I wrote another chapter really quickly XD I couldn't help it! This story is just like writing itself, and I'm like just sitting there letting it write!
Thanks to my three reviewers that gave it a try, you guys are awesome (even the person who's never watched this show, you're uber awesome): Nicole1120, , and SilverStarWolfGoddessAmarantha.
Nicole1120: Thanks! I hope it keeps getting better :)
In the morning, Clarke rolled off her cot in the ship, wiping her eyes. Three hours of sleep, more than usual. She was tired, but not enough to go to sleep, just as she was awake, but not awake enough to feel any sort of will to do much at all. But her mother was getting dressed, and the camp was already buzzing and Clarke couldn't stay in here forever.
She went without breakfast (there were those who needed it more) and went to the makeshift tent that Wick and Raven occupied. On her way there, she felt eyes upon her, that when she turned suddenly had more interesting things to look at. It was becoming frustrating, the ways of which people saw her. Some still saw her like she was some great goddess, some saw her with pity, and some…Clarke swallowed thickly.
Maybe I deserve it.
Even still a month after leaving Mount Weather, there were multiple people still recovering, physically and mentally. Clarke's best friend perhaps had seen some of the worst of it; her leg wound from Murphy hadn't fully healed in the first place, and the explosion and weariness that plagued her after didn't help once she was captured. Clarke made a point to see her every morning, even though Raven insisted by this point she was fine.
But Clarke knew her well enough to be able to tell she was lying.
"Girl, you look like shit." Raven said, frowning as Clarke came in.
"Hello to you too, Raven. How are you this morning?" Clarke asked, and Raven rolled her eyes as she swung her wounded leg over to Clarke for inspection.
"Fine. Just like yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. It's you that is seemingly not fine." She said.
"The rain kept me up last night." Clarke lied. Raven raised a dark eyebrow.
"It didn't rain last night." She said, narrowed eyes.
"You slept through it, I'm sure." Clarke shrugged, "Where's Wick?" She questioned, looking around. Usually the mechanic was right on her the girl's side, and that made Clarke happy. Happy that she seemed at peace with Finn, because that had been such a tense topic. Wick was also a nice guy, and Clarke recalled him from back on the Ark. He'd been younger then, a little more gangly and awkward but overwhelmingly brilliant. Almost as smart as Raven, but Clarke was almost sure no one could ever usurp her. If they did, Raven would likely kill them, or at least break something.
"Shower. Finally convinced him I couldn't stand being around a guy that smelled like a cave man. " Raven chuckled as she latched her brace, "All right, Dr. Clarke?" Raven teased.
"Yes of course. You know I would just hate-," Clarke began and Raven sighed, holding up her hand.
"I know, I know. For me to pull something or some foreign disease or something to get into me. But I think my chances are good, by now. I mean, the world deserves to cut me some slack." Raven said.
Clarke smiled ruefully, and was about to say something when the flap of the tent pulled upward, streaming bright sun to the shaded area.
"Hey, Raven! You'll never guess what-," Jasper began to say, adjusting his glasses up on his forehead, happier than Clarke has seen him in a long time. Yet, as soon as he saw Clarke, his whole face darkened and he turned without a word, only pausing to send a heartbroken look of betrayal to her.
"He's still upset about that?" Raven recoiled back, "Clarke, if you want me to go knock some sense and respect into him I swear I'll do it." Raven said.
"No," Clarke waved her hand faintly, sighing and sitting on the bed next to her, "It's fine. Let him grieve in what he needs to." She assured.
"It's been a month. We all know what went down. I hate how he keeps seeing you and Bellamy as the bad guys." Raven shook her head.
"Perhaps…" Clarke licked her lips, "Perhaps it's the price I had to pay for what I did. Have a couple kids hate me, okay, fine. I can live with that." She murmured.
"Don't lie to me, I know it bothers you." Raven hesitated a moment, then patted Clarke's shoulder.
"It's not me I'm upset for. Bellamy and I pulled the level. Just us, no one else. But Monty, he still wont' even acknowledge him. It wasn't his fault, and I know it's killing Monty. It just makes him feel guilty, and guilt travels. Makes people question." Clarke twirled a loose thread around her fingers.
"If anyone thinks that what you did was out of malice, out of some fucked-up agenda of sociopaths, they're crazy." Raven assured.
"There were children, Raven." Clarke ran a dirty hand up her face to lock in her blonde curls, "Kids."
"And you accepted that, you faced it. You and Bellamy buried all of them. Went back to that godforsaken place when no one else would. You're still here too, facing this, dealing with it." Raven said, and for a second, Clarke was almost sure she knew, "That's something."
Clarke didn't speak. After the first coming back, she'd tried to leave. Abandon everyone. She thought it would be easier if she didn't have to see the faces, let the guilt build up in her so that Bellamy didn't have to feel it, so that Raven and Monty and Jasper didn't have to feel it. But Bellamy stopped her, and she was still her. It didn't mean there weren't multiple times she wished she'd been a coward and left. Seeing Jasper's crestfallen face whenever she was around…Clarke could deal with many things in her life- severed wounds, profuse bleeding, leading people- but leaving people with the feeling she'd let them down was weighing heavily on her shoulders.
"I'm supposed to be checking on your sanity." Clarke laughed, wiping the corners of her eye with the back of her hand, "Not rambling about my own."
"Girl, you know, we all have problems. Even mighty leaders." Raven said, punching her lightly, "It's…well…you know. I'm always here to talk."
"Clarke?" Both girls rose their heads as a second person entered the tent, "Oh, there you are. There's a meeting starting."
"Thanks, Miller." Clarke got up, shaking off the cold that seeped into the tent, smiling at Raven one last time, "Don't do anything stupid with that leg."
"What am I going to do?" Raven scoffed, "Go off and try to climb trees or dive off cliffs?"
Clarke rolled her eyes, but followed Miller. Around camp, fires were being lit and cautiously tended to as the weather brought in the chill of fall. No leaves had started turning red, but Lincoln said it was quite a spectacle, something that everyone was excited to see. Yet the coming cold brought problems, exactly what the meeting today was about. As Clarke slipped into the meeting tent, she saw that everyone was waiting for her. Bright crimson stained her cheeks as she gave a short apology, before sitting down between Octavia and Bellamy, as Miller took the other side of the Blake brother.
The council that had been roughly established, after much fighting and arguing about the definition of 'children' vs. 'adults' included Abbey, Kane, Both Millers (father and son), Sinclair, The Blake siblings, Clarke, and Lincoln. The former Grounder had caused the most arguments, but he was the wisest on earth living, seeing as he'd had his whole life here, while even the delinquents had only a couple months. He was more of a silent type, used as a reference to questions.
After all Clarke had done and after Octavia had judged her so harshly, Clarke was terrified the girl who she'd found a friend in would never forgive her. But time soothed her angry feelings, and soon she came to, at the very least, understand what Clarke did and why. She made it very clear that she didn't agree or would not have done such things if it was her making a choice, but in the end, she trusted Clarke with her brother as their leaders to know best.
Clarke was grateful for the reconciliation, and it was her prodding to put Octavia on the counsel. Bellamy had handpicked Miller as his lieutenant, so why couldn't Clarke have her own as well? Clarke was proud of what she'd said and done as a authority figure thus so far, shocking the adults with her mature approach on more than one occasion.
Clarke yawned as the meeting began, blinking away tiredness. Octavia sent her a concerned look, but Clarke shook her head in a gentle dismissal, turning to her mother.
"I think we all know that winter is coming soon, something we're, at the moment, ill-equipped to deal with." Kane was beginning, and Clarke nodded in agreement at his words. Their biggest problems were food and shelter. The piece of the Ark that had come down hardly fit sleeping room for those it carried to begin with, not to add 50 more wounded children. At the moment, everyone had made crude shelters of sticks and bits of tent and that was fine…for now. But as Clarke watched a leaf float to the ground in front of the tent where they sat, she knew it was a warning of something colder and worse coming. Lincoln had already informed her that on good winters, only a few were lost. On bad ones…
Clarke shuddered. They'd lost so much already; it would kill her to lose more.
"Can we re-locate?" Bellamy asked, and Clarke forced herself back to focus, "Lincoln has spoken on length of a clan near the water that might allow us to join and share in their resources of shelter and food." He said. All eyes turned toward Lincoln, and he frowned.
"That was when there were not so many. Even well seasoned tribes still have problems with cold weather. Besides, it can be unpredictable. If we were to leave even today, I don't know if we'd get there before the snowfall. The air can kill even without snow, if it's cold enough." He said, and Clarke saw everyone's hopes drop a bit.
She wanted to admit she was secretly glad; if she had to stay here, she wanted it to be with her people. Not some new grounders where she might have to learn new customs and forge new alliances.
"Well, fine, then." Bellamy seemed unconcerned at his first options being dismissed, continuing, "There's caves in this area around the mountain. Not in Mount Weather," He added hastily, seeing the expressions on peoples faces turn sour, "But we could find a large cave and stay there during the winter. It might be easier than building houses."
"But we don't want to be migrant our whole lives, do we?" Clarke asked, speaking up, "I think, and maybe I'm the only one, but one day we might want to stay in a place that's ours. Not move into a cave every winter."
"It's not a bad idea, though, Clarke." Kane frowned, "At least for now. As Lincoln as pointed out, we have a very tedious window of time. Not enough to build weather-resistant housing for everyone. Perhaps we find a cave or shelter to stay in this winter, then divert our energy after the snow melts to building more permeate buildings."
There was a murmur of agreement within the group, and even Octavia seemed to be nodding silently. Only Miller looked concerned, and he shot a look with Clarke she understood. Any cave, may it be Mount Weather or not, disturbed him. It might be too much for people like Harper to handle, Clarke thought silently, but then to seriously consider the option of staying behind. In a cave, they might be able to find a water source- an underground river. They would all be together, instead of splitting the group up again, which is the last thing Clarke wanted.
"Do you know of any caves that could hold us all?" Octavia turned excitedly to Lincoln but he gave an uncomfortable roll of his shoulders.
"We didn't frequent caves much. The reapers…until recently, we didn't know what their habits and such were."
"But you know where caves are." Octavia pressured, "You hid me in a cave."
"A very small cave." Lincoln reminded her with a hint of sharpness, then sighed, seeing everyone's expectant faces, "I can take you around to some places. Our tribe has no use for caves anyway, they wouldn't bother us." He added. Octavia clapped her hands, grinning ear to ear.
"I can't help to look." Abbey said, glancing at her daughter from Kane, "But I think while a group goes out to look, another should be considering what we'll do if we don't find one."
"Well, obviously Lincoln goes." Bellmay said, standing, "Octavia will go anyway, I'll go to make sure she still doesn't do something stupid-,"
"Hey! What am I? Six?" She grumbled in protest, but Bellamy ignored her, glancing to Clarke with a small grin, "And Clarke should go as our fourth and final because having a doctor is always helpful." Clarke let a small smile escape her lips; she'd have gone regardless, but she was glad Bellamy threw in a reason.
As the meeting adjourned, Clarke pulled Miller aside, who seemed a little disappointed not to have been included on the adventure.
"Hey, I want you to do something while I'm gone." She said, and he glanced at her expectantly, "Find out the reactions of the kids to living in a cave or mountain setting, even for a couple months. If they think it will only trigger bad memories, we'll go to my mom and Kane when we come back and think of something else." She said, "We have to put the sanity of everyone first if we expect them to heal."
"Of course." Miller nodded slightly, "I wonder how Bellamy was so…causal. I mean, he was tortured there too."
Clarke flinched inwardly, swallowing back a ball of bile and guilt that rose up her throat. She'd sent him there. She'd allowed him to be tortured.
"Everyone copes differently." She whispered, hoping he wouldn't see her shame as she turned to where the group to leave was gathering a couple packs to bring with them, spinning before he could comment.
As the group headed out into the breezy morning, Octavia glanced around.
"Does anyone recall any caves we found back around the drop ship?" She asked, although Clarke noted her voice had little hope.
"Well," Bellamy frowned, "I hid in one when the first acid fog hit with…" His breath hitched for a long moment, "With Charlotte." He murmured, shaking his head, as if trying to clear the memories from his mind, "But I don't think it's big enough to hold us. I mean, maybe twelve people, at most?"
"Are there any caves you know of, specifically as far away from Mount Weather as you can get?" Clarke asked, and Lincoln's jaw twitched. He was quiet.
"Yes." He said, "But we do not go there." The three other exchanged looks.
"Is it…dangerous?" Octavia tried cautiously, but Lincoln just sighed and motioned for them to follow.
"It's the only cave I can think of large enough for your needs. I suppose I'll let you decide." He said cryptically. Clarke scowled and Bellamy gnashed his teeth, watching as Octavia followed him without more questions.
"Do you remember," Clarke said suddenly, brushing through a bush, "When we first came? How new and wonderful it all looked?"
"Yeah, and then we ran into a two-headed mutant deer." Octavia scoffed.
"Back before all this death. Yeah." Bellamy said softly, so quietly no one heard, "I do remember."
Lincoln brought them far across the territory at a steady pace, only stopping once for rests. It didn't look like much at the entrance, but Clarke could tell Lincoln was agitated to be here. He kept glancing into the cave mouth nervously, and unconsciously took a few steps back.
Bellamy glanced inward, nodding with approval. "Looks promising," He said, and turned to see Lincoln farther still away, "What?" He demanded, "Why don't you guys come here?"
Lincoln shrugged, as if trying to play if off as a casual thing, but Clarke saw that something already spooked him. "We…there are stories about here. How the crows gather," He pointed up to a murder of crows sitting on the branches above him, "The smells of unholy death at night-time. People come down and don't come back up. No one has come here ever without a death wish. My people call it the Thanatos Ptosi."
There was a dry laugh from Bellamy in the back, and everyone turned- Clarke and Octavia with surprise, and Lincoln with a dull and pointed stare.
"Death Fall. Inviting." He said, deadpanned. There was a gurgle of shock in the back of Octavia's throat.
"Wait, you know Trigedasleng? Since when?" She said, and Bellamy withheld a look of confusion almost well enough to escape Clarke's notice.
"No…" He said slowly, "I know Greek. Must have been used before the fallout, or by someone who was a scholar or something. Either way, I think it's worth a look." He said, and clicked on a flashlight as he went into the mouth of the cave.
"Bellamy, you're going in there?" Clarke said, grabbing his arm.
"What?" He chuckled, "Superstitious, Princess?" He teased.
"Well, with a name like that!" Clarke sputtered, "Maybe there's a good reason it's called that. We can hardly see three feet in front of us, even with a light."
"Well, you can stay out here then." Bellamy said, brushing her fingers off his arm, "I'll go."
"I'm for sure checking this out too." Octavia said and Bellamy opened his mouth, she cut him off, "Save a lecture for another time, okay? If you're sure it's only stories, then you should have no problem with letting me come in." She said, flouncing past him a few feet in, "Are you guys coming?"
In the end, Bellamy went in because he said he was going to, Lincoln overcame his hesitations to make sure Octavia was fine, and Clarke followed after running a circle into the ground in frustration, just because she hated not knowing what was happening, or if someone was hurt.
She caught up to the group about 100 feet in.
"Is it just me, or is this place like major creep-ville?" Octavia said, recoiling as she passed her light over a pile of bones.
"Big enough. With some lanterns and bonfires, I think it will do. High ceilings, and I think I hear a river. Seems workable," He said, and turned to Lincoln with a glimmer of tease in his eyes, "Unless there's a big scary monster you haven't told us about."
"No monsters, not that I know of. But I still don't trust it." Lincoln said, and Clarke had never seen him as jumpy as this moment, for he practically jumped a foot in the air as a cockroach scurried over his foot. Even Octavia couldn't help but giggle at his behavior, followed with a gasping, 'Sorry, I get it. Not funny.'
It was all going pretty good and well, until Bellamy took a step forward and Clark watched in horror as his light slipped from his hand and he went tumbling down a sharp ledge.
"Bellamy!" Octavia cried, and tried to leap forward without thinking, but Lincoln held her back.
"Bellamy! Can you hear me?" Clarke cried, snatching up his light from the ground, shining to see the fall, but failing to see him, "Bellamy?"
There was a sound of groans on the bottom, and then a voice booming up from the darkness.
"I'm fine! Don't come after me. There's more tunnels, lighter ones. I think it's a way out. I'll come find you guys on the outside, don't worry." He said.
"Are you sure? We can get rope, we can-," Clarke began but was cut off.
"No, really. There's a breeze. Must be another entrance. I guess I know why they call it a 'Drop', eh Princess?"
"This is no time for jokes, Bellamy." Clarke snapped, upset that he'd just fallen and nearly died and he was so blasé about it.
"Killjoy…" She heard him mutter from the bottom, his voice echoing, and "Don't come follow me, you got it?" Everyone murmured his or her agreements. As Lincoln herded Clarke out of the cave rather swiftly, she couldn't help but look back.
"Think he'll be okay?" She questioned in a breath of air.
"If he's joking, he's probably fine. And I mean, seriously, everything's tried to kill him at this point. He'll survive this too." Octavia said with much more certainty than Clarke had, "He might even be on the outside now as we speak, c'mon."
In fact, Bellamy was as fine as someone could be for stumbling down a rocky ravine. A couple of scrapes that stung as he moved, but as far as he could tell, nothing broken. His head was aching a bit from where he'd hit it, and when he brought a finger away, he felt something warm and sticky come away too.
"Shit, my head." He murmured out loud. Reaching into his pack, he pulled out a piece of flint first, finding a stick and wrapping some cloth soaked in oil around it, lighting it on fire. Once there, he took out some clean cloth and pressed it firmly to his head. He hardly needed a fire, though, he told himself, because even now there was a welcoming glow of the sun beckoning him from just a couple feet away.
He got up, and did not expect to see more twisting caverns to await him. It was all pretty well lit, to the point the now lighted torch seemed unnecessary- although he could find no discernible light source. He got a shiver up his back, the feeling Lincoln had been so apt to avoid.
"Odd…" He murmured to himself, and he swiveled his head in calculation. The path only led one way, and he sure as hell wasn't finding his way out the way he came (and he hoped his sister and the others had left the cave too) so there was really once choice left. Onward.
He came across a couple streams, feeling confident that this place- with the right construction- might make a decent place for the winter. They'd have enough light to properly make the fall fit for people to travel up and down or use a pulley system to the water from, and board all other parts away so no one had an accidental fall like he did. Even just thinking about it made his slightly twisted ankle burn with pain.
The first river he came across, he had to admit, unnerved him a little bit. It was a tiny one, but from the way it dropped down into a twist of turns unknown to him, it came back up with the echoes that faintly sounded like people wailing in agony. He moved really quickly past that one.
The second one was warm to the touch, but not scalding, and Bellamy suspected a hot-spring near-by. Perhaps he should have people look for it once he got out, hot water for bathing even now would be a luxury that no one had in months. Down here- if people could get pas that first tiny river- this one wasn't moving all too swiftly and ran quietly, so it might be a nice spot to relax.
The third river he came across was almost still, and had Bellamy not accidently dropped a small piece of the bandage in, he wouldn't have even know there was a current. It was a tranquil place, with on the other side across form the path, a collection of trees that, against all odds, somehow had managed to survive and grow roots down here. Like us, Bellamy thought. In fact, the place was so calming that for a second Bellamy nearly forget he was trying to find a place out of here.
The fourth river was the widest one yet, but Bellamy did not like the looks of it. The water moved rapidly and dangerously, the roar as it went down into the darkness the only thing he could hear. The water was also muddy-colored, and carried a stench of decay, and Bellamy almost slid away from that river, the clay-path slippery and deceitful. He found himself for the second time that day flailing his legs and arms as he slid down a drop with no way to stop himself. He landed with a hard thud on his tailbone at the bottom, the angry roars of the water seemingly now farther away than he would though he'd gone.
This river, the fifth, was perhaps the most curious one yet. It was so wide that he first mistook it for an underground lake, but then he saw far across it and the river that moved-no glided- in almost a beautiful way, but a sad way too. Sad in a way that Bellamy couldn't describe how or why he felt this way, until he saw things floating there, catching upon the rocks on the banks.
He picked out a waterlogged doll, his fingers tracing over the seams, and looked down to see a cheap plastic necklace float past him. Now that he saw it, he saw the mementos of a life past just moving in endless circles in the water. Grimacing and feeling his chest tighten, he set the doll back. Maybe this had been a fallout place that hadn't been safe and flooded. Maybe the bottom of this lake was filled with skeletons and only their items floated to the top. Maybe…
Bellamy shook himself right. He had to get out of here, but turned and felt his face fall in dismay to realize there was no other passage.
"Son of a-," He said, walking over to the walls, trying to find a crack or even a tiny place he could squeeze too. This was not the place Bellamy Blake intended to die in.
He slid down against the rock wall, staring out over the large river, shaking his head. "What a place. Maybe Lincoln was right to be superstitious." He chuckled to himself, "Because clearly, I'm shit out of luck." He closed his eyes, and there was a thump next to him. Expecting some creature here to eat him, he opened an eye slowly, but still found himself alone in the room.
But now there was a book near him. Glancing upward, he saw a carved out-ledge filled to the brim with personal items. He must have knocked the book down when he sat.
A book was a book, he told himself, and if he was going to die, he was going to enjoy his time remaining, even if it was a crappy and smutty romance novel. Scratch that, eh thought with a wince; he still probably wouldn't enjoy that. He doubted he'd get thought the first page. At least it might give him a good laugh!
The pages were not as faded as he'd expected, but then again, it had been underground for over 100 years. A tingle of joy ran through his body as he read the title of the little book; "Orpheus and Eurydice! Now someone here knew how to enjoy themselves." He grinned, and opened to the first page.
A wind picked up around him all of a sudden, and Bellamy was sure he was going absolutely batty because he heard voices. Not the voices of his friends, but just muddled voices of joyous relief, like a thousand ones, all speaking at once. He looked at the book again, wondering if it had some nutty nut dust on it or something, and before he could read the wind blew his light out, and the drop the book as he jumped. Just like that, it all stopped. He picked up the book, feeling something scrawled deeply into the back of the cover, and squinted in the now dim lighting.
"HA-S?" He said out loud, unable to make out middle letters, "What…?"
There was a sound of footsteps running up to him, and he turned, expecting it to be Octavia or Clarke. On one had, he was pretty miffed they hadn't followed his directions, but on the other eternally grateful because it meant they'd found the other way in. No, it was most likely Clarke, he theorized, because after his fall Lincoln wouldn't let Octavia go back in here (a choice he fully supported for the moment).
"Princess, do you just feel like it's a day to disobey orders or something, because-," He began to say as he turned, tucking the book underneath his shirt, but it feel from his fingers. It wasn't Clarke, or Octavia, or Lincoln.
"You…" Bellamy backed up, his voice quavering, "I'm dreaming. I'm high. You're…you're not supposed to be here." He cried out in desperation, but felt his back collide with the wall.
The figure reached over and picked up the book, looking at the back, and shooting Bellamy a grin that sent his whole body cold, "I think the word you're looking for is Hades."
So, yeah, there is a bit of magical mystics of some sort in this. I mean, Bellamy becomes 'Hades'. You can't just expect it to happen casually like I don't even know what. I realize a lot of this chapter was setting up where we were after the end of Season 2, just to show that there's a lot of people that need closure and things, regrets and all.
So if you liked it, review! If you want more, review! If you have any guesses who the person Bellamy sees at the end, FOR SURE REVIEW WITH A GUESS! If you have an account and you get it right, I promise to tell you :)