Responsible for survival

Judging

ABBY'S POV:

"What have we done?" I whisper as another tile beeps black. This time it was Charlotte, twelve. So many dead kids. More than can be counted on fingers. "Look at them..." my voice cracks and I blink back tears. What if Clarke's next? "That's 24 in 48 minutes!" Marcus comes over and crosses his arms, his shoulder brushes mine and it tingles.
"Are you SURE it's not radiation exposure?" he asks.
"Positive, there's no spiking vitals, nothing. Just, off." I feel his gaze, soft, on me.
"Abby, there's a difference between hope and desperation." He whispers. "Where'd your hope go, this isn't the Abby I lo- know." I blush, he caught himself.
"My hopes 220 miles below us." I can barely hear myself, but he does. He pats my shoulder clumsily. His palms are clammy.
"She's alive Abby. She's still breathing."
"For how long?" His arms wrap round me, and I am being rocked back and forth. The tears fall and I am doing nothing to stop them. I can't lose Clarke to.

"Councillors!" a sharp voice cuts the comfort. Shumway marches into the room. We leap apart. "We have ID'ed the shooter..." his harsh tone fades a little, "Doctor Griffin are you alright?" his eyes flick to the screen, scrolling for Clarke's panel.
"Fine." A little to harsh to be fine. He nods, never having been an empathetic person... Proven by the way he begged to have Octavia floated, and pulled the lever on Jake and Aurora. I've comforted to many kids by that floating point.
"The shooter was Bellamy Blake."
"Bullsh**!" The words fall out before I can stop them. Everyone blinks. One of the younger apprentices presses her small hands over her ears.
"I have no idea who that is..." Kane whispers, looking at me out the corner of his eyes, and leaning away, as if he's scared I'll turn on him next.
"Son of Aurora Blake, BROTHER of Octavia Blake." Shumway spits. I won't take that.
"Oh yes, 16 years she hid under that floor... Impressive." I give Kane my best really look. Eyebrows up the hairline, death glare and folded arms. Jake used to just laugh and kiss my wrinkled forehead.
"You're wrong Shumway." I shake my head, trying to stop my insides caving in. It can't be. He wouldn't... It's not...
"He is the only unaccounted for person Doctor Griffin." Shumway's voice is perfectly calm and melodic.
"YOU'RE WRONG, Officer, I KNOW Bellamy... THIS..." I wave my hand, no idea at what, "This is NOT something he would do."
"Abby?" Kane looks like I've sprouted a second head. I sigh. I know no one outside of the families and best friends were meant to know, for both of their protection but if Shumway's right and Bellamy's on the Earth, it can't hurt them now.
"He's Clarke's boyfriend-"
"He's 23." Shumway looks shocked.
"Do I look remotely bothered?" I laugh, pointing at my face. It had at first, admittedly.. a 20 year old with my 15 year old daughter? But he made her happy again. "They were together for TWO YEARS. Nearly three if you count the time she spent in the Sky Box. He visited every single week. Every week. Every week she was in that skybox, he came over. THIS, this isn't Bellamy... He HATED guns. YOU put one to Clarke's head as you walked her to Jake's floating. He utterly hates them. He wouldn't do THIS... Stowaway? Definitely. Shoot the Chancellor? No." The anger pulses through me, fighting every urge to slap this idiot round the face.
"Doctor Griffin... I understand your moral duty and care you feel for the boy.. But he SHOT the Chancellor." Shumway's honeyed tone makes my skin crawl.
"No. Someone else must have done... I don't believe you. You're wrong and I am going to prove it." I storm out, heels slamming into the metal.
"Abby..." Kane runs after me and catches my wrist. I pull it out.
"If the two people you loved more than anything else in the universe were on that dropship, wouldn't you have got on it?" Marcus swallows, and opens the door for me, sad eyes following me down the corridor.

I march into the floating chamber, which is also used for external mechanics to enter from space. And I'm here at the right time. In flies the youngest Zero-G mechanic in 52 years, with a badass hair flip and no respect for pressurisation. She saunters out, and stops, foot in the air when she sees me. The colours drains from her face. "Councillor Griffin?" she stutters. I smile.
"Raven! Call me Abby." Her eyebrows drop and brow furrows as she tries to understand what I'm doing. "We need your help."
"We?" she tilts her head slightly.
"Chancellor Kane, Doctor Jackson and I..."
"With what?"
"How does saving your boyfriend sound?"

CLARKE'S POV:

"BELLAMY!" we run to Murphy's scream, and tumble into a clearing drenched in waning sunlight. In the middle, a dried, dead tree reaches for the sky. Jasper is tied to it. Ropes, that appear to be woven from hairs, tie him tightly. His shoes and trousers are still on, but not the earth day shirt. Instead, he is bare-chested, unless you count the thick coating of blood as a shirt. A splodge of green sits in the centre of his chest, roughly where the spear hit. I charge forward. We have to get him down.
Then my heart drops to my feet, which are no longer on solid ground, but falling, falling. A sharp judder rips through my arm. I look up at the distant sky. There is Bellamy, clutching my wrist tighter than anything I've ever felt. Tears are pricking his eyes and his bottom lip wobbles. "I've got you." He whispers. Murphy runs forward and wraps his arms round Bellamy's waist. He shakes his head and whispers something I can't hear over the pounding in my ears. Pins and needles stab my arm, and I grasp weakly at the surface but can't reach. Murphy grabs the hand and pulls to. Wells and Finn must pull them from behind because I'm being yanked up by my arms. I stumble forwards, and Bellamy sweeps his arms under my arms. It stings, but I let him. I bury my face in his shoulder. "Never do that again." He whispers into my hair. Murphy gags, before walking more cautiously to the tree. Finn daintily follows his footsteps.
"Let me help you climb." Murphy stops dead, and Finn crashes into him, before turning backwards looking at Wells like he's mad.
"No, stay there, I don't want you to get hurt." I realise Wells's lips are plumper than normal and tap Bellamy, who's staring with wide edges at the other opening to the clearing. Then I see it. Two low green eyes.
The head pops up... a black big cat? Bellamy's hand slaps where his gun was and I hear the sharp sound of skin against skin. The hissing begins. It's hackles rise. I tug Bellamy to the side, trying to move his. He shoves me behind him roughly. The cat leaps. His arms fly up to brace for an impact that never comes.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
A dead cat. A big one. It twitches, blood oozing onto the yellow grasses at Bell's feet. Bellamy's shoulders drop in relief but mine raise in anger.
"WHAT. THE."
"HELL!" Bellamy finishes my sentence. Wells stands there, gun in a steady arm as the rest of him shakes.
"WHEN THE HELL DID YOU GET MY GUN!?" Bellamy yells, patting himself down, as if Wells's had brought his own and his had just vanished.
"YOU COULD'VE BEEN THE REASON WE ALL DIED!" I scream. Finn laughs, a new one I've never heard before, and never want to hear again.
"So? You're alive. Jasper won't be if we don't get him down." He begins to climb the tree. Bellamy snatches the gun from Wells's shaking hands. Wells doesn't fight.

We carry Jasper and the cat back to camp. The ropes are saved in my pack. The tension in the group makes us so jumpy, the creak of trees settling makes us all jump. We can hear camp before we see it though. Screams. Screams. We clamber up the hill, the camp below a rave of crazy kids. "What's going on?" I whisper to Bell.
"Chaos."