Lexa POV

Costia, her thoughts screamed loudly. Costia. Her presence made her whole body shiver uncontrollably. She was not even able to move. To think. To breathe. "Did you miss me?" To hear her voice felt like a flame burning her body from inside. Costia's brown familiar eyes focused on Lexa, on her younger sister Raven and finally on Lexa again. These brown eyes who used to make Lexa's heart beat faster made her heart stop right now. How was that possible? Lexa felt how Clarke squeezed her hand. She felt blue worried eyes staring at her but she could not react. The pain inside her chest made it nearly impossible to do so but Lexa took a deep breath. She died in my arms. I saw her die. I lost her.

Clarke POV

It was not Lexa, who reacted first. It was Raven. "Costia!", she screamed under tears and moved towards her older sister. Clarke squeezed Lexa's hand and focused on her face. Her gaze then wandered over the group of her friends. They all stared at Costia and they had different facial expressions. Shock, pain, confusion, skepticism. This can not be true. This is a trap. Her instinct warned her before she could think about something else to do. "It's not her", she whispered to herself and then louder: "Lexa." Finally Lexa did move again, but instead of listening to Clarke, she went forward, towards Costia. For a short moment Clarke thought she wanted to pull Costia into a hug or something else, like Raven did, but then she recognized Lexa's gaze. It was impenetrable and – Clarke and Anya both grabbed one of Lexa's arms before she could do anything else – combative. Of course. This was Lexa. She was too clever to just believe what was going on here. "How is that possible?" Lexa's voice was cold but the ones who knew Lexa as well as Clarke could definitely hear that she had problems holding her feelings back. Pain. Confusion.

Meanwhile Clarke saw the way Costia looked at Lexa. She could not help but see something in this gaze that was satisfied, brisk and calculating. Lexa had been caught off guard by her appearance and Costia knew that. Costia recognized Lexa's inner conflict and she somehow liked it. Clarke immediately took a step forward, protectively, without saying anything. Octavia and Harper were still stuck in their shock.
"Oh Lexa, didn't you learn one thing? You should know it by now. I mean you kinda experienced it yourself." Costia's voice was full of complacency when she paused to look at every detail she might be able to see of Lexa's inner turmoil. A premonition sent shivers down Clarke's spine. She knew what Costia was about to say but she did not want to hear it. She did not want to go through this again.
"There is no death in the City of Light."

It took Clarke and Anya nearly one hour to bring Lexa home. She was all in a fluster. The others left the party, too, except for Raven, who wanted to stay with her sister and Octavia and Lincoln, who wanted to take care of Raven. They were not even able to talk to her about the possibility of a trap. ("I don't know what the fuck is going on here but I am definitely not leaving my sister now! I just got her back. Fuck off!") At least all the others seemed to see the true fear in Clarke's and the fighting spirit in Lexa's eyes after Costia mentioned something called 'City of Light'. They trusted them and followed them home where everyone gathered in the big living room of the Woods-house. The plans of the cosy get-together with candles at the shore was destructed. There were more important things to talk about.

Clarke POV

"You owe us an explanation!", Anya demanded and Clarke saw how Lexa leaned her back against the couch; her tense body reflected Clarke's feelings. "I mean City of Light? No death? What the hell? And why don't we get a word from what she said and you two act like this is the apocalypse?" It was an uncomfortable feeling. All eyes were on her and Lexa. "Because it might be worse than the apocalypse. I don't know why this has happened", Lexa started and Clarke listened, surprised by what she saw. This is the Lexa she used to be. This is Lexa kom trikru. She was born to be the leader, Clarke thought. Lexa's voice sounded like the commander's voice again. Strong and clear.
"Everyone here lived another life in another universe before we all came here. But instead of being reborn as other people we are all still the same. It sounds confusing but it is the truth." Their friend's facial expressions changed synchronically from disbelief to...what was that? They seemed to feel betrayed. "We didn't know it", Clarke jumped in before anybody else could say anything against Lexa's words. "We figured it out a few days ago. Lexa and I remembered everything that happened but we weren't sure why. I know it is hard to believe it. Trust me when I say I couldn't believe it either. That I got another chance to… to make things better. Well I thought that was the point. After tonight I changed my mind. And you all need to know what happened in our past."

Her statement was followed by a longer silence. Everyone in the room thought about what they just heard. Clarke could feel that Lexa was looking at her. They changed glances and crossed their fingers. We should have told them, Clarke thought but as if Lexa thought the same, she just shook her head in response. Maybe she is right. It would have confused them even more, Clarke added in mind when Harper finally broke the silence. The look of the dark-blonde was thoughtful, still confused but also a bit curious. "Tell us about the… past lives we had. Who were we? Where? And… what is the 'City of Light' you are so afraid of?" Clarke looked at Lexa but when her girlfriend nodded, she took a deep breath and continued to explain the story herself.
"Some of us – including Bellamy, Octavia, Raven, Monty, Jasper, you Harper and me – we grew up in space. The humans needed to go up there after a big apocalypse contaminated the earth. It all started when 100 of us were send back to the earth to see if it is safe enough to live here again." Clarke tried to sound as calm as possible and just said the most necessary things to avoid the more confusing parts. "When we were down here, we had a tough start. But we loved the earth. We loved the freedom. And we thought this whole world was ours. Until…" – "Until you guys met my Grounders and had to learn that there were already other people on the earth", Lexa interrupted and stroked Clarke's arm to gently show her that she wanted to continue. Clarke leaned back and let Lexa go on. "I was the commander of 12 clans. Anya – you were my mentor back then, Lincoln was part of our people…" She stopped and swallowed. "And so was Costia. At first we all did not really like the fact that there were other people who kinda fell from the sky and tried to take land from us. We fought a lot, because that was our way. But some of us… we could say figured out that we needed each other. That peace is possible." Lexa focused on Bellamy. "Your sister took the first steps towards us, because of Lincoln." She then let her gaze wander around and stopped when she saw the familiar blue eyes of Clarke again, before she closed her own sea-green eyes. "Clarke followed her. You could say the relationship was…tense. It had good and bad times." Every one of their friends listened with growing tension. It really sounded so weird… so strange. Especially the space-part and the apocalypse. Clarke knew that it was hard to believe it but they really needed to. Other than Clarke and Lexa, they did not remember their past lives and the blonde wanted to know desperately why it was like that.

"How comes that you remember all that and we don't?", Bellamy asked. His facial expression showed Clarke that he found it hard to believe it, but he did not fully push the idea away that it might be true. He just needed some more facts. Proof. "Like we said, we don't really know..." – "Wait. Lexa." Clarke bit her lip, closed her eyes and thought about all the things that had happened in their former lives. Then finally her eyes opened up again and she looked like she really found something in her memories. "It must be the flame. The commander's spirit. It protected us from forgetting all these things while all the others forgot. I bet A.L.I.E. planned all this. I bet she is the one who pulls the strings in the background." It really made sense and Clarke saw, that Lexa thought exactly the same when she nodded in agreement. "Wait… A.L.I.E.? Commander's spirit?", Monty asked, even more confused now and Clarke knew that this might become one of the longest nights ever. …

Harper POV

It was really hard to believe all this. But it was even harder to find other explanations for Costia's 'comeback'. It was Friday now and Harper's brain still felt like breaking into many different pieces. They literally spent the whole night to talk about all the things they forgot and everyone had so many different questions that needed to be answered. And now Harper's brain was just overloaded with information. "Are you okay?", Monty asked, now that they eventually left the Woods-house to go back to Harper's home. "Yeah I'm fine. I mean it's just hard to believe it but I somehow have something inside me that tells me it's the truth. I don't know, it might just be a feeling", Harper answered and stopped before their garden gate. Monty nodded supportively to her words. "I know what you mean. I feel the same. And to be honest I am really worried about the A.L.I.E. stuff. I mean if it's really like that… that she is an artificial intelligence who found a way to control people's minds and make them forget…" He shook his head and stopped talking. It would be everything but good, Harper added in her mind. Unlike her, Monty was really good with all the computer-things and that he did not say it out loud did not really change a thing. She knew that it would be really dangerous if A.L.I.E. was real. "And what about the Costia-thing? Do you think it's possible that the A.I. is using her body because it is Lexa's and also Raven's weakness?", Harper went on and Monty nodded. "If you ask me it sounds logically. A.L.I.E. seems to know exactly how to get what she wants. They programmed her very well." Monty took a deep breath, grabbed Harper's hand and sighed afterwards. "Using people's weaknesses makes them do thoughtless actions."