Chapter Text
Clarke returns from unconsciousness slowly. She feels a weightlessness, straps holding her to the dropship seat, and Wells’ stare on her.
“Welcome back” he says.
“Wells why are you here? Let me guess, you heard what they were planning and decided to get yourself locked up. Do you know how foolish that was?” She chastises him. It was foolish. Him being here had made her life much harder from the get go last time around.
“I, I know. I’m sorry, and I’m sorry for getting your father arrested” He continues.
“They didn’t arrest him Wells, they executed him. And I know it wasn’t you that turned him in” Clarke states. It had been her own Mother, acting in a manner that she thought was for the good of the order. Clarke fought off the instinct to roll her eyes at the thought.
Wells was stunned into silence, and Clarke took the moment to look around. None of her Kru were on this level. Murphy and Miller were on the lower level and Octavia must have been on the higher level.
There was an awful jolt, and the dropship started shaking. They must have entered the atmosphere. The screen blipped on and Chancelor Jaha began his stupid ‘you are expendable, good luck’ speech.
“Your dad’s a dick Wells!” somebody yelled. Clarke had to agree.
“Spacewalk bandit strikes again!” another person piped up and Clarke looked over to see Finn beginning his spacewalk. He floated down towards them and stopped in front of Wells.
“Check it out, your Dad floated me after all” Finn snarkily commented.
“You better hang onto something before the parachutes deploy. We are already freefalling through the atmosphere, and coming in hot” Clarke shot back, not bothering to wait for Wells to say pretty much the same thing with less conviction.
“Don’t even think about it” She growls at the two unbuckling their seatbelts above her. They seem more inclined to listen this time, but only paused at her words before continuing.
“You’re the traitor who’s been in solitary for a year” Finn stated, brushing her comment off. You know, like an idiot.
“You’re the idiot who took the fall for his girlfriend wasting an entire month’s worth of oxygen on an illegal spacewalk” she snapped back, before yelling up at the other two “Stay in your seats!”
Finn jerked back as if shocked. Sufficiently cowed, he held onto the central railing in front of her and motioned the other two back. Thankfully, they complied, getting back to their seats as the parachutes deployed.
The two copycats landed on the floor below them, but didn’t appear seriously injured this time. Finn however, was jerked out of his own grip and yelled out in pain. Serves him right.
“You ok spacewalker?” she asked. He hadn’t had time to give his name, so moniker it is. Finn’s only response was another pained groan.
“This ship is over a hundred years old, so the thrusters should kick in soon” Wells says, mostly to himself since Clarke is craning her neck to see if the other two boys are alright. They are still moving around, which was a good sign, trying to find something or someone to hold onto for the final landing stage.
The thrusters kick in, and the dropship comes to a slightly abrupt landing. They all pause as the power flickers, dust settling in the newfound gravity.
“Listen” Monty breaks the silence. “No machine hum.”
“Woah, that’s a first” Jasper comments.
Clarke quickly unbuckles and checks on the two almost spacewalkers. One of them got a gash on his head, the other is uninjured.
“Thank you for listening” she leaves out the ‘to me’, “I’m glad you’re ok”.
She ignores Finn and descends the ladder to the lowest level. Miller and Murphy, along with Murphy’s lackeys and a few of the ‘gunners’ that flocked to Miller in the absence of Bellamy’s ‘leadership’, meet her at the bottom of the stairs and they all move through the crowd to the dropship doors.
“Clarke?” she hears Octavia’s voice through the low din of the crowd. She feels her face relax into a smile as she turns toward the voice of the girl moving towards her.
“Octavia, look at you. So grown up.” She means the exact opposite, and Octavia knows that, throwing her arms around Clarke in greeting.
“That’s the girl under the floor” someone comments, and Octavia shakes her head.
“I’m about to be the first person on the ground in a hundred years” she says mater of factly.
“What if the air is toxic!” a voice asks.
“We’ll be dead anyway. Might as well try” Clarke reasons, pulling the lever. The door opens and the crowd of delinquents falls silent, taking in the bright and green and alive landscape they have landed in.
Octavia walks slowly down the ramp, then jumps off onto the mossy ground. She turns with a triumphant smile and arms overhead yells at the top of her lungs “We’re back bitches!”
The delinquents cheer and scatter to explore their new home. Clarke joins Octavia in front of the ramp, bumping shoulders with the shorter girl.
“We’re home” she says quietly. Octavia shoots her a grin and nods. It was good to be back.
Clarke looks back at Miller and Murphy, then motions with her head over to the left. They will ditch their followers and meet up with her somewhere over there shortly.
Finn comes staggering out of the dropship, cradling his arm and calls for her with a pitiful “um, hey princess”.
Clarke sighs and looks over at him, immediately noticing the way one shoulder is higher than the other. He must have dislocated it trying to break his fall. If that was the only injury, he should count himself lucky.
“Come here spacewalker” she directs, turning toward him. He short-steps over, kicked puppy look in his eyes.
“Your mom was head of medical on the Ark, right? I hope you know what you are doing” he comments as she helps him take his jacket off. Yep, definitely dislocated.
“I do, and you need to listen to me very carefully. Put your hand on my shoulder.” He complies. She moves so his elbow is close to his own body, and they are now unfortunately close to each other. She pulls downward traction on his elbow with one hand and begins massaging his trapezius and pec minor muscles, trying to loosen them up.
“Relax” she directs, and he does so slowly. After a few minutes of this, she says “slowly pinch your shoulder blades together”. He does so, and with a gentle shift, his shoulder is back in the socket.
“Woah, I thought it would make a noise or something” Finn comments, rolling the now relocated shoulder.
“No, that method is a low impact one. If it hadn’t worked, the next one would have, and would have hurt a lot worse. It’s going to be sore for a few days. Let me know if it catches or bruises weird, or if it pops back out” She states clinically. No use in him getting the wrong idea. Although, he probably already had.
“Thanks Princess. Sorry I was an idiot in the first place” He sheepishly admits, running his hand through his hair. Stupid boy.
“Don’t let it happen again” is all she responds, turning away to meet up with her Kru.
Luckily for her, he doesn’t follow. Instead, he sees fit to bother Wells, who had retrieved the map. She hears Wells comment that they had been dropped on the wrong mountain, and Finn comments about him holding the map upside down. God, did she have to do everything last time?
Breaking through the treeline, she spots her folks huddled out of sight of the clearing the dropship had made. She joins them as they look up at her with warm smiles.
“Well. Eventful, but different from last time for sure” She states.
“You’ve got that right” Miller comments, handing her the satchel they had been examining before she walked up.
“First things first I suppose” Clarke reaches into the bag and pulls out her communicator. “Ark Main this is Wanheda. We are on the ground.”
“Wanheda, Little Bird. That’s a goooooood copy!” Raven radios back.
“All, Wanheda. Role call” Clarke barks. One by one the rest of their Kru reports in.
“This is Cockroach, collocated. All good”
“Wanheda, Doc, All good”
“Flamekeeper here. All good in Polis.”
“Little Bird again. Got the Bell secured and we are all good”
“Loverboy, collocated. All good”
“Ni-Lynchpin. All set for your arrival here”
“Mama Bear. So good to hear from all of you. See you soon”
“Rogue. So damn ready to get out of here”
“Roman, collocated. All good”
“Sandskater checking in. Allie is dead and I am so good”
Everyone was online. Everyone was in position. Everyone was ready.
“All, Wanheda. Good copy, godspeed, and we will see you soon. Wanheda out” She exits the net.
“God I’m glad everything worked out. And I am so glad to be out of that damn skybox” Murphy exclaims with a big stretch.
Clarke nods in agreement. Being alone in solitary for six weeks was so much worse after everything they had done. Nothing but the thoughts in her own head to keep her company, and her mind was her own worst enemy. She began rummaging through the bag, tossing Murphy the fire starter, and Miller the knife.
“Fire and spears please” She requested. They knew it was really an order, and could have been left unsaid but they just nodded and got to their tasks. Octavia looked expectantly at Clarke, who handed her the herb book and test tubes, as well as the shirt they were carried in.
“Prioritize pain and antibiotic ability. And the red seaweed” Clarke directed. She knew Octavia could sneak around better than the rest of them, and Clarke would need as much of those natural remedies as Octavia could carry.
Miller overseeing weapons would set him up as her general amongst the delinquents, and Murphy in charge of fire would make his lackeys more inclined to hunt and cook. Giving all the delinquents a task would keep them out of trouble as much as possible. The first two deaths had been avoided, more to come.
Clarke walked back to camp and saw that both Murphy and Miller had regained their followers. Miller had a few people with knives already sharpening some sticks, and others ripping pieces of the dropship off to use as blades. Murphy and his lackeys were huddled as he tried to explain what they would need for the fire.
Clarke zeroed in on Jasper and Monty, who were chatting up Fox and Harper respectively.
“Hey. Would you all do me a favor and grab a couple more people to help set up a water purification station?” She asked, then added “I found some stuff to make alcohol with, but we need drinking water first”.
“Oh What? I was going to say no but then you said the magic word” Jasper said, already moving toward another group, Monty in tow.
“We need something to boil it in, and something to make a still out of!” Clarke called after him, knowing those endeavors were in good hands. Best to keep the yeast to herself for now. At least, until they find some wheat or honey or something.
“You got it Princess!” Jasper called back.
Damn it, the nickname had stuck. Again. Damn Finn and his big mouth.
Speaking of Finn, he and Wells were still looking at that damn map, speaking back and forth in hushed tones. Clarke walked over, and overhearing something about ’20 miles’ she knew they were talking about Mount Weather.
“That is too far for us to reach before nightfall. Besides, we are not prepared for a trip like that as we are now.” She butts into their conversation and Finn looks satisfied. He had probably been saying something along those lines just before she interrupted.
“We know there’s food there, how much prep do we need?” Wells questioned, brows furrowed in thought.
“Well, for one, that would take us about, oh, seven hours on flat ground at a steady pace. Besides, I don’t think anyone else would want to wander through the mountains for hours with no food or safe water and one person cant bring enough food back to feed all of us” She explained. He better see reason, she wasn’t trying to get somebody speared on day one like last time. That big river monster fish might make good dinner though.
“Fine. What do you propose Clarke?” he questioned.
“I already have a group working on water, and fire, and weapons. Soon we will need to go find food and make shelter. You know, the main things needed for survival. I might have been Pike’s best student, but you were pretty close behind me Wells” Clarke reasoned. Shelter was definitely next on her list.
“Shelter then. We could sleep in the dropship” Finn suggested.
“Most of us could fit, but it would be a tight squeeze. We can use the parachutes to make tents” Wells said, already moving toward one.
“Just need tent poles or something to prop them up with. We will also need hammocks for the drop ship and something like sleeping bags, so we shouldn’t use all of the fabric for tents” Clarke thought out loud. The boys nodded along, then began bickering about the breakdown of fabric for each use.
“I will leave that project in your two’s capable hands” Clarke comments over her shoulder as she walks away. They would need more people to help with this, but as night drew closer and adrenaline faded, more people would be willing to help. Sleeping comfortably was a big motivator on the ground. Having a plan in place with two people to direct would make the later process much smoother.
Clarke grabbed Murphy then Miller, and with their groups peacefully working on their tasks, the three went off to hunt. They were able to bag a deer, Murphy spearing it with a successful lung shot after Clarke tracked it into a meadow. The three dragged the deer back to camp and got to work dressing it.
Murphy’s group proved to be awful cooks, but two kids from Farm station took over from there, happy to finally contribute to the camp. Murphy took his lackeys and joined Wells and Finn in making tents. They ended up taking over the top part of the dropship and a few of the already made hammocks. That was to be expected, as Murphy had taken in mostly loners or the real degenerates last time, and their personalities didn’t change much.
Miller had returned to his group, and they piled all the finished weapons next to the fire. Plenty of spears for hunting parties, as well as a few swords for later. He challenged one of his guys in unarmed hand to hand, both laughing and commenting all the while. The sentiment of goofing around carried to others, who paired up to spar on their own. Clarke finally got a chance to see the work they had been putting in for the last six weeks.
As the sun began setting, the delinquents started making their way to assorted bed locations, or pairing up and wandering into the woods to do as repressed teenagers were apt to do. Finn tried to ask Clarke if she wanted to go, but she turned him down briskly.
“What about me Princess?” Octavia asked with a wink. She had just returned from gathering the herbs for Clarke and had stashed them nearby.
“You know, I wouldn’t mind a walk” Clarke accepted, and the two future grounder pounders sauntered off arm in arm.
“Finn is going to have an aneurism” Octavia laughed once they were out of earshot of the dropship. Clarke giggled along with her as they made their way deeper into the forest.
“God I hope he gets the hint” She comments. “I’m going to have to lay down the law come tomorrow to avoid the night time acid fog deaths” she continued, already thinking about Trina, Pascal, and Atom. Although, that had been because Octavia disappeared last time.
“I’ve got a solution, on my expedition, I found a freshly dead rabbit. Pretty sure acid fog got it. We could make an example of it, with radiation fog or something as the reason it died. Then you could say something about ‘if the animals run, so do you’” Octavia suggested.
“I like it, lets do it” Clarke responded. She was glad to have Octavia to lean on and the absence of Bellamy had only helped their relationship strengthen.
They approached the Art Supply Store bunker and cracked it open, careful not to disturb the ground around it for easy hiding later. Inside were the suits Niylah had left, their accompanying tech and weapons, along with a couple of grounder clothes sets and a bunch of weapons. Clarke and Octavia quickly got changed and grabbed their weapons of choice. A short sword for Octavia and a couple of daggers for Clarke fit the bill just fine.
Clarke made sure to keep her hair covered as she exited the bunker. The only other grounder with light hair she had seen was Niylah, so she didn’t want to stand out in case they were seen.
They met Indra on the bridge. She had beat both of them there, since she didn’t have to make a pit stop to change. Once they had scanned the trees for scouts, Clarke and Octavia dashed for her. She heard their footsteps and opened her arms, and they both enveloped her in a fierce hug.
“Girls, I’ve missed you. These past six weeks have simply dragged on” Indra told them, still hugging and not willing to let them go yet. Octavia had been like a daughter to Indra, and Clarke was practically family.
“We missed you too Nomon” spoke Octavia.
Clarke eeked out of the hug first, wanting to give the first and second time to reconnect. This was the first time they had been apart in years. Probably since the bunker.
She took the time to look around. The cursed bridge was the easiest location but hardest mentally to justify as a meeting place. Once they had their meeting with Anya, they wouldn’t be able to use it anymore. By then, hopefully Trikru would be able to take in some of the delinquents, and they could go see Indra whenever they wished.
“Miller sends his love” Octavia breathed out as she pulled out of the hug, and Clarke saw Indra smile softly at the boy’s sentiment.
“Send my love back, and tell Murphy I miss him as well, even if he was a little shit at this point last time” Indra laughs as she responds.
“The mountain?” Clarke questions, back to business.
“Yes. It’s been quiet. No different from last time. I do plan on taking out the cameras I found, but figured it better to wait for you all. Skykru tek and everything.”
“Smart. We should have first contact with Lincoln in a few days. Then we can get down to business” Clarke nods as she speaks. Indra was indeed smart, and thought things through before actioning them.
“That should be here shortly. Once he reports back about the people from the sky, I will confer with Anya and have him make first contact. Anya may want to interrogate someone before making our presence known. Who is that to be?”
Clarke and Octavia look at each other. Clarke herself was really the only one that had any kind of bond with Anya last time, but after being the messenger on Operation Lexa Livestream, she would probably not be the best fit for Anya’s first contact. Just in case. Murphy was out, as he took the brunt of it last time, and Miller wasn’t really the best for intercultural first contact. Raven was coming down soon, but they didn’t know how soon.
Indra answered her own question before the two could finish their unspoken conversation.
“Raven, unless Clarke is the only option?” She asks, knowing the answer.
“Yeah” and “Yep” the girls responded at the same time.
“Alright, I’d better be heading back. Nyko gets anxious when I take midnight walks for too long” Indra waved and began heading back across the bridge, as the girls bid their ‘goodnights’ and returned the way they came.
The walk back to the Art Supply Store bunker was in silence, both trying their best to move silently. Only a few twig cracks betrayed their wishes. They changed and headed back to the dropship, pointedly ignoring the looks they got by Miller’s appointed guards once they returned. Octavia turned in for the night in one of the shoddy tents that had been set up in their absence, and Clarke conveyed Indra’s well wishes to the boys.
“Aw, she’s thinking about me” was Murphy’s response, full of sarcasm. Clarke knew he was actually touched by her consideration, but didn’t want to show it. Miller had just smiled at her message. He and Indra had gotten close in the bunker, but mostly as comrades. Going through something like that would have anyone getting close to trusted friends.
Clarke found another half empty tent with a somewhat flat space and crashed for the night.