Clarke

It took three days for Gaia to show any sort of improvement.

When Clarke had given her a cup of the tea, Gaia had been coughing up blood and struggling to get enough air. By sundown on the third day, she'd stopped with the blood – her coughs had turned dry and deep. Her breathing had improved slightly, too.

It was a great sign, Abby agreed when Clarke called her over. The best they'd seen.

In between checking in on the prisoners' camp, and keeping up with Madi's lessons – she couldn't drop them now, just because people had finally returned and Madi was wounded, could she? – she sought solace in the hunt.

Almost as if egged on by the return of humans, the animals had become more populous. She'd seen two deer and a boar, all within three days. She'd killed one of the deer, and the boar, and they shared the food between Arkadia and those who had settled at the dropship.

She also taught her friends about the berries, and when Kane had divulged how they'd sent off the dead, she's hastened to send someone to bury roots in the grave to help the Earth regrow.

Kane had sent word to Echo, but not all those who had emerged healthy were willing to come near the sick again, even with assurances Abby could keep the illness from touching them. Old superstitions and fear still gripped them.

Clarke didn't mind. Less people in Arkadia meant more time for her to reflect on just how much things had changed, and more places to hide away when she became too overwhelmed with company.

Madi was the only one that understood, when Clarke slipped into med bay one afternoon. She'd tried to hide the evidence of her little breakdown, brought on by someone approaching her too fast from behind and brushing against her, but the young Nightblood had grown too attuned.

In Trigedasleng, to keep Abby and Bellamy from worrying too much, they spoke of their feelings about the change in the lifestyle they'd been subjected to.

'There's too many people,' Madi whispered, clutching at Clarke's hands as three people had their wounds from the prisoners checked over by Abby. 'Too much noise, too many footsteps.'

It echoed exactly what Clarke thought, and she said as much. They'd grown used to the silence, the stillness of the land. The lack of urgency in everything.

'People need things right this moment,' Clarke murmured the following afternoon, fresh off a gathering mission where she taught several of the Grounders how to identify which mushrooms were edible – and which were edible. 'Too much resting on things being done right now.'

Madi nodded her head in agreement. 'They all need.'

That was true, too. Whereas Clarke and Madi had learned to survive off of what the ground offered them, and be thankful for it when they found it, those who had been in the Bunker had not yet fully understood the scale of Praimfaya.

They needed meat. They needed cloth. They needed blankets.

They needed a time before the radiation destroyed everything all over again.

All Clarke and Madi needed was a chance to slowly adjust to life with people again, the chance that had been torn away by the crash landing of their friends.

She had even entertained the idea of just packing their meagre belongings – taking a portion of the food, grabbing their blankets and weapons and her sketchbook – and running. Finding somewhere with no other humans, just to let their minds settle until they were ready to try to assimilate again.

But that idea was thrown out the window when Madi's face lit up as she remembered about the friends she'd found outside the Bunker, and Kane, eager to please her, had managed to get them to agree to come to Arkadia.

They arrived on day six of the experimental antibiotics, when Gaia's fever had finally broken and Octavia's lungs finally stopped leaking mucus. Clarke had been replacing the poultice with fresh herbs when Kane ushered the small family through.

Their excited squeals hurt her ears, and when she turned her head to berate them, she had to pause.

Madi was grinning widely, a light in her eyes Clarke had never seen. Her cheeks were flushed pink, and her hands moving animatedly as she conversed with the ones she'd spent her first years with.

A part of her heart shattered.

She was no longer Madi's everything. The realisation almost sent her reeling, but the feel of Bellamy's heavy gaze on her forced her to straighten her back and continue.

The moment she'd finished, she left med bay, grabbed hold of her rifle and a small bag of supplies, and made her way to the tree she'd taken to nesting in while observing the prisoners.

It was the only place she knew was private, where nobody would follow her, for fear of exposing to the prisoners that they were being observed.

It was only when she was in the highest branch that she finally stopped to just breathe. In and out, long, deep breaths to calm her racing heart and slow her racing mind. A technique she'd picked up from Bellamy at some point, no doubt.

Finally able to control her thoughts again, she raised the rifle to peer through the scope. The prisoner's camp was quiet, only one person moving around the grounds. She had to focus on him as he turned to realise that he carried his own rifle …

Her heart rate picked back up, and she moved her hand to her ear, ready to radio in – only to realise that in her haste to leave, she'd forgotten it.

With no way to contact Arkadia, she settled back to observe a bit longer. Try to get a clearer picture of what she was seeing. Her gaze scanned around the tents and cabins they'd built.

She stopped on the crucifixes.

There were two, both currently inhabited. She could see the pained expression of one of the men nailed up, and when she lifted her rifle just slightly, could see the nail through his palm supporting him.

What terrible thing could a prisoner have done, that his fellow prisoners would have nailed him to a post?

She turned her attention to the second figure, and as she took in the greasy hair and ever-sarcastic face, let out a gasp.

They had Murphy.