You guys are awesome reviewing so fast! I want to apologize for any typos or missing words you spot from time to time. I type really fast and I get all excited so I miss little errors. Sorry if that ever distracts from the story.

Part X.

Clarke stood just outside the drop ship, watching the clouds crash together and the skies darken ominously. The rain had begun to pour and the wind was playing wild games with the trees in the distance.

Raven was still working on the connection to the Ark so Clarke had stepped out to take a breather before performing what would be her biggest medical attempt ever. It had to be that on this day a storm would roll in and complicate everything. The drop ship was large enough to house all of the 100, so Clarke had asked Monroe and some other guards to gather all the camp into the drop ship. It made the air humid and heavy, but it was a necessity.

Anyone left outside could suffer from the effects of the storm and being crushed by a falling tree was not desirable by any means. She hadn't seen Bellamy enter the drop ship but when she asked Octavia, the brunette rolled her eyes and said she didn't know and didn't care. Clarke turned to Monroe, but if the girl knew (which Clarke suspected she did) she didn't say.

"Hey, Griffin." A soft voice broke through her thoughts.

"Jaha." She answered in the same soft tone.

"You okay?"

"I don't know."

"That sounds like a problem."

"One I can't deal with right now. I have someone bleeding out on a table and laughingly adequate medical supplies. I've never done this type of surgery before since I didn't get to complete my apprenticeship when I was confined in a solitary room. I might kill Finn because I don't know what I'm doing. On top of that, a crazy storm is rolling in and my boyfriend is out there somewhere. He didn't bother telling me where." The words rushed out and Wells waited a beat for her to take a deep breath before speaking.

"That's nothing, Griffin."

"Is that supposed to be funny?"

"No, it's supposed to be inspiring."

"I think you've failed."

"Wait for it. Clarke, you're the bravest person I know and the smartest. You didn't officially become a doctor and so what? There is no one else on Earth who can do this. You're qualified and you're dedicated. That has to be enough. You saved Jasper's life when everyone had given up on him. Now you're going to save Finn's."

"What if I can't communicate with my mom?"

"Then you'll find a way to do it alone."

"You sound so sure." She mused with less faith.

"I am. As for your missing boyfriend… I hope he doesn't bring more problems back with him."

"You and me both." She muttered.

"Clarke!" Raven's voice rang out.

"Showtime." She whispered.

"Make it a good one."

She squeezed his hand gratefully and walked through the tarp and curtains to enter the dim space of the medical bay.

"It's your mom." Raven said.

Clarke stared at the radio and heard static mixed with the familiar voice of her mother. A voice that had once sung her songs about crashing tides and stars in the sky. A voice that had comforted her as a child. But then Clarke remembered that voice had betrayed her father and got him floated and her eyes hardened.

"Octavia, get me something to sterilize the needles with."

"Monty created something he calls moonshine. It's alcohol with the taste of battery acid."

"So it's strong?"

"No bacteria will survive it."

"Good, get it."

Octavia nodded and disappeared from the drop ship. Clarke stood behind Raven and finally addressed the Ark.

"Mom, it's me. I need your help."

"Clarke!"

"One of our people was wounded by Grounders. I have a deep wound with an object protruding from it. How should I proceed?"

Her mother's response was interrupted by the unmistakable baritone of Chancellor Jaha.

"Clarke, this is the chancellor. Are you telling me there are survivors on the ground?"

"Yes, the Earth is inhabitable. Others have been here for what seems like many years."

"That's good news. Clarke… how is my son?"

Clarke glanced around the room until her eyes met Wells.

"Alive. Chancellor, I need to be blunt. All the politics will have to be set aside for later. I need to talk to my mother."

"I understand. We will continue this."

"Describe the wound, from its length to its position on the body." Dr. Griffin's voice became rational and calculating, the voice of a respected medic.

Raven noticed Clarke sounded the same as she responded to her mother's questions.

"Okay, we're going to do some research and when we get back to you, the operation can begin. Do you have a sterile needle and suture kit?"

Octavia came in with the moonshine and Clarke gestured for her to clean the needles.

"Yes. I also have bandages and gauze. I'd like to have morphine or a simple sedative, but I guess that's a luxury we'll live without."

"Here." Octavia held out the moonshine and Clarke sterilized her hands, wrinkling her nose at the smell of the liquid.

"Monty is quite the brewer. Sterilize your hands and bring me the medical thread for when I sew the wound."

Octavia busied herself with setting up what Clarke would need as Clarke stood before Finn's motionless figure, her gaze fixed on the hilt of the blade sticking out of his body.

"Clarke, tell me you can do this." Raven pleaded and Clarke met her anxious gaze with steeled reserve.

"I can do this. Monroe, close the doors. We don't need the wind interfering with the surgery."

"Bellamy isn't back yet." She countered and Clarke glared.

"Bellamy can find somewhere to ride out the storm. I'm the one responsible for Finn's life here. Close the damn doors."

Monroe reluctantly moved to do it but Bellamy chose that moment to sweep in with four guys and a beat up Grounder between them. Bellamy strode forward and was met with a glowering Octavia.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"It's time to get some answers."

"Oh, you mean revenge?" she asked sardonically.

"I mean intel." His eyes narrowed on his sister, but Clarke quickly stepped between them, keeping her sterilized hands raised between them.

"Bellamy, what is this?"

"It's about to be an interrogation, Princess."

The nickname didn't sound playful this time.

"This is not who we are." She whispered.

"Clarke, I think we're ready." Her mother's voice broke through the tension between the leaders.

Bellamy's eyes flickered to the source of the voice, seeing the active radio. His crimes floated before him and that was a path he didn't want to explore in the pressure of the drop ship with the whole camp watching.

"It is now." He finally replied, bounding up the ladder to the second floor of the drop ship where his interrogation would begin.

Octavia instantly followed him and though Clarke wanted to do the same and shake some sense into Bellamy, she couldn't. For one, she had Finn's life to save. For another, Bellamy played a role in the little charade of the camp and as the leader he was ruthless and cold, not the Bellamy she saw in the privacy of their tent. She supposed she played a similar role, but she didn't dwell on it as her name filtered through the radio's speakers again.

"I'm here. What do I do first?" she asked.

Clarke cleaned her hands methodically, wiping the blood from her fingers with unnecessary precision. Her mother was still talking, spouting reassuring words to Raven. Finn had woken up in the most painful part of the procedure and it took all Raven and Clarke possessed to keep him still so the latter could remove the weapon from his chest. He had rolled off the table in the jarring movement of the storm-hurricane-outside, but a few of the guys had helped return him to his original position.

Clarke had cleared the floor of everyone but her and Raven. She wasn't sure where Monroe had taken the rest of the camp, possibly to the more removed tents near the edges of the wall, and she didn't care. She had stared at the open wound with blatant fear and only when her mother confirmed that no internal organs had been affected did Clarke close her eyes and thank the heavens.

Raven was worried because Finn was still unconscious and his forehead was hot like he was fevered, contrasting the pallid shade of his face. Dr. Griffin had said it was the strain on the body of the procedure, but he'd recover soon enough.

Clarke couldn't listen to her mother's soothing murmurs anymore. If Raven needed it, then fine, but Clarke wouldn't sit there and hear comforting jargon from the woman who abandoned her family in the worst possible moment and then covered it up from Clarke.

"I need a break." She announced and Dr. Griffin stopped talking.

"Clarke, is everything-

"She's gone." Raven said uncomfortably.

"Oh." Abby Griffin sighed and the sound was pained.

Even from thousands of miles in the solar system, Raven could hear Abby's sadness at the emotional disconnect between her and Clarke. Raven didn't understand why and when she posed the question to Octavia, the girl had shrugged.

"The only one who knows that, apart from Clarke of course, is my brother. And he won't be sharing her secrets anytime soon."

Raven was curious but not impertinent. She would ask neither Bellamy nor Clarke for the information and she didn't think Dr. Griffin would appreciate any intrusion in family matters. Instead, Raven changed the topic to the quality of food on the Ark and if it had worsened. Abby gave a weak laugh but gripped the new conversation easily. Raven listened to the doctor's story as she dabbed the sweat from Finn's too pale face.

Octavia sat curled into herself in the back corner of the ship when Clarke ascended to the second floor. Miller had tried to tell her no one was allowed to enter, but one hard glare from Clarke and he'd moved aside easily.

She glanced at Octavia sympathetically but her focus drifted when she saw the state of the Grounder. He was tied from both arms and extended like an old Da Vinci anatomical diagram. Clarke stepped closer, her doctor's eye examining the bruises and bloody cuts along his face. Bellamy had certainly been angry about something. Whatever it was didn't justify this.

"Well, if he didn't hate us before, he does now." She said, facing Bellamy now.

"Who cares?" he grabbed her arm and pulled her to the other side of the drop ship where their conversation wouldn't be overheard.

"I do." She shook his hand off. "I care if a human being is held against his will and strung up to serve as a symbol for your machismo and bravado."

The words stung, but Bellamy kept his eyes blank so she wouldn't notice.

"He killed two of our people and injured many more."

"We don't know it was him."

"His kind then. It's all the same."

"No." she said firmly. "It's not."

"You taking his side too then? You, Octavia, and the Grounders against your own people? Sounds fantastic." He said coldly.

"Stop it."

"Stop what?"

"This little tyrant act. I know you think everyone needs you to be this person, but that's not true. You don't have to hurt him to prove you're better or stronger or whatever you seek."

"You think this is about my ego?" he asked, furious she thought so little of him.

"If not that, what?"

"The Grounders want us dead, Clarke. Instead of worrying about his well-being, why don't you worry about our people? The people they're picking off one by one." He took a small leather-backed book from his pants pocket and opened it to a bookmarked page.

Clarke took in the sketch of their camp's wall and then the tally marks of the deceased members of the 100. She shook her head and shut the book.

"Is this supposed to condone your kidnapping? Have you stopped to consider the retaliation the Grounders will have?"

"Relax, Princess. No one saw us take him. This storm screwed with the Grounders too."

"What are you trying to achieve?" she asked.

"I'm trying to keep us alive. Isn't that your main concern?"

"Right now my main concern is keeping us human."

He couldn't hide the hurt in his eyes this time and Clarke's cerulean gaze softened along with her voice.

"Bell, you're making this bigger than it needs to be."

"We're at war, Clarke. If you can't see that, I can't help you."

Before she could respond, Raven's frantic tone was heard from the ladder.

"Clarke! He's seizing!"

Her brow furrowed.

"That can't be possible." She said.

"I thought you finished helping Finn."

"I did. Something's wrong." She rushed to descend the ladder, Octavia choosing to follow her and lend her help.

"Miller, close the hatch." Bellamy ordered and turned back to the Grounder.

The bastard hadn't spoken a word. He didn't seem to understand English and since Bellamy only spoke one language, he didn't know what to do next. He flipped through the Grounder's sketches and froze when he saw a drawing of Octavia, smiling beautifully and innocently. Bellamy threw the book to the floor, surprising Miller and Viktor who jumped slightly.

Despite Clarke's worries about his intents, Bellamy hadn't thought farther than the capture of the Grounder and some well-deserved punches. He hadn't set up a torture program or done anything except tie him up and keep Miller and Viktor watching him. What happened now?

"Clarke, what's happening to him?" Raven cried out.

"I-I don't know. This shouldn't be…Wait." Clarke rolled Finn to his side so he wouldn't choke on the foamy liquid spilling from his mouth. "Keep him in this position. I'll be back."

Clarke picked up the blade she'd removed from Finn's body and angled it carefully in her hand as she began ascending the ladder again.

"They locked the hatch." Octavia said resentfully.

"Then they'll have to unlock it." Clarke knocked her fist against the hatch forcefully. "Hey! Open up."

Miller's face greeted her again.

"Get the hell out of my way, Miller."

He held his hands up as she brushed past him. Clarke held the knife up in front of the Grounder.

"What's on this? What did you do to the blade?" she demanded.

"What are you talking about?" Bellamy came up behind her.

She turned her head slightly to inform him.

"He poisoned the blade. He knew we'd never be able to save Finn."

"A poison? Hold on, I found these vials in his bag." Bellamy held them out to her and she dropped the bloody blade on the metal crate as she took the vials.

"You'd have to be stupid to carry a lethal poison without the antidote." She examined the vials but the various colors didn't help her. "Which one is it?" she spoke to the Grounder, who watched them unconcernedly.

"Answer the question!" Bellamy ordered.

"Please, tell us." Octavia came up on Clarke's right side and spoke lightly in an attempt to garner his empathy.

"Our friend is dying down there and you can stop it! Please, which is the antidote?" Clarke begged but when he stared blankly at her, she looked up at Bellamy with distress clear in her eyes.

Bellamy saw the strain in Clarke's body and the anguish in the crystalline gaze. She couldn't handle losing the life of a friend and she'd carry that burden with her for the rest of her life. It would haunt her like his past haunted him. He wouldn't allow her to suffer like that. Not because of some Grounder.

"I'll make him talk." He vowed, moving forward.

"Bellamy, no!" Octavia grabbed his arm to stop him.

"He wants Finn to die! Can't you see that?"

"Don't do this! Clarke!" Octavia turned her pleas to the other leader.

Clarke's eyes hadn't left Bellamy's, but at the call of her name she looked at the younger Blake.

"You said it yourself. This is not who we are! Torture is not what we do!"

"Finn will die if he doesn't tell us which vial is the antidote!" Bellamy insisted.

Clarke knew the decision would come from her. Bellamy was asking her for permission and Octavia was begging her to prevent it. Two options. Two people she cared about depending on her answer. Octavia's route meant pacifism and morality and all the pretty pictures she'd once imagined of life on Earth. Bellamy's approach was realism and grey areas and something Clarke wasn't sure she was ready to lose. The choice came easier than she thought.

"Do it."

"No." Octavia whimpered but at Clarke's assent, Miller grabbed Octavia and pushed her to the back of the room where she couldn't intervene. "No!"

Her cry was ignored by the occupants of the room and Clarke stood to one side, clutching the vials and watching Bellamy rip the Grounder's shirt off and acquire a belt from what was once a seat on the ship. It had a large metal clip at the end and Clarke felt sick knowing where the metal would strike.

Bellamy wrapped the belt in one hand and prepared to hit the Grounder. He gave Clarke one final look and she knew he was giving her a way out. But, she had made her decision and now she had to live with it.

She gave him a small nod and then he didn't hesitate to strike the Grounder's bare chest.

Twenty agonizing minutes later, the Grounder had open wounds on his chest and a piece of metal impaled through the palm of his hand, but they still had no antidote.

Clarke had gone on her knees at the Grounder's feet in a show of desperation, but he'd ignored her and Bellamy had hit him harder after that. He was tired. She could see it from her position against the wall. He sat hunched over on the crate, breathing heavily. It was more than the physical exertion, of course, but Clarke couldn't find the words to speak to him.

Octavia had cried out a few times, but Miller and Viktor kept her back.

"What is taking so long?" Raven didn't bother calling out this time and she was jumping up the ladder and rushing to Clarke.

Bellamy looked up at her entrance and Clarke turned to her.

"He stopped breathing!"

"What?" Clarke instantly moved to go back to the med bay, but Raven pushed her back.

"He started again, but next time he might not."

"He won't tell us anything. Finn was poisoned. I need the antidote."

Raven looked over at the bloody Grounder with unrestrained anger. She moved to the corner of the room where she'd plugged in various power cables for the radio and the generator that gave power to the lower level of the ship. She ripped two jumper cables from the generator and touched the tips together, creating an electric current between them.

"What are you doing?" Bellamy asked.

"Showing him something new."

The Grounder had taken a step back and a glimpse of fear was seen in his eyes. Raven was extending the cables to his bare chest when Clarke grabbed her arm.

"Raven, no."

The mechanic turned on her with the cables and Clarke felt more than saw Bellamy move towards her. She gave a slight shake of her head and he stopped where he was.

"Think about what you're about to do." Clarke said.

"He's letting Finn die! He is all I have, Clarke. He's my family." She was sobbing now and Clarke remembered the strong girl who clenched tears back in front of her because she thought it was weak.

The possibility of Finn dying had changed any inhibitions Raven had about public displays of emotion. She was spilling tears and her breathing was choked as sobbed.

"Raven, don't do this." Clarke tried again.

"Answer something for me, Clarke. If it were your boyfriend on that table, foaming at the mouth and gasping for air, would you do it? If he were dying before you and the person responsible was right there, dangling his life by a thread, would you do everything you could to save him? Answer me!"

Clarke swallowed and felt a heaviness inside her. She looked at Bellamy and saw him watching her sadly. They both knew what was coming. Clarke was nothing if not honest and when it came to Bellamy…

"I would do whatever it took to save him." Her voice was broken, wary, but they all heard it.

Raven nodded.

"That's what I thought."

Seconds later the Grounder was screaming in agony as the electricity coursed through his body.

"Stop!" Octavia screamed and the sound was so heartbreaking Raven did just that. "You'll kill him!"

Octavia pushed past Viktor and Miller and grabbed the poisoned blade. Before Bellamy could react, she had sliced into her arm. The Grounder struggled against his bonds and Raven backed away, dropping the cables.

"Octavia, what have you done?" Bellamy asked anxiously.

"He won't let me die." She took the vials from Clarke and knelt at his feet. "Which one is it? This one? No. God." She gasped at the pain as the poison infiltrated her veins directly.

The Grounder tilted his chin at the last vial and Octavia lifted it victoriously.

"Here." She gave it to Raven, who ran down the ladder.

Bellamy tried to help his sister up, but she jerked away from his touch and kept her eyes on the Grounder.

Clarke touched Bellamy's shoulder.

"Bell."

"Not here." He said and she stepped back, knowing their work was not over.

She'd cleaned her hands of the blood but her skin still felt tainted. It wasn't Finn's blood staining her, though. It was the Grounder's.

Clarke couldn't believe what she'd become. She was a cruel dictator, letting her boyfriend torture people for her. The day had become too much for her. Finn was alive and awake, sharing some private conversation with Raven, but Clarke couldn't even revel in her medical success. After giving Finn the antidote, Dr. Griffin had checked in with them and something had snapped in Clarke. She'd revealed everything to Raven and possibly Finn (though he had been barely conscious then) when she told her mother she was a liar and she'd gotten her father killed. Clarke had ignored her mother's apologies and cut the connection to the Ark right after.

She'd left the drop ship to see that chaos had reigned both inside and out. The tents were in complete disarray and there were branches, leaves, and debris scattered through the camp. Clarke waded through the destruction like a zombie, not really seeing anything in front of her. Eventually, she wandered outside the wall and sunk to the ground against a miraculously standing tree. She stayed there for a long time and would have been content to stay there forever if a pair of arms hadn't lifted her protectively and pulled her against a hard chest.

"Clarke." He said gently. "Time for bed."

"I'm not tired." She protested but her voice was weak.

Bellamy didn't comment on it, but carried her all the way to their tent. Clarke realized she must have been out of it for several hours because the tents had been returned to their usual places and most of the damage to the camp was taken care of. She felt pathetic for laying against a tree while the rest of the 100 were salvaging their home, but she didn't have the energy for anything else.

Bellamy deposited her on their bed and removed her jacket, shirt, pants, and boots, leaving her in her underwear. The air was sticky and humid so they wouldn't need any layers. Besides, Clarke's clothes were still bloodstained, like his, so they were better off in their undergarments until they washed the clothes the next day. Clarke lay under the blanket silently, her vision dazed. She felt Bellamy's body join hers under the covers and didn't protest when he pulled her into his chest so that his arms enveloped her body.

He knew she was processing everything and waited patiently for her to speak first.

"I don't know who I am anymore."

"You're Clarke Griffin, the stubborn but overwhelmingly beautiful princess."

His attempt at lightness was ignored.

"I made you torture him. I watched him bleed and all I could think was it's not working. He still won't tell us what we need. What have I become?" she gasped in horror.

"Hey. Look at me. Clarke, look at me." He repeated and her misty eyes met his.

"You didn't make me do anything. I chose to bring him back here and I chose to torture him for information."

"You turned to me. You asked me if I was okay with it. I could have said no."

He paused.

"Yeah, you could have. But, you and I believed it was necessary. We were trying to save Finn. This wasn't mindless violence and whipping for fun. We did what we had to do."

"At what expense? Our morality? Our humanity?"

"Clarke, who we are and who we have to be to survive are very different things."

"What if we survive this supposed war and whatever else is thrown at us and come out monsters?"

"We won't."

"How do you know that?"

"Because you wouldn't let me get that far. And I wouldn't let you do anything that would scar your soul. It's a careful balance we keep, Princess, but we do it for a reason. I couldn't do this without you. None of it."

She reached up to kiss his lips.

"Neither could I."

"Get some sleep, Princess. This storm is far from over."

She understood his words clearly.

They were connected to the Ark again. They had a Grounder held captive. Octavia probably hated them. Clarke hadn't found a way to forgive her mother and she didn't feel like talking to her again. The medical supplies Raven had brought were already running thin.

Yet, when Bellamy began to stroke her hair and rub her back with his calloused fingertips, Clarke let her eyes fall shut and indulged in Bellamy's warmth and comforting forest scent. It was the only way she could sleep anymore and it was the same for Bellamy.

He didn't think he was capable of making the hard decisions and bearing the brunt of those choices on his own. His sister turned away from him, blamed him for the wrong in her life, and it left an ache in his heart. He had raised her and loved her from the day of her birth, but she seemed to forget all of that at the hands of some Grounder.

With Clarke, he had consistent support and someone who thought he was a good person and a decent man. She didn't agree with everything he did but at the end of the day, she was by his side ready to share the burdens and the tribulations. And unfortunately, they had so many.