Once upon a time...there was a boy...and a girl. The boy and the girl were best friends since they could walk and slowly, they fell in love.
One night that love transpired into something more pure. The result...was a child.
Usually, the story ends with a happy ending and the boy and girl happily raise their child and bask in the love for their family. However, that was not the case for Arthur.
Arthur was working out in his cell. He was counting the number of pushups while hearing the commotion outside his cell.
His door opened and two guards stepped in.
"Prisoner 320. Face the wall."
Arthur turned and kept his hands above his head and turned to the wall. The guards held him in place while checking him for weapons.
He turned his head to the side. "If I wanted to attack, you would be knocked out. Just take me to get floated."
The guard looked at him before turning to the door. "He's clear, ma'am."
He felt a pain on his right wrist while turning around and grunted.
"That will give us your vitals when you hit the ground." He heard.
He lifted his head to see Abigail Griffin.
"What do you want, Aunt Abby?" He asked.
"You're being sent to the ground."
Arthur raised his eyebrows. "Ok?"
"Clarke will be with you too. You have the highest marks in combat, engineering, and life sciences. You hold the records in all of them. You take after your father. So, please look after my daughter."
Before he could say anything, he was pricked with a needled and fell unconscious in the guards' hands. They looked at Abigail.
"Make sure he sits next to her."
The guards dragged him away and set him in the drop ship next to an unconscious Clarke Griffin.
Arthur woke up to the sudden shift of the pod. He looked around to everyone taking off his or her belts and moving towards the door downstairs. He took his off as well and moved along the lines.
He moved to a certain blonde yelling that the air could be toxic.
"If the air is toxic, then we're all dead anyway." He heard.
Arthur looked up to see his friend Bellamy. He hadn't seen him since he was sent to the skybox.
Suddenly, the lights blinded him and the next 90 seconds were filled with Octavia's yelling and the 100 running out. He stayed in place until he was the last one out and stepped onto the land.
He took in the sight and breathed it all in.
"Arthur?" He heard.
He turned to see Bellamy looking at him with Octavia next to him smiling.
"Bell. O." He said as they all hugged.
They all heard a commotion to the right and it was Wells Jaha making most of the 100 angry.
"We're just trying to figure out where we are." He said.
"We're on the ground." Bellamy interrupted. "Is that not good enough for you?"
Arthur saw Wells hesitate before he spoke again.
"We need to find Mount Weather. You heard my father's message. That has to be our first priority."
"Screw your father." Octavia said. "What, you think you're in charge here, you and your little Princess?"
"Do you think we care who's in charge?" Clarke asked. "We need to get to Mount Weather not because the Chancellor said so, but because the longer we wait, the hungrier we'll get and the harder this'll be. How long do you think we'll last without those supplies? We're looking at a twenty-mile trek, okay? So if we want to get there before dark, we need to leave now."
"I got a better idea." Bellamy said. "You two go, find it for us. Let the privileged do the hard work for a change."
A bunch of the kids were yelling out in agreement.
"You're not listening." Wells pleaded. "We all need to go."
"Look at this, everybody." Murphy pushed Wells. "The Chancellor of Earth."
"Think that's funny?" Wells stared back.
Murphy pushed him even harder making him twist his leg on a branch.
"Uh!" He grunted.
"Wells." Clarke yelled in fear.
Arthur tensed up, but Bellamy held his wrist and shook his head saying to let them finish this. Wells got back while leaning on one foot. The crowd was riled up and cheering Murphy on while Finn came out of nowhere and jumped in between.
"Kid's got one leg." He reasoned. "How about you wait until it's a fair fight?"
Octavia walks up behind him and yells. "Hey, spacewalker, rescue me next."
She looks to see the disapproving looks of Arthur and Bellamy. "What? He's cute."
"He's a criminal." Bellamy said.
"We're all criminals." Arthur put in, thinking Bellamy couldn't hear even though he saw the glare through the corner of his eye.
"Look, O. I came down here to protect you." Bellamy said.
"I don't need protecting." She protested. "I have been locked up one way or another all my life. I am done following orders. I need to have fun, Bell. I need to just do something crazy just because I can, and no one, including you, is gonna stop me."
"I can't stay with them, O." He whispered.
"Now what are you talking about?" Octavia asked.
Bellamy looked around and quickly moved him, Octavia, and Arthur to the side. "I did something, okay, to get on the drop ship, something that they will kill me for when they come down. I can't say what it is just yet, but you have to trust me. You do still trust me, don't you?"
"Yeah." Octavia said.
Bellamy looked to Arthur. "Bell, I trust you, ok? But we're in over our heads. We need things to keep us fed, at least water to drink. Look, I'm going to go with them. Make sure I can get as much stuff as I can."
Bellamy was furious that Arthur didn't side with him. "Well try to find your son while you're at it."
Octavia's mouth dropped and she quickly moved back thinking Arthur would kick the crap out of Bellamy. Arthur thought about doing it, but the skybox and his time away from Rachel made him rethink his decision in every way possible.
He walked into Bellamy's face. "I'm going to let that slide, because I know you didn't mean that. But bring up my son one more time, and I will shove your dick so far up your ass, you'll be choking on it."
He turned and walked away, leaving Bellamy and Octavia speechless. Finn was walking over to Clarke.
"So Mount Weather. When do we leave?" He asked her, while she was tending to Wells's foot.
"Right now." She said before turning back to Wells. "We'll be back tomorrow with food."
"How are the two of you gonna carry enough food for a hundred?" Wells asked.
Finn turned and grabbed two people closest to him. "Four of us. Can we go now?"
Arthur walked up from behind. "Make it 5."
Everyone turned to look at him.
"Arthur." Clarke sighed.
Arthur nodded towards her. Wells was surprised as well as he didn't see Arthur since he was locked up.
"Arthur-" Wells began.
"Let's get a move on." Arthur interrupted without even looking at Wells. "So that's five of us."
"Sounds like a party." Octavia said. "Make it six."
"Hey," Bellamy grabbed her arm. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Going for a walk." Octavia said pulling her arm out of his hold.
Clarke looked at Finn and saw the scratch marks on the wristband. "Hey, were you trying to take this off?"
She grabbed the wristband and pointed to the scratches.
"Yeah. So?" Finn asked.
"So this wristband transmits your vital signs to The Ark." Clarke answered. "Take it off, and they'll think you're dead."
"Should I care?" He asked in annoyance.
"Well, I don't know. Do you want the people you love to think you're dead? Do you want them to follow you down here in two months? Because they won't if they think we're dying."
Arthur whispered quietly to himself. "It doesn't matter if your loved ones are dead."
Bellamy heard it, but didn't know what to do since he messed up earlier.
"Okay! Now let's go." Clarke announced.
Arthur quickly looked at Bellamy and then hugged him. "Stay safe."
He turned and he started the trek to Mount Weather with Finn, Jasper, and Monty with Clarke and Octavia behind him.
"Before you get any ideas, Finn is mine." Octavia said. "You can have Arthur. He's more like a brother."
Clarke glanced at Octavia. "Before you get any ideas, I don't care."
Arthur was walking in front with Clarke by his side. He quickly looked back to keep an eye on the group.
Finn took a purple flower and placed it in Octavia's hair.
"Now, that, my friend, is game." Jasper said to Monty.
"That, my friend, is poison sumac." Monty replied.
"What? It is?" Octavia asked.
"The flowers aren't poisonous." Arthur said. "They're medicinal, calming, actually." He took one of the flowers and ate it.
"Monty's family grows all the pharmaceuticals on The Ark." Jasper said.
"Hey, guys, would you try to keep up?" Clarke called from the front.
"Come on, Clarke." Finn protested. "How do you block all this out?"
"Well, it's simple." Clarke replied. "I wonder, 'why haven't we seen any animals?' Maybe it's because there are none. Maybe we've already been exposed to enough radiation to kill us. Sure is pretty, though. Come on."
"Someone should slip her some poison sumac." Octavia said.
Jasper snorted and they all began walking.
"I got to know what you two did to get busted." Finn said pointing to Jasper and Monty.
"Sumac is not the only herb in the garden, if you know what I mean." Monty said.
Arthur chuckled. "You guys are the knuckleheads that made some weed?"
"Yep. Someone forget to replace what we took." Jasper complained.
"Someone has apologized, like, a thousand times." Monty reasoned.
Jasper looked at Octavia. "How about you, Octavia? What'd they get you for?"
"Being born." She said before running off to Clarke.
"That is so not game." Monty said to Jasper and they had their little hissy hand slap thing fight.
They quickly caught up with Clarke and she shushed them. They were all looking at a deer eating the grass.
"No animals, huh?" Finn asked.
Arthur saw Finn get closer. "Careful." He said. "Don't want to make a-"
SNAP!
The deer turned to them and they saw its deformed face with two heads.
Everyone gasped and moved back. The deer ran off.
Arthur sighed. "-sound."
Arthur was walking in front of the group and following the way Clarke showed.
"Hey, you know what I'd like to know?" Finn asked. "Why send us down today after ninety seven years? What changed?"
"Who cares?" Octavia said. "I'm just glad they did. I woke up rotting in a cell, and now I'm spinning in a forest."
"Maybe they found something on a satellite, you know, like an old weather satellite or-"
"It wasn't a satellite." Clarke said. "The Ark is dying. At the current population level, there's roughly three months left of life support, maybe four now that we're gone."
"So that was the secret they locked you up to keep, why they kept you in solitary, floated your old man?" Finn asked.
Arthur was listening in on the conversation.
"My father was the engineer who discovered the flaw. He thought the people had a right to know. The Council disagreed. My mother disagreed. They were afraid it would cause a panic. We were gonna go public, anyway, when Wells…" Clarke trailed off.
"What, turned in your dad?" Month asked.
Clarke shook her head getting rid of the painful memory. "Anyway, the guard showed up before we could. That's why today. That's why it was worth the risk. Even if we all die, at least they bought themselves more time."
"They're gonna kill more people, aren't they?" Monty asked somberly.
"Good." Octavia said. "After what they did to me, I say, float them all."
Jasper walked after her. "You don't mean that."
"We have to warn them." Finn said.
"That's what my father said." Clarke pointed out, getting lost in Finn's eyes. "Anyway, I didn't have it as hard as Arthur."
Finn was confused. "What do you me-"
"Oh, damn, I love Earth." Jasper said. "Oh! Holy-" Arthur smacked him on the back of his head.
"Octavia, what the hell are you doing?" Clarke yelled.
Octavia took one look at them before jumping over the rocks. They all heard a splash.
Arthur looked at them. "Son of a-Come on we can't swim."
Everyone ran to see Octavia in the water.
"We can't swim." Monty pointed out.
"I know, but we can stand." She laughed.
Clarke looked at the map and then the landscape. "Wait. There's not supposed to be a river here." She noticed.
"Well, there is." Finn pointed out. "So take off your damn clothes."
Everyone was busy taking his or her clothes off when Jasper suddenly looked out to the water.
"Oh-" Jasper gasped when he saw ripples. "Octavia, get out of the water."
"Get out of the water now!" Clarke yelled when she saw the animal.
The anima slithered through the water towards Octavia and pulled her into the water. She was screaming until she disappeared.
Everyone was looking for her when Arthur heard her come out the water. Right when she screamed, Arthur ran and dove into the water just like he had seen in the history books.
Clarke stopped Finn from following and they moved to make a rock get the animal's attention.
The animal let go of Octavia and Arthur was able to swim to her and guide her to shore. However, the animal made its way back towards them and missed Arthur's leg by less than an inch.
Arthur lay beside Octavia gasping for air. The rest of the gang joined them and Clarke began wrapping up Octavia's injury.
Clarke then looked over him to make sure he has no wounds.
"I'm fine." He said.
"Shut up." Clarke said as she found a cut on the side of his torso.
"See? It's not even deep. We all know I am a better doctor Clarke. Now let's go."
Clarke reluctantly let him go and tended Octavia's dressing. Monty looked at Jasper and clasped his hand on Arthur's shoulder.
"Note to self, next time, save the girl." He said.
Everyone laughed and felt good about not having a worse result.
Arthur was sitting against the tree with Monty next to him.
"So what's your deal? How'd you get arrested?" Monty asked.
Arthur looked at him. "I guess there's no point in hiding it." He sighed. "When I was 15, I was in love with a girl names Rachel. God she was so beautiful. When she said I could take her on a date, I was over the moon. Anyway, in a year, she got pregnant. I was about to be a father at 15 and she at 19. But as per rules, you can't have a child unless you're over the age of 25. They floated her and my son. When I saw her get sucked out of the Ark, I lost it. I took out four guards and put another in a coma."
Monty took the entire info in. "You did good, Arthur. Real good."
They both looked at the stars as sleep slowly came over both of them.
Arthur was watching Finn stall with the rope. "Dude, come on."
"You wanted to go first. Now quit stalling." Clarke teased.
"Mount Weather awaits." Finn replied.
Jasper chuckled and checked the rope. "Just hang on till the apogee, and you'll be fine."
"The apogee like the Indians, right?" Finn asked.
Arthur sighed and dropped his head.
"Apogee, not apache." Jasper corrected.
"He knows." Clarke interjected. "Today, Finn."
"Aye, aye, captain. See you on the other side." He said before winding up.
"Wait." Jasper stopped Finn while looking at Octavia.
"What?" Finn asked.
"Let me. I can do it."
"Knew there was a badass in there somewhere."
Jasper chuckled and took the rope. Once he had it in his hands, he began having second thoughts.
"Hey, it's okay to be afraid, Jasper. The trick is not fighting it."
Jasper nodded. He took a deep breath and looked at the group. "See you on the other side."
He swung and jumped to the other side landing in a heap of a mess, making Arthur get concerned.
Everyone cheered for Jasper and he was all on a high.
Arthur looked at Octavia and she smiled back at him. He looked at Monty who was hollering excitedly for his friend.
Finn was helping Clarke get ready to swing and everyone was giving words of encouragement. Meanwhile, Arthur heard something in the trees. His eyes moved to a bunch of leaves moving. Just when he thought he could make out the figure, a spear flew into Jasper's chest. Everyone was screaming Jasper's name.
Arthur looked around at the trees while the rest immediately hid behind the rock. In that moment, Arthur did exactly what he believed was right. He turned to Clarke.
"Get back to the drop ship, Clarke. Finn. Get her there. O, tell Bell I'm sorry." He said.
"Why?" Octavia asked.
Arthur sighed and grabbed on the rope. He ran despite everyone's shouts and swung to the other side of the creek and landed in front of Jasper.
"Hey. It's going to be alright."
The next thing he knew, he was knocked out from behind.