She's in class and it's fine. Her lungs are clogged and she's having trouble breathing, but it's fine. She will hold out for winter break. She can't miss more school or she'll be held back. Mucus catches in her throat and she coughs wetly, agonizingly, for what seems a long time.

"O, are you okay?" Raven whispers.

"What?" She asks, a bit dazed.

"Your cough sounds bad. Do you need to go to the nurse for a neb treatment?"

Octavia smirks. She finds it vaguely amusing that Raven knows her coughs well enough to know what was bad.

"I'm okay. Just a little gunky."

"Okay." Raven isn't sure Octavia's really okay, but she decides to leave her alone till the end of class.

Twenty minutes later, Octavia has been coughing almost continually.

"Hey, are you okay?" the new kid in class asks. His seat is next to hers. She's pretty sure his name is Lincoln. He seems like a nice kid.

She's about to say she's fine, when she erupts into another cough, this time gagging. When she recovers, she's clutching at her chest and trying to breathe. She feels hungry for air, and it's a terrible feeling. Raven raises her hand, asking if she can walk Octavia down to the nurse's office, and Mr. Kane quickly complies. As they walk out into the hallway, Octavia braces against Raven's shoulder as she coughs harshly. They finally get to the nurse's office after what seems like miles of walking to Octavia. Indra, the school nurse, sits Octavia down and gets her nebulizer out. Within a couple of minutes, the girl is breathing in the mist deeply through the mouthpiece of the nebulizer. Raven squeezes her hand.

"I'll go get us some good notes," the Latina girl says, leaving.

Octavia shuts her eyes and concentrates on breathing, moving only for long strings of wet coughing.


Lincoln had noticed Octavia the first day he went to class, which had been in early November. He was trying to catch up on everything in school, since he had moved mid-semester because of a change in foster care.

He notices that the girl didn't return to class, though Raven slid back into her seat. Was she okay?

"Is Octavia okay?" He whispers to Raven.

"Yeah. She has cystic fibrosis, so this is a pretty typical day for her." Raven knows Octavia wouldn't mind if she told this guy. It wasn't like she could hide that she was sick, and she'd rather people knew she didn't have some sort of contagious cough.

"Oh, okay" Lincoln says. He doesn't really know what cystic fibrosis was, but he'll look it up later.


When the neb treatment is over, she feels shaky and a little sick, but she can breathe a little better.

"How are you feeling now, Octavia?" Indra asks.

"Kinda tired and jittery."

"Was it a rough morning?"

She nods. "I was thinking about not coming to school, but I want to miss as little as possible."

"That's understandable. I'm guessing IVs are coming soon?"

She nods.

"Well, do you want to go back to class?"

Of course she wants to. She wants to be a normal teenager. She wants to have the energy to everything she wants to do. Unfortunately, she feels sick enough that all she has the energy to do is shake her head.

"I'm going to call your brother to come pick you up."

She doesn't protest. Indra calls her brother, and half an hour later, Bellamy is in the room helping her up and putting his arm around her to support her as they walk to his car. They stop several times as she braces herself against him and coughs.

On the ride home, her eyes drift shut and he can hear her lungs crackling even as she sleeps. When they get to the apartment, he nudges her awake.

"How do your lungs feel about walking?"

"They're not up to it" she murmurs.

"Okay." He gets out of the car and walks around to her side, opening her door. First, he grabs her backpack and puts in on, and then he picks her up. "You know, when I carry you, it's the only time I'm glad you're skinny as hell."

He carries her through the lobby, catches the elevator up to the third floor, and they finally get to the apartment. He deposits her on the couch, setting her backpack down next to her. Her vest is soon fastened around her and turned on. It shakes her body, dislodging the gunk from her clogged lungs. She coughs, deeply, and grabs a tissue from the coffee table, spitting into it.

"Shit," she says, turning off the vest.

"What's wrong?"

The tissue is covered in blood when she turns it toward him.

"Oh… I'm going to call Dr. Griffin."

"Tell her I want to wait to go back in till Christmas break. This has happened a couple of times before, remember? And both times we went in for an x-ray and nothing showed up."

"I'll tell her, but if she wants you to go in, we're taking you in."

Bellamy calls her doctor, and Octavia lays down. He hands her a thermometer, which soon reveals that she has a fever of 101 degrees Fahrenheit.

"Where are you on the breath scale, O?"

"Like a four." They had made up a breath scale similar to the "pain scale." 10 was breathing perfectly, 1 was suffocating.

"Are you having night sweats?" He asks, his ear still pressed to the phone.

She nods, coughing, then gagging.

Bellamy finally gets off the phone and sits down on the couch with his sister. She snuggles closer to him.

"What'd Dr. Griffin say?"

"She said to check in over the next couple of days, and no vest for 24 hours after any blood in your mucus."

"Okay."

"Do you want to sleep?"

"No. Let's watch something."

They settle on Gilmore Girls, and Octavia continues to cough and gag for another hour before she finally falls asleep. Octavia's phone beeps and Bellamy gets it from her backpack.

"Hey O," he says quietly.

"Yeah?" She mumbles, eyes still closed.

"Raven texted you. She's wondering if you're up to having her over."

"Yeah, she's pretty low maintenance."

Raven comes to their house 20 minutes later.

"I'm here," she says unceremoniously, dropping her stuff near the door.

Octavia is dozing again, and Raven comes into the living room, sitting down on an overstuffed chair.

"She's pretty tired," Bellamy says softly. "She was coughing up blood, so we can't do airway clearance."

"What does that mean as far as school goes?"

"It's happened a couple of times before. It's basically a sign of further infection. It means she needs to go back on IVs. She was hoping to wait until winter break, but I think she'll be in the hospital within the next two weeks."

Raven sighs.

"Have you called your mom?"

"No. She's representing a client in court today."

"Don't you think she'd want to know?"

"We'll tell her when the court is in recess. She usually texts us to check in."


Octavia finally wakes up around 5pm, still coughing hard.

"Hey sleepyhead," Raven says.

"Did you get me good notes?"

"Yup. Are you hungry?"

"No."

"What if we made you mac and cheese?"

"I'll try. I've been gagging a lot."

"Okay. Hey, the new kid asked about you."

"Lincoln?"

"Yeah. He wanted to see if you were okay."

"Did you tell him I'm slowly suffocating to death?"

"No. I told him you have CF, and he didn't ask any more questions."

"Nothing about my charming personality or steel trap of a mind?"

"Sorry, no."

"I'm hurt," she cries dramatically, then dissolves into a coughing fit. This one ends in her draped over the kitchen sink, vomiting. Bellamy rubs her back, whispering that it's okay even though it's not.

"Wanna sit down?" Raven asks.

She nods, grimacing, and she helps her back to the couch. The night is spent watching Gilmore Girls and trying to keep Octavia in good spirits. At around 9pm, their mom finally comes home. She can hear Octavia's deep coughing before she even gets through the door.

"What's going on, Octavia? Have you done your vest?"

"Can't." she whimpers raspily.

"Why not?"

"She's been coughing up blood," Bellamy explains quietly to his mother.

"Did you call Dr. Griffin?"

"Yeah, she says we'll keep monitoring it."

"Okay. Honey, thank you for taking such good care of your sister."

"It's okay. You can't do everything."

The woman sat down next to her daughter, rubbing her arm gently.

"How are you, sweetie?"

"Tired." She croaked.

"Do you want to take a bath?"

She ponders for a moment, then agrees, and in 20 minutes, she's in the bathtub under a delicious foam of purple bubbles. For some reason, baths seem like the ultimate luxury for the girl, and for the short time before it goes cold, it seems that it makes her CF go away. The warmth and the candles she always lights make her feel comfortable and okay, and seem to loosen the tightness in her chest. That night, despite her clogged lungs and irritable stomach, she sleeps better.


Octavia manages to go to school in the morning, but once she's there, she wishes she had stayed home. She had coughs up blood again, which means she can't do her airway clearance until tomorrow, and her lungs are suffering. Bellamy carries her to the car and then to the door of the school, where Raven meets them and holds Octavia's arm inconspicuously as they walk to History. Lincoln, the new kid who had apparently asked about her, greets her when she comes in.

"Hey, you're Octavia, right?"

"Yeah."

"I'm Lincoln."

"Yeah, I know. I mean, it's nice to meet you." She stumbles over her words.

"Nice to meet you too. Are you feeling better?"

"Uh, yeah a little bit. There's kind of always good days and bad days."

He nods, not sure how to respond.

"Alright, class, let's get going," Mr. Kane says, "I'm going to pair you up for the end-of-term paper that's coming up in a couple of weeks."

He pairs them up, and whether it's by chance or fate, Octavia and Lincoln are put together for the paper. They're given the rest of the class period to work on their paper.

"I've gotta be honest, Lincoln. Raven gave me the notes for Mr. Kane's lecture on the paper, but I haven't looked them over yet."

"That's alright. Basically, we're going to be writing a paper on one of the wars we've learned about this term. We have to explain how the war impacted the people, who won, and how you can see the effects of that war today."

"Okay. Which one do you want to go for?"

"Maybe the civil war? I feel like everyone is going to do the Revolution or World War I."

"Yeah, sounds good to me," she said. She wheezes slightly, then erupts into coughing. It takes several long minutes for her lungs to calm down.

"Are you okay?"

"Yup, I'm fine. You know, the Civil War just got me so excited."

He laughs.

"I mean, the only thing that could have been better than a civil war is some damn civil communication."

"Octavia Blake," Mr. Kane says half-heartedly from his desk. He doesn't really care about swearing, but he's supposed to bust the students on it. Meanwhile, Lincoln is cackling.

They haven't finished their outline by the time class ends, and they need more time to work on their paper.

"Are you around this weekend?" Lincoln asks.

"Probably. I uh… might be going to the hospital this weekend. My pipes need a little maintenance. But hopefully it can wait."

"Okay… Well, if you're not in the hospital, do you think you'll be up to working on the paper?"

"Yeah, definitely. Would you mind coming to my apartment? I don't have my license yet."

"Sure."

"Alright, can I text you my address?"

He nods, telling her his number, and moments later he gets a text with her address. When they part for their next classes, she feels bad that the guy got stuck with her as a partner. She'll work hard on the paper, but if she ends up in the hospital, she's not sure if she'll have the time or energy to do her work on time. He, on the other hand, is excited to see her again. He likes her and wants to get to know her better.