Edited 02/02/16 (4700+ words added) Note that this chapter ties into Chapter One, as will 10 in a major way.

This is the last chapter I needed updated to carry on and move, finally, into 10.

(((I am so relieved the editing is over! Uhmbudda to Kaliber for not killing me while she went through the arduous task of fixing the noxious errors I created and couldn't even see!)))

Evening, October 27th, 2334 - 267 A.F. (Activation: Day 01)

From her position on her throne, Lexa kept her eyes trained on Clarke as she waited for her to calm down and gave herself a chance to let go of the case of nerves anticipating the other woman's arrival had caused.

Clarke's eyes slid closed as she took a deep breath and slowly let it out, but her shoulders remained tense and her hands fisted at her sides. The vibrations coming from her built anxiety under Lexa's own skin and she fought against the reflexive urge to tense up with her in empathy. Finally, Clarke's eyes opened after a few long moments. "Yeah, I guess we should start with that now."

She stood up from her throne and walked over to the low burning fire, beckoning Clarke to follow, then sat cross-legged close to the light.

Clarke approached her as though she paid little attention to her surroundings and sat, keeping her head bowed and threading her hands to clamp around her kneecaps, holding her arms stiffly around herself. Rigid lines of muscle created a sharp line upon her shoulders, but she seemed to remember herself and slowly lifted her head to finally meet Lexa's gaze with a tense anticipation.

Lexa eyed Clarke's forced attempt to relax and it puzzled her and put her on edge, so she parted her lips slightly as she took another calming breath to relax and hoped that Clarke would follow her lead. "The first two things you must learn are how to calm your body and focus your mind." Stretching out her hand and with a quick tap of her finger, she briefly touched Clarke's white knuckles to emphasize the problem.

Clarke lifted her clenched hands off her knees, shaking them out and then dropped them back down to her sides where they twitched as she tried to settle herself. After only a moment she asked tersely, "Okay. Now what?"

Clarke's thrumming presence tripped a chaotic rhythm under Lexa's skin and she swallowed under the bombardment of feelings rising up inside her own body to match Clarke's tension, and she fought to hold back a sigh of frustration at the woman's ineffectual effort.

Why does she not allow herself to relax?

Forcing relaxation was self-defeating and something a young untrained child would do. "You will relax sooner if you find something to focus upon," She tried to keep the criticism from her tone, but heard it seep in anyway.

Clarke's eyes sparked with resentment before she quickly dropped them to her lap, where her hands met and clasped. She pulled in a ragged breath as she stared down at them, her brow furrowed. "All I can think about now is…" She halted, swallowed, and seemed to grapple with the words she wanted to say before her voice dropped into a husky whisper. "The way you feel underneath my skin."

Clarke's eyes peered up then and met hers in the silence. Lexa felt her pulse spike and her heart thud in her chest, but she forced herself to stay as still as possible, trying to control the sudden surge of desire she felt flicker through her in response to Clarke's intimate confession.

"You're vibrating faster." Clarke's eyes searched her own. "What are you feeling Lexa?"

She does not feel me!

A flash of relief flooded through her body with proof that she was not vulnerable in that way, and it overrode the sudden sensation of desire and let the tension in her own body ease. Knowing Clarke did not have direct access to her emotions caused her confidence to return. She re-channeled her efforts to relax by ignoring the fluctuating vibrations zipping underneath her own skin coming from Clarke, and focused on the exercise that she was about to employ. "Look at something in the room and put all other thoughts aside."

Clarke shifted restlessly and quickly scanned the space around her. Lexa followed the path her eyes took around the room until Clarke settled her gaze upon the fire at her side, and fixed there.

"Keep looking at the fire and listen to the way I breathe." She demonstrated by taking in air lightly to a slow count of four, holding it for a count of seven then emptied her lungs upon the release in a long hard exhale.

Clarke's eyes darted between Lexa and the fire as she repeated the simple exercise before following her example. Within a few repetitions, Clarke had matched the correct pace, and Lexa noted the way she instinctively began releasing the tension from her shoulders and arms until they lay casually against her body.

"Do you feel better now?"

Clarke's fingers relaxed, hands gently cupped over her knees, and the vibrations corresponded to the obvious physical relief when she sighed out a quiet reply. "Yes."

It was strange to her, but it seemed as though Clarke did not understand how to breathe correctly before this moment and Lexa was not certain how that could be. Regardless of the oddity, she now believed that she needed to start from the very beginning, and lead Clarke through as a child would be taught. Now that Clarke's body had relaxed, she was reassured that the woman should be ready for the first official step. "Now we will breathe at a four count." Then Lexa demonstrated the simplest form of being she knew.

Clarke quickly followed suit, and Lexa had her maintain the simple breathing exercise for several more minutes before she deemed it enough to continue on. "It is easy now because there is nothing to distract you from your goal. But, you will need to maintain this when you are overwhelmed."

Clarke inhaled sharply as she spoke to her and lost the paced breathing. "Keep going Clarke. This is only the first step."

Resuming the steady count of four to inhale and four to exhale, Clarke quietly breathed out while Lexa kept a low voiced count. "One, Two, Three, Four."

After a time, Clarke's tension slipped away completely from her body, and she sat still with rounded shoulders and lax arms. After another long moment, she seemed calm enough to take in the fact that Lexa was studying her.

Clarke met her eyes and tilted her head in question. "What is it?"

"We teach our children to control their emotions by controlling their breathing first." Lexa did not mean it as a harsh judgment but she could not help being curious of how Clarke could be so out of tune with her own body.

"How young are they when you teach them?" Clarke's body language did not give away any offense taken, other than losing the pace of her breathing after speaking, but Lexa could feel the calmed humming vibrations spike sharply.

"One…two…three…four." She prompted again, and waited for Clarke to regain her focus. "They are taught as soon as they can understand. The world is a dangerous place as it is without control of your own body."

Clarke hummed in acknowledgement of the statement, but stopped abruptly, her eyes curious. "Give me an example."

"Surely you understand the nature of danger, Clarke." There was no hiding the plainly derisive tone in her voice now.

Clarke huffed in irritation, her fingers pressing down over the rough fabric of her pants. "I get what you're saying Lexa, but I'm not sure how breathing differently makes a difference." Then she blinked slowly and seemed to make an effort to relax her hands as she paused to consider her thoughts carefully before continuing. "What is everyone afraid of that would make them change the way they breathe?"

"You can listen for what rides the wind, Clarke." At her puzzled look, Lexa continued. "Do none of you listen with care for what it tells you?" Surprised at the lack of recognition on the other woman's face, she ignored Clarke's question to ask her own.

Clarke simply stared blankly back at her for a moment. "Do you mean the air? Because on the Ark, it was canned."

A crease appeared between her eyes. Now it was Lexa's turn to be puzzled. "Canned?"

Clarke glanced up at the ceiling and inhaled deeply, before she backtracked. "Canned, meaning that it's been the same thing all of us had been breathing since we left earth. It was recycled. Well, we did have plants to make more, but-" she stopped for a moment, "there was nothing really new about it, so I'm not sure what there would be to-. Wait, what do you mean by the wind telling you things?"

Still confused, Lexa's brow furrowed in thought at Clarke's seemingly fundamental lack of understanding of the world. Did the Sky People have no awareness of the environment around them on the Ark at all? She recalled the visions she had experienced after they had exchanged blood and it made her realize that something so simple, the act of breathing properly, could have gone unlearned. After all, what was there to be afraid of on the Ark except for what one human could do to another?

She sighed out a long breath with this new piece of the puzzle falling into place. Learning to listen to the wind would not be possible if the Sky People could not breathe correctly to begin with, so she ignored Clarke's question. "You are not ready to listen to the wind if you cannot breathe or control the fear in your body."

Clarke's eyebrows scrunched and her mouth twisted skeptically, not giving up so easily. "What's in the wind to listen to?" When Lexa said nothing, Clarke leaned forward. "Lexa, are we talking about something literally in the wind, a figure of speech, or something else?"

The crux of the problem was that she meant it in every way, but Clarke would not be able to understand if she were deaf to the world around her. Lexa doubted that she could make the matter any clearer until Clarke was able to experience it for herself, yet, she had to give the other woman something tangible so they could get back to the lesson. "The Pauna's rage roared for our blood on the wind to us, and we ran faster. Acid fog moves faster when the wind is rushing toward you. The stink of your guns could be smelled miles away. We never needed to hear the sound of them going off to find you, Clarke, but that too was carried on the wind." She, too, leaned forward, shrinking the distance between them. "If you understand what comes on the wind, you will know how long you have to live or die before you must act."

Clarke considered her words for only a short moment before answering her with a sharp nod. "Makes sense I guess," but her expression was still somewhat skeptical and Lexa waited for the inevitable question making its way to Clarke's tongue; observing a corresponding and uplifting twist to the vibrations continuously emanating from the woman in front of her, she knew it was coming. "So, just breathing this way will help me control my emotions and my body so I can act...rather than react out of fear?"

Lexa nodded and leaned back as she considered Clarke carefully. It would be no use to tell her more of what her people knew about the wind now if she could not make use of it yet, let alone expand on what she also believed of the wind from the knowledge of her Commander visions. If Clarke did not have a basis to question her with, she would not bring them up now, and it could wait. Noticing Clarke had once again quit pacing her breathing, Lexa prompted her to continue. "One…two…three…four."

Clarke huffed out another irritated breath but settled back into it after a few moments, stilling herself before she opened her mouth again. "How young were you when you learned?" This time, Clarke spoke through the air passing in time to the count and did not lose the rhythm. "Who taught you to do this?" She added.

Lexa continued to study her face as she heard the cadence of Clarke's speech change, becoming more deliberate and controlled, and because of that, familiar. Clarke was mirroring the manner of speaking she heard from most of the tribes she spoke to on a regular basis. She also noted the vibrations coming from Clarke remained steady now, a large improvement from earlier and exactly the state Lexa needed her to maintain. Clarke's latest questions gave a place to begin and her lips curved into a half smile. "I do not remember my age, but my two front teeth were missing. My mother taught me."

She watched Clarke's gaze soften, then quirk into a small smile and with it, the vibration coming from her deepened. "No teeth, huh?"

She was encouraged by the warm look and continued. "I kept putting my thumb in the hole between my teeth. She would push my hand away as she tried to keep my attention, saying it was a bad habit."

Amusement lit Clarke's eyes for a moment, but her expression suddenly dropped into a startled frown that caused her vibrations to spike suddenly.

"What is it?"

"I used to bite my nails when I was little. My grandmother told me she used to do the same thing, and her mother told her to find something else to do with her hands." She looked down at her left hand and rubbed her thumb over her nails. "So she did." Clarke's shoulders tightened with tension and Lexa could track the roll of her emotions as they settled into unease within her vibrating presence, her paced breathing rhythm lost again.

"You are not breathing correctly Clarke."

Clarke looked up at her in surprise but settled herself almost immediately to resume the exercise. "Is it normal to do things that the other Commanders did?"

Lexa frowned, unsure. "What kind of things?"

"Their bad habits, like biting nails...for no reason?" The depth of Clarke's unease showed in her eyes as she waited for Lexa to reply, and her breath stuttered.

Now understanding, Lexa's features smoothed. "That can happen in the beginning, before you learn to keep your mind separate from the visions."

Clarke sighed in relief, and then remembered on her own to return to paced breaths.

"Has this happened to you already?"

"I think it happened right before I came to see you." Clarke's emotions steadied further and flowed more gently along the vibrations.

Lexa was relieved to have an explanation. "Did you go into a vision?"

"No. I was laying down and thinking about-" Clarke paused, and then took herself into the longer deep breathing Lexa had first showed her in order calm down, before switching back to a four count. "Everything is connected. The memories of my grandmother are tied to what is going on right now, but I don't know how or why."

A wash of Clarke's relief filled the space under her skin, seemingly just from disclosing these particular thoughts. Afterward, Clarke's emotions settled back into the natural rhythm of vibrations Lexa had come to associate with the other woman when she was calm. "You will need to go back to the vision and pay close attention. You are unconsciously asking for an answer to something. Until you gain control through them, your mind will look for the truth even if you do not know what you are looking for."

Clarke's gaze slid away from her, and her cheeks pinkened as she stared resolutely back into the fire. "I think I get that."

Lexa wondered at the brief flush of embarrassment. A layer of Clarke's rhythm stuttered, tripping over the pulse beneath it for a moment before correcting itself, but her breathing remained in pace despite the fluctuating emotion and chagrined expression.

Lexa was not sure what caused it, but decided to move the lesson along. "Drop your breathing into the count of eight. Breathe slower than the first way I showed you, Clarke. Do not fill your lungs completely before exhaling."

She felt Clarke's eyes back on her as she demonstrated and thought Clarke concentrated on her exhale, but fell short of the count.

Lexa continued to count for her in a steady low voice, until she was able to taper off speaking as Clarke finally succeeded in matching the rhythm. "You were upset when you arrived for our lesson." She waited to see if Clarke was able to respond while focusing on the new pace, and was also curious.

Clarke turned to look back into the fire. Her emotions were controlled and the vibrations settled into a markedly deeper hum than she had previously experienced.

Lexa waited as the silence lengthened. Clarke stared far longer into the flames than Lexa thought was truly necessary to gain the focus needed to reply, but she remained patient.

Quietly, Clarke began to speak in a lower register than she was used to hearing from the other woman and the cadence, though still familiar, contained something altogether foreign about it as well. "My grandmother gave me a message before we crawled out of the hole."

The delivery of the statement caused an odd tingle of unease to prickle over Lexa's skin, but the curiosity was stronger. "What was the message?"

Clarke closed her eyes, her shoulders rounded, and then her chin dipped down slowly while she maintained the long breathing count of eight. The underlying rhythm within her vibrations sped up, matching the pace that carried her emotions; the change in tone caused a feeling of expectation to rise inside Lexa.

"We are Pandora and Eve. Every story leads to ours."

Clarke's words had a strange effect on her. A sudden shiver ran down her spine, pulling her body sharply upright, her skin prickled, and she gasped a shuddered inhale in reaction. She gulped and whispered hoarsely. "Clarke?"

The bowed blonde head did not lift.

Lexa raised a shaky hand out to touch her, but stopped short. She tried to take in as much as she could of the woman in front of her, and identified Clarke's use of the familiar speech pattern she had taken for granted from the mouths of her own people. Their controlled breaths must be the underlying reason for speaking as they did, and she was just now realizing; she had not considered before that there could be another way. Yet, there was something else in Clarke's strange cadence she could not identify.

She tried again. "What does the message mean Clarke?"

"We were made to be this way."

Lexa's brow furrowed deeply. "Yes, we were born to be Commanders."

"Not just born to this. We are made to be...makers." Clarke's voice trailed off and her body remained still, her face covered by a cascade of blonde hair.

The unease that had been slow to settle returned with a jolt and shot up Lexa's spine again. Something was wrong with Clarke. She leaned forward and watched her closely. "Open your eyes."

Clarke slid her eyes open, raised her head slowly to look at Lexa, her face slack with a vacant stare and dilated pupils that did not immediately respond to the light of the fire.

Lexa fought another shiver that felt like fear racing down her back. This was not a normal response to learning to breathe properly. She inhaled deeply and raised her hand to Clarke's cheek, grazing her skin briefly with the tips of her fingers, hoping she would see comprehension spark back in her eyes. "I do not know what you mean Clarke."

Clarke spoke evenly with what seemed like great deliberation in time to the exhale of her long breath. "You are Eve, born of this Earth for a reason. I am Pandora, made in the Sky to fall to the Ground." She inhaled slowly, and then exhaled to speak again, her voice clear and resonant. "I am your reason…and you are mine."

The fierce certainty in her words reverberated along the connection between them, wrapping around her whole being and vibrating through her until it found itself on the other side and rebounded. Lexa jerked back her hand at the sensation and uncrossed her legs to stand. Suddenly disoriented, she stopped and sat still until the moment of dizziness passed. She fought to calm her breath before she attempted to speak again.

"Clarke?" Her voice shook despite her efforts to control it.

Clarke's pupils suddenly shrank. She scrubbed at her eyes with her hands, and then blinked repeatedly from the light of the fire. "Yeah?"

Uncertain at the reply, Lexa stared at her questioningly. "What did you mean...you are my reason?"

Clarke's expression was puzzled. "What are you talking about?"

She hesitated. "What is the last thing you remember saying to me?"

Clarke frowned, and then looked away from her and into the fire.

Lexa felt another short burst of embarrassment radiate from Clarke.

"That I get it." She turned and looked at her openly. "We look for the truth even if we don't know what the question is yet."

Lexa shivered deeply and peeled her gaze away from Clarke, her eyes darting around the room, searching for a means to understand. She got up, but motioned for Clarke to stay where she was when she made to follow, before she went to the closed door and opened it to see her two guards standing there. "Go the outer door and let in no one in until I tell you differently."

She knew logically they could not hear the sound of normal conversation through the solid door, but as she watched them leave she felt her unease lessen. She lingered several moments longer in the open doorway to give herself time to think.

She had no personal experience with what Clarke had just done, but there was also something unsettlingly familiar about it. That uncertain feeling was usually accompanied by the need to explore previous Commanders lives for answers, and she decided to seek them after Clarke finished the lesson and left her alone. She forced her clenched hands to relax as she turned and looked back at Clarke.

Clarke was still pacing her breathing at the count of eight, but it seemed she did not have control of something about herself, despite appearing outwardly calm.

Perhaps it was too soon to take Clarke into a meditative state, or she would need to approach this in a different way. In a manner Polis would sanction. "Return to the count of four, Clarke."

She walked back to Clarke and ducked down to sit in front of her, taking the training in a different tack. "You need to visualize something you are afraid of and how you will overcome it while you maintain the count of four."

Clarke raised a knee to her chest and draped her crossed arms over it in thought. She stayed like that for several minutes and simply looked into the fire.

Despite the attempt to calm herself, the tension from earlier still ate at her, and she could not keep the impatience from her tone. "Do you have it in your mind?"

Clarke gave her a side-glance of irritation. "No."

"Are you afraid of nothing?" Her tone was disbelieving and edged with derision.

"Yes, I'm afraid of things, but they're not usually something you can prepare for."

She did not want to delve too deeply into Clarke's specific fears, but decided she would need probe them, at least a little, to help her identify them. "Are you afraid of spiders or wolves?"

Clarke lifted her head, amusement gleaming in her eyes, before she laughed lightly. "I've killed a total of three spiders since I landed on the ground, and I've never met a wolf at all."

"A Pauna?"

Clarke stilled at the suggestion, considering. "I was scared while it was chasing us, but afterward…" She shrugged. "I'm not really afraid of those kinds of things once I've had a chance to think about them."

Lexa was not sure what to offer next. She wanted to suggest common fears that were easy to overcome in order to demonstrate to Clarke that she could also succeed when she identified her deep-seated fears.

Out of the corner of her eye, Lexa watched Clarke rest her chin on her crossed arms and study her while she thought.

Clarke's vibrations dipped and then hit a higher pitch as Lexa sensed a wave of scrutiny roll from the inside out. Feeling uncomfortably exposed at the examination, she shifted uneasily in place.

Clarke's voice was quiet and soft. "The vibrations change when you think or feel something."

Lexa's nervousness turned to wary anxiety, but she swallowed it down and forced herself to stay still before meeting Clarke's searching eyes.

"There. Something changed in the…what is it called?"

A lump developed in her throat; she did not want to talk about this, but felt she had no option. "I do not know what it is called. I have never spoken to anyone about it before to find out."

"It should have a name, it's real, and I can't stop thinking about it." Her eyes did not blink or shift away and Lexa felt pinned in place.

Lexa had to tell herself to breathe properly. Her own voice was quiet in response. "What should we call it then?"

"It sounds like a…thrumming. Thrum?"

It did not matter to her what it was called, just the fact that it would now have a name gave it more power than it did before now. Lexa nodded slowly. "Thrum."

Clarke finally looked away.

The tight band of anxiety building around her chest eased without her intense scrutiny. She needed a break from the constant awareness between them and knew they needed to get back to the lesson, so she changed the subject before Clarke could object. "If you are not able to think of a fear you can imagine overcoming, then you will have trouble getting through the next step."

"What would that be?" Clarke glanced back up at her.

"That you will not fail because you will tell yourself that you will not."

Clarke studied her again for a long moment. "Just tell yourself that you will make it happen and that works? Like mind over matter?"

She tilted her head, considering Clarke's words carefully. "It is more than that, but it keeps you confident when you have seen yourself do what must be done to overcome what you believe you are afraid of. You need to practice so you will be ready for your real fears."

"Spiders aren't a real fear. Good to know." Her slight smile was mocking, and Lexa had to fight not to roll her eyes.

"I doubt you have seen Cave Spiders if you have no fear at all, but as you said, it is not your fear and that is what matters for you."

Clarke's expression became quizzical. "Why? What's wrong with Cave Spiders?"

Lexa shuddered, and then flashed her a small sly smile. "When you meet one, you can tell me yourself."

Clarke sighed deeply. "I'll have to think about what I'm really afraid of then." She sat back and dropped her knee to lie flat on the floor. "Is there anything else?"

"There is the step of acting out what is visualized in your mind to overcome fears."

Clarke quirked her head. "Why do I get the feeling I won't like that?"

Lexa gave her a rueful look. "It is not meant to be pleasant, but it works."

"Will we be doing that tonight?"

"I think it is too soon. It would be better to wait until you can see yourself succeed with smaller things first." Lexa glanced around the room. "And there is not enough space here to do that correctly. We should find an area outside to begin that step."

"Why? What kind of things happen?"

Lexa met her eyes again and gave her a measured look. "If we do this according to the training I received, you will have a covering over your head and be unable to hear anything until it is removed, and then you have to decide if you are under attack or not."

Clarke's eyes rounded in shock. "Why the hell would anyone do that?"

She gave her a half smile. "Because it works."

Clarke stared at her in disbelief, the crease between her eyes returning as she frowned. "So the covering is removed and you are under attack from someone."

She shook her head. "Not always. Sometimes the person in front of you reaches out to shake your hand." She flashed a short grin, letting herself enjoy the feeling of having the upper hand for the first time all evening.

Clarke seemed thrown by her amusement for a moment but then seemed to think it over. "It's not just fear you're controlling."

"We learned a long time ago that fear makes people weak. We teach our bodies to control our fear and to let go of it before it controls us, but all emotion can distract you from doing what is needed."

"It is not about being afraid exactly, but controlling everything you feel." Clarke glanced up and studied her. "Love is weakness to you because of this."

Lexa's expression fell flat and after a beat, she responded as simply as she could. "People stop thinking when their love is threatened, they react to danger because they are afraid, sometimes not even protecting themselves or the one they cared about in the end. It is dangerous and selfish." Lexa ground out the last few words harshly. She had already explained this to Clarke and now resented the fact that it was being challenged again.

Clarke lips pursed and her expression turned obstinate, appearing to ready herself to do just that.

Lexa strained to keep her features neutral and quickly redirected the subject back to where it should be. "What you need to concentrate on now is the most important one, control your fear, even if it does not go away completely. For a warrior, fear causes them to flee or fight, and a good warrior learns to fight. For a Commander who was Chosen, it is different. Our fear automatically causes us to rush into the visions instead of fleeing or fighting against what they fear right in front of them."

Clarke frowned. "Why? I mean, Commanders don't sound like they are supposed to be warriors at all."

Startled at Clarke's unexpected insight, she considered the strengths at a Commander's disposal. She knew fighting was intrinsic to all of the Commander Spirit experiences and they were, without a doubt, driven to lead. If there was no Clan or Tribe that was entirely peaceful, why was the ability to fight efficiently so thoroughly threaded through the visions? She shook her head in dissatisfaction. Clarke was distracting her again from their task. "Commanders are given the knowledge of how to fight through the visions. Why would we not be warriors?" She waved her hand in dismissal.

Clarke eyed her suspiciously, but eventually relented. "Well, not being able to see someone coming at you is pretty unnerving, maybe I should picture that and figure out how I would respond."

Lexa nodded her assent, but wondered how effective the exercise would be without also blocking sound. Perhaps, just the muting of her senses would be good practice for Clarke, even if they really could not act out the full scenarios here. "Wait a moment."

She got up and went to a trunk in the corner of the room. She reached in and pulled out a familiar heavy cloth bag, before she returned and handed it to Clarke. "Here, this will work for now, even if we cannot keep you from hearing."

Clarke took the bag, eyeing it for only a moment before she opened it up and placed it over her head.

The bagged woman sat motionless, the silence in the room extending between them until Lexa's patience and curiosity peaked. "What are you visualizing?"

"You coming for me fast and hard."

Clarke's choice of words registered after a moment and Lexa could not help it, her mouth fell open. Heat curled in her belly and her ears went hot. She gave her mind a quick order.

Do NOT visualize that!

Embarrassment hit the vibration coming from Clarke's Thrum with a hard pulse, spiraling through her and amplifying her own unwanted feelings. As she continued to stare at the woman before her, Clarke reached up, grasped the edges of the bag, and yanked the fabric down tight over her face before she muttered. "Coming at me. I meant, at me."

Lexa quickly realized what she had intended and began to relax again, allowing her mouth to curl into a smirk since Clarke could not see it.

Clarke gradually eased her death grip on the wrinkled heavy fabric. "This must look stupid."

"You wear it well, Clarke." She tried to wipe the amusement from her face and attempted to defuse her embarrassment.

Clarke pulled the fabric up past her eyes and glanced up at her straight-laced expression. Slowly, she smiled. "Keep it up Lexa, and I'll think you have a sense of humor."

"Never." She scoffed.

Clarke's smile broke into a grin before she quickly looked away and pulled the bag down. "Give me something to picture."

Lexa considered for a long moment, she needed something real to inspire the proper reaction. "When you remove the bag, Quint will be there, aiming his knife for your throat."

Clarke stilled at that, her back straight and her hands poised over her knees.

"Remember to breathe at the count of four." After she confirmed that Clarke had her breathing in sync, Lexa leaned forward, pinched a corner of the bag between her thumb and fingers and yanked it off.

Clarke's hair flew all around her head while she blinked open her eyes, completely calm. "He's dead. I know it, so this is not going to work."

Lexa lowered the bag to her lap, and let go of a frustrated breath. This was fruitless; she would need to find another way to show her.

Clarke peered over at her with an expression turned curious. "What if you wore the bag and I attacked you?"

Lexa frowned at that, not liking the idea at all.

Clarke interjected before she could say no. "At least I could see how you respond to attack. If I'm going to picture doing it-this, I mean-in my head, shouldn't I see the right way before trying to come up with my own?"

Lexa considered her for a moment. Clarke had a point, but Lexa needed to know something first. "How much hand-to-hand training have you received?"

"Nothing really." She sighed. "Unless fighting with Anya counts."

At that, Lexa was surprised. "Well, you did not lose."

"How do you know that I won?"

"You are alive."

Chagrined, Clarke scrunched up her face and flashed her a grin. "Well if that was winning then I have to say sort of. We beat the hell out of each other first before she finally agreed with me and quit kicking my ass."

Lexa smiled back at the other woman briefly, but it turned sad and disappeared quickly.

"I'm sorry, Lexa." She felt a wave of compassion and sorrow move along their Thrum, and it showed how much Clarke meant what she said.

She did her best to push away her own emotions and the way they swarmed to cloud her reasoning, yet Clarke's were insistent and far more difficult to ignore. A slight smile crept back to rest upon the curve of her lips. This entire thing may be foolish, but she found herself willing to humor the other woman anyway. Lexa picked up the bag and put it over her head. "Begin when you are ready Clarke."

Though she was shrouded in muffled darkness, her hearing remained sharp and she could hear Clarke moving closer before her Thrum spiked suddenly.

The bag jerked off her head and she sensed a hand moving toward her face from the opposite side. Lexa snatched the wrist coming toward her and twisted under the swing, following through with the motion before she dropped Clarke swiftly in a controlled descent to the floor.

Clarke landed hard as her feet splayed against the fireplace with enough force to kick up sparks. Her eyes widened and she laid there stunned for a long moment, letting out a groan. "Okay. Not my best plan. You moved too fast for me to even see what you did."

"Breathe properly, Clarke." She admonished, looking down at her.

Her blonde hair dangled loose to brush the floor behind her as she tilted her head back to glare upside down at Lexa, rendering it far less effective as a means of intimidation than it was meant to be.

"I did say that it would be best to do this outside. I can also hear you coming." Lexa refrained from mentioning that she could also tell just by the intensity of her scent how close Clarke was to her.

"Whatever." Clarke mumbled and got to her feet. "Again."

The entirety of a small stack of wood by the fire had fallen prey to flying feet after several redundant attempts, and demonstrated clearly that this method would not increase Clarke's chances of success. Surely she could see this? But Clarke had not yet given up, she kept coming after her with a spiking Thrum, noisy movements, and the intensified presence of her scent as she pulled the bag from Lexa's head.

Why am I allowing it anyway?

After another failed grappling attempt caused the fire poker to shoot half way into the coals, she admitted to herself that this was...almost fun. But, she knew they were wasting time that they did not have. She sighed heavily. "Clarke, this is pointless. You need more training. You cannot take me like this."

Clarke's eyes gleamed suddenly. "One more time."

She frowned at her with suspicion, but found herself lifting the bag and covering her head again, waiting.

Clarke was particularly quiet in her movements this time, but her Thrum fluctuated wildly. Eventually, it settled into a higher pitch than what had precluded her previous attacks.

The fabric zipped past her nose and her eyes flew open in readiness. Clarke stood directly in front of her, with a challenge in her gaze. Slowly she stepped into Lexa's space.

Her heart beat harder.

Clarke crept closer.

She could feel the heat of Clarke's face against her jaw and her warm breath over her cheek from less than an inch away. She froze at the brush of Clarke's body pressing forward, making light contact down her entire length.

Clarke turned her face slightly, angling upward toward her mouth and whispered with a puff of hot air across her lips. "What is the right way to respond to this, Lexa?"

The right response?

The thought skittered wildly through her head, and she sucked in air. She was not breathing properly. She swallowed hard, gathering her self-control, and slowly took a step back. "Know when to engage the enemy."

Clarke's eyes flashed darkly as she, too, stepped back and a sense of hurt coursed over her Thrum and spiraled down through Lexa's body. The pitch of the feeling under her skin made her teeth ache. She breathed out carefully in the count of four, wrestling to keep her own emotions from surfacing to instinctually soothe Clarke's feelings.

This needs to end now.

Lexa clenched her jaw tightly and fought to keep her reasoning intact. There were things that still needed to be addressed before they stopped for the night. She chose to ignore the awkwardness between them and put forth the most prominent issue first. "Your mother said that you would return to Camp Jaha in the morning, but you need to be here for the meeting between the Clans at midday."

Clarke sighed, her face flickering with frustration with the change in direction, but seeming to let it go. "It takes almost eight hours walking to get back to camp from here. I need to be near the radio when Bellamy contacts us."

"You need to be part of the planning, Clarke. The Alliance will not stand if you do not show your strength as a leader. I can loan you horses to ride so it will only take a few hours to get back to your camp."

Clarke tilted her head, and an odd expression crossed her features. "You want me get on the back of a horse? I've never even touched one."

"I will have one of your guards show you how to ride. It is not difficult."

Clarke frowned at that. "What guards?"

"I will assign guards to you. Our Alliance cannot afford the Mountain Men or someone like Quint coming for you again."

Clarke gave her a look of dissatisfaction, but she conceded with a nod. Hurt still carried in a miserable hum across the woman's Thrum but jolts of embarrassment now joined that flow. Clarke turned and walked toward the door, but hesitated for a moment at the entrance, facing away from her. "What about our lessons?"

A lump of regret built in the back of her throat at the longing carried in Clarke's tone, but she knew she needed to maintain distance. "I will arrange for Ryder to begin training you in hand-to-hand combat. When he tells me you are ready for more, we will try again."

Clarke glanced back at her from over her shoulder. "And the rest?"

"You should practice breathing correctly all the time, and visualize any fear you recognize, so that you can overcome it." Lexa knew these were the words of a coward, but felt she had too much else to deal with, and ached for normalcy. She fisted her hands. "When we have time, we can try again."

Clarke swung her head back around and nodded sharply, then she walked out without another word.

The silence in the empty space pressed in at her with Clarke gone, but her Thrum clung to her all the same from a room away.

Lexa exhaled a long breath and rubbed at her eyes with the palms of her hands, before walking to the alcove that held her bed and sat down, peering across the bed and at the wall separating them. She rested her fingers upon the furs and then gathered and gripped the material to help her ignore the tremor radiating down to her hands. With a few words or a look, Clarke could render all of her discipline useless. Why did she have this power over her?

She lay down fully, still staring at the wall. What did she mean, 'you are my reason'? What had happened to her when she had said that?

The uncertain feeling was back, the urge to search through the visions and find answers. She closed her eyes and willed herself to drop her internal defenses.

Within moments, she floated in darkness, surrounded by the remnants of Commander's long dead. She examined the loose mass of undulating points of light that represented all of the visions, identifying individual characteristics within most of them and focused her thoughts with the strength of her will, before she reached out for answers.

What happened to Clarke? Why would she not remember her own words?

Two patterns disengaged from the rest. The first was a slurry of grey and browns shot through with dull purple, dirty reds, and discordant oranges. She remembered this Commander, but had purposely avoided her after she first had experienced visions.

The second pattern was the antithesis of the first, and reminded her of something she saw upon a dignitary's neck when they had visited Polis several years ago. The woman had called it a fire opal. Yet, this swirl of chromatic hue was so much more than that. This Commander burst with brilliant true colors, shimmering with its own luminescence as though it was its own source of power, before the light slipped behind the first. It was by far the most beautiful pattern she had ever seen.

Her own unconscious pull toward ugliness brought her back to task, and she accepted the path chosen as she settled into the first Commander's light and down into the memory held within the body.

She was running between trees, a deep humming noise and the sound of human screams filled the air.

The pound of feet upon the ground behind her let her know that people followed as she rounded an outcrop and raced down a steep narrow path. The humming grew louder along with the screaming.

She ran around a dense grouping of trees, and then saw them, as the encampment of over six hundred people writhed in various states of falling down. Some were already on their knees, others lay flat on the ground however they landed. Above them was a swarm of something flying in strategic aerial dives, making a sound that vibrated all the way down to her bones.

She halted. The people behind her caught up and stopped behind her, but she did not look back at them.

One hundred or more flying things disengaged from the swarm and dove directly for a group of seven people that were still standing closest to her location, yelling and swinging haphazardly with shovels and one with their own coat.

She made no move to get closer to them, but called out harshly. "Get the fuck down!"

Four of them ignored her, but the other three obeyed and dropped immediately flush to the ground.

The creatures attacked the four still standing and stung them repeatedly, then lifted in unison and rejoined the swarm.

The three on the ground lay still, panting as they waited.

The swarm hovered, before hundreds broke in formation to sweep above the people on the ground in several passes, and then all at once the entire swarm lifted into the air and flew directly upward.

She stepped down cautiously onto level ground and watched them disappear into the sky.

"I think they were bees once."

She turned to her left to look at the man who had spoken to her.

The man pushed his glasses back up to the top of his nose and stood looking at the sky with awe.

Bitterness swelled. "Who gives a fuck what they used to be."

"Give it ah rest, Barb."

She turned to her right at another man. "You can fuck off, too."

She carefully made her way down the hill toward the people on the ground and muttered loud enough for everyone following her to hear. "Fucking Southerners."

The scene faded out for a moment, but Lexa remained fixed in the same Commander as new vision took the place of the first.

It was dark. She watched her footing as she made her way toward a campfire where the two of them sat talking quietly.

She was close enough to hear them, and stopped when she heard her own name.

"Barb don' give ah shit about 'em. You saw how she was when they firs' hit us."

"Jefferson, you do not understand what she has been through. Let it go." The man reached up and fixed his glasses.

Jefferson leaned back and giving him a look of doubt. "Ahright, but what we gonna do about 'em?"

"What do you mean, 'do about them'?"

"None of 'em talk right now. Some of 'em still can't stand wit'out gettin' dizzy." Jefferson leaned forward and tossed the bones off his plate into the fire. "An' what ta hell is wrong wit' 'em anyway?"

The other man sighed and looked down at his hands for a moment. "There is a neurotoxin in the Hummer's sting that interferes with the speech center in their brains."

Jefferson smirked at the man with glasses. "Finally givin' in an' callin' 'em what everybody else is." His smile dropped. "But give it ta me in layman terms, Doc."

Doc's face showed his distaste. "My name is Maximillian. I prefer Max if you must shorten it."

"Fine, Doc. I can call ya Max if it makes ya feel better, an' just to keep it square, call me Jeff."

Doc gave him a deadpanned stare, then sighed and let it go. "The problem can be resolved. Their minds will have to be retrained to speak properly and…" Doc looked off into the fire. "I think the Hummers were trying to communicate."

Jefferson laughed sardonically. "Hell Doc, we got ta message loud an' clear then."

Doc did not laugh with him. His head slowly turned back to look at the other man. "You do not understand, Jeff. Bees were one of the first creatures modified. How do you think modification was spread to the rest of our wildlife?"

Jeff frowned at that. "What do ya mean, 'spread'?

Doc leaned forward. "Bees helped to pollinate all food sources. They went everywhere plant life grew. They were the perfect carriers for-" He stopped and sighed. "What we need to do is get several people who are willing to help reteach them to speak." He settled back. "And possibly train them to avoid panic anytime the Hummers swarm is in the area."

Jeff's brow furrowed in thought. "I can help wit' ta last part. We trained ta lose our fear. Good soldiers can't afford feelin' it anyway."

Doc gave him a curious look. "What discipline are you referring to?"

"My family was military afore ta Fallout. My grandparents trained all ta kids wit' somethin' called Mental Toughness afore they died."

Doc nodded, but looked concerned. "We might need to incorporate less forceful techniques into your regimen."

Jeff shrugged. "Whateva' floats ta boat, Doc."

"Perhaps we should use hypnosis as well." He looked at Jeff in contemplation and seemed to speak as much to himself as the man next to him. "It is possible that people are dangerously open to what the Hummers are now, since their recovery time is so individualized."

Barb slipped back into deeper shadows.

A familiar sensation pinged within her from the moment Doc said 'carriers'. It was not extreme yet, but her secondary responses began to build when she felt a brief flicker of sadness before it turned to resentment. Moments later, that feeling roiled into a bitter rage. "Fuck all of you for this." She whispered.

Lexa slipped out of that body with relief. That Commander had been under the beginnings of a mild Compulsion at the end, and she wondered briefly if she had been able to fight it. If not, how long had Doc lived after that?

She set that pondering aside and seized upon the lesson she believed was clear from the vision. The language they spoke now originated from being stung by Hummers and needing to relearn how to speak. She could hear the influence in Trigedasleng from Jeff's way of cutting off words and of pushing others together.

Yet, this did not directly answer her questions. She thought the rest of the answer must be in the second pattern.

Beauty swirled in front of her. It glimmered and pulsed with a force of life not found in any Commander before this. She reached out for it and felt an overwhelming wave of peace when she sank down into it.

She curled on her side under a thin cover upon a bed and then her sleepy eyes blinked open at the sound of the door opening.

"Grandma?"

She entered the room quickly and quietly before closing the hatch and then approaching. "Yes, it's just me, sweetheart."

She turned onto her back, and scooted over to let her grandmother sit next to her. The hard mattress gave little under the weight of the woman and she reached for a hug that was promptly granted. The woman released her and she lay back, resting her head on her pillow. "Is it time for bedtimes stories?"

The woman's eyes flickered with an unknown emotion as she hesitated. "Yes Clarke, and your medicine."

Clarke sighed, but turned back onto her side to wait. She felt her grandmother get up and the blanket move away from her body.

In a few moments, there was a sharp sting in her hip. She sighed in discomfort.

"All done, Clarke."

She rolled onto her back again. The medicine was already making the edges of her vision blurry. "My story?"

The woman smiled sadly for a moment, and then she forced it to brighten. "Of course. You will have your story, Clarke."

The world around her wavered. Her blinks got slower and longer. "Hurry, Grandma."

"There once was a little girl who…Clarke?"

Her eyes would not open anymore, and the world filled with static noise.

Lexa waited, quiet inside of Clarke's small body. She was afraid for her, and did not know what was going on, but she was not yet pulled away. This moment was incomplete.

Gradually, the static lifted and she could hear Clarke's grandmother speaking.

"…that is the reason. We did what we had to do for everyone's sake. I am just sorry that I have no other way to keep you safe. When you meet her, she will do whatever is best for you and you will do the same for her."

Clarke's eyes blinked open. "H-how will I know iss h-her?"

Surprised, her grandmother fumbled for something in her pocket. "Clarke honey, you must have put on some weight. You are growing so fast." Her grandmother's cheeks were tear-streaked and she attempted a smile that never quite reached her eyes. "Just a moment." She leaned down at the side of the bed.

Another sting, but it did not seem to last as long as the first.

Clarke wanted an answer. "How will I know 'er, grandma?"

Her grandmother sighed and wiped at her face. "She is your Eve, and you are her Pandora."

Clarke's vision blurred again. "Don't know that story."

She felt feathery touches at her brow, brushing back her hair. "You do Clarke, but you will not remember until you are ready. Everything will come when it is time."

"P-Promise?" Clarke whispered unsteadily.

"Yes Clarke. I promise you…I wish I could meet her too…"

Static took over all sound and Clarke drifted.

Lexa exited Clarke's memory in a state of shock.

She hovered, surrounded by the presence of previous Commanders in the expansive darkness and thought of Clarke's constant referral of them as memories, not visions. Lexa examined the patterns of color shining from Clarke's essence, obviously so alive compared to the others. Her vibrancy registered completely different from any other she had seen, now that she had experienced it from within.

Just memories. Not visions.

Lexa felt the sense of mysticism enfolded into the beliefs of her people give way a little more to her own doubts; her own questioning throughout the years had been caused by the uncomfortable feeling that the lessons she had been taught were not completely true. But she now felt certain everything really was connected, as Clarke had said earlier. She could feel that truth shine through after being inside of her memory, even though she was sure she had no more understanding than Clarke did.

She reached out for her own body not in this place of memories, and willed her fist to clench on the other side. Her eyelids flew open, and she left the bed quickly to pace across the limiting space of her room.

What did the memories have in common? How did the two memories connect?

Agitated, she tromped across the room before spinning on her heel and returning.

The last thing in the first memory was Compulsion. Before that…something called hypnosis. Her knees tapped her bed before she spun around again and headed the opposite direction.

In the second, Clarke was injected with something...a medicine, she assumed, that allowed her grandmother to tell her things she could not know yet.

Why?

She shook her head and returned to the the other side of her room. There was no way for her to know, but were the Compulsion and the hypnosis the same in some way? Did the Compulsion make both Commanders do what they did?

She was in front of the fire pit again and tapped the toe of her boot against the stone base before turning and pacing back toward the bed.

Yet, if that was all, then why see so much about the relatively small looking swarm of Hummers?

Compulsion. Hypnosis.

Her feet slowed as her knees brushed the platform of her bed again and she spun around slowly this time to head back toward the fire.

Pandora and Eve.

She sighed deeply, lips twisting in frustration, as she recalled the original questions with which she had attempted to search for answers. What had happened to Clarke? Why would she not seem to be able to remember her own words? She had not been able to seek out anything specifically in regard to the strange declarations Clarke had made to her, so she set that aside and considered what she understood so far.

Memories, not visions.

Not dead.

She stopped short in the middle of the room.

Clarke is not dead, and neither am I.

An unpleasant sensation tingled up her spine as the question crept into her thoughts.

If I can access Clarke's memories now, could she, in turn, do the same with me?

She resumed pacing and nervously kicked at the stone lining the fireplace. She did not want anyone to search her memories while she lived! She swallowed audibly and wrestled against the fear of being vulnerable this way to anyone as she forced herself to gulp in long calming breaths.

Focus on the answers I have.

She halted once again in the middle of the room as she gathered her thoughts, and finally noticed a subtle tingling prickling in her fingertips.

Lifting her hands to examine them, she realized the sensation was not isolated in just the tips of her fingers. An awareness of a subtly growing pressure radiated from her hands up to her shoulders and expanded outward, almost like an itch across her skin; a tight overstretched sensation of hyper-awareness upon her body that seemed to match her internal need to find answers.

Like the rest of her people, she was used to listening for things carried upon or in the wind, only the drive to follow this thread of knowledge pressed upon her with greater insistence than she had ever experienced before. She instinctively knew the answer would be found inside of herself this time. The truth was so close to surfacing, she could feel it!

Memories. Hummers. Compulsion. Hypnosis...

She still did not understand what hypnosis meant, but in the memory it was tied to the Hummers...somehow.

Jeff said the Hummer attacks caused people to have trouble standing or walking. Doc had said it was a toxin that damaged the people's ability to speak...leaving them vulnerable. No, he had used the word...open.

Carriers...

A chill of certainty ran down her spine.

Her own childhood memories supplied the next step in understanding. Her people knew the dangers of being stung by Hummers and had learned how to live with them in a natural way. When the season approached for the swarms to fly, the children teased one another with a chant of mixed Trigedasleng and English. Something she recognized now as serving as a teaching method for children warning of the dangers of being stung by Hummers.

nou run

nowhere kom hide

drop low

be ste inside

hummers fly down

to teik your voice

to teik your mind

It now made far more sense to Lexa than it ever had before, that the sting of a Hummer rendered the person truly vulnerable in mind and body. Oddly enough, she knew some people in her time had said it left them with something more, but there was no proof of that, especially if the victim was struck down by multiple stings as was usually the case.

Vulnerable.

She looked over at the wall separating her from Clarke, and was struck by realization.

Clarke was Open!

She felt a rush of panic and headed for the door.

I will ask Nyko what should be done-

...

She opened bleary eyes and felt dizzy to see the floor. The tops of her knees swam into complete focus first. Disoriented, she tilted her head down further and made out that she was perched on her throne with her heels hooked at the edge of her seat, her hands clinging to the hard bone on the armrests in a death grip.

She tilted her heavy dizzy head back up to look at her surroundings, and something cold and wet dropped to her bottom lip. Her tongue swept out and tested it, before the heavy taste of iron registered. She reached up with her right hand to wipe it away, only to see her fingers covered in streaks of wet ash. Her hand shook as she turned it over to find a cleaner patch of skin, and swiped the blood away from her mouth and upper lip.

Stiffly, she unhooked her heels from the edge of the seat and collapsed forward into the space. She gripped both armrests again and felt something pliable give way beneath her left hand. Prying her hand away from the armrest, she cupped the object before opening her hand to see two scraps of paper resting on her palm.

"You wasted an hour for nothing. Quit trying! You can't protect me from everything, it won't fucking let you let you anyway!"

Clarke

P.S. Go to bed!

She stared down at Clarke's loose scrawl, comprehension of the message slow to surface. What does "P.S." mean? It was connected to an order for her to sleep. She moved the second note to the front while she pondered the phrasing.

"If it does not work this time, listen to Clarke."

The second command was definitely written her own tight script; a recommendation to herself. She looked back at the first note, and frowned at Clarke's cursing in written word. Clarke had been here, but she did not recall her coming back to the room.

Still feeling a little dazed, she looked around her for clues and noticed that the objects on her War Table had been moved. She got up and walked over the the table to inspect the changes.

The stone she had used to represent Bellamy was wet and had a smear of dark grey under it. She glanced down at her wet ashy fingertips and then looked toward the fire pit. She walked over and knelt in front of it to see several pieces of partially burned notes at the edge of the coals that had failed to be consumed completely.

The dazed sensation that had been clinging to her finally lifted, and she remembered. She was trying to go to Nyko, because Clarke was Open.

All of the Sky People were vulnerable.

She stood upright and clenched her fists.

The feel of paper crumbling again between her fingers reminded her of this latest failure. How many times had she tried to overcome the worst case of Compulsion she ever experienced? She did not even have the memory of any of the attempts intact. Yet, Clarke had said she had wasted an hour's worth of time.

She sighed and her eyes flickered back to both notes again.

P.S. Go to bed!

She scowled resentfully down at the words, but realized she needed to let it go after a few moments. She would have to find another way to protect Clarke without external assistance.

The voice of Clarke's grandmother slipped back into her mind. "…she will do whatever is best for you and you will do the same for her."

The words suddenly and strangely felt connected to her present situation.

Pandora and Eve.

This information was new and an unfinished piece of the puzzle, but it still reminded her of something in her own experience. What seemed best or fair for another, was not always what protected them. If she had listened to such words earlier, Kostia might have lived.

Was there a reason Clarke needed to be Open?

She sighed at the mysteries swirling through her thoughts but gave in to the advice from her own note; she would try to find the answer again tomorrow.

Clarke spent several anxious minutes pacing in her room before she finally stopped next to the wall by the end of her bed.

"Why?" She slumped against the wall. "Just…" She muttered and yanked off her boots one at a time. "…fucking why?" Her tone sank into a wretchedly embarrassing whine as she tossed her footwear down to the end of the bed. She stood there huffing in frustration with her hands on her hips.

Why did I challenge her like that?

Now she knew for certain that Lexa was not interested. It was no relief that she could tell the Commander was obviously attracted to her, Lexa had referred to her as the enemy.

Frustrated by her own embarrassment and feeling somehow more rejected than she thought she should be from the hurt caused by Lexa's response, she gave in to the conflicting sensations and stepped away from the wall to approach the side of the bed.

Maybe I'm just tired.

But, that did not feel entirely true. She leaned up on her toes precariously over the bed for a moment before she dropped, face-planting and forcing all the air out of her lungs through the dense fur covering.

Embarrassment and disappointment notwithstanding, it only took a minute before she realized it was much harder to breathe in this position, and crawled all the way onto the bed before flipping over to her back.

Her mind would not let it go.

She replayed the image of Lexa standing there, stiffly, resisting, while their bodies brushed together and they hovered so very close to a kiss. Clarke could still feel her rapid breaths against her skin.

She folded her hands over her stomach, and told herself not to break her own damn promise again. Reminding herself that she was not ready for a relationship, and that Lexa did not seem to want one with her at all. Curling onto her side, she closed her eyes, and reached for the layer of furs to throw haphazardly over her body.

She could still feel Lexa under her skin. It was less vivid at a distance and with the barrier of concrete between them, but the Commander's Thrum was still there.

She rubbed at her eyes and slipped her arm back under the fur.

Breathing.

It had all started with breathing "properly", and she swore she had not noticed until that lesson just how good the other woman's scent could be. Really, it had taken her a little while to realize that Lexa's scent combined with her Thrum in the most tantalizing way and somehow addled her damn brain.

Regardless of her own responses, Lexa's reactions were plain to see. Her breathing spiked along with the vibrations, and Clarke swore there were several times she could almost make out what Lexa was actually feeling over her projecting Thrum.…and what did she mean-

"I am her reason," the words rasped quietly and with certainty from her own lips. An oddly familiar longing rose with the taste of the unrealized meanings and burrowed deep inside her chest. She curled her arms beneath her breasts tightly.

What the words might mean still remained unclear, but the sensations they brought up curled in her belly. She found herself breathing at the count of four to calm down, and finally the frustrated longing slipped away as she started to doze off.

Lexa's Thrum disappeared.

Clarke jerked upright.

The Commander's Thrum had flipped off as though the woman no longer existed on the other side of the wall.

Tense, she looked at the wall and waited, unsure if she should be more or less worried than she already was.

Long minutes passed as she lay frozen, reeling from the tense emptiness her body now felt with the lack of awareness. Finally, she could not take the unknown any longer, and flung the furs off her body as she swung her feet to the floor.

Lexa's Thrum returned suddenly, pulsing hard for several long moments, before it settled into a steady rhythm.

Clarke released a sigh in relief, once again reassured by the vibrations coming from the next room.

It must have been nothing.

She got back under the fur cover, and she let her body slowly relax and slip toward sleep.

Lexa's Thrum disappeared again.

She propped herself up on her elbows and waited, still unnerved by the absence. Within a few minutes, it returned again, pulsed hard, and then steadied itself.

Frowning, she laid back and waited, trying to relax once more and fall back to sleep.

Lexa's Thrum disappeared suddenly again.

Clarke curled onto her side to face the wall between them, staring intently in the darkness as her unease gradually grew and escalated the frustration that she was forced to notice the Commander in this way, even when she was not in the room.

It happened again repeatedly over the next hour. Finally, she found herself thoroughly pissed off by not knowing why this was happening, and she gave in to the need to find out. She stumbled out of her bed, grabbed her boots and rammed her feet into them, before she tromped out of her room and to Lexa's door.

Clarke whipped the door open and marched in, making it all the way to the middle of the room before she spotted the target of her ire.

Lexa was hunkered down oddly upon her heels on the floor in front of her War Table, and she stared off into a distant point of the corner of the room.

Clarke froze in her tracks, her own anger undercut by a sudden concern for the strange sense of vacancy emanating from the kneeled Commander. "Lexa?"

Lexa did not respond to her presence.

Slowly she approached the other woman and dropped to her knees in front of her.

Lexa's breaths were coming shallow and short. There was a dot of blood at the rim of her nostrils, which she suddenly flared. Lexa took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly, then blinked rapidly. Her gaze wandered dazedly until she locked eyes with Clarke for a long moment before she even seemed to realize she was there. Lexa whispered uncertainly. "Clarke?"

"Hey. It's okay." She spoke soothingly, though she had no idea if that was true, yet she found she needed to say it anyway. "What is going on, Lexa?"

The Commander closed her eyes and relaxed her body back until she sat down all the way to the floor, dropping her knees into sit in a cross-legged position. Lexa sighed and then opened her eyes again to look directly into hers, whispering, "Compulsion, Clarke."

"What?" The unease she had dismissed earlier returned full force and crept up the back of her neck.

Lexa just stared at her, as though she should understand from that word alone what was wrong here.

"You're under Compulsion?"

Lexa nodded slowly.

"What is it making you do?"

Lexa scowled. "It is keeping me from doing." She got to her feet and turned to her War Table.

Her gaze slid away from the other woman's tense form to take in what Lexa was looking at. Scraps of paper littered the Table with one or two words scrawled on each of them. Clarke stepped up to stand next to her, and put a finger on each set of cramped handwritten words.

All. Open. Sky People. Hummers. Clarke. Nyko. No Closing. Close them. Not ready. Memories. Not Visions. Grandmother. Not dead. Compulsion. Take voice. Take mind. Carriers. Dok. Hip-nose-is.

The last two did not make any sense to her at all.

Lexa's Thrum abruptly vibrated at a feverish pitch, and she heard Lexa huff out in irritation before she scooped the notes up and stiffly headed for the fire pit.

"What are you doing?"

Lexa tossed the notes into the fire and her vibrations instantly leveled out, hitting that steadied hum Clarke recognized from lying in bed as she had wondered what the hell was wrong with her.

"I am dealing with two different kinds of Compulsion, Clarke. That is what I am doing." She had a look of disgust on her face.

"There is more than one?" She was perplexed, and her skin pricked with the way the tension radiated from Lexa, the way her clenched jaw and balled shoulders combined with her Thrum.

"There is now." Lexa leveled a look at her thick with accusation.

Clarke stiffened under the implication that she had done something wrong, her anger flaring up again. "How is this my fault?"

"It has never happened like this before. You have a different kind of Compulsion from mine."

Clarke stood there and tried to absorb the information, but it did not make any sense to her. Growing increasingly frustrated, she glanced down again to examine the papers upon the table. "Did you write the notes for yourself?"

"Yes." Her reply was terse.

Clarke's eyes widened in realization. "You can't remember what's happening."

Lexa grimaced and gave her a short hesitant nod.

Clarke approached the fire pit and looked at the notes curling and turning to ash. "What are they keeping you from doing?"

Lexa opened her mouth and closed it. She clenched her fists, then opened her mouth to speak again, but nothing came out. Her mouth scowled and she growled low, then turned and began to pace the open space of the room. Finally, Lexa stopped suddenly and nailed her with a frustrated gaze. "Protecting you!" The Commander then looked startled that she had managed to get any words out at all, and then she heaved a sigh of relief.

Clarke did not know what to make of this, but she knew Lexa needed to stop. "You're bleeding."

Lexa blinked slowly and gave her a puzzled look.

Clarke moved close to her and lifted her hand before she could stop; she only just caught herself in time and halted the intended touch from landing. "Your nose is bleeding."

Lexa did not respond to her words, but her eyes had opened wide as she watched Clarke's hand raise toward her face, and her Thrum spiked the moment Clarke's hand had gotten close.

Clarke dropped her arm heavily back to her side, then sighed in exasperation. "It hurts you to fight it, so you need to stop!"

Lexa frowned and looked away from her, before her chin angled up in a show of slow belligerence and her expression turned stoic.

"Fine!" Clarke went to the table and found a blank scrap of paper, then grabbed the writing utensil at the edge with an angry fist.

No more bullshit! She was done! Clarke scribbled furiously on the paper for...she did not know what exactly Lexa was to her right now except a pain in the ass.

"Here." She shoved the note into the Commander's uncooperative hand, not letting their fingers brush.

"Go to fucking bed!" Then she spun around and stormed out of the room.

Clarke made it to her room in short order, only to find that she could not settle at all and wound up pacing just like the crazy woman next door. "This is so stupid!" She exclaimed in frustration while she tried desperately to piece together what could possibly be going on with Lexa.

Try as she might, the effort to figure it all out and her own refusal to calm down got her nowhere. Eventually, she conceded that she would not be figuring anything out tonight in the state she was currently in, and her breathing slipped unconsciously into the count of…

fucking four!

She stopped her pacing, glared the wall between them again as though it would let the Commander feel her resentment. She found herself muttering in her own rendition of Lexa's know-it-all tone of voice. "Breathe properly, Clarke."

She felt instantly foolish for voicing the words aloud, and made her way over to sit on her bed.

Despite her resentful feelings, she continued the patterned breathing and soon calmed down enough to let go of her anger, suddenly tired. Her mind was left to consider her own behavior and words toward Lexa only minutes ago. It did not take long for her to feel the distinct sting of embarrassment surge through her again over her own outburst.

She cringed as she acknowledged that she was acting like some kind of hormonal nut job right now. But then again, she was certain Lexa would continue to be a dumbass and try again to ignore the Compulsion, which would probably cause her to forget the entire thing had even happened.

Clarke sighed heavily at herself, but still childishly crossed her fingers and hoped for the best.

Chapter Summary:

Clarke gets an answer for acting like her grandmother.

Clarke learns about bags over your head as training devices.

Naming their unique connection.

UST ramps up a bit, scent is introduced to the mix.

Introduction to the formation and origin of Trigedasleng.

Introduction to a sustainable food chain.

Concepts to think on: Compulsion, Hypnosis, Mental Toughness, Mindfulness practices.