A/N: So, Linctavia. I've got a lot of feels for these two, and most of the this fic is based off of the song "Little Talks" by Of Monsters and Men. I swear, it's got a vaguely happy ending, but everything before that is awful and dark and sad, and full of triggers. Don't read this if you can't handle suicide, death, general pain or loss of a loved one. Also, it switches between current and the past, how they met and all that fun stuff. All of those changes are separated by lines, so hopefully nobody will be too confused.
Black seemed to be her color recently. It was supposed to be while. White dress, white veil, white decorations. Now it had all turned black, like it was sick and rotted. Black, like the nothingness she was feeling inside. This is just a dream. It couldn't actually be real. He was supposed to be coming home to their wedding, the house that they had picked out together. She'd spent the past year getting it ready.
She still had to walk up the aisle as a slow song played in the background. Every rustle of her dress broke her heart a little more and she didn't bother to fight the tears that made their way slowly down her face. She had a black veil to cover her face, nobody could see her crying. At the front, the preacher handed her a folded up flag in honor of Lincoln and Octavia held on. She was all that was left of him. He had no family, he didn't have anybody that he was leaving behind except for her.
As much as she wanted to give him the respect of a beautiful speech, something to remember him by, her throat was clogged and she couldn't get a single word past her throat. Why did the funeral have to be on the same day the wedding was supposed to be? She just stood there, frozen in her place and looking at the few, expectant faces. Her head started to shake as the tears came harder.
"This can't be real…" She mumbled. Then Bellamy was there, taking her arms and pulling her away, whispering little comforts to fall on deaf ears. It didn't matter what he said, he wasn't bringing Lincoln back. But she fell against him anyway, knowing that he would always try to make things better. He couldn't keep his promise this time, though. He couldn't keep her from hurting.
This first time she met him, he was wearing handcuffs. She was used to ignoring all of Bellamy's catches, but it was a little hard to ignore this one. He was probably almost a foot taller than her and easily twice as wide. Looked like he could snap the handcuffs if he put his mind to it. But he just sat their on their couch in uncomfortable silence. Octavia sat on the other side of the room, trying to ignore him in favor of her book.
He didn't say anything, but his breathing was enough to distract her. "So, you want some water or something?" She finally looked up and offered. Bellamy always got upset when she did speak to them, but maybe he shouldn't have brought one home. The man raised an eyebrow, giving her a look that made her feel about an inch tall. He still said nothing.
"Right, I'll take that as a no." Octavia said. She set her book to the side, giving up on the notion of reading with a stranger sitting across from her. Staring at her. "So what did you do? I'm assuming that you must have done something, unless Bellamy's just gotten into some really kinky shit and started batting for the other side, since you're in handcuffs."
Before he could reply, Bellamy finally re-entered the room. "He beat a man half to death, then skipped bail. I found him two towns over on his court date." He explained, standing by the couch and slipping a shirt over his head. He did look better in a fresh set of clothes. Octavia's eyes flicked from the stranger to her brother, then she put her nose in the air. Of course, all the hot ones were douchebags.
"That's not the whole story." The stranger finally spoke. His voice had a low, gravelly tone and dammit if it didn't sound nice. Bellamy grabbed him by the elbow and tried to yank him up. He didn't budge.
"I watched a man talk shit to his girlfriend all night. When he dragged her out of the bar by her hair, I followed them out. And yeah, I beat him half to death." He stood on his own at that. Octavia looked him over, feeling a little less repulsed by him. Hard to be angry at that reasoning. Even Bellamy softened a little. Emphasis on little.
"You still skipped bail. Now move." He gave the man a little shove, but it only seemed to move him back.
"They changed the court date on me and I didn't have time to get back." His low voice responded calmly.
"You never should have left town at all. Not until you go to court." Bellamy so rarely got sucked into arguments with anyone but her, Octavia leaned back with excited eyes to watch the fireworks.
"My mother was sick. She lives two towns over." The stranger's eyebrow went up, as if daring Bellamy to tell him that he shouldn't have gone. Bellamy silently lead him away.
"O, you can't stay here. This house is a wreck, and it's out in the middle of nowhere. I know you're hurting, but it's not safe." Bellamy pleaded. He was singing the same song he'd been singing for the past two hours. She kept her perch on the old wooden railing, staring out and refusing to even look at him.
"I'm not leaving, Bell. This is my home. Our home."
"Lincoln is dead, O! You can't stay in a rickety old house just because you once had plans with someone that's not here anymore. You gotta live your life now." His voice was turning desperate now.
"Get out." She told him coldly. She had no intentions of leaving the house, whether Lincoln was with her or not. She couldn't. Maybe someday, but she wasn't ready to let go of him just yet.
"If you're not leaving, I'm staying with you." She felt his arm cross even if she couldn't see it. Octavia didn't move.
"You're not staying here, Bell. I'll kick your ass if I have to." She couldn't handle having him there with her. She needed time to mourn and be alone, without Bellamy there trying to make everything okay. He would try to keep her from mourning because he didn't want to see her hurting. He couldn't make this one right, though.
"Come on, O." His hand landed on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off.
"Just get out."
He hung behind her like an awkward silence for a few more minutes. Or maybe it was a few more hours. Either way, she eventually heard his footsteps receding. His car pulled away and she watched his dust trail all the way up the road until it faded into nothingness.
She was still in the house. Their house. He felt himself floating in and out of consciousness, but he knew that she was there. Her presence was the only thing tethering him, keeping him from drifting off into nothingness. He knew he couldn't let go. He didn't know what would happen if he did, but he knew that it couldn't be good. Maybe he would just slip away and there would be nothing after that.
For now though, he could hold on. He could hold on because he felt her there and every now and then he caught a glimpse of her face. He came out of oblivion for moments at a time and heard her voice, caught a wiff of her scent. The moments were coming more often, though. He could hold on a little longer.
She was in their house. But she was hurting and it killed him to feel her pain. He heard her call his name in her sleep, and he tried to respond. Tell her that he was right there, waiting for her. He was in the house with her. But he could never form enough to speak to her. He was left watching her pain, drifting there and away, trying so desperately to reach her.
She had no clue what to wear. It was her first real date with Lincoln, because bumping into each other and having ice cream definitely didn't count. Now he was being vague about where he was taking her, and how was she supposed to dress for something when she didn't even know what it was? Like that wasn't bad enough, Bellamy was following her around her room, making changing into different outfits awkward and uncomfortable for both of them.
"You can't go on a date with him, O. I literally arrested him." He insisted, turning around as she pulled yet another shirt off.
"Does it really count as an arrest if you're not technically a police officer? Because you're not a cop, you're just a bounty hunter." She told him, pulling on a short dress. She turned her back to him. "Zipper."
Bellamy pulled the zipper up, continuing his protest. "You're not going to distract me from this by picking at my profession. You're the one that should be focusing on school now, not a criminal that's probably a good seven or eight years older than you."
"It's just one date, Bell. He's hot." She said, walking over to the mirror to glance at the dress. Way too much. "Zipper." She ordered again, and Bellamy sighed before following her over and unzipping the dress.
"You can't just go on a date with someone because they're hot."
"That's rich, coming from you."
"Come on, that's not fair."
Octavia turned and gave him a long look, forgetting that she had let the dress drop already. He fixed his eyes on the ceiling.
"O, dress."
She grabbed a pair of jeans and slipped those on, followed by a plain tank top. If that wasn't fancy enough for Lincoln, he would have to deal. "I'm going on this date whether you like it or not, Bell. Don't worry, I'll bring my taser." She kissed him on the cheek and grabbed her leather jacket before leaving the room and jogging downstairs. He followed her, protesting all the way and giving the same reasons he'd been giving all day.
And just in time, the doorbell rang. Octavia swung open the door and nearly melted. He had a single white lily for her. She didn't know where he'd gotten it in the middle of winter, but he must have been listening to her babble on, mentioning that they were her favorite flower. She took the flower and smelled it with smile, before turning and handing it to Bellamy.
"Put that it water for me, dear brother." She said, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek before turning back to Lincoln. "Shall we?" He gave a barely perceptible snicker, and she could feel Bellamy glowering behind her.
"Don't worry, I'll have her back by ten."
Bellamy didn't answer.
Her bed felt empty without him in it, emptier than it had when he was just gone away for a time. The house itself felt different. She laid awake in the middle of the night and heard stairs creaking like there was something inside with her, and she couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching her. Every now and then, it felt like Lincoln. She would turn and expect to see him there, but there was just nothing.
She couldn't sleep. Days passed without her sleeping, and some days she didn't even get out of bed. Only when Bellamy came did she pull herself out and together, trying to act like she was moving on. She talked about different jobs she was looking at. She put on her clothes, and she didn't talk about Lincoln. She definitely didn't mention how it felt like he was there with her some days. How she would feel something brush against her hand and swear it was the familiar touch of his hand.
When Bellamy brought up leaving again, she couldn't. In their house, she felt like she was still connected to him in some way. She made excuses about finding a real estate agent, about waiting for the right time, waiting to get a job to decide where she wanted to move. All the lies fell easily from her lips, and she knew that Bellamy didn't believe a single one of them. He didn't point them out either.
Then he would leave and it would all start over again. She didn't bother to get dressed most days, wandering listlessly in her pajamas and crying about the little things that reminded her of him. The painting in the hall that he hated because he said it looked like a third grade student had drawn it, not a professional artist like he wanted to be. She trailed her fingers over every line of the art, feeling him in the brushstrokes.
The next day it had been moved. Not much, just tilted to the side. She righted it, wondering if she had bumped it while she wasn't paying attention. Because as much as she wanted it to be true, he wasn't really there, wasn't really watching her. If he was watching her, he would be disappointed in the way she was handling his loss. He would tell her to get up and be strong. Get knocked down, get back up. But she couldn't get up from this one. Not without him there to lean on and pick her up.
There was a lily on the porch the next day. Lilies only bloomed in the spring, sometimes the summer, but it was the middle of winter. She picked it up anyway, breathing in the soft scent. Lincoln always gave her lilies. Had Bellamy brought it for her? But he never left without talking to her first. Octavia put the lily in water and left it on the windowsill without questioning anymore. She smiled, for the first time in weeks.
The good mood didn't last and loneliness returned. Lincoln was everywhere and he was nowhere for her. She found herself looking for him in all the little things Some days she found him in something as small as the brush of wind through her hair that felt like his fingers when he had braided her hair for her. Other days still he was nowhere and she fell to her knees in despair wondering if he really was gone.
And she begged him to keep on haunting her.
He knew that he needed to go. His time had come up and he was only making things worse for Octavia by sticking around. Some days he had almost convinced himself to leave, looked into the beyond and started to drift. Then he would hear her crying and he couldn't bring himself to let her go. He told himself that she still needed him, that he was helping her.
And he couldn't help the little things he did to let her know he was there. Sometimes he couldn't stop himself from one more hand through her hair, the perfect hair that she never braided anymore. The lily drew a smile from her lips, a smile he hadn't seen in too long. He should have left after that.
Now he was attached to her and he didn't think he could leave. She had to let him go before he could be free to move on to whatever it was that waited for him. He waited as winter turned to spring and watched Bellamy come and go, always making sure that she had food in the house. Sometimes he would move her back to her bed, if he found her asleep on the couch or on the floor. If Lincoln could have thanked the other man for taking care of his Octavia, he would have. But there was no communication from the plane he was in.
She started talking to him, and it broke his heart. Because he wasn't there, not really. She talked about their house and what they had planned to do with it. How she was going to follow through with those plans, eventually. She talked about the future they were supposed to have together. And she talked about all of it like it was still going to happen, they were just waiting for something before they could start.
Some days he stayed far away. He thought maybe if he stayed as far away as he could, she would have to let him go and move on. Those were the days she fell into despair, her happy fantasy shattered and she talked to him as he really was; a ghost. From the other side of the house, he could hear her. Begging him not to leave her alone, begging him to keep on haunting her. He couldn't leave her.
But she had to live her life, not hold on to the husk of someone that wasn't there anymore. He knew it was selfish to stay around. Because she only held on harder, only fell further into a despair that he never wanted for her. He stole into her bathroom one night and found a way to write on her mirror.
It was their fourth date, and somehow everything had gone to shit. Lincoln had shown up upset, and despite her multiple claims that they could put it off, insisted on still going out. They were supposed to see a movie. Instead they had somehow wound up on a cliff outside of town, overlooking the lights of the city.
He was silent as ever. She'd grown to appreciate his silence most of the time, the way it made him feel steady and reliable. But this silence was different. Something was wrong, she could feel it in the way he refused to look at her, even when she walked up and sat next to him, leaning against him. He'd hardly touched her, other than their last date when he'd finally given her a brief kiss goodnight and the innocent touch had tied her stomach into knots. He was keeping something from her and she knew it. She just didn't know how to drag it out of him.
"Lincoln." She said, looking up at him. He finally glanced down at her, soft brown eyes holding a look she hadn't seen before.
"My mom died today." He said simply. Her stomach dropped like a piece of lead at the just cold way he had said it. A matter of fact, there and done in an instant. She didn't know how to respond to that.
"I'm so sorry." She slipped her hand down into his. "That's why you're so quiet tonight?" At least it made sense why he was upset. She knew what it was like to lose a mother. Her and Bellamy had lost hers when she was only sixteen.
"No." Lincoln looked away again and pulled his hand away from hers. She let her hand fall, unsure of how to respond. Maybe he had finally come to his senses and was moving on. Maybe he was leaving California because it was too hard for him to be there.
"What is it?" She guessed it would be best to just outright ask him, not try to dance around it. He was looking away, but she shifted so she could still see his face. Something was very wrong.
"There's something I didn't tell you when we met." He admitted reluctantly. Octavia gave an unsure look and moved away from him a little.
"Just tell me."
He looked down again, eyes meeting hers. "I enlisted a month ago, before I met you. I'm going to be deployed, soon. Out of country." The words tumbled out of his mouth, making him sound more nervous and unsure of himself than she had ever heard him sound before. Yet the only thing she felt was relief, because it was nothing to do with her. She grabbed his hand again, this time holding on with both of hers so he couldn't pull away.
"Then you'll have to write me letters." She told him, giving a tentative smile. He did try to tug his hand away, frowning down at her.
"It's not that simple, Octavia. I'll be gone for a year. You deserve better than someone who may or may not come home."
That part she didn't want to hear, didn't want to consider. She shook her head. "You'll come home. And I'll wait for you." It seemed so simple. They'd only been on four dates now, but she didn't need to stop and wonder if he was worth waiting a year for. Waiting for him would be easy.
"Octavia." He rested one hand on the side of her face and she leaned into the touch. "You've got too much ahead of you." He insisted. She just reached up and rest a hand over his.
"But I want you."
Please stop. Octavia had dropped her breakfast when she saw the note scrawled on her bathroom mirror. It was Lincoln's handwriting, if he thought she wouldn't recognize it, he was a bigger fool dead than he had been alive. She spun around, searching the room as though she could catch a glimpse of him, turning fast enough.
"Is that what you want from me?" She asked, tears stinging her eyes. She could feel him so potently, but there was no sign of him, no response to her question. "Am I supposed to act like nothing happened? Like you're not really here?"
The air was practically crackling with tension, and one of the lights in the corner was flickering. Seemed like every time she cried, lights started flickering. Bellamy complained about all the light bulbs he always had to replace for her. She started to take a step, but something pushed her back and she fell instead. Her bare foot had almost landed on a piece of her shattered breakfast place.
Lincoln was still protecting her. She pulled her knees up to her chest, dropping her head and letting the tears come. It didn't matter how close he came, he was still out of reach.
Bellamy found her like that, laying on her side with tear-streaks on her face. She wasn't sure how long she had laid there, how long it had taken her to run out of tears. Maybe it had been days.
"Come on O, let's get you to bed." Bellamy said softly, picking her up and carrying her to the bed. She let him lay her down, eyes open and saying nothing. He on the edge of the bed next to her, respecting their silent agreement to not mention the reason she cried anymore. He'd stopped trying to push her to get back out in the world. They talked like she was normal, like it was normal for her to spend months doing nothing but wander around an old house. It wasn't fair to him, and for the first time she noticed the haggard lines in his face.
"You always take care of me, Bell." She told him, taking one of his hands. Even his smile looked sad as he gave her hand a small squeeze.
"It's my job."
He was diligent in sending her letters. Every week, at least once a week, she got a letter in the mail from him. Every one of them was hand-written, no matter how many times she told him that emailing would be faster and easier. He always said there was something more real in hand-written letters. He was old-fashioned, she was coming to realize.
He was also sending her pictures. She had never realized before that he was an artist, but the way he captured the scenery and sent it back to her had her wholly convinced that he had missed his calling in life. Even though he always promised that he would send her one of his sketches of her, he never did. He said that he couldn't part with them after he drew them, and all the men in his unit teased him for the pictures that littered his bunk.
For someone that talked so little in person, he had plenty to write about. Most of the time it had nothing to do with what was happening where he was at, either. He told her stories and talked about where and how he had grown up. He talked about his parents, about how he was a single child. He didn't have anyone else to write to, apparently. She was the only one left for him. But he'd made a good friend in his unit. The man's name was Nyko and the two had become fast friends after getting drunk one night and spending a week scrubbing toilets together as punishment. He was the medic of the unit.
Octavia kept every letter, corny as she knew it was, and reread them anytime she started to miss him too badly. His handwriting was a scrawl, but still elegant in some way. Bellamy had finally given up on trying to talk her into moving on. He gave his grudging approval of Lincoln, despite his obvious belief that she deserved someone that could be there for her.
She never lost faith that Lincoln would come back. He had to. She loved him. For some reason, he loved her too, though she was fairly certain that he didn't know he had let it slip that he did. It was in an offhand comment in one of his letters, almost a side-note. Then again, maybe that was just his way of mentioning all the things that really mattered to him. Either way, if he loved her then he had to come back.
Spring came and she had her first visitor that wasn't Bellamy. She knew him instantly, from Lincoln's descriptions in his letters. It was Nyko, Lincoln's friend from his unit. He had a limp that Lincoln had never mentioned. He was almost as big as Lincoln had been, was, and had that same quietness about him. It was oddly comforting, and she didn't thinking twice about letting him in her house. Not like she had anything worth stealing.
He talked for a while about nothing. About himself. He'd been injured and sent home, and so the others nominated him to take Lincoln's things back to her. That was when he pulled out a plastic bag and handed it to her. A part of her wanted to throw the bag away and never look in it. It was going to hurt. But it was all that she really had left of him besides the silence that filled up the house when nobody else was around.
When she opened up the bag, pictures spilled out. Countless sketches of her, and a even a few of him with the men she assumed to be his friends from over there. He never liked to sketch himself, and she couldn't help that notice while everybody else was defined and detailed, he always stood out as being rough and blurry, just a vague figure standing in the group. Didn't mean that she couldn't pick him out in a second.
She started crying when she found a picture of herself in a wedding dress. Nyko stood awkwardly behind her, laying a hand on her shoulder when she threw the pictures away from her and buried her head in her hands. No matter how much time passed, the wound still felt as fresh as if he had died yesterday, ripped out of her hands by some cruel twist of fate. It wasn't fair that she could still feel him but he wasn't there for her. He wasn't there for her to touch or hold or love like she wanted to.
For the first time, she hated him for staying. She stood angrily and Nyko stepped away in surprise when her fist shook in the air.
"Just leave me alone!" She screamed to the empty air. Lights began to flicker again, proving that he was listening to her. Good, because she wanted to hurt him like he had hurt her.
"You're gone, okay? So just get out. You're gone, you died already. It's not fair that I'm alive and still feeling you here when all that's left is just a ghost of your presence. You want me to let you go, fine. Leave." She fell to her knees, energy completely depleted. A light bulb behind her exploded, leaving her and Nyko in darkness.
She could feel his confusion, even if he still said nothing. He just knelt beside her and gathered her up in his arms. She thought he was going to pick her up, but he just sat on the floor and let her cry into his chest. He let her cry until she was too exhausted to cry anymore, then he carried her to the couch and laid her down. She felt him kiss her temple, then mutter a goodbye to Lincoln, and he was gone.
She was alone again, but more alone than she had ever felt before. Maybe Lincoln really had left her. Maybe that was what he needed to move on. Maybe she was completely insane and he wasn't really there at all, because ghosts weren't real and the dead didn't haunt their loved ones once they were gone.
"This is our house." She called out, hopelessness creeping in. She wasn't really ready to let him go just yet. "Don't leave me. Don't go. I still need you here." Somehow she found more tears to cry, even though she had cried enough to feed a river at the point. "Lincoln, wait for me." Her voice fell to a whisper. "I'm not ready to be alone."
He should have left. The words were becoming his mantra, lately. So many times he should have let her slip away, because she deserved better than an empty house. Just when he thought he couldn't handle more pain, she was screaming at him and blaming him for all her pain the same way that he had been. But hearing it from her lips was so much worse. He should have let himself drift into the nothingness the first time he felt her presence.
He should have left as soon as he realized what he really was. He should have left before he ever let her know that he was there, watching her. Before she got ahold of him and tethered him to her world, to their house. He definitely should have left when she did as she asked and she let him go. He'd even started to, but stayed around, telling himself that he wanted to wait till Nyko left. He took his old friend's goodbye to heart, not at all surprised with the way the man just accepted his presence there as real.
And he hovered beside Octavia, trying to think of how to say goodbye to her and finding himself at a loss. How could he say goodbye without speaking to her? How could he never feel her hair running through his fingers again, threatening to drown him in her absolute perfection? How could he say goodbye to the love of his life, when he'd never thought he'd have the opportunity to love anyone?
So when she asked him to, he stayed. He didn't care if it was wrong, if he was selfish to hang around a woman who had a life ahead of her, who needed to move on from him. He wasn't ready either and maybe he never would be. He just knew that as long as she needed him, he would be there for her.
He had surprised her with a trip home a few months in. Octavia was out to lunch with Bellamy, who was obviously hiding something from her, as if he thought she didn't know. The idiot, she always knew when he was keeping something from her. She just didn't know what until someone came up behind her and covered her eyes, then his perfect voice told her to guess who.
She'd never been one to shriek, but she screeched so loudly the entire restaurant turned to look as she launched herself out of her chair and into his arms. He was wearing his uniform and she pulled back just long enough to appreciate the sight before she tugged him down into a dizzying kiss.
"I always love a man in uniform." She muttered against his lips. Bellamy cleared his throat and they both ignored him. Lincoln only tugged her closer, kissing her until she was breathless, then he wrapped her in such a tight hug she didn't think he would ever let go. She didn't want him to.
Of course he had eventually pulled away. They suffered through Bellamy's lunch, giving each other long looks and picking at their food until Bellamy finally tossed the keys at Octavia and told them to leave before he threw up just watching the two of them make moon eyes at each other. They spent the next few hours locked in her and Bellamy's house having a proper reunion away from prying eyes.
Which brought up the subject of the absolutely perfect house Octavia had found just a few miles out of the city, like they had dreamed up. It needed work, but Lincoln would want something to keep his hands busy when he got back. She expected him to turn her down, remind her that he might not be coming home and they shouldn't make any plans just yet.
Instead, he insisted that they go and see it. He was as swept up with the old victorian style of the house as she was. It was like the house was made just for the two of them, their perfect little safe haven from the rest of the world. They spent just as many hours wandering around the house and making plans that were so absurdly far-fetched that they could never happen, but they talked about them like they would.
And when the sun started to set, he got down on one knee.
Octavia stumbled through the house, one desperate purpose in mind. The thought had come into her head suddenly, in the middle of the night. She didn't dare speak it out loud, or think too long on it, should she talk herself out of it. She just went, up the stairs, into the attic. There was loose wiring up there, Lincoln had talked about fixing it plenty. Even Bellamy had said that he would get around to it eventually. But it was still there, with enough current through it to be deadly.
She pulled the panel open and stared at the jagged wires. He was there, watching her, Wondering. She could feel him there, and it was no longer a question of whether or not she was insane. He was there. He was there and she wanted to be with him. Just one little touch. Her hand rose and reached for them, only shaking a little bit. She knew what she was doing, though.
"I know what I'm doing," She said it out loud, knowing she had to prove it to him too. Another deep breath and she plunged her hand in. Lights went out all around her, and the air-conditioner that had been running just a few seconds earlier sputtered and fell silent. The power was out.
"I said I know what I'm doing!" She screamed in frustration, spinning around. There was no response from the darkness. Just more silence that wrapped around her like an embrace, trying to comfort her. Begging her to reconsider what she was trying to do. She wrapped her arms around herself, swallowing her tears and stumbling back to her bed.
It was a few days later when she drew a bath for herself. As she undressed, the hairs on the back of her neck rose, the familiar feeling of someone watching her. It drew a slight smirk from her lips because at least he was alive enough to look. Maybe it gave some of her plan hope. She slipped into the bathtub, hot water stinging her skin. She sank down into it, letting her muscles relax slowly.
She slipped completely under the water, feeling her hair float around her. She held her breath until she couldn't anymore, then she opened her mouth and let water fill her mouth, breathing it in until her lungs felt full and heavy.
But the water came back up in coughing fit and she realized that all the water in the tub was draining out. She lurched up into a sitting position and coughed until her stomach hurt. The drain had been pulled up somehow, and she was certain that it wasn't her. She shivered now, goosebumps rising on her bare skin.
"It's my choice, you asshole." She spat, finally catching her breath enough to speak. Sadness filled up the air so tangibly she could almost taste it. Her head fell, resting her forehead against her knees and letting the tragedy of life bring her to tears again. She never meant to make him sad, but she was so tired of fighting. Of living. It wasn't fair that she had to keep on going when he didn't have to.
"I'm so tired." She said, falling against the side of the tub and crying until she slept.
Octavia woke up fully clothed and in her bed. She didn't know how she had gotten there, but she had her suspicions. It was just the sort of thing he would find a way to do, defying all logic and physics just to make her feel okay.
She rolled over, hand reaching for the other side of the bed and falling on empty sheets. Empty, but they felt warm.
Bellamy pulled up to her house once again. He felt tired. Tired of watching his sister that had once been so full of life wither away before his eyes. Once he had thought her so strong that nobody could ever break her spirit. But losing Lincoln, that had broken her down in ways he'd never even thought possible. She seemed small now, anytime that he saw her. It didn't matter that they never spoke of the change, how she had drifted away from who she once was. He still worried about her, still noticing the fact that any talk of her moving on had faded away.
But he didn't have the heart to push her more. He didn't even know how to push her anymore. She had to do it on her own, she always had to make those decisions on her own. It just made life hell for him as he watched. He stepped into the house, feeling heavier than normal as he called out for her.
Panic hit him in such a rush, he barely had time to register the fact that it wasn't his. There was something external sweeping over him from the second he stepped in.
"O!" He yelled, a little more anxious to see her than usual. He hurried further inside, despite feeling like something was pushing him out. "Octavia!" The panic was growing now, and he tore through the rest of the house quickly, checking all of her usual spots first and finding them empty. She wasn't inside.
Again, he felt an urging to go back outside. He knew Octavia believed that Lincoln was haunting her, even if she thought she had hidden it from him. He heard her talking in her sleep. But now, for the first time, he actually wondered if she was right. Because he swore he could feel someone pushing him along, pushing him outside.
"Okay, okay, I'm going." He muttered, feeling absolutely insane. Yet he went where he was urged anyway, around the back of his house and not to his car to drive away. He considered for a moment that he should be worried; thinking about the house possibly being haunted and rather than driving away, following whatever felt like a 'spirit' (god, he really did sound crazy) out behind the house and into the woods.
But there was Octavia. She wasn't inside. If she was in trouble and he even slightly believed that there was some fragment of Lincoln hanging around, he had to believe that he would be protecting her. So he tramped into the woods, pushed to a jog down a little hiking trail until he came to the edge of a cliff and his stomach dropped to his feet.
No. He didn't want to look over it. Didn't want to believe the ugly suspicion that was rearing it's head. A wind hit him from behind and he stumbled forward, falling to his knees and looking over the cliff. A scream ripped from his throat.
NO. It didn't take him long to tumble down the jagged hiking trail carved into the face of the cliff, falling the last few feet and crawling over to cradle her head in his lap. He screamed again, unable to form words, to desperately angry and lost and broken to even cry. He was supposed to protect her. He told her that he wouldn't let anything happen to her. This was all his fault.
He'd hoped, when he couldn't find her, that she wasn't actually gone. That there was a little breath left in her lungs as she laid at the bottom of that cliff, and if he could just get Bellamy there fast enough, she would be okay. But Bellamy's reaction confirmed his every fear. Octavia was gone. Not just from her world, she had drifted off into the beyond while he found himself trapped and unable to move on.
So he floated above and around Bellamy, wanting to reach him, to tell him that it wasn't his fault. It was Lincoln's fault. He was the one that was supposed to find a way to stop her. He never should have stuck around, because it had put the idea in her head. She was too strong to do something like this out of hopelessness, she had done it out of hope.
Stupid girl.
Stupid boy.
He should have known better than to keep on haunting her. And his grief couldn't even be expressed in a scream like Bellamy, or like all the tears Octavia had shed. All he could do was shove the pain and guilt inside, cradle it like it was all he had left of her.
And he kept on looking for her. It had been days later when he had finally formed some conscious thought, maybe she was just taking her time. Octavia liked to take her time. Weeks passed, her funeral passed, the house was boarded up, and there was no sign of her. Now it was his turn to drift around the house like the lost soul he was, seeing her in everything around it.
Once he thought he felt her, but he brushed it off because it was too late and she was gone. It was just a foolish fantasy that hope drove his mind to believe.
Then there was a flicker.
A flicker of blue eyes.
"Why would we move into this rickety old piece of junk? I mean, I get it. Your sister lived here, and it's really sweet that you want to remember her. But isn't it a little creepy to move into the house that your little sister died in three years ago?" Clarke was wandering through the entry, looking around and coughing on the dust.
Bellamy followed her in, a little smile on his face. "She didn't die in the house." He reminded her. It was the first time he'd entered the house since she died, and there was something peaceful in the air the second he stepped inside. He looked around and somehow he knew they were together.
Clarke looked back at him, disbelief on her face. "Don't tell me you bought into her fantasy about Lincoln haunting her. She was just mourning and didn't want to let go of him yet." She insisted. Bellamy just shook his head at her.
"I love how romantic you are." He told her dryly. Clarke punched him in the arm.
"Fine. Let's say they are here. They had this horribly tragic love story, that ended sort of happily and now they're drifting around this house like two lost souls finally reuniting and it's disgustingly romantic. Doesn't that make it just a little creepy to sort of...share the house with them? As a young married couple?" Her eyebrows rose in question, but Bellamy just chuckled and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pressing a kiss to her temple.
"Shut up, Clarke."
He didn't understand it fully himself. Wasn't sure that he liked it, either. People were supposed to move on after death, go to wherever it was that was waiting for all of them. And maybe Lincoln and Octavia had something better waiting for them, but they stayed together in a run down old house because they were together.
And who was he to get in the way of his little sister's happiness? He just had to be a good older brother and be around enough to annoy her.
A/N: I want to just clarify here that I am NOT condoning suicide OR encouraging it. I don't think it's a good thing, I think there's always another option and you should pursue life. I don't believe in ghosts. This is just a story that came into my head and I had to write it, then I wanted to share it. By no means am I approving suicide with this. Side note, if I get enough likes/comments/requests, I might write a little post-fluff about Octavia now haunting Bell and basically doing a bunch of little shit to screw with him because she's a younger sibling and that's what they do.