The room was in near silence as the crowd watch Perseus be dragged from the room. The only sound apart from the scuffling sounds of him being transported was the rasping pleas he was trying to make. All of which were ignored.

The Commander watched the boy without even the slightest bit of remorse in her eyes. In all respects the boy was dead to her. They had once been close, teacher and student, they'd shared stories and lessons. She had like Perseus despite his strong headedness and instinct to jump towards aggression. But those days seemed so distance from Lexa's mind they could have been from another life.

As the doors closed and Perseus' cries were silence the crowd began to shuffle awkwardly. Unsure of how to proceed. The Commander felt all eyes on her.

"The burning of those lost today will take place at dusk. All are welcome to come pay their respects. That will be all."

The moment she'd finished speaking Titus began to whisper fervently in the Commander's ear. About what Clarke could not hear. She was too far and was feeling light headed.

"Clarke." Raven said gently but the girl appeared not to hear her. Raven was worried, Clarke's color was distinctly paler than normal and her face shone with sweat, not to mention the ever-growing patch of red soaking through her bandages.

"Clarke." She said again, but Clarke only had eyes for Lexa.

Raven looked up helplessly at Octavia who just sighed and tucked an arm under her friend's shoulder. Raven did the same and together the two lifted their friend on her shaky feet and began to leave the room.

As her they carried her from the room Clarke desperately tried to catch Lexa's eye. To get some nod of reassurance or something that acknowledged Clarke's presence. All of her attempts however were in vain. It wasn't even that the Commander avoided her eyes, it was that she did not even see her, even if Lexa was looking in her direction it was through her, as if she were nothing more than a regular citizen.
Lexa was gone.

Raven and Octavia had just managed to carry Clarke out of the room and to the base of the stairs when she passed out. The exhaustion from the events of the day finally fully weighting her, and seeing Lexa like that had sucked all the adrenaline from Clarke's body. She succumb to her exhaustion.

XXXX

Clarke awoke sometime later feeling stiff. She opened her eyes and saw she was still in her bed in medical, the sun shining brightly through the curtained windows. She looked to her side and saw the chair her mother so often occupied was empty.

Odd. Clarke thought. She could not recall the chair ever being empty. If Abby wasn't looking over her Raven or Octavia were often there, trying to cheer her up, make her laugh.

There was a sudden sound of someone clearing their throat.
Clarke's eyes darted to the source of the sound and she gasped. Lexa was standing in front of her, the curtains around her bed drawn, blocking out the busy bustling of the infirmary. The Commander's face consisted of several half healed cuts, some with stitches, others small bandages. She looked almost as if her face had been used to break a window. Clarke glanced down at the girl's wrist and noticed it was tightly bandaged.

"Lexa." Clarke said, trying to sit up.

"You are to call me Heda, Ambassador." Lexa said stiffly, her back straight, arms folded behind her back.

Clarke just stared at her, not sure what to say. The Commander took advantage of the silence.

"I've come to inform you that your presence is no longer required in Polis. The council will not be convening for at least a month and you should return to your people."

Clarke opened her and closed her mouth several times before finally forming a coherent thought.

"What?" She asked sharply.

"Once your injuries have fully healed, you and several of your people will be escorted back to Arkadia. Where you belong." The Commander's words bit into Clarke like fangs.

"Lexa…" Clarke began.

"Heda." She snapped. "I will not need to tell you again."

"Don't do this." Clarke pleaded, wishing Lexa weren't so far away. Clarke was sure that if she were closer to the Commander, even if she could touch her for a moment Lexa would melt. "Please."

Lexa's eyes did not soften, her body to not loosen. She remained firm. "I am sorry for your loses and the trauma you have endured."

With that she pushed the curtains aside and began to stride from the infirmary.

"Heda." Clarke yelled after her, not caring that all healers and patients abruptly stopped their activity at her words. "What about the injuries you've caused?"

The Commander didn't even stop walking at her call. She pushed the doors to the room open and was gone.

Clarke was shaking. Her fists in tight balls, her breathe rapid. But not in sadness. She'd since overcome that, the despair of what had happened, the loses she'd sustained. It had almost been three days since Lexa had sentenced Perseus and Clarke had all but cried herself dry.
Now the girl shook not with despair but with Rage. A furious anger.

Anger that somewhere in this mountain of a tower Perseus still lived.

Anger that she had not been permitted to attend the burnings of Becca and Aden.
Anger at Lexa. Who the moment things had gotten emotionally jarring had left her. Dropped her as if she were nothing, disappeared.

It was moments like this that Clarke was not surprised that the Grounders had lived in such barbaric ways for so long. They as a people strived to make things better, improve lives, decrease violence, but the moment things became difficult they instinctively reverted into what they'd previously been. Lexa had done this too many times for Clarke not to notice.

She had hoped once she was healed and permitted to walk alone she would be able to find Lexa and force her to speak with her. But after Perseus' sentencing Clarke had returned to medical far worse than when she had left. The exertion from the journey to the prison had somehow torn several muscles and split veins, leaving her with a longer recovery time. Still nothing she could not handle, she had thought giving Lexa space was a wise decision anyway. But now the Commander was demanding she depart from Polis. Leaving her with almost no chances to connect once more, pull Lexa from the castle she'd built herself up into.
And though Clarke was selfish in wanting Lexa back, wanting to hold her, speak with her, love her again, the sky girl knew that when Lexa's walls were down she was actually a better Commander. She was more open to changes, more sympathetic, wiser.

Clarke pulled herself up into a sitting position. Determinedly thinking of ways to speak to Lexa again before being forced from the city. She figured she only had three or so more days before her mother deemed her fit to travel.
As Clarke lifted herself up, Octavia strode up next to her bed.

"Hey." She said smiling half heartedly. "What did she want?"

Clarke huffed. "She's decreed that my presence is no longer required in Polis. That I'm to return to Arkadia."

Octavia swore under her breath. "I'm sorry Clarke." Octavia sat herself in Abby's chair.

Clarke just shrugged, still thinking on how to break through to the real Lexa once more. She was broken from her haze however as the doors to the infirmary were pushed open and the healers began to mutter.
Several guards made their way into the room, supporting what looked like a rotting corpse. As Clarke looked closer at the body the guards held by the shoulders she realized it wasn't a corpse. It was Perseus.

Octavia made a move to pull Clarke's partition curtains closed.

"No." Clarke snapped at her. "I want to see this."

Perseus had always been a boy of half decent looks. Square jaw, charming eyes, neat light hair. But even after only three days in a cell he was changed. His hair was straggled and dirty, his face pale and sagged, dark circles under his eyes. He still possessed heavy bruising around his neck from Lexa's assault and the clothing he wore was stained with filth and dark blood. He cradled his right arm, which was a dark rotten color. It was infected. So infected that it would need to be cut off. Clarke could see the dark streaks of blood poisoning making their way up his wrist.
She took pleasure in this sight far more than she could ever admit to a soul. She'd seen so much useless and uncalled for deaths and injuries in her time. But this was one that had been brought upon him and only him.

The guards lay the filthy boy on a clean bed and the healers hesitantly made their way to him. An older healer picked up his injured hand and crumpled her nose at it.

"It will need to come off." She said non-chalantly. "It's far to infected. "

"No." Perseus groaned. Too week to offer and form of physical refusal.

"Restrain him." The healer said, leaving the bedside to examine a tray of instruments. The guards tied Perseus' barely struggling form to the bed and pulled his left hand out and secured it to a small wooden table. A table that too Clarke looked more like a butchers block than anything that should be used to heal people.
Perseus began to whimper.

"Please. Please." He croaked.

Before Octavia could stop her Clarke was out of her bed and making her way to the boy. For a moment the guards looked as though they were going to stop her, but surprisingly let her pass.

As the healer meticulously selected the largest and sharpest knife on her table of instruments. Clarke stared down into Perseus' pale eyes, there were tears in them.

"This is what happens to anyone who threaten those closest to the Commander." She said, placing a hand on his collarbone, so she was pressing on his bruising.

"No one is permitted to harm a Nightblood." A guard gruffed. Clarke slowly retracted her hand. Watched the nurse place the sharp blade over a lit candle, heating it.

"This is what happens to those who try to take the power of Wanheda." She said darkly. Taking as step back as Perseus began to struggle against his restraints. Wordlessly several healers approached and gagged him.

The blade was red hot as the older healer approached Perseus' side. She physically seemed to take no pleasure in what she was about to do but before she lowered the blade to the infected hand, and before Perseus' gagged screams filled the room Clarke could have sworn she heard the healer whisper.

"For Becca."

Then she sliced.