In case you've never read any of my other stories, weaving in and out of show episodes is something I really enjoy, I like figuring out how to make it work within a different scenario, so there will be more show dialogue here, adapted to fit my story.
Chapter 9
Octavia ran through the woods swiftly, the way well known to her after many visits. "Lincoln?" she called for her lover breathlessly, bursting into the cave without hesitation. He came towards her, not speaking, he didn't speak much as a rule, but as he inspected her for bleeding from her eyes, nose, mouth and ears, and dread crept into the silence between them. "Lincoln," she whispered. "You knew."
"I tried to get you out of there," he said, not apologizing or offering excuses or justifications. " Did you not see the flower?"
Octavia felt like her lungs were being squeezed, having to work for each breath while holding back her panic and uncertainty. "I saw it. Right before I found the kid your people sent to infect us," she said plainly, looking for any sign of regret in his strong face. "People are dying, Lincoln," she continued, stepping back from him. "Clarke sent me here for the cure."
"There is no cure."
Octavia tried to swallow back the bile in her throat, focusing on the information he was giving her instead of her feeling of betrayal. The sickness didn't kill many, though few were immune. The Grounders used it to weaken opponents before the attack, and the attack on The 100's camp was set for the morning.
"You're gonna have to help me save them," Octavia demanded.
"I can't," he said with some regret, turning away from her accusing eyes to stuff some more of his belongings into a bag. "I tried. Some of my people think I'm a traitor now."
"Because of the bridge? You were just trying to make peace."
"It's not the bridge."
"Because of me?" Octavia asked, remorse thick in her voice. "Oh."
"That doesn't matter now," Lincoln said, coming back to her. "I'm leaving, Octavia, right now. I want you to come with me."
Octavia gaped at him, leaving had never been a possibility for her. But why not? She loved Lincoln, if she stayed in the camp with Bellamy she might end up dead and if she lived her brother would continue to try to control her life. "And go where?"
"East to the sea, then across it. There's a clan, allies of the woods. They'll take us."
Octavia wanted to agree, to strike out on her own, but the thought of leaving Bellamy, never seeing him again, angry words the last to be spoken between them paralyzed her. "I can't just let my brother get killed."
"There is nothing you can do to stop that now," Lincoln said in annoyance, not understanding why she didn't see what was to come.
Octavia backed away from him, torn between the brother who had loved her her whole life, and the man who offered her a future. She told Lincoln that she as going back to camp to warn them, then would meet him at dawn so she could leave with him. Even as she saw his look of relief, she wasn't sure if she meant the words. She wanted to mean them, wanted to be strong enough to strike out on her own, but she wasn't sure she was ready to cut the ties to her past, to Bellamy.
Turning to leave, she paused. "Lincoln, why are your people attacking now? I thought… I thought they'd agreed to wait and see."
"Things have changed," he said gravely. "We saw another ship come down."
"But it crashed, why would that change anything?" Octavia asked.
"My people were willing to consider letting yours live in peace, but if more of you come, and what you told me about them…"
"What I told you?" Octavia asked hollowly, her brother's accusing words about her risking the lives of The 100 ringing in her ears.
"Your people rule with an iron thumb. They do not allow for other viewpoints. Their technology could be a threat to us. It was our determination that they pose a danger to us, and therefore you pose a danger to us."
"But we've had peace, for weeks!"
"We cannot allow any more to come."
"You won't be able to stop them, your spears won't mean anything against their ships. Their guns."
"If you are all gone, they will not come," he said simply.
Octavia felt like her chest had been hollowed out, leaving only a sick emptiness. "So you'd kill us all, me, my brother, children, because-" she shook her head. Because of her, because she'd said too much to someone she trusted but who wouldn't hesitate to kill the people she cared about.
-The 100-
Bellamy watched from a safe distance as Miller and Guy, both sick but still standing, carried out the dead. The sickness had already claimed two lives: Derek and May.
"All right. Show is over," Bellamy said roughly, needing to keep the healthy members of the camp on task. "Get back to your posts." He turned to see Clark standing at the top of the ramp to the drop ship, his expression softening. "You got enough food in there, water?"
"Yeah," she said with a faint smile, her face and hands smeared with blood. "Some medicine might be nice."
He smiled and looked down, not wanting her to see the stark fear in his eyes. "I'll see what I can do." His eyes met hers, then he looked behind her, up towards the third level of the metal behemoth that dominated the east side of their camp. "Octavia, you OK?" he called loudly.
Clarke flinched, and Bellamy stepped towards her, his worry of her and his silent sister growing exponentially. "Is she-"
"Bellamy, wait," Clarke said thickly, looking up to meet his eyes. "She's not here. I sent her to see Lincoln." His look of stunned betrayal was not one she thought she'd ever be able to forget. "Look," she said, needing him to understand. "If there's a cure, he has it. I didn't tell you because I knew you wouldn't let her go."
Bellamy spared her a hard look before turning away from her, making her heart clench painfully. "If anything happens to her, you and me are gonna have problems."
"Bellamy," she called, tears thick in her throat. "Bellamy!"
He ignored her, walking towards the fence, hollering for someone to get out of his way, only to back off quickly as the slight Asian boy turned to reveal blood dripping from his eyes. Several more people fell quickly, spitting up blood and panic swept through the camp with the healthy pointing guns at the sick, threating them with getting shot if they didn't get to the drop ship.
Bellamy, Finn, Jasper and a few others tried to get the panicked teens to calm down, but it was Clarke, exiting the drop ship with a gun and firing three rounds into the air like some war lord from years long past that stopped the riot.
"This is exactly what the grounders want," she said wearily, the gun still raised to the sky as if she was a seasoned warrior instead of a teenage girl trained to save lives, not take them. "Don't you see that? They don't have to kill us if we kill each other first."
A boy that Bellamy couldn't even name stepped forward, pointing his weapon at Clarke as she stepped off the drop ship ramp. "They won't have to kill us if we all catch the virus," he shouted, his voice cracking with stress or puberty. "Get back in the damn drop ship."
Bellamy didn't hesitate, striding forward, seizing control of the gun from the boy who dared to threaten Clarke. Jerking the gun down then up, he smashed the butt of the gun into the boy's face, knocking him backwards, and taking the gun off him.
Bellamy looked towards Clarke, his emotions running high. Fear, worry, anger. "Not to state the obvious, but your quarantine isn't working."
His anger faded quickly as he saw Clarke begin to fall, slumping towards the ground, he raced forward and caught her. "Hey, let me go," she mumbled weakly. "I'm OK."
"No, you're not," he said, holding her in his arms easily.
"Octavia will come back with a cure," she whispered, needing to believe it, but just then Octavia appeared amongst the campers watching as their remaining healthy leader risked infection.
"There is no cure," Octavia said in a clear voice. "But the Grounders don't use the sickness to kill."
"Really? Tell that to them," Miller said coming out of the drop ship and motioning to take Clarke from Bellamy, who refused to hand her over.
"I warned you about seeing that Grounder again," Bellamy said harshly.
"Yeah? Well, I have a warning for you, too," Octavia said, the scaled tipping towards leaving with Lincoln. "The grounders are coming. And they're attacking at first light." The chattering of the camp, thick with worry and fear filled the air as Octavia strode towards her brother and Clarke. "Come on. I'll help you get Clarke into the drop ship."
Monty followed the Blakes into the drop ship, not sparing a glance for his (former?) best friend, Jasper.
What do I have to do to stop you from coming in here?" Clarke said, her heart in her eyes as she looked up at Bellamy as he placed her gently in the hammock Murphy vacated.
"Get better."
Monty appeared with a cup of water for Clarke, tilting her head up to help her drink it.
"Monty, no, you're not sick," Clarke said feebly.
"If he's not sick by now, then he's probably immune like me," Octavia said.
"Maybe I'm immune, or maybe not, but I'm not going to stand around doing nothing while this camp goes down the drain," Monty said in his soft but certain way.
Bellamy turned to his sister, relief at her safe return overwhelmed by her continued recklessness. "What else did Lincoln tell you?"
"The virus doesn't last long."
Murphy approached with a damp cloth, handing it to Clarke. "It's true. I feel better."
"They need to stay hydrated," Clarke murmured quietly.
"You need to stay hydrated," Monty insisted, forcing her to take more water. "Bellamy, you shouldn't be in here, I'll take care of Clarke, with her down, we need you healthy."
Bellamy hesitated but nodded, running his hand along Clarke's cheek as their eyes met in a meaningful look, before exiting the ship.
-The 100—
Clarke could barely keep her eyes open as she directed Monty, Octavia, and Murphy on how to care for the sick. She looked up to see Miller, pale under his honey colored skin, eyes rimmed with red standing at the door, a gun resting at his feet. "Miller," she croaked, pausing to clear her throat, feeling the raw scratch of it. "You're not getting worse?"
He glanced around and seeing no one who looked like they were going to make a break for it, he walked over to Clarke's hammock. "No, I don't feel good, but I'm not getting worse. You?"
She coughed, a bit of blood appearing on her lips. "I don't know, I haven't thrown up a substantial amount of blood like some of the others, so I guess I'm holding on."
"That's good," he said, offering her a cup of water. "We need you."
She smiled, her lips trembling with the effort. "You too."
"Clarke, when we were first on the ground, those first few days, I wanted-"
"Hey," she whispered. "Stop. No one is dying, no need for apologies or confessions. We all made mistakes here. Doesn't mean that we can't do better now. That we haven't done better. That-"
"I got it," he said, ducking his head.
"I wanted… Raven is due back today with-"
"Jones and Monroe," Miller completed her thought, his expression suddenly thoughtful and intense. They'd sent the three of them to Quantico, the farthest destination on Raven and Monty's list of possible supplies and fallback locations.
"They should stay out of camp," she said, wanting at least a few of them to survive unscathed.
Miller nodded. "I'll tell Bellamy."
-The 100—
Clarke drifted off to sleep, the fever that was sapping strength from her body also ravaging her mind. She tumbled through a series of memories, happy and sad.
"Dad, how do I draw an elephant?" A five year old Clarke with round rosy cheeks and bright blue eyes asked, looking up at the man who meant the world to her.
"I don't know, Princess, let's look at a picture and see if we can figure it out together."
-flash—
"Come on Wells," Clarke called impatiently, tired of waiting for her friend to finally accept that the other kids on the Ark, even the kids from Phoenix, would never accept them. "Let's go."
"I'm coming," Wells said, smiling, but she could see the too serious look in his eyes.
"Don't let it get to you," she commanded. "People who can't or won't see us for who we are instead of who our parents are aren't worth our time."
-flash—
Teenaged Clarke was in the Ark infirmary, watching from a respectful distance as her mother delivered a baby boy. "You have a son," Abby said, tired but with happy pride ringing in her voice.
-flash—
Clarke wept desperate, angry tears onto her mother's shoulder, the image of her father's sad stoicism as he'd entered the air lock stuck in her mind. They'd killed him, they'd killed him for wanting to tell the truth.
The door to their quarters opened and Marcus Kane entered. Clarke sat, shellshocked as Abby rushed to her feet, her glare fierce as she faced off with her fellow council member. "What do you want now?"
"I'm sorry Abby, but Clarke is under arrest."
"What?" Abby had cried and pleaded, but it fell on deaf ears.
Clarke offered no resistance as she was led from the only home she knew, hearing the guards recite her sentence. Solitary confinement until she turned 18. She'd already been tried and convicted in private, her crime officially listed as treason, but really she just knew too much. And was too much her father's daughter for any of the council to rest easy until she as neutralized.
-flash—
Drawing was the only thing Clarke had to occupy her time in her solitary cell. She'd covered the wall's with drawings, her father and mother's faces, the moonrise over Earth, and tons of drawings of what she imagined Earth would look like. Forests, beaches, mountains, trees, animals, even a city that would have fallen into rubble long ago.
The door to her cell slid open, two guards entering unexpectedly. "Prisoner 319, take off the watch," one of them ordered, taking her wrist in his firm grip.
"No. It was my father's," she protested, spinning away from him.
He reached out to recapture her, but she fought him off, kicking the other and shutting the door behind her as she bolted.
The Skybox was full of chaos, dozens of juvenile prisoners being led out onto the gangplanks. Clarke ran, but pulled up short seeing a guard in front of her, his baton at the ready. She turned, looking for an escape but saw her retreat was cut off by the two guards who'd come into her cell.
Then her mother pushed past them. "Mom?"
"You're being sent to the ground, Clarke. All of you. You're going to Earth."
-flash—
The reality of being on the ground was too overwhelming to grasp, as was being surrounded by 100 rowdy teenagers, plus one surly fake guard. Clarke wandered away from the group, smiling in wonder at the trees, air, birds, clouds, dirt… everything.
Stopping and unfurling the map she'd found on the drop ship, she looked out into what was her new home. A boy (Finn) approached, calling her Princess, and thinking it was fun to tease her, but Clarke was focused on a task. "Do you see that peak over there? That's Mount Weather. There's a radiation-soaked forest between us - and our next meal."
-flash—
Their euphoria at being on the ground faded quickly, at least for the ones who saw the reality, the hardship of their new home. They'd left the camp with five , but returned with only four.
"Where's the food?" Bellamy asked, a dark look on his face as he tended to his injured sister.
"We didn't make it to Mount Weather," Finn said wearily.
"What the hell happened out there?" Bellamy asked.
"We were attacked," Clarke said, still breathless from running back to camp.
"Attacked? By what?" Wells asked.
"Not what. Who. It turns out, when the last man from the ground died on the Ark, he wasn't the last grounder," Finn said, leaving the rest of them to figure out what that meant for themselves.
"It's true. Everything we thought we knew about the ground is wrong," Clarke said.
-flash—
Clarke was determined to go after Jasper, refusing to write him off. The Ark had decided who lived and died, snuffing out people as if they were of no consequence. Clarke meant to prove that every life counted. Starting with Jasper.
She approached Bellamy, Wells at her heels. Octavia looked up, the bite mark on her leg exposed. "You guys leaving? I'm coming, too."
"No, no. No way," Bellamy countermanded her statement. "Not again."
"He's right," Clarke agreed. "Your leg's just gonna slow us down." She turned her eyes on Bellamy Blake, their self-appointed new leader. "I'm here for you."
-flash—
Nightmares were common in camp, but when Clarke heard a child's voice calling out fearfully into the night, she wanted to help.
"No! No! No! No!"
Clarke found a small girl, no more than 14 years old with sandy blonde hair pulled back tightly into a French braid. "Hey, wake up. It's OK," she comforted the child. "It's OK. It's just a dream. You're Charlotte, right? I'm Clarke. It's ok to be scared. Do you want to talk about it?"
-flash—
Clarke had rushed through the woods, the screams drawing her forwards. She stopped when she saw Bellamy kneeling over a prone boy, covered in chemical burned skin and boils. "I heard screams," Clarke said, approaching Bellamy carefully.
The broken, lost look in his eyes made him real to her for the first time. "Charlotte found him. I sent her back to camp."
Clarke nodded and looked Atom over, seeing that there was nothing she could do to save his life. She looked at Bellamy, forcing herself to meet his dark, tortured gaze. She shook her head seeing the spark of hope drain from his eyes as a muscle in his jaw ticked.
She cleared the grief stricken expression from her own face, taking the knife from Bellamy's limp hand and meeting Atom's scared gaze. "OK," she said in a tone meant to comfort and reassure. "I'm gonna help you, all right?" She hummed lightly and stroked his hair, trying to give him the best death she could as she eased the knife into his neck, puncturing his jugular and watching as the pain faded from his face as he bleed to death.
-flash—
Jasper wasn't getting better, they had no medicine, nothing to help him, but the Grounders had applied a poultice to his wound and Clarke was determined to figure out what the red substance was. "Whatever this stuff is, it has to have had antibiotic properties," she mused to Finn, her ever present companion on the ground.
"Let me take a look," Wells said, holding out a hand to her. "Before you refuse my help, remember who aced botany in Earth skills."
Clarke frowned but handed over the bandage to her former best friend. "The grounders used it as a poultice. I'm thinking a tea might be even more effective if we can figure out what it is."
"I know what it is," Wells said. "Seaweed."
-flash—
The trip to get the seaweed had gone much better than the attempted trip to Mt. Weather, if you didn't count the radiation fog, or being trapped with Wells in a small enclosed space overnight.
Finn caught up to Clarke in the forest, leaving Wells to trail behind them alone. "You were kind of rough on Wells."
"Hardly," she snorted.
"He's a pretty straight-up guy," Finn said, his gaze reproachful. "And he loves you. You know that, right? But every time your dad comes up, he won't give you a straight answer. Makes me think he's hiding something. So, I gotta ask you. How sure are you that Wells is the one who turned in your dad?" Finn questioned.
"He's the only one I told," Clarke said, certainty ringing in her tone.
"Is he the only one who knew?"
-flash—
Finn's words rang in her head until the truth finally settled over her like a lead blanket. Clarke went to find Wells, needing to hear the words, hear the truth from him. "Wells? I know I probably don't deserve it, but I need to know the truth," she said, her voice cracking from emotion. "It was my mom. Wasn't it? She's the one who told your dad." Tears welled in her eyes. "I didn't want to believe it. I… I couldn't. I blamed you because my father's dead and it's my mother's fault. Isn't it?" She looked up at him expecting to find anger, but only saw sorrow. "Wells, please."
He nodded slightly, and Clarke struggled to breath. "I knew how you would feel. I wanted to…"
"To protect me," she cried. "So, you let me hate you."
"What are friends for?"
"How can you forgive me?"
"It's already done," he said simply, taking her into his arms as she cried for her father, for her friend, and for the betrayal she'd never seen coming even after thinking nothing could shock her anymore.
-flash-
The horror of seeing Well's cold stiff body lying outside the fence morphed into the image of Charlotte's terrified face, then the young girl's look of resigned resolve as she flung herself off the cliff to her death.
"Bellamy! You cannot fight all of us," Murphy sneered. "Give her up."
"Maybe not, but I guarantee I'll take a few of you with me," Bellamy had countered, holding Charlotte back from Murphy who would kill her without a second thought.
"Bellamy! Stop! This has gone too far," Clarke shouted, thrusting herself into the middle of the fray, Finn standing back behind her. "Just calm down. We'll talk about this," she reasoned.
"I'm sick of listening to you talk," Murphy said, twisting Clarke into his arms, a knife at her throat. She'd miscalculated again. She'd faced Bellamy, assuming he was her enemy, when it was Murphy.
"Let her go," Bellamy growled.
"I will slit her throat," Murphy promised gleefully.
"No, please," Charlotte begged, struggling with Bellamy who was trying to protect her. "Please don't hurt her."
Murphy agreed to take Charlotte, release Clarke, but Bellamy and Clarke both knew it was a lie. Murphy was angry, and he needed to vent his anger on others. Charlotte would do, but Clarke was a much better target, the daughter of privledge. So smart, so collected, so sure she was right all the time.
"Don't do it, Charlotte," Clarke cried out, cringing as the knife pressed into her throat.
"Don't do it, Charlotte!," Bellamy yelled, glaring at his former minion. "Murphy, this is not happening."
"I can't let any of you get hurt anymore. Not because of me. Not after what I did," Charlotte said softly just before throwing her small body over the cliff.
-flash-
Facing the Grounder's leader was frightening, but Clarke tried to be calm and rational. Fear and anger would not help her negotiate peace. "I think we got off to a rough start, but we want to find a way to live together."
Anya looked grim. "I understand. You started a war that you don't know how to end."
Clarke blinked in surprise. "What? No. We didn't start anything. You attacked us for no reason," Clarke countered.
"No reason? The missiles you launched burned a village to the ground."
There was gun fire, yelling, fear, her gaze finding Bellamy's as she scrambled to avoid arrows, Grounders falling from the trees, Anya pulling a blade from her glove only to jerk back as a bullet fired by Bellamy knocked her away from Clarke. They raced back to camp, Miller leading the way, Jones bringing up the rear, Bellamy and Clarke somewhere in the middle.
Outside the wall of their tenuous camp, Finn hand turned his disappointment on them. "Well, if we weren't at war already, we sure as hell are now."
-flash-
Clarke awoke with a jerk, the memories that had haunted her making her as weary as the sickness that ravaged her body. She frowned, huffing out a breath as Bellamy came into focus, standing at her side. "You can't be in here," she protested.
"Get over it, Princess. You want me to follow your orders, get on your feet and make me," he teased.
She smiled frailly, her eyebrows drawn together in a deep frown. "You need to save yourselves. Just leave camp. Take anyone healthy enough with you."
"If you think that's even a possibility, you don't know me very well," he said, the deep timber of his voice warming her.
"I know you," she said simply.
"At this rate, when the grounders get here, there won't be anyone left to fight back," Murphy said, pausing as he made his way to another sick teenager, helping them drinks some water and wipe away blood.
"That's the point," Octavia said.
"Get some sleep, Clarke, we can hold down the fort until you're on your feet again," Bellamy said softly, wanting nothing more than to hold her until she felt better, but he knew he had responsibilities elsewhere and when she got better she'd be the first to take him to task for ignoring the camp for her.
Clarke's eyes drifted shut, and this time she filled her mind with a good memory, trying to hold on to the feeling Bellamy evoked in her so effortlessly.
Words 4419
So this chapter got a little out of control, and now it's two chapters. The next one is mostly written, just a few more scenes to write.
