10

Now, and at the Hour of our Deaths

CLARKE

"God, I hate this fucking place." Murphy complained again. He had not stopped complaining since the moment Clarke had met him outside the stables leading their horses by their bits. Murphy had eyed Shadow as if the sweet, gray-black mare were the devil incarnate. But Clarke wasn't about to waste a whole day walking all the way to Polis just because Murphy had never ridden a horse before and was unabashedly afraid of the "beasts." Clarke glanced at him as they dismounted on the edge of the city, still surprised she had managed to convince him to climb onto Shadow's back. Still surprised that the boy was still by her side.

"Tell me again..." He said, shaking his lanky legs out and walking like he had suddenly developed a severe case of hemorrhoids. "Why the hell did I agree to this?"

"Because," Clarke answered. "Under all that bitter sarcasm and surliness and feigned indifference for the world and everyone in it... Under all your general ass-holery... You actually have a good heart, Murph. Like it or not."

Murphy let out a disbelieving snort. But the glimmer of a small smile flashed across his long face. "Naw... That's definitely not the reason. I'm pretty sure it's because you are so goddamn manipulative that no one can ever say "no" to you. Your skills are almost as good as your mother's, Griffin."

"What can I say?" Clarke laughed. "I learned from the best. By the way..." She paused growing serious. "My mom told me what you did for me, with Ontari's heart and all. She says I owe you my life... Thank you." She finished with a small, but sincere smile.

Murphy's eyes barely held hers for a second before he shrugged away awkwardly. "Don't mention it." He mumbled and Clarke got the feeling that Murphy had not heard those two words much in his life.

"I mean it..." He said with a sarcastic laugh. "Don't mention it. Just thinking about it makes me want to blow chunks and Emori's pancakes taste a lot better going down than coming back up." He paused, tilting his chin towards the sky. "God, I hate this fucking place."

Clarke followed his gaze from the treetops to the looming tower jutting into the sky beyond them. Her eyes climbed its heights and lingered on the ever-burning flame at its top. In her mind she saw red smoke billowing against the gray.

"Me too, Murph." She mumbled. "I fucking hate this place too."

...

Just in case, they snuck into the city the same way Titus had lead them out only so many days ago. But they quickly realized their sneakiness wasn't really necessary. The streets of Polis were eerily empty, quiet. Clarke supposed it was an improvement. The last time she had entered this city the streets had been lined with ALIE's mindless soldiers. The stones beneath her boots had been slick with blood. The air had rung with the moans of the crucified and dying.

Clarke tried not to think about how these streets had once buzzed with the hustle and bustle of life. She tried not to recall the excitement and happiness shining in Lexa's proud green eyes as she had led her through the throngs of people going about the business of bartering and gossiping and fulfilling the gloriously monotonous duties of daily life. She didn't want to remember how people would pause as Lexa passed to smile and nod and whisper "Heda" in admiration. Or how laughing children would stop in the middle of chasing each other around their parents' ankles to stare up at her in awe.

Ontari's Polis had been full of death. Lexa's Polis had been full of life. But the Polis she encountered now was full of neither. It was practically empty. Only a few people wandered its streets here or there on their way to somewhere else.

"Where the hell is everyone?" Murphy wondered aloud and Clarke let his question fade into the silence because she had no answer. And the quiet around them was so strange. It felt almost as if the city were holding its breath... Waiting for something.

"Come on." Clarke said, pulling at Murphy's bony wrist. "Lets get this done."

"Yeah," he agreed. "So we can get out of this shit-hole."

...

Clarke blinked in the semi-darkness of the underground room, feeling her pupils widening in the dim candlelight. She reached for a candle, wondering vaguely to herself who's job it was to light all of Polis's candles every day. She hoped it paid well because it seemed like a hell of a lot of work.

As her eyes adjusted, the room swam into view around her. The Grounder culture had turned Becca's science into a type of mysticism bordering on religion. And the room, with its eerie drawings on the wall, almost felt like some kind of church to Clarke. But she found the space more creepy than sacred. She stared up at the drawing of Becca, large, black and hovering over her people with her arms outstretched like a god.

Murphy sidled up next to Clarke and suddenly dropped to his knees beside her, bowing his head and clasping his hands together.

"Hail Becca, full of shit." He began in a reverent voice. "Cursed be your name and plentiful be the fruit of thy artificial womb, the Nightbloods. Holy Becca, Mother of the apocalypse, show us where your fucking journal is NOW, before the goddamn hour of all of our deaths. Amen." He finished, rising to his feet with a sarcastic laugh and turning his back on the drawing. He headed in the direction of Becca's pod.

"Amen." Clarke mumbled after him and she could not help but wonder if, somewhere, Becca had heard.

The room was not particularly large, but its edges and corners were cluttered with all kinds of old relics that Clarke supposed held cultural significance for the Grounders, but to her just seemed like a bunch of junk. And after twenty minutes of sneezing and rubbing bits of dust out of her itching eyes, Clarke was starting to worry. Running out of other places to search, she finally made her way over to the giant chest in the corner that she had been avoiding. She took a deep breath, her hands resting on the cold metal for one long moment before prying the lid open.

Just as she had feared, there it was, sitting at the very top, its folds shimmering red-orange in the flickering light of her candle. Clarke hesitated, her fingers hovering inches from its fabric. She did not want to see it. She did not want to touch it. She did not want to hold it. But she knew the journal might be concealed beneath its folds.

So Clarke sucked in a deep breath and held it. And she pulled the sash from the depths of the chest. And now that she had touched it, she could not stop herself. She ran the fabric through her fingers, let it cascade down her forearms and collect like water in her lap.

And the rational part of her told her to set the sash aside and keep rummaging through the chest, digging through the remnants of commanders past: armor and weapons, and pieces of themselves. The rational part of herself told her to keep on searching for the journal.

But the rest of her was too distracted to listen. And suddenly she was on her feet, holding the shoulder armor in her hands while the folds of the sash trailed down her legs and over her boots like a curtain. And she wondered how long it would be until the next commander would be chosen and someone would come to retrieve the sash. And she wondered how long it would take them to notice if it was gone.

And she was not aware of her fingers securing the buckle until the sash was already dangling from her shoulder. And suddenly, disappointment, cold, thick and heavy, flooded her insides. And, ashamed of herself, she realized that she had stupidly dared to hope that the feel of the sash against her side would bring her comfort. That it would somehow be like having Lexa at her side. That the fabric would brush against her skin as lightly as Lexa's touch.

But the sash felt all wrong on her. The strap was too tight against her chest. The weight of the shoulder armor made her feel off balance. The fabric was too long for her height and dragged against the stone at her feet. And nothing about it felt like Lexa.

She could feel the tears welling in her eyes and clawing at the back of her throat as she tore the sash off of her and let it fall to the ground in a heap.

"It didn't look THAT bad." Murphy laughed and Clarke jumped at the sound. She quickly rubbed at the wetness of her eyes, hoping the semi-darkness would hide the red in them. "You looked better in it than Ontari did, anyways."

"But I agree," Murphy continued, ignoring the fact that Clarke was ignoring him. "Red is not really your color, Clarke. Clashes with the blue of your eyes. But you know what color goes well with blue?"

Still hiding her face from him, Clarke frowned into the depths of the trunk, wondering what the hell Murphy was rambling on about. When did Murphy, of all people, become a fashion adviser?

"Silver." Murphy answered for her and Clarke felt the cold of metal bump against her arm. Confused, she finally turned her eyes towards Murphy. He was holding a thick silver briefcase in his hands.

"Hey, Clarke..." He started with a stupid smirk, already trying to hold back a laugh at the joke he had not yet told. "What does Holy Becca have in common with Octavia's mom?"

When Clarke just stared, he answered for her. "Both the bitches liked to hide things in the floor."