Chapter Text
She found him stringing herbs together behind the small building that housed medical. It wasn’t the most judicious use of his time, but there were days when he needed to numb his mind with some busywork and Abby was always complaining that there weren’t enough hours in the day to keep up with the medicinal herbs.
He glanced up at the figure blocking his sunlight. “Octavia,” he said cooly.
“Kane,” she said, and gestured at the stoop he occupied. “Can I sit?”
His fingers stilled for an instant, and then he shrugged a shoulder. He felt rather than saw her sit beside him, and glanced over to see her looking more a child than he could ever remember her being. He felt a pang in his chest. For everything she could have been.
Octavia leaned forward and pulled at the basket until it sat midway between them, plucking a few stems and clumsily copying his movements. He passed her the twine. They worked for several minutes, heaping bundles on bundles. It wasn’t until they neared the bottom of the basket that she spoke.
“Everyone hates me,” she said, and he didn’t even hesitate.
“Yes, they do.”
“I hate me, too,” she said, and he slowed in his work. “I know why everyone hates me. I deserve it. I let things go too far.”
He waited for the ‘but’.
It didn’t come.
She tied a knot in her bundle and reached for more.“How do you come back from that? Is there a way to get back what I used to be? Or will I always be Blodreina? And if I am, what’s the point in even going on?”
They didn’t do this, hadn’t done it for years, but it wasn’t the first time Octavia had come to him for advice and as much as he wanted to write her off- as much as he had written her off- he knew he was not blameless in her progression from scared little girl to the bloody queen of that godforsaken bunker.
Marcus set aside the last of the herbs and dusted off his hands. He had a choice here. To get up and walk away, to cast her off as he had for so long and not look back. Or he could follow his own advice.
“You turn the page,” he said at last. “You do better today than you did yesterday.”
He looked at her fully now, the late evening sun leaving only weak rays over the treetops. She was older, more worn, more weary. They all were. But it seemed more pronounced in someone who hadn’t yet lived a quarter of a century.
“You have hope,” he whispered quietly, reaching out to put his hand over hers.
“Hope?” she echoed, voice quivering slightly.
“There’s always hope, Octavia.”