A/N: Thank you for sticking with me and showing such immense patience, my Padawans. I'm trying my best to now get this story finished, so stay tuned!

Disclaimer: All things The 100 related belong to Kass Morgan and the writers of the amazing TV show – the rest is mine!

Chapter Seventeen

Lincoln

Water dripped relentlessly in the darkness. Every splat echoed loudly in the empty spaces that surrounded him. It niggled at his restlessness. It bated his confusion, his rising rage. He was angry – so angry. Why was he angry again? He ached for the peace the needle had given him. The red and the shiny. Where was he? He wondered. Was he supposed to be here? Why was it so dark, and cold, and why did he feel as though a building rested on his chest? Like bars had been put up around his mind?

Lincoln shifted his legs and found them bound. Tucking his chin and staring down his prone body, he struggled to lift his chest, his arms. His forehead was strapped down and his eyes rolled in panic. He gritted his teeth and made animalistic sounds. Grunted and swore. Spat and hissed.

He didn't like this, he didn't like this at all. He wasn't supposed to be here. Was he supposed to be here? This was wrong - all wrong. The dark and the cold and the straps.

He tried to think back to before the room. Before the darkness and the needle. It wasn't very long ago – surely? But what was wrong with him that he couldn't remember? His panic started to increase – a tremble wracked his body. Starting small and resulting in an all-out shake that rattled his teeth. Spittle flew from his mouth as he cursed and yelled. For anyone to hear him, to help him, to release him from this hell. One of the straps on his arm loosened and he latched onto that one small freedom.

A noise at the door. Metal on metal. High pitched beeps. Locks grinding, voices murmuring. People talking. Someone was coming.

Then he heard the word said in a soft, genteel tone as the door was opened slightly. The person paused. He knew that word. It meant safety, it meant peace. It meant home and love and light. How he needed the light right then. He craved it. But he craved something else as well.

The door swung open fully and he stilled his body and watched. Watched carefully and quietly. He remembered how to be quiet – he remembered how to observe. A doctor strode inside – a slim, pretty woman with dark skin, dark hair and a long pure white coat. She held a needle in one hand – the redness glowed like a beacon and a hunger began in his stomach. In his brain and in his nerves – thrumming relentlessly. He needed that needle. He needed the shiny red. He needed that light – didn't he just say he needed light? It was his. It belonged to him.

A small part of his mind recognised it was addiction. But he needed what was in that glass vial. He needed it, didn't he?

The doctor smiled at him and cooed. As though he were a frightened animal. It twisted her face from something pleasant to a monster in hiding.

"I've brought you a gift." She said. The soft, genteel voice knocked around inside his head. "The last one before you've got to start working for it."

Then he remembered the word. Another feminine voice, but one that didn't hide something monstrous. She approached with the confidence of the righteous. Sure of his docility.

He swung his arm wide and the loose strap snapped. The doctor was too close for her own good. He grabbed the needle from loose fingers, and after a moment's indecision, slammed it into her side, pressed down the plunger, and watched her roll to the floor with the breath knocked out of her.

He hesitated again. Did he really just give away his shiny and red? The door was still partially open and he knew, instinctively, that more people would be coming. To tie him down. To give him needles that he needed but didn't need. He used his unbound hand to rid himself of the other cumbersome straps holding him down to the table.

On his feet now, weaving a little unsteadily, he staggered out the door. His mind was clearing, ever so slightly. Like the wind breaching the fog. Acid fog like the mountain men liked to use. Only in his mind not on his skin.

His body felt alive. He thrummed with purpose and deadly intent. He remembered the word again.

"Clarke." He muttered deeply. "Clarke."

Bellamy

He didn't need this shit. He really didn't.

Knelt low in the cool shelter offered by the hybrid oaks with their skeletal leaves, Bellamy watched the survivors as they emerged from the broken and jagged metal mess that was formerly the Arc. It was an immense man-made structure – at once so familiar and so outlandish as it finally stood (more like collapsed in an exhausted heap) on solid Earth. Once the prison for dreamers, now forever a mass escape pod and deliverer of hope.

Look at him, getting all poetic. He was damn near making himself sick.

How they had survived the fall from space he didn't know, mostly he didn't care, but he was struck with the irony of the situation. These Arcadians were now the trespassers. The unknown, untrusted entity - despite the fact Bellamy recognised many of them. They represented an uncertainty. They represented a possible threat. More importantly, they represented change and he'd about had all the changes he could handle lately.

Anya sidled up beside him, Borga and Hayle ever-present at her back. "Why do you watch from the shadows? These are your people, are they not?"

Bellamy took a moment to organise his thoughts. She was a tricky one this woman, totally devoid of any humour or susceptibility to his charm, and he didn't want to show any weakness. He wouldn't have stopped at all if the shortest way to the mountain wasn't directly through the crash site. There wasn't time to divert their path and he thought they could sneak by, he just hadn't counted on the survivors behaving much as the 100 had when they first landed – spreading themselves out and exuberantly exploring with no rhyme or reason to their actions. Pure excitement and curiosity riding them.

He'd wanted to assess the situation without emotion, but Raven and Miller also wouldn't be deterred and he could practically feel their excitement.

He stood and turned to Anya. "My people are the people already on the ground – the ones who fought to survive with me over the past weeks. Those people locked my people up."

"Maybe you're being too harsh." Miller said. He crouched beside Bellamy and rubbed at his forehead as though the situation was giving him a migraine. "They pardoned our crimes after all."

"I don't think so." said Bellamy. "I shot Jaha in order to get on the spaceship – that crime hasn't been pardoned. Besides, you think they're going to leave us to live as we are? They're going to want us back under their thumb, and everything we've worked for will be dust. – to them we'll always be the kids."

Raven elbowed her way forward. "You're just looking out for your own interests. There's no reason to think we can't live in peace, together or apart."

Bellamy laughed. "Now who's sprouting optimistic, peace-loving bullshit? You're starting to sound like Clarke."

"You mean a rational counterpart to your emotional responses? There are worse things." Raven said.

"Either way, we're wasting daylight here." Bellamy said. "Octavia and the others are out there somewhere, in danger, and I don't intend to stick around and form a welcoming committee."

"You're such a pain in the ass." Raven said. Her words were a distracted mutter as she watched the latest survivors emerge from the hatch.

"That's what all the women say." Miller snickered.

Bellamy laughed and rose, readying himself to depart. His curiosity was satisfied – the survivors of the Arc would be too busy assimilating and tending to the injuries that he'd seen were plentiful to begin their search for the delinquents. It was all about priorities, as Clarke was constantly reminding him. Right now, his priority was to get to the mountain and figure out a way inside.

"Wait." Raven clutched his forearm and stared into the distance. "I think that's…yes, it's Abby!"

Her voice had risen considerably and Bellamy hushed her irritably. "And your point is?"

Raven rolled her eyes. "If anyone would be willing to drop anything and rescue Clarke from the mountain, it's her mom – come on!"

Before Bellamy could curse her out for her recklessness, she'd bounded forward, out of the cover of the forest and into the clearing of churned earth, riddled with debris still spiralling smoke into the sky.

"Stay here." He ordered the others, and cursing her he followed at a slow lope, fully knowing that for all the world he looked like he was taking a nice Sunday afternoon stroll. One with a rifle strapped to his back and the handle of a knife reassuringly brushing against his fingertips as they rested in his pockets.

The sight of Raven running full pelt at the survivors had unsurprisingly sent them into a panic. Rumpled guards scrambled for weapons, injured people cowered back, and Dr Abby Griffin, ever-composed and sure of her place in their society, stood with her hands on her hips. Finally recognising Raven, she broke what appeared to be a sincere smile.

"Calm down, everyone." Abby said. "It's just the kids."

"The kids." Bellamy practically choked on his sour expression. "Fucking kids they sent down to die."

The survivors watched on wide-eyed and cleared a path for the three of them. Raven embraced the woman with an obviously mutual affection. She rolled her eyes back at him, showing she'd heard his muttered words and typically didn't think much of them. She'd soon see he was right.

"Clarke." Abby asked, though it wasn't posed as a question. She gripped onto Raven's arms and her words held the kind of fervour only a parent could possess.

"We have a lot to catch up on." Raven said. "But she's safe…sort of."

"What do you mean, sort of?" Abby drew back. "What's happened to my daughter?"

Bellamy cleared his throat. "If you wanna ask those guards to drop their guns, we'll happily catch you up. But we'll need to have this reunion on the road – we have a princess and her people to rescue from the big bad tower."

Abby turned those piercing eyes on him. "Bellamy Blake."

A dark haired man with an air of confident authority shouldered his way past the guards, his easy manner and relaxed bearing helped Bellamy recognise him as Marcus Kane. Politician and wanna-be Chancellor.

"Ah. The man himself." Kane said. "It gives me great pleasure to tell you you're under arrest for the attempted murder of Chancellor Jaha." He gestured to the guards. "Arrest him."

Bellamy pulled the knife from his pocket when one of the guards managed to reach his side. "Touch me and I'll rearrange your face."

The guard, a severe looking blonde he hesitated to call a woman, purely because she frightened the hell out of him, gave both him and the other guards who nervously stayed back disgusted looks. She pulled out a laser baton and gave him a grim smile.

Before he could contemplate how to tussle her to the ground without getting a sparkly jolt to his kidneys, Abby called, "Halt."

The guard paused reluctantly, and Kane turned to Abby, his eyes veiled. "You're not Chancellor yet, Abby, and he's a criminal. You know our system."

"I know the system we maintained when we were stuck on the Arc, with limited space and a need for strict, unbending rules." She turned to address the masses as they watched with avid gazes. "Population control is no longer an issue, and all our laws need an overhaul to fit within our new circumstances."

Mutterings started – some humming with possibility, agreement, others the grumblings of an angry or unsure public.

"Besides." She turned back to Kane and cocked her hip. "You're not Chancellor yet either, Marcus, and you have no authority to order this man's arrest."

"I have my position as Captain of the Guard that grants me the right." Kane said. "And I agree, the laws need some work. But need I remind you that attempted murder is a capital offence, whether on the ground or in space. We need rules to live by and that's an unbreakable one."

"I hate to interrupt what I'm sure will be a thrilling political debate, sure to win the hearts and minds of the people in your running for chancellor." Bellamy said. "But I consider myself a citizen of Front Royal, and therefore, it's not under your jurisdiction to decide punishment for my alleged crimes."

"Front Royal?" Kane looked baffled.

"That's what I said." Bellamy smiled cockily. "Me and my co-leader will be willing to talk trade negotiations when you've got yourself a little more settled."

"Co-leader?" Abby asked.

Bellamy smiled. "You might know her – blonde, a little self-righteous, and annoyingly brave?"

"Dad!" Bellamy glanced behind him as Miller came sprinting forward, startling people into more gasps, and threw himself at a large, tired looking guard who had just emerged from the twisted hulk of the Arc.

"You'll find," Bellamy continued, over the touching family reunion nearby. "That it would be in your best interest to view us as allies. Trust me, you don't want to make enemies on the ground."

"Be that as it may, your crimes were committed when you were still a citizen of the Ark." Kane's lips thinned and he rocked back on his heels. "Place him under arrest!"

The crowd began to back away, shifting restlessly. The blonde looked at him like all her Christmases had come at once.

"Wait a second." Raven finally twigged the precarious situation and jolted forward. "There's no need for that."

"Miss Reyes, I presume." Kane smiled like a doting father. "I've heard a lot good things. Though I'm remembering fondly that you've committed quite a few crimes of your own."

"Hey." Bellamy scowled. "Your beef is with me."

"My beef, as you put it, is with any and all who disregard the laws put in place to keep us all safe." Kane eyed his surrounding guards and tilted his head towards them both. "Arrest them."

The blonde guard looked up at him from beneath furrowed brows and twirled her baton. "Are we gonna have a problem?"

Bellamy eyed all the guns pointed their way and sighed. "No problems here."

"What happened to Mr I-am-a-citizen-of-Front-Royal?!" Raven exclaimed from beside him as they were both trussed up with make-shift cuffs and led towards an open doorway of the wreck.

Bellamy discreetly shook his head at Miller when they passed. The last thing he wanted was for the only free one of them to get arrested for obstruction of justice too. "He wants to survive, that's what."

The best way out of this situation was through it. They'd just crashed – the likelihood of them having a totally secure prison was minimal. He'd find a way out of this, just see if he didn't. And then he'd make Kane eat his words.

Clarke

Clarke looked down at the ragged cut on her forearm. Creating the wound had been painful to say the least, and frankly, it just plain sucked to have to hurt herself in order to save herself. Irony itself. She was running low on options, however, and this one was the most easily done.

She'd retreated to a communal bathroom further down the corridor, thankfully without Finn dogging her footsteps (clearly he had some sense of boundaries, though not by much) and she'd broken off the edge of the large mirror to create the weapon. Hopefully no one would discover the snapped off corner anytime soon. But it was the only thing she could think of to buy herself some time, some privacy, and hopefully the chance to snoop around. She told them she'd tripped and caught herself on the edge of the utilitarian metal sinks. So far her excuse held up.

Finn was relentless, and while Wallace and his security were distracted, it was an opportune time to get her bearings and figure out if there was a way out.

She lay on a spotless white bed in the large medical ward that smelt of antiseptic. She'd been made to change into a lemon yellow hospital gown and her blood-contaminated clothing was taken away. Big industrial fans whirred along one wall, providing a rhythmic back beat to the gentle bleep of monitors. It was dark and dank in there, but she watched out of the corner of her eye as a nurse pottered about, administering IV fluids of some description to a couple of other prone, unconscious patients. Only medical patients were allowed in Medical so Finn had been turned away at the door. For that alone, Clarke was tempted to kiss the nurse in gratitude.

When the nurse left the room without a word, closing the door firmly and quietly behind her, Clarke wasted no time in hopping out of bed. She approached the nearest patient and shook his arm, calling out the name she read off his chart – he was out for the count. She looked at the strange ports on his chest that seemed to be filled with blood. Then she stared at the electronic system the ports and their tubes were connected to…were they recycling his blood?

He had numerous radiation burns over his face and arms that didn't look nearly as severe as they had a few hours earlier. It was beyond suspicious that his treatment should cure him so easily.

Clarke followed the tubes as they looped past the machines, her mind whirring. They went through the walls into the room beyond. How strange. There were circular, slatted vents close to the floor and she knelt down to try and see through. She got strange impressions of a cavernous space full of shadows and slants of light but it wasn't enough. And chains…was that noise the rattle of chains?

She yanked at the grate until her fingers felt numb and it gave, then crawled through the space just wide enough for a person to fit through. On the other side there were a mass of tubes and wires running along the floor. Some filled with blood and others empty. She stepped out of the shadows, looked up at the strange hulking items she sensed above her, and gasped.

Hanging from the ceiling, secured by the rattling chains around their bound feet, were numerous lifeless grounders. Stripped of their clothing, except for strange sterile underwear, their arms hung slackly towards the floor and they twirled sickeningly in the small wind flow created by the fans. Tubes entered them in identical ports to the patients in the medical ward. Like livestock in a butcher's freezer they were being drained of their blood. She felt sickened.

Clarke cautiously walked further into the room – gulping air as though she'd been deprived. There was a long hallway branching off a ways – lined with large metal cages from floor to ceiling on either side. Each one contained a dirty, skinny and helpless looking human – cattle caged for slaughter.

What the hell were the mountain men doing? Had they been stealing grounders all this time to use their blood?

A small noise from a nearby cage had Clarke jumping in surprise. Even though she knew she wasn't alone, far from it in actual fact, she felt jumpier than a cat on a hot tin roof. Or so the saying supposedly went.

The grounders started mumbling once they recognised her presence. They hissed out – some in warning, some with pleas of help and surrender. One dark haired individual curled into a ball caught Clarke's eye and she let out an involuntary yelp.

"Octavia!" She hurried over, sank to her knees and wrapped her fingers around the bars of the cage. Octavia looked up with bleary, unfocused eyes that cleared once she realised who had found her. She shifted to sitting and wrapped her hands around Clarke's, meeting her eyes with pure relief lighting her gaze.

"Hang on." Clarke said. "I'm going to get you out of there."

"It's locked." Octavia whispered, her voice hoarse. "But boy am I glad to see you."

Clarke looked around for something she could use as leverage to force the cage open. "How did you end up here?"

"Your grounder dude went to the other grounders for a truce – long story short, there was a reaper attack and we were captured. Turns out the mountain men keep the reapers as a kind of pet and roll them out when needed."

"Lincoln?" Clarke stopped searching when she found a crow bar and started levering at the gap between the door and side of the cage, pushing down with all her weight.

"I haven't seen him since the tunnels." Octavia said. She shuffled back to give Clarke some room. "They slated him for something called the Cerberus project. I was meant for harvest – you can see how well that turned out."

At her words Clarke's head shot up. "Cerberus?" she asked. "Are you sure that's what they said?"

"Definitely."

Clarke was well versed in her Greek mythology, and had a feeling she was beginning to get a well-rounded idea of the set up inside the mountain. Guard dogs of hell indeed.

"And the others?"

"I don't think they captured Bellamy, or Roan, or even Raven or Murphy."

So there was still hope for an outside intervention. At least they had that – if they could just get a message to Bellamy they could coordinate an escape plan. She levered her weight a bit more and the lock on the cage snapped. Octavia tumbled out into her arms in a rush, hugging her fiercely.

"You weren't joking when you said you were glad to see me." Clarke said.

Octavia laughed. "Too damn right."

"Clarke!" They both jumped and separated. It was said with a roar, reverberating through the room from somewhere outside, and Clarke knew exactly who it was, despite the odd, animalistic quality to the tone.

"Speak of the devil and he shall appear." Octavia said.

"Lincoln?" she called out desperately.

"Clarke!" He yelled again, closer. So close.

Clarke got to her feet and fled down the corridor. He came bursting through a set of double doors – sweat shining on his skin, his eyes black as night and his face set in a severe scowl.

She didn't hesitate. She ran straight into his outstretched arms and sobbed with relief. He was okay. She was okay. Everything was going to be okay.

"Clarke." He grunted against her neck where he'd buried his face. One hand was fisted tightly in her hair and the other in the material of her hospital gown.

She stepped back, still within the limit of his arms, but he tightened his hold and refused to let her go.

"It's okay." She soothed, running her hands down his back. "I'm okay. You're okay. It's okay." She repeated it like a mantra in her head again and again.

"Clarke." He rumbled. He pulled her back into his arms and held her closely. He smelt like Lincoln – like musk and pine. And something strangely sweet she couldn't identify.

"Okay." Octavia eyed them from behind Lincoln's shoulder from where she'd approached. "I think okay is a subjective word. We're still trapped inside this mad house, and hot grounder dude seems to be having some abandonment issues."

Clarke tilted her head back, and cradled Lincoln's cheeks with her hands. "What's wrong?"

"Shiny red." He mumbled. "The doctor gave me the light."

His words made little to no sense, but still, Clarke knew it was all she was going to get from him. Her excitement over the reunion was now faintly tinged with a new worry. Whatever they had given Lincoln made him virtually useless to any and all escape plans that didn't involve brute force.

"Okay." Clarke said. "I have a plan."

"Does this plan involve leaving this hell hole in the dust?" Octavia asked.

"It's your lucky day." She smiled grimly at Octavia. "I need you to take Lincoln and get out of here." Clarke braced herself when she felt him shudder. "He's not safe in here, and neither are you. Wherever he's escaped from he's bound to be found sooner or later, and all of us leaving doesn't help. They haven't done anything to harm me and that means I can get the rest out."

"I will not leave you." Lincoln got up in her face, his expression screamed violence. It should have been frightening, but she knew, even with whatever drug they had given him coursing through his system, he would never hurt her. Never.

Clarke gripped his hand as she pulled back from him

"I'm with him on this." Octavia thumbed Lincoln. "No way are we leaving you here."

"We need an inside man." She said. "You know that – I'm the best choice – the only choice."

Octavia squirmed. She nodded silently at Clarke, reluctantly accepting her decision. Lincoln on the other hand, was in the wrong frame of mind for pretty much anything that involved rationality.

Clarke gripped his hands and managed to step back. He watched her like a hunter, his steps a prowl. Eyeing a door she'd passed earlier and praying her suspicions were correct, she led Octavia and Lincoln through it and stopped when they all stood in the small square, windowless space. Lincoln went happily enough, seen as they were still together and touching.

She turned herself about in the room and edged to the conspicuous lever against the entrance wall. She stepped forward and kissed Lincoln firmly, holding her forehead against his for a few seconds and relishing in his presence.

"I'm not safe if you stay." She told him in a subdued voice. "You need to detox, and you can't do it here."

She looked to Octavia. "Tell Bellamy the key to the reapers is detox – get them off that drug and you've got yourself an army and a way in with the grounders."

Lincoln eyed her with wariness. "Remember, I love you."

She stepped back as far as she could and yanked the lever down. She watched them disappear down the chute, Octavia shrieking in surprise, and felt irrationally close to tears.

"Get home." She called out after them. "Get safe, and then come back for me."

Boots reverberated loudly off the floor nearby and it jolted Clarke back to the situation at hand. Quick as a flash, she exited the room marked 'Disposal' and ran to the grate, sparing only a pained glance at the still caged grounders whose noise level was rising with her anxiety. Thankfully, it just meant they covered the sounds she was aware she was making in her rush.

She scrambled through the hole and propped the grate back as best she could, then leapt for her prior position. Clarke lay back down in the hospital bed, closed her eyes and stilled her movements, just as the door was swung open and banged against the wall loudly. She held her breath and prayed.

A/N: Thanks for reading, lovelies! All comments are welcome – the encouragement is also very much appreciated – much, much love!