Hola Mishamigos (I have absolutely no idea if you even are a Mishamigo but to be honest, you should be.)
I'm back with a new update because I love you all. You're welcome (:
E I G H T | THE BETTER TRANSITION METAL
The outside bar area seemed to be the default place for the members of the Hundred to meet.
Night had fallen upon the survivors of the Ark and a deep mist had set around Camp Jaha, making it thoroughly difficult for any of the guards to see if there was Grounders lurking beyond their electric fence. Though a certain engineer paid no mind to what was going around around her, instead she sat at the usual table with the usual crew-- minus Raven-- and stared absentmindedly into her moonshine, her thoughts anywhere but in reality.
After her hysterical episode the night before, Bellamy had escorted Carter to bed and decided to sit with her until she had fallen asleep, since then she had been in and out of dazes, only snapping back into physical existence when she was called. Not even she knew what she was thinking about half the time, she just let her mind wander.
A sudden nudge was sent into her side and Carter's head shot up, startled. She snapped her gaze towards Bellamy questionably, awaiting for him to explain why he decided to make her jump like that. With a sigh, Bellamy looked from Carter to Clarke. "Okay, say it again, some of us weren't listening."
Carter rolled her eyes but remained silent and looked towards Clarke, who began to repeat what she had already said. "It's a labyrinth." With her pen, she pointed down to a specific part of her map, one Carter was unfamiliar with. "We got to the dam through this tunnel, it's all connected to the mine system. That's our way in."
"Sure, if we can get past the Reapers and the Mountain Men," Bellamy responded, leaning back in his seat, a determined look in his eyes. "I swear to god, if your mom doesn't sanction a mission soon, I'm going by myself."
"Please, I'm just waiting for a reason to get out of this damn camp." Carter scoffed, looking up to him. "They can't keep us locked in here forever." She brought her mug to her lips and took a hearty swig, relishing the welcoming burn down her throat. Just as she brought the cup down, a group of guards filtered out the entrance of the Ark, catching the trio's attention.
"Guess the inquisitions over." Bellamy murmured, turning back to them. "How's Finn doing, anyway?" He asked and even though the question wasn't directed towards Carter she tensed.
"I haven't spoken to him since we got back." Clarke answered distantly, she wore the same forlorn expression as Carter, who awkwardly shifted in her seat. "I don't know what to say... he just kept shooting."
"Do you know what I'd love to see?" Carter abruptly changed the subject, looking up at the two of them, both of which were slightly thrown off guard from the dramatic topic change. "Cars. I read about them all the time on the Ark and I fell in love with them, there was this specific one... a 1969 Dodge Charger, it was beautiful," She smiled lopsidedly. "It must have been every engineer and mechanic's dream to be able to work on a car, they were just so, majestic. What I would give to see one of those..."
"Hey," A sudden voice spoke from behind Bellamy and Carter's breath hitched at the sight of her best friend, the memories of Tondc plastered themselves all over her mind and she shook her seat, abruptly standing.
"I, uh, need another drink." She mumbled, shuffling away from the table, her eyes glued to the ground. She briefly heard Bellamy say something about the next round being on him, but she didn't wait for him to catch up, she just kept walking towards the bar, not even daring to turn around. Once she hit their makeshift bar, she leaned over the counter and ordered her drink with a fake smile just as Bellamy grabbed her forearm and turned her to look at him.
"Carter, you can't keep ignoring him." He sighed, looking down at her with a disapproving look.
"Ignoring?" She scoffed conspicuously, rolling her eyes. "Who said I was ignoring him? I sure didn't."
"You practically ran from the table as soon as he approached." The former leader pointed out and Carter shifted her gaze guiltily. "I get it still hurts and you're still anxious about being around him-"
"-Anxious?" Carter interrupted with a frown, finally looking up to meet Bellamy's dark stare. "I'm scared, Bell. I'm scared of my own best friend, that's not right. You think I want to be the way I am with him? You saw me last night, I hate it. I just want things back to the way they were, but that's unlikely to happen."
"We've all done things to survive, Carter. None of us are innocent anymore, including Finn." He gently pushed her to the side so they were away from prying ears and eyes. "I know this hurts for you, but like you said to me back at the Drop ship, we're running off borrowed time, do you really want to be shunning Finn for something he already beats himself up over? Because I bet if one of you got injured the other one would be there and all this would be forgotten-- you're family and even though he's done a stupid thing, you're supposed to be there for him. I know it might be hard, but I'm here for you-- I mean, I might not be the best support, but I'll do my best. I'm not saying this to patronize you, Carter, I'm saying it because when the time comes, you're gonna regret the hours you spent resenting him. If you sort this out with him then you never know, you might feel better for it."
A pregnant pause ensued between the two as Carter took in everything Bellamy had said and eventually, she smiled. "You can give one hell of a speech, you know that?"
"I'm pretty sure you've told me before." He grinned, almost childishly and Carter bit back the urge to chuckle. His hand trailed down from her forearm to her waist and pulled her closer, taking Carter by surprise. Before he could actually kiss her, like he intended to do, she cocked her head to the side with a deep frown.
"Bellamy?"
"Yeah?" He quirked an eyebrow, looking down at the engineer.
"What are we?" She suddenly asked, looking up at him with a perplexed look of pure confusion. It had been bugging her for quite some time but she never knew how she should ask him, so she always left it. But she saw no better opportunity than that moment to finally ask that stupid question that had bubbled in her mind for so long.
"What do you mean?"
"You know, what are we? I don't get it-- are we seeing each other seriously or is it one of those dragged out flings? I don't know exactly where we stand... or if we are even a 'we'." She mumbled.
Bellamy stayed silent for a few moments as he mused over her question. Finally, he decided to go with the safe option. "What do you want to be?"
"Well, without being cheesy, I'm not much of a fling kind of person but we both know you are, so..." She trailed off lamely, not finding a suitable way to finish that statement. She took a deep breath. "But in all honesty, I'm hoping this is a serious kind of thing because I don't know how comfortable I'd feel being just another one of your many conquests."
Bellamy rested his chin on top of her head, a genuine smile tugged at his lips as he tightened his hold on the blonde. "Good, because I was hoping that too."
"Carter!" A new voice interrupted the moment between the two and Carter turned her head slightly, along with Bellamy as they looked towards Raven-- who looked mildly surprised on what she had just ran in on. "Uh, I finally figured out what was jamming the other Ark stations."
"You did?" Carter frowned, pulling herself away from Bellamy as she suddenly became intrigued one what her childhood friend had figured out.
"Mount Weather's jamming us." The mechanic replied confidently.
"And this is why you're the smart one." Carter mused. "Well then, show me how you came to this conclusion." Raven nodded and began to walk towards the the Ark and Carter went to follow, quickly turning to Bellamy. "I'll talk to you later."
She followed Raven all the way through to the Engineering section of the station a nostalgic feeling washed over her as she entered, memories of her former job came back to her as she looked around, running her hand across the surfaces she spent so much time around. "It's been so long..." She mumbled, snapping back towards Raven as they approached one of the radios where Clarke stood patiently, waiting for Raven to explain what she had discovered.
"I tweaked the resonator and got this..." The mechanic explained, twisting the dial a fraction until a sequenced static emitted from the radio, and there was something too familiar with it, sending a shiver down Carter's spine. "It's on every frequency."
"That would explain why long-ranged communication's screwed." Carter murmured, leaning against the table with a concentrated frown.
"It's also why the range in our walkies suck." Raven added, looking between the engineer and Clarke with a look of revelation.
"It's the same signal Monty and I heard when we were looking for Clarke and Finn, literally, it's the same frequency, the same sequence-- everything..." Carter trailed off, looking up. "I'm pretty sure it's also the the last signal we could salvage from the black box from the Exodus ship, too."
"Mount Weather crashed the Exodus ship." Clarke concluded. "Can you get around the signal?"
"Around it? No." Raven shook her head. "But if I can get to the tower that broadcasts it, I can make it go boom."
"No one is going anywhere." All three girls turned to see Abby and Byrne, one of the Major's of the Guard. Carter groaned loudly, feeling like a child getting reprimanded for not going to bed when she were told to.
"Mom, listen to me-" Clarke tried, though was cut off.
"-What do I have to do to get through to you?" She asked, but didn't give any of them a chance to reply. "You and your friends are not soldiers, and continuing to act like you are puts lives at risk."
"With all due respect, you don't have to be a soldier to do the right thing, Abby." Carter muttered defiantly.
"You don't understand, Raven found something," Clarke retorted. "Mount Weather our jamming our communications."
"It's true," Raven nodded. "There could be other Ark stations on the Ground."
"And more guards. You said we don't have enough people to fight a two-front war," Clarke took a step closer. "Mom, we're already fighting one."
"The Grounder retaliation for the massacre could happen at any time, and when it does we'll need every available man to defend this camp." Byrne interjected and Carter flinched as she uttered the word 'massacre'.
"So let us go," Clarke argued.
A faint smirk tugged loosely at Abby's lips as she stared at her daughter. "You're not gonna stop are you?"
"Not until my friends are safe." Clarke shook her head, determined.
"Okay." Abby nodded. "But I'm coming with you."
"But ma'am I just said-" Byrne frowned, but was cut short by their newly appointed Chancellor.
"-It's been quiet for two days." Abby flickered her gaze towards Carter and smiled slightly. "Maybe Kane has given headway to the Grounders' Commander."
"Or maybe he's dead and they're massing against us as we speak." Byrne retorted bluntly, igniting Carter's anger quickly and efficiently. She ignored any possibility of the Major being right and took a threatening step forward.
"What did you just say?" Carter's voice was low and dangerous.
"Don't act like you haven't thought about it, you know as well as the rest of us that your dad could be Grounder meat right about now." Byrne came closer to the blonde with narrowed eyes, oblivious to how the engineer clutched her fists by her sides and how her blood heated at Byrne's words.
Without a second to think rationally, Carter swung her fist, colliding it straight into the Major's cheek and lunged again, hitting her in the jaw, before she could go for a third punch, Raven and Clarke were quick to restrain the engineer as she tried to push them away. Byrne had staggered back at the power behind both punches and Carter had managed to break the skin on her cheek, a sliver of blood running down it. "Take that back now! Take it back!" Carter fumed, still pushing against her friends, only able to see red. All of the emotions she had managed to lock away the past couple of days had suddenly been unleashed and directed straight towards the Major. "Take that back now, you stupid bitch! You don't know the first thing about my dad, so keep your shitty opinions to yourself!"
"Carter, enough!" Abby shouted, though Carter didn't stop, not even for a second. She wanted to wrap her hands around Byrnes neck and wring it like a dish cloth.
"Hey- hey! Stop it, now!" Clarke yelled, nudging the engineer back slightly and it was only then that Carter stopped resisting against them and turned her death gaze off the Major. "Do you wanna be put in confinement? Because you're doing a damn good job if you do."
Angrily, Carter shook both girls off her and took a step back to show she wasn't going to lunge for the woman again. But, she did keep a hard stare on Byrne. "Don't you ever say anything like that in front of me again, you got it?"
"I think you're forgetting who you're talking to-"
"-Byrne, enough." Abby interjected, holding her hand up, immediately snuffing the Major's anger. "Another outburst like that and I'll have you put in confinement until you learn that violence won't be tolerated, not in this camp. Do you understand?"
"I won't feel the need to get violent if your guards knew when they were stepping out of line." Carter retorted, narrowing her eyes. "Who in their right mind, says something so stupid especially in front of the daughter of the person they're declaring dead?"
"I said, do you understand?" Abby repeated more forcefully.
"Whatever, yeah." Carter muttered distastefully.
"And Byrne, we don't know if Kane is dead or not, it's best not to make such assumptions." Like a puppet, Byrne nodded and bowed her head "But even so, we need more guards."
"Then it's settled," Clarke finalized. "We're going back to Mount Weather."
***
"Dammit!" Carter hissed loudly. jumping away from the spark she wasn't supposed to make. It was decided that Carter would stay back on Alpha station as the rest go up to Mount Weather. Someone needed to stay behind, ready for when Raven brought down the jammer so they could try and contact the other stations immediately, though Carter decided to jack the radio up, to see if she could strengthen the signal before the jammer was destroyed. Although, she had only succeeded on electrocuting herself three times and almost frying the radio's components when she rewired something the wrong way.
"Well I'll be damned, you're alive." Carter turned around at the familiarity of the voice she hadn't heard in such a long time and an ear splitting smile stretched across her face as she stood up to meet him.
"Wick!" She grinned, running up to meet her former colleague with a hug, which he returned happily. Despite the fact that she had been back at the station for two days, she hadn't had the chance to go to her old work place, thus she didn't know if any of the engineers survived the Ark's landing, especially since most were situated on Mecha station and that was yet to be discovered.
"What's up, Swede, did you think I was dead?" Wick quirked an eyebrow as she pulled away. In her time, Carter had many nicknames from many different people. For instance, Finn called her Bambi and Monty often referred to her as Sparky, but the most original of nicknames came from Wick, which was, of course 'Swede' given the fact that she was part Swedish. Yes, real original indeed.
"Well, you're not exactly the winner of Survival of the Fittest are you, cupcake?" She snickered, walking back to her work.
"Oh yeah? If we were Transition Metals on the periodic table I'd be Platinum and you'd be something like Scandium, which is the weakest of them all." Wick scoffed, sitting opposite Carter. She looked up and sent him a flat look.
"We're not having this discussion again." She deadpanned. "If we were Transition Metals on the Periodic Table, I'd be Mercury because not only does that have a nice rounded number to it's atomic mass, but it's atomic number is also eighty... which, correct me if I'm wrong, is higher than Platinum. I'd much rather have eighty electrons, protons and neutrons-- which means more fuller shells-- than seventy-eight electrons. In conclusion, I would always be the better Transition Metal, comprende?"
"Oh, I've missed you." Wick shook his head with a smile. "No one ever had these conversations with me after you went AWOL."
"That's because no one understands our humor, cupcake, we're on a completely different level."
"Preach it, sister." Wick smirked before looking down at the radio with a small frown. "The Wrench Monkey was messing with this earlier, said something about Mount Weather jamming our signal?"
"Her name is Raven, even with a crippled leg, she'll kick your ass for calling her a Wrench Monkey. But yeah, they're screwing with our signal, she's right." Carter nodded, resuming in her work.
"Yeah, well all mechanics are the same." Wick shrugged nonchalantly. "Here, let me help because the last time I checked, you almost set the your work top on fire trying to rewire something."
"One time, it was one damn time." Carter scowled. "All I gotta do is try and find a frequency that isn't jammed and see if any other stations are synced into it, piece of cake."
"How about we join forces then? The quicker this is done, the better." Wick offered and Carter merely shrugged in reply. She would never admit it to him because his head was large enough, but Carter was glad to see a fellow engineer had survived. Being the only one was pressure Carter couldn't deal with, and she was never the smartest-- or the safest of engineers either. Wick had managed to land himself as Sinclair's apprentice which meant he had more brains than Carter did, even if he tended not to use it much.
In short, she had never been more happy to see his scruffily little face again.
***
"Swede, we've been at this for hours," Wick sighed, straightening himself up and stretched his arms. "There's not much we can do now."
"The frequency range might not be wide enough, maybe we should enhance the antenna?" Carter suggested, standing from her chair to wake up the muscles in her legs. Just as Wick was about to reply, Carter groaned. "We can't do that without jeopardizing the small range frequency for our walkies... maybe we should just wait it out until R get's back, maybe she had more luck than us."
"Now you're talking sense," Wick approved enthusiastically, throwing his arm over Carter's shoulders and guiding her away from the radio which still vocalized the same sequenced jamming static as before. "I say we get a beer, we deserve it."
"You think you deserve everything." Carer rolled her eyes as they walked further down the corridor. Finally they broke out into the sunlight and Carter found herself squinting from the glare and used her hand to cover her eyes until they adjusted from the dramatic light change. Just as the two of them was about to head over to the bar-- which was quickly becoming Carter's favourite place-- she heard distant chatter towards the gate and began to jog her way over there. The team which left to blow up the jammer had returned, but this time they had gained another person.
Thelonias Jaha.
"Raven!" Carter hollered, quashing her surprise to see the former Chancellor alive despite being told he sacrificed himself on the remnants of the Ark just so the rest of their people could make it down to earth. The girl in question turned her head and quirked her eyebrow towards the blonde as she ran up to meet them. "Did you do it? Did you send the jammer sky high?"
"Actually, no. We did one better..." The mechanic trailed off, looking from Carter to Wick, who stood just behind. "We found out that the acid fog is a weapon that the Mountain Men use and when we took cover from it, we found a frequency that was open, I did some decoding and found out it was their frequency-- we can listen to the enemy."
"Right..." Wick trailed off, drawling on his words lazily. "So you didn't blow up the jammer?"
"That's what I said." Raven nodded.
"Raven Reyes, you are an absolute genius," Carter grinned. "We just got control over the entire board game, especially since we know what moves their gonna make before they move them. Now all we gotta do is keep our distance from the Grounders until we can sort out the Mountain Men."
"Carter?" A deep voice sounded from behind them and Carter turned her attention towards Jaha with a frown. She inwardly winced at the last, extremely awkward conversation she had with the ex-Chancellor just before she fought the case for Bellamy to be excused for his crimes.
"Theo." Carter returned, trying not to snicker at the sudden nickname he had required off her. She never expected him to crack a smile, but the sombre expression on his face made her humor falter slightly. "Uh, is everything okay?"
"I thought you should know," Jaha cleared his throat. "That I have recently been freed from captivity from the Grounders... and your father was there."
So that happened.
I just wanna thank all of yo' guys that commented on the last chapter to proclaim their love for Carter, it made me feel a hell of a lot better! There needs to be more you's in the world.
Also, the when Transition Metal conversation wasn't googled, I'm pretty sure Mercury has 80 electrons, protons and neutrons-- correct me if I'm wrong. But legitimately, two years ago when I was in Year 11, my best friend and I had a similar conversation except we were on about Nobel Gases, not Transition Metals. The more you know...
And in other news: we're very close to the Kane reunion (and, unfortunately, Finn's death) how excited are you guys then? ;)
I'll update soon~
Thanks for reading