Fallout [The 100]

26

Mr. Carpenter gave me his handkerchief, then left to make tea while I tried to stop crying. When the tears finally stopped, I didn't feel sad or even angry. I just felt numb, like someone had removed everything in the center of my body and I was sort of just floating there. The Librarian returned with two mugs and handed me one. "Thanks," I mumbled.

He sat down across from me. "Now, Maia. Tell me everything."

"I don't even know where to start," I admitted. "There's so much I've never told you."

"Then start at the beginning," he suggested. So I did. I explained how I'd gotten confined, why I started stealing in the first place. I told him about Bellamy, and everything I'd been through since reaching the ground. Finally I finished with the past few weeks, how I'd tried to save everyone and I'd failed.

For a moment he just sipped his tea. I wasn't sure what he was thinking. I half expected him to fire me on the spot. I was surely more trouble than I was worth. "I knew you were Robin Hood," he said simply. "Before you were arrested."

"What? How?"

He gave me a small lopsided smile and glanced up at the ceiling. "You put the tile back upside down."

I looked up. "The tiles all look the same," I protested.

"That one has a chip on one corner, it was dropped during some maintenance work," he explained. I squinted to see the dent.

I stared at him. "You're telling me you knew I was sneaking through your ceiling for years. Why didn't you say anything?"

"I had a son who was confined, his name was Heller. He was a few years younger than you at the time. He was smart, too smart for his own good. Heller disagreed with the way the Council was run. So he talked about it to anyone who would listen. His mother and I tried to keep him quiet, but that only made him angrier. He was floated on his eighteenth birthday. When he was arrested, they removed me from the guard."

"I didn't know you used to be on the guard."

He nodded. "Ironically, a similar thing happened following your arrest. Once they realized you worked for me, they removed me from the Council."

"But you're the Ark historian, that job comes with a position on the Council. How could they just kick you off?"

"I suppose they decided they had no need for history in their future."

"That attitude really explains a lot of the decisions the Council made," I murmured. "I'm so sorry. That was all because of me."

"Don't be sorry, the things you did saved lives. I may have lost my spot on the Council, but I never lost the library." He smiled as he looked around the room. "Do you know why I chose you to be my apprentice?" I shook my head. "For years I avoided it. The Historian before me didn't choose his successor until me, and I was well into my forties by then. But, I read an essay you wrote for your Earth Skills class. It was beautiful, I almost felt like I was here."

"I got a B- on that essay," I recalled. "It wasn't just a paper, it was a story I used to tell Octavia. I'd tell her about what life could be like here. How she'd be free for the first time in her life." I remembered the look on Octavia's face when the door to the dropship opened. It had been the happiest day of her life. "Pike didn't like the artistic liberties I took. He just wanted an essay on surviving a day on Earth." I rolled my eyes.

"Never one for the big picture, that one." He shook his head. "I chose you for my successor because I saw a curiosity in you that can't be taught. You were never content to accept things the way they were. You looked for answers, and when you didn't find the ones you wanted, you changed them. You reminded me of Heller, that's why I never turned you in."