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She couldn’t understand what Rapunzel’s problem was. Was Pike a violent asshole? Yeah. Was he a little crazy? Sure. Was he who she’d have voted in as chancellor? Hell no.

But was he wrong? Also hell no.

The grounders were dangerous. So was this fake ‘peace’ they claimed to have declared. Peace didn’t come on the backs of betrayal. Peace didn’t require a whole army of not-your people guarding you outside your gates. That was control, that was a reminder that they could kill you any time, that they were bigger, stronger, that they had so many of them that they could spare 300 people and not even notice, leave 300 people just hanging out outside the gates waiting to strike the second skaikru did something the lying commander didn’t like. Pike saw that, and as much as she hated Pike, he made sense and more importantly: Bellamy agreed with him. Bellamy, who’s singular goal had for so long been to protect his sister and the kids she’d come down with, believed in what Pike was doing. Why wasn’t that enough for Rapunzel?

“Seriously, though, can you look me in the eye and tell me Pike’s wrong about the grounders?” She tried to keep from spitting the words, tried to keep her frustration under control, but disagreeing with Bellamy had never been something that sat well with her, and ever since the mountain she’d gotten more snappish about her defense of his decisions.

She should have stayed with Monty and Harper. Hell, she should have stayed on the Ring with Murphy ( although if she’d done that she’d have missed out on the chance to run in open air again, so maybe not ). Anywhere but here, watching some blood covered imposter claiming to be her Octavia glare at her brother, at Fox’s leader ( she dare not call him a brother herself even in her mind, not standing across from his actual blood family ). The Octavia Fox had known and loved, had played with and fought alongside didn’t wear blood so proudly, she didn’t revel in the acrid taste of copper and the fear of others. She did what she had to, bled who she had to, just as her actions had always taught fox to do what she had to to defend her own.

I know you two have history. Fox was careful to keep her expression neutral ( she failed, a single brow shot up for a quick moment ) but… honestly Bell? ‘History’? That was putting it a little lightly. But Echo is on our side.

Fox stayed behind Bellamy and Echo, her eyes intently on Octavia ( bloodreina ) but her face apathetic, her arms crossed in almost teenage indifference across her chest, hiding the prey-like alertness that had her muscles tightly coiled. She didn’t like it here. The only reason she’d tagged along with Bellamy and Echo was because the only thing worse than being surrounded by grounders ( some grudges died hard ) was being surrounded by them within closed walls under the ground. At least up here there was open air, the ability to run. And run her instincts wanted to do.

Blodriena’s eyes, deep set in dark circles and kohl, framed by stringy hair that could use a shower, jumped to Fox, a predator setting its sights on prey, and Fox braced herself, reminding herself that to run was to imply fear, inspire chase, and she was surrounded by blood-hungry grounders.

She didn’t belong here. She brought nothing. She was nothing compared to the others. Bellamy and Raven, they were leaders. Monty and Harper, they were fixers. Murphy and Emori were survivors. The only person she thought belonged here less than she did was that grounder spy, Echo. And yet, she was expected to sit at a table with her, expected to play nice and act like she wasn’t staring at the face of the kind of people that had killed her friends and ruined her life.

She couldn’t do it.

She shoved her way up from the table, her glare hot and for Echo alone as she slammed out of the room and away from the others, ignoring their attempts to call her back. She slammed into her room with a scream of frustration- frustration at being here, feeling displaced, feeling useless, feeling like she was going to lose it if she had to look at the enemy one more time across from her at breakfast- and slammed a foot into her bed, even more angry when it just hurt, and exchanged kicking for falling onto her bed to scream into her pillow.

A knock sounded and she barely lifted her face from her pillow. “Go away!” Not the most mature of responses, but basic manners were beyond her right now, let alone maturity.

They’d had their ups and downs over the year before they’d ended up in space, they’d been on opposite sides of wars and loyalties and their friendship had strained. But they came back to each other, time and time again, and patched up the broken bits to keep moving forward, keep being there for each other.

Up on the Ring, she found herself wanting that support less and less. She didn’t want support, she wanted anger. She wanted her anger to be righteous, to be justified, like it had been on the ground. She had had to accept peace, been forced into accepting grounders all around her on several occasions, been scoffed at and dismissed for her anger by most, but she’d always had her delinquents that understood her anger, had always justified it just by agreeing, even if they turned around and- like her- accepted the edicts handed down by the people in charge.

She liked this little window seat, where she could watch the orange-toned Earth below them and imagine what if’s and could-have-been’s and try not to let the sadness overcome the anger. Peace, that was what she wanted, but apparently her mind and her heart had other ideas. At least Rapunzel could still elicit a smile from her. “Hey, Rapunzel.” She greeted softly, the sorrow winning out today, making her expression sad and her eyes soft. “Whatcha up to?” A silly question, perhaps; there was hardly a laundry list of things to do up here aside from the standard ‘keep us afloat, breathing and eating’ tasks, but the habitual question slipped out anyway.

“Then go!” She ignored the tears in her eyes. “You and the others go hope for peace while Bellamy helps keep it for us!” She watched the blonde walk off, feeling guilty over the sad curl of Raps’ shoulders, the betrayal in her expression Fox could no longer see, but the hotly burning anger over their argument made feeling anything but mad difficult.

Who was she to tell Fox who to follow? She hadn’t been with her in that damp, musty room. She hadn’t been promised safety and had that yanked away, dragged across the mountain knowing any help she needed was left further and further behind her. She hadn’t seen the dead bodies she had been about to join, and she sure as hell hadn’t felt the crippling relief as that guard’s helmet came off and revealed her rebel king, rescuing her where no one else had.

So what if Pike was a little crazy? Fox didn’t trust Pike, she wasn’t that far gone yet. But… as crazy as he was, as violent as he was… he wasn’t wrong. The grounders had proven time and time again that peace was the last thing on their minds. Blood, death, destruction, war: those were the trademarks of these earth born people, and the delinquents were the ones taking more losses than anyone save Farm Station. Pike’s station. He knew the violence of the grounders as well as the delinquents did, and it baffled Fox that anyone couldn’t see that the only thing the grounders understood was violence.

Pike had given it to them, and even then she would have kept her approval to herself, but Bellamy had joined him. Bellamy who already had so much death and war on his shoulders had taken on even more and for what? To keep them safe. Just as he always did. If she had to lose a few friendships along the way to support his protecting them through everything, then so be. She heard footsteps and she swiped a hand across her eyes to clear the frustrated tears, wanting to curse when she recognized the boy she’d just been defending against one of her closest friends down here. “Hi, Bell.” She greeted, hoping he hadn’t heard too much and if he had, hoped he wasn’t going to scold her for her vehemence.

She hadn’t known Bryan before the ground, but they’d bonded recently over the dividing loyalties among camp. His lay with Pike, hers with Bellamy, but both playing for the same team. So when Miller sat down with Bryan, her and Monroe to try to talk about Pike- subtly badmouth Pike more like, which by the look on Bryan’s face was not unusual- she tried to keep her mouth shut as long as she could. She didn’t mind Miller disliking Pike, in all honesty she didn’t care for the man herself. But that wasn’t why she’d chosen her side.

“Get off your high horse, Miller,” she snapped, “I don’t like him either- no offense, Bry.” She offered quickly to the boy next to her, “anymore than I like any of the adults, especially not ones that attack us.” She didn’t think she needed to specify that by ‘us’ she meant the delinquents, the only ‘us’ Fox recognized. “But if you don’t trust him, at least trust Bellamy.”

Bellamy’s the one following his warpath. He murdered-

“Watch it, Miller.” She snarled, her hands on either side of her tray as though she’d stand up. Miller scoffed at her snappishness and she did rise then, Miller matching her movement as Bryan and Monroe warned them both to cool it. “They got what they deserved.” They faced off for a long minute, venom in their eyes and threat in their body language, before she pushed away from the table and turned to stalk out of the hall, almost colliding with someone on the way out.

“Sorry I- Bellamy.” Guilt flashed across her features, almost as quickly replaced with a cheeky look that refused to be sorry about her actions. “Hi.” She wasn’t sure if he’d seen her with Miller, but if he hadn’t she sure wasn’t about to draw attention to it.

“And I wasn’t even supposed to come, I know, I just- I couldn’t be left there, I couldn’t stay with all those grounders and all Jaha’s people and you were right there and you were leaving and I didn’t know what else to do… it was Raven, right? She’s basically one of us, she broke laws, she came to Earth, she helped us I didn’t want to leave her behind either.” She didn’t usually ramble like this- she was careful with Bellamy, careful to toe lines and stay in safe territory and stay away from anything that would lead back to… back to her. The wrench in what could have been an otherwise peaceful life for Fox if you didn’t count the dead friends and radioactive Earth and the fact she was once more stuck in a box, if a slightly larger one than she’d had last time she was up here.

“I’d accepted that I was going to die- in the mountain, during ALIE, with Jasper, then at that stupid bunker and it’s stupid lottery and then at Becca’s lab and for some reason I’m still here and I tried so hard to be strong like the others, to be someone you could be proud of and then that grounder showed up and- and I guess I get not leaving her behind she’s a person but then you started liking her, Bell.” She could taste her own tears now but she couldn’t stop ( she needed to stop ), “She and her people killed my people- our people- and now we’re up here and it’s like it doesn’t even matter- like their deaths don’t matter to you as much as HER!”

Her hand flew up to clamp over her mouth, horror in her tear-filled eyes, horror at herself as apologies started spilling out. She’d yelled at him. She never yelled at him, she rarely even disagreed with him, what was wrong with her?! “I’m sorry.” Oh god. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t- I shouldn’t have-“ She couldn’t finish, only held her hand back over her mouth in case more blame tried to spill out, her tears pooling in the seam where her hand met her face.