What If (Season 5 AU)

Chapter 16

Clarke doesn't get far on her way form Echo's tent. Instead she is stopped by Octavia. Curious she looks at the younger Blake and waist, only for the brunette to pull her aside for a more private setting. Clarke doesn't fight her on this but warning bells blare in the back of her mind at this sudden take of events. Octavia was always a forward person, so having her pull Clarke aside was strange. Even for this new persona of Blodreigna. Before Clarke could even utter a word on asking what this was about, Octavia speaks first. And honestly Clarke shouldn't be surprised by the conversation now at hand. 

She brings up Echo, asking why Clarke would agree to leave with the enemy. A woman they've both encountered many times whose only ever given them more problems than not. How could she give this woman a second chance and risk the lives her her children to do it? It was there Clarke drew the line. 

Augustus and Madi were never in any danger, and she would be damned before she would ever put them in a situation where they were. She had a plan to keep them safe if they left. And as for Echo? Clarke does not trust her either, same as Octavia. But the one person she does trust  and put all her faith in, is Bellamy. Does she see what Bellamy and the others do? No, not in the slightest. Especially with how she spoke to her and gave her an icy glare for being near Bellamy in the first place. But that aside everyone deserves a second chance. Its been six long years with everyone apart, and for all she knew Echo was being possessive. And Clarke understood from the moment she witnessed the kiss Echo planted on Bellamy, boundaries were set. That was all. But Clarke never spoke of that much detail to the woman in front of her. Octavia had this way of twisting things into something they were not. Especially when it came to her relationship with Bellamy... However she saw through the unspoken words, her eyes softer than before.

 "He loved you, you know? He still does." Clarke flushes pink and clears her throat, her eyes now diverting anywhere that wasn't Octavia. 

"I have to go check on Madi and Augy." Before she could flee, however, Octavia stops her. 

"Do you think she'll get the job done?" Clarke stops mid-step,  her brow knitted before she turns around.

Octavia gave Cooper the order to shoot people as they defected, but she never told Echo what would happen to those she discovered before they could defect. And yet an unsettling feeling churned in her lower abdomen at the thought of those poor people. It was clear Octavia wasn't going to give them a hard pass of speech on coming together as one. Either they were going to be executed of put in the arena. Either way their fates were the same- death.

 "You mean turn in innocent people to be killed? If she's changed like Bellamy says, then no. She won't." Octavia walks up to Clarke slowly, each step thumping with the rhythm of Clarke's racing heart.

"Then we have a problem on our hands." Clarke tilts her head at this. The word 'We have a problem' not settling right. More like Octavia had a problem on her hands. Not Clarke. This was Octavia's battler, not hers. And yet Blodriegn was not finished. Rather the conversation took a very different turn. "You know Shallow valley better than anyone else. You know the terrain, the hunting grounds, traps..." 

"What are you getting at, Octavia?" Clarke snaps, her patience growing thin. 

"Echo won't turn in those names. We both know its a possibility. Which means when that ship comes there will be defectors." The blonde nods along, of course she knows this. Its common sense. 

"Okay? And...?" 

"I want you to be one of them." 

"What?! Octavia-" 

"You can take them out from the inside. Be our inside woman. You said so your self you wanted to help your mother. You can do that and help us get the Valley."