Chapter Text
“This is a terrible plan.”
Major Byrne threw a sideways look at Kane, but decided not to reply. The words had been said under his breath, and not for the first time since they had taken up position in the tree-line, and she wasn’t sure he even realised he was saying it out loud anymore. He was positioned a few feet to her right, peering intently down the scope of his gun.
“I’m sure she knows what she’s doing, sir,” said Miller, who was crouched a little way to her left, holding his gun steady.
“No, she’s just very good at making people think she knows what she’s doing,” said Kane. “There’s a difference.”
Byrne made a non-committal noise. She was a soldier, and her job was to follow orders. The wisdom of letting their Chancellor, not to mention one of the few competent doctors they had, go alone and unarmed to meet a hostile enemy leader, was not Byrne’s to question. Although she had. Several times.
Still, what was done was done, and there could be no changing of plans now. Chancellor Griffin stood some hundred yards away in the middle of an open field, facing the trees from which they knew Indra would emerge. Or at least...they hoped Indra would emerge. With grounders, who knew? Instead of peace talks their Chancellor could just as easily be greeted with a spear through the chest, or with nothing at all. Kane, who had at least spent some time with Indra, considered her to be a woman of her word, but even he had admitted she was dangerous. If things went badly, the unarmed and untrained Abby Griffin wouldn’t stand much of a chance, even with the three of them covertly watching the proceedings from the tree-line.
Three people and three guns was all they could spare, and Byrne wasn’t happy even about that. It wouldn’t be enough to help anything if the grounders did decide to attack in force, and it meant that both Kane and Chancellor Griffin were away from camp at the same time. Although...if this meeting didn’t work then the grounders would attack eventually anyway, and they’d all be killed sooner or later, regardless of who was in charge. So perhaps it didn’t matter.
But that kind of thinking wasn’t helpful. The truth of the matter was that their little team had taken up position mainly in order to give Chancellor Griffin some feeling of safety, even if they would be too far away to offer any realistic help beyond bullets that might just as easily hit her as the enemy. Byrne was beginning to think that in actual fact their presence was more to ease Kane’s mind than Chancellor Griffin’s, since the latter had appeared quite calm and resolved as she walked out into the open, whereas Kane...
Well, he was Byrne’s commanding officer, and she would be remiss in her duty if she hadn’t notice he was as tense as a new recruit, fingers gripping his gun tightly, his face white.
“I don’t know how she got me to agree to this,” muttered Kane, this time almost inaudibly.
Byrne knew full well how the Chancellor had gotten him – and by extension, the rest of them – to agree to this, but decided to keep her mouth firmly shut. If she had chosen to speak her mind, her response probably would’ve been:
Guilt, sir, in a word. Her guilt and yours. That’s why we all agreed to this.
They were in this situation because the boy Finn had massacred a grounder village with a gun that Abby Griffin had given him. Oh no-one said it aloud, but they all knew it, and Chancellor Griffin knew it too. Why else would she have pardoned the kid so easily? Why else would she be fighting so hard now not to have to give him up? Chancellor Griffin was no fool, and she knew the value of sacrifice – hadn’t she been willing to send her own daughter to the ground on the slim hope that it could save their people? Her stubborn refusal now to sacrifice the life of one young man to save them all...that could only be guilt for her role in this mess.
Kane’s guilt was the more personal kind, the kind that had nothing to do with anything rational or relevant to the situation at hand, and everything to do with the look on his face when he’d agreed to have Abby Griffin shock-lashed for her stunt with the guns. The guilt that made him reluctant to openly go up against his Chancellor now, whatever the provocation.
“She’s not just my friend”, was what he’d said, and although Byrne knew that could have any number of meanings, Kane’s reticence in punishing Abby for her crime at all spoke volumes. Byrne knew Kane – or she thought she had – and he had something of a reputation for strict adherence to the law and a refusal to compromise or make exceptions. He believed that sort of thing would inevitably lead to favouritism, corruption of the justice system. It was something she’d always admired in him, and it had been disconcerting to see him so conflicted about a fairly straightforward example of crime and punishment. A clear example that anyone could see needed to be made.
He had done it in the end, of course. He had ordered Abby Griffin’s ten lashes, and he had stood there and watched as it was done, and he had looked as though he were about to be sick the entire time.
And then he had left.
Byrne knew full well that Commander Kane would have been a lot more hesitant about going on the mission to make peace with the Grounders if it hadn’t been for the shock-lashing incident. She wondered in her more cynical moments whether he hadn’t in fact left the camp just so he wouldn’t have to look Abby Griffin in the eye for a while.
Regardless, the mission had failed in every practical sense. They were on the brink of war with the grounders. But Commander Kane had at least returned safely and, somewhat to Byrne’s surprise, had apparently made no attempt to take back the Chancellor’s pin. So Abby Griffin was now Chancellor Griffin, and with Kane’s backing it looked set to stay that way. Byrne may not have liked the woman’s attitude, but at least the former Councillor knew how to get things done, and you had to respect someone who could not only take ten lashes and still be on her feet the next day, but who was also able to calmly issue orders to the person who had doled out the punishment without any hint of resentment.
“Movement,” hissed Miller on her left, and the group tensed.
Through her scope, Byrne watched a figure that could only be Indra emerge from the trees on the opposite side of the field and stride forward, flanked by two warriors. All three grounders were armoured and visibly armed. A show of strength. They had half expected this, but it didn’t make it any easier to see – Chancellor Griffin was a woman who always seemed to take up a lot of space in any room by sheer force of personality, but now she looked very small, standing out there alone facing the approaching trio.
Chancellor Griffin stepped forwards. Indra did the same. Byrne could see them exchanging a few words, though they were of course far too far away to hear anything. And then, almost too quickly to believe, there was a sudden, violent whirl of movement, and Indra had a knife to Chancellor Griffin’s throat.
“Shit,” hissed Byrne, without thinking. Not the most professional response.
“Can you get a sight on her?” said Kane, in a tone of extremely forced calm.
“I...no,” said Byrne. “The other two maybe...she’s too close.”
“Negative for me,” said Miller. “We need to go, now!”
Byrne put out a hand to stop him, without ever taking her eyes off her scope. “Give her a chance,” she muttered.
“A chance! She’ll be killed!” Miller turned to Kane urgently. “Sir, we need to show ourselves now, and she might—”
Byrne risked taking her eyes from her scope, since it was less than useless anyway. “Sir, if we go out now they’ll kill her instantly,” she snapped across Miller’s protests. “We need to let her handle it.”
Kane’s eyes were still glued to his scope, watching the scene unfold, but Byrne could see his jaw was clenched very tight. He seemed oblivious to either her or Miller’s pleas. A glance at Miller himself confirmed to Byrne that he too had given up on watching close-up through the scope, and was staring out at the field, tensed as if to run out into the open at a moment’s notice, something which would almost certainly end up getting Chancellor Griffin’s throat cut.
There was a very long second of silence, in which the future seemed to rest – quite literally – on the edge of a knife, and then...
“Stand down,” said Kane tightly.
Byrne could see the small figures step away from each other, and hurriedly put her eye to the gun’s scope again to confirm that Indra had indeed dropped the knife to her side. A few more words were exchanged, and then, as quickly as they had come, Indra and her two companions turned and strode back towards the forest. As the grounders disappeared into the trees, robbing them of any visible targets, Byrne, Miller and Kane lowered their guns slightly, though by no means relaxing. Any trick or ambush would almost certainly have happened by now, and the moment of danger felt like it had passed...but out here was enemy territory, and it didn’t pay to be incautious.
Chancellor Griffin turned and started to walk back towards them, her posture tense. Byrne tried to imagine what it must feel like to walk at a slow and measured pace across an exposed field, with no weapon and knowing three grounder warriors were hidden in the trees behind you. They all watched her progress towards them with a palpable tension, only released once she reached the tree-line and headed for where she knew them to be concealed.
As soon as she was safely out of sight of any grounders who might be watching from the other side, Kane dropped his gun to his side, rose from his cover and swiftly went to meet her. Byrne saw Chancellor Griffin heave a small sigh of relief at the sight of an ally, and now that she was closer, she could see the Chancellor’s hands were trembling by her sides, and her face was very pale. So she was human after all. That was oddly comforting.
As they met, Byrne thought for one bizarre second that Kane was going to throw his arms around his Chancellor and embrace her, and remembered having thought the same thing of Chancellor Griffin when Kane had returned just the day before and met her at the camp gate. There was something...a sense of the two of them holding themselves in check around each other that she wondered if even they were aware of. Interesting.
The moment was broken by Byrne and Miller leaving cover themselves to join them, keeping an occasional wary glance out to the distant field, just in case. It was good to be up and moving again – they had spent some twenty minutes after having gotten into position crouching amongst the leaf litter, all told. Byrne was pretty sure her legs would ache like hell tomorrow, but since no-one had held a knife to her throat, she supposed she couldn’t really complain.
“How did it go?” said Miller, which Byrne decided was strong contender for ‘stupidest question asked on the ground so far’.
“As well as can be expected,” said Chancellor Griffin bluntly. “They know about Finn being gone, but they don’t have him, or the others. They’ve taken it as just one more reason not to compromise.”
“There was no news on where he might be?” asked Kane.
“None that Indra was going to share, no,” said Chancellor Griffin. “If they had him, we’d know. As soon as we have him again, they’ll take him from us. For now...”
“We’re back where we started,” finished Kane. “No peace until the boy dies. Lincoln was right.”
There didn’t seem to be anything to add to this grim pronouncement, so with barely more than a few gestures and a word they set off again back to Camp Jaha. Byrne wondered what they would do when they got there, and wondered if even Kane or the Chancellor knew. Start making preparations for an attack? Hope that Finn might return and then turn him over to the enemy? It seemed to Byrne after the display in the field that this could only end now in bloodshed, one way or another, and there was something perversely comforting about that knowledge. Politics, schemes, misdirection and ethical dilemmas – that wasn’t easy ground for her. But she had taken an oath to protect the people of the Ark, and even if there was no Ark anymore, she still had a gun in her hand and a camp full of people who relied upon her to keep them safe. If the boy couldn’t be found, if the grounders attacked...then she would take her last breath defending those people. And defending her Chancellor, for whom she had a growing respect.
Lost in these thoughts, Byrne had taken up a habitual place at the head on the group, with Miller off to her side, both of them automatically scanning the surrounding forest as they walked. Kane brought up the rear with Chancellor Griffin, and after a few minutes of walking in silence Byrne heard him say quietly:
“Are you alright?”
Byrne saw Miller catch her eye, and the two of them sped up slightly by silent mutual agreement, increasing the distance between them and the pair walking behind. Unfortunately, there was only so far they could go while still being safe...and the whole point was that they should remain within earshot of each other, so in the quiet of the forest they could still hear every word of the conversation behind them.
“Fine,” said Chancellor Griffin. “She didn’t even draw blood. I think she wanted to scare us, that’s all.”
“It worked,” said Kane.
There was a moment of pause in which the only sound from behind was the crunching of leaves underfoot. Byrne could almost see them in her mind’s eye, walking along determinedly not looking at each other.
“Please don’t do that again, Abby,” Kane said quietly.
“You’re one to talk,” said Chancellor Griffin. “You did the exact same thing. Went off by yourself on some slim chance you could broker peace.”
“I’m far more expendable than you.”
“The hell you are.”
“You’re a doctor. And Clarke—”
“Is out there risking her life as we speak. If you think I won’t do the same...I’m not going to hide behind our walls while an army waits outside to slaughter us all. If there is any other way then I have to find it. I’m the Chancellor, Marcus. I swore to protect these people.”
“That doesn’t mean you can take personal responsibility for everything they do,” said Kane. “Finn Collins killed those grounders, and you getting yourself killed by grounders isn’t going to even the score. I...what’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” said Chancellor Griffin. “Just that Indra said almost exactly the same thing.”
“Was that before or after she held a knife to your throat?” said Kane.
“I had to try, Marcus.”
There was another silence, this one longer than the last. They were almost at Camp Jaha now, the vast curve of the fallen station just becoming visible in the distance through the trees.
“I know,” said Kane finally, and there was something in his voice that Byrne had never heard before, something warm, poised between exasperation and fondness. “I know you did. Just...please don’t do it again.”
If Chancellor Griffin made any reply at all, it wasn’t in words, as they spent the rest of the journey back to camp in silence, walking towards a future more uncertain than ever before.