Murphy and Clarke sat on the fishing raft he tethered to a tree. Her legs draped over his crossed legs and her head rested on his shoulder. This meant having to do things one handed, but he managed just fine. What wasn't fine was that Clarke had barely spoken unless she was playing chess with that AI bitch since they radioed Raven, and she'd gotten extra clingy.
Their breath puffed clouds despite the blinding sun. When he noticed the bits of white falling, they were few and spaced far apart, but an hour and four caught fish later, they were big fluffy snowflakes coming fast and sticking to everything.
"Hey Clarke? Snow."
She didn't open her eyes, and he heard her sniffle.
"Come on, Clarke. We need to get back to shore, give me a hand?" Murphy kissed the top of her head and nudged her with his nose. She looked up at him with red rimmed eyes. "Hey what's wrong?"
"Our world will disappear when they get here. Thelonious cracked it. Alie broke it more, but when Raven and Wick get here, it'll disappear completely before it ever reached the fill line." She wiped the tears off her face with bright pink fingers.
"I don't think you have anything to worry about. And while I can do a great many things with you in this position, getting us back to land is not one of them."
When she moved off him, he grabbed the oar and paddled them ashore. They were only halfway there when a motor noise came from behind them. It got loud fast, and Murphy turned to see a large gray spiked submarine looking thing, coming toward them so rapidly that it'd make it to shore before he could get the raft there.
"Blowfish." Clarke shriveled into herself.
"People." Murphy continued to row them to shore while the metal leviathan hit land and kept going on a set of tank tracks, stopping before it hit the solar panels.
Murphy got off the raft just shy of shore and pulled the raft with Clarke the rest of the way. The submarine tank's hatch popped open, and a man John vaguely recognized from camp poked his head out.
"Murphy?"
"Yeah. Who else is with you? That thing's huge."
"Raven, Bellamy, Abby, and Monty."
Clarke sprinted away, Murphy on her heels. "Clarke wait!"
She dropped to her knees when he grabbed her elbow. "They brought others! I told them not to. I can't look at them. I can't avoid them all. They'll try CPR and fail. It'll kill them, and they can't die. I can't keep going if they die too!"
As Murphy knelt next to her and held her, Abby ran toward them. "Clarke!"
Before Abby could get close, Clarke jerked away from her, dragging Murphy along the ground with her. "No. Can't find the lever. Never found the right button, and the lever hurts. NO!"
Murphy buried her face in his coat. "Back off and let me calm her down."
Abby turned her face skyward, the tears streaming down her temples as snow caught in her eyelashes.
"Shh, I got you, Clarke. You know I'd never let anything happen to you, right?" John massaged her head as he rocked her. "Never forget that you're strong. You can do this, Clarke. Just close your eyes and concentrate. Concentrate. You saved your mother, didn't you?" He was guessing, but it seemed the most probable scenario.
"At what cost?" Clarke asked in a gravelly whisper.
"You've paid enough for whatever mistakes you made. Trust me on this. Those feelings of guilt and need for penance, you've paid more than necessary for them so they can go away now." He cupped her face in his hands and met her eyes. "There are no reasons left to punish yourself."
"Cl…" Abby started.
"Shh!" Murphy threw Abby a glare before focussing on Clarke again. "You with me?"
Clarke lifted her chin and ran her hand over his hair. "Snow?"
He smirked. "Yeah, it snowed. Want to take a walk in it?"
"Has Alie sent a droid for me yet?" Clarke asked.
"No, and Jaha hasn't come back again either. Remember? You asked me that this morning."
"Oh. It's cold." Clarke's gaze was unfocused as she turned her head in a slow circle.
"Want to go inside and get warm? We can make tea and get you bundled in those ugly ass sweats we found last week." Murphy pushed her hair back when her circling dropped a bunch in her face.
"Play me a song too?" She regained her focus, but looked at the snow in his hair.
"As you wish.." He got them to their feet, and inside, waving the others to follow.
Bellamy whispered to Abby, "Do mental health issues run in the family?"
"My mother had some issues, but she wasn't this bad off."
Murphy got him and Clarke changed and her tucked into bed. When he was sure she was asleep he went back out to the main room, closing the bedroom door behind him. All eyes were on him and he cleared his throat, nerves choking him. "Clarke's in the middle of a bad spell. She isn't always like this."
"How long has she been here?" Bellamy asked.
"I don't keep too close a tab on days and stuff, but I had to shave her hair off when she showed up because there was no way to brush it out, and I think there were some bugs living in it. But you saw her hair, it's almost as long as when I first met her."
"Yours isn't," Monty said. "It looks like a three year old cu… Clarke cuts it doesn't she?"
"With safety scissors." Murphy didn't know what to say to the people staring at him. "It's not like I have anyone to impress."
"You seem to have taken good care of her," Abby choked out.
John ducked his head. "We have a few MRE's left, or I could make some rice. That's what we have the most of here. I could cook the fish I just caught. There's some bird left from dinner last night."
"What kind of bird?" Raven asked.
"Some big brown thing with long ass tail feathers." He crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked at the floor. "Clarke calls them fuzzies."
"Pheasants, maybe?" Wick said.
"If you kill a single raven I will gut you," Raven said as she leaned against the counter.
"Right there with you babe," Wick said with a wink.
"Yeah, whatever. Just don't be loud and no sudden movements. Clarke gets freaked out by that stuff." Murphy walked into the kitchenette and picked up the bag of fish and began cleaning them, so his hands were busy.
"You keep the knives under the counter?" Monty asked as he rounded the counter to see where Murphy got the knife.
"She forgets how to unlatch the cabinet most days. But she's rarely alone, so that's good enough." He slit the fish belly perfectly with one stroke.
Raven pulled out a stool and sat down. "You said there's an AI that needs us. Why don't you tell us about it."
"Alie wants to annihilate all life that's not mechanical. Clarke plays chess with her sometimes, getting to know stuff. She said Alie offered Jaha immortality for helping put a missile back together. There are still some nukes in the world, and if she hits the right target, it'll set off another nuclear war, and this time nothing will survive." Murphy threw the fish guts into a bucket. "We've only seen Jaha once since we got here though. I think he's got more screws loose than Clarke."
"What do you mean?" Monty asked cutting the others off from confronting Murphy's choice of words.
"Jaha came and asked for our help with Alie, then disappeared. So he's either decided that Alie has the right idea or she killed him with one of her droids." Murphy slapped another fish on the cutting board and slit its stomach open. "If he shows up, I wouldn't put much trust in him if I were you. The man's unhinged, killed some of our group to distract that sea monster thing, so he could get to shore."
The others gave each other grave looks. "How many made it this far?" Wick asked.
"Just me and Jaha until Clarke got here. She poked the damn loch ness monster's eye out. Clarke's badass when she wants." Another set of guts made it into the bucket.
"She seems to depend on you. Trust you," Abby said in a steely tone. "If I found out you've taken advantage of her, I'll forget that I swore to do no harm."
Murphy sighed and took his eyes off the fish to sneer at Abby. "Don't let Clarke hear you doubt my intentions. She doesn't take it well, and she goes for the eyes when she attacks. Almost took Jaha's out when he suggested the same thing."
Abby's eyes narrowed in distrust, but John shrugged it off and put a frying pan on the stove. "So what the hell happened with the Mount Weather bullshit?"