TonDC - Things that linger
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Only a few minutes had passed since Lincoln uttered his words, but it felt like hours to those in the room, waiting with bated breaths. Only Lincoln had been part of this trial before so the others were anxious at what may happen as they curiously watched Clarke's breathing slow, almost as if she were asleep, except that those blue eyes were dark and unfocused at a point in the back of the room.
Octavia looked away from Clarke to glance at the other two women in the room before settling her gaze on Lincoln. "How will we know?" She barely whispered the words when Clarke's body tensed and they watched as her hands clenched into tight fists on her lap.
Lincoln just looked at the woman he loved with a sad smile before leaning back to keep his eyes on the blonde.
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A nine year old Clarke giggled as she ran around the hallways of the Ark. She was hiding from her best friend Wells and knew she had lost him. She had just started to make her way back to the mess hall when voices caught her attention. Ever curious, she turned and snuck to the end of the hall and peered around the corner.
She saw Chancellor Jaha and some men from the guard near one of the air locks. Inside she could see a sad man, tears in his eyes. Clarke was confused because he wasn't wearing a spacesuit. He couldn't go outside without one. She was about to remind them when suddenly the sound of the outer door opening seized her voice in her throat as she made eye contact with the terrified man before his body was sucked out into the vastness of dark space.
She didn't realize she had screamed until one of the guards grabbed her as she ran for the airlock. "He wasn't wearing a spacesuit! He'll die!"She cried out, looking to Chancellor Jaha, her best friend Wells' father, trying to understand. "What did you do?" she cried. He walked over to her and slowly took her hand, "I think it's best if we get you home, Clarke. Your parents can explain it to you."
She felt cold at the feel of his hand. She didn't understand. Her mom and dad always told her they were on the Ark rather than the ground to survive, so why would they send a man out into space without a suit? They knew he would die. They killed him. "You killed him." She whispered sadly. "I want my daddy."She said as she took off running back to her room.
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Octavia lowered her head and sighed, realizing Clarke's first memory was that of her seeing someone floated for the first time. She recalled her and Clarke talking about it once when they landed. Octavia knew what floating meant, but had never seen it until her mother was floated, but Clarke had just been a child her first time and hadn't known about it until then. She understood, but Octavia knew it had left a sour taste in the blonde's mouth after the explanation her parents had given her. Especially when she found out the man's crime was simply taking more medication to try and save his sick son's life.
She cleared her throat and glanced at Clarke, seeing her breathing had slowed some. "She was remembering the first time she saw someone floated on the Ark. She was 9." She said, not making eye contact with them. "All crimes were capital punishment on the Ark. A man had taken more than his share of medicine for his sick son, and he was released into space. That's how the guilty were executed."
Everyone was quiet but tense. Lincoln had been told of this by her before, so it didn't come as a surprise to him, however he did see the understanding on his Heda and Echo's faces.
"Not so different from here," Echo commented softly, "except space did the job for you, rather than a sword or knives."
"But not all the crimes were worthy of death." Octavia spat and then calmed, apologizing. "While she's calm, there's something you should all know about us. The 100 that came down first. We were chosen, because we were all prisoners." She glanced to her Heda, seeing her jaw tense and her eyes dart from Octavia to Clarke in confusion. "Everyone had a different reason for being locked up. Mine was simply for just being born. On the Ark, you were only allowed one child. My mother had two, and was floated, and I was locked up."
She cleared her throat and stood up to pace around. "Some crimes were for violence, some for theft…" she turned back and glanced at her friend, "some were simply because someone knew too much and wanted to do the right thing."
Lexa and Echo both watched her, the question burning their tongues, but both hesitant to ask. Octavia saw this and shrugged, smiling sadly. "Clarke's father found a flaw with the Ark's life support. He wanted to tell everyone, in hopes they could work together to find a solution. The Chancellor and the council, including Clarke's mom, disagreed."
She walked back towards Clarke and bent down, pushing a stray strand of blonde hair from her forehead. "Clarke agreed with her father. Because he planned to go public, they had him floated. Clarke was devastated, but she was a loose end. Two months before her 17th birthday they locked her in solitary confinement within the skybox…the prison. Until the day we were sent to the ground, a few weeks before her 18th birthday, the only person she saw was her guard. She had no other contact with anyone for over a year."
The room went silent with everyone taking in what they were just told. Lexa was warring within her mind. The commander in her was trying to rationalize why the council thought they had to segregate this girl, who is now a leader in the eyes of many. Would she have made the same call? She could understand not telling the population to keep a panic from spreading, but on the other hand, when it was something that impacted all people, she found herself looking to her people knowing they would help fight in anyway they could for survival. She found herself angry for Clarke's loss and for her imprisonment, yet without it, she may have never met the blonde.
Any other thoughts were interrupted by the shouts that came from the blonde in front of them.
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"Dad…dad no. No, no!" She was begging them, pleading with them to understand and not take her father from her. The people had a right to know and because the council disagreed, her father was being taken to the airlock to be floated."
"Get your hands off her," her father called to the guards that grabbed her. "Let me go!" she tried again, struggling against their grips on her arms. She pulled free and flung herself into her father's arms. "I'll warn them, I'll find a way." She promised even as her father told her no, not to do that. Knowing she would too, be punished. The Ark guards grabbed her once more as the others pulled her father from the room.
"Let me go. Let me go! Dad! DAD!" she cried out, still struggling against the guards.
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The room was tense with sorrow as they saw tears leaking out of Clarke's unfocused blue eyes, breaths ragged as she called out, reliving the memory of her father being taken away. Her arms were pulling left and right, as if she was struggling to free herself, held by unseen forces.
"Is the physical reaction normal?" Echo inquired, looking to Lincoln.
"It can be, though it is rare. The more impact a memory has on someone, the stronger it manifests during the trial. This one is particularly painful to her." His eyes flickered to Octavia's.
They all knew without her saying anything that she was reliving the day her father was taken from her.
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"Here, give this to Clarke. Tell her that I-" Jake started but was interrupted by the sound of his daughter's voice as she approached.
"Dad!" she called out, being allowed through by Chancellor Jaha and hugged her father tightly, her breaths coming out in strangled gasps as she clung to him and he to her. "It's okay," he whispered to her, "it's okay." He sat her down and pulled back to hold out his watch and place it in her hand, "Here, keep that for me."
The moment is interrupted by Jaha's voice, "Jake. It's time."
Jake pulls back taking a shuddering breath, and kisses Clarke's forehead. "I love you kid."
Her voice is strained, she can't breath and can only whimper out "I love you" as he turns to enter the air lock. He smiles once, before the doors are opened and he's sucked out.
Clarke begins to crumble, whimpers of pain leaving her mouth as she tried to speak maybe to scream while taking in air and leaning into her mother. "Oh my God…" she chokes out, devastated and leans her head into her mother's shoulder. "I'm so s-sorry." She cries out, allowing her mom to hold her as she hears "It's not your fault."
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Lexa swallows hard, gripping onto the table she's currently leaning against as she watches Clarke at her weakest. The death of a loved one is the worst pain one can endure, she knows, and she knows how fond Clarke was of her father. The scene before her feels so private and she feels as if she's an intruder but there's no where else she could possibly be than here in this room with her.
Lexa feels slightly better when Octavia scoots close to the blonde, hoping her closeness might offer some comfort. Neither she, nor the others were prepared for what they saw.
Octavia is shocked when she feels Clarke fall into her after she mutters "Oh my God…" and can do nothing except gently wrap her arms around the blonde and hold onto her head, pressing a soft kiss in her hair. Hearing Clarke's pleading apology she feels her heart constrict and tears began pooling in her own eyes. She holds her tighter and says the only thing she can, "It's not your fault."
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They all relaxed slightly when Clarke finally calmed and raised back into her sitting position, eyes still a deep blue remained unfocused. It was obvious she was still locked into yet another memory, but this one didn't seem to be causing as much physical distress as the last.
"You remember that time you betrayed me and got my father executed?" The blonde suddenly blurts out, "Yeah I remember." She finishes, her jaw tightening from the clenching of her teeth.
Octavia translates for them, "Her best friend on the Ark, Wells, accepted the blame for turning in her father."
"But since you brought it up, and I didn't, because I don't want to talk about it, what were you thinking?" She spoke again.
It was like a puzzle to those in the room, hearing only Clarke's side of the conversation in her memory. But oddly, as confusing as some bits were, the parts Octavia couldn't help them with, it somehow still struck a chord in them and shed some light on the inner workings of the girls mind and feelings.
An incredulous huff left the blonde then, "I made a mistake, Clarke?" she mocked and began shaking her head with a broken look on her face. "Not good enough."
She leaned forward, anger in her glazed eyes and a snarl on her lips, "You know, I bet you couldn't wait to run to daddy, tell him everything, so that he'd finally believe you were the perfect son he always wanted." She paused briefly, "I want an explanation!"
"I thought I could trust my best friend…guess we were both wrong." She sighed, leaning back, "No you're not. If you were my friend you'd walk out into that fog and never come back."
The occupants of the room waited, but it seemed that was the end of her current memory. "She harbours guilt over her friend, even though he betrayed her. Why? She didn't take his life, did she?" Echo asks, her question directed to the only one that might know.
Octavia shook her head in the negative, "No she didn't. But she blamed him for an act he didn't commit. That's why she feels guilty. Wells didn't turn in her father." She breathed deeply, "Her mother did."
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Clarke turned in a circle, looking around at the steel walls of her prison cell, number 319 in confusion. "What am I doing back here? I was on the ground…" she muttered to herself as she eyed her various drawings on the wall. She turned to the sound of a small whimper, seeing a girl with blonde hair in a long braid curled up on her sleeping cot, covered in her grey wool blanket facing the wall.
Who is that…she wondered as she stepped closer, afraid to startle the girl. As she stood next to the bed, she realized the girl had started to turn and she stepped back quickly in alarm. The girl on the bed was her.
"What's going on?" She asked, but she got no response from herself. I must be dreaming…she thought, walking back towards herself who now sat up and was staring blankly in front of her. Clarke sat down slowly, and stared into her own familiar blue eyes, before feeling as if she was pulled at all directions before everything changed.
She was no longer on the Ark, but in a wide open field, scattered with tall grass and patches of some unknown flower, woods on all sides but one, where water stretched as far as she could see. It sparkled in the sunlight and she felt so happy. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, until a laugh caught her attention from the water's edge.
"What are you waiting for, get over here!" The voice called, warm and sweet and she was helpless not to follow it. She took off running, loving the feel of the dirt beneath her bare feet as she got closer and closer.
As she approached the water, it was then she realized she had finally seen true beauty and for the first time in her life, truly felt whole. The voice belonged to a girl that was radiant with sun-kissed skin that looked warm and inviting as she held her arms out. Her long brown hair partially down, the rest in various braids and green eyes that rivalled the intensity of the woods themselves.
She sighed as she stepped into those arms, feeling them wrap around her lovingly and breathed in the scent of home. She had a place, her heart was light and she never wanted to lose this feeling. She was complete.
It was when her other self suddenly woke and wailed out in sorrow that Clarke came back to herself, falling on the floor of her old cell as she watched herself curl into a ball and release the most gut wrenching sobs that she remembered it all to clearly.
"I had that dream on the Ark." She whispered, feeling as broken in despair as she had remembered feeling that night. The night she dreamed of a love that even time would lie down and be still for.
She had passed it off, she was in the Ark, high above the earth which couldn't contain life. This girl couldn't exist. Even if she did, how would she ever really know?
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Lincoln looked pensive, focusing on Clarke intently before speaking hesitantly, "She spoke that she had a dream on the Ark. I've never heard of such a thing, but perhaps she was reliving a dream she had?" He furrowed his brow, not sure if he even believed what he was saying.
All eyes turned to Octavia, obviously hoping she could help. She shook her head as she herself tilted her head and considered Clarke's last couple of sentences. "Don't look at me," she started, "I don't have the slightest idea on this one."
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