Even Dust Was Made to Settle [the 100 - Bellamy Blake]

2: A Kind Lie

There was something about wide-open spaces that set Ginna on edge and left her with every hair on end, all her senses prickling, and her breathing shallow. It probably had something to do with spending a large portion of her childhood hiding in a storage closet of the Ark's library, reading books and hoping her mother hadn't noticed she'd snatched them from the shelves. Or maybe it was spending the last 18 months in a seven-by-ten jail cell. Or maybe it was growing up on the Ark in general, where the only wide-open space was space—and everyone knew that space was a most efficient executioner.

But the openness of Earth didn't seem to bother the rest of the hundred because once the excitement died down for the night, they just sort of collapsed in piles on the forest floor, uncaring and unafraid of what might await them in this new world they had been dropped into.

Ginna didn't even consider sleeping outside; sleep came hard enough as it was without trying to find out while laid out beneath the open sky. So she'd returned to the dropship, dragging a large piece that she'd cut from the parachute with her. There'd been a couple hooking up in the far corner of the first floor, but Ginna didn't have the energy to climb the ladder to the second ladder or kick them out. And there was a small part of her that almost didn't mind their presence; they made it difficult to feel too lonely.

When Ginna woke in the early morning, her muscles tense and her heart pounding, it was still dark outside the dropship, and the couple had fallen asleep, their soft breathing mingling with the sound of a slight breeze rustling the trees out in the forest. Before heading outside, she folded up her piece of parachute and tucked it behind a row of seats, promising herself that she'd find a better place to hide it later.

The morning air was cool and damp, and Ginna shoved her hands deep in the pockets of her jacket as she picket her way through the sleeping teenagers, looking for Nathan. She finally found him off towards the side of the clearing, sleeping alone beside a large rock. There was some sort of ground covering in that area that gave the forest floor a plush springyness that Ginna suspected was far more comfortable than the floor of the dropship had been. As quietly as she could, Ginna perched herself on the rock, bringing her knees up to her chest to conserve warmth while she waited for her friend to wake.

Nathan was a true early riser, always fresh and not one to wait a minute of the morning. Once upon a time, Ginna had been one of those people that could sleep until the afternoon, but she'd lost that ability, instead often awakening in the smothering hours of almost-dawn still exhausted but unable to find rest. Predictably, once the sky had lightened to the dusty purple of a week-old bruise, Nathan began to stir beside her, shuffling and groaning as his senses returned to him.

"Morning, sunshine," she whispered, keeping her voice low so as not to disturb anyone else.

"Hey," he said fondly as he looked up at her from his position on the ground. His voice was deep and gravelly with sleep, but the softness in his sleepy expression was boyish.

She couldn't help but remember when they had been children, and she would spend the night at his apartment. They would pool their meager supply of blankets and pillows to build a nest on the living room floor. Nathan would always wake up first, immediately proceeding to poke and prod Ginna until she joined him. Oh how times had changed.

Nathan picked himself up from the ground and nudged Ginna over slightly on the rock so he could sit beside her.

"Everyone called him Young Kip, but I didn't know his real name until after it all happened."

Ginna froze at his words. Nathan was talking about him. Of course, she knew his real name. It had been Tony Kipper, not that it mattered. He was dead now, anyway.