Chapter 17: Death and memories
Lexa POV
"Wait… Say that again", Anya ordered and continued herself: "She created a whole new universe and new lives for all of us and it is all fake? I mean it is unreal? And we are still back in Polis we just can't remember?" Lexa was at least as confused as Anya, if not even more confused than all of them together. She saw the reflection of her own confusion in the other one's eyes. Only Raven herself seemed to see right through everything. "I told you it's complicated. Genius. And definitely worst case but yes. Genius. Something like that, actually", Raven answered and Octavia stepped in: "Raven seriously. Details? And please use normal English or your explanations will kill us all." Thanks Octavia. That's exactly my opinion. "Fine. Listen up. It is somehow like a second version of the City of Light." Everyone sighed and Bellamy clapped his hands, saying "wow, it's not like we had enough problems already" but Lexa ended him by cutting him a look. Meanwhile Raven breathed in again and continued. "I wouldn't be surprised if she would call it 'earth of light' or something." Raven let her gaze wander over everyone but Lexa recognized, that she focused mainly on Anya, Lincoln and Lexa herself, before she said: "And there is no death on the 'earth of life'."
Clarke immediately grabbed Lexa's hand as if she feared a sudden disappearance and Lexa entangled their fingers before she stroked the back of Clarke's hand. But Clarke's whole mood seemed to have changed within a second, now that Raven mentioned the fact, that some of them died in their former lives. We died and now we are back here. I thought it was a second chance but what if…
"I know what you want to say, Clarke. But no. I don't know why Lexa, Anya and Lincoln are back. I just don't." Raven's voice was understanding. She knows pain, probably even better than all of us, Lexa thought and turned her head towards Clarke. It nearly broke her heart to see the pain in the blonde's blue eyes. The pain that was caused by my death and all the things she went through.
"Why is that special? That we are here, I mean." Lincoln's hand was back on Octavia's shoulder but this time it seemed as if he wanted to calm himself down instead of calming Octavia.
"It is special because we died in our former lives. You, me and Anya, too", Lexa raised her voice and said out loud what Clarke and Raven already knew. Her statement was followed by a shocked silence. Even Bellamy who always had an opinion on everything was too shocked to even react with anything else but a gasp. Lexa exchanged a glance with Clarke. A glance full of longing, pain, desire, love and so much more Lexa was not able to put into words. It was an 'I need you', 'I can't lose you again', 'please stay with me' and so much more all at the same time just by looking into each other's eyes.
It was Anya who found her voice first of all.
"How did it happen?", she wanted to know. "How did we die? Did we fight in a war or…?" Lexa bit her lip and Clarke closed her eyes as if only the imagination of all the deaths brought her right back there – and it was obvious that she did not want to go back there ever again. But as always she surprised Lexa with her inner strength, when she started to tell Anya what happened. Her memories. "We teamed up, you and I. After we fled from a common enemy called 'Mountain Men'. We wanted to end the war between the Skypeople – my people – and the Trikru – your people. You did everything to get back to Lexa to tell her everything but I convinced you to come with me to Arcadia first so that we could talk about a solution. We made it there and you agreed with a gathering between your leader and mine before you turned around and were shot by one of the Skypeople.
They thought you were a threat to me, which is actually no excuse for just shooting somebody but that's how it happened." Anya nodded and leaned back. She is not satisfied with that story. Typical. The Anya I know wanted to hear that she fought the biggest war and sacrificed herself for everyone else so that her people won the whole war. Lexa could read that in Anya's facial expression but the other one did not respond to Clarke's story. "Lincoln was shot, too", Raven continued after a few seconds of silence. "You sacrificed yourself to rescue a few other grounders who were sick and would have been killed without your sacrifice." Octavia nodded with some sparkle in her eyes that looked like tears, but her gaze said something like 'sounds like Lincoln, I am so proud' instead.
"Pike did it. Back in our former lives – if we can still call it that – he used to be chancellor of the Skypeople for some time", Lexa herself added. The atmosphere was tense. Weirdly. Talking about the death of close ones while exactly these people are around was something that did not happen daily. Especially Octavia was influenced by the things she heard. The brunette lowered her head and breathed fitfully, until Lincoln sat down next to her and stroked her back with rhythmic movements of his hand. Although she doesn't remember her former life, she probably remembers the pain. Or at least she can imagine what it would feel like to lose Lincoln. It's really frightening to imagine losing any of my friends here. Why did that happen? If Raven is right A.L.I.E. created this all which means she also created our friendship, right? No. She couldn't have created these strong bonds.
"Seems like the Skypeople weren't the best guys back then. I mean shooting both Anya and Lincoln? Without any good reason? Why was I even part of that group of people, seriously", Harper asked and shook her head as if she finally recognized that her own people made really big mistakes. We all made mistakes, that's part of the human nature. Especially in a war. "The Skypeople weren't bad. Pike was. And some others who thought they could start a war just because they didn't knew the grounders. It was all about misunderstandings and insecurity because they never tried to get to know each other", Raven interposed and was about to go on, but Clarke lifted her gaze, her face growing pale before she said: "To be honest Lexa's death was my fault. She died because of me."
