Octavia and Lincoln had called Bellamy in to confer with him about something and when he arrived Clarke and Murphy were already there, sitting close together and laughing about something unknown to everyone else in the room. Monty and his mother, fresh out of the fisa house, looked happy. It had been so long since Monty had been truly happy that Bellamy felt a sense of relief. Raven sat alone, the force that she had once been, gone. Since Finn's disappearance, she was no longer living, just surviving. Lincoln and O sat close together, going over a real, honest to god scroll, their faces serious and stern.

On a closer inspection he could see that Monty's happiness wasn't complete. Sadness tinged the edges of his eyes and his smile didn't come as easy as it once had. His mother was trying so hard to be nurturing and loving, and that costume didn't fit her. Alice had never been warm in her life and she needed practice if she wanted to change that. And no one here could afford to be soft, so this would be temporary. Bell figured that Monty knew that too.

Clarke felt the tension Raven radiated all around her, and Clarke's mirth now seemed forced as her eyes flicked in Raven's direction with every laugh or smile, cutting each one short. Murphy either didn't notice or didn't care.

A utilitarianism bred from fear underscored every motion Octavia and Lincoln made. Bellamy sensed this meeting would be more serious than most.

He sat on the other side of Clarke with a nod to everyone as they looked at him. "So what's going on this time? Did part of the infrastructure fail?"

"No. There's a gathering of the twelve tribes. Lincoln and I are both expected to go. They want assurances that we aren't going to destroy them or take them over since we took the Mountain down. But we'll need to take enough gonakru with us to make sure they don't kill us and take over Shaw." Octavia's jaw twitched.

Murphy sneered. "That'll leave the actual village as an easy target. You tryna get us all killed?"

"And what would you have us do? Huh, Murphy?"

Clarke hushed him before he could speak and said after a short pause. "We fortify, and demand the tribe leaders to meet at the cabin. It's close enough that we wouldn't be vulnerable, but far enough to for them to be comfortable."

Lincoln clenched his teeth and shook his head. "Making a demand like that would start a war, and all the other tribes would attack full force. We don't want them to feel threatened with the eleven tribes united the way they are right now. A tribe strong enough to topple the Mountain Men strikes fear in them. Fear turns too easily into hate. We need to be honorable and humble. Or prepare for a war with our neighbors that we could never win."

"We won the Mountain because they never thought we'd try once they had the Ark survivors on their side." O glanced at Clarke.

"You mean my mother counted on me not going against her."

"Not the point, but yes."

Bellamy nodded. "What we need is a way to ensure that we have enough protection here once half our warriors and leaders are too far away to help. So we show strength here and diplomacy there."

"That's why we asked the six of you here. You're the smartest most cunning people in this camp and we need to figure this out now. Octavia and I need to leave by dawn the day after tomorrow."

"And we'll be more likely to think of something the other tribes wouldn't expect since we come from space, right?" Murphy asked. "I mean why else would you only ask Skaikru to this meeting? Nyko's smart and Echo's the best warrior we have now. Hell, I can think of a half dozen people in this village that outstrip the seven outsiders here when it comes to grounder wars."

Bellamy smacked Murphy upside the back of his head, knocking into Clarke in the process. "You don't have to be such an asshole about it."

"We need him to be an asshole right now." Octavia sighed. "We all need to think of the worst we can do to an invading army with almost no army of our own. We can't play nice protecting this village, or they will take us out."

"Landmines," Raven said. "Between Monty, Alice, and Jasper they should be able to come up with a recipe for gunpowder. I can design the mechanics and if we get everyone working on it, we'll have the place mined by the time we'd need them. But they won't be enough by themselves."

"I have a really bad idea," Monty said without enthusiasm. "It would devastate anyone that didn't know how to navigate through the field. And anyone within a fifteen meter radius wouldn't survive either."

"What's the idea?" Alice asked.

As Monty explained, everyone there thought about their warriors who were as young as ten. That the armies that could come would have similar youths in their ranks. Clarke and Murphy were the only ones that didn't seem to care. The decision made, the meeting adjourned and everyone left. Raven, Monty, and Alice needed to do their part first. Alice returned to her stern, stoic ways like a switch flipped.

When Bellamy headed home, Clarke joined him while Murphy fetched Kevin from Moma's. Before they made it home, Bellamy stopped and Clarke turned to look at him. "What?"

"What? How can you agree so easily to kill children. What happened to you?"

"Those children would kill my child, our child, without blinking. They aren't children. Not the way we think of them. The grounder kids are all just small grown ups, while the ones from the Mountain still have something the rest of us either lost or never had. Innocence."

Clarke's matter of fact speech disturbed Bellamy. "And that makes you okay with this?"

"What do you want me to say? That I like this, so you can vilify me and act like your hands are clean? Or that I hate this, but can't think of any other way, so you can hold me and be my savior? Well it's not that simple and nothing ever works out the way we think it will. There are no villains or heroes. We're just trying to carve out some kind of life. Enjoy what we can and live to see the next day. So what happened to me is that I learned to embrace that I'm a bigger badder monster than the other monsters. And that's a good thing. It might even keep us alive."

When she tried to turn and go home, Bellamy grabbed her arm, too angry to just let it go. "Do really think that a monster is what Kevin needs for a parent?"

With gentle fingers, Clarke removed Bell's hand. "Then I'll stay somewhere else. Most kids have no more than two parents."

He watched her walk away, disbelieving that she'd do that. Leave him and Kevin. He squeezed his eyes closed tight and hoped against hope that she'd come around. Murphy would follow her for sure, but Bellamy couldn't afford to lose both of them. After getting inside, Bellamy lit a few lanterns and waited for Kevin and Murphy to get home. It took a lot longer than he expected.

When the door finally opened he could see Kevin's red rimmed eyes filled with tears. "What's wrong?"

"He heard enough of you and Clarke arguing that getting him home meant finding Clarke first so he could give her a hug and kiss and tell her you were wrong." Murphy said as he ushered their son in and closed the door.

"Mommy's not a monster!" Kevin shouted as he scurried up the ladder to his loft bed.

With a hiss, Murphy whispered to Bellamy. "Moma's is on the way back. How long did you think it'd take me to get Kevin? And did it escape your attention that you were yelling by the end?"

"I didn't…"

"Think? I noticed."

"Let's get some sleep, okay?" Bellamy said, needing it more than ever.

"Whatever." Murphy pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it toward the sink. After he kicked his boots off, he climbed up to the loft to comfort Kevin whose wailing hadn't let up yet.

Sitting on the bed they'd made special for the three of them, Bellamy felt alone for the first time since before his first night in Shaw. He ran his fingers through hair longer than he'd ever worn it. A reminder of how much time had passed. The Mountain Men had been dead for almost a whole season. The frozen winter had gone, at least outside.