A.N.: I bought the first season on DVD without knowing anything about the show, now I'm halfway through season two and obsessed. You guys know what that means, it means a lot of heart-breaking fanfiction where I right the wrongs of canon! Before I start writing, I have one thing to say. Finn. Personally I see Clarke moving in a direction where she'll be completely undeserving of everything he did for her.

Radioactive

01

Home

The only figure left inside the drop-ship – still breathing – was a girl with thick, light-blonde hair untidily braided down her back. Her eyes were clamped shut, the glow from the drop-hatch casting strange shadows from her eyelashes, the contour of her rather severe cheekbones strangely sinister, and a tiny gold hoop glinted amongst the strands of pale-blonde hair gathered into a braid; her knuckles and fingertips on the armrests were white, long, slender fingers clenched tightly.

"Y'know, the party's out there," Finn said, smiling to himself as he squatted down in front of her. "You're missing the power-struggle."

"The fun's started already?" she asked, her tone caustic, eyes still clamped shut; she breathed out slowly, carefully. He'd learned that everything with her was cold and ironic. She was cleverer than she let on and a hell of a lot kinder, too. He wondered if half the others even realised she was on the drop-ship: things would change quickly once they did.

"Yeah."

"Who?"

"The princess."

"Interesting."

"And some guy called Bellamy. Blake – his sister's – "

"Octavia. Raised under the floor, I know. Chip on her shoulder," she cut in softly. Her eyes were still closed, her entire focus on her breathing, full deep breaths and slow exhalations.

"I got you something," he said quietly. Reaching out, he carefully unlaced her fingers from the armrest, and at her sigh of relief he wondered if she had realised how hard she was holding it. Her long fingers flexed and opened, and Finn smiled as he placed the single tiny flower into her open palm, making her hand twitch at the entirely alien sensation. He'd found a patch of them right outside the drop-hatch, just growing all over the too-green moss at the base of a tree that reached up, trying to touch the Ark with its heavy moss-laden boughs full of leaves too green to be real. Two of the silky petals were a dark purple, two of them slightly lighter, and the fifth was almost white, touched with a delicate palest purple as if it had just been kissed by the other petals, and there was a tiny splash of yellow at the centre. The kid who'd left the drop-ship with him had thought it was a violet.

He'd never imagined Earth could really be this beautiful, not after a nuclear apocalypse.

"It's not a dinosaur," he said quietly, and he thought he saw a ghost of a smile flicker across her tense face, "but who knows, we've only been here five minutes."

"With the racket they're making, it'll draw T-Rex for miles," she said quietly, but the tension in her face was easing up as she cradled the gift in her hand closer. Slowly, she opened her eyes, squinting in the foreign illumination from the hatch, and hazel eyes rested on the flower in her palm. Her pretty lips parted, and Finn's own twitched into a smile at her expression. The first flower she had ever seen.

"Kid called Monty called it a violet," Finn smiled, then he whispered, "Welcome home."

In his memory, he'd seen her smile three times. Everything about her was severe and irreverent, but then, that was the side-effect of growing up in the Sky Box. Surrounded by criminals since she was too young to remember anything different, the anticipation of her own execution on her eighteenth birthday, it was enough to damage anyone's psyche.

She locked eyes on him, and her lip trembled, the muscle in her jaw ticking with some unnameable emotion. But he understood it, and reached out a hand to grip her knee, grinning suddenly. "Come on, someone's gotta keep these clowns in order." She was still gazing in wonder at the violet, but she accepted his hand when he offered it, helping to pull her out of her seat. She was tall, people always knew when she was around in the Sky Box. Long legs and a long, slender throat, her braid reached her middle-back and it was odd seeing how bulky her top-half was, layered with a frayed black sweatshirt and one of the standard-issue Sky Box jackets, oft-darned and patched, compared to her charcoal-green cargo pants, comfortable around her legs but always, he never denied noticing it, clinging to her butt very pleasingly. Despite her reputation for being the scariest person in the Sky Box (defeating even Dax, who'd beaten a man to death), she also consistently made it into the Top 5 amongst the boys' votes for Best Rack and Best Ass and prettiest eyes. Her terrifying reputation made sure she never ranked higher than fourth place but knowing what little of her that he did, Finn found her more beautiful than any of the highest-ranking girls.

In order to survive, she'd had to create a persona kids in the Sky Box would fear, just so they would leave her alone. She had lived in the Sky Box longer than any of The 100, and nobody had known the ins and outs and the black-market trades and secrets-gathering network and which guards to initiate into their circle of trust better than she did. The guards liked to believe they were in control in the Sky Box; when he had been Confined, Finn had learned different. She was in charge; she maintained order amongst the ranks of thieves, murderers, sluts, drug-addicts, daredevils and good kids in the wrong place, bad kids who needed someone they feared and respected to keep them under control.

The 100 were a collection of those kids, every single one of them imprisoned with the hope that they would get a review on their eighteenth birthday and re-enter Ark society. The reality, of course, was that in the last couple years, most kids in the Sky-Box had been executed within weeks of their eighteenth birthdays, sometimes on the same day if the crimes they had committed were severe enough. It hadn't helped his temper any, and the guards had had to stop a few fights because the guys had all been betting on how long Dax would last after his review. He'd beaten a man to death, and Finn had already seen him lurking around, tall and simmering.

She was the first friend he'd made inside; she had a talent for picking decent friends people respected, or at least, could see through the bullshit to the real person hidden behind the reputation, and he'd come to know her a little better than most, because he was the same. He didn't know what she'd been arrested for, he didn't think anyone really did anymore, only knew whatever she'd done was bad enough she'd spent over half her life in Confinement, and had laughed when he'd mentioned her review. He'd understood why she'd laughed a few weeks later, and even if he'd found out by accident, she trusted him to keep her secret.

"Come on," Finn smiled. "Things are heating up out there." He told her what he'd overheard the pretty blonde traitor saying to her hulking friend, the Chancellor's son. What he'd done to get himself dropped to Earth with a hundred delinquents, Finn was curious to know, but it was comforting that at the very least, the Chancellor didn't give preferential treatment to his own. She didn't hold his hand, didn't need steadying breaths anymore to calm her nerves, but the moment she stood in the frame of sunlight searing down on them at the drop-hatch, she froze.

Everything around her was green, and pulsed with life. A kind of light entirely foreign to her seared her eyes, making her squint, warmth touching her face like a gentle embrace, as if the Earth itself was touching her cheeks, saying Welcome back, we've missed you. She had never felt her lungs so full, there was a breeze that smelled like perfume, like the flower Finn had given her and growing things, clear, cool air, the air itself tasted of water and something sweet and fresh, there was warmth on her face from the sun… In her wildest dreams, her most secret fantasies she had never envisioned herself on Earth. To feel safe, warm, not hungry, with the boy she loved and no threat of being floated, was all she had ever wanted. The breeze took the edge off of the warmth suffusing her body, and something soft and pillowy obscured the sun at times, casting soft shadows over the moss-covered ground and the couples already making out, already brawling playfully, investigating the trees, celebrating their safe landing on Earth. The first humans to do so in a hundred years.

The year was 2232 A.D. and they were the first humans to return to Earth since the Cataclysm. Mankind had destroyed their home, and then abandoned it. Now they had sent a hundred juvenile criminals as lab-monkeys, to test the Earth's survivability. She didn't know which was worse – that they had all been sent to Earth as lab-monkeys, or that they were all teenagers. Without the guards and the rigid structure of the Sky Box, things would start to rupture very quickly, as scores were settled, frustration mounted and they started to realise this was not their salvation. This was a greater punishment than ever being floated. Death was final: banishment to Earth was entirely undetermined. And with no structure, now law, their biggest threat, for the moment, was each other.

The first humans for a hundred years.

The first brawl for a century. Their legacy.

She sighed and observed the Chancellor's son hopping, balancing as he defended himself against the idiot John Murphy. Ordinarily she knew Wells Jaha could take that kid without breaking a sweat, but Murphy was known for his cheap-shots and Wells didn't strike her as the kind of person who would stoop to Murphy's level, even to prove a point.

"Look at this," she said, in a cold, bored voice, arms folded as she leaned against the drop-ship. The mob had already started to form, without discipline or the threat of the guards' Tasers they were grinning and egging on a fight for the thrill of entertainment – and the simple reason it was forbidden. A few people glanced around, recognition flaring; she knew she was the most feared prisoner in the Sky-Box. She'd been Confined too long, knew everyone's secrets and was the one who trafficked the black-market through a network of contacts sympathetic to the kids condemned to die by execution on their eighteenth birthdays. She had a reputation – and the wary looks that passed between people who'd crossed her before and paid the consequence meant they remembered that just because they were on Earth didn't make her any less dangerous. Murmurs hissed around the group, people shifted on their feet, a few shot her wary looks and exchanged anxious grimaces with friends.

"Looks like there are dragons on Earth," Finn remarked, taking a place quite casually between Wells and Murphy, his expression blithe and disinterested.

"Mm. And I hear there's an excursion to find food," she remarked, raising her voice slightly. She glanced at the two agitators standing side by side, the little Octavia and a taller boy in an aged guard's uniform with lovely bone-structure. "As for privileged?" She gave Octavia such a cool look the younger girl flushed and lowered her eyes to the ground; her brother glanced between the two girls, his expression calculating, and she smirked as he moved as if to shield Octavia from her withering look. "You take much for granted." She glanced around at the little blonde and her friend. "What's this about Mount Weather?"

"We landed on the wrong mountain," the girl said. She knew Clarke Griffin had been assigned to solitary, and a month ago she had discovered why. "We've got twenty miles of radiation-soaked forest to get through before our next meal."

The tall, long-legged girl with a pale-blonde braid down her back sighed so gently Bellamy almost didn't catch the sound swallowed by the breeze. She was frowning mildly at the smaller blonde. Then she said, "Well, these two idiots are right about one thing," nodding toward Bellamy and O, and he ground his jaw, glaring at her, annoyed that his dick twitched at the sight of her beautiful lips and that ass hugged by dark cargo pants. "A hundred of us can't go traipsing through the woods, we've no idea of the terrain or natural predators. I don't fancy fighting off packs of genetically-enhanced monkeys."

"That movie was fictional, Dragan," a voice called playfully, and several others laughed.

"That movie was fiction centuries before nuclear radiation altered the genetic fabric of the entire Earth," the girl said.

"She's right, we don't know what predators are out there," Wells Jaha said.

"As for me, I'm hoping for dinosaurs," the tall blonde said, her eyes glowing with a kind of excitement Bellamy had seen in his sister's eyes when he had given her that masquerade mask. Anticipation, an innocent thrill. A few of the others laughed, the tension from Murphy and Wells' confrontation sifting away.

Clarke glanced over at the tall girl, and from what she had seen the only blonde besides herself. She'd heard of someone the other kids in the Sky-Box nicknamed 'The Dragon', knew they referred to someone whose name was Dragan but had never met them. Clarke had always thought they meant a boy called Dragan, a name they said was from an area called Eastern Europe, but she supposed the tradition inside the Sky-Box of referring to each other by surnames had stuck with this girl. When names were recycled and never varied, too little culture surviving the Cataclysm, history dying with the Exodus into space, surnames were now the most unique thing about a person.

Clarke had learned the reputation of The Dragon, knew this girl had been in charge of the delinquents in the Sky-Box, and like the uncaught Nigel in the canteen, everyone knew this girl had organised the black-market within the walls of the Sky-Box and made deals with trustworthy guards, but no-one could get any evidence against her – and what would be the point of putting in the effort to, when on her eighteenth birthday she would most likely have been floated anyway? Clarke didn't know how, but The Dragon had organised for the Sky-Box to have a weekly movie viewing. When the number of executions had started to skyrocket amongst reviewed Sky-Box delinquents, frustration and belligerence had been simmering far too high amongst the remaining inmates; one moonset, they had all been gathered in the canteen, and given the privilege of watching a movie. The Dragon had chosen it, a movie called The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. It had been filmed, history claimed, in a country once called New Zealand; the two islands that made up that country had been swallowed by the ocean during the Cataclysm, all but the tallest mountain-ranges, but the breath-taking beauty of its countryside was preserved in the series of movies called The Lord of the Rings.

She had seen each of the movies, and been sent to solitary after the second Hunger Games film; she would never forget the snow-capped mountains and little rivers and flower-strewn meadows of the now-fabled New Zealand, preserved in a centuries-old film, and after watching the Seventy-Fifth Hunger Games, she understood Dragan's scepticism about the natural predators surrounding them. From what Clarke had read, she wasn't sure there were any bipedal mammals around, but radiation may have spurred on another genetic mutation.

Maybe their war with each other had eliminated the human race, only to spur on evolution in their primate cousins. History repeating itself – the Earth wiping itself clean and starting afresh.

After the weekly movie-nights were installed, the level of antagonism toward the guards had dropped, the infighting had stopped and quite a few people had breathed a sigh of relief that the tension had dissipated. It hadn't stopped people being floated but for a couple hours they got to forget that their situation was hopeless. Clarke didn't know how she'd done it, but it was a secret everyone seemed to know, that Dragan had been responsible.

"You?" Clarke raised her eyebrows, surprised. "You're the Dragon?"

"I am she," the girl sniffed laconically, examining her fingernails. Clarke was stunned – this girl was…she was beautiful. A head taller than Clarke, she had cheekbones that could cut, there was power in her long legs, but it was her expression that made Clarke suddenly realise why she suited her nickname. The Dragon – the girl was severe, ferocious, danger was written into every feature, no matter how beautiful. Viciousness and beauty, combined to make her at once compelling and stomach-meltingly terrifying. She was pale, like they all were from low vitamin D, and her hair was a very pretty pale-blonde; she wore the same recycled clothes the rest of them wore, and swept her hair away from her face and didn't seem the type of girl to pinch her cheeks for some colour when good-looking cheeks were around.

She looked to Bellamy like the kind of girl who would convince another Sky-Box inmate to kill one of the most dangerous boys in Confinement. Whispers from inside the Sky-Box had circulated through the Ark, that a boy who had raped two girls since he was sentenced there for sexual-assault had been killed by a fifteen-year-old girl, who'd only been sentenced trying to steal medicine for her neighbour's sick baby. There was no evidence to prove it, but whispers from Medical said Councillor Griffin had examined the girl after she had attacked and murdered the boy – her entire body was riddled with cancer. She was dying, in unimaginable pain, slowly, without a single dose of morphine, or a single shred of hope.

The girl had been executed an hour after her examination with Dr Griffin.

One of his old buddies from their Cadet days had told Bellamy the girl they called The Dragon had manoeuvred things to be allowed to witness it.

At the time, he'd felt a surge of pride that this juvenile delinquent had been clever enough to engineer the quick, painless execution of a girl who had been living in unendurable pain, taking out a malicious criminal at the same time, and having the stomach to go and be the only friendly face amongst a cluster of stoic guards at an execution, the one who had liberated her from pain the last face she ever saw.

Now all Bellamy wondered was just how dangerous this girl was. She knew who Octavia was. Was she a threat?

"A small group can set out for Mount Weather now and cover as much ground as they can before dark," Dragan said, raising her voice with the bite of authority she had learned to use when addressing the other Sky-Box residents. They all knew she had been imprisoned the longest of everyone in there, she knew the ins and outs and ran the black-market exchange. She called in favours with guards and gathered secrets. She had learned to survive in a place where the most dangerous of their young people were held together, and had quickly taught herself how to fight, how to survive. She knew when to keep her mouth shut, when to harvest information and use secrets and how to tread carefully around the dangerous political situation both inside the Sky-Box and utilise the hierarchy of the guards and medical personnel to get treats and favours, and organising favours for them too, holding their secrets hostage. She knew their histories, their secrets, the alliances and rivalries between the different groups, she had organised retaliation a few times against people who'd risen up trying to take her place but ultimately, she knew that the past was almost irrelevant; they had to utilise the skills they had learned on the Ark and learn how to work together to survive. They weren't on the Ark anymore, they had been abandoned to their fates.

"Get a group together," she said, and the blonde frowned slightly. "First priority is finding a water source nearby, we need a fall-back in case there's nothing salvageable at Mount Weather. And that also means we need to get the wreckage cleared. Anything salvageable needs to be repurposed. Those with engineering and mechanical backgrounds, we need to repurpose the drop-ship as living-quarters. We've no idea when the winter will come, or how severe it will be…it might snow. And if there are predators around, the ship is our only defence. Which means – boys! Macon, Frank, Naveed! Use your ingenuity, we need weapons to hunt with. We need to be self-sufficient. Those from the farming stations, work with whoever got higher than a B on Earth Botany, we can start harvesting nuts, roots, fruit and vegetation. Monty, you with us?"

"Right here," an Asian boy called, and his gangly friend grinned goofily at his side, a pair of goggles strapped to his head. How he'd managed to leave the Ark without handing those over, Clarke didn't know, and she frowned as she remembered the guard trying to grab for her father's watch. The goofy kid waved at the severe-looking Dragan, looking happy.

"Glad to see you. Nobody eats any berries or mushrooms until Monty's approved them, I don't want to suffer the indignity of telling anyone on the Ark that a poison berry killed us before dinosaurs, genetically-mutated monkeys or radiation could," Dragan sniffed. A few of the others laughed. "We need to set up a latrine and a medical tent, preferably far away from each other! If we can collect firewood at least we'll have temporary warmth during the night while the search-group heading to Mount Weather can find whatever's left to be had."

"And who decided you're in charge?" It was Murphy, and Dragan sighed as she turned and frowned at him.

"Murphy. What a delight to see you here among us," Dragan said coolly. She knew he blamed her for Charles' death, fact of the matter was she was glad she'd convinced Zoe to do what she had. She glanced around, at the tall dark boy with straight shoulders who looked like he'd learned his stance from Cadet training; she knew one guard inside always kept an eye on Octavia Blake as a favour to her brother on the outside. No-one had a brother or sister on the Ark.

Down here, Dragan wouldn't be surprised if the Chancellor encouraged people to have more and more babies; for the human race to survive, they had to increase the odds by having as many children as possible in the hopes more would live to pass on their genes.

She was intent on having more than one child, and whoever tried to kill her for it would find themselves in a world of untold pain.

Dragan called to the others. "We're not animals. Our only chance at survival down here is to rely on each other. When we've set up camp you can eat and fuck like Romans." A cheer echoed around the glade. She glanced around – she was intent on searching for Mount Weather. She had been confined to the Sky-Box for over half her life; and now that she was down on Earth, she wanted to stretch her legs. More than that, she wanted to make sure she could find at least hot-water and a blanket. The likelihood of finding food stockpiled under a mountain was very low, she wasn't naïve to believe otherwise, but this wasn't the Sky-Box; wheels had been turning and she knew she couldn't be in control here the way she had in lock-up. And she didn't want to be; she had to prioritise, and if it came down to her or the others, she'd do whatever it took to survive. For the first time in her life, she had too much to lose. And she had come too far, risked too much not to succeed.

"You," she nodded at the young-man in the guard's uniform. He was still frowning at Clarke Griffin. "Sweet-butt!" At her raised voice, he blinked and frowned at her instead.

"You talking to me?"

"Yes, I'm talking to you, I'm looking at you, and that fine ass, I mean, you hear the phrase 'bounce a nickel off it' but…" She eyed Bellamy like a hungry tiger, her eyes flashing, and several people in the gathering crowd laughed. "I'm going with the Great Explorer over here. While we're gone, start organising work-details. We need a latrine, a medical tent, the drop-ship needs stripping so we can repurpose it, and a water-source needs to be located." She turned and eyed Murphy. "As for you. Dax!"

A tall, brutal-looking boy shouldered his way through the crowd, nodding slightly. "Keep this idiot up in the upper-level. The hatch locks from below."

"What?!" Murphy sneered, half-laughing. Dragan regarded him coldly.

"We don't turn on each other," she said calmly. Dax grabbed hold of Murphy's arm roughly, dragging him toward the drop-ship despite the slenderer boy's struggles and yells. She glanced at Octavia's brother. "He stays in there till moonrise, then let him out."

"Few hours' confinement, for picking a fight," he said, raising his eyebrows.

"No law, no dignity," Dragan retorted. "We're not animals. As I understand it, Wells aced Earth-oriented classes, and one of the guards told me he's best in his corps of cadets. We need him."

Dax reappeared, looking tall and simmering with danger. Clarke eyed him, wondering what he'd been imprisoned for, and just how much the others feared or respected Dragan that he'd be willing to take orders from her. She'd been in solitary most of her sentence in the Sky-Box, she hadn't been out in the rest of the juvenile delinquent populace, but it wasn't just thieves and girls who'd gotten pregnant illegally who were locked away, there were murderers, there were well-known rapists who had been some of the first to be executed after premature reviews.

"I'm going with Clarke to Mount Weather," Dragan announced, glancing at Clarke as if challenging her to refuse Dragan's company on the expedition. "While we're gone, start getting the glade cleared up." She glanced at Bellamy. "Keep them in line." And then she glanced at Dax, simmering and dangerous, a hulking shadow behind her, and the cluster of boys associated with Murphy. "Anyone steps a toe over it, make sure they don't walk for a week."

"Got it," Dax growled softly, eyes flashing like Taser sparks as he glowered at the boys associated with Murphy. It might have been better had the authorities sent strangers, but The 100 had all been confined together, they had secrets, alliances, and most importantly for their current predicament, rivalries. And half of them were just itching to settle old scores. She crossed the glade toward Bellamy Blake. He wore a guard's uniform but wasn't one, and from a quick once-over Dragan had noted the details she'd needed. She picked up information fast and knew how to utilise it.

"Any orders for me?" His lips twitched ironically as she stopped in front of him. They were similar height, and she noticed his lips. She was a girl who noticed boys' shoulders and mouths, and she could watch him talk and smirk for hours.

"Oh, quite a few, but not in front of your sister," she said, her eyes glowing, and Bellamy felt his insides expand with something like delight. He'd forgotten the joy of flirting. In an undertone, she said carefully, "Dax is just dying to tear their throats out. Don't let him."

"That it?"

"Don't die. Octavia's told me you were a Cadet. Pick a bunch of kids and start training them, we don't know what's out there. I know Earth Skills are part of guard training," Dragan said. And she knew that, because she had had friends who were guards – not many; a prerequisite for becoming a guard was being the biggest dick orbiting the Earth. But some had been decent. She said even more quietly still, "And don't let anyone know you have that gun." Bellamy's stance shifted, something serious and anxious flickered across his face. He hadn't anticipated anyone realising he had a weapon?

"How do you know I have a gun?"

"Much as I'd love to think you're that happy to see me," Dragan said, her eyes twinkling with amusement despite the stoic set to her other features, "you're not one of the 100 and you're not a guard, so you stole that uniform. I know if I was trying to stowaway to Earth, I'd make sure I had a weapon too. Even if it had limited shelf-life."

"Limited shelf-life?"

"How many bullets do you have?"

"Not enough."

"You any good with knives?"

"We'll see."

"You let me have a grope I'll give you a lesson," Dragan said, and Bellamy laughed.

"You're nothing but trouble, huh?" Bellamy said quietly. Dragan's features twitched into something too ferocious to be a smile, but her intense hazel eyes were dancing with a dark kind of laughter.

"Something like that," she said quietly, before wandering off, calling to the crowd, "Get to work! If I'm going out hunting for your dinner you're setting the table!"

"She's interesting," Bellamy said quietly, glancing at Octavia.

"She's dangerous, Bell," Octavia said softly. "She convinced a girl to kill someone inside."

"I'd heard that. Strange to put that face to the reputation," he said honestly. He'd always liked a girl who kept him guessing, and he'd never have expected her to be The Dragon his old Cadet buddies talked about.

Octavia read him like a book, smirking, "You think she's hot."

"Did I say that?"

"You're still watching her ass," Octavia smirked. She glanced across the glade to where Dragan was now conferring with the smaller blonde. Caught, he thought, not bothering to quell a smile.

"What can I say, beautiful things look even better in the sunshine," he smirked, recalling how vivid Dragan's hazel eyes had been. He linked an arm around his little sister's shoulders and breathed a sigh of relief. They were together again – he could protect her.

"Well, if you're gonna go after anyone, I guess I'd pick her for you," Octavia sighed. Bellamy raised his eyebrows.

"Oh, really? A., what makes you think I'm going after anyone. And b., why would you pick someone who's nicknamed 'The Dragon'?"

"She's nice," Octavia said, shrugging, and Bellamy turned to her, surprised.

"She's nice? Even I've heard her reputation and I'm not even a guard – " Octavia looked up at him sharply, but he shrugged it off; he never wanted her to know how devastated he'd been by how things had happened. Their mother, floated; O, imprisoned; Bellamy himself stripped of his Cadet status and demoted to sanitation.

"She's a hard-ass and completely terrifying, and, y'know…don't ever wake the dragon, but…she's gotten me out of trouble a couple times," Octavia shrugged, eyeing the boy in the distance who had been the source of said trouble. If Dragan had wanted to gain Bellamy's loyalty, she might have told him the trouble Octavia had been into was standing across the glade eyeing Octavia as if she was dinner. And Octavia was hungry. One thing she could say for the Sky-Box, for all their rules about population control, none of the guards had seemed to care their prisoners knew every trick and hidey-hole for secret illegal rendezvous inside.

"So you trust her?" Bellamy asked. Octavia let out a long sigh.

"I trust she'll do whatever it takes to keep us from killing each other," Octavia said.

"Here I thought she convinced a girl to murder someone."

"He was a rapist. The universe is better off without him," Octavia said, her eyes flashing. "And the girl who killed him, she was sick."

"I'd heard a rumour she was. She really had cancer?"

"Yup. I heard Dragan had offered to kill Zoe herself, but Zoe didn't want Dragan getting floated for it," Octavia said, and Bellamy frowned at his little-sister. The last time he'd seen her, really seen her, she'd been dancing at the masquerade ball, sixteen and thrilled and free. She had grown, her hair was longer too, without those bangs falling into her pale eyes, and Bell knew he himself was different, and how could they not be? But he…he hadn't really thought how much his sister might have changed in a year. She had changed – there was something darker in her now, tougher.

"She offered to kill the girl?"

"Zoe was her friend," Octavia said plainly. "She was in pain." Yes, Octavia had changed; there was something darker in her now. A resilience. She had been exposed to the real world and a little of the innocence Bellamy had always admired in her was forever dimmed. But maybe that was necessary now; they weren't on the Ark anymore. Octavia's innate tenacity would keep her alive.

If it didn't kill her.

"So, Mount Weather. When are we leaving?" Finn asked, a bounce in his step as he approached Princess, the tall and dangerous-looking blonde girl loping lazily behind him, fiddling with a tiny purple flower.

"Right now," Clarke said, stretching to her feet. Wells flicked his gaze from Clarke to the long-haired kid who'd shown off in the drop-ship. There was a flare of jealousy Wells didn't mind admitting to when he glanced at the good-looking kid. Clarke glanced down at him, already finished tending to his ankle. "We'll be back tomorrow with food."

"How're the three of you going to carry enough food for a hundred?" Wells asked dubiously. The kid nicknamed 'Spacewalker' turned and clapped his hands on the shoulders of the two dorky-looking kids Dragan had spoken to earlier, they both looked startled and completely clueless.

"Five of us," Finn corrected, clapping a hand on the Asian kid's shoulder. "Can we go now?"

"Sounds like a party!" Finn didn't miss Dragan rolling her eyes as Octavia bounced over, shooting Finn a flirtatious smile, oblivious to Jasper standing up a little straighter and Monty averting his eyes bashfully. "Make it six."

"Hey!" Her older-brother stalked over, his features tense. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Going for a walk," Octavia said irreverently.

"Hey!" Dragan glanced over as Clarke exclaimed, reaching forward, frowning, to grab hold of Finn's wrist, where a jagged scar ran across his shining silver wristband. "Did you try to take this off?"

"Yeah. So?"

"So, this wristband transmits your vital signs to the Ark. Take it off and they'll think you're dead."

"Should I care?" Finn challenged.

"Well, I don't know, d'you want the people you love to think you're dead?" Clarke asked quietly. Dragan glanced down at her own wristband, the cold metal biting against her skin, the needles shoved deep into her wrist throbbing, and she had to shove away the feeling of emptiness. The people she loved? There was no-one. She hadn't known anyone outside the Sky-Box since she was a kid. All she knew was the juvenile criminals and the guards of Confinement. She only had one reason to keep her wristband on, she didn't care about communication with the Ark. They would see her executed without blinking, never acknowledging it was the failure of their society that had put her into Confinement in the first place. The only twinge of misgiving she had was at lack of communication with Dr Griffin. She'd told Dragan that her daughter had been training as a medic, following her mother's path, before her arrest; if Abby couldn't get down to Earth to help, Dragan had to trust that Clarke had the capability.

She could see Clarke's words had an effect on Finn; he lowered his eyes and looked contrite, for a moment. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the wheels churning behind Bellamy Blake's dark eyes and with a sinking feeling, wondered what damage it would do to their chances to leave him in charge.

"Okay," Clarke frowned. "Then let's go." As the others wandered off, Octavia glanced at her older brother, an expectant gleam in her eyes. He couldn't deny her anything, not now that she was above the floorboards.

"Go," he said, nodding his head after the three boys and the taller Dragan, her pale hair glowing in the sunshine. His misgivings about The Dragon aside, he couldn't keep Octavia imprisoned, not here. Not now. She'd tasted relative freedom in the Sky-Box, now he wondered how wild she would become. There was a fierce streak in her they had both taken from their mother, and he was anxious as he watched Octavia skip along to catch up with Finn, just what kind of trouble she'd get up to here. His gaze lingered on the back of Dragan, the end of her plait swishing tantalisingly against the belt of her pants. The kind murderer, according to Octavia.

He didn't want his sister anywhere near her. But at the same time, her ass sure was pretty, and if she was the most dangerous person around, it was better to befriend her than make an enemy of her.

A.N.: If you've seen Orange is the New Black, Red sort of inspired Dragan's position in the Sky-Box, she's the tough mama who runs the inmates. I have plans for Dragan, I think she and Bellamy will make a good pairing – she'll make a good addition to the leadership of The 100.