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Her mother releases Clarke from the cell where she has spent the night. Her arms are cramped from having them bound over her head but she won’t let them know. She has to think hard about what it means to move naturally. Or rather, she has to think about how to walk so that she projects confidence and control. Abbey had tried to put her in the earth-bound-Ark’s version of med bay, but Clarke had refused. The walls around her feel tight and their sterility is…disconcerting.
Clarke storms into the sunlight. White light crashes into her and she freezes, but it’s too late. She is completely exposed. All the trees have been cut down inside the camp and the earth is barren under her feet. She wants to run. Her entire body is tensing to spring forward.
“I can’t go back,” a voice that isn’t her own hisses. Her whole body is shivering but she feels like her blood is boiling. She can hear her heart pound and then she can’t hear anything. Part of her, the part that is always calm and reasonable and which currently feels disconnected from her own body, tells her that these symptoms mean she is about to faint.
A hand lands on her shoulder and she whirls around, her fingers reaching for the knife they took from her.
His face is a nightmare – one big red welt from his forehead to his chin, a mess of blood and dirt. It is the most wonderful thing she has ever seen.
“Bellamy.” She collapses into him and lets him support her weight. It’s not actually a choice, but even if her knees hadn’t given out she thinks it’s okay because it’s Bellamy. The white static that had been obscuring her vision disappears and she swallows away the bitter taste of adrenaline as he holds her tight. His breath is warm on her neck.
He’s alive. He’s alive. The skull she had grabbed and slammed into Anya’s face hadn’t been his.
As he gently pushes her back to her feet, everything about the last week, everything she hadn’t been able to process rebuilds itself in her mind. The feelings that had tried to overwhelm her recede and that calm part of her that had felt so far away is now firmly in control. Everything that she’s learned, everything she’s experienced, has been sorted, cataloged and stripped of emotion.
1) The Ark has landed
- The Ark’s leaders don’t understand the situation on the ground and are making things worse
2) Her people are being held in a fortress underground which is
- Protected by skilled soldiers
- Who are armed with guns, nerve gas, and other advanced technology
- And are in league with Reapers
3) Her people are
- Ignorant of the danger they are in
- Leaderless
4) An alliance with the Grounders is necessary but
- Anya has been killed by the Ark
- She is responsible for torching 300 Grounders
- The Grounders already see them as threat after the accidental burning of one of their villages
5) Things they still have going for them
- Clarke’s knowledge of Mt. Weather’s layout
- Bellamy Blake
“I’m so glad you’re alive,” says Clarke. “We need to save our people.”
Bellamy laughs, but it isn’t an amused laugh. She knows the difference. (A fact she adds to the growing list of things she doesn’t know what to do with yet.) It’s his appreciative laugh and it steadies her even more than the hug. For the first time in forever she’s not alone.
“I’m glad you’re alive, too,” he says. “We need someone to get us out of this mess.”
She frowns.
“Tell me.”
“Right back at you, Princess.” She feels her lips twitch into a smile.
“Are we having a council of war?” asks a familiar voice. Startled and so, so relieved Clarke turns to see not only Raven Reyes, but Octavia Blake. Raven is standing awkwardly, a large ugly brace on her leg. Octavia’s beautiful hair that used to fall like a curtain down her back is braded back harshly from her face and her mischievous eyes are dark and somber.
They hug her. Seeing Raven limp forward almost undoes Clarke again, but she knows better than to let Raven see pity in her eyes.
“Is it still a council of war if we need to plan a peace negotiation?” asks Clarke.
Bellamy grunts. “You bet it is.”
The “council of war” takes place in engineering. Clarke can’t risk Abbey walking in, and Raven has posted some man named Wick outside as a guard. Clarke is unsure of him, but options within the crowded camp are limited and she hasn’t gotten a good feel for the politics at play yet. Someone unconnected to her mother and who has displayed very public contempt for the woman who got Anya killed is as good as Clarke is going to get.
Bellamy, Octavia and Raven bring her up to speed. To her earlier list she has to add:
1) Finn’s murder of the Grounder
2) The Ark’s capture of a Grounder
3) Kane (of all people) leading a peace mission
4) Lincoln’s capture by the Reapers, and likely his death
5) Murphy is armed
That last one brings what had been a very productive meeting to a screeching halt.
“Of all the irresponsible idiotic decisions,” snaps Clarke.
“I couldn’t stop Finn and I couldn’t leave them defenseless.”
Octavia throws her hands up in the air and pushes back from the table. “He tried to hang you Bell!”
“He could have let me fall off the cliff but he didn’t,” says Bellamy. “And we need all the allies we can get.”
Octavia crosses her arms and leans back. He shoulder touches Clarke’s, forming a wall of disapproval.
“I know he’s a psycho,” says Raven of all people, “but I also don’t’ think he’d do anything that isn’t in his self interest. And he knows that we are more likely to forgive his crimes than either the Grounders or the Ark. After all, you forgave him before.”
Clarke winces. Another stupid call she’d made. And now Bellamy had done it again. Who would he kill this time? What irreparable damage would he do to their relationship with the Grounders? Finn and Murphy were at least a day ahead of them. And if what Bellamy said was true, it could be two days.
Clarke slams her fist onto the table. Pain sears her hand and she stares at her fist in horror. The feeling of wanting to hit something is drowning her. Anya’s face is in front of her. She sees the blood on Anya’s teeth. She sees the blood bubbling from the Grounders throat as she held her hand to his lips so he wouldn’t scream. Clarke is staring at her bloody hands and she’s terrified. As if in another world, she hears Octavia yelling.
“He tried to hang you and shot Raven!”
Bellamy’s hand is on hers and he’s turning her fist over to check her knuckles and see if she’s hurt herself. The blood she saw wasn’t completely imagined. The scabs on her knuckles have come off and her fingers are bleeding.
“O, get me something to wrap this,” Bellamy commands, stopping Octavia mid sentence.
“There’s gauze in the drawer,” says Raven. “Lots of accidents here.” Octavia retrieves the white roll and Clarke moves to take it from her, but Bellamy tightens his grip on her hands so that she has to sit back down.
He takes the gauze and wraps each knuckle individually, then binds her whole hand, leaving only her fingertips exposed. His focus is entirely on the task at hand. Clarke feels pinned down so that she doesn’t even protest when he takes her other hand, which is equally battered and wraps it the same way. His grip is firm and she can feel the calluses on his fingers from gripping the rope that suspended him over the side of the cliff.
Clarke stares at his hands, using them as a focus point so that she can push all the terrible images from a moment ago out and away. How would she draw his hands? Charcoal, she decides. Drawn roughly, with dark shadows and smudges so that they would seem to be in motion.
“We go after them,” says Bellamy. “ We need to get to them before they do something stupid. Finn’s desperate to save you.”
Clarke’s eyes flick over to Raven. Her expression is unreadable. “He wants to save all of us,” corrects Clarke.
“No.” Bellamy’s voice is firm. “You didn’t see him. After Raven’s surgery he’s been different. And not in a good way. I get it. I could hear from my cell, and I wasn’t even in the room. “
Raven is biting her lip and staring at her leg. But when she realizes all eyes are on her she smiles and rolls her eyes.
“Nothing to it. Just your run of the mill bullet-out-of-spine surgery. No need to get all bent out of shape.”
Octavia throws her arms around Raven and hugs her tight so that Raven groans. “Bullet out of spine surgery was a week ago!”
Octavia chuckles and pulls back. Clarke smiles relieved that the sweet impulsive girl she’d come to like is still there somewhere.
“If we need peace with the Grounders,” continues Bellamy, “we need to get to Finn and Murphy. We need to crash Kane’s peace negotiation. Octavia knows more about Grounder culture than anyone else. You know about Mount Weather. We need to get the two of you there as soon as possible. Which means leaving tonight. “
“You’re not going anywhere,” says Abbey.
Standing at the door is Clarke’s mother looking angrier than Clarke has ever seen her in her life. Wick has his arms tied behind his back and a gun pointed at his head.
Clarke looks at Bellamy. He nods. She turns back to Abbey.
“You have no authority to restrict the movement of anyone in this room.”
Abbey’s eyes go wide and her mouth tightens.
“I’m acting Chancellor.”
“And Clarke is the leader of the 100,” says Bellamy.
Clarke’s brow furrows. Co-leader. But before she can correct him, Bellamy lays the side of his hand along his temple.
“Ave Caesar.”