Chapter 11
Raven and a few of the others were sitting outside of her tent. There was a ring and a fire. She had a bottle of Monty's latest hooch. Raven took a sip and almost regretted it. Instead, she took another sip and laughed, because "Monty won't miss this batch" was the only thought that she had.
She'd been pouring over maps and going through files. She knew that Clarke had a few things that she wanted Raven to work on. They were mostly things that only Raven could handle.
Wells was gearing up with a team from TonDC to head south to check on a new edition to their bunker hopes. She would send him to see if they could salvage the Greenbrier Hotel Bunker. It had older tech in, but it could be retrofitted quickly from the Ark and other tech that the Grounders had found. It was also closer than Cheyenne Mountain.
Cheyenne Mountain was over a month trek and that was from TonDC or Polis. She knew that Roan and Costia would be leading things there and the complex was huge. They were partnering with the Plains Riders to save horses. They'd need to get to the site soon and start doing what they needed to do to convert it from military operations to life saving. She knew that it had the basics, but to put horses and possibly other forms of animals in there to live and feed was going to be a challenge. She knew however that between her and Sinclair, they could come up with something.
"Hey, Raven," Sinclair called out.
"Hey," she replied.
"We're ready to head out to the Greenbrier in the morning," he told her.
"How many are going?"
"Um, as far as I know, Indra has a group of warriors, traders, and hunters, going with us to keep us supplied as we go. From the maps, I think it will take us around a week to get there. Wells is going with me. He can help. He was studying engineering, too."
"He's not me, though."
"No, he's not, but he's better than Wick," Sinclair teased.
"Anyone is better than Wick, but I'll use everyone that I can."
"I know, and I appreciate what you and Clarke are doing," Sinclair told her.
"Y'all heading over to TonDC to head out?"
"Yeah, we are. We're heading out to meet up with Indra and the squad going with us soon. Abby is sending us with medical supplies to give to Nyko. I can take a message to them if you need me to, if that is something that you need," Sinclair offered.
"Nope, no messages to send. Just wish my lady friends were back already. They need to meet you. But, tell Bellamy to listen to Indra. I know that he's going with you," Raven stated.
"I will. Be good, Rae. We'll be back as soon as we can."
"Take your time, Sinclair. We need that bunker if we can use it. Make sure that we can or if we can use it for storage. Also, don't forget your radios and stay on channel twelve to talk to us, basically me," Raven told him.
"I will."
He nodded at her and left. She looked around again. She'd missed this, and she could only hope that they would have this again, soon. It would only be better if she had Monty, Harper, and the rest sitting there with her. This was where they, the main delinquents, came together to plan. It was something they had done as the Twel before they were really the Twel, too. Like Clarke, Raven needed everyone to do their missions and get home safely. She didn't want to lose anyone either.
Emori and Murphy came over and sat down on a log across the way. Raven tossed him the bottle of hooch and waited for his grimace. It never came. The next people to join her little conference around the fire was Lexa and Madi. Finally, about twenty minutes or longer later, Echo and Octavia came. Raven had tracked them coming out of Medical. Octavia looked tired and Echo looked...relieved after a fashion. Raven knew not to question it. They had their reasons for not telling them everything, but they did divulge enough in the last life to give them the blue prints to survive. Raven was grateful for that.
"Hey, y'all," Raven called out, greeting them.
Murphy passed the bottle of hooch over to Octavia. He must have realized that she needed it. Lexa just smelled it and kept passing. She made sure that Madi didn't get her hands on the bottle. The girl was sitting on the ground between her legs. Raven couldn't help but smile at the sight. Heda was wrapped around her, loosely but protectively. Raven might have known about Madi from Octavia and Echo's stories, but she'd never seen Lexa or Clarke with her as much as she had since the strikheda came to join them, way too early according to her "Mama."
"Madi?" Raven started to ask.
"Sha, striksora," Madi replied.
It was then that Raven realized that she'd been trying to process to much. She was trying to reconcile what she'd learned in her last life with what they were doing now. Having Madi with them now put more things into perspective. But, it also got her wondering.
"What is it, Little Bird?" Lexa asked her as she saw the questions in Raven's dark eyes.
Octavia and Echo were watching her. She knew they were wondering what she thinking. Looking around again, she realized that she missed something. And, it was something huge. Looking back at Madi, she realized what it was. Octavia and Echo gave them the blue prints based on what they knew and what they had lived, but there was more to it. Lexa hadn't gone into the bunker with 1200. She took barely a 1000. More room, less mouths, longer to survive. They knew the tower would fall, they knew it would take longer than five years to get out, and they prepared Lexa for it. They hadn't told Raven everything.
Looking over at her friends, she asked, "So, Clarke will choose me first, but you wouldn't?"
It was an assault. It was a full on attack in Raven's world. They hadn't given her information and she might have suffered because of it.
"No, we had a mission and we knew that certain people had to have certain knowledge," Echo answered. "And, it wasn't Octavia's choice. It was mine."
"What was your choice?" Lexa asked.
"I'll tell them," Murphy answered.
He took a swig of the hooch and passed it, again. Echo looked at him, waiting to see if he was ready. Emori reached over and took his hand in hers. He waited for Echo and Octavia to give him a nod, when they did, he was ready. He sat up a little more. He knew that they wouldn't all necessarily like this story, but it was the truth and it needed to be out in the open. They'd all learned that with Clarke's telling of her life with Echo. They needed to know so they could help each other with the fight for humanity.
"I know Raven that you heard Clarke talking about abusive parents. It was one of the reasons that I listened to what she had to say. No one knew what my dad did for me before he died. No one knew what my mother did to me after he died. No one on the Ark cared about John Murphy until I was in the box. Clarke was the first one to care. She was the first person I believed actually cared...after her father."
"What? Wait, you knew Jake Griffin? Why I am just hearing this now?" Raven demanded.
"It wasn't really a secret. I was good at science, applied sciences, like chemistry. He wanted me to help find way to clean with what we had. He believed that I could do it. He pulled my school records and tried to get me into the engineering programs, but Pike derailed it," Murphy replied.
"Fucking Pike!" Octavia hissed.
"Yeah, well, there's no love lost there. He was more abusive to me than my father. He told me it was tough love because I was going to need it to survive when I got to Earth. I thought he was crazy, but he was right. It didn't matter though. By then, I didn't care if I lived or died. I just wanted power and so, I went looking in the wrong directions for it. Of course, this put me on a collision course with Clarke. She couldn't have that, so she course corrected."
"You mean she made you an offer you couldn't refuse," Octavia quipped.
"Well, when she put me up there with you and Raven, yeah. Do you blame me? She made me practically a general I guess," Murphy stated.
"It is a good position for you, Murphy," Lexa added.
"Yeah, well, Griff saw something in me, I guess. Her being reborn over and over again helped her see completely behind the mask. She immediately made me in charge of feeding us all. Evidently, chemistry proficiency makes me a good cook. Then, there was the little detail that I was remembering things without the blood," Murphy told them.
"Like what?" Lexa questioned.
"I knew what herbs were around the drop ship. I knew how to pull salt from water. I knew how to do things that they didn't teach us on the Ark. Besides weapons, I started fashioning pots, pans, and cooking items. She gave me power, but she kept me under control. She'd talk to me in private and tell me things that I hadn't ever told anyone in my life, but she knew it. And, because she knew it and she wasn't using it against me, I knew that I could trust her. As long as I kept the good food coming and kept a few of the stragglers in line, she's keep me in power."
"And, she did," Echo added.
"She did, but I know that she spoke to the both of you about me, too," Murphy stated.
"Why do you say that?" Octavia asked.
"The way you treated me when no one else was looking after she died. You knew that you still needed me to help with the riffraff, but it was more than that. You checked on me. You made sure that I knew where to find Emori and to bring her to Becca's lab. I knew that if you were telling me I had to do it, so I did. It took me a little longer than I would have liked to convince Emori to come with me, but she did, and we got the blood."
"Can I ask something?" Lexa questioned.
"Shoot," Murphy replied.
"I do not want to shoot you, Murphy. You are a good man and a great randzi. I know that you would have followed Clarke's orders, regardless."
"No, it means, go ahead. It's slang," Murphy started. "Nevermind, Heda, what's your question?"
"What is chemistry?"
"It a tech thing were you blend things together to make something else. Like in cooking, it is blending ingredients to make a dish. For Raven, it is putting certain powders and liquids together to make things go boom. And, for say, Nyko, it is knowing that you have to boil the leaves of a certain plant to make a healing tea, but to chew them would kill you," Murphy answered.
"And, you are good at this. I have tasted your food. It is quite good."
"Mochof, Heda," Murphy replied. "Clarke told me about some of the shit that we had been through together and how she learned about my true past. She kept it to herself and only used it when she needed me on her side. Once she figured out how to do that, we became like siblings. No offense, Blake."
"None taken," Octavia responded.
"Neither of us...well none of us besides Blake had a sibling. Clarke basically told me that she would look out for me the best that she could, if I did what she asked of me. I didn't see the problem in it. It helped me. And, over time, well, I guess two lifetimes, I started to remember and it became easier between us. It hurt when she was killed last time. I didn't know what I was going to do. I hadn't found Emori yet and Clarke had just started to get me to calm down and become, for lack of a better word, grounded. I needed one of them to help me with my temper."
"So, I stepped up," Echo added.
"You did," Murphy stated. "Echo stepped in where Clarke was vacant. She helped me get to the Dead Zone and find Emori. She told me a story that I hadn't heard though. A story about a little girl that was going to survive the Death Wave and be all alone in Eden. I knew that whoever it was, this girl, she was important to Clarke. And, if she was important to Clarke, Echo and Octavia, who told stories about her, then I needed to make sure that she was okay."
"And, you did, Onka Mofi," little Madi replied.
"I did, didn't I, munchkin?"
Madi just nodded. She popped up from where she was sitting between Lexa's legs and went to Murphy and Emori, snuggling in between them. Emori wrapped her in a hug, and Murphy put his arm around them both.
"Echo let it slip that the people might not be too receptive of Emori in the bunker. They'd prepped you to take everyone that you could, but it had to be under the 1200 to make sure that you survived. Echo and Octavia helped Raven, Anya, Luna, and even you too, Lexa prepare the lists of those to save. I know that wasn't easy and I know I was on the list. But, I never showed up before the door closed, and by the time, it did. You had other things to worry about inside. Emori and I rode out the wave in Becca's bunker, like Clarke and like Clarke and Echo together. We knew what we had to do. We had to get to Madi and find machines that would dig you out."
"You used Mt. Weather's big trucks," Raven stated more than asked.
"Yep, sure did. I had a few years to learn to drive them. Thankfully, Echo and Octavia did something drastic to mark the entrance to the trucks, so we could get to them. We went from Becca's to Arcadia. We made some pots for water and gathered anything that we thought would be useful immediately. We had the Rover, thank keryon," Murphy stated. "We got to Eden earlier than expected due to the Rover."
"You took care of Madi?" Octavia questioned.
"Yes, I did. I knew that she needed to protected and I remembered one thing that Pike tried to teach us. I don't remember what it's actually called, but I knew that we couldn't leave Clarke's daughter out there alone until someone, anyone, came to dig y'all out of Polis," Murphy answered.
"This is why I don't remember anything about Emori or her hand from before. I only saw her at Becca's lab for the blood and then never after. I am sorry for what our people did to you, Emori," Lexa stated.
"Thank you, Heda. I knew that me being in the bunker would only be tolerated until something happened. We couldn't take that chance."
"But, I remember training you," Raven stated more than asked.
"Over many lifetimes, yes, it seems that when I got the blood, I got some memories, too. Plus, I learned a lot from you while we were at Becca's. It is how I prepared us to stay there during the Death Wave. You still did train me, but I wasn't in the bunker to help you. I was with Murphy and then also Madi."
"Tell them about the big yellow Rover, Onka Mofi," Madi demanded.
Murphy looked down at her and smiled. He pulled her up into her lap and held her close. Emori scooted closer, too.
"Thanks to the knowledge about the big trucks, we decided to protect Emori, that it would be us to get to Madi and protect her. Echo knew that Lexa, Anya, Luna, and Raven could take care of the masses in the bunker. They were the best minds for it. And, she knew that Clarke's kid would be taken cared of, too. She'd done her job and prepared you all for what was to come," Murphy explained. "I knew from Echo and Octavia were telling me that they weren't going into the bunker. I didn't need to know why. I could understand it, though. So, I made sure that Echo knew that I would get Madi and then dig y'all out."
"And, you did, with the big yellow Rovers," Lexa replied.
"We did. But, it wouldn't have be possible with Raven's know how and Echo and Octavia's instructions. I took the time to learn to drive them and use them properly. We practiced all over, thanks to finding the solar farm. Raven's teachings also had us turn them into solar vehicles. It took a day or two to charge them, but they ran good and did what we needed them to do."
"Why were you so sure that someone needed to be with Madi, though?" Raven asked.
"Pike actually got one thing right in Earth Skills class. It was something that he tried to beat into all our brains, but most of us didn't listen. And, why? Because, it didn't matter on the Ark. We never really thought about the fact that we might come back to Earth. All we knew was the black sky and that space was cold, always cold," Murphy told her.
"And, what was it that he got right?" Octavia inquired.
"The rule of three," Murphy answered.
"And, what is that?" Lexa questioned.
"In survival, you can't be without air for three minutes or you'll die. In bad weather, you can't be without good shelter for three hours, or you'll die. You can go three days without out water, then you'll die. And, you can go three weeks without food before you die. We didn't want Madi to suffer, so we knew that we had to go be there with her and make sure that she lived to see the bunker open and all her Anis."
"I also knew what it meant to be raised away from society. We didn't want that for Madi. She needed the social interaction, so she wouldn't seem..." Emori started in Trig.
"Feral," Murphy finished. "People need people, even if only for a few minutes a day. If she didn't get that, she would have most likely attacked you all when you got out of the bunker. She was a child and she was on her own. She needed someone, so she got us."
"And, I am thankful for that, Murphy," Clarke stated as she walked up to join them.
Madi must have been the only one that saw her coming before she got there. She jumped out of Murphy's lap and ran for Clarke. The blonde scooped her up and spun her around before sitting next to Lexa.
"So, what we talking about tonight?" Clarke asked.
They all looked at each other and then back at the blonde. They weren't sure how much she would want to know. They weren't sure how much they wanted to share. They knew they needed to share with everyone, but this was different. This wasn't the retelling of past lives. This was using what they learned in order to prescribe something for this life.
"What? Did I say something wrong? Is there something on me?" Clarke questioned.
"No, Hodnes, we were talking about the instructions that Echo and Octavia gave us to survive without you in our last life," Lexa answered.
"Ah, anything good?" Clarke inquired.
"Echo and Octavia suggested that I tell the clans who they could send or what professions they had to have in order to enter the bunker."
"That was smart. We should do that again, but only after we figure out what we got. I know that Wells, Bellamy, and Sinclair are heading out in the morning to find an out Presidential Bunker southwest of here. Is there anything else?" Clarke asked.
"Not tonight, Princess. We'll deal with that tomorrow. We've got a lot to do. You've got to deal with the serum. I've got radios and such to build. Octavia has to try harder to look like one of us," Raven stated. "You know, the usual."