AN: Hi all. Here's me writing a story for The 100 (I'm dreadfully late to the party. You can blame that on the fact that Australia doesn't air the world's best shows on its free-to-air channels. As it stands, I only discovered The 100 on a friend's Netflix account back in July. GOSH. I know.) since I've pretty much devoured everything I could read of it here and on AO3. I actually used Story Cubes to write this, hence it seeming super "original" aka spaced out and "wait, they're doing what now? What's happening?".

Tentatively titled "Out of the Woods" because I'm three chapters in and still haven't decided on a name so I'm going with the song that's currently playing as I write this AN. Seems fitting enough. You might want to put me or this story on Alerts though in case the name changes (presuming you'd want to keep reading). Would also love it immensely if you reviewed! Even if it's just to tell me what you liked or didn't like (constructively of course). Or to tell me how much you love Bellarke. That's perfectly acceptable too. It'd be fun if you speculate or try to guess what will happen next too. Anyway time for me to shut up. Enjoy!

Cover Image credit goes to Fatal-Drug on DeviantArt for "I am Become Death".
The 100 belongs Kass Morgan and the CW network.

"Clarke."

The blonde medic turned at the sound of her name. "Hey Jasper. What's up?"

A bowl of mixed berries and nuts was held out for her. "You need to eat."

"I'm almost done," she said, turning back to her work as she tried to ground the remainder of the stubborn leaves into a thick paste. They defied her by holding their sturdy leaf shapes.

"That's what you told Monty, like, two hours ago. Come on," he nudged her arm with the bowl. "You'll exhaust yourself. And we can't have you getting tired. Or sick. Or injured. Or die. Oh my god, there's so many things that could go wrong with you alone! We'd all be screwed." Clarke could practically see his Adam's apple bob when she heard him gulp. "Just eat the damn food will you?"

Clarke sighed and dropped her makeshift pestle (a rock whose end had been buffed thousands of times over with other rocks until it remotely resembled the smooth club shaped tool Clarke desperately wished the camp had the real deal of) to grab the proffered food.

"Thanks," she told him grudgingly. She took a seat on one of the dropship's built in chairs and picked at her food until she found some berries she didn't hate. The berries weren't bad, per se, especially since they kept The 100 alive on The Ground and were relatively easy to forage for, but some were just so tart and bitter Clarke had to wonder whether the food she'd read three generations previous had eaten was even remotely similar. She popped a handful of the bright red ones in her mouth and watched gratefully as Jasper stepped up to the makeshift mortar and pestle on her workbench and attempted to wrestle with the plant.

"This is a great workout for my biceps," he grunted as he twisted his arm this way and that. After a few more seconds of struggling, he glanced at the slab of rock that served as the mortar and blinked in disbelief. Hardly any of his work had transpired to mush. "What even?" he asked.

"Yeah," Clarke said around a mouthful of nuts. "It's proving to be difficult."

"And we're sure this is the tree? Melaleuca alternifolia?" He held up a leaf to closely examine it.

"Not at all," Clarke said with fake gusto. "From everything we'd read on the Ark, this tree shouldn't be growing anywhere near North America. So either we're not on the same continent we think we are, or this tree may just have traveled hundreds of miles in the last century by its own doing. Either way, it looks identical to the pictures in Earth Biology's textbooks, so of course I'm having a crack at it if there's the possibility it's even remotely related to the Tea tree. Monty agreed it should be safe to study."

Jasper turned and leaned against her workbench as he regarded her seriously. "You're looking for alternatives because we're running out of medicine, aren't you?"

Clarke let out a huff of frustration. "What aren't we running out of, Jasper?" She threw her hands up in the air. "Medicine, material for tents, warm clothes, ammunition, people, time. The list goes on. If we keep up at the rate we're going, we'll all be dead within the year. Winter will be here in a few months and we are not prepared. At all."

Jasper held his hands up in an effort to ward off her negativity. "Whoa. Well at least we can be grateful we've got enough air to make long lists like that."

That gave Clarke some perspective. Her shoulders slumped. "You're right. The Ark is probably in its last few weeks and I'm sitting here complaining about antibiotics we don't even need yet."

Jasper opened his mouth to say something comforting when Monty popped his head through the tarp at the dropship's entrance.

"Hey, hope I'm not interrupting anything," he said cheekily. Noticing the glum mood he'd intruded upon, he cleared his throat. "Clarke, we've got a twisted ankle out here." His head ducked out of the curtains momentarily to presumably glance behind him. "Incoming."

The sound of voices arrived moments before the people did, two guys supporting a girl who sported a pale face sheened with sweat.

"Right here," commanded Clarke, indicating a makeshift bed that afforded the best possible light from the solar powered bulbs of the dropship. "What happened?"

"She tripped while hunting -" began one until the girl hissed in pain as she was jostled onto the bed.

Clarke didn't need to ask which ankle it was; the right was intensely bruised and swollen like a river. She thanked the boys and they took their cue, exiting without another word. Tentatively probing the ankle caused more winces from the girl, and though she hated to do it, she slightly moved the ankle, which caused shrieks of pain as the girl lunged into a sitting position and begged her to stop. Right then. Broken. A simple fracture as far as Clarke could tell.

"Hey, I'm Clarke," she introduced herself, even though it was unnecessary given how much of the camp knew her by sight alone. "What's your name?"

"Thalie."

"Hey Thalie," she smiled gently before delivering the news. "Unfortunately, you've broken the Tibia," she said as gently as she could. "That's a bone just about here." Clarke tapped the Tibia of the girl's left ankle. A brief nod from her patient allowed her to continue. "That's actually pretty good news in terms of complexity. A simple fracture is the least complicated fracture you could've had. That means it'll be much easier to fix."

"Okay. And how do we do that?"

"RICE."

"Rice?"

"That's right. Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevate. Now, we don't have access to ice as of yet on the Ground, but cool water is a sufficient substitute, though it'll take a bit longer. Jasper?" The boy stood to attention like a soldier awaiting a command. "Can you find a towel of some sort and soak it? And fill up this waterbag? We need them cold. Thanks," she added as he picked up the plastic waterbag and headed outside. "You with me so far, Thalie?" A nod. "Okay. So I'm going to set you up here for the day, maybe tomorrow too, and we're going to prop this ankle up so it's higher than your chest. That should reduce the swelling and lessen the pain. After that, we can move you to your tent or somewhere else if you want a bit more privacy." Clarke began piling anything soft she could find under Thalie's ankle and requested the girl lie back down and get comfortable. When Jasper returned, she draped the wet t shirt he'd brought over the ankle and tucked it under the sides before placing the waterbag lightly on top. She eyed her dwindling supply of clean bandages.

"Thanks for your help, Jasper. And thanks for lunch." He nodded and ducked out of the dropship with a smile and wave.

Clarke pretended not to notice Thalie's halfhearted wave back to Jasper, nor the sudden flush on her cheeks.

"So tell me," she said to distract the girl. "How did this happen? I thought the hunting party were supposed to be good at the whole 'hunting' thing. Falling on your face hardly seems stealthy to me. Unless you're trying to attract a bear I suppose."

Thalie laughed before hissing as she jolted her ankle.

"You need to keep that still," Clarke reminded her gently.

"I'd been tracking a deer for about 15 minutes when I finally caught up to it. I had my spear ready and I took another step to get a better angle when I tripped on something. The noise it made could have woken the dead! It certainly scared the deer off. I think I fell on a car."

This wasn't as unusual as it might have sounded had they still been on the Ark. After all, Clarke had only been on the Ground for a couple of days when she'd discovered the buried car that had saved herself, Finn and Wells from their first experience of Acid Fog. Atom hadn't been so lucky.

"Really?" asked Clarke with interest. "That's a pretty nifty find. Make sure you mark it next time so you can find it again. I hear privacy is a rare commodity for couples around here."

Thalie laughed again. "I definitely would have, had I not almost blacked out from the pain. I can't remember much about it now, actually. I'm pretty sure I tripped on the door handle. Something that jutted up, anyway. All I can remember now is the red x."

"The red x? Like on a pirate map?" Clarke teased.

"You know, like they used to have on the ambulances back before the nukes. I didn't see it at first but when the others dragged me to my feet, I must've swept some dirt up because it was right where my head had been."

Clarke had stilled in the middle of lifting the wet shirt to check the ankle's swelling. "Thalie," she said slowly without taking her eyes off the bruising splurged across her injury. "Are you telling me you found an ambulance?"