CLARKE

Although her face is severely damaged the dead woman in the pit is still recognizable. That is, for those who used to know her. I'm not one of those people.

I turn my eyes away from her and look at Lexa, who is crouching down next to me, motionless and with her gaze fixed on the features of the corpse.

Holding her breath deeply within her chest she doesn't make a sound, and with her eyes as tight as her jaw I realize her expression could mean shock just as well as relief - leaving me clueless and uncertain.

"Is it... Is it her?"

My question breaks the nerve-racking silence that has fallen upon us. It is as if my voice awakens her, remembers her how to breathe again. She gasps, then finally releases the air from her lungs.

"No," she answers, slowly shaking her head, "It's not."

There's no single hint of doubt in her voice.

Before I can ask her anything else she gets up and takes a few steps back, distancing herself from the scene below her, and from everything it could have meant. I want to follow her, hold her, do anything really to be there for her, but right then Strand calls for us.

Lexa doesn't move, so this time it's Madi and I who lower ourselves. As we're holding on to each other, expanding our weight, we reach out for him. Grasping the both of us by our hands Strand pulls himself out of the trap without much difficulty.

He walks straight up to Lexa. As he lays his hand on her shoulder she looks up at him until their eyes meet.

"Are you okay?" he asks her.

She squints her eyes. "Are you?"

"I don't know," he answers truthfully, "The thought of finding her like that..."

Lexa just nods. Her mind seems elsewhere.

"I found a letter," Madi tells Strand as soon as we join them. "Lexa thinks it's from her mom."

"Really?" He tilts his head at her. "What did it say?"

"It said she was done," Lexa speaks up before Madi can answer, making us all look at her again. "I hate to break this to you, but the chance she's stumbling around like one of them is real, and pretty big. Better prepare for the worst."

Strand shakes his head rather vigorously. "Madison? No! She would never give up."

"Yeah," Lexa agrees, heaving a heavy sigh. She fumbles in her pocket, then shoves the note into his chest. "That's what I used to believe."

He takes the piece of paper from her and unfolds it, but Lexa doesn't wait for his reaction. She already turns around and starts to make her way back to the ruins formally known as Coalport. When she seems to realize we're not following her she briefly looks over her shoulder.

"Madi," she calls for her sister, "please show me again where you found the letter."

Ten minutes later we're at the foot of the collapsed building Madi had entered an hour ago. Though building is really too much of a name. It's a pile of cement blocks, together with what I think used to be a door frame, a piece of the roof and a helluva lot of debris.

There are some gaps here and there between the rocks, which makes the whole thing look terribly unstable.

"You crawled in there?" I ask Madi, already knowing the answer. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?!"

Madi just shrugs and mutters something beneath her breath.

I raise a brow. "What's that?"

"I would do it again," she answers, suddenly looking straight at me, with flaring pupils. "I'll go in again right now if Lexa asks me to."

Feeling myself getting riled up I open my mouth to respond, but Lexa stops me by quickly stepping between the two of us.

"I'm not," she says, gesturing at the both of us to calm down. "Madi, I'm not asking you to get in there again. You took enough risk as it is."

"So what do you want to do?" Strand asks. He steps closer to the mount of rubble, rests his hand on it and kneels down. Peeking through one of the small openings his voice slightly echoes when he goes on, "You want to climb in there yourself?"

His question makes my stomach tighten. She's gonna say yes. When she's set her mind on something there's no stopping her. Like mother like daughter, shared genes or not. She's gonna say yes and I can't withhold her and...

"No," she answers. When I turn to face her I find her staring at me instead of him. She briefly takes my hand and squeezes it, as if to reassure me. "I made a promise. One that comes with not taking crazy risks."

A soft sigh of relief escapes my lips, but when she steps forward to join Strand I realize I still feel tensed. I don't know why, but it's a feeling I can't shake off.

"Maybe we can dig our way in?" Lexa says to no one in particular. She runs her hand over one of the blocks. "Remove the small debris. See how far we get."

Without waiting for any response she picks up a broken roof tile, throws it to the side, then looks at us again. "See?" her eyes seem to say, "This could work."

Strand answers with a shrug, stretches his arms above his head and begins to pry off a piece of wood. Watching him not getting anywhere, Madi pokes him in the ribs.

"I think it's stuck underneath that plasterboard," she points out. "Help me up, I think I can get it."

I want to stop her, but hesitate. I already kept her from going in and I feel like I need to show her some trust, despite not feeling sure about it. Besides, Lexa asks for my attention before I can even speak up. She's carrying some bricks that are clearly more heavy than she was prepared for and I quickly make my way over to her to give her a hand. Together we drop them all down behind us without breaking any of our toes.

"Thanks," she exhales before looking up at me. When she does she frowns. "Are you alright? You look distracted."

She's right, I am distracted. I just don't know why, and more importantly, I don't want to bother her with it. She's got enough on her mind as it is.

"I'm fine," I mumble. "Let's keep going."

While Lexa and I carry away some more bricks and rocks I can't help keeping a close eye on Madi, who's now standing on a piece of concrete, helping Strand to remove a second plasterboard. The concrete looks stable enough, but I know those fragments she's leaning on are not - if only because of the hollow space underneath it all. Of course Madi weighs practically nothing, but still...

I watch how the two of them bring the board down without any problems, then carefully climb up again to get another part. They seem to work well together, without taking any risks, and after taking another deep breath I force myself to focus on Lexa again.

She's studying one of the bigger rocks, one that's clearly to heavy to lift. A pensive look clouds her face.

"I think this one blocks another opening," she tells me when she spots me watching her. "A big one."

"I thought you didn't want to get in there?"

"I don't," she says, and we both know she actually means "I won't". If it weren't for me she'd be in there already.

We share a look, one of those I-know-that-you-know ones. One that always leaves me speechless, because everything is said already, albeit without any words. And because it still reminds me of that first time I felt I really saw her, and she really saw me, shortly after we escaped from Pauna.

Straightening her posture she clears her throat. "I just thought it might give us a better look inside. Letting more light in and all."

I nod. It's worth the try.

"There's no way we can lift it, but maybe we can roll it to the side?"

"I think we need to use some kind of lever," Lexa agrees, already searching around her. "That rod might work."

She picks up an iron bar and sticks it between the rocks and concrete until it's about two feet in.

"Ready?" I ask her.

This time she's the one to nod.

Without any countdown we both throw our weight in; Lexa by pulling the rod, her body almost horizontal as she firmly presses her feet against the other rocks, and me by fully pushing against the damn thing with my shoulder.

It's enough to move it one inch.

One inch that is enough to make another brick move, just a bit, about two feet above us, and that shift is enough to wake up gravity.

I can hear the sliding, creaking and finally the collapse of the ruin, together with Madi's scream. I can feel the whirling dust stinging my eyes, and Lexa grabbing my arm to pull me away. I can even smell it all - the musty scent of clay and mold that mixes with the air it couldn't reach until right now.

But I don't see it.

What I see is Polis. Polis the way I found it after the second wave. Polis that kept my people trapped, right underneath its remains. The heavy, merciless remains of the temple. Of the Commander's tower, and of Lexa's thrown. What I see is myself, all alone, desperate to get in. To get to them.

To not be on my own anymore.

What I see is a moment in my life I never hoped to relive. An experience—a feeling of total loneliness, which once broke me like nothing else ever did, except for the loss of my father, and then Lexa. A feeling that had driven me to the edge, about to give up, and that still haunts me at times, knowing it's the source of my biggest fear: to be left alone.

"Clarke? Clarke, look at me!"

Lexa's voice reaches me and I slowly turn towards her. She examens me closely. "What's going on?"

"N- Nothing," I quietly answer. "Just some memory. Where- Where's Madi? Is she okay?"

"She's fine, she jumped away right in time." Lexa points at Madi, who is sitting on a boulder a little further away, right next to Strand. They're both covered in dust, staring at the mess in defeat, but seem undamaged.

It isn't till then that I realize I'm also on the ground, fallen backwards just in time... and just like all those years ago. But I'm also aware of the difference. This time I'm not alone. This time I'm finding myself in Lexa's arms, and something tells me she's not willing to let go. I face her again and with our eyes closed we rest our foreheads against each other. She's still panting, just like me, and I bet our heartbeats are racing the same pace as well.

"Tell me about your memory," she whispers.

Without breaking contact I gently shake no. "It's nothing."

It's not that I don't want to share these past experiences with her. I just really don't want to burden her. Especially not today.

"With you it's never nothing," she says, and I can hear the playful smirk in her voice as she uses my own words against me. When I sit back to look at her I catch a warm smile that instantly warms my heart. I can't help but mirror it. "I mean it," she goes on, "You can tell me. Whatever it is."

Lifting my hand I cup her face, my palm softly against her cheek, and shake my head again. "Just stay with me."

"Always," she simply says, and I believe her.

I'm keeping my gaze on her, drowning in the deep green of her eyes, until approaching footsteps make me look up.

"Everyone okay?" Strands asks, towering above us.

We quickly assure him that we're both fine and scramble up from the ground. As soon as I'm back on my feet I pull Madi in for an unasked hug. A grateful smile creeps across my face when I feel her not only accepting my embrace, but fully answering it.

When I finally let go of her I spot Strand and Lexa inspecting the chaos. Strand, coming back to us after walking all around it, is the first to reach his verdict.

"I'm sorry Alicia, but I think you can forget about this," he says with a sorrowful frown. "Whole thing came down like a house of cards."

Lexa drops her shoulders in defeat. Her mom's last known whereabouts is no more. She knows it, just like we all do.

"Let's just... go," she sighs, turning her back to the mess, and to the last snippet of hope to find closure.

"Where to?" I ask her.

She shrugs. "Anywhere but here."

Exhausted by this entire day we make our way back in silence. We find our bikes where we left them, together with our gear. I pull my bottle out of my backpack. There's not much left in it. However, the others are out completely, so we share the little I have - hardly three sips each.

Strand nods towards the road we came from. "We could go back to that crossroad and go to the lake from there? I'm not sure about shelter, but at least there's water we can boil."

When Lexa stays quiet I agree for the both of us. It doesn't sound great, but right now I honestly wouldn't know where else to go. Besides, we can all use some freshen-up.

Due to the high grass we start to walk with our bikes to the path that lead us here, Lexa and I shortly behind Madi and Strand, just like a few hours ago. Yet right when we get to the edge of the field, about to get back onto the saddle, we both freeze in motion at the sound of a sudden voice reaching us from behind.

"Alicia?"

We turn around as one. There's a woman. She's in her late forties, early fifties. Blonde. Harmed. But very much alive.

"Alicia?" she asks again. "Is that really you?"

... ...