Chapter Text
He still couldn’t believe the fact that no one had told him.
He felt betrayed, and excluded. This time, however, it wasn’t his choice. The people he called friends for years, the ones who were supposed to be family, they had lied to him.
(Maybe that was the reason he stayed away from them on the Ring.)
He understood why Clarke wouldn’t want to tell him. She knew what an asshole he was, and that the first thing he would've done after knowing would be stupid. But the others? Fuck, not just the others—
Hell, he was going to kill Bellamy.
He should’ve asked, when he first noticed that whenever Clarke left the room, and Echo was not far behind, Madi always made a point of sending someone with them. He’d thought it was related to the drama going on there, but he should’ve known better. The kid had a damn AI in her mind, for fuck’s sake. It had to be something serious.
It was better this way. That Madi had spoken for the woman who was like her mother. He couldn’t believe it, yet, that everyone else had hidden something like that from him.
Jordan was as surprised as him when they heard what happened, but he was so angry he didn’t see the glance he and Madi shared when he left their tent.
He didn't realize where his feet were carrying him, but soon enough, he was where he wanted to be. They were all gathered in front of a fire when he arrived and, okay, Octavia wasn’t part of his plan in any way, but she was there, so. Whatever. He wasn’t going to keep his anger in a bottle waiting for a better moment to say something. Murphy was giving them a piece of his mind right then and there.
“Hey, Murphy,” Raven said when she saw him coming with a welcoming, warm smile. “Where have you been?”
If Bellamy was there, Murphy would’ve killed him with his bare hands after that piece of information he was given. Lucky him, he was probably with Clarke somewhere else. It was better that way.
He snarled at her, and then to the rest of the group. “When were you planning to tell me?”
Emori frowned at him from her seat between Echo and Raven. “What are you talking about?”
But he wasn’t going to go direct to the point. He’d been quiet because Clarke asked him to, but he had so much venom inside of him by then, and John Murphy wasn’t anything but honest. An asshole, and a cockroach, but honest nonetheless.
“You’ve been judging Clarke from the outskirts from weeks now, telling yourselves that you’re better than her. And you know what? It’s a goddamn lie.”
“Not again,” Emori muttered, rubbing her temples.
Echo eyed her. “Has he been given you trouble for her new best friend, too?”
She snorted. “That’s the understatement of the century.”
“Shut up, because this time you will listen to me,” he growled, and the people finally realized how serious he was. Even Bellamy’s sister, who had been quiet and uninterested since his arrival, was paying attention. “I’ve been sitting and not saying anything because I respect Clarke, and she asked me not to, but I was having an interesting chat with her daughter and discovered some things, and I’m tired of keeping my mouth shut. I thought that you’ll finally stop being this stupid when we were closer to have a settlement again, but I guess I was wrong and the only people who grew up while we were on the Ring were Monty, Harper, Bellamy and me. You are all being childish.”
“How so, Murphy?” Echo intervened. “You are the one who is talking to the enemy.”
He laughed humorlessly. “Damn, you’re all blind. Everyone hated Clarke because she took every decision that no one wanted to take, because she made mistakes. Well, fucking tell me—is any of you perfect? Because I didn’t know. Clarke just did what she always does: she protected her family. She wasn’t sure where she stood with us. Fuck, I’m not even talking about Echo or Emori. Bellamy betrayed her when he put the chip in Madi’s head, and you, Raven, you just—watched while Echo choked her in Madi’s presence. Who the fuck does that?”
“She left Bellamy to die,” Echo spat with venom, while Raven looked at the ground, her jaw clenching.
“Until when will that excuse be enough? She spared your life.” He looked at the woman who once was his girlfriend. “She saved us countless of times. She injected herself with the nightblood that they were going to put on you just because she knew what you meant to me! She’s the reason we had each other for six years up in space, and even when we paid her by leaving her behind to die, she waited for us!”
“You can’t force us to talk to her,” Emori said, calmly.
“I’m not trying to do that!” he shouted, disbelieving. “I just want you to cut the crap. You don’t want to talk to Clarke? Fine, but stop saying mean things about her. Apologize for treat her like shit when all she did was give her life for us! She was just being a mother watching out for her kid. You know nothing, so stop acting like you do.”
“She betrayed Bellamy! You can’t expect us to—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Echo. Stop being so hypocrite. You did worse when you were Azgeda. You were trying to keep on the good side of your queen or king at the time. Clarke was protecting the only person that stood by her side during six years.” He looked around the group. “Have any of you thought about that? She was alone, and that girl was everything she had. Just stop this shit and we’ll be fucking fine.”
“Well, maybe we don’t want to be.”
He rolled his eyes at Raven. “We all would be dead without her. And if Bellamy is being smart for once in his life by forgiving her, you should too. Clarke has made shitty mistakes, but haven’t we all done the same? Monty and Harper told Jordan to wake her and Bellamy, and then they said they wanted her to take care of him. Isn’t their trust some kind of proof or something? The only one who has any right to be mad at her is Bellamy and he is not! Suck it up and move on.”
Echo snorted. “You do remember which of us was the one who had his own side of the Ring, right?”
“I grew up,” he retorted. “You guys should learn to do the same someday.”
“She can go to hell, for all I care. She did—”
“Oh, shut up, Echo. She was in fucking hell for six years.”
She raised an eyebrow. “If you’re expecting us to forgive her, that’s never going to happen.”
He made a sound of frustration at the back of his throat. “That’s not what I want here. Haven’t you been listening? Your fucking problem is that you can’t do something other than hate her because you’re waiting for Bellamy to leave you, and you know it will be for her. I’ll tell you something. The way you’ve been acting is going to end things between you and him, without her being the reason.”
“Murphy.” Raven hissed.
“Come and talk to me when you’re done being assholes,” he told the group, he pointed a finger in Echo’s direction. “—and you better get away from wherever Clarke is. I don’t want to hear that you almost choked her to death again.”
He hadn’t noticed that Jordan had left to search for Bellamy and Clarke, and they arrived just in time to listen the last part of his rant, so when Murphy turned to leave, he saw them, the shock in Bellamy’s face was enough to make him sigh in relief. He didn’t know, he thought. And then he wanted to slap himself. Honestly, the man had been in love with Clarke for years, and it was idiotic to think that he would've been fine with it if he knew.
His eyes were wide with disbelief, and he looked between Murphy and their group of friends, speechless.
“What the fuck is he talking about?” he asked, sounding breathless, as if he had been just punched in the gut.
Clarke put a reassuring hand on his arm, feeling all the tension in his body. “It’s nothing.”
He stopped glaring at the others, and his gaze softened when he looked at her. It was nauseating, but Murphy was already getting used to it again. He frowned in concern at her, looking at her neck, as if he could see the marks. “Clarke?”
She looked away, but Bellamy wouldn’t remain without response, so he looked at Murphy, hoping he would answer him.
He exhaled, exasperated, already feeling more calmed that how he’d been a few minutes before, when he thought his friend knew about it and was okay with ignoring something so significant. “Madi told me that Echo tried to choke Clarke when we were still on Earth.”
“Echo?” he asked, and everyone knew he was expecting some kind of joke. “Is that true?”
“She left you to die,” she hissed, angry at him, at her, at everything.
Clarke closed her eyes, as if the words had turned into daggers and she had been stabbed by them. She sighed, and then left without replying at the accusation.
“And I forgave her,” he retorted, clenching his jaw. “Wasn’t that enough?”
He didn’t wait for an answer, he just followed Clarke out of there.
“What a drama, huh.” Octavia snorted, and Murphy remembered for the second time that she was there. “Good luck with that,” she told Echo with a mocking smile, when the former warrior raised from her seat to go after him, immediately accelerating her steps to catch up with him. “The last person that tried something against her didn’t have a good time!”
Murphy wondered what that meant. Knowing Octavia, she wouldn’t be willing to share, so he needed to talk with Madi again.
It wasn’t the way he’d been expecting the night to go.