The 99

Chapter Thirty One: Clarke

Okay, guys. Now, I did something a bit different. I took a scene from a previous chapter and put it here instead because it seemed more fitting and also seemed to flow better. If I hadn't done this, I think it would've just felt a bit redundant. Anyway, I'm pretty happy with this conclusion and I hope you guys are too. I wanted to drop the ending where season 2 would begin, and hopefully this seems like a realistic set of events that would lead to that. To all of you who have read this story, commented, and encouraged me to keep writing, thank you. Thank you so much.

Now without further ado, I present the final chapter of The 99 *cue dramatic music* 

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Clarke hadn't been allowed inside the ruined Council room.

To her relief, Bellamy had, though he hadn't exactly given Jaha a choice in the matter. Clarke had wanted to argue her own right to stay, but to her frustration, it was her Mom who had voted against it. 

"Don't push the Council on this, Clarke," she'd whispered to her as Octavia had been escorted into the other room, Bellamy right on her heels. "You're throwing more authority around here than you have. You have to choose your battles."

The words had chafed against Clarke, stirring up reminders that not even a new world could overshadow. A part of her had wanted to ask if that's what her father had been; just a battle? 

No. One fight was a battle. 

What had happened on the Ark had been a war.

But even she had to concede one point her mother had made, and it was that the last thing Clarke needed was to make Jaha see her as a threat instead of an ally, a line that was already wearing thin.

So against her own instincts, she waited, lingering in the broken chunk of corridor. 

It was no surprise to her that Lincoln had stayed outside of the camp. Better to introduce the information about the grounders first before one face-to-face. Clarke wasn't sure what the Council's response would be, and she certainly wasn't eager to find out prematurely.

"He's different," Raven's words came back to her. "I don't think they're all the same."

She wasn't sure why, but Clarke believed her, especially after having seen him herself. There was something open in that grounder's eyes, a gentleness in the way he'd looked at Octavia. He was strong, yes, and fierce. But he was also kind. And Clarke found that her concern wasn't for the Ark's safety, but for this stranger's, with callused hands that could greet her so warmly.

She knew what the Council was capable of doing to its own people; she wasn't about to underestimate what they would do to an outlier. And yet, when that time came for them to know of him as they inevitably would, Clarke would be there, ready.

But that was a battle for a different day.

An hour slogged by. Two. Eventually Clarke, needing to make herself useful, made her way to the medical bay, which was no more a medical bay than it was the room that had been damaged the least, full of makeshift cots where some of the injured still lay.

Among them was Raven.

Last time Clarke had checked on her, her symptoms had been less severe. She was no longer septic, but her leg still hadn't improved.

In time, Clarke told herself as she quickly masked her worry. "Hey," she said, keeping her voice quiet. She took a seat at the edge of her cot, careful not to disturb the elevated leg.