Chapter Text
"Prisoner three-zero-two, get up and turn against the wall."
On the floor of this prisoner's cell, was a body, struggling against the confounds of his singular, thin blanket. "Hold on a second," Is called from a pair of lips hanging upside down, hands reaching towards his feet to untangle the mess of a rude awakening. His back aches when he successfully pulls his foot out and rolls onto his stomach to analyse the guards standing by his door, the smile dropping with the sudden recollection of what they were asking.
"Look, I think there's been a misunderstanding. I know it's my birthday," Ethan Beckett steadies himself with a hand against the wall, eyes darting towards the exit. "But don't celebrate too early, I'm not eighteen."
The blue-eyed, stubbled guard with a tag that reads "Michael" rests a hand purposefully against his belt, fingers grazing the stun baton as a warning. Ethan's gone many rounds - verbal or not - with this guy, and quite frankly, he hates how powerful the guard thinks he is.
Ethan follows the movement, "Threatening me with a good time, Michael?"
With a disgusted scowl, he gestures towards the wall. "Ethan Beckett, face the wall and hold out your right arm."
Ethan pulls a face. Okay, touche. Swallowing harshly against a dry throat, Ethan moves a step to the right, just enough to see past the Guard's head and into the Skybox.
He wasn't the only one getting moved?
Rows upon rows of cells were open, kids he'd never seen before being led out by what seemed to be the entire royal guard if they had one. His breath gets caught in his throat when Michael grabs him, and without time to maneuver away, Ethan is forced to twist and obey, face pressed against a cold wall where the second guard could clamp something heavy over his wrist.
They were being let go? No. Too risky, too harmful for the Ark, not enough rations.
Then the alternative...
Each and every one of them being floated.
Ethan struggles against the hands touching unnecessary places, and digs his shoes into the floor. "Are you guys throwing me a massive party?" He throws his head back but misses completely.
He's led out the door with feet that refuse to gain rhythm and guards too impatient to care about his feelings. Why would they? They've got it good.
Five doors down, he sees a mother holding tightly onto her daughter, the younger of the two sobbing uncontrollably in her arms. He almost wants to join them. This isn't fair, he repeats like a mantra in his head.
He's closer now, enough to hear them talk, but there's a palm around the nape of his neck, preventing any attempt at pulling away to join them. The rehearsed press of fingers on the area brings forth an unwanted feeling of weakness, and something else, a memory. He shoves it back down.
"You're being sent to the ground!" The mother says, tightening her hold on the girl's shoulders. "All one hundred of you!"
"Earth?" Ethan yanks against constricting arms, eyes as wide as saucers. Defences raise like walls, "So we're getting floated with the added chance of radiation while you guys bond about this being for the greater good?"
Fingers dig harshly into the skin underneath his hairline. He knows he's right, winces a "float you" at the guard named Michael. The eye contact he makes with the mother, Abby Griffin, is too short that he can't see the expression twist on her face.
The moment is gone and he's pulled around the corner all too soon.
When they force a hundred prisoners onto a ship aging the same number, Ethan's quickly overwhelmed. He hadn't realised there were that many teenage delinquents waiting for judgement day. The stupid piece of junk metal attached to his wrist serves as a reminder that they were nothing but pawns to the Chancellor.
"See if the Earth is survivable," they said. "Let's go check ourselves," they did not.
The hundred of them are test subjects. Simple.
"Prisoner's of the Ark,"
Ethan's groans loudly, the sentiment echoing from person to person when the Chancellor - must have known he was getting shit talked - pops up on every single screen in the vicinity. Clearly an unwanted sight in the face of their possible death.
"You've been given a second chance. And as your Chancellor, it is my hope that you see this as not just a chance for you... but as a chance for all of us. Indeed, for mankind itself. We have no idea what is waiting for you down there. If the odds of survival were better, we would've sent others."
Ethan scoffs, "Wow, that's reassuring."
"Frankly, we're sending you because your crimes have made you expendable."
Biting the inside of his cheek, Ethan finally drops his eyes to watch the screen.
"Your dad's a dick, Wells!"
Agreement swiftly follows the kid calling out across the room.
Unaware of the eyes shooting daggers his way, the Chancellor continues by mentioning a place called Mount Weather, supposedly stocked up with the items they'd need to survive.
If it was still there.
Ethan's quickly captivated by the boy floating past his face, unbuckled and making use of the zero-gravity they were subjected to. Around him are people calling out "Yeah, Spacewalker!" and he's not one to turn down the first instance of laughter, so he cheers loudly along with the girl sitting beside him.
Jaha says two last words, "Stay alive."
And then the ship is jerking harshly to the left, throwing the two boys following Finn's example across the room into the opposite wall. Ethan hears something snap and it echoes in his ears like an alarm, screaming danger, danger, danger to his senses.
He curses, doesn't see where the spacewalker ends up because of the sparks raining down like sprinklers on his isle. He covers his head, ducking low until "Shit-!" he slams his head into the brunette's beside him, collectively swearing at the pain.
The ship lands. Voices fade. And absolute silence swamps them like a blanket.
"No engine hum." Monty Green says, grasping tightly onto his seatbelt. His friend, Jasper, smiles widely, "That's a first."
Ethan shares an excited grin with the girl he'd hit heads with, laughing in the face of the impossible. Seatbelts unclick and people are racing from their seats to the lower level. He moves to follow, swiping strands of hair out of his face, but stops dead five paces out.
Finn's crouching aimlessly over two unmoving bodies in front of him.
"Finn, is he breathing?" Clarke, the doctor's daughter, is searching for a pulse on the second body. Her face drops, and she slowly pulls away.
Finn isn't answering, his eyes unblinking with guilt.
Ethan lowers into a crouch, reaching past the hovering hand to feel around a still-warm neck. There's nothing. He's not breathing, and there's no pulse. His hand is shaking as he pulls away, and shakes his head in answer.
"The other door's on the lower level, let's go!"
She shoots up quickly, moving away to protest. "No, we can't just open the doors!"
Ethan slaps a hand against Finn's arm, halting the panic he's no doubt drowning in before standing up himself, detaching his eyes from the unmoving bodies to follow the chaos happening downstairs.
He rushes down the ladder, slipping along the wall to find himself near the front, just in time for an older brunette - looking awfully similar to the girl Ethan was sitting with - to reach for the handle. The anticipation he feels is something he hasn't felt in a while.
They'll see Earth.
They'll see everything.
In the flesh.
Ethan holds his breath. With a swoosh, the hatch unlocks. The door falls open.
The sunlight shines inside, blinding them for a moment. Ethan blinks rapidly, craving the scenery. And it's -
It's everything he ever imagined. More than that.
Light cascades in lines through various shades of green, bark reaching high and wide and stretching, reaching for more. The dirt looks incredibly soft like he could dig his shoes deep down and continue digging and the air - oh, the air. The breeze pushing through his hair more than any air-con on the Ark could. It smells like how he imagined the Earth would, despite never having been around it - like life.
Octavia takes a step forward, reaching a boot out past the dropship. She lands with a satisfying thud and an excited gasp.
Ethan bounces on his feet, buzzing from head to toe.
Then, within this moment and the next, Octavia throws her fists into the air and yells with all her might.
"We're back, bitches!"
Ethan releases a laugh he can't control, something that jumps out of him, pulls wide a grin that could tear off his cheeks. Altogether, they rush down from the metal, down onto Earth. Pushing and shoving each other joyfully.
This is the most exciting moment in their lives. It's everything they dreamed of, and everything they didn't believe could happen.
He jumps onto the dirt, just to hear the soft thud of his boots against it, before bolting through shrubbery and around trees and reaching out to brush his hands against the softness of fresh leaves, all green, green, green.
Ethan feels something bubbling up inside him when he stares at the endless blue blanketing the Earth. It's excitement, so much so that he can feel his eyes well up with tears.
"Yeah!" He yells until his voice goes hoarse, throwing both fists into the air and dissolving into laughter when he knocks shoulders with Murphy, Monty, Jasper - people he never knew before and they're just as boisterous as he is, high off of the excitement, the freedom, the Earth.
He spins in a circle, basking in the glow. He clutches at handfuls of dirt. He hooks elbows with strangers to jump and dance in circles.
There's no rhyme or reason to anything they're doing, just varying degrees of chaos.
This is how things should be.