Hey guys! So the response on the last chapter seemed pretty good? Like, I'm honestly so happy you guys liked it and I'm amazed at how many of you left a review. Thanks to all of you who did. I know I don't get back to you all, but I appreciate every one of you. A couple things to talk about;

1: Someone asked if I'm going to continue with this story. The answer? Of course! I enjoy writing it as much as you all seem to enjoy reading it, so really, it's a win-win for everyone.

2: The symbol: Somebody guessed it right but I'm not gonna say who for two reasons. The first is because it would be a spoiler, kinda. The second is because even if you know the origin of the symbol, you won't know why it's important or why what it represents is important.

3: A guest reviewed and said they were into Mass Effect and asked for my fic rec and, obviously, I couldn't reply to them personally, so here it is: The series, my friend, is called The Chronicles of Samantha Shepard by Desert Sunrise; an author here and on AO3. It's kind of a re-telling of the games but with more Shep and Liara along with badassery and friendship and fun. It's a great series, honestly.

Alrighty then, I do believe that that's everything. On that note, I'd like to once again thank my lovely beta trueloveaddict-ally who, despite being on vacation, is still keeping up with the beta'ing and being generally awesome.

Disclaimer: See chapters 1-3 please and thank you.

Before:

Her orders had been clear. Do not harm the Sky People, let them come to us. Attack if you are attacked and no more. Let us see what they are worth.

...

She knew that voice, why did she know that voice? It wasn't conceivably possible that she could know the voice of a Sky Person. ... There was an overwhelming sense of recognition as she took in the last of the four. A girl with hair like the sun and eyes like the sky around it. She felt like she should know her, like she should know everything about her, and she thought that this was the voice she must have heard earlier.

...

"Clarke." Lexa tried the name and nodded and Clarke's smile could have lit the night. "Hei." Hello.

...

Lexa studied her for a minute before, apparently, deciding she did trust her, and moved forward after taking her knife from her boot. Clarke held her hands out in front of her, a soft smile in place of the blinding one she had had a moment ago. ... "If you make me regret this, I will kill you." Clarke still smiled.

...

He dug a hand into his pocket and pulled out the worn paper.

...

Lexa had watched all of the interactions but her focus was mostly on Clarke and on the paper in Lincoln's hand. What was so important about it that he had looked to the blonde for confirmation and not his Commander?

...

"Heda." Lincoln held out the paper and Lexa took it from him, unfolding it as she looked at Clarke again. When she looked down at the drawing in her hands, her eyes widened and she dropped it, bringing a hand up to cover her mouth.

Now:

"What?" Clarke asked worriedly. "What is it? Do you know it? Le… please, if you know what it is, please, tell me." Clarke moved in front of Lexa who was still looking down at the paper that now rested on the ground and tried to catch her eyes. Thankfully she hadn't heard the slip Clarke had almost made.

"Where did you see this?" Lexa asked, and Clarke could hear the slight waver in her voice. She hadn't answered the question though.

"I see it every night. Where did you see it, how do you know it?" Clarke asked again. She wanted to reach out but she also didn't want to overstep her bounds. Finally, Lexa looked at her and Clarke saw a look in her eye, the same one she had seen earlier; recognition.

"I have seen this before, but it is not my place to tell you where. I do believe, though, that this is why you are so familiar to me." She wasn't fazed by Clarke's proximity but as quick as Lexa's openness had appeared, it was gone and she was stepping back. Lexa cleared her throat and looked at them all. "You are free to stay here. Under my protection, no one will harm you. Any weapons you had when you came can be retrieved when you choose to leave, just come to me and I will get them to you."

With that, Lexa was sweeping out of the building and Clarke was left standing there, baffled. Lincoln looked at her, worried, as Raven bent to pick up the drawing from the ground.

"Clarke?" Lincoln asked, moving forward slightly and putting a hand on her shoulder. Her bafflement quickly turned into a grin and she turned around, looking at her time travelling compatriots.

"She knows what it is." Clarke said. Raven was still looking at the page but, when she looked up and saw the dopey look on Clarke's face, she couldn't help but laugh.

"She won't tell you though, Griffin. Apparently, you've gotta figure that out for yourself." Clarke shrugged and shoved her hands into her pockets. Honestly, she could have whistled a merry tune right there. She was a step closer to finding out why they were here. She wasn't crazy, dreaming of this symbol every night. It had meaning, Lexa had at least given her that much and, even if she didn't know her, something was up and she recognized her.

And she had been close to Lexa.

"Raven, right now, I couldn't care less." Clarke shook her head and looked at Lincoln before looking to Octavia. She remembered then that she had promised to give Octavia an explanation for everything that she'd seen.

"What is this, Clarke? You said you see it every night?" Octavia looked from Clarke to Raven who asked about the odd symbol on a blackened figure. Clarke nodded and shrugged again.

"I honestly have no idea. I figure it has something to do with why we're here." She looked intensely at Octavia and then to Lincoln.

"Do you want to be here while we tell her?" Lincoln thought for a moment before nodding and taking a seat on the ground. Clarke looked at him, her head tilted in question.

"We are going to be here for a while, are we not?"

"Well yeah but… I figured we could get some chairs or something. Did she not just say we were welcome?" Raven folded up the drawing and shoved it into a pocket in her jacket.

"You think the grounders are just gonna give us some chairs? How are you gonna get them to give them up?" Clarke raised an eyebrow.

"With my sparkling personality." Raven rolled her eyes with a smirk and crossed her arms, shifting her weight to one leg.

"Well, I'm waiting."

Ten minutes later they all had chairs in the hut and had gotten their packs back from some of the guards who weren't quite as hostile as others tended to be. Raven was grumbling half-heartedly in her chair about Sky Princesses and their big doe eyes. Clarke was sitting in her chair with a grin and Octavia was just rolling her eyes at the two.

"So do I get to join this club you guys have got going or what?" Octavia asked. Raven could see the fear behind her eyes though, she knew that she was worried Clarke didn't trust her enough to tell her anything.

Clarke's grin softened as she looked at Octavia and leaned forward in her chair.

"There's a lot to tell you, Octavia. And a lot of it is going to sound crazy, but please just bear with me." She gave her a look, pleading with Octavia to trust her and Raven smiled softly. Octavia didn't have to worry about Clarke trusting her but, after this, Clarke might have to worry about the opposite.

"I trust you, Clarke."

"I know, but… Well, you might not feel the same after this story." Octavia looked at Lincoln who sat silently in the little circle.

"You know about this too?" She asked and Lincoln nodded. Clarke felt her heart tighten in her chest as she saw the love that was clear in his eyes when he looked at Octavia.

"We've all – the three of us that is – been through some things that will be hard to understand. I don't know why it's just us, or even if it is just us, but what the Commander said today about this thing that I keep dreaming about? It tells me that there's a bigger picture to all of this." Octavia nodded and Clarke started her story.

She found it hard to believe at first but, when Lincoln and Raven jumped into little random pieces and filled in blanks that Clarke didn't know, she felt herself more inclined to believe it. The more they told her, the more she believed it. She looked at Lincoln with new eyes when she heard that they were together in this future-past and looked at Clarke in understanding when she talked about what had happened to Ton DC.

"I might not have understood then." Octavia said, reaching out to take Clarke's hand. "But I'm not the person that I was then, and I probably didn't know as much of what you've told me. Right now, I can understand why you chose what you did, and you saved my brother. Plus, it hasn't happened here, and you can fix it now, right?" Clarke smiled softly and nodded, squeezing Octavia's hand gently in her own.

They continued on with the story and Lincoln talked about what had happened when Lexa had called her people back from the Mountain, how Indra had given him a choice. He said that he would always choose her, in a thousand lifetimes, because she was home to him. Then and now, even if she didn't feel the same.

Clarke and Raven had to look away at the display that came shortly thereafter.

When Octavia was done showing Lincoln that she did, indeed, feel the same way, she looked at Clarke.

"She took away the bulk of your army to save our people from the Mountain and you still wanted to come and find her, why?" Clarke blushed as one thought ran through her mind but she spoke all of the other reasons she had as well.

"You need to understand Octavia that that night, I was furious. I was furious for the Mountain Men and Emerson for giving her that option, furious at Cage and at Dante for hurting my people, and furious that I felt powerless to stop anything. But I wasn't furious with Lexa choosing the best option for her people.

"It hurt, it hurt so much, but I wasn't angry. I understood. She saved every single one of her own that night and I can't fault her for doing what I was trying to do. If I had been given the option, I would have done the same. The only thing that was different was that Lexa's army was probably ninety-three percent of the army and when that was gone, our people left too. They didn't think we could win.

"You and I though? We stayed. I found you in the tunnels and you yelled at me, telling me that I should have done better than what I had. But we stormed the Mountain and I made decisions that night that I'm not proud of." Octavia looked at her with a sad expression, remembering some of the drawings that she'd seen. Clarke knew what she was thinking about when she saw that look.

"Yeah. What you saw was what happened that night. I killed everyone in that Mountain Octavia. Every man, woman and child, and then I hunted down Cage, not even waiting to see if my people were okay." Clarke shook herself out of her memories. "Anyway, you asked why I wanted to come to Lexa despite what she's done? Well one, like you right now, this Lexa hasn't made those decisions and two, even if she had, after all this time going over her options and what else could have been done, I believe she made the right choice that night." Clarke sat back in her chair.

"It still hurts sometimes but ever since I met her, Octavia… I got to know her far better than any of our people. I got close to her and I got to know a side of her that I don't think many people have seen. She hates making those kinds of decisions but she knows that they're inevitable and she has to make them without the influence of how she feels."

Octavia watched her and saw the faraway look she got in her eyes as Clarke talked about Lexa and smiled teasingly. "You fell in love with her."

Clarke gasped and then choked on the sharp intake of air as Raven started laughing. Even Lincoln looked amused by the statement. Clarke went to deny it but Octavia shook her head and sat back in her chair, arms crossed over her chest.

"Nah, you totally did, no use denying it. People were angry with me being with a grounder and then you go and seduce their leader? Nice. Thanks for the save there, Clarke." Her words were teasing but her tone was sincere. Clarke looked at her and smiled softly, knowing her thanks were for more than just 'taking the heat off of her relationship'.

"Maybe I did. But she was just as in it as I was." Clarke's soft smile remained as she talked about before the Mountain. "She asked me to go to Polis with her, after everything was said and done. I told her I needed time after she kissed me; I was still feeling everything-"

"Hold up." Raven said, suddenly sitting forward. "Okay, even I didn't know that. You didn't mention this like ever, Griffin. You're holding out on us." Clarke blushed realizing what she'd let slip.

"Before you and Wick sent the signal up, after she told me that Octavia was safe from her, she said something to me in her tent and I told her that life should be about more than just surviving." Clarke smiled, looking towards the ground, playing her fingers together. "She kissed me and I was shocked and then I was kissing her back and then I remembered everything that was going on around us and I just… I couldn't. Not then."

"And now?" Lincoln asked with an eyebrow raised. Clarke looked at him and chuckled.

"Now I would give anything to be able to be with her Lincoln but, like you said to me, I can't be the one to make the first move, not with what I know." Clarke shook her head and sighed. Everyone was quiet before Octavia spoke again.

"Do you think we can stop it, stop them?" She asked softly and Clarke looked at her.

"The Mountain Men?" She nodded and Clarke shrugged, shaking her head gently. "I don't know O. I mean, we know how to get in, we know their layout, Raven is a genius-"

"Hell yeah I am." She grinned and Clarke chuckled.

"-and we could probably take them with the support of the grounders. But they would need to be willing, they would need to believe me."

"Us." Lincoln said. Clarke looked at him and he gave her a smile, nodding and crossing his arms. "You've got us, Clarke, and we'll do everything we can to help you." She looked to Octavia and to Raven who were both nodding and she felt tears prickle behind her eyes.

"You're not alone here, Clarke. We'll figure everything out. You told me that. We'll stop the Mountain before they can even take any of us, we'll figure out why we're here, and we'll get you your girl." Clarke let out a watery laugh and looked at her friends. Raven got up and moved to Clarke who stood as well, hugging her closely.

"Yeah Clarke." Octavia said, joining in, wrapping her arms around the two of them. "We're here for you, and we'll get through it all together." Clarke moved one of her arms from around Raven to Octavia and smiled into the hug.

Lincoln just watched the three of them with a smile and Clarke laughed when Octavia called out to him, "get over here you big lug."

She laughed louder when he answered, "what is a lug?" but moved towards the girls anyway, hesitantly putting an arm around Octavia and another around Clarke's shoulders.

They all stood like that for a couple minutes and Clarke took that time to take it in and accept that she wasn't alone in this. Raven and Octavia and Lincoln and even Lexa were on her side. She didn't have to face everything alone, she had friends who would stick by her side. She didn't have to shoulder everything by herself.

Clarke tightened her hold on her friends before letting go and pulling away only slightly. "Who's hungry?" She asked, getting at least a chuckle out of the three of them.

After they took the chairs back to whomever they had belonged to, the four found a little place to sit outside and started sharing their meats. They passed a water bottle around and shared some smaller details with Octavia about their past, a future that wouldn't be the same now.

Clarke told her about how the first day there she'd been bitten by the giant serpent in the water and how Jasper had heroically jumped in to save the day. Octavia smiled and laughed a bit to herself at the thought.

Raven told them all about how she'd slept with Wick and how, even though he was a nice enough guy and protected her, and she cared for him, she didn't think there was a future for them. Clarke had given her a sympathetic smile and reached out for her hand, squeezing it gently. Raven took the gesture and the two of them stayed like that, taking comfort from the other.

Lincoln told them about teaching Octavia Trigedasleng, about how quick she was taking to the language. That sparked Octavia's interest and Clarke smiled, thinking that Octavia would always be Octavia, wanting to learn new things, trying to find a place for herself. Clarke thought she already had, here on the ground. It was a fresh slate, a chance to be someone new, and Octavia soaked it all in like a sponge.

When she had shown interest, Lincoln offered to start teaching her again and Octavia had hugged him something fierce. After that, she sat between his legs while they talked, idly playing with his fingers in her lap as they kept talking. Clarke mentioned knowing something about the language as well and Octavia looked delighted to know that. Raven squeezed her hand and Clarke smiled. She asked her if she wanted to learn as well and Raven said yes.

Before any of them knew it, it was well into the night and Octavia may or may not have been (she totally was) falling asleep against Lincoln who suggested they all get some rest. They all took his advice and settled in there for the night, resting on their packs.

ooOoOoo

She was surrounded completely. Many of the faces she could see but a lot of the faces in the masses were dark. It was those ones that haunted her the most, the ones who she didn't know who they were. She could see the faces of those of the hundred that had died, she could see the faces of some of the Mountain Men. She could see people who had died in Ton DC, but there were faceless warriors and faceless children and faceless innocents that lurked and shoved and taunted.

Was anyone really innocent though? A rational part of her mind supplied, asking her why she continued to hold onto each of their deaths. She knew why she did it, because they were her fault, because it was her fault that they had died. But she hated that she held onto them, hated these nightmares, these demons that wouldn't leave her alone.

"I'm dead because of you."

"You killed me. You took me from my family."

"I had children, now how will they get by?"

"What will my parents be told?"

Clarke curled into a ball, hands on either side of her head trying to keep the voices out. But they weren't coming from around her, not really. They came from inside, echoing in her soul, each death having taken their toll.

"Calm yourself, Clarke Griffin." Clarke looked up, eyes wide, tears making their way down her face. Someone walked through the waves of the dead towards her and Clarke's heart raced faster, beating so hard she thought it might escape.

"No, please, don't hurt me please." She buried her head back into her knees and jumped when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Take a breath." She didn't know why she did, but this voice was different. It wasn't accusing, wasn't menacing like the voices of the dead. Why hadn't she noticed that before? This voice sounded like satin and washed over her like fresh water. "Keep breathing, Clarke."

With every new word the voice spoke, Clarke caught glimpses of an Earth that she had imagined months ago. An Earth that they had been told existed before the bombs. Vast forests and oceans teeming with life. Crystal clear lakes and rivers lacking the serpents that attacked these days. Animals who had no exposure to radiation, beautiful jungle cats and wolves and bears and tortoises and whales and dolphins.

She saw large cities filled with lights, alive with the energy of festivals, children gathered with smiles all around.

"Who are you?" Clarke asked, looking up, tear tracks dried on her face. She noted that her demons had fled, but it was an idle note as she was drawn to the figure in front of her. Every time Clarke blinked she looked different, like her mind couldn't process everything at once.

She heard the woman laugh and Clarke's worries fled, and they wouldn't be back until this woman was no longer here. She couldn't help but notice that the sound was strained with an emotion that Clarke would have fought tooth and nail to rid it of.

"All in due time, dear one. All in due time. Wake now, I'll be back when I can. You are strong Clarke, and you are not alone."

Clarke woke up quietly, a frown on her face. She brought a hand to her chest and took a deep breath. For a moment she remembered the woman but, as the dream faded, so did she from Clarke's mind.

The one thing that remained though was the feeling instilled in Clarke. The feeling of peace accompanied with the same symbol she had been remembering since returning.

Try as she might, Clarke couldn't get back to sleep. So, she got up and went walking around Ton DC. There was less hostility than there had been last time, most likely because Finn hadn't been and slaughtered their people, and Clarke was determined to make sure that never happened again. These people didn't deserve to die.

She walked past a few people still up, grounders who actually nodded to her as she made eye contact with them. She smiled back in the dim light of the moon and returned the action before continuing on.

Clarke was at the edge of the camp soon enough. It only took a second for her to decide to keep going, she had her knife, hopefully that would be all the protection she would need.

Clarke walked through the forest, taking in the scent of the early morning dew and quiet noises of the nature around her, noises that made up for the lack of the hum of electricity. She had traded one white noise for another and Clarke smiled to herself.

She stopped when she caught sight of a figure against a tree, up a small hill. Clarke tilted her head and debated a moment before making her way towards it. The closer she got, the easier it was to identify who it was.

And there we have another installment of Once More. So, how was it? Our resident time travellers have brought Octavia into the fold and Octavia, knowing more of the story than she did before, still trusts and believes in Clarke. Also, who was that in Clarke's dream? I'm sure those who guessed the symbol right will have a good guess as to who it is...

Anyway, I'm sure you all know the drill by now. Please review at your leisure, questions, comments and concerns are welcome.

I'll see you all on Sunday so, until then, have a great week you guys!

Keep the faith

-Bad Wolf

PS: I just finished the 4 episodes there are of life is strange and my feels hurt. I thought I knew what I was signing up for. I thought.

I was wrong.