A/N: Oh, I'm so excited that this is nearly finished! This is a bit of a Clarke-centric chapter, but I feel like she's got the most to say right now. Hope ya'll enjoy this one – it's all coming together now!
Disclaimer: All things The 100 related belong to Kass Morgan and the writers of the amazing TV show – the rest is mine!
Chapter Twenty
Octavia
"That's far enough." The command was spoken with absolute confidence by someone used to being obeyed.
Octavia and Lincoln halted at the edge of a ring of flickering light, cast out by the nearest torch. Shadowy forms blocked the corridor ahead, the silver glint of arrowheads and spears winking out of the darkness, the whites of multiple eyes seeming to hover like ghostly apparitions.
"Heda." Lincoln bowed his head in deference. To Octavia he hissed, "This is Lexa, the leader of the twelve clans."
A woman stepped forward. Octavia's first thought was that she was fierce. Fierce and focused and beautiful. Her ash-brown hair was scraped back at her temples and left long in the back, highlighting her narrow face and the black smudging of face paint, shaped like a hauntingly melting mask. In the middle of her forehead, a small circular emblem made of silver dots took pride of place. She was slender, and there was almost a fragile element to her appearance – Octavia had no doubt this was purposefully fostered to undermine her opponents.
"My scouts have reported an unusual amount of activity at the mountain – I don't suppose you know anything about that?"
"I might." Lincoln nodded.
"Anya has told me of your latest exploits." Lexa stepped forward and slowly circled them. She looked Octavia up and down, her gaze piercing. "Is this your lover? Clarke wasn't it? I can see the appeal."
"He wishes." Octavia smiled, radiating mischief. "I'm Octavia Blake. Pleased to meet you."
"Octavia Blake." Lexa repeated, enunciating every syllable. "We shall see about that."
"Come." Lexa turned her back on them. "A trial by the council in Polis will decide your fate."
"Wait." Octavia grabbed her upper arm. The nearest soldiers raised their weapons at the perceived insult, but Lexa shook her head to call them off. She met Octavia's eyes, and hers were lit with curiosity. "We want a truce and we have something you need."
"And that would be?" Lexa raised a brow imperiously. Octavia let go of her arm and took a step back.
"A way to cure the reapers – a way to get your people back." Octavia said.
Lexa turned to Lincoln. "Does she speak truth?"
Lincoln nodded. "It can be done – it has been done. I was almost a reaper myself."
"Almost is not the same as was." Lexa said.
"We can do it." Octavia insisted. "I escaped the mountain myself – actually, not nearly, and we can get you back in. We can rescue your people. They're caged you know – caged and experimented on like animals. It's not right."
Lexa seemed to take her time deliberating, then nodded her assent, her eyes shrewd. "Then you will get us into the mountain, and afterwards we can talk about a truce."
Octavia went to argue for an immediate truce but Lincoln shook his head in warning. "We agree." He said.
Without another word, Lexa turned around and gestured for her people to lead the way out. As they ventured further down the tunnels, the bodies of slaughtered reapers were revealed. Their expressions peaceful in a way they definitely weren't in the last moments of their life. Ever since the mountain men got their hands on them, maybe even before that. From everything she'd learnt about the grounder culture, it seemed they prized war and strength and challenge above all else. Did they ever know such a thing as peace?
Lincoln looked at the carnage with an expression full of regret and Octavia understood. Lincoln wanted to save everyone – he was like Clarke in that way. The deaths of these reapers must seem like a waste to him. But Octavia knew better – not everyone could be saved, and not everyone deserved to be saved.
Survival was sometimes about the fittest, and it was sometimes about the smartest. Octavia intended to be both.
She jogged a few steps to catch up with Lexa. The woman intrigued Octavia, and she intended to intrigue the other woman in return.
"So…" Octavia said. "Are you single?"
Clarke
Clarke would have considered herself naïve at this point, if she'd been expecting to discover Diana and her guards in prime heath, wiling away the time playing cards and sipping iced tea like they were attending an end-of-the-world health spa. She'd known the mountain men had ulterior motives. Hadn't she discovered their sick secret of using the grounders as their blood bank and drugged up guard dogs? Even now, she knew the plans for the delinquents they'd deceptively welcomed into the fold - herself included, no matter what Finn thought. They were fresh blood, in a completely different regard. But even with those undeniable thoughts stuck on repeat, she hadn't expected what she'd found at the end of the tunnel. Because Diana and her soldiers were not welcomed, but they were useful.
The room contained a sea of stained bare mattresses, each one occupied by a sick person. Maybe even dying or dead – Clarke couldn't say at this point. All had been stripped of their clothing, and wore the grey, generic medical-issued underwear designed to provide a modicum of modesty. They were not strapped down, but multiple IVs pumped what she was sure was a disabling drug into their bodies. Some of them cried, their minds aware but their bodies uncooperating, and it was a sound of desperation and frustration. Most of them were completely still, like bodies on slabs in the morgue, and blood smeared the base of their spines. If that wasn't a big enough clue, the used hypodermic needles stacked in a yellow bucket next to a nearby exam table screamed their purpose loud and clear.
Bone marrow. The blood was never enough – it might have temporarily healed radiation inflicted wounds, but it would never have been enough to stay on the surface for a prolonged period of time. And they hadn't just used a small amount of bone marrow – an easily enough procedure to recover from. They were sucking these people dry because they were expendable. Just like the grounders – too old to breed with, to bring fresh blood, and definitely too old to not pose a threat if released into the wild.
"Diana." Clarke hissed. She hastily crawled to the vent closest to where the other woman lay. The former chancellor was pale, the kind of pale that bleached out colour completely and made the fine veins underneath the skin appear like spiderwebs. Her lips were tinged blue, and like the others, she lay on her front, her arms flopped over the sides of the bed and her body unnaturally still. "Hey, wake up."
It was no good, Clarke was going to have to enter the room and try this another way.
She shifted around and kicked at the hip level grate, regretting the clang it made as it rattled on the storage room floor. It couldn't be helped. There were no medical personnel or guards in the room to hear, and the door was a solid metal barrier on the other side of the cavernous room. Chances are nobody heard a thing, right now it was worth the risk.
She crawled out and kneeled over the prone woman. "Diana." She shook her shoulder gently, then more fervently when it proved ineffective. "Come on, you've got to wake up."
Clarke pulled the IV from her arm and tapped at her cheeks with two fingers. Diana stirred, took a sharp breath in through her nose, and her eyes opened into tiny slits.
"That's it." Clarke encouraged. "Wake up, now."
"Clarke?" she croaked.
"The one and only." Clarke grabbed a nearby cloth and wiped spittle away from the corner of Diana's mouth.
It was strange to think that not so long ago she had resented this woman, seen her as a formidable threat. Now Diana and all those who had followed her were reduced to lab rats. She felt nothing but pity, and a deep, unrelenting anger that someone could do this to another person.
"Clarke." Diana coughed. Blood bubbled at the corner of her mouth, and she wiped it away too. Despite everything the woman had stood for, had done, in this moment Clarke felt nothing but compassion. "You can't help us…it's too late."
Tears unconsciously filled her eyes and she took a deep breath. Counted to ten. Then she put those feelings aside. It wasn't going to help them survive. She needed to be practical – practical saved lives. Diana was mostly right – in that moment there wasn't a lot she could do to help them. Too many sick people, no escape route they could manage in their condition, limited time – it all spelled out imminent failure. The only way to help them all was to bring the mountain men down, preferably without actually bringing the mountain down with them.
"Do you know what they're planning?" Clarke asked.
Diana weakly shook her head. "They said something…about…armoury."
It sounded like they were gearing up for an outside assault – against who she couldn't guess. The grounders were a lot closer targets than Front Royal, so at least she could presume the others were safe. Something still needed to be done to stop them – but what? The thought of using radiation as a weapon had occurred, then rightly been dismissed. She didn't know who was complicit. And there were children down here – innocents.
It would be pointless now. In fact, it might even be counter-productive. How likely was it that the first people to have received the treatments were the leaders, the soldiers, the able-bodied. By now, and by the looks of things, every citizen of Mount Weather could be immune to the radiation, provided their treatment worked. And Clarke had a suspicion it did. Or if they weren't all immune, it would be the innocents she would kill.
She needed to get the others on her side instead of trying to solve this all on her own – going off half cocked, as Bellamy might say. Or she might say to Bellamy, under normal circumstances.
The door across the room bleeped open without warning and Clarke flattened herself to the floor at Diana's side, her heart thumping. Shit. Shit. Shit.
She watched through a slim gap between the mattress and the wall, as five people entered the room. They were dressed in light blue protective gear, hazmat suits suitable for radiation, as though they feared some sort of cross contamination from the people they were holding hostage. Clarke couldn't tell whether they were male or female, until the one in the lead spoke.
"Take the depleted ones to the disposal." It was the Dr Tsing. Figures this would be her project. "Cage's pets deserve a good feed after their chase."
The other four paired off into groups of two and began moving those closest to the door away, holding them by the wrists and ankles as their bodies flopped and swung in the space between. They left the room, leaving the door wide open, and Clarke watched them throw the bodies onto some sort of caged, wheeled trolley, one on top of the other. Like suitcases at an airport. As they returned for the next in line, Dr Tsing moved over to a small cabinet and removed a fresh hypodermic. Clarke willed her to stay where she was – at this angle she was mostly hidden, but the closer the Doctor got to Diana's part of the room, the harder she would be to miss.
Unfortunately, Clarke couldn't make people do as she wanted by sheer force of will. Dr Tsing started walking towards the back of the room and Clarke froze, her limbs flooding with adrenaline and the need to run.
Just then a crash came from the doorway. The doctor spun around to watch as one of the patients struggled for freedom. He took a half-hearted swing at one of the people trying to move him, which surprised the guards enough to make them drop him and trip over their own feet.
"For pity's sake." She strode back towards them. "He's obviously still got more life left to give if he can put up a fight. Put him on the table – I'll take my next sample from him."
Clarke used the distraction as a means of escape. While their backs were turned, she slid into the tunnel and pried the grate cover back into place. She didn't want to chance them hearing her move through the tunnels she'd initially navigated, which ran right alongside the walls of the room, so she proceeded onwards in what she knew was the direction of Security.
Left, then right, then straight ahead for a drop down to the right floor. She paused when she heard the crackle of a familiar voice leaching through the walls. Was that…Marcus Kane?
"This is the survivors of the Arc, hailing Mount Weather." It went. "We are in need of immediate assistance."
It was coming over the radio. And for whatever reason, being ignored. Well, not for whatever reason, she was sure. But it meant that somehow the citizens of the Arc had made it to Earth. Did that include her mother? Was she this very minute putting herself in danger by trying to contact the mountain men as though they were allies? How did they even know the mountain men existed?
"First, we deal with the problem congregating to the East, then we'll deal with this latest annoyance." Cage ordered. His whiny voice coming through the walls loud and clear. "Gather the last of Tsing's subjects, we're ready to go to war."
"Yes, sir." Many someone's replied.
Clarke used the cover of chairs being scraped back and lots of movement to hasten her escape. Time was slipping through her fingers and it turns out she had more than one group of people to save.
When she crawled out of the same vent she'd used to flee the communal sleeping area, she was careful to make as little noise as possible, conscious that she might wake people and not wanting to explain where she'd been or what she'd been doing before she'd had a good night's sleep and enough time to formulate a plan.
"Have a nice trip?" The voice was far too close for comfort.
Clarke spun around and looked at the man lying on her bed, watching her. Always watching her.
"Finn." Clarke said. "We need to stop meeting like this."
"I told you not to do anything to bring attention to yourself." Finn sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He wasn't doing anything to lower his voice, and around them people started to stir. Grumbling at the rude awakening. "What if you'd gotten caught? They'd have taken you away from me."
"I'm not with you, Finn." Clarke stood straight. "And to be honest, I'm getting seriously tired of this bullshit."
Finn stood up and moved closer. His voice had a high note of agitation. "I made a mistake, one measly mistake, why is it so hard for you to forgive me?"
"I forgave you weeks ago for the lying and cheating." Clarke took a step back. "What I can't forgive now is this overwhelming and relentless invasion of my privacy when you know I'm in love with someone else."
"Things change." Finn said.
"Yes, they do." Clarke nodded in agreement. "Especially people. You've changed – somethings happened to you, and you're not the person I thought you were. I guess in some ridiculous way I should be thankful to you for everything you've done."
"Everything I've done…" Finn muttered angrily, clenching his fists. "Everything I've done is so that we can be together, not so you could run off with some savage ingrate…"
Clarke drew her fist back and punched him square in the noise. At the last minute she remembered to untuck her thumb, but still, it hurt. Her father had taught her to punch, so she knew her strength was deceptive.
Finn fell back like a sack of potatoes, out for the count. Clarke rung her hand loose at her side and couldn't help the self-satisfied smile curling the corners of her lips. She'd been wanting to do that for ages.
She looked up at the shocked and confused faces of the teenagers around her. Her tone was grim and determined.
"Right." Clarke clapped her hands together loudly. "I need you all to pay attention. We're getting out of here, pronto. No arguments, unless you want to end up like him." She thumbed Finn's unconscious body with a smirk. "Or you can take your chances with the mountain men as brood mares and lab rats."
Bellamy
"About time." Bellamy clapped Miller on the back, abruptly breaking off his embrace with Raven. "But is now really a good time?"
"Is there a bad time for kissing?" Miller asked. His eyes were all for Raven. Bellamy was almost embarrassed for his friend. Imagine being that besotted with a female. Shoot him first, he thought. Seriously, shoot him.
Raven touched one hand to her mouth and stared back at Miller. "What was that for?"
"Posterity." Miller smiled. As opposed to his usual grins and smirks, this one was especially tame.
"I'll give you posterity." Raven said. It was probably meant as the beginning of a snipe fest, but she seemed too stunned to create a better comeback.
"I didn't know you were capable of blushing." Bellamy teased.
Raven screwed up her face and squinted at him. "Watch it, Blake."
He shrugged it off, pleased the romantic crap was put on a back burner. They continued walking, following Roan's lead, but there was a more hopeful, pleasant atmosphere enveloping them all.
They reached a clearing that was probably a pretty spot, sprinkled with tiny flowers and long grasses, when it wasn't filled to the brim with weary looking people that is. He was surprised by the amount of support they'd garnered, if he was honest, but many of them were the parents and extended family of the 100. For some, like him, blood was thicker than water. Always.
After several rounds of 'hello' and 'I missed you' and 'What did you do to your hair?', they settled down as a group and looked to Bellamy and Abby expectantly.
"We need a plan." Abby said. She turned to face him and settled her hands on her hips. "We can't just stroll up and expect them to hand our people over."
Bellamy had no doubt she was used to being heard. Heard, listened to, and followed. But she needed to get used to the way things were going to be on the ground. And on the ground, Abigail Griffin, respected doctor and council member, was conversely not an expert on leading. Or, as it happened, survival.
"We need to head towards the mountain – we can plan on the way. There's nowhere else this war is going to be fought, and we're not going to suddenly grow in reinforcements and weapons. We've just got to take our chances." Bellamy argued.
"What was that you said about reinforcements?" Raven's voice was faint and strained.
Bellamy looked up and followed the direction of her gaze. Great. Just fantastic.
A/N: Hope you enjoyed, beautiful people! As always, I appreciate any feedback and thoughts 3
