❝what? no 'thank you' for saving your life?❞

-jace herondale, the mortal instruments

♛

I DREAM OF OUR first day on earth. But, as they usually are in dreams, the images are distorted and nothing looks the same. When the doors of the dropship hiss open, nothing but barren wasteland lies ahead of us. Dead grass and twigs for trees stretch for miles beyond my sight. Octavia barely breathes in and takes a step outside before she's seized with a choking spell. She claws at her throat and sinks to her knees while strangled gasps escape her lips, face slowly turning a dark red that matches the hazy sky above.

Bellamy barely rushes toward her before collapsing as well. His hands fly to his neck as he struggles to breathe, eyes bugging wide until they eventually roll into the back of his head. I take a step back and crash into someone; I whirl around to see Clarke. Except only the whites of her eyes are visible and blood is dripping from their sockets, running down her pale face like tears. She seizes my shoulders with a vice grip, her fingers digging into my skin until they leave finger-shaped bruises. Her head tilts to the side mechanically as if she's studying me with unseeing eyes.

"It's all your fault, Fallon," she sneers in a monotonous voice. "All of it. You killed us. And for that, you'll pay."

People are dropping like flies all around me. I stand, frozen in horror, as even Clarke falls to the floor and breathes her last. There's nothing I can do to help these people except watch as they choke to death on the acrid air. Some have blisters tearing their skin and turning it a sickly red-white color.

Nothing is happening to me. I lift my hands up to my face and discover no boils on my skin, no trouble with my breathing. Panic flares in my chest until it's so intense that my heart is pounding so hard it hurts. I start wheezing and cry out in terror upon noticing that everyone is immobile around me. Not so much as a finger twitches.

They're all dead. And I'm the only one left.

My eyes snap open to reveal the blurry figure of Clarke Griffin kneeling in front of me. I blink to let my eyes adjust, finding relief in noticing they aren't burning anymore. Her image eventually clears and I can now see the worry etched on her face. One of her hands is on my shoulder, just like in my dream. I have to remind myself that I'm awake now, Clarke isn't going to hurt me, and I'm not alone.

"Fallon," she mutters slowly with an incredulous expression, "did you fall asleep?"

"She's been out for an hour," Octavia informs her from across the dropship. "How she slept through that, I don't know."

One of her fingers lazily points at a tied-up Lincoln, who glares sharply at everyone in the room. His Reaper outfit is gone. He now wears a loose-fitting, torn sweater from our spare set down on the lower level. A chain is looped around his neck as well as either of his hands and legs. He looks extremely different- dangerous, tattered, and unkempt.

The image of him in the very same position when Bellamy had captured him flashes into my mind. Oh, how things have changed.

Clarke helps me up and keeps a hand on my arm. Her light eyes watch Lincoln carefully. "Have you been able to do anything?"

"Not with him thrashing like that," I respond with a huff. "I would knock him out, but I'm afraid of giving him brain damage. He's...had a rough day."

Clarke nods with her eyebrows pinched together in thought. She takes a step toward Lincoln, only for it to cause a screaming fit. Something snaps inside of him until he's pulling and straining against his restraints, yelling with his mouth wide open. The dim lighting inside the ship reveals his blackened teeth and fuzzy beard. But then he stops and begins shaking uncontrollably. Gurgled choking sounds rise from his throat as the chains threaten to snap from his constant pulling.

"He's convulsing," I note with alarm. "Crap, he's lost too much blood." I turn to Clarke, whose eyes are widened. "I tried to bind his wound, but I don't have as much experience with removing bullets--"

"Slow down, Fallon," Clarke gently says. "What are you talking about? What wound?"

Octavia closes her eyes with great difficulty. "I shot him."

Clarke pulls her lip between her teeth and nods in understanding. Her eyes lock on the dark cloth that's now stained with blood from when I used it as a tourniquet. Her hand slides from my arm as she takes hesitant steps forward, pausing when Lincoln attempts to advance at her with angry screams. I step toward her out of habit, but Bellamy lightly touches my wrist and shakes his head.

"Can you shine the light on his neck?" Clarke asks Octavia who mans the flashlight. It's quickly getting darker since the lights no longer function, and the sunlight from the window does no good.

Octavia raises her flashlight so it falls on the area Clarke requested. It reveals a network of crimson red veins that trail out like spider webs up to his head.

"Needle marks, yeah." I nod as Clarke turns to face me. "Maybe we can get it out of his bloodstream, but like I said, how will we do that without killing him?"

"I don't know--" Clarke starts to respond just as one of the chains breaks loose and hits her hard in the side of her head. She cries out in pain while Lincoln roars in her face, swinging wildly with his arms in an attempt to harm her in any way he can.

"Lincoln!" Octavia shouts just as I yell, "Clarke!"

Bellamy's grip is too loose to stop me, so I dart forward and quickly duck to miss one of Lincoln's thrashes. Octavia isn't so lucky; she is tossed away and slams hard into the wall. I wrap my arms around Clarke to try and pull her back, but all I end up doing is putting us both under Lincoln's mercy. His hand somehow manages to grab a fistful of both of our hair and yanks painfully.

I notice with blind eyes that he has less of mine, so I'm able to move a little more and hit him in the side of the head repeatedly with the side of my fist. A terrible ache blossoms in my hand from me punching incorrectly- especially something as hard as his skull. All he does is heave another roar and elbow me in the throat. My hair slips out of his sweating palm, causing me to stumble back and fall to the floor from the sudden leverage.

Bellamy races forward and follows my lead in attempting to knock him out. It's obvious Lincoln isn't going down without a fight from how he transfers his hand to Bell's throat, picking him up off his feet and throwing him like a rag doll so he smacks against the ground.

I watch in horror, fighting to catch my breath, as Lincoln slips out of the chains and darts forward. I scramble backward to escape his desperate hands that narrowly miss my foot. I find relief in the fact that his feet are chained as well, for he falls face-first onto the metal floor.

"The baton!" I choke out with all the breath I can regain, hoping Lincoln can't understand me. Bellamy scrambles to his feet and sprints to where he tossed the weapon aside. When he flicks it open, Lincoln's eyes flicker with realization and he lunges to undo the restraint on his foot.

Just as Bellamy is about to jam the electricity into Lincoln, the chain snaps and the Reaper stands up to match the younger boy's strength. Their arms clash for a split second before Bellamy is thrown onto the ground once more. Lincoln bends over him and throws several hard punches into his face, sickening me to my stomach at how quickly Bell's face becomes wet with blood.

I move with reckless abandon, desperate to save him. A cough comes out of my throat as I stand and blindly dive at Lincoln. My heart goes cold when all he does is grab me and toss me aside like I'm weightless. Now, combined with how hard it is to breathe, a throbbing ache flares from the side I landed on.

Octavia is much smarter. She manages to sneak around behind Lincoln and grabs a metal pole from against the wall, hitting him with it. Lincoln looks up and reaches for her wildly. Octavia parries the move and rears her arms back to slam the pole into him even harder with a grunt. He crumbles to the floor soundlessly.

She lets the pole go with a metallic clang on the floor. Her heavy breaths fill the air, eyes filling with guilt at Lincoln's unconscious form.

I cough several times with my ears buzzing. The ceiling spins above me. Though the pain in my side hurts like a mother, I manage to sit up with a sharp intake of breath and press a hand to where my nerves are on fire.

"Godamn, why am I always getting hurt?" I mumble to myself. My hand, still shaking from the sting that was caused by hitting Lincoln's head, lifts my shirt so I can see the bandages covering my stomach. The awful patchwork is free of blood. I drop the fabric back down with a sigh of relief- at least the wound hadn't ripped open again.

I meet Bellamy's eye from across the room. While he nods his head, I hesitate before nodding. That split-second pause wasn't detectable to him. He doesn't know I'm slowly losing my senses.

What if we can't save Lincoln?

--

Bellamy tightens one of the restraints on Lincoln's leg for the fourth time since we've tied him down again. Instead of leaving him standing, we've pinned him to the floor of the dropship with new chains and even a heavy net for good measure. My heart pulses with hurt at how we have to hold him like this, but it has to be done.

"We have to stop the bleeding and get the bullet out," Clarke informs us in her doctor voice. It's so familiar to my ears that I suddenly see her as the fourteen-year-old girl who would be the only one to notice the scrapes and bruises on me after one of my adventures. "Bellamy, hold his leg down."

When her hand presses too hard on the open wound, Lincoln gives a gurgled groan. Bellamy moves closer to the Grounder's appendage so he can get a better grip. His arm brushes against mine. When he is able to reach Lincoln, he turns his head and gives me a reassuring nod.

Octavia softly shushes Lincoln as she nears his mouth with a canteen of water. As soon as it touches his lips, however, he attempts to bite her and she drops the container with a yell of surprise. Octavia tries to mask the hurt on her face when she picks up the lid and screws it back on.

"I'll get some more," she says in an overly impassive tone before standing up.

"O," Bellamy mutters, getting up and stopping her. I decide to tune out of their private sibling conversation. Instead, I catch Clarke's eye and hold out my hand. She wraps hers in mine to give a gentle squeeze.

The next few minutes are horrible, filled with blood, anguish, and Lincoln's screams. My first bullet removal runs more smoothly than expected though Clarke does most of the dirty work. All I have to do is pass her supplies and hold a flashlight as she digs the bullet out of his leg and Bellamy holds him down.

Once the bullet is out, Clarke uses clean bandages to wrap Lincoln's wound. The only time my hands were steady was when I was treating Lincoln. They're back to shaking again, making me curl my fingers into fists to try and hide it. My face feels sweaty and pale like it's been leeched of my natural color.

Bellamy gently coaxes one of my hands open and laces his fingers through mine. "Your mom would be proud."

My heart nearly stops cold. I freeze, fresh waves of pain hitting me at the reminder of Abby's news. My heart clenches in on itself in an attempt to stop me from feeling; all it does is make me feel more.

"My mom is dead," I say so firmly that even Clarke looks up at me in surprise. Her blue eyes are widened at my tone. "The Exodus Ship. Your mom would be proud of you."

Clarke's face turns gray at the reminder. "Fallon, I--"

The hatch opens with a bang and Octavia crawls out onto the top level. Who follows after her makes my eyes widen in shock, standing up as I watch the man under a careful stare. He has thick, curly brown hair and a coarse beard of the same length. His build is burly enough to crush my hand to pieces without trying. A tattoo of his clan spirals up the side of his face- a Grounder.

Bellamy's immediate reaction is that the man is here to threaten us, so he releases my hand before I know it and grabs his rifle. The click of it loading seems to echo through the dropship.

Octavia steps between them with a hand extended. "Bellamy, don't. He's Lincoln's friend and their healer."

My head snaps downward when Lincoln makes a noise, alarm filling me when I notice he's convulsing again. His entire body shakes so rapidly I'm worried he's going to bang his head on the floor. White froth begins foaming at his mouth.

The healer kneels at Lincoln's side and opens a small travel package of tiny glass bottles. They're all filled with various substances in a variety of natural colors of herbs and liquids. He carefully selects one that's black, the color of it filling me with worry.

"What is that?" Clarke asks in a careful tone. Just the way her eyebrows are pinched tells me she's just as concerned as I am.

"Yu gonplei ste odon," the Grounder mumbles, the Trigedasleng foreign to my ears. My eyes watch his every movement as his hand hovers over Lincoln's mouth, preparing to apply a single drop to his tongue.

Just as it's about to fall, Clarke lunges forward and catches it with her hand. "Wait!"

The man reaches behind him to take out a knife, to which Bellamy responds with by raising his rifle.

"Hey!" he shouts. "Back off, right now."

Clarke's eyes drift to somewhere else as she recites the words under her breath. "Yu gonplei ste odon. It's what they say before death. He's not trying to heal him- he's trying to kill him."

"Nyko," Octavia says with her jaw clenched in anger. "Is it true?"

The Grounder - Nyko - sighs. "Yes. Death is the only way."

"Hold on," I say as my mind forms a plan as quickly as it can. Lincoln still convulses beneath us, and if we could just get a real doctor, we could save him. But the pieces of a stable plan are missing, chunks not available to me yet. It fills me with frustration like no other. "There could be a way to bring him back."

"None that I've ever seen," Nyko dismisses with his eyes filled with distrust.

Finn pops up from the hatch, startling me. "We have to go. The camp's leaving."

When the hell did he get here?

"You!" Nyko jumps up once he sees Finn, green eyes filling with rage.

"We have to stop--"

Nyko interrupts Finn with a cry of, "Ripa!" as he lunges toward the boy. He grabs him by the neck and shoves him against the wall so roughly Finn must be seeing stars. Nyko holds him up so his feet can barely graze the floor, reminding me of Bellamy struggling to stand on the stool.

"Get off him!" Bellamy demands, once again raising his gun toward the Grounder. I am impressed by his quickness to defend Finn even if he doesn't particularly like him.

"You slaughtered my people," Nyko growls. "Elders. Children."

"Stop it!" I command, fearful upon watching Finn's face turn darker shades of red with each passing second. He's not my favorite person either, but I can't let him die like this.

"Innocents."

Octavia is the one to speak next as she jumps between her brother and the Grounder with Finn. "Nyko, you're hurting him."

Nyko is filled with even more fueling anger, shouting, "Blood must have blood!"

"Get out of the way," Bellamy tells his sister.

"You're not shooting him!"

"Move!"

"No!"

Nyko cries out when Clarke jabs the electric baton into his back, making both him and Finn collapse. I can't believe I had forgotten about it, considering it was a smart move.

Octavia looks up; her face pales. "Lincoln?"

I look down to see he has gone completely still. My heart lurches at this realization. I immediately drop to my knees and put two trembling fingers to his neck to feel his pulse. There's nothing except the cold layer of sweat on his skin.

Octavia is blubbering beside me, noting that he isn't breathing. If there's one thing I can do to save him today, it's CPR.

I lock my hands on top of one another and place them at the center of his chest. They push hard and fast, willing his heart into beating once more. It only takes about ten pumps before he sucks in a gasp and relief floods through my body. I slump back as Lincoln's breathing begins to steady, meeting Octavia's thankful gaze across from him. Her watery eyes thank me a thousand times without words as a tiny smile pulls her lips up.

"He was dead."

Nyko's voice is filled with disbelief. I look around Octavia to see him sitting against the wall with bewilderment apparent on his face. "How did you do that?"

"Have you tried bringing Reapers back before?" I ask him calmly, somewhat astounded he doesn't know about CPR. Were 97 years all it took to erase that from the Earth's inhabitants' minds? Nyko nods, confirming my suspicions. "They all died like this, then."

My mind finally hatches the plan it's been trying to develop this entire time. If I can tell the Grounders how to bring their people back from the Reapers, it may be a bargain valuable enough to stop the onslaught coming our way. They must want their warriors back- they have to.

"What is it?" Bellamy questions in confusion. I meet his eyes with a half-grin.

"We might be able to stop this attack."

-----

yooo so fallon kinda stole clarke's thunder on that but they work together since they're both 'healers' in nyko's eyes so they get to meet lexa together!!!

-kristyn