Hi all, I'm back with another chapter, and hopefully will be able to keep doing so every week until this story's completion. Just as a note I have tweaked the timeline of the show for this chapter, and the events that took place in Polis during 3x04 now happen after the massacre at Arkadia.

A REVOLUTION HAS BEGUN TODAY FOR ME INSIDE

THE ULTIMATE DEFENSE IS TO PRETEND

REVOLVE AROUND MYSELF JUST LIKE AN ORDINARY MAN

THE ONLY OTHER OPTION'S TO FORGET

6 Hours Previously

The weight of what he had just done remained heavily settled on his shoulders, long after Octavia had left. He was ever familiar with the feeling, the gravity of his actions crushing him into the Earth until it felt like he couldn't breathe. The feeling of guilt, of regret and of self-hatred.

It horrified him, how much clearer he could suddenly think, how much more prominent the sounds of the approaching thunderstorm were in his ears, how the phantom pain of his scars was suddenly focussed and precise, rather than a dull, all-over ache.

Octavia had unlocked the part of him that he had been so desperately trying to suppress, by any means necessary, be it by self-harm, isolation or drinking. The part of him that had been created on the Ark, enhanced by Sienna's death, and taken over by Oblivion. After everything that had happened, it was why he was so terrified of fighting again.

Because, no matter how hard he tried to deny it, there would always be a part of him that enjoyed it. Enjoyed the violence, the darkness and the killing. Buried deep inside him was a terrible, masochistic beast, furiously struggling to be set free, so it could feed. Feed off his pain – both inflicted on him, and dealt to others, be they friend or foe.

Beating Octavia into a pulp had been that release. It was cathartic, the feeling of his fists slamming into her face, her gasps of agony and the blood running from her wounds.

The most messed up part of the entire thing was that Octavia was just about the only person left who still cared about him, and just about the only person he cared for in return. The only person left he l-

No

He couldn't let himself go there. Couldn't identify those feelings as that.

In hindsight, it had been her plan all along, he realised, to get him to snap like that, give him a way to vent that rage, and prove that while he could hurt her physically, he couldn't hurt her mentally. The only way he could do that was if he didn't return.

How could he though? How could he go back and face her after what he had done to her.

He couldn't even bring himself to turn around and look at the swords she had left behind. Because he knew that if he did so, there was every chance that he would pick them up, and wield them with every bit of ferocity he had as Subject X.

He felt the tugging of his conscience as an internal war raged within him.

He knew he should go back, and face Bellamy and the others. It was the right thing to do. More importantly, it was what Octavia wanted him to do.

Could he really do it though? Could he really pick up those swords, go back to Arkadia, stand opposite Bellamy - his brother – and fight him, kill him? Even if it didn't come to that, the doubts put in his head by his defeat at the bunker whispered of the consequences of failure, and that it was best not to go at all.

He clutched his hands to his temples and squeezed his eyes tightly shut in a desperate attempt to silence his warring mind, only to find it silenced for him by the sounds of scraping metal.

Hesitantly, he turned around to see what was making the noise, and he froze.

Not at the silver coandite blades.

Not at the Lace Monitor dragging them towards him.

But at the pendant looped around the hilt of one of them.

Small, and made of wood, it hung from a length of thin vine. At its centre, was a simplistic carving of a yin-yang symbol.

In that moment, it was like the world around him came to a halt. Time itself seemed to stop, and the thoughts in his head were instantly banished as his vision tunneled to just the pendant, and what it symbolised.

In an instant, he was taken away from the present. Away from the pain, away from the loss, back to when it was just him and a strong, beautiful girl, trapped in a cave so, so long ago.

He remembered the words coming out of his mouth.

"The Chinese spoke of the concept of balance, of duality: the yin and the yang. You can't have one thing without the other, its opposite."

"It's not about fighting it, or not fighting it. It's about accepting it, understanding that everything, every action, every emotion, every event in our lives happens for a reason, and learning how to find that balance where you can wield all of them as allies, not enemies. Only then can you conquer the demons."

He remembered placing the pendant around her neck.

"Thank you for saving my life, for making me feel safe."

"Thank you for making me... feel."

He remembered her arms around his neck, skin hot under her embrace.

He remembered her lips pressed hard and passionately against his own, her breasts mashed against his chest and her hips pressing against him.

He hadn't even realised he was holding the pendant in his hand, so tightly it hurt until he opened his eyes and snapped out of the flashback as a solitary tear left a watery trail of the memory down his cheek.

It was so beautiful, and happened so long ago he had almost completely forgotten it had even happened. Before he got involved with Clarke, or Sienna, before his life went to shit. When it was just him and Octavia, and a moment of the purest of connections.

He sniffed regretfully. Everything could have been so different if he hadn't broken away, if he had let that kiss continue...

His own words rang in his head

Life is about balance.

Octavia had played on him the most simple, the most brutal, but also the most effective psychological torture. Using his own words against him, and reminding him of what he had once taught her by throwing it back in his face.

What's more, it had worked.

Aerrow closed his fingers around the pendant as a new fire filled him.

He was right. Life was about balance. The pain, the hate, the suffering, that would always be a part of him. But so would the happiness, so would the love, so would the fight.

When he looked down at the Lace Monitor at his knees, still clutching the swords expectingly in her mouth, he knew his decision had already been made.

For Octavia, he would go back.

For Octavia, he would fight.

For Octavia, he would do anything.

…

Present

Pain.

Intense, throbbing pain filled his entire body, originating from the centre of his forehead.

It was worse than the blow he had been struck by the Pauna, worse than the hangovers from the moonshine, worse even than listening to Raven drone on about internal combustion engines.

It was everything.

He felt weightless, yet crushed at the same time. He couldn't see, he couldn't move, he couldn't breathe.

Was he even alive?

All he recalled was seeing Bellamy raise the gun at him, hearing the shot being fired and then-

Nothing.

What the hell was happening?

He realised that in asking himself that question in his head, he was not indeed dead, which could only mean one thing: Bellamy's headshot hadn't killed him.

If he hadn't been stuck in an unconscious dream, he would have clutched his head and groaned.

That could have gone better...

Although he had no idea of knowing it, it wasn't down to sheer luck, or some kind of miracle that he was still alive.

Through millennia of human evolution, the forehead had evolved to become the thickest part of the skull, as insurance to protect against blows to the frontal lobes of the brain. It was why, in the past, experienced gangsters would fire two shots into the back of a person's head, in an execution style killing that ensured there was no coming back, while military snipers always aimed for either the temple or the eye socket of their targets, where the bone is much thicker. Bellamy was neither a gangster, nor a sniper, so had simply fired at the most obvious target – Aerrow's forehead – and left it at that, not knowing that such a shot, if treated in time, was actually quite surviveable.

Add to that Aerrow's tougher skeleton thanks to Oblivion's gene splicing, and the chemical decomposition of the gunpowder in the bullet that greatly reduced the firing velocity, and it meant, for all the intent behind it, Bellamy's killshot wasn't actually a killshot.

Not that anyone would know. The blow to his head still knocked him out instantly, and there he lay, unmoving, while the massacre took place.

Aerrow willed himself to move, to awaken from whatever he had fallen into, but to no avail.

The world remained dark around him, and he remained completely clueless as to what had happened. Had the attack gone ahead? Had Octavia managed to stop them? Was she safe?

He wasn't even sure how much time had passed. Hours? Days?

All he got was glimpses, flashes of the outside world.

Gunshots and screams echoing in his ears.

A trail of black running down his face

A dark skinned woman that looked vaguely like Indra standing over him

The utterance of a completely alien word: "Natblida"

His body being lifted from the rain and blood soaked ground.

The jolting of a horse-drawn cart carrying him over the bumps of the forest.

People crowding around him, in a room high above the ground, in the middle of the city

The slicing of a scalpel on his forehead, followed by his skin being sewn back together.

And then, finally, he awoke.

To come face to face with someone he never, ever thought he would see again.

Blonde hair tainted from life on the ground, a soft face covered by a hardened mask, and blue eyes that did little to mask the pain held within them.

Aerrow's mouth gaped open, and all he could do was stare in shock at the person sitting at his side.

An eternity passed before he was finally able to form a single, coherant, pain etched word:

"Clarke?"

…

He almost had to do a double take to make sure it was really her, the same girl he had once been in love with, the girl he had left Camp Jaha with, and the girl whom which he had inflicted the most unforgivable pain upon.

For a second, he almost didn't believe she was real, that he was in another hallucination. But real she was, if the pained scowl on her face was anything to go by.

"I'm getting really sick of having to patch up your bullet wounds, you know that?" She told him frostily, not even attempting to disguise the renunciation in her voice.

He winced at her tone, but he knew he deserved that and more, for what he had done to her, how he had hit her like that and caused her to lose her – their – unborn child. He had known she was still alive when he had seen the drawing of her, but never had he allowed the possibility that their paths would cross again to enter his mind.

Evidently fate had other ideas.

He slowly sat up, and with some difficulty swung his legs over the side of the bench he had been laid on to face her. He wanted nothing more than to stare a hole through the floor, in the same way his guilt was currently burning a hole through him, but he knew she deserved better than that, so he forced himself to look up and make eye contact with her.

Her expression was completely unreadable. He could tell that she too, was currently experiencing too many emotions to process at seeing him again, and not many of them were good. He could see that she was still impossibly angry at him, and she had every right to be, but such was her character that he could see that at least some small part of her was still glad that he was still alive as well.

"What happened? Where- where am I?" He stammered, still trying to get over his shock. The concussion from the bullet didn't exactly help either.

Clarke remained silent for a moment, still evaluating him through narrowed eyes, as if she was trying to discern how he had changed since they had gone their separate ways. Or maybe as if she was trying to reconcile him with the person she used to love...

When she spoke, her voice was simple, hard and guarded, "Take it easy, alright, you were shot. You're lucky Indra found you and brought you here to Polis-"

"Wait, Polis?" He interjected, narrowing his eyes in confusion. None of this made sense. "Why? Why did they bring me here?"

"I don't know!" Clarke raised her voice, sounding a little exasperated, "All I know is that Indra said something about your blood being special."

"Why is my blood special?"

Clarke paused, before inclining her head at him slightly. "See for yourself."

Cautiously, Aerrow brought his arm up and wiped the back of his wrist across the fresh wound in his forehead. When he brought it back down and saw what was on it, his eyes widened even further.

Where at the bunker it had been the darkest shade of red, now it was purely, completely obsidian black.

He could only stare at his wrist, dumbfounded. What the hell?

The colour of his blood only added to his already enormous list of questions, and he had no idea where to start. How did Clarke find her way to Polis? What had she been doing all this time? How had his blood somehow turned black?

His racing thoughts were interrupted by the sudden and loud blaring of a horn above them. Aerrow looked up at the roof, then back to Clarke in confusion. "What's-" he began, only to be cut off.

"The assembly horn." Clarke told him hurriedly. "The ambassadors of the 13 clans are being summoned by the Commander."

Aerrow flinched at the mention of Lexa. After she had 'killed' him, and betrayed Clarke at Mount Weather, he couldn't exactly say he liked her, and all this talk about ambassadors and 13 clans simply gave him more things he needed to talk to Clarke about. But for now, watching her gather up her medical equipment like she couldn't wait to get out of there reminded him of the one thing he needed to say more than any other.

"Clarke..." He rasped quietly. "Clarke!"

His raised voice forced her to pause what she was doing, and face him questioningly.

"About what happened..." He began, voice crackly and laced with guilt, "I'm so-"

"Not now, Aerrow!" She cut him off once more, closing her eyes to keep her emotions at bay. "Please. If you want some answers, I suggest you get dressed and meet me in the throne room."

With that, she hurried out of the room and closed the door forcefully behind her, leaving Aerrow to bury his head in his hands and face what he had done on his own.

Clarke!

Hope her long-delayed reintroduction was worth it. It looks like she and Aerrow are going to be spending some time in Polis together to make up for lost time...

I know that this chapter raises a lot of questions, most notably of which is: How did Aerrow become a nightblood? Well, aside from the purposes of narration, all I can say is: all will be revealed in time. There is a very specific reason I'm writing everything that happens, and trust me, it's all gonna build to a killer conclusion (whenever I get up to writing the rest of the story to get there)

In the meantime, that's it for now guys. Again, this chapter was meant to be a lot longer, but unfortunately the detail I put in meant it just felt too long for a singular chapter, so I split it in half, the second part of which will be uploaded next week. (It'll be worth the wait, trust me!)

Hope you enjoyed the update, feel free to leave and feedback