Disclaimer; I do not own 100, blah blah blah.
Authors Note; This fic was inspired by the song 'Back to December' by Taylor Swift and is the suggested listening material.
Rating; T
Pairing; Clarke/Lexa with slight Clarke/Bellamy
Seven months after walking away from Clarke on the mountain, Lexa returns to Camp Jaha (it is an odd name for their village, she thinks, but she doesn't comment). Abby, Marcus and Bellamy meet her at the gates, welcoming but cautious. Lexa cannot stop her eyes from searching the crowd for blond hair and blue eyes any more than she can stop the disappointment that wells inside of her when she doesn't find them.
She forces down the irrational fear that Clarke is dead - the men she has watching the fortress tell her the leader of the Sky Clan is safe.
The trio leads her into their council chamber. She sits and they talk about trivial matters - mostly the stores they have gathered for the coming winter (they are woefully unprepared), thoughts on relocating to a more permanent residence (one closer to TonDC) and the help the Trikru have given to the Skykru. In the end, it's nothing Lexa hasn't already heard from Indra. It's not the real reason for her visit, anyway.
Lexa notices Bellamy studying her with an unreadable expression; her jaw clenches and she dismisses it.
It takes her an hour to crack and, when she does, she speaks as casually as she can, her eyes traveling around the chamber. "Clarke is absent," she drawls, focusing on her nails as if they are far more important than the sky girl. "Is she no longer apart of your council?"
Bellamy's jaw clenches and Lexa realizes that she's just reveled her true intentions to the man. Abby and Marcus, however, remain oblivious, the former smiling politely. "Yes, she is. Your visit surprised us - she's out with a hunting party, otherwise I am sure she would be here, Commander."
Lexa doubts it.
"She should be back by nightfall," Marcus adds.
"She is back now," a voice comes from behind them. They all stand sharply, as if welcoming a king into their midst. The Sky boy grins at the blond, but Clarke only has eyes for Lexa. He notices. The Commander meets her gaze, unfaltering.
"What are you doing here?" Clarke continues, her expression twisted with anger, echoed in her words.
Lexa can see the others standing stiffly out of the corner of her eye, as if they expect a brawl to erupt at any given second - they probably wouldn't be wrong. Before the Commander has a chance to answer, however, Marcus clears his throat.
"Perhaps we should give them some privacy." A soft hand on the crook of Abby's elbow, gently pulling her along, is required before the older woman moves to exit, passing a glance between the two young women before she does.
Bellamy, however, lingers.
His dark eyes give Lexa a dangerous look - the gaze doesn't break until Clarke softly speaks his name. Silent communication passes between them, which Lexa does not understand. She hides her anger at this fact. After a few long moments, the man nods.
He doesn't leave immediately, however. The distance between him and the blond closes, his hand cupping her jaw, lips pressed to Clarke's. Lexa tenses, the hand resting on the pommel of her sword clenching. Bellamy, when he breaks away from Clarke, sees this and smirks.
Lexa can read the message for what it is - a claim on the sky princess, smug and arrogant. Her hand clenches harder and it takes every ounce of her iron strong self control to keep from plunging her sword into his chest.
She ignores the fact that it's her own fault.
"Be safe. I love you," the man whispers, just loud enough for Lexa to hear. She is sure it is intentional.
Clarke only nods, offering a shaky smile. With one last stroke of his thumb across her cheek, Bellamy leaves. It takes many more moments for Clarke to lift her eyes again, locking with Lexa's green.
She resists the urge to flinch at the coldness she finds there.
"Why are you here?" There is a vulnerability this time that wasn't there before and Clarke's hand rests atop the back of one of the chairs circling the table, as if it would hold her up.
At first, Lexa doesn't respond, at first. "I - I came to see how you were faring," the Commander answers, surprisingly honest.
Clarke snorts. "We're doing fine - believe it or not, we can survive without your help."
Lexa's mind shoots back to a memory, right before she tasted the blond's lips for the first time, right before Clarke broke her heart; 'Maybe life should be about more than surviving - don't we deserve better than that?'.
She shakes it off, "That's not -" the brunette forces the words to stop, instead clearing her throat, directing the conversation in a less painful direction. "Your mother seems well."
Clarke studies her for a long moment, as if trying to figure out her intentions. Her spine is stiff, eyes untrusting. Lexa can't really blame her - after all, the last time Clarke had seen her, she was walking away from the sky girl, leaving her (and the remains of the 100) to die.
It is the fifth time she underestimates Clarke.
"She is," the blond replies slowly, cautiously.
"And you?"
"I am, too."
Lexa nods solemnly, not completely sure if she believes Clarke, but the only emotion reflected in the blond's blue eyes is caution and mistrust with the burning embers of anger. There had once been a time when Lexa was able to read every thought on Clarke's mind, just by looking into her eyes. Those times, she reminds herself, are gone.
"Winter will be here, soon," she comments casually, avoiding the topic she fears discussing yet knowing she won't walk out of this room without the old wounds being ripped open.
Blood, after all, must have blood.
She was unused to seeing Clarke so guarded, so closed off but Lexa knew she could only blame herself.
The blond sky girl only nods in answer. Lexa falters, until Clarke speaks. "Where have you been?" It's spoken almost hesitantly, as if she doesn't want to ask, "No one's seen you for months."
"Polis, mostly," Lexa answers slowly, fiddling with the ribbons decorating the hilt of her sword, "Traveling between the clans. There were matters I had to attend to - clan disputes that had to be resolved lest there be more war." It was her greatest fear - that the coalition would fall with victory. The mountain has fallen, their common enemy vanquished.
And the clans, more than anything, craved war. That, coupled with generations of distrust and disagreements was bound to end badly.
Clarke's expression, for a moment, shows concern, her eyes scanning Lexa's body, lingering on every visible patch of skin, searching for new scars. It lightens the Commander's heart, if only for a moment, before the expression is hidden behind a mask once more.
Silence stretches between them.
Lexa tries again, "Octavia and Lincoln seem very happy - Indra tells me they have announced their intentions to join."
"They are," Clarke agrees, finally relaxing just enough that the tension in her jaw softens as the corners of her lips twitch into the beginnings of a smile, "Much to Bellamy's disappointment."
Lexa's brow shadows, "He disapproves of the joining of our clans?"
"Lincoln is one of us," Clarke reminds firmly, "Bell trusts him, but Octavia is his little sister," She shrugs, "He's over-protective. He'd act like that toward any guy."
Lexa nods, the next question on the tip of her lips - she wars with herself whether to ask it or not. In the end, her need for an answer is too great, so she does. "The Sky Boy - you are his, now?"
Clarke immediately wants to object to the phrasing - she isn't an object to be owned, but she knows Lexa's real question; 'are you with him'? Instead, she focuses her anger in another direction - the audacity of the Commander.
"What did you expect, Lexa? That I would wait for you to return and we would ride into the sunset together?" She scoffs while Lexa, in a rather un-commander-like move, shrinks slightly. "You betrayed me. You turned your back on me and then left me on the side of a mountain to die."
The brunette nods, just the barest tip of her chin. For the first time since the moment they met, Clarke thinks Lexa looks young, like the teenager she is, not the great Heda of the 12 Clans. She looks open and vulnerable and broken. It doesn't sway Clarke to compassion - to her, it is not near what the Commander deserves.
"It could have been you," Clarke growls, pointing to the door where Bellamy has long since disappeared.
Lexa nods. "I know...and the thought of that will haunt me until my fight is over."
"The why?!" Clarke shouts, taking two long strides toward the brunette, whose eyes are focused on the floor, refusing to meet her own. "Knowing everything we could have had..." She trails off - it is a dangerous thought, "why?"
When Lexa speaks, it is softly, barren of the strength her tone usually holds, "I did what I ha-"
"What you had to do, I know," Clarke continues with a bitter laugh.
Lexa stiffens her spine, her eyes lifting to lock with blue. "Is it not what you did?" She asks, "You sacrificed the mountain dwellers for the sake of your people. How is that different from what I did?"
Clarke knows Lexa doesn't mean the words as a weapon - that much is obvious by the Commander's almost gentle tones - but the words still bite into her flesh like a blade, making her flinch. It takes a long moment for her to answer, "It's not. It's not, but I wouldn't have betrayed you to do it."
Lexa wants, more than anything, to believe that's true but the truth lies right underneath the surface - Clarke would have done anything to free her friends (she proved it, in fact), even betray the alliance, betray her. She, however, doesn't say that.
"We had a good plan," Clarke continues as Lexa remains silent, "We could have won - if you had just trusted me."
"And how many of our people would have died, Clarke," Lexa points out, just as vehemently as the blonde, "How many would have died for the sake of the few?" Her head shakes, "Besides, do you really believe, if my men had breached the doors, that they would have spared those you deemed innocent?" Clarke's brow furrows in confusion. "They would have cut down any man, woman or child in their path. Jus drein, jus daun."
Minutes pass in silence, their eyes locked in a silent show-down, a battle of wills that neither is sure they will win.
It is Clarke that finally breaks, "How could you do it?" She asks in the barest of whispers - Lexa has to strain to hear her, "You tell me you care about me, you kiss me and then...you just walk away, as if I meant nothing to you."
Lexa's expression softened, the Commander chancing a small step forward. "I did my duty."
Once more, Clarke scoffs, "You chose with your head and not your heart, right?"
The brunette ignores her counterpart's bitter tone, instead nodding. "Yes, I did." Her head shakes, "You don't understand, Clarke. I am the Commander - my people come before myself, always. I am expected to sacrifice everything for them."
Clarke's eyes are all fire, her jaw clenching and her eyes darting to the floor for second as she fidgets, "That's not right - it's not fair."
Lexa's smile is small, sad. "Every day, I ask my people to leave their families and fight, die, if necessary, to protect my land, my people and me. I command their lives - how is it unfair for them to ask and expect the same of me?" She sucks in a slow breath, her booted feet eating up more of the distance between them until a scant few feet remain - Clarke does not retreat. "I am not my own person, Clarke - I belong to them and every decision I make is for the sake of those I command. What I want doesn't matter."
More space disappeared between them. Lexa's hand reached up, tentative, cupping Clarke's cheek in a gesture eerily similar to Bellamy's. "If I was not who I was, if I could just be Lexa and not the Commander, my choice that night would have been different."
Not for the first time, Lexa envies Lincoln. He has the freedom to love Octavia - though it cost him his people, he could love her freely, openly. He didn't have a nation, thousands of lives, that came before that love.
But, she was who she was. Her fate was sealed. Hodnes Laik Kwelnes - she should have followed her own advice, for now, she would have to suffer the pain of loving two women only to have both taken from her.
It didn't stop her heart from breaking as Clarke breathed out a sob, leaning forward until their foreheads were pressed together. It didn't stop her eyes from closing, her nostrils flaring as she inhaled the blond's scent deeply.
"I forgive you," Clarke breaths, tears leaking from her eyes. Lexa wipes them away with a tender stroke of her thumb, "I forgive you."
A last kiss graces the sky girls' lips, soft and slow just as their first. She savors it - they both do. When they pull apart, foreheads still locked, green eyes find blue. "It does not change who we are, no matter how we wish it to."
The Commander pulls away, studying Clarke's face, committing every detail, every freckle and blemish, to memory. It won't be the last time she looks upon this face, but it will be the last she can gaze upon it freely.
Clarke, she remembers, is Bellamy's now, not her's. The only time she'll see the blond again is in the council chambers, or perhaps in the streets, of TonDC, until Lexa returns to Polis.
A second more and Lexa steels herself, brushing past the sky girl's shoulder. She only makes it three steps before she stops, indecision warring inside her. "I think about it sometimes, you know," the Commander whispers. Her head turns, just enough so she can see Clarke out of her peripheral vision.
The blond turns around to face her at the words. "Think about what?"
A moment passes, "What it would be like, if we were not who we are - If I was simply Lexa and you were simply Clarke, not the Commander and the Chancellor."
Clarke doesn't correct the mistake of title. Instead, she fights away more tears and asks, "What is it like?"
For the first time since Lexa entered Camp Jaha, for the first time since she left Clarke on Mount Weather, she actually smiles, wide and genuine with a touch of sad resignation and a dreamy air. Clarke is sad that she only gets to see half of it.
"Beautiful," the mighty Commander breaths wistfully, "Like the taste of victory in your grasp, or the sound of the wind whistling through the trees." Lexa turns to fully face Clarke once more, her smile faded but her eyes gentle, holding every ounce of love she holds for the blond, "Like the sight of the sun dancing upon your hair, or the ocean swaying in your eyes."
Clarke's battle with her tears is lost - they stream freely down her face but she smiles, too. "Tell me about it?"
Lexa hesitates but only for a moment, the plea in her love's eyes and voice commanding her, "There is a cabin by the lake, nights spent in one another's arms and days where our only worry is hunting for the evening meal. There is no Skykru and Trikru, no Mount Weather, no war...just us," she hesitates again, "And the laughter of a child with eyes like the sky and hair like the sun."
Clarke sobs. Lexa is in front of her in a split second, hands buried in her hair, lips clashing with hers. This kiss, in conflict with their others, is harsh and demanding. Clarke matches her every move - the battling of tongues, the clashing of teeth.
Too soon, Lexa withdraws, pulling the slighter woman into her arms, burying her face in her neck, hands splayed across the planes of her back. Clarke clings back, her fingers locked in Lexa's braids.
"May we meet again," Lexa breaths against Clarke's ear, their cheeks brushing together softly, "Clarke kom Skykru, Heda of my heart."
With a whirl of her cloak, Lexa turns, breezing from the room without a backward glance. In the hall, she meets a smirking Bellamy, mistaking her blank expression and burning eyes as a sign that Clarke has rejected her - if only he knew.
Lexa is out the doors of the ark wreckage, nearly to her horse before she hears her name called behind her. Her steps falter. Against her better judgement, she pauses and turns - just in time to catch Clarke throwing herself at her.
The Commander catches her, arms winding tightly around the slighter girl's waist. She is confused, but the feeling of Clarke pressed to her makes her not care so much - even if it will just extend the inevitable.
Until Clarke utters, "Take me with you."
Lexa withdraws, her expression, for once, open and unmasked; shock, surprise, confusion and then, slowly, understanding. Her eyes flash to the crowd gathered behind them, Lincoln and Octavia, Marcus and Abby, Raven and Jasper and Monty, Bellamy last of all. The Sky boy's face is drawn tight, his jaw clenched, hands grasping perhaps too tightly at the rifle he holds.
Her eyes lock with blue. "If you do this, it cannot be undone," she warns.
Clarke nods vehemently. "I know. Take me with you. You told me you would take me to Polis, so take me now."
Slowly, Lexa nods. Her eyes never leaving Clarke's, the Commander motions for her guard to bring her horse. Abby's protests are silenced by Kane, Raven's by Octavia. Bellamy remains silent, only watching. With a flourish, Lexa mounts her stallion - a large black destrier - and holds down her hand to Clarke.
The blond takes it, using the stirrup to hitch herself up, aided by Lexa's strong grasp, and positions herself behind the Commander, her arms clinging around her waist, her nose buried against Lexa's shoulder. Neither look back as she spurrs her mount through the open gates of Camp Jaha, her men following behind her.
Author's Note; the second part of this installment is already in the works, so look for it soon! Also, I am taking prompts - you can either send them to me here, or on tumblr at my Lexa rp account (hedaofthe12)