"We don't realize what we have on earth until we leave it."
-James Arthur Lovell
3.
6 years later
"Soups ready!" Monty shouts as I finish sparring with Raven. Everyone was already gathered in the common area where we eat.
"How's Eden?" Monty asks Bellamy as he comes over to sit down at the table we're now seated at.
"Still just a dot." He states.
Eden was the only patch of life on earth now, at least from what we could tell. The planet was desolate and dry except for a small area of green. A little patch of nature we could possibly call home when we get back down again. We always felt the need to keep checking on it, it gave us hope for the future.
"This batch is new and improved." Monty explains as he starts to pour the green goop into bowls.
"How much better can it get?" I tease and grab a bowl from him. We all drink together and then all groan at the taste. It was a bit different, but still absolutely disgusting. Even after six years of this stuff, we could never get use to it.
"Tomorrow I'll work on the antenna to boost the signal. They're down there, they just can't hear us." Raven replies when Bellamy talks about not being able to contact the bunker. Mostly to let them know about Eden.
"Or how about we figure out a way to get down to the ground and tell them ourselves?" I give Bellamy a look to tell him to stop talking but he ignores me.
"Bellamy, she worked on the fuel problem all morning." Emori says trying to defend Raven.
"Six years and seven days." He states.
"Hey, time violation." Harper cuts in. We made an agreement once we hit six years after primfaya not to mention our time in space considering we were suppose to go down a year ago but couldn't. Bringing up the time only added to the stress and desperation of wanting to get back down to the ground. Especially with Raven, she was so hard on herself everyday and even now. She couldn't figure it out but we couldn't fault her, as badass and smart as she is, she's only one person and she can only do so much with what we have.
"Dishes or Murphy." Harper offers his choices for his punishment for bringing up the time.
"I choose Murphy." He says as Monty fills him up another bowl and Bellamy walks out.
Murphy started to act differently after we hit the five year mark. I could tell he lost hope and being up here was making him crazy. He started to fight with Emori a lot until eventually they ended it. He would try to pick fights with us here and there when he could but mostly he chose to keep to himself on part of the ship. I feel for him because I was once in his position too, feeling helpless, lost, little, and confused. One can go crazy in the infinite world that is space.
"It's been two and a half hours and nothing's happened." Murphy says as we all stand watching. There was another ship not too far from us that had seemed to appear out of nowhere. Ever since we spotted it we have been watching it considering we had no idea what or who was on board.
"Something's happening." Echo says as we all watch as something detaches from the ship and starts to descend.
"It's headed for the ground. It' a transport." Raven tries to get the radios working and then she starts to speak into one to see if they could hear us but to no avail there's radio silence.
Once we all made a decision to get into our transport and dock on their ship, we all headed to our rooms to pack. Bellamy got to our room first and started to shove our things in our bags. I couldn't help but freeze at the door. It just hit me. If we're able to get fuel and get to the ground from this new ship, this will be the last time we're on the ark. A place that we called home again for six years. A place that saved us from dying in primfaya. Our home. Our memories. This room that me and Bellamy shared so many 'i love yous' and so many laughs and tears. This place is where me and Bellamy officiated our life together as husband and wife. To think that this will be the last time we'll ever see it, well, it's devastating.
"Taylor!" Bellamy shakes my shoulders snapping me out of my daze.
"Hey, where'd you go? What's wrong, baby?"
"This is our home, Bell. I just... I'm gonna miss it." I bite my lip. It's not that I didn't want to go back down to the ground but this place was special. I remember telling Bellamy once that I wished we were still up in space so we could live a normal life and raise a family. It's weird looking back on it now because we were back up in space but there was nothing normal about living here.
"Everything we shared here, we take with us. You hear me? Just because we're leaving doesn't mean our experiences and memories will too. Okay? I know it's weird, we've been here for so long and we got comfortable. It's safe and it's home. But remember what you said to me when we got married? You said I was your home. You know why? Because home is what you make it. Wherever we land, we will always be home if we have each other."
"Boys and girls, meet eligius four." Rave says as we approach the station.
"Powering a better tomorrow." Emori reads off the ship.
"Must be a mining ship." Rave states.
"Mining in space?" Harper questions what I was just about to ask myself.
"I've heard stories. Mining ships exploring different planets for life but that was one hundred years ago." Monty explains to the group.
"Well they had enough fuel to get back." I say as Raven gets ready to enter its gravitational pull.
"Okay, so what happens if they're still inside?" Murphy asks.
"We've been through this, if they were still inside and saw a foreign ship approaching they would have shot us out of the sky." Echo tells him.
Once Raven and Emori are able to get us in with a rocky landing, we all file out.
"Harper stay with Emori." I tell her as Raven had wanted Emori to run a diagnostics check on the ship after the landing.
The rest of us walk through the ship as a loud alarm contiues to go off. I would assume if someone was here they would shut it off which makes me hopeful that this will go smoothly.
We finally get to a set of doors and Bellamy flashes the light at the words above it.
"No inmates past this point." I read aloud.
"Inmates?" Echo questions.
"The mining missions were dangerous so they sent people they thought were disposable." Monty fills in the blanks yet again.
"Sounds familiar." Murphy mutters. I can't help but agree.
We finally walk through to another door, or what is left of it. It looks like there had been an explosion to open it up.
"Well this doesn't seem right." I mutter under my breath. Bellamy gives me a look and I just shrug.
Raven is finally able to get to a few control boards and shuts the alarm off.
"The ship doesn't run on hydrazine." Raven says. My hope starts to fade but I don't give up compleltely, if that other ship was able to get down they must have another way for us to get down too.
"So we're screwed?" Murphy asks and I roll my eyes.
"Just because the ship doesn't run on hydrazine doesn't mean they don't have any on board." She continues to click a few more things until she stops.
"Boom. And the crowd goes wild." She says with a smile.
"So we have a way down?" Echo asks. Raven turns to look at us.
"We have a way down." We all share her smile at the news and Bellamy pulls me in for a hug. We finally get to see our familiy again.
"That's not all we have." Monty says and flips a switch. Suddenly voices are coming through the radios.
"Lasercom. Our radios were blocked but lasercom was built to cut through harsh atmospheric conditions."
"Well can we talk to them?" Murphy stands up.
"Hold on, we don't know what we're dealing with." I tell him as we listen in.
"I've got movement northwest."
"I've got something better. I've got tracks."
"They're hunting our people." I state.
"We don't know that." Murphy speask up again.
I gesture to the radios, "they were the only ones down there who survived, who else would they be tracking?"
"All units be advised. Suspect is armed and dangerous. Keep your eyes open, this is her terrain, we're in her backyard." My heart starts beating faster as I realize she could be talking about Octavia. I turn to Bellamy, he's already overthinking the situation but I know Octavia, she's strong and she's not going down without a fight.
Gunshots through the radio make us jump which only makes Bellamy more anxious.
"McCreary, report. We heard gunshots."
"Relax, I told you we would get her and we did. She's a pretty one, fiesty too." My heart sinks at the realization that he could have Octavia and we dont know who we're dealing with so there's no telling what they will do.
"We need to get down there, now." Bellamy demands.
As Monty, Murphy, and Echo go to retreieve the hydrazine, me, Raven, and Bellamy stay behind to find out exactly who these people are and just how dangerous they could be. Me and Bellamy click through the prisoners log while Raven tries to find any video entry for the mining missions to explain what happened here.
"Murder, murder, murder, arson ending in murder, murder, robbery ending in murder." Bellamy says as he keeps clicking to show another prisoner.
"Well... this all sounds promising." I huff. I bite my lip as I think about if the roles were switched. If someone was looking through the original one hundred prisoners who got sent down to earth, the group of one hundred who I was among. They would see quite a bit of murderers too and I would be one of them.
"Taylor?" Bellamy nudges me and I face him.
"You good?"
"I just... weren't we just like them?" He shakes my head at the question.
"No, we we're all just kids who made mistakes. These guys wouldn't call what they did mistakes." Even hearing this, the thought doesn't comfort me much. After everything with the grounders... what we did... I don't think we are all that different.
"I think I found something." Raven says and we get up to stand behind her. She clicks play and suddenly there's a man frantically shouting into the camera that the prisoners attacked them and that they were highly dangerous. He even went as far as saying that Eligius should be blown up if the ark were to see them return back to earth. He was then quickly killed before he could say anything else, a woman came on screen and then suddenly it went black.
"Cryo, he said he was trying to deactive cryo-" Raven starts to say until she turns around.
"Guys, look out!" She screams, we turn around to see a man charging at us. He tries to swing on Bellamy first but Bellamy is able to dodge him and then punch him in the gut. It does nothing and the guy punches him in the jaw knocking Bellamy to the floor. I try to charge him and get in a swing before he lands a punch to my gut and then to my cheek. Raven approaches him but he grabs her by the neck and sends a punch straight to her gut. Bellamy gets up and wrestles with him again, I pick myself up and look around until I find a piece of shrapnel from the explosion from the door. The guy head buts Bellamy but Bellamy goes back for more, I quickly get behind the guy and jump on his back, before he can try anything I stab the knife into his neck and hop off of him before he slumps to the ground as the light fades from his eyes.
"Are you guys okay?" I ask them as they are still recovering on the gorund. They both nod and I take a deep breath.
"Well, I can't say I missed fighting for my life but it certainly is nostalgic." I add as I help Raven off the floor.
"They mentioned cryo in the video. That means all those prisoners are still alive and waiting to be woken up, just like he was." She motions towards the guy on the ground.
We all meet up with the rest of the guys where the pods for cryo were. There were hundreds of them each holding a prisoner, it was creepy and the thought that they could wake up at any second was starting to put me on edge.
"I say we just kill them all and get it over with." Murphy says.
"The pods are connected remotely, they must have the control for the pods with them which means they can wake any or all up." Raven explains as she walks around.
"Just like they did that guy." Echo ponts to the empty pod of the man we just killed.
"Exactly, so it's a safe bet to assume they will be releasing more. They probably woke him up to report back to them so once they don't hear from him..."
"They will wake another." Bellamy sighs.
"Look, I know how you guys are going to feel about this but Murphy is right." Echo states.
"We've been off the ring for less than a day and we're already talking about murdering hundreds of people." Bellamy explains.
"Well then what are we going to do?" Harper asks as we can't seem to come to a descion.
"Wait, Raven, can you block them from waking their people up?" I ask her, she tilts her head as if thinking about it.
"Actually I think I can."
"Can you make a remote kill switch?"
"It would be tricky, but yes, why?"
"Leverage." Bellamy answers for me and I nod.
"If we can make sure they can't wake their people up and leave their lives in our hands we can use it as leverage to make sure they don't hurt our people." I explain and she nods her head.
"Let's get to work." She says and Monty and Emori follow her.
After we make sure the hydrazine is in the ship, me and Bellamy go and check on Raven.
"Raven, what's wrong?" I ask her as we walk in on her staring at the monitor.
"Someone has to stay up here." She states.
"What?" Bellamy asks as she stands up.
"With remote access to the cryopods blocked, we won't be able to operate them either. Pulling the plug from the ground is not an option. Someone has to stay." She explains. I shake my head and Bellamy does the same.
"No. No way. We can make the threat through lasercom." Bellamy suggests.
"No, we won't know if they will follow through. Look, I've played it out every angle, this only works if we have eyes on the ground." Raven tells us.
"Fine, tell me how to do it. I'll stay." I tell her.
"Taylor-" Bellamy goes to argue but Raven cuts him off.
"I can't. They're nine security measures to be bypassed, teaching you would take days and knowing you, you'd probably still screw it up." She tries to joke but I'm not laughing.
"We're not leaving you here." Bellamy adds.
"I'll be fine, Emori knows how to get you down, that's what I trained her for. And Taylor, I've taught you just enough for you to help her. You guys need to go down there and find Octavia and make a deal for peace with the prisoners. Once everyone is friends, they will come back up for their people and I'll hitch a ride down with them." She continues to convince us but It's not making this any easier.
"Theres an escape pod if our plan doesn't work out. Look, six years ago I promised I would find us a way back down, now I have. Please let me get you guys home." She begs, I share a look with Bellamy. We say our goodbyes to her and then walk back to the ship where everyone's waiting.
"Where is she?" Emori asks.
"Ran into a technical problem. Someone has to run things from up here." Bellamy explains.
"Then have John do it." She points to Murphy.
"Emori." I say silently telling her to stop.
"Let's load up." Bellamy says before anyone else can argue.
"Now, Murphy." I say as I see him walk away from us.
"I'm staying too. What? With Emori flying, this is the survivors move. See you on the other side." Before he can close the door I run up to him and pull him into a hug. He doesn't move at first but then wraps his arms around me.
"You're an idiot." I whisper and he laughs.
"For not leaving Raven alone?"
"No, for eventually making me care about you all those years ago."
A/N:
They're finally going back down to earth!! How'd we feel about this chapter?? Taylor seems to be toying with the concept that they are just as bad as these new people, what do you think about that?? And poor Murphy, at least Taylor still cares for him!
Anyways, I'm back! I can't tell you how sorry i am for having taken forever with updating this book. Honestly this time i've just had major writers block, I was busy but it wasn't even that, anytime i'd try to sit down or even think about writing I would come up blank and it was so frustrating. luckily i'm starting to get back into the flow of things i hope.
i'm starting to be a bit more open with social media so if you have twitter follow me @sbgarciaa ! i post a lot of marvel stuff mostly and of course anything 100 related and just about anything else i love. it's also semi personal too so it's not a fan account entirely.
i'm also on tumblr @enamoured-x ! i'm still a bit rusty when it comes to making posts on there so bare with me.
On another note:
BOB AND ELIZA ARE FREAKING MARRIED!! Okay so i'm not gonna lie when Eliza was wearing a ring at a con and told a fan she had just gotten engaged i was like oh damn maybe it's william even though i thought they broke up. but then people were saying it was bob low key because he broke up with Arryn, and i was like there's no way but i want to believe it so bad. But i don't ship actual people because this is real life and there's actual real life people involved, but i was low key hoping she was engaged to bob and i thought we were all clowns for thinking bob and eliza were engaged and then BOOM! they come out and saying they're married!! i honestly was ecstatic when i read their tweets and honestly a part of me is still trying to believe it. i can't believe beliza happened before bellarke.
anyways, my little rant is over. thank you guys so much for continuing to stick with this story despite the slow updates and thank you so much for all your lovely comments. I appreciate the hell out of every single one of you.
much love, xoxo