Torn

A moment of Weakness

Clarke:

Three days. Three days the fighting lasted. Three days and fifty-four dead. Just three days and the Grounders were able to throw our world to the sidelines, to the verge of collapse. Everything we had build, everything we stood for, everything we believed in. Gone, vanished, decimated into thin air. The irony was rich, we made it to earth within three days and lost over half of our people in the same amount of time. Curse the Grounders, curse the Ark, damn them both to Hell. No one's saving us, no one's coming for us. We are alone. 

Narrator: 

And as Clarke stood there among the rumble and fifty four dead, a hatred, stronger than anything, boiled inside her. A deep hatred for everything the Ark stood for, for everything the barbarians stood for. She kicked against the blood-soaked dirt, her hands muddy and covered in soot, her face long and drawn. She was only twenty, and it hit her, harder than an oncoming horse, their deaths were on her. Every life lost was on her part. Something snapped. A dam inside her snapped, the water threatening to burst for a long time, finally had its freedom and she screamed. A gut-wrenching scream filled with anger and guilt and she fell to her knees, her arms outstretched as to offer herself up. Her screams succumbed to sobs and she lay there, among her fallen peers, rocking gently, her knees close to her chest, curled in fetal position, wishing more than anything to have died in honor and valor with her peers who died defending their only home. 

But she wasn't dead. She was alive, real flesh and blood and she was at fault. 

Octavia: 

"Clarke? Clarke, get up. Get up Clarke, you don't get to cry, you don't get to give up." Octavia pushed Clarke's arm, "We don't cry, we fall and we get up. I'm not giving up, and neither will you. C'mon Clarke!" Octavia shoved Clarke's' body harder, "Bellamy did this for and you need to repay him-"

"Leave me alone Octavia." Clarke breathed

"No. No I won't leave you alone, you coward."

"I am not a coward!" that broke Clarke out of her stupor and she stood on her feet, "Don't you ever say that I'm a coward." She furiously wiped her dry tears and straightened her shirt, "Whatever I do, I do it for this camp. The people who died, died for one reason and one reason only, to save this camp."

"So you just had a moment of weakness right?" Octavia said sarcastically, crossing her arms, "When're you gonna start acting like a leader?"

Clarke lowered her voice, her jaw set and her eyes screaming murder...She yanked Octavia down by her elbow and shoved her face, inches away from Atom's dead and burnt face. "You see him Octavia? Do you see him?!" 

Octavia yelped and started to scream, "Clarke-"

"Do you see his rotting face O?!"

"Yes! Yes, I see it" She cried, gulping for air but only breathing handfuls of Atom's rotting aurora

"He died! He died for you, to protect you! He died for this camp-"

"Please!" Octavia cried, hot welts forming in her eyes, "Please, I'm sorry Clarke, I'm sorry-"

Clarke jerked Octavia's head to stare her in the eyes, "It's time you learn your place. Don't you ever, ever say that to me. I am a leader, and I will save my people. Do you understand me?"

Octavia gulped and frantically nodded her head, tears streaking her cheeks. Clarke wrenched her up and drove her back, "Good."

And with that, Clarke left, a new vigor in her heart. One of revenge; she set off to find Bellamy, to set things right, to set things like the way they were.