About two weeks later, things in Polis are calming down. Slowly life is beginning to return to normal. The people of Polis and the clans of the coalition have really come together to raise the Capitol back up to its former glory and give aid to the villages ravaged by the Bears. They've sent masons, builders, manpower and goods to help in whichever way they can. Slowly, the city is healing.

Perhaps, even a little faster than some of its people.

Definitely faster than Lexa, who remains hidden behind her walls, keeping everyone at arms length despite their efforts to get close. She's made some progress, not near enough for her loved one's liking.

But grief cannot be rushed.

And Lexa's grief is heavily weighing on her. No longer seeing the ghosts of the children, she finds herself feeling slightly lost. Many of those children were innocent, un-bloodied from war or battle; children she helped raise from the time many of them could barely walk. Kids she watched grow, helped mould into potential leaders and good people, only to see them perish before their time.

They say no parent should have to bury or burn their child. Lexa has now burned five.

It's something that sinks in with Clarke, as she too considers the natblida a part of her with or without the black blood tie. Clarke understands, or likes to think she understands, Lexa's process and purpose right now. She's grieving. She's also angry and hurt with the disagreement and moves Clarke made behind her back and because of this, Clarke is trying not to push too hard or rush Lexa. And yes, perhaps she does that in effort to alleviate some guilt she has for continuing to make such moves.

She desperately hopes that she's right in thinking this is her only way to ensure her people, who she now considers the 'living' versus clans of coalition, will survive against the walking dead. Clarke has learned a lot since coming crashing to Earth, she's learned a lot about herself and her heart, she's learned a lot about human nature and even more than she ever wanted to know about life on the ground. What she has learned recently, from experiencing tragedy after tragedy throughout the many lives her soul has lived, is that doing evil, being evil, and doing good or being good, is not so black and white. It's not cut and dry all the time, which is why she stands by her decision on Ontari.

Clarke has destroyed two entire civilizations in this lifetime alone, she does not wish to add to that. She has experienced ending the world now through meeting Claire in the veil and knows if she does not make her moves to stop the undead from rising, she will be forced into the same position. She would be forced to repeat her soul's deepest regret.

Commander of Death, that's what they call her, that's who she is, and she'll be damned if she allows that to mean she can't control granting life as much as ending it.

She can do both.

Clarke hasn't forgotten the added pressure of Elyza's world, the other world now infected, but right now, she sort of has a priority to her own world. She hasn't heard from Claire, hasn't tried to reach out in her dreams, she knows why, knows where she is, and she's put her trust in Claire to keep watch over Elyza. She's concerned of course, but she has more pressing concerns right now.

This morning, it is most definitely her wife. It's been a long two weeks and Clarke is beginning to get worn out with worry.

Lexa hasn't said a word this morning. She sits quietly pushing her breakfast sausages around her plate with her fork, her head resting in her other hand. She resembles a sad puppy and Clarke's having a hard time ignoring it. She wants to give her time, but damnit, it's been two straight weeks of this. She misses the soft smiles, the hidden glances, the cocky smirks, and the secret smile that's only for her. She misses her bright green eyes staring out at her alight with energy.

She'd give anything to hear her laugh.

Clarke purses her lips as she swallows her tea. They eat alone in their chambers this morning, like the week before, Lexa claiming to need to spend more time with Clarke in private even though they speak little. Lexa eats little. Clarke watches her a lot. Lexa rarely looks back. Clarke would be lying to herself if she said she wasn't growing a little impatient, a little more bruised by it as it continues every day.

"So, do you think you will be coming to training this morning?" Clarke says in a small voice. When Lexa doesn't answer, or even acknowledge she said anything at all, Clarke lays it on a little thick. "The kids have been asking about you..."

"I am not sure I have the time today," Lexa says after a moment more of silence, lowering her hands to the table, she finally raises her eyes to meet Clarke's.

"You said that yesterday and Raven found you on the roof, said you'd been there for four hours," Clarke says softly, her hand slowly creeping across the table towards Lexa's. Her eyes asking a silent question before she makes contact with her hands, finding consent, she folds her hands over Lexa's.

"Please, ai niron, talk to me?" She doesn't even try to prevent the sound of begging leaving her lips.

Lexa heaves in a shaky breath, the tears brimming behind her mask, Lexa making herself seen for only a second before she's gone. "I can't."

"Yes. You can. You just keep choosing not to!" Clarke shouts before she can stop herself, her frustration over the last two weeks coming to the surface, she stands up, pulling her hands back in the process. "You're keeping everyone at arms length Lexa. We all see it, everyone who knows the true you feels it. You're trying to protect yourself and I get that, this pain sucks, it hurts like nothing else, but you need to realize that you're not the only one feeling it! You are not alone!"

Clarke's eyes widen at the end of her shout, surprised at herself, she tenses up, wondering if she made a huge mistake. Again.

Lexa doesn't respond, she looks away.

Clarke tries a different approach trying to grasp at anything to get Lexa speaking. "Have you decided what we are to do about Bluecliff? Now that Ambrose is gone and their invaders defeated, do you think they will be a problem?"

Lexa clenches her jaw, still avoiding Clarke's eyes. "Yes. Ambrose has a child, a natblida babe."

Clarke's mouth drops open unsure of where Lexa is headed with this. She's slightly shocked when her mind, knowing the dark gloom hanging over Lexa, considers if Lexa will invade Bluecliff to kill the babe in the name of justice as well as to keep Bluecliff from attempting any further moves on the throne. She shakes her head, "Lexa, it's just a baby."

Lexa's eyes dart to Clarke's dangerously, "A baby that will grow into a man, a baby that will grow to know the story of his father, a baby that may grow to have the same ambitions, one that may grow to seek vengeance."

Clarke furrows her brow, Lexa's not wrong, of course she isn't, actually, what she says makes a lot of sense, but Clarke wonders how she plans to deal with this if not death. She worries that in her wife's blinding grief she will make a poor decision, one that she will grow to regret.

"You can't kill him!"

Lexa's eyes widen and her mouth drops in shock. She gathers herself quickly, slamming her hands on the table in tight fists, "kill him? You think I plan to kill a baby, Clarke?"

"No. I'm sorry… I just…" She doesn't know how to take it back; she's disappointed in herself for blurting it out, for being irrational and emotional. The hurt in Lexa's voice choking her words in throat, the look of disappointment from Lexa breaking her down, and Clarke doesn't blame her. She hates herself for saying it out loud; she knows better, she knows Lexa and Heda would never after hearing it out loud. Desperation and sorrow or not, she would never-

"I plan to take the baby to Polis, to bring him into the fold, to allow him his birthright to his blood. A child of bluecliff, living in the city, already being trained to perhaps one day rule as Heda, will be an awfully big deterrent for them to try for the throne again."

Clarke nods sadly; realizing that was the second place her head had gone when Lexa mentioned the child, wishing she had said that instead of what she had… For the strong mind she supposedly has, she sure can't control the word vomit she keeps spewing…

"Get out, Clarke," Lexa sighs and stands abruptly, roughly pushing her chair back behind her.

"Lexa, wait, I didn't mean that. Not really, I know you would never! I just have no idea what's going on in your head because you won't tell me! You hardly speak to any of us, you're obviously sad and angry-" it's a weak defense, one she doesn't even feel she deserves to be saying, but she does it anyways.

"Out! Leave me! Out! Get out!"

"Lexa you don't mean that, beja, we never leave it this way, not in anger."

"I'm not angry Clarke. I'm saddened, filled with sorrow and loss; blinded. Weak! Hurt. Bleeding from a wound I don't know how to find. I am not angry Clarke… I am resentful."

Clarke stumbles back in her chair, the words a blow she did not expect. "Resentful…" Clarke repeats slowly, the word leaving her mouth with a bitter aftertaste. She swallows it, "as in you resent me."

Lexa doesn't respond and Clarke gets angry, shooting out of her own chair. Knowing this is not all about what she just said about the baby; she wants to hear her say it, despite knowing it may crush her, "Why? Why Lexa?"

"Why Clarke? Why?" She parrots in a sneer stepping into Clarke and forcing her back, "look at me! You made me feel and now I feel too much! I can't get out of it; I need to not feel it, to shut it out! You did this to me!"

Clarkes backs up a few paces, and her mouth snaps shut as if she was slapped, the words stinging her very soul. She wants to fight back, to make Lexa see past the pain, to fight her into taking back her words. She knows deep down she doesn't mean them, but just like Clarke hurt her in her assumption, Lexa has said something that she may not be able to take back.

They remain, locked in hurt gazes, both by what was said and what they heard. Then, Clarke finds she's already forgiven her for her outburst, for her misguided anger.

She doesn't know that in that moment, Lexa has done the same about her notion about Lexa's plan for the babe. She doesn't know that what Clarke suggested Lexa would do was something that she had considered the morning following the massacre in particular bitter and vengeful moment.

She swallows in attempt to compose herself, she straightens her shoulders, and her mind switching from loved one to fleimkeppa and Wanheda in hopes to bring them forward instead of keep pushing them back. She raises her head powerfully to meet Lexa's gaze.

"If you do nothing else today, consider this, those kids out there are already here, in a position you know better than anyone." It's a subtle poke at her role as Heda, a reminder of her duty to mentor the young natblida, and a reminder that they are suffering too. If the tiny spark she saw in Lexa's eye was any indication, she may have finally cracked her fucking wall, and at the very least, made her think about her actions.

Clarke steps a little closer, she runs the back of her knuckles along Lexa's cheek and down her jaw softly. Tenderly finding her wife's cloudy eyes, "hodnes ste nou kwelnes, Lexa. You make me believe that." Love is not weakness. "Mema, disha pein ste nou y'un kom beir." Remember, this pain is not your own to bear.

She turns and heads for the door, stopping before she exits she turns around to find Lexa's eyes on her, brow now furrowed in thought, caught in Clarke's message, unprepared for what comes next.

"You can't run away from who you are Lexa."

A strange wave of purpose washes over Lexa as she decides to make the long walk to the training ground, Clarke's words echoing in her head with every step. Emboldening her on her walk, giving her strength to peek out behind her walls.

Lexa finds Clarke in the nightgrove with the natblida. Her voice trails off as Lexa comes into view during her instruction and a warm smile takes over her face. It looks as though simply Lexa's appearance has lifted her spirits, and pride shines behind her eyes. Lexa missed that look of love and respect. She missed that smile. She's missed Clarke.

Her words sunk in this morning. Found their way through her walls and struck a chord in her heart. Maybe Lexa was beginning to tire from drowning in her own misery alone, perhaps she was tired of treading waters too stormy and rough for her to handle alone, maybe she needed that life preserver now. Maybe she was beginning to understand again that she's not alone, not even in agonizing pain and sorrow.

Clarke was right; she can't keep avoiding everyone like she has been. She can't keep running off to the tower roof to foolishly attempt to hide from pain that follows her everywhere. It must hurt Clarke just as much as it does her to see fewer numbers of natblida, but she bears that pain for the good of her charges. Clarke understands her heart and feelings at a greater capacity than Lexa. Clarke knows and accepts pain as much as she accepts happiness and love because often they begin in the same place. Lexa, only recently learned to open her heart again, and loved so fiercely that she forgot how bad the pain that could come with it could be.

It simply caught her off guard.

Then, Clarke's final words to her this morning caught her off guard once more, completely unprepared. She once said the very thing to Clarke in a tent in the face of Mount Weather; she never expected to hear it back from her. Never expected to be in this position where she needed to be reminded of who she is and who she was meant to be.

Never expected to be in a position where she wasn't truly alone.

Lexa clears her throat with a subtle nod to Clarke, a small smile twitching at her lip, "Please, continue."

Clarke's smile widens for a brief moment before falling back onto her topic of discussion with the kids, one her conversation with Lexa this morning inspired. Lexa moves to the left to stand beside Raven, who grins at her, happy to see a version of Lexa she somewhat recognizes.

"As I was saying," Clarke says with a little more emotion than before, "As leaders you will face many challenges. Your spirits will be dampened, beaten and bloodied, they already have been. You will be tested more times than you can imagine, more times than you deserve. Yet here we all stand, together, as one. You will not give up, you have been given your bloodright, your birthright, because you have been chosen, because the spirits know you to be strong enough to bear whatever life throws at you." She turns her head, making contact with each one of them.

"Things seem bleak, things seem dark and gloomy, like there's no end in sight but you must believe you will find a way. You lean on those around you, the ones whom you trust and love; you find a way to continue on. That's the way of life on the ground, you build the world and it falls apart. It doesn't mean you stop building. You learn from your mistakes. You keep growing; you build stronger foundations each time they crack. Each stumble leads to your next breakthrough. You find your light and work every second of every day to keep it burning bright…" She ends her talk with her eyes locked on Lexa's. A silent conversation continuing on in the lingering looks, the murky waters starting to slowly clear.

Raven claps her hands twice, "Alright, enough talk. We've patched our wounds, today we dust ourselves off, and we fight through our pain. Ge smak daun, gyon op nodotaim. Partner up!" Get knocked down, get back up.

They spend over two hours in the grove going over defensive skills. Lexa gets involved, a small smirk finally twitching again at the corner of her lips as she teaches her students. Clarke, Raven and Octavia back off and let her work with each one, let her get back to her roots, back to what always gave her joy.

It's a sight that seems to bring new life to all of them, it's fresh air cleansing their lungs, and it's a beat that their hearts were missing. Clarke holds back the first happy tears she's shed since she got Kai back as Lexa catches her fond looks in subtle glances, forgiveness and thanks etched in the silence between them.

By lunch, Lexa is speaking more freely, feeling lighter than she has in two weeks. It's bittersweet, knowing there are missing faces from the group, but Lexa has finally gotten back up after getting knocked down.

All because of Clarke.

That evening, Lexa requests Clarke's presence after dinner in their quarters. It is a second before Clarke enters the space after saying goodnight to the natblida that she feels Lexa reaching for her through the door. She shuts her eyes for a moment allowing her wife's emotions and love encompass her before sinking in and touching her heart. She missed it desperately and can't stop the tear that rolls down her cheek. She takes a shaky, grateful, emotionally charged breath and opens to the door to find the room lit with soft flickering candlelight and a soothing aroma wafting from the bathroom.

There, she finds Lexa, robed and putting the final touches, flower pedals in the steaming bath she's drawn. She smiles softly when she sees Clarke standing in the doorway gazing at her with tender affection. It's silent for a moment before Clarke cross the threshold and lands in Lexa's arms pulling her body as close as she can manage and hiding her nose in the crook of her wife's neck.

"I thought I lost you," Clarke murmurs knowing that Lexa has lowered the walls and crawled out of her shell, let Heda finally find some rest.

Lexa holds her just as tightly, her own nose burying itself in Clarke's hair and breathing deep. "I'm sorry, Clarke. I'm here. I'm back."

Clarke simply nods against her, sniffling as she does so. Finally, they separate and Lexa offers the bath with a gesture of her hand, "Beja, join me?"

Clarke nods through soft eyes, the alternative never crossing her mind, "Of course."

Lexa helps Clarke remove her clothes before they both get in the bath, Clarke leaning back into Lexa's chest. For a long time, no bathing is actually done; it's simply the two of them enjoying the soft silence and presence of each other. The skin-to-skin contact is a therapy like no other, a closeness that finds its way to their various hidden wounds and stitching them closed.

And when Clarke finally rises from the tub, her hand coming out to help Lexa rise, like so many times before, things are finally beginning to feel a little more right with the world. They leave little space between them as they dry off and head to the bedroom. Clarke crawling under the furs and turning on her right side to face Lexa as she mimics her position.

Their hands entwine between them as the others find their way to each other's bodies. Lexa's hand trailing Clarke's soft curves, drawing indescribable patters on her side. Clarke's hand sparking it's way along Lexa's toned arm and over her shoulder to play with the baby hairs on her neck.

Hours pass before either of them moves any more than that and it is Lexa that moves first. Her hand travels up Clarke's back, weaving into her hair and pulling their heads together. She kisses her forehead, lingering her lips in a loving way before tilting her head and finding waiting, pliable lips.

From there, passion takes over. A need they both have felt for days, the desire to feel anything but what they had been for so many days before, and a love that continues to burn in the face of constant storms driving them forward and running away with them. In this bed, in this room at the top of the tower, they become lost in each other. No one exists outside this world, there is no Heda, no Wanheda, no duty or people to care for other then themselves.

Just houmons reintroducing themselves. Rising from the ashes to soar high above the storm clouds, together.

Finding home again.