Lightning Only Strikes Once - Clexa

Chapter 86: Playing House

Malus offers to bring them along to Prison Station with the food, but Lexa declines. She doesn't want them to look like they have a crowd of people helping them – the plan is for them to stagger, bedraggled and weak, into the village. Presentation matters. So instead, they go as a small, huddled group, while the others remain in the village. Lexa is well aware that Anya, Linkon and Zion are all unhappy with this, but it cannot be helped.

"You know, after we're done with Prison Station, I'm burning these," Octavia says darkly, plucking at the Skaikru clothes she's wearing. "I already burned the ones I had to wear into Mount Weather. Why do all these plans involve me dressing up like we're still on the Ark?"

"Hey, you didn't have to come," Raven points out. Just like the rest of them, she's smeared in dirt and shivering. Lexa wants them to look as pathetic and powerless as they can.

"According to Malus' directions, we will get there soon," Lexa says quietly. "John, walk in front. Remember, you will do most of the speaking. Make it clear this was your idea." This is for two reasons – firstly, John has the best reason for wanting to be here, to be with his father. Secondly, because John is the one Lexa wants Diana to be watching closely. The rest of them need to be able to move around more freely.

It is odd to walk into a little Azgeda village and suddenly have guns pointed at them. Lexa raises her hands, widening her eyes and letting out a little whimper. There are also several Azgeda gona, raising spears and swords.

"Hey!" John steps forward, his scowl deepening. "My name's John, John Mbege, I'm from the Ark. I was part of the original 100 who got sent down. I'm here to see my father -"

"John?" a deep voice comes from behind them. Turning, Lexa sees a man lower his gun, his face splitting into a smile. He looks a little like John but with a couple of noticeable differences, one being his dark eyes where John has green. Another is that he looks like someone who smiles often, laugh lines etched deeply into his face, unlike his gloomy son. "John!" He moves forward and embraces John, who stiffens slightly as soon as they are touching. "I thought you were dead! Oh, it's so good to see you again, my son, my boy -"

A blonde woman steps out from a nearby house. "Mbege," she snaps, flicking back a strand of hair from her face and narrowing her eyes at the group. "Get back."

After a second, he obeys, taking two steps back, but he looks at her like she's crazy. "This is my son," he says, clapping John on the shoulder. John flinches at the touch again and Lexa forms her own conclusions about their estrangement. "Chancellor, I thought I'd never see him again."

"I thought I'd never see anyone from the rest of the Ark again," Diana Sydney comments, hazel eyes evaluating them one by one coolly. "Aren't you Raven Reyes? I'm surprised to see you without Abby Griffin, I thought the two of you were partners in crime."

Raven shrugs, face sour. "That was while we wanted the same thing, to get down here." She spits on the ground. "Now we're down. She's part of the Council and I'm just a junior mechanic. Stuck working eighteen hours a day in return for enough food not to starve."

"When I told her I was getting the hell out of Arkadia and coming to find our people, she asked to come with me straight away," John tells Diana. He gestures to Octavia. "Octavia came because she didn't want to be trapped in Arkadia anymore."

"I lived all my life in one cell or another," Octavia says fiercely. "I'm sick of that. Being surrounded by hundreds of people who don't let you go anywhere... I was done with it."

Diana looks at her. "You're the Blake girl," she muses. "Your brother betrayed me, you know."

Octavia shrugged. "Actually he didn't. He told me all he said is Shumway gave him the gun. According to Clarke, the Council knew straight away you had to be behind it. Then later on I found out that was bullshit, too. Jaha set it up, had Clarke accuse you. I'm sick of their fucking game playing." She touches the still-livid scars on her face with a hand that shakes. "Their games haven't brought me anything but pain."