The sun was already up in the sky when Clarke woke up.
She hadn't been sleeping well lately. In fact, she hadn't been sleeping at all because of the pressure on her shoulders for the mission to Mount Weather, where she let hundreds of people die of radiations. She had killed Dante herself, as a warning to Cage, and then decided to irradiate the entire level 5. She couldn't do else. She had to save her people, and she was trying so hard to be one of the good guys, to do the right thing and not to kill innocents, but when she saw her mother and her friends suffering on the table, while the doctors were taking their bone marrow, she blacked out.
She could still remember the smell of the corpses she saw in the dorm room, after everything was over.
They were all still haunting her, even though two months had passed. After that, she decided to go away from everyone. She had a burden that she and only she had to carry.
When the sunbeams of the early morning hit her face, she got up from her bed made of leaves and branches, packed her few things and started to walk. She didn't know where she was headed to, as usual. She just needed to walk and walk to make the dead faces and the smells go away, until her feet hurt too much that she was forced to rest. This was her life now, a life of wandering and solitude, she thought.
While walking, she started to think, as she always did. She thought of going back home to camp Jaha. Her mother would surely be there, like Bellamy, Raven, Jasper, Monty, Lexa. Lexa. She couldn't help thinking about the Commander, about what they had been through together before the brunette betrayed her. A sudden rage took over Clarke, but she wasn't angry with Lexa, she was angry with herself. She was angry because she had understood the reason why the grounder did what she did. She couldn't at first but she saw everything from a different point of view after what she did to the Mountain Men.
She was parted in two. The girl who could understand that sacrificed must be made in order to survive and the girl who simply couldn't stop thinking about the other possibilities she might have not thought of when she still could.
But Lexa's face wouldn't go away, in any case. The Commander was always in her mind. Clarke still saw her while sleeping and even while walking in the middle of the day. She hoped to see her, Clarke realized. She couldn't deny that she still had feelings for her. Clarke had accepted that it was more than respect and friendship that bounded her to the Heda. She remembered the softness of the girl's lips on hers and yet the strength she transmitted through the kiss. Clarke missed that. She missed that so much that she couldn't even fully admit it to herself. She had told Lexa she wasn't ready but now she realized how important the brunette was to her. How badly she needed her.
Clarke shook those thoughts off her and focused on her feet moving. She walked until dark and then set up for the night. The very second her head touched the ground, she fell asleep, only to be awaken a few hours later by a noise that came from right behind her. Clarke's hand ran to the knife in her belt, her fingers tightened around the grip, ready to move in case of danger. She didn't see the animal attacking, it was too dark, but she could hear it. Unfortunately the beast was quicker than her, and something like claws tore her leather jacket and sank in the flash in her left arm and shoulder.
A scream came out of Clarke's throat while she was falling to the ground. Her head hit a rock and she felt the blood bursting out and leaking on her forehead and face. The animal, most likely a species of catlike, was on her, aiming to her neck with the fangs. Clarke tried to push it away, to keep it as far as possible as she reached for her knife that had fallen from her hand in the fall. Her eyes couldn't see anything at all, both for blood and the injury to her head. She was about to faint, it was all too much.
Maybe this is right, she thought, maybe this could end the sorrow and punish her for everything she had done. Maybe it was pointless to fight, maybe she should let the animal kill her. After all, she deserved it.
The blonde was just about to give up, she was too tired. But suddenly the beast let out a moan and fell on Clarke, not moving anymore. It was dead, Clarke realized. Its weight was taking her breath away, so she pushed it away with all the strength she had left, which was not much, but she managed to free herself and take a deep breath. She was exhausted. The bleeding from her arm had stopped but not the one from her head. She was sitting on the ground, looking at the trees around her. It was almost dawn, she noticed. The lines and the borders of everything around her were getting more and more blurred, but she saw something. No, she saw someone. It had something familiar to her. She opened her mouth to speak, to ask who it was, when everything went black and Clarke drifted into sleep.
The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was something she never thought she would see ever again. Nay, someone. It took Clarke a few seconds to fully realize that it wasn't a hallucination. Lexa, the great Commander of the 12 clans, the girl whom she had been slowly falling in love with, the friend who betrayed her a few months earlier, was sitting next to her. The brown eyes fixed on Clarke's. She was still as a statue, so still that Clarke thought for a second that maybe she wasn't real.
"You've been sleeping for two days. Actually you did wake up for a few minutes every now in then, but you were raving. You scared me, I thought your wounds had infected.", Lexa said, after several seconds of silence between the two, staring at each other. Lexa's words made Clarke think about her injuries and she suddenly felt the pain in every part of her body, especially the head and the arm. Her hand ran automatically to the cuts, now banded and probably stitched, since she felt her skin too tight there.
"What happened? How did you find me? Why are you here?", Clarke said, while trying to get up. Her mind was full of questions, but she couldn't help herself being happy for the presence of the brunette. It had been a surprise and she had always thought that she couldn't live with other people anymore, but it was nice having her near once again. Clarke took a step towards her, who was sitting on the rocks a few meters from her, but the blonde's legs didn't really respond to the orders the brain gave, and she found herself falling down. Lexa reached for her and put her arm around Clarke's waist to hold her up, before she could hit the ground.
"Whoa, Princess, chill. You still need to recover. You hit your head pretty badly the other night and we don't want you to get hurt again, do we?", Lexa said with a slight smile. "You may not have realized it, but you are in the territories of the alliance. When my men reported to me that they had seen a blonde Sky girl wandering in the zone, I knew it was you. It had to be you.", she continued. Lexa regretted saying those final words right away, knowing she may have said too much.
Lexa had been secretly looking for Clarke, restlessly day and night, since she heard of her disappearing. She knew it was Clarke's choice to go away, but she had always cared for her and she needed to know she was safe. Not a day had passed that she didn't partially regret her deal with the Mountain Men. She felt so bad about Clarke. Clarke, the girl who had gotten into her heart in such a short time and had changed her life in a way that nobody could understand. Every day going by without any news from Clarke, Lexa wanted to scream and tear everything down out of rage and worry. But she was the Commander, she had to be stoic and heartless and strong. Hodnes laik kwelnes. Love is weakness, she kept repeating to herself. Hodnes laik kwelnes.
But as soon as she heard Clarke was near, she jumped on her horse and rode towards her. It had been a fortune, too, since when she got to the blonde, she was just about to be killed by a beast. Great timing, Lexa had thought.
"You haven't answered my questions". Clarke's voice brought her back to reality. Lexa gently helped the Sky girl sit down on a stone while gathering her thoughts and choosing her next words carefully. She had let too much slip out of her mouth already.
"I was told you were wandering in this zones. These places are full of dangers, so I thought I could check on you". Lie. Huge lie. Those territories were perfectly safe. Lexa looked away, hoping to hide her emotions from the blonde. "You have been attacked by an animal similar to a big wild cat. Luckily I got there in time or we wouldn't be having this conversation now, nor you would have had other conversations in the future", Lexa continued. She turned her head back to Clarke and looked at her blue eyes. The girls were sitting so close that Lexa could smell Clarke's hair, a smell she had missed so much and that she had thought she wouldn't smell ever again. A smile appeared on the grounder's face, while the scent gently inebriated her. Lexa closed her eyes, feeling at peace for the first time in such a long time. When she opened them again, she found herself inches from Clarke. The blue eyes were locked on the brown ones of the Commander.
"I have missed you, Clarke. I have been worried sick for so long. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat. I just-", Lexa confessed, murmuring. She was surprised herself, when she heard those words come out of her own mouth. She couldn't even finish the sentence. It was way too painful to think about those dark days.
Clarke was barely breathing. She could feel chills down her spine and at the back of her neck. A sudden need of contact ran through her, making her lean closer to Lexa. Her heart was exploding, it was beating fast and her breath was now heavy. She could tell that Lexa was trying to hold herself back. The Heda was still, every muscle contracted. If she had moved closer to Clarke, she wouldn't have been able to stop herself. Her eyes betrayed her, though. They glanced for an instant at Clarke's mouth and then moved to her blue eyes once again. She was so beautiful.
The blonde lifted her hand to put a strand of brown hair, leaked from the braids of the Commander, behind the grounder's ear. The second Clarke's fingers touched Lexa's cheek, something like electricity ran between the two.
Lexa couldn't hold any longer. She leaned forwards and kissed Clarke. When their lips touched, gently at first, the world around them disappeared. They parted for an instant, looking into each other's eyes. Lexa was afraid of having done a wrong move, but her fright went away when Clarke eagerly pressed again her lips on Lexa's. She deepened the kiss, while one of her hands moved to Lexa's waist and the other behind her neck, pulling her closer.
They kissed and it was like finally beginning to live again.
Clarke was the first one to break the kiss to catch her breath. She gently cupped Lexa's cheek with a hand, slowly placing small and soft kisses along her jaw and then moving to her neck. Lexa felt shivers down her spine and let out a moan when she felt Clarke's hand pushing on her low back.
They couldn't get enough of each other. It felt like they had been chained for way too long and now they had been released. Their hands moving and touching every reachable part of the other's body, craving for more.
It was Lexa who broke the kiss. She cupped Clarke's face with her hands and looked in her eyes, then gently moved a lock of blonde hair from her face. She couldn't help smiling. It was a genuine smile, Clarke noticed, a rare one that transmitted pure happiness. Clarke could feel Lexa's affection in her soft touch, in her eyes, in her smile.
"Come back with me", the Commander suddenly said. "Come back home. Please".
A grounder never said please, but this was an exception. Clarke had always been an exception. Lexa couldn't help being weak when she was with her, especially when they were alone. She was practically begging. She needed the blonde too much, she couldn't let her go away once again.
Clarke started to scan every possible consequence. She would have to meet her people, face what she had done. Face her fear of being considered a killer by everyone, though she already thought that of herself. It would be hard, she thought, very hard. She looked at Lexa. Clarke had never seen her like this, so vulnerable and worried. Every doubt faded away.
"Okay, I'll do it. I'll come back", Clarke said. Lexa's face lit up and a broad smile appeared. Clarke's heart melted at the view and she smiled back to the brunette.
The Commander stood up, pulling Clarke up by the hand. The Sky girl turned pale.
"Wait, you mean now?", she said. The grounder laughed and kept pulling the girl up, "Come on, it's quite a long journey from here. We have a horse, but it still takes 3 days". Clarke didn't look so happy either way. Lexa smiled kissing her cheek, "You're not alone, Clarke. I'm right here, I'll always be", she said suddenly serious. She understood Clarke's worry. She held her close, putting her arms around her waist, "I'll always help you out", she continued while starting to kiss the blonde's jaw.
Clarke smiled, a bit relieved. She felt the need of physical contact again, like a few minutes before, but before she could even move a muscle, she felt Lexa pulling away. Clarke felt frustrated and upset, like a child who's been taken the favorite toy away; she glared at the brunette, who simply smiled and jumped on her horse, offering Clarke a hand to join her.
The Sky girl shook her head, lightly laughing, and got on the horse behind the grounder. She hugged her, placed her hands on Lexa's stomach and rested her head on her back, inhaling the smell of trees and leaves that came from Lexa's hair.
The horse started to move, gaining speed. Clarke held tight to Lexa.
"You'll be alright", the Heda said as if she could read the other's mind. "We'll be alright".
