Archive of Our Own

It was bright when Murphy opened his eyes.  It was too bright for the pounding in his head, but the rest of him didn’t care.

Brightness was good.  Brightness was so much better than the dark.

He’d always hated the dark.  He’d slept with a nightlight far longer than he’d ever admit to anyone.  He’d only really stopped when he’d been sent to the Skybox.  They didn’t have nightlights in prison.

Even with the nightlights, though, he’d hated it.  The darkness brought monsters, creeping just outside the circle of light where it was too dark for him to see more than their shadows.

It wasn’t until he got to Earth that he figured out the real monsters are people, that they didn’t stick to the shadows and would grab you in broad daylight.

They kept him in the dark, though, so his fears weren’t that far off.

He closed his eyes again, the harsh lights bright enough that even that wasn’t dark, and tried to get his bearings.

It didn’t make sense for the Grounders to suddenly switch tactics, not when he’d been giving them so much information in the—

No.  That wasn’t right.  He’d escaped, about a week ago.  He wasn’t with the Grounders anymore.

What had happened?

He’d come back to camp.  Everyone was shocked he was alive, but Clarke had cleaned up his injuries.  It’d been bright then, too, almost unbearably, but nothing like this.

There was the sickness, the one he’d apparently brought.  People died.

And then the rest of them got better and the Grounders attacked.

The light was bright, bright enough he couldn’t think properly, even with his eyes closed.

The Grounders attacked.  And then what?

Fire.  Right.  Raven had been stabbed and he’d dragged her back into the dropship so she could help Clarke start the rocket.

Fire.  Heat.  Darkness.

And then the doors had opened and he’d stumbled out and then…

Nothing.

That was the last thing he’d remembered.

The pounding in his head calmed down a little, enough for him to chance opening his eyes again.

He was in a room.  A too-white room with too-bright lights.  He was in a hospital bed, the sheets too clean, a needle stuck in his arm.

His arm was too clean, too, cleaner than it’d been since he’d been on the Ark.  His wounds were neatly stitched and the bandages were clean and white and there was no blood, no dirt, no anything on him anywhere.

It could all be worse, though.  At least it wasn’t dark.

Someone came into the room before he could clear his head enough to plan anything, smiling at him over her clipboard.

“Good morning, John,” she said, like this was something normal, like she had any fucking right to know his name.  “How are you feeling?”

“Who are you?” he asked, ignoring the question.  He searched for something he could use as a weapon, settling on the metal tree his IV was attached to.  “Where am I?  Why do you know my name?”

The lady smiled again, wider, unnatural.  “I’m Dr. Lorelei Tsing,” she said.  “Your friends told me your name.  John Murphy, correct?  And you’re in a decontamination room at Mount Weather.”

Decontamination?  Mount Weather?  What?

“I’m sure you have a lot of questions,” Dr. Tsing continued, putting down her clipboard and moving to unhook his IV.  She was right.  He had a fuck ton of questions.  “Someone upstairs will be able to answer all of those for you shortly.”

Murphy wanted to argue.  He wanted to demand answers and fight his way back to wherever the fuck these people were keeping his people.  Because they had to be here somewhere, right?  If Dr. Tsing got his name from his “friends”.  Did they call him their friend?  Were they his friends?

He had so many questions.  He needed information.

But he also needed to not become a prisoner again.  He needed to be safe and to survive and to not get locked up in the dark again.

So he stayed quiet, let the doctor unhook him.  He changed into the clothes she gave him, scratchy pants and a soft sweater that were both so clean he thought he’d mess them up just by touching them.

He did scan for exits as he followed her, taking note of the doors they passed and any information he could find.

There were no exits.  None that were labeled, at least, and every person he passed was too clean, too pale, too wide eyed as they stared at him.

Mount Weather.  The name rang a bell, but it wasn’t until he spotted Wells gathered with a group of delinquents that he figured out why.

It was a bunker, the one that Jaha wanted them to find.  It was supposed to have supplies that would’ve helped them survive.

It wasn’t supposed to have people.

A couple people tried to hug him, like they were actually happy to see him.  He pushed Jasper off, but Harper was relentless, so he had to hug her back.

“You’re alive?” someone asked, and he rolled his eyes.

“Of course I’m alive,” he said, smirking into the group of delinquents, the group that was so much smaller than it’d been before the Grounders attacked.  “Nothing can kill me.  I’m gonna live forever.”

Someone told him to fuck off so he flipped off the entire crowd as he crossed through it.

“Hey, Earth Chancellor,” he said, sinking into a seat next to Wells.  “Want to tell me what the fuck is going on?”

Wells didn’t look particularly happy to have Murphy sitting next to him, but to his credit, he only rolled his eyes.

“We’re in Mount Weather,” he said, and Murphy was proud of the way he managed to not say no shit.  “They rescued us from the Grounders, but that’s about all we’ve been told.  They’re gonna debrief us once everyone gets here.”

Murphy glanced out at the gathered crowd.  There were maybe forty or so of them, about as many as had made it back into the dropship.  “So this isn’t everyone?”

Wells shook his head.  “Clarke’s still coming,” he said, the relief clear in his voice.  “And Monty.  But that’s it.”

Well, shit.  If these Mount Weather people had rescued them from the Grounders, that meant they would’ve grabbed everyone still alive.

Raven had been in the dropship.  Did that mean she hadn’t made it?

And Bellamy.  He hadn’t made it to the ship.  Was he dead?  Was everyone who wasn’t here dead?

Monty came in a few minutes later, and there was more hugging, but Murphy wasn’t really paying attention.

It didn’t make sense.  If Mount Weather had always had people in it, why had they waited so long to help?  Why hadn’t they “rescued” them from the Grounders before they’d started a war?  Why had they waited until after they’d killed a fuck ton of them, after they’d basically won?

It didn’t make sense.

None of this made sense.

Some random people had come and knocked them out and brought them to a bunker to save them?  Really?  Was anyone actually buying this story?

He glanced around, at how calm and happy everyone looked.  Maybe they were buying it.

But there was definitely something off.

There weren’t any exits.  They hadn’t told anyone what was going on.  No one had asked them if they wanted to be “rescued” in the first place.

Something fishy was going on.

But then Clarke fucking Griffin herself made her grand entrance, complete with blood running down her arm and a fucking hostage, and that was definitely more entertaining than counting exits that weren’t there.

“Damn, Griffin,” he called, laughing, and Clarke’s head snapped over to where the group of them were gathered.  “I’m impressed.”

Clarke looked relieved to see them for all of two seconds before one of the Mount Weather people started screaming and an alarm started blaring.  It seemed Clarke and her blood and her hostage were a containment breech, apparently.

And then fucking armed guards were running in and people were gearing up for another fight and, really, no one could say Murphy ever ran from a good fight, so he was picking up a lamp and chucking it at a guard’s head.

There were six of them that ended up in a clinic after the fight that was way too short to have really accomplished anything, and Murphy held an ice pack to his shoulder as he watched Dr. Tsing stitch up Clarke’s arm on the bed across from him.  They were handcuffed, of course, because apparently they weren’t exactly the guests they had been lead to believe they were.

Who would’ve fucking guessed?

By the time they were sent back to the dormitory they were now supposed to live in, Murphy had both answers and more questions.

This was everyone they’d found alive.  They weren’t prisoners.  The people of Mount Weather couldn’t survive the radiation outside, hence the decontamination and Clarke’s dramatic containment breech.

They didn’t tell them why they decided to “rescue them”, why they hadn’t done so earlier.  They didn’t tell them where they could leave, how they could get out, or whether they could look for any survivors from the Ark.

And they definitely didn’t tell them shit about the creepy ass treatment Clarke’s hostage was getting when they’d left her in the clinic.

They joined up with the rest and were led back to the dining hall for dinner, and Murphy sat near the end of the table they were given, ready to quietly eat his meal and not cause any trouble.

Because one thing had become clear.

They said they weren’t prisoners, and maybe they weren’t locked in cages, but they definitely weren’t the guests they were trying to convince them of being, either.

Not all prisons looked like the Skybox, or the Grounder’s black pit.

If this prison meant good food and clean clothes and a bed, he wasn’t about to fuck that up for himself.  No matter what fucked up things were going down in this bunker.

He was sure there was something.  There was always something.

“They gave us a map with no exits.”

Murphy’s fork paused on his way to his mouth, and he glanced down the table.  Clarke was huddled over the map with Wells and Jasper and Monty, apparently just as suspicious as Murphy.  He looked back down at his plate, helping himself to more food as he listened in.

“Have you seen any ways out?”

“Ways out?” Jasper asked.  “Why would we want to leave?”

It wasn’t about wanting to leave, Murphy mused, half tuning out the conversation as the other boys listed all the things that were good about Mount Weather.  It was about having a way out when things inevitably went to shit.  Clarke seemed to get that.

Jasper left and Murphy followed him with his eyes to the cake table, where he started flirting with Clarke’s hostage.  Monty got pulled into a conversation with Harper, and it just left Clarke and Wells.

“We’re safe here,” Wells insisted.  “They trust us enough to let us into their home.  We need to do the same.”

“Wells, come on,” Clarke pleaded, voice hushed.  “You can’t actually believe all this, can you?  We need to figure out how to get out of here.”

“Clarke, stop.”  Wells’ fork dropped with a clatter.  “We’re safe.  No one’s trying to kill us.  Drop it before you give them a reason to stop trusting us.”

Someone from Mount Weather came over, started telling them about how happy they were to have them here, how they’d have a few days to settle in before they’d start thinking about work assignments, and a load of other bullshit that everyone seemed to eat up.

The man walked away and Murphy went back to his food, picking through it slowly.  He felt someone’s eyes on him, glanced up to find Clarke staring at him.

“I know, I know,” he said, smirking at her.  “I’m just so hot you can’t help it.  But didn’t your parents teach you that staring’s rude, Griffin?”

Clarke rolled her eyes and leaned back in her chair, surveying the rest of the room.  Murphy figured that was that, hoped she hadn’t figured out he had all the same questions she did.

Of course, that would be too easy, because when had Murphy ever been lucky at all?

Clarke cornered him as they were leaving the dining hall, tugged him into an empty hallway.

“You don’t believe them,” she said, like it wasn’t even a question.

Of course he didn’t fucking believe them.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he hedged, because admitting his suspicions to Clarke no doubt meant being pulled into whatever crazy thing she was planning that would probably get the food and the cake and the bed all taken away.

“Don’t play dumb,” Clarke said, and Murphy rolled his eyes.

“Maybe I don’t exactly trust them,” he allowed.  “But they’re not hurting us.  We shouldn’t give them a reason to.”

“They aren’t letting us leave,” Clarke pressed on, like she hadn’t even heard him.  “We’re basically prisoners.  They won’t let us look for everyone else.  Raven and Finn and Bellamy—they can’t be dead.  They can’t be.”

“Maybe they're not dead.”  Murphy’s tone was too sharp, but he didn’t care.  He couldn’t let this go south.  They had to be safe.  They had to pretend that things were okay and then they’d stay safe.  “But we don’t know.  If we go back out there, we’re just gonna get hunted down by the Grounders.  And let me tell you, Clarke, if this is a prison, it is so much better than the prison the Grounders will throw us in.  Trust me.”

Clarke stared at him, too pale in the too bright lights of the hallway.

“I need to know,” was what she finally decided on saying, and Murphy rolled his eyes.

“Well, I don't,” he said, pushing past her back into the main hallway, ready to crawl into bed and pass out.  He didn't need to know.  He could ignore the feeling that something was off and enjoy being safe for a while.

But Clarke grabbed his arm before he could leave, stepped closer to him.

“You’re helping me,” she decided.  “Everyone else believes their lies, but you don’t.  You need to help me find proof.”

Murphy really didn’t know why he followed her when she left, her map out as she led him down a hallway that was definitely off limits.  He was still whispering as they went, telling her it was a terrible idea and that they should just drop it and go to bed before they found something that could get them killed  He was pretty sure he hadn’t come just to keep arguing with her.

Maybe he really did want to know what it was about Mount Weather that was giving him a bad feeling.  Maybe he was scared of the nightmares that would hit as soon as he went to bed, maybe he wanted to push them off as long as he could.  Maybe as much as he didn’t want to be thrown into whatever constituted as Mount Weather’s actual prison, he didn’t want Clarke to be in there alone even more.  Maybe he just wanted to know a way out for when things inevitably went sideways.

Whatever the reason, he followed her deeper and deeper into Mount Weather.

“This is a terrible idea,” he told her as they stood pressed against a wall, waiting for a group of people to pass down the next hallway.

“Fuck off,” she whispered back, and was moving again before he could retort.

Murphy wasn’t completely sure what they were looking for.  Exits, definitely, but more than that.  Something that proved that something bad was going on at Mount Weather, something that proved they hadn’t just become paranoid as fuck.

In an ideal world, they’d find a sign that proclaimed in bright red letters EVERYTHING BAD THAT MOUNT WEATHER IS DOING.

As this had already proven again and again to not be an ideal world, Murphy was pretty sure the chances of finding something like that were pretty low.

He wasn’t sure how long they walked through the too clean, too bright halls of Mount Weather, but it had to have been an hour at least.  Probably more.

Murphy was exhausted.  He was ready for the nightmares now, if only it meant he could stop walking and lay down and get some sleep.

“Clarke,” he started, only for her to shush him.  He rolled his eyes.  “You don’t even know what—”

“Shut up,” she hissed.  “Do you hear that?”

Murphy resisted the urge to not shut up, and listened instead.

“Fuck,” he breathed once the footsteps registered.  They were coming in their direction from around the next corner, no other hallway to duck down this time.

Fuck.  He wasn’t going to get caught this easy.  That would be—what would the point of this even be, if they couldn’t even last a single night?

A door just down the hall caught his eye, a sign next to it proclaiming it to be a storage closet, and he grabbed Clarke’s arm, dragging her towards it.

It was unlock, and they ducked inside, the door closing behind them, and Murphy breathed out a sigh of relief.

Only to suck it right back in at how dark the closet was, how there was no light switch on the walls.

“Murphy,” Clarke whispered, and he jumped when her hand touched his arm.  “Murphy, what is it?”

He didn’t tell her.  He wouldn’t have told her, even if he’d been able to get enough oxygen to speak.  He could just make Clarke out in the light coming from under the door, the darkness around them shifting, the shadows morphing into monsters.

“Murphy,” Clarke whispered again, the whites of her eyes darting between him and the door, at whatever she could still hear outside.  “Murphy, what’s wrong?”

He shook his head, struggling to breathe, struggling to tell himself that Mount Weather wouldn’t keep monsters in unlocked closets, that he didn’t have anything to worry about, that whoever was coming down the hall would walk right by and they’d be safe and he could go back to bed and stop trying to make things worse for himself.

Clarke looked away for him for a longer moment, staring at the door, and then she was moving closer to him.

“Go with it, okay?” she whispered, and he wouldn’t have had time to question her even if he could’ve before her lips were on his.

Once, he’d lit his father’s arresting officer’s quarters on fire.  He’d watched the flame burn on the match for too long, long enough that it burnt his fingers, long enough that he’d had to light a second one.  But those few moments of staring into the tiny flame, the few minutes after as he’d watched the fire overtake the apartment, he’d felt safer than he had in weeks, since before he’d gotten sick.

Darkness meant fear and pain and monsters, even before the Grounders.  Light, fire, that was safety.  Bad things weren’t supposed to happen in the light.

When Clarke kissed him, pushing him back against the wall and digging her fingers into his hair, it was like she was pouring light into him.  He found himself clinging to her, to the feeling that he wasn’t alone, that the darkness hadn’t stolen her away and left him alone, always alone, always in the dark.  His arms wrapped around her, the panic fading away, and he kissed her back.

It wasn’t until he heard the shocked gasp and Clarke pulled away that he realized it wasn’t dark anymore, that the person who’d opened the door had also turned on a light.

It was that chick again, Clarke’s hostage, the one Jasper had been flirting with.  Maybe Murphy should learn her name.  If he’d already seen her three times in less than a day, he was probably going to be seeing a lot more of her.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, turning away like she’d caught them doing more than just kissing.  Murphy was very tempted to make some sort of remark that would probably make this worse, but Clarke shot him a look and he just rolled his eyes instead.

“I’m sorry,” Clarke insisted, fully pulling away from him now and stepping out of the closet.  Murphy felt the urge to pull her back against him, but ignored it because that would be a stupid thing to do for so many reasons.  “Just, we’ve been fighting the Grounders for so long and it’s so hard to find somewhere private and, I mean, you know how it is.”

Clarke sounded flustered and Murphy wasn’t sure if that was part of the act or if she just really wasn’t sure if this half-baked plan was going to work.

“No, no, I get it,” hostage chick assured them, and Murphy couldn’t keep himself from laughing.  Was it really going to be this easy?  Clarke elbowed him in the ribs, and he put a lid on his laughter, turning it into a smirk instead.  The hostage chick—fuck, he was going to have to learn her name, wasn’t he?—glanced at him with a small smile.  “You’re not supposed to be here, though.  If you want to sneak off to a closet, the ones in Level 5’s D wing would probably be best.”

“Really?” Murphy couldn’t help but ask.  “D wing?  Isn’t that a little—”

“Murphy,” Clarke cut in, sending him a very unimpressed look.  He held his hands up in placation, smirk still on his face.

He managed to keep from making any more comments as they were lead back to an area they were allowed to be in.  And then they were left alone, and Clarke was tugging him off the main hall into another.

“What was that back there?” she asked, staring him down.

“Really?” he asked.  “It was too good an opening.  D wing is where you go to get the D, if you know what I’m—”

“Not that.”  Clarke rolled her eyes, her face too serious.  “In the closet.  Something was wrong.  What was it?”

Of course she didn’t want to know why he’d tried to make a dick joke.  Of course she wanted to poke at him and make him tell her everything that was wrong.

“It was nothing,” he said, shaking his head.  He didn’t want to get into this, not now, not ever.

Clarke sighed.  “Murphy—”

“It was nothing,” he insisted, pushing past her and back down the hallway.  “Drop it, okay?”

“Okay,” Clarke agreed after a moment, catching up to him.  “We’ll figure out a more solid plan tomorrow.”

Murphy rolled his eyes.  “Who said I’m actually doing this with you?”

Clarke shot him a look, one he couldn’t quite decipher, and then brushed past him into the dormitory.

He could hear Wells grilling Clarke on where she’d been as he crawled into one of the empty bunks, but he tuned them out.  There was a string of emergency lights along the edge of the roof, the light emitting form them doing just enough to stave off the blackness.  A nightlight.

Murphy snorted and closed his eyes, hoping it was enough to keep off at least the worst of the nightmares.

The only reason he was sitting with Clarke at breakfast was because she’d waved him over, enthusiastically enough that people would’ve noticed if he hadn’t come over, and he was trying to lay low.

He definitely did not want to strategize sneaking around, because that was the opposite of laying low.

Clarke and Wells were arguing about how safe Mount Weather was again, and Murphy interjected with sarcastic comments that didn’t betray his feelings on any side.  There was absolutely no strategizing going on, not with Wells there, not when so many people could overhear them.

So things were going great.  He had food.  He hadn’t woken up screaming at all the night before.  He had a new soft sweater for today and apparently he’d get to take an actual shower later in the day.  It was all great.

Until Jasper dropped down in the empty seat across from him, scowling at Clarke.

“Really?” he asked, confusion and what almost sounded like disgust dripping from his voice.  “Murphy?”

“Actually, I’m Murphy,” Murphy said, frowning at him.  “That’s Clarke.  And that’s Wells.”  Charlotte giggled a bit down the table, and he winked at her.

Jasper barely spared him a glance, still staring down Clarke.  “You’re dating Murphy?”

“What?” It came from both Clarke and Wells, who was now staring down Murphy even more intensely than Jasper was Clarke.

“Don’t even bother denying it, Clarke.”  Jasper rolled his eyes.  “Maya caught you in a closet with him.”  Shit.  Maybe he should’ve thought about Clarke’s hostage (whose name was apparently Maya) telling people.  “But seriously.  Murphy?”

The look on Jasper’s face was so incredulous that Murphy was actually offended.  Was it really that much of a stretch for him and Clarke to have been found making out in a closet?  Did Jasper not believe Maya?  What reason did she have to make it up?  Aside from the fact that, you know, Clarke had held her hostage?  Because, really, this would be a really weird way for her to try to get back at her.

But whatever.  He was offended.  Probably more than he should’ve been considering the fact that he and Clarke weren’t actually together.

But he was offended, so he did what he did second best whenever he had emotions—he was pretty sure fighting someone was not the right answer when he was trying to lay low—and smirked at Jasper.

“Yeah, Murphy,” he agreed, draping an arm over the back of Clarke’s chair.  “Clarke finally decided to get some taste.  I’m a catch.”

Clarke snorted, and Murphy wasn’t sure what she was thinking.  He was too busy revelling in the open mouthed shock on Wells and Jasper’s faces.

“Maybe I am with Murphy,” she said, which wasn’t really what he’d expected.  He’d more been expecting her to correct him, but she leaned into his arm instead, scooting her chair just a little closer.  “But I really don’t think who I make out with in closets is any of your business, Jasper.”

Murphy’s smirk grew as he watched Jasper flounder for words for a few moments, his mouth opening and closing, and then he was up, running back off to Maya or Monty or whoever he’d been hanging out with before.

Wells, however, did not leave and was instead scowling at them.

“What was Jasper talking about?” he asked, and Murphy rolled his eyes.

“I think it was pretty obvious,” he said.  “Me and Clarke were making out in a closet.  Maya found us and apparently told Jasper.  The end.”

Wells glanced over at Clarke, and Murphy felt her shrug.

“Clarke, can I talk to you alone?” he asked, pushing to his feet, and Murphy rolled his eyes.

Of course.  Wells was going to give Clarke the good old Don’t Make Out In Closets With Murphy Or He Might Infect You With Another Grounder Plague talk.  Or something like that.  He should’ve guessed.

“No,” Clarke said.  “I’m eating.  If you want to talk to me, you can talk to me here.”  She punctuated her statement by shoving a forkful of waffles into her mouth.

Wells gave Murphy a pointed look, one that was definitely meant to make him leave instead, but Murphy just raised an eyebrow, relaxing back in his chair and moving his arm from the back of Clarke’s to drape over her shoulders.

Wells sighed loudly, sitting back down.  “I think this is a terrible idea,” he said, and Murphy laughed.

“Then I guess it’s a good thing it’s not your decision,” Clarke said.

Wells groaned, glanced between the two of them.

“It’s Murphy,” he finally said.  Murphy thought they’d already established that he was, in fact, Murphy earlier in this conversation, but apparently not.

“Yeah,” Clarke agreed.  “It is.  He’s also the only person who hasn’t told me I’m completely paranoid, and, frankly, he’s a pretty great kisser.”

Murphy wasn’t completely sure where Clarke had gotten that assessment—he’d been too panicked for most of their short kiss the night before to really kiss her back that much—but he wasn’t about to refute it.

“Aww, thanks, sweetheart,” he said, turning to press a quick kiss against the side of her head.  “You’re not too bad yourself.”

Wells was blushing now, or maybe just flushed, Murphy wasn’t completely sure, but he wasn’t backing down.

“Still, Clarke,” he said, and Murphy rolled his eyes. 

What would it take to get him to just leave it alone?  It wasn’t even like he was actually dating Clarke, but this was too much.  He didn’t want to talk to Wells on the best of days, let alone when he was trying to convince someone to not make out in closets with him.  That was just hurtful.  Everyone should be allowed to make out with him in a closet whenever they wanted.

“I don’t think you’ve really thought this through,” Wells continued, and, really, he did have a point.  There was definitely no thinking going on in any of this.  “This isn’t—”

Murphy didn’t want to hear anymore, just wanted Wells to drop the subject and let him finish his breakfast in peace, so he continued the train of not thinking.

By leaning over and pressing his lips against Clarke’s.

She kissed him back immediately, a hand coming up to grip is shirt, and he dug the hand that was on the back of her chair into her hair, his other rising to cup her cheek.  Her tongue brushed his lips and he opened his mouth, letting it twine with his own, and now they were full on making out.

It was good.  It was really good.  He hadn’t been lying when he’d said she was a good kisser, and he hoped she wasn’t regretting saying the same.

Maybe it was a little longer and more intense than was generally acceptable for people making out in the middle of a dining hall.  Maybe he should’ve tried to be at least a little classy, keeping with his whole laying low plan.

But it wasn’t like Clarke didn’t seem to be just as into this as he was.  It wasn’t like she had done anything to stop anything to do with their imaginary relationship, and, really, she’d been very defensive of it.

Wait.  Was their relationship imaginary?  Clarke had only encouraged it.  She’d been the one to kiss him first, and, yeah, it’d been necessary, an excuse as to why they were hidden in a closet they shouldn’t have been in, but that didn’t mean she had to continue the charade today.

Were they dating?  Was that what the kiss had been last night?  Was that Clarke telling him she wanted to date him?  Was Clarke his girlfriend now?

Fuck, he really should’ve gotten more dating experience on the Ark.

Murphy was definitely thinking way too much for someone in the middle of making out with a hot girl, so he pushed the questions away for now, focusing back on Clarke.

When she finally pulled back, pressing their lips together in a few soft kisses before moving further into her own seat, they were both breathing heavily.  Clarke’s lips were red and swollen and it took way more effort than it should’ve to not kiss them again.

After he managed to pull his eyes off of her, he noticed two things.  The first was that Wells had finally disappeared at some point during their make out, which meant the interrogation was over, at least for now.  The second was that the rest of the delinquents were staring at them, most looking just as shocked as Jasper and Wells had.

“Finish your breakfast,” Clarke told him, elbowing him in the side.  Her voice was a little lower than normal, and he really wanted to kiss her again.  “We can go find one of those closets in D wing after to…talk.” 

Her eyes dipped to his lips again, and Murphy wondered for a moment if she really meant for that to sound like they were doing something other than talking.  But it was definitely a lot more likely that they’d be strategizing, and, fuck, he really was going to risk the illusion of safety he had to do this with her, wasn’t he?

“Sounds great, babe,” he said, and flipped off the kids that were still staring, scowling at them until their eyes darted back to their food.

“I think this is D,” Clarke said, tugging him by the hand down another hallway.

“You said that about the last hallway,” he told her, smirking even though she couldn’t see it.  “I’m starting to think you don’t know what a D looks like.  If you need me to show you…”

He trailed off and she turned back to look at him just so he could see her roll her eyes.

“You’re going to run out of jokes one day,” she promised, and Murphy really hoped they either found what they were looking for or gave up before that happened.

He didn’t say that, though, just squeezed her hand and offered her what he hoped was a sweet smile as someone passed by.

Clarke was right about them being in D wing this time, and they found an unlocked closet without much effort.  It had a light, thankfully, and Murphy pushed some cleaning supplies around as Clarke spread out her map on the floor.

The strategizing didn’t really take too much work.  They added in in pen what little information they’d discovered last night, and otherwise tried to pinpoint the most likely locations for them to find exits or sketchy behaviour.

When they’d finished, the map folded up and tucked down Clarke’s shirt, she leaned back on her hands and looked at him.

“We should keep this up,” she said, and Murphy frowned.

“I thought that’s why we made a plan?”

“Not that.”  Clarke shrugged, stretching out her legs.  “I mean, yes, that, obviously, but this.  Us.  People thinking we’re sneaking off to make out is really the best excuse we could come up with.  No one will question it.”

“I mean, I’m pretty sure people are already questioning it,” Murphy pointed out, and Clarke rolled her eyes.  “But yeah.  Sure.  I can be your fake boyfriend.”

“Great.”  Clarke grinned at him and pushed to her feet.  “We should probably get back.  We’ve been gone for, like, half an hour at least and people are probably looking for us.”

“Right,” Murphy agreed, standing up as well.  Clarke reached for the doorknob, but he blocked her path.  “But they think we’ve been making out in a closet this whole time.  We definitely don’t look like we’ve been making out in a closet.”

Clarke eyed him for a moment, and he tried not to squirm under her gaze.

“You’re right,” she agreed, stepping closer.  “We should probably fix that.”

And then she was dragging him down to kiss him, and Murphy really couldn’t say he was upset that he was solidly in this investigation now.

Murphy was the best fake boyfriend in the history of everything.

They’d made it back to the dorm and everyone had still been giving them looks, so he’d decided he was going to make all of them jealous that they weren’t fake dating him.  Give him a few days, and he’d be fighting all his admirers off with a stick.

He wrapped his arm around Clarke as they played a board game with Harper and Monty.  He brushed her hair off her face and pressed kisses against her ear, whispering the identities of Miller’s cards that he could see in a mirror like he was whispering sweet nothings.  He let her wear his sweater when she offhandedly mentioned she was getting chilly, and then pretended he wasn’t even colder when he realized he wasn’t actually wearing anything under it.  He called her sweetheart and honey and cupcake and every gooey, gross name he could think of, which she’d taken to retaliating with ones just as bad.  He pulled out her chair for her at dinner, offered to grab her dessert along with his own, leaving her with a brief kiss.

He was an amazing fake boyfriend.

He was walking back to the table, two plates of chocolate cake in his hands, when he heard them talking and paused.

“Clarke, you really need to think about it,” Wells was saying, and Murphy darted behind a pillar as he started to look back.  Someone gave him a look and he offered them a smile.

“Wells—”

“No, I’m serious.”  Wells really did sound serious.  Murphy didn’t doubt him there.  “It’s Murphy.  You know what he’s done.”

“What has he done?” she asked.  “Sure, he was a dick when we first got to the ground, but everyone was.  You were also a dick.  So was I.

“But he’s been different since he got back from the Grounders.”  Her voice dropped lower.  “And I really like him.”

Wells sighed loudly.  “Clarke—”

“No.”  She was firm, unmoving.  “We’re not having this conversation again.  I’m dating Murphy whether you like it or not.  And isn’t that what you said to do?  To relax and enjoy being somewhere safe?”

“You know this isn’t what I meant.”

“Well, it’s what I’m doing.  And if you want to keep things normal between us, you’re going to have to get used to Murphy being around.”

Murphy took that as his cue to duck out from behind the pillar, dropping back into his seat beside Clarke.

“Your cake, honeybee,” he said, setting their plates down with a flourish.

She leaned over to kiss him, and he really didn’t know how they’d managed to get so casual with their affection in less than a day.

“Thanks, pumpkin.”  He scrunched up his nose at the nickname, and she pressed another kiss to the tip.

He ate his cake, laughed and added his opinion when it was needed—and sometimes when it wasn’t—and leaned into Clarke.

He didn’t need her defending him.  He was perfectly fine on his own.

But the fact that she had actual points in defending him, actual reasons that didn’t sound like she just pulled them from her ass, it felt good.

It felt really good.

The next week and a half was honestly fantastic.  Aside from all the sneaking and the fact that they were risking literally everything for something that might be all in their heads, everything was fantastic.

After a few days, people barely batted an eye at him and Clarke together.  Even Wells had grudgingly accepted them after a week or so.  Not without vague threats of what he’d do to Murphy if he hurt Clarke, but that was expected.

They snuck off to “make out” a few times a day, to either wolf whistles or rolled eyes, depending on who noticed.  Clarke’s map was full of carefully scribbled information, details of everywhere they’d been.

And they’d been practically everywhere.

They’d found a few exits, but decided against leaving right away.  Knowing an escape route was good enough for now.  They found a room full of paintings and another of sculptures.  They found a pool and farms and kitchens.

They found so many things.

None of which were incriminating.

But they kept sneaking off.

Murphy realized he might like Clarke as more than just his fake girlfriend on the fourth night.  He’d accidentally fallen asleep before their nightly sneak out, falling right into a nightmare.  Clarke had woken him up, her fingers gently brushing over his face.

He’d told himself at the time that it was the adrenaline from the nightmare that made him kiss her, soft and slow, with no real reason when everyone around them was either asleep or too far away to see them in the darkness of the dormitory.  He’d told himself it wasn’t feelings, because John Murphy didn’t feel things, but he’d known even then that he was lying to himself.

He told her it was just in case someone was still awake, and then let her tug him out into the hall.

It was the sixth day, six days of sneaking around, that they go into a closet for the first time with no other intention than to just make out.  Murphy was pretty sure making out for no real reason isn’t something you were supposed to do when you’re only fake dating, but it wasn’t like he was complaining.  He liked kissing Clarke.  He liked being with her.  He liked her.

The rest of Mount Weather was a mixed bag.  The beds were great.  The food was phenomenal.  The showers were to die for.

But there were still a lot of people in Mount Weather that he didn’t know or trust, and who all seemed a little bit off, like there was something they hadn’t told them.  They suddenly had a lot of adults around, ones that thought they knew better than a bunch of teenagers who’d fallen from the sky.  The lights were too bright.  He hadn’t had artificial light since the Ark, but even that wasn’t this bright.  It hurt his head and made creepy shadows on people’s faces.

It wasn’t as bad as the dark, but it was up there.

And everything just had a general sense of shadiness, but they couldn’t figure out why.

Murphy was starting to think that maybe everyone else was right, that maybe they were just paranoid.

When it happened, they weren’t even sneaking around.

They’d left for the games room, because apparently not fighting for your life meant you got to do things like play board games, and were meeting some of the rest of the 100 there.  Or 48, as they were now.

They were in a hallway, hands clasped together and swinging gently between them, when it happened.

First, the alarms went off, a loud ringing.

Next was the alert:

“Containment breech!  Containment breech!”

Just as loud as the alarm.

Then the airlock doors shut, slamming down from the roof into the floor, and Murphy realized that he and Clarke were caught between two, stuck in a space so small that the doors were blocking the nearest alarms in both directions.

And then the lights went out.

Here there were no emergency lights, no strips along the roof to keep the darkness at bay.  There was nothing, nothing but infinite darkness stretching out in all directions.  He didn’t know where the walls were supposed to be.  He didn’t know where anything was supposed to be.  The only real thing was Clarke’s hand, tightly clenched in his.

He couldn’t breathe.  He hadn’t had panic attacks before he’d been sent to the Ground.

He’d gone hunting.  There’d been acid fog, and he’d gotten separated from his hunting group.  That was when the Grounders grabbed him.

He couldn’t breathe.  He couldn’t breathe.

“Murphy.”

His eyes snapped in the direction of Clarke’s voice, like he’d suddenly be able to see her through the darkness.  Something touched his face, and he jumped.

“Shh,” Clarke whispered, her voice closer.  “It’s just me.”  He didn’t jump when she touched him that time, only flinched a little, and then she was cupping his cheek.  “You’re okay.  Breathe.”

Somehow, her voice was enough to get him breathing again.  When she was satisfied, she tugged him to the ground, scooted them back towards a wall, and pulled him against her.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked, voice quiet as her fingers dragged through his hair.  “Or do you want me to talk about something else?”

He didn’t want to talk about it, not really.  He never wanted to even think about it, let alone talk.

But this was Clarke, and she made him feel safe, even without the light.

“They kept me in the dark,” he whispered, squeezing his eyes closed like he could pretend that was the only reason there was no light.  Clarke’s hands brushed over his face and he tried to concentrate on that, on the feeling of her wrapped around him.  “The Grounders.  They put me in this—this room, I guess, or a pit maybe, and there was no light.  It was—I don’t know.  It was terrifying.  The shadows moved, Clarke.  I couldn’t tell what was my imagination and what was real.

“And they’d torture me.  They blindfolded me, sometimes, or they’d just leave me in the dark.  I had no idea how long I was there or how long they left me alone before coming back to torture me some more.”

He broke off, and Clarke kept stroking his cheek, leaning closer and pressing their foreheads together.

“You’re okay,” she told him.  “You’re okay.  You got out.  You’re not there anymore.  The lights are gonna come back on, and we’re gonna be okay.”

She kept whispering to him until the lights came back on, however many hours or minutes it took.  He blinked at the sudden return of light, pulling himself up so he wasn’t half laying on the floor.  The airlock doors were still there, they were still stuck, but the darkness was gone, and just that was enough to lift the weight off his chest, to let him breathe properly for the first time since this’d started.

Clarke was looking at him, watching him like she wanted to make sure he really was okay.  His hand shook as he raised it, and she leaned into his palm when he cupped her cheek.

When he kissed her, it was the same way he had when she’d woken him from his nightmare a few nights ago.  Soft, slow, like they had all the time in the world, but this was still the only thing he wanted to be doing.

He pulled back, rested their foreheads together.

“I don’t want this to be fake anymore.”

Clarke laughed, soft and light and breathy.

“Good,” she whispered.  “Me neither.”

And then she kissed him again, and Murphy forgot all about the darkness they’d just been trapped in.

Dating Clarke for real wasn’t all that different from fake dating her.  Nothing changed, really, but at the same time everything did.

They still did all the same things, but he no longer had to have an excuse to kiss her.  And he may have dialed back on some of the more extreme good-boyfriend things he was doing.  He may have been overdoing the whole perfect boyfriend act.

But it was great.

They were still sneaking around, but most of their closet rendezvous were actual rendezvous and not just stake outs.  They were running out of places to look.

They’d tried getting into the president’s office once, but had almost gotten caught.  Murphy had managed to convince Clarke that whatever was in there was not worth the punishment of fucking treason.

They’d gotten into the guards’ room once, just long enough to figure out that they’d need a lot more time in there without people barging in to actually be able to find anything.

There were a few other doors they couldn’t open, no matter how hard they tried.

And then there was the clinic.

They’d been there a few times, to get stitches taken out and bandages changed, but they’d never been left alone long enough to snoop.  That along with the weird ass treatment people got for radiation contamination were suspicious enough that they wanted to take one last look.

“Just this,” Clarke had bargained the night before, arms wrapped around his neck.  “We get a good look around the clinic, and then that’s it.  If we were gonna find anything, we’d have found it by now.”

“Are you sure you can just stop?” he’d asked, because he knew Clarke and he knew there was no way she’d just let this go.

She’d shrugged, said something about how there wasn’t much more they could actually do, that she could manage to push it to a lesser priority until they figured out a better way to go about this that might actually get them somewhere.

He’d agreed to trying the clinic again, and they’d come up with a plan.

After breakfast, he followed Clarke towards their target, Dr. Smith.  They’d chosen him over Tsing because Tsing was extra shady and already seemed suspicious of them.

Smith, though, thought they were a very lovely couple and always offered them candy after their failed attempts at snooping through the clinic, so he was perfect.

“Clarke, John,” he greeted, standing up from his own table as they approached him.  “What can I do for you?”

Murphy concentrated on his face, the only part of him that was really part of this plan, and hoped he looked nervous enough.

“I need to make an appointment with you,” Clarke hedged, squeezing his hand.  Her face definitely looked nervous enough.  If they didn’t find anything, maybe he’d convince her to go into the acting troupe everyone was trying to recruit them for.

Smith’s face fell, and he glanced between them.  “Of course,” he said.  “What seems to be the issue?”

Clarke glanced at him, and he nodded.

“I think I might be pregnant.”

She wasn’t.  There was no way Clarke could be pregnant.  They hadn’t gotten that far yet.

But there was still a swoop of nerves in his stomach as she said the words, like maybe kissing was the new way of getting someone pregnant and no one had told them.

Clarke was still talking, rambling about missing a period and other vague symptoms that could be pregnancy or could be any number of other things, and he squeezed her hand again.

“Babe,” he interrupted, offering her a tight smile, the smile of someone who thought they might be becoming a dad way too young.  “I think he gets it.”

Dr. Smith had gotten it, said he had an opening for that afternoon and asked them to come down to the clinic.

The actual appointment itself was brief.  Clarke peed in a cup and they took a bit of her blood.  Then Dr. Smith disappeared, asked them to wait for him to come back with the results.

And then they were alone.

For the first time in two weeks, they were completely alone in the clinic.

They didn’t waste any time.  Clarke investigated the treatment tubes on the walls while Murphy tried cupboard doors and filing cabinets, looking for anything unlocked.

“Murphy.”

He turned at Clarke’s voice, watched her stare at a wall.

“I think they lead to behind this door,” she said, and he crossed the room to stand behind her.

Well, at least that’d be one mystery out of the way.  They could figure out what the fuck was behind the radiation treatments.

“After you,” he said, twisting the knob and pushing the door open.

He froze the moment he stepped in behind her, eyes widening as he stared.

There were people.  Some were hanging upside down, tubes and needles stuck in their skin.  The rest were stuck in endless rows of cages, rattling the bars and staring back at them.

“What the fuck.”

Clarke started moving towards the cages, and Murphy found himself looking for keys, bolt cutters, anything useful.  They didn’t have much time—he didn’t know how long it took to do a test on some pee and some blood, but it probably wasn’t that long—but he didn’t need to ask Clarke to know there was no fucking way they were going back into the bunker.

“Clarke kom Skaikru,” he heard, just as he spotted a ring with a key that he hoped would work.  “You joined the Mountain.”

He hurried over to Clarke, who was staring at the person in the cage who’d spoken.

“Anya,” she said, and it took Murphy a few moments to place the woman as the Grounder that’d made it into the dropship with them.  “What is this?”

Anya just spat at them, and Murphy was trying to convince himself that leaving these people here, these Grounders, wasn’t the best way to get revenge on the few that’d locked him up.

“I found a key,” he said instead, holding it out to Clarke.  She could make the decision.

She took the key, stuck it into the lock on Anya’s cage, and the decision was made.

“We’re getting out of here,” she declared, starting on the next lock as soon as she’d gotten that one open.  Murphy tugged the lock off the cage, dropping it to the ground and pulling open the door.  Anya glared at him as she pulled herself out.

“So you’re the missing Skaikru princess,” a Grounder man said, unfolding himself as he pushed out of his cage.  “Your people have been searching for you.”

Clarke froze, her hand stopping before opening the next lock.  “My people?” she whispered.  “There are more Skaikru alive out there?”

Anya scoffed, snatched the key from her and started on the next lock.  “Apparently a whole shipload of your people came down,” she said.  “They’re attacking our villages looking for all of you.”

They had six cages open, six Grounders clothed only in bandages gathered around them, when he heard a sound from the clinic.

“Clarke?  John?  Where did you—?”

“Fuck,” he whispered, grabbing Clarke’s arm.  “We have to go.”

She nodded, let him pull her further from the cages.

“What are you doing?” she called, and he glanced over his shoulder at the Grounders, who all looked like they were gearing up for a fight.

“I am not leaving my people,” Anya said, and Murphy rolled his eyes.

“There’s not enough of you to fight them,” he pointed out, still pulling Clarke away.  He didn’t know where the closest exit was.  He didn’t know how they were going to get out of this.

“We’ll come back,” Clarke promised, digging in her heels and halting their progress.  “Our people are in here, too.  We’ll come back with an army, and we’ll rescue them all.”

Murphy shifted, knowing they were out of time, and tried to think of something to make them move, or at least Clarke.  He could leave the Grounders, but there was no fucking way he could leave her.

“You shouldn’t be in here.”

His gaze snapped to the door, the one they’d stupidly left open, the one where Dr. Smith was now standing.

“We need to go,” Murphy insisted, tugging at Clarke again.

The Grounders moved then.  One came at Dr. Smith with the key, jabbing it into his neck.  The rest rushed past Clarke and Murphy, and the ones in the cages screamed.

“There’s a chute,” Anya said as they followed.  “It’s where they send the bodies.

It was a rush after that.  Through the dead body chute into the dead body cart that had a few already in it.  There were clothes, too, under the chute, Grounder clothes, and they stopped just long enough to throw some on over what they were already wearing.

Then it was a rush through halls, the sounds of guards’ footsteps catching up.

And then they went over a waterfall, and they were free.

It was a while still before they stopped for the night, the sun hanging low in the sky.  Some of the Grounders had already left, split off to head towards their own homes, to see their loved ones and bring news of a truce with Anya’s people and possibly Skaikru to take on the Mountain.

It was just four of them left.  Himself and Clarke, and Anya and a girl about their age named Gaia.

Anya forbade a fire, they were still too close to the Mountain, so he tucked himself up against Clarke.

They were on a cliff.  It overlooked forest, part of which was where the Ark had landed, according to Gaia.  She’d only been in the Mountain a few days, had watched it fall.

“Are you okay?” he asked, because she’d been quiet on their trek and because it felt like something a good boyfriend would ask.

“Yeah,” she said, leaning heavier against him.  “Yeah, I’m good.  I’m just—do you think anyone else made it?  Mount Weather lied about the Ark.  Do you think any of our people survived?”

He knew who she was talking about, Bellamy and Raven and Finn.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, because he didn’t.  He didn’t know how close they were to the dropship when they had their BBQ.  He didn’t know whether they made it or not.  “Maybe.”

Clarke nodded against him, and they watched the sunset for a bit, the sky exploding in pinks and oranges, bright, happy colours between the light and the dark.

“What do you they told them?” he asked.  “The others.  We just disappeared, and I doubt they’re telling them the truth.”

Clarke shrugged, grabbed his hand in hers.  “I don’t know,” she said.  “Whatever it is, Wells won’t believe it.  He won’t believe we just left or got ourselves arrested or whatever they tell them, not without proof.  They’ll be okay.  He’ll make sure they’re okay, and maybe they’ll figure it out, too.  Maybe we can fight this battle from the inside and the outside.”

Murphy wasn’t sure about that.  Sure, Wells probably wouldn’t just let Clarke disappear without a thorough investigation, but he probably wouldn’t start a revolution.

He didn’t say any of that, though, just wrapped himself further around Clarke and stared out at the trees and the blackening sky.

“It’s getting dark,” Clarke said, her head on his shoulder and her hand playing with his.  “Are you gonna be okay?”

He watched the sun dip lower, the bright colours giving away to darkness dotted with stars as evening turned to night.  He could feel the panic starting, deep in his chest, telling him to find something to stave off the coming darkness before it was too late.

But then he turned his gaze to Clarke, tucked up against him, and the panic settled a little.  It didn’t completely disappear, but it wasn’t as all consuming as it had been for so long.

“Yeah,” he decided, pressing a kiss against the side of her head.  “Who needs the light when I’ve got you?”

She turned, smiling softly at him, and tugged him down for a kiss.

He didn’t know who’d survived the BBQ.  He didn’t know who was waiting for them at the fallen Ark.  He didn’t know if this team up with the Grounders would work out, if they could get the rest of their people back from Mount Weather.

But he had Clarke, and that made him think that maybe, just this once, everything would turn out okay.