Chapter two

I'm a Grounder?

He stayed in the library, incredibly nervous.

He knew that there were humans on the ground.

And they wanted to kill this little girl. That was…definitely not good.

He tried to prepare. Take precautions. He blocked the doors and windows with piles and piles of books. He put any locks that still worked on the doors. And he checked his gun's number of bullets. His gun was loaded, thankfully.

He kept the girl on his lap and peered out through the limited space of the window that he could see and wasn't blocked by piles of books.

He didn't see anyone coming.

But he knew he'd have to be on guard.

Those men in black robes had been looking for a child sacrifice. And lunatics like that didn't just stop, just because a couple of their lackeys got killed.

He provided food for both him and the girl. He opened up some of the rations that had been given to him to bring down from the Ark. He tore apart some pieces and fed them to the girl and ate some himself.

At some point, someone tried to radio into him. He was startled and he pulled out the radio and said into it, "Hi, Abby?"

Abby said, "Jake, are you alright, honey?"

"I'm alright, Abby," he said, "So, I have news for you. There are people down here. There are humans down here. I've seen three of them. Two men and a baby. The two men apparently, were trying to ritually sacrifice the baby."

He heard Abby gasp.

"Ritually sacrifice?" she asked, "Oh my god. There are people down there, and they're murderers?"

Jake said quickly, "Well I doubt all Earth people are murderers. But I don't know where the baby comes from. I rescued her. She's here now. I don't know what her name is. Her name under her soulmate mark is in a language I don't understand. So, I'm just calling her 'Clarke,' for now. After the author, Arthur C. Clarke. She seems to like that name."

There was silence and Abby then asked, "You're taking care of the girl? You just grabbed some child and are protecting her?"

Jake winced. He recognized that tone of voice.

"She was helpless," he protested, "She was about to be murdered. I had to. I couldn't just let a pair of murderers ritualistically sacrifice her."

Abby said, "But if they were going to ritualistically sacrifice her, then that means there are more people after her, right?"

Jake sighed, "Yes, I know there are. But I couldn't just leave her. Please understand, honey."

"I understand," Abby groaned, "I understand that you try to protect everyone except for yourself."

Jake said, "Well, yes, but I need to protect this girl, okay? So, now we know, the Earth is livable. Is it safe? No; nowhere is really safe, that's just reality. Now all you have to do is pick me up, get me back to the Ark. Me finding people down here? You know what that means? The Earth is livable, even if it isn't safe down here. So, bring me up. And I'm bringing the kid with me. Can't let anyone try to kill her."

"And her parents?" Abby asked.

"I don't know," Jake confessed, "I don't want to assume this, but I think it's possible that maybe the girl's parents gave her up to be sacrificed."

Abby didn't respond, then she said, "Alright. Fine. If it means that you'll be safe. We'll bring the both of you up. I'll talk to Jaha about sending a pod down for the two of you."

Jake knew he'd have to hang tight after this.

He held the child, making faces at her and trying to amuse her as they waited.

The next day came along. And Jake came out of the library, holding the child close to his chest, as the pod came down to where he and the girl were, obviously tracking them down to where they were.

"Clarke" stared up at the pod, looking enamored with the bright light shining out of the front of its body.

The pod hummed low as the platform opened up for Jake and Clarke. The pod's platform jutted open and Jake held the child close and walked up along the platform, into the pod. The platform door closed behind him. He whispered to Clarke as he pulled her into the pod, "It's okay. We're safe, sweetie."

The pod was dark on the inside. There were some control panels at the head of the pod. Jake went over to the control panel, hearing a mechanical voice speak out of the speakers, "Identify with voice identification."

Jake pressed the intercom button and said, "Jake Griffin! Top engineer on the council!"

The mechanical voice whirred out, "Voice identification confirmed. Identification, Jake Griffin."

There were a series of clicks and the pod began rising up from the ground and Jake quickly went to a seat, placing Clarke in one of the seats and putting secure seatbelts on her. He then dropped into the seat next to her, putting his own seatbelts on.

The pod vibrated as it rose up and blasted off in the direction of the Ark.

The pod arrived at the Ark only an hour later.

The doors opened up of the Ark, and the pod slid inside. When the pod bay doors of the Ark were all closed up, the pod opened up and Jake undid his seatbelts and undid Clarke's seatbelts, picking the girl up and carrying her out of the pod.

He went down the platform, to the floor, carrying the child in his arms protectively. Thelonius Jaha, Abby Griffin, Callie Cartwig and Markus Kane were there waiting for him.

Jake brought Clarke down to meet them. He smiled at them. "Thanks for sending down the pod," he said, "But we know something now. There are people down on the ground. Earth is livable. Not safe. But livable."

Thelonius nodded.

Abby looked at the child in Jake's arms.

"This is Clarke," Jake said, holding the baby up in his hands, and Abby saw the hopeful look that he was giving her.

Abby sighed.

Jake was hoping they could keep the girl. That they could adopt her.

Abby shook her head but said, "Fine, Jake. Fine. But you're taking the most care of her, alright?"

Jake grinned.

Later, he and Abby got Clarke settled in and looked at in the medical bay.

They watched as Clarke giggled as Abby pressed the metal of the stethoscope against her chest and Jake smiled at the sound.

Abby took the stethoscope away from Clarke and said, "Heart rate normal."

They then took some blood from Clarke, to analyze it.

Clarke whimpered a bit at the feeling of the needle, but didn't cry, oddly enough.

When Abby analyzed the blood, that was when things became tense.

"Jake," Abby said, staring at the results on the screen in front of her, "Maybe you should look at this."

Jake stepped up next to her, looking at the screen. His eyes widened.

Clarke was somewhat human. But barely. It was like she wasn't even thirty-four percent human.

What blood they could make out that was human? Marked her as being A Positive. But that was it.

The rest of Clarke's DNA? It was marked as "unknown."

Jake stepped back, staring at the screen, then turned to Clarke, staring at the baby.

Clarke wasn't human?

"Jake," Abby said, her voice deadly quiet, "We should do more tests on her."

"No," Jake said, going over to the baby and blocking her with his body, "I'm not letting anyone run more tests on her. And don't tell Thelonius Jaha what we found."

Abby's jaw was tight, but she knew that Jake wouldn't budge on this.

So, they didn't tell Jaha. But they always knew.

They always knew that their adoptive daughter, wasn't human.

In the meantime, Jake discussed with the rest of the council. And he, Abby and the rest of the council discussed what Jake had discovered. Humans. On the ground. An Earth with humans on it. Which meant that the radiation had likely disappeared.

So, the question became, should they come down to the ground?

Thelonius, however, didn't trust the people of the ground-and after what Jake had said he saw, Jake wasn't sure he could blame his friend.

So, for now, they were holding off on it. Until they knew more.

And they put it off. For years.

The council members were too distrusting of going back to the ground after what they had heard, and Jake and Abby were busy raising their now adopted daughter. Clarke. Now Clarke Griffin.

The child had grown into a vibrant young girl with long, pale blonde hair and a love of exploration, art and her new home. But she never learned that she was adopted.

Thelonius Jaha had a child of his own. A boy. Wells. His wife had died giving birth to her and Thelonius's son. And Thelonius had never exactly been an affectionate father. So, Jake was more of Wells's father than his friend was a father to Wells. So, Jake made sure Wells met Clarke and the two of them could play together. He and Abby had estimated Clarke's age to be around almost a year old. Wells was almost two years older than Clarke.

Wells and Clarke seemed to take to each other almost immediately.

And they had bonded and had spent a lot of time together. Eventually, after a couple of years, the name under Clarke's soul mark, on her, changed. It was no longer in a different language. Now it read, "Clarke Griffin."

Which meant that Clarke had learned her new name and had accepted it, by the time she was two and a half years old.

Several years later, that was when things became…dire.

Jake, eight years after the name under Clarke's soul mark changed, discovered something terrible. There was a flaw in the Ark's oxygen system. The oxygen system was failing. It was going to fail in six and a half years time.

Jake discovered this and told his wife.

Ten-year-old Clarke Griffin was listening in. She hid behind a corridor in her and her adoptive parents' bunk, and heard what her dad had said to her mom. Her heart fell when she heard what her dad told her mom.

The Ark was failing.

And her dad was planning on telling everyone. But Clarke, like her mom, knew what would happen when that information was heard. Thelonius Jaha, the father of Clarke's best friend, Wells, would arrest her father and have him executed.

When her mom had left the bunk, she came out and talked to her dad, pleading with him not to tell anyone.

Her dad had just smiled and had hugged her and had kissed her forehead and had told her that it was the right thing to do, and that was why he needed to do it.

Clarke had cringed, but had said nothing and had left.

She decided that she had to go talk to Wells and tell him about this.

Jake watched his adoptive daughter leave. And he felt both sadness and love fill him as she departed.

His little girl. His adoptive daughter. She had no idea that she wasn't by blood his and Abby's kid. She had been too young to remember that when she had been adopted. And Wells, Clarke's best friend, had also been too young. So, neither Clarke, nor Wells knew that.

No reason for Jake, Abby, Thelonius or anyone else to tell Clarke or Wells about that.

Jake turned to his iPad, sat down, turned on the iPad and started to record the message.

Clarke went to the main room of where she and her community lived. She needed to go find Wells.

She found him soon enough. He grinned, seeing her. "Hey, Clarke," he said, "Want to play some chess?"

Clarke shook her head. "Not right now," she said, "Sorry, Wells. There's something I need to tell you."

She had told Wells what her dad had learned.

But she pleaded with him not to tell anyone. He had sworn he wouldn't.

Then, two days later, Jake Griffin was arrested for treason. And so was Clarke, because she had been found talking about the Ark failing, with her father.

Clarke had been thrown into the skybox at the age of ten and her father had been scheduled for an execution.

Clarke had been sure, so sure that her best friend and the closest she knew to a big brother, Wells, had been the one to tell Thelonius Jaha about her dad knowing about the flaw in the Ark's oxygen system.

Clarke had been locked away in the skybox. For a month. And then came the worst news imaginable.

Her dad was to be executed and Clarke would have only one last chance to say goodbye to him, before he was ejected out of the airlock, into space and killed.

Clarke and Abby Griffin were brought to Jake Griffin, as he awaited his sentence, standing in front of the opening of the airlock.

Clarke looked at her father, desperate. "Please," she looked at the guards, then at Thelonius Jaha, who was there, with Wells at his side, "Please, just spare him!"

"I'm sorry, Clarke," Thelonius Jaha said, the self-important tone in his voice making him sound not sorry even remotely, "But if I spare him, then it will open up room for others to claim that I need to grant mercy."

Clarke glared, anger flooding her.

Clarke didn't like getting angry. But when someone tried to wrong her, it was very, very hard not to get angry.

Thelonius Jaha then softened as he said, "There may be a way to get your father to live, if you're willing to negotiate."

This both raised alarm bells for Clarke, and caused her heart jump in her chest in hope.

Looking expectantly at Jaha and he nodded to her, giving her the conditions in which Jake Griffin could be spared.

As it turned out, Thelonius Jaha wanted to figure out how dangerous the people on the ground were, so they were going to send Clarke down as a guinea pig.

Clarke almost had heart attack when she heard that. Because, honestly? Really?

Clarke, age only ten years old, said quietly, "I'll die if I go down. Earth isn't livable."

Abby suddenly appeared from around the corridor, and she stepped closer to Clarke, having heard what the girl had said.

Abby cupped Clarke's face between her hands and said, "It's fine, it's fine. I swear, it'll be fine. You find out if the people on the ground are safe, and we'll be fine."

Clarke shivered, but when she looked at Jaha's face, she knew she didn't have a choice. She needed to give her dad a chance of surviving.

So, practically brokenly, she said, "Alright. I'll do it. But you have to let my dad live and not lock him up."

Jaha nodded. "Done," he said.

Clarke pushed her next words out, "Can I please say goodbye to my dad, first?"

Jaha said in a far too diplomatic voice, "Of course."

He grabbed the radio and talked into it, speaking, "Savina, Blake, bring Jake Griffin out here."

There was a bark from the radio and after several minutes, Jake was escorted into the room, two guards behind him.

Clarke tried to ignore the ugly look that one of the guards was giving her father, as her father walked over to her and hugged Clarke tightly.

"Baby," Jake whispered to his daughter, "It's gonna be okay. Just hang in there. I swear, even if I'm gone, you'll-"

"No," Jaha said coldly and Clarke wanted to punch him square in the face, "A deal has been made. You'll live, as long as Clarke is sent down to the ground, to see what she can find."

Jake pulled away from Clarke and stared at her, terrified, eyes wide.

"No," Jake said, shaking his head, "Clarke, it's not safe down there for you."

Clarke nodded. "I know, I know," she tried to ignore the cold and painful fear in her chest and stomach, "The radiation and poison, not to mention, wild animals and stuff."

"No, Clarke, I don't mean that," Jake said hurriedly, "Clarke, the place I found you-"

"Enough," Jaha snapped, "You've had your time. If you want, you can get things ready to give to Clarke. Things that will help her survive. And things that she can remember you and Abby by. I'll let you have that time. You have an hour, before Clarke is sent down. Even if you don't have everything ready for her? We'll send her down, anyway.

Clarke wanted to scream, she wanted to throw something at Jaha, wanted to punch him. But she knew that it wouldn't help the situation.

Clarke and her parents were allowed to go back to their bunk, so that Jake and Abby could get things ready for when Clarke was sent down to the ground.

Clarke tried to ignore how her body shuddered every now and then, mind inevitably going back to how doomed she was positive she was.

Abby got Clarke's backpack ready. She filled it with canteens of water, food, radios, medicine, bandages, medical alcohol, a compass, maps of the different countries and continents, and against her better judgment, a gun.

Clarke knew how to use a gun. Both she and Wells had been trained to use guns at a young age, should there be any sort of rebellion of the lower class against the higher class people.

As Abby packed, Jake sat across from Clarke and was panicking, trying to think of a way of getting Clarke out of this. But he couldn't.

Clarke looked at Jake and smiled encouragingly. "It's alright, dad," she said, not really believing her own words, "I'll be okay."

Jake sucked in a breath, and whispered, "Clarke, you shouldn't do this. It's not safe down there."

Clarke shook her head, "It's not going to be safe up here for me either. If you were executed, Jaha would just execute me next when I turn eighteen, for knowing about the flaw in the Ark too."

Jake winced.

Clarke then said, frowning, "Dad, what were you talking about before? About finding me?"

Jake paused, realizing he had spoken out of turn, before his body sagged and he sighed, nodding.

"I guess you would have found out sooner or later," he said, "You're adopted, Clarke. I wish I could have told you under better circumstances, but I can't. You remember that I went down to Earth years ago, to investigate if Earth was livable? Well, that's where I found you."

Clarke's eyes widened, staring at Jake, shocked.

"I'm from the ground?" She asked, stunned, "I'm a Grounder?"

Jake chuckled at the nickname for the people on the ground that the Ark people had developed.

After word had spread that there were people on the ground, a common name that had been used for the people on the ground, spread as well.

The word, was "Grounders."

People tended to use it pretty insultingly, but they watched their mouths around Clarke, knowing that they probably would get into deep shit if they didn't.

"Yes, Clarke, technically," Jake confessed, "And remember, that doesn't mean your mother and I ever loved you any less. But the reason why I said it wasn't safe? Was because when I found you? There were men trying to hurt you, when you were a baby. I rescued you from them."

He reached down for something and when he moved back up, Clarke's eyes widened, seeing what Jake had pulled out of a box he kept behind a bookshelf.

The thing her father held in his hands, was…disturbing, at best.

It was made of black metal, with an octopus for a head, and wings sprouting from its back. It had long claws on both its hands and feet. It was seated on some sort of throne. The eyes were dark and empty.

"The hell?" Clarke asked, startled.

"This," Jake said, nodding to the statuette in his hands, "Is what I found, right before I found you and the two men that were trying to sacrifice you. I think this must be what they thought they were sacrificing you to. Some octopus headed god that they made up after the radiation."

Clarke's mouth dropped. She had almost been killed. By cultists? Who believed in a god with an octopus for a head?

Well, if that wasn't the weirdest thing she had ever heard in her entire life, she wasn't sure what was.

Jake said, placing the statuette down onto the table in front of Clarke, "You should take it with you. You might find answers from it. Hell knows I did. Just get to the bottom of this and you might find answers."

Clarke frowned. Her father had always thought in terms of jokes. So, when he said, 'get to the bottom of this,' did he mean there was something attached to the bottom of the statuette for her to see?

Before she could ask, Abby brought Clarke's backpack over and placed it down in front of Clarke, and Jake reached out and grabbed the statuette and stuffed it into the backpack with Clarke.

"Are you really giving her that grotesque thing?" Abby asked, looking at the statuette Jake stuffed into Clarke's backpack, in disgust.

"Yes," Jake said, "It technically belongs to her, more than us."

Abby scoffed and walked back to the medical supplies she had on the table. As she did, Jake leaned close to Clarke and whispered to her, "Clarke, there's a reason why we never told you about your blood type."

At Clarke's confused look, Jake quickly zipped Clarke's bag up, and pulled his watch off of his wrist and pushed it across the table to Clarke.

"There," he said, "You can keep my watch, to keep me close, okay, honey?"

Clarke stared down at the watch, surprised. She picked up the watch and looked at her father, pain all across her face. "Dad," she said, "I can't take this. This belonged to your dad."

"And it belonged to me," Jake said, nodding, smiling, "And now, it's yours."

Clarke shook her head, still reeling.

Then the doors opened up and Jake and Clarke both tensed, knowing that the hour's time had run out and the guards were here now.

"It's time to go now, Clarke Griffin," one of the guards said softly, and Clarke didn't have to face that guard, to know that it wasn't the angry, ugly one that had been glaring at her dad. Clarke nodded and got up, holding her father's watch and picking up the backpack.

Jake got up from the table and Clarke launched herself at him, hugging him. He kissed the top of her head and the two guards had to pry Clarke from his grasp, to get her away from him and drag her down the hall, ignoring her crying out for her parents.

The guards escorted Clarke from the area, to a skybox.

Clarke tried to ignore the pain in her chest as she was put in the skybox, hoping desperately that Jaha would keep his word. She was pushed inside the skybox and she faced the two guards.

The guard to her left, who had her, grinned and laughed an ugly laugh. "Sorry, princess," he sneered and Clarke looked at him, startled. She looked into the face of an incredibly ugly man, face freckled and with short, curls of black hair and brown eyes. The man said, "You want to know a joke, princess? Your mom doesn't even love you. You know what your mom did? She sold you and your dad out. She told Jaha about your dad knowing about the flaw in the Ark system. Your mom almost killed your dad, princess. And now she's going to kill you by letting you get sent to Earth. How's that feel, little bitch?"

As Clarke's eyes widened, her heart feeling cold, horror spreading throughout her body as the ugly, freckled male guard taunted her about that. What? Her mom had…

The guard to Clarke's right snapped at the guard that had just taunted Clarke, "Stop it, Blake! She's going through enough right now."

The guard with the last name of "Blake," who looked to be in his very late teens or very early twenties, sneered out, "Fuck that. Her dad should have been floated, like he deserves! But now? At least, she's getting what she deserves."

The guard to Clarke's right, gasped in outrage, "Bellamy!"

The guard, "Bellamy," kept sneering as he and Savina left the room and the door closed, locking.

Clarke slumped down to the cool, metal floor, placing the bright blue backpack down next to her.

Could it really be true? Had her mom sold out her dad?

She shivered and waited.

Back with Jaha, Jake all but stormed over to him, ignoring his wife calling after him.

"Jaha," Jake growled, coming face to face with one of his oldest friends, as he sent the current chancellor of the Ark a murderous death glare, "You send me down instead. You do that, understand? I'll go, instead of Clarke. Send me down now and let Clarke live her life here longer. Clarke has done nothing wrong."

"True," Jaha said, nodding and Jake tried to ignore how his stomach turned at Jaha's cool reply, "But don't forget, Clarke was born on the ground. Surviving Earth's surface is in Clarke's DNA. If there actually is radiation on the ground? She most likely was born with immunity to it."

"That's why she's not a good candidate for being sent down," Jake reasoned. "We won't know if Earth is livable on the ground, unless someone who wasn't born with immunity, doesn't spend more time on the ground. That first time I went? I wasn't there long enough. Let me go again."

"You don't understand," Thelonius said, "Clarke's just the third experiment. We're going to send her down, to see what there is on the ground. You barely saw any of Earth's surface, and it was on an island surrounded by water. What if we send Clarke down to a different part of the world, actually get her to North America this time? See if there are any people there? If there aren't, then maybe that area, at least, will be safe from human beings. And then? We send down people from our Ark, for a longer period than we sent you down, and then we'll know if the air is breathable."

Jake's jaw tightened, but he knew with a sinking feeling, that he wasn't going to be able to convince Jaha.

Jaha then ordered his guards to put Clarke into the pod, over the radio.

The guards went to the skybox where Clarke was and got her out.

"Come on, princess," the ugly guard, Bellamy, sneered and grabbed Clarke by her right arm and dragged her.

The first guard, Savina, was very apologetic, as he stuck the life detecting wristband around Clarke's left arm.

"This will detect your vitals," he explained gently to Clarke. Clarke supposed he felt like he needed to be caring with her, because the other one, "Bellamy," sure wasn't being.

The ugly and cruel guard, "Bellamy," laughed as Clarke winced and pushed Clarke along, practically shoving her through the hall.

Clarke wasn't sure she could even be angry at the guard in her disturbed stupor.

Still, even after almost an hour in the skybox, her mind was going wild right now. Her mom had been the one to tell Thelonius Jaha about her dad?

But no, it couldn't be.

That was insane.

But…what if it was true?

What if her mother really had sold out her father?

Clarke stared numbly ahead as she was pushed along. There were a series of small pods set up. One of them had been opened up.

Bellamy Blake laughed, throwing Clarke inside the pod, "Too bad for you, princess. All the privilege in the world isn't going to change that no one will ever love you."

Clarke gasped, feeling anger ram against her chest as the pod's door closed up.

The pod began to move out of the Ark as it was shot out into space.

As the door that shot her out into space closed up, Clarke pushed herself around, lying back against her seat and forced herself to put on her seatbelt.

She had thought for almost an hour that Wells had betrayed her. But he hadn't.

Her friend and brother hadn't betrayed her.

Her mother had.

Her mother had told Thelonius Jaha about her dad.

Could that guard, Bellamy Blake, have told her, in order to hurt her? Sure, but somehow it made sense.

Wells, he was the most trustworthy person in the entire Ark. At least, in her experience before now, he always had been.

He had kept so many secrets for her from his father.

So, why stop now?

And who else had known besides her, Wells and her dad?

Her mother had known.

Her mother very possibly had told Thelonius Jaha about her dad.

Clarke's whole body was filled with coldness.

Her dad may very well have been betrayed and almost murdered by her mother. Her mom might very well have almost killed her father, by selling him out to Thelonius Jaha-and now she might have well as killed Clarke. This whole situation was Abby's fault for selling Jake Griffin out.

Clarke felt hollow and dead inside as she descended toward Earth.

Clarke barely felt the crash when she, in the pod, landed hard against the ground, her teeth chattering as she landed, ramming back against the seat of the pod.

She undid her seatbelt after several seconds of sitting there and staring out of the window of the pod.

She then leaned forward, pressing a button at the bottom of the door, and the door flipped open.

Cool air rushed in and hit Clarke, but she barely felt it. She felt numb. So, so numb.

Her dad had almost been killed by her mom.

She wasn't sure why she believed it now, but now she was sure of it. Her dad had nearly been murdered by her mom.

Clarke's tears finally spilled out again. Hot tears ran down her face in streaks as her body shook.

Unknown to her, she had landed in North America. She landed, specifically, in Virginia.

When the pod hit the ground, Clarke cried out at impact, wincing, her body clenching up, which she knew was a bad idea, but did out of sheer impulse.

She flinched at the sensation, but let out a relieved breath when the pod had stopped moving.

The pod snapped open, making her yelp out both in surprise and fear as it did and she winced as she felt the warm air from outside, hit her.

Almost instantly, a chorus of sounds hit her ears. Crickets chirping, birds chirping, other insects buzzing away in the distance.

Clarke slowly edged out of the pod, picking up her backpack into her arms and holding her father's watch close.

It sure sounded like there was life on the ground.

She heard a lot of animals. But still, Clarke was young, but not dumb. She had taken her science classes, and she knew that insects were the ones most likely to survive nuclear disasters-or rather, their descendants would.

But what about the birds? The science classes had never said anything about the birds surviving.

Clarke slung her backpack over her back and pushed the watch around her left wrist. The watch was naturally, too large for her wrist, but she didn't care, she wanted it close.

So, when it slipped off of her hand easily, she stuffed the watch into her left-hand pocket, then began walking.

She hoped she found out if Earth was livable for humans soon.

She tried to ignore the lingering thoughts of what her dad had told her back at the Ark, about people trying to sacrifice her.

There was no reason to worry about that.

When the guards had shoved Clarke along to the pod? Savina had been nice enough to tell her where she was being sent.

She was here now, in Virginia. That was where Savina had said she'd be sent.

She was in North America, not in Venice, Italy. Whoever the people were that had tried to kill her, according to her father? It was very, very unlikely that they'd find her here.

Back on the Ark, Wells Jaha, Thelonius Jaha's son, was furious.

He stormed through the halls, searching for his father.

"Chancellor?!" He spat, "Chancellor?!"

Wells got to the control room where Thelonius Jaha, Abby and Jake Griffin and Sinclair were all monitoring Clarke's vitals, and they turned around when Wells entered the room in a rage.

"Wells-" Thelonius began.

But Wells cut his father off.

"Don't, chancellor," Wells spat, and the fact that Wells called his father 'chancellor,' spoke volumes about how angry at his father he was, "You sent Clarke down to be tested as a guinea pig on the ground? What the hell?! You know, you do that, and the people are gonna wonder if anyone is safe anymore! They will be up in arms!"

Thelonius chuckled, "Wells, I'm not worried about that. The people will be grateful, when they find that we might be able to survive on the ground."

"You sent Clarke on the ground to die!" Wells spat, his hands balling up; he honestly was sure that he could kill his father right now.

Wells Jaha, barely twelve years old, had been an only child-as all children here were, save for the ones that were second children, in which case, they were arrested when discovered and scheduled for execution.

But when Clarke had been brought aboard years ago by Jake Griffin? Wells felt like he and Clarke, regardless of what the other looked like, were meant to be siblings. And instantly, he had felt like he had a baby sister.

He always had been immensely protective of Clarke. And Clarke had adored him.

And they hadn't even gotten to say goodbye to each other.

"I did not," Thelonius said, and he looked to Jake Griffin, "Jake can tell you. Clarke can survive on the ground. Or do you not remember? Clarke is of the ground."

Wells's eyes widened. Wait, what?

Clarke was from the ground?

Yes, Wells vaguely remember Jake coming back from a trip, when Wells had been very young. And yes, he supposed Clarke had shown up around that time.

But Wells had come to assume that Clarke had been adopted by the Griffins after the baby had lost her parents due to illness or execution-the usual story of the poorer people on the Ark.

He had never imagined that Clarke was of the ground.

"Clarke's a Grounder?" Wells asked, stunned.

"Yes," Jake said, breathing out slowly, "She is. But when I found her? There were people trying to kill her. It's a long story and I don't understand it myself. But that's why I didn't want to send her down. I knew people were after her before. I don't know why, but they were."

Wells felt his heart stop at those words and he looked up at the screen, where Clarke's vitals were being shown, fearing for his best friend and sister.

Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be any indication of a tracker on Clarke, so sadly, they couldn't track where Clarke was going. They had to only take Clarke's word for it, to believe where she was going.

Then again, Clarke's word was enough for Wells.

On the ground, Clarke was moving as quickly as she could.

She hadn't expected the ground to be so…loud.

The humming of the insects, the chirping of the birds, the occasional distant howling of a wolf somewhere.

Sure, she knew of all the wildlife that lived on the ground, before the radiation, before the radiation.

Still, it was hard to believe.

She kept moving, going past several trees, honestly surprised by how many trees there were down here.

She supposed it had been her own vivid imagination when she'd been younger, but she always had imagined the trees dropping dead from all the radiation.

But there were so many trees here. Full of leaves and she was positive she even saw a few with fruit on their branches.

But was the fruit poisonous from all the radiation? Or not.

As she moved, she suddenly felt uncomfortable.

She felt like something was looking at her, as she moved.

She kept walking and walked fast, shivering as she remembered what her father warned her about. That there were people out there, on the ground, who wanted her dead.

Clarke had always suspected that she might be adopted. But she had never said it out loud.

But what shocked her, was that she was originally from the ground.

Of all the scenarios of where she thought she might come from, if her suspicions of being adopted had turned out to be correct, her being a Grounder, hadn't been one of them.

So, she was a Grounder, apparently. Clarke believed it, because her father would never lie to her.

(Unlike your mother,) a vicious voice said in the back of Clarke's mind, that she tried to quiet down, not wanting to think about it.

She couldn't think about how her mother had betrayed her and her father.

She just couldn't.

She wondered, with uncomfortable uncertainty, if her dad knew.

Did he hate her mother for it? Or did he forgive her?

Clarke had a hard time imagining her father hating anyone. Still, she had to wonder.

Clarke must have made a bad turn somewhere, because she rammed her foot against a root of a tree and yelped, twisting slightly and slamming down on the ground, on her rear, wincing and whimpering.

"Ow," she moaned, but still lifted her head and opened her eyes and looked at what was in front of her.

A mountain. Specifically, Mount Weather.

She had heard of this place.

Before Jake had discovered the flaw in the Ark, there had been talk aboard the Ark, of there being supplies in Mount Weather. If that was true? Then Clarke needed to get inside the mountain and get those supplies.

Clarke lifted herself up, pulling her foot out from under the root.

She looked around for any tunnel under the mountain, but found none. Hmm, well, it was odd that she was looking for one in the first place, right? Because last time she checked, there was no way under a mountain unless you had explosives or something, right?

But then her eyes found something on one jagged part of the mountain. A camera.

Why was there a camera attached to the side of the mountain.

Clarke looked closer, eyes widening when she saw how there was a red light flashing.

The camera was on and recording.

Wouldn't it have broken down after all this time?

Still, there it was, blinking, indicating that it was on and most likely recording.

What the hell?

Suddenly, there was a shifting of heavy stone, and Clarke gasped, backing away, as she heard metal shifting too and her eyes grew huge, as there was apparently a door in the mountain, designed to look like the mountain face, opening up.

Clarke watched with shock as the mountain opened up, to reveal a figure standing in the middle of that doorway.

The figure had a white hazmat suit on.

Author's note

Needless to say, Jake and Wells both live in this story.