Chapter 7

Clarke and Madi were in the galley. They had been looking over the dead captain's notes and finally found the codes to use the video comm. It was different than the comm and recording messages that Monty had left them. Clarke had been working with Raven on the systems. They wanted to make sure that they were ready for what ever the person on the other end of the comm had to say.

Raven came in and looked at them. She sat down across from Clarke, but next to Madi. She regarded them both. The engineer wasn't sure who was actually in charge for once and she was actually okay with it.

"I got it working. Channel 100 is up and running. There is nothing there. But, I left the connection open. When and if the grounder or whatever they are logs in, it will let us know."

"Good," Clarke said as she sipped her algae soup.

"I'll be so glad to be on the ground soon and have some real meat," Raven said as she leaned back in her chair.

"We don't know if they are going to let us land there, Raven and she mentioned something about a harsh winter. We might have to wait. I know that no one wants to hear that, but it is also the reason that we haven't woken everyone. We need to be smart about this. I am not going to land in dangerous area so we die on a new planet. We've survived worse and we will continue."

"From the ashes, we rise," Raven stated.

"Exactly," Clarke replied.

"Am I training with Echo again?"

"If you want. If not, you can go speak with Skairipa. But, keep close to the command center. I want you there when we talk to them."

"You wish it was Lexa," Madi said, with no malice in her voice, as she stood. "I know how well she could read people. I will try to commune with her. I'll go seek Skairipa and talk. Call for me when you are ready, Clarke."

Clarke simply nodded and watched her go. There was so much of Lexa in the girl she'd raised that she wasn't even sure that she could call her daughter anymore. She'd been the only adult in Madi's life for six years on the ground. They'd hunted together. They lived together. They survived together and they mourned together. This new version of Madi was different but the same at the same time.

"She isn't as powerful yet as heda, but she's getting there," Raven stated.

Clarke looked over at her friend and nodded. She honestly didn't know what else to say. She could only look at Madi as Abby looked at her, amazed at what she had become. She wasn't a child and she wasn't an adult, but she was a figure head and a leader of the people.

"She is."

"Want to talk about it?" Raven asked her.

"Talk about what?"

"The fact that your mini-me is really yours and Lexa's mini-me."

She shook her head. She didn't want to think about it. She knew. She knew that Madi knew. It was enough. She loved Lexa. She loves Madi. Beyond that, she wasn't really ready to face yet. She was more worried about getting her people to the ground on this new planet and surviving. Life was more important at the moment.

"So, why the face to face chat, you think?"

"I believe they are worried who we are and what we want. If I was in their situation, I would be cautious, too. We have to understand that they have lived here for hundreds of years without contact from Earth. We are the first to come here since they came to colonize. It must be exciting and scary for them...like it is for us."

"We've found Earth 2," Raven quipped.

"Exactly. We've found life on a planet that was sent to live here before the bombs. They know nothing of what happened. They've lived here, doing their own things, and preparing for more to come. I am sure at one point they figured that no one else would come and stopped worrying about it."

"And, then we show up," Raven added.

"What would you do?"

"I don't know."

"Sure you do. As a leader, you have your people to worry about, protect and make sure that they survive. What do you do?" Clarke asked her.

"I make sure that we are safe. I make sure that we are going to be safe. I want to know everything that I can about the other parties involved and I want to believe that we are going to be able to survive on this planet. I know things aren't going to be easy because we know nothing about this world, but it can't be that hard. It can't be that much different from Earth, right?"

"I don't know, Raven. All we can do is hope. All we can do is continue to survive," Clarke answered.

"You've never given hope," Raven replied.

"Oh, I have...several times. But, somehow we made it out to survive another day. No matter how many times I've given up, I survive. Hope was a luxury I didn't have for weeks after primfraya. I was ready to die."

"But, you didn't die," Raven said and hoped that the underlining question would be answered.

"No, I didn't, but it wasn't because I didn't try. By the time that I finally found Madi and that patch of green, I realized that the Earth was mostly dead. I'd crossed ocean beds that were deserts. I'd been sliced by glass and sand storms. I'd lost you to space. I'd lost my mom to the bunker."

"But, we were still alive," Raven countered.

"I couldn't communicate with you. I couldn't get in the bunker. I was alone on the surface or so I thought. I'd lost the panels on the Rover. I was out there with only what I'd managed to scavange with no way to get more. I was surround by nothing by irradiated sand. Then, as I lay dehydrated and dying in the desert, a buzzard woke me as it picked at wound in my leg. If it wasn't for that buzzard, I would have died that day."

"So, a bird saved you?" Raven asked with a cocky grin.

"It would seem so," Clarke answered with a small smile before continuing. "After that, I found Shallow Valley. A few days later, I found a young and very feral Madi. She tried to kill me that day and she had the right. I was trespassing. It was her village."

"She tried to kill you?"

"Led me into a bear trap. Tore my leg up good, but I managed to get back to the village and stitch it up. I realized that I was going to have to make her trust me. She thought that I was there to take her because she was a natblida. She didn't know that the reason everyone was dead was because of primfraya. I didn't know that she didn't know English. It took a while, but we both taught each other."

"And, you saved each other?"

"Yes, she gave me a reason to live. We helped each other. She gave me hope."

"Kids are amazing that way," Raven stated.

"They are."

Octavia came onto the bridge. She took a station looking over the typographical maps that they'd made from their scans. She looked over at Raven and Clarke, smiled, and went back to the maps. Clarke knew that she was looking for possible ambush sites and to see if she could find any defenses.

"Hey, O!" Raven called over to her.

She smiled up at Raven. They had started talking late one night. She liked the fact Raven didn't sugar coat things. She used her sarcasm and random wit to defuse situations. And, Raven didn't look at her like she was a killer. She only saw the girl that did what she had to survive. And, maybe that was what Octavia needed to survive now. She needed to know that someone from the originals on the ground, even though Raven was late to the game, still believed in her.

"Raven," she replied back.

"Go ahead," Clarke said quietly and Raven jumped up to go to Octavia.

"How's the little queen?" Raven asked her as she plopped down in a seat on the other side of where Octavia was working.

"Good."

"O?"

"She's amazing. She moves so flawlessly. I know that it is because she is heda, but there is more to it. The way she moves is Trikru and I can see Lexa in it, but then she pulls something that is Sankru. I know that she other commanders in her head, but she blends all the styles together so seamlessly."

"You're proud of her?"

"Yes," Octavia replied.

"Have you told Clarke?" Raven inquired.

"We don't talk much."

"Then try harder."

"Why?" Octavia asked as she looked up into Raven dark eyes.

What she saw there, she couldn't quite place. There was always a quiet way about Raven that seemed to make them push themselves, but this was something deeper. It was like Raven knew something that she didn't. She turned and looked at Clarke, who was still pouring over papers and radio logs, and then looked back up at Raven. Raven just smiled.

"Just try," Raven said before standing up. "I'm going to check on the little queen."

Clarke and Octavia's eyes met as they watched Raven leave. She grabbed the maps and moved over to the station with Clarke. She sat the maps down and waited for Clarke to look up at her. She knew that if she could get back some sort of relationship with Clarke that Bellamy would follow.

After a few minutes, Clarke's blue eyes looked up from the logs and over at her. There was a sadness there that Octavia understood. She used to see the same look in her own eyes back in the bunker. They were in a tin can floating above a viable planet and no idea what they were actually going to get into down there.

Before Octavia could say anything, Clarke told her, "I want you to go down with me."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I want you to go with me when we go down to the planet," Clarke told her again.

Octavia blinked. She wasn't sure that she'd hurt Clarke right. She couldn't have. Clarke was still mad at her, wasn't she? She got it though. She had tried to kill Madi and actually turn her against Clarke, too.

"O?"

"Did you really just say that?"

"Yes, I did."

"Why?" Octavia asked her.

Clarke actually smiled at her. Green eyes questioned her. Clarke sat down her markers and sat back in her chair to get the full effect about what she was about to say and do. She wanted to make sure that Octavia understood and took everything in fully. They had to work together. They had to function as a unit. They were all Wonkru now and they needed a united front when they met with whoever it was at the other end of the radio down on the planet.

"I need a second," Clarke told her.

"What?"

"I need a second, Octavia."

"For what?"

"To support me."

Octavia looked at her like she had three heads. She blinked at her for a few minutes. She knew that ever since she become the blodreina that Clarke looked at her differently. It was Madi that made her feel more like she should and more like she had when she was Skairipa. This was something that she never saw coming.

"I need you to support me."

"In what?"

"What we are about to do?"

"What about Madi?"

"She listens to me, and she knows that I support her. But, she also knows that I am not going to let her rule on her own. Hell, we both know towards the end that Lexa was listening to me as council. I need to know that you have my back, because I know you already have hers."

"I'll have your back," Octavia quietly answered as she nodded along with Clarke's words.

"Good, because I need your help. I want to talk to you about what we are going to discuss with these new grounders. I don't want to fuck this up. I need to know that you will support my decisions. And, when we decide to go down, I want you by my side."

"By your side?"

"I want you to be my second. I want you to be my guard like Echo is Madi's. Can you handle that?"