#gprp

“Make it stop.”

“I can’t, love.”

“Please,” Octavia whispers, fingers tightening around Niylah’s as a wave of pain rocks through her, “please.”

Clarke is the one who makes the decision to move her, three days later. Octavia’s thigh is webbed with shiny red veins, a fever burning her up even as snow whips around the mouth of their shelter. She’s in and out of consciousness, confused and tired and delirious when she is awake. She’s playing with Niylah’s fingers as Clarke finishes the makeshift stretcher, eyes glazed and unfocused.

“Clarke, are you sure?”

“We can’t just let her die,” Clarke snarls, tying a knot viciously, “and Arkadia is the only place with medicine that can take this.”

Octavia coughs suddenly, her head lolling to the side. Niylah braces her through it, smoothing her hair back. The blood and mucus in Octavia’s lungs are, according to Clarke, signs of a systemic infection. They look like a death sentence to Niylah.

It takes nearly a day to get Octavia back to Arkadia, snow freezing in their hair and eyelashes. It melts where it rests on Octavia’s skin, streaking her flushed cheeks and greasy hair. Octavia twitches and moans beneath the furs covering her, too hot. One limp hand dangles from the edge and Clarke carefully tucks it onto Octavia’s belly.

Octavia’s face twists with discomfort and panic as they approach the gates of Arkadia.

“No,” she moans, trying to wriggle herself off the stretcher as they stop, allowing guards to swarm them. A few look at Clarke with distrust, a few look at Niylah with resentment. Niylah knows about the mountain, and she knows why Clarke and Octavia left Arkadia.

“Yes, I’m Clarke Griffin-No- she needs medical care- Bellamy!”

A man who can only be Octavia’s brother is striding through the gate, shoving through the guards surrounding them, and crushing Clarke into a hug. Clarke clings to him, pushing her face into his shoulder. The guards had forced them to lower Octavia’s stretcher to the snow and when Bellamy breaks from the hug, hand still resting between Clarke’s shoulder blades as she leans into him, his face darkens with fury. He drops to his knees beside his sister, smoothing sweaty hair back from her windburned cheeks.

“Hey, O. Look at me.”

“Not real,” Octavia mumbles, turning her head away from Bellamy’s hand. He goes to pick her up but Clarke stops him.

“Don’t. She fell, slipped on ice and broke the bone in her upper leg. I think it’s infected.”

Bellamy nods, once, and then helps Clarke lift the stretcher up. Octavia’s hand falls over the stretcher, big green eyes begging Niylah to take it.

Niylah is scooping her up, setting her socked feet on the floor.

“M’boots.”

“I have them. Lean on me.”

Her head lolls, back and forth and into Niylah’s neck and shoulder and cheek. It’s slow going and Niylah is tense, her muscles corded where she clutches Octavia to her side. She feels sick.

“Bellamy. Bellamy!”

“I’ve got her. Niylah, we need your help and probably medical supplies. There’s- well, there’s casualties.”

Her brother makes a little nest of blankets in the corner of the main room in the Ark. She can hear thunder and it makes her jump, twitching as Bellamy eases her down.

“Is it-” She fights for a clear head, fog heavy and thick over her brain “black rain?”

“Yeah.”

She forces his face into focus, cupping it with her hand. The IV cannula is still in the back of it and there’s a splatter of blood under the clear bandage covering the entry site. She stares at it, open mouthed and distracted for a second, then blinks up at Bellamy again.

“You ok?”

“I’m fine. But I have to go, O, alright? There’s people out there trapped and I have to get them.”

“No. No, Bell, please no.”

She feels staticy, chest tight, breath shallow. If he leaves, he won’t come back. If he leaves her, Octavia will never see him again. She’s sure of it.

“I’m sorry, O. You’ll be safe here, and I will be back as soon as I can.”

“Let me go with you, let me come, please, Bellamy, please-”

Niylah is there, crowding her, hands pinning her to the floor as her brother kisses her on the forehead and leaves, walking out through the crowded room and towards his death. Octavia screams and fights, howling and sobbing. Her grief mixes with the sounds of the injured and dying, and she can’t help but think how appropriate it is. Those affected by the black rain badly enough are screaming and begging for death, and it echoes around the hall. Octavia’s  wailing sobs for her big brother join in, creating a macabre symphony backed by the rolling thunder outside.

She realizes, just as her screams begin to weaken and exhaustion falls over her, making her slump against Niylah’s strong hands, that she wants to die too.

She waits until it’s dark. The guy with the worst injuries has succumbed to them, and the hall is quiet except for the sounds of snoring and the occasional burst of a nightmare. Octavia stares at the ceiling to prepare for the pain that walking will cause. She needs to get to medbay. She can use what they have there more effectively than her sword.

Plus, if she’s in a part of the Ark where nobody is, nobody will stop her.

Her legs and hips are too weak to hold her weight, so Octavia crawls. She drags herself through masses of people, down the halls, and into medbay, where she manages to stand up and use the wall and the cots to brace herself as she staggers towards the supply cabinet. Pills don’t sound appealing. Neither does hanging. Octavia Blake is a warrior, and she’s going to go out like one, blood spilt, death earned through pain. Her back throbs as she stumbles, tugging open a drawer and pulling out a wicked looking scalpel.

She swallows. Her chest burns with anticipation and a little bit of fear, but she’s here now. She’s committed. She thinks back to Jasper and his haunted, empty eyes and how they mirror her own. The world is ending. They’re all going to die anyways. Her brother probably already has, out there in the acid rain.

Octavia puts the knife to her wrist, and she cuts.

She goes downwards, remembering the scars on Raven’s wrists. The blood is thick and hot and it comes in spurts, fast enough that she’s dizzy within seconds. Her heart beats like a startled rabbit.  Her hips go weak, her knees buckle, and she’s on the floor.

It doesn’t even hurt. She watches the blood pulse out over the floor, soaking into her clothes. The scalpel falls from her bloody fingers. She closes her eyes. She’s at peace with her decision. She’ll get to see Lincoln again. She hopes Niylah will burn her body like Trikru does, wonders if anyone will tell Indra.

“OCTAVIA.”

It’s Niylah, hand over her mouth in terror. Octavia smiles up at her dizzily, uncaring, blood seeping into her hair.

“Oh no, oh god, Octavia oh what have you done?”

There’s pressure on her wrist and she thrashes, exhausted, so tired, please, she just wants to die, wants to GO, but Niylah won’t let her.

“KANE! KANE QUICK!”

Niylah strokes her cheek with one hand and maintains pressure with the other, Octavia half in her lap. Niylah is sobbing, begging her to stay awake.

“Please, sweetheart, oh god, please. Stay awake.”

Kane is there, scooping her up, laying her on a cot, running around as Niylah shouts orders. There’s something injected into her IV cannula. She’s too weak to fight, too empty. She doesn’t think they’ll be able to save her. The cloth around her wrist is dripping blood already.

As Niylah begins to clean the wound, Octavia blacks out.

She sleeps heavily, drifting in and out through pain and peace like clear water. Her brother is there when she wakes up sometimes, to stroke her hair back and coax ice chips down her raw throat. He looks tired, afraid, old. Bellamy looks older than 24 when he looks down at her, in a hospital bed, wrapped in blankets. She can’t quite remember exactly, but she knows she did something bad, something wrong. It makes her queasy to think about so she doesn’t, just goes back to sleep when it starts to creep up on her.

When her brother isn’t there, Niylah is. She looks at Octavia like she’s made of shards of glass, fragile but dangerous. Niylah talks to her, works her through her physical therapy when she’s conscious enough to at least squeeze and flex when she’s told. She can’t move her left arm. It’s a minor annoyance instead of a complete and total nightmare. Niylah is warm and comforting, pressed to her side. She holds her, half in her lap, and reads to her quietly. Octavia feels safe, if a little broken. Niylah is safe.

She knows in the back of her head that she’s being sedated, that this warm, fuzzy sleep isn’t natural. She watches with heavy eyes as Niylah injects something into her IV before hooking her up to more fluids.

“Whazzat?”

“Hmm?”

She points, wordlessly, to the empty syringe in Niylah’s hand. Niylah smiles, sets it down to be discarded, and climbs in the bed with Octavia. A spoon meets her lips. Applesauce.

“Needle.”

“It’s something to keep you calm until you’re well. You hurt yourself pretty badly.”

No shit, Octavia wants to say, she fell off a cliff into a river and then got blown up. But the back part of her brain that knows she did something wrong whispers in her ear that Niylah is talking about the nobadwrong thing she did. Octavia chews her lip in between bites of applesauce. The blood mixes with the metallic tang of pureed fruit. She remembers there being lots of blood.

“Niylah.”

“Yes?”

“I tried to kill myself.”

Niylah’s hand comes to rest on her sternum, just over her heart, as if she’s reminding herself that Octavia didn’t succeed. Octavia just feels hollow. She tried. She failed. There’s nothing more to say about it.

“Yes. I found you.”

“You saved me.”

“Yes.”

Octavia buries her head in the crook of Niylah’s neck, inhaling against her skin. Niylah always smells like the forest, even here, under the acrid scent of blood and isopropyl alcohol. The drug is taking her under again.

“Thank you.”

The next time Octavia wakes up, there are voices near her, talking quietly. Voices she recognizes, but voices that aren’t Niylah, her brother, or Kane. Her eyes are sticky with sleep and it takes her a few tries to blink, bringing the world into some sort of focus.

“There she is. Welcome back, Pocahontas.”

Raven Reyes is grinning down at her like the Cheshire Cat, her hand squeezing Octavia’s shoulder.

“When did-” she coughs, clearing her dry throat. Niylah (thank God Niylah is still here, Octavia’s heart pounds out. She ignores it) puts a straw in her mouth.

“Drink. Slowly.”

“When did you come back?”

“While you were getting your beauty sleep, apparently. No offense, little Blake, but you don’t look so hot.”

“I got thrown off a cliff and stabbed, what’s your excuse?”

She opens her mouth for the straw again, grinning around the plastic at Raven.

“She refuses to sleep, that’s what.”

She knows that voice. Her head whips to the side.

“Luna?”

A soft, warm palm cups her cheek. Octavia smells salt and oil and sweat. She looks up, meeting Luna’s deep eyes. They glimmer like still pools of water and Octavia wants to sleep, suddenly. She fights it.

“Hello, Okteivia.”

She struggles to sit up, whimpering when her stab wound and her back both pulse with blistering pain. Raven scrambles to lift the head of the bed for her, and Niylah braces her until she can flop down against the pillows with a huff of breath and a grimace. There are still fluids being pumped into her. Her head feels light.

“It’s good to see you. Both of you.”

“I’m just glad you’re not dead. You’re more fun to harass than your brother.”

Octavia rolls her eyes, legs twitching. She wants to pull them up and cross them, press her feet together. She hates the position the brace for her pelvis forces her into. Niylah gives her a look.

“Come on, Niylah. Please?”

“Absolutely not. You pulled stitches out with your little stunt, crawling all the way here from the hall, and you’ve extended your healing time. I can’t-”

Niylah stands up, so fast the chair topples over, and then walks rapidly from the room. Octavia tries to fight the tears that are building in her throat, but a choked, whimpering animal sound escapes and then her cheeks are wet.

“Reivon, why don’t you go see to Niylah? I’m sure she could use some support. Okteivia and I will stay here and calm down.”

She can’t. Not without Niylah, not with Niylah so angry at her. Her chest hitches. She reaches for her bandaged wrist, pressing her fingers into the would frantically, needing some sort of sensation to distract her from the emotional tidal wave she’s been caught in.

“No, no. Hey.”

Lunah holds her hands gently with one hand and turns Octavia’s face towards her with the other, holding her by the chin.

“Please, let go, please-”

“Niylah told us what happened. I’m so sorry, Okteivia.”

“No, please, let me go, Luna please I’m begging you please-”

And then Luna is on the bed with her, wrapping her arms around her and tugging so they’re back to chest. Octavia screeches and fights, desperate to feel something, anything, to feel the pain she caused Niylah when she- when she-

“Shhh, Okteivia. I need you to breathe, sweet one. Can you repeat after me?”

She fights, but she’s so weak from inactivity and blood loss and sedatives and Luna has her in a tight hold. She wails, throwing her head back, trying to hit it against Luna’s shoulder or face, but it just lands on her shoulder.

“Repeat after me, Okteivia. Shhhh. Ai giv ai op- say it, love.”

“A-Ai g-g-g-iv ai o-o-o-p”

“Gon nemiyon-”

“G-Gon Ne- please, Luna, please-”

“Gon nemiyon… come on, Okteivia. I know you can do it.”

“Go-Gon Nemi-y-yon”

“Kom Lanik-De. Last part, alright? You can do it.”

“K-Kom Lanik-D-De-”

Luna repeats it, over and over, cooing to her as she sobs and thrashes. When the fight finally leaves her, bleeding her dry and leaving her hollow, empty, soaked in salt, Luna helps her drink and lays her down, sitting in the chair by her bedside. It’s getting dark out. A storm, or a sunset, Octavia can’t tell. Luna begins to brush her hands through Octavia’s hair.

“Tomorrow, we’ll braid it, hmm? It’s a snarled mess, down like this. We can wash it, and I’ll do it for you however you like. Keep the tangles out while you’re stuck in this bed. And we can talk. All of us. Clarke is anxious to see you awake.”

“I-I-”