Chapter 45

Echo reached over and grabbed Clarke's shoulder. She knew that the rest of the story was going to be too hard for Clarke to get through. It was going to be hard for her as well, but it was brutal for Clarke. She leaned forward but looked over at Octavia. She'd warned Octavia about the tales that were to come, but she wasn't sure that the youngest, besides Madi, would understand it. Octavia cocked her head at them and then her eyes went wide. She remembered the part of the story that Echo told her that broke even her heart. Her eyes flicked from Echo to Clarke. She then reached over and put her hand out for Clarke.

"Clarke, you've told us enough. Go to Madi. Stay with her. Let Echo finish the tale."

Clarke looked at Octavia. It was in that moment that she realized that her best friend and claimed sister knew what happened at the end of that life. She saw the love and understanding in her green eyes. She gave Octavia a slight nod. She reached for her cup and realized that it was water. She handed it to Echo. The spy took it and realized that Clarke was asking for the sleeping draught. Echo took the cup and went over to the tea station to brew it quickly.

No one else spoke. They all just watched as Clarke turned inward. Her eyes were scanning the rest of those in the building with them.

Finally after a while, Echo came back with the tea. She took the cup and drank it slowly. When she was done, she sat it down. She looked at Lexa and then at Echo. She realized that Lexa was asking her to back away. She knew that Lexa could tell that she was hurting, that she would be hurting, and that she didn't necessarily want to finish the story. She knew that it was something that might help them all understand how Clarke started making the decisions on who she would bring to her and possibly be one of the Twel kom Wanheda.

"Clarke, go to our daughter and be with her. Let Ash give us the rest of the truth. Do not let it hurt you this much. Let us bear it, too."

"Only if you tell them about how you used Polar Bears as training aids for Madi to learn on,"Clarke replied.

"As you command, Wanheda," Echo stated with a small smile.

"You fought Polar Bears? Seriously, Clarke? Fucking Polar Bears?" Octavia asked, remembering the beasts from the ice pits in one of their many shared lives.

The blonde smiled as she stood up. She place a hand on both Octavia and Echo's shoulders. Lexa got up with her to escort her to the cot near the stove and Madi. She would grab another cot and put it beside the girl's for Clarke to lay on.

"Azklodon (Polar Bears) were something that Nia liked to use in the pits..." Echo started as she took over the tale.

She watched as Lexa got Clarke settled next to Madi. She knew that Lexa knew enough about what had happened in their life together by the bits and pieces that Echo had exposed over the years. It was nothing all together, and it is was never about their time in the lab. Echo had kept her promise never to tell about those. So, now that she had permission to tell it, she was going to give them more than she ever had before. But, she knew that she had to wait for Lexa to come back to them. It would do them all no good if Lexa didn't know.

And, the more she thought about it, the more she realized that they should have waited for Abby to be there, too. Clarke hadn't wanted to wait, and Echo knew that there were some things that Abby didn't need to know about her daughter. If Clarke wanted Abby to know, she'd tell her. Or, maybe Raven or Octavia would, but she knew that it would it only be because they loved her and wanted Abby to help her heal.

Lexa came back over and sat back in her chair. No one commented on the empty seat. It was just turned a little and Echo used it to prop up on a little. She reached forward and took a sip of the alcohol left in Clarke's old cup. She drained it, set it back down on the table, and then turned very conspicuously to face Octavia head on. It was then that the younger woman realized that Echo was going to use her as a focal point as she finished the tale of that life.

It was then that Lexa did something that no one but maybe Luna, Anya or Echo would have expected for her to do. She placed a hand on Echo's left shoulder. It was a silent statement that she was there for her, too. She would "guard" Echo's left side and make sure that she was protected while she lost herself in the telling of the tale. Echo then did something in return that was surprising to most of the crew there. She reached up and held Lexa's hand for a moment. After a gentle squeeze, Echo returned her hand to the table and her eyes were still locked on Octavia's green.

"Polar bears were the least of her worries, but yes, she fought them in the pits. But, it wasn't the only place that she fought them. We ran into a few on the Ice Floes north of Lake Hu. She was still processing us leaving Troi so quickly, so it doesn't surprise me that she doesn't speak about it. She had other things on her mind," Echo told them all. "But, when Clarke wants to, she is a very formidable hunter. She is an awesome warrior, a determined peacemaker, a surprising politician, and a damn good fisa. But, put a bow in her hand and send her after a bear….. It is just something that you would have to see to believe. She took to it quickly, and I'm sure that she used her fisa knowledge to help. No animal she ever hunted and killed suffered. She made sure of it."

"I can see that," Octavia replied.

"We'd been in Eden for…around two years, I believe, when she finally let me start training Madi. She'd told me about Diyoza and the prisoners coming in other lives, but it wasn't always a given. I wanted Madi to be prepared. I wanted her to be able to survive, too. As much as Madi wasn't my child, she was. She reminded me of myself. She was an orphan that was thrust into a life she wasn't prepared for, so I made it my job to train her," Echo explained. "I knew that she could fish and set traps, but I wanted her to know to hunt, fix her weapons, skin the animals and such. She could start a fire. She knew how to patch her clothes. She knew not to use wet wood. She barely knew how to swim, but that was an easy fix. Clarke didn't know how to at all, so I worked with them both. It was a necessary skill for her to have there in Eden.

"I would take her out on patrols with me through the forests and woods. I taught her to move silently, to stalk her prey, and how to track things. She had a good understanding, and I knew that her parents had taught her what they could before they made her go into hiding. She couldn't be a normal child, even by kru standards. Her blood limited her so much, so Clarke was intent on giving her everything.

"When she finally let me train her, I was surprised at the skill she already possessed. I am not sure if her parents taught her, Keyron blessed her, or it was just her blood. None of that mattered though. She was good with a sword for someone that was as tall as it was," Echo stated with a smile on her face.

She laughed and looked deeper into Octavia's eyes. She knew that behind the façade of those hardened green eyes, Octavia could sympathize and understand Madi better than most. Echo could as well.

"I knew that she needed a target, so I gathered one of the Azkloden pelts that we had and used it to make her a training dummy. There weren't in kloden in the woods there, but it wouldn't hurt for her to prepared to fight something that large. We told her many times that if she ran across a kloden to hide from it or back away slowly. She didn't need to engage it. But, she was Clarke's kid."

"What does that mean?" Luna question as she was intrigued by this story.

"She went head first at it without thinking," Murphy supplied with a grin. "How that blonde survived half the shit she has is a miracle in and of itself. There is a reason that everyone calls us the 'Cockroaches.' We survive things that no one else would or should. It is one of the reasons that we understand each other. We get it, the life/death thing, as is evident by the fact that I was still willing to help her in life when I didn't know what was really going on. I know that it bothered her that Emori and I left the island. I'm sure she would have given me the natjus then, but we were already gone."

"You're right, she would have," Echo replied. "I know that she missed you. She didn't talk about it much, but I could tell how much it hurt when you left. But, just like every other life that I've had the pleasure of sharing with her, she's learned to take the good with the bad. She went head first into everything like she always does. Murphy is right about that. Clarke doesn't back down. She sees a problem, she finds a solution, and she executes. There is no turning back once she's locked in on something. So, teaching Madi was no different. She wanted her to prepared, but it was more for safety. I understood and agreed. I knew that I had to develop something that Madi could fight against and it wouldn't hurt her."

"So, you used the Azkloden pelts?" Lexa asked.

"Sha, I did. I built some targets for her to attack. I made sure that I had some stuffed with more than leaves and whatever else. I wanted to be more realistic for her to learn against. For the most part, I taught her how fire a bow and hit her targets. I taught her how to fight."

Echo laughed. She thought about the days that she spent with Madi working on her bow work. She couldn't help but smile.

"That kid is amazing with a spear, but skrish when it comes to firing a bow. We tried and tried. It just wasn't for her. Knife work and sword work, though, she excelled at. Those were also things that Clarke didn't want me to work on with her. She wanted to focus on things that she would need to hunt, survive, not fight. Madi could already spear fish, so I used that to work on other things.

"But, with no other humans and no threats of war to come, I was hard pressed to make Madi learn to fight. Instead, I taught her other things. And, she taught us about the things in the valley. We helped each other survive. It had been a necessary partnership between us all, but in the end, I couldn't help but love the girl, too. I knew that Madi was always going to have a hard life. There was no way around that, and it wasn't her fault. She was born a Night Blood, and she was going to be the last one ever.

"I didn't want to admit it, but it hurt. I wanted Madi to have a full life like Clarke did, but it just wasn't going to happen for her. It couldn't. We were the last three people alive. There was no one else and it hurt to know that Madi was eventually going to be alone. There was going to be so much that she was going to miss out on, but we couldn't help that. We could only give her what we could and hope that it was enough. We could only love her as much as a parent or a relative could.

"But, I wanted to make sure that she was prepared for anything, so I trained her sometimes without Clarke's permission. I would take her out in the woods under the guise of hunting and then we would spar and talk. It was some of these times that I taught her about surviving in icy conditions and such. I didn't know if she was going to remember it all or not. Clarke never thought that she would recycle, but I decided that I had to put every bit of knowledge that I could into that kid. She might not have been mine by blood, but she was damn closest I was ever going to get," Echo told them. "I felt responsible for her."

"I can see that," Octavia stated.

"I knew that you would, but I did what any parent would do. I protected her. I prepared her. I fought for her."

"Fought for her?" Lexa questioned.

"Don't think that Clarke is an easy woman to live with just because you love her. If anything, it makes it worse," Echo started, paused, cocked an eyebrow at Octavia and then turned to face Lexa a little more before continuing. "She likes to do things her way. She's like her mother in that sense. She rationalizes it all in her head and plans things out. When plans fall through, things get wild."

"Don't I know it," Octavia added, and then both shared a laugh.

"But, it wasn't enough. It was never going to be enough. And, I think I knew that, somehow. It doesn't make sense, but it is true. I tried to give her everything, but I knew…"

"Echo," Octavia stated as she reached across the table and took her hand in her own.

"We were happy as we could be. There was no war, no famine, no big problems for us to face. It was ideal, but it was just the three of us. I should have known that it wouldn't last. How could it? We got too comfortable, if that was even possible.

"Clarke and I explored our relationship together. We knew that it was because we were the last adults. We needed the contact, but there was love there. It wasn't as great as her love with Lexa and I knew it would never be. But, we were happy together. We would do things together. Madi adored it. She'd laugh at me as I made things for Clarke, too. I'd become very soft in those later years, but I never forgot my devotion to Wanheda. I hoped, that when I died, I would recycle for Clarke's sake. I wanted to help her, even if I couldn't be with her. I wanted to be one of the Twel by this point and I was willing to sacrifice myself to do it.

"Turns out that I couldn't stop her pain," Echo told them.

"What happened?" Raven questioned as she reached over for Luna's hand.

Octavia got up. She moved closer to Echo and took Clarke's seat. She knew that the next words were going to shock everyone else, but it was going to unnerve Echo so completely, that she might break. Lexa watched them. She envied them, too, but she couldn't deny the connection between the three of them. No one could. She knew that with Octavia's actions, the next part of the story wasn't just going to be brutal for the former spy. It was going to be gut and heart-wrenching.

"Do not be afraid, Ash kom Wanheda. I'm here with you. Madi and Clarke are here with us. We are still safe. This is a new life. Stay strong, Ai Gona, and tell them what happened," Octavia urged her in Azgedan. "Look in to my eyes and see my life. See the love I still bear for you. Feel it. Let the past go, but do not forget it. Use it to help us prepare for better tomorrow, like Wanheda needs us to."

"Sha, Ou, I will."

Echo reached for the cup that Octavia prepared for her. She drank it, surprised that it was water and not more of Indra's hooch. She was glad that Octavia was looking out for her. She knew that the younger warrior took care of them when they couldn't take care of themselves. Octavia had proven herself to Echo many times without her knowing it. Echo would stand for her, just as Octavia would stand for Echo, and they would both stand for Clarke, following her into the depths of Hell, if needed.

"It was nearing year six. Clarke was starting to worry about Diyoza coming, but I wasn't. I didn't believe that more people would come from the sky, especial criminals from before the bombs. Even I knew that people couldn't live that long, but I didn't know the tech. It didn't matter though.

"Madi was nearing twelve. It was a few days before Clarke wanted to celebrate Madi's birthday. We didn't really know when it was, but Clarke had devised a calendar and was following it. For the most part it was helpful, but that was only because Praimfaya completely altered the seasons. Without her notes and calendar, we might miss our harvesting times. Not really, though, Madi seemed to know before Clarke did. That girl could look at the trees and tell me when to harvest our fruits, nuts, and other crops. She had it down.

"Clarke and I had been sleeping in that week. We'd stay up late working on gifts for Madi. I was making her a new spear and a bow. She was still skrish with it, but she needed one more for her size. She'd sprung up over the last few months. Clarke was working on some new clothes for her. They were a mixed design of Azgeda, Skaikru, and Trikru. We'd just finished breakfast when we went looking for Madi. She should have either been at the lake, in the garden, or just in the village."

"She wasn't?" Octavia pushed when Echo choked on her words.

"No, she wasn't. She was in the woods, hunting something, but…"

"What?" Luna inquired as she reached for the spy, to comfort her.

"Clarke found her. She was dead. We don't know exactly what happened. We couldn't figure it out. But, somehow she'd fallen down a small hill and into some bear traps. There had been no scream for us to hear. Clarke wasn't sure if she broke her neck and dead instantly or if she bled out because she was too injured to call for us or move. Either way, it didn't matter. Clarke's daughter was dead, and we were alone with nothing but our grief…"