Hey friends... Yikes. So, for those of you who've found your way back here, it's been a while. Like, a really really LONG while. Like, 7 months. So... Yikes. I'm really sorry for that. I hope you can bear with me - and below, I've included a refresher, so you don't have to read back through everything if you don't want to! I know returning to a story after a long hiatus can be tough. Do what you've got to do.

For those of you just joining the party - hey, what's up, I hope y'all enjoy the ride!

A review, as promised, of what has come before... Previously on "Finding a New Nickname" —

Little Jeremy gets himself injured by a strange trap in the woods while hunting a panther, and Clarke patches him up. Later, Jeremy calls Clarke "Mom," sending her into a bit of a tailspin, and Bellamy makes sure she gets to bed. The next morning, Clarke goes for a run and bruises her forehead, ending up at the cliff where Charlotte jumped, with Bellamy. They share some things.

Upon her return to camp, Clarke struggles with whether or not to trust the delinquents, weighing vulnerability against leadership after a conversation with the gate guard, Lyle. She then learns from Miller that the traps were set by someone from the Ark. Bellamy reveals his suspicion that they may be meant for him, and Bellamy and Clarke caution one another against leaving camp.

The next morning, Clarke again goes running against Bellamy's advice, and encounters a fainted and perhaps suspiciously injured Lyle. Bellamy discovers that she's out of camp, and goes looking for her. While looking, he meets a mysterious stranger-danger in the woods, who implies that he has Clarke captive and leads Bellamy away. Clarke returns to camp to find Bellamy gone.


Bellamy was gone.

Certainly, Earth is a place racked with intrinsic danger: a sudden chill could rob you of a finger or five, a misguided choice in salad dressing could expel blood through your eyes, a lack of rain could dry you up like a maple leaf in autumn, while an excess of rain could drown you. Out of all of these dangers, however, fear is perhaps the gravest threat to the eighty-odd delinquents inhabiting the dropship camp, and the greatest challenge their fledgling leaders faced. How to communicate a lack of food with the urgency it demands, while avoiding a stampede of panic towards the meat shed?

No, Clarke understood fear must be regulated and controlled and squashed. It must to be made to respect the authority of the camp's leaders, to curl into itself and provide humble assistance: present enough to prevent snacking on unrecognizable plants, but not potent enough to feed the fire of accusatory mobs.

Clarke squashed her fear by forcefully shoving it back into her mouth with a clenched fist, dueling sensations occupying her brainspace as her teeth closed around her already scraped knuckles and the sharp bite of the moonshine she'd been handling bit at her tongue.

For his part, Miller seemed to squash his with flexed biceps and stone in his eyes.

"How many hours of daylight do I have?" Clarke's voice was as deceptively even as it had been moments before, ringing foreign in her ears. There were six hours until the sun began creeping behind the distant mountains, and another hour before the light would disappear completely. Both Clarke and Miller knew that, and Clarke's question went unanswered, recognized for the posturing that it was.

"Clarke, they can't know." Miller cautioned, his voice low and grim.

"I know that." Clarke bit back, fingers slick with cold sweat around the knife she'd already retrieved from the table as she slid it neatly into its sheath around her hip.

"He's probably fine, and the camp needs to stay calm, last thing we need is everyone running around with those damn traps out there." Miller continued, as smoothly as he could manage, his hands floating in front of him as though he were attempting to calm a bear preparing to charge. In some ways, he was.

"Miller -" Clarke warned, pushing past him and stalking towards the dropship door with every intention of marching clear out of camp.

"You can't both be gone, Clarke." Miller's words dripped with reason and logic and resolve. They were strong and they were right - but Clarke didn't break stride. Miller trailed a step behind her as she marched towards the gate, maintaining a blank face despite the whirlpool deepening in her gut.

"Like hell we can't." Clarke snarled, only pausing her march when Miller repositioned to place himself in her path, his wide bulk obscuring her view of the locked gate.

"They're on orders not to let anyone out." As he spoke, Miller shifted the gun he'd unclipped from his shoulder sometime during their cross-camp journey. Clarke eyed his hands warily, fingertips brushing the handle of her knife as she ran the odds of beating Miller to the punch if he attempted to forcibly restrain her. Even as she decided on a quick strike to the exposed bicep on his nondominant arm - no sense in crippling their second-in-command, after all - her thoughts were interrupted by a large gun thrust in her chest. Miller's. Handle first.

"Cover me." Gratitude implied in the needless order, Clarke slung Miller's gun over her shoulder, adjusting it so that it didn't hang so comically low on her much-smaller frame. He simply nodded and strode to the gate, barking something about checking the hinges after the storm from days earlier. Clarke hugged the wall, slipping through the crack in the gate as both Roma and Sterling had their attention firmly on Miller's detailed rundown of how to properly clean fashioned wood hinges. She caught his eye, and they exchanged twin grim nods.

'Find him,' his beseeched.

'Guard them,' hers begged.

...

Caves were easily top three on Bellamy's least-favorite-things-on-Earth list.

They never came with good news. Caves were full of shadows and secrets and darkness and isolation. They were draped in a biting chill and consistently smelled of a damp and moldy death. Bellamy made a point to avoid caves whenever possible, so naturally that was where the malicious shadow from the woods had led him: a half hidden rocky entrance tucked in the side of a hill that Bellamy recognized as being roughly a mile out of camp.

"How are you here." Bellamy demanded, squaring his shoulders and hardening his brow. He would show no weakness, offer no vulnerability by way of a true question. Not here. Not unarmed with everything on the line.

"I doubt that's the greatest concern on your little mind at the moment, Blake," The shadow sneered as he gestured towards the craig-y mouth of the cave, "After you."

Bellamy released a tight hiss of frustration and picked his way carefully through the jagged outcropping that provided a foreboding front porch to their destination. He could feel the steady thrum of his heart pounding in the tensed muscles of his throat and jaw, beating out a frantic tempo that he struggled to quiet. No point in letting his fear get away from him. Not when there were bothersome princesses to worry about. Speaking of bothersome princesses... Clearing the winding tunnel of an entrance, Bellamy froze, his stomach plummeting to settle somewhere between his scabby ankles.

A carved out cave stretched before him, perhaps thirty feet in diameter. Several trunks bearing the Ark's insignia were stacked around the space, a canvas hammock slung between two particularly tall collections. One large trunk seemed to be serving as a table, with diagrams and photos spread across. An electric lantern was perched on the table as well, already on - a waste of that battery, idiot. Several inlets in the wall appeared to have once led into the tunnel system the Reapers roamed, but had long since been boarded up. One sturdy looking wall bore several long, severe looking chains.

No princess.

"Surprise." Bellamy spun on his heels to watch Shumway step out of the shadows, holding Bellamy's hunting knife in front of him. The icy drive of fight or flight flooded Bellamy's senses, and his instincts shouted both! back to his already clenching fists. With a roar, Bellamy threw caution to the wind and launched himself towards his old nemesis.

Shumway met him halfway, swinging a large metal rod that had been tucked next to the cave opening, just out of Bellamy's sight. It connected with the side of Bellamy's shoulder, sending him crashing to the damp ground. With a mouthful of dirt, Bellamy had enough time to bitterly curse all caves to the darkest corners of hell - as if they weren't already there - before Shumway's boot came down on his face and effectively shut off his lights.


Okay, so how was that for you? I know it's short - but once I got this section to a presentable state, I wanted to get it OUT THERE and to you. I think having this out in the world will kick my behind back into gear with this story, and motivate me to finish polishing off the next few sections so I can get them posted!

SPOILERS... so, the mysterious stranger-danger was revealed to be SHUMWAY. What do you think? I haven't seen him used as a villain before, probably because he's totally toast on the show, but who am I to respect the laws of TV character-deaths?

Seriously, I'd love to hear what you have to say. Drop me a line.

Stay frosty, y'all.