❝i am half agony, half hope.❞

—jane austen, persuasions

♛

HOME. FIRST, IT WAS Factory Station on the Ark. Then the dropship camp. Then Arkadia. But it's amazing how one incident can turn one's perspective completely upside down, because the moment Bellamy drives through the open gate of our camp, I feel an indescribable amount of unease.

What Emerson had done will likely haunt me forever. He'd infiltrated a place I considered safe, a home, a beacon of light in the dark world I lived in, and made me feel like a helpless fool. The term home vanished from my vocabulary the moment the airlock had been turned on and I'd almost suffocated in the exact spot my father was released into space six years prior.

There's no place like home. Hadn't that been an old saying on Earth? But now, what is it?

The return back to Arkadia had set up some immediate changes. I had finally gotten to shower, which took an absurd amount of time because I had to scrub the remains of the Nightblood off of my hands and from under my fingernails. The water would have been shut off on me if I had been fifteen. Rations were precious back then, but now I'm free to use as much lukewarm water as I please. And it's a good thing, too— the black, iron-scented blood had stained my bronze skin so badly that feel the ghost of it even now.

Clarke had also renovated her image shortly after getting back. She'd chopped her hair to its previous length just below her shoulders, swapping her Wanheda clothes for more Sky People-esque attire. I think the look suits her much better than the other one. It was like I'd been staring at a stranger up until now, but this Clarke, my Clarke, is finally back. After such a long time without having her here, it's more than strange to see her in the same room as me. Planning. Together.

A lightning flash illuminates the darkened room in a brief burst of white. A crackle of thunder quickly follows, causing me to hug my arms closer to my chest. I still haven't gotten used to storms. Back when the Ark was in the sky, we didn't experience the loud bursts of thunder or blinding flashes of lightning. A pit of anxiety brews in my stomach at the treacherous weather conditions.

The room we've chosen is small, but big enough to house our main necessities: a few tables, a transparent board that Raven and Caleb have scribbled countless notes on in fluorescent markers, and a few chairs. Water drips from a vent in the ceiling. The steady plop, plop, plop of droplets hitting the metal bucket we'd placed there is slightly bothersome.

"We've been at this for two days," Bellamy sighs aggravatedly as he shifts his weight onto his other foot. "There must be something we're not thinking of. What if we could reach the nearest nuclear reactor?"

"I told you, the meltdown started months ago," Raven replies from where she leans against one of the tables shoved against the wall. She shakes her head, a frown pulling down his lips. "There's no magic button to turn them off."

"Though, that would be nice," Caleb adds absentmindedly as he tinkers with scrap metal in his hands. I notice the nervous tick almost instantly— despite being apart for a few years, I still know him incredibly well. Old habits die hard.

Raven nods before continuing. "Today, this isn't black rain, but it will be soon. That's why we have to focus on riding out the radiation, finding someplace safe and big enough to hold all five hundred of us."

"This isn't just about saving us," Clarke mentions as she hops down from her seat. Up until now, she's been quiet, her mouth puckered as she listens to every one of Bellamy's or Monty's ideas getting shut down by Raven or Caleb. "I made a promise to Roan. It's about saving everyone."

"And that's why we need to tell everyone," Raven counters, causing Monty to nod in agreement. "Crowdsource it. If there's another Mount Weather our there, the Grounders will know about it."

"And you think they're just gonna tell us just like that?" Bellamy questions. "If we tell everybody they're gonna die, the Coalition is over, Roan falls, and the Grounders will be at our gate."

Monty smacks his hands into his lap and abruptly heaves himself off from where he'd been leaning against the wall. He stalks toward the bucket that's catching the dripping water, watching it intently. I feel a pang of sympathy for him. These past few days have held more pain for him than some of the others, and it won't get any easier from here. I can understand his frustration.

"Can you imagine the effects if we don't tell them?" I ask, tapping my fingers against my arm as another lightning bolt flashes. "The Grounders already don't trust us. If they find out we were keeping this from them, the repercussions will be much worse. I see your point, Bell, but they deserve to know."

"How about we just tell our people?" Raven proposes. "We need more minds on this problem. On the Ark, people volunteered for the culling because they were told the truth and given a choice." She turns sharply to Clarke. "A choice your dad died for."

Clarke's lips part in surprise, her eyebrows drawing in close as a stormy expression that matches the sky crosses her pale face. "You think I've forgotten that?"

"Okay," Bellamy cuts in, noting the tension that has risen between the two girls. "We'll tell everybody the truth as soon as we have a viable solution. Without one, it'll start a panic."

"You don't know that," Raven quips.

"That's it!" Monty abruptly exclaims with a clap of his hands, causing everyone's attention to turn to him.

"What are you talking about?" Clarke asks.

"Think." Monty whirls around, untucking his hands from the sleeves of his red cardigan. "Alpha Station survived for ninety-seven years in space through elevated radiation levels and extreme temperature fluctuations. Sound familiar? All we have to do is patch up the ship." A small, timid smile lifts his lips. "We're standing in our viable solution."

Caleb's face breaks into a smile. "Monty, you little genius, you."

The boy returns his grin, his face slackening in relief as he turns his face toward the hole in the ceiling like it's the sun.

—

I pass the last box of rations to Harper so she can load it into the truck. My back aches from packing the small bags into a container and from working to re-stock the boxes we'd just unloaded three days ago, but they'll need them for their trip, so I can't complain. I feel better about them having extra rations than a shortage of them.

After doing the calculations for the repairs, Caleb and Raven had surmised that the only way to power Alpha Station long enough to ride out the radiation wave is to use a hydro-generator. Luckily, it had crash-landed to Earth along with one of the separate pieces of the Ark. The journey won't be easy to find it despite its known location. They have to pass through Ice Nation territory, and even though Roan is now our ally, it doesn't help the nerves that churn restlessly in my gut.

"You sure you don't want to go?" Harper questions as she nestles herself into the back of the rover. Her pale face is slightly pinched in what could be worry or pleading, but I can't discern which one it is.

I shake my head. "I want to stay and help patch this sucker up. Besides, you have more than enough pairs of hands to carry that hydro-generator."

"We could always use one more," Bellamy says as he slides his arms around me from behind, circling them around my stomach. I lift my lips in a slight grin as Harper rolls her eyes and turns away from us.

"But you don't need me," I point out, reaching back to poke him on the nose. He crinkles it at the touch. "Raven and Caleb are going to assign tasks to people today so we can fix this damn ship. They need me."

Bellamy mumbles incoherently into my ear before spinning me around so we're face-to-face. He briefly presses his lips to mine, making me smile into the kiss before lightly pushing him away.

"You're clingy," I tell him. "Unusually so. Go do your job."

"Aye aye." He gives me a mock salute before climbing into the driver's seat. I watch with my lips pressed into a line as Harper locks the bolts holding the back doors closed, the sound echoing in the lively garage. It only takes moments for them to be gone.

With Miller, Bryan, Bellamy, Harper, and Monty on the trip, that leaves Raven, Caleb, Clarke, Jasper, and I left. It seems like such a small amount. It hits me for a painful moment— that it is a small amount. That it's been a small amount for months, that there are so few of us left. The hundred-and-two. The nine.

I watch the garage slide shut with a slight huff through my nose. Hopefully, Roan's seal will work. If not...

"Hey."

I'm prevented from spiraling down into dark thoughts by Clarke's voice, which pulls me back to reality quickly enough that I blink in surprise. She gives me a halfhearted, closed-lipped grin that shows she's mainly doing it to reassure me. I unclench my fists and rub at my aching palms.

"They'll be fine," she promises, following my gaze to see the garage door close with a boom that echoes throughout the warehouse-like structure. She shifts her weight and pointedly ignores my nervous habit. "Roan's seal will get them through Azgeda territory, they'll get the hydro-generator, and then we only have the Grounders to worry about."

My lip quirks into an ironic grin. "It seems too easy."

Clarke sighs. "I know, but I have to believe it will work. In the meantime, I'm not going to stop until I have a solution that saves everyone."

I nod, silently telling her it's okay for her to leave. She gives my arm a gentle squeeze. Her eyes linger on my troubled expression, her own gaze filled with concern. I quickly smooth my face so the lines disappear and shove my feelings of doubt deep into my gut. If she notices the forced change, she doesn't comment, only giving me space and turning to walk out of the garage.

When Clarke is gone, I figure standing around will accomplish nothing and instead locate Caleb. He's leaning against one of the workbenches in the spacious room, a tablet in one hand and a stylus in the other. His dark brows form a crease in the middle as he furiously scribbles notes, a frown pulling down his lips. He's let his facial hair grow out. It hides the scars from the attack on Mount Weather fairly well, but they're still noticeable as they travel from his neck and down into the collar of his brown shirt. His head snaps up when I head toward him.

"What are you doing?" I ask as he turns back toward the hand-held screen. The tablet is small and sleek, barely bigger than the cover of a book, back when those used to be more common than digital media. They'd only recently started working again. The only time I'd been allowed to use one was when Abby would give me readings on the human body and medical procedures for my training in Medical. Not fun.

Caleb shakes his head and scribbles something else on the glass. As he writes, the letters transform from his handwriting to a geometric font that organizes his notes for him. After he's done, he tucks the stylus behind his ear with a disgruntled sigh. "There's too much to do, too many repairs. Even if we get this ship fixed — and that's a big if — we'll need every helping hand we can get. But with Raven and I as the only mechanics left..." He swallows painfully, the memory of Sinclair hanging between us like a ghost. "Anyway, the point is, we are so screwed. Nobody wants to help."

"I'll help," I offer in an optimistic tone.

He cracks a small smile that's barely a flash of teeth. "Thanks, Fallon, but we're going to need more than just you and the five volunteers we have. I can already feel myself getting a tension headache just thinking about what we have to accomplish."

My heartstrings tug. I hadn't truly realized what a predicament we're in until now, when we have such a large burden to carry and there aren't any people willing to help. Caleb and Raven shouldn't be the only ones orchestrating this. Maybe we've put too much faith in blind trust of our people. If we could just tell them—

"I know," Caleb mumbles as if he'd read my mind. When I look at him incredulously, he raises his eyebrows. "You're still like an open book to anyone who cares enough to look. But we can't tell anyone— not until we've got the hydro-generator. Then we can start figuring things out."

I nod, half in understanding and half in agreement. It feels so wrong to be keeping such a fundamental fact from my people. I'm surrounded by those whom I've sworn to protect and lead, and I'm deceiving them. It doesn't feel right at all.

"Soon," Caleb promises just as the sound of Raven's heavy step begins to echo across the floor. She appears from one of the doors leading to the rest of Alpha Station, crossing the garage as quickly as she can while swiping the stylus from behind his ear and the tablet from his hands.

"Okay," Raven begins as she scans over his notes with a furrowed brow. The few volunteers they've assembled stand silently in front of her, waiting for her instructions. My heart sinks; there really are only five, six including me. "We've got a lot of work to do to get this ship ready for the new season. Sector Four: the crack in the outer wall, we need to patch it up. Start by repairing the damaged panels. Sector Five: we need to get that tree out of the hole and seal it up. Any questions?" A stretch of quiet. "Okay... go."

Caleb buries his face in his hands, rubbing them along his cheeks so the pale skin sags. "Fallon, could you do us a favor and help us with that tree in Four, that'd be awesome. We only assigned three people there, so they'll need the help."

I nod. "You don't need an even amount between the two groups?"

"Nah," he says, waving a hand. "The panels shouldn't be too difficult, and I'm going over there to help, anyway."

"Got it," I reply with a reassuring pat on his shoulder. "Whatever you need help with, I'm here."

He gives me an exhausted grin, fatigue swimming in his seafoam-green eyes as well as in the purple shadows beneath them. "Thanks."

As I pass Raven, I give her a light touch on the elbow to get her attention. She seems like she's a toy that's been wound up too many times, but the mechanism that allows her to release the pent-up tension is broken. Her spine is tight and muscles tense. When she looks at me, frustration evident in the way she sets her mouth, my heart aches. I'd give anything to ease her strain.

"I'm going to help Sector Four," I inform her as I slightly step toward the exit.

She nods, not bothering to fake a smile like Caleb did as she replies, "Thank you, Fallon."

I pass the two other rovers lined up in the garage on the way to the side entrance. As soon as I step through it, the slight heat of the sun hits me through my navy long-sleeved shirt and the blank tank top beneath it. We're at the tail-end of February now. It doesn't feel like the coming of spring, though— instead of a chance at rebirth, Death seems to be loitering around everywhere I look, following me like a shadow.

I'd tied my hair up into a ponytail this morning, which I'm grateful for because I know that the slight breeze won't do anything to cool me down once I start working. As I head through the camp toward where the tree had fallen into one of the walls during a winter storm, I start to wonder how we're going to move it. Luckily, it isn't as big as some of the green giants surrounding us, so that'll make the job slightly easier. Slightly.

Catching sight of one of the volunteers, I call out loud enough for her to hear, "Elesa!"

She turns toward me as I call. Elesa Winter is a muscular woman of about thirty, with a shaved head and skin dark as midnight. She's been a member of the Guard for as long as I can remember. There's not a job she hasn't followed through with, though with the heightened amount of guards who have passed over the few months we've spent on the ground, I notice more grief in her brown eyes. Maybe it's a remnant of the City of Light.

"You here to help, Rivers?" she inquires with a raise of her brow. When I nod, she sends me a relieved smile that doesn't show teeth. "Good. We're going to need it. I have Jason Polman and Kiera Wesley on my team— we're going to need the extra muscle."

Elesa guides me to where the destruction had occurred. The tree appears to be an oak, if my recollections of Monty's ramblings about nature are correct. Jason, a stockily-built blond man of about twenty-five, is working on cutting off the branches with an electric saw. Kiera stands well out of his way and does her best to drag the branches away when they fall.

"The plan is to lighten the load as much as we can," Elesa explains, hands on her hips as she examines the work being done. "Jason is cutting down the branches and Kiera is moving them aside to use as firewood or for rebuilding purposes. Once it's just a trunk, we'll chop that into separate pieces and cart it away." She turns to me and raises a thick brow. Her coffee-colored eyes glimmer with amusement. "You up for the challenge?"

I glance down at my arms, the muscle of them hidden by the sleeves of my shirt. Elesa knows that I've grown stronger over the past several months of training. "I think I'll be okay."

She grins and claps me on the shoulder. "Atta girl, Rivers. The other saw is over there— you can help Jason."

Several hours later, sweat is making my skin gleam in the pale light of the overcast sky and my shirt has turned even darker because of it. My arms burn with the effort it has taken to hold the heavy saw and use it to cut down the branches. After I'd finished with that job, I'd helped Kiera cart them off to be chopped up later. It's grueling work but our team works impeccably together. The three of them aren't ones to mess around.

That's why we're all perplexed by the sound of the overhead speakers crackling. I lift my head from the tree just in time to hear music begin to pour out of them, the lyrics making me scoff a half-laugh.

"Silicon chip inside her head gets switched to overload, and nobody's gonna go to school today! She's gonna make them stay at home."

It takes me milliseconds to recognize this as Jasper's doing. I sweep my gaze over Arkadia, my added height from the ladder I'm on giving me the perfect view of what's going on. Some children are kicking a ball around. Other adults are laughing, seemingly oblivious to the fact we're working our asses off to get rid of this tree. A frown pulls down my lips.

"Break time?" Jason questions, blue eyes squinting in confusion. His hair is matted to his forehead with sweat. He wipes it with the back of his arm.

"Seems like it," I mumble, already starting to climb down the ladder. Once I reach the bottom rung, I leap down and dust my hands off. Jasper had been sitting in an unused rover near the entrance to Alpha Station. If I could get to him before things inevitably go south—

But once I locate him, I discover it's already too late. Clarke is furious. Her mouth is set in a hard line, eyebrows drawn closely in and arms crossed over her chest. Not good. Jasper, on the other hand, has a denim baseball cap on his head and is nonchalantly sipping a metal mug of an unknown liquid, seemingly unfazed by her anger.

I get within earshot just in time to hear him say, "I guess they think it's the end of the day, not, you know, the end of days."

Clarke narrows her eyes incredulously. "Don't you want us to survive, Jasper?"

"No, I don't want us to survive. I want us to live."

"Clarke," I call, drawing her attention to me as Jasper takes a long sip of his drink. No strong scent of alcohol burns my nose when I walk up to them, which is a good sign. Maybe it's water. "Look, Jasper's right."

"If we don't repair that ship, none of us will have the chance to live," Clarke points out to the both of us.

I understand her frustration— I really do. She had saved us from the City of Light, only to learn that an even worse fate is headed our way. But we have six months. One break isn't going to cause our downfall.

"Clarke," I say calmly, noting the rising tension between her and Jasper, "it's going to be okay. Elesa, Kiera, Jason, and I are making progress on that tree and we should be done today. Repairs to the structure will be tomorrow's task. But you can't expect us to work non-stop; we're not robots. We need rest."

Jasper raises his cup to me in salute. "That's a good point, Fallon. Hey, maybe you should be Chancellor." He takes a long swig before spreading his arms out and singing as he dances away, "I'm gonna shoo-oo-oo-oot..."

Clarke's lips are pressed together so tightly that they've turned white. I pat her shoulder before continuing, "If we tell them, maybe they'll be more willing to work, but you can't expect people to bend to your same level of urgency if they don't think there's anything to worry about." She nods, shifting her blue-eyed gaze to the ground. I wonder if she's truly listening or just nodding so I'll shut up. Either way, I keep going. "They just got their freedom back— don't take it away by forcing them to do things."

Before I can listen to her reply, I turn around and start walking back to work, mouthing the words to Jasper's song as I go.

__

It only takes several days for me to feel the toll. With Abby still in Polis, Jackson and I are the only two nurses available in Medical. I try to help the others repair the ship as well as I can, but most of the time, it's impossible for me to work two jobs in one day. The one thing I'm grateful for is that I'm never placed on Guard duty. Standing around while there's so much work to be done would have driven me mad.

Hopefully the others are returning with the hydro-generator. Then, things will begin to look up.

I rub my aching lower back with a knuckle and wish for nothing more than scalding hot water. Even with the plumbing back up, the water gets lukewarm at best. I resist the urge to take a few painkillers and leave them for the patients instead.

Elesa had been ordered to patrol today, so it's just Kiera, Jason, and I repairing the damage from the tree. There's nothing we can do about the dents in the wall and ceiling, but there are a few holes we can patch up. Caleb is on the roof, giving Kiera the run-down of what to do so she doesn't damage any of the circuits in the ceiling.

"Hey, Fallon," Jason says with a poke to my arm. "Look who's back."

Instantly, my heart gives a violent leap in my chest and I whirl around to face the front gates. The guards on duty let a familiar rover drive into the camp. They've returned.

"Caleb!" I call up to the boy. "Hydro-generator!"

He almost falls off the roof in surprise, barely managing to catch himself before he plummets to possible death or serious injury. He gives a short instruction to Kiera as he begins his descent down the ladder. She looks confused, but shrugs at his sudden absence.

Caleb plops down on the dirt beside me. "Let's go."

Together, the two of us race in the direction the rover had gone. The driver had parked it near the entrance to Alpha. The closer we get, the more perplexed I become, because instead of seeing our friends unload a vital piece of equipment, I witness Bryan storm into the Ark with a devastated Miller left behind. My run slows to a hesitant walk as Monty hops down from the passenger seat and throws down his bag.

"Hey," I greet him, but he merely lifts his gaze to mine and shakes his head. My small grin fades as I see vaguely familiar people emerging from the back of the rover. Some of them have bruises on their thin bodies, others with blood running down the sides of their faces, like one boy who jumps down with a bewildered expression on his face at the sight of our camp.

"Riley?" Clarke's voice questions. I flicker my gaze to see her slowly walking toward him with her face pinched in confusion. He breathes her name as she wraps her arms around him in a hug. I've never seen the boy before, so he must have been one of her Privileged friends. Some of these are Sky People.

Caleb walks around to the back of the rover and peers into it. Whatever he sees causes him to inhale sharply and take a step back, mumbling, "Oh, God."

Bellamy lifts a young girl of about nine years old out of the vehicle. She curls into his side immediately, bronze skin marred with bruises of varying colors. He secures an arm around her shoulders comfortingly.

"Get Riley and the others to Medical. We'll take the Grounders to their villages in the morning," he orders Harper, who nods. "Fallon, can you help them?"

"Tell me what happened first," I counter softly as Riley takes the hand of the little girl and leads her into Alpha.

Finally, Caleb asks, voice trembling, "Where's the hydro-generator?"

"We didn't get the machine," Bellamy explains somberly.

Raven arrives just in the nick of time to hear that sentence. Her eyebrows are drawn in as she examines the empty back of the rover, jaw slightly dropped.

"It didn't survive the landing?" Clarke questions in an attempt to understand.

"No, it did. But I had a choice: bring the machine home or use it to save them." He jerks his head toward the injured people walking away from us. My breath catches in my lungs. The Sky People and Grounders from other clans... they'd been enslaved. It explains their malnourished and dilapidated appearances.

"Oh, we are so screwed," Raven hisses under her breath.

"We have time, but I am not sacrificing any more innocent lives."

Clarke raises her brows. "You just did."

Bellamy's eyes cloud with pain at her words, but it clears away as he asserts, "I made the call, and I'll live with that."

"Yeah, well, you're not the only one who has to live with your call, Bellamy," Raven retorts. "As usual."

I turn to her with an edge to my voice. "I'm sorry, would you have preferred them to die under slavery so we could breathe a little longer? How would you like living with that?"

"Okay," Clarke says calmly, nervously glancing between the two of us. "How many of us will the ship sustain without the hydro-generator?"

Caleb, who has been anxiously biting his nails this entire time, finally pulls his hand away from his mouth. "No more than a hundred."

Around and around in circles, we go.

______

uhhh that ending was complete trash, but hey! i'm back! and so is fallon!

i'm really, really sorry about the incredibly long wait, but i suffered from the WORST case of writer's block ever and my brain was like "error: 404 inspiration not found" for the longest time. i even debated discontinuing the series. but i survived!

one thing i'm considering is ending the series with season four. i had plans for season five, but it would be an absolute pain to write it (soooo many scene skips and none of the writing makes sense) plus i'd have to squash 6 years of character development into fallon and caleb and i don't feel like doing that lol.

also: did they get new writers for season 4? raven said "get the ship ready for winter" but winter was during the time jump and now it's the beginning of march lol...what. bellamy also called "medical" "medbay" and i was very confused

hopefully the next update doesn't take nearly as long as this one did! (happy 2019!)

also caleb wasn't supposed to have a goatee until season 5 but i got impatient because beard!caleb does things to my heart more than regular caleb does

-kristyn