Lightning Only Strikes Once - Clexa

Chapter 88: Broken Homes

"I've found the radio," Octavia says triumphantly, managing to keep her voice low, though she looks like she finds it hard.

"Excellent," Lexa says, also in a whisper. "How?"

"Oh, the youngest guard will tell you anything if you smile at him and lean over a bit too far," Octavia tells her casually. Raven rolls her eyes, but smiles anyway. They've both seen Octavia with the guard, acting saccharine but letting out occasional barbs of vicious sarcasm that seem to go over the man's head.

They're sitting in Lexa's room. It's the middle of the night, but it's their best chance to talk. John's father has a shift standing guard over the missile, and John's gone to 'keep him company' – actually to provide a warning system if his father should return. Having to spend more time with his father has made John even sourer than normal.

Of course, the past few days have not been fun for any of them. Well, except perhaps Raven – she's getting to spend her time working on something that interests her, with people who respect her, all of the rooms are warm (apart from the shed containing the missile) and there is plenty of food. If it weren't for Anya and Clarke's absence and the exploitation of the villagers Raven could probably settle happily into this place. Meanwhile, John is steadily picking up bruises from his father's brief but extreme flares of temper, Octavia appears to be gradually going insane trying to pretend she's a sweet, harmless teenager, and Lexa... well, Lexa...

Lexa is bored. It's an embarrassing thing to admit, and does not feel like it should compare with the others' problems. But besides Raven, none of them have duties, everything is taken care of by the Azgeda villagers. The rest of Prison Station seem to be here purely to become soldiers one day when they get their hands on more guns. Lexa is used to being served – but normally that is because she is far too busy to do those things herself. She has never before had a day where she had to do nothing and go nowhere. She cannot even train because her skills would be suspicious. She cannot talk to the Azgeda gona because she needs to be as invisible to them as possible. The Skaikru guards avoid her, and when she listens in on their conversations she hears nothing of use.

Raven tells her to relax and enjoy it as a holiday, but Lexa has realised she finds having nothing to do far, far more stressful than having too much to do. When she had too much to do she organised and prioritised and ordered and acted and fixed the world piece by piece, and there was a fierce sense of accomplishment and, yes, pleasure in that. She never considered before how much she depended on having a purpose, having something to work towards every day – being without one, even briefly, has left her feeling empty. So much of herself is bound up in her duties, she does not know what to do without them.

"The radio's in that house on the east side, the one with the tallest roof," Octavia says. "So now at least we know where both our targets are. That's something."

"We haven't gotten very far with the missile yet," Raven reveals. She'd been pulled to working on it immediately. "The others are being very cautious, instead of going with the tried-and-true 'poking things' method. Our orders are also to make sure that Nia's guys have no idea what we're doing. Because apparently if they see us playing around with wires they'll realise that nuclear science is so easy, and then they won't need us anymore." She rolls her eyes again, this time more emphatically.

"Can you disable it, do you think? Now that they have opened it more?" Lexa asks.

Raven hesitates. "It doesn't really work like that. I can make it blow up on purpose, or I can make it harder for them to blow up at all, but I can't magically make it not a nuke. There's nuclear material inside. The only thing which makes that less dangerous is time. And I'm talking thousands of years of time, here. I still think our only choice is for me to sabotage it as much as I can and then load it in the truck and take it as far away as possible."