vii. raven's venture to earth
twilight's last gleaming

SAWYER TOSSED and turned as she tried to fall asleep that night. After she watched Charlotte plummet to her death and sent Murphy out into the unknown landscape on his own, she could not calm her brain long enough to drift into some kind of unconscious state. The fabrics that she used as her bed at least kept her warm in the cooling air, which comforted her long enough to close her eyes.

It seemed that Sawyer had just began to fade from reality when multiple voices called out to her. She groaned, raising her hands to rub her eyes, before she shoved the thick fabrics from her body. She usually shared a tent with Harper, Miller, and Murphy, but since the latter had been banished the remaining three were a bit release with the extra space. Neither of her companions were in their beds, but someone had popped her head through the tent flap. Sawyer looked up to find the youngest Blake.

"Hey, you need to come see this," Octavia said, before she disappeared from view.

Sawyer's brows furrowed as she pushed herself up and followed after the girl. She found a few dozen of the delinquents crowded in the clearing between the various tents they erected over the last week or so. Her gaze shifted over them and found that their stares were aimed at the starlit sky. She followed their gazes, her lips parting at the strange sight.

A streak of something burning in the atmosphere. The orange glow ripped over their heads, growing brighter and larger as it descended at a quick pace toward the ground. Sawyer watched the object speed through the darkness, before it disappeared behind the treetops about a mile from the camp.

"They're coming to help us," someone, Jones, Sawyer thought, voiced as he turned to the people stood around him. "Now we can kick some ground ass."

"Yeah!" a few of the delinquents agreed.

"Please, tell me they brought down some shampoo," Roma quipped as she gripped a blanket around her bare shoulders.

Sawyer snorted and shook her head at the girl's comment. "You're hoping for shampoo, and here I am hoping for a decent pillow." She looked to where Octavia had already begun to gather a few people to move into the meeting tent. She gave the girl a nod as she approached her, ushering for the others to follow her into the makeshift structure.

_______

They proceeded to strategize where the object landed and how they were going to reach it before any Grounders decided to investigate. Sawyer proposed that they should all just wait for morning. Night was not the best time to be parading through unknown territory that they were still trying to navigate during the day.

"If it cleared the ridge, then it's probably near the lake," Miller stated, pointing at a section of the map they created of the surrounding land.

"We should get moving," Octavia voiced and made a move for the tent flap.

"Wait," Sawyer called out, forcing everyone's gaze to fall to her. "I think we should wait 'til morning." The others started to protest, but she held up a hand to stop them. "It's dark, and it's not safe. We'll head out at first light, alright?"

Octavia stared at the girl in disbelief and stepped closer to her. "Everyone for a hundred miles saw this thing come down. What if the Grounders get to it first? Sawyer, we should go now."

Sawyer sighed. "Believe me, Octavia. I want to get to this thing as much as the next person, but I'm not willing to risk anymore lives to do it," she stressed, pivoting on her heel to leave the tent without another word. She pushed the flap aside and almost ran into another body when she emerged. Sawyer stepped to the side so she did not hit them and found that the person was Bellamy. "You're late to the party." She reached out and prevented him from going inside when she noticed his trajectory. "Don't bother. I told them we're waiting 'til morning," she told him, heading away from the tent.

Bellamy went after her. "And they listened? Just like that?" he questioned, walking along side her.

Sawyer huffed. "No. Your sister is the one that gave me the most grief. I left before she could try to talk me into going after the damn thing." She lifted her hands to run them over her hair still secured in a ponytail. "No offense, but her persistence is starting to get on my nerves."

Bellamy simply released a low chuckle. "Tell me about it. It's definitely gotten worse over the last year," he said, before his stare fell to the ground.

Sawyer shrugged. "Eh. Lockup'll do that to you." She turned to face the young man to continue on. "I'm going to go diffuse the unrest before someone decides to go rogue looking for whatever that was. Don't you go doing something stupid either, Blake." She pointed at him and then strode off into the camp to settle the delinquents' nerves.

_______

The warm glow of the morning sun began to spread up from the horizon by the time everyone calmed and went on with their tasks for the day. Sawyer patrolled the camp, not trusting anyone to actually stay put inside the camp, especially Octavia, who conveniently disappeared shortly after she began to defuse the tension throughout her people. She searched for her in every tent and quickly erected structure, but she could not find the girl anywhere. She was just about to go for Bellamy to ask if he knew where his sister ran off to, until her attention landed on two people she had not seen in several hours.

Sawyer made her way toward Clarke and Finn, but she was too late to tell them about the mysterious pod. Fox raced across the camp and informed them of the sudden development, before she disappeared back into the controlled chaos. Sawyer sighed as she approached, already noticing the unimpressed look on the blonde's face. "Okay, before you say anything..."

"Where's Bellamy?" Clarke cut her off.

Sawyer huffed. "Straight to the point. Alright, I don't know. I was just about to go find him," she said as the three of them began to head in the direction of the man's tent. She shoved the flap aside, but she did not find him inside. Instead, she found a half-naked Roma and Shauna. "Well, isn't this a sight."

Roma immediately grabbed the animal skin blanket that covered Bellamy's makeshift bed to cover herself. "Every hear of knocking?" she questioned, until Clarke and Finn entered. "Oh, great, it's a free show. Anyone else want to take a look?"

Sawyer turned to the girl with a quirked brow. "Such talk for someone who doesn't even stay in this tent," she exclaimed, before she glanced between the two girls. "Where the hell is Bellamy?"

Roma shifted from foot to foot where she stood. "He took off a while ago."

"Gear's gone," Finn spoke after he glanced around the tent.

Sawyer sighed heavily with a shake of her head. "That's freakin' fantastic."

"He took the opportunity after you told every to stay," Clarke voiced to the Wesley girl. "Whatever's in that thing, he wants it. We've gotta get there before he does." She then turned toward the exit, Sawyer and Finn on her heels.

"You're welcome."

Sawyer rolled her eyes, but she did not turn back to reprimand the girl. She had more to worry about than a disrespectful delinquent. She ground her teeth together as she headed toward the gate built into the surrounding barrier.

"This isn't your fault, guys," Finn said as the three of them left the camp.

"I should've known he'd go for that radio." Clarke shook her head.

Finn's brows furrowed. "How are you supposed to know something like that?"

"Because every second he has been down here he has spent them trying to make sure that everyone up there thinks we're dead," Sawyer said as she pointed to the sky. "Now, I'm gonna figure out why."

"That doesn't mean you guys can predict what people are gonna do," Finn stated.

"That's exactly what we have to do," Clarke said with a shake of her head. "I screwed up. Let myself get distracted."

"I only took my attention off of him for a few minutes, and now everyone on the Ark could die because of it," Sawyer exclaimed. "I'm not about to let Bellamy be the one to put that on my conscience. His 'whatever the hell he wants' attitude stops here and now."

_______

The three delinquents departed from camp to hopefully beat Bellamy to the pod that fell to Earth. Sawyer had a permeant scowl plastered to her lips as she scanned the forest for any sign of the eldest Blake, but so far they found nothing. She mentally kicked herself for not keeping her eye on the man. She specifically told him not to do anything stupid. Apparently, he did not hear a single word.

Sawyer, Clarke, and Finn came to a stop when they approached a hill. The incline in the ground raised and continued on through a dense line of trees, while a long stretch of land that jutted off to the side of the mound.

"Should we split up?" Clarke questioned, glancing between her two companions.

Finn nodded. "Yeah. You guys go that way," he pointed to the hill, "I'll check the bottom."

Sawyer shrugged. "Sounds good," she voiced, moving forward with the blonde at her side. Her boots dug into the soft dirt as they climbed the hill, threatening to make both of them slip back down to the bottom with one wrong step.

Once they crested the top of the hill, Sawyer and Clarke weaved through the dense collection of trees until they stumbled upon a clearing. The circular span of grass would have been just a normal sight on the ground, if there had not been large metal pod sat in the center.

Sawyer slowly approached the contraption, motioning for Clarke to do the same. They had no idea who had come down in it, or if there was a Grounder who decided to investigate. Sawyer moved around the left side of the pod, careful of the parachute that was tangled around the sides, while Clarke approached the right. Both women grabbed ahold of the hatches handles and yanked them open in unison. And what they found inside was not at all what they were expecting.

Strapped into the seat and dressed in an off-white space suit was a dark haired girl. She had her helmet held in her hands, breathing heavily with a bleeding gash above her right eyebrow.

"Whoa!" Sawyer exclaimed. Her eyes widened at the sight of the girl.

Clarke gasped. "Oh, my God!"

The girl glanced between them and breathed, "hi. I made it?"

Clarke smiled and nodded, while Sawyer released a light laugh.

_______

Both girls helped the other out of the pod and to solid ground for the first time. The dark haired girl stripped the space suit from her body, leaving her in green pants and a red bomber jacket, before she proceeded to admire the world around her. Sawyer watched her from Clarke's side. She really hoped that was what they all looked like when they first laid eyes on the radiation soaked planet, smiling and happy to be free of the floating metal prison they once called home.

The dark haired girl breathed deeply and held her arms out wide as she stared up at the sky. A light rain had begun to blanket the landscape, cooling the already crisp air. "Aaah. I dreamed it would smell like this," she said holding out her hand to collect the drizzle in her palm. "Is this rain?"

Sawyer nodded. "Sure is."

Clarke smiled. "Welcome home."

None of the girls had a chance to say more as another voice tore through the serene atmosphere. "Raven!" Finn shouted, pushing his way to the edge of the clearing.

The dark haired girl, Raven, beamed when she laid eyes on the boy. "Finn!" she exclaimed and raced toward him, leaping into his arms as they meet halfway. "I knew you couldn't be dead."

Finn's eyes immediately landed on the gash across her brow. "You're bleeding."

"I don't care," Raven said, before she launched forward and pressed her lips against his.

Sawyer stared at them, slightly wide eyed. She did not expect that. She shifted her gaze away from them and to where Clarke remained next to her. Instead of the same look of surprise she expected to see, Sawyer watched the blonde's features fall into sullen expression. Did she miss something?

When they finally pulled away, Finn asked in complete shock, "how did you get here?"

"You know that big scraphold? The one on K Deck?" Raven asked, still holding onto the boy as if she were afraid he would disappear.

Finn's brows furrowed as he glanced toward the crashed pod. "You built that from scrap?"

Raven shrugged. "I kind of rebuilt it," she said, causing Finn to laugh. "Please, like that's hard. It just needed a couple parts and some love."

"You're insane."

"I'd do more for you and worse. Just like you would for me," Raven said and then staggered over her feet.

Sawyer immediately sprung into action and moved over to the girl's side. She grabbed ahold of Raven's right arm while Finn held the left. They helped her over to a boulder and had her sit down. There was no telling how hard she hit her head in the crash, considering she plummeted to the ground all the way from space.

Finn proceeded to take off his jacket and spread it across the girl's shoulders. "Let me get something for that," he said and jogged over to where Clarke had ripped a few sections of cloth from the pod's parachute.

Sawyer stared after the boy, her eyes narrowing as she watched him interact with a clearly upset Clarke. She had no idea what he did to the Ark Princess, but she knew that the blonde was not about to let him get away with it. Sawyer did not know the girl for long, but if there was one thing she learned in the last week or so, it was to not piss off Clarke Griffin.

Sawyer decided that she was not about to get in the middle of whatever it was that went on between them. She had enough to worry about than some teenage drama. She turned to where Raven sat on the boulder, holding a hand up to her head. "That was pretty badass," she voiced, drawing the girl's attention to her. "Building your own pod and then taking it on a ride to Earth. Ballsy."

Raven smiled. "Had to get down here somehow. Everyone up there thinks you guys are dead, but I knew that you were probably just taking off those stupid bracelets off," she stated and dropped her gaze to the Wesley girl's arms. "Looks like I was right."

Sawyer shrugged. "It sounded like a good idea at the time." She stepped closer to the girl and held out her hand. "I'm Sawyer, by the way."

Raven huffed as a look of realization spread across her face. "Sawyer? As in, Sawyer Wesley?" Sawyer nodded. "Nice to finally put a face to the name."

"Glad to know my reputation proceeds me," Sawyer quipped with a growing grin.

Clarke and Finn headed back over to them, neither appearing to happy with their conversation. The blonde held out a buddle of cloth and said, "she need to put pressure on the wound."

Raven took the cloth and gave her a nod. "Thanks." She then lifted her hand to hold it against her gash.

"This is Clarke and Sawyer," Finn introduced the two girls to Raven. "They were on the dropship, too."

Raven dropped the cloth and stood to her feet. "Clarke?" she questioned. "This was all because of your mom."

Clarke's brows furrowed. "My mom?"

"This was all her plan. We were trying to come down here together. If we waited," Raven trailed off as her eyes doubled in size, "oh, my God. We couldn't wait because the Council was voting whether to kill three hundred people to save air."

Sawyer's lips parted in shock. "They're what?"

"A – when?" Clarke gapped at that dark haired girl.

"Today. We have to tell them you're alive," Raven exclaimed and took off for the pod. Sawyer, Clarke, and Finn followed after her, watching as she dipped inside the contraption and came back out with a shake of her head. "The radio's gone. It must've gotten loose during reentry. I should've strapped it to the A-strut. Stupid!" She reached out to smack the side of the pod.

Sawyer ground her teeth together when she realized what happened. "No, no, it wasn't you, Raven. It was me. I let this happen."

"No, we both let this happen," Clarke corrected her and turned back to the other girl. "Someone got her before us. We have to find him."

<August 7, 2019>

In comes Raven Reyes! Oh, I miss how my girl used to be.

BRING BACK SEASON 1 & 2 RAVEN!!!

Don't forget to vote and comment.

-Jordan

P.S. Unedited chapter.