When the Grounder came to the gate, no one knew what to do. Of course, the Sky People were in a tentative alliance with the Grounders, but it had been three months since they had had any contact with them. Ever since Lincoln had come back to Octavia, the Grounders had been nothing but silent.

And now, here comes one riding on a horse with another tied beside him. The horse that he wasn't on was laden with supplies, and since the man had no war paint on, they decided to let him in. It had been a long, hard winter with many months left to go, if there was any chance that the supplies was for them, they had to take it.

Luckily, Lincoln recognized him, and came over to clap him on the back, "Alcon! You look good! How are you?"

"I'm very good. I actually am here with some gifts for you all and to bring news to some of the Sky People."

"Who might that be?"

Alcon looked out over the crowd and found a head of brown hair, along with many other teenagers beside him, "Them," he said, pointing.

The crowd parted as the Grounder made his way over to Bellamy Blake. The boy, man rather, had his arms across his chest, looking much like he had in all the drawings. Alcon almost smiled. Almost.

"Bellamy Blake?"

"Yeah. What do you need?"

"Not what I need. What you all do," Alcon turned to where Blake was looking over his shoulder. Lincoln was looking at the supplies still tied onto the horse, "Please. Cut it down. There's enough meat in the packages to last you all for a week."

As the sound of rope cutting sliced through the air, Alcon turned back to the man he had heard so much about. He wondered what the best way to go about this was, and decided on the most direct one he could think of, "Here," he said, placing a watch into Bellamy's hand.

The moment he did it, Alcon regretted it. There was a flash of guns being drawn and clicks as safeties were turned off. The watch had done its job. It was an easily recognizable symbol.

Bellamy's hand wrapped tightly around the watch, his eyes blazing as he took in the man before him, "Where did you get this?"

"Now, don't get any wrong ideas. Clarke is safe. She just gave it to me to show you she trusted me."

"She would have never given this up," Bellamy said, taking a step closer. It wasn't until then that he realized that Alcon was about the same age as the rest of the hundred.

"She did. As a show of good faith. Look, she even gave me pictures to identify you all by."

Taking the drawings out of his back pocket, Alcon showed them to him, "Look, there's you and your sister and Raven and Wick and Monty and Jasper and Dr. Griffin and Kane. You all are all here."

Bellamy snatched the papers out of his hand, and Raven looked at them over his shoulder, "Yeah, that's definitely her drawing. I look good."

Bellamy, however, was not impressed, "You could have taken them from her. Probably off her dead body."

"Then ask me anything. Anything only she would know. Try me."

Bellamy thought hard about this. He almost wanted to just throw the man out of the camp, but something told him not to. Maybe it was instincts, maybe it was the hope that she had made it this far through winter, or maybe it was the twinkle in his eye that everyone had after getting to know Clarke, but he trusted Alcon. Perhaps foolishly, but nevertheless, there was trust.

"What did I try to give her before she left?"

"A drink."

Bellamy shifted. Alcon was right, he had tried to give Clarke a drink before she left, or at least he offered her one, but it wasn't the answer he had wanted. Perhaps Clarke had found it too personal to share, and a part of Bellamy hoped that it was.

Alcon, reading his face, reevaluated, "You tried to give her forgiveness, but she wouldn't take it."

And, like it or not, Bellamy had to let the man into camp, hoping to find out more about Clarke and how she was.

"So what have you got for us?"

Alcon smiled at him.

It was the first time that winter that they were able to eat more than a bite of meat, and, since it was a tad warmer than it usually was, they had a bonfire. Children danced, adults laughed, and, under the watchful eye of Dr. Griffin, the teenagers were allowed to break out Monty's moonshine. But, away from the main bonfire, there was another one, designated for the hundred to sit and learn what happened to their leader. Almost all of them gathered around the small flame.

"How exactly do you know Clarke?"

Alcon took a sip of his drink, before answering Octavia. He knew he had to be careful with how he talked to the girl, Clarke still didn't know if Octavia would be mad at her, and Alcon didn't want to make that anger, if it was there, more explosive. "Well, I'm her guard."

"Her guard?" Bellamy asked, "Clarke doesn't need a guard. I made sure of that."

"We did too. We taught her to fight our way, but Lexa didn't want her to ever have to use it, so she asked me to guard her. Clarke now has a security detail bigger than my commander and Lexa combined.

"Why would she need such a big one?" Raven asked.

"She doesn't. We do."

"What do you mean?"

Alcon paused, "Why don't we start at the beginning?"

"Please," Bellamy said, and others nodded their accent. The only one who didn't make a sound was Jasper.

Alcon leaned backed observed the misfit group gathered around him. They were all damaged, tired, battle hardened, and hurt, with ashes and dirt on their faces and clothes, injuries just beginning to heal, and heart that might not ever heal. They looked like Clarke. But they also looked like home.

"My clan is separate from the Woods Clan, Lexa's clan. We were going through a plague and lost our last Healer. We were losing so many people...so many.

"Among the sick was my mother and two brothers, one is ten and the other four.

"After our Healer died we got desperate, and we had heard about these...Sky People, who had medicine, who had supplies. We were planning to attack you all to get it. A last ditch effort to save our people. I'm sure you know what that feels like," Alcon said, turning from addressing the crowd to look at Bellamy.

He nodded slightly, recalling the way it felt when he had pulled the lever that killed over a thousand people. On the other side of the fire, Jasper flinched.

Alcon continued, "Then we had the blessing of blessings. The smell of corpses had brought Clarke to us. People started getting better in one of the tents that we had set up, and when we finally went to investigate...there was Clarke, bending over people trying to help out. She hadn't planned to stay long. She was just going to help some people then leave, but my commander made her an offer: If she saved our people we would save hers."

Alcon paused for a second, letting that sink in, "Even after everything she had done for you, without you all owing her anything, she was still trying to take care of you all."

Most people shifted uncomfortably.

"So she stayed, and spent days on end trying to save as many people as she could."

Alcon shook his head, "She spent all night at my mother's bedside and when she couldn't she comforted her, made her passing easy. The next day, my four year old brother was on her hip, her eyes were puffy, and she kept going."

"She took care of your family," Raven clarified.

"She took care of everyone's family."

Alcon shook his head again and laughed, "It wasn't until she collapsed that we realized she wasn't sleeping. So we started taking care of her. We made a schedule of people who would follow her around to make sure she ate and slept and took some time to herself.

"By the time the plague was gone, we had fourteen orphans who followed her around. My ten year old brother became her second, and started learning how to take care of people. She started telling kids bedtime stories of who the kids called 'Brave Bellamy' and 'Opinionated Octavia' and 'Wicked Wick' and 'Remarkable Raven'. They loved finding nicknames for you all. They're favorite was 'Jazzy Jasper'."

By this time, everyone was laughing, because, while children had given them the nicknames, they seemed utterly true.

Alcon wiped the laughing tears from his eyes before continuing, "She would tell them children versions of the stories and when the kids went to sleep she would tell the adults what really happened." Alcon looked pointedly at Octavia, "All of it. Through many tears. It. Was. Terrible."

Then Alcon, ever the storyteller, turned to a lighter topic, "But, of course, she talked about you all. She is so proud of all of you, of how much you have survived, of how much you all have grown."

Turning back to Octavia he said, "She was especially proud of you. When she talks about how you were when you first came she always smiles and starts laughing. She always tells us, 'looking at how she was then, you wouldn't believe that now she would cut you down if you ever threatened someone she loved'. She loved that about you."

Looking at Raven he said, "And you." He laughed, "She always told us that the scariest thing she ever saw in her life was you mad. She also told us that the scariest thing anyone else has seen is when you two are mad together."

Raven couldn't help but laugh, and the others agreed. Even Bellamy.

"She also told us that you were the slap in the face when she needed it. So I guess I should thank you for not letting her give up."

Raven nodded, being the first to talk in a long time, "Continue with the story."

"Ah, well, after the plague was completely gone things got better. Our commander, a ver kind, elderly woman, saw that she owed Clarke a favor and asked her what she wanted. Clarke asked for an alliance between the Sky People and the clan. So, they started writing up the treaty, but Heda had to leave to help with the reconstruction of Ton DC. When she came back she had Lexa with her, who had come to return the help that Heda had given by helping with the treaty. Throughout the day, the two worked fine together, but when the sun went down and they were supposed to go to their tents, they had a huge fight. Everyone could hear it, and it was absolutely terrible."

Alcon shivered, "It was the first time we had ever seen Clarke mad, it was the most frightening experience we had ever had, and all the kids ran away. They just kit shouting and shouting and shouting all through the night about how Lexa left her and her people, how she betrayed her, how Clarke had to kill over a thousand people because of her, how she made Clarke kill Finn, and how it was Lexa's fault that her people were suffering, that she was suffering.

"The next day they sat side by side talking amiably. Perfectly fine."

Everyone sat in stunned silence as Alcon laughed, "Those freaks. They screamed at each other throughout the night and then they were like 'okay, now we're best friends'. Everyone cracked up over that."

"Anyway, after it became obvious that Lexa would be staying for a while, Heda put her in charge of the warrior, although she was determined not to use us for a while.

"The first thing Lexa did was ask me if I wanted to guard Clarke. She made it very clear that, although Clarke is perfectly able to take care of herself, if she had to shoot a gun at someone or in any way harm another human, she would kill me.

"So, we gave Clarke a security detail, and when we asked who wanted to be a part of it, everyone signed up. Everyone loves her, and, although we know she doesn't need it, we wanted to make sure we never had to lose her.

"And now, the treaty is done, ready to be signed, and Clarke wanted you all to see it. The way it's set up is that the Sky People have a representative and the Clan has a representative and we have a representative for both camps to go to the other camp and act as an ambassador. For you all, your ambassador is Clarke and she wanted Bellamy to come as the representative. For us, our ambassador would be, if he chose to accept it, Lincoln and our representative is Heda."

"You want me to go sign a treaty I have never seen?" Bellamy asked.

"No, Clarke wants you to come and sign a treaty she has spent nearly a month and a half creating."

"Clarke's going to be there?" Raven asked, leaning forward.

"Yes, of course."

"Then I'm going," she confirmed, even though she had never been necessarily invited.

Alcon knew not to argue with her about it though. He knew that when Clarke had invited Bellamy, she had given an implied invitation to the rest the hundred.

"We're all going," Jasper said, and everyone looked at him.

"You're sure, Jasper?" Bellamy asked.

"Yes."

"Alright," Bellamy said, "Anyone who wants to come needs to be ready by first light. We're going to get our Princess."