It had been two weeks since Clarke left Camp Jaha.
Clarke spent a week walking south along the river in a daze, crying for hours at a time and screaming herself hoarse until her ragged body succumbed to sleep. In wakefulness, emotions racked her insides - grief, guilt, remorse, and shame for what she had done at the Mountain. There was pain and anger, too, and bitterness and resentment. But those feelings were more personal. Clarke cried through the growing knowledge that she did not - could not - hate Lexa. She understood. She hated that she understood. And she hated that she had done something even worse than Lexa. But she could not unsee all that she had done, and she could not shake the tremendous guilt.
In the beginning of this self-imposed exile, Clarke gathered berries and nuts from the trees around her and drank from the river whenever she wandered close to it again. Her pants started to fit more loosely, but she barely noticed. She ate out of necessity, out of basic survival, not because she felt hungry.
She had come to terms with herself. She knew that the past was in the past. But she wasn't ready to move forward either. Clarke was in limbo. She knew that as soon as she returned to her people, she would have to work on the future, whatever that meant.
So she spent another week in solitude. Through reasoning, her mind was as at peace as she supposed it would ever be, but her heart still ached and the guilt didn't subside.
Clarke kept walking during the second week. She vaguely noticed that the river became wider and wider whenever she went near it again, and suddenly it gave way to the ocean. She followed the coast on its northerly path and though she wanted to walk along the beach every day, she stuck to the wilderness, only just keeping the shore in sight.
It was in this second week when she no longer cried herself into dead-like sleep that she truly started to suffer.
As sore as she tried to make her muscles each day, she would only sleep for a couple hours at a time before waking from horrible nightmares. They replayed everything over and over and the screams and gunshots seemed almost amplified, louder than they had been in real life. She saw everything in sickening detail, as if the nightmares had taken images from her mind and zoomed in on them.
Sometimes Clarke woke up drenched in sweat with her limbs paralyzed and her chest heaving, and it would take many long minutes before her breathing slowed and she could pick herself up.
Often times when she woke, she simply vomited. And as the state of her stomach deteriorated, and her mind returned to her horrific acts she committed while she was awake, she vomited before she could cry or scream for the agony of it all.
She found more obscure places to hide herself than she had before. Some of the fog that clouded Clarke's mind had dissipated and she knew she should make more of an effort to not die in the woods. She made traps to catch small animals to add to her diet. The traps were not perfect, but she got them to work. She was not sure if she was really skilled enough with the dagger strapped to her thigh to attempt killing larger animals. Half the time she could barely stomach the small amount she trapped anyway. She also knew she should save the bullets in her pistol for enemies, not food. The Mountain Men were no longer a threat, but she didn't know who else might be looking for her. Clarke wondered if her people were trying to forge a new alliance with the Grounders. Or perhaps her people sought retaliation. She could not decide which she hoped for.
The weapon on her hip had started to feel like an anvil at her side. She became so used to the feeling of the dagger in her hand, using it to splinter wood for kindling and skinning the animals she caught. Something in her started to dread under what circumstances she might fire a weapon again. She tried not to think about it, and purposefully avoided touching the cold, black metal. Clarke had only drawn her gun a couple of times when she heard noise close to her. One had turned out to be a black bear, and Clarke did not wait to find out if it was hostile or indifferent to her. She ran until her lungs burned and figured she had put enough space between them.
The other time Clarke heard movement in the woods and drew her weapon, she had not been able to find out what - or whom - it came from.
Two days after that unnerving experience, Clarke's solitude ended prematurely.
—-
It was mid-morning, and Clarke turned the roasting squirrel over the fire she made after checking her traps. She sat cross-legged and her eyes eventually got lost in the flames, and she let herself fall into a rare moment when her mind went mercifully blank.
"Clarke," she heard her name from behind a tree some 20 yards away. She knew the voice but she still rose quickly to her feet. Even as she saw Lincoln emerge with his empty hands raised in surrender, she unsheathed her dagger.
"I'm here to give you a message." He said, lowering his hands slowly.
"Who sent you?" Clarke asked, her voice rough from not being used for so long.
"The Commander sent Indra to us with news." Lincoln said, and he walked closer as Clarke sat again and stabbed her dagger into the ground with a huff.
"There is a ceasefire between our people. It's not peace, but they've agreed not to attack each other." He explained. Clarke raised her eyebrows and waited for him to arrive at the message he was sent to deliver.
"The Ice Nation has a bounty on you and some of the Sky People, and some from other clans are swaying from the coalition too." Lincoln's voice was still as Clarke remembered it - urgent, but even and clear. Something about it comforted Clarke in spite of hearing that she was being hunted.
"What do they want with me?" Clarke turned the squirrel over the flames again, avoiding Lincoln's serious face. She felt his gaze cross over her, then to the animal she was distracting herself with. Silently, he moved closer and knelt down on one knee a few feet away from her.
"Some say they want to use you as leverage against the Commander, as they have done in the past." Lincoln started. Clarke felt a pang in her stomach. Costia. Did people really think that she and Lexa had the same kind of relationship?
"Whether or not that is true, you are seen as a threat. Powerful. The Commander has reason to believe you, and some of the Sky People, might be kidnapped for information."
Bile rose in Clarke's throat and her stomach felt sour, but she kept her eyes on the flames. She didn't know what was more frustrating - the fact that they were in danger yet again, or that it was because of yet another, unknown enemy. Or at least, unknown to her. The tired numbness of her muscles and her mind prevented any outward sign of panic, but her skin felt hot, tingling uncomfortably. Lincoln remained silent, almost serene, allowing her thoughts to coalesce. Clarke appreciated this. Lincoln's silences were easier to bear than most of the Grounders'.
Clarke took the squirrel off its spit and set it on a rock to cool.
"I assume the Commander expects me to help her deal with this?" Clarke emphasized the title sardonically.
"She has not requested a personal audience with you. But she has requested that you be brought to Polis. From here, it's the closest place that your safety can be assured." Lincoln did not exactly answer her, and Clarke's brow furrowed. Questions entered her mind rapidly. Was Lexa avoiding her? How long had she known about this new threat? Why did Lexa seem to feel responsible for Clarke's safety? How did Lincoln find her?
"How far is Polis from here?" Clarke asked Lincoln, as this was the simplest question she could have an answer to right away.
"A day's walk. We can arrive by nightfall if we aren't interrupted."
"Do you think we will be?" Clarke asked, giving him a hard look. He did not look concerned, but he tilted his head slightly, as if to say he could not be sure. Clarke's face settled into a hard frown, and they both let silence fall again as Clarke pulled meat off the squirrel and handed some to Lincoln before picking some for herself. He nodded his thanks, then stared into the trees, chewing lazily.
Clarke mulled over what Lincoln told her. She could not explain the bitterness she felt about Lexa trying to ensure her safety. She trusted that Lincoln about the ceasefire, but what kind of welcome would she receive if she walked into Polis? But, she realized, she had not given much attention to where or how far she walked over the last two weeks. Now Lincoln could lead her to a place where, theoretically, she would be safe until she could arrange to get back to her people. Clarke didn't like it, but it was unwise to be by herself now. She had to go back. They finished eating and Clarke stood up abruptly.
"Let's go, then." She said, and she stomped out the fire. Lincoln nodded and set off. They walked several feet apart, and both kept their eyes moving around the forest, watching for anything unusual. After a while, Clarke turned to look at Lincoln.
"How did you know where I was?" She asked quietly.
"Scouts." He said, not looking at her.
"The Commander's?" He nodded.
"Her best." Lincoln added, and Clarke was not sure why.
"Since when?" She pressed. Lincoln was silent then, almost as if he didn't want to tell her. But he knew, and Clarke's eyes bore down on him.
"Maybe a day or two after she found out you left camp alone. I'm not sure when the scouts caught up to you." At this, Clarke glared angrily into the scenery around her. She thought of that terrible first week. Someone had seen that, possibly reported it back to Lexa. Her cheeks flushed and all she could think was that she didn't want Lexa to know…
Know what? That she was human? That she did something terrible that her conscience couldn't quite reconcile? Or was it weakness? Was it cowardice? She had no idea what Lexa might have thought if she had spied on Clarke herself.
"They're not still following us are they?" Clarke asked suddenly, turning her head to Lincoln again.
"No," he responded, "I sent him ahead to Polis. I gave him a head start before I approached you." And Lincoln looked at Clarke.
"I didn't think you would appreciate a whole day's journey with a stranger to overhear you." Then Lincoln raked his eyes through the trees again. Clarke eyed him wonderingly, and pressed her lips together - the closest thing to a smile she could manage.
"Thank you, Lincoln." He gave the smallest of nods.
They walked for hours without speaking again. At one point, Lincoln reached into a pouch in his coat and wordlessly handed strips of dried meat to Clarke. She thanked him with a nod. After that, Clarke's mind wandered for a while and she pictured the faces of the 44, of her mother and Kane.
"Lincoln…" Clarke started, but she dryly swallowed over a lump that formed in her throat. Lincoln slowed their pace a little and stepped closer to pass her a canteen of water. She took a sip and sighed. She took another drink and handed it back to him.
"Chof." She said, and he murmured "pro" before taking a drink himself.
"Is everyone ok? I mean…" And she didn't want to ask out loud if anyone else was dead, so she continued, "How's Octavia?" She saw his brow relax slightly at the name, but he kept his eyes trained on their surroundings.
"No deaths since the mountain. Octavia…" Even the slight pause caused Clarke's heart to beat faster.
"She's trying to figure out where she belongs." He said. Clarke wondered if Lincoln was projecting how he felt about himself onto his partner, but didn't say anything. Octavia had become so independent. She had really only ever belonged with Bellamy before, but the ground changed that. Clarke thought Octavia deserved to belong to herself and perhaps with Lincoln. Clarke would, hopefully, be able to determine more once she saw Octavia and the rest of her people.
But at least there were no deaths since Clarke left. That knowledge fueled Clarke for the rest of their walk to Polis.