closed.

[strove]

WHO: Clarke Griffin, Markus, and Connor—a musical trio coming soon to your eyeballs!
WHERE: One of New Amsterdam's sky parks.
WHEN: September 15th
WHAT: AI talks, sadness.
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Talk of death, dysphoria, and references to violence (most likely). I'll update if anything else becomes relevant.

[Someone could make a very salient point that Clarke avoids the meeting with Connor, but that isn't the case. It only seems that way, which offers her some anxiety over the subject that has nothing to do with Lexa. At least it's not anxiety directly related to Lexa herself—a first when it comes to this subject.

No, she puts it off because she wants to have a better grip on the city itself. She wants to have a job lined up, and an idea of where she's going. Somewhere. Anywhere. Stability in one part of her life would make things easier in another part.

The fact of the matter is that it works out okay. Markus turns up, and when he does, Clarke realizes she can help both of them with her experiences. They may not directly translate. Hell, they may not translate at all, but it's important that she shares it so they can grasp what some scientists (or a single scientist: Becca) had been able to accomplish.

She sends both Connor and Markus the agreed upon meeting location through a message, and says she'll show up with lunch. After previously considering pho, she ends up at a sandwich shop next store. Though pho would have worked for all of their delicate stomachs, she had it explained to her that it wouldn't be a good picnic food. Like, at all. So, okay. Sandwiches it is (and it's not like she's had a lot of those in her life).

Clarke shows up with the food in a cloth bag that's also holding a blanket, since she wants this to look like a picnic. Even if picnics are also new. Look, post-apocalypse Earth is rough. Connor and Markus are bound to learn this today.

She looks around for the two of them, and when she spots them, she motions them over to her.]

Comments

[strove]

I know that it goes both ways. [They're each other's allies. Some callous part of her wishes to leave it at that, but Clarke knows that she craves the friends and people she can count on from before. Without her people, she really just has Bellamy and Murphy. The former of which is from a time when they had barely reconciled, and the latter doesn't even remember pumping a heart to keep her alive. It's not something she's keen to wave in his face.

So, she'll need more. She's known it from day one. She just has to be less ... pragmatic in how she mentally presents it. And more honest. Direct. Human—which could be ironic, considering.]

For what it's worth, I know that the previous commanders helped Lexa. They helped her gain knowledge that she may not have had before, and she was said to be the best at ... utilizing the Flame. [A beat.] That's ALIE 2.0. What her people called it. [There's a tight-lipped smile there.]

And even ALIE herself hoped to help humanity. It was just that her imperative wasn't ... [Good? She trails off.]

Which is to say—I was a little put off at first. I won't lie. But I believe you're both sincere in wanting answers, and that you'll help the rest of us find ours. As for what I've told you, it may not be immediately relevant, but if they somehow found out about Becca and her technology in the time I've lost ...

[It could be something. Clarke isn't certain. She doesn't have the Flame, and didn't before she came here. None of the three who have arrived did. It was kept with Octavia down in the bunker, safe with those who knew they'd keep watch over it until a time may come when they needed it again.

If they needed it. Clarke has her doubts about that.]

[saviorexe]

[“A little put off.”

Markus can’t help himself, it comes out before he can stop it. A short exhale of air, an almost-scoff, if not for how it’s entwined with something akin to dry humor. A little put off, Clarke says, like that would be enough to bother them after all the information she’s offered them. After being willing to meet with them, to engage in their company. After personally speaking with him the first day that he arrived in the safehouse, lost, confused, exhausted, struggling to understand.

She’s given them the time of day, have put trust in their open palms; that’s more than what many humans would ever dream of doing back home. Already, she speaks to them as people, looks at them as individuals with their own minds, their own set of opinions and advice to give.

Clarke doesn’t know the weight of that. The importance of it, to Markus. How can she?]

I choose to trust you, Clarke. We both do. [He’s sure he can speak for Connor on this alone. The look he gives her is earnest.] And if you give that trust to us in return, we’ll not mishandle it.

[This, to Markus, is spoken like a promise.]

Right now, that’s all we have between us. We don’t know what our captors know, what advantages they have over us. And so, going forward, I want to suggest that we all continue working closely together. Sharing information. Asking each other questions. Becoming steadfast allies.

[cyberlife]

You're forthcoming, that's more trustworthy than the alternative. If you'd lied, I would've been "a little put off" too.

(both androids consider it something amusing in a very skewed way, sinking into the relieved sort of tension-breaker the conversation needs. all three of them have faced similar yet fundamentally unique turning points in their lives and to think it's all because of that inconvenient but seductive will to live. to thrive and build a future so others can too.

just one more mislabelled thing trying to be a person trying to stay alive... and going about it the wrong way.

connor swallows another mouthful of his sandwich and lets his head bob along with what markus is saying.)

I wish that... more humans were as willing to reevaluate their opinions. Like you. (he doesn't say it lightly, even after seeing such a hopeful future for their species back home — there's still an entire world left to convince and if everyone was this open to facing unknowns as clarke they'd have far less of a struggle on their hands.) You can rely on us to be there, Clarke, whatever the circumstance.

[strove]

[Becoming steadfast allies. The words aren't empty or shallow, as far as Clarke is concerned. They mean everything, and they strike her as something that she almost doesn't deserve. When she set out to make allies here, it was meant to be a distant, conditional thing. A means to an end. She hoped to view it almost like a political alliance, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. Once, her mother told her not to feel responsible for everyone, but she can't seem to shake the part where she develops her own people.

Even those who are new. Who came here and found themselves lost. Then again, she had been willing to accept Lexa's people as her own for a time, as long as they could accept her first.]

I stand by my people. It may be too soon to call this an arrangement like that, but I can see it heading that way. [It's sincere and honest. Her friends are her people. It's why she stood by and protected Roan, and even deceived everyone so that she could almost take on the Flame to become the next commander. (Again.) Disrespect of traditions meant nothing if she could keep people from going at each other's throats.]

And as obscene as ALIE's actions were, she had an imperative to help. I can ... at least sympathize with that much. [A hint, however unwitting, that Clarke is capable of some rather terrible things.]

Thank you. I mean it. I wasn't sure if I was going to make friends here, or even if I could. It means a lot.