[2]
Bellamy should have known better than to lie to Clarke, but he had told himself that it wasn't really lying—he just wasn't telling her everything.
It hadn't mattered that he was trying to protect her by keeping his trips outside the fence secret, he knew that was just an excuse he told himself to feel better.
But the truth was, that he could see Clarke beginning to crack under the strain of what had happened to her, and she was barely holding it together. She was working herself to the bone, trying to make sure that everyone else was okay while she clearly wasn't.
He knew that what had happened in the mountain and with the Grounders had almost destroyed her—because it had almost destroyed him too. He didn't know how else to deal with this pain other than to push it down deep and focus on what was coming. The Mountain Men would come; it was only a question of when, and Bellamy wasn't planning on letting Cage and his people kill any more of the 100.
"Are you listening, Bell?"
"Yeah," Bellamy said automatically, blinking and focusing on Octavia, who raised her eyebrows at him.
They were in his room, mostly because Bellamy felt too uncomfortable being in Octavia and Lincoln's. He didn't mind the thought of them together anymore, but looking at Lincoln reminded him of his betrayal under the mountain. He didn't blame Lincoln, but that didn't stop the tremors that shook his body when he remembered the shame of being stripped and washed with a hose or the horror of being shoved into a cage that barely fit him.
Octavia rolled her eyes and lightly smacked his arm. "Then you can give me answer."
"To what?" Bellamy asked, and then winced.
"I knew you weren't listening." Octavia shook her head, braided hair lashing out behind her. "I want to know what's going on with you and Clarke."
Bellamy's eyes narrowed. "Nothing."
"The screaming match outside wasn't nothing."
"Tempers got out of hand." Bellamy shrugged. "We yell at each other all the time."
"That was before." Octavia was suddenly serious, pinning him with eyes that reminded Bellamy painfully of their mother. "This is now. I know that Mt. Weather changed both of you, it's changed all of us, but you two are taking the weight of what had to be done and it's hurting you both." She paused, and Bellamy wondered when his little sister had grown up, but he didn't have to think very hard. Earth was a harsh teacher; they all had to grow up in order to survive it. "Maybe you should try talking to her next time. Yelling in her face isn't the best move."
Bellamy made a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat, but he couldn't make any promises when it came to Clarke.
Their conversation petered out and Octavia left after a brief, hard embrace, leaving Bellamy alone in his room, and for the first time all day Bellamy allowed himself to feel the pain of what he had been pushing down since this morning.
It hit him hard, knocking the breath out of him, and he slid down to the metal floor, back pressed against his closed door. He pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them and burying his face to hide his tears. No one was here to see them, but that didn't matter to Bellamy. In space, he hadn't allowed himself to cry, not even when his mother was floated, because crying meant weakness and weakness meant death, and he was determined to live.
Things were different on the ground, but not different enough for him to show weakness, even in private.
After a minute of silent sobs, Bellamy decided that was enough and took a shuddering breath, lifting his face from his knees and swiping a hand against his cheeks. He grimaced at the wet, sticky feeling left behind on his skin, but didn't get up to wash his face.
Sitting with his back pressed to the cold metal, it occurred to Bellamy that he, and all of the 100, were truly fucked up. They had been through too much, seen too much, to ever really be okay again.
Now, each one of them were faced with two choices: pick themselves up and get on with it or be swallowed by despair. To Bellamy, it was an easy choice; he wasn't going to give up. Not now, not ever. They were still alive, still breathing, so he clung to that flicker of hope, and was determined not to let go.
But sometimes the pain of living overwhelmed him.
Bellamy cleared his throat and then stretched his legs out in front of him, wincing at their stiffness. He turned his mind to what was waiting for them outside the fence; it was a more pressing matter than the turmoil of emotions churning in his stomach.
Clarke acted like it wasn't important, but Bellamy had been searching for any sign of Cage's people, and so far hadn't seen anything that suggested they were coming out of their mountain, but that didn't mean they weren't.
He didn't know how many of them there were, but had learned months ago not to underestimate them, and he wasn't going to wait around for them to kill more of his people.
Bellamy stood up, body aching. He grimaced and dug his thumb into his stiff neck. At this rate, he was going to wear himself out quickly, but Bellamy was pretending that he was invincible and would worry about his body breaking down when it actually broke down.
He went to the washbowl on a small nightstand near his cot and threw a handful of water on his face. The coldness of it shocked him, and he shivered as water dripped down his neck into the open collar of his shirt.
There was no mirror in his room, but he was sure he looked like hell. He just didn't really care.
He flung open his door and set off towards the med bay; Murphy owed him a talk.
Bellamy ignored the looks that people were shooting him as he brushed by. None of them were part of the 100, so he tried not to let it bother him, but their dismissive thoughts were clear on their faces, making it difficult. He had bled for these people, but they didn't seem to care.
Of course, he wasn't making it easy for them, especially after the spectacle he and Clarke had put on for everyone outside. Only a few hours had passed and no one was going to forget it in a hurry.
If this was before they rest of the Ark had come, when it was just the dropship and the 100, no one would have cared that Bellamy and Clarke were shouting at each other; it had been fairly typical back then.
An amused smile flickered across his lips; he didn't think he would ever be nostalgic for the dropship days, but here he was.
He turned a corner and ran directly into Clarke.
The breath huffed out of him as Clarke's head knocked into his chest and her blonde hair got caught up in his mouth. She let out a yelp and stumbled backwards, body starting to tip. Bellamy, still spitting out hair, shot out his hands to catch Clarke's shoulders, steadying her.
"Watch where you're going—" Clarke started, angrily, a tone that simultaneously irritated him and made his heart thump fondly against his ribs. She cut herself off when she looked up, seeing who she had run into. She hooked a strand of her loose blonde hair behind her ear. "Oh, it's you."
"You sound thrilled about that."
"I thought I'd already dealt with you today."
Bellamy wasn't sure if she was trying to pick a fight or not, but they had given the Arkadians enough entertainment for the day, so he chose to press down on his rising temper.
"So, you have a Bellamy Blake quota per day?" Bellamy asked, eyebrows rising. "One fight, one screaming match, and one apology and that's it?"
Clarke stared at him, frown forming on her face, but then she shook her head and it disappeared. "No, that's not what I meant. I just thought you were taking a break. Resting in your room or something."
Bellamy shrugged, and then realized his hands were still pressing down on Clarke's shoulders. He let go and dropped his them back down to his sides, shifting uncomfortably. "You know me, Clarke, I've got things to do."
Clarke's eyes were on his hands, but then she blinked and then focused on his face again. "So, then what are you doing?"
"What do you think I'm doing?" Bellamy said. "I'm going to talk to Murphy."
A little huff of annoyed air puffed out of Clarke. "You didn't have a nice long chat when you were outside the fence?" She didn't give him a chance to answer. "You're going the wrong way. Murphy's in the med bay, not the brig."
Bellamy stared at her and then coughed, trying to hide his embarrassment; he assumed that Murphy would be spending some time in the brig, but there really was no reason for that assumption other than Murphy being a son of bitch that probably deserved it.
"I'm heading that way too," Clarke said. She side-stepped him and set off the way Bellamy had come. "You can come with," she called over her shoulder.
Bellamy bit down hard on his bottom lip, stopping himself from snapping at her, and then spun around and fell in line with her.
They didn't say anything more, walking in silence, until they reached the med bay. Bellamy got the door open with one hand and ushered Clarke in with the other.
Inside, Murphy was alone, stretched out on one of the white cots that lined one wall, but he looked up when the door shut behind them. He let out a groan and his head dropped back down to the pillow. "I should have known you two wouldn't leave me alone for more than a few hours."
"We need to talk about where you've been, Murphy," Clarke said, striding forward with Bellamy close on her heels.
"You're lucky the pain meds have kicked in," Murphy muttered, pushing himself up into a sitting position. "I'm in a good mood."
"You're lucky that we're in a good mood," Bellamy shot back, and then felt childish for rising to Murphy's bait.
Murphy sent him a toothy grin, as if he knew what was going through Bellamy's head.
Bellamy's hands curled into fists, and he gritted his teeth together. Murphy had been back all of a three hours and he was already getting under Bellamy's skin.
"So, what do you want to know?" Murphy asked lazily, eyes flicking to Clarke, who stood closet to him, arms crossed over her chest.
"Let's start with where you've been and where the others are," Clarke said, taking the lead on the conversation, just like normal, but Bellamy didn't mind; he thought that he might punch Murphy if he had to talk to him for longer than a few seconds.
Murphy's eyes shuttered and he looked away briefly, all the mocking playfulness draining out of his body. He sagged against his cot, hands fisting into the sheet that covered him. "The others are dead. Jaha too."
The weight of that sunk onto Bellamy's shoulders and his head bowed. He had never liked Jaha, that much had been made clear when he had taken a shot at the other man, but Jaha had survived that and much more. It didn't seem right that he should be dead.
"How?" Clarke finally asked, breaking the thick silence. Bellamy looked up from his muddy boots and back to Murphy.
Murphy shrugged and then grimaced at the movement. "The desert got half of them and Grounders got the rest. Except for me and Jaha. We got pretty far on his insane quest, even found some mansion in the middle of nowhere, but…by then he realized that this whole thing had been crazy. I don't think he could handle any more deaths on his hands."
Ah. So Jaha had taken his own life. Bellamy exchanged a glance with Clarke, and then turned back to Murphy. "But you survived."
A bitter smile slipped onto Murphy's lips. "It's what I do."
There was more to Murphy's story, something he wasn't telling them, but Bellamy was suddenly tired, too tired to try and get it out of him.
Evidently, Clarke felt the same. She reached forward and put her hand on Murphy's shoulder, giving him a gentle squeeze, surprising both Murphy and Bellamy. "I'm glad you're alive, Murphy."
Murphy eyed her hand on his shoulder and gave her a slow nod. "Me too."
She let go and then turned to leave, motioning for Bellamy to follow.
"Hey," Murphy called out, stopping them, "that wasn't all."
Clarke froze, finding Bellamy's eyes with her abruptly worried ones. "What else," she asked, facing Murphy again.
"There are Grounders out there," he said, jerking his chin, "hiding along the fence line."
Bellamy frowned, opening his mouth to demand how Murphy knew that, but Murphy kept going, "And from what I heard, you've got one hell of a problem coming down from the mountain."
The air seemed to freeze around Bellamy, and he couldn't move. Was it starting now, the thing that he had been waiting for since they had come back into the flimsy safety of Arkadia? He had expected fire and blood, a clear sign that war had started once again, not some rumor of promised violence.
"What?" There was a faint tremor in Clarke's voice, and Bellamy's head jerked around to eye her. Her face was pale, lips bloodless, but she wasn't looking at him.
"The Mountain Men," Murphy said. "You didn't kill all of them."
"No shit," Bellamy ground out, nails biting into his palms as his fists tightened, "we know that."
"Oh good," Murphy said, giving him a sardonic look, "because they want to kill you both for what you did."
"How do you know—" Clarke started to demand, heat in her voice, but Murphy waved her off.
"I made a friend who told me—it's not important."
"Then why haven't they killed us?" Bellamy said, glossing over the fact that Murphy had a found a friend. "They have the resources to do it. They could wipe us out if they wanted."
Murphy gave him a shrug, but Bellamy had stopped paying attention to him, his focus was only on Clarke now.
Her lips were tight and she shook her head at him. "Cage wants us to suffer…he wants me to suffer."
"That's not going to happen," Bellamy said immediately, knowing his promise was empty; Cage was more than capable of making them both pay for the mountain.
Clarke gave him a long look, easily seeing through his lie, and then shook her head again. Panic was beginning to flicker across her face, and Bellamy could see her chest rising and falling rapidly.
"Hey," Bellamy said, reaching out and pressing a hand to her forearm. He could feel her shaking beneath his palm, but maybe that wasn't her; maybe he was the one shaking.
Clarke blinked hard, staring up at Bellamy. Her eyes were brimming with fear and anger. She caught his hand with one of hers, pinning it in place on her arm. After a moment, her breath slowed and her eyes snapped into a singlemindedness focus.
"So what do you want to do?" she finally said, voice strong. She let go of his hand and he let it drop back down to his side.
Staring at down at Clarke, Bellamy took a breath, filling his lungs with cold air, and just like that, he was okay. This is what he knew: constant war, battles to be fought and won, all with Clarke by his side. They were back where they had started, but it felt right, like this is where they were supposed to be.
A part of him wondered if they would ever know how to just be without this furious, never ending, fight to survive. A deeper, twisted part of him whispered that he would never know peace.
"Bellamy?" Clarke said, bringing his attention back to her. "What are we going to do?"
"We get them before they get us," he said easily. "We kill them this time. All of them."
.
.
Clarke and Bellamy held a meeting with a most of the 100 an hour later. Night was falling quickly, dinner and curfew making it easier for them to be missed, but Bellamy didn't care if Abby or Kane found them and demanded to know what was going on.
As far as he was concerned, this was about the 100 and no one else.
A nervous energy was pulsing through him, making his hands tremble. He had them jammed into his coat pockets so that no one would see, but with Clarke at his side, telling their people about Cage and the mountain, Bellamy didn't think anyone was looking at him.
None of the 100 were taking the information well, anger and fear was rippling through them, and if Bellamy or Clarke didn't do something panic was going to overwhelm the room.
"Cage is alive?" Raven said, voice rising over the angry buzz of the others. She had stood up, body tilted to keep her weight off her bad leg, but she didn't look like she even cared about the pain that must have been radiating throughout her body.
Bellamy wanted to tell her to sit down, but she was furious, eyes bright, and was rubbing at her leg with a mindless determination; she wouldn't listen to him, too intent on the lies that Bellamy and Clarke had told.
They had made the choice not to tell anyone about Cage in the hollow remains of the control room after Monty had run out to find Jasper and the others. It had been just the two of them, standing in the oppressive silence, and Bellamy had been staring at Clarke, who had been determinedly not looking at him, her eyes on the security screens.
That's how they figured out that Cage was still alive; they had seen him running through the belly of the mountain, trying to get upstairs where his people had just died, his face a mask of fury.
Clarke had spun to face Bellamy, eyes sparking with unshed tears. We need to get out of here. Now.
But Bellamy had already been moving. What about him? Cage?
Leave him. Clarke had said, and brushed past Bellamy.
It wasn't until they had been the last two in the mountain, their people already ushered outside, that they had seen Cage again, with more than five of his soldiers behind him.
But no one had made a move to kill the other. Cage's anger was palpable from where he had stood, but he held a hand up, keeping his soldiers in check, so Bellamy and Clarke, tired of the blood and death had left.
It was stupid, and they both realized it. Even stupider was deciding to keep the 100 in the dark, and they were paying for their choices now.
Bellamy's jaw was clenched tight, as he attempted to let the glares of his people bounce off him, keeping his attention on Clarke at his side, but he could feel them, the hot stares of kids who trusted him, boring into his skin.
"Yes," Clarke said, voice loud. The muttering slowed as the 100 leaned forward to hear. "Cage is alive. Others are too, but we don't know how many."
"Man, this is bullshit," Miller muttered. He was sitting in the front, his feet propped on the table directly in front of him. His hat was pulled low, shielding his eyes from Bellamy's view.
"You had no right to keep this from us," Raven snapped. It seemed she had nominated herself as spokesperson for the 100. They were staring up at her, nodding and adding quiet whispers of agreement. "Two months! You've both known about this for two months!"
"There wasn't anything we could do," Clarke started, hands rising on either side of her body like one of those old preachers from before Earth went to hell, but Bellamy thought she looked more like an avenging angel.
"Bullshit," Miller said again, snapping the word out like a whip and Clarke flinched faintly at Bellamy side.
Bellamy's jaw clicked, teeth grinding together, and he threw a long look at Miller, who stared back, not cowed.
"We could have been figuring out a way to stop them," Raven continued. "All of us!"
Shouts of agreement rose up, and for a moment, Bellamy thought that they were about to lose control of the room. It had been a long while since the 100 hadn't listened to him or Clarke, and the hot feeling of regret heaved in Bellamy's stomach.
"Maybe we shouldn't stop them," Jasper suddenly called out, halting all conversations.
Bellamy's breath hitched a little in his lungs as he found Jasper, sitting the thick of the 100, body sprawled on a chair as if he didn't have a care in the world. Bellamy had failed Jasper, failed him so completely that Jasper would never recover. There was nothing sparking in Jasper's hollow eyes, and Bellamy didn't know that he would ever see anything in them again.
"What?" Clarke asked him sharply. Her chin jutted out angrily and Bellamy sent her a warning look, but he was ignored.
"I said, maybe we should just let them kill us," Jasper said, unfazed by Clarke's dark look. He gestured vaguely. "Cage and his soldiers. Let them finish the job. It's not like we've got anything left for us."
"That's so incredibly selfish—" Clarke snapped, but Bellamy stopped her, grasping her bicep in a tight grip. She threw him a glare, but, unlike the 100's accusing looks, hers bounced right off Bellamy with ease.
"We aren't going to just roll over, Jasper," Bellamy said, keeping his hand on Clarke, but angling his body to face the 100. "That's not who we are."
Jasper's head cocked to the side, eyes raking Bellamy up and down. "You're right, Bellamy. We're much more the type of people who kill everyone to survive. Kids. Women. Innocents—we don't give a shit." He let out a humorless laugh and then paused, eyes going hard. "Or rather, you and Clarke don't give a shit."
"Oh, fuck," someone muttered in the silence that followed.
Frozen for only a brief second, Clarke twitched under Bellamy's hand, starting to jerk towards Jasper.
But Bellamy was already moving. He quickly stepped behind Clarke, letting go of her arm, only to wrap both of his arms around her, pinning her to his chest.
"Bellamy!" she snapped, struggling against his hold, but Bellamy didn't let go.
His heart hit his ribcage painfully, and he could taste metal on his tongue. His knuckles were stinging with phantom pains, aching to hit Jasper in the face, but with Clarke pressed against him, he knew that he couldn't do that. He couldn't beat Jasper bloody for speaking up, and he wasn't going to let Clarke do it either.
"You don't know what you're talking about, Jasper," he bit out, breathe heaving out of his lungs.
The top of Clarke's head hit his chin as she jerked against him again and his teeth clacked together with a snap; he tightened his grip on her, and she stopped.
Jasper grinned at him, enjoying their anger. He let it wash over him as he stretched his arms out over his body, lacing his fingers together and propping them behind his head. "Are you sure? I think I have a pretty good idea. I was with everyone in the mountain when they died, remember? I watched the air poison their bodies, and eat them from the inside out."
"You wanna blame us for saving your life? Fine," Clarke said, voice dropping low and cruel. "But that's what we did. We did that," she gestured between herself and Bellamy behind her. "I guess we didn't realize that maybe we should have just let you—,"
Bellamy squeezed Clarke tight, cutting her off. "Clarke, don't." His voice was quiet, only meant for her. He couldn't see her expression, but she didn't continue.
"Then you should blame me too," Monty spoke up, voice quiet and laced with pain. He stood in the back of the room, leaning against the closed doors.
Jasper didn't even spare him a glance, keeping his eyes on Bellamy and Clarke. "Oh, I do, buddy. I do."
Bellamy watched as Monty flinched, as if Jasper had hit him across the face, and his anger boiled. "Shut up, Jasper," he growled.
"Just calling it like I see it," Jasper said, with a shrug.
"Let go of me, Bellamy," Clarke hissed. She was vibrating against his chest, pent up rage coursing through her.
But Bellamy didn't. If he let her go, than he was going to follow her, like he always did, and beat Jasper senseless.
"Maybe you and Clarke should go talk to Cage," Jasper continued, eyes flicking from Clarke to Bellamy over her head. "Why should the rest of us suffer for what you two did?"
Bellamy swallowed hard, and his grip on Clarke loosened, but she wasn't struggling anymore.
Jasper was just talking shit, but Bellamy couldn't help but wonder if he was right. Maybe he should go to Mt. Weather and give himself up for the rest of the 100; his life for theirs.
But it wouldn't work; Cage would never let this go so easily. He would want Clarke too, not just Bellamy alone, and Bellamy would never let that happen.
"Don't be stupid, Jasper," Raven finally said, twisting around to glare at him. "Cage would kill us all, regardless if he kills Bellamy and Clarke." Her words were flippant, but they were laced with trickles of alarm.
"It was just a suggestion," Jasper said easily.
"Well, keep it to yourself," Raven shot back.
.
.
In the end, they didn't come to any sort of agreement. No one was quite over the fact that Clarke and Bellamy had lied to them about Mt. Weather, and not knowing what Cage's endgame was made it hard for Clarke to figure how to fight him.
Her head hurt, pain from her tense neck radiated up into her skull, making it feel heavy. She supposed it would help if she slept more, like Abby wanted her to, but she couldn't sleep.
It was easier for the ghosts of everyone she had killed to slip into her mind at night, when it was dark and quiet. So she just didn't sleep.
She had told everyone to get something to eat and then head to bed, but she hadn't followed her own instructions.
Outside, it was cold, but the stars were bright overhead and Clarke liked the taste of the clean air on her tongue. Despite everything, she was still amazed that they had made it to Earth, that they had survived the journey and continuous fights.
She was sitting on top a makeshift guard tower that Bellamy had insisted they needed. Abby hadn't really listened, but that hadn't deterred Bellamy and he built it anyway, with the help of the 100.
Sometimes, Clarke wondered if it would be better for everyone if she gathered the 100, and they all left. The Arkadians wouldn't have to deal with the angry child criminals anymore, and instead they could get on with their lives, while the 100 went back to how it was during the dropship days.
She had to remind herself that there shouldn't be a line between the Arkadians and the 100 anymore. Now, they were all one people.
But it didn't feel like that. It felt like she was still leading her people with Bellamy, while Abby and Kane tried to force them to conform to how it had been in space. It felt like she was fighting for any scrap of respect here when she had already earned the respect of the 100.
There was a tone of voice that Bellamy used when talking to the adults, despite being one himself. It was two parts mocking and one part patient, as if he was dealing with a young child. He had mentioned to her in passing that none of the Arkadians knew what it was like on the ground, and they never would really know.
He was right in a way. What the 100 experienced in those early days had changed them all. They weren't kids anymore; they had too much blood on their hands from being forced to grow up too quickly.
Generally, Clarke wouldn't care how Bellamy talked to the authority figures inside the fence; he was more than capable of getting himself out of the brig if Abby decided he was being too insolent, but the rest of the 100 had started to adopt his tone, and it was beginning to border on blatant disrespect, and now she found herself starting to speak to her mother with the same tone of voice.
Honestly, it was the least of her worries, but Clarke couldn't stop thinking about how they were going to continue to live with the Arkadains if they couldn't stop thinking with an us vs them mentality.
"Clarke?" Bellamy's voice floated up to where she was sitting and a moment later the top of his head appeared as he climbed up the ladder.
She shifted to make space for him as he pulled himself through the hatch and onto the wooden floor.
He arranged himself into a sitting position next to Clarke, close enough for his arms to brush hers every time he breathed. She could feel his body heat and shivered in response. She wanted to move closer, to wrap her arms around him to help keep the chill away, but resisted the urge.
"You took my hiding place," Bellamy said after a moment.
Clarke gave him a sidelong look, but he was staring through the opening of the tower into the night sky.
"I didn't know you'd claimed it," she said.
"I made it, didn't I?"
She could see a smile curling at the edge of his mouth, and for a moment she allowed herself to stop thinking about the impending war and instead about the boy at her side that had become one of her closest friends.
"You never learned to share very well, huh?" she said with a smile of her own.
Bellamy shrugged. "I learned. Octavia usually wanted everything that I had."
The smile slipped off Clarke's face; she forgot that Bellamy had been protecting someone his whole life, that this, trying to protect the 100, wasn't new to him.
"But I wasn't very good at it," Bellamy continued, voice light. "There were some things that were just for me. I hide those under my bed." He paused. "But I'm pretty sure that O found them anyway."
How could she not? Octavia grew up in that tiny room and probably knew every inch of it, including all of Bellamy's hiding spots.
"I'm sorry," Bellamy offered after a beat. "I came up here to cheer you up."
"You're not doing a very good," Clarke said, not denying that she needed it.
"It could be worse. Jasper could have come up." His mouth curled and he glared off into the distance at the dark tops of the trees that surrounded them.
"Jasper," Clarke muttered, pulling her knees up to her chest while Bellamy nodded in agreement.
They were quiet for a moment, and then Clarke added softly, "But…he's not completely wrong."
Bellamy didn't say anything, and when Clarke looked over at him, his face was blank and she wondered if he had heard her, but then a shudder rippled down his body and his eyes sharpened as he stared back at her.
"Yeah," he said, just as softly, "I know."
.
.
A/N: Thanks for reading!
Some continued notes about this fic:
I'm flying by the seat of my pants a little. There are plot points that I know I want to have happen, but I'm not completely sure how I'm getting there. I'm just hoping that it's all going to make sense by the end.
There's this short fic on AO3 by opensummer called rule one (idk how to make it a link) that I love, which is literally about Abby not understanding Bellamy and Clarke's relationship or who the 100 are now, and I just love it and wanted to incorporate that idea into my fic if I could, which is why I'm making Abby and Kane and the adults a bit unlikable.