AN: So, yeah, another 100 fic! Yay, right?
Safe From Battle
I was weak. It's worth the risk.
Clarke thinks she could live a hundred years, and never regret anything more than she will those words.
After making the call to blow up the Grounders to save the 100, she had understood leadership. After driving a knife into Finn's heart for peace, she had understood sacrifice.
After saying those words to Bellamy, after saving the 47 from Mount Weather and setting loose the Grounders but not seeing him among their number, she knows she will understand regret.
It's Monty, shaking and wide-eyed, but so very strong, that gives her the news.
"He was in the cages with us. Then they took him… Clarke, I don't know where they took him."
And Clarke feels her stomach fall. As others celebrate around her, Sky People and Grounders alike, she feels like her world has come crushing down around her. Her eyes meet Octavia's across the celebration. Lincoln is murmuring to her, his grip on her clearly the only thing keeping her from running off, and Clarke knows that she knows. She tears herself from Lincoln's grip, and storms towards Clarke, who stiffens her spin and prepares for the worst, because Octavia is fire and passion and Bellamy is the only family she has left.
"We have to get him back," Octavia states, and Clarke's clenched muscles immediately loosen, because that wasn't what she was expecting to hear at all. She had expected threats and shouts of this is your fault, but instead there's just ice in her voice and fire in her eyes, and Clarke knows that it doesn't matter what she says next. Octavia will save her brother, or she'll die trying.
I was weak. It's worth the risk.
She feels the same determination, because she was the one that decided it was worth it. She was the one that sent Bellamy straight into the arms of the enemy. And she is the leader, so maybe it's time to stop risking everyone else and risk herself.
"Absolutely not," Abby declares when Clarke stands in front of her and Lexa and declares her intent to go get Bellamy back. Octavia is at her side, holding a knife and bouncing on the balls of her feet, eager to get her brother back, impatient with the hoops Clarke has to jump through before they can leave.
"This isn't your call to make, m-" Clarke cuts the word off before it can fall off her tongue. They cannot be mother and daughter right now, not when Abby is calling Clarke's authority into question. They have to be leaders, equals, and Clarke won't let Abby make her appear lesser in front of Lexa, who has been completely silent since joining them. "It's mine. Saving Bellamy isn't just something I want to do, it's something I have to do."
"Because you care for him," Lexa says, and it's a comment, though Clarke can hear hints of a question in it. She knows this is Lexa's way of questioning her decision – is she making it because it's the choice that needs to be made, or because her love is making her weak?
"No," Clarke replies shortly, staring Lexa down, and she finds that she truly means what she says. That anything she may or may not feel for Bellamy (and she refuses to touch that, to look at it too closely – it's too soon, Finn's death still too fresh) does not affect this decision. She is doing what needs to be done. "Bellamy is important. My people, they listen to what I say, but they'll follow Bellamy anywhere."
Lexa stares her down, and neither backs away, until finally the Grounder leader bows her head, just the slightest. She understands, that obedience is important in a leader, but every leader needs a General, and that General can't just be obeyed. They need to be loved.
Bellamy is Clarke's General, and she will get him back.
"I'm coming with you," Monty says, waiting for them outside the tent. He's too thin, and there are exhausted, haunted shadows in his eyes. One of the doctors hovers nearby, and it's clear that he's refused to go with them, that he's refused to let them treat him. "Bellamy got us out of there. I'm coming with you."
Octavia immediately argues, and Clarke listens to those arguments with one ear as she watches Monty closely – so closely. They could use someone that knows the inside of Mount Weather well, and while Clarke was there, Monty had far longer to explore and learn. But her gaze lands on his hand, clenched into a fist and shaking, and she knows that if they took Monty, he would never make it out again.
I was weak. It's worth the risk.
Clarke takes a deep breath, tries to push away the emotions that swirl inside her like a tempest. She's made this call before – Bellamy is missing because she's made this call before – and she tries to ignore that thought, to block out emotion and look at this as she imagines Lexa would.
Lexa who had lost her love, and killed her General for peace, because she was cold and never let emotion get in the way.
"No," Clarke says at last, and she still can't be certain that this is a choice made for the right reasons, not sentimental ones… but there's a difference between calculated risks and suicide, and with the way Monty shakes, the way his bones are just a little too sharp in his features, she knows his presence would equate to the latter. "You have to recover, Monty."
Her gaze tracks over the others, Grounders and Sky People alike, that were kept in Mount Weather. Jasper stands not too far away, looking thin himself, but better than Monty, and next to him stands the girl he refused to leave behind. Clarke remembers her, though she can't remember her name. Just that she threatened to shoot Clarke when she tried to escape, and she can feel her smile become sharper, almost animalistic when her gaze lands and locks on the girl, who stares back, then takes a frightened step behind Jasper, as though he could somehow protect her from the blonde that's looking at her as though she's prey.
"Her," Clarke says nodding at her, because who better to lead them into the belly of the enemy than the enemy herself? She sees Jasper open his mouth, and perhaps he thinks to argue, but Clarke looks at him with fierce eyes – it had been for him that Bellamy had been caught, because Jasper refused to leave the girl behind – and whatever he sees in her expression silences any arguments he might have made. When Octavia grabs the girl – Maya? Yes, that's her name. Maya – by the arm and pulls her over to Clarke, Jasper's jaw clenches, but he remains silent. Clarke looks at Maya. "You'll get us in, get us to Bellamy."
"They won't let me in any more than they would you. I'm a traitor now."
"Then I suggest you start thinking about alternative ways, Maya. And think fast."
T100
They've decimated Mount Weather's numbers. She knows this, both because she was there fighting, and because Maya has told them so. But they didn't get rid of them all, and those that remain have locked themselves in the veritable fortress of the mountain.
But there are other ways. Ways that mean risking Reapers and horrible death, but when Clarke looks at her people, sees how disheartened they are by Bellamy's loss, she knows that it has to be done. Mount Weather is still a threat, and who knows how long this truce with the Grounders will persist. When – and Clarke assumes it's when not if, because peace is a tenuous thing she hasn't truly known since landing on earth – everything falls apart, they will need Bellamy. She can give the orders, be the rational head of their people, but she needs Bellamy to be their heart.
She needs Bellamy to be her heart, because Clarke feels lost and rung out, and she's not sure she can be passionate about anything anymore. Not the way her people need her to be.
So she sets off with Octavia and Maya. Lincoln will stay behind, because he was injured getting the forty-seven out, but Lexa is sending half a dozen of her Grounder warriors to have their back. To Clarke's surprise, Marcus Kane also steps up, and it helps to know that while her mother still looks at her and sees a child, Kane has realized that the 100 have grown up out of necessity, that they know better than any other Sky People what needs to be done to survive. She'll trust him to have their back, and to get everyone he can back to camp alive, should Clarke herself not be able to do so.
"You might be better to send someone else," Lexa tells her as she hands her a knife, a show of respect for what Clarke is doing.
"Delegation is what got us here," Clarke replies, and then wishes she could bit her tongue, because those works sound too much like regret, and regret is a weakness she can't show this commander. "I can't ask my people to do something I'm not willing to do as well."
"I know. I wish you luck, Clarke of the Sky People."
And then she steps away and Clarke and the others set off. Clarke clutches the knife until her knuckles turn white, but otherwise her expression is serene, showing none of the desperation she can feel welling inside.
The past week has been difficult without Bellamy, and now that she faces a future of leading without him there, without his supportive strength… Clarke isn't sure when she had come to rely on him. But she does know that she needs him back.
T100
The Grounders and Kane get them to the tunnels to Mount Weather, but once there it's left to the three girls to get inside, to get Bellamy out.
It's a testament to how badly their numbers were cut by the battle, that it's so easy to break into the sanctum. And once in, Clarke finds it eerie how silent the halls are. When she had been there, the place had been alive, both with soldiers and with civilians, and now their footsteps echo in the halls, and uncomfortable staccato that is echoed in her ears by her racing heartbeat.
They are so close, they just need to find him.
"Where would they keep him?" Octavia demands of Maya, and the other girl shrugs helplessly.
"You destroyed the Grounder holding cells… the next best guess would be the labs."
The words make Clarke's heart freeze while Octavia lets out an angered, hiss of what, because they both remember Lincoln, both know that what was done to him happened in those labs.
Reaper.
Clarke's feet begin to move quicker, and Octavia is right there beside her. She hears Maya let out a frustrated huff before she's there as well, facing them and forcing them to stop.
"Do you remember where the labs are that well?" she demands of Clarke, who is forced to clench her jaw, because no, she can't. And Bellamy had the map, so when Maya gives a smirk that makes Clarke want to scream, she instead reaches out to Octavia and holds the girl back from punching that smirk right off Maya's face.
"Move," Clarke says coldly, and that does wipe the smirk away, and sends the girl scurrying off, Clarke and Octavia right behind her.
It's when they finally reach the lab that they finally find people. When the guards see them, the immediately jump into action, but Octavia is quicker and far more brutal than they could ever hope to be, and with two bullets both guards drop. Octavia strides past them, not even bothering to look at the men she's killed, and pulls on the doors.
They're locked.
"They need a passca…"
Maya trails off when Clark grabs one of the dead soldiers and pulls his passcard off his corpse, ignoring the blood that stains her hands as she does so. She has enough metaphorical blood on her hands that a little bit of the literal stuff doesn't bother her. All she cares about is getting through those doors, finding Bellamy.
The President is within, standing with a woman in a lab coat and a younger man who bears a passing resemblance to the President dressed in dark black. They're gathered around something on a gurney, and when they hear the doors open, they all whirl. The man in black lifts a gun, but the President puts a hand on it, forces it back down.
"Clarke," he greets, and Clarke says nothing. She has nothing to say to this man, this man that would have used her people as blood bags to save his own ass. His jaw clenches, but he says nothing more to her, instead turning his gaze to Maya. "Welcome back, Maya."
"I'm not here to stay," Maya replies, and Clarke can hear her voice give a little as she speaks, but her spin remains straight, and the for the first time Clarke can maybe understand why Jasper was so infatuated with her. There's more strength to Maya than Clarke had given her credit for. "We're here for one of their people. Then we're leaving."
"You really think we'll let you leave here alive?" the man in black asks. "After what you did to us? To our people?"
"You started a war," Clarke replies shortly. "If you didn't want to be destroyed, then you should have finished it when you had the chance. You have one of ours. Tall, dark haired, her brother" – Clarke jerks her head at Octavia – "You give him back to us, or I let her have her way with you. She's gone native with the Grounders. You won't like what her way is."
Octavia gives them a not so nice smile, but Clarke can tell that her description amused the other girl, that she actually kind of likes the idea of having gone native, of being feared for that. And there is fear there, in the eyes of the scientist woman, and the man in black. The President, though, just looks at Octavia for a moment with those eerie eyes of his, then looks to Clarke again.
"We don't have any of your people anymore, Clarke," he says, and Octavia stiffens, amusement gone, but it's Clarke that raises her gun and trains it on the President. The man in black raises his as well, but Octavia already has him in her sights, and he freezes, knowing he won't win this gun fight, not when it's two against one, and the two will be far quicker to pull the trigger, far more used to it. The man in black has the look of a politician to Clarke. She imagines that he's ordered many deaths. The fact that he's here tells her he probably played a big part in the experimentation that Mount Weather did.
But there's a difference between ordering death and committing it yourself, and Clarke has done both.
"He's telling the truth," the scientist said, her voice very nearly desperate. "We don't have any left… we got rid of them. They weren't far enough along, and we didn't have time to finish, so we got rid of them."
It's the wrong thing to say, and how the woman could have thought otherwise.
Clarke meets the President's gaze and sees the truth in his eyes, that the woman speaks honestly, that anyone that may have been left in the lab is gone, killed off so they could flee or rebuild, or whatever it is that they would do next. She stares at him, not wanting to believe, not able to deny.
Iwasweakit'sworthrisk. Iwasweakit'sworththerisk.
Her own words echo in her mind and she can hear a heart wrenching shriek. At first she thinks it's Octavia, but then she realizes that no, it's her. It's her, because Bellamy was her General, Bellamy could inspire the masses. Bellamy inspired her.
And he's gone.
Gonegonegonegone.
She's barely even aware that she's moved until she's pulled the trigger and a bullet tears through the President's head. The man in black raises his gun, but again Octavia is quicker, and he falls as well. The scientist screams, covered in the blood of her leader, but Clarke ignores her. She's aware of Octavia going up to her, and then there's silence, but Clarke doesn't care if the woman is dead or alive. The three were gathered around a gurney, and the white of the sheet is splattered with the President's blood, but it covers a body.
Clarke reaches out with a shaking hand and strokes the sheet. But she finds that she can't do it, she can't pull that back. She meets Octavia's gaze across the sheet, and Clarke can see the same pain in her eyes, the same inability to do this, to find out.
It's Maya, who grasps the sheet and pulls it away.
"It's not him," Octavia whispers, when they see the Grounder man. "It's not him… but then…"
"The tunnels," Clarke replies, closing her eyes and grasping the corner of the gurney in a painful grip. She remembers running with Anya, remembers the carts of bodies, bodies that were left like gifts for the Reapers, and it's worse, really. Because if this had been Bellamy, then at least they would have a body. But if he's there, gone…
Oh God, it's so much worse.
"Where will everyone else be?" Clarke asks Maya.
"They'll be in the civilians quarters… Clarke, these were the leaders. Everyone else is innocent-"
"I don't care," she replies coldly, and it will occur to her later that Octavia isn't the only one that's gone native. That her mentality now is more that of a Grounder than a survivor of the Ark. "Blood will have blood. You can come back with us to decide how we'll get that blood, or you can stay here and die with the rest."
She turns her back on the gurney and nearly steps on the President. She stares down at his corpse and feels such anger rush through her. She wants to kick him, wants to hurt him –
"Help me lift him," she says to Octavia, a plan suddenly forming. Maya protests, but Octavia grasps his legs, as Clarke takes his upper body, and they carry him out.
She would leave him to rot, but he doesn't deserve even that.
T100
He's better dressed than the others.
It's a distant thought, like most of his thoughts besides hunger and more. The Reaper helps to heft the body of the man, to take him back to his fires. He pauses for a moment, because there's something there – a scent, or maybe just an imprint. Something that speaks to him of home, of family.
A flash of gold, of dark, of blue eyes, then he's being shoved, reminded that they need to eat, and the Reaper forgets about thoughts of home and family and blue eyes.
It's just hunger and more.
AN: Yay, right? Sorry, I started writing this, and then it wouldn't stop, and originally it was supposed to end on a happier note, but then I started listening to this 8tracks playlist, and yeah. This happened.