Title: "The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place: Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean"

Author:Lila

Rating: PG-13

Character/Pairing Bellamy/Clarke/Finn

Spoiler: "We Are Grounders, Part II"

Length: Part I of IV

Summary: Clarke makes it back from Mount Weather; Bellamy and Finn are waiting for her.

Disclaimer: Not mine, just borrowing them for a few paragraphs.

Author's Note: Small note of warning: this fic is heavy on plot, which isn't my strong suit. I think the second and third parts will settle into more familiar patterns, but for now, bear with me. I don't think it's bad per se, just different than how I usually write. Either way, it is what it is. Title courtesy of Explosions in the Sky. Enjoy.

Clarke dreams in colors.

There's the blank gray of the Ark, the drab walls and washed out faces, shadowed eyes and gaunt cheeks peering through hazy light.

Earth is the deep blue of the water and the lush greens of the leaves, the rich brown of the soil beneath her boots.

She holds tight to the laughing warmth of Finn's eyes, the sparks of gold fanning through his irises, how they darkened as he held her in his arms.

Her new world is white, bright light bouncing off white walls and white skin, light so brilliant it hurts her eyes, but she knows better than to keep them closed.

When she closes her eyes it's that night, red and black, a brilliant, burning red pressing against her eyelids, a gaping black emptiness where her heart used to be.

She really tries not to think about that night.

Sometimes she wakes up screaming.

She remembers charred bones and skin burned to ash, the lingering heat of the fire clinging in the air.

She feels Anya watching her with haunted eyes, the blank stares of her people taking in the destruction they'd caused – being alive shouldn't have come at such a high price.

Mostly, she sees Finn's face just as she killed him dead.

Monty helps.

Clarke's given up trying to read his lips, but she finds comfort in his gentle smiles.

They can communicate a bit, just rudimentary ASL they studied in Earth Skills, but it's enough. Clarke learns that Monty's been here a week, that she appeared on the fourth day, that she gets three square meals and a warm blanket.

He makes a motion like he's rubbing his head and she realizes he's pantomiming a shower. She glances down at her pristine white clothes, notes the easy way her fingers comb through her hair. She smiles, just the tiniest bit, because she really can't complain about being clean. She almost can't remember what it's like.

Monty smiles back, that calm, easy smile that always makes it seem like everything will be okay.

Clarke shifts her gaze to the quarantine sign, feels something harden inside her.

Everything has gone wrong, but it doesn't mean she's ready to give up.

The woman appears the next day.

She introduces herself as Jordan, slides gracefully into a chair and indicates that Clarke should take the other. "I'm hoping we can chat."

Clarke watches suspiciously as she takes a seat. An orderly had brought the chairs in with her breakfast and she'd eyed them all morning: the hard plastic seats, the smooth metal legs. Mostly, she'd kept her gaze pinned straight ahead to keep away from all that white.

"It's real, you know," Jordan tells her, turns in her seat to study the painting. "A lucky acquisition."

Clarke shifts her eyes away from the bright wash of colors, the glowing moon and shining stars. It reminds her so much of the life she built; it reminds her too much of the life she's lost.

Instead, she crosses her arms over her chest. "I feel a kinship with it."

"How so?" Jordan's holding a clipboard in her lap, balanced on one slim knee, and she's poised to take notes.

Clarke makes her first statement count. "Van Gogh painted it from a mental asylum." She meets Jordan's gaze. "I know what it's like to be trapped."

Jordan jots something on her clipboard, but there's amusement lurking in her eyes when she raises her head. "Let's talk about that. You're not a prisoner here."

"Really?" Clarke gestures around the room, the bolted door and the camera tracking her every move. "I've been locked up before. This is pretty much standard procedure."

"You're not a prisoner," Jordan repeats. "But we did have to take precautions. Other…visitors…haven't been so cooperative."

"You mean Grounders." Bellamy's words ring in her head, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. She glances at the camera again. It's getting harder to remember why they ever fought that war.

Jordan looks at the clipboard. "Ah, yes. That's what you call them. They're important to our work, whether they understand it or not. We're hoping you'll be more willing, Clarke."

"How do you know my name?" Clarke asks, fights to keep her voice from shaking. Just when she thought she had the upper hand, they threw her a curveball.

Jordan's expression remains neutral, but Clarke recognizes the gleam of triumph in her eyes. "We know everything about you." She stands and slides her clipboard under one arm. "That's enough for today. I'll come by tomorrow. We'll talk more."

She's gone before Clarke can react and the clang of the closing door fills the room, echoes off the white walls and burrows its way into her head.

The Grounders are all around them and Bellamy is fighting, dying out there, and she's closing the doors and locking her people in, keeping her people out.

The screaming starts again.

"Tell me about yourself," Jordan asks the next morning.

Clarke glares at her. "What do you want to know?"

"Anything, everything. Whatever you'd like to share."

Clarke leans back in her chair and crosses her ankles. "You already know everything about me."

"Yes, but I'd rather hear your version of events. Why don't we start with your name?"

"My name is Clarke."

"It's not a typical female name," Jordan reminds her. "How did it come to be yours?"

Clarke stares at her for a long while. Giving in feels like a betrayal, but it beckons too. Her parents are dead along with everyone else she's ever loved, but this is the girl they know. This is the girl she was then and she misses that girl.

"My grandfather," she finally says. "I was named for my grandfather. They added the "e" because I'm a girl. When you're only allowed one child, you take what you can get."

"And what do you think of that policy?"

It makes her think of the Ark and its laws, her dad floating through space, the cold seeping through his skin as the air was sucked from his lungs. She finds her voice, remembers why she was sent to the ground in the first place. She's not trading in one set of rules for another. "I think I'm done answering your questions."

Jordan ducks her head to make a note on her clipboard, but can't quite hide her frown.

For the first time in over a week, Clarke truly smiles.

"I want to know about my friends." Clarke demands an answer the moment Jordan sits down. She feels more confident, more in control. Jordan has the knowledge, but she has the power. Whatever they want, they can't make her tell.

Jordan nods. "Of course." She glances at the clipboard. "We have sixty-four patients at our facility." She scans her notes while Clarke does the math, sucks in a deep, painful breath. Thirty-six graves she might as well have dug herself.

"Patients, ha!" Clarke manages to say. She's clean and fed, but it's not like she can leave. Patient is just a kinder word for prisoner.

Jordan smiles serenely. "Yes, patients. One of your people had a bullet in her spine." The corners of Jordan's mouth tighten. "We're not monsters, Clarke."

Clarke winces, hates how easily Jordan says her name; it's not like she volunteered the information herself. Still, the words linger: had a bullet in her spine…"Raven," she says. "She's okay?"

"She isn't walking yet, but yes, she'll live." Jordan looks at her knowingly, nearly cocks an eyebrow while she waits. She gave Clarke what she wanted; she expects something in return.

Clarke sighs, does her best not to slump in her seat. "What do you want to know?"

Jordan smiles, all calm serenity, but she can't hide the reptilian triumph gleaming in her eyes.

Time trickles by, but Clarke doesn't lose it all together.

She picks at a cuticle, watches the blood bead thick and dark and pulsing against her white skin. She wipes it on the wall in a neat line, keeps adding marks and counts the days.

She's escaped her cage before. It's only a matter of time.

Jordan brings her a pencil on the fifth day.

It's charcoal, with a round point that's prone to breakage, and Clarke has to physically keep her fingers from reaching for it.

She knows it's a bribe, clear as the river the first time she saw water on earth, but it's still a pencil. She glances at the painting, the thick brushstrokes and layers of color. The girl she once was can't turn that down. She holds it in her hand, tests its thin weight. She's lost so much; she doesn't want to give this up too.

In her first life, she drew the earth in her cell, mountains and rivers and valleys she only knew from books. Back then she didn't know how smooth water could feel as it rushed over her fingers, or the cool dampness of soil clinging to her toes. She didn't know that a sunset could take her breath away or the how the smell right after the rain could make the world feel fresh and new and full of promise.

She draws the camp in the way she wants to remember it, with makeshift tents and ramshackle walls and the mighty dropship lording over it all. She adds Octavia and her sword and Raven tinkering with the radio, Miller standing guard with his beanie pulled down low. Jasper jokes with Monty by the fire while Wells watches from above. A knot lodges in her throat as she smiles up at his familiar face. She hopes it's better wherever he is.

She doesn't draw the tangled mess of Bellamy's hair or the laughter in Finn's eyes. She doesn't need another reminder of all she's lost.

Jordan's eyes sweep over the mural. "I see you accepted my gift."

Clarke flexes her fingers. "I got tired of making myself bleed." She tilts her head towards her makeshift calendar. "My system wasn't exactly sanitary."

"Well, consider it a birthday present." She pauses, then presses forward when Clarke doesn't respond. "Yesterday. It was your eighteenth birthday."

Clarke stares at her, fights to keep her expression blank as everything twists and turns inside her, but then a peal of laughter bubbles up, dark and shrieking as it bursts from her chest.

Jordan pauses in her scribbling. "What's so funny?"

Clarke takes a calming breath and closes her eyes, wishes there weren't tears lurking in them when she stares Jordan down. "I should have died yesterday. If I was still on the Ark, I'd spend today floating through space." She flicks her eyes around the room before turning them back to Jordan. "I'm eighteen and I'm not dead and look where I am."

"You're alive," Jordan reminds her.

Clarke just shakes her head. She might be living but she couldn't feel further from alive.

"Let's talk about Bellamy."

Jordan's words hit her like a slap and it's all she can do not to visibly recoil. "He's dead," Clarke says softly. It's the first time she's said the words aloud and they hang in the air, close in around her.

"I'm sorry for your loss." Jordan watches her with warm, brown eyes that crinkle at the corners just like Finn's. Clarke turns her gaze to the floor. She doesn't deserve even Jordan's sympathy, not after the choices she's made. "I'd like to know what he was like when he was alive. I'm hoping you'll tell me about him."

Clarke raises her head, feels the flare of heat behind her eyes. "Don't talk about Bellamy."

Jordan just presses on. "He's an interesting choice for a leader. Most people who attempt to assassinate their Chancellor don't end up in charge."

"He was protecting his sister," Clarke spits out. She doesn't mean to, doesn't want these people to take anything more from her, but she can't help but defend him. She can't forget the night by the bunker, the moment she realized she could never hate him as much as he already hated himself.

"Still, an odd choice. Finn Collins would have been the more logical candidate."

Another shard sinks its way into Clarke's heart and she wonders if she's being tested, if Jordan brings up their names only to gauge her reaction, to see how far she has to push before she takes what Clarke won't give. "You don't know Bellamy."

"So tell me about him."

There are many things Clarke could say. She could tell Jordan that he's arrogant and reckless, that he thinks with his heart rather than his head. She could explain how he's handsome and charming, uncompromising and determined. She could talk about the early days, Murphy and knife fights and "whatever the hell we want." She could bring up Octavia, the soul-shattering bond of love and guilt and hate and devotion that she still can't quite understand. There are so many things she could say, and when she finally opens her mouth, it's the most personal truth that comes out. "I couldn't have done it without him."

Jordan makes a note on her clipboard. Clarke wonders how she's still going on without him.

Clarke's been awake two weeks when Jordan slips up.

"So you're a Die Mannschaft fan, ja?" she asks, eyes shining with amusement.

Clarke's head snaps up. Jordan's questions have been obvious, facts and details she could have gleaned from any number of other patients. Even her birthday was revealed during Unity Day drinking games. Soccer is personal. Football is between her father and Wells and Thelonious and twenty-three Germans who've been dead almost two centuries. "How did you know that?" she hisses.

Jordan barely glances up. "Hmmn? You mentioned it the other day."

"No, I didn't." There's no room for argument in her tone. Clarke knows she's got them, knows she can take what they refuse to give. "I'll ask the question again: how do you know that?"

Jordan's eyes flicker to the camera in the corner, and she casually crosses her legs but her foot can't seem to stop shaking. "Clarke," she tries, but there's a tremor in her voice. "Please don't do this."

Clarke pushes out of her chair and paces, keeps her eyes trained on the camera as she circles the bright, white room. It feels a bit like the night she and Bellamy came back with the guns, came back with a smile on her face because they so rarely had the advantage.

Clarke scrapes her chair across the floor and drops into it. She's only inches from Jordan. "You've had it your way all this time. Now it's going to be mine."

Jordan swallows thickly. "What do you want to know?"

"I'll ask my question a third time: how did you know that about me?"

Her eyes never shift from the camera and it's a long time before Jordan starts to talk. "We're scientists," she finally says. "The earth is our laboratory. We monitor everything here." She pauses. "We monitored you too."

"How?"

She gestures at the camera. "Our technology has only grown in the years since the war and our computers were tapped into yours. We knew your lives better than our own."

"You spied on us." It's only anger swelling in Clarke's chest. The Ark was a world of watchful stares, and even when she fell from the sky, the band on her wrist kept her from fully reaching the earth. She wonders if she'll ever live a life free from prying eyes.

"We watched," Jordan clarifies. "We had to know what was coming if you ever made it to the ground."

It takes Clarke a moment to figure it out, read between the lines of the story Jordan isn't telling. "You knew," she whispers. "You knew," she repeats, louder this time as all the pieces fall into place. "You knew about the Culling, about every Culling, and you didn't do anything! You knew we were going to die and you never bothered to stop it!"

She doesn't wipe away the tears leaking from her eyes. She wants Jordan to see, for them all to see, just how much damage they've done. She remembers the things she's seen, the spear in Jasper's chest and the poison in Finn's blood and the perfect symmetry of the throwing blade as it split Drew's face. Her stomach turns as she stares at Jordan's stricken expression. "How could you stand by and watch so much suffering?"

"It's not our job to interfere. We watch and we learn so it doesn't happen again."

Jordan looks like she's about to cry, but it only makes Clarke see red, a different type of red, blazing and pulsing and bright as the tears in her mother's eyes when she admitted the truth about her father. She springs from her chair with her fists clenched, her chest heaving with the effort to keep from screaming. "Get out."

"Clarke…" Jordan tries, but Clarke just shakes her head, grips the back of her chair to keep her fists from slamming into Jordan's face.

"Go," she says softly, hears Bellamy's voice the morning after the storm. "Please don't make me into someone I don't want to be."

Jordan doesn't protest, just gathers her things and exits the room. It's quiet when she's gone, just the low buzz of the camera and Clarke's own thoughts for company.

She lays on her bed and stares at the mural, the smiling, frozen faces of the people she's failed.

She closes her eyes and it's Bellamy's bloody cheeks and Finn's panicked eyes and the scattered bones that used to be whole.

Her forehead slams into the wall and the entire world is mercifully black.

When she opens her eyes there's a bandage on her head and a middle-aged man in a lab coat is checking her pulse.

"Welcome back, Ms. Griffin," he says and gently lowers her arm to the mattress. "I'm Dr. Saar."

She nods, and immediately regrets it. She might have found a temporary peace, but it did a number on her head. Dr. Saar's eyes are kind, but Clarke knows how easy it is to play a part. Her mother, Finn, Murphy, Jordan...she forces a smile and takes on the role of a lifetime.

"How long have I been out?"

"A couple days," Saar says and makes a note on her chart. "How are you feeling?"

She feels lousy and her head is pounding, but there's a fire in her belly that didn't used to be there. She's had time to think, to dream and plan, and she knows what she needs to do. It's Bellamy urging her on, reminding her to stay and fight. She's played nice long enough.

She forces herself into a sitting position and stares right into the doctor's wary eyes. She smiles, and it's all teeth and dare. "I feel alive."

"I want to go outside," she tells the Dr. Saar when he comes to check her bandages. It's been two days and the headache has diminished as the bruise fades from deep purple to a sickly green.

"Why?"

She gestures to herself, lying prone in the bed. "Bed sores would be a bitch."

Saar nods. "We have a lovely indoor track."

"I haven't seen the sun in over a month." She's careful to annunciate her words. "I want to go outside."

He drops his hands and takes a step back. "You're still recovering from a head injury, Clarke. A nice, easy walk will do just fine."

She doesn't back down. "Fresh air will be even better."

"Not this time."

He starts for the door and Clarke hates herself a little for the desperation in her voice, but there's no other way. She can lose this battle so long as she ultimately wins the war. "I'll answer your questions," she says. "One question for one hour outside."

"I'll see what I can do."

And so it begins.

Clarke gets her walks and Dr. Saar gets his answers.

She tells him about the camp and the life her people carved out for themselves. She tells him about the seaweed and the giant snake and the deer with two heads and the jobi nuts. She tells him Jasper and the spear and Raven and the radio and even Monty and the bracelets. She tells him about Wells and she tells him about Charlotte, about their mistakes with Murphy and the price they paid in full. She tells him that against all odds, one of their own fell in love with a Grounder.

Mostly she notes the sturdiness of the trees and the height of the walls. She memorizes the guard rotations and the angles of the cameras. She counts her steps and practices even breaths.

She prepares herself to fight.

It's hard telling Monty goodbye.

She presses her hand to the glass and smiles at him, hopes he can see the words she's smudged in charcoal.

"May we meet again," she mouths, just to be clear and he smiles, broad and wide and full of hope, and mouths the words back.

His head bobs for a moment and his hands move in rapid motions before the window. "Don't forget about us."

She shakes her head, ignores the tears threatening to fall. She hopes he understands.

She might be gone, but she's not leaving her people behind. She's setting them free.

Her plan has three steps:

1. Knock out Dr. Saar

2. Scale the wall

3. Run for the hills (literally)

It scares her thinking about how much she's looking forward to the first part.

She trails behind Saar just a bit, picks up the piece of concrete while she rambles on about Harper and her crush on Jasper. She spotted it the day before under a large tree, a jagged chunk of the wall that didn't quite survive a storm. It's not overly big, but the edges are rough and she only needs a minute, just one minute, to set her plan in motion.

She tugs up the sleeve of her parka and sucks in a breath – she's a healer, her life dedicated to putting people back together — but now she needs the strength to tear one apart.

And then, the alarm, loud and bleating in the small courtyard. Her arm drops, the weapon falling to the ground behind her.

"Wait here," Saar tells her as the alarm rings shrilly. He gestures to the guard by the door and he disappears into the building. But the guard is young, the way she'd hoped he would be, and his eyes desperately flit between the patient and the prize. Clarke hides her smile. She remembers the early days, so many teenage boys nearly slicing off their fingers to impress a girl.

"It's okay," she tells him, bats her eyes and tugs on her braid. "I'll just wait here." In all her layers and with her hair pulled back, she looks about fourteen.

He stares at her as the alarm only gets louder. "I'll be back in one minute."

"Of course."

Clarke waits for the clang of the slamming door before bolting for the wall. It's high, but she's had time to plan, uses one of the broken branches as a boost and then there's only wide, open space.

She looks left and looks right, but the alarm is still blaring and no one's coming for her. She closes her eyes and tries to remember that first day, Octavia cheering and Bellamy barking orders, but mostly the map that was supposed to save them. She might know the truth about Mount Weather, but it's still intrinsic to her survival. "Think, Clarke," she murmurs, crouched in the shadow of the wall.

She stands and aims south, but then she hears the familiar click of a rifle cocking and her heart drops into her stomach. She's come too far to fail now.

Except there's something familiar about the figure moving towards her, the dark hair curling around his ears and the broad expanse of his shoulders. She blinks, because it can't be real, he can't be real. She watched the door close; she knows the choice she made.

"Clarke?" he says and her eyes widen because she really, truly knows that voice. It's deep and commanding, but there's vulnerability too, especially as he lowers the rifle and stares at her with equally wide eyes.

"Bellamy," she whispers and she says it again, louder this time, and then she's running the short distance and throwing herself against him and he's warm and solid and his arms are strong as they wrap around her and she doesn't even care that he's seeing her cry because he's alive. Bellamy is alive.

"I still need to breathe," he reminds her and she loosens her grip, but doesn't let go. Her hands press along the muscles of his back, trail across his shoulders and the nape of his neck. He sucks in a breath as her fingers tangle in his hair and his heart skips against hers. "You done copping a feel?"

"I thought you were dead."

He smiles, that smirking, shit-eating grin she knows so well, and reaches down to rub the tears from her skin. "Well, I'm not."

"Yeah," she says and rests her cheek against his chest, closes her eyes as his heartbeat settles into a gentle, even rhythm.

"Yeah," he murmurs into her hair.

"Success!" another voice interrupts and Clarke jerks her head up, takes in floppy dark hair and flashing dark eyes, and Bellamy's heartbeat jumps as Finn steps into view.

"Oh my god, Finn!" she says as Bellamy releases her, as another set of arms wrap around her and spin her in circles.

He finally stops and stands before her, cupping her face in his hands as he stares into her eyes. "I promised you wouldn't lose me again." His voice is soft and his mouth is too, as he leans in and presses it against hers. He pulls back and smiles down at her. "I'm so glad we found you."

Clarke smiles, glances over his shoulder and loses herself just a bit in Bellamy's eyes. They're hard, but proud, and yet unreadable. He looks away as Finn takes her hand. "We need to get a move on. We'll explain everything on the way.

Clarke casts one last glance at her prison, the high white walls and gleaming gates. The alarm is still sounding and they don't have much time. "Let's get out of here," she says and follows behind, Bellamy's eyes on her back as he brings up the rear.

She lets go of Finn's hand. She doesn't need him to save her.

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