Authors Note: I'm thrilled that so many of you liked the first chapter! The follows, faves and reviews were more than I expected from a brand new fandom and I'm grateful. I'll do my best to answer any questions posed along the way. Here is chapter 2. It's a Clarkefest. Title quote is from Mother Teresa this time, "Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty."

The Most Terrible Poverty

Clarke was tired, the kind of tired she hadn't even known existed before she'd set foot on earth. Tired seemed like too paltry a word for what she was.

Her first few weeks in solitary, back on the Ark, were the closest she'd come to this feeling. The cell she'd called home for just over a year was close to soundproof. Particularly loud shouts made it through the walls, though the words remained indistinct. She was occasionally jarred clang of metal striking metal but otherwise her cell remained silent.

Her only human contact was with the guards, who came twice a day. She was not allowed to speak to them when they brought her meals, and they were forbidden from speaking to her (lest she spill her secrets) beyond barking her assigned number (never her name) and whatever it was that they were ordering her to do. Stand. Face the wall. Sit. Stay. Eat. Simple things.

Clarke still remembered the sharp pain of a club across her cheekbone, that first day, when she'd been brought dinner and she'd opened her mouth to ask about her mother. The guard who'd done it had looked scared, rather than angry. All the guards she saw fell into those two categories, so much so that after awhile, she'd stopped recognizing them as individuals. Those that were angry hated her, for they believed that she'd betrayed them. She'd come to realize lately that maybe they'd been like Bellamy, and they simply hated her for who her parents were, and for who they assumed her to be (spoiled, selfish, a princess). Those that were scared simply feared the consequences the council had undoubtedly threatened to impose on those who spoke to her, all in an effort to keep their secret a little longer.

She spent most of that first month laying on the floor, watching the stars, the earth. She'd occasionally felt the vibrations of The Ark's machinery, familiar and comforting, the machines that her father had spent his adult life maintaining. Sometimes she felt the floor move in a different way, when a group walked past her door, heavy boots on the ground, and she'd remembered that there were people out there. Sleep had been hard to come by, at first. Clarke would drift off and she'd dream of her dad, of his face as he'd been jerked out of the airlock. She'd woken up gasping, crying, screaming. Always alone.

Eventually, though, sleep became a comfort. In her dreams she saw her father in different ways, happier ways. Dancing with her mother around their tiny living room. Singing, badly, just to make Clarke laugh. Helping Clarke with her math homework, puzzling over a piece of machinery he'd brought home with him. Food became secondary to sleep. She picked at her trays at first, but eventually left them all together. The guards noticed and she was brought to another room in what must have been the prison's med bay, so that they could make sure that she wasn't sick.

It hadn't been her mother, in that room. At the time Clarke had been glad. She was aware enough to know that she was being weak, that she'd been raised by strong parents, to be a strong person, and that she was better than this girl who had to be supported as she'd walked from her cell to this room, because she'd stumbled on her shaking knees. But it had been Jackson. Jackson who had started as her mother's apprentice when Clarke was just 9 years old, and had worked with Dr. Abigail Griffin ever since. Who'd occasionally sat with her family at meals and who'd patiently been helping to guide Clarke through the early stages of her own apprenticeship, before everything went wrong.

He'd called her Clarke. He wasn't angry, and he wasn't afraid of her. Because he knew her, because he knew she was more than prisoner 319. He checked her vitals, talking, explaining what he was doing, even though they both knew that she knew the routine. That she could perform the routine, and had done so dozens of times. Something about it though. The familiarity, the easy, logical pattern. It filtered through the fog she'd been in and her brain started firing. She wasn't Prisoner 319. She was Clarke Griffin, and she wasn't a quitter.

Jackson declared that she wasn't sick, just badly dehydrated and inserted an I.V. of fluids and vitamins. He'd waited for it to be done, silently flicking through something on his tablet, not speaking to her out of deference to the guard who was still in the room.

Clarke caught a glimpse of the screen though, saw the date that was displayed along the top and absorbed it into her now functioning mind. It had been 5 weeks and 6 days since her dad had been floated. 5 weeks and 5 days since she'd first set foot into her cell. When the I.V. was done, Jackson had taken his time removing it. He'd squeezed her elbow gently and looked her in the eye and he'd said, "Take care of yourself, Clarke."

And she'd nodded, and she'd forced herself to get off of the table without help. She'd walked back down the hallway under her own power. When she'd been escorted into her cell she'd turned around and watched the door shut. Then she went to the breakfast tray that was still sitting by the door and she ate every bite.

The next day she'd been given a pencil. She had no idea where it came from, or why she had received it, and wasn't able to ask, but she was grateful. The first thing she'd done was write down the date, and after that she kept a calendar. She made a mark every night, just after lights out. She made herself keep a schedule of sorts, using the sky outside and the timing of her meals to divide the day. She paced her cell, she jogged in place. She did all the exercises she could recall from her physical conditioning classes. She refused to be weak, ever again.

She thought about what she would say, when she got re-judged. How she'd convince the council that her father had been right, and not a traitor. She made herself run through her medical training, and even dredged up long forgotten school lessons. She thought about her mother, about her friends, and did not allow herself to think about Wells.

And she drew, of course.

And nearly a year went by like that. She ran out of her cell for the last time, terrified, 1 year, 3 weeks and 2 days, after she'd first set foot into it. She ran into her mother's arms. She found out that they were sending her to earth, and that she might very well die. And then she felt a jolt and a sting, and then she felt nothing.


The exhaustion she felt now was different. It wasn't that passive heaviness that she'd lived with in her cell. It was in her bones, in her muscles, in her joints. In her brain and in her eyes. It was the result of spikes of adrenaline, of physical exertion, of emotional turmoil, of mental burnout.

They'd managed to save Finn, for now. Any number of complications could still kill him, but she'd deal with those if they came.

The procedure had started off promising, she'd removed the knife and handed it off to Octavia, who had examined it and declared it intact, removing the necessity of rooting around for fragments that could have migrated from the wound when his body was transported. Her luck, or Finn's luck maybe, failed them then, because the bleeding was more extensive then she'd hoped for. She'd had to open the wound further and they'd used enough of the surgical sponges in the kit that they'd be in trouble if anything catastrophic happened before they could get re-supplied or find a natural alternative.

Finn had woken up, while her hand was inside his abdomen, while she was feeling around his small intestine looking for tears. Clarke hadn't noticed at first but Bellamy had. He'd slammed a forearm onto Finn's chest and held him down and Jasper had done the same at Finn's legs. Finn had screamed, confused and in pain. Clarke had hesitated and Bellamy had barked, "Keep going, Clarke," and she'd jolted, and continued to work, though she could feel tears stinging her eyes. He'd talked quietly to Finn, telling him to calm down, that he'd be OK. After what seemed like hours but was probably only minutes Finn had passed out again. She'd located the tear and stitched it up. It was the third out of four that she found. When the bleeding seemed to be contained she removed the sponges, trusting that Octavia had an accurate count, because she knew that she did not.

She'd closed the wound and covered it in the paste that they'd made, that would hopefully help fight infection and laid clean bandages over top. Monty had found Tim Bartlett, one of the boys with the same blood type as Finn, and he'd agreed to donate in exchange for Bellamy's promise of extra rations for a week. She'd shown Octavia how to set up the transfusion as she was doing it, just in case, then supervised the transfer to ensure that Tim wasn't losing too much and then sent Tim down with Monty with thanks and instructions to eat something and rest.

It was only then that she registered the sounds from outside, and noticed that the storm had intensified. There were lines of static running across the monitor. And the last thing she wanted to do, in that moment, was give the Ark a status report. She wanted a moment to herself but that wasn't going to happen. A deal was a deal and she'd given her word.

So she washed her hands, stripped off her outer shirt which was streaked with blood (that was going to be a pain to get out) and approached the monitor again. Octavia was finishing the cleanup, gathering anything that could be boiled and reused, and keeping everything that was ruined in a separate pile that they would burn once the storm was done. Then Octavia, was to join Bellamy and Jasper and try to get some rest, (though she'd protested that she was fine) since she was injured and Jasper and Bellamy had spent the day running around the mountain fending off grounder attacks. Monty and Raven were to monitor Finn, and do their best to maintain communication with the Ark.

When she approached Raven, Clarke noticed that the other girls eyes were red and puffy. Clarke didn't know if she'd just been too preoccupied to notice that the other girl had been crying, or if, as was more likely, Raven had done her best to hide it. She managed a tired smile, "He's healthy, Raven. Strong. I think he'll pull through."

Raven smiled back, and then hugged Clarke, quick and hard, "Thank you, Clarke," and then moved away to give Clarke space.

When Clarke turned to the monitor she saw that the Chancellor (Wells' dad, her traitorous heart reminded her) and Kane were visible with her mother. She assumed the remaining four Council members were present in the room and listening to her. She'd been taught to be polite, of course. To respect her elders and had she been there on the Ark, had she never been sent to earth, she probably would have been deferential. To wait to speak, until spoken to.

But she was on earth. And that group of people had sent her there. Had considered her, and 99 others, expendable. Had voted to kill another 300 more, and ejected their bodies into space not 24 hours ago. And so she was angry. At her mother most of all. And she decided that if they had so little respect for human life, then she had little respect for them.

She skipped the titles and any pleasantries when she addressed them, "I said I'd answer your questions, so I will. I warn you that there's a storm down here and it's getting worse. I don't know if the feed will hold, so prioritize accordingly."

Someone behind her sputtered and coughed, but she ignored them.

Her mother began, "The tracking bracelets indicated mass casualties, can you give us a number?"

"We've lost eleven people. Eight are dead, three are missing and presumed dead."

"I need names, so that families may be notified," said Jaha. Clarke was yet again surprised at how one man could be one thing in public, in his role as chancellor, and another in private, like she remembered him with Wells and her dad.

"Causes of death too, or as near as you can tell," added Kane. Clarke knew him too, through her parents, but unlike Jaha he'd never I thawed much in private.

"Fine. Two in the landing," her mother supplied their names and Clarke was ashamed to realize she hadn't known them. "It was a rough landing and they removed their harnesses before it was safe and died on impact." Clarke fixed her eyes on the monitor and allowed her vision to blur, so that she could no longer read the faces on it. "Atom. He sustained severe burns to most of his body in some kind of acid fog. We were too late to help him and he was in extreme pain. I opened up his carotid artery and he bled out in minutes. Around that time both Trina and Pascale went missing from base camp. We assume that they got lost and succumbed either to the acid fog or some other danger. Wells Jaha..." she cleared her throat and blinked back the tears that she refused to shed, "Wells was killed by another in our camp, in retaliation for the death of her parents, who were floated on the orders of Wells' father." She didn't, couldn't, pause in her recitation to gauge the reaction of the faces on the monitor, or she wasn't sure if she could continue, "Charlotte confessed to killing Wells. She jumped off a cliff. John Murphy was banished. Without supplies or shelter, we assume him to be dead. John Mbege, Diggs and Roma were killed today. By the Grounders."

"The Grounders," Kane repeated slowly.

"Yes. Apparently, the Ark was not, in fact, the last of humanity."

"That's... That's not possible."

Someone snorted incredulously behind her, she'd have bet just about anything that it was Bellamy. "I think that those of us on the ground are in a better position to judge what is possible and is not possible." Clarke turned around. No one appeared to be sleeping yet, "Jasper, come here a second." He stood up and came toward her, seeming nervous. She addressed the monitor again, "On our second day on earth, after a group of us walked 20 miles to get to Mount Weather, good job to whoever programmed the flight plan, by the way, Jasper here, was impaled through the chest with a spear." Clarke let them stew on that for a moment, and turned to Jasper, who was looking at her like he'd never seen her before. "Jasper, meet The Council. Chancellor Jaha, Councilman Kane, Councilwoman Griffin, meet Jasper."

Jasper waved tentatively, "Uh, hi. I mean hello."

"The grounder's then patched him up, dragged him through the forest and then strung him up as bait. Almost a day passed before he was found."

"Bait for what?" Kane asked, still skeptical.

"Some kind of large cat? Maybe a cougar. We ate it."

"You ate it?"

"We were hungry and the supplies housed at Mount Weather, if anything remains, are too dangerous to get to. We're making due."

"So these... Grounders. How many of them are there?"

"We don't know. Until today, they've kept their distance. We've seen maybe six of them?" She turned to Jasper again, and he indicated that he agreed with her, "We have assumed that they are hostile."

"And now you think they aren't?"

Clarke shared a look with Jasper. Octavia had told her what had happened while Clarke had worked on her wounds. The younger girl was adamant that the Grounder who had taken her had protected her, and he had done a good job of setting her leg. Jasper remained unconvinced. "There's... been some debate on that point."

"Please. Enlighten us." Kane again. Still obviously doubtful. As if he thought they were children playing make believe.

Clarke was having none of that, "No."

"No?" he repeated.

"You heard me," Clarke said and a crack of thunder rumbled through the drop ship. Jasper was shifting uncomfortably from where he still stood beside her, "the storm's getting worse. And the Grounders are, at this point in time, our problem, not yours, especially since you seem to be doubting their existence. There are more important things you need to know, before you decide to kill more people."

"Clarke Griffin," he mother began, in the tone that had always meant trouble when she was a kid.

But Kane spoke over her, "It is not your job, Miss Griffin, to tell us what is and what is not important. I have doubts, because every single spec of data that we have pointed to earth being completely unfit for human occupation. We've never had a single point of contact with anyone on earth in 97 years. If you remember your lessons, you'll remember that the earliest members of our community tried for years to make contact, hoping that there were survivors. I'm supposed to trust the word of one girl? One girl, convicted of treason, with a history of mental episodes?"

Clarke was outraged, "I do not..."

"Hey," Jasper cut in, "It's not just her. I saw them too."

"Several people saw them. Several people are dead, because of them. And you know damn well that I am not a traitor. And neither was my father."

More thunder and the screen stuttered, "Raven, we're losing it!"

Raven came up, "It's the storm, I think. It's interfering with the transmission."

Clarke leaned closer to the monitor, "Can you still hear me?"

"Yes, Clarke," it was the Chancellor who spoke this time.

"You sent us here, to test the earth. We've seen evidence that it has changed, in 97 years. We've seen animals and plants unlike any we were told to expect and some that are recognizable, just mutated. We've drunk the water, we've eaten the plants and the animals. Not a single person has shown evidence of radiation poisoning. So if you were testing the earth to see if it could sustain us, than the earth passes."

"Thank you, Clarke. We'll need to hold a council meeting to discuss what the best course of action is."

"I'm not finished, Chancellor."

"Clarke," her mother snapped, "I don't know what..."

Clarke laughed, though she felt not an ounce of genuine amusement. She felt bitter and she felt jaded and so, so disappointed in the people she had been taught to trust. "You don't know what I'm doing? Who I am? Join the club, mom. I'm doing the best I can here. We all are." Clarke spoke directly to her mother for the first time since she'd completed Finn's surgery. "I know it was you, mom. I know it was you who told the council what dad was planning. And right now I don't know if I'll ever forgive you." She felt eyes on her. All the eyes in this room, all the eyes in that room on the Ark and she hated it.

"Clarke..." her mother's voice was weak, broken, as if she too were fighting tears.

But Clarke didn't have the time for tears. She focused on Jaha and on Kane, because what she was going to say next, she needed to say to them. She felt Raven take her hand and Jasper by her side. "I'm sorry about Wells, Chancellor. You know I am. But you sent us down here. Humans can live here. We are going to live here. I hope that you decide to send more people down because I, unlike you, do not believe that human life is expendable. I hope even more, that you give people the choice to come down here. To try. Your message said that our crimes would be forgiven, and I'm going to hold you to that." She squeezed Raven's hand, "Including the crimes of others, committed to aide us down here."

"Like Bellamy Blake?" Kane asked.

She'd been thinking of Raven, actually. And her mother, even. She glanced back at Bellamy for a moment and found him tense, watching her warily, as though he expected her to turn on him.

"Like Bellamy Blake," she agreed. And wished that she could see his face. He pushed her, underestimated her and she would have loved to see the shock that had surely been there.

"He shot..." Kane began.

"Chancellor Jaha, we know. I won't pretend that I condone his actions. But he's done a lot for us down here."

Kane scoffed, "You can't ask us to..."

Clarke interrupted him again, loudly. "You're not getting what I'm saying here! I'm not asking you to do anything. I'm telling you. You said we were expendable. That our crimes meant that we deserved to die. You thought we'd be poisoned minutes after the hatch opened. You spared us no food, no supplies. You disavowed us. So we disavow you. We are no longer citizens of The Ark, we are citizens of earth. Your rules no longer apply to us. We make our own rules."

"Young lady," Kane started.

Clarke wasn't about to be bullied, "Cut the feed, Raven."

"Wha... Clarke are you sure?"

"I'm sure. We'll contact you again in three days' time, assuming we are able."

"Clarke. Honey, wait a minute..." her mother pleaded but Clarke turned away and nodded to Raven and she pulled wires until the screen went dark, and the audio faded.

Clarke turned away from the monitors and collapsed back against the wall. She allowed herself to sink to the floor before she looked around. They were all staring at her, minus Finn, who was still unconscious.

Thunder rocked the ship once again.

It was Octavia who broke the silence, "I take back everything bad that I thought about you those first two days, Clarke Griffin, because that? Was awesome!"

"Completely nuts," Raven added, sliding down beside Clarke, "and maybe a touch melodramatic..."

"Disavow is an excellent word," Monty chimed in.

"But awesome, nonetheless," Raven continued.

Clarke sighed, "I didn't mean to speak for everyone, I know a lot of us still have people on The Ark, but... I don't know. I spent hours in solitary, thinking about what I'd say to them on my 18th birthday."

"Uh, hopefully it wasn't that. That would have got you floated for sure," Jasper pointed out.

Clarke laughed. A real laugh, this time. "No, I know. I'm not entirely sure where that all came from. Maybe I have gone crazy."

"Have you been sampling the plants without my supervision?" Monty teased.

This time they all laughed. And Clarke still felt tired and worried and hungry. But she also felt free.