Prompt: Gnossiennen: a moment of awareness that someone you've known for years still has a private and mysterious inner life, and somewhere in the hallways of their personality is a door locked from the inside, a stairway leading to a wing of the house that you've never fully explored—an unfinished attic that will remain maddeningly unknowable to you, because ultimately neither of you has a map, or a master key, or any way of knowing exactly where you stand. FOR ABBY AND CLARKE? *-*
I did my best, not sure that cut it ;) And hey look it's Clarke plus Kabby :p Thanks to Cami for the beta even if her prompt was DIFFICULT.
Gnossiennen
There's something familiarly unfamiliar at being back at camp. After everything that happened, Pike, the coalition and crazy AI… Clarke finds it difficult to go back to that life, a life made of rituals like breakfast at the same time, in the same place with the same people every day. She finds it difficult to fall into the routine of having an actual job with regular hours, helping around medical, often trailing after Jackson just so she can avoid her mother. She finds it difficult to find her space in her mother's quarters even though they had shared for seventeen years before and even though she is mostly alone in there because her mother has a tendency to fall asleep in the war room discussing politics with newly elected Chancellor Kane.
She finds it difficult to deal with Jasper or Bellamy or Octavia. She loves them all but love never makes anything easier. Bellamy understands that, she thinks, because it is all over those myths he likes to read late at night, in front of the fire. He seems content for their relationship – that is not a friendship but not romantic either, they are just… more – to remain in a limbo of undefined. And thus her eyes often turn to Arkadia's gates, in the vague direction of Polis, counting the days until Wanheda would be needed for a summit or other and when she could make her escape without looking like she's fleeing. She wonders how Lexa is doing and then she stops because that is even more confusing than Bellamy, his mythology and the guilt he carries on his shoulders, so similar to hers.
Most of all though, she finds it difficult to deal with everything she has left behind when she ran after Mount Weather. It wasn't just the dead she was running from, it was everything else. She loves her mother. Her mother is strong even though Clarke tends to think it is this strength of character that makes her weak. Her mother would never have pulled that level at Mount Weather, she would never have unleashed the fire that killed the Grounders so long before that, she would never have left TonDC to be bombed so they could have a tactical advantage… All those decisions are things Clarke carries with her, that devour her from within, but they are not decisions she regrets. Her mother would never have been able to do any of that and live with it.
And yet she killed her father.
Clarke forgave but she did not forget. It is everywhere in the room they share: the shape of his absence, his ghost, is a daily reminder. It is everywhere from the ring dangling on the chain around her mother's neck – now a forgotten memento that she seems to keep there by sheer habit only – to the quirk of her mouth when Clarke says something that reminds her of him.
And yet her mother laughs and smiles and lives, seemingly unburdened by guilt.
Clarke wants to ask sometimes. How she managed to make peace with her actions. If she still loves Jake Griffin who was everything to them both once upon a time. How could she even take the decision to float her own husband. If she loved him at all or if her love was already starting to fade and if it was why it had been so easy to throw him to Jaha.
She should be angry with Kane too, she figures, but Kane was mostly following Jaha's orders and while Kane had been the one to pull the lever, like she had at Mount Weather, Kane hadn't taken the decision.
The decision was Abby's.
And it is in those tiny moments of awareness that she realizes she doesn't understand her mother, doesn't know her.
The words Abby said in the woods after TonDC still ring in her ear sometimes and they make Clarke wonder what is the difference between the people of TonDC and her father? The number of lives? Doesn't love count at all? She killed Finn to protect him, Abby killed Jake to protect the Ark but Abby wouldn't have killed the Mountain men to protect their people.
Clarke doesn't understand her logic.
She doesn't understand what is going on in her mother's head.
She knows the mother. She knows the mother who kisses her brow as a goodnight, who brushes her hair and braids it with love, who soothes illness with a magic hand on a cheek, who hums lullabies and chases nightmares… She knows the mother who scolds and lectures, hugs and cuddles and whispers I love you like a secret in her ear…
But Abby?
She doesn't know Abby. She doesn't know the woman who barks orders in medical or in a war room, her back straight and her chin high, but cries sometimes when she thinks her daughter can't hear. She doesn't know the secrets, the lost dreams and the stillborn hopes. She doesn't know the woman who glares and shouts with venom in her voice only to soften when Kane places a hand on her arm or her shoulder. She doesn't know the woman who smiles this secret smile when their Chancellor walks into a room, she doesn't know the woman who leans against his side when they think nobody is looking, she doesn't know the woman.
"You're okay there, Clarke?" Kane frowns and she realizes she has been staring at her mother from the other side of the mess hall, her metallic cup frozen halfway to her lips. Her mother is laughing with Raven over their breakfast, her hair pulled up in a loose ponytail that keeps bouncing one way and the other… She catches sight of their Chancellor and her smile morphs into something else, more private, more… intimate and Clarke remains ignored as her mother loses herself into a world of her own. Raven keeps talking but Clarke is sure Abby is not listening to a word she says. Kane follows her eyes and his face… softens, a small smile stretches his lips.
And it's Clarke's turn to frown.
"How long has this been going on?" she asks.
Kane, to his credit, doesn't pretend not to understand. He sits down at her table with a wince, his back turned to where Abby is sitting. "Look, it's really not my place to…"
"Seems like you made it your place." she snaps before she can help herself. She knows it's unfair, that her father has been dead for a long time now, but she is their child and in her mind her father should remain her mother's greatest love. It brings her back to her initial question. Did she love Jake at all that she can so easily move on with the man who betrayed him? Except it wasn't Kane, was it, who did the betrayal… And she still doesn't understand how her mother could do that. Abby maybe but not her mother and the dichotomy is driving her mad, it makes her want to run for Polis where everything is if not simpler at least less complicated.
"Clarke…" Kane tries but she is not ready to listen.
"She's not sleeping in our room." she accuses. "She says she's been in the war room every time but…"
"She didn't lie to you, she was in the war room." he tempers, lifting a hand in a gesture of peace.
She narrows her eyes at him. "With you."
"With me, yes." he sighs.
She doesn't need to ask if it was about leadership matters because now that she is seeing everything with another perspective, it's glaring. The way her mother looks at him, the way she smiles when he is near, the way she hums cheerful little tunes sometimes… She remembers from a time long gone, her early teens maybe, that it's what her mother does when she is happy. And she remembers that during the last few years of her parents' marriage, her mother used to look more tired and worried than happy. She doesn't want to linger on that, so she doesn't.
"Don't hurt her." she pleads and suddenly Wanheda is gone, the Commander of Death is no more, and there is only little Clarke Griffin left. Because she doesn't know the woman but he doesn't know the mother and yet they both love her.
"Never." he promises with enough strength that she believes him. She trusts Kane because Kane is a straight guy who never lies and who always keeps his word.
She nods at him and stands up. He nods back and stands up too.
He joins Abby and she leaves the mess hall, unwilling to face her mother this morning.
She might accept there are parts of Abby that are locked to her with time…
But it doesn't mean she is ready to face the parts she already knows.