Octavia

"Hey, look what I brought you," Bellamy called out eagerly as he returned home from school.

Octavia was delighted whenever he stepped through that door, but delighted still when he brought her a present of any kind. She rushed to him, throwing her arms around him, and he hugged her back tightly. Then, as she waited eagerly, he knelt in front of her and held out his tablet, the one he carried every day to school and back.

Her face fell a little and she frowned at him.

"Go on," he said, still smiling. "Take it."

She did, but she was still glum as she looked down at the screen. "Homework?" she guessed. Their mother was becoming more and more insistent that Bellamy teach her whatever he could from his daily lessons, rehashing his day's teachings in a way that a five-year-old could grasp. It was no small feat, but one he took seriously, much to her dismay.

But now he shook his head and laughed softly. "No, not homework. Open it."

Octavia unlocked the tablet and looked at the screen- there was a new icon that hadn't been there the day before and she touched it, bringing up a new application- the splash screen showed eight different dancing couples.

Now her disappointment turned into excitement and she looked up at Bellamy with a big smile on her face. "Dancing?"

"Yeah," he answered with a nod. "Mom says I have to go to the Unity Day junior masquerade this year, so I need to learn how to dance. I figured you might like it too."

He was right, and she hugged him, hurrying over to their table and propping the tablet up against their mother's sewing box so they could both see the screen.

"What's the Unity Day junior masquerade?" she asked him as she scrolled through the icons for the different dances.

Bellamy made a face. "It's like a party… there's one for teenagers, and the junior one is for kids who are eleven and twelve. It's where you put on a mask and dance to music. It's stupid."

"Then why does Mommy want you to do it?"

He shrugged, his face reddening a little. "So I can be normal."

Octavia paused and looked at him. "How come you're not normal?"

She could see the discomfort on his face as he shrugged and said dismissively, "Because normal is stupid. Come on, O, choose one already."

Turning her attention back to the tablet, she continued to scroll through the icons and finally selected one, bringing up a video that showed a young couple- man and woman- dancing to soft, slow music. The man held out a hand and twirled the woman around and around.

"Bell?" she asked softly, watching as the woman revolved on a single foot, on tiptoe. "I'm not normal… right?"

He walked over to her and put his hands on her shoulders, turning her to face him. She watched him lean down to her level and he said, very seriously, "Normal isn't a real thing, Octavia. Normal is just a word people use to make you feel bad."

She sucked her bottom lip in between her teeth, frowning in thought. "What if… what if I want to be normal?" she asked, very softly, hanging her head.

Bellamy curled his fingers under her chin and raised it so they could lock eyes. "Octavia, you're better than normal. Think about it- there's no one like you on the whole Ark- you're special."

But all she wanted was to be like every other girl… only she didn't even know what that meant, what every other girl might even be like, because she'd never seen one. She'd never laid eyes on another child except Bellamy, another girl except her mother.

Octavia felt her eyes fill with tears and she felt guilty because she knew her brother would feel bad, that he would think she was sad because he'd said the wrong thing. She shook her head and said, "Sorry, Bell."

He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tight, tucking her head under his chin and easing her cheek against his chest. She listened to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, clear and strong, and it calmed her just a little.

"Don't be sorry, O," he said softly in her ear. "It's okay. I get it."

She pulled back a little and looked at his face. "You do?"

"Of course I do," he answered, nodding. "Sometimes I want to be normal too."

For some reason that made her feel a lot better than his assurances that she was special, and she smiled at him. Her eyes flickered to the screen, where the man and the woman were moving faster now, going apart for a few steps and then coming back together again. She watched for a moment and then asked, "Do normal people dance?"

Bellamy grinned at her and nodded. "Yeah."

"When?" she asked, smiling back. "Where?"

"All kinds of places," he told her, fully letting her go now. "At masquerades, at other holidays, at birthdays maybe… and weddings."

"Weddings," she repeated, sucking her lip in again and chewing it on it thoughtfully for a moment. She brightened and said, "When you get married, are you going to dance?"

He laughed and shook his head. "Don't be silly, O, I'm never going to get married."

She was surprised; in all the fairy tales, even in the darkest stories of mythology, people constantly got married. "Why not?"

"Because if I got married, then I'd have to hide you extra hard, or tell someone about you, and I would never risk you getting caught," he answered, shrugging a little.

"But if you were married, wouldn't you trust each other?" she asked with a frown.

But Bellamy was adamant as he shook his head. "I'm never getting married, O. It's just going to be you and me forever- you know that."

Those words made her sad and happy at the same time, but she didn't completely understand why. "Was Mommy married?" she asked him.

One of the things she loved about their time alone together is that, unlike their mother, Bellamy didn't avoid her questions. He almost always answered them, and even the rare times he refused to do so, he told her why. Aurora always shut off when she asked certain questions, so she had learned long ago not to.

"Yeah, O, Mom was married," he told her now. "A long time ago, to my dad."

"And then he got floated?" she asked, though she knew the answer.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "And then he got floated."

"How come?"

"I don't know," he told her honestly. "I was only little… littler than you. I don't remember and Mom doesn't like to talk about it."

Octavia glowered and said, "Mommy doesn't like to talk about anything."

"Because it makes her sad," Bellamy said gently. "She loved him and she misses him… she probably wishes he was still alive."

"But if he was, I wouldn't be here," Octavia said worriedly. She had only the basic understanding of her origins, but she was aware that she and Bellamy shared a mother but not a father; that she had come to be long after Bellamy's father was dead. It scared her for some reason- the idea that with one little change in history, she could cease to be.

"And that's why I don't mind that he's dead," Bellamy told her firmly, smiling at her. "Because I wouldn't ever want anything that meant I wouldn't have you."

That made her heart flutter with warmth and she wrapped her arms around him, holding him close for a long moment, listening to the beat of his heart- a little faster now than before.

After a long time she said softly, "Bellamy, you know what?"

"What?" he asked, sounding content.

"I'm going to get married one day."

He pulled back and there was a wry smile on his face. "Oh you are, are you?"

"Yes," she said firmly, grinning up at him. "I'm going to marry you."

Bellamy laughed softly and nodded his head at her, ruffling her hair a little. "Okay, Octavia, you can marry me- you'll be my one exception to the no marriage rule, how about that?"

"And then we'll live happily ever after like in all the stories," she said, feeling very wise to have solved all their problems.

Bellamy had turned his attention back to the screen. "I think this dance is way too hard for us," he remarked, watching the couple twirl and spin. He changed the display, flicking through the other options, and came to a simpler option. Octavia could only read one word of the dance he'd selected, but it seemed appropriate: beginners.

They watched the video a couple times through, and then Bellamy put his hand in the small of her back and pulled her close to him. She was supposed to wrap an arm around his shoulders, but she was too little for that so instead she wrapped it around his waist, laying her cheek against his stomach.

Together they stepped slowly and awkwardly around their quarters, looking very little like the couple on the screen, but the music filled the room and she closed her eyes, smiling and letting Bellamy guide her movements. It felt nice, almost like being rocked, and with his warm arms around her she felt herself being lulled into a feeling of peaceful calm. She liked the music, liked dancing with him, being close to him and feeling safe and loved, like always.

Octavia imagined that it really was their wedding day- she knew from stories that a wedding was like a big party, and so important that everyone from all over the world would come to attend it, and bring presents. And there was also always a big feast… seeing as she was often hungry, Octavia like that part best of all. She imagined all the pretty clothes that everyone would wear, and how she would look better than any of them. She imagined them in a lavish castle, surrounded by a giant moat, guarded by dragons. She imagined flowers twined through her hair and all over the floor. She imagined Bellamy in a white suit, and for some reason there was a sword on his hip. As for herself, she pictured glass slippers on her feet and a fiery scepter clutched in her hand.

The idea that this daydream led to her and Bellamy being husband and wife was like an afterthought- mostly meaningless, because she didn't have a concept of what marriage really meant. And besides, married or not, they were going to spend the rest of their lives together. Both of the Blake children had that lesson firmly ingrained in them long ago... that it would always be just the two of them, no matter what. That no one else- regardless of what either of them wanted- could ever be allowed to breach that castle wall.