Seeing Bellamy show up here again was weird, and Octavia wasn’t so sure what to think about it. Her relationship with her brother was complicated at best, and there were so many things that had happened - both here and back home - since the last thing that he remembered. And that didn’t even count the six years that were recently tacked onto her memory. Six years that she’d not seen or spoken with her brother, not knowing if he and the others were even still alive. She still didn’t know because this Bellamy was from just after what went down at Mount Weather. A time that seemed like a lifetime ago by now.
Octavia explained to Lincoln what was going on, so she told him that she’d meet him back at her apartment as soon as she saw her brother. Lincoln and Bellamy. Both here. At the same time. That was definitely not something she wanted to deal with anytime soon, but here she was. She knew Bellamy didn’t remember what all happened with Pike, but she did. She remembered perfectly. When he’d been here before, Octavia had tried to work through some of her anger with her brother, and they’d gotten better, but when he left and the memories happened, most of the progress was gone. She still loved him, of course she still loved him and felt the absence of him after he’d left and also over the last six years of memories she’d recently gotten, but it wasn’t at all like they used to be.
She arrived at the offices soon after they said they would meet and walked into the Intake offices where she knew he’d be waiting for her. She knew she probably looked older than the last time he’d seen her, and she was pretty sure she was a year or so older than him now, but as soon as he turned around she gave him a small but cautious smile.
“Hey, Bell. This is all pretty weird, huh?”
It was a relief to see her and to see her looking … well. As best as Bellamy could tell she looked alright, and after all the stress of having to make the decisions with Mount Weather, and then ending up in this place - which felt like the inside of Mount Weather, in some ways, although obviously not inside a mountain - he was just glad to see her.
"Octavia," he breathed out, relief obvious. "I guess I didn't figure that it wouldn't really be you, but …" he glanced back at the door he'd left just a few moments earlier. "Well, this whole thing is strange."
Which is what she'd just said - weird. Yeah, it was weird. But this was his little sister, and the familiarity of seeing her here in this strange place was maybe what he'd needed. He stepped forward to reach his arms around her for a hug.
"I feel like most of the explanations have just made me more confused thus far," he admitted. "You're all right though?"
The hug didn’t really take her by surprise since she was expecting it, so she hugged him in return. “Strange is putting it very, very lightly,” she said with a half smile as she stepped back. “And, yeah, I’m alright. Probably better and safer here than home.” Except for that one time during the first mission when she’d died for a couple days. Octavia wasn’t going to bring up that little detail though.
“I know it’s really confusing at first. I’ve been here for over a year and sometimes it still doesn’t all make sense. It helps to try not thinking about it too hard.” She shrugged and opened up the main door so that they could leave and started out of the building. “If you have any big questions I can try to answer them, but trust me when I say sometimes it just takes a couple days to let everything sink in.”
That seemed probable to Bellamy, although he knew that being inside Mount Weather had felt safer for those inside it initially. He still couldn't say he entirely trusted what he'd seen. It helped that both Clarke and Octavia seemed to be pretty calm about it.
"I guess that's good, then," he offered aloud. "I've got so many questions I'm not certain I know here to begin. They told me some things, and then people talked about the missions, and this war? And that there are people from different worlds? And we're considered fictional by others here? Is that true?"
“That’s what they tell us,” Octavia said with a shrug. “Honestly, the whole being fictional thing is something I try not to think on too much or else it’ll start to make my head spin.” Some of it all made sense considering how things happened here and how some people had heard of other people. Their world was a lot different, though, since they didn’t have the same access to all of the shows, books, and stories of people who showed up here regularly.
“So, you’re from right after all of the shit that happened at Mount Weather, huh? Right after the radiation?” From what he’d said earlier, Octavia thought that it was before the other monumental event that happened inside of that mountain. The event that changed how Bellamy viewed Grounders for a long time and was the start of when everything really began to change.
Bellamy let out a low whistle under his breath. He could understand not wanting to think on it too much, because the idea of his life being some book, something that people read as he had read dozens of books throughout his lifetime, was something he wasn't certain he wanted to try to wrap his head around. What would he be like? Would he be the hero? Would people like him? It took all of the typical, average worries he had, and amplified them ten times. He shook his head.
"Yeah," he pulled his thoughts back to the conversation that had. "That - we had done the radiation. Clarke and I." Obviously she knew when he was from, so was she from further. "When are you from? From after?"
“After,” she said pretty quickly. “A lot after.” The few months she’d been after Mount Weather when she first showed up didn’t seem nearly as confusing and complicated than what the jump of six years had when she’d gotten the latest memory update about a month ago. She was still trying to figure it all out and sort through everything she’d had shoved inside of her brain all of a sudden. And that was during the times when she tried to ignore half of it.
“This is going to sound even weirder, I know, but when I first showed up I was at a point that was probably… I don’t know. A few months after you? Maybe a little more. So much happened in a short time period back home that is seems like it was probably longer. But recently…” She paused and sighed.
“Okay, so with how time is weird here and people come from all different points in time… sometimes we get these sudden bursts of memories from home. Things that happened while we were here but things that we were actually a part of. And then even though we were still in Atlantis, it’s like we were there and experienced it ourselves. “I got one of those a little while ago.” Technically, it was her second update, but she wasn’t getting into that. “And it was a really big one. Like six years big.” She raised a brow at him and smiled a little. “I’m pretty sure I’m actually older than you now. Crazy, right?”
Bellamy stared at his younger sister, or maybe older sister. "Fuck," he murmured, just barely audibly, but this was a lot. He'd always tried to take care of Octavia, but recently that'd been more difficult to do, and maybe it'd always been a little impossible. He didn't know what to say about that, so instead, he put his hands on his hips and shook his head. "This whole thing is completely insane. Six years? I don't -" how was he supposed to believe any of this.
Then again, it seemed like the same sort of thing that Clarke had been telling him. They wouldn't both lie would they? They didn't have any reason to. He breathed out. "I think you should just tell me about some of the things that have happened in Atlantis, you know? Maybe skip the you might be my older sister part for a bit, lest I get a complete headache," he said this with a bit of a smile on his lips.
Octavia couldn’t help but laugh a little at the look on his face. “Trust me, I know. I’m still trying to figure this out, but usually I try to ignore most of it.” She shrugged. Denial was probably not very healthy, but she wasn’t going to overload herself with thinking of all that had happened. Especially not when Lincoln and Bellamy were here, reminding her of the past.
“I can do that,” she said. It was actually kind of nice having this version of her brother here. It still wasn’t simple between the two of them, it never was, but seeing him like this and knowing when he’d come from made it easier to look at him and not remember all of the bad shit that happened before she showed up here at the very beginning. She just probably wasn’t going to have a big reunion with him and Lincoln for however long both of them were here this time.
“Let’s go get a drink, yeah? There’s a place I think you’ll like. If a friend of mine is working then I’ll make sure he goes heavy-handed on the pours.”
That sounded good to Bellamy. At least as good as anything that he'd come up with in the time since he'd arrived. His sister was here - as was Clarke- and that meant that he had people here. He was pretty certain they were really his people. He nodded. "Yeah, all right, I think that sounds good. I'm…" He was tired. The last few days he'd lived at home had been exhausting, and now he was here where everything was strange and he still wasn't entirely certain he shouldn't be on his guard.
"I'm ready for a drink," he said instead, and he stuck his hands in his pockets. "Let's go see if we can get one of those."