✧】xv. so much for unity【✧

[ day trip — unity day ]

"LET THE GROUNDERS come," Bellamy calls, that authoritative voice of his washing over the panicked crowd. He and Clarke emerge into the center of a circle of frantic campers bathed in the glow of firelight. Amery leans against the side of the dropship, Monty beside her, both having scrambled down from the dropship roof at Miller's shouting.

"We've been afraid of them for far too long, and why?" Bellamy and Clarke both have heavy packs slung over their shoulders, and Amery blinks as she notices crusted blood down one side of Bellamy's face. "Because of their knives and spears."

"What happened to them?" she mutters, and Monty shrugs, catching Jasper's eye from across the crowd. His brow furrows in concern. Jasper's got more reason to be afraid of the Grounders than any of them, really. Knives and spears, indeed.

Suddenly Amery knows exactly what Bellamy and Clarke's new cargo is.

"I don't know about you," Bellamy says, "but I'm tired of being afraid." He shares a glance with Clarke, and together they reveal the loads of guns slung over their shoulders, letting the metal clatter against the ground. They weren't packs at all, but weaponry tied together with rope, salvaged from who-knows-where.

Monty frowns, and Amery finds herself strangely uneasy at the prospect of the guns. It gives them a major advantage against the Grounders, but...

She looks around the camp, the rows of murmuring kids with dirty hair and ratty clothing, some afraid, some excited—some too excited.

In the chaos of adjusting to life down here, Amery seems to have forgotten that a number of the campers are actually convicted of things far worse than stealing trees or being born. Some of them are murderers. Actual criminals. And they're about to be armed.

But if it comes down to people like Dax and Murphy or a bone-helmet-wearing Grounder... she knows who she'd choose.

As if reading her mind, Clarke launches into a speech about the importance of using the weapons safely. Amery's mind is elsewhere, trying to figure out where they're going to get enough ammunition for all these new guns, what valuable parts she might be able to pry out of one if she dismantles it right. Monty drums his fingers against the metal of the dropship, eyes distant, and she thinks he may be thinking about the same things.

"I can't shoot one of those," she mutters, and Monty grants her a small smile.

"Pretty sure you can do whatever you decide you want to do, Red."

"Miller can still kick my ass with his eyes closed and his ankles tied together. I don't think he'd call me ready for the heavy shit."

The firelight plays off the metal of the guns, dancing across surfaces and bouncing back into the darkness in a strangely beautiful routine. Lethal things shouldn't be so pretty, she thinks. Fire. Metal. Storms.

"Guns and hand-to-hand combat are very different things," Monty reminds her. He shrugs. "It's all precision, isn't it? So is mechanics. Maybe you're a good shot."

Monty taps the side of Amery's boot with the toe of his own. Amery tilts her head back, letting the stars and the canopy of trees erase the dirt and fire and war, just for a moment, and taps back.

That's the thing about being with Monty—there are lots of moments. Time on the Ground feels like it moves faster, everything escalating in seconds or revelations falling on them like rain, unrelenting. Time with Monty feels slower. Calmer. Somewhere an escaped Grounder is probably rallying an army, and the Ark is running out of oxygen, and Clarke and Bellamy are arming a bunch of juvenile delinquents, but... none of it seems so pressing.

Amery smiles. "Maybe."

✧✧✧

Amery thinks she might be running out of cuss words emphatic enough to express her exasperation.

"I hate everything," she announces after exhausting her bank of profanity. Monty frowns and sticks out his bottom lip, pouting. "Oh, shut up. Not you."

The bright smile that immediately blooms on his face maybe makes up for the utter shit they're in. Maybe.

They're standing near the dropship ramp, popping rations into their mouths, a combination of berries and some kind of dried meat. The new developments came in shocking succession, and Amery crashed hard last night, pressed against Harper's side in the tent with Zoe's arm slung across them both. Not only had the Grounder escaped, but word had passed rapidly through the tents that Dax had tried to kill Bellamy out in the woods.

Instead, he'd gotten killed.

The hundred, the Ark calls them. Not counting her. The hundred and one. How many of them are left?

Amery can't stop thinking about the guns, the prospect of facing down a Grounder with one in her arms. Would she be as defenseless as she was with the dagger? Vivid images of Cash on the ground, blood pooling beneath him, wrap their tentacles around her mind and squeeze.

Stop.

She almost doesn't want to know whether she'd be good with a gun. She's too scared that even with that kind of brutal technology in her hands, she'll be useless.

"It's not that bad," Monty chirps, elbowing her lightly. "It's not like they have enough guns for everyone to actually have to use one."

"I know," Amery sighs, turning to face him. A strand of dark hair has swept into his eye, and she resists the urge to reach out and brush it away. "I guess I'm just... you know. Grounder gets out, gets his people, brings them back. War. Death." She shrugs, like she's not talking about life-altering, world-ending events. "I wish we could just be here, I guess. Peacefully."

After a moment of understanding silence, Monty wiggles his eyebrows and Amery chokes on a laugh. "What is that?"

"It's my I-have-an-idea face!" Monty says, affronted.

"It's horrible."

"You don't want to hear my idea, then." Monty turns to walk away, but Amery reaches out and grabs his wrist before he makes two steps. His eyes snap to hers and she feels her breath catch in her throat, the heat of his skin suddenly overwhelming on her palm.

But she doesn't let go.

"What's your brilliant idea, Pinecone?"

"We're—no. That's not a thing we're doing. Nope. No Pinecone."

"Your fault."

"Ames."

She shrugs. "Pinecone."

Monty groans, dragging the heel of his palm down his face like this is the greatest tragedy he's ever faced. Amery smirks.

"Idea. Go."

"So you know that moonshine I made?"

"Your special thunderstorm moonshine."

Monty nods.

"I promised Jas I'd make more. We made some for the Unity Day stuff tonight, so our stock's gonna run out fast. And I know you're not into drinking, but the process of making it is actually kind of fun, and you need a distraction from, you know, war and death, so—"

"You're gonna teach me how to make alcohol."

Monty smiles sheepishly. "If you want."

"Lead the way, Pi—"

"Can't hear you!" Monty calls as he pulls out of her grasp and starts jogging away. She rolls her eyes and starts to follow.

"You like Unity Day," Amery observes as Monty bounces on the balls of his feet. He quirks his head.

"You don't?"

She shrugs. She certainly used to. Memory flickers into her vision unbidden.

"Kiddo," Lewis Ekker calls from the couch. "You ready?"

Amery bounds into the living space dressed and ready for the Unity Day ceremony, grinning ear-to-ear. She's been practicing with her dad all week. A white sash runs from her shoulder to her waist, and she holds her flag proudly in both hands. It's pretty, her flag, a bright green with a white diamond and blue globe in the center. This one isn't her peoples', her dad said—station and nation are not the same, though Amery is still not sure why—but she's proud they picked her to represent Mecha. She rubbed it in Keaton's face for weeks.

"You remember what flag you've got?" Lewis asks, eyes twinkling as he stands to walk over to his daughter.

"Mecha," Amery says proudly, and her dad laughs.

"And?" he prompts.

"And..." Amery bites her bottom lip, trying to remember the nation that corresponds with the flag. "Brazil."

"Exactly," Lewis says proudly. Amery beams. He ruffles her hair and says, "Your ancestors—they had a different flag, one we don't use anymore—they used to live on Hydra Station, you know. And then transferred to Mecha for work. Guess the trade stuck, little mechanic, huh?"

"Sinclair says I'm a natural." Just this morning Amery fixed a broken circuit for him. Keaton says he did it too, but really he only helped a little.

Lewis puts a hand on Amery's shoulder and guides her out the door. "Does he now?"

"Mer!" Keaton careens around the corner and rushes up to her, and she nearly drops her flag as he throws his arms around her. "Are you ready for the pageant? You know your lines?"

Amery mocks him in a deep voice. "You know your lines?" Of course she doesn't have lines. Her job is to hold the flag and walk in a circle when the music starts playing and one of the girls from Alpha tells the Unity Day story.

"I don't sound like that," Keaton protests.

"I don't sound like that," Amery parrots back in the same voice. Keaton scowls.

"Gonna be late, kiddos," Lewis says and herds them down the hall. "Let's keep the unity on schedule, huh?"

Briefly, Amery considers telling Monty about her Unity Days spent with her dad. But the memory feels small and precious, somehow, something fragile that might just break if she tries to transfer it to someone else's hands, no matter how careful.

"It'll be weird," she says instead, "down here, you know?"

Monty nods. "Which is why we now begin making... the best moonshine known to man." He makes some fluttery flourishing motion with his hands at the back of the dropship, where he's gathered some buckets and a bunch of other mismatched equipment that, apparently, will translate into hard liquor.

"Cocky."

A decently in-shape radiator off the dropship is apparently Monty's brewing distillation equipment of choice, and when Amery finishes giving him shit about it, he starts her on mashing grain. She sits cross-legged on the far side of the ship, using a rock to crush kernels after shucking them off their fuzzy stalks.

"You just wanted to 'show me how' to do this so I'd be your personal preparer of... what is this?"

"Barley."

Amery turns her head into her shoulder to sneeze. "Personal preparer of barley."

"That's not true," Monty says defensively, but the smile creeping across his face makes the defensive tone of voice laughably ineffective. "I'm using you for the rye too." Amery throws a nearby pebble weakly in Monty's direction and laughs out loud when it makes him squeak and jerk out of the way. With the trajectory it had been on, it wouldn't have even hit him.

"I'll sneeze in your moonshine."

"You won't, or I'll put pollen on your blanket."

Amery gapes at him and throws another pebble. "You're a cruel man." Monty grins, looking past Amery to the girl approaching them from behind.

"Monroe," he calls happily. "Where's Harper?"

"Helping with the meat we just brought in, which means I get a break." Zoe plops down next to Amery and inhales. "Shit, that's strong."

"Hell yeah it is." Monty puffs out his chest self-importantly.

"Hi. Miller's looking for you," Zoe says, addressing Amery. She and Miller were supposed to have a training session today, but in the chaos of the Grounder escaping and the subsequent promise of gun training, she assumed he'd be pulled away to do... she doesn't really know what, actually. Vague camp security measures, firing at innocent trees, the like.

She glances up at Monty, who waves her off. "Go. I'll make Monroe be the personal preparer of barley."

Zoe's nose wrinkles as she raises a brow at the bucket and rock currently serving as mortar and pestle. "Great."

✧✧✧

Her knuckles are white around the hilt of the knife, bone pressing against skin, every nerve shot through with doubt, with fear. It's a pathetically small knife, really, but she's got small hands, and Miller keeps saying balance like he's some all-knowing master of close combat.

"It's not hurting you," Miller tells her. He taps the blunt side of the dagger. "Pointy end is facing away. That's good news."

"I know," Amery says defensively. It's just that the last time she held a knife, she was facing a Grounder, and she had no idea what to do and then Cash almost died. The fear, she thinks, is valid.

"In a knife fight," Miller says, "your main goal is to make the other person drop the knife. You want to disable whatever arm they're using to hold the weapon. It'll make the rest of it easier on you."

"And they'll be trying to do the same thing." Amery frowns as Miller clicks his tongue in approval.

"Don't let them."

Miller brandishes a stick, and Amery isn't sure whether she should be relieved or offended. She lashes out with the blade in Miller's direction and Miller claps the stick against her forearm, then shakes his head. "Knife arm never goes out all the way," he says. "Leaves your arm—your wrist, especially—too vulnerable." He puts a hand on her elbow and guides it to about a 45-degree angle. "Keep it here." He looks pointedly at Amery's other hand, which has no idea what to do at her side and has been rotating through her pocket, a fist, and anxious tapping fingers. "You'll want to use your free hand to block. Don't."

"Any dos, or is this all just what not to do?"

"Do disarm." Miller smirks.

The next hour or so is an exhausting blend of jabs and swipes, defensive maneuvers and Miller saying things like on your toes or step back first or exposed forearms. Amery only gets close to disarming him once, quickly darting to press her blade against the inside of Miller's wrist when he gets close to her side with his stick.

A tumble of campers running past, whooping and stumbling, yanks Amery's attention from Miller.

"Oi!" Kip calls as he rushes by, drink in hand. Whatever it is sloshes over the side of the tin cup as he moves. "It's Unity Day! Get your asses in gear!"

"We're the only ones getting our asses in gear," Miller calls back without skipping a beat, but he's grinning. He glances at Amery and lets his hand fall from her arm. "Call it a day?"

Amery gestures helplessly at her face, which is probably as red as her hair by now, in a silent I can't even breathe agreement. "Yeah," she rasps, and Miller all but cackles. She jabs him with an elbow and he tosses Amery her jacket from the ground, calling for Kip to wait up.

The camp is alive, the peak of the day, with fires scattered throughout and the sounds of chatter and arguing permeating the damp forest heat. Most people mill around near the dropship, and Amery picks out Raven's red jacket through the mess of kids. She's bent over a screen, flickering but functional. Ah. The Unity Day broadcast.

Amery weaves through the crowd until she reaches Raven, clapping her lightly on the shoulder as she says in the flattest voice she can muster, "How exciting."

"Thrilling," Raven bites back without looking. The screen scrambles its pixels around momentarily, and then Jaha appears in all his self-important glory. Amery turns away and rolls her eyes. "There we go," Raven says, patting the top of the comms apparatus firmly. "Now stay."

More of the campers have now congregated around the screen, eyeing Jaha with varying expressions of familiarity or distrust.

"My friends," his voice filters through, static-laced and irritating. "This is an historic Unity Day. Every year we mark the moment our ancestors of the 12 stations..." Amery tunes out. She knows this by heart—they all do. Coming together and overcoming adversity, all that jazz.

There's one difference in his little speech this year, though.

"Next year," he announces, glancing around the room on the Ark at his captive audience. "On the Ground."

"Right," Miller grumbles. On the other side of a few campers Amery doesn't know, he stands brooding with his hands in his pockets, beanie tugged back over his head. "After we did all the work." He turns and gestures vaguely at those surrounding him. "Someone shut him up."

Amery is inclined to agree. But Raven claps back, "You shut up, Miller. No one's forcing you to watch." Raven glances at him disdainfully but then turns her attention back to the screen. Amery smothers a frown.

Miller shuts up.

After Jaha drones on for a while and a large number of campers have wandered away in favor of more interesting pursuits, like wrestling with each other and yelling, Raven finally tears her gaze from the screen. Amery follows her gaze to where Clarke and Finn stand on the ramp of the dropship, heads bent together in conversation. Amery doesn't bother to hide the expression of disgust she levels Finn's way, not that he deigns to notice.

"You look happy," Amery says to pull her friend's attention away. Finn's a piece of shit, and he doesn't deserve the way Raven looks at him.

Raven turns to face Amery as Clarke makes her way down the ramp, leaving Finn behind. Her tight expression twists into a teasing grin. "Gross. You're sweaty. Hell have you been doing?"

"Today Miller tried to teach me to use a knife," Amery says flatly. Raven cocks a brow. "Key word tried."

"Give yourself some credit," Raven says, slinging an arm around Amery. "You'll figure it out. You're good at that. Figuring shit out."

"Learned from the best."

"Me? I know."

"Oh, no," Amery says, making deliberate eye contact. Feigning innocence, she says in all seriousness, "Kyle."

"Oh, shut the fuck up," Raven laughs, shoving her away. Amery cracks a grin to match her friend's.

It's unity enough for her.

She leans into Sinclair's side, watching the kids prance around, listening to the stilted lines of memorized dialogue and picturing herself, young and innocent and with a father and a best friend. How fast things change around here.

Across the space, a man opens his arms for a young boy as the ceremony comes to a close, laughing as he wraps him in his arms and pulls him off the ground, spinning his son in a circle. Sinclair tenses and grief and guilt wrap themselves around Amery's insides and burrow into her bones.

"I miss him," she murmurs.

"Me too, kid," Sinclair sighs. "Me too." He glances down at her, ruffles her hair a little. "But you and me, we got each other." His smile is simultaneously gut-wrenching and soothing. "Unity enough for today, huh?"

"Yeah," Amery whispers, the sound drowned in the applause of the crowd scattered around the edges of the room. "For today."

A loud whoop has Amery turning to find Jasper holding a massive vat, goggles obscuring his face and steam pluming around him. "Yeah!" he screams, holding the vat up in the air. "Monty strikes again!" He emerges from between the trees where a few tents, including his, are pitched. The older batch of moonshine must be in their own tent, which Amery thinks is an incredibly stupid move, but at least they're using goggles.

Jasper tugs the goggles up to his forehead, grinning widely. "Hey!" He runs down the slight decline and into the crowd of eager campers. "Call this batch unity juice! Who's thirsty?"

For a moment, Jasper Jordan is their savior.

Amery laughs out loud, glancing toward the tent Jasper emerged from. She's not dumb enough to walk into an enclosed moonshine-brewing space without a pair of goggles, so she shoves through the crowd and yanks Jasper's off his head.

"Hey!" he cries, but eases up when he turns to find Amery already bounding away. "Rude to take a guy's goggles!" But the crowd swallows him and his vat of moonshine, and Amery slides the massive goggles over her face as she squeezes through campers and find the trees Monty's tent is pitched near.

The steam envelopes her as soon as she steps inside, eliciting a round of harsh coughing.

"You're hotboxing a tent?" Amery gets out, waving her arm harshly in front of her to clear the steam away. "A very flammable tent."

The goggles take up half Monty's face, but she can imagine his eyes crinkling behind them as he grins. "Hey, Red." Amery sits down cross-legged beside him and takes in the sheer amount of supplies.

"All this for moonshine," she says. Monty nods like moonshine is the key ingredient to survival on the Ground. She remembers the way everyone's faces lit up when Jasper appeared with the booze, and thinks maybe it actually is.

"Thanks to my personal preparer of barley," Monty decrees.

Amery elbows him in the ribs. "Doesn't moonshine take like, seven years and a thunderstorm cult ritual to brew?" she teases. "This batch isn't my barley."

"Two cult rituals, actually." Monty doesn't miss a beat. "And you're right, this is an earlier batch. But yours will be the best. I feel it." He pumps a fist as he says it in some stupid display of misplaced barley-mashing spirit. She laughs.

Maybe it's the steam, maybe it's the overpowering smell of the moonshine, maybe it's the small square footage of the tent itself, but Amery is suddenly aware of how incredibly close she is to Monty Green. He looks at her, obscured by the goggles, his hair a mess among the tendrils of hot air curling through the space. She reaches up and ruffles it playfully.

She imagines kissing him.

She doesn't think it would work with the goggles.

"Holy shit." Amery turns to find Keaton waving his arm frantically at the entrance of the tent, trying to find a path through the steam. "Green, you have a whole distillery."

"Only the best." Monty grins and pulls up his goggles. His eyes begin watering almost immediately, and Amery swats him on the shoulder and pulls his goggles back down. Keaton watches the whole exchange with a wry, knowing grin that Amery wants to slap off his face.

"What's up?" she prompts, and Keaton holds up a thermos.

"Gonna bring some of this to Cash. Join me?"

Amery squeezes Monty's hand and then stands, picking her way across pushed-aside sleeping bags. "Wait, Cash lives—where even is he? This is his tent too, right?"

"Yeah, but now it's a moonshine factory," Keaton drawls, and Monty grins shamelessly.

"Cash hasn't been in here for like, three days."

"What?" Amery starts. She almost worries, but Monty and Keaton are too calm about this to warrant it. "What do you—"

"He's in my tent," Keaton rolls his eyes. Ah. Now it's Amery's turn to smirk, wide and teasing. "C'mon."

✧✧✧

"My saviors," Cash cries dramatically, pressing the back of his hand to his forehead in a very false swoon. "Killers of darkness. Slayers of demons. Bringers of alcohol."

"You're an idiot," Keaton says, grinning. Cash sticks his tongue out.

Cash has always been a ball of uncontained energy, and now said energy is practically buzzing in the confines of the tent. Forced to rest and actually obey Clarke's orders, he looks like he's losing it. His hands don't stay still for a single second, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck or run through his hair or fiddle with the edges of the bandages peeking through the collar of his dark green shirt.

If Amery offered to race him around the camp boundary right now, she has no doubt he'd be on his feet in seconds. She also has no doubt that Keaton would push him right back onto the mess of sleeping bags, which is why she doesn't ask.

She shakes the thermos full of moonshine like it's a prize, but then frowns a little. Are people who recently got stabbed by Grounders supposed to get drunk? "Should you be—"

"Nah, give me that shit," Cash insists, sitting up and immediately wincing at the movement. Amery doesn't miss the way Keaton's hand instinctively darts to the small of Cash's back, remaining there in support until he's steady.

Amery hands over the thermos, and she's not sure if the moonshine is so potent that she can smell it from across the tent or if the scent has just embedded itself in her nostrils from her time in Monty's makeshift distillery. She rubs the bridge of her nose as if it'll help.

"This is—Jesus," Cash coughs after taking a swig from the thermos, wiping his mouth with the back of his mind. "Good shit, Ginger Ale."

Keaton grabs the thermos from Cash and drinks as well. "You sure you don't wanna brew this stuff full-time?" he asks. Amery rolls her eyes.

"I didn't even help with this one. You can taste Amery moonshine in two weeks."

"That's years away," Cash whines.

"No, it's two weeks away." Amery grins, sitting across from the boys on Miller's sleeping bag. "Dumbass." Keaton's tent is pitched a little farther from the main hub of the camp, and the effect muffles the sounds of the partying outside like a blanket. Amery doesn't mind the break, the solitude of it even when the boys are here.

Then Jasper appears between the tent flaps, letting in a brief flood of disembodied noise from the celebration, looking victorious when he spots Amery crossed-legged on a red sleeping bag.

"M'lady, I believe you have something of mine?" he asks, extending a hand and looking pointedly at the goggles now resting on Amery's head. She'd forgotten they were there, and as she pulls them off she feels briefly off-kilter without the weight of them.

"And here I thought I was being a good thief." She hands them back and Jasper bows dramatically before backing out of the tent and nearly tripping over himself. Amery wonders how much moonshine he's had already.

"Why'd you have Jasper's goggles?" Cash's brows pinch together and Keaton grins.

"Don't," Amery warns, but Keaton has never and will not listen to her if the alternative is embarrassing her in front of a friend. She flips him off preemptively.

Keaton wiggles his eyebrows and says, "For more quality Monty Green time." Cash nods as if expecting this answer and returns to his moonshine.

"I feel like I keep interrupting you while you're about to finally get over yourself and make a move on Monty," Keaton says bluntly, and Amery nearly chokes on air.

"I'm—we're—" She is rarely speechless, but Keaton has gotten her there. He smirks as heat rises to Amery's cheeks, because she can't deny it. "We're taking it slow," she finally says, and Keaton laughs.

"Take it faster. We could die any day now."

"Oh, that's reassuring." Amery glares. "This is why I don't come to you for relationship advice."

She hangs out in the tent for a while, just her and Keaton and Cash, and thinks she hasn't laughed this much in a long time. As the night goes on and the hollers outside become more slurred, Keaton and Cash get a little more tipsy and exhaustion starts to weigh on Amery like a wool blanket.

"I'm gonna check on Harper and Zoe," she tells the boys, wondering if her tentmates are currently wasted out of their minds, and if they are whether she should let them be or herd them back to the tent to sleep.

"I love you," Cash says loudly, saluting Amery from where he's now sprawled out on the ground, head on Keaton's legs. "You are. Like. Epic."

"I love you too," Amery snorts. She leans down and pats him on the head. "Be responsible," she teases, ruffling Keaton's hair.

"No," he says, and he doesn't mean it, and Amery leaves them to their own devices in Keaton's tent, moonshine-tipsy and being a little too touchy with each other.

She thinks of Kip. But she doesn't say anything—it's not her place, and she doesn't know how she'd bring that up, anyway. Hey, while Kip thought blueberries were taking over the world he was really worried about you and told me he's in love with you.

Nope. That's not going to be her problem.

The party rages outside like nothing Amery's ever seen before, far more unruly and loud than they were ever allowed to be on the Ark. Even as an observer, probably one of the sole sober people in the camp, there's a freedom in it she's unaccustomed to. She likes it.

Harper and Zoe are nowhere in sight, and neither is Monty, so Amery finds a perch on the edge of the dropship ramp, content to watch for a while.

It turns out, though, that she's not the only sober one. Clarke strides over and sighs, looking out over the camp. "Not a partier?" she asks.

"I like to be in control of myself," Amery replies, and it's the truth. Clarke glances at the open space beside her, a question, and Amery pats it. An invitation.

Amery lets her head fall back against the ship's outer wall. Sitting beside Clarke, it's like her bone-deep exhaustion seeps right into Amery by proxy.

She and Bellamy seem at odds with one another in every way, but somehow their clashing leadership styles make the camp actually... work. Everything functions, and the wall with the gunners and the food system and the fires have all woven together into something that, honestly, Amery is very impressed with.

It's not a place she'd be ashamed to call her home.

She underestimated Clarke Griffin, that first day. So maybe she snaps at people sometimes, yells a little too loud, sticks with her gut instinct no matter who argues against it. She's taken this group of hopeless kids and, with Bellamy, organized them into something vaguely resembling a community. A very warped community, rife with brawling and arguing and issues, but a community all the same.

"You're good at this, you know," Amery tells Clarke, gesturing vaguely to the camp at large. Clarke just sighs, leaning back in a mimicry of Amery's position.

"I don't think that'll matter much longer." Clarke's voice isn't full of dread, or even impatience, anger, any sort of nerves. It just sounds sort of... resigned. Defeated with the weight of an impending Grounder attack looming over the tree line, with the lives of a bunch of inexperienced ex-prisoners depending on her.

Across the camp, a guy with a buzz cut shouts at a taller girl with a stick of meat in hand. The confrontation quickly devolves into the two of them brawling over the food, and neither of them notice when Fox slips out of the shadows and catches it just before it falls to the ground. The two keep throwing punches and insults at one another, Fox and the food slinking away before they can even get a good strike in.

Amery snorts, and to her surprise, Clarke laughs too—more of a huff, but vaguely amused all the same, nothing like the take-charge girl who on the first day would have stormed over to the kids fighting and told them off for wasting time and resources.

She should be worried, maybe, but Clarke is right. War is coming, and there's nothing they can do about it. Amery looks down to her side—she's got a good three inches on Clarke—just in time to see a humorless smile warped by the flickering firelight shadows.

Clarke sighs as the quarrel over the food devolves into a full-on brawl. "So much for unity."

Across the camp, Bellamy turns and catches Clarke's eye. He cocks an eyebrow, tossing an apple from hand to hand, and Clarke smiles a little.

"I think someone wants to talk to you." It's beyond Amery why Clarke bothers with Finn when Bellamy is so clearly right there.

"You don't mind?"

"Go," Amery moves her hands in a shoo motion, not unkindly, and grins. She catches sight of Harper near one of the tables. "I got places to be too." It's true—she hasn't seen Raven in a while. Or Octavia, come to think of it. Or Finn.

Before Amery can start taking attendance, Harper appears out of nowhere, laughing in the uneven way that means she's reached at least a mind-numbing level of intoxication. "Come dance!" she yells, and she grabs Amery's hands and yanks her into the crowd. Someone has made makeshift bongos, and they tap out a beat that seems to echo back from the expanse of forest around the camp. Zoe appears beside them, and Amery's not drunk but she thinks she kind of feels like it, dancing under the moon with her laughing, singing friends and somehow ending up in a heap on the grass and dirt, smothering their cackles in each other's clothing.

Little things go wrong—the comms died at some point, Amery's ankle pangs a little once in a while like a reminder that the Grounders are still out there, the occasional fight breaks out somewhere over something stupid—but she doesn't really care.

Life on the Ground is not easy, and it won't be. But right now, she thinks, letting Zoe pull her and Harper to their feet, it feels pretty damn good.

✧✧✧

She's dreaming of leaves falling when someone shakes her awake.

"The fuck?" The world is bleary and muffled and she wants to shut it out again. The dream is slipping away already, blurs of orange and red and green that fade the more she tries to hold them.

Keaton's face comes into focus, finger pressed over his lips. Quiet. Oh. Oops.

At some point Amery, Harper, and Zoe stumbled back to their tent in various states of tipsy and sleep-deprived, and she was out the moment her head hit the sleeping bag. The party still rages outside, firelight filtering in through the canvas of the tent. It can't have been three hours, even, since she closed her eyes.

"They're meeting with the Grounders," Keaton hisses, low and urgent, and every ounce of exhaustion is zapped from Amery's veins. She shoots up and gestures frantically for Keaton to get out of the tent, then picks her way through Zoe and Harper's unmoving limbs. Zoe snores, though she argues with anyone who points it out, and the soft sounds of it follow Keaton and Amery through the tent flaps.

"What the fuck do you mean meeting with the Grounders?" Amery demands, and Keaton runs a palm down his face, looking exhausted.

"I mean Bellamy came to me and said fucking Finn somehow set up a meeting with them. For like, peace talks."

"Peace talks? With the—are they insane?" Amery cries, then winces at the volume of it and herds Keaton farther away from the tent. "Why did Bellamy come to you?"

Keaton winces, scratches the back of his neck. "I'm supposed to follow. Secretly." He swallows. "As a gunner. They needed a replacement since Cash... y'know. I mean, better me than him. I guess."

Amery's mouth opens and closes fruitlessly. This is bad. This is so bad. She recalls her conversation with Clarke, earlier. So much for unity. Is this her trying to build peace? To make unity before the Guard comes down on the Exodus ship and destroys it?

"I know, I... I wasn't supposed to tell you. But." Keaton shrugs. "I'm not keeping secrets from you, Mer."

Her exhale is shaky. "I... appreciate that."

"Bellamy isn't supposed to know either, actually." Keaton shifts on his feet, and Amery feels her brow knit together in confusion. "Look. Finn set up the meeting and told Clarke. It's just supposed to be their leader and ours—Clarke, I guess, pointedly not Bellamy—and no arms. No guns. No... no weapons."

"That's crazy," Amery breathes. She imagines the Grounder from the woods, helmet of bone, glinting blade in hand, and then Finn standing in front with his arms in the air, defenseless. He wouldn't stand a chance.

We don't stand a chance.

"I know. Clarke thought so too," Keaton sighs. "So she asked Bellamy to follow as backup."

"With weapons. That we aren't supposed to have."

"Yeah," Keaton huffs. "Oh, man. This is sounding worse when I say it out loud."

"No shit," Amery barks out. She closes her eyes, makes herself breathe. "Sorry. I'm not mad at you. It's—thank you for telling me."

She wants to say she's coming with him.

But if she doesn't say it, he can't prevent it.

She keeps her mouth shut.

"Be careful," she demands. "If shit goes down, just—promise you'll run. Okay?"

Keaton hesitates. There's something in him so much like his father, something wired to protect and defend before anything else, and Amery isn't sure what will win out: the desire to protect his friends from the Grounders or Amery's pleas that he come back in one piece.

She has an inkling, though.

"Keaton."

"Okay," he sighs. Amery knows Keaton down to the bone. The corner of his mouth pinches, tilts downward. He's lying.

"Okay," she echoes, and Keaton pulls her into a tight hug. She buries her face in his shoulder, breathing in the pine scent clinging to his clothes, the dirt and sweat and hints of metal.

"I'll be back soon. Love you."

"Love you," Amery says as he pulls away.

As soon as he leaves her line of sight, she goes to find Monty.

He's not in his tent, but a cursory glance of the camp reveals him standing near the vats of moonshine, talking animatedly with Fox. His smile is bright even in the dimness of whatever unholy morning hour this is, and Amery doesn't realize she's been smiling until Monty catches her eye and smiles back.

She makes her way over to them and Fox calls out, "Amery!"

"Hey, Fox," she says, trying not to jump when Fox slings an arm around her shoulder affectionately. "How's... uh, unity?"

"Unifying," Fox nods seriously. Amery kind of feels like she should tell Fox to go to sleep or something, but she doesn't actually know how young Fox is, and Amery doesn't have any real authority here.

Instead, she asks Monty, "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

Fox takes her cue to bound away, immediately striking up conversation with a group of other slightly younger campers. Monty's brows furrow a little, lines from the goggles imprinted around his face. Amery has the sudden urge to reach out and trace her finger along them like tracks. She refrains.

"What's up?"

Amery tugs Monty around the back of the dropship for some semblance of privacy. "They're meeting the Grounders."

"What?" Monty's face goes slack, and for a long moment his mouth just moves in wordless shapes, trying to make sense of the information. "They—who? What? Why?"

The expressions flickering across Monty's face are varied and readable as Amery tells him exactly what Keaton relayed to her, and for a moment she envies him. He isn't shy about his emotions the way she is. He lets them play across his features like words on a page, dark eyes pooling with worry, lips parting slightly in confusion.

Eventually his expression settles on determined, his jaw set and his brows straight. "We're following them, right?" he asks. Amery smiles, because she thought she might have to convince him. But Jasper is going, and he may as well be Monty's brother. There's no universe in which Keaton and Jasper slink off into the woods to meet the enemy without them.

"When are they leaving?" Monty whispers as they round the dropship, edging around the trees at the camp boundary and surveying the scene. Just in time to watch Bellamy, Raven, Keaton, and Jasper slip through the gate.

Amery looks up at Monty and shoves a hand into her pocket, finding the leaf there. She swallows once, hard. "Now."

✧✧✧

a/n:

i'm back! sorry that took so long. fall semester wiped me OUT. but spring should be lighter and then i'll graduate and all will be well (and also horrible because now i have to figure my life out)

thank y'all SO MUCH for 10k! that means the world to me. i love amery and her story and i am THRILLED that you do too!

some background that lewis probably wouldn't know enough about to talk about: amery's ancestors are mostly dutch, so i imagine they at some point migrated to the UK and wound up on the UK station of the ark. couldn't find which station they actually corresponded to, though the UK was definitely one of the countries. and then at some point her family switched over to mecha (which has a brazilian flag on its hull and was likely salvaged from the original brazilian station) for work purposes. went down a fandomwiki rabbit hole for this one.

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