"What did you imagine for your life," Clarke asks one day as they sit on the large flat rocks beside the river, drying off in the warmth of the sunny summer day.
She looks down at the woman next to her, her naked body spread open beneath the clear blue sky. She lets her eyes trace Lexa's limbs, long and muscled, and the marks, the scars she knows so well, so intimately. The Grounder's eyes are closed against the bright midday sun, the same sun that has burned streaks of light into her long, dark hair, and her lips have lost the fierce, firm line they take in public and are curved into a gentle, gentle smile.
"Hmmm," Lexa asks, the calm quiet having lulled her into a light doze.
"The future, if we hadn't come down to the ground, if there had been no war with Mount Weather. Before everything, Lex, what did you think your future would hold?"
Clarke lays down next to her, right at Lexa's side, but doesn't roll to look at her. She knows now, after many days that were always too long and nights that were always too short, that this woman, this woman built of rock and earth and clay, this woman bred into blood and bone, has a heart like any other. A heart made of flesh, fine and delicate, and that it can be broken as easily as any.
Maybe easier.
She knows this because of all the people of the ground and sky, she is the one whom Lexa chooses to share it with.
She knows, too, that sometimes it's easier to speak from the heart when no one is watching.
And so she doesn't.
Instead, she links their hands, her tanned (but still paler) fingers mingling with the other woman's, and waits.
Instead, she listens.
"I didn't," Lexa starts. "I had no thoughts of a future," she says after a deep breath, "I desired to see my people safe, but I knew that to do so would see my life taken. Perhaps in battle with an enemy. Perhaps in a challenge from a friend. I didn't think of a future beyond aligning the Trigedakru with powerful allies, clans that could protect them from the Aisgeda. But more than that, never."
It is Lexa who turns, who rolls to her side to look into Clarke's light eyes.
"As Commander, Clarke," she says softly, "my life is about my people. They have been my future. Until now. Until you and the Skaikru fell to the ground."
The Commander watches as Clarke moves to her side.
"And you," she asks the blonde, "what did Clarke of the Sky People think her life would hold up there in the dark with the stars? Certainly not lazy afternoon baths in the river."
Clarke laughs, the sound light and airy as it floats away on the gentle breeze.
"No," she says, "certainly not. A bath would have had me floated for sure."
Lexa squeezes her hand as Clarke's breath hitches. She knows how the other woman still grieves for her father; more than once she's held the blonde in the dark night after a nightmare and kissed away the tears on Clarke's cheeks, her chin.
"I didn't have a plan, not really," Clarke continues, "but I guess I just saw myself eventually being in a relationship with Wells. We were best friends, and I knew how he felt about me. I felt something for him, maybe not as strong, not then. But I guess we probably would have dated, and then married. And then we would have had a child. I would have worked in medical, and he always spoke of teaching."
"Sounds nice," Lexa says, and she means it. It does sound nice. It sounds like a kind of life that Clarke would read to her about from some book in the small library the Ark had built. A, what had the blonde called them, happy ever after?
But Clark just sighs.
They lay together in silence for a few minutes, the sun continuing its slow journey across the sky.
It's Lexa who breaks the silence.
She needs to know.
"Do you ever miss it," she asks with a rough voice, and hopes that Clarke can't hear the vulnerability underneath.
But of course Clarke does.
Clarke's the only one who's ever heard it. And if there's one thing that convinced Lexa that it was worth it, this thing between the two of them, the looks from both peoples …
If there was ever just one thing that had convinced Lexa that it was worth it, loving this woman, loving Clarke, it's the other woman is the only person who has ever seen the cracks, the holes, the needing and longing, and not thought less of her for it. Who saw it all, Lexa in her entirety, and still believed she was whole.
"Miss what, that one possible future," Clarke asks, and runs a foot up the other woman's bare leg.
Lexa's muscles tense despite herself. "The simplicity of it," she replies, "the boy, the child, the sky?"
"No," Clarke answers as Lexa forces herself not to look away, forces herself to be strong, "it was only ever just an idea, Lex. One of an infinity of possibilities. And while there are some things I miss about the Ark sometimes, and while I miss my friend Wells, there's nothing about that future that I'd trade for the one I have right here on the ground."
Clarke rolls over onto her back, pulling Lexa with her until the taller woman is on top of her, two pairs of blue eyes lost in each other.
"Because," she says, raising her head just the slightest until Lexa's lips hover just a breath away from her own, "none of those other futures had you."
Her answer unfurls something in Lexa, something precious and warm and desperate.
"And if I had my choice," Clarke continues, "if I could pick one of all those infinite possibilities, I'd pick the one with you. Every time."
For the first time, for the first time in maybe her entire life, Lexa feels free.
The future holds an infinite number of unknowns.
But she has Clarke.
And that's enough.