the bonus chapters
THE BONUS CHAPTERS
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Taylor laughed lightly as she stumbled along, putting her finger up to her lips despite the fact that everyone around them was as loud as could be. Monty raised both of his hands in defense but laughed along with her regardless.
"Monty..." she giggled, falling down beside a rather large tree that was just outside the gates. Plenty of people had wondered out, though what they were saying was a mystery to them.
"What?" he replied, collapsing next to her in his own fit of giggles.
"I can see...every color," she said, reaching out into the open air where there was nothing.
Monty's eyes widened.
"No!" he exclaimed, reaching for where her hands were reaching out and he shook his head in awe. "No way."
His eyes drifted to the ground and he gasped rather loudly, pointing to a few scattered pinecones on the ground.
"I am so hungry," he announced, picking one of the pinecones up, examining it with distant eyes.
"Monty, you can't eat that," Taylor told him, shaking her head in an exaggerated fashion. "Not without me!"
Monty laughed and they each picked up a pinecone, not remembering much about the next part of actually eating the thing. All Taylor knew was that she looked at an empty pair of hands as Monty reached for another pinecone.
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"I should keep him close? Bellamy, what's going on?" Clarke inquired, watching him as he aimed for the target. "You've been acting weird all day. All the rations you took....you're gonna run. That's why you agreed to come with me. You were going to load up on supplies and just disappear."
Bellamy lowered his gun and shook his head. She was never supposed to know. No one was.
"I don't have a choice," he defended. "The Ark will be here soon." Clarke stared at him incredulously.
"So you're just gonna leave Octavia? And Taylor?" she pushed on, her stance becoming slightly more defensive.
"Octavia hates me," he dismissed. "She'll be fine."
"And Taylor?"
His gut wrenched slightly. Of course there was guilt in leaving both of them, but when he had been the cause of Taylor being on the ground to begin with...it didn't sit right.
"She'll understand," he responded quietly, shifting his gun uncomfortably.
"Oh, she will? Come on, Bellamy. We all know you need each other. I've seen the way you look at her," Clarke furthered, trying to detect a change in his demeanor. So many looked up to him in camp, there was no way they'd survive without him. He looked away, hiding most of his face.
"That doesn't matter," he denied.
Clarke took a hesitant step forward. "It doesn't? Because I think she wouldn't have an easy time if you left," she told him.
"She doesn't feel that way. Listen. I shot the Chancellor. They're gonna kill me, Clarke. That's not any better for Taylor or Octavia. Best case scenario, they lock me up with the Grounder for the rest of my life and there's no way in hell I'm giving Jaha the satisfaction," he exasperated in a snappy tone, eyes darting to the door. "Keep practicing. I need some air."
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Bellamy awoke disoriented, grounded by her hand firmly grasping his. Taylor had fallen asleep next to him, her breaths constant and steady beside him. It was a relief to him that she seemed much better.
Nothing could compare to the fear that had settled deep inside him when he saw her collapse with blood running down her face. The thought of losing her was a little too much for him to bear.
Sitting up slowly, he let her hand fall back onto the bed and using both of his to support himself. "Here," Murphy offered, attempting to hand a cup of water in his direction. Bellamy still didn't trust him, just as he knew Taylor didn't.
"Get the hell away from me," he grumbled, shoving the cup away, causing Murphy to spill it down the front of his shirt. He sighed in annoyance.
"Bellamy, you're sick, okay? I'm just trying to help," he defended, clearly angry with the obvious distaste Bellamy was showing for any kind of help from him. Blood started to run from his nose, the warm liquid making it's unpleasant return. "Here." Murphy tried to offer him a rag, but Bellamy was serious in not wanting any help from the boy in front of him. He quickly used his own sleeve to wipe away the blood collecting at his upper lip.
"When I get better...and you're still here...," Bellamy threatened, Murphy's eyes widening slightly, only to be interrupted by Clarke.
"Hey, I got this one," she told him, nodding for him to go help someone else. Murphy conceded and handed her the cup. Bellamy finally settled himself into a sitting position, careful not to wake Taylor in doing so, and Clarke took a seat beside him.
"Here," she said, handing him the water. This time he accepted and took a small sip out of the cup.
"You feeling better?" he asked hoarsely, Clarke nodding and confirming that she was feeling better than she had before. "That's good...have you seen Octavia?"
"She was up all night helping people. Murphy gave her a break," Clarke stated, looking surprised at her own words. She didn't believe it herself, that Murphy was actually making an effort to help out.
"Don't tell me you trust him now," Bellamy replied, voicing his thoughts as if it were a joke that she could trust him after everything.
"Trust? No. I do believe in second chances, though," Clarke admitted with a shrug. Bellamy didn't respond to her words. Thinking about letting Murphy back into camp was too big of a decision. He glanced down at Taylor, who shifted just the slightest in her sleep, and thought about how she wouldn't be there if Murphy hadn't come back. He wouldn't be surrounded by sick people or have a pile of dead bodies to bury once everyone got better if Murphy hadn't come back.
Clarke noticed his silence and the way he was looking at Taylor. She noticed the certain tenderness they had for each other and it almost made her think that was what she wished she could have with Finn.
"You care about her," she commented, stating what was inherently clear, but had a deeper meaning to the words when she said them.
"Yeah," Bellamy replied, thinking that much was obvious, noticing Clarke's look when he finally looked at her. Her eyebrows were slightly elevated and she wore the ghost of a grin. He was about to question her further, but Taylor began to stir and awoke with a bit of a start before he could say anything.
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Taylor wandered over to where Clarke stood, staring at the graves that had been dug for the fallen.
"Hey," she greeted, now getting a full glimpse of her somber expression by the light of the torches. Clarke simply nodded at her and Taylor was unsure of what to say.
"You're outside of the wall without a gun," Bellamy's voice commented from behind them and Taylor gave him a glance with raised eyebrows.
"Fourteen graves," Clarke said suddenly, Taylor now looking back at all of them. It felt like every single one of their deaths was on their hands in some way.
"We need to talk about Murphy," Bellamy mentioned, changing the subject quickly. They had lost a lot that day — the sickness hadn't been merciful.
"He was right about the bridge," Clarke offered.
"But does that make him trustworthy?" Taylor interjected, looking between the two as they stood beside all of the graves that were there because Murphy had made his return.
"We'll see," Bellamy deflected unenthusiastically. "Octavia says the Mountain Men are pissed. Whatever that means."
"I'd say it means we need as many soldiers as we can get," Clarke stated.
"But why would these 'Mountain Men' be any different from regular Grounders?" Taylor asked, furrowing her brows in confusion.
Clarke simply shrugged, responding with, "It doesn't matter if they really are pissed."
"So, what, we have pardon power now?" Bellamy continued, getting the subject back on track in reference to Murphy.
"It's hard running things."
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The whistle that everything was clear was everything that Abby and Elara needed to charge forward as quickly as they possibly could. The shouts they had heard weren't exactly encouraging and finding their daughters was all they had been thinking about since landing on the ground.
Elara would admit that it was magnificent. It seemed so surreal that they were even there. For decades, she heard tales as a girl of the ground and they strayed into her mind as an adult. But never once did she think that she would end up there.
When they emerged through the trees and into the clearing, a dead man lay at Marcus's feet with a bullet hole in his head. His dress was comprised of heavy furs and leathers, far different than any of them had ever seen.
Abby wasted no time in approaching those who had been rescued with her medical bag, Elara right on her tail. The two were caked in blood and dirt from virtually head to toe, making her even more surprised when she realized that she recognized one of them.
He was just insisting that they needed to get to the dropship, the one that the original hundred had landed in, when she finally ceased her steps beside Abby, who had reached them a few seconds before she had.
"Bellamy?" she questioned, looking him up and down in confusion, not quite believing that it was him who was standing in front of her. He stopped dead in his tracks and stared her down with an equal surprise and some level of relief.
Elara Flynn and Bellamy Blake had never been close and he was aware of it. She had tried her best to respect what Joseph was doing, but Bellamy was all too knowing of the resentment she had unknowingly placed on the Blakes for everything that had gone wrong with her family. He couldn't exactly say that he blamed her, either.
"Elara," he said, not sure what else he could say. He was sure that she was blaming him even more for Taylor's accompaniment of him to the ground.
"Where's Clarke? Is she all right?" Abby cut off, preferring to have her answers sooner rather than later.
"She was when we left," the other boy, Finn, answered. "We'll take you to her." He began to walk off, quickly halted by Marcus.
"Slow down," he ordered, both boys and the two women behind them slowing to a stop. "Sinclair, we're splitting up." His voice got lower with the more information he spoke to Sinclair, so Elara instead turned to Bellamy.
"Where is Taylor?" she asked, her voice containing a harsh edge to it that she didn't necessarily intend, but didn't try all that much to stop.
"At the dropship with Clarke," he responded, casting a quick glance at Abby. A small silence fell upon them, Bellamy glancing at the woods every few seconds as if he might explode if he didn't get to go out soon.
"You six with me, you two lead the way," Marcus finally commanded, gesturing for them to go ahead. Every new sight still amazed her, though her daughter was what still sat in the back of her mind, making it harder to enjoy the sights around her.
They finally reached a more rough terrain, all of them crouching down lower amongst the bodies of dead Grounders and teenagers alike.
"It's too quiet," Bellamy alerted, looking over at Finn, who nodded in agreement. He moved to go forward, but Marcus grabbed his arm to prevent him going any further.
"We'll take it from here," he assured. "Banks. Scanlan. You stay with them. We'll signal once we're sure it's safe." Elara moved eagerly just behind Abby and Marcus as they approached the camp, one that was now decimated. Not much was left except ash and burnt bodies covering the ground, though Elara wasn't sure what would have been there to begin with.
All three pushed through the dropship to find three people. One was dead on the floor, a Grounder, shot to death. Another was a boy leaned up against a few boxes who looked up at them curiously with a pained expression.
"Help her," he urged, pointing to a form that was slumped on the ground, just barely breathing.
"Raven," Abby said, putting her fingers on the girl's neck to check for a pulse. Elara kneeled down next to Abby and glanced between Raven and her. She wasn't a doctor, but even she knew that things didn't look good for her. "Raven. Raven, honey, it's it's Abby."
Raven's eyes flickered open slightly and she turned her head weakly to Abby. "Clarke's not here," she told her. Her gaze settled on Elara for a moment before she blinked slowly and turned her head back to Abby. "Neither is Taylor. I don't know where they are."
Abby looked to the ground in slight horror, Elara feeling her heart drop at the words.
"What happened to you?" Abby asked after a moment, Raven glancing behind the women to the boy that sat across from her, who was watching them intently.
"I got shot," she replied finally. "I got shot." Elara stood and paced nervously out of the ship, knowing that she would be no help in aiding Raven and that she would only get in the way. A warm, light breeze hit her face when she pushed back the tarp, and she crossed her arms at the sight in front of her.
A few seconds after she walked out of the ship, Marcus emerged supporting the boy that was sitting in the ship with Raven. "It was awful, it was awful. There were hundreds of them. If it weren't for Raven..." he trailed off, grunting when they reached the bottom of the ramp.
Elara stepped off behind them, meeting Marcus and the guards in the middle while Bellamy and Finn approached, somehow unaccompanied by guards.
"Bellamy, you're, uh...you're alive," Murphy remarked at the sight of them, looking unsettled at the appearance of Bellamy. Elara looked between them carefully, sensing something deeper going on. Something must have happened that would have caused Murphy to think Bellamy was dead, but he didn't seemed pleased at the sight of him alive.
Bellamy took his few final steps toward Murphy and lunged at him, yelling at the top of his lungs. "YOU MURDERING SON OF A BITCH!" he screamed, taking Murphy to the ground and punching him in the face over and over.
"Bellamy!" Elara scolded, though making no more moves to stop him. Marcus nodded at a nearby guard and he pulled out a shock baton, hitting Bellamy in the side with it sharply. Both of the boys writhed on the ground in pain, Bellamy taking in sharp gasps while clutching his abdomen.
"Place him under arrest," Marcus ordered, the guards grabbing at him on the ground without hesitation.
"Wait, you don't understand. Murphy murdered two of our people. He shot another one. He tried to hang Bellamy," Finn argued earnestly as the guards dragged Bellamy up in order to tie his hands together.
"I don't care. You are not animals," Marcus snapped back. "There are rules. Laws. You are not in control here anymore."
Finn and Bellamy appeared dejected at his words, but they were quickly distracted with the arrival of Abby with Raven from inside of the dropship. "Raven," Finn let out worriedly, glancing down at her in concern.
"There's no one else in there,"Abby told him, noticing his lingering look back to the ship. "Come on, put her down over here."
Elara stood absentmindedly and finally settled her eyes on Bellamy, who now sat on a log in restraints. Slowly, she strode over to him and crouched down in front of him, looking him directly in the eyes.
"What did you do to make her come down here?" she asked, the question a burning one that she had since the day her daughter went missing and her life was upended.
"What?" he grunted in confusion, the accusation in her eyes not sitting well.
"My daughter is far too smart to just run away and leave like that. Especially to here without knowing anything and especially with you," Elara explained coldly, the true nature of how she was feeling slipping through the cracks of her composed demeanor. Bellamy didn't say anything at first. He looked shocked and quite hurt at her biting words.
"I put her in danger asking her to come with me. And I regret that every single day. But she can make her own choices and can protect herself just as damn well as anyone else," he finally said, the tone of his voice not shifting in any way, his eyes focused on the ground below him.
"If she ends up hurt or dead...it's going to be on you," she snapped, her mind filled with everything that her family had gone through because of his.
"Don't think I won't look for her because I won't stop. Taylor is one of the people I care about more than anybody and your grudge won't stop that," Bellamy retaliated quickly as she stood up from her crouched position. All she did was frown at him before turning around and stalking off to the rest of the group.
They all began to assemble to head toward Alpha Station, where they would begin a new chapter on the ground and hopefully find those they found themselves without.
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NOTE :
Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to read this! I appreciate all of you!
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