Unharmed
by
Lezg33k
Unharmed.
I specifically told that branwoda Azgeda traitor that I wanted her brought to me unharmed and he brings her to me looking like a rat that has been drowned and beaten.
Lexa swallowed thickly as she looked down at the vast expanse of land. Her land. Land that had been as unkind to Clarke as the commander herself had been. It had betrayed the blonde to the marrow of her very bone and yet she still fought to survive it. To live with it. To possibly, one day, thrive in it. But Clarke did not afford Lexa with the same forgiveness she gave to Earth. As much as it took from her, it would never take from her soul the way the betrayal on the moun had.
She spat on me.
Strong and powerful hands wiped once more at her face before grasping the weathered surface of the balcony and holding up her tiny frame as she contemplated all of the complications that arose due to Clarke's very existence in her world.
She wishes to kill me.
Green eyes surveyed the trees, looking for any sign of the Azgeda. Their troops marched near her lands. The Skaikru moved in and out of the moun with no repercussion. And the Desert Clan had been sending her strange reports of seeing flying machines hovering above their grounds in increasing numbers.
Yet all the great Heda could focus on was the blood on Clarke's face. The strange new colors in her hair. The clothing that looked so similar to that of the Trikru.
And the fact that she'd called her a 'bitch'.
"She hates me," she said softly to no one but herself. "And I don't blame her."
But I still wish he'd brought her to me unharmed.
"You tell your precious Heda that I'm going to rip her heart out and stomp on it!" the blonde screamed from behind the bars of her cell at the retreating forms of her jailers.
Just like she did mine.
"Tell her I will fight her with my last breath!"
If she couldn't figure that out from the last five minutes.
The tears that had formed in her eyes when she first saw Lexa finally fell.
Why did she have to be so god damned beautiful? Why did her treacherous face have to practically glow with radiance while she looked at mine covered in dirt and blood? Why did she get to seem so regal while I seemed like a lunatic?
She sat on the bed that had been provided for her and let her head fall into her hands.
Why does she make it worse by acting like she cares? She leaves me to die, and then kill at Mount Weather, only to be angry with Roan when he brings me to her 'unharmed'?
She asked for me to be brought to her unharmed?!
A groan started deep in her chest and rose through her throat before finally coming out loud and angry from her mouth. She ran her hands through her hair and then clutched at it. Rage coursed through her veins so hard she wondered how her body actually stayed together. The truth was that Lexa caring about her only made her want to kill her even more. Because it raised feelings in Clarke that made her hate herself even more.
Anger was not the first thing she felt when she saw the commander. It was relief at the idea that she would be allowed to live.
Rage was not what burned in her veins when Lexa came closer. It was a sense of awe at her captivating beauty.
Hatred was not was not what consumed her heart when she looked into the concerned green eyes while Heda gently removed her gag. It was a yearning to feel more than just the brush of the fingertips on her cheek.
That apology… That was what turned the tides.
It complicated everything. She wanted, no, needed for Lexa to not be sorry for what she did. She had no right to be sorry. It fixed noting. It didn't bring Maya back. It didn't bring the children back.
That apology didn't bring back one single innocent soul from Mount Weather and she would be damned if she would accept it. Accepting it meant forgiving Lexa and Clarke simply couldn't do that. There was a mountain of dead bodies that stood between herself and Lexa and accepting that apology meant stepping on them and over them. Desecrating what had already been desecrated.
How dare she apologize! How dare she ask that I be brought to her unharmed!
The shuffling of feet could be heard at the front of her cell and it was opened by a child in Trikru gear. He sat a small basin of water on the floor along with what looked to be medical supplies and food, then turned to quickly to lock her back in.
I have to hand it to her, she's smart. She knew I wouldn't attack a child to try to escape.
"Heda had me bring these to you," he said. "I'm also to ask if you need anything else."
"No," Clarke answered softly, noting the look of curiosity in his eyes. It was as if he expected more; a monster perhaps. "Mochof."
His eyes widened at her use of his native tongue and he answered in kind before leaving.
"Pro, Wanheda."
And just like that, sadness collapsed her fear. To all of them she was The Commander of Death. How had she gotten here? Was it even possible to go back?
I feel so broken inside. How am I ever supposed to be 'unharmed'?
Clarke slept like the dead in the small cell. Lexa was able to open the door, step inside and even sit on the bed without waking her.
It is absolutely baffling that she was able to survive for so long on her own.
Green eyes surveyed the long blonde hair and lightly soiled skin that peaked out from the blanket until they fell upon the fresh scratches of the woman's shoulder. The wound would fester if it was not tended to. Lexa wondered if Clarke was such a heavy sleeper that she could do just that without waking her.
Unfortunately, she was wrong.
As soon as Lexa touched her with the cool, damp cloth blue eyes shot open and Clarke was in attack mode. The attack, however, did not last long. Soon she was on her back with the strong and seasoned commander holding her hands above her head and straddling her. For a few brief moments neither of the women made a sound. The blue eyes held green in an angry stare and green eyes held blue in a remorseful one. It was Lexa who finally broke the silence.
"Clarke please," she whispered, not knowing why her words were so soft. "I just want to help you. You can't kill me if your wound festers and you die."
"Why?" Clarke's words were not as soft. In fact, they were loud enough to alert every guard in the area. "Why do you care if I die now? You certainly didn't care when you left me and my people to do just that on Mount Weather!"
"Heda!"
"Heda!"
Shouts from multiple guards filled the hallway behind her as one of the men scrambled for his keys.
"No!" she called back to them, turning her head to look at the group. "Leave us! Do not come back here unless you specifically hear me call for you! Now go!"
Confused and worried stares lingered upon her but finally the gona left their commander to her business. Business which she was not having much luck tending to. Lexa looked back to Clarke and spoke with a much more firm tone.
"Clarke, listen to me. If I didn't care about you I would have had you brought to the center of the city and slit your throat for all of my people to see," she said, slightly raising the wrists that were in her hands only to slam them back down on the bed as if to prove her point. "The Kwin is not the only person who believes your blood is the key to ultimate power. All of my people do. You being alive right now, instead of dead at the hands of my blade, is absolutely puzzling to every single gona who knows you are alive. You breathe because I care!"
"You don't care!" Clarke yelled back, struggling to wriggle free. "If you cared you wouldn't have left me on the mountain!"
Lexa only tightened her hold and nearly growled in her throat.
"No! I did what I had to do to save my people," she yelled back. "You did the same thing on the moun. You did the same thing at the drop ship when you killed 300 of my men. And you did the same thing when you slipped a knife inside of the boy you loved. You have made hard decisions for your people too, Clarke! You don't get to tell me how I feel when I do the same for mine."
She should have known the spit was coming once again. Especially after mentioning Finn. That always seemed to be a touchy subject for the blonde. Disgusted she finally hopped off of her and wiped her face. Clarke wasted no time in tackling her to the ground, reversing the position they'd just had on the bed.
"I hate you!" the blonde screamed at the face beneath her own.
"No you don't, Clarke," Lexa replied, her chest heaving as she spoke. "You want to. You want to hate me so badly that it is tearing you apart inside."
"Now you don't get to tell me how I feel!" she spoke through gritted teeth.
"If you hate me so much then end this now," Lexa said, her tone even and calm. "Take your hands off my wrists and place them around my neck. All you have to do after that is squeeze. I won't even fight you."
She hadn't expected Clarke to actually move quite so quickly on her suggestion. Nimble fingers wrapped around the corded neck and squeezed hard, causing Lexa to cough right away and grab onto the closest thing near to her: Clarke. She gripped Clarke's sides because that was where her hands had instinctively gone.
Lexa hadn't actually dreamed that Clarke would kill her. She wasn't suicidal, she was hopeful. She thought that by showing Clarke that should didn't truly want to kill her that the woman would stop this senseless fighting. But that didn't seem to be the case. The commander was running out of air. And, if she was going to die, then she was going to do so completing the one action she'd wished to do since she saw Clarke's battered face: she raised her hands up to caress it.
The blue eyes softened and then so did the grip around her neck until the hands slowly retreated and then slammed on her chest.
"Why! Why are you doing this to me?" Clarke's fists balled in the fabric of Lexa's top until she pulled the commander up so they were both in a sitting position.
Lexa, still somewhat dazed and coughing tried to shake off the lack of oxygen and took in deep, cleansing breaths.
"What am I doing to you, Clarke?"
"You're trying to drive me insane and it's working," tears filled the deep blue pools once more and the blonde backed off, sitting on the ground and leaning back against the bed. "Why did you ask for me to be brought to you unharmed?"
"Because," Lexa settled on her knees and cleared her throat. "It hurts me to think of you hurting. You think I just walked away that night at the moun. That when I turned my back on you, I didn't give you another thought."
She coughed once more and then finally swallowed normally before continuing.
"You were on my mind with every step I took away from that mountain. At first I worried you'd died inside of it. Then I worried when my scouts told me you'd left the safety of the ark. I was terrified when word of your conquests finally got out. I tried to do everything I could to keep the gossip from traveling to the other tribes but I could not stop it. I thought of you when I allowed one of my greatest assets to walk out of my prison to bring you back. And every second after that I thought of seeing you before me once again… Just as I commanded: unharmed."
She moved slowly but purposefully to kneel in front of the blonde.
"I know that it complicates things for you in your head to imagine that this person, who caused you so much pain, cares for you. But it is the truth, Clarke. I care for you more than you can imagine. And though there are so many things I want with you, the one I want most at this point is simply your cooperation in keeping you alive. And you can hate me through every step of that process if you want to. But I am on my knees in front of you asking you to please stop getting in the way of it at every single turn."
Clarke took in every word. She stared first at Lexa's enchanting eyes and then at the floor when that became too intense. The problem, at that point, wasn't that she didn't believe her. The problem was that she did. She believed every word. And even worse, she wanted to. In that moment she was too tired to fight it. So, without a word, she simply turned her body and pulled her shirt down to reveal more of her shoulder. The one that bore the scars of her kill.
And, without a word, Lexa moved the supplies to her side and started tending to the wound. Hands that had commanded so much death, had taken so much life, were feather light in their actions with the blonde's open wounds. She touched Clarke with a gentleness and care that she could scarcely remember using in her entire life.
"You're not the only one who's tried to clean those scratches, you know," Clarke commented softly.
"Roan?" Lexa asked immediately as she applied the salve.
"No, a woman in one of your villages," the blonde explained. "Her name is Niylah. She tried to help me."
"If she tried to help you, why did she not finish healing you?" the commander asked curiously.
"Because she asked me too many questions that I didn't want to answer. I started to think about what happened on the Mountain. And then I didn't want to think anymore. I just wanted to feel. So I slept with her."
All movement stopped as Lexa tried to calm the white hot jealousy that rose within her. Taking a few deep breaths she managed to say nothing and continue. Clarke did not belong to her. She had to accept that.
"She was kind, gentle, attentive," Clarke went on to further torture the woman at her back. "She was everything I could have wanted in a lover. I slept with her… and I thought of you."
Once again, the commander's hands stilled yet she said nothing. Hope, for the first time since seeing Clarke's face once more, wrapped itself around her heart and warmed it like a comforting blanket.
"I thought of you and I dreamt of the mountain," Clarke's hand instinctively went to grip at the space above her heart. "I am never going to escape what I did to those people, Lexa. It hurts so much. Roan couldn't have possibly brought me back to you unharmed."
Lexa allowed the words to hang in the air as she finished dressing the claw marks. She then moved to gently guide Clarke back to sitting on the bed. Taking the seat next to her, the commander gazed at her hopelessly longingly in that way that only Lexa ever did.
"Your wound will heal now," she explained. "Because it is new, it will hurt for a long time. It will remind you of not only its place in your life now but of the reason it came to be there in the first place. It may scar and it may always hold reminders of your past actions but it will not always hurt as much as it does now. And, if you allow someone to care for you, it will not kill you."
Clarke knew that Lexa was talking about far more than the wound and, in her exhausted state, instead of arguing, she allowed it. She could go back to trying to hate the commander the next day. But, for the rest of that night, she would not try to hurt her anymore.
"What are you going to do with me?" she asked, wondering what the brunette's plan was.
"Protect you," Lexa said without hesitation. "For as long as I can. For as long as you'll let me."
Taking a deep breath, Clarke tried to not let the words affect her as much as they insisted upon it.
"Then protect me from my dreams," she commanded, slipping back beneath the covers and leaving enough room for Lexa to remain seated… or join her. "They are what hurt me the most these days."
The commander knew the space left behind Clarke was a silent invitation for her to also lie in the bed. She was not about to let this progress go. They may not have been in the same place in the morning but, for the rest of the night, she would take every inch Clarke would give her. So, after removing her boots, Lexa slipped beneath the covers… and behind the blonde. Her arm hesitantly reached over her body and held her loosely. There were so many things she wanted to say. So many hopes she wished to share. But none of those words belonged in that cell on that night. And Lexa knew that.
With nothing but her soft, warm breath against Clarke's shoulder, they both closed their eyes and went to sleep: Lexa content with the thought that the blonde was alive and in her arms, and Clarke with the peace that came from knowing that, though Lexa may have hurt her more than she could ever have imagined, she didn't want that.
Her actions in the past may have proven otherwise but, in that moment, Clarke truly did see that Lexa had always wished that she would return to her 'unharmed'.