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The Preserve, Monday Early Evening

Octavia should've gone back to Arkadia already. She knew that.

But she'd taken to going her own way over the last couple of months. She didn't feel at home at Arkadia, but she and Lincoln wouldn't be welcome with his people, either. She often found herself thinking back to Indra and the others, leaving her in the tunnel underneath Mount Weather.

I have no home.

How right she'd been.

So she was out alone. All alone, this time – she'd left Helios back at camp this time, not planning to go so far as to need her horse. It was easier to check on some of her traps when she was on foot, anyway.

Except now, it seemed the unthinkable had happened: Octavia was lost. She didn't recognize where she was. Worse, the forest itself looked different. When she turned around, nothing looked familiar. Nothing looked like where she knew she'd just been.

She wasn't sure what the hell was going on, but her sword was in her hand before she even thought about it.

[ooc: Open! The bit under the cut NFB due to happening elsewhere, naturally.]

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Bellamy still hated this place. He hated it and he wanted out but he'd been stuck here for months and he'd pretty much given up hope on getting back home. He'd tried to come to terms with losing his sister, losing the few friends he had but he was still struggling with that.

So, he'd stayed out of sight, out of mind for the most part. He went to work, then he went home. He didn't socialize much, too depressed and angry to put himself out there.

It was only at night when he'd go out, get some air and that's how he found himself in the preserve tonight, walking idly around. At first, he'd done this with the hopes of finding a way home and now it was just habit.

He heard more than saw something from the corner of his eye and he said, without looking closer to investigate, "I don't have any money. Go away."

There was no telling whether he would've recognized her right off the bat even if he had looked. Octavia had changed in the time that he'd been missing. She'd changed a lot. She wasn't wearing warpaint, but the braids in her hair and all the tough leather she was wearing were going to be new to him.

His voice startled her, and she turned to look at him. And it had been long enough that she didn't immediately recognize him, either. Not from an angle, not when she was already disoriented enough. She fell into a defensive stance, blade at the ready.

"Chon yu bilaik?" she called, her tone commanding. Then, his words registering – as English: "Who are you?"

Bellamy came to a stop, something niggling at the back of his neck. It couldn't be what he thought it could be, what his heart wanted it to be. He'd been cut off from his world, from the ground for over a year now. It was a pointless exercise to hope.

"No one you know," he said, shaking his head. His hand inched down to the dagger he carried when he went out on his own. This place was an unpredictable shit hole and he didn't need or want to die here.

"If you're lost, find your own way. I'm not helping you."

She hadn't been listening, the first time he'd spoken.

But she was, now.

She'd hoped before, you know. Every time they'd run into new Grounders, and when they'd gathered up the survivors from the Ark, and even when they'd learned of the Mountain Men, she'd hoped to see a familiar face. Even to find him captured would've been good enough.

She'd never seen him. It was a pointless exercise to hope.

But she was listening, now. And her heart was pounding, and she stalked around him and Lincoln would've told her off for how she wasn't keeping her guard up as she did so.

But.

"Bel?"

She sounded so much less a warrior and so much more a hopeful kid when she said that.

No one had used that name since he'd left home. Either he didn't tell them his name or they used his full name. He didn't let anyone give him a nickname. That was for his sister and his sister only.

Now, that name was ringing out like a crack, like a gunshot and he was staring in the direction the voice had come from.

"Who is that?" he asked, creeping closer. He wouldn't let himself believe. "Who are you?"

Octavia had to wonder if she'd somehow eaten jobi nuts by accident. This didn't seem real.

But she was moving closer, her machete sword no longer raised although still in her hand. Her months of training had done the trick: even if she wasn't taking too much care right now, there was still a sliver of a safeguard in place. In case this was a cruel trick.

"You should know," she said. "You're the one who named me in the first place."

Bellamy stopped moving, listened. His heart pounded and he thought his ribs might crack from the pressure of hope, of want. It couldn't be possible. He kept repeating that over and over.

"Octavia?" he asked, swallowing around a lump in his throat. "It's -- is it you? It can't be. I've gotta be hallucinating."

Octavia's chest felt tight.

To hell with caution. If this was a hallucination, then so be it. She'd been alone for such a long, long time. The sword went back into the scabbard at her back, and then she was crossing the distance left, stumbling towards him until her arms were around him.

It seemed like one way to find out if he was really here. Or the true strength of this hallucination. Either or.

All Bellamy could do for the moment was stand there, arms out at his sides and a stupefied expression on his face. This felt real. This felt incredibly real but it was still hard to believe it was happening.

"How are you here?" he asked, finally wrapping his arms tightly around her and squeezing. "How -- Octavia, what's happened? How are you here?"

"I don't know."

He was remarkably solid for a hallucination, and Octavia was clinging to him with her face buried against his shoulder. Like he might disappear.

"Bellamy, where have you been?"

"Here." He'd been here, stuck here, for too, too long. "I ended up here and haven't been able to get back for over a year. I've had to -- "

He shook his head and closed his eyes. "You're stuck here now too, O. We can't get back."

Octavia pulled back with a confused frown. Her hands stayed on his shoulders, though, gripping tight.

"What are you saying?" she asked. "We can get back to Arkadia, I'll find the way." She wanted to believe that. Despite the evidence that was starting to point otherwise.

"You won't," Bellamy told her, brushing her hair back and shaking his head. "I've been trying for a year. I've failed every single time. You won't find your way back, Octavia. It's impossible."

He didn't know how it worked or why it worked for some people but it didn't work for him.

Funny how fast elation could turn into worry. There was something heavy in her chest all of a sudden, something she didn't want to put a name to.

Not yet.

Not yet.

"Where are we?"

"A place called Fandom," he said, his tone heavy on that word. "An island. It's safe to be here. No Grounders, nothing like we know. It's just a weird island off the coast of the United States that won't let me go home."

"No Grounders?"

In another situation she might have kept that one to herself, but not now. This wasn't a time where she was really able to do any filtering on what came out of her mouth.

Even if there was a long pause where she was just... not quite gaping, but clearly trying get her thoughts in order.

And failing. "I don't understand." No, not about the Grounders – although that, that right there was a heavy and painful thing taking up residence inside her chest right about now – but about everything. Fandom?

"Join the club," Bellamy said, bitterness tinging his tone. "I don't either and I've been trying. It's just --"

He trailed off and shook his head before putting his hands on her face and looking at her.

"Are you okay?"

She was older than when he'd left her. She had new scars, but in places he couldn't see – apart from one on her cheek where Indra had cut her.

She wasn't thinking about that. Not right now. For a second, she even managed to focus on searching his face for –- she didn't even know what. An explanation?

"I guess."

She tended to think of that question in terms of being physically okay, for the most part. It was easier that way. More clear-cut.

"You guess?" Bellamy questioned, frowning. "Don't lie to me. Are. You. Okay?"

Octavia huffed a displeased sound.

"Do you understand what you're asking, big brother?" she asked him in turn, eyebrows settling down into a deep exasperated frown. "Of course I'm not okay! I haven't been okay in a long time!"

"I haven't seen you in over a year, Octavia!" Bellamy pointed out, glowering. "I don't know what's going on, I don't know what's gone on! How am I supposed to know what I'm asking?"

"Then don't ask stupid questions!"

She thumped her fist against his shoulder. But not hard. It was more for show, a futile gesture for something she couldn't put to words right now.

"I haven't seen you in a year, either!"

Which wasn't an accusation, more like an explanation for why 'okay' was complicated on both sides.

(Such a long time apart, and they were immediately fighting.)

"Don't hit me!" Bellamy drawled, shoving her shoulder and shaking his head. "You can't fault me for being curious! I've been cut off from everyone. From you. I don't know what shit you've been through unless you tell me."

Octavia backed off. First by shutting her mouth, then by pulling away. When her hand fell to her side, she fidgeted with her fingers.

For a second, anyway. Then all of her stilled. Calm but serious, she asked, "Where's your basecamp?"

Because she didn't want to stand here yelling at him forever when it was about to be night. And currently, she still assumed the island was all forest. Oh, how wrong she was.

"You mean my apartment?" Bellamy asked, raising an eyebrow. "Come on. I live inside. I tried outdoors living for awhile and it didn't work."

He remembered how they'd lived on the ground before he'd vanished, right?

"You have an apartment?" Octavia asked, incredulously. The closest they'd had to that had been on the Ark, and 'apartment' would've been too grand a word for it.

Edited 2017-06-21 20:35 (UTC)

"Someone helped me out when I first got here," he explained with a shrug. He started picking his way out of the preserve, sighing. He wanted to know what she knew, what she'd done, what was going on. "I couldn't live here. I had no supplies. Nothing."

Octavia just wanted to know where the hell she was. Was it another Mount Weather situation? She had no idea what to expect.

So she was following him, with wary looks at their surroundings.

"Yeah," she sighed, "I didn't exactly get to bring anything with me, either." And that was going to start stinging, later.

"Yeah, that's how it happens," Bellamy said, shaking his head. He was unable to keep his eyes off her, still surprised she was here and still expecting her to disappear. "I have a job too. It's ridiculous."

Octavia couldn't help raising her eyebrows. "A job? What do you do?"

Her mind was going a million miles an hour, trying to put this trickle of information into a shape in her head. And failing.

(She also felt like she should've been holding his hand. Not an urge she'd had in years.)

"Sit and make sure no one buys a weapon that they don't know how to handle," Bellamy said, shaking his head. "Not much else I can do here. It's not like they need someone to do what we were doing. It's civilized here. It's put together."

"I've seen what civilized can be like on the ground," Octavia replied, a little darkly.

She was thinking of the Mountain Men.

"It's different here," Bellamy told her grudgingly. He eyed her and the weapons she was carrying. "It's not like what you remember. What I remember. You're going to have to trust me."

Yeah. She was all weapons and tough leather now. "I do trust you," she said, keeping her gaze ahead, trying to see where they were going, trying to see beyond the preserve. "But things haven't been the same since you..."

What was the word here?

"Went away."

"I wouldn't expect them to be." He'd been gone a long, long time. "Anything major I should know?"

"Everyone's on the ground now."

That wasn't specifically about her, so that was easy to say. Relatively speaking, anyway. "We made it to Mount Weather, too." But her dry tone didn't make it sound like that had gone very well.

"What do you mean everyone?" Bellamy asked, stopping their walk and staring at her. "Everyone from the Ark?"

"Yes," Octavia said, and refrained from a 'who else'? because that wasn't very helpful. "All the stations."

She paused, then added, dryly, "The ones that had survived the journey down, anyway.

"How did that -- " Bellamy stopped and stared. "How? Why?"

Octavia had stopped, too. And was watching him.

"Because the Ark was failing, because the drop ships were destroyed, because of a number of reasons," she said. "There's no more Ark. There's no more people in the sky."

Bellamy closed his eyes and let out a long breath, shaking his head.

"Guess we got the better end of the deal since we were sent there before everything went to hell," he said wryly. "Come on."

"No one got a better end."

Octavia had some issues with... basically all sides.

She fell silent, didn't expand on that topic.

Bellamy eyed her and nodded, not asking. Not yet. "Come on, I bet you need something to eat and some sleep. I've got both back at the apartment. I'll even do the brotherly thing and share."

Octavia huffed some quiet noise of agreement. She wasn't so sure about sleep, not when everything was so messy in her mind, but food, sure.

And she was curious. About everything.

So she'd follow, wherever he led her.

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The Preserve, Monday Early Evening

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