Clarke is gone.
You woke in the infirmary, Marcus at your side, gasping your daughter's name, but she never came.
First they lied to you and told you she was here, but they didn't know where.
Then they lied to you and told you they knew where she was, but it wasn't here.
When darkness falls, Bellamy comes to your bed and tells you everything.
She was a sweet child always, but stubborn. You used to tease her father about that, that she got her stubborn streak from him.
It wasn't true.
Her earnestness, her sense of justice, her heart. These were the things you loved most in her father. Her stubbornness, what you've always hated most in yourself.
At night you toss and turn, wondering at what point she started paying for your sins. Wondering when she stopped being your daughter, the little girl who climbed into your arms every morning, how she'd ask you to sing her another song, then two, then three, counting her wishes on her tiny chubby fingers.
At night you wonder when she stopped being a child, when she became a sacrifice.
The Commander requests your presence at a treaty negotiation.
You would say no, but there's the tiniest sliver of hope that Clarke will be there. That you'll see your daughter again, some place outside your memories and nightmares.
You realize when you arrive and see the dull flickering in the young leader's eyes, Lexa was hoping the same thing.
And there's something about that that comforts you. Not to see the other woman's disappointment, her pain, no. But the knowledge that someone else thinks of your daughter, someone else still whispers her name.
It's been so long now, some days you wonder if Clarke was only ever a dream, a fever in your brain that conjured the memory of loving someone.
Lexa is proof that your daughter is real.
That someone else still waits for her to come home.
Some days you can't quite remember the sound of her voice, the color of her eyes.
Some days the sky reminds you, some days every voice is hers, calling your name.
Once you went out into the woods, started along the long path to where you last saw her, held her, wiped her tears. But the birds called each other and you swore you could hear her name in the wind.
Marcus found you, weeping on the riverbank, and led you home.
She'll come back, he promises.
He always underestimated her.
There are children in the camp now, homes. There are fields to plant and plow, and herds to keep.
No one looks to you to lead anymore. No one much looks to you for anything.
Most days you spend in your little garden.
Most nights you spend in the room you keep for her.
Marcus stops by, tells you of the unions, the births. Tells you of the party they had for the third birthday of the first child born in camp. The little boy who carries your daughter's name.
Lexa, now and then, coming to sit with you in silence as the sun drops below the horizon.
Mostly, though, you're alone.
It's a fitting punishment.
Lexa comes for you in the night, silent as ever.
You ride for hours, and then days.
You cross rivers and mountains.
You sleep under trees with only the light from the moon and stars to remind you that you're still alive.
Lexa doesn't say a word.
At dusk on the fifth day, she holds up her hand and slips off her horse.
Slowly, carefully, you pick your way through the underbrush until you're standing in a clearing.
There, in the distance, is a small hut, light from its windows spilling out onto the ground outside.
And in the dark, silent night, you can hear the melody of a half-remembered song, coming from within.
Three days you watch, drink your fill of your daughter. For three days you watch her, from the first moment she rises until the last moment before she closes her door in the evening, and light from her candles seeps into the darkness.
Clarke is alive, your heart beats, and for the first time in years the pulse of your blood in your veins doesn't feel like a crime.
Her hair is impossibly long, and tied back in complicated braids. You think back to her childhood, and how little patience she had for sitting still.
Her face is older now, dark with hours spent in the sun and air. There is a limp you don't remember, and the songs she sings in the evening take a heavy, heavy tone.
But she's still your daughter, still Clarke. Still the beautiful child you brought into this life. You were the first person she ever saw, you think, and remember watching as she opened her cloudy blue eyes for the first time.
On the eve of the third day, when the sun dips below the horizon, her door stays open.