FLASHBACK

Kane's mood changed overnight, Octavia observed.

She had known Abby had been pushing Kane away for months, grieving for her child. Octavia and Indra agreed that they must have finally reconnected. Octavia was relieved, because they had more pressing matters for Kane to work on than grieving for a dead child.

Unsurprisingly, Azgeda had been causing more problems amongst the clans. People were itching to get out. There had been more than one person caught by the guards trying to open the door, risking the safety of everybody. Fortunately, nobody had been successful but Ovtavia had to assert her authority in hundreds of ways. People had begun to question how she could had won the conclave. She had to contain three uprisings and she needed Kane to help analyze the situation. He had been through this before and how people act in situations with limited space to roam and live. The clans may have warred with each other but none of them could have predicted how they would feel four years underground. Octavia went to the main hall and with a knife, marked another day.

Flashback

Octavia scratched the last mark in the main hall with people screaming with absolute ecstasy and relief.

She looked at the people she helped lead for the past five years, age and stress showing on her face. Lincoln would be proud. They had made it. She could do it.

"We are Wonkru. We have done this together. We have survived together. Out of the ashes of praimfaya we will rise, and we will grow out of the earth a new people, a better people, together!"

The crowd roared and cheered. Any doubts of the past five years of her leadership were ignored. They would be free at last.

Octavia went up to do the honours. The door unlocked, but wouldn't lift. She mustered all her strength. Nothing. She called on several other grounders to help lift. Nothing.

That's when the chaos began.

Octavia was barricaded in section 4J7-18of the bunker. Kane knew immediately something was wrong when the bunker wouldn't open, and he had rushed Skaikru personnel into the essential services section that held medbay, farms, oxygen, and hydro. There was no traditional dorms in that section but there was no time. Those who had built the bunker had clearly planned for a revolt and had these systems on lockdown when needed - Jaha had discovered this plan in the engineering system and spent months in the first year locating the mechanism to lock it should it ever be needed. The day that was meant to be their salvation was the day that was almost the end.

Kane had grabbed Indra and Octavia in the aftermath of the failure to open. He insisted they get out of there. Octavia and Indra had tried to stop the chaos but agreed it was out of hand. Even their guards had abandoned them in their fury and it was no longer safe.

So here they were. Helpless as they watched people killing each other and acting out in horrible ways from the surveillance systems.

Kane had barricaded and locked down the essential systems. They fed everybody they could, supplying food for those on the outside through several pipes connected to the mess hall, as before. But now the grounders were fighting over it. It was as if they couldn't cope with the loss of hope, lack of order - they split into factions again. Many joined Azgeda, others Tri kru. They fought constantly. Estimatations were that there were only 800 grounder survivors at this point and Octavia was seen as the one who had failed them all. It had been over a year since she had attempted to open the door, wanting to triumphantly lead the out of the dark to the light. How naive she had been.

She had never needed Bellamy so badly in her life as she did now. She had tried to emulate him, tried to lead - but when push came to shove, she couldn't do it. She had failed them. She had failed Lincoln.

And then, of course, the generator failed.

"How bad is it?" Octavia asked.

"Bad." Jaha acknowledged. "We have a backup generator with only a quarter of the capacity and repairs on the main generator will take months."

"So much we turn the lights off."

"It's not that simple, but I agree we need to start there. The electricity powers the farms, the oxygen pumps, the hydro recycler..."

"Without it, we have nothing?"

"Yes"

Indra stood stone faced. Kane's arms that had been folded across his chest went to his head and he turned his back to the wall and screamed in frustration.

Octavia's face contorted Into something indescribable. She stamped to a wall and punched her fist into it. Again and again and again until her knuckles were raw, bleeding, and likely a finger was broken.

"How long?" She stopped to ask.

"Based on our estimates, with the recent grounder deaths and with maximum conservation with half size rations and the back up generator assuming it doesn't fail... we have one month. We need two to fix the generator. If it can be fixed."

Octavia leaned her head against the wall. Then, she started hitting her head against it, hard. Then it all went black.

She woke up in medbay. She hadn't been here in a long time. Abby or Jackson usually treated her in her quarters but of course, that hadn't been an option since the day she had failed everybody. She now understood what it truly meant to be on the other side, and she wondered how Jaha, Kane and Abby hadn't cracked under the immense pressure.

Then she remembered Jaha and the City of Light... and she was finally willing to forgive him. Forgive all of them. Forgive everybody who had felt this pressure and Octavia's youthful ignorance as to why things were the way they were. She suddenly understood why she had been trapped under the floor, why her mother had been floated, why Lincoln had been killed, why Ilian lit Arkadia on fire, why Bellamy and Clarke acted in ways she didn't like. People make terrible decisions because there is no way to make everybody happy and you are trying to do your best and keep everybody alive. Most of all, its exhausting. With power and responsibility comes the exhaustion of making hard decisions.

Octavia turned her head to the back of the med bay. She saw the medical storage unit, and thought she heard Abby talking in there when she was sure Jackson wasn't around. Octavia gently lifted herself up and to the window, peering through, when she saw her.

A little girl. About three years old with dark hair and brown eyes. That Octavia had never seen before. Octavia knew every single one of the children under five in the bunker because she personally had beheaded one person - a mother or father, sometimes both for being uncooperative- for the crime each time it occurred. She took a special interest in these children, understanding their concern, grateful they would never truly understand what happened to their parents, not like Octavia who watched her mother get floated.

Suddenly, it hit her.

Twins. The baby boy, who Abby had shown her three years ago. She had been tricked. It had been a decoy. Abby and Kane had hid a child from her all these years to avoid punishment, avoid answering for their crimes. Now Octavia would be forced to take away what this child actually considered her mom or dad when there was only one month of life left underground. But should it be Kane, her trusted adviser or Abby, their trusted doctor? She knew this was not a decision she could take lightly.

Regaining her strength, she huffed out of med bay, slamming the door behind her.