John's POV
After all the rockets flares were launched into space, everybody started getting to their tents or distributed around camp.
"I was coming back here after leaving you in the woods and I thought she might be here already but neither Jasper or Monty had seen her" I say to Bellamy, moving my hands while talking and getting more and more desperate.
"She was mad at me, maybe she's in her tent, go check it out" Bellamy says with a worried look on his face "I'll ask people if they've seen her" he adds before leaving.
I go straight to her tent as Bellamy says and I find nothing. I don't even call for her before getting inside because I know she's not there. She's out there, lost… or worst. And it's my fault.
I get back to Bellamy and I see him checking other tents.
"HEY!" Someone says as he opens the person's tent. It's not Octavia, so he swings the piece of fabric back to its original position, closing the tents door.
"Nothing, she's not there" I say, looking at him as he stands up and starts walking with me to the next tent.
"I have to go find her" He says. And I think I see his eyes watering when he switches the torch he's holding to his other hand.
"Let's ask Clarke, she was out in the woods. Maybe she saw something" I say, realizing that's really less likely and I look away from him when I notice his eyes.
We get to Clarke's and crouch in front of the opened tent.
"Are you up?" Bellamy says, getting the torch almost too close to the tent.
I see Clarke sitting on her bed, and she stands up to get outside after Bellamy speaks.
"Yeah" She says while coming outside the tent, so we stand up.
"Knowing that hundreds of people might be dying on the Ark makes it pretty hard to sleep" She adds. Standing now in front of us.
I give her an eye roll but I look away so she can't see it.
Raven told us about the three hundred people they're gonna sacrifice on the Ark to save air and gain more time to find out how we're doing down here. She said sending the Scape Pod down to earth was Clarke's mom – Abigail – idea and that she was supposed to come with her but Marcus Kane, one of the Council's members, found out and tried to stop them, so Abigail managed to get Raven some time she could use to at least lunch the Pod and come here alone.
"Rave's flares will work" Bellamy says, giving me a glare for some reason.
"Her radio would have worked better" Clarke answers.
I realize I'm furrowing my eyebrows when Clarke looks at me narrowing her eyes.
"What are you…" I start saying in my head. But I wipe that thought out of my mind when I remember what we're here for.
"Have you seen Octavia?" I speak, this time out loud. And I see Clarke looking at Bellamy as if checking if the question also comes from him.
"No" She says "It's Octavia, she's probably… chasing butterflies o-"
"Clarke, we checked the camp, she's not here" Bellamy starts talking before she can go on with her sarcasm.
"She was out there with me and Bellamy and we thought she was coming back here but apparently she never made it back" I say, trying to make her take this seriously.
Clarke's expression drops. "Ok, I'll help you find her" She says and the three of us start walking.
"Let's check again. You go to the dropship" She says, pointing at me and Bellamy. "I'll take the rest of the tents"
"Thank you" Bellamy says to her almost whispering.
"Don't say thanks, I'm not doing this for you. It's for Octavia" Clarke answers before we split up.
As I walk to the Dropship with Bellamy, I think about the radio Clarke was just talking about and try to think if the wristbands have something to do with it. But I decide to worry about that later.
We get inside the Dropship and I'm about to head to the second floor and check there but Bellamy gets my arm and pulls me back to him.
"Listen, I want you to stay here" He says
"No way, I'm g-"
"Jonathan, I need you to be here if she comes back, I trust you" She says, cutting me off. And I realize his hand is now on my neck, and for some reason I get shiver all over my body and I feel my cheeks catching fire.
"Ok…" Is all I manage to say. And I can't stop looking at Bellamy in the eyes.
Bellamy is smiling but when I move my head and look at his hand which is still holding my neck and shoulder, his smile drops and I notice his awkwardness. For the first time.
I feel amused by the way he seems to be so tender around me sometimes but so rough and cold around other people, and I can't tell if I should feel flattered or what.
"I know she's not here" He says, looking around. And I purse my lips agreeing with him.
"Let's go".
We head outside the Dropship to find Clarke and a group of people, apparently gathered by her, forming a circle and ready to go look for Octavia.
I walk with Bellamy straight inside the group of people and I notice I've been smiling this whole time when he speaks and I feel my smile dropping.
"Listen everybody" He says, putting his arms up. "Gather around, grab a weapon" he adds while crouching to unfold a bag full of handmade weapons next to my feet.
"My sister's been out there alone for twelve hours" he speaks again as he stands up. "Arm up, we're not coming back without her" he says, and tender Bellamy's far gone by now.
People start arming up, as Bellamy commanded, and move away from the bad to let others get a weapon when I see Jasper crouching to get one too, which I find weird since he's been struggling with going out of camp since he got attacked.
"Jas, are you sure about that?" I say, pointing at the weapon he's holding and he turns to be with a traumatized expression on his face.
After I speak, Clarke turns to us from behind Jasper's back, noticing what's going on, and I glance at her and back at Jasper.
"Jasper, you don't have to do this" She says, getting closer to hold his shoulder.
"You haven't left camp since they brought you back" I continue talking.
"Guys, I need to do this" Jasper answers, nodding to us.
"We need all the people we can get" Bellamy speaks from behind us, and Clarke and I turn to him.
None of us say anything, Bellamy's standing there, arms crossed and Clarke looks back at Jasper giving him a look of approval.
"Okay" I whisper to him, giving him a pat on his shoulder.
I understand why Jasper want to go out there, its Octavia the one we're talking about. Monty told me they kissed the other day inside the Dropship… he didn't give me much detail but a kiss is a kiss.
I snap out of my thoughts when Bellamy shouts calling for Finn.
"Finn! Get out here"
"I'll go get him" I say, looking at Bellamy and smiling goodbye.
When I turn to leave and walk past Clarke, I see her looking at Bellamy and then back at me and smiling, and I recognize it's the I-just-saw-what-happened kind of smile. My cheeks burn and I quicken my step towards Finn's tent.
"What did you wanna talk about?" Raven's saying when I get inside.
"Hello…" I say, stopping in my tracks and frowning at them when I see Raven giving Finn a haircut. "I have an appointment today; I'll go blonde" I joke.
"Shut up, dumbass" Raven says, grinning at me.
I look at Finn and I see him smiling and looking up at Raven
"Nothing, it can wait" he says.
"Do you guys want me to leave? Bellamy's leaving, that's what I came to say" I say, pointing to the exit or the tent with my thumb over my shoulder.
"No, stay" Raven says, putting the scissors away and pointing to Finn's hair "What do you think?"
"It's actually not bad at all" I say, furrowing my eyebrows and looking at Finn.
I sit down and pretend I'm tighten my shoe laces they start kissing, feeling awkward for being there, and we all startle when we hear Bellamy calling from the outside.
"Finn, we're leaving" he says.
"I'm coming" Finn answers and gets out the tent, leaving me and Raven inside.
Raven sits on Finn's seat and keeps his eyes on the tent's door, exhaling. I believe I see her eyes watering so I speak
"Is everything alright?" I say, moving my seat, which is actually a large piece of log, closer to hers.
"I'd like to say yes… but I honestly don't know" She says, and I immediately know she's talking about Finn and Clarke.
"Listen, before you take any rushed decis-" I start saying, but I stop when I hear someone from outside the tent speaking. And Raven and I stand up.
"Guys, guys! Here!"
We get out and head to the crowd, for a second I think maybe Octavia is back, but I discard that theory when I see everybody's looking up to the sky, and I do the same.
"Look up there" Someone says from the crowd.
We're all looking up now. We can see how the dark night sky starts being filled with what looks like a million stars. But these starts aren't static like the other ones… these starts are falling and burning into the atmosphere, disappearing and turning into dust.
"It's beautiful" someone says, sounding amazed.
"They didn't work" Clarke says from in front of me.
"They didn't see the flares" Raven speaks, stepping forward to stand right next to me.
"A meteors shower tells you that?" Some of us look down to the one who said that, Bellamy.
"It's not a meteor shower, it's a funeral" Clarke says, still looking up. "Hundreds of bodies being returned to the earth from the Ark… this is how it looks from the other side" She adds, and her voice cracks.
"They didn't get the message" She speaks again after a short pause, and looks back to Raven and I.
Raven's expression changes from sad to angry and I realize what's gonna happen when it's already too late to do something about it.
"THIS IS ALL BECAUSE OF YOU!" She says, walking past Clarke and heading to Bellamy. But Finn gets her and pulls her back to us before she does.
"I helped you find the radio" Bellamy says, with a defensive tone on his voice and pointing at her with his finger.
The radio?
"Yeah! After you jacked it from my Pod and trashed it!" Raven speaks, while trying to get back to Bellamy but not being able to because of Clarke, Finn and I, holding her.
"Yeah, he knows…" Clarke speaks, calming her down. "Now he has to live with it" she adds.
I'm putting the pieces together and I understand now. Why Clarke was so mad at Bellamy, what took Bellamy so long to get back to camp after Octavia and I left him in the woods.
I'm looking at him and he's looking at me, noticing I know he lied to me and Octavia again. I feel the back of my neck catch on fire and pounding like an open wound, I can't help the adrenaline rush and my feet start walking past Clarke and Raven and towards Bellamy, stepping in front of him in the middle of the circle of people, not minding everybody looking at me.
"A radio, huh?" I start saying, in almost a whisper. "Is this your definition of 'taking care'?" I speak again, this time out loud, looking straight into his eyes and feeling mines watering. Not being able to control my anger.
He says nothing, stepping back with a look of shame on his face and looking away from me.
"Well…" I start saying, with a sarcastic smile on my face and furrowing my eyebrows. "Then I guess Octavia was right. You're nothing but a selfish dick" I say, before turning away, leaving the group and heading to my tent.
When I get inside my tent I try to calm down, realizing that I'm cursing under my breath so I lay down on my bed.
I'm mad at Bellamy for lying to me. At this point, I'm not even sure if he was actually asking me to stay here 'just in case Octavia comes back', or if he was just trying to avoid me from finding out about the radio or another of his lies. I've been trying to trust him and prove people that Bellamy has a good side and he's just trying to do what he thinks is better for us. Turns out I'm wrong, and all he cares about is his own good.
"Hey, Johno" Someone says from the outside.
I sit on my bed, recognizing the voice of the person who's now inside the tent.
"Raven, don't call me that" I say, sounding listless and standing up.
"Are you okay?" She says, sitting on my bed next to me. "Do you wanna talk about it?"
"Yeah, no I'm fine" I say, looking at her and faking a smile "I need to distract myself now, please" I add, standing up.
"Come on, we're going to some 'Art supply shop' place to get something with can make a radio with" She says, standing up too and grabbing my hand and pulling me out of the tent.
"What art supply store are you talking about?" I say, trying not to fall after the sudden movement.
"The Bunker, Jonathan" Clarke speaks from behind us, so we turn to her at unison.
"Oh" I say, and three of us start walking towards the exit.
We're walking in the woods now and from time to time I can see Bellamy's group walking around the trees with their torches, giving him a mental eye-roll.
"So what was that Bellamy situation? Clarke asks, making me turn to her while we walk.
For a moment I remain silent, trying to decide in which order I want to explain what happened, and what I want to omit.
"When he went out to get the radio…" I start talking quietly, after taking a deep breath, as if Bellamy could hear me. "Octavia and I followed him and found out his real intentions… but I was stupid enough to believe he wasn't gonna do anything bad" I finish.
"Well you were wrong, dumbass" Raven says, and I hit her with my elbow.
"It's…" I speak again, trying to decide if I should tell them about Bellamy shooting Chancellor Jaha, but for some reason I decide against it. "It's my fault, I guess" I finish.
"It's not, John" Clarke says. And I raise my eyebrows, surprised by the fact that she just called me 'John', since Finn and Raven are the only ones who call me that.
"You trusted him, and it's okay… it's on him" She speaks again.
I try to think of an answer, analyzing her theory over and over in my head until too much time passes to answer, so I just don't.
We keep walking for a while, the sun is slowly coming out now and the sunlight bathes the forest, penetrating the tall trees and creating large rays of light that go from the top of the trees, through the brunches, and to the cold ground. All the flowers and vegetation in general start to glow, reflecting the sunlight due to the morning dew all over them.
"They're so beautiful" Raven says, causing me and Clarke to turn to her, and we see her grabbing a bright orange flower from the ground.
"Raven, I know you just got here yesterday, but we don't have time for this" Clarke says, turning to keep walking. "Come on" she adds.
"Don't be the heartless bitch, Clarke" I say after quickening my step to get next to her.
She gives me an eye-roll and a smile and just keeps walking.
"Hurry up and save the world" Raven speaks from behind us. "You're just like your mom" she adds.
I turn to check on her and see her running to reach us.
"I'm nothing like my mom" Clarke answers, pretty seriously.
"Relax, that's a compliment" Raven answers, "Abby's a badass".
I remember what Finn said about Clarke trying to 'punish her mother' to 'making her feel what she felt' and I immediately understand Clarke's attitude, glancing at her to study her expressions.
"The Pod was her idea… It broke her heart not to be able to come down with me" Raven speaks again, after a short silence. "But she never stopped believing you were alive"
"Yeah… Mother of the year" Clarke answers, sarcastically.
I try to give Raven a stop-talking-about-that kind of look but she isn't looking at me so she never notices and speaks again.
"Well my mom was absent almost all my life… When she'd show up, was empty handed" She says. "I'm pretty sure she had me just to trade my rations for moonshine"
I'm walking next to her and Clarke's in front of us, leading the way. After Raven stops talking I hold her hand, having a flashback of all we went through up on the Ark.
When we were kids, Raven's mother used to, as she said, exchange her rations for moonshine, letting her starve without guilt. She was an alcoholic and never really took care of Raven. When I met her, she had stolen some moonshine from her mom and was trying to trade it back for some food. From that moment, we became friends and with time, family. I always shared my rations with her, then we met Finn and… well, you know the rest of the story.
"How did you survive?" Clarke asks, crouching to reach the Bunker's hatch from the floor and removing the leaves from top of it.
"My two neighbors" She says, smiling and looking at me. "Finn and this little guy right here" She adds, squeezing my hand.
"They shared their rations, remembered my birthday… saved my life" She speaks again, looking down at Clarke. "They're my family"
Clarke open's the hatch, not saying a word, and the three of us climb down inside the Bunker.
She takes three flashlights and gives us one each. For a second I wonder where these came from, since the last time we were here, with charlotte, we had none.
"Were these here before?" I say, raising the flashlight and showing it to Clarke so she knows what I'm talking about.
She remains silent and paralyzes for a second. I feel the awkwardness of the situation so I turn to Raven and change the subject.
"So what are we exactly looking for?" I say, sticking my free hand inside my pants pocket.
She's looking at the whole place, amazed by every detail just like I was the first time I got here.
"How did you find this place?" She says.
"We didn't… Finn found it" Clarke answers, and I turn to her to see she's got a box full of stuff and is going through it, looking for something raven can used to make the radio.
"John we need to find a transmitter" Clarke says, looking at me, away from the box.
"Anything that could produce radio frequencies… usually it'd have an antenna" Raven adds, turning to us.
I start walking to Clarke's box to help her find something when she pulls out a toy car.
"Hey, will this work?" She says, giving it to me and I show it to Raven.
"Sweet" She says, taking it from my hands. "R.F. Radiofrequency" she adds, looking at us and putting the toy down. "If we can just find the controller… we'll be golden"
"Alright" I say while getting back to looking, next to Clarke.
We put the box away, after not finding anything new, and Clarke start looking in another one. I go to one of the shelves behind me, instead, checking it with my eyes and l pointing the flashlight at it.
"Finn made this" Raven says, and I turn around to look at her.
"Huh?" Clarke says from the other side of the room.
Raven shows her what she's talking about, and I see it from my spot. It's one of Finn's handmade figures he usually makes with any kind of material he can get.
She's now smiling and pointing at it with her flashlight while rotating it, as if she was studying the piece of metal.
"Oh… yeah" Clarke says, going back to the searching. So do I.
"We saw this two-headed deer our first day on the ground…" She continues. Reminding me to Trina and Pascal, so I stop going through the box I'm searching in now, and look at her.
"Welcome to paradise, right?" Clarke says, finishing her sentence.
I glance at Raven and I see her holding the deer and her pendant, which is a raven also made with metal by Finn, except he made Raven's as an adjustable necklace she's been wearing since he gave it to her on one of her birthdays. It's pretty similar to the one I have, but mine's a giraffe -my favorite animal from before the nuclear apocalypse- and Finn made it for me as a way to say sorry that time he accidently hit me with a dart and I thought I was gonna bleed to death.
"I got it!" Clarke says, making me and Raven snap out of our thoughts and the both of us stand up and head to her.
Raven gets next to Clarke before I do, and I see Clarke looking at the deer she's still holding on her hand, taking it and putting it on the table, looking back at Raven and handing her the remote she just found.
I take a deep breath, trying to wipe any controversial thoughts and go stand next to them while Raven starts opening up the remote to get what she needs.
"Finn always does that" She speaks, smiling. "Find the beauty on the unexpected" she adds after a few seconds, struggling to open it so her voice cracks at the end.
"Ready to go?" Clarke says, when Raven finally takes the frontal part of the control off.
"Hurry up and save the world, alright?" Raven answers, and I think I notice a passive aggressive tone in her voice
Silence. I feel my knees shaking, hatting the idea of this confrontation as if I was guilty for it happening. For Clarke and Finn happening, because by now, I'm sure it did.
"Yeah" Raven breaks the silence. "We're good"
"Oka-"
"Fine let's get out of here please" I say quickly, cutting Clarke off and heading to the stairs, followed by the two girls.
We barely speak on our way back to camp, from time to time, it's Clarke the one who tries to start a conversation and me trying to pretend nothing is wrong and answering or talking about random things.
At one point we have to start running because we hear grounders blowing a horn, which means the acid fog is coming, according to Clarke, so we just run the rest of the way back.
When we arrive, Raven goes straight to the Dropship to start working on the radio and I go after her. Clarke, on the other hand, heads to her tent to do something she tells us about but I can't hear because she gets me off guard.
Raven sits down and starts pealing the wires she got from inside the remote. I'm sitting next to her, studying her expression and wishing I was wrong, but I'm not. I know what's happening and I have to talk about it with her. So I speak
"Can we talk for a sec-"
"They screwed" Raven says, cutting me off, without taking her eyes away from the wires.
"I don't know that, neither do you." I say, looking at her serious face. "Raven you can't just assume things; you know Finn wouldn't do that" I lie.
She's drops the wires and faces me.
"Prove it" She says, and I can see her eyes watering.
A few seconds pass and I'm about to speak again when I hear someone moving between the fabrics that cover the Dropship's entrance. Clarke gets inside.
"How's it coming?" Clarke says, gasping and walking closer to us with a smile.
The radio starts doing static sounds and I look at Raven expecting her to answer to Clarke. But she ignores her, and I look away.
"Are you… alright?" Clarke speaks, sounding exhausted "You hardly said a word the whole way back from the Bunker"
Raven remains silent for way to long so I turn back to her to give her a scolding look. She sees me from the corner of her eyes and drops the radio, letting it fall on the table, standing up and turning to face Clarke, who is still standing there. Raven lifts her hand to show her the deer 'sculpture' she took back from the Bunker. She says nothing, just stares at Clarke, holding the deer. And I just sit there, watching it happen.
Clarke opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out of it.
"…Raven le-" Clarke starts talking in a gasp.
"Tell me I'm wrong…" Raven cuts her off, making little movements with her hand, holding the deer and keeping her eyes glued to Clarke's. "Tell me Finn didn't make this for you" her voice trembles.
I stand up and I try to head outside but Raven grabs my arm and gives me a dead look. So I sit back down without arguing.
"Tell me you weren't screwing my boyfriend as I was risking my ass to come down here!" Raven speaks again, and I notice the veins on her neck, which always pop out of her skin when she's angry.
Clarke's looking at her, with water in her eyes and not being able to say a word.
"I can't tell you that" She says, almost whispering.
Raven expression falls, and so does her hand with the deer on it. She steps closer to Clarke and for a second I think about stopping her but she speaks.
"He made one for me too… Just in case you thought you were special" She says, showing Clarke her raven collar, and turning back to the radio.
"Do you think I wanted this?" Clarke speaks, sounding like she's about to cry. "I didn't even know you existed" She adds. And I'm looking at my feet now, wishing I could become invisible and scape from this situation.
"Because as far as he knew, you were dead, Raven" Clarke speaks again, and I believe Raven's back facing her because of the position of her feet. "Or you would have been soon enough… my mom too, and everyone we ever knew on the Ark and th… there was nothing we could do to stop it"
"He could have waited more than ten days…" Raven answers after a few seconds and sits back down on the seat.
I look up at Clarke and nod at her, letting her know it'll be okay and I'll speak to Raven later, so she turns to leave, but before she gets outside Raven speaks again.
"Do you love'im?" She says.
I look at Clarke and she stops in her tracks and turns back to us. "I barely knew him" She answers, turning to leave.
A while passes until I speak again. This is how it works with Raven… every time she gets mad, she gets out of it by herself. She's not the catharsis-dependent kind of girl.
"You can't blame it on her, Rave" I say, hugging her with one hand while still sited next to her.
She doesn't say anything, she simply sits straight, wipes her tears off her face and gets back to work with the radio.
"Jonathan, wake up!" I hear Raven scream, making me jump.
I put my head up and out the cavity I created with my arms to cover from the light.
I had fallen asleep while Raven worked on the Radio but now, thanks to her yelling at me and shaking my soul out, I'm awake.
"What is it?" I say, still sleepy and rubbing my eyes.
"It's Octavia" She says, pulling me to stand up. "Come on" She adds, and gets out the Dropship.
I fully wake up the second I hear her say 'Octavia' and I run after her, stumbling a little when I start walking.
When we reach the group of people surrounding the entrance of the camp, I see Clarke with Octavia and I'm about to go greet her with a smile on my face when I hear raven say something in a gasp, so I look at Bellamy.
"Finn. Finn?!" Clarke says, running towards Bellamy who's holding him in his arms.
Raven and I run to them and I see Finn with a knife stuck on his rib cab. My head's pounding and I feel dizzy.
"Oh my god, oh god" Clarke. About to cry.
"Oh god" Raven, stepping back.
"Clarke is he…" I start saying after snapping out of my paralysis.
"Bellamy didn't let me take the knife out" Jasper says, coming from behind.
"No, that was a good call" Clarke answers, and I look at Bellamy. "Get him in the Dropship, GO!" she adds.
And I move away so the two people carrying Finn can pass through. I stay there, trying to wake up from what I wish was just a really bad nightmare.
I feel someone grabbing my hand and I turn to my left to see Raven, looking over the way they took Finn in shock.
"Clarke, can you save him?!" Raven asks her, sounding desperate.
"No, I.. do… not me, I need my mother" Clarke says, freaking out. "I need to talk to her"
"There's still no radio" Raven answers, letting my hand go and grabbing her head.
"Raven" Clarke says, relaxing her face "Fix it. Go!"
Raven looks at me and then starts running to the Dropship to take care of the radio. I understand her glare and I start walking after her, stopping in my tracks when I see Octavia, with her face full of dirt and blood, and before I can react, she runs to me and we're hugging.
"Don't fucking do that ever again" I say, my voice, my body and maybe even my soul are shaking. "We'll talk later" I add, looking at her nod and I turn and run to the dropship.
Thanks for reading! x