"hey, clarke? can i ask for a favor?"
her face has no emotions, no sign of pain. you wouldn't know she'd been crying if her eyes weren't so swollen. she holds herself high and touches her lips, remembering, before they lower back to her side as an afterthought. octavia looks years older than the little girl who landed here only months ago, shiny and new. clarke can't tell if it's for the better or not.
"yeah," clarke whispers. her voice must've been sympathetic, pitying, because octavia takes a step back with warning eyes. "what is it?" she tries, louder so octavia didn't scare.
octavia shifts and clarke spots it as what it really is: internal conflict. she figured octavia didn't want clarke to see her weak. she wasn't. but right now with her stance resembling a spooked animal, ready to bolt at any second, clarke figured that she probably felt as much. weak.
"can you come with me to the drop ship?"
her first thought is why but then she remembers all of the lincoln that lies within those walls. his notebook, his medicine. it's the place where he died and was brought back again, it's where he was tortured, where octavia helped him escape. clarke's why is quickly replaced with a why not sooner.
"we can leave now if you want."
"i have two horses ready," octavia says and then she bows her head at how quickly she'd said it. "let's leave now."
the ride there, neither of them talk. octavia looks at the trees longingly the entire time and clarke pretends she doesn't see the tears that octavia lets slip while they rush through the woods.
they see a deer, one head not two, and clarke thinks about finn for the first time in months. and then inevitably, she thinks about lexa again and her heart aches it's emptiness. and octavia cries while her face is set in a cold stony glare like she wasn't dying inside. clarke understands.
"we're almost there."
green trees turn to burnt and bones and memories flood clarke all over again. flowers poke through the ash, just barely. growth, rebirth, even after mass death. it's comforting.
she visits wells' grave while octavia's inside the drop ship. she lets tears slip for the best friend she never got to mourn properly, too focused on not dying and keeping her people alive. wells reminds her of the ark and the ark reminds her of her dad and suddenly she's on her back staring up into the trees as she daydreams about everyone she's loved among the graves of children wells had buried so selflessly. it crosses her mind that everyone she loves has died, even octavia in a way. she doesn't know how long she stays there but soon the blue sky dulls and stars sweep into the sky and then octavia's towering over her with a frown.
"maybe you want to see this," she says.
clarke follows her into the drop ship, away from wells and into a world he never got to experience. clarke thinks he's lucky.
dried blood spatters the floor and finn is on her mind again. octavia stares too and clarke knows she's thinking about lincoln. there's a notebook in octavia's hand and clarke can just barely see glimpses of drawing within it and then she's aching when she realizes she'll forget what lexa looks like. she starts to panic when she can't quite remember the shade of green in her eyes.
"it's over here." octavia tugs her to the ladder and they both climb up it.
lexa breaths into her unintentionally, the reapers, lincoln, the mountain, the genocide, the-
"this was hers, right?"
it's a lock of hair. it was tris'. anya's. and then lexa's. and now it was clarke's because they were all dead.
"yeah," it comes out heavy, more sigh than an actual word. she takes the hair from octavia and stuffs it into her jacket hastily, like someone was going to steal this piece of lexa from her. "thank you."
octavia nods and goes back to stuffing things into her bag. "we should probably stay here tonight. it's dark."
"okay."
clarke plops onto the floor of the drop ship and she's staring up again into the ceiling. there's no stars to entertain her as they slowly slide across the sky, only the darkness of the night and the sounds octavia makes as she moves about but it's enough for her eyelids to get heavy. she's only mildly startled when octavia settles next to her, later, and curls into her like a child. seventeen years of only two people and metal walls to talk to would do that. three months of just trees and niylah had driven clarke mad. she's reminded of how strong octavia really is.
"we'll meet them again, later," octavia whispers into the dark. "when i was little bellamy used to tell about how many different universes there were. this is just one. just this one bad universe. in another, we're happy, clarke."
clarke doesn't know why but she's crying, now, and she fumbles closer toward octavia for comfort.
"we'll meet them again," octavia reiterates.
before she falls asleep, lexa's words are pressing in her head.
death isn't the end. don't be afraid.
that night, clarke's dreams are filled with football and her dad and wells. they're on the ground, in a stadium, wearing jerseys and black paint like they were going onto war. but it was happy, everyone was yelling but it was out of excitement, not pain. in her dream, her and lexa are on a screen and people are chanting for them to kiss. in her dream, clarke does and jake is smiling and wells is blushing and her mom looks at her with big 'i told you so' eyes. lincoln's down on the field playing and octavia screams the loudest for him. go lincoln. win this for your people. raven is unamused by this sport but a smile shines on her lips. anya has tris hoisted high up on her shoulders. clarke smiles so hard her cheeks hurt.
"clarke," dream lexa tells her. she thumbs at clarke's tears. "you're crying."
"i'm just so happy." and then, unsaid, because even in her dreams she didn't want to hurt lexa: but this is just one universe. one, unobtainable universe.
when she wakes up, she forgets the dream.