"CHARLIE!" Lexa yelled as she kicked the doors open to the medical bay, carrying a bleeding, unconscious Clarke in her hands. "CHARLIE!" She called again, panic erupting in her voice. She carried Clarke into an isolated room and laid her on the soft mattress of the the bed. She took in the barely breathing blonde below her for a mili second before screaming Charlie's name again.
Before Lexa could notice, Charlie was on the other side of the bed, checking Clarke's pulse and scanning her wounds. "What happened?" Charlie asked calmly, continuing to exam the woman on the bed.
"We were in the forest and…" Lexa trailed off, suddenly feeling light headed from the fear coursing through her veins.
Charlie looked up at the ex Commander, her calm demeanor unwavering. "Lexa," she said soothingly, "I need you to stay with me. Breathe. She won't die; I promise you that."
Lexa looked up at her friend. She began to take deep breaths and centered herself. When she reopened her eyes, she saw Charlie preparing a machine. "What are you doing?" Lexa asked.
Charlie froze for a moment and then turned to her friend, saying, "You know exactly what I'm doing." The two stared; the only sound was the faint breathing of Clarke.
"What if she does not want this?" Lexa asked.
"Her injuries are too great," Charlie said as she turned and laid on to the bed next to Clarkes, on the opposite side of the machine. "If there were another way, I would do it. But she has multiple wounds to main arteries and organs, and no machine here will fix that. This is our only choice… unless you want to let her die."
Lexa's blood ran cold at the thought and her heart felt like it was being clenched. She took another look at her friend and simply nodded. "Tell me what to do," the brunette said.
Charlie smiled sadly at her friend and answered, "Go in to the monitoring room and select DNA transfer on the screen. The machinery will do the rest. And make sure no one comes in here until it's done. If the door opens during the process, it could go bad. We don't know how Clarke's body is going to react to this."
Lexa nodded and excited the room. Walking a few feet to her right, she entered the control room. She security locked the medical room and typed away at the holographic keyboard in front of her, starting the transfer. When she looked up, she found Madi beside her. There was a mixture of confusion, fear, anger and worry on her eyes.
"What's going on?!" Madi demanded, her eyes flicking back and forth between Clarke and Lexa. "What happened?!"
"We were ambushed," Lexa said calmly, looking Madi in her eyes. "And we are saving her." As Lexa let the last sentence out of her mouth, Bellamy, Monty and Octavia entered the control room. They looked around, panicking at the sight.
"What the fuck is this?!" Bellamy demanding, charging for the ex Commander, only to be stopped in his tracks by an invisible force.
"We are saving her," Lexa repeated, anger laced in her words toward the man.
"Bone marrow and blood transfer," Monty said lowly as he observed what was going on in the room. The rest in the room turned to see.
Clarke and Charlie were both shackled into their beds, as machines commenced to connect tubes between the women for a blood transfusion. As the process began, one machine began digging into Charlie's skin, extracting bone marrow. Charlie gritted her teeth and growled, fully conscious.
"Why aren't knocking her out?" Monty asked as he looked at Lexa, sympathy drenched in his features.
"Charlie needs to be awake for it," Lexa said as she stared at her friend, pain clearly visible. "It does not work the same if she is not. It is less likely to work, or cause something worse to happen."
"You're turning her in to one of you," Octavia voiced, a mixture of disgust and confusion in her words. "Lexa, why would you do that without her consent? I know you care about her. So why?"
Lexa moved her eyes toward the blonde who was covered in her own black blood, barely breathing. "There was no other option," She said lowly. "If there was, I would have done it. I just…. I can not let Clarke die."
The room grew silent, and Bellamy was released from the unseen barrier. They all watched as Charlie did her best to keep from screaming as the machines teared at her body. They began to cut open Clarke and insert the extracted material.
"What will happen?" Madi asked in a whisper, tears filling in her eyes.
"Other than her living, I do not know," Lexa answered, her eyes jolting back and forth between her best friend and her love. "Everyone transforms in a different way. We all have some similar traits, because we were all saved by Charlie's DNA. But we are all still completely different. It is like… a unique fighting style."
"What happened?" Monty asked the question on everyone's mind again.
Lexa sighed and began to explain, "Clarke ran into the woods after the sparing match and I ran after her. We were talking and became distracted. I was so engaged in our conversation, that I did not notice the soldiers approaching. They attacked us. Bullets were everywhere and I did my best to grab Clarke and get her to safety… but she had already been hit multiple times."
"Who?" Bellamy instantly asked, rage bubbling in his voice.
"I do not know," Lexa said, the shame and guilt gleaming in her eyes. "I have never seen them before."
The room grew quiet once more, and all eyes were focused on the two in the room. Patiently, they waited for it to end.
It had been three days since the procedure. Clarke and Charlie laid in their beds, unconscious. They had been cleaned and changed, and were covered with blankets. Lexa had been sitting in a chair in between the two beds the entire time. Her eyes would linger on one woman and then linger on the other. She would pass out from time to time, wake and continue watching. She hadn't left, not for a second.
Madi walked into the room. Lexa didn't even look in her direction. Madi sighed and walked over to the brunette, gently placing a hand on her shoulder. "Go get some rest," Madi said softly.
"No," Lexa replied lowly, exhaustion in her voice.
"You haven't left since it happened."
"And I will not until they wake."
"Can you at least go take a quick shower?" The question caught Lexa's attention and she looked at Madi, one eye brow raised. "You smell," Madi said, smiling at the brunette. "Do you want to smell when Clarke wakes up?" She teased.
Lexa sighed and slowly got up, almost toppling over in the process. She hadn't realized how weak her legs felt from the lack of use. "I will be right back," She said before exiting the room as quickly as possible.
Madi sat in the chair and took Lexa's place. She stared at Clarke with concern and worry, praying to whatever was out there that they would wake her mother up. She glanced over to the other woman, wondering why Charlie would risk her life in such a way for Clarke. She had learned that the woman was kind and thoughtful, but did not expect something like this.
As Madi began drifting in to thought as she set her sights on Clarke again, Lexa reappeared; bathed and in a new set of clothes. Madi smiled at the woman, welcoming her presence. Lexa quirked her eyebrow again, curious, and asked, "Why do you look so pleased to see me?"
Madi's smile grew before she began to speak, "Because I am."
"Why? You do not know me."
"But I do," Madi said as she lightly tapped a finger on the back of her neck.
Lexa sighed and took a step closer to the young Commander. "That is not me."
"It's a part of you," Madi argued. "A part of you lives in my head. That part of you talks to me, helps me, guides me, in more ways than any of the others. She is more compassionate, strong, caring and loving than any of the others. She is selfless and good. I admit, she is my favorite."
Lexa froze, not knowing what to say. She contemplated before speaking, "How can you say that?"
"It's how I feel and what I know."
"That part of me, inside of your head, was a monster," Lexa slightly spat the last word. "That part of me killed innocents and lived without honor, without love. That woman closed herself off from the world and caused chaos in her wake."
"With all respect, you do not know what it's like to be Commander," Madi said as she rose from the chair. "To be Commander is to make extremely hard decisions. Decisions that almost always end up harming someone. A Commander can't just make an entire population obey by word. You know our people. They will only respect strength, and they will only obey when they have respect. And in order to accomplish good things, sometimes there are decisions that need to be made that no one wants to happen." The two were silent for a moment. Lexa was trying to be fair and listen to Madi's point of view, but her entire being was aching to automatically reject her words. "You became Commander at the age of eight, Lexa. The only guidance you had were the previous Commanders, Titus, and the warriors around you. You were taught that love was weakness repeatedly, until you believed it. You were taught that blood must have blood and there should be no mercy, and you believed it. You became what you were taught. It is no one's fault. But once you saw it could be different, you slowly started the process of change. And when Clarke appeared in your life, you both tried to kick that change into overdrive."
Lexa knew it was true; children lived what they learned. She still did not want to accept that person was her, the person she had heard about and seen in recordings. That woman was cold, ruthless, unrelenting. She knew that that is what her people wanted and seemed to need in leadership. She remembered contemplating it many times before she took the flame.
Lexa sighed and walked to the end of Clarke's bed. She stared at the blonde, captivated even in that moment. She wanted to remember Clarke, to remember every moment with her. But she didn't want to remember anything else.
"I'm sorry," was all Lexa heard before her word went black.
Lexa jolted up in her bed, panicking. Her heart was racing and she was struggling to catch her breath. Pain was surging through her head and it felt like the world was shaking around her. She closed her eyes and covered her ears with her hands, bringing her knees to her chest. There was a loud ringing and another sharp surge of pain.
Suddenly, memories flooded her mind. It was like she could see them all at once in slow motion, but they also seemed to quickly pass by. She growled in frustration, waiting for it to stop. There was another loud ringing before it suddenly all stopped.
All Lexa could hear now was her own breathing. She stared at the white blanket that had slid off of her body, now only covering her bare feet. She began to calm her breathing and she slowly brought hear hands down and rested them on the bed beneath her. She lifted her shirt and looked down at the scar from the bullet wound that ended her first life. And with that action there was a sudden merging. The person she had been and had been becoming became one in that instant, and Lexa froze as a mixture of feelings arose in her.
All the puzzle pieces had been connected. Her being was now intact once more. She felt pain, agony, regret, remorse, happiness, joy, longing and pleasure all at once for a few moments. When the storm within her settled, a realization hit her. And as if on cue, Charlie walked into the room, smiling at the brunette.
"Finally," Charlie said as she approached her friend.
"What have you done?" Lexa asked, her voice cold and full of anger.
Charlie froze and her smile fell into a sad expression. "I'm sorry Lexa," Charlie apologized, "But I couldn't let you go on being half yourself forever. And before you get up and try and kill me, Madi is perfectly fine. Better than fine. And Clarke is doing very well."
"How long have I been asleep?" Lexa asked, her anger and hurt still raging inside of her.
"Ummm, a while," Charlie whispered as she looked down at the ground. "So long that we've arrived at our new home. And we've been here for a few years now. Earth years anyway."
"Get out," Lexa said, no longer looking at the other woman.
"Lexa…" Charlie trailed off. "Lexa, what I did wasn't right or fair, but it had to be done-"
"GET OUT!" Lexa yelled, bending the metal of her bed as she grabbed on to it. Charlie nodded and left the room silently. When the door finally closed behind her, Lexa began to break down, tears overflowing from her eyes.
