The worry gnawed at her stomach, paralysing and crippling her. She couldn't move this morning, she was too anxious about the impossibility of her predicament. A distant voice called for her attention and she wanted to sink into her bed and never surface. At least that way she would be safe from the devastation of losing Clarke.

Lexa couldn't let her die, not after Costia. It would destroy her...but she had to self destruct. For her people. Always for her people. Not for the first time, Lexa wished she had never been chosen as commander.

Somehow she willed herself to rise. Without thought or feeling she left the house to speak with Clarke, for potentially the last time ever. Lexa felt shaky and like she wanted to vomit. Clarke was waiting for her, but Lexa barely saw her through the haze of unshed tears.

The golden haired girl moved closer and said, "What's wrong, Lexa? Are you ill?"

Lexa couldn't bring herself to push coherent words past the bile in her throat.

"You should sit," Clarke said, taking her arm. "You look like you're going to pass out." The girl frowned. "You shouldn't have taken off your sling yet. You don't want to dislocate your shoulder all over again."

It took a while for these words to process through her frazzled brain. Then she grabbed Clarke by the shoulders, ecstatic about the sharp pain that shot through her own shoulder. "What did you say?!"

Clarke gave her a bewildered look. "Are you okay?"

Something foreign gurgled up from her inner depths and she let out a choked giggle. Clarke's confusion made everything impeccably delicious and she held onto the girl as she started to laugh, more of a chuckle at first and then maniacally, like her mother was tickling her all over for misbehaving. The giddiness swept through her body like a dozen galloping horses, and she wasn't sure she would be able to stop, or that she even wanted to. A crowd of her people had formed, watching their commander lose her mind.

Clarke sat Lexa down and placed the back of a hand to her forehead.

"No fever. I thought maybe you were delirious or something."

Suddenly serious again, Lexa grabbed her wrist. "Do you know what this means?! You don't have to die!"

Clarke was very uncomfortable and fidgeted in her iron grasp. "Uh, wasn't planning on it, Lexa. I think two near death experiences in one day is enough for now."

If Lexa's face and stomach hadn't hurt so badly she would have burst into laughter anew.

One week later...

"To those we've lost," said Clarke, looking at her, as if prompting.

"And those we'll soon find," finished Lexa.

She placed her hand over top Clarke's and together they pressed the button that would finally blow the mountain wide open and allow them to set their people free.

Except, nothing happened.

They kept pressing it over and over, but the result was always the same.

"What's wrong?" said Lexa desperately. "Why isn't it working?"

"They're jamming us," answered Clarke. "I have to get closer," she continued, determinedly moving away from the cover of the large boulder before Lexa could stop her.

As soon as she did, at least eight guns opened fire in her direction. Lincoln swept in and brought Clarke back to safety.

But too late.

Lincoln had been hit in the arm and Clarke was clutching at her upper chest. Blood began to seep through her fingertips.

No.

The world stood still and Lexa was paralysed into inaction, the blood pounding so loudly in her ears that she couldn't hear past her own pain.

"Commander, she's dying," said Lincoln as he crouched by Clarke's collapsed side and clutched at his own arm. "What do you want me to do?"

The countdown continued. Soon the door would be locked to them forever. But what did that matter when Clarke was dying?

"Commander!"

She snapped to attention. "Bring me the medical kit!"

While Lincoln raced to do as she bade, she knelt beside Clarke, applying pressure to the wound. She cupped the side of the girls face with her free hand. "You're going to be okay, Clarke."

In response, Clarke gurgled and coughed up blood.

Which only meant one thing; her lungs had been pierced.

Before Lexa could freak out about this development one of her warriors yelled, "Heda, the door!"

There couldn't be much time left. Her eyes caught sight of the holster on Clarke's waist. Lexa was loathe to leave Clarke's side but she had no choice. In as few movements as possible, she pulled out the gun, turned off the safety, pivoted around the edge of the boulder and levelled a bullseye shot to the charge. The bomb blew and her people cheered victoriously, even as the damnable shooters continued to rain bullets down on them. How she wanted to see them suffer. How she wanted to tear into them until they begged for mercy.

In commander mode now, "Flank the shooters! Kill them all! Go!"

After giving her orders, she dropped down and placed her hand back to the bubbling and oozing wound. Lincoln arrived a moment later with the kit in hand.

The commander pointed to the respiratory aid and said, "Place that over her mouth and continue squeezing the sac every few seconds."

"Forgive me, Clarke," she murmured as she ripped the girls shirt open to gain better access.

For the briefest of moments she was distracted by Clarke's full, jiggling breasts, but then moved her gaze higher to where the bullet wound was. Judging by its placement, and Clarke's condition, it must have punctured the right upper lobe of her lungs.

"Bring me a torch!" she demanded.

Someone quickly did as she said, and once she could actually see what she was dealing with, her breath caught and she suddenly forgot everything she had learned. She had never frozen when healing Quint. It hadn't mattered to her whether he lived or died. This was an entirely different ballgame – whatever that was.

Again, Lincoln brought her back to her senses.

"Commander!"

As she took a deep breath and reached for the forceps, Lexa invoked the commander persona, and instantly her hands stopped shaking and she got to work extracting the bullet without thought or feeling, letting muscle memory guide her movements.

Instead of screaming, Clarke spluttered up more blood into the respirator and started wheezing heavily. Lexa wished she could have used a topical anaesthetic to dull the pain, but the sky people had already used that up.

With the blasted bullet out, she reached for the suctioner and deftly inserted the flexible tube into the hole. She pressed the button and a small motor hummed to life, removing some of the excess liquid from around and inside her lungs. When it beeped, she retracted it and quickly located the sealant. This too she inserted into the hole, releasing the foaming agent to the lung tear. When the oxygen bubbles stopped leaking out, she assumed she had successfully accomplished her goal. She let out a sigh of relief and then stuck a patch over the wound to keep it from getting dirty and infected. Clarke was breathing a little easier. She was stable for the moment. They needed to get her proper medical care. They needed Clarke's mother.

"Someone find me Abby of the Sky People!" she barked at large.

They also needed a medical facility.

It was time to bring down the mountain.

Softening for a few seconds, she grabbed hold of Clarke's hand, and pushed aside the emotion at feeling how weak and rapid her pulse was. "Hold on, Clarke." Before she left, she removed her coat and attempted to cover the exposed, shivering girl. Lincoln stopped her.

"You need your armour. Let me."

Realizing the validity of this statement, she re-clothed herself and helped him shrug out of his coat.

"Stay with her until Abby arrives. Then come and find me."

He nodded and continued to provide Clarke with sustenance with his good arm. If Lexa had had more time she would have tended to him too. But he was strong and not fatally injured, and Clarke needed help more. As did their people.

She ordered two of her warriors to stand guard over her love. It was killing her to leave Clarke in this deplorable condition, even the commander persona couldn't quell that feeling.

The gunfire had stopped some time ago but she only just became aware of this now. She poked her head out and commanded her army to march with her towards the monstrous door that they had yet to pry open, her warriors waiting for the order. She gave it now.

While they were preoccupied with that, one of the warriors sent to flank the shooters came forward, pushing a tied up man before him.

"What is this?" she asked of the warrior. "Why is he not dead?"

"He says he has a deal to offer you."

"Deal?" she pondered in English, looking at the man.

He smirked, and a rage took hold. She was certain he was the perpetrator. Before he could speak she stabbed him in the throat with her dagger. He gurgled like Clarke had done while the blood gushed out and he fell to the ground. Her only regret was that he had not suffered more.

"No deal," she said waspishly, smiling grimly.

One day later...

The surviving Trikru stood around the funeral pyre's.

"Yo gonplei ste oden."

Lexa spoke the words halfheartedly as she lit the first one in the dying light of day.

She moved onto the next pile of wood and bodies and did the same. She didn't want to be here, surrounded by so much death, of lives she had ended, but her unceasing sense of duty demanded it.

After the last one, she stood back and regarded the flaming pyre's and the sickeningly delicious scent that wafted off of them with impassiveness. It never stopped surprising her how much burning bodies smelled like roast boar. Then again, they were all meat, weren't they? Why shouldn't they smell the same?

As she morbidly mused about this, not for the first time, one of her people came over and whispered in her ear. With the woman's words, it became almost impossible to stand still and remain here for a respectful amount of time. Yes, she had given orders to be alerted immediately, but she hadn't meant during the sendoff of nearly one hundred of her people's spirits.

She relied on the commander spirit to dampen her instincts and see her through this anticipation. When some of her people started to leave, so did she. The restraint it took not to sprint towards the mountain was immense.

Once inside the bunker of death, she quickened her step and activated the elevator mid way down the hall. It seemed to take an eternity to ding and let her in. She jabbed at the basement level button where the medical facilities were located.

Now that she was so near, she couldn't stop herself from running, and Trikru and Ark guards alike regarded her strangely as she pushed past them into the infirmary.

There were many others in here. She paid them no mind, her gaze immediately snapping to a particular bed. Lexa's stomach dropped when she saw that damn sky boy sitting on it, holding Clarke's hand in an intimate manner.

Their eyes met - Clarke's hazed and dull from the drugs, Lexa's bright and tearful - and a smile started to spread, growing larger with every step she took towards Clarke, despite Bellamy's presence.

"I'll give you two some space," he said, moving off to another bed, the one that housed his sleeping sister.

When she was by her side, she resisted the powerful urge to embrace the girl and never let go by placing her hands behind her back and grasping her wrist.

"Clarke," she managed finally.

"Lexa," responded Clarke, voice raspy.

"How are you feeling?"

"Like I was shot," she said, chuckling slightly. Clarke winced and Lexa's grip tightened painfully. The sky girl looked to her with kind eyes. "I heard I have you to thank for saving my life...so thanks."

She held out her hand and Lexa gladly accepted the contact, feeble and brief as it was.

"I did what I could," she replied, dipping her head.

I wish I could have done more.

"Not that I'm complaining, but how did you? Save my life, I mean."

Lexa didn't want to lie, so she didn't.

"I simply performed an operation I was familiar with."

In fact, it was the last one she had performed before the time loop ended.

Clarke's eyes became less hazed, more curious. "When did you learn how to heal like that? Who taught you?"

Lexa shook her head, amused by the interrogation. Even drugged, there was no stopping her inquisitive spirit, ever thirsty for knowledge, for the truth.

"You've been through a lot, Clarke," she said, patting her hand. "You should rest."

Clarke grasped her hand roughly. "Don't avoid the question, Lexa. Who taught you?"

Her vital signs spiked. The girl was growing more agitated by the second, which wasn't good for her recovery. Lexa was stuck in a quandary. Avoiding the question further, or flat out lying, would aggravate Clarke more. So too would telling her the truth. Lexa's eyes flicked to the morphine drip. It would be easy enough to put Clarke under again.

Thankfully the spike had drawn Abby's attention. She saw the fierce look on her daughter's face and the firm hold she had on the commander, and decided to break it up. The last thing Clarke needed right now were complications, medical or otherwise.

"I think that's enough visiting for tonight."

Clarke gave her mother the stink eye but relented, letting Lexa go. Lexa hadn't expected their reunion to be so brief. She would have stayed the night if she could have, would have stayed forever. Still, she nodded to Abby and proceeded to leave the infirmary.

"Don't think this is over!" Clarke threatened when her back was turned. "I will get down to the bottom of this! Mark my words!"

"Clarke!" scolded Abby. "Have some consideration for the other patients. They're trying to rest. Just like you should be."

Lexa imagined she heard the girls grumble and the accompany grumpy face and smiled. All was right with the world.

She couldn't wait until tomorrow.

Did anyone else cheer when she stabbed Emerson in the throat? Ah, good times.

Anyway, that's it for me folks. Thanks for joining me on this crazy ride. May we meet again. :)