If you're alive

[Clarke Griffin]

Monty Green

She was so sure she was a goner, that she had forgotten all about the nightblood. It took her a few days to recover from the radiation. It was agonizing days, but eventually she came around. There was initially not much to do. She didn't know much about the technology, but there was one thing, that she did know: She had to try. Luckily the solar panels had survived. And luckily Becca had tons of books that survived in her lab, along with Clarke. 

So Clarke first went about fixing communications on her end. She worked on fixing the antennaes - which she could retreat into the lab. She worked on calibrating the thing to where the Ark should be. Sadly her knowledge on tracing it was limited.

On top she remembered that the Ark was basically blind to earth while they were up there. Still, they had an incentive to work on communication, even if Clarke wasn't it. They would want to try and communicate with the bunker.

Finally her side worked - or so she thought. On day 16 - or so she thought, because nobody told her how long she had been passed out on the floor. Maybe up there could correct her. If they could hear her.

"Ground to Ark." She said, her voice thoughtful and soft, to disguise the weakness. "It's been 16 days since the death wave, which means it's been 16 days since you left. I don't even know if you can hear me. I know, that I tried my best fixing the communication. Night blood works after all. It saved me. And Beccas bunker. Sadly I'm running out of food. I could use your eyes up there. Assuming you survived.  Assuming you can even hear me. Maybe I calibrated the thing just a few meters in the wrong direction and you can't get any signal from me at all."

[Monty Green]

Monty sat by himself fiddling with the communications panel, he’d been trying to get communication up and running again for two days now and still he’d had no luck. He didn’t know what he was expecting, even if he did manage to fix it, there was no one to listen. He didn’t even know if anyone had survived the death wave, the bunker should’ve in theory worked to shelter all who were inside it when the death wave hit but there was always that chance that it hadn’t. Monty preferred not to think about that possibility, in his mind the bunker had to have worked, the alternative was that they were all alone and that thought made him feel sick to his stomach. Mostly he’d decided that it gave him something to do, something to keep him busy during his free time to prevent him from overthinking. It wasn’t working as well as he’d hoped.

It was frustrating, sitting around trying to achieve something whilst making no progress and more than once he’d snapped at his friends when they’d offered their help. Then he’d had to chase after them with his tail between his legs to apologise, luckily nobody seemed to take it personally. Although, they all knew now that it was best to leave him alone while he was in there working on his ‘project’.

Monty was so convinced that his efforts would all be for nothing that he actually flinched when a voice sounded on the other end of the radio and almost fell out of his seat in an effort to reach the device. He expected to hear the voice of someone from the bunker, but instead with a sinking heart he recognised the voice on the radio clearly and immediately knew that whatever he was hearing couldn’t be real. “Clarke…” he muttered into the radio, clearing his throat as his voice threatened to crack with the emotion. “Now I know I’m going crazy, hearing voices is a sign of madness, isn’t it?” and attempting to engage in conversation with the voices inside his head definitely wasn’t reassuring. He was just hearing what he wanted to hear, she wasn’t really there… She was just another person that earth had taken from him and he just didn’t want to let go of her yet.

Clarke Griffin

[Clarke Griffin]

Hope was a powerful thing. But relief was too. The amount of relief Clarke felt could not be put into words. She had thought she would be alone for at least five years, that was if she could survive. She didn't think she'd have eyes up there who could help her. She didn't think she'd ever feel this. She didn't think she would ever get this to begin with, to hear her friends had survived before they got down. How was she supposed to anticipate it, when all hope was so fragile and easily shattered. It had endured so much. So many people had died, that this seemed like a fantastic stroke of luck she didn't deserve. Yet she wouldn't have it any other way. If she could go back and change one single thing, she'd hesitate now. If there was nothing left to loose the thought of this was easy, but she wouldn't trade anything for the sweet sound of Montys voice over the radio, so shocked and in disbelief.

"You're not hearing voices, Monty." Clarke replied. She had heard him, crackling though, but it had worked. She had learned enough to know how to readjust the radio and now it was only them. She wasn't alone after all. "You're not going crazy, Monty. I'm still alive. I made it back to the bunker just in time. Took me a while to recover, but nightblood works. I'm healthy again...." And that was perhaps the worst thing down here, the one thing that could drive her crazy, the knowledge that they could have saved everyone. The bunker would have held so many for a limited time for the wave and then nightblood would have done the rest for them. She had held the solution in her blood. People wouldn't have had to die. Clarke felt her chest constrict painfully. She could have saved them. A few tears ran down her cheeks. "I'm so glad to hear you, Monty. Is everyone else okay?"


Monty Green

[Monty Green]

When Clarke's voice replied, Monty didn't know whether to believe it or not... How could he? How could he even dare to hope that she had survived. It's not like this would be the first time he'd heard the voices of those he loved and lost in his head. Granted, the majority of the times when he'd heard them, he'd been sleeping or at the very least, he'd been struggling to keep his eyes open. This time though, he was wide awake and actively working when he'd heard her "Clarke..." the young man spoke hesitantly into the radio, he sure felt like he was going crazy, despite what the voice had just said. "How?" he didn't trust himself, they'd all gone through so much on the ground, himself included, it could have caused his mind to fray. With everything that had happened, it's a wonder that he hadn't started hallucinating before, if he was honest.

"How... Nightblood didn't work, you got burnt?" Monty questioned her, not completely convinced that the voice wasn't just in his head, but he needed to talk to her. He wasn't hurting anyone by indulging in this hallucination if that really was all that it was and if it turned out to be more than that, then he could actually have his friend back.... Though, he wouldn't be able to see her for at least another five years. They'd be separated for all that time, only connected by that radio. At her question, Monty wiped away the tears that had started to fall upon unexpectedly hearing her voice and cleared his throat. "Everyone's fine..." he told her "we all made it, thanks to you" they'd already started mourning everyone that had died, mourning her, if this was real then he didn't even know how he was going to begin to tell them that their friend was alive when they all believed that she was dead. "...Are you okay? How are things down there?" he questioned her, not sure if he wanted to hear the answer because he knew of how much death and destruction the planet had caused, even in its final days.

Clarke Griffin

[Clarke Griffin]

How. It was a simple question and yet it betrayed how little they actually thought about what happened before. Luna was a nightblood. They had seen her response to radiation. They had seen it and yet apparently forgot how it worked. "Luna." She said simply. "Remember when she and her people came to Arkadia, sick from radiation? Everyone, except her died. And yet she had been sick, too, she just recovered. I think the initial contact with radiation causes the same reactions anyone would have. But then the night blood kicks in and starts to metabolize the radiation. I had radiation sickness, Monty. But it's gone now. I recovered from it. Just like Luna did. We forgot to factor in Lunas first exposure. It followed exactly what we should have expected from that." And thus it all went according to plan with her nightblood. She was save. And yet she was alone, but if they were up there, save, if this was real, then she wasn't as alone as she feared. 

"It's pretty ugly down here, to be honest." She said sadly. The world had burned to the ground, it seemed. Nothing was there anymore. "I am in Beccas lab. It has maybe food for a month, but that is it. Not enough for as long as I have to survive alone down here. I have lost contact with the bunker. From day one. I think with the destruction I am seeing most of the radio towers are destroyed. I got this one to work again, but I think they are cut off." She hoped that was all. "Monty, what do you see up there? A.L.I.E said a small part of the world might be survivable still. Can you see it? Is it...possible for me to reach it?"


Monty Green