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Murphy hated everyone.

He hated the people on the Ark for deciding they were expendable and sending them to the ground to die.

He hated the people at the Dropship for being so quick to decide to hang him for killing Wells and then doing nothing when it was revealed it was actually Charlotte.  He hated them for banishing him and getting him into this shitty situation in the first place.

He hated the Grounders for so many reasons, the most recent being the fact that they’d kidnapped him and were currently alternating between torturing him and leaving him to recover enough to stay alive until the next set of torture.

He could safely say he hated every single person in the universe.

Okay.  That was slightly a lie.  There was one person he wasn’t actively hating, if only because it was difficult to actively hate someone when you had their screams of pain burned into your memory.

She’d been in the Grounder prison before he got there, bloody and bruised but somehow unbroken, and he hadn’t learned much about her in their time together.

Her name was Clarke, and she was from Azgeda.  He assumed that was a Grounder nation, probably a different one than the one currently holding them captive.

She’d also been banished, but, unlike Murphy who took his hatred of Bellamy and Miller and everyone else out by spilling every secret he could think of in an attempt to make the torture stop faster, she refused to say a word.

She had a wicked smile, and the pattern of long-healed scars carved into her face marked her as a warrior.  She’d taught him some of the Grounder language, how to tell their captors he’d fucked their moms and other phrases that would probably earn him a kick in his already broken ribs.  He hadn’t used them yet—he was pretty sure he was going to die soon anyway, and he wasn’t really into speeding that process up at the moment—but he could pick them out of Clarke’s speech whenever they tried to torture whatever secrets they wanted out of her.

That was about all he knew about her.

She knew more about him, because he’d already told their captors and he’d figured having someone who wasn’t beating him know the shit he’d been through wasn’t a bad thing and she was curious about life in space.  Sometimes he thought she might want to tell him more.  He didn’t blame her for not.  He’d probably tell their captors immediately if it’d save him a broken bone.

So he sat in their cell, listening to Clarke’s screams from the torture room next door, hating everyone.

Murphy picked at the pieces of meat Clarke had ripped up for him, trying not to flinch every time they touched his empty nail beds.  He was pretty sure the Grounders never gave them enough food for even one of them to actually eat.  With his current lack of fingernails, Clarke definitely could have eaten all the food herself and he wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it.  He was glad, at least, that she seemed to not want him to starve to death.

Better leave his death to their captors.

“What do they want you to tell them?” he asked, because he was curious and because he was pretty sure Clarke was kind of his friend at this point and friends could ask their friends why they’d been taken prisoner.  “Like, why’d they kidnap you?”

Clarke shrugged, ripping off another piece of meat for herself.  “They think I know who Wanheda is.”

Murphy nodded.  He didn’t know what Wanheda was, nor did he really care, but it was a word that was thrown around enough during Clarke’s torture sessions that he’d started to pick up on it.  “Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”  Murphy glanced at her from the corner of his eye, wondering how she’d managed to get through so much torture knowing she could give the answer they wanted and have it all be over.

Clarke seemed to understand his train of thought.  “Wanheda is the Commander of Death,” she said.  “They say if you kill her, you gain her powers.  I say it’s bullshit.”  Murphy snorted, gingerly taking another piece of meat.  “There were five of us who knew her identity.  I think I might be the only one of us left.  If I tell them who she is, they’ll still kill me.  But they’ll also kill her and anyone who matters to her.  Or they’ll give her to my people to strengthen their alliance, and my queen will have to kill her for her powers.  Telling them who Wanheda is won’t set me free, just like telling them about your people hasn’t gotten you out of here yet.”

Murphy didn’t point out that he didn’t understand most of that.  He didn’t point out that if he was her, he’d take the slim chance of hope that telling would save himself.  He knew that Clarke probably knew all of that already.

“They’re not my people,” he said instead, something he’d already told Clarke time and time again.  “They banished me.”

“I wish it was that simple for me.”  Clarke sighed, picking up the last bit of their dinner.  “My relationship with my people is a little different than yours.”

She didn’t expand.  Murphy didn’t ask.

Clarke had come back from her torture session as bloody as usual, but there was an extra spark in her eyes.

“Be ready,” she told him, her voice low.  “Make sure you can run.”

Murphy had so many questions, but he knew he wouldn’t be getting any answers even if he asked.  He took stock of the most serious of his current injuries—missing fingernails, one eye completely swollen shut, a couple ribs that were almost definitely broken—and thanked whatever higher beings that may or may not be listening or even exist at all that they were all something he could run with if needed.

Clarke didn’t do anything the whole day.  She just sat there, staring out through the door.  She didn’t try anything, and Murphy was starting to get antsy.  He didn’t know why, couldn’t figure out how now, after weeks of sitting here between rounds of torture, that he suddenly couldn’t stand to sit there anymore.

He wanted to pace.  He wanted to stand or scream or do something.

But Clarke was acting like everything was normal, so he figured that this must be part of whatever she was planning.

It was dark by the time Clarke moved, pulling something out of her boot and dangling it in front of Murphy’s face with a grin.

She unlocked her cuffs then started on his, Murphy not protesting as her fingers brushed his bruised ankles.

“There are less guards at night,” she whispered.  “We should be able to make it out.”

He wanted to ask her how she managed to steal a key, how she’d managed to do any of this, but he couldn’t.  There wasn’t time, and his heart was in his throat, more hope than someone like him should ever have bubbling up inside of him.

They were escaping.

They were getting out of this shithole.

They were going to live.

Clarke finished unlocking him, and pushed herself to her feet.  She pulled a knife from her boot, and Murphy wondered why the fuck she’d waited this long to escape if it was apparently this easy for her to steal things from their captors.

“I only managed to get one,” she whispered, and he nodded.  That was fine.  That was more than fine, really, because even if Murphy could figure out how to hold a knife without making his nail beds scream in pain, he was pretty sure whatever meagre skills he’d managed to learn in the days at the Dropship before he’d been banished were nowhere near enough to compete with whatever they might face during their escape.

He crept behind Clarke across the cell, waiting as she unlocked the door and slowly slid it open.  They moved slowly through whatever building they were in, and Murphy picked up a stick he found on the ground, gritting his teeth through the pain in his fingers as he clutched it tightly near his head, like it would do anything to defend them if they were to be caught.

They paused at a corner, and Clarke held her finger to her lip like he needed any reminder that making any noise could lead to their deaths.  She peeked around, then motioned for him to wait.  There were a few thuds, and then she was back, a sword in hand and blood splattered on her face, gesturing at him to keep moving.  He followed her, stepping over the bodies of the three guards she’d killed, their necks split open cleanly and so quickly they hadn’t had time to scream out.  He paused briefly and replaced his stick with a sword of his own.  He had no idea if he’d actually be able to use it if he needed to, but it made him feel marginally better.

They didn’t run into any other guards in the building, and Clarke disposed of the one guarding the door as quickly as she had the others.

And then they were outside.

If Murphy had been less focused on escaping with his life, he’d have appreciated the feel of a breeze on his face for the first time in months.

Clarke nodded towards the edge of the village, towards the trees, and then they were running.  They were running, and Murphy’s ribs were sending jolts of pain through his body, but it didn’t matter.

They were almost at the forest when the first shouts came, when the first arrows flew past their faces.

“Fuck!” Murphy yelled, and Clarke glanced over her shoulder at him.

“Don’t stop!” she instructed, and if Murphy had had any energy to spare, he would’ve rolled his eyes.

“No shit!”

They ran and they ran, dodging trees and arrows until the trees grew thicker and the arrows kept coming.  Then they ran some more, just to be safe, until Murphy’s lungs were dying and Clarke didn’t seem to be doing much better.

He followed her as she slowed, as she steered them towards a cave.  They huddled inside, and Murphy had planned to stay awake a little longer, make sure they weren’t being followed, but it was barely a minute before he was collapsing from exhaustion and falling asleep.

The days they spent in the cave were somehow both the most and least stressful he could remember.  Least because he finally wasn’t being tortured every day.  Most because he was tense, waiting for the Grounders they’d escaped from to figure out where they were and capture them again.

There was a river near the cave, one where he and Clarke took turns as lookout while the other washed the blood and dirt and grime off them.  Murphy finally felt human again, and he learned that Clarke’s hair had been blonde before it became a reddy-brown form all the blood matted in it.

The first night, they sat by a fire they built in the mouth of the cave, leaning up against opposite walls.

“What do you want to do?”

Murphy glanced up from the flames, taking in the guarded look on Clarke’s face.  “What?”

“Even banished, I have connections,” she said, folding her arms over herself.  “If you want to go back to your people, I can help you get alliances.”

Murphy looked back at the fire.  Did he want to go back to the Dropship?  He’d had a decent life there, until Miller started getting into Bellamy’s head about planning and making lives for themselves and how maybe chaos wasn’t the best way to lead.

And then Charlotte had killed Wells and everything went to shit.

Did he want to go back there, where they’d threatened to kill him if he ever showed his face again?  Did he want to go back to the people who were so quick to sentence him to death for something he didn’t even do, and then to pardon Charlotte when she actually confessed?  Did he want to help them, after all that?

No.  No, he really didn’t.

“They’re not my people anymore,” he told Clarke, the flames burning their image onto his eyes.  “Screw them.”

“You can stay with me,” Clarke said, quietly, and Murphy turned his gaze back to her.  “If you want.  But there’s something I should tell you.”

There really wasn’t anything that Clarke could say that would make him want to leave her, so he nodded for her to continue.

“The queen banished me days before word got out to all of Azgeda who Wanheda was,” she said.  “It was lucky, really, that I wasn’t there.”

“Because?” Murphy prompted when she paused, but he felt he knew where this was going.

Clarke shrugged.  “Because I am Wanheda.”

Murphy nodded.  “So you were just pretending you were protecting your people by not saying anything?”

“Yeah.”  Clarke gave a self-deprecating laugh, one that Murphy felt deep in his soul.  “I was just saving my own skin.”  She stretched out, reaching to add another handful of sticks to the fire.  “So staying with me is basically a death sentence.  Azgeda won’t let my identity get out, but everyone else knows I’m one of few people who know who she is.  Stay with me, and you’ll probably be dead soon.”

Murphy leaned back, the smirk that made its way onto his face far more confident than he felt.  “My life is basically one death sentence after another,” he pointed out.  “Might as well have the Commander of Death on my side this time.”

Clarke had smiled at him then, a soft thing that didn’t fit with anything he knew about her.  It did something to his stomach, which he forced down with a heavy swallow.

“So, he said, desperate to steer the conversation back into territories where she wasn’t looking at him like that, because no one looked at him like that and he didn’t know what the fuck he was supposed to do.  “How exactly does someone become known as the Commander of Death, anyway?”

It worked, as Clarke’s smile became less soft and more of a grimace.

“Genocide, mostly.”

“Oh.”  That was not the answer he’d been expecting.  Not that he’d known what he was expecting.  “I guess that makes sense.”

Clarke snorted.  “Does it make it better that I did it to save my people?”

He thought for a moment before smiling at her.  “Yeah,” he said.  “It does.”

Because somehow it did.  Clarke didn’t really strike him as a genocidal maniac type, and the fact that she’d apparently only done so to save her people just cemented that.  Someone who goes around committing genocide for fun doesn’t take the time to rip her cellmate’s food into bite sized pieces when he can’t do so himself, or help that same prisoner escape when she could have done it so much easier on her own.

Clarke smiled back, the same one as before, and Murphy realized he might need to brush up on his distraction techniques.

They left the cave three days later, when Murphy’s eye could open and they had a plan.

They were going to head to a city.  One that was big enough for them to disappear in without anyone immediately clocking him as Skaikru and Clarke as the Azgedan warrior who knew the identity of Wanheda—the scars on her face were apparently just an Azgedan thing, so they’d have to make it work with people knowing where she was from—but not important enough for Clarke to run into anyone she knew.

She had a friend with a place in a nearby city, a small apartment that they could stay in for a while, so that was where they were going to head.

After they healed enough to not look like they’d just escaped a torture chamber.

Thankfully, Clarke apparently had a lot of friends, because she had another one not too far away.  This friend ran a trading post in the middle of nowhere, and they’d be safe there for a while.

They were heading there now, traipsing quietly through the forest with their swords at the ready.  Murphy’s still felt heavy and awkward in his hand, and he was pretty sure that even with the basic lessons Clarke had given him, he still wouldn’t be able to actually do anything with it.

Clarke stopped suddenly, throwing an arm out to block him and sinking into a fighting stance.

Shit, Murphy thought, and awkwardly tried to mirror her stance in the moments before she tugged him behind a tree.

His back was pressed up against it, his sword hanging uselessly by his side.  One of Clarke’s arms was braced across him, both shielding him and allowing her to lean around the tree, take a peek at whoever was coming.

He didn’t know how hard his heart was racing, how terrified he was at the thought of being taken prisoner again or just straight up killed, until Clarke relaxed.

“Niylah,” she said, stepping out from behind the tree.  “We were just coming to see you.”

Murphy followed her, taking in the woman that was apparently no longer a threat.

Niylah smiled at them, adjusting the bag on her back.  “Amin,” she greeted, and the glance Clarke shot at Murphy at that made him wonder what it meant.  “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

Murphy stood in silence as Clarke explained their case, that they needed somewhere to stay for a while and were hoping that would be with her.  Niylah looked at him, said some things in the Grounder language he didn’t know, and Clarke rolled her eyes and responded.  He caught Skaikru and not much else, but it was enough to know they were definitely discussing him.

Niylah agreed to let them stay with her, and then she was continuing on to wherever she was going and they were continuing on towards her house.

“Amin,” Murphy said a while later, rolling the word around his mouth.  “She called you that.  What does it mean?”

Clarke looked torn between her promise to help him learn Trigedasleng and not telling him what that specific word meant.

Eventually, she sighed, stopping to lean against a tree.

“It means your Highness,” she said, and offered him a grin.  “There might be some things I haven’t told you.”

Clarke’s story went like this:

She was Princess Clarke, daughter of Abby, heir to the throne of Azgeda.

She and a group of warriors had committed whatever genocidal act lead to her being pronounced Wanheda.  The others were there, watched her do it, but, as crown princess, she was the one to actually commit it.

Word was already spreading by the time she returned home.  Her mother, the queen, predicted that someone would suggest the idea that she was Wanheda sooner rather than later.  This would mean that she would have to kill her own daughter to take Wanheda’s powers for herself.  Clarke had never claimed her mother was the best mother in the world, but even she didn’t want to do that.

So she was banished.  Lies about her treason were sent out among her people, and she was thrown from her kingdom.

A few days later, all of Azgeda knew her new identity of Wanheda, and the manhunt was on.

She didn’t say what led to her being captured by the Grounders, and Murphy didn’t ask.

Somehow, finding out that Clarke was a banished princess wasn’t as shocking as it probably should have been.  He’d dealt with weirder.  And, if he was being entirely honest, it made her banishment make more sense.

Clarke kept looking at him like she thought this changed things, like he’d think differently of her or something.  And maybe it should’ve.  Maybe he should’ve started been careful around her, treated her like she was someone who, banished or not, could have had him thrown in a guillotine for bumping into her.

Maybe it was because he’d spent weeks listening to her cry out in pain.  Maybe it was because he’d helped clean the worst of her wounds with a dirty rag.  Maybe it was because she was the only person to be nice to him since he’d come down to Earth—or, if he was being really honest with himself, since his dad had died.

Maybe he should have treated her differently, but he had no idea how you were supposed to act around royalty, and, really, she was still Clarke.  It didn’t really change anything.

Niylah’s house was like nothing Murphy had ever seen before.  It was full of so many different things that he was pretty sure he’d mess up if he even tried to touch.

She had an extra room in the back, which Clarke led them to.  There was only one bed, but Murphy didn’t even think about that being awkward.  He didn’t know how long it’d been since he’d slept on a real bed.  There had been the floor of the cave.  Before that, the floor of their cell.  And before that, it’d been a torn-up seat cushion from the Dropship and maybe a blanket if someone hadn’t stolen it that day.  The bed he’d had in the Skybox had barely counted as a bed.

He was just going to lay down for a minute, just to remember what a real bed felt like.  He must’ve been more tired than he’d thought, because it was dark out when he opened his eyes and Clarke was asleep on the other side of the bed.

Murphy learned a lot about Clarke in the weeks they spent at Niylah’s. 

He learned she hated being still, that she was up before the sun and out hunting and that she went on walks and hikes multiple times a day.  He learned she was just as deadly with a sword as he’d expected her to be, that she knocked him on his ass more times than he could count even when he was getting relatively decent at countering her attacks.

He learned she was probably somewhere near as big an asshole as he was, if the way she snarked at Niylah and any customers she dealt with were anything to go by.  He learned that her laugh was contagious, that whenever she was happy, so was he.

He learned that he was maybe, probably, definitely at least a little bit in love with her.

They spent the weeks healing, and Murphy almost kissed her when she grinned so widely when he pointed out that his fingernails were starting to grow back, just the tiniest sliver poking out from the skin.  She trained him with the sword, with other weapons in Niylah’s store, with his fists.  She trained him to fight and defend himself, and how to speak their language.

He’d told Niylah, so many weeks ago, that he didn’t have any people.  It hadn’t been a lie then, but he was starting to think it didn’t apply anymore.  Because he had Clarke.  He wasn’t Skaikru anymore, and she’d been banished from Azgeda as well, but they had each other.

She was his people now.

And he wasn’t going to screw that up by doing something stupid like kissing her or confessing how he felt.

All in all, things had been going pretty well.

Which obviously couldn’t last.

“Niylah will kill you if you break anything.”

They were supposed to be reorganizing one of the more cluttered parts of Niylah’s shop—payment for staying with her for so long—but neither of them were really doing any reorganizing.  Clarke was sitting on a bit of counter they’d cleared, twirling a knife between her fingers and directing him around, and he was opting to ignore her directions in favour of trying to see how many hats he could balance on his head at once.

It was nice, this life.  So fucking nice just being able to stand around and joke with Clarke.  Niylah was great, too, but he wasn’t falling in love with her, so it was different.  She was outside right now, tending to the vegetable garden.

“Are you going to do anything?” he asked.  “Or are you just going to sit there like a princess, your Highness?”

Clarke tilted her face up, a haughty look on her face as she looked down her nose at him.

“Maybe I’m just fulfilling my birthright,” she pointed out, and he laughed.

There was a sound from outside, and then Niylah’s voice carried into the building louder than usual.

“You said you’re from Azgeda?  That’s a long way to travel.”

Murphy dropped the hats, his eyes darting to Clarke as she froze for barely a moment before springing into action.

She jumped off the counter, grabbing his hand to pull him along behind her as she travelled across the shop.

She stopped at a bench, one Murphy had sat on numerous times, and pulled off the top, revealing a small compartment.

“Get in,” she instructed, and he complied.

It was a tight fit, even tighter when Clarke lowered herself on top of him and pulled the lid closed on top of them.

He could tell Clarke was focused on what was going on in the shop, on the sounds of Niylah leading whatever Azgedans had come around.  They were clearly there looking for Clarke.  They asked after the princess, had heard she’d had an Azgedan helping out recently.

Murphy should’ve been scared.  He should’ve been scared for Clarke, that these people would take her back to her kingdom so her mother could kill her.  He should’ve been scared for himself and Niylah, for whatever these people would do to them for helping her.

But he couldn’t think of any of that, because he was currently locked in a too small bench with the girl he was falling in love with, because he could feel every bit of her pressed up against him, because she couldn’t stay still, not even now, and was wiggling around far too much.

And, oh, was that her knife pressed between them there nope he was just happy to see her.

It took too long for Niylah to convince the Azgedans to go back outside, for the voices to move further and further from this corner of the shop.  When the voices disappeared completely, he felt as Clarke relaxed, and he let his hand drop from where it had been awkwardly pressed against the roof of the bench.

Of course, because being stuck in a box wasn’t bad enough, his hand smacked her in the face as it fell.

“Sorry,” he whispered, the word deafening in the darkness.

He couldn’t move his arm, so he opted to just leave his hand there, cupping her cheek.  He couldn’t help but brush his thumb against her skin, over the lines of her scars and the softness of her cheeks.

Her breath hitched, and she froze for a second, and Murphy started to prepare himself for whatever rejection would be coming as soon as they could safely speak again.

But then her face was moving, and she was leaning closer and closer, and then her nose was bumping into his jaw and she was using that as a guide to drag it higher up his face until it was rubbing against his.  Murphy couldn’t breath, couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything as she leaned even closer, and then her lips were so close that he could feel her breath on his, and then—

—and then the lid to the bench was being wrenched open, and he was blinking up at Niylah against the sudden brightness.

“As soon as we know they’re gone, you’re gone,” Niylah told them, walking away.

And then Clarke was climbing off of him, avoiding his eye as she hurried after Niylah.

Murphy lay there in the bench for a moment longer, wondering just how much he’d managed to fuck up his relationship with Clarke.

He didn’t see her again until they were heading to bed, which was difficult considering neither of them could actually go outside right now.  He may have been avoiding her.

She was in their room when he got there, sitting on their bed like she was waiting for him.

He sighed.  Better to get this over with quickly, he supposed.

“Look, Clarke,” he started, leaning back against the dresser and running a hand through his hair.  “I’m sorry.  It was really cramped in there, and I don’t—”

“Murphy.”

She cut him off, and he forced himself to look at her.  He couldn’t read the look in her eyes as she stood, watching him expectantly.

“Yeah?”

She took a few steps closer, until there was almost more room between them when they’d been locked in the box.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” she said, her eyes searching his.  “Okay?”

Murphy was pretty sure he wasn’t breathing, but he managed a nod somehow, and a simple strangled plead.

“Please.”

And then she was kissing him, pressing him back against the dresser, and his hands were coming up to cup her face.

Kissing Clarke was everything he’d thought it’d be and more.  Clarke made the banishment, the kidnapping and torture, everything worth it.  She was everything, and kissing her felt so right, so perfect, he never wanted to stop.

“I think,” she whispered between kisses, as his hands dug into her hair and wrapped around her waist, tugging her even closer.  “I think it’s time we go to bed.”

He pulled back, ready to apologize again, but then he caught the look in her eye and the real meaning of her request.

He pressed their lips together again, hard and fast, then trailed his kisses down her jaw.

“I think you’re right,” he agreed, and then he was following where she lead, letting her tug him onto the bed, and he decided that, yeah, it was all worth it if it lead him to Clarke.

They left the next day, heading off to the city.  It took a few days to walk there, slowed down by the fact that Murphy no longer had any reason to keep his hands off Clarke, and she seemed to be thinking the same about him.

They were in clothes they’d borrowed from Niylah’s shop, their own too destroyed to still count as clothes.  Even with Clarke’s scars and Murphy’s wide eyed stares as they walked through the streets, they still blended into the crowd.  They were just a couple of people on a vacation, not an ex-Skaikru member and a banished princess.

The apartment they were looking for belonged to someone named Echo, and Clarke had to convince the lady outside that she really was Echo’s friend Griffin and that Echo knew she was coming to stay at her place.  There were two beds, but Murphy wouldn’t have been fooling anyone if he’d tried to suggest they not share.

Echo wasn’t there.  She lived in Azgeda, according to Clarke, and was one of her mom’s spies.  She had apartments like this in most cities, and they could hop between them whenever they needed to.

Clarke swore Echo was a friend, that she wouldn’t turn her in even if she did come to use this particular apartment while they were still in it.

Five weeks later, it was Echo who lead the team of Azgedan warriors through the front door and tied them to the pillar in the middle of the living room.

Echo—or, at least, Murphy assumed this was the infamous Echo who’s apartment they had been living in, as that was what Clarke was calling her—was pacing in front of them, as Clarke snarled at her in Trigedasleng too quickly for Murphy to catch everything she was saying.  Most of it was not nice.

Echo was speaking English, called him Spaceboy the few times she’d acknowledged he was there, and was clearly in charge.  The other Azgedans were stationed around the apartment, some probably outside as well.

Clarke was spitting out insults to Echo, not letting her get a word in, and Murphy was trying to figure out how to get his hands free.  Clarke had taught him to always have hidden knives on him, they never knew when they were going to have to defend themselves, but the other Azgedans clearly also followed that philosophy as searching them for weapons was the first thing they’d done.

Echo snarled and snapped forward, pressing a knife to Clarke’s throat and leaning in to whisper something to her.  Murphy tugged harder at the ropes holding him.  If she did something to Clarke, if she’d somehow gotten it in her head to kill Clarke and take her Wanheda powers for herself, and he couldn’t stop it from happening…

Echo pulled back, and Clarke stared at her for a long moment.

“He lives.”

Echo smirked over at him, nodding once.

“What?” Murphy frowned, trying to stretch forward.

“Nothing happens to him,” Clarke continued.  “I go along with this, and he gets set up with a nice life in Azgeda.”

“What?”  Murphy yanked at his bonds, panic seeping into him.  “No.  No, Clarke.  I’m not letting you do this.”

“Deal,” Echo said, staring straight at him.

They didn’t leave until the next morning.  Clarke didn’t listen to his pleads for her to change her mind, to not do what she was doing.  He didn’t want it, whatever nice life they were going to set up for him in Azgeda.  There wouldn’t be a nice life without her.

A Grounder came to give them dinner at one point.  Murphy told him in explicit detail how he’d fucked his mom.  He ended up with a fist to the face for dinner, and Clarke hiding a grin as she quietly told him to shut the fuck up, it was not the time for that.

They’d been walking most of the day when the Azgedans finally decided to stop for lunch.  Clarke and Murphy were tied to a tree, and the Grounders spread out enough that if they talked quietly enough, they wouldn’t be heard.

Which was what Clarke did.

“Echo has a plan,” she whispered, not looking at him, not giving any indication that she was even speaking to him.  “She’s a friend.  We can trust her.”

Murphy looked at her, at her bloodied lip and the fierce scowl on her face.

“So all that back there?”

Clarke looked at him then, offering him a smile.  “Insurance,” she said.  “Even if Echo’s lying about the plan, she never goes back on her word.”

Murphy wanted to tell her that she didn’t care if Echo went back on her word, that he didn’t want whatever life he’d have after she was murdered by her own mother, but then the Azgedans were untying them and they were leaving again.

It took them three days to get to Azgeda.  It was cold, colder than everywhere they’d been so far.  Clarke had snorted when he’d mentioned it, said that that was probably why it was the Ice Nation.

They were marched through the streets, and Murphy heard the shocked whispers of Wanheda, the wonders of who he might be, and he bit back any snark he could have thrown at them.  He tried to copy Clarke, to walk to what was quite possibly their death with his head held high.

They were thrown in a dungeon.  Different cells, side by side.

“Mom can’t even deign to say hello before she kills me?” Clarke snapped at the guards.

“She’s preparing for the ceremony tomorrow,” Echo said from outside the cells.  She waved a hand.  “Untie them.  She knows not to do anything.”

And then they were gone, and he and Clarke were back to where they began.

“Are you sure we can trust her?” Murphy asked, pressing himself up against the bars separating their cells.

Clarke started down the hall for another long moment before joining him, looping their fingers together and pressing her forehead to his.

“We can trust her,” she promised, and Murphy hoped it wasn’t a lie.

It was a while before Echo came back, letting herself into Clarke’s cell with a pile of blankets.

“I don’t have much time,” she said, dangling a key in front of Clarke’s face.  “There’s a sword in the blankets.”

Clarke nodded and took the key, slipping it into a pocket.  “What’s the plan?”

Echo glanced at Murphy briefly.  “We’re throwing a coup.”

Clarke backed away, shaking her head.  “No.”

Echo sighed.  “If Wanheda is queen, we have your power without having to kill you,” she said, slowly, like it was something Clarke should have already known.  Murphy wondered if Clarke had known that before now.  She certainly hadn’t told him.  “We’re throwing a coup, Clarke.  I have hundreds of warriors ready for the signal tonight.”

“What?  No.”  Clarke was still shaking her head, twisting her hands together.  “Echo, I can’t throw a coup.  I’m not going to kill my mom.”

Murphy didn’t point out that if she didn’t kill her mom, her mom would kill her.  He didn’t point out that this was literally the only way she had a chance to survive.

He wanted to, but Echo beat him to the punch.

“It was her idea, Clarke,” she said, and Clarke froze.  “You kill her, or she kills you.  Those are the options, and she’s made her choice.”  She moved back towards the door.  “When the clock rings ten, we move.”

And then she was gone, and Clarke still hadn’t moved and Murphy wished he could go to her, that there weren’t bars in between them.

“Clarke?” he said softly, reaching for her through the bars.  “Clarke, what are we gonna do?”

She looked at him then, stepped closer so he could touch her face, brush his thumb over her cheekbone as she leaned into the touch.

“I’m throwing a coup,” she said, swallowing heavily.  “Won’t be the first time someone in my family’s killed their parents.”

Murphy knew it wasn’t that easy, knew she hadn’t just suddenly decided to jump on board with the idea, but he figured pointing that out wasn’t going to do any good.

So he cupped her cheek and guided her closer to the bars, close enough that he could kiss her.

“Okay,” he said, pulling back after a moment.  “How can I help?”

Apparently he could help by staying out of the way.  He’d been pissed at the suggestion, that she thought there was any way he’d be okay with her doing this without him there, but she’d argued him down.  He’d only had a few months of training.  Going up against people who’d been training their whole lives, that was basically nothing.  She had answers to all of his points, reasons he shouldn’t be in the fight.

“If you’re out there,” she finally said, their fingers twisted together through the bar, “I won’t be able to do this.  If you’re out there, I’ll be too distracted by making sure you’re safe to fight properly.  I need you to stay away.”

It was that, the pleading that seeped into her tone, the desperate look in her eyes, that finally made him agree.

The clock outside struck ten, and Clarke’s cell was already unlocked and she was working on his.  She looked like a warrior.  There was white paint tucked in the blankets with her sword, and she’d smudged it over her face, streaking it over her eyes.

She let him out of his cell, handed him the knife Echo had hidden in the blanket, one that he tried to insist she would need more than him, and dipped her hand into the paint again.

“We’re going to survive,” she told him, streaking her handprint across his face.

Somehow, with her standing there, looking so calm and in control and fearless, he believed her.

She led him down the hallway, following the maze of tunnels leading out of the dungeon.  They didn’t make it far before they ran into a guard, hurrying in the same direction as them from another section of the dungeon.

Clarke turned on him, brandishing her sword and prepared to fight, and Murphy had his knife gripped in his hand, ready if she needed backup, but the guard didn’t reach for a weapon, only bowed his head.

“Long live the queen,” he said, and then was gone, hurrying back down the hallway.

Clarke opened a door not long after, gesturing him inside.

“Clarke,” he said, gripping her hand in his.  There were so many things he wanted to say, so many things he should tell her, just in case this was the last time he saw her.

“Don’t die,” he said instead, grimacing even as the words left his mouth.

Clarke’s lips twitched into a quick smile.  “I won’t,” she promised, tugging him in for a kiss.  It was quick and hard, and then she was gone, off to stage a coup and kill her mother, and Murphy retreated into the room to hide.

It felt like he spent years in that small room, stressing and freaking and pacing.  It was easier to imagine Clarke’s coup winning when she was there, when he knew she was alive, when he could see her looking so fearless and strong.  It was harder when she wasn’t there, when he was locked in a room so far under the castle that he couldn’t even hear the fight.

It felt like forever, but couldn’t have been more than a few hours, as the sun hadn’t even risen outside the small window of his room.

Eventually, though, the door swung open, and he raised his knife ready to fight off whoever was on the other side.

It was Echo, her own white face paint streaked with red, and she grinned at him.

“We won,” was all she said, and then he was hurrying after her down the hallway.

She led him through the castle, past bloodied warriors moving bodies and others sharing drinks in celebration.

She threw open a door to what was clearly a throne room, and there was Clarke.  She was looking away talking to someone, but she was there.  She was covered in blood, so much blood, and there was a crown of bones resting on her head, and somehow she’d never looked more gorgeous.

But she was alive.

She was okay.

“Should I bow?” he asked, loud enough for her to hear, because he was afraid he might start crying from relief and because he was great at dealing with feelings.

Clarke turned to look at him then, and Echo snorted.

“Yes,” she said.

Oh.  Okay.

If Murphy had been more in his right mind, he probably would’ve been able to tell that Echo was mostly kidding.  But he wasn’t, so he sunk down on one knee and bowed his head, like he’d seen in some movie on the Ark years ago, where a bastard prince had won his throne and everyone was swearing their loyalty.

“My Queen,” he started softly, looking up at her from under his hair, head still bowed.

He didn’t get any farther before Clarke was sinking down in front of him, taking his face in her hands, and kissing him deeply.

She tasted like blood, which was a little weird, but he’d take any taste as long as she was alive.  He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close and kissing her like he he thought he never would again.

She was alive.  She’d killed her mom, which would probably be something they’d have to deal with later, but right now it seemed like she was still riding the adrenaline of her coup.  She was alive, and she was the queen.  No one was hunting her anymore.  They were safe.

And holy fuck, okay.  It was just hitting him now that he’s definitely somehow dating a literal fucking queen.  How the fuck did he manage that?

“I love you,” she whispered against his lips.

“I love you,” he answered.

It wasn’t the first time they’d said it, but it seemed monumental then, as they clutched each other on the floor of the throne room.

“Not to ruin this moment,” Echo said, effectively ruining the moment.  “But the people will not be okay with you dating Skaikru.”

Clarke pulled back from him enough to glare at her friend.  “They’ll just have to get over it.”

Echo rolled her eyes.  “You literally just became queen,” she pointed out.  “You’ve been banished for over a year, and you took your throne in a coup.  You can’t just go around giving people more reasons to get rid of you right off to bat.”

Echo kind of had a point, not that Murphy would ever admit that, but Clarke’s scowl just grew as she clutched his hand harder.

“I don’t care,” she snapped.  “Murphy’s my people now, too.”

“I’m not saying dump him,” Echo sighed, even though, to Murphy at least, it did sound like she was saying to dump him.  “There’s an easy solution, you know, one they can’t break up as easily as dating.  You’ve been gone long enough that people will believe it.”

Clarke sighed, rocking back on her heels.  “What is it?”

Echo shrugged.  “They can’t just make you get rid of him if he’s your husband.”

Clarke’s eyes snapped to his, and Murphy shrugged.

“Not exactly how I pictured my wedding,” he told her, and she laughed.  “But I’m cool with it if you are.”

Clarke nodded, still grinning at him, and waved at Echo to start going.

“Clarke kom Azgeda, do you take Murphy to be your husband?”

“I do,” Clarke said, and Murphy couldn’t not kiss her at that.

Echo nodded as they pulled apart.  “Murphy kom Skaikru—”

“I’m not Skaikru,” Murphy interrupted, immediately wondering why the fuck he was interrupting his wedding for that.  “I haven’t been Skaikru in a long time.”

“Azgeda,” Clarke corrected, leaning in to kiss him quickly.  “You’re Azgeda.”

Echo rolled her eyes.  “Fine,” she said.  “Murphy kom Azgeda, do you take Clarke to be your wife?”

Murphy grinned, clutching Clarke’s hands tighter.  “Yeah,” he said.  “I fucking do.”

They were already kissing again before Echo pronounced them husband and wife and gave Clarke permission to kiss him.

It definitely wasn’t what Murphy had pictured the few times he’d thought about a hypothetical future wedding.  He’s been wearing the same clothes for days, and Clarke is more covered in blood than not, and they’re crouched on the floor surrounded by the bodies of those killed in the coup they just threw to take the crown, but somehow he can’t think of anything that would’ve made this wedding better.

The door swung open and a warrior stepped in, bowing her head at Clarke.

“My Queen,” she said.  “They’re ready for you.”

Clarke grinned at him, taking his hand as they rose to their feet.  “Ready to meet our people?”

And he wasn’t, not really, but this was the first step to the rest of his life with Clarke, and he was more than ready for that.

SIX MONTHS LATER 

Bellamy was pretty confident that Skaikru wasn’t going to be thrust into war at a moment’s notice anymore.  Once Octavia and Lincoln had gotten them a truce with Trikru, they’d been slowly making alliance after alliance.

It’d become shockingly easier about six months earlier.  He’d asked Lincoln about it, once, whether anything was going on politically.  Lincoln had shrugged and said that there had been a coup in Azgeda, that they had a new queen and her husband ruling them, but he doubted that had anything to do with it.

They were in TonDC now, where they’d been called in at the last minute for a meeting with the Azgedan royals, who were suddenly very keen to make an alliance.

Miller thought it sounded a little fishy, and Bellamy had to agree, but they weren’t about to snub the nation that they’d come to learn was always down for war.

Lincoln brought over an Azgedan girl with braids and a wicked smile who introduced herself as Echo and who sat down to give them everything they needed to know going into this meeting.

They were to bow upon entrance.  The queen’s name was Clarke, and she’d recently thrown a coup and taken the crown from her mother.  The king consort wasn’t born in Azgeda, but was considered Azgedan by all their people.

She went on to explain what the queen expected from this meeting, and Bellamy shared a look with Miller.

“Does the king consort usually come to these things?” he asked, after taking in all the information Echo chose to share.  They hadn’t been to an alliance meeting yet where the leader’s husband or wife was in attendance.

“No.”  Echo shrugged, her smirk growing.  “He is very invested in the outcome of this one, though.”

That answered none of his questions, and he could tell without looking at Miller that his coleader had just as many more questions now as he did, but Echo stood before he could ask any.

“We don’t want to keep them waiting,” was all she said before turning and walking away without checking if they were following.

She led them to the tent that was currently serving as the Azgedan throne room, and Bellamy and Miller sunk into bows as they entered.

“Bellamy and Miller of Skaikru,” Echo announced before moving to stand near the door.

Bellamy took in the royals as he stood back up.  The queen was as terrifying as he imagined someone who won their crown in a coup against their own mother would be.  Her face was streaked with white paint, highlighting the ornate scars carved there.  Her throne was made of bones, as was her crown, and she held herself with the confidence of someone who’d been ruling a lot longer than six months.

The only thing shocking about Clarke was how young she looked, probably younger than him and closer to the ages of those at the Dropship.

Beside her was the king consort, her husband.  His face, like hers, was streaked in chalky white, a smirk growing behind the paint that would look more at home on the face of one of Bellamy’s delinquents than on the king consort of Azgeda.  His bone crown was smaller than hers, but no less deadly.  He was draped in furs and robes, lounging on his throne like he was born to be there.

There was something about him that poked at a memory in the back of Bellamy’s mind, something familiar about this king consort, more familiar than someone he’d never met before should be.

He glanced back to his face, to the smirk that was both smug and expectant, like he was waiting for something to happen.

And then it hit him.

“Murphy?”

It was Miller who spoke, who realized the identity of this king consort at the same time as Bellamy.  It had been almost a year since they’d seen Murphy, since they’d banished him from camp.  He didn’t think of Murphy that often, but, when he did, he assumed the Grounders had long since killed him by now.

He had definitely never thought that Murphy had somehow managed to marry the queen of a grounder nation.

“It’s your majesty now, actually,” he corrected, reaching up to adjust his crown, smirking at them like this was the best thing that had ever happened to him.  “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you for banishing me.”