That alarm you hear is the angst alarm, be prepared.

Also, having thought a bit about how Clarke and Lexa may be feeling towards each other (sort of a requirement if you're writing a fan fiction) I found that Landfill by Daughter one hundred percent sums up what's going on between them - at least in this fic. Sorry it's a shortie, but it's a lot of dialogue for a writer who hates writing dialogue.

ALSO ALSO anybody who is up for helping me bounce off ideas for this fic is more than welcome (please please please) to find me on tumblr: thesewildfiresgrow because other wise this story is ending pretty soon, do with that knowledge what you will. Plus I like making new friends, makes me feel fuzzy.

Next update will be Friday afternoon/evening GMT.

Ta for reading

p.s. I don't know, maybe the woman is Lexa's mum, maybe she isn't... she definitely makes a reappearance later though, and she does know more about Lexa than anybody else does, just fyi

"Leave me on the tracks
to wait until the morning train arrives
Don't you dare look back
walk away
catch up with the sunrise"

Landfill – Daughter

Tick, went the time bomb.

Tick, tick, tick, as steady as the battle drums the hundred had heard when the Grounders attacked the drop ship. Clarke looked at Lexa, watching the girl fidget under her intense stare.

"This place, is it yours?" asked Clarke, looking at the space around her with more care. There was nothing except the bed and some furniture to suggest it had ever been lived in.

"Yes." Lexa answered, body still tense.

Clarke sighed, pressing her lips together tightly and shaking her head slowly. She leant back against the door and squeezed her eyes shut. "Why did you do it, Lexa?" she asked. She wasn't talking about the hut any more.

"To save the lives of my people," came Lexa's solemn reply. Clarke's eyes remained shut. "Clarke…"

"Please don't say you're sorry if you're not." Clarke bit her lip. "Because I can survive falling to Earth in a ship set to fall apart, and I can survive your best warriors' attacks, but I can't survive any more of your lies."

"You've already survived, Clarke."

"Yes, and what for?" Clarke fumed. She opened her eyes to see Lexa watching her. "If this is what I survived for then I'm not sure it was worth it."

"I am sorry."

"And I…" Clarke let out a shaky breath. "I am tired."

Several moments passed in bitter silence.

"Those aren't the words of a leader, Clarke."

"I don't want to be a leader, Lexa, you know that already. Unless you don't care." Clarke's words passed slowly through the space, but their impact on the Commander was clear to see on her face. Her lips parted in a grimace and her eyes widened slightly.

"Say what you like about me, but I never stopped caring," Lexa said softly. Clarke had seen her at her strongest, when her words were alight with the fuel of anger. Now she spoke with the dying embers of forgotten flames. "I never chose to be the Commander."

"I know you didn't choose to be the Commander, that soul chose you," said Clarke, laughing coldly at the Grounders' belief that souls meant anything. Clarke had seen enough cruelness to lose faith in reincarnation. More to the point, she hoped that when she died she wouldn't have to suffer another life of hardly surviving. "Regardless, you chose to walk away, Lexa."

"That wasn't an easy decision. You must understand that we've been in this war our whole lives."

"I do understand, honestly. I understand what it's like to face death, and I understand what it's like to make sacrifices." Clarke paused. "How much do you know about my people, Lexa?"

The girl thought for a moment. "Not much," she admitted. "You fell from the sky."

"I was sacrificed. Our leaders, our commanders, sacrificed one hundred kids so that the people on the Ark would survive." Clarke spoke steadily. "My dad sacrificed his life in an attempt to save people, and I was sacrificed for the same reason." She looked away from Lexa then, eyes brimming with unshed tears. "We were told that on Earth all our crimes would be forgiven. That we would no longer be punished. We didn't think that people still lived here, Lexa, we thought we came here to die. And I never, not even for one second, thought that we'd be sacrificed when we did nothing but help you."

"Your people killed hundreds of my people."

"My people barely survived your people's attacks." She paused for a brief second. "How many people are in your army, Lexa?"

The Commander didn't reply.

"Not a lot of my people have survived. Most of the people in the Ark died as it entered the atmosphere- you know, the night your people attacked us for the first time. The majority of the hundred first sent down here, my friends, are dead. And I'm not blaming you Lexa, but you have thousands in your armies alone, and my people are four hundred at most, and when you left forty of them to die in Mount Weather it hit us harder than you could ever understand."

"My heart had no place in that decision, you know that Clarke. I would have chosen differently."

Clarke's head whipped up at Lexa's words. "You want to talk about hearts, Lexa?" Clarke stalked forward, crossing the space of the hut in quick angry strides. Now she stood directly before the Commander who was still sat on the bed. Clarke looked angrily down at her. "Because I know a thing or two about broken hearts," Clarke thought back to Finn who had lied to her about Raven. She thought of the Finn that she couldn't recognise. "When you demanded the death of the boy I loved, my heart broke."

"Blood demands blood," Lexa whispered. Clarke's eyes burned daggers into hers. "His death was merciful compared to what he deserved. To what my people deserved."

"Merciful?" asked Clarke, raising her eyebrows, she continued on coldly. "My heart broke again when I put the knife in his stomach." Clarke waited there, willing Lexa to challenge her, to say anything that gave her a reason to stop. Their bodies were separated by mere inches, but the inches burned with an electric anger. Outside, the rain was falling heavily – it was a raging storm not. "At least when I stabbed him," Clarke continued, wincing slightly at the memories her own words evoked, "I only stabbed him in the front." She hissed the words now. "Because my heart broke again when you stabbed me in the back."

"Clarke," Lexa started, but Clarke held out her hand to make her stop, walking back to the wall beside the door as she tried to get as much space between them as possible in the hut. Lexa sat precariously upright on the edge of the bed but Clarke couldn't see if the girl's pain was from her words or the wounds on the girl's back.

Suddenly, everything was too much and Clarke's chest heaved with the weight of it all. Her small body pushed against the wall of the hut, for her father, for Wells, for Tris, for her friends that she had failed to save. And Lexa sat still on the bed, a constant reminder of the mistakes she had made.

"Do you know what they did to traitors on the Ark? To the people who were considered a risk?" Clarke said quietly. She had regained some composure, but it was too late – Lexa had seen her at her weakest. It made Clarke feel sick. "They floated them." Lexa watched Clarke. "They left their bodies to float through space until the end of time. Years ago, they used to inject them so that they could die peacefully." Clarke drew in a breath, she could remember her mother talking to her father after the Council meeting. "But then medical supplies got low and the Council elected to waste no more on people who were going to die anyway so they ejected them whilst they were still alive." Clarke paused again. "The same would have happened to me eventually, if I had ever gone to trial."

"Why are you telling me this, Clarke?"

"Why did you kiss me if I was going to die anyway?"

"You were never going to die, Clarke."

"You didn't know that." Lexa dropped her head in shame. "Lexa, if I had been ready, what would you have done?"

Silence, then Lexa looked up at Clarke. Her eyes were empty, just echoes of emotion that made Clarke's heart sink. "I would have done the same thing. I would have saved my people."

Clarke nodded her head, she had known the answer before she had even asked the question. A small part of her had still hoped to be wrong though. She moved to the door, pressing a hand against the dark wood. "I need to know one more thing Lexa. If I go outside, will your people kill me?"

"My people aren't your enemy, Clarke." Lexa stood up and limped across the space to stand behind the shorter girl. The blonde didn't turn around to face her. "I'm not your enemy."

When Clarke looked over her shoulder, her blue eyes made Lexa's veins go cold. "How am I supposed to believe that, Lexa?"

"Clarke," Lexa breathed as Clarke pushed the door open. The Commander sighed in defeat. "Will you come back?"

"I don't know," said Clarke as she walked out of the hut, leaving Lexa to stand in front of the door which had once made her feel independent. Now she felt alone in the village she called home.

She had been right, that conversation was torturous.