rifle a good distance behind him before Clarke emerged. With everything that had happened, Bellamy assumed that Clarke was feeling intimidated and scared by the prospect of Murphy wanting to talk to her, and considered going over to supervise. After several minutes of talking Bellamy resolved to get up, and when he did, he saw Clarke dip her head in a nod before Murphy gently touched her shoulder and left.

Bellamy watched Murphy with an expectant look in his eye, as the latter sat down by the fire.

"I don't forgive her," Murphy said. "What she did to you, Raven, Echo, and Shaw was too far. But she knows that. She doesn't need me constantly reminding her."

Bellamy knew that a single half-conversation wasn't going to magically fix things between them, but he reached out to pat Murphy on the shoulder anyway.

"I know she'll appreciate that," He answered.

Murphy just grunted before picking up his rifle and returning to his watch.

End Chapter 1