She can't talk. Her neck is bruised and swollen, and if she were to use her voice it would most likely barely be a whisper. She can't talk and it's better that way, because they don't ask her if she's fine, or how she's doing, or what she feels. It's better, because she doesn't want to talk.

They talk to her. Her mom comes in, tells her what happened. We did some tests. It's called hijacking, honey. We don't know how long the capital's been doing this to Bellamy. It's fear conditioning. Enhanced with tracker jacker venom. She pretends to be tired, heart hammering in her chest. Octavia comes to see her. Tracker jacker venom, she says, sad, stroking back her hair from her face, like in your first Games. Remember? You were stung. The venom causes you to dissociate. Wells comes to see her with Raven—strong, brave, fearless Raven—who has to look away from Clarke. From the bruises, the hemorrhages in her eyes, the defeated look on her face. Shaw comes later, explains how it works. Maybe Wells couldn't find the strength, to beat her when she was already down. To add salt to a wound that already might never close. They tortured him, shocks and beatings, stripped down his identity. All that suffering, all that fear. It's redirected. Associated with other memories. He pauses. Or a person. Change their memories. Memories of you, he clarified like she didn't already understand Wallace hurt her the only way he knew how, make you seem life-threatening. They turned him into a weapon, Clarke. To kill you.

She laid down on her side, back turned towards Shaw. The people who love us hurt us the most. That's what he said. That's what he wanted her to remember.

We are trying to reverse it, sweetie, her mom assures her each time, pushing back her hair from her face, when it's been days, when she should be able to talk and still hasn't, fear is difficult to overcome, but it's not impossible. The president put together a team. I'm optimistic.

Optimistic. When she said that, she pulled the covers up to her ears, ignored her until she went away. Optimism wasn't good enough. Not when they took the person who deserved it the least and turned him into something he never wanted to be, always feared to be. A monster.

They talk to her, and she's thankful, because she doesn't have to talk back.

"He's been calmer with the healers," Wells tells her, after she doesn't know how many days. They all blur together. But the bruises have yellowed, and her voice no longer sounds strained when she tries it out, vocal cords no longer swollen from the impact. "But they're strangers to him."

He brought her something to eat that isn't in a fluid state, and she's grateful for that, even if it does hurt to swallow the sturdy bread. But it's good. He watches her eat for a while, then smiles, careful, sitting on her hospital bed beside her feet. "They want to test his response on someone he remembers. From home. Someone he trusts."

"Octavia," she checks, quietly, putting the roll down on top of her tray. She's not so hungry anymore.

"Yeah," he confirms, and his smile fades, traded for a doubtful bite of his lip. His dark hand hovers above her ankle, hesitant, then he puts it down on top of it, decision made. "I can take you, if you'd like."

She swallows, mouth feeling dry, picking the bread apart, just to keep her hands busy. Doesn't she at least owe Bellamy that? To give him another chance? Give him as much chances as he needs? Then, she makes up her mind, wiping the crumbs off her hands on her hospital gown. "Okay."

They stand in front of a big, rectangle one-way mirror not much later. Clarke and Wells watch him stare at the ceiling, calm, restraints around his wrists and ankles. He was taken to a more secluded area, out of the medbay, to keep him away from as many stimuli as possible. He looks exactly how she remembered him, maybe a little thinner, a little more tired, but the same in so many other ways.

Octavia smiles at him as she steps inside of the room, treading over to him softly. Her long brown hair is braided back from her clean face, grey jumpsuit just a little too big on her small frame. "Hi, big brother."

"Octavia," he breathes, eager, as soon as the recognition dawns on him, trying to sit up as far as he can with his limbs tied to the bed, eyes raking her face like he can't quite believe it's really his sister. A beat passes and then he adds, "How are you feeling?"

Clarke can't help it, but she's on the verge of crying. He was taken. He was tortured. They took his memories. And he still only worries about others, about his sister. She steps closer, presses her fingers against the glass. She wishes—she wishes it was her instead, above all. That it was her behind the other side of the glass. That she didn't have to keep from reaching out for him.

All Octavia's defenses seem to come down, probably realizing the same thing Clarke had, and she puts her arms around her brother. He tries to hug her back as best as he can, straining the restraints. He lets out a shuddering breath against her hair—like he's been holding his breath for too long—and she presses a loud kiss to his temple, smiling through the relieved tears, "I'm okay."

He seems to relax a little, shoulders sagging as she pulls back, steps back. He puts up his palm, looks at her, desperate almost, and she covers it with her own, wiping at her eyes with her free hand. He licks his dry lips, hint of a smile playing on his lips, like he's not quite sure why he's smiling. Then it's gone. "How did you get here?"

"We live here. In district thirteen. It's a real place." She smiles, weak, pensive, maybe even reminiscent. Of their lives, before Clarke, when Octavia was the only on he could share his myths and legends with. "The stories were true after all, Bell," she explains, and his fingers close tightly around hers, as he listens, attentive. "You were rescued, and brought here."

His forehead creases in confusion, getting restless again, shifting on the bed, hand flexing around Octavia's. "What about twelve?"

"There was an attack," she states, not further elaborating. It's probably best. Not to push him too much. Realizing twelve was gone was hard enough on its own, when your brain was still yours, memories still your own.

"It's Clarke," he says, conspiratorial, and her heart breaks inside of her chest at the sound of her own name. At the way his eyes narrow together in disgust. "It's because of Clarke."

Octavia seems confused at his hatred for her—even knowing what he did to Clarke, what he tried to do, with his hands around her neck—like that hadn't been enough to convince his sister it really was over between the two of them, that something had changed for him. No more you and me. No more together. Octavia assures him, stubborn like always, "It wasn't because of her."

"Did she tell you to say that?" He commands, demanding, yanking on one of his restraints. She pulls her hand back quickly, and for the first time in her life, Clarke sees fear flash across Octavia's eyes. His chest starts heaving up and down faster and more irregular, layer of sweat starting to cover his skin, and his brown eyes searching the room, wild and suspicious.

"She didn't tell me anything, Bell," she counters, full of disbelief, searching his face for the truth. Clarke doesn't have to. She already knows he means it. Then, Octavia's eyes narrow, her jaw clenches. "I don't follow orders. You're my brother. I shouldn't have to tell you that."

"She's a liar," he presses, each word louder, each word more desperate for his sister to understand, each word making it harder for Clarke to breathe. "You can't trust her." That's a mortal lock, that's what he told her in the arena. When she asked him if they could still trust each other, even if they could trust no one else. If it was still the two of them against the rest of the world, the rest of the arena. A mortal lock. "She's a monster. She's a mutt that Polis created to destroy us!"

"Bellamy, calm down," she yells, frantic, and she steps closer—even if he's fighting against the restraints, even if not too long ago he tried to choke his best friend to death—because that's who Octavia is. She doesn't understand why he's acting this way, why he's saying the things he is, why he won't just listen to her. "What you're saying isn't true, it's not real."

"She knows you're here now," he implies, getting more agitated by the second, trying to move his limbs, and Clarke vaguely registers Shaw telling the other guards to pull Octavia back out. Bellamy keeps repeating, determined, frenzied, "You have to kill her, O. You have to kill her!"

"It's a conditioned response," Wells reminds her quietly on the way back to her room, when the silence gets too deafening, "It's not him." It's not him, but it is him. She can't help but wonder if this isn't just his unconsciousness bubbling to the surface, if a small part of him thinks it is all true, if a small unconscious part of him blames her, and wants her to suffer like he did.

"No," she agrees, morose. Intentions aside, unconscious or not, either way, it's working. And it's easier to compartmentalize it, to think of this person as someone else who just looks like him, to not think of this person as the one she knew, to not think of this person as her person. It'll be easier like that, once they figure out he isn't fixable and that her version of Bellamy was gone forever. "It's not him."

She's tired. Tired of sitting on her hands, waiting around, watching him through a window, hoping things might change when there's no guarantee they will. Maybe too much has changed, maybe that's the problem.

No. The only problem—the only real problem is Wallace. He has to pay for what he's done. She has to remember why she started this. Who she started this for. Her people. They're still there, they're still fighting, Wallace has gotten to them yet. Not all of them.

"I want to help the rebels in any way I can," she tells Diyoza during a mandatory meeting, when she can't take much more of it. The talking about peace and war in the same sentences. "Send me to Polis. I'll fire up the troops. Call out the loyalists. I'll do anything."

Of course the president doesn't agree, has reasons, good reasons to. They can't get into Polis until they control district two. District two controls most of the weaponry, manufactures them, trains and recruits Peacekeepers. If thirteen controls their arsenal, controls their soldiers, they can get to Polis. If they get to Polis, if Clarke can get to Polis, she can get to Wallace. If she can get to Wallace—so they send her to two.

Fifteen minutes before their hovercraft is scheduled to leave, she goes to pick up some new arrows in Raven's self-proclaimed workshop. She breaks off in the middle of an explanation about a new long-distance arrow she's developing, that Clarke was only half-listening to to start with.

"It's hard to see Bellamy this way," she suggests, after a beat of silence passes, stilling her hands on the electronics in front of her. Clarke's head snaps up to meet her gaze. It's not so much a question as it is an observation.

"That's not Bellamy," she counters, gravelly, forehead creasing as she slings her bow over her shoulder. Not her Bellamy. It's been more weeks of halted progress. It isn't hard to pretend like he's still gone for Clarke, still missing. Like she's still waiting for him to get back. That way she won't have to think about—she doesn't have to grief. She's done enough of that to last her another ten lifetimes.

"I saw him," she admits, fixated on something over Clarke's shoulder, like she can see the memory play out there, then inhales sharply. "After—" Raven halts, again, glancing over at her neck briefly, very briefly, ducking her chin as she continues tinkering with a screwdriver and some sort of green metal plate.

"After he tried to kill me," Clarke clarifies coldly, unimpressed. Raven was usually never one to shy away from anything. And Clarke's thought about it a lot, woke up every morning since it happened, covered in sweat, unable to speak, unable to move. Thought about how perhaps they'd just postponed the inevitable. One of them was always supposed to die in that arena. She always said it should be her, maybe he was just following through on it. She wonders, often, that if it came down to it, the two of them, no way out of the arena, what would have happened. Cynical, she prods, "And what did you think?"

"Doesn't really matter what I think," she exhales loudly, impatient, annoyed even. She hisses as a spark of electricity shocks her flesh and she sucks on her finger, for just a second, to relieve the sting. "I'm no healer, no therapist. What's going on in your head? What do you want to do about it?"

What she thinks.

She feels naive. Stupid. All this time, she'd assumed that they would be able to pick off where they left off, that everything would be the same, that they would be on the same page. That she could still read him as easy as the back of her hand. Now—now it was painstakingly clear that they'd both taken a different turn, taken different journeys, started different stories. That he started over without her, that there might not be any role left for her to fill. That this is the end of their story together, all the pages used up.

Mostly, she feels exhausted. Because she can never turn it off, never stop thinking. Turning off her feelings was relatively easy. Turning off her thoughts proved to be a lot harder. Seeing him made it worse, but she couldn't—watching him was like torture, knowing he was there, so close to her, but not actually there. But not watching him? That wasn't an option, never was. She just got him back and whatever may have happened between the two of them, her promises still stand. Clarke shakes her head, as if to shake away any lingering thoughts. "I have to go." She picks up her backpack, slings it over her free shoulder as she tucks some hair behind her ear. "Thanks for the arrows."

Raven's jaw twitches, knuckles white from where they're wrapped around the screwdriver, and for a second it looks like she's just going to let her walk away. Then, just as she turns and passes the threshold of the workshop, "Clarke—"

"Yeah?" She backtracks, turning on her heels, hand coming up to steady herself against the doorjamb. Their eyes meet, understanding, or maybe not quite at all. Raven didn't need to say what she thought about him, about his recovery. It was clear as day she considered him a lost cause.

She grits her teeth, brief, pained, like she's been through this before, through losing someone but not really losing them. "You can't fix him, and I know that must really suck for you, because that's what you do. I fix stuff, you fix people." Her hands wring together on top of the table, and her mouth opens, but it takes a second longer for her to start back up again. "But you better figure out what you're going to do if he doesn't get better, or you'll never be able to let him go."

Let him go. Wasn't she long past the point of no return?

Shaw sits next to her, babbles on, way too friendly, way too cheerful. Tells her and the others about a stroke of genius he had the other night, thought of another booby-trap, one that might make Diyoza a little more appreciative of his resourcefulness. "You throw in a bomb, just smoke that clings to the eyes, I'm sure Reyes could whip something up, you know, just blinds anyone in the near vicinity. People get scared, flee into one direction, away from the smoke. Bam." Clarke actually flinches when he claps his hands together, adjusting the bow around her shoulder uncomfortably. "Two-tiered explosion. You allow them enough time to rush in, help the wounded, and then—a second bomb."

He doesn't mean it in a bad way, thinking of the enemy as something sub-human becomes almost like second nature when it's you versus them. Clarke knows that—hell, she's done it. Besides, Shaw is an avid fan of friendly small talk and is probably just trying to distract her like Harper always tries to do, but Clarke's in a foul mood, is hardly ever in any other mood lately. Combine that with the chronic lack of sleep and the conversation she just had with Raven, and she was bound to snap, even fully well knowing she was being a hypocrite that not long ago was willing to move heaven and earth for the rescue of one person, that did things in the arena that still kept her up at night. "I guess there's no rules anymore about what a person can do to another person."

"It's war, Clarke. There's no rules in war," he counters, hands flexing on his rifle, and she guesses she could agree with that, but he doesn't stop there, and that's his mistake. "I don't think Wallace was using any rulebook when he hijacked Bellamy."

Miller actually winces, to Shaw's credit, because he doesn't do much else beside be systematically angry at everything all the time.

"Don't talk about him," she bites, venomously, before fixing her gaze straight ahead, inhaling sharply. They didn't get to throw him in her face like that. Didn't get to use him against her, too.

It's painfully quiet the rest of the flight, everyone avoiding eye-contact with her like she'll break them in half if they don't. Except for Monty, but she guesses he's used to the silence. When they touch ground, while the rest is gathering their supplies, he comes over and touches her shoulder, for just a second. His smile is comforting, but she's not sure it's something she deserves.

District two is well-guarded, by both military and civilian personnel, and with good reason. It's basically Polis' headquarters for all offensive operations. There's one building in particular, a fortress, lying beneath bedrock, untouchable. The rebels made multiple attempts to overtake the gates, but haven't accomplished much besides heavy losses.

Shaw nods, as he listens to one of the rebel commanders on the ground explain their previous plans of attack. "Could we create a decoy?" He prompts at one point, starting up about his damn plan again and making Clarke grit her teeth together to keep from snapping at him. He lifts a shoulder indifferently. "Sends troops towards one gate, launch an attack on another."

"Whose troops do you propose as a decoy, Mr. Shaw?" The woman in uniform counters—Byrne, she thinks her name was—sharp edge to her voice as she rolls up the blueprint on top of the large stone table they're all huddled around, in the midst of an abandoned building. Indra's there, too, since there wasn't anything left to fight for in her district.

"We have the Mockingjay," Harper states, simply, and Clarke freezes, feels too many eyes bore into the side of her face. "Don't underestimate her. She can sway the loyalists. We could use her to erode support—"

"I didn't know you had any combat experience, McIntyre," Indra cuts her off, sharp and cynical, eyebrows raised and Harper ducks her head, mouth snapping shut, but it's not—shameful. No. She really believes Clarke can convince the Polis loyalists. Maybe Clarke has to, maybe she has no choice, and she'll have to find a way.

"District thirteen has been underground for a long time. This isn't like the rest of Panem," Byrne reasons, turning her attention back onto Shaw and ignoring Harper's little outburst. Clarke is thankful for it. "Here support for Polis runs deep."

"Even with every district in this alliance we are outgunned, outnumbered. We need to control the arsenal inside that fortress," Shaw replies, insistent, shaking his head lightly, arms crossed over his chest. He's so young, Clarke thinks, so young and raised into a war. She wonders what he would've been like if it hadn't been for Wallace's regime. A Peacekeeper? Or maybe something as simple as a baker, or maybe a teacher. He has kind eyes, children would like him. She knows war changes you, but what if war is all you are?

The arguments go on and on between Indra, Byrne and Shaw and they all make a point. They need that arsenal to get to Polis, but it seems useless to waste even more human lives for just guns, when the people there have lost so much, so recent and they have no assurance it'll even work.

"Would it be enough to disable the fortress?" Clarke cuts in, when they don't seem to be getting any further, going over everything again and again, coming to the same conclusion every time. It's not worth the risk for some, and for others no risk is too grand. Heads snap her way, surprised, annoyed, impressed, it's hard to tell. She clears her throat quietly, tongue darting out to wet her lips. She's not just the face of the Rebellion, you know. She isn't stupid—without the rebels she'd be nowhere and she knows it—but she's not useless either.

"What do you have in mind?" Indra takes pity on her and Clarke exhales loudly, pinching the bridge of her nose. She puts her bow on top of the table, resting her hands on the edge of it. "We're not going to be able to fight our way in, so we have two choices. We trap them inside, or we flush them out."

"Clarke's right. We can't attack straight on, but we can use our hovercraft to strike around it," Shaw agrees immediately, as Byrne unrolls the blueprint back on the table so he can point at various parts of the building. "It's easy, really," he glances over at Clarke for just a second before he sums up, "Use the mountains, hit the weak spots, use seismic data to trigger avalanches. Block their exits, cut off their supplies."

"Bury them alive," Byrne clarifies, tone hard to read as her eyes rake the blueprint like she's going over the plan again. Shaw nods, echoing her in agreement. "Bury them alive."

"We'd forfeit any chance to control the weapons," Byrne reasons, after a second, gaze insistent on Indra—who most likely has the most experience between the two of them. It's true. The loyalists not being able to get out would mean the rebels not being able to get in either. Clarke figured it was a risk they had to be willing to take.

Indra nods, slow, meeting Byrne's gaze. She still hasn't spared Clarke a single glance. "Yes, but we'd face a weakened Polis." It always comes down to the same question. Will the endgame justifies the means?

Byrne sighs loudly, rubbing her temples as she looks back at the blueprint. Her last reservation, "There's civilians in there."

"They should be given a chance to surrender," Clarke cuts in, quickly, because whatever they might think about her, she did consider what it would mean for the people inside if they were to do this. They don't have to be more nameless casualties in this war. There's been enough. They still have a choice. "We could use one of the supply tunnels for the evacuees."

"That's a luxury most of us weren't given by Wallace," Shaw declares, bitterly, and his eyes flick up to meet hers. They're darker, like he's trying to ignite the same fire in her gaze. He lost people, too, Clarke knows that. "Neither was twelve, when they were firebombed."

"I thought blood must have blood was their slogan," she hisses in return, not backing down. Isn't the point that they do this differently than Wallace would? That they don't just waste human lives like they mean nothing as long as it benefits them? They shouldn't get to choose who lives and who doesn't. The people inside can do that themselves, if only they give them that choice.

Indra, thankfully, seems to agree with Clarke, breaking the tense silence in the room. "Civilians can escape out of the tunnels into the square, where your armies will wait for their surrender. We should have every available medic on stand-by, just in case."

Shaw huffs, devoid of even an ounce of humour, but his eyes are a little less like death. "And if they don't surrender?"

Indra tilts her head, eyes finally landing on Clarke, one eyebrow cocked, highlighting the scars stretched across her face. "Then we will need a compelling voice to persuade them."

(Byrne catches her by the arm later just as she's about to join the last briefing before the plan is set in motion, and Clarke still doesn't quite know how to label her tone and the look on her face. "That was quite the plan, Miss Griffin."

When Clarke doesn't say anything, she adds, corners of her lips turned up, "Now we know they don't call you the Commander of Death for nothing."

Clarke doesn't even think she means it in a bad way, means it more as a compliment. But for her, it just means another reason she lies awake at night, another reminder of the things she did. She opens her mouth, but decides against arguing with her about something as trivial as nickname. Instead, she yanks her arm back, and bites, "Yeah, well, you all wanted a Mockingjay, didn't you? Now you have her.")

They wait until dark. Shaw stands beside her, and for the life of her, she can't understand why he just won't leave her alone. Too curious, too insistent on wanting to understand. "What's the difference, Clarke? Crushing the enemy in a mine, or using one of Reyes' bows to blow them out of the sky."

She took lives, she can't deny that. Maybe the fight is all we are. She doesn't pretend she's any better. The difference is, there's another way. Now. That's the difference they have to make themselves. "We were under attack in district eight. They just bombed a hospital. That hovercraft wasn't filled with civilians."

Miller huffs from her other side, tinkering with his camera, as he absently adds, "Doesn't really matter, does it? Even if those civilians are just mopping floors, they're helping the enemy." He looks up from the device in his hands, lifting a shoulder indifferently. "If they have to die, I can live with that."

She can't. Not again.

She catches Harper's eye but she looks away, like she agrees with them. Even Monty is staring at his feet, although he does look uncomfortable. Shaw breaks the silence, quietly concluding, "No one who supports Polis is innocent."

"With that kinda thinking, you can kill whoever you want," she spits, pushing herself off the wall and shoulders her bow higher in aggravation. How do they not get it? That she's tired of the useless bloodshed, that they should be too. "You can send kids off to the Hunger Games to keep the districts in line." She runs a hand through her hair, cynically adding, "Bombs away."

Shaw sighs, hand not on his rifle coming up to scrub over his face. "It's war, Clarke," he says, carefully. "Sometimes killing isn't personal. Figured if anyone knew that, it was you."

But it is, isn't it? You're the one stabbing someone in the heart, firing off an arrow into their chest, wrapping your hands around their neck, pulling a lever that kills 300 innocent people—it's the choice you make, you above them. Your life, for theirs. A choice that you can keep on making, or you can put an end to the cycle.

Her voice comes out hoarser than intended, looking at him over at her shoulder, before stalking off to be away from them, "I, of all people, know that it's always personal."

Kane wrote her a speech, but she tossed it back in district thirteen. Harper comes over at one point when she probably has to start shooting soon, and touches her arm, just a second, knows better now than to believe she would ever go by the script. Tells her to remember it's not just the rebels listening, but also Polis, also the survivors in two.

"Make it quick," Shaw reminds her, stoic, right before they round the corner leading to the tunnels. There's a train track, usually utilized for transporting the coal from the mines to other districts. They send out the message what they're about to do. "You're exposed."

"This is Clarke Griffin, speaking to all of the loyalists from the heart of district two," she starts, positioned in front of a train, a few hundred feet removed from the tunnel. It's dark out, and it's hard to make out where everyone is, but she figures it won't matter if she doesn't address the camera directly.

"There's survivors coming," Indra hisses, low, everyone taking their posts and getting out their firearms. Except for Harper, who has other priorities, instructing Miller with a wave of her fingers, "Tighter."

Out of habit, Clarke reaches for the bow on her back, keeping it in her hand, just in case.

Everything that follows next happens so quickly, Clarke barely has any time to register it. Defectors run out with weapons and her people tell them to put them down and get on the ground. The bombs are dropped, the sounds of the explosions deafening, the blasts making the ground shake. People are yelling and screaming and crying and some idiot fires off a gun, one of the civilians dropping to the ground with a whimper.

Clarke's feet are moving before she knows it, kneeling down at his side before Shaw has a chance to pull her back. The man on the ground doesn't make a noise, doesn't move a finger, but it's hard to make out if he's even bleeding, the surroundings too dark. The blonde is trying to feel for a pulse, pushing aside the man's uniform but then all of a sudden—the civilian grabs her handgun off her hip and has her by the arm in one swift move and—she has a gun pointed at her chest.

"Drop it," Shaw warns the civilian from behind her. His voice shakes just a little and she's not sure if its because of her or because of the symbol she's supposed to be. He doesn't have much to work with, considering Clarke's body is blocking the man from most of his view. If Shaw moves, she dies. "Drop the gun!"

The man ignores him completely, eyes flicking down to rake her face. His grip around her arm tightens, pulling her even closer and it seems to rub him the wrong way that she doesn't even do so much as blink twice. Quietly, he growls, "Give me one good reason I shouldn't shoot you."

What does he expect her to say? That she doesn't deserve it? That she has a lot left to live for? That she's young and in love and doesn't want to die? Clarke swallows, thick. "I can't."

Her jaw tenses as he pushes the barrel further into her chest, pressure hard even through her uniform and he must think she's mocking him. He's the enemy, she has to remember that, but all she can think of right now is their similarities. Maybe she can use those against him. She grits her teeth together, figures she at least has to try not to die tonight. "It's the problem, isn't it? We blew up your building over here. You burned my district to the ground."

He doesn't do anything but stand there, probably making up his mind about her, probably not expecting her to agree. She continues, "We each have every reason to want to kill each other. It's probably justified. So if you want to kill me…" She keeps his gaze, shaking her head lightly as she narrows her eyes. "Go ahead. Make Wallace happy." She huffs humorlessly, nodding down to the gun as if to encourage him. "I'm tired of killing his slaves for him."

That seems to catch his attention. He hisses, "I'm not his slave."

"I am," she admits, genuine, voice tight. You always have a choice, her mother used to tell her when she was little. She could've chosen not to kill anyone, to lay down her weapons and accept what was coming. But right from the start, she played along with Wallace's games, and that's on her and nobody else.

She shakes her head lightly fixating her gaze onto the gun as if it'll help her collect her thoughts. "It's why my dad killed eight tributes," his arena was a desert and the panic attacks he would get just at the sight of sand still haunted her mother to this day, "It's why I killed Atom," her first, "It's why I killed Otan," he grew up with the Games, believed they were the greatest thing he could achieve, saw her as nothing but an obstacle, "And he killed Myles," who was small and defenseless and so young, too young, "Why Finn killed himself," because he saw no other way out, Clarke's voice catching in the back of her throat.

She takes in a shaky breath, swallowing down her emotions. "It just goes around and around and it never stops." There's always one more battle to win, one more person they have to sacrifice. Her forehead creases, shoulders straightening in anger, "And who wins? Always Wallace."

She scoffs, stepping close to the man so the barrel digs even deeper into her uniform. She narrows her eyes, looks him straight in the eye. "I am done being a piece in his games. District twelve, district two. We have no fight. Except the one Polis gave us. Why are you fighting the rebels?" Did they ever stop and think about? She knows she didn't always. "You're neighbours, family. These people are not your enemy. We all have one enemy, and that's Wallace."

"He corrupts everyone," she has to close her eyes for a second, to push the memories—of warm, freckled skin and dark, messy curls and a special smile just for her—away and make sure her voice is steady as she continues, "and everything." Most of all the people who don't deserve it. Most of all if it's just to make a point. "He turns the best of us against each other." All those tributes he turned against each other. He turned Luna against her own brother. Turned Bellamy against her. Even now. "Stop killing for him," she commands, insistent. And maybe she is getting a little too confident, a little too reckless, but she can't back down now. "Tonight, turn your weapons to the capital. Turn your weapons to Wallace—"

Next, she squeezes her eyes shut as a gunshot rings through the air loudly. Somebody cries out her name, and then everything is black.

Later, when Octavia shows her the clip where she gets shot, it doesn't feel real. The bruises do, every time she so much as breathes or moves an inch, but she feels like she shouldn't have walked away from that. Like anyone else wouldn't have. For the life of her, she can't figure out why she is still alive. Always alive.

She got a private room to recover, of course, even it it's just the few bruises and a cut on her forehead from the fall down. Octavia did a pretty good job stitching her up, probably a better job than an out-of-practice Clarke could've done on herself.

The morning after, when she jolts awake, she's still tired. She barely catches any sleep these days, and when she does, she doesn't wake up rested. She doesn't have anything on her, not her father's pin or her tiny shell, and she's spent enough time locked up in their medbay. She's not going through that again. She hisses as she rises into a seating position, managing to stumble out of the bed in her hospital gown as long as she presses a hand to her abdomen. She grabs onto the nearest object to steady herself, which happens to be an IV-pole, staggering outside of her room only to almost run into a wheelchair.

Echo's inside it, a sneer forming on her face at the sight of the blonde, taking one hand of the wheel to salute at her mockingly. "If it isn't our Mockingjay. Whatever did I do to deserve being in your presence?"

Kane told her she was in on their plan. It makes sense now. The cornucopia, why Echo ordered the Careers to pull back when they could've easily killed more of them. Clarke just doesn't know why. It doesn't seem like she is particularly taken with the rebels or Diyoza.

"I'm not really in the mood," she snaps, raging headache pounding harder and harder with every second she stands. She tries to circle her pole around the wheelchair, but the other victor remains firmly in place, hooking her long fingers tightly around the metal of Clarke's IV-pole.

"You know, me and Bellamy," she states, casual but with a nasty edge to her voice, and Clarke inhales sharply, nostrils flaring. She can't really listen to another person lecturing her on the only person in the world who used to know her best. Who now can't stand the sight of her. "We got pretty well aquintanted while we there. Sharing a wall. Let's just say we know what makes the other scream."

She doesn't want to spend more time imagining what they did to him, how they hurt him, how they scarred and traumatized him, because of her. Because of Clarke. She wants to spend more time figuring out how to make Wallace pay. An irrational part of her is almost jealous. That Echo got to be there for him while she couldn't. Maybe that shows on her face. Maybe Echo knows just what button to push.

She tuts spitefully, knuckles turning white around the metal. "The commander of death. Always there to save her people. Ever considered he doesn't want your help?" There's a lazy smirk on her face, like she takes pleasure in watching Clarke suffer. The blonde has to close her eyes for a few seconds, force her heartbeat to steady as she pushes away the image of his dark eyes, his fingers digging into her neck, his tears dripping down onto her skin.

"We all have blood on our hands, don't we?" Clarke bites back, hastily, and maybe it's out of jealousy again. That Echo might know him better now, might know what he wants. Better. This version of him. She doesn't like what she's implying. "It was you, right? Who told Wallace all the victors in the arena were in on the rebels' plans?" Clarke yanks the pole away from her, a humourless huff leaving her lips. "Once a traitor, always a traitor."

At least she hits a sore spot, because Echo tightens her a jaw. One of the first cracks on her always perfectly neutral face that Clarke has ever seen. "Only a fool would fight a war they can't win."

Deep down, Clarke knows she is right. She knows that Echo could've never escaped, never escaped Wallace and his Peacekeepers, never escaped the death by a thousand cuts. She knows that she might have done the same had she been in her position. Telling Wallace what he wanted to hear was the only thing she could do to save herself. She tried to survive the only way she knew how, even if that meant betraying other people. Clarke couldn't fault her for that.

Yet, in this moment, she still blames her. You always have a choice. They've all done horrible things. Echo betrayed Bellamy and Emori, made them out to be liars, made their torture possibly worse. Echo played a part in Emori's death as much as Clarke did. And even if it makes her a hypocrite, Clarke can't—won't forgive her for that.

In hindsight, she should've realized her words were a warning.

She finally manages to push past her, making it to her own room in less than thirty minutes. Which must be some record, considering every breath she takes leaves her in unbearable pain. By some miracle, she manages to lay down on her bed without throwing up. Her eyes are just about closed, when a voice brings her back to full consciousness.

"Damn. I didn't believe the whispers when they said you were limping around the bunker like a zombie, but up close it's even worse."

"Thanks, Raven," she replies, sarcastic before pushing out a deep painful breath.

"What's your damage?" The bed dips as the mechanic sits down on the foot end.

She closes her eyes again, listing off, "A few hematomas, bruised ribs, bruised lung."

"Surprised they haven't found you a new one yet," she snorts. "You want one of mine?"

Clarke uses her ankle to push against her hip, unfortunately not even getting a flinch out of Raven. "I got shot."

"Please," she crosses her arms over her chest, eyebrow raised. "The bullet didn't even touch you. Lincoln made sure of that with his bullet proof armor."

It's kind of strange. How he's still saving her life, even after he's gone.

The corner of her lip turns up slightly, then it disappears. "One of the head healers comes to see me everyday. Jackson, right? He's helping me adjust to reality." She almost rolls her eyes. Her reality. "Was that my mom's idea?"

"You think me and Abby sit around all day talking about you?"

"No. But I'm an overlapping interest."

Raven lets out a humoured huff. "Sure." Then her face straightens. "Jackson, he is not the same kind of healer that Abby is. He helped me, too, when I first, uhm. When my leg stopped working. He helped me—"

Clarke raises her eyebrows. "Adjust to reality?"

"Yeah," Raven confirms, eyebrows pinched together. There's a beat of silence, her hands wringing together in her lap, which is so unlike her it startles Clarke for a second. "It's not just your body that went through the trauma, Clarke. At one point, one is going to affect the other."

If there's one thing she's good at, it's changing the subject. She worries her bottom lip between her teeth. "Do you think I made the right decision? Not letting them bury those people alive?"

She inhales, sharply, dragging out the silence. Clarke already knows what that means. "I think it's working. The whole defender of the weak and defenseless act. Even if it's not an act." She puts her hand on top of the victor's shin, only hesitating for a quarter of a second, and Clarke doesn't understand how a girl whose life she ruined can stand to be in the same room as her. How she could possibly be so strong. "It's working. Polis is only afraid of one thing, and that's you."

Pushing aside the material of her jumpsuit, she observes the purple bruise covering most of her ribs, one angry dark red mark in the middle of it. It hurts, but it's not too bad, not considering the war that that's going on across the nation, the people getting murdered. Her people. She pulls her white tank back down, stuffing it down before zipping her suit back up, shell and her father's pin tucked away safely in one of the pockets.

It's only been a day since she got semi-shot, but she wants to see him. She doesn't know if she stills believes in miracles, if there's any good left in the world, but just being in his presence used to help her clear her head. Maybe seeing him will help her do the same, will help her get some sleep, ease her mind.

When she makes her way over to the disclosed area he's in, Kane is already watching him from behind the two-way mirror with his hands clung together behind his back. There's a pensive look on his face, and when she follows his gaze, she sees why. They're showing Bellamy the clip, the clip of her supposed death.

"Why would you show him that?" She snaps, fingers curling into her palms as she steps closer to the window. Tears are collecting in the corners of her eyes as she watches him fidget under the restraints around his arms lightly, listening to her speech.

"We're trying to show him what would really happen if you were gone, if he accomplished what they want him to," Kane explains vaguely, not breaking his gaze away from Bellamy. "If he understands the consequences."

Consequences? They changed his memories, not his brain. Do they want her to give up on him? Do they want to show her how little he cares? Do they want to break her heart all over again? She's woken up in sweat-soaked sheets ever since he's been gone, mind and dreams filled with memories she worries she'll never be able to think back on without feeling heart wrenching guilt. She wishes—she doesn't know what to wish for. That he never met her? That he never had to suffer like that? She presses a palm to the glass, letting out a shuddering, watery breath.

"I get it," she croaks out, roughly wiping at the tears on her cheeks with her wrist. She can't look at him, not when they pull the trigger. She can't bear it. "He wants to kill me. I think we've established that."

"If he wants to kill you," Kane counters, solemnly, after a beat passes, finally turning his head to look at her. "Why is he crying?"

"Maybe he wanted to do it himself," she bites back, bitterly, turning back to watch Bellamy's face—numbly staring ahead as silent tears roll down his freckled skin. She would be mad, too, if someone got to Wallace before her. She hates him so much, so much, she wants to watch him suffer, wants to watch the light leave his eyes. She used to think she wasn't capable of such thoughts, such actions, but the arena changes you. If they made Bellamy hate her even half as much, she doesn't even know how she survived his first attempt. "Maybe it's relief."

"We want you to go in, Clarke," he informs her, matter-of-factly, one of those pretentious all-knowing looks on his face. Still, his words hit a sore spot for her. "We showed him footage. He had real memories." They didn't take them all.

That may be, but she lost most of her optimism the past few years. She doesn't think she's right for him. The indentations on her neck may not be visible anymore, but they were there. It happened. She doesn't know what to do if it happens again. "That still doesn't mean I'm going in there."

"He's strapped down, he can't hurt you." That's not it. She's not afraid of dying. She's afraid of looking him in the eye and realizing he's really lost. That she really lost him.

"No," she decides, shaking her head lightly as she pulls back her hand from the glass, wringing her fingers together instead. The TV in front of Bellamy is now only showing static, the look on his face deadly neutral, and if it wasn't for his cheeks still being wet from moisture she would think they hadn't even showed him anything at all. "I don't want to."

Kane opens his mouth, eyes raking her face painfully slow. Then he closes it, letting out a heavy exhale as he turns to look back at the two-way mirror. "It's for Bellamy. What's the harm in trying?"

She knows he's playing her, that he knows just what button to push, and she resents him for it, but she also can't help but think he's right. She's got to try.

She knocks on his door before going in, like an idiot. When did she unlearn him, unlearn how to be around him? She winces when the door shuts behind her, even though she knows there's four guards stationed behind it, her mother and Kane observing from behind the one-way mirror.

"I watched you die, you were dead," he declares, calm but incredulous, ducking his head so he can wipe at the tears on his face even with the restrains around his wrists. After a beat passes—after he doesn't explode at the mere sight of her, after she feels like she can finally let out the breath she's been holding—she steps closer, further into the harsh lights above his bed. He blinks up at her. "You look terrible."

"That's old news," she counters, light, not sure where to set the tone on this conversation. Normal, her mother had instructed her beforehand, try to remain some sense of normalcy. Clarke wasn't even sure what their normal was anymore. If their history could also be their present. Her hands come up to rest on the safety railing of his bed. Mostly so she doesn't stand there fidgeting like an idiot, but also to keep from reaching out. She wants to avoid his gaze, but like it's magnetic, she can't.

"Old news, huh," he repeats, like the word tastes strange in his mouth. The corner of his mouth turns up just slightly, her pulse skipping a beat at the familiarity of it all. "That's an oxymoron."

"So is cold sweat," she replies, more smug than she originally allowed herself to be before she came in, reaching out to brush away a damp curl of his forehead reflexively. He doesn't flinch, or say anything, just looks at her with a curious gaze as she quickly jerks her hand back, wrapping it back around the safety railing, knuckles white.

"When I saw you die, I remembered something," he breaks the unbearing silence between them after what seems like forever, eyes still fixated on her face. She bites down on her bottom lip, trying hard not to push him too much. "During your Games, I convinced all those sponsors to send you donations. The things I promised them—" He pauses, for just a second, tongue darting out to wet his lips. "Why would I do that?"

She swallows, thick, trying to steady her heart-rate. An image of the messages he sent her flashes across her mind, his big, blocked, messy handwriting, brave princess, hope in the form of a card when she had none left. She sucks in a breath, lifting one shoulder lightly. "Because you cared." He frowns, like that doesn't explain anything, like he couldn't have possibly cared that much about her, so she adds, "Because you're good. You didn't want me to die."

"They messed with my head," he confirms. And that's good, right? That's he aware. There's the faintest of worn smiles, like he's still trying to make her feel better and her chest lurches. "At least I still got my heart."

It's a stupid joke that comes out flat, that they've made a million times between the two of them, but it makes her laugh, watery, crying and laughing at the same time, like a dam breaking, tension dissipating from her frame. He remembers. He still remembers the good things, too. She shakes her head, forces herself to swallow down the rest of the tears. She missed him so much. So much. And there's even more she wants to tell him, things she should've said a long time ago. "Bellamy, I—"

"You love me," he concludes, cutting her off, and it's not not really a question, even if there's the hint of doubt in his voice. His eyebrows are furrowed together and when she doesn't answer right away, when the quiet they lapsed into starts eating away at her, he corrects himself, "You're in love with me."

She clenches her jaw, tightening her grip on the bed, shoulders straightening. The thought makes her want to run. "No." She sniffs, deflating, swallowing down the tightness in her throat as she searches his face and just finds a neutral expression. He's not mad, he's just trying to piece his memories together. "Yes." Is she? She hasn't been before, not like this, hasn't felt like this about someone. Not Finn, not Lexa. How can she be certain? How can she be certain she isn't just fucked up, that she even knows how to love another person like that? That she isn't just telling him that so hopefully they'll go back to how they used to be, because she's selfish like that? How can she lie to him? The only thing she knows for sure is that, "I love you."

It's why they tortured him, isn't it? Because she loves him, and they wanted to hurt her. She's not sure if a confession like that would make it better, make it seem like it was worth it, because it probably wasn't. She wasn't worth it. Everyone that's special to her, dies. Finn. Lexa. Can she take the same risk with him? She's not sure she can. She just got him back.

"You love me," he echoes, dumbfounded and even if they tainted his memories, she hoped he would still believe that, still remember that. His eyes narrow when she just blinks at him in confusion, voice sharp, "You love me, but you killed our baby."

Our baby. It feels like the breath just got knocked out of her, as she stares at him, jaw-slacked, shaking her head lightly. She tries not to cry, tries not to look so guilty, but it was her lie, wasn't it? She never meant to hurt him, but she did. She saw it in his eyes after the interviews, after she told Cage they were having a baby. Together. Because part of him wanted it to be real, someday, and she used it as another hand to play, another piece in the game, like it meant nothing. A part of him that wasn't tainted by Wallace yet, that was still just his, that she took away from him too. "No, no, Bellamy—try and remember, please. That wasn't real."

It was never real. They never even—they were never even like that. But she played right into Wallace's hand, always one step ahead, always knows just how to outsmart her and use her own words against her. And to admit that now, to admit the baby wasn't real, he might think the rest wasn't real either. That she never loved him either.

"Not real," he echoes, staggered, chest starting to heave up and down with shorter and shorter intervals. He pulls on his restraints, ever so lightly, just once, like he's angry. Like he wants her to know he's angry. The skin under them is red and raw and bloody. "Wallace told me that everything out of your mouth is a lie."

But you love me too, she wants to yell, shake him, shake some sense into him. Or at least he did, once. Instead, she lifts her shoulders, not sure what to say. She could deny it, but that could just be another lie. Something dark washes over his face, his eyes so distant, so dead, it's hard to believe he ever looked at her in any other way. "All I know is that I would have saved myself a lot of suffering if I'd just let you die in that arena."

It was all too much at once, her mother reminds her, when she slams the door shut behind her and leans back against it, trying to catch her breath but never quite feeling like she can. She wants to believe that, that it's a process and he'll get better eventually, but. But she can't help but wonder if this is what it'll be like from now on. Stolen moments where everything is like it used to be, before the darkness wins and everything is like it was never supposed to be.

"We don't know much about hijacking with tracker jacker venom, I'm not going to lie," her mother admits, hand on her shoulder as she leads her to a nearby examination room. Clarke still feels like she's not getting enough air inside her lungs, like the walls are closing in on her, like she might faint any second, like her heart is racing, like she might throw up, like this can't be happening, like she isn't really here, and her hands—her hands are shaking, shaking when her mother props her on top of the examination table and takes a hold of them. "Just breathe, honey," she says, calm and soothing, thumbs running over the back of her hands. "You're having a panic attack. It'll be okay."

"I'm going to talk, and you can listen. Listen to my voice. Just tell me if it gets too much, if I need to stop. Just focus on your breathing." Abby smiles at her, soft, waits until she nods before she continues. Still knows her daughter. Still knows how to talk her down from the ledge. Logic. "Like I said, we don't know much about the effects of this type of hijacking, but I imagine it's a lot like PTSD."

Clarke is thankful for the distraction. Her mother's voice helping her mind not to wander, helping her help him. That's all she wants. To not be useless.

"It's going to take time. Don't pressure him into talking. Let him take the lead, okay? It's important to create some sort of routine for him, for you to do normal things with him. He knows what comforts him best, what offers him support."

Her head feels less light, fingers only trembling slightly. She inhales deeply, fingers tightening around the edge of the table and then releasing when she feels like her breathing has normalized enough for her to talk. She forces her voice to be steady. "Even if he doesn't want me there?"

"I'm sorry, sweetie," her mother confirms, wistful as she brushes a strand of hair away from Clarke's face. "But I think so. Patience is key. Give him some space."

Space. That's a foreign concept for the two of them. When have they ever given each other space?

It's barely another three days before they ask her to come back. They've released him from his restraints because he's doing better and hasn't shown any signs of aggression. He's managed to have civilized conversations with his healers, and even managed to carry out a few with his sister without getting triggered. Now he's asked to see her and they want to try it, see if he's ready for his re-socialisation. Thirteen doesn't believe in long term imprisonment.

Shaw doesn't take her down to his room, but instead leads her to the elevators. It takes them upstairs, maybe to the mesh hall on one of the top levels, she figures, but then holds up a hand to shield herself from the bright light as the doors slide open. It's sunlight. They took him outside.

Octavia is waiting for her beside the elevator and Clarke looks over her shoulder to see Bellamy crouched down in one of the open patches of grass in between the trees, looking at the flowers. His sisters beams at her. "It was my idea. Abby said it was good to do normal things with him. He practically spent half his life in the woods. I thought it might be good, you know?"

Clarke nods, silently and Shaw squeezes her arm for a second before dropping his hand. He spend the elevator ride up telling her basic rules; not to touch him, not to stand too close, that as the head of security he has the right to break off the meeting if he deems it necessary to do so. "Remember, there'll be four guards on sight the entire time. Including me."

She nods, takes one more look at Octavia—who nods at her in confidence—and then trails over to him. He doesn't seem to hear her, even if he always used to tease her about her loud footsteps. "Bellamy?"

He freezes at first, then rises to his feet slowly, shifting to look at her. He swallows, adam's apple bobbing up and down visibly. His jumpsuit is tied around his waist, white t-shirt stretched across his chest and contrasting starkly with his brown skin. The sunlight catches in his eyes, highlighting the specks of gold inside of them. He's so beautiful.

"You wanted to see me?" She checks, hoarse as she avoids his gaze. She's pretty sure she's flushed all over. She misses him all the time, but to miss him when he's standing right in front of her is killing her slowly. Too feel so awkward in his presence is foreign to her, too.

"Yeah," he breathes, soft, looking surprised by the sound of his own voice. He stuffs his hands into the pockets of his suit and kicks at a small stone with his feet. When he looks back up, she raises her eyebrows. Her mother told her she should let him take the lead, and even if she physically has to bite down on her tongue, she's going to let him do just that.

He opens his mouth, then closes it again as he observes her quietly. "I'm, uhm," he breaks off, scrubbing a hand over his face. "I'm sorry. I barely get any sleep and it's hard to think clearly."

Me neither, she wants to say, not without you, but instead curls her fingers into her palms and settles on something safer, "I understand."

"We," he starts, then ducks his head, fixing his gaze on his feet. She can make out his balled fists through the fabric of his jumpsuit. He exhales loudly, like he's frustrated with himself, then continues, "We, uhm. We used to sleep together. Is that right?"

"Yes," she confirms, crossing her arms over her chest to keep from fidgeting as she tries to keep her face neutral even when he's talking about the two of them as an unit again. "We both get nightmares. Sleeping together that—it helps." She swallows tightly. "Helped."

"Can I—" He cuts himself off, cursing something under his breath as he runs a hand through his hair. His curls are a mess. She's not used to him like this, shy and unsure. He looks her straight in the eye this time. "Can I give you a hug?"

"Clarke," Shaw says warningly from a few feet away, body on high alert, but she figures he should know better by now. He doesn't tell her what to do. And what she wants to do is show Bellamy that she trusts him. That no matter how hard he pushes, she's not going to run away. Not this time.

"That's okay," she dismisses Shaw, tongue darting out to wet her bottom lip. She can't say that isn't what she's wanted to do ever since she got him back. Wrap her arms around her and have him hug her right back. Maybe he thinks it'll help him remember. How they used to be.

Shaw makes a move like he's about to walk over, but Octavia stops him, pulling him back a few feet as they talk in hushed voices. Clarke's thankful for the space, because with the way Bellamy's looking at her, even an open spot outside feels like the tiniest room in the world.

Tentatively, Bellamy treads closer, opening his arms in a way he's done for her a million times before. Yet, he looks like it feels unnatural. He inhales sharply as she steps inside of them, carefully wrapping her own arms around his waist and resting her chin against his shoulder. It takes another beat, but then his arms fold around her and he's tense, so tense, until she clasps her hands together behind his back. He sighs, shoulders deflating as one hand comes up to press against the back of her head, sliding down to rest in between her shoulder blades. They stay like that, for just a few moments before he pulls away, abruptly and urgently. He looks a little panicked, but then she musters together a smile as some sort of compromise and he lets out a deep breath she hadn't noticed he'd been holding.

His forehead creases as he checks, curious glint in his eyes, "Your hair is shorter?"

"It is," she affirms, heart wrenching painfully in her chest. The corners of her mouth turn upwards, wistfully. "I always wore it in a braid. You would pull on it all the time." It's quiet for a moment, as he thinks it over, tries to remember. She's still close to him, so close, too close. Her whole body aches to touch him again, but she wants him to want her to touch him. But if the memories pain her this much, she doesn't have to imagine what he feels like reminiscing. She's talking before she can stop herself. "I never meant to hurt you, Bellamy, you know that, right?"

"But you left me there," he states, calm, devoid of any anger safe for the little dimple above his eyebrow ticking. Let him take the lead, her mom said. She should've kept her mouth shut. "And you lied." About the baby. About staying together. She promised him that. She didn't follow through. Even if they hadn't messed with his memories, he would still have every reason to hate her.

"I didn't want to," she counters, quietly, pushing some hair back behind her ear before crossing them back over her chest like a shield. She feels like they're discussing two strangers. "I never did."

His jaw flexes, before he snaps, "Is that supposed to make it okay?"

"Nothing's okay," she whimpers, and then she's crying because she's so useless and like he can't help it, like some unsuppressable instinct, he wraps his arms back around her, pulling her into his chest. Her hands fist into his white t-shirt like she doesn't ever want him to pull back and he weaves one of his hands back into the blonde locks on the back of her head. Softly, trying to make her feel better like always, making her feel understood like always, he says, "I know it isn't."

He smoothes some hair back from her face and she sniffs, blinking up at him as her sobs silently fade. Her heart feels too big for her ribcage, and even if they can't be looking at each other for more than a few moments, it manages to squeeze in at least seventeen breakneck beats. It feels like coming home, like she's re-entering her body, recognizing who they were and who she was all at once in his brown eyes.

She vaguely registers Shaw saying something about that being close enough, but she can only fixate herself on the way Bellamy's leaning down, fingers flexing on her sides. She can only imagine what it feels like to touch him like that again, to not feel broken, to not feel homeless.

Then his fingers tighten for just a second, his forehead creasing together as he shoves her away. "No," he shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut like he's commanding a memory to go away. She wets her lips, and they taste salty. "No. You left me because—"

"I didn't leave you," she presses, breaking him off as she steps closer to him again, desperate. Erratic almost. Why doesn't he understand? "Why would I leave you? For a rebellion I never wanted to begin with?"

"You're lying. You did want it. You tried to kill Octavia, you tried to kill me, you killed our ba—"

"I never tried to kill you, Bellamy!" She bites back, because she can't let him finish that sentence. Not again. She wants him to remember, needs him to, has to say it like it still means something. "We protect each other. You and I. That's what we—"

He has her up against a tree in no time, his arm digging into her windpipe forcefully. Not too hard, so she can't breathe, but definitely applying enough pressure to remind her he could kill her right now if he wanted to. Even if he doesn't look sure of it himself, searching her face.

Shaw and another guard are already surrounding them from each angle, guns aimed into their direction. "Bellamy, step away from Clarke."

Clarke holds up a hand, signaling for them to stay back with a firm glare. They will only make it worse, and then she won't be the only one who's dead. Bellamy doesn't even seem to notice, completely unaware of all of their surroundings. Of his sister just a hundred feet away, of four guards ready to pounce on him the second they get the chance. Unsure, he suggests, "I should kill you for what you did."

"Probably," she admits, gritting her teeth together to keep from breaking down in front of him. She still trusts him, even if it's irrational, still trusts him so fucking much that she'll allow him to crush her windpipe if he thinks that's what best. If that means it'll finally be over.

He opens his mouth to say something, but then he lowers his arm, steps back from her, head shaking lightly. One hand comes up to press against his brow bone, trembling. It's like he's fighting some internal war with himself. For a second, she recognizes the look on his face. Then his head snaps back up, his eyes narrowed, "I want you to die—"

He starts, surging back forward, but a guard glides up behind him to put a needle into his neck, his body slumping over within seconds. "Get him to the medbay," Octavia orders, already rushing over to his side to check his pulse and check the injection site. "Restrain him."

Clarke sinks down into a crouch, back against the tree as she presses her hands to her face. Is this… How is she supposed to—he wants her to… What is she supposed to do? She can't fight his memories for him. For all she knows it's not just the memories they planted. She can't—she doesn't know what to do anymore. She's only making everything worse for him.

"Clarke," Octavia says, soft, small hand curling around her arm to push it down, away from her face. When the blonde opens her eyes, the other girl is in front of her on her knees. "It'll be okay."

"You saw what happened, didn't you?" She retorts, short, voice raw. It's not fair to lash out at her, certainly not just for looking like him, but it's hard to suppress it when her emotions are all over the place. "I'm not sure we're ever going to be okay." Nothing is okay.

"You are," Octavia presses, confident, leaning forward so she can put her hands on top of the victor's shoulders firmly. "They could make him hate you, but they couldn't make him not love you."

Clarke looks away, shaking her head lightly as she uses both hands to push her hair away from her face, leaving her hands planted behind her ears, weaved into her wavy hair. She wants to believe that, she does, but she can't. Not after what happened, not when she knows—feels—that's what's going to happen every time. Every time she opens herself up to him, he's going to use it against her. And she can't—she can't help him. Not now, maybe not ever. She can help them. If she thinks about this rationally—she can still help them.

"I know it's your instinct to run, but you can't run from this, Clarke," Octavia cuts off her thoughts, brow creasing together as she hesitantly pulls her hands back. Apparently she could tell exactly what Clarke was thinking about. "He needs you."

Needs her. She's told him so many times that she needed him when needed to hear her say it, when she needed him to hear it. Somehow she can't do it this time. More than anything, she needs him. She can't do it without him. And he can barely stand the mention of her name. Her voice shakes. "Our people need me."

That's still true. They do. She promised herself she would do anything in her power to win this war. For them. If he ends up hating her for that, it'll be the price she has to pay. A price that's worth it, has to be worth it.

"Yeah," Octavia blurts out, face hardening at the realisation there's nothing she can say to make Clarke change her mind. "I guess so." She sits back on her heels, hands on top of her thighs as she looks at Clarke one more time, searches her face but then shakes her head, apparently not finding what she was looking for. "You're not the person I thought you were."

She pushes herself onto her feet, and then she's gone. Clarke takes a deep breath, digging her fingers into the ground to help steady it. She wants to help him, wants to be there for him but she also has an obligation to make sure they win this war. That time is now. If they don't, it's only a matter of time before Bellamy gets taken away from her again. For the same thing to happen to their people all over the nation. Anyone would make the decision to choose—to save an entire country full of people over one person. She knows that. It might not feel right, but if she considers all the options, if she thinks about it objectively, it's the right thing to do. She has to fight. She has to end this. It's her only choice.

It's been barely a week since she was shot, and the rebels are close to reaching the outskirts of Polis. Outer blocks of the city have been evacuated and Clarke suspects they did it on purpose. They must know she's not really dead. Thirteen would have used her as a martyr by now, plastered her face over screens across the nation and milked the tragedy for all it was worth.

She tries to convince Diyoza to let her go back, but the president is convinced Clarke has done her job. Unified the districts. That now she just has to sit back, rest and heal. If she really knew the victor, really cared about her as a person and not just her symbol, she would know that wasn't an option.

"The last time the rebels saw me I was lying on the ground," she'd tried arguing with their president. The rebels needed to know she was alive and ready to fight. That Wallace hadn't won yet. She should be with them, with the troops.

"We won't let this momentum go to waste," she'd shot her down, easily, like she'd been expecting this conversation. "We'll make more propos right here in thirteen, showing them you're alive. As far as they know, you survived a bullet to the heart. It's barely been a week. They'll understand why you're not with them." She'd smiled. "When we win, we'll fly you in for the surrender."

Clarke had wanted to argue some more, make her case, but she knew it was no use. It doesn't matter anyway. Last she checked, Diyoza may be the president, but Clarke is in charge. Without her propos, without her speeches, without her voice—where would they be? Where were they, when she was out there, fighting other kids in an arena? She will find a way, with or without the leader's permission. She always does.

"Strange, huh? How we're celebrating the loss of human lives," Luna says after Clarke finds her in a crowd of people, watching a few dozen citizens of thirteen drink moonshine and dance to music like they haven't got a care in the world. They broke out the booze special for the occasion. They're celebrating the victory of thirteen in a battle in district one, signaling they're closer to triumph than they've ever been.

Clarke answers, absently, looking around aimlessly. Unsurprisingly, it isn't easy to escape from a bunker. "They're happy that our people are advancing, that they might finally experience freedom."

"Our people," Luna echoes, arms crossed over chest and eyebrows raised, gaze still fixated on the mass of drunken, cheerful bodies. "They're all our people. The sooner we realize that the better." She shifts her head to look at the blonde, skeptical. "Or are we going to round up everyone who opposed the rebellion and make them fight each other to the death?"

Clarke meets her eyes, but doesn't say anything, biting on the inside of her cheek. She opposed Shaw and Miller and the others when they called everyone in district two the enemy, even the innocent bystanders. She doesn't think they're all evil. Just one of them. Luna takes this as a sign to continue, fingers flexing around her elbows. "You saw him, didn't you?"

The blonde inhales sharply, eyes fluttering close briefly. She doesn't want to talk to Luna about Bellamy. She wants to tell her what she's going to do about it, about what he did to Bellamy. How she is going to make it right. "I'm going to kill Wallace. Nothing good is safe while he's alive." Especially not Bellamy, and he was good, so good. Wallace will ruin everything he touches, just for the fun of it. Her voice wavers slightly, but remains insistent, "I can't make another speech. No more cameras or propos. No more games." She grits her teeth together to keep from spilling any tears. "He needs to look me in the eyes when I kill him."

The corners of Luna's pink lips turn down, eyes compassionate as she covers Clarke's back with one of her small hands. Solemnly, she reveals, "It isn't the way, Clarke."

It isn't? It's not blood must not have blood, she knows that, but she meant that for after the war. For everyone but Wallace. He made Luna kill her own brother, so at least this, she'd thought Luna would understand. Clarke sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose, tired. So tired. Luna always seems to know better, always seems to know a better way and Clarke will do anything at this point. "What is?"

"It's easy to kill someone," she responds, strange tone to her voice as she pulls her hand back, fumbling with the pendant hanging from her neck. Clarke knows, knows the things you are capable of doing in the name of survival, in the heat of the moment, when it's either you or them. It isn't until you watch the light leave their eyes and the moment passes that you realize what you've done, that your hands will never be clean again. "Even a president. Are you willing to sacrifice yourself for it?"

They both know the only way to kill Wallace, to get that close to him, would mean she might never come back. She can accept that. She has to. Her life doesn't matter as much as thousand of others. It's an acceptable loss. But it isn't just that, Luna means. She also means killing Wallace will give him another piece of her that she can't ever have back, give him the satisfaction of knowing he took something else from her, that he made her that way, that he created her, that they aren't so different after all. That blood must have blood.

Clarke opens her mouth, staring at the side of Luna's face, but before she can say anything, someone else slithers up on her other side. "They're shipping supplies to the front lines from hangar six at midnight." It's Murphy, voice eerily casual.

Her head snaps to him, jaw-slacked. She didn't even know they let him out. Diyoza could've given her a heads up, considering the promise he made her. I want you to die. He lifts a shoulder, pressing the rim of a flask—undoubtedly filled to the brim with moonshine—to his lips, then he pulls it back slightly to add, "I was going myself to score some painkillers, but I could cover for you instead."

"Murphy," she stammers, heart hammering loudly in her chest, still not sure this is real. The last time she saw him, he vowed he was going to murder her. Now he's here, making small talk? "Why would you want to help me?"

"Help you?" He snorts, derisive, taking a swig of the moonshine and swallowing it with a light hiss. His eyes are slightly glazed over and completely bloodshot. "Before I would even have the chance to do so much as reach out and touch a hair on your royal highness' head, they'd have a needle in my neck and me back in that damn cell." He smirks, pleased. "This is clearly a suicide mission. Nothing would make me happier than to hear you died, even if it isn't by my hands."

She exchanges a look with Luna, who shakes her head lightly, but Clarke has already made up her mind. She'll try everything. Even taking help from Murphy.

"You're supposed to be in a hospital!" Wells exclaims as soon as he sees her, grabbing her by the arm to pull her aside and away from the whispering and pointing horde of rebels who spotted her getting off the plane despite the hoodie she pulled over her head. He's been in the field for a while now, something he trained for ever since he joined the rebellion. His eyes rake her face and body for any signs of injury. "I can't believe Diyoza allowed this."

"She didn't," Clarke replies, simply. She didn't, but the Mockingjay at the front lines of battle? That's mythic, that's TV gold. A stroke of genius. It'll be their idea along, or that's what they'll claim. They won't pull her back out, not now that she came this far, and that's all that matters to Clarke anyway. She didn't come here to take credit for anything.

Wells is about to reply when Commander Baum's voice beams over the speakers in the camp. Indra got transferred to this base after her own district was practically obliterated and the battle in two ceased. She says thirteen districts stand together, that they're facing an enemy that will not change and will never surrender. Wallace has fortified the center of Polis, evacuating the outer blocks of the city. She presses the civilians will be confused and desperate and that they should not be targeted. Clarke is grateful for that, at least.

Wells pulls her forward, a little bit more into the crowd, so they can see Indra, on top of one of the cargo containers, megaphone pressed to her mouth. It's not hard to recognize Gaia in her features, even with the facial scarring; their deep sepia skin, their strong bone structure, their fighter's stance. Indra probably taught Gaia how to fight, probably helped her win her first Games. If only Clarke could've done the same for her the second time. Her throat feels thick all of sudden, and it's hard to swallow.

Indra's voice pulls her back to reality, and she can feel Wells' eyes bore into the side of her face. "We're deploying medical brigades to help anyone in need. We'll show the capital who we are." The plan is to make it to the center of Polis—Wallace's mansion—and tear down it's gates.

Once Indra is finished rallying their forces, Clarke sits down on a nearby crate, putting her backpack between her legs and getting out her bottle of water. Wells is still eyeing her curiously. She's about to snap at him for staring when he offhandedly mentions, "Looks like you got your meals covered."

"Preparation never hurt anyone," she lies, easy. She forces a teasing smile upon her face, hastily stuffing everything back into her bag, including her abundant collection of provisions. "It's why I was always good at Earth Skills and you barely got by."

He doesn't smile back. "Don't lie to me. I know you." He grits his teeth together, shaking his head lightly as he looks up at the sky, locking both of his hands behind his head. When he finally looks back at her, his face and eyes are hard, arms dropping limp at his sides. "I know when you're gonna go off on your own." Because that's what she does, she runs away when things get hard. It's why she hid in the prohibited woods for hours after her father died, it's why she left the Victor's Village, it's why she left Bellamy's side. It's too late to back down now. "You going to leave me behind, too?"

It's a low dig, especially after what Octavia suggested before she left. Wells' nostrils flare when she doesn't answer him, doesn't contradict him in any way. Like he said, he knows her. It's useless to try and lie to him. "As your fellow soldier I highly command you stay with your unit." He huffs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "But I know better than to think I could stop you."

Before she can say anything else, Indra clears her throat behind her friend. "Jaha. Griffin. This is your new unit." She steps aside to reveal a middle-aged, white woman with raven black hair. "I'm Lieutenant Cooper." She throws a thumb over her shoulder, "This is Sergeant Scott. Panem's best sharpshooter. He's my second in command."

A tall dark man gives them a nod before Cooper moves on to the next person. "You know Shaw and Murchadh." Shaw gives her an unimpressed look, probably for sneaking out, and Luna just stands there, axe lodged to her back with a special harness. Why did she come? She said it wasn't the way, so why would she risk her life too?

"These are the Coltons," Cooper breaks her out of her trance, waving a hand over to two tall, asian men, one of them older than the other, but distinctly related. "Both first combat division."

"And then there's—" Cooper nods her head to her other side, and Indra steps aside to reveal, "Raven?" Clarke exclaims, taking a step towards her, worried. She has zero field experience. "What about your leg?"

She shrugs, indifferent, raising her eyebrows defiantly. "What about it? I'm good with my brace." She purses her lips together, crossing her arms over her chest. "Besides. There's going to be a minefield of traps and lethal devices every turn you take." The pods, Indra mentioned them during her speech. Wallace's sick way of making a sport out of their deaths and putting his gamemakers to use. A final use, that will be. "Somebody's going to have to disable them. You need me."

"What about Sinclair?" Wells presses, whole body rigid, and he looks like he's going to argue with her about this. He apparently didn't know she was joining them either.

"He's in a wheelchair," Raven deadpans.

"Monty's an engineer," he counters, without skipping a beat. Surely wherever Clarke goes, her propo team will follow.

"A sound engineer," she corrects him, one perfect eyebrow cocked skeptically. It's clear he's not winning this battle. Clarke can't pretend like she isn't worried either, but ultimately, it's Raven's choice. Seems like Wells knows that, too. "What's he going to do? Mute them to death?"

"Now that we've all made ourselves aquintained," Cooper interrupts their quarrel with a raise of her brow bones, hands firm on her hips. "Each one of you is elite in some form of combat, but we are a non-combat unit. We'll be following days behind the front line troops. We're to be the onscreen faces of the invasion." She makes a point out of looking at each individual to see if her point got across, then concludes, "Squad 100."

Clarke feels her blood literally boil. If she's is going to die she wants it to be for a cause, not a spectacle. With a camera continuously pointed at her face, it's going to be harder to slip away and get to the mansion herself. Then again, without Raven the pods might kill her even if she does escape. "Because of me?"

Cooper presses her lips together in a tight line. "It's been decided that you're most effective when seen by the masses." It's not a yes, but it's not a no either.

Wells seems to share her doubts, forehead creased as he checks, "We're not going to fight?"

"You'll do whatever you're ordered to do, soldier." Their new boss' face hardens, straightening her posture in a way that makes Clarke uncomfortable. "It's not your job to ask questions."

"Yes, ma'am," he replies with a firm nod, the conversation obviously dismissed as Cooper marches off. Raven claps Wells on the back as they start to make their way towards the makeshift barracks, Clarke not far behind them, still lost in thought. "Well thank God. Your aim's shit anyway, Jaha."

"Our instructions are to shoot propaganda footage on the battle scarred streets of Polis," Cooper reminds them, a few feet in front of the squad, both hands on her rifle. She signals for Scott and the Coltons to check up ahead for any risks, and Shaw takes advantage of the two minute break and turns to address the rest face to face.

"This is a warzone, don't forget that. It will not be safe." His eyes linger on Clarke's, insistent, like he just knows she's going to the one most likely not to remember. Her whole life is a warzone, so it might even be true. "It's likely that we'll encounter both active pods and peacekeepers." He wiggles a finger between the blonde and Luna. "You're both considered high value targets to Polis."

Luna sighs loudly, looking out over the street instead of at Shaw. He continues, "In the event of capture you'll be given a nightlock pill altered to act immediately." He shoots an annoyed look at Harper, who's instructing Miller how to film him while their head of security gives them this lovely pep talk on how to die the fastest.

Raven rolls her eyes, backpack slung over her shoulder and her long fingers wrapped around a small tablet balancing on her hip. Her shiny hair is up in it's signature ponytail and she's wearing a red bomber jacket over her all black uniform. "The pods are probably on every block. We have this holo," she holds up the device to show them, "that contains a detailed map of every known pod. They can trigger anything, from bombs to traps to mutts." She makes a point of looking everyone in the eye with that trademark quirk of her eyebrow, reminding them, "We cannot move without this."

"There's no guarantee the database is complete," Shaw adds, matter-of-factly, arms folded over his chest, even if Raven is looking at him like he just stole her thunder. "There could be new pods that we're not aware of."

"I made another modification." Of course she did. "It has a self destruct option, in case we get caught. We don't want Wallace to know we have the intel. about the whereabouts of his precious pods." She taps a fingernail to a button on the top of the tablet. "Flip the switch and say nightlock three times and boom goes the dynamite. It blows itself and anything within a ten foot radius to pieces."

Shaw sounds resigned, jaw flexing pensively. "Even with the holo, it is likely that new pods have been set. Whatever they contain, they are meant to kill us."

Clarke and Luna exchange the briefest of glances, the latter one inhaling sharply before she seems to read the blonde's mind, muttering under her breath, "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the 76th Hunger Games." Clarke opens her mouth to ask her why she's risking her life, because that's the first real interaction between the two of them since they were reunited—the first real familiar connection between them—but Luna is already closing the distance between her and Cooper.

They take some shots of her walking through the abandoned streets of Polis, but luckily they don't make her talk. She doesn't have much left to say. They never get far, because Raven has to disassemble a pod every fifty feet.

She catches Luna by the elbow—after the third loud sigh when Harper asks for them to stop so she can get a better shot of Clarke with her bow—signaling to Monroe that they'll catch up in a second when the ruddy girl stops to wait for them. She's no longer confused, she's also a little pissed off. No one is forcing her to be here.

The brunette stares at her, unwaveringly calm as always. Clarke's voice might come out a little sharper than intended. "Why did you come?" Why is she risking her life when she said this wasn't what she wanted, wasn't what she wanted Clarke to do? Luna knows why Clarke's here, but why is she? Will she try to sabotage her plan in the long run? Did Diyoza force her to come? What is she holding over her head?

Her answer surprises the Mockingjay. "Because I want to stop running." It's ironic, because isn't that exactly why Clarke is here? Because her first instinct was to do just that? "When I first met you, I told you every one of us should die because I was hurting so I lashed out. I still am, and I always will be, but I'm done letting other people suffer because of that." She pauses, reaching out to wrap her fingers around Clarke's pale limp hand and squeezing softly. "You're not just my people, Clarke. You're my family. Wallace killed most of them, but you're still here. You, and Bellamy and Sinclair and Murphy. Even Echo and Anya." The victors. The victors' purge took care of the others. Wallace took care of most of Luna's district, too. "I came here because I wanted to help you. I may not agree with your mission, but I stand by you. That's what family does."

All this time, Clarke was so wrapped up in herself, in Bellamy, that she never even noticed Luna was right there beside her all along. That she hadn't always been appreciative of that, of what Luna did for her in the Games, what she sacrificed. Even after that. There's so much she could learn from her, they all could. Clarke never allowed herself to let other people in, when she already had too many to worry about. Unconsciously, she had already. The blonde squeezes her hand back, head inclining slightly as the corners of her mouth turn up, barely. "You're mine, too."

In the evening, they settle down in an empty building to take a much-needed break. Clarke knows her odds of escaping are minimal. She needs that pod to make it across the minefield the Gamemakers planted but Raven has it permanently attached to her hand.

"You're not going to get it off her while she's awake," Wells says, quiet, because he's always been able to read her too well. He sinks down on the floor beside her, leaning his head back against the wall. He holds out his canteen for her, and Clarke takes it, grateful. She takes a few big swigs of water, then wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. She's about to speak when they hear a truck outside.

"Is that Peacekeepers?" Old Colton asks, hushed, lifting himself up to his feet and pressing his back to the wall nearest to the exit so he can carefully look around the corner and scope out the nearing vehicle. Young Colton settles down right beside him while Cooper takes out her radio, "Squad 100 to base. We got a truck coming in from the South. Over."

Voices crackle over the radio while Wells helps her up from the floor, lifting her rifle of her shoulder for her and pressing it into her hands firmly. Her bow lodged on her back for show only nowadays. Cooper barks out, "Stand down everyone. It's friendly." The tension in the room deflates and she lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding.

Most of the non-combat / combat unit steps outside to meet the incoming soldiers, except for the propo team and Raven, and Clarke freezes dead in her tracks when her eyes make contact with the first person walking towards them. Two other soldiers are pushing him forward and he's wearing one of their uniforms, rifle in his hands. His mouth is moving, but she can't make out what he's saying until he's a few feet away.

"My name is Bellamy Blake," he affirms himself, voice soft but raw like he's been using it for hours on end, eyes directed at his feet. There's a firearm in his hands, but he holds it like he doesn't know what to do with it. "My home is district twelve. I have a sister, her name is Octavia. I competed… I competed in the 67th Hunger Games."

It reminds her of what she told herself every time after she was on the verge of a panic attack after waking up from the umpteenth night terror by herself. To remind herself who she was, what was real and what wasn't. Her heart breaks. Him being out here—it's not good for him. He isn't ready.

Most of her squad have their fire weapons out and aimed into his direction, and instinctively she takes a step forward, to shield him as best as possible. They've probably already made up their minds about him, about the guy who Wallace brainwashed and turned into his own personal weapon. Shaw sticks out an arm between Clarke and the rest of the squad, probably more to keep them from shooting the Mockingjay by accident than to support her cause, and commands, "Everyone relax."

Cooper comes up behind him, shifting his arm down and instructing him to, "Cuff him." Then she turns to Bellamy, who's finally noticed Clarke, and is now just staring at her like she is the only one there, slight crease in between his brows, curls falling into his eyes. Gently, Cooper treads closer, "Soldier, this is just a precaution till we have everything sorted out, yeah?"

After a second, Bellamy nods, barely, gaze still insistent on Clarke and she's still standing there like an idiot, blinking right back at him. She wants to touch him, wants to ask him why he's here, comfort him, but she's no longer sure that's what he wants or needs. If it's what she needs, because every time she does let him in, it gets harder to push him away again. Then, Shaw takes his firearm from him and puts a set of metal cuffs around his wrists, blocking her view.

Shaw situates Bellamy on the floor inside, instructs both Coltons to guard him, and leaves to discuss in the corner with Cooper and Scott in low, harsh voices. They aim their guns at him, even though he's restrained and he's obviously not even in the right mental state to fight anyone, and she has to bite down on her tongue till she tastes metal to keep from exploding.

She stalks over to the trio, catching the back half of Cooper's explanation. "...want to add him to the propos. Show that he's on our side now."

"It's not safe," she cuts in, amandant, all three of their heads snapping her way. It's not safe for him. He'll get hurt, out here, where everything is uncertain and everything could be a trigger. He doesn't deserve that, after what he's been through. He, at the very least, gets to be safe. Safe away from her.

Shaw seems to think she means something else, because he nods, adding, "He's not in control of himself." That's what he saw. When Bellamy strangled her, and then again when he had her up against that tree. Maybe he's not wrong, but she doesn't care about all of that. She just cares about him.

Cooper sighs, jaw flexing as she pinches the bridge of her nose. She's obviously in a bit of a conflict here. Then, she presses her hands together, "We'll move forward a few blocks tomorrow, shoot some new footage. We'll schedule an around the clock watch on him." Scott agrees, and Shaw nods, so that's that. Clarke isn't naive enough to think she can change this woman's mind when she's under direct orders of her president.

Their boss decides, "The Coltons till 2100, Shaw and Jaha till 2300. Murchadh and me can take the next shift."

"Give me a watch," Clarke blurts out, wrapping her arms around herself, and she hates herself for sounding so desperate. Her eyes dart over to him for a second, Luna now settled down beside him and offering him half of her bread roll.

The lieutenant lifts an eyebrow, skeptic, "If it really came down to it, you think you could shoot him?" This woman barely knows her, but thinks she can see right through her. You love him. Anyone can see it. Luna told her that, said that seeing them gave her hope. Seeing them now must've taken it all away, because here she is, among the rest of them, directly fighting the war in the field. Something she didn't think was the way.

Clarke grits her teeth together, briefly, eyes narrowed. Deep down, she doesn't know if she'd be able to. Probably not. But she's done a lot of thing she never thought she would, in the name of survival, so maybe she could. If she really had to. If she didn't think of him as her friend, but as the weapon Wallace made him out to be. "I wouldn't be shooting Bellamy. I'd be killing a Polis mutt."

Cooper tilts her head slightly, putting her hand on top of her shoulder briefly as she passes her, all the while informing her that, "I'm not sure that kind of a comment recommends you for the job either, soldier."

Shaw stops her, "Put her in the rotation." Which surprises Clarke about as much as the small close-lipped smile he gives her. He trusts her? At least Cooper must trust him, because her eyes flicker over to the blonde briefly, before she nods. "0100. Jaha can switch his shift with Scott, so he can take his with Griffin."

"He's going to try to kill me," Clarke says into the dark, eyes fixated on Bellamy's sleeping form as stabs her knife into her apple and takes it out absently and repeatedly. She's not supposed to be wasting rations like that, but her stomach is too much in knots for her to even think about food. "Especially with all this going on. It's going to set him off."

"We'll keep him contained," Wells assures her, lit by the dim lantern in the middle of the floor. It's quiet for a moment between the two of them, safe for Raven snoring a little beside him, snuggling into her sleeping bag a little further.

"Why would Diyoza do this?" Clarke wonders out loud, leaving the knife inside the apple this time and wiping her hands on her thighs. At this point, does it really matter if Bellamy is on their side or not? Does it matter if he's in the field to show them? They could've recorded a propo starring him back in thirteen.

"She wanted him to be the one rescued from the arena," Wells offers, hugging his knees to his chest, lifting his shoulders casually. "She never liked you. She doesn't like anybody she can't control."

"So she would put my life in danger?" It's a question, but Clarke kind of already knows the answer. She doesn't know why but part of her never trusted Diyoza. She doesn't understand it herself. How can she feel so distrustful of someone who saved her life, rescued her Bellamy, is rescuing her people?

"She'd deny it but…"

Clarke looks at the side of his way questioningly, "What?" He's always good at seeing every side of the story, she isn't always.

Wells exhales deeply, rubbing his eyes with one hand. Then he says, hesitant, "One way or another, this war is going to come to an end. They promised a free election. Maybe she's starting to see you as a threat."

That's what it's about? She barely wanted to be the Mockingjay, let alone the President of Panem. Bitterly, she presses, "I don't want the job." After this, she never wants to be in charge of anything ever again, doesn't want to lead a single person. She wants to be able to breathe, able to not feel like the weight of the world is resting on her shoulders, able to be just Clarke. Not a symbol.

He raises an eyebrow. "But you'd throw your support to someone." She can't deny that. He tilts his head slightly. "Would it be her?"

Clarke doesn't say anything, just presses her lips together in a tight line as she fixes her gaze back onto Bellamy. Probably not.

"She doesn't need you as a rallying cry anymore," he reasons, in a hushed voice, articulating with his hands. "These propos can be done without you." He shakes his head lightly. "There's only one thing you could do that would add more fire to this rebellion."

Die.

She picks at a fingernail, lost in thought. It isn't until Bellamy speaks, gravelly, that she realizes he'd opened his eyes at one point, pulling her back to reality. "I've seen that look before. You looked at me like that in the train. On the way to Polis. After we first met. You hate me."

Clarke meets his eyes, just a few feet across from her, in the faint yellow light. His head is still leant back on the wall, one leg stretched out in front of him. His cuffed hands are in his lap, the skin underneath already raw.

She forces herself to swallow, to try and create some saliva in her dry mouth. She doesn't remember to keep her voice down. "I never hated you. I just didn't like you back then. You were an asshole." Judgemental and unwilling and always that stupid nickname. "Then you got me those sponsors in my games, and after that, I always saw you as my ally."

After that, they only got closer. But ally seems safe. Especially after the last time she implied they were more than strangers, he said he should've let her die in the arena the first time around.

"Friend, lover, victor, enemy, target, mutt. Now ally?" He lists, cynical, lifting his head to narrow his eyes at her, the darkness making the hard lines on his face even more stark. "I'll add to to list of words I use to try and figure you out."

She clenches her jaw, fingers curling into her palms, one knee hugged to her chest. Her eyes flutter close temporarily. They used to always be on the same page, always understood each other. She's not going to lie that his admission hurts.

"I'm sorry," he breathes, shaking his head to himself, teeth gritted together. This can't be easy for him either. He sits up a little, rubbing his forehead with his hand, avoiding her gaze. "I just can't tell what's real—what's real and made up anymore."

Luna, who up until this point Clarke had thought was also asleep, puts a hand on top of his feet soothingly by reaching out from where's she's lying on her side, not to far from him, using her other hand to shift her head and re-adjust her hair beneath her head. "Just ask us. We're your unit now."

In more ways than one. Luna had become a good friend of hers, after the arena, without Clarke even noticing, creeping up on her slowly. She probably felt the same way about Bellamy, too. Some screwed up sense of loyalty because they experienced the same trauma. Either way, she cared about them.

Clarke can practically feel the tension radiate off Wells from beside her. He doesn't trust Bellamy. Then again, he never really knew him. Never really knew the things he did for her, said to her, the way he looked at her.

Finally, Bellamy's head turns back to face hers, pensive thought on his face. Clarke smiles at him, weak, shaky, but hopefully encouraging enough. He looks hesitant, but then, like Luna's words are echoing in the back of his mind, he checks, "You like to paint. Is that real?"

"Yeah," she breathes, almost relieved, but has to repeat herself because it's barely audible. "Yeah. That's real." Figuring not only the memories with her are stained, but also the memories without her, she adds, hastily, "You like to read. Not fiction, but myths and legends from ages ago. From history. You love those."

He nods, brief, and he looks calmer, reassured, less fidgety. "Thank you."

She's not done. He's so much more than Wallace told him he was. So much more. She gulps in a shaky breath, then continues, "You're a hunter. You're an archer. You're the best brother that I've ever met. You know every single constellation." Her voice breaks on the last words, and it doesn't get any steadier after that. "You've got such a big heart—" She can barely get the words out at this point, can barely see through the tears, because she's not even sure if he'll ever be that person again, is she? Not sure if everything is just too different now, that there's too much bad blood between the two of them. She pushes herself up onto her feet and goes outside. She needs—some space.

She hugs herself, shivering even if it's not even slightly cold. Wells comes after her, puts his arm around her. He doesn't have to say anything, but because he's Wells, and he loves a good 'I told you so' every now and then, he says, "I guess you're not leaving anymore."

Maybe seeing her like that, back inside, maybe he understands her better now, why she isn't afraid of Bellamy. Clarke shakes her head lightly against his shoulder, wiping at the corners of her eyes with the tip of her forefinger. She echoes Octavia's earlier words, "I don't think I can run from this."

Shaw hands her a gun the next morning. "It's just for the propo. The mag's still empty," he says at the look on her face, testing it out in her hands, small encouraging grin on his face as he touches her on the shoulder briefly before passing her by.

She can vaguely make out Harper instructing Miller, "I want a full body shot," as Cooper twirls her finger in the air, pointing it forward. "Listen up! We're moving and heading five blocks north."

They start walking, Raven up ahead with Cooper while Clarke trails behind. She stares at the piece of paper in her hand and repeats the words back to herself, lowly, and maybe a little cynically, "To the citizens of Polis. Our war is not with you. You will be a vital part of the democracy that follows our victory."

Clarke can just never make their words sound like her own. Luna has been repeating the lines back to Bellamy, so he could say them in a different shot for the propo, but that was an even bigger disaster considering he barely had a grip on his own thoughts. Luna always remained patient though.

Harper knocks her shoulder into hers, "You're doing great." She smiles, but it fades as she nods up ahead, reaching out to stop Shaw as one of her inspirational looks washes over her face. "Right there—that is a good spot. Through there, in that courtyard."

He nods, probably wanting to get this propo out of the way as fast as possible, "Okay, let's clear it," then jogs up ahead to inform Cooper.

They make their way over to the courtyard, encircled entirely by skyscraper buildings, eerily quiet. Clarke's never been here before, but she can't imagine it's ever been this silent. There's a big triumphal arch at the beginning of the pathway leading to the court, and after that steps leading down to grass fields, and steps leading back up to the different sized buildings.

"Got a pod," Raven exclaims, typing away on her holo as it beeps, and Cooper makes them split up and take cover behind both sides of the arch, backs pressed against the limestone, their chests heaving with harsh and uneven breaths. Clarke stares straight ahead—at the Mockingjay symbol painted on the opposing wall—as they wait.

Raven wipes a loose strand of hair from her forehead, shoving the holo back into her backpack roughly. "This is no use." She grits her teeth together, cursing under her breath as she rubs her temples.

"Stay back," Raven warns all of a sudden from beside Cooper, taking a deep breath before picking up big chipped off piece of limestone and—before any of them even realize what she's doing—propelling it into the narrow opening under the arch. Quickly, she shifts back just in time as bullets are shot from the other side of the arch into their direction.

"Machine guns," Cooper assumes, voice loud to be heard over the shots, as they all cover their ears and hope for the best. Eventually, they stop, probably having run out of bullets, and Raven throws another stone to check.

Shaw steps out from his side first, declaring the site as clear. Cooper tells Wells and Scott to come with her, and the Coltons to go up ahead with Shaw, instructs the rest to wait. While they wait, she checks the other side of the arch. Harper and Monroe are holding hands, and Bellamy is crouched down next to Luna, hands still covering his ears, muttering indecipherable sentences to himself, his breathing shaky. He's covered in a tiny layer of sweat, curls damp and stuck on his forehead. Her jaw clenches painfully and she's about to lift herself onto her feet and go over to him—when there's a loud blast. She knows that sound. She knows that sound because it's what killed Madi.

"Shaw," she cries out, when she checks to see the damage, feet already moving over to him. Cooper tries to stop her, tells her to hold her position. "Griffin, no!" Wells, knowing her better, just follows her instead as she crouches down beside Shaw, yelling out for a tourniquet. There's not much left of his legs. He was close, to the mine.

She presses her hands to his legs, but there's so much blood, she can hardly make out anything. His normally brown skin is pale, too pale. Her voice shakes as she says his name. His hand folds around hers, head tilted back onto the tiles, his breathing choked. "End th-this, Clarke."

"Don't talk," she tells him, squeezing his hand, and he closes his eyes, squeezes them firmly shut. "Cl-arke, kill Bellamy if you—if you have to. Do what you came, came here to do."

She nods, quick and firm, even if she's not sure what he means, if he's been onto her all along, but his hand is softening in hers, his head moving further back. "No," she cries out, taking a hold of his shoulders. "Shaw." They didn't always get along, but he never once was unfair to her. He always treated her like a person, always tried to stand up for her whenever he could.

"He's gone," Wells tells her, softly, prying her hands away from his body. She doesn't even know his first name. "He's gone, Clarke."

She nods, tears dripping down her chin as she wipes her hands on her uniform, getting off as much blood as she can, allowing Wells to help her to her feet. Like Indra once said, there's no time to mourn the death until the war is over.

A little further away, Young Colton is on the ground grunting lightly, probably a victim of the blast as well. Old Colton is making his way over there, when he steps onto a plate—a loud click echoing through the courtyard that can't mean much good. The spaces between the buildings start to close up, effectively blocking all their exits as a flood wave of black mass comes up behind them. Quickly, they start running away from it, up the steps, to higher ground, as Cooper points out, "Into that building!"

Wells runs up ahead to help Raven and Clarke's still making her way up the steps when she's suddenly tumbling onto the grass, face first. She groans loudly, first thinking she tripped, but then realizing someone heavy is on top of her. She just in time manages to avoid him hitting her in the head with the bud of his rifle, rolling away onto her side.

"Bellamy, no!" She croaks out, holding up her hands in defense, but when she meets his eyes, she realizes he's not really there, eyes dead. Luna comes up to him, but he knocks her back when she least expects it as he strides back forward to Clarke, rising back upon her feet.

Then, Scott tries to pull him away, but he's too close to the ledge, so when Bellamy shoves him off, he shoves him right into the sea of black mass filling up the courtyard. He's swallowed up immediately, and doesn't resurface.

"Bellamy," Luna bites, pointing at the blackness rising and almost reaching them, as she wraps her hand around his bicep, tight. "Come on!" Apparently his survival instinct kicks in, because he lets her lead him towards the building, Clarke not far behind them.

Bellamy has to grab onto the railing at one point, his eyes squeezed shut. "Hey, I got you," Luna soothes, glancing over at the blonde behind them only briefly, as she wraps her arm around his waist and forces him to move further up. You're my family. "I got you."

They run up as many steps as possible, and luckily the flood stops rising a few levels below them. Cooper jams a needle into Bellamy's neck while they're still catching their breaths, even though Luna is protesting and is left to guide his body to the floor when he slowly slumps over.

"The Gamemakers are still putting on quite the show," Raven bites, hands on her knees, chest heaving heavily up and down, Wells' hand in between her shoulder blades comfortingly. She hisses as she straightens back up. Running must not be good on her leg. "If the Peacekeepers didn't know where we were, they do now. Those surveillance cameras definitely caught us."

Cooper seems to agree, pulling away the curtain in front of a window and observing the courtyard. "This is a bad spot. We need to move right away. Can you try and contact base?"

Raven nods, pulling out the radio, tinkering with the buttons. Monty offers Clarke a sip of his water while they wait, but she waves him off with a 'no thanks'. The mechanic curses under her breath as the device only produces static. "I can't get a damn signal."

Cooper closes the curtain abruptly, turning back to the rest of them. "I can get us back to base, I know the way."

"We can't go back to base, you know that right?" Clarke finds her voice, deathgrip on her rifle turning her knuckles white. They can't give up now, now that they came this far. Now that they've lost Shaw, and they've lost Scott. They can't just be two more meaningless deaths in the name of war.

"There's at least a hundred peacekeepers on their way here," Old Colton reasons, crouched on the floor beside his son and tending to his leg. It makes sense. They're high targets, that's what Shaw said. Surely, Wallace wouldn't let another chance to get rid of her go to waste. They shouldn't be wasting time arguing about their destination, they should just get away from here.

Wells rests his hands on his hips, shrugging lightly, gaze fixed on a wall in front of him pensively. "If me move now we won't leave any footprints." The thick black mass will prevent it. Raven latches onto that with an, "And the cameras should be covered by the oil as well."

"Peter can't move forward like this. His leg is too bad. We have to evacuate him," Old Colton reasons, while his younger counterpart tries to adjust his lower limb with both hands, hissing. He's pale, sweat trailing down his temples. He's obviously in a lot of pain.

Cooper nods at her team member, adjusting the band of her rifle on her shoulder. "As soon as we make contact with base, we will send somebody back. I promise." Both Coltons nod, the older one offering her a grateful, close-lipped smile. "Alright everyone. Move out."

Luna takes Bellamy by the chin, makes him look at her. It's like he can't even see her, like he's seeing right through her. Sedating him every five minutes probably isn't helping his mental state. "Wells, can you carry him? I don't think he can walk."

Clarke's best friend nods, and lifts Bellamy's lethargic form over his shoulder. Wells is strong, but it isn't without some difficulty. At least Bellamy doesn't protest, the sedative making him apathetic.

Clarke wishes she could do more, say more, be there for him. But she's still dazed after what happened, after watching Shaw die, after Bellamy just tried to hurt her again, after he did hurt Scott. It's easier to shut everything off, shut that part off, leave him to Luna. She has other things to focus on.

They make it downstairs, making their way across the courtyard just in time to see at least three trucks full of Peacekeepers pull up in front of the arch. Quickly, Squad 100 ducks into the nearest building, a standard Polis apartment complex. The Peacekeepers march over to the building their unit was last spotted in, and start firing at it. Both Coltons fire back, but it's no use when the capital army pull out bazooka. The construction collapses in on itself almost immediately, and Clarke's squeezes her eyes shut and presses her nails into the palms of her hands until that's all she can feel. Two more names to add to the list. Two more names of people who sacrificed themselves on behalf of her, in the name of the Rebellion.

They're all silent for a long time, hours, quietly mourning the loss of their team members, until a television screen in the living room lights up automatically. It's one of the more developed televisions, a circular holographic stream in the middle of the room that allows everyone from each position to see the exact same image. The image of Cage Wallace.

"Here with our continuing coverage of the defense of the capitol. Today, as our peacekeepers valiantly hold off the rebels, our story takes a surprising twist."

They show Squad 100 walking around the abandoned streets of Polis, shooting their propaganda footage. An eerie song plays in the background, one she recognizes from when she used to watch the Games with her mother.

"Clarke Griffin, our once favorite tribute, has infiltrated the city with some of the Victors, whose names are all too familiar," Cage presses, grave, even though the corners of his lips are turned up into one of his secretive sneers. Some of them. They executed everyone else they could get their hands on. "Luna Murchadh and Bellamy Blake." An image of Luna supporting Bellamy with her arm around him while they run up the steps flashes across the screen, then. Clarke can already feel what's coming up before they show it, hairs on the back of her neck standing up straight. Next, they show security camera footage of Bellamy tackling Clarke to the ground and trying to—"Clearly, some alliances don't last forever."

The only reason their alliance is showing cracks is because of them, because of Cage's father. Clarke's entire body stiffens, hands stilling on top of her thighs and she doesn't dare look over at where Bellamy is on a couch in between Miller and Luna. The medicine must be wearing off by now and she isn't ready to face him yet, even if he is back to himself.

"Whatever arrogance brought this so-called Mockingjay back to us," Cage bites, hatefully, then forces a calm smirk onto his face. "You are about to witness a great victory, not only for Polis, but for Panem."

They show footage of their squad running into a building, the next shot of the Peacekeepers bombing it and it caving in. It's clear there's no way anyone made it out alive. It's clear they're supposed to be dead. Maybe it's a blessing in disguise.

Cage ends his broadcast with his eyes crinkled with happiness, "So there you have it. Clarke Griffin, the girl on fire, a girl who inspired so much violence, the commander of death, seems to have met a violent end herself."

Once they've all taken out some provisions, Wells—perched on top of the armrest of the couch Clarke is sitting on—is brave enough to break the next heavy silence. "So now that we're dead, what are we going to do?"

Cooper sighs heavily, twisting the cap back on top of her canteen. She lifts her shoulders in an unsure gesture, probably still conflicted between her orders and common sense.

"Isn't it obvious? The next move is to kill me," Bellamy argues, darkly, and even if she isn't ready to look at him, she has to. He's leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together in the middle. His shoulders are sagged, resigned. She recognizes that same similar glint of self-resentment and alienation in his eyes she saw for the first time when he called himself a monster. "I murdered one of our squad members. Clarke is right. I'm a mutt." He heard that? "And it's only a matter of time before I snap again. I'm not in control." He's not wrong. Clarke can only stare at him, stupid, heart rattling in her chest, feeling hot one second and cold the next. He wants to die. "I need a nightlock pill, so I can die when I need to."

"If it gets to that point, I'll kill you myself," Cooper decides, firm and dismissive, but it's obvious she just doesn't trust him with it. It reminds her of the Games, how they never got to choose how or when they died. Not if it didn't bring them enough spectacle, enough reason for others to comply.

Their discussion is cut short when the screen flickers again, the familiar Polis logo flashing across of it. This time, it's actually Dante Wallace. He looks pristine as always, not a hair out of place, not allowing anyone to see him bleed, not even if the rebels have a gun pressed to his head, or a knife to his throat. "So Clarke Griffin, poor unstable girl with nothing but a misplaced sense of compassion is dead."

It's actually kind of funny? Isn't it? How she'd wanted nothing more but to die, all this time, and now Wallace—out of all people—he's given her a reason not to. He's given her a reason not to give up until she can get out her bow and fire an arrow into his head.

"Not a thinker, nor a leader," he continues, nonchalant. "Simply a face plucked from the masses." He shrugs, pursing his lips. "Was she valuable? She was extremely valuable to your rebellion because you have no vision, no true leader among you. You call yourselves an alliance, but we saw what that means." He laughs, actually laughs, leaning back into his chair, flinging a hand like it's not even worth his time to be addressing them, not when, "Your soldiers are at each other's throats."

Who's fault is that?

"How are we supposed to take a rebellion like—" His face cracks, the words sounding distorted, and then there's Diyoza, with her signature ponytail, two strands framing her face. "Good evening. For those of you who aren't familiar with me, allow me to introduce myself. I am President Charmaine Diyoza, leader of the rebellion. I have interrupted a broadcast from your president in which he attempted to defame a brave young woman."

Most of them angle their bodies closer towards the screen, opposed to as far away as possible, happy to see a familiar face. Clarke wishes she felt the same, she really does. She really wished she could just blindly trust this woman, who's given her nothing but reasons to do so.

"'A face plucked from the masses,' he called her," Diyoza lets out a small chuckle, arms behind her back, then her face hardens back up. "As if a leader—a true leader—could be anything else." An image of Clarke appears in the top right-hand corner, one they took of her for promotional material. Her hair was still longer back then, in it's trademark braid. Maybe they digitally altered that, she doesn't remember. Time is kind of hazy on her, nowadays. "I had the privilege of knowing a small-town girl from district twelve who survived the Hunger Games and the Quarter Quell and rose up and turned a nation of slaves into an army." She sniffs all of a sudden, a finger coming up to dab at the corner of her eyes. She apologizes, accepts a tissue from someone off screen and then clears her throat, turning back to address the camera directly. "Dead or alive, Clarke Griffin will remain the face of this revolution. She will not have died for nothing."

"I had no idea I meant so much to her," Clarke notes, bitterly as picks at the bread roll in her lap. She'd never been that impressed with her in real life. Always reminding her she was expendable. She was a good actress.

"He's in his mansion," Bellamy remarks, absently, pulling everyone's attention back to him.

"Where's that?" Clarke sits up, curious, looking at the holo propped up on Raven's lap. It doesn't escape her that it's the first time she's addressed him directly since she walked out on him. Again. How is he supposed to trust her? How is he supposed to depend on her? She can't even say three sentences to him without bailing because she's such a mess.

Raven explains that he's in the city circle, at least 70 to 75 blocks away. Nobody knows they're alive, so it'll be their best chance going all the way over there. The brunette looks her straight in the eye, unaffected. "That is why you came here, isn't it?"

Was she that transparent? Had she gotten that bad at hiding her motives? She doesn't have to answer. Most of them already seemed to know it anyway.

"Whether they're looking for us or not, we are pinned down," Cooper remarks, ordering Raven to push a button on her holo. It scans for pods, showing about one every ten steps, the entire map lighting up.

"Yeah," Raven declares, dry and cynical. "That doesn't even show the new ones."

"So we can't go anywhere in the streets," Clarke concludes, racking her brains for options.

As if reading her mind, Raven agrees, "No. And the rooftops are just as bad."

Miller clears his throat, arms crossed over his chest. "There might be another way." He nods his head over to Monty, beside him. "Green knows the tunnels really well. He worked sanitation down there, right after they made him an avox."

Monty smiles, close-lipped, and Harper squeezes his hand, her other hand in Monroe's. They're all really close, even to Miller, who still seems like he would rather be anywhere else. Clarke doesn't know them as well as she would like to, she guesses, but they have their stories, their relationships, their goals and purposes and hopes and dreams. They're people. Like the kind of people who need her help, who she is doing this for. Her people. It's why they can't give up now.

Almost hopefully, Clarke looks over at Cooper, whose jaw flexes as she shakes her head to herself. Then, she surprises her. "Guess we'll be going underground."

Monty looks absolutely terrible from the second they touch the sewer water, up to their ankles. He's pale, paler than usual, his hair sticking to his skin from sweat. Clarke guesses they each have their traumas. The rest of them wait a little behind as Harper goes up to him, pulling on his hand. "Hey. Hey. You gonna be okay?" She cups his face, gently, making him look at her. "Look at me. We're gonna get through this. I promise."

After a few beats, like her words were taking a longer time to be processed, he nods, and Harper assures him a few other private things under her breath. Beside Clarke, Miller shakes his head, brow creased together. It's the most of a facial expression she's seen him take since she met him. "Took us five years to buy his way out of here. He didn't see the sun once."

Five years. Five years, and she's never once seen him look anything but happy. Easy. Strong.

After a while of Monty leading them through the tunnels, Cooper decides they should get some rest. It's been hours, and it's hard to tell from down here, but it must be the middle of the night by now and they're all tired. Their sound engineer leads them to a metal platform between tunnels that's dry and gives them a good view of both exits.

"Just tuck in there," Luna instructs Bellamy, pointing at a corner besides the steps leading back into one of the tunnels before helping him sit down, since his hands were tied back together again. She's been by his side the entire time, making sure he wouldn't—lose control again.

Clarke sinks down onto the ground across from Luna, and she must be more tired than she realizes because she blinks and then all of a sudden Wells is nudging her, telling her to wake up. "Clarke. Your watch."

She nods, dazed from sleep, sitting up in a more active stance. Wells sighs, probably relieved he finally gets to close his eyes. She rests the rifle in her lap at one point, then looks across at Luna, and aside to—to find Bellamy already looking at her. It startles her for a second, not expecting anyone to be awake at this point.

"Can't sleep," he mumbles, as an answer to her stunned reaction, fidgeting with the cuffs around his wrists a little. Usually, she can't either. She's slept with him a hundred times and he always helped her sleep. Now, most of the time, he's the one keeping her up.

Clarke nods, solemnly, figuring it's better not to drag up the past unless he asks about it. "My mom always told me to slay my demons while I was awake." She knows. He's told her the story before. In the dark of the night, her head pressed to his chest, heartbeat steady under her ear. Slay your demons when you're awake, so they can't get to you in your sleep. She doesn't say anything, because it seems like a reinforcement for himself more than anything.

Bellamy frowns, blinking heavily a few times, gaze fixated on Clarke's hands, on top of the rifle in her lap. "You know, Polis, they used trackerjacker venom on me. That's what the healers in thirteen said." He pauses, hesitant, then continues, "You were stung once, too. Real or not real?"

"Real," she confirms, not taking her eyes off his face, lit only by the dim emergency exit lighting. She remembers it clearly. The hallucinations, the night terrors that followed during the days she was knocked out—they were one of the worst things she's ever experienced. Clarke can only imagine what getting injected daily would do to a person.

"When they used the venom on me, they would show me pictures of my life. My mom, Octavia, you." Clarke's chest feels too tight, too small for her beating heart. His life. His mom, Octavia, her. His family. He smiles, faint and absentmindedly, maybe even a little nostalgic, but then it disappears. "But some weren't real. They changed them." He clears his throat, trying to steady his voice. "At first, they all… They all blurred together. But now…" He lifts his head, finally making eye-contact with her again, knocking the breath out of her for just a second. His voice is no longer filled with doubt, squinting his eyes together in thought just slightly. "Now I can sort them out a little. Like the ones that they changed, they have this quality—it's like they're shiny. Glossed over."

Polis manufactured memories. Figures them being too picture perfect would give it away.

He's doing the worst thing he could do. Give her hope. She swallows, thick, tightening her grip on her rifle, then tells him, "You should get some rest."

Quietly, he asks, "You're still trying to protect me. Real or not real?"

"Real," she admits, hoarse, after a beat, and his gaze is too strong to break away from it, even if there's nothing she'd rather do. It's like she's hypnotized—like it's magnetic. "That's what you and I do. Keep each other alive."

Her eyes finally dart over to the side, when he speaks again, "Is that all we do?" It's an innocent question on his behalf, probably, just trying to figure out who they are to each other, if his image matches hers or if they're more Polis lies. But, once upon a time, she told him life should be about more than just surviving and she can't help but wonder if he's thinking about that. She's still worrying about how to answer his question, when she looks up to find him staring out into the distance, squinting his eyes at the tunnel farthest away from them. "Clarke. What's that?"

She turns her head, and blindly reaches for her flashlight on the ground beside her, pointing it at the the cylinder shaped hole just in time to see something dark slither through the water like he's looking for something, two beady red eyes lighting up in the dark. Without thinking, she exclaims, "We gotta go!"

Luna is already up in a crouch, one hand on the railing, telling her to keep her voice down. Cooper curses quietly, pushing her hair back from her face, "Mutts, they released mutts."

"Monty, what's the fastest way out?" Miller asks his friend, grabbing a hold of his shoulder. Their sound engineer leads them down the stairs back into a tunnel, the water cold to the touch, turning back around to press a finger to his lips, signaling them to be quiet.

It's hard to make anything out in the darkness, everyone erratically pointing their flashlights into different directions, changing angles every few seconds, too on edge to think and act rationally. They make it to a small horizontal passageway, leading to a different set of tunnels. Monty helps Harper squeeze through it, before going through it himself so he can help them out on the other side.

Luna and Bellamy go through next, then Clarke follows, Miller not far behind. Wells boosts up Raven so she can climb into it, then needs help from Monty and Miller to be pulled out himself. Raven holds up a flashlight so Monty can reach his hand through to help Monroe next, but just as she takes a hold of his fingers, Cooper yells out a 'holy shit'.

One of the mutts, sharp-toothed and reptile-like, tackles her and it's happening too fast to really see, because Monroe is crying, grabbing desperately at Monty's fingers, but she's slipping from the wetness and she's reaching out and begging, "Please, please—hurry up!" Wells is reaching through now as well, along with Miller but as soon as they start lifting Monroe, she's pulled back into the water with an unexplainable force, screams unbearable.

Raven shines her flashlight through the crack in the wall, only to drop it into the water out of shock and take a hasty step back when it reveals hundreds of the mutts, all trying to get a piece of Cooper and Monroe.

"Fall back!" Wells yells, pushing Monty away from the entry way as he takes out a grenade. It's too late for Cooper and Monroe. He waits for Monty to steer the rest of them away before he throws it through the passageway.

They run for what seems like hours but can only be minutes, through a maze of tunnels, with the mutts right on their heels. At one point, most of them get separated when Clarke has to kneel down and get out her bow to fire a red arrow at a horde of mutts coming from their left. On the other side of the mass of mutts are Wells, Luna, Raven and Bellamy.

She waits, hopes for them to emerge from behind the wall of burning mutts, but Miller pulls on her arm after a moment, ordering her to come along. They reach a crossroad of tunnels after not too long, and Clarke is already ready to protest because the others will never find their way out if they just leave, but Monty points to the ceiling. There's three platforms, a fire escape ladder hanging from the back wall on the top one. He helps Harper up onto the first floor, then Miller, and then he lifts himself up. One mutt comes out of nowhere and tries to grab onto the sound engineer's ankle, but Miller shoots him with his handgun and then kicks him off the ledge.

Clarke waits, with her back to the platforms, while they clamber ahead up the stairs. They can't all be dead. She refuses to believe that. She has to give them some time, to reach the intersection. Who knows what they ran into on the way. She has to give them a little more. "Come on, Clarke," Miller calls out for her, ducking his head down to look through the opening of the access hatch as he holds up the door.

"Just a minute," she exclaims, adjusting her grip on her bow as she looks back at the different tunnels, eyes darting between them, heart hammering in her chest. This can't be it. This can't be how she loses all of them. Miller commands her to come up after another thirty seconds pass, and he must think she's insane but she doesn't care. She waits another ten and then she's about to climb up on the first level when—

"Up there," Clarke yells, hoisting Raven up the first platform when she comes hobbling out of one of the tunnels. Then, like luck is finally on her side and their timing is impeccable, Wells rushes in from a different tunnel she came from, pushing one of the mutts off his body and knocking it into a nearby wall before shooting it in its head with his fire weapon. He passes them not much later, hopping onto the second platform in no time and helping them next. They go on to the final one, but Clarke pauses. She has to give them one more minute. Just one more minute. One more minute and she'll go up.

She fires off an arrow into a mutt trying to climb onto the first level, and another one storming out of a tunnel, and has to fire them in an exponentially quicker succession, coming from everywhere all at once. Her breath hitches in the back of her throat as she lies her eyes on Bellamy, who comes sprinting from one of the tunnels. But, one minute, she's looking at Bellamy crawling onto the first level and encouraging him, and the next she's on the ground floor in the water, a reptile mutt on top of her.

It's skin is cold as she tries to see through the water getting in her eyes, tries to gulp down a breath of air but it's hard when the creature's so heavy on top of her and trying to claw the skin of her neck. She manages to kick it away, fumbling for her bow in the water before drawing it just in time to shoot another one who's launching for her. She hisses as another one lodges it's teeth into her shoulder, and she has to manually jam an arrow into the side of it's head to get it to stop.

Before she knows it, she's watching Bellamy jump back down the second platform to come help her and she tells him, "Bellamy, stop! No! Keep climbing!" but then a mutt pulls on his ankles, and his head hits the floor with a loud thud. The mutt climbs on top of him, and they struggle, before rolling off the ledge and into the water. She's trying to get to him, trying to crawl through the water and over the lifeless forms over to where he is, but the mutts keep coming and she has to keep firing her arrows to keep them from grabbing onto her.

The mutt holds him under the water for a long time and when he resurfaces he barely manages to take a gulp of air before the creature has him back under. Clarke aims her arrow, and shoots it into the mutt's head. Finally, she manages to clamber to his side, pushing the monster of him so he can surface. He gasps loudly, choking as she helps him onto his feet.

"Start climbing, and don't stop, okay? Whatever you do, whatever happens to me, keep going, okay?" She urges him, hands on his shoulders, but he just stares at her, dumbly, wet hair falling into his eyes, liquid dripping down his skin. She shakes him a little, desperate, because she needs him to be safe. He can't zone out on her right now. "Please. Promise me."

He reaches for the knife strapped to her thigh, and for one second she's worried he's going to use it on her, but then he pushes her aside. She rises back from the water just in time to see him stab a mutt into his temple. "Thanks," she pants as he offers her a hand to help her up, knowing that without him, she would've died right there. There's the hint of a smile on his face, as he presses the knife back into her hand, "That's what you and I do, right, princess?"

She nods, dazed, barely having time to register the 'princess' before he jogs away and lifts himself onto the first platform. She fires another red arrow into one of the tunnels when an entire football team emerges from it, effectively blowing them to pieces. She kicks another off her torso on the way to the first level, then gets on top of it.

"Clarke," someone yells from behind her, "Duck!"

Luna. Clarke immediately bends down into a crouch, just in time to avoid Luna's axe flying into one of the mutts. She turns on her heels, helping her up, but there's even more coming from every which direction, so as soon as they're ready to climb the second platform, they're practically surrounded. Luna retrieves her axe from the mutt's dead body, and Clarke draws an arrow as they start fighting them off, creating a pathway up the final platform.

Luna starts clambering up the stairs first, Clarke not far behind. Then, the blonde is grabbed by the ankle, being dragged down. She tries to resist, tries to kick them away, tries to hold on, but the bars are slippery and it only takes one more pull before she's knocked back onto the platform, the breath out of her lungs along with it. She winces, vision turning black as a sharp pain spreads from the back of her head to the rest of her body.

Someone tries to shoot some mutts from above, tries to cover them, but there's too many. She opens her eyes to find Luna climbing back down instead, and she tries to force out a, "No. Go on," but Luna is already swinging her axe around and kicking mutts back down to the tunnels. The brunette helps Clarke sit up, then takes an arrow from Clarke's quiver and stabs another incoming mutt in the eye, before pushing the blonde onto her feet and towards the stairs. "Go!" Luna yells, staying back to fight the mutts off, even though they keep coming and coming.

She manages to reach the stairs, and Clarke slows down as they start pulling on Luna's feet, and tries to reach down to grab her hand or her shoulder or anything but it's no use. Luna is dragged down to the stairs, knocked into the ledge of the final flatform, rolls off the second and then dragged into the water by the mutts. Clarke is still screaming her name when the axe bounces to a halt on the first platform with a loud bang, out of Luna's reach.

Wells heaves her up the last few steps through the access hatch but she can't stop looking. Luna manages to fight a few off, but for every single mutt she kills or kicks away, double the amount emerge out of nowhere, pouncing on her, clawing at her, pushing her under the water.

Clarke sits back on her heels, hand on the door of the hatch and Raven swallows tightly, beside her, putting a hand on top of her shoulder to draw her attention to the object in her other hand. The holo. Raven looks at her sadly, and Clarke takes it with a shaking hand. She's right. Luna—the girl who saved her life countless times, who sacrificed who she was and what she believed in to help her when she's given her barely anything in return, who was always kind and non-judgemental and compassionate—she's already gone.

"Nightlock," she croaks out, fat tears dripping down her eyes, dripping down her cheeks, dripping down her chin, "Nightlock. Nightlock," then lets go off the holo. Wells pulls her back so the hatch door drops closed just in time to withhold the explosion caused by the holo. When she looks down at her hand, Luna's necklace is inside of it.

"Come on, let's keep moving."

Monty leads them to some kind of abandoned hall with pillars criss-crossed across it, it has two exits. One to the left, leading up to a pair of escalators, and another far to the right, almost identical to the other exit. Since Peacekeepers come running down the escalators on the left, they start sprinting into the opposite direction, bullets flying around their heads.

She's running beside Harper when a pod is set off, sharp spikes rising from the ground and chasing them, leaving the floor in shambles as they pass it, blowing a wall of mist in front of it. The tattooed blonde is a lot faster than Clarke, so she grabs onto her hand to pull her along.

Raven stumbles at one point and crashes down, and Wells starts circling back around, even though the brunette's shaking her head, waving her arms and telling him to, "Just leave—". Yet, Miller is already covering them from the Peacekeepers while Wells pulls her back up just in time before she gets shredded by the spikes. "Don't even say it, Reyes."

She's coughing while he pulls her to her feet, probably exposed to the fog too long—the mist must mostly be dust from the ground breaking up—but other than that seems mostly unaffected by the pod so far. Wells lifts her onto his back to mild protests from the brunette, anyway, because he's faster carrying her than he is pulling her along.

Clarke keeps running behind them, to make sure everyone gets over it, to make sure Wells can carry Raven by himself, to make sure they get somewhere safe. There's a flicker of light up ahead.

An upcoming heightened threshold indicates the end of this particular pod and Harper speeds ahead, losing grip on her hand when the victor stumbles a little on her own feet. Clarke throws herself forward over the threshold at the same time as Bellamy, both of them sliding across the floor just as the spikes reach the invisible wall behind them and explode against it.

She quickly scrambles to her feet—not even bothering to look at her scraped palms, not even bothering to try and catch her breath, not even bothering to give a second thought to the throbbing in her knee—starting to try and catch up with the others, already waiting at the escalators fifty feet ahead. She has to get to them. She has to get to them and they have to find a way. Find a way to get to Wallace.

"Bellamy, come on," she asserts, when he isn't at her side fast enough, voice trailing off as she looks over her shoulder to see what the hell is taking him so long. She slows down her pace when she sees he's not moving.

"Bellamy," she exclaims, jogging back over to him. He's still on the floor on his knees, hands covering his ears as he leans his forehead on the ground. There's a few drops of blood dripping down his palms into his jacket at the wrist. His posture is completely rigid, rocking back and forth slightly. When she's close enough, she can make out the words he's repeating back to himself.

"I'm a monster. I can't keep control."

"Stop," she tells him, falling down on her knees next to him without any hesitation. I'm a monster. She pulls at his hands, tries to get them away from his face. I can't keep control. "Yes, you can!" He just saved her, risking his own life for it. Again. Like he will keep doing for the rest of their fucking lives without even thinking twice. That's who he is. He still remembers. He still cares. Everything he's done down here proves that.

"Look at me," she demands, not caring she sounds like a complete wreck, managing to finally pry his hands away from his face. His eyes are red, rimmed with tears, erratically searching his hands while they're being held by hers. He still doesn't understand.

"Leave me," he rasps, commanding, finally lifting his head to meet her eyes, briefly, before they're back darting around, like he has as much grip on them as he has on his thoughts. There's no fucking way. No fucking way she's leaving him here.

"Look at me," she demands, hands moving up to bracket his face and keep it into place. They don't have much longer before the Peacekeepers catch up with them and it's over. It can't be over. She knows he doesn't want it to be over either. Not like this. "Look at me. I'm not leaving you here, okay?" She's not leaving another single person behind. Especially not him. Not again. Not ever. "I'm not leaving you behind." He still avoids her gaze, and she's not sure she's getting through to him. She wipes at his tears with her thumbs and then makes up her mind.

She pulls him closer to her, pushes forward the last few inches, and then presses her mouth to his, hard. Maybe it's a mistake, maybe it'll backfire, but she just knows she has to do this. Has to get through to him somehow, has to show him how much she—how much she cares. There's no fireworks, or crazy butterflies, just a slow steady fire, keeping her warm on a hard winter's day. When she pulls away she looks him straight in the eye, hands slipping down to his shoulders, but grip still unrelenting. Her eyes rake his face, lips still tingling from touching his. "It's you and me, remember?" Her tongue darts out to wet her lips, resolute, "Together."

He nods, dazed, adam's apple bobbing up and down heavily, before nodding more firmly, voice rough as he presses, grounded, "Together." She mirrors the gesture—an unspoken understanding because it's no longer just a word—and then he lets her pull him to his feet.

"Come on," she encourages, squeezing his hand as she starts sprinting towards the others. As soon as they climb the escalators and reach the surface, Harper recognizes their surroundings and leads them to a place not too far away. Just a few blocks, she promises, squinting at the sudden sunlight. There won't be any pods here, because the area was only evacuated hours ago, too close to the city centre.

A few blocks and they're safe. Safe.

Except, with each block they pass, Raven's condition worsens. She's coughing, and then she's struggling in Wells' arms, screaming for him to let him go, sweat covering her skin, hair plastered to the back of her neck, muttering indecipherable words under her breath, eyes rolling into the back of her head.

They make it to the apartment complex Harper had them headed to, and Miller clears the nearest surface—a kitchen table, cutlery and plates clattering to the floor—so Wells can lay Raven on top of it. Clarke checks her pulse, it's crazy high, and puts a hand to her forehead, feels way too warm.

"It must have been the mist," she reasons, smoothing some hair back from Raven's face, racking her brain for answers, for options, too. "Maybe there was something—"

Clarke is suddenly smacked backwards, onto the floor, hissing as she grabs a hold of the back of her neck. Raven rose into a sitting position, eyes fixed straight ahead. Wells immediately appears at the mechanic's side, trying to calm her down but then she starts pushing at him, clawing at his face, screaming at the top of her lungs, "I'm going to kill you, I'm going to kill all of you!"

"Miller," Clarke commands, waving him over quickly as she makes her way back over to Raven's side, her head taking over, "Help Wells keep her down. Harper can you find some restraints? She's going to hurt herself like this. Monty can you find some ice, something cold, anything? We have to get her body temperature down."

"It's enhanced trackerjacker venom," Bellamy hypothesizes loudly from beside her as he holds Raven's legs down, her whole body fighting against the three men. His shoulders are tense, probably because of the memories. Of what they did to him. "She's hallucinating."

Clarke nods, then quickly kneels down besides Raven's backpack and gets out one of the tranquilizers. It makes sense, the sudden hostility, the muscle spasms, her pulse and temperature—her body is trying to fight off the venom. Wallace is still trying to get other people to do his dirty work for him, trying to get Raven kill her own people.

Clarke injects the sedative into Raven's arm, letting out a sigh of relief as her whole body sags, muscles relaxing as she stops struggling. Clarke wipes some sweat of her own forehead with the back of her hand, before leaning on the table and letting out a loud exhale. "We need to get her temperature down, which the ice will do, and then her body will do the rest. She just needs time. Let's just rotate watch every hour and keep an eye on her, okay?"

Wells takes first watch, the rest of them making their way upstairs to one of the livingrooms so Raven won't be bothered by them or any unconscious stimulus. Wells refuses to let Miller take watch from him after first watch passes, and when he also sends Harper back up an hour after that, Clarke goes down herself.

She presses her hand between his shoulder blades from where he's sitting on a stool beside the table. He's propped Raven's head up on one of the couch cushions and is clasping her hand in his. Quietly, she urges, "Hey. Get some rest, okay? You've been at it for hours and even before that, you hardly got half an hour of sleep."

"Clarke, I can't leave her," he argues, stern, not taking his eyes off Raven's face. It's still covered in sweat, but her chest is rising with slower breaths than before, and her cheeks are looking less red.

"You aren't," Clarke counters, adamant, "I'll be here." His head shifts to look at her, his eyes red and his cheeks wet, and she knows he's going to protest because she would, too. If it was Bellamy. And that's what this is, right? Wells doesn't just care about her, he loves her. "Besides," she beats him to it, squeezing his shoulder, as she pointedly looks at the dried-up blood on Raven's temple. "If you leave I can take a look at that cut on her head."

He takes another long hard look at her, then finally nods, giving in. She knew he would agree if she could convince him it was better for Raven. He wipes his hands on his thighs, then leans down to press a kiss to Raven's forehead, promising her he'll be back.

"Hey," Clarke tugs on his hand just as he is about to leave, "She'll be okay, you know that, right?"

"I know," he promises, the corners of his lips slightly turned up, reminiscent maybe. "She's strong."

Clarke fills up a salad bowl with water and wets a dish towel to press to Raven's head. She cleans up the blood carefully, and makes sure she doesn't need stitches before deciding it's best to let it air dry instead of covering it up with a makeshift bandage. Once she's cleaning up the last of the blood, trying to scrub it out of her hair, Raven starts blinking her eyes open, squinting at the dim lighting. Clarke smiles, careful, but relieved. "Welcome back sunshine."

"Thank you," she whispers soft, trying to bring up a hand but failing to so because of the restraints around her wrists. She groans, shifting her head to get a better look at Clarke. Something hard washes over her face, something indecipherable. "Do you ever see their faces?"

Clarke's forehead creases in confusion, hands freezing mid-air, about to take off the rope Harper bound around her limbs. Her eyes rake Raven's face, corners of her lips still turned up slightly, trying not to startle her too much, or scare her off, in case she's still in the middle of a hallucination. "What?"

"Of all the people you've killed," she presses, matter-of-factly, shaking her head lightly, but always keeping her eyes straight on Clarke's. A lazy smirk slowly spreads across her bronze face.

The blonde lets out a small surprised, disbelieving chuckle, even though her heart is hammering in her chest, dread building up in her lower belly. "This isn't you, Raven, you're just hallucinating. I know it might feel real, but it's—"

"This isn't a hallucination, Clarke," she disputes calmly, tilting her head slightly, dead-serious. "This is me."

Clarke shakes her head, opens her mouth to try and get her to stop, but Raven keeps at it, "I'm just trying to tell you the truth because no one else will. You're their Mockingjay. It's everybody's job to keep you alive." She huffs, humoured and the blonde squeezes her eyes shut to dry and drown out the hateful tone in her voice. This isn't Raven. It isn't. But they didn't alter her memories, they're not controlling her. These are her words. "Everywhere you go, death follows."

Clarke in- and exhales loudly, trying not to let Raven's words get to her, but she's right. She's right. Finn. Lexa. Even Bellamy. She let them get close to her, and now? Two of them are gone, one of them is damaged beyond repair. Because of her. Always her.

"You always want to save everyone, but what you don't realize is you're the one who we need saving from." Clarke presses her nails into her thighs, tries to focus on that pain instead of the other hurt she's feeling. "Madi is dead because she stepped on a mine that was meant for you. Finn is dead because you broke his heart and then slid a knife into it after he gave his life for yours. Lexa is dead because you pissed off President Wallace." She chuckles, low, shaking her head lightly. "Hell, Luna is dead because you're only good at picking fights, not fighting them."

"Shut up," Clarke snaps, when she can't push away the images any longer. Madi. Sweet, innocent Madi and her beautiful blue eyes and how they lit up when she smiled, how clammy her hand felt in hers. Finn. His long hair always falling into his eyes, his unparalleled braveness, that backpack he got from the cornucopia for them. Lexa. The kisses they shared during their nights together, how soft her skin felt under Clarke's touch, the taste of pears. Luna. Who she couldn't save, even if she saved her a thousand times before in more ways than just physical. God, Luna. The pendant seems to be burning a hole on her collarbone right about now.

"And then there's good old Bellamy—" She smirks, vicious, like she knows she has Clarke right where she wants to. Like she means it, too.

Clarke gets off the stool, and it clatters onto the floor, breaking her off, "I said shut up!" She can't let her finish that goddamn sentence. Not right now. She might actually do something to her.

Raven ignores her, pulls on her restraints even if they won't budge, the ropes digging harsly into her skin, making sickening sounds. "You keep saying you didn't want to leave him behind, but guess you didn't try hard enough not to."

She echoes herself, hands in her hair, "Shut up!" because she can't bring herself to say anything else, her voice shaking too much. Hands balling into fists at her sides. She has to remind herself this isn't Raven, it can't be. She's only saying these things because she knows they'll hurt her, make her snap, make her do something that'll get one of them killed. She doesn't mean it. She doesn't.

Raven's smirk only widens, eyebrows furrowed together in amusement. "You can hide behind the selfless martyr act all you want, but I can see you for who you really are." Her face hardens, her eyes darken, gritting her teeth together. "Poison, to anyone who gets close."

Clarke picks up the cloth she used on her cuts and tries to stuff it into her mouth, but Raven sinks her teeth into her skin, the blonde hissing out in pain as she yanks her hand back. She laughs, blood dripping down her chin. "The commander of—"

"Shut up!" She yells, pressing her palms to her temples, trying to make it stop, trying to make the images stop, the images accompanying Raven's voiceover. Suddenly something warm and solid is colliding with her back, pulling her back towards the stairs. She can just make out Wells coming up beside Raven to give her another sedative, can just see through the angered tears.

He puts her down on top of the stairs, and she knew it was Bellamy, but she turns to confirm it anyway. "It's just the venom," he promises, automatically reaching out to push back a strand of hair from her face. His eyes looks cloudy, his posture tense. "You will try and say anything to make it stop. To make the pain stop. She was trying to get you—"

"To kill her?" She cuts him off, heated, even though it's not his fault. She doesn't want to think about how she nearly succeeded. Clarke was a sentence away from breaking down.

"Yeah," he admits, soft, rubbing the back of his neck, then nods to the side. "Come on, let's get something to eat."

She immediately feels bad, because he went through that, he's speaking from experience. He probably wanted to die everyday, there in Wallace's mansion, or wherever they kept him. But if Bellamy resents her for it, he doesn't show. He tells her Wells only gave Raven one-third of the tranquillizer since it's the last one they have left and they might need it again. He gets some soup from Miller and has her eat it.

"Wells should eat something," Clarke states, absently, after a while, once she's finished hers. Harper and Monty are asleep on one of the couches, Miller barely awake on the ground below them, "I'll go bring him something."

"I'll come with," Bellamy says, brushing off his hands on the back of his legs after he stands up. His eyes dart over to Miller briefly. He doesn't say anything. "You can keep an eye on me, right?"

She nods, just thankful she doesn't have to go down there alone. When they reach the last step of the stairs, he stops her, taking the bowl from her. "I'll just bring it to him, okay? I'll just be a second."

She breathes out a relieved 'okay', swallowing thickly, as she takes a hold of the stair railing. She can't lie and say she'd rather go in there. She leans her head back onto the wall, and closes her eyes.

They spring open at the sound of Raven's voice. Cheerful, almost. "Bellamy. I'm surprised they let you down here. Considering the state you're in."

"Yeah, well I'm not the only one getting tied up on a regular basis anymore, huh?" He bites back, even if he does sound relatively unaffected. He must hand the soup over to Wells because he mutters something low under his breath.

"Before you leave," Raven taunts him, melodic, "I just have one question for you."

"Raven," Wells warns her, and Clarke doesn't even want to imagine the things she's holding against him. Te things she's telling Wells. They seem close, closer than—than just friends. Than just love.

The girl ignores him though, voice innocent as she asks, "Does it bother you?" Then it gains a sharper edge, the blonde holding her breath and bracing herself for what's to come. "That you don't get any credit for all the people you killed in the Games? Clarke gets to be the Mockingjay, but you murdered all those people too and you're just forgotten."

Clarke exhales heavily, trying to keep her breathing steady as her grip on the railing tightens, her knuckles turning white. She knows Raven is saying those things to get to him, and she knows Bellamy knows that, but still—a small part of him might agree, might resent Clarke for it.

Her breath hitches in the back of her throat at Raven's next words, "Then again, you were in the Quarter Quell too and they just left you behind. Like you were nothing. No one."

"Raven, that's enough," Wells snaps, dismissive and there's some rattling sounds. Clarke just hopes this doesn't trigger Bellamy. But if she goes in there—that will only further edge on Raven, encourage her, only put oil on the fire. She just hopes he'll walk away on his own. That he doesn't just stand there and take it like he always does. Because some fucked up part of him feels like he deserves it.

"Of course, all that's nothing compared to killing your own mother. You just couldn't do what Wallace asked you to do, could you?" If only she knew what Wallace asked him to do, what part of him he wanted next. "You might've as well put an arrow into Aurora's heart yourself." It suddenly all clicks. Raven read all their files before the Quarter Quell. She knows all their weaknesses and the venom is helping her use it against them. It's a sick twist of fate, that she was the one affected by the pod. "Do you think she'd be proud of you now? The kind of monster you've become?"

"Raven," Bellamy starts, calm, but she cuts him off, with a cold laugh. "Oh no, sweetheart. I just want you to see the truth like all of us do. You're a follower. You've been back at Clarke's side for what, a day? And you're already back to taking orders even though last time you did that, she left you behind."

Clarke's jaw clenches, moving down the last step of the stairs but stopping herself before she walks into the room, shaking her head to herself. She shouldn't. "The good little knight by his queen's side. Too bad you were never that devoted to Charlotte. That little girl, so young, who you swore to protect? You let her die, you let her take the a spear to the chest that was meant for you because, like always, you were just trying to save your own ass—"

"That's enough," she hears herself speak, feels herself walk, before she can realize it. Wells just stares at her, dumbfounded, apologetic but she holds up a hand. Raven will be back to herself in a few hours. "Come on," she tugs on Bellamy's hand, takes him back upstairs to settle in for the night.

"You know," he starts, even, pausing when he hisses as Clarke pulls a little too hard on his wrist. "There's nothing she could say to me that they haven't already before."

She looks down at his wrist, pushing his sleeve up, the skin still red and raw from when he was cuffed. She can't think of what they did to him like it had its perks. Like he got stronger, and that's a good thing. He should've never gone through that, period. "Let me just take care of this before it gets infected."

He just nods, absently and she sits him down in a chair beside the couch Monty and Harper are asleep on. It's getting late, and they have an early morning ahead. They should probably get some sleep themselves soon. She gets some water from the bathroom and rips of a piece of a towel to use as a bandage, using the leftovers to clean the wounds gently.

"She's right. Everyone that's dead is dead because of me. I failed. I…" She sighs. She doesn't want to unload on him like this, but it just happens. Her voice cracks. "I killed them all. I killed Luna. I killed Monroe. I'm so sorry."

"Ontari, Myles, Gaia, Shumway, Emori, Madi. What do all those deaths mean? They mean our lives were never ours. There was no real life because we didn't have any choice. Our lives belong to Wallace, and our deaths do, too." His hand folds around her wrist, effectively stopping her from working on the lacerations on his own. He sounds hopeful. "But if you kill him, Clarke… If you end all of this, all those deaths, they mean something." His tongue darts out to wet his lips as his eyes rake her face, even if she's still staring at his warm, brown hand wrapped around her arm. Her heartbeat rattling in her throat as she tries to process his words. His thumb runs over the soft inside of her wrist. "Lincoln, Shaw, Monroe, Cooper, Luna. They chose this. They chose you."

"You should've been the Mockingjay," she jokes, mouth dry, and it falls flat because her heart isn't in it. He put into words what she need to hear. That this all could still mean something,

"I don't think you realize the kind of effect you have on people," he retaliates, dead-serious, like he isn't making her stomach twist unnaturally in her belly. There's a small smile playing on his lips, but it fades as he drops his hands into his lap. He clears his throat, looking at her hand like he already regrets letting go of it. "It's not safe with me yet. I have moments when I'm here and my memories are getting better, but other times it's like—like I'm sleeping walking. Cuff me. Please."

She opens her mouth to protest, but then closes it, sighing softly as she reaches out for his hand again. She runs her thumb over his scarred but soft skin, then brings it up to her mouth to press her lips to the back of it. She meets his eyes and then lays it down on the arm of the chair gently, getting out the cuffs. If it's what he wants, if it'll give him a piece of mind, then—then she can do it.

After that, she lies down beside Miller. She falls asleep, for just a few moments. When she wakes up, Harper is gone from the couch and she hears Wells talking in a low voice on the other end of the room. She must've relieved him from his shift. Clarke figures Raven must've calmed down considerably. She doesn't know the exact half-life of trackerjacker venom, but she imagines it can't be much more than twelve hours.

She lies still, tries to focus on his voice as she blinks at the darkness. But it's Bellamy who talks next. She manages to catch the back-half of his sentence, "...slept in days either."

It's quiet for a moment, then Wells pushes out a breath. "I should've volunteered to take Finn's place. During the first Games." Clarke frowns at his words. What the hell is he on?

"No, you couldn't have," Bellamy counters, firm. "She would have never forgiven you."

"She can't lose you," Wells says after a beat, and she tries to lay there as still as possible, even though her heart is going a mile a minute. "She really loves you. The way she kissed you in the Quarter Quell—I've never seen her like that before."

"That was just part of the Games." No.

"No. You gave up everything for her. She knows that. I don't think she can survive without you."

Then their night is cut short when the radio releases a static noise, crackling, a distorted voice trying to come through until Monty tinkers with it a little, and then it does, "Base to Squad 100." Faint sunlight is streaming through the windows, indicating it's early morning.

Miller exchanges a few basics with them, what's transpired since the last radio contact, informs them of their deaths and their plan to get to Wallace's mansion. The voice on the other side informs them there will be more evacuations in a few hours, that they'll probably set up some sort of camp in the city centre for the Polis Citizens. It'll be a perfect opportunity for them to blend in. Then, they inform them a lot of citizen's have gotten hurt, and as a precaution, President Diyoza is sending in groups of healers to the field, to help the innocents after Wallace surrenders.

Bellamy is scrambling up onto his feet, making his way down the stairs without a second thought. "Octavia," Clarke explains, already rushing after him. If he goes out like that, out of his mind, out of place, he'll end up dead. And she can't—she won't have that.

Miller and Wells are right behind her, Harper only sending them a questioning glance as she cuts her conversation with Raven short. At least she seems more like herself. If the apologetic gaze she sends Clarke's way is any indication. She doesn't have time for that right now, though.

"Bellamy, stop—Diyoza's been training dozens of healers. Who says she's even on one of the teams coming down her?" Clarke pleads, and he turns to face her, brows furrowed together.

"Can you promise me Octavia won't be in one of them?" He counters, sharp, hands balling at his sides. His eyes are fiercely dark again, but there's no denying this is him. This isn't Polis, or Wallace. This is Bellamy, worried about his sister, wanting to protect his sister. "That she isn't out there right now, in danger?"

She opens her mouth but hesitates a moment too long and he cuts her off before she can say anything else. "That's what I thought." He brings his hand up to the door handle, and in a split second she reaches for the gun strapped to Miller's thigh.

"My sister is out there," he reasons, like that justifies anything. Like saving his sister will be worth losing him, worth bringing them all into danger. She cares about Octavia, she does, but—they can't save her like this. Without a plan.

She fires a warning shot into the wall beside his head, not caring who's attention she's catching outside the walls of the apartment. He still has one hand wrapped around the door handle, the other hanging limply below it, still cuffed to the other. He freezes, his head shifting barely to assess Clarke's hand trembling as she holds up the gun, pointing it at his chest.

"Clarke, what are you doing?" He bites, dropping his hand to turn towards her completely. His brow is still furrowed together, and he's not—he's not mad. He's annoyed.

She grits her teeth together, tries not to lose it a little. She can't shoot him, she won't, and she's afraid he knows that, too. "Doing what I have to do. Like always." To keep you safe. To keep everyone safe. If that door stays shut, that's what she can do.

"You're going to have to make it a killshot, princess," he urges, hands up in defense, eerily calm. He's looking almost amused. What a fucking asshole. "That's the only way you're going to stop me." He takes a step forward, looking her straight in the eyes, takes another one, until the barrel of the gun is pressing into his chest, hand shaking heavier with every inch he moves closer, never once breaking his gaze.

She can't break it, even if it's unbearable, even if she can hardly see through the tears. Her hand falters, the trembling too much, dropping down to her side as she turns her head away from him, fingers quickly wiping at the tears that have fallen. If he wants to leave—if she can't stop him—she'll have to go with him.

"Are you going to go out there with your hands cuffed?" Miller says, unimpressed.

"Bellamy," Harper reasons, rising from stool to close some of the distance between her and the rest of the unit. She smiles, small, but encouraging. "There's capital clothes right upstairs. At least change into those."

"She's right," Wells speaks up as well, and Clarke is thankful, that for once, she doesn't have to do this alone, that she has people on her side, a team. "We should go out there with a plan. Otherwise, you'll die and your sister will still be out there, unprotected."

Bellamy finally nods after what seems like ten minutes, just briefly, absently, but he agrees. At least. Agrees to stay, for now. He can't look at her, but he'll do this for her. For them. For his sister. He won't just risk his life without a plan.

He finds her later, when she's packing her bag, hiding her bow under the long cloak Harper got out for her. They decided only she and Wells should go. Raven is still too weak and Miller, Monty and Harper never signed up for this part. Bellamy comes because he needs to, there's not much choice there.

Polis is evacuating its citizens more than half a mile outside the city circle. They're invited to the mansion for shelter and sanctuary. All refugees will be provided with food, medicine and safety for their children. It's their perfect in. The television in one of the bedrooms had flashed on, Wallace providing them as much information, before saying, "And you will have my solemn oath to protect your until my dying breath."

Harper had snorted, pulling on the cord of Clarke's Polis fashion corset a little rougher than was probably necessary. "Wish he would hurry up with the last part." Then she'd yanked out the cable providing electricity to the device with a satisfied smile.

"I'm sorry," he mutters, running a hand through his hair. He's still avoiding her direct gaze. "I—I wasn't thinking."

"That's a surprise," she snaps, despite herself, crossing her arms over her chest. She doesn't want to give him any more reasons to resent her, but she feels an undeniable rage take over her body more than anything else she might feel for him. He was ready to go out there, recklessly, and let himself get killed.

"Clarke," he sighs, clenching his jaw before stating, "You don't understand."

"No, you don't understand," she bites back, harsher than probably necessary. "In a few minutes, we're going to be in the field and we can't have anything up in the air. You can't be distracted. Not out there. Not when the stakes are so high." She hesitates, then adds, poking him in the chest with a finger, "So ask me."

He tilts his head slightly, and he still looks pissed. "Ask you what?"

Before everything else, they were always honest with each other. "Anything you want to know, anything you've been thinking about that might trigger you out there, or any resentment that might keep you from following an order from me, or Wells."

"Fine." His face hardens even further, shoulders straightening so he's a broad, brick wall of aversion. "You killed our baby."

He doesn't say real or not real. "There was never a baby, Bellamy," she snaps, frustration showing even though she willed it not to. She's still not used to his hostility and it has her on edge. Yet, she forces herself to steady her voice. "Try and remember. We never—we never did anything but kiss. Remember that?"

Finally, his gaze softens, shoulders sagging a little. His face is still only hard lines. "We kissed… When I almost died?"

"Yeah," she smiles, weak, lips still trembling slightly. "And on the beach."

He shakes his head, pinching the bridge of his nose before his palm slides over his forehead into his hair. He looks up, staring down at her face with a pensive look on his face—the quiet they lapsed into slowly eating away at her.

"I've lost you," he says next and she doesn't quite know what to say, taken aback by the statement. "I hurt you, Clarke, I could've…" He can't finish his sentence, scrubbing a hand over his mouth.

"Hey," she counters, stern, prying his hand away from his face and wrapping hers around his fingers. "You may have blood on your hands, but it's not mine. You didn't want that to happen. You tried to stop yourself." She pauses, puts her free hand on the side of his face, trailing a finger down his cheekbone. She shakes her head, drops her hand. She was never going to hold a grudge over what happened, not with him. "I forgave you the second after it happened. The question is, will you forgive yourself?"

He tilts his head slightly, his eyes brimming with tears as his voice breaks. "Forgiveness is hard for us."

Her eyes soften. "You know you're not the only one trying to forgive yourself." There's so many things, so many, that she wishes she could take back, or change. "Maybe someday we'll get that. But we need each other Bellamy." They're not going to make it out there if they're each others enemies. "The only way we're going to pull this off is together."

She'd come back from the bedroom earlier to find Bellamy and Wells discussing their game plan with Raven. She'd looked better, less sweaty. "Is he still in the mansion?" Wells had asked Bellamy, confirming they'd seen the same presidential message earlier.

"Yeah, I recognize the room."

"Where is that?" He'd gone on, and Raven had sighed, looking at the blueprints in her lap. She'd pointed at a spot. "About five blocks away. They'll probably deactivate the pods around here for the residents' safety."

It meant Clarke could get close enough to Wallace. Close enough to fire an arrow into his chest. Even if every Peacekeeper in the country was going to be waiting, Squad 100's faces displayed on every billboard. They just had to hope the stream of thousands of refugees would be enough to draw the attention away from them.

In the present, Raven grabs a hold of her wrist as Clarke passes the chair she's now lodged on, instead of splayed across a kitchen table. She looks uncomfortable. "I'm sorry. For the things I said. Earlier." She winces. Apologies aren't really up her alley. "I wasn't—"

"You weren't yourself," Clarke confirms. She unwraps her hand from her wrist, carefully puts it down on her lap with a careful smile. "I'll come back for you, okay? I promise you that."

It's apparently still a soft spot for her. Wells told her once that Raven was left on Finn's mother's doorstep and since his parents weren't around much either, it was just two two of them. The two of them, and he ended up abandoning her, too. It's why she never really opened up to Wells when they first met. He had to earn his way in.

Panic flashes across her eyes for a second, then it's gone. "I know you will. Like I said, I'm fucking awesome."

Over the speakers, a loud automated female voice blares commands for the assembly of scared citizens. By order of President Wallace, all residents must proceed to the presidential estate.

They make their way through the crowd of swarming men, women and children, hoods up and faces down. She's walking beside Bellamy, Wells a little further up ahead to not draw too much attention. Darker skinned boys in Polis were uncommon, let alone two walking side by side.

Please, continue to move forward in a calm and orderly fashion.

There's Peacekeepers on both sides of the crowds, a checkpoint up ahead. When Clarke stands up on her tiptoes, she can just make out one of them pulling off hoods and hats, checking faces, scanning their fingerprints. There's no way they're going to get through that way.

Additional food, medicine and clothing will be provided upon arrival.

She pulls on Bellamy's hand, tries to get across that they need to fall back with a pointed look only, afraid her non-capital accent will give her away, Wells already trying to circle back through the crowd. She meets his eye. He shakes his head inconspicuously, pretending to scratch his temple when a Peacekeeper pushes through the crowd beside him.

Clarke holds her breath, as the Polis guard stops in front of Wells. They exchange some words and then the Peacekeeper yanks down Wells' hood; then he's being pulled towards a nearby truck by his arm, roughly; then he is shoved against it, blood spurting from his nose as it makes hard contact with the metal.

By order of President Wallace, all residents must proceed to the presidential estate.

"Shit," she mutters under her breath, pushing back forward, already losing her grip on Bellamy's hand. Shit. Wells doesn't look her way, which is probably smart, because it would give her and Bellamy away immediately. But—but this is Wells they're talking about. She has to at least try and help him escape. If she can't get close enough, then she'll leave. Then she'll find another way to continue their plan.

She reaches the end of bodies, close to the truck. She tries to stay in the stream of people as a cover, but someone pushes her or her foot catches on something and she stumbles forward suddenly, just able to hide behind the left side of the truck, the opposite side of Wells, before the Peacekeepers spot her.

She knows she isn't safe here, is too out in the open, it's only seconds before either a Peacekeeper grabs her or one from another post spots her from across the crowds. So in a split second, she drops to the floor and rolls underneath the truck. She startles as someone slides in behind her, fearful for the three seconds it takes her brain to register it's Bellamy. He followed her.

He presses a finger to his mouth as best as he can in the awkward angle he's in, on her stomach like her. Softly, he whispers in a hushed voice, "He would do the same for me."

She nods as well as possible, fumbling for an arrow under her cloak—maybe she can set off some explosion behind them and distract them long enough for Wells to escape. She turns her head to estimate how much armspace she needs, just as the Peacekeepers slam Wells into the floor. He yelps out in pain, a knee pressed into his back and his hands held back. His cheek is pressed to the floor, blood still dripping from his nose onto the ground. She has to bite down on her tongue to keep from letting out a sob. He manages to turn his head onto his other cheek when the release the slightest bit of pressure on his spine, surprise in his eyes as he makes eye-contact with her.

Her hands had frozen under her cloak at the sight of him, but she quickly continues scrambling for an arrow, hoping the sight of that will tell him she has a plan. Bellamy helps her by trying to pull the cloth further his way, but he has even less space to work with because he's bigger than her. Wells grinds his teeth back together, the smallest dismissive shake of his head. "Kill me," he mouths, and Clarke literally feels her heart stop in her chest.

"Kill me," he repeats, soundlessly, before hissing as the Peacekeeper digs his knee further into his back, tying a zip-tie around his wrists way too tight. Clarke hands folds around the gun strapped to her hip, trembling, because this what she owes him, right? For him to not be tortured for information because of her. Her hand shakes too much, finger slipping off the trigger, even though Wells' mouthing, "It's okay, it's okay," and Bellamy's hand slides over her back to cover her hand with his. She chokes back a sob, her entire body shaking as tears of relief spring from the corners of her eyes.

He'll pull the trigger. He'll pull the trigger because he knows she wouldn't be able to live knowing she did it.

They drop another body on the ground behind Wells, but the Peacekeepers stays on top of him, even if he's completely restrained, even if he can hardly fight back. If Wells had been in any other position, Bellamy wouldn't been able to shoot him, and Clarke almost wishes they'd just put him in the truck and taken him away. That the three of them had just stayed in that apartment. But before they went, they all decided their lives weren't worth as much as taking down Wallace was. That was a promise she had to keep. The deaths—the lives that were lost, they would only mean something if they succeeded today.

"I'm sorry," she cries, silently, and Wells closes his eyes. He closes his eyes, and she brings up her hand to cover her mouth instead, because she can't cry, not out loud, not when they're surrounded by their enemies, and Bellamy pulls back the safety with his thumb—

Then there's a loud bang, even though Bellamy didn't move his finger yet, and Clarke's eyes spring open to stare back into Wells' lifeless eyes, blood pooling around his head. They're executing them on the spot. She lets out a guttural scream behind her hand, a shock running through her body as they fire off another shot, into the person behind Wells. They know they can't win, that torture in exchange for information will get them nowhere this time around, so now they're just taking down as many of them as they can.

Bellamy drops the gun, wrapping his arm around her back instead as he tries to hush her as best as possible, but she can't see through the tears, can't get away from the blood seeping towards her, seeping into her clothes, onto her hand and her collarbone, even as she tries to get away from it, but she can't get away from it, because the blood is everywhere, and they're stuck, they're stuck and she can't breathe, can't catch her breath, can't feel anything but a sharp pain in her chest.

Wells… Her best friend. He's gone.

"Clarke," Bellamy whispers, and she can make out the words, but they sound so far away. There seems to be some sort of commotion going on in the crowd, people yelling and screaming, kids crying. "We have to move now, okay?"

She forces herself to take a deep breath, to focus on anything else but the pain, focus on the anger instead. She nods, firm, her soft whimpers dying down as she takes in another heavy, shuddering breath. She has to make it mean something.

He pushes himself from under the truck first, quickly helping her out as well. His eyes flicker over to the exposed skin above her black, corseted shirt with a heavy bob of his adam's apple and she doesn't have to look to know it's Wells' blood. She quickly adjusts the cloak so it's covering her up again as he pulls her back into the crowd. She can now make out what they're yelling about.

"It's the rebels," a woman screeches, pushing passed another person wildly. Rebels. Rebels. Rebels. They keep yelling, picking up kids and setting them down. "They're attacking," another man barks, reckless, pushing a young teen to the ground as he tries to scramble further ahead.

Stay calm. Bring you children forward.

Bellamy helps the kid up, and as he brushes off the dirt on his shoulder, exchanges a brief glance with Clarke. This is their shot. This is their another way. The uproar will offer enough distraction for them to try and slip through the gates undetected. They push their way forward.

The gates will open momentarily. The children will be received first. Stay calm.

They come to a halt beside a tank, the crowd getting too big to fit when the gates are still closed, Peacekeepers are giving out orders from on top of them. She takes the opportunity to take a moment, maybe their final one. "I have to kill him, Bellamy," she says, keeping her gaze fixed ahead. He should stay here. Hide somewhere and wait out his sister.

He steadies himself as somebody crashes into his chest, trying to get to the front as soon as possible. He guides the person back to his feet without even breaking their gaze. He huffs, like he can read her mind. "I'm coming."

"No," she demands, desperate, fingers curling into fists until a sharp pain shoots up her arms. "I'm not losing you again." She angles her head slightly towards him, to meet his eye for barely a second. She swallows, thickly. "Not you too."

His hand finds hers, folding his fingers around it until her fingers relax and straighten, then he squeezes, soft. His lips curve into the faintest of smirks. "You're out of your mind if you think I'm going to let you do this alone."

She manages a weak smile, not daring to look at him again, because this isn't what she wants, not for him, but she's hardly in the position to ask for any favors from him.

There's still shots coming from behind, people desperate to advance forward, the mass dissipating into different directions now they're closer. As she's turning to look where the shots are coming from, their fingers slipping apart, she's hit square in the chest by one of the flying bullets. Her breath hitches in the back of her throat as she's propelled into the nearest tank, head hitting the metal with a loud thud. Her ears are ringing—as she opens her eyes, vision blurred, not sure how long it's been since she got hit—but the shots have finally dwindled down, it seems.

A team of healers rushes in to help the wounded, which means the rebels must have stopped on their own behalf, and Bellamy helps her up, a cut on his cheekbone, but he looks fine otherwise. He wasn't hit. He asks her if she's okay, but it takes a few tries for her to understand what he's saying. She nods, dazed, and then he squeezes her shoulder, looking over his shoulder before turning back to her. "I'll be right back, okay? Stay here."

"No," she says, but her mouth doesn't move, just tastes like metal, and she has to steady herself by grabbing a hold of the tank beside her. The last time they seperated—it didn't end well. She watches him jog over towards his sister, "Octavia!" The crowd's now less dense, making it easier to move through, and when he's just half a hundred feet away the hair on the back of Clarke's neck stand up straight. There's an eerily familiar sound, and it's coming from above.

Bellamy must recognize it, too, because when she looks up, she can see him doing the same in her peripheral vision. There's tiny parachutes in the air, carrying silver boxes, like the sponsors would send them in the Games. Her stomach swirls, an unbearable feeling of dread building up as people start reaching for them, exclaiming thanks to their president. Something isn't right.

Why would the rebels attack, then send in the healers? Why would President Snow send down the parachutes just as he's losing?

"Bellamy!" She yells, but she's not sure any sound is leaving her throat this time either. It isn't right. She starts running towards them, tries to get there, but she's still dizzy, and she's stumbling, her legs giving out. Octavia turns as he calls out her name again, now close enough for her to hear, crouched over beside a young boy. A small smile slowly spreads across her face at the sight of her brother. Clarke falls down, hands scraping over the ground, can only watch the parachute dwindle down above Octavia's head. Clarke's close, but she's too far away to warn them, voice not loud enough above the commotion, not quite working, can only croak out a "Bellamy, no!", and the parachute, it's coming down rapidly, she imagines he's smiling now, close to his sister, as he calls, "Octavia!". The brunette opens her mouth to speak, to say something to her brother and then there's a blast and then—then there's nothing.

She has nothing.

She jolts awake, trying to sit up immediately to try and warn Bellamy, because those parachutes, they're not gifts, they're tricks—but she must have passed out, or somebody must have knocked her over and she hit her head again, and a small hand tries to ease her back onto something soft.

"Hey, I need you to lie back." It's Raven, Clarke realizes, when her vision starts to clear, and it's not just black anymore. She's back in thirteen, she realizes immediately, dread settling into her stomach instantly. "You're okay. Everything's going to be okay."

She's back in thirteen. Alone? "What about—"

"Bellamy is okay. He was close to one of the detonations but he woke up a few days ago."

A few days ago. Clarke nods, too quick, her head spinning. She bites down on her lip to keep from crying. She didn't even mention Octavia. That must mean—that must mean….

"Raven," she rasps, wincing as her head hits the pillow, and she's crying again, tears trailing down her temples, but it's not from pain. Wells. Wells. Wells. He was Raven's as much as he was hers, maybe even more so. "I'm so—so sorry."

"I know," she smiles, but her voice breaks on the last word. She squeezes Clarke's arm, swallowing thickly. She opens her mouth, raking the blonde's face, but then deflates, settling on a simple, "I know."

Was it worth it? Did they…

"The fight was over after Polis dropped those bombs to defend the palace. The rebels walked right in." The rebels. Polis. "Everybody felt it. Peacekeepers. Palace guards. They had kids in there, too. It was over after that."

Raven brushes away a tear, quickly, but Clarke catches it. She clears her throat, rising to her feet. "I should probably warn Abby you're awake."

It's nice outside, by the trees, his head in her lap and her sketchbook discarded at her feet. She can't help but wonder if it'll always feel like this, though. Like the colors aren't as bright, like the leaves barely make a sound when they crunch under their feet, like her heart is hollow.

She sketches Bellamy, most of the time, when they're outside. She can't quite bring herself to do Wells, not yet. If she does—that just means it'll be all she has left of him. She wants to do it before she forgets all the details; the crinkles by his eyes when he smiled, the shape of the small scar on his left eyebrow, the shape of his philtrum, the veins on his neck. Just—not yet. And she can't possibly sketch Octavia, not in front of him, can only do that in the privacy of her own room. So she lets him lie in her lap, and stare at nothing for hours. Let's him cry into her shoulder. Cries with him.

A few days after she wakes up from her coma—they're sitting side by side, shoulder to shoulder, backs against a broad tree—he finally talks, making her still her hands in the middle of drawing Shaw. She'd been trying something new, someone new, that day. If only so she could tell herself she would get down to Wells eventually.

He picks up a small branch, flicks it into the distance absently. Raven told her. How he wouldn't stop screaming after he woke up. He got off with minimal burns, the blast getting the most of him, knocking him out. He was lucky, her mom said. Lucky. "When Raven said I was no one, I didn't get angry." His jaw clenches a little, and she remembers how he said it wasn't anything they'd already told him. One knee is drawn up to his chest, the other stretched out. Then it unclenches as he raps a knuckle against his thigh. "I didn't get angry, because deep down I always knew that. I knew I wasn't much to anyone."

Clarke opens her mouth, wants to protests, but puts her sketchbook on the ground beside her instead, letting him process his thoughts, gaze fixed ahead as her mouth snaps shut quietly. His voice breaks as a tear slips down his cheek. "But I always was her brother, you know?" He swallows, tight, using his knuckle to wipe at the wetness roughly. "I would always be that, at least." He finally shifts his head to meet her gaze. "And that—that would be enough, even if I—even if I didn't have you. I would always have her."

She puts her hand on top of his knee, softly, leans her forehead on top of it briefly. "I know," she says, and it's hard not to break down herself, "I know."

He sniffs, leaning his head back against the tree, and she reaches down her jumpsuit with her free hand. She takes her hand off his knee, and pries open the hand resting in his lap carefully. Inside, she puts the shell he gave her a million light years ago. It has to be you, Clarke.

He looks up from his hand to meet her gaze. There's a question in his eyes, confusion evident. She folds his fingers around it, gently, wrapping her own hands around it. "It's for you. I had it with me when I needed it the most. Maybe—maybe now, it can help you."

"You're going to execute Echo?" Clarke pushes the door open so hard, it slams against the wall of Diyoza's office loudly. "That wasn't part of the deal you and I made."

Through gritted teeth, their president acknowledges her, "Miss Griffin." The corners of her lips are still curved up slightly. Clarke doesn't know why she's still putting up that act when no one else is around.

Echo had caught her earlier, when Clarke was leaving Bellamy's room. He'd finally fallen asleep, and she wanted to get him something to eat from the mesh hall, in case he was hungry later. "Remember when I saved your life?"

"Echo, I don't have time for this," she'd dismissed her, eyes narrowed as she'd pushed past her. She hadn't felt like rehashing their earlier conversations. They always ended in a fight, and she was too emotionally drained for that nowadays.

She hadn't faltered, hand wrapping around her arm roughly before Clarke could get away, stone-faced. The blonde noticed one of the guards, then, keeping a close eye on them, not too far away. The orange suit she was wearing. The redness around her wrists. "I was hoping you could do the same for me."

She'd frozen dead in her tracks, not even bothering to yank her arm lose even if that had been her first instinct. Echo hadn't looked like she was joking. "The same?"

"I don't have much time left, Mockingjay. Not if it's up to Diyoza."

A guard who Clarke had brushed past way too easily comes in after her, panting. Diyoza dismisses him, unbothered by the wild look in the victor's eyes. Clarke ignores her president, stalking up in front of her desk and slamming her hands on top of the table. She stares straight into the other woman's eyes, even if her vision is faltering, fading into images of Wells.

Wells beaming brightly, one of his front tooth missing, as he let her borrow his favorite pencil in second grade. Wells, that pensive look on his face as he thought up his next chess move. Wells on the ground, a gun put to his head, just to make a statement. The blood—she can still smell it, still feels it stick to her skin. She never quite got all of it off Luna's pendant.

She forces her voice to be steady, forces herself to swallow down the bile rising up in her throat. "Is this who we are are? Is this what we're going to do? To our own people?"

Our own people. They're all just people, persons. Echo is a person. And no matter their personal differences, she doesn't deserve to die. Not like that. Not like they did to Wells. What would be the difference? She was just trying to survive, like the rest of them. Only she choose the wrong side. War makes murderers of us all, that's what Echo told her. Maybe that was true, maybe they were all just as bad as their enemy, but the war was over, the war was over and now they get to decide to be better. They get that choice again.

"A lot of people could have been killed if we hadn't caught her, Clarke." Diyoza leans back in her chair, folding her hands over her stomach, one eyebrow lifted skeptically. "Our own people."

"But we did! We caught her." Nobody died. Echo snuck into the control room and tried to radio Wallace, tried to tell him about the Rebels attacking from behind, about God knows what else, because of some misplaced sense of loyalty, because of the things he did to her, or maybe because she believed in the things he believed in, or maybe she thought they were losing, and she deserved to be punished for that, she did. She didn't deserve to die.

Her face hardens. "That's not the point."

"I'm not saying she walks away free, I'm just saying she at least deserves a fair trial." Life here should be less like the life they lived. The future should be about more than just surviving. Diyoza shouldn't get to decide who lives and dies, just like that. Not now, not after what they've been through, what they went through to stop it.

"I'll think about it," she concludes, already looking back down at the files in front of her, but Clarke knows she won't. "In the meantime, maybe there's someone you'd like to visit."

She asks Bellamy if he wants to come, but he reclines. He wants to pack up some of Octavia's belongings. Clarke knows it's because he doesn't know what he'll do to Wallace when he sees him.

They fly her back over to Polis, where they locked Wallace in his garden house, surrounded by his favorite flowers, awaiting his public execution. She was too late, too late to do it herself, but she can take some comfort in knowing he'll die a public death, like so many of the children in the Games before him. She lets her fingers tread over some of the colorful petals, coming to a halt in front of a pretty green one that reminds her off Octavia's eyes.

"That's a nice one." The flower crumples in her hand at the sound of his voice, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up straight.

She turns to glare at him, hands slightly shaking. "You're the reason my best friend is dead. The reason Octavia Blake died. The reason thousands of people died before them." She huffs, and it takes everything in her not to spit right in his face. "Color sure is pretty though."

He smiles, despite her hostility, folding his hands together in front of him. "I was hoping you'd find your way here. We have much to discuss, but I have a feeling your visit will be short." She just scoffs in response as he reaches out to pluck a red rose.

He admires it, then his gaze snaps back up to hers. "First things first, I'm very sorry to hear about Bellamy's sister. From what I heard, she was a very bright young woman. So wasteful, so unnecessary. Don't you think?" He tuts, Clarke's blood boiling instantly. "Anyone could see the game was over by that point. In fact, I was just about to issue an official surrender when they released those parachutes."

She snatches the rose from his hands, not even flinching when the thorns slice open her skin as she thrusts it onto the floor. Blood drips down her fingers onto the floor, but she couldn't possibly care less. "You released those parachutes."

He grins, small, amused even maybe as he studies her thoroughly. "You really think I gave the order?"

He might think he can manipulate her one last time, but he's dead wrong. She bites back, "We both know you're not above killing defenseless children."

"We also know I'm not wasteful. I take life for specific reasons. There was no reason for me to destroy the lives of al those Polis children. None at all." He chuckles, absently, looking down at the crumpled rose on the ground. "I must admit, it was a masterful move on Diyoza's part."

The idea that Wallace was bombing his own helpless children to hold back the rebels from his mansion, it was the final straw for most people, turning the last of his guards against him. Effectively rendering the capital and the mansion without any resistance. Her blood runs cold. Something isn't right. That's what she thought, the moment it happened.

"Do you know it aired live?" He continues, like her head isn't spinning, like sweat is starting to drip down the back of her neck, like his voice doesn't sound like it's coming from a million miles away. "There's a particular savvy in that, isn't there?"

She grinds her teeth together. She doesn't want to listen to this, to him.

"I'm sure she wasn't gunning for Blake's sister specifically, but these things happen in war." He lifts a shoulder, reaching out to twirl a rose petal in between his fingers. "My failure was in being so slow to grasp Diyoza's plan."

She let the capital and the districts destroy each other, then stepped in to take power with thirteen's arsenal. She's proven already she intends to take Wallace's place, intends to continue, just like him. All this time, Wallace was watching the Mockingjay and she was watching Wallace.

He snickers, like this is all just a stupid joke. "I'm afraid we've both been played for fools."

"I don't believe you," she says, quiet yet fierce, but she doesn't even believe the words herself.

"Oh, miss Griffin. I think we both know you were never that good of an actress."

Raven finds her in her old hiding spot, in the vents, and Clarke tries not to think about how she knows where that is, who told her about it. She can't think about him right now. "Everybody is waiting for you."

Clarke ignores her, keeps her eyes fixated on the Mockingjay pin in her hands. She runs her thumb over it. It's lost most of his shine. "Was it ours?" She asks, throat dry, eyes flicking up to meet the brunette's gaze. Her face remains neutral so Clarke adds, a little bit more sharpness to her voice, "The wounded. The explosions. The trap. To draw more people in. Was it us?"

"I don't know," Raven admits, honestly. "All I know is Diyoza had me and Sinclair put together bombs on the regular. Each time they said supply had run out, but we were barely in the field. I try not to think about it. Because whoever dropped them, my hands put them together."

You can't protect anyone in an arena. Because that's what it was, right? Just another game, another arena. She has to get away. Diyoza asked to meet her, and it's about time they had a conversation.

"Clarke," Raven exclaims, reaching for her, but the blonde is faster. Raven has the brace, and Clarke would feel guilty for bolting out of there without helping her, if—if there wasn't something that had to be done. For all of their sake's.

"What's this?" She stops in the doorway of the conference room, looking around the large table.

Bellamy's there. Anya. Murphy. Sinclair. Even Echo. She can't help but note it's all that's left of the victors. After all the games, after the purge, after the war—six is what's left.

Diyoza waves her over, pulls a chair back beside Anya and Bellamy. Echo is beside Bellamy, her hands tied behind her back as they exchange a knowing look. A saccharine sweet smile on the president's face. "Won't you join us?"

Clarke sits down, dazed. She'd come here to confront Diyoza, but now she was more curious to find out her endgame. If maybe there was something else up her sleeve. "I have invited you all here for several reasons, but first, I have an announcement."

She says she's taken the honor and the burden of upon herself to declaring herself interim president of Panem. Like that isn't exactly what she wanted all along. She can't put a time frame on the interim, unfortunately, but argues that the people are too emotional right now to make any rational decisions. So she'll plan a election when the time is right. When she feels the time is right. Which might be never.

She wipes the smile of her face, folding her hands together on top of the table. "But I have called you here for a far more important vote. A symbolic vote."

That afternoon she will execute Wallace. Hundreds of his accomplices also awaiting their deaths. Polis officials, Peacekeepers, Gamemakers. And others, like Echo. Diyoza reasons that an execution won't be enough. That the rebels will want more, retribution.

"The thirst for blood is a difficult urge to satisfy."

She has an alternative plan. Have them vote on it. Nobody is allowed to abstain. Majority of six can approve it. She proposes a symbolic Hunger Games, in lieu of the 'barbaric' executions.

"You want to have another Games with Polis children?" Bellamy summarizes, bitingly, his shoulders tense. "You're joking."

Diyoza presses her lips together in a tight line, tapping a finger on top of the table. "Not in the slightest."

"Is this Kane's idea?" Clarke wonders, sharply, when she's certain her voice won't falter. The rest of the room is eerily quiet.

"It was mine," Diyoza admits, unashamed. "It balances the need for revenge with the least loss of human life." Least loss of human life? Like when she bombed all those kids, all those healers, she means?

Clarke snaps her mouth shut, not sure she should reveal any of that to all of them. Not yet. Not until she has a chance to make Diyoza pay. Because if there's one thing that's certain, it's that this was her. She was the one who used Shaw's plan to her advantage. She was the one who ordered those bombs. She was the one who killed Octavia.

Diyoza nods, like she's won an argument, looking across all of their faces. All six of them. "You may cast your votes."

"Absolutely fucking not. This is crazy," Bellamy retorts immediately, whole posture rigid. He went through those Games, twice. He doesn't want that for anyone else. Especially not when it's not them who did anything wrong.

"I think it's fair. Blood must have blood, right? I hear Wallace has a granddaughter." Murphy is sitting two seats over from her, and she can still smell the alcohol oozing off him as he opens his mouth. She doesn't dare look over at him. "I say yes."

"So do I," Echo follows, and Clarke doesn't know if it's actually what she wants, or just something she's saying to please Diyoza as a last attempt to save herself.

"This way of thinking is what started these uprisings. I vote no," Sinclair says, eyes flicking over to her partner. "With Bellamy."

Displeasance flashes across the president's eyes for just a second, and the victor wouldn't have noticed it had she not been watching her so closely. "It's up to Clarke and Anya."

So would Luna if she was here. Be with Bellamy and Sinclair on this. She would want them to stop viewing each other as enemies, but she's not. Because Wallace killed her. And it's easy, to take it all out on him. She could, so easily, happily too. But they would be back to square one. He's not the one they're in danger of. Not anymore. This isn't what Clarke wants either. But if she votes no now, she might never get another chance to make this right.

Diyoza wants emotional? She can give her that.

"I get to kill Wallace," she says and the corners of Diyoza's lips turn up, gratified, like she has her right where she wants to. "I expected nothing less of you."

"Then yes," she complies, looking over at Bellamy briefly. "For Octavia." Ironically, she would probably want this. She would agree with the 'least human loss approach', no matter what. Clarke knows her brother would never think that of her, though. He never stopped seeing her as the little twelve year old girl she once was, whose name got called in a townsquare full of innocent children, who he had to take care off.

Bellamy just scoffs, but he doesn't say anything. His gaze is fixed straight ahead, darkly. He doesn't understand now, but she hopes he will later. Hopes he still trusts her.

"Anya?"

Her old mentor exhales loudly, then purses her lips. "I'm with the Mockingjay."

Diyoza claps her hand together, final. "That carries the vote. Excellent. We'll announce the Games tonight, after Wallace's execution."

It's bound to be quite the show.

After the execution, Anya and Kane find her in the train station. She doesn't remember much of it, has been staring at her trembling hands for God knows who long, has been on the floor even longer.

"You never disappoint," Anya says, cynical.

It comes back in flashes. Diyoza was talking about a new Panem, a free Panem, and Clarke was listening but she was looking at Wallace, that smug smirk on his face. Justice, she called it. But who was going to bring justice to Diyoza? She would be a tyrant, a dictator, with no one left to stop her. For all things Wallace was, Diyoza might end up being worse. She didn't even take credit for her worst crimes, probably excused them in the name of tactics, of war. Next, she said a new era would be upon them. Clarke agreed. Just not with her in it.

When it was time, she'd drawn her bow, and Diyoza had smiled, pleased, raising her her hands in the air. "Mockingjay, may your aim be as true as your heart is pure." And then Clarke had released the string, switching her aim the last second so it wouldn't relieve Wallace from his suffering, but it would hit Diyoza in between the eyes instead. For Octavia. For all those kids, in front of the mansion, all the kids she was going to have fight in an arena.

"You shocked the entire country with that arrow, Mockingjay," Kane says, putting a hand on top of her shoulder. Clarke flinches away. When she closes her eyes, she sees it again. All those people, running for Wallace, clawing at him, begging to be able to kill him. He was just there, strung up, unable to fight back.. "I wasn't. You are exactly who I believed you were."

"What now?" she asks, swallowing to try and form some saliva in her mouth.

"Now that Wallace and Diyoza are both dead, the fate of the country will be decided tonight between twelve district leaders who'll call for a free election," Kane explains, diplomatic as ever. Clarke is listening, to what they're saying, but they sound far away, and she feels like she isn't quite inside of her own body.

"I don't doubt Indra Baum will carry it," Anya says, and she doesn't roll her eyes, but it's implied. "Always the voice of reason, she."

"I'm sorry for this, Clarke. That so much of the burden fell on you," Kane again, soft this time. "I know you'll never escape it." She'll bear it, so they don't have to. So there can be a future that isn't just about survival. So they can have more. "But if I had to put you through it again, for this outcome, I would."

"It's better for you to be out of sight," Anya breaks him off, flicking some dust off her shoulder like nothing's happened. Clarke got so used to fighting, she doesn't know how not to. "Baum will pardon you when the time is right."

Anya pulls her to her feet, and pushes her towards the platforms. Just before they get in the train, Kane put his hand on top of her shoulder. "Clarke." She catches his eye, and he tilts his head, gaze softening. "The country will find its peace. And I hope you find yours."

"Fuck," Anya mutters low under her breath, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I'm way too sober for this." Then she pushes Clarke onto the nearest train car. "Let's go home."

Somehow, that stupid cat ends up at her house. It hates her, yet it doesn't seem to want to leave her side. For some reason, she figures it's Octavia's way of looking after her. It's nice, because it means she's not completely alone in this house way too big for her, but it also sucks. Like when Skye steals her favorite paintbrush and she has to chase her around her garden.

She's inches away from grabbing her by the tail when she knocks into—"Bellamy?" She exclaims, and she can't quite believe it. It's been months. "You're here."

He had some difficulty, after what happened with Wallace and Diyoza. To process it all. He had a hard time trusting people, and the one person who helped them betraying him and murdering his sister didn't help. Her mom had suggested he'd stay for a while, continue to see Jackson, a healer specialized in non-physical injuries. And in not-so-many-words suggested it might be good for the both of them, to spend some time apart. While he—adjusted to reality.

"Yeah," he breathes, rubbing the back of his neck a little awkwardly. "Thirteen was never my home." He grins, shy almost all of a sudden. "Besides. I can never seem to catch any sleep."

She smiles at that, for the first time in maybe weeks. "And now you're home," she confirms, not taking her eyes off him just in case, and he nods. It's quiet for a moment as they just take in the sight of each other.

It's weird, to realize that slumbering unsettling feeling she felt in the pit of her stomach all these months was not unlike homesickness. Then she points her thumb over her shoulder, flushing all over. "If you want. Uhm. I was baking some sticky buns?"

He hugs her. For her, district twelve, the Victor's Village, they were never so much a home as they were a place she stayed. It wasn't the same without him. He presses his mouth to her shoulder, briefly, then lifts it so he's more audible. "Those were O's favorite."

"I know," she says, with a smile, and she's glad he can say her name without breaking down now. He's doing better.

He drops his bag at her door when they go inside. The bag never leaves the house again.

Her mom's training new healing units in Polis. Harper sends her letters every month, of their life Polis, what it's like rebuilding their capital, the schools and the houses and the shops, this time without the prospect of all the bloodshed. She even sends an invitation for her wedding to Monty. They never needed words to understand each other. Clarke could relate to that, at least. When she declined the invitation to attend, sweet Harper was only full of understanding, ending her next letter with: we've all suffered so much. We owe it to their memories and to our (future) children to do the best with these lives. I hope you're both finding some peace. Raven brings her photos, of a fat baby with Wells' eyes and Wells' smile, every visit. So much, she has an entire scrapbook full of them. Of course, she lets Clarke hold the baby, too. His name is Leo, and he has adorable pudgy cheeks and bright brown eyes. Bellamy suggested the name, after one of his favorite constellations. It means lion, he'd said, brave, like his father. It's one of the only times Clarke's ever seen Raven cry. Murphy even helps Raven out with the baby now and then, when he's not isolating himself and drinking more than is good for any human being. He'll never forgive Clarke, but he's accepted what she's done at least, accepted she's paid her dues, one way or another. Anya is same old Anya, a drunken hermit who doesn't like to be bothered on most days.

Mostly, it's just her and Bellamy.

They watched Indra being sworn in on the little television in her living room, the two of them. Kane right there, beside her.

"And they say no one ever wins the Games," Bellamy had noted dryly, hands warm on top of her feet perched in his lap.

Ever since he got back, they've been friends. Just friends. Strictly friends. They have a routine. He hunts, she does laundry. They eat breakfast. She paints, he reads. She bakes, he cooks. They take walks in the forest. She gardens, he pets the stupid cat until it can't stop purring. She sketches, he reads to her. They fall asleep together. Always together.

She would be okay with that. Just having him in her life would be enough. Knowing he's alive and happy would be enough. She's—really—okay with being friends. Really. On most days.

Today… Today she doesn't want to be his friend.

Not when she's lying beside him and he's looking at her like he does. They're both lying on their sides, facing each other. He reaches out to run his finger over her nose delicately, his other hand lodged under his cheek. She can tell something is on his mind.

Now that Indra is President it's really over. The fighting, the waking up and not knowing what the day might bring. It's an uneasy feeling. A good feeling, mostly. She thinks. "What now?" She's asked the question before, but never at the right person.

He exhales heavily, but then one of his eyebrows quirks up and he's back to being an asshole. "I don't know. I never thought we'd live this long."

She lets out a short, dry mocking laugh, punching him in the shoulder. He actually laughs, loud and and warm and good, his hand sliding down to rest on her waist. She puts up a finger before he gets any ideas—he knows she's ticklish. "Don't you dare."

His laughter fades, but he's still grinning absentmindedly, fingers tightening on her flesh, just a little. He's also staring, just a little, she notes. She's mostly used to it. Nowadays, he needs some more time to try and collect his thoughts, try and separate the real memories from the fake. Finally, because sometimes he still needs her help with that, he says, "You love me. Real or not real?"

She doesn't even have to think about it anymore. It comes naturally, like breathing and painting and baking. She loves Bellamy. "Real."

When he doesn't say anything else—for a painfully long minute in which her heart manages to squeeze in at least five-hundred breakneck beats under his strong gaze—she presses, "And?"

His adam's apple bobs up and down heavily, his hand trailing further down her side to her hip. Her sleep-shirt has ridden up a little, and she can see the tension in his shoulders as his warm fingers come in contact with her soft flesh. It's okay, she wants to tell him, I trust you. But he knows this and she doesn't want to seem to eager, put him under too much pressure.

She adjusts her head on her pillow, so she's closer to his. Her short blonde hair fanned out behind her. Some of the tension in his posture deflates, his thumb moving tentatively over her skin. He follows her lead, now just inches between the two of them. His breath is warm on her face. As he speaks, blood rushes into her ears, making her a little dizzy. "You're in love with me. Real or not real?"

"Real."

His mouth meets her in the middle, and she makes a quiet sound as her bottom lip slides between his. Steady, warm, like a fire—their lips moving together. He pulls away after a moment, and she finds herself chasing his kiss. Yet, his hands are on her shoulders firmly, holding her back. His eyes raking her face, hesitant. "Clarke—you sure?"

"Bellamy," she sighs, then reaches out to run her finger over the crease in his brow, smooth it out. She smiles, fond, pressing a quick, close-lipped kiss to his mouth, their lips barely grazing. She keeps her eyes closed, touching her forehead to his as she fingers the collar of his shirt. "I've never been so sure of anything else in my life."

Her eyes flutter open, catching his gaze. When she licks her lips, his eyes darken at the peek of her tongue, eyelids drooping to focus on her mouth. Suddenly, like he can't take it anymore, he dips his head and their lips are reconnected. Hers part to fit around his and before she knows it she's on top of him. Her hands start to act on their own intuition, scrambling for purchase on his t-shirt as she tries to yank it over his head.

Her shirt is next, and his grip tightens on her shoulders, drawing her against his chest. Her head is swimming, his taste familiar but new and exciting all at the same time. Warm and sweet, like those berry studded muffins he's always begging her to bake. She lets out a small gasp as his mouth starts trailing kisses down her jaw, her throat, feels his smile against her skin more than she sees it, her hands clutching desperately at him. "Bellamy."

He lifts his face from the crook of her neck, cups her cheek, thumb sweeping over her cheekbone. His hooded eyes are nearly black with want, but there's also something more, something affectionate, something intimate and sincere. "I love you, too, you know that, right?" He pauses, then clarifies, "I'm in love with you."

"I do," she breathes, heart pounding in her ears, "I know," and she kisses him again, slower now. Taking time to map every inch of his skin, every scar and bump and bruise, all the golden skin and planes of tantalizing muscles, greedily running her hands through his dark curls. They had that now—time.

No, that day—that day they weren't friends. Once, he told her he wasn't sure what they were. Friend, lover, victor, enemy, target, mutt, ally. In that moment, as she stretched out onto her stomach, him following her, half-resting his weight on her back, his sweat-slick skin slipping against hers. As he folds his arm around her belly, nuzzling the back of her neck, pressing his lips to her jaw as she turned her face to the side. As he temporarily lifted his hand from her side to brush away some hair from her eyes, his soft, warm brown eyes on hers. In that moment, they would always be more than friends, more than labels.

He's her home, and she is his.

She's watching Bellamy with Cassie, pushing her on the swing he build from old trees and car tires with Anya last summer. Her full name is Cassiopeia Luna Blake. He named her, too. After one of his favorite memories with her mother, he told her. It's kind of his thing now, naming babies.

Cassie's giddy laughter is contagious, and Clarke finds herself grinning along, even as Gus starts to cry in her arms. She rocks him gently, shushing him lightly. Cassie is taken with her father, but Gus still likes her best, still loves her voice more than anything in the world. So she talks.

"Did you have a nightmare?" She shifts him in her arms, his little face an angry red and his nose scrunched up as he cries and cries and cries and Clarke doesn't understand how he can still breathe. "I have nightmares, too. Someday I'll explain it to you. Why they came, why they won't ever go away."

She swallows thickly, looking back out at the rest of her family. Bellamy lifted Cassie out of the swing, now balancing her on his hip as he intently listens to their daughter babble on about something, pointing at the woods with her plump little finger. It still hurts, the memories, but not as much as they did before. It's no longer a sharp pain every time she breathes, more a vague discomfort always slumbering in the background. They're working on replacing them, the two of them, one bad memory at a time.

She looks back down at Gus. His full name is Augustus Lincoln Blake. He picked Augustus, for his sister, and Clarke picked Lincoln, for choosing to show her kindness when she was at one of the lowest points in her life. "You know, you're named after a brave girl, Octavia. When she was little your daddy used to tell her to slay her demons when she was awake, so they couldn't get to her at night." The cries slowly start to subdue, and Clarke finds herself smiling as she runs her finger over his cheek delicately to wipe away the wetness. He's so tiny, all dark hair and dark eyes and bronzed skin. "That's what I did, too. So you could have a better life."

Up until she had children of her own, she didn't really understand Harper's letter back then. We owe it to their memories and to our children to do the best with these lives. Now she does. She sways Gus lightly, cooes 'good job' when he smiles, unwrapping the blanket around him so he has more room to move. Her own grin turns wistful. "I hope one day you'll understand why I did what I did. It wasn't pretty." Gus finds her finger and starts gnawing on her knuckle with his gums. "It wasn't good."

She looks back out at her husband and their daughter, giggling as he throws her up into the air and catches her. Bellamy was really worried the first time. That he wouldn't make a good dad. Clarke was never. She knew he would be. He was a natural. "But I found peace, and I hope one day you can give me your forgiveness."

They've through a lot together, Bellamy and she. But she thinks the best is yet to come.

fin.