AN: Hi guys – updating a day early this week, since I won't have time tomorrow. Also, I've had a crap day with stupid clients, so I needed a distraction!

Time for a bit of insight into Clarke's thoughts from the last chapter and, of course – waking the others up! Hope you like it

As usual, I don't own anything related to The 100

-11-

Clarke closes the bedroom door behind her and lets her head fall back against it. Ever since she realized that they've finished their exploration of the new planet and are ready for the next step – to wake everyone else up and get down there to actually live – there's been a weight in her stomach.

She knew this day was coming, and it's good that it has, it means that they've done what they were supposed to, what Monty trusted them to do. Still… the last couple of weeks, she's been able to almost fool herself that things are the way they used to be, before Praimfaya, before she spent six years with Madi as her only company on Earth and Bellamy spent six years in space. That it's the two of them against the world, like when they came up against the Grounders, the Mountain Men and even ALIE. Even with Raven, Shaw and Jordan, she and Bellamy have formed a unit of their own, always pairing up when they've split up for exploring, heckling old quiz shows from the archives, or just enjoying the silence together when they had a chance.

But that's not how it'll be when everyone else is awake, Clarke knows that, so she needs to take a step back. Maybe she should have avoided getting this close to him from the beginning, prepared herself for what life will be like going forward, but she's been weak… and now she'll pay the price, because she knows it'll be even harder to let go of him now that she's had a taste of what it's like to have his (more or less) undivided attention.

She stays in her bedroom until Raven knocks on the door to tell her it's time for dinner.

"You OK?" the mechanic asks as Clarke passes her, glancing at Bellamy who looked up from his conversation with Shaw when the door opened.

"Fine," Clarke assures her with a smile and Raven seems appeased, at least for the moment.

Clarke makes sure to sit between Raven and Jordan at the table when they eat, keeping her eyes on the algae bar in her hands to avoid Bellamy's probing gaze, and while she stays out in the living area with the others, watching some old movie, the rest of the evening, she claims an armchair, leaving Raven and Shaw to share the couch with Bellamy. Now and then, she catches him glancing at her, but she quickly looks away before he can say anything.

She goes to bed early, but for the first time since they woke up from cryo, she can't sleep.

-100-

They wake up her mom from cryo the next morning. The tentative plan is to have her go through the analyses of their samples and then she and Clarke will decide how to move forward with Murphy, Gaia and Kane. Clarke's hoping that the only one who will need further surgery is Marcus, but Abby will know better. Ideally, they don't want to leave anyone behind on the ship when they start actually moving down to the surface, but Abby will have the final say on that one. It might be necessary to let Marcus recover up here and not try to move him until he's had some time to heal from the surgery.

They've all had some time to get used to the situation, to work through the loss of Monty and Harper, so explaining everything to Abby isn't as bad as finding out themselves. They do it together, like they did with Raven and Shaw, but after they've gone through everything they know – which is more now, after their weeks of exploration – the other four leave the bridge, so Clarke and her mom are alone.

"I can't believe it," Abby says after a long, quiet moment. "It's… it's just…"

"Kind of crazy, I know," Clarke finishes the sentence. "Trust me. But this is what we have to work with right now."

"And there are no traces of other people down there?"

Clarke shakes her head. "Raven flew us over the whole continent where we're planning on settling yesterday, and as far as we can tell, there's nothing. Even if they built under the trees, there should still be farms or larger structures out in the open somewhere. Of course, it's possible that the other Eligius ship did get here and are just settled somewhere else on the planet, but… we've decided not to explore more. Maybe once we're settled."

"That sounds smart. Now, you said you've been analyzing water and food from the planet?" Abby asks, reverting to problem solving mode.

"We have," Clarke confirms, grabbing the folder with all the analyses. There are quite a few, since they've analyzed every type of nutrient source they've come across. "Water, berries, fruit, nuts, mushrooms… we haven't caught any animals or fish, but we'll probably need to test those before we eat them as well, just to be on the safe side. Raven says we can move the analyzer to the transport ship, take it with us, so that's good."

"Yeah, good," Abby agrees distractedly as she flips through the pages of information. "So tell me about this planet, what's it like down there?"

"It's…" Clarke has to think for a moment before she can formulate a response. "It's a lot like Earth, in many ways, but there's also a lot of differences, even if most of them are small."

"Yeah?"

"I think the biggest thing – apart from the two suns, of course – is the colors, there are a lot more colors in nature, and brighter too. Blue leaves and red deer… it's amazing."

"And you said that there are animals that might be good for meat?" Abby asks, looking up from the papers.

Clarke nods. "There are deer, like I said, and some sort of boars or pigs, and rabbits, though we'll have to be careful with those, they have really sharp claws and probably teeth… and there are some kind of wild dogs to the north, but I'm not sure if they're good to eat. Shaw was talking about maybe using them for tracking or hunting or something, though. And goats we might be able to domesticate, for the milk. A lot of birds, though we haven't been able to get a closer look at those. We could probably hunt them if we really needed to."

"And your cat," Abby adds with a smile.

"It's not my cat," Clarke replies, rolling her eyes. "It's just been following us around, and it's nice company."

"You gave it a name."

Clarke lets out a groan. "You sound like Bellamy. It's just a cat that likes to hang around us. It might be useful at some point, maybe good for hunting or something."

"Huh." Abby turns her attention back to the papers. "And how is Bellamy?"

"Mom," Clarke says in a warning tone. "Leave it alone, please, I already have Raven to deal with, I don't need you on my back too."

"You know all I want is for you to be happy, honey," Abby says with a frown.

"Yeah, well, he's not available for me to be happy with, so please let it go."

"Clarke…"

"What do the analyses say, is there anything on that planet we can eat?" Clarke cuts her off before she can get any further.

Abby scrutinizes her for a moment, but apparently decides to not push.

"None of these are poisonous in any way, so we should be fine. The water's perfectly drinkable and the fruits and berries seem to be high in various vitamins, which will be good."

"Great, so now we just have to decide what to do about Kane, and possibly Murphy and Gaia, if you think they need surgery again, and then maybe we can start waking people up and getting on with this colonization thing."

In the end, they decide to wake Kane from cryo and operate, and then go from there. If the surgery doesn't go as well as they hope, he'll have to go back into cryo and stay on the ship, in which case Abby will stay with him, and then they'll attempt another surgery when he's stable enough, but that's the worst case scenario.

They wake Jackson first, so they have all hands on deck, and then it's ten hours of surgery by the end of which Clarke doesn't know what's up and down. But they did it, Kane's sleeping more or less peacefully, with the aid of some heavy painkillers, but still. He won't need any further surgery unless there are unexpected complications, and can be moved to the transport ship when the time comes.

The last thing Clarke remembers is slumping down in a hard plastic chair in the med bay, but when she wakes up, she's in her bed. The door out to the apartment is open a crack, and she can hear Raven's voice floating through it.

Rubbing her eyes, she pushes herself off the bed. She's wearing a pair of sweatpants and a tank top that she was definitely not wearing during the surgery. Another mystery.

She's not awake enough to attempt to change into something else, so she just splashes some water on her face, tries to do something about her hair, and then leaves the room.

Raven and Bellamy are in the lounge, Bellamy in his usual spot on the couch and Raven in one of the armchairs. They both turn when they hear her enter the room.

"Morning," Raven greets. "Sleep OK?"

"I'm not sure unconsciousness counts as sleep, but fine, I guess," Clarke replies, crossing the room and flopping down in the empty armchair. "What time is it?"

"About ten thirty, you've been out for almost twelve hours" Bellamy replies, his eyebrows furrowing as he takes her in. "You look tired."

Clarke shrugs, breaking eye contact and focusing on the cuticle on her left thumb. "I didn't sleep that well last night, and then the surgery… I'll be fine. Shouldn't we be preparing the great awakening though? I thought we decided we wanted everyone on the ground by sunset today?"

"Shouldn't it be suns-set? Or sunsets?" Raven muses. "There are two of them."

"They set separately," Bellamy reasons. "So I'd say sunsets. And we are, actually." He turns back to Clarke. "Well, not us, specifically, we wanted to catch you up on everything when you woke up. But Jordan's preparing everything in the cryo chamber and your mom, Jackson and Shaw are loading the transport ship and making sure everything's good to go."

"We talked about it earlier, while you were asleep," Raven takes over. "And we decided to wake up a smaller group first."

"Yeah." Bellamy nods. "Mostly Arkers and Eligius. We figured they'll have an easier time accepting the situation."

"Plus our people, Indra – she doesn't let anything phase her – and Madi." Raven pauses to give Clarke an opportunity to… argue? She's not sure. She assumed they'd get Madi to address the Grounders, Wonkru or whatever they want to be called. It just makes sense – they accept her as their Commander, it's more likely they'll go along with the plan if she's the one giving orders.

"OK, sounds good," Clarke agrees. "We'll have to tell Madi what to say, though, and she shouldn't have to do it alone."

"Of course not," Bellamy assures her quickly. "We'll be there with her, all of us. But she's the one who has to do the talking."

"I know. It's OK, really. So, is that it? We should probably head down there."

"Sure." Bellamy gets up and goes into the kitchen, coming back a moment later with an algae bar that he holds out to her. "After you eat. You didn't even stay awake long enough for dinner last night."

Clarke grabs the bar, but gets up from the armchair. "I can eat and walk."

Bellamy just shakes his head. "Fine. Come on, Reyes."

"Speaking of last night…" Clarke says as they head towards the door, "how'd I get back here? I'm pretty sure I passed out in the med bay."

Her question gets an odd response from both Raven and Bellamy – Raven smirks at Bellamy, who rubs his neck and looks away from her.

"What?"

"Well, you really conked out after you were done with the surgery. I was all for leaving you in the med bay, but Blake wouldn't hear of it and was kind enough to carry you back to the apartment."

And, yeah. Now that she knows what happened, she does have vague memories of last night. She must have woken up briefly, because she remembers strong arms holding her up, a sort of swinging sensation, and Bellamy's scent surrounding her.

"You should have just woken me up," she grumbles.

"You needed your sleep," Bellamy replies quietly. "It's not a big deal."

And it's not, of course. Not to him.

"Well, thanks," she says awkwardly, and he shrugs.

Right. No big deal.

"I'm the one who changed your clothes, though," Raven mumbles in her ear, low enough so Bellamy doesn't hear. "Hope you're not too disappointed…"

She hip checks Clarke before skipping off ahead of them down the corridor, and Clarke sighs.

Everyone's in the cryo chamber when they get there, gathered around the control panel Jordan's used to wake people up. Abby immediately wraps an arm around Clarke's shoulders.

"How are you feeling, honey? You were really exhausted last night."

"I'm fine, Mom, just didn't sleep great the night before," Clarke replies, hoping Abby will leave it at that. Which she does, thankfully.

"OK, the ship's packed up and ready, we can go ahead and start waking people up," Shaw says.

"I've got everyone we discussed prepared," Jordan adds. "Just say the word."

Raven raises her eyebrows at Clarke, and she nods. "Go ahead, Jordan."

She doesn't watch him push the button, she's already on her way to Madi's cryo pod. As it opens, she deliberately turns so she has her back to where Raven and Bellamy are standing by the pods that Murphy, Emori and Echo are in. She's already watched them reunite once, she has no desire to do it again.

Madi opens her eyes, and Clarke pushes all other thoughts aside.

"Good morning, my little natblida," she says with a smile. "Did you sleep well?"

Madi stretches her arms over her head and sits up, swinging her legs over the edge of the pod.

"Why did you wake up first?" she asks. "I thought everyone would wake up at the same time."

"Well…" Clarke starts, pushing a strand of hair behind Madi's ear. "Things didn't go exactly as planned."

Madi frowns. "Why?"

For the first time, Clarke's grateful that Madi has the AI in her brain. It means that she has Becca's memories, so it's not as hard as it could have been to explain the situation to her. She asks questions no twelve-year-old should even understand, and accepts everything Clarke says without even blinking.

"So I have to make everyone understand that we need to get along on this new planet," she says when Clarke's told her everything.

"Pretty much, yeah," Clarke replies. "But we're not going to make you do something you don't want to, OK? So if you don't feel up for this, that's OK, we'll figure something else out."

Madi rolls her eyes in a way that is becoming much too familiar.

"It's fine, Clarke. This is what I need to do for my people."

For a moment, Clarke is reminded so forcefully of Lexa that she almost takes a step back. But this isn't Lexa, this is Madi – her daughter, who she has vowed to protect until her dying breath.

"OK. But we'll be there the whole time, got it? You're not doing this alone."

"I know," Madi says with a smile that's all her.

"OK, come on then."

Clarke helps Madi down from the pod and they turn towards the front of the chamber, where Jordan has been waiting. He's been joined by their people – Abby is talking to Indra and Diyoza, Jackson and Miller are standing slightly apart from the rest, heads close together, Octavia and Jordan have somehow found their way to each other, and Raven, Shaw, Murphy, Emori, Bellamy and Echo are in the center, in a loose circle. There are more Arkers who have gravitated towards them and most of the Eligius people are spread out in the room, close to their cryo pods.

Clarke pulls Madi along, intending to join her mom, Indra and Diyoza, but when he sees them, Bellamy nods for them to join their group instead, taking a step closer to Echo to make room for Clarke and Madi between himself and Murphy. For a moment, Clarke considers pretending she didn't see him, but then Raven looks over too and waves them closer.

"You doing OK, Madi?" Bellamy asks as they join the group. He reaches for Clarke's hand, the way he has whenever they've been next to each other over the past couple of weeks, but they can't do that anymore. Clarke shoves her hand in her pocket to avoid the temptation and turns to Madi, ignoring the frown on Bellamy's face.

"It's a little overwhelming," the girl says. "But I think I understand. It will just take some time to get used to."

"Amen to that, kid," Murphy pipes in, earning a couple of dry chuckles.

"So everyone's been brought up to speed?" Clarke asks, glancing around the group. She meets Echo's eyes briefly but quickly turns away.

"Everyone here," Raven amends, nodding at the three small groups around them. "I guess we should make some sort of general announcement to the rest?"

"Yeah, let's get on with it," Bellamy agrees. "We need to get the others woken up too and get going, before people start getting hungry…"

"OK, listen up everyone!" It's Diyoza, who's joined them while Bellamy was speaking, that yells. The people who are still milling around the room aimlessly make their way towards the now united group at the front. Clarke turns so she's facing them, putting Bellamy behind her, and lets out a breath she hadn't even realized she was holding. She can still feel his eyes on her, but at least she doesn't have to struggle to be able to stop herself from meeting them.

"Right," Shaw takes over from Diyoza, taking a few steps forward so he's in front of the others. "As you may have figured out by now, things didn't go as we thought. Our original plan was shot to hell when Earth didn't recover like it was supposed to.

Two brave people, Monty Green and Harper McIntyre, decided to stay awake to monitor the situation, and when they realized what was happening, they managed to get into the encrypted files about the Eligius Three mission. It turns out they weren't mining, like we were – they were scoping out a planet that they were hoping could be used as a new oil source, a planet with a position that makes it suitable for human life."

He pauses to let that sink in and immediately hushed conversations spring up around the room. Shaw gives them a few minutes before he continues.

"We arrived at that planet a couple of weeks ago, and since then, me and a few others have been exploring one area of it, trying to figure out if it can work as our new home. And it turns out that it can.

We can breathe the air, we've found a lake and a stream with drinkable water, and there are fruits and berries that we'll be able to eat. Hopefully we'll be able to hunt the animals we've already come across, but we haven't tested the meat yet, so we're not sure about that one. But we can live here…"

It takes a moment before everyone realizes he's finished speaking, but when they do, the volume rises considerably in the room.

"OK!" Bellamy yells after a few minutes. "As you obviously can see, we haven't woken everyone up yet. We figured some of… Wonkru," he turns to Indra, who nods, "might have a harder time accepting this situation than all of you. So if you would please follow Jackson and Miller, they'll take you to the ship's mess hall where you can talk about this all you want while we get the rest up to speed."

Jackson and Miller step forward and start leading people out the door. It takes a while, but eventually, the only ones left in the room are Clarke, Madi, Abby, Indra, Jordan, Raven, Shaw, Bellamy and Echo. Murphy and Emori went to the mess hall so Murphy could sit down and take it easy, and Octavia slipped out at some point as well.

"That was…" Raven starts.

"Yeah," Shaw agrees, though she doesn't finish her thought.

"OK, come on, Madi," Bellamy says, turning to the girl. "We need to decide what you're going to say to Wonkru."

"Can't I just say what Shaw said?" she asks.

"No," Indra steps into the conversation. "You should keep it simple."

"She's right," Echo agrees. "Just stick to the basics – Earth is gone, we've been asleep for a long time and now we've arrived at a new planet where we can live. None of all that… science." She says the word like an expletive, like it's something dirty.

"Yes, that is good." Indra nods. "They do not need all those details, they will only confuse them. If anyone questions you, just tell them that the Flame has brought us here to give us a new chance. Nobody will dare argue with that."

A part of Clarke wants to object to that. The Flame has nothing to do with this, it's all Monty and Harper's doing, they deserve credit for it. But she does understand that this is the easiest way to get everyone to cooperate.

"Is everyone OK with that?" she asks, just to make sure nobody's going to argue once Madi's giving her speech.

Everyone nods, even if both Raven and Jordan look less than happy.

"It's the best way," Raven reasons, and Jordan sighs.

"I know. We all know what they did for us, maybe that'll have to be enough."

"Right," Bellamy says. "You got this, Madi?"

"Got it," she says confidently.

"Then let's wake the rest up."

AN: There we go, halfway there! Echo's awake, Clarke's pulling away from Bellamy and soon everyone will be on the ground… who knows what will happen there?

As always, reviews are greatly appreciated, so if you have a moment, I would love to hear from you!