Chapter Text
The fire had been burning since sundown, and the camp looked different by its light.
Lily had noticed it an hour ago — the way the familiar shapes of tents and people had softened, the way laughter moved through the clearing with a looseness she hadn't heard since before the storm. Bellamy had organized this, which still surprised her every time she thought about it. The threat of the Grounders hadn't lifted. The Ark was coming down within days. And yet he had looked at the camp and had decided that one night of something different was what they needed.
She was watching him from across the clearing now. He was standing near the fire with Clarke, a rifle on his back and a apple in his hand, but he was smiling.
He said something and Clarke laughed, and the line of his shoulders had a quality she didn't often see in them — loose, unguarded, the version of him that existed when the weight of the camp wasn't pressing down on every muscle. She had been learning to recognize that version. It came out in the mornings, in the particular quiet of his tent before the day asked anything of them, in moments like this when the light was warm and the work had briefly stopped.
She thought about this more often than she probably should have.
Beforeshe had known him as anything other than the person giving orders, not quite understanding everything that he did. But now she was starting to see him differently. Now she noticed when he was carrying something, when the set of his jaw meant he was thinking something he hadn't decided to say, when the sharpness in his eyes was protection rather than hostility. Now she saw it, much more clearly than before.
And she thought about it most evenings now: how strange, and how glad she was of the strangeness.
How much she liked to see him in so many different shades now, helped by all the time time they shared alone. She hoped she could know him better and better... but than she thought about Marcus. And the fact that she had less than sixty hours for their organization to change.
She reached for her cup — something Monty had pressed into her hands an hour ago with the particular insistence of someone who had decided she needed to relax — and took a slow sip. It burned going down. She was getting used to that.
Less than sixty hours...
She had turned those words over a dozen times since this morning and had not yet arrived at a place that felt like solid ground. The Ark coming down was right. She knew that. The threat of the Grounders was real and it was growing, and a group of teenagers with rifles they had been learning to shoot for two weeks was not a long-term answer to a people who had been living in this forest for generations. They needed the Ark's resources, the Ark's doctors and engineers, the infrastructure of three generations of human survival. She knew that.
But she didn't liked it.
The Council would come down with its laws. With its logic of necessity, its careful arithmetic of who was worth what, its conviction that order required a particular kind of ruthlessness. She had spent seventeen years watching that logic at work and had never once seen it leave room for mercy when mercy was inconvenient. Down here they had been building something — messily, painfully, with more failures than she could count — but building. And she did not know what it would look like when the Ark arrived and looked at what they had made and decided to improve it.
And Marcus specifically.
She turned the cup in her hands.
She did not want to see him. That she was sure of. She had not wanted it to be true, had spent long enough hoping it might not be true, but she had stopped lying to herself about most things and this was one of them. She did not want to stand in front of him on solid ground, in a world he hadn't been shaped by, and try to understand what he was on the ground.
She had no much faith in that man.
Be kind, Lily. Her mother's voice, so clear it almost hurt.
She pressed her lips together and looked toward the fire.
"Hey." Jasper appeared at her elbow, slightly flushed, eyes bright. "So you're that kind of drunk."
Lily frowned looking up at him. "What kind of drunk?"
"The one that gets emotional," he said before chuckling.
"Let me guess," she said cocking her head to the side, "You are a funny kind of drunk." He laughed at her. She shook her head as she looked at the cup in her hand.
"I'm fine, by the way." She said. "Are you having a good time?"
"Extremely." He held up his cup. "Monty's latest batch is better than the last one. He's been practicing."
"I can tell." She said with a giggle. "It tastes better than before."
"I know, right!" Jasper excalimed, before drinking some more. "Well at least we are having a good time, others are too much in to work." He said pointing at one of the tents.
Lily frowned looking at him, "Who's working on Unity Day?"
"Raven," Jasper said, with another chuckle.
Lily frowned. She had spoken to Raven earlier in the week — had known she was working on the bullets — but hadn't thought she would be at it tonight of all nights. She glanced across the clearing. The light in the far tent was steady and focused, not party-shaped.
She picked up an extra cup.
The tent smelled of metal and something acrid. Raven was bent over the table with the focused stillness of someone who had left the party about three hours ago in her head, her hands moving with small precise motions through bullet casings she had split open. She didn't look up when the flap moved.
"I brought you something," Lily said.
Raven turned, and her expression went through surprise before settling into something more measured. "Thank you," she said, taking the cup.
Lily set her own down and looked at the table — the arranged casings, the gunpowder carefully separated, the tools laid out with Raven's particular neatness. She thought, not for the first time, about how much intelligence it took to do what Raven did. She had piloted her own pod down here alone. She had repaired the radio. She was manufacturing ammunition from the components she had on hand. They were extraordinarily lucky to have her.
Then though she noticed the strange way her eyes were clouded, and even if she was not sure she could ask, she decided to do it anyway.
"Hey," Lily said. "Are you alright?"
Raven set down the casing she was holding. "I don't understand," she said. "Finn is defending the Grounder." She gestured toward the table. "He's almost upset that I'm doing this. How can you forgive someone who did that to you?"
The image arrived before Lily could stop it — Jake's hands on her jacket, the forearm against her throat, the way he had spoken to her. Lily pressed her fingers lightly against her cup.
"Probably he has his reasons," she said, keeping her voice even.
"I don't get what it could be." Raven sounded genuinely baffled, which was worse somehow than if she'd sounded angry. "Finn thinks you're kind. Am I missing something?"
Lily looked at her. "I don't think it's a matter of kindness," she said, letting out a breath. " Honestly, I don't know what Finn is thinking. You know him better than I do. But he was the one who almost died. I think our experiences could be perceived very differently." She remembered to have a kind of conversation like that with Bellamy a few days later form Jake's attack.
He didn't understan. According to him, they should have done something, but Lily had asked him not to do anything. From his point of you it was the right thing to do, but from her point of you she didn't see it in that way. But she could not expect for him to understand.
Raven's jaw tightened slightly. "Do you regret it? The Grounder?" she asked. "Because Finn seems to think we should."
Lily thought about it properly before answering. She thought about that room on the upper level, the sounds she had put her hands over her ears not to hear, Bellamy's face before it started. She was not proud of any of it. She would not say it had been right. But she looked at Finn moving carefully through the camp with his healing wound, and she was just glad he was still alive.
"Finn is safe," she said. "We made our choices about how to save him. But I don't think he needs to like them."
Raven looked at her for a long moment. Then she picked up the casing again. It wasn't agreement, but it wasn't argument either. Lily picked up her cup and left her to it.
The evening deepened, and the camp leaned into it.
The fire had burned down to something steadier and warmer, and people had arranged themselves around it in the particular clusters of those who had been through things together — not assigned, just settled, the way groups settled when the edges of who they were to each other had been worn smooth by weeks of shared difficulty. Lily moved through it slowly, stopping when something pulled her, letting conversations find their own length.
She spoke with Monroe for a while about the wall, about whether the new section Bellamy had reinforced would hold against a serious push.
At one point she stopped near where Clarke was standing with Sterling and another girl — the three of them laughing at something, Clarke's head tipped back, her whole face changed from its usual careful composure. Lily watched her for a moment and felt something that wasn't quite envy and wasn't quite relief, but lived somewhere between the two. Clarke deserved evenings like this. They all did, and they didn't get enough of them.
She found Miller at the edge of the fire and said something about the berry situation, and he laughed in the way he did when something struck him as both funny and deeply inconvenient. She accepted a second cup from Monty, who handed it to her with the expression of someone checking on a patient.
She was about to move on when she saw Jake.
He was near the outer edge of the clearing, not quite in the party and not quite outside it — the position of someone who had come out because staying alone felt worse, but hadn't been able to make himself join properly. When his eyes moved in her direction and found her, he went very still. Then he looked down.
She stood where she was for a moment. She thought about the undergrowth, the stone, the particular sound. She thought about what she had said and what she decided to keep for herself.
She didn't move toward him.
She turned, and on the far side of the camp, across the fire, Bellamy was looking at her. She didn't know when he had found her in the crowd. He was standing with his arms loose at his sides, the firelight catching the angles of his face, and when their eyes met he smiled, something quiet and warm, something that had been slowly arriving in the past weeks.
She smiled back.
"I didn't think you'd become this close with him."
She turned. Finn was beside her, his eyes on the same direction hers had just been. From his tone she knew he wasn't saying that as if he was happy for her.
"Only because you two don't get along doesn't make him a bad person," she said looking up at him.
"What about his actions?" He asked and Lily shook her head.
"It's more complicated than that."
"Is it?" His voice wasn't hard — that was the thing that made it harder to dismiss. It was genuinely tired. "Lies, violence, torture."
"He made his mistakes." She kept her voice even. "But, Finn — he wanted to help you."
"So it's okay to torture people?" He was looking at her with sad eyes. And she knew how terrible all of that was. But that was not what had happened.
"Of course not." She said turning to him. "I'm not saying he did the right thing. But he did what he thought was best to find answers. To save your life."
Finn looked away. A breath moved through him. "You don't have to find excuses," he said quietly. "Go to bed with him. But don't lie to yourself. You're better than that."
Something tightened in her chest, but she could not tell if it was hurt or anger. "Are you going to lecture me about honesty after how you've treated Raven and Clarke?"
He flinched. And she immediately closed her eyes, already feeling bad for what she had told him.
"Look." She softened her voice because she meant to. "I'm sorry. That's not my business." She met his eyes. "But what I do with Bellamy isn't yours, either."
He was quiet for a moment. As if he was thinking about what she had just said. And then he spoke again.
"You've always talked about non-violence. Are you still standing by that?"
She frowned at the question. "Of course I am. Why?"
He turned to face her more fully, looking around as if to make sure no one was listening.
"I found a way to talk to the Grounders."
She went very still. What did it mean? How did he manage to? She had a lot of questions running into her mind, but she voiced only one of them.
"Talk," she said. "You mean — in peace?"
He nodded taking a step towards her. "I've spoken to the Grounder—"
Her eyes widened, knowing that of who he was talking about, "Finn--"
"He told me to bring Clarke, so that our leaders could talk." He pressed on before she could. "Maybe we could end this. But I don't want anyone following."
Lily looked at him for a moment, crossing her arms over her chest. "You mean you don't want Bellamy following."
He held her gaze. "He thinks violence is the only way."
"He doesn't think that lightly." She kept her voice from rising. "Maybe if you tried explaining it to him—"
"I don't think that's a good idea." He said firmly with a shake of his head.
She looked at him confused. He knew she was close with Bellamy, if he didn't want his help, why was he talking to her?
"Then why tell me?" she asked with a frown.
The pause before he answered was one beat too long. And the way he was looking at her gave her the answer. An answer that only managed to made her flare.
"No," she said shaking her head. "Absolutely not."
"He seems distracted enough with you." Finn said glancing breafly at where Bellamy was standing, before looking back at her.
The particular flatness in his voice made her jaw tighten. "Finn, I'm not distracting Bellamy so that you can sneak off to this meeting." She said firmly and almost offended.
"It's the only way we can end this before the first Exodus ship arrives." He insisted, looking at her in the eyes as if he was trying all he could to convince her.
"We need to end this before it begins. Before the Council gets here and makes everything worse. And we don't need any riot because of Bellamy."
She looked at him with wide eyes. "You speak like it's always him who starts this. That's not what happenes."
But he shook his head, "I don't trust him."
"And how do you know you can trust them?" Lily asked in return.
"Lincoln said—"
"Lincoln." She heard her own voice go flat. "It's his name? The person who stabbed you?"
Finn's jaw shifted. "You even talk like him now."
Lily stepped closer to him. "Forgive me for being careful, Finn." She said. "But last time, you ended up with a poisoned blade in your side. And now you want to go alone with Clarke to speak with them with no back up." She held his gaze. "This is a bad plan, please think about it."
But he looked at her stubbornly, "It's the best chance we have." They observed in silence for some moments before he spoke again. "So? Are you helping me?"
Lily knew from the way that he was looking at her, that Finn had already decided. And he would go on with that plan even if there was no way it would have ended well. How could they be sure that the Grounders would have kept their word? The only reason Finn was alive was because Lincoln seemed to care about Octavia well being, he didn't do it for the goodness of his heart. He didn't do it out of mercy.
But Lily found herself nodding at his request. Finn seemed relieved about it, before he turned to walk away. She observed him disappear through the crowd, feeling her stomach turn in knowing that she had just lied to him.
She could not let him and Clarke to risk their lives like that. So she decided to make her way towards the only person that could protect them for real.
She moved through the people and the firelight, stepping between conversations and clusters, until she was across the clearing.
"Bell."
He turned toward her, and the smile came as he saw her.
"Hey." He shifted slightly to make room for her at his side.
"I need to speak with you alone." She said quitely, looking up at him. "Can we?"
He read her face, which took him about two seconds. "Sure." They moved to the edge of the clearing, just past the last of the firelight. "What is it?"
"Finn told me about a meeting he's arranged with the Grounders." She watched him. "They want to speak with Clarke. But they want to go alone—"
"I know."
She frowned in confusion. "You do?"
"Clarke told me." He said with a nod, while he looked briefly around the camp and then he looked back at her. "She wants me to follow with weapons. In case something happens."
The tension in her shoulders loosened a fraction. "Yeah, I prefer this plan." Then she looked at him with a frown. "Does Finn know?"
He shook his head, "Clarke doesn't want him to." Then he paused, observing her in silence for a moment. "Why did he tell you?"
Lily felt her heartbeats quicken for a moment, remembering what was Finn's actual intent regarding her and her situation with Bellamy.
"He... thought I'd agree with him." She decided to tell him instead.
He looked at her for a moment, something moving through his expression. "And?"
"And what?"
The corner of his mouth shifted. "Thanks for telling me." His hand found her arm briefly, warm and sure, and he moved to step away, but she stopped him.
"I want to come." Bellamy's jaw tensed at that.
"No, Lily."
But she insisted, "You can't go alone — it would be too dangerous—"
"I'm not going alone." He assured, "Jasper and Raven are coming with me."
She crossed her arms. "Then bring me as well." He let out a breath, but she kept talking. "You taught me how to shoot. I can help."
The silence stretched. She could see him running through it — the arguments, the reasons, the calculation he did between what he wanted to do and what was actually true. He knew she wasn't wrong. She could tell from the way his jaw didn't quite set.
"Bell." She called him and he looked at her.
"I thought you hated violence," he said.
"I do." She said firmly, "But you're not going to attack the Grounders, are you?"
He took a breath, "Not unless they attack us first."
She nodded at that, "Then we're on the same page."
He looked at her for another moment. Lily hoped he'd let her go with him. She wasn't sure she could manage to keep calm knowing him outside, with Raven and Jasper as they followed Clarke and Finn in the woods. She didn't like that situation and she needed to be there.
Then she noticed something in him settled. "Alright." Bellamy held her gaze as he took a step towards her. "You follow what I say."
A smile appeared on her lips. "Of course."
"And stay close."
"Naturally."
"I'm serious, Lily."
"So am I. " She kept her expression level. Then she cocked her head to the side, with a curious smile. "Did you have this prep talk with Raven and Jasper as well, or am I the lucky one?"
The corner of his mouth moved. "You've got a bit of luck." He reached behind his shoulder and unhooked the rifle he'd been carrying and held it out to her.
She took it. The weight was familiar now, which was still strange.
"Let's go," he said.
She fell into step beside him, and behind them the fire burned on, and the voices carried in the warm night air, and for just a moment before the dark took the camp out of sight, she turned and saw it — the people, the light, the ordinary extraordinary fact of them still here.
Then she faced forward and followed Bellamy to find Raven and Jasper.