Raven looked at her with pain. "Clarke… it isn't stable, you really don't have to do this. I know you're in pain but even I wouldn't-"
Clarke finally raised her head to look up at her since she'd walked into the room and her eyes were filled with tears. Tears that were familiar to Raven's heart of wariness, tiredness, emptiness, and a thousand other emotions that were so deep they couldn't be described with words. "Then maybe, you're stronger than me, but I have to try." Her voice cracks. "I don't know what I'm going to do but if there's even a chance…"
Clarke stops there and hangs her head in shame. "I'm sorry. I can't be the leader you guys need any more in this state." With that, she turns on her heel and marches into the bulky time-traveling capsule Raven has built.
Raven knows better than to stop her. Truth be told if she had thought of it if she hadn't been needed, and recovering physically, Raven probably would've done the same exact thing. Banging on the door sounded as the others finally realized what was wrong. "May we meet again, Clarke."
Clarke turns around in the capsule and gives her a small sad smile. "May we meet again, Raven." Then a blindingly white light enveloped the room. When Raven finally blinked her vision back, the capsule was gone, and so was Clarke.
-0-
A bright light flashed, Clarke's entire vision went white. Then she was falling, the hair rushing through her hair. A...roof? Was rapidly approaching and there was nothing Clarke could do to stop it. She closed her eyes. This wasn't such a bad end.
Then, CRASH! BAM! Pain exploded through her on impact.
When Clarke woke up again, there was a loud beeping noise beside her. An EKG. Clarke opened her eyes slowly, adjusting to the light slowly. The walls were off-white in a way that was reminiscent of Mount Weather, but better. Clarke looked around to see an old woman sitting in the chair next to her bed, seeming to have dozed off.
Clarke attempted to sit up, and that was when she realized there were many things attached to her. An IV and oxygen mask, among several other things. Still, she struggled against them. Where was she? What the heck had happened?
The woman that had been sleeping jumped up with a start. A sharp pain stabbed through Clarke and the world started spinning as she struggled to sit up. Murkily, she heard somebody say, "C'mon lay down", and then, "Get the doctor!"
-0-
The next time Clarke woke up, she felt much calmer. There was no longer an oxygen mask. She slowly looked around. A doctor stood at the end of her bed. She sleepily blinked at him.
"Good, you're awake", he noted with a small smile. "Can you hear me?"
Clarke nodded, trying to work through the fog that clogged her mind. "Okay, can you tell me your name?"
Clarke's head spun. Could she trust these people? Who were these people even? They seemed so much like the mountain men, minus the decontamination. Where the hell did Raven's time machine send her? There was no telling their intentions, and she was very obviously stuck here until she healed from whatever injuries she had endured from the crash. She croaked out the first name she could think of, voice hoarse from disuse, "Elyza."
-0-
6 Months Later
Clarke took another bite of her bacon. It was like nothing else she had tasted on the Ark. Maybe some of what she had tasted in Polis had gotten close, but she hadn't been able to enjoy those luxuries long. Clarke's heart clenched at the thought of Polis.
Clarke had finally fully healed after months of intensive physical therapy. Now she could even run around and train like she used to. In fact, she was taking several defense classes. It's like she had spent so long fighting in the other world that when she had free time, all Clarke could think about was how to better equip herself in case another fight came.
The old woman who had been in the room when Clarke woke up the first time smiled at her from her seat next to her. She had learned that her name was Sally. "Slow down, dear. Sometimes I wonder if you were being fed at all before you crashed into our house."
Clarke smiled. The old woman was sweet. "Good thing I came here then!"
A boisterous, rumbling, laugh sounded from the other side of the table where Ted, Sally's husband, sat. "Good thing indeed, Elyza!" Then he paused, hesitating for the first time that Clarke had ever seen. "How's your memory been, kid?"
It was kind of ironic. She wasn't a kid and they knew it, but to Ted and Sally, she was one. It kind of reminded her of Jake and Abby. Clarke felt a twinge of guilt. There was no way she could tell them she had been lying the whole time. They had been more than hospitable after she had crashed through the roof of their house. They'd taken care of her and her medical bills, taken her in when she had nowhere to go after recovering enough to leave the hospital.
Instead, she smiled politely and answered, "Still, no luck."
To her surprise, Ted hesitated, jaw clenching a bit before he continued. It was something she had never seen him do before. "Elyza… you know… our kid would've been your age if she had survived. And seeing as Sally and I-" His voice cracked a little here. "We're getting old, with nobody to inherit this house or bury us when we die. I guess what I'm saying is, we'd never want to replace the ones you don't remember, but we'd love to be your family until you remember."
Clarke knew she shouldn't. There were so many lies. She wasn't even sure if she was in another time or alternative realities. Yet, the sincerity in Sally and Ted's eyes at that moment swayed her in the other direction. "Yes."
That was how Clarke Griffin became Elyza Lex.
A year later Ted and Sally died after Ted struggled with cancer and Sally died of heartbreak a week afterward. This new version of Clarke, Elyza Lex had no more plans. She wandered through a week of numb mindlessness before she sold the Lexs' humble home on a whim and traveled to America.