Hi! This is a clexa fix-it fic that takes place after 3x07. After all they deserved a softer story... So enjoy! ;)
Disclaimer: The 100 aren't mine, they are the property of The CW and Jason Rothenberg. (obviously, if they weren't Lexa would probably still be alive. Fuck you Jason). I only own the ideas of this fic.
"I really don't know what "I love you" means. I think it means "don't leave me here alone"."
- Neil Gaiman, Dark Sonnet.
You wake up from your brief sleep and shake your head to chase the lingering bad dreams, your ears still ringing from the remaining sound of gunshot. Proceeding to seat on the bed, you ponder if now you'll have to get used to have a permanent kind of buzz parasitizing your ears. You see Lexa at her desk, seemingly too absorbed in analyzing her maps lying in front of her and in strategizing for what will come next, to have noticed you. She is sitting on her chair as if it were her throne. She looks bigger than this room, bigger than this world somehow. And you know she is worth so much more than what this world has given her. You would follow her anywhere you think, even to war. Especially to war maybe, given recent events.
She is the kind of person writers would have wrote about before the bombs, you think. They would have wrote poems and tragedies. There would have been verses dedicated to the curve of her lips and the green of her eyes, songs about the way she fought and stories of Heda Lexa. She would have been remembered as a warrior but also as a visionary. Would have you love been remembered too? You wonder... In a thousand years what you did, what you tried to build, the two of you, will it matter? Will her name be remembered? To you, it seems impossible that there could be a world that doesn't know her. It wouldn't be a world you'd want to see.
But yet, yesterday you were about to leave Polis, to leave her. And it came so close to this. She came so close to dying, closer than ever. Now you can't touch a gun without wanting to throw up and loud sounds makes you freeze. Every time you close your eyes you see black blood drowning you and a bullet piercing her left arm, missing her heart only by several inches. Sometimes you see the bullet piercing her heart and it feels as if it were yours instead... You hope you can prevent it for decades. You hope you'll get a lifetime with her. She deserves it and far more, and maybe you do to, despite everything you've done. You want to have the chance to build something instead of destroying everything, everyone, you touch. You want to teach her how to play chess, you want her to teach you to swim, to fight with swords, to climb trees and every trigedaslang word she know. You want to tell her about your dad and soccer games of the old world, to tell her about Wells and your cell in solitary, you want to hear about her days before she became Heda, to know how she was as a child, and every stories about Anya, Gustus and Costia she wishes to share with you. You want to discover Polis, go to the markets with her and buy her tons of candles. You want to take her to the glowing forest and to see the ocean with her. You want to probe Aden for stories about her and joke with him and the other nightbloods about her way of turning everything into a lesson and her propensity for talks about her death. You want to introduce her to your mother, you want your mother to know Lexa instead of only Heda. You want to draw every inch of her body, ask her the story behind every one of her scars, even the smallest ones. You want to learn how to do her warpaint and tell her she kind of looks like a raccoon but that you find it's cute, she would probably scowl at that but it would be even more cute. You want to lose track of the number of times you kissed her or waked up next to her. You want to get used to her laugh and never get used to it at the same time. You want firsts and lasts and everything in between with her. You so desperately want so much more than just surviving. And it's a dangerous thing to hope for in a world like yours where every choice seems to be the wrong one, but still, despite everything, she always feels right. And you don't want to waste time fighting it anymore.
It would be foolish to hope for centuries, but she believes that souls lasts longer than bodies, and that yours are linked. You have never been much of a believer, and life on the Ark and then on the ground certainly hasn't helped in than regard, but with her you wonder... You wonder if this time was just your unlucky hand and that somewhere else there is a kinder one drew for the two of you. Maybe in this place, in this time, your love is gentler and hers is freer. But right now she is here and that is all that really matter. Still without noticing you have woken up, she has left her chair and table and stands on her balcony, watching Polis waking up too. You smile.
Peace may never come fully, but maybe you can be okay with that. Maybe she is your peace.
Carefully hidden under clothes, ink and scars mingle in her back and black dried tears streaks her face. Her intricate braids reminds you of Ancient Greece and Viking shield-maiden. Her back speak of tragedies, her hair of war and ancient kingdoms, and her eyes of epic love and the weight of the world. Broken, standing, desperate and fierce. She's stronger than everything you ever saw. And oh so beautiful. She reminds you of storms and bonfires that pierce the night. The kind of storms where you don't know if the world is about to end or start anew but you can't help yourself watching, fascinated. You hope you'll never get used to her, to the way she looks at you. Like you're the only thing she could look at. As if she was searching for the answer to every question ever asked, and every that are yet to be asked or thought. As if you were the answer. And really, by now you're used to be looked up at as if you could save everyone and were responsible for everything, but with her it's different. She looks at you like you're more. More than radiations and Mont Weather's explosions, more than gunfire and crashing spaceships, more than a lost kid, more than some everlasting black and white mixing in grey forever. She looks at you like you're colors. As if she wanted to say "don't leave me here alone". It doesn't erase everything of course. It doesn't fully efface 300 burning Trikru warriors, or "may we meet again" and pulling a lever to irradiate Mount Weather. It doesn't erase Wanheda. And it doesn't make you forget everything, but it does help you breath, even a little. Maybe this is how you heal.
You get up from the bed and walk towards her.
"Heya" you mutter, touching lightly her arm and adding in a thick accent "os sonop".
You hope you didn't use the wrong words, but she turn her head and you must have done something right because she smiles at you with the corner of her mouth, as if she was afraid someone was going to notice it and punish her for it, or steal it. So you decide to put a hand on her cheek and press a kiss right on her small smile, soft smile to protect it from the world. She tastes like summertime: wind and hot green grass and bonfires. Like finally finding the right way to sketch someone's eyes on a canvas. Like jumping in a river, or riding a horse for the first time and every one after that. Her kisses taste like forgiveness, of an understanding you never thought you'd get, or deserved, the green of her eyes shine like hope and her fingertips traces stories on your body in between old memories and scars. And when you look at her you see universes. She feels like home.
She holds you like you're, somehow, everything and once upon a time it would have scared you, but now… Now you can't help but fall in love a little more again. And falling has never felt more like flying.
"Your heart is on my sleeve
Did you put it there with a magic marker?
For years I would believe
That the world couldn't wash it away."
- U2 "Ordinary Love"
Translations :
Heya = Hello, Hi
Os sonop = Good morning (approximately)
Heda = Commander
Wanheda = Commander of death
Trikru = Tree People
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this One shot!
Oh and sorry in advance if there are some faults, English isn't my native language ;) But feel free to leave comments either in English or in French and I will be happy to answer!