Chapter Three: Desperation
For weeks, Octavia is all Clarke can think about. She wants to help, but didn't know a way to approach the situation without scaring the family. "You are thinking real hard over there" Avery's voice pulls her from her thoughts, "It looks painful" he laughs when the pillow hits him in the face.
"I have a very important question" she says and he puts on a mock serious face to appease her tone. "Do people call me the Ark Princess?" she asks, remembering the boy's words to Octavia when he pulled her out of the hallway.
"Uh," Avery stalls, and she grabs the pillow that she had just thrown at him back, to shove her face in, "Yeah" he says finally, "yeah they do" he finishes laughing at her.
"You couldn't even lie to make me feel better?" She asks incredulously, hitting him with the pillow, before putting it behind her head.
He laughs, "Please tell me that is not seriously what you've been over there lost in thought about" she just laughs, "Seriously, Clarke, you've been thinking hard about something for a couple of weeks now – what's up?"
She sighs, "I think I know something. Something I'm not meant to know" she says and he nods a little, "Something that if people find out, someone could get hurt" she says, choosing her words carefully.
"Well, can you do anything about it?" he asks her. And, she is reminded of why she loves him so much. Anyone else would have asked what it was, but he knew that she couldn't tell him and respected her enough not to ask.
She shakes her head, "I don't think so".
"So, maybe you don't" he says, "I know that's hard for you" he adds with a smile before she can protest, "But, maybe, how you can help is just by staying quiet and hoping it works out".
"I don't think this can 'work out'. I think the best-case scenario is that no one finds out" she says, picking at her fingernails absently
"Well" he says, "Maybe you hope for that? Maybe you keep the secret…maybe that's all that you can do"
"Yeah" she whispers, unconvinced.
A couple of days later, after a shift at medical, she meets Wells at the Alpha cafeteria for lunch. They make easy small talk and plans to go to concert next week. While their eating, Wells mentions that they are going to tighten rations the day after next due to an incident at Agro where an entire half of the station caught fire and tons of food burned. It will take six months to replace the destroyed inventory and in that time most rations will be cut in half or more and anyone getting extra rations – like guards or heavy labors, won't any longer. Alpha would be the only station to remain mostly unaffected.
He mentions it in such passing that she's sure he thought she knew, but she asks question after question until he realizes that was not the case. "I'm sorry, Clarke, I thought you knew" he says when she's out of questions he can answer, "Our parents and Kane were talking about it at dinner yesterday" he winces when he remembers how little she talks to her mother these days. "Besides – you won't be affected" he adds in a way that she is sure he thinks is comforting.
She nods a little, "Sorry. I just…you know how much I hate not knowing things" she laughs at the end so he will too and changes the topic.
When she goes home later, she tells Avery what she heard and he waves her off, "Yeah, I heard about some explosion on Agro"
"Why am I the last person to know everything?" she asks. He gives her a half shrug in response. She sighs – she knows that she can take enough from Alpha for her and Avery, but she wonders how others will survive.
She runs into Octavia's brother one day on her way home from work. Literally, she's looking down at a list of medicines and what they do, trying to memorize them and she smacks right into him while he's locking his door. She laughs a little, "I'm so sorry" she says as she looks up, realizing who it is she plowed into at that moment. He shrugs, tells her that it's fine but eyes her cautiously. He looks pale, sick maybe, and thinner than the last time she saw him, only weeks ago. She walks away – he's obviously uncomfortable and untrusting of her, so she doesn't prolong the interaction, just goes home. It won't dawn in her until later that he must feed Octavia out of his rations – and if they were cut, he couldn't be eating much at all.
Working in medical buys you a lot of good-will and being a Council Woman's daughter buys you a lot of fear. Well, maybe fear is the wrong word – people might not fear her, but she knew that she could make them nervous and uncomfortable. With every crime being punishable by death, even people with nothing to hide got nervous around Council members. It is this combination of good-will and nervous fear that leads Clarke to believe that she can get away with something that people have been floated for.
She walks in the Factory cafeteria and goes to Miles, he's in charge of the lunch shift and is a friend of Avery's, "Hey Clarke, I've got no food to offer you for another hour or so" he says, then seem to rethink it, "Even then, it's not much" he adds quieter. The rationing has only been going on for a little while but it's already been rough for a lot of people.
Clarke smiles, shakes her head. She's one of the only people on the Ark with two cafeteria cards (one for Alpha and one for Factory) since she's never quite sure where she'll be eating, though she tries to eat on Alpha, as not to take away from Factory – also they are given more food there, and she can bring some back for Avery. "No, I'm afraid I need your help" she answers. "My Factory cafeteria card accidently got incinerated" she says with a small laugh. Miles cocks an eyebrow, "I had to burn a pair of my pants because of a contamination accident in medical, and the card was in them" she explains. The accident and burning of a pair of pants were true – it is what gave her this idea. And, she thought with her old card being 'destroyed', they wouldn't feel the need to deactivate it.
He laughs at her story, like she hoped he would. "Let's get you set up with a new one, huh?". She lets out a breath and hides it behind a smile.
For a week, she makes sure to use both cards, the old and the new, every day – she needs to make sure that its safe and that no one will figure it out. Everything is going well, until one day at lunch time, she is in front of Miles in line. She doesn't even think about it until she pulls her old Factory cafeteria card out of her pocket and places it between her teeth so she can pick up her tray. It's beaten up and obviously old, and has a 'My Little Pony' sticker on the front because Avery think's he is hilarious. Miles chuckles at the sticker, and either doesn't remember or doesn't mention that her card should be shining and new.
She sits on the card for another week, until she's sure it's safe. If something was going to happen it would have. So, she folds the card into a piece of paper and writes Octavia's name on the front before taking a deep breath and walking four doors down the hall and stopping on front of the one she saw Octavia pulled into all those nights ago. She just stands there for a long moment, before she takes a deep breath and slides the card under the door.
She's turning to walk away when the door swings open and the boy that dragged Octavia away is standing in front of her, card in his hand. "What is this?" he asks angrily.
Clarke presses her lips together for a moment, "Cafeteria card" she answers. He rolls his eyes. He pulls the piece of paper that it was folded in out of his back pocket and shoves it on front of her face, tapping his finger against Octavia's name. "Look, I – I just – I wanted" she stutters a little, "I was just trying to help" she says finally.
"Help what?" he challenges her, she's surprised by how small he can make her feel with just a look. She stands, silent and shocked, in front of him and he lets out a long breath, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. She notices then that he looks sick, tired and worn down. She knows he is a cadet, remembers that from the day he stopped her in the hall, and she knows that the extra guard rations had been stopped when rationing when into effect – she's not sure how he's surviving with so little food.
"I'm sorry. Maybe I did this all wrong" she waits a beat, "I'm Clarke" she says. She waits for him to tell her his name but he doesn't. So, she sighs and nods a little, "I was just trying to help" she repeats in a whisper before walking away.
What Clarke doesn't know is that when she walks away, Bellamy shuts the door and Octavia comes out of his room sobbing, "I'm so sorry, Bell. I shouldn't have gone out" she leans against him and he can feel her tears soak through the shoulder of his shirt as he promises her that it'll be okay – that he won't let anything happen to hey.
A month after rationing starts and extra rations for guard's end, cadet portions get cut in half. For a week, Bellamy basically starves and he's sure they can't continue like this. He sits in his room, turning the card Clarke gave him in his hand over and over – it's got to be a trap or a trick, nothing comes this easy, not to him. But Octavia is hungry all the time and he hasn't had more than water in a week, so he decides it's worth the risk. When he swipes the card, and is handed a tray, he thinks he'll sob with relief. He takes that food back to Octavia and brings his card back to the cafeteria, when that gets him another plate of food he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath before eating.
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