Anya stared through the small window of the large doors, her eyes wide in something between horror, awe and disgust. Cages lined the far end of the room, though small, she could see they were large enough to fit a person crouched over on their knees. She couldn't count how many cages she saw, but she knew it to be anything but normal.

More tables with chains and medical equipment were laid out in various parts of the room, their presence clearly organised and set up for use.

But Anya's eyes were drawn to the centre of a room were a white clad figure in hazmat suit stood. Their back was to them but Anya could tell they were doing something. Half shrouded by the figure was another person, this one she assumed from Mount Weather from the clothes he wore. They lay on a reclined medical seat, the material plasticky and gleaming in the harsh light. But the person wasn't ok, wasn't healthy. Their body was covered in disgusting blisters, burns that wriggled through their flesh, bubbles through their veins and though Anya couldn't smell it she knew it would make her stomach churn and her mouth water in disgust and revulsion. Anya gasped as she saw the injured person squirm, move just a little in their chair. Part of his flesh seemed to stick to the shining material, it pulled and stretched and tore. She heard the muffled scream of pain and agony as sinew, fibre, muscle and human oozed out out of the wound before the white clad figure held him down, their own voiced muffled.

She heard Octavia wretch quietly before the young woman clamped a hand over her mouth lest she give away their presence.

But again, Anya's eyes were drawn to the person who lay back in a second chair.

Or maybe it wasn't a person. The figure lay motionless. Their skin a deathly grey, barely muscle and fat on their cold body. She could see the outline of bones in their wrists, she could see the outline of hips hidden behind what could only be considered enough clothing to provide only the slimmest of modesty. Wires were hooked up to the corpses body, they trailed up into a machine that seemed to be bleeding the corpse dry before pouring the blood into the injured man.

Anya thought it was the light, the harshness of the incandescent globes that spat their power across the room in angry turmoil, but as she looked at the blood that was pumped from the corpse she thought it looked black. But it couldn't be. But maybe it could, maybe it was. Hadn't this been what Lexa had told her, hadn't this been what Lexa had used as evidence that those who lived in Mount Weather weren't all that they appeared to be?

"Oh my god," Octavia's voice was hoarse, chilled, barely a whisper.

Anya moved just a little closer to her to see what she stared at and she recoiled, gasped. From the slightly different angle she could see past both the white clad person and the injured man. From where she stood she saw that the corpse, the body she thought dead, moved, fingers tapped shallowly on the edge of the chair as if they tried to calm themselves, as if they counted the seconds by. Their eyes flashed back and forth, their lips moves imperceptibly and Anya knew this person was tormented, knew this person was trapped, unable to escape, unable to move, to get away, that they had somehow, someway turned into their own mind to escape the horrors of whatever it was that awaited them.

But most of all, Anya knew that the corpse, the skin and bone and grey flesh and black blood was not dead. But Alive.

"We need to leave," Anya hissed as she reached for Octavia's arm and pulled her away. "Now."

It was warm, it was cold and hot and strange. Lexa didn't remember how she got where she was, she didn't remember where it was she even was or was it is? Things didn't make sense. Her mind wandered before a thought could coalesce, her thoughts seemed too heavy to grasp, too light to really take any kind of form before they were whisked away on the burning that flowed through her.

And burn she did.

Lexa didn't understand the pain, didn't understand the heat that consumed her, that engulfed her, threatened to rip a scream from her lungs that would shatter her to pieces.

And then she woke.

Lexa bolted up into a seated position, her eyes unfocused, her mind unable to grasp where she was— who she was. She blinked once, twice, a third time before her vision cleared enough that she could see. Or not see.

The room she was in was dark, barely lit save for the few candles that burned all around her. Stone and tile engulfed her, the scent of soaps seemed ever present and it took her a moment to realise she was underground, that she was inside another chamber that was used for bathing. And she sighed, she took in a steady breath and she—

And she froze.

Memories of what had last happened flashed through her mind and she remembered the Mountain Men, she remembered the gunshots, the arrows, the fear that had spiked when things had felt just a little too real.

She tried to remember what had happened next, but she couldn't. Not quite.

She was injured, her ribs were probably broken, her nose battered into pieces. Her leg had been shot through with an arrow, and another had pierced—

Lexa swallowed, she trembled, she realised something a little more real had happened to her than she would like. She didn't want to look, didn't want to confirm her fears. She closed her eyes in an attempt to steady herself as a hand rose to her chest tentatively, her fingers searching for the arrow that had struck her heart, that had somehow brought her to this very place.

But no arrow was felt.

No wound graced her finger tips.

Lexa cracked open an eye as she peered down at her body. She realised she was naked and that she had been lying on a large stone table. Almost every wound that should have been present on her body was gone. Her thigh that had once been split open was almost completely healed save for a slight reddened mark that throbbed and burned. Other cuts across her flesh had seemingly vanished, and even the hole she expected to see where her heart was had almost faded. There was a subtle dent, a gentle gouge in her skin that she didn't think had been there before. She swallowed as she slowly reached for her nose but as her fingers brushed against it she felt no pain.

It took her a moment to realise in the dark of the chambers but she realised that there was something dark, something black smeared across her body, that had almost completely dried. It painted her pale flesh a gentle black, it wriggled into the pores of her skin, into the grooves and troughs of her body and littered her with the touch of Clarke.

It took Lexa so long— too long, to realise what it must be. But when it clicked she couldn't help but to feel sick, awed, unable to grasp what to think.

"I died," she whispered and she looked around as if in search of something. "It's real," she remembered seeing Clarke rise from the dead once she had removed the knife from her heart. "I—" Lexa swallowed, her tongue felt fuzzy. "I need to find Clarke," she didn't know why she spoke into the room, perhaps to give herself something to do, something to focus on other than the fact she had been resurrected, that what she had experienced should mean something to her that she dare not consider for the time being.

Lexa winced in anticipation of the pain as she swung her legs over the side of he stone table. But no pain came. She took in one breath before she stood, before she let her legs take her weight. Lexa took one step, a second step and then she collapsed onto the floor.

Her veins seemed like they were on fire, her muscles protesting every little bit of exertion. She gasped as she hit the ground, she winced as fresh pain splintered throughout her body and she didn't move, didn't dare try to get onto her feet from where she had collapsed.

Fuck.

She didn't know what was wrong.

Her entire body seemed aflame from the inside out. Each muscle screamed for her to stop, screamed for her to lay down and not move lest she tear herself into pieces. And it hurt.

It hurt so much.

Lexa wanted to scream, wanted to cry.

She didn't realise she was whimpering in pain as her body began to convulse, as it began to tear itself apart with each involuntary spasm of pain that set off a chain reaction of more and more spasms.

And Lexa thought she was going to die, she thought she was going to break apart as her body began to tremble, as she tried to hold herself together, as she tried to stop the agony—

Hush, little one

She didn't know if she heard it or if she imagined it.

You exert yourself too much, too soon, little one

Lexa didn't dare open her eyes. She thought herself in some kind of afterlife, maybe in purgatory. Somewhere between the living and the dead.

Come, let me help you

Lexa didn't think she imagined the strong arms pulling her in to a strong embrace. She didn't think she imagined being lifted into the air. She didn't think she imagined being laid back onto the stone table.

Somehow her breathing slowly returned to normal, somehow her body slowly began to ease in whatever pains and burnings had consumed her.

And she couldn't make sense of it. Couldn't figure out what was happening.

"Everything will be ok, Lexa," Clarke's voice sounded so close to her ear that Lexa gasped and opened her eyes.

She turned to face the sound of her voice to find Clarke laying beside her on her side, her eyes staring at her so intently.

"Clarke?" Lexa whispered, her mind trying to understand when and where and how Clarke had come to lay beside her.

"Your body is not used to my blood healing it," Clarke said gently, and Lexa gasped as she realised Clarke had somehow sliced open a cut between her ribs and had pressed her own cut open wrist into the wound as blood slowly flowed between them.

It hurt. It hurt so much but Lexa couldn't stop staring at Clarke, couldn't stop staring at Clarke's blood that poured into her, that seemed to wriggle and wend and weave itself into the fibres of her being.

"It is ok," Clarke whispered to her quietly. "Let me stay inside you."

"Clarke—" Lexa made to say something, to voice anything.

But Clarke silenced her with a press of her lips against hers, the touch not quite kind, not quite gentle. Perhaps it bordered on the possessive, on the dark, on the domineering and the submissive. Whatever it was Lexa let herself be guided where she pleased as the pain became one with her body.

And so, with Clarke's wrist pressed into her open wound, as Clarke invaded her in ways she shouldn't find so appealing, Lexa let herself drift off into a torrid sleep as emotions and thoughts and demons and ghosts played games with her tired and fraying mind.

Lexa woke to birdsong echoing out around her.

She felt rested, unladed by burden and worry.

Her eyes opened to find herself amongst a bed of furs and soft fabrics. Warm candle light danced their light all around her and she didn't quite know whose bed she lay in. She sat then, she rubbed what little sleep from her eyes she could feel and she looked around herself. A thin sheet of fabric hid away the sleeping quarters she was in, and what little of a war table she could see sat beyond, its surface she assumed to be covered by the same models and maps that had always littered the table when she visited Clarke's—

Oh

Lexa realised she was in Clarke's bed, in her quarters. She swallowed as she looked around herself, in part because she expected to find a sleeping Clarke by her side. But thankfully (or not) no Clarke was present.

But then Lexa remembered her last memory of pain, of confusion, of turmoil.

And yet, for some reason she found herself not losing control as she had done before. This time as she looked down at her body she found it clothed in loose fabrics and void of Clarke's blood. This time as she rose she found her legs strong enough to hold her weight, and this time as she began to move she felt steady and sure on her feet.

Her body seemed to hum with an intensity she hadn't felt ever. It seemed to be more energised than she could ever recall and she couldn't figure out why, couldn't figure out how her energy seemed to have returned tenfold since coming to the ground.

Lexa had questions. Namely had their plan worked. She had others, too. Like what her last memory had been of, why she felt the things she did. But she thoughts those others could wait until she found Clarke—

Lexa froze as she slipped past the thin fabric shielding away Clarke's bed from the main chamber of her room. She came face to face with Ontari who sat at one side of the war table, a plate of mostly eaten food in front of her as Clarke sat on the war table's edge, her body close and poised as she leant near into Ontari's space.

"You are awake," Clarke said.

Lexa didn't know what to say to the scene in front of her. She felt like she had somehow intruded on something domestic, something she wasn't really supposed to see. But both Clarke and Ontari didn't seem to care as Clarke leant forward, whispered something into Ontari's ear before she pushed the plate aside and stood, her head bowed at Clarke briefly before she ducked out the front door.

"I didn't mean to intrude," it sounded just as silly to her ears as she knew it must have sounded to Clarke's.

"You are not intruding, Lexa," Clarke said quietly as she slipped off from the table's edge and slowly began to walk towards her. "How are you feeling?"

"I…" Lexa trailed off as she actually pondered that question. She didn't really know, if she was honest. Too many things had happened recently for her to be able to think too clearly. "Did our plan work?"

Clarke's head tilted to the side ever so slightly. "Yes," and she reached for another plate of food that had been set aside. "Eat."

Lexa didn't realise until that moment that she was famished. The food did look enticing, the scents that wafted throughout the room enough to make her stomach growl now that she focused on it.

And so Lexa found herself in the closest chair to the table, the plate in front of her as she slowly began to eat the dried meats, cheeses, berries and other things she had grown used to since coming into Clarke's company. Through it all Clarke remained quiet from where she had taken her own seat opposite her, gaze never wavering from Lexa. She ignored it, partly because she didn't know what to say given her last memory, partly because she had grown used to Clarke's awkward way of watching her.

Eventually the weight of Clarke's watchful gaze made Lexa break.

"What happened?" it was a simple question, one she would leave Clarke to decide what she meant.

"You died," Clarke answered, her tone thoughtful. "Or were close to it," she continued. "Enough that the Mountain Men think you dead, enough that they truly believe that Bellamy and you attempted to escape."

Lexa shivered at the words Clarke said, the unfamiliarity of what they meant not comforting to her in that moment.

"And before?" Lexa asked, the memories of the dark chambers, the stone table she had been laid upon, the black blood that had covered her, all contrasting so starkly with the kindness, the warmth, the serenity of the now.

"A room for you to heal," Clarke said. "Away from prying eyes, away from those who do not deserve to witness my generosity," she shrugged. "The washrooms are easier to clean my blood, to ensure it does not fall into the wrong hands," and she shrugged. "And while I wait I bath. It is easier if I am bare so that I may give you as much blood as possible as quickly as possible. But it is cold when the blood does not burn," Clarke chuckled quietly. "So I sit in the warmth of the water," and she shrugged. "I am sure you remember."

Lexa flushed at the memories of one of their first and most intimate of meetings. And yet she felt it so silly she felt embarrassed given what they had both done together, both carnal and otherworldly on now multiple occasions.

Lexa nodded because she didn't really know what else to say. She didn't even know if Clarke giving her life had somehow changed their relationship in some kind of way. Maybe she'd need to discuss things further with her, but she thought that could wait, especially now that Bellamy was inside the Mountain.

And so Lexa swallowed the mouthful of food before speaking.

"What now?"