From The Ashes | The 100 S5 [Bellarke]

|10| The Needs Of The Few

Icarus didn't reply, and she didn't try to get an answer.

~ ~ ~

Icarus wasn't happy.

Of course, there was the instinctual relief he felt at the fact that their space days were done and over, but it had quickly been replaced by the new weight of survival on the ground. Maybe if they were alone, or they thought they were alone, things would have been different . . .

"Lars. Ford." Gavin motioned at the two who had been supporting Trent on the way back. "Take him to medical and then report back to Section 3 and wait for me."

The two scouts nodded. Icarus watched as Gavin's tense mask slipped for a moment as he glanced at Trent, a shimmer of worry shining through.

"I'm fine," Trent gritted out, but his features were pale and drawn with pain and blood loss.

"You better be," Gavin said, an almost imperceptible tremor in his brusque tone. And then he turned to Icarus, his gaze showing that he knew exactly what he had done and the moment of reckoning was soon. "Mikeson, you're with me" – he tapped the earpiece of his comm – "since Captain wanted to see the prisoner first thing."

"Yes, sir," Icarus said respectfully, glancing at their captive.

. . . but that wasn't their reality.

This was.

~ ~ ~

Madi had to wait until dark to get closer to the stranger's camp, and so she watched helplessly from a tangled clump of bushes as Clarke was taken out of sight.

It was a strange, unwelcome feeling to be separated from the young woman who had become Madi's family. Without her, she felt lost and unsure, like walking through a dark, unknown tunnel. Anything could happen, and all her imagined scenarios weren't the good kind.

What if they killed Clarke?

What if they found their hidden village?

What if Madi would find herself alone in a gray world of loss, and this time with no hope of being found?

As the fear and doubt chased themselves round and round in her mind, Madi squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn't let herself be crippled by her thoughts and fears; Clarke had taught her that.

"I will not be afraid," she told herself, both whispered aloud and shouted in her head.

Clarke would be fine. Madi would stay strong.

And they would find each other again.

~ ~ ~

The metal walls and pneumatic doors of the stranger's ship made Clarke feel like she'd stepped back in time. As her footsteps rang hollowly on the floor and the bright lights set in long strips along the ceiling burned blurry afterimages into her eyes, she half-expected to see members of the Guard striding around a corner or hear the tinny alarm for a solar flare.

When they came to a door helpfully labeled as Captain's Quarters in chipped, fading black paint, Clarke readied herself for an attempt at diplomacy. The reminiscent feeling strengthened as she slipped into the skin of her younger days, facing another liaison between sky people and grounders.

Except this time, she was the grounder.

The door opened, revealing a room that was part living space, part control room. On one side there was a crisply-made cot, metal lockers above it; on the other side was a row of screens and control panels, multiple views of the ship and its inhabitant's livestreaming on-screen. Clarke wondered what kind of leader kept eyes on their people this closely to have such an intense security feed linked before she remembered that this had once been a prisoner transport.