AN: OK, so I've thoroughly enjoyed writing these every-day scenes (I hope you guys have enjoyed reading them too!) but now it's time to really move the plot forward – time to head down to this new planet and explore!

As always, I don't own anything relating to The 100.

-9-

They receive no response to the radio calls the next day either, which they spend mostly lounging around, so the morning after, they all strap into the chairs in the control room on the transport ship.

"All systems clear," Shaw notes, flipping a few switches.

"Taking off," Raven replies, hand on a lever.

Their last time on the ship was such a rush, Clarke doesn't really remember many particulars, just a general sense of horror at McCreary's action and fear that they didn't get away soon enough.

This time, she can… not enjoy the trip, exactly, but notice the little things. Like the expression on Raven's face as she pilots the ship towards the blue-green surface of the planet, like a kid on Christmas. Or the way Jordan's gripping the armrests of his chair so hard his knuckles turn white.

"Not a fan of flying so far?" she asks him gently, and he shakes his head vigorously.

"I like being stationary," he says, voice shaky.

"Well, you've never really been stationary," Raven contributes from the captain's chair. "Even while the ship was back at Earth, we were in orbit around the planet, going around six or seven kilometers per second, and after that, you were traveling through space. That ship is just so large that you can't tell it's moving, kind of like a planet – everything moves. You just can't feel it."

"I prefer that, then," Jordan replies tightly.

"This is the big exploration day," Bellamy says from his spot next to Clarke. "If we're able to cover enough ground, make sure nobody's waiting to ambush us, we might not all have to go down again. You can probably stay behind on the ship next time if you want."

"Good plan," Jordan agrees, squeezing his eyes shut as Raven does something that makes the ship veer sharply to the left. Clarke reaches over to squeeze his arm comfortingly.

"Can you maybe take it a little easy, Raven?" she asks.

"Fine," the brunette grumbles. "I'll keep the loops to a minimum."

Jordan pales at her words, and Clarke hurries to reassure him. "She's just kidding."

Soon enough, they touch down and Jordan finally relaxes.

"Right, easy part done," Shaw notes, which earns a wide-eyed look from Jordan.

"The easy part?"

"Nah, this was the hard part," Bellamy says, wrapping a hand around Jordan's upper arm to keep him steady when he wobbles a little after getting to his feet. "Now all we have to do is hope the atmosphere doesn't kill us, not eat or drink anything, since we don't know what's poisonous down here… actually, not touch anything without gloves, since that could be dangerous too. Oh, and avoid deadly animals and potential descendants of Eligius Three who didn't respond to our radio calls and instead decided to lay in wait for us and kill us on sight."

Clare smacks him on the shoulder. "Don't scare him like that!" she admonishes, but Bellamy just shrugs.

"Better scared than dead," he says, which is true, she has to give him that. Still, it wouldn't hurt him to be a little less blunt about it.

"You'll be fine," she says, turning to Jordan. "You'll be staying with the ship, you can close the door so you'll be completely safe in here. You have a radio so you can reach us if you need to, and a gun if anything happens – which it won't!"

Jordan nods, looking slightly less freaked out than a moment ago. "Yeah, OK."

"You good, kid?" Raven asks, having finished shutting the system down.

"I'm good," Jordan confirms, sounding a bit surer of himself.

"Then let's get this done." Raven reaches for a lever on the wall next to the door. "Opening door."

Clarke holds her breath as the door slowly opens, knowing full well it won't help if the atmosphere really isn't suitable for human life. When the door finally clangs down onto the ground outside, she lets her breath out and pulls another one in.

It feels like breathing on Earth, and she doesn't experience anything that might indicate some toxins in the air or anything like that.

"The air could be toxic," she hears Bellamy mutter to himself as he takes a step towards the opening, and has to smile. He stops before he reaches the ramp, though. "You want to be the first one on the new planet, kid?" he asks, glancing over his shoulder. "Feels appropriate."

It really does, so they let Jordan take his time. He hesitantly steps out onto the ramp, head swiveling from side to side as he takes in the surroundings that the rest of them can only see a small part of, and Clarke is reminded forcefully of Octavia stepping out of the dropship and onto Earth for the first time. We're back, bitches. She wonders if Bellamy is thinking the same thing.

"It's so green," Jordan says in wonder, taking another step forward, and then another. He finally reaches the end of the ramp and pauses before taking a last, uncertain step forward onto the ground.

That's apparently the signal the rest of them have been waiting for, and they all rush down the ramp and onto this new, strange planet.

"Wow…" Shaw says, spinning in a slow circle.

Clarke quietly seconds his wow, but she's too busy trying to take in everything to speak at the moment.

At first glance, it's like being back on Earth – they've landed in some type of meadow, surrounded by trees on all sides, and the ground is covered in green grass interspersed with tiny flowers in pink and purple. The sky is blue with white, fluffy clouds dotting it here and there, and the trees on the edges of the open area look pretty normal… But at a closer look, the differences become apparent – the first, and most obvious one, the second, weaker sun in the sky. Apart from that, the colors seem just a little sharper, the grass greener, the sky bluer, the flowers almost violent shades of pink and purple… the trees do have brown trunks but their leaves are bright green, turquoise, and orange – the last one might just mean that they've arrived during this planet's fall, even if the temperature is most like a warm summer's day on Earth, but turquoise leaves are definitely new.

Clarke's positive that they'll find more differences as they explore, and she's not sure if that thought is frightening or exhilarating. Probably a little bit of both.

"OK, let's see where we are," Raven says and Clarke turns to find her sitting on the ground, spreading her home made map out in front of her. She checks her tablet and puts an X on the piece of paper. "This is us. We landed pretty much where I intended, in the middle of the area we tested the other day."

They all gather around her, trying to make sense of the map as Raven glances at her tablet again before turning the map 90 degrees to the right.

"That's north," she finally concludes, pointing to their left. "The higher readings of humidity in the ground were to the west, so that's behind us. We should probably start in that direction."

Bellamy turns around to check the terrain, and Clarke follows suit. They can't really see much beyond the tree line, though.

"We'll head that way, you guys start in the opposite direction?" he suggests, giving Raven a glance over his shoulder.

"Sounds good," she agrees, folding the map back up. "And remember, walk for ten minutes, take a 90 degree turn, walk for another minute and turn back the way you came. We'll meet here for a quick debrief and then we'll head out again. Repeat as needed."

Clarke rolls her eyes – Raven's already gone through these instructions at least ten times. "We know."

"Everybody got a radio? Gloves? Stuff to collect samples in?" Raven asks for the third time since they boarded the transport ship. Bellamy and Clarke hold theirs up, gloves already on.

"This is not our first rodeo, Reyes," Bellamy notes drily.

"Well, considering you both have a horrible track record when it comes to sticking to a plan and not getting sidetracked and, as a result, hurt or worse, I thought I'd double check."

She has a point, of course, but they still exchange an amused look as they turn away in their designated direction.

"Back in a bit, Jordan," Clarke calls over her shoulder before they enter the trees at the edge of the clearing. He gives her a salute before retreating to the ramp into the ship and taking a seat on it. She half expected him to really close himself up inside the ship, especially after Bellamy's little speech, and she's glad he doesn't.

"First observation," she says as she has to duck under a branch with bright blue leaves. "Blue trees."

"Yeah," Bellamy agrees, tilting his head back to examine the canopy a little better. "You want to get a sample of those to analyze?"

"Sure."

He reaches up to pull one of the branches with blue leaves down so she can reach it easier, careful not to let it touch any bare skin, and she plucks one leaf off the tree, placing it in the large bag they've brought for collecting plant samples.

"Apart from that…" Bellamy picks the conversation up again as they continue walking. "Bright colors, but basically a lot like Earth."

"You realize you've just pushed our luck, right?" Clarke notes. "Now we're going to get attacked by some fifteen foot high, three-headed monster with scales and wings."

"And bright blue," he adds with a chuckle.

"I thought that went without saying."

"Hey, this tree has nuts, I think. Or something similar, at least."

Clarke looks up at the tree he's indicating, and there are indeed some sort of nuts or fruit hanging from the branches. They're easy to reach, too, so if they're edible they'd be a good food source.

Bellamy has already picked a couple of the nuts and she holds the bag open for him to drop them in.

They've made a rough plan for the next couple of weeks for exploring an area that stretches five miles in every direction of their chosen settlement spot, to get as thorough an understanding of the place as possible and hopefully avoid unpleasant surprises once they bring the rest of their people down to start the actual colonization. Today, they're focusing on the immediate area, getting as many samples as they can of berries, fruits and other sources of nutrition. These will then be run through the analyzer on the ship, so that Jordan and, maybe, Abby, once they wake her up, can go through the results and figure out what they can eat. They're hoping to find water as well – Clarke has a couple of empty bottles in her bag for water samples – and maybe spot some animals that can provide meet in the long run.

At the moment, though, they're making pretty slow progress since they're both mesmerized by the new environment.

"This is pretty and all," Clarke finally says when they've wandered through the trees for a few minutes. "But we need to get a move on if we want to find more samples and maybe the water Raven thinks is in this direction before we have to turn back."

Bellamy lets go of a branch with green leaves and bright orange flowers of some kind – Clarke thinks they kind of look like apple blossoms, except for the color, so hopefully they'll have this planet's version of apples to eat at some point – and nods his agreement.

"It looks like the trees open up a little up there," he says, nodding ahead of them to a spot where the sunlight is brighter. "Come on."

They emerge from the trees and Clarke stops dead in her tracks when the whole scene unfolds in front of her.

"Oh my God."

At first, she thinks the grass here is white for some reason, but then she realizes that the ground is so full of flowers that they completely cover the green underneath. It's absolutely breathtaking.

"Wow," Bellamy mumbles next to her.

They've clearly reached the edge of the small wooded area, and the flowers stretch out in front of them as far as they can see. To the left and right of them, the ground starts sloping upwards gently maybe half a mile away, putting them in what is essentially a wide, shallow valley. Ahead of them, the flower-covered ground slopes away until it disappears completely, and even further ahead, it rises again, transformed to a rocky landscape that continues to the horizon.

"One of those hills might be a better spot for a settlement," Bellamy notes after a moment, eyes intent on the one to their right. "Good vantage point, you must be able to see for miles up there. And we could have farms down here in the valley, it seems like a good spot for growing things."

"Yeah," Clarke agrees, turning her head left and then right. "Come on, we still have another five minutes or so before we need to turn back."

They continue straight ahead, in a continuous downward slope. There's not much to collect samples from here, no trees or bushes with potential food, just the millions of tiny white flowers under their feet, which Clarke supposes could be good for something, but right now they're focusing on food sources.

After a few minutes, Bellamy pauses next to her, and Clarke stops as well, turning to face him.

"What?" she asks when she sees the slight frown on his face.

"I think… there's something glittering further ahead, could be water," he says, squinting a little as if that will make it easier to see.

"Well, come on. Might as well keep going until we reach it so we can get a sample."

They pick up the pace a little and soon enough it's clear that there's a decent size lake some ways away. They haven't reached it when their ten minutes are up, though, and Clarke grabs the radio from her belt.

"Raven, come in," she says as she pushes the button to transmit.

"What did you do? And do you need help?" comes Raven's voice crackling through the speaker, and Clarke rolls her eyes.

"Who says we did anything?" she replies. "We found a lake, or what looks like a lake, but it's probably, what, five minutes away?" She glances at Bellamy, who nods to indicate he agrees with her estimation.

"Well, we need water, so we've got to test it as soon as possible," Raven says. "Keep going, we will too, and radio when you're turning around."

"OK, will do." Clarke pauses. "Did you catch that, Jordan?"

The radio is quiet for a moment before Jordan's voice comes through.

"Got it, thanks for the update."

Clarke clicks the radio back on her belt and they take off again.

The ground is still sloping downwards, towards the lake, but by the time they reach the edge of the water – it only took them three minutes, so they have a few minutes to spare – they're both out of breath and sweaty.

"I know we have to analyze the water before we even think about it, but damn, I really want to go for a swim and cool off," Bellamy says as he sits down a few feet from the water's edge.

Clarke fills one of the sample bottles with water, careful not to submerge her hand, and takes in the lake in front of them – it's probably at least half a mile across and she can't see the shore to her left or right. She does think there might be a stream feeding it coming down the hill to the north, but it's too far away for her to be certain – before she sits down next to him, putting the sample securely in her bag and zipping it up so they won't accidentally drink from it. When she straightens up, Bellamy hands her one of the bottles of water that they brought from the ship, and she takes a long drink before she replies.

"That sounds like heaven," she agrees. "Maybe next time, when we know we won't die in agony or grow extra limbs or something."

"Well, extra limbs might not be such a bad thing," he jokes.

"I like my limbs fine just the way they are, thanks," Clarke replies. And yours too, she adds quietly.

"Yeah, I guess it's not worth the risk," he agrees, leaning back, closing his eyes and tilting his face up against the sun – suns. That's going to take some getting used to.

Clarke mirrors his position, but tilts her head to the side a little so she can watch him. The sunlight plays across his features, highlighting his freckles and making his skin glow. He's practically radiating peace, and Clarke prays to whatever higher power watching over this planet that it will remain.

Only a moment or so later, Bellamy sighs and opens his eyes before turning to face her.

"Think we should head back?" he suggests.

"Probably," she agrees grudgingly.

He pushes himself to his feet and then holds out a hand for her, pulling her up when she takes it. They turn back in the direction they came from but Clarke hesitates.

"I don't know if we need to do the whole one minute to one side," she says. "We can see all the way to the hills on either side, they have to be about a mile apart… there's nothing in this valley but the flowers."

"Yeah, I agree," he replies. "Let's head back to the ship, then we can explore the wooded area closest to the landing spot while Raven and Shaw continue in the other direction, depending on what they've found so far. Or we can head south or north."

"Good plan," Clarke agrees with a nod, bringing the radio back to her mouth. "Raven? We're heading back now."

"Copy that," Raven says after a moment.

The trek back to the ship is a little more tiring, since they're moving slightly uphill the entire way, even if it's not a steep slope. When they enter the wooded area again, Bellamy suddenly stops in his tracks.

"What?" Clarke asks, trying to figure out what gave him pause, her immediate thought that he's spotted someone or something dangerous.

"Listen," he says, tilting his head back to survey the dense leaves above them.

It takes her a moment, but then… "Birds!"

"Yeah." Bellamy nods enthusiastically. "I didn't even notice that there wasn't any birdsong earlier… we must have scared them off when we landed, but now they're back."

The knowledge that if nothing else there are still birds – or whatever this planet's equivalent might be – gives them new energy and they hurry back towards the ship. Still, Raven and Shaw are already back, sitting with Jordan on the ramp.

"Took you long enough," Raven calls when they emerge from the trees, and Clarke sticks her tongue out, even if Raven probably can't see it from that distance.

"For your information, the ground that way slopes down continuously until you reach the lake," Bellamy tells her, slumping down next to Shaw. "You try going uphill nonstop for fifteen minutes, see how you like it."

"What was the lake like?" Shaw asks. "Big?"

"Pretty big, yeah," Clarke confirms, stopping in front of the other four. "We didn't see any movement, but there could be fish in there. Oh, and there are birds, we heard them just now."

"Yeah, so did we on our way back," Raven says.

"The trees continue for a couple of minutes," Bellamy takes over. "Then there's a sort of open valley, maybe a mile across, with hills on either side. All flat, nothing but grass and flowers, so I don't think we need to explore that part more. But we were thinking one of the hills might be good for a settlement, get a bit higher, better vantage point."

"And with the lake close by we might be able to rig up some sort of water system," Raven muses. "Good thinking."

"It looked like there was a stream or small river flowing into the lake from the hill to the north," Clarke says. "So that one might be the best option."

"I missed that," Bellamy says, eyebrows raised.

"I saw it when I was filling the bottle," she replies. "Which reminds me…" She takes the bottle out of the bag, steps over Raven's outstretched legs and puts the bottle down on a desk just inside the door to the ship.

"Don't want to accidentally drink that," Raven notes as she comes back out.

"That's what I was thinking."

"So what's happening in the other direction?" Bellamy asks, and Raven and Shaw launch into a description of the environment to the east of their landing spot – apparently the woods stretch further in that direction, they didn't reach the end before turning back. They've found more nuts that look like the ones Clarke bagged earlier, a couple of different types of fruit – one that looks kind of like yellow cherries and another that can be best described as a purple, fuzzy lemon – that they've collected for analysis.

After some more water, and assurance from Jordan that he's fine staying at the ship, the other four set off again. By the time they call it a day and get back on the ship, they've collected more fruit and nuts, some berries that Clarke and Bellamy found in the woods to the west of the ship, and Shaw swears he saw something that looked like a pig, but Raven insists it was just underbrush.

All in all, Clarke thinks they've had a good first day exploring this new planet, and feels vaguely optimistic that this might actually work.

It's a feeling she's not really used to, and she doesn't want to push their luck by voicing it to the others.

Still, it settles like a warmth in her stomach when they all collapse in the living area of the apartment when they get back to the ship, Raven picking some mindless action movie on the TV.

And it doesn't have anything to do with Bellamy's thigh pressed against hers, since she's squeezed in between him and Raven, and his arm thrown over the back of the couch, now and then brushing against her neck or shoulders.

Nothing at all.

AN: OK, there we go – they've reached the new planet. More exploring coming up, but let me know what you thought of this one, reviews are always appreciated!