[open]

[strove]

WHO: Clarke Griffin + anyone
WHERE: New Amsterdam
WHEN: The very end of November 2511 into December 2511
WHAT: Returning from a canon update, reintegrating.
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Likely references to loss of autonomy, death, bodysnatching without consent, and spoilers for the entirety of season 6 of The 100.

[Arriving back in New Amsterdam is a shock to Clarke's system. She wakes up in her bed—her bed. Not Josephine Lightbourne's. Her body. Not Josephine Lightbourne's. Whereas she has handled all of these complications back home, there's still a haziness in adjusting here. Two lives lived parallel. Whereas before, she had been certain that her life would be lonely, barely lived—her mind works to correct. To repair. To adjust. She can't adhere to notions that she held before. It will take time. Adjust. Adapt.

Adapt.

And do better. That's the one mantra that stays with her. Being here doesn't change that. Do better. Josephine had mocked that need, but that just tells Clarke that she was on the right track. That she is on the right track. Do better. So, she will.

Once Clarke has slept about a whole day to feel better, she takes some of her vital signs to make sure that she can manage being on her feet. It turns out that a good night of sleep was all she needed (and a good part of a day, at that). That's fine.

Otherwise? She has to acquaint herself with the city again. A cursory glance told her that she has a lot of reading to do. And a lot of seeing how things are in New Amsterdam proper. Clarke makes a to-do list:

a. get a new job. Giles Bell is surprisingly forgiving about her absence, but she tells them that she doesn't think it's the path she'd like to take. Having an evil scientist in her head really did a number on her, so she's willing to avoid too much science at the moment. She'll be hitting the streets to look for ideas.

b. Ask around about the animals that are getting into the city. Clarke hasn't seen any yet, but she knows they're around.

c. Check into travel to and from the city. This is for a future project, one important to all of the Displaced.

d. Start volunteering. She has enough medical training that she can do that. It's a place to start.

e. Otherwise, just be around for the first time since she came back inside of the walls after the EMP. She hadn't stuck around for long, either. Her disappearance was near immediate after she came back with Jyn and Prompto, vanishing before she even hit her apartment on her way home.

Clarke will look different. Her hair is more purposefully cut, and she starts to tend toward a darker wardrobe, with some splashes of red and blue where needed. She is older by six years, and carries herself in a way where someone may pick that up. But she's not exactly going to go around announcing it, not yet.

She has things that she has to do. A lot of things.]

[ooc: I'll also be putting prompts below! If you'd like a thread with Clarke, hit me up in PMs, on plurk @ medieval, or on Discord @ alison#8996.]

Comments

[strove]

[Jyn's words resonate with Clarke. Though she had managed to live past scaling that tower to ensure her friends could get off into space, she had felt at peace in the days that followed. While she healed, while the taste of blood left her throat and eventually went away once and for all, she felt at peace. If she didn't get better, it would be fine. Her friends were safe. Her other people were underground, saved in the fullest extent by Octavia and her efforts.

Saved.

So she knows what Jyn is saying. She knows what it's like to hit a point where what she's done matters more than how she feels. The problem is she knows it's never as simple as that. Clarke looks over at her, debating whether or not this is a good time to push. "Not" thinks like the right decision here.

Clarke shoots for a middle ground instead.]

And now you're here. [For better or worse. Clarke remembers her asking about radiation.] So, what now?

[realists]

Live.

[ which seems so simple, but it has always been something of a rebellion. to live when the empire wanted to stamp her out, to live now when the government considers them criminals, her very existence is an act of rebellion; ripping away a home that should have belonged to the elite, taking a job that should have gone to someone native to the planet, living freely and (mostly) openly.

something brought her to this planet, they have to deal with her now.

that's the surface answer, at least. living after dying is harder, everything feels so fragile. jyn may face the world with a seemingly uncompromising YOLO but she also faced her own death, at peace. ]

Like it or not the planet is stuck with me. If they don't make a place for me, I have to do it myself.

[ manifest destiny. ]

[strove]

Apparently there's an entire continent that lays barren and deserted here. [The fact that North America hasn't been taken over by new civilization is worrying, but Clarke has a hunch that they could make it work for them. If there is something there shooting down any drones, they can figure it out. It's something that they had to do with Becca's lab, and she's confident that the Displaced can make it work.]

I'm thinking that we won't have to ask anyone to do much of anything for us.

[It's a part of her plan that she intends to carry out and present later on. The bit of information that Octavia received tells Clarke that it might be inhabitable. They just need to fix some things before they get there.]

And if we do it right? No one even needs to know we're there. I'd gladly welcome you as my neighbor.

[realists]

[ jyn's mouth slants in thought, taking in clarke's words and turning them over. she knows she can personally live that kibbutz life and she knows clarke wants a home for her friends and family, for madi and her mother. they're capable, sure, and jyn wouldn't mind being neighbors with her either.

but that's to say nothing of everyone else. still, it's clarke's hope and jyn finds herself again unwilling to squash even a little bit of it. it's an idea, they can work on it. ]

A whole continent and you want to be my neighbor. [ her brief grin is rakish, teasing to hide the inexperienced way the smile sits on her expression, naturally more suited to seriousness. ] Stop flirting with me, Clarke, I'm not available.

[strove]

Duly noted. [Clearly not what she was going for in the least, but it's enough to make Clarke laugh. That laugh is probably a first, a major removal from how things had been before. For as much pain as Clarke has had in her life—has had recently—being back her has refilled her with a sense of hope. North America is a possibility. Neighbors are a possibility. As much as Jyn thinks it could be a whole continent, the fact of division sounds painfully lonely.

Clarke's lived that pain, that loneliness. She'll never do it again.]

Friends should stick together. But maybe you're more comfortable with neighbors? Or was that to say you prefer the word friends, but very little closeness?

[realists]

[ the laugh is like music and jyn holds on to it the same way she hoards cassian's laughter; it is rare and precious. ]

I'd rather you a neighbor than most people.

[ she's used to her privacy, even within saw's compound she had her own room whilst everyone else bunked up in the general barracks, but she's lived with daisy and illya for over a month now and it isn't terrible, she still has her privacy, and it reminds her of sleeping a hallway away from maia, a hallway away from her family. ]

I'd want a farm, but I could clear a path between our houses.

[ it's not an answer about a friendship, but it is, underneath it all. jyn keeps herself closed off and at arm's length as a defence mechanism, but clarke has learned, in this conversation alone, more than most people might over the course of their entire relationship. she's been to battle with clarke, they are most assuredly friends and she means it in her agreement to stick together.

jyn simply struggles with how to form the words "you're my friend". ]

[strove]

[For as much as Clarke's limited in her emotional range at times—especially compared to someone like Bellamy, who can sometimes only be all emotions and feeling, forced to slow down and find his head when his heart wants to lead him forward—she's sentimental. Quick to call someone a friend. Not always good at reflecting on what it means to be a friend. She's goal-oriented, driven toward a specific end point. Even here, it's the same: a friendly conversation reveals Clarke's long-term goals, but not the nuts and bolts of it.

But those goals do involve the people she cares about, and they can't just be limited to her life before. Clarke has multiple "lives" now. With Madi. With the delinquents. With Lexa, even, though that's one life she can't replicate no matter how hard she tries.]

We'd need a farm, anyway. [Clarke cants her head to the side.] For practical reasons. Is that what you know best? Agriculture? [Farm Station was mostly relegated to that duty. She learned a lot while pursuing the whole matter of trial and error alongside Madi, but ...

Well, Clarke still doesn't have much of a green thumb.]

[realists]

[ jyn shakes her head. what she knows best is fighting, surviving, but she has the tools to be an excellent farmer and she is teaching herself as time goes on. armed with books and experience, she'll be fine. ]

We had a farm when I young. We couldn't depend on timely supply ships so my parents started farming and I was a mostly useless assistant.

[ she was four when it started and eight when it ended so she doesn't know how much she absorbed, but she has been pretty successful with keeping her plants alive in the allotments at their building and the herbs in their kitchen. ]

I've got books now.

[strove]

Books can do better than nothing. And trust me, we had a lot of nothing left. I'm still surprised I learned what I could about the ground before I went to it. [She had learned a decent amount through Earth Skills: how to track, how to smoke meat and hunt, how to follow constellations. All things that made sense. But the problem is that Charles Pike was a great teacher who'd never been down to the planet himself. None of them had been.]

I'd probably want to look into how to grow natural remedies if we went that route. Medicines that we can have on hand to help, since I figure that civilization won't want much to do with us. Though maybe they'll pay us the lip service and help. [Considering everything? Possible.] I'd rather not depend on it, though.

[realists]

I can look into that too.

[ she already makes mint tea when she's eaten anything too rich or spicy and her poor stomach decides it can't handle it yet. does it work or is it a placebo, the world may never know. it shouldn't be hard to look into other medicinally used herbs. ]

I would have hated growing up in space.

[ she spent six months on a freighter and almost lost her mind without fresh air. jyn prefers to be planet bound, ground and grass under her feet. she is, after all, eating lunch sitting on the grass in the park. ]

[strove]

Being in a city isn't much better. Even with all their attempts at greenery, it's nothing like how it was when we first touched the ground. [The sun beating down, like she always dreamed. Splashes of green. A mountain in the distance. For those few brief moments, right after Octavia's loud declaration, they were in a peaceful place.]

But that's also why I wanted to take a little day trip outside. I needed it.

[realists]

So did I.

[ it's why cassian didn't try to stop her, why she hated new tokyo so much, aside from the emotional shitshow that happened in new tokyo. she doesn't remember coruscant very well, but she remembers her mother seeking out the playgrounds with fake grass and some semblance of fresh air. ]

's why I like it right here. [ in this park, with her new baby trees. ]

[strove]

Fair enough. I understand why the walls are there, I do. But it still feels a little daunting to experience day in and day out.

[Besides, Clarke has her doubts that the walls are doing the work they should be doing. They can't erase the sins of the past. She knows that no fixture can really handle that.]

[realists]

I try not to look at them.

[ the time flashes in her mind and she almost flinches, startled by the passing of time. ugh. she doesn't want to go back to work. ]

My lunch hour is over.

[strove]

[Clarke gathers up her sketchbook, tucking it away in her tote. She stands up, holding a hand out to Jyn.]

Come on, I'll walk you back.

[realists]

[ jyn lets clarke help her up, brushing the dirt off her pants. she also lets clarke walk her right in and pearl the receptionist turns into an anime character with her big eyes. jyn has so many different lunch dates. the scandal.

c'est fini, the end. ]