Anya stared in horror at the wreckage before her. The command centre was almost completely destroyed. Any monitor, computer or console that could have been used to control the Mountain's systems was unusable. Parts were blown to pieces, screens shattered, wires and cables torn and shredded. There was no way that the Mountain's systems could be controlled anymore. Or not without significant maintenance that would takes weeks if not months.

The doors that had kept the Command Centre secure were half blow open. They hang open enough that Anya had managed to pry herself through and now she stood amongst the wreckage. But most importantly, she stood amongst bodied strewn about in every single direction. She didn't even think she could recognise most people who lay around her. Many were missing limbs, some bodies still intact but with gashes and wounds so severe it made them look less like a person and more like a half consumed carcass.

blood and sinew and gore and clumps of human flesh littered the room and Anya felt sick. Or maybe she recognised that what she saw should make her feel sick but for some reason it all seemed so extreme that her mind had difficulty accepting that what she saw was real. Even the smell of burning flesh settled in the air. Some of the bodies smouldered, some even had embers burning into their flesh from the explosion that had started smaller fires around the room.

The others piled into the room behind her in silence.

But Anya's eyes focused on one body in particular. It lay discarded against the far wall. Black blood puddles around them. Their body was covered in open wounds that had been torn open so severely that it almost looked fake.

Clarke's right arm was bent and twisted in a way that Anya knew it was broken in more places than she could count. Her left arm hang oddly low on her shoulder as if it had been blow out of its socket with her skin the only thing kep it in place. Clarke's skull was almost completely split, her flesh split open to reveal bloodied white bone. Her eyes stared lifelessly at nothing in particular and her chin and neck were covered in blood. Shrapnel from the explosives peppered her body and a particular large piece of metal had lodged itself completely in the junction of her collar bones and her throat.

"Fuck," Kane's voice sounded shocked, tormented, completely broken at what he saw.

Anya didn't know what to say. She didn't know what to do in that very moment. She had assumed Clarke had a plan. She had assumed there was a strategy in place to take control of Mount Weather. She was sure there had to be more to the plan than Clarke simply blowing herself up with everyone else who was in charge. How would Anya explain this to Lexa? How would she explain it to Clarke's army that she knew was fighting tooth and nail outside Mount Weather in that very moment?

But Anya began to think. She began to remember every little thing Lexa had told her. There had to be more to this plan. There was more to this plan. She just needed to see it. Anya cursed as she looked around the destroyed room. She cursed as her mind moved back and forth as she tried to put order to the chaos that was swirling within in her head in that very moment.

"We need to help her," Anya said as she turned and stared at Clarke's body. "We need to help her," and Anya remembered. Anya remembered the things Lexa had told her of Clarke's healing, how her blood was used to heal those from Mount Weather and Anya began to understand. "Get her on to this table," Anya snapped.

She moved to Clarke's body and she'd worry about deference and respect at a later date. She didn't know how long Clarke had and she didn't know how long they had until others from Mount Weather realised where they were and came storming down on them.

Anya bent down and grabbed Clarke under her underarms. Bellamy was the first to move as he awkwardly stepped forward, uncertainty clearly on his face as he tried to figure out how to take hold of Clarke's broken body.

"Just pick her up. Now," Anya snapped.

She didn't want anyone sneaking up on them. She didn't want a gun to be pointed at the back of her head at any second.

"Octavia, Raven, keep a look out, don't let anyone sneak up on us," Anya spared only a second to watch both women nod their heads before they began to move. "Marcus, find anything we can use to help dig out as much of the shrapnel as possible."

Anya knew she needed to remove whatever was causing the most damage. She knew she needed to remove whatever was keeping Clarke's heart from beating. She didn't know if it would work. She didn't know if she had even understood Lexa properly from the few hushed conversations they had shared over the hidden radio. But Anya needed to try. Lexa was out there fighting for them all and Anya would do anything to make sure her friend had the best chance of success as possible.

It took only a second longer before Anya and Bellamy were able to lay Clarke's body onto the nearest table. Its surface as cracked, one leg sagged from the weight and Anya knew it didn't compare at all to a proper medbay bed. But it would have to do.

Anya took the time to look over Clarke's broken body. Not for the first time Anya had trouble really understanding what Clarke was. Her skin seemed even more pale and grey than it had when she was breathing. Anya knew it was because of the lack of blood but it all seemed to foreign and unknowable to her. Anya winced as she moved Clarke's arm into a position she hoped would be more comfortable but as she did so she felt bone give way and crunch and grind together. Black blood soaked through the thin hospital gown Clarke wore, it covered her flesh and made her seem more ghastly and alien under the blaring light of the alarms that Anya had all but pushed into the back of her mind.

She didn't even know what Clarke's destruction had caused. But she knew it needed to be something involving Lexa.

"Here."

Anya looked up at Marcus to find him offering her a knife he must have fetched off one of the dead. He even had a half destroyed medical kit laid out on the table next to them.

"Do you know what you're doing?" Bellamy asked cautiously.

"No," Anya answered with a shake of her head. "I don't."

Anya didn't know what she was doing. But her mind was already moving two, three, four steps ahead. She knew Clarke needed to live. Or at the very least she knew she needed to try. If someone, anyone from Clarke's army somehow made their way into Mount Weather it would at least help if they could say they tried to help Clarke, at least tried to save her life.

Anya was cynical in that moment. She needed to be. She needed to be cold. She needed to make sure whatever message her people's actions sent was something they could back, was something that would communicate their intentions to survive. To live amongst those who called Earth so she steadied her breathing, she reached out with a shaky hand and she took hold of the large piece of shrapnel that had pierced Clarke's throat.

It was still slightly warm to the touch. Its jagged edged threatened to cut into her flesh but Anya ignored the warnings within her mind as she carefully began to wriggle it back and forth slowly. She didn't want to cause more damage than it had already but she didn't see another way of removing the metal without it tearing or cutting into Clarke's body more.

Bellamy leant over Clarke too, a frown on his face as he slowly started trying to move her left arm back into a position that seemed more natural.

"I don't know what the fuck I'm doing," he winced as a particular movement of Clarke's arm must have felt grotesque to him.

"We're helping," Marcus whispered.

Anya watched Marcus reach for the medical kit and pulled out a pair of medical pliers. She refocused on her own task as Marcus slowly began to pull smaller bits of shrapnel from Clarke's broken body and Anya didn't know if any of this would work.

She didn't think Clarke should even exist. She didn't know what she was. She didn't know if she was even human. She had seen Clarke be shot in front of them. She had seen her heal and she had seen her kill and maim those that attacked them without a second thought. At any other time Anya would have thought Clarke a monster.

But the life they all found themselves living was so different than what was to be expected that Anya knew she would need to learn to accept the way of the world.

She just hoped they'd survive long enough as a people to be accepted by the Earth that had so long ago left them behind.

Octavia paced back and forth outside the destroyed doors. The rifle in her arms felt heavier than anything had felt before. Perhaps it was the adrenaline wearing off or the fatigue settling in or any other thing that weighed on her mind. Every now and then Octavia would look back into the room or down the hallway or even to Raven who remained leant against the wall, a frown on her own face as she clearly tried to think about something that wasn't coming to her.

Octavia eventually stopped pacing and slumped down onto the ground. She half expected to hear the footsteps of Mount Weather's security detail any second now but for some reason she didn't seem to care. Her mind seemed fuzzy, it was as if she had stopped caring much more about anything.

Her stomach churned and she didn't know if it was because of the death and destruction in the control room she had seen or if it was the killing Clarke had done on the way there. Things were so far out of her control that she was happy to just let the motions take her where they pleased in that very moment.

There was nothing else she could do.

"What do you think her plan was?" Raven asked quietly.

That made Octavia look up at the woman to see that she was looking back into the destruction and at the others who were trying to save Clarke in any way they could.

"I don't know," Octavia said.

But she tried to recall anything Clarke had said, anything she had overheard on the radio. She knew Lexa and others were trying to take control of the damn. She knew Clarke needed to control Mount Weather's systems. But the why slipped her mind even still.

"Without the dam's power to generate their systems Mount Weather will slowly starve," Raven said eventually. Octavia knew she was talking to herself more than her and that she was simply processing the information. "With the control centre now destroyed there's no chance they can turn the power back on from here. Not without serious repairs."

Octavia knew that wouldn't be possible. Not with half of Mount Weather's personnel outside fighting and the other half now bunkered down inside and secure behind blast doors.

"But they won't run out of resources for weeks."

"Months," Raven added. "They'd have enough to last them months from what I've seen."

Octavia frowned once more.

"And that leaves us," Raven said. "What are we going to do now? There's still Mount Weather personnel here. We're screwed once they figure out what has happened."

Octavia nodded her head. She had considered that, too and she didn't fancy sticking around to find out what the punishment would be. But still, it was with that thought that she again wondered where those people were.

She looked back down the hallway half expected soldiers to round the corner and fire on them but empty the hallway remained.

"We're going to have to get out of here," Octavia said. There was no other way she could see them getting out of alive. Mount Weather was going to be looking for blood. They'd be killed immediately if they remained. At least Lexa was outside and they'd be taken care of. Or at least cautiously welcomed as newcomers amongst the people they had somehow found themselves allied with.

"Yeah," Raven sighed in answer. "There's resources outside we can take advantage of though. The dropship. Parts of the Ark we can probably salvage. I doubt Mount Weather will risk losing anymore people to guard any of our stuff. Maybe some of the others will join us too."

That last part sounded more like a hopeful wish than anything else to Octavia but she didn't blame Raven for feeling that way.

Octavia stood up from where she had come to sit against the wall. She needed to walk, to move her legs and do something more than sit and wait.

"I'm just going to check on them," she said, an eyebrow raised in question. Raven fell into step beside her as they both began to walk back to the others.

The scene in front of them had hardly changed. The only difference this time was that the large piece of shrapnel that had embedded itself in Clarke's throat was removed, smaller pieces that were visible were removed, too and her limbs had been crudely pushed back into a more natural position. The scene made Octavia's skin crawl. She didn't know how to describe it. Clarke seemed almost more unnatural lifeless than she had alive. There was something about the grey skin that made her seem more grotesque now that her body was broken, that wounds had split her flesh apart and that even her skull was almost split open in such a grotesque way that she didn't think she'd ever get it out of her mind.

"Jesus," Raven whispered.

Anya looked up at that with a grim expression on her face. Her hands were covered in Clarke's black blood and her hair clung to her forehead in messy strands that made Anya look wild, crazed, almost unhinged in that very moment.

"I've been trying to reach Lexa," Anya said and she gestured to the radio beside her on the table.

That didn't sound good. Lexa would have answered if she could, Octavia knew that much.

"We're going to need to leave," Octavia said. She didn't know why she felt like now was the time to bring up at that subject. But she did. Maybe because she wanted to get out. She had spent so much of her life locked and trapped and unable to live that the little tastes she had had of freedom, of life on the Ark without restrictions and life on the ground amongst nature made her never want to be a prisoner ever again.

Bellamy met her gaze with a grim nod. He must have come to the same conclusion.

"We can bring her with us," he said and gestured down to Clarke. If we return her body the grounders won't kill us. At least not on sight," he grimaced. "They're better chances than if we wait here for Mount Weather to come looking for us."

Anya cursed under her breath and slammed her fist on the table. There was frustration and anger in her eyes as she glared at Clarke's lifeless body. Octavia couldn't read Anya's mind but she could read her expression and she could guess what the other woman was thinking.

"It wasn't for nothing," Octavia whispered to her. "We've done everything we can. For Lexa, for Clarke. For whatever fucked up situation we fell into."

"It's—" Anya sighed. She pressed her fists into her eyes as frustrations appeared to take hold again. "Ok," Anya stepped back from the table. "Find something to wrap Clarke with," she looked around and Octavia started looking, too. "She's like a god to her people. We can't deliver her body like this," she paused in thought briefly. "Anyone not helping carry her get a weapon. We might need to fight our way out."

There was no going back. Octavia knew it. Everyone else seemed to know it.

"We can't leave our people in here," Marcus said. It wasn't entirely an argument, not from his tone. But Octavia could tell he meant it.

"We don't have time to argue, Marcus," Anya said as she turned to face him. "If we stay here much longer we're dead. We'll try to convince others to join us once we're out but we don't have time."

There was finality and iron in Anya's voice and it seemed more commanding than it had any right to be. It didn't surprise Octavia though. Anya was, after all, the Communications Chief.

But there was something in the back of Octavia's mind that began to wriggle, that began to make itself known to her.

"Can you smell that?" Octavia asked and she looked around the room. She couldn't put her finger on it at first but as she sniffed the air a few more times she realised she was smelling something cooking, something sickly sweet and fleshy that seemed to linger on her tongue.

Bellamy was the next one to register the smell and he too sniffed and frowned. "Food?"

"Oh my god."

Raven's voice cut through the confusion and Octavia's head snapped around to look at Raven in time to see her stager back with horror on her face.

Octavia followed Raven's gaze to the body that lay half propped up by the far wall. She couldn't tell who it was but she could see the flesh beginning to burn and bubble and crisp.

Someone cursed. She didn't know who it was but Octavia recoiled in disgust and horror as she saw the person's body begin to twitch and bubble and burn and roast. Fats begin to seep out through their torn flew, it began to bubble through their pores. Another body not far almost began to simmer and crackle as if an invisible flame licked at it and slowly charred the flesh. The scent of burning hair, burning plastic and roasting meat began filling the air, began to fill every single crevice inside the room and Octavia's stomach churned, it coiled in on itself and she ran to the corner just in time to vomit.

The putrid acidic taste hit her tongue, it burned into her senses and made her heave. She heard others staggering out of the control centre. She heard someone else begin to retch and she didn't know what was happening. She didn't know how it was happening. But all she knew in that very moment was that she needed to get out.

Octavia half staggered, half stumbled and ran out of the room. It was more instinct, more panic and emotion than conscious thought or decision that drove her movements as she ran out of the destroyed control centre.

Horror had settled within her mind at what was happening and she didn't know what to think. She didn't know how to think as images of bodies slowly bubbling, slowly roasting and cooking and searing into charred messes seared into her mind.

"Do. Not. Move."

Octavia froze where she stood as her vision cleared.

Those around her stilled, too and her heart froze.

A woman stood in front of her. Blood smeared across her face, a wound cut deeply into her cheek. Scars were etched into her face and a sword was levelled directly at her chest.

It was quiet as Jake stalked forward. They were close to the dam, he could tell by the roaring of the water and the fading sounds of fighting far behind him. He had left a handful of his warriors at the last junction to cover their backs incase reapers snuck up on them. With him were those that were left. Some were injured, some were unharmed, all ready to die in battle if needed.

Kess remained close by his side, her spear gripped tightly in her hands. A gash was opened on her forehead from where a reaper had hit her with the pommel of its sword but she seemed to have pushed the pain aside. Jake was thankful she had survived this long. He wouldn't let himself grow hopeful. Not yet. He knew life was too quickly snuffed out, especially in the midsts of battle. He knew, too, that hope could dull the senses. Could make even the most experienced warrior lower their guard dangerously low.

But perhaps Jake could feel reassured that he had such a promising warrior by his side. She would help cover his back as much as he would cover hers.

Jake held up a hand and the warriors all came to a stop. He listened for any sound and perhaps he could just barely hear something further ahead. It wasn't the roaring water and it wasn't the sounds of tech. That much he knew. The others heard it too for some prepared to fire an arrow, others prepared to attack.

But then a gunshot echoed out. Jake instinctively flinched and froze. He expected more gunshots to echo out but nothing else came.

And with that he began to move more quickly forward.

He wouldn't run to his death. He wouldn't leap blindly out from the dark but that sound told him others needed his help. From the maps and drawings Maya had helped them steal or draw he knew there was just one last stretch before they came to the entrance to the dam.

It cold very well be the last fight Jake would ever have in his life. If it required any sacrifice he was ready. There was no going back. There was no chance that he could let the dam fall into enemies hands. Not before Lexa and Tobias and Maya were able to destroy it for good.

Jake rounded one last corner before he came to a set of heavy metal doors. They remained open as if whoever had entered had done to quickly, in a hurry without time to fully close it behind them. Jake was thankful for that but he knew it could be a trap. One he was leading his warriors into.

Before he slipped inside he gestured to two warriors to hang back. He knew them well enough to know they would guard their retreat or fight to the end to keep it secure. And then Jake stepped through the entrance.

It was as if he stepped through a portal into another world. The dam's interior was otherworldly. Horrid in construction. Where the tunnels they had been in were carved out of the earth, the tunnel walls rocky, broken, cracked and natural, the dam's stone walls were smooth, straight, false in nature. Light spat down from tech overhead. It was crisp, bright, it stung into his eyes and made him feel like a caged animal unable to escape from predatory gaze. Even the ground beneath his feet was smooth, ugliness lay beneath his boots and his snarled in disgust as he began moving forward.

Each step he took was a dance with the shadows and the quiet thud, thud, or his heart. His ears strained to hear commotion, his sword sang for blood and he was ready. He was ready.

But then he heard it. There was commotion, the sounds of others running, the sounds of something or someone shouting and then gunfire roared out in front of them.

Jake ran. Those with him ran and he ran as fast as he could towards the warriors fending off an attack he knew not from how many. It didn't matter. It didn't matter if there were two Mountain Men or twenty.

Blood was pumping through his veins, blood was rushing in his ears and adrenaline surged through every fibre of his being as he came to one last corner.

Jake dove around the last corner, his sword already poised to strike the first target he saw.

It took him only a second to turn and take in the scene around him. He saw a Mountain Men falling to the ground as a knife smashed into their chest. He saw one firing at someone behind a table of sorts and he saw two others locked in battle with warriors. He jumped over a body on the ground that he spared only a second to register was a warrior he thought he recognised before he tackled the Mountain Men preparing to fire on whoever was behind the table. Gunfire echoed around him. He heard the telltale zip and hiss of bullets just barely missing him and he ignored it as he grabbed the man's head in his hands and wrenched it hard. There was a strangled, shocked, startled sound of pain and anger and fury before a disgustingly wet snap vibrated up Jake's arms. The body twitched against him for only a second before he dropped to the ground, the body beneath him.

He took just enough time to slice the edge of his sword across the side of the man's neck to ensure the kill before he began moving forward.

But in that time he saw Kess fling her spear forward, he saw it snap through the air and slam into one of the surviving Mountain Men's back's. He saw one of his warriors from the dam's group use the spears impact as distraction to get his own sword free and drive it down into the last Mountain Man, the blade sunk deep into the junction of where his shoulder met his neck before driving out through his ribs. The Mountain Man made a strangled agonised sound before the man whipped his sword out and behead him without a second thought.

And then all violence ended as quickly as it started.

Jake came to his feet, his eyes darting back and forth in case there were more but all who remained were those from Trikru and Azgeda and the few other clans that had banded together amongst the two groups that had converged on the dam.

"Jake."

He turned to find Tobias running towards the person who had been behind the table.

"Tobias," he answered with a single nod.

"We must leave. Now," Tobias said, he watched as the large man reached down and picked up the person's body. "Tech is preparing to destroy the dam."

Jake wouldn't second guess Tobias. Not in that matter.

"Jake," he heard Kess call his name frantically.

He turned to her and looked down at where she pointed at her feet.

Lexa lay motionless on the ground, one side of her face bloodied, her face pale. Jake couldn't tell the severity of the wound. He couldn't even tell if she was dead of alive.

"Go," he shouted to his warriors. "Grab him," Jake barked to someone else as he pointed down to the dead warrior's body he had jumped over.

And with that Jake grabbed Lexa's body, he hefted her onto his shoulders and he began to run as he followed Tobias and the others who fled the dam.

Jake could see signs of battle. He could see blood and stained the walls and the ground and he hoped they had been able to take the bodies of their warriors out of the dam before whatever destruction was about to happen.

He'd have time to assess the battle. He'd have time to figure out if his daughter had been successful, and he'd have time to gather his forces and descend on the Mountain to secure their victory. But in that moment all he did was run as fast and as hard as he could.

And he did so because behind him he could hear and he could feel the explosions of Mountain tech beginning to rip the dam to pieces.