Arkadia had been deserted when they'd arrived. And, yet, they were not alone. Whoever was taunting them had turned all the lights off. Raven and Sinclair were working on getting them back on as soon as possible. Separated from the others, Octavia had been on a mission to find Lincoln's book when the lights had been cut off. Walking carefully through the darkness, she held her sword half raised, ready for an attack.
Suddenly, someone grabbed her from behind. Octavia had no time to react. Before she knew what was happening, or even who her assailant was, she felt the knife go in; again and again. Octavia fell to the floor and heard her attacker sneer a disgusted, "Grounder scum."
In a flash, the lights came back on. Raven and Sinclair must have finally fixed them.
Octavia was shaking. She looked down, in shock, to see the blood pouring out of her. She knew she had to stop the bleeding; placing a feeble hand on her stomach, she applied as much force as she could muster.
Then, she heard Bellamy's voice. "Octavia?"
No!
"O, where are you?"
Footsteps approached. Bellamy appeared in the hallway.
"Octavia!" Bellamy panicked at the sight of his sister bleeding on the ground and ran to her side at once. Her attacker lunged at him and threw him to the ground. The two men struggled. And, finally, one of them stopped moving.
Octavia tried to call out for Bellamy, but she was paralyzed by the pain.
"O? No…" He picked her up off the cold floor. "Come on, I'm taking you to Clarke. You're gonna be okay. Just hold on."
As her brother was carrying her off to get help, Octavia looked back and saw who her attacker had been. Emerson. Dressed in grounder clothes, but wearing night vision goggles, the last mountain man, as he'd become known, lay dead on ground, with his own knife stuck on his neck.
Bellamy tried not to panic too much as he rushed Octavia to Medical. He'd already told Clarke to meet them there over the radio.
"What happened?" Clarke demanded, examining Octavia's injuries.
"Someone attacked her."
He laid her on one of the beds. Clarke went to work.
"We have to stop the bleeding. Jasper, gauze!" she ordered, pointing to the cupboard that held the material. While Jasper went to get it, Clarke removed Octavia's jacket and pulled up her shirt. She gathered as much gauze as she could and tried to stop the blood that kept flowing.
"Emerson... It was Emerson." Octavia explained, struggling to breathe.
Clarke looked back at the door, almost as if she expected him to attack again.
"He's dead." Bellamy reassured her.
He glanced over at his sister again. She was turning extremely pale, trembling. "You can save her, right? Tell me you can save her." When Clarke didn't say anything, he howled, "Clarke!"
"I'm trying. She's losing too much blood."
Clarke kept applying pressure on Octavia's abdomen. Lifting the gauze carefully for a minute, Clarke assessed the damage and announced, "She's gonna need surgery. I'm pretty sure he hit her liver."
Octavia was shivering, breathing fast, her skin pale and clammy.
"The trauma and the blood loss are causing her body to go into shock. We're running out of time." Clarke urged. "She needs a blood transfusion. Now!"
Clarke checked Octavia's blood type. When the results appeared, she was left speechless. "O Negative."
"So, what does that mean?" Bellamy inquired.
"O Negative can only receive O Negative blood," she explained.
Clarke told Bellamy to keep the pressure on as she went around the room, testing everybody there, but none of them were a match.
"Damn it!" Clarke cursed. "Sinclair, check what we have on stock."
Sinclair nodded and left the room. When he returned, he was carrying a blood bag. "There's only one bag of O Neg on stock."
"Is that enough?" Bellamy demanded.
The look Clarke gave him shook him to the bone.
Octavia grabbed her brother's hand with her bloody one, with a panicked expression. "Bell…"
He shushed her. "No, don't talk. You're gonna be okay."
"Bellamy… promise m-" she choked on her own blood. Then, she tried again, "Promise me you'll get Lincoln's body… Promise me you'll get him and give him the grounder funeral he deserves. Please."
Bellamy nodded.
"Promise," she demanded, grabbing his arms and trying to sit up. She grimaced in pain.
"I promise," he vowed sincerely.
Octavia lay back down on the bed, and Clarke pierced her arm with a needle to give her the blood transfusion. Monty, Jasper, Raven and Sinclair hovered nearby, watching helplessly as Clarke tried to save someone already too far gone.
Clarke kept pushing to save her friend, but the damage was too extensive, and her blood pressure was plummeting. Her body was shutting down.
"Don't go, please. Stay with me, O…" Bellamy pleaded.
Octavia felt oddly at peace, despite the circumstances. Grounders believed in reincarnation, right? Maybe she would see Lincoln again. That made her smile, a single tear running down her face.
"It's okay." Octavia looked up at Bellamy and gave him a small smile. "It's okay. I'm not afraid."
Suddenly, Octavia remembered something important she'd yet to tell them. "Clarke… Lincoln's book." She had to stop, coughing up blood. Then, continued, "It's in our bedroom, inside a box. There's a map to Luna's clan there."
Clarke nodded. She remembered Lincoln telling her about it when they were in the reaper tunnels, the night before the battle of the Dropship.
Octavia could feel herself fading away, but she couldn't go without speaking to her brother. She touched Bellamy's hand. "I know you can be good, Bell. I know it, I've seen it." She squeezed his hand and smiled one last time. "I love you, big brother."
She gave one final breath, and her eyes went lifeless.
Octavia was gone.
Everybody was frozen in shocked silence.
"No…" Bellamy sobbed. "No, come on. Don't go."
He tried to shake her awake, but to no avail. She was dead. His little sister was dead. Clarke went over to his side and placed a hand on his shoulder to calm him, then she reached over and closed Octavia's eyes.
Bellamy felt like someone had punched a hole in his chest and ripped out his beating heart. "Oh, God!" he cried out. He backed away from the bed as he looked at his sister's blood on his hands, and started breaking and throwing everything in sight.
Sometime later
Bellamy sat by Octavia's body, holding her cold and bloodied hand.
"I'll dig a grave," Monty offered quietly.
Bellamy traced Octavia's tattoo with his fingertips. "No. She was a grounder, she deserves a grounder funeral."
He understood it now. His sister had found her freedom and herself with the Trikru, with Lincoln. She had been a grounder and she deserved a proper funeral.
Clarke, who was more knowledgeable of Grounder culture and tradition, quickly braided a piece of Octavia's hair before cutting it off and handing it to Bellamy. His hand closed numbly around it. Part of him was still in denial. Then, determined, he walked out of the room to find a shovel.
Bellamy had kept his promise to Octavia. He'd dug Lincoln's body up from the ground - it had been covered by some sort of tarp, which he'd been thankful for - and, with Sinclair's help, he'd placed him on the makeshift funeral pyre they'd built. Next, he went to get Octavia. Clarke, Raven and Monty had cleaned up most of the blood from her skin. He nodded gratefully at them.
Sinclair had offered to carry her, but Bellamy had only shaken his head wearily before saying for the last time, "My sister, my responsibility."
As he carried her to the pyre, flashes of their childhood passed through his mind. Holding his newborn sister in his arms, giving her pony rides, brushing her hair. Bellamy laid Octavia's body beside Lincoln's. He placed a soft kiss on her forehead before lighting the pyre, and stepping away to joining the others.
"In peace, may you leave the shore," Bellamy spoke. "In love, may you find the next. Safe passage on your travels... May we meet again."
"May we meet again," the others echoed solemnly.
This seemed somehow fitting for Octavia and Lincoln, the sky girl and the grounder. To be mourned somewhere between the sky and the ground, both on the Ark and on the ground.
When the sun had set and the fire had consumed everything, they knew it was time to go. Clarke held Lincoln's book in her hands, their way of finding Luna. The future of the entire world depended on them.
Bellamy looked down at the braid of Octavia's hair he held in his hand. Her words still echoed in Bellamy's mind. I know you can be good.
And he swore, he would be.