*Note: For the purpose of this story just assume Clarke and friends pulled off some magical rescue of the Ark survivors. I'm sure there are stories out there that do it more justice than I can right now. I just wanted an explanation from Lexa in my head after seeing 2x15 and I couldn't wait a week, or months if they decide to keep the plot twist going until next season, for a canon one so I wrote it instead. Any errors are my fault alone as Clexa has restored a passion for fanfic writing I thought long destroyed so no beta for me.
"Why?" Clarke had not seen the woman in front of her since that night when they stood talking about the future when there was a possibility neither of them would live to see it. A future she could not see beyond embracing Lexa when surrounded by both of their peoples outside of Mount Weather as the sounds of victory carried them into tomorrow. Standing in her tent know there were a thousand words to choose, or she could have simply slapped her and walked away, but there was only one that mattered. "Why?"
Lexa had felt the absence of Clarke from her tent in her bones, yet she had been unable to leave it since that night. The night she did what she had never done before. "I had to-"
"No!" Clarke discovered another one of use, cutting off the speech of leadership and costs she knew would follow. "Why? Why me? You couldn't find someone else?" Her only theory in the slow hours that had passed since Lexa literally turned her back on everything they had built was revenge. Clarke hadn't committed to their relationship when pressed and a spurned heart had led to a cold mind resigning her people to their deaths.
"There could never be another." Lexa had thought those words had meaning after Costia. That as Heda she would rule with a calm head because she knew the suffering of emotion. They meant nothing until Clarke. Until the princess that fell from the sky that now stood as steel, ready to end her, came before her to talk of reason.
"That's it? You're heartbroken so my people were left to die? To be tortured until they had nothing left to give?" Clarke had wanted to be wrong. The others had asked why and she told them she didn't know. She lied to each of them because she could be wrong. Wrong about Lexa.
"No." Lexa had come to hate that word in all tongues and forms. It lingered on her lips. Reminding her of Clarke's withdrawal after their embrace. Of her orders to stop the attack. "I remain intact as do you Clarke of the Sky People. No blade, no missile and no bullet has touched you."
"You don't think leaving me standing in front of that door was a risk? Or that I wouldn't die to save my friends, my mother, because I no longer had an army? You even took Lincoln from us!" Clarke could not understand how her safety being Lexa's first priority could be true when the woman before created a far more dangerous situation by retreating.
"I do not speak of the Mountain Men. I talk of those outside this very tent." Lexa had remained largely as she stood that night. The armor dried with blood from those they killed before the messenger spoke his plea that would be unlikely to save him in the days ahead and a knife still on her belt, which she drew from its sheath before laying it on the table. "People of Tree, River, Ice, Plains and further still are ready to shed blood and they would not have stopped with the guilty. They would have cut down anyone in there that took one of their family, or they believed could take another, and not just those of the mountain either."
"We told them not to." Clarke remembered that part vividly. No matter what else could be interpreted as wishful thinking from her other time with Lexa, every grounder that went to war with them was explicitly told the lives to be spared. That had been as clear as Lexa's knife near the war plans that no longer mattered. "You would never give an order like that."
"I wouldn't have that night" The wounds from the mountain ran deep and the wounds from the sky were fresh, Lexa knew only a few warriors had to slip into the shadows to carry out a desire many had suppressed because that was her command. "And any whose words I could hear that dared to would have been ended where they stood, but blood is paid with blood. Each warrior there had cause for that and some desired it to where their death by my hand would not have mattered once they had their vengeance."
"You never said any of this before? How come it was only after your people were safe, with no reason to risk an army ignoring your orders, you suddenly became concerned for what happened? Or was it that you got your victory on the ridge and there would be no talks of weakness from again defending those your people consider an enemy?" Clarke felt like an idiot, but at the same time she noticed Lexa was simply standing there, letting her attack without even raising a word in her defense.
"Clarke, you did something even I couldn't have. It was my fault for not seeing the danger of that." Lexa walked away from the table, barely able to pull her eyes from Clarke as she moved towards the bed she had hoped to one night share with the woman that now starred at her with such loathing. "Your people do hold the mountain?"
"Yes." Clarke wasn't sure why Lexa was asking, but she had a hunch and if the brunette warrior was going to try to claim any of the prisoners they had taken that would be a mistake the grounder leader did not want to make. "If you think-"
"Seal it. Make whatever arrangements you need quickly, but by tonight you must hold the fortress and be certain those inside deserves life." An alliance between the sky and the mountain was how it should have been. Lexa had understood that the moment Clarke appeared before her. The ground was no place for someone with such a heart.
Clarke was certain her mouth was hanging open as she could only blink in response to Lexa's words. If they made the bunker livable for those still there, as well as her own people, the rest of the repairs could be done at their own pace. In time they could even have the acid fog and missile control back. To the grounders it would be like living under Wallace all over again and Lexa couldn't possibly want that after just getting her people free. "Why?"
"You united the 12 Clans into a single force that could have conquered the mountain and all else they laid eyes on, but they would have conquered Clarke. First the mountain, then the sky, before moving to strike down rogue groups and outsiders until even the wastes fell to them." Lexa set down on the furs that had gone unaltered since the night before they marched to war and her eyes fixed on a random spot. It was an old skill, one learned as a child, to master discipline and with Clarke's presence she had felt it slipping each day.
Clarke felt a crushing weight as she watched Lexa's strange behavior and flashes of a possible future raced through her mind. Camp Jaha was reasonably secure and might hold against one grounder army, but not against twelve, nothing could. That had been the idea because once the door at Mount Weather opened they couldn't be stopped.
"For now the clans are focused on the victory and will feast on it for a time, but warriors will begin to stir for blood and the cries will not be drowned out for long." Lexa would likely end the lives of a few challengers before even those demanding an honorable end to her reign turned into assassins.
"Then why do we have to abandon our camp and lock down the mountain tonight?" If the grounder prisoners being returned was buying them time then Clarke wanted to use it. Relations had vastly improved in a month so six months there could be trade relations, political exchanges. In a year strong friendships, maybe even lovers. They could be working towards a whole new way of living without the division of which clan someone belonged to.
"You are a bright light that can be never be darkened Clarke of the Sky People." Lexa looked into those eyes that haunted her nights in both delight and terror. "After you leave here some of the Ice Clan will feel a small cut of the pain my heart endured and none will have their eyes on the Skaikru or mountain when I do."
"No!" Again Clarke was hoping to stop whatever the woman intended to say next. She wasn't going to allow Lexa to start a war and likely get herself killed in the process. "No."
Lexa smiled at Clarke's will to fight for unity, even after the pain she had inflicted upon her. "Our people have grown close and sentries still watch the mountain. If the Skaikru were suddenly to leave for the mountain there would no explanation that would satisfy those that believe hundreds died without blood in return."
"Then come with me." There wasn't any further rational thought, just the words and a sudden rush to be knelt down in front of someone she didn't have the strength to lose. "We'll let Indra and a few others know, get Lincoln and head for the Camp. By the time anyone knows your missing will be safe inside Mount Weather." As rushed as the words came out, Clarke had to admit it sounded like a reasonable plan. She and Lexa had slipped away from an area filled with grounders once, this time a few more people accompanying them wouldn't make a difference.
"I've seen to Lincoln's release with a sentence of exile. I do not doubt where he'll travel from here and with his presence near you I won't fear for your life within those walls." The way Clarke starred at her, the unguarded emotions, that had been one of the visions that delighted Lexa some nights as she slept. It was also why she felt fortunate to know Lincoln. He easily could have been named a field commander with his skill, but he questioned those he shouldn't and his presence was not often missed by most. That made him ideal to protect Clarke from those closest to her without her people questioning the disappearance of a warrior.
"Good. Lincoln can deliver a message to the Council, you'll bring the sentries in closer and I'll talk to Indra about keeping those gathered here busy with a celebration so the others can move towards the mountain." Clarke stood up and immediately went to the table, setting aside the knife as she begin rolling up the old papers they would no longer be needing.
"Clarke, you are not safe here." For the first time in days past Lexa felt the weight of her armor and the dried paint she still wore. Unbuckling the largest pieces and letting them fall to the floor, Lexa moved to Clarke's side and attempted to literally drag her from the tent. "You must leave."
"Stop tugging on my arm. I'm not going anywhere." Clarke pulled away from the Commander's weakened gripe and sat on top of the now mostly empty table.
"I did not walk away that night so you could die in this tent. Now return to your horse and do as I tell you." Lexa was not going to have a discussion on this. It did not matter if Clarke was ready or not this time.
"I don't take orders from you and I'm not going to start now." Honestly Clarke was beginning to wonder what Lexa did for planning before she met. "Do you really want me to go live in a bunker where my life would also be at risk and instead of the leader of an army protecting me I'd have an ex-reaper. Should I mention the objections the Council would raise, the distraction of Octavia would be or that Bellamy would hover like those bugs near the horses if I was left alone with Lincoln? Besides, it's temporary. I'll prove to you that unification doesn't have to end in genocide and the door at Mount Weather doesn't have to stay sealed."
"Clarke. Please." Lexa didn't plea for anything, but for Clarke's life she would make an exception and hoped that the determination she saw in Clarke's eyes was false.
"I need you to trust me Lexa." Clarke moved off the table and stood in the familiar space that the grounder woman would never let any other living person into. "I can do this. We do this."
"And if we fail? If they come for you when they cannot reach those in the bunker?" Lexa wanted to believe. Wanted to give in. It was impossible not to weaken with Clarke being so close.
"You won't let them get that close and I won't let us stay here if we have no other choice." Clarke placed a light kiss on the corner of the proud warrior's mouth. Anything more and she wouldn't leave the tent. Anything less and she feared Lexa would risk having her forcibly taken back to Camp Jaha. "I'll be back in a little bit. You trust me?"
Lexa could only nod. Two sunrises without a bath, meal or sleep were not enough to leave her in such poor condition. No self-respecting commander would be weary from such trivial luxuries. Being alone with Clarke though was a trial more difficult than any other.
"Oh and if you ever turn your back on me like that again I'll see to it that you are locked away in a tower." Clarke let the tent flaps close behind her without so much as a pause in her steps, leaving an exhausted and now confused Commander in her wake.