Title: Serving A Purpose (tentative, I'm not really sure I like the title yet..)
Series: The 100
Rating: T (for violence & language)
Pairing: Bellarke
Summary: "Leather straps held her down against a cold metal table, constricting around her neck, chest, wrists, and legs. The more she struggled, the tighter they felt, and she felt the onslaught of panic and adrenaline, already working their way through her system. You could only struggle against your constraints for so long before you realized you were completely helpless." Rated T (language & violence, maybe a lil lemon slice later). Pairing: BELLARKE.
Disclaimer: I do not own The 100 or anything affiliated with it. I am just a severely bored fan with too much time on my hands. Here you go.

Enjoy chapter 1! Read and review, love your feedback as always! Thanks to everyone who has review thus far, you're angels :)

Images flashed by her eyes like snapshots as she raced through the dark forest, trees breezing by her as her feet pounded into the ground. Her lungs screamed in protest; she'd been running for a while now, her once pristine, white hospital gown now stained with dirt and blood. She couldn't remember if it was her own, or that of her captors, but she wasn't stopping to find out. They were hot on her heels, and freedom tasted too sweet for her to hesitate and give them the chance they needed.

The sound of voices shouting, and twigs snapping beneath feet caught her attention. They were getting closer; Clarke could see dark figures dancing in her peripherals. A split-second decision to peer over her shoulder at her pursuers caused her to lose her footing, and sent her tripping over a raised tree root, spiraling down a muddy slope. She scrambled to pick herself back up and took off again in the same direction, praying that her stumble didn't give the Mountain Men an advantage.

Her memories of escaping were hazy, almost nonexistent. One moment she was lying on a cool, metal table, and the next she was running through the forest, her long hair, a stream of white flying behind her in the darkness. It only took a millisecond for her to decide that remembering how she escaped was unimportant; it only mattered that she did, and that she survived. But she didn't know where she could escape to.

That, was a problem.

The Mountain Men knew about the drop ship; it wasn't safe there. She could return for supplies, if there were any left, but she couldn't stay there. And she couldn't exactly waltz around the forest in hopes of finding or making new shelter; the grounders that survived would surely take that as a grand opportunity for revenge.

Her friends were being held captive, whether they knew it or not. Her family was dead. The Ark was in pieces. Finn and Bellamy had been burned alive because of her.

Clarke felt a lump forming in her throat as the realization hit her: She had no home to return to.

Maybe she should just let the Mountain Men take her back, let them kill her. She knew her chances of surviving were slim to none. She could keep running, straight into the hands of the Grounders and warn them about what the Mountain Men were doing to their people, and hope that they spared her life with that information. Or she could turn around, and run straight back into the hands of the Mount Weather guards, and have Cage Wallace tamper with her mind again until he drove her to madness, then drain her of every last drop of blood in her body.

Her choices sucked.

She felt an ache forming in her temples, growing so painful at times that it would blind her. Each thud of her foot hitting the ground made the pain grow worse. Her heart was beating so powerfully, she felt that it would jump out of her chest. But it wasn't the force of it that scared her; it was the incredibly fast pace, and the cold sweat sending chills down her spine. She knew what an adrenaline rush felt like after so many near-death experiences during those first few days on Earth with the 100; she knew the symptoms of panic. She'd trained on the Ark to become a doctor, after all. Constant cases of claustrophobia well-acquainted her with the knowledge of anxiety attacks, and how to handle them, personally and professionally.

What she was feeling, was classified as none of the above.

She'd seen the effects first-hand while Cage had her trapped in that room like an animal, a large glass window giving her a front-row view of his twisted plans. Even through a drug-induced haze, she knew what was happening before her.

He was creating reapers.

At first, Clarke was disgusted. She watched him turn grounders into true savages; watched them kill each other for a dose of the drug. Watched Cage stand by with a satisfied smirk on his face, as if he were proud of himself for creating these monstrosities. But very soon, she would begin to relate to them, too soon. She was at the mercy of that twisted bastard, and he was enjoying it. He messed with her mind, made her do things she wasn't proud of, and see things that caused pain she could never describe to another human being. It was like a form of personalized torture, designed to destroy you from the inside out, using past regrets and your loved ones as weapons against your mind.

In one of the few brief moments of clarity where she was herself, not trapped in the pain and hallucinations, she felt shame. Because the worst of it, the worst thing she'd seen, wasn't a delusion. It was real.

It was her own hands clawing against the glass when Cage pulled the syringe out of his suit pocket.

When the Mountain Men caught up to her, she was writhing on the ground, the powerful effects of withdrawal from the drug consuming her. Or perhaps her symptoms were caused by lingering traces of the drug in her system, she couldn't be sure.

Nevertheless, she was trapped in her own mind, seeing the images of her friends hanging upside down under fluorescent lights, tubes draining every last trace of blood from their bodies. Her hands clawed at the hanging cage enclosing her, but the reality of her situation hit her like a boulder; she could do nothing to save them. When they'd all been killed, and she was the last one left, the door to her cage finally came loose, and she was sent spiraling to the cold metal of the lab floor below her. But she didn't land on cool metal.

She landed on the charred bodies of the grounders she'd give the order to burn alive.

And when the shock finally dissipated, when she finally realized what she was resting on, she scrambled off the pile of death. She tried to stand up, but her legs wouldn't hold her weight, so she kept crawling away until she could move no longer, until she had to stop to release the contents of her stomach onto the ground, feeling as though this horrible nightmare might never end.

When she stopped retching, she looked up, expecting to see the dropship nearby, but found only three guns trained on her, their owners watching her as if she were some sort of rabid animal. Which she guessed she was, in a way.

"Just kill me already," she rasped, her throat raw from crying or vomiting, she wasn't sure. Their guns were a welcome sight.

The three men just watched her, silently, as another hazmat-suited figure approached, flanked by two more guards wielding guns.

"Don't listen to her boys, she'll be taking those words back in a few moments," his voice sounded as if it had been amplified one-hundred times in the silent forest. She knew why he was there, what he was going to do and she dreaded it. But she also embraced it, because she knew that she would be administered the serum, her heaven and hell. At first the drug would bring the pain and madness. Then after a while, a feeling of pure bliss and relaxation.

But as her body adjusted, as she was given more frequent doses, the period between pain and pleasure seemed to be diminishing, and she was becoming dependent. And with dependency came powerful and traumatic withdrawal symptoms, almost as bad as the pain the drug used to give her during her first few tests.

"I like the results we've been getting from you Clarke," Cage drawled as he closed in on her, casually waving a syringe around as he spoke. She knew by now she had to endure the pain to feel the pleasure, so she waited for him to come to her. That's how this worked. If she didn't cooperate, they'd zap their little frequency mechanisms, leaving her paralyzed with the fear of what that noise promised. She still had enough reason to control herself that much. "So, you're not leaving just yet. Grab her," he ordered, and the suited figures around him snapped into action, cuffing her wrists behind her.

"Just kill me!" she ordered, but it was beginning to sound more like she was begging.

"No, no. That would be too easy, Clarke. You've got more purpose than that," Cage said as he walked up to her, a sadistic gleam in his eye. "You've got more...potential than than the others. In fact, I think you're ready for our next phase."

She felt her breath catch in her throat, knowing that their next phase would likely involve stripping her of every last drop of sanity she possessed.

"We're going to prolong the period between dose administrations. Let's see how long you can endure the pain before you go mad."

It didn't take much longer for Cage Wallace to feel satisfied with the results of his tests. She was completely dominated by the drive they'd instilled in her, her new purpose. Her mind had been completely ruined, utterly and perfectly, to the point that she had completely lost the essence of who Clarke Griffin was.

She was no longer a level-headed leader. She'd been pushed to the brink of madness, fighting the new reality they created for her, until she could fight it no more, and had succumbed to their wishes. She'd become a volatile entity, completely uncontrollable and unreasonable. She had no sense of right and wrong, good or bad, yes or no.

Really, she had no sense of anything at all.

"Clarke, my dear," Cage began, as if he were talking to a child and not a human weapon. She thrashed against her constraints, eager for what she knew he would provide. He walked toward where she had been chained to the wall of her cell, reaching into his pocket. "I need you to deliver a message for me, to the survivors of the Ark."

That sounded familiar to her for a moment, but her eyes had closed in on the item in his left hand as the words left his mouth, effectively cutting off any thought of familiarity. She lunged at him, an animalistic snarl escaping her lips as the all-too-familiar syringe came into view. He smirked, triumphantly, like this is the reaction he was waiting for.

She was perfect, everything he hoped she would be and more.

Bellamy Blake had a problem following orders. Especially now, when his friends were trapped inside a mountain and he was being told to stay at Camp Jaha and sit pretty while the adults take care of things.

"You're to stay here in the camp and recover. I can't tell you that enough. You've done greatly up until now, Bellamy, but we're here to take care of things like this now," Kane said evenly as they walked through camp together, discussing the plans to retrieve the remaining members of their population. It didn't seem like a discussion though, not to Bellamy. To him, it seemed more like an adult reprimanding a child.

"And I can't tell you enough," he started in a low, harsh voice, through gritted teeth, "that I won't just sit here and wait like an incompetent idiot. Finn and I know this terrain better than anyone in this camp. You'll tread into Grounder territory without even knowing it."

"You've forgotten that we have weapons-," Kane rebutted, only to be interrupted.

"So did we."

"More advanced weapons, with trained shooters. You were a group of unorganized children desperate to stay alive. And with all due respect, I don't think your friend is exactly fit to lead us through the forest at the moment." Kane gestured to Camp Jaha's makeshift hub, where they could distantly see Finn by the fire, a mug that was sure to be half-filled with moonshine lifted to his lips. Losing Clarke seemed to be taking a heavy toll on him.

Of course, it was bothering Bellamy too, but he seemed to be directing his frustration on a more worthwhile method of coping.

Bellamy grabbed the pseudo Chancellor's arm and brought his attention back to their conversation. "If you go out there without someone who knows the terrain like we do, it won't be a rescue mission. It'll be a suicide mission. You don't' want to lose anymore people than we already have; we won't stand a chance facing any outside threat with our numbers as it is."

Kane stared at him, weighing his options. There was no way Finn would be joining their trip outside the fence; he wasn't sure he could be trusted behind a gun, let alone to stand on his own two feet properly. But Bellamy was a different story; he'd been trained by the guard on the Ark, he knew their protocols and how to wield a weapon. And he helped keep the majority of the 100 alive, albeit missing at the moment.

"You, I'll take with me, but one wrong step, and you've given me all the excuse I need to send you right back to Camp Jaha where you will stay until my word is given," Kane told him, his tone and eyes serious, each word promising to carry out his threat should he not cooperate.

"Alright. When do we leave?"

Thanks for reading! Remember to review, and let me know what you think/predictions for the next chapter!