Clarke doesn't have a plan.

Her and the team could go through with their escape protocol, drop out of school, and go off the grid like they had planned; but Clarke has made a life in Berkeley, and she's receiving incredibly good grades - med school is just around the corner for her. She doesn't want to sacrifice that.

On the other hand, they could hold their ground, and stay; her encounter with Lexa (if that's her name) has left them all holding a smoking gun, with Clarke's admission of their guilt surely being enough to have the organization knock down all their doors and arrest them.

They don't have too much time to decide; Bellamy is making this abundantly clear as he paces the length of Clarke's living room. Raven is attempting at doing a background check on Lexa, but Lexa, virtually speaking, does not seem to exist.

"We have to run," Bellamy says, running a hand through his hair. "They could be here at any second -"

"It's been a day since the agent came here, Bellamy," Clarke says, exasperated. "If they were planning on arresting us, they would have done it by now."

"So, what?" he says, turning to face Clarke, "Are you saying that we should sit around and wait until they do arrest us?"

"No, there's..." Clarke narrows her eyes, pensive. "Something off about this. The way the agent acted when I brought up The Intersect."

"What do you mean?"

"Regular NSA agents have no idea what The Intersect is," Clarke says. "Only Fulcrum-NSA agents, and whoever would have directly been involved with The Intersect program, do."

"And she knew what The Intersect was. That's our answer, right there."

"No, she...it's as if she knew what The Intersect was, but the look on her face, after I told her about what it took for The Intersect to get up and running - that wasn't the face of someone knowingly involved with Fulcrum."

"You know what, Clarke?" Bellamy says, starting to walk off and picking up his backpack. "I have class. I don't have time for you to be second-guessing things. If you don't "figure out" whatever it is you're trying to figure out by the end of these next few hours, I'm packing my things, and leaving. That goes for you, too, O," he says to his sister, who has been watching Raven work at the computer in awe.

Octavia looks up and glares at her brother. "I'm having fun in college."

"You said less than two weeks ago that -"

"Went to my first frat party," she says, smirking as she stands to follow him. "And, Bell, do I have some stories about a select few boys from Delta Kappa Theta for you."

"Don't want to hear them," Bellamy says, opening Clarke's front door. He turns to look at Clarke before he leaves.

"Figure it out, Princess. Doesn't matter if she's Fulcrum, or not. At this point, they know about us. They have to."

When he leaves, Raven lets out a low whistle. "Someone's a little high-strung."

"He just wants Octavia to be safe," Clarke says, sighing and sinking back into the couch. Raven murmurs her assent, and they sit there in silence for the next few minutes - Clarke trying to figure out a plan, and Raven typing away.

"Hey, I found something." Raven picks up her laptop and moves to sit next to Clarke. She points at the screen. "I haven't found any kind of direct information about that agent, but look here."

Clarke reads the report:

...Special Agent Costia Abramov was tragically killed in a gun mishap during a hand-eye co-ordination weaponry lesson, on January 25, 2013. Her partner, Special Agent Lexa Wilde, will remain active within the NSA. The NSA honors the service Agent Abramov has provided for her country.

"January 2013? That was a month before The Intersect program was activated."

"That can't be a coincidence," Raven says, scrolling through the various death reports. "Gun mishaps? I didn't think that was a thing that happened to special agents. "

"They aren't," Clarke says, furrowing a brow. "She was part of the trend of the agents that died during that time period. There has to be something, there. And that's all you found about Lexa Wilde?"

Raven nods, then looks at the clock on her laptop. "Shit, mechanical engineering lecture," she says, shutting her laptop and gathering her things, "I'd say I'd skip it, but Professor McCaron has been on my ass about being late for these past few weeks. Sorry, Clarke."

"That's fine," Clarke says. She has Fridays off of school, and those days are usually spent sketching, catching up on homework, or working out, anyway. "I'll see you later. I'll let Bellamy know about what we found - hopefully that'll have him stay put a little longer."

"Okay. Does everyone have their watches on?"

The team each has customized watches - the knobs for adjusting time double as distress buttons, where if the wearer punches in Morse for S.O.S (three short pushes, and three longer pushes), the GPS tracker embedded in the watch activates, sending their whereabouts to Raven's computer - designed by Raven, of course.

"Yeah. I've got mine. I think I saw Bellamy and Octavia wearing theirs." Clarke holds up her wrist to demonstrate. "I'll see you later."

"See ya."

Four Hours Later

Clarke is lying on her stomach on the floor, sketching a photo of a meadow, when she hears someone knocking on her door. She's immediately on her guard, and decides to arm herself before opening it, walking over to her desk by the window, grabbing the gun in the second drawer, and tucking it in the back of her pants before she approaches the door. Bellamy, Octavia, and Raven have classes for the rest of the day today, and her neighbours on this floor never come around, ever.

Placing a hand around the handle of the gun with one hand, Clarke opens the door with the other - and she's met with the face of Lexa Wilde.

Clarke steps back, drawing her gun, and points it at her. Lexa raises her hands.

"I'm unarmed," she says quietly, the tiniest flicker of what looks like amusement going through her green eyes as she speaks. Clarke doesn't lower her gun, nor does she speak. Lexa sighs, lowering her hands. "I'm here to listen to more of what you have to say about The Intersect -"

"Are you one of them?" Clarke says immediately. The slight amusement in the other woman's eyes is replaced with confusion.

"The NSA? Yes. I thought that had been established -"

"Fulcrum." Clarke observes Lexa carefully, looking for the slightest hint of recognition in her facial expression - but the confusion originally on her face only deepens further.

"What the hell is Fulcrum? Could you put that damn thing down?"

"Let me search you first."

"You're going to frisk me?"

"I'm sorry, did you want me to buy you dinner, first?" Clarke says facetiously, taking one hand off of her gun to gesture for Lexa to come in - she doesn't want to risk a neighbor coming out to see her pointing a gun at a stranger. Lexa obliges, closing the door behind her, and steps closer to Clarke.

"Whatever will put you at ease, Clarke Griffin," Lexa says, sarcasm heavily lacing her voice. Clarke moves forward, still with the gun in one hand, and uses her right hand to pat Lexa down. She wasn't lying - she is unarmed. Clarke tucks her gun back into her jeans, then moves to the kitchen table, where the bug detector sits - it heavily resembles a metal detector wand, similar to the ones used in airports, and Lexa seems to recognize it immediately as Clarke picks it up and moves towards her with it.

"You're kidding me. This is excessive."

"You were straddling me, holding a gun to my forehead, just over twenty-four hours ago." Clarke activates the detector and waves it around the length of Lexa's body. "Forgive me for being a little more thorough about letting you near me, this time."

"I was simply following orders -"

"Yeah, yeah," Clarke mutters, turning the detector off once Lexa is shown to be clear of any bugs or recording devices. She moves to place it on her kitchen counter, then turns to face Lexa. "So. What are you doing here, Lexa Wilde?"

"How did you kn -"

"Your last name? Same way your agency figured out that I was a biochemistry major, that I lived on the fifth floor of apartment #132, and in the same way you know about my father," Clarke says, starting to feel exasperated. "You're not the only one with access to that kind of information."

Lexa nods slowly, moving to stand in front of Clarke. "I need to know what you meant about The Intersect. And how it was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people."

"I meant that The Intersect is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people."

There's a look of irritation that flashes through Lexa's eyes, and Clarke resigns. "Okay. Let's go sit," she says, gesturing to the couch. She moves to sit on it, and Lexa follows, tentatively taking a spot beside her. She notices the sketchbook lying on the floor across from where they sit.

"You draw?" Lexa gazes at the half-finished picture Clarke had been working on. "That is quite the piece of work, there, Clarke." Her voice is genuine, curious, and Clarke can't help but feel suspicious. Everything about this is suspicious - for all she knows, Lexa Wilde could have agents surrounding the building, ready to capture Clarke at any moment.

But Clarke is curious. Clarke has always been curious - and Lexa stirs that curiosity even further.

"Uh, yeah," Clarke says, immediately changing the subject, "Anyway, The Intersect program - how do you know about it?"

Lexa shifts in her seat. "It's a long story."

Clarke narrows her eyes at Lexa. "Is this about your dead partner? Costia?" At this, Lexa quickly turns to look at Clarke, an alarmed look in her eyes. Clarke shrugs. "I have my hackers, you have yours."

Lexa holds her stare on Clarke, and Clarke looks right back, a steely look in her eyes. The other woman's gaze goes from alarm to a desolate kind of look, and Clarke's curiosity is deepened further.

"Yes. She had been my...partner since I first started in the NSA." Lexa breaks the hold she had on Clarke's eyes, looking down at her hands. "One day, we got a call from our director -"

"Jaha?"

" - Yes, saying that there was a rogue agent on the roof of Forte Hall, and she had killed nine programmers and engineers working on the project. Forte Hall was where, I later found out, The Intersect was being held. He ordered my team set out to gun this rogue agent down, and..." Lexa trails off.

"The rogue agent was your partner." Clarke can see pieces of a picture come together in her head - Lexa Wilde, loyal NSA agent, loses her partner to The Intersect. Then she meets Clarke and her team - a team that claims to have answers for why that was. She understands why Lexa Wilde is here, now.

"I'm sorry. It must have been hard to lose a co-worker," she murmurs, watching Lexa look up and out the window across the couch.

Lexa nods. "We were close," she says. Her voice is tinged with sadness for a brief second, but then she straightens her shoulders, inhales, and then looks at Clarke, who has followed Lexa's gaze out the window. "I need to know why she would have killed all of those programmers. Before she died, she told me that The Intersect was dangerous. Why?"

Clarke leans back on the couch, running a hand through her hair. "I don't know the full story," she admits, "But my dad did. He was one of the people recruited to start building The Intersect. See, there's this - there's a sub-agency of the NSA called Fulcrum. They started off as a research group, and my father had been more than willing to help out with their project. But then they started killing people."

"Why would they need to kill people in the process of building The Intersect?"

"The resources required to build it..." Clarke shakes her head. "See, The Intersect started off as a project designed to create an army of super-agents. At first, they kept to programming, testing it out on computers, fixing the code that they could see was wrong. Then they started testing it on people. That's when things got sour."

"Guinea pigs..." Lexa murmurs. Clarke turns to look at her - she now has a pensive look on her face.

"Pardon?"

"Nothing. Go on."

"The agents who were testing it out were going brain dead left and right. My father didn't want to stand for it - he didn't stand for it. He went to Director Jaha and begged him to stop the experiments. Jaha said no. My father recruited agents involved with The Intersect program who agreed with him to overtake it, to stop the experiments. They were going to storm the building and arrest the programmers for murder. Then, a week later, he was killed in "a car accident"." Clarke scoffs. "That's when they started executing agents. They covered up most of the deaths as accidents, I think -"

"Not all of them," Lexa says. "Many of them were publicly announced as the execution of "dangerous traitors". I assume it was a scare tactic, to stop agents from doing the things your father, and Costia, were doing. I was aware that your father had been labelled as a traitor. I thought...I thought you were simply doing what you were doing in vengeance of his death, and you were a traitor, yourself." Lexa pauses. "I'm sorry about that."

"Just doing your job," Clarke mutters. "And using it as a scare tactic would make the most sense, yes." Clarke stands, moves to the kitchen, and grabs her laptop from the counter, sitting at the counter-stool and opening it. "Here."

Lexa follows, standing beside Clarke - a little too close for comfort, but, to be fair, they had been nose-to-nose just the day before on the wall near the counter - that reminds her; "Sorry about your jaw," she says, starting to type on the laptop. Lexa lets out a quiet laugh.

"It's fine. I was sure it would bruise, but it's been good, so far. A little sore, but fine. I deserved it."

"You kind of did," Clarke assents, narrowing her eyes in concentration as she looks for the file holding all the information her team has gathered on The Intersect. "Fulcrum has done a great job of keeping everything they've done a secret," Clarke explains, "So, to you and the other NSA agents not involved with Fulcrum, it looks like me and my team are just trying to overthrow the NSA as a whole - not just Fulcrum. That's why they keep sending regular agents to come and arrest us."

"Jesus." Lexa raises her eyebrows. There's a look of genuine fear in her eyes.

"Only one in around one hundred people could withstand the sheer amount of data The Intersect would place in their brain," Clarke continues. "That leads me to wonder if they've found anyone who can carry it in their brain, yet."

"What if they have?"

Clarke shrugs. "A modicum of things, really. They would keep going with the human experiments, and likely use the agent with The Intersect in their heads as test subjects - let them run around for a bit, utilize The Intersect, and if their brains aren't melted by the end of some time period? They would probably take in the agent equipped with The Intersect and -" Clarke shakes her head in disgust. "They would open up their brain. Look at their brain chemistry, see what's required in an agent for The Intersect to be compatible."

Suddenly, Lexa steps back. "No..."

Clarke watches Lexa in confusion. She's gone awfully pale, looking like she could potentially vomit in the next few seconds. "Lexa? Are you okay?"

"I need some air." Lexa rushes out of the door, and Clarke shuts her laptop to follow her, grabbing her keycard as she leaves. Lexa is waiting outside of the elevator until it arrives. Clarke follows her in, and the two stand in silence; and when the elevator doors open again on the main floor, Lexa more or less runs out, and she's out the doors of the building, sitting in the grass.

Clarke crouches next to her, tentatively placing a hand on the other woman's back. "Hey," she says gently, "I know it's a lot -"

"Costia died for this." Lexa is breathing hard. "All of this was happening right under our noses, and here I am, chasing after the wrong people -"

"Lexa, it's okay," Clarke says - she wonders why Lexa is acting this way. Yes, her partner died for it, and yes, it's a little scary to know that there is a group of people working so close to what you work for, but this? There's something more to this.

"She warned me about it." Lexa is hugging her knees, now. "I should have listened -"

"Listened to what?"

"I have The Intersect in my head," Lexa blurts out. "It's me. I'm their test subject."

Clarke takes her hand off of Lexa's back. "What?"

"I didn't know what it was - all that they told me was that this was the beginning to a series of trials, and that they would be creating super-agents, capable of retaining and using any information or skills that they ever will learn, or have ever learned in their lives. They went over the risks with me, but I had just lost Costia, and I felt like I had nothing to lose if it didn't work. I thought I was the only one. I thought I was the first test subject."

"You were going to risk going brain-dead because you had nothing to lose? Because your coworker -" Suddenly, Clarke understands. She moves to sit next to Lexa, instead of crouch, going cross-legged and starting to pick at the grass in front of her.

More and more pieces start to come together. Clarke has more in common with Lexa than she initially thought.

"You loved her, didn't you? You were involved with her."

Slowly, Lexa nods. "I need to know what she died for, Clarke," she whispers. "I need to do what your father was going to do. I need to stop them."

"We can do that. Together," Clarke says, her voice gentle again. "Your team, do you trust them?"

Lexa nods. "I would trust them with my life."

"Would they be open to hearing me out? Listening to what my team has to say?"

The other woman looks up at the blue sky, and the light brightens her emerald eyes. Clarke notes the beauty in the line of her jaw, her full lips, and especially her eyes - bright, but aged and full of sorrow. Her heart hurts for Lexa, this woman she hardly knows, and she feels the pain of losing Finn, losing her father, all over again, recognizing herself in Lexa's eyes.

"I lead my team," Lexa finally says, "We have a general who assigns missions for us, but he would hear you out, I think. But what would we do after?" She looks at Clarke, a curious look on her face.

Clarke gives Lexa a weak smile. The sudden alliance between the two of them puts her a little more at ease. She's sure it will put her team, especially Bellamy, at ease, too.

"We'll figure it out."

Three Years Ago

Clarke is eighteen years old, and hucking throwing knives at a target nailed to the tree in her backyard.

Her father, Jake Griffin, is standing behind her, arms crossed and observing his daughter. "It's more like - a snap of the wrist. Kind of like you're whipping something."

Clarke groans, turning to face him. "I know, dad. I've been hitting the bulls-eye literally every time. Can we move on to other things?"

Jake stares at her with a stern look on his face. "No. Look, Clarke, you've got a great throwing form and an incredibly accuracy rate, but go take a look at the bulls-eyes that you hit. Look at how much of the knives actually go into the target."

Clarke walks over to the tree, Jake close behind. He's right - there's only about an inch out of five that's buried itself into the target, and the target material isn't the toughest.

"Say you're hitting someone who's attacking you. This," Jake continues, poking the relatively soft material with an index finger, "Is about the equivalent of hitting someone in the stomach, but you have to take into account all the other parts of the body - the parts that are harder to penetrate."

Suddenly, Abby's voice sounds from the window looking into the house from the backyard. "Clarke! Jake! Dinner!"

Jake reaches over and ruffles Clarke's hair. "We'll keep going with hand-to-hand after dinner."

"Yes!" Clarke exclaims. Hand-to-hand combat is her favorite.

"Get this all cleaned up and I'll see you inside, kiddo."

Clarke has just finished cleaning up the hunting knives and various weapons sprawled in her backyard, and is about to walk in through the screen door to her house when she hears what sounds like her mother and father having a quiet argument. She pauses, listening in.

"…for Clarke. For our family. I have to do it."

"Jacob," Abby says, her voice hushed and urgent, "We can figure something else out. Help them find a better way to test The Intersect."

"They're killing people, Abigail. People with families. Would you be saying the same if they used me as a test subject?"

"Jacob -"

"Abigail, you're one of the NSA medics. You would understand better than anyone how reckless this is. You've seen firsthand what The Intersect can do to a human brain."

"If you do this, it will be considered as treason. Fulcrum has some of the most decorated agents in the NSA working for it. They won't forgive you for this."

"The Intersect project will fail, Abigail."

"The Intersect project is well on its way to success. If you jeopardize that now, the NSA may never have an opportunity like this, ever again."

"What will you do, Abby? Will you call Jaha? Tell him to stop me?"

"I may have to."

"He would get someone to kill me. That's how they work. They would kill anyone who would go against it."

"Jaha is a friend. He would never do that to you - not even for The Intersect."

Clarke chooses this moment to walk in the door. Her parents jump a little, Jake reaching around his back for his gun instinctively, but then he relaxes when he sees that it's only Clarke.

"Clarke. Mind grabbing some water -"

"What's an Intersect?" Clarke says, her voice steady, always steady; Jake was the one who taught her how to stay composed in stressful situations, teaching her how to breathe, teaching her how to stay sharp.

Abby is the one to respond. "Nothing–"

But Jake raises a hand, a defeated look on his face. "This is Clarke, Abby," he says, sighing and placing his hand on the kitchen counter, leaning against it. He gestures to the stool at the counter in front of himself and Abigail. "Would you mind sitting?"

Clarke sits. And waits.

"I'm going away for a while, Clarke," Jacob says, placing a hand on his daughter's shoulder. "There are people in the NSA doing some very illegal things -"

"Jacob." Abigail steps forward. Jake raises a hand.

"I'm leaving. Tonight. I'll be back in the morning. Let's have dinner, shall we?"

A few yelling matches later, Clarke finally hears her parents settle down and go to sleep. She lies in bed, wide awake, thinking of what to do.

Suddenly, the door to her room opens, and Clarke bolts up into a sitting position - but it's only Jake.

"Hey, kid," he whispers. "Can I come in?"

"Yeah," she says, leaning back against the headrest. Jake comes over and sits at the edge of her bed.

"I figured you wouldn't be sleeping."

"Is mom sleeping?"

"Yeah. She's got a spinal surgery and has to be in the hospital by 4 in the morning. I think she took melatonin."

Clarke nods.

"I'm leaving right now, Clarke," he says gently, reaching over to rest a hand on Clarke's shoulder.

"Be safe, dad."

"Don't worry about me, kiddo. Go to sleep. I'll see you in the morning."

"I love you."

"I love you too." Jake leans over to kiss his daughter's forehead.

And just like that, Jake is gone.

A few hours later and Clarke still isn't asleep. She opts to go to her mom's room, but when she opens the door, Abby isn't there. Clarke quickly looks at the clock next to Abby's bed. It's only two in the morning. She runs back to her room, grabs her phone, and calls Abby, only for it to go straight to voicemail - and while she calls again, she notices it - a watch on her nightstand. Jake's watch. Taking it in her hand, Clarke puts a sweater on and goes downstairs, about to leave, but then she's met with her mother, on her cellphone.

"Mom?"

Abigail puts one finger up to silence her daughter. "Okay," she says, "Thank you. I wouldn't have called if there was something else we could do." Abby hangs up.

"Clarke," she says, her voice urgent, "Go back upstairs -"

"What's going on?" Tears begin to form in Clarke's eyes. "Who were you just talking to?"

"One of the agents in the NSA. I told them about what your father is doing."

"Why would you do that?" Clarke says frantically, "These are the same people that killed dad's friend for the security breach in '09 -"

"Clarke, baby, I love you, and I would do anything for you, but your father is not thinking about the greater good, here. For the sake of the project, he has to be stopped."

"Stopped?"

Killed?

"He'll likely spend some time in a maximum-security prison, but not too long. Jaha will take care of it. Clarke," Abby says, watching her daughter panic, "They have custody of your father now. We're fine."

Four days later, an agent shows up to their door. Clarke knows what he is about to say before he even opens his mouth again.

"I'm very sorry, ladies, but I have some news about Jacob Griffin…"

They say the car escorting him to the prison facility got into an accident, but Clarke knows better. Her father was executed, just like he said he would be.

Clarke is on the floor, face buried in her hands. Her ears are still ringing. Time isn't moving. It can't be.

Abigail walks over to comfort her daughter, but Clarke pushes her off. Hard. This is all her fault.

The world comes back to Clarke in one sharp inhale, and her ears don't stop ringing, but she's hyper-aware of her surroundings.

Jacob Griffin is dead.

A/N: Sorry about all the death and stuff. We'll get to the fun part, soon - I just needed to have the girls band together & give you all a big backstory behind The Intersect, and what Costia, Finn, and Jacob died for. I really hope you're enjoying this, so far! Leave any reviews or kudos that you would like to leave :-) -T