Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Americans! It was yesterday's yesterday, so...belated Thanksgiving. Also, I did change the title. But here's the next chapter! I just feel inclined to say that I hate Abby. I mean, she's a good doctor but can we all just appreciate the irony of her saving the life of the man who sentenced her husband to death? That she was willing to break the rules by giving him extra morphine, yet she wouldn't do the same for her husband by trusting him? I have a problem with Abby. Sorry. That's all. Please review!

"They're on fifteen minutes rotations again," Bellamy informed her. "It's protocol. That gives you about five minutes to get in and out with what you need. That is, unless your mom decides to..." he trailed off and something painful blossomed across Clarke's chest, hot like a fresh wound. Unless your mom decides to turn you in.

They stood just outside the corridor, backs pressed firmly to the wall as they watched two guards disappear around the bend and through the entrance to Alpha Station. Two days had passed since the break in. Though Clarke had been ready to go straight back to Alpha, it had been insisted by Bellamy to give it some time, to ensure it was relatively safe before returning to Alpha.

Now that she was so close to it, her heart pounded against her ribcage and Clarke was struggling to breathe. She still felt numb from the report of her father, but she had begun to thaw. Those whispers had ceased their chattering and though the abyss had risen inside her, hungry and threatening to devour her entirety, Clarke had managed to push it down. She still felt the truth of it, though, the echo of those thoughts chiming from somewhere deep inside.

My mother killed my father.

She'd waited for the impact of it to hit her. Had waited to accept what every kiss, every embrace between her parents contradicted. But it hadn't struck her until they'd left the chamber that perhaps she already had.

Bellamy pushed her forward, knocking her out of her musing. "Go," he ordered.

Clarke complied, turning down onto the corridor after the guards. She held back to make sure they were out of earshot before continuing on, through the Alpha's entrance. It was the same way they'd gone to get to Jaha's but it felt different this time and Clarke couldn't help but wish she was just breaking in to another dead man's chambers again. At least it would've been easier.

She came to a stop at the next turn. Just beyond it was the door to her apartment and she felt the presence of it, like a physical weight settling on her shoulders.

"I'll be your look out," Bellamy told her, and ushered her around the bend.

Clarke took a shaky breath but walked towards it. She punched in the same entry code just as she'd done a million times before, but this time, she didn't feel like a girl coming home. She felt like an intruder.

Clarke eased the door open, quietly, and stepped inside. Turning around, she felt the breath in her chest still as she stared at the apartment, no inch devoid of some memory, of her father, of her mother. Together. Happy. Now every one of those was tainted, stained red with his blood.

Clarke suddenly found it hard to stand, as she looked towards her father's office. She could almost convince herself that any second now, he would appear in the hall. That he'd flick on the projector and the sound of old Dallas Cowboys reruns would fill the room. She could clearly see him standing in the kitchen, staring out of the small window to a sea of stars.

The ghost of him was everywhere, in the impression of his favorite chair, the ugly scratch on the table from a razor he'd used to help her with a class project. The chip in the flooring, where he'd dropped a plate.

It hurt more that his absence wasn't as obvious as it should be, their home still lying in wait of his return. But Clarke still glimpsed hints of his neglect. The cup he'd used every morning was coated in a thin layer of dust.

Clarke thrust the images away. Five minutes, she reminded herself and she started for the kitchen first, pulling out a few protein packets. Then she moved down the hall to her father's study. It was unlocked and Clarke entered silently, careful as if there were someone inside to be disturbed.

It was cleaner than she remembered it being, the usual plethora of papers stacked neatly in a pile. Her eyes landed on something on the desk and instinctively, Clarke's hand wrapped around it. Her father's watch. She'd worn it in place of the wristband that was now cuffed to arm, but it had been confiscated. Sh swallowed, and shoved it in her back pocket.

Clarke returned to the papers and rifled through them before moving onto the drawers. Inside one was a tablet and she grabbed it. She tucked it beneath her arm and kept searching through the remaining drawers. She went through the papers again.

Nothing. There was nothing here on the air supply, but there was a storage locker, on the opposite wall opposing the desk. Clarke went to it and laid her hands over the small panel of letters and numbers. She mentally sifted through every password she could think of. Her birthday. Her mother's. Names. Special occasions. His favorite NFL player. But the lock flashed red at every incorrect input.

Clarke hissed out a breath, wracking her brain for any possibility.

But the sound of an opening door made her freeze in her tracks.

The air left her lungs in an instant and Clarke didn't know when the shaking had started. But she felt the tremors in her hands now, quivering over the locker panel. She knew that she was trapped, cornered like a rat between the study and the other room. She rested her back against the wall and spared herself a second. Just one second, until she opened them again and stepped out of the study.

Her mother stood by in the living room, one hand on her hips, the other running through her hair. It was dishelved and her clothes seemed to hang more loosely from her body, causing something inside Clarke to pinch. But then her mother's eyes found hers, and the feeling disappeared.

Stunned silence enveloped them and for a moment, Abby could only stare, with lips parted in shock. She blinked, not quite trusting her eyes. "...Clarke?" she murmured quietly, as if scared the sound of her voice would chase her away.

Clarke didn't smile. She didn't step up to give her mom a hug. She didn't even offer up an explanation. Instead she just stayed where she was.

Her mother repeated her name. Again and again. Then she moved towards her and Clarke drew back.

"It's not safe for you here," Abby said, casting a glance at the door.

"There's..." Clarke cleared her throat. "There was just something here I needed."

"I'm sorry, I received the report that you hadn't gotten on the dropship. Why? You know what..." her voice dropped to a low whisper. "You know what's happening here."

Clarke nodded. "That's why I stayed," she answered in a monotone, meeting her mother's gaze head on. "I came to get what you have on the air supply."

That silence returned.

"Clarke..." Abby's eyes turned distant and her tone suddenly became diplomatic. Once a Council member, always a Council member. "I'm sorry," she said. "But I can't give that to you." Her hands reached for Clarke as if to embrace her but she took a step back.

"Don't come anywhere near me," Clarke practically spat, her voice venomous. Warning.

Her mom looked stricken, staring back at her with an expression of pain and confusion. "Clarke, Honey, why are you-?"

"I wanted to believe that you couldn't have betrayed Dad," Clarke whispered, the corners of her eyes pricking with unshed tears. "You have no idea how much I wanted to believe that."

The confusion lining her mother's features instantly evaporated, replaced by realization that was quickly followed by horror. "Clarke-"

"But I know what you did," Clarke continued. "Don't you dare pretend anymore. I know that you turned Dad in. Wells let me think that he did it, so I'd hate him instead of you." Her vision blurred as she stared at Abby. Her mother. A stranger. "How could you? How could you do that?"

Abby tried to come closer, but it was as if some invisible force kept pulling Clarke away from her. She didn't want to be touched by her. Could barely manage to stay in the same room.

"Oh, Baby," her mom breathed, voice catching. "That-that wasn't supposed to happen. Jaha was supposed to talk him out of it."

But Clarke just shook her head. No. She would not let her mother escape the accountability for this. "Dad's dead because of you," she said, and the words broke. They splintered into a million fragments, sharp as glass. If anyone tried to put them back together again, they'd be cut.

"Honey," her mom murmured softly. "Listen to me-"

"No, I am done talking to you!" Clarke hissed, her voice barely below a shout. "I just came here to get what I needed."

Though she'd started to cry, her mother's tone was even. "I can't, Clarke. I'm sorry."

But Clarke hadn't come this far to leave empty handed. She hadn't given up the ground just to give up on the Ark.

"That's exactly what you're going to do," she said, and her voice was unwavering, as cold as the ice running through her veins. "Because if you don't, I'll go to the guards. I'll turn myself in. And then you'll have no one."

Clarke watched as the blood drained from her mother's face, sapping the color from her cheeks. "You wouldn't do that."

"Yeah, well I used to think that you'd never hurt Dad. But it turns out the people you love are capable of surprising things."

"Clarke-"

"Just give it to me!" she practically yelled, ignoring the pain mounting in her chest, making it hard to breathe. "If you ever loved Dad, please just do that much. You owe him that. You owe me that. Or I swear I'll do it."

Two heartbeats. Clarke heard the roar of blood in her ears; felt the quaking of her hands fisted at her side but she didn't look away.

Maybe she saw the seriousness in her daughter's voice; heard the truth radiate from it because she stepped around Clarke, and walked towards the office. She returned a moment later, clutching some kind of hard drive in her hand. She extended it to Clarke. "If you use this in any way," she said, not yet letting the object go. "Then your father's death will have been for nothing."

Fury erupted in Clarke, but it diminished as quickly as it had come, like water tossed onto a burning flame. She took the hard drive and gripped it in her hand, the small piece digging into her palm. "No," she said quietly. "Dad died trying to do the right thing. The honorable thing. And the only person who can be blamed for the outcome is you."

Abby's lips pursed into a thin line at that.

"And one more thing," Clarke added, remembering her side of the deal. "I need to know if there's another way to the ground. Another dropship."

Her mother stared at her and Clarke could clearly see the questions burning in her eyes, and above that, the hurt. But Clarke couldn't bring herself to sympathize with her. Abby Griffin had lost the right to that hurt the moment she'd notified Jaha behind her husband's back.

"Why?" her mother asked.

"That's none of your concern."

"Clarke, I know you think I-"

But Clarke just waved off her words. "It doesn't matter what I think. It only matters what happened, not what should have happened. Now do you know another way to the ground or not?"

Abby hesitated. "There's a pod. In Mecha. I have someone working on it."

"Planning a one-way trip to Earth yourself?"

"We haven't received word from the One Hundred," her mother admitted. "We lost the radio feed in the landing."

Are they dead? Clarke wondered, but it wasn't until a moment later she realized she'd spoken the question aloud.

"I don't know," Abby answered. "For our sake, they better not be."

Clarke looked at her mother in disbelief, lip curling in disgust. "For your sake? What about for theirs? Jaha sent them to the ground to die. He sent me there to die."

"It was their only chance, Clarke. Criminals on the Ark...they would've been floated."

Clarke bit her lip, so hard until she tasted blood. "They weren't just criminals, Mom. There were kids. The Council sentenced kids! It wasn't about giving them a chance. It was about the Ark not having enough air, so you thought you could extend its duration by getting rid of a hundred people and make it look like an opportunity for them."

Abby's expression turned somber. "We had no choice."

"No, there's always a choice," Clarke shot back. "cNo one makes them for you."

"You don't understand, Clarke. The Council had to do what was best for everyone. It's all our lives at stake here."

"Oh, I understand that. What I don't understand is how you could decide whose lives were expendable and whose were not."

For that, Abby faltered. She looked as if she were object, but then she shook her head. "There's something I need to ask you, Clarke," she said, dismissing her daughter's words. "The med bay...dosages of Amoxicillin went missing, along with some other supplies. They were medications to treat infection." Her voice hardened. "There were no visible signs of forced entry besides the air duct. And the only person who would have known the combination to the lock is you."

Clarke kept her face neutral. "What are you implying?"

"If you're helping that criminal-"

"The medical supplies was for me," Clarke interjected. "No one else."

I will make good on my threats.

Abby scrutinized her, brows pulled together in doubt. "I wish I could believe you."

Clarke swallowed the urge to scoff. "Then you should prepare yourself for disappointment."

Abby tried to say something else, but Clarke knew her time was strained. She couldn't afford another second. Her minutes had devolved into mere seconds and she couldn't risk any more of them. Not that she was eager to stick around anyway.

There was nothing else she could say to her mom; there was nothing that could encompass all her disappointment, the anger...the simple revulsion she felt at being related to such a person. Clarke didn't want to be here a second longer and everything inside her suddenly screamed at her to get out of this place. It wasn't home anymore.

Hard drive in hand, she turned to leave.

"Clarke," her mother called, and against her better instinct, Clarke paused in front of the door, her palm pressed to the face of it. Maybe Bellamy had been right; maybe she was going to keep her from leaving.

But Abby just whispered in a pained voice, "I lost him, too."

Clarke tried to breathe past the pain in her chest that was now dulling to a distant throb. "You didn't lose Dad," she said. "You gave him up."

Then without one last look at her mom, she slipped out the door and let it close quietly from behind.