FROZEN STARS

BACK PRESSED AGAINST THE BRICK WALL, Marley fiddled with the sleeve of her jacket. She knew she shouldn't cry, and she wouldn't cry, she swore she wouldn't, but the tears burned at the back of her eyes. Marley heaved out a heavy sigh and pressed her head back against the wall.

The cool brick bit into her skin.

She didn't need to look up to know he was watching her.

When she did look up, brown eyes traced the line of her expression. Her own gaze felt watery as she locked eyes with Bellamy; his brow pinched at the sight of her, and she glanced away before he could see the fear that she felt thumping through her.

They were going to die here. They were all going to die, in this camp, surrounded by hatred and vitriol, and a thousand venomous tongues. They'd make it slow, the kind of slow they intended for Finn. Pain at the tip of a knife, a sword, a shiv, until they finally granted them mercy. Her mind stumbles over the details; maybe she'll have to hear them die, Bellamy and Elijah and Raven and Clarke and Octavia, or maybe they'll kill her first and sneer and laugh at her screams for mercy. Maybe they'll make them kill each other, a vicious battle to the death with no mercy, all for entertainment. Maybe they won't even touch them, just hang them out like laundry in a public spectacle, people watching and waiting for their ends, making sport of who will fall first.

She was going to die there. Somehow, at some point, inevitably. She was going to die for something she didn't do. She was innocent, innocent, innocent and her thoughts were racing, racing, racing and she'd never see the stars again and she'd never pray to the moon, and she'd never know what it was to fall in love, to be truly happy that the world seems enough, even despite it all. She was going to die, she was going to die, she was going to-

"Marley."

Bellamy's arms were around her. Strong arms, holding her so close, clutching her to the warmth of his chest. He murmured her name against her hair, his hand stroking patterns across her back. He'd seen her falling across the room. He'd seen her hands trembling before she tucked them away from sight, seen the worry welling in her eyes. He'd seen her and he'd known, and he'd come for her before the world crashed down around her.

"I've got you."

If this was how it had to end, she wanted to spend that end in his arms.

His lips brushed her temple, his mouth buried against her head, murmuring and whispering reassurance. His breath was warm against her skin. He smelt familiar; the trees and the stars, the wind and the rain. Like home and safety and everything. Marley's fingers knotted into the front of his shirt. She pressed her cheek against his chest, tucked herself into his side, and let the relief wash over her and soak her skin like a downpour. The world shrunk to him and only him. To the arms holding her close.

"It'll be okay."

She could feel eyes on her, on him, on them. But she didn't care, didn't care, didn't care-

The door banged open. Heavy boots marched into the room. Marley jumped but Bellamy didn't move to loosen his arms around her. He only turned his head to see who had entered. Marley only lifted her eyes, still clinging to him like, if she let go, it would spell death. It surely would, this time. They'd pull them apart and kill them. Slowly, slowly, slowly-

"How's Gustus?" Lincoln questioned, his voice gruff and low.

A guard whose voice she didn't recognise grunted. "Gustus will live."

Marley's tense limbs relaxed a little. If Gustus was okay, maybe they would be lenient. Maybe they would let them go. Maybe that was all wishful thinking but, if she didn't cling on to that hope, even the slightest, most pathetic shreds of it, she would surely have collapsed in on herself.

Indra surveyed the room. Bellamy helped Marley to her feet, his hand lingering on the small of her back. Without his touch anchoring her, she wasn't entirely sure that she wouldn't collapse straight back against the wall. Because she could feel her knees trembling and her feet ache, like her body was about to break apart beneath the weight of it all. She pinched her eyes closed, just for a moment, steadying her breath, readying herself to face their fate. Indra's gaze barely lingered on her, or Bellamy. Her eyes swept straight past and landed on Raven.

She shouted something that Marley couldn't understand and the two Grounder guards who had entered the room before they stormed forward and grabbed Raven by the arms. Harshly, they tugged her forward.

"Hey!" Elijah stepped forward. Anger twisted his face, burning his cheeks a bright red. But the guard moved as quick and as swift as lightning and jabbed him in the stomach with the blunt hilt of a dagger sheathed at his waist. Elijah stumbled backwards, breathless and winded, gasping for the breath that had been knocked out of him. Anger still flushed his face but he couldn't seem to regain himself quickly enough to help as the two guards hauled Raven towards Indra and the open door. Raven still struggled, despite the two guards standing at nearly double her height.

"Wait. Wait," Lincoln demanded, "What are you doing?"

"She didn't poison anyone," Bellamy insisted.

"I argued for you all to die." Indra's glare was venomous. "But the commander is merciful. She only wants one."

"She's innocent."

"I don't care," Indra snarled. "They move, they bleed!" She roared to a second set of guards, who had entered the room behind her.

"Hey, stop! Let her go!"

But it was no use. The guards continued to drag Raven forward. She carried on struggling.

"The rest of you are free," Indra turned to announce. Marley shouldn't have felt relieved. Raven was to be put to death, sentenced to die for a crime she didn't commit. The Commander wanted blood for blood, Raven's life for the possibility of her own. She wanted it all to be a dream. She wanted to wake up and find herself in Bellamy's arms, in his bed, and know that everything would be okay for a little while. That for those few hours, in the twilight, beneath the moon and the stars and the whispered promise of the night, everything would be alright. She would be alright. Her friends would be alright. That the world would be alright. Just as long as the moon was there to keep watch over the Earth.

But her next words filled her with cold dread. "When she is dead, so is the alliance. You should run."

More Grounders pursuing them. More blood and death, blades and bullets and violence. More terror and fear. Bloodshed. War.

~

It was a brutal spectacle just like Finn's goodbye. Grounders gathered with violence colouring their faces. They cheered as Raven was strapped to a pole; crudely carved of blood-stained wood, gouge marks marring every inch. Halfway, she'd stopped fighting their hold; she hadn't given up, no, Raven would never do that, but instead, she wore the cool, calculating anger of someone working out exactly how she would kill each and every Grounder if given the chance.

Marley wasn't sure what was more terrifying; Raven's stone cold stare or the grin of the Grounders brandishing their blades.

Death by a thousand cuts they called it. The cruelest and most violent of deaths, drawn out and slow, pure torture for the afflicted. Though surely they were no better.

They sent people to their deaths in the depths of space. Hurtled out into the endless void of darkness and stars, left to choke on the airless atmosphere. No one knew how long it took for a person to surrender to their fate; if it stole your life quickly or pulled it from you, bit by bit, until you were begging breathlessly to whatever silent force held you in its grip.

Marley would still have preferred to be floated, though.

At least, then, she could die amongst the stars.

Maybe it would feel like coming home.

But she didn't want Raven to face either execution.

She believed her when she said she hadn't tried to poison the Commander. Heartbroken and furious as she may have been, Raven was not stupid enough to pull such a brazen scheme. Besides, she'd spent most of the night under supervision, and the rest of her time with Elijah, and Elijah's quiet, simmering anger was just calculated enough that he would never let her pull such a public scheme.

Elijah's brand of revenge seemed most likely to manifest like a spider. Set a trap, a lure, drawing its prey to it. Methodical, calculated, not a surprise attack, ill-advised and ill-thought out.

Marley was sure Elijah would jump in and pretend to be responsible if he could. If a Grounder didn't have a knife pressed tight against his throat and his right arm wrenched behind his back. They were lucky the Grounders hadn't seen fit to kill him for his attempts at disruption, which had been surprisingly effective against a Grounder or two, given his injured leg.

Bellamy stood beside her, a hand resting against her lower back. She was glad he was there. She thinks she might have fallen if he wasn't there to hold her up.

"I take no joy in this, Raven, but, this time, justice will be done," Lexa proclaimed, pacing back and forth before her. Back straight, chin tipped upwards, the very personification of power.

"I didn't do it," Raven insisted. "How is that justice?"

"We have to do something," Bellamy murmured, quiet enough so only those around them could hear.

When he made to move forward, looking to all the world like he was about to kill whichever Grounder stood in his way, Marley grabbed at his hand. The hand that had slipped from her lower back. She looked up at him, pleading. And, though the anger still hardened his expression, furrowing his eyebrows and clenching his jaw, his dark eyes softened when they looked at her. She squeezed his hand once, twice, before her fingers trailed up the inside of his forearm. Her hand wrapped gently around his elbow and she pulled him back towards her. His warmth at her side comforted her, despite the horror that unfolded before them.

If he stayed by her side, it couldn't happen to him.

She wouldn't let it happen to him.

"Lincoln, talk to them," Octavia insisted.

The Commander stepped forward. With the knife she held, she cut a slender line across Raven's tied forearm. Raven yelled in pain, fighting against her bindings. They didn't budge. Indra stepped forward, next. Twisting her knife between her fingers, she slashed at Raven's stomach once, her face ice cold and immovable.

"Lincoln, do something! They're your people!"

Lincoln's reply was gruff. "Not anymore."

Marley's breath hitched in her throat. This was torture. Pure torture.

She couldn't breathe.

She couldn't breathe.

She couldn't breathe-

The Grounders kept coming, one after the other, revelling in the amusement like this was some goddamn party.

Bellamy's hand pressed harder against the small of Marley's back. Quietly, gently, he guided her away from the front of the crowd, away from Raven as she struggled and bled. "We need to go, now," he muttered into her ear. His hands dipped to her hips and held them tightly, guiding her through the sneering crowd of Grounders. Though they seemed more interested in Raven's torment, Bellamy kept her pressed close to him as he manoeuvred her to safety. "Keep moving," he urged her. His fingers nearly burnt holes through her shirt.

"It wasn't in the bottle," Clarke suddenly yelled.

Marley and Bellamy stopped once they heard it. It seemed everyone else did, too. Bellamy turned them to face the front of the crowd, where Clarke now rushed towards the Commander and Gustus.

"Clarke, stop!" Bellamy's voice rumbled through her bones. "You'll get yourself killed!"

"I need that bottle, now!" Clarke demanded, reaching out a slender hand to grab for it.

Gustus turned away. He stormed through the thick Grounder crowd, but only managed to get half way before Lexa's demand rang out.

"Stop. Let her pass."

Gustus turned and begrudgingly handed the bottle over to Clarke.

"One of your people tried to kill you, Lexa. Not one of mine."

Sometimes, Clarke Griffin spoke with so much gentle and calm authority that Marley had a hard time believing that anyone wouldn't side with them.

"You should have run," Indra sneered, drawing her sword from its sheath across her back.

"I can prove it."

With that, Clarke took a long drink of the alcohol. For a breathtaking, heart-wrenching beat, the crowd watched Clarke. But nothing happened. No harm came to her.

The drink wasn't poisoned.

Raven was innocent.

"Explain," the Commander demanded.

"The poison wasn't in the bottle, it was in the cup," Clarke explained.

Gustus snapped something at the Commander in the language of the Grounders, something Marley couldn't make out. But, from his glares to the harsh tone of his voice, it seemed obvious he was arguing against Clarke's point of view.

"It was you," Bellamy insisted, pointing over at Gustus. The Grounder scoffed. "He tested the cup. He searched Raven."

"Gustus would never harm me."

"You weren't the target. The alliance was."

Clarke's eyes were nearly-pleading. "We didn't do this and you know it."

Another beat of horrible silence.

Lexa's glared turned to her right hand man. She proclaimed something to him. A statement, a question, she couldn't be sure. Until Gustus' reply.

"This alliance would have cost your life, Heda. I could not let that happen."

Lexa bowed her head. It seemed she respected him for his admission. "This treachery will cost you yours. Put him on the tree!" She declared as a pair of Grounders untied Raven's wrists and let her slide to the floor.

a/n: its been so long since I wrote for this that they've taken the entire show off amazon prime so if anything is wrong it's because I'm relying solely on various different transcripts online and have next to no visuals for any of the scenes oops

also kind of helpful though since i was planning on going entirely au from season 6