Chapter Text
2011, Brookline, Massachusetts.
Raven Reyes threw her hair up in a messy ponytail and waved goodbye to her boss as she walked out of the shop. She had been working as a mechanic to save money for college all summer, and she almost had enough to cover her first semester at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
She ran down to the red car parked at the store’s entrance, and threw herself in the passenger seat, planting a kiss on the driver’s cheek.
“Good day?” Finn Collins smiled brightly at his girlfriend.
“It’ll be even better if you let me drive this baby home,” Raven rubbed her hands together, looking longingly at the steering wheel.
“I don’t know why you love this car so much, it’s just a hunk of junk,” Finn mumbled as he let Raven maneuver her way into the driver’s seat. Finn painstakingly squeezed himself past her into the opposite side.
“It’s not a hunk of junk, she just needs a little tuning up, and then she’ll be a stunning vintage car, just you see,” Raven said and began to drive the car down the street.
“It’s an old jeep. How can a jeep be stunning?” Finn questioned.
Raven shook her head at him. She turned onto a side road.
“We’re going to your house?” Finn asked. They hardly ever went to Raven’s house. She didn’t exactly have a wonderful family relationship, and she generally tried to avoid the beaten down old home.
“Just for a minute, I need to pick up a few things if I’m going to stay at your place this weekend.” She drove the car slowly as they moved deeper into the neighborhood.
“Do you think Bellamy’s home? I feel like we haven’t seen him in ages. Wanna pop by his place and invite him to have dinner with us tonight?” Raven asked.
Finn grunted, he had never been much of a fan of Bellamy.
“What the hell?” Raven mumbled as they approached the Blake residence. There were nearly a dozen police cars outside, and officers were moving in and out of the house. Raven pulled the car up against the curb with a screech, and ran out of the car, leaving Finn behind to take out the keys.
“What is all this? What’s going on here?” Raven asked the nearest officer. He turned to look at her, sizing her up.
“Who are you?” He asked, hesitant to reveal any information.
“I’m Raven Reyes, I live just three houses down. I’m Bellamy’s friend,” she watched the officer make a face when she said that.
“You know Bellamy Blake?”
“Yes.”
“His mother, Aurora?”
“Not really. I mean, I’ve heard Bellamy talk about her. But I’ve never met her. Is she okay?” Raven was beginning to really worry.
The officer looked at the ground and coughed. “What about Octavia Blake? You know her?”
“Octavia? Is that a cousin or something? I’ve never heard of her. Can you tell me what the hell is even going on here already?” Raven balled her hands into fists when Finn came back to stand beside her.
“Hello officer, I’m Finn Collins, can you please just explain the situation here? Raven has a right to know, she’s his neighbor, and if this,” Finn waved his hands at the commotion all around them. “Is going to continue for any length of time, then you really should explain it to everyone living around here.” Finn tried to speak calmly and reasonably but Raven could tell he was almost as nervous as she was.
“There’s been quite the situation going on at the Blake house,” the officer began, unable to look in either of their eyes. “Aurora Blake as you may know, has some mental illnesses, and she had been having a hard time dealing with it lately. She had been doing a lot of hard drugs, and we have reason to believe she may have been dealing as well. We had an undercover officer encounter her while she was soliciting prostitution. We came to raid the house after we heard about the drugs, and well, we found a lot more than we had been expecting.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Where is Bellamy?” Raven practically hissed at the officer.
“Aurora was much sicker than we originally believed. We discovered a fifteen year old girl hidden locked in the basement. She says her name is Octavia Blake and she is Aurora’s daughter. She said her mother has been making her hide in the basement her entire life. She’s never left it. She’s never even talked to anyone besides her mother and her brother. We are still looking for many answers here, we hardly know anything, let alone why she had been trapped there for her entire life, and we don’t even know if we’ll be able to get any answers anytime soon,” the officer finished.
Raven seemed almost unable to speak. Finn wrapped his arm around her shoulder.
“When will we be able to speak to Bellamy?” he asked.
“You won’t,” the officer answered. “He wouldn’t let any of the officers enter the basement, and he attacked one of our officers. He was shot and killed. So was Aurora.”
“No,” Raven whispered. “That’s not possible, no, no. No. No!” Raven began to cry, crumpling to the ground under Finn’s arms.
___
Richmond, Virginia, 2015.
Clarke shoved the last box into the moving van, before thanking the driver with a smile and tip.
She walked down to her mother’s car and sat down in the passenger seat, wrapping a duvet around herself and fluffing up a pillow to put behind her head.
“Make yourself comfortable, we’ve got quite the drive ahead of us,” Abby Griffin said as she moved out of the driveway of Clarke’s childhood home for the last time.
“I still don’t understand why you’re selling it,” Clarke mumbled, trying to find her headphones.
“It’s pointless for me to live alone in this big house when you’re going to college. It’s a lovely house, and I’ll never forget our memories in it, but it’s time to move on. Time to be practical,” Abby gently explained.
“Well, I don’t understand why we had to move during the summer. We could have waited until my move in day,” Clarke finally cracked a small smile as she found her headphones bundled deep within the duvet.
“I’d like to get a little head start at this new job. It’s not like Virginia, honey. Boston is a very intellectual city, and the medical centers there are some of the best in the world. Most of these doctors will be twice as smart as me, I’ll have a lot of catching up to do.”
“If those doctors were twice as smart as you, you wouldn’t have been offered a job as chief of surgery at Beth Israel,” Clarke pointed out.
Abby looked to her daughter and smiled.
“Maybe. But maybe not. Either way, it’s not hurting anyone. Plus, you can acquaint yourself with your new campus, it’ll be nice,” Abby said.
“I guess. I just don’t like leaving things behind,” Clarke said softly.
Abby moved her hand from the wheel to gently touch Clarke’s shoulder.
“You’re not leaving anything behind unless you let yourself. It’ll always be up here,” Abby said, pointing to Clarke’s head.
Clarke smiled, and snuggled herself deep into the blankets, putting on her headphones and letting herself try to sleep.