Note: First of all, I have to say thank you to all the writers out there creating imaginative, entertaining stories about The 100. You've inspired me to try my hand at it.

To be honest, I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this. I am hoping that I can get to the Murphy bits as imagined by me, written before the episode actually plays out and (most likely) contradicts my ideas.

Any thoughts about plot, comments and questions would be most welcome.

Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: The title of the story is from Imagine Dragon's Radioactive, and obviously, I'm not affiliated with The 100 other than being a weekly avid viewer and encouraging all my friends to tune in as well ;)

The dread was burning her from the inside out, an effective paralytic as she looked towards the ominous glow of red in the distance. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe. Her throat had closed in on itself, and despite the desperate, sporadic gasps of air she was taking in, her lungs weren't filling. She couldn't breathe. Her vision began to blur around the edges until a pinpoint of light was all she could see. Suddenly, she was weightless, floating above herself like a voyeuristic spectre. She welcomed the new sensation. It stopped her from feeling.

And then he slapped her.

"Snap out of it!" he demanded. His voice, ever domineering and authoritative had an added element of desperation to it which Clarke, now gently cradling her stinging cheek found oddly reassuring. It helped put things back into perspective-that helpless note in his barking order, because it triggered the unapologetic, ultra rational synapses in her brain that came out whenever there was trouble. Taking a tired but resolved breath in, and nibbling on her lower lip, a habit she could never seem to shake, she brushed herself off and stood up from the ground.

He looked at her, his brows furrowed in contemplative uncertainty, torn on how best to proceed. To comfort? The back of his mind alarmed at the prospect of that method being his first instinct. To berate if needed, if only to get her to refocus? But she stood herself up, with clear, lucid eyes and her gaze steady as she looked at him.

Clearing her throat, she muttered a hasty, "I'm fine. I just-" She blinked. "I'm fine," she said again, straightening out her back and looking more determined, as though daring him to contradict her.

Brave Princess.

An unexpected urge to pull her close and run his fingers through her golden hair fell upon him, like he had done for some many years, allaying his sister's fears of discovery, soothing the frustrations of the unfairness of life away. But he didn't. Because it was Clarke, not Octavia standing in front of him, admirably strong and stubbornly self-contained.

"We don't know even know what that was," he offered instead.

"No we don't," she agreed.

"It could have been a meteor for all we know," he continued.

"Right," she agreed again.

"It could have been a supply ship with no passengers."

"Right."

Her monosyllabic answers were beginning to unnerve him. There was something not quite right about her responses-too detached to be sincere. "Clarke-" he began.

"You're right Bellamy," she interrupted him quickly, "We don't know what it was. And even if it-" she took a strengthening breath, "And even if it was a drop ship, we aren't in any position to do anything about it now."

"So-"

"So we need to stay on course. We need to have a contingency plan. If the ark isn't able to help us, we'll need to come up with ways to keep our people alive on our own."

He nodded curtly in agreement. His mind quickly cleared, and in a rush, began to fill with solutions and strategies. "We'll need to assign tasks, create divisions, leverage our resources, separate the strong from the weak..."

Clarke could almost hear Bellamy thinking, like the hum of gears turning, creating order, generating energy. It was almost a pity to interrupt the process, but Clarke felt the need to make herself clear. "I meant that we should build a self-sustaining community, not just to create a militia." She felt rather than saw the disapproval in his eyes, so she continued on, "Look, I'm not gonna argue with you about needing to train people to protect themselves. I just think we all need a way to trust each other first-to know that we can rely on each other."

"You don't think we trust each other?"

Clarke found herself taken aback by the question, knowing there was more to it than a simple yes, I do, or no, I don't. There was that twinge of urgency in his tone again which both confused and empowered her. And the pressure began to build, stemmed from the anxiety of answering the question right for him-to reassure him, and, in some twisted way, please him too. She bit her lip.

"I..." she began.

"Bellamy! Clarke!" a voice shouted from inside the camp. "Get over here, now!"

Casting him a furtive glance of concern, she nodded as he touched her shoulder gently, leading her inside the compound.