19 • making peace

Bellamy and Theo give me all the feels.

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We followed behind Clarke and Finn, making sure to not get too close. Bellamy had informed us that Finn wasn't to know that we were trailing them, because Bellamy wasn't even supposed to know that they were going.

Finn had this idea that we could make peace with the Grounders and that they weren't going to attempt to kill Clarke and himself as soon as they were in range. I, myself, was a little sceptical.

Bellamy leaned down and picked up a handful of the nuts which had caused our hallucinations. "At least they're good for something," he claimed.

Clarke was dropping handfuls of them as she went so that we knew where we were going. It was a good idea, because that meant we could follow at a good distance and still not lose track of them.

"Sorry about bringing up Clarke earlier," Jasper said to Bellamy and Raven. I could only assume it was directed at them, because I had no idea what he was talking about. "That was awkward."

"Shut up," Raven said to him.

Bellamy stood up, looking around with his torch, "Both of you shut up. Keep your eyes open."
We all let him lead the way, searching for more of the nuts left by Clarke.

He hadn't spoken to me since we left the camp and I hadn't spoken to him. It was awkward, sure, but I had no idea what to say to him.

By morning, we reached a bridge. Bellamy, Raven, Jasper and I didn't go on to it however. We made our way to a point a few metres from beneath the bridge where we could still see the bridge and were in range to fire our guns if need be.

"What's Octavia doing here?" Jasper asked, looking up at the bridge. We all looked to where he was looking, to see her standing on one end. Running from the other was a tall figure, who I recognised to be Lincoln. Bellamy tensed as his sister ran into his arms and Jasper frowned sadly.

I put an arm around him, "Sorry, Jasper."

"I guess we know how he got away," Raven whispered.

Bellamy whipped around and glared at me, "Did you know?"

I shook my head quickly, but didn't verbally say anything, worried that I would just make things worse. Not that they could possibly get any worse. He clamped his mouth shut as he pulled his gun around his body, aiming it at Lincoln.

Before he could shoot, Raven was stepping forward. "Wait, look," she pointed to the other end of the bridge where Grounders riding horses were approaching from.

We watched the interaction take place, having to fill things in for ourselves. As Clarke walked forward, Finn went to follow only to be stopped by Lincoln.

Clarke went alone to meet with the Grounder who had climbed off of their horse. They met halfway and began to talk. We weren't able to hear anything they were saying from where we were standing, unfortunately. From what we could see, the talk didn't seem to be going all too well.

"Grounder princess looks pissed," Raven said, as if knowing what I was thinking.

"Our princess has that effect," Bellamy pointed out.

I lifted my gun in front of me, "If this conversation keeps going in the direction it looks like it's going, we need to be ready."

I noticed Jasper taking aim all of a sudden, but his gun wasn't pointed at the bridge. "Oh, no. No. This is bad."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Bellamy lowered his gun to address the boy.

Jasper was peering through his scope again, looking at a few different places that weren't the bridge. "There's Grounders in the trees."

Raven, Bellamy and I all lifted our weapons, beginning to examine the tree tops with our scopes.

"Are you sure?" Raven asked him.

Bellamy was still looking through his scope, "I don't see anything."

Just as I spotted one, Jasper spoke louder, "They're gonna shoot!" He lowered his gun and shouted loudly to our friend, "Clarke, run! Run!"

He left the cover of the trees and began to shoot at the Grounders who were about to try to kill Clarke.

Then Bellamy fired off a shot, hitting the 'Grounder princess' in the shoulder. Peering through my scope, I saw her drop a knife. She was going to kill Clarke. So much for making peace.

Running out from the trees, we all went to help Jasper. The Grounders began to retaliate, spears and arrows firing in our direction.

As Clarke and Finn got out of there, Raven yelled at us all to leave also. Following her lead, we fired our guns as we retreated. We met with Clarke, Finn and Octavia nearby the bridge and we all ran back to camp together without looking back.

✦✦✦✦✦

We didn't stop running until we reached the gate, all of us panting in exhaustion.

Stopping to catch our breath, we all stood in a circle. After a moment Bellamy straightened, staring at Finn. "You got something to say?"

"Yeah," Finn glared at him, before turning on Clarke, "I told you no guns!"

"Are you for real?" I scoffed. "I'm sorry, Finn, but if we hadn't brought those guns, you guys would be dead!"

Clarke nodded in agreement, "I told you we couldn't trust the Grounders. I was right."

Then it was Raven's turn to yell apparently, as she looked at her boyfriend. "Why didn't you tell me what you were up to?"

Finn was quick to respond, "I tried, but you were too busy making bullets for your gun."

"You're lucky she brought that!" Bellamy stepped in, defending Raven's actions. "Like Sutton said, they came here to kill you, Finn."

"You don't know that," Finn shouted. He looked so emotional, like it was hurting him to admit that we were right. "Jasper fired the first shot!"

Jasper looked up from the ground, his eyes mirroring guilt.

"You did nothing wrong," I whispered to him.
He half nodded, letting me know that he had heard me. I doubted he believed me, though.

"You ruined everything," Octavia said suddenly. At first I wasn't sure who she was talking to, but then I saw her eyes on Jasper. There was no way she was actually blaming him?

"I saved you!" Jasper yelled as she walked away. "You're welcome," he mumbled as he walked off.

"Why didn't you defend him? He saved your ass," I said to Clarke. I looked to Bellamy, but he said nothing. Shaking my head I ran after my friend, "Jasper! Jasper, just wait."

"No, Theo," he kept walking. "Please, just leave me alone."

Grabbing his arm, I forced him to stop. "J, please don't do this. Don't blame yourself because of her. Octavia is a mess right now. You saved them, you did the right thing."

His gaze fell to the ground, "If I did the right thing, then how come I feel like shit?"

That was a fair question. I wanted to help, to make him feel better, but I didn't want to lie. So instead, I decided just to say nothing. I didn't know what answer I could give to that question anyway.

He went to walk off on me again, when a loud explosion sounded in the distance.

✦✦✦✦✦

The noise we had heard had been the sound of the first shuttle coming to the ground. But it didn't exactly go as planned. It was moving too fast and they didn't use a parachute; resulting in the shuttle crashing to the ground.

Clarke had come running into the camp to gather a team together, Bellamy not far behind her. When they told us what had happened, we immediately grabbed our supplies and headed out.

In the end we had Clarke, Bellamy, Finn, Raven, Carter, some of Bellamy's boys, and myself. Octavia was still pouting about Lincoln, and Jasper was still recovering from the trip we'd just gotten back from, so they both stayed behind.

We had taken one rest stop during the night, but not for too long. Clarke wanted to get out there as soon as possible to check for survivors. She believed that her mother was supposed to be on the first ship, so no one questioned when she rushed us.

We were now all searching the wreckage, combing it carefully to make sure we didn't miss anything. It was horribly disastrous.

The shuttle had been completely destroyed, pieces of it everywhere. There were even some small fires still burning. And then right at the crash site, the trees right where it landed had been burned to a crisp. The ones surrounding it were blown down, their trunks all bent in an outwards direction.

We were just lucky there wasn't a Grounder village here or something. They were already pissed off at us, we couldn't risk pushing our luck further.

"Clarke, we shouldn't be out here," Finn called from where he was searching.

Raven looked at her boyfriend, still annoyed that he had trusted Clarke before he had trusted her, "Her mum was on the ship. She's looking for answers. You want to help her, find me the black box, hard drives, anything that will explain why the ship crashed."

"Stay sharp," Bellamy told us all, gun ready in his hands. "Grounder retaliation for what happened on the bridge is coming, just a matter of when."

Finn shrugged, "Can you blame them?"

"No. I blame you."

I had to agree with Bellamy on this one. Finn was being really ignorant when it came to the Grounders. Why couldn't he see they weren't here to play friendly?

Finn immediately became defensive, "Maybe if you didn't bring guns-"

Surprisingly, it was Raven who was the one to cut him off. "If we didn't bring guns, we all would've been killed."

Finn was just as surprised, staring at Raven in confusion as he stayed quiet.

Readjusting the gun, Bellamy changed the topic, "Why they're coming doesn't matter anymore. It's our job to be ready when they do. We're on our own now."

Kicking a piece of scrap metal, I glanced over at them, "Well, then maybe we should start by actually getting along. All of us. Being divided will just make us easier to pick off."

They all knew I had a point, but none of them were about to admit it. Bellamy looked at me in a way that only I understood. I spoke of working together, yet I had recently told him I had been going to kill him.

It didn't exactly make me sound convincing.

"Clarke, stop!" Raven shouted all of a sudden.

Glancing across the wreck, I saw Clarke standing beside an engine of some sort. "Rocket fuel?" She asked Raven.

"Hydrazine. . . highly unstable in its non-solid form. If this stuff meets fire, we're all pink mist."

As we all came closer to see what it was, Raven dipped a rock into it. Standing up straight she shouted, "Fire in the hole!"

The girl threw it at one of the wreckage fires and it instantly blew up, an explosion of fire bursting up from the ground.

"We need to clear the area," Raven instructed.

"Okay, then. We move in formation, no straggling, weapons hot. We've got to get back before dark," Bellamy told us all.

I guess we were leaving the rocket fuel behind for now. We all followed Bellamy, careful not to disrupt anything at the crash site that could kill us all.

✦✦✦✦✦

Arriving back at camp, we were immediately greeted with bad news. Apparently while we were gone, someone had heard movement in the woods surrounding us.

Shooting first and asking questions later, they fired at the noise. And of course, as luck would have it, it turned out to be Murphy.

As soon as Bellamy heard his name, he pushed past everyone until he was at the dropship. "Where is he?" he growled.

I was right behind him, my gun still in hand in case this interaction went down like the last time. Although, seeing Murphy, I doubted it would be like that. The boy was huddled up in the corner of the dropship. He was covered in cuts and bruises, blood dripping all over his face.

"Everyone but Carter and Derek out. . . now!" Bellamy yelled. Most of the people who I didn't really know left, while the rest lingered.

Derek stared down at Murphy and then over to Bellamy, "He claims he was with the Grounders. We caught him trying to sneak back into camp."

"I wasn't sneaking," Murphy corrected. If I hadn't known it was his voice, I probably wouldn't have known it was him speaking. With all the blood and dirt it was hard to even recognise him, let alone notice any facial movements.
"I was running from the Grounders."

"Anyone see Grounders?" Bellamy asked. His distrust towards Murphy was visible. After what happened the last time we saw him, I doubted that that was going to change any time soon.

When the boys shook their heads, Bellamy rose his gun and aimed it at Murphy, "Well, in that case-"

Finn pushed the gun down, standing in front of Bellamy. "Hey, what the hell is wrong with you?"

"We were clear what would happen if he came back." Bellamy took aim once more, but Finn just got in the way again.

"No. If he was with the Grounders, then he knows things that can help us."

"Help us? We hanged him. We banished him, and now we're gonna kill him. Get the hell out of my way."

Finn didn't move, and Clarke stepped up to defend him, "No. Finn is right."

"Like hell, he is."

"I'm kinda with Bellamy on this one, Clarke," I sighed in frustration. "After what he did the last time he was here, and everything we did to him, I'm really not sure we can trust him. I know if I were him, I wouldn't have forgiven us."

"Think about Charlotte," Bellamy added on.

Clarke was kneeling in front of Murphy, but turned to look at us. "I understand that, Theo. And I am thinking about her, but what happened to Charlotte was as much our fault as his."

Bellamy and I stayed quiet as Clarke began to examine the boy's hands. "He's not lying," she stated. "His fingernails were torn off. They tortured him."

"You and the Grounders should compare notes," Finn leaned over and said spitefully to Bellamy.

I felt myself cringe. That was a low blow, even for Finn.

"The Grounders know we're at war." Bellamy lowered his gun, and then turned to Murphy, "What did you tell them about us?"

Murphy gulped deeply, knowing the reaction he would get from his answer. But he said it anyway, "Everything."

Clarke stood up and walked over to us, her face full of concern. "Once he's better, we find out what he knows and then he's out of here, okay?"

I turned to Bellamy to try and get a read of how he was feeling about all this. He definitely wasn't impressed with the decision, but only voiced his concern when Clarke went to leave.
"What if he refuses to leave? What do we do with him then?"

Clarke hesitated at first, but she knew there was only one answer. "Then we kill him."

"So over this shit," I mumbled as I walked out and over to my tent.

Everyone was going about their daily business, doing their jobs that helped to keep the camp running. Even though it looked like a normal day, we were all really on edge waiting for the Grounders to attack. From what we knew about them, there was no way they weren't going to, it was just a matter of when.

For once, Octavia was in the tent before I was, laying on her bunk. She had a book with her and she was flipping through the pages.

Silently making my way over, I saw the pages over her shoulder. Drawings of Grounders, creatures, and one of Octavia.

"I'm assuming that's Lincoln's book?"

She jumped as she turned over, lifting a hand to her chest. "Dammit, Theo, you scared me."

"Sorry," I said as I sat on my bunk.

"Yeah, it was Lincoln's. He left it here."

We sat quietly for a moment, before I decided to discuss the matter at hand. "I'm sorry about what happened on the bridge."

She looked down at the book, biting her lip. "It's okay. He'll be fine. He always is."

"Even so, that didn't give you any right to talk to Jasper like that. He was just trying to protect you guys," I told her honestly. "You know he cares about you, Octavia."

"I know."
She almost looked ashamed as she met my gaze.

"Just don't break my best friend's heart, okay?"

She didn't reply at first, but eventually she simply nodded. She then continued to flip through the book.

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