Disclaimer: I do not own The 100! Though, believe me, I sure wish I did.
Author's Note: Alright! This chapter is the walk over. Bear with me for a bit longer, I promise Clexa will come in soon.
-.-.-
My eyes widened.
"You shot Cage?" Lincoln had been the one to kill him? Sure, Clarke had her suspicions on the faux President's disappearance, but she never would have guessed that his death was by Lincoln's hand. That combined with what had happened with Bellamy, his need for a "vacation" was understandable. Though, it came as a shock to learn that he hadn't dragged Octavia along.
Octavia, who had become Indra's second.
A wave of amazement flooded over Clarke instantly. Octavia: the girl who had started out their time on earth as a damsel in distress was now her own knight in shining armor. Impeccable.
"Not shot," Lincoln stated, snapping Clarke from her thoughts. "Something a little more dignified, but fitting." Clarke could hear a slight snap in his tone, showing his overall disgust with his situation. As if reading Clarke's previous thoughts, Lincoln pressed on about why he was alone.
"Octavia is happy with her place next to Indra. I, however..." He carefully maneuvered around a tree stump, "I've been considered an outcast since you landed."
Clarke finally understood. Lincoln, while playing the part of another brave soldier in the Grounder Army, was viewed as a traitor by others. It was no wonder why he had been, and was, tempted to leave.
"Will you go back for her?" Clarke's eyes fell to the dirt-covered earth below.
The air between the duo became thick with silence.
"Yes," he finally admitted, "when the time comes." And he left it at that.
Turning his gaze to Clarke, Lincoln lifted a brow. "What about you? Will you return to your camp?"
Now it was Clarke's turn to take a few moments of silence. "I'm not sure. If I do, it won't be willingly..." She frowned.
Lincoln knew better than to ask. Silence was key in cases like these.
"The real world is a bitch," she offered. Lincoln only laughed in return.
-.-.-
Seconds turned to minutes, and minutes to hours. Before the duo knew it, they were faced with a darkening path and unreadable map. It was safe to say that Clarke was becoming annoyed; but Lincoln remained content.
"If it's east we just need to follow that star there." The man pointed towards a tiny speck in the distance. Clarke had known all about the stars and constellations up in the ark, but down here everything was different. Everything was smaller, further away... And it filled her with a quick, unwanted sense of melancholy. There was no eastern star, no western star; just northern. But judging by Lincoln's impeccable navigation skills, the Grounders had come up with a system to branch off of that. It was simple, but brilliant at the same time.
Clarke rolled up her map and stuffed it away. It would be easiest to just listen to the expert for the time being.
"I can't imagine the view on your Sky Ship. I bet it was-"
"Amazing," Clarke finished; eyes never leaving her pocket. "Yeah, it was something else." With one awkward movement, Clarke shifted the back that was pulling on her shoulder: annoyed by its current existence. "I always used to dream of what the sky would look like from here on earth. But now, I'm starting to regret not looking at it from where I was." Being surrounded by beauty made it hard to realize the true beauty that was hidden in it all. It's too late now, however. That time had passed.
Lincoln said nothing for a while, allowing for silence to calm their thoughts once more.
As Clarke brought her attention upwards once more, she saw an unfamiliar shadow looming in the distance. Suddenly, in a way that nearly startled the blonde, it emitted a weak, white light. This white light danced a round for a few seconds, arcing in a graceful spin, before it disappeared once more. It continued to repeat this process over and over again every few seconds.
"A lighthouse," Clarke breathed. Nodding, Lincoln admitted that she was correct.
"Yes. It serves as a beacon."
"A beacon? For what?"
"Ships. It tells them where the land begins, so that they don't crash into the rocky shores on accident."
It made sense. And then, all at once, Clarke realized what he was saying. "The boat people... They aren't over here, are they?"
The Grounder shook his head, "on the other side of the bay." Back still to Clarke, he pressed on. "We could walk around to the other side, which is what most of us prefer, but it's quicker to go by boat." So, obviously, Lincoln was planning on rowing his way there.
"Is it safe?"
"No."
"Shouldn't we walk?"
"Do you want to get there before it's too late?" Lincoln stepped over a giant piece of shattered cement.
"How long out of the way?"
"A few hours."
"Wouldn't it be worth the two hours?"
Lincoln thought a moment before speaking, "as long as you can stay up that long. On the boat, you can sleep. On the road? It's best to stay awake."
Clarke was torn. She could save a few hours and endanger herself on a boat-
It was then she realized that there was no contest.
"We're walking. I can't swim." The realization hit her like a smack across the face. If something were to go wrong on the boat, she'd be defenseless.
Lincoln nodded solemnly, "alright. Walking it is."
With that, the duo headed towards an overgrown section of forest; glancing at the occasional rusted sign or two that read: 301, or something along those lines. They had seen them frequently on the way up, and it was getting to the point where if Clarke didn't see one, she'd begin to worry.
The first hour in was when they crossed their initial bridge. It was falling to shambles, but would hold. Clarke knew of the times when great bridges like these would span the country, joining lands that would normally be separated by nature. True feats of humankind, they called them.
Silently, though, Clarke simply prayed that they could be feats of engineering for just a little while longer... After that, they could crumble all they'd like.
Much to her pleasure, one stressful bridge-cross later, they were on the other side.
"One down, one to go..." Lincoln frowned. Hopefully their next bridge was still holding. It had been a while since he had last heard from anyone who had crossed, and so his information could (needless to say) be a little outdated. However, the chances of that were low.
-.-.-
Two hours of light chatter later, they had reached their final bridge. A bridge that spanned much further than the previous bridge. In fact, it was so far that they could not see the other side.
It was this that worried Clarke.
Cement was faulty. Especially when it was over a few hundred years old. Plus the fact that this cement happened to be hundreds of feet up in the air, loosely hanging over water, worried Clarke even further.
"You ready?"
Clarke bit her lip and nodded, taking her first step onto the pale bridge. Just as they had expected, nothing happened. Yet. The thing that really disturbed Clarke was that they had nearly two hours of this left... And if there was a fault anywhere in the bridge, they would either have to find a new route, or they would be- to put it bluntly- screwed.
All worries were put to rest as they moved forward. Surprisingly, the bridge was in decent condition. Parts had chipped away with time, yes, but the steel beams that loomed overhead remained tall; strong, even. They were rusted, of course, again, but they didn't show any signs of failing. The wires were taught (some admittedly missing every once in a long while), showing that the skeleton had been hard at work over these past centuries.
"It's stunning, isn't it?" Clarke let a hand gently run across a piece of tall stray grass. "After however long it's been, this bridge still is at work."
"Stunning," Lincoln agreed.
And that was how the rest of their walk went. There would be an occasional trip or gaze towards the water, but that was all. It was more uneventful than Lincoln had hoped, but it was just as eventful as Clarke had wanted. Now, they were only a few footsteps away from the Boat People. And Clarke was ready.
-.-.-
End Authors Note:
Oh, gosh. I can't believe how much Google Maps research went into this chapter. Seriously, if you really wanted to, you could google map their route. They're crossing Chesapeake Bay from Ton DC (Which is short for Washington DC), and are headed to Kent Island. I originally wanted for them to go to Fishermans Island, but they would have to go south and then east. In my opinion, that's too much. Just east sounds good to me.
Next chapter is on its way soon!
