Chapter Text
Mount Weather Maximum Security Prison
Clarke Griffin is a woman of many talents. Counterfeiting, securities fraud, art theft, racketeering, etc. only ever being convicted of bond forgery. So she’ll be damned if she adds anything else to her list. A cut and dried escape should do the trick. Just about a month of preparation and she’ll be out of here.
Mount Weather Maximum Security Prison - One Month Later
And with one fell swoop her much too overgrown bangs are gone, leaving Clarke feeling more naked than she has felt in a little more than a month. The rest of her wavy, blonde hair is now cut just south of her shoulders. Pulling a package from behind the toilet, Clarke quickly changes her prison-issued orange jumpsuit for an equally heinous guard uniform.
The shift bell rings and she’s up and out of the Staff Only bathroom, brandishing her new (someone else’s not so new) badge. Walking through the supermax makes for easier escape than expected, so she relishes in the thought of booking it back to her apartment and painting a nice Van Gogh. Her mind slips back to the task at hand when she reaches a door requiring an ID badge. Thank you, Stacey Graham. Whoever you are.
An officer waits for her on the opposite side of the door, surveying her. She smiles and he looks pleased as he lets her pass. And just like that, she’s free again with one destination in mind and only one planned route to get there. That leaves Clarke Griffin with only one other thing to do: get on with it.
***
She quickly hotwires a rickety old truck from the parking lot of the prison and laughs when she hears the familiar sound of the truck’s engine starting up. On the road, she pops in a cassette tape, Hold On! I’m Coming blaring through the vehicle's speakers. She fishes three dollars out from the ash tray and continues down the road until she reaches a sidewalk shop on some road just east of Manhattan, near Queens. Clarke spots a yellow windbreaker on one of the jacket racks and puts it on in front of one of the mirrors.
The man selling the jackets approaches her and asks her about her day.
“Only five bucks, girlie,” the man barters.
“I’ll give you three,” Clarke says wearing a shit-eating grin, just because she can.
John F. Kennedy International Airport
Clarke fits in with all the other airport employees wearing identical yellow windbreakers. Some old rich man with a Mercedes drives up near the airport and Clarke takes her shot. Jogging over, she shouts to him and he passes her a hundred dollar bill as he gets the last of his luggage out of the trunk.
“Take good care of her, I’ll be back in a month.”
“Thank you, Sir!”
And that’s all Clarke manages before she pulls the car away from the curb, leaves the airport and heads toward the city.
Polis Preferred Bank NYC
At least a dozen FBI agents are in the lobby enjoying their easy field job for the day, but Bellamy Blake is impatient. They’ve been waiting for the technician forever and the longer it takes, the more antsy Bellamy becomes.
Inside the vault, the technician presses his ear against the vault and hears the lock turning as he tries to find the proper combination with the relative entirety of the FBI’s sound equipment.
“Drop three.”
In the other room, Bellamy releases a heavy breath and runs his hand through his dark brown curls. This is taking too long.
“Drop two and drop four,” notes the technician. “All pins down, preparing to open.”
Bellamy gets giddy with the thought that this is almost over, when he repeats the sequence to himself. Something isn’t right. Grumbling, he keeps running the numbers through his head trying to recognize the order when―
“Wait!”
But it was too late. The vault exploded, filling the room with smoke, dust and reflective, red fibers. Most of the agents double over in coughing fits while Bellamy runs into the vault, helping the technician exit.
“Are you okay?” Bellamy says to the technician, genuinely worried.
“What happened?”
“I said wait and you didn’t wait! Ugh, ten thousand man hours to get this close to the Dutchman and you blow up my evidence.”
A question comes from one of the other agents in the room: Nathan Miller.
“Agent Blake, how did you know it was going to do that?”
Dusting himself off, Bellamy answers.
“Three, two, four. Look at your phones, what does that spell?”
As everyone looks to their smartphones, Miller pipes up again.
“Oh, FBI.”
“Yeah, FBI,” Bellamy sighs, exasperated.
“Apparently he knew we were coming.”
“You think so, Copernicus? Somebody wanna―” picking up one of the red fibers, Bellamy continues. “Wanna tell me what this stuff is? Huh?”
When nobody answers, he gets even more annoyed. Like I need this today.
“Anybody? Nobody knows what this is? Great. Look at you. How many of you went to Harvard?”
After most of the agents raise their hands, Bellamy finishes his pointless conversation.
“Don’t―don’t raise your hands. Just don’t.”
Walking away from the scene, Bellamy sees his probationary officer Raven Reyes making her way through the still dumbfounded agents.
“Raven! Look at this mess, apparently our guy has a sense of humor,” Bellamy attempts a joke, but Raven’s demeanour remains grim.
“What is it, Raven?”
Very quietly, she tells him the last thing he wants to hear.
“Clarke Griffin escaped.”
And for some reason, he can’t help but be intrigued.
***
Raven walks her boss down a hallway and hands him a file.
“What’s this?” Bellamy asks.
“The U.S. Marshals are requesting your help.”
“My help?”
“The director asked for you personally.”
“Me? Why would he want me?” Bellamy inquires, still confused.
Finally, Raven answers. “Probably because you’re the only one who ever caught her. You’re not in white collar crime for nothing, Blake.”
Mount Weather Maximum Security Prison
“Agent Blake, I’m the director at the U.S. Marshals facility. We appreciate the help. You were the case agent?”
Straight to the point, I guess all the Marshal guys are like that. Bellamy answers just as straightforward, “Yes, I was.”
“So you’ll agree this is an... unusual situation.”
“Why would Clarke run with three months left on a four year sentence?”
“Well, that’s what we’re wondering.”
Another man walks into the room, introduced as Warden Mbege. Immediately, Bellamy knows that he is one of the men responsible for Clarke Griffin’s escape.
“You’re the guy who dropped the ball, huh?” Bellamy accuses the warden.
“Don’t go pointing fingers, you of all people should know what Griffin’s capable of.”
“I know that I spent three years of my life chasing her, and you let her walk right out the front door.” Unsurprisingly, the director seems to have had enough of their bickering and intercedes.
“Gentlemen, might I remind you that Griffin has a four hour head start?”
With that, Bellamy and Warden Mbege follow the director further into the prison. Bellamy more and more amused by the people tasked to watch over the Clarke Griffin. When the men start walking along a cell block, Bellamy starts grilling the other two men.
“Griffin came out of the E-block staff bathroom dressed as a guard. Where did she get the uniform?”
The director answers this one. “Uniform supply company on the internet.”
“She used a credit card?”
At the look the director gives Mbege, Bellamy infers his answer but let’s him answer.
“She, uh, used my wife’s American Express.”
“We’re tracking the number in case she uses it again.”
Bellamy knows that Clarke never doubles back. “She won’t.”
At this point, the three men have arrived at Clarke Griffin’s cell and Bellamy is surprised to say the least. She has paintings on her wall, most of them copies of famous artists but still immensely impressive. Piles of books from a group of Edgar Allan Poe stories to A Tale of Two Cities sit atop her bed. Bellamy walks into the cell and runs a hand over a wall full of tally marks in various colors.
“How did she get the key cards for the gate?”
“Well, we think she restriped a utility card using the record head on that,” the director notes as he motions toward a cassette player sitting atop a desk in the corner of the cell. Bellamy ejects a cassette and flips it over and over in his hands.
“Should’ve given her a CD player.” Bellamy sits on Clarke’s bed and picks up a book which ends up being a truck maintenance manual. Another book has a flyer sticking out of it like a bookmark. The flyer’s title, Executive Services Airport Parking is accompanied by a picture with employees in yellow windbreakers.
The director begins to explain what Bellamy already knows. “She walked out the door and hotwired a maintenance truck in the parking lot. We found it abandoned near the airport.” Mbege picks up where the director leaves off.
“We beefed up security just in case she tries to get out that way.”
This warden actually thinks she’s stupid enough to do that… “Well, we’re not going to catch Griffin by using roadblocks and wanted posters.” The agent leans over a broken mirror and picks up what looks to be a pair of haphazardly-made scissors.
The director answers his unasked question. “She cut off her bangs just before she escaped.”
“But Clarke doesn’t have bangs.”
***
Sitting around a small computer, the three men watch and rewatch security camera footage of Clarke with her usually slick hair, cut unevenly into ragged bangs.
Mbege opens his mouth and again, provides relatively useless information. “The inmates are photographed each morning as they exit their cells.”
Bellamy’s brain finally catches up with the image in front of him. “I hardly recognize her.”
“I think that’s the point.”
Pointing to the computer screen, Agent Blake continues. “Was this taken this morning?”
When the warden nods, Bellamy instructs him to run the series back. The video rewinds day by day and slowly, Clarke’s bangs become shorter and shorter. That is until Bellamy stops the video on an image of a well-styled, confident Clarke Griffin.
“That’s it, when she first cut her hair. I want to know everything that happened that day.”
***
After sifting through files and papers and even more files, Bellamy comes across a log book of visitations. He runs his index finger down the pages and finds Clarke’s name next to the name Finn Collins.
“She had a visitor,” Bellamy declared, slamming the book in front of the director and running his hand through his hair, a nervous tick he acquired while working on Clarke’s case three years ago.
“Finn Collins. You know him?” the director asks.
“Unfortunately... I do.”
***
Moments later, the three men have resumed their positions huddling around a computer screen, watching as Clarke sits on one side of a glass partition while Finn does the same on the other. Even without audio, the two are clearly arguing about something. The director, now with the logbook makes an observation.
“He comes back every week like clockwork.”
Bellamy, still peering intently at the video notices that Finn stands up, still arguing with Clarke. She touches the glass, putting her hands on the visibly cool surface, reaching out to him. The director asks the warden about how soon they can get a lip reader to analyze the footage. Bellamy saves them the trouble.
Quoting Finn, “‘Adios, Clarke. You’ve made your mark.’” Clarke’s face is reflected in the glass partition, clearly pleading with Finn.
“Did he show up the next week after that?”
“Nope,” the director answers, popping the ‘p’. “He never came back.”
“Alright then. Let’s find Finn.”
As the warden and the director leave the room, Bellamy glances back and sees Clarke continually imploring Finn, even as he walks away. Even after he has left the room for five minutes.
Finn Collins’ Apartment
Three additional police cars pull up to the complex before Bellamy stalks off to Finn’s apartment.
Once he enters the building, Bellamy sees a disheveled, upset Clarke sitting at the end of a blank hallway in an even bleaker loft. The walls are white and undecorated, the space completely emptied. Looks like Finn had time to move out. Clarke, still wearing her prison issued white t-shirt and a security guard’s pants, rolls an empty bottle of wine from hand to hand. She heaves a heavy sigh and sets the bottle down, as if waiting for Bellamy to say something. She noticed me walk in?
“I heard the sirens almost 5 minutes ago.”
Clarke’s raspy voice startles him for no more than a millisecond, at least that’s all Bellamy will ever admit to.
“I see Finn moved out,” he says cheekily. Clarke just looks up and sighs again, her piercing blue eyes startling Bellamy. Damn, that’s twice.
“He leave you a message in that?” he continues more sympathetically, motioning toward the bottle that is now standing up next to Clarke.
“The bottle is a message… it has to be.”
Now, it’s Bellamy’s turn to sigh. “It’s been a while.”
“Yeah, few years, give or take. Not like I’ve been counting or anything.”
A small laugh bubbles up out of Bellamy. “You carrying?”
“You know I don’t like guns.”
“They asked me, what makes someone like you pull a boneheaded escape with four months to go?”
“Guess you figured it out.”
“Let’s see… Finn says adios to you in prison and gets busy with his disappearing act. The trail ends here, but you already know that.”
“Missed him by two days.”
“Still. It only took you a month and a half to escape a supermax? That’s damn impressive, Griffin.”
Clarke manages a small laugh that surprises her. Her slight happiness is short-lived however. Bellamy’s radio buzzes to life. “Subject identified and unarmed.” Somewhere on the other end of the walkie-talkie a voice answers the agent, “Roger that.”
“We surrounded?”
Bellamy nods so Clarke continues to prod him for what little time she has left.
“How many?”
“Including my agents, whatever NYPD officers were called and the Marshals? All of them, I think.”
Another smile pulls at the corner of Clarke’s mouth, but it doesn’t get very far.
“What’s the message?” Bellamy asks, picking up the bottle of Bordeaux still next to Clarke.
“Goodbye.”
Making a short tsk noise, Bellamy sets down the bottle. “Men.”
“You’re telling me,” Clarke replies sarcastically.
“They’re going to give you another four years for this, you know.”
Despondently, Clarke says what she’s been thinking since she saw Finn’s empty apartment. “I don’t care.”
Bellamy gives Clarke what looks like a sympathetic glance before he rights himself and replaces his expression with a curtain of indifference. Looking at Bellamy, Clarke chuckles a bit to herself, places her hands on the ground on either side of her legs and hoists herself up. “That’s the same suit you were wearing the last time you arrested me.”
“Classics never go out of style,” Bellamy says as he shrugs.
Clarke suddenly narrows her eyes which Bellamy catches. Slowly, so that the agent can see that she isn’t trying anything, Clarke reaches out to his shoulder and plucks a thin, red fiber off of Bellamy’s jacket.
“Do you have any clue what this is?” Clarke implores, slightly impressed with herself.
Bellamy laughs, “No idea. Must have taken it with me from a case I was supposed to be working on before they yanked me off to find you.”
Somewhere towards the bottom of the building, men are shuffling around. The sound travels up to the pair and Clarke gets a bit spooked. “Think you have a shot at catching him?”
“Not sure… he’s good. Maybe as good as you.”
After a small snort of derision, “What’s it worth if I tell you what this is? Is it worth a meeting?”
“What are you talking aboutー”
“If I tell you what this is, right now, will you agree to meet me back in prison in one week?”
Bellamy begins to mull it over but the men are even louder now. Closer.
“Just a meeting, Bellamy.”
Shouts from just outside the hallway make it to Clarke, “Hallway clear!” and “You two, get moving!” are enough to tell her that she has just run out of time.
“It’s a security fiber for the new Canadian hundred dollar bill.” Clarke hands the fiber back to Bellamy just as three armed men burst into the room and begin to handcuff Clarke. She and Bellamy make eye contact one last time and she drives her point home.
“One week.”