Retconning more time between The Kiss and The Betrayal, where this is set.
The night was quiet, the light of the torches in Lexa's tent casting long shadows from the pieces on the map table before the two women.
"Do you ever wish that you were not Commander? That you did not have the responsibility for so many lives? Some days I…" Clarke swallowed, her voice trailing off.
Silence hung between them for several heartbeats. Clarke's gaze dropped, watching Lexa's hands. The Commander set down the scouting report she had been studying, laying her hands flat on the table. Clarke's heart began to sink; she had more than likely offended the other woman, laying bare her own self-doubting weakness in the process. She began to hope Lexa had not heard her.
"Yes," Lexa's voice was soft, barely above a whisper. "After Costia."
The Commander's gaze was distant and focused on a memory hidden within. "I saw my warriors with their chosen after returning home, the young women in the villages with their lovers, and bitterness took my heart. I cursed the day I was called to lead my people. The day that freedom was taken from me."
Clarke's eyes searched Lexa's face, and did not look away when the Commander's eyes locked with her own. For a fleeting moment, a hint of an old hurt, long since scarred, bled through Lexa's expression. Clarke didn't think, her hand reflexively sliding over to cover Lexa's on the table as she turned to face the Commander.
"Lexa, I'm sorry."
A sad smile bent the corners of Lexa's mouth. "I believed then it was weakness. But now I know that I am strong. No one else of the Trigedakru could lead the people. If another had been called instead of me, we would not survive. That person would not be here, fighting for a future for my people. Alongside you."
Clarke glanced at Lexa, keenly aware of not only the other woman's words, but the fact that Lexa's thumb was gently rubbing against Clarke's where it nested against the Commander's hand. The torchlight flickered in Lexa's eyes, and something unknowable passed between them.
Lexa's voice softened again. "So I leave them to their happiness. I know it is not for me."
And with that, Lexa's eyes shifted back to the table, her hand slipping from under Clarke's to take up the reports again. The spell was broken, and nothing but the hard seriousness of command was found in Lexa's eyes.
Hours later when Clarke finally laid down to rest, the feeling of Lexa's fingers against hers, the way the Commander's eyes had laid her inner self bare, haunted Clarke until sleep finally claimed her.