Title: Born to Float
Fandom: The 100 (TV)
Characters: Octavia Blake, Bellamy Blake, Aurora Blake
Rating: PG-13
Challenge: #128 Floating
Warnings: Canon character death, non-explicit oral sex and prostitution
Length: 942 words
Summary: Octavia became a criminal with her first breath.


They called it floating. Octavia watched as they did it to her Mom. The vacuum jerked her back and yanked her out of the airlock. She drifted out among the stars, free of gravity, the Ark, and all the bullshit of living. It might have sounded peaceful if it hadn’t been killing her. Mom was suffocating, her blood was boiling, and her skin was freezing over. Octavia wondered if it hurt. She supposed she’d find out soon enough.

*****

Octavia became a criminal when she drew her first breath. You could only have one child on the Ark, any more was a theft of precious resources. Mom and Bellamy willing shared their rations, but no one else had agreed to share their air. Octavia was five before she understood just how dangerous her crime was.

“You have to get in there or they’ll float us all,” Mom said. She always said that, but it didn’t mean anything. Floating couldn’t be any worse than hiding in a dark hole. Octavia shook her head, crossed her arms, and refused to budge.

Mom looked frantically from the clock to the door and back again. “Octavia, he’ll be here any minute.” She crouched down and squeezed Octavia’s shoulders. “I know it’s scary,” she said gently, “but you need to hide now.”

There was a thump as Bellamy jumped down into Octavia’s hiding space. “Come on,” he said, holding his arms wide, “we’ll hide together.”

“Alright?” Mom asked. Octavia considered for a moment before letting Mom scoop her up and put her in Bellamy’s arms. They curled up together and laid quiet as Mom replaced the floor panel and the table on top of them. Her hole was incredibly cramped with the two of them and Bellamy’s breath was a roaring air exchange in her ear, but Octavia felt so much better with him here than she did with just her teddy bear.

There was a knock on the door and Mom went to answer it. “Guardsman,” Mom greeted her visitor without much enthusiasm.

“Janitor Blake,” the man replied. His footsteps echoed as he ambled around the room. Bellamy squeezed Octavia tight as the guardsman jostled the table above them. “Your son out?”

“He’ll be back soon,” Mom said nervously.

“Well, then, you best work fast,” he replied.

There was the sound of his zipper and the muffled thud of Mom’s knees on the floor. Octavia and Bellamy lay in the dark and listened to the wet squelching and moaning as Mom worked fast. Bellamy’s breath came in angry huffs as his hands curl into fists. Octavia didn’t see what he was so mad about. It wasn’t like Mom and the guardsman didn’t do this all the time when Bellamy really was out.

The guardsman cried out as Mom finished up. It took him a few minutes get get his breath back. “Shirts on the table need new buttons,” he said, zipping up his pants. The door clanged behind him as he left.

“Bellamy?” Octavia asked as they listened to their mother spit up in the sink. “What’s floating?”

His arms tightened around her waist. “It’s when they throw you out of the Ark.”

“Oh.” Mom always made it sound scary, but that wasn’t so bad. She wondered what it was like out there. For all Bellamy’s stories, Octavia could barely imagine the world outside their door, let alone the one outside that. “That sounds fun. Like an adventure.”

“You’d die, Octavia. No one can live outside the Ark.”

Suddenly, for the first time, Octavia was really scared. She hated her hole, but she didn’t want to die. She hadn’t even seen the moon yet. Above them, Mom shifted the table and raised the floor panel. The light burned and filled her eyes with tears. “I don’t want to float,” she cried.

“Oh, baby.” Mom pulled her up and into a hug. “I won't let you float. Not ever.”

*****

Octavia was sure they’d send her out after her mother, but the Ark doesn’t execute minors. They locked her up until instead. They’d hold a tribunal to see if she was ready to become a contributing member of society eighteenth birthday. Mom was a contributing member; she was a janitor and a seamstress. All Octavia was good for was being a prisoner. They’d float her for sure. Man, she couldn’t wait to get out of here.

*****

They don’t float her; they send her to earth instead. It was a million times better than she’d ever imaged. The woods stretched on forever, farther then her eyes could see. And the air! It moved all on its own and smelled like green things and dirt instead of metal and b.o. Octavia jumped at the chance to go scouting and Bellamy actually let her.

After three hours of walking, Octavia topped a ridge and found more water than she had ever drunk in her life. It was more water then probably even existed on the Ark and Octavia needed to be in it. She shed her jacket and kicked off her shoes. She could hear the boys giggling behind her as she shimmied out of her pants.

“Octavia, what the hell are you doing?” shouted that control-freak Clarke.

Octavia ignored her and jumped. The water was as cold as space. There was a moment of blind panic where she remembered that she couldn’t swim, but the water held her and buoyed her up. She burst to the surface and laughed. She was weightless, free of the Ark and all it’s bullshit. Her Mom had promised it would never happen, but Octavia knew now she was born to float.