somewhere | b.blake ✔️

2x09 Part 1✔️

"Where did I go wrong?
I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life"

-How to Save a Life, The Fray

*****

Ash's feet pound against the forest floor, her breath coming in sharp, ragged gasps. It feels like she's moving faster than she ever has before—like something is chasing her. Or maybe it's the grief that's pushing her forward, wild and untamed, leaving her no choice but to run.

Trees blur past, but her mind is stuck in an endless loop of images. Finn's lifeless face. His head lolling to the side. The blood that spread in dark, ominous waves from the precise spot between his ribs where Clarke had shoved the knife through his grey shirt.

Clarke. His love.

Ash doesn't know whether to laugh or scream at the cruel irony. Clarke, the girl who once scorned Finn for the blood on his hands, had been the one to end his life. 

And Ash can't stop seeing it. The blood on Clarke's hands. The knife. The way Finn had crumpled, his body heavy and lifeless in the dirt.

She knows it was the right thing to do. Better a clean death than the nightmare the Grounders had planned. But knowing doesn't make it easier. Logic doesn't stop the way her stomach twists or the sobs that tear from her throat as she sprints deeper into the woods.

Finn's gone.

Her first friend on Earth.

Another piece of the 100 ripped away.

She slows to a halt near Smith's cave. The makeshift training area is dark, save for the flickering light of a torch. Smith stands in the shadows, methodically throwing knives at a hand-carved target, each blade sinking into the wood with a dull thunk.

He doesn't look at her immediately, not even when her steps falter and she leans against a tree, her breath catching in her throat. Only after his final knife hits dead center does he glance her way.

"You look like hell," he says flatly, his voice as sharp as the knives he wields.

"Thanks," Ash mutters, her voice hoarse from running and crying.

"I take it the boy's dead?" Smith's tone is clinical, detached, but his green eyes flicker with something softer for just a moment.

Ash flinches at the bluntness but nods. "Yes."

Smith doesn't offer condolences. Not that she expected him to. That's not who he is, and in most ways, Ash prefers it that way.

Instead, he tilts his head, appraising her like a broken weapon that needs reforging. "Do you want to run until you drop, spar until your fists are raw, or throw knives until your shoulders are useless?"

"How about sitting here in silence so I can try to make sense of it?"

He crosses his arms. "That's a fast track to drowning in your own head. Believe me, I've tried."

Ash scowls. "What if I want to drown?"

Smith's expression hardens in an instant. He steps closer, gripping her by the shoulders, his knuckles digging into her skin just enough to keep her grounded.

"Don't say that," he growls, his voice low and dangerous. "You're grieving, but you're stronger than this. Stronger than most. You've survived too much to let this break you."

His words cut through the haze in her mind. She stares at him, blinking back the tears that threaten to fall again.

"Fine," she says finally, her voice flat. "Sparring. No weapons."