Octavia

Standing outside Moira's quarters, Octavia wasn't exactly sure why she was so nervous. It would have been nice to say it was only because she had been invited to eat breakfast with her captor, and that was nerve-wracking enough, but it was more than that… she just couldn't quite pinpoint what.

As soon as the door opened, she realised what it was- she was afraid they would be normal. Happy. And they were. Despite the dark words Moira had spoke, her explanation that her husband had been brought here by slavers, he seemed genuinely at ease in their quarters and happy to meet Octavia.

"My name is Kota," he said, smiling warmly at her as he clasped her forearm in his hand. "It is good to see someone who has spent so much time in the forests of my youth." Before he could say anything more, three children attacked Octavia's legs. The oldest looked about seven, the youngest was only a toddler, and the third was somewhere in the middle. As she had such limited experience with children, she couldn't guess much more accurately than that.

"Wash up for breakfast," Moira told the cheerful kids after they had finished greeting both women with great enthusiasm. They hurried off, racing each other to get to the bathroom, and Moira laughed softly. "I'm sorry, they're always so full of energy," she said, but the way she smiled after them Octavia knew she was head over heels for each one. It gave her a pang of longing for her own mother.

Kota was smiling at Octavia. "You must have many questions."

"I do," she agreed, hardly knowing where to start. Her eyes shifted to Moira for a moment before she said bluntly to him, "I'd like to talk with you alone."

Moira raised an eyebrow but seemed more amused than offended. "I'll get started on breakfast," she said, leaving them alone in the living room as she disappeared into another room, presumably the kitchen.

Kota invited Octavia to sit, which she did. Before he could say anything she asked him, "Are you a prisoner here?"

With a soft smile, he shook his head. "I understand why you're asking me that, but no. I love my wife and children."

"But what about your home?" she pressed. "Don't you love your home?"

"Of course I do," he agreed with a nod. "But this is my home now. This is where my heart lives, where my babies have been born. Lingto is the home of my childhood and I will always think fondly of it, but I belong to Raven Rock now."

Octavia shifted with discomfort as she mulled that over, something about it rubbing her the wrong way. "But you were a prisoner when you came here."

"I was a prisoner before I came here," he clarified delicately. "I could have stayed outside the mountain and met a much worse fate than the love and acceptance I have found here."

"Okay, but if you hadn't been taken by slavers," she insisted. "If you hadn't been kidnapped and delivered here, you wouldn't have chosen to live here."

He gave her a quizzical look. "And if you had not fallen to Earth, would you have made the choices you have made, met the people you have met, loved the people you now love? Is there a point to wondering 'what if'?"

Octavia let out a frustrated breath. "You should be allowed to leave," she said, finding the whole thing deeply disturbing because of her own intimate relationship with imprisonment. "You shouldn't be locked up in here."

Kota gave her a gentle smile. "We are all locked up in here," he reminded her tactfully. "Moira, too, is confined to this place, and you would call her my captor."

"What about your kids?" Octavia asked, deliberately changing the subject because his comment made her uncomfortable.

He beamed with pride. "My children can survive for short times above ground. That is the goal here, Octavia, and part of the vision that was started by Moira's mother when she was in charge. By adding the blood of the clans to this place, we ensure that the next generation has a better chance of going outside. Eventually, they will leave this prison behind because of this gift from their ancestors."

Octavia frowned thoughtfully- she could see what he was saying, but didn't he realise that what he'd described could be interpreted two ways? Yes, by marrying Moira he had ensured that her children would have a better chance of going outside than they would if they had been born to two parents who were from inside the mountain. But if those children had been born to Grounder parents alone, without the contribution of the Raven Rock gene pool, they wouldn't have to worry about radiation at all.

"I don't like it," she said finally.

"And I can understand that," he agreed with a nod. "In fact, I was in your shoes too once. But please give us a chance. I did, and I don't regret it."

She shook her head. "But I won't be like you," she said firmly. "I won't stay here… I have people on the outside that I love." She remembered what the bounty hunters had said and added, "I have a man."

"And he is welcome here," Kota said delicately. "As is your brother."

"Yeah," Octavia said dryly. "If welcome means a one-way ticket and no choice."

Before they could speak further, the children returned and attacked them good-naturedly, wanting to show Octavia their toys and their drawings. Once they settled down to play, Octavia couldn't help but watch them with fascination. Their childhood was so different from her own, and yet they were so similar to the way she had been at their age, particularly the oldest girl, who seemed quiet and thoughtful.

.

When Octavia was seven, Bellamy had been thirteen. She often watched the clock on the wall, not necessarily fully grasping the concept of time just yet, but knowing what numbers would signal that he was on his way home from school. She would climb up on the top bunk- his bunk- and cover herself up with the blankets, practically shaking with excitement.

She would close her eyes and just imagine. First she imagined the classroom, which she saw as a huge room filled floor to ceiling with books, and all the kids sitting on big pillows on the floor in a circle, with an adult sitting in the middle telling stories.

Next she imagined him leaving school and walking down the corridor. Every window he passed had a beautiful view of Earth, that big glowing ball of green and blue that she dreamed of so often. Some days she imagined him walking with friends, chatting and laughing, though those other kids always seemed to disappear from her daydream as he reached their quarters. Usually, though, she imagined him walking alone, and of course part of her daydream was how excited he was to be coming home to see her- just as excited as she was to have him back.

When he finally walked in she had usually worked herself into such a state of anticipation that just the sound of the door swinging open made her want to squeal. As always though, she was dead silent. There was no sign of her in the room- no toy gave away her presence, no haphazardly discarded dress laid out to betray the fact that she lived there. She was invisible beneath the blankets, so still and silent that she barely breathed.

It was only when he closed the door and said, "Just me," that she could feel safe to launch herself from the bunk and run to him.

At thirteen Bellamy was gangly and towheaded, but she had no one to compare him to, so he was just her wonderful brother who brought her things and told her stories and made her laugh. At thirteen he sometimes had dark moods and was cultivating a fondness for brooding, but Octavia didn't know about that because he still had enough control of himself to hide it from her.

Always when he came home from school he was ready with a story or a game, wanting to teach her what he'd learned that day, tell her about what had happened in class. She drank it all in, just listening, absorbing, learning from his experiences, living vicariously through him.

Bellamy was nearly double her age then, and probably felt he had very little in common with a seven-year-old girl, but Octavia never felt that she was a chore or even an inconvenience.

"O, you'll never guess what happened at lunch today," he'd say, or, "Did you know that Jupiter has more than sixty moons? I bet you can't guess when the first four were discovered- over five hundred years ago! That was before there were any space stations, or nukes, or even electricity. The moons are called Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, and Io."

Carrying on from there he might say, "Remember Io, Octavia? Zeus turned her into a beautiful white heifer- that's a cow- so his wife wouldn't find out that he was friends with her, since she was jealous. But then Hera figured it out anyway and she asked Zeus to give her the cow as a present, so she could keep an eye on Io and stop her and Zeus from meeting up anymore. Io managed to escape her guard, but eventually Hera sent a fly to sting her over and over until she went crazy! Io had to run away across the sea. But don't worry, O… when she was there she met a man who was much nicer than Zeus ever was, and the two of them lived happily ever after together and had five babies, and none of them ever had to be hidden."

These stories and tangents would carry them well into the evening, and by the time Aurora got home Bellamy would be ready for a nap. Sometimes Octavia would curl up with him and doze until dinner was ready, and other times she stayed up, helping her mother to cook and chatting with her, relaying everything Bellamy had told her as if they were her own stories. After dinner, she and Bellamy would play games together- he'd give her pony rides, or they'd play hide and seek with their meager furniture, or race each other from one wall to the other, collapsing in a heap of exhaustion by the time they were done. Always Aurora had a smile on her face, as though nothing could make her happier than her two children at play.

.

"Octavia," Moira said, touching her shoulder gently to get her attention, pulling her from her reverie. "Breakfast is ready."

"Thanks," Octavia said, standing up. The little girl who had reminded her so much of herself approached her shyly and she handed out a piece of paper, folded carefully in half.

When Octavia opened it, she saw a masterpiece: with careful lines and curves of colour, the girl had constructed an image of Octavia and Moira holding hands, clearly friends, inside the mountain, with the three children and Kota nearby. Octavia knew that was where they were because the girl had drawn it as a huge bubble, filled with rocks and stones and tunnels. All along the surface of the bubble, outside where the land was, there were trees and flowers, blue sky and the sun, bears next to rivers and birds in the sky.

"Thank you," Octavia said sincerely, and the child squealed with pent-up excitement before running away. Octavia looked at the picture for a moment longer, studying it. It was well drawn, carefully thought through, and showed that the child had real promise as an artist. But all that was lost on her because of the distraction of one small detail- all along the surface of the bubble was smooth ground, unbroken and teeming with life. Yet despite all the beauty on the surface, not one tunnel came anywhere close to breaching that frontier.