the forty-eight; ❛ RULES ❜ ↷ the hundred
❝ if you die, I'm gonna kill you ❞

Unwavering sunlight.

That was the first thing Gabriella Kane saw once she opened her eyes. The second thing she noticed was her location -- she was on the back of a moving horse in the middle of the forest. Over the pounding in her head, she could hear deep male voices speaking in another language, it sounded similar to English but it had a weird accent and the words were twisted.

"'Bout time you woke up. I was beginning to get freaked out."

Gabriella's head snapped to the sound of the hushed whisper and her eyes connected with Wells'. She let out a sigh of relief. She was glad that she was not alone.

When she tried to sit up a little, she felt that her legs were bound. She tried to move her hands next, only to realize her wrists were bound too.

"Great." The blonde huffed in frustration, tilting her head to connect her blue eyes with Wells' dark ones. "Well...I'm glad we spent so much time together before we died."

-

"How did you get to be such a dick, Murphy?"

Murphy flinched at the coldness in Raven's tone and closed his eyes, leaning his head against the metal of the dropship. "I'm sorry for shooting you, okay? I'm sorry for a lot of things I did and didn't do that day. Is that what you want to hear?"

"Let me guess. Mommy and Daddy didn't love you?" Raven continued taunting, ignoring his apology.

"No, they loved me." Murphy said, staring at his bloodied hands that lay in his lap, trying to keep the image of a teary-eyed Gabriella watching him leave through the hole in the dropship out of his head.

Raven made a noise of amusement in the back of her throat and mocked him, "Are you gonna cry, Murphy?"

"Screw you, Raven."

"No, tell me. I want to know." Raven spoke, venom in her voice, "How does a kid who's loved by his parents, who has the greatest girl in the universe willing to die for him, turn into a murdering psychopath?"

Murphy stared at the wall, refusing to make eye contact with the wounded mechanic beside him, and spoke "He gets the flu. His father steals medicine that turns out wouldn't help anyway. Gets floated for it and...his mother, she starts drinking pretty heavily after that and the last words she says to him before he finds her in a pool of her own vomit is that..." He swallowed a sob threatening to escape him "...is that he killed his father. Then, he finally gets the freedom he always wanted, gets sent to Earth with the only important person in his life, gets hanged for a crime he didn't commit, and then gets banished because a little girl could not handle the guilt of being a murderer...and when he comes back, he finds out the girl he loves has feelings for the guy that banished and hung him."

"Boo-hoo."

-

"How do you think they're gonna kill us?" Wells spoke up, in a hushed whisper, after what felt like hours of moving through the woods. They both knew trying to escape would only result in dying sooner and when Gabriella tried to ask them where they were going, she was ignored.

"I don't know, probably chain us up, torture us like they did with John. Or they'll just lock us up in a room together, alone. Until eventually we die from dehydration." Gabriella responded dryly, shrugging her shoulders as best as she could and giving him a mocking grin that did not quite reach her eyes. "That would be painful enough."

"You're hilarious, you know that right?" Wells deadpanned, annoyance dripping from his voice.

"Well one of us has to be." Gabriella sighed, closing her eyes in the hope the lack of light would ease her headache, only for her eyes to snap open in alarm when the horse Wells was on stumbled a bit and made the boy beside her fall onto the ground, right on his bad shoulder. Gabriella's shoulder wound would probably only leave a scar, his looked like it would not heal anytime soon.

Both horses came to a halt and the grounder that kidnapped them turned to glare at Wells, who was too busy groaning in pain to notice anything.

"On your feet." The grounder ordered.

"He can't keep up." Gabriella was quick to defend him. "Give him a minute."

The grounder ignored her and got off the horse he was previously seated on. While Gabriella desperately tried to get Wells to stand up with her tied hands, the grounder stepped in front of them with a murderous glare. "I said get on your feet."

"Come on, Charming. Get up." Gabriella hissed quietly, trying to lift the boy up by taking hold of his good forearm.

Wells weakly stood on his knees, giving Gabriella an apologetic look. Once the grounder saw he was not getting the reaction he wanted out of either of them, he took the sword in his hand and stabbed Wells' wounded shoulder, making him cry out in pain while Gabriella's face flashed in panic.

"That's one." The grounder spat "I lost three hundred."

"Give us a minute and we'll get going." Gabriella glared but her face turned pleading as she spoke her next words. "Just let me help him."

The blonde did not wait for a response before she looked down at a half-conscious Wells, who was looking up at her with hooded eyes.

"If you die I'm gonna kill you, you hear that, Junior? I'm gonna kill you." Gabriella rambled, putting pressure on his wound, just like she had seen Clarke do multiple times. "You're not dying before we get back to Clarke. And even then you can't die" She let out a small sigh of displeasure at the feeling of Wells' blood on her hands. "I haven't run out of nicknames for you yet." Wells let a breathy chuckle escape his lips before he let his eyes close. Gabriella's eyes widened at the sight and she elbowed him in the stomach in hopes the pain from his old wound would get him to stay awake. "Don't fall asleep, Wells. Stay awake."

"I need to keep one of you alive to talk to The Commander." The grounder spoke up again, sporting a bored look on his face. "Now, get up."

"No." Gabriella said stubbornly, not even flinching when the grounder lifted the sword in his hand in the air threateningly. "You can kill me if you want--" She pressed harder against the bleeding wound, earning a grunt of pain that made her realize the boy on the floor was now conscious again, "--but then you won't have anyone to bring to your precious Commander. Wells and I come as a matching set. If you let him die then I will gladly slit my-"

Her words were cut off when a loud "Hey!" was heard behind them. Gabriella's head snapped to the source of the sound to see Bellamy with a spear in his hand. She squinted her eyes at his unmoving figure. Why the hell wasn't he throwing it?

The oldest Blake looked through the trees expectantly -- almost as if he was waiting for something to happen.

"What the hell are you doing?" Gabriella yelled, "Get out of here!"

The grounder did not waste a second before marching up to Bellamy with his sword raised high. Bellamy clenched his jaw and tried to hit him with a spear, only to have it fly right above the grounder's head and next to Gabriella. If this was not a life or death situation, the girl would have his ass for almost killing her, but she was too busy trying to keep Wells alive and worrying whether her co-leader was going to get himself killed. The grounder used the back of his sword to knock Bellamy to the ground, straight on his back.

Bellamy coughed out blood and Gabriella could only stare in horror as the grounder started beating him up. If her legs and wrists were not tied, she would not waste a second to help him but she was helpless.

There was nothing Gabriella Kane hated more than being helpless.

She felt helpless when her mother got floated, when Sam died, when Murphy got hung, when Monty and Clarke went missing when Murphy locked Jasper and Bellamy inside of the dropship and tried to kill them...

And she absolutely hated it.

"Stop it!" She pleaded desperately, her voice shaking slightly. "You'll kill him!"

After a few minutes of the nameless grounder beating Bellamy into a bloody pulp and Gabriella begging for him to stop, he finally did and tied Bellamy up to stand next to them. In the meantime, Gabriella was able to tear a part of her shirt off and wrap it around Wells' shoulder.

Wells grunted and opened his eyes, when the fabric was secure around his shoulder. "I didn't know you cared that much."

"I don't." Gabriella deadpanned. "But Clarke would kill me if she found out I left you to bleed to death. But you and I? We still hate each other."

"Noted." Wells nodded weakly, letting Gabriella help him stand up and flinching as she did.

When Wells was on his feet, Gabriella gave Bellamy a death glare, which he responded to with an almost sheepish shrug.

"Why are you here?" She whispered, wiping the blood off her hands on her shirt. "You're supposed to be in the dropship."

"I didn't make it in time" Bellamy whispered back, defending himself quickly, "so I went looking for you."

Gabriella took a deep breath before turning to the grounder. "Can you untie my feet? I can't walk like this."

The grounder hesitantly cut the rope off her feet, which allowed her to finally properly stretch her legs.

"Why were my legs bound and his weren't?" The blonde could not help but ask, not expecting the grounder to give her any type of answer but he did anyway.

"You kick in your sleep."

With those final words, the grounder turned around and left the three delinquents tied up, with Gabriella not taking her annoyed glare off of Bellamy.

Another surprise to all of them except Bellamy, was the sound of teenagers' battle screams. They turned around to see Finn, Sterling, and Monroe running to them with their weapons in hand.

The trio was not able to get far when a bullet went straight through the grounder's skull. All six delinquents gaped at the dead body in shock and surprise.

Their surprise increased when Marcus Kane stepped out from behind the trees with a couple of guards behind him, all of them armed with a gun. Gabriella felt as the world froze as she watched her father put the gun down and connect his eyes with hers. Her father was alive, he did not die when the exodus ship crashed and she wasn't sure she was glad about it because it meant that he was back in her life again.

"We're here now. Everything's gonna be okay." Marcus assured them, his eyes flickering from his beaten up daughter to the remaining of the hundred behind her.

The guards untied their hands and Gabriella assessed Bellamy in not falling on his ass again, while Finn led Wells over to Abby Griffin so she could check his shoulder.

"I'm fine. Ella fixed me up. We need to get back to the dropship." Wells said, shaking off Abby's concern, his mind solemnly on coming back to Clarke.

"Hey. Where's Clarke? Is she all right?" Abby asked, mainly looking between Wells and Gabriella even though her question was directed towards Bellamy and Finn too.

"She was when we left." Finn answered, drawing Abby's attention on him. "We'll take you to her."

Marcus was quick to stop them from making their way back to the delinquent camp. "Wait. Slow down." He looked over their shoulders to someone in the crowd. "Sinclair. We're splitting up. One guard detail comes with me to the dropship. Everyone else here goes with you to Alpha Station. You have the coordinates. We'll follow later, as soon as we can."

"Yes, si--"

Sinclair's words were cut off when Gabriella tackled him into a long-awaited hug, her arms wrapping around his shoulders. The head of engineering stumbled backward a bit but hugged back as soon as he realized who it was. Gabriella knew he was not in the exodus ship because he was still needed on The Ark but knowing he was down on Earth and safe, made her feel at ease.

She was relieved she did not lose anyone else important to her.

Gabriella pulled away with a small smile. "I'm happy you're okay."

Sinclair ruffled her already messy hair and smiled back. He noticed she had some blood in it, there and all over her but other than that, she seemed perfectly fine. "You too kiddo. I knew you would not go down easy."

With one last smile, Gabriella turned around to connect her gaze with her father, who was watching the interaction with slight envy. She rolled her eyes and made her way back to her friends. It wasn't her fault that Sinclair was more of a father to her than Marcus ever was.

"Okay, you six with me." Marcus commanded a couple of guards before he turned to the remaining delinquents. "You four, lead the way."

-

As Gabriella got closer to camp, with the three boys, her father, Abby and six guards trailing close behind her, she saw dead bodies lying all over the ground. Some were grounders and some were their people -- her people. Teenagers who followed her and Bellamy into battle without a second thought, teenagers who were willing to fight and die for their ground -- for their home.

"It's too quiet." Bellamy commented, eying the dead bodies with an unreadable look on his face, most likely having the same dreadful thoughts as Gabriella.

The female Kane connected her wary haze with Bellamy's and they both went to stand up from their kneeling position, only for Marcus to take a hold of their forearms.

"We'll take it from here." He said in a dismissive tone Gabriella was so used to hearing whenever he was speaking to her. She tore her unamused gaze away from her father and looked back at Bellamy to see him already looking at her with a knowing look.

The two leaders could faintly hear Marcus commanding two guards to stay with them while he and the four other guards check out the dropship, but they were too busy trying to make a plan only by holding eye contact.

But they both knew one thing, they needed to find out what happened to their people.

Marcus led Abby and four guards inside and left the four delinquents with the two remaining guards. Gabriella pursed her lips in annoyance, the fact that her father was still treating her like a child and trying to act like he's suddenly the one in charge, after everything he did, passing her off more than anything in the last few weeks.

"We need a stretcher!" A voice was heard from inside of camp and all four of them perked up in worry, trying to get through the guards and inside.

Bellamy tilted his head at Gabriella and nodded behind her where she knew a foxhole was located. The blonde leaned her head between Wells and Finn so she was out of earshot to the guards and whispered, "Follow our lead."

And a second later, the two remaining leaders of the hundred made a beeline towards a foxhole, Wells and Finn hot on their trail. They could hear the guards yelling after them but they ignored them and ran straight through the foxhole and into their camp.

Gabriella took a deep breath at the sight in front of her. Everything they built, everything they worked so hard for was ruined, burned down, and with dead bodies burnt to ashes across the ground. But most importantly, it was empty.

"Where is everybody?" Wells asked, echoing everyone's thoughts out loud.

"It was awful. There were hundreds of them and if it wasn't for Raven-- I don't know what happened."

Gabriella's jaw and fists clenched at the familiar voice and she turned around to see none other than John Murphy being carried out of the dropship by a guard.

Once the limping boy caught sight of the four delinquents (but mainly the leaders) his mouth dropped open in surprise and he stuttered out "Ellie, Bellamy. You're . . . you're alive."

Gabriella was about to pounce on him, throw a few punches, until Bellamy beat her to it. She wasn't sure of the exact reason she wanted to be the one to do it. Maybe it was for betraying her trust like that, for holding Jasper at gunpoint, hanging Bellamy, or shooting Raven but he gave her so many reasons to hate him in the last forty-eight hours she couldn't not want to beat the shit out of him.

"You murdering son of a bitch!" Bellamy growled as he tackled Murphy to the ground. He threw the first punch, then another, and another...

If it was any other day, Gabriella would have stopped him and yelled at him for doing so but instead of her, it was Finn who screamed at him to stop. Gabriella could feel her father's curious gaze on the side of her face, probably wondering why she was not doing anything about the situation, but she was not going to give him the satisfaction of turning around. he wanted to know what the hell happened between her and her so-called best friend since they had been sent to the ground.

The engineer was too busy watching the fight to notice Marcus motioning to a guard to pull Bellamy off of Murphy but she took a cautious step forward once she saw the guard step closer with a shock baton in his hand. She did not even get a chance to warn Bellamy before the guard shocked him and he fell off of Murphy and onto the ground with a painful groan.

Marcus brushed passed his daughter and looked down at Bellamy with something close to disgust, speaking in a cold tone. "Place him under arrest."

"No." Gabriella exclaimed, moving away from Wells and Finn to stand in front of Bellamy almost protectively. "You are not in charge here anymore, Kane. We have been surviving on our own these last few weeks and Bellamy has no reason to get arrested." Her eyes flickered over to a blood-covered Murphy lying on the floor as she added, "If you're planning to arrest any of us it should be John."

"Exactly." Finn agreed, "Murphy murdered two of our people. He shot two others and tried to hang Bellamy."

One of the guards took hold of Gabriella's forearms and moved her away from Bellamy so the other two guards could get him up and tie his wrists together.

"I don't care. You are not animals. There are rules. Laws." Marcus spoke, turning around to look at his glaring daughter. "You are not in control here anymore."

"Let me go." Gabriella grunted in frustration, trying to get out of the guard's grip. "Tell him to let me go."

"I can't do that, Gabriella." Marcus told her, but there was nothing genuine in his voice. "You'll stay locked up until we get to our camp."

"Fuck you." The eighteen-year-old spat harshly, using the back of her heel to kick the guard's shin and making him let her go. She turned around quickly and raised her knee to kick him between his legs and he quickly put his hands over the place, grunting in pain as he did.

Once she was satisfied with her work, Gabriella turned around and flashed her father a sarcastic grin. "Looks like you have to lock me up permanently this time, Dad."

Marcus clenched his jaw and motioned for one of the guards who was holding Bellamy to tie her up as well. When her hands were bound, she was placed next to Bellamy with two guards standing behind them warily.

"That was idiotically Gabriella of you." Bellamy levels her with an unimpressed look, which she shrugged at.

"You're the one to talk after what you did an hour ago."

Bellamy scoffed in slight offense. "Excuse me for saving your ass. Seems like I've been doing a lot of that since we landed."

"I thought it was the other way around." Gabriella snapped with an annoyed glare.

Suddenly, all attention turned to Raven being carried out of the dropship with Abby behind her. Gabriella's eyes flashed in worry, suddenly remembering what happened to her friend before the battle even started.

"Raven." Finn gasped, stepping closer to his ex-girlfriend's unconscious body.

"She's lost a lot of blood. It's a miracle that she's still alive." Abby explained before a permanent frown full of disappointment settled on her face- "There's no one else in there."

"What?" Gabriella muttered to herself, wide eyes connecting with Bellamy's equally confused ones.

"What the hell happened here?"

-

Gabriella was seated on the ground beside Bellamy with a stressed and pissed-off look on her face. The guards were scouting the area around the dropship, trying to see if anyone else was there but finding no one yet.

"We're leaving." Finn announced as he and Wells marched over to their two remaining leaders.

"What?" Bellamy asked, confusion clear on his face- "This is where they'll come back."

"I don't think they're coming back. The grounders took them and you know that." Finn said, shaking his head solemnly.

Seeing both Gabriella and Bellamy were skeptical, Wells quickly added, "Look, according to Finn, there's supposed to be at least fifty of our people missing from the dropship, which means they didn't leave like that. Clarke would not allow so many of them to go through the woods after the war we just went through."

Finn nodded and scrunched down in front of Gabriella and Bellamy. "We go with Kane to Alpha Station, we get reinforcement and weapons, and then we find our friends."

"One question." Bellamy spoke, still a bit skeptical. "How many more of us will be dead by then?"

Finn's eyes briefly flickered to an unconscious Raven before he turned back around to look at Bellamy. "Abby says Raven needs surgery or she's gonna die."

Tense silence settled among them and Gabriella gaped at his words.

"Shit." Was the only thing that she was able to make out, but even that came out as a whisper.

Wells gave her a sympathetic look. "It's time to go."

And just like that, they were leaving their home behind, again.

A/N: the only thing I can say for now is there will be a lot of angst in this act

song of the chapter is the great war