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Octavia was a girl on a mission. No matter what her brother or the rest of the people at camp thought; the grounder was not an animal! ‘Lincoln’ she reminded herself. He told her that was his name. Because he understood their language. Because he wanted Octavia to remember it. Because he thought he was going to die.
She was not going to let him die.
Bellamy and Clarke were out on a daytrip to get supplies. Security around the dropship would probably never be as low again as it was now so today was perhaps her only chance at setting Lincoln free. The only obstacle between her and her goal? Bellamy’s trusted subordinate, Miller. She had been caught previously by Miller when he returned earlier than expected from talking to Roma’s parents on the radio. So he would no-doubt be more alert of her intentions from now on. That’s why she had to play it convincingly enough now if she ever wanted her plan to work.
In her hand Octavia had a small bag containing the same type of nuts Jasper had been consuming earlier when he totally bombed on her. Those nuts were obviously putting him under some kind of hallucinating spell—and from what she observed from the rest of the camp—Jasper wasn’t the only one affected. Meaning that if she could just get Miller to ingest some of them and incapacitate his faculties as well, then no one would be able to impede her rescue mission. It should all flow smoothly from then on.
But only if she was able to get past Miller first!
“Okay,” Octavia muttered to herself, giving herself a peptalk. “You can to this.”
And she could. Really. Her plan was simple enough that it had a high chance of working. All she had to do was climb the ladder and offer Miller a snack. A peace offering under the pretense of getting him to not sell her out to Bellamy for having disobeyed orders earlier. And if Octavia was lucky, then Miller would accept it without contesting a word. Really, the whole plan was riding on her selling her role and Miller—hopefully—being as gullible around her as the rest of the boys in Camp seemed to be.
She took a deep breath and latched on to the ladder, ready to commit to her plan. And she probably would have climbed all the way up had she not been spooked by the sudden loud voice of unannounced company.
“Hey have you seen the Moon?”
Octavia twirled around to spot Monty by the dropship’s entrance looking all kinds of lost and confused. Octavia liked Monty, she really did, but now was not the time for him to show up. Any other moment in the day and she would have been more than happy to sit him down and make sure that he was alright. But she was running on a tight schedule here and she couldn’t afford any distractions. So deciding it would be best to show him the door before he had a chance to compromise her mission, she climbed back down from the ladder and tried to pull him toward the fresh outdoors again.
Except Monty seemed to have other plans.
Monty ducked under Octavia’s arm and held his hands up as if to surrender. “Wow I’m just here for the Moon,” he declared looking at Octavia with wide eyes and backtracking until his back hit the ladder. He craned his head to stare at the ladder before landing his eyes back on Octavia. “Is the Moon being kept up there?” he questioned.
“Monty,” she warned, but before she could get another word out Monty twisted his body around and began climbing the ladder in haste. “Monty don’t!” she half shouted half whispered as she rushed forward to try to grab him by the leg.
She wasn’t quick enough!
“Oh no your face is melting!” she heard Monty shouting followed by a “What the-” and a “Hey get off!” from Miller. Octavia started to really panic then.
If Miller picked up on the fact that Monty was high, and connected it to the nuts as easily as she did, then there went her carefully thought-out plan. She would never be able to fool Miller and there went her chances of freeing Lincoln before her brother came back. She wanted to scream or to maul something because of her inability to execute her plan, but when she heard footsteps approaching the ladder again from upstairs her fight-or-flight instincts kicked in and she hurried to hide behind a stack of empty supply boxes.
From her hiding place she played witness to how Miller was having the most hellish time of his life trying to get Monty to climb down the ladder with him. It took Miller approximately eight minutes just to get Monty on the ground floor again, and then he had to deal with swatting Monty’s hands off his face every time Monty tried to rearrange it because, according to the high-as-a-kite teenager, Miller’s face was made of clay and Monty needed to keep the mold from falling apart.
It took some serious manhandling but eventually Miller was able to hold Monty still enough to prove that his face wasn’t melting off. “Oh,” Monty muttered as he tried to poke Miller’s face again to make certain. Miller swatted the hand away and let out a long-suffering sigh when, undeterred, Monty attempted it again.
“You know what? No more Moonshine for you,” Miller stated firmly and Octavia exhaled in relief at Miller associating Monty’s high with something else. Miller then spun Monty around and started to push him outside. “C’mon. Let’s get you to your tent,” he announced and barely ten seconds later Octavia was left alone in the dropship.
Alone as in there no longer being an obstacle between her and her goal anymore.
This certainly wasn’t how she imagined things to play out in her mind. But if Monty somehow manages to keep Miller away long enough for her to sneak Lincoln out without anyone at camp being the wiser, then Octavia certainly wasn’t going to complain.
-_-
Miller had been having one hell of a lousy day so far. Everyone around camp seemed to be in the mood of forgetting that their lives were on danger. And he couldn’t blame them; he really couldn’t, because deep inside he wished that he could afford to do the same. But the day wasn’t letting him. Not when nobody else stepped up the task of facing their fears and tragedies head on.
Every waking hour that Miller wasn’t guarding the grounder he had spent it in front of their radio trying to keep it together. He told Digg’s mom the news and had to watch her fall apart to tears in front of him. He delivered a similar message to the Mbege’s and had to sit there while the dad shouted curses at him. When Miller spoke to Roma’s parents later that day he saw the exact moment when they shut off their emotions—too afraid to let themselves feel them while in company. Miller’s own dad had yet to make an appearance as apparently he was still on duty.
However Miller couldn’t keep himself from thinking of it as an elaborate excuse to spare his feelings. In the back of his mind a seed of doubt had began spreading its roots and Miller had begun speculating that his father was simply too disappointed in him to spare him another thought.
All in all it was beginning to take a toll on Miller.
He understood Bellamy’s reasons for hiding from the Ark, and Miller was grateful that at least he appreciated his efforts. Miller had no clue what Clarke’s deal was though—and he kinda resented that she didn’t step up to the plate but then again it wouldn’t be fair to put another strain on her shoulders when she was too busy trying to keep the surviving delinquents alive. He figured the least he could do is deal with the dead ones. However, having to tell all those parents that their kids were murdered by grounders while not getting any justice for them; Miller wasn’t sure how much longer he could put up with it. Not to mention he still felt a headache from that pride-shattering head-butt he received to his skull.
Alas, the day wouldn’t end there.
One hundred delinquents were sent to the ground because the Arkers were desperate and the delinquents expendable. Each of them were disposable because they broke the law and now were left here to fend for themselves. And here Miller was, hating life while being dragged from one babysitting job to the next.
“Would you quit it already?” complained Miller while holding both of Monty’s wrists away from him after Monty attempted pull down Miller’s beanie to protect Miller’s face from the Sun.
“You don’t understand,” Monty stressed as if Miller was the one acting childish. “Sun damages skin. It’s basic science!”
“Just hold still for a minute will you?” Miller commanded as he released Monty’s wrists to try to fix his beanie. Regardless of how nice it might have felt at first to have someone fussing over him so diligently, this was verging on ridiculous. And frankly, Miller was quickly losing his patience.
As he fixed his beanie he spotted both Finn and Raven trying to talk down some other delinquents. Miller was beginning to contemplate the odds of Monty having dispensed that much Moonshine around when a crunch had him diverting his attention back to his current ward.
“No, don’t eat that!” Miller yelled as he began to wrestle a pinecone away from Monty’s grip.
“It’s asking me to!” Monty shouted back alarmed that Miller would try to take the pinecone away from him.
-_-
The trek to Monty and Jasper’s tent took longer than Miller would had preferred, but thank god they finally made it. Unfortunately Jasper didn’t seem to be around which meant that Miller couldn’t dump the responsibility of his friend on him.
“Alright, which one is your bed?” Miller asked—determined that the best course of action was to lay Monty down so that he could sleep it off. Monty didn’t answer however. He just silently picked up an eyesore of an orange blanket and laid himself down at the far corner of the tent—turning his back to Miller and the tent’s entrance and falling quietly asleep.
Miller stared after him for longer than was probably necessary before sighing and turning away. He hadn’t left anyone in charge of the dropship and he figured it was about time he got back to his post. Except that when he reopened the flap of the tent with the intention of stepping outside he heard Monty start muttering to himself.
“No one sees me,” Monty whispered into the quiet of the tent and Miller tried not to roll his eyes.
“Not to sound patronizing but I’m pretty sure that people can,” Miller rebutted, turning to look over his shoulder at the Monty burrito. Miller didn’t know why he was bothering playing along with this nonsense. Probably because—despite all the manhandling—this had actually been one of the lighter things he had to do all day. A random break from all the emotional turmoil he’d been feeling lately.
“They can’t though,” Monty replied back. “I’m invisible.”
“Please,” Miller snorted with a shake of his head. This time he couldn’t stop himself from rolling his eyes. “You’re not invisible.”
“I so am!” Monty declared nonsensically, sounding very adamant about it.
“You’re not.”
“I am!”
“You aren’t because I can clearly see you.”
“No you can’t!”
“I can,” Miller stated, marching to where Monty was and kneeling beside him to grab his shoulder and roll him around to face him. “See? Would I have been able to do that if I couldn’t see you?” he questioned with an arced eyebrow only to be stumped by Monty’s following question.
“Are you Earth?” Monty asked as he slowly sat up while looking at Miller with a confusing amount of reverence.
“Am I what?” questioned Miller furrowing his brow until sudden alarm flooded his voice. “What are you doing?!”
“Giving Earth a giant hug to thank him for all the fresh air, green trees and amazing nuts,” Monty replied as he pressed the side of his face against Miller’s shoulder and sighed contently into the hug he was enforcing on the other teenager.
Miller felt his face redden at being caught so off guard by the other teen and tried to will his embarrassment down. He lowered both his hands to Monty’s shoulders and tried to gently extricate himself from the other’s embrace. “I’m not the Earth though. I’m Miller.”
“Just the same,” replied Monty, wrapping his arms tighter around Miller’s torso when he felt him pulling away. “Thanking Miller for all the fresh air, green trees and amazing nuts.”
“I, err…” Miller found himself stumped on what to say. This, whatever this was, was completely illogical and Miller shouldn’t allow it to continue to happen. Yet at the same time Miller—for the life of him—couldn’t remember the last time he gotten a hug. He was too young to remember his mom’s; and when he got caught for stealing, his father hadn’t given him a hug goodbye as he was being taken to juvenile lockup. So to receive one now, so unexpectedly and completely unprompted… Miller was caught unprepared as to how he should react.
“The Earth is shaking,” Monty murmured sleepily on Miller’s shoulder. “Earthquake impending.”
“I’m not Earth,” Miller blubbered, hugging Monty back and burying what he could of his face in Monty hair. Miller couldn’t believe that he had actually started tearing up because of a stupid hug of all things! Though he took refuged in the fact that Monty probably wouldn’t remember any of this when he sobered up. So for now, selfishly, Miller let himself silently release the toll the day had taken on him. He pictured all the friends that he lost, the faces of all the parents he told that their kid died, and the disappointed face of his own dad who was probably still too ashamed to see him—and let it all out. Wretched, he also realized that with the death of Diggs he no longer had anyone on the ground that knew him by his first name. Maybe Clarke and Wells did as they came from the same station… but Miller had always been a background in both their lives. Plus one of them was dead already. “I’m Nathan,” he whispered.
“Nathan’s comfy.”
Miller didn’t know how much time he spent in Monty’s tent with the other boy asleep on him. All he knew was that when he opened the flap of the tent to step outside it was already dark. He also doubted he would have another conversation with Monty after tonight. Miller however was unlikely to forget how perfect their hug felt and would most likely pin after Monty from afar. Yet the fact of the matter was that they simply hung in different crowds and—if the past had taught him anything—it was that Miller was destined to become another background character in Monty’s life as well.
Further thought of the matter, however, stopped the moment he stepped foot on the dropship and realized that their prisoner had escaped. Consequently everything that happened before got sealed in a tiny box at the back of Miller’s head where it was unlikely to be opened again.
But then Mount Weather happened…
“Hey,” Monty’s voice was low and soft. “You’re a great thief.”
…and Miller knew that he would never be able to settle for background character ever again.
Not when he wanted so bad to hear his name fall from those lips.