Mara awoke on her first full day on Earth to the sound of Nathan's soft snores filling the makeshift tent they shared together. After the rain had subsided the night before, Nathan had set about cutting away a large portion of the dropship's parachute while Mara had gathered branches long enough and strong enough to support a tent. There had been no question in their minds that they wouldn't sleep in separate tents after becoming so reliant on each other in the Sky Box. The thought of spending their first night apart was almost unbearable for the two. Nathan and Mara had received a few wolf whistles when they entered the tent together, after at least an hour of playful arguing when they attempted to build it, but they brushed the comments off. They had removed some of the seats from the dropship to make their beds and noticed a few of the delinquents following their actions.

The tent was on the small side but it was big enough for the two of them. They slept on opposite sides of the tent with the entrance to their makeshift home by their feet. They had considered sleeping in the open air for their first night but the chance of the rain starting back up had stopped that idea in its tracks.

At some point in the night, Charlotte had slipped into their tent to wake Mara up. The two squeezed top and tail onto Mara's attempted bed after Charlotte's much older tent mate had brought a boy into their tent. Mara had offered to let Charlotte stay with her and Nathan when they built their tent but Charlotte hadn't thought there would be enough room for her. The girl had eventually found a space in another tent but didn't want to have to listen to her tent mate having sex.

Mara shifted onto her back slightly, trying to avoid kicking Charlotte as she did, and smirked over at Nathan when he let out a particularly loud snore. He had fallen asleep almost immediately, the exhaustion from the day catching up with him, and his snores had helped calm Mara's anxiety about what nights on Earth would bring. She had worried that nocturnal creatures were lurking in the forest, waiting for the perfect opportunity to attack. But when nothing happened, and Mara could hear nothing other than the sound of Nathan's snores and some of the delinquents bragging about their "first fuck on Earth", she had eventually drifted into a restless sleep.

When Charlotte had woken her in the middle of the night, Mara immediately assumed the worst, that the camp was burning down or some type of animal was attacking them, and was ready to shake Nathan awake. That was until Charlotte had assured her that everything was fine and that she just didn't want to have to listen to her tent mate. Mara had shuffled over to try and make room on her bed for Charlotte to climb into. It was a tight squeeze but they managed if their legs overlapped slightly. Charlotte was so tiny that she hardly made much difference at all.

Mara had awoken a second time in the middle of the night to someone screaming. She had cast her gaze around the tent trying to locate the sound before she realised that Charlotte was the culprit. Mara had shaken her awake and assured the girl that she was fine, that she had just been having a nightmare. Nathan had woken with a jolt and crossed the tent in one long stride, believing that Mara was hurt. It had taken Mara some time to reassure them both that everything was fine and to go back to sleep. Nathan had done so without question after he had scanned Mara for any sign of injury. Charlotte had taken a little longer to calm down but once she did, she slept without any more interruptions.

The tent cast an orange glow over everything as the sunlight beamed down on it. Mara let out a quiet yawn and attempted to stretch her limbs without waking Charlotte. She took a deep breath and a sleepy smile crossed her face as she remembered that she was no longer on The Ark. She could hear many of the delinquents already awake outside of her tent. She wondered how long they had slept for but decided that they all deserved as much sleep as they could get.

She clambered over Charlotte and pulled on the jacket that she had discarded. Her lips smacked together as she realised just how dry her throat was. She hadn't drunk or eaten anything since she had left The Ark. She mentally smacked herself that she hadn't thought to collect the rainwater from the night before but she had been so caught up in the moment that the thought hadn't even entered her head. She hoped that someone had been smart enough to gather the rainwater.

She rubbed sleep out of her eyes as she exited the tent, blinking rapidly to adjust her eyes to the harsh sunlight. Her stomach rumbled loudly and she clamped her hand over it, just realising how hungry she really was. She was used to the half rations the prisoners were given in the Sky Box but even half rations were better than nothing.

A couple of boys sprinted by her and she had to take a step back to avoid being trampled. She shook her head but a small smile was playing on her lips as she watched the boys running around. It felt good to be able to have the freedom to do something as ordinary as running or just breathing the fresh air.

Most of the delinquents were already awake and filtering around the camp. Some had reignited the fires that had extinguished during the night, others either retained the same partner or found a new one to spend time with and a small group of young boys began assembling what looked like a drum set.

She could hear a strange melodic sound drifting in the air but couldn't see anyone singing or humming. Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion when she couldn't find the source of the noise but something told her to look into the trees. When she did, she noticed a small group of little purple and blue birds perched on a low hanging branch, serenading the campers with their song. Mara stood and watched them for a while, noticing the way the light bounced off of their feathers and the way they seemed to harmonize with one another.

"Morning," Nathan's sleepy voice sounded from beside her.

"Morning."

Mara had never seen Nathan in the morning before (given that she had only seen him for the first time the day before) and realised that she had been missing out. His clothes were ruffled and he had somehow managed to turn his shirt backwards and inside out in his sleep. His stubble seemed to be less groomed as if his method for maintaining its style had been forgotten. His eyes were clouded over with the remaining tiredness in his body and one pant leg and raised up his calf. He looked like a stylised mess.

"Is there any food? I'm starving."

Mara had to strain to hear him properly. His voice had become gravely and deep during his sleep and he mumbled his words as he had yet to fully wake up.

"I'm not sure; I was just about to check. Is Charlotte up yet?"

"No, still passed out. You're a morning person aren't you?" Nathan groaned and rubbed his eyes with his hands.

"What?" Mara laughed and he peeked out from between his fingers.

"You're too chipper, your face is doing a…a thing."

"What are you talking about?"

"You are smiling far too much for the morning." He stretched his arms above his head and released the loudest yawn Mara had ever heard. She stared at him in shock for a moment, surprised that it was possible for anyone to make such an inhuman noise.

"I'll keep that in mind," she rolled her eyes at him and headed for a large group of delinquents holding metal cups. Someone had collected the rainwater. She could hear Nathan trudging along behind her and briefly wondered to herself if Nathan was capable of doing anything quietly.

When they reached the group a girl handed them two of the metal cups which they dipped into the metal basin containing slightly warm water. The first sip of water was the most delicious thing Mara had ever tasted. She felt like she could almost taste the purity of it. Mara shivered as it slid down her throat and soothed the dull ache that had appeared. She couldn't stop a small moan from escaping her mouth as she took another sip and had to restrain herself from drinking the whole cup in one large gulp. Nathan had a very similar reaction to Mara and the water seemed to have woken him up fully at last.

"We should take some for Charlotte while there's still some left," Mara said to herself more than to Nathan but he nodded his head in agreement nonetheless before a smile broke out across his face.

"What?"

"You are such a mom," he laughed and poked her side.

"Shut up," she mumbled but shot him a quick smile so that he knew she was joking.

When they returned to the tent, Charlotte was just beginning to stir and yawned lightly as her eyes blinked slowly open.

"Morning," she chirped and eagerly accepted the cup of water Mara handed her.

"There are two of you," Nathan groaned as he sat back down on his bed and ran his hand over his head. "One morning person I can handle but I don't think I can handle two."

The trio soon found themselves sitting in front of the same fire they had sat at the night before. Discarded and inactive wristbands littered the floor and Mara couldn't stop thinking about how out of place they looked amongst the earth.

Mara had quickly fixed Charlotte's ripped shirt. Word had spread around the camp that she was half decent with a needle and she found herself in the awful position of being the unofficial camp seamstress. She was quickly surrounded by a small pile of shirts needing mending from the delinquents either play or real fighting.

Nathan sat on Mara's right, trying to sharpen a piece of the metal from the dropship into a knife. Charlotte knelt on the ground by Mara's feet and seemed quite content to rope a bunch of flowers into a flower chain. A few of the delinquents lingered around the fire, most of them waiting for Mara to finish fixing up their clothes. There was one boy in particular that caught Mara's eye. He was one of Bellamy's henchmen, but he had a small following of his own. He sat on the opposite side of the fire, staring into its depths. There was something about him that made Mara shiver unpleasantly. He looked like the very definition of trouble. His eyes were narrowed as he stared at the fire, a menacing gleam taking over them as he whispered to the boys surrounding him.

"Who's that?" She whispered to Nathan who stopped what he was doing to glance to where she was gesturing.

"Murphy," Nathan whispered back, his dislike of the boy in question was plainly obvious.

Before Mara could so much as blink, the menacing boy had grabbed a girl walking by him and dragged her over to the fire. She struggled in his grip but he clutched her tighter and forced her to her knees. The girl screamed as Murphy held her face dangerously close to the flickering flames. Mara and Nathan leapt to their feet, Mara stepping slightly in front of Charlotte to protect the girl.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Mara screeched at Murphy, momentarily forgetting to watch her language around Charlotte and her initial fear of the boy in front of her. "Leave her alone!"

Mara started forward but Nathan grabbed her and pulled her back. Murphy smirked at Mara, his eyes glinting maliciously as she struggled to get out of Nathan's tight grip. A crowd had gathered around them after hearing the girl being held over the fire screaming, desperate to see another fight break out. Murphy's sadistic smirk grew wider when he noticed the size of his audience and one man in particular.

"Bellamy! Check it out!" There was a disgusting level of pride in Murphy's voice as he addressed his leader. "We want The Ark to think that the ground is killing us right? Figured it'll look better if we suffer a little first."

Bellamy's eyes flickered from the girl being held over the fire to Mara who had broken out of Nathan's grasp and was storming over to Murphy. Nathan ran after her and pulled her back into his arms, locking them around her torso and refusing to let go.

"Calm down," he hissed in her ear, knowing that if he let her go she would do something she would later regret. "Mara! Don't get involved."

Mara's struggles lessened when Wells rushed out of the crowd and shoved Murphy away from the girl. She felt Nathan's grip relax and that was all she needed to pull away from his arms. She rushed to the girl, completely ignoring Nathan's groan behind her and crouched in front of the girl. The girl looked up at her teary-eyed and clutching her hand to one side of her face.

"Are you okay?"

The girl nodded her head but fear still lingered behind her eyes. Mara grabbed a cup of water someone had been drinking out of and gently removed the girl's hand from her face. She couldn't see any burns on the girl's face but it was incredibly hot. Mara slowly poured some of the water on the side of the girl's face, trying to soothe some of the heat and prevent a potential burn. The girl nodded her head in thanks and cast Murphy one last fearful look before scurrying away and hiding amongst the growing crowd.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Mara rounded on Murphy, who was still lying on the ground after Wells had shoved him. She started forward, not sure what she was intending on doing. She had never been in a fight before but rage was boiling inside of her and she knew that she couldn't let Murphy get away with what he had done. She felt a hand grab her upper arm and yank her backwards, causing her to stumble and nearly fall to the ground. She rounded on the person who had grabbed her, expecting to find Nathan but was confronted with Bellamy's cold stare, clearly annoyed with her getting involved in the situation. She was momentarily distracted by how different he looked. He had dropped the guard uniform and his slicked back hair now curled around his face. What surprised Mara the most was how young it made him look, almost as if he was the same age as the delinquents.

"You can stop this." Wells turned away from a slightly dazed Murphy to stare Bellamy down.

Before Mara could process that Bellamy had pulled her from a brewing fight, she was handed off to Nathan who shot her a look of frustration and pulled her behind his body.

"Stop this?" Smugness filled Bellamy's tone and Mara glared at his back from her position behind Nathan. "I'm just getting started."

Mara couldn't believe that Bellamy was endorsing Murphy's actions, encouraging him almost, and that he was comfortable with someone being held over an open flame for the sake of a wristband. She was disgusted by what was happening in front of her as the boy with the menacing eyes leapt from the ground and punched Wells. They began fighting in earnest and Mara clenched her jaw in frustration when Nathan moved her back further. She knew that she was out of her depth in a fist fight and glared at Bellamy when he made no move to stop the two boys landing blows to each other.

"Bellamy!" She grabbed his attention and could almost hear the frustrated eye roll Nathan was giving her. "This is chaos!" She stepped towards him but was stopped by Nathan's hand on her elbow.

"What's wrong with a little chaos?" Bellamy replied, a smirk playing on the edges of his lips.

"Something is wrong with it when someone is held over a fire!"

She had to shout to be heard over the crowd who were cheering for Murphy. Hatred for Chancellor Jaha had descended upon his son and since the Chancellor wasn't on Earth, Wells was forced to take the brunt of the delinquents' aggression. Bellamy stared at her, unimpressed with her answer, and turned away from her.

"Stop getting involved!"

Nathan pulled her behind him once more. His shoulders were tense and he made sure to keep a hand on her arm to stop her from moving again. Charlotte slipped her hand into Mara's as she watched the two boys fighting. Charlotte's eyes held an unabashed cocktail of fear and rage as she looked at Wells, taking Mara by surprise. Mara gently squeezed the girl's hand causing Charlotte to look away from the boys and the look in her eyes to vanish.

Mara winced at the sounds of Wells' fist colliding with Murphy's nose. A trail of crimson blood trickled from it and dipped into his parted lips. Wells appeared relatively unscathed until Murphy landed a blow to the side of his face and Wells' lip burst, sending a splatter of blood flying into the air. The two grunted as they tried to land as many blows as possible to each other. Murphy managed to flip Wells onto his back and straddled his waist, raining punches down on Wells' face. Mara grimaced at the sound of skin being split open accompanied by the shouts of the other delinquents screaming for blood.

Wells managed to gain the upper hand on Murphy and slammed his head off of the hard ground. Wells staggered away from the bleeding and bruised boy towards Bellamy. Mara felt slightly guilty that she was pleased when Bellamy took a step back as apprehension crossed his face. He had clearly underestimated Wells' ability to stand up for himself. The crowd quietened down, waiting to see a confrontation between the Chancellor's son and their leader.

"Don't you see you can't control this?"

Mara was impressed by how calm Wells appeared as he spoke to Bellamy. There were groans from the members of the crowd who had wanted to see a longer and bloodier fight. Mara felt disgusted by those delinquents. Wells had been protecting the girl Murphy was hurting, he didn't deserve the looks of sheer unadulterated hatred he was receiving. Mara had no love for Chancellor Jaha, but the Chancellor and his son were two very different people. It wasn't right to persecute him for the actions of his father.

Wells' back was turned to the boy on the ground as he stared Bellamy down, neither of the two willing to back away. Murphy staggered to his feet and muttered something Mara couldn't quite hear over the grumbling of the crowd. Mara saw a flash of light against Murphy's hand and when he moved slightly, the sun revealed a long sharp piece of metal.

"Wells!" Mara screamed and gestured wildly to Murphy. Wells turned just in time to avoid Murphy swinging for him but Bellamy interrupted the altercation before it could escalate any further.

Mara blatantly ignored Nathan's look of annoyance as she watched to see how Bellamy would handle the situation. She hoped that he would act as a mediator or simply put his foot down and stop the fight altogether. Wishful thinking, Mara moaned as Bellamy handed Wells a knife claiming that it had to be a "fair fight."

Nathan gripped Mara a little tighter, clearly warning her not to interrupt the fight any further. He didn't want her to be reckless and end up being stabbed in a knife fight. Mara wasn't stupid enough to try and intervene now as the two boys circled each other, sizing each other up. She was disappointed that Bellamy was encouraging them but she wasn't too surprised after his little "whatever the hell we want speech" the night before.

Murphy eventually managed to slice Wells' arm with his knife but grew cocky when Wells winced. Murphy launched at Wells again but lost his footing and Wells managed to slip behind him, pressing his knife to Murphy's throat. Mara could hear Murphy's shallow breathing as he tried to pull away from the knife. Before the fight could escalate into anything deadly, the group that had left to search for supplies burst into the clearing.

"Wells!" A blonde girl shouted as she ran down a small hill and stared Wells down. "Let him go!"

Mara was surprised by how quickly Wells complied with her command. She had pegged him as more of a leader than a follower after the number of times he had stood up to Bellamy so far.

The blonde girl looked relatively unharmed, just a little out of breath, but there was a strong look of panic in her eyes that made Mara wary of whatever she was going to say. Mara was quick to notice that only four of the five members of the group had returned to the camp and the other girl was limping quite significantly.

Bellamy rushed to the limping girl. Must be his sister, Mara noted. Bellamy asked the question that was on all of the delinquents' minds as they noticed that the group that had been specifically sent out to find the supplies had returned empty-handed.

"Where's the food?"

One of the boys of the group sat down on one of the logs surrounding the fire and ran a hand through his shaggy brown hair. When he did this, Mara noticed that his vest had ripped along the seam. She assumed that she was going to have to fix it for him given that the other delinquents had gone to her for the same thing.

The boy with the shaggy hair informed the hundred that the group hadn't made it to Mount Weather where the supplies were located. Mara felt worry growing in the pit of her stomach. There was something about the way the group were looking at each other, and the missing member, that told Mara something had gone seriously wrong on their trip. She squeezed Nathan's arm slightly so that he would let go of her. When he did, she moved to stand beside him and Charlotte stood slightly behind the two.

"We were attacked," Mara's suspicions were confirmed when the blonde (Clarke she heard Wells call her) spoke up.

"Attacked? By what?" The confusion was clear in Wells' voice and many of the hundred began to cast worried looks at each other.

"Not by what. Who." The shaggy-haired boy spoke up. "Turns out when the last man from the ground died on The Ark, he wasn't the last grounder."

"It's true," Clarke confirmed. "Everything we thought we knew about the ground is wrong. There are people here. Survivors. The good news is that the ground is survivable, the radiation won't kill us."

"The bad news is the grounders will."

The statement hung heavy in the air as the hundred contemplated what that meant. Mara and Nathan glanced at each other out of the corner of their eyes and he quickly wrapped his arm around her shoulders and gave her a light squeeze before pulling away. They had only just properly met each other; they weren't ready to lose each other so soon. Mara glanced at Charlotte and tried to give her a reassuring smile but it was weak and they both knew it.

"Jasper was hit," the issue of the missing member of the group was addressed. "They took him."

That statement hit the hundred harder than the last and panic began to edge into everyone's eyes. If one of them had been injured, or killed, it meant that the grounders were a real and dangerous threat, not one to be treated lightly. Low muttering began to emerge from the watching crowd.

Mara tuned out of the conversation when Clarke started ranting about how the wristbands were too important to remove when she noticed Wells' bare right wrist. Mara had already made up her mind not to remove her wristband and didn't need Clarke to confirm that for her or for Bellamy's speech to convince her otherwise. Does he practice these speeches? Mara thought as Bellamy began to rally the hundred to his side.

"This is bad," Mara whispered just loud enough so that only Nathan could hear while Bellamy addressed the crowd.

"We'll figure something out," he whispered back trying to sound confident but failing miserably.

Bellamy's speech finished with a round of applause and cheers from the crowd as Clarke stormed off. The shaggy-haired boy lagged behind but as he turned to leave he was stopped by one of the hundred who gestured from his ripped vest to Mara and back again. Mara had a new customer.

The boy strode confidently over to Mara and flicked his long hair out of his eyes.

"I hear you're good with a needle."

"Come on, I'll fix you up," she gestured over to where she had abandoned her needle and thread. Nathan and the shaggy-haired boy followed behind her. Mara and Nathan resumed their positions before Murphy decided to create his own piece of chaos.

"Thanks, uh…" the boy paused as he shrugged out of his vest and handed it to Mara.

"Mara," she smiled at him and began to stitch the ripped fabric back together.

"Finn," the boy stated. "But you probably know me as Spacewalker."

Mara froze. She was halfway through piercing the fabric with her needle when everything around her stilled. She kept her eyes locked on the vest before her and refused to look at the boy in front of her. This was the boy, the Spacewalker, who had wasted three months of The Ark's oxygen. This was the boy whose actions caused the council to float her mother.

Mara's skin felt like ice, her heart even seemed to freeze over. She didn't know how to react or what to say to the boy that had caused her mother's death. The thought hadn't even crossed her mind that she might meet the Spacewalker while on Earth. A small part of her, that she didn't want to admit existed, had hoped that he had turned eighteen before they were sent to the Earth. A very small part of her had wanted him to be floated when she was in her angriest moments. She felt guilty that the thought had even entered her head.

She stabbed her needle into the fabric and began stitching it back together furiously. She no longer felt like ice instead, she felt like a volcano waiting to erupt. Fire was burning in her veins and she knew that she needed to finish his vest and get away from the Spacewalker before she erupted in his face.

Nathan's head had snapped up from his makeshift knife when he heard Finn utter his nickname. Nathan's eyes flashed rapidly from Mara to Finn and back again, waiting for Mara to react. He had listened to her many times in the Sky Box talking about her hatred for the Spacewalker but she would always feel guilty about hating him afterwards, believing that the Spacewalker couldn't have known the consequences of his actions.

Finn had noticed the shift in Mara's behaviour and for once, his confident attitude dropped and he shifted awkwardly on his feet.

The three sat in silence as Mara worked on Finn's vest. Mara sat trying to control the anger that was building inside her. Nathan sat waiting for Mara to erupt and planning how to handle the situation if and when she did. Finn, on the other hand, stood awkwardly trying to think of what he had said that would cause Mara to be so on edge.

She finished stitching the vest back together a lot quicker than she should have and knew that she hadn't done the best job she could but she couldn't stand to be in the Spacewalker's presence much longer. She threw the vest at him and began marching away from him. Her face was thunderous as she tried to put as much space between her and the Spacewalker as she could. She didn't get very far before a hand grabbed her elbow and spun her around. The Spacewalker was standing in front of her, his face laced with confusion.

"Don't touch me," she seethed her voice dangerously low.

"Did I do something to upset you? I'm sorry if I –"

"Do you know what happened after you had your little spacewalk?"

Nathan had caught up with the two and tried to pull Mara away before she did something she would regret. During their time in the Sky Box, Nathan discovered that Mara had quite a temper on her and would say things she didn't mean in her anger. She had never directed her anger at him but he had heard her rage about enough people to discover this flaw.

"I, uh…what?" Finn had no idea what Mara was talking about, but he was terrified of the look in her eyes. As far as he knew, he had been arrested and that was the end of it.

"Because you wasted three fucking months of our oxygen, the council decided to float all of the terminally ill patients. My mother was one of them. You wasted three months' worth of oxygen and my mother paid the price for your stupidity!"

Mara's blood was boiling and her hands were beginning to shake from her uncontrollable rage. She had only felt this angry once before, and that was when the council floated her mother. She turned on her heel and stormed away from Finn, curling her hands into fists at her side. She couldn't stay near him or she knew she would lash out.

"Hey! Wait!" Finn called after her and Mara had to take a deep breath to control her rapidly beating heart. "I'm sorry! I didn't know."

"Of course you fucking didn't!" She stopped abruptly and rounded on Finn, causing him to nearly stumble into her. She shoved him away from her, feeling her anger only worsen after she had touched him again. "Did you even stop for one minute to think about what would happen?"

He brushed his hair out of his eyes and stared at Mara's feet, all of the confidence he had previously held had completely vanished.

"I'm sorry," he muttered again and Mara could hear the genuine sincerity and sadness in his voice but she couldn't bring herself to care.

"My mother was floated because of you. Sorry doesn't cut it."

She marched away from him once more and knew that he wasn't following after her this time. She was too angry to feel any form of guilt for the way that she spoke to him. She knew that he couldn't have known what would happen after his spacewalk. But, as her rage-filled blood polluted her body, Mara couldn't care less. He was the reason her mother was dead. He deserved to feel guilty for his actions.

She stormed out of the limits of their camp and could hear Nathan's loud footfalls behind her. She stopped abruptly and spun around to face him. He stopped a little away from her and gave her the time she needed to compose herself before she spoke to him.

"Can you just give me a minute alone please?" The anger was still clear in her voice and her jaw was clenched as she spoke. She didn't want to lash out at Nathan but she was worried that if he stayed with her in her current state that she would.

"Mara –"Nathan started but was quickly silenced by Mara raising her hand to stop him.

"Nathan, I am really, really, pissed off right now and if you stick around I will end up taking that out on you and I really don't want to do that. Please."

He stared at her for the longest time, assessing her level of anger before nodding his head in agreement, realising that she wasn't angry enough to do something reckless.

"Okay, just don't go too far away from camp. Don't be too long."

"You're such a mom," Mara repeated the phrase he had used earlier in the day to appease him slightly though she still felt like she was going to explode.

He gave her a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes before he turned around and slowly made his way back to camp, hoping that she would change her mind. She didn't. She stood and watched him retreating until she couldn't see him any longer then turned and charged her way further through the trees.

She forgot to pay attention to where she was going as she allowed her anger to fully take over. She balled her hands into fists and her nails dug painfully into her palms. She had so much pent up energy in her body that she was shaking as she walked. When walking was no longer enough for her she broke out into a sprint, completely ignoring Nathan's request for her to stay close to camp. She had never ventured out of the camp limits but her anger at Finn didn't allow her to take in any of what she was seeing, she just wanted to put as much distance between her and Spacewalker as was physically possible.

She eventually could run no further when she reached a cliff. She stared over the edge and let out the scream that she had been holding in since she left the camp. She forgot about the existence of the grounders and Jasper's attack. All she wanted to do was scream and rage until she couldn't continue. She knelt down on the grass and slammed her clenched fists off of the ground before sinking into a sitting position. She grabbed handfuls of grass and ripped it from the ground and threw it away from her. She repeated this for a while until she felt her heart begin to calm down and the anger induced pounding in her head began to lessen.

At this point, she laid her back on the ground and watched the sky above her. She was still breathing heavily but now that she was alone with herself and far away from anyone else, she allowed herself to slowly calm down. As she gradually returned to herself, the words she had said to Finn came back to her. The majority of her knew that he couldn't have known that the council would have made the decision to float terminally ill patients. It just wasn't logical for him to have thought of that before he committed his crime. Mara couldn't help the wave of guilt that crashed over her as she remembered the look on Finn's face when she told him the consequences of his actions. He had looked absolutely destroyed as if she had shattered his world.

Tears welled in Mara's eyes as the last of her anger subsided and she was left alone with the guilt of blaming Finn for something he couldn't have predicted. Yes, his actions resulted in her mother's death but he didn't know that that would happen. He was partially to blame but the largest part of the blame lay with the council and Chancellor Jaha who were the ones who decided to float her mother.

Mara allowed the tears to slip from her eyes and roll down the sides of her face into the grass. She didn't move to wipe them away, just allowed them to flow freely. They weren't angry tears, nor were they even sad tears. They were the tears of everything she hadn't properly addressed. They were the tears of not being able to say goodbye to her father and they were the tears of the guilt she had imposed on Finn. He hadn't known that he had inadvertently caused people to be floated and Mara was now forcing him to live with that guilt.

She lay on the ground until a chill began to seep into the air. She shivered as she pulled her jacket closer to her body and stood up. Her joints popped as she stretched and she tried to ignore the dull pain that had blossomed in the small of her back. The sun had moved its position drastically and the sky was fading from blue into a soft mixture of orange and pink interspersed by the clouds tinted a deep purple. She stood for a moment longer to admire the view before her but no matter how long she looked at the sky she couldn't quite believe that she was looking at something so beautiful.

The Ark and Earth were so vastly different from one another and Mara found herself missing nothing of The Ark other than her father. She loved the way the temperature would fluctuate on the Earth and the way the colours of the sky changed throughout the day. She loved the smell of the trees and the sound of the birds singing. The Ark was a dull shell compared to the vibrancy of Earth.

When Mara turned her back to the sunset to head back to camp, she was faced with a serious problem: she had no idea where to go. She could almost hear her father's voice scolding her for not paying attention to where she was going. She closed her eyes for a minute and gathered her breath before she opened her eyes again and began looking for signs of the way she had come. Mara had never been good at Earth Skills in school she remembered her teacher calling her performance 'abysmal' once, but she could remember that she should look out for broken twigs or obvious footprints. Mara knew that she hadn't been careful when she had walked to the cliff and knew for a fact that she stomped most of the way. So, with a determined sigh, she began looking at the trees in front of her for any signs that she had disturbed them. She stumbled across a couple of bent and broken twigs and, seeing no other signs of disruption, started heading in that direction.

She scolded herself for not being smarter but her rage had greatly clouded her judgement. Nathan is going to kill me, Mara groaned, picturing him pacing up and down their tent waiting for her to come back to camp. She had been gone for much longer than he had requested and knew that she was going to get an earful when she returned to camp. As she walked through the trees, the light gradually getting darker and darker, she decided that being told off by Nathan would be worth it if she could just find the camp again.

She couldn't remember taking any turns on her way to the cliff so she headed straight and only turned when she had to step around the trees.

In the dying light, the trees looked far more menacing than she remembered. They seemed taller, more imposing, and instead of pointing towards the sky, the branches seemed to be tilting towards Mara. It was almost suffocating how enclosed she felt as she walked through the forest. She found herself taking smaller and slower steps as each noise she made sent her mind into overdrive thinking that there was someone following her. She knew that it was her own footsteps that were making twigs snap and leaves crunch but she kept hearing Clarke's voice in her head talking about the grounders.

Mara walked for what felt like a lifetime before she saw a faint glow through the trees. She hoped that it was the camp but slowed her steps anyway in case she had stumbled upon grounder territory. She wasn't sure where she was as all of the trees looked alike in the dark.

The nearer she got to the light, the more relaxed she felt when she began to hear the sounds of the hundred cheering. She felt herself relax completely when another wave of cheering washed over her. She briefly wondered if Bellamy was making another of his speeches.

She pushed through the tree line and allowed herself to let out the breath she was holding when she saw the delinquents gathered around a fire. She didn't even care that they were removing more wristbands, she was just glad that she had found her way back.

She scanned the faces of the crowd, searching for Nathan and frowned when she couldn't see him. She spotted Charlotte sitting with a boy around the same age as her and headed their way. Charlotte noticed Mara making her way towards her and the girl leapt from her seat and ran towards Mara. Charlotte wrapped her arms around Mara's torso before almost immediately pulling back to frown at her.

"Where were you?" She questioned and Mara got the feeling that she was a child being scolded for acting out.

"I just needed some time alone." Charlotte frowned at Mara's answer and crossed her arms over her chest.

"We were worried about you."

"Sorry, I'm here now." Mara wrapped an arm around Charlotte's shoulders and pulled her into a side hug. "Hey, do you know where Nath-" she stopped herself, remembering that she was the only person who called him that. "Do you know where Miller is?" She asked though calling him by his second name sounded strange to her.

"He's in the tent." Mara quickly thanked Charlotte and headed towards her tent.

"He's annoyed!" Charlotte called in warning before returning to sit with her new friend.

She pushed her way through the crowd around the fire and quickly reached the entrance to her tent. She paused outside the tent and took a deep breath, readying herself for the telling off she was going to get from Nathan. She pushed the entrance aside and stepped into the dark tent. When her eyes adjusted to the light she saw Nathan standing in the middle of the tent staring at her, an unreadable expression on his face. Before she had time to react, Nathan lunged at her and pulled her into his arms. One arm wrapped around her waist hugging her to his body and the other pulled her head into his chest. She could feel his heart beating wildly in his chest and could hear his ragged breathing as he placed his chin on top of her head. When the surprise wore off, Mara responded to Nathan's embrace and wrapped her arms around his torso. She felt him pull her into him harder and felt the last of her fear of the dark forest slip away.

He pulled away from her and held her at arm's length, checking her over with worried eyes for any sign of injury. His eyes shifted to her face and turned slightly cold.

"Where were you?"

"I just went for a walk," she muttered and avoided his gaze.

"A walk?" he asked incredulously. "You were gone for the whole day."

"It was a long walk," she shrugged her shoulders and tried to make a joke of it but the worry that reappeared in her eyes told her that she shouldn't be making light of the situation.

"I was so close to demanding Bellamy make a new search party to look for you," he stared at Mara, his voice shaking slightly.

"A new search party?"

"Yeah, a group went out to look for that Jasper kid. They just got back with him and brought some animal they killed for food."

"Oh, guess you miss a lot when you go missing for a day."

"Mara…" his tone warned Mara that he was not happy with her making jokes about the day's events.

She imagined how she would have felt if Nathan had gone off on his own in the morning and not returned until the night had set in. The mere thought of that happening was enough to make Mara stress, she couldn't truly imagine what it would have been like to live it. For over a year and a half, they were all each other had; they relied solely on one another for everything. The thought of losing Nathan made Mara want to weep.

"I'm okay," she reassured him with a smile and saw him relax slightly.

"Are you hungry?"

Mara's body responded for her, letting out a loud rumble. Nathan laughed a little and moved around her to open the flaps of their tent so that they could exit. As they approached the fire where the food was being cooked, Mara noticed something that chilled her bones. Bellamy was standing next to a pile of cooked meat and was handing it out to the hundred but only once they had their wristbands removed. There was a line of delinquents waiting to have the bands pried from their wrists just so that they could eat. There was a small group of delinquents stood to the side with their wristbands firmly clamped around their wrists staring at the cooked meat. They were the ones that refused to take their wristbands off. The sight made Mara feel sick. Bellamy was allowing people to starve, the people he had appointed himself to lead, just because they wouldn't follow one of his rules. Mara couldn't understand why he wanted the wristbands off so badly but she refused to play into his game. She couldn't let her father think she was dead.

"You know what, I'm not actually that hungry," she lied and was glad the crowd suddenly cheered as it hid the rumbling of her empty stomach.

"You just said you were," confusion filtered into Nathan's voice.

"Nah, I found some berries in the forest so I'm good for now," she hated lying to him but she didn't want him to worry about her. She noticed that he had removed his wristband and knew that he would just keep pestering her to remove her wristband if she admitted that she was hungry.

"Miller!" They heard Bellamy call and gestured his head for Nathan to go to him.

"I'll be over there," Mara gestured to where Charlotte was sat with her friend before Nathan nodded his head and headed towards Bellamy.

She saw Bellamy staring at her wristband so she moved her arm behind her back to block his view of it. He was not going to convince her to take it off. He waved a stick of meat at her and gestured towards where she had hidden her wrist. I'll swap you, his eyes seemed to say but Mara refused to back down no matter how much her stomach was rumbling or how her mouth was watering from the smell of the meat. She narrowed her eyes at him but he only seemed amused by her attempts to refuse him. His eyes never left hers as he spoke to Nathan. She huffed, breaking eye contact first, and turned away from him.

She sat down next to Charlotte who introduced her to the boy she was sitting with. Mara noticed that Charlotte's right wrist was bare of a wristband.

Mara returned her attention to the fire when Charlotte continued her conversation with the boy. Mara saw Finn walking up to the fire and taking two sticks of meat without removing his wristband. There was a short altercation between Finn and Murphy before Finn walked away with both sticks of meat. Clarke followed his example but when another boy tried what they had Bellamy swung round and punched him square in the jaw. Mara's mouth dropped open in shock, not completely expecting that reaction from him.

Someone cleared their throat beside her and she turned her attention away from Bellamy. Finn stood next to her, holding out one of the sticks of meat in his hands for her to take. She held his gaze and a form of silent communication passed between the two. The food was a peace offering between them. It was his way of apologising to her once more and if she were to accept then it would be a step towards forgiving him. She decided that it was better not to have too many enemies on earth so reached her hand out and took the meat from him. He smiled slowly at her and she nodded her head at him. No more was needed between them and he walked away to join Clarke where she was waiting for him.

Mara caught Bellamy's eyes and tapped her wristband with her left hand before taking a bite out of the meat. He narrowed his eyes at her but there was a flash of respect in them. He wanted her wristband off and she was determined to keep it on. Neither of them was going to back down willingly.