A/N: I struggled a bit with this one, my energy levels are really low at the moment, but we got there in the end. Only another three to go (I think) before the epilogue!
Disclaimer: All things The 100 related belong to Kass Morgan and the writers of the amazing TV show – the rest is mine!
Chapter Nineteen
Raven
As they snuck away through the impending darkness, Raven took one last look back at the words someone had blowtorched into a hunk of rusted metal. 'Camp Jaha', the sign read. Backlit by various fires people had begun for warmth, before the chaos had sent them running for cover, it seemed to emanate with a level of power the Arcadians had once possessed, and were still struggling to maintain in this new world.
Up ahead, Bellamy and Murphy strode purposefully in the direction of Mount Weather. Abby had told them others would be joining them up ahead, people who either had relatives among the hundred or felt that what Kane was doing was wrong, and they were eager to put some distance between themselves and the guards. She followed behind at a slightly slower pace, wanting to put a little space between herself and the others – this time for the sake of privacy.
She turned to look at Abby, who, despite her steadfast composure, was clearly enraptured with the surrounding forest and everything it contained. Luminescent, blue butterflies swarmed past and spiralled away through the trees in a spectacular dance, drawing a gasp from her companion. The glowing moss carpeting the floor and the peculiar-shaped mushrooms seemed to hold a lot of fascination for her too.
"I can't believe you guys set off explosives." Raven said.
"When it comes to my daughter, there isn't a lot I wouldn't do to make sure she's safe." Abby ran a hand through her hair and sighed, betraying her worry. "But I made sure they were in areas restricted to the general populous – sites we'd deemed too dangerous - and really they were more for sound effect than anything."
"Still…explosions? If they find out you had anything to do with it, never mind orchestrated it, you'll be seen as a traitor. Likely arrested."
Abby shrugged. "You mean when they find out."
"What will you do?" Raven sent her a sympathetic look.
"What I've always done - whatever it takes to protect Clarke and whatever it takes to survive, in that order."
Raven was struck with such a strong sense of déjà-vu as she thought about the level of love this mother felt for her daughter, with not a small amount of envy thrown in, she admitted. Clarke was lucky, even if they did have a convoluted family history, and she knew from experience that things weren't perfect. You can't beat a love like that.
"What happened on the ark, Abby? After I left you, and before you crash landed. For a long time I was convinced they'd floated you."
"Nothing so serious as that. I was arrested – placed in Clarke's cell in fact." Abby smiled a secret smile at that.
"I'm sorry." Raven reached out an arm to the other woman in comfort.
"It wasn't all bad." Abby smiled wryly. "As the Chief of Medical, I was too important for them to execute, but I lost my spot on the council. Diana used it as an opportunity to move her agenda forward, same as Marcus, only hers was successful in a way that put all our lives at risk."
"What did she want?" Raven asked.
"Mutiny, I suppose. Mostly? What we all wanted - survival. She knew there weren't enough drop ships to get all our people to the ground. We were keeping it quiet for obvious reasons, and she used that to her advantage."
"In some ways, I can't blame her. Desperate times call for desperate measures." Abby continued. "But she's dangerous, and she hurt a lot of people to get what she wanted, with a complete disregard for life. That's the difference between her and us."
"We've had to hurt people too." Raven said. "Being on earth hasn't been a cake walk, that's for sure."
Abby went quite for a few moments and seemed to be struggling with something. "How's Clarke been? Really?"
"She's strong." Raven smiled genuinely. "She's a good leader, and from what I've seen, they've needed her. Plus, she's had some help."
Abby looked to the boys traipsing ahead of them. "Bellamy?"
"Her and Bellamy are as different as people can get, for the most part, but as co-leaders? They work. So, yeah, Bellamy. But also, her lover-boy, Lincoln."
Abby stopped abruptly, stumbling for a few steps before she whipped around to face Raven, who halted beside her, amused. Abby's words were strangled as she choked them out. "Love? Lincoln?"
Raven hiccupped a laugh. "Oh yeah. The big L-O-V-E. Just wait until you see them together."
"I don't remember a Lincoln being on the drop ship manifest." She muttered.
"That's because he wasn't on the drop ship." Raven smirked. "He's a grounder."
Abby stalked on ahead, shaking her head in what looked like denial. Raven probably shouldn't have been as amused by Abby's shock as she was, but she took laughter wherever she could find it these days. Clarke would forgive her for telling her mom like that – maybe she'd even thank her for taking on the task. She almost couldn't wait for Lincoln and Abby to come face to face.
"Did things work out with you and Finn?" Abby turned back to look at her. "I forgot to ask."
"That's a story for another time." Raven picked up her pace. "But, yeah, he's…around."
They caught up with the boys as they approached the river banks and searched for a good place to cross. It was here that Jasper had been speared, she knew, from the tales told around the camp fire.
"Hold up." Bellamy called out – searching the bank on the other side with an alertness she'd learned to not ignore. "We've got company."
He ducked behind the thick trunk of a tree and gestured quickly for the others to follow his lead. Raven knelt behind a nursing log, her fingers tangled in the mossy surface as she peered over the edge.
Two figures approached, walking companionly close. She caught sight of a familiar grey beanie hat and felt absurdly embarrassed by the lump it brought to her throat. Standing up, all fear forgotten, she called out. "Miller?"
A grin stretched across his good-looking-and-he-knows-it face. "Admit it, you missed me, zero-g girl."
"What is it with you guys and nicknames?" she laughed.
"They're cute." Miller grinned. "Kind of like you and me, huh?"
Raven rolled her eyes. "It's 'you and I."
"So you finally admit there's a you and I?" Miller grinned even broader, if that was possible.
She ignored him and looked to Roan, who stood at his side smiling out at them. Looks like the two of them had worked on that budding friendship successfully, who would have thought?
"What happened to the others?" she asked.
"Anya had business to take care of." Roan said.
That didn't sound ominous at all. Bellamy looked none too pleased by that response too, but she supposed they all had bigger fish to fry.
"There's a decent place to cross up here." Roan gestured for them to follow.
They walked a little ways down the banks until it narrowed considerably, and large stones jutted up providing sloped steps, if you didn't mind taking a few slippery leaps.
"Careful." Miller called out as she started to follow the ever-daring Murphy across. "I like your face the way it is."
Raven shot him a mock venomous look and concentrated on not taking a sure-to-be-freezing dip in the flowing water. Her feet slid a few times, but the adventures they'd had of late had improved her balance and strength, and really it was no problem.
She made it all the way across, grasping both Miller and Roan's hands as they offered help for the last leap. Miller gave her hand a squeeze as she settled on the bank and moved out of the way, lingering like he was going to keep on holding it, but let go to help Abby and then Bellamy as they joined them.
Abby immediately eyed up Roan's primitive appearance and his obvious familiarity with the delinquents. "Are you Lincoln?"
Murphy choked back a laugh. "He wishes."
"No." he replied. "I am Roan, Prince of Azgeda."
Abby nodded, seeming both mystified and satisfied. Raven hoped her satisfaction wasn't because he had the outward appearance of being savage and she was glad he wasn't her daughter's lover. If that was the case, she'd be severely disappointed once she got an eyeful of the real Lincoln.
"This way." Roan called over his shoulder as he strode off into the forest.
Miller set off at his side, followed by the others, then came to a dead stop. "Wait. I almost forgot."
Pivoting, he strode back to Raven, and without giving her so much as a millisecond to ask what was wrong, he pulled her towards him, one arm wrapping around her waist and the other sliding up her back so his hands could dig into her hair. And he kissed her. Just like that.
Clarke
Clarke endured a dinner fraught with annoyances. She was annoyed with the self-satisfied smirk on President Wallace's face as he welcomed them both to the head table like honoured guests, sending her a conspiratorial wink as she took her seat. Annoyed with the constant attentions of Finn – the small touches he kept giving her, the overtly solicitous nature of everything he did, from pulling out her chair to filling her plate with food she didn't want to eat. She was annoyed with the unconcerned laughter and chatter of the forty kids who thought they'd got it made – eating cake, smoothing hands over fresh, colourful clothes. Annoyed with the residents of Mount Weather, who ate their meal with little concern for waste, leaving unwanted leftovers on their plates at whim.
Annoying, but a fruitful dinner nonetheless. There was a triumphant air about the security personnel, and the higher ups, but it had meant their guard was low. That perfectly suited Clarke.
When people began drifting away from the dining hall and convening in the mess room, she gave an internal sigh of relief. Her skin was crawling, like a thousand ants were making a home out of her.
"I'm exhausted." She said, dropping her head into her palms. "I think I'm just gonna go to bed."
"Please excuse me." She added to the table at large, and received nothing but understanding nods and smiles.
"More than reasonable." Finn soothed a hand down her back and she stiffened in disgust. "Let me escort you back to the dorm."
There was a time for picking your battles, and this wasn't one of them. She'd much rather be left to make her way back alone, but that might draw suspicions and she wanted Finn relaxed – confident in his delusions. She wanted all eyes somewhere else for a change, and short of causing some kind of distraction, she needed to appear cooperative.
"Please." She said.
They rose, and she allowed him to take her elbow and guide her away. There was little she could do about Finn's touchy-feeliness without drawing attention, even if the very thought of another man touching her made her want to wretch – the fact it was someone as twisted as Finn, someone she had once thought she loved, made it all the harder.
"Tomorrow, I'll give you the grand tour." Finn was saying, and she tuned back in to make a humming noise of assent. "You're going to love the art stores."
"Sounds great." She said.
When they reached her allocated bedside in the communal sleeping area filled with bunk beds, Clarke looked down at a wooden box placed conspicuously on the centre of the blanket.
"What's this?" she asked, reaching to open it.
"A gift from President Wallace." Finn grinned proudly. "He knows how much you love to draw and wanted you to feel at home."
Clarke looked down at the neat tubes of paint, perfect sticks of charcoal and kaleidoscope of smudging pastels. In another lifetime, this would have made her cry with joy.
"That was kind of him." She closed the case and moved it to the floor, sliding it under her mattress.
Finn was watching her when she looked up. "I'll leave you to your rest."
She smiled to offset what she was sure was disappointment in her lack-lustre reaction to the thoughtfulness. "I'll feel better in the morning, I'm just so tired right now, and my arm throbs."
Finn leant forward, holding her uninjured forearm, and kissed her cheek. Internally, she stabbed him in the gut and kneed him in the balls. Soon, Clarke, she told herself. Play possum.
"Good night." He said. "Sweet dreams."
"Night." Clarke turned her back on him, and without stopping to change into more appropriate sleepwear, slipped her shoes off and slid under the covers.
When she heard the door swing closed, she waited, closing her eyes and counting silently to a hundred. Then two hundred. Then three hundred. The door opened and closed quietly again, and she knew he was really gone.
She opened her eyes and flipped onto her back. A quick glance towards the door showed her an empty dorm room. She kicked off the covers and reached for the folded paper in her pocket.
President Wallace had taken great pride in seating her next to his son, Cage, head of their security. Cage had been easy to work – a little careful flirtation (careful because Finn sat on her other side) and he was sprouting off all kinds of useful information. In the short period of time with which she spoke to him, he'd gloatingly shown her some of the books lining the walls of the dining hall, specifically those placed behind them – including one on the history behind Mount Weather. Ripping away the map at the back had been a steal – turning the forced socialisation both convenient and insightful.
She spread it out over her blanket now, smoothing out the creases. Things might have changed in the intervening years, but it would remain at its core the same.
She ran her fingers over the etchings of each floor – studying the layout of the living spaces, the common areas, the school and hydro farming/power, but more importantly, the areas off limits. Security – the president's family suite - medical supplies – 'common storage'. Common storage her ass. It was the space right next to medical, and she knew exactly what they used it to store. Bodies for their sick experiments in the name of science. It was one of two 'common storage' areas, and she was betting the other one was her target.
She hadn't seen Diana, nor her soldiers, nor even Dax, since the drop ship. Though Finn had obviously been catching up with the latter. But there was only so many places that many people could be kept out of sight down here.
Studying the layout of the ventilation system, Clarke figured out her route and folded the map back away for safe keeping. She figured the vents had worked for her the first time around, there was no reason they couldn't this time. Plus, they meant less chances of Finn picking up his latest hobby and watching for her through the camera system.
She stuffed pillows under the blanket in an approximate shape of a body – an old method, but an effective one – and pulled away the closest vent cover. She curiously peered in the hollow metal tubing – these were smaller passageways, and it would be a tight fit, but she'd make it.
Clarke crawled in backwards, pulling the vent firmly closed behind her, then shimmied her way towards the nearest intersection so she could finagle a turn-around and face forward once more. She followed the tunnels for several hundred yards, making switchbacks to get to the required floor whilst avoiding highly populated areas. The only noises she made were the faint rustling of her clothing as she bellied through one tunnel after another.
At one point she banged her injured forearm and yelped aloud at a most inopportune time, directly above one of the communal bathrooms doing a busy trade in night-time bathing rituals. One curious little girl, up far too late for her age as far as Clarke was concerned, stared directly at the vent with a fascinated look. Thankfully, her impatient mother ushered her away and she was in the clear again.
Clarke knew she had found the right place when she heard the crying, and a chill swept over her, making all the hairs stand up on the back of her neck. It wasn't so much the fact that someone was crying – I mean, she could literally find someone who'd had a cry that day around every corner, she did cohabitate with a bunch of hormonal teenagers after all – it was the realisation that it wasn't just one person, but several people - multiple grown men, sounding desperate and tortured and more than a little like they were dying.
Lincoln
They ran and ran until their calves burned like acid filled their veins not blood, and his quads quivered with the strain. Sweat ran in rivulets down his back, and his breaths sawed in and out like an spluttering engine. Octavia wasn't faring much better – exhausted from whatever treatment she'd received at the hands of the mountain men, he'd had to prop her up on their frequent rests more times than he could count. But still they kept running. The more they ran, the more he began to feel like himself again. Like a fog was clearing, swept away by the fresh air. He'd had that thought before, hadn't he?
Unfortunately, the clearer his mind became, the more he berated himself about leaving Clarke behind. He hadn't been any good to her in his intoxicated state, he knew it down to the depths of his soul, but still, it was a bitter pill to swallow.
He'd always known she was strong and capable, it was one of the things that had made him fall in love with her. And he knew she didn't need a white knight. But it was bred in his bone to be a warrior, a protector of his people – and he'd made her his people, hadn't he? More so than anyone else at this stage.
"It's no good." Octavia panted. She leant against a tree and let her head flop down pathetically. "I've got to stop, I can't even feel my feet anymore."
"We can rest when we've found shelter." Lincoln told her. It was true dark now, and he knew they were too exhausted to carry on much longer. They needed fire, and somewhere to sleep, and the faint luminescence of the forest wasn't enough for them to clearly see their way anyhow.
"We haven't even heard a sound of pursuit for ages." Octavia complained.
"That doesn't mean we're not being followed."
Octavia flopped onto the ground at his feet. "Five minutes."
Lincoln looked back the way they'd come and straightened. "We don't have five minutes."
"We totally have five minutes." Octavia said.
"No." Lincoln pulled her to her feet and turned her around. "We don't."
Octavia snorted, but it lacked amusement. "Acid fog? Are you fucking kidding me?"
"We've got to get out of the open." Lincoln started towards a large outcrop of lichen covered rocks he'd just noticed – they almost blended in with the forest floor, forming a sort of hilly mound. Octavia found her second wind – or was it third wind? – and stumbled after him.
They were in luck. He circled around and found a small opening between the base of two rocks, likely the product of some animal's frantic digging for a food source or burrow, had resulted in a cave in. Through the hole he could see a deep cavern of space, likely connected to the tunnels rampant in this area.
He turned to look at Octavia. "They're trying to force us underground, put us directly in the path of reapers."
"Shit." She replied, glancing behind at the approaching fog. He knew it was eerie in the daylight, but at night it was downright ghostly as it crawled its way towards them, tendrils sweeping out like arms to caress everything in its path. "But we don't have any choice."
"No." Lincoln shook his head in the affirmative. "We don't."
Octavia wasted no time in scrambling down onto all fours and pushing herself face first through the opening. Lincoln followed, only pausing to gather rocks to block up the gap behind them. It wouldn't do any good to leave holes in their shelter like a sieve.
"Now what?" Octavia asked. It was near pitch black, and the whites of her eyes seemed to glow out at him from the nothingness.
"This way." He clasped her hand and drew her with him to the North. It was the same direction they'd been travelling in before, and he calculated that with a bit of luck on their side they'd soon reach a safe place to lie in wait and continue on their journey in the morning.
"You know." Octavia said in a husky whisper. "In another lifetime, we'd have made a pretty good team."
"That we would." He grinned into the darkness. Too bad his mind was all tied up with a certain blonde, Octavia didn't stand a chance.
He was wrong about the safe place. This time no one could blame his drug addled brain for wanting to get back to Clarke instead of escape. Fire burst to life along the tunnel walls, connected by some sort of gasoline soaked fabric strips knotted and roped along the sides.
"Reapers." Lincoln hissed. Though he worried this sort of behaviour was a little too sophisticated for the reapers he had known. He had almost become one, though, hadn't he? Maybe it was time to reassess some of the things he'd always taken as truth.
He flattened himself against the wall and quieted his breathing to better hear someone before they approached. Some muffled footsteps and quietly spoken words, but nothing too alarming, nothing too close.
He'd just decided to keep going, cautiously pulling away from the wall and tilting his head for Octavia to follow, when a series of arrows flew past them, just a hairs breadth away. Reapers didn't use arrows.
A/N: Hope you enjoyed my loves!
