Miss Me Princess?
Chapter Seven
Murphy P.O.V.
The atmosphere of the camp was tense as everyone worked, and prepared, and waited…
The grounders were coming.
Soon.
For days the air had been sparking with anticipation. Pressure was building; filing the camp and swelling against its boundaries as though it would soon burst. Anticipation hissed through the camp like air escaping a swollen balloon. Nerves and anxieties strained against the confines of the walls, generating a charge of energy which coursed through the occupants as they waited for the inevitable attack, under a tension that was so taut it would soon snap - violently. Murphy began to spot the tell-tale signs of stress and panic as they started leaking through the cracks of the confidence and egos of the people around him as they grew increasingly agitated. He knew from experience that for teenage boys – at least for those who were locked up in the skybox prison - fear presented itself in shows of frustration and outward displays of aggression. Therefore, he knew it was only a matter of time before someone rounded on him.
"This is all your fault!" The angry words were snarled in Murphy's face before hands struck against each of his shoulders with force, pushing him back a step and putting space between them again. They stood facing each other with defiant stares: weighing one another up, assessing the odds in a fight. Murphy tensed but didn't respond as he examined the young man in front of him closely. He didn't know his name but he knew who he was; he had worked beside him for days now and had spoken to him a handful of times in the early weeks on earth, after they first landed. He wasn't as tall as Murphy but he was broader and had a stockier build. He was one of the older members of the 100, Murphy was sure he had been only days away from turning 18 and being floated when they were all packed into the dropship and sent down here. He attacked again. This time his hands collided with Murphy's chest, striking hard and shoving him backwards again. Murphy braced himself against the impact; planting his feet and taking a breath as the force of the strike on top of his ribs pushed the air out of his lungs. The move had been obvious but Murphy didn't act to stop it or avoid it, just absorbed its force. His heart began to speed up, heating his blood with a surge of adrenaline and testosterone, but Murphy ignored it, only straightening up his posture: drawing back his shoulders and flexing, stretching out the muscles in an attempt to loosen and disperse the building tension. Around them others had stopped working and were watching on with excitement. Murphy's unwillingness to fight seemed to anger his attacker further. His eyes blazed black under the dark crease of his eyebrows and red blotches coloured his face as he growled out again, this time louder.
"This is All" he shoved at Murphy, "Your" shoved again, "Fault!" and again. Murphy steadied himself, his breathing coming more heavily now as he restrained himself. The impulse to lash out was pumping loudly through his veins. His face was grim: his lips pressed into a thin line as he stared down the angry youth facing him. He still wouldn't let himself be provoked. That was what he wanted, this angry young man with black hair and matching black eyes. Murphy was a bully, and he was mean, and he was always ready for a fight - and everyone knew that. This man was worse in Murphy's eyes, because he was a manipulator: he charmed people and played with them and used them – and everyone knew that too. So Murphy didn't fight back, he wouldn't give him the satisfaction until he knew why. If he hadn't been looking for it Murphy might not have seen the tiny flash that skirted through the black eyes as a voice rang out from the crowd.
"What the hell!? Hey stop that! What's going on here?" Her voice was sharp and high over the hum of the crowd. Wisps of emotion gathered and clouded around Murphy's thumping heart, turning solid in his chest at the sound of it. She shouldn't be here, he thought angrily, she shouldn't get involved in these things. Murphy clenched his hands into fists and ground his teeth together as he fought to repress another rush of testosterone and adrenaline. Clarke elbowed her way through the gathered crowd of onlookers until she reached them. Murphy saw her eyes flicking from him to the other man and back again. He knew what she was seeing: the firm aggressive stances, the defiant glares, and the waves of tension rippling between them. She moved more cautiously now, approaching them like they were wild animals, as she edged forward with slow and steady movements to stand between them. With one last glance over her shoulder at him Clarke turned her back to Murphy and faced the other man.
"What the hell's going on here?" she demanded. He stared fixedly at Murphy over her head, not sparing her a glance when he spoke.
"We wouldn't be in this mess if it wasn't for him." He sneered. Aggression radiated from him as he pointed a finger towards Murphy with a sharp jab.
"Don't be stupid." Clarke snapped at him angrily, finally drawing his attention as he shot her a black glare. "The grounders were always going to attack us eventually. They've been trying to kill us since we got here." She didn't shout but her words were coated in contempt as she bit them out, making the black haired man stiffen with anger. Murphy's eyes were fixed on him, watching him carefully as he pulled back his shoulders and drew himself up to his full height, waiting and watching for his next move and ready to respond to it. "All Murphy did was give them information." Clarke's tone of disdain made her dislike towards the man obvious. Murphy saw something pass over his face as he fixed Clarke with a cold hard stare.
"He gave them information?" He said haughtily. His words were almost exactly the same as Clarkes except for his inflection. With the slightest adjustment to his tone and his expression he managed to belittle Clarke's defence of Murphy and demean Murphy's experience with the grounders. The statement was arrogantly drawled out and his expression was smug as he met Murphy's steely gaze with a challenge flashing in his black eyes. Murphy heard the murmurs rise up around them. He saw the way the tension clawed its way up Clarkes spine, tightening her muscles and straightening her back. So this was what he wanted: to make people see Murphy as a traitor? As though he willingly betrayed the 100 instead of having the details teased out of him with knifes and hot pokers. Unbidden, memories flashed rapidly behind his eyes: images of chains and knifes painted red by his blood; the sound of his screams and pleas for mercy, for death; a crying princess whispering apologies through her tears as he lay broken and abandoned in her care. There was a ringing in his ears over which he could just make out the sound of Clarke's voice.
"What?" she sounded small: confused and astounded at being manipulated in such a way, in some kind of power play.
"Is that 'all he did', princess?" he taunted snidely and then Murphy lunged for him. The lingering ghosts of fear quickly vanishing to be replaced by a rage, swifter and more insistent than the anger any pushing or yelling could have riled out of him. But Clarke stopped him. If she hadn't already been standing between them Murphy doubted she would have been able to, but she had already been angled in front of him so when she grabbed a handful of his t-shirt he had to either stop or barrel into her. He froze, every muscle locked, his chest rising and falling rapidly, his own eyes fixed with a deadly intent on the black eyes still taunting him.
"Justin can I see your hand?" Clarke asked in her calm and detached healer tone of voice. Calculating black eyes flickered to her, caught off guard and unsure, but after a moment's hesitation his hand was extended out.
"Uh ok. Why?" he asked his gaze already drifting back to Murphy in quick repeated glances, more interested in the torment and fury on the man's face than the bland request of the woman between them.
Clarke reached out quickly and grasped his offered hand, her grip tightening into a vice like hold when in the next instance she withdrew the knife tucked into her belt.
"I'm going to start removing your fingernails to see what information you'll give me." She answered with a blank expression the second the blade was drawn. The sentence wasn't fully out of her mouth when Justin yelped and ripped his hand out of her grasp with such force that they both stumbled apart. Startled gasps echoed through the spectators. Murphy stared, eyes wide and eyebrows raised, too stunned to reach out and steady her as Clarke staggered back a step.
"Crazy bitch!" Justin yelled at her wide eyed and pale with his hand fisted protectively against his chest. Clarkes face was thunderous as she stalked towards him, blade still clutched in her fist.
"Stop looking for a fight and get back to work!" she hissed. She spun swiftly and barked out again: "Back to work!" Murphy still stood rooted to the spot as Clarke disappeared without a backwards glance and the gathered crowd quickly dispersed.
Murphy felt the tingle of watching eyes whisper down the nape of his neck and turned to find Justin glaring venomously at him. He turned away, ignoring him. But the sensation arose again, persisting repeatedly throughout the afternoon. Murphy continued to work until he couldn't ignore the needling feeling any longer. He spun around ready to yell at Justin, but it wasn't him, instead he spotted two kids watching him and giggling as they filled flasks by the water tank. He scowled at them and went back to work. When his senses started to itch for a third time Murphy's blood pressure spiked with irritation. He almost growled at the infuriating felling of eyes boring into the back of his head while he worked. He stubbornly resisted, ignoring the urge to turn round until the sensation became too much and the compulsion overwhelmed him. He spun, eyes frantically scanning for the eyes that were already fixed on him and finally locked gazes with the princess. Hot angry annoyance quickly cooled to confusion and suspicion. He frowned. He expected her to smile, or wave, or something, and then when she didn't he felt foolish for expecting it. So why was she watching him? Murphy started to suspect she was watching him to see if there were any more fights. But was she blaming him for them or trying to somehow protect him from them, he didn't know. Frustrated with Justin's dominance games, and with feeling like an outsider, and fed up with not understanding the princess or what she wanted from him Murphy decided he would have to confront her about it.
Murphy joined Clarke at a fire where she was sitting alone eating dinner.
"I don't need you fighting my fights for me Princess." His built up frustration and irritation from the day made him sound stern but he didn't think he was really angry with her.
"I know." She answered lightly, seemingly unaffected by his surliness. "That doesn't mean you have to fight every fight alone." Like when she had been treating him in the dropship everything about her seemed to soften as she said this. Her features opened up into a look of such honesty and earnestness that he could sense she was saying this to him from her own experience; as though she were giving him this advice because she knew something of what it was like, she was tired of fighting her fights alone. Just like before this unexpected glimpse of her vulnerability chipped away at his own harsh exterior, making him want to lower his defences too. He sighed tiredly and slid down off the log they were both sitting on until he was sat on the ground, legs stretching towards the fire, his back propped up against the log.
"I owe you enough already." He told her quietly. He shifted his shoulders lower, letting his head tilt back until it too rested against the log, his face angled up towards to stars. "I don't like owing you." He grumbled.
"You don't owe me anything." She disagreed softly. Murphy turned his head, regarded her with an incredulous look and scoffed.
"You cleaned me up when I came back from the grounders. You looked after me. You stuck up for me when Bellamy was ready to kick me out again. You jumped in front of a gun for me when Bellamy wanted to shoot me. You looked after me when I was sick-"
"Murphy," she quickly cut in before he could continue "I didn't do any of those things thinking I would get something in return. In fact, most of those things I did out of guilt because I felt like I-I…" Clarke faltered. She swallowed against the lump of guilt in her throat and pressed on, needing him to understand, "I'm the one who got you hanged. I'm the one who got you banished. Anything I've done since you've come back has been to try and make up for that."
They sat in silence for a long time: Clarke stared into the fire and nibbled on tiny spoonfuls of stew, while Murphy peered up at the stars, his own dinner sitting on his lap uneaten and forgotten.
Murphy sounded awkward and confused when he ended the quiet. "That doesn't mean that I don't owe you my life now. Nothing changes the fact that I was a dick. I left, I gave the grounders information, then I came back and brought a sickness that could have killed us all."
Clarke opens her mouth to protest, the words already there, forming in her mind and ready to leap off of her tongue but then she paused. Thinking.
"Ok look this doesn't help anyone: this game of who owes who more. We've both done things we regret, that we feel guilty over." She glanced over at him to find him watching her. He nodded. "I don't hate you, you don't hate me." He nodded again and she nodded back.
"So let's just start a fresh. No one owes anyone. No one has an advantage. Clean slate." She unconsciously made a gesture with her arm, sweeping it away from her as though she could literally wipe away their messy and entangled history. But Murphy wasn't looking at her anymore he was gazing up at the stars again in thought. "Fresh start. We're both even and we want the same thing." She was pleading. Now that it had been put in to words she needed for things to change between them. He turned to her with a frown and asked.
"What do we both want?"
"To not be alone?" although it was her answer, it came out as a question of its own. The complexity of the dynamic between them and how much it had changed made her so unsure of herself and how to act towards him. "Everyone needs somebody." She added in a tiny voice.
"You're alone? You don't have anyone?" he asked disbelievingly. Clarke shrugged uncomfortably.
"I have…not friends, no. Just people. I thought I had Finn. I trusted him and I…cared about him. Then Raven arrived." She looked away.
"Why are you telling me all this? Is this you…trusting me?" Murphy sounded confused and frustrated again, and perhaps a little scared at the prospect of being trusted – trust was a responsibility he'd never had.
"I don't know. I think I'm maybe just not pretending with you…. Maybe…it could be a fresh start?" When he didn't say anything for several minutes Clarke summoned the courage to look over at him and found Murphy regarding her with the hint of a smile. It wasn't sly or malicious, just amused and it startled her with its charm. She'd never seen Murphy with an attractive smile before, she thought distractedly. "What?" she asked self-consciously.
"You said some stuff before…under the fever. Something about us both being 'better this time'." She watched him uncertainly and waited, not remembering what she said and therefore not sure how it would impact now. She hoped it hadn't been anything bad. By the time she got the fever she had been looking after Murphy for about a week already, her mind had been made, she wouldn't have thought or said anything bad about him after that, would she? "Octavia heard parts of it." He continued and didn't notice the way this piece of information had caused her to jerk slightly, or the barely audible hitch in her breath. Now Clarke was worried for an entirely different reason, and at the same time was silently grateful to the darkness of the night and the glow of the fire as the worked well together to hide her blush. "You said some things about why people don't like me." Clarke winced at his words but there was still a smile on his face as he thought back to a conversation she couldn't remember having.
"I'm sorry." She said hesitantly.
"It's ok." He snorted a brief laugh "That's when you said we would be friends."
"I did?" she said surprised.
"And that you wouldn't let Bellamy banish me." His smile dropped away as he watched her carefully for a reaction.
"I didn't." His eyes narrowed. She rushed to assure him. "I mean we've already talked about it and he isn't going to banish you."
"All those reasons why people don't like me: they won't change. I'm a dick." It was Clarke's turn to smile. She shrugged and told him:
"I'm a pain in the ass uppity princess who bosses everyone around and thinks she knows everything." Clarke said. "So do you want to be my friend?" He laughed. The sound was all it took to chase away the doubts and uncertainties.
At that moment Octavia strolled past their small fire with her own dinner serving. She grinned broadly and winked at Clarke who in turn stiffened and narrowed her eyes at the brunette. Murphy grew uneasy. The amusement was extinguished from his eyes. He worried that the younger Blake would join them; there was clearly meaning in her exchange with Clarke that linked to some previous conversation between the two. The thought of Clarke leaving to talk to Octavia left him feeling surprisingly lonely. Murphy felt suddenly vulnerable after his conversation with Clarke: he had left himself too open and could already feel his defences and his hackles rising. This is why he didn't let people in, this risk of being let down. All of a sudden he was once again ready to lash out if necessary, in order to keep a wall up between himself and the rest of the world. But Octavia skipped away as quickly and quietly as she had appeared. Murphy watched the tension ease back out of Clarkes posture. They both relaxed. Neither could think of anything more to say, both a little scared of ruining this new and fragile thing – this truce – so they lapsed into silence as they finished their food, but it was a welcome and comforting kind of quiet: a friendly silence.
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