A/N: I would like to dedicate this chapter to whom I considered my grandmother who passed away last weekend.

Chapter 7

The guards led Clarke to a prison cell and pushed her inside. They locked the door and left without saying a word. When she turned around to take a closer look in the cell, Clarke found that the cell was already occupied. Standing in front of her was Marcus Kane and sitting on the ground leaning against sidewall of the cell was Thelonious Jaha, father of her best friend.

"Fancy meeting you both here." Clarke had almost forgotten that these two had been imprisoned in the previous timeline.

Kane could not believe it. He said, "Clarke! Thank god, you are here. Where are the other kids?" When he had set out on this mission, he had wished to find the children that had been captured by the grounders. He was glad that he had at least found one of them. Perhaps he could convince the leader of the grounders to let the kids go.

Just before she could reply to his query, the prison door was opened again with a bang and this time group of grounders entered the cell. They were all carrying sharp weapons. Clarke was focused on the people entered but she could not move her attention pass the person in the center. She was confused and a bit angry because in front of them standing was Gustus wearing the commander's pauldron. That pauldron belonged to Lexa. She wondered why he had it.

The guards started beating up Jaha and pulled him up to stand in front of Gustus. Clarke was not paying attention to the commotion taking place around her because her attention was on the girl that was standing behind Gustus. When the guards moved, they unblocked the view of the person that was most important in this world to Clarke. There standing in servant's disguise with a limp was no doubt Lexa. Even without her commander's gear, she looked simply breathtaking. Try as she might, Clarke could not take her eyes off Lexa. Last time she had seen the brunette was in City of Light, just before Lexa left to fend off Jaha's army.

Even though Lexa had her head down, Clarke knew that she was taking everything in for future reference and was on high alert. It took every bit of control Clarke had so that she did not run towards the other girl, hug her tight, and never let her go for an eternity.

Clarke knew she needed to pay attention to what Gustus was instructing but she got the gist of what he was telling. Out of the three of them, only one was allowed to remain alive. They expected the Skaikru to kill each other with the knife and the last one would get to negotiate with the Commander. It seemed that Lexa had come here in disguise to get information about the Skaikru. She was posing as a servant girl who will keep an eye on the enemy. A few moments later after finishing his speech, Gustus and the guards left the cell, leaving behind Lexa.

There was silence for a couple of minutes before Clarke broke it. "They are currently being held at Mount Weather." She answered the question posed by Kane earlier without taking her eyes off from Lexa. Everyone looked confused for few moments before it clicked what Clarke said. Both Jaha and Lexa were looking at the blonde intensely as if trying to solve a puzzle.

"Mount Weather? But we thought..." Kane started asking but was immediately cut off by Clarke. "There are people inhabiting the mountain and they took us. Not these grounders. I just managed to escape from there." Kane was gapping at Clarke.

At the last statement, Lexa intervened and snarled, "You lie! Nobody has been able to escape the mountain." Just after saying that, she controlled herself and tried to appear subservient. It was quite a feat. There was a flinch and everything. 'Lexa can be very melodramatic.' Clarke mentally gave a snort, thinking back to all the times she had seen the girl being dramatic.

Clarke looked into Lexa's eyes so that the other girl could see that she was being truthful and replied with finality, "Well I did."

That was the only thing Clarke said. She sat with her back against the wall but keeping the other three in her line of vision. Though she had yet to take her eyes off Lexa. Her mind was going over possibilities of what is to be done next.

Even though, this was Lexa sitting in the corner of this cell but this was not her Lexa. Clarke did not know if this Lexa would ever look back at her with love. This Lexa believes that love is weakness. She is still hurting because of what had happened to Costia at the hands of Ice Nation. Clarke did not know what she had done the first time to get Lexa fall for her and she doesn't know what to do now. These thoughts filled Clarke with sadness.

'Atleast she will live. I'll make sure that this Lexa lives.' thought Clarke stubbornly. It broke her heart that she could not show the other girl how much she cares for her. How much she loves her. How much she needs her.

"I am Thelonious; he is Marcus and over there is Clarke. What is your name?" Jaha introduced the three Skaikru present to the lone grounder in the cell. Kane grunted at his name and Clarke gave a small wave of her hand when Lexa looked at her. The brunette gave a nod of acknowledgement to the three prisoners but she looked unsure of giving her name away. After a split second of hesitation, she said 'Lexa' firmly.

"Your commander said something about us invading your lands and burning down your villages and your warriors." Jaha waited until he had some kind of an indication that the girl was listening before continuing, "We didn't mean to invade your lands. We didn't know the Earth was survivable and there were people living here." He was trying to explain his people's actions.

Clarke snorted at that and said in a low voice filled with sarcasm, "So what did he do to find out? He sent 100 children to find out whether if it is and that to without any supplies. Also knowing that there was minimal chance of them surviving." She had time to think about everything that had happened to them during the past few months living on the ground. And to say Clarke was pissed off was an understatement.

Both Kane and Jaha recoiled back as though they were slapped. Lexa looked on interested, taking in the conversation silently. Clarke was still angry at the decisions taken by her people. If only they had let her father tell the people about the oxygen problem. They could have sent volunteers to the ground. They could have been better prepared. It might even have prevented this war with the grounders.

"We didn't know about the burning of the villages." Jaha continued on trying to ignore what Clarke had stated.

Lexa was ready to protest what Jaha alleged but before anyone could say anything, Clarke cut them off. "The village burning was our fault but it was an accident. That was not supposed to happen. We had sent flares in the sky so that they could see that the Earth was survivable." Clarke nodded pointedly in the direction of Jaha and Kane. "It was done to stop them from killing over three hundred innocent people. Not that it did any good as they were killed anyway." The sentence came out bitterly. Kane looked remorseful at the part he played in the culling.

Lexa looked thoughtful for a moment taking in the explanation given by the blonde. Then she narrowed her eyes and interjected. "What about the warriors?" It seemed that the brunette wanted to know what excuse they would come up for that.

"What of them?" Clarke tried to deflect the statement. Inwardly the blonde was happy to have a conversation with the other girl. Before turning back time, Clarke had thought that she would never get a chance to talk with Lexa ever again.

Lexa stared intensely at the blonde and firmly stated. "You're the one who burned three hundred of the warriors alive." Clarke felt a shiver course down her spine at those words. It was not due to fear. Not at all. In fact, she felt excitement course through her just by looking into those forest green eyes. Hearing those exact words said by the brunette in the previous timeline, just seemed to increase the feeling.

Clarke took a deep breath to calm herself to reply, "You're the one who sent them there to kill us." Nothing else was said after that. Silence descended on all of the occupants of the cell.

It was not long before Kane and Jaha were both discussing the right course of action about who will live. Clarke did not say a word regarding the matter. She was quite content ignoring them while gazing at Lexa. Kane surprised them all by righteously sacrificing himself by cutting his wrists with the knife. Clarke rushed to him and tried to slow the blood flow by putting pressure on the cut.

"We need bandages to stop the bleeding." Clarke stated the obvious. Jaha was shocked at the scene but then pleaded with Lexa to give them some bandages.

Even though Lexa seemed to hesitate for an instant but still handed over a piece of cloth to Clarke, who wrapped it around the wound quickly but securely.

Clarke saw movement from the corner of her eye just as she finished wrapping up the wound. Jaha had used the distraction caused by Kane to grab hold of the knife. She inwardly cursed whoever had this brilliant idea of having them play passing the knife.

Jaha leaned towards Lexa as if to catch hold of her, Clarke grabbed the wrist, which was holding the knife. She squeezed the wrist so hard had the knife fell on the ground with clank.

"Don't even think about it." Clarke gave Jaha a glare and then pulled the hand that she was holding. Just as Jaha stumbled due to being unbalanced, she used her other hand to give a power punch to his face.

Jaha let out a pained moan while clutching his face. Clarke felt deep satisfaction when she heard a cracking sound as her fist connected his nose. Jaha's hands left his face to reveal a broken nose. Clarke felt good to hit someone who had ordered the execution of her father and was going to hurt another person she loved. Lexa's eyes widened in shock for a second at the display but she schooled her features to an impassive expression.

Clarke bent over to get the fallen knife and without glancing at Jaha said, "I don't care if you try to commit suicide or try to kill me and Kane. But! Don't you dare try to hurt her." The threat and the authority in her voice was as clear as it could be when Clarke slowly gritted out the last statement.

Clarke had enough of everyone trying to kill Lexa. She regretted that she had not been able to save her from the bullet that was meant for her. She would be damned if she let the other girl die again. Logically Clarke knew that Lexa had everything under control and the brunette could protect herself easily. There was no way that Jaha would be able to hurt a hair on the Commander's head. But currently the blonde was anything but logical. Her mind kept on going back to black blood dripping from the wound and Lexa's lifeless eyes. Clarke shook her head to clear her thoughts.

After retrieving the knife, Clarke presented it to Lexa with the handle facing upwards. "I know you don't believe me but I, along with Anya, did escape the mountain." Lexa raised her eyebrows at the bold statement.

"I heard the guards saying you had her as a hostage." Lexa countered.

Clarke let out a sigh at that and backed off to create distance between them. She explained her reasoning, "I know what your people do to whom they consider as a traitor. If she was seen as helping us, then she would have been killed very painfully or at the very least thrown out of her village. I could not have let that happen to her."

'She ment a lot to you. I couldn't bear to see you be forced to banish her or worse to kill her just like you had to with Gustus.' Clarke thought. Lexa saw the sadness and the faraway look Clarke had. The brunette wondered what that was about.

"I need to speak to Commander urgently." Clarke said quietly after few minutes of silence.

"What makes you think that the Commander will believe you?" probed Lexa. She was being suspicious at the answer given by Clarke. No one had been able to escape the Maunon. To do so was quite a feat and highly suspicious. Skaikru being so similar to the Maunon with their technology, there is no way that they could not be allies with them. These talks of peace could be a ruse to get their guards down.

Clarke knew that this was her chance to make Lexa understand the need for alliance. She looked into Lexa's eyes to show the seriousness of her words and said, "We both want to get our people out of the mountain. The only way to do that is to work together. I have the information that could be used to take down the mountain."

Gustus and other guards had entered the cell as soon as Jaha tried to take Lexa as a hostage. They were silently standing behind Lexa as honor guard and waiting for her orders.

"Ai don sen in chit bilaik ai gaf sen in." Clarke was almost sure that Lexa said, 'I've heard what I need to hear.' Gustus replied, "Sha Heda." And then he placed the commander's pauldron back where it belong, that is on Lexa's shoulder.

Kane and Jaha were both shocked at the turn of events but Clarke stood impassively looking at Lexa. The transformation from a servant girl to the Commander of 12 Clans was so quick that it would take anyone a moment to remember that both the roles were played by the same woman.

A/N: Well this was the long awaited Clexa reunion chapter. I hope you all like it.