Announcement! I wrote another 100 fanfiction...Big surprise. It is written differently and is actually my preferred tense and perspective. It's called I Am the Reaper inspired by the poem written by William Henley and is basically about Cage turning Bellamy into a Reaper instead of using him as a blood if you're interested, it's up! Please review :)
"There's one other thing," Clarke said, and Raven raised an eyebrow at her. "You can't tell my Mom about Bellamy. Or about me, for that matter."
In her peripheral vision, Clarke saw Bellamy's look of surprise but she kept her gaze locked with the other woman's.
"Why not?" Raven asked. "You're her kid. She'd do anything for you."
Clarke dismissed the praise. Once, she'd believed the same. That her mom would go to great lengths for her family. At least Clarke had been correct about the first part-she had gone to great lengths, but it wasn't to keep her family safe.
She forced neutrality into her voice. "I don't trust my Mom. If she suspects anything, tell her about me. Just leave Bellamy out of it."
Raven shook her head disapprovingly. "Look, I get that things are strained with you and Abby. But I trust her. She lied to me about you being on the dropship, but she was just doing that to protect you." A note of envy leaked into her tone. "She loves you, Clarke."
Anger bubbled up in her, but Clarke thrust it back down. For some reason, she hated having a person on her Mom's side, who saw the person Clarke so desperately wanted her to be again.
But she didn't let any of that show. Instead, Clarke just looked away, back at the door locked with the date of her father's execution. Immortalized in digits. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "She loved my Dad, too."
Raven allowed the both of them to stay in the workroom for the night. The following day, she'd help send out the feed but made it clear that she would do it no later than that. Clarke had ventured to ask her when she planned to launch the escape pod, but the mechanic had just shrugged and said, "soon." When she didn't elaborate, Clarke got the memo, but she suspected her reasons for secrecy had more to do with Bellamy than with herself.
Raven stuck around to work on the pod and every once in awhile Clarke caught Bellamy eyeing the small ship, his expression unguarded in the moment that she could clearly see the want in his eyes.
She felt a lace of guilt unravel inside her. Clarke was getting what she wanted; the feed out to the residents of the Ark, and even though Bellamy had found what he was looking for-a way to the ground-he still seemed very far from getting it.
But if there was anything Clarke understood about Bellamy, it was his inability to be deterred. It was thicker than just stubbornness and ran deeper than determination. It was something powerful. Indomitable. A force of his own making that even he wrestled for control over.
As the time dragged by, Clarke took a seat on the hard floor around the tools, and leaned against the wall. The cold seeped into her back and goosebumps rose over her skin from the cool draft, but she wouldn't put the spacesuit back on. The last thing she wanted was to fall into nightmares of boundless shadow, illuminated by stars.
Her other thoughts weren't much better. Anxiety tightened around her heart as she tried to guess what the next day would bring. By this time tomorrow, one of her parents will have been proven right. Either people would band together like her father had believed, or pandemonium would explode and the people would destroy each other.
To keep out those haunting thoughts, Clarke retrieved her father's watch, still in her back pocket. The battery was dead and the knitted band frayed, but she didn't care. Gingerly, her thumb caressed the glass face, its fingers frozen at midnight. She could almost pretend that time itself had stilled. That this single moment could be made eternal by the hands of a broken watch. But moments weren't meant to last, which was proven a couple minutes later as Raven finished her day's work and started for the door.
She turned towards Clarke, back at Bellamy as if refusing to acknowledge him. Raven pointed upwards. "I'm gonna need to turn the lights off. Energy conservation and all."
Clarke nodded, but before the mechanic could leave, she called to her. "Hey, Raven?"
The girl looked back and Clarke offered her a small smile. "Thank you." She meant it.
Raven smirked at her. "Hey, undermining the Council is what I do." Then she turned and left the room. The circadian lights lived for another heartbeat before they went out and the thrum of electricity disappeared. Clarke took a deep breath. So much for avoiding nightmares. Try as she might, she seemed to always find her way back to the dark.
"Is that your Dad's?" Bellamy's voice cut through the blackness and Clarke flinched at the suddenness of it. His back was pressed to the wall opposite of hers and though she couldn't see him clearly, she could make out the shape of his form, one of his feet pulled to his chest and the other resting on the floor.
Clarke couldn't read the numbers on the face of it anymore, hidden beneath a thin layer of darkness, but the feel of the watch was what really mattered to her. "It was. He wanted me to have it."
Bellamy paused. "You didn't have to say that to Raven earlier. That wasn't part of the deal."
Clarke looked at him, to the small shimmer in his eyes from the light beyond the window. "If this is your attempt at a thank you, it's pretty lame. But," she shrugged, "you didn't have to save my life either and you did. Not everything has to be part of a deal."
He didn't say anything for a minute and Clarke was beginning to think he'd drifted off to sleep. But then she heard Bellamy's intake of breath before he replied, "I don't want to owe you anything."
"I don't want you to owe me anything," she agreed. "I just asked Raven not to mention you because you're more at risk here than I am. I don't think my Mom would turn me in if Raven told her about me, but I'm even less sure of that when it comes to you."
"So you think you're safe around your Mom?"
Clarke hesitated. "Safer than you."
More silence. "I really can't figure you out sometimes," Bellamy replied, and there was a thread of annoyance in his tone, as if he didn't like to be confused.
But Clarke just smirked, and gripped the watch in her hand more firmly. "I could say the same about you."
"I'm just here for my sister," he said. "That's it."
"And I'm just here for everyone else."
He said nothing more and Clarke heard him shift around for a more comfortable position. But there was something that had been nagging at her for the last few hours, and now was the best time as any to voice it. "You never wanted to shoot Jaha," she asked slowly. "Did you?"
A different kind of tension ignited in the air, one that was reserved and chary. "What?"
"You looked relieved when Raven said he was alive, which tells me that you either regretted shooting him, or that you never wanted to in the first place."
"I shot him. He lived. The circumstances around it are irrelevant now."
Clarke leaned forward. "You're wrong. It all matters, because it's your choices that define who you are."
Bellamy scoffed, a throaty growl that began deep inside his chest. "My Mom raised me to be good. To be better, but I'm not, okay? If killing the Chancellor meant getting to my sister, I'd do it again. So maybe you're right; maybe choices do define a person and if that's true than that is the kind of man I am."
Clarke knew he didn't want the subject pressed, but she didn't drop it. She was curious, and curiosity was not so easily quenched. "So you tried to kill him to get to your sister? How exactly would that have helped you?"
"What is it you want me to say? That I cut a deal with someone? That they gave gave me the gun? No one forced me to pull the trigger. That was my choice." His voice turned low. "Why does it matter to you anyway? You don't know anything about me."
Clarke shook her head. "I see more than you think. Risking your life, risking your conscience to get to the ground? You always did what you had to do to protect your sister, didn't you?"
"And how would you know?" he snapped.
"Because she wasn't imprisoned until she was at least sixteen," Clarke said, recalling the face of the girl and estimating her age. "Years, spent in hiding. Her entire life... She couldn't have made it that long on her own."
When he didn't answer, it confirmed her suspicions. "You're willing to risk everything of yourself if it means getting to your sister," Clarke said quietly, her words drifting over the space between them. "That's who you are."
The anger seemed to drain from him, and his voice suddenly sounded tired. "Anyone who has expectations of me...they're always left disappointed."
She smiled. "Judging from how you went from threatening my life to saving it, I think it's safe to say you've exceeded mine." There was a small exhale and though Clarke couldn't see him, she had the impression he was smiling.
Content with that, Clarke lay down on the hard floor, using her arm as a pillow. She shut her eyes and, clutching her father's watch, braced herself for the nightmares if they came. But it wasn't as anxiety-inducing as it had been earlier. She was in the dark, yes, but at least she wasn't here alone.
The sound of approaching footsteps jarred her awake. Clarke blinked, eyes trailed on the ceiling. She quickly pulled herself up, looking over at Bellamy who was already on his feet. In an instant he had swept up a tool, brandishing it in front of him and Clarke was suddenly afraid it would be her Mom at the door. But then it opened and a familiar small frame stepped inside, pausing at the sight of Bellamy's raised weapon.
Raven glowered. "Did I say you could touch my tools?"
Bellamy let out a breath and dropped it, the sound of its impact echoing around the room. "I don't care. If you'd been a guard, you'd be feeling it against your skull right now."
Her glare turned into a sneer. "Do I really need to remind you who's covering for your sorry-?"
"Were you able to get what you needed for the feed?" Clarke interjected, cutting Raven off. The mechanic kept her eyes on Bellamy's for a moment longer before finally turning away from him. She looked at Clarke and held up a handful of wires. "Yup. I can't hack into the mainframe and send it out as a mandatory message because, like I said, I'm not a technician. But I'm pretty sure I can do it manually."
Clarke studied the tangled glob. "How long will we have before the Council shuts it down?"
Raven shrugged, tilting her head back and forth in deliberation. "Few minutes. Maybe longer. I can try a private line which may buy you some time, but not much. It's too bad I didn't study more on electrical engineering, but I don't like engineers."
Clarke wet her lips, furrowing her brows as she weighed her options. The anxiety was still there, stronger than it had been last night, but she willed herself to breathe past the knot forming in her stomach. "Is there any way to ensure it gets out?"
"You could go outside and wave a flag," Raven said sarcastically, but then shook her head. "If you send out the message from a known user rather than an anonymous one, it might make the Council less suspicious. But even that won't last more than a few seconds."
"What if they thought it was from Abby Griffin?" Clarke asked carefully, gauging Raven's reaction.
Her dark eyes narrowed to slits. "I'm not interested in getting your Mom into trouble."
"It won't be coming from my Mom. And I'll make sure the Council knows that. Using her account will give me automatic authorization that an unknown user won't have."
Bellamy looked looked over at her, brown eyes meeting her own. "What do you mean you'll make sure the Council knows it's not from your Mom?"
But Clarke just shook off his question and stared expectantly at Raven, who was chewing on her lower lip. "Do you know Abby's security ID?"
Clarke nodded, earning a surprised look from both Bellamy and Raven. "She inputted it daily for her patient logs," she explained. "I'd also like to record the last part of the feed instead of run it live. Is that possible?"
Raven gestured to the area around her. "No can do, Miss Fugitive. I know it makes it harder to trace a recording rather than a live feed, but I don't exactly have all the necessary equipment to make any promises."
Clarke sighed, but acquiesced nonetheless. Her heartbeat picked up. "So where do we do this?" She was ready. As ready as she'd ever be.
Raven held up a hand. "Reel it in a few steps, Clarke. I still have to set up. But you can help by untangling this mess." She glanced over at Bellamy. "You too, Shooter."
Clarke shook her head before he could say anything. "No, he doesn't," she said, as she took a few of the entwined wires from Raven. "This is on me."
But she couldn't stilt her surprise when Bellamy grabbed some of the wires himself and got to work across from her.
An hour later, the previously mangled pile of wire rested in individual rows, and Raven began hooking everything up to an archaic machine in the back.
Clarke appraised it. She knew what computers looked like, but everything now was either touch-screen or holographic imaging. This piece of equipment was at least thirty years old. Frankly, she was a little shocked that it still worked.
"Give me that port screen," Raven said and Clarke handed over the tablet she'd taken from her father's office. Raven plugged something in the base of it and connected the other end to the computer.
"How much longer?" Clarke asked. She felt antsy, and without something else to do, was finding it difficult to sit still. She was fidgety and her impatience was beginning to best her.
Raven let out an exasperated breath, typing something into the tablet. "Ever heard the saying 'we'll get there when we get there?' That's about how much longer."
Clarke ran a hand over her forehead. The Council could already be killing off people, casting them out into space. If she had a window to look at would she see someone's mother floating passed it?
Though Clarke would never admit it aloud, a tinny voice suggested she stop this. That she let the Council be the ones to murder residents rather than die of a possible panic, but either way they would be victims. And either way, Clarke would feel responsible.
Another hour went by and Clarke was on her last reserve of forbearance. She was almost annoyed that for once, Bellamy wasn't partaking in her aggravation, instead sitting in silence with his hands clasped tightly together.
When she couldn't take it anymore, Clarke stood from the cross-legged position she'd been resting in. "Raven-"
"Don't get your blonde hair in a twist, Repunzel," Raven said, glancing up at her from over the computer. "It's done."
Clarke's impatience was instantly replaced by a flood of panic, rushing into every part of her body, diluting her blood. She raised her chin a little higher as if to challenge it. On wobbly legs, she walked over to Raven and positioned herself in front of the tablet. Her father's face took up the entire screen and the sight offered her strength.
"The recording will give you a few minutes," Raven told her, keeping herself out of the tablet's frame. "But when it ends, it will turn live. That'll give you the chance to say whatever it is you want."
Bellamy's voice broke out behind them. "They'll be able to see her face."
"Yeah," Raven said, agreeing with him for the first time since they'd met. "Which means she can't stick around here for long."
Clarke didn't look away from her father as she said, "It doesn't matter anyway. The Council already knows who I am. My Dad didn't hide as he told the truth, so neither will I."
"Clarke..."
She turned to Raven. "Play it."
There was a button the tablet's surface, begging to be pressed. Clarke wasn't even surprised by it; all the hard moments in her life included buttons.
One quick tap was all it took, and her father's words chimed inside the workroom. He'd died trying to get this video out. The attempt had cost him his life but at least now, it hadn't been taken in vain.
My name is Jake Griffin...He said, in a voice she'd heard a thousand times before. It was the same one that had told her bedtime stories as a child. The same one that had called checkmate on his day off. It was the same voice that had made her feel safe.
Today, I need to talk to you about our future...
Clarke watched the screen intently, imagining her father's face on every screen, his words sounding down the corridors, demanding to be heard even after death.
The Ark...is dying.
...Time is running out...
...Now, while there is still time, we need to come together...
...I believe it will bring out the best in us-our strength, our humanity, our faith...
In this time of uncertainty.
The video ended, and her father's face disappeared. A moment later, her own features materialized on the screen, reflecting back. Blue eyes, so very like her father's, sparkled under the light.
Clarke swallowed.
"My Dad was killed for trying to warn us of the Ark's current condition." Despite the fear wreaking havoc inside her, Clarke's voice was strong, inspired by her father's words. "He was killed for knowing the truth and for wanting to share it with all of you. But he was never able to until now. It isn't hard to figure out that people will be sacrificed to extend our oxygen supply, but I wanted to give you a chance to decide that much for yourself. The future doesn't belong to the Chancellor or the Council. It belongs to all of us, and I'm hoping the same as my Dad did. That in light of this crisis, we will come together and that no one's life will have to be taken from them. That you will choose what to give it for; your children, your loved ones. For humanity." Clarke took a shaky breath. "May we meet again."
Raven pressed the button a second time and the face looking back at them froze before the screen went dark.
Clarke released a breath she hadn't known she was holding, and expected some huge surge of relief. Some sense of accomplishment. But there was none, and for a moment nobody spoke. Then Clarke was on her feet, heading straight for the door.
Before she reached it, a strong hand wrapped around her wrist and she whipped around, meeting Bellamy's intense gaze. "Where do you think you're going?"
"I need to see for myself," Clarke said. I need to see what happens.
Incredulity clouded his dark eyes. "Are you out of your mind? Your face was just shown on every Station. You go out there and you won't be coming back."
Something ferocious blazed in his eyes, but Clarke just yanked herself out of his hold. Though Raven was watching her as well, the mechanic stayed quiet.
"Bellamy," Clarke said, and for once she wasn't calm. She let the desperation into her voice. She let her emotions bleed in front of him. "This is what I stayed behind to do. This is the reason I'm here."
"So now that you've finished with your first priority you don't mind a little suicide mission?"
Her gaze skirted from his before meeting it again. "It's easier," Clarke admitted. "I'm not trying to get myself killed. But this is something that I need to do."
He shook his head in disbelief. "And what if you're caught? How do I know you won't tell the Council I'm here?"
For some inexplicable reason, the accusation stung. Clarke had thought they were onto something last night; something like friendship, but it was clear she had been wrong. "I won't tell them. I wouldn't."
Bellamy took a step closer, until he was towering above her, head bent over hers. His tone became something cold, a stark contrast to the fire kindling in his eyes. "I told you I don't want to owe you anything."
"Well that's something you don't have to worry about. If I'm caught, they'll just float me. And you can't repay a debt to the dead."
That made him pause and Clarke used to opportunity to turn away from him. She opened the door.
"You're making a huge mistake," Bellamy said as she stepped over the threshold. Clarke looked back at him, at the anger still lining his features but it was mixed with something else. Something she couldn't quite place.
A ribbon of sadness wound tautly around her chest. "I hope you make it back to your sister," she said.
Then the door slid shut between them.