Chapter 35

Clarke woke up three mornings later. She didn't wake Ash up. She reached over and touched her forehead. She wasn't warm. Clarke didn't think that she would be, but it had been so long since she had taken the serum herself. She didn't remember having any adverse reactions, but then again her mother wouldn't let her be tested. Her test was Praimfaya itself. Ash's would be as well.

She was worried about the other woman, regardless. She knew that she was the one that talked Ash into taking the serum, but she felt bad about it. She used Ash's thoughts about Wanheda and Clarke being it to kind of force her into taking it. It wasn't something that Clarke was proud of, but she was glad that Ash did it anyway. She knew that it was her thoughts about being alone after everything went down in Bardo that pushed her into the emotional blackmail against Echo/Ash. Clarke didn't do well alone. Her thoughts of suicide before finding Eden proved that. She didn't want to outlive everyone, but it was her choices in her previous lives that caused it to happen. Ash gave her someone else to be with her.

"Do we need to hunt again?" Ash asked as she woke.

"We should if we want fresher meat. We only have a few days before it is going to be hard to be outside. We should smoke everything that we have. It is going to take roughly seven days to get to the main land again. We'll be walking and staying out in the desert. I want to save the ration bars and water until then."

"That sounds reasonable. I'll head out and see what I can find. Are the fish still good for now?"

"For a day or so, those heading towards land will already be sick. So, today, maybe? The ones around the island should still be good."

"Then, I'll get some fish, too," Ash replied.

"No, you go hunting and smoke the meats. You're faster at that than I am. I'll go fishing and get the smoke house ready for you."

"You're sure?"

"Sha, once we're locked in down here, it will be approximately forty-two days before we get out. We'll need all the supplies we can carry with us. There aren't going to be any horses for us to use. So, we'll be packing it all. The ocean will be gone and just be desert."

"I'll make a sled, something flat and smooth enough to skid over the sand. We can carry more that way and pull it along. I can make two?"

"That might be a good idea, Ash. We'll need to take as much as we can with us until we find the Rover. Once we have it, it will take a day or so to dig it out and let it charge for us to use. We'll be able to sleep inside it though and use it as shelter," Clarke stated.

"Start planning for the trip. I know you said that my maps won't matter, but I want to know which way we need to go. I want to try to set something up out there to help us find the way back towards land. You said that without the water and landmarks, we'll have to use the stars."

"We will."

"Is traveling at night better?" Ash questioned, actually concerned by what Clarke was saying.

"No, it isn't. I used the sun during the day and found whatever rocks I could for sleep before it went down. There are things in the sand that we don't want to deal with. When we get back to the main land, there will be trees, but they'll be burnt. We will have to use the sun, so paths that survived, and the stars at night. But, I don't want to be in the deserts for long," Clarke told her.

Ash nodded. She didn't have anything else to say. She felt the same and Clarke wasn't treating her any different. She rolled over in the bed and got up to face the day. She didn't say anything more as she got dressed and gathered her bow and quiver out of the bedroom. She turned back to see Clarke smiling at her. Ash returned the smile and went out see what she could find for them.

Ash went out on her hunts. Clarke grabbed the spear and net that Ash had found and went to the beach to fish. Clarke was the first to return back to the house before the sun was fully overhead. She started scaling the fish and getting the wood ready for the smoke house. As soon as she was setting the fish up to smoke, Ash was return with her kills for the day. Clarke couldn't help but smile when she saw her coming, a deer slung over her shoulders.

This was how their days went for the next week or so. In the evenings, Clarke would bring her down into the lab and show her the weather monitor. At first, Ash didn't know why, but then she realized that it was in case Clarke was doing something else and the pattern changed Ash would know to warn Clarke. Ash was worried, but Clarke seemed to have a plan. She did what she could, but she knew that in this situation, she was going to have to let Clarke completely lead her. And, she was. Clarke was even surprised to see that Ash had gathered rocks to point their way back to the shore. She knew that it wouldn't matter, really, but it gave Ash a little more piece of mind.

She hunted, butchered and skinned the animals. She smoked all the meat and salted a good portion of them, too. She gathered roots and other things that she knew that they could eat. She knew that Clarke said that the power that was lighting the house and given them other things, like the hot water, would stop as soon as the Death Wave passed over the land. So, she was setting up the pantry with things that would keep for over a month. She was treating it like they were going into winter, and for that Clarke was glad. At least this time, she would have more fresh food and not ration bars.

Ash had found some loose metal panels and some tools. She used those to make the sleds. She would spend her afternoons in the shadow of the mansion while she was smoking the meats bending, shaping, and preparing the sleds for use. She lined them with some furs. She also found some rope and other things to make leads for them to use. Ash was sure that they wouldn't need them once they got to the Rover, but she wanted to make sure that they would last until they found it. When she showed them to Clarke, the blonde was proud of her.

"Those will do well," Clarke had told her.

Ash put them away until they were needed near the area Clarke said they would dig out. She also put long coats with hoods there. She had listened to all the stories that Clarke told her about crossing. She took everything in and tried to prepare herself for the coming Hell that they were both about to face. It was during these tales that Clarke and Ash told each other more about their upbringing. Clarke hadn't fully told her why she about all this yet, but Ash didn't doubt her. She knew that Clarke would tell when she's ready. She wasn't going to push. Instead, she built the ebenezer to show them the way "home." Ash was all about being prepared.

Four nights later, Ash told her that the game was getting thin. Clarke just nodded. Ash wasn't surprised that Clarke wasn't surprised. With that news, Clarke started moving them down into the lab. Ash grabbed a mattress and dragged it down.

Clarke just laughed but applauded her thoughts. Clarke wasn't ready to give up the comfort of the bed, either yet, but knew that they would safer and farther from the radiation in the lab. The pantry was still accessible from there. They had what they needed to survive the next forty plus days.

Clarke even had some hazmat suits. She knew that Ash would want to go outside one more time before she locked them down. She would do it in the morning. She would want to see the sea one last time again. She knew that it would come back, but it would long after Clarke was dead and gone.

Ash was sitting down in the lab while Clarke was cooking. She was looking at the monitors. She saw the band of the Death Wave coming. It wasn't coming in the direction that she thought it would. It was coming from the land. Ash thought from Clarke's stories that they would see it coming from the ocean and cover the land. She was surprised to see that it was coming from the west. She was confused because they were heading back into the danger area after it passed them. She knew that Clarke said they would wait forty-two days for the radiation levels to drop enough not to affect them. She just kept staring at the screen and looking at all the colors. She didn't know what they meant, but she knew that it was bad.

"You don't have to stare at it all the time," Clarke told her. "It is just going to get closer to us. By the time it is close enough, the monitors will start to fail."

"Why?"

"The radiation, the faya within the Death Wave, destroys tek and makes it not work. We'll be able to time it coming, but that is about it."

"So, when it goes dark, it will honestly be upon us?" Ash questioned.

"Sha, it will."

Ash nodded. She understood that the Death Wave and Praimfaya was bad, very bad, but she didn't understand what that really meant. She knew that she wouldn't really understand it all until she was outside the lab again.

Clarke moved around her and looked at the monitor. She saw the bright band of what Raven had taught her to follow. The Death Wave wasn't the only part of Praimfaya. The radiation was the biggest part. Unseen and full of energy, it created the Death Wave as the nuclear power plants all melted down. Banding together, the band grew until is started rushing around the globe. Unfortunately, it would be the last thing that the people would notice. The black rain, the dead animals, the boiling water, and other signs would be the first thing that they noticed. Then, they would get sick, very sick, and nothing that the fisa did would make it better. Only those with natjus that sought shelter from Death Wave would be able to survive in its aftermath. Thankfully, after it's trip around the globe, it would burn out most of its energy. It was then the half-life and the blazing sun that they would have to deal with. Being underground in the lab would be their best protection.

This time, she wouldn't be puking blood and fighting burns to stay alive. She wouldn't have to rehab in the dark. She wouldn't be alone. Ash was with her. They would keep each other sane as they crossed the wasteland and found their way down into what was left of Louwoda Kliron.

"In the morning, we'll go outside for the last time."

"Will it be safe?" Ash questioned.

"It will be the last time that it is. The wave is getting closer. If there was something that you wanted to watch, we should do it over the next few days."

Ash just nodded and reached for Clarke's hand.

"Chit?"

"If we aren't going to be outside for over a month, I want to go outside tonight."

"What about dinner?"

"Can we take it outside?" Ash asked her.

"I guess it depends on what we have."

"I could make you the rabbit stew that you like so much. We need to use the rest of the rabbit soon, anyway. It would be warm and filling."

Clarke smiled at her. Ash was still trying to take care of Clarke. It was like she knew that Clarke was more worried about things than she was speaking about. Clarke couldn't help smiling at the thoughts. Ash was willing being someone that Clarke could trust completely. She knew that Ash had questions. She did, too, but that was always going to be something for another day. Tonight, they would go outside and look at the stars before they couldn't for days on days on end.

They went upstairs together and made dinner together. It was one of the first times that Ash let her help make the rabbit stew. All the furs and skins from their kills had been brought down into the lab and packed away. Tonight, they made a large quantity of the stew. Clarke planned on eating her fill. She knew that she wouldn't be able to have it for a long time, so she was going to gorge herself on it.

As soon as darkness settled over the island, Ash and Clarke gathered their bowls. It was the two biggest ones that they could find in the kitchen of the mansion. Ash had found some bottles of wine and other alcohols. They marched their way up a small hill that overlooked the ocean and the dock where they landed. They were still pretty far away from the beach and the landing, but it gave them a complete view of the land below them. The mansion was lit up behind them, like a beacon.

Clarke's eyes were fixed on a point out on the water. Ash sat down beside her. She didn't know what Clarke was looking at, but she could tell that whatever it was, it meant something to her. Clarke ate her stew slowly. She was savoring it, but she was also looking at the stars.

"See that moving star?"

"Sha," Ash replied.

"That is a piece of tek. It is floating around the earth. It is stuck there because of...well, it is a lot of science. It was once used to help people navigate at all times of the day. Tek like that helped people locate things, take pictures, and transmit communications. I don't know what that one did specificially, but if it had gotten close to the Ark, we would have taken it. Then, your people would have noticed that it wasn't there, but you wouldn't know why."

"Why you take them?"

"We could use the tek to help keep the Ark working. It would have wires, metal, and other items on it that we could use. Raven and others like her would put on special suits and go out into the stars. They would grab the tek and pull it back to the Ark. Then, they would take it apart and reuse the parts on our stations. Without those, things that our common ancestors sent up there to help them before the bombs, the Ark would have failed a long time before it actually did. I might have actually been born on the ground," Clarke told her.

"But, it wasn't meant to be. You were meant to come when you did, Klark. Keyron made sure that it would happen. You were tapped to be Wanheda before you were even born. And, if my sign tells me nothing else, it means that you haven't met those who are to help you. Or, maybe you have, but Keyron and you haven't decided that they are the ones who are meant to be by your side and helping you. I don't think that you honestly believe that you are truly Wanheda, yet, either. One day, you will Klark, and when you do, it will be amazing. I hope that I will be there for it, too," Ash replied to her.

"Me, too, Ash. Me, too. I just hope that you don't suffer from the same nightmares that I do," Clarke stated.

They finished their meals and stayed outside. Ash had thought enough to bring some furs with them. They spent the night under the stars, enjoying it for one of the last times that they would be able to before everything that they knew and loved was truly gone from the face of the Earth.

In the early morning, Clarke woke to a strange noise. She looked out to the water and saw that it was receding. She couldn't remember if it had done that before in her other lives. Whatever it was, she knew that they needed to get inside. Waking Ash, they ran back to the house and down into the lab. Clarke looked over the monitors and realized that her timeline was off.

"Lock it down. The Death Wave is coming. We don't have anymore time," Clarke called out.

Ash went running and made sure that all the "air lock" doors were secured. She looked at Clarke and saw the worry in her blue eyes. The lights flickered overhead and then went out. Their lockdown had begun. Now, they had to wait at least forty-two days before they would be able to get out. It was going to be a test for both of them. They would not be able to escape each other or the lab. Clarke moved over to a calendar and started their countdown.

"Forty-two days..."

"We will be fine, Klark."

"You sure about that?"

"Sha, because you are Wanheda and you will it so," Ash slightly teased as she replied.