The list

[Clarke Griffin]

Harper McIntyre

Clarke knew it was a weird situation. Once more she felt alone in a camp full of people. She fought for them, for their survival and it meant making hard decisions. Someone had to make. Given what she had done, what she had to do for her people, this was just another thing she had to do. It didn't make the world better. But it gave them a small chance of survival. 

Clarke sat outside. She was biting her lower lip as she held a list that nobody should have seen. It was their last resort and not even remotely what she wanted to do with this. She wanted as many people to survive was possible. It wasn't easy. Humanity came first. Friends later.

And so she noticed boots of someone not on the list. Clarke looked up at the blonde before her. "I didn't put my name on the list." She whispered. She held the list out to her. The different handwritings supporting what she just said. "I put everyone else on it." And thus she had determined the fate of everyone. "I don't think I should be on it." Nor would she begin to think it. "Now less than before."

[Harper McIntyre]

Like many other Arkadians in the yard that day, Harper had stood in disbelief as Monty read off the list of people who would actually be saved by all this work on the Ark. One hundred people - less than a fourth of their current numbers. It was life on the Ark in space all over again, except instead of sending a hundred kids down to the earth to possibly die, over three hundred would be sentenced to an assured death. And the fate of those who lived was decided by Clarke - at least until Jaha had spoken up.

Many people had gone back to work, hoping to earn one of the slots in Jaha's lottery, but Harper couldn't go back to work just yet. She wasn't so easily convinced that Jaha's word on the matter was final - few people had accepted his leaderships since they were still in space. Here on the ground, it was Clarke everyone listened to. It was her they followed, and when the time came to close the door, Abby, Kane, Bellamy, and the rest would back her decision. And what if she wanted to stick by this list she had created?

Harper wasn't on the list. Neither was Monty, or Jasper, or so many others. She'd gotten over some of the initial shock of being told she wasn't necessary for humanity's further survival, but that didn't mean she wasn't angry. She searched the yard until her eyes landed on Clarke, sitting alone with the damn list in her hands. Harper moved through the remaining people until she came to a stop a few feet from the other blonde.

To her surprise, Clarke spoke before Harper got a chance. Her eyes glanced to the paper where, sure enough, Clarke Griffin was written in a handwriting far different than the rest of the names. Who had been there when she was making the list? There was a host of people who would have made sure Clarke made it onto her own list. "No one's going to let you take your name off, Clarke," Harper said honestly. Not anyone that mattered in decision making, anyway. She wasn't one of those, and even though Monty had clearly been angry by the list as well, he'd probably want Clarke on there too. "How can you just decide who dies? I haven't always been on your side, but I've fought for our people too. And you were planning to lock me out here when the death wave comes?" She waved to the yard around them, which before too long would be a radioactive wasteland. "When were you going to tell everyone? When it was time to close the doors?"

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Tag: Clarke Griffin

[Clarke Griffin]

"How could I not?" She had a right to be angry. Clarke knew how a person worked. Anger was natural, a coping mechanism. And Harper had every right to be. She was not on the list. And as much as she hated the list, she knew, deep down, it had to be made. It had to be made with the consideration of what they had, what they needed in the end. "This is a last resort, Harper. One hundred people, if we don't manage to find another solution." That was the sad truth of it all. One hundred people was, in the end hopefully their backup. She prayed for it - if she prayed. She hated leaving her friends of it. But she had to think of something beyond friendship. "Imagine what it would look like if there wasn't a list: Potentially only guards, nobody to operate and fix life support. Life support was failing back on the ark, too. It carshed to the ground now. So we need those that can uphold the life support or this solution goes to shit. We need farmers. Medicinal personnel, workers for after. How could I not make this decision? This is the... best solution I see. The best chances of survival for the limited number of people. Doesn't mean it's right. Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt." 

She looked up at Harper. "Doesn't mean I want this to happen." And yet her question had a point. When did she plan on telling them. "I still hope for another solution, Harper. I still hope for a bunker out there, even though it's highly unlikely. Why... burden everyone,? I didn't want to tell people before we weren't absolutely sure. And I was scared. Of this actually. I'm sorry and I'm not at the same time. I want things to be different... easier."

Harper McIntyre

[Harper McIntyre]

Harper actually flinched at Clarke's response to her first question. How could the other girl so easily dismiss her? She had given everything she could to the survival of their people, and in the end, it didn't matter enough to Clarke. Neither did anything Monty had done, and Riley seemed to have only survived being a prisoner so he could die at Clarke's hand. If Monty hadn't found the list, Harper wouldn't have had any idea until it was too late. Despite asking the question, she was sure that Clarke wouldn't have told everyone until the death wave was coming and she could hope that there was no time for arguing.

"Do you really care if it does happen? You're safe," Harper spat in response to Clarke's going on about how she didn't want it to happen. Clarke didn't have room to talk about how painful it was when she was guaranteed a spot on the inside if this ended up their only option. Maybe they'd find some other plan, but they didn't have long. Restoring the Ark could be their only hope. What gave Clarke the right to make the decision on the importance of each human life in Arkadia? Even if only a hundred could live and every person on that list was a good candidate for their survival, what did that leave the rest of them who never got a choice?

"What does that even mean?" Harper asked when Clarke was done. "We all want easier, but if the Ark is our only hope in the end, you're not giving any of us a choice. You've decided to kill us. And if you told us at the very end, do you think we wouldn't fight? This all would just happen then. I thought you were different than Jaha was, but I guess I was wrong."

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Tag: Clarke Griffin

[Clarke Griffin]

"People will die, Harper! Nobody chooses to die!" After all this time this should be painfully clear to basically everyone around them. Dying wasn't a choice. It was an end. It was not something anyone would choose, not even her. But there it was a hard choice she had been struggling with. Putting Bellamy on there was no struggle at all. And he had taken hers out of her hand. But looking back she actually fit some of the quota she had wanted to fit. And for good reason.

"What happened if I didn't put essential personel on the list? What then? The Ark fails and everyone dies. Nobody to fix it. Or a sickness spreading. Those people have to have priority. If people disagree, that is not and can not be my problem. My task - and that was not just me wanting to do a list, there were more behind this - is to make sure those in there actually survive. What if I put someone in there with a medical record? They might die, having taken a spot of someone who would have survived! It's not easy... and I'm not going to apologize for weighing up our changes! Who else would have done it, Harper? By the way you talk, not you! I had to pull several levers to save us. I'll do it again! I already am a mass murderer after all! And you know it! You probably thought it too at one point. Maybe even now."

Harper McIntyre

[Harper McIntyre]

"I know!" Harper shot back, "but they deserve to try to live!" Nobody chooses to die, but to have that death chosen for them by someone else based on statistics or something else crazy was just wrong. She herself was ousted because she had a chance of getting sick like her dad. A chance. It might never happen, and she might spend the rest of her life in great health. And if she did get sick? Would everyone hate her for stealing a spot away from a healthy person? But it came down to not knowing, and that chance was sealing her doom as far as Clarke was concerned.

Clarke went on, and as she spoke, she seemed to address the very thing in Harper's mind: the medical record. The chance. But the rest, the essential people... well, sure. They needed to survive, and to do that they needed skilled people. Harper couldn't argue with that logic. But letting one person make all the calls on the lives of all of them was wrong on so many levels. It didn't matter how many people had asked Clarke to make that list. In the end, she'd made it alone - except for her own name, of course.

"Yeah," she said when Clarke was finished, not afraid to agree with Clarke's guess. People had died for and by Clarke, though Harper had still supported her before. Now though? "No, I wouldn't want to make that list. There shouldn't be a list. There has to be a better way, and maybe if you'd talked to your friends instead of taking it on alone like you always do, we would have found it." She let out a breath. It was probably useless to say much with the list done, other than knowing she'd be on the side that made sure it never came to that list. "Whatever. I've got things to do before that death you've doomed me to comes, so I better get on it." She didn't know what she'd actually do, since continuing to help on the Ark seemed almost ridiculous, but she didn't know what else to say to Clark. She turned and began to walk away.

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Tag: Clarke Griffin

[Clarke Griffin]

The list was a resource they might have to use, but she knew nobody wanted it. The more the better, but this list...she didn't make it out of spite, out of hatred, but out of necessity. Every single name - except for her own - was well thought through due to skills, medical history and the likeliness of survival. She had even considered a gene pool, which was why theoretically there were no families on there, except for herself - again not her decision - and her mother and both Blakes. And yet there was a reason for both of them that justified it in terms of this without putting a gene pool at risk. 

"There is no better way, Harper. Everyone deserves a chance, but the other choice would have been a fight to the death in the end." She said. "We are far away from the list taking effect. But in the end, this is a last resort and it's a good thing to have. So many not on that list deserve to live, I know. But ultimately, it comes down to the fact that for now we only have 100 people we can save and we have to make the most of it. Raven and Bellamy knew about that list, too, I did not make the decision alone. I am sorry, Harper, but with this as our viable solution, the choice is taken from us. But that does not mean that this list is the end. We are searching and we will keep searching to save more people than that, including you. But this is the hard choice I had to make." She turned away from Harper then. "I would focus on beating these odds. We still have time."


Harper McIntyre