In her dream, she can hear herself shouting Costia's name on the battlefield. Screaming it. She doesn't care that all the warriors next to her can hear her, the fear in her voice. She doesn't care that she's throwing herself in the hands of the enemies, as long as she reaches the other girl in time. Of course, she doesn't. She never stood a chance. Her soldiers have to stop her from running straight to the enemy's trap and all that she can do when they finally kill her second is screaming over and over again, like she was a child chasing the monster of a nightmare away. That's how powerless she is.
When her warriors find the body that the enemies left behind, she can't bring herself to even touch it. That body that she loved night after night, that was once her most cherished person, the one she fought with, the one she trusted… She can't even look at it, now.
Now she is twelve again, she falls hard on the ground, feeling like she's bruised to the bones, Anya yelling at her. She rolls and gets back on her feet with a fierce look on her face and tries to strike again. This is only few days before she is confirmed as the next Commander.
Her people come to her burnt, bleeding, carrying dead and dying ones, as she stands above them all, riding her unharmed horse. She deliberately left hundreds of them die today. This is the first time she has to make that choice, the strategic choice of watching her people die in order to achieve victory, in order to save more of them. She never lets a tear out of her eyes. She stands there, cold, no emotion on her face. She always knew that day would come, and her people need her to be that leader.
Even dreaming, she knows what comes next. She knows it by the growing fear in her mind, this horrible feeling she came to know very well since Mount Weather. She knows it because that fear is not a dream, it's a memory, the most recent of those awful dark gems she collects.

The fear to confront Clarke.

She wasn't afraid of the fight, that night. She wasn't scared by the Mountain Men, nor had she been of any enemy in her life, and had stand in front of their leader unafraid, but when she had to come back to the Sky Princess and tell her what she had just done… If she had had to take that decision only for herself, she would have fought an army rather than go see her ally and see that look on her face when she realized the truth. That was the moment Lexa wouldn't think about when she was awake, and that she avoided even in her dreams.

She was awakened by the sound of her own voice, repeating "no" in a whisper. As usual, she interrupted the dream before it came to… She shook her head almost violently, to chase the thought away. It was still dark outside the Commander's palace and she just stood near to one of the entrances, watching at the sleeping city down below. For obvious reasons, the Capitol had been built almost a century ago on a high hill, from where one could see the entire land around, and the palace was on top of it. Lexa didn't grow up here; she was born in one of the outside clans, and she was thirteen the first time she actually saw the Capitol. Six years later, she was still impressed by the size of it. The newer part of the city, surrounded by the last walls, largely encroached on the plain, even including portions of the river.

She and her warriors of the twelve clans had walked into the Capitol triumphantly few weeks ago, and the celebrations had enlightened the city with bonfires that had been seen hundreds of miles around. The fighters had enjoyed themselves from sundown to dawn and two great clans from the south had joined the Coalition since her return, since her victory over the Mountain Men. Every man, woman and child knew this, as the first victory of the coalition, was a day to remember. The beginning of a new era for them, exactly what Lexa had fought for since she had become Commander. What she had to go through to achieve that didn't matter, she kept telling herself. She took pride on that success, on the loyalty and admiration of her people, and felt joy at theirs. When the sun was up, that was. Almost every night, she would do that dream, or another leading to the same thing. It was just a bad feeling in her stomach at day, and this nocturnal terror she forced herself to forget about the second she was awake.

She was the queen of her people, the greatest they ever had. They would rise from the ashes the ancients had left behind, and that was all that mattered. All was good.

Staring blankly at the city, Lexa chased the nightmare away once again, rejected the thought of Clarke, of anything that wasn't her people and her responsibility and went back to her room to dress up and arm herself before going down to the city. She had chiefs of clans to meet, trainings to supervise, and enough to fill her day and the next ones. She had to rule.

...

How the hell did that happen, Octavia had no idea. She was trained as a fighter as well as a tracker, when Clarke was… Well, not trained to anything, really. To be fair, anything in the field, cause she had other abilities, of course, but Octavia wasn't in the mood to be fair to the other girl right now. And yet, after days of discreetly following her, at good distance but close enough to ensure her safety, she had completely lost track of her. It was like Clarke had vanished, when she had been so easy to spot for the entire week. So easy, compared to the current nothingness, that Octavia was starting to wonder if the blonde hadn't been that noisy on purpose. It wasn't like Clarke didn't know how to be sneaky and treacherous, after all, when she wanted something. But why would she want to lose her watcher? She might feel like being alone, but Octavia hadn't exactly been all over her, and as daredevil as she could be, Clarke knew she needed protection, out in the wilderness of Earth. If she had indeed voluntary lost Octavia, it could only mean… OK, she didn't exactly know what it meant, but nothing good. Was her brother's precious princess up to something? Something that she would have kept hidden from everyone else? Or was she –Octavia's mind blanked at the thought- like, about to do something really, really, really stupid and wanted to make sure the other girl wouldn't stop her? It was Clarke, the one who, few weeks ago, "wouldn't decide who dies and who lives". What she had done, from the bridge to the Mountain Men… Maybe they all had assumed more of her that she was able to bear. Maybe she had assumed more of herself that she was able to bear, always stepping up for everyone to rely on her. Now, that would be just great, Octavia thought bitterly, coming back to the camp carrying Clarke's dead body!
It wasn't really helping thinking those kinds of things, though; whether she was right or wrong, it wouldn't help her to find Clarke, which she needed to do. She wasn't exactly happy with her right now, but she knew how much the girl had done for them to survive, and how much they needed her or at least needed to know that she was out there. Where could she be heading? Did she lose Octavia in the forest to follow Thelonius to the City of Lights? Leaving everything to find something she had no reason to believe existed, with no preparation, wasn't her style, but Octavia had to assume that the girl could be completely unpredictable. After all, she told Bellamy she was leaving with no destination in mind, so… If it was the truth, well, someone who would do that could have suddenly found a weird new purpose. Or, maybe, she was following the grounders. It wasn't the direction she took when leaving, but then again, that direction she followed until the previous evening might have been a trick destined to Octavia. He seemed likely, not really Clarke's style, but still more than to wander in the desert or take her own life. Even than to just wander in the forest with no goal, and losing Octavia would have been totally pointless, if that was what she has in mind. Maybe she felt like she should join the grounders for a while, to get closure about what she had done, to learn how to be the kind of strong leader they had? That seemed more like the kind of things she would do. But Octavia had no way to be certain about it, and if she chose the wrong direction, Clarke would find herself completely alone, completely vulnerable to pretty much everything.
She came back to the last place she was certain Clarke had been, for there were still the remains of the fire she had lit. After that spot, not the slightest trace from the blonde girl. No, not quite true, there were few feet traces and broken leaves that Octavia had taken for a trail, but they had quickly ran off, and continuing in that direction, she had found nothing more. She had looked further in every damn imaginable direction, and the girl was nowhere to be found. She would have left more traces if she had flew away, probably. Octavia was so clueless about Clarke's disappearance that she actually wondered, for one second, if the girl hadn't had some kind of flying device with her. Probably not, she would have had trouble to hide that before. What the hell was she even thinking about?
Or maybe she had been kidnapped? Not by a known grounder, since every warrior of the coalition had left the region, but… That still didn't explain the lack of a track, though. What if…
She barely believed her eyes, when, approaching the dead campfire, she spotted, on one of the surrounding tree, a white piece of paper, covered with writing. That definitely wasn't there when she left, an hour ago. She rushed to it, snatched it from the tree – it had been pinned to the trunk with a small, sharp piece of metal that looked like a spaceship fragments. They had found a millions of those all around the camp after the crash.

"Octavia"

"-No, she didn't!" She mumbled when reading her name. She didn't know Clarke's hand-writing, but that could only be from her.

"I'm sorry about the fake track. I was on a tree when you left this morning. I can't have you following me. Go back to the camp and protect them, make sure the grounders stay our allies if they are to come back.
I don't know if you can ever forgive me, or if I can even be. I'm not going to do anything reckless, so please, don't try to find me. Support Bellamy and the others.
I would say may we meet again, but I'm not sure you even want that. I'm sorry.

Clarke"

There were no crossing-out, but every letter was well-formed, like she had written it slowly. She guessed Clarke had struggled with what she wanted to say. She wondered, briefly, if she still had a chance to catch up with her, but it wasn't worth trying. Clarke had well planned her escape, obviously, and it wasn't just so she could still be around when Octavia would find the message.
She felt angry at first, and actually spent few minutes swearing about that idiot that was just going to get herself killed in the middle of nowhere, but she was angrier at herself, for getting played like that, and deserving the worst tracker of the year award.

"Of course, I want to see you again, idiot…" She muttered uselessly. Clarke had written she wouldn't do anything reckless, but it was hard to believe seeing the tone of her message. Really sounded like last wills or something like that.
So now she had lost their leader in the forest, the said leader was possibly anywhere, going anywhere, with a single gun and no knowledge of the land whatsoever, because she felt guilty. Yay. Bellamy was going to freak out, to make things even better. He would probably send a search team, but that would be of no use. If Clarke didn't want get found, she had thousands of miles of land to hide, to disappear. Octavia had no clue about what to do next. Should she get back to the camp, as Clarke had ordered her (that at least was her style: ordering even when she wasn't there), or keep looking for her, even though she had no idea where to look? What the other girl wrote was true: the grounders may come back. One on them would be enough to inform all the others that the Mountain Men were dead, and they wouldn't have to stay away anymore. Would they still consider the Sky people as allies with Clarke and Octavia gone? The only leader beside Clark they had really talked to was Kane, and he wasn't really in charge anymore… Keep looking pointlessly for Clarke meant leaving Abby Griffin deal with the grounders, and the very idea was laughable. She didn't understand them. Octavia wasn't Clarke, but she had been the only one to get close to the grounders, and Kane would consider that, and would make Griffin consider it to.
Getting back to the camp seemed like the best thing to do, even if it meant leaving Clarke alone for good. Well, if there was one person who would understand the necessity to sacrifice a few to save the many…