Summary: Octavia and Clarke go on a scouting mission. WARNING Antagonist L/xa

Disclaimer: I do not own The 100 or it's characters. I do not own Falling Skies. All rights below to their respective owners.
Status: WIP multi chapter


Chapter 4: Octavia

My brother was being an idiot.

I felt free for the first time in my life. The past that I couldn't control no longer bogged us down. A laundry list of mistakes couldn't follow us around. As awful as this alien invasion was, it gave us a new lease on life.

I felt like I had a future for the first time ever.

I wasn't naive enough to not realize that we could die in the next week, month, or the next ten minutes. But those next ten minutes felt like a lifetime to me.

Bellamy had gotten it into his head that we needed to leave. We needed to drop all the dead weight and just worry about the two of us staying alive. But I'd seen his face. I'd seen how he was with these kids, he was much better lying to himself than to me. I could see that he was already attached and if we left he'd worry himself sick.

Now the princess, Clarke, could probably handle them, but could I let him give a seventeen year old girl the responsibility of a hundred juvenile delinquents? No. I could not.

We'd been in the big box store a three days, and everyone was starting to get antsy. Clarke had been making some noise about needing some more supplies. What was left in the warehouse was the bare minimum, we'd been scrounging through what hadn't been looted after the invasion made the world explode. Not literally, just figuratively. At least not yet. Now I needed to knock on wood, or spit over my shoulder three times. Darn it.

I wanted to go scouting. Figure out the terrain. But Bellamy wasn't hearing any of it. The idiot wanted us to move on by ourselves, but he wouldn't let me leave the warehouse. It made me feel like steam was coming out of my ears as soon as I went near him. How did he expect us to leave together without me eventually killing him?

I wasn't helpless by any means, but our world being taken over by giant alien bugs with six legs took all his rationality out the window.

"That's not an option, Clarke!" my brother's voice carried across the vaulted ceilings of the building.

"We're running low on supplies, Bellamy." The way she said his name made it sound like she was trying not to shout. She wasn't succeeding. "We're almost out of water. We need to move on. We can't stay here forever!"

"Where are you going to go?"

"Somewhere safe!"

'It's safe here."

"For now, but how long is this going to last? We know nothing about what we're up against. We can't predict how the damn bugs are going to act if we don't know anything about them. Like, what do they want?"

"They want to kill us, Clarke!"

"More than that!"

"Dying isn't good enough?"

This was getting ridiculous. I moved closer; my brother and Clarke were two feet from each other, gesturing with their hands trying to force the other to their side of thinking. Neither of them were going to win this way. And as much as I loved my brother, Clarke was right.

"We need weapons." Clarke's voice was lower now, but I had moved closer during their argument. Bellamy sputtered, not having an answer for her retort, since she was obviously right.

I barged in between them. "So, I got an idea," I said cheerier than I felt.

"Not now, O." Bellamy's eyes flashed to me, impatient with the interruption. I smirked. He was enjoying this.

"How about Clarke and I and Atom and Jones do a little scouting-"

"Octavia," he warned.

"Just hear me out, Bell." I raised my hand peacefully. "We go looking for another temporary home base. We can send out another group to look for supplies. One of us can take the van, and the other the pickup truck. Six hour shifts. We check in every six hours just to be safe. It means we can get at max three hours away."

"I know what it means, O," Bellamy interrupted again.

"It sounds like a solid plan to me," Clarke piped up. She stepped beside me and continued, "You can sift through everything left here. What will be useful to take with us and what's worthless. You'll be best at preparing everyone to move on anyway. They listen to you, Bellamy."

He frowned, "Not as much as they listen to you."

"You're the reason we're all here. We're alive because of you." The way she stepped forward and looked deeply in Bellamy's eyes made me feel truly awkward. It felt like I was invading a private moment.

"We all agreed then?" I broke them out of their silent communication.

Clarke jumped back, "Yep!" Her voice was higher than normal, and I couldn't exactly tell, but she seemed slightly flushed. "I'll grab my stuff and meet back here in ten minutes, kay?"

I smiled slightly, "Good, I'll tell the guys."

Bellamy grabbed my arm as I started to walk away. "I thought we were going to leave," he said quietly.

I rolled my eyes. "Bell, you've been saying that for days. We're obviously not going to leave any of them. You know it and I know it."

He pursed his lips before nodding sharply. I turned again, to have him stop me again. "O? I still don't like this. Be careful?"

I grinned widely. "Do you even know me?"

He scoffed, as I went to find the boys.

Less than ten minutes later we were all ready. Raven had the pickup truck running for us. She was favoring her leg more heavily than she did at juvie, but she never complained.

"First thing you need to do is pilfer some gas. The best way would be to siphon it from abandoned cars you find along the way. I've included a few empty gas cans. Don't let yourselves run out of gas and then miss your check in time. Bellamy is pissy enough without that."

Clarke smirked before giving Raven a hug. The guys climbed in the bed of the truck while Clarke took shotgun and I drove.

Our first scouting mission went ridiculously well. We'd filled the tank with the first two cars we came across, and gotten as much as we could carry. We'd come across a strip mall, and jumped store to store. All the doors had already been broken, and a lot had been looted, but were were able to salvage a lot of supplies. Clarke was particularly excited about some medical materials we found at a pharmacy, and found some tech that was going to make Raven a very happy woman. We hadn't found anywhere we could fit seventy plus kids, but we were making progress.

We hit our time limit and came back to base with time to spare, not that Bellamy wasn't pacing with worry when we arrived. I hugged him with almost as much enthusiasm as he hugged me. I patted him on the back, and left him standing with Clarke. I knew they'd want to debrief. I just wanted to get some rest before we went out again.

Our second scouting mission wasn't as fruitful as the first. We went in a different direction this time, looking specifically for signs of the Skitters and a place to camp. We ran into a pair of survivors. They had come from a militia camp located up north. They had a huge civilian group and were trying to organize a resistance with the surviving humans. We learned what they knew about the Skitters, and what was still left of the U.S. It wasn't good.

The militias were loosely organized with military personnel and volunteers. Some army general had come out of retirement and was leading them. But it looked like the Skitters were winning. The aliens had made bases in most major cities. A ship was docked over each one. The couple was trying to get south, they had family down there and hadn't been able to reach them before the aliens knocked out most of our communications. We wished them luck, and said that we would take their advice and look into hooking up with the militia.

Clarke made the decision to head back instead of scouting further. She wanted to discuss the new information with Bellamy.

I tried not to roll my eyes, but could they be more married?

Despite, intense negotiations with no conclusions in sight, the next day Clarke decided to check out the local hospital. She seemed more nervous than normal. Atom and Jones were goofing off in the truck bed, making Clarke grit her teeth in annoyance.

I laughed, it was fun watching them be teenagers. We hadn't seen skitters since they initially attacked the detention center.

Ahead of us, the road was blocked; a tractor trailer was overturned in the middle of the road. There was no way to go around it. Clarke cursed. We'd been following the signs to the hospital; I'd assumed she wanted to see if was a good crashing place, or hopefully find supplies, but her obvious frustration and disappointment made me think it was something more.

Clarke decidedly turned the truck around and parked it. "Let's go on foot. The hospital isn't too far ahead."

We split up, Clarke and I moving along the road, and the boys doubling back. It was a beautiful day. The road was winding up hill ahead of us. A light breeze blew the leaves in the trees, creating a low rustling noise. I'd forgotten that it was recently spring. We branched off road, avoiding the more circumventive path to the hospital, and cut through a grassy field full of trees. Ahead there was an underpass for a railroad track. Instead of walking in the open along the tracks, we slid down the dirt path beside it before coming to the mouth of the tunnel. Clarke jerked to a stop. She threw out her arms to keep me from moving forward.

"Cl-" I started.

She whipped around, using her hands to signal me to shut up, by slicing across her throat. Slowly, she spun back around and pointed to the ceiling of the underpass. Hanging upside, like bats, were three Skitters, sleeping.

My eyes went wide, and my heart began to race. Swiftly and silently we turned around, we didn't make it very far before the blast of a shotgun rung out over our heads. We screamed and dropped to the ground.

Who the heck was shooting? Did it even do anything to the Skitters?

The Skitters screeched, and we heard a thud behind us as one landed on the ground, but not a second later another shot rang out. The screeching continued, followed by several shots in succession. I lost count.

All three of the Skitters were dead.

My ears were ringing when we stood up; It wasn't until I looked down at my hand that I realized I pulled out the knife I'd taken to carry around with me. I'd like to get my hands on one of those shotguns or even better, a machete.

A band of humans emerged out of the landscape, each of them carried a gun or two. A dark haired woman of undeterminable asian decent sneered at us.

"Well what do we have here?" A large man with short hair and dark tattoos on his face smiled cruelly.

I braced myself, refusing to back down.

"Are they harnessed?" Another voice barked.

"They'd be retards if they were, you idiot. No, we got ourselves some live ones," the man replied.

"The commander will want to talk to them." The first woman said, her voice was as full as disgust as her face.

Two of them moved forward to grab our arms, but they didn't see my knife. I slashed the man with the tattoos; he growled in outrage. He raised the butt of his gun. I saw it coming, but I couldn't get of the way in time. Darkness descended as I collapsed to the ground.

My last thought was, "Crap, Bellamy is gonna be pissed."

I woke up with a splitting headache. Squinting my eyes I tried to look around in pain. Moaning I closed them again.

"Octavia? Octavia? Can you hear me?" Clarke's voice was too loud.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm here," I groaned.

I rolled my head back, squinting still as I took in my surroundings. We were in an auditorium of some sort. Probably a school or a civic center. I was sitting in the front row; Clarke was several seats to my right, with her arms tied down. To my surprise, both Atom and Jones were to my left. Both were a little worse for wear. Their faces were bloody and bruised.

The stage before us held the remnants of scenery scattered around, but what was prominently displayed was the corpse of a Skitter, impaled on a pike in the middle.

"What happened?" I croaked.

"They seem to have brought us to their lair. It's a community center. They nabbed Atom and Jones first. They want to know how four teenagers have survived in the invasion alone. They're offering us places in their gang." Every piece of information Clarke share had a certain edge. They didn't know about the rest of the delinquents. And she didn't want them to know.

"How long was I out?"

"Two hours," she said gravely.

"Shit." They hit me really hard. I definitely had a concussion. And we were late for check in. Bellamy was going to lose it.

"Yeah."

A door on the side of the stage opened and a large imposing man stepped through. He was strikingly attractive, his eyes sought mine immediately. I gasped, recognizing him. Lincoln. He glared at me and shook his head so slightly I almost felt like I imagined it.

He moved aside as a slight young woman with long dark hair and bold eyeliner commanded the presence of the entire room.

"Clarke," her voice curled around the name, "You're friend is awake. Hopefully, no permanent damage."

I was the only one not tied down, but too woozy to do anything else I flipped her off. Lincoln's eyes widen slightly as he tried not to react. The girl didn't bother giving me any notice.

"No thanks to your gang," Clarke replied.

She didn't deign to reply to Clarke's complaint. "Have you considered my offer? The safety and protection of a group is much more favorable to trying to survive out there in the wild. Darwin's world has descended among us to test our mettle. I can assure you that I aim to win." She smiled lightly.

In her view, I was nothing more than a pawn, which was fine with me, since her focus on Clarke would allow me the freedom to figure a way out of this mess.

Clarke cocked her head, "How did you do it? How'd you kill the Skitters? I didn't think it could be done."

I wanted to roll my eyes; didn't Clarke know she was inviting the villain to sermonize us with her masterful plan. Crap. Of course she did. She was buying us time.

I rolled my neck again, slowly, like I was stretching it. We had four other gang members other than the commander and Lincoln. But two of the group who took out the Skitters weren't here. The tattoo guy I slashed at with my knife and the Asian woman.

"It wasn't as hard as everyone thought. You just have to have good aim and shoot them in the eye, or overwhelm them with enough firepower to the head. I actually have found it quite a liberating challenge to discover the best ways to decimate the overgrown insects."

I got eye contact with Lincoln. Again he shook his head so slightly I could barely see it. How on earth did he end up here? Why would he join them? This wasn't like him at all.

"It was the most thrilling event of my life when I killed my first. I thought I was going to die. You see it was just me and this blade. I didn't even have a gun." She obviously thought she was the hottest thing in the room.

Suddenly she switched topics. "Clarke, you could be a benefit to our group. You could protect your friends." I narrowed my eyes at her veiled threat. "But if you were going to join, you would have already, wouldn't you?" She smiled again. Clarke was tense and guarded.

"So, you must be hiding something. What is it? Guns? Drugs?" She pointed her blade suddenly at Jones.

He squeaked loudly before he started to stammer. "N-n-n-n-n-no guns or d-d-d-d-drugs. We aren't h-h-h-h-h-hiding anything."

Clarke shouted over top of him, "Leave him alone. We don't have anything you want! You've already searched us! You've taken our supplies!"

The commander's head snapped to Clarke, "Supplies? Really? What you were carrying was a pittance. No, no, no, there is something else."

I wasn't the only one shaking in my seat. Clarke's voice shook, "We don't have anything you want, just please let us go!"

We didn't have anything she could want, but we had people. We had Bellamy and Jasper and Monty and Harper and Monroe and Miller and Bryan and Charlotte and Fox and Roma and Sterling and Murphy and Raven. Oh my gosh. Raven. We had tech. We had radios and surveillance. We had electricity and microwaves. We had drones and radar. We had most of the tech than had been wiped out because she was rebuilding it all. What the commander could do with Raven was nauseating. Clarke was protecting everyone, but mostly she was protecting Raven. We didn't have the weapons or guns to protect ourselves from them. But if they never knew the delinquents were there they wouldn't go looking.

"The little girl knows what you have, don't you Octavia?" The commander stalked up to me.

I shook my head, but the movement only made me dizzy, my head still aching uncontrollably. "I don't. I'm sick. I have a concussion." My thinking was slower than normal, but I tried to cover up my revelation.

"Oh, don't play dumb with me little girl." She pointed her blade back at Jones. "Why don't we have a trade. Information for your friend here." Jones started crying.

"What?!" Clarke protested. "She has a concussion! She was unconscious for hours; that constitutes a coma!"

I sat frozen staring into her face. The dark khol around her eyes made her look fierce, but she couldn't have been older than Clarke, maybe Bellamy's age. What made her take advantage of people like this? Weren't the humans supposed to band together?

Before anyone could get another protest out the commander swung her blade, slicing open Jones' neck. His hands reached up trying to hold himself together as he gasped and choked. Blood poured through his fingers and onto his shirt. It only took a few seconds for him to bleed out and the light to leave his eyes.

Clarke was yelling, fighting the ropes that bound her to her chair. Atom sat shockingly still, before he wiped his face on his shoulder, blood spray smeared across his cheeks. His friend's blood on his lips.

Coming to myself, tears were silently pouring down my cheeks. I looked up at the commander, her blade was now pointed at me. I would not betray my own. I closed my eyes, waiting for the end.

Shots rang out, one, two, three, four. I opened my eyes to find Lincoln with an automatic pistol in each hand. All other members of the gang were down, I assumed dead due to the eery silence that now shrouded the auditorium. One gun was now pointed at the commander and the other was pointed at the exit. The final two members of the gang were still at large.

"Lincoln, this is a surprise," she murmured. "I didn't know you had it in you."

He didn't take his eyes off of the commander. "Octavia, untie your friends." I obeyed, moving slower than I would have liked, but as soon as I unbound Clarke she was able to free Atom. She bent over Jones' hunched body. Lifting her eyes to mine, she shook her head. I knew he was dead.

Clarke climbed up on the stage and collected our things. She handed both Atom and me our packs, carrying two herself.

"You can't stop us," Lincoln warned.

The commander smiled, both hands still in the air in surrender. "I know."

Clarke lifted my arm and braced me across her shoulders. We followed Lincoln to the rear exit; he checked to see that it was clear. Neither of the remaining gang members appeared.

We made it through the door into the parking lot when shots rang out above us. Atom went down, his eyes surprised as he coughed. Lincoln spun and shot both gang members. Clarke bent down at Atom's side and tried to staunch the bleeding. The bullet must of hit an artery in his leg because he only lasted a few minutes before she stopped; she closed his eyes and leaned low over his prone body.

Lincoln indicated we needed to leave, the commander was still alive. I placed my hand on Clarke's shoulder. "I'm sorry, but we need to go."

She nodded and wiped her face with her hand. We followed him away from the community center. Lincoln guided us back to where we had parked the truck, only to find our people there, searching the area.

Raven was stationed at the truck, manning the radio. As soon as she saw us, I could see that she called them in. Clarke went right for Raven, gratefully accepting her hug. Atom's blood on her hands had dried rusty brown.

Lincoln and I sat down in the bed of the truck, my head was still making me dizzy. I knew that Bellamy would be back any moment.

I studied my long time friend. He looked tired and older than his years. His eyes were still wary, watching our people return from searching, each one going up to greet Clarke. By the shake of her head, I knew that she was sharing the bad new of Jones and Atom.

"Lincoln, what happened? How did you end up there?"

His jaw clenched and the muscles in his face pulled downward. "Lexa."

"Lexa? Your step-sister Lexa?"

"She was the commander," he murmured.

"What? That was Lexa?" I paused. "Is that why you didn't kill her too?" I asked softer this time.

He nodded, then captured my eyes. "I couldn't." I grabbed his hand and squeezed. "But I couldn't let her hurt you either, and they would have supported her if I hadn't…"

I squeeze again. "I understand."

I heard a whoop in the distance, distracting me. My brother was jogging through the grass to the group congregated around Clarke. To my surprise, she broke through the group and met him halfway. He caught her in a hug, pulling her in tight.

"There's something I never thought I'd see," I said to Lincoln.

Bellamy pulled away from Clarke, but kept his hands on her shoulders. Only after they spoke, did he look up and find me in the truck. I waved; he grinned, relieved. But he didn't run to me as I expected, instead he looked back down at Clarke squeezing her shoulders before he stalked over to me. He set his gun in the truck to sweep me up in a bear hug.

"Didn't you promise?" he said gruffly in my ear.

I laughed, sadly. "I only promised to stay safe from the Skitters. We didn't expect Lincoln's crazy step-sister to go all homicidal dictator on us."

Bellamy let go of me to man hug Lincoln. "Thank you. Thank you for saving them."

"Are we done, reunioning?" Raven interrupted. "Because we need to clear out before any skitters come looking for the cause of the three corpses over there." She pointed to where the commander's gang had taken out the skitters under the railroad tracks.

I scooted to the back of the truck bed. Bellamy took a seat on one side of me, after helping Clarke into the truck, and Lincoln on the other. Clarke grimaced, as she collapsed on Bellamy's other side. I leaned my still aching head on my brother's shoulder. Right before I closed my exhausted eyes, I saw my brother's hand gently grab Clarke's bloody one. I smiled, and allowed the sway of the truck to lull me to sleep.


A/N: What do you think of Octavia? I find writing in her voice fun ;) Bellamy's up next!