She is a ghost amongst the camp, just a speck of sunlight caught in the corners of their eyes. Little more. It had been two weeks, the conclave had chosen the next commander and the blockade would march on Arkadia with new orders, assured were these things.

"Bellamy!" Octavia ran up beside him, bent out of shape. "Have you seen Clarke?" she puffed and Indra is not far behind, searching for Kane.

"Has anyone?" he bit.

"We need to find her, Ontari has ascended the throne. If we don't fix this-"

"Fix what?" he growls, almost snarls. It stops him in his boots, and for a moment he sees the hurt in Octavia's eyes, it halted him, forced him to recover. "Do you see where playing grounder gets you?" he lowered his voice. "We're not like them, Octavia. If Clarke wants to mourn a warlord who left us to die beside a mountain, let her. The only reason we didn't bury her instead a fortnight ago is because of bad aim."

"They will kill us all, Bellamy."

"They can try." his shoulders rose a little higher, "There's nothing Clarke can do now, if she wants to keep hiding, let her."

"Hide from what?" she appeared; gaunt and hollow, there was a smoke to her, a dampness, it exuded from her like the chill off of the morning dew.

They both looked just slightly past her, maybe with shame or embarrassment. She was a husk, her eyes were dark and her skin was pale and she wasn't of use to them anymore. The flame was extinguished.

"Clarke…" Octavia stepped forward, and she's tentative, desperate, trying. "I know you're hurting, but we need you, if we don't stop this war-"

"Let Arkadia burn." she turned on her heel, there was white hot tears in her eyes and her chest was parasitic, consuming itself from the inside out until all that was left and all that there is, is emptiness. "Let them all burn with it."

"You don't mean that." Octavia tried but she didn't turn around, she refused to.

"The Commander died for your so called peace, the least you can do is honor that gift, you undeserving fool!" Indra berated her from further distance, and it was enough to catch the attention of the people doing ordinary, unknown things.

She stopped, her chest chuffed in the way it always had. For a moment it looked like she might turn back, like she might dig down and save the world in that way she always did. But she didn't, and it was a choice. She continued, carried on, dying and shaking.

She found herself back in a dark nook of the bar, away from the world, the bitter taste of the drink consumed her as much as she consumed it and some things were still too painful to think about, so she didn't.

There was a book in front of her, a gift from Lexa, the last one. Drawing paper was a luxury on the ark, she'd only seen a few sheets in her life. Her father had bought her three sheets for Christmas one year, it had cost him a day's work detail. She took a gulp of her drink and remembered the night she told Lexa that story, they had sat on her balcony with drinks much sweeter than the one she now found herself with and they talked of these tiny things and the Commander listened like they were the most important stories in the universe.

The next morning, there was parchment and easels and paints and everything she had never had. There was no Lexa, of course there wasn't, she was supposed to be too indifferent to make such displays.

Clarke decided against her better judgement and opened the bound leather.

Wanheda,

May you find enough inspiration in Polis to keep you here for eternity.

Yours in peace,

Heda

The writing was a scrawl that she had to squint to make out, though they never talked much of it, Lexa could barely read and write in English. The thought made it all the more bittersweet, imagining her pace backwards and forwards whilst one of her scribes wrote message after message, until she herself came up with this one.

The next page, Lexa lay asleep, peaceful, beautiful, trapped in a moment where Clarke would forever keep her. The drawing wasn't finished and now it never would be. It ached her heart to it's absolute bottom.

"Mind if I join?" Jasper pulled up a chair, and he was already seated before she could tell him otherwise.

"I suppose not."

"They say you're going crazy, is it true?" he looked her in the eye, and there was a hopeful glint.

"Well, if I was... I'm sure I'd be the last to know about it." she conceded, putting the book back in her satchel. "What are you drinking?" she offered, finishing her own glass.

"Nothing I would accept from you. I've just come to see it for myself."

"See what?"

"Justice."

Clarke sat back down, she had earned this reckoning, she knew that. So she sat and prepared herself for the very worst of it.

"Do you even remember Maya?" Jasper's eyes narrowed and his face twisted with the pain. "Do you ever think about her or the other people you murdered when they left us trapped in that mountain?"

"Would it make you feel better if I said yes?" she bit, "Because I don't, I don't think about any of them." she lied, "I did what I had to do but if it makes you feel better, I've realised maybe we're not worth the price of saving."

"Did she suffer?" Jasper leaned a little closer, "Did you hold her whilst she cried, dying, trying to be brave?" his jaw wound tight, and these things wouldn't be enough, but they were a start.

"Yes." Clarke leaned in, eye to eye, ashamed. "She suffered."

"Good." Jasper finally sat back down, "Maybe now I can start to forgive you."

"Maybe."

"It doesn't get better, you know?"

"I came to that conclusion by myself."

They shared a contemplative silence, it was reserved for those who were dying and trying to seem otherwise, there was a commotion in the social. There were people pushing and moving like a wave against one another trying to get closer to the stage Jaha had made for himself from little more than a crate.

"Be at peace, there will be more tomorrow." he soothed the crowd, and the ones who were early enough in line to get the pill helped him in his efforts in that serene and absent way they all seemed to possess.

"You've thought about it, haven't you?" he mused, watching the crowd.

"I have. But it wouldn't bring me peace, only take away the pain and I think there's a difference between the two." she admitted, "Besides, the armies are converging on Arkadia, pretty soon there won't be an us for Jaha to save."

"Noble."

"Not quite." she rose from her chair, yawning, pulling the satchel over her shoulder. The alcohol got the best of her, and all there was left now was to curl up somewhere and ride this out. "Noble would be if I tried to stop it."

"Maybe we're supposed to die, Clarke." he held her stare, "We were up there in space, and the world was doing just fine without us."

"It's all death in the end, either way, someone always has to die."

"Don't be afraid." Lexa whispers, and it's for her own benefit, she's trembling and all Clarke can do is tiny things, hold her hand and touch her hair and she feels entirely useless. Black runs like a burst riverbank, it's between the webs of her fingers and the palms of her hands and there is nothing to be done.

"Ai gonplei ste odon." she mouths, and no sound will come, the noise is lost to the tiny necessary gasps and they're all she has left.

"I've just found you, don't leave me." she pleads.

"I'm not, my spirit will live on-"

"I've just found you!" her voice breaks.

"You will find me again." Lexa barely wheezes, and her fingers are numb, she is holding on with everything and it's no longer enough; the last efforts of a pure wild thing.

"In peace may you leave the shore…" she tries, attempts, wavers. Lexa's eyes are reverent and languid and this all that is left that she can do. "...in love may you find the next, safe passage on your travels until our final journey on the ground… may we meet again."

There is a deep exhale, the last, and she is gone.

Clarke awoke with a startle, sweating and gasping, she was used to this. It came for her most nights. She did all she could to shake it off, but her face was still burned into her memory, her vacant and absent eyes. The sound of urgency bled through the walls, footsteps and clattering and whispered voices, it was a symptom of crisis and she would not be drawn in by it.