Chapter One: Voluntary Exile

Clarke had been walking at a steady pace for a week. Physically, she wasn't pushing herself. She'd do most of the walking in the middle of the day, when the weak winter sun was as high in the sky as it was going to get. When she had turned her back on the Camp, she had done so with no forethought. She had no pack, no tent. She wouldn't have survived this week if Bellamy hadn't of caught up with her forty minutes into her exile carrying a backpack. She thought he had come after her to convince her to turn back around. Instead he handed her the backpack with a nod, asked her to be careful and left her alone. Clarke was grateful to him for that.

The pack contained the necessary equipment to survive in the woods for a while, but not forever. She had a one-man tent and a blanket to ward off the night time chill, a flint to make fire. There was a canister so that she could fill it up whenever she passed a water source. The biggest problem was the food. The pack contained only nuts and berries and a few strips of smoked meat that Clarke had eaten first before they went off. There was only enough to last a fortnight at most, and that relied on Clarke being stingy. Eventually she would run out and would have to start worrying about foraging and in the long run, hunting. Since she had no real expertise at gathering her own food, Clarke wanted to put off that eventuality for as long as possible. She was careful not to exert herself anymore than she needed to. All in all her progress along her chosen path, one that ran roughly North West, was slow and that suited Clarke just fine. It wasn't as if she had anywhere to be. She'd removed herself from the only place she belonged down here on Earth.

The thought of everyone back at Camp Jaha struck Clarke again, as it had so many times on this self imposed exile. The initial rush of comfort she got from picturing her friends, safely back together, was quickly displaced. A powerful wave of guilt took Clarke as the memory of what she had had to do to get them there resurfaced yet again. Whilst the physical toll on Clarke's body was minimal during this aimless trek, the mental one was anything but. Clarke knew she was punishing herself, driving herself further and further down into a blackened pit. But how could she stop? How could she stop thinking of herself as a monster who had, without mercy, taken so many lives? How could she ever stop wondering if there had been another way?

Most of all Clarke didn't know how she could satisfy these remnants of her eroding moral compass with such a simple answer. She had done what was necessary and would do so again if it meant saving her people. That was the only conclusion Clarke could reach in the circular argument she'd been having with herself from the moment she'd left Camp Jaha. It was that conclusion that was threatening to finally break Clarke's soul. She was going to have to make a decision as to whether it was worth keeping this self-imposed guilt trip going. Or whether it was better to admit defeat and resign herself to becoming a lifeless husk, a shadow. Either way, she doubted she'd ever be able to find it in herself to return to Camp, let alone take back responsibility for the safety of the people that called it home.

"I bear it so they don't have to." Clarke repeated to herself and the surrounding woods. The woods gave no reply of course. The rustling of leaves and the pitter patter of light rain that had been falling since the early hours of the morning were the only company Clarke kept.

Clarke had entertained the notion of returning to Mount Weather in the hopes of it bringing closure. Perhaps she could give the bodies a funeral. After a day of walking towards the mountain Clarke had changed her mind however. The only logical way to cremate so many bodies would be to set the whole mountain ablaze. That would make any useful supplies still in there impossible to obtain. Even though she had made a decision not to lead the sky people anymore, her thoughts were still centred on how they would stay safe. The treasures inside the mountain were still there for the taking. Unless the grounders decided that they wanted to cremate the bodies of the mountain men themselves, in payment for the thousands of grounder lives lost over the years. It would certainly be their right to. Clarke imagined her people and the grounders going to the mountain together to collect supplies and cremate the dead, but this idea made Clarke laugh aloud. No, the alliance between the two groups had ended the moment the Commander had taken the mountain men's deal. She'd ordered her army to retreat, leaving the few dozen sky people to most be killed along with those still in the mountain.

Lexa. For all Clarke's mental acrobatics regarding her own choices at the mountain, the Commander's decision was one thing that Clarke refused to let herself dwell on. She didn't need to add feelings of betrayal and- dare she think it, heartbreak- to her feelings of guilt and hopelessness. Anytime Clarke's train of thought had started to veer towards the Commander, Clarke had stopped herself. Usually by returning to the start of her internal battle and reexamining once again her own decisions. But this was of course infuriating because in doing this, Clarke had turned Lexa into a sort of mental roadblock. A locked door in her mind that forced her to retrace her steps and start all over on whatever she was trying to achieve on this long walk to nowhere in particular.

Maybe it was time to bite the proverbial bullet after all. A week of mulling over her decision to pull the lever and irradiate level 5 of Mount Weather had left Clarke feeling no better. Musing about the Commander instead might be a welcome break. 'Be angry at someone other than yourself for a while' Clarke figured. But there was the problem. White hot anger towards the Commander had lasted only minutes. Then the determination to get her people out of the mountain had forced Clarke to forget all about Lexa's betrayal. And now, with the blood of over three hundred people on Clarke's hands she couldn't hate Lexa for what she did. Or rather any hate that she did feel was of the petty sort, a knee-jerk reaction to being hurt by someone she cared about. The same sort of proud hate that had allowed her to hold a grudge against Wells for so long. It was personal and against the logic of looking at the bigger picture.

By taking the deal, Lexa had done exactly what she'd set out to do when she'd marched her army to the foot of the mountain; rescued her people. And she had done this with minimal bloodshed, exactly as Clarke wanted it, ironically. Clarke knew that it was the only choice that a leader could make in that situation, when the safety of the people under their protection came before anything else. But more than that, and this was really why Clarke could not muster any hatred for Lexa, that decision had saved Lexa from being backed into the same corner Clarke had found herself in. How many similar calls had Lexa already made in the past? The missile was one. Lexa had already lost over two hundred people to the war before they'd even marched on the mountain. Whilst Clarke had agreed with Lexa's decision not to warn the inhabitants of TonDC, it was at the end of the day Lexa's call. It was Lexa's people that were sacrificed. But there had been more times like that in the past too. Here Clarke was, in self imposed exile, whilst goodness knows what was going on back at camp. But Lexa had no choice but to shoulder the decisions she'd made and continue to lead her people. They believed her to be spiritually chosen for the role, being unfit for Command would only spell her death. Lexa didn't have the luxury of being able to walk away.

Now Clarke understood why the walls that Lexa had built around herself were so important. They were keeping a young woman, no older than Clarke, sane. Clarke knew that Lexa was anything but heartless. In fact it now seemed cruel that the commander's spirit had chosen someone with such a huge capacity for love and compassion to be it's newest vessel. And Clarke had been chiselling away at those walls. Lexa's decision at the mountain had gone from an ideal outcome for the Commander, to one that had caused her significant emotional pain. Clarke could envision the look that Lexa had given her in the seconds between her saying 'may we meet again' and turning to walk away. Whilst the rest of her face remained as stoic as ever, Lexa's eyes revealed nothing but pain. Clarke had gotten so used to staring into those eyes to gather clues as to what Lexa was really feeling at any given time. Even when the cold mask of the Commander remained otherwise faultless. She'd become quite adept at reading the thousands of words being communicated through those eyes even when Lexa spoke so little. And in those seconds Clarke could see conflict, heartbreak, and regret. What damage Lexa had done to Clarke when she turned and retreated the Commander had also done to herself. They were a burden to each other.

So lost was Clarke in her thoughts about Lexa, that she did not notice the root in her path. Her foot got caught and she went flying forward with a loud yelp, only just getting her hands up in time to save face planting on to the ground. The pain of landing her full weight on her hands shot up through her arms. There was tarmac, an old road, under the thin layer of vegetation so the landing was harder than it would have been deeper in the wood. And Clarke thought she had been clever to roughly follow the remains of the road as it had made it easier to avoid going in circles. Or worse ending up back at Camp Jaha which would of been embarrassing as well as painful.

Clarke was about to pick herself up when she became aware of the sound of someone running towards her. Without hesitating, she drew the gun she'd been carrying from it's holster. She rolled onto her back, aiming the weapon in front of her. The man that had been running towards her skidded to a halt at the sight of the weapon and put his hands in the air. Judging by his rough fur lined clothing and the bow and quiver upon his back, he was a grounder.

"Please don't shoot, Clarke of the Sky people! I mean you no harm!"

"Who are you? How do you know my name?" Clarke questioned, not lowering the weapon.

"My name is Aldrin. I am a scout of the Trigedakru. I remember you from TonDC," the man, Aldrin, replied. Aldrin's eyes were sharp and intelligent. His command of gonasleng, English, was excellent. He looked to be in his early twenties, with dark brown skin and a shaved head almost completely covered by tattoos. They were a similar swirling design to the Commander's, rather than the tribal patterns worn by grounders from TonDC. Perhaps he and Lexa were from the same village. 'Alexandria', Clarke remembered the Commander telling her. It was less than three hours away from TonDC, but Lexa had said she hadn't been back there since becoming Commander.

Clarke picked herself up from the ground, keeping her weapon raised as she did. She wiped her muddy free hand on her pants leg and then gripped tight to the strap of her pack, just in case Aldrin had designs on relieving her of her lifeline. "And why were you following me, Aldrin?"

Aldrin seemed to waver at the question, trying to decide what to tell Clarke, "I was not following you. I must simply take the same path to get to Polis."

"Bullshit." Clarke spat, "If you know the path then you would have overtaken me. There's no reason for you to move as slowly as me unless you were following."

Aldrin smiled then, as if he was pleased with Clarke's intuition. "Very well, Clarke. I was following you. The Commander dispatched myself and one other scout to recon Camp Jaha and bring back word of any survivors from the mountain."

"So where's the other guy? Skulking in the trees?"

"No. He returned immediately to tell the Commander that you had succeeded in rescuing your people. We overheard sky people saying that you had killed all the mountain men, is it true?"

"Yes." Clarke responded curtly. She wasn't ready to discuss Mount Weather with a stranger.

"Jus drein jus daun," Aldrin said quietly. "A just kill, Clarke of the Sky people, the mountain men answered for their crimes against the skaikru."

"You still haven't explained why you are following me." Clarke said forcefully, ignoring Aldrin's appraisal of her decision. And she thought she already knew the answer to her query but wanted to hear it from Aldrin anyway.

"When the Commander dispatched us, she made it clear to us that should you have survived the mountain, we were to ensure your safety. Following you when you walked away from your camp was the only way to do that. The woods are dangerous."

Clarke laughed at that statement.

"It is no laughing matter, Clarke. I have killed several wild animals that got too close to you whilst you slept. You should not be going to Polis unattended."

"I- thank you." Clarke stuttered out. She thought she'd just had some much needed good luck when she hadn't run into any trouble. Did that make the Commander her good luck charm? "Wait, you keep mentioning Polis. I didn't intend to travel there."

Aldrin looked puzzled by this, "But you have not veered from this path. It is an old path that runs from TonDC to Polis. I thought you were tracking our army, you are half a day behind them. You'd have caught up already had you pace been quicker."

Now that Aldrin had mentioned it, the signs of recent heavy use of the path became immediately clear to Clarke. The thin layer of vegetation that had reclaimed the road had been trampled flat, obviously by the steady march of an army. She had wandered thoughtlessly past abandoned log fires that would have disintegrated already had they not been so recent.

"It seems fate is pulling you towards our capital, Clarke of the Sky people, you would do best not to ignore it. I will stay close for the rest of the journey. If we hurry we might catch up with the army in the town of Gowma, a days march away from the gates of Polis. By my estimate, the army will have arrived there this morning and will rest up before completing their journey."

Clarke considered this. Maybe she didn't believe in fate quite as resolutely as the grounders did. Still, finding out that she'd been walking towards the place that the Commander had invited her to before things went south was one hell of a coincidence. It occurred to Clarke then that Lexa was the only person on Earth who could truly understand what Mount Weather had done to Clarke. In all the time they'd spent together, Lexa had offered nothing but words of wisdom. Her own people had leveled judgement after judgement upon Clarke, questioning at every turn. She could use a place where she would not be judged right now. Someone she cared about telling her that, yes the decision was on Clarke, but yes it was the right one. And hadn't she just ended up flat the floor at the thought of how much Lexa must be hurting right now? It was going to be painful to look into those soulful eyes again but Clarke knew that this aimless journey of hers had an inevitable destination. Polis. Lexa. Peace?

"Alright." Clarke said, holstering the gun that had dropped to her side some time ago, "Lead the way."

She fell into step behind Aldrin with new purpose.