Hi! I hope everyone is doing well.

I apologize for my absence but I've been enjoying my well-deserved vacations. Getting tanned and swimming in the sea... an amazing escape from reality that I plan to enjoy while it lasts.

Tonight I left my family sleeping and went to the bar a few houses from our apartment, where I'm updating while waiting for a cold beer.

The blonde casually looked around, everything was exactly as she remember from the previous time. Her anxiety started to flare out, what if things don't happen the same way? What if they actually die this time?.

Clarke tried to force herself to calm down but it only seemed to make it worse. Blackspots started to swim in her vision, they were going to die on a suicide mission and she would never see Lexa again. She would never experience the touch of those callous yet exceedingly gentle hands roaming her skin, making her feel like she was on fire, she would never get to kiss those sweet lips that tasted like grounder wine and fresh fruits.

Wells, bless his soul, must have realized her state of panic because he grabbed her hands and tried to distract her.

"How are you feeling?"

She arch an eyebrow in challenge, how do you think I'm feeling?, but smiled anyway, he had always been a supportive friend, always trying to protect her, even if she hadn't always understood nor appreciated that.

"Stupid question, sorry. Honestly I'm terrified"

"That makes two of us then" Clarke laughed at her own answer and internally thanked him for the distraction.

"I'm glad you're here with me, Wells" And she really was, the pain that Wells death brought to her was not something she would willingly put herself through again.

Her main priority would always be Lexa but she had been granted the most amazing of gifts and she needed to keep her best -and only friend- by her side through this journey.

"There is nowhere else I rather be"

The dropship began to shake uncontrollably, a few pieces of metal fall from the walls, striking terror in the delinquents and making more than one shout and cry in desperation.

"We hit the atmosphere." She said like last time, the last thing she needed was for massive hysteria to spread through the entire population, things would be rough enough without adding more problems to it.

A few minutes later Jaha's video message started, God just what they needed now, she hated that pompous, self-righteous jackass.

"Prisoners of The Ark, hear me now. You've been given a second chance, and as your Chancellor, it is my hope that you see this as not just a chance for you, but a chance for all of us, indeed for mankind itself. We have no idea what is waiting for you down there. If the odds of survival were better, we would've sent others. Frankly, we're sending you because your crimes have made you expendable"

"Your dad is a dick, Wells"

"Do you want a prize for voicing the obvious?" was the fast retort to the comment.

Many, including Clarke, looked at him in surprise and more than a few in approval.

Well, that was certainly interesting, Clarke thought to herself, the first time around he just let the rude comment slide but now he was willing to stand up for himself.

Was she unknowingly making changes?. Hopefully having her support and friendship meant that Wells wouldn't let anyone make him a target for their missplaced anger and hate.

"If, however, you do survive, those crimes will be forgiven, your records wiped clean. The drop site has been chosen carefully. Before the last war, Mount Weather was a military base built within a mountain. It was to be stocked with enough non-perishables to sustain 300 people for up to two years. No one ever made it there. Because we spare you no food, or water, or medicine, I cannot stress strongly enough, that Mount Weather is life"

Clarke first thought was fucking assholes, while they needed the 100 to live they were prepared to just count their deaths as necessary for the greater good of the Ark. They were expendable, barely more than a waste of space and resources and that line of thinking was the reason they felt no needed to send even basic supplies. After all, death was their guaranteed fate, with the low oxygen supplies left none of them would be pardoned in their re-trial.

For a brief second she contemplated the idea of letting all of them root in their precious ark but then she thought of David McIntyre, embracing Harper like she was the most precious thing in the whole world, and her anger faded instantly. The population of the ark wasn't to blame for the underhanded and cruel tactics of their council members.

Her resentment and annoyance with Jaha and the others completely evaporated when she heard the words Mount Weather, a place that still hunted her nightmares, an ever present reminder of the atrocities she had been forced to commit.

Horror and apprehension settled in the pit of her stomach when thinking of Cage Wallace and his underlings. Even Dante, with his refined tastes and gentlemanly behavior, made the bile rise in her throat, he may have speared her friends but he had no remorse whatsoever about bleeding, torturing and killing those he considered savages and inferiors.

Committing genocide, for there was no other word to describe her actions, had tainted her soul in an irreversible way and chipped away the last vestiges of her innocence. It had taken her months alone in the wild to stop trying to find a scapegoat, mainly Lexa, and hold herself accountable for her choice.

In the end she made peace with herself and while she still felt responsible for snuffing some innocent lives, the guilt didn't drown her anymore. The worst thing of thinking about it again was that, even knowing the consequences, she wouldn't hesitate in doing it this time around if she had to.

Shaking her head Clarke purposely refocused on the present time, there was no point in mulling over something that hasn't happen and may or may not come to be. There were too many uncontrollable factors and variables to try and predict if the same exact future was going to play out regarding the mountain. She would defeat it, that wasn't negotiable, but the exact how remain a mystery.

She suddenly remembered a quote she once read in one of her history books about the old word "It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time", she couldn't remember who said it but its meaning resonated deep within her even then and now she could relate to it even more than before.

1. The original title was "The beginning is the most important part of the work" (FF doesnt allow such a long title). It comes from Plato's most famous and widely read dialogue, The Republic.

2. The quote about destiny belongs to Winston Churchill (Prime Minister of the UK).

3. David McIntyre doesn't exist but for the sake of this fic he is Harper's father. I honestly thought about Hannah Green when I wrote this but considering she became a mass murderer I didn't think it was appropriate.

4. Clarke didn't think about Abby when she thought about letting the Ark die, that was intentional not an oversight.