Flaw

Chapter Two
Uneasy Alliance

"But I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep."
- Robert Frost.

The group have been walking for a while with Clarke leading, charging like she wasn't planning on stopping anytime soon. Alex lags behind with Octavia and the other two boys she still doesn't know the names of, enjoying the scenery. She watches as Finn pulls a purple flower from one of the bushes and places it behind Octavia's ear, being his usual charming self.

"Now that, my friend, is game." The lanky boy with the goggles says, before his voice gets lower. "Maybe I should do that."

"Or maybe you shouldn't because that's poison sumac." The other boy replies, making Octavia gasp and shake the flower out of her hair. Alex laughs and the other girl slaps her arm in return. "The flowers aren't poisonous, they're medicinal. Calming actually."

"His family grows all the pharmaceuticals on the Ark." The tall boy explains.

Clarke turns around to face them, the exasperation clear on her face. "Hey guys, would you try to keep up?" She snaps.

"Someone has a stick up their ass." Alex mumbles, low enough for Octavia to hear and snort at.

"Come on Clarke!" Finn exclaims. "How do you block all this out?"

"Well, it's simple." Clarke says like it's obvious. "I wonder why we haven't seen any animals. Maybe it's because there are none. Maybe it's because we've been exposed to enough radiation to kill us." And Finn called her the killjoy. "Sure is pretty though."

"I was wrong about the stick." Alex mutters as Clarke turns away. "It's a pole." Apparently, it wasn't quiet enough as Clarke glances back at her and glares.

"Yeah." Octavia agrees. "Someone should slip her some poison sumac." The rest of the group sniggers and follows behind Clarke.

The group continues walking, soon reaching higher ground. Alex stumbles over a rock and nearly hits the ground, before her arm is grabbed and she gets pulled back to her feet. She looks up to see the lanky boy helping her up and giving her a wide smile. "Thanks." She tells him, pulling her arm back.

He shrugs awkwardly. "No problem at all, saving damsels is what I do." The other boy snorts and Alex raises an eyebrow, trying her hardest to not laugh, even though the boy looks like he wants to cringe at his line.

"Is it now?" She asks.

"Yeah!" He replies. "But you know, if you did what to thank me, you could tell me your name because I don't seem to know it yet." His rambling makes Alex smile slightly.

"Alex." She replies.

"I'm Jasper." He replies, before pointing over at the other boy. "That's Monty." Monty gives her a wave.

Finn pipes up from further ahead of the group. "I got to know what got you two busted!"

"Sumac's not the only herb in the garden if you know what I mean." Monty tells the group, smirking slightly. Alex connects the dots pretty quickly.

"Wait so you two were the ones who supplied the weed to Jackson?" Alex asks, raising an eyebrow as she named one of the boys she knew, who supplied 'recreational' drugs to the section of The Ark she lived in. He told he got it from someone a little higher up than he was. She certainly didn't expect these two to be the suppliers of illegal drugs to the people of the Ark.

Jasper turns to her, an intrigued look on his face. "Am I talking to a client?" He asks.

She just smiles at him in return. Some nights when Alex wasn't worried about surprise inspections, she and Raven, and at times Finn would…relax for a while with the help of the weed they had gotten off of Jackson. Though, this was mostly before Alex's father died and Raven stared studying for the Zero-g exam.

"Holy shit." Jasper replies, the amusement clear on his face, though it does fade soon after his next sentence. "Though maybe we'd still be supplying if someone replaced what we took."

"Someone's apologised like a thousand times." Monty replies.

"How about you Octavia? What did they get you for?" Jasper asks, making Alex whip around to give him a looks that says 'you shouldn't have said that'.

It doesn't stop Octavia from replying. "Being born." She runs off and Alex gives Jasper an annoyed look.

"What!" He exclaims. "I was just asking."

"Are you deaf? Did you not hear the commotion on the dropship earlier when whoever it was shouted about Octavia?" She asks, making Jasper shrug, his expression sheepish. Alex rolls her eyes and runs after her friend. She catches up to the girl and slows down to her pace. "Some people ask stupid questions." She says, wondering how the hell he didn't know who Octavia Blake was. She was infamous in the skybox.

"You're damn right." She mutters.

Their path diverts down a hill and the group follow it down, as Finn asks a question that had been on everyone's mind. "You know what I'd like to know." He says. "Why send us down today after ninety-seven years? What changed?"

"Who cares!" Octavia replies. "I'm just glad they did. I woke up rotting in a cell, now I'm spinning in a forest." She spins and stops to smile at Finn, who walks straight past the girl.

Alex snorts and pats her shoulder. "That was adorable." She whispers to her, making Octavia send her elbow into her ribs.

"Maybe they found something on a satellite." Monty suggests. "You know, like an old weather satellite or-"

"It wasn't a satellite." Clarke interrupts. "The Ark is dying."

Alex stops in her tracks as the words wash over her. The Ark is dying. She whips around to face Clarke. "What the hell do you mean by that?" She asks.

Clarke walks straight past them. "With the current population level, there's roughly three months left of life support. Maybe four, now that we're gone." Alex's heart begins to pound in fear at the thought of her sister up in The Ark slowly suffocating. She has to do something.

"So that was the secret they locked you up for?" Finn asks. "Why they locked you up in solitary and floated your old man?"

"Who cares?" Alex mutters under her breath, caring more about what happened to her family than the Griffin family. She steps forward, raising her voice. "So there's no way they can fix the oxygen problem? This is the end then?"

"From what my father could find, there was absolutely no way to fix it." She replies. "He was the chief engineer who discovered the flaw."

"So why the hell does no one else on The Ark know about this?" She snaps, getting angry at the secret being hidden, a secret that could kill them all.

"The council thought it would cause a panic, despite my father wanting to tell everyone." Clarke tells her. "We were going to go public anyway, when Wells…" She trails off.

"When Wells what?" Monty asks. "Turned in your dad?"

Clarke ignores the question. "Anyway, the guards showed up before we could do anything. That's why today." She says to Finn. "That's why it was worth the risk. At least it bought themselves some more time."

"They're going to kill more people, aren't they?" Monty asks.

"And it sure as hell isn't going to be one of them." Alex adds bitterly, thinking that if push came to shove it wouldn't be the privileged who would die- it would be the people they deemed less important, the poorer among the society.

Her family were less well-off up in The Ark, even more so after her father died. There has always been a part of her that had been envious of the well-off, those who were well-fed and there was never a chance of them wondering if there would be enough food that night. She knows she's bitter, but frankly Alex doesn't care.

"Good!" Octavia says. "After what they did to me, I say float them all."

"You don't mean that!" Jasper exclaims, running after Octavia with Alex close at his heels.

"Of course I do." Octavia replies, running further ahead. "I say let those bastards…" She trails off. "Is that water?" She exclaims, getting distracted from her sentence as she notices the screen.

"What?" Alex exclaims, speeding over to her side and gaping at the stream that flows further past them. It's clear that the earth has more surprises set in store for them. She turns to Octavia when she taps Alex's arm.

"Come on, we're getting in." She says, stripping off her jacket.

"Excuse me?" Alex says, not sure about that plan.

"We are getting in the damn water and we are going to be the first people in ninety-seven years to swim." She tells Alex, stripping off her upper layers to reveal a red tank top.

"Are you forgetting that neither of us can swim?" Alex asks.

"Well, think of this as…" She pauses, thinking of the words to say. "Baptism by fire." Alex lets out a laugh and thinks 'screw it', her anger fading. As much as they need to get to Mount Weather, they deserved to have a little fun. The Ark still has oxygen for months anyway. She strips off her jacket as Octavia pulls down her trousers and kicks them into the corner.

"What the hell are you two doing?" Clarke exclaims. Alex just smirks at the blonde as she pulls off her combat boots. Octavia jumps in the water and Alex goes further down the rocks to see if her friend was still okay.

"Octavia, we can't swim!" Monty calls to her.

"It's a baptism by fire." Alex repeats Octavia's words, making said girl grin at her.

"Besides, we can just stand." She adds, standing up to reveal the river was only waist deep.

"Wait." Clarke says. "There's not supposed to be a river here."

"Well, there is." Finn says. "So take off your damn clothes." Alex lets out a laugh, which makes Finn lean over to her. "What happened to being worried about The Ark?"

"I've been in the skybox for a year, Finn." She replies. "And now I'm one of the first people on earth in ninety-seven years. I think I'm entitled to have a little fun." She's still worried, but the feeling is buried deep under the euphoria of being on earth. Finn doesn't reply and starts to pull of his jacket, allowing Alex to pull off her long sleeved shirt to reveal a black tank top, one similar to Octavia's.

"Octavia get out of the water!" Jasper yells, making Alex look up. Her gaze turns horrified when she sees something moving through the water- heading straight for Octavia.

"Get out of the water!" She screams, attempting to get the girl to react. Octavia doesn't react in time as the thing in the water pulls her under. Alex doesn't even think about what she's doing. All she knows is that her friend is in danger, so she dives into the water to go after her, with the rest of the group screaming after her to not do it.

The water rushes into her mouth and nose when she impacts, making her splutter and cough, her eyes stinging. She scrambles forward when she sees Octavia struggling to get to the surface to breathe, as the thing has of hold of her leg and it didn't seem like it was going to let go anytime soon. Her heart pounds in fear as she grabs onto Octavia and kicks at whatever was holding her.

The monster whips them across the water and Alex tries desperately to get to the surface as water fills her mouth. There's a faint voice in the back of her mind that tells her she may die never seeing her sister again. She would never see the joy on her sister's face when she makes it to the ground and it's enough to make a small part of her want to let go and get to the surface, but a far larger part of her was going to help her friend. She wouldn't let her friends die.

She kicks and kicks at the face of the monster, but nothing seems to make it stop, until a disturbance in the water makes it swim away. Alex wraps her arms around Octavia's torso and pulls them both to the surface, gasping and spluttering for air. Her limbs feel so tired that she doesn't know if she can make it to land fast enough, until she feels someone tug her back. "I've got you." Jasper says, helping her by wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling them both towards the surface.

"It's coming back!" Monty calls. "It's heading right for you guys!"

That makes Alex push herself. She kicks her legs in an attempt to move herself and help Jasper pull them both to the rocks. They soon reach the surface and Alex throws herself and Octavia up onto the rocks. She lies back and coughs the water out of her mouth, before inhaling the fresh air deeply.

She turns on her side to see Clarke ripping off a piece of Jasper's shirt to bandage the wound on Octavia's leg. "Thank you." Octavia says, pulling Jasper into a hug.

When she pulls back, Alex looks at Jasper and grins. "Well what do you know." She says. "Saving damsels really is what you do." She pulls him into a hug as well. "Thank you."

"Note to self." Monty says. "Next time, save the girls." At that, Alex lets out a breathless laugh.

They soon settled for the night in an area sheltered from the rain, which had started about an hour or two after they had started to walk again after Clarke bandaged up Octavia's leg. Alex had stood in the rain for a minute, still amazed by the earth.

She wakes up the next morning as dawn breaks, with a mouthful of brown hair and Octavia's arm slung across her. She's no stranger to this. They used to pull the bedding onto the floor in their cell and talk while they lay on it, sometimes falling asleep like that. Alex would often wake up with an arm or a leg over her. She sits up, after pulling Octavia's arm off her and placing it down gently. She stiffens as Octavia stirs and rolls over, letting out a quiet sigh of relief when she didn't wake up.

She gets up and shuffles out of their shelter, smiling as she breathes in the fresh morning air and watches the sky lighten. It's beautiful down here, so much so that she knows Minerva is going to love it. Her sister was the one who was fascinated by earth, not her. Mainly because Minerva spent most of her time reading about earth in the books Alex gave to her.

She feels bad for taking the break yesterday. The euphoria from earth is still there, but now it's waned slightly, especially since Octavia nearly got her leg bitten off. She remembers The Ark is dying and it may be possible that in a few months, her sister and her mother would suffocate in a rig that had been their family's home for years, and she had decided to forget about that and go for a swim. She feels like an idiot.

She sighs and begins to walk, going to the river which was close to their shelter. It wasn't that far from where she and Octavia nearly drowned, as they couldn't go much further with Octavia's leg. Finn had to carry her for the rest of the way and Alex could tell Octavia wasn't complaining.

Alex walks down the path, hoping to reach the river they had passed by yesterday to clean herself up, particularly her face as it felt sore and stretched. Though, that may be because of sunburn. She smiles to herself. Maybe there were some disadvantages to being on the ground.

A flash of blonde hair catches her attention once she reaches the river side. A rock she kicks out of the way lands beside Clarke, the sound grabbing her attention and causing her to whip around to face Alex. She narrows her eyes at the other girl, watching her closely. Alex holds up her hands in surrender. "Relax princess, I'm not going to push you in."

Clarke frowns and Alex realises that she may not be the most popular person with the princess at the moment. It's probably because of how she acted towards Wells the day before. To be honest, Alex doesn't particularly like her either. There was something about her and Wells ordering the group around yesterday the grated her. Whatever, Alex is just glad to get her alone to ask her some questions.

Clarke eyes her warily as Alex shrugs off her skybox issued jacket and tosses it aside, still not taking her eyes off the other girl as she cups some water in her hands and drinks it. Alex glances up at her and raises her eyebrow, before splashing her face with water. "You know, it's rude to stare." She says, which is what makes Clarke finally look away. "You got something to say?"

"What do you want?" The blonde asked.

"I'm sorry, am I not allowed to clean myself?" She snaps, raising a dark eyebrow. Clarke narrows her eyes slightly in return and Alex sighs. "Okay, I wanted to ask you something."

"What?" Clarke snaps, clearly irritated by the conversation.

Alex's eyes flickered away from Clarke's glare as she spoke, her fingers fiddling with the zipper of her jacket. "I was thinking about what you said, about how The Ark is running out of oxygen." She pauses and it clearly takes too long for Clarke's liking.

"Yes, and?" She asks.

"What's going to happen when the oxygen runs out?" She asks, her eyes glancing back up at Clarke who frowns in return. "Will they come to earth before then?"

"If they know that it's inhabitable." She replies.

"And how will they know if the earth is inhabitable? I know we're part of their test but how do we help?" Alex asks, running a hand through her hair.

"There was probably a radio on the dropship but because of the damage done I doubt it's still operational. These wristbands are probably the only thing that's giving them any indication that we're still alive." Clarke explains.

Alex's fingers curl around the silver band around her wrist. "You realise that if most of the others find out about what the wristbands do they will try to take them off?" She asks. She knows the people of the skybox. Most of them didn't have families or their families didn't give a shit about them. Most of them hated the rest of the people of The Ark so if they found out they probably wouldn't follow down for whatever reason, then they would do anything in their power to make sure they don't follow.

To be frank, she really didn't give a shit about the rest of the people of The Ark apart from her family and Raven, but to keep them alive, the rest of The Ark would have to stay alive as well.

"Why would they do that?" Clarke asks, raising her eyebrow.

"Most of them hate the rest of The Ark. They'll do anything to stop them from coming down here." She explains, fiddling with a strand of her hair.

"Can I ask?" Clarke says, making Alex look up at her, her expression confused. "Why do you care about all of this? It seemed like you didn't give a shit yesterday." Truth be told, she was right. However, she didn't know all of the information yesterday.

"I have my reasons." She replies. In her opinion, her reasons weren't any of Clarke's business.

"I know you have family up on The Ark." She says, making Alex look up at her in confusion. "Your father was the man that killed Dr Sinclair, but I assume your mother is still alive, at least from what I heard from my mother."

At that, Alex gets to her feet and grabs her jacket, her fists clenched. "It was nice talking to you, princess." She says, before storming off, her normal reaction to anyone who mentioned her father. She saw the way other children looked at her after her father was floated. They were worried she would snap and turn out like him, which made her angry.

But even if Clarke is good at pissing her off, they both wanted the same thing: to keep the people of The Ark alive. Alex had made a promise to her father to look after her sister and she had to keep that promise, even if it meant working with the princess to make sure The Ark would stay alive.

About two hours later, the group now stands on the rocks again, but this time further away from where she and Octavia nearly drowned. They managed to affix a rope onto one of the trees and pulled it tight enough, hopefully enough to allow them to reach the other side. There was no way in hell they were going through the water. None of them wanted a repeat of the day before, least of all Alex and Octavia.

Finn was taking too long pulling on the rope for Alex's liking. "Come on Collins!" She called. "We want to get to Mount Weather this century!"

"Are you capable of being patient, Al'?" He calls back down to her, making Alex simply roll her eyes in return. Truth be told, she was getting impatient. Waiting on a rock side for a guy to jump really wasn't her favourite activity.

Clarke apparently agreed with her, as she called up to Finn as well. "You wanted to go first! Now quit stalling. Mount Weather awaits." She called, raising her eyebrows.

"Just hang onto the apogee." Jasper explains, making Finn nod.

"Like the Indians?" Finn asks, making both Jasper and Alex roll her eyes. She knew Finn was just pretending to not know what he meant.

"No, I said apogee, not Apache." Jasper replied.

"He knows." Clarke calls. "Today, Finn."

"Tick tock!" Alex adds, making Finn roll his eyes.

"Aye, aye captain!" He calls to them, giving Clarke a two-fingered salute. "See you on the other side."

Finn was just about to swing across the river when Jasper called out, "Wait!" Alex let out a groan at him stalling. "Let me. I can do it."

Finn smiles as he hands the rope to Jasper, patting his shoulder. "I knew there was a badass in there somewhere." Jasper takes the rope from Finn and clutches onto it, hesitating before he launched himself over the river. Finn notices this and says, "It's okay to be afraid. The trick is not fighting it."

That was apparently enough to make Jasper feel braver. His grip tightens on the rope and he lets out a breath before addressing the rest of the group. "See you on the other side!"

And with that, Jasper launches himself off the rock and across the river. Alex bites her lip, praying that the rope held and grinned once he reached the other side. He fell off the rope and onto the rock, making the group run to the edge of their side to see if he was alright. He turns to face them and pumps his fists in the air. "WE ARE APOGEE!"

Alex cheers along with the rest of the group, unable to help the grin that comes across her face. Finn turns to Clarke and hands the rope to her. "Let's go, princess. You're up!"

From across the river, Jasper shouts words of encouragement to Clarke. "Come on Clarke, you got this! Whoo! Apogee!" Clarke grabs onto the rope, about to swing when Jasper's voice came across the river again. "We did it!" He shouts, holding a sign above his head that displayed MOUNT WEATHER on it. Alex grins wider at the sight of their goal in reach.

It's all fun and games until a spear shoots over their heads and into Jasper's chest.

"JASPER!" Alex screams.

"No!" Clarke shouts at the same time, as they duck behind shelter. What the fuck was that? What the fuck? There were meant to be no more people on earth, it was uninhabitable! All she knew was that there was no animal who could throw spears.

"What the fuck was that?" Alex hisses, finally voicing her inner thoughts.

Clarke says the words that Alex didn't want to say, the words that meant that their biggest danger was not the animals or the plants or the weather of the earth. It was instead the people.

"We are not alone."

Sorry about taking such a long break guys! I had my GCSE's to do but now it's summer and I'm hoping to update more often. I'm hoping to even finish season one by the end of the summer, but please don't definitely count on that. I said on one of my other stories that I hoped to have finished by the end of January and I didn't update until June, so I'm just warning you.

I'd also like to thank January Lily for making me my amazing cover! If any of you are fans of Supernatural and sisfics, then I really recommend checking out her story Us Against The World!

I'd like to thank laheytrash, Daily Sinner, January Lily and kathrynwerewolves14 for reviewing, Ydalia, laheytrash, Blloom1234, January Lily, Luc324, Olaf Likes Warm Hugz, TheUndeadPlayer, angelangie07, bellamysblake, ravenclawstarkid and tablekorner for favourting, and Daily Sinner, Demure1975, KatieLuccii, Lady-Spectral, Luc324, Mockingbird's Purity, Olaf Likes Warm Hugz, Pjch666, Redesiuk, TheUndeadPlayer, Ydalia, bluesweird, hellodaydreamer, kstritz, masqueraderose3, onlinescribbles, ravenclawstarkid, runawaycherry93, thewolfbitch and xtnealonx for following.