This is the chapter that has resulted in so many delays in uploading for me. I spent so much time figuring out how to write this chapter and what I wanted to write in it, as it is crucial in developing the dynamic between Aerrow and Clarke for the rest of the story. This chapter was originally very different, but after much writing and re-writing, I'm fairly happy with how the chapter turned out.

Anger... fear… panic…

The emotions cut through him worse than the sniper bullet

Exemplified by the fact that as hard as he struggled, he couldn't escape.

He was trapped.

He saw flashes, the same ones he had seen when he was unconscious and dying

He again saw himself on the metal operating table, surrounded by surgeons, being injected with a green liquid. He felt his body spasm and his breathing hitch as he reacted violently to whatever he had been injected with. As quickly as they came, the spasms stopped, and he saw nothing but black

That calm serenity didn't last long though. Noise – pressure – began to build up inside his head, a constant barrage of whispered voices of people he used to know. He heard his parents, Arianna, Clarke, Sara and many others, and he had no idea what they were saying. It was torture. He clutched his head and screamed.

More flashes, ones he recognised this time

Dylan slaughtering Arianna…

Sara's fingers slipping through his as she was felled by Tristan…

Suddenly, the visions changed again, and once more he had no idea what was happening

He felt pain, more overwhelming and unbearable than anything he had felt before. He was in a tank of some sort, surrounded by a translucent liquid, with needles all over him, puncturing his skin and ripping him apart.

And then, horrifically, he saw himself standing in front of Clarke, driving a sword into her chest. Her body dropped and he turned and looked in a mirror.

Most shocking of all though, was the face staring back at him wasn't his. It was Sara's…

Aerrow awoke with a scream.

He sat up instantly, muscles tensed and rigid.

Breathing heavily and with his whole body trembling, he frantically looked around him and slowly the walls of his cave came back into focus. He must have fallen asleep at some point.

What lingered was that overwhelming sense of fear and danger. He whipped his head around, trying to find his sword. He snatched it off the ground when suddenly, he felt a soft, but firm grip on his wrist.

"Calm down Aerrow!" a female voice said to him "It was a dream"

Still caught up in the effects of the dream, Aerrow quickly shook the hand off his wrist, kicked its owner backwards and snatched his sword off the ground. He whipped around to face his attacker, sword held in front of him ready to strike. His hands were gripped so tightly around the hilt that his knuckles had already turned white.

Finally, his eyesight cleared and he began to see sense. He saw in front of him not an attacker, but Clarke. She was pressed back against the wall of the cave, looking utterly terrified

"It was a dream…" she whispered, eyes begging him for her life.

Still shaking with fear and adrenaline, Aerrow glanced from her face back to the sword on his hands, and he suddenly realised what he had done, what he had been about to do. Instantly, he released the grip on the sword and it clattered to the ground, before he hurriedly kicked it away. Then he dropped to the ground and cried.

He didn't even try to conceal his emotions from her as he had done in the past. Instead held his head in his hands and sobbed violently, utterly horrified of himself and what he had become. He closed his eyes to try and calm down but all he saw was the image from his dream, of Clarke standing in front of him, his sword impaled in her chest as blood stared pouring down her shirt. It horrified him, but what scared him even more was, just like last time, this images somehow felt too real to just be dreams.

He was expecting Clarke to stay where she was, or maybe even shoot back up the tunnel and take her chances with the acid fog. Surely she had a better chance of survival out there then in here with him.

So he was surprised then when he heard her kneel down in front of him and take his hands in hers. "Breathe, Aerrow. Breathe…" she soothed, lightly brushing her thumbs over the back of his palms.

He briefly glanced up at her but immediately lowered his head. He was unable to make eye contact with her, and was utterly ashamed of what he had just done to her. He had hurt her emotionally in the past but never, ever had he hurt her physically. Until now.

Eventually, he got his breathing back under control and leaned his back against the wall of the cave, staring despondently up at the roof, eyes still slick with tears.

Clarke sat down beside him "do you want to talk about it?

Aerrow blinked rapidly and sniffed, debating whether or not to share his tortured visions with her. He felt Cleo crawl onto him, before settling in his lap and staring up at him with beg, concerned eyes. Aerrow decided that it would probably be better to share the cause of his torture with her while she was willing to listen. It might be the only chance he had to share anything with her.

"I keep having these visions…" he rasped, avoiding eye contact "ever since you found me, I can't stop them… The thing is though… they don't feel like dreams… they feel real, like I've experienced this before"

Clarke took a deep breath in, unsure what to make of this information "What happens in them?" the pressed

"I'm lying on a table… these scientists are standing over me… they inject me with something…" he trailed off

Clarke noted the panicked tone in his voice. Something was happening to him, and even he didn't know what.

"And then this time it was different" he continued, voice distant "I saw you…"

"And what happened?" Clarke asked a little hesitantly

Aerrow glanced at her. She saw the utter terror in his eyes as he remembered. "I…" he started before his bottom lip quivered and he broke down again.

This time Clarke held him close, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and pulling him in to her chest, for no reason other than to try and calm him down. Eager to avoid being squished between the two humans, Cleo crawled away and back into the darker tunnel.

Meanwhile, Aerrow let his head hang low, resting it just under Clarke's chin as his shoulders heaved. Everything he had experienced, everything he had done, it had suddenly caught up to him and he could no longer handle it.

"Its ok… its ok" she whispered in his ear, running her hand up and down his upper arm.

"I'm sorry Clarke" he sobbed into her shoulder "I'm so sorry…"

Clarke said nothing. She didn't know what to say. She had no idea that this was going to happen. So she just held him in her arms until he began to calm down again.

"I never asked you this" Clarke said quietly "But how did you survive the battle. I locked you out…" her voice cracked as she said the last word.

Aerrow took a deep breath, as he raised himself out of her arms and leant back against the wall again. "I killed Tristan with an acid grenade" he croaked "It's how I got this" he touched the scar around his eye "Then while the rest were distracted I climbed on top of the drop ship. It shielded me from the fire"

He paused

"The next day, I climbed down, and you were gone, all of you, and then I saw her"

"Her?"

Aerrow glanced at Clarke and sniffed "Do you want to know why I can't let go of Sara?"

Clarke locked eyes on him, not needing to say anything. The gentle look in her eyes told him that he could tell her.

"That next day, I saw her skeleton" his voice sounded a million miles away "In it was a foetus"

Clarkes eyes widened slightly as she realised "She… she was pregnant?" she stammered

"She died carrying my child, Clarke" Aerrow said, his voice raspy and full of grief "I lost two lives that night, not just one"

Clarke stared at him with soft eyes. Now, finally, she understood why he had become the person he was now. She may not have liked it, but she couldn't deny the unshakeable bond he had with Sara. It was almost like the two were meant to be together. So to have her ripped away from him so violently and then to discover she had been carrying his child… Clarke couldn't even imagine how he must have felt. Mentally she cursed herself for the mistake she had made. She had been so focussed on what he had become that she didn't even stop to ask him why he had become that person.

"what did you do after that?" she asked in a slightly shaky voice.

Aerrow glanced at her, and as he remembered what happened she saw something ignite in his eyes, something dark.

"I found the grounders" he whispered, voice suddenly maliciously dark "and I killed them"

He swallowed but did not break eye contact. He began to shake again as his eyes narrowed with anger

"all of them" he growled "they're nothing but animals. So I slaughtered them like animals, in the same way they slaughtered her"

Aerrow saw the fear in her eyes come back as he spoke. He stopped himself, then raised his hand in front of him and clenched it tightly into a fist as he fought to control himself.

"I killed the guards because I wanted to find you" he said sadly "I killed the grounders because they deserved it"

Clarke's eyes widened as she heard this. He hadn't just massacred the guards. He had also killed the grounders. She realised why he was now so unstable. He had taken a lot of lives in a very short amount of time, and now she could see how he was tearing himself apart trying to deal with it. And suddenly, she saw that he wasn't this monster she had thought him of. He wasn't a killer at heart. He had been lost and consumed by grief, and she knew a little of what that did to people. In that moment, all her feelings of hostility towards him dissipated and were replaced by and overwhelming feeling of sorrow and regret that right when he needed her most, she wasn't there.

She said nothing as she reached out and grabbed his hand, before entwining her fingers with his.

Aerrow looked up at her, almost surprised at the gesture. He looked down at their hands guiltily "I meant what I said Clarke: you're too good for me, you don't deserve someone like me, you deserve better" he told her, echoing what he had said all those nights ago as Xavier "and I don't deserve your forgiveness either"

He made to pull his hand away but she held tight

"Like it or not, we still need you Aerrow" she told him gently "I still need you"

Aerrow focussed on her as she said it

"You can't change the past" she continued "so are you going to continue to torture yourself with it, or are you going to come back to the present, and live"

Aerrow stared long and hard at her.

"and I do forgive you" she added.

Aerrow did not know what came over him, but suddenly he felt an overwhelming desire surge through him. A desire to be with her again, to hold her close, to kiss her, to-

Acting purely on instinctual impulse, he suddenly leaned in to kiss her, but was interrupted by a short, low pitched sound coming to his right. Both Aerrow and Clarke quickly turned to see Cleo stationed at the entrance to the cave. The Lace Monitor then jerked her head up at the tunnel.

Aerrow glanced back at Clarke, completely unsure of what had just happened between them and, if he was honest, a little embarrassed. She looked tense, as if she wanted to move away. He figured she had every right to. She might have forgiven him, but by no means did that imply that she wanted to get back together with him.

"I guess that means the fog has cleared" he said awkwardly.

The two then quickly gathered their gear and followed Cleo up the tunnel and back to the surface.

Emerged first. He stood still, swaying slightly. He took a deep breath in, inhaling the scent of the fresh air. He thought back briefly to what had transpired just moments before. He glanced at Clarke as she climbed out of the tunnel, totally unsure of what to do now, and especially of what the two were now... He could see on her face that she was thinking the same thing.

"Clarke… what happened down there…" he began "I didn't mean to…" he trailed off

Clarke just stood in front of him and shook her head slightly "It doesn't matter, let's get back to the others" she said, before her mouth curled into a small smile "Xavier"

He looked at her as she said the name he had adopted briefly, and the corner of his mouth twitched. She saw something in his eyes, the slightest spark of happiness, and for a brief moment, the purple gleam returned to them. She smiled. The moment was only very short, but for that instant, she saw the old Aerrow still in there somewhere.

The two of them – along with Cleo, who scurried alongside Aerrow for the first time in weeks, much to the Lace Monitors liking - walked back the way they had come, and eventually they rejoined Abby and the others.

Clarke walked straight up to her mother, and the two hugged tightly, relieved that each other was still alive. Abby told Clarke how Raven had figured out how to listen to Mount Weather, and that they were going to get their friends out.

Aerrow stood off to the side, still unsure of how he felt. Raven noticed and walked slowly up to him

"I'm sorry" he said to her quietly

She looked his straight in the eye "we all have battle scars Aerrow" she said "suck it up, and build a brace for yours"

Aerrow smiled slightly at her advice. It would take a while, but maybe, just maybe, he could learn to live again.

Suddenly, a cry of "help" rang out nearby. Everyone turned in the direction the noise had come from. "Stay here Chancellor" said the guards as they grabbed their weapons and went over to investigate.

Aerrow pulled his other sword out of the tree, just as a figure came stumbling over a rise, revealing themselves to be someone none of them thought would ever see again: Thelonius Jaha. The former Chancellor of the Ark had sacrificed his chance of survival to send the rest of the Ark to the ground, so to see him here, alive, was something no one had been expected.

The man looked beaten and broken, and was covered in blood. Around his wrists were two loops of rope, as if he had been held prisoner. Aerrow suddenly got a bad feeling about where he had been.

Panting, Thelonius dropped to his knees, exhausted. He stared at the camp bearing his name which stood majestically in front of him, bathed in the afternoon sunlight. "I have a message, from the Commander" he rasped

Aerrow whipped his head up at those words. His hunch had been correct. He had been held captive by the grounders, by The Commander nonetheless. That they released him only meant one thing: they wanted him to tell his people something. He suddenly remembered the battle at the drop ship… where hundreds of grounders had been killed… as well as his subsequent massacre on that village (he winced as he remembered that… at least Clarke and the others didn't know about that). He didn't take the grounders as the 'forgive and forget' type. There would be consequences

Thelonius looked up at Abby, the fear in his eyes was tangible "Leave… Or die" he told them.

Several of their group gasped, Clarke and Abby stared at Thelonius in abstract horror. Aerrow closed his eyes and turned away. This was his fault.

"We have two days" Thelonius finished, leaving the others to deliberate their deathly situation.