Chapter Text
It’s funny just how quickly life can change. In days. Hours. Minutes. Seconds.
Clarke should have been used to change now. Life had a nasty habit of throwing the worst possible situations her way. There were no ‘half measures’ on Earth. The forces of nature didn’t care that she had just stopped the ‘bad guy’. Didn’t care if life as she knew it was in shambles or if she was devastatingly heartbroken. A good example being Praimfaya. Clarke never even got the chance to take a fucking breath after successfully shutting down the City of Light and preventing a full blown war between the grounder clans. And, it’s not like Praimfaya was gonna wait until she found herself ready. Instead it crept into Arkadia, looming over every single man, woman, and child. Casting the darkest shadow over Clarke herself.
She never had the chance to appreciate the irony in Arkadia’s name, in it’s infamous glory.
In Ancient times, Arcadia was deemed a mythical land, situated in the heart of Greece. A utopia of sorts; untouched by the harms of civilization, in complete harmony with nature, inhabited by shepherds that lived simple lives. The hundred’s Arkadia seemed to be everything but an idyllic countryside.
But the list of ironic names went beyond just Arkadia. What she called Eden had fallen into the hands of two serpents. Two women who refused to shed their skin and start over again. And of course, with that the last habitable place on Earth fell to the Damocles bomb.
Sanctum held no sanctity. Just the delusions of a man who had killed all the people he cared for. A false god trying to atone for his errors, at the cost of innocent people who sacrificed themselves for his cause.
The whole thing was paradoxical. When something bad could happen it always did. The last almost seven years一technically 131 years of her life were ingrained in broken promises, pain, and chaos. Normally in that order.
Wells ratting out her dad, watching her dad get floated, then getting arrested for treason.
Being sent to the ground instead of being executed and literally everything that happened after brought nothing but pain and chaos.
Having to wait an extra year for her friends to come back down after Praimfaya, getting captured by the Eligius prisoners and everything after that, descended into total chaos.
She should have known. She should have realized. She should have asked to see the tape. She should have recognized the pattern.
Cadogan told his men to stand down upon hearing what Bellamy said. It’s like the older man knew that the four of them wouldn’t move, that they couldn’t. The pain of feeling immense joy almost instantaneously overshadowed by sorrow and fear was debilitating. Any happiness that she felt when she saw her best friend alive vanished when his words to Cadogan ultimately fell out of his mouth.
Bellamy betrayed her. And by proxy, all of their friends and his sister. He screwed everyone over.
His face was almost unrecognizable. Eyes lacking the usual joy that illuminated them every time the two reunited. In all their time together, she had never seen him look so exhausted. Even in the days of the Dropship, when every single member of the hundred was on edge because of the Grounder attacks, Bellamy never looked this tired and dejected. Clothes raggedy and layered on so heavily. She watched his legs shake slightly, as if he hadn’t eaten in days. He seemed like an imposter. Just a shell of her best friend.
Cadogan motioned Bellamy out of the room. Please turn around. Please turn around. Please turn around. She repeated the phrase in her head as if it were a mantra.
Slowly drifting out of the room, he only ever slows down to let a guard in front of him. A trail of frayed strings from the legs of his pants follows him. The guards keep a hefty distance behind him, steering clear of the tripping hazard. Bellamy was really out of sight, in more ways than one.
No. No. No. Her mind screams. Bellamy Blake would never betray Clarke Griffin. Not like this . He had a heart of gold, built on a foundation of loyalty. Loyalty for the people he loved.
The room is so still. Filled by only the slight buzzing sound of the fluorescent lights above. Cadogan eyes are still zeroed in to the floor, clearly debating what call to make next.
The blonde needs to turn around, assess Echo and Octavia. Gabriel would probably be confused as well, yet masking his confusion with his ever present stoic look. Clarke should say something; speak on their behalf. Prevent the scenario from escalating. Diffuse Echo’s anger before it gets out of control. Prevent Octavia sacrificing anything for the sake of her brother. Clarke could be the one to keep them in line.
But who keeps Clarke in line? And just like that her heart breaks even more. He was the only person who ever showed her gratitude for everything that she did. The only person who cared unconditionally.
For the smallest amount of time she thought that maybe一 just maybe she was overreacting, but her mind couldn’t mask the truth. Everyone in this room knew the truth, that really just happened. Judging by the others’ faces they knew too, another accession into chaos had begun.
“We will have a discussion later Clarke,” Cadogan sighs as he loiters for another moment, before ultimately leaving the room.
Her heartbeat drowns out the sound of his footsteps. It’s beating too fast, obviously trying to make up for her lack of breath. She finds it impossible to breathe. By now, pain’s overwhelming presence should have felt familiar. She had carried so many people’s burdens since arriving on the ground.
Her title of leader wasn’t earned by merit, but because she could make the decisions that everyone refused to make. She could be unattached. A master of compartmentalization.
But, if Bellamy hadn’t agreed to stand beside her as co-leaders, Clarke would have drowned in guilt, the memory of everything she endured for her people weighing her down below the surface of the water.
He pulled the lever with her at Mount Weather with very few questions asked. He didn’t need to know the depth of the water or what dangers may have lay in it, his instincts always won, completely willing to swim into uncharted territory to find her.
He’d always find her, no matter how dark the water was, even if he had to give up a piece of himself to do it, even if everyone else stopped looking. Would always offer to carry more than half of the weight if it meant helping her.
This time felt different. This time they were at completely different bodies of water. Bellamy would be half a world away, letting the waves lightly tap his ankles, thinking about how much he had missed the feeling of weightlessness. Not daring to go any further into the vast dark blue water. Meanwhile Clarke would be drowning somewhere impossibly far away, the water too dark to see how she could free herself, no way of knowing how far under she was. Eventually she would become conscious of the disillusionment that always lay hidden in her body, as it crept out of the crack in her heart. Once it infected all the crevices of her mind, with the weight of the world ceasing to become lighter, the only choice was to accept defeat, give in and sink.
Any presence of hope vanishes from her body, escaping in the form of warm tears. The disillusionment spread, moving painstakingly from her heart up into her chest.
Gabriel finally breaks the dead silence, “Okay we need to talk about what the hell that just was.”
“Gabriel! Can’t you just give us a second, we’re reeli一” Octavia screeches, before Clarke cuts her off.
“Octavia一 he’s right. It’s only so long until Cadogan comes back. He knows I don’t have the flame now. And I’m guessing he’ll do whatever it takes to get it,” Clarke states, still trembling.
Please don’t turn around. Please don’t turn around. Please don’t turn around. She ignores the voice in her head, using the back of her hand to wipe away the fallen tears, and turns to meet the eyes of her two friends. Octavia’s body is already positioned to hers, but her eyes are focused elsewhere. The remnants of tears gleam on Octavia’s cheeks, but Clarke follows Octavia’s gaze to Echo. She remains planted in the same place, eyes still pinned to the door.
Octavia huffs and glances to Clarke. “Okay. You guys wanna talk? I say we don’t tell them anything until we get Bellamy back. And whoever just walked through that door looking like a caveman, isn’t my brother I’m done playing games with these fucking weirdos.”
Clarke lets out a laugh, “Ok fine I'll go next, I feel like a fucking idiot right now. I tell Bellamy not to tell Cadogan about not having the flame and what does he do next? Spins right back around and tells ‘ his Shepherd’ the exact words I told him not to say. I agree with you...that’s not Bellamy. But, Octavia一 we clearly hold none of the cards here, are you forgetting that? I don’t know what they did to him, but something’s telling me that we should be terrified. Murphy, Emori, Indra, and Gaia are the only ones of us not here. And, Madi is a fucking child. A child who has dealt with all this shit way too much already. And I’ve never heard Echo be so quiet in all these years of knowing her, so I’m not sure she’s ready to deal with some complicated plan. All of our other friends are locked away in rooms,” she exasperates. As much as hurts she continues, now whispering, “And Bell一Bellamy is gone for all we know. We cannot count on him this time.”
Clarke’s last sentence surprises Octavia, fire rages in her brown eyes as she creeps towards Clarke. She has her finger pointed at the blonde, as if ready to scold her. Gabriel swiftly blocks her path to Clarke, gripping her shoulders and refocuses the fire towards himself. “Both of you need to stop acting like children. I understand you’re confused, hurt, scared and whatever else, but you said it yourself Clarke, it’s only a matter of time before they want answers.” Gabriel steps away from Octavia and returns back his previous placement behind the large white table. “So sit down. Let’s figure this out.”
Octavia glares at Clarke once more before sitting down in the chair to her right. “For someone who’s so desperate for us to stop acting like kids, you sure are treating us like some,” Octavia gripes at the man across the table. Her taunt lacks the bite she previously had, the flames only simmering at this point.
The blonde catches Echo, with her head in her hands, sitting on the couch in the far corner. Good. The three of them didn’t need Echo’s temper right now. She was coming down from whatever high she was previously on, finally reaching her breaking point. Had Clarke known this was what it took to contain Echo, she would have found a way to completely disable her like this long ago, preferably when the Azgeda spy held a knife to her throat in Polis.
“Okay I need to know everything. From the beginning,” Clarke sighs, falling back into her seat.
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Gabriel didn’t seem to understand what school on the Ark was like. And it's not like he should’ve, he never sat down with some Arkadians and talked about their childhoods together, so of course the topic never came up. While he had a doctorate in genetics from an established university, Clarke and Octavia’s collective academic knowledge would most likely just barely earn them a high school diploma. Education on the Ark consisted of basic skills and learning whatever practice one was forced into at their station. Clarke had concluded, in all her years alone that the Ark had constructed lies and twisted the truth, somehow passing it off as fact in order to suppress its people. Prevent any one person from becoming too smart. Which may have been for the best, complete mutiny up in space seemed like a hard feat to deal with.
Above all that, Octavia never had the opportunity to go to school. Everything she learned was from her brother who promised his sister a good life (or as good as it could be). The younger Blake joked about her first time in a classroom being a few days prior. Being forced to go to school with Disciple children. Not even that funny anecdote could lighten the mood.
Gabriel led off with the history of the Anomaly Stone, which Octavia interrupted to talk about the timeline of events since Hope forced her back into the Anomaly.
Clarke still struggled to understand at least half of what the duo were saying. Where the timelines met up, what the Disciples’ endgame was, and most noticeably the time dilation thing. Octavia claimed that she just excessively nodded whenever Gabriel brought it up, because she still didn’t quite get it either, in which he rolled his eyes at. Their dynamic puzzled Clarke, she sensed some sort of underlying tension. If Clarke and Octavia argued like children, Gabriel and Octavia argued like an old married couple.
Despite their constant bickering, Clarke had a brief, yet informative overview. Octavia recalled watching Bellamy get shot when he first arrived on Bardo. Clarke was so grateful that Octavia didn’t have to watch another person she loved get shot. Thankfully this wasn’t Lincoln, or in Clarke's case, Lexa.
Bellamy was still alive一 even if he wasn’t himself. That had to count for something.
Clarke sighs, completely overwhelmed by all of the information being thrown at her. “God, all of this is so fucking confusing and none of it makes sense,” she groans. “Who the hell supposedly cracked this code in the first place?”
“No idea, considering that I spent 150 years trying to do the exact same thing, with no progress whatsoever,” Gabriel grunts.
“Does it really matter? They don’t know the correct code so they’re preparing for a war that’s never coming, that’s one fewer card for them to hold over us Clarke.” The blonde rolls her eyes at Octavia. “Look Clarke, for the first time ever we actually have a way out. We can hop into the Anomaly and go back to Sanctum, it’s not like we have to wait six years this time, or go into cryogenic sleep for a century. Maybe we just give them the flame in exchange for Bellamy, the thing’s broken anyways.”
“But what about ‘Judgement Day’ or the ‘final test’? Becca must have seen something truly horrifying if she was willing to die before revealing it to Cadogan,” Clarke states.
“She said that one person can trigger it, so maybe we figure out who that is and stop the Disciples from getting them,” Gabriel adds.
“What if we go back to Sanctum? We wouldn’t have to deal with this anymore. The Disciples can do the ‘test’ by themselves.”
“I’m pretty sure Judgement Day or it’s ‘test’ equivalent impacts all of humanity. So that’s yet another problem to add to the list. And, I’m really starting to think that you’re not listening Octavia. If we somehow get off this planet safely we still have Bellamy to worry about. And, we still don’t know where he’s been or what happened to him. He looked at all of us like we were complete strangers and chose to help Cadogan instead of me? That’s extremely concerning,” once Clarke finishes Echo jumps up and storms to the door.
“I want to go back to my room,” she yells into the pa system on the wall, alerting the guards out in the hallway. Sure enough, two guards escort her out of the room.
“Unbelievable,” Octavia mutters under her breath.
The all encompassing feeling of silence creeps back into the room. A flickering light in the blonde’s peripheral vision unerves her. It flickered randomly, just when she thought the light had finally gone out it started erratically blinking once again. She turns her head and forces her mind to another topic.
Clarke breaks the eerie silence, “So this m-cap thing… how does it work?”
Octavia picks at her cuticles, just when Clarke thinks that she’s not paying attention she speaks up, “They strap you down in a chair and sift through your memories. Not a lot of fun I have to say, seeing all the dead people once in my life on a screen being watched by a bunch of freaks in white clothes.”
The blonde sees the corners of Gabriel’s mouth tilt up ever so slightly. Gabriel continues, “For some reason their information is about 130 years off about the flame. They woke up the Shepherd for you and now that he knows the flame isn’t here, Cadogan’s gonna get impatient. He’ll probably have Levitt look for it in your memories. Which is good because Levitt actually has morals and isn’t quite as ruthless as the rest of them.”
“They can just ‘capture’ my memories at the snap of Cadogan’s fingers? Tell me there’s a way to fight it because I refuse to give in that easy,” Clarke looks desperately to Octavia.
“Fighting it is torture,” The brunette responds simply.
“You shouldn’t even try Clarke,” Gabriel pleads. “I can only imagine that it and your mind drive wouldn’t react well together.”
Clarke runs a hand through her hair. She hates this. Bellamy’s allegiance to Pike was one thing, but this wasn’t even in the same galaxy by comparison. No handcuffs were needed this time, his words alone incapacitated her.
“The flame is your thing Clarke, it’s clear they’re using Bellamy to get to you. I’ve survived worse than m-cap. You can too.”
“So what Octavia? Let’s say they do figure out where the flame is and somehow get it back here. Bellamy is just gonna instantaneously return back to normal?” Clarke argues, feeling like this conversation had reached a point where they were just repeating the same information over and over again.
“God can you guys shut the fuck up, this isn’t a competition measuring who cares about Bellamy more. Let’s recap what I just said. Fact one: we need to keep the flame from the Disciples. Fact two: resisting m-cap is torture and its possible impact on the mind drive is unknown. And point three, not necessarily a fact, but the risk of giving up the flame may have to outweigh risking memory loss.”
“Okay Gabriel, but JUDGEMENT DAY? So what if it just turns out to be some stupid test. I’ve never been big into religion, but I know God isn’t a fan of sinners and the damned,” Octavia’s fake chuckle fills the silence. “And with everything that we’ve done,” she lowers her head in shame. “I guess I’ll see the two of you in Hell! Oops! Forgot about Echo. How do you get to Hell? The Devil have a nice, big bus to take us down there? Will you be my bus buddy Gabriel?”
“Octavia…” Clarke chides.
“Don’t worry Clarke you won’t have to bus buddies with Echo. I’m sure she’ll beat us there, be first in line at the gates too,” Any sympathetic feelings Octavia had for Echo upon hearing about Bellamy’s supposed death were temporary.
Upon hearing Gabriel release a huge sigh, Octavia gets up, walking into the bathroom and then slamming the door. Clarke wants to scream. But she can’t waste whatever air she has left. Not when dread threatens to suffocate her at any moment.