Taming Chaos // J.M // The 100

Chapter 75

Proving the noise wasn't something they imagined - a side effect of seeing the same four walls for months - they turn their attention towards the sea.

Ethan notices the light first, has to shade his eyes from the torment. It's a boat, a large one at that, pulling into shore.

Jaha moves out from the trees with Gideon in tow, their bags packed.

"Great, we got company." He curls his lip, feeling a stiffness in his limbs that wasn't there before.

Seeing Jaha only serves as a hurtful reminder. Ethan survived his own personal hell in lock up, but what for? Just so the reason he didn't take the chip could ignore him?

Murphy looks up and over, "You're leaving, huh?"

Jaha gestures toward them. "So are you."

"Fuck you." Ethan challenges.

Swiping a hand across his nose, Murphy casually refuses, "Not with you I'm not."

At least that was something they agreed on.

Ethan sprawls across another sunken boat nearby, and levers back against it until he feels the satisfying crack. 

He's tired of speaking up and getting shut down.

He's just tired, in general.

"I'm sorry we kept you in the bunker, John. Is that what you want to hear?" Jaha says, eyes dark and searching for buttons to push. "But the truth is I already knew you were safe. And with all the things that we had to do, I needed the time."

"What I wanna hear is why you're lying through your fucking teeth." Ethan snaps, shoving away from the boat and-

Gideon stops him.

Ethan backs off, hands up in mock surrender.

What he doesn't catch past Gideon's shoulder is Murphy flinching forward, his eyes wide.

"We converted a nuclear warhead into a power source." Jaha continues.

Murphy settles back down.

"With the added power, ALIE completed the work she began with her creator 100 years ago."

Ethan scrubs recently calloused hands against tired eyes, then cups them over his ears to block Jaha out. It was like playing a song one too many times. As soon as you heard the first beat you were scrambling to turn it off.

Jaha didn't have a button to press, unfortunately.

"Whatever, okay. I'm still leaving this place in the rowboat." Murphy smacks the wood to get his point across.

"I need you, John. And I need Ethan too."

A beat of silence. His eyes fall, "Of course you do." Shrugging an arm out to sea, "More food for the sea monster, right?"

The boat trip built on faith was so long ago, but it still feels so raw. The difference between then and now, after the lunatic locked them away in separate captivity, is scarring.

And wasn't that just reminiscent of the Ark?

Jaha breathes out sharply, pulling the chip from his pocket. "Let me prove to you what we can do."

"Listen to me, I've seen what she can do."

"No, you haven't. Not even close."

Ethan rolls his eyes, ducking from Gideon's reaching hand to saunter across the sand, "I had to put up with this bullshit for forty days, if I have to hear it again-"