Disclaimer: Don't own the The CW or the 100.
Bellamy and Clarke sat across from each other inside the common room. Though the blizzard had lessened over the course of the week, being outside was still not ideal. They looked across the table at each other with grim expressions. Clarke took a deep breath and buried her face in her hands.
"It's not looking good, is it?" She said only loud enough for Bellamy to hear.
"Not at all—I heard talk of increasing the number of lashes he'll get." Bellamy leaned forward on the table, placing his elbows on it.
"Does Raven know?"
Bellamy shook his head. "Not yet."
"We're going have to tell Raven eventually."
"Tell me what?" Raven asked, dragging a chair to their table. The legs scraped against the metal floor and Bellamy winced at the sound.
Clarke met his guarded gaze, and he nodded slightly. She sighed.
"That bad, huh?" Raven said quietly, twisting a stray napkin on the table.
"They've practically already convicted him." Bellamy told her. "The trial is scheduled for tomorrow but… The jury is pretty much set on what they'll say."
"It's unanimous." Clarke stilled Raven's hand before she could shred the napkin into smaller pieces.
"Your mom?" Raven asked.
"Being the Chancellor means that under the Exodus charter, she must automatically perform the duties of a judge."
"Under the Exodus charter," Raven snorted. "I'm beginning to hate those words…How bad could his sentence be?"
"We're talking about ten lashes—that's what the jury has been whispering about."
Raven visibly winced, remembering Abby's lashing a few months back. Her mind conjured up an image of Murphy being dragged in front of the snow covered gates. He's shirtless, his scars for the whole crowd of spectators to gape at. The skin of his body is prickled in result of the below zero temperatures. She imagines Major Byrne making a snarky comment about the electricity warming him up as she ties his wrists to each post. His body is slumped, resigned. But his eyes are smoldering with blinding hate as Kane approaches with the electroshock baton.
"You don't have to be there if you don't want." Bellamy said, pulling her out of her head.
She didn't say anything.
After a while, she nodded slowly, looking up at both of them.
"I need to be there."
Murphy hugged his arms tighter about his body as the cold crept up his bones. To conserve heat for the rest of Mecha Station, they housed prisoners in an area with minimal heating. He had spent hours running over in his head the fact that things hadn't changed as much as he initially believed. In the Ark, there were times where they had prisoners on half-air. Here on Earth air was plentiful, but heat wasn't—hence the lack of warmth in his metal jail cell. And he was still a prisoner awaiting his trial.
He really had thought things had changed.
Shame on him though right? Isn't that what they used to say before the bombs? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me?
His teeth chattered as he watched the visible swirl of air that left his lips with each exhale. They had given him a moth eaten blanket at the beginning of his detainment, but he didn't have his jacket with him. He was still dressed in the loose sweatpants and thin white shirt he had on when Kane brought him in. His eyes glanced at the cup of water that had been given to him earlier in the day. The metal of the cup was frosty, and despite his thirst, he knew drinking ice cold water would not benefit him in conserving what little body heat was keeping him from getting hypothermia.
It was the bitter truth. They kept this section of Mecha just warm enough so that no one died before their trial, but cold enough for the chill to make you extremely uncomfortable.
Murphy heard the door open, and he craned his neck to see who it was. The grim looking guard that usually brought his meals walked in with Bellamy in tow. He sighed out of relief when he realized Bellamy had come alone.
"You have ten minutes." The guard said, turning on his heel after escorting Bellamy to the front of the cell.
Bellamy nodded once before looking at Murphy. His eyes took in the state of the cell which definitely looked worse than the last time he visited him.
"Yeah, I know it's not much. I would've cleaned up a bit but I've been chilling." Murphy said bitterly, standing up from the lone chair next to the bare cot.
Bellamy gave him a bored look at his pun, bringing his hands up to his face to breath hot air into them.
"Jesus, it's freezing in here." He muttered.
"My trial's tomorrow." Murphy gripped the steel bars as he got closer to him. "What's the forecast?"
"Not good." Bellamy whispered back.
Murphy took in this bit of information before nodding in acceptance.
"Raven?" he asked tentatively.
"Upset. She doesn't understand why you don't want to see her."
"You know why." He gestured around him. "She'd freak out if she saw this. The last thing I need is for her to get arrested for attacking a guard, or going after Kane."
Bellamy nodded. "Think you can survive the night? Temperatures are going to drop again."
"I've survived worse than a little chill."
"It's not just a chill, Murphy. Lincoln said there's going to be another blizzard tonight." Bellamy shrugged out of his jacket, and Murphy backed away from the bars.
"I don't take handouts." He said.
"I'm not doing it for you. I'm doing it for Raven." Bellamy held the jacket through the bars.
Murphy stared at him for a minute, glancing from his face to the jacket he was extending. He sighed in resignation as he reached for the leather garment.
"Thanks." He pulled the jacket on, already feeling ten degrees warmer with the extra article of clothing and the leftover heat it carried from Bellamy.
"Don't mention it. Think about tomorrow—concentrate on keeping calm. Let me do the defending. I'm not going to sugarcoat it and make you believe they'll drop the charges, but I will say that I'm pretty confident I can lower the sentence."
Murphy nodded in response, sitting back down as the guard appeared to take Bellamy away. He noticed that the guard's eyes lingered for a moment on the jacket he was sporting, but he didn't say anything.
"He knows." A voice sounded from a few cells away.
Murphy rolled his eyes, leaning back in his chair, tilting it dangerously on its hind legs.
"Knows what?" he asked exasperated.
"About the storm." Jaha answered. His voice was always calm – too calm for Murphy's liking, but he hadn't exactly had prime choices for companionship over the last week.
"Well joy to the world, he let me keep the jacket. What a saint." Murphy snorted.
"I'm sure your girlfriend will appreciate it."
His words made Murphy pause. Girlfriend… It seemed too mundane of a title for her. Angst-filled 12-year-olds on the Ark called each other's crushes boyfriend and girlfriend. Grounders called pairings mates. What did he call them?
He didn't know. All he knew was that she was his, and he was hers, and no title could ever concise it better than that.
Raven rubbed at her face, trying to disregard the sandpaper feel of her eyelids as she blinked. Dark circles lined her eyes, beacons for everyone to know that she hadn't slept well in the week of Murphy's imprisonment. She hated giving them the gratification of pitying her.
"Poor girl, first the Collins kid is sacrificed. Now her boyfriend is on trial." She heard a woman say, loudly whispering to her friend as they stood by the wall.
"If you ask me, she moved on a little too fast." The other responded.
Raven had to clench her hands into fists as she walked briskly by them in the hall. She knew people talked about her relationship with Murphy, and it didn't faze her—but something about the tone of those women had ingrained itself into her brain like a tumor.
Had they rushed things?
Maybe if she would have stayed away from him he wouldn't be in the position he was now.
She felt guilty. He had felt the need to stand up for her, and he didn't have to. She had surely been called worse than handicap in the past. The thing was that that was who Murphy was. He was either all in or not at all, there was no middle ground. He either cared with his whole soul, or he didn't at all. It was one of those things she had slowly found out about him; it was something not a lot of people knew.
It was one of the things she liked about his best.
There was no trace of doubt in her that when he looked at her, he was only seeing her—not someone else. It felt nice.
She ran into Clarke on the way to the council room where the trial would take place in a few minutes. Clarke nodded silently at her and they continued their walk together. Things between them had been rocky to say the least, but since their heart-to-heart things had smoothed a great deal. Finn's death was still a smudge in her heart, but in order to move forward with Murphy, she knew she had to begin by forgiving her. It was a slow process, but it was happening.
"He'll be fine. Bellamy is going to make sure of that." Clarke said.
"I hope you're right." Raven whispered as they entered the double doors of the council room.
There were a few chairs nearest to the doors that had been set up for witnesses and whoever else wanted to watch the trial—which counting the number of activities they had to pass the winter, the number of people wanting to see the trial was surprisingly low. She had expected more people to come with all the gossip that she had heard.
She sat one of the empty chairs as Clarke crossed the room and took her place in the council table. Abby walked in with Kane hot at her heels, his hands locked behind his back authoritatively. The rest of the members of the council took their chairs, leaving a seat open for Bellamy who had yet to walk in.
She heard the doors open behind her, a guard entering the room while jostling Murphy inside. His hands were zip-tied behind him as he was pushed to the center of the room, just in front of the table. Bellamy walked in a moment later, giving Clarke a slight nod as he stood beside Murphy.
The people that had been appointed as the jury settled into their seats on the other side of the room. The jury was comprised of eight people, all adults from different surviving stations. The door opened once again and that blabbermouth Rhys walked inside with a guard. He stood beside Murphy at the front of the table. She saw Murphy give him a seething death glare—that probably isn't helping his case.
Abby cleared her throat to get everyone's attention.
"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Calling the case of the People of the Ark versus John Murphy; Are both sides ready?"
"Ready for the People, Chancellor." Kane said, standing up from his chair and walking to Rhys' side.
"Ready for the defense, Chancellor." Bellamy called from his spot by Murphy.
Abby nodded to a woman from Hydra station that formed part of the council.
"Would you please swear in the jury?"
The woman did as she was told, and Raven watched the jury rise and repeat the words that the councilor was saying. She scoffed softly at the hypocrisy of it all. Here they were, swearing to judge fairly, when she knew clearly that they had already made a decision, and that was that Murphy was guilty and should receive maximum consequence.
She saw as a guard walked to the center of the room.
"Chancellor and people of the jury: the man standing before you, John Murphy has been accused of treason on grounds regarding the safety of the people of the Ark. He betrayed one of the conditions for his previous pardoning of crimes, some of which include murder, by threatening Rhys H. Rotter's life. The defendant allegedly tried to strangle Rotter, who claims the cause of this exchange was some misunderstood words between them in their bunk."
Raven scoffed loudly and rolled her eyes, and Clarke gave her a stern look from across the room. The trial seemed to drone on. It was truly boring, even if she was scared the whole time for his wellbeing. The words exchanged seemed to drag on and on, and the entire trial seemed more pointless than before. Is this how they used to do things before the bombs went off? She felt bad for the people that used to do this for a living.
She was brought to attention abruptly though when Bellamy interrupted Kane in the middle of his sentence on how Murphy was a threat to society (bullshit).
"Okay, enough of this dancing around the subject." Bellamy said loudly, a note of perceptible anger in his voice. "Yes, Murphy threatened the guy."
Raven's eyes widened. No what are you doing?! She thought.
"Yes, Murphy almost choked him." Bellamy continued as Clarke shook her head visibly side to side to get him to stop talking.
"But Murphy did not commit treason, and this whole trial shit is stupid. I think he should receive four weeks of work detail. That ought to teach him a lesson. Are we done?" he crossed his arms.
"Thanks a lot, man." Murphy muttered, thinking to himself that he was sure going to get the shock lashing of his life at this point.
"Great. I agree." Abby groaned, getting up from her chair.
"Abby, what are you doing?" Kane questioned.
"Going to go take care of bigger problems—next time Mr. Rotter decides it's okay to demean others and get away with it, John Murphy is going to be the least of his problems."
"Abby, this is a trial. You're not doing things properly. Under the Exodus charter—"
"I don't care what the Exodus charter says. Court is dismissed. Release John Murphy, would you Kane?" She walked away, leaving through the doors in the back.
Raven's mouth was open in shock, as was Bellamy's. Apparently he hadn't thought his stunt would have worked. Idiot.
Kane cut the ties from Murphy's wrist, his face stony. Murphy rubbed his wrists where the plastic had dug into his skin uncomfortably. He looked up in time to brace himself to catch Raven, who had made her way to him and launched herself into his arms.
He stumbled backwards, holding on to her thighs to support her. She wrapped them tighter about him as she pressed her lips to his.
A week had been too long.
He kissed her back ardently, smiling against her lips as she dug her fingers into his hair.
Someone cleared their throat, and they broke apart to see Clarke and Bellamy leaning lazily into each other. Bellamy had his arm wrapped around Clarke, resting on her hip. Murphy set Raven down softly, a blush spreading to his neck.
"Are you blushing, Murphy?" Bellamy smirked. He opened his mouth to add something else, but Raven smacked him hard on his chest, knocking the breath out of him.
"You idiot! You scared me half to death! Don't ever do anything like that again." She scolded.
Murphy bit back a laugh, still surprised at how things turned out. He grabbed Raven's hand and pulled her back to him as she continued to lecture Bellamy. He pressed a soft kiss to her hair.
Four weeks in work detail would suck, but seeing Raven lit up like a comet across the night sky sent him reeling into a place of pure content where he didn't care what he had to do, if he got to see her like this every day.
John Murphy was falling in love.
Sorry if there were some grammar errors in this one. I didn't have a lot of time to edit. Hopefully you guys are happy with it (I'm still not 100% happy with it, but I wanted to post what I had).
As always, thank you so much for the awesome reviews! You guys are the !
.xoxo