Lincoln found Octavia in the Ark, crouched down with her ear pressed to a vent. Raven mentioned once that it was a great place to eavesdrop, and since then there was always a kid in that position during council meetings.

Octavia had been there since Jackson kicked her out of Medical for being disruptive.

She was practically vibrating with panic and anxiety, had been ever since Miller limped back into camp saying that a group of Grounders had taken Bellamy and left him for dead.

Lincoln crouched next to her, placing a gentle hand on her back.

"They're not going to send anyone after him," Octavia said without prompting. "After everything he's done, they're just going to abandon him."

"Then you and I will go," Lincoln said, standing up, then holding out his hand and pulling Octavia up as well. Octavia lead them out of the Ark, heading towards their tent.

She nodded her head a couple of times but stopped abruptly.

"No, just me," she told him.

Lincoln made to protest, but Octavia stopped him before he could even begin.

"You need to stay here. Without Bellamy, someone needs to stay here and keep everything together, keep everyone safe."

She left the next night. Raven had convinced her to wait. She was sure she could appeal to Abby about sending out a search party, but had walked out of Medical shaking her head.

Harper was on guard duty and nodded at Octavia when the coast was clear.

Raven hugged her before she left.

"Be safe. Bring him home," she said before handing Octavia a radio and a gun "just in case."

Octavia walked out of Camp Jaha in the middle of the night with a blade strapped to her back, a knife in her belt and a gun tucked in the waistband of her pants.

"I wouldn't wanna be the guy who meets her alone in the woods," Raven said to Lincoln standing beside her.

"Hopefully she'll meet several, to show the strength of the Sky People."

His tone made Raven raise an eyebrow at him. "You think Grounders are gonna attack the camp?"

"I don't know anything for sure, but taking Bellamy was deliberate. It's an act of war."

"I guess we should start preparing for war then. Again."

Clarke hadn't seen another person in weeks. She'd stumbled upon a group of displaced Grounders and ended up spending most of the night treating a variety of illnesses and ailments in exchange for a meal and some knowledge of the area. They didn't ask who she was and she didn't offer that information, but she had a feeling they knew who she was anyway.

She had moved on since then, going as far away as she could from any sign of civilization.

So when she heard a branch snap she was expecting a deer to run by. She wasn't expecting another human, much less the actual person standing in front of her.

"Clarke?"

"Octavia, how did you find me?"

Octavia looked surprised and then disappointed before she settled in an angry scowl.

"I wasn't looking for you," she seemed to debate with herself before continuing, "Is Bellamy here?"

"No, why would he be?"

"He went hunting last week and didn't came back."

There was a stretch of silence. Clarke didn't know how to respond. Octavia looked at her with accusing eyes and then turned away.

"Wait, Octavia, I'm coming with you."

"Like hell you are, I can find my brother myself." Octavia took a few more steps before turning around to face Clarke. "Why do you even care anyway? You left. You've been gone for six months."

"I had to leave-"

"Yeah, Bellamy's given me the lecture like five times. Honestly, Clarke, I don't care. I don't care about you. I care about finding Bellamy and I don't need your help."

"You do. You're too far from camp, alone, in unknown territory."

Octavia rolled her eyes. "Whatever. You want to follow me, fine. But don't act like it's for my benefit."

She continued forward taking fast, long strides while Clarke jogged to catch up. The silence between them was oppressive for Clarke. After being alone for so long it seemed unnatural to be silent with another person around.

"Why was Bellamy hunting all the way up here?" Clarke asked when her composure finally broke.

"He wasn't," Octavia replied. Her tone was clipped and Clarke wasn't sure she'd continue, but she did after taking a deep breath.

"Miller said they were about four miles north of the dropship when they were ambushed by a group of Grounders. I had been tracking them from there, but I lost their trail a while back."

Clarke nodded but was unsure on how to keep the conversation going so she let it drop instead. Octavia didn't seem to mind.

They stopped to make camp before the sun set. It wasn't until it was dark that either one of them said anything again.

"I'm surprised you're not with Lexa," Octavia said nonchalantly. She was sitting across the fire from her, sliding a whetstone across her blade.

"Why would I be with Lexa?"

"Well I mean she left you, you left us. Birds of a feather or whatever."

"Lexa betrayed me."

Octavia looked up, looked Clarke straight in the eyes. Her anger crackled fiercely along with the fire.

"Like I said, birds of a feather."

The beatings were new. They had starved him in the beginning, denied him water for a while. They were going to use every tactic they could to break him, to get him to talk. Bellamy was determined to die first.

Who they were, he wasn't sure exactly. Bellamy made a point not to hear their questions. He focused on anything he could except the voices of the two men in the room with him.

Somewhere in the village a baby was crying. He thought there was something profound in that, in the fact that not far from where he was being tortured there was a mother comforting a child. He never got the chance to figure out what exactly was so profound about it, though, since the next punch to the face knocked him unconscious.

When Clarke woke up the next morning the fire had been put out and their campsite nearly completely cleared. Octavia was sitting on her pack, staring at an open book in her lap, impatiently waiting for Clarke to wake up.

"What's that?" Clarke asked as she sat up.

"A book," Octavia replied stubbornly.

"Obviously. What's in it?"

Octavia turned the book towards her. The two pages made up a map of, from what Clarke could tell, their surrounding area.

"Lincoln said that, given the area that Miller said they were in, it was possible the grounders took Bellamy to this village."

Octavia tapped the top of the page. Next to a long blue line of the river was a little group of squares representing the village.

"Should be easy to find. Looks like all we have to do is follow the river north."

"Lincoln said only to use the river as a reference point. He said there's a lot of flooding this time of year and the river could be unpredictable and dangerous."

Octavia chose the path they'd take though Clarke still thought they'd be better off closer to the river. She didn't complain though. She knew exactly what Octavia would tell her if she did.

Bellamy woke up to something cool and wet being pressed against his face. He opened his eyes to find a familiar face hovering over his. It was Echo, the grounder woman from Mount Weather.

"If you tell them what they want to know they'll release you," she said when she noticed he was awake. She was gently cleaning the cuts on his face with a damp cloth.

"If I tell them what they want to know they'll kill my people," Bellamy told her, jerking angrily out of her grasp.

"Maybe if you just told them where Clarke was-"

"I don't know what Clarke is!"

Echo didn't flinch at his outburst, but her eyes softened. Bellamy looked away from her.

"That's the truth. That's the only thing I'll tell you."

"You should trust me."

"Grounders haven't really proven themselves to be trustworthy."

"I don't want them to kill you."

"Then help me escape."

"If I do that then they'll kill me."

"I guess that proves my point about the whole trust thing then, doesn't it?"

"I could go to your people, to get you help."

Bellamy let out a humorless laugh, shaking his head. He could see what was happening. They couldn't beat the answers out of him so they were trying another way, hoping that he'd spill his guts to a pretty face.

"I'm not going to tell you where my people are either."

With a sigh, Echo stood and walked out the door, leaving Bellamy conscious and alone for the first time in days.

"What's it like having a brother?" Clarke asked, breaking the silence.

They had been hiking up a rocky hill for the better part of the afternoon. Clarke's legs were aching and she needed a distraction.

Octavia was quiet and Clarke was about to ask again when she took a deep breath and started talking.

"I've never really thought about it." She hesitated for a minute before continuing. "I guess it's like always knowing that there's someone who will support you unconditionally. I don't know, I don't think it's really something you can put into words."

She stopped there and Clarke knew not to push her on the subject, but it seemed that Octavia was going to push back either way.

"You know, Bellamy's never left me before you sent him to Mount Weather. I'd never watched him walk away from me without knowing if he'd ever come back."

"He left to save our friends, to keep you safe."

"He left because you told him to."

The sharp edge returned to Octavia's voice.

"You don't get it do you? He would do anything for you. Everything that happened in Mount Weather, he did for you. And then you just left."

"Octavia, what I am gonna have to do to get you to stop hating me?"

"There's nothing you can do. Maybe I could have forgiven you for TonDC, but for the way you treated Bellamy, for hurting him, I can't forgive you for that."

"And how exactly have I treated him?"

"Like he was disposable. He could have died in that mountain a hundred times over."

"But he didn't."

"No but he lost a piece of himself in there. He killed so many people before we even got there and it haunts him. He'd never admit it, not to me at least, but it does."

Clarke stopped in her tracks. She finally understood exactly why Octavia was so hostile towards her. Clarke chose to carry her burden alone. She didn't think about how she had forced Bellamy to do the same. She wasn't sure she could continue following Octavia up the hill with the heavy weight of that realization now resting on her shoulders.