"Heda!"

Indra's scream echoed in Lexa's ears as she fought off her opponent. Around her the battle was slowly being won by her people, despite the incredible loss that had happened the moment the enemy had flooded the floor in a surprise attack. Now, after nearly an hour of constant raging battle, only a small group of the delphikru resistance remained inside the top half of the tower to fight. But more, Lexa feared, would surely be on their way. Her people needed to clear the throne room quickly. Before they were overrun again.

"Heda!" Indra called again, closer this time.

Lexa growled beneath her breath and arched her arms back away from her previous lunge forward. She had been trying to disarm her opponent, but indra's yells had distracted her. Allowing her opponent to avoid her swing and throw his own at her head.

Her blade clashed with the growling man's in front of her. Both of them were breathing heavy. They had been fighting each other for a long time now and both were beginning to lose strength. Lexa had tried her best to outmanoeuvre him, but he was strong and skilled. Almost as skilled as a nightblood; something she'd only experienced once before with King Roan. Anytime she moved to strike this warrior down, he moved out of the way, or warded her off. She was beginning to think that if she couldn't kill him, then she would have to do her damned best to last him out. With both their stamina's quickly draining it wouldn't take long. Lexa just had to make sure she didn't lose all her energy on this one fight. There were far too many enemies left to allow her entire strength to leave her.

The two warriors circled one another closely. Like two eagles waiting to strike. He tried to play with her; feigning to the left or right quickly just to make her react. Lexa never did. If there was one thing Titus had taught her well it was to hold a good poker face in a fight. It angered the man, causing his already red face to darken dangerously. Lexa kept on her toes the angrier he seemed to grow. She knew anger carried strength when lashed out suddenly. If he struck at her and she wasn't ready, she would suffer for it.

"Heda!"

Lexa heard Indra's bark of her name once more, followed by more that she couldn't catch. She thought she heard Clarke's name. Lexa turned her head to quickly glance around the room for her general. In the same moment her opponent leapt at her. Lexa's torso span straight and she caught his blade for what must have been the hundredth time. Tiredly she pushed him back with a short impatient snarl.

The two grounders stood opposite one another again, slouched slightly, breathing hard and staring the other down. Both were exhausted. Both knew they were too well matched to win the fight outright. Lexa's arms were beginning to burn and become sore. Her palms stung from the constant metallic whiplash of catching the brute force of her opponent's strikes. She was becoming slower. But so was he.

His chest heaved with burdened breaths. His heart pumped too quick in his chest. Lexa knew the exertion would tamper with his ability to think quick whereas she was Natblida. Titus had rarely given his students time to breathe. In training and out of it.

Lexa watched the man standing opposite her fiercely. He was glaring at her, staring obsessively with deep bloodlust. She could tell he hated her. Could tell her wanted deeply to kill her. In any way possible.

The commander's expression dipped and she glanced into her peripheral noticing the Delphi man's cold dark eyes flicker quickly past her shoulder. She turned quickly recognising that he was signalling to somebody behind her. Lexa whipped about and raised her arm and in a fluid jab sent the sharp point of her sword straight through the throat of the grounder that had been trying to sneak up on her. Lexa span straight back around after to find, as suspected, her opponent mid-stride, making to attack.

The commander ducked his wide swing and stepped quickly around him. In the same moment she curved her sword up and sliced around his unprotected ribs. In the seconds he cried out and faltered forward clutching his side, Lexa used the last of her energy to knock him forward to his knee and then hop up and strike down, cleaving her sword through the warrior's skull.

His body went rigid at first and then lifelessly limp. He collapsed to his knees bleeding at her feet, held up by the commander's sword stuck in his skull.

Lexa breathed heavily. Her expression twisted in disgust. Despite being a good fighter and an almost honourable warrior, she didn't give the man the honour of a death blessing as her boot slammed between his shoulders to aid her in yanking her sword out of his body.

The commander span around after the warrior's lifeless slump to the ground. With eyes picking through the crowded hall of bodies and blood to where her general was shoving her way through the fight towards her heda.

"Indra!" Lexa called out moving forward to meet the trikru chief. Her sword cut left and right as she did, cleaning her path to Indra.

Opposite her Indra was doing the same.

"The night bloods?" Lexa asked the moment they met panting together in the centre of the room. Her eyes ran all over Indra. She was covered in dirt and blood. Others' and her own. Lexa winced watching it gush down Indra's face from a deep looking cut on the chieftain's brow.

Indra ignored her commander's silent concern and gave her quick reassurance of the nightbloods' safety.

"Gaia protects them" Indra panted failing to catch a full breath. Her eyes were wide in fear and it made Lexa's stomach clench nervously.

"What is it?" She asked urgently.

Indra met her eyes and Lexa saw her swallow as if scared.

"It's Clarke" she said clenching her sword tightly in her hand when Lexa's attention snapped straight on her, "There was trouble before, with Raven's idea. Skaikru were overwhelmed and Clarke refused to stay with Gaia and the nightbloods. I saw her and Aden running-"

"Where?!" Lexa snapped already walking fast out of the room.

Indra followed scared at the look of outright anger that had crossed over Lexa's features before she had stormed off to find her lover. The aged warrior found herself struggling to keep up with her young infuriated Heda. Even with the odd warrior pouncing in to block Lexa's way, the commander was still hard to keep pace with. She was too fuelled by anger and fear and desperation to find Clarke to even think about slowing down for the hurt Tree chief to catch up with her.

"You were charged with making sure she was safe!" Lexa growled shortly to Indra while she withdrew her sword wet with fresh blood from another warrior.

Indra frantically nodded, blinding herself with her own blood in the process. She rapidly wiped it out of her eyes.

"I tried, Heda! But the traitors flooded the lower levels. They were on us before Raven could order her people to blow the tower doors. I had to split my warriors to defend us and-"

"I will hear your excuses later!" Lexa snapped impatiently over her, "That's assuming you are still alive to make them!"

Indra felt a cold tingle run down her back with her Heda's words. She didn't doubt Lexa's anger. The general knew that if Clarke was the least bit harmed, Lexa would personally cut her to pieces.

"Sha, Heda" she mumbled, running quickly to catch up with Lexa so she could lead her to where she'd last seen Clarke.

They rushed down the bloody hall, climbing over numerous bodies- friends and foes- to get to the stairs. An enemy warrior leapt forward before they could make it past the elevator, baring his teeth at both women in a daring grin.

Indra barely had time to raise her sword to attack when Lexa moved forward as if there was no threat ahead of her.

The brutish man allowed the commander closer, flipping his sword in his hand with a sly grin. He raised it when she was a couple feet away and made ready to growl an insult in Lexa's direction. His lips had barely peeled back past his teeth when he saw Lexa's arm move and felt Lexa's hand close around the right side of his neck. He heard her violent growl and saw the fire in her dark eyes briefly before her other hand touched his head and forced it to the side. He heard and felt his head cracking into the closed metal doors of the elevator behind him.

Lexa continued to bash the man's skull against the door, uncaring of his gasps and hurt cries. Or that his blood soon covered her hands. Or that his breaths were quickly sagging down into clawed huffs until a harsh crack and fresh blood signalled his death. She let her anger overtake her, making her continue to smash the now dead man's broken skull into the door. He had come here to kill. He had come to attack her, her people, her family. He deserved to die.

"Heda.." Indra sounded hesitant behind the crazed girl. She wasn't sure whether to stop her. She was scared to.

Indra watched a moment longer until the sick feeling in her stomach twisted too much for her to stand any longer. She strode forward and took a gentle but still firm grip of the commander's wrist.

"Lexa" she breathed gently, trying to coax her back to herself.

Lexa's dark eyes snapped to Indra's gentler ones, dark with anger and heavy with bloodlust.

"Clarke" Indra whispered to her, squeezing Lexa's wrist, hoping she would calm and remember the reason behind her anger.

Lexa blinked, and then nodded. She threw the dead man from her grasp and moved on. Indra kept close by her side guiding her as they sped down the hall to the stairs. They descended one floor but could go no further as the stairs had been destroyed by Skaikru as a means to trap the enemy and deter their progress up. It was too dangerous to leap down. And they had no idea how many Delphi warriors were waiting for them. To attempt it would be suicide.

"She ran down there before the stairs blew" Indra informed her commander, who was stood peering down at the rubble below thoughtfully. Indra worried Lexa was planning to leap the massive gap down. She knew it couldn't be done. They'd most likely break their legs attempting.

Lexa turned abruptly leaving Indra behind her as she made her way to the elevator. Indra turned too, confused, and stood still watching on while Lexa prised open the elevator doors. Indra didn't know what Lexa was doing. Raven had stopped the elevator from functioning. Or so she had assured them all. So what was Lexa doing?

The chieftain watched the younger woman lean back after forcing the elevator door open. Lexa carefully slipped her sword through her belt. Indra felt her confusion grow and then her heart leap up into her throat when her commander leapt forward into the open air of the elevator shaft.

Indra rushed forward and stared in disbelief at Lexa hanging suspended in the air opposite her with a tight grip on the cables that carried the elevator up and down the tower.

Lexa looked up from examining the dark space below and scowled at her staring companion.

"Well?!" she barked annoyed, "What're you waiting for?!"

Indra leant forward to look down the elevator shaft. Her gut twisted looking down at the open space below. She wasn't afraid of heights. But she had seen the result of falling from such a great one. Lexa had kicked quite a few people off her tower back in the day after all. Indra had no desire to die that way.

The Trikru chief looked up and sighed to herself catching Lexa's impatience grow. Quickly she copied her commander and slipped her sword through her belt. Then she wiped her hands dry of blood and sweat on her pants and leapt out into the open air ahead of her. Indra grabbed onto the dangling cable beside Lexa and fought the immediate burn in her arms as they fought with gravity to hold her up. She nodded quickly to Lexa for them to get going.

Lexa immediately released her grip on her general, having grabbed her shirt to catch her the moment she had leapt from the floor into the shaft. She quickly muttered an order to her chief to lock her feet against the cable and shimmy down. They began to slowly let their bodies slide down the cable, making sure not to go too fast to avoid cutting their hands open with friction. For Lexa it was far too slow.

The commander climbed tense and angry. Her mind raced with worry despite her telling herself only to focus climbing down to the level that Indra had last heard from Clarke. Questions filled the thoughts between breaths. Why didn't clarke stay with Raven? How could she have broken her promise? Why didn't Aden stop her? What if Clarke was hurt? And the baby?

Lexa ground her teeth together and forced the rage down. She would personally skin the flesh alive from any who had dared touched her princess and their child.

Indra made sure to keep a steady distance behind Lexa as they climbed. She'd seen the murder fill her commander's eyes. Had seen them turn from their usual warm forest green to a cold coal like black. It was no secret Lexa was furious. Hell, the dead man upstairs was testament enough. Remembering the wild look on Lexa's face as she'd killed him with her bare hands, and then carried on well after his spirit had left his body...

It filled with Indra with a strong and foreign fear of her commander.

She shook her head to herself to clear it of the feeling. Indra knew Lexa. She knew this wasn't who she usually was. Lexa was calm and rational. This was just battle stress and fear taking hold of her. Indra had seen Lexa like this only once before. When Costia had been stolen her. Sometimes at night, when the memories crowded her unsteady dreams, Indra still heard Lexa's voice screaming her fury at Azgeda's cruelty. She still heard the screams of the Azgeda delegation that Lexa herself had outright slaughtered the day she was delivered Costia's head. Nobody could have calmed her that day. Not Anya. Not Gus. And certainly not Indra.

The chieftain worried what might happen should Lexa find Clarke harmed like Costia had been. She knew losing another love would break Lexa entirely. Especially when that love carried Lexa's child.

"Heda-"

Lexa's bloody hand coming up silenced Indra's attempt of comforting the commander. And it reminded her she shouldn't.

Indra snapped her mouth shut and climbed obediently in silence while the tired breaths of her commander a couple of paces below her staggered and then calmed. With Indra's confirmation of the floor level Lexa swung her body against the cable to leap onto the slim ledge where the elevator would halt and connect to the tower floor. With balance perfected from years of training, the commander wrenched open the doors and crept quickly into the hall outside. Lexa looked about herself and then turned back to quietly call Indra out. The general slid down the last of the cable and swung through the open doorway, stumbling backwards a little when her feet hit the floor wrong. She cussed beneath her breath when she felt herself falling backwards towards the elevator shaft. Lexa's hand fisted into the front of her shirt stopped her falling to her death.

"Mochof" she panted shaking off the feeling of hopeless dread that had filled her thinking she'd been about to fall. Indra jumped and lurched into action at Lexa's impatient look of command.

"Where now?" Lexa whisper barked at her.

Indra shook her head. She didn't know. She had only heard Clarke on the radio, saying that she was on this level helping her people. She had no idea where the troublesome Skaiprisa was now. She could be anywhere.

Lexa turned towards her general with a thunderous expression. She'd began raising her hand to possibly strike Indra for her incompetence. But a body slamming into the floor down the hall halted her.

The two grounders looked over and Lexa gasped seeing Aden struggling to his hands and knees. He was smothered in blood and dust. Cuts and bruises covered his face and neck. He haunched over bowing his body into the floor as if he was convulsing, and he coughed, sending black blood all over the floor beneath him. Aden groaned in pain and tried to get back up. His arms seemed to tremble beneath him.

Lexa's immediate race to help him halted when she saw Aden tense up and turn his head with a fearing but determined expression to the side. A body entered the corridor behind him and moved like a blur towards the young man. All too suddenly a knife was moving through the air with the blur.

"Agh!" Aden screamed clutching at the blade impaled in his shoulder.

Lexa was desperate to help but found herself locked frozen staring at the man approaching Aden to kill him. He wore tight fitted furs and thick pants. His skin was littered with battle scars and scarified decorations. White paint crossed his eyes, smudged with a black liquid that Lexa just knew was Aden's blood. He was tall and incredibly muscular. And...

"Azgedian!" Indra angrily growled as he kicked Aden down again. She started moving forward past Lexa to take him down herself. Lexa just stared at the man. Azgeda had lied to her? Roan had lied to her?

The Azgedian looked up with his boot on Aden's chest and he grinned wickedly noticing the two women while he drew a hatchet off his belt to finish off the pinned nightblood. Lexa felt herself fill with panic seeing Aden desperately claw at the man's boot. Indra's leap at the man did nothing to bring Aden to freedom. Instead she was caught and thrown like a doll to the floor too. Lexa saw the Azgedian return his attention to her nightblood and ripped her sword from her belt.

"Yu ste kwelen strikskat," His raspy voice chilled Lexa to the bone. The Azgedian's evil smile grew as he grabbed hold of Aden's shirt to pull him up, "An wor ste nou kamp raun fo kwelen strikskats"

He had drawn Aden closer while he talked, so he could grin smugly in the younger man's face.

Acting defiantly, Aden spat at him and growled "Natrona!" at the man, earning himself a hard punch to the face.

The Azgedian laughed to himself when Aden fell backwards dazed. He tightened his grip on the nightblood and glanced to Lexa a moment, and his eyes twinkled with an evil gleam.

"Watch your precious nightblood's spirit fly"

Lexa's heart staggered inside her chest while the man twisted his torso and brought the hatchet back to swing down. Her eyes locked desperately with Indra behind the two men. Indra pulled a knife from her leg and Lexa nodded

"Aden!" she yelled causing the Azgedian to freeze in his stab down at the younger man. Lexa grabbed hold of the moment and threw her sword to her Nightblood.

Aden caught the knife that Indra had secretly slid to him from across the hall while the Azgedian had been distracted by Lexa, and stabbed it hard into the warrior's boot. He quickly kicked the Azgedian off his feet once the man had lifted his foot off his chest in reflex.

Aden rolled to the side in time to catch Lexa's blade in both hands. He yelled out in pain as it cut into his fingers while he twisted himself to kneel and shoved it upwards into the chin of the howling Azgedian warrior, who had stumbled to his knee in front of the nightblood. The sharp blade skimmed down after, following the curve of the azgedians chin and throat, tearing through skin and sinew when Aden applied greater pressure. The other man lurched backwards falling to his rear on the ground spluttering and holding his newly torn throat. Indra finished him quickly, silencing his gurgled cries with a quick snap of the neck.

Aden panted hard and dropped the commander's sword. It clattered to the ground, splattering it with black and red droplets.

"Mochof... Heda!" he gasped ripping the knife from his shoulder and slumping back weakly.

Lexa ran and slid to his side to hold his face in her hands.

"Are you hurt?" She asked quickly, scanning his face and chest for wounds.

Aden seemed to shudder in her hold, "Nothing too bad, Heda" he assured her pulling his arm up to hold against his broken ribs.

Lexa nodded though her worry barely subsided.

"Aden, where is Clarke?" She demanded holding him tighter when he failed to respond straight away.

Aden winced and raised a bleeding hand to point down the corridor.

"Raven was radioing her people, telling them to destroy the stairs.." Aden paused to pant heavily. Lexa put a gentle hand against his chest in concern but he shook his head to say he was okay, "When we heard them attacked, and Raven couldn't get hold of any other Skaikru, Clarke took off. I followed to stop her but she wouldn't listen to me. She said we had to help her people"

Aden frowned to himself remembering what had come next. His head was feeling too fuzzy to draw all the details. In fact, his vision was getting fuzzy too. He stared at Lexa, trying to focus on making her less blurry to him. He groaned when doing so made him nauseas. Lexa's hands guided him to his back on the floor where he swallowed against the need to vomit. He heard his teacher instruct him to breathe and did so slowly with her while she probed his chest and exchanged muttered words with Indra.

"What happened after you destroyed the stairs, Aden?" Lexa's question came sharp. And not just because she was desperate to know where Clarke had gone. But because Aden had paled considerably and looked as if he was losing consiousness. She gently slapped his cheek to get him to answer her.

"We destroyed the stairs... and we were ambushed. I told Clarke to run. She went that way"

He raised his hand up to point at the same corridor that the Azgedian had come from.

Lexa nodded and gently set her nightblood's head on the ground. She told him to stay there and stay awake, and handed him the Azgedian's hatchet so he could protect himself if needed. Then she rose to her feet and strode down the hall, following the map of bloody bodies that had fallen to Aden's sword.

Her eyes barely took in the dead men and women she trod on and over. Neither did she register Indra walking beside her. Lexa could only think about how Clarke and Aden had been ambushed. How some of those warriors were Azgedian. How now yet another kru had betrayed her. How she feared if she looked outside she would see Roan's armies inside her city too. And of course, she thought of Clarke. And how she could be the next body she trod over.

"Heda"

Lexa glanced back at Indra and followed the point of her sword to another lying abandoned on the floor. It was broken and covered in blood. Lexa's heart began thumping hard when she recognised it. How could she not? She had been the one that made it.

"It's Clarke's" she husked forcing herself to carry on. She was scared to. Clarke was unarmed and alone. Something had broken her sword. Had possibly followed her. What else would Lexa find?

"There" Indra nodded after a time to the blood on the floor ahead of them. Lexa stared at it. It lead to a room. Her room.

Lexa's heart beat harshly in her chest while she neared the door to the Commander quarters. There was smeared blood on the walls. It could be anybody's. But she was terrified it was Clarke's.

"Of course she came here" she mumbled to herself and approached the door.

She reached out to take the handle but stopped when Indra slapped her own hand down over it.

"Listen!" Indra hissed to her when she scowled.

Lexa tilted her head and pushed her hearing. Past the sounds of the fighting happening upstairs and outside, she heard another battle taking place. Inside her room. Where Clarke was supposed to be.

There was a sound of scuffling. Feet shifting and items being thrown. And then a hard thud hitting the floor and a hoarse cry. Lexa's blood ran cold at the scream of pain that followed.

"Clarke!"

She tried to open the door but found it barred. Lexa let out a low growl and pushed her entire weight to the door, desperate to get to her partner. Indra joined her at the door and together they slammed their bodies as one into the old wood. Lexa heard a cracking as whatever was holding the doors closed broke under their assault against it. She shoved Indra aside and raised her leg into a powerful kick at the seam of the two doors, smashing them open.

She furiously burst into the room with Indra on her heels.

The commander quickly took in the mess on the floor and stepped over it quickly towards the body lying still near the window. She stared at it and felt sick as she crouched and reached out to roll it over.

"It's not her" Indra said studying the dead warrior herself.

She could see why they had worried. From behind the dead woman had looked like clarke. She was blonde too and held Clarke's build- minus the baby bump. But her face held tattoos distinctly belonging to the Bluecliff clan, specifically the chief's line. Indra stared at the young dead woman. She filled with instant dread. Killing a chief's blood meant war.

Lexa was too busy trying to calm her racing heart to care much about the dead warrior and what her death would bring to them. It wasn't Clarke.

Then where was she?

She turned her head, blade rising in her hand ready to use. Her eyes ran over the fallen books on the floor and the upturned table, the tears in the couch, the wax from the candles that had been pushed over and then trodden through. Her eyes latched on a book by the table, its pages strewn everywhere. Clarke's sketches were crumpled about it, coloured with red.

Lexa felt her breaths labour with the speed of fear in her heart. Where was Clarke?

"Lexa"

Lexa looked back at Indra, who nodded to the other side of the room. Lexa looked too and spotted the woman curled on her side on the bed. She instantly recognised the voice beneath the near silent sobs.

"Clarke!" Lexa lurched to her feet and approached the blonde. She stopped by the bed and stared at the shuddering woman laying haunched into herself. She'd never seen Clarke like this before.

"Clarke?" She reached out with her hand and touched the sobbing woman's shoulder.

Clarke slowly peered up at her and fresh tears streamed faster down her cheeks. Lexa looked from her lover's bruised face to the bump that held their child. Her hand immediately went to the torn blood soaked hide covering it.

"What's wrong?!" She panicked moving to hastily unbuckle the armour at the side and pull Clarke's shirt up so she could hold the bump in both hands. Her eyes scanned it obsessively, "Is he okay? Clarke?"

Lexa looked up unable to find any cuts to explain the blood and froze seeing the blonde silently weeping in front of her.

In the corner, Indra watched as her commander realised what must have happened. She felt grief hit her too seeing the pain in her commander's eyes.

Lexa felt her shoulders slump and her posture slouch. Her breath left her. Her heart stopped. Everything stopped. Her body was breaking. And so was her hope. She bowed her head and felt tears reach her eyes.

She had failed him. She'd failed them both.

The commander squeezed her eyes shut and moved a hand into the furs to fist angrily. She felt furious with herself. She should have never left Clarke alone. She shouldn't have abandoned her child and its mother when they needed her protection. She should have stayed and kept them safe. Instead she hadn't. She had been selfish again.

"Ai moba" she whispered hoarsely fighting off the tears threatening to spill down her face. She felt Clarke shaking inside the grip she had still on her belly. Lexa felt miserable knowing she would never feel her baby inside it again.

"Ai moba, strikon" she mumbled stroking her thumb against Clarke's soft flesh, as she has so many times before. Lexa felt her tears sliding free thinking how she had lost everything.

And then she felt the little kicks against her palm. Soft at first and then much more harder.

Lexa's head lifted and she stared down at her hand on Clarke's belly unable to let herself dare to hope.

And then it happened again.

And again and again.

"He's okay!" she choked leaning her head down to rest against her unborn child.

Relief swept through her like a crashing tide. Her tears fell like a dam being released. She cried relief silently against Clarke's stomach and cradled the bump preciously in her hands.

"You're okay" she told it strongly, "You're okay. I promise, you'll always be okay"

She kissed it again and again as she repeated the promise. Until finally her eyes moved up to clarke. The blonde was watching her but Lexa could tell she wasn't seeing her at all. She could see the shock in clarke's eyes. The disbelief. Even though the child was alive and moving inside of her, she somehow still believed that it was dead. Lexa moved up to clarke and held her face in her hands. Clarke barely moved.

"She is in shock" Indra commented when Lexa stared at her lover in concern.

Lexa nodded. Her eyes searched the depths of clarke's.

"She thought we lost him" she husked sorely.

"No, Heda. She thought she lost the child" Lexa gave her general the briefest of glances. Indra let go a heavy breath, "We've all seen how happy it has made you to know you will have a child. To think it had been ripped away, to feel the blame for it? I am not surprised she is upset"

Lexa understood. She knew clarke enough to know she would forever carry the blame for losing something so precious. But Lexa would never blame her.

She moved to sit beside the blonde on the bed and gently pulled her into her arms and cradled her against her chest. She felt the shake run through clarke's body and then the tears falling to soak her shirt.

"It's okay" she whispered kissing every inch of clarke she could reach.

Indra thought to give the couple their privacy and so left to scout the hall and guard the door. Lexa was grateful for it.

"Shh" she hushed rocking a sobbing clarke in her arms, "Clarke, he's okay. Our baby is still alive" the bump nudged her palm, maybe to hint she carry on, "And he's kicking. Can't you feel him?"

Lexa grasped clarke's hand and pressed it beneath her own over the bump. Just as she hoped it kicked hard under his mother's hand, causing her to peer down at it from the safety of Lexa neck. Slowly Clarke sat up and ran her hands over her stomach, waiting hopefully in doubt. Lexa bit her lip and prayed their child answered clarke.

He kicked.

Again.

And again.

Until Lexa was certain the child was playing a drum in his mother's womb.

Clarke let go the tiniest of gasps feeling it all and then she was crying all over again. Lexa leant forward and held her again. She stroked Clarke's red stained hair and rubbed her back while the blonde continued to cry into her.

"I'm sorry!" Clarke choked between tears, "I'm so sorry!"

Lexa shook her head.

"There is nothing to be sorry for" she answered back strongly.

"I didn't see her follow me. I was looking for you. Aden and I-... I had to help my people, Lexa. I couldn't-" Clarke's sobs broke Lexa's heart. She held clarke tighter and gently shushed her.

"It's okay" she whispered kissing Clarke's brow, "Shh, Clarke. It's okay" Lexa peered over at the dead body on the floor, "What happened after you blew the stairs?"

Clarke sniffed before answering, "We were planning to follow my people to the foyer, to hold the doors. But we ran into a bunch of Delphikru. We tried to fight but there were too many. Aden told me to run"

"And your sword?" Lexa asked. Clarke sighed miserably.

"I broke it. I'm sorry, Lexa"

Lexa shook her head and kissed Clarke's brow again, "Swords can be fixed" she glanced at the dead warrior again, "And her?"

Clarke shuddered, refusing to look over at the young woman she had just killed. Clarke shook her head to clear the muddled thoughts inside it. She looked up at Lexa.

"I was looking for you. Somebody said they'd seen you down here. I wanted to get you out before we went downstairs"

"Who?" Lexa questioned in a razor voice. All her warriors had been fighting with her in the throne room. Or outside in the market. Nobody with a radio fighting should have thought she was in her room. The assumption was offensive to her too. She was not one to cower in her bed while her people died for her.

Clarke shook her head

"It doesn't matter now. But that girl, she-..." Clarke looked to the body on the floor in the middle of the room and shuddered to herself,

"I lost the others. But she followed me and...and.." Clarke cringed in on herself, curling herself into Lexa around her bump, "She said she was going to cut heda's life from her. And that she would start by cutting heda's child from me" Clarke whimpered fighting new tears, "And then she was going t-to.. to" She broke off sobbing and hid herself into Lexa's neck unable to finish.

Lexa's arms circled Clarke tightly. Clarke even felt them flexing protectively around her. Lexa understood what would have happened next. What that warrior would have done to their child and Clarke in front of Lexa. Memories of watching costia's head being delivered to her squeezed her heart. She breathed slowly with her fury and focused on Clarke and their child. She would make the traitors pay in more than just blood for this.

"How did you kill her?" She asked it gently, treading carefully knowing that clarke would probably not want to relive the details. Lexa couldn't help but be curious though. Without a sword and without using her gun, clarke had somehow managed to overcome a grounder warrior years younger than herself. She marvelled how clarke had done it. Especially after the blonde had vowed against killing after the last war that had ravaged their lands.

The blonde slumped weakly in her arms.

"She wanted to kill my family" clarke husked in a numb voice, "I wasn't me when it happened. I was her again. I was back at that mountain. And the ark compound. And the river lands" clarke sniffed, "I wasn't me"

Lexa kissed clarke's temple, "Wanheda" she sighed and held clarke closer.

She understood why clarke felt bad. She wasn't the fighter. But the buried part of her she kept denying was. When clarke couldn't take the kill wanheda would step up. Lexa found clarke's continuation of the split personality troubling. She worried for her. Greatly.

"Then thank her for me" she breathed kissing clarke's face again, "She protected my family today. She saved them"

She was trying to make clarke see her fighter side wasn't as evil as she believed it was. It has done good, today and before. But Clarke never saw past the blood and the blame. Lexa pressed their hands to the bump

"This, clarke. This is worth killing thousands for. No single life is worth more than our child's. Not one. Not even mine. You killed today for him. To protect him. And you did it for me too" she brought clarke close so she could kiss her, "I would kill an entire earth of people if it saved you from death. And a universe more for him. I would make the whole world burn. Because you are my family. And protecting you is my first and only duty before being the commander"

Lexa moved back to see if her words were making any affect. Clarke looked thoughtful. So she carried on.

"Wanheda isn't the dark in you, clarke. She is the survival side of you. She is the one who makes the decisions and takes the burden after. You've done terrible things it's true. But you've done wonderful things too. Don't bury that part of you away again. Embrace it. Learn from it" Lexa pressed her palm to their bump, "He needs the whole of his mother. Not just the skaigada or the healer. But the warrior and the survivor too. How will he learn to accept himself if his mother cannot accept herself?"

Lexa looked back at Clarke. She was staring at the commander. She looked angry but Lexa knew it wasn't directed at her. After a long moment clarke's blue gaze drifted away to the blood on her hands.

"I don't want to kill people anymore" clarke shyly mumbled. Lexa's eyes watched her sadly

"In this reality you have no choice"

"Kill or be killed" Clarke uttered bitterly. Her fingers drove a circle through the blood on her stomach and then she nodded.

"I'll try" she whispered.

Lexa kissed her head and pulled her close.

"And I will be here with you" she promised, "Always"

The couple looked up hearing Indra's sudden shout in warning to them. More of Sev's warriors had broken into the tower to join the fight. Lexa looked down at Clarke beside her and breathed through the fear she felt inside herself. She couldn't stop Clarke from joining the fight. They were outnumbered and trapped. Clarke looked back at her. She brought Lexa close and kissed her one last time before she moved away to stand beside the bed. Lexa heard Indra shouting outside the room as she leapt from the bed herself to collect up her sword. Clarke was at her side the second she started heading towards the door. With a mean expression on her face and her gun in her hand. Lexa couldn't help but stare briefly at it. Clarke hadn't wielded a gun in over a decade. The flash of memories it brought to mind made Lexa tingle. Especially when clarke looked so fiercely at the door.

"Is it wrong of me to say I've missed this side of you?" Lexa asked as they neared the door together.

Clarke's lips twitched, "Later"

Lexa smirked and opened her mouth to say more but the door swung open on them.

Indra flew backwards into the room and landed with a long pained groan on her back at their feet. The large man that had apparently thrown her ducked beneath the door seconds later swinging an axe in his hands. He spotted the two other women in the room and grinned knowing he had more kills to make.

He took a step forward towards them all. Lexa bared her teeth at him and raised her sword ready to charge at him. But before she could take even one step towards the intruder the gun in the blondes hand beside her went off and the man collapsed backwards with a bullet buried in his head. Lexa looked back at Clarke, who was shaking a little from the kill but otherwise seemed alright. It seemed she had taken Lexa's advice and released her Wanheda.

"Your aim has improved" she dared to tease.

Clarke blinked and glanced back at her. Lexa waited nervously. Eventually to her relief Clarke actually smiled.

Lexa moved forward and bent down to her war general. Indra struggled to sit up at first but with Clarke's help too was soon on her feet again and angry like a rabid dog. She spat on the dead man's body and turned to Lexa for her orders.

"We have to clear the tower" lexa said looking between the two women seriously, "This isn't the entire army. Just a small portion Sev sent to test our defences"

Indra nodded in agreement, "But we're divided" she pointed out, "Most of our people are fighting on the ground. Should we rejoin them?"

Lexa shook her head, "We should go to the Gaia and the Nightbloods. Keeping them safe is our only concern"

Clarke grabbed a hold of Lexa's arm when she began to head to the door.

"What about the rest of your people?" She asked with a deep frown for Lexa's decision. Lexa gently cupped the blonde's cheek and looked down on her softly.

"If there are no Nightbloods, then there is no commander. Without that, there are no people. My death means nothing when there are others to carry the flame. But without them, without a leader, our people will descend into chaos. Like Sev wants"

Clarke bit her lip fighting down the urge to argue. She hastily nodded instead. She figured they could be of more use to their people fighting outside once they got to a working radio.

"Quickly!" Lexa hurried the two women out of her bedroom and back to where she and Indra had left Aden. When they found the corridor bloody and bare, clarke let out a soft whimper. Lexa took her hand and squeezed it.

"He's okay. I know it"

Indra hissed at the couple to hurry. The two women exchanged an impatient look and followed the chieftain towards the elevator. They could hear screams echoing around them from different fights within the tower. It disoriented clarke a little, and made her shake with quiet fear with every step she took after lexa. The commander sensed that her Sky princess was afraid. She wasn't raised for war. Her instincts told her to cower instead of fight. Despite the battles they had fought together through the years, lexa understood well the hardship of fighting against nature. So she reached back and grasped Clarke's bloodstained hand and held it tight with her own.

"Ste yuj, niron" She softly murmured, rubbing circles with her thumb against Clarke's knuckles. Clarke's hand withdrew to slid inside lexas palm, fingers locking through the commanders.

After the first initial climb up the elevator shaft they opted to use the stairs. The trio then climbed up three more levels with little disruption before they were stopped by several warriors who had been trying to smash down a locked door. The two groups stared at each other, and then the first few warriors were running at the commander.

Lexa dropped Clarke's hand and stepped forward to meet the first warrior. Her sword clashed with the woman's axe, breaking the shaft in half. The other woman stumbled backwards and snarled. She then threw the broken weapon down and dove at Lexa, who gasped out when the shine of a knife blade headed towards her throat. Lexa quickly ducked backwards. She winced when she felt the knife pass along her collarbone. The two women grappled, and Lexa heard Clarke's cry and the bang of her gun as she tried to shoot the one that had hurt her lover when Lexa managed to throw her off herself. Lexa felt herself bleed into her shirt and looked down at the small wound, and then, growling furiously, she kicked up into the other woman's chest, throwing her backwards into the other warrior's rushing forwards to take her on. Lexa backed up a couple steps to duck and roll from her next opponent's swing at her. She gripped her knife mid roll and straightened up in time to stab it into the warrior's neck and turn to catch her next opponents blade.

Next to her Indra was fighting two warriors at once. They circled her, baiting her with cruel taunts before they dove forward to jab at her. Indra held them off every time but her energy was waning. She knew they were merely playing with her. Once she became tired enough they would kill her and attack Lexa. So Indra backed up, forcing their fight towards Lexa's. The warriors continued to taunt and goad her but she ignored their words easily. The Trikru general waited patiently to strike.

Lexa caught her eye as she fended off her own warrior and once understanding Indra's look, caught the man's blade and kicked down at his knee. The man stumbled forward and lexa grabbed him by his coat to throw him with a yell towards Indra, who turned with her sword ready to cut his head clean off the moment he fell towards her. In the same moment Lexa had slashed the legs from under one of Indra's captors. He cried up at her and growled as he swiped with his knife in a final attempt to kill her. Lexa caught the knife aimed for her face, wincing and snarling through the pain of it passing through her palm. The warrior's victorious smile fell seeing the fury in his commander's dark eyes. He barely had time to beg for his life before she'd thrown her blade into his heart.

Quick footsteps behind her told her the final warrior had realised his coming fate and was trying to make a run for it. She staggered straight and ignored Clarke's concerning touch on her arm. The commander ignored Clarke telling her not to move and gritted her teeth as she pulled the knife out of her hand and threw it hard towards the coward warrior. He cried out and collapsed to his belly the moment it hit him in the back. Lexa made to go after him and finish him off. But Clarke's hand taking a tight hold of her wrist stopped her. She looked down at her princess, who had paled and was staring at the corridor ahead. Lexa turned and froze. The hallway was blocked by warriors who had been drawn by all the noise. More were walking in behind them. More than she and Indra could take, even with Clarke's gun.

Lexa looked them all over and snarled seeing one raise her bow, arrow ready and pointed at the commander. Beside her clarke was glaring murder at the woman.

"Ontari!" she spat the azgedians name hatefully, causing the nightblood to give a short smile. Lexa took a step forward to wipe it off her face. But clarke grabbed her back. The azgedians all began to smile hearing the footsteps approaching behind the commander. Indra turned and swore beneath her breath seeing a second army of warriors fill the hall behind them. They were trapped.

"It seems you're in a spot of trouble, lexa" Ontari grinned at her smugly.

Lexa glared and raised her sword. Her eyes looked among the azgedians in front of her. She would take down as many as she could before she gave herself over to death. Starting with Ontari.

Apparently clarke had the same idea because suddenly her gun was cocked and pointed steadily at the ice nightblood.

Ontari's warriors flinched away from the Skaikru weapon. But Ontari didn't. She simply smiled and stretched her arm back, tightening the string on her bow ready to shoot.

"You know if you shoot her, I shoot you" clarke growled at the woman, "And then your mission to be heda is over"

"Clarke" lexas voice warned her to be quiet. Ontari looked like she was deciding whether to change her aim.

Clarke ignored her. She wouldn't let the woman that had aggravated their lives for the last decade dictate how this was going to end. Her finger slipped onto the trigger of her handgun. It had taken so many lives over the years. Important lives. She didn't have enough hands to count them all. But she found it eerily fitting that the last life it took be Ontari.

Lexa whispered for her to stand down. To think of their child. She could bargain with Ontari to spare clarke and Indra. She was the one they wanted. But her desperate words fell on deaf ears. Wanheda had been roused and now she wanted blood.

"Heda!" she heard Indra's anxious call, notifying her of the warriors closing in behind them.

Lexa thought quickly. Indra could fight at the back and she the front. But two against thirty or more was not a possibility. They would fall eventually.

The Azgedians began stamping the ground and beating their spears. Some shouted and heckled the women. The army behind the trio soon followed suit. It was deafening, and succeeding in making Lexa panic. The commander's attention came back to Ontari stretching her bow back further through the commotion. She stared at the sharp arrowhead that seemed destined for her heart, and then glanced down at clarke beside her. The blonde looked furious and ready to kill whoever in order to protect her family. Lexa was so proud of her.

"Wanheda" Clarke glanced back at her, "Ste yuj fo em, ai prisa"

Lexa grabbed clarke and kissed her head quickly before she turned and charged at Ontari. Clarke cried out behind her. The azgedians ahead drew back in fear. Ontari alone remained still and emotionless. Maybe she was as ready to die as Lexa was.

Lexa took a final breath as she neared the azgedian line. She gave a silent prayer and then leapt at the other nightblood.

Ontari twisted seeing Lexa's attack coming and caught the commander's sword on the top of her bow. She smirked when Lexa's look of cold fury turned to confusion while she turned their locked weapons so she could re-aim and then loose the arrow. Lexa felt the slither of the arrows body passing her left cheek and she heard the entire hall go into a stunned silence as the heavy drop of a body behind her rang too loud. She began breathing hard thinking it had been clarke. Ontari's smug smirk faded the moment she realised Lexa was about to attack again. The younger woman repositioned her hands on the bow and pushed forward with it, forcing it into lexas side to shove her aside. The commander stumbled to the left and raised the knife she'd ripped off her thigh to with the aim to drive it through ontari's cold heart. Lexa pauses hearing a pained moan and looked up at the azgedian warrior in front of her that had caught a spear in his chest; a spear that would have hit her if Ontari hadn't moved her out of the way. The commander looked back in complete confusion at the younger nightblood. Ontari ignored her and yelled a command in azgedian. The warrior's surrounding Lexa charged suddenly, and the cold in lexas heart changed the second she saw them pass around a still standing clarke and Indra to attack the army behind them.

Ontari was helping them?

Lexa exchanges a bewildered look with her lover. She turned her back on the killing in the corridor behind her so she could lock in stares with Ontari. Lexa's expression demanded to know what was going on. Slowly the woman in front of her began to smirk at her. And for the first time ever Lexa felt relief seeing it.

Ontari was helping them.