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LYRA, MONTY,
& THE DYING BOY
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THE WALKMAN broke.
Lyra knows it's stupid to be thinking about the Walkman after everything that's happened, but she can't stop. Mount Weather exploded because she couldn't get the launch codes herself and thirty-seven people died inside. Men, women, children. Gina. Forty nine people died inside of that mountain.
"I don't trust it."
"Dad, it's an apple."
Lyra and her dad loiter near the Arkadia gates, the camp bustling with activity behind them. Thick gauze bandages wrists and palms; she'd taken the brute of the heat in the explosion, having been much closer than Sinclair and Raven. Abby had ordered her to stay in medical for at least a week, but Lyra is finding it harder and harder to stay in the same place for more than a couple minutes. She's never been so restless.
Pretty gold smothers the sky, drenching the clouds in honey. It feels wrong for the Earth to be so beautiful right now. Lyra's features are stiff, her eyes flickering unseeingly across the yard and at the Alpha Station exoskeleton. She clutches the blood-red apple tighter in her palms, her nails breaking through the thin skin and pressing crescents into the fruit. Her nerves are erratic, a sort of anxiety chewing straight through to her very marrow. It's a kind of helpless nervousness.
"I still don't trust it," announces Noah, eying the fruit skeptically. "It could make your throat swell and you could stop breathing. Or maybe it's poisonous and you'll just drop dead on the spot."
Since Lyra doesn't have anything against dropping dead on the spot, she takes a bite of the apple.
It tastes fine to her.
Noah makes a face. "Ugh. Don't look now, but the devil reincarnate is coming over here."
"Kane?"
"Obviously."
"Jupiter's!" Kane calls, grey hairs crawling across his jaw as he gives them both a polite wave. Then his voice lowers as he casts an anxious glance around the camp, his usual peaceful aura flickering. "Lyra, I'd like to have a word with you."
"Sir, with all due respect, I'm not going back into medical."
"It's not about that, even if I think you should. This is about Bellamy."
She stiffens. "Is he OK?"
She hasn't seen him last night; the first thing he'd done when they got back to Arkadia was check on her in medical. Then he just disappeared.
"In retrospect? He's seems absolutely fine," answers Kane, but his mouth cramps into a thin line before he continues grimly. "But really, I'm not so sure. He just came to me and quit the guard."
"What?"
Her chest pummels the thin jacket she's borrowed from Raven ━━ in the three months she'd been gone, most of her clothes had been redistributed. But now she's staring at Kane, stunned beyond belief. From what she's gathered, Bellamy had been the heart of the guard in her absence, especially since he was the one with the most combative and weaponry training on Earth. He'd always seen himself as the protector. . . so why would he quit the guard?
Noah looks just as shocked as Lyra. "And you just let him?"
"It's not as if he gave me a choice," says Kane. "Just walked up to me and handed in the jacket. He blames himself for Mount Weather."
"Yeah," says Noah lowly, casting a glance at Lyra. "There's a lot of that going around."
"Whatever it is, it needs to leave. We don't have time for this right now. Especially not with the Chancellor election tomorrow. . . " Kane trails off haggardly, and Lyra realizes for the first time how much older he looks now than he had on the Ark. Earth has taken its toll on him. "Listen, I won't pretend to understand what's going on between you and Bellamy, but I do know this — he listens to you."
"You want me to talk to him?" Lyra guesses, and he nods. She shifts uneasily. "I don't know. I was gone for three months. . . "
"If you can't talk some sense into him, no one can," Kane insists.
"That's true. Bellamy does care about you a lot. . . " begins Noah, trailing off, looking lost in thought. "Wait, that's so weird. If I didn't know any better, I'd think — "
"Jasper! Jasper!"
Whirling around, Lyra sees Monty hurrying towards Jasper This is the first time she's seen either of them since Mount Weather. Starting to jog over, she's grinning. At least, she's grinning until she sees Jasper shove Monty away from him.
"Get away from me!"
"Hey!" Octavia comes sprinting from the other side of the yard, skidding to a halt on the beaten dirt path that extends past the gate. "Jasper, what's wrong?"
"He's not going to the memorial," Monty snaps frustratedly.
Jasper gives him an almost cold expression. "It's a little late for a Mount Weather memorial, don't you think?"
Lyra frowns. Some thing about Jasper seems. . . different now. He looks quite pale, almost unnaturally so, as if simply standing around them all is making him sick. His face is sullen and downcast. His eyes shift in the bright light, dark and haunted, as if pained with something that the rest of them cannot see.
"Jasper," says Lyra softly, eyes wide. "Are you OK?"
He gives her such a nasty glare that she actually takes a step back from him in surprise.
But before anyone can say anything else, an alarm chimes and a robotically feminine voice calls over the PA: "All Arkadia security personnel, report to the main gate."
"What now?" Octavia demands as guards from all directions come forward, including Noah striding towards the front gates where Costa is currently arguing with an exhausted group of straggling people. "Nyko!"
It is Nyko, Lyra realizes. He's leading about a dozen Grounders forward, most of them leaning upon one another for support. One of them coughs loudly and then staggers, the entirety of her weight dropping onto the person closest to her so quickly that they nearly fall like dominoes. Lyra ambles a bit closer while Octavia takes off at a sprint, more concerned with Monty and Jasper at the moment. She turns to ask Jasper again if he is OK only to see him slipping away towards a gate.
"Um," she says. "Should we be worried about him?"
"I'm tired of being worried about him," responds Monty lowly. And yet he takes off after him anyways.
Lyra's gaze flickers between the scuffle between the Grounders and the guards at the gate to Jasper and Monty. Then, after a beat, she decides that Octavia and her dad can handle whatever the hell is going on over there. She takes off after Jasper and Monty, now very anxious for the well-being of two of her oldest friends.
Somehow Jasper has gotten his hands on bolt cutters and is using them to pry apart a portion of the gate.
"Jasper, camp's in lockdown," hisses Monty, casting an anxious glance backwards to make sure no one's seen them. "What are you doing?"
"Go to your memorial, Monty," Jasper says. His breath reeks of alcohol and his eyes are shadowed with violet.
"Maybe I will," Monty says stiffly.
"Maybe you should."
"Fine."
"I'm assuming you're not going to the memorial though," Jasper drawls slowly, his dark gaze finding Lyra. She shakes her head mutely, unnerved by the malicious glint in his eyes. "No? Not surprised. You've spent all this time running away from what you've done. Why stop now?"
A little hurt, she weakly goes, "I'm back now."
"Yeah. Same day you come back, people die in Mount Weather again," he snaps. Then, all at once, his mood relaxes and he gives a careless shrug. "Whatever. I actually want you to come with me."
Baffled, Lyra watches as Jasper ducks through the fence and then proceeds to stumble into the woods.
"Going after him is a bad idea," Monty mumbles lowly behind her. His brow is creased as he watches Jasper go. "And if we get caught leaving during lockdown, we're going to get into a lot of trouble."
"Well, we came to this planet as criminals, didn't we?" Lyra asks.
"Yeah," he mutters. "Let's go."
It's not hard for them to catch up with Jasper. As the trio moves deeper into the gloomy brown forest, Jasper cradles a glass to his chest, the bottle sloshing with brown liquid. Upon closer inspection, Lyra realizes that it must be alcohol and she fights the urge to force Jasper to look her in the eye and tell her exactly what had happened to him over the past three months. Something is eating away at his very soul, something is killing him.
She just wants to help him.
Then she realizes where they are and her heart very nearly stops.
"What the hell are we doing here, Jasper?" Monty demands.
"Visiting old friends."
They're at the dropship camp.
Suddenly Lyra is nauseous. The half-scorched metal spacecraft claws at the cobalt sky, sunbeams pouring down and haloing it in a sweet honey. Within the heart of the camp, the light is still warm. Pure. Hazy. It feels like she is wading through a dream as she staggers past the crumbling gates, like the forest the day after rainstorm. Her breathing nearly stops and her eyelids flutter shut. It's almost as if nothing has ever changed. She can practically hear the familiar chatter of the old camp, Finn Collins teasingly telling Clarke to lighten up, Raven's snarky comments, Wells' chastising whispers, Monty and Jasper's laughter, Octavia's jokes, the few and far between stolen moments that Bellamy and Lyra had.
But that's all long gone. Now there is nothing aside from the visceral silence.
Only the bitter wind walks this camp now.
It makes her tremble. To think back to those days; the good old days, even if she didn't know it then. She remembers exactly how she'd thought life would be
Jasper raises his flask to the dropship in salute, then takes several long draughts.
"I think you've had enough," Monty almost snaps.
"You have no idea." Jasper holds a finger vaguely at Monty, corks the bottle, then drops his backpack to the ground. He staggers towards the dropship entrance. "Time to give some back."
Lyra starts to realize that Jasper is very much not OK.
Leaving Monty behind, she starts after him. "I don't think we should have come here."
"Where? Earth?" The taller boy snorts deftly. "That's something I can agree with. We should have never come here. And don't you give me any of that positivity bullshit. It's hypocritical, coming from the girl who just wants to go back to space."
She regards him for a heartbeat.
"Earth has a lot of faults, you're not wrong," she says at last. "But you need to remember that there is more to you than yesterday. Take a deep breath, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and take one step, then another. The storm will pass."
Jasper stares back at her for a long moment. She's almost starting to think she's actually broken through to him. Then he rolls his eyes.
"You're an idiot if you think anything that you just said is true."
She tries to hide her hurt. "If you didn't want to hear anything positive, then why would you want me to come here?"
"Because everything you touch dies," he says lowly. He grins like a madman. "And I'm ready."
Her eyes widen. But before she can even think to say something else, Jasper staggers, then collapses against the earth. He does not get back up.
Across the camp, Monty furiously rises from the backpack. "Tell me this isn't what I — "
"I don't know what happened," Lyra says, terror seizing her as she drops to Jasper's side and fervently rolls the boy onto his back. His skin is feverish, his heartbeat slow. "He just — he just sort of collapsed — "
"It's fine," says Monty flatly, crossing towards them. "This isn't the first time it's happened."
"He'll get better," Lyra says quietly.
"Lyra. . . Maya's death broke him."
"Then I'll fix him," Lyra declares rashly. "I'll fix him, Monty. I promise you."
His eyes are hollow. "Funny. That's exactly what your dad said."
Conviction snarls inside her tone and the boy opposite her just sighs, as if troubled by her words. But there is something else hidden deep in his eyes. Regret and then. . . the faintest flicker of hope.
"He's at his worst when he wakes up," Monty says at last. "It might be better if you aren't here for that."
"You want me to leave?"
He sighs heavily. "Yeah."
Bones aching with torment, she slowly but surely climbs to her feet. The sun is pale and she feels more nauseous than ever. Monty's face is granite-grey and ashen as he watches over Jasper's slumped body and she turns away quickly, walking towards the crumbling gates of their old camp with a heavy heart.
Before she leaves, she looks at them one last time. Jasper is still unmoving, and Monty's features are so contorted with sorrow that it almost hurts to look at him. The air is dry and sticky as she watches for about a heartbeat. Then, not wanting to intrude a moment longer, she dips her eyes to the pebbles and grits as she starts into the thicket of the woods. Her thoughts are few and far between. She does not say a word. She keeps to herself and leaves Monty to grieve over the shell of his best friend, his brother.
The journey back to Arkadia feels like an eternity. Lyra's chest is tight with hollow loneliness.
By the time she reaches the thick scrap metal gates, the sun has already crept brow the horizon. Night settles upon the earth with an almost feverish haste. Heavy clouds surge across the skies like thick layers of ash. They hide the stars. Only the half sickle moon is visible, casting a sickly yellow glow upon the earth.
There's a shout from the guard tower, and Lyra thinks it might be Costa. Next thing she knows, the gate is cracked open with a small sliver and her dad is ushering her inside quickly.
"Fuckin' Christ on a cracker, kid," Noah mutters. "Where are you coming from?"
"Technically I came from space, but if you want to get really technical, mom — "
"OK, maybe I don't want to hear it — "
" — well, actually it's almost your fault that I'm here at all, because I was arrested — "
"That was not my fault," he says. "Kane arrested you."
"Yeah, but I might've been in that situation because of pent up childhood trauma that comes with having alcoholic, emotionally unavailable father," she says.
"Great," he responds. "So actually, I definitely didn't want to hear that. Whatever. We've got bigger issues than your childhood trauma from your emotionally absent father, so try not to be a pussy right now."
"What problems?"
"Little fight at the memorial, few guys attacked Lincoln," says Noah and then, upon the look on her face, quickly adds, "He's all right now. But Pike has gone from vaguely irritating to straight up annoying. The Commander's sent a peacekeeping force of three hundred to protect us from the Ice Nation."
"Lexa and Clarke?" Lyra asks, and he nods. "OK, well. . . I trust Clarke. What does Pike have to do with any of this?"
"Well. . . "
"Sergeant Jupiter!" Monroe calls, jogging over. She must be on duty tonight, along with Harper and Lincoln, because they're right behind her. "Costa checked the firearms — we're missing ten guns."
"What d'you mean they're missing? What, did they just walk off or something?" Noah demands, and Monroe just gives a mystified shrug. "Great. Now on top of all of this shit, my rifles are apparently radioactive and growing limbs. Cool. OK."
"Um, dad?"
"Sweetheart, I'm just a little busy right now — "
Lyra gulps. "I think I found your ten missing guns."
Swarthy with shadows, silhouettes start to emerge from Alpha Station's exoskeleton. It's a squadron of ten guards clad in bullet-proof vests yielding stolen assault firearms, led by none other than former Earth Skills teacher, Charles Pike.
And at his side. . .
"Bellamy?" Lyra asks uncertainly. "What are you doing?"
His voice does not sound as if it is truly his own. "You need to step aside right now."
She realizes that Lincoln, Harper, and Monroe all are flanking her. Both girls have tightened their grasps on their rifles. Where her dad has suddenly disappeared to, Lyra isn't sure, and she doesn't care enough to question it right now. Instead she searches Bellamy's face for answers and sees whatever mask he has on begin to fissure, crumbling as he looks almost torn. Then he looks away from her quickly and his face hardens once more.
"What are the guns for?" Harper asks, eyes narrowed.
"There's an army out there," Bellamy answers steadily. "We need to hit them before they hit us."
"That army was sent to protect us," utters Lincoln slowly, gaze dead set on Bellamy.
Pike ambles forward, stopping just beside Bellamy. His tone is slightly poisonous. "Do we have a problem?"
"Yes," bursts Lyra before she can stop herself. Heat crawls into her cheeks, but she doesn't see the point in shutting up now. "Those are stolen guns and you have to be cleared by the Chancellor to leave."
Which is hypocritical coming from her, but OK, whatever.
Bellamy's gaze flickers from Lincoln to the exchange at hand. "I have always done what is best for us. I need you to trust that I'm doing that now."
"I do trust you," Lyra insists, rather frightened by the intensity in his tone.
It's Pike she doesn't.
He ignores her. "Monroe."
It takes a moment, but then Monroe dips her head. Turning her back upon them, she walks back towards Alpha Station with her head hung low.
"Harper."
At first, she hesitates. But then, at last, "I'm sorry, Lincoln."
And then it is just Lyra and Lincoln.
"Run along, Lyra." Pike ambles closer still, emboldened by Monroe and Harper's departures. "This doesn't concern you."
When he looks at her, she is back in that classroom again. Watching him brutally disfigure John Murphy all for. . . all for what, exactly? If there had been some sort of point to the lesson, it was entirely lost upon Lyra. She bites down on her tongue until she tastes blood. Her fingers curl and uncurl rapidly.
Pike peers down at her almost with amusement, then switches his attention to Lincoln. "You too, Lincoln. You want to prove you're one of us, let us pass."
"He doesn't have to prove anything," Lyra insists. "He is one of us."
Lincoln gives her a brief, grateful look. "I'm not moving."
"Get out of the way, Grounders," sneers the man closest to them. Lyra thinks his name is Gillmer. He raises his rifle level with both of them, and she feels a flicker of panic. How far are these people willing to go for what they want? And what do they want, anyways?
Bellamy's eyes widen. "She's not a Grounder, she's from Alpha Station — "
"She lived with the Grounders for three months!" Gillmer snaps, rifle switching between Lyra and Lincoln rapidly. "As far as I'm concerned, she's a little Grounder whore — "
He doesn't even get the chance to finish his sentence. Lincoln disarms him so easily that it's almost laughable. He elbows Gillmer in the face and wrestles him for the rifle. As Gillmer tries to gain the upper hand, Lincoln knees him in the chest twice, and Gillmer staggers. Before he can do anything else, Lincoln has an arm behind his neck and hauls him against himself, pulling a knife and holding it to his throat.
Well. He kicked his ass pretty efficiently.
Unfortunately, no one else seems as happy about that as Lyra. Instead, a number of Pike's team round on them with their rifles drawn, including Hannah Green, Monty's mother.
"Put the guns down!" Bellamy barks as soon as he realizes the guns are pointed at Lyra, too. "Guns down!"
"Do what he says, now," Pike orders.
It takes a beat, but then they lower their weapons.
Monty's mom scoffs. "So much for the good Grounder."
"There was a gun at his head," Lyra defends him, ignoring the scathing look Hannah gives her. "What was he supposed to do, fall to his knees and take a bullet to the brain?"
"Quiet, Hannah," Pike snaps at the older woman and she falls into mutinous silence. "And whose people do you two think you're defending here?"
"Lyra, stand down. Lincoln, put down the knife," says Bellamy tensely. "No one has to get hurt here."
Lincoln doesn't budge. "Can't let you start a war."
"We're already at war," counters Pike swiftly.
Bellamy rounds on Lyra. "You've always been too much of a peacemaker. But if we want to survive, we need to have the guts to — "
He's cut off as an alarm begins to blare.
"All Arkadia security personnel, report to the main gate. All Arkadia security personnel, report to the main gate now."
A brilliant silhouette weaves through the growing crowd and Octavia swoops in, falling into a defensive stance between Lyra and Lincoln. Her sapphire eyes flash with anger as she whirls around to face her older brother.
"What's wrong with you?"
A crusade of armed guards led by none other than Noah come pouring out from all entrances of Alpha Station, swooping down upon the gun-thefts with great haste. A few of the firing squadron bristle with indignation, Hannah protesting rather loudly as Noah storms towards her, but Pike hurried to put them at ease as he lowers his own firearm to the ground.
"Calm down, people. Farm Station, guns on the ground. On the ground!"
Brow furrowing, Lyra's arms prickle with unease. What is he playing at, complying only now? It feels almost like a trick, as if he is letting himself lose.
"Lincoln, it's all right," calls Kane, striding right beside Noah. "Let him go!"
Lincoln shoves Gillmer off from him. The Farm Station man stumbles through the scraggly grass, letting out a grunt of pain as he retreats back to Pike's side. As he passes Lyra, he bares his teeth at her in the beginnings of a sneer.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Abby demands, storming towards Pike.
"What you didn't have the guts to."
Kane approaches Bellamy, his voice so low that Lyra has to strain to hear it. "Did you arm these people?"
Bellamy does not answer him verbally; instead he merely holds Kane's gaze evenly. His eyes are storm clouds, vivaciously dark, the fraction of a heartbeat before lightning forks the shadows. And in them is something almost haunting, as if he is seeing ghosts the rest of them cannot. Lyra knows he is thinking of the forty nine who died in Mount Weather now.
"Jupiter," Abby calls, turning to Noah. "Take them to lockup, now."
Lyra watches with some semblance of horror as her dad handcuffs Bellamy. The sergeant leans forwards, muttering something to Bellamy so quiet that Lyra cannot hear from where she stands. And, because Bellamy's back is turned to her, she cannot read his face, nor can she hear his response.
Some sort of shock is rooting her to the earth. She should have done what Kane had said and talked to Bellamy. Should've made helping him her priority. Maybe she could've stopped him from doing something this stupid ━━
"Everybody back to your quarters," Abby's voice rings out across the yard as the guards move to lead Pike's regime away. "It's over."
"Nothing is over."
The furore quiets as Pike's voice breaks through the air. Though his arms are twisted behind his back by Costa, he manages to face Abby with more than his dignity in tact.
"We are surrounded by warriors who want us dead!"
"That's enough!" Kane says loudly.
"No, it isn't!" Pike shouts, his voice climbing as the two men face off with each other. "Not even close. Why don't you show us all what you let the Grounders do to you yesterday? Come on, Kane. I think that the people who are about to vote for you have a right to know."
A murmur of agreement ripples through the crowd, starting from Farm Station. Kane's gaze rakes across the people and then, his features stiff, he pulls back his sleeve and holds up his arm.
"It's the mark of the Commander's coalition!" Kane tells them all, remaining perfectly stoic. "It means we are the 13nth clan. It means we are in this fight together!"
Lyra doesn't see the big deal. Every single Grounder she's seen has tattoos and brands.
Unfortunately, not everyone seems to agree with her.
"No," Pike snaps. "It's what farmers used to do to their livestock."
"Right before the slaughterhouse!" Hannah's disembodied voice shouts from somewhere in the thick of the crowd.
The crowd clamors in agreement and Lyra exchanges a wary glance with Lincoln.
Gillmer, whose been cuffed and restrained by Miller's dad, jerks his head in Pike's direction. "Sir, you should be on the ballot tomorrow."
Um, thinks Lyra, a little alarmed.
"That's enough," says Abby coldly, intervening between the two as she narrows her eyes at Pike. "Take him away."
Lyra is so certain that this is the end of it. She's already thinking up of ways to fix this whole mess ━━ she can beg her dad and Kane to let Bellamy go, she can somehow convince him that Mount Weather was not his fault, she can stop another war ━━ but, unfortunately for her, fate seems to have other ideas.
Or, more accurately, Bellamy does.
Bellamy raises his chin skywards in defiance, beginning to chant, "Pike! Pike! Pike!"
Utterly horrified, Lyra watches as the chant catches like wildfire. Suddenly dozens of voices are bleeding together, the name Pike echoing through the night as the man in question is led into Alpha Station by his jailor and then disappears from sight completely.
But the war cry does not cease and she wonders very briefly if this is not what the bloodthirsty crowds in the Roman Colosseum might have sounded like during gladiator tournaments.
͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙
poor noah realizing all his guns are missing:
I KNOW LYRA IS BEING A PUSSY RIGHT NOW — it was literally stated in the first chapter of In My Head that she doesn't like disrespecting authority. Even after everything she's been through, she is a seventeen year old girl and, as I am also a seventeen year old girl, I can say that I also get nervous when taking to adults. I would get really nervous if one of my teachers was trying to commit a genocide.
HOWEVER — her character arc this season is going to be about standing up for herself, finding her own confidence, and overcoming her trauma. So I hope u can make it past all her crybaby moments.
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