betterthanaplan | The Cape Rouge, Port of Fandom, Monday

Duke was On the Alert, so he glanced up when she came in, anyway. "Coffee's about ready," he said. He tossed a couple napkins onto the table and slid into a seat.

". . . So."

Octavia forced a little eyebrow raise. "Way to make a girl feel like sitting down," she drawled, without any heat.

While she took a seat, yeah.

Duke winced, and busied himself pouring the coffee.

"I'm sorry," he said softly. "I shouldn't have kicked you out. I didn't mean to, I just -- wasn't thinking."

"You were upset," Octavia muttered, looking down at the table. "I know."

Didn't mean it hadn't hurt. For days. And then again once she'd woken up next to him the previous time.

"I was." He still was, but in a quieter, more reasonable way. "That's not an excuse. I know what that feels like. Getting kicked out. I never wanted to do that to you."

Octavia's gaze flicked up to his face. "But you did," she said, mildly. "And then I flipped out and left you. Think that makes us even on that front."

"Oh good," Duke said, more flippantly than he intended to. "At least we're even."

He scowled at himself and rubbed both hands down his face. "I still don't really know how to deal with . . . all that. From the bunker. I wish I did. I just -- I still love you. And I miss you like crazy. And I want us to be okay."

"I want that too," Octavia replied, watching him, her own face mild, impassive. The last bit of armor she couldn't quite help pulling on.

He still loved her.

He still missed her.

"And I don't know what to do about it."

"I wish you had told me," Duke said softly. "I know why you didn't. I get it, I really do, and god knows I probably reacted exactly how you were afraid I was going to. But -- I wish you could have trusted me enough to tell me yourself."

Octavia's eyebrows twitched up. Just a fraction.

"You think trust has anything to do with it?"

"Yeah," Duke said, giving her a little nod and shrug. "I mean. You were right not to, I guess, considering how I reacted."

"It's not that I didn't trust you," Octavia said. "I didn't want to tell you. How do you tell someone that?"

When that someone wasn't already used to facing all of humanity's sins.

"I don't know," Duke admitted. "And maybe it would have been just as bad. I don't know anything, Tavi. I've been trying to wrap my head around it for months."

"And I've been trying for years," Octavia said, finally letting her gaze drop to the table to between them.

Maybe she needed to regroup for a second.

Duke nodded, buying himself a few moments by sipping his coffee. It was a little too hot, and he couldn't really taste it, but at least it kept his mouth busy so he didn't say something stupid.

He took a breath.

"I didn't want to listen to you, before," he said. "I was freaked out, and hurt, so I hurt you. Now, I've -- I've heard about it from that man in your -- and from Lucifer, but." He swallowed. "Can you tell me now? I promise I'll listen. Just listen. Not attack."

Slowly, Octavia looked up. With her eyes, not with her head.

"Where do I start?" she asked. It sounded a little helpless, but still like a genuine question. How far back did he want to go?

That was a good question. Duke felt he had a decent grasp on how she ended up in charge, so. . . .

“Luce said you all were going to run out of protein?”

Octavia wasn't even remotely surprised he went for that.

She swallowed, and chewed on the inside of her bottom lip for a second before she spoke. And when she did, her voice was carefully flat, all rasp.

"We had a hydro farm," she said. "It was supposed to keep us going for five years. But two years in, it started to fail. Soy bean crop got infected."

In all the years since the dark one, she hadn't talked about this to anyone but Lucifer.

"We could save it, with seeds from the healthy plants. But only if we eradicated the rest. Which was going to leave us without protein for an entire year."

"So . . . you had to find another source." Duke nodded. "I understand that." He flicked her a tiny smile. "Remind me to tell you about the Benton sisters later."

Octavia wanted to ask whether they'd been farmers.

But she knew better than that.

And lighter questions wouldn't make this any easier. "We already had the fighting pits."

"How did those get started?"

Something in Octavia's tone softened. Probably didn't make sense from the outside. "Death had to be the enemy," she said. "Bunker was overcrowded from the start. There had to be... consequences. For going against the common good."

She chewed on her lip again.

"But I didn't want us to be exactly like the Ark. People had to have a -- a chance."

Duke didn't know if that was any better than what the Ark did. But he also had no idea how he could have done any different.

He didn't say any of that. He'd promised to listen, and that was what he was determined to do.

"What, uh. What did you do to the losers? Before the soybeans failed?"

"Honored them with whatever burial rites we could."

The bunker hadn't been very good for most things people had been accustomed to from before.

Duke nodded again. "And, uh. Then you honored them . . . differently."

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