Octavia

When she started hearing the soft swishing of grass, Octavia knew they were on their way back to the camp. Lia appeared first, materialising out of the meadow as though she was an apparition, followed closely by Echo. It was Bellamy who was making noise, and he was also the one hauling the prisoner behind them.

Octavia jumped to her feet as she saw who was struggling in Bellamy's grip. She could hardly believe it as she looked at Lexa, hands and ankles bound, gagged, eyes livid. Octavia clapped a hand over her mouth and laughed. Her brother shot her a look, but she couldn't stop herself. The sound bordered on maniacal, but she wasn't sure if that was because her voice was still strange from being hanged, or if it was because she had indeed gone a little insane.

Bellamy sat Lexa down on the ground and said, "Don't try anything."

Echo looked worried. "This means war," she said, watching Lexa seethe.

"War has already begun," Lia declared. "She just hasn't known it until now."

To her credit, Lexa didn't degrade herself by attempting to speak through the gag. Her eyes said a lot though, the way she murdered each of them with her gaze. Octavia couldn't help but find it amusing. She hated Lexa, hated everything she'd done- betraying Clarke, calling the retreat that led to Indra abandoning her in the tunnels, forcing her brother to murder everyone in Mount Weather and then live with that burden day in and day out, setting up the circumstances that made Clarke leave. It soothed her to see Lexa knocked off her high horse.

"What are you doing?" Bellamy asked, watching suspiciously as Lia unfolded her leather roll and picked up one of the vials of liquid.

"She will be easier to manage if she sleeps until we reach Polis," Lia explained. Plucking one of the blue darts out of its loop on the roll and dipping it carefully into the liquid, she stood and approached Lexa.

Octavia saw Bellamy's conscience hit him and he said, "Is that going to hurt her?"

Gritting her teeth, Octavia shook her head at her brother. "Don't, Bell, you know what she can do." Her eyes slid to Lexa and she added angrily, "And you know what she deserves."

She felt Bellamy's eyes on her for a moment, felt him continue to hesitate, but he didn't protest further. Lia seized Lexa's wrist, but Lexa fought her, jerking her hand away. Lia's eyes blazed and she pulled out her knife, pressing it to Lexa's throat. A thin line of blood appeared beneath the blade.

"I'd prefer to take you alive," she warned. Lexa bared her teeth, angry, enraged, her eyes darting around, but then she seemed to realise she had no choice but to submit, and so she looked away, gritting her teeth.

Lia slid the dart into the soft flesh between Lexa's second and third finger, and almost immediately Lexa's body went limp and she slumped down onto the ground.

"She can stay that way for a few hours at a time," Lia explained. "We will have to revive her occasionally to keep her alive. She may have some memory loss from the times immediately preceding the placement of the darts."

"Memory loss?" Octavia asked sharply. "Is that why I can't remember what you did to me?"

Lia shrugged. "Evidently." She motioned to Bellamy and told him to put Lexa in the cart, and Octavia watched as he complied. She hated the power Lia seemed to have over him, hated knowing that it was from a misplaced sense of gratitude- that it was because of her.

From beside Octavia, Echo said, "I believe your brother may be going down a path that can only lead to trouble."

Octavia glanced at her, nodding grimly. "Yeah," she said. "But don't worry- I won't let anything happen to him."

After a moment Echo said, "Bellamy cares for you very deeply. I suspect he will continue to act recklessly if he believes you are in danger. You may not have much power over his actions."

Hesitating, Octavia nodded again. "Maybe not," she said. "But Clarke will."

Echo seemed surprised by that statement. "He will listen to her?"

Octavia nodded. "Yeah… I haven't seen him listen to anyone like he listens to her. Not since our mother was alive."

"Then I hope, for his sake, that we find her soon," Echo said. "It's incredible that his pigheadedness has not gotten him killed already."

Octavia didn't know how to respond to that- she had mixed feelings about finding Clarke, and she still hadn't made up her mind whether it would be good or bad for Bellamy to see her again. Still, whether their reunion ended explosively or warmly, she was hopeful that her brother would at least be able to put some of his demons to rest once Clarke was back in their lives.

"We are leaving now," Lia's voice cut through her thoughts. Octavia exchanged a glance with Echo and both women stood up. Lia and Bellamy climbed onto two of the horses.

Octavia went to Bellamy and said, "Here, I'll ride with you," giving him a gentle smile. He nodded his head, reaching down to give her a hand up. Echo mounted the final horse, and Lia started leading them all west.

"Are you okay?" Bellamy asked softly after a few minutes.

Laying her cheek between his shoulder blades, she nodded her head. "Yeah," she said. "My neck hurts though."

She felt his hand slide over hers where it was resting on his stomach, and he squeezed her fingers. "It'll pass."

"I remember how horrible it felt when I walked into the dropship and saw you hanging there," Octavia said softly. "And that was when I knew that Murphy had done that to you. It must have been awful to see me like that… to think I did it."

Again, she felt his hand squeeze hers. "Yeah," he said roughly. "It was." He let out a long breath that shook at the end. "That can't ever happen again."

"I know," she answered, keeping her voice gentle, pulling her face back from him and looking at the tightness of his jaw, visible even from the back. "It won't, Bell. I promise."

He kept his voice low and said, "We just have to get through this last little bit. We have to find Clarke, get away from Lia, and then get home again. If we can stay alive until then, we'll all be okay."

Octavia frowned. She wanted to believe her brother's words, but she couldn't help but feel uncertain. After a moment she asked, "But what about Lexa? Echo's right, this is going to cause a war between the Ice Nation and the coalition."

"Probably," he allowed. "But we don't have to be part of that. Lexa killed our alliance when she backed out of our deal. We don't owe them anything."

"But we live on their land, Bell," she protested. "We might not be able to stay out of it."

"Then maybe we'll have to leave," he said thoughtfully. "I don't know… we'll figure it out once we have Clarke."

She knew that with Clarke, Bellamy found it easier to lead. He heeded her judgment, trusted his own decisions more when she was beside him, and Octavia had watched how hard he'd struggled since Clarke had left Camp Jaha.

"It is two days journey to Polis," Lia called over her shoulder. "Keep up. I'm sure we are all eager to be rid of one another."

"Well that's the understatement of the century," Octavia said dryly. She felt a rumble of laughter travel from Bellamy's chest through to his back and she couldn't help but giggle softly. Then she felt a sudden pang of guilt, for laughing when Lincoln was dead. She felt the pain glow brightly in her chest again, that keening grief feeling, and it almost knocked the wind out of her. She knew that the dead were gone, but Lincoln had been hers, and she didn't know how she would ever get over that pain.

.

The journey passed smoothly, with Lia taking them on a route that avoided all the villages that lay between them and Polis. That seemed even more important now that Lexa was with them, and Octavia knew how dangerous it could be if the wrong person caught them in possession of the commander of the coalition.

Lexa was revived several times throughout the journey as Lia had promised, but only long enough for her to re-establish her breathing, and then she was sedated again. When they camped for the night, Lexa was woken once more, and for the first time, the gag was removed from her mouth.

Octavia filled a cup with water and went to Lexa, holding it to her lips. "Drink," she urged her, not sure if she would or not. But she did, gulping down the entire contents of the cup.

"Let me go, Octavia," Lexa said, keeping her voice low but icy. "This is treason."

"You're not my commander," Octavia snapped. "Indra banished me from Trikru when you took Mount Weather's side."

Lexa bristled at Octavia's choice of words. "I did not take the side of that place," she bit out. "I did what was best for my people- I avoided war and ensured that the prisoners would be released."

"Not all the prisoners though, right?" Octavia snapped. "Not our people."

"No," Lexa answered, clipping her words. Her eyes were dark with anger. "I sacrificed forty-four of your people to save generations of my own. If the Mountain Men had used your bone marrow to cure themselves, they would have had no more reason to capture, torture, and murder my people. It would have ended all of it, Octavia- the abductions, the cages, the harvest… and the Reaper program, whose pain you know firsthand."

Octavia swallowed, cringing as she thought about Lincoln and all the suffering his addiction had caused.

"It was a small price to pay," Lexa added firmly. "And I would do it again."

"No," Octavia said, shaking her head, gritting her teeth. "No, you didn't have to do that. Things were on track- the plan you made with Clarke was working. That door was open- you didn't have to betray us."

"That door wasn't the problem," Lexa growled. "It was what was behind it that forced my hand."

"What are you talking about?" Bellamy asked, drawn by their angry voices.

Lexa glared at him. "The plan was that once we got that door open, my army would pour into Mount Weather from above, to distract the Mountain Men from the prisoners in the cages and the forty-four Sky People. You were meant to free them all, so they could escape the mountain while our army provided that distraction. But when the door opened, my people had already been taken from the harvest chamber. They were standing behind it, with guns pointed at their heads. If I didn't agree to Mount Weather's terms, they would have been slaughtered before anyone had the chance to fight. I did what I did because it was the only choice. I didn't enjoy changing the plan… betraying Clarke… but if I hadn't then all my people inside the mountain, and many in my army, would have died that night."

"And if Clarke and Bellamy hadn't killed the Mountain Men after you left us, then all of our people would have died," Octavia said bitterly.

"You may not believe this, but I'm pleased that they did not," Lexa told her. "The chances of that happening were very low."

"Yeah, you made sure of that," Octavia said, narrowing her eyes.

"O…" Bellamy touched her arm gently. "Stop. What's done is done."

She stared at him, appalled at what she read in his eyes. "You agree with her?" He shook his head, but she could see the hesitation written all over his face. He had told her, weeks ago, about how it had felt to arrive in the harvest chamber and find everyone gone- their sleeping army, disappeared. She knew he was thinking about that now.

Octavia shook her head and glared back at Lexa. She bit out, "You stood by while a bomb dropped on tonDC… you murdered two hundred and fifty innocent people. Another forty-four- especially when they weren't even your people- probably didn't mean much to you after that."

Standing up, Octavia started to turn away, but then she thought about everything- the dead in tonDC, her friends who were drilled inside the mountain, Fox's body tumbling down through the chute while she stood by powerless to help, and the moment Indra walked away from her- on impulse, Octavia whirled back around and spat in Lexa's face. She watched her saliva slip down Lexa's cheek, watched the commander's lip curl in absolute fury, but she couldn't help but smile smugly as Lexa pulled against the restraints around her hands.

Bellamy closed his hand around Octavia's forearm and pulled her away. "Okay," he said gently. When she looked at him she saw the deep concern etched into his face, but he needn't have worried- she felt much better now.

"Enough," Lia snapped before anyone could say anything else. "Sleep now- we continue our journey at first light." She walked over and replaced the gag over Lexa's mouth.

Octavia watched as Bellamy reached out with his sleeve and wiped her saliva from Lexa's cheek, but she wasn't angry at her brother- she knew more than anyone what soft heart he had, and because it was one of the things she loved about him, she couldn't resent it now.

Lia stayed up, obviously wanting to watch the prisoner while everyone else slept. Echo lay down on one side of Bellamy, Octavia on the other, but sleep didn't come easily to her. Even after she heard the other two start to breathe deeply, even after Lexa herself fell asleep, Octavia was still wide awake. She couldn't help but be bothered by Lexa's explanation, which included more detail than Bellamy had ever known to tell her. What had once seemed so neat and tidy, so black and white- a picture of absolute cold-hearted betrayal- was now shot through with smears of gray. This new picture it created was not one that Octavia cared to look at.