A/N: So this span a bit out of control. I know I haven't written any fics in a while, but I've had class and work and been so busy (though I passed my driving test first time! YAY!). This story wouldn't leave me alone though, and though it's late at night I've finally finished it. It's not my usual kinda thing but I really like it. I hope you to do.
(Plus I had to write something since The 100 has got over TWO THOUSAND fics on the site! YA-HOO!)
(Yes, I am very tired.)
Warning: Multiple character deaths
DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own The 100 or any of the characters
Lead the Fight On
"They never fail who die in a great cause"
George Gordon Byron
"Bio-chemical warfare." Clarke repeats the words.
Lexa nods, straight-faced. "Their technology will probably heal them faster, but it'll buy us some time."
She looks past her, to the warriors – people in the distance. "We're just going to infect someone? That person could die."
As soon as she says it, she wants to take the words back. Lexa has promised no more lessons, but she gives Clarke a look. "This is war Clarke. People are going to die."
People stare at him as he walks down the hall: the former president, the man that protected them for a good fifty years. Or do they see him as the man who prevented them from reaching the ground; who still would?
He can hear his son from down the hall, yelling out orders. The kids have escaped and Cage can't figure out where they are. He doesn't think to look with people, families, good souls who can't stomach the idea of the death of children just so they can walk on the ground. It warms his heart a little, remembering that it's Cage that is the exception, not the rule.
Because he's ruled for so long, he knows how the bypass security and get to the mechanics. He almost gets their without interruption until his son follows, panting. "Dad, what are you doing?"
He looks at Cage and wonders if he should have given up leading these people and looked after him more. His greatest failure is not that he's stopped his people from getting to the ground; it's the fact he has raised a son who is willing to kill innocents to do it.
"Our people have been hiding down here for decades," explains Cage. "This is our chance to free them. Dad," he says, his face momentarily bright, earnest. "Imagine being able to lead your people into the sunlight. Imagine being able to lie in the sun – to actually feel the heat from it."
His hand lifts to the wires behind him, and he watches Cage freeze. "We're not worth it." He pulls the wire, snaps them free, and there's a hiss. A lighter is lit, and the last thing on his mind is a prayer for peace.
- and he can barely hear because the ringing in his ears is so loud. But there's crying, so high that it breaks through. He pushes himself up.
He's okay. He's okay. He has no idea what fucking happened though, and his first thought is that Clarke is behind it. But Clarke would tell him if there was going to be an explosion because, damn it, there is no point in trying to save their people if they're just going to blow the place up.
He stands and his feet are shaky. But the sight before him steadies him. Over the crumbled wreckage there are people – kids, barely five or six. And because of the bomb outside air is coming in, and they are all being burned by radiation.
He stares at them. There's a little girl crying, her arm twisted in a direction that almost makes him sick. She looks a little like Octavia did when she got upset, except her skin is turning from red and grey and her cries and mingled with coughs and oh God –
He is bending down to do God knows what, maybe he can get her to safety, but already he knows it's too late, her skin is burnt. She opens her eyes at him and for a second he doesn't understand how he has the right to even breathe, but then she closes her eyes. She stops crying.
His ears have healed remarkably quickly, but now he misses the ringing. Now he can hear the sounds of cries – but no one on this level. He knows all these kids, the ones with their entire lives ahead of them, are now dead. Their parents –
He turns away and for the first time, he actually throws up at what he's seen. And he's seen some fucking messed up shit in his life.
After a few moments, Bellamy stands. He takes a breath, two, three. Calms his mind. Something is going on, and he needs to find out what the hell it is. He needs to find his kids. Now is the time to make their escape.
He doesn't look back.
Clarke is screaming that they're not ready, what's happening, was this them, but Lexa is yelling charge and everyone is getting inside the hole, down into the gap that leads into the Mountain Men's base.
Octavia slips through, and she thinks she's seen it all, this girl that was hidden under the floor for the crime of being the second child, but now her legs seize up. God damn, this place is like – cage after cage, and she feels something, terror or fear –
She straightens, especially when she sees Indra striding forward. She is not a coward. She is no longer the girl that lived in one apartment for most of her life; she is a Grounder, a Sky Person, a warrior. She will not let fear get in. Fear destroys a person.
Indra is speaking to some people in the cages, and she looks over her shoulder, probably to order her to help, when Octavia sees a shadow. Her mouth opens but the sound of a gun is heard, and Indra's body jerks. She is running, running, and Indra falls and oh God, someone is pointing a gun at her, and shit, she has one, but can't pull it out in time –
The man cries out, and before she can think he's stumbled. Blood oozes from his stomach and he leans forward, like the bark of a tree being inhumanly twisted. He is coughing it up now, and he falls to the floor. Octavia looks to Indra, who drops her blade to the floor. She wants to go towards the woman because, well, she's human and this woman gave her a chance, expected things from her, saw her strength. But before she can do something Indra makes eye contact with her, and she knows: she has a job to do. You mourn those who die after the battle.
She is a warrior first.
- Jasper's face is the only thing she can see, and she can barely breathe. Everything around his face is fading, but he is clear. She grips him harder. "Jasper," she whispers.
"No!" There are tears on his cheeks. "We'll get you out of here. We'll find a way." But she knows he can't. The reason she can't leave this room is because radiation is seeping in, and now Cage is draining the oxygen to send to other rooms. The only reason Jasper isn't in the same situation is because he's been breathing through an oxygen tank – a tank filled with air from the outside. Deadly to her.
"Jasper," she whispers again, and she wants to tell him things: like how she liked him from the very first second, a boy with a smile despite the battle scars on his skin; how he was instantly kind to her, like he didn't have a bad bone in his body. How she fell for him the second she realised what he had done for her, giving his own blood to save her. And even though that made things worse, in that moment she loved him. Really, truly loved him, the boy that would give his own blood to save her.
She wants to tell him that even though she has never set foot outside, she knows what's it's like to feel the sun on her skin. She feels it every time he looks at her.
Her head cradled in his lap, he is finally disappearing from sight. Maya forces a smile on her face. "You're worth dying for," because he has to know. She feels his lips on hers. It helps her let go.
Sergeant Miller has never fought a battle before. He certainly never expected to be fighting with people who are painted in dark colours and tattooed, screaming in a language he doesn't understand. But he would fight with the devil himself if it gets him his son back.
He is careful who he shoots, lets even a few screaming adults passed, because he's not here to save everyone, just his son. Just his boy.
It's chaos and he can barely understand what's going on, bodies are on the floor but he can't stop, can't help. He shoves a door open and yells for Nathan, but it's empty. Swearing, he makes his way down the hall again. Fires a few warning shots, kills a man who was about to kill him. He can smell smoke, and all he can hope for is that this place won't blow –
"Dad?"
And there's his son, blood on his shirt and a gash on his head. Grown since the last time he saw him. Probably been through horrors that he can't imagine. But he's still his boy, the baby he held when he was born, tears streaming; the boy that smiled at him first, that said his name first. That boy that still laughed at his jokes, even if it was more out of kindness, more sarcastic. The boy that wept for his mother every night for a year. His boy.
He runs, and they meet in the middle, and thank God, thank God for bringing my son back to me.
"You're alive," Nathan says – gasps. "I thought you were dead."
He laughs, because his son thought he was dead? "Are you hurt?"
They have pulled away, and Nathan is shaking his head, blood flowing from the cut on his head. "I'm fine," he says. "Are you – what are-" Words escape his son, and he just shakes his head and grins. "I've missed you."
He grabs his arm. "Let's go."
Nathan pulls his arm back. "We can't."
"I'm getting you out of here." He sees the hard set of his nut brown eyes, a mirror image of his own. "You can't stay here. This is-"
"-no place for a child." Nathan finishes the sentence easily, because it's one that he used to say on the Ark a lot, one that was an inside joke between them, because the Ark really was no place for kids. Nathan straightens. "I'm not a kid anymore Dad. And I'm not leaving my friends."
"Miller!" That kid, the one they sent here, comes over. He's bleeding down, and holding a gun which he presses into Nathan's hands. And Nathan, his boy, stands even taller. "Where are the others?"
"Next floor up, but they're scattering. Jasper was there, but Maya-" The two of them exchange a look and the boy's face – something Blake – hardens. "They need help."
Blake nods. "Let's go." He finally seems to notice Sergeant Miller, and he actually gives him a look that makes it feel like he's in charge. "You coming?"
No way in hell, but he sees the look on his son's face, and nods too. He pauses for the briefest of moments as his son marches off with the Blake boy. His son, the criminal; the son of the guard that stole; the boy, his boy, now with a gun in his hand, marching off to save his friends.
He has never been more proud.
- and fuck, how the hell has this happened? Clarke is weaving through the halls, shooting down people as if her hands aren't bloody enough, calling for her people. She has already been in their dorm and found it torn apart, and Bellamy said they were killing them, and she can't do this – Finn's death, the people in the village that got killed by that missile, their deaths can't be in vain. Her people – her friends – can't be dead, because then it wasn't worth it, then it's her fault –
"Clarke!" She almost doesn't recognise Bellamy without his usual jacket, but he's there, with a gun in his hands. Bleeding, looking like he's aged ten years. Weary but alive at the same time. The same way she probably looks.
She leaps towards him and once again they're in each other's arms, and it's only a moment, but her heart thuds against her chest, so hard that he can probably feel it. "What happened?"
"The bomb – it wasn't you?"
She shakes her head. "Not you?"
"No. I don't understand."
She shakes her head again, impatient. "Where are the others?"
"We're getting them out. Miller and his Dad are leading them out through the way we came in, I'm searching for the missing-"
"Are they okay?"
"Monty and Jasper are alive," he says, and even though they're all her people, her friends, she cares about them a little bit more. Bellamy knows this. "But Maya's dead and Jasper's losing it, he needs to leave."
She nods at this. "Where's Cage?"
"I don't know – why does that matter?"
"Because I want to be the one to kill him."
She goes to brush past him, but he grabs her arm. "What – Clarke, enough people have died!"
"He fired that missile! He wants our friends dead – he's killed them. He deserves to die, and I'm going to make sure it happens!" Damn it, she wants to be strong, but she's crying and what the hell is that about? "He can't get away with this!"
Bellamy pulls her forward. Hard. "Does it look like he's got away with it?" They can hear screams in the distance and there's the smell of smoke, and she knows what he means, but she still twists in his arms. "Clarke, this isn't you."
"It is me!"
"No, it's not. We're getting them out, we're saving our people, and there is no point looking for a fight-"
"It's all his fault."
"It's – I don't care if it is! You are not going to go looking for him. You've got people – what about your mom? She loves you and has done everything she could to save you-"
"Love is weakness!"
And his lips meet hers, pulling her to him so she is actually standing on her tiptoes. He pulls her right against him and holds her, arms wrapped so securely round her body that for the first time since she killed Finn, she finally feels safe again.
Finally feels a stirring in her chest. A yearning. A hunger for more.
"No," he says when they part, because Bellamy Blake always has to have the last word. "Love is strength."
A/N: A few things:
1) Am I the only one that REALLY wants Miller and his Dad to reunite? Considering a lot of the parents of the kids are probably dead after the landing from the Ark, and over half the 100 have died, I really want a child to find his parents. PLEASE let this happen writers!
2) I couldn't resist putting some Bellarke in there, and ever since Clarke's whole darker side and "Love is weakness" thing, I've been wanting to write a story where Bellamy shows her she's wrong and brings her back. I hope it didn't feel out of place in this story. I don't think it does but I lost my judgement about an hour ago when I should have gone to bed.
3) I know the story is a bit chaotic in parts, but since there was a battle going on I figured that everyone would be a bit chaotic themselves. I hope it wasn't too hard to follow!
Hours to make. Seconds to comment.
PLEASE REVIEW!
