Chapter One
She had been walking for what seemed like hours when she noticed the sun start to dip below the mountains. Cursing herself quietly for being too caught up in her thoughts to notice, Clarke quickly finds a small semi-protected clearing in the forest to stay the night. She was glad she had decided to stop by the dropship after she had left Camp Jaha, as hidden in one of the few containers on board that hadn't been pillaged yet, she found enough rope and tarp to take with her to build a rough shelter. It barely protected her from the wind, but at the moment it was the only comfort she had or that she would even allow herself.
Clarke had spent the entirety of her days walk away from Camp Jaha lost in her own mind and drowning in the pain that fought to swell up and out from her heart. She had lost everything, and done unimaginable acts that have killed hundreds of people, not all of them guilty. But she had done it for them.
She had saved her friends. She had saved her people.
But knowing that fact simply was not enough to cleanse the blood of hundreds from her soul. How could it, when she's taken away so many mothers, fathers, sons and daughters from those that love them? Why is she the one sitting in the forest, alive and (mostly) well, when so many more will never get to watch another sunrise or kiss the ones they love? And it was all on her. It had to be. But she had done everything that she could to save those that she loved, that had to count for something, right? Because of her condemning actions, they get to gaze upon tomorrows sunrise. Perhaps she should take some strength from that fact, but she doesn't.
She is broken. She is lost. She is alone with this heavy burden placed on her soul. And so she does the only thing she can at the moment, she cries.
She cries for those whose lives are lost, lives she's stolen from them. She cries for having her childhood ripped away from her. She cries for the hardships that will surely still be there for friends that do still live. And she cries for lost love.
Lexa...
She wants to hate the Commander for her part she played in all of this. She needs to feel this hate, craves to feel its claws digging into her very being, if only to feel something that isn't just pure anguish and misery. So she tries so very, very hard to hate Lexa. She tries until her thoughts are all but consumed with vengeance. She must hate Lexa, she has to hold onto this. But she can't.
Somewhere deep down, she understands why the Commander did what she did, why she left her at the top of the mountain. She too would have taken the same deal to save her people, even if she tries to tell herself she wouldn't have. For what kind of leader would let more of their people die if there was an alternate way out with much less bloodshed? And yet she hurts. Her heart is screaming at the betrayal that her head so clearly understands.
So she cries some more...
After hours of releasing her pain and streaking her cheeks with salt lines, Clarke begins to drift off from exhaustion. A single last tear rolls down her cheek as she whispers to no one, "The dead are gone, and the living are hungry." It is a promise to herself.
Her eyes are finally closed from sleep so she does not see the slight movement at the edge of the clearing, or the eyes that are watching her intently...